An Infinite Number of Monkeys

So. Apparently being on several medications that remove sugar from your blood can be too much of a good thing. I went to my hair salon for my appointment, and things get kind of fuzzy until I wound up in a room at immediate care. (Still dreading the bill for the ambulance ride.) I spent about 24 hours in the actual hospital before they felt safe letting me go. I'm in a four month gap between when my PCP left Erlanger and when my new PCP is supposed to arrive, and I didn't take enough initiative in my own health care in the meantime, just assuming that 'they know what they're doing'. I've decided not to do that any more.

Julian did the 'five questions' meme yesterday, and I liked their questions so I stole them. Traditionally, if you want questions to answer you comment "questions, please."

1. What was your childhood dream job? (e.g., astronaut, ice cream taste-tester, etc.)
I wanted to be an author/actor/rockstar. So basically David Bowie. I had a strong creative urge and no focus.

2. If you could magically pick up one new skill (language, art form, etc.) what would it be?
Playing the guitar. I banged my head against that for a while, and I have a little bit of a grudge. If I were smart I'd choose something like 'writing grant proposals' that I could make money off of. Or Spanish, another skill I've bounced off of several times.

3. What is a skill/talent/etc. that you have that you're proud of?
I like to sing, but I'm not professionally trained or anything. It just feels good to slip inside a song and feel it around me. As far as 'proud' though, I think it's my perspective. I'm very comfortable seeing things from somebody else's point of view. And I think that's a really important tool in getting through the world, even if the rest of the world sees it as a weakness.

4. What's your favorite time of day?
If I'm not lying in bed trying to fall asleep, three a.m. The world is quiet, and for the most part I have it all to myself. If it's misty or raining, that's even better; it muffles other sounds. But if it's clear then there are stars and the moon, things you don't have while the sun is out.
This has changed a bit since I now have dogs who want me up at ten a.m. to feed them.

5. What's your favorite holiday (and/or specific holiday tradition)?
The stretch between Labor Day and November, or as I call it, Hallowe'en. The weather slowly but inexorably creeps out of the heat and into the chill. The smell of autumn takes over the ambiance as the leaves begin to fall and decompose. I frequently find myself just stopping and inhaling deeply, letting the season creep into me. Being spooky becomes more socially acceptable, the advance of darkness even seems to encourage it. It's a time of harvest, the last bustle of life before we shut down for the winter.

I'm furious with the dogs because one of them climbed up on the counter and dragged an entire 16oz box of cat treats out to the run and shredded/devoured it.
Which means I'm actually furious with myself for not putting it somewhere more inaccessible.
But they're the ones who went to bed early because I didn't want to be in the same room with them.
And in two weeks, I'm adopting them.

Yesterday Eliza Jared and I drove out of the rain down to Birmingham for what may be the last Ministry tour. According to Jourgensen, this is the last Ministry album anyway. We grabbed a quick hummus dinner at a restaurant near campus and then tried to get through security while Front Line Assembly warmed up the crowd.

Although it was a lovely day and the venue was a big empty lot and it was loud enough that we could have just hung out here at the gate rather than struggle with the safety officers.
FLA was good but somehow since the 1980s they got old. I have no idea how that happened. It was a bit of a shock that would be triggered through the concert.

As the sun set, Gary Numan came out. I'm not sure whether in my mind he was the headliner or Ministry was; it was a close call. I thought I had better pictures of his set, but this is all I could find.

He, as opposed to FLA and most of the audience, looked like a frolicking young buck still. He showed us why he was King of the Dramatic Pause, and he would also segue from one song to the next, sort of frustrating people who wanted to applaud and say Woo. I really loved the dirtied-up version of "Cars" he did in the middle, but that wasn't what I was there to see. (:

The crowd grew perceptibly more aggressive and pressed closer to the stage in between acts, and I was pretty sure the mosh pit I'd expected to form during FLA was about to spring to life. (It did, but I managed to single-handedly shut it down. I was bracing myself to stand between the pit and Eliza, but I stepped on the side of my foot and did a 250 pound stumble across the entire length of the pit before gravity finally claimed me as one of its own.)

The last time I saw Ministry, we were in the back of a stadium and they were literally playing behind a chain link fence. The bass was cranked up high enough that it affected my heart rate. This was a much different show, with a lot more intimacy and interaction with the crowd. Except for the one guy who kept shouting "Hallowe'en!" and "Sympathy!" They ignored him. At first I thought they were going to run through the entire new album; we kept getting new track on new track, each with its own lovingly crafted video projected on the screen behind them.

But after about half a dozen songs, Uncle Al took a break and said thanks for appreciating our new stuff, we really like it, but now your patience is rewarded and you all get doggie treats! The next seven, eight, nine songs are all ones you'll recognize, I guarantee. And I knew most of them. He talked to the audience briefly between every song, pausing at least long enough to mention the name of the next song and often encouraging the audience to smoke some more marijuana.
There was an encore, and with three bands the show still wrapped around ten o'clock. I suddenly realized that I'd been standing on concrete and dancing for four hours and limped back to the car. I made eye contact and smiled with the cute person I'd made eye contact and smiled with during Gary Numan's set, and then we set off into the fog, which made me uncomfortable but no deer or pedestrians or big rocks or anything jumped up out of the mists and crushed our front end, I got safely home and then fell into bed.

Hey, now.



Hey, now, now.

Yesterday I went to see Lamb (it was lovely and weird until the end and now I'm not sure how I feel about it).
Coming home, I reached the point where the access road spills onto surface streets and there was a man standing there. His clothing was shabby, and he looked like he should be holding a cardboard sign. Instead he was turned away from the road, staring disconsolately at the freeway rolling past. I rolled down the window and asked him if he was all right. He said he needed something to eat. I peeled a $20 bill off my 'emergency cash' stores and said I hoped this would help. He looked at it solemnly, and apparently he'd seen my fuel gauge bumping up against the 'E' because before he would take it, he made me promise I had enough money to get more gas.

But he bad his cuzin employ a spune, for the greater payne it wud inflict.

I'm spending six weeks caretaking for my mom--my sister could use the time off--and I'm again going over my thoughts about my own future and how much pain and disability I'm willing to tolerate versus how desperate I am to cling to continuing to exist. It's pretty hypothetical still, and most of the time I'm pretty willing to let it exist somewhere in the future. But it's hard to keep it as a clinical consideration when it feels like I'm living in the same house as that future. If she's careful, Mom can still move from the bathroom door to the toilet, but she's constantly in pain and getting out of the house onto the back porch today was pretty much all we could handle. But at least she got outside, which is something I've been hoping she'd be up to for a month now.

I've had stretches of 'this is not fun any more' in my life, but there's always the idea that it's probably going to change given time. How long do I tolerate 'this is not fun any more' when there are no options for things getting better and it's just trying to stave off things getting any worse?