Hi Charlie!
I'm sorry you have to read my bad english(spelling), but I really try hard to get it right. I don't write in English that very often.
ALS is a very, very sad "story" for me, but I don't think people around me can see that. They always say that I look "really great". I hate it! Inside me I feel very sick and helpless.
Me and my partner was training - "Powerwalking" when my legs started to hurt, it did hurt that much I couldn't do any powerwalk no more and after that everything changed. In november 2007 I fell and broke my left arm (upper) and since then I can't walk at all, just a few steps. I put on weight because I cant do any exercise at all. I miss my powerwalks and I hate my new weight. I know that I'll lose weight in the furure, but as I live day by day I hate beeing fat.
How often do you see your doctor? I see my ALS-team (Dr, welfare officer, nurse, occupational therapist) every 3 to 4 month and I also meet my Speech therapist and a dietician now and then. They are all very helpful and kind.
Today me and my partner and our dog are going to our weekend cottage. That'll be nice!
Take care!
Kevin
________________________
Kevin,
I had a bad doctor situation. An excellent doctor in the city, but he was rude.
I have been a bit of a problem patient because at first I said "no". This is not for me. You are wrong.
I don't see ANY doctors right now which worries me.
I DO see an alternative doctor and take glutathione once a week (IV).
I take tons of vitamins. I am eating all organic. I bought a juicer.
I bought a motor bike for the city.
I write every day.
My speech is terrible, escpecially when I drink wine... which I like to do.
I live alone. So I have a cleaning lady once a week.
My apartment is mostly a mess because I can't be bothered to pick things up.
My life before ... (I was never home) so my apartment is not set up well.
I've been thinking about redoing it (somehow) since I am here a lot of the time.
I'm not depressed. I take St. Johns Wort 3 times a day and that seems to do the trick.
I want to write and work on photography but I have mounds of paperwork and I am so sluggish.
I guess I'm hoping everything will be okay.
(GREAT that you have a weekend house) That was big on my list before "this" came up.
CHARLIE
Friday, October 9, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
Car climbs up the center-hall stairs of (the century old farm house on the water) puts a cup of coffee on my bedside table and says,
"It's amazing out there, the weather is perfect! They said it was going to rain. It's so nice!"
We got in so late last night. The weather doesn't have much impact on my expectations for the day. I don't really know where I am yet. I feel like I fell asleep on a speeding train and (hours later) found myself in a different state.
Car is caffeined and full of ideas.
I can't really hear or see anything until my first (or second) sip of coffee. But after my first (or second) sip, Car and I laugh and fumble around and make plans (like we did in college).
"We should get the paper! I want to make lists for you. I think there are eggs, you want eggs benedict?
I'm not sure if we have cream, though. I want you to see downtown. Let's drive into town. And later we can go to Target! That's a great idea! We should figure out everything you need and do some bulk shopping at Target!"
My mind is open and giddy (in the very early morning). Yesterday's confusion has been worked out through eight hours of sleep. (I am a blessed and gifted sleeper). When I wake up, for a short time, I see life anew. For this short time, the hopeful expectations of the day, the joy in knowing I'll spend it with my friend, the smell of fresh brewed coffee - (the caffeine!) fuels my giddiness.
"It's amazing out there, the weather is perfect! They said it was going to rain. It's so nice!"
We got in so late last night. The weather doesn't have much impact on my expectations for the day. I don't really know where I am yet. I feel like I fell asleep on a speeding train and (hours later) found myself in a different state.
Car is caffeined and full of ideas.
I can't really hear or see anything until my first (or second) sip of coffee. But after my first (or second) sip, Car and I laugh and fumble around and make plans (like we did in college).
"We should get the paper! I want to make lists for you. I think there are eggs, you want eggs benedict?
I'm not sure if we have cream, though. I want you to see downtown. Let's drive into town. And later we can go to Target! That's a great idea! We should figure out everything you need and do some bulk shopping at Target!"
My mind is open and giddy (in the very early morning). Yesterday's confusion has been worked out through eight hours of sleep. (I am a blessed and gifted sleeper). When I wake up, for a short time, I see life anew. For this short time, the hopeful expectations of the day, the joy in knowing I'll spend it with my friend, the smell of fresh brewed coffee - (the caffeine!) fuels my giddiness.
I like a good high.
(And) then there is always something oddly absurd and funny about waking up with your friends.
(or to Car and me, apparently).
Eventually, I'm forced to accept my place in the life I have and know. So, I make my way down the bare wooden stairs. I climb down them carefully and patiently, like a drunk who has sobered up just enough to know to slow down and watch it.
(or to Car and me, apparently).
Eventually, I'm forced to accept my place in the life I have and know. So, I make my way down the bare wooden stairs. I climb down them carefully and patiently, like a drunk who has sobered up just enough to know to slow down and watch it.
I find CAR in the kitchen making eggs. We plan our day... this time more sensibly (I need my ritual hot bath), a bike ride, a drive into town, swimming in the pool, gin and tonics by the water, dinner on the porch?
I fish Carrie Fisher's slim memoir, “Wishful Drinking” out my my man-bag and hand it to Car. (I got it in on the Cape for the beach). I thought she'd fan the pages and say "thanks... maybe later" - but she swallows it up and carries it around for the rest of the weekend.
(I didn’t think much of it, but sometimes she lets out an astonished guffaw which makes me reconsider).
(I didn’t think much of it, but sometimes she lets out an astonished guffaw which makes me reconsider).
We go over to the pool house, (I bike, Car walks) and I take a bath to heal my angry body. I steep in a claw foot tub (a gift from a falling down embassy in DC?) and read a novel written by a friend of CAR's.
We take a short bike trip.
The Duponts live next door.
There is an Audubon Sanctuary two driveways down.
We bike to a pier.
I've never been to the Chesapeake Bay.
The land is squat around the water.
The water is more friendly than the Cape and cleaner (of course) than Long Island Sound. The historic town looks like Main Street USA at Disney World.
I ask CAR "who lives over there? On that big piece of land directly across from us... is that a private home?"
"hmm...” says CAR. “I'm not really sure. Actually, I've never really thought about it before. Good question Charlie. Very good question, now stop bothering me."
On the bike ride home, I ask her about writing. We discuss how impossible it would be to come up with full blow fictional characters. "How do people do it?"
"It's something that must come to you over the years, trial and error, and getting involved with other writers, asking questions."
I tell Car that sometimes writing falls out of me and there is no struggle but other times, it's just plodding at the key board."
(Since I'm new to writing, it allows me to talk naively)
Car says "Of course, there are all kinds of theories about one's muse. About writers missing their daily appointment with their muse."
"Huh." I like that. I can chew on that. Get lost in that.
On the bike ride home, I ask her about writing. We discuss how impossible it would be to come up with full blow fictional characters. "How do people do it?"
"It's something that must come to you over the years, trial and error, and getting involved with other writers, asking questions."
I tell Car that sometimes writing falls out of me and there is no struggle but other times, it's just plodding at the key board."
(Since I'm new to writing, it allows me to talk naively)
Car says "Of course, there are all kinds of theories about one's muse. About writers missing their daily appointment with their muse."
"Huh." I like that. I can chew on that. Get lost in that.
We drive through the sleepy historic town St. Michael's or is it Easton?
I’m not sure. There are piles of Mums by the roadside. 2 for $15! Big and healthy.
(I always planted mums for my parents in Connecticut. I miss these seasonal cues).
(I always planted mums for my parents in Connecticut. I miss these seasonal cues).
CAR and I find a health food market at a strip mall. We buy organic, non gluten products. I sit down at a booth and let CAR do the hunting and gathering. A store employee has taken a shine to her and advices her which non gluten products are digestible.
CAR (in her enthusiasm) becomes interested (on my behalf) in many non gluten products, she becomes interested in all the possible non gluten products we could test out! She brings products to my table like I'm sitting outside a dressing-room and CAR swings by to model the possibilities. I think we bought some non-gluten pancake batter.
We agree to organic chicken for dinner. Later CAR cooks it in fresh herbs from her mother's garden. The chicken is tough and plain. It takes a lot of chewing to get it down.
"Are you afraid you're going to choke on the chicken?"
It takes me a full twenty minutes longer than Car to finish my dinner.
(Terrible chicken)
Before dinner, I go for a swim in their beautiful swimming pool.
The pool uses salt water. It feels like soothing and organic.
While I lower myself into the pool, CAR tells me about a medication she is on. We compete about the dangerous side effects of our competing medications. Her medication adds weight, mine causes liver disease! Car jokes that she knows exactly what I’m going through because of her weight gain.
"It's just like ALS!"
"It's just like ALS!"
ALS becomes a punch line for a few jokes throughout the weekend.
The drama of the word, the absurdity of having it, is pretty funny.
CAR is worried that the water will be too cold for me. She's worried that I might cramp up in the water. (Because of my disease? Others have warned me about this cramping thing. I swim every day and have never experienced cramping. Has CAR done some preventative investigating on the web?
“DO NOT LET YOUR FRIENDS WITH ALS SWIM IN YOUR POOL. OFTEN THEY WILL INSIST, BUT DON'T LET THEM. THEY CRAMP AND DIE AND LATER THERE ARE LAW SUITS."
... such is my mind these days.
I swim in my boxers. When I get out of the pool, CAR has to help me put my shoes back on. I stand there (like a preschooler) as we try to shove them back on my feet.
Car cooks dinner and I bike around the property leaving loopy grooves in the manicured lawns. The house is like a movie set. Most of the windows have gorgeous water views. There are chairs set up around the property for reading, contemplation, or a late afternoon vodka tonic.
There is a dock with a Boston Whaler.
We have drinks under a grape arbor.
"You must sit out here all the time."
"We never do. We mostly eat on the porch." But later she admits. "this house really has been kind of a great thing for our family which is why I'm reluctant for my family to give it up."
We eat guacamole and drink wine and I begin the tale of my family history and Car is a good listener. I tell her that I realized that my family is not old money but old timey. We’ve been here for centuries but never really climbed too high.
After dinner, we get into a complicated discussion about G-d.
I try to tell her about how I arrived at the idea that the world was created.
That all material, comes from an idea.
That G-d is right here and now, that we are made from the same force the same material that G-d is.
This idea, this material is eternal, universal and ubiquitous and endless.
This idea, this material is eternal, universal and ubiquitous and endless.
I tell her I thought about this through a window of the unfathomable concept of infinity and the blunt realization of my own plight.
CAR says she’s interested in Mary Baker Eddy but "I don't believe it. I think the opposite. I think our existence is a cosmic mistake.”
She does allow that there is something to prayer and a world of communication we simply don't understand yet. Like the invention of the internet and the arrival of space age technology, we will discover (in the future) a mindful communication that we can't conceive of yet.
CAR is articulate and opinionated and her mind is (generally) swifter than mine, so I retreat. Glumly.
I feel defensive.
(I should have gone to grad school if only to learn to out BS other people!)
But I do know that people who are near death shake cynicism and (shake the hand) of spirituality which in their former healthier lives, wouldn't have been possible.
(I should have gone to grad school if only to learn to out BS other people!)
But I do know that people who are near death shake cynicism and (shake the hand) of spirituality which in their former healthier lives, wouldn't have been possible.
Ricky Gervais has a new movie where he laughs at Christianity and spirituality. I can’t help but feeling anger. So egocentric! Our world is a BIG “if” so what makes him think he can sneer at the possibility of a spiritual world. Let us all concede that we’re limited in what we are seeing and experiencing. Like the fish in the sea, we don't really know what we are in.
We watch movie trailers on the web site HULU.
Jennifer Anniston movies, Sandra Bullock movies, A Serious Man, A Single Man.
and Where the Wild Things Are directed by Spike Jonze and written by Davie Eggers.
I can't wait to see "Where the Wild Things Are".
I can't wait to see "Where the Wild Things Are".
STAN
Biking along the highway at around 33rd street, I lose control of my bike. I fall under the bike and land on the side of the highway. I can't right myself because my legs are caught under the bike. I am still and calm.
A car pulls over, and a plain middle-aged man walks over and asks what he can do.
"Why don't you stand up and I'll lift the bike."
"Well, that's the thing. I can't. I have ALS and I can't move very well."
(Which I hate saying, I hate saying the words. Maybe it's not even true! BUT, in certain circumstances you have to make your point).
I ask for his shoulder. The man helps me stand. He sets me up on my bike. Gets it placed in the right direction. He tells me that he drives a pedicab. (So funny. Another pedicab reference for my blog).
He tells me I should get a three wheeler so I won't risk falling.
"Good idea, but where would I park it? ... it would have to fit through the narrow door of my bike room."
(Regardless) He gives me his card so he can email me the information.
He tells me his name is Stan.
And I can tell that we have experienced something here. We have shared. I share - so much of the time -with strangers, that I'm getting a bit bored, a bit jaded.
(I used to volunteer at the center for the blind on west 23rd Street and I remember thinking that blind people (as a rule) were so insensitive! So cold to my empathy, to my sensitive caring help, to their sad existence.)
What did Stan and I share? Something about the joy of helping a stranger, something about being intimate with someone for a few short minutes, something about the admission of disease and not letting it phase either one of us but just moving on to practical solutions...
____________________________
Hello Stan,
I just found your business card in my pants pocket.
I wanted to thank you (again) for helping on the West Side Highway last Wednesday night.
I love my Eco bike. It really makes miracles happen for me.
But sometimes there is nothing I can do except wait for others to help me when I land on the pavement. Thank you for being that person last Wednesday.
I remember you're telling me that you own a pedicab.
We rented one last month when my mother was in town, in Central Park.
We loved it.
Hope all is well for you and thanks again for being a good samaritan.
CHARLIE
___________________
Charlie,
You're welcome. I'd help any cyclist in need. Just be glad you weren't 15 feet out into the highway.
You should look up George Bliss. He creates personal trikes for people; an engineering kind of guy. He has a bike shop down on Morton Street about 3 blocks from the highway. You need something that
a. folds
b. is more stable
c. can carry or already has a motor.
That's a toughie, but George may be able to help.
Before they became illegal, many pedicabs had hub motors in the hubs of the front wheels. I bet they can be put into folding bikes. The bikes would just be more cumbersome to move around because of the added battery weight.
Just a thought: what if you had a trike with a foot-wide stance between the two back wheels? The hinge to fold would be on top of the horizontal tube, so the front wheel would swing up and over the seat, to rest in a basket between the two back wheels. I don't know if it's feasible, though.
Anyway, look George up. If anyone can engineer a folding, motorized trike, he can.
Best wishes,
Stan
A car pulls over, and a plain middle-aged man walks over and asks what he can do.
"Why don't you stand up and I'll lift the bike."
"Well, that's the thing. I can't. I have ALS and I can't move very well."
(Which I hate saying, I hate saying the words. Maybe it's not even true! BUT, in certain circumstances you have to make your point).
I ask for his shoulder. The man helps me stand. He sets me up on my bike. Gets it placed in the right direction. He tells me that he drives a pedicab. (So funny. Another pedicab reference for my blog).
He tells me I should get a three wheeler so I won't risk falling.
"Good idea, but where would I park it? ... it would have to fit through the narrow door of my bike room."
(Regardless) He gives me his card so he can email me the information.
He tells me his name is Stan.
And I can tell that we have experienced something here. We have shared. I share - so much of the time -with strangers, that I'm getting a bit bored, a bit jaded.
(I used to volunteer at the center for the blind on west 23rd Street and I remember thinking that blind people (as a rule) were so insensitive! So cold to my empathy, to my sensitive caring help, to their sad existence.)
What did Stan and I share? Something about the joy of helping a stranger, something about being intimate with someone for a few short minutes, something about the admission of disease and not letting it phase either one of us but just moving on to practical solutions...
____________________________
Hello Stan,
I just found your business card in my pants pocket.
I wanted to thank you (again) for helping on the West Side Highway last Wednesday night.
I love my Eco bike. It really makes miracles happen for me.
But sometimes there is nothing I can do except wait for others to help me when I land on the pavement. Thank you for being that person last Wednesday.
I remember you're telling me that you own a pedicab.
We rented one last month when my mother was in town, in Central Park.
We loved it.
Hope all is well for you and thanks again for being a good samaritan.
CHARLIE
___________________
Charlie,
You're welcome. I'd help any cyclist in need. Just be glad you weren't 15 feet out into the highway.
You should look up George Bliss. He creates personal trikes for people; an engineering kind of guy. He has a bike shop down on Morton Street about 3 blocks from the highway. You need something that
a. folds
b. is more stable
c. can carry or already has a motor.
That's a toughie, but George may be able to help.
Before they became illegal, many pedicabs had hub motors in the hubs of the front wheels. I bet they can be put into folding bikes. The bikes would just be more cumbersome to move around because of the added battery weight.
Just a thought: what if you had a trike with a foot-wide stance between the two back wheels? The hinge to fold would be on top of the horizontal tube, so the front wheel would swing up and over the seat, to rest in a basket between the two back wheels. I don't know if it's feasible, though.
Anyway, look George up. If anyone can engineer a folding, motorized trike, he can.
Best wishes,
Stan
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
THE LITTLE FOXES
I spend the weekend with CAR in the swanky section of Maryland, Bozman Neavitt, also known as the Boz?
CAR picks me up at my towering apartment building on west 42nd Street around 8 pm.
I've managed to make my bed and straighten the living room, but as soon as she gets here, I ask her to sweep the kitchen floor, pick up the mess in the bathroom and empty a week and half's worth of garbage trash. I have to follow along for the this particular chore because the smelly fetid trash is bursting at the seams. In the trash room, I fish around for recyclables (encrusted with coffee grains, old wet cereal, and carrot scrapings, before we dump the loot down the chute.
Car is visibly disgusted which surprises me because she always has seemed to have a low bar for all things gross.
(My bar is lowered every day).
We pack up the car, including my bike, my laptop and some of my vitamins. Her car-van is perfect for my bike and CAR single handily lifts it and it goes in standing up.
"Piece of cake" says CAR.
(I am impressed -now- with everyone's strength, with everyone's mobility, with everyone's motor-neurons).
We stop at the dollar pizza place on ninth and fortieth*. CAR gets two slices and a diet coke. I am off wheat so (no pizza for me) and "diet coke is poison" I admonish her. Car seems to have some risky handle on health, she's created her own philosophy, which she firmly believes... and she's convincing. I have to grip my seat not to be swayed. Basically her concept is that nothing can hurt you as long as you don't believe it can hurt you (or) ... something like that. It's actually very Mary Baker Eddy of her. It goes the same way with medicine too (I tell her) you have to research vitamins and herbs and medications and understand what you are taking so that the mind cooperates with the potions.
My throat is bothering me. I am fighting a cold. I can't clear my throat easily.
When CAR gets pizza, leaving me in her blinking van under the Port Authority Bridge, I have a moment where I can't get air down my throat. I DO panic. But I wait it out. I did one search about this very issue on the web and it basically said. very, very few, ever die of choking. So. I let it go. And CAR doesn't seem concerned so why should I? It's a relief to have someone around who doesn't buy into the drama of this thing.
The drive is fun. I eat CAR's lettuce, nuts and water.
CAR and I have a way of talking endlessly. I ask inane questions and she allows for this. I ask things like...
"Do you ever wish you didn't own a car?"
(or)
"Is it hard to keep you bathroom clean? and who does the cleaning? And moreover, what kind of cleaning products do you use?"
I am endlessly fascinated by the smallest, tiniest subjects. I have an endless facility for imaging things in my mind's eye so these absurd (out of left field) topics are really entertaining to me.
I imagine that my interviewees must feel a little defended. That I'll have some insightful thing to add at the end of my endless questions. But I never do. I sit there, my mouth slightly open (like the village idiot) pondering, imaging, how (CAR gets baking soda and white wine vinegar to work around the bathroom tile and toilet bowl. Does here daughter stare at her as she scrubs? Is the cat in the way? When can she possibly have time to do it?) And so on...
Perhaps, I too am on "the spectrum". The spectrum (a word that CAR uses often) being the wide possibilities from ADD to Autism (I surmise).
We take 95 to 301 and cross the Delaware Memorial Bridge (really something to look at!).
We get lost and CAR makes urgent calls to her husband as she stares in frustration at her GPS devise on her Blackberry. I sit in my docile and inchoate state as CAR whips herself into small bouts of angst and apology for our meandering. Since I don't care to look at the future (these days), since I don't want to face planning, the present moment is always perfectly fine with me.
I am (indeed) - (zen-like) out of necessity.
We get to CAR's parents house around 2 am. There is a long driveway lined with Sycamores. It feels grand (with a touch of humility) and historic. It's so late at night, I am reminded of Scarlet returning to Terra in Gone With the Wind after the civil war is over.
Like a play, the drive in, is an overture to the front of the house which is... (I guess) ... the first act?
The house is great looking. The groomed property seems endless. The Maryland water hugs the property. There are multiple outbuildings which is a sure sign of prosperity (in my book).
The place is called "Gratitude". There is a sign hanging by the entryway. CAR says "we tried to change the name of the place but it involved too much paperwork or something."
I suggest they rename the place, "Complacency" or "Deserved It!" Car and I find this amusing but she tells me she's gotten guff for the name before so I imagine and I'm bringing up old jokes and she is giving me the courtesy laugh.
CAR and I get right to it and have a glass of wine at two in the morning.
CAR initiates a conversation about me.
"Charlie" she says "I just can't believe this, this is just UNbelievable."
I don't really want to talk about it, but I do offer, "well from where I'm sitting it doesn't seem so far off the path. I've always had these mess-ups along the way."
I go through a list of health scrapes I've had.
I was in and out of the hospital a lot when I was a little kid.
I just can't get a handle on it except to say that it feels familiar.
I scale the stairs (I grip the banister and pull!) and choose a bedroom, coughing along the way.
It feels dramatic and ominous like I'm Horace Giddens in "The Little Foxes".
CAR picks me up at my towering apartment building on west 42nd Street around 8 pm.
I've managed to make my bed and straighten the living room, but as soon as she gets here, I ask her to sweep the kitchen floor, pick up the mess in the bathroom and empty a week and half's worth of garbage trash. I have to follow along for the this particular chore because the smelly fetid trash is bursting at the seams. In the trash room, I fish around for recyclables (encrusted with coffee grains, old wet cereal, and carrot scrapings, before we dump the loot down the chute.
Car is visibly disgusted which surprises me because she always has seemed to have a low bar for all things gross.
(My bar is lowered every day).
We pack up the car, including my bike, my laptop and some of my vitamins. Her car-van is perfect for my bike and CAR single handily lifts it and it goes in standing up.
"Piece of cake" says CAR.
(I am impressed -now- with everyone's strength, with everyone's mobility, with everyone's motor-neurons).
We stop at the dollar pizza place on ninth and fortieth*. CAR gets two slices and a diet coke. I am off wheat so (no pizza for me) and "diet coke is poison" I admonish her. Car seems to have some risky handle on health, she's created her own philosophy, which she firmly believes... and she's convincing. I have to grip my seat not to be swayed. Basically her concept is that nothing can hurt you as long as you don't believe it can hurt you (or) ... something like that. It's actually very Mary Baker Eddy of her. It goes the same way with medicine too (I tell her) you have to research vitamins and herbs and medications and understand what you are taking so that the mind cooperates with the potions.
My throat is bothering me. I am fighting a cold. I can't clear my throat easily.
When CAR gets pizza, leaving me in her blinking van under the Port Authority Bridge, I have a moment where I can't get air down my throat. I DO panic. But I wait it out. I did one search about this very issue on the web and it basically said. very, very few, ever die of choking. So. I let it go. And CAR doesn't seem concerned so why should I? It's a relief to have someone around who doesn't buy into the drama of this thing.
The drive is fun. I eat CAR's lettuce, nuts and water.
CAR and I have a way of talking endlessly. I ask inane questions and she allows for this. I ask things like...
"Do you ever wish you didn't own a car?"
(or)
"Is it hard to keep you bathroom clean? and who does the cleaning? And moreover, what kind of cleaning products do you use?"
I am endlessly fascinated by the smallest, tiniest subjects. I have an endless facility for imaging things in my mind's eye so these absurd (out of left field) topics are really entertaining to me.
I imagine that my interviewees must feel a little defended. That I'll have some insightful thing to add at the end of my endless questions. But I never do. I sit there, my mouth slightly open (like the village idiot) pondering, imaging, how (CAR gets baking soda and white wine vinegar to work around the bathroom tile and toilet bowl. Does here daughter stare at her as she scrubs? Is the cat in the way? When can she possibly have time to do it?) And so on...
Perhaps, I too am on "the spectrum". The spectrum (a word that CAR uses often) being the wide possibilities from ADD to Autism (I surmise).
We take 95 to 301 and cross the Delaware Memorial Bridge (really something to look at!).
We get lost and CAR makes urgent calls to her husband as she stares in frustration at her GPS devise on her Blackberry. I sit in my docile and inchoate state as CAR whips herself into small bouts of angst and apology for our meandering. Since I don't care to look at the future (these days), since I don't want to face planning, the present moment is always perfectly fine with me.
I am (indeed) - (zen-like) out of necessity.
We get to CAR's parents house around 2 am. There is a long driveway lined with Sycamores. It feels grand (with a touch of humility) and historic. It's so late at night, I am reminded of Scarlet returning to Terra in Gone With the Wind after the civil war is over.
Like a play, the drive in, is an overture to the front of the house which is... (I guess) ... the first act?
The house is great looking. The groomed property seems endless. The Maryland water hugs the property. There are multiple outbuildings which is a sure sign of prosperity (in my book).
The place is called "Gratitude". There is a sign hanging by the entryway. CAR says "we tried to change the name of the place but it involved too much paperwork or something."
I suggest they rename the place, "Complacency" or "Deserved It!" Car and I find this amusing but she tells me she's gotten guff for the name before so I imagine and I'm bringing up old jokes and she is giving me the courtesy laugh.
CAR and I get right to it and have a glass of wine at two in the morning.
CAR initiates a conversation about me.
"Charlie" she says "I just can't believe this, this is just UNbelievable."
I don't really want to talk about it, but I do offer, "well from where I'm sitting it doesn't seem so far off the path. I've always had these mess-ups along the way."
I go through a list of health scrapes I've had.
I was in and out of the hospital a lot when I was a little kid.
I just can't get a handle on it except to say that it feels familiar.
I scale the stairs (I grip the banister and pull!) and choose a bedroom, coughing along the way.
It feels dramatic and ominous like I'm Horace Giddens in "The Little Foxes".
Maybe CAR will kill me in the night for my life insurance.
CAR graciously sets me up with some water and my medicine.
As I fall asleep, I worry I'll choke to death in my sleep.
_________________________
* that patch of the city, the only section left that resembles the New York I remember as a kid, as an eleven year old commuting to 1970s Manhattan during the garbage strike, where there were Chock Full of Nuts diners on every corner and I met the likes of a pre-adolescent Ally Sheedy at TV auditions
CAR graciously sets me up with some water and my medicine.
As I fall asleep, I worry I'll choke to death in my sleep.
_________________________
* that patch of the city, the only section left that resembles the New York I remember as a kid, as an eleven year old commuting to 1970s Manhattan during the garbage strike, where there were Chock Full of Nuts diners on every corner and I met the likes of a pre-adolescent Ally Sheedy at TV auditions
Monday, October 5, 2009
PETE AGAIN
Charlie!
How are you my friend? Are things well on your end? Doing any theatre that I should know about?
Things here are pretty good. Working on a new play and trying to produce this festival of new plays and readings that is to go up in January at the Access Theatre in Tribeca. Have you ever been there? Great space, that. I'm actually writing a play that I would star in myself so that's pretty vain of me, isn't it?
Would you like to grab coffee soon?
Your friend,
Pete
-------------------------------------------------
Pete!
Coffee would be great.
That is a perfect idea. To write a play for yourself.
Not vain at all. The right thing to do.
I am not doing theatre as I struggle these days.
I am presently keeping a blog and will begin other writing endeavors soon.
A play? Short stories? The madness of screenplay writing?
I would like to grab coffee but I'm a bit unraveled.
I am kind of hiding out. Not a great idea.
I am on my way to making plans.
I just got back from the Chesapeake Bay Area.
A friend's parents has a house that looks like a movie set for old time wasps.
Next week our short film plays in Bend. Wanted to go, I hear Bend is magic.
But, no go.
We also got into Beloit College's festival.
But this may be the end for (the short film) maybe you should write a feature using bits from the short play.
CHARLIE
_______________________________________
Charlie.
So sorry to hear you are struggling. You are in my thoughts, surely.
What is your blog called? Can I read it?
Yes. I agree. I want to write a feature one of these days. Using themes, maybe characters, from stuff I've already written. But, yes, screenplay writing is madness.
My girlfriend and I moved to the west village and it was all fine and dandy but I think we have, dun dun dun, bed bugs. It's really awful. And itchy. I blame the exposed brick that we had hitherto found so charming.
I'm not exactly sure what is going on with you, as you have shrouded yourself in mystery, but if you ever want to talk about anything, know that I'm hear to listen. Or, if you want to talk about anything BUT what is going on, I'm happen to do that do. Whatever you need, Mr. Roberts.
Pete
_______________________________________
Charlie.
So sorry to hear you are struggling. You are in my thoughts, surely.
What is your blog called? Can I read it?
Yes. I agree. I want to write a feature one of these days. Using themes, maybe characters, from stuff I've already written. But, yes, screenplay writing is madness.
My girlfriend and I moved to the west village and it was all fine and dandy but I think we have, dun dun dun, bed bugs. It's really awful. And itchy. I blame the exposed brick that we had hitherto found so charming.
I'm not exactly sure what is going on with you, as you have shrouded yourself in mystery, but if you ever want to talk about anything, know that I'm hear to listen. Or, if you want to talk about anything BUT what is going on, I'm happen to do that do. Whatever you need, Mr. Roberts.
Pete
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
