My God what is happening?
Is there a God?
Of course not.
No God would let what is happening, well happen.
I dwell in a place where your door can be opened by a blind traveler who is lost, a lost traveler who is blind and the dumb, who live there.
My neighbor, Mark about once every three days will open my door and just sit there knowing something isn't right but he is just not completely sure what it is. I finally tell him that he needs to go one more door down.
Mark, on the other side is blind and will get to the wrong door also and I will again direct him to where he needs to be.
My roommate shows up,
backs up to the wall
Facing the sink and mirror
looks into the mirror and raises his arms.
I don't know what he says and then he wheels to his side of the room.
I've been listening to the likes of Vangelis, Kitaro, Tomita, Keiko Matsui and Simon and Garfunkel all morning. Felt like having at least the music being a highly spiritual and calming type of environment which so far it has been.
I am a wounded soldier.
My battle will never be won.
I fought so bravely.
To be lost by the sound of guns being fired everywhere.
The madness continues and the police state gets stronger and more powerful and there seems to be no turning back at this point not even by our black president who must have conflicting feelings over this entire situation, all the situations, they all include some form of racial ignorance by the white man that is desperately trying to stay in charge.
And here I sit in this comfortable prison cell consisting of my paints and canvas, a hospital bed and large amounts of narcotics that they keep giving me every four hours to keep me sedated. I lost the battle when I gave up my freedom.
I lost the battle when I stopped healing.
I lost the battle when the battle lost me.
His head came blasting out of the fields filled with blood. He raised his head in defiance.
“Just a Joseph looking for a manger”. Ah yes good old Leonard Cohen on a wretched Thursday.
I wonder if all Thursdays are wretched?
He is that unemotional voice that is screaming words that bury themselves deep in your heart and soul. “Like any dealer he's watching for the highest card so that he will never have to deal anything higher.
I told you when I came I was a stranger.”
I type into my daily journal system that I built in Open Office Spreadsheet;
“Another wretched Thursday. I wonder if every Thursday is wretched? I wonder if we would be ok with allowing one day a week to be wretched. The problem would be getting everyone to decide on which day.
For me it would be Thursdays, June.
I don't know why but June is always a rough time for me. A lot of weird shit happens in June and July.
Fall is my best and the beginning of winter. August, September, October, November and sometimes December are the good months.
June and July they are the rough ones.
January, February and March seem to not really generate too much emotion where April and May make me feel alive again.
I do think it's all revolving around the seasons for me as far as the new growth and regeneration of April and May and the regeneration in the fall and beginning winter months. Things are at rest and at peace in the fall, actually in both scenario’s.
Sunflower was also born in August so that makes it a very important month. Then we had Halloween which is our favorite holiday and then Thanksgiving which for a period of time was a big holiday for all the families involved, my family, daughter, wife, mother in law, my mom, dad, brothers and their families. This all moved right into Christmas which I always wanted to be special and I think I am the one that made it less special many of the times and the holidays as time passed moved through the families and the brothers, and their children and grandchildren and we have just left nothing for them as far as family.
Hopefully they will begin new generations of family.
Didn't anybody tell her
Didn't anybody see
Sunday's on the phone to Monday
Tuesday's on the phone with me.
Well I knew but I could not say.
Been a wild day. One that I needed so desperately. I feel energized and even more frustrated about being here and thinking about dialysis tomorrow and fuck my mind is running a thousand thousand times an hour and I can't keep up and I am exhausted and frightened and ready, yea man I'm ready.
I met the new case managers from the disability empowerment place that is supposed to be finding me a place to live that up to this point I had been sorely disappointed in. I rolled up to two noticeably handicapped people in electric wheelchairs. I suddenly felt like I was on equal ground. These people would understand my situation more than most.
They were so full of life. Here they sat in their chairs just filled with ideas and conversations about places that they thought would work for me. They showed up with two possibilities and both sounded fucking amazing to me. It was like a complete turnaround from the previous case manager. I felt sad for him. He was a great guy but he just didn't seem to have any gumph to him. I felt like things were going to get rolling now that the handicaps were all working together.
I yell the fuckers name over and over again to get him to stop snoring. Few seconds relief and then he is right back at it again. I begin making animal noises and swearing loudly. I realize I am as crazy as the rest of them.
And so it's another Saturday morning, six am, music playing, drinking my nepro and coffee. Using the small brush to add just hints of color because I am out of paint until Sunflower brings more on Sunday. I must remind her today. Piano player sounds like something out of the fifties.
I spent most of the night with my legs hurting. Twisting and turning trying to find a position where the pain was less enough that I would fall asleep and then be awake in three hours. I'm used to it. It's the way it goes.
Now that there has been a day between meeting my new saviors and hearing nothing yet from them which I shouldn't but I feel myself being pulled down again. Like this was all false. The meeting was not as important or as correct or as life saving to me. I feel this dread coming on and I have to do everything possible to make it go away and to hinge on the positive nature that those two unusual people brought to me. I keep seeing the face of the woman and listening to her voice in my head and the guy was very sure of himself as he sat there in his prison chair. We were comrades in our handicaps. I to them was a mere joke. It was merely my legs that didn't work. They were truly handicapped and they still had more vim and vigor than most.
I kept up with them though. I am known for my vim and vigor and my magic kingdom dream world make it happen even if it's crazy attitude we will follow you till the end kind of guy.
It's been good being out of paint and using paint out of the lids to just add tiny hues of color on a couple pieces. I just keep doing this over and over or when my legs get to hurting I am painting with that little brush. It's a whole new experience for me. Looking for openings and gently painting in the colors.
Started out to be a morning of cool little hippy hits from the sixties from one hit wonder bands and ended up going into the soundtrack to easy rider and Woodstock. Oh it's a stoner Saturday and i'm enjoying the hell out of it.
My bliss is destroyed in a split second by the roommate waking up and going through his morning cough and piss all with the guttural sounds and the smells Ah yes it's the napalm of my life right now. The wet dog smell of piss. The death rattle of smokers cough and then that fucking voice of his, “Mical!!! Painting again. Everybody loves Mical's work, Everybody loves Mical. Mical gets all the women on and on and on...” As he wheels out to smoke another cigarette and give me just a little peace again. Take a load off Annie
And now he is back again smelling like stale smoke and fucking with that god damn remote that doesn't work so that his fucking TV blares out the sound until he fixes it. Oh but first we had to go through the fucking ritual of backing up against the wall and looking in the mirror and fuck man I am so sick of it. But lets not forget the place in Franklinton, the art, the music, the people the wheelchairs, oh yea I can see it a hippy revolution in wheelchairs, flowers, beads, love and wheels.
Or something remotely close to that.
cool peace
hippy mike
love
spirit
cool uber groovy cool