48 It's not true what they say

An initially glorious return got a little dicey, a challenging transition.  Think of moving from an isolation cell to a dorm floor.  Plus was feeling off, tired, out of sorts.  Luckily I love my roommates.  And brother do I sleep up in this joint.  Easy, soundless, extended.  And my three alarm clocks sound like angels singing (loudly).  Yesterday and today have felt better and better.  I have live chess opponents:  W's game could use a little polish.  Ags and Ads now know how to set the board and are learning piece movements.  Started me some Dostoevsky (Brothers).  He makes a lot more sense to me than Tolstoy.  Don't feel like I moved anymore, feel like I'm home.  You can come home again.

Talk to me

45, 46, 47

Had a bad feeling when they sent a nurse practitioner to see me at the clinic on Wed.  Nothing against the NP (no relation) but really thought I needed a doctor to cut me loose.  The blood work was good to very good.  I now have a normal German's white count.  RBC, pretty damn close to normal.  Platelets held steady.  Another bad feeling:  i thought i'd need 50 to come home.  I had a sinking feeling.  I sorted things out with the NP and she said she didn't see any reason to keep me.  She ran it by the Doc and it happened about as fast as you can say individual mandate.

I got a boost of magnesium and then made tracks for the cardiac center to have them pull the line.  Got home Wed night/Thurs morning 12:30.  Hugged and kissed my kin and cried big crocodile drops on the bedspreads.

Im due back on the 9th and then likely 3 more times in the next 6 weeks.  Im banged up and battered and there is still a non-trivial amount of game left but I like my position and have a materiel advantage.  I like my chances.  And I'm so very happy to be home, where the best parts of me were all along.  The blog is good at least until day 100, check back.  Keep the comments coming, they make the next post much easier.  After a 100, I'll run it by Legal and see where we stand.

The part I'm leaving out is Lut was with me for nigh every second.  He flew up, rented a car and was by my side before blood draws. When we wrapped up with the medical types, he drove me back to the school, we loaded up and he drove all the way to Amish Country and chased it with a solo trip back to DC.  Our conversation roamed hell's half acre from Joyce to, well, let's say 5th amendment.  We were sore for him to stay but he said he just had to be on the steps of the SCOTUS when they overturned ACA.  oops.  seriously, three cheers for Lut.  Huzzah.  Huzzah.  Huzzah.

What's truly amazing and wakes up the crocodiles every time I think about it is how many good turns, Generous, selfless, milk-of-human-kindness turns you all have done me the last four years.  If you can read this, THIS MEANS YOU.  There's no ranking you because you already make an all-star team:  Pop tending to me like a mama bear.  Rick for going above and beyond what one could reasonably ask, and throwing all those chess games.  Nate good for 4 visits and bringing the rebel for half of them.  Chuck and Hallie and Tisha for the visits and the cleaning and this list could get very long.  And this paragraph could get long if I tried to catalog all your decencies.  You care, your concern your favors and your reaching out or hanging in there with me--a known difficult guy to hang in there with.  I am moved with gratitude that I am at a loss to properly convey, so I'll just say this and hope you'll know I mean it much as anyone has:  Thank you.  If you could see in my heart, you'd see a big feast prepared where all of you have a seat, a comfy one.  The wine is free, the food delicious, the conversation scintillating, your chef and your waiter both go by CJ, and I won't stop running until everyone is stuffed.

Your're my kinda people and I dont like very many people.

Enough (44)

Had it with jersey numbers.  Had it.  Quiet day by my lonesome.  Took a walk.  Played a ridiculous amount of chess and did not fair badly.  Went 5-1 with some Israeli who kept hitting challenge.  3 minute games, gotta move.  A majority of my wins were on time.  Finished the 1000-piecer.  Below is probably the acme of my MFA visit.  JMW Turner's SLAVE SHIP (The Zong).  Chilling.  Thrilling. Taught me how important it is to see the things in person.  I took a picture but it has some glare.  This one is from the web.  Big appt tomorrow.  Fingers crossed.  I'm trying to prepare to leave without preparing to leave lest I jinks things.  Kinda hard.  I should wash the sheets but that would REALLY be putting my coat on.  I'll work it out.  And keep you posted.

Polamalu

Biletnikoff goes hair out the back and it's cool.  Polamalu does it and it's a hairdo?  Sorry, this guy's game is fearsome.  He can put it in pig tails for all I care.  Another  visit from Nate and Cip.  More good jawboning.  This afternoon I will knock down some pages of a Joyce bio and read some poetry.  Have about 100 of 1000 puzzle pieces looking for homes.  But they're the hard ones.  Hard, but not this hard:

42 (have i mentioned any steeler DB's?)

A pretty splendid Sunday, all things considered.  Like all good Sundays it started Saturday night with Brother Nate and Cip's visit.  Good Chinese food and good story tellin'.  This AM  Sarah dropped by for a visit, the sunshine was warm, the air was cool and the conversation edifying.  Baby Mirany fought valiantly but in the end was won over by my magnetic personality.  In the afternoon I visited The Rick and his very tolerable children (other people's aren't always).  We had some barley beverage and tasty stir fry.

I should have said earlier that Lut was my introduction to the work of Donald Judd and, truth be told, Iconography.  Here's one more.  I forget every detail about it, but that pear looks like it's gonna fall on your foot, does it not?

always only enjoy

40, 41

I think I messed up the count.  gonna go with 41.  I think Gale Sayers was 40.  I only think this b/c Brian's Song was on the tube the other night.  I couldn't believe it and watched a few commercial blocks worth.  Aunt and Uncle headed home today.  Their visit was a huge help.  Here's another from the MFA.  I read all about it and promptly forgot every detail.  It was strangely affecting, mesmerizing even.  The holy sprit as homunculus made me laugh out loud, but then you sort of confront the artist's seriousness and desperation to depict belief and. . . well you end up staring at it a long time and taking a picture.

39

This is the Donald Judd at the MFA.  I saw it from two galleries away and almost ran to get close to it.  Industrial, speaking of the machine (or The Machine), cold, simple and spare, but also if you spend time with it, seductive, complicated, even somewhat of a painter's work the way it messes with light and shadow.  To generalize Valery: we should apologize for daring to speak about art.

About 39, stumped again except to say one of those old timey Steeler DB's maybe.  Perry, Lake, Bell.  Who knows?  I was gonna close in and get the guard out of the pic, but I decided to leave him in for scale.  Dig those shadows.  Comment it up.

38 (Unknown Steeler Tim Worley)

Got a golf lesson from The Rick today.  Turn your left shoulder under your chin.  Hit the catcher in the mask.  Rotate your hips.  Hit 'em like you never did.  Picked up a 1K-piece jigsaw puzzle.  Uncle and I (and The Rick, truth be told) finished a 400 piece-er of a topo map, no picture.  Maybe the hardest jigsaw puzzle ever  and I put together a few Staves (google it).  As The Rick said, it's like a mine accident/rescue:  Every 40 min you fit a piece or save a miner--everyone sighs with relief.  And then you go after the next one.  Spent the afternoon at the Boston Museum of Fine Art.  Really delightful.  Highlight:  coming out of the Hall of Masters into American pop art.  Like the clouds parted, you got all the jokes and they were all funny.  Still, hard to top Achilles readying steeds for the big battle.  This one had me in it's tractor beam for a LONG time.  Hope your day was filled with goodness not badness.

The Twelfth Prime Number

Very good clinic visit.  All numbers up or steady.  Big news was plts more than doubled.  Making your own platelets is a big deal.  Doc said see you in a week, if everything continues as is, we'll pull the line and send you home.  HOME.  Where my thought's escaping. Where my music's playing.  Where my love(s) lie waiting.  So, to be clear, a lot has to go right and plenty could go wrong, and I'll still need to return fortnightly, but hey I made the schlep weekly through the winter.  I can deal with the visits.  Especially now that I know The Rick's (down 6 games) address.  Keep your fingers crossed and don't bet money on it, but it's a good thing that could happen soon.  Special thanks to Pop for his steadfastness the last two weeks.

Lester "the molester" Hayes, covered in stickum.  Best bump and run cover man in the biz.  I can't take credit for the jersey number but I get misty thinking of those Raiders.

37, changing of the guard

So I just go mostly blank at 37, though I can kinda see through my memory's hazy drapes a Cower-era Steeler DB with a three seven: Darren Perry, Carnell lake, Myron Bell.  Somebody like that.  Kudos to Cope for coming up with Nuke LaLoosh.  Kudos, but truthfully, I don't know if to be impressed or creeped out.  I mean, THAT is obscure.  But he did quote Whitman, if only to get in the sack.  Perhaps one of the better reasons for quoting Whitman. Maybe the jersey # game has lived out it's usefulness.  I'll let you tell me.  I know that from here to 50 I'm gonna be pressed.

Pop left this AM, and already I miss his company.  Aunt and Uncle due in this afternoon to takeover caregiving detail.  Appointment tomorrow. Let you know.

Urge and urge and urge
Always the procreant urge of the world

Thirty-Six

Played 9 real holes at a course in Stoughton Mass.  Skins format.  Doug took 8 of them.  Id like to say it was my fathers' day gift, but that would be an outright lie.  Accuracy and distance seem to be in some kind of tension, except when you don't have either.  I was lonesome for the par three course after 3 holes. The Rick unwisely gave a stroke to the seasoned veteran and we both went home with fewer dollars.  We were all big winners at dinner, however.  Mixed grill: lamb, sausage, mushrooms, C on the C.  A splendid weekend, in fact, due in large part to The Rick's hospitality.  Starting to wonder about his golf coaching cred though.

35

Kevin Durant, I learned very recently, but I aint posting no roundballers.  Better to have wrestled and lost than played basketball and won--someone said a long time ago.  Pop and I got out to the Stone Meadow again yesterday.  I tanked the first hole for a 6.  The competition offered me a stroke a hole.  The ol' rope-a-dope, not to say anyone's a dope, but an old old trick.  Played a number of honest pars which equaled birdies.  Pop down three units, though he had me in total score because I blew up on the last two holes.  Again.  Gonna try to get out again today.  Let you know how it goes.  To all my muthers out there, happy fathers' day.

Leopold Bloom

Yes because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all her ailments she had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathingsuits and lownecks and of course nobody wanted her to wear them I suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice i hope Ill never be like her a wonder she didn't want us to cover our faces but she was a welleducated woman certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here and Mr Riordan there I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her dog. . .

Tony Dorsett, scoop a chocolate, scoop a vanilla.

Heisman winner, first rounder, 2 Super Bowls (tm), Hall 'o Fame.  One of the greats (Franco being another) of what I think of as the running back era.  100 yd game almost locked you a win, 1000yd season was really a feat.  Could not win w/o a ground game.  Beginning in the 70's going to, say early 90's.  This idea is likely a fiction and easily disproven, but Riggo, Thurman Thomas, Marcus Allen, Otis Anderson, Dickerson, Payton, etc.  The good ol days.  Not really throwing down the gauntlet here,  plenty of guys can still get you 4 and a cloud of dust, just waxing nostalgic.  Remember hating Dorsett, me no Cowboy fan.  Heck, now I feel like he's one of my favorites.  Also lots of other 33's out there, learned of two just last night watching—you know it—the NBA finals.  But I don't know what to say about Kareem except I loved the baby hook and Bird was really white.  And the more I think about it, even if it was entirely googled, Girv's Jim Taylor call is pretty sweet.

Clinic today.  White count up.  RBC up, PLT up.  UP UP UP.  Got first full night's sleep since coming to Boston.  Feel great, which only makes me long more for home and exercise.  PLTs get to 50k and they say they'll take the line.  Once they take the line, they'll be running short of reasons to keep me here.  I am a little worried that I've had few to no GVH issues--they say some is good.  Gonna check with the main Doc on Wed, my next appt.  Is the jersey # talk really that odious? Where is everyone?


One more from Walden.  HDT was just too cool.

FRANCO, of course

Thursday.  You know what that means:  Golf.  Nate, Dad, The Rick and I went to Stone Meadow[sic]. Hit a couple of buckets and then took to the Executive par three.  Nine holes, buck a hole.  The Rick and I  VS.  Nate and Dad.  Back and forth through 5, then Nate and Dad with the box pressed AND changed their order.  NEVER change your order.  They pressed twice more and after 9 they were down 16 units.  The Rick was our team capt and took MVP honors.  He was on the green in one on every hole but one.  I wasn't so pretty off the tee, but I did sink three must haves on the back 4.  Pitch for show, put for dough.  I didn't lose a ball either, my goal going into it.  In other sporting news, I took both games of a chess twin bill from The Rick.  Sadly, no money wagered, but my ship is correct under steam again.  It's all in the opening. And the backswing.

Donnie Shell

When your wife beats you to a member of the Steel Curtain it's hard to argue otherwise.  Though it did seem kinda google-ish considering she probably thinks strong safety means extra child seats.  Hell, I couldn't come up with a 31 to save my life.  It's a bad number.

Nate, Dad and I circumabulated Walden pond yesterday.  Quite a place.  Quite.  Still brimming with the spirit of the man.  I sorely wanted to swim the length and maybe back, but pond water is a no-no.  Something I would rather like to do someday.  The cabin site is, properly, spartan and altar-like.  I had a ball.  And walked just shy of two miles.  Thoreau, you probably know had a sweet donegal beard.

"Live deep and suck the marrow of life."

Terrell Davis

Outta my hat, that one.  Now I'm sweating 31.  I mean, who wears 31?  I'll gnaw on it.  Feel free to chime in guys.  The gals, I gather, don't do jersey numbers.  Shame.

Fell asleep around 6, slept to 11:30.  Is this progress?  Since it was unaided, I think so.  Reading this poet, Frank Stanford.  The one upside of squiggly sleep.  Can almost guarantee you have not heard of him.  I wouldn't have either but I know a poet or two.  It is really jaw-dropping stuff:  southern, american, storyteller, conjurer, learned in myriad ways.  And of course he shot himself.  Probably the only cliche one will find in him.  The work itself is sui generis.  THE BATTLEFIELD WHERE THE MOON SAYS I LOVE YOU.  Not everyone has a 20K+  line epic in them that ain't Homer, but you can let this fall to any section, read any line(s).  I sorta picked away at it like that for a couple days and then the poem itself gave me the courage to start proper at the beginning.  That and I wasn't sleeping.
What are you reading, or not reading, as the case may be?   I'm not reading Finnegan's Wake.

Eric Dickerson (right?)

Mirtazapine. . .Remeron(TM).  When a week of no sleep catches up with you (me) it does so with the force of a freight.  Did sleep though the night, mostly.  Ate breakfast, slept again until 4.  Foggy headed, confused, disoriented, half-nauseous.  Whew.  Not complaining, was desperate, DESPERATE, for the sleep. But such a cost.  Big test will be if I can saw some logs tonight. Nate in town.  Hope you all are dreaming away.

Marshall Faulk

Clinic today.  Numbers good.  Engraftment has no doubt taken place.  Nurse practitioner said they gave me so much poison that I'd have needed many transfusions by now if it had not.  I've needed zero.  Numbers still a little low but likely b/c of antibiotic which they have stopped. Know more Fri.  Still sleepless in Boston.  Diagnosis: my noodle, which is a fun-house place to be right now.  Got a "sleep aid," which I'm keen enough to know is more a brain muffler.  I'm loathe to it all, but things have just come to that point.  Miss my home.  In the delta.  Way down that farmer's road.  Keep 'em coming folks.  Please.  Keep 'em coming.

It's so hard not to bend your arms in the clean:

Twenty-six, seven

Finally got some sleep.  Not the night through, but easily 4x average of the last week.  Whew.  Nice long walk.  Took Dr. Girvin to airport.  Sad to see her go.  Clinic appointment tomorrow morning.  Will keep you posted.  Where you all at?

25

Sleep Sleep Sleep.  Ugh.  What I wouldn't give for some.  Dr. Girvin and her assistant Karen Wilson in for the weekend.  Who do you like in the Belmont now?

Plain and simple, this one is my kinda guy:

24

Two walks today.  TWO.  Whew.  Eating and drinking fine.  Tired as I don't know what and trying to sort sleep situation out.  Guess I am coming of the Ambien and Ativan too.  Forced myself to stay up late w/o a nap for first time.  So hard I ended up watching NBA basketball.  Chess slump is official.  Split with The Rick, though he will tell you he took two.  The clock don't lie. Gotta get that straightened out.  Probably a good problem to have at this point.  Though the sharks smell blood.  Keep the comments coming, a balm on my spirit.  Especially when they're funny.

This one shakes what her mama gave her, and mama gave her a lot.  Spicier than a pepper sprout.

What rhymes with 23?

Clinic today.  WBC down, but expectedly, as I stopped Neupogen injections.  Sorta flying on my own, so to speak.  RBC and PLTs both up a tad and those too are all by my lonesome, so perhaps engraftment is taking place—totally my conjecture, they don't check for that for a while.  But it ain't bad news.  Good news is fluid is ebbing and lung cultures remain negative.  Got 4mg of Magnesium replacement which is good for the ticker and will help with my preterm contractions.  Dear ol' dad pulled some end game brilliancy to beat me in a game of chess for the first time in 30 some years.  I was shamed and proud at the same time.  I think it might keep him at the table for a few more years which is good for both of us.  The Rick was ducking me like Larry Holmes, but when he saw today's  tilt he got all excited for a game.  Kinda tells you what you need to know.

The beauty of this one frightens me.  FRIGHTENS me,  Is this what Rilke meant when he said "Every Angel is terrifying."  KME?  help here.

Nobody but me.

Catch 22

Gotta get well enough to go home.  Don't think I can do that absent home.
Deprived of my family is some kind of torture.  Back to Doctor's today, probably to learn about chest and fluid.  Wish I had better news.

I said warden, warden, warden
wont you break your lock and key
yeah, come along here, mister
C'mon and let the poor boy be

21

Tony as the digs are they cannot occlude the facts.  Nor can I.  Miss my wife and children and friends.  Feel like I have been amputated.  Wish there was Dilaudid for the heart.  I've looked, but have not found.  Another day, another scar.

OUR SADNESS (Denis Johnson)
There’s a sadness about looking back when you get to the end:
a sadness that waits at the end of the street,
a cigaret that glows with the glow of sadness
and a cop in a yellow raincoat who says It’s late,
it’s late, it’s sadness.

And it’s a sadness what they’ve done to the women I loved:
they turned Julie into her own mother, and Ruthe--
and Ruthe I understand has been turned
into a sadness...

And when it comes time
for all of humanity to witness what it’s done
and every television is trained on the first people to see God and
they say
Houston,
we have ignition,
they won’t have ignition.

They’ll have a music of wet streets
and lonely bars where piano notes
follow themselves into a forest of pity and are lost.
They’ll have sadness.
They’ll have
sadness, sadness, sadness.

HEY, NINETEEN (and 20, for tech difficulties last night)

View out my window at The Newton County Day School of the Sacred Heart. Library on the left, Lax field background, a little robin, hard to pick out, foreground.  The living is high.  Soft sheets, fluffy pillows, quiet like I forgot I could even imagine.  People decent and generous as all get out.  I have kind of a master suite, Dad has a room with a head across the hall.  Kitchen, TV/lounge space and acres and acres of walking.  And it's way more independent than parochial.  The Rick is 15 minutes away, but so close to my heart.

No we can't dance together/ no we can't talk at all/ please take me along when you slide on down.

EIGHTEEN. I once had a girl (or should I say she once had me.)

Lung spots no longer worrisome, mainly because they come with no corresponding symptoms (fever, difficulty breathing).  Current operating hypothesis is the spots are previous bad places now drawing rightful attention of new white cells.  In any case, I'll be discharged tomorrow, day 19.  For some more regular living, if you can call living with out your wife and children in any way regular.  Through the kindness and great generousness of THE RICK and his school, The Sacred Heart School, I'll be living in a house on campus in Newton Mass.  Details to follow.  I intend on keeping you up to speed with my situation in this way until day 100 and hopefully not longer.  Check the blog early and often, comment when so moved.

Today's a baby step, just like the last. But by many baby steps are one's shoes bronzed. or something like that.

and when I awoke, I was alone/ this bird had flown/ so I lit a fire/ Isn't good Norwegian wood?

SEVENTEEN

W: 10.69  HCT: 26.2  PLT: 19k   Good jumps across the board.  Then had the pleasure of TWO immediate lung tests.  In the first test, I breathed something yucky through a nebulizer that produced deep-down from the soul sputum  First and second efforts were fair to middling results.fd  Third, however, actually made the tech cheer.  YES! Maybe garbagemen get amped about maggots? I don't know.  Could've spit the blue-ribbon oyster from the tennis courts on top of Central Elementary, but probably would've gotten paddled for it.  Like Naughton and baby tennis games.

Second test: the broncoscopy, or as I like to say, the Bronc, was a bit more involved, invasive.  Begin by breathing nebulized lidocaine beyond such time as speaking was easy in any way.  Partial numbing.    COmplete numbing came by a hand-held fertilizer gun, single action.  Hold the tongue down and play arcade games with the uvula.  2-4-6-8 times.  Shake the gun, lidocaine dregs all that remain.  "That's probably enough.  How do you feel?"  "Likeagolfball in m-throat."  "Good.  Good.  That's perfect  Lie back and we'll start the meds"  ME thinking (not well): what meds?  funny you asked.  He shows me a battery of check valves:  Versed and Fentanyl.  Needless to say, these two, in 1-2 puch combo maeke me LEMON PIE FILING.  After that, no memory.  I was puddle of pie filling the rest of the day. A Great great opportunity cost as LUT and Bryan Morris of Bryan Morris Masonry were in town to visit.  would be even more ashamed for my behavior, but that it was totally out of my drugged shortened control.  THis is junky talk for sure except i dont think im a junky yet.  Just sore at myself and lonely as could be and sad i didn't get to say adios to my compeñeros.  Any of you weghing the full visit , I usually host bettet