The Hellish Handbasket Blog

  • Banana sunrise chair

    My health insurance company sends out a doctor or nurse practitioner once a year to assess customers’ health, I assume so the company knows what is coming down the turnpike. That is, they are assessing future risk. If they know my heart condition is progressing, they can project their future payouts or figure out what tests and procedures might be coming so they can prepare to deny coverage.

    As long as Americans agree to farm out our healthcare to private companies, healthcare will always be about generating profits rather than promoting wellness. It’s (currently) the American way.

    A nurse practitioner named Lindsey visited me this week. She was big, and she packed a lot of stuff, so she had a hard time navigating the narrow hallway from my front door to the living room. Eventually she made it without losing one of her giant doctor bags and commenced her “examination.” No new maladies were discovered. After several years of doctor’s office visits, blood tests, diagnoses, and prescriptions, I’ve pretty much run the gamut of what is currently wrong with me. I’m over it. I had no new complaints, so after updating her on my current status, she checked my meds and remarked that I only took five different drugs, which apparently is some kind of victory.

    She asked me how my memory was, and I shrugged and said it wasn’t what it used to be and I wish it were better. She said, let’s do a cognitive test. I immediately thought of a certain person and said, you mean like man, woman, camera, TV? She flashed perfect teeth at me. Like that, she said. She said three words and told me to remember them. I recited them to myself, feeling a bit skeptical of my brain’s capacity to hold three words longer than three seconds.

    Next, she gave me a piece of paper and pointed to a large blank square. She drew a perfect circle in the square, freehand. We both admired her ability to draw a perfect circle. She said, now put the numbers on the clock and mark the time as 8:20. I put on the numbers and marked the time.

    She said, what were those three words?

    I said, banana sunrise chair. She said, you passed the test. (You could say I aced it, but I would hardly call that a test.) Anyway, before long, she wrapped up the visit and left, complaining that she had two more visits to do before her day was done. I gave her some empathy, which cost me nothing, and shut the door.

    The writer’s group met on Friday. It was a five-words day. I spent the week mulling over what word I would contribute. I wanted something visual but not overtly positive or negative. Not a word that would conjure anything that could steer anyone’s writing in one direction or another. For instance, curmudgeon is a great word but definitely sets a tone. Likewise, abyss. Another great word that conjures up something perhaps better left unexplored.

    The word I finally chose was drift.

    Here are the five words, followed by what I wrote. No edits. Well, I fixed one typo.

    patience

    choices

    ossuary

    drift

    angry

    I admit, I made a few poor choices last year. I had no patience. In my defense, I was angry. I spent my best years on a riding mower, weaving among the graves, expertly dodging certain headstones, intentionally chipping the corners of others, which takes some skill, let me tell you. I guess I assumed no one would see me desecrating what was supposedly hallowed ground. Hallowed my rosy red rump. The only thing hallowed about that cemetery was the amount of money it generated for the overlords of the hospital next door. Clinic to hospital to nursing home to funeral home and here, to the final resting place, six feet under the lawn I mowed. So what happened? I’m glad you asked. My buddy Mitch ratted on me. The boss called me in. He said, I’ll give you two choices: burial or cremation. I said, what do you mean? He said, coffin or ossuary. I said, what’s an ossuary? I should have chosen coffin. There would have been more room. I’m writing to you from an ugly ceramic jar. It’s very cramped in here, and I think the funeral home dropped in a few cigar ashes when nobody was looking. The boss keeps me on a shelf in the garden shed as a warning to other mowers who drift by. 

    I should have incorporated drift somewhere else. Like, if you get my drift. It was my own word, and I almost left it out. Oh well. Twenty minutes isn’t really long enough to wordsmith a literary masterpiece.

    When it came to read-your-work time, I read a short essay I’d written the previous week. The subject was lawlessness. The first paragraph was predictable. By the second paragraph, it was probably clear I was headed for outer space. I discussed how the breakdown of laws in the U.S. had led to the breakdown of other laws we’d taken for granted, namely, the law of conservation of mass and energy and the law of gravity. I’ll let you imagine the consequences of these two breakdowns.

    The third example of lawlessness involved the law of attraction. I think my distaste for vision boards came through loud and clear. One of the writers in the group observed I’d spent too much time in California. I laughed, ha ha, thinking really? That’s what you have to say? Later she slipped me a bit of paper with my name on it and the words phone number? What could I do? Say I didn’t have a phone when my phone was on the table in front of me? I wrote my phone number and gave back the paper.

    Did I just make a friend? Time will tell.

  • Is this a bad time?

    It is for me. How do I cope? Thanks for asking. I’m dealing with my existential angst by watching Chinese historical rom /com /drom TV series, supposedly to appreciate the costumes (I used to be in the costume biz) but really to lose myself in other peoples’ stories so I don’t have to think about my own.

    I get so invested in these stories, I dream about them at night. I obsess about the characters (what will happen to the lovers, will they finally get together? Will the hero win the battle or will he get sliced and diced? Will have to wait until the last five minutes of the final episode to watch the evil villain finally get their comeuppance?). I swoon over the gorgeousness and talent of the actors. I slobber at the sight of cooks designing elaborate dishes that not only look amazing and taste great, but also heal every malady you can think of. Of course, quite often the culinary creations are poisoned, but sometimes you have to kill off someone to keep the plot going. Doesn’t make me not want to eat Chinese food.

    My friend frequently reminds me that these characters are not my friends. I don’t believe her. These screen friends keep me from descending into the fires of rage and the pits of despair.

    In between episodes, when I need a laugh break, I resort to SNL comedy. All I have to do is remember the scene of Melissa McCarthy impersonating Sean Spicer and driving the lectern around the press briefing room, crashing into chairs, people, and eventually through a wall. Or Amy Poehler and Tina Fey channeling Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin (“I can see Russia from my house!”). Or Bill Hader doing Stefon. Fred Armisen and Kristen Wiig doing Garth and Kat. So many other comedy sketches, too many to name . . . I don’t even have to watch them to bust out laughing.

    If I’m feeling really down, my go-to remedy is watching YouTube videos posted by a Japanese content creator. He’s a chubby guy who recreates high fashion runway designs and struts like a super model in the dusty courtyard in front of his house. First he shows a few seconds of real footage of skeletal models in sculptural monstrosities pounding or slinking or dancing along the runway to relentless disco music. Then he shows his attempt to recreate the outfit using whatever he has on hand, usually household appliances, garbage bags, and duct tape. To the same music, he imitates the model’s walk (often in high heels). He aims for verisimilitude, which sometimes requires incorporating his wife into the costume. Their little dog runs around his ankles. It’s hands-down the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. I usually have to pause the video part way through to breathe, I’m laughing so hard.

    Just writing about this guy makes me laugh, which is the whole point. It’s hard to feel anger and despair when I’m laughing.

  • Thinking errors

    I hardly ever know what I’m going to blog about when I start a new post. That means I’m a pantser when it comes to writing. A pantser is a writer who writes by the seat of their pants. Which is very odd expression, when I think about it. I searched for the term and discovered it originated with early pilots who relied on the feel and pressure of their butt in the seat to fly their plane. Good thing I’m only a writing pantser, not a pilot pantser. Crashing into things when writing usually is not fatal.

    Speaking of writing, another episode of writing from prompts occurred on Friday. Only four writers showed up but we made our valiant attempts to weave stories from five words.

    Here are the five words for this week.

    difficult

    communicate

    camouflage

    discovery

    control

    Here is what I wrote, and disappointment warning, it’s not very good. The thread eluded me.

    When you suspect danger is lurking in the bushes, you can thank your ancestors you are ready to run. Ancient humans who ignored the difficult lesson of assuming danger was everywhere failed to transmit their inferior genes to the next generation. In contrast, the superior genes of humans who assumed the dappled shade was camouflage for a hungry tiger survived to communicate the importance of staying in control, which meant their descendants enjoyed a healthy fear of dappled shade, even when the shade was just shade. You can thank your superior genes you learned to run.

    I don’t know what staying in control has to do with anything, but there you go. Not all impromptu essays make sense. Hence my claim to be a pantser. If I did some revising, maybe I could massage this little story into something more coherent, but why bother? Nobody cares.

    Speaking of staying in control (or not), or speaking about caring about soemthing, there is something my family cares about and cannot control and that is a member who has gone AWOL. Last night I called a city police department and asked them to do a welfare check on our family member who may be having some cognitive difficulties. Of course, my siblings feared disaster, but none of us seemed willling to take action. Including me, at first. I am usually inclined to let the chips fall, assuming most adults should be allowed to manage their own lives, even when that means choosing to drive off a cliff, but my sibs were exhibiting signs of manic anxiety, so I made the call last night.

    The police officer informed me the family member was apparently okay, still alive, anyway, but I know from experience that people experiencing the onset of cognitive impairment are experts at hiding behind social norms. For example, our mother was a master at using polite conversation to hide the fact that she didn’t understand a thing and couldn’t have reasoned her way out of a bathroom.

    In my family member’s case, I have a feeling the chips will continue to fall, but if I’ve learned anything from my mother’s mental decline, chips fall whether you want them to or not.

  • Being the primary caregiver in my own life

    I’d like to forget my conscious self exists in a physical body (see previous rants). Alas, alackaday, woe is me, ’tis not to be. As previously mentioned, yada yada blah blah blah. The year before Medicare, I got an inkling that all might not be well. Cholesterol medication was the unwelcome harbinger of what was to come.

    Aside from the vertigo, I’ve always been healthy. Well, a bout of walking pneumonia laid me low for several months, but so far that was a one-off. Other than allergies and the aforementioned, I’ve been remarkably healthy. Not even a broken bone.

    After Medicare, though, different story. Is it true ignorance is bliss? I’ve never actually experienced bliss, but I consider myself an expert in ignorance. In my case, not knowing my physical health was declining was emotionally less stressful than knowing.

    I wrote (whined) about my various maladies in the former incarnation of the Hellish Handbasket (no longer available), so I’ll just summarize briefly here: high cholesterol, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, vestibular paroxysmia, vestibular migraine, and a heart condition. Plus, I’m 20 pound heavier than I want to be. It’s that last one that bums me out. When I look in the mirror, I see my mother but three sizes bigger. It’s depressing (but not enough for Prozac).

    All this palaver is leading up to my commitment to be the primary caregiver in my own life. I finally accepted the fact that no one else is going to take on the job. It’s not their responsibility, and anyway, they don’t care. Everyone is ultimately concerned about their own lives. Plus, I’m (ostensibly) an adult. The job of taking care of me is mine.

    So, tomorrow I’m driving into town (11 miles) to meet my new opthamologist (cataracts, glaucoma watchlist). The following day, I will make the trek to meet my new dentist (it’s been a year since my Tucson dentist tortured me).

    I’d like to ignore the whole health thing, like so many people do (my father, my younger brother) and pretend I don’t have any issues, that I can just lift weights or eat pizza and every malady will magically heal itself. Sometimes I wonder how I would be doing if I hadn’t slogged to the healthcare providers even when I didn’t want to. Probably dead of a heart attack. Or dead from a broken hip followed by a heart attack(my father) or dead from a gut aneurysm (my mother). Dead is dead.

    Modern medicine is a marvel, for sure. On the upside, doctors can catch potentially silent killers (heart attack, stroke). Unfortunately, they haven’t yet figured out some of the invisible diseases (vestibular disorders) but I am sure if the U.S. ever regains a robust healthcare system, doctors will stop blaming the patient and finally look for the cure.

  • Wherever you go, there you are

    I still haven’t learned that I can’t outrun myself. I keep trying. Moving from place to place, job to job, relationship to relationship. Everytime I look over my shoulder to see if I finally ditched my shadow, there it is, following me step for step. It’s not fair. I want to be somebody else.

    I was thinking today about the strangeness of being in a body. Not just this body, any body. Like, how does consciousness suddenly enter and animate something, turn it from a nonliving thing to something that lives and maybe breathes, eats, poops, and grows? I don’t get it. I keep trying to get it. Which is probably part of my problem.

    I think having a place to live has caused some cognitive dissonance in my aging brain. It’s such a profound difference from my previous living situation. It’s like I melted and recoalesced as a different person. That’s probably why I keep thinking I have to keep running to escape whatever residual trauma I’m dragging along with me.

    I think a lot about the journey of the past year and a half. The places I saw, the people I met, the disasters I somehow avoided. I have certain images etched into my brain. The forest outside of Flagstaff. The desert in Quartzsite. And the epic roadtrip across the country to Boston and back. Now, from the safety of my tiny small-town burrow, I have a profound disbelief that the person who saw all those places was me.

    Here are this week’s five words that prompted the scene below.

    authority

    charlatan

    swivel

    green

    coffee

    Dave and I met at the local diner for coffee, as we usually did on Saturday mornings. We never say much, just the usual chit chat before work. Today Dave stared into his coffee for quite a while. 

    Finally I noticed. “What’s up Dave?”

    “Frank saw an alien at Fred Meyer pharmacy a few days ago.” 

    “Wow. How did Frank know it was an alien?” 

    “It was short, thin, and green.” 

    “Green? Was it wearing clothes?”

    Dave said, “Frank wasn’t sure if it was skin or if it was some kind of uniform. Definitely green, though. Kind of a neon chartreuse. He said it hurt his eyes to look at it.”

    “Oh brother. Dave, a lot of people are short, thin, and wear green. Frank was pulling your leg. It might have been a kid dressed like a dinosaur. Maybe it was a protester in a frog costume. What made Frank think it was an alien?”

    “Frank said its head swiveled in a circle.”

    “Swiveled! What do you mean, swiveled? Like in the Exorcist?”

    “Yep. He said it was really something.”

    “It sounds like it was something alright. A tequila-induced hallucination. Dave, you got snowed. I have it on good authority, Frank is a charlatan. He’s pulling your leg big time.”

    Dave scratched his head. “I dunno. I was coming out of Walmart, and I saw something green get into a little silver car, shaped like a Beetle but rounder. It started rolling toward the shopping carts, and I yelled, ‘hey, look out.’ He stopped and leaned out the window. He asked me, ‘Do you want a ride?’ I said ‘no thanks.’ He drove straight up in the air and disappeared.”

    Ha. Maybe all I need is to meet an alien in a silver Beetle. Beam me up!

  • Happy 11th anniversary to my vertigo

    I don’t actually remember the day I first experienced benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, commonly known as BPPV. It was 2015, I remember that. My mother was contemplating a move into an independent retirement community. That was the summer my Ford Focus emitted its last puff of toxic smoke. After we moved her in, I walked home in hot sun, feeling so light, so free. I thought, now finally, my mother is safe and reasonably happy in a place of her choosing. Maybe I can get my balance back.

    Alas, ’twas not to be. BPPV dogged me no matter what I did. I got in the habit of shaking my head to keep the ear crystals from settling. Unlucky for me, by the time COVID wrecked our lives, my malady had evolved into something else, something that my increasingly desperate Epleys and Carol Fosters could not cure.

    2020 was a bad year for all of us. I’m fortunate I didn’t have to deal personally with illness, other than facemasks, bleach wipedowns, and fear of running out of TP. However, my cat died in January of that first terrible year. The heat in my apartment gave up. Black mold outpaced my efforts to hold it back with bleach. My vertigo and rattling ear took on a one-minute rhythm. I started counting: How many seconds of torture (15), how many seconds of relief (45).

    My mother died in January of 2021, not from COVID but from an ordinary blowout in her gut. Old age catches up with us all, if we live long enough. I moved to Tucson four months later. April 24 would have been my 5-year anniversary in the desert.

    As is often the case, wherever we go, there we are. My head went with me to Tucson. The new ENT couldn’t help me. I was sent to vestibular testing. Nobody knew what was wrong. I did my own research and found a name: vestibular paroxysmia. I was referred to a vestibular neurologist. I had a brain MRI/MRA. Was there a vestibular nerve problem? The results were inconclusive. I was diagnosed with vestibular migraine. I started taking a drug for both illnesses, just in case.

    More than ten years later, my rattling ear and recurring dizziness are a part of my life. I still shake my head, even though that habit doesn’t do anything but strain my neck. The medication helps with the vestibular paroxysmia. However, when the barometric pressure changes, up or down, the vestibular migraines kick in. The pressure in my head can be intense, and the rattling in my ear ratchets up to intolerable.

    If the weather stabilizes, my ears adjust. Sometimes I feel close to normal. Normal for me means I can tune out the noise. I can stand upright without fear of falling. Spring weather in the Pacific Northwest is volatile, so these days, I’m toughing out, hoping summer will be better. If it gets really bad, a nap is the only remedy.

    All this rehash of years of blogposts is preface to some trivial news: I bought some special earplugs. They were designed to help with pressure changes during airplane flights. They are also recommended for migraine prevention and mitigation of symptoms. They weren’t expensive so I ordered them, and I’m wearing them now. They are a pleasant shade of lavender. They look like corkscrew-shaped silicone earplugs but the documentation says don’t immerse them in water or they won’t work, so maybe there’s some magic in there. I can hope. Like I hope unicorns exist.

    Do I notice a difference? Is the placebo effect real? Does a bear crap in the woods? I can’t say for sure, because I’ve never seen a bear crap in the woods, but it’s possible I feel a little better. Even if it’s just my brain trying to fool me.

  • A writer among writers

    The writer’s group meets at the library every Friday. Every other Friday is a study hall. We sit around a table and write with a minimum of chit chat. Not many people show up, probably because the pressure to actually sit down and write something is too much. I have made a commitment to show up. I can focus with no distractions, and I can help other members do the same.

    The other Fridays, we write from a prompt. More people attend those meetings, probably because it’s more fun to be free to write and share with no pressure. Plus, they all know each other. I’m the newcomer/outsider. They have been welcoming. I think they are glad to have new writers because the current members have more less become bored with hearing the same stories week after week. I know I have, and I’ve barely been there a month.

    Here are the five words from last Friday’s meeting:

    layer

    ambivalent

    page

    destination

    repulse

    Here is my take on those five words:

    When it comes to choosing a destination, my advice is, don’t be ambivalent. Curiosity is key. Even if you are repulsed by the idea that you might meet strangers, I urge you to be brave. Strangers are like pages in a book. Sometimes after reading a few pages, you know this is a place you will return to again and again. Other times you might decide you don’t like the story and throw it in the trash. I have layers and layers of pages with uninteresting destinations in my trash bin. Sometimes I think about burning them, but now that I’m old, pretending I can erase the past just by burning a few books seems like a waste of time. Now I focus on choosing new destinations because I know interesting strangers are waiting for me around the next corner.

    During the read-your-work time, I entertained them with two more excerpts from my month of daily writing. I have thirty blogposts written in December 2023. Some are too long to read, although I think they are funny. Some I’d be too embarrassed to read because the writing is so sloppy. A couple might be considered too edgy or even offensive (one about womens’ response to prohibitions on abortion, for example). I suspect most members share my liberal values, but I can’t be sure. That leaves me with about eight posts to read. This week I read a fake article about Hollywood celebrities auctioning off their children to raise cash to pay their debts. I got some belly laughs, which made me happy. I also read a short poem about a cat. That one also was well-received.

    I’m allowing the group to know me, which for me takes courage and willingness to be known.

    In other news, I have a new chair. This might seem trivial, but to me a new chair means less hip, shoulder, and back pain. It seems ridiculous to be talking about a chair, given the precariousness of human civilization. You can consider a pain-free chair a metaphor. Or you can do what I do and call it what it is: a chair.

    Good things are still happening around the world. We don’t hear about them because they are obscured by news about sad and scary things. I subscribe to a newsletter that reminds me daily that people are doing amazing work to mitigate the effects of climate change. I wrote about this heartening progress in my previous blogpost. The good news doesn’t erase my awareness of the tragic and frightening, but I am reminded that good exists.

    I read something today about what comes next, assuming the U.S. survives the current crisis. The author didn’t present specifics; instead, they offered a blueprint for the future based on a shift in attitude. Rather than focusing on policy, they suggested the guiding principles for change be based on pursuit of the common welfare. Their premise was that good policy would emerge from a vision of shared wellbeing.

    I have no idea how Americans would somehow decide to adopt such a vision. Getting Americans to come together and agree on anything seems impossible given the current levels of animosity and distrust. Inspiring citizens to rally around a leader who espouses such a vision defies reality. My conclusion is the quest for shared wellbeing is a lofty but futile goal.

    When I despair, I read the newsletter. Solar farms not only make communities energy self-sufficient; they also create habitats for plants and wildlife to thrive in the shade underneath. Encouraging indigenous tribes to adopt synthetic leopard-print clothing is helping their leopard population to rebound. Building highway overpasses over critical wildlife migration trails means elephants and other species can move through their habitat without getting mowed down by trucks.

    See? Good things are still happening. All is not lost.

  • Poof, just about gone

    If you’ve ever lived through a disaster, you know how fast life can change. The death of a loved one, a car wreck, an earthquake, a flood, a fire, a coup . . . in an instant, all the things you know and love, the dreams you had, the hopes you worked, maybe for generations, gone. Nothing will ever be the same. In geological time, two hundred and fifty years is not even a blip. Even in geopolitical time, it’s barely a blip. Myriad regimes have risen and fallen over the last few millennia. But not all regimes are worth saving.

    Like Hertz, we tried harder. Like Hertz, it won’t be enough. The American brand is tarnished beyond repair. Maybe we can pull off a Tylenol, but given that there are a lot of wackjobs in politics right now, it’s not likely our reputation as a trusted ally can be saved. We could do a Cracker Barrel in hopes of achieving a total refresh, but at this point, the odds aren’t in our favor. The whole world sees our shenanigans. They aren’t buying the Shining City crap.

    A few years ago, I was patting myself on the back for having the metaphysical foresight to be born in the perfect place, the perfect time, with the perfect color skin. The only thing I messed up was gender, but in my defense, it’s damn hard to control metaphysics. Like Blockbuster, I almost got it right.

    Now, ha ha, joke’s on me. My gloating over grabbing the perfect place and time has come back to bite me. Even though I didn’t vote for this madness, I’m in the boat with the rest of you. We’ve hit the rocks. There’s a big hole in our metaphorical hull. The seawater is pouring in. It’s not hard to predict what happens next.

    The good news is most people, if they are willing to leave the cult, want the same things: peace, security, and good health for themselves and their families, and enough resources to live meaningful lives in respectfull community with others. We might not be seeing it at the macro level, but it’s everywhere at the micro level.

    For example, several states have passed laws allowing backyard/balcony solar panels that connect to the grid. How cool is that! Windfarms and solar farms are still being installed despite the current regime’s attempt to quash progress toward clean energy.

    Even better, technological advances in power generation and storage are growing exponentially in other countries. Outside the States, sales of electric vehicles are far outpacing the sales of fossil-fuel vehicles. Good people around this country and the world are conserving habitat and saving species. The point is, there is hope. That means if autocratic dictators don’t annihilate the planet, good people will continue to make life better for all of us.

    We could still save this sinking experiment in democracy if we break out the life boats and don’t leave anyone behind except the morons who steered us onto the rocks.

  • Sometimes yes, sometimes no

    Lately it seems as if the answer is no more often than it is yes. It’s a sign of the times we humans are living in, or more accurately, my interpretation of the times. I know not everyone thinks things are as dire as I do. In fact, I’m confounded daily by the percentage of people who seem to think the country is moving in the right direction. (What planet, yada yada yada.)

    In spite of their belief that everything is hunky-dory, they seem furious most of the time, so I have to believe (a) they believe strongly in whatever beliefs they espouse to hold, and (b) they are deathly afraid they are going to lose. I don’t get it, personally, but they don’t get me either. The only difference is I don’t want them to die. They not only couldn’t care less if I die, but they would probably take a selfie if I died in the street in front of them.

    Yesterday the answer seemed to be no from the people I was standing with on the street corner of our busy local highway. The highway is a major thoroughfare from Eugene to the coast. There’s only one stoplight, and that’s where we stand. Every time a horn honked, which was often, I cringed even as I waved my sign, thinking all it would take is one distracted driver, no matter what their political persuasion, to lose control and knock us all over like bowling pins. Still, I had to show up. The cool thing is, I wasn’t alone. There were about one-hundred kindred spirits standing with me. The next time we show up, I have promised myself I will get at least one phone number.

    I saw lots of No Kings signs. A few No Faux-king Way signs. One protester had loving decorated a sign about monarchs with some disturbingly lifelike pinned butterflies. My double-sided sign expressed my opinion on one side: Stop Using Our Tax $ on Your Stupid War. Double exclamation point. On the other side I had scrawled a slogan I borrowed from a sign I saw on the internet: Flip Me Off if You (heart) Pedophiles. Impeach. Convict. Remove. Imprison.

    Fun, huh?

    I also brought along my collection of smaller signs, my favorite of which is My Cat Could Sh*t a Better President. I mean no offense to anyone who has a dog.

    In other news, yes, in case you were keeping track, the writers’ group happened Friday evening. I showed up, because that is what I do.

    Here are the five words:

    horror

    puzzle

    family

    glistened

    memory

    And here is what I wrote in twenty minutes.

    The day remained in my memory long afterward. I’ve had years to process the horror, but it clings like dust. Or maybe I’m the one who is clinging. My mother was barefoot. Rain glistened on the roof of the nursinghome. I remember that clearly, just before she ran into the street. She had already departed, but we locked her up in our misguided attempt to keep her with us. That is how it goes with family. Just when you think you’ve figured it out, just when you are certain, once and for all you have solved the puzzle, the most important piece goes missing.

    I didn’t write much because I left part way through to cough in the restroom. I breathed in something. That happens sometimes. Breathing, I mean.

    Three of the writers were at the protest on Saturday. I saw them getting into their car as I was walking to mine. Two of the writers were busy talking to friends, but one person recognized me. We exchanged compliments on our respective signage and went on our way.

  • You can sing for it

    One of the perks of being a nomad is if your neighbors are noisy, you can almost always drive away. Now that I’m housed, I’m more of a homebody. Although there are so many advantages to being housed, if you live in an apartment, one of the major downsides is that you could have noisy neighbors.

    If you have lived in an apartment, you have probably experienced neighbors walking heavily. Maybe you’ve heard their music coming through the wall. Either one can be super annoying, expecially if you have a condition known as misophonia, which I do.

    I have neighbors on both sides. The neighbors in No. 6 are quiet. I hear an occasional bump on the wall, but that’s it.

    The couple in No. 5, specifically the husband, is a different story. The husband’s name is Allen. Allen and his wife are quiet most of the time. However, between the hours of 3 pm and 6 pm, Allen likes to sing.

    I can’t actually hear his voice unless I put my ear to the wall. What I hear, quite clearly, actually more like what I feel, is the pounding bass. The bass comes through the wall and goes straight into my bones.

    I’ve had trouble with boom bass situations in other places, not just apartments. Cars, for instance. I cringe when a vehicle goes by playing music with a booming bass. I can rarely hear the upper registers. Most of the time, I can’t even hear a melody. But I feel the bass in my gut, interfering with my breathing and elevating my heart rate.

    I think Allen might have a karaoke machine. Either that or he has a good stereo system. Something that puts out a strong bass beat. Whatever it is, to me, it’s like fingernails on a blackboard.

    To cope with Allen’s music, I have several options. First, I can leave. For example, I can go for a walk, drive to the store, or just sit in my car if it’s raining or cold. If I don’t want to leave, I can go into the bathroom (although I can’t do much in there because I don’t have a tub). I don’t do earplugs, but If I’m at my computer, I can put in earphones and turn up the sound. If I’m indoors in my workspace, I can still feel the pounding, but it’s ignorable. All these are viable options.

    Or I can put my ear to the wall and hear how much Allen loves to sing.

    Allen and his wife are from the Philippines. English is not Allen’s first language, but that is not the issue. Allen is not a great singer (in my opinion). That doesn’t stop him from belting out the tunes. He butchers Frank Sinatra. Neil Sedaka. Barry Manilow. All the classic crooners, he wrecks them all. That’s his jam. He practices almost everyday for an hour or two just before dinner.

    Even though sometimes I want to tear out what’s left of my hair, I can tolerate and even appreciate a person who loves creative self-expression as much as I do.

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