I'm itchy and I don't know where to scratch

I have no doubt the above title, taken from a blues song on a tape one of my uncles gave me, has a very high sexual connotation. But this is Matt we're talking about. Get real.

Surprisingly, I am not referring to the many bites from the f---king mosquito horde that lives around here. I cannot remember getting bit in such odd places before, fingers, thumbs and other places with essentially no blood.

But no, that wasn't it ... unless the damn mosquitoes have figured out a way into my body. My heart or brain have felt all itchy since Friday. I haven't felt like sitting still and writing (It is taking a lot to write this. I have already gone online to find the song, then download a few from iTunes and listen to them.) I haven't really wanted to watch TV either. I want to do something, go somewhere, be with someone or a group.

This is the challenge: figure out how to invite people to do something when I do not have a home really that people could come to and when I do not like to go out because it is so freaking hard to go out. And I am having to fight against my FA and almost 40 years of shyness. Plus, maybe internal mosquitoes.

Of all the bathroom stalls ...

Two people stopped to make sure I was OK when I was waiting for my ride outside the garage. One offered an umbrella because it was spitting drizzle; another actually sort of offered me a ride home. That sure was cool. Why was I outside waiting for my ride?

I left work 10 minutes early to go to the bathroom on the way out. I got there and found some joker in the wheelchair stall. In his defense, there were only five other empty stalls. I actually contemplated saying to Claren, "No, I didn't really have to go to the bathroom." I didn't, though; I just went outside to await my ride.

How to get clean

I spent most of this morning trying to figure out how to get clean without having to get out of my chair or expend any energy.

Calvin once suggested a vacuum cleaner, but I don't think that would do much for the stinky, dirty feeling. It also would not be the answer for removing dead skin cells.

Garrison Keillor recently wrote an essay about being bathed. This had some appeal, but I'd still have to get out of my chair and out of my clothes. Plus, I might kick my bather and she would also be rendered into a quivering pile of jelly by the cut of my jib.

So I went to shower. What could happen, I reasoned.

Famous last words. I fell getting into the shower. Well, no, not really. I do not consider it a fall unless I lose my grip on whatever I am holding. I never did. I just missed the shower chair, wound up on the floor of the shower and had to call upon my herculean reserves to get into place, then spent a few minutes catching my breath.

I may need to take a second look at the vacuum cleaner idea.


P.S. And later, in the same bathroom, I broke the controller off my wheelchair.

Friday night's not all right for crying

I can recall really really crying just three times in my live, not counting sad events like Gram's death. I don't mean getting teary-eyed. I mean weeping and moaning, uncertain the crying would ever stop and not really caring. Not surprisingly, they all were because of Friedreich's ataxia.

Very surprisingly, last night did not become the fourth.

When living in Winston-Salem, N.C., I lost it while on the phone with my oldest sister and once with Mom. That was awful. I kept saying I'm sorry and taking deep breaths to calm down, but the breaths let sobs and wails escape. My sister claims she owes me because I used to talk to her on the phone while she was having a miserable time in grad school. She has more than repaid that debt.

Mom ... I just hope she never tries to collect on me. She bore the brunt of crying spell No. 3. That one, at my condo in Herndon (still for sale by the way), came about as I cursed the concept of fairness.

I am not sure how I held back Friday. I know I was so afraid that if I did start crying I would never stop. I couldn't stop the tears, but I did my best to ignore them and the anguish.

I fell. Not that shocking, but it was. I haven't been falling much lately, but I did this week in the bathroom at work and then Friday night.

And it hurt. I was getting into my chair in the living room from the floor, and I was standing in front of it with my legs bent. I remember thinking, Now just straighten your legs, then it all went to hell. Maybe my legs did straighten, just too fast. Who knows? Before I knew what was happening, I fell against this big old armchair. My head bore the brunt. The left side smacked the arm and the back rammed into the wing. I was just lying on the floor when Mom came in to check on the noise. I knew I was OK, but the insides of my head felt all sloshed around and it was just so damn frustrating.

I told Mom that you think you can get used to FA and deal with it, but you really can't. I can't anyway. I guess that is why I have people I can cry with.

What does Mom know?

Last night as I was going to bed, Mom brought up this cheery thought: Have you given any thought to making a will? (She really did.) She suggested that it would be a good idea to prevent issues with the house my sister's family and I are building.

I guess she has a point, but we're not there yet. Not that it is my fault.

We had our second meeting with the architect, and let me just say: I am in the tank for him. The house he proposed was like a cross and my room were in one the arms. I told him he could start tomorrow. My sister and brother-in-law had some changes in mind, though, so we aren't starting tomorrow. Jerks! (Just kidding.)

I always thought the big issue for my will would be who gets my comic books. I mean the Mego action figures could cause a minor ruckus, but just a minor one. I was content to let these issues sit unsettled because I just didn't know. But now I will have to lay everything out. And I'll have to name heirs and beneficiaries, even though I don't feel 37, let alone near death.

I will have to apologize to my brother for removing him as my 401(k) beneficiary. We were each other's beneficiaries, but then he went and got married. Who knows if I am still his beneficiary?

Who gets my bitterness?