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Poison Ivy Etc.
I have poison ivy blisters the size of lady bugs on my fingers. Some that face each other between the fingers are like lady bug lovers, doing God only knows what all while I sleep trying not to scratch them. Or I try not to scratch them while I don't sleep. I haven't slept through a night in months and that may only be part of getting old(er). Locals tell me they have seen worse but I have never in my life seen something under any name erupt so grotesquely on my or any other body.
The blisters are in the red ripened stage, almost done being themselves and will soon either burst by some casual contact of my work day, and bleed a mixture of blood and viscous poison ivy puss, or just recede, leaving perhaps mild scaring. Those could scar J said looking at my fingers. I looked at my hands and thought I bet you won't be able to tell a difference.
I got these blisters from Morton, Lorina's ex, whom I got to see this week so soon after voicing the desire to kill him that the possibility of it for one tiny second became in my mind real enough in all the inherent unpleasantness of such a deed that I immediately lost the desire to do it. Lorina said she didn't set up the potential train wreck of our meeting but if she didn't it was either God or the Devil so you pick. Morton's act of innocence was sufficiently convincing and I had to at least give him the credit I would give a street hustler or lie n' deny artist with an equally convincing pitch.
I got the dose, on my fingers and both sides of my face, from cleaning vine off the tiller that both Morton and I had borrowed from Lorina. But Morton say hey, he just don't know, which is probably true and either way is fine with me. Live and learn is what I say. And killing is so permanent. I was mad for awhile though, which of course is no reason to kill somebody.
That Lorina is friends with her most immediate ex is something I write off to the occasionally annoying inconvenience of living in a community the size of a small desert island, where every public gathering is guaranteed to have a hodge podge of ex-lovers intermingled in the mix. As for the witnessing of the ex-spat, where former lovers relive the past negative energies that made them so loveable, well, I'd just as soon have a dull needle inserted in one of my testicles.
My mom in Dallas with Alzheimers is getting a little more used to the idea that her children are going to be messing in her affairs and called my sister in California to leave a message on her machine that apologized for being rude to her earlier in the week. My sister handles some of mom's banking. We got somebody in the house with her, coming by a few hours five days a week but while my mom is somewhat polite to the person, the person is just too young to have any experience in common with her, or so she thinks. Another woman has been introduced recently and my mom is apparently taking to her better.
I was starting to panic about the cumulative disarray of my affairs so attempting proactivity I sent a pointed email to my New Orleans property manager and said what up? I expressed the concern that I felt my luck was running out regarding having a house left unoccupied in that neighborhood for this long. I applauded them for the high standards with which they qualified perspective tenants but that maybe now was the time to lower those standards, and maybe the rent too. I received a response telling me, oh sorry to have worried you, we leased out your place earlier in the month, (and for fifty dollars more than what was already questionably high rent for the size of the place.) In a neighborhood pretty constantly on the edge of destruction. So if improving a ghetto property without contributing to gentrification is a good thing then this is me stroking myself for accomplishing that (or just thinking that I have*).
I still have the business of convincing my insurance underwriter not to cancel my policy on the house, which they think is over-insured by almost a factor of two. I believe an appraisal delivered to the desk of the underwriting agent 90 miles away will take care of that. I've been given a deadline and that may be construed as a good thing.
So like a tree frog burrowed underground for the winter but without the ice crystals around his heart I have started to emerge from my less than active winter work schedule and the work is emerging faster than I care to think about and the same goes for Lorina who has several thousand vegetable and flower plants outgrowing their individual planting cells, at least two weeks before potential last frost.
I have too many projects started and a few I have contracted out. Firstly I need to scrape and paint the metal roof of the bighouse (while not completely ignoring the back porch which I sanded down after fixing the few rotten areas.). I got the ladders set up and a rope tied around one of the chimneys and I made a little plywood platform to hold my paint buckets level on a slanted roof. I have started scraping with a six inch mud knife taped to a stick and am about ready to start spot priming the first section and the goal will be to finish this before it gets too hot and also not to slide down one of the 10 or 12 gables to the detriment of my burgeoning well being.
Their is rumor of a future beach house needing the attention of one skinny caretaker so my territory may expand. Curmudgeon International, Slim speaking, what the hell you want?
(*my nephew sends me an email yesterday, from which I excerpt: "... but should see [your former neighbor, Melba]
maybe tonight at a meeting or something, and will be
sure to inquire on what should be her latest gripe
towards you: the increased chance that the tax
assessor for your district, under steadying pressure
from state tax commission to stop the tax breaks to
under-assessed uptown mansions, undertakes a
comprehensive reassessment of the entire district,
thus driving up her/your/everyone's insurance rates.
what are you some sort of bougeoise (I don't even know how to spell your kind) gentrifier?"
If Thou Be Near
This past weekend, with the truck's head gasket all but blown, I chuggged up a mountain road near Asheville, NC, following a friend with one broken lug on his rear right tire and the nuts of two more near the end of their thread, when an 80 year old woman with one eye and blue hair began to pull into the blind spot to her right, which I occupied.
For that brief moment in which I could watch this happening like the uninvolved spectator I wasn't, I thought, interesting, and, why is she trying to occupy a space that is currently occupied by me? Was this the moment that marked the end of time for one of us? Your time is up sir, you will relinquish your space to the blue haired woman. I could see in through her passenger side window the glove box and the latch of it was the last thing I remember before I started honking my horn and veering to the right onto that strip of pavement that is reserved for emergencies, and from which I used to hitchhike years ago, before various highway patrolmen threatened me with equally various degrees of success. Some patrolmen just politely explained how I needed to be hitchhiking from the on ramps and a couple even took me there themselves.
I remember unfriendly highway patrolmen in Virginia, Arizona, Montana, and a ChiP in Los Angeles and the thing all these guys had in common was their disdain for my occupation of state property. The trooper in Montana hit the bottom of my feet with his baton but in fairness to him he was trying to ascertain whether I was dead or alive,which was in question because I looked dead, in my serenely supine state across the front seat of the Ford Maverick, with my feet hanging out the open drivers side door, parked in a rest stop.
I continued to veer onto that little strip of asphalt, which in some states is more justifiably named as an "emergency lane" and in other states would be more aptly named "a waste of state money," and I realized I could, if need be, just occupy this lane for the emergency now occurring. I did not even consider at that time my previous trespasses of state property across America. Though as I straddled the white line separating the right lane proper from the emergency lane to its right, I did think of a joke from childhood. Your friend asks you would you rather slide down a razor blade naked or kiss a rabbit between the ears and at the time, probably not having developed any pleasurable use for pain, you say, kiss the rabbit, and he pulls inside out the whites of his front pockets and says, well come on then.
While I reminisced about tired jokes from childhood the eighty year old one eyed blue haired woman decided that she for one, wanted to live, that her time, was not up, and she began to veer back into the left lane, but a little wildly. She swerved back and forth a couple of times like something out of a tire commercial for tires you could imagine yourself buying.
And then I thought how I almost killed that woman, with the shotgun blast of my horn, just because she wanted to occupy space I felt was mine. But the space didn't belong to me. It belonged to the state of NC. The state flag of which is similar to that of Texas. I stayed at the Renaissance in Asheville, with Lorina. It was elegant. Very nice breakfast buffet. I carried her trumpet. She played Bach instead of jazz infused ska-punk. In a chapel in Waynesville. The things you do for love would include getting caught inside the groom's car with three women, placing origami cranes about the interior. It was embarrassing, but better than giving up for good your space to a one eyed blue haired elderly woman. Marginally better. I know of a local guy who makes hats from roadkill. I wonder what kind of hat I would have made, and if anybody would wear me?
Before Raking Leaves
I was sketching out in words this scene centered around a New Orleans youngster pulling a gun out of his sock during a three on three street basketball game. Those portable hoops with the black plastic bases are not exactly a ubiquitous New Orleans prop but they were pretty damn common to the neighborhoods in which I lived and traveled, during my ten year stay. And then just a few days later I hear from my nephew, who still lives in NO, that the city has outlawed those types of hoops in the street.
So like overnight what I was writing became history instead of what I was intending, which was a scene, although based on past experience, meant to reflect an ongoing metaphor-laden reality specifically tied to street basketball. This change in temporality is not crucial to any point I would ever intend to make seeing as how I am unclear myself on what the point is I would ever be trying to make.
Probably the street games restrict traffic flow to some degree and also I guess the gun being pulled from socks is not as uncommon as you would want it to be. And often the players will have some connection to the drug world. And there is violence and death in the drug world. No more newsworthy are the street deaths than the deaths caused every year by respectable drug companies but one might argue that the ratio of death versus benefit is more positively balanced in the world of super pharmaceutical companies. Or I should say unbalanced with the benefit side of the scale measuring much heavier in favor of the good provided by big drug companies. I mean I'm only guessing that pharmaceutical companies help more people than they kill, whereas the street dealers might be perceived, rightly or wrongly, to kill more people than they help. And so the city fathers by outlawing street basketball are again taking baby steps to curb a city problem with systemic roots of disease deeper than anyone has yet to effectively imagine a cure for. Even the drug companies are baffled because surely if they could figure a way to enter the lucrative street drug trade and rake into their coffers some of that sweet ghetto cake, they would have by now done so. The donation of Glaxo Kline Squibb Merck Beechum emblazoned backboards to the hood, as entry point to the market, is now out.
I have tons of ideas for New Orleans but they are all ridiculous and require massive hands on city-wide mentoring and out of personal pocket expense and deep personal heartache. And risk of death and lawsuits (you can invert those two in order of importance I guess) and failure. All my ideas carry with them a seemingly unacceptable failure rate, the beauty of which is--this is a thing they have in common with current practices and policies. Still, in a future world gone whack, where profit could be imagined or realized from the lifting up of our "lesser" citizens, I think I could see myself cutting off my hair, putting on a suit and sitting on some board, spewing ridiculous. "So you see, the benefit of populating floats of the (2,500 rich person only) Endymion parade, entirely with area youth from the ghettoes, and having the rich people populating the predominately poorer sections of the parade route and then the mixing afterwards at the big Superdome party, would be that of a first step towards turning the existing, and failing, system asunder..." And then the rich person says but my system is not failing and I would turn to that person and raise my left eyebrow.
Melba Got My Goat
Oh yeah nephew, well you tell that Melba I went through quite a bit of agony for her that night but if I had known what her reaction was going to be I would have done what the rest of her neighbors did--watched and done nothing and said nothing.
As to her suggestion that it didn't matter if I had a phone or not, that I should have confronted the guy stealing her washing machine on a well lit early evening, as he grinded the sides of it up against the metal fence posts trying to extricate it from the too small opening, and yelled out--"I'm calling the police now"--let me just now say that the reason I gave at the time, not having a phone, was not the real reason I never even considered such a ridiculous common sense solution to crime in that rather diluted version of the hood.
I know what you're thinking, jeez uncle, that Melba really got your goat on this one and yes you are right. Melba got my goat. Midwestern poseur. At least I never pretended I fit in that neighborhood, even though in a way I did. And I similarly drape like a flamboyant cape the drama of those New Orleans neighborhoods over the bony shoulders of my existence. So maybe I should ease up on those accusations, except in small doses I like it and its fun, so maybe I won't.
I tried to follow the guy and see where he went, and failed instantly. In the time it took me to sit down and put on my shoes and go out and start the truck, he was gone. A man pushing a washing machine on a handcart down the middle of the street just vanished in the span of thirty seconds. Did that mean he was a neighbor? Maybe, not necessarily, maybe.
It was sort of surreal nephew, because it took the guy a while to get the machine out into the street. And people were passing him on the sidewalk, and ignoring him. Some went into the residence next door and others just moseyed on up to the corner. I had been broken into three times the previous year and the previous week all five of my neighbors to the side had been burgled in one night, backyard sheds ransacked. I didn't really give a good goddamn about her washing machine, I wanted a sacrificial lamb in jail, and I thought the best way to accomplish that was to follow the guy.
Her idea was that I would call out to him that I was calling the police, he would drop the machine and run away, with his handcart. But if he had to take the handcart anyway, why would he give up the washing machine? I woke up five times that night to keep an eye on her and her talented husband's house to make sure a general ransacking was not going on. Did the bitch even begrudgingly thank me for my efforts? No nephew, she did not.
Did I mention that I went around the corner to that grocery store to call the cops from a pay phone? I had to wait to make the call though because there was a cop on the pay phone, his car idling at the curb. Another cop in a different car was ooh-ing and awe-ing over this gangster's CD collection who was handing through the driver's side window all the very latest hot shit from the Rap world. I waited patiently near the cop on the pay phone, once nodding at him with a look of inquiry and solicitation. He didn't seem all that disappointed to deal with me but he did seem like he had other things to be doing. He followed me around the corner and after a brief consult said he might know who did the burglary, and drove off towards the river. I went inside and twenty minutes later I hear a honk in the street and look out and there he is, the cop. I go out to the street and he's got some criminal in his backseat that he caught while looking for my criminal. He says he's gotta go. And that's the last I saw of the cops regarding that incident.
And anyway, what was I supposed to do if the guy did drop the washing machine? I still would have had to run after him to borrow his handcart to move the damn thing to safety. Yeah, that Melba's got my goat all right.
You know nephew, I've already told this story once somewhere on this site but your recent emailed mention of Melba just got my blood boiling all over again.
But the real reason nephew? The real reason I didn't confront the guy and scare him away as Melba implies she has done to characters malingering around my place in my absence? The real reason is I was scared. The dude I was watching out my window was scary in a way that was different from the way I may have been frightened after telling a murderer to get off my motherfucking porch, at that other house I used to live at around the corner. The combination of determination and desperation that emanated from the robber's movements and the nonchalance of the passerby, all of this in more or less early evening broad daylight, well, it sort of freaked me. I did not want to make contact of any kind with this guy. To me, he was that scary. And you know, for a couple of years, at that other house, I was stepping over on my way to and from work the heavyweights of scary local crime, as they played dominoes and cards on the porch.
Well nephew, none of that old business is germane to my current morning so I better get on with it. Just needed to vent a little, no, no, I'm not blaming you.
Anyway, technically, the truth can be how Melba remembers it. I did, afterall, watch from beginning to end, a guy steal her washing machine, and push it down the middle of the street on a handcart, in broad daylight. In retrospect I guess my only regret is that I didn't sleep through the night thereafter.
Love In The 21st
So in the end, or up to this point anyway, Lorina and I (have) decided that while the preconceived idea to break up one day prior to Valentines day was a good one, an idea of such stellar proportion that it perhaps implied the backing of extra-terrestrial intelligence, we would, much to our mutual and occasionally ecstasy laden agony, carry on this love fest with--what we now are mature (ha) enough to realize is the only reasonable and sustainable course--a day to day lease of careful and loving consideration.
It has been eight months since we initiated this relationship in that sort of secret and sly way that shy people go about things, and, despite the fact of my sometimes debilitating verbal reticence, it seems I have already conveyed to Lorina each and every fact of the forty-plus years of my moderately interesting but let's face it, dull existence. And although I know it is not true that I have conveyed all the idiotic tidbits of my previous and ongoing actuality, I have though already started repeating some of the more mundane bits.
You know, the belt I lost, I got at one of those superstores a couple of years ago, and I had to stand in front of the belt rack for twenty minutes before making what was essentially the same impulse buy I could have made in 90 seconds. And I had to alter it by slicing one of the loops off because it had two loops side by side and esthetically that became a thing unusually, I think it was unusual anyway, displeasing to me.
Lorina nods behind the wheel of her Ford entering Front Royal and politely says yes she remembers me mentioning that. And all of a sudden I have this mini-explosive awareness of all the other crap I have already told her, and how much of it I have retold her, some of it more than twice, and in just eight months(?).
She's been in Dallas with me a couple of times while I visit my aging mother so understands some aspects of my genetic potential.
But maybe it is true that there aren't that many interesting note-worthy factoids in a day, a month, a year, a life. And what explains how some things get stuck in your memory bank and how other things don't? I'm trying to think of something unique I could tell Lorina when I next see her.
Lorina, hey Lorina!
What?
The oatmeal? It was, uh, hot!
Really?
Yeah! And the bowl the oatmeal was in?
Hmm hmm.
When it came in contact with the buckle of my new belt?, which was on the bed beside me so that I can study it for displeasing imperfections? Well, there was a sort of clinking noise!
You don't say.
Yeah, and then I looked out the window? And it was windy looking? So I had to postpone tearing down that dog pen for awhile longer because of windchill factor...Lorina?...Lorina?... LowRINuh!? (She probably just had to go put her contacts in or something).
Running in New Orleans
Anonymous and not necessarily a man wrote in yesterday to say he ( I'm saying man) packed two .44 Magnum hand guns to feel safe while driving around Mobile, Alabama and that he was happy that Louisiana accepted without hassle the Alabama gun permits because he visited New Orleans on a regular basis and by implication of two .44 Magnums he felt he may need to shoot somebody dead on one of his visits. He meant in self-defense.
I just wanted to say that if memory serves me it is also copacetic (and legal) to carry your permitted weapon in a concealed fashion in New Orleans, which for the purposes of feeling safe might come in handy and that perhaps the man should consider a .38 snub nose or even one of the smaller, almost feminine handguns, for comfortable concealment during those many sultry summer days in the sub-tropical New Orleans climate, when one is inclined to wear the least amount of concealing clothing possible.
Of course, for just driving around in an air-conditioned vehicle, and if you are driving one of the popular choices of the car jacker (I believe you can find the top ten list for popular cars to steal in your area, on the Internet), that .44 Magnum on the passenger seat under a towel is pretty sweet for the defending of your life and property. In New Orleans, and I may just be making this up, I am pretty sure that the rules concerning the use of lethal response to potential car jacking are somewhat relaxed. If you are parked at a light and a person with a weapon in their hand approaches your vehicle, and they are not flashing a badge or otherwise making themselves known as cops, you may, at your discretion, shoot dead the approaching person. You need not wait for the person to actually threaten you verbally or point their weapon at you. You may dispose of this person who is coming for your Toyota Camry.
Again, my knowledge on these matters is so completely anecdotal as to be almost irrelevant, and one who intends to pursue avenues of legal killing in New Orleans would be well advised to consult the proper authorities before actually killing someone.
And I'm honestly not all that hip to what the best hand gun would be for every situation and I know the various versions of the 9mm are widely popular but I think for the purpose of occasional killing I would prefer the revolver to the semi-automatic because of that annoying possibility of the semi-automatic to jam up, or go click because you forgot to jack a shell into the chamber, when what you are intending is ka-blam, which is the proper noise to hear preceding the death of another human by hand gun.
Some people I think tend to feel limited by the six shots of the average revolver versus the eleven to thirteen possible chances with the semi-automatic but let's face it, if you can't kill someone with six shots at close range (remember, this is self-defense killing, your range is going to be between a few feet and point blank), then you probably should not have a gun in the first place.
The need to kill our fellow humans with available weaponry is not a thing new to our times. It would be most excellent if it were because there would then be the implication that it is something within an evolutionary process that we could hope to outgrow. Instead, I think it is more likely that if we haven't outgrown it by now, we will not ever out grow it. With this in mind I will offer a last little piece of throw away advice--try not to kill people, try to avoid it. But if you really can't avoid it then I believe the conventional wisdom is--aim for the largest part of your target, also known as the human torso, and pull the trigger until your weapon is empty. If your target, also known as the human being, is not then dead, you should run. Running as a first option is also highly desirable. Of course, here, due to a New Orleans incident or two of which I am aware, in good conscience I have to add--run away from the person with the gun, not towards them.
Constructing Spring
One minute I'm outside practically naked digging up a flower bed and the next minute I'm shivering inside looking out at the horizontally blowing snow and being all herky-jerky like the delirious-tremens poster boy every time the wind opens and slam-shuts the multiple screen doors on this dwelling.
It is the next day now and looking out there are only a few trace reminders of the snow and the wind is asserting only its merest influence on the pine boughs. I could venture out but only fools rush in..., I don't know? If that's about love I'm not going there. I cannot lasso an idea that depends on ephemerality to exist. I am not allowed. I was denied credentials. Two other things I cannot do is fly, and, make sparks shoot out from my fingers.
I am quite a little sleeper, able to drown in cessation, but sometimes I stay up all night composing not one cogent thought as I bathe myself in self-doubt, which I only mention to attempt the deconstruction of happiness.
I am this year trying to remember that some bats are birds and some birds are, in actuality, tree frogs.
Devil Stairs
You actually have to descend after the ascension but I'll say it like this anyway--I went up to Big Devil's Stairs this week. There was a Lexus SUV with Maryland plates in what is the only parking space and so I had to park in what turned out to be an illegal spot. Coming back to the spot later I would think briefly about becoming an outlaw again or depending on your definition, for the first time, and going on the lam to avoid any dealings with that lawman with initials for a first name who had left his card in the bottom right hand corner of my driver's side window, tightly inserted behind the weather-stripping. The card had a hand written message that said--Please Contact Today! Had it not been for the Please and the exclamation point I would have jumped the nearest boxcar out of here. I hope it is a sign of maturity and not weakness that now makes me give the law its due credit and consideration for politeness.
I was trying to do nine miles before sunset and I was getting a late start, a slurpable go-cup full of black-eyed peas my lunch in transit, and four one-slice peanut butter sandwiches my hiking fuel. And a bottle of water. No drugs, but if that's true, why even mention it? Because you couldn't get 'em lit is why, you punk ass, ill-prepared sissy. No drugs is better though and I am for one brief instant being completely straight with you. Even though it's only an opinion and therefore debatable. Or because it's an opinion it's not debatable, I get mixed up, but I don't want to linger on this point, I'd like to get back with minimal delay to this obliquely sincere version of my view on the moments that make up my day.
I took the horse trail shortcut because I wanted to by-pass the camping shelter with the log book I can't resist reading but that makes me sad because of the predictability of the human emotion it contains. The happy scribblings make me think of that animated short that ends with the big claw foot of Godzilla squashing flat on the forest floor the short lived Bambi.
Snow from last week is still on the trail and unlike previous snow hikes this time it's only me leaving human tracks, parallel to or on top of the deer and cat and crow feet. The snow is good, not too soft and not too crunchy. I have waterproof hiking boots this year and five dollar socks so I'm really well equipped from the ankles down. I still wear jeans though and a brown leather work jacket that was left behind at M's house in New Orleans. She did not know who's it was or what was the history behind the jacket before it ended up stashed at her house but the details behind the origins of it are perhaps inauspicious. I will here just have to leave it to the scholars of modern juvenile hijinks what these details might include. You can have it if you need it she said to me.
I took it and all its undeclared history with me when I left New Orleans.
A couple of weeks ago I was on this same trail (which is in Virginia, not New Orleans) when a surprise rain storm caught me clueless without a poncho and I had to use the jacket like an umbrella. After it dried out it looked really good, even better than before, so I don't know about this idea that water is bad for leather. It has plenty of pockets and in the pockets I have stashed a water bottle, four cellophane wrapped single slice peanut butter sandwiches, a very small 2mega pixel digital camera, a 5gig Mp3 player, and curiously, because I have no film camera, an old plastic film container. I wear a knit cap and brown cotton work gloves that keep me warm enough to leave the jacket open to expose my thrift store outer shirt which is open to expose my faded navy, paint speckled under shirt. The zipper is busted on the jacket.
I passed the Maryland couple on the way up (they hadn't hiked far enough to mess up any of the snow) and they were dressed more appropriately than I. Hiking is a ga-billion dollar a year industry and there does exist a wide array of proper hiking clothing and gear. We exchanged hearty hellos, which is optional, and I admired the fabric, buttons, functionality, and style of their garb, which they wore as they should, unselfconsciously.
I got to the cliff over the chasm which is the payoff of the Big Devil's Stairs hike and it is a good one if you are into all that depth of field beauty inherent to foregrounds that drop a thousand feet and multilayered, undulating, blue-green, black-shadowed, snow-dusted mountains as background.
With all that majesty before me and certain death a misstep away I thought about my doctor's appointment the next day, the first in ten years, which at this writing has already happened--and proven my procrastination fueled but understandable fears to be baseless, (and given bolder credence to the words of that gypsy at last year's Christmas party: that I'm going to live long, in fact longer than some will appreciate)--but hadn't happened then and so was still a weighty thought, heavier than the lofty and dizzying sense of freedom and flight one might ordinarily feel at cliff's edge. I waited, but perhaps not long enough, for an epiphany that did not come.
Back at my truck after the hike, the card from the cop stuck in my widow as a reminder that a nine mile hike intended to ease one's mind can sometimes be followed by a sharp stick in your eye. I debated about calling the cop but not too long did I kid myself about not calling the initialed officer. Back home I tarried a bit by checking my email and then I practiced my gender neutral phrasing, and made the call. It was a man who answered and I identified myself as the missing hiker. The officer sternly but politely gave me some advice about parking and I assured him (was I too obsequious?) that in the future his advice would be that which I followed. But I think I'm done with that hike for awhile and will look around for trails that lead elsewhere.
Cat Vomit
I was following behind a manager at the Lowes in Culpeper as he led me to an opposite end of the store to show me a kitchen timer. I had hoped he would just point but the store is new and some people want to appear useful or actually be it for all I know. There were more employees than customers in the store and I got stuck behind one who had veered out of the manager's way because the manager looked all purposeful and this employee was clearly making good money for doing absolutely nothing. I remember a past work life when I was purposeful and I used to tell less ambitious co-workers that I did not care if they worked or jerked off but to stay out of my way when I was working. Which is what I felt like telling the employee who had veered in front of me to get out of the ambitious manager's way, because I was in a hurry to keep up with the manager. I did not want to lose him after all this effort he was putting forth. I pretty much knew that the manager had misunderstood what I was asking for and that this journey would end fruitlessly, and I was right about that.
I stood looking at a 20 dollar kitchen timer while he said he would ask about cheaper ones and I then waited until I could see him take a phone call and I disappeared back to the area where I had begun. I brushed lightly up against a woman's sleeve who was standing with her boyfriend, husband, or brother and she said after I passed, excuse me. She said it in the way that meant she was offended by my sleeve brushing against hers. She said it like a woman who is easily offended. I said sincerely but offhandedly, oh yes I'm very sorry, and I wandered up the aisle a bit. Then I came back and stood by her and her man friend and her girlfriend who was of a different skin color than the other two and fifty pounds heavier and much taller and wore a type of shoe that neither of the other two would even think about wearing. I wanted the offended woman to engage me or just continue to be offended by me. I wanted to say to the man, sir, please take no offense but your girlfriend is sort of a bitch and yet if she would give me a hug I would feel better about life. You see, I have been out in public longer than is my custom and I am coming a bit unraveled due to the fact that I can't really find anything and the longer I am out in public the more uncomfortable I get about being in public because if I can't find anything I could have just stayed at home. Although I do enjoy the drive, yes I do. I could really use a hug, ma'am? How 'bout it? Hug me?
None of this imaginary after the fact reconstruction of reality has any bearing on the here and then so, moving on, in another aisle, I found an employee who looked as uncomfortable in public as I say I am and I asked him about timers and he walked me four feet and showed me an array of timers of the type that turn plug-in devices on and off throughout a day. I was happy and expressed my thanks happily and the awkward feeling man appeared to feel happy, if only conditionally. I could tell he wouldn't take well to being hugged so I just moseyed on.
Things got worse before they got better--if in fact they have gotten better, which is in question-- when I ventured to the SuperWalmart where I got a neat array of items, from a colander to a knitting hoop to dish rags and a basketball and some bleeding heart tubers to bread and peanut butter and talapia (but I didn't really get enough food and now the next day I'm hungry, 20 miles from the nearest full sized grocery store). A couple of different people acted like I was in their way and they wanted to kick my ass for it and if only they weren't in such a hurry they would have. There was clearly nobody in this store who would give me a hug but that guy in the mismatched camouflage outfit did look like he wanted to slit my throat. I made a note to keep an eye out for him. I turned away once and he disappeared, but was probably right in front of me. I may have underestimated the efficacy of his camouflage. The camo-bandana hanging like a mullet hair extension under his gimme cap I had actually sort of smirked at before the underestimation. Hell, maybe it is better to withhold judgment or to never even form an opinion about something. The guy could have been a secret government agent protecting my candy ass with his skills of stealth and may have been at that moment on the trail of a wanted international terrorist and all the while I'm making fun of him for the implied lesser status of his breeding versus mine when let's face it--the both of us are milling around the same Walmart. It would serve me right if he did slit my throat in housewares, me bleeding out near the toaster ovens.
I got up at two this morning and it felt like wake up time so I made coffee and toast and oatmeal and had breakfast and then read for awhile. I treaded lightly through the house because the cat had thrown up in five different places last night before I went to bed and where there are five piles of cat vomit there may be a sixth. I forgave him the creamy biege lumps of bile laden puke but afterwards the incessant crying to be fed earned him a one way trip to the cold outdoors. I let him back in later, and fed him, the spoogey-eyed cat bastard.
Forget all that Greenwich Mean Time asserting that its only two in the afternoon, I've been up for ages and I'm having a cocktail. Cheers. And I'm sorry for making fun of bitches and warriors and sick cats.
The Valentine
Today is Valentines Day and I just finished having breakfast with Lorina followed by a bout of speechlessness and then I bid her adieu out into the icy cold and grey wet unknown of the Virginia countryside.
Some months ago we decided to break up on Feb. 13th and so for the special occasion last night I baked some Salmon and she baked this medley of vegetables cut into cubes and doused with olive oil and salt and pepper. The vegetables were beets, parsnips, potatoes, garlic, and carrots. She made a spinach salad with cranberry raisins and goat cheese and some of that raspberry dressing you can't escape even if you wanted to, which I don't. She brought a bottle of white and a loaf of homemade bread and wouldn't I have to be crazy to break up with a beautiful, loving, intelligent woman laden so heavily with delicious fruits? The scale certainly dips heavily towards yes.
This idea of sharing your life with someone is kind of tricky and I don't want to pretend that I know anything about it, not that I would be very convincing even if I were pretending a knowledge about it, and surely not convincing enough to fool Lorina or earn entry into the Book of Right.
I just now fell into a sort of narcotic cat nap and when I opened my eyes the screen was full of letter S's.
I was going to write my mom a letter today but I haven't even sent her the three I wrote last week so who am I kidding writing letters and not sending them off in the mail?
I did call her a minute ago and she sounded tired so maybe she is having nightmares again; the doorbell rings but nobody is there. My sister is visiting her this week and that might be making her nervous too because she probably knows the plot to upset her autonomy is forward moving. She probably doesn't remember that I was there for the month of January, haphazardly pushing the buttons of the machine that would bring a stranger into her life, to live with her, but part of her remembers it and that part might be coming back to conspire with the part of her that is anxious because my sister is there introducing the same kind of crap I was introducing, although likely with more finesse is my sister introducing it.
I can hear geese honking out the window to my left at night now because I put this aside for a few days so its not right after breakfast anymore, or for that matter, Valentines Day. Lorina is in another state entirely, attending a bachelorette party, which makes me a little nervous in that hey what happens at the bachelorette party stays at the bachelorette party sort of way. Ultimately what saves me is that I don't have the strength or willful endurance to be as insecure as I sample at being, and uh, ok dammit, I trust Lorina, even if only in equal measure to my insecurity regarding all things her, which occasionally is a very fucked up way to be but for now will just have to be good enough. Besides, if you removed all my petty insecurities I would be so excruciatingly incredible that no mortal woman would be able to be with me, without bursting into flames, anyway. But mostly what I think about when I hear bachelorette is who was that chick on that show a couple of years ago about a single gal looking for a groovy hubby? Its as if the name is on the tip of my tongue.
You can't always be autonomous is what I had knowingly explained to my mother in January.
Sometimes you have to let people help you is what I had said.
I drove 22 hours straight with only a 30 minute catnap to arrive back here from Texas on the 3rd of this month. For the home stretch I came through mountain passes on both sides of Luray with dusted snow on the black pavement at 2 a.m. As is often the case around here, even when its not 2 in the morning or snowing, I was the only one on the road. I was lonely as I considered that everything and everyone on the other side of the mountain had been wiped out by an apocalyptic event. It being so cold and sparsely populated here you wouldn't even smell the demise of humanity for quite some time. It would be as if the apocalypse never happened or as if the humanity never existed. You might see people sitting mannequin-still in their cars obliquely angled to normality but you wouldn't think much about it if you minded your own business like you're supposed to. I was driving very carefully, winding downward now, as I imagined black ice under the thin layer of snow. It felt sort of pointless all the previous day's road rushing. Though it was a driving record for me, over 1200 miles in a single stretch of driving, with only over the counter energy drinks to fuel me, so I could pin that medal on my bony chest if I did indeed make it down the mountain instead of off the mountain in a fiery crash of sparks and smoke and flying metal ending upside down in a frozen creek bed with only the predictable desolate flickering meanderings of my last few cognitive moments to keep me company before the final darkness.
I arrived back here and crunched over snow and onto the breezeway and then into my shiny clean abode scrubbed by Lorina and there was the rhododendron cutting on the table that won't stop blooming. And some love messaging written on paper and a cat that only briefly considered had I been gone at all who rolled over on the wood floor and sprawled belly open to the latent potential of my kung fu warrior death blow.
Lorina slept elsewhere and I was too wired/tired and crazy to my core to go over there and wake her up and say baby baby I'm home. I'm crazy. What? Yes, yes about you, but if I could only keep my mouth shut I wouldn't add some less romantic self-absorption which would cause us to sit together in a quiet and awkward silence while you debated with yourself my merits or lack thereof and I not to be out done would do the same right back at you, until I switched sides to join you--just who the fuck do I think I am?
Instead of that I had a glass of whisky and searched the spidery corners of secret places until I found a dead roach, which I crumbled up and laid lengthwise along a section of a feathery page torn from a bible and then I sealed it with a lick and set fire to it.
I did not drift off and then abruptly wake up just as my truck rolled off the side of a mountain. Nor did I leave my body and float purposelessly near the ceiling. I slept in a dreamless void and woke up later in the afternoon to a world that would, despite its abundant allures, take some getting used to. And that's as far as I've gotten. But I will keep you posted as events unfurl in the wind making the flag look like all its stripes are not connected even though through other sources we are led to believe that they are not only connected, but parallel.
Flickering
My brother in his prime could throw a baseball 90 mph and at 6' 7" his backswing and follow through with a golf club are such that I cringe a little each time he drives the imaginary ball 300 yards down the fairway, which is represented by me sitting in an easy chair in front of his fireplace, just six feet away. I slouch down a little so that my head is protected from the accidental tragedy that would be the slipping of the club from his fingers. With each fierce swish my mind pulls up a photograph from the past so that I see and hear a swishing flicker show of images, one of which is not from the past but the future and is glass enclosed framed photographs on the wall in front of me exploding in a Sam Peckinpaw smithereens fashion as the accidentally? released club bounces to and fro like it is under the control of an invisible and not so very adept baton twirler. The pictures from the past are me smarting off to him by asking does he want a medal or a chest to pin it on, or stealing his car keys to sneak out the family car three years before I had a legal license to do such a thing (driving, not stealing), or the accidental? karate chop to his throat that made him reassess his real or imagined superiority over me, in our childhoods.
I got new tires on my truck yesterday and a new windshield last month and will begin driving northeast in the morning and although my stay here in Dallas did not seem to accomplish much towards the ultimate goal of easing my aging mother into the idea of accepting in home care I did learn a thing or two about the incompetence of some agencies that provide such care. My brothers that are local and a sister coming in for a follow up attempt will carry on and despite this string of dismal failures we have faced it would only seem natural that luck will eventually change to an opposite of whatever it has been bringing and for this family that will be a good thing. My mother, meanwhile, is a long way from full blown alzheimers and I expect will carry on just fine until her children are able to get their acts together.
Thoughts From The Battlefield
It's January but it is seventy degrees here so my mom has been watering the lawn. To my ridiculous assertion that it is the middle of winter and besides that--this town suffers from water shortages, she scoffs. She has a sprinkler system which breaks the lawn down into individual sections. Each section can be watered individually, or together with other sections, and in combinations so complex that you are caught smack dab in your smart ass face with the whip cream pie of reality that answers affirmatively to your whining past querulousness self which wondered aloud or to yourself in class--will we really need all this complex math crap in real life?
She seems to be able to figure out the controls well enough even though she is completely unsure of the time of the year. In fact, she loves controls now or anything with dials. The two thermostats in the house will in the course of the day spin from 50 to 85 and from heat to cool.
I upset her earlier in the day by trying to take her to the doctor again but she has forgotten that now and so we are starting fresh. She forgot that I had called in my brother for backup, and that that is why the front door and storm door were unlocked early this morning. She is blaming that on the replacement paper boy, whom she doesn't like. The regular paper boy, whom she likes very much, will go on vacation in May and possibly due to the unseasonably warm weather here, she thinks it is May, and that her paper boy has left her in the hands of "that other guy."
She had a boyfriend before dad and she would have married him but he got killed in WWII. Dad survived the war but cancer killed him 12 years ago.
She was juggled from parents to grandparents to an aunt in her early youth. She was a country girl who went to a big state university in the mid thirties, back in the day when they called role in class, and the great depression was not a distant memory. Her somewhat mysterious parents gave her a boy's name, she thinks it may have been the name of a horse on the family farm, and so in the big college classrooms she would endure the giggles of her more sophisticated classmates when an instructor would call out her name and in a broken voice almost as ridiculous as a callous boy making fun of a country hick with a high pitched voice, she would say--heeereuh.
After we have difficult converstations about the need for her to have a some hired assistance in the home, a thing she will not admit the need for, she might be found sitting on a short children's chair, stooping over to detail clean a return air vent, or the tracks of the sliding glass doors, and weeping.
On the bar by the dining table there are leaned pictures of grandchildren and great grandchildren whom she really doesn't know anymore. Lately to this grouping has been added a little snapshot of a drop dead handsome black man who worked in the off campus dormitory in which she lived as a college student. I wish she would talk about him more; he has a kind face, and I bet was nice to her.
By the way, I failed in that attempt to get her to the doctor. She's a good fighter, wily, determined, and focussed on nothing but the battle. I though, like the invader of a foreign land who is motivated by questionably good intentions, am clearly outgunned here and doomed to failure, or at best--a very unpleasant victory.
Elderly Will
I can't even imagine what my mom is thinking about this Spec Bebop by Yo La Tengo which is coming from the device on my lap. She is 87. I am 45. Both of us are a little older than the Yo La Tengo core audience. Speaking of old I have through recent Internet searches found some comforting definitions of what was previously for me a gray area. What is elderly, I had wondered? According to at least one medical site you may be considered "elderly" the day after you turn 55.
And if you are elderly then it stands to reason that you should start considering into which assisting living facility you are going to insert yourself for those golden years.
There is a long waiting list for that one in Amsterdam which is exclusively for heroin addicts. The idea of that sort of appeals to me. I am not a heroin addict, or even a casual user, but I will not rule out a future which includes heroin addiction. Lorina was going to fly down here for a few days to...hey never mind what she was coming down here for, voyeur. The thing is, you can fly to Amsterdam cheaper than she could have flown down here on short notice and I'd rather save my money and hers for my future heroin addiction in Amsterdam, which I understand can be quite costly.
Here is something to think about. Don't get too used to the idea of independence. You are going to have to give it up someday and like all things, the longer you hold onto it, the harder it is to give up. Perhaps it is similar to a heroin addiction in that sense. I gave up cigarettes back in 98 so about giving up addictive behaviour I have some insight. Honestly though, if I had known giving up cigarettes was that hard, I would have at least been snorting heroin. I mean you could literally fill up a building as big as a school with subject matter that is not taught in schools. Of course, as a fan of brevity, I can also see the allure of short and simple messages like--Just Say No, or, Falling Bullets Kill. I'm not so crazy about stringing alot of ideas together cohesively. I think cohesion is misleading.
I think my mom thinks I am mad at her because she turned down my invitation to have dinner at a brother's house tonight. She is associating turning down that invitation with how mad and frustrated I was when she fought me about going to the doctor two days ago. I told her it was fine, really no big deal, but even to me it sounds like I may just be saying that, and that I really am mad.
In the white space between these two paragraphs is her sitting down over there across from me and pursuing one of her more frequent hallucinations. That there are other house guests here besides me. I ease her into the truth of the matter and she says--well, maybe I am losing my mind. It would be unlike me to respond otherwise, so I say--well, maybe you are, which elicits a smile. Partly she thinks the person up there is my girlfriend, Lorina, and partly she thinks it is the care-giver we have been threatening to force on her. I assure her there is nobody up there (yet), nor did anyone sleep up there last night, besides me. She goes into the utility room and from the freezer brings a whole stack of frozen dinners and sort of fans them in front of me to get my opinion on lunch. I am trying not to do too much for her because I want to see what she does on her own, seeing as how she persists with the assertion that she can take care of herself. We have lasagna. She was a pretty good cook back in the day. Now though I am happy to see her do the frozen thing without too much assistance.
The next day my brother came over and tried to get her to sign some papers but she got mad at him. He talked with her in a rational manner for a pretty fair amount of time and you could tell she wanted to believe him but, no, something's up and she knows it. My brother took his grand daughter and left to go spend 60 minutes in rush hour traffic, without signed papers.
Later we watched TV. She asked me during a commercial break what I had on tap for tomorrow and I said I was hoping we could do that doctor's appt., get it over with. She started in with her argument and I said no, uh, uh, not this time. You don't want to go, we won't go. You win. You now get to do whatever you please, whenever you please. You are a big girl. I can't fight with you over every single little thing. In answer to her question was I mad at her I said yes. She left the room. After a moment I went to check on her and I could hear her taking a bath. Such as she does, which sounds like she is conserving water. She came back into the room some time later, in her nightgown, and silently handed me a slip of paper, and then left the room. It said--I will go, against my will.
The Count
How are you going to intefere with my business today? she said.
Not at all today, I said. I rescheduled the doctor's appt. for 7:30 Friday. But today you will be glad to know there is nothing on the calendar.
Don't hold your breath, she said.
About what? I said.
I'm not going anywhere that early in the morning.
Yes you are.
Don't count on it.
I am counting on it.
Why?
Because for three grueling hours yesterday morning you fought me about going to the doctor and when you finally relented, and we did go, the nurses had to very politely, and apologetically, inform me that when they called earlier in the week to confirm the appt., you told them to cancel it. And they went to some trouble to find another spot. I gave them other local numbers to call. What happened yesterday is not going to happen again.
I guess my goose is cooked.
Yes.
I don't remember doing that.
I believe that, I said.
Well, don't count on me going.
You know, you have asked us to not treat you like a child and I want you to know that I am not treating you like a child. Because if you were my child I would have grounded you a long time ago.
I know that, she said.
It's just a routine yearly checkup. The same thing you have done all your life.
I don't know that doctor.
You went to him last week.
I don't remember that.
You did, it was on Thursday, and we fought about that one for awhile too. But then another of your meddling sons came over and took you.
Then why I am I going to him again?
Because the checkup last week was to look into your recent memory loss and this other visit is for blood work. The same type of physical you have been doing for many years.
Who took me?
AJ took you.
Did I tell you about not remembering who he was that one time, I think that was at a doctor's office too.
Yes, I think you mentioned that (all hyperbole aside, perhaps sixty or seventy times in the two weeks I have been here).
I just don't see why I have to keep going to the doctor. You can't do anything about memory loss.
I know. But we wouldn't have to go again if you hadn't canceled yesterday's appt. We would have been done with doctor's visits for awhile.
Who canceled the appt., she said.
You did, I said.
I really don't remember that. But those darn people down there should have tried to fit me in. That really gets me boiling. We drove all the way there and then had to come right back.
Yes. It will go better on Friday.
Don't count on it, she said.
Note To The Youthful
Had a woman do an assessment here at the house yesterday to determine the needs of my mother for whom me and my siblings are trying to set up some in home assistance so she can stay in this home she has lived in for forty years (the last 12 by herself).
I had thought it was going to be an African woman with a slight accent but it turned out to be an American-Nordic woman with a somewhat forced sense of humor.
I think it went pretty well. After the woman left my mom slammed her fist down on the dining room table and said, "I do not want that woman in this house ever again!"
Note to the youthful: do not get old.
Who's Your Mama?
In my twenties I was once in Mexico for several weeks and I met a bunch of Europeans in Palenque and a Scandanavian or two and after awhile I was saying yah instead of yeah. The affected speech wore off after I came back to the USA and likewise I'm hoping that once I leave Dallas I won't be so tempted to use my cell phone indoors at public places. Today I was at the big Half Price Books on Northwest Highway and I carried on a pretty long very personal conversation in the stacks looking for a particular Vollman. The Vollman did not exist. I got a Vonnegut and a Gide just to buy something. My brother was suggesting I not tell my mom he was bringing an African woman with a slight accent into mom's home, tomorrow at 2 p.m. I've been telling her everything though. He said to use my judgement. I'm a shitty liar. I'm great at being reticent, or absolutely mute, but get me started and I just spew and spew and spew. I share with my siblings the desire to see a care-giver of some sort sharing this house with her on a part time basis. So I am not separating myself from my siblings on this. We have different methodologies, that's all.
Are ya'll ganging up on me?
Yes.
Who is?
All of us, all six.
Why?
Because you are losing parts of your memory and over time that could become dangerous for you.
Do you think my house is dirty?
No.
Then why do I need some old woman in here doing for me what I can do for myself?
So that before your memory gets really bad you can have some say in who the person is that helps you
But I don't need help.
Everybody needs help.
I'm 87 years old and I've lived a good life.
Yes, we want you to keep up the good work.
Are ya'll talking about me behind my back?
Yes.
When?
Every couple of weeks, by phone, on conference calls.
Why?
I think its because we love you.
It's demoralizing to be treated like a child when you've lived through two wars and done a lot of things that none of ya'll will ever do.
I can see how it would be.
They took my car away from me last year.
I know.
I only ever drove to the grocery store a block away.
I know, but the people on the roads around here are lunatics. Its gotten worse over the years. But if you want to drive your car around, I'll go with you right now.
They took the key.
I have one.
It doesn't run.
Just the battery, I can get it started. Come on, change out of your nightgown and I'll get it started for you right now.
No.
Ok.
They treat me like a child.
I wish they wouldn't.
Instead Of Cheerful
There is an undercurrent of resentment which in my opinion belies the outward show of cooperation between the group. Who resents whom or what and why is something inside a variable of seven.
There is a feeling among three, six, or none, that emotion should be contained until the business is effectively performed to a satisfactory end. There is in this no mention of product but there may be one.
One or all have thoughts about the questionable benefits of longevity.
Everywhere around there is larger tragedy to dwarf that of the individual but the individuals are connected with no dissent on the issue of self-involvement.
Some are suspicious of the emotional hoax and some are just waiting it out.
The product lacks patience and so do the buyers.
No thing remains.