Terminal

Originally Posted Sunday, March 30, 2014

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.