Light of the World

I want to take new pictures.  I really do.  But I've been ill.  Some G.I. thing.  One of the fellows at the factory spent three days in the hospital with a painful G.I. infection.  They ran every test the government would allow and still don't know what it was.  They gave him terribly strong antibiotics and pain killers.  He came back to work on Monday looking like death.  My friend and I have been plagued by something recurring for a year now.  He has gone to multiple doctors who have tested and tested.  He thought it might be a parasite of some sort.  Every time they test him, they find nothing, but they tell him that is not conclusive as parasites have reproductive cycles and you must test at the right time.

I am convinced it is a strange, new disease.

Of course, I haven't been to a doctor.  You see what they've done for the other two--drained the bank account.

My cousin went to the doctor recently to have a polyp cut out of his nose.  The doctor made a mistake and cut too deeply.  Now spinal fluid runs out of his nose.  They have taken tissue from another part of his body and packed it into the hole, but it isn't working.  He is in a very dangerous state.

The thing I had cut off my shoulder is still not healed.  I wish I had never gone.

My father's ilk said, "Doctors have killed more people than they've cured," or something like that.  Once they get started on you. . . .

There are two types of people in the world--the sick and the well.  I'm trying to be well by Thanksgiving.  I don't want to spoil the party.

There will be cooking at my house this year.  Ili wants to marinate turkey parts in a buttermilk and citrus marinade overnight and then cook them on the grill.  She is making pies.  There will be biscuits and cranberry sauce and green beans and a new garlic/butter Brussel's sprouts dish.  And wasabi mashed potatoes, too.

I don't want to miss out on that.

I don't have the energy for photography right now.  I am tired.  And boring.  But the Black Cat Liberator comes back tomorrow, and maybe that will inspire something.  I don't know.  It is big and heavy and hard to use.  Right now, I like sitting next to the fire.  It is the season.  The darkness.  The chill in the air.

But you should see the light here now.  There is no light like it on earth.  I know there is other beautiful light, for I have seen it in the mountains and the prairies.  I've seen the light in France and Spain and Argentina and in the Sierras and the Andes, all unbelievable.  But right here and now in my own hometown, the light is unmatched as it will be for several months.

It is most beautiful and I am working in the factory.

I need to quit dwelling on that.  I need to, but I can't.  It isn't until it is too late that you realize what you've missed.

I coulda been a contender.