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It's been three and a half years since the stroke. In that time, I have gone from lying prone unable even to pee by myself, to a wheelchair, to dragging myself along with a walker, to a four-pronged cane, finally to a single cane.

I've used that cane for about two years. In the time I've used it, I've learned gradually to walk with minimal use of it. I've always had it with me, though; when I needed it, I NEEDED it, and I didn't want to be without it. It was also a signal that I'm disabled. I need a little extra attention sometimes--not much, but sometimes--and the cane is a sign to those around me to be careful.

I do like to challenge myself, though.

HI MY NAME IS OLAF I AM A DOG I WANT TO SIT ON THE LAP OF MY BOSS HOW DO I DO THAT

HI MY NAME IS STEWART I AM A DOG I AM A GOOD DOG I SIT ON THE LAP OF MY BOSS ALL THE TIME I DO NOT SIT ANYWHERE ELSE I GUESS WHERE DO YOU SIT I CANNOT IMAGINE SITTING ANYWHERE ELSE BUT THEN THE BOSS SAYS I DO NOT HAVE A GOOD IMAGINATION I DO NOT KNOW WHAT AN IMAGINATION IS OH WELL ANYWAY

One of my oldest and dearest friends died in October. I just found out from her dad, who found traces of me in her things.

She was two weeks older than me. We met when we were 19, both working at KLCC in Eugene. (She and Mark Fryer are the only evidence I was ever in Eugene at all.) (And for reference, I am now 56.) We became fast friends when she left, growing closer when she came back.

In our Eugene days, we drank. And drank. And drank. And did a whole f*ckton of drugs. I have no idea how we survived, seriously.

I moved to Portland, I got married, she sobered up, I sobered up, I got divorced. She got married in my back yard, in as close to a fairy tale of a wedding as I've ever heard of. She and her husband were deliriously happy. And they decided to move to New York City. "Come out! Come out! You belong here!" she'd crow on the phone. No, I'd say, I'm a Portland girl.

I’m listening to Hrishikesh Hirway’s podcast Song Exploder. The song “Bike Dream” by Rostam is on; he dissects each part of the song as he writes it. It’s oddly moving. In it, Rostam describes an idyllic relationship; he doesn’t say so explicitly in the song, but he volunteers in this telling that he is gay.

I start thinking on sexuality, a familiar, intimate topic in any event, and one I revisit often. These days, it is closer to me than usual—since the stroke, and since menopause. I’m finally coming out of both of them, hampered in the first case with vertigo, and in the second with an aversion to sex. While I'm still dealing with the vertigo, I’m discovering my sexuality is reawakening post-menopause. And it’s a relief, this rediscovery of my body.

Why this body, though? Ah. Why.