Dog issues lead to being chained to home and isolated Also likely why I am buying Cal gear and listening to the Dead so much study re: nostalgia being linked to a coping mechanism when we are isolated/alone – being nostalgic makes us feel happier http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2008/10/07/those-were-the-days.html

“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” – Proust

“We are homesick most for the places we have never known.” ― Carson McCullers

“Memory believes before knowing remembers.

[Light in August]” ― William Faulkner, Light in August

It’s strange to think that with a dog and a wife you can feel alone and isolated. Unfortunately all signs are pointing that way for me.

Factors only vaguely under my control have conspired to keep me under stress and limited in my ability to either leave my home (other than for work) or to have people over. That said, after six years here I still have a paltry handful of people I would call friends, many of whom I know are leaving or whose lives have become all-consumed with their children.

I realize that as of late I have been listening to the Grateful Dead quite a bit more than I used to. I also just bought a whole bunch of alma mater branded sports clothes. Not unsurprisingly there is a connection there – I discovered the Dead my freshman year of college and listen to a lot of it. (My roommate was a huge fan, we both had stereos, and whoever got back to the room first after classes got to choose the music.)