Get It While You Can

Three+ years on and I’m still haunted by dreams of The Amazing Bob in hospital. In this one though, we were at St. E’s not MGH. Weird. We never spent any time at St. E's even though we lived in Brighton for a fair number of years.

In last night’s ep, the docs were gonna let me take TAB home. Alive and everything! I was getting dressed in my own hospital room, for the cab ride home. I was taking care to pick an outfit that I knew TAB pariculary liked. It's always good to inspire we're-leavin'-the-hospital smiles

But first the good docs had to show me a real time Xray (like an ultrasound) of the rat bastards blocking my man’s arteries. But wait…are they, instead, showing me some of the motherfuckers who're killing time on my spine and in my brain?

OK so maybe I’m haunted by all the goddamn time I’ve spent in hospital both with and without TAB.

To live is to be haunted.
~ Philip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

A truth that’s dawned on me – a real haunting has nothing to do with actual scary ghosties and everything to do with plagues of hard, sad memory. That's what a ghost is – a persistent, upsetting, even fright-filling fragment of memory come back to visit.

I welcome TAB’s ghost in Dream Land. I just wish he’d visit at non-hospital times too.

I now know how your anger
came from skeletons
that rattled in your heart
and you couldn't escape them.
~ Susie Clevenger, Dirt Road Dream

In my case, it’s not anger from skeletons, it’s melancholy wistfulness from the Ghosts of Happiness Past. I don’t want to escape them. Nope. I’ll keep them close, in my heart. This doesn’t mean I’m failing to embrace present tense happiness. Oh no, fuck that shit. Get it while you can, mes amis.

In this world, if you read the papers, darling
You know everybody's fighting ah with each other
You got no one you can count on babe
Not even your own brother
So if someone comes along
He gonna give you some love and affection

I'd say get it while you can, yeah
Honey, get it while you can, yeah
Hey hey, get it while you can
Don't you turn your back on love, no, no
Get It While You Can – Janis Joplin