Flash III available at Createspace

Click on this image to be taken to the Createspace store for Flash III, my third short- and very short-story collection. It contains the best of my genre writing from 2011.

Or don’t. It’s up to you.

My mother (80) has been diagnosed with dementia, and is currently in a facility specializing in treating dementia patients. She’d been failing to pay bills even though she had the money, wasn’t taking care of herself physically, and was having problems remembering things. It’s come on by inches over years. I had assumed until recently it was just her getting old, that her mental lapses were just because she’s inactive, unchallenged. My sister came down from Mass and this past Thursday took her to see a social worker, who had her see a nurse, who put her in the facility for evaluation.

I don’t know if she’ll ever be coming home. The first doctor’s evaluation recommended her being placed somewhere where there’s staff trained to deal with someone in her condition. I haven’t talked to her since Friday, though my sister has. I don’t know what I’d say. She called me to beg me to come pick her up and take her home, and of course I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to: she’s a ward of the state. They told us not to visit until after the doctors were done evaluating her because it would make it harder. So I get to feel guilty about that, too.

So I’ve been cleaning… it’s been therapeutic. Certain rooms of the house — the dining room, her upstairs computer room, and her bedroom — had gotten significantly hoarder-ey. I’ve managed to clean the dining and computer rooms. The number of bags of trash and recyclables I’ve taken out already amazed even me. The amount of dust I’ve inhaled in the past 3 days would stop a team of horses. The bedroom is going to be a week-long project. It’s going to be mostly magazines and books and clothes, but I think I’m going to need to rent/buy a new vacuum to deal with the dust. My sister, who has been dealing with the legal/medical stuff while I clean, is going back to Mass Wednesday night for Thanksgiving, she has a job and a toddler and other responsibilities. Coming back in a couple weeks probably. I’ll be alone in the interim.

I’m not going to go into how all this dovetails with my own life situation, which is profoundly bad also, because I really just need not to think about it, in order to stay functioning and do for my mother what needs to be done day-to-day.

Which no doubt contributed to my enviable physique.

That was sarcasm.

So I’d had a cough for three months. Have no idea how I got it or what it really is (having no insurance or money or car I can’t really go to the doctor) but it’s been fairly aggressive. About a month ago I ran out of Dew and couldn’t go to the store for about a week to get more. I switched to iced tea and grape juice and water. The cough started to clear up. When I finally did get some more, the cough came back strong as ever. So the next time I ran out, I didn’t buy any. I was maybe going to, but I let Fishygirl — who was kind enough to take me to the grocery store in spite of having four kids to juggle* — talk me out of it.

And we all know, if I wanted Mountain Dew, I would get Mountain Dew. A can of Dew in my hand is as much a part of my persona as the dixie cup in Brodie’s hand. One of my teachers’ kids used to call me ‘Mountain Dew Man’.

It’s been two weeks or so. This is probably the proximate cause of my sleep weirdness the past week, because to the extent my sleep schedule is regulated, it’s done with caffeine. (I’m an insomniac. I can’t turn off my brain. I tend to fall asleep only when exhausted, and in spite of myself.)

The coughing is gone completely, though. I’m also hoping for some incidental weight loss due to the sudden lack of corn syrup in my diet. We’ll see. I might be a little pissy as my body adjusts, just to warn everyone: when I quit smoking, I got through the chemical part effortlessly, and I felt great for a month — and then felt like crap for a year after that.  That was mostly about weight gain, though.

I need a new vice. Any suggestions? Besides ‘gentleman’s time’, I mean, because I don’t consider that a vice.

*she literally juggles them. It’s impressive, especially because the oldest two are probably taller than her at this point.

“The Appointment”, on the other hand, was written with a specific zine in mind, was submitted to it, and just now I got the email saying they liked it but were passing. So I think I’m going to put that one in the queue to go up on the blog as well, rather than shop it around to different zines. I don’t know why, maybe just because I want to make sure I have enough long-form stories to go in the book (yes, I’m doing a third “Flash”, and yes, I know no one will buy it. I’m doing it for me.)

So far out of five total passes two of them included encouraging language, which is… well, encouraging. I feel really good about writing right now… I feel like I’ve gotten better, and I feel like I’m developing my own style, which is good. I’ve been making a point of fleshing out my own universes (The ‘Forsythe’ sf universe, my zombie apocalypse timeline, the sf ‘Association’ universe, and the fantasy ‘eddur’ universe of the folk and their gods) so that I can use them in more long-form stories. I’ve also been giving a lot of thought to the Mede novel, set in the ‘Forsythe’ universe, about the titular little furry alien on Wanderjahr through a near-future America. Fairly soon I’m going to start outlining. And I’m not going to make the mistake of trying to do it as a NaNoWriMo novel again. I think it’s fairly obvious that a month is not long enough *for me* to write a novel.

Anyway, that’s where I am. Doctor Who is on tonight. Back to working on the Choir & Orchestra mixing project. Feeling a little better about life, even if I may be kidding myself. Maybe kidding myself is the only way to stay on my feet.

*”Parole” will go up today at 2PM.

Is to be free of this onerous obligation that’s run me into the ground. I want to get in a car and drive and not stop until I see a ‘help wanted’ sign in some small middle-American town, like you could way back when. I want new people in my life. I want simple work and a steady paycheck. I never want to play the trombone again. I never want to deal with my family again. I’m tired of my life being ruined by someone who no longer cares about their own. I’m tired of being lied to and about. All I want is a little apartment and a laptop to write on and a job I don’t have to think about or worry over when it’s done for the day.

I have $20 in my pocket and $12 in the bank, and both of my credit cards are about to go overdue. There isn’t any food in the house to speak of. I’ve eaten spaghetti four nights in a row because I had the presence of mind to stock up on spaghetti and sauce the last time I managed to get to the grocery store. Tonight will be spaghetti night five. When I woke up this morning that was what I was worried about and obsessing over.

So I go downstairs and my mother asks, “Have you seen Felix? I can’t find him anywhere.” I go looking, and find him under her bed. Dead. Long enough for rigor to set in but not decayed. A day at most. I get him out of there with plastic gloves and get him into a green plastic bag, and take him outside to rest on the porch temporarily. Then I go back up to the computer to find out if it’s legal to bury a cat in your yard. I find out that it isn’t.

Oscar, the other cat, meets me at the foot of the stairs. He looks confused. I sit down on the floor and call to him but he won’t come. He was always the more friendly of the two, but even he only lets me pet him through the staircase banister, where he knows I would be able to pick him up and carry him off. He won’t let me near him now.

So I don’t go to the basement and find my dad’s old spade, I don’t carry the plastic bag with Felix in it into the backyard, and I definitely don’t spend a half hour digging a a grave under a shade tree. I most certainly don’t place the bag into the grave and fill it in, tramping it down, and marking it with a brick (because all I would have been able to find would have been a brick.) Because that would have been illegal. And then I positively don’t cry.

Tomorrow will be about mixing audio, at least for a while. Maybe some more writing after.

More later.

Does that make any sense?

Do you know the story of the man and the king and the horse?

Nasrudin was caught in the act and sentenced to die. Hauled up before the king, he was asked by the Royal Presence: “Is there any reason at all why I shouldn’t have your head off right now?” To which he replied: “Oh, King, live forever! Know that I, the mullah Nasrudin, am the greatest teacher in your kingdom, and it would surely be a waste to kill such a great teacher. So skilled am I that I could even teach your favorite horse to sing, given a year to work on it.” The king was amused, and said: “Very well then, you move into the stable immediately, and if the horse isn’t singing a year from now, we’ll think of something interesting to do with you.”

As he was returning to his cell to pick up his spare rags, his cellmate remonstrated with him: “Now that was really stupid. You know you can’t teach that horse to sing, no matter how long you try.” Nasrudin’s response: “Not at all. I have a year now that I didn’t have before. And a lot of things can happen in a year. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die.

“And, who knows? Maybe the horse will sing.”

I’ve been waiting for the horse to learn to sing. Maybe for years. There was a bit there where it really seemed like he was clearing his throat, getting ready to break into song, but it all just fizzled out and he went back to idly grazing.

This thing I’m in the middle of all began when I realized the horse was never going to sing, and the King was losing his patience, and the hole was beginning to fill with water. I’ll spare you all the real-life details because they’re just too varied and embarrassing, but suffice it to say that when I came to this realization I just shut down emotionally and physically, locked myself in my cave, went to bed and — apart from a couple things I really couldn’t get out of and got through using caffeine and faking normalcy — didn’t come out for a couple months.

I fully realize that there are people who would react to problems like the ones I have with determination, and that my flaws are magnifying the situation. I’m not sure what I can do about that. Having depression and anxiety aren’t things you can just switch off when you need to. Believe me when I say I wish I could snap my fingers and be a completely different person. That would solve a multitude of problems.

Anyway, I’m going to make this public (unlike the post from a month ago where I tried to explain all this, that I hated and made private) not in hopes of eliciting responses, but just so the people who I’ve disappointed or worried by dropping off the face of the Earth since May can maybe begin to understand what I’ve been going through.

I’m trying, guys. I really am. But the worst part about all of it is that I’m finding it hard to feel anything about anything anymore. Maybe that’s a defense mechanism, I dunno. But there it is. I guess step one is finding a way to care again.

This isn’t a cry for help so much as it is a state-of-the-union. I’m hoping that putting all this down ‘on paper’ will make me feel at least a little better. Some of it you may already know if you’re reading this.

A few months ago I felt great: I had finished a fun show with a great group of musicians. I had done a second book (a selection of stuff from the writing blog) on Createspace and it came out in February. Then I hunkered down and finished my third CD, “This Earth”. I got great album art from an old friend (which he kindly did as a favor.) Because I didn’t have any money to get even 100 printed, I set it up as print-on-demand at Createspace.

Then absolutely nothing happened. I sold exactly one copy of the CD, and I gave away more copies of the book than I sold (and combined it was less than 10). I ended up feeling like I’d been pissing into the wind.

I have to make it clear: the only times I have felt happy in my life, felt like I was doing what I should be doing, was when I was making art. I realize that sentence sounds ridiculous and even pretentious, but nevertheless it’s true. When the CD was finished I really felt like I had accomplished something, like I was leaving my mark on the world the only way (realistically) I will be able to.

When you know you’ve said the most profound artistic statement of which you’re capable, and all you hear in return is the sound of crickets, it’s horrifically dispiriting. I did my best, and not only was it not ‘enough’, it wasn’t even enough to be noticed at all. Why did I bother in the first place? I wish that first CD had never gotten bought by the label: it was just the universe head-faking me.

Add to this the ongoing financial troubles around here. Mine have been month-to-month for some time, but I always seemed to squeak by. My mother, on the other hand, is spiraling downward. How bad the problem is I don’t really know, because my mother either won’t be honest about what’s going on, or doesn’t really grasp it herself. The water has been shut off and turned back on three times, the cable multiple times, even the electricity once. The house was actually in foreclosure at one point and was only saved because my sister bailed (marginally) her out. It may be back in foreclosure now again for all I know. I do know that because she stopped paying the insurance on our only vehicle, again without telling me, the registration has been suspended. I only discovered this by seeing the letters to her from the DMV laying on the table and reading them. I had to explain to her that it meant she couldn’t legally drive it. Twice. I’m not sure she believed me. So now I can’t drive the car. It remains unclear whether this is her being unable to pay the bills or whether she simply forgets to because she’s 80 and her filing system is a row of plastic grocery backs on her bedroom floor. A bedroom that looks about six months from being featured on “Hoarders”.

I stayed in this house to be with my mother after my father died (when I was 22) because she couldn’t be alone. I always figured that she would get better, that she wouldn’t need me and eventually I’d be able to move on like a normal person, but it never happened. If anything she got slowly and steadily worse. My sister, when I can get her attention, seems to think mom’s situation is a far-away annoyance to which she has no responsibility or obligation.

In addition to all this, I have a big project I’m supposed to be working on for a friend, for which I’ve done a lot of work and spent some money out-of-pocket, during which my desktop computer got broken (and is still broken), and for which I have yet to be paid anything. I find myself laying in bed and realizing I should be working on it but I just feel an immense and irrational sense of dread.

To say nothing of my dental problems, about which I will spare you the details except to say that relatively soon I won’t be able to play the trombone anymore. It’s already gotten significantly harder.

I don’t know when amidst all of this I started to break down, it may have been a little at a time. I’ve been depressed before, but I don’t think ever this bad or ever for this long. I go days without getting dressed because I have nowhere to go and no way to get there if I did. I lay in my bed and turn off the ringer on my phone. I stare at Facebook and Twitter. I have no energy or motivation of any kind, probably because I seemingly have no way to apply it that would improve anything for myself or my mother.

I wish I could just walk away from my life, start over, make different decisions with whatever time I have left; of course I can’t.  I feel like I’m already tied to the post and it’s just a matter of waiting for the volley with whatever tiny shred of dignity I have left.