#ROW 80 1st QTR – POST 27 – WHY PLAYING CHICKEN WITH A WALLACE IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA

This has been one of the stranger weeks in an already strange life. Odd dreams and what not. The latest odd dream was earlier this week. I was restless and dreaming that JC and I had been kidnapped and taken from our house by some old bat and her young ward. We had been separated, and I was trying to find JC. In the middle of of the night. I awoke to this strange boy in bermuda shorts and t-shirt climbing out of bed from beside me.

I jumped from the bed and was running around our real house, when JC came out of the bathroom. “What on earth are you doing?” I, with hair flying and eyes rolling was wielding a very heavy level that would have beheaded anyone I didn't know. “Don't go in the kitchen! There's a strange boy in there. He jumped out of our bed and ran off in there!” JC had a hell of a time convincing me that the “strange boy” was him. The bathroom is in the general direction of the kitchen. Still, one never knows. Hilarity ensued. The next day. I was not really convinced that he wasn't one of Chthuhlu's buddy's, but “C” as he is affectionately known now, pretty much knocked all that stuff off, when I out-crazied him last March.

Maybe he's hiding in the stove?

I have always had very bad sleep disturbances and they have been much worse of late. Blame it on my good pal, PD, yada yada yada. The primary has canceled me until May. I have a dermatology appointment in April for some suspiciously odd-looking barnacles. I got all of my blood work done, but for the 2^nd time in less than 2 months, I'm coming down with another dose of craptosis. Yay.

Of course, my disposition, never great around people I know and downright bellicose when confronted with total strangers, got one hell of a workout today. I needed to go to the MetroPCS store to purchase a phone. I missed the store and was carried several miles past my destination. I got off the bus on a main thoroughfare, Hillsborough Avenue. 6 lanes of come-drunk Floridians, who are either all bat-shit crazy, or have consumed way more than their ration of raw meat. Aggressive bastards. The speed limit is 50 mph, but they go 70. There are no pedestrian crosswalks and there is construction with the ever-popular yellow cones, barrels and at least one closed lane, with about 12 inches to siphon down from 3 to 2 on both sides of the boulevard, so everybody is pissed off.

I had to somehow get across this river of death to the other side so that I could travel back the way I came. There were some lulls on the east-bound side, and I made that easily to the median, which seemed about 2 feet tall and 2 inches wide. So, I'm balancing on top of this mother, hoping I don't fall into the turn lane. Blindness and some kind of neuromuscular disorder are not going to help me on the Balance Beam. I get a 0 for execution and style. I teeter there, and my arms don't really pinwheel; this is spasmosis at it's best. I kind of lurch back and forth a couple of times. I know I must look drunk. And I'm getting pissed now. Never a good thing.

It was mostly like this, like every construction zone in the world, except worse, 'cause I had to get stuck in it.

Now, for the west-bound traffic. These assholes are undoubtedly the worst. Had I been able to even find a crosswalk, that would have been my option, but no. So, I waited and waited and waited. And they are truly psychotic; dodge 'em cars, spastic lane changes, some kind of pretend NASCAR, swappin' paint, honking, finger-gestures, everything. When I drove, I loved being out here with these assholes. Now, I just want to get across the street without becoming people jam. After what seemed like a 20 minute wait, the traffic thinned somewhat. But there's not a huge hiatus, because the lights are timed to keep this thing running almost like an expressway, so I have to time it right. Bear in mind, the crossing lights are more than a mile apart and I'm midway, so everyone has had time to work up a good head of steam. Hell, you could be driving a Model-T and hit 30 by the time you got to me.

These cars could see me, see my cane and glasses and the 4 or 5 cars that were there were slowing, I had gotten to the middle lane, and there was this one car, a sedan. This bastard SPEEDS up. So, somewhere in my reptilian brain, I channeled Sir William Wallace and all the people who've been blind or been hurt because of these assholes and I stopped. I stopped right in front of this nutsack and as a Matador faces a bull, side on, I pointed my cane at him, like some kind of “Bull Fight of the Damned.”

I hollered out, “That's right bitch, bring it on! How about a nice little stay in prison, along with that giant-ass law suit that you'll lose! Stop! You see this? This will put you in jay-al!” Taunting now. Of course, I didn't mention that it would probably would put me in the morgue; I wasn't thinking that way. I never do.

That dumb fuck stopped 30 feet from me. I never even flinched. I didn't feel relief or scared afterward. I felt vindicated. For Ivan Roberson, for anyone who has ever been hurt by careless and stupid and bad driving. No more. I felt my blood stir, Sir William yelling “Freedom.” as he fights to free his country and his circumstances. Well, not quite like that, but you know what I mean.

I stood there and looked around for a minute; nobody had moved. I finished crossing the street and never looked back. I bet that nutsack is still cussing me out. Fuck him.

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?