yup

[Before proceeding, it might be useful to visit my new visuals page . . . "the view from here" which shall be a 1st person photo gallery of the many sights and experiences you too can enjoy for the low, low price of nothing.]

[Proceed]

Pertinent Information:

On Thursday night of last week, as I lay dying (I add this clause, not for its accuracy but for its being the title of my favorite Faulkner novel and even if it were not my favorite Faulkner novel, it would still be my favorite of his novels' titles . . . but this is not pertinent information unless I add that, accuracy notwithstanding, I felt like I was dying) on the guest bed where I had retired for the relative coolness of the room (fahrenheit-wise not George Clinton-wise), clutching a stuffed dog which in turn was clutching a stuffed heart with the word "HUGS" stitched into it, I asked the stuffed dog (because that seemed more sane than asking the four walls . . . at the time) how much longer it thought I might be, if not dying altogether, so far under the weather, upon which the stuffed animal supplied no reply. Let it be said to my credit that this came as no surprise. That a stuffed dog should speak is an absurd notion let alone that it should possess the level of sentience required to even compute the question.

So I asked the four walls. Did any of them know how much longer the chemo's nauseating effects would last? It had been 2 nights since my last dose, didn't they know? They did not know. At least, I gathered as much from their silence.

Being done with dumb objects, I simply told them instead, "I need to make note of how long it takes before the sickness wears down. For next time. So I'll know."

Then I pulled the dog into my chest and watched the four walls until sleep came. On Friday morning, I felt better. On Friday night, not so great but no longer dying in my imagination. On Saturday, I went to the zoo.

So a week. This time, at least. Probably next month it'll take little longer but it helps to have a ball park figure--a focal point for woozy eyes, an horizon for storm-battered bows.

Interesting Information:

Car ride from Mobile to Birmingham [fuel, slim jims, mountain dew]: $40.

Bus ride from Mobile to Birmingham [fare, paperback novel, pepper-spray] : $60.

Train ride from Mobile to Birmingham: No longer available.

Airplane ride from Mobile to Birmingham [ticket, fees, replacing disallowed carry-ons]: $500.

Ambulance ride from Mobile to Birmingham [fuel, IV fluids, tapering encouragement]: $3700

Factual Information:

Temodar might cause constipation.

Too Much Information:

Yup.

"the rainbow comes and goes"

January 18, 2012

When we were childes, we acted as childes. Primarily, selfishly. Secondarily and in cahoots with the primary behavior, impatiently. Today, I want to talk again and more fruitfully about impatience.

When we were childes, haste led to as much waste as it cared to and we cared not a rat’s patootie. Our anxiousness to reach a desired end—a selfish end as often, percentage-wise, as the purported efficacy of latex prophylactics and germ-killing hand sanitizers—resulted in what I like to think of as the opportunity cost of impatience, aka the ADHD effect.

Instances: a] “I can’t wait for. . . my birthday/ Christmas/ Disney vacation/ field trip to the zoo.” (We’re going to the zoo, today, yup, yup, yup [spoken in short-bus drawl] —Bill Cosby pre-PC humor.) b] “I wish my dad would hurry-up, get home, whup my ass for harassing mom all day, as for now all I can do is tremble with trepidation.” (Pre-PC ass-whuppins) c] “I can’t believe I have to sit through this history class before recess—I am so gonna triumph at ‘smear the queer’ today.” (Pre-PC recreational activities.)

In other words, if our eyes are always on the prize (half-hearted apologies to the Apostle Paul), then our obsessions obscure the meantime. And in the meantime, wondrous things are bound to happen. Crappy things too, but this life is a crap-shoot, anyway. (*tunefully* Ya take the good, ya take the bad, ya take them both and there ya have . . .) Old time is a-flying, flowers are dying*, unsmelled along the way*, O evil day! if I were sullen while Earth herself is adorning, this sweet May-morning*, etc, etc.

It’s the meantime, I’m aiming at here. We rarely aim at the meantime. We either look ahead to great fun or ahead to certain doom; but in between, we tend towards shoe-gazing instead of star-gazing. We let our minds be filled with workaday blather and post-work whiskey-soddenings, justifying our wastrel ways with slow-as-Christmas-sabbaticals on the distant horizon or locomotive-barreling-bankruptcy emerging from the tunnel not far ahead. Granted these are sumptuous and devastating events, respectively, but the meantime is a no less worthy prospect in either case.

We are still in a pre-apocalyptic, pre-nuclear fall-out age (quarter-hearted apologies to Pat Robertson) and so there’s always something poetic going on outside the window. And you needn’t be a poet to recognize these things. Keep this on the DL, but you needn’t be a poet to write about these things either. So there you go, that’s one super [*cough* nerdy *cough*] cool way to spend the meantime. And an abundance of others. I won’t make a list right now to fill up a meantime of my own. That would be cheating, I think.

Know this: I’m preaching to the choir. And I’m the choir. I sincerely hope that you are truly content and make decent use of your meantime. If you’re like me, maybe you have recognized this as one of our minor flaws. (Minor, because in a post-PC world, we are not allowed to be FUBAR, we merely have pharmaceutically tweak-able quirks.) I am the choir and here is my chorus:

*tunefully* Perennial childe, wherefore your haste/ why gulp the juice/ only to lose/ all but the yucky aftertaste?

Oh wait, beg pardon, I almost forgot to mention what got me thinking this way and why it belongs in this blog. This week, I am a shoe-gazer. What am I so anxious for, so revving to arrive? My next round of chemo. I only take it one week a month and the next three weeks are recovery time. But the first week was so pansy (post-PC flippancy), I’m itching to give it another go. Get the show on the road. Shit or get off the pot. (My Temodar pamphlet says this will become a problem, so I’m sure to regret that colloquialism ere long!)

Fortunately for me, there are windows on either side of my desk. I see some geese. I see a stream. I hear a winter birdsong.

January 19, 2012

In an attempt to reach the bathroom last night, minus cane or illumination, I fell flat on my belly. Said belly is thankfully protuberant enough to have caught my fall before my face became the true smashee. I reached for a wall which in fact was an open doorway and, lacking the balance and strength to right myself in that split-second of entropic equilibrium, I fell.

I am happy to report that the worst damage done was to my side [see visuals page], which caught my bedside table on its way to the floor, and my wife’s heart rate which certainly spiked as she jumped out of bed to see what new pathetic-ness I had gotten myself into.