#BLOGGING #AMWRITING – ODE TO TAMPA HARTLINE ROUTE #2

courtesy:hartline.org                       

This is the current iteration of the bus, and #2 route. There have been many different bus "stylings" over the years.

It's hard to say goodbye to an old friend. It's even harder when that old friend isn't really a person, or a thing, or a place, but a state of mind, if you can call it that. When I found out that our old Tampa Hartline Bus route #2 on Nebraska Avenue was going completely away, I felt sad. I don't know why, because there will still be the sleek, MetroRapid that courses along Nebraska Avenue briskly. There won't be as many stops and it will all be very efficient and time-saving and money-saving, I suppose, but I am going to miss the wheezing blue bus that was full of God-Knows-What. It just always made my day and I've written about this route in several posts.

Missed the movie “Deliverance”? Never fear. It got on the #2 bus every day around 2:30, after the M.D. 20/20 had run out, and it was time to head back down town to the Salvation Army, where dinner was served at 4:30 pm. There'd be a hootenanny, a hoe-down AND a ho down in the aisle, if the driver just didn't give a shit, which most of them didn't as they were pretty jaded by all of this after years of driving this route.

courtesy:history.com                   

This is NOT who was running up and down the aisle, drunker than a coot screaming he was Apache and Geronimo and had a broken leg. Not even close! 

Last week, “Geronimo” got on the bus. I'm not too sure what this dude's deal was, except that I'm pretty sure the real Geronimo didn't sport Nikes, support hose, a broken leg - which he loudly proclaimed he'd just gotten and walked out of the E. R. with - a Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls jersey, and a porkpie hat, and proceeded to tomahawk his way up and down the aisle during our bus ride loudly proclaiming he was an “Apache and fuckin' Geronimo!” with a whiskey bottle hanging out of his back pocket. He got off at the local Drunk Park, or whatever it's now called. It's the one place I actually cross the street and pass at a stiff trot, brandishing my cane. They usually haul one or two out of there per day. Whether or not they survive is an open question.

Of course, no #2 bus route elegy is complete without “Shoe Sniffer”. This guy really cracked me up, but he pissed off most of the men on the bus. He was into sniffing shoes, but only men's shoes. When Jim was alive, he came home one day, and said, “Get this. I'm on the #2 bus just now and this guy comes up and asks me if he could smell my shoes. And then! Without even waiting for a yes or a no, he gets down and starts smelling my shoes! And then! He acted like he wanted to lick 'em! I told him to get the HELL away from me! Have you ever heard of such a thing?” By the time I stopped laughing and explained what a “shoe fetish” was, he was just aghast. Well, “Shoe Sniffer” was all over the place sniffing shoes on the #2 bus until he finally got arrested. It was such a shame, because it was so damn entertaining on the bus. You'd hear someone yell “GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!” and just know “Shoe Sniffer” had struck again! Of course, to be fair and honest, if he was into sniffing women's panties, he would have been stopped a lot earlier than he was. Still; just sayin'.

     courtesy:hartline.org                 

This is one of the older "stylings"; a sort of rainbow swirl, that supposedly gave people motion sickness, but I think that's just an urban legend, kinda like those zombie poison trumpet plants, I made up a year or so ago for A-to-Z-Challenge! But the Checkers-of-the-Damned is for real!

Today, I thought we were just going to have a “normal” ride; one where there's just the usual din of 85 people yelling into their cell phones. Why bother using a cell to call the D. R., New York, or Nigeria, when you're screaming loud enough to be heard without the aid of one? I was also blessed to not have that random guy sitting next to me, just shouting out incoherently. I've had that and it always ends in a fist-fight; then, blood, tears and regret, but not mine. Keep your nightmares in your head; I have enough of my own, thank you.

But no, today we had this lovely gentleman get on the bus and he had a little posey bouquet of flowers; just so pretty. Everyone on the bus had to comment on the loveliness of the bouquet and the man explained that he had just purchased it, because he felt kinda blah, it was a blah day and he needed a pick-me-up. We all agreed that that would do the trick. It was a really nice moment, and there are nice moments on the bus, as well as the crazy ones. Alas, this nice moment was not to be lingered over.

At the very next stop, an androgynous person gets on the bus and sits on the opposite side from me and my roommate, but one seat ahead. This person then proceeds to take out their cell and with earbuds in, starts to watch what is just a stage on the phone. There are no people on the stage; there is no action or movement that I can discern, at all. However, this person is singing and miming and gyrating all over the place to music that is. . . in his/her head? Music really in the earbuds? Person hallucinating? What? I'm going for hallucinating, because after several minutes of this, the person jumps up and hollers out “WHAT IS THAT?” I, like the moron I can be, jump up and yell “WHAT IS IT?” Patty my roommate, who is actually sitting in the seat in front of me, looks up at me and says sotto voce “it's nothing”. I fold up like cheap kleenex and just laugh for 15 minutes. We're in the front of the bus, so the whole rest of the bus gets a nice treat of “Idiots' Delight”. I look back and the guy with the flowers is laughing his head off. I am such a dolt.

So, yeah, I'm gonna miss this wheezy old bus, although the MetroRapid will travel the same road; Nebraska Avenue, with fewer stops and will have the same idiots on it, it just won't seem the same. Everyone in town knows about #2. The #1 bus which runs parallel down another major artery just doesn't have the same trashiness and weirdness; nor the drivers. Who can forget Mr. “Safety Last”? The dork who couldn't make a 90° right-hand turn, and had to call the Supervisor when we got so rowdy, because I was threatening to tell the TPD he kidnapped us (they were only 50 feet away working a traffic accident and 2 other buses had made that turn) and it was frustrating folks, man! That was fun and Alex had a great time telling me to stop acting like I was 11. Incompetence brings that out in me.

courtesy:hartline.org                    

These are the new green monsters. The seats are hard plastic, with sprayed-on fuzz, or at least, that's what it feels like. They always keep these things at about a jillion degrees below zero too, which is good I guess considering who rides in them. It's also a good way to prevent the spread of colds and viruses during flu season, but I feel like a complete jackass getting on this thing in the summer time with a winter coat, if I'm taking a long trip. But trust me, you'll need it.

Anyway, I wanted to write about the loss of #2. It's been here for forever, I'm guessing, and it might even come back some day. They do change routes and schedules at a whim, but this is a huge overhaul for Hartline. As far as public transportation goes, it's okay; It's not BART or the NY Subway, but it's ours. We'll keep it!

#ROW80 3RD QTR 2013 – POST 1 – RANDOM THINGS AND STUFF

Well, July 1^st is finally here and it's time for #ROW80 to start. I signed up, absolutely clueless and with a sort-of-goal-looking thing rolling around in my head, but I'm not sure I've committed to it yet. It may be a book, or it may be just a series of essays; already written, but fitfully polished. Or not. I am never sure about these things. In my post-homeless lifestyle, one should probably keep one's options open. Situations can become fluid.

So, it's all rather random and ad hoc, but I don't want too much random and ad hocness, or else you, dear reader(s) may lose interest all together and stop reading, or I may do something kooky and wacky and end back up on the street. That just wouldn't do, so I'll try and behave myself. As it is, I'm not really a person who enjoys random very much. I am pretty hard-wired, so much so, that if one little thing is changed, I start forgetting things, losing things, lose a sense of my routine and I then I get upset and start to hyperventilate and my tremors get worse. It all cascades and it's a mess.

When I'm in the “zone” I can still multitask for short periods of time, but much of my psych meds prevent that. I found that out when I had to come off of them for my DaTScan, but then the bipolar was sneaking back and that isn't welcome. But, now I understand why people stop taking their meds. Anyway, that's why I decided to make this first post for #ROW80 a bunch of random observations 'n' stuff, such as this:

Is this not the cutest kitten ever?

Here is a mystery, I've been pondering. Was I going to make a note and lost interest? Did I forget? Decide the topic was just not worth it? Lost interest, or did I just wander off to make a sandwich?

Whatever it was, I saved it...

Here is a sunfish; these guys are like the clowns of the sea. I was deep sea fishing once with my mom. She was her ever-helpful self. I asked her, “Ma, why are they called Sun Fish?” She said, “Because they are full of sun.” Thanks Ma. That's as bad as the time she told me she had seen a Florida panther in the median of US 19. I asked her what color he was, she answered, “Panther colored,” with a straight face. God, I miss her.

Mr. Sunfish; shining his rays of happiness.

This is Jody and Micky. They were waiting outside TGH for Jody's ride, while I was waiting for my ride after my DaTScan. They very obliglingly let me take their pictures. Micky is from Thailand and works for the PT department, and Jody is one of his patients. She is a beautiful girl and I'm afraid my picture does not do her justice. We had a spirited talk about our favorite desserts, while waiting. Micky's picture is a tattoo of his name in Thai. They were both extremely polite and engaging and they both suffer from cerebral palsy. I always meet the most interesting people at TGH.

Sorry about the quality of the pictures; it was too bright, and I am not a good picture-taker. Jody is a beautiful girl and Micky a very handsome young man. They were both delightful!

These are pictures of Mama I took on the porch. They are the best of a lot of pictures taken. She is nearly impossible to shoot with her looking at the camera. Actually, I think it is me. I suck at picture-taking and video-taking. At least, she's not a giant blur.

This is me as ViolaFury on Runescape, with Linus my lion sitting facing me, while some guard and a troll duke it out to a cyber-death...

I'm sure there are people who say, "why do you flaunt your total geekness on the internet like this? Isn't this the equivalent of pulling your pants down in public?" Well, no, it's not, I say. It's more like showing everyone my boring-ass vacation pictures. The only people who will "get" this, are people who know me and other geeks. Everyone else can bite me.

We have new express buses on HARTline. I didn't realize they ran all the way to Neptune, or maybe the Himalayas. You be the judge...

We have new Express buses that have a limited number of stops. They're green and have that "new bus smell." Same passengers, though, so they'll be smelling like armpits in no time.

I do something resembling “work” for SETI@home and work on 3 projects; SETI, Cosmology and SAT. Every once in a while, some other project “borrows” my CPU and I see some different projects. SAT is a Russian project and they finally added a description of what their project is about:

One of my dearest, long-time, back-to-7th grade smart-as-a-whip, Valedictorian friends, Robert Lee Haycock and I laughed over whether a problem is "practically important," or can all be "reduced to a Boolean satisfiability problem." I would go for the latter; he, the former.

Last, but not least in any way, here is Mama's empty cat treat bag. This just cracks me up for some reason, not the least of which is the cat in the Hawaiian shirt, but no pants.

 

Also, the cat looks less than thrilled with his fish-on-a-spear, there. Maybe because he's enisled on a huge treat with a surfboard and once that treat becomes waterlogged and sinks, kitty's gonna be hanging ten in the middle of the ocean. Happy Monday!

#ROW80 SUNDAY CHECK IN - POST 11 – RUNNING TO THE STORE, MCGYVER STYLE

As one of my readers pointed out recently, “I don't know that this qualifies as a check in,” therefore, you can certainly apply much the same to this post if not more. I must be a slow learner. I really try to write 750 words every day. I do, but they're usually comments, remarks to trolls, chat room conversations and I'm pretty sure all of that drivel is not going to add up to a lasting body of work. It's more like graffiti on the internet's bathroom walls, and usually not so polite.

I'm fairly certain this is NOT a contribution to Arts and Letters throughout the Ages.

Not to change the subject, but I hope these yahoos made some money from this post. I certainly didn't. "Playing the Violin, and How to Avoid It," was one of the funnier things I've written.

You can tell the folks at the Algonquin Round Table would have revoked my privileges, had they still been around and if I had ever graced their presence and this were 19__ whatever.

So, today, I had a mini-odyssey. There have been many changes here lately. Some good, some not so. With the death of Kevin, his ALF is finally keeping their residents close to home; it's just a shame someone had to die before they started doing their job. The new laundry is open, so we no longer look like refugees from the Eastern Front in WWII. The have installed a new Express bus line; the Green line and until June the 7^th, customers ride free. I was going to take advantage of this. We get paid tomorrow and our fridge turned up it's toes and died a slow and stinky death, so everything had to go.

We're replacing in stages, but we have to cut corners for a bit. I had a couple of prescriptions due today and I was going to take advantage of the freebie bus. Well, shit. The damn thing doesn't run on weekends, so I walked to the local Sweetbay, which is a mile. I can do this easily, in spite of all this hair-on-fire warnings about COPD, congestive heart failure, PD, blah, blah, blah. I am one strong, and tough ox. Seriously; even with the falling down and blindness. Seriously, I walk fast and easy and I can walk forever; it's probably metabolic or something. My knowledge of physical fitness is abysmal. Unfortunately, my dollar store shoe couldn't keep up, so I had to limp-hop across the HOTTER THAN HELL BLACKTOP.

How do you market this? Here they are in Pumpkin Gulag. They started out in the front of the store, scaring the bejesus out of the customers. I thought we'd wandered into Frankenstein's lab. They were a whopping 6 bucks a piece. They did not sell in time for Halloween. Over time, they kept moving farther and farther back, their prices dropping. First to 3.49 each, then the dollar you see here. They were so forlorn. I felt so sorry for them. Poor pink pumpkins. Jim, the produce guy and he of the shirt-and-tie now, said they just showed up on the truck and it fell to them to market them. People thought they were mutants. They tried to tie them in with "Breast Cancer" somehow, but that flopped. I was never sure if they meant, "these will give you breast cancer, or cure it, or we will donate to breast cancer." They ended up cutting one in half to show people they were "safe." I wonder what the geniuses at central distribution will send them this year.

Jim, the wonderful pink-pumpkin guy is now wearing a shirt and tie and works up front. I can think of no one better. He is an endless supply of enthusiasm and professionalism and one of my favorite go-to people, along with Casey, Paula and the Manager Josh Hamilton, who has known me from day one, when I went to the homeless shelter. Jim's solution, when I entered the store with my broken shoe, was to offer me a riding cart. I just looked at him. He said, “yeah, I didn't think you were going to go for that.” So, I shuffled off to the Pharmacy and got my prescriptions.

Sweetbay has just been bought out by Winn-Dixie, but the people at my store are going to stay. Yay!

I picked up the few other things we needed, and while I was in the line to pay, I had a brainstorm. I saw Jim and Josh and said “Hey, do you guys have any duct tape?” They looked at each other. “For my shoe.” I explained. Jim rustled some up and I took my stuff up to the front of the store and bent over. Here I am with my underpants hanging out, bent over. I stood up. “I am so going to end up on You Tube.” These guys have seen me playing “Air whackamole guitar” in the rice aisle. I was getting' down, lost in the moment, but got that eerie feeling you get when someone is looking at you, but you can't see them (I ignore cameras) and I turned around. This guy was standing behind me, grinning. I said, “Oh, I am so sorry.” He said, “I'm in no hurry. Party on.”

Wrong clan and wrong instrument and wrong number of people, but too cool to pass up. 

So now, I managed to get my foot up on the newspaper stand and wrap duct tape around it a few times and tear it off. “There! Now, I'll be able to get home, without dragging my foot like Igor, Dr. Frankenstein's assistant. Now, Jim you just keep being great.” Jim, ever the comedian, says, “First I have to start being great.” This is seriously the best grocery store, ever. Because the spice aisle is jointly run by the CIA and the KGB and the whole place treats all the bizarros with complete aplomb, I feel right at home. I took the regular bus home, and had to beat feet, to avoid one of the many neighborhood Lotharios. Ick. JC is watching the SyFy "Piranhaconda" movie. I can't miss that.

#ROW 80 POST 2 - HOMELESS CHRONICLES IN TAMPA – HOMELESS CHIC

Me cooking. With paper towels under my arm. What you don't see are the other 40 people trying to cook. The paper towels are mind and if I put them down, all the vultures descend on them. JC took this as he ran through the kitchen. This is one of the less chaotic moments. Note the Farmer John Ensemble.

Every now and then, JC and I will remember some odd thing or another that reminds us of living in the homeless shelter and it's usually amusing. Think of it as high school where everyone rode the short bus, even the popular and bright kids. Most of the students are either in their jammies, some with feeties, but a few of us are in the usual bag-lady or bag-man wear, flannel pants, with saggy knees, shapeless day-glo, colorful and eye-watering t-shirts, with sayings like “Go Carolina Panthers!” or “I Heart Savannah,” none of the sayings have anything to do with Tampa, or anything anyone cares about.

Our feet are generally shod in lovely Crocs in even more eye-watering and raucously hued colors; they're pretty much the pariahs of the shoe world and look, smell and feel like giant pencil erasers on your feet. An added bonus is that they don't “breathe,” so that you can smell with ease, the feet of anyone who bathes once a decade or has hydrophobia. Mine are bright pink. They look atrocious coupled with the aqua track-suit a “friend” (I say that with irony, she is a dear, dear friend) sent to me. Being homeless, I am never one to look a white elephant in the mouth.

Boy Howdy, these are some of the damn ugliest things I've ever seen and worn. They feel like a cross between bubble-gum and erasers and even if you bathe every day, they start to emanate a lovely dirty-feet smell. There was one guy at the shelter who you could smell in the NEXT room in his crocs. Plus, when they get weathered, they just fade and look vague. If you have to look ugly, stand up and be proud! Don't just be ugly-ish.

When I first was placed in the shelter, I showed up with a walker, was clad in 3 hospital gowns, and had 2 garbage bags full of castoffs from the physical therapy center I had been in for the prior 5 weeks. Which is great when you think about it. Shit that even the dotty old bats won't wear. How great can that look? After an arduous 45 minutes spent getting up 3 stairs, I rested for a while and then got settled in.

Of course, I can liken all of this to gaming and game theory, decision trees and all. No one tells you anything and you have no idea of what to do next to get out of this new situation of homeless and become unhomeless. I hear vague references about going to “Homeless Recovery,” and “applying for Disability,” but beyond that, I have not clue one. After about a month of hiding in my room, I finally ventured out and went to Homeless Recovery, to do whatever I was supposed to do; I still didn't know. I only knew I was supposed to be there by 5 am.

I have to go on this here questy-quest. On top of being all fuzzy, I don't have the user's guide or any cheats and don't know what to do. It's called "Homeless Recovery." I hate when that happens. Better get to it!

It was shortly after the New Year. I waited for a bus that never came and then walked about 6 blocks. In the dark. In the cold. In one of the worst neighborhoods in the United States. What was I thinking? I was thinking about how fucking cold it was; I didn't have a coat, just a hospital blanket purloined from the hospital where I'd had a recent 2-month stay. I actually had a whole wardrobe of hospital-related stuff. Those lovely socks with treads front and back, in colors that don't exist in nature. Several hospital gowns, with shapes. Rhomboids, triangles, squares, stars, etc. If there's ever a shape-recognition test, I'm prepared. I have several barf trays and bath buckets. Anyway, I had only taken one blanket with me. I knew I had a long way to go and I wanted to travel light; what the hell was I thinking?

The colors I have are not nearly so tasteful. They're neon, like the Crocs. I used to wear colors that deliberately clashed. No one gave a shit, or else they were too drugged to notice.

I was wearing a pair of jeans that were way too big, so like Daisy Mae Clampett, I had a piece of rope tying two of the belt loops together so the suckers would stay up, around my non-existent hips and ass. I forget what I was wearing on my upper part. Some shapeless t-shirt and many sweatshirts that had seen better eras, probably the Eisenhower years. All topped off with my charming white hospital blanket, swathed like T.E. Lawrence, on my way to the unknown.

Forty-five minutes later, huffing and puffing, having dodged the hobos (“Be Kind, Don't Set Me On Fire,” read one sign propped against a sleeping bundle of rags by the underpass) and the gangstas and hos, who don't get much in the way of penniless, disabled folk; I got more “Bless you, sisters” from them, than I would in any church, I found the fabled Homeless Recovery. It was 19 F by the Bank sign. Fuck me, this is Tampa. I had had to stop and rest several times, only recently learning to walk again.

There were already 8 people ahead of me. I got my number and leaned up against the building and slowly slid over to atilt to one side, all the way to the ground. Alist, like a ship. Timberrrrr! Like a tree. I had just run out of steam. I couldn't help it; I started to giggle, the other 8 people goggled at me, and then they started to laugh. We all laughed. I laughed until the tears flowed. I knew what I looked like. Jesus. On top of my wearing my lovely ensemble, I had lost so much weight, my hair had fallen out and you could see scalp through my short 3 or 4 hairs, I seemingly had left. With my Lawrence of Arabia blanket, Ellie Mae jeans and horrible worn-out sweatshirts, I'm sure I was making the latest fashion statement in Homeless Chic.

After my appointment with my social worker who gave me a list of items and tasks to complete, I shlepped myself back to the homeless shelter. No one ever batted an eye, for the most part at anything people wore or did. One girl went to our annual Gasparilla Festival (where the Pirates take over and sack Tampa, yes, for real) in her pajamas. I can't really say much, since, she gave me a black thing with a waist tie. I wore it all over the place; the supermarket, the doctor's offices, on outings for a couple of months and then someone told me it was a bathrobe. Oops. Oh well, it was warm. I digress.

The infamous #2 Bus on Nebraska Avenue (okay, it's the Lowry Park Zoo; same difference, except the Zoo inhabitants have better manners)

On the day I went to Homeless Recovery, I had one other place to go. I had no ID, so my social worker gave me a referral to go to this place called “The Shoppe,” and I had to take the famous #2 bus, which is probably the most notorious of the HARTline buses. It runs up and down Nebraska Avenue, which is the center of the world of Homeless. You never know what is going to be on the bus, and you can either join in the mayhem or tune out. I always join in. Well, my initiation consisted of me getting to my stop and in my rush to get off, the bus driver stopped me with this: “Hey, lady! You dropped your... er, uh... cape.” Referring to my lovely hospital blanket that was laying in the aisle. No one batted an eye. I had arrived. Just one more routine bizarro, like the guy who plays golf, riding the bus in his cute little togs, with his clubs, with all the 'bangers and the hos. Oh yeah, he lived in my homeless shelter, too, and is still over there and still playing golf and riding the bus. I'm still wondering about him.

#ROW80 1ST QTR POST 6 – ETUDES, SCALES AND EXERCISES

I have to buckle down. Now that I have the mechanical stuff (although I know not how to use it, see below) pretty well in place, I need to quit stalling. I’ve gained enough in physical strength and I believe my mental attitude is pretty solid, for the time being. I just can’t overtax myself (read, if I feel like being lazy, I will, or playing Runescape, I will, or fiddling with my camcorder, I will, etc.)

My first video ever. Sam Elliott is played by JC 

My biggest problem right now is my own laziness or my lack of concentration. One of the things I find myself doing and it drive me nuts is my brain is just all over the place in terms of being able to focus for more than 5 minutes. Take that there sentence. Horrible and I’m not even going to fix it! Live with it, because as soon as I try to type really fast, the tremors start. This is where the typing hate comes in. But I don’t want to be forgotten, because who in the hell is going to read the e-book of a person they forgot about 9 months ago?

I mean, if I’m not doing stupid stuff and in your face every damn day with my idiocies, are you going to want to shell out .99 or 1.99 or 3.99 for a poorly formatted, typo-filled e-book of my mishaps and faux pas from the musical and computer worlds? Are you going to want to read about my many spectacular misadventures in orchestra pits and computer server rooms? How about all of the many happy hours I spent living in the homeless shelter and joy-filled times and philosophical conundrums that challenged us all? Don’t you want to take a gander at those scintillating discussions? Neither do I; actually that was some pretty funny shit.

The point is, without me adhering to some type of schedule, it ain’t gonna happen. The e-book Fairy is not scheduled to trip on by here, anytime soon, so I think I’m going to have to actually sit down here and do something, that actually resembles something like, work. This means going back to the beginning, just as I did as a kid and applying some semblance of discipline, even if it’s just for a short period of time, say ½ hour stretches, but at regular intervals.

Yes, it’s that bad. Anyway, JC is on the mend after performing a half-gainer trying to run to the bus on Wednesday. He’s fine, but the pavement took a beating. The bus actually, HARTline, stayed and waited, while the Tampa Fire-Rescue checked him out and made sure nothing was broken and there was no concussion. He called me as he was ON THE GROUND! I could hear people hollering in the background when he called, so naturally, I ran into the bathroom door-sill trying to get my clothes on. What is that? Synchronicity twice removed? Bravo to Hartline and Tampa Fire-Rescue!

The pavement lost... my poor baby

Anyway, we’re good, but my house looks like hell. I’m trying not to care, but my hard-wired self is a sleeping dragon. Eventually, it will lumber up out of the gloom, sulfurous breath heating up, before singeing my brain and sending me on a tear around the house. Cthulhu will certainly join in the fun. I do have to clean by tomorrow, though. I love my neighbors. We’re having one of our porch parties. The theme is Mexican. Someone mentioned watching the movie, “Simon Bitch;” I’m still laughing.

confuse-a-what 1

confuse-a-what 2

confuse-a-what 3

Directions: Watch all 3 in order; How stupid is this? LOL

Okay, so after “fiddling with my camcorder,” I can see that it’s probably really a great notion that I don’t drive, don’t operate anything with more than 2 moving parts or any type of heavy equipment, do any surgery, or juggle knives, chainsaws or flaming things. The fact that I am still able to play my viola has more to do the fact that I have literally a “mental” map of my bow arm and my left fingers in my head as to how they “frame” themselves with bow, strings and on my fingerboard; (hint: the digits get much closer together the higher the register, and yes, Wolf is unique at 15 7/8” length) this says more about the harmony between my brain and sense of touch and very little about my sense of sight. All you doubting Thomases can just go look at all that fine videography up above if you don’t believe me. All I was trying to do was take a still picture. I wasn't playing Cecil B. Demille, fer cripes sake! My new Jazz DV152 Camcorder is awesome; I'm hilarious.

ROW 80 4th QUARTER POST 7, WEDNESDAY CHECK IN – YOU GOTTA HAVE HART AND NASCAR

This isn’t really where I wanted to be right now. I didn’t want to be explaining that I haven’t written 750 words for 2 days, but that’s fine. It will have to be. My time machine has a broken confabulator. Anyway, Sunday afternoon saw Mary attacked by a fine case of the screaming meemies-mood swing, escorted by a skull-crushing headache and well on her way being carried off to Emotional Valhalla, where calm, hope and happy thoughts go to die horribly. Now is forgotten, or never experienced and strange things occur. I ended up in the ER with one of my headaches; ick.

So, Monday and Tuesday were a complete wash. I can’t even remember it. I know I folded laundry… and did some other stuff. Well, on to Tuesday; yesterday. Oh, yeah, I left my phone in the ER on Sunday, so Tuesday turned into a kind of “Iliad and the Odyssey,” a real two-fer, if there ever was one.

Yesterday, I had to leave the house by 10 A. M. to start my journey to my primary care doctor’s appointment at 12:30 P.M. I actually made it out the door to the bus stop at the exact time. It takes me a while to get ready and I have to be very methodical; cane, dark glasses, 7 tubes of lib balm, 80 cinnamon discs, bus pass, a pen, and my phone. Except I don’t HAVE my phone, because dimbulb left it in the ER waiting room. That’s why I have to act out the “Iliad and the Odyssey,” Redux. I decide to take my brand-new journal for my WIP, per Andie-Roo. Thanks, my dear friend. The journal is a new thing. I’ve avoided this like the plague, but my new friend, Ryan King, a very awesome writer suggested it; I love how he uses his journal. Thanks Ryan.

Since I’ve decided I’m going to try to self-publish some of my derangements in an orderly fashion, I figure a journal is in order, so JC bought me a spiral-bound 5-section, wide-ruled notebook. I have, very professionally, I might add, added post-it labels, “Dads and Moms,” “Weekly” and the ever-popular “Daily.” The first section is just ad-hoc, for the “inspiration.” This is what I have so far: ”Does this pen write consistently,” about 5 million times all over the page. Some of it looks dribbly, some of it skippy. Those pens failed the audition and went to pen heaven. Beneath all of that lies, “Add moms to dad blog,” the immortal “book” and “1 early life,” “2 music,” “3 computers,” “4 homeless.” Since I’m no longer homeless, I have to think up a number 5. I thought of “4 homeless and beyond,” but that just sounds like I went to my death, so I think I’ll think more prosaically. Maybe “4 homeless and then homeful.” Nope.

A must-read for any discerning bibliophile. Well, my journal had a nice ride over the thousands of miles we covered yesterday. I grabbed my “briefcase,” (aka FEDEX mailer) with all my current medical shit in it, a couple packs of crackers for the journey, water bottle and then discovered that I didn’t have 12 hands. So, I dumped all this shit into my back pack and hoisted it up onto my back. I gave JC a kiss and said I’d see him in about April, of 2016.

My doctor walked into the room looking like Shiva Destroyer of Worlds. She is a lovely woman and is from India. She also keeps up on what’s going on with her patients and she is part of the TGH network, where I visited the Neurology specialty clinic last Thursday. She and I put our heads together and came up with this: she has ordered the blood work. We both know there’s nothing wrong with my thyroid. We both know my bipolarity is under control. We both know blah-blah-blah. I am to go back to that Neurology clinic AFTER the blood work results are in; there is another doctor there who is a Movement Disorder Specialist, whom I should see. Good deal there. I go back to see her in a month. Yay.

I felt better and couldn’t wait to resume my trek. I got out to the patient waiting room. I’ve lost another 2 lbs. and am down to an even 100. My pants were falling down and I’m trying to get into my back pack. I feel this breeze, and I realize to my horror, that I’m mooning the waiting room. I hoist up my pants, saying “Shit, now everyone’s going to know that Mary has a crack problem.” There’s a guy standing next to me and he’s trying to “sign” one of those little electronic gizmos. This idiot is trying to “erase” his signature because he fucked it up. He says, “Oh, I made a mistake.” The nurse says, “everyone does it; it’s okay.” I pop up with my “crack” remark and then say, “Hey guy, you aren’t going to be graded on penmanship.” He looks at me and says, “I bet you got U’s in Citizenship all the time, too.” Asshole.

Right now, it’s after 2 P. M. I’ve been gone since 10 A. M. I still have to go south to TGH to the Security Office to get my phone; someone did turn it in when I left it in the ER waiting room on Sunday. I’m at the 30^th Street Clinic which, as the crow flies, is really about 4 miles from where I live. It took me a little over 2 hours to get here. Remember that 1 minute in human life is like 7 bus years. You have to have left the house in 1394 B.C. to get to any appointment on time. Expect to return home in a casket, sometime in the 40^th century.

So, I go out to wait for the bus. TGH has helpfully installed giant blue signs in line of sight between where you might be able to see actual bus activity and comfortably wait in the bus shelter, so of course, I have to stand out in the sun. If I don’t, I know the fucker is going to race by here at 90 miles an hour and never even slow down, so he can keep to his already hopelessly fucked-up schedule. I’ll fix his little blue bus wagon; I lurk out in plain view.

Oh. My. God! That guy is actually here and on time! He slows down and makes the bus kneel! I don’t have to climb Mt. Everest! Yay! I run back to about the 2^nd or 3^rd row. It’s pretty empty, so that’s nice. I sit down in relief; onward to Marion Transit Center to catch a bus to the hospital. “…AND ALL THAT’S HOLY AND GOD AND JESUS CHRIST AND FLEW UP INTO HEAVEN. YES SIR, WELL SHE HAD ALL THAT MONEY AND SHE WAS GOING TO START HER OWN CHURCH AND I TOLD HER SHE WAS WRONG, AND BLAH-BLAH, LA-DE-DA-DE-DA-DE-DA” Ten minutes of this. I’m not hearing another thing. It’s behind me and it’s incessant. I finally kind of half-stand and turn and look back and shout, ‘WHY THE HELL ARE YOU BOTHERING WITH A PHONE?” Silence. I turn and sit. I would never, ever have done that before I got sick. I would have sat there and endured it. No more. As I sit back down, this nice looking young man catches my eye, and he just grins.

So, here we are at the mixing bowl of hysteria that is the Marion Transfer Center, downtown Tampa, Florida. This is the central hub of HARTline, municipal travel. I need to hop off the number 18 and catch the number 19 bus. The hysteria is not from the passengers. No, no, dear hearts. The hysteria comes from the buses themselves, or rather the bus drivers. Coming into and going out of the Marion Transfer Center is the next best thing to the Wheel-O-Death, or a scary carnival ride. I was able to go out to TGH and get my phone safely and get back safely.

Getting in and out of MTC is something else. Buses screech and roar. Bus ass-ends heave into view and out of view so quickly, you’re not sure you didn’t hallucinate them. They perform these ballets of giants better left to whales in oceans. Once begun, you’re certain you are headed for a fiery collision, only to experience a cheery wave and a revving engine. Once we left the center, heading north to home on the famous Nebraska Avenue, number 2 bus, motto: “where every crazy fucker ends up, sooner or later,” we found ourselves at a red light next to the number 19 bus.

I began to fantasize about HARTline Bus NASCAR, which would be so fucking awesome, I almost have a seizure thinking about it. At first, I was thinking we could just paint the buses like they do in real NASCAR, but that was just lame-sauce. What we could do, to spice it up, is have the inhabitants in each area ride the buses. Number 2 would so win, because this is truly Crazy Fucker land. Number 32 might give us a run because that’s Psychiatrist’s Row, but they have a disadvantage; St. Joe’s Hospital. Sick people. Same for number 19. Too many sick people. You still have to have a certain amount of people with canes and blind folks; but that can be sneaky; witness me. Wheelchair people, too. It hurts to get your shin rammed into by someone in a wheelchair. 

So, you have to have some of them on all buses; it'll be in HARTline Bus NASCAR official rules. See, here’s how my NASCAR works. HARTline buses and "riders" drive around the track, like real NASCAR, which would be cool, because these things are tippy. But, here’s the fun part. To score, you have intervals, where the “riders,” who have to live on the bus line, get out and beat the hell out of the other “riders.” Just think of the mayhem. Last rider standing wins. What do you think?