The Fly

Have you ever given yourself a wedgie? I most certainly have. Many times, in fact. Not because I enjoy them. Oh, quite the contrary. But those de rigueur thong underpants (no undie lines girls!), makes it a snap. You transform yourself from human being to Guantanamo Bay torture victim in one painful quick second. Do you know how horrible it feels to be held up totally naked by a string looped between your legs? Well that’s what it feels like. And just having suffered a doozy, please be understanding when I appear to be sticking my fingers up my butt. I’m only trying to remove that string which at that precise moment is slicing through my nether regions. (My butt doesn’t need any squinching or fondling of which I’m aware that would also requiring undergarment adjustment.) Franny’s poor butt just requires the implement of pain removed as quickly as possible.

Oh why can’t I just get the love for those adorable boy briefs? (End of self-induced wedgie problem for all time.) They are awfully cute, n’est pas? Yes they are, and you can’t have them sweetie poo. Because the girls who wear them are young enough to have been birthed by me. I would be pushing the youth thing surreptitiously. Not a good thing when you’re 48.

Now I now understand in a way I had been unable to do as a youth: my mother’s disgust when she saw 50-year-old women in hot pants. There is such a thing as age appropriate or better said, looking like an idiot. (This was the early seventies, the Age of “Who wears short shorts?” and James Brown’s Hot Pants.) I grok it now. I’d rather have the wedgie, because I would know I’m being the asshole (for continuing to tempt the evil thong gods) yet acting my age. I just wish to God that I hadn’t bought into the nonsense that panty lines are an embarrassment to all of humankind and must be eradicated.

My other bugaboo. I rather dislike or hate with a fucking passion when someone (could even be me) steps on my tubing that follows me everywhere like a good little doggie. And it rips the cannula out of my nose. This is not something I can get used to. Frankly can you think of someone who would? Stepping on my life-line isn’t dangerous. (Unless you count a nasty growl from me dangerous.) Getting pulled like around by a nose leash is miserable. It hurts. Not only do I hate it, I also find it terribly humiliating.

Stepping on my tether, my leash. My leash on life. Ugh. (For the godawful pun and for being leashed.) Like on Judge Judy, when she lays into people who don’t leash their dogs. She’d approve of my set-up. I’m on a long lead, but it only allows me a taste of freedom. I can’t leave the apartment by myself. If nothing else, the neighbors don’t have to worry about rabies.

My hearing is better today. Yesterday not so much. It’s a problem when I’m straining to hear my therapist. Or the masseuse. Or Tamar, the best P.T. on the planet. I see stents in my future. (Obviously, the back still cries for love.) The E.N.T. has been convinced. (Blow noisemakers, throw confetti.) Let’s see how much we can take away from Fran before she's locked up in the attic and madder than a hatter. Or better yet, lock me in a cage, like a dog crate. That would work in an apartment. Bingo!

“I can’t take it no more baby…And furthermore, I don’t intend to…” (FYI, Janis, at the fade out of Move Over.) Big words from the ill one- me- though it could easily be Janis, couldn't it? I know it's just bravado. Sometimes I like to think I have some say in any of these matters. (sigh.) Please be patient while I act like a tough guy. It's the closest I'm ever get to actually being one.

Do you remember the original movie The Fly? At the end, the man-fly is sitting on a bush and in a squeaky high-pitched voice calls out, “Help me! Help me!” (Long ago and far away, I used to do a very good imitation of the Fly’s plea, I scared the shit out of my normally tough, cool older brother Doug. This, he could not take.) That man-fly, he was so totally fucked. He knew it too. (He was the brilliant scientist who got himself in this hideous mess.) But he couldn’t help but cry out, even when he knew it was all for nought, “Help meeee!” I’m beginning to feel a kinship with that goddamned man-fly.

Are You Experienced?

I had a horrible day yesterday. I felt completely out of control. (Not being able to keep computer files and panicking when I can’t get a handle on the mess. I have a god-awful short-term memory. Ask me something from five minutes ago. Forget it. I can’t do any of it anymore. And so many other stupid things that I used to find easy.) I sometimes forget how fragile I am. I misinterpreted an email, because of my low feelings of self-esteem I’ve been feeling these days. (Why? Because I can’t do the shit that all you can do. And I never will.)

Okay, I didn’t exactly misinterpret the email. I just read it in such a way that made me feel deficient for not “doing more.” And not appreciating the small joys in life. Hell, if I try to appreciate anything smaller, they’d fucking need a microscope to see the fuck it is. What’s more, I haven’t the foggiest what more I can do. More exercise? More writing? “Touching base” with more people? (Oh, puhleeze.)? Loving my peanut butter and jelly more than I already do? (And I can’t do what you all can do.) But oh, this stuff hurts so much! I feel like I’m hanging on with just the tips of my fingers. No, don’t worry. If I die, it will be a natural death. So chill, s’alright? (s’alright.) Good.

Complete change of subject: I know I’ve come a little late to this game, but I fucking adore Jimi Hendrix. I never was crazy about the stuff the d.j.’s played over and over again. Those songs are still not my favorites. But the tunes I never heard on those three records are remarkable. And there is something so sweet about him that brings out the mother in me. (Somehow, I don’t think that’s what Jimi was going for.) So with three “new” albums to get to know, I’ve got what to listen to. (And I can also relate…the second song on Are You Experienced is Manic Depression. Why the hell do you think he was self-medicating? (and Kurt Cobain…Janis…)

Well, I think I'll go turn myself off,

And go on down

All the way down

Another one of my sweeping statements: most artists suffer from manic depression. They love manic. And when they’re manic, watch them magically create until they crash. They crash hard. Like Jimi. What a perfect song. I’m not manic-depressive, but I’ve recognized two manic periods in my life and shit, were they productive as bloody hell. Both in relation to Since When. The second time preceded my trip to see if could get placed on the lung transplant list. And that month prior, I got more and more wound up. I finished Since When. Rewrote the damned thing front to back. Then off to Pittsburgh to crash like a flaming hot air balloon.

When Chip and I got home, I really wanted to avoid “the big crash” that I expected when the possibility of transplant blew up in my face. (Survival stats beyond low…) So I just continued to write and magically, I didn’t fall to pieces. (The first time was the big one, oooh baby, never to be repeated.) But if you’re manic depressive, your highs are so much higher and your crashes are lower than low and unavoidable. (That’s where my maternal instincts come in. I would just rock that poor baby to sleep and tell him that I love him.)

I must have written about my Duane project. I’m telling you, that baby has kept me out of trouble for at least a year. I am trying to collect every piece of music Duane Allman played as a session musician. (FYI, side one of Layla doesn’t include Duane. He had to have been gone by the time it was recorded. Otherwise, why record any of it without Duane?) He died at only twenty four. God knows what we would have heard from him.

Duane Allman did not suffer from manic depression.