Hatred Runs Deep

I’m not a people person and I’ll bet that surprises precisely NO ONE. This election has validated all my fears, disgusts and despisings of humanity.

I live in a predominantly white neighborhood which has always weirded me out. Now more than ever though—it just doesn't feel safe. Yes, I'm probably overreacting—falling victim to my panic over what's to come in January.

Our neighbors to the right are immigrants from somewhere in Eastern Europe. They don’t speak much English (from what Jen tells me) but they aren’t at all unfriendly. Our neighbors to the left are awesome—supportive, warm and definitely, rationally left wing. I know there are a few republicans around here but, after 20 years in the neighborhood, they seem quiet. Hopefully they'll remain so.

I know...how would I know if they’re flaming, loud mouthed bigots or not? I keep to myself, rarely go out, and I'm not outgoing. Also, I’m deaf. Also too, when I’m out walking, I’m very much focused on staying upright, not falling over while watching the seagulls and waves. I don’t socialize beyond maybe waving hello. My walks are about building strength, attempting to improve my balance and getting a little fresh air. It's about rehab, not mix and mingling.

Being a misanthropic, deaf and disabled woman living in blue, blue Massachusetts means that I’m mostly shielded from the clueless, unevolved motherfuckers who poison the planet with their monstrous stupidity, their cruel and abysmally myopic hatred for all those who aren’t exactly like them. 

I know that, once Trump kills Medicare and Social Security, my death won’t be as far off as I’d like. Without affordable healthcare, without the bucks to fund my unfortunate surgery addiction, I die. All because a majority of Americans cherish their hatred of anyone who’s not a white, wealthy, straight, “christian” more than they care about reality. OR they just couldn't be arsed to vote.

And now a poem by Charles Bukowski:
The Genius Of The Crowd

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

Poetry Day

High Flight
     John Gillespie Magee Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air ....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor ever eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World
     Sherman Alexie

The morning air is all awash with angels—Richard Wilbur, Love Calls Us to the Things of This World

The eyes open to a blue telephone
In the bathroom of this five-star hotel.

I wonder whom I should call? A plumber,
Proctologist, urologist, or priest?

Who is blessed among us and most deserves
The first call? I choose my father because

He’s astounded by bathroom telephones.
I dial home. My mother answers. “Hey, Ma,”

I say, “Can I talk to Poppa?” She gasps,
And then I remember that my father

Has been dead for nearly a year. “Shit, Mom,”
I say. “I forgot he’s dead. I’m sorry—

How did I forget?” “It’s okay,” she says.
“I made him a cup of instant coffee

This morning and left it on the table—
Like I have for, what, twenty-seven years—

And I didn’t realize my mistake
Until this afternoon.” My mother laughs

At the angels who wait for us to pause
During the most ordinary of days

And sing our praise to forgetfulness
Before they slap our souls with their cold wings.

Those angels burden and unbalance us.
Those fucking angels ride us piggyback.

Those angels, forever falling, snare us
And haul us, prey and praying, into dust.

i can't stay in the same room with that woman for five minutes
     Charles Bukowski

I went over the other day
to pick up my daughter.
her mother came out with workman’s
overalls on.
I gave her the child support money
and she laid a sheaf of poems on me by one
Manfred Anderson.
I read them.
he’s great, she said.
does he send this shit out? I asked.
oh no, she said, Manfred wouldn’t do that.
why?

well, I don’t know exactly.
listen, I said, you know all the poets who
don’t send their shit out.
the magazines aren’t ready for them, she said,
they’re too far advanced for publication.
oh for christ’s sake, I said, do you really
believe that?
yes, yes, I really believe that, she
answered.
look, I said, you don’t even have the kid ready
yet. she doesn’t have her shoes on. can’t you
put her shoes on?
your daughter is 8 years old, she said,
she can put her own shoes on.
listen, I said to my daughter, for christ’s sake
will you put your shoes on?
Manfred never screams, said her mother.
OH HOLY JESUS CHRIST! I yelled
you see, you see? she said, you haven’t changed.
what time is it? I asked.
4:30. Manfred did submit some poems once, she said,
but they sent them back and he was terribly
upset.
you’ve got your shoes on, I said to my daughter,
let’s go.
her mother walked to the door with us.
have a nice day, she said.
fuck off, I said.
when she closed the door there was a sign pasted to
the outside. it said:
SMILE.

I didn’t.
we drove down Pico on the way in.
I stopped outside the Red Ox.
I’ll be right back, I told my daughter.
I walked in, sat down, and ordered a scotch and
water. over the bar there was a little guy popping in and
out of a door holding a very red, curved penis
in his hand.
can’t
can’t you make him stop? I asked the barkeep.
can’t you shut that thing off?
what’s the matter with you, buddy? he asked.
I submit my poems to the magazines, I said.
you submit your poems to the magazines? he asked.
you are god damned right I do, I said.
I finished my drink and got back to the car.
I drove down Pico Boulevard.
the remainder of the day was bound to be better.

And a haiku from John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War

Do not mourn me, friends
I fall as a shooting star
Into the next life

Good Morning

In the dawn, armed with a burning patience, we shall enter the splendid cities.
~ Arthur Rimbaud 

You are the trembling of time, that passes
between vertical light and darkened sky,
~ Pablo Neruda

I want to live my life in such a way that when I get out of bed in the morning, the devil says, "aw shit, he's up!”
~ Steve Maraboli

We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.
~ Leonora Carrington 

The Amazing Bob in bloom!

I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
~ Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall), Apocalypse Now

I love the smell of book ink in the morning.
~ Umberto Eco

How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!
~ Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume I

I've got nothing to say but it's OK
Good morning
Good morning
Good morning, ah
~ The Beatles, Good Morning, Good Morning

Being and Nothingness

and all that jazz...

It is therefore senseless to think of complaining since nothing foreign has decided what we feel, what we live, or what we are.

I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating.

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you. 

It is only in our decisions that we are important.

The recruit who reports for active duty at the beginning of the war can in some instances be afraid of death, but more often he is 'afraid of being afraid'; that is, he is filled with anguish before himself.

 It is certain that we cannot escape anguish, for we are anguish.

Life begins on the other side of despair.

We are our choices. 

I woke in a Jean Paul Sartre kind of a mood. OK, I've been there for a couple days now.

I meet Doc Barker tomorrow morning at 11. We'll discuss the upcoming surgery, pick a date (I'm hoping for this week – get this shit over with), talk about what recovery might be like, discuss that rat-bastardly meningioma on the right side of my bean – the one with desperately bad growth timing.

Today? I believe I'll take a break from adulting – eat cookie dough ice cream, cute kitten vid surf and watch a few eps of Buffy.

He Was a Gateway Drug

You know The Amazing Bob was a poet right? He also introduced me to some of the greatest poets that aren't taught in midwestern public middle schools (at least not WAY back in the early '70s). The first one was Lawrence Ferlinghetti  – specifically, his collection A Coney Island of the Mind.

 
A Coney Island of the Mind, 8
Lawrence Ferlinghetti


       In Golden Gate Park that day
                                                    a man and his wife were coming along
           thru the enormous meadow
                                                      which was the meadow of the world
He was wearing green suspenders
                                                      and carrying an old beat-up flute
                                                                                                in one hand
     while his wife had a bunch of grapes
                                                       which she kept handing out
                                                                                              individually
                                                               to various squirrels
                                                                                           as if each
                                                                     were a little joke

     And then the two of them came on
                                                    thru the enormous meadow
which was the meadow of the world
                                                          and then
                   at a very still spot where the trees dreamed
               and seemed to have been waiting thru all time
                                                                                     for them
                 they sat down together on the grass
                                                             without looking at each other
                      and ate oranges
                                           without looking at each other
                                                                                  and put the peels
                    in a basket which they seemed
                                                                     to have brought for that purpose
                       without looking at each other

      And then
                     he took his shirt and undershirt off
            but kept his hat on
                                         sideways
                                                        and without saying anything
                fell asleep under it
                                              And his wife just sat there looking
at the birds which flew about
     calling to each other
                                 in the stilly air
       as if they were questioning existence
                                         or trying to recall something forgotten

But then finally
                     she too lay down flat
                                                    and just lay there looking up
                                                                                         at nothing
                   yet fingering the old flute
                                                            which nobody played
                       and finally looking over
                                                              at him
              without any particular expression

                                                             except a certain awful look
                        of terrible depression

Ferlinghetti was a gateway to André Breton, Apollinaire, Gregory Corso, Ginsberg, Bukowski and more. He was 101 years old when he died Monday after a marvelously long, full life. I was just wild about his bookstore and his next door pub which I, sadly, visited only once.

Follow up on yesterday’s eye ER visit – it's an infection but not a bad one. I got MORE drugs, came home, had ice cream and, then, another seizure. Joy. It was a mild one though, so,hopefully I'll be able to walk again later today.

Jesus, this shit's exhausting!

Moon Over Valhalla

Stunning moon last night. Abso-fucking-gorgeous. I zipped outside this morning, as that fat, celestial pie was moving down towards the horizon. I wanted to capture it BUT...between my "essential" tremors, lack of solid photography chops AND my low-fi cell camera, the best I could manage was a few surrealistic takes. Ah well, at least its dazzle is printed on my brainpan.

If you want to write a song about the moon
Walk along the craters in the afternoon
When the shadows are deep and the light is alien
And gravity leaps like a knife off the pavement
And you want to write a song about the moon
You want to write a spiritual tune
Na na na na na na
Yeah yeah yeah
Presto, a song about the moon
Paul Simon – Song About the Moon 

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
~ Mark Twain

Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly; then your love would also change.
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

We all shine on...like the moon and the stars and the sun...we all shine on...come on and on and on...
~ John Lennon – Instant Karma 

The moon is friend for the lonesome to talk to.
~ Carl Sandburg

We ran as if to meet the moon.
~ Robert Frost 

But even when the moon looks like it's waning...it's actually never changing shape. Don't ever forget that.
~ Ai Yazawa, Nana, Vol. 14 

Maybe there's a whole other universe where a square moon rises in the sky, and the stars laugh in cold voices, and some of the triangles have four sides, and some have five, and some have five raised to the fifth power of sides. In this universe there might grow roses which sing. Everything leads to everything.
~ Stephen King

That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
~ Neil Armstrong

We are going to the moon that is not very far. Man has so much farther to go within himself.
~ Anaïs Nin

If I ever lose my eyes, if my colours all run dry
Yes, if I ever lose my eyes I won't have to cry no more

I'm bein' followed by a moonshadow, moon shadow, moonshadow
~ Cat Stevens – Moonshadow

Just Curious...

Today is an excellent day for chasing after mind fluff, running long neglected errands, deeply pondering various oddities, PAINTING, reading and, just generally, ignoring the entitlement rocking assholes who so severely upset and offend me.

Toward that end, I wanna know:

Was Jean-Michel Basquiat a fan of Willem de Kooning? 

Was Keith Haring a Warhol or Mapplethorpe devotee?

Are/were Jeff Koons and Jim Dine buds?

Did Dylan and Bukowski ever meet?

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn

Suicide remarks are torn

From the fool's gold mouthpiece

The hollow horn plays wasted words

Proves to warn that he not busy being born

Is busy dying

~~~~

Disillusioned words like bullets bark

As human gods aim for their mark

Made everything from toy guns that spark

To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark

It's easy to see without looking too far

That not much is really sacred

~ Bob Dylan – It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) 

The rest of the lyrics to this deeply brill poem/tune can be read here. 

To do nothing is the way to be nothing.~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nate’s not wrong but, I wonder, are his “doing nothing” parameters the same as mine? Mebbe…mebbe not. Fer example – an old friend of mine, back when we were in our early 20s (ya know, before dirt was invented) didn’t know whether to think of me as an actual artist or not. Why? Because I did close to nothing to market my work. Did my next-to-naught sales effort negate or nullify my efforts/my creativity? It depends on who you ask. If you ask me – well, my answer depends on my mood.

Reality – it’s an ever shifting target. 

Silence does not always mark wisdom.~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

And then there’s the tweet-happy Whiner In Chief.

“I don't think..." then you shouldn't talk, said the Hatter.~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Never miss a good chance to shut up.
~ Will Rogers

I wanna get outside with my camera – wander new places and photograph them. Two problems with this desire:

1. While this has been a warm-ish winter here inNew England, it’s still bloody cold out there.
2. I’m too weak and unsteady on my pins to hike in the Blue Hills or roam around the city. YES, I could take my walker (for city wandering) but that’s SUCH a pain and doesn’t address the whole weak business.

The Spring Equinox is in one skinny month – it begins at 11:50 PM on March 19th, to be all precise and shit. This means that, in the next few weeks, I’ll see lovely lavender crocus popping up. Yea!

Signs of hope. Heralds of better days to come.

Silence

 To me sometimes a mute sky is more expressive than the roaring sea.
~ Munia Khan

Sometimes being overwhelmed by emotions can leave you speechless but even then it is important to identify the correct emotion.
~ Sam Owen

You tend to write because your heart holds million unspoken words, writing is your only way to heal your own soul!
~  Raouf Ayoub

Maya was crying and she couldn't say anything, not because she didn't know what to say, but because there was too much of it.
~ Robin Benway, Far from the Tree

When you want to see great art look deep into nature. You will see the grass, clouds, plants, flowers, trees, mountains, valleys, rivers and the seas. You will see art that will leave you speechless! And this art is created by nature.
~ Avijeet Das

Sometimes the silence of your friends is worse than your enemy's words.
~ Shannon L. Alder 

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.
~ Rumi

We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox.
~ Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.
~ Chaim Potok, The Chosen 

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
~ Paul Simon

We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.
~ Leonora Carrington

Silence is so freaking loud.
~ Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

“I don't think..." then you shouldn't talk, said the Hatter.
~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.
~ Wisława Szymborska, Poems New and Collected

Your silence will not protect you.
~ Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

I decided it is better to scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.
~ Nadezhda Mandelstam, Hope Against Hope

False

Huh, I seem to have totally missed all the Flag Day hooplah here in my town. Gee. Darn.

There was to be a parade with floats and “specialty units” (whatever the fuck that is), a flag raising ceremony AND fireworks? Sounds like the ultimate in ronmantic Republi/Facist dates, doesn’t it.

I thought the celebrations were today and was planning my day so as to avoid the parade/fireworks end of town. Heh, I’m all set now!

This, by the by, is the flag we honor down here in Valhalla. Funny that it's not universal, huh?

Let America be America Again
~ Langston Hughs

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That's made America the land it has become.

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,

And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?

Surely not me? The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we've dreamed

And all the songs we've sung

And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay—

Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—
the land where every man is free.

The land that's mine—
the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,

We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America again!

Breathing in the Light

Dawn, that first glimmer of light in the sky before the sun yawns, stretches and gets his lazy ass out of bed, is THE most beautiful time of day.

We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.
~ Leonora Carrington

Everything IS breathing, they're just being supremely quiet about it.

In the dawn, armed with a burning patience, we shall enter the splendid Cities.
~ Arthur Rimbaud, Season in Hell Other Poems

OR just stay here, on the beach. Yep, I'll be down in the sand and surf if you need me.

Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.
~ John Ruskin, The Two Paths

Every dawn is born with its own unique hope!
~ Mehmet Murat ildan

I cannot help but feel hopeful at dawn. The planet spins – life continues. Today the light may indeed win.

 Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern.
~ Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

You are the trembling of time, that passes
between vertical light and darkened sky
~ Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

SHEESH, with lines like that I'm sure ol' Pablo Honey never slept alone.

Tess was awake before dawn — at the marginal minute of the dark when the grove is still mute, save for one prophetic bird who sings with a clear-voiced conviction that he at least knows the correct time of day, the rest preserving silence as if equally convinced that he is mistaken.
~ Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles

That bird? He just couldn't sleep. Had nothing to do with knowing or really caring about the actual time.

And when the dawn comes creeping in,
Cautiously I shall raise
Myself to watch the daylight win.
~ D.H. Lawrence

Of the things we fashioned for them, that they might be comforted, dawn is the one that works.
~ John Banville, The Infinities

TRUTH! And then the sun showed up.

Thought Trains

A fabola post from my friend, the brain sparking poet and amazing artist Linda Baker-Cimini. You can enjoy more of her work (AND buy some to adorn your very own castle as I've done!) at her webdsite: www.Baker-Cimini.com.

He did not know which train
his thoughts had gotten lost on
so he sat in the station
as surely they were all
bound to come round again.

Then he began to wonder
if he would recognize them.
They might have grown beards
or had children or simply
passed away.

And there he sits today
as he does every day
lost in thought
awaiting imaginary trains.

I'm with Ogden

Me and Doctor Coco

I’m REALLY looking forward to the days when, once again, simple shit like feeding the cats, loading the dishwasher, making dinner and doing a little sweeping don’t exhaust me.

It’s this damn cold. The fucker’s intensity is greatly reduced BUT it’s hangin’ in. ASSHOLE!

When in the midst of illin’ it feels as though I’ll never again have energy. I won’t ever have clear sinuses and my head will forever be crammed with mildewed, soggy wool.

While I AM on the mend, I can’t help but feel a deep kinship with the truth telling, eloquent Mister Ogden Nash.

COMMON COLD

Go hang yourself, you old M.D.!
You shall not sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
I'm not paying you for your visit.
I did not call you to be told
My malady is a common cold.

By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever's hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!

Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The Führer of the Streptococcracy.

Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne'er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympic laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.

A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare's plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds

Today’s goals are modest. A few leg strengthening exercises, a walk across the street to the seawall and I’m gonna TRY to drive my power steering-free car – see if I’ve the strength for that. I recall the car salesman advising me, as though this was a dealbreaker, Ya know, it doesn’t have power steering. I replied that this was actually preferable as it’d be the only arm exercise I’d get (not true but CLOSE!).

I promised Jen AND my visiting nurse that, on this maiden voyage, I’d go VERY slow and ONLY drive around my very quiet neighborhood.

Hmmph. Fine. I’ll be good….for now!

Meanwhile, Back in Recoveryville

Paul Klee – Dancing Girl

I’m no good at this shit – recovery from back surgery, that is. I have a good day so I start acting like I’m ALL better. I shift furniture about, I exercise, I sit in my unforgiving, hard backed, no-tilt desk chair and attempt to work. I make big plans which are near invariably banjaxed when the pain from overdoing hits.

A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller.
~ Paul Klee

In other words, two steps forward and one and a half back, Whoopee!

Scars are not injuries.… A scar is a healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole.
~ China Miéville, The Scar

I’m gonna be SO damn whole but, mega sadly, not today!  Also, I’ve got so many damn scars now, my head and back are beginning to look like a Boston road map.

You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town
~ Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually) 

My monkey? Not drugs or booze – it’s the damn Nf2. If it ain't one goddamn meningioma or neuroma it’s another. This circus never leaves town.

You were sick, but now you're well again, and there's work to do.
~ Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake 

Gettin’ there, Babe, gettin' there.

Karl Marx: "Religion is the opiate of the masses."

Carrie Fisher: "I did masses of opiates religiously.”
~ Carrie Fisher, Postcards from the Edge 

Coco keeps a close watch from her queenyly aerie

I look forward to opiate-free days. Soon, soon. I must be patient. NOT one of my superpowers.

"One day at a time, sweet Jesus." Whoever wrote that one hadn’t a clue. A day is a fuckin’ eternity .
~ Roddy Doyle, Paula Spencer

Oh, you betcha, Brother!

We've been there and come back. When you fall in the pit, people are supposed to help you up. But you have to get up on your own. We'll take your arms, but you have to get your legs underneath you and stand.
~ Bucky Sinister, Get Up: A 12-Step Guide to Recovery for Misfits, Freaks, and Weirdos 
 
Truth! I’ve got a lot of wonderful helpers but only I can make this recovery happen.

A bridge of silver wings stretches from the dead ashes of an unforgiving nightmare
to the jeweled vision of a life started anew.
~ Aberjhani, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry 

Yeah this one’s a little over the top for how I’m feeling this morning but, ya know, maybe not. That nightmare, by the by, includes the bazillion surgeries I’ve survived, the slings and arrows of outrageous, thoughtless, narcissistic, assholian “family” and, most especially, the loss of my MOST Amazing Bob,

I think that little by little I'll be able to solve my problems and survive.
~ Frida Kahlo

I’m with ya, Sister!

Take a shower, wash off the day. Drink a glass of water. Make the room dark. Lie down and close your eyes.

Notice the silence. Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting. You made it, after all. You made it, another day. And you can make it one more.

You’re doing just fine.
~ Charlotte Eriksson 

Yup!