dick from africa

Went to the neurologist early this week and endured a barrage of tests. She (Dr. Emily Horowitz - think Dr. Enemy Horrorwitch) had me sit at a computer and click at colored lights. She had me squeeze balls. She poured pennies on a table and timed how long it took me to pick them up. She even donned the rubber gloves and had me do the coughing thing (wtf?). And when it was all over she said I was fine.

I said, what are you talking about? I’ve been playing guitar for over 45 years and now my left hand cannot make the simplest cord. This is something that used to be automatic - beyond conscious thought - something that easily met Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule - and now it’s as if I never held a guitar in my life.

She said, Mr. Too, you had a mini-stroke. A tiny part of your brain was destroyed and can never be recovered yet you can stand here without falling on your face. You’re not drooling and I can easily understand your self-centered protestations when you talk. You’re a very fortunate man. If the outcome of this event had been any different I can assure you that your ability to play a musical instrument would have been one of the first things on the table if bargaining it away were an option. Besides people your age need a hobby. You’ve got crossword puzzles, suduko, or learning how to play guitar all over again - your choice.

WTF!

Hopefully I’ll find something out about my motor coordination problem.

No jokes please.

Hofu ni nywele za hekima
Fear is the hair of wisdom

Willie was back and was as chatty as ever, if not a bit subdued. Turns out her pet bird, Mr. Chirps, had passed away and she was so devastated that she had to take a week off from work to mourn. She spent our whole session relating all the wonderful times she and Mr. Chirps had spent together. She claimed that the bird was paper-trained and hardly ever spent time in a cage and actually got his feelings hurt if he did. Once, a house guest stood with the front door open too long and Mr. Chirps escaped outside. She said all she had to do was whistle and Mr. Chirps right came back.

The thing Willie says she will miss most though is the morning meal they shared every day. Most of the time Willie would have a poached egg with English muffin and Mr. Chirps would have a saucer of seed with toast cut into triangles - no crust. She swears that Mr. Chirps would fly in and stand there by the saucer without touching the food until after she had finished saying the blessing.

Of course, she’s teary and sniffling while she’s telling me all of this, but the really great gobs of sobs didn’t start until she tried to paint for me the deathbed scene: coming home and finding the the precious yellow spot lifeless on the the white pillow on the white bed in the white room - the breeze from the creaky ceiling fan gently rustling the down of his upturned belly.

And I’m thinking this whole time, if she’s this broke up about a bird, how’d she react when she came home and found her husband lying on the floor of their closet with his head replaced by a bowling ball.

Wow!

This whole Anthony Weiner episode is perplexing to me. It goes beyond the always perplexing Western concept of modesty and decorum and hints at a much deeper flaw in the Western, especially American, psyche.

Americans are angry with Weiner not because he lied on TV, not because he cheated on his wife, not because he showed poor judgement and not because he betrayed the trust of his constituents. Americans are angry with Weiner because incidences such as his are a cold reminder of how unspecial of an animal we all really are - something that most Americans dearly want to “dis-remember”.

Marta and I got in a big argument about this. She said, “You are saying dat I am un animal? You are un idiot wit all dis hooey.”

Perhaps I am. But scientist have always been looking for the one thing that separates animals and humans and just can’t quite find it. At one point it was thought that it was the ability to make tools and then we found chimpanzees making tools. Then we thought that it was our ability to process language and then we discovered that dolphins and whales have their own languages.

The indiscretions of our “heroes” are only tragic flaws when we mistake the transient skin of our civilizations for transcendence.

On the plains of the Upper Kalahari, where there is nothing separating meat from claw, all creatures are created equal and embracing your inner animal is the only thing that will help you survive.

Hakuna kitu ambacho si kitu kingine pia
There is no thing that is not also something else

I am the walrus.

coo coo kachoo everybody!

Her body is not so white as
anemony petals nor so smooth—nor
so remote a thing. It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
the field by force; the grass
does not raise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness,
white as can be, with a purple mole
at the center of each flower.
Each flower is a hand’s span
of her whiteness. Wherever
his hand has lain there is
a tiny purple blemish. Each part
is a blossom under his touch
to which the fibres of her being
stem one by one, each to its end,
until the whole field is a
white desire, empty, a single stem,
a cluster, flower by flower,
a pious wish to whiteness gone over—
or nothing.

– William Carlos Williams

I took off my clothes and went for a walk this morning. The sun was not yet up but there was gray light and Marta was still asleep.

It’s been hot in Richmond lately - what Richmonders call “the summer oppression” - and it has settled in early this year. And with this settling has come my unsettling. The way it always comes around this time of year. That’s why the clothes had to go. It was a welcome respite from Marta’s house with it’s artificially cold air, pampered animals, and The Real Desperate Housewives of New York.

It’s quiet in Marta’s neighborhood at that time in the morning. There’s no one around except the man delivering newspapers, zigzaging his way down the street. When he saw me he stopped for a moment, blinked his headlights and zoomed on past.

These are the things I saw on my walk:
a dead chipmunk,
empty energy drink cans,
a half-filled bottle of beer,
a flattened cheeseburger,
a pair of men’s white briefs,
a bouquet of blue plastic flowers,
a baby’s shoe,
geese picking at grubs in the field of the superfund site,
an Egret hunting frogs along the banks of Dead Creek,
ditches overflowing with Queen Anne’s Lace.

Marta was up when I got back. She was angry and said that I couldn’t live with her if I did this again.

I went up to my room and looked out the window at the sun coming up. A police car drove past the house and on down the street. I put on my pants.

Marta is going to the beach with some friends and asked me to join her. I politely declined. I ain’t going to no beach. I hate the damn beach.

Had to go to the regular doctor today -
All these fucking doctors lately -
Dr. Bright Skin Bowtie High Pants Fish Breathe Pimple Neck Penny Loafer Hazel Eyed Snuff Darting Eye Picker -
And he keeps calling me “a man my age”
A man my age.
I’m wondering what he’d look like without his skin.

He tells me I can’t run - I can’t exert myself or I might pop another vessel
That I might not run ever run again run
And I know that if I can’t run ever again run then I die
That that that that’s how the San know it’s time
That when you can’t run again run - you die

But here,
It just happens -
Like fruit dropped to the ground for the bugs and the bees and the blight

And there,
there it’s a gradual reconciliation -
a flower left in a vase to fade in the yellow wash of the sun