Gotta Change

My mother is home from the hospital.  I am staying with her.  I've just deleted the long post about that.  I'll save it for my therapist.  

It is godawful hot here in the sunny south.  All year the temperatures have been much above normal.  This is the new normal.  

You know, I'm going to quit writing about the horrible things in my life.  No kidding.  

But, having said that, I can think of nothing to say.  I need to work on a sunny disposition.  

Still, I feel like a man shrouded in more chain than he can swim with, and the water is deep.  

I'll go and work on that.  I'll look for a happy mantra.  

And I'll see if I can find some pictures of flowers and puppies or sunsets at the beach.  

My situation is dire.  Something has to change.  

The Vandals Took the Handle

O.K.  As I've stated many times, I don't care about the fantasy lives of the Epstein obsessed.  Epstein's dead and his girlfriend is in prison, but the desire for more, the lust to see the reported videos and photographs, the mania to know about the client list--but wait!  I just got interested.  Trump has done it again!  I'm back in Trump World.  

"Obama did it!  The Biden Crime Family!  They put my name in the files!"

Then he fires Comey's daughter who is one of the few people to ever see those files.  The Brohemes are going to have to make some tough choices.  

"Who do you want to live with. . . mommy or daddy?"

Some are already coming back to the pride.  Others are holding out. . . barely.  It is a brilliant Trumpian move, I think.  Most of those silly fuckers are going to believe anything.  

For me, the tell is that they, by and large, misuse the word "pedophile."

My conservative friend loves to repeat the meme, "Lolita Express."  He, of course, has never read the book.  Nor has he read any Nabokov at all.  

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. 

"What sort of filthy animal would write such a book?"

"A professor at Cornell University.  He was also a lepidopterist."

"I'll bet he was!"

Old Humbert Humbert goes from being a pedophile to something criminal.  It doesn't turn out well for anyone.  It is, by any account, an excruciatingly sad cautionary tale.  

Wonderfully written.  

You would read it with the same glee as you would "Crime and Punishment" which is, in many ways, more pleasant.  Redemption in each novel comes through confession. . . if redemption it can be called.  They are, by and large, each in their own way, a merging of the Old and New Testaments.  

Which is why people watch those religious shows on t.v., I imagine.  I've been fascinated myself.  Some old musician comes on and recounts the devilish life he lived in his youth--the sex, the drugs, the deceit--to a captivated crowd.  This goes on for a long while.  And then, the denouement. 

"In my darkest hour, when I was on the verge of ending it all--I discovered Jesus!"

"Hallelujah!"

 And the band begins to play!

Old vices, old remedies.  "But for the grace of God. . . ."

I'm pretty sure that if there is any cooking of the books, Trump's people will be putting Obama in those Epstein files.  Both of them.  You know Michelle is a man, right?  

There is some weird shit going on, though.  This one baffles me (link).  

Remember when Trump bombed Iran?  No?  Yea. . . that was along time ago in Trump time.  

* * *

Well. . . that was fun.  Nothing else is.  My mother is still in the hospital.  I am sick.  The carpenter is here with a $25/hr helper because he doesn't want to be around me in case I have "The Covid."  Who knows?  

"Everything is Covid now."

I have to meet the man from the plumbing company here at one so he can see where the new $4,000 (installation included) tankless water heater goes.  It's the best one, of course.  

I will call my mother in a moment to see if there is any talk of discharging her today.  There should be, I imagine.  Then I have a whole new set of challenges to face.  

I was going to take pictures, wasn't I?  I was going to buy a printer, I think.  When was that?  I want to get back to my fey imaginary life again.  Reality is breaking my bones.  

I have no idea what they are doing outside.  I know they have ripped out the rotten part of the fence between my house and the neighbor's. I think they have removed the hot water heater, too.  I won't have hot water in the kitchen for a long while now, but I have another that services the master bath.  

I'd better stick my head out and see what's up.  It is bound to be bad if history is to be trusted.  

"Don't worry, honey.  It will be alright.  One day soon, that old sun is gonna shine again and you will be glittering like gold.  You know I love you.  It's going to be alright."

Fumes

It has to be one of the largest hospitals in the nation.  It is many hospitals.  There is a Children's Hospital, a Cancer Institute, and other specialized buildings.  It has massive conference halls and teaching labs and a nursing school.  I guess you'd call it a "campus."  Walking from one of the many parking lots will take you awhile.  I only noticed a few days ago that there are air bridges connecting the parking garage to several buildings so one needn't walk in inclement weather.  The parking garages are many storied and quite often full.  For ten dollars, you can have a valet park your car.  Every walkway is full of people.

My mother had her surgery yesterday afternoon.  Late.  Her doctor was a gem.  I looked him up.  He is the head of neurology for the hospital and he teaches at the medical school for the university.  He has lectured and published in peer reviewed journals.  

He called me when the procedure was over to say that everything went well.  

I went to the room where they were holding my mother.  She was full of misery and complaints.  I stayed with her when they took her back to her room.  She had to lie flat for an hour.  She whined and bitched and complained.  Eventually, after six hours of hospital sitting, I left.  When I called her later to see how she was doing, she was complaining.  

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know.  I need somebody to talk to."

For fuck's sake, sure.  I could feel my blood pressure spike.  

"We all do," I said.  "You have just gotten used to doing nothing and having everybody take care of you."

I was blowing a gasket, I could tell.  I wasn't feeling well.  I've picked up something in these long days and hours in the hospital.  My throat is sore.  My nose is running.  I keep sneezing violently.  My house is falling apart around me.  I am sick of it all.  

I made dinner from whatever was in the house last night.  At some point, sitting up, I fell asleep on the couch.  I woke up as usual around eleven.  I cleaned the kitchen, took my nightly pills, and went to bed.  I woke in the night with terrible dreams and a bloated stomach.  It was 2:30.  I went to the bathroom and walked around the house.  I went back to bed.  I was dreaming but thinking about what I was dreaming.  Strange sounds kept waking me.  I felt like giving up.  What the fuck was I doing in life?  It wasn't living in the old sense of the word.  

When I woke, the sun was up.  It had been up for a long time.  My body was shot, heavy as lead, dull.  I knew I would be bringing my mother back to her home today.  I didn't have it in me, I thought.  I'll need to stay with her.  There was too much to do.  I wanted someone to take care of me for awhile.  Maybe longer.  

I have chills, but I know I must rally.  There is no help for it.  My responsibility.  My burden.  

My mother, I know, is not going to "get better."  There will be a series of things that doctors can "fix," but she will not get better.  Still, she may go on for a long, long time.  Needing care.  

Fuck, I feel like shit.  I just want to take pills and go into a coma for awhile.  

The phone rings.  I can't get to it in time.  It is the carpenter.  He leaves a message.  Vague.  He is not happy with his trip to the doctor.  He says something about starting the job here.  I should call him back, he says, but I haven't the strength right now.  I wonder if he is the man for the job.  

Rain.  Lots of rain.  Flooding on the Gulf Coast.  It is only mid-July.  I can't see out of the windows for the condensation.  It will be sticky from now on.  

Have you read about all the things you should do to stay healthy and age well?  It's a lot.  There is some, if not much, conflicting information, though.  

When people look at me now, I wonder what they see.  It is not comforting.  Once bright and shiny, I am just worn the fuck out.  I might as well simply move my mother into assisted living and go with her.  She'd like that, I know.  

O.K.  I'm just journaling.  I should delete all that, but I won't.  I want it on "the permanent record."  

"And if I die before I wake. . . "

This is not what I wanted to write about.  I wanted to write about my hospital observations.  A hospital is one of the better examples of a democratic hierarchy.  It encompasses and employs every "walk of life."  There is dignity in it, I believe, but a staggered, weighted one.  Being a cashier at the hospital cafeteria, I think, carries more grace than working the same job at a McDonalds.  It is much the same, of course, but there is an adjustment in protocol, too.  In the hallways, if you don't know, you have to guess what position the man or woman wearing scrubs has. . . .   Techs speak to nurses.  There are hierarchies in those ranks.  There are nurses, head nurses, ward leaders, nurse practitioners, and there is a deference one to another.  There are doctors, but there are hierarchies there as well.  The doctor overseeing the floor or wing is deferential to the specialist.  Watch the nurse's posture when he or she accompanies the doctor into the patient's room.  Watch the person cleaning the room step out quiet as a ghost.  One nurse kisses her husband goodbye when he drops her off before he goes to work at the auto shop.  She tells him she loves him.  Just then a doctor drives by in his new Ferrari.  The janitor steps off the city bus.  

It disturbs me in deep ways.  It is a matter of aspiration.  Choices are not equal, nor expectations.  

And yet, there is a dignity one assumes when stepping inside, a nobility of purpose, etc.  

I am not up to writing this, though.  That was awfully and terribly clumsy.  I just have the dreadful feeling that the nurse and the mechanic somehow are not going to make it.  Watching them there on the hospital steps was heartbreaking.  

I've got to go.  There are many people wanting things from me just now.  My gas tank is empty.  I'm running on fumes.  My mother, I'm sure, is waiting.  

Plant First Aerobic Me

I am feeling a little lighter today.  I think I was on the floor of the basement, so anything could be an improvement.  I may have been fighting off some illness, too.  I mean a physical one.  The mental crisis is another matter.  As a consequence, perhaps, there will be a lighter tone to the post as well.  Let's see.  

What's on my mind?  Hmm.  First off, I think the "vegetable first" diet has made a real difference in the way I feel.  I'm pretty sure it is changing my gut biome.  Last night it was a cabbage, carrot, potato, spinach, and poblano pepper medley.  Oh, and every night I've been adding a package of mixed mushrooms, too.  Mmmm.  

I had gone to Whole Foods because I can buy small portions of things there unlike the other chain grocers around me who package everything for anybody who is not single.  I asked the nice butcher lady for the smallest chicken fillet she had.  She found the right one.  That got chopped into pieces and cooked in a spicy wings sauce and sprinkled over the vegetable medley.  

Breakfast has been whole grain cereal high in fiber sprinkled with creatine and collagen powder.  

Did I tell you about my gut?  I'm not a vegan nor a vegetarian, but yea. . . vegetables, grains, legumes and nuts first.  What is THAT called?  

Back up.  I went to the hospital yesterday, of course.  Mom was sleeping.  Later, when a nurse came in, I asked where we were with the IR docs.  Nowhere was the general takeaway, but the nice woman (young, again), said she'd check.  My mother woke.  She was nauseous.  She wasn't eating much, and she still had not pooped.  They were still giving her Tramadol, morphine, and laxatives.  I watched the nurse put some liquid from a syringe into the I.V. port.  It was for nausea, she said.  

Later the nurse came back and told me there had been a glitch, that the IR people had never gotten the information about my mother.  I was shocked both that such a thing had happened and that the nurse would tell me so.  Naive honesty, I guess.  She said she had her supervisor put in another request.  

God love her. 

When the hospitalist came, I went through all this once more.  It seemed my mother would be going for surgery the next day.  

My mother said the coffee they gave her was horrible.  I made the half mile trek to the cafeteria in this massive hotel/hospital to get her some.  When she sipped it, she said that it was good.  

The afternoon rolled on.  My mother said that she was sleepy and that I didn't need to stay.  I said I'd come back later then.  

It had been a rainy day.  Earlier, some streets were flooding.  Now, however, the rain had dissipated.  I decided to go to the gym and do something for my creaking body.  I was stiff with sitting for days.  My back and knees and hips were howling.  I would stretch, do some body movement stuff akin to yoga, and I would trek uphill for a good long time.  No weights at all.  Just body movements.  

I felt life returning.  My heart was pumping.  I got a good sweat going.  Pretty women were looking, smiling. . . winking.  O.K.  Maybe not.  But I felt it could happen.  Indeed, after I had done my final stretches after miles of uphill trekking and even a little bit of old man stumbly running for many seconds at a time (😜), a gym pal stopped me for awhile.  She is a young Black woman who was a Division One NCAA sprinter for one of the largest universities in the country.  She is in grad school now and works as a sometimes trainer at the Club Y.  She also is working at the hospital in admissions, and the last time my mother was there, she insisted on coming up to meet her.  She is a real sweetheart, very polite, but she is a bit of a devil, too.  She had been training a fellow nearly my age who owns a couple of the biggest clubs in town, and rumor has it that he has put her up in an apartment and given her a car.  But he is no longer around, and this day she was waiting for a ride, so. . . .  Rumors.  

While we were talking smack, a little Black girl in a bathing suit, with some weird pink bathing cap, came walking by with an older White man.  My friend lit up and said hello to the little girl.  I watched the sweet pleasure on the little girl's face as they talked.  The White man just stood and watched saying nothing.  Then my friend asked the little girl, "Do you remember me?" and the little girl shook her head no. Oh!!!  I couldn't help myself, and I blurted out, "Stranger Danger!"  My friend began to explain to the older White man that she had talked to the little girl before when she was with her grandmother.  

"This is my grandfather," the little girls said.  The little girl was still looking with a sweet admiration at my friend.  

When they were gone, my friend said, "That was awkward."

"You'd better wear your Y employee pin if you are going to talk to kids," I said.  "I was going to explain that you worked at the Y, but Stranger Danger came out instead.  The old White guy was looking like we were a couple of creeps, some hippie Jewboy and his bBack accomplice."

"Yea," she laughed.  "Are you Jewish?"

"I'm not a Jew, but I think I am 'ish.'"

She walked me outside and we stood again to chat.  A little Black boy walked by with an older White couple.  Again, my friend said hi.  This time, they knew her.  When they were gone, I said, "What the fuck?  Do you just say hello to every Black kid accompanied by White people?"

"I know, right?"

"What do they do, steal those kids?  WTF?  What would you say to a Black couple with a White kid?  Do you ever see that?"

"No," she laughed wide-eyed.

"Yea. . . you know what I'm saying.  The White couple was taking the Black kid to the basketball court.  That be some White racist shit," I chuckled.  "You Black, son.  You gonna play hoops!  I'm sure they stole him."

"You're crazy.  The kid's a tennis prodigy."

"Really. That's some White shit, too."

I know, I know.  I just like fucking around and pushing some buttons.  

"I've gotta go," I said.  "I need to get to Whole Foods, cook dinner, and get back to the hospital.  Love you babe."

"Love you, too." 

I hadn't gotten to fuck around like that for days.  I was aerobicized, stretched, and feeling good.  The sun had begun to shine.  

Inside Whole Foods, I was looking at the packages of mushrooms.  The prices were outrageous.  I picked up one pack, put it back, then picked up another.  "Chef's Choice."  As I walked away, a woman I had seen somewhere before, maybe the Club Y, approached me.  She was maybe in her early fifties.  She'd had plenty of work done.  Her lips were full of collagen.  You couldn't not see them.  When she spoke, she had a heavy accent.  Eastern Europe.  She held out a package of Maitaki mushrooms to me.  

"You picked this package up and put it back.  Why?

Holy shit--what?  I was certain she was about to make a ruckus.  I looked at the package she held in her hand and knew I had not touched it.  I pulled the package I had chosen out of my cart. 

"I got these."  

"Why?  Are these better?"

My eyes did a little dance as I thought what to say. 

"I don't know if they are better.  The Maitaki mushrooms are really good for boosting your immune system."

Holy shit, really?  I sounded like some health store geek.  

"These are a mix of a lot of mushrooms."

She was watching me closely.  She hesitated then said, "Oh. . . I see.  Thank you." 

"Sure," I said wondering what that was all about.  I'm pretty certain, though, that I will see her again somewhere.  

I wandered about the store picking up a few unnecessary things before checking out.  On my way to the car, a woman pulled up beside me and slowed to my walking pace.  She was young, had dark skin, wavy black hair, and what seemed to me to be a Polynesian face.  

"I like your hair," she said smiling.  Stunned, I simply said, "Thanks!"  She slowly pulled away, me thinking I should have said more.  But no.  That would have been dumb.  

"It's the plant first diet and the aerobics," I laughed.  "I'm getting pretty again."  

I am thinking about giving up the weight room workouts, though.  It really is doing more damage than good now.  There are so many other ways to exercise that are better for me.  Yea.  Hippie workouts.  Vegetables.  Mushrooms.  

I didn't go back to the hospital.  Eschewing water, I concocted a Negroni and called instead.  My mother said she thought she was scheduled for surgery in the afternoon.  The cardiologist had come in once again and checked her over and said she was good to go.  

"O.K. mom. . . I'll see you in the morning.  Love you."

Now. . . for a little something fun.  It is a good representation of what I see in my mind's eye when I think of a bar scene--some psychotic man getting your mother onto the dance floor to the beat of a keyboard and backing track played by some wannabe dj.  Enjoy.  

Endure

I spent all afternoon watching my mother sleep.  She was nauseous and in pan.  She is, as is so often the case, constipated.  No doctor came until mid-afternoon.  Not the specialist, but the "Hospitalist," as they are called.  She was Indian and spoke softly.  My mother had no idea who she was speaking to or what the woman was saying.  Even when she does understand, at the best of times, it is nearly impossible to get the response you are seeking from my mother. That is the hillbilly way--be suspicious of anyone asking questions.  There is not and was not a lot of gentle courteousness in her responses.  She fairly barked.  In her mind, the hospital has done this to her.  They are making her feel bad.  

"What is your pain level now?" asked the doc.  

I know my mother neither heard her nor understood her.  She said something in response, but it had nothing to do with the question.  I looked at the doc and pointed to my ears shaking my head.  

"Can you ask her?" the doc queried. 

So, in my shouting voice, I asked, "Mom. . . on a scale of one to ten, how much pain are you in."

"Ten."

I knew this was bullshit.  She was out of it because of the morphine.  

"Really?  So right now you are in the worst pain you have ever been in?  You have never felt pain like this before?"

"Five," she said.  The doc and the nurse gave me a smile of appreciation. 

"If I stay in this position, it is a five.  But if I try to get up, it's a ten."

The rest of the questions the doctor asked were directed to me.  My mother's blood pressure had spiked.  They were taking it again.  Now it was low.  

"Her blood pressure varies like this.  It goes high and then goes low.  The cardiologist took her off her BP meds."

"Pain can make it go up," said the doc.

"And anxiety," I added.  "Her BP always goes up when she goes to the doctor."

"We've given her something to lower her potassium levels, so that may be having an effect.  We'll keep monitoring it."

There was more medical talk.  Then the doctor left.  The nurse stayed for a minute talking to my mother who was now sitting up on the edge of the bed.  She looked like a street corner junkie.  There was a walker in front of her.  

"Do you need to go to the restroom?"

"No."

When the nurse left, my mother raised herself to a standing position on the walker and began to shuffle.  I just watched.  She came around the bed toward me.  

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere.  What am I doing in the hospital?  Are they just going to give me medicine that makes me sick?"

"Well. . . here's the deal.  You came to the hospital because you were in pain.  You asked for pain meds and they gave them to you.  When you tell them you are in pain, they are going to try to relieve it.  If you can suffer the pain, then don't ask for the meds.  That's just the way it works."

But I was on her side.  Three days now, and all they did was dope her up.  My mother turned the walker and went to the open door.  She stood there for a minute, then turned the corner.  I let her go.  Sometimes the mean-ass hillbilly shit just wears a person down.  Maybe it is genetic.  Mom's whole family are the same way.  A large part of it, I think, comes from a lack of education, of not understanding the world.  They know many practical things, but outside that, the world is a mystery.  In my mind, I could hear my mother's sister, who was REALLY mean, yelling at doctors and nurses: 

"You all are trying to kill me!  I need something for pain that doesn't make me SICK!  I've about had it with all of you!"

I grew up with it.   

In a bit, my mother came back.  The nurse was with her.  She got my mother seated on the bed, then she handed her a pill in a little paper cup.  

"What's this?"

"It's a muscle relaxer."

The nurse started to open a bottle of water.  

"I don't want that.  I want my water in a cup."

After she had taken the pill and the nurse asked if there was anything else she could do, she left and my mother lay back down.  I watched her sleep for the next hour.  

I was feeling bad, tired and achey.  I feared I was coming down with something.  I'd been stressed for so long, it was entirely possible.  I leaned back and closed my eyes.  I opened them when there was a light knock on the door.  It was the "Hospitalist," the nurse, and a couple of men, one obviously the lead as indicated by everyone else's posture.  He may have introduced himself, but I don't remember that.  He told me the same things I'd heard over and over since my mother was admitted three days ago.  

"Are you the one who is doing the procedure?" I asked.  

"No.  That is the interventional radiologist."

"We've not seen one yet."

"It is Monday.  Monday's are usually very busy."

"Yes, apparently.  My mother has been here since seven o'clock Saturday morning.  That is when she was admitted to the E.R.  When do you think they will come?"

He had, as I might have expected, climbed onto the pillar of authority from where others don't understand the way an organization like a hospital works, how things must be prioritized, etc.  I know this from years of dealing with problems complaints at the factory.  People want things done in ways that are not possible due to factory conditions.  Everyone wants what they want right now.  I knew when I asked my question these things, but I asked in my most clear, unemotional, and professional voice.  It was the voice, I hoped, of an interviewing attorney.  

"They may come after five.  They may not.  They may just call."

He was done answering questions.  I looked blankly at the scene, everyone huddled up behind him as if he were a silverback.  The Hospitalist looked at me with nervous eyes, smiling weakly and nodding.  Yea, yea, yea. . . this was all I was going to get.  He had no time to spend here.  Nothing we said was going to change what happened, what was going to happen.  I kept my poker face as he turned, giving nothing away.  I just wanted him to know he was an easy read full of "tells."  I had read him.  He had a full house and felt pretty confident, but he didn't know what I had and it rattled him a bit.  There was only the slightest trace of a "fuck you" in my Mona Lisa grin.  

My mother had barely moved.  

"Who was that?"

"Just another asshole.  He's a doc, but not the doc who we need to see."

I was wondering now if the Hospitalist wasn't an M.D.  I was wondering if she was only a Physician's Assistant.  So I Googled it.  

Yes, Physician Assistants (PAs) can and do work as hospitalists. While the term "hospitalist" is often associated with physicians, it also encompasses nurse practitioners and PAs who specialize in the care of hospitalized patients.PAs are increasingly being utilized in hospitalist roles to address the growing demand for hospital-based care and to help fill the physician shortage.

Fucking hell--I KNEW it!  We'd just been visited by Dr. Giveafuck Asshole and his cadre.   

My mother slept.  I stood and began to gather my things.  

"Mom. . . I'm going to go.  I've been sitting here watching you sleep for hours.  The rain clouds are rolling in."

"Oh."

"I can stay if you want me to."

"Sure, I want you to stay."

I sat back down, resigned.  Then, 

"You can go if you need to go.  It's not fair."

"I still need to go to the grocers to get stuff to make my dinner.  I can come back."

"Alright. You go do what you need to do."

I walked over and gently squeezed her hand. Her eyes were somewhere else.  

"Love you."

I'd spent the afternoon watching her sleep.  But at least I'd seen her nurses and doctors and they knew she had an advocate.  Without that. . . . 

I bought vegetables, milk, and a bottle of wine.  When I got home, I put away the perishables and made a Negroni.  I went to the deck.  Dark clouds were rolling by.  The wind was rushing in gusts.  The air was milder now.  I sat and sipped slowly.  Nobody walked by.  Toward the end of my drink, the rain began to spit.  I rose, turned and retreated to finish my Negroni inside.  I turned YouTube to music.  I needed some nice surprises.  

And when the drink was done, I got ready to chop vegetables.  Tonight would be much a repeat of the night before.  My gut had felt so good after that meal, and it felt good in the morning.  I started gathering my ingredients.  

Shit piss fuck goddamn!  I thought I had broccoli.  And I had forgotten many, many times to buy more Teriyaki sauce.  I made another half Negroni and thought.  Ah, fuck it.  I got my keys and headed to the car.  

Back home, I was ready now.  I chopped a little of the broccoli head into halved florets.  One chopped carrot.  Half a sliced potato.  A container of mixed mushrooms.  Garlic.  I heated the olive oil and dropped it all in with the sliced tofu.  Salt, pepper, red pepper.  I let it cook fast for five minutes, then opened the lid and stirred.  I added half a bag of baby spinach.  It wilted quickly.  Flipping, stirring, I cut the heat and put the lid back on.  In another minute, I spooned out a mouthful to test.  Oh. . . yea.  It all went into a big bowl.  I poured a quarter bottle of chardonnay.  I turned on the t.v.  

How in the fuck has it only been six months?  Fucking Trump has made us all ill.  He is a psychological infection.  But something else is wrong with the culture.  Epstein.  Really?  WTF?  Trump tells people it is stupid to be obsessed with Epstein.  Nobody cares.  We have more pressing issues.  We need to move on.  

"The problem is the Biden administration and that autopen!"

Yea, baby. . . moving on into the future. . . uh. . . past.  Attaboy!

"But what about the children?"

Uh. . . what's the cutoff age for "children"?  Sure, Epstein and his crowd were screwing sleazy teens who liked the money. . . until it was gone.  Admit it, you fuckers.  Admit why you are obsessed with this shit.  It's the same reason you are obsessed with billionaires.  

"Oh I wish that I could be Richard Corey."

If there was a client list, Trump was surely on it.  Surprised?  I sure as hell wouldn't be. . . nor do I care.  I don't think your obsession for all of this comes from your devotion to the lord and savior.  I think you are just a bunch of repressed Victorian deviants.  

And I can prove it.  Let's do a little experiment (link).  It's just science.  There have been studies.  We'll see how you do.  If you are anything like the 1,000 men in this test. . . .  But, I'm not here to blow your cover.  

"Me thinks the gentleman doth protest too much."

Whatever.  It took me about ten minutes of "news" highlights to be sick of it.  I went back to music.  Oh, sweet music.  

Sometimes I wonder about the workings of the universe and why there are so many coincidences.  Travis keeps track of them in his own life.  When you pay attention to them, there are possibly many.  

YouTube started giving me hillbilly music.  That is not really surprising because I often listen to it, but this came on the heels of some French musicians I had been watching.  

Meal finished, I let the music play as I cleaned up the kitchen.  The dinner had been good.  Better than good.  I am giving up eating meat so much.  These vegetable tofu medleys are wonderful.  

An after dinner drink.  I called my mother.  

"How are you doing?"

"The doctor was here."

"Really.  Are they going to do the surgery?"

"I don't know.  It was a cardiologist.  He cleared me, said I was o.k. to have surgery."

"Oh.  But you haven't seen the surgeon yet?"

"No, not yet." 

Isn't that the shit.  

"Did you get dinner?"

"Yes."

"What did you have?"

"Soup and salad.  The soup was good but the salad wasn't all that."

"You sound awake now.  You were out of it all afternoon."

"Yes, I'm awake now.  They will give me something to help me sleep in a little while, I'm sure."

A bit more chat and I told her I'd see her tomorrow.  

Ola Belle Reed came on.  Sure.  If you don't know her, look her up.  She is a true American hero and very representative of a kind of woman, strong and independent, that runs deep in the hillbilly tradition.  

When. . . no, I know you. . . if you listen to this and you don't hear that little thief Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," your are either deaf or dumb.  Listen to a lot of Reed, and you will find more Dylan there.  She was a major unspoken influence on his folk years, I think.  

Ola Belle Reed was born Ola Wave Campbell on August 17, 1916, in Lansing, North Carolina. She was one of thirteen children born to Arthur Harrison Campbell and Ella May Osborne Campbell. The Campbell family ancestors had moved to the New River Valley of Western North Carolina sometime around the 1760's. Arthur Harrison was an educated man who spent his life as a schoolteacher. He also owned a general store and was a dedicated farmer during summer months on his farm in the New River Valley. The Great Depression brought a huge economic burden on the large Campbell family, and they followed many Appalachian mountain people to Northeastern Maryland, where there was fertile farmland and it seemed easier to secure jobs. Music was an integral part of the cultural heritage on both sides of Ola Belle's family. Her grandfather Alexander Bolivar Campbell was an early Primitive Baptist preacher and an accomplished fiddle player. Her father played fiddle, banjo, guitar, and organ and formed a string band, The New River Boys and Girls with his brother Oliver Dockery, known as "Doc" and sister Ellen in 1910. An uncle, on her mother's side, Herb Osborne, sang mining songs made popular in the coalfields of West Virginia. Her grandmother and mother sang ballads and topical songs in the traditional Appalachian style...Ola Belle's autobiographical song "I've Endured" perhaps best sums up her personal tenacity: "I've worked for the rich, I've lived with the poor; Lord, I've seen many a heartache, there'll be many more; I've lived, loved and sorrowed, been to success's door; I've endured, I've endured. - Thomas Polis

I fell asleep on the couch to this thinking of my mother's tenacity, probably somewhere around nine.  When I woke, it was after eleven.   

I must get back to the hospital now.  I do think I am sick, though.  I have a small sore spot in my throat.  I am lethargic.  I'm not as tough as my mother.  

"How long can one man endure?"

Tattered, Frayed, and Worn

What day is it?  Oh. . . Monday?  I've been confused lately.  When did my mother go to the hospital?  How many days has she been there now?  

I'll guarantee you my mother doesn't know, either.  

Sobeit.  

I was there most of the day again.  Yesterday.  By nightfall, I was pooped.  I planned on going back, but I couldn't rally.  There was no point in my going but comfort.  Still. . . . 

My mother's neighbors came to see her.  Three women.  A forth came, but she was from" the church" and not a neighbor.  My mother had called for pain meds before they arrived.  She was to receive Tramadol, but when she heard that she got angry.  

"I can't take Tramadol.  It makes me sick."

"That is not on your chart.  I will have to contact the doctor to get that changed."

"I need something.  I'm in pain."

Then the girls came.  And then the nurse.  She had a syringe that hooked into one of the IV ports.  

"What's that?" one of the women asked.

"Morphine."

In a bit, my mother was loopy and talking all kinds of crazy shit.  At times that afternoon, everybody was talking at once.  

"Old people should have all the drugs they want," I said.  "Especially once you are as old as my mother."

Everyone in the room agreed.  

But things were weighing on me.  I had talked to my mother again about having the woman who could take care of her move in.  Again, "No.  I don't want somebody living with me."  I knew she meant no one but me.  I needed to call the woman and talk to her, but I couldn't manage to do it.  "Later," I would whisper to myself.  "Tonight."

I was worried about something else, too.  I was to begin work with the carpenter in the morning.  I wasn't sure what was happening with my mother, yet, but I knew I'd have to juggle.  

My phone rang.  It was the carpenter.  

"I'm not going to be able to come tomorrow," he said.  He was just coming off recovery from his TURP operation.  He felt fine.  Then, on Friday, he couldn't pee.  "When I talked to you on Wednesday, I was feeling good.  Maybe I was too cocky.  Maybe I cursed myself.  I don't know.  I'm sorry. . .."

I stopped him.  I told him not to worry about the house right now.  We talked for a long time.  It was obvious he felt better talking it out.  He might go to the E.R. he said, or if he could, he'd wait until Monday and go to his doctor.  I asked him to keep me informed.  

Curses are now blessings, it seems, and vice versa.  I wouldn't have to juggle my time now with my mother.  But again. . . no repairs.  It was like a scene from some old movie where they tie a man's arms to two horses going in opposite directions or in that old Tarzan movie where they did the same thing with bent trees.  Brutal. 

When I went back into the room, the girls were still raucous.  I sat quiet, thinking.  

The doctor came in.  He remembered all the women from my mother's last stay at the other hospital.  He seemed hesitant to talk with so many people around.  He paused, then said that the MRI showed that the L4 vertebra was indeed fractured.  It had a loss of around 40% of its height.  On Monday, she would see the specialists who would decide whether or not to do the kyphoplasty.  He turned to me and said, "The blood test showed an elevation in her potassium levels."  He paused.  "I am giving her some medicine for that."

I know someone who is struggling with high potassium levels.  It is a kidney problem, and so I was worried.  

With that, he left.  

All the women heard that my mother's potassium levels were low.  That is what people are used to hearing.  Nope, I said, high.  The ratio between sodium and potassium in the blood can affect blood pressure, and so, I proffered, that might explain why my mother's blood pressure varies so wildly.  

"I'm not a doctor, though. . . ."

One of the women with whom I have a mutual chemical distaste said, "Google Doctor."

Yes, I said, we've all become that.  

They had stayed a long time and my mother's mania was wearing off, so they gathered up their bags and told my mother goodbye.  

"We'll come back to see you," they said.

I helped my mother rearrange  things so she could lie down in the bed.  With an IV in her arm and a monitor attached by multiple wires to her torso, getting there was an ordeal.  When she curled up and closed her eyes, I said I'd come back later.  

"That was fun," she said.  

Sure, I thought.  Fun.  

When I left the hospital, the sun was brutally shining.  The late afternoon was a pressure cooker of steam heat.  I'd thought I might exercise, but no, I didn't feel like it now.  I'd been sitting for two days.  What I wanted was. . .. 

I stopped at the store and got what Ili used to call Mimosa juice.  I was doing this rather than going to the cafe for one.  I couldn't handle that right now.  

Unexpectedly, the mimosa put me on my ass.  I slumped down into the couch and closed my eyes.  I was shot.  

In a little while, I got up poured another drink, and went to the computer.  I Googled TURP and read that there were some newer, less invasive techniques that were as or more effective.  I copied this and sent it to the carpenter.  

"FYI," I said. 

In a bit, he wrote back: 

"That is interesting. Thanks I will see what they say tomorrow and let you know I just I pissed something that resembles a snail. So that could be good or bad. Just clueless.   

Thanks again for looking into that for me!!"

Holy shit!  WTF?  

Sickness, illness, and disease were all around me.  I felt I was living in the Kingdom of Doom.  

I needed to eat.  I'd planned on using leftovers.  But I didn't know if I had the energy even for that.  I pulled out the enameled Dutch oven.  Olive oil.  I cut broccoli florets and halved them.  Chopped garlic.  I set the broccoli in the hot olive oil for one minute, then I poured in some garbanzo beans and chopped tofu.  Soy sauce.  Five minutes.  Then I added the garlic.  A couple minutes  more and I spooned in leftover brown rice and lentils.  I cut the heat and put on the lid.  When I put the concoction into the deep bowl, I realized I'd made more than I could eat.  I poured a glass of wine.  I turned on t.v.  I watched a video on what Carl Jung had to say about why intelligent people detach themselves from others.  Oh, hell. . . it was flattering.  Too much so.  There were the thinkers, and there were the sheep.  The whole thing was too skewed.  The word "intelligent" should have been swapped out for something like "cognitive."  It really wasn't a matter of brilliance but more a matter of what one needs to think and what one chooses to think about.  That was, at least, how I brought myself down from the pedestal on which I thought I was being placed.  It was a Herculean task, though, for I DO think I am more. . . something. . . than those who need to be part of a crowd.  If you are interested, here's the link, but don't think I am recommending you watch it (link). . . you sheep 😂.   

Oh, if you do watch, you'll recognize the A.I. generated voice.  It is not smart A.I.  It doesn't know how to correctly pronounce Jung.  However. . . . 

After eating, I knew I couldn't get back in the car and go to the hospital to sit for a couple hours.  I called my mom.  

"How are you doing."

"I'm o.k.  I'm bored."

"Well, yea. . . the party's over."

I know what my mother wants in life now--to have people wait on her and entertain her.  That is what she has gotten used to, and when that is not happening, she doesn't feel good.  And she whines.  I understand.  

"Mom, I'm wiped out.  I don't think I can come back up tonight."

"Oh, I didn't think you were."

"I had planned to, but I just can't make myself do it."

I poured a scotch and turned the television on.  I thought about the other thing I had bought at the grocery store.  They would only take ten or fifteen minutes.  I got the package and pinched off a few rows of dough and put the rest back into the refrigerator.  

I know, but I needed some emotional comfort.  It is the second time I have made them in my life (but the second time in a month, too).  

I let YouTube tell me what to watch.  I've been told this is an old man thing.  Probably.  What do I know anymore.  Just one thing.  Cookies and whiskey and music were my knockout drops.  My night was over and nothing was solved.  All my problems would still be there in the morning.  

Funny thing--sunset was a blazing red.  So was sunrise.  

"Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.  Red sky at night, sailor's delight."

That's just the kind of clarity my life has right now.  

But there is this.  

Though it is not technically perfect, I like it.  More, perhaps.  It is cafe/cabaret music.  They drift off the metronome at times, but there is an energy in it that ameliorates the mistakes.  

Satie wrote some of the most beautiful music, but he was a cafe performer, too.  Again, some people would find much fault in this rendition, but I think Satie would probably approve.  Picasso et. al. surely enjoyed something like this at Le Chat Noir cabaret.  

 I'd like to meet you thee.  

Bed of Roses

I think I'm exhausted.  I must be.  But why?  How?  All I have done for the last 24 hours is sit, albeit in uncomfortable chairs.  A room away sits my journal.  In that journal is yesterday's writings about what I experienced in the hospital.  All I need do is get up, walk a few yards, pull it from the commuter bag, and read it.  That is all.  But I'm too wiped out to do it.  Fatigued.  Done for.  

And the day has yet to begin.  

"Oh, man. . . you sure do whine, piss, bitch, and moan about things, don't you?"

Yup.  

The world outside is turning a pre-dawn grey.  It is beginning again.  

Here's the non-researched tale.  At some point, I'll surely retrieve the journal and feel the need to re-write.  But in my fagged and detestable brain, I can only tell the tale now as I remember it, probably chronologically.  Chronology, of course, is something postmodern critics detested.  Postmodern writers, in an effort to "make it new" (or perhaps only to please the critics), tried for chronological disorder.  I find most of it unreadable.  

In the morning, as I entered the E.R., I was met by hospital security.  I had to show my driver's license and have my photo taken and pasted to my chest to enter.  

The picture was not at all flattering.  

I was directed down a hallway and told to make a left at the third intersection.  Room 44.  I walked past open doors of misery, men and women, mostly old, lying atop ambulance gurneys, attached to machines keeping track of their vitals, some yelling out in pain, others simply for nurses.  On the weekend, the hospital seems severely understaffed, at least in my experience.  I've had a lot of that of late.  

I found room 44.  The door was closed.  Timidly, uncertain, I slid the door open a bit to peak in.  A nurse with her back to the door turned around.  Beyond her was my mother.  The nurse was a young Black woman, pretty and polite.  She was asking my mother questions about her medical history.  

"She can't hear very well," I said.  "Do you want me to translate for you?"

"Are you her son?"

At least she didn't ask me if I was her boyfriend.

"Yes."

As the nurse asked the mandatory questions, my mother stared wide-eyed through pupils made opaque by cataracts, mouth agape, head swiveling from nurse to son as the questions were asked and answered.  When she could hear, or imagined she could, she would nod her head in agreement.  

"Has she been given anything for pain?" I asked when the query was done.  She named a drug I didn't know.  A drip line ran from a bag above my mother's head to her arm.  

"She's on a Tylenol drip now," the nurse said.  

Just then, the machine monitoring my mother's pulse, blood pressure, O2 levels, etc. began to beep.  I've sat in rooms with beeping machines losing my mind for too long too many times now, so I asked, "Which of the buttons do I push to stop that."

To my surprise, she pointed to the left-most, yellow button.  She was a practical person, I decided.  I liked her.  

When the nurse left the room, she slid the big door closed.  I sat down in one of the two chairs beside my mother.  

"How are you doing?"

She just shook her head.  "I need my head raised," she said.  She was on the transport gurney they had brought her in on from the ambulance.  "In on from?"  I can't seem to structure that sentence with my muddled morning mind, but I know you do not want to use three prepositions in a row.  

On which they had transported her from ambulance to room.  

Something like that.  

To wit: there were no controls.  It was all manual, and I didn't know how to move it.  

"I'll have to get the nurse," I said.  

I opened the door and stood halfway into the corridor.  The nurse was attending to the man in the room next to my mother's.  I stood without saying anything.  When she was done, she asked, "Do you need anything?"

"Yes. . . my mother wants her head raised, but I don't know how to adjust the gurney."

She came into the room and showed me how, then she adjusted the bed to my mother's liking.  Again, that she would show me how to do this. . . I felt like I was getting on the job training.  Yes, I liked this nurse a lot.  

When she left, the machine monitoring my mother began to beep.  Tenuously, I pushed the yellow button.  The beeping ceased.  Bingo!  

I went back to the chair beside my mother.  I was sitting next to the open bathroom door.  This was an emergency room room with a bathroom.  Yea. . . I know. . . "room, room, bathroom."  I'm just not clicking right now.  

As I sat, I kept getting faint whiffs of shit.  Just slightly.  I closed the bathroom door.  The machine began to beep again.  I got up and pressed the yellow button.  I sat back down.  The faint odor continued.  

I tried talking to my mother, but she just shook her head no.  I had to yell for her to hear.  And so, by and large, we fell into silence.  She would look toward the door then turn her face to me and stare.  It was unnerving.  She would turn her head back to the door, then back to me again.  I'd look at her and she would just shake her head.  The machine began to beep.  I got up and hit the yellow button.  I was tired of being stared at.  I slid the door to the corridor open and stood there for a bit.  One of the nurses asked me if I needed anything.  "No," I said.  "Thank you."  In the hallway was another man, perhaps my age, perhaps a bit younger.  I spied the paper badge like mine on his oversized t-shirt.  His shorts were long and baggy.  

"It is like a uniform for the retired working class aged," I thought.  "It defines us.  We all look the same."

I went back inside and sat and watched my mother.  Her hands were never still.  She kept playing with the gadget on her finger measuring her temperature.  The machine began to beep.  

"You need to quit fidgeting with the finger thing," I said as I got up to push the yellow button.  

"Oh," she said.  

I sat back down.  

"Are you farting?"  

"No."

"I think you must be and don't know it.  The room smells like shit."

"I am not!"

Hours passed.  The nurse came in.  

"Can my mother have anything to eat or drink?"

She looked at my mother's chart on the big computer she had rolled in on a cart.  I watched her click through the menus.

"No.  We're just waiting for the CT scan and bloodwork to come back.  I'm not sure. . . I can give her some ice chips."

I bobbed my head and asked her how to get to the cafeteria.  It was nearing one.  

The walk was long.  My hips, back, and knees hurt.  Up the stairs, down the hall, corridor after corridor, then into the grand lobby like an upscale hotel or museum, past all the incoming visitors, into another corridor, then, finally, one more left.  The cafeteria was enormous.  This was nothing like the other, smaller hospital.  It seemed lunchtime for doctors, nurses, and staff who walked around the room from food station to food station--a deli making sandwiches, a fresh pizza stall, a hot lunch bar serving fajitas and other Mexican fare. . . a sushi bar.  A sushi bar?!

A sushi chef was arranging and refilling the bins.  There was a big salad bar and another cooler with prepared foods.  Just before the rows of cashiers there was the desert and coffee station.  

I looked around for the beer cooler.  I figured the surgeons would like that.  

The pizza looked good and the slices were huge.  Veggie pizza and a Dr. Pepper.  No shit.  I hadn't had a Dr. Pepper for decades.  Literally.  It was a perfect combo.  I sat in the giant dining hall and looked at the huge wall of connected video screens where tropical fish swam in crystal clear water on a beautiful coral reef.  All around, people huddled over their food.  

When I got back to my mother's room, there was a woman asking my mother questions.  She was being admitted.  

"Hi," I said.  And once again, I asked if I could translate.  She was a young, pretty woman with curly blonde hair.  I've noted that hospitals are staffed largely by young people who are very, very friendly.  In my week in the hospital (in May?), I had only one older nurse.  She had a work ethic to be envied, but she was not so very pleasant nor friendly.  The rest were young women not yet into their thirties.  Maybe nurses burn out at an early age, or perhaps they all help older doctors get divorced.  It happens.  

A lot. 

My mother was admitted, but that didn't mean she had a room.  When the admitting person left, my mother came and sat in the chair next to me.  We stared at the open door to the hallway.  I tried to comment on the personnel, but my mother couldn't hear my lowered voice.  I leaned close to her to tell her that it wasn't something I could yell.  

"You are farting!" I said.  

"No I'm not."  

"Then you need a bath."

"I showered yesterday."

"Not well.  Did you use soap?"

She looked taken aback.  

"They say old people take on an odor," she said meekly.  

"Who says?"

"I read an article on it."

"Bullshit," I said reaching for my phone.  I Googled "Do old people smell bad?"

Holy shit!  Lots and lots of medical articles popped up explaining that they do, that it is due to a changing chemistry on the skin.

"What the hell!" I said.  "It's true." 

My mother leaned over and sniffed me.  "You're going to smell, too."

"Bullshit."

"You will."

"No I'm not.  I am not going to live that long.  I don't plan on doing this shit."

She's heard me say it many times before.  

My phone rang.  It was Mr. Tree.  I didn't answer.  It rang again.  Then I got a text.  

"Are you home?  I need to talk to you today."

What the heck was up with that?  I texted back a picture of my mother in the hospital bed.  

"Oh, I'm sorry," he texted back.  "I can meet you at the hospital if that is alright."

What could be so urgent, I wondered?  He probably wanted money.

"Mom, I'm going to go outside and call this guy back."

I wandered down the hallway to a sitting area.  

"What's up?"

"Listen, I'm leaving for Cuba tomorrow.  I have a woman to help take care of you mother, but I need to meet with you and talk.  Will you be available any time today?"

I told him I'd meet with him at four at my house.  

I went back to my mother's room.  The nurse was there.  She said the doctor would be in soon.  We sat and waited for a few minutes, then the door slid open.  It was a man who said he was the something doctor, that he had some preliminary questions before the attending doctor came in.  He didn't seem to be very prepared.  I told him about my mother's hospital trip on June 13th, and I told him they would have an MRI from that time to compare to the one they were going to do today.  When he left, I said to my mother, "I don't think he was a doctor.  I think he was a P.A.  I think they are letting them call themselves doctors now.  It is awful." 

A few minutes later, the door slid open and the doctor walked in followed by the other "doctor."  

"I remember you," he said looking at my mother and me.  He had been the attending doctor who was on vacation when my mother was in the smaller, sister hospital in June.  He showed up the last day to release her.  

"You were in room 2024," he said.  

What?  Yea, he remembered that there were people in my mother's room when he came.  He remembered everything about that brief moment.  Amazing.  The rest, I figured, wasn't as amazing for he had it all on the charts.  They would admit my mother today.  They would do an MRI.  The CT scan showed a possible fracture of her L4 vertebra.  He seemed to think she might be having the same procedure she had a month ago on her L2.  But, of course, those doctors wouldn't be in until Monday.  

My mother launched into a melodramatic narrative of how they had injured her when they flipped her from her back to her belly in the last surgery, her hands waving frantically in the air, her voice mimicking the excruciating pain she had endured.  For all the melodrama, though, it certainly seemed possible.  

"She needs something for pain," I said.  

"I need a muscle relaxer," chimed in my mother.  

It was fine.  He would get them for her.  

"It seems clear she won't be having surgery today.  Can she eat?"

"Sure," he said.  "I've already put that on her chart. 

When he left, he said he'd see us tomorrow.  I got the nurse.  

"The doctor said my mother could eat and drink."

"We have some sandwiches here," she said.  "Would you like a sandwich?"

My mother stared with eyes that told me she hadn't heard.  

"What kind of sandwich would you like?" I yelled.  

"What do they have?"

The nurse said they had turkey.

"Turkey," I yelled.  "Is that alright?"

In a couple minutes, the nurse brought in two turkey sandwiches and some apple juice.

"The meal cart should be coming in a little while," she said.  

"What flavor?" asked my mother.  The nurse looked at her, confused.  

"What flavor what, mom?"

"Milkshake.  What flavor?"

The nurse laughed.  "Not milkshake.  Meal cart."

I could tell my mother still didn't understand, so I said, "Yes. . . thanks."

When the nurse was gone, my mother turned to me and say, "What did she say?"

"The meal cart will come later."

"The what?!"

"MEAL CART! MEAL CART!"

"Meal cart?  OH!  Meal cart."

I opened her sandwich and put on some mustard, then I opened her apple juice.  

"Do you need anything else?  I have to go meet Mr. Tree to see what he wants."

"No, I'm fine."

"I'll be back."

Mr. Tree showed up at 4:45.  He had a woman who could cook, clean. . . a wonderful woman.  She was a Christian, he said, honest, dependable.  

"You're going to get old and need someone to help you," he said.  "But I'm leaving for Cuba tomorrow and there is another couple who would like to have this woman.  But you are my brother, and I want you to have the first opportunity."

"I need her for my mother, not me."

"You will need her.  She's a very good person.  She does belly dancing.  Or she used to.  I think she still gives classes.  She's smart.  She has a degree in computer science.  She's from Venezuela and worked for an oil company until Chavez.  She moved to New York and worked there for awhile.  She does the accounting for my company.  She can manage your finances.  She needs a place to live."

"I have two bedrooms," I said.  One I sleep in.  The other is my study.  The only woman who is going to be living here will be sleeping in my bed.  I don't need her.  I'm trying to find someone for my mother."

Last night's scam was sleeping into my brain.

"You want to make some money?  My sister said she would pay you $100. . . ."

"I'm leaving tomorrow.  We need to call her now."

"I have to talk to my mother first to see if she wants this.  Give me her number and I will call her tomorrow."

I asked him how he was doing.

"How's your wife?  Does she like it here or does she miss Cuba?"

His wife was a surgeon there, and I asked if she was going to try to get some kind of medical work here or was she going to do something else.

"She's studying," he said, "but she might start working as a surgeon in one of the islands, you know. . . a few days a week, then she would fly home on the weekends."

"Oh.  So everything is good."

He looked pensive for a moment.  

"You know. . . marriage isn't always a bed of roses. . . ." 

Holy mackerel!  That didn't take long.  

When he left, I made a Negroni, sat, and decompressed for a moment.  No matter what, I thought, life is a shit show for everybody.  Marriage isn't a bed of roses.  Ho!  

But I had my own troubles to think about.  At 5:30, I called my mom.  

"Do they have you in a room yet?"

I could hear a voice in the room with her.  They were just getting her settled.  She gave me the new room number.  

"I'm way up on the tenth floor," she said.  

"O.K.  I'll be there in a minute."

The room was nice.  That picture at the top is the view from her room, the west wall mostly window.  This was a hell of a hotel.  

Her new nurse came in, a pretty, young brunette.  I know, I know, but it is true.  She was young, mid twenties, perhaps, and people are truly beautiful at that age, by and large.  

"But why do you feel the need to comment on it?"

Well, sure. . . I can see your point.  It is just that I feel so poignantly the contrast.  

"Like you've said so many times before, never trust anyone using the word 'just'."

 Point taken.  Can I still say she was a very nice person?  She was.  They all treated my mother with care.  I wish all of life could be lived in such a way.  

I sat with my mother and watched the sky begin to grow dark and to see the lights come on in the buildings downtown.  Around 7:30, I told my mother I needed to get dinner.  They were going to take her down for her MRI in a minute.  The nurse had already gotten her into a gown.  

"I'll call you later," I said, "and see how you're doing."

I went to dinner on the patio of a little Greek place on the lake.  Saturday night was beginning to get loud.  The waitress was a young, pretty. . . oh, shit. . . a really nice person.  She brought me beer, Greek Slouvaki, and a good salad.  Just before dark, I drove home.  

During the day, I had some surprising texts.  I had texts from the Japan trip I didn't get to go with.  My friend from the midwest texted me pictures of her roadtrip as did C.C.   One friend texted to tell me he had shit his pants on a long walk, "probably because of the medicine I am taking."  The drummer from the old band texted for the first time in months.  He wanted to know how we were doing, me and my old college roommate, other guitar player in the band.  I sent back a picture of my mother in the hospital.  He asked how old she was.  93.  He wrote that his mother was 88.  Yea, I thought, but you live your life a continent away from your mother, she on he east coast, he on the west.  Then he sent a photo of himself in camouflage holding a rifle and kneeling over a dead turkey.  

"I had a stroke while I was cleaning it," he said.  "Then I had two more."

Holy crap!  

"Residuals," I asked?

His movement and speech were coming back.  He was on blood thinners.  

My roommate wrote back eventually.  "I've been on blood thinners for 15 years."

I dropped out as they compared notes.  

At nine I called my mother.  She was just back from her MRI.  

"Did you get dinner?"

"Oh, yes. . . this isn't at all like the other hospital.  I got baked fish and potatoes and vegetables and two types of fruit and some pudding.  It was good, but I couldn't eat it all."

"Oh, good.  And the MRI was OK?"

She had been fearful because she was in much pain.  

"They gave me something.  I was floating.  I wanted them to keep giving me that.  I liked it."

I think they had shot her up with liquid Valium.  Yea, I thought. . . they should keep her on that.  All drugs should be available, legal and free, for people over a certain age.  What's the point of not letting them have them?  I can't see any point at all.  

And so the day begins.  I will go back to the hospital in a minute and spend a couple hours.  I will leave and then go back.  Tomorrow, the carpenter comes, and I am supposed to help him.  They will decide then what to do with my mother.  The next days are going to be tricky.  I am scared to death about the repair.  This wall is the worst.  There is gas, electric, and water all coming into the house there.  There is a water heater, and there are breaker panels.  Of all the walls on the house. . . this one!  First, we have to take down a wooden fence.  This whole thing is going to be very, very hard.  

When I asked my mother about having the woman come to stay with her, she gave me a hard "No!"  

"But. . . "

The couple will hire her and then, in a few weeks, my mother will change her mind.  But it will be too late then, and we know who she really wants to move in. 

Life is a shit show.  It ain't no bed of roses.  

And the Other

Friday night.  Needing something, anything, I decide to take myself to a sushi dinner.  I think to go early, but my mother has needs.  Per usual, I am sitting with my mother.  She is in much pain.  Her back.  She has conceded to it now and is taking the Tramadol the doctor prescribed.  Tramadol and muscle relaxers.  She moans, burps, rubs her stomach and says she is constipated.  I make suggestions, but I don't know if she hears me.  We talk of little but her misery.  I am helpless, of course, can do nothing to alleviate her suffering other than sit in empathy.  I take on her misery, too.  My back is hurting.  I feel constipated.  She does not want to travel this road alone.  

Of course. 

I am ready for an early dinner, but just as I am leaving, she tells me she has no soup.  It is what she wants for dinner, so I go to the grocery store and buy her things.  When I return, she is still sitting on the big vibrating pad that she spends half her life on.  Her eyes are dull with misery.  I hug her and tell her I love her as I stand to leave.  I try to disengage, but the misery clings to me relentlessly.  

"You need to take care of yourself, too," people say.  But my situation is unusual, I think.  At least not usual.  I am it.  I am the lifeline.  I am the one and only thing.

I am not driving to an early dinner now.  The roads have cleared.  People have gotten home from work and are readying themselves for the weekend.  There is still sun, but it is not as intense.  The sky is clear.  I am hungry.  

The restaurant is almost full, but I get a seat at the sushi bar.  The waitress comes right away with a trainee.  I know what I want, I say.  Sake, tuna kobachi, sushi rice, and a bowl of edamame.  

I look around the room.  Tables full of handsome people, beautiful young couples.  A waitress walks by.  She, like so many others, could be an actress or a movie star.  That is the world that surrounds me.  

I take a photo of my dinner set up with my phone.  The waitress brings the sake as I am doing that and I am embarrassed.  But when she leaves, I take another.  

I can't help myself.  I will text them to people I know.  There are two lives, the one people believe you live and the other one.  

But my life is wearing me down.  It is wearing me out.  I have tried to emulate the hero's life.  I have believed you wore your experiences, that they are visible.  I am not living heroically now.  I'm afraid that shows, too.  

Dinner arrives.  

I take pleasure in the meal.  The owner passes and says hello as he always does.  

"Welcome back," he says.  "It's good to see you."

Dinner done, sake gone, I pay the bill.  I stand slowly, back, hips, knees all barking.  I walk slowly through the tables of diners.  I've have taken note.  I have been the only one dining alone.  

The sun never goes down.  It is near seven-thirty.  I pour the last of the good whiskey C.C. has brought me from Scotland.  I call to check on my mother.  I hear the television blasting in the background.  I let her get back to "her shows."  

At ten-thirty, I realize I am going to need milk in the morning.  I drive to the 7-11.  The parking lot is full of fire trucks.  Medics are loading a woman on a stretcher into an ambulance.  Crackheads sit on the not so decorative planters by the door.  A woman approaches the car, waving.  I lower the window.  

"Do you want to make some money?" she asks.  

"What?"

"My sister will give you a hundred dollars if you take me to. . . " she names a place twenty minutes away.  

"What?"

"Two hundred," she says, leaning her head against the door.  "Three hundred," she fairly weeps.  "I've got to get there now."

This is a new one to me.  Of course, there will be no sister, no money.  It is obvious.  But someone, surely, will fall prey to this before the night is up.  

I was about to go to bed.  Now, at the corner of The Boulevard, I feel the pulsing of a Friday night.  I feel humbled and ashamed.  

I take a Tramadol and go to bed.  I wake often.  Not a good night.  I get up, defeated, at 5:30.  I put on the coffee, sit down and read the news.  The phone rings. It is 6:00

Uh-oh.  

It is my mother.  She weeps into the phone.  She has made up her mind, she says.  She could not sleep for pain all night long.  She has called 911.  

"I will meet you there," I say.  

This is her life.  This is mine.  There is the life people believe you live. . . . 

Me. . . and ChatGPT

Here's a story.  I wrote it, gave ChatGPT many, many prompts, and told it to rewrite in the style of James Salter's "Light Years."  It gave me a story, then I edited it, then it made suggestions.  I just wanted to see if it would work.  Then I mailed it to several people I know varying in age and professions.  I sent it to writing profs and college professors from other departments.  I sent it to a playwright. a retired salesman, and a contractor.  I sent it to my Miami friend fresh out of college.  I told none of them it was a story I worked on in ChatGPT.  I wanted to get reactions.  They varied, of course, but in the main, with one exception, people liked it.  

* * *

It rained the day they arrived in Paris, and the day after. A soft rain, drifting like ash, sometimes invisible except on the surface of the river, where it textured the gray sheen like brushed silk. Their apartment was on the second floor of an old building above a restaurant that served duck and tarte Tatin and closed at midnight. The windows opened onto the Seine. If you leaned out slightly, you could see the towers of Notre-Dame.

Nedra stood at the tall windows each morning in her robe, drinking coffee, smoking occasionally, her hair loose. Below, the water moved like memory. Viri watched her from the bed, not speaking. It was her first time in Paris. He had been several times, long ago, before the girls were born, before the house on the river. It felt different now. Quieter. A kind of dream one returns to, already knowing how it ends.

They ate in small cafés and grand restaurants. There was soupe à l’oignon gratinée beneath a mantle of browned cheese, slices of duck breast with fig reduction, endive with roquefort and walnuts. They shared oysters in the late afternoon with glasses of Sancerre that made Nedra shiver slightly as the chill of the wine met the brine on her tongue. Once, in a café on the Rue des Écoles, they ate veal blanquette, the pale sauce steaming in the narrow bowls. Nedra spooned hers slowly, lost in thought.

Breakfast was always taken standing—croissants torn by hand, crumbs scattered across the zinc counters, café crème in heavy porcelain cups. Viri watched her eat, the way she held the spoon, the way she dabbed her lips. In the Latin Quarter, they sat near the window of a brasserie and ordered cassoulet with confit and white beans, dense and warming in the late October cold. She called it “a meal for peasants,” but smiled when she said it, her voice low, amused.

He took her to see Bonnard at the Musée d’Orsay, the rooms full of radiant baths and waning afternoons. She liked the colors but said little. What moved her seemed private. They visited Sainte-Chapelle, the light fractured by stained glass. On the Pont des Arts, she stood still in the wind, staring across the rooftops of the Right Bank. He put his hand on her back, and she did not move.

In the evenings, they returned to the apartment to change. She took long baths. He read or listened to the murmurs from the restaurant below, the occasional burst of laughter, the clink of glassware. Once, he heard music—a violin, not quite in tune—rising faintly from the street. He felt outside of time.

At dinner, they drank a bottle of Chinon and talked about things from long ago—places they had lived, people they no longer saw. A woman Viri had once loved lived in Montparnasse now, he thought, or perhaps she had moved. He had not told Nedra. There was no reason. It was not secrecy but preservation—of mood, of illusion.

She had moments of brightness—touching a bolt of fabric in a shop near Saint-Sulpice, reading the chalkboard menu aloud in a hushed voice, her fingers brushing the sleeve of his coat without thinking. But something was altered. She seemed always to be looking beyond him, at the weather, at the buildings, at a thought she did not voice.

At night they undressed without ceremony. Her skin was cool. She did not always turn toward him. He felt the space in the bed like a continent. He asked if she was tired. She nodded, already far away.

On their fifth day, they visited a bookshop in the Seventh. Nedra wandered among the poetry shelves. She picked up a volume of Rimbaud and read the first page, then closed it. Outside, the air had turned colder. The plane trees along the quay had begun to yellow.

They sat by the river, eating sandwiches wrapped in paper. Viri watched a barge pass slowly beneath the bridge. He wanted to say something to her, something final and full of love, but could find no shape for the words.

"You like it here?" he asked instead.

"Of course," she said. She did not look at him. "It's beautiful."

On their final evening, the rain stopped. The sky had the bruised look of twilight. They went walking without a plan. Lights came on in windows across the river. Somewhere a bell rang. They ended up at a brasserie near the Pont Neuf, drank champagne, shared oysters and steak. It was the best meal of the trip, or maybe it only seemed so because they both pretended nothing was ending.

Later, in the apartment, they made love slowly, like a ritual remembered from youth. Her eyes were open. His were closed. There was no sound except the creak of the old bed and the faint clatter of silverware being cleaned below. She touched his face afterward, not tenderly but with finality, and rose to wash herself in the dark bathroom, where the light did not work.

He lay awake, listening to the river. He did not know what he felt. Not fear, exactly. Not loss. But something had entered the space between them, like a language he had never learned. A presence with no name. In the morning, she would dress carefully, as she always did, and they would leave the apartment key on the desk in the hall, walk down the narrow stairs into the smell of coffee and ash and last night’s rain.

He would remember the week as beautiful.

And afterward, he would not be able to say why it was the beginning of the end.

* * * 

I'm just fooling around right now learning how the program works.  It is pretty good at defining writing styles.  Try it.  Write something and ask it to re-write in the literary style of Hemingway, then Faulkner, then Fitzgerald, and see the difference.  The more specific you are, the more accurate the results will be.  Select one work, for instance, a short story or a single novel.  The point isn't that you can have A.I. write stories, but that you can learn things you might not have realized before, knowledge that can then inform your own writing.  

I know. . . I know. . . most people are simply going to use it to write emails and tell jokes.  That's o.k.  Some people use a calculator to add and subtract.  Others use it to send rockets to the moon.  It isn't the tool; it's the user.  

So this morning I have been waiting on the roofer who bailed on me.  He called me yesterday and wanted money.  Ho!  He said he wanted to meet with me this morning.  

No show.  

While waiting, I made this.  It is just preliminary.  I have a lot to learn.  I will re-edit this later and make it much, much finer.  Don't judge me. . . yet.  Don't tell me I'm a child.  I know that, too.  

But for now. . . isn't this shit a hoot?

The Good Old Sunny Southern Summers

Reading is fundamental.  Well. . . C.C. sent this to me the other day goading me to submit some of my photographs to the contest.  

"You're sure to win," he said.  

Sure.  So I did.  It wasn't until later that I took a closer look at the ad.  

Shit!  I think I'm in trouble now.  

When I told C.C., of course, he laughed.  

"You'll win, surely.  Have I ever steered you wrong?"

"Right.  You're my huckleberry."

One must be ever-so careful who one chooses to be his life coach.  Life is full of just such choices.

It is hot here in the rainy south now.  It is humid.  People must have been mad to move here prior to refrigeration.  What could possibly have been their motivation?  

My father moved us here when most people's homes did not have air conditioning.  Our own home did not have it until we got a window unit in the front room when I was twelve.  All the houses in my neighborhood had jalousie windows with screens so that you could open them and have the greatest possible airflow.  But the air didn't flow unless it was storming, and then you had to close the jalousies.  Rather, a warm, damp air hung in the rooms of the house.  What moved the air were fans.  Or, in our case, fan.  We had one.  Why?  Why only one?  That's just how hillbillies live.  I'm sure it never crossed their minds to buy another.  So, as a kid, I would plant myself before the fan until my father would yell at me for blocking the air.  At night, you went to bed in damp sheets and slept only because your fatigue from living in the heat was so great.  

Later on, during my high school years, I lived again without air conditioning in a tiny, cracker house.  

My father, by my own logic then, was surely mad.  But we did have refrigeration.  Even then, however, my parents were stingy.  I was only allowed to use two ice cubes in a glass.  Just two.  Why?  I guess the didn't like emptying and refilling the ice trays in the small freezer.  My drinks were never really cold.  

"Would you like a nice, cool soda?"

The ice cream truck would come down the street before sunset.  When kids heard the tinkle of cheesy music spilling from its PA speaker, they'd start screaming.  

"GIVE ME A NICKLE, GIVE ME A NICKLE!"  

The big, public swimming pools were a treat if you could get your parents to take you.  Otherwise, it was playing in the sprinkler.  

And still, kids didn't want to take a bath.  We must have been stinky little animals.  

Dogs didn't move much.  They sought the coolest shade they could find.  I lived in a redneck neighborhood, so there were no cats.  

These were "the good old days."  And they were.  People played cards, drank beer and martinis, smoked cigarettes, and listened to the transistor radio.  

Some people, anyway.  But there was plenty of evil.  

And weirdness.  I went to school with kids who had hare lips, water heads, crossed eyes, buck teeth, and leg braces due to polio.  We all had big round scars on our arms from getting the smallpox vaccine.  Vaccines were then becoming a thing, but just, and kids got measles, mumps, and chickenpox.  We were constantly on the lookout for tetanus.  If you got "lockjaw," you were done for.  Malaria was a thing still in the southern U.S., so mosquito trucks came around at night spraying DDT.  Airplanes dropped other poisons from the sky to stop the spread of crop destroying insects.  

Sex was a dirty, forbidden mystery.  If we could, we'd sneak somebody's father's Playboy magazines or, later, watch those three minute 8mm movie reels of sloppy strippers.  

Black and white television and portable record players.  

What got me going on this?  Starting Monday morning, I will be working in this incredibly stupid heat.  I don't want to.  I'd rather be on vacation like everybody else.  As I've said before, somebody has used the hoo-doo on me.  I've been cursed.  

O.K.  I'm being dramatic.  I always wanted to be an African adventurer when I was a kid.  Or, like a Kipling character, some ne'er do well rousting about India.  

It looked good, anyway, in books and movies.  

See?  People could have fun without refrigeration.  That's a really good movie.  If you haven't seen it, I would highly recommend it.  Pre-code.  

When earthy prostitute Vantine (Jean Harlow) arrives at Dennis Carson's (Clark Gable) rubber plantation in Indochina, she initiates a steamy affair with the rugged foreman, but is sent packing when the passion cools. Soon Dennis is joined by new employee Gary (Gene Raymond) and his classy but high-strung wife, Barbara (Mary Astor), who falls into Dennis' arms while her husband is away. When Vantine returns, Dennis must decide between the refined adulteress and the tramp with the heart of gold.

 Hell, the movie was so good, twenty years later, they made it again, this time set in Africa.  

O.K.  That's it.  No more riffing.  I need to get a start on the day.  Nothing gets done without doing it.