May 1, 2021

I can't believe it's May already! I must be old because time feels like it's flying by. I was thinking this morning about how John used to take so many books off his shelf and pile them around the house. He doesn't do that anymore. At least not with 20-30 books at a time. Now he empties a couple junk drawers over and over again. The top drawer of his dresser is filled with a lot of stuff he doesn't use anymore - business cards, collar stays, stuff like that. Now he pulls out that old stuff and spreads it out on top of his dresser. And then he leaves it there. So I neurotically put it all away multiple times a day. He does that downstairs in his office too. Drives me nuts! But at least it's easier to clean up than hauling all those books around! The other morning while taking his pills he said 'This is killing kids!' I'm not sure what he was talking about, but I assured him no kids were being killed. He didn't bring it up again so that was good. He also mentioned a little purple man the other night. He asked me where the little purple man was. I thought he might be talking about a Hulk figure he has, but he's mostly green but with purple shorts. So far that hasn't come up again either. Weird. Mornings continue to be the most difficult. I really like the new hand held shower head we have. Since John just stands in the shower doing nothing, I can now easily grab the shower head, dowse down his hair, wash it, then rinse the soap out. He hates it - griping the whole time that I'm killing him, but it's fast. He also says I'm hurting him while I shave him. He's not able to be specific so I don't know if there's anything I could do differently that would help. In general he says that 'things aren't set up properly' so he can't get tasks done. I think he no longer knows how, so he blames the set up rather than admit he's confused. Especially in the morning he repeatedly asks me "What are you doing?" in an accusatory tone. I'll reply 'combing my hair' or 'putting on makeup'. Then a few minutes later he asks again in that accusatory tone. I try to not snap back at him but don't always succeed. On a more positive note, when we are with other people, John often says 'he seems like a really good guy' or 'she seems very nice'. He most often has very positive things to say about people we meet or come in contact with. People impress him, and he comments on it. That's nice.