When Writing is a PITA

20170429_165308 The journal is blank and the posts have been zilch for a reason this month.Writing literally became a pain in the a$$. It all began in shortly after Christmas as I sat on the edge of the bed and bent over to tie my shoes. Zing. I felt it from L4 all the way down to my toes, but mostly centered left butt. Too much information perhaps but that’s the way it went down. Sitting, standing, walking, driving, sleeping all became a thing of the past. Ice, heat, physical therapy, doctor visits, sitting on a donut, meds – prescription and OTC – nothing worked. Sitting at the computer to write after working at a desk all day was not an option.

Finally it came to an MRI – visual proof that this was not a figment of my imagination. I wasn’t going to wait for some doctor to see it first. I simply slipped the CD disc into my computer and took a look. After careful comparison to photos at Dr Quack.com I knew it wouldn’t be long before I’d be sitting in a wheelchair savoring meals on wheels.

Ortho guy studied the CD, watched me limp across the room, tapped here and there, tickled the bottom of my feet and announced “We can fix this slipped disc. All it takes is a needle this long.” His arms extended to fish tale length.

Was he kidding me? Trying to scare the sh*t out of me? My stomach churned. “And, if I do nothing?” I asked adding “I hate needles.”

“It will go away eventually. But why suffer?” he asked.

“I’ll take my chances on a quick recovery,” I commented on my way out the door.

The receptionist handed me a prescription for a Lumbar spine epidural” as I passed her desk. “Call if you change your mind.”

Instead I signed up for some yoga classes. Restorative poses and meditation seemed to be making a difference. I quit taking the pain meds and shopped for a grocery cart full of anti-inflammatory food. I ate turmeric until it poured out my pores.

This morning when I couldn’t see the road through the six foot weeds across my front yard, I decided I had no choice but to tackle the mess. Did I mention I am predisposed to hay fever – it happens every year on Mother’s Day. Like clockwork. But this year it arrived early. I pulled a barrel of thistles before the sneezing began. “Listen to your body” my yoga instructor had said. I stood up slowly, listening carefully. Hmmm. Is it possible? Could it be true? That one sneezing frenzy – was it the cure all?

Knocking on the wooden desk as I finish this piece…

Distorted Dreams

I wake with confusion and then I begin to understand. I know what this dream means and it has a lot to do with my lack progress on the memoir lately. I suppose it could be rewritten as a short horror story:

I’m on some sort of campus and I can’t find my classroom. I walk in circles around the buildings and finally find the room on the second floor of an old brick building. I sit in the chair – the kind we had in high school – single seats for right handed students with a cubby underneath for our books. Eric squeezes in next to me.

The teacher gives us an assignment to write. I have no paper or pen. I ask the lady next to me for a piece of paper. The pudgy lady with long black disheveled hair says, “I can’t give you this. It’s special paper,” as she grasps her notebook.

“Can I have just one piece of your special paper?”

Reluctantly she hands me one sheet of lined notebook paper. “But I have no pen,” I say. “Can I borrow one of your pens.”

“You don’t need a pen for the special paper. Just write it in your head.”

Ten minutes later the instructor interrupts our writing. “Times up. Put your pencils down. Who wants to share first?”

Eric nudges me. I whisper, “SHH, you can see I have nothing. Hopefully she won’t call me on it.”

The woman a couple of rows up stands. She speaks an unfamiliar language. The instructor with a knowing nod says “it’s okay. You will understand this one.”

The woman walks out of the classroom. We wait in silence for the door to open. She reappears with a stroller. She removes her wig and clothes down to a Speedo swimsuit – It turns “she” is a man. He has tattoos all over his body including his bald head, speaks the strange language, and begins to perform acrobatic tricks. As he goes by my desk, I gasp at the infant in the stroller. He is wearing only a diaper and has tattoos all over his body, matching the mans. Looking closer, I see the tattoos on the baby are painted on with markers.

The class sits in silence, mesmerized by the magic of his act. Who could follow that?

The instructor calls on me. I tell her I have no paper.

The woman next to me says, “You have the story. Put this in some water and drink it. Then go to that copier in the corner and press the green button.” She hands me a one ounce travel container filled with pink powder. I pour it into a glass and add water, drinking down the sweet liquid. Like a robot, I go to the copier and push the print button. Two pages come out with scattered blocks of writing, as if someone tore up my piece and glued it into a mosaic. I try to make sense of it as I head to the front of the classroom.

But wait. The copier is not finished. I watch in horror as a ream full of colorful pictures print out on 11×17 paper. When I think the copier is finished, I gather up the paper, apologizing to the instructor for using all the paper. I try to explain but she looks at me with frustration.

The lady with the special paper is gone. I’m looking through the paper we have now spread out on the teacher’s desk. It seems to be distorted pictures of my life. Red hats, mom, dad, friends, cars. The copier starts up again. When it shuts down we have a carton of 11×17 paper.

“I’ll call in our science teacher and see what she thinks,” the teacher says.

“No, let me piece this all together. Let me take it home and work on it. How much do I owe the school for the paper?” I ask.

“Nothing. This is impossible. She dismisses the class. But no one wants to leave. Instead they gather around a long table where we have begun to spread out the papers. Everyone is grabbing at pieces of my distorted life, mixing it up. Frantically I try to keep them in order. “Please don’t mess with them. I need to figure this out.” I catch one lady walking away with one of the papers. “Bring that back,” I stammer. “That could be the missing piece.”

“It is,” she says. When she turns, l see It’s the lady who gave me the potion. She crinkles up the paper and I grab it from her.

I look for a box to put the paper in. There is a huge stack of boxes by the wall but none of them fit the amount of paper I have. Near the copier I find a bigger box. I’ll take it all home, paper the walls with it, I’m thinking.

The class returns to their seats. The teacher stands at her podium “We still have 10 minutes left. I guess I’ll share my story.” She begins to read and stops after only a few indecipherable words. She brings out some glasses and a tissue. “I can’t get through this without crying.” Her short blond hair begins to grow. Moments later she stands in front of us with a crop of spikey green hair a foot long. She crumples to the floor.

Graffiti or Art?

Grafitti After a month long break from blogging and church, I have returned. Pulling off the Grove Shafter freeway at 27th street in Oakland on the way to church, I was pleased to see that the Chase billboard has been replaced but it was disheartening to see the growth of the homeless camp. I missed the camp photo op so I guess I’ll have to come up with a 1,000 word blog post to describe the area. Just kidding.

But, I do have a couple of observations. Judging by the content of debris that oozes its way into the streets under the freeway, I suspect not all of the mess is the work of the homeless. It’s unlikely that car-less pedestrians with shopping carts are capable of hauling eight foot sofas and heavy appliances to the area. Someone is dumping their crap in the street at the expense of the homeless. What are these thoughtless trash dumpers thinking? Do they think their are providing comfortable beds for the homeless.? Do they think the homeless can tweak the appliance innards into working machines? Or perhaps they consider the shell of their old refrigerator to be a “tiny house.” More likely, they don’t want to pay the fees to dump legally. The issue becomes more complicated for the life of the homeless when the city comes by and blames them for the mess.

Meanwhile, under the freeway, off the street, there is a huge empty lot, surrounded by barbed wire topped fencing. Perhaps it would be possible to open the gates and allow this community to migrate over there? Lend them the area and responsibility to live their lifestyle without the burden of everyone else’s garbage. Add to their dignity with a couple of portables (yes, I mentioned before that there are problems with that). But how about this? Give them some maintenance responsibility and if successful provide this reward: Japanese shower.

Okay, enough of a rant. The photo above most likely has nothing to do with homeless. It’s about a dozen blocks away from the camp. I just thought it was an interesting piece of art. Or is it graffiti?

My Chase Rant

Thank you so much, Chase. It is remarkable that you had the insensitivity to post this billboard on the edge of a homeless camp. Are you really putting “home ownership within reach in Oakland?”

I see this camp each Sunday as I pull off the freeway on the way to church. I see the tents move from one block to another and then back again whenever the powers that be sweep the area. Yes, I agree the streets need to be cleaned up. But pushing the camps down the street is only a band aid on the problem. Maybe supplying portable restrooms would help. No wait – that was tried and didn’t work. How about dumpsters on each end? No wait – that was tried and didn’t work either.

The bottom line is you need to treat the cause not the outcome. “Oh but there are shelters for those people,” some say. Yes, there are shelters and they are full. But they are full of people who may have lost their jobs or couldn’t keep up with increasing rents. People who are able to give up their pets for a cot, never take a drink and work hard for a better life. Perhaps they will recall this billboard and approach Chase for that help that is offered.

And then there are the rest. It’s no secret that my son is one of them. Not in this neighborhood but one similar. He lives this lifestyle because of choices he made in his life. His opportunities are limited by the history of his actions – no one wants to rent to someone who can’t respect their property. Notice I said “can’t” and not “won’t.” Whatever the story behind this scene, no matter what kind of help is offered, some people simply cannot live the way we think they should.

Whether it be drugs or mental instability, herein lies the problem. Many think these people should live the way we want them to live. They just need to quit doing drugs, go to rehab and get a job. It’s not so simple. I’ve mothered an addicted son. For thirty years I’ve watched him repeatedly spiral down, detox, get a job, and lose the job. All the compassion in the world won’t bring back that little boy who broke my heart. I wait, pray and hope for him to emerge from his soggy tent to tread a new path. I also know, it is in his time – not mine.

Every Sunday I leave my comfortable home on the other side of the tunnel and enter this abyss of destruction. Is there a solution? Oh, how I wish. Meanwhile – Chase, you could do a lot better with your funds than to put up the slap in the face billboards in this neighborhood.

Minimizing

Project 333 – 2017 No New Clothes – The Capsule Wardrobe

What does it mean to “minimalize?” Just google it. It’s all over FaceBook, Blogs, Podcasts, even the movies. Last night I viewed The True Cost on Netflix and was amazed at the impact of “Fast Fashion” on the world. Not that my wardrobe contains anything “fashionable.” It’s more like two closets jammed packed with forty years of clothing that might come back into style someday.

About a month ago I sorted through one of the closets filling six garbage bags with clothes from two sizes ago. Were they to return to vogue, I couldn’t possibly get my muffin tops into them anyway. I sent Eric off to the green charity bin next to KwikStop with the bags before I could change my mind. The disturbing part of this is, now that I watched The True Cost, I learned only 10% of those donations might be sold at thrift stores. The rest will be shipped off to somewhere like Haiti and most likely end up in their landfill.

So here comes my solution: I’ve made a commitment to two groups on Facebook – Project 333 and 2017 No New Clothes.

The object of Project 333 would be tackle these two closets and pull out only 33 items to be used as a capsule wardrobe for the next three months. There’s no rule that you must dispose of the other 3,000 items in your wardrobe but serious followers will pack away three more seasons and toss the rest. Note photo above – this is my first attempt – we’ll see how long it takes before I dig deeper into the closet of temptation. I’m not ready to fill up that landfill yet.

As for 2017 No New Clothes, it’s been easier than I thought, perhaps because I had a bit of a shopping spree just before Christmas. But I’ve been thinking. Is it cheating to buy used clothes? Is it cheating to suggest to someone that I might need that new t-shirt for my birthday? Just kidding… I have no intention of cramming one more piece of clothing into the mess. My wardrobe won’t be supporting environmental destruction, GMO cotton, pesticide use, and cheap labor.

Now about that new Instant Pot on the kitchen counter…