10.10.06 Brother Can You Spare a Dime?

Okay, first off this post is in no way a request for money to be sent my way. Thank you in advance if you would have thought to do so; my purpose is, rather, the pissing and the moaning.

On the MLM. The big secretive company that sells the glyconutrient I decided to pursue further. The next step in my treatment program, then, as the standard medical arsenal is slowly exhausted on my cancer (more slowly please...), is to take this stuff "religiously" (below) and hope on the wings of a dove. Maybe some of what they claim will obtain for pancreatic cancer, stage IV, fucking serious as a heart attack, and late in the game. The only way to know is to try it. This is all past, I decided that part recently.

Turns out it will cost me nearly, no, more than a grand just to walk in the door "get all the necessary product to begin, [however] and actually that includes a five month supply of most of it." In MLM land, you don't describe your commodities in the plural — why, I'm not totally sure — but it's a consistent practice to discuss "product." "How much product have we got?" "Not enough! People are dying out there!" or something like that is what I imagine. Even if there are 16 different and unique products involved. There are more at issue here too, not just the magical mannose extracted from aloe vera plants and purported to do too many things to list here. (Not without sufficient caveats on the role of the FDA, our gratitude to them, and the implicit radical fear and loathing of that entire organization. This view, too, is as common in MLM land as calling what you sell "product.") So if I spend approx $1300 I can begin, and of course, they all tell me, they would really like to see me get on this ASAP. For my health of course, surely nothing so cynical as anyone's income stream. For me, a sort of quagmire.

The clear point is that the treatment plan of these nutritional supplements has been set up in such a way, perhaps with good intentions but still no doubt with business and profits in mind, so that a significant initial investment is required. This one "nice man" who had called me from the South to tell me his wife's success story — odd, don't you think?, that he calls me to discuss his wife's story... she can't talk? what? — and he tells me how he thinks the 10.99 pack, also called the Extended Pack, really what I should go for. In part I could feel his "sell level" elevate so I figured "If eleven dollars is the deluxe version, then I'll be able to manage." You see it coming don't you? 10-99 obviously stands for one thousand ninety nine dollars, just under 11 C notes. I'm an idiot, sitting there thinking "Hey, 10-99, not too bad." Not fucking chump change, this 1,099.00 when you are allowed to see where the comma goes. Yes enough to make me think twice about this whole set up.

Do I do it IN SPITE of all the signs I know too well about MLMs, about bullshit testimonials that are not ever verifiable, results that are not empirically checked, research not repeatable, and so on and so on and so on. How do the people involved not see all these holes in the package? How does their faith become so blind and robust? Religious extremists are the same, of any type, Christian, Zionist, Islamic, Protestant, any and all — extremism mixed with religion turns the future as an illusion into the future as sheer nightmare. And all the people who DO NOT worry about how close church and state have become since Bush and Boys started to do there thing in Washington. Another mind boggler. Not to see that danger?!

And the testimonials: god damn. I've told every one of them not to even start because the testimonials mean ZERO to me, they are nothing, less than nothing they might even alienate me, they are just stories, I don't know the people, the people have vested interests, YOUR COMPANY HIRED THEM, HELLO NUMBNUTS!, etc. They still just don't hear me and go on to talk about Aunt Melba, the doctor who is one of the "20 best" in the country. (Did you know there is an official list ranking the best doctors in the US? Right next to the sales paperwork on that bridge I was telling you about...) They tell, they tell, they droll onward, inhabit my ears w/o permission. One or two have enough sense to finally hear me after several very polite warnings from me.

Long and short: I'm deciding what to do. Onto the credit card? Am I going to do it anyway so I may as well get started? Is 200-300/month really so much for a 5-6 month treatment? Of course not if it reverses the disease course, but do you want to know what odds I'd bet on that. Right. I'm stuck? Ideas? Comments? Questions? I did finally get an MD's email address who supposedly knows this whole routine and has been involved since the start — yes, he's got a stake too but perhaps I can get some insight from him.

Ugh. I cannot go on with this tonight, and this after spending half the day at work in my office, experiencing several mini-revelations, slogging through far too much pain this afternoon, just the shits from about 2, and I had this work meeting at 3. Franky Scale then would get a 7 for my verve and anger, mixed in equal portions today, and for the a.m. hours when it all seemed more possible; then it drops to a low 6, just there, hanging, flacid, tired out for the day, as pain is just that, so goddam tiring and impolite.

Then that work thing. I do think those of you who work where I do should work, kindly, on getting me out there more: it's counterintuitive but there is some good to be realized from my sitting this skinny white ass down in that expensive chair to produce something.

10.09.06 What I Got to Tell

Frankly there are days when I don’t feel like blogging and telling you anything. I love you, don’t get me wrong. But at base, the frankest level of all, every day struggles in some form. What good does it do? Is it just the connection to you and the communicating of information? Is that sufficient, or is it necessary? Or do I have something “interesting” or worthwhile to say? What the hell is going on here every day? What am I getting closer to? And going through what to get there? Why does there still have to be this teleology? Why am I still looking for something, Something? It must just be the looking or a bad jonez, an addiction

(There was an Anonymous commenter.) On my relationship to anyone’s soul, let alone my own, and with due respect but still, a metaphor that must be extended: well, I have never seen myself as a gardener. I have some plants, but I always kill a few, so I always thought I was one who would spread shit around in the garden of the soul, which perhaps is a step in making it blossom, too. However, is there a link between spreading shit around and making any/one happy? This I didn’t realize, though some degree of support these days more than I expected — do you ever stop to think and expect such things, before the Tragedy arrives? — tells me that I might have at least had some friends who appreciate the shit-spreading. Ah, lucky me. Yet there is another theory, that my blog is actually related in a perverse way to Proust, this is my ironic theory (it has to be an absurd theory and comparison), and not to the quote (itself) on gardening. That is, it puts one to sleep, sends one into a dream world of memory and rest. That much at least could be true.

The MLM debacle, here an example of how an MLM could slow your life down. It could kill you — this might be a more accurate way to put it. Rather, what the salesman said over the phone, so urgently, so sincerely, was, “This’ll save yer life,” he says with his Utah accent. “You have got to start takin’ this product as soon as possible,” and his last name is Smith, another intimate Utah tie. This is an accent, I think, you simply have to know, you know it or you don’t know it. Why does it bother me? Well, to have someone call me up and take my time by talking down to me about how I’m not seeing what is so “clear and obvious” and all this “new science” he kept saying; to have a person telling me what will save my life in such an off-the-cuff manner simply put me off. I have decided to take these supplements, but not to buy into the MLM hype and life-saving BS ideology needed to sustain the motivation of a salesforce. I can rent and watch Glengarry Glen Ross anytime.

Despite this, I’m on my way and have made some calls, taken some calls, and off I go into the land of this “glyconutrient” called mannose, into a little road of hoping for something more. There’s got to be something more for me here down this little road, right? If nothing then nothing, and it’s a cruel circular logic that simply calls it what it is. Am I making any sense? If it helps and gets me along and heals me up at all then we’re getting somewhere. If not, there’s no other road to go down. So, again “so,” I’m rambling along and telling a very indirect story that has an ending picked out for it already. What the hell kind of story is that? I’m stuck with this task of trying to tell it as it happens, then tell it in some way so as to change its very narrative structure as it’s happening. Impossible in a quite different way from Tristram Shandy. Still, impossible. It’s what I’ve got to give. It’s all I got for now.

10.07.06 To Do List

OK, this will be quick because I've been having a lot of grief with my internet connection lately and we're off to go "camping," K and I. However, it is car camping I'll admit. We're headed down to the Olympic Peninsula to sleep kind of "on the beach" before the colder fall weather sets in. So that's that part.

Otherwise and also, it's going to be a big month with visits galore once the move is done — and in the process of moving too. Fingers crossed. Many guest blogs, it means. Next week the plan is for my mom and Spacely to come; then DZD the week after; and I think we might have Mr. Sam out too later in the month. What hosting in store!

Since my procedure I'm having a tough time determining whether it's really worked or not. How to decrease the pain meds without being suckered into missing the required dose? It's tricky and I'm still working on that. Yesterday was very up and down for that reason, maybe a 7 on the Franky Scale down to a 5 at one point, till the meds kicked in again. Today's Scale is a 6 let's say but we're hoping for a rise and we get closer to the coast and out in the fresh air.

For now, everyone be well and I'll give a report on things once the weekend's over.

10.05.06, Fear of the Dark, Career Choices

“A written sign is proffered in the absence of the addressee. How is this to be qualified?” — Derrida (Margins of Philosophy 315)

And, then too, how is it be qualified, the proffering of a written sign in the absence of the addressor? This is our task now. (Elsewhere in the Margins)


[Fear of the Dark]
Walk in the dark, I’d said. True. Still true. Think of the David Byrne song by that title, think of anything else you know that plays with the metaphor. You walk where you can’t see your steps clearly so you’re forced to just take them if you want to move forward. You stumble, necessarily, you give way now and then, you get swatted by unseen branches at face level. Holes, rocks. Small puddles, silent streams. It’s where some of us are, in a dark space where we know the movement is necessary and the movement is somehow good. Fear is just what it is, mental, avoidable or dealable somehow. It is what it is. And it is more pronounced in the dark.

[Career, Would-Be]
There was a career, something I had worked for, for years and I’d gone through, not all, but still a great deal of the blood, sweat, and tears have been spilt for it. Ups, downs, benders and straights, late-night bridges, the anterooms of retired but venerated shrinks — all this had something to do with my career preparation. Then years of translating, learning to do it better, finding those writings I can feel and connect with, meeting them, planning out their English language futures with them over drinks and drinking promises . . . There was also this sexy world of Continental Philosophy and high theory that called to me when I was a pup, college fourth year, after three years of good old-school training in New Criticism, a door opened into something loosely and irresponsibly called — and we too will call it — the postmodern. There was Marxism, an anti-methodology and a political critique that filled in and jived with all my life experience (yes, Communism, card-carrying membership still holds). Is that a terrorist group? . . . As if I had arrived. After all.

There was and is not a job at Duke University job and this is what it means to me. Let’s be bold and say this was my dream job, almost. One of three potential positions that would allow me to turn my job into what I want it to be — something that has been impossible here at UW. (You see the job once offered to me is now on the market for real, with tenure, with what I’d wanted, freedom to think and write!) C’est la vie. But that is precisely the problem. La vie turning into no more career and into c’est la morte. Not the petit one, but the big one, capital M. The one you don’t return from. When I came to UW I had a job offer from Duke also, but they were not yet prepared to offer it tenure-track. So with an eye toward a bird in the hand I chose to be here. The sacrifice was intellectual freedom, time for free and unrestricted work, and a strong intellectual community of peers. Now that door is opening again and I dare say I’m confident enough I’d get the offer once again, a prospect I spoke to the then-hiring committee about with some promise. But now. But now? How does it make me feel to simply ignore a Big Career move because I’m stepping out of my career? You might guess, it’s stifling, a bit stunning, and extremely thought provoking. I fear, though, there is nothing to do but accept this with some degree of dignity. A sad style of dignity.

Serious cause for pause, thought, reconsideration, reevaluation of this disease and what it means to me.

[New Numbers and Cancer Status]
There were number a week ago that I forgot to pass on, more cancer marker CA19-9 numbers. They have gone up, that direction we don’t like them to go, to about 8500. Just about 2000 points higher than it was at the last check. This was to be expected and the restaging next week will give me more accurate information, with the ocular proof, so we shall “see” more then. And I will still pursue the glyconutrients once I can escape some schmuck in Utah who calls and leaves messages telling me how “You need to start taking this right away, you must start today, it will save your life.” Oh, will it? Thank you for your genuine concern . . . and what did you say your commission was, again? Or did we skip over that? To try in spite of such life forms.

Not only that but to try and keep your chin up, to borrow a phrase, maintain a wry smile or shit-eating grin in the face of it all. Perhaps so long as the smile is there, the wasting away will simply waste away.

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.

10.03.06, Into October and the Terminal Window

OK, today is the fourth day since my celiac process block, which is technically one day before the official "day of noticing anything." I notice things with my body all the time, as a result I think I might be oversensitive to changes and am going to withhold my thoughts on it for another day or two. In terms of side-effects or complications, I think I did experience some low blood pressure, some light headedness when getting up, etc.; and in the department of possibly diarrhea I was simply not worried. That kind of thing is usually my last concern, given that my near constant companion is constipation. Our theory, or hoped-for result, is this: the NCPB procedure is successful to some degree, that allows me to decrease how much pain medication I take, the decreased pain medication will allow my GI functions to function nicely and stop giving me such a hard time.

Today's Franky Scale, hm, to say 7 seems high, but I do feel better than yesterday or the day before, which were some kind of 6's. I'm taking life a little easier today; yesterday was one of those "let's got to campus and pretend that I still have a job and I still work on a regular basis and that I'm still productive..." — one of those kind of days. Funny thing is, I think several of us have days like that even without terminal illness! Ha. What a funny lot, humans.

As part of my mellow plan for today I have some more packing and cleaning up to do. The move to a new apartment has yet to take place — so no, friends, none of you local people I want to rope into this are off the hook, not by a long shot! — there are some strange issues of slowness the apt. manager needs to work out before we can do anything. (He has some efficiency deficiencies, & moving into an apartment two weeks later than scheduled is the price to pay.)

There are stories piling up, ALREADY, that have to do with the ridiculous and insensitive types who people the Multi-Level Marketing world. God damn, there is a real nut job who has been calling me and trying to impress me with how hard he's going to work at showing me "this is not about making a sale, man." And yes, he added the "man" on the end of that.

Ah. I almost forgot the title. The "Terminal Window" refers to the fact that now I'm at the six-month mark since my diagnosis not just of having pancreatic cancer but of its metastasizing and starting to eat the rest of my body. That was when I was told "On average, most patients with this die in 6 to 8 months." So here I am, standing on the 6-month precipice. Watching, waiting. Thinking some existentially centered blogs might be in the works somewhere in my brain.

10.01.06, More on Glyconutrients and Alternative Treatments

Sunday here on the ranch. As far as updates from the NCPB procedure I’m not sure there’s a lot to report, since it was so minor I think there’s little to keep track of, except for possible complications. None of those, it seems. Whether it was successful is also hard to say at this point since Dr. Saunders says it usually takes at least 5 days to “kick in.” The deadening of nerves to kick in is an odd turn of phrase. But I wait for the kicking in of nothingness, no more pain feelings fingers crossed I hope. We shall see.

Today’s post is mostly boring and treatment related, details for the info junkies or the concerned. Not much psychological investigation, nothing very profound, although a choice described about one new treatment option that might “give hope” to some (there’s a little cheese for you ☺).

Glyconutrients & the Great Open Mind.
I wanted to also give an update about continuing treatment/s and what I’m doing about the cancer. Right now, I’m in the second round of my second type of chemo treatments, the TGX as opposed to GTX approach. This, too, is too early to report on, though I will have my restaging on around the 17th of this month and new CT scans will tell how the various tumors are doing. Poorly we hope.

Also, I’ve been doing more checking and soliciting of what I think are qualified opinions and I think I’m going to try out this glyconutrient “treatment.” It’s something to run by Dr. Whiting, but I since there aren’t known drawbacks it should be a viable option. The fact that it’s distributed through an MLM, as I noted before, is less than ideal, but on the open-mind front I wanted to reassure the doubters that I don’t conflate the distributor and the product, so no worry there. The long and short of it is that their glyconutrient product, I believe sold through the company MannaTech or Manna Tech (sp?), is an extracted form of a carbohydrate called mannose, and some others added to it, from aloe vera. The claim is that our bodies don’t get enough of this anymore and by supplementing it our bodies are able to function at peak performance, fight disease more efficiently, and thus allow for other, actual drug treatments (since this one’s not a drug) to work better too. The company’s claims for success are, as you’d expect, as high as the sky.

Out of all the alternative approaches suggested to me this one stands alone, so far, in having some actual science behind it. No way to guarantee success with it, of course, but at least there are numerous studies saying that the science of it works, that in theory it might be a help. So it’s a nothing to lose — except some money — and possibly a lot to gain. I want to be cautious on the hopeful gains, for obvious reasons.

I realized today, too, as I was loading up my weekly pill box with the various drugs and supplements I’m taking, with Ms. K there watching the process, that I should clarify what kinds of things I’m taking. I do take lots of pills, but I think I might have given the impression that they are all actual drugs, mainstream pharmaceuticals, all prescription, anti-cancer, etc. Not so. K was even surprised a bit at the number of supplements involved. So that might be news to some of you. I only take a limited number of anti-cancer (chemo) drugs and the majority of the pills are supplements of various types (from fish oil, green tea extract, standard vitamins and minerals, etc.). I do try to keep my skepticism level high regarding all the suggestions I’m given, and I’m grateful for them to all who send them my way, it’s just that they all need to be researched, evaluated, and decided upon. In the end, I’m taking a fair amount of the non-prescribed, non-standard stuff — again the low risk and some potential return theory — and I hope this is comforting to some of you who have suggested alternatives I may not be following. The mind is more open than some may have suspected, is what I hope this indicates.

And a Franky Scale about 6 plus.

9.30.06, A Settling Process

Just a quick check in for now, though I'll try to post more tonight. Today's Franky Scale is somewhere in the 6 range; and yesterday maybe fell into the 4 range at some point. Post general anaesthesia never feels great to me, although the procedure itself seemed much better than my last EUS/endoscopic ultrasound, less tearing up of my throat, now swallowing issues, or feeling like that epiglottis thingy in the back of my throat my actual come of and get swallowed. That last one when they took the biopsies was just shitty. So the post-procedure day was difficult with gut pain and the slow dying off of my celiac plexus, the gradual easing off of the local anaesthetic, and just fatigue from chemo left over. Today's a great improvement. For what it's worth.

9.29.06 Pre-Results of NCPB

First result, I am alive. I survived the, granted, minor, procedure this morning, by which they were slipping a hose equipped with ultrasound and a fine aspirate (called this?) needle down my throat, found the celiac plexus, then loaded that sucker up with pure alcohol. In five to ten (5-10) days the nerves of the celiac plexus are supposed to wither up and suffer a neurolytic death right before my eyes. The hoped-for benefit being that the majority of my pain will drastically diminish or disappear. We wait and see on this.

Seventy-four percent of patients who undergo this procedure experience decreased pain, so the odds are good and so far I've demonstrated I'm one to beat the odds. At least, I should clarify, one to finagle my way into the small odds group. The unlikelies. So within ten days I should know that; and the other key number is fourteen (14) which is the outside number for feeling any relief. That is, if I feel no relief by the end of two weeks, we assume it didn't work and I can choose to try and do it again — I assume that one would be "free." Kind of a two-fer one deal.

Anyway, today I sleep a lot. Ate Indian food for lunch, during which Ted dropped by and inspected my well-being generally. It's been a while actually. Now I just kind of fritter around and re-examine all the physical feelings I'm having: more or less pain? is that new pain I'm feeling from the alcohol injection? is that feeling of tenderness from the hose shoved down my throat? Lots of such questions. It's become just part of life for me. The crazy set of thoughts I have, especially when compared to my thoughts "before cancer," is so wild.

"Before cancer," that's almost a good book title, or title for this period I'm no living through — though it's not very accurate, so we have a problem there. I am still taking suggestions, btw, for any one interested, and I have the heretofore suggestions in a file stowed away, waiting to be dropped into the bottle before the ship is sucked into the whirlpool. For now, though, thoughts of dinner, and is that a new pain or from an old corner of my mattress?

9.28.06, Go in Fear...

Go in fear of abstractions. Fine, just don't go in fear of chemotherapy. There are a lot of thing one's psychology can lead a person into, with smells, small pricks, extended stretches in an adjustable bed, and hospital eating, a lot on the down side, but we keep doing it every week. Today, too, chemotherapy and its joys. For all I know it might even be helping. Something we should learn in about two weeks when I do the next restaging with Dr. Whiting, the CT scan machine, and more bloodwork.

For today, just this, "hello," I won't give you a Franky Scale for today, I mean I'm about to swallow chemo drugs and I havn't even had my fucking coffee. (think the 1970s commercial for 7-Eleven coffee where the guy is driving to work in a convertable and he has a wolf face to all his neighbors and other commuters, UNTIL he gets his coffee at Sev...) It's me too. But yesterday was 6 to 7, backing up and down to each number. Got higher with the day however. After the marathon of travel from JFK to SEA-TAC two days ago, fogettaboutit.

Clear Pile of Shit award today: (after I unconsciously plugged them too! Goddam it.) the winner is 7-Eleven for deciding to stop selling CITGO gas, from Venezuela. A gas we've come to love as the only kind you can buy in the US, that I know of, that isn't like putting blood money into your car. Shit. Shit. Shit. I feel this one. I am not happy with Sev today.

9.26.06, New York's All Right, If You Like Saxophones...

Friday evening I arrive at JFK, meet the Disenchanted Princess, and am off to Long Island. There is the strange phenomenon of actually being able to sleep on planes now, and that’s the only unusual thing about my flight. Normal, sleepy, a single jump from Washington to New York.

As it turns out, this weekend was enchanted and surprises were in store. Saturday was to be a nice quiet night, just K and I going to dinner in the city and then to Birdland for Joe Lovano’s commemorative show on Coltrane’s 80th. K’s place is just an hour outside the city so we would probably just drive in, find one good parking spot, then use that as our HQ. Then K started asking how I’d feel about some additional plans for the city earlier on Sat, friends of hers, we could hang out, then change clothes there, go to dinner straightaway, about 6:30, etc., but lugging clothes, meeting new people (yes me being selfish about new people — candidly, it tires me out more that almost any other activity now), putting on my game face for so long, then the two of us having our night out, it began to swirl in advance. I knew I’d be too drained. And had been so looking forward to this show, and heading back to this restaurant, the Shark Bar.

Finally she ‘fessed up: we had a room at the Iriqouis, on 44th two doors down from the Algonquian. Great! Actually less stress, now time to stroll parts of the city, have a coffee in Bryant Park by the big public library branch. Ahh. Ms. K, however, continued to act strange, still, having said something to the bell boy under her breath, and that she wouldn’t relay to me! Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky. Going to our room, next, the bell boy opened the wrong room, some woman is lying in bed in there — now mortified! “Where the hell is our room? What is up, man?!” is what’s going through my head. This place seemed really nice, I didn’t get it, why the screw ups. Finally we’re in our room, but he’s got keys for the blond-in-her-bed’s room, so we’re out of luck. “I’ll be right back up with your room keys,” he says, still taking the tip that’s begrudgingly slipping from my hand, a question mark still in my eye.

Ten minutes later. There is a knock, they keys of course, so I go over and open the door. Holy shit! Who do I see but St. Francis, the blond from the bed, and some guy who's a cross between Frank O'Hara/James Bond pulling up the rear (turns out to be an old childhood friend of Frank’s, A.C. — just like in the O.J. chase). The hallways spins. What’s happening? The secret mumblings from K should’ve been the give away, but I didn’t want to be a schmuck and pry or demand to know a non-event. Then the knock from Frank killed me, he and 34DD giggling like kids, me stunned stupid and speechless, and all of it accentuated by A.C. since we’d never met before, & I’m in my shirtsleeves, as they say, etc. The dials on are the Franky Scale began to spin confusedly, reading out a series of “6” “4” “7” and “8” then “1’s” and “10’s” randomly. That is a pretty damn good surprise to pull off 3500 miles from home.

So it began. We talked, hung out a bit, took a fiver, got dressed, prepped a bit more in our rooms — then off! The Lovano show was excellent, and I think I’ll include a quick show review later for the music nerds out there. Lovano’s totally solid on the tenor, seems to work at channeling Coltrane, in his own way, and does succeed in recreating some of the same moves, transitions, and little licks. The double bass play, though, was incredible.

With that kind of night how could your Franky Scale be lower than an 8?

One realization struck me during the show, something I tried to pass on to everyone that night, but there seemed to be something untimely about it. At a few points in the show Lovano let the basses loose and the senior player Henry Grimes would let off into a game of follow the leader, so each instrument was in part echoing the other, throwing back to it additional riffs, turns, and interpretations. It’s hard to explain, but a phenomenal moment. And what I thought to myself was that such a musical moment is a place you could intentionally get lost, a place where all concern could fade away, a place to find yourself at the last and lonely instance. Despite its reality, that last instance isn’t popular parlor talk, so in our rooms after the show we kept it light, discussed the relative effectiveness of creating ichthyological metaphors to explain human uniqueness and beauty. Keep that word “relative” in mind.

* * *
P.S. — I don't know if I posted this info before but I upped my NCPB procedure date to the 29th, in the morning. It had been Oct. 2 but this way it'll be done right before moving, I'll have better company, and possibly the pain relief will come a few days sooner. So, Sept. 29, another endoscopic ultrasound procedure.

9.22.06, Return to the Sopranos

I've arrived safe and sound, back on the East coast for a few days, for Coltrane's 80th birthday, time in the city, and to see if I can't find a disenchanted princess in the woods of Long Island. All the travel today went off very smoothly, not extra liquids or questionables in my carry on. The Port-o-Cath did not set off any alarms. (It has only done that at one airport, actually, where was it? JFK...from Seattle once? Can't recall.) Today was safe.

Reporting a Franky Scale on a travel day is pretty strange, it was quite high during my naps on the plane, dipped at other times, but really things have been pretty good today, especially for day one after IV chemo. Before the cancer life began I would rarely if ever sleep on planes, just couldn't do it. Now, I get on the plane and the engines are like a lullaby. The plane moves and I'm out. Today, too, same deal. OK, enough travel agent talk. Time to rest up for Joe Lovano tomorrow.

[P.S.] And after catching up on some of the season six Sopranos, I just have to say there is some strange directing going on, around episodes 5-7 or so. I'm partially on the edge of my seat, partially just going "That's it?" More to come.

9.21.06, To Depart

IV chemo today, a joy as always, but thanks to Mme X for company. Franky Scale maybe 6ish, the usual fatigue and the trivial works. Then I'm getting myself ready for tomorrow's trip. Since I'll be gone for a few days I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be able to do, but surely there will be something to write about once I return. This is the first travelling I'm doing in the middle of chemo treatments, which might make things interesting, and I plan to take it slow as much as possible. If there are any newsworthy events I'll be sure to post. And if you don't hear, assume the Franky Scale stays in the 6 or 7 range.

9.20.06, Something like 21 Grams

Is there something that I’m learning? Yesterday’s “Anonymous” (to yesterday’s post) commenter pointed out that I’m doing something along the lines of passing along information, teaching as it were, perhaps from my unconscious somewhere. Teaching without even knowing it. Something about “how to live,” that’s what is was. The without knowing it part I agree with. I was excited to see there might be a “life lesson” in there somewhere, so I had to have to go back to the last post and search it out. I write the blog and now I find myself in reader’s shoes. The ignorant preacher — if there were to be a preacher anywhere, he or she must be ignorant. Or else how could it work? There is no other way.

I’ve been watching 21 Grams this evening, without any foreknowledge, no idea of plot or theme, the stench of death all over the film somewhat of a kick to the head. One’s gone, one’s gone. To watch this film and think “Me. It’s me in a number of weeks or months. Part of it is me.” Except the cigarette jones. Who knows. It’s all allegory, but then like I was suggesting in the post on “Where Truth is to be Found” that’s the truest way to tell a real story. Truth in fiction being the only kind we can rely on. Truth in poetry. And then again . . . it breaks down at some point.

So I’m trying to figure out what it is that’s being taught here, by accident, from this other side of my personality that writes in the blog. Reader’s shoes. Where is the truth there? What are the stories being told? More scattered thinking from the blogging me.

And today, how has it gone? Harsh, actually. After feeling good for a few days, and mildly living with the background fear that it’ll be jinxed, today I woke up in a very different physical state. Not feeling so good. —how to explain this without seeming pitiful, without appearing pitiful, without being unduly, something, about it. What would be the word. Too much of something that will kill the writing. So the day begins on the low side, and then where does it go from there?

Eventually today I started feeling angry about it — there is it. Anger, that natural emotion we are supposed to feel in the process of it all, what is supposed to help get us out of the funk. Me and my natural funk. To be expected, right. It’s in all the books, after all. But the extra pain eventually just became so tedious, today anyway, what was I going to do about it? I took extra pain meds to try and get a handle on it. Think of those raised eyebrows. Eventually it cut down to a more reasonable level, to get me off the bed, off my side, from waiting for something better. Get back into a manageable level of life, then go from there. Just one step forward.

What was curious is how the pain meds cut down the pain to a certain degree, not to the point of elimination, but rather to a heightened sense of where I was, where I am. And this is what got me pissed off. They cut the pain just enough for anger to take hold. I started off just angry about being in pain, about it, the pain, about it not being obedient. It doesn’t listen to me. It’s obdurate. And then the sense spread to larger issues that touch this entire experience. To what I’m doing every day, to facing the same challenges daily. I suppose even the questions that have been slinking around the shadows — the nasty ones without answers like “Why has this happened?” and “How is this supposed to play out?” I’ve known from the start, intellectually at least, that there is no point to it, that these are dead end issues. There is no water in that well. So why even lower the bucket?

I don’t intend to rant. Another well with no water. But I did just want to put out the questions, to say what it is that’s happening, and not to garnish it so that it looks more appealing. Today wasn’t even that much worse than a lot of days, it’s just another one in the deranged series I’ve been assigned. Perhaps the anger is good for me, perhaps it’s another source of strength, perhaps there are, forgive the triteness, lessons to be learned in this too. Shit. It’s all fucked up beyond expression, from the perspective of my little world at least. So here it is, raw blogging, saying the things that might cause concern, saying what’s really going on despite how personal it is, despite what it means to walk through life in this strange state of plurality. The me who wakes up in a singular state of physicality each morning, the different mes who blog and pick what to share, the me who needs to stand up as straight as possible, who walks to the store, the disconnected mes and the mes who are inextricably tied.

I don’t know.

9.19.06, Epistrophy

I thought I'd call it "epiphany" but that seemed too pedestrian on the one hand and just too much on the other. It might not even be a legit revelatory moment into the bargain. Something about "epistrophy," the sound and sight of it, which apart from a Monk which is all I know of it, seems to fit. For the past few days I've felt generally solid, or even good . . . though some superstitious hidden part of my unsuperstitious self tells me to watch such words for jinxing . . . but feeling good. No real problems, some moments of real clarity where I almost forget, or actually do forget for just so long. A great thing — yet it emphasizes upon my mental return that question Frank asked once, so long ago it seems, about how long it takes me every morning before The Thought arrives. But, generally good, that's my point.

So here's the story. It's not a continuation of the talk about truth content (last two days) because this is something that's crept up on me today until it feels like it needs to come out. I've been catching myself having thoughts about "what it's all about" again, about the "big picture," and all the related annoying and existentially servile little questions that accompany one who spends too much time thinking of how it all should make sense. As in, "what's the meaning of life?", for example, would be the most common example; and existential angst would be the most familiar descriptor. It's as if I've found myself in a mental state that I spent altogether too much time in prior to diagnosis and Life Change and all that.

The twist, after a couple of days of such thinking, is this: if thoughts about "what it's all about" are creeping back into my brain, even after all the big realizations of Dumb Fate and Death and Nowness seemed to have set, then wouldn't that possibly be a sign of getting better? If I were to forget some of what I've been learning recently, if I were to slip into my "old ways" (yes, self-consciously deprecating or imprecating there), then maybe that's a sign I'm going in reverse physiologically too . . . ? Crazy, right? A reverse in my thinking habits means a reverse in my physical condition. Probably so.

The logic of it, however, seemed appealing to me at the time. (Does the logic even make any sense to anybody else, or is this just me here in my imaginary closet thinking too loudly?) A turn for the better is all I'm hoping for here, and this is just a potential mental framework to explain it without miracles. The premonition of good fortune without miracles. Or did I secretly, or rather, unconsciously, figure it out before and then start to feel the good-old angst again? Hmm. I ought to simply be glad there have been a few days where the pain is less and most of my body seems to be cooperating. That's all. And I'm about to head to New York for a quick trip in three days, so feeling good and resting up are what the doctor ordered. Good company, good food, good music, and pray no fatigue.

Curious that word-notion, "prayer." It seems to be happening all around me, though in forms that would surprise many who think they've got the low down on prayer. I see it take myriad forms, different incarnations and different practices, dissimilar executions. I'm glad for all of it, from whatever corner.

The Franky Scale then? You know "before" I was sick, or before it got this bad, I never or rarely had days I would say were much over a "7" or maybe "8" so I'm still wary about using the big numbers. But I'll say a solid seven/7, a 7 with plus. Now if sleep will be kind enough to not elude me, the day will close well.

9.18.06, A Brief Pause in Truth

On the Franky Scale today I probably logged a 6, feeling a moment or two behind myself all day long. There were a few moments, too, when I imagined feeling nauseated — and there is no reason for nausea right now unless it's purely psychosomatic and stems from the fact that chemo starts up again this Thursday. Anticipatory nausea. It's very odd to have the feeling and then almost simultaneously realize what it's about, that my mind produced it so perhaps my mind can eliminate it, and so on. And so I tried working that through. Too early to feel sick, ruins the good days. Otherwise there's little going on physically.

I did decide to try and step up my NCPB procedure, into the last few days of September, but no word yet. Ideally I'll be able to do it on the 27th or 29th, but it looks like I won't know until the scheduler returns tomorrow. It's such a low-risk procedure that I don't feel nervous about any danger. Still it gives me butterflies in anticipation when I wonder about its potential for success. It could be such a boon to have a significant portion of my pain just zipped away, so I quietly go around with my fingers crossed.

As for finishing yesterday's absolutely fascinating post, I'm going to take a cheap way out and only put up one additional paragraph. What follows after that still needs work, especially to be able to explain the notion of the "truth content" of a work of art — as with so many complex ideas, being able to convey it in the simplest possible form is incrdibly demanding. It's an idea I've learned and had kicking around in my head for ten years probably and yet I don't think I've ever really tried to put into very simple terms. Looking at the blank page and knowing that my simple explanation needs to be put down is proving daunting. Thus the fragmented bits and pieces approach to this whole thing. Think of it as a deep thought for the day, just one paragraph so thrilling it might well help you doze off tonight if you see it. With that, it's pasted in below. Till tomorrow.

* * *

Negative aesthetics, then, is the workings and the study of it all not from the point of positivist assertion but from negative critique. Alluded to yesterday. Simply put, the “negative” here is not bad, harmful, or unproductive in the slightest; it’s salutary, good for thinking, open-ended, creative, and tends toward the greatest degree of transparency possible. It’s a type of demystification in the arts, or demythologizing as Weber or Durkheim put talking about Modernity. We progressively shatter the myths and direct claims to truth. The point is not to study and learn “what is beautiful” according to the model of traditional aesthetics, rather it is to understand why a given artwork succeeds or doesn’t, how much truth content it has, and to do that we have to ask questions about historical context, political motivation (qui bono?), economic weight, and ethical value. Most theorists of aesthetics — take Kant as prime example — say that all this is unrelated to beauty, to the sublime, and therefore it must all be ignored and cut out. We're supposed to read a poem or look at a painting in some state of perfect remove, devoid of any personal interest, truly not caring, not being concerned with anything that could be at stake. As a remedy, negative aesthetics works to read all works of art while at the same time remembering how we view the world through a camera obscura. It’s all upside down, inverted, skewed, Alice-and-looking-glass-ed. A methodology, if you will, for getting at the truth content of a work of art.

[again, to be continued]

9.17.06, Where Truth is Found, as Promised

OK, this post has been sticking in my brain for months it seems. Part of it just resist being polished and finished and presented publicly. God damn sometimes. Since yesterday I began to explore the Idea of the Negative, or the method worldview approach mode multi-perspective . . . whatever it precisely is, and since I promised to follow up. Here it is. But, about half only. Below I'm pasting in the first half of what I'd written sometime ago about negativity and truth in relation to The Sopranos, and for various reasons it ceased being timely. One big reason was that I re-watched all the previous Sopranos seasons and lacked example material. :-) Soon I will have access to tapes of season six — doesn't that sound illicit? actual old-school "tapes"? I do need to finish up the post, get the final paragraphs straight, tie ideas together, or deliberately let them go their own ways, it's just that now it's being unruly. What's below then is about half, a "to be continued."

Franky Scale today was in the 7 area with my physical condition really seeming decent, psychology a big behind that, and then my sleep was hideously disfigured yesterday and today so that threw me off slightly.

Thanks too, especially, for the comments to yesterday's blog. Even a few months of blogging hasn't given me much insight into what people will respond to. I thought is so strange that yesterday's post seem just off kilter to me, like I was really missing something, but there was a good deal of response on and off blog. Hm.

* * *

“Where Truth is Found: Negative Aesthetics and The Sopranos”

To continue our investigation into the negative, I want to move it into an example a decent number of people will know about; if this is totally foreign to you, think of a personal film substitute. The Sopranos can be swapped out for any other well-made drama, anything made of fiction, a solid work of poetry. I say this because at times people wonder “What is up with all the Sopranos allusions in this blog?” Any cultural production, any artwork, that has a certain degree of truth content, an idea we’ll get into below, works well enough to illustrate the point.

The argument or thesis: The only real truth, the only “thing that is” or “phenomenon that is” and accurately reflects the world is what is expressed indirectly, obtusely, obscurely through allusion, which is all to say, negatively. Once you try to express a thing directly . . . poof. This is what Lacan means in psychoanalytic terms when he defines the Real (big R) as “that which cannot be symbolized.” Yet the Real is something we experience every day, every where, in every aspect of our lives; it is like the air we breath. We just can't symbolize it or express it in any way. And that is a slightly different story.

Let’s put it another way. Somewhere Picasso said “Art is the lie that makes us realize the truth.” That’s the crux of it. That is how poetry works, evocative painting, successful film, that is why fictionalized memoirs — which is simply another term for all memoirs really — are more engaging than those that hold vigorously to the straight “facts.” (I suppose the James Frey “memoir”-Oprah incident and the question of [non]facticity provides a timely example for us.) Not all art is true in this sense however it is only through the negative of expression, the indirect, the creative admixture produced by the human mind, that we find anything that really is, that is accurate, that feels universal.

As mentioned yesterday, science, being in a sense the summa of positivism, might be invoked as a counter argument (now here I’m talking about science as in “hard science” or the physical sciences) — “How can you dispute gravity or a rocket to the moon?” And yet this proves the point by failing to hold true forever. A more accurate theory, method, or technique will always be found, to challenge it, modify it, replace it. Newton to Einstein to quantum physics. Art, on the other hand, does live eternally, it only needs continual transmission and translation. The translation of a work becomes its immortality (a borrowed line). Science’s job is to fail repeatedly; good art continually pretends to fail but never really does.

A poem, a novel, a film — these forms tell you up front “I am a lie. I claim no truth value. I am imaginary,” and then they proceed to haunt us with the accuracy of their expression. So The Sopranos portrays the most dysfunctional and unrealistic of families: it’s only HBO, it’s entertainment, even the mob exists this is all make-believe. Still we find mother-son or brother-sister relationships we can identify with; we find expressions of anger that call up something within us; there are familiar lusts and passions; and the morals of the stories often make us nod in agreement — or shake our heads in denial. Both reactions, however, represent the same deep identification / recognition. It starts out with “I’m a lie” and in the end we’re disconcerted and have to keep trying to remind ourselves, “Right, this is a lie. It’s not true. That would never happen.” Why do we do that?

[to be continued]

9.16.06, Revised Schedule, & On (Mis)Understanding

[the second post, rather long and rambly, appears right after paragraph three below]

I got some really good news a couple of days ago, although it has nothing to do with cancer, at least not directly. I found out that Thomas Pynchon has a new novel coming out, "biggest" of them all so far, weighing in at 1120 pages (so says Penguin and Amazon; it's already sales ranked at about #1,900-something), and called Against the Day. Don't know the plot or many details except that it's set in the decades before and through WW I, has a markedly international sweep, and I also know that I'm excited. And I think this means I will have to reschedule some things. Like dying. OK, I've never scheduled it, granted, but I figure this way I won't even be able to die before the book comes out and I get a chance to read it. Appears sometime around November 21st, I won't be able to get through it, say, till December sometime at the earliest. Then my birthday is right around the corner, so I should wait for that. The way I figure, I'm pretty much guaranteed to be "OK" until about mid-January.

Breath a sigh of relief. Read slowly. I always do, I can't help it.

Yesterday I skipped over my blog responsibilities, I admit, but this was in part because the day felt basically good and I didn't want to interrupt it with too much "cancer thinking." You know? When you've had quite enough of something on your mind and for some inexplicable reason you then find yourself in a zone, just somewhere else and able to be away from that Big Thinking Thing. . . ? Like that, you might say. I just wanted to go through the day and not necessarily evaluate myself for life fitness. That said, it was probably a 7, and today's Franky Scale seems to be shaping up about the same.

[new addition]
On (Mis)Understanding, Communication, and the Negative

Part of this post has to do with truth, or more accurately truths in the plural, and where we find them. I have another post written during The Sopranos period (I’m waiting on season 6 so I can continue that soon), that I’d like to add into this since it might be timely again now. I’d missed the moment before, but tomorrow it might be a good follow up to this. So “this” is a round-about kind of essay into where I am usually, where I go sometimes, where I write from, and what’s behind it all. It rambles, such is the form.

Part of this post and this whole blog has to do with my writing too: how it comes across, how you read it, how I come across through the writing of posts and comments. I forget sometimes that I can come across as opinionated, at times closed-minded, and to some even I might seem, that dirtiest of dirty words, “negative.” Negativity’s story should be retold, though, to be fair. This will help to explain where I’m coming from. As I see it, the Negative is not always something “bad” or “destructive” or “harmful” — it is, rather, a tool closely and inextricably linked to critique and to the possibility improvement. Whether it be improvement of a discussion, a system, an organization, or a self. Myself not excluded, of course.

It’s been a pet project of mine since before grad school, though I didn’t realize it at the time. Later I learned that “critical philosophy” is one name for it, that people like Spinoza and Nietzsche and Marx and Adorno have all been known to use this tool, this engage in this type of philosophy. For clarity, it can be contrasted quite directly with positivist philosophy (one term any dictionary of philosophy will gloss adequately). The critical or negative approach means asking hard questions and performing critiques of all claims to knowledge and truth. All positivist claims break down at some point, even in the hard sciences, knowledge is put forward and assumed, too often, to be timeless and unchangeable. Even a common sense understanding of the sciences tells us this isn’t true (e.g., Thomas Kuhn has written on this). New knowledge is produced, paradigms change, and we correct what was incorrect about our thinking (Foucault is another one). Critical or negative philosophy takes as its task to ask the question “What is wrong with, or what structures, this claim to knowledge?”

As an rule, note what Spinoza writes: “Omnis determinatio est negatio (All things are determined by negation).” From his Epistula. I think that the more we critically analyze and think through this statement, the more truth we can find in it. That is, the more accurate we’ll find it to be. Presented with any knowledge we find flaws in logic, cracks in a rhetorical edifice, etc. and only then can we work to correct them. (An aside, I took this as a point of departure for a theory of aesthetics in grad school, in my dissertation, a thing I’m still desultorily working through it in a book manuscript.)

It relates back to being understood or misunderstood, and to my coming off as harsh sometimes — in posts, comments, emails, etc. — on an interpersonal level, in that I take this as a rule for myself, and too often I forget that not everyone does so. An error I hope I’ll be forgiven for, if I’ve offended. There’s no malice intended, just a desire to get at the core of the matter. Sometimes my brain goes on through a matter more quickly than my heart. I realize, too, there are “on” times and “off” times for this, depending on the parties involved and emotional conditions. The realization isn’t always instantaneous.

Back to the philosophical aspect, I’m hitting very basic points, so I beg the indulgence of some of you who know this too well already. : ) Knowledge is contingent, context based, determined in large part by other knowledge and experience possessed by a subject / person. Each particular situation colors a given knowledge. So we always have to analyze the context in order to understand the rightness or less rightness of a concept, idea, theory, or strategy. In communication we have to work through the contingency, or rather, through a thousand little contingencies. Truism. Still, sometimes a tall order.

Again, why rehash all this? Because I assume all it before I write anything, before I approach any situation. It’s why I’m always skeptical, or if you like, critical. It’s a positive (salutary) approach, in my view. It might come out in the form of critiques of multi-level marketing, new age-ism, religion, or alternative treatments to a disease like cancer. It might also come out in disguised form in the basics of how I try to deal with the latter every day. So, while I want all the help in the world, on the one hand, on the other, I tend toward radical skepticism and often plunge when I’m thinking it through. The critical edge is not an attempt to push anyone away, to break down the community that’s been established here.

Another aspect of what I think and go through every day, aside from the physical realities, is an intense psychological battle. How good do I feel? Or bad? Why? Am I getting better? Or, how much worse? Isn’t the clock still ticking away toward that last ding? If I feel better, is that a safe feeling, or should I lay low and be quiet about it? Will I jinx it? A former poet laureate of Utah (they have them!) died fairly recently of pancreatic cancer, and there was a news article where he told of how he feared going to bed at night because he didn’t know if it was the last time, if he’d die in his sleep. Fortunately, that’s not a fear I have, though it is an indication of what the mind can do.

There are a million such questions. They take time to work through, or to avoid, as the mood dictates. Normally I like to face them, a facing that can produce tone shifts or mood swings in the blog, which I know some of you notice. Some even worry. It might keep me from taking calls at certain times also. That kind of thing. People have been wonderful to me through this and I thank everyone for that. I can’t say it enough. Yet with all the help in the world there are still times of profound shock, disbelief, frustration, and sadness. There is a feeling where I’m preparing to miss something: life itself. Even though I don’t believe there will be a mind “on the other side” to do the “missing,” it’s hard to avoid living in moments and wondering “Will this one be repeated? Is this the last time?”

9.14.06, Cont'd Disconnection and Upcoming NCPB

Blog.

[Background music tonight: Monk’s later years work under the 2001 title Thelonious Monk: The Columbia Years, ’62-68. I’m going to give it a few good listens and see if there’s anything to some of the critiques some people have made about his later work being too tame. Too, there’s a historical angle, too, in that it jives with music, culture, politics, etc. that was around when I was born—something I’m trying to work into a sketch of the historical moment into which I was born. 1968.]

To respond on Disconnection. (The hot chocolate was at Vivace, btw, never had it at Bauhaus.) The emotional states or states of being I feel alienated from—a very apt term because I do feel I’ve been a life-laborer and now my time-work has been put in and someone else is getting the profit and/or utility from it, but if life is a metaphor for capitalism, who are the capitalists? Hmm—those states seem to be the so-called normal ones for most people. I’ve always felt like a nonconformist inside; not to claim I’ve always or simply unthinkingly been one, but rather that I think there’s an inherent value of thinking like one. At least. So in a sense my alienation isn’t new. It is, however, extreme these days.

Seeing the daily routines people have can be horrifying at times. And thinking of death so much more presently than ever before exacerbates this for me. Whether it’s materialistic attachment, ambition for ambition’s sake or for power’s sake, or all the fronting. Trivial matters also occupy so much of people’s lives, simple priorities. Now when I’m “out there” watching or dealing with people, I just feel like I see more. It all sounds trite to put it into words, but the experience is real and all I can say is that nothing in the world looks like it used to. Work, for example, is just that. Work. And I spent a hell of a lot of time “working,” and sadly doing a lot of work I thought I should be doing. When that normative superego of Work takes over, for me, the pleasure of it gets lost. Worries over superiors, evaluations, the power of the masses or “customers,” all of these become tyrannical. Seeing all this more clearly is in large part what disconnects me. (Feel like I’m spinning my wheels here, trying to get this out…)

As for the wanting of conversations to end, of mouthing certain words and thinking others or simply waiting waiting waiting for it all to end, this is clearly something I’ve felt too. Part of good old fashioned misanthropy, on the one hand. (Which, B. you should get a lot of in anthro now…no?) On the other, it’s another testament to the fact that we do live in a camera obscura world, just like Uncle Karl says.

On a different note, I wanted to follow up on the pain management issue. I’ve decided to go through with the NCPB (the neurolytic celiac plexus block) procedure, and have it scheduled currently for early October. I might switch this up to late September but we’ll see. This means I get one more hose shoved down my throat and they inject absolute alcohol into the celiac plexus. Then it dies. The theory, in three out of four cases, is that when it dies, most of the pain in that area dies. Fingers crossed, I move ahead.

Also, I’m moving into a new place come October. Very close to my old place so the neighborhood routines can continue, even though I’m much less of a bon vivant than before. It means more space and numerous other good things. More on this as it comes. For today that’s enough from me, in my little disconnected world.

Franky Scale today was pretty good, let’s say 7; though I spent half the day at school (thus “work”) and there’s an odd physical feeling about being “out and about” that I haven’t fully adjusted to. I’m realizing again, too, that it might be good to get myself doing this more regularly because the values of the distraction seem valuable.

A P.S. The comments the other day in the post "Writing Your Own Eulogy," and this might be a hairsplitting point, but this title was only metaphor. Though I am working on a memoir, I'm not trying to write my own eulogy. There's a lot tied up with eulogies, and eulogies are for the living, so when it's time for that it will be somebody else's job. Not mine.

9.13.06 Disconnect and Float

Disconnection. If one were to ask what I’ve been experiencing emotionally for the past week or so, this would be my answer. Many have asked, in fact. There is no etiology, no set of identifiable experiences that have culminated in this. It’s just a destination I myself have only realized after, apparently, arriving here. It’s disconnection from all kinds of things: people, past, place, certain emotions, states of being, time-oriented thinking, routines. I don’t know, it feels like it might even be from words, too, in some respect. At this moment, even the words feel strange in my mouth, at my finger tips. New, unfamiliar, foreign. Though I can’t say whether it was from genuine hankering or an unconscious desire to act it all out, I even ordered hot chocolate in the café today instead of coffee. Little and symbolic.

Floating. What I’ve been feeling in the streets, when I’m in public, in a crowd, a line at the store or café, in the bank. It goes along with what I already described above, as if it were the physical accompaniment. From very early on after my diagnosis I felt some degree of disconnect in the streets. I kept seeing people doing their everyday things and it would strike me as totally absurd. How important a certain small occurrence was, the over-earnestness of a certain person, spurts of anger, exuberance to the point of being obnoxious, fronting of every kind, the telling of tall tales, putting the make on someone — every thing I saw looked transparent. If not, then insignificant. Very Buddhist.

Disconnection. Floating. Transparency. Almost from the start I felt the latter, but the floating has been more recent, as if my being is slowly desubstantializing. Where is it going? No, scratch that — sounds too metaphysical or transcendent. But losing one’s solidity is legit, isn’t it? Have you never walked down the street and felt like a specter? Like you look the same, move in the same way, probably even sound the same but you’re one step out or aside. It’s all going on at some different speed. Again I’m kind of stuck describing, just that out there something seems amiss.

So the disconnection is nearly like paranoia, it is a state of intensity where “my thinking,” at least, is different. Or is it really? I won’t go into all the permutations of this. Those who have ears.

Physically I’ve been recouping from the last four weeks of toxic infusions, the pills, all the pharmacological love. In the respect the scale should go a little higher, but as the baser needs are met we become increasingly able to point out everything else that seems out of joint, right? Still, I feel better now as the drugs start to leave my system. So there is a little less on my body and a little more on my mind.

Franky Scale = 6.