Month: April 2020

An Arresting Dream

I was explaining an analogy to a young deceased relative.

First, though, I was arrested.

I’d made the decision to take actions to be arrested. This, I thought, would be for the best. So, I returned to the table on a stand where I’d been working with others. I wrote a not on a small yellow Postit using a heavy black marker, just a few words, and then I made a phone call, and then sat back to be arrested.

Others were confused, first about my return, because I would be arrested if I returned, and then that I’d returned knowing that I’d be arrested. The police arrived, and then my wife. I was walked in handcuffs by the police. My wife and others followed behind me as my wife explained that I was being arrested.

Once arrested, I was processed in a dream blip and then released to confinement to clear myself. I knew that the gates were closing at midnight. I had twenty minutes to get out or I’d need to wait until morning. I didn’t want to wait because I knew where I had to go and do to clear myself.

I hastened to dress and clean up. A black man was there, my cellmate. He was sitting at a card table, eating and watching television. I set myself up at another available card table and went off to brush my teeth.

The bathroom was open. Two sets of sinks and identical red toothbrushes were in a cup. One must be my cellmate’s, I figure. I picked one and looked at it. It seemed used, so that should be his.

The segment ended.

Next, I was sitting in a room, explaining something to my cousin, Jeff. Younger than me, he’d died almost twenty years ago. I told him, “Your abdomen is part of your torso, but your torso is not part of your abdomen. See how it works?”

He didn’t, so I did more. I said, “You’re from Texas. Texas is part of the United States but the United States is not part of Texas. One must contain the other to be part of it. Like, your hand. Your finger is part of your hand but your hand is not part of your finger.”

He remained confused. An officer I’d worked with in 1983, Walt, had entered. Listening, he’d been mulling it over. Walt, said, “Well, I don’t know if your analogy works on all levels.”

I replied, “I’m talking about physical aspects. I’ll specify the physical.”

Walt said, “Oh, alright, then,” and my cousin nodded, understanding.

The dream ended.

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

This came straight up the memory pipe into the music stream this morning, right out of Canada and 1983 in my head in the U.S., 2020. I don’t know what resided down in the memory wells that said, “Let’s fire this mutha back into conscious memory.” Nothing leaps out as an ignition moment. But here we are with “Hot Girls in Love” by Loveboy.

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Inspirational Quote # 1694

This resonates with me today so I’m sharing it on my blog. Thanks!

Today, You Will Write's avatarToday, You Will Write

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Starts

We weren’t able to get out to buy starts. There was a run just when shelter in place was announced; the initial supply was gone, and there weren’t any more to be had. But…looking around the house, seeds purchased years ago were found. Would they be any good? We didn’t know.

My wife decided to try them. We didn’t have starter soil or the proper pots. She made do. Arugula was planted (in the pot on the left) and butterleaf lettuce was put in the big pot on the other end. The middle pots were planted with basil. They were place in a dining room window where sun is plentiful from dawn to dusk.

We’re pleased with the progress so far. With the weather warming (into the seventies tomorrow), she plans to put some arugula out tomorrow. Meanwhile, we have other carrot, onion, and radish seeds.

 

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Floof du Jour

Floof du Jour (floofinition) – Animal of the day in Froonch.

In use: “People often mentioned the floof du jour, but she could never select just one for such an honor. They were always all the floof of the day to her.”

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Floof Thorogood & The Floof Destroyers

Floof Thorogood & The Floof Destroyers (floofinition) – American musical group that fuses slide guitars with hard floof rock (flock) and blues styles.

In use: “Floof Thorogood & The Floof Destroyers put on an energetic show with songs like “I Eat Alone” and “Bad Through the Fur”, which are often used in television shows and movies.”

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Who We Are

Yet another rant, a vent of frustration to try to reconcile an experience. One side of me — the spoiled, arrogant, take-everything-for-granted white male, first world side of me – continues responding to the coronavirus actions as though everything is alright with the world and is thus annoyed, I tell you, peeved, even, about things like one day delivery requiring six days. “What in the world is with that?” that side cries in anger and despair.

The other side of me replies, “Dude, you are a jackass.”

The event in focus is my pecker meds (Tamsulosin). I always get it locally, thirty day supply. But with shit going down, I thought it prudent to get a larger supply.

First, I tried ordering it ahead of time at my regular place, Ashland Drugs. Nope, it was too soon, the system said. By then, shutdowns were announced, so I shifted to Express Scripts.

Well, there were delays. My prescription was for thirty days and I was asking for a supply of ninety days. ES contacted my prescribing urologist for approval. He, they said, in updates on their website, didn’t respond. A day passed. Two. I shifted the order to one day shipping, because I could see that this was gonna take more time than planned. Then I called the urologist’s office and explained what was going on and what needed to be done.

That worked. Presto, order was being processed.

The next day, the order continued being processed.

Ship, damn it, ship, I urged.

Yes, it shipped, on 3/31. Hoorah! Here was the tracking number. They didn’t know when it would be delivered.

Have I mentioned that the requested one day shipping cost twice as much as the prescription?

For some reason, “The Wells Fargo Wagon” song from from The Music Man began providing me background music.

I faithfully tracked the shipment from Arizona to California, and then, by truck, from California up to Washington via DHL. The road from California to Washington is a little trail that we locals call I-5. It goes past my house by a few miles.

That irrational, crazy part of me screamed, “Why can’t they just pull over and toss it to me as they’re passing Ashland?” Yes, even the irrational part of me knows how dumb that suggestion is.

By April 2 I learned that my Tamsulosin would arrive on April 6. The plan was for DHL to truck it to Washington. DHL would hand it over to the USPS up there (I imagined a furtive, midnight exchange). Then the USPS would drive it down to Ashland (probably on I-5) and sneak it to a local carrier and deliver it to me.

Okay, a plan. I like having plans. Plans are good. Problem with this plan was that I’d run out of Tamsulosin on Friday, April 3. That was my last dose.

Well, damn. Not much could be done at that point. I’d tried, I consoled myself. Now my body would just need to endure without the med.

Meanwhile, the reasonable side of me said, “You prick.”

(It seems like an appropriate noun for the situation.)

“You should be thankful that there are people out there risking their health so that you can sit on your ass in the safety of your personal space. And be thankful that someone like Express Scripts exists and that you have a computer and Internet to place the order and follow the tracking information. Be thankful, you cretin, that the drugs are there, are so affordable, and that you have a urologist to help you. Stop looking at the dark side of this, you pessimistic, selfish, jerk, and think of the bigger picture and be fucking grateful.”

To which the other side of me said, “Wow. Mean.”

So, seriously, thanks to all the USPS, DHL, and Express Scripts drivers and people working and all they’re doing to help the rest of us survive. Let me not overlook all those healthcare professionals and government employees. We do appreciate it, even if some of us act like jerks.

Please forgive us for being who we are. We are trying to change. At least, one side of me is.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Gosh, for some reason, while reading blog posts, coronavirus news, and red state/blue state slants, a Pink Floyd song called “Us and Them” (1974) popped into my mental music.

Us (Us, us, us, us, us) and them (Them, them, them, them)
And after all we’re only ordinary men
Me (Me, me, me, me, me) and you (You, you, you, you, you)
God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do

h/t to Genius.com

It’s all about war and its senselessness, apt to me. It seems like it went urban/rural divide > culture divide > culture wars > political contests > red state/blue state > coronavirus front. What was it that Governor Kay Ivey (Alabama – R) said a few weeks ago? ““Y’all, we are not Louisiana, we are not New York State, we are not California. Right now is not the time to order people to shelter in place.”

Goodness knows what California and New York had to do with facts and information. At the time of Ivey’s speech, Alabama led California in per capita cases of coronavirus.

But anyway, the song… It starts out mellow but then cranks up the crescendo in time for you to hear, “Forward he cried, from the rear, and the front ranks died.”

And I won’t even go into expanding on that line.

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Backslide

They finally made it over the hump. Stay at home policies were being relaxed. Businesses were re-opening. “We’re striving to return to normalcy,” the governor, the mayor, and anyone else who was anyone said. Some were talking about parades and national holidays, “To stimulate the economy.”

“I’m looking forward to normal,” he told his wife.

“I want to go dancing,” she said.

Both wondered, is it safe? The government said it was. Maybe they’d wait, maybe…

Reading the news…Jesus…”It’s like the same thing everything day.” The weather made him feel foul. He felt cold. The sun felt weak. The day seemed shorter. What the fuck, he wondered, than attributed it to his dark moods. It’d pass in a few days.

The next day brought the awful news. He checked the numbers and saw an increase to cases. He groaned. “No. Christ, I hope it’s just a blip.”

His wife, reading something on her Mac, said nothing.

Sullenness settled on him. God, he was so looking forward to normal, to getting out of the house, to walking down the street, and then, on the whim of a smell – a burger, fried onions, whatever – to walk into a restaurant, any restaurant, damn it, and order whatever meal he wanted, and have someone bring it to him, and pay them money without worrying about their breathing and their distance and their health. Plus, yeah, he loved his wife, but five weeks of isolation with just her had seared his sanity.

The news continued. He’d heard it all before. “What the hell.” If his mind wasn’t going, then the news was exactly what they’d heard before, word for friggin’ word. “You hearing this?” he asked his wife.

Without looking up from her laptop, she said, “Hm mmm.”

Which, what did that mean? “What’s for dinner?” he asked, and then joked, “Want to go out?”

“I was thinking that we’d have pizza and a salad.”

“We just had that.”

His wife looked blank. “When?”

“Last night, remember? We joked about it being our victory pizza? I opened a bottle of wine?”

Her eyes widened as he spoke, and then she rolled them in that irritating, contemptuous, dismissive way. “Is this another one of your jokes?”

“You seriously don’t remember?”

“We didn’t have pizza last night.”

“Then what did we have?”

“We had black beans salad.”

“No, we didn’t, no, we didn’t. That was the day before.”

He stood. “I’ll prove it.” He stormed to the freezer. The pizza would be gone. There’d be no pizza in there because it was the last one they had on hand. They’d joked about that, too.

But there was the pizza, a Newman’s own.

“No fucking way,” he said, throwing the pizza back into the chest freezer. No fucking way.  As a second verification, he went by the wine storage and confirmed, there was no open bottle. Like, it had not been opened. He checked the recycle bin for a bottle, just in case — he didn’t remember finishing the bottle but maybe she’d had some — but there wasn’t an empty wine bottle in the bin. Passing, he saw the cake.

He’d eaten the last piece as dessert, after the pizza. Victory pizza, victory wine, victory cake. Moving slowly, he slipped back down the hall. It hit him as he returned to the office and sat down at his computer. They were going backward in time. If he was right…he couldn’t be right.

But if he was right, they were going to relive it all again, in reverse.

“Did you find the pizza?” she asked, a smug tone to her voice.

Or, he corrected, he was going to relive it all again in reverse. She seemed completely oblivious.

“I was right, wasn’t I?” she said.

He covered his face with his palm. With a swallowed sigh, he wondered, how far back could he go?

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