Love Your Freds

Bodiam castle (as you will remember, Marlinspike Hall will not photograph)

It really has been a quiet day in the neighborhood, here, as you will no doubt recall, in the region west of the Lone Alp, the central geographic point of pride (on the elevated, hoity-toity altitude side of things) in this land of Tête de Hergé.  Older, more faithful readers, also known as The Most Belovèd, will remember that the entire name of my country is Tête de Hergé (très décédée, d'ailleurs).  For those francophone grammarphiles whom I have kept so busy, lo these past five years of blogging, please remember that "décédée" agrees, in gender and number, with Hergé's "tête," and not Hergé, himself.  Yes, I realize that both the "tête" and the tête's owner are dead, and probably at the same time and place, and that while my choice might seem arbitrary, or, God forbid, redundant, I do not agree. Of Hergé, I only have interest in the tête.  It may have sparked a Holy Spark one nanosecond after Hergé's heart's last beat and final flop.  In fact, I'm sure it did.

So, yes, we're in the hilly but essentially flat western plains, but in an area very difficult to chart.  Many a cartographer has given her life in efforts to plot our location so that Map Quest and other tracking devices might narrow down where, precisely, I am currently sipping my cuppa Italian roast.  No one seems to much care, but probably the second most cited point of geographic pride in Tête de Hergé is located on the Haddock family's ancient home - that's right, right here!  I speak, of course, of the lowest altitudinal touristic draw of the land:  our own Marlinspike Hall moat.  Rife with what I call mole holes in the space-time continuum (figuring them to be larger than your average worm hole, y'know?) -- and I make that assessment with the full approbative force of the accredited Seal of Support of Star Trekkers behind me -- our moat serves as the docking port and sporting marina for the world's entire fleet of miniature and super-miniature submarines.  I figure we're kinda like a Deep Space Nine station but on terra firma.  Though I guess terra firma won't fly in this context.  Good luck parsing this post, either for its pristine grammar or its fuzzy logic.

Kirk, making the Vulcan salute: How many fingers do I have up?
Dr. McCoy: That’s not very damn funny.
-Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Yesterday, I can at least be confident in saying, put me on edge, such that I don't much care where you think I am or whether your car's GPS has a clue about whether to go straight, turn right, left, or make a U-turn,  In fact, if we could make the rest of the neighborhood temporarily disappear to some pleasant spot, warm but with a cooling breeze, with beaches on the east and woodlands on the west, and s'mores everywhere there is a hypnotic bonfire, along with wine coolers shaded by tiny paper umbrellas and chunks of chilled fruit speared on toothpicks, with prosciutto-wrapped cantelope taking up a third of every silver tray -- well, that would be nice, too.  I hate to say it, but we've a daring, overly-friendly new neighbor two manors and one castle down the road who appears to be doing a bang-up business dealing drugs.  Or maybe he is the new rarefied gourmet salt door-to-door distributor. Celtic salt, sea salt, kosher salt, sour salt (citric acid), mineral salts, epsom salts, pickling salts. He strolls, cheerful and with deep-breathing good health, up and down the country lanes, phoning and texting and exchanging little baggies of white stuff -- small salt samples -- with random car drivers who impulsively stop to chat with him about the prospects for pork belly futures and which salt is currently number one on the salt list, in exchange for which they stuff sweaty balled-up bills into our smiling neighbor's now empty palm. In between chats with out-of-the-region tourists nervously eyeballing The Manor, the Cistercian monastery, the remains of the organic pig farm (wild and extremely organic hog gangs) and perhaps contemplating a tour of the Animal Husbandry Museum, our new neighbor chats and gives salt samples to the seasonal workers that stream into the area this time of year from Pieds de Hergé, our sister territory.  Thus far, he's not crossed the drawbridge to knock on our bronze replica of the florentian Baptistry doors, which makes sense.  Doesn't it?  What self-respecting medieval-slash-renaissance manor kitchens would be caught cuisining without a dozen varieties of salt readily at hand?

And then, there's my eye.  Specifically, the right one.  My right, not your right.

I have had to patch it again, due to excess tearing and what we will term "fogging." My pressures yesterday were again remarkably good -- 14 in both eyes. I had lost a little acuity in the right eye, but what worried me more was the discomfort, and the weird... I don't know... little slash of light that hits sometimes on the periphery.  Plus it looks like I am weeping and will never stop!  And I am not, I swear.

And yeah, that Saran Wrap over the orb feeling had returned.

So when the tech -- whom I love -- gave me the instructions for the next week, in terms of drops, I was relieved to see that we were "progressing," that the right eye was done with drops and the left was now going to start tapering.

Then the doc came in and did her more in-depth eyeball exam thingy, which included an announcement that " [my] body is doing its thing and having an exagerrated inflammatory response, particularly in the right eye." What is weird to me is the timing.  It did fine the first two weeks only to start this revolution at the end of the third week?  Then the doctor said that she considered "the first operated eye" as providing the road map for what the second will do, so she expects it to flare up in the third week as well.  So I am back to being one-eyed at the moment, but lacking my much beloved pirate patch, as Buddy ate the elastic.  No, not entirely.  Just nibbled it so that it was in three pieces and unusable.  So I am using these flaky stick on bandaid-type affairs.  Fred has drawn something on this one, but I keep forgetting to look in the mirror to see what is making him guffaw every time he looks at me.  It's always something.

So you will please excuse this backslide into "catastrophic thinking," an attribute I love to point out when taking other people's inventory (Sea from Phoctor Dill's website comes immediately to mind).  I am scared that an "exaggerated inflammatory response" will turn into an infection.  You know, of the biofilm variety and all that.

There, I said it.  The same crap that is in my bones/joints/prostheses has found its way into the windows to my soul.

Or is that a little over the top?  It just CANNOT be.  It WILL NOT be.  It couldn't have happened this quickly, one.  And, B) I REFUSE to allow this to happen.

Add to the catastrophic mode of thinking the fact that we stopped the Vigamox -- the freaking antibiotic drops!  I still have the oral antibiotic, which I've never stopped, I don't think, even once, in the last three or four years.  (That's a whole other post, entirely, as I've questioned the wisdom and reasoning behind that decision as well!)

Well, there.  It took me a while, but I spat it out.  Um, a little Windex and a paper towel will probably get that off your screen.  Oops.

[For those of you who are Fred fans... He's having his own version of a bad day, but I hope it's interspersed with moments of light-heartedness... such as drawing goo-goo eyes on my eye patch.  He's also working on another painting, which is fascinating to watch, as he's good as well as thoughtful and with a surprising sense of play.  But it can't be denied -- he's sad.  Fred has his own life, you'll probably not be surprised to learn, and has not the support he deserves, which also will not surprise you.  I long to give it to him and I fall short with remarkable consistency.  I want to envelope him in peace and laughter.  More than anything in the whole damn world, that's what I want.  I, me, me, my.  Sweet Fred...]

Everyone out there, whether you are new to these Tête de Hergé digs or old hands at this Tintin Tribute Land, and hum je ris de me voir dans ce miroir when showering, make sure to love your Freds.

Even if, maybe, your Freds don't love you in an equal commodious return: Love, cherish, your Freds.

Ethiopian Sky

© 2013 L. Ryan

Spew Day

An enlightening day, on all fronts.

Fred is sick of hearing about bad news, sad news, medical news.  Fred is sick of being interrupted. Yes, Fred let it spewwww today!  So I'm sitting here, feeling that safety lies in being mute.

The last eye surgery was yesterday.  Today's pressure check on that left eye revealed a miraculously wunnerful-wunnerful result of ELEVEN. I haven't had an intraocular pressure that low in 20 years.  Is the cure for glaucoma lens replacement?  (Yes, I jest -- because the level of inflammation in that eye is apparently pretty severe, and it is hurting to the point of being bothersome.  One minor bitch; One minor moan.)

It was a rough experience this time, but nothing having to do with the wondrous orbs themselves.  I cleaned obsessively over the weekend, something I do compulsively before any surgery, no matter how small, just in case Fred has to host an Irish wake should I decide not to wake up or pull some other shenanigan or tom-foolery resulting in death.  Do I want my Aunt Nancy to sit in Marlinspike Hall's Mourning Salon, enjoy a complimentary marguerita, only to rise covered in cat hair?  Could I find a restful position in the fiery sulfurous lake knowing that one of the militant lesbian feminist existentialist members of Fred's flourishing ukulele band was distracted from comforting my dear sweet Fred because of a smudge on one of our finest shot glasses.

Anyway, I may have overdone it.  I was twitching like a twitching fool before and, again, after the slice-and-dice.  The staff was, again, wonderful, attentive, professional, compassionate... but the only solution was to get home as soon as possible so that I could eliminate the excess external stimuli (even being careful not to touch me... a surgical team kinda, sorta, has-ta touch ya!).  Even noise and lights can bring on the Grand Spaz these days, so the anesthesiologist was very cool about allowing me to leap from gurney to wheelchair and out the door.  Plus... the antispasmodics I needed, at the doses required, were at home.  I should have brought them, but it just didn't occur to me.

Once home, there was considerably more actual eye pain than the first go 'round, and that became more irritating as the itching arrived, then the small welts around the bandage.  By mid-evening, I was snarling.  First, I replaced the nasty tape holding the eye guard in place with the much kinder version made of paper.  That helped... for about five minutes.  I fairly ripped the whole apparatus off, Fred watching TV next to me with such ADHD intensity that I don't thing he realized what I was doing.  It turned out that the problem was the shield itself.  The right eye received a sweet little unobtrusive plain plastic affair, very light and made of nothing that would dare offend.  Ah, but the left eye... was covered with a metal plate and its sharp edges were protected with a protective edging of RUBBER.  Adopting the deductive brilliance of the inhabitants of 221B Baker Street, I said (pretty much to myself):  "Aha! The game is a not a foot, but an eye!" I went digging through my handy-dandy purple and butt-ugly "eye kit," and praised the Good Lord and my favorite angel, Lo!  "Look, Lo!  I managed to hang on to what seemed like a piece of useless sentimentality!  The original plain-jane version of the eye guard!"

When I speak, I do not use quite as many exclamation marks.

So after a few hours of itching and welts, the problem was mostly relieved by proper tape and and the tossing of the malicious rubber coating on the guard.

The remaining problems?  Well, the Spaz Attacks didn't stop and I spiked a big ass fever, felt like krapola, and toyed with phoning the go-to-guy.  Instead, I had some frozen strawberries and lots of baclofen.  It seemed a reasonable accommodation.

Come pre-dawn, the only remaining difficulties were... the bleeping spazzes and the freaking fever with the helpful addition of severe pain in the shoulders and hips.  By the time they'd rechecked my eye pressures (not believing the initial reading of... read it again:  ELEVEN!), someone announced, "You feel like you have a fever," to which someone else added the helpful echo, "And your cheeks are bright pink and your eyes are kind of glazed...." There just being three of us in the room, there ended the commentary, as I had nothing to add to the conversation.

No, it all mostly boiled down to "give your internist a call," which is medical CYA terminology.

I don't think I will bother him yet.  The steroid dose is being tapered down, that can create its own havoc;  The surgery may have set off a CRPS inflammatory hoe-down;  The cleaning-of-the-manor escapade may have aggravated the infection in my bones.

So my money is on feeling a bit better day by day, with worse days interspersed just for normal insanity's sake.

On the way home today, in between Fred delivering various sententious sentences, we stopped so that I could buy some cheapo-cheapo production's (remember them?) reading glasses at a large grocery. And, of course, the ever comforting and increasingly necessary plain lowfat yogurt, the equally comforting and always important hair gel for the curly headed living in high humidity, and the surgical reward treat, which turned out to be NOT CHOCOLATE.  I don't know how it happened, but Fred's surgical reward was a well-chosen tin of chocolate-covered espresso beans and I opted for the veggie chips -- beets, green beans, zucchini, that sort of thing.  Basically fried stuff covered with salt.

And -- I cannot remember the last time I set foot in a grocery store -- I got to deliver that famous line once we were home and I was stashing away the purchases:  "We forgot the milk!"

So that you are not deprived of any interesting morsel of information, since putting up the groceries, I organized the next week's eye drop schedule (turns out the right eye still needs 'em, but in different amounts) and worked on getting the fever down.  I also managed to develop, and it may have shown up here and there in this post, some resentment over Fred's righteous outbursts.  It's the delivery that gets to me... The I-have-held-in-my-suffering-longer-than-your-average-person-would-be-able-to righteousness... The I-am-such-a-chipper-and-cheery-communicator-why-can't-you-be-like-me condescension... and then there's my guilt-because-I-know-the-essence-of-what-he-wants-because-he-has-asked-for-it-before.  What I don't get, and just cannot abide, is how he turns things that are positives (to me, their verbalizer) into negatives.  This can only be by the action of HIS brain and standards.  Most of the things I discuss simply ARE, and are offered as such.  Information.

That this outburst came shortly after I informed him, happily, that sweet Hannah (my hero -- the young girl who had the rotationplasty and has now had a SUCCESSFUL BMT!) is going to be on the Today Show next week.  A cause to rejoice, I thought.

Clearly, I want to be right.  Clearly, I don't want him to be right because I don't want to be wrong. That feels the most awful of all -- never, ever should I want for dear Fred not to be right.

He's a stud muffin.  He's a sweet heart.  He's a good guy.  And he is becoming foreign to me.  I spend much time trying to arrange a life for him should I die -- because I truly don't think he has the foggiest notion of how much it costs to live, how one goes about living.  He's the guy who never repairs anything and then is shocked when things fall apart.  I obsessively clean the lint trap on the drier and note on the kitchen calendar when the A/C filter was changed.  I budget for repairs each year because I know who is gonna pay (until, of course, Captain Haddock surfaces one late autumn day in his miniature submarine, tossing about reimbursement checks as if we knew we could count on getting them to begin with... and then the grog flows, and remembrance goes, and before you know it, it's "dive, dive dive..." and the Great Cuss-Artist of the Moat descends like a drunken ghost...)

And now I am having moments of resentment -- which logically can only be expended on myself, as I am the creator of the need.

I am the ruination of Fred's life.

I just did not need the reminder.

So that was my day.  It may be that the Spaz Attacks and the Fever, plus the irritation (ever so slight) of the eyes... it may be that I am feeling as if I've no skin at all.

Oh... and then there's the whole Syria fiasco set to go off, some say, on Thursday between lunch and 4 o'clock tea.  Why we cannot turn the whole affair into an elegant but non-fussy extra-judicial execution of a Head of State, I dunno.  No one ever asks me.  I think it's a cheerful, uplifting solution.

Love you (Well, some of you. You know who you are.  And hell, if you are someone I've never even met, but need a little love, take some:  It's yours!) --

profderien  

Amie de la Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore, Guardien de Frédéric, et Une Personne Extrêmement Déprimante et Dépressive qui Devrait Probablement Etre Evitée à Tout Prix --

Grosses Bises!






© 2013 L. Ryan

natural tears

hey all, hello, my beloveds!

please excuse any typos -- and let's pretend than any spelling error i might make is due to a typo and not ignorance! -- as my vision is really, really weird right now.

monday's surgery went much better than i expected.  my go-to-guy doctor paved the way admirably, as i should have known he would.  they told me, "he really cares about you... we don't get that very often from PCPs." brought me to tears.  i care about him, too.

the nurse who was with me pre-op?  her sister has CRPS!  no, i am not rejoicing that her poor sister is suffering, but i was wonderfully relieved at not having to explain what CRPS is, and so on and so forth. and when the anesthesiologist, freaking out at the sight of my legs, began demanding TED hose and such, she politely shut him down while i was still getting a whiny "n-n-n-n-n-oooooo" out of my mouth.

she had the wonderful idea that they wait and do any repositioning or whatever until after i was unconscious.

truly, the traumatized person in the whole affair was the poor anesthesiologist -- i felt for the poor fellow but it took him no time at all to adjust once he had the necessary information and was from then on a prince! a peach!  a pear!

anyway, i can see very well in the distance with my right eye, but everything within 4 feet is a blur.  my left eye remains legally blind, near, far, and in-between.  i have six drops with 16 different delivery times, eye patchs, wrap around sunglasses, and several pairs of old glasses with lenses poked out, and most of the time just want to keep both eyes closed.

my pressures thus far have been acceptable, unexpectedly accepable!  she told me to be ready for emergency surgery should the pressure spike, but thus far this eye has been toeing the line as instructed. i speak to it in a firm voice, and deviations from the plan are not to be tolerated.

the next surgery will be the 26th, followed by pressure checks (and navigating the world's traffic -- all together now: "Poor Fred!"

CRPS has, of course, gone on a rampage.  for some reason, it's decided my left side will be ice cold and my right hot enough to fry the proverbial egg.  spasms galore.  my meds are very messed up, as i am on a jacked up dose of steroids, and a higher dose of fentanyl.  the ankle that felt pretty much "healed" is barking loudly as well as an area high on the right femur.  and, just for giggles, the hardware in my right elbow seems to be slipping.  i know.  it can't really do that, can it?

my hair is going in directions i've never imagined, pulled, pushed, smashed by glasses and elastics and cords and bed-head.  i scared myself when i glanced in the mirror this morning.

in cat news -- buddy thinks all of this eye paraphernalia is meant for him, and he is very close to clawing my operated eye out in an effort to get himself the eye patch.  the elastic is too much for his little entitled soul to withstand.  dobby is frightened by all of it but intrigued by the smell of the drops, the "eye bag" (a lovely bright purple plastic thing, made in china), and my many different ocular incarnations.  i do a passable pirate just for him, full of args and ahoys and mateys.  the headline feline news, though?  ms. marmy fluffy butt decided, i guess, that i needed her!  after about a solid year of being on her shyte list, she comes to me now quite often, for loving and *ack*-*ack* solicitous inquiries.  it has cheered me immensely.  i don't have to explain myself to these three.  they are sort of like... youse guys.  out there.

well, that's not true.  the feline triumvirate DOES demand explanations, prompt ones, too, and delivered in an acceptable patois of cat and the queen's english, with the correct *ack*-*ack* cadence when addressing the queen of queens, the Marmy.  dobby requires several iterations of "good boy" to be worked seamlessly into any conversation, but buddy the incredibly large maine coon "kitten" can get by for hours with a wink and an index finger wisely set aside the nose.  he's strangely subtle, that one. should you fail, though, to uphold your end of the subtle interlocutory exchange?  buddy will punish you by finding a way to sit on your face.

not always the greatest configuration after eye surgeries.

fevers are within normal fever limits, so i've not had to call about that.  but there are now chills, so i am trying to be wise.  sagacious.  smart.  savvy.  don't tell anyone but there is building pressure and pain in the RIGHT shoulder, as well as an increase in pressure (but not pain) in the left.  the left "former" shoulder. (i actually hit 101.8 and stared, giggling, at the instruction sheet carefully setting the limit for a call to the ophthalmologist at 100.  chortle!  as there is no pus streaming from mine blessdèd eyeballs, but there is audible CRUNCHING in each shoulder and an ungodly, unholy amount of pain in my right hip, i'm gonna go rogue and say... it's not the eye!)

that reminds me -- another blessing from monday.  they understood how to treat my left side, as in, not to hyperextend that arm, since it has no "girding." in fact, they braced it brilliantly, and i need to pay attention to how they did it and copy it here at home, as that's one of my worst sins -- extending that arm.

just on the basis of my high steroid dose, traffic duty, little sleep, and his ever ready presence with coffee and pizza (well... he does what he does best, y'know?  he's a blessing, he is):

all together now -- "fred is a saint!"

on the very, very down side, i finally clicked on facebook -- I DESPISE FACEBOOK -- only to find a days old message relating that my mom FELL in the nursing home, breaking her leg in three different spots, requiring surgery and pinning.  she is doubtless frustrated and depressed, frightened and weary. i wish i could be there, with my natural charm and vivacious wit.  i used to be pretty darned good at taking care of people and i would love to take care of her.

instead, i will wash the eyedrops out of my eyes with natural tears.

© 2013 L. Ryan

The Fevered Pitch and Marmy Fluffy Butt

I will be returning to the blogging world soon.  I know you've been holding your breath in bated suspense.

Guess what?  Times are hard!  Physically, financially, emotionally.  I'd get in line except that, at the moment, I eschew the queue.

Monday, my first eye operation has been scheduled -- it's finally definite.  There were some weird shenanigans around getting information to the right people at the right time, but, as usual, it all worked out.
It will likely be a two-fer:  replacement of the lens in the right eye and poking a little hole in the back to help with drainage, thereby treating both cataract and glaucoma.

Because of my spasticity, it will be under general anesthesia, which does not make me happy.

Oddly, this bit of news cheered my new pain managaement doctor immensely.  He said,"O!  Maybe they will use propofol.  I think you will enjoy that."

I do a lot of just looking at this man, and wondering.

My previous "health care professional" at the PainDude's office will not be returning following maternity leave.  I wish I could say it was because of her simple (profound!) love of being a mom, but it's more driven by the fact that the baby has Down's Syndrome and needs lots of care.  She's a lucky baby to have been born to such a mom.

But it's my loss!  We had just hit our stride, after a rough start last year -- I met her just after freeing myself from the confinement of the Long Term Acute Care Facility, otherwise known as a place to hide the sick and disabled until they can be permanently stashed out of sight.  So when Natalie and I first met, I was a snarling beast, ready to run, trusting no one, and very, very debilitated.

We worked our way through it.  She was smart and reasonable.

This extremely trained and brand new physician who was supposed to just sub for her... is smart, very compassionate, and close to being idiotic.  He knows a bunch of stuff and knows hardly anything about what to do with it.  He's cost me beaucoup bucks already in the pursuit of dream treatments, and has given me advice that proved faulty -- prompting a phone message that bordered on hysteria.  "Disregard what I told you..."

Not to worry!

He is very sweet and extremely over-involved.  He has never seen anyone suffer as much as I suffer.  Do you think I need to hear that?  Would anyone garner anything positive from hearing that?

Anyway, he thinks I will get a kick out of general anesthesia, being unconscious and all, thereby not feeling my usual pain.  I'd love to point out that scoring me a dozen or so joints and letting me smoke them at my leisure would be something more likely to be remembered as relief.

"Hey, man, I really loved being unconscious.  That was great."

I'm sorry.  He'll grow.  I'll grow.  It'll be touching and rewarding.

The second surgery will be on the 26th.  After each surgery, we have to drive every day to the eye doc's office to have my pressures checked, because any eye surgery causes a spike in intraocular pressures.  For most folks, no biggie -- but since I have a pretty nasty case of glaucoma, it could wreck my optic nerve and so on and so forth.  The surgeon asked me if I could handle extra "emergency" surgeries.  That, again, is a weird thing to say/ask to someone.  Were I to say "no," what would that change?  As it was, I told her it was a familiar scenario, albeit never before with my eyesight at stake. Usually just limbs.

She's very cool -- about as tall as my knees, hair down to her ass, lovely, lovely high-heels, beautifully tailored clothes, tough as nails, focused, super technical and precise.  If I had only followed my intuition a few years earlier and ditched the old fart who was following the glaucoma earlier... I'd be in better shape.

He also had a love for reuben sandwiches and garlicky things that did not endear me to him overly much as we communed face-to-face during eye exams.

Anyway.

That's that.

But the purpose of this ramble -- the first decent photo of Ms. Marmy Fluffy Butt in close to five years.  She appears before you recently groomed by moi, willing to be seen (ears to the front, the "i tolerate you" stare), and knowing that the "boys" have been getting all the photographic glory.

Without further ado, here's my girl:

Marmy, August 2013

She remains feral, usually during the daylight hours.  When darkness descends upon our segment of the planet, she becomes a fur ball of flaming love, head-butting for pets, offering up her tiny, warm, round belly.
She's remarkably small, never crossing the 8 pound mark, except for the one vet visit soon after we first took her hissing and ack-ack-ing self in, when her stomach almost hit the floor due to the five kittens she unwillingly harbored.  Only eight months old at the time, you could tell she was hoping to meet the Law and Order: SVU team.


Today, I need to capture her, as she got into it with Buddy the Outrageously Large Maine Coon, and he slashed her face, managing to leave a large puncture wound near her mouth.  She's going to love me -- for capturing her, as well as for cleaning what looks to be a painful wound.  But we are not having any abscesses around these parts.  Not right now.

My other plans to get me through the weekend without going bonkers?  Well, first, I am not naive.  Well, not too much.  The Spaz Attacks have been BRUTAL.  Fred says I've turned part pretzel.  When the Spaz Attacks hit, and they no longer have predilections for the night alone, I darken the room, take meds, put on my earbuds and try to get lost in music.  Still, I end up screaming in 15 to 40 second intervals, with a string of curses to follow.  I have taken to getting very mobile in bed.  Sideways, with legs hanging off.  Head at the bottom of the mattress, allowing me to press the spasming leg into the black metal headboard festooned, festooned, I say, with pillows of various densities and shapes.  This goes on for hours at a time.

Dobby and Buddy are my little saviors.  Marmy would be, as well, but Buddy is so freaking territorial, he chases her -- and not at all playfully or gently -- away.  I will be moaning, attempting to sing along with some 1950s classic on my sweet Sansa Clip player, or belting it out with Nina Simone -- my God, I'd have gone crazy months ago without Nina Simone -- without Mary Black, without Bob Dylan and Neil Young, without, even, Deadman.  Definitely without my darling dead Townes Van Zandt.  I know Nina's dead, too, and that kills me, but Townes... man, did he fuck up.  Bonnie Raitt, JT, the Stones, Michelle Shocked, Sweet Honey, Paul Simon.  Even the soundtracks to The Sopranos, God bless "Tony"'s soul.

Anyway... I'm laying around being a moaning unsalted pretzel and I will feel a rough tongue tentatively flick my forearm, or forehead.  And it's one of the boys, registering their solidarity.  It's a real crap shoot for them as when I move from side to bottom to top to catty-cornered, they get no notice, so there is no deep cat snoozing possible, not without risking a major bonk attack from a spinning dystonic.

Marmy is different.  She would nestle in, and ride me like a broncin' buck.

I should not forget John Prine or Art Garfunkel, solo.  Jackson Browne.  The Raveonettes. The Roches. Phil Ochs.

When was the last time you listened to Phil Ochs?

Anyway, again:  It still takes a boatload of drugs to stop the jerky jerks, and why I don't just take the boatload of drugs first thiing, I cannot explain.  It can't be good for me.  But neither can all that suffering.

The risk of respiratory depression, euphemism for death, versus the risk of insane pain, forever?  What a battle, fought in a truly fevered pitch.










© 2013 L. Ryan