My Old Favorite Band

I had been listening to nothing but Pearl Jam and WMMR for a long time now but I had a favorite band before Pearl Jam formed. I'm connected to Facebook and had been checking my "likes" to see how many things snuck their way in. That's when I remembered that I had the Spotify app on my page and, ridiculous name aside, it's free music including a band's entire history. One of these days, I had planned to listen to some of Phil's earliest work as lead singer of Genesis. It's awfully good. I had assumed that "Squonk" was some of that Peter Gabriel crap but it's on "Trick of the Tail" with Phil singing lead. "Entangled" is on this first album as well as "Ripples" which Melissa and I fell in love with seeing them in concert.

That was an amazing show. We had seats in the second level, front row centered on the stage. I got dazzled a lot but this was the show where I devised a lot of concert survival tactics. We had already seen Pearl Jam once but outdoors where we couldn't see a thing. This show was a revelation because I hadn't even bothered to purchase the previous album or two from Phil solo. He had let me down with one album utterly devoid of the life that always filled his voice. I was pleased to see him back with Genesis for one last tour but his voice sounded pretty bad on TV and I decided to sink back into memories of better days. Then I saw them performing "I Can't Dance" live somewhere and all the old life was back. They were coming to the Wells Fargo Center and I wasn't going to die without ever seeing my first favorite band play live.

I know. How can I go from Genesis to Pearl Jam? At the time, Pearl Jam was a force of nature with driving guitars and lyrics about bad things happening to good people. They were exactly what I needed because I needed to learn how to get angry without taking it out on myself. Along the way, I discovered that Eddie Vedder and Phil Collins had something surprising in common. They will be singing along in fairly different registers and then both of them soar to something transcendent. Listen to "Ripples" from Genesis and then "Given to Fly" from Pearl Jam if you're not sure what I mean. I'm pretty sure you can manage both from my Facebook page. Just beware of Eddie's ability to be most eloquent when dropping the f-bomb.

Then I saw Genesis live and realized just how alike the two bands really were. Phil sang lyrics that never would have made it past the record companies of the day. He took songs that fluttered and floated on the radio and made them rage right before my eyes. Mike Rutherford might not play as fast as Mike McCready but he is very good at what he does. Phil used drum machines as some of my friends would tell me with sneers in their voices but he used them with his drumming. He liked to say that the machines could handle the boring parts while he did the rest. I had been afraid that Phil would take it easy and avoid too many highs and lows but he soared right there before my eyes. It was wonderful.

There are so many things that I have been fortunate enough to see and do. My life may seem like a non-stop whirlwind of hellish torment and I see it that way all too often. It helps to remember those times of pure joy in as much detail as possible. I remember exactly the way Phil sounded when he told the crowd that Genesis wouldn't be back. They were retiring at the end of this tour. I realized that I had done it and had come so close to failing. Sweet success was mine at last. I remember the thrill I felt when I realized that Eddie was singing one of my favorite songs, "Porch," while swinging from a light fixture. I remember thinking the second Pearl Jam show was over and they broke into "Yellow Ledbetter." I remember the thrill of realizing that Genesis was going straight from "Home by the Sea" to "Second Home by the Sea" the way I thought it should have gone on the album. It sounded as if Phil was singing to Melissa and me when he sang "It's Gonna Get Better." I needed to hear that more than I even knew.

By the standards of our earliest days when we couldn't afford food, things sure have gotten better. My house may look like a bomb went off in it and I'm only talking about the structural damage from flooding but it's mine. I have the comfy chair I needed since our reclining love seat came apart. I know that my house is getting fixed partially anyway and that I'm going to spend the time while the job is being done in a more comfortable place. I'm going to win the important fights in spite of the pain. More precisely, to spite the pain.

The ordeal of not seeing Melissa for days at a time starts this Wednesday instead of last Wednesday. My week long reprieve is nearly over. It seems that I've already started my first physical reaction to missing her. It seems that I've lost the ability to sleep again. Climbing the stairs with sleep meds in me plus total exhaustion was exciting. There just doesn't seem to be much point in doing anything. I'm too tired to concentrate on anything already and my meds will not function under these circumstances. I don't want to sleep today because there will be plenty of time for sleep on those days when she's not coming home.

Not coming home. I try to tell myself that it's not really all that different from most days. She goes to work early for day shifts like today and stays late. I told her recently that her night shifts are as bad as not seeing her from midnight to midnight. She goes to sleep around midnight the night before, doesn't get up until the absolute last minute before going to work and then doesn't get home from the night shift until midnight or later. Even then, I know she's coming home at some point in that 24 hour period. That's not the case this time. I don't want to eat or sleep and she hasn't even left yet. I lose today because of whatever she does after work, tomorrow because it's a night shift and then she leaves on Wednesday.

All I can do is freaking endure again.

When I posted this, I had a sudden feeling of remorse. I don't edit my blog/journal work. These are my thoughts as I felt them at the time. At the time, I was freaking out in what I thought was a big way. It turns out that I'm getting a lot better at enduring as I get older. I was feeling the emotionally bruising sense that I have no local family other than Melissa in a big way. I've cast my parents out of my life for what I intend to be the final time. They were very big about adults sleeping in the beds they made as I grew up. This was always right before they fixed the immediate problem and left me with a bigger but longer term one. As I liked to put it, I was Wile E. Coyote and they were the big boulder that landed on me after I fell off the cliff.

The cliffs have been getting higher as I have gotten older but I made one decision while shockingly young. So long as it was only my life that was affected, I would die before seeking their help. At first, it was an easy decision because they simply imposed their "help" on me and I took it with bad grace. It's a Thomas Covenant sort of compromise from the early books before he learned better. As I got older, my life has gotten more interconnected which is both the problem and its solution. The problem is easier to discuss before the solution. My life always involves others now so the dying to preserve my principles option is out. It's not a last resort somewhere in my bag of tricks but it is completely out. I will die someday and plan on kicking and screaming the entire way there. That's the only way I go.

The solution is that there are others connected with me. Problems are unique to the people facing them. Truth is that I've found most problems will unravel if I ask for a small favor from someone. Once you add in the possibility of several someones who may or may not even know of each other, there is a solution for most problems that will hardly inconvenience anyone. I can't tell you what it is only because it is unique to each problem. It's subtle, it takes very little effort and it's how all of my best work has been done. The hard part is building up a network over the course of a lifetime. They are slippery and like to fall apart if you don't manage them. The best ones are the ones you can manage by doing things you'd do anyway. Social media helps the way Christmas cards did for previous generations. Just a little touch to let you know I haven't forgotten you. It sounds cynical but it isn't because it's always something I was going to do anyway.

I will miss Melissa while she is away but she won't really even be gone. There are these odd inventions called cell phones that I resist because they are annoying but this is a useful time to have one. Melissa will not be out of touch and she has her own networks that might even surpass mine. I will probably catch up on some writing I've been meaning to do unless the pain is too much. I love saying that because writing projects breed like cuddly rats. Every time I'm working on one, I think of half a dozen others. I will never catch up unless I run out of inspiration. I'll probably spend a lot more time online with the tablet like I did when I was in pain in the hotel. There are a few people to whom I'd like to reach out (see above about networks) but I haven't made the time yet.

I will endure but I'm not one of those pansy statues or buildings that waste away after a few thousand years. I will endure smiling or snarling but never passive.

Now I can risk putting this out there for others to see.

A New Definition of Pain and Suffering

The Pearl Jam show was amazing even if the crowd around me was less than stellar. I was not interested in getting a contact high from my neighbor's very skunky smelling pot nor did I appreciate the elbows to the head from him dancing while too wasted to stand. Oddly enough, the closest I came to losing my temper was when his girlfriend went to put her arm around him and gouged my face with her nails. She didn't leave a mark much less draw blood but I let them know how much I enjoyed coughing up a storm only to get whacked in the head numerous times.

The fact was that I was at the end of my rope when I got ready to go to the concert. Everything hurt already with this breaking last year's record for the harshest change of season pain ever. I thought I had planned well for this concert but a slight mistake buying tickets forced Melissa and me to start over and we lost the good seats that we were buying. Just too many numbers to type in such a short time. I didn't know the Wells Fargo Center as well as I thought so I figured any second level seat would do. Unfortunately, there is no third level. We arrived an hour early for the printed starting time only to learn that there was no opening band. The rest of the crowd strolled in just before the real starting time so I had spent two extra hours in a seat designed to squeeze every last cent out of a potential crowd. My knees cramped and I was wedged between the two chair arms. There was no leaping for joy from this PJ fan.

The show started on a quiet note which I found soothing for about 1.5 seconds. The crowd all jumped up and started dancing anyway. The first few songs were thought provoking and full of subtle guitar work but I couldn't hear a thing. The crowd was so loud that I couldn't quite hear the band. Pearl Jam's sound engineers fixed that problem before long but not until after I had loosened my ear plugs. Soon, I found a position where I could lean back against the top of my seat and see through a gap between a guy recording the concert illegally and someone who was pleasantly short. If I stood up any more, the sides of the chair were going to remove my pants and that's just something I prefer to keep private.

After the first few songs, it was a matter of agony and ecstasy. The agony came from all over my body including my legs where my thighs were going painfully numb while my swollen knees simply ached. The ecstasy came from the music and what I could see onstage. They played just about everything I had hoped to hear except "Love Boat Captain" for me and "Black" for Melissa and me. Mike played entire songs with his guitar held over his head. He must have been supporting all the weight with his left hand on the neck while still using it to play. He also played for long stretches with the guitar behind his head. It was incredibly cool to be on Mike's side of the stage even with my head brushing the Wells Fargo Center's roof. Eddie had been remarkably well behaved during the first two concerts we attended. This time, he climbed a stage light hanging from the roof and went swinging Tarzan style overhead (yet well below me) through "Porch." He had his feet resting on the flat top of the light but he did it with a microphone in hand so it was classic Eddie Vedder. We sang along to all the songs we knew at the top of our lungs (between coughing sprees for me - damn inconsiderate potheads!) in that rare tribal experience left in American life including "Not for You" which I realized is the ultimate expression of that tribal feeling. Outsiders who don't get us can just [stay away] which I'm editing because I'm not eloquent with the f-bomb the way Eddie is.

Somehow, my loosened right ear plug got knocked out of my ear. It might have been during one of those shots from the dancing plume of smoke next to me. You think? I didn't notice it for quite some time until I realized that my entire body was taking the sound from the speakers like body punches. All of my spares were in my bag which was wedged between my feet. My sensible precautions were coming unglued one at a time. I even had my sunglasses on top of my head because the stage was pretty dark from our angle until a yellow spotlight nailed me during "Yellow Moon." Not sure if that quite makes it to ironic but it nearly cost me my balance and I was properly dazzled for a few minutes.

Agony was winning out over ecstasy bit by bit. Sometimes, chronic pain is too unpredictable to prepare for regardless of your experience. As the concert ended, I realized that I was more than ready to leave. There was no jubilant seeking of Pierre and Matt from WMMR. I wanted a bathroom and to go home in that order. The bathroom was just outside our section but I was unsteady on my feet anyway. The pain had gone past my endurance probably before we left. I doubt anything but Pearl Jam could have dragged me out of my sick bed (recliner) that night.

I must have looked terrible because some big guy walked me to the front of the bathroom line daring everyone to say something. I mean that pretty much literally. He had an even clearer picture of how badly I was doing than I did. On the way toward the elevator or stairs, I fell twice on flat ground. I know how to take a fall but the concrete hurt anyway. My second fall took place right in front of a Comcast employee who seemed to be questioning my right to take the elevator. Jackass! The contrast between the drunk guy helping me and the employee failing to do his job by helping me is absurd. It just wasn't funny at the time.

The pain only got worse the next day. My main defense against this sorta pain is reclining into a comfortable position and meditating my way to sleep. I was too overwhelmed and touch sensitive to find any sort of comfortable position. Beer brought a certain numbness with it but it deprives me of sleep. The concert was Monday night and today is Friday (might be Saturday before I post) with the time in between a painful blur. My cats took outrageous advantage of the fact that I could hardly get out of my chair. I was the perfect napping platform and 30 pounds of cat or more did not help me get up to meet my needs. For a while, it seemed like some sort of congealed hell but time did pass.

I seem to have regained a few useful hours where I can meditate past the pain. At first, I blamed myself as being stupid for going to see my favorite band. The thing is that we bought the tickets in July when I was anticipating a lot of relief from the stress triggered pain of the time. Looking forward to this show brought me a lot of the relief I did feel. Call it stubbornness but Melissa and I are working on a revised set of rules for enjoying a concert despite extreme chronic pain. It might help to take a limo up with some fan friends of ours and we will need better seats. Getting the right mix of conditions for a little preliminary numbness could be crucial. Belgian beer in the limo plus using my right to take my medication when it's needed most seems logical. If there's a will,...sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and admit your preparations failed.

I hope it doesn't come to that again because a fourth Pearl Jam show will not be enough. I could follow them around the way people used to follow the Grateful Dead.

Old Wounds

I've always seen life in terms of battle except that my armies have faced far more inanimate obstacles than actual enemies. Those few who see things similarly understand that this is not paranoia. I was taught to trust no one except those picked out by my parents and then I found that the world is a friendlier place than I dared hope. Unfortunately, this world has plenty of opportunity for conflict. Whether we seek out battle or scout out a path of least resistance, we all get hurt. It's inevitable. Most wounds are minor and we get over them so completely that we are able to shovel a layer of dirt over them. We do this because even minor wounds are painful and we wish to forget the equally painful circumstances behind them.

I have taken a longer road healing my wounds and taking the time to learn from them. Some questioned why I would do this when it was such a harder road. Recently, I've come to believe that I had to take the longer and harder road because I'd used up my quota of dirt and shovels. I had no ability to disbelieve my wounds left. I had faced a betrayal worse than anything I could truly explain. In modern war, agents and double agents steal information and spread disinformation respectively. The traitors in my ranks didn't have to sneak in because one gave birth to me and the other was my first role model. They taught me that I was weak and that I was many terrible things. They taught me that my birth defect was shameful and that my failure to control it was inconsiderate and worse.

Life went on and I formed crucial friendships and alliances. I gained a lot of new wounds. Those new wounds always seemed to drag me down more than they did others. Hell! I ran into someone on Facebook and realized that I hadn't thought of her in a decade or two yet the thought of how she treated me brought out a moment or two of petty rage. I remembered that we were kids and that she didn't know what she was doing. I didn't even know how she had hurt me for a few more years. This is the new me and not the version she knew so I congratulated her on her hard work/good fortune, didn't even bother with a friend request and left off telling her that I always knew she was pretty. If I can forgive and then eventually feel some sort of renewed effort with the guy who defined the words "worst enemy" for decades, I can forgive a slight broken heart from 1988.

That was my point. Other people might not have cared at all. I can remember a damning amount of detail from what even I admit was a minor time in a part of my life I keep locked away. Why was I so desperate at such a young age? In the interests of honesty, I'm talking about a girl who grew up to be a supermodel to some degree of "supermodelness" and that's what the congrats were for. Desperate is not a reflection on her but on me. I was that desperate because I did not have parental affection that I could depend upon. My deeper and well buried wounds betrayed me in little ways and they betray me now.

Melissa is off today but needs to go out to say goodbye to a coworker. She asked me if I wanted anything while she was out and I told her that she could guess. I want alcohol. Good beer would be nice but I seem to drink it too fast and that thought sent me into an ugly downward spiral. "I eat too much, I drink too much...too much!" Depending on how well I heard it, that's either a quote or a paraphrase from the Dave Matthews' Band. I am recovering from overexerting myself while already down so I want extra painkillers in a nice and tasty liquid form. It only makes sense yet I link it to the fact that eating is one of the few dependable pleasures my damaged body will allow and pull out my parents' opinion that I am a glutton. A sleepy Melissa had to pull me back from the brink of...well nothing except a lot of physical and psychological pain. Back when we first met, it would have been a lot worse.

The fact is that my old wounds are similar to my disability in a few ways. One is that they will never truly go away yet they have gotten "little b better" over the course of my marriage. I still recall the wondrous feeling of meeting a group of people in college who wanted me around. I'll use first names only but Bob, Evan, Kate and Maggie wanted me around. If I were gone for more than a day, Bob or Evan would find me and bring me back in. It took them the better part of two semesters to convince me that it was possible to want me around. I spent a solid month looking for the proverbial punchline. That group broke up due to no fault of mine yet I blamed myself for years afterward.

Honestly, the shortest member of the Big Three was the first young woman to make me feel safe in my friendship with her. I loved her like a sister and our age difference let me sort out that odd difference between her and other girls. She was simply too important to waste any misunderstood feelings on. It's painful to remember the awful contrast between her sisterly love and the scorn of my birth family. It was more comfortable to hang out with her and her boyfriend singing along to oldies music than it was to spend any time at home. I believed that I was unworthy of her presence because I had been taught all about my flaws in great detail. I felt unworthy yet unaccountably safe and secure with the combination forming an addictive drug.

I can look back now and realize that she was a good person but not quite the super-saint I believed her to be. The truth is that hanging out with me is not torture to be endured. Believing that she was some super-special person more tolerant than a bus of nuns allowed me to hang on to the damage still being inflicted at home. Her boyfriend was every bit as much the friend she was but he wasn't blonde and pretty like she was. I'm sure his boyfriend or husband - I'm unsure of their formal status but they've been together longer than Melissa and I so they deserve some respect! - would disagree. It's all a matter of perspective and my perspective was skewed by abuse.

So, here I am baring my soul for the world yet again. I don't do it to punish my parents. I can forgive them especially since they always seemed to be trying with everything they had to do the right thing. Perhaps inadvertently, they prepared me to be tough enough to handle year after year of making it through the agony minute by minute. Also, what little I know of their childhoods suggest to me that they were always fighting against their own current of abuse.

No, my intended audience is not anyone who would be hurt by what I have to say. I am writing to that kid asking what on earth he did to deserve the pain he's feeling. You don't deserve it, pal. Just take that inadequate bit of relief and do what you can to improve the world. I'm writing to all those people suffering from chronic pain. I read something about recent suicides from just outside my personal area of influence and I ask you all to endure another day with me. Our bodies are betraying us and there is a natural urge to want to abandon the sinking ship. I ask that you endure and hope for a miracle with me. It need not be the cure to whatever ails you. Sometimes, the hello from an old friend is miracle enough for one day.

Finally, I write this to those people who probably didn't mean to hurt me quite so much many years ago like the supermodel girl. You acted as you believed you should and I do not fault you for that anymore. You just might want to know why I treated simple bruises to my ego like broken bones. You should know that most of the damage was there already. You did not do worse than inflict paper cuts on me and you had the right to be weirded out by my overreactions. You could not have known just as I never knew what truly motivated you. We never exchanged shoes to walk the proverbial mile.

Now I've opened up some old infected wounds trusting to sunlight and fresh air for a little more healing. Please pardon the smell. The air will clear in a little while like it has every other time. If I've stirred up guilt in anyone, I absolve you in the name of "Boston '88" and the Senior Prom and the many private conversations that touched my heart. We're all human in every sense of the word.

The Last Dark (not a review)

Wow! I just finished The Last Dark by Stephen R. Donaldson and I am content within myself for the moment. In a very real way, I waited the better part of three decades for this book. Now that I have finished it, I am contented. I may never have to read again. Okay. I hope it's obvious that I'm joking about never reading again but I could never had died happily had this book not been written. No, I'm not dying any faster than I was yesterday or weeks ago but I am content with my mortality.

I've been struggling with being sick all summer long since a weekend trip to New York ran into the great flood and then into one of the culminating battles of my life without time for rest or recovery. I've been blaming myself for things that lie purely beyond my control. My mother always accused me of only caring about the things that were beyond my control but she assigned entire realms of blame to me. I'm not to blame for this heritage any more than I am for the rest of it. I'm sick. Just coping with being sick is more than I can handle. As for the rest, there are resources that are not part of me out there to help. Some of those are people, some are things and a few are actually cats whether or not they will admit this in public.

Do I assign the blame elsewhere? Nah! I don't need to do that anymore. I gave up blaming others long before I could stop blaming myself. Of course, we all fall into bad habits from time to time. Pain is a great teacher of good and bad habits. I should say it's a great teacher of irrational habits. It's difficult for me explain things like setting aside blame when the nature of humanity all but insists that I demand retribution for my hurts. I could give you the example of Melissa about how something came up just from living together that seemed to justify blaming her for all my pain yet that something is all but always gone within an hour or two. A better example could be how I dislike sin but value my fellow sinners. To put it in terms anyone who knows me would believe more easily, I have a very strong dislike for the damage done to this country by the Republican Party yet I will not blame any particular voter for inflicting that damage since they are driven by as much irrationality as I am. Unfortunately,  cannot forget even when I may hold someone blameless and forgive them. No one should have to put up with an abusive relationship no matter what causes it to exist.

I am terrified by situations that seem to overwhelm every resource I have. One of those is my terrible dependence on Melissa. I shudder at its effect on her. I get upset whenever we are separated for more than 12 hours or so. It looks as if there will be a need for us to endure some separation in the near future although it will depend on the exact nature of the plans others have. If we cannot meet the cost in terms of money, physical pain and my ability to endure it, I must endure a separation. It's a lot to ask of me but it's less than I ask of others and I recognize that. No matter what the exact nature of the plans entails, I cannot be Melissa's number one priority on a date coming up soon. I do not wish to jinx it because I know how easily complicated medical plans can come undone. I cannot be myself and tear at her that way. Whether I am physically with her or not does not alter this fact. I may end up having to bleat my needs at her or someone else more loudly than usual but that doesn't mean she can prioritize me as highly on that day. I cannot think of anyone with as strong a claim on me than Melissa but she has her independence.

So, to put this in more certain terms, I'm going to forgive Melissa for likely being forced to abandon me to take Barbara to Yale's hospital up in New Haven, CT. I'm going to forgive myself in advance for the fact that I'm likely to give her a hard time about it once the pressure really hits me. Haven't decided whether that pressure will be financial, physically painful or emotionally painful yet. I don't know whether I'll be left behind in New York for less time or Delaware for less physical pain but it seems very likely to be one of the above. Four people in a four person car for a multiple hour drive would be unpleasant enough but then make one of them me in extra pain. Sounds easier on Melissa if I'm here.

Here's what I'm not going to do. I'm not going to use this as some sort of weapon intentionally. I'm going to give anyone other than Melissa a hard time and I'm going to try to avoid doing it to her. I can just feel the headache coming on as she attempts to get me to make all the decisions involving me so that I can't complain. Leave it to me to mention headaches. For some reason, we still only have one plugged in functioning phone in the house and I left it on the first floor. I dashed and whoever it was didn't bother leaving a message so I didn't get a chance to pick up on what would have been the fifth ring. Dashing up and down stairs is known to produce headaches in the small number of laboratory rats stupid enough to try it. I need to lie down.

I slept for hours on end. There's no telling when I fell asleep but I have an idea of when I woke up. Melissa came home the first time and announced the arrival of medical stuff I was waiting for. A couple of hours later, I woke up questioning whether she had come home or if it was a dream. Within a few seconds, I located the stuff she had brought in and I drifted off again. It didn't take long for me to wake up again but pain woke me this time. Melissa and I got a chance to talk before the pain overwhelmed me. It looks like I won't be going to New York for this trip because I would have to spend four straight days traveling. With that sort of pain, I would require all of Melissa's attention and end up leaving her feeling helpless. She needs that attention for Barbara. After all, we're still making the November trip so that Melissa can go to the wedding. That's a more reasonable explanation for me and it broke down my resistance.

Don't worry. I still feel like the sack of potatoes that no one wants. It's my feeling that I own not something that comes from the outside. One of the reasons why I've been so desperate for sleep is that managing my disability is a full time job yet I seek to give my life additional meaning. My writing is super-important to me because it's my way of leaving my mark on the world. If I didn't write it down, no one would know that I seek a world (as in my own little world around me) without blame? How would certain people out there know that they aren't the only ones down and out with pain?

I was awake long enough to eat then meditated to set my pain aside but fell asleep until the pain woke me up one more time. This was when Melissa took advantage of me being awake to excuse herself for sleep. I know that I need some horizontal sleep sooner or later but I had indigestion bordering on the threat of reflux and realized that lying down might be a bad idea in the short term. After that, I woke up long enough for me to crash again but I had my bedtime meds in me this time after going nearly a week without them. Pain, fatigue and medicine combined to knock me out for something close to eight hours.

Melissa and I are overwhelmed by everything going on around us. Today's big goal is getting an insurance check deposited in the bank. I decided to take charge of this last night when I realized that something was holding Melissa back. It's no big deal but it looked like one to her because she needed my help to break it down into manageable tasks. The first will be me making a phone call to confirm that nothing special needs to be done with the check and, presuming there's nothing new and exciting to do, the second will be Melissa making the deposit on her way to work. I need to wait another half hour for the credit union to open and then I'll make the call.

Living the 24 Hour Day

Back when I started college, some of my professors were bemoaning "life in the 24 news cycle." Due to the relatively new phenomenon of the 24 hour cable news network, already shabby TV journalism was falling apart at the seams. My concentration was on political news in the afterglow of President Clinton's first election. In the days before the 24 hour news cycle, you expected news to follow the sort of pattern that a relatively healthy adult might live in the prime of life. I figure we'll call it eight hours of news just so the math works out right. Around the time Clinton began his first term, a lot of people were getting all news all the time or something along those lines. Then, people in politics were doing the same amount of work (a lot more than 8 hours but that doesn't matter) and the 24 hour news cycle came along.

News declined from Walter Cronkite being trusted in every living room to Faux News' "Manifestly Unfair and Psychotically Imbalanced" (in my honest yet humble opinion, of course) over the course of my first decade of paying attention to the news. Some of it was genuinely malicious stuff that would have been illegal in the U.K. but most of it was the result of people competing for those advertising dollars generated by those looking for political commentary at four in the morning. President Clinton got both varieties in vast quantities from the supposedly liberal media but I'm not going there. This is a segue into the fact that I am that person looking for something to do at four in the morning.

I've been living the 24 hour day for quite a while now but I've been healthy enough for others to notice it this month. One example came in the form of good old Linda Johnson and her hospital stay. It ended up being benign as these things go so I can use it. Linda posted on Facebook that she was going into the hospital with some heart trouble. She's okay now. Judging by the standards of my casual friendships since I got sick, we've been somewhat close. She read Blahthings back when I was terribly serious about it all and we exchanged emails regularly. That would be regularly averaging out to something like once a month over a decade or so.

With my new chair and my tablet computer allowing me to be more active online using less energy, her hospital stay got exposed to my version of the 24 hour news cycle. First, it was a quick post about two sick people and one who just happened to be stretching her metaphorical social legs. Melissa might have made some polite inquiry at home so I posted again. Pretty soon, I was surfing those neurotic waves we insomniacs know and even love sometimes. I had all this nervous energy and I was concerned about Barbara so I was thinking about hospitals and Linda was in the hospital and... If I were on TV, I'd have gotten to the point of having the graphics department come up with something in a special font: "Linda Health Watch: 2013."

I'm sorry if I offended with my excess of attention. This is the point where the serotonin and other neurotransmitters produced by my insomnia and my arthritis flareup stopped making things funny for me. It's not a pity party but a mere physical fact. I'm fresh out of good humor.

I don't know why my arthritis is flaring up so badly. I'm in a temperature controlled environment but it seems awfully humid in here which is just weird. Humid is supposed to be what an AC unit handles best. It wasn't just my joints that hurt. My muscles joined in on the fun and that hints at a fibro flareup. Of course, I'm running low on sleep or I think I am. Didn't I lose Sunday to sleep? I sure remember the dream about being some brain sucking alien invader but one with remorse issues so I was trying to make things right with the humans. Maybe pod people dreams reflect a lack of restful sleep.

What I do know is that I had an epic fail moment in the husband department today. We got some good news - we think - on the sudden flood of sick people who aren't me (or Linda) which pretty much narrows it down for you. The good news resulted in someone (who lives here as a human but isn't me) getting emotional. I tried the hug until it's better routine but my knees ended up slightly bent and...well...arthritis flareup! The white hot agony in my knees pretty much triggered all of the other pains to flare up which left me sitting in my recliner while Melissa tried to be superhuman. If I can't help people understand their human limitations, I don't know what I'm good for because I pretty much am one big limitation.

That thought translated for me into one stomach twisting, want to despair but it isn't my turn combination. I need to be there for Melissa when the shit goes down. (While the good news plays out, there's bound to be tension and dysfunctional behavior so it's a little like bad news while you wait.) I need to be there for her and I'm starting to hear reasons why I can't be there for her. What do I do when I have to be there and I can't be there? Well, whether or not it's really for her, I have to make a choice and endure. I know from experience that almost any physical pain is preferable to being separated but I also know she was making preliminary plans involving exactly that.

This day is just full of the realization that other people are more important to me than I am to them. I'm used to it or so I think.

On the Slow Road

After spending the remainder of Pain Doc Day reclined in my chair snoozing and sipping beer, I made my usual mistake of feeling up to challenges. It was a bad evening but I slept and recovered. The trick is to remember that I am recovering in the short term and not for the rest of my life. I couldn't tell you which mistake I will make but I will do something and crash back down. It might be something as simple as next month's Pain Doc Day. My body is not ready to try the fast lane. I'm barely up to the bicycle lane and there is no shame in it. For me, the change of seasons especially entering Spring and Fall are traumatic.

The pain is making it all but impossible to write so I'm going to lie back down.

Time passes again and my nose is back to the old grindstone so to speak. Call it a short session. We're still entering Fall here in Delaware with daytime temperatures in the 80s throwing everything off. I've been so eager for October to arrive that it is difficult to remember it is early or possibly mid-October. I can remember being cold at night in September but that was during my camping days. Call it chilled and not cold because I found it pleasant. A cup of hot chocolate before getting into my sleeping bag seemed to fix anything.

It will be important to pace myself this October for the Pearl Jam concert, my birthday, my wedding anniversary. Other events include the release of Pearl Jam's new album just days before the concert, the new Donaldson book coming out on Tuesday and the New York trip that will come at the very end of the month. Call it four years since the last time I saw Pearl Jam play and we all know how that show stood out from other events. There had been a New York trip then as well but I'm less worried. On one hand, it will be the first time I've left the state since the house has been my legal responsibility yet potential problems are a minor issue compared to the betrayal I faced before.

It's so much easier to contemplate life when I'm not terrified of being forced into a war I didn't truly want to win. No, I don't want to head down that path. I pretty much have to go there to discuss why I'm happier now in worse physical pain and in a house that I just cannot seem to get fixed. When I was worried about being in horrible pain this morning, Melissa made helpful suggestions instead of making it out to be some sort of character flaw. I have too many bad memories of plans hampered by "don't you think?" style suggestions. I am not an idiot. If I thought that, I would act on it. Since "don't you think" was usually followed by  a suggestion of losing weight or exercising through the pain or something else designed to make me feel bad, the silence is so much easier.

Worst of all, I'd heard them so many times that they colonized my own brain. I would sit down at the computer to write something and the thought that I should be doing something worthwhile instead just popped up like something from "Pop Up Video." The little thought balloons would interrupt a perfectly good music video with trivia that usually had little to do with the song. Even if you closed your eyes, the little popping sound was just intrusive enough. Probably the only thing worse than having my parents believing my writing was worthless was having the idea start to rub off on me.

I can only imagine how they would dismiss my current concept. Managing a chronic illness is a full-time job. Thanks to concepts born in the New Deal , it is a sort of paid full-time job. Obviously, it's more of a side benefit to hitting the shit lottery but a benefit is a benefit. Hard to believe how much time I wasted trying not to be sick. That sentence isn't quite right. We should all try to not be sick but there are some things that cannot be helped. No matter how hard I try, I cannot go back in time to correct a genetic abnormality which would prevent 25 years of slowly accumulating brain damage any more than I can ignore the effects.

If only I could have a conversation with Stephen R. Donaldson about all this. I would hope he'd be at least amused at his influence on my life. Avoiding despair began with accepting that some things - a lot of things in truth - are beyond my power to change. I cannot change the way I feel so I have learned to find things I could do within my limits. I can write about what pain does to me. It's not about earning my oxygen anymore. It's about finding value in a limited life. Avoiding despair is about learning what you can do, doing it and being satisfied with your efforts.

It's also about finding the beauty and pleasure in things. Life became a much more interesting place when I learned that ale didn't have to taste like the watered down junk marketed here in the US as premium lagers. Beers, even lagers, didn't have to be all about getting drunk. Yes, there is a strong element of feeling less pain and feeling less self conscious in my enjoyment of alcohol but it has to taste good. Life became more interesting when I let Melissa talk me into trying pumpkin pie. I used to be a little afraid of pumpkin pie because I believed it was made from the gooey stuff inside pumpkins. It is one of my favorite desserts now because it contains cinnamon and clove and so many different flavors.

My life is actually better in some ways because of things I tried in response to being sick. I used to live at a "kick in the door against any perceived barrier in life and then try to kick myself in the rear after anything but absolute success" pace. I learned to ask for help and to lean on those willing to offer it. For the longest time, I felt like the weakest person in the world even when I accomplished some good things. My greatest strength has always come from friends and loved ones. Before I got sick, I used to waste way too much time trying to be stronger than that. I know better now. One great cure for despair is knowing that you don't have to do it yourself.

Back in the Middle of the Road

Once upon a time, I remember stating that it would be my purpose to find some happy medium and live in it. Since then, I've changed the model so that coping with illness is my full time job. I think it suits me better because I'm never just drifting along in the middle. Today will be a very busy day. We are supposed to have a Nor'easter plow through and anyone who has had neurosurgery knows how closely linked barometric pressure and pain are. It also happens to be Pain Doc Day in seven hours or so. It would be nice if the two events would merge and someone would just give me a shot to put me out for the duration but it doesn't work that way. On a personal level, it would create a temptation to just get a shot every time bad weather rolled through. On my doctors' professional levels, it would mean having some professional care for me the entire time monitoring me and that still wouldn't be enough. I just reserve the right to be grouchy (preferably in a humorous way) and hope not to be grumpy (the non-joking version of angry) if someone chooses to drug test me today. It would be painful and I don't want to say why. I would do it and presumably pass on the retest but I will not promise good grace.

There will be days when I will not be busy at all like yesterday and the day before. It took all three cats but they managed to prevent me from staying awake the excruciating full 24 hours. That's approaching 30 pounds of cat which was enough to make me yell when one or more stood on my more or less permanently sore ankles. I could investigate it but that would require seeing doctors and this is a bad day to even discuss that. I snoozed most of the day which is what I like to call it when I'm not deeply asleep most of the time but suitably relaxed. There was some "NHL 2011" on the PS3 involved but I played in general manager mode. When you don't have cable so no one is trying to use the TV, you can wait as long as you want between moves.

This past evening (October 9th in case it takes me a while to finish and post), I finished reading Book Three in the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I know there are ways it can be prevented so that should be a sufficient sop to fate but I expect The Last Dark to be in my hands on the morning of October 15th. Anyone who wishes to lose something important should bother me that day. In all honesty, I should ration my reading to avoid concentration headaches and because we won't be seeing any more Covenant books from my favorite author. These last four books have been wrapping up the story in a way the previous series didn't and that ended with Covenant's death. I've been predicting his return since 1987 so you might say I've grown up with the character. Every time I read the books, I find new insights into writing and life as well as the Land. When I say this series has wrapped up the story pretty well so far, I could put it in terms that my fellow "Star Wars" fans could appreciate. Donaldson has given us a perspective on the Land that might as well be compared to starting off with the founding of the Jedi Knights and ending with some future legacy of Luke Skywalker. (Damned browser's intrusive spellchecker wanted me to call him Luke Jaywalker. I'll call him Farm boy all I want but never a jaywalker.) I look forward to this last book with bittersweet anticipation.

I'm full of seething concern for friends and family right now. I don't know if I have mentioned here that my sister-in-law, Barbara, has thyroid cancer. I know I've posted on Facebook. Right now, we have too little information to do anything but worry. Linda McCune Johnson has been a long time friend and reader when I was desperate for readers to help me earn my oxygen. Things are better for me now but Linda is in the hospital with heart trouble involving fluid. I might need to let the cats nap me now since there's nothing I can do about anything.

Okay. Time has passed. It's almost 24 hours after I started this post and things are clearing up. My sister-in-law is not yet laying claim to my throne as the sickest person in the family. She's hoping as I do that a simple (by the standards of surgery) operation will cure her cancer. Honestly, we're not that competitive. It's more a matter of knowing how sick someone would have to be in order to steal my throne. No one should have to go through that. Regular reader Linda remains incommunicado which makes sense a little more than 24 hours after getting admitted to the hospital with heart problems. We all need to designate someone who will put information online in the event that we are too sick to handle it ourselves. I was worried about a friend who had changed her online habits suddenly from being very closed to very open but she replied to my email. She's okay. The openness thing is just a change.

The change is a nice segue to the original purpose of this post. With my brand new chair in the house, I have rediscovered the joys of not being uncomfortable in addition to being in pain. My body has stored up so much tension and fatigue from the old broken chair that I all but fall asleep the moment I let the chair recline. It doesn't bother me the way it did before because I wake up feeling better than when I fell asleep. It feels so much less like I'm running a race and falling further behind the pack with each lap. My improved mood probably started with the least painful appointment I've had at the Pain Doc's office. I was already in pain but they caused me no additional pain.

Meekers gave me a feel good moment less than an hour ago. She's the bravest of our cats and the most vocal but bravest is the key here. I got up out of the chair to write this comfortably at my desk and Meek was settled in my chair almost before I was out of it. This made me feel irrationally angry for a second or two before I decided that it was okay. She's smart for wanting to occupy the most comfortable chair in the house and then she did the sweetest thing. She saw that I was headed upstairs and she followed me giving up her comfy spot in the process. I think she's with Melissa right now who is sleeping like most sane people at 5 AM but she's sweet anyway. She chose the comfort of her family over the heavenly chair.

Despite the fact that a friend was accurate in describing my house as a campground earlier today, I feel intensely lucky. After Melissa managed to sleep through my morning of moaning in pain, she stopped off at the liquor store and bought me a six pack of Guinness Extra Stout bottles. That alone would have been a small treasure. The Guinness Extra Stout is a nice sipping beer that won't break the bank in the event of getting guzzled accidentally. It has the pleasant combination of strong flavor and that "stick to your ribs" feeling that people used to apply to oatmeal. It tastes great and is more filling so you really can drink just one. That helps my doctors feel better about me. The greater treasure was a 750 ml. bottle of Chimay's Trappist Grand Reserve 2012. I love Belgian ales and Belgian Trappist (aka Abbey) ales are among my favorites. I don't think I've ever tasted a bad brew from Belgium but my favorite depends on my mood. Once I laid my greedy eyes on that bottle of Chimay, I found myself in a mood for Trappist ale.

I could catalog the bad things in my life right now but there would be no point. It's the same old shit with a different day. Thanks to my parents walking out of my life peacefully, it takes more to bother me. My full time job is managing a life of chronic pain and I think I'm pretty good at it. I oppose despair with joy. Every time I start to think about how hopeless my quest to get published professionally again might be, I'm reminded of the simple joy of creation. Every time I feel as though I cannot do anything beyond sit in a chair, I remember to play one of my Pearl Jam CDs. I was bemoaning a lack of new Pearl Jam last winter and their new album will be out in a few days. Melissa reminded me of life beyond Pearl Jam by finding a copy of Green Day's "American Idiot."

It all comes back to Melissa and it has throughout our marriage and the events leading up to it. Without Melissa, I might not even want to go see my favorite band. I'm terrified of crowds and I was raised to be paralyzed by my fear of disappointment. She finds joy in my joy and vice versa. If I were condemned to sit and watch the grass grow, it wouldn't be so bad as long as she were with me. There are great events in life like Pearl Jam concerts but most of it is pretty routine. There's no one out there I'd rather have with me through the good, the bad and the impossibly boring. That might be one definition of love.

Awfully Good Day

I know I mentioned this in my old journal, Blahthings, but I'm not sure if it's come up here. The world's two cutest calico cats run a service in my house. They will get up on your lap, get comfortable and then dare you to move. If you run at a constant state of exhaustion and/or insomnia like Melissa and I do, sitting still comfortably with at least 20 pounds of cat on your lap will put you to sleep. For months, I was evading Madeline who is the worst offender because I had no comfy chair. Whenever I got catnapped (that's our word for being forced to sleep), I would wake up with my body in some awful position and in terrible pain.

With the new chair in service, Madeline and Pippi catnapped me for the better part of 18 hours out of 24 yesterday. Meekers, the North American short haired pudge cat, is 20 pounds of cat on her own or so it seems. The scale at the vet's office is awfully kind to her. I had a list of "if I can't sleep, I'll be sure to..." things around me on the chair and Maddie moved in silently. Another running joke is that Maddie belongs on my lap so much that I hardly ever notice her arriving. I just find myself stroking my grey kitty and getting very sleepy.

Yesterday, I didn't even pretend to fight it. I got some water and my medicine for the day and got into the chair. My eyes closed and a couple of hours went by. If I insist, Maddie will let me up to use the bathroom but food and water are lesser concerns. During brief moments of being awake, Maddie let me do things like read my email or my electronic copy of Against All Things Ending, Book Three of Four in the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Book Four, The Last Dark, will arrive on my tablet in a week on the same day it hits bookstores and I can't wait! Pearl Jam will be playing the week after that and I have my tickets right here. We have seats 17 and 18 in row 15.

Pardon the sudden topic shift but I learned that it is possible to enjoy a good concert with Chiari and my other diagnoses. With the way I react to noise whether loud or not, I need to bring my big tub of earplugs. The light show would be crippling without my sunglasses and my seats off to the side of the stage. One of the worst things about being out in public is being jostled. It nearly ruined the first PJ show I saw because we got what amounted to floor seats in this big outdoor arena. I could see nothing over the tall people in front of me and the tall people behind me seemed constantly on the verge of climbing over me. There was one point in the show when I realized I couldn't see well enough to tell the band members apart so I sat down and let the music wash over me. The rest of the show was drift away heaven.

When we were getting ready to leave, Melissa acted as the perfectly patient partner that I need. We just sat and let the place empty around us until we ran into a real Pearl Jam fan. He saw I was having trouble with my cane and used his size to hold back the people behind him to let me merge. This helped for a while and then I swear the same guy helped me the same way again. When you suffer from chronic pain, you never forget it when someone helps you. Even small things matter so much.

The second time I saw them, it was indoors and we could see everything. I had chosen upper level seating on the side of the stage and we could see the band from above the entire time. The light show was aimed forward so my sunglasses handled the reflections and the occasional beam headed our way. The speakers seemed to be aimed forward as well so I wasn't hurt by the sheer intensity of the sound waves hitting me. There's usually a common sense solution that will get me through any special occasion.

Yesterday's special occasion was being catnapped by Maddie, Pippi and, occasionally, Meekers. They held very still and I slept waking up a few times but always getting pretty much right back to sleep. I tried to fret over things a few times but the cats were having none of that. I owed them nap time and they collected. I think I might just let them nap me again today. It's so much easier to handle pain when you're not awake to feel it.

Mental Math Problems

One of the reasons why I let things go is that I'm afraid to fail. One example would be yesterday when I was reclined in my chair in utter agony. Maddie and Pippi had me pinned down and they didn't want to move. Therefore, I stayed in the recliner having taken all the medicine I was due to take and meditating. How did I fail this time? Did I buy the first chair that came to mind? Did I fail to account for the additional weight of the cats? I had to have done something wrong because there I was lying there in extreme pain.

Thankfully, I've been reading my Donaldson books waiting for my chance to read The Last Dark and Thomas Covenant was forgiving Linden Avery for pretty much dooming the world. She was unconscious having worn herself out saving all her friends from yet another danger. He told her that, even if she had made such a mistake, it was only a mistake and that he didn't believe she needed forgiveness but he was more than willing to forgive if she did.

I was lying there in pain. It was mind numbing pain where I kept having to put the tablet down and simply meditate to process the pain. I had been through this for months of every Spring and Fall since I first got sick. Sometimes, I can be terribly dense when I decide to pass judgment on myself. There is no chair out there that can cure my pain through ergonomics. The idea was to be as comfortable as possible during the pain. There was nothing wrong with the chair. It is the nicest, most comfortable chair I've ever had. My arthritis is flaring up again and I'm extremely touch sensitive all over.

I was in a mood predisposed to panic and think terrible things about myself. After all, I was trying to provoke a favorable response from the contractor in getting the repairs started after my sister-in-law's medical crisis is over. I'm trying to get that firm starting date from the contractor so that I can give said date to the insurance adjuster and get myself relocated to avoid the banging that would send me to the hospital minimum. I had given in and spent money on the chair after needing to spend money on a plumber. The math says there is still money left over for the contractor but my nervous mind equates spending money with disaster. I need to remember that spending money on a plumber means having the luxury of running water. Spending money on the chair meant an end to the awful dreams that might as well have been hallucinations plus not having screaming neck pain working its way down to my jaw. These are good expenditures.

It isn't easy fighting a long war where the most positive outcome you can hope for is feeling a little better for a little while. It isn't easy to keep my dreams alive writing fiction every day I can manage it. That's not easy for a healthy person. I have at least two longer than short stories but short than novels all but ready to go. One in waiting on Melissa's fashion sense and I've lost track of what two others are waiting for. I think it might be me waiting for a clue of where to send them.

The certified mail turned out to be a neutral to good thing. I now have a check from the insurance company care of my parents (thereby taking themselves out of the loop) to cover the house repairs. They were going to pay the contractor directly but I'm not stupid. Someone is standing over my adjuster's shoulder telling him to get this *picture Yosemite Sam getting angry* claim closed! The need to go to New York is one of the last loops of confusion surrounding the mess. I have to be pleased considering the fact that I believed I was all but homeless back in June and now I have a check in hand to pay for repairs. Somehow, I suspect that the check won't cover the repairs or some nonsense like that but I have information on how to handle that. Information can be so useful for someone who is scared and hurting.

Let's see: told joke with serious point about blaming myself reflexively, gave my parents credit for being completely reasonable without even being asked and...forgot to mention the pain doc. My appointment was postponed by them from Monday to Thursday. That meant running out of my fibro meds but the office floated me a week's worth of samples to make it work. I did have to ask but the hoop jumping was kept to the bare minimum. I made one phone call to them and one to Melissa letting her know that she could pick the samples up. This was crucial because I'm in bad shape without my meds getting interrupted.

This all could go to hell in a handbasket in a hurry. I can handle a brief delay in getting my Social Security Disability Insurance money but any delay had better be brief. Sorry to those of you who are not of the true faith but I believe I should be allowed to forward any new collections notices to John Boehner, Dimwit of the House. Pain is not a partisan issue but health care is. Apparently, so is paying the government's bills. I have faith that President Obama will take care of those of us on SSDI as long as he can but I have no idea just how long that may be. Speaker Boner is up shit creek without a paddle right now and I'd enjoy it if there wasn't so much human suffering involved.

Right now, Boner could get a bill to reopen the government passed with bipartisan support. He would simply have to risk his political career by defying the Tea Baggers. He would likely face a primary challenge from those brainless flying monkeys and lose his seat. He could forget about being Speaker. Therefore, he needs to get some sort of concession from Democrats to cover his ass. It could be something moderate like lining undocumented immigrants (and those guilty of driving while Hispanic looking) up against a wall and shooting them. Not to borrow too closely from the great Swift but I bet the Tea Baggers would love Head Start if the children were given less fortunate children to supplement their diets.

In short, this shutdown garbage could become incredibly dangerous. Why do I not ask the Democrats to give in? You have to stand up to the bully at some point. Republicans have been running things by extortion and threat. I have good reason to be cranky but it's also time to sleep.

A Day of Rest

I'm not trying to be funny by having my day of rest hit on a Sunday. My body made the choice for me. I caught myself sliding downhill yesterday or Friday and came to the not surprising conclusion that I didn't want to spend weeks fighting off 10+ pain again. The surprising thing is that I'm able to do something about it. My new chair helps take the edge off my fatigue and so I'm able to go to sleep if nothing else (Maddie and Pippi!) is keeping me awake. I'm beginning to believe that there's a strong physical element to the frantics. If I'm so tired that I can't stand it, years of school training come to my aid and keep me awake enough. Of course, that's not helpful anymore but no one told my body.

The chair is not for sleeping. Upright sleep isn't as restful to my body as bed sleep. Waking up with my beard in my mouth is unpleasant but that's what I get for my vanity. Besides, it helps in other ways. Enough of the gross stuff! I'm not writing to complain. The chair is for resting, napping and having a comfortable position for myself. Now that I have a comfortable place again, I'm starting to understand just how much damage being that tired did to me. I spent most of the time in a state somewhere between being awake and being asleep. I would slide into slumber just long enough to spill food or drink all over myself or to have an alarming dream. One or the other would shock me awake.

I am convinced that these were dreams and not true hallucinations but they were close enough to be terribly alarming. I would wake up and have to ask Melissa the strangest things. "Did so and so call and tell us she's dying?" No. Until I asked, the information was there in the back of my mind like it truly happened at some uncertain point in the recent past. I found myself angry with Melissa recently because I didn't know where she was for about eight hours. I was certain that she would have told me something even something vague like "out with friends." I had nothing in the old leaky memory bank. She told me that she was going to do something for work yesterday and I handed her the tablet angrily. Write it down. If we write stuff down, I'll know where to look and separate the dreams from reality.

Thankfully, I'm getting a break from the 10 second dreams as I call them. It can't be coincidence that this break has coincided with the chair's time in the house. My naps go a little deeper and last longer than ten seconds in the chair yet I remind myself to sleep. I'm still a day sleeper but I've learned to accept that. I can nap at night the way someone else might nap in the afternoon. I know most nappers are babies or the elderly but it's not shameful to find ways of staying healthier

The Chiarian motto is "Be gentle with yourself." I've failed to follow it because I've been trying so hard to get things done. Must remember to avoid over-scheduling myself. If I don't rest, I'm just pushing myself toward an earlier than necessary grave. I'm in no hurry to reach my eternal rest so I'm taking today off. Tomorrow, I get to deal with three potential problems of unknown severity.

That's tomorrow.

Making My Choice

I've been in the midst of a summer long catch. No, not a Catch-22. Catch-22 was one of the catches in the famous book. The protagonist couldn't get sent home on a psych discharge because you had to request one in order to get it. The people in charge figured that anyone who wanted to go home had to be sane so you could not get a psych discharge in this fictional book. That applied to the guys who owed the Germans money and bombed an American Army Air Force base to pay up. They wanted to go home so they were sane. My catch has been no where near that bad but still annoying.

With all of my medical issues, I need a recliner and our reclining love seat broke beyond usefulness after the Great Flood. Attempts to sleep in bed almost always fail. Attempts to sleep upright in the broken recliner leave me with my head leaning too far forward (hyper-pronating) or backward (hyper-extended) both of which are bad. I tend to wake up in monstrous amounts of pain when I can sleep at all. That's once every 2-3 days.

The good news was that we acquired the money to buy a new recliner very shortly after the Flood. The bad news was that it seemed impossibly stupid for me to buy a new piece of furniture when a contractor will be coming in here to work. I was going to say shortly but we've been waiting quite a while for reasons that are largely my fault. I'm going out of my mind from pain here and yet I didn't want my new recliner getting drywall dust or worse all over it. The contractor seems like a nice guy so I didn't want him to have to carry the new chair back out to storage while he worked when I could just wait and have him merely throw away the old love seat for me.

There I was just about out of my mind from pain and I found myself reading those Donaldson books that I mentioned in the last entry. Why was I putting off replacing the recliner again? Well, there was that concern about getting new furniture dirty but I couldn't care less in so much pain. I'm long since done trying to please the people who would care and they have accepted this fact. The dirty furniture problem melted away. God forbid I need to vacuum the drywall dust off it. It would take another flood to recreate the gooey mess of my current furniture.

The contractor is going to have to remove all of my useable furniture and store it while he works. I felt grateful for the fact that he's willing to carry out the disgusting broken stuff as well and I continue to feel grateful. It's also part of the job. I want to make the job as easy as possible but I know that I suffer from excessive expectations. Learning to live within my limitations involves things like letting people do their jobs. It's not like he asked me to hold off replacing any furniture or anything.

That leaves my problem with enjoying the look of a nice wad of cash. It's a beautiful thing and it was a gift from a very generous member of my family, Melissa's Uncle George. I sort of stood there looking at the money and thinking about saving it for something that we really need. (After all, the money was given to Melissa but he knows as well as anyone that we are a matched set.) First, there was the water heater and it took me a week to decide that running water was important enough to dip into the funds. I wanted Melissa to be the one to make that decision but I'm the one who is home when the plumbers are open for business.

Sunday night, I explained my logic to her and she agreed that it was probably a bad idea to keep waiting and waiting. She's been the one who has been stuck witnessing what the pain has done to me over time and she had just accepted the "fact" that we had to wait like I did. Once I mentioned my epiphany, she was all for replacing my chair. We went to the local "Big Lots" and it was tough to force myself to make a choice.

It wasn't tough to pick out exactly the one I wanted. I made a beeline for it when we entered the department. The headrest was high enough that I could simply rock back without worrying about doing last damage to my neck. When I reclined it all the way, there was no gravity issue. Normally, recliners are a problem because the headrest tends to bulge out so my surgical scar area faces maximum pressure. When I got up and looked at it, I could see exactly why this wasn't a problem. While I don't remember the name of the style of headrest, it does not bulge out in the middle.

You know how it is when you go to an animal shelter and certain kittens make eye contact with you and then decide you make an excellent pillow. Well, there's also the feeling when the kitten you're fostering decides out of the blue that she's de-dopted already. Alright. I'll stop with that comparison before I anger someone. Instead of having the starving kitten in my arms, I was the tired aging guy who felt gloriously comfortable. Not falling asleep right there in the store was tough. I wanted them to strap me in and deliver me with my new chair but the gentleman in the furniture department brought up one "practical" concern. It was a floor model and they were going to bring me one from the warehouse so I might as well go home and wait.

This will be in my home by bedtime tomorrow. I can't remember what color it was because all I wanted was something that would not stain quite so easily. It would also be nice if it hid cat fur. I would love to show you the desk we didn't buy but that I admired way too much. I don't want to push my luck too much with Blogger but I've decided that I want an old fashioned secretary's desk with the door that pulls down to become a writing surface and all of those wonderful cubby holes. It's not a real period piece but I'm a history geek. Once upon a time, employers actually wanted their workers to have useful private spaces in their work areas. I think I might have drooled when I saw all the available room for a ruler, pencils, colored pencils and Pentel RSVP pens. You might have other preferences but those are mine.

The desk is cool but the recliner might just add years back onto my life.