As If

I'm exhausted to my very core. . . but here I am at 5:30 a.m. staring at the computer screen, scanning yesterday's news and drinking coffee in one of three recliners in my mother's home.  But it's o.k.  I feel fine.  Really.  Maybe.  I'll write it out and we'll find out together.  

I don't know how much more of my mother's trials and tribulations I can write about.  I mean I can, but it does not make for good conversation and readers are under no obligation to come here and listen to the primeval complaints of a morbidly self-absorbed man.  I have found out that some people do come to the site as they have told me that they couldn't get past the Sensitive Material warning page.  Weird.  No. . . spooky.  I wonder what malevolent internet god is limiting visitors to the blog.  This is something I cannot control.  I guess that is no different than the rest of life, though.  For instance.  

I am only just catching up on the L.A. fires.  It is unbelievable.  Devastating.  One never imagines such a thing really happening.  Red lives down the coastline from the fires.  I asked her if she was OK.  She said so far, unless some sick weirdo starts a flame in her neighborhood.  She has friends who have lost their homes.  One fellow, she said, lost a home in Malibu and is in danger of losing another one in the Topenga canyon. 

Losing L.A. is like losing one of America's most hallowed mythological landscapes.  It is like losing a childhood dream.  It will take a long time to process.  

But. . . you know the story of Babylon.  Sodom and Gomorrah.  Etc.  Really.  It seems absolutely Biblical.  

But L.A. was the first city in the world to have smog.  It really is the city of global warming, isn't it?  Cars, baby.  L.A. car culture was real cool.  

Daddio.  

I imagine it is time to repent of your sins.  If you're gonna, I wouldn't wait too long now.  Admit it.  You were wrong.  You now fear that all those moral codes you rejected will come back to haunt you.  Berlin will certainly be next.  There is no place more vile in the Western World.  I should say "Christendom." There will be a wailing and a gnashing of teeth.  

And these were/are the people who chanted "Peace."  I mean those liberal heathens in L.A. and in Berlin.  Those dirt worshipping heathens who live outside the west and western moral codes, philosophy, and religion, have never known anything but violence and war.  Suffering is like oxygen to them.  Torture and killing are just a way of life.  

So. . . yea. . . so far, it seems, I'm supporting the idea that I'm O.K.  I'm fine.  Let's see.  Let me tell you a bit more about mother.  

Thursday my mother was being held in a veal pen, not a hospital room but one of the short term patient rooms where they put you after your colonoscopy for a bit before you can go home.  They kept her there for two days because her potassium levels were low and her blood pressure was all over the place.  Her caretakers were nice but unknowing.  On Thursday morning a staff doctor came by.  She never saw an orthopedic doctor.  On Friday afternoon, as I was making my way to see her, she called and said they were discharging her.  Her neighbors were there and said they would take her home.  I made a mistake and said o.k.  So I went back to my house to gather up some things since I would be staying and taking care of her.  

The mistake was that they let her go without making an appointment with an ortho and without giving her any pain meds.  Had I been there. . . . 

On Saturday morning, we got a call from a home care nurse.  She came out at noon.  It was a preliminary visit to set up the deal.  She seemed dismayed that my mother had not seen an ortho nor had been given any pain meds.  My mother's fingers were swollen and blue, and she was concerned about that, too.  She said that an orthopedic group that has long been the standard in my own hometown had a walk-in clinic open until three and that I might want to take my mother in today rather than waiting until Monday to call the doc that the hospital had listed.  

So I did.  

There was, of course, no doctor there.  Why would a doctor be working on the weekend?  That would be the idea of an idiot.  So my mother got new Xrays and saw a P.A. who was not able to do anything but suggest we make an appointment with an ortho.  I did weasel a script for Tramadol out of her.  It was only a three day supply, but it was something.  

And so.  There is nothing fucked up with the "system."  It is fine.  

I have been staying in my mother's house for about a month now. . . no, wait. . . since Friday.  Oy!  I'm worn to the bone, tattered and frayed.  My life is fetching, cooking, cleaning, network t.v., and repeating myself more loudly so my mother can hear.  

"Can you open this?"

"What does this say?  I can't read it."

"Are these the pills for pain?"

"Can you get me some. . . . "

"Will you pull my sleeve up."

"Where are my shoes?"

It is not much, I know, and I am being a total little bitch, but I live a solitary life.  I'm not used to interacting anymore, I guess.  

So I read.  That is good.  That is what I have just now.  I haven't read enough in years.  I'm building up my endurance again.  I read between chores.  I read after dinner.  I read before bed.  

I have become a slow reader, but it is picking up.  

Yea. . . I'm fine.  I have no complaints.  We have heat against the cold, food against hunger.  Things could be a whole lot worse.  

L.A.  

But I am up against end of life things.  It is best not to think about them, to deny them, I think, for there is nothing to be done.  One must simply deny it until it can be denied no more.  We must live our lives "as if."  

I had to look it up.  Hans Vaihinger who influenced Schopenhauer.  1911.  I could have sworn it was Berkley or Bacon or somebody English before that.  Someone who proclaimed that just because an event happens a million times does not mean it will happen again.  

"Then why don't you walk in front of a speeding carriage?"

"Because one must act 'as if.'"

That is how I remember it, but not well enough, apparently.  

I won't be back in my own home for a long while now, so I must begin to make a life here.  I was supposed to photograph the little league wrestling again last night.  That whole project is put on pause.  I must figure out something to do.  And, of course, I can't give up the music.  It soothes the savage breast or beast.  

Yup.  Don't worry about me.  I'm just fine.  So many have it much, much worse.