Clump

I have written many things here over the past few months. Haven’t posted it, because it’s all the same, variations on a single theme, and after I write it I just don’t want to be nothing but a whiner. I’ve used these pages to vent, but this is perhaps more real, and certainly more immediate, than most of my snarky little disquisitions. I cannot walk up stairs. Well, one foot, then that same foot, and again. The right. Seems like a problem. I can’t run, can’t jump, can’t twist. Now there’s a pain in my heal, like a bone spur or plantar fasciitis or a deep bruise -- there’s a swelling. Sup the hell with that? Sometimes it takes me four or five seconds to take a step. Clump … clump … clump…. Sunday night it took about a minute to go up two steps. Had to get up the nerve. I have to hold on to things, walls and counters, like an old old man. No more jiu jitsu. Distressing. And so it goes. 

Well isn’t that dire. But it isn’t permanent. I have yet another plan. And perhaps all this will teach me gratitude.

Of course it takes an emotional toll. Have I said that I’m thinking about getting life insurance? Or was that something I didn’t post. Something like this, to a physical guy, can undermine the worldview. Pass or fail, it’s a test. That’s a good thing. I’ve spent most of my life using stubbornness as a replacement for strength. Maybe this will make me stronger.

 I have said -- although I no longer remember what I’ve posted and what I’ve merely written -- that I have good friends, but no close friends. I don’t really have the capacity for it, but I do know that to maintain, nurture friendship you need to make an effort. Social stuff, dinners and entertainments and spending non-structured time together. Like, you have to date your wife. Cuz the mundane can get in the way, and seem like what it’s all about. Cherishing her is what it’s about. Takes effort. I’m not an expert, but I’ve consolidated the painful lessons of my failed marriage, and codified my decades of observation. I’m very wise.

I hatched a scheme for Fathers Day, for a family get-together at my brother’s house, with my son and nephews etc, all to entice my own father out there, you know, so he could meet his grandkids after 20 years. The old man said no, though, so nothing. He despises his daughter-in-law. As he does, I think, all women. Well, I don’t care much for her either, but it’s just a chemistry thing. She’s okay, and good for my brother, and that’s what matters. The old man however wants everything his own way, in his fortress of a house, and I just cannot endure the thought of being trapped there with him again, the dead silence and the delusions and the vitriol. Get out of that place, the castle of doom. Thus, my scheme, which failed. So, no get-together. No matter. I’ll manipulate a Fourth of July thing, and have an invitation extended again. And again, in August, for my birthday. See what I’m willing to sacrifice? All this will be rejected. No matter. Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. To get him out of that house, see? Foolish old psycho. It takes persistence, when dealing with crazy people.

More and more I'm forced to confront what an unforgiving person I am.  It's odd.  That's not what I'm like.  But it is.  It isn't so much holding a grudge, although, petty though that is, I think I do -- it's that when you lose my trust you don't get it back.  Logically I think I'm right.  It's just no way to live.

 There are many things to say, re current events. Oh, it would be good. But I seem to be isolating, and I’m unmotivated to continue as I have been. I have a more serious thing about half done, biblical, the sort of observations I made with poor Eli and the Ark a while back. I like that sort of structured writing, working with source material, building a picture with details. Unmotivated though. Dilatory. We shall see.

 This? This is my effort to stay in touch. I manipulated myself out of my castle of solitude, walking amongst the peasants, that they may admire and be edified. You have been told what it costs me. It hurts to walk. But that’s how I am. All noble and shit.


J