Spooks

Since my last post, I've added three more doctor's appointments for my mother, Friday, Monday, and Wednesday.  Halloween at 12:30 with a cardiologist.  That should pretty much do it.  We'll be back to the house by three, maybe, so I won't be going anywhere before the kiddos start to show up.  Monday my mother gets another two epidural injections.  "Medicare will pay for it if it is a different procedure.  Last time we did one side.  This time we'll inject both sides."  O.K. doc.  Not sure how much of this is for mom and how much for the money.  "Studies show the injections work better if they are done closer together in time."  What can I say, doc?  Science is science.  

The carpenter dug deep holes under the cantilevered bay window and filled them with cement.  He will place supports there, then begin ripping the siding off.  When I saw him yesterday, he was dirty and didn't look happy.  He is definitely happier when he isn't doing dirty work.  

The mechanic called yesterday.  The car needed a starter, brakes, and oil.  It was down four quarts.  What?!  I'd had it serviced not long before I took it to him.  The fuckers must not have put oil back in after they drained it.  I don't have an oil leak, so. . . ?  I'll take the mechanic seven hundred dollars today and retrieve my 2005 Xterra.  How much money have I sunk into the car this year?  It ain't the right time to go car shopping, though.  

Maybe this is why I don't sleep.  Or maybe it is that I know my life is dribbling away.  Or maybe it is that I have to inure myself to my mother's suffering.  She is in pain and, of course, fear.  God knows what is going on inside her head.  I try to keep her distracted, but my own skull is full of goblins, so I think rather than sleep.  

And of course there is the pain in my neck, back, shoulders, ribs, hips, and knees.  My left foot seems to be o.k., though.  

I make a trip or two past Country Club College every day.  Oh, Christ.  

How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics,
Yet here's a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there's a politician
That has both read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms,

But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms.

 That old pervert Yeats.  

But the mirror tells the tale.  Maybe it is the alcohol.  Maybe I'd sleep if I were not drinking.  Probably.  I've given up living pretty much anyway.  Perhaps I should go all the way.  

But it won't help.  

The temperatures dropped in the night.  A front came through.  I heard it.  It was 2 a.m.  My mother's house was popping and cracking.  I could hear the wind, feel the barometric shift.  I listened to it for hours rolling from one side to the other, my mind thinking about all the things I just told you and of all the photos I am not making.  

And, of course, spookier things.  

I have to get bags of candy today.  I need to make a serious dinner, too.  I didn't cook last night.  I was too exhausted.  I could barely move.  I went to a shitty place up the street and got chain store bbq.  Those ribs lay heavy in my gut.  Maybe that's why I couldn't sleep.  

I would like to go back to bed, but anxiety drives me now.  There is too much to be done.  I feel like a character in Wonderland.  That nervous little hare, maybe.  

There's a bit of Wonderland in today's illustration.  It is disturbing, but I can't look away.  

It is the first day of autumn.  I tell people every year that autumn doesn't come to us here until Halloween.  They ALWAYS scoff.  I don't think people pay much attention.  

Autumn has arrived just on time.