This Ain't Nothin'

 

Crying is a guilty pleasure of mine. It's a rarified mood that I'm in, as it doesn't happen so much these days. Sure, I cry tears of self-pity, and my pain is mine. But occasionally, when the constellations and the stars align, I get a shot of empathy, mainlined into my cracked open heart. 

I've been broken, and that's OK with me. I sometimes wish the process was different, but what else would it be? I'm a hard nut to crack. I've been hit on the head, and it didn't slow my roll. What can I say, I'm a Taurus, you know, the bull.

I feel the pain of bugs I've killed, entire families, obliterated indiscriminately. I've also set a bunch of spiders free, gently re-homing them, so maybe, Karma, consider this, and please be kind to me.

Today, I'm somewhere in between a lazy Sunday, a guilt-free Saturday and the pressure of Monday to conform, somewhat, if only for appearance sake, to the norm. Everyday people struggle every day. Sometimes, I feel it's only me. That's why the stye, the vulgar blip on my eye. Something had to get my attention. Now that you have it, what is it you'd like from me?

----

I'll stop with the demi-rhymes and get to the straight dope. Nope. (I had to throw that last one in.) But seriously, folks...all jokes aside...

Today, I feel like I've been blended and processed, the rough edges sanded, nails pounded in, or pulled out all the way. Not sure which it is, but it feels a whole lot like being human. But a part of a bigger humanity kind of human. Like your suffering is my suffering, because I've been there, or somewhere like it. I don't even care about sentences, just sentiment, at this point. 

I got my eyelid injection on Wednesday. By Friday, the swelling had gone down considerably, and I could see (figuratively and literally) a way forward that didn't involve me looking like a Witchy Poo Elephant Man for the rest of my life. Maybe that's hyperbole, but that's also me. Big 'ol drama queen.

I went to Walmart, expecting to see my usual optometrist Dr. Tran, but she was off that day. A new guy named Than was there. Jeremy, I believe. I almost didn't get in because I was late to the appointment, having been delayed at my psychiatrist's office. 

I'd listened with fidgety interest to his psycho-medical ramblings which strayed into the territory of his own personal ideals, which fall even further on the hedonism scale than my own. Champagne, cocaine and strippers, to be precise. OK, Doc, you go. No judgement. But I did have an eye appointment to get to.

I sat in the Optometrist's office well into their lunch hour, and the receptionist warned me that I might not get in. I waited nonetheless, and I'm glad I did. It turns out that Dr. Tran was/is an intern at the Pearlman Eye Center in Woodland, where I had an appointment slated for Aug. 1. I was desperate to make that happen sooner, so I prevailed upon him to ask if he could get me in as soon as possible.

He made the phone call right then and there, and the next thing you know, I had an appointment for that day. I drove down there in record time and waited around in their air conditioned office, not the least bit nervous about the procedure that was about to take place. 

He examined my eyelid, and I could tell he was taking it seriously. His voice was monotone as he dictated to his transcriptionist, "7mm hordeolum, right upper eyelid."  

Better than my mom's reaction: "OH, MY GOD!" (Not helping, Mom.)

Anyway, I made it home, a little bleary-eyed, and some residual stinging from the 10 second long injection of .2 ml of some steroid or other. True to his prognostication, I had a shiner around the eye for a few days. It was a welcome cosmetic improvement, actually. It's clearing up now, four days later. 

The nodule has also reduced, and it doesn't appear as angry. It still has a hardness, which I suppose may never fully resolve. It is scar tissue at this point, but it is not the hideous growth that previously threatened to explode like the Alien did out of Sigourney Weaver. I was getting ready to have to name it or give it a baby shower. Now, I'm hoping we can just gradually drift apart amicably.

Saturday, I played the Dobbins Farmer's Market open mic with my neighbor. He is starting a side hustle called Mountain Mic or something of that nature. Open mic and karaoke for small local venues. I shared the stage with him on and off for 4 hours this week and a couple of Saturdays ago. I feel at ease talking to the mostly non-attentive sellers and customers. It's a positive atmosphere, and no one feels the need to heckle me. I do my own preemptive heckling anyway.

That's all for now. It's back to Sunday's remedial hedonism, which I had to postpone due to a prior engagement. The coffee was rather weak, however, and I'm going to go easy on the weed, or so I'm telling myself...

This Ain't Nothin'

Things that I should be figuring out, but can’t/or won’t.

 

 

Let’s see if this looks as petty when I put it on paper.

At 6 AM, I awoke after having slept a broken 4 1/2 hours. Immediately, of course, I went to the mirror with a sense of dread. I was going to look at my eye. From my recent experience, my internal prognostication was that it would look worse.

It wasn’t exactly worse, in fact, the color seemed to be a little less red, and the swelling, while not dramatically improved, was at least not worse.

I wiped a little gunk from the corner of my eye and left it alone. Let the antibiotic ointment do its job.

Determined to keep to my routine of exercising in the morning, I went on with my early-morning preliminaries: brush teeth, feed cats, open windows and get out before the sun gets too high up, and the temperatures soar. The heat wave is still in full swing, reaching 107° yesterday.

Things began to go awry quite quickly. While feeding Stevie, I accidentally filled the water bowl with food, requiring me to clean it. I have done this numerous times. It is an indication of just not paying enough attention to what I’m actually doing. 

As I was rinsing out the water bowl and dumping the water, I bumped my forehead on the corner of the eaves on the back deck. It was a substantial blow, leaving a small chunk of flesh on the rain gutter.   Cursing, crying and clutching my forehead, I went in the house and cleaned the small trickle of blood that was running down my forehead. 

The gouge wasn’t too bad. I’ve seen worse. My wife was never surprised when I bumped my head.

"With an enormous cranium like you have, I’m surprised you don’t bump into everything all day every day."

She was given to hyperbole and also enjoyed any chance to get a jab at me for my stubbornness and general inattention to things. Apparently, my inner critic wasn’t doing a good enough job, so she felt the need to assist.

Wondering if I should take a message from the two examples of my lack of mindfulness this morning, I contemplated changing my plans from riding my bike to simply walking. Certainly less risky, I imagined.

Fuck it, I thought, I can still make my early morning bike ride if I put a bandage on my forehead. I grabbed my earphones, and was just about to put them in when I heard the sound of a cat vomiting. On carpet. Of course.

It was Patsy this time. And she was barfing at the top of the stairs in the spot she usually inhabits during the daytime. She stays glued to this spot to ensure that I will not ignore her pleas for attention or food. It's a "pay troll" situation, and I'm OK with that for the most part.

Cursing and ranting, I began to clean up the mess. At least it wasn’t Eddie this time, or so I thought. 

As my friend Ronaldo used to say, "That was a thought wasted."

Eddie had her own pile of barf, thankfully on tile this time. Hers seemed more hairball related, although given her poor appetite and propensity for barfing, I was not given much comfort by this.

Patsy had managed to barf into a crevice, and it was wet food vomit, so it required more cleaning.

"I’m not mad at the cats. I’m not mad at the cats. I’m mad at myself," I repeated over and over. 

This non-dual philosophy of mine is really getting to be a thorn in my side. It pretty much obviates my ability to direct my rants towards any externally blamable source. I want to curse at the universe, but I am not something separate and apart from it. "Why am I doing this to myself?" is what I should be saying. The buck stops here. I am the buck. Fuck!

Just for shits and giggles, I decided to do a quick one-card tarot reading. I can vacillate between magical thinking and nihilism in a nanosecond.

The seven of pentacles, reversed. From the internet:

"Seven of Pentacles reversed can indicate that procrastination, laziness or aimlessness is preventing you from manifesting your goals. It can indicate a lack of self-reflection or not taking stock, lack of planning or aimlessness. 

"In a health context, if you have been experiencing health issues, the Seven of Pentacles reversed can indicate that these may be the result of poor health habits or behaviour in the past that you are now seeing the result of. If so, you need to start adjusting your lifestyle to correct this behaviour and aid your recovery. It can also be an indicator that you need to stop and evaluate how your lifestyle is impacting your long-term health and make any necessary changes before you reap what you sow."

By this time I had given up on the idea of a bike ride, but I was still determined to go for a walk. I can’t say that I learned one damn thing, as I am, at this very moment, walking and using a text editor, staring down at the screen, instead of paying attention to where my feet are going. 

Fortunately, the traffic seems to be light on Loma Rica Road, and most of the cars can apparently see my bright yellow safety attire. And by the grace of God, the universe or the person who decides where snakes are to be placed, I have not stepped on a rattler this morning. Yet.

----

Afternoon update: I am still nursing the mother of all styes. It's like an enormous, painful pimple on my eyelid, but it seems days away from popping. All I can do is keep it clean and use compresses, take the antibiotics and apply ointment, none of which seem to make any difference, except to irritate it. Ibuprofen is of marginal effectiveness against the pain.

I have an appointment with a specialist in Woodland in the beginning of August, but the amount of pain and misery I am going through at the moment makes that day seem like some far off mirage. Who knows what condition I (and eye) will be in by then. (See what I did there? A little reggae humor.)

I'm still here mofos!

 

This is the quote that broke me today

 

 

Please, don't worry so much. 

Because in the end, none of us 

Have very long 

On this Earth. 

 

Life is fleeting. 

And if you're ever distressed, 

Cast your eyes to the summer sky 

When the stars are strung across the velvety night. 

 

And when a shooting star streaks through the blackness, 

Turning night into day... 

Make a wish and think of me. 

Make your life spectacular.

 

— Robin Williams, as Jack (Jack 1996)

Underwear Party and Siri's NDE

Apparently, last night I was hosting an underwear party, although it didn’t appear that way at first. I just had two friends over, Suzanne Reed and Martin Leon, and we were in my apartment. Suzanne was making me laugh with her quirky offbeat humor, and Martin was there to assist me with some technical issue.

Pretty early on, I realized that Suzanne was only wearing a T-shirt and panties. This had become obvious because of her casual seating position on the furniture.

(I’m suddenly reminded of a camel stool that my mother had when I was about five or six. It was a wooden stool with four legs and a carved protrusion in the shape of a camel's head on one end.)

I’m not going to say that Suzanne was straddling a camel stool like a saddle; that would just be me conflating the memory at this point. She was, however, flung or slung or strewn like laundry, casually draped across the furniture, legs akimbo, with her hand in close proximity to her crotch, in a pose reminiscent of Pink in her early days.

It was only after a while that I looked down and noticed that neither Martin nor myself were wearing any pants. So an underwear party it was.

The house began to fill up with other young people, a lot of whom I did not know, and who appeared to just be hipsters looking for a place to party. I was not a big fan of their mumbly, hoodied vibe, but since I was enjoying Suzanne‘s company, I didn’t make a big deal of it.

"Do you know who you remind me of?" I asked Suzanne.

"No," she said, "who?"

"My friend, E____," I told her.

This was not on account of the saucy way in which she made use of the furniture, but because of her quick wit and readiness with a silly pun or metaphor.  Neither she nor Martin knew who E____was, so the reference was lost on them.

It began to dawn on my twisted little mind that perhaps Suzanne was in a rough patch with her husband, or perhaps their marriage had gone off the rails entirely, and she was here to have one of those liberating post-divorce experiences that one hears about. One could only hope.

Nothing actually transpired, but her off-brand, quirky sexuality was on full display. So although nothing untoward happened, my compass needle was definitely pointing toward untoward. (I have to work on the delivery of that one.)

I showed Martin to his sleeping area, where he and Suzanne were sitting on the bed talking. Well, he was talking. She was just kind of bouncing in her seat to some beat in her head. I had to check the comforter for cat barf before declaring it safe for human habitation.

I woke up at some point, as I typically do, and that was that.

----

It was shortly after 1:28 AM when I reached over to tap my iPhone’s screen, and I found it unresponsive. This had never happened before, but I assumed it had simply shut itself off, so I went to turn it back on with some fumbling around and pressing of side buttons.

It buzzed and beeped and sounded like it was in pain, emitting a screeching sound that I had never heard and hope to never hear again. It sounded like a robot getting kicked in the groin. At some point, the little flashlight illuminated briefly, and then all went silent.

I may or may not have interrupted it during an update, I don’t know, but I pressed so many buttons and frantically swiped and touched the screen in such a fashion that I could’ve accidentally called emergency services.

I resigned myself to the idea that I would have to at the very least take it into the Apple Store if not replace it altogether.


I did a little online research--because that’s what you do in the middle of the night when your iPhone dies and you have immediate withdrawal panic--and after a two minute YouTube video prescription did not fix it, I went back to bed.

I attempted to meditate or some such nonsense, but this was not going to work, and I abandoned the idea after a minute or two. Just as I was about to delve into all the possible failure scenarios in earnest, I looked down at the screen, and it was alive again. Some message about iOS and SOS emergency services notification popped up.

I didn’t have any answers as to what initiated unresponsive black screen, but at that point, I didn’t care. I navigated out of the settings menu and set the phone aside.

It took me a while to fall back asleep, but when I did, I was treated to the silly dream of Suzanne straddling furniture and an apartment full of hipsters.

Perhaps my friend Martin will try to claim credit for remotely repairing my phone, and I'm OK with that. I’m just glad I didn’t have to spoil his Fourth of July with another annoying tech question. I’m certain that he already regrets selling me the iPhone, as I have been one of those type of customers.

----

I’m out walking, and the sun is just now rising above the mountain of my demise. Yes, I’m still eyeing it, and the stye factory in my right eye is reinforcing ideations of my eventual ascent and self-termination upon its summit. I am keeping in shape with the walking, in part, so it won’t become an impossibility, although I don’t know if I can keep this up until I’m 89.

Working at the radio factory

I was working again, this time the scenery had changed. Instead of Yuba City Honda, it was kind of a mashup of Yuba City Honda, RECCO Furnaces and General Electric's radio division. The workplace dream set included only lunch tables and break room area. 

It was my first day, and I was just being shown around, so I’m not sure if I was actually hired there, or if this was only a tour. 

I was given a large, bulky transistor radio, AM only, and monophonic, although it had two speakers. Houa, an ex-coworker from Honda, was also present, and he commented on my acquisition.

“Nice, Glandpa,” he said. “Does it get shortwave?”

I was familiar with kind of radio of which he spoke, and this one did resemble one of those. I looked at the dial, the good old-fashioned string and red marker kind, and while the numbers did reflect a slightly larger band than normal AM radio, it was not quite shortwave or anything.

“No,” I said. “It appears to only have AM.”

I lugged around this 10 pound beast throughout the rest of the dream, never really thinking to turn it on. At some point, though, I did, and I was surprised when it came to life.

“Is it normal for batteries to be included with one of these?” I asked.

“No,” Bob Hansel informed me. “That is highly unusual, and it is not our policy.”

While  this dream is scant story or details, there was an overall vibe, and I’m still trying to place it.

I’ve had to change up my routine, and so I am dreaming more. I’m hoping to get back into the habit of recollecting where it is that I go during my nighttime excursions.