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September 24th, 2005

Another night of some fitfullity–though not as bad as the previous one or two–and oversleep. Up at 8:30a. Wonder if there’s something in the supplements I’m taking, three of which are meant for trimmin’ help and are taken in small dosages three times a day. Guess, I’m not worried enough about it to start conducting experiments.

Carry-overs from yesterday:
[These, it turns out, are the same “carry-overs from yesterday” that I had yesterday. Exactly. Just move ‘em on over. I did get the other to-do’s done, but that seems to be the way I live. The priorities just keep getting bumped in favor of the little chores, that favor not necessarily being deliberate or even conscious but, perhaps, what (all?) I’m capable of.]

• discontinue SG subscription (still going through the interviews, which are proving to be numerous and interesting in a I-want-to-be-great-too-and-may-someday-be-as-well kind of egotistical, yearning way)*
• finish On Writing
• read FK’s Coda & respond

* End-of-Day Update: I finished page 10 of the interviews (there are 15 pages listing interviews, sonnyboy) and will pickup again on page 11 tomorrow if I postpone Charleston to a more reasonable day, or on a more reasonable day if I follow my (still sizable) gut and go to Charleston tomorrow. Which brings me to…segue!…

Thinking About Doing Tomorrow:

• Riding the “crappy little bike” to Charleston, 70 or 80 miles south, on highway without shoulders for safe biking. Ironically, I consider this a healthy activity. And though it disrupts (again! further!) my ramping up to the keying in of my material for processing (key component of my recovery strat), I feel inclined because, well, I feel inclined, and when a man (or woman) quits crack, coke, smoking and, at least for the time being, drinking (so that he can quit the former three), denies himself the possibility of sex (due to overzealous shaving which has resulted in funny looking–to me and others–and uncomfortable–to me and others–pubie area, not to mention my lack of nightlife or worklife to get me out and meeting dames), begins an exercise regimine (if it can be called that), and other self-discipliny things (ice cream in cups instead of tubs, Krispy Kreme reduced to a guilty aberration rather than a pre-shopping ritual, etc.)–basically going from a very self-indulgent lifestyle to a pretty restrictive one–I think, the man (or woman) ought to go right eagerly and guiltlessly ahead and indulge whatever healthy indulgences strike him (or her), at least for the time being. How ever long we can justify this recovery, anyway.

  Oh, and I want to see if it can be done (by the likes of me…in a day…). People (the cops, to be exact), didn’t believe it when I walked to Myrtle Beach (12 miles in a late afternoon). Let them not believe it when I ride my bike to Charleston.

Now, from my morning’s reading:
[ed.’s note: I’ve never read a Stephen King novel. Not even a short story. I have seen The Shining and liked it. I’m not aware of any of the other movies I’ve seen being adapted from his work. These things interest me a little more now that I’ve finished his book on writing called On Writing or more fully-completely On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, which I can say with unequivocal snobbery kicked major fucking literary ass all over the fucking place! If I ever teach fiction writing again, this book would be my sole text. Maybe with Strunk & White (which he references mucho and which I kept as bathroom reading in Florida for a couple weeks {my bowel movements are quick, if not necessarily clean}). Anyway, what I’m trying to get to is the fact that my writing here and now is part of a recovery plan (from addiction, from myself vices in general, from ghosts, maybe from my divorice–who knows what all as fucked me up as fucked up as I am?) I have, and that the end of lil’ Stevie’s book details his getting his by a blue van (driven by a man off to get himself one a them “Marsez bars” they have down at the store) and well, you’ll see how it comes together. Here…]

Yet at the same time I felt I’d reached one of those crossroads moments when you’re all out of choices. And I had been in terrible situations before which the writing had helped me get over–had helped me forget myself for at least a little while. Perhaps it would help me again. It seemed ridiculous to think it might be so, given the level of my pain and physical incapacitation, but there was that voice in the back of my mind, both patient and implacable, telling me that, in the words of the Chambers Brothers, time Has Come today. It’s possible for me to disobey that voice, but very difficult to disbelieve it.
(pgs 271-272 in the paperback edition)

Truer words of my situation, now, have not been uttered (or written or vomited or…).

…sometimes it’s the work that bails me out.
(pg 273)

My intention in part. But only in part. I plan to bail my own sorry little ass (and make it little in the process), as we’ll see Stevie rings along to here in a minute… (but not quite just yet)…

There was no inspiration that first afternoon, only a kind of stubborn determination and the hope that things would get better if I kept at it.
(pg 273)

Applicable to righteous living as well as writing. No magic cures, no silver bullets, et al. Or, nyet al. Nope. Nada.

There was no miraculous breakthrough that afternoon, unless it was the ordinary miracle that comes with any attempt to create something. All I know is that the words started coming a little faster after awhile, then a little faster still. … There was no sense of exhilaration, no buzz–not that day–but there was a sense of accomplishment that was almost as good. I’d gotten going, there was that much. The scariest moment is always just before you start.

After that, things can only get better.
(pg 274)

Man-o-man-o-war, how scared I was as I was about to get on that plane leaving New York. That was Fear And Trembling In New York, Hunter boy. Fear. Fuck you, you No Fear T-shirt wearin’ and bumper sticker stickin’ motherfuckers. You ain’t never done nothing but drive your black supercab to the nearest sports bar ‘n’ grill and order the “atomic” wings or the “suicide” wings or the “very, very, very freakin’ hot hot hot wings in hot pants.” If you haven’t felt fear you haven’t gone out of cell phone distance from your crack dealer, in fact, to sit on in the clausterphobia of a four hour plane ride on a come down from literally a week long with a crack pipe never leaving our mouth. I mean literally a week without the crackpipe leaving my mouth. Biting hard to keep it from falling into the toilet during the rare piss (crack dehydrates, and we don’t have time to drink, until finally we breakdown and slam a sports drink in .3 seconds thinking we need the electrolytes but in fact have become glucose intolerant for lack of sleep and puke it right back up. Or fight to keep from doing so…but I’m off on a tangent as crack always makes me seem to do whether on it or writing on it). But what Stevie says about writing slides on over to crack dejaring, too. The plane ride wasn’t all that hard (of course because I slept through every second of it, first sleep I’d had in a week, as you now know). Just had to get on it. I’ve had some slips, fall, back-track-slack-slacks since then, but I get back on the bull. I’m getting there.

On some days that writing is a pretty grim slog. … begins to heal…..buzz of happines…sense of having found the right words and put them in a line. It’s like lifting off in an airplane: you’re on the ground, on the ground, on the ground . . . and then you’re up, riding on a magical cushion of air and prince of all you survey. That makes me happy… Writing did not save my life–Dr. David Brown’s skill and my wife’s loving care did that–but…it makes my life a brighter and more pleasant place.

Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.
(pgs 274-275, emphasis mine)

I’m working on getting well, getting up. Up. Away.

In the meantime, this evening I watched Gotham Fish Tales. The documentary film my old neighbor–the kooky kab driver, the reverend fishing fleet–was in and sold me when I chanced into his cab from Bedford ave on a rainy afternoon, heading up to Crown Heights to buy, bye-bye. Great stuff. Interesting the way it vacilated between highlighting the pollution and how less polluted it it, all kind of symbolized in an epic way with the subway cars being dumped by a crane on a barge into the Hudson. Trash that gives fish a home. Trash Dwelling Fish might well have been the title of the thing.

And now, speaking of titles, a short R-T-Kul I’m writing and entitling
“The Price Is Right”

Sometimes things are worth it. Somethings just aren’t worth it. Smoking crack is fun. No lie. But I decided that for me, right now, it’s not worth it. That’s just me. Just right now. I would rather get hit by a car.

I just got hit by a car.*

No lie. I did.

I didn’t hurt, though.

Which probably goes a long way towards my saying now that it was worth it. It was definitely worth it. I was just coming home from my laps.

Walking to laps was quite a different story. A story which I’ll embed in this story. Hey, two for one. Digression. Sorry. Anyway, the experience was quite opposite.

I was walking along towards the pool in the community center in the center of the community (appropriately enough for me) in my new sandals and I was thinking about how comfortable my new sandals were. And are!

My head’s down but I lift it in time to see the wide green expanse before. As if they’d–those gods, them–rolled out the green carpet for me. (This is what it’s supposed to feel as a person comes out of the purple haze of a drug craze, but I exaggerate. And besides, I’d seen the grass quite a few goddamn times as it constitutes the ball field and chihuahua shitter for the community; it was no surprise to me.) And the thought occurred to me–freshly mown as this verdant carpet unfurled was–and is!–how nice that grass might feel beneath my bare feet and between my toes. Then the adulty kicked in: nah. There’s dog pooh, and ancient sea shells broken into jagged sharpitude, and a thorn to boot and for good measure too. But the kiddie rider was like, Mister, you haven’t had your toes in grass for a long time. And I went the thesis I made earlier today which was some version of If you don’t indulge your good-for-you fancies, you ain’t gonna have no fancy left. You be plain Jane and who wants to be that plain? Stick your goddamn feet in the goddamn grass. If you take every goddamn chance to stick your evermotherlovingfuckin feet in the grass you’re cheating. Cheating yourself out of life and the living thereof.

And thusly I forced myself in.

And I loved it.

And so did my toes, coming out the other side as they did unscathed by turd or thorn, untorn by a jagged little shell.

I was proud of myself for living life to it’s fullest. Stopping to smell the roses, as it were.

Speaking of roses, Rose was pulling in with Walmart in the trunk was I was pulling out. She wanted help getting the bags in the door. Then pulling the wheelchair out and setting it up in the wedge between the car door and passenger seat for John to get out and up on. I held it there and looked over at Rose, “I supposed no funny stuff, like yanking it out at the last second.”

“No, no funny stuff,” she said.

“You don’t like the funny stuff.”

“I do,” she said, “but John…”

I got John safely inside and asked if there was anything else I could do.

“You going to do your laps,” she said. “You could do some for me.”

“How many? I’m doing about 30 for myself.”

“Oh, that’s too many. About five.”

“Okay, I’ll do five for you….but…whew…you’re really pushing me.”

We were making conversation. She wasn’t at the pool with me. Nor did she send any spies. Nobody would’ve know, or cared for that matter. I could’ve done what I wanted. But I’m a man of my word, by dogit. It’s a lot more fun of a game–that conversation about how many and all that–if you mean it, if the chips are for real (even if the stakes aren’t high). And I mean to have fun. Besides, it’s a way–all joking aside–for me (or Rose) to push myself a little harder. So, 35 it would be. And 35 it was.

And so it was, also, that I found myself walking back. A little tired. I’d done the walk in the grass thing. I was walking along the edge of the grass, on the edge of the narrow lane when two cars came toward me, and just as one golf car (no ‘t’) came up along the other side from behind. Sounds like an orgy, but it wasn’t.

It’s a small little lane and the cars weren’t going fast (at least that, thank you, Jessica) but they looked to be trying to give the golf car (no ‘t’, thanks again) all the room they could and crowd me out. Now, I had been warned about riding the crappy little bike around, that in this Southern, non-active, car culture, a bike lane is unheard of, not even an extra smidgen of space is built in for the ped or the pedal-pusher, and Rose, she said that every article she’s read about somebody on a bike getting hit by a car, it’s always the bike pulled out in front of the car or some such malarky exposing a certain prejudice against the non-vehicular. Or, at the very least a bewildered lack of understanding of the non-motorized, if I want to be generous about it. In my own goings about, I’d gotten a whiff of this so perhaps I was prepared with a chip on my shoulder but I was not about to give way. I was as far to the edge as humanly or inhumanly possibly, and I didn’t feel like walking in the grass this time. I did that. And loved it. And now I wanted to do something else.

I wanted to stand my ground. Or walk my edge as the case may have been. I brought it in as far as I could but I wasn’t going to stop, turn sideways, or cower an inch.

So I didn’t. And neither did the cars. The guy in the first one–I could see him through the tinted windows but not, in the split second that I had, if there was anyone with him–appeared to be cursing me out, though soundlessly to me, telling me to get over or asking what kind of idiot didn’t get off the goddamn road when a car was coming at him (surely ‘him’ and only ever a ‘him’). I cocked my head back a touch and let him pass mere centimeters away.

Thing is, even if there wasn’t room for all three of us–me, the car, and the golf car–the vehicular could stop or make way. They’re the ones who, sitting on their asses, only have to press the brake a little (not go out of their way), who with very little of their own effort make phenomenal time (making up in no time at all whatever few precious seconds lost in courtesy), who pollute the atmosphere, who cause the Bushes to invade the Iraqs when really it was some other jackass who had jumbo jets jam into our buildings. Damn them. They can’t let a go by? A man can’t walk anymore. Is it really that short of becoming illegal?

I steeled myself for car #2 following at a distance that would indicate a withingness to car #1, i.e. the one was with, was following, the other. It was that one that hit me. Okay, so it was–of course–the rearview mirror and it was nothing more than, in fact barely, a mere brush. It didn’t even make a sound. But as Jack White of the White Stripes once (or twice) sang, “truth doesn’t make a noise.” And it doesn’t. And that’s the truth.

I got hit by a car.

It was worth it, yes. Of course. But I’m going to change the lesson-learned since I’m all about learning life lessons now. (It’s a healthy mid-life crisis, I like to think. And not a bullshit one. Anyway…) I’m changing it to “It All Depends.” It does. Context, baby. For me it’s not location, location, location (unless, instead of finding the perfect location, you mean discovering another and yet another location), but context, context, context.

Because it always just all depends. And I ain’t talkin’ ’bout no adult undergarment here. Take me seriously now!

^{* Yes, as a matter of fact, I do want to be just like Stevie King. Show me the money, honey (and I quote). Hell, show me the satisfaction! I feel like fucking Mick Jagger over here.}

Entry Filed under: Lifin