It occurred to me today--and I have to go on instinct because I am not really prepared to go back over these posts much--that I am frequently, and of late almost exclusively, writing during or just after a trauma. This has become a sneak attack blog: nothing, nothing, nothing, BANG! Holy Shit His Blood's Made of LARD!!!! Hide the silver!
I don't mean for it to be like that...OK that's stupid, as I didn't damn well mean to get leukemia either. But you know what I mean.
I got very little sleep last night--just normal sleeplessness, nothing fancy--and so I am hardly in a position to enjoy thinking that this blog has become nothing more than a traffic report for the gnashings and ruptures of my wracked carcass. That would suck.
So I am going to ruminate. Attempt a meditative little moment. They moved us to the east wall of the ward this morning, so the river is sliding by again. That's probably why.
Through the wall behind us there has been racket all day. Earlier I wandered past that door to see if it was a patient or someone I could complain about, as N is working her can off today and it was pretty loud.
Turns out it is an Indian patient celebrating something. The room was packed with family, and as I walked by a woman leaned over one of the same-in-every-room tray tables. But it was buried under gleaming chafing dishes. I could see how good it smelled in there.
There was a little bit of hospital sock I could see on the bed, rolling back and forth at the end of an ankle.
There was a man in a chair facing the sock, ankle, and bed. His ankles were also visible as his legs were crossed at the knees. His shirt was that kind of deep navy blue a shirt can only be for the first couple weeks.
Obviously I am weakened and scared and everything, but the defiance with which this family was filling, stuffing that room with cheer made me feel better.
It has been hours, and there is just a murmur through the wall now. Most have probably left. Maybe just the patient and a parent, talking over something, feast wreckage everywhere, the illusion still held up, but in a thinner screen now. And the smokestacks on Roosevelt are almost too white in the sun to stare directly at.
And it is Rosh Hoshanah, so happy 2836, or whatever.
Hey, watch this: I'm gonna do a party trick:
This is from a 1988 article in a muscle car magazine: "Looking at it historically leads to interesting speculation: is the current Camaro F body the next '57 Chevy? In many respects it might be considered a worthy successor, if hot roddding potential is the primary evidence for determining a suitable successor to the '57 Chevy. Camaro is the obvious choice, it has all, if not more, or the appeal and performance."
I did that cold, off the top of my head. I've only seen that passage once. In 1988.
Well, actually, sung it. Singed?
Anyway, when my friend Henry and I were a band called No Cure, we went through an 'experimenta'l phase. It slotted between our 'shocking punk' phase and our 'just cover Bo Diddley but with distortion' phase, and it lasted about an afternoon.
Our experimental music was to have Henry start playing a riff and I would grab from a mess of written materials on his bed and try to fit the words into the rhythm. In it's own well-fed white kids kind if way, it was actually slightly esoteric. Slightly.
We taped the songs, and listened to them, but never played them again. The other one was from a course catalog; Henry was going to NYU the following year: "Two of the courses, E371601 and E371602 are intended for students preparing to teach in secondary schools."
At that point we started cracking up and kind of lost the thread.
And I will never forget those words. N and I have two anniversaries and alternate each forgetting them with each other, like the Gift of the Magi. I have to make my gym lock a word so I won't forget it. But my friend Ian tells with gusto the story of how I memorized one of the leads of a seventy-minute one act with a song on three hours notice and did well enough that the audience thought then guy who had been there all along was the last-minute sub.
My patient number is 4971748 and I will probably never forget it, but I cannot pin down for certain which day in August of '77 was my brother's last.
Every dog I have ever had knew which part of the cupboard had dog food--your hand goes anywhere else and they don't care.
I'm not even curious about memory, just the mind, and imagery, and what inner diagrams and rivulets are actually lifting our feet and putting them down, stretching our arms to our wives, stepping over dog shit, bumping aside my first address so I can remember every word to the Jean N'Ete After Bath Splash song.
My body is not doing what I want it to. I'm a passenger, and the driver is shit-faced and has his hands crossed. So it is nice to know that the mind does the same kind of hurly-burly sometimes, and we're still here. Still doing OK.
Still here.
