Tommy Hensel

A third first date. Since this quarantine began I have actually gone to three restaurants for an in-person dining experience. Around week thirteen, outdoor dining became possible and I managed to get a reservation for one at a restaurant I have visited quite often in the past. It was a strange experience – mostly good, …

Sparkling Isolation – Day 116Read More

The meaning of life. According to Dicionary.com, existentialism is “a philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.” I realized today that the past few weeks have been like a bubbling cauldron for me. Slowly, bit …

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Groundhog Day. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I feel like I am living in a dystopian remake of the movie “Groundhog Day.”  Isolating alone in my apartment has some benefits, no doubt. I don’t have to deal with anyone else’s issues about noise, space usage, food, bathroom usage, etc. I …

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Back to work? During sixteen weeks of quarantine, I have returned to my office three times. The first two were brief visits specifically to pick up files and to move some things from my hard drive onto a virtual drive. Today was the first time I have actually planned a full day in my office. …

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Kindness. I wrote yesterday about the need to pay attention to my words – things that I pattern without really noticing. Repeated patterns create neural pathways and eventually those patterns become the easiest direction for thoughts. Those thoughts then lead to actions. Well – you get the idea. Today, I began to think about my …

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Angel numbers If you subscribe to a belief in numerology, the number “111” is often considered an “angel number,” or a message from your guardian angels or spirit guides. In general, the meaning of 111 is about manifestation. Most numerologists will tell you that the number is a message to be aware of your thoughts …

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Words, words, words. English is an utterly bizarre, yet fascinating language. As weird as it is, and as hard as it must be for a non-native speaker to master, English has tremendous facility to describe things in a multitude of ways. Why, then, do people keep using the same few tired phrases during this pandemic? …

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Hot and cold. It’s hot and humid today – like “don’t go outside unless you have to” kind of hot and humid. That has effectively curtailed any plans I had to do anything outdoors. It’s the last day of my eleven-day staycation, so I had hoped to find some way to get out of the …

Sparkling Isolation – Day 109Read More

Yes or No? It’s hot and sticky outside. I have no desire to fight crowds (probably not wearing masks or paying any attention to social distancing) to go into the city on this holiday. So here I am again, alone with hours to spend, pondering the vicissitudes of life.  That seems to be the primary …

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“To Do” or “Not To Do” I am a list-maker.  At the beginning of this quarantine, I made a comprehensive list of everything I wanted to get done physically in my apartment, breaking each task down into smaller, achievable tasks. I tend to make lists every day – inventories of things in my freezer, grocery …

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Oh, look, shiny! My attention span has gone to hell in a handbasket – so to speak.  I have never thought of myself as having any form of attention deficit. Generally, I can focus and even hyperfocus, when needed. One of the key things that has always been able to keep my attention is reading. …

Sparkling Isolation – Day 106Read More

A return to gratitude. Today I felt the need to focus more on the positive. Throughout this process, I have been quite transparent about my feelings. So often, I have struggled and felt disempowered. That has not completely gone away – how could it? I am still quarantining (for the most part) and I still …

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