Weblog 48

January 7, 2007~ 1:45am



Sometimes we are so buried in life, so enmeshed in what is going on around us we sort of lose ourselves. We become like the little green child up above us here, peeking out at a strange and senseless, though mysteriously hodgepodged world of which we are a part- though we don't know exactly how we fit in.

So often I feel like that. How about you? I will often get that sense of strangeness driving in my car while looking at the other cars and the people driving them; I begin to wonder if I'm as real as they are- and if they are suddenly stricken by a sense that it's all illusion. That we are colluding illusions in a world full of mirrors and reflections going nowhere, to no purpose whatsoever, like so much fake snow in a snowglobe shaken by giant, unseen hands.

I'll get a thought like, "I am sitting here dying by degrees. I may be sitting here with a tumor the size of a cantalope growing somewhere inside of me and right now I feel protected merely by my ignorance." That's the one thing I want to want to talk about this early, early morning...the trend of running to doctors- especially the elderly. God knows, the older we get, the more that doctors are going to find wrong with us, because the body is, afterall, a machine whose parts wear out. And so naturally they're going to discover, oh... blood pressure problems... artery clogs...suspicious moles and 'cellophan-y' sounds in our chests. And they will prescribe pills and tests, and put us on diets and have the old folks' entire chunk of golden years tied up in a calendar marked with doctor appointments, pill prescriptions and monitoring. How HIDEOUS that is to me!

No folks, other than if I find myself in extreme pain, I intend NOT to visit the good doctors for anything other than whatever can be cleared up by a simple antibiotic. I want my life to be blissfully ignorant, unmonitored and unconcerned with cholesterol levels and fat ratio to overall weight, etc. (And yes, I realize prevention makes all the difference-- but yes, I also realize that fixating on that type of thing is a living death in itself.)

In other words, when you think of it, no one can FORCE you to get in goosestep with this mad, deadened, frightened pursuit of a long, loooooooooong life. You have to say 'yes' to that kind of regimen. Here and now- and forevermore, now in my mid 50's- I am saying a loud and resounding "NO!" to all of it. I want no prodding, poking, pricking of the finger done in order to preserve a lengthened, albeit frightened life. When I go, I want it to be full-hearted, not focused on a fear of death but a peaceful surrendering to where we're all heading anyway- the way it used to be- before the wonders of modern medicine. Most of the old folks I talk to can only jabber on about their medications and their prognoses and their regimens, and I ask you...........who wants a life like that? Not me, my friends. Not this green child poking her head out, gazing in puzzled wonder and knowing it's all magical illusion anyway...... and really nothing, nothing at all to be scared of- all of it is a gift. All of it....

"leaves".



January 7, 2007~ 8:15pm
I don't understand moods at all, though I suffer from them tremendously. Might be something chemical, might be something more esoteric, but I know mine plummeted this evening like a falling star, streaking in a downward direction out of nowhere.

I am afflicted with the Yo-Yo syndrome. It seems the higher it goes up, the deeper it shoots back down- then bounces there for a while- up and down until it becomes the baby rocking in a cradle, and slowly swings more or less to middling for a time. I hate Sundays, that's part of it. And a rainy, bleary one to boot here. Can't go out without getting drenched and dampish, hair hanging in strands or coping with a fold-up umbrella that looks like a dripping, stepped on spider being carried in the house before me, exciting the cats who want to do battle with the thing.

And tonight I was heralded in by the discovery of black, damp clumps of kitty litter on the kitchen floor, where one or both of them had missed the box entirely, spraying the wall and the wooden baseboard, all of it lying there in a melting, clay pool of cat piss mess. No treats tonight, no egg nog, nothing but as cross looks from here, after the swear words shot out as hot as bullets. I'd strangle them if I knew what to do with the damn bodies afterward.

How I do long for the grave at times. So much simpler. Let the living work out the endless details and the fretting over nothing. I am longing for a dirt bed nicely tucked into eternity, the endless cold stars overhead. The silence.


January 8, 2007 6:30pm
Today I stayed home with a nasty case of dysentery. It's been hitting everyone and finally reached my doorstep. I emailed the folks at work- but of course, because I have the luck of the Irish-(i.e.- potato famine, alcoholism, the IRA, not Sweepstakes and pots o' gold)- the emails never went through. Everyone was worried. I woke up at 2:30 this afternoon with the sound of my cellphone going off, 2 messages, both frantic- both from my supervisor, and the phone ringing still. It was my daughter Holly who was sitting in her car outside, wondering if I was O.K. Her husband works in one of the hospitals where we have a presence and someone asked him if he knew where I was today because I hadn't shown up at work, so he called Holly at home. GOOD LORD....I feel like an ass.

"MOM! Are you alright? I tried to call you and the call went through...so I knew you weren't on the computer and you weren't at work. When I pulled up here I could hear you coughing, so I knew you were ok." Yes, this smoker's cough gives me away every time. Someone give me the licking of my life....I should have called work and not just emailed. Apparently, their spam filter has been beefed up and it snagged mine. Damn! Just when you think modern electronics are on your side.....wham! Right in the face.

I was so angry with myself, I finally had the gumption (via pure rage) to tackle snaking out the kitchen drain late this afternoon- (yes...it's been clogged since before Christmas) and wouldn't you know anger is good for something...it runs, clear and fast. Now all I have to do is slink into work tomorrow, all 2" high of me......


January 9, 2007~ 5:30pm
Went back to work today, quite shamefaced and cowled. I dreaded the lecture, the looks, etc....and I have to say that I was overwhelmed by peoples' kindness toward me. I mean- they really were worried sick, and about ready to call the police to come pound on my door. (One of the downsides of living alone, is that people, unless they've heard from you, will probably fear that you are laying dead somewhere, the phone and '911'- mere inches from your fingers.)

So instead of lectures, I got lots of concern and reinforcement to call next time, not to merely email, and of course, that is absolutely correct. But I have to say, I am still feeling a warm glow thinking about how much I really do matter to other folks. It's a great feeling...kind of like this





(that's me. The 'prodigal one', dragging ass home. And those other toga'd people are my co-workers, pounding tambourines and dancing like mad. Today was a gift. I'm very fortunate.) I shall try really hard not to forget that....


January 12, 2007~ 8:45pm
Back from my daughters' Friday evening pizza fest...lol. Bill chose a bowl of Rice Krispies instead and ate every last crackle and popping grain. He may be the only child in the world who does not care for pizza- but then he is also a child who, when asked how he is, will launch into talk about 'having some problems with his liver' and tell you about how he needs his 'dosage of Lipitor'--yes, this is how he answered a waitress at a restaurant last week when she asked him how he was. (He has those commercials down, but sometimes forgets some key points such as the fact that Lipitor is to lower cholesteral, and may cause problems with liver function.... LOL!!!)

And tomorrow morning I babysit Kay and Bill. 'Twill be an 'energetic' day for sure. Then I've rented "Wilde" from Blockbuster Online, so that will be the evening movie. If you ask me, it's going to be a wild day all round, what with cavorting as superheroes and villains tomorrow- (Bill is still in his 'bigger than life fictional world saviors' phase)- and I am assigned to a villain role as 'Venom'- and Kay- who had been on the side of light and justice only last week, has now become 'Kingpin' without explanation. Oh, we shall have a hairy time of it, racing about the house and laughing evilly. Hope I don't break a hip.


January 13, 2007~ 5:00pm
My stint in the babysitting hopper is at an end for the day, and yes, I'm tired. They were good- they always are- but I'm afraid that Kay's lack of language and constant gull cry of "Ahp!" sort of wore me down. It means everything. It means pick me up- when you've just put her down, give me a drink- when she's just thrown her sipper cup- it means turn the tv channel when you've just switched it-- that sort of constant, constant motion and change. I tend to be innate by nature and shuffled movement is something beyond my usual habit, so it can be trying that incessant wanting something else.

Also, the Billmeister said something that made me feel probably older and sadder than anything he's ever said to me. "Grandma, I can smell you from here." "Really? What do I smell like, Bill?" (I was having a horrifying image of Miggs in The Silence of the Lambs, sniffing out Jodie Foster in the prison for the criminally insane.) "Oh....just....a....gross grandma smell. You should take a shower." LOL!! Well, since I had bathed and I'd brushed my teeth, put on deodorant, and even used a breath spray-- and I had daubed on some perfume before I left the house- I wondered what it was he was smelling. Turns out it was my jacket. It was slung on the chair behind him, and it smelled of cigarette smoke- wearing it as I do everyday in a closed car and smoking up a storm on my commute to and from work- and I also had a stubbed out half-smoked butt in the cigarette pack in my pocket-- not the most pleasant of odors-- I understood once he'd nailed it down to, "This jacket behind me smells like smoke."

But oh, I fear it's true-- I have that 'old lady with cats' smell, the cabbagy, closed up coffin smell of age. It's a smell I remember from when I visited my own great-grandmother as a child- who was blind-- and her house had that dusty old Catholic smell of guttered vigil lights and heavy draperies that never saw soap. I am an old. And I smell. And now I am more tired than if I'd run a 20 mile race-

for what comes from such small children is the truth and irrefutable. I'm sure he could smell the black lung cancer deep inside--the death ahead. That boy can smell the end of the road, and it was spooky and sad.



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