And now for something completely different.
Cue the X-Files theme

I’m feeling my 50 years these days a bit more than I’d like with a painful bout of bursitis in my left knee.
I can’t seem to get the inflammation under control just yet.
Patience.
And Advil.
And some Vicodin.
And repeat.
I have some amazing and wonderful things to tell you but it’s going to
have to wait until I can sit  for more than ten minutes without looking like a fat dog shitting razor blades.
Off to fill the ice bag . . . again.

Because the writer is writing and reading but promises to return . . .
After the stuffy nose has gone away.
(and the bruised ribs heal, *don’t ask,
just know that an unexpected ice patch got said writer @12:45 last Sunday morning)

I’ve had some very odd things happen in my life lately and it seemed not only appropriate but almost necessary to tell you folks about it.
Aren’t you glad you stopped by?

The picture below will tell you all you need to know about my commute into Boston this morning.
The train I was riding in was empty.
No people.
Just me.
It was empty for the first two stops.
Very strange.
Sitting alone on a moving train at 6AM on a weekday is not only odd but it’s really creepy in a ‘Rod Serling, Twilight Zone’ kind of way.
No human voices or announcements, just the cracking metal creaks, low scraping groans and the desperate sounds of a wheezing ventilation system filling the wee hours of a Thursday morning ride.
I made it to Boston, falling asleep somewhere after Framingham . . .

My mail slot has produced some definite weirdness over the past few weeks as well.
I got a bill from a geriatric/medical place for my mother, in care of me.
The bill originated from the assisted living place she left in 2000.
I’ve now received two bills and have made as many phone calls to the company.
The last several years of her life she had no dentures because she had lost every set we had made.
It got too damn expensive to make any more.
Guess what this bill was for?
You got it- a case of Crest toothpaste.
Shoot me.

Monday morning I woke up at 4:30AM and the first thought in my mind was,
“I wonder how tall Bing Crosby was?”
I kid you not.
You can’t make this kind of shit up.
Before you go to Google, he was 5′ 7″ tall.
Here I was thinking he was taller.
Whatever courses through my brain at that time of the morning should be sanitized and bottled.
I’m thinking if it were administered properly, it could be used to interrogate criminals.
Or not.
Just a thought.
Any weird stuff happen to you today?

My father is stuck.
Although it’s unlike Winnie the Pooh in the Honey Tree
or even a tomcat that’s climbed too high into an archaic but majestic oak, those types of ‘stuck’ are manageable to a certain degree.
It’s like he’s an enigmatic and unsolvable crossword puzzle, a stalemate of stalemates, a real life version of Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day where every day is the same.
And though I repeatedly tell myself that it doesn’t bother me, deep inside it does.
Every visit it’s the same old thing.
I sit and stare.
I tell him stories.
I tell him about the weather and what I had for lunch.
I tell him what I’m making for supper.
Almost like it really matters.
It’s sad when I can’t even fool myself anymore.
I swipe madly at this insidious and maddening cobweb that has my father’s mind and memories
in its grip, deliberately refusing to let go of him.
I was sitting the other day watching him go in and out of sleep like a short-circuiting light bulb, his eyes methodically opening and closing; wax on, wax off.
I softly said, “Dad, what are you waiting for?”
He muttered something incomprehensible and shut his eyes, tired of trying to solve the puzzle, tired of my questions, tired of this confusing life.
And I can’t blame him.
He’s endlessly moored to this drab room in a city nursing home with no knife to cut the ropes.
I’m starting to feel lost as well.
Lost to him and so very lost for me.
I feel guilty after asking him the question and retreat to my dark corner of the quiet boxing ring knowing he shouldn’t have to answer a query such as that.
This is about him and not about a too selfish ‘Michael’ and his all too busy life.
But how does it finally end for this sad and fragile man?
Please, dear God tell me. Will you?
If I’m supposedly being taught some kind of lesson here, I’m really losing my patience and these days nothing seems to make sense. Nothing.
So maybe God listens.
Maybe.
Once again, I close my eyes on another day and I think, maybe tomorrow.
Yeah, right, maybe tomorrow . . .

There’s a sacred moment lost somewhere between the dreamworld and my waking hours
that you are alive, still within me, heart beating, the assuring rhythm of your breath
Though the moment quickly dies, the memory of you continues to live; a complex composition of stars shining down from the heavens,
the genesis of untold galaxies,
the perpetual continuation of time as I know it

Days turn to weeks, weeks to months and the months to years and your memory continues to grow,
continues to soften, continues to go on . . .
And though my soul weeps tonight,
there’s a bitterweet solace in my heart knowing that, in the grander scheme of things,
tomorrow morning is just stolen moments away
When the lavender dawn will find you once again . . . at peace

{for Mom 7.15.2005 ~ 7.15.2008}

For two nights in a row I’ve dreamed of Gwyneth Paltrow.
No rhyme, no reason.
Maybe it’s the part of my brain still coming down from my Kelli Pickler fantasies.

Now the strangest part is that me and Gwyneth are in Grand Central Station in New York and she’s trying to buy a ticket.
I keep trying to get a word in edgewise but she ignores me for reasons that are really pissing me off.
Nothing more demoralizing than getting dissed in a friggin’ dream.
She finally gets her ticket and she begins walking away.
I no sooner start to follow her when she turns around, looks at me and says, “Get Parmesan.”
That’s it.
Now remember, this is a woman that has children named Apple and Moses.
Get parmesan?
I should have said something witty like, “Why don’t you name your next kid Pork Chop, honey.”
But I didn’t.
I will say she’s damn pretty in my dreamworld.
Now if I can just figure out the deeper meaning of ‘get parmesan‘ maybe I can get to that next level.
Apple.
Pickler.
Parmesan.
Maybe it was damn food dream after all.
Or not . . .
Apple, Pickler and Parmesan.
Say that 3X real fast

Darkness falls like heavy rain,
colouring the dormant landscape obsidian,
a pall upon the earth . . .
In lavender hues, the nightshades bloom
As shadows dance inside a room, where he sits in his deafening silence

Dropping his cares by the bed where he lays
he closes his eyes on tomorrow
Soon the nightshade will bloom
taking him far from this room
where he sits in this silence and prays . . .

Maybe the waiting is part of some plan, with ghosts of the past drawing near
but the signs of the dawn keep him lingering on, though he can’t remember the here
and now . . .
The nightshade will weep, the north wind will cry in a world he can no longer find
from the indigo heavens above, a solitary amethyst teardrop falls,
God’s healing salve for a father’s weary mind
And the nightshade will sleep . . .

You may ask, why aren’t you watching the Celtics/Lakers game?
This was more important.
A friend needs prayers tonight and I hope that any visitors take pause and say something.
No need for a comment, just take 2 minutes and say a prayer, your own prayer.
If you want more information regarding the situation, click on the picture above.
A prayer is all that’s needed.
I thank all of you in advance.
Prayer is powerful stuff so please take a moment . . .
Or check in with one of Kelly’ angels

Late night, Duke Street
the wet cobblestones shine and sparkle, bubble and squeak; and the dense fog rolls in
the clock tower chimes twelve
And it’s Zero for Zooz
Westminster.

Late night, Duke Street
the gauzy moon bleeds and drips, gaslights burn
and gossamer sheets of a hazy white sift through
the inimical clouds of night
the clock tower chimes three
And it’s Zero for Zooz
Westminster . . .

Sunrise, Duke Street
a languid sun cracks itself open and splashes some invisible and distant horizon with
salmon pinks, royal purples and bright orange crush
the clouds of night rest just beneath the hush of dawn
and the clock tower chimes in crystal silence
And it’s Zero for Zooz
and Westminster waits . . .

~m