Terminal

The throat cancer seems to be dissipating for the moment, and my knee is teasing me that it is healing on its own, too.  I still have some pain in my throat, but it is only a reminder.  The knee--well, I'm scheduled for surgery on Friday, a surgery that I am doubting that I want.  After three months of limping, the internal swelling that I have been feeling seems to be going away.  I only limp for about ten steps when I get out of a chair now, and I walked five miles in the past two days.  I think if I could run in a pool, the thing would heal, but the Dee Arr said therapy wouldn't help.  He only gave me one option.  I already had the other.  I must decide in the next two days whether I will cancel or delay the operation, and I guess the best way to do that is to test the knee today.  I will try to run a bit.  If it hurts tomorrow, I will get scoped.

Friday night, sick, tired, and dying alone, I got onto the couch with a glass of whiskey and finished my marathon viewing of the last season of "Breaking Bad."  God, I'm glad that is over.  I hated that show.  It was well-done, don't misunderstand me, but I disliked every character so intensely that I felt physically ill after each viewing.  Now I know how it ended.  I will never have to watch the show again.  But perhaps it was the perfect thing to stay home with on a Friday night with the terminal disease.  I was already slimed.  And so after it was all over, I took a Xanax and went to bed.

I have disconnected from almost everything I have been doing the past year except work.  I try to work in the studio on processes, mostly unsuccessfully, sometimes with moderate success, but everything takes more time than I ever have.  I get halfway through an inspiration then have to answer the factory whistle and don't get back to it again until I forget what the inspiration was.  I forget everything.  I forget to photograph the rotten vegetables and fruits.  I forget to change the set for a new project.  Perhaps I just haven't the energy.  I need a young assistant, I know.  I need one badly, someone to help me organize and keep things straight, someone to keep me working when I begin to run out of fuel.  I think that in the main, I just need someone in the studio when I am there, just someone to be around.

And I need the hours.

Yesterday I tried.  I printed some of the new grungy images, then went to the art supply store to see if they could i.d. a piece of paper I had that works wonderfully in the inkjet printer.  But I haven't a clue what it is.  They helped me look through their papers and we chose a 70 pound drawing paper, but it isn't the same thing.  I printed on it when I got back and the results were interesting, but the image was more muted than on the other.  I drove around town looking for furniture for a new set.  I went to a wallpaper store, but it was closed.  I need to find some wonderful old materials. . . but where?  I need a different rug, and I need a settee.  Driving and looking will burn a day, a day when I could be in the studio working.  I have bought glass bottles to contain my "specimens," and I am soaking others to rid them of the paper labeling.

I need flat files badly.

I stopped at a thrift store.  And then I went to an Oriental store to find costuming for a child.  When I turned my car around across the highway, I found myself in front of a violin shop where one of my favorite models with whom I have fallen out of contact works.  The rain was heavy.  I got my cell phone out to take a picture of the storefront to text her, but before I could get that all done, she texted me a picture of me in the car taking a phone picture of the outside of the building.  I had to explain that I wasn't a stalker. .  ho!  She will shoot with me again if I want, but I can't do the same thing over and over again.  I told her I was out shopping for new things, trying to order some new ideas.  And so I booked no date which is my M.O. just now.  I'd rather sit at home alone with a a terminal disease and a t.v. show that I hate and a cat I am allergic to wondering if I should have surgery on Friday.

Life is just fantastic that way.

The rain is gone and the day is gorgeous and tonight I will cook for my mother dreading the night that will lead back again to the factory.  Dread is a horrible thing with which to live.  It seems to be all the rage, though.  There are a lot of awfully big industries based upon it.  I'm starting to feel like Willy Loman.  It is spring.  I need to plant the garden.  I need to get something in the ground.