You Can't Win If You Don't Play

Sunrise over Peddocks Island

I’ve been feeling tremendously disheartened about my rehab progress (or the lack thereof) lately. This past week was exceptionally bad. I ended up doing nothing or close to nada, on three out of the past seven days. Even on my paltry four active days, I only managed to walk a measly .65 of a mile. At most.

My physical therapist has been adding new, more challenging exercises and praising my improved balance and abilities. That’s great, huh? Sure but it’s costing me on the ambulation front. Also, back pain has come back on stage.

I’m currently nowhere near my pre-PT peak of close to a mile and a half (with walker) per day. Yes, the bazillion new balance bits (generally done every other day) might account for the distance drop but I can’t see how. I mean, these added routines aren’t on par with hiking up Mount Washington (which I would never do because—c’mon, hiking is a total drag!) or running a few miles (and fuck that running shit. I’d be lucky as all hell to make it three blocks and I’d feel pretty proud of myself at that. Also, the olives fall out of my martini when I run).

How can these balance exercises be wasting me so much? On top of wearing me right the fuck out, some of the new movements have reignited pain that I haven’t experienced in close to six months. Fer fuck’s sake, on the old art pain scale (see below) I’ve hit a rock solid Courbet at least twice in the past week and spent too damn much time in Van Gogh and Picasso Lands as well. This blows mondo bantha chunks.

I get it though—I really do. This recovery/rehab shit is a long series of waves. There are crests, troughs and everything in between. Despite my efforts, I’m in a low spot right now. What I need to do is evaluate my routines, add and subtract actions/movements as needed, take the occasional day off and STOP beating myself up for not being able to walk unassisted yet.

What does this come down to? Amongst other things, I’m bored. All I seem to do is exercise, recover from exercising and repeat ad infinitum. I need to overcome my fear of falling, get out of the house and do something different.

Next weekend is the Neck’s Chowdafest. I want to go but the event’s happening in the Maritime Center’s parking lot which is set on a hill. It’s not a big-ass hill BUT the incline is steep enough to make me leery. Also, there will be people there—possibly tons of ‘em //shudder//—all potentially toting fresh cases of COVID courtesy of their spawn’s return to school.

I believe I have to try though. Ya know, walk the third of a mile there, check out the crowds, see if there’s anyplace to sit, people-watch, rest, slurp chowda and then hobble back home.

Like we used to call, while working the games back in my carny days, you can’t win if you don’t play.

Wanna Fly...

Faith Ringgold – The Flag is Burning

You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
~ Malcolm X

A weird time in which we are alive. We can travel anywhere we want, even to other planets. And for what? To sit day after day, declining in morale and hope.
~ Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

Life ... is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth

When things go wrong, don't go with them.
~ Elvis Presley

I am an invisible man...I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
~ Ralph Ellison

One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.
 ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up 

Kayla Mahaffey – Deaf Ears

The whole thing is quite hopeless, so it's no good worrying about tomorrow. It probably won't come.
~ J R R Tolkien, The Return of the King

A man devoid of hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future.
~ Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

The master says it’s a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it’s a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there’s anyone in the world who would like us to live.
~ Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes

It is the duty of the younger Negro artist...to change through the force of his art that old whispering ‘I want to be white,’ hidden in the aspirations of his people, to ‘Why should I be white? I am a Negro—and beautiful!’”

Jean-Michel Basquiat

~ Langston Hughes, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, The Nation

You grew up, became a man, had to adjust to taking less than you hoped for; you discovered the dream-machine had a big OUT OF ORDER sign on it.
~ Stephen King, Dreamcatcher

We are not fighting for integration, nor are we fighting for separation. We are fighting for recognition as human beings...In fact, we are actually fighting for rights that are even greater than civil rights and that is human rights.
~ Malcolm X

Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.
~ Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
~ James Baldwin, No Name in the Street

Arcmanoro Niles

My New Hero

I've been fighting to recover from major back surgery since the evening of November 13th. I should be doing GREAT now. I would be too if not for this asshole cold. I'm now in my fourth day of hacking coughs, stuffed up OR running nose and basically feeling like lukewarm, weak-ass flotsam.

Not cool. Not cool at all. Also too – bored now!

Ah, but the morning reports have brought me glorious news of incoming House Majority Leader, Nancy you-WILL-lose-if-you-try-to-fuck-with-me, Pelosi. In their meeting yesterday, she was having none of Preznint Weasel-brain’s hilarious-if-only-he-was-joking bullshit mansplaining.

...when Mr. Trump tried to undercut her by suggesting she was “in a situation where it’s not easy for her to talk right now,” Ms. Pelosi fired back. “Mr. President,” she said, “please don’t characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting as the leader of the House Democrats, who just won a big victory.” (source)

Take THAT you pathetic, pussy-grabbing (since the only other way he can get any is by paying for it), dimbulbed, vainglorious ninny-hammer.

She also called him out, at least twice on his lies:

"We need an evidence-based discussion with facts." 

"We've taken this to a place that is, frankly, devoid of fact.” (source) 

Another score from my new hero:

Pelosi added in the caucus meeting that she was pretty happy they got President Word Vomit to admit that if the government shuts down, it's his damn fault. That was pretty funny, and it'll be great footage for political ads. (source)

No, she didn’t call him President Word Vomit though it IS spectacularly appropriate. Now, I’m guessing Preznint Midget Dick-Mommy Issues won’t actually shut the government down in a hissy fit over not being able to get U.S. citizens to foot the bill (versus the originally promised Mexican government) for his precious wall (AKA testament to his purely theoretical manhood). He’ll act all faux magnanimous yet "firm" OR he’ll just direct the military to begin bombing asylum seekers on our Southern border.

You KNOW he fap, fap, faps away at the idea of killing people of color. Rather, he goes fapatronic crazoid with the fantasy of directing one of his sycophants (and he wrongly believes the armed forces are his biggest fans) to do this – ya know, wave a magic wand, say the magic words and brown people are all dead  ('cept for the criminally wealthy, powerful and murderous ones of whom he's THE #1 fan).

Can and will the military stop wasting time AND taxpayer money on the whims, hates and mondo despotic desires of this shriveled-brained, cretinous excuse for a human being?

This is the very same military he's claimed to have given their first pay-raise in 10 years. Ah, no you odious, lying, pile of fly covered cow snot – there just a single year when they didn’t receive a pay increase and that was in 1983 when Saint Ronnie was Prez. 45's truly certain that he's smarter and better at EVERYthing than anyone else.

We're looking at a new, hope filled dawn and Nancy Pelosi is out in front, fearlessly leading the fight against the bloviating blowhard and his Republican/Fascist Party.

I believe Im feeling a weebit better already!