Honor the Fred, or else.

Fred tried to make me jealous.  He failed, miserably.          

by glittergirl

Ah, the benefits for spouses, sidekicks, and dear friends of mild short-term memory loss in those we love!

Fred is joyfully planning a coup.  Not a seizure of power, he insists, but more a revolution of celebration. He's always been ill at ease with the word "fun." It ties him in a knot, almost immediately.  You tell Fred, ":Let's have some fun!" and you'll witness facial contortions indicative of pure panic.  But if you work at it, and find some convoluted way to say it, like:  "Let's make today a better day than yesterday!" -- he's with you, he's ready, he has a referent. He almost jumps for... well, not "joy," of course, but perhaps "ascending hopefulness."

So he has volunteered to lead the Service at his place of, well, worship, on 22 December 2013.  He, uh, worships at a Unitarian Universalist affiliated congregation of militant existentialist lesbian feminists.  There has been a decline in the lesbian demographic of this exciting group, and their commitment to existentialism has always been questionable, as a majority of the membership cannot string enough defining words together to form a sentence about the post-World War II philosophy.  Which leaves militant feminists as the predominant ongoing influence.

Hank self-identifies as a Christian.  As far as I know, he's straight -- although he and I, and several friends, used to enjoy allowing others to assume we were, basically, a jaunty gay gang.  I wrote a poem about that, I think, over at AllPoetry, but don't know if I snagged a copy when I left that enterprise.  Let me see.  Be right back...

Damn, that was exciting.  I found a .zip file of my writerly "stuff," many things too personal to find posting here, but that may change according to shifts in courage, should they come.  Anyway, it's long and full of allusion but it does tell the story of our "jaunty gay gang," out to convince people at post-worship Sunday potluck picnics that yes, they did, indeed, know a gay person!  The rumors of invasion are, indeed, real! You're surrounded and we are eating your potato salad!

I'll get back to Fred's current initiative on the other side of the poem and its "Author Note."

"Peasants, Indian Nobles, and the Decline of the Tlaxcalan-Spanish Alliance"

as i write this, the defense of marriage

act seems to be circling the sucking

drain,

whether counter the clock 

or with it, i cannot tell,

though what else will determine the hemisphere?

i read the article behind these poems; fatigue set
in, i circled the drain. actually, it's better said
that i dove right in, sieve bound, no curvature, no wasted motion;

i am that sick of it.
surely there is nothing
left to say, only the abiding strength of what we know?

but i felt this way twenty years ago, as well,
when we were almost always together, all four of us,
at some point in any potato salad, fried catfish 

and slaw gathering: me and fred and ramak and alejandro.
our solution was that, together or apart,
we were all gay -- for the asking.

it was fred's idea, after his gazillionth whispered, crooked
fingered (halting and prepared-to-be-apologetic)
"fred, are you gay?"

he decided to always answer "yes," figuring and theorizing,
hoping and praying that then, at least, that person
would think they knew, at least, one gay person.

he had epidemiological visions of a spreading virus,
shedding little viral progenies, emptying the now vapid host,
having sucked and eaten its innards, free and bounding away

to spread the word: i know someone who is gay; i have a friend
who is gay.  fred hums "imagine" as he sands the frets of his guitars.
pleased, eased, now there were the four of us in the game -- but

back when there were two, when it was just me and fred,
we had the comfort of knowing others knowing
we lived together and seemed suspiciously, knowingly intimate

or, at least, weirdly close, not that we needed or required
or needed or required that knowing knowing at all, at all,
and then there came ramak --

for whom none of it was light as air, pretty as a feather, pithy
as a cold beer teachable moment, but she played.  the obsidian glint in her eye,
however, kept many a potential postulant from leading with the required question.

the butch hair, the soft breasts unbound under thin egyptian cotton tees,
her general cold courtesy, all these kept the question under lock and key
because romy was always romy, what else, who else, could romy be?

so we three hobbled along like monopoly's shoe and hat and iron,
fred and i trying to keep the joy in it, ramak sometimes giving us
the hairy eyeball.  along came alex, part alejandro, half gringo,

and the same with being gay, he first needed to know his audience,
prepare the footlights,  his traveling troupe, his imagined dresser,
but he was not in the closet, no, or if so, not

for the usual pedestrian reasons.  it was more out of castilian courtesy.
but as a game, well, and a game, you say, that we all four would play?
well, that might work, not that i don't cry in fear at night of being alone,

you understand. (and i would secretly hold fred's hand: ramak would either
redo the hairy eye or quickly wipe the hint of a tear at alejandro's crying game.)
"welcoming" church picnics were our specialty, we ate free

but were pale, all four, from the night before, so we lost some of the original
artistry, the courtly dance of far away corners coming together to hold hands
and circle, jauntily, in the middle, by the buffet tables, queens of may.

alejandro was hung over from the peculiarity of tequila one awful sunshiny
sunday morning afternoon, and thus he "snapped" -- his word, worthy of a copper's
tyranny of interrogation under a hot bare bulb -- "i just snapped, damn it,"

said alex, alejandro temporarily in barcelona

(santiago an emergency alternate),

so the four of us piled high our paper plates,

"raised high the roofbeam," 

goose-stepped over to the roots

of an ancient southern oak,

and ate and ate and ate,

til our cheeks pooched out. 

  
we were memorialized on polaroid, and what a tale that photo told, beyond
an apparent feeding frenzy.  i wore a thin jersey top with a hood
of my favorite deepest blue, the hood up, my curls defiantly creeping

out, curls no matter what i put them through. "she was just so freaking stupid,"
whisper wailed alex, stabbing what might have been chicken, but could have been
fish, "and what was there to say but 'so what if i am?' to the mousy-brown

sweet tea idiot, so much my mother i could spit."  aha, ramak nodded to me
and i lent her a bent eyebrow in return.  alex's mother was an unrecognized
but powerful female force in live performances of los reyes the gipsy kings

never introduced, just the spanish chica who carried the trills to the apex in a peasant 
bandanna blouse and blousy skirt, while they sprayed on tans under gold chains
on hairy chests over fat bellies and excluded her from the recording studio

and its royalties.  fred was oblivious to the backstory drama, didn't see his dream
game implode between jellos studded with grapes, watermelon chunks,
frisbee golf and christian volleyball, open to all.

i suggested we switch to vaudeville,

a barbershop quartet:.

fred's bearded hawk-nosed head,

my curly round-cheeked cheery face,

romy's amazingly white teeth

and sultry exoticism --

each popping up,  in harmony,

"i'm gay-y-y" --

 "i'm gay-y-y" --

 "i'm gay-y-y" --

and then an extended

holding of the line,

with jazz hands twitching

as a waving, jerky alex

hops up behind, 

boater waving, starting us all

in a slow,

flat-crowned

chorus kick,

leading a rafter rattling

(whether rafter or no)

speed increasing, voltage volting,

(Milyen volt az előadás? How was the show?)

flabbergasting

"so.  what.  if.  i.  am...

so.  what.  if.  i.  am...

o mama!  

o papa!

so.  what.  if.  i.  am...  

i'm gay!"

what really happened is that fred's dream was killed by the obvious:
a straight couple with twisted liberal tendencies,
and guilt (the woman in love with ramak,

but not gay), and alex keeping two journals,
one a  homosexual compendium of erotica that could
make a person weep, the other private password-

protected files in a folder marked "Peasants, Indian Nobles,
and the Decline of the Tlaxcalan-Spanish Alliance" on his mac.
our plan to have everyone in the world know at least one gay person

failed, failed even if we deflated the world to continents,
those continents to a country, that country to a region,
that region into little tiny counties, with towns of plastic 

red and green monopoly houses, motels, hotels,  
and b&b accomodations, monopoly's shoe, hat,
iron, and thimble jive dancing in the corner establishment saturday

nights before sunday picnics,
arguing why a gay bar cannot be a jazz club.
who to tell -- and how to tell -- the difference.

Author notes

A contest entry for: Nobody's Gay by T.H. 

This poem's title is taken from a Grinnell College Latin American Studies research paper written by Eliot Spencer in 2005, a Senior Paper requirement for certification in Latin American Studies.

It tickles me that people want to see the picture under the tree.  I am a poet, or trying. It does exist, but without Alex.  I'm staring at one of the huge tree roots, Fred is staring at me, and Ramak is glaring at the woman taking the picture -- who was in (very unrequited) love with her. Alejandro would never, ever play the game and was, at this period, I believe, having mooched all of us to death, mooching his way around South America, Spain, and Portugal.  Ramak telegraphed so well that even her willingness to play was pointless, plus she was always the same to all she met that... well, Romy was just above it all.  

So it was just me and Fred, really.  That's what I get for writing narrative stuff, I suppose, and making it plausible.

All I know is that the plausible picture of the four of us, the game, itself, driven by "welcoming" Christians and their curiosity, was all about wanting to be loved, wanting to love, and desperately needing to be able to relax into the truth and just chow down on free fried food.  We simply found a way to so structure our discomfort that we could pretend the strictures of hate, prejudice, and damnation did not exist.

Really, I should call these posts "performance art," though to call this "art" is an aggrandizement. It is such an accurate representation of the flightiness of my poor brain...

So... before that terrible poetic interlude, I was telling you about Fred's Christianity.  It emerges most often when he's hurt by some change among his friends at the existentialist congregation -- he clothes his concern and pain in feisty battle readiness, in condemning their condemnation of organized religions, especially Christianity.  

Basically, the congregation, about 30 years old now, has historically been made up of people marginalized by organized religious groups, sometimes in childhood, sometimes in young adulthood and on occasions such as coming out as gay, lesbian, or transgender.  Their faith, they say, went the way of their trust and love of the institutions that had sworn them an allegiance of support, guidance, and acceptance.  Not always, but often, the end result is a stunted thought process and a continual aggravation of wounds that never healed.

Fred says it was not always like this, not always this bitter, repulsed response to notions large and small, from stringent anti-Christian stances to degradation of men, because men are behind every bad thing that has ever occurred in human history.  Yes, the anti-male hysteria is real, and yes, I do characterize it as a "small" notion.  The men in the group are among the most liberally compassionate, pacifist, and open-minded guys you'll ever meet -- and the militant existentialist lesbian feminists all know it.  They'll even admit it in the span of a lightening strike.

Fred wields Christianity as a bat to hit the high-powered, stinging pitches that are hurled toward his strike zone, by which I mean that he is hurt and using ideology to fight back.

Hmm.  Do you hear bells ringing?

There used to be a solid core of existential philosophy study going on there, and, odd as it may sound, that study was full of fun.  Gatherings were fun, even if sometimes necessarily "deep." Now?  Existentialism is being not-so-gently shoved off the altar, left undiscussed, considered arcane -- and most members couldn't provide the sketchiest sketch of its history, meaning, or significance.

The happiness of the place (it is, after all, where I met Fred) hinged on fun, on a miraculous conjunction of existential ideas and theories for action with the lives that congregated around them.

Fred now often leaves for the 11 am service at 11:25 am.  He also sometimes goes early for a meeting or out of excitement for a scheduled speaker and ends up home at 11:15 am.  He comes home pale and sweaty, sad and angry.

He was born on Christmas Day, was Fred.  Raised in the Catholic Church, educated by nuns, he got over that abuse with the help of single malt scotches and beautiful women in Ethiopia.  He experimented with naturalism as a faith, and considered himself a modern druid for a bit.  The way he sometimes eyes certain trees, I suspect he still might.  But for several years now, he speaks with more and more respect of Christianity.

There's not a bit of evangelical fervor flying around backward in our suites here in The Manor, nor have we held Wednesday night Bible Studies (though I LOVE Bible Studies!).  Sometimes I insult Fred, hopefully without it showing, by thinking that this new faith-based man must be punking my ass.  Other times, I wish he would allow me into that precious space in his heart.

I started by saying Fred was trying to evoke my jealousy.  Little does he know that he does that every day, but we won't go down Self Pity Alley on this journey.  He got up early, as in well before noon, and as he handed me a wonderful jug of coffee, chirped "I have a lunch date." Then he stood up and grinned at me, feeling all superior and stuff.  This as I pictured the leftovers that I am counting on him (and Sven, and Bianca, and the Cabana Boy) to dispose of, while trying to appear unconcerned, and definitely not jealous.
He'd already told me about his plans over the weekend, but forgot -- so, ha!  I don't mind finishing off the incredible and perfectly spiced Spanish Omelet, complemented by a side of superior vegetarian chili.

The luncheon today is dedicated to a small group of revolutionaries plotting the goings-on for the upcoming pre-Christmas service on 22 December.  They are planning... a fun celebration of Christmas, free from any heavy wrapping in ideology, desire for conversion, or even contemplation of the lunacy of a Virgin Birth. This is more about a Jesus child, touched by God, running around nekkid as a jay bird and rejoicing in life lived well, finding the space and the spirit to befriend the frowning and judgmental, to soothe the injured.

A tree, small presents, maybe even a living tableau.  Jingle-Bells by the Ukulele Band.  Themes of love and hope, peace and good acts.  Sugar cookies.

That's my Fred.

He is excited but also, like me, tending toward "borrowing trouble." What if people refuse to come?  What if someone tries to openly denigrate Christmas?  What if he will be required to deliver a cogent thesis to explain Christianity itself?  (This is not a crazy worry.  The congregants are a hyper-educated bunch, full of professors and degreed fine arts practitioners 'n such.)

My job, I've decided, is to try and correct the course should the Christmas Celebration Cruise Ship veer from following the twinkling star.

But they'd better get with the program, those militant existentialist lesbian feminists or I won't be sending along any more savory tarts or rich mushroom polentas to those famed Wednesday night suppers and ukulele band practices.

Honor the Fred, or else.  A new commandment.

© 2013 L. Ryan

animal, vegetable, mineral

Occasionally, like maybe one out of fifty times, those forwarded gems passed on by loved ones really do make me bust a gut, and appreciate what a good laugh can do:

brain-sucked screaming ninny

\another LOLcat from Cheezburger.com

i discovered, at four in the morning, that baking wildly while screaming beat the heck out of staying in bed with screaming as the sole activity.  and in the event of baking-inflicted suicide, at least there's something ready to serve at the consultation with the funeral director.

but what to do while screaming during the actual in-the-oven-and-cooking period of time?  ah, that's where friendly felines and various miniature animals and sports teams (badmintoners, in particular... and i think we all learned a thing or two about badmintoners during the london olympics, eh wot?) come in to play.

marmy and buddy had a fur-flying, grand-yowling fight over i-don't-know-what, which necessitated both a good wet mopping of the mosaic floor dug up in old pompeii and unjumbled by me and the Fredster. followed by a quick vacuum job.  i wish to heaven that our cats would allow themselves to be vacuumed.  what a timesaver that'd be.

and before i knew it, midscream, there rang the oven timer, and i could go back to screaming in the aromatic kitchen.

true story. the other day, i brushed too close to the oven as i passed by and the oven timer, which was set (we are gourmands, we cook, we are dedicated foodies, except for frozen fish stick night) transferred itself to the back of my metal power chair arm.  oh -- the timer is a round gadget with a hefty magnet.  why the ticking didn't clue me in, i dunno.  but it sure as hell got my attention when it went off...  another instance of profderien ramming her chair into the wall, this time with sound effects.

anyway, now a good section of The Manor is clean, so those Genetically Indentured Domestic Staffers who inherited those quadrants -- mostly the Smythe clan, I think -- can attend the religious service of their choice, or take the tunnels to Tête de Hergé's best West Lone Alp pub.  no, i am not going to name it, not until they fork over some advertising dollars.

and in further selfless service to the sunday worshipping communities, i am sending most of the baked goods along with Fred to the Existentialist Congregation, as those militant lesbian feminist angsters managed to choose 11 am on sunday as their gathering time.  what a coincidence.  of course, it is now 10:25 and he is still huddled over his coffee mug, unshowered, gnawing on one of the more challenging muffins.  he often times it so that he arrives precisely at the end of the service, so as to mingle with his friends, and maybe put together a lunch crowd, or a foursome for golf.

fred is chair of the membership committee.

i find that hilarious.

ah, wait!  now he is playing the ukulele.  maybe the band is having a rehearsal after the existential non-religious service.

it's unfortunate, but due to the return of the screaming ninnies, the CRPS dystonia spaz attacks, sleep is again a major issue.  my hips are screaming, too, now, along with the left shoulder, making everyone with medical degrees say stuff like "oh god, no... please, jesus, intercede... mary? mary?" and stuff like that.  i've been off of antibiotics for over 16 days now, so the verity of things are showing up, hence the twitching, the screaming, the suicidal ideation, and the baking.  also the pompeii mosaic *may* look a little different now.  i made some judicious drug-addled improvements.

Trompe l'oeil Pompeii Floor Mosaic

anyway, as the kids say, meh, and i am climbing back into bed to watch the sunday political bullshit fly on the television, which hopefully will rock me into a snooze.

i can't believe it.  it's 10:35 and he is just now jumping (there has to be a more realistic verb, and something better than "getting") into the shower.  i won't be able to fall asleep until after he brushes his teeth, because he makes this ungodly sound with the last rinse that wakes, i am sure, even the cistercian brotherhood.

though what they'd be doing asleep right now, i cannot say.  this is the most exciting time of their week, the guitar mass.

brain-sucked, screaming ninny profderien, signing off.

My Three in the Morning

Individual Spanish Tortillas for Fred and the Militant Existential Lesbian Feminists
(with whom he dines each Wednesday evening). Total Count? Twenty-five.
This week's culinary offering from the Doyenne of the Manor features collard greens,
mushrooms, red peppers, celery, and eggplant in a standard spicy potato and onion Tortilla Base, with
Notes of Basil, White Pepper, and Oregano as the Uppity-Sounding Flavor Profile.


So what were *YOU* doing in the wee hours, hmmm?

In the Spanish Omelet afterglow, I allowed myself the pleasure of several chapters from The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook*:

October 3  Spoke with Camus today about my cookbook. Though he has never actually eaten, he gave me much encouragement. I rushed home immediately to begin work. How excited I am! I have begun my formula for a Denver omelet.

October 4  Still working on the omelet. There have been stumbling blocks. I keep creating omelets one after another, like soldiers marching into the sea, but each one seems empty, hollow, like stone. I want to create an omelet that expresses the meaninglessness of existence, and instead they taste like cheese. I look at them on the plate, but they do not look back. Tried eating them with the lights off. It did not help. Malraux suggested paprika.

October 6  I have realized that the traditional omelet form (eggs and cheese) is bourgeois. Today I tried making one out of a cigarette, some coffee, and four tiny stones. I fed it to Malraux, who puked. I am encouraged, but my journey is still long.

October 7  Today I agian modified my omelet recipe. While my previous attempts had expressed my own bitterness, they communicated only illness to the eater. In an attempt to reach the bourgeoisie, I taped two fried eggs over my eyes and walked the streets of Paris for an hour. I ran into Camus at the Select. He called me a "pathetic dork" and told me to "go home and wash my face." Angered, I poured a bowl of bouillabaisse into his lap. He became enraged, and, seizing a straw wrapped in paper, tore off one end of the wrapper and blew through the straw. propelleing the wrapper into my eye. "Ow! You dick!" I cried. I leaped up, cursing and holding my eye, and fled.

*Sartre's Cookbook Courtesy of the fertile mind of Paul Vincent Spade, Professor of Philosophy (Emeritus) at Indiana University, Bloomington (spade@indiana.edu)




Previous meditations on the Militant Existential Lesbian Feminist Wednesday Night Feasting Phenomenon:
Wednesday Night Suppers;
Writer's Block and Its Detritus
Coconut Milk Confessions
and the incomparable Vent: Saving the Day.

Wednesday Night Suppers

I spent several hot hours this afternoon in a state that seemed simultaneously a part of waking, a part of sleeping, definitely involved in sweating, highly aware of felines, and disgusted by the telephone and its attendant messages.

Having hoofed it to the bathroom upon shaking off all of the above, that was where I screamed a tender "Bye-ay-ay!  Have-ah-ah gooo-oo-d thai-aye-aye-am!" to Fred, who was off to consort with the Militant Lesbian Existential Feminists at their regular Wednesday Night Supper. (I always wonder what Fred actually hears me screaming, since my phrases are sucked up by Marlinspike Hall's intramural echo effects -- It's all those Garderobe Chutes, remember?)

Oh, drat, I didn't quite get that right, did I?  I meant to say: the Militant Lesbian Existential Feminists and The Mousse, she of the indeterminate persuasions.  The Mousse was tagged as The Mousse due to her fondness for the chocolate version of this dessert, the only food [besides a garlic pizza] to ever strike me low with food poisoning.
As it would happen, The Mousse participated in the previously mentioned "several hot hours," horning in on my rest by leaving a long, idiotic, breathless message for Fred, complete with ingratiating references to my various past contributions to these weekly culinary adventures.  In fact, I was planning to get up and cook something fascinating for My Clueless Darling to take... but something, something, something seemed to push me back into my steamy lethargy, lolling about the bed, smushing one incubating hairy feline after another. 

[And when I use "loll," I mean lax, lazy, AND indolent.  Take that, you verbmeisters.]

In an effort to eat cake and ice cream at every possible opportunity, The Mousse strives to celebrate any birthday, inoculation, anniversary, voter registration, first or last drunk, momentous sexual indiscretion, substantial retail discount, and whatever.  It turns out that tonight is Elaine's birthday and Llewellyn-Femme's Fifth Anniversary of Her First Swim With Sharks.  Tiger shark diving season is getting ready to kick off down in the Bahamas, so The Wednesday Supper Gang is also going to lay hands on Llewellyn-Femme -- in a non-Christian (yet inclusive) kind of pseudo-ecumenical militant lesbian existentialist feminist way -- in order to bless and protect her from sharp white teeth and iron jaws during her stints in the cage.

Anyway, so The Mousse opines during her extended whine on my voice mail service that Fred should probably help out by bringing ice cream, which would go nicely with her shark-themed birthday gateau.
I know that everything she says is in code, and when I break it down, I toss and turn and incorporate her ball-breaking bullcrap into a fresh, restless dream.

I was hoping to sort of pull myself back together while Fred is partying down at E-Cong, a vast repast before him on the long folding table, surrounded by women who don't share his spiritual beliefs, and one who wants to jump his bones.

He's not the only guy.  The Church Secretary is a guy.  And sometimes our old friend Sven shows up. 

I am hoping, though, that Sven didn't decide to attend this evening's supper -- because Fred recently decided to take Sven's inventory -- a very rare thing for even-keeled, sweet-hearted Fred.  With a little time, he'll remember that Sven's a friend, even if we've all been pretty weak in the Friend Maintenance category.

It has to do more with Sven's wife, Hazelnut.  She's an honest-to-goodness Minister, having trained in Existentialism at the knobby knees of Rev. R. Lanier Clance, Founder and Minister Emeritus of the First Existentialist Congregation.  Somehow, she learned very little, and over time, has forgotten that.

Anyway, this is not a critique of her sermonizing... but of her vast talent for taking hostages. 

Oh, okay, it's all about her every-sixth Sunday delivery of the same message:  How Christianity Hurted Me (pout::pout::pout).  Her father, damn the man, was a missionary who inflicted the habit of prayer on his children while tending to a lost flock of Native Americans who had the gall to claim pre-existent spirit-oriented lives. 

At some point in her childhood, Hazelnut suffered a severe injury, lost a leg -- She lives in pain.

I think that she has pain as her core.  I think pain is what is going on. 

So Fred is hot under the collar, almost continually, about the feminist inroads being made at E-Cong.  He's at the point where he responds to any challenge by demanding that you ("you" standing in for one Militant Lesbian Existential Feminist) "define your terms." Unfortunately, some internet genius cobbled together a list of 74 different "types" of feminism, a list which Fred declared authoritative and inviolate, and which he promptly committed to memory.

Should you defy authority and, undaunted, offer up a 75th version, Fred will stomp his feet, sputter, and craftily reply: "Yeah?  Well, spell it!"

Sven is blind. 

I am not trying to elicit any particular response by informing you that Sven is blind.  I am simply trying to advance what may appear to be a stalled narrative.  I wish the story could be told without mentioning either Hazelnut's missing leg or Sven's missing eyesight. 

I'd much rather do a commercial for their jazz music -- Sven tickles the ivories, Hazelnut croons;  They're wonderfully good.  Neither is disabled, both are achievers, maybe even overachievers.  That Hazelnut manages to be a full time teacher, pursue her musical ambitions, and serve as a Minister, is downright inspirational.  Sven is equally busy, also holding down a challenging job while serving as the driving force in their jazz career.
I mention their achievements to the Fredster, adding the raising of two fine sons to the list.  I'm hoping that he'll remember that Hazelnut has a right to her opinions, that he really does like and appreciate her, and that Sven is quite capable of critical thought and is no one's captive minion.  

"Yeah?  Well, spell it!"

Fred is so angry at Hazelnut he could just spit.  He tells me that she trashes Christianity, and with glee.  He tells me she is rewriting the history of E-Cong (a large part of which is his own history) and inserting feminism into a perfectly fine stand-alone existential foundation.  The beginnings of this Existential Fellowship were solidly grounded in philosophy and psychology, in personal responsibility, and in caring for one another -- never a simple task.  "No one used the F-word back then!"

I never thought that I would be a sounding board for attacks on feminism, and in my own home, too.  Okay, so, technically, we are just caretakers here, squatters in this vast manor until such time as Captain Haddock and Company resume their  occupancy -- but it feels like home.  I don't think I've ever been so close to an Indentured Domestic Staff before coming to Marlinspike Hall. 

Just the other day, hands on his hips, standing in the middle of the Fragonard Hobby Room, lost in its thinly veiled erotic frills, Fred had something of a hissy fit, and dared to define fair feminism as stuff women do.  So very frustrated with E-Cong and its revisionist historians, he now mistakes gender as the driving force behind feminist thought... an easy mistake to make, but tiresome, too.  The pink tits and ass of Fragonard did not help matters any.  [I'm just sayin'.] 

Yes, yes.  We have waltzed around "what's-wrong-with-calling-it-humanism?" and there's been fervent fomentation of Søren Kierkegaard and philosophical approaches to Christian theologies.  Unfortunately, Hazelnut could be heard, in the background, improvising melody and turning "phallocentrism" and "don't-it-just-beg-the-question-baby?" into pure rhythmic scat.

As a result of  these highminded debates and other equally muddled communications, Fred resigned from the E-Cong Board of Directors, and Sven promptly signed on.  Fred thinks that Hazelnut forced Sven to put himself up for nomination and that his presence signals the beginning of Militant Lesbian Existential Feminism's heyday.

"Yeah, well..."

My patient and compassionate Fred recently decided that Sven would be an Excellent Guy were he just free of Hazelnut.  His reasoning is that Sven doesn't know or have the capacity to navigate this world (being blind from birth and all) and has come to so depend on his wife that he is "clearly" suffering from... Stockholm Syndrome.  That's right, Sven has been held hostage and has come to sympathize with his tormentor, his wife, his partner in song -- Hazelnut the Haggling Hun.

I don't mind listening to most anything Fred has on his mind.  Like everyone, he works things out sometimes by talking things out.  He's very procedural.  He's an incredible writer, very clear, his words pristine in concert with his thought.  His humor will surprise you.  His elegant persuasions sway, his logic is rarely fallacious.

But he isn't budging on this one.  The Fredster fails to progress, his labor stalled. Which would also be fine, even kind of fun to debate, to examine -- but for one unanticipated twist:  Sven needs to be enlightened. That's right, Fred plans to inform his friend that he is being manipulated and hijacked in the worst way.  He plans to soften the blow by reminding Sven that he certainly doesn't deserve this fate, and shouldn't be judged for having subverted his good judgment to Hazelnut's ill-conceived opinions and attitudes.  What with Sven being so handicapped 'n all, no one will judge him harshly for his singular lack of backbone and his inability to agree with Fred over Hazelnut.

I heard a peculiarly soft voice issuing from my gaping maw, and thought:  Uh-oh.  My superior tone was dripping with condescension, equally at ease when among the people as when mingling with my equals.

I was enunciating, in the manner elicited back in my school days by a demonic French prof who would mark cadence by fierce taps on my curly head with a wooden ruler.  Always a bad sign, this patient, sneering enunciation.

Fred promptly made me define my terms.  Feeling kind of antithetical (also nauseated), I proceeded to draw a distinction between being correct and being right.  As in, he may be correct, but I am clearly right.  Miss Marmy Fluffy Butt, my Debate Coach, nodded her approbation.

And so I cling to my rightness.  He has no business saying anything of the sort to Sven.  "Sven, my friend, your whole life is but a regurgitation of your wife's bullshit... It's called the Stockholm Syndrome... It's a psychological paradox and I just thought you oughta know that you haven't had an idea to call your own in over 20 years... But I wanna reiterate that you couldn't help it, you're blind as a freaking bat!"

I don't think Fred heard any of my reasons to shut-the-hell-up-about-the-silly-stockholm-syndrome but I think I saw a flicker of something in his eyes when I said:  "Well, at least promise me that if you say this awful thing to him, that you will stand by him as a friend after it is said.  You have a responsibility to do so..."  It was probably a trick of lighting.

Who would have thought that these Wednesday night "church" suppers had so much at stake?  Jealousies of all sorts, machinations worthy of Machiavelli, insincerity as an art form, suffering bodies, suffering minds, troubled souls. 

I guess I can decide not to give a crap about The Mousse.  Given the Sven, Fred, and Hazelnut Triad, she just doesn't measure up as a worry or concern.  She's a simple annoyance. Just try and jump his bones, you dessert-driven nagging harpy, I don't care.  Whose Manor does he come home to, hmmm?

I'm up in the Computer Turret at the moment (obviously, huh?!) and it looks like Ruby the Honda CRV is coming down the road, throwing up dust and scaring our herd of Square Island Buffalo. Yep, that's her, weaving and dodging those giant hooves.  Unfortunately, La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore pulled up the drawbridge when she came home from rehersals earlier --  he's gonna have to leave Ruby to crank it back down...

What the... ?

Even from here, it's clear that Fred has the mother of all black eyes and two (maybe three) fingers in a splint.  And I am not sure, but I think he is GURGLING.

Bless his heart.

I think I'll just sleep up here tonight.

Living All the Ages of Man (btwn 3:48 AM and 5:26 PM)

It's 3:48 in the wee morning.

I am tired of getting up every 40 minutes, so let's pretend rested vigor and proceed with the day. Imagine an exclamation mark, if it helps.

Has anyone ever suggested that you fake it until you make it? Should that helpful advice figure among the chesnuts your friends serve up, I share your pain. It's not like someone telling you that a pinch of sugar will make your marinara sauce *pop* or even that those oversized scrub pants make your butt look... not huge, exactly... more like -- misshapen. No, it is clearly a critique of your very essence, and understand this, if nothing else: you have been found ANNOYING.

It has been a long while since I've been permitted to voice complaints around The Manor. A year and a half or so ago, Fred begged for me to suffer in silence. We were spending most of our time in hospitals and doctors' offices, infusion centers and labs. I was out of my mind with pain and infection.

Nothing has changed, except that, now uninsured, my doctors are struggling to keep me going until the advent of the Great Interim High Risk Pool, which will then enable them to toss me back into the operating room to relieve me of my shoulders and any other infected bones/hardware.

I cannot recall whether I was brave enough to set that down in this blog. Did I? I cannot remember. Anyway, that is apparently the final judgment -- since we cannot even identify, much less eradicate, this bleeping infection, the orthopedic surgeon and my internist, both, are lobbying for making me even more of a Depressed Freak.

My internist also won't let up on his contention that my right leg needs to be chopped off.

Ouch.

Ouch, I say!

These thoughts make me cry and sear my brain cells. I smell burning brain. Okay, maybe it is just the fever.

I honor Fred, and understand his need not to have to face what I must face. He will deal with things as if they are surprises sprung upon him by a maverick world. The man has more capacity for denial than anyone I've ever met. It still puzzles him to find me hunched over this laptop, sweat dripping from my matted hair (*ew*!), eyes glazed, so rosy-rosy cheeked. At his incredulous glance, I whisper: "I'm okay. It's just the fever." At my whisper, he reflexively asks: "Why do you have a fever?"

And I imagine tossing him to the Imaginary Monsters in the Real Moat.

[Apologies to Marianne Moore.*** If you love her poem (one version of which is at this post's end), her imaginary gardens with real toads, you should familiarize yourself with the publication history of it -- it's fascinating. And wonderfully instructive.]

So I confess that it is not others who shame me into faking it until I make it, but rather that it is a form of self-flagellation. Why else would I have spent an hour and a half rubbing lemon oil onto a variety of wooden tables while the rest of my country homesteaders snored in peaceful oblivion?

Four end tables, a console table, a coffee table, and a... plain old table. Our Little Idiot, Dobby the Runt, kept me company. He is the SmellMeister and insists on sniffing whatever I am involved in. I fill my HillaryClintonForPresident water bottle and he must sniff the liquid, then taste it from my finger. I do believe that one day he will save me from poison, this furry and personable little tastetesting pink nose of a cat. He smells the clothes both going into the washer and emerging from the dryer. Always well-behaved, he sniffs most everything we cook or bake, and to see him caught in a spasm of rapid eye-blinking is a fair warning that someone ought to have left out that last tablespoon of cayenne pepper.

Even whole suites of rooms away from her, Dobby goes into nose and eye spasm whenever La Bonne et Belle Bianca pops the top of a Diet Coke. There must be microscopic bubbles that travel directly to His Pinkness, as his reaction to the carbonization process borders on the pathological. Whenever flu strikes, we have to shield him from the nefarious effects of Alka-Seltzer Plus.

Anyway, if you've not been advised to stiffen your upper lip and make like tragedy is not your constant companion: Lucky you!

My penance-based life, au contraire, is founded on the mortification of this pesky flesh. I'm paid up through Early Eternity just by the simple virtues of CRPS! Actually, misguided ascetic notions of self-worth are commonly exemplified by flagellantism. I'm not kidding -- keep the thought in mind and go out among The Brethren and The Sistren. You'll see. (The World has become not much more than a Gathering of Frustrated Self-Anointed Life Coaches who, upon realizing that others are not lined up, breath bated, to hear their wisdom, opt to march in the streets, whipping themselves. Remember Perugia -- not for Amanda Knox and murder, but for its cutting-edge medieval flagellants!)

To the right is a bronze, circa 1480,
from the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Perugia.

Another way of foisting pop behaviorism on folks is to sing out, with a smile in your voice: BEHAVE your way to success! It's a favorite among the dOCTOr Phil crowd, but probably not his most quoted, as it sometimes has only a fist-in-the-eye as a reply. My Self-Annointed and Appointed Life Coaches, all of whom have excessive time on their hands, and none of whom are sitting next to me at 4:14* in the wee of the morning, live to employ this dictum (from a distance, though).

[*There has been a brief blogging interruption as I kissed His Fredness off to bed, murmurmurmurmurmuring him into the gentle arms of his fatigue.]

Fred, my friends, is pooped. He spent much of the day pretending to be a farmer, picking vegetables and busting up clods of unrepentant clay with the steel-reinforced kevlar toe-guard and toe-cap of his cemented-construction Doctor Martens 7A43TEAK Industrial TrailBlaz safety boots.

Except for those darned boots, he passed the Look-At-Me-I'm-A-Farmer test. Hogwashers and all.

You'd probably be shocked to learn that, in addition to hanging out with the Local Fringe Element -- in our case, a bevy of Existential Feminist Lesbians (I don't care what the ladies screech, you cannot infer one term from the mere presence of another) -- Fred is a Founding Member of the Red and Anarchist Skinheads [RASH]. Another proud New York Native "fighting to win back the subculture from neo-Nazi groups."

It's the quiet druid you have to watch out for. Smile.

Fred said he did some well-timed spitting out at The Farm, and would have gladly climbed a rope suspended from the gymnasium rafters if there had been one. The urge for exertion of masculinity was nearly overwhelming but he stopped short of a chew and a spit.

Thank God. {rolling of the eyes}

So my Macho Darling and the Existential Feminist Lesbians hauled home to The Manor three kinds of beans and some lovely English cucumbers. Turn by unsuspecting turn, three EFLs and Fred sheepishly whispered in my ear that, despite an entire day exposed to manure and burlap, they were unable to identify the bean varieties. He alone, though, thinks the English cucumbers are zucchini.

What?

Oh. Nothing exotic. Yellow wax, French green, and snap pea.

I knew, somehow, when I typed "chew and spit," that it would end up biting me on the ass. A person shouldn't have to look up every dang thing just to avoid some sick unpleasantry.

Chew and spit, in my agrarian world, refers to the gross practice of chewing tobacco and the ensuing spitting out of its nasty juices in a well-controlled stream. Sometimes called chaw rosin, I became familiar with the stuff during a stint at the Gothic Wonderland, a place that owes its existence almost entirely to Mother Tobacco. Don't listen to the revisionist histories which have the Duke Endowment funded by the family's textile and energy ventures... It's all about tobacco.

[My favorite phrase in the Duke.edu bio of James Buchanan Duke describes the Dukes as "[a]rdent Republicans and sympathetic to the downtrodden"!]

I loved the colors and smells of the nasty leaf -- I even visited the fierce and weird auctions that used to be common in local curing barns, trying to decipher the alien poetry spewing from deep within the auctioneer's throat, interspersed with dashes of Christian scripture, and, some say, visitations by the Holy Ghost, as speaking in tongues was not all that uncommon.



Needless to say, I actually do have some understanding and compassion for those raised in the tobacco culture, those who did the actual culturing of the stuff. The reference to chaw rosin, to chew and spit, was a fond and innocent one. [For the record, I stopped smoking around 1994, in fits and starts. Fred? He decided to show me up by quitting... overnight. Smoking is now prohibited in The Manor, though some inviting peppered floral scents waft around on the odd summer evening.]

So would someone please tell me when, exactly, spit and chew became the buzz words for an eating disorder? Like bulimia and anorexia, it is a singular disorder, usually an obsessive compulsion. And lest you be so innocent as to think that C & S might still be a reference to some wholesale grocers or a green engineering design firm, think again. It's much more likely to refer to buccal violence against chocolate-dipped macadamia nuts with a side of whipped cream.

I am further informed that this technique is attributed to Elton John, that its unexpected down side [s:h:o:c:k] includes tooth decay, lots of time demands, and the tendency to shoplift, as it is an expensive eating disorder to maintain.

I dunno. This fake it 'til you make it, behave your way to success movement may be the key to our mutual survival. I will deny the existence of pain, sleeplessness, and disability, and others can deny the existence of calories or God.

What totally sucks? The denial game usually works.

Give it a try -- C'mon! Unless your Gender Rules prohibit, plaster a rigor-inspired grin on your face, smear some raspberry-flavored gloss on those dry lips! Carefully layer concealer under the eye and apply a bit of eyeliner to the lash line. Don't forget mascara, wear something bright to match the vibrant scleral petichiae, and punctuate all utterances with a delighted giggle. (Or, if you are writing, with LOL.)

This is all getting really old -- this emotional gumbo, this lack of sleep, the failure of my environment to pity me. Complaints about my inefficacy are pouring in, despite the make-up, the perky colors, oiled tables, and promises of three bean salads, galore.

Body dysmorphics have taken over my language, and feminist lesbians have stolen away Fred's libido.

Dobby is sniffing my fear with suspicious beady eyes.

I putz away the day, come back to this very blog post, begun after 40 minutes of sleep, 13 hours and 38 minutes ago, in hopes of returning, finally, to bed. A storm rages outside, and three of the four felines are in my clothes closet. Fred slept a proper night's sleep and is now considering a nap. (Farming is hard work.)

The Manor's various Denizens (and Mavens... Never forget the Mavens) are resolute in their message of disdain for my psychic pain. Uncle Kitty Big Balls, the sole cat to brave the storm outside the comfort of my organic cottons and angora leg warmers, announces, in no uncertain terms: *Ack*:*Ack*. I think this means, in MarmySpeak, "Take your pain medication, with a side of muscle relaxant, grab a bowl of lowfat plain yogurt, carefully doctored with aspartame and vanilla extract, put your ass on the mattress, your feet on some pillows, and reread The Once and Future King."

The three frightened cats' tails are all twitching in unison, as they mewl at moi in between syncopated ronronnement.

Yes, something makes me look up mewl. I can't be happy with what I already know, cannot even behave my way to success in the World of Words.

You probably were already familiar with MEWL and PUKE.

My online dictionary cheerfully chatters about it being a well-known "phrase," modified from mewling and puking -- which did finally start the ringing of all sorts of bells inside my poor head.

I know, you are way ahead of me, but cut me some slack, would you? I just got up, sort of, haven't had coffee yet, and eveyone here is mad at me. Mewl! Puke!

Yes, Shakespeare rang those bells, and when Shakespeare sets a bell to clanging, there's no unringing it.

It's the cheery Jaques from As You Like It who intones the well known monologue on the Ages of Man:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

— Jaques (Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166)

Shakespeare, I see, has brought me to my untimely [melancolic] end...

Unless I choose to check out what promises to be a new toe-tapping favorite, "Sal, let me chaw your rosin some." It's the child of Gid Tanner's Skillet Lickers, and dates from roughly 1930. Tanner's country songs were called "rural drama stories," and I can't think of a more fitting genre to investigate as I go about putting my internal house in order. There's one in particular I want to find -- something about a "corn licker still."

[Spoken: Ah Riley, Lets go down to see old Sal.
See if she wants to give us a cud of
that rosin to chew on this morning.
(Riley:) All right, let's go down to that sweet gum tree and find out.
All right. We'll go down and play her a little tune called
Sal Let Me Chaw Your Rosin Some. Let's go boys.]

(Fiddle)

Jump up Jinny, jump up Joe,
You never get to heaven till you jump Jim Crow.

(Fiddle)

Cabbage in the garden, Peas in the gum,
Sal let me chaw your rosin some.

(Fiddle)

Hogs in the garden sifting sand,
Sal is in love with the hog-eyed man.

(Fiddle)

Along comes Jinny and along comes Joe,
Along comes Jinny with her apron on.

(Fiddle)

Cabbage in the garden, peas in the gum,
Sal let me chaw your rosin some.
(Fiddle)

Hogs in the garden sifting sand,
Sal is in love with the hog-eyed man.

(Fiddle)

Jump up Jinny and jump up Joe,
You never get to heaven (un)less you jump Jim Crow.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Well, it's been fun, but I've reached my end and will at least go assume the recommended positions for sleep. I've heard good things about them! Enjoy Marianne Moore's poem, and -- if you don't already know -- try to figure what parts she ended up resigning to footnote status, and which she kept as the primary poem. She was a card, was Marianne.

***Poetry

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all
this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
feels a
flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician--
nor is it valid
to discriminate against 'business documents and

school-books'; all these phenomena are important. One must
make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
'literalists of
the imagination'--above
insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, 'imaginary gardens with real toads in them', shall
we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.

--Marianne Moore

Road Trip

An update for my friends who visit me here (instead of at the Big Bald Guy's Place... oops, I mean the BBG's Community) --

Anyway -- just the gist about The Road Trip. As a testament to my laziness, this is a copy-and-paste from the aforementioned Big Bald Guy's Place.

Oh, ummm, the Church Lady. Let's just say it is a reference to a woman who has decided that Fred might just be... available. She is a very former friend, becoming more former every week. She fairly lusts after him at these purportedly innocent Wednesday Church Suppers. We all know it really is an Eat-Along During Devil Worship.

Anyway, she likes to bring desserts -- and not your Granny's Impregnated-With-Stuff Molded Jellos -- no, she likes to bring... Chocolate Mousse.

Chocolate Mousse: one of two dishes in my gastronomic experience that resulted in food poisoning. It was a rainy afternoon in Paris, I was drenched and sick with a bad cold, the Important Person with whom I had rendezvous failed to show up... and I needed chocolate. So at the end of a delicious Vietnamese lunch, I ordered up that Vietnamese specialty, the Mousse au chocolat. A little runny, but hey! Two hours later... runny had truly become the descriptor.

I remember being in bed the next morning, trying to hug the wall, ignoring the knocks on the door, wishing I could just die, promising never again to eat Mousse au chocolat.

[Just for the record, the other food that brought me lower than low was a "Garlic White (Stuffed à la Chicago Style) Pizza" that was scarfed down in Berkeley Town, prior to hoofing it with My Boy -- my oft cheating paramour -- to see El Norte at an Oakland discount theatre. It says something about our relationship -- what *exactly*, I am not sure -- that we both ate the garlic pizza! But get this: I got sick; Famous Writer did not. Ah, but I have seen him humbled by bleeding hemorrhoids. That's something.]

################################################################################## ROAD TRIP REPORT:

Youse Guys crack me up! (My friends had been leaving me online advice about dealing with Church Lady)

Okay, let's call Church Lady... The Mousse! Yesterday, Fred had a bunch of unexpected dental surgery, so he emailed The Gang at The Church to say he wouldn't make it to the Famed Wednesday Supper. About 10 pm, the phone rings, and it's The Mousse. Seeing her name on caller ID, I basically threw the phone at The Fredster.

What a conversation, judging from the one side I heard.

He sounded like he had just had a heart bypass or something:

"No, no... {sigh} I'm okay... No, thanks, Mousse, I don't need anything..."

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Don't mind me, the woman running a fever, in 8+/10 pain, going back and forth in my wheelchair, bringing My Darling specialty coffees and scrumptuous soups, various cats, and all the remote controls. Don't mind me, The Gimp! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

((Oh, shut up! So what? Yeah, so... if I *had* shoulders, they *might* have chips on them... Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.))

The poor endlessly suffering boy.

Anyway, I am trying to treat The Mousse as a bit of nothing. As a *speck* on a bit of nothing.

So... our roadtrip! Fred is incredibly accurate. We were to be there at 1 pm, and darned if we didn't pull up at 12:55. They were definitely aware of why I was there -- I felt like a very minor celebrity, emphasis on minor.

But no matter who you are, there is always a huge pile of redundant paper work -- and it always starts with signing away your rights... especially at a teaching facility. "We have the right to allow untrained students to mess around with your one and only body, and furthermore, we have the right to publish and just plain gossip about your case..."

"We also intend to charge you an arm and a leg for the privilege..."

Anyway, I did manage to hurt Fred's feelings -- he started to gather his things to go back with me to the exam room -- and asked, just as a matter of course, "Want me to go back with you?"

-- already standing up, tossing his backpack over his shoulder.

"Nope," said I, and motored off.

I don't know why. It probably wasn't smart, because some doctors will open up more if there is a 3rd, "responsible" party in with the patient. They tend to spend more time explaining... Oh, well. I think I managed to get the drift.

Actual time with the doctor? 8 minutes.

Time the doctor had spent in consultation with my orthopedic surgeon here and the famous Dr. Go-To-Guy? Unknown, but apparently more important -- because at least 3 minutes of the aforementioned 8 minutes were wasted on niceties, and questions like "Are you sure your shoulders hurt more than, say, your hips or knees?" He asked that 3 times. Obviously a crucial question. WTF?!

So... he thinks that the spacer on the left side, which is the second spacer since last December, must be taken out, and soon. He claims that the hand-fashioned antibiotic-laced head of the spacer (the round part at the top of your humerus) is fractured into 3 pieces.

Okay, folks. {Sigh. BIG sigh.} I *assumed* that he must have seen this on one of the x-rays that I brought him. I had not looked at them, because... I can't read x-rays! But when we got home, I took out all the films and eyeballed them. Know what? There was only ONE sent of that shoulder since the 2nd spacer got put in -- on April 27, 2009. And it was very clear, very clean: There were no "pieces" of spacer, or fractures. None, as in NOT THREE.

Anyway, it is exceedingly painful, as you kind people understand, and he thinks it needs to come out. Pronto.

When he finally turned to the issue of infection, I was again pretty surprised.

"I spoke with Dr. ShoulderMan and Dr. Go-To-Guy, extensively. I think we are dealing with a very common bacteria by which your immune system is being compromised. It usually is considered a culture *contaminant* -- propionibacterium acnes. It is notorious for infecting shoulder prostheses."

I was excited at that point, but posed a question. Turns out he doesn't like to be interrupted. Tough titties, I say! He even employed one of those weird-out moves: The Two-Handed Hand Hold Pat-Pat and Dip. Ha! Foiled again...

"What leads you to think it is P. Acnes as opposed to all the other possibilities, Super Smart Guy?"

"Well, Former Prof, it takes a very long time to grow in cultures. At least 19-21 days, in fact. Hospitals only keep cultures 5-7 days. So your cultures weren't given enough time to grow."

I didn't want to burst his Super Smart Guy Bubble... but I was being treated by one of the region's best infectious disease doctors... and he had ordered the hospital lab to KEEP my cultures, week after week. Once I know he kept a set of them incubated a month. NOTHING grew -- not P. Acnes, not a contaminant, not nothin'!

I figured he hadn't read the ID doctor's notes yet, and, come to think of it, the ID guy was the one doc with whom he did not chat on the phone in advance of my arrival.

Seeing that this was his Big Finish, I just kept silent.

"If it is P. acnes, how do we treat it?" I wondered, out loud (keeping silent).

"Well, Former Prof, it is actually an easy one to treat!" He never said what antibiotics are typically effective, so I let that go, too. I mean, give the guy a break -- he just had three hundred pages or so of notes to go through.

By the time we got home, I was in horrible pain, and had developed some Serious Attitude about driving all that time just to spend 8 minutes with someone who already had his mind made up before I got there.

I have heard rumors about some exciting new technologies out in the larger world -- things like computers and telephones, oh -- and teleconferences! Gawd! I can't think of a situation that better lent itself to teleconferencing than this one! His physical exam consisted of a few half-hearted palpations of my shoulder, evincing nothing but bared teeth and growls.

Anyway, sleep was denied Tuesday night, so I did what everyone here would do -- I got online to learn about P. acnes bacteria. I have never had acne or been treated with antibiotics for acne -- Super Smart Guy said that we all have the bacteria on our skin and in our mouths. It is now believed to be very common in shoulder hardware -- why the shoulder and not the hip, for example? No one knows. Also -- infection by it is almost exclusively limited to males!

Unfortunately, the antibiotics used to treat it? I've already been on them -- by i.v. -- for extended periods of time.

I know it sounds like I am refusing to accept the first answer anyone has dared to propose... but it makes NO SENSE.

[Don't forget the most disturbing detail of my situation -- these infections are recurring -- or never really going away in the first place. Even after being given what seems like appropriate antibiotic therapy, the infection remains/returns.]

In all of the studies and case reports, the longest time it took for P. acnes to grow in the culture dish was 11 days. There was no mention of 19-21 days! Most results came back in 5-7.

None of the studies/case reports dealt with patients whose samples refused to grow anything!

In summation (and please! put on your logic hats and tell me whether this makes sense to you.):

We're taking out this second antibiotic-laced spacer. He says it has broken into at least 3 pieces and is tearing up the joint space.

At the time of removal, he wants my surgeon to "reconstruct" the joint, and, I presume, to put in a different shaped spacer.

Take more [anaerobic] cultures, keep them at least 21 days.

As soon as something grows out -- determine antibiotic sensitivities, etcetera.

His money is on P. acnes.

The drugs that normally work? Penicillen and penicillen derivatives, cefepime.... ***vancomycin*** (yes, my eyes are rolling back in my head. yes, i just finished 6 weeks of i.v. vanco last sunday night).

So there you have it. If we buy into this, another surgery looms large, then about 3 weeks of waiting, followed by 6 weeks of [ineffective] i.v. antibiotics. Gee, I wonder if my WBCs and CRPs will still be way elevated, will I still be dripping with sweat from fevers, weak, bitchy and exhausted? Will my picture still figure next to the definition of "left shift"?

Do I do this -- another roughly 9-10 weeks of it -- or do I head for Baltimore?

Suddenly, I don't want to have to make the decision. I want my docs here to understand my doubts and concerns, and respond to them. I am sure that 10 weeks is not a long time to anyone else... I need to take a Patience Pill.

So... here is to patience! Wish I had some.

Thank you so much for following this ridiculous saga.

Prof

Just as a so-it-goes notice: I woke up this morning. [No, wait, there is more!] I woke up this morning, at the end of a 1 hour 15 minute nap, to find that I am developing a wicked chest cold to accompany this never-ending headache. Marmy and I sound much alike: *ack*-*ack*-*ack*-ing to beat the band. What say I get this out of my system before the next intubation, eh wot?