Swimming for an Agent
Before I get into what the title has to do with anything, I need to give some background – sort of like clicking on format, then background, then choosing a color. It used to be blue, baby blue, like my eyes, but now it’s Gray or blue gray due to my increasing obsession with Spalding Gray. For example, I just bid on ebay for an 18 something (year) catalogue of John Boland sporting wear – even though that’s my name, the real reason was because the rear ad was for Spalding sporting goods. The combination was just too much to take.
But background – backgrounds could be called:
Februaries
Besides having a great deal of trouble spelling it (I thought it was maybe Februarys - which as it turns out also shows as correct under spell check), you will soon see the meaning of the month to me. My mother once said to me “It’s February – what’s going to happen to you this year”…
I don’t remember much of anything until I was 11. And that includes Februaries… Except, I think it was February in grade 5 when my teacher, Miss Pinch, decided to pick on me for the rest of the year. And it was probably a February that I got hit in the eye with a snowball and got a big black eye. (I’m going to quit writing for today, because despite writing hundreds of thousands of words in Word, this is the first time this has happened – the word February keeps popping up on the screen every time I write February – if it popped up in blue gray, I’m not sure what I’d do…)
When I was 11, for Xmas we got skis. Three kids and every year we each got one big present (plus lots of small ones) but the big ones were usually the same. I guess a bicycle would be an example. As I recall for Xmas 1961, we all got skis. Well, I also recall that it was February by the time I got around to being dragged out for a lesson. Dragged as in I’m not a fan of snow – mostly because it is cold, wet and generally freezing. There is a phobia listed for snow but none for skiing… So I never made it to my first lesson. I was scurried off most likely by my sister in the direction of the lesson. I promptly fell and got stuck in a very small crack in the snow which at the time seemed more like a crevasse to me. People skied by as I struggled to get up. I think it took about half an hour to extradite myself which coincidentally was the length of the lesson. So that was a Saturday. My father and mother were at home. I wonder how I got to that blasted hill anyway. That night I was awoken in the middle of the night as my father was ill. All I remember is that he kissed me and said goodbye. I was left to fend and hide by myself as I knew that my precious, loving father had just died. February.
I mostly blamed myself that he had had a heart attack because the summer before we had gone canoeing and tipped. He had to empty the water out that appeared to be a great strain on him, one that I was sure had caused the later heart attack. The other person I blamed was the family doctor as he had been called and I was, and still am, convinced that he had not called an ambulance quickly enough. Slimy Bastard. Well by the next year my signs of mourning or lack of – my family still rarely talks about my father – I had to tell my nephew about him and his accomplishments as a lawyer and judge – well my lack of true mourning resulted in me getting colitis. At the time, this was considered very young to get colitis (sadly that is no longer the case). Anyway, the first person to get to stick the rigid metal tube (no Katie Couric colonoscopies invented yet) up my ass to discover this, was none other than the slimy bastard family doctor as I’d neglected to tell my Mom that I hated his guts. Fortunately, I got a wonderful specialist. Unfortunately, no one ever asked me or anyone else why I would get colitis at such and early age. I proceeded to take meds and/or have colitis for about the next 35 years. About 6 years ago, I went to a psychologist for a year who did EMDR and my colitis disappeared. ( www.emdr.com)
By the next February, I guess my Mom figured she and I needed a holiday. As sun was supposed to help me, (I wonder how I got the time off school as I had become a straight A student in order to please my Dad who at that point was logically HARD to please, being dead and all), my Mom and I decided to go to Myrtle Beach, SC with 4 of the neighbors. I remember the crowded car, and as with every trip south, you reach somewhere where you stop and get out and it’s warmer! And the burgers were 25 cents and the milkshakes a dime. I had never seen fast food places before. I remember it was my last day before I realized that there were no blacks at the beach – this is the word my Mom used, blacks, which seemed a might better than my Aunt’s “colored people”. The ‘black’ beach was down the ways where the sand was rockier. I’m sure we might of walked down if we had known before. Rosa Parks had ridden at the front of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. But I didn’t know anything about that in 1963. See http://www.holidays.net/mlk/rosa.htm
Some February in there was when the bulls at school got me. I wrote one of my first chapters in my first book, Just a Mulligan Stew (now called Swimming in a Mulligan Stew), about this time – I fictionalized everything except I used their real names, and everything about what they did was true. I saw one of them listed in my high school list on classmates.com (good site to browse but it has adware and bots attached so you need to scan for spy bots after). I was pleased to see his name because I figure when my first book is published, I can pay to join classmates and send him an email – guess what dude…you’re in my book but there’s fuck all you can do about it as it’s all true. And then I was disappointed as I had hoped he was dead as I had fictionalized it or in the slammer for good, but I doubt he’d sign up for classmates from max security.
Now we move ahead to the high school years where my marks just got better and better and I got more depressed and more depressed. I withdrew from friends if I had any, and had an isolated hobby that I loved – listening to short wave radio. So that’s how I spent every day after school, I’d do my homework and then listen to the radio for hours. I learned a great deal about other countries and was a whiz at capital cities – I even knew the capital of Surinam…don’t remember it now…Paramibo – I looked it up.
Until grade 13 (we still had grade 13), I don’t remember anything spectacular about Februaries. I think I was just too depressed every month to notice. My mother later told me she had asked a friend of hers about her concerns - the friend said something like ‘he’s fine’ or something equally as helpful. My Mom never mentioned a thing to me.
Then in grade 13, I began to find out about friends. I think because I was in a class where all the smart kids were, in a school that was very academic to start with. But I beat them all in Math. 99 in Calculus and 96 in Algebra. The question that no one got was what is the probability of being born on Friday the 13th? Teacher’s answer was simple – one Friday in 7 days and twelve 13s in a year which makes the answer 1over 7 times 13 over 365. This is if you consider these 2 events, the Friday and the 13th as independent events. We argued with the teacher for years after about this. I still say you're wrong Mr. Kyle!
In February of that year, I was falling in love with a young female in my class. You see Februaries turned out to be eventful but that didn’t always mean ‘BAD’. My first girlfriend…
So off I trot to the best university for Math and I am even more miserable if that could be possible. Now I had an added excuse because my girlfriend went to another university. But come February, we have a week off together so she comes to visit a friend but of course stays with me.
That brief, very enjoyable, break in the doldrums, led me to make a blind decision. One of those rare decisions that I look back upon and regret. I switched to her university for second year. Here I was at the top university for mathematics, getting 3 A+’s in math (Calculus, Algebra and Computer Science) including 100% in Calculus when 60% failed – the prof always gave me a strange look…And I ended up in a totally different kind of math program where I managed to still do ok despite in February, my girlfriend became my ex when she started sleeping with one of her lab assistants.
By the third year, I was a mess when it came to school but had become quite social – a brand new thing for me. I played Bridge most nights til late and could never make those 8 am classes. By February some dumb administrator let me drop out without looking at past marks or asking any sensible questions.
By the next January, I had split up with a new girl friend, worked and was off to Europe. In February, I was robbed at gunpoint in Spain and spent a very long time waiting for American Express and drinking a lot of Spanish beer. I ended up in Morocco on a southern beach, and someone had Time magazine; Time magazine said that the U.S. was paying the King of Nepal and others, millions of dollars to close their hashish stores. What an event to see. And off I was. Saw that and a great deal more, until one morning I woke up on a beach in Southern India, saw the sun rise and the next second the sunset; I had bad water hepatitis that I had got 6 weeks before in February.
I lived and there followed a blur of 10 years, some with good Februarys and some with bad. Nothing to monumental.
At one point I was working as a grounds keeper at that very same university that was now even more famous for math. Did I decide to pick up some math courses? Duh! No, but I picked up a psychology course while still working and lo, there was a sign. The one course gave me enough credits to run thru those famous computers to see if I qualified for the Dean’s Honors List – I got a B in my run at psychology but those old A+’s counted as 95 each so I got invited to dinner with the Dean. So I decided go back, do a 3 year make up and go do a Master’s of Social Work…after having passed up 10 years before, the for sure opportunity of grad school in math and even turning down a full scholarship in Economics all the way to the end of a PHD…
Now, personally I’m sick of Februaries and stories thereof, so I’m going skip quite a few and only go over 2 more before we get to the real story. I don’t know if anybody remembers the song Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie. He sings a really long time about getting a ticket for littering and then says but that’s not what he came here to sing about…I kinda feel like that as I write.
So here I am in grad school for Social Work where it turns out that most of the students are working to be social. So some drop out, some get kicked out, some end up in the psych ward and some just go into therapy. I figured the latter was good as then you still had a chance of graduating.
Oww, owww. But I just gotta tell the funniest thing that happened – it was the very first day of grad school. The Dean was giving us all a big lecture before we all ran over to drink at the Grad Club for the first time. They had let in about 70 students into the class. 60 females and 10 males (if you were male and had a pulse and not too many horns, ya got in). Well the Dean was trying to tell us the close bonds we would make with other students. Some might even get married. A female raised her hand and said “Well, just looking around I guess then a lot of Lesbians are going to have to get married.” Everyone laugh so hard we all just kinda stood up and left for the pub.
So in therapy, the subject of my Dad comes up and since I have so many unanswered questions, my Mom is asked to join us for one session. My Mom being the truly wonderful Mom that she was, truthfully, drove down, gave me her car (which 16 years later I still drive), and took the bus home. Oh yeah, and good session with the therapist. The next time I got a chance to see the therapist I got to tell her that my mother had gone to Florida for the winter as usual, but she felt ill, flew back and died 2 weeks later of a brain tumor (in February).
Fast way forward, to about 6 years later. I had just got a promotion to a job in Victoria running a huge program for mental health. Promotion was in February. Fast forward 4 years – as I had noticed that Februaryisms had started to sneak into January. For example, my mother in law had come to live with us only to die 2 weeks later at end of January.
So I’ve been in my Victoria job for 4 years. The province decides to download health care to the regions – double speak for cut backs and unloading responsibility for small items like the health of people. My job becomes 2 jobs as in reality I was doing 3 jobs. One is management which they give to a creep who was going to be out of a job but had been around. He doesn’t like me so sets me up to be fired. The big boss who signs it is ‘my friend’ and supposedly my spouse’s good friend. She actually is a ----- who soon after I get fired gets fired herself due to total mismanagement. This all starts in a January but really is a February kind of thing. Drags on and on into the next February, I take them to court, go to 7 hearings/decisions, win all seven times and take them for $121,000. They of course do not discourage the spread of vicious lies, claim I lost and violate agreements again and again. I of course am blacklisted all over and my career is ruined. I could write a book about it but I’ll just throw in a sample. They told people that I shit when I saw the evidence they had against me. In fact, they had about maybe 20 pages of evidence, while I had over 2000 pages of evidence that the lawyer had me find. As he said, ‘you got more time and are probably better at it’. I’ll tell you the smell of … was mostly coming from their paper tiger lawyer.
Walk the Dog
The money didn’t last long as tax and living consumed it quickly. So Februaries didn’t seem all that distinctive as by the end of each month, there was just nothing left to eat. Living in the fucking most expensive city in Canada didn’t help either. And even the Februaries that stood out, seemed to start earlier and earlier.
We have a dog. A very cute dog. Her front half is a black shitzu and the back half is a brownish poodle. We originally got her for my daughter of course and of course she quickly became mine, because I showed her the most affection and a biggie, I took her for walks!
It was the middle of November and I was walking her about 3 houses away. I slipped with my left foot on a grassy knoll that I haven’t had a chance since to measure, but I think is less than 2 feet high. I heard a loud cracking sound and realized that my left foot was pointing in the wrong direction. A brief but painful experiment verified my diagnosis. My ankle was completely broken, I was lying on the street and my faithful dog was right beside me knowing that something was terribly wrong. I always carry a cell phone in my pocket, except that day, so my clear choice was a loud yell of ‘HELP’. Despite being close to 2 large houses where many people live, it was not until I used the magic word ‘please’ as in ‘please HELP’ that 2 construction workers working nearby and a neighbour down the street came running. The construction dudes were great. One looked at my ankle and said, yep, it’s broken, we need an ambulance. The other one went down to the corner to wait to guide ambulance. And my neighbour took my dog home, woke up my family (it was early) and got me a blanket. Then the ambulance arrived. The guys were great – said their names were Bert and Ernie and even knew the origin of the names – the cop and taxi driver in It’s a Wonderful Life. The good news was the soft padding and tank of laughing gas (can you buy that stuff on ebay?). Bad news was the tank ran out but it in typical Ernie style, he said it could be worse. They picked up someone with a broken ankle and it was a long ride to the hospital – no feeling in toes. They got a cast for a minor break and lost 5 toes.
So I’m in emerg, not laughing and triage actually bumps me up. I get a sliding bed thing in the hall. That’s luxury in emerg. They finally wire me up with some morphine and memory starts to cloud. I remember being told that I was lucky to get a bed in the ward. I remember a surgeon saying he would operate the next day. I remember my spouse being there, bringing some clothes as my jeans had been cut off – my underwear wasn’t downy fresh but they were boxer style so that seemed to make it ok. Apparently a friend biked to the hospital with a Starbucks coffee and a treat. Thank you. I do remember your yellow gortex. It was in this dream state that I thought of the title. If I had finished walking the dog, I was to go to printers as I was scheduled to send a NYC agent my first 2 books, Just a Mulligan Stew and Murder in the Caymans . So I had this vision of lying on the road, my cell phone is ringing and the ambulance driver answering, then hands me the phone and says “Mr. Boland, your Agent’s on your cell phone…” More about the agent later.
Next day it’s surgery. I don’t remember. The surgeon said it was a good thing as he had to do more work than he wanted. There were too many bone fragments to take so he put in 8 pins and a plate. He’s standing there telling me this just as I wake up from surgery. He’s got an xray he’s holding up – all I can tell is there’s a round bone shaped like a sharp edged donut that is completely disconnected from other long bones. Not pretty. I didn’t ask for a copy. Later, they did send a copy to my shrink cause he was listed as a doctor. I had to phone him later and cancel an appointment. He said “Yep, that was a very bad break. What were you doing…?”
That night my spouse brought a wonderful dinner. You know how hospital food is terrible – no Loma Linda hospitals around – well the food had just gotten way worse. The fascist provincial government had fired all the cooking and cleaning staff in order to get rid of the union. So they contracted it out to some friends who hired whoever would accept $8 an hour instead of the union wage of $18. Nice …So the food was beyond shitty and the whole place was filthy. I never saw a cleaner. I guess they ‘forgot’ to hire some.
I quickly remembered and verified why the wards were full. About half the beds were occupied by people waiting for long term care beds. I had 2. One was an advanced case of Alzheimer’s (remember, I’m a social worker, I can tell these things). He received virtually no care and I don’t think his days were long enough to make it anywhere. He had no visitors, nothing, a sad case. The other was a woman with some kind of dementia who was very talkative but fearful at night. The staff ignored her pleas when she was scared so I took it on to reassure her. Usually took about 30 seconds. Once a staff actually came to observe how I did it. Poorly trained staff to say the least. She at least had a sister who visited except I had to remind her of her visitors the next day.
The only surprise was that the government is giving their biz pals print money contracts for new long term care buildings but it doesn’t seem to have made a dint. Every so often you read or hear the latest pack of lies from the health board about the bed situation. Maybe cause I had 2 people working for the board, sent to prison for fraud and accessory to murder in my first book…(totally fiction of course …) – maybe that slanted my view or maybe just slanted my book…does that make any sense? If not, let’s just move on.
So they discharge me with bleeding stitches. No prob. They’ll get the urgent community nurses to come to your house and here’s a prescsript. for 1 weeks T3s. Ah…excuse me…I’ve been on morphine so the codeine will do dick and what happens after a week…Oh, and the best part. They had put on a sort of ski boot looking brace which immediately caused huge blisters everywhere. Now, that became the focus of attention. The surgeon insisted these blisters that hurt and bleed were not caused by the brace, but rather by the fracture. And 15 nurses, a pharmacist, an xray tech and 2 family doctors all disagreed. So I immediately took off the brace, and every day I would hoard my T3s and a different nurse would come and change the bandages. Some were excellent, some were pathetic. After a few weeks, I am told to go back to see the surgeon at the cast room at 10:15 sharp. First problem was how to get there…why the $78 wheel chair taxi of course. Pick you up and return you home from anywhere for just $78, even when you live 5 blocks away (like me).
It turned out that everyone was scheduled at 10:15 sharp, taxi got lost in the five blocks so I was last on list. I took my last T3 and waited 4 hours with my foot propped up on a chair, so the surgeon could change my bandage, give me 1 more week of T3s, and say come back in 3 weeks and I’ll put a real cast on. Gee…it’s a good thing I can’t add.
Then the urgent nurses switched me to the regular community nurses who promptly refused to come to my house. They had either been tipped about my employment, were suffering cutbacks or just lazy. They had a wonderful solution though…take the $78 taxi to my GP and get them to change the bandage…or better still get the GP to make a home visit like they did 50 years ago. The word I chose was ‘stupid idea’, ok, so I called it a stupid fucking idea but I blame it on reading David Sedaris. So that was the end of the nurses.
After a week, a friend managed to get me down the stairs to the GP, who changed the bandage and YES, gave my a script. for morphine. On the way out thru the parking lot, a big SUV (sucks up volumes, stupid useless vehicles), began to back up into me. When I pointed out it was not wise to run me over when all I had was a walker (I’m sure those were my exact words), she took offense. Turns out she was the landlord of the building, and had me banned from the building, bye one GP.
I did manage to get back to the surgeon who liked me for some unknown reason. I thought I’d get a lollipop for sure. I picked baby blue for my cast color to match my eyes. Red would have been better. It was only 4 days til my morphine xmas and as it turned out, my cast was to come off on, yes, February 14th, Valentines Day. How sweet.
Later
It is now almost 6 months later. It was before Xmas. Why would I wait 6 months? Well partly because I wasn’t writing all that much, though I managed to submit a few things. My other monologue about Spalding Gray got a nice rejection letter from the New Yorker which I managed to do what they do in movie ads. Using ‘taking out of context’ to it’s outmost boundaries. So that it was short and sweet for the web page, but it’s still essentially so… And partly because I do other stuff on the web, and often, still confined to bedroom and washroom, I was often very tired after words, partly because I was already in bed, I often chose to have a rest. And partly because I was buying and watching a lot of videos and DVD’s , as soon as I got a TV. Now we finally get back to xmas. I was buying videos that I knew would never get to DVD, thereby either becoming unavailable or very expensive, boot or otherwise. And I figured as they stopped making VCRs this was probably a cool time to buy a TV, VCR combo. They had 21” and a 13”, both now for half price, going fast and faster. So I figured this out – I had the time. First, I buy the big one, supposedly for my spouse, knowing that she won’t want it cause she wants a 13” which would fit in kitchen – so would 21” in same spot, but she can lift the 13” which is true. So 21” shows up and I immediately want to use it so I tell her about it, she doesn’t like it and I order the 13”, which arrives for Xmas and so my daughter gets the 21” for her room, I get the 13” by the bed and the kitchen still has the old one with the picture tube going…that was the extent of Xmas…
Oh, except for the chanting monks story.
We live just behind, or in front of a large castle that a coal baron built for his wife about 150 or 200 years ago – I really can’t remember. Anyway he died before it was finished so it has a very dreary look inside. The outside is quite spectacular because of the solid stone, turrets and slate roof. They recently replaced the slate roof with recycled slate from demolitions. Even then I think it cost 200 grand. So they have special, touristy Xmas stuff, bagpipes and such. Then one block over is the art gallery and they have a lot on including a fairly regular appearance of Tibetan monks who are there to build a sand mandala and throw into the ocean.
So one evening just before Xmas, I’m lying in bed actually aware that sounds have become much more important to my awareness. I hear this odd sound that sounds like it’s going by the castle. I hear my (ambulatory) family rush out the front door. I listen intently and realize that must be Tibetan monks chanting and they even have their long horns blowing away. I listen very carefully and the sound moves away so I realized they were going down the street, I was wondering what they were doing besides the chanting and horns. My iterant nephew who occasionally makes into my Mulligan ® murder mysteries, would have been begging for food as that is what his particular sect does.
My family comes in and asks me if I had heard “it”. I was wise enough to ask what it was. About 50 some odd 16 wheeler trucks going by on the main street at the bottom of the hill, each blowing there horn as part of different Xmas carols and collecting food for the food bank. It was at that point that I realized I couldn’t necessarily count on my senses all the time, including the Buddhist sixth sense which is the mind.
I remember February coming and going. I was still in bed virtually the whole time. I was really looking forward to having the 8 week cast taken off, and in the mean time, my daughter’s best friend’s dad died. He had just turned his life around as he quit drinking. He was so talented that he made a still in his garage, all from parts from the dump.
He had decided to save money by either spending the winter sleeping on the North Beach of Hawaii – he was an excellent surfer – or spending the time here but sleeping in his station wagon. Something I had done at various times but not through the winter, even here as there is about at least a week of below freezing weather each year. Just before the yearly cold snap, he built a propane heater. He was amazing talented at everything mechanical including refrigeration.
So what he would often do was catch a nap in the afternoon so he didn’t need to sleep as much at night. The first cold day, he hooked up his heater, took a nap but never woke up because a misdesign or something caused a CO leak. The police found him dead in the night.
But I still went to get my cast off. It was bad news I thought. The wound looked bad to me. The doc said it was fine but I would need to wear an air cast. When I asked him for how long as this seemed to be a reasonable question, I suddenly felt like I did when I asked the brain surgeon how long my mother would live given that her tumour was inoperable , and he said 3 days to 30 days. She died 2 weeks later.
So the doctor says 3 months to 3 years depending on how my ankle healed. I took that as a downer cause I looked at the 3 year side whereas I could have looked at the shorter side. “Come back in a month”.
This doc is so busy that you have to constantly be asking questions as he moves so fast that he will call out ‘next’ at any time. There are hordes waiting for him. He is only there one afternoon a week and it’s show up, no appointment given. At least now we know to take a picnic as well as pain killers…The state of health care when the government has fascist leanings…oops, can I say that? No, actually I didn’t really mean it, so in a court of law it could not be seen as intentional slander, or subject to any punitive or aggravated damages???
A month more in bed, trying to get used to a new kind of cast. Oh, I almost forgot. When I got the air cast on, I noticed that the cast room was plastered with signs saying that the air casts cost $50, and it didn’t matter if you were a loser on some kind of disability pension (which had just been seriously cut) or on welfare (also recently cut) or right from the poor house, the air cast was $50 bucks and you had to pay before you left. Fortunately, they forgot to charge me and later sent me a bill which I ignored, figuring as that the health region was basically stupid and might forget to send another bill. (do ya get the feeling that little comment might cost me 50 bucks). Anyway, I figured, worst was they’d get nasty (nastier) and threaten to send it to creditors at which point I’d send them $5 bucks with a promise of another $5 in a month. This way, they would need to generate at least 10 more bills at about their cost $10 a bill, thereby costing them $100+ to retrieve $50. So far, the stupid argument is winning. And as an aside, if you have not seen the documentary, Stupidity, the Movie, check it out. www.stupiditythemovie.com
So on to the next specialist visit. He looked at it, said looks better, then remembers to take an xray, says looks better, and wear the air cast every minute for 3 months and come back in with the hordes.
Two days later, the wound reopened due to the pressure from the aircast that actually fails to adjust to swelling as there is almost no air in it. Yet, the constant reminder, besides the cost, is not to blow more air into it. The tone of voice suggests a fate similar to the cult horror classic, Carnival of Souls, now on DVD (www.imdb.com/title/tt0055830/) . So my wound is now open and I have no GP doctor, due to the afore mentioned unfortunate incident in another doctor’s parking lot. So I start playing the fun game called, first find a doctor taking new patients (hard) and then flip a coin to pick one of those. A friend recommended someone, I thought based on reputation, but it turns out, it was based on ‘takes new patients’. I had to overcome my hate of male doctors, but as it turned out, this guy is Dr. Business. First, he told me to go back to my shrink and get my benzoids decreased, and if I did, he would see me again the next week. And if not, here’s some pain killers (finally some decent ones) and then find another doctor. So, as I had wanted to get off some of the up to 4 benzoids I was on, I did just that. I went back the next week and my officially new GP doctor introduced me to the secrets of skin patches over wounds. At 10 bucks a pop, I was hoping they worked. I got home, put it on, and ideally glanced at my watch to see how long it would be till I noticed a difference – maybe by the next day. Within 60 seconds, the relief was dramatic. I figured even if these things were 30 a pop, they were worth it. And what could be in these things as they had no ingredients. They have to have an instant pain killer and probably an antibiotic. When turns out they are just way more absorbent than huggies and suck out all the bad stuff so the wound can actually heal.
We were well on the way to healing until one day, I decided that since I was venturing to that place called ‘out’, I would I would be safer with the air cast on. Well, the aircast bent, leaving a large, deep indentation in my ankle and a wound now open even more. I retired the aircast, and went with the skin patch. Now, 2 ½ months after seeing the ‘specialist’ with his special on aircasts, my wound is very nearly healed. Thanks to Dr. Business. A sincere thanks.
Oh, how could I forget as I spend most of my time either starving or day dreaming of food. Dr. Business put me on the South Beach diet as I had been on the North Beach diet for years. In a fairly short time, I’ve lost 25 pound towards the 70 (yes that’s seventy) pounds I need to lose to get to my goal weight. And I wasn’t really fat, just needed to lose some to put less weight on healing ankle and stay clear of a male family history of heart attacks. I know when I get to 175, I’ll be proud and the SB maintenance diet doesn’t look so bad.
Walking the Dog (part 2)
Well, this story’s gonna end soon as I’m due to take the dog for a supervised walk. She has been a sweetheart the whole time. Knowing not to jump on my sore foot, sleeping beside me. But as soon as I began to walk down the hall without my walker, she began sitting by the front door, thinking that walking down the hall could also mean a W-A-L-K (doesn’t help – she also spells). Wait until the first walk – then she’ll think we’ll be back to twice a day. And we will be, but longer walks this time, to help with the weight loss.
The thing is once I walk her again, we will have gone full circle since the walk that lead to the slip that led to Bert and Ernie and the laughing gas that led to…
But there are a few loose ends. First, I’m supposed to go back to the specialist and the hordes in about 2 weeks. I’m debating the return. The last time I went his main advice was to walk in the water at the community pool and to do these exercises with this stretchy shit that you buy. Well, I could never go to the pool because the wound was open and I’m sure I just barely made it out of the hospital without getting flesh eating disease (this area has the highest incident rate in the world). And I was a good boy and sent the Sherpa (no, not my spouse) to get this stretchy shit, set it up like the shit poor drawings he gave me, first time doing the exercises I pulled my lower back and was in writhing pain for 10 days, relying on some morphine sulphate I had left over from another doc, which in turn caused writhing bowel pain, all of which just took my focus of the neuralgic pain shooting up and down my leg. So if I go, it may be just for more words of wisdom.
And the agent. The fuckin story’s called Swimming for an Agent, after all. As you may recall, I was to go to get the first 100 pages of my first two detective fiction books printed and whisk them off to a NYC agent who had qualified by having a pulse. Well, I got the Sherpa to do that. I’m not sure if I still have her email reply. She basically said I jumped around too much – no shit – and she couldn’t be bothered and that my story was too ‘hip’ whatever the fuck that means. So I wrote her back thanking her for comparing me to Spalding Gray who jumps around too much and David Sedaris who originally was called too hip but is sure to be laughing from his north of Paris stone house…Besides, I’ve had people read them right thru and enjoy them who were survivors of a school system that still mishandles their ‘ADD’ diagnosis which now has translated into Adult ADD. And I don’t know about the hip thing cause everyone I know or hang out with is hip, man…
This story is dedicated to my spouse and daughter as well as Spalding Gray whom I continue to advocate sainthood for by my work on www.spaldinggray.com
and my own web page, www.johnboland.com which you might know of already as this likely will end up posted there.
jb aka upton aka the rev aka ratz garcia while in NYC only…aka spuddy san . . .