again with the goo?!

Again With the Goo?!

8/ 29/ 14

[As I’ve mentioned several times lately, I am in the process of tidying my writing for posterity and personal satisfaction -- to the extent that either are necessary. Here I’ve plucked a few kernels from my previous blog which focused on first go-round with chemo. It was interesting (sort of)  that 2012  ran approximately parallel to 2014 – experience-wise. The blog is called Swallow, Socrates – go to find now-revised poetry and redacted sentiments; go to scan for  additional kernels, stay for the ‘visuals’ pages. Unfortunately, the chronology of posts runs counter of the dates on your 2012 Calvin and Hobbes calendar.So there's scrolling to do.]

March 3, 2012

Is it odd to not to feel sick enough? I don’t feel as if I have gotten my money’s worth of chemo today because I don’t feel sick enough.

I want my chemicals to make haste.

Tomorrow, I’ll regret this bravado. Today, this trifling nausea is a waste of my time.


***

March 5, 2012

I crack my egg and see what lies beyond my ego’s goo. Beyond my goo, I see you. You with your tower of unpaid bills. You beneath the overpass, starving and cold. You in the shower, your ablution for rape, for a false shame. You serving life for the crimes of a free man. As far as I can see, I can see you.

 . . . then you’ll go through it all over again -- all of you. All of us. Trading in our minor peeves for crippling tumors now and then and sometimes swapping our fathomless pain for hilarious mirth.

It's tough luck being sick.  A once healthy self-awareness becomes self-obsession -- the ego awash with egotism. There’s not  much you can do about it.  Get your binkie and your saltines and your PowerAde, and brace yourself for a sense of solitude.  

***

3/24/ 12

I have two nieces and a nephew in Mobile for whom my zombified gait has been explained away as a hurt leg.  Better than if I was just too lazy to play freeze tag -- which would be an avuncular faux pas . . .

After witnessing a seizure, my oldest niece came to me later and asked, “So you have a hurt leg that sometimes makes your body shake?”  I smiled and said, “Yes.”

Tell kids you have a brain tumor and they imagine themselves dressed up as you for Halloween.  Tell them you have a neurological impediment to your motor functions and they imagine you’re a jerk for using words too big for them.  Tell them you have a hurt leg and at worst they’ll examine the area for boo boos and look at you skeptically before resuming their game of freeze tag.

The good thing, the great thing rather, is that kids know you will be just fine.  You’re big, you’re strong, you’re an Uncle, by golly, and best of all, you’re silly . . . just so silly.


***

April 8, 2012

My wife and I were the sole waiters in the paint-flecked waiting room.  After a few minutes we were joined by a young girl and her mother.  The girl wore the tell-tale bandanna of the cancer-bald patient.  Her face was fraught with worry and fear beyond her years.  Sallow and gaunt, she sank into a musty couch.

. . . I awaited my chance to offer the girl a smile.  Smiles, I knew, were therapeutic in their own right.  Yes, I would give her a smile.  But she never looked my way . . .
Then the door opened.  A woman entered.  I scanned her for tell tale signs of disease.  There were none.  Not quite at the lady’s heels, a dog followed.  It was obviously old—a hitch in its giddy up, wiry fur beginning to thin.  What breed of dog it was, I can’t remember  It was medium sized and cute for being ugly.
 I wouldn’t mind a cold ward now and then if there was the prospect of an ugly dog to pet.  Smiles are therapeutic. Animals make me smile.



***

Let dreams be goofy and waking life be normal and out of body sensations be anomalous. Above all, let Jonathan be sensible.

***

. . . that harrowing moment or string of moments when you find it hard to believe that the life you’re living is the life you’re living.  This can be a good feeling—a dramatic change in your circumstances for the better, be it a lottery won, or a sublime view of the ocean.  Or a bad feeling—a dramatic change in your circumstances for the worse, be it a fortune lost, or an impending tsunami.

***

My state mind does not match my state of brain.



***
. . . so I have to be vigilant.  It’s hard not to live in fear. It’s hard to play.  It’s easy to lose hope.  It’s easy not to play.

***
I am on drugs that divert my attention from anxiety, depression, despair, and the impenetrable darkness of reality to the prettiness of that butterfly over there, all float and flap, flower to flower, flying on felicitous sky.

***

6/30/ 12

Laughter, medicine-wise, doesn’t even make a great placebo.  Merriment has all the relief value of a donut without the deliciousness. Aspirin can mask a headache with the help of a frown just as well as it can with a smile.  Smile too hard and your headache will get worse; dare to laugh and the throb will turn to daggers.

***

July 3, 2012

. . . but the perimeter of the tumor is smudged into the darker grays in much the same manner as Bob Ross gently drags his brush from a cozy rock into a happy stream -- you know the difference between stone and water, but the closer you look, the more you’re not so sure.

***

July 15, 2012

The body is notoriously smarter than the mind.  The mind takes that gnawing burn in the stomach to be the clutches of satanic claws.  The mind assumes that the least wooze is the largest war ever waged on the flesh of man.

In summation of today’s post, I am still a whiny baby and I am still a fortunate man.

. . . I continue to have seizures  (Think: charley-horse combined with a tongue in the power-outlet accompanied by a fearful disembodiment and an abjection in relation to your own will.)



***

9/ 30/ 12

Here is a list of times when I’ve been more of a baby:

1) When I was a baby.


***

12/  22/ 12

Have a happier new year, everyone.  I’ve got to say, I like its chances.