My grandmother loves to talk. She used to follow you out to your car and lean in the window and tell you the story about how she and Granpa had a picnic outside the Bean Factory or inform you that the bus used to cost a nickel each way.
She's been on oxygen for several years, so she doesn't walk to the car anymore. There's a lot she can't do now, like take care of herself on a daily basis. She's 87 and still alert, but the flesh is weak.
My dad, who has been living off his mother since I was born, is supposed to be taking care of her, but he's disappeared again, so she's been alone for several weeks except for visits from my cousin and some friends from her church.
She's been feeling badly for a long time, but I talked to her just a few days ago and her only concern was for about her missing son- she didn't mention that the house had fallen into ruin and that she had tripped over her oxygen hose and fallen and hurt herself or that she hadn't passed for two weeks.
I found that stuff out last night when my cousin called to tell me that she was in the hospital, she'd started vomiting and was in severe pain. He had found her, sick, alone and injured in a filthy house and she hadn't even called for help. On the phone she said she was fine, but she wasn't.
I called her tonight. I asked her what the situation was.
She informed me that there was a tube in her nose and that her stomach was being pumped.
She has a blockage and there is stuff in her that needs to come out, and if it won't come out one end, it'll have to come out of the other.
If the stuff gets out, the tubes and drugs might clear her system.
I haven't talked to her doctor, but I gather that she has probably got a severe internal infection of a nasty sort.
We will know more after they finish pumping her, she said.
Then she gave me a detailed rundown on every invasive procedure she'd endured over the last day.
Tubes in here, tubes in there; food through a tube , water via tube.
She was getting aggravated by tubes.
But if the tubes work, she won't have to have surgery. Surgery is the second most dangerous thing. The most risky action would be to not have it.
She told me all of this while she was getting her stomach pumped. I've had my stomach pumped before and all I could do was make gargling noises that sounded like: "please kill me now."
My grandmother is tougher than that.
She likes to talk.
She can tell stories with a tube in her gullet.
She's determined to talk and that's a good thing because the last thing she said was to tell me that I shouldn't worry so much , that everything was going to be alright.
My grandma wouldn't lie to me.
Showing posts with label down. Show all posts
Showing posts with label down. Show all posts
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Someday
One morning in November of 2001, I awoke with my left arm numb and inflexible- not paralyzed, just very hard to move. I was drinking heavily at that time and I was quite accustomed to waking up and finding out that things had gone wrong the previous night- but I hadn't had this particular problem before.
I must have slept on it wrong , I thought, as I struggled to get ready for yet another day at what was easily my worst long-term job ever- manager of a discount shoe store.
Driving with a hangover is a lot like driving drunk- except this time I couldn't use my left hand to cover one eye. I couldn't even use it to steer. The only thing I could do was watch the fingers on my left hand change color from pink to purple, a phenomena I found a bit unsettling.
For an hour I struggled to flex it, get some feeling, make a fist...can't make a fist...ouch, that hurts...it was getting worse, not better. My arm wasn't asleep, it was sick. It was scaring me.
I took Barb, an older lady who was my head cashier, aside to tell her about my problem:
"Barb, I can't move my arm and it really hurts. I'm going to need you to run the store while I go to the doctor."
" Your arm? Is it numb and painful? That's what happened to my husband. He had a stroke and now he's crippled. How is your chest?"
My chest, which until then had been unnoticed, suddenly got very tight.Sharp pains radiated out from my solar plexus in every direction. I couldn't breathe and I knew- I KNEW-that I was going to die.
Of a stroke.
On the sales floor of a crap-ass shoe store.
I called my doctor- "get in here now", he said. "Get a ride- don't wait for an ambulance!" I did.
It wasn't a stroke. It was the first of many panic and anxiety attacks I was to suffer over the next several years- I still have them today, but they don't lay me out like they used to.
After it was determined that I wasn't having a stroke, they went to work on my arm. The heart fears were calmed and I was given a shot of something (morphine?) that made my arm feel very far away from the rest of me. I could see it and it looked funky blue, but it didn't bother me...more needles and electrodes...all so shiny. I was sleepy. Could I have a pillow?
After a week of consultations and tests, it was determined that the ulnar nerve in my arm had died from the elbow down and the flesh around it would eventually wither and become useless , if not dead.
I'd need an amputation from the elbow down.
I'm a musician and all the instruments I play require two hands, the guitar being my favorite. I'm not the best guitarist- (no one is, the common argument over who is the best git-picker is a spurious and wasteful one)- but there isn't anybody anywhere who plays like I do and that is pretty rare. It's a talent that I took a lot- too much- of pride in.
When I was told I'd never play again, I broke. Shattered.
I didn't think about how I would drive, tie my shoes, cook, hold a job, hold a lover in my arms...my first thought was : WILL I PLAY AGAIN?
I was told no, I would not. Not with a stump, I wouldn't.
So, at my doctors advice, I got a second opinion from a surgeon who was not on my insurance carrier's plan. He met with me, had his own x-rays taken and re-administered some tests. He ran an electrical current through my Ulnar nerve.
OOOOOWWWWWGODDDDDDTHHHAAAATHURRRTTTTSSSS
"That hurts, eh? Good."
"Good?" *whimper*
"Yes. Those [the hospital] docs are idiots . This nerve is alive. I can save your arm."
He didn't say say he might be able to. He said he could save it . He said this as matter-of-fact. The sun rises.
Water is wet.
He could save my arm.
Simple.
He had no doubt in his ability and that confidence helped settle me down. That and a giant bottle of Valium. I wasn't supposed to drink - the valium was intended to help with that, but I wound up mixing the two on a daily basis -along with Oxycontin and Demerol. A few Demerol and a fifth of vodka was only a mild buzz for me at one point...but I had to quit before the surgery. Alcohol, despite it's calming effect, is actually quite hard on your nerves and it increases your risk of bleeding out on the OR table.
For my arm, for my guitar, I quit drinking a few weeks before the operations. I had nothing else to live for but that was enough. For that, I would fight.
The operations went well, but it took six months of physical therapy before I could play a few simple chords...but after a few more months I was whizzing over the frets faster than I'd ever been able to play before.
The first docs were wrong. I would play again.
And I was wrong. I would drink again.
I won one fight, but I lost a long war in the process. Alcohol had taken over my life...if I am going to be a one-armed shoe-salesman, I thought, then the best thing I can do is drink myself to death...that was my intent, although I hadn't admitted it to myself yet.
By the time I got my arm back, my soul was lost. My ill- considered drinks of celebration immediately became the same old daily suicide routine. I drifted through an endless series of dead-end temp jobs. I didn't see my friends, the only brief happiness was a brief on-the -job affair that ended badly and left me even more desolate and forlorn than before. And drunk.
My guitar, which was the initial focus of my recovery, sat in the corner gathering dust.
I stopped writing in my journal and notebooks.
No poems.
No letters.
Nothing but me , my pills , my pain and the bottle.
I watched a lot of TV. I used a lot of drugs.
Then Hurricane Isabel hit Virginia. Sept 2003.
The temp agency offered me a job with State Farm handling storm claims, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day.
Amazingly, I accepted it and it was a good thing I did. I still drank, but not as much because the days were so long I had to cut back.
After the initial hurricane paperwork chaos, I started liking my work. I saved a lot of money- all that overtime was great...but I was drifting farther and farther apart from my friends.
It was loneliness and isolation that first drove me to blog- isolation and a deep hatred of Bush's neo-con cabal of war profiteers.
But the booze had me. I knew it had to stop, but I didn't care. I was hoping for death. I didn't have much -in my mind- to live for and I had convinced myself that my life was over and I would never be happy. I was a rotten person- a drunk of the worst kind- and not one person would miss me were I to die.
Of course, this wasn't true, but that is how an addict at the very end of their addiction feels. If they feel anything, that is. I suspect the last thing that you feel is nothing at all, but I don't want to know.
After another year it all caught up to me. I started vomiting blood one night after having to leave work early with stomach pain. I barely made it to the ER, where I was told I only had a few hours to live.
Who should they call?
No one. Don't call anyone.
I don't want anyone to know how bad it had become. I was dying, but I was also ashamed. How did I let this happen?
But the surgeries worked. When I woke up- alive- I had changed. I was still alone, unhappy and bereft of any love or joy, but I had something more powerful that that. Something that (I hope) had killed the urge to drink forever.
I had fear.
I was afraid of dying. I still am. I haven't had a drink since the first week of September, 2005. Not because I am brave or strong- I don't drink because I am weak and I am afraid of suffering and dying.
As time passed, I started finding new reasons to live. The radio station was my anchor. I needed it, and most importantly it needed me. I hadn't been needed for a long time. Anyone can do office work but not many people can produce and engineer live music in a deadline -is-now- broadcast environment.
I can. I even enjoy it and I'm a lot better at it when I'm sober.
And then there was blog. Somehow, I had accumulated a tiny but loyal group of friends, most of whom I've never met and probably never will. Like any group of friends, there were differences and problems and maybe even a broken heart, but by and large I feel that my life is much the richer for being part of this world. Having this outlet and the support that followed was a real source of strength for me during those horrible post-hospital months.
There are some of you that I would love to thank in person, but I will wait until I need a place to crash. Then I will show up in the middle of a hailstorm , huddled on your doorstep, clutching a battered guitar and a grimy paper sack containing my laundry and a pair of well-fed cats.
"Thank you", I will say, then I will ask: "Do you mind if I crash here?" and "You aren't allergic to cats are you?"
I'm kidding, of course. I would never put my cats in a bag with my dirty socks.
For all of our sake's , I'm hoping it won't come to that. For now, just know that I really do appreciate each and every one of you.
I wasn't ready to be sick again so soon, but I am. I don't know how bad quite yet, but it isn't good. No cure, but there are treatments.
But really, it might not be too bad. I can walk, climb stairs, carry heavy weights etc- with only slightly more discomfort than a 'normal' person. I have to quit smoking pot, but I should have done that anyway. I've had my fun with that for what? twenty-five years? Long enough.
I have friends who didn't make it through the last twenty-five years, but not because of pot- they drank. And snorted. And stabbed. Needles and knives. The rope.
Some of the survivors are alive, but they aren't living. The booze- and especially the cocaine- have left them hollow, hopeless and seemingly incapable of dreams.
I haven't suffered that fate. I have spent three days studying my disease and I am convinced I can beat it. Not cure it- that is impossible- but beat it down and live with it. Live well.
Because I can still dream. My latest dream is an old one and it is so pathetic and mundane that I am afraid to mention it because I fear derision and ridicule, which is silly because what I want is only what most of us want.
It's one of the oldest, simplest dreams in the world but it's a bit too complex to discuss here.
I am not even sure who I need to have this conversation with. It's possible that I haven't even met that person yet. I have to stay alive in order to find out.
But when we do meet, I hope that there's a plentiful supply of coffee at hand- because we will have a lot to talk about.
I must have slept on it wrong , I thought, as I struggled to get ready for yet another day at what was easily my worst long-term job ever- manager of a discount shoe store.
Driving with a hangover is a lot like driving drunk- except this time I couldn't use my left hand to cover one eye. I couldn't even use it to steer. The only thing I could do was watch the fingers on my left hand change color from pink to purple, a phenomena I found a bit unsettling.
For an hour I struggled to flex it, get some feeling, make a fist...can't make a fist...ouch, that hurts...it was getting worse, not better. My arm wasn't asleep, it was sick. It was scaring me.
I took Barb, an older lady who was my head cashier, aside to tell her about my problem:
"Barb, I can't move my arm and it really hurts. I'm going to need you to run the store while I go to the doctor."
" Your arm? Is it numb and painful? That's what happened to my husband. He had a stroke and now he's crippled. How is your chest?"
My chest, which until then had been unnoticed, suddenly got very tight.Sharp pains radiated out from my solar plexus in every direction. I couldn't breathe and I knew- I KNEW-that I was going to die.
Of a stroke.
On the sales floor of a crap-ass shoe store.
I called my doctor- "get in here now", he said. "Get a ride- don't wait for an ambulance!" I did.
It wasn't a stroke. It was the first of many panic and anxiety attacks I was to suffer over the next several years- I still have them today, but they don't lay me out like they used to.
After it was determined that I wasn't having a stroke, they went to work on my arm. The heart fears were calmed and I was given a shot of something (morphine?) that made my arm feel very far away from the rest of me. I could see it and it looked funky blue, but it didn't bother me...more needles and electrodes...all so shiny. I was sleepy. Could I have a pillow?
After a week of consultations and tests, it was determined that the ulnar nerve in my arm had died from the elbow down and the flesh around it would eventually wither and become useless , if not dead.
I'd need an amputation from the elbow down.
I'm a musician and all the instruments I play require two hands, the guitar being my favorite. I'm not the best guitarist- (no one is, the common argument over who is the best git-picker is a spurious and wasteful one)- but there isn't anybody anywhere who plays like I do and that is pretty rare. It's a talent that I took a lot- too much- of pride in.
When I was told I'd never play again, I broke. Shattered.
I didn't think about how I would drive, tie my shoes, cook, hold a job, hold a lover in my arms...my first thought was : WILL I PLAY AGAIN?
I was told no, I would not. Not with a stump, I wouldn't.
So, at my doctors advice, I got a second opinion from a surgeon who was not on my insurance carrier's plan. He met with me, had his own x-rays taken and re-administered some tests. He ran an electrical current through my Ulnar nerve.
OOOOOWWWWWGODDDDDDTHHHAAAATHURRRTTTTSSSS
"That hurts, eh? Good."
"Good?" *whimper*
"Yes. Those [the hospital] docs are idiots . This nerve is alive. I can save your arm."
He didn't say say he might be able to. He said he could save it . He said this as matter-of-fact. The sun rises.
Water is wet.
He could save my arm.
Simple.
He had no doubt in his ability and that confidence helped settle me down. That and a giant bottle of Valium. I wasn't supposed to drink - the valium was intended to help with that, but I wound up mixing the two on a daily basis -along with Oxycontin and Demerol. A few Demerol and a fifth of vodka was only a mild buzz for me at one point...but I had to quit before the surgery. Alcohol, despite it's calming effect, is actually quite hard on your nerves and it increases your risk of bleeding out on the OR table.
For my arm, for my guitar, I quit drinking a few weeks before the operations. I had nothing else to live for but that was enough. For that, I would fight.
The operations went well, but it took six months of physical therapy before I could play a few simple chords...but after a few more months I was whizzing over the frets faster than I'd ever been able to play before.
The first docs were wrong. I would play again.
And I was wrong. I would drink again.
I won one fight, but I lost a long war in the process. Alcohol had taken over my life...if I am going to be a one-armed shoe-salesman, I thought, then the best thing I can do is drink myself to death...that was my intent, although I hadn't admitted it to myself yet.
By the time I got my arm back, my soul was lost. My ill- considered drinks of celebration immediately became the same old daily suicide routine. I drifted through an endless series of dead-end temp jobs. I didn't see my friends, the only brief happiness was a brief on-the -job affair that ended badly and left me even more desolate and forlorn than before. And drunk.
My guitar, which was the initial focus of my recovery, sat in the corner gathering dust.
I stopped writing in my journal and notebooks.
No poems.
No letters.
Nothing but me , my pills , my pain and the bottle.
I watched a lot of TV. I used a lot of drugs.
Then Hurricane Isabel hit Virginia. Sept 2003.
The temp agency offered me a job with State Farm handling storm claims, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day.
Amazingly, I accepted it and it was a good thing I did. I still drank, but not as much because the days were so long I had to cut back.
After the initial hurricane paperwork chaos, I started liking my work. I saved a lot of money- all that overtime was great...but I was drifting farther and farther apart from my friends.
It was loneliness and isolation that first drove me to blog- isolation and a deep hatred of Bush's neo-con cabal of war profiteers.
But the booze had me. I knew it had to stop, but I didn't care. I was hoping for death. I didn't have much -in my mind- to live for and I had convinced myself that my life was over and I would never be happy. I was a rotten person- a drunk of the worst kind- and not one person would miss me were I to die.
Of course, this wasn't true, but that is how an addict at the very end of their addiction feels. If they feel anything, that is. I suspect the last thing that you feel is nothing at all, but I don't want to know.
After another year it all caught up to me. I started vomiting blood one night after having to leave work early with stomach pain. I barely made it to the ER, where I was told I only had a few hours to live.
Who should they call?
No one. Don't call anyone.
I don't want anyone to know how bad it had become. I was dying, but I was also ashamed. How did I let this happen?
But the surgeries worked. When I woke up- alive- I had changed. I was still alone, unhappy and bereft of any love or joy, but I had something more powerful that that. Something that (I hope) had killed the urge to drink forever.
I had fear.
I was afraid of dying. I still am. I haven't had a drink since the first week of September, 2005. Not because I am brave or strong- I don't drink because I am weak and I am afraid of suffering and dying.
As time passed, I started finding new reasons to live. The radio station was my anchor. I needed it, and most importantly it needed me. I hadn't been needed for a long time. Anyone can do office work but not many people can produce and engineer live music in a deadline -is-now- broadcast environment.
I can. I even enjoy it and I'm a lot better at it when I'm sober.
And then there was blog. Somehow, I had accumulated a tiny but loyal group of friends, most of whom I've never met and probably never will. Like any group of friends, there were differences and problems and maybe even a broken heart, but by and large I feel that my life is much the richer for being part of this world. Having this outlet and the support that followed was a real source of strength for me during those horrible post-hospital months.
There are some of you that I would love to thank in person, but I will wait until I need a place to crash. Then I will show up in the middle of a hailstorm , huddled on your doorstep, clutching a battered guitar and a grimy paper sack containing my laundry and a pair of well-fed cats.
"Thank you", I will say, then I will ask: "Do you mind if I crash here?" and "You aren't allergic to cats are you?"
I'm kidding, of course. I would never put my cats in a bag with my dirty socks.
For all of our sake's , I'm hoping it won't come to that. For now, just know that I really do appreciate each and every one of you.
I wasn't ready to be sick again so soon, but I am. I don't know how bad quite yet, but it isn't good. No cure, but there are treatments.
But really, it might not be too bad. I can walk, climb stairs, carry heavy weights etc- with only slightly more discomfort than a 'normal' person. I have to quit smoking pot, but I should have done that anyway. I've had my fun with that for what? twenty-five years? Long enough.
I have friends who didn't make it through the last twenty-five years, but not because of pot- they drank. And snorted. And stabbed. Needles and knives. The rope.
Some of the survivors are alive, but they aren't living. The booze- and especially the cocaine- have left them hollow, hopeless and seemingly incapable of dreams.
I haven't suffered that fate. I have spent three days studying my disease and I am convinced I can beat it. Not cure it- that is impossible- but beat it down and live with it. Live well.
Because I can still dream. My latest dream is an old one and it is so pathetic and mundane that I am afraid to mention it because I fear derision and ridicule, which is silly because what I want is only what most of us want.
It's one of the oldest, simplest dreams in the world but it's a bit too complex to discuss here.
I am not even sure who I need to have this conversation with. It's possible that I haven't even met that person yet. I have to stay alive in order to find out.
But when we do meet, I hope that there's a plentiful supply of coffee at hand- because we will have a lot to talk about.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
The Doctor's Office
I have only mentioned this to a few people and never in public, but I've been feeling poorly lately.Fatigued at mid-day.
Out of breath for no reason- jog up several flights of stairs, carry heavy loads etc, no problem...get up in the middle of the night to pee? I'm winded.
No pattern to it. I have a not-so hidden fear of illness, and heart disease is near the top of my list of medical phobias. I am so afraid of it that I have only mentioned my recent poor health to a few people- knock wood.
I have likewise been keeping mostly mum on my insurance woes - but today I finally got my health insurance. I called my doc right away.
When I mentioned shortness of breath, he said he wanted me to come directly in. So I did.
There was a new receptionist on duty, a middle-aged woman with a very sad face...as she weaved her way through my new insurance info she muttered something about insurance carriers. There was a peculiar, intense edge to her mumbled words that caused me to do a double-take:
"Pardon?"
"I said you've had quite a few carriers in the last several years, Mr. C.," she said, her voice now heavy with weary compassion.
It was a statement, not a judgement , but my reaction was defensive.
"Well, I've had a lot of jobs...and the ones I keep usually change insurance carriers every year. To save money, they say."
"Honey, we see this all the time ...all day...it's terrible. Do your premiums ever go down when they "save money?"
Aha. This woman had some sort of issue with The System, not with me. I felt like I could talk to her, so I did.
"No, of course my premiums never go down. I can barely afford my share, in fact. I've felt like hell for a month and haven't been able to afford a visit until today. It's absolutely shameful how our country refuses to care for it's citizens."
"If you were in prison, you'd get free medical."
Prison? Huh? Where is this headed?
"Excuse me?"
" The bastard -pardon my French- who killed my son. He gets free medical care. For life. He had an appendectomy last month and I was praying that he would die. He didn't. He killed my boy. My boy was only 23."
"I...."
"Your new co-pay is $20. It was ten. They need the extra money so they can give free medicine to the man who killed my son. They plan on keeping that man alive forever. In prison."
As she said this it was clear that she considered the murderer's incarceration to be her own, that her life would always be stalled at that moment , the moment that she learned her son was dead. In her heart, as long as her child's killer had a future, she herself did not.
"I...I think I know...," I stammered, but I don't know, so I shut up and listened. This woman's anguish was compelling.
I am strong.
I am powerful.
I am helpless in the face of a mother's grief for her murdered child.
I have been told a little about this sort of justice and how it feels.
Told by someone who wasn't quite murdered and by someone who was.
But that's all I can know.
Because I wasn't there. It didn't happen to me.
It wasn't my son who was killed.
It wasn't my son who grew up wanting to be a soldier just like his Daddy, only to drop out of West Point because he was broken-hearted over what had happened to our military. It wasn't my child that returned home without any dreams left, and it wasn't my kid who lost his life just because he wanted to help his mom by taking out the trash.
It was her son who wanted to be a soldier and it was her son who was shot in the heart while dumping the garbage for his mom. He died in the alley a few seconds after his parents heard the shot.
He was murdered as part of a gang initiation. When apprehended, the killer explained that it was nothing personal, just that "somebody had to die that night and he was there"...as the woman told me this story, I could picture this inhuman creature as it calmly explained how sure, "it wasn't personal - we just murdered your son because it's better than being bored..." and I KNEW that this animal would never, not once, have even the slightest touch of remorse over what it had done.
In fact, the creature didn't seem to think it was treated fairly.
After all, someone had to die. It wasn't personal- why was everyone so upset?
That is how the animal thinks. It wasn't my son in her story , but I have met the animal.
I know others who have and not a single one of us is better for the meeting, but we have survived the encounters, with varying degrees of success.
Nietzche was wrong.
Not everything that fails to kill you makes you stronger.
I managed to choke out a few words about two friends of mine who fight this animal war every day but I couldn't get it out properly. I could tell from my voice that I was about to burst into tears and I wasn't sure I would be able to stop if I did.
"I'm sorry...I'm not used to talking about this. I didn't mean to bring all that up...", words that could have been spoken by either one of us, but in this case it was her to me.
And I'm not used to it. I'm used to writing about my feelings; I am not used to talking about them.
There is a huge difference.
" No," I said, " it's OK. Most people don't talk about this sort of thing. We hold it in until it kills us because that is easier than talking about it."
She reached through the sliding glass window and squeezed my hand.
"People should talk more often," she said and handed my paperwork back to me.
By the time the doctor saw me I had almost finished crying.
My doctor is an extraordinarily kind man and I've been seeing him for almost ten years. He has seen me through a (temporarily) crippling neurological illness; my first panic attacks and a nearly fatal addiction.
He has never seen me cry.
But he understood.
Now. What seems to be the matter?
I described my symptoms.
Hmmm...I haven't started smoking cigarettes have I?
No sir, just marijuana.
No alcohol?
Not a drop.
Mind if I look?
Go ahead, please.
(Note to alcoholics who think that they can fool their doctor: You can't. He can look down your throat and tell if you are a drunk. If he can't , you need a new doctor- not that drunks practice much preventive health care. It's almost always a sudden ER trip that gets them)
My doctor is very proud of my sobriety. He tells me that the chances of me doing what I have done are almost impossible, yet here I am.
I am not ashamed to admit that I needed to hear that.
That I do need to hear it from time to time.
That I will probably always need to hear it.
He used his ears and a stethoscope- still one of Medicine's finest tools- I took breaths until I nearly hyperventilated. Through the nose. Now the mouth. Nose. Mouth.
Dizzy.
Well. I was sent to have some precautionary X-rays, but the doctor seems to think that I have developed an allergy- my heart and lungs sound fine, but my sinuses are draining and seem obstructed.
He believes that I have developed an allergy or twelve and it is causing mild asthmatic attacks. This , I was told, is not nearly as bad as a heart attack.
Cool.
So I was given an inhaler.
I have to laugh.
It fits.
See, despite all the hype, I'm really just a nerd who likes Dungeons and Dragons, comic books and record collections.
I'm not even cool enough to wear horn-rimmed glasses- only cool geeks get those...but now I do have an inhaler!
I'll keep it in my Pocket-Protector, next to my Bic pens, my d20 and my Texas Instruments math machine.
Right above my heart, which seems to doing fine.
Man, I was really worried and was afraid I'd have a stroke any second or something...asthma?
The inhaler seems to work.
I am literally breathing easier!
Now, will my new sleeping pills be enough to counter the speedy feeling from the inhaler?
Saturday, February 10, 2007
The Shortest Point
Stencils warning:
objects
in this distance
may be mirror
than they appear
Is this storming?
abstract
in this dance
concrete steps
helium depths
This is no place
to be
replace what
goes nowhere
when it
belongs there
The shortest point
two lines
between one meaning
strike the solid air
glass
no longer there
Object in hindsight later
no time now
forget calm reflection
this is present
and
accountable for
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Now What?
Yesterday I left work in a state of near-panic over a huge workload that had materialized from nowhere and had to be done by Friday morning, no ifs-ands-or-buts...when I got home I had a letter from a short-term employer waiting for me.
When I removed the letter, my mailbox fell off the wall of my building and clattered down the steps- the single short screw holding into the mortar had given way.
Fuck!
When I turned on the living room lamp, the bulb flashed once, brightly, and died.
Fuck!
So I went into the kitchen for another bulb and the kitchen light did the same thing. Poof!
Changing overhead lights in the dark sucks- I'm amazed I was able to do it without incident.
When I was finally able to produce enough light to read by, I opened my letter.
It was a check for $300 for a job I was already paid for in November- and I am almost exactly $300 short on this month's rent, so the timing on this could not be better...it's from a giant national company- I wonder if I was the only one who got a duplicate check?
Yay!
I can buy dinner! Except my car won't start when I leave the deli.
I just had it in the shop and was told it was OK, but now it won't start.
Fuck!
I eat a sandwich in my car and try again. It starts right up - and the gearshift backlight, which has never worked, is now glowing as it should.
Yay!
This morning I drove to work because I expected to be here until about 9 pm sorting out Lawyer Feces...but the 'emergency' isn't nearly as bad as was thought, so there's no panic.
Yay!
But I have to drive home in the snow and ice instead of taking the bus like I do every single day except the ONE day that we have icy roads.
Fuck!
Then our computer network crashed, so I couldn't do my work even if I wanted to.
Yay!
I can still go on-line , so I write a couple emails and decide to blog- but blogger is not working.
Fuck!
I read the news. It suffers from a paucity of cheer. Molly Ivins has died. I knew this already because I heard it on the radio on the way in- we were playing an Amy Goodman interview w/ Ms. Ivins and I heard a quote I loved and will paraphrase here:
(on the subject of the secret "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy")
Hahaha- Vlad Putin says there is no 'conspiracy theory' at work in the death of a former KGB agent- the one who died of radiation poisoning- so how did that Polonium wind up in the spy's tea?
Fuck.
I don't need a headline or a hyperlink to know that BushCo is dead-set on going to war with Iran.
I've known that since 2002- Molly Ivins told me.
What she didn't say- because she couldn't have known at the time- is that we are in no position to engage Iran in a traditional military conflict. Our armed forces have been abused to the point of collapse- or coup.
In fact, we may not be able to defeat Iran in a 'traditional' war- and the current neo-Strangelovian buzz about 'tactical nuclear strikes' scares the hell out of me.
I'm not kidding.
Fuck.
When I removed the letter, my mailbox fell off the wall of my building and clattered down the steps- the single short screw holding into the mortar had given way.
Fuck!
When I turned on the living room lamp, the bulb flashed once, brightly, and died.
Fuck!
So I went into the kitchen for another bulb and the kitchen light did the same thing. Poof!
Changing overhead lights in the dark sucks- I'm amazed I was able to do it without incident.
When I was finally able to produce enough light to read by, I opened my letter.
It was a check for $300 for a job I was already paid for in November- and I am almost exactly $300 short on this month's rent, so the timing on this could not be better...it's from a giant national company- I wonder if I was the only one who got a duplicate check?
Yay!
I can buy dinner! Except my car won't start when I leave the deli.
I just had it in the shop and was told it was OK, but now it won't start.
Fuck!
I eat a sandwich in my car and try again. It starts right up - and the gearshift backlight, which has never worked, is now glowing as it should.
Yay!
This morning I drove to work because I expected to be here until about 9 pm sorting out Lawyer Feces...but the 'emergency' isn't nearly as bad as was thought, so there's no panic.
Yay!
But I have to drive home in the snow and ice instead of taking the bus like I do every single day except the ONE day that we have icy roads.
Fuck!
Then our computer network crashed, so I couldn't do my work even if I wanted to.
Yay!
I can still go on-line , so I write a couple emails and decide to blog- but blogger is not working.
Fuck!
I read the news. It suffers from a paucity of cheer. Molly Ivins has died. I knew this already because I heard it on the radio on the way in- we were playing an Amy Goodman interview w/ Ms. Ivins and I heard a quote I loved and will paraphrase here:
(on the subject of the secret "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy")
"...of course there's no such thing as a secret VRWC-
they don't even pretend to hide their "Feed the Wealthy" agenda...all
you have to do is pay attention - they've been operating in the open for
decades and the American public just plain refuses to see
it...why bother hiding things from the blind?"
Hahaha- Vlad Putin says there is no 'conspiracy theory' at work in the death of a former KGB agent- the one who died of radiation poisoning- so how did that Polonium wind up in the spy's tea?
Fuck.
I don't need a headline or a hyperlink to know that BushCo is dead-set on going to war with Iran.
I've known that since 2002- Molly Ivins told me.
What she didn't say- because she couldn't have known at the time- is that we are in no position to engage Iran in a traditional military conflict. Our armed forces have been abused to the point of collapse- or coup.
In fact, we may not be able to defeat Iran in a 'traditional' war- and the current neo-Strangelovian buzz about 'tactical nuclear strikes' scares the hell out of me.
I'm not kidding.
Fuck.
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