dream of don delillo

okay, so, a long, involved dream about don, another longstanding member of the cadre of my favorite writers, that i don't remember quite enough of at the moment. i remember that he was going to give a reading and i really wanted to go. i was planning to go, ready to go, but at the last minute i couldn't go, because of some obligation. i don't remember what the obligation was but it was probably important to the dream thematically. so, poo. anyway, i couldn't make it to the reading, but i rushed through whatever it was i had to do (mopping? washing windows?) and made it to the venue shortly after he finished. it was outdoors, like a picnic. there were picnic tables. i approached my man don and told him i liked his new collection of stories. i was bold and told him i hoped he'd read a particular story to the group. he brightened and said that was precisely the story he had read. he went on at great length and with tremendous animation and joy about that story and its scope and theme and how the scenes fit together. it was a fascinating and generous oration and i was beaming.

i don't really remember that much else about the dream right now. i feel like there was a lot more to it. how frustrating! i woke up and looked at the clock and it was 2:30. rain lashed against the window. i thought i should maybe give "ratner's star" another shot.

(but i'm reading the prejean now and thinking after that intensity i might be ready for a vacation. so many books!)

i didn't sleep too much after that.

reading? what's that?

finished the murakami over the weekend. i think friday. it was all right. i wasn't as keen on it as i've been of previous books.

saturday i started reading "death of innocents". man oh man. the book consists of two case histories of men executed by the state. i read the first one, and gosh, but there were holes in the prosecution's case i could maneuver a hot air balloon through. reasonable doubt, you bet! i'm not really down with capital punishment anyway but, sheesh, even less so when the individual didn't even do the crime. miserable, frustrating.

simultaneously reading the current "harper's", and i'm in the midst of the lewis lapham essay detailing why our president should be impeached. sometimes lewis can go a little off the deep end but here he has copious sources and footnotes. i almost want to read the conyers resolution to impeach the man. i may look for it; it's probably on this here net somewhere.

the things people in power get away with just plain staggers me. the audacity, both of the president and his administration and of the prosecutors of the first man in the prejean book. (i imagine i'll be similarly outraged when i read of the second man.) it freaks me out that people can be so thoroughly cruel and arrogant and single-minded.

long live jon stewart.

mostly domino

yesterday was a day off for me and nothing traumatic happened. no fecal matter blanketing the floors, no canine attacks. all was well, insofar as that.

the critical thing i did yesterday was refill sagan's prescription. she was down to one pill and i do not want her off her meds. she's a mad dog when she's off her meds. i'm joking, mostly. but still. we have the pills now. we're good.

i had a coffee. i went to a bookstore, sold some things, bought some things. i left there with cash in my pocket and space in my house, so i was pleased. i went to the safeway and stocked up for the weekend.

thursday evening kara and i and some of her coworkers at the hospital went for drinks at the six olives, a martini bar dangerously close to our house. honestly, it's two blocks away! it was fun; kara works with some good people. i know them a little because i worked in the same department (health information management) for a little under a year, but i had the graveyard shift, so mostly i just saw people at the beginnings and endings of my shifts.

anyway, yes, it was fun. kara had some scotches, neat, because that's her thing, and i had creamy liquory drinks because that's mine. the comment was made that kara likes manly drinks and i like girly drinks. we were unable to dispute this. some of those folks we wouldn't mind seeing more often, though it does seem hard to arrange such things.

the outing was, at least privately, a celebration of kara's submission of her graduate school application. she's lost a bit of sleep over it, and now it's in. this weekend she can relax.

we watched "domino" last night. damn it was atrocious. it told the allegedly true story of actor lawrence harvey's daughter domino who went from being a model to being a bounty hunter. it was a highly annoying film, fairly typical of director tony scott, hyperkinetic, loud, full of unnecessary effects. it did seem to pay particular attention to keira knightley's butt crack - perhaps too much attention, even for my taste (is there a lesson here for me, eh readers of "nocturnal dyspnea"?). we did watch the entire film, though it hurt a little.

what redeemed the experience a little was that the dvd had a brief documentary about the real domino harvey. her story is indeed an interesting one, and worth telling. on second thought, actually, seeing that documentary made the movie seem so much worse, because the opportunity to tell an interesting story was so grossly foibled.

point of fact, the real domino reminded me a little of my writer acquaintance nicola griffith in seattle. in the fearlessness, in the capacity for violence (not so much the drugs and crime). nicola was once a bit of a brawler and went on to teach self defence to women. nicola, in my opinion, is cool. i wholeheartedly recommend her books.

perhaps domino was cool too. but you wouldn't know it by watching that film tony made. the film was written by richard kelly - that name sounded familiar, and now i know why. he wrote and directed "donnie darko", which was a terrific film, among my favorites. so i guess old dick slipped some. or maybe tony warped his pure vision of domino. perhaps we'll never know.

in other news, not to blather on, but i seem to have engaged in a battle of wills with my digital camera. i do feel that i soon shall emerge from this conflict victorious and possessing the ability to send emails and attach links containing videos shot with that camera. because we all need to see more of eliot, yellow, rumble, sagan, and max, do we not? don't worry; victory is just over the next rise.

yesterday another battle of wills commenced, this time with our microwave oven. it seems it doesn't want to cook any more; it just want to be a timer. but we'll defeat this one too.

just a scratch?

another restless night. i don't know if my hand was actually hurting, and keeping me awake, or if i was dreaming that my hand was hurting and keeping me awake.
it's weird. it hurts now maybe kind of almost more than it did the day of the trauma. is it the healing process that's painful?
no way sagan could have fractured any of those wee bones in my little mitt there, eh? (the contusion, on the proximal medial dorsal aspect of the metacarpals, or something, still smarts too but doesn't photograph well.) i doubt it. but the prolonged pain is a little disconcerting. i'm left-hand dominant here! (which is why these photos are not so good. my right hand's useless - and not even injured!)

"dispose" did seem the operative word

here's a dream i had in the middle of the night last night. perhaps oddly, i revisited it repeatedly (while awake or asleep i'm not sure) in the latter hours allotted for sleep.

my significant other had recently died. (it wasn't kara. nor was it i. i think in the dream i was someone else altogether, and the dead one was a man.) he was still in the house, on the couch, and though his death had not seemed unexpected, no arrangements had been made. so i was on the phone to a funeral home, talking about coffins and cremation and the logistics of having him transported away from my house. i wanted him collected.

then a serviceperson of some kind (a gardener?) was in my back garden, near the fountain, and he suddenly collapsed. i rushed outside to see if he was all right, but he wasn't. he was dead. i had just gotten off the phone with the funeral home, and now there were two dead people i had to dispose of. it was quite overwhelming.

that's it. end of dream. it's perhaps troublesome to consider the nonchalance with which i dealt with these deaths. such a chore it was. perhaps there's simply too much horror in the world to take in? what what?

upgrade

i do believe the injury i sustained to the dorsal aspect of the proximal phalanx of my left index finger while pulling sagan off max the other day needs to be reclassified from "scratch" to "wound." it's red, angry, and showing (as jimmy stewart said to cary grant in "the philadelphia story") "unsuspected depth."

discharged from the picu

the scariest report i transcribed today was about a five-year-old boy who was in a car accident. the driver of the car was killed. for some reason shortly before the crash the boy had climbed out of his car seat, so he was completely unrestrained.

his liver and spleen were lacerated. his pelvis, femur, and some ribs were fractured. his most severe injury was a subdural hematoma requiring an emergent hemicraniectomy to relieve the pressure. the boy had cerebral edema, ie his brain was swelling up. he was having spasms of his right upper extremity.

it's easier typing these kinds of things at work than here at home because at work i have all these autocorrects set up to make things go faster. examples:

i type "rue" and "right upper extremity" appears.
i type "fxd" and "fractured" appears.
i type "homa" and "hematoma" appears.

i've made up hundreds of these. that's part of the fun of the job, coming up with these little codes. the number of lines we type in a day is monitored, you see. the faster i type the more i get paid!

i type "poo" and i get "postoperative."
i type "ooo" and i get "salpingooophorectomy," ie surgical removal of a fallopian tube and an ovary.
i type "tp" and i get "the patient."
i type "ass" and i get "assessment."

i can be as scatological as i please. fun times!

not so much for that little boy, though. he's nonverbal and unresponsive but they're talking about discharging him to a rehabilitation facility soon. his parents have to learn how to care for him once he goes home. his prognosis is not so good.

it is horrifying to think of these things, if i stop and think about them. most reports i type are for patients with upper respiratory or urinary tract infections, otitis media, chest pain, pneumonia, or poorly-controlled diabetes. usually pretty benign stuff. the other day i typed up a brief operative note, placement of chest tubes, on a patient in his 20s who'd been shot and ended up dying from his wounds. these things happen. i did type up a delivery note today, the birth of a baby girl. of course, the mother is only 17.

it does make me think about how medically fortunate i have been thus far. i'm a relatively healthy person. touch wood or what have you.

it's not so cold & windy indoors

more of a relaxing day today, reading murakami and messing with the camera. you can't quite make out the stratches on my fingers from sagan's teeth; too bad. the sweet badboy yellow is on my lap.
okay, i didn't want eliot to felt self-conscious about being bald, so i made myself bald too. he feels much better now, as you can see. me, my head's cold.
fire is pretty. warm, too. we went through a bunch of wood.
kara's diligently working on her grad school admission essay. really. she has a notebook on the other side of that pillow.
max seems to have survived yesterday's attack. good old man, max.

naked boy, bitch in jail

here's our eliot, shorn, fresh from the grooming place, which didn't open until 9. poor little fellow. fuzzy wuzzy wasn't very fuzzy, was he? he'll be an indoor cat the next few weeks because his naked skin is so fragile. he's dang cute, though, ain't he? he's an altogether different cat.

i still have some mopping to do, as the mess he made during the night was extensive.

and this - this is sagan, incarcerated, as yet unforgiven for her attack on the elderly max. isn't she just a mean-looking dog? she'll be up for parole in 25 years.

joys of parenting

well we had a fine wake-up this morning. our fuzzy cat eliot apparently eliminated some particularly unpleasant stool during the night, and because of his excessive fuzziness a large percentage of the poo remained fixed to his nether parts. so he did a bit of wiping, all over the house. streaks of feces on the floorboards, and the resultant odor, greeted us when we rose from bed.

i am taking him to get shaved today. shaved and washed. i was going to wait until it got warmer - we are in the midst of a cold snap at present - but we'll just keep indoors for a while. i just hope i can get an appointment today. the place we like isn't open yet - i called at a little after 6, then a little after 7 - maybe they open at 8.

and if that weren't enough, sagan attacked max this morning. she hasn't done anything like that for months. it was over food; it's almost always over food. kara had just left for work (but not before cleaning much of eliot's shit from the floor - thanks, hon) and i let the dogs outside to do their business, and then in again. i did what i usually do when giving them treats - i beckoned sagan to one side and had her lie down, and i put her treats on the floor. then, on my other side, i put treats on the floor for max.

the last 30-odd times i've done this there were no problems. but this morning i turned my back and suddenly sagan was on max. apparently she'd gobbled her treats and wanted his. her jaws clenched on his ear. i don't know why she always goes for his ear, but she does. perhaps it could be worse - she could go for his jugular. she's growling and won't let go, max is whimpering in pain. remember, max is quite the old man, on the infirm side. i shout at sagan in my big-angry-man voice (i don't get to use it that often) to let go of him, but she is intent. i grabbed her and pulled her jaws apart. then i crated her and yelled some more.

i tended to max, who was quite shaken but didn't seem to be bleeding. i loved him up a little, and he was more receptive to me than usual. i think he realized i'd helped him. i gave him some more treats that he could enjoy in peace. he seems okay.

i have some good scratches on my fingers and a painful bruise on the back of my hand for my own efforts. plus i'm hoarse.

i don't know what we're going to do with this sagan bitch. she is a bad dog.

champagne for mailman

dang. my friend mailman sold her novel to random house. golly. that's big time. i remember mailman when she was a geeky college senior, freshfaced after a year in cork, and now she's big-time.

congratulations, mailman!

i'd better get cracking on my own fictional shtick. i did some good writing saturday, and i have a bit of time right now!

washout

well crud. the washing machine was more of an ordeal than i had expected. a man arrived at about 1pm to tool with it and at about 2:30 he concluded it had expired. fortunately there is a perfectly fine washing machine at the old house and i booked a moving company to haul it over here on sunday. it's in the basement of the old house (next to the octopus) and kara and i don't want to mess with moving the thing. so on sunday we should be able to do a spot of wash.

unfortunately i haven't gotten to writing yet; i'm about to. i did finish the mosley book in a coffee shop called mandolin that has grown on me considerably. while the appliance man was working on the washing machine i started "kafka on the shore" and it's gripped me immediately. something about that murakami, boy. his stuff is good to read while i'm writing, maybe more so than the mosely, because his style is so relaxed and easygoing, it makes me think the writing of it was just as breezy. it gives me confidence. and he tends to have pleasantly bizarre things happen in his books, and i like that.

but what am i doing blogging?! i should be fictioning! kara will be home in an hour and a half!

mosley + brown = blue

lexie left yesterday. back to texas. she expressed many times how grateful she is to us for having her here this past week. she lives in a small town where everyone knows her business, and at the moment she is dealing with some very personal horror there. we offered her a week's respite, and she was glad to have it, but now it's over. i wish there was more we could do for her, but i don't think there it is. it's one of those things only time mends.

not to say, on the other hand, that i'm not glad to have my house back. my bed! it would be great if lexie lived in this town and we could see her all the time ... but i am glad we have the house to ourselves again. is that terrible?

day off today. going to have some coffee and probably finish this nicholas mosley book i'm reading. i think this guy is just about the best. his dialogue is fantastic. he writes these intensely intelligent philosophical novels and i don't know how else to describe. i get into them.

next on the book-reading agenda will i think be the new murakami paperback, and that should be a treat too.

so, a little reading, a little coffee. grocery, etc, shopping. back home for lunch and an afternoon of writing. today is the day. kara works until 5:30 and i will start writing the second draft of "nocturnal dyspnea." lexie read the first draft while she was here and she really took to it. she liked the rapid pace, likening it to of all things to the da vinci code. (you can't get much farther from mosley than this.) i thought that was a fun ride, sure, and i've read a couple others of his and they were also a lot of fun. i won't get into the absurdity of the brouhaha surrounding the book, but the point it, lexie liked the "dysnpea" ride. which of course was great to hear.

it's a hair over 50,000 words now and i am told that to make it relatively mainstream publishable it should be closer to the neighborhood of 100,000 words. questions now abound. how to stretch the thing without losing the breakneck pace lexie enjoyed? possible answer: subplots. keep the reader dashing from one thrill ride to another. faithful (no pun intended) mr brown does that, or rather i suppose he weaves strings of the same plot, following individual characters on their thrill rides (i'm thinking currently of deception point, the one of his i read most recently). anyway. so i suppose i have some thinking and planning to do. of course, i don't want to overplan as that would kill the fun of writing. the fun of writing is finding out what happens next, as well as playing with language.

gosh but it would be nice to write like nicholas mosley does. there are lots of aspects of writing i would steal from him. structure, dialogue, theme. the intellect, the thoughtfulness, the apparent ease of the flow of words.

anyway. day one of writing is today. first, though, i think i need to see what's wrong with our washing machine. i think lexie must have mucked it up.

quarter after roger miller

trailer for sale or rent
rooms to let, 75 cents
no phone, no pool, no pets
i ain't got no cigarettes ...

sequestered

fyi, this is what our current residence looks like. this photo was taken weeks ago, fyi, before the commencement of the monsoon season. see? it's an okay house, what?

yesterday was a fine day, as anticipated. the wind and rain hurled itself relentlessly against our domicile, but kara & lexie & i were snug within, warmed by the blazing woodstove and then by chili. a bit of reading, a bit of npr, a bit of chatting. a fine day.

rooms

this is our old house. i do miss it. good old house. multicare (which incidentally employs both kara and me) was after us for months, wanting to buy it, finally we let them. they're just going to tear it down. pave paradise, as joni has said, and put up a parking lot. not that it was quite paraside, as our neighbors to the left (from your point of view) were hellacious and obscene white trash beasts. and from the big front window we had a smashing view of multicare's speech & hearing clinic.

but it is a great house. a built-in sideboard, built-in bookshelves ... i miss that stuff. all the windows (but for two) have the original glass (from circa 1926). there are orignal sconces on the walls. there's the original octupus furnace in the basement, powered by nothing but gravity. there's a coal room in the basement too, complete with coal! a picture rail, a plate rail, me oh my.

not that i'm totally down on our current digs. this house is a good house. also old, actually even older. 1900. but it's been stripped, don't you know. very few of the original features remain. there is something to be said for modernization. our heating system here is more efficient than that octopus. the electricity and plumbing have been updated. there are more outlets in this house than in that. and of course the location is considerably better. but it does lack charm.

kara's cousin lexie (hey! she's my cousin too!) is visiting us from texas, staying a week. we took her to see the old homestead yesterday. she kept stomping her feet on the floor and saying how solid it was! they don't build houses like this any more. these days they're all prefab and boxy and heinous. then we did a spot of shopping. lexie's great; it's good having her here. it's too bad i have to go to work tomorrow!
lexie has been talking to us about rooms. as children, many of us have our own room. as we grow old, we get more rooms, in apartments and houses. then the number of our rooms reduces again as, at the end, we wind up in extended care facilities or hospital rooms. "you're going to end up in a room," says lexie. lexie has these things on her mind; she's had an inconceivably traumatic time these last several months.

there's a big storm going on right now. mostly wind, a bit of (wait for it) rain. the windows rattle. i think we'll stay in today. make a fire in the woodstove. cook up some chili.

big news! cheerier news! our tickets for ira glass and julia sweeney arrived in the mail yesterday. they'll be together on stage at the paramount in seattle on may 6 (happy birthday, mom!). we're going! back to seattle! we love ira! we're thinking of doing another two-night thing, sort of an early my-birthday celebration thing (my birthday's may 13).

i'll be looking into hotel rooms in the next few days.

manchild

this is yellow. he's my boy. okay, i understand that he's a black cat but he does have yellow eyes. and like his good friend rumble he grew into his name in that these days he's afraid of everything. i don't know why i started calling him manchild, but it seemed to fit. it's a nickname. don't cats need nicknames?

it's actually not raining today. i don't know why. it's not sunny or anything. no. but there are hints of sun, just in the lack of downpour. maybe i'll go outside. if only it weren't for our front door ...

anyway. this is yellow. he's 6. he can be a bully, in spite of or perhaps because of his generalized fear. he may be the one responsible for laying open eliot's neck last year, resulting in an abscess that required surgery and a drain left in place. that was pleasant. and then maybe it was eliot who a few months later laid open yellow's neck in the same fashion, resulting in the same surgery. neither of them are talking.

he's my boy, though, my manchild. i forgive him everything.