10.04.06 A Little Walk in the Dark

[Two Days Ago]

Bogged down fatigued but now different from the sudden bouts of chemo-induced fatigue, show stopping not so much as rather a slow incremental and accretive phenomenon — I feel like I’m being drained out and it takes a bit longer to recuperate each time. So, this morning it was tough, tough to get up, a little extra sleep for me please, then up to take care of some life business, those tasks most of you take for granted and never think twice about like returning a DVD or grabbing cat litter at the store dropping off a rent check or following up on a new lease and rental or picking up a reserved book haircut new prescriptions cooking cutting up the food sticking it in your unwelcoming mouth (. . . I even dreamed about making marinara last night but couldn’t get the color right, too orange, not unlike a fra diavalo (oh god, think of Giacamo’s in Boston’s North End, ohhh) but it wasn’t that, it was just straight red sauce but I was lacking the right ingredients, you have to cook for yourself, for guests, there are expectations, but you’re short on ingredients, what do you need . . .), all those little tasks —

[Today's Update]

Where is it all going? Is it the next phase. To the next phase where I move on and explore non-living for a while. A euphemism that came up in a recent conversation with a friend, identities left unrevealed to protect those responsible. For irony, however, what a line. To capture the cheesy new-age perspective of always moving on, always learning, experiencing, flowing, being, receiving, and taking in. To open one’s spirit to the greater spirit of the universe. All peace, no fear. Hm. The new age angle combined with that use of euphemism that attempts to push the real out to the periphery of meaning, to keep us from knowing exactly what is happening or what will happen. The latter being absolutely essential. You could be fully paralyzed from the waist down, no, rather, There is a low likelihood you could experience some partial neurasthesia . . . that’s the kind of line we like given to us. What exactly is a “low” “likelihood”? So is that it, my teleology of exploring the non-life experience? Dark enough. Dark enough?

There is a question that hangs in my mind. Have I been tired out for several days in a row because of a few consecutive strenuous days last week? Does carry some other ominous meaning? Where am I now? Do I make too much of this? Do I censor all this to make it more palatable? Keep people entertained with the little ups and downs that make this a romantic narrative, in the technical sense, a hero quest — me versus the beast, my trusty sword, a bog or swamp or dark forest, and superhuman strength against an inhuman but anthropomorphized creature that eats me alive. Romantic tales end well, we want this to end well, we want to avoid tragedy regardless of how badly we come to need catharsis. No matter how badly some of us need catharsis.

In about two weeks I go in and get restaged once again, the disease gets restaged, and I just lie there, waiting. A few days for the doctor to review the material, look through the pictures, and draw conclusions. Progressive, stable, regressive. Either way it will be news. There will be something new to report. Food for the masses. Food for thought.

Tomorrow is chemo, again. On October 12 I do my next set of CT scans, the restaging, I meet with Dr. Whiting on the 16th and we discuss, in a very philosophical tone, what is to be done. Still haven’t moved yet, perhaps on the 13th. Locals prepare. My life’s worth of moving karma come back to me now. Bring me the good, the strong, the sweaty.

What do you tell your friends, your loved ones? Those closest to you? What do you tell your mother? There are days when you can still smile over the phone, then the odd time or two when the record skips, the lump in your throat, the torrent held there just behind the eyes that must wait, just long enough, just long enough to finish this conversation. Bring me the good and the strong.