Enough already

Andre Dubus has a book out called "Meditations from a movable chair." It is one of the most beautiful, true and scorchingly sad books I have ever read. When I read it, it makes me want to cry and cry and cry and laugh, too, all at once.

My favorite essay is "Liv Ullmann in Spring." He begins with this paragraph:
In my sixth spring after becoming crippled, I learned this: as each season ends, I suffer again the loss of what I used to look forward to in the season that is coming. It took a long time to learn, because these feelings are not caused by images: I do not, as summer ends, imagine hunting in the woods in the fall, then feel sad. Spring may come with snow, and I may be shut in for days because there is ice on the driveway up my hill, and I may know only that. But my body knows that in summer it will not be walking with children on the beach, or running into the surf. For days or weeks, I feel close to crying and I am afraid, as though something real and bad is likely to happen very soon ...

I am in my ninth spring of full-time wheelchair use, my 20th or so of disability, and this is still not something I remember ... until I have been drowning in sadness for days and there is no apparent reason. Then it occurs to me, as it did today, "you think you are longing for summer fun that doesn't involve wheels?"

But this time something real and bad did happen, well several somethings.

In addition to reminding me about summer, Memorial Day also kicked off some bad allergies, which are causing me to sneeze. Every sneeze cuts a deeper hole into my tongue. I probably won't bite through it, but never say never, right?

And I fell today in the bathroom at work and got wedged between the stall wall and the toilet with the big metal toilet paper holder blocking my exit to the front. I was laughing so as not to cry, also because I found funny the thought of someone coming in and seeing my pasty legs under the stall door. When someone did come in, though, it became much less funny, and I got up as fasat as possible.

And finally, I got some really crappy news about my horseback riding.

I just think that if God were cool, he or she would once in a while say, "OK, you know what, enough. Go pick on someone else."

My melancholy brain

As I was leaving work today, I saw this gal who quit like a year and a half ago. We were friends, and I had this urge to run up to her, hug her and tell her how lonely I am feeling these days.

Of course, if I had tried, I would have fallen flat on my face -- I can't run. So I just waited for her to come over and we chatted, although not about how lonely I am.

I sometimes feel that my work friends are just that friends while at work. It doesn't really matter that four years ago I hardly even had any work friends.

It also doesn't matter that I am to blame for this lack of friends: It's not like I have the courage to ask anybody to do anything.

I do, of course, have an excuse or two.

I am in a wheelchair. If I go somewhere with someone, whether to their house or lunch, they will have to do things for me, nothing bad! but like pulling my wheelchair up steps. I guess I am loathe to assume they will not mind doing these things. Don't want to make an "ass" out of "u" and "me," you know.

UPDATE: You know how when he was introducing a guest on the Muppet Show, Kermit the Frog would flail his arms about madly? I wanted to do that today when I saw the coffee maker in the break room. It is new and the nozzle is actually reachable for those of us who don't stand. YYYEEEAAAHHH!!!!!!

Trust the hands

I climbed two of my Everests today. Or at least a couple of K2s.

First, I went for a bike ride. Officially, it is a trike. But either way it is hard as heck. It is really hard because I ride at my folks and going away from them is a nice modest downhill that I can ride forever just about. But then I have to come back, and that nice modest downhill becomes steeper than Everest. I could use some oxygen, too.

You know it is bad when cars stop and the driver leans out the window and asks if you are OK. I just said yeah and kept plugging away. My ankles bend too freely. I really can't keep them straight, so that hurts my pedaling, too.

But I survived and it was time for K2-2 -- my shower.

I have written about it before and called it my Everest. I think I was a little off-base. It is really my dad's Everest.

It is really hard for me to take a shower at my folks' because it is upstairs, but if there is one body part I trust, it is my fingers and hands. Not to be arrogant, but I have Kung-Fu grip -- no denying it. And the GI Joe kind, not any other kind that Google may retrieve. I know that while I may bang my head or hurt my calf or grunt like a maniac, I am not falling.

My dad does not trust my Kung-Fu grip or any other part of me. So he worries about me doing anything but especially the shower, and he helps, which makes things easier for me. I worry, though, that it makes things too hard for him, or at least harder than they need to be.

What a pisser

I try to go to bed after my shows end at 10. So why am I here writing after 11. Maybe it is because I just got out of the shower and am too awake. Why did I take a shower after watching Veronica Mars? No, it was not a cold shower thing. Instead, it is a tale of tea, pee and me.

I had a cup of tea as I watched the series finale (very disappointing that it is over). As I watched, I got on the floor to brush Claren, and when it ended I got up or tried to to go to bed.

My bladder must have vertigo because my getting up sets off alarm bells. This time was more urgent than normal, made worse by failure to get back in the chair the first try.

Well, that tea had to come out and once it did I couldn't stop it. I was going as fast as I could to the bathroom and got there without gashing up any walls with my chair (no small feat), but it seemed kind of pointless to let the last little bit go in the toilet.

Then I had to strip. I sat on my towel because my wheelchair cushion was wet. That made no sense. I was dirty, the cushion was dirty, what the hell? But that was what I did.

I needed to put my wet clothes in the wash, and being in a chair, you can't really hold something at arm's length. So the nasty clothes sat on my lap.

All that explains why I showered. But it wasn't over. Because I had used my towel, I had no clean towel within reach and had to dry myself off with a washcloth.

Continence problems are one of the many possible problems with FA. Let me be very clear here: It fucking pisses me off. HA

Pushy Matt gets buckled down

My driver today forgot to put the straps on the front of my wheelchair. This time, though, I said something. And this time I didn't flip in my chair. And even more remarkably, the driver was not offended.