Today

I woke up from dreams about a girlfriend I don't have, who didn't look like anybody I know. She was tall and pretty, had long dark hair and dark eyes and a Latin American accent. I've been dreaming about Latinos a lot more often since Trump was elected,. I'm sure many others have been too.

In the dreams, she and I were doing little helpful healing things for each other. For example, she said she was tired and tense, and I rubbed her shoulders and her feet.

Three days ago, I had gone to the local used-sporting-goods store and lifted an 80lb dumbbell with each hand, one hand at a time. Several days before that, I had tried to lift 2 80lb dumbbells at once, and it hadn't happened. I think I could've done it except that my technique was a little off. When I lifted the 80lb dumbbell with my right hand, I felt a bit of pain in my lower right back, which has been painful a lot of the time since I had surgery in August -- exercise-related pain, I believe. I'm not alarmed by the pain. It's been there for a long time, but not at an alarming level.

Today I lifted a 100lb dumbbell with either hand, and felt no pain at all.

These are standard dead lifts, rising up until I'm standing straight up with the weight in my hand.

Of course, what such dumbbells are made for is one-armed curls. I did not attempt to curl either an 80lb nor a 100lb dumbbell. The most I have ever curled with one arm was 70lbs, some years ago. I have no idea how much I could curl today. I don't want to try for a new personal best and injure myself in someone else's store. The people in that store are really nice, they don't deserve that sort of aggravation.

Does everyone become much more prone to exercise-induced injury as they get older, or is it just me? I used to be able to just let it rip, quite uncautiously, with weights. Not these days.

I tried to find a copy of The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle,

and the Illuminatus! trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson.

I couldn't find anything by Wilson today, and only one book by Tolle: Stillness Speaks. In the early pages of the book, Tolle says that it doesn't need to be read straight through cover to cover, but can be picked up and set down often, read just a little a time if one wishes, and also talks about connecting with your inner stillness, and about observing the stillness of plants.

I'm cool with all of that. I wouldn't say that that means I'm a spiritual person, but apparently some people would disagree.