Quiet Days in Cleveland

 The shortest month of the year... for most of my life it was just that, the shortest month, nothing more, and then came the Longest Day and all of that changed, this short month became something else, spilling over into the first week or so of March, it became associated, etched into this story, like a missing puzzle piece, February 13th, 2018 was just the beginning as these days would stretch out and become their own entity, an island of sorts as i began the process of easing my father toward the void that was approaching more quickly than we could have expected. This month always takes me back and sometimes i stop and think about the date, what day it would have been back when i was shuffling between the hospital, the assisted living facility, my dad's apartment and Pittsburgh. This month is the very definition of the melancholy smile, it's something i hold close, dare i say cherish and yet i know how the story ends so it is tinged with a sadness unavoidable. 

As with most things in my life it is related to music.. cleaning out my dad's closet and finding an old cassette tape carrier filled with my old tapes. I can remember laughing when i saw it, an eclectic mix of teenage me... Black Flag, Husker Du, The Clash, Bob Dylan, Bowie, Pink Floyd, Public Enemy, The Pet Shop Boys, The B-52s, Pigface. Now that case sits in the office with an ever expanding vinyl collection and the last remnants of a once massive CD library, accrued through the selling of a certain plant that gave a young Kono the ways and means to be the favorite face of a certain record store. 

It was in the second week of my stay that my dad told me to move into his room. I had been sleeping on the couch like i always did, partly because i felt strange taking over my dad's room, partly so i could fall asleep to the hum of the telly, i think there was something about the flickering light and background noise that helped settle my nerves, that helped me fall asleep. It also stemmed from being in familiar yet strange place. It wasn't like i hadn't stayed in my dad's place before, he worked nights and i'd often roll in after he'd gone to work, drunk and drugged up, i'd sleep until he got home and then we'd usually bullshit and then head to breakfast, walking down the street to the corner where his favorite restaurant was, sometimes in the cold biting wind of Lake Erie, sometimes in the bright morning sunlight that hurt his son's substance addled head. My father worried about me but also recognized that his son was a different animal, his own type of animal and that he seemed to somehow navigate this world just fine. In some ways i think he was quite amused by how i flipped off the conventions of society and did my thing. The man wasn't stupid. He knew his son wasn't the most upstanding citizen. 

So i moved into Pops' room.. but the quiet was disquieting, sure there was the sound of traffic, the noise of his hood, but still i felt unsettled, i felt like that little kid scared of the noises of the night, wondering if there was a monster in the closet, knowing i couldn't call out for my dad, funny when i considered my dad was 5'10 and i was 6'4... and so as i lay there staring at the ceiling and listening to all the scary noises i figured i had to do something if i was to get to sleep and so i did what all us living in the modern age do, i grabbed my phone. Being a technological Luddite i didn't have a ton of music on my phone, somehow i couldn't work out how to get all the shit i'd downloaded to my phone so only certain things showed up and actually played in the old iTunes account. There were two albums that ended up being the go to for sleep, the first being Kill for Love by Chromatics and the second, the one i listened to the most, Saturdays = Youth by M83, a record that was a homage to John Hughes films complete with a cover depicting those 80s kids... who didn't look all that much different from the kids of aught-teens.

Here i was, back in the city i grew up in, near the hipster neighborhood i loved, listening to a record that sounded like something the 17yr old me would have listened to... hindsight being what it is the irony is not lost on me now though it never really crossed my mind then. In a way the music was like a thread tying the story together, that bright eyed kid who loved the Smiths and pined for a girl in combat boots with an asymmetrical haircut, dyed black of course, wearing thrift store clothes and driving a beat-up Ford Pinto with band stickers plastered all over the back. It was my fucking American Dream. It was actually a song from that M83 record that got me started on this post (see below)... as the 50 something delivery boy was sitting in traffic it came on the radio and brought a smile to my face, it reminded me of those days spent in my dad's place, in the same month, thinking about what day it would have been and what i might have been doing... and there was that melancholy grin glimpsed in the rearview mirror... contemplating all the things that had happened between that point and this one, points haphazardly plotted on an ever flowing river of time, points that don't exist to anyone but the one attempting to plot those points... 

and hearing that song... i was back in my dad's place, the stray beams of a streetlight floating in the dark, playing off the wind blowing in from the lake, the sound of a wonky furnace kicking on, the occasional footsteps of the upstairs neighbor, the varying hues of grey that shaded the room as the sun rose, the feel of the carpet on my feet as i strolled out and turned on the television then made toast and coffee, the way my father's apartment got more barren week by week until the last remaining things were a few pieces of furniture and a bed, items to be donated, a week spent with no television or internet, just me and a box of tapes and his old stereo, tuning in the old stations of my youth, it was fucking magic... 

These were quiet days in Cleveland, i could have gone out every night and yet i rarely left the apartment, i worked diligently on my task, i visited my dad, i brought him his favorite pizza, on a few occasions i went down to the local boozer i used to frequent on my visits and would have a pint or two of Guinness, i rarely spoke to anyone other than my father, my sister, my mother, the staff of his new place, i'd talk to the boyos each night, there was a beautiful simplicity to my existence, as if my father was giving me  one more gift.. and of course there were the many long conversations and the time spent with him... not knowing it wouldn't be long until he was gone those 20 odd days are kept like precious gems in a worn leather pouch in my mind... i pull them out from time to time and look at them... a sigh, a smile, a laugh at times, the tears that sometimes well... and then i put them back... getting on with things just like Pops said. 

I miss my father... i miss those conversations, i miss his laugh. Disaster always says he likes when i laugh and though i haven't told him i understand just what he means. There are times when i'm sitting at the dinner table talking to the boyos and the sound of my voice, the words from my mouth, are more my father's than my own. It's interesting what the mind can do, as if he was there... but he's not... yet he is... not only in his son's voice but in the eyes of his grandsons... i keep plotting those points... and each time that shortest month rolls around i plot more... because what else do we have? The other day at the pool i was talking to a guy, the strange thing that happens when one gets into a conversation with a stranger, we tell stories. We talked about our fathers and by the time we were done he looked at me and said something i've heard time and time before, "i wish i had that type of relationship with my dad, you're a lucky guy." I smiled at him and said, "don't i fucking know it." Quiet days in Cleveland. 

The Longest Day - Five Years

 It's interesting the way memory can warp and fade, like looking in a funhouse mirror one never knows what we're going to see, what comes to the forefront and what recedes into the shadows... thinking about this day, five years later, still brings about a flood of feelings and emotions, things i've worked my way through, it brings back memories that seem ripped from some old super 8 film shown in the living room of my family home, the smell of the film, the sound of the projector clicking away as the silent images scroll across the screen.... and what is memory? a lie? a story cleaned and scrubbed to fit our needs? is it truth or myth or both? i don't know... but we all have them and we all deal with and sort them in our own way... 

This year it seems i couldn't stop thinking about the day before this day... the struggling with an illness, dragging myself off the couch that had become and still is my bed, showering and trying to feel better, the bitter cold and sun of these two days that seemingly blend into one. Driving up to Cleveland and listening to the Soft Bulletin by the Flaming Lips and understanding, at least somewhat, how tough the next 24-36 hours was going to be and yet not understanding at all how tough those ensuing hours were going to be. Taking deep breaths to calm my nerves and my stomach as i fought through the last vestiges of an illness picked up from taking care of the boyos. How the cold seemed to help, driving west and chasing the winter sun as it set in a glorious splatter of red and orange and grey and blue. The dark parking lot of the hotel and the ice glistening on the blacktop, a hotel i'd arrive at in darkness and leave in darkness. The fluorescent lights of the gas station next to it, the sound of the early morning traffic drifting in from the freeway, the darkness and wind blowing from the north over that great lake. 

There was the drive to my father's, pulling up to his place and seeing the lamp light from his front room, dragging myself up icy steps, tossing my stuff on a chair, talking with my dad, giving him a hug and then making sure he had all his paperwork, his bag, and then both of us telling each other to be careful on the icy steps, a memory that never fails to make me smile. I am my father's son. Driving through the dark city from West Side to East... talking as we always did... if there are things that come back there is one i thing i didn't acknowledge at the time, it was my father's frailty, not in an overt way but in a way maybe only his son would notice, as if unconsciously i knew that now it was my turn to take care of him just as he had taken care of me so many times before... and to this day i feel the honor and the responsibility he placed on me to be the one to take him, the person to get him checked in and sit with him while we waited, mainly because i was the most like him, i would handle whatever was thrown our way in an easy and matter of fact manner... i am my father's son. 

Five years later... five years later and i spent the day in constant motion, shopping for the bourgeoisie, coming home and taking the I-mac to the doc, doing dishes and laundry, coaching practice with Disaster and my team, coming home to do more dishes and get the trash out, standing in the cold night and gazing at the stars, working out where Canis Major was in the night sky... at one point while i was doing dishes i looked up and caught my reflection in the window, the traces of my father's face in mine, i thought about how tired i was and how five years earlier i was just as tired as i drove my sister home and then headed to my father's apartment, an apartment he'd step foot in exactly one more time. 

It's strange this hindsight, this flipping through the mental photos known as memories, i thought about the next morning, how i got up and drove to the Circle K for some coffee and a donut, still shaking off the last remnants of illness, trying to clear my head of all that had happened in last 24 hours, getting to work on cleaning up my dad's place, driving back and forth to the Cleveland Clinic a few times a day, driving my father's car, seeing my father and his massive incision that was made for his surgery, in a way the Longest Day didn't end when the clock struck midnight and the reality was the clock had struck midnight sometime the afternoon before, when the pager the hospital gave me went off and i knew that the surgery was unsuccessful. 

And yet if there was one thing that still stings from that day it was the fact that i was recovering from an illness due to someone's lack of compassion and empathy, someone who pretended to care when they didn't give a shit... the Breadwinner. The fact she refused to take care of a sick kid knowing that in less than a week my dad was having surgery and had asked me to not only be there but to drive him. The sheer callousness of saying that if i got sick i'd be better by next week, the look on her face as i felt the illness coming on and how distraught i was, not because she cared but because she knew she looked and more correctly was an asshole. I've never actually told her what she took from not only me but from my father, a man who was nothing but great to her, who wanted to spend the night before his surgery sitting in his place and talking to his son as they had done so many times before. For all her talk of the sacrifices she makes it was this act of pure selfishness that still lingers, there have been times when i want to ask her how she'd have felt if the tables where turned, had the day they called and told her to come home as her mom was dying i decided it was too late to drive and that we could leave in the morning, a morning her mother wouldn't see. We'd most likely be divorced. I guess one could say i've forgiven her mainly because it gave me a crystal clear insight into the person she is, yes she'd claim she feels bad and that it was a mistake, that's fine. But that sting? it still pops up from time to time... oddly, i feel it had a lot to do with the way my father left instructions upon his death, that if for some reason something happened to me before he passed that my part of what he left would go directly to my sons, his grandsons. Yet he still never said an unkind word about her, he just knew. 

So five years later the Longest Day has come and gone again. It hit me the other day, why i don't know, that from the day of my dad's surgery to the day he passed was almost exactly three months. Three months and three days to be exact. I'm sure Robert Anton Wilson would have a field day with that, the whole numbers thing. For one of those months i would live in my dad's place, i'd drive over to see him, first in the hospital and then in the assisted living residence, i'd organize and clean his apartment, donate clothes, bring him his favorite pizza... it was a beautiful time, we'd sit in his room and talk just like we always had, we'd discuss the news, the boyos, life, death, we'd laugh at the absurdity of it all, and my father would say those brilliant words... "don't you worry about me son, i'll be dead, take care of the living, take care of my grandsons and tell them i love them, be nice to your mother and sister, they may be crazy but they mean well, i don't worry too much about you boy, you fall out of bed and land on your feet." He gave that familiar chuckle as he said the last bit. 

Five years. The rituals of the living are how we deal with the loss... i still swim laps for my dad, i still talk to his ashes which one day i'll drive to Tennessee and spread over his family's old farm, i still tell him about the boyos, when i catch a traffic light just perfect i'll say "thanks dad" as a joke, as if he's still out there in the cosmos looking out for me... and yet i know my father is gone, the physical part at least, and i also know that he's still here, in his son, in the boyos, we are pieces of a larger puzzle... five years on and the only thing i really know is that i miss the guy, miss talking to him, but i also know that's how it goes, i know i was really fucking lucky to have him as my father, understand that he gave me the blueprint on how to be one to my sons, that neither he nor i are perfect but that we tried and that we loved unconditionally and completely. I was a lucky kid. Five years later and i still whisper to the stars, "thanks dad, i love you." 

-----

The Longest Day was Feb. 13... that first week i returned home on Feb. 16... i left early so i could be home in time to pick the boyos up from school, ages 8 and 11, i missed them during the week and explained to them what i was doing and they understood, understood how close their father was to his and how their father hoped to cultivate the same type of relationship with them... driving east the sun was bright and glistening off the snow, i picked up the I-mac and took him home, his smile upon seeing his dad, his talking all the way home in the car... then i went and picked up Disaster, the big smile when he saw my car, his Seahawks hat on his head, the hug he gave me... it would be on this same street that exactly three months to the day my sister would call and tell me my father fell... i wanted to tell her then, he didn't fall, that he was gone, that i knew he was gone... but i let her go, she handled things differently and when she finally called an hour or so later and told me what i already knew i told her, i know... The Longest Day... it was the beginning of the end and the beginning of the beginning... my world would change but the world is always changing... it was another chapter in this book of living, chapters i'll keep writing until i do not have the faculties to do so... and thanks to the Kid... for planting the idea, about writing about the same day, year after year.. (my dad was about 5'10.. the I-mac is now almost 6'3, Disaster almost 5'11, they'd both be taller than him now... he'd have loved it.)

A Tall Man thinks of his Little Cat

 Sometimes the ideas flood my head and i'm left almost inert trying to figure out how to take all these separate threads and weave them into something coherent... some have floated around for years or months and sometimes it's just days but they are there occupying my thoughts while i scrub the bathtub or sweep the floor, shop for the affluent or elderly, at times they roll like gentle waves, the words just spilling onto the canvas in my head... sometimes.

Which brings us back to a post about a tall man and a small cat. I could be accused of reading too much philosophy but then again what does that even mean? there is a strip of four or five stores that i usually roam when i'm working and they just so happen to be along a stretch where LBK aka Syd and i spent our last day together. I pass the vet where i first took her on that morning to hear those dreaded words, "we see this mass and want to send her to the emergency/ surgery center asap." We were in the front room, the room that looks out onto the street and i can remember Syd climbing on the table, poking her head through the shade to see the outside world, a world she was never all that fond of, she liked her house, her rooms, her human, i remember her sitting on my lap as i scratched her head and told her i hoped everything was gonna be alright and how much i loved her. There are times driving by that place where i realize i'm wiping the tears out of my eyes, almost eight months later and her loss still hits me even though i try to remember the time i had with her. 

There's a band called Strand of Oaks, basically the project of a guy named Tim Showalter and back in 2014 he released and record called Heal. I had heard the single on the radio and it just sorta caught me, good old rock n' roll, and so i sought out a few more tracks and read a couple of interviews about how this record came about. It stemmed from the mess that his marriage was in at the time and it resonated heavily with someone who had intimate knowledge of just that sort of situation. When he toured his band played a tiny little club on the South Side, it was one of those gorgeous August nights, a Tuesday so the South Side, usually teeming with drunken muppets every weekend, was mellow and laid back, i could even park relatively close to the club. At one point i had gone outside to get stoned, hitting the old pen and taking in the weird and wonderful architecture of the building across the street (strange angelic stone statues perched on various corners of the building) when who should come walking up but the man himself, Tim. 

As he walked up i said hey and he was then stopped by a couple of people who told him they were looking forward to the show, the place he was playing maybe held 100 people, maybe 150 if you really crammed them in, a small room. When he was finished he turned and i said can i tell you something, he smiled and said sure man and so i relayed this story to him about my past, about how this album hit me so hard and how it helped me work things out in my head, basically to help heal wounds that had festered for so long and how our stories were so similar it was eerie. What happened next was a 30 minute conversation where we talked about all kinds of shit, life and how to live it in a way, philosophical musings, music, it was a brilliant conversation and he was a fucking really nice guy. As we wrapped it up and i actually apologized for taking up so much of his time he laughed and said what are you talking about? this was fucking awesome man! that was a deep and heavy conversation and i really dug it. Then i laughed gave the dude a hug and said could i get a picture? he replied Fuck Yeah! 

So what does this have to do with my cat? Seems Tim is a cat/animal guy too... and while he was writing songs for his last album his beloved cat Stan passed away. He posted a picture of Stan and himself, Stan being a big old Maine Coon who reminded me of my boy Louie, the cat who passed and led me to Syd. While i've always had multiple cats every relationship is different and certain cats will favor certain people more. Louie, as i like to say, was the first cat who chose me, reaching out as i walked by his cage at the rescue center where i was actually thinking about a different cat, but Louie was persistent, when he got my attention he kept it and i looked at the BW and said, he's the one. And he was. It was after he passed that i got Syd. When Stan died Tim had posted a few things about him and stated there would be a song on his next album about his cat... there was a reason i liked this guy. And so when his record came out i grabbed myself a copy and sat back and listened, the song was called Jimi and Stan, a song about Jimi Hendrix and his cat Stan meeting up in the next world and being friends, some might call it corny but i call it cool... and while i'm not one to believe in this "heaven" thing i do understand the energy goes somewhere and why not comfort oneself thinking that maybe shit like this can happen. The chorus "Jimi and Stan in heaven/ making friends and going to shows/ in my dreams i just hope they're having a blast..."  i've changed the lyrics, substituting Jimi and Stan for Sydney and Pops, and yeah it gets me every time but i fucking love singing it. 

It took me some time before i could be persuaded to get another cat (though we still had three) but when i finally came around to the idea we went to the shelter and once again there was this cat that kept pawing at me. Once again there was another cat that the boyos felt was the one but then some people came in and were interested in her, a little kitten, and i explained that it would be better if two cats went home today rather than one. Besides, this black and brown tabby was telling me to get him out of there and so Fat Paco had a home. Granted he wasn't fat when he got here and it's something we're now working on but he's a lover boy who likes his humans and it seems i'm the one he likes most. Some nights when we're crashed on the couch i call a bed i'll tell him stories about Syd, yes i may be crazy but that's okay with me, i tell him how they would have been friends, how she was sweet like him, how she made me laugh and smile just like he does. He's a a vocal cat and it cracks me up when i say his name as he has a number of different responses and though i still miss my Baby Kitty i tell him how much he helps. 

So now i have a new buddy, a friend just like my girl Syd, who comes trotting in when i call, who hangs out with me and purrs away when the rest of the world is pissed at me or pissing me off, when i'm being dumped on by the BW or dealing with a petulant boyo or boyos, someone who is just happy to see me and is content to lay about and do nothing, someone who may bring me a string or torn up toy mouse for me to toss so they can fetch it and bring it back. Unconditional love is a rare thing. Animals have a great capacity for just that and though some people would argue that's not true those people don't know what the fuck they're talking about. I've even seen the bastard known as the POSA change due to the love of a cat. They bring joy, they bring peace, they don't judge, they just are and though i miss the one's i've lost it was an honor to have been in their lives because they have made mine all the better for it. 

Revisionist History - Podunk Summer pt. 6

 It's been said that i have this strange talent for corrupting the morals, dare i say souls, of others. I tend not to believe this but then again in my youth there was a body of evidence that suggested this was most definitely the case The truth was i never made anyone do anything they didn't want to do, never pressured anyone to take anything they didn't want to take, drink anything they didn't want to drink, as Erich Fromm would say, i was true to myself in behaving the way i wanted to behave and in that behavior i didn't hurt anyone and so i need not worry about what others thought... and i didn't. Granted one could posit that the young women i came in contact with didn't always fare well due to my laissez-faire attitude toward things like monogamy but then again none of us were officially bonded to each other and even if we were no one owns or owes anyone anything. This philosophy of mine has frequently over the years made me the easy scapegoat, the excuse for friends when they've gotten blotto or fucked up and had to deal with parents or significant others, the mantra being, well i was hanging out with Kono... and after that nothing more needs said. All blame is immediately shifted to me and really that was cool, i didn't really fucking care... 

My newest soul to corrupt was that of the young Lars. For a metalhead Lars was the squarest motherfucker i had ever met. Didn't smoke weed or drink, played guitar and video games and Dungeons and Dragons, we had almost nothing in common even though i dug music and had a radio show, played one video game at the time (Sega Genesis NHL) but in reality we were water and oil. He was very concerned with my almost complete lack of work ethic and the fact i spent most of my time devising ways to do as little as possible. Most days started out with me eating my makeshift breakfast and watching the news in one of the television lounges in the dorm we were working in. From there i'd usually find a room where i could sleep for an hour or two before pretending to do some work. We had all summer to do three dorms, all with about eight floors and the fact was we could have finished them all in a couple weeks had we tried... but i wasn't trying. 

Being an accomplished slacker meant that i had already worked out a system. At first i made Lars alert me if someone showed up on the floor we were working on but i soon found that Lars was not the most trustworthy of lads when it came to fucking off or in helping me to fuck off... at least not yet. And so soon i devised a new method, one were i'd set the lock on the door so that it didn't lock but would click loudly as soon as someone touched it thus letting me jump up out of the bed i was lounging in and give the facade of labor. I'd also sleep with a towel bar and screwdriver and set the little work cart a few doors down so that hopefully i'd hear if anyone messed with it and since fixing towel bars, which were convienently located on the back of the door, meant i had to shut said door there were no real red flags that i was slacking the day away. Nothing pleases me more than getting paid to sleep. 

Yet Lars just couldn't relax and enjoy the fact we were left on our own all day with nothing much to do. At first Lars thought he was going to be the boss or some such shit, a notion that i quickly let him no was not going to fucking happen. For some reason he thought having worked there the previous summer or two gave him some kind of seniority. I somewhat politely let him know that natural selection had put that notion to rest and the fact that was he was a little doggie and i was a big doggie. He soon understood he was not my boss or supervisor or anything other than the nerd i worked with and that this summer could go one of two ways... easy and pleasant... or quite shit... and i let it sink in that the quite shit part wasn't going to be as much for me as it was for him. He stood staring at up at me (i was roughly 9 inches taller than him) while this info seeped into his head. 

But i am a crafty bastard and knew that it was better not to alienate my co-worker, in fact what i needed to do was make him understand that he'd been going about this all wrong, that in fact once the system was worked out i had no problem covering for him if he wanted to slack. The seed had been planted now all i had to do was cultivate it, get him to understand we were not about to get in trouble or fired because at the end of the day this was all a show. I explained to him, without any verifiable proof mind you, that the university was most likely subsidized by the state or the feds to run a program like this, it looked good, they were given X amount of money and basically had to spend it by doling it out to the summer help. As long as we kept up appearances and did a minimal amount of work we'd be in the clear. It didn't take long for this seed to take root. In relatively short order, maybe a week or two, Lars was on his way to being an accomplished slacker... problem is when you turn a square on to the world of slacking you have to make sure they don't get carried away and i'll be honest in saying there were times i needed to reign Lars in, which was comical considering the source. 

With my Lars problem looking to be about solved i moved on to the next issue at hand. Which lucky ex-girlfriend would i call next? The main problem was logistical, which of my female friends had the time and means to get up to Podunk? Some of course would probably hang up as soon as they heard my voice, a testament to my ability to alienate women, though some of course would entertain the idea before finally laying out my plan to me, saying something like, "oh let me guess, you're lonely and thinking about how maybe you made a mistake and so i can drive to see you for the weekend so we can have sex and then when i leave you'll do or say something shitty like you always do... you're not as charming as you think you asshole." Then i'd hear the click of the receiver.  Can't say i'd blame them as they'd be pretty much spot on, though i would have probably added, i'm not gonna do that, i'd at least string it out through the summer... as previously stated, a cad. 

And of course who should come to mind? Well when i doubt always go back to the one who called you their "first love." The old high school flame who seemed to harbor the embers of her love in some special place even though i'd proved time and time again that i was a serious fucking shitbag. At times shit is just too easy... and so i picked up the phone and began dialing... (to be cont.)

LBK - Spring 2015 - May 3, 2022

 To hope against hope... to wish with little reason or justification that what you want the most will come true, to believe that somehow magic exists and that things will work out just fine... it started early Tuesday morning, May 3, 2022, when i noticed that my little beauty Sydney was acting awfully strange. I know cats. I'm the fucking crazy cat lady for all intents and when i saw her sitting on the floor i knew that something was wrong and i was hoping that it would be something simple, something easily cured by a shot or a some meds and that my Little Baby Kitty as i called her, would be okay. And so my day started... 

The morning was the usual hustle and bustle to get the boyos out the door, i had set Syd up on the couch bed i call home, a place she would always run and jump on as soon as i got up taking up residence in the warm spot i had left behind, i noticed she didn't seem to be moving as spryly as she normally did but once again i hoped... i hoped she was just a little under it and she'd be fine. Cats can get colds or the flu or even that new virus floating around and so i kept thinking... everything is gonna be alright... and so i got to work calling veterinarians to see who could see her ASAP, found one close by and then got things in order, the whole time stopping to check on my girl, petting her gently and kissing her beautiful little head. 

At the vet things went as the usually do and they took her vitals, did some blood work, took an x-ray.. and it was here that things took a turn. The doc said he could see this mass in her abdomen and that it was concerning, he also stated that her white blood cell counts were way up and that he wanted to send her for an ultrasound as there was only so much he could tell from the x-ray. Hope against hope. When i hear the world "mass" i know it's never a good thing. My first cat Sylvia had one, cancer, and it took her, something documented way back at the beginning of the lounge. Syd and Sylvia looked a lot alike, Sylvia being part Siamese and Sydney being a ragdoll, both blue-eyed and white and grey with bits of black tossed in, my girls. And so i sat and stroked Syd and listened to the doctor and then bundled her back into the carrier for a trip to the emergency vet and surgery center, even the name brings dread. 

And so i drove up I-79, talking to her the whole time, telling her how much i loved her and that hopefully things would be alright and that she'd be okay and that her mama-dada (me) would be with her the whole time, she sat and looked at me and i stuck my fingers through the carrier so i could scratch under her chin and she could rub her face against my hand. At the ER i pulled in and found a spot and called like the sign said, they explained that they'd call when it was time for me to bring her in and so i let her out of her carrier and let her sit on my lap, she crawled up on the dashboard for a bit and sniffed the air coming through the cracked windows and then i put her back on my lap where she sat while i talked to her, scratched behind her ears, kissed her head, petted her from head to her little broken stumpy tail which would wag as she would turn and look at me. If there was one thing on this day that i'm glad i did it was this... her sitting in my lap and happy, we could have been sitting at home and it would have been the same, listening to the sounds of the outside world, things were peaceful... my phone rang i and was told to bring her in. 

Inside i took her out of her carrier and held her, kissed her head and then handed her to the nurse, i couldn't go back with her and it would be a few hours while they ran the tests and did the ultrasound and so they said i could go home and they'd call me and let me know what they found and when i could see her again. I nodded and tried to keep my shit together, something i'd been doing all day by this point, and so i gave her one last kiss and whisker rub and walked to my car as my eyes welled with tears. Then i drove home and waited. 

It was almost time to pick up the boyos when the phone rang, eerily reminding me of the day my father died, i picked up and listened to the doctor, she was a very thorough and calm in explaining what they found but before she even got to it i knew, there was something in her voice that gave it away, not that she meant to but it was there. The mass was a tumor and somehow it had caused a tear in an intestine, my baby had sepsis, she needed emergency surgery that would run somewhere into the five figures just to start but the fact was it dicey at best, a coin flip to survive the surgery, a coin flip to survive recovery as the vet explained that sometimes the surgery goes great and then 48-72 hours later it goes south and they don't make it. They would need to flush her out and hope they got everything and then when that was all said and done she'd have to start chemo and radiation as all signs pointed to the tumor being malignant. I knew the score. I whispered into the phone and asked if she'd ever be a normal cat again, the doc didn't want to say no but she explained the chances where slim, it could buy her some time but most likely time being shuffled back and forth to hospitals and that was if she survived... but i had to make a decision, soon, the fact was she wouldn't make it if nothing was done. I hung up the phone... and fucking lost it. 

There is that saying about if you truly love something you have to let them go... standing in the office, the place where Little Baby Kitty would often trot in, put her front paws on my leg while i sat at the computer before jumping up and sitting in my lap and purring away, i knew what i needed to do. To say i loved Syd would be a massive understatement, she was this man's best friend. When i would come home and say her name she'd come running from wherever she was, her happy little trot, seeing her do it would make the meanest bastard alive smile, she'd follow me around, she'd lay next to me happily purring away, she'd stand there staring at me and chirp when i'd say her name, when things went to shit around here (as they often have lately) i'd go down to my room and she'd hop up next to me and give me that look that everything was fine, the "i love you mama-dada" look and i'd smile and scratch her head. At times she'd climb up and sit her little self right on my chest, she'd look at me and close her eyes and sleep. I could talk to her and she'd roll on her back, back and forth, and chirp and meow with joy, it was our dance, people who would see it would laugh at how happy we both were when we danced, she was my baby girl, her big blue eyes made everyone melt. 

Once everyone was home i told them the situation and then we all got in the car to make that drive. I was going to have to say goodbye. I couldn't let her live like that and the life described by the vet was not something any being should have to go through, to suffer needlessly when the end result is still the same. 

They took us to a room, there were couches and and comfortable chairs, they brought in Syd, and asked who wanted her first, immediately Nick Disaster said dad should take her and i did. She was hooked to an IV that they'd used to give her fluids and pain medication, i held her and kissed her gorgeous little head and then passed her around so that everyone could hold her, i took a lovely picture of Disaster smiling through his tears with her in his lap. Then they gave her back to me and we sat there, i don't know how long it was, all i knew was that it was the last time and it hurt. After i held her and talked to her for a while we pressed the button to call the doctor, when she came in everyone said their last goodbyes and went outside except me. I would stay until the end. 

(i had read an article by a vet who stated the hardest thing about his job was when animals were put down how they often looked for their owners and that 90% of the time the owners didn't stay in the room, he stated how he understood but how it was hard when these animals were looking for the people they loved most, after reading it i swore to never again let one of my cats go without me no matter how hard it was and i knew Syd was going to be the hardest.) 

The vet, a lovely woman who told me how Little Baby Kitty how captured everyone's heart with her sweet disposition, explained the procedure and then told me she'd wait for me to say the word. I scratched her chin and she looked up at me and i told her how much i loved her as the tears streamed down my face, i called her name like i always did and she sat staring at me and then i told the doctor she could start, i explained that before she gave her the medication that would make her sleep before the final shot that i needed a second, she flushed the IV to make sure it worked and then nodded. I leaned in and told my baby how much i loved her, how she was the best friend i'd ever had and how happy i was to be her mama-dada, how she was pure joy and how happy about our time together. Then i leaned in and kissed her head a few times, said i love you Little Baby Kitty, then told the doctor okay. 

Sydney Sweetpea aka Little Baby Kitty passed in my arms on May 3, 2022 sometime after 5pm. I'm heartbroken. As i write this last bit a week later i still struggle, there is no real cure for the heartache and grief other than time. The night is the toughest part of the day, the time when she used to curl up next to me and sleep or stare at me so that i'd rub her head and pat her butt, she'd purr and do a little circle and then plop back down content and happy. There are brief moments when i forget and look for her only to remember she's not here... and i take a deep breath and think of how gorgeous she was, how sweet, i was honored to be her human, to be her mama-dada. I'll miss her unconditional love, her companionship, the pure joy that she was... goodbye girl, you meant more to me than you'll ever know. 

The Longest Day - IV

 The things we remember. The things we forget. Four years later and these things will float in and out of my head from time to time, like sitting on the back deck in the warm sun and watching a butterfly glide by, strange reminders of memories, the polaroids of the mind. Four years later this day sticks with me, i can't shake it, i don't want to shake it, in fact i cherish it, i keep it warm and safe deep in the recesses of this heart because i need it there, need it for reasons unexplainable to anyone other than me, for that novel in my head that is my life, the novel Bob Wilson told us we're all writing all of the time. Maybe the silver lining is i tend to write some of that novel in my head down. Four years... and the things i remember always bring a melancholy smile. 

How is it that what should be the darkest of days can be so bright? Sitting on the edge of a hotel bed, a single faint light cutting through my room's darkness, looking at my feet and taking a deep breath, one of many i'd take that day. It felt like i was the only one awake in the whole hotel and i quietly moved about my room, brushing my teeth, gathering my things, bag over the shoulder, water bottle in hand, the startling brightness of the hotel lobby followed by the icy cold of 4:45am on the shores of Lake Erie. There is a distinct cold to my hometown, a lakeshore Rust Belt cold that becomes familiar to the inhabitants even after they've been away. Walking gingerly through a blacktop parking lot scanning for ice, slipping slightly and freezing in a still sleeping city. 

There was that pre-dawn Rust Belt darkness as i pulled up to my father's place that day, i still smile at the fact we were both telling each other to be careful on the icy steps, our conversation as we drove through a quiet and just awakening city, the wandering around the halls of the just opening Cleveland Clinic, getting my dad checked-in an situated. I remember watching my father slip into sleep as we waited for his surgery to begin, how we clasped hands as they wheeled him out as i told him i'd see him tonight. There was the hallway bench and the brilliant whiteness of the morning as the sun reflected off the snow. And there was that moment, standing and talking to the surgeon as this grown man struggled to hold back his tears. I remember the patient kindness of the nurses as they closed down their section and helped move my dad to recovery later that evening, they had their own families to go home to yet they were gentle and sweet as i bumbled and shuffled through a fog of emotion. 

I remember being too tired to sleep and too hungry to eat. Opening the door to my father's apartment, flipping on the light, then falling onto the couch. Watching the Cavs and wandering around the place like i was lost, this place that was his home, that he let his wayward and wild son crash at when he rolled into town, this place that would be my home for the next month and how that month would be one of the most serene and enjoyable months of my existence even amidst all the dark clouds that hung heavily about. I didn't realize then but it was a final goodbye, not only to my father but to the city where i was born and raised, one last go round before i walked away forever because though my mother still lived there this city and my attachment was most definitely tied to my father. 

And so here i am, four years later, waking up to a cold and icy day, a day where i'll coach my boy Disaster in a basketball game, where i'll talk to the I-mac about emailing coaches and finishing homework, a day where i'll sit and watch the Super Bowl with my youngest son like my father did with me when i was a kid (the older one watching it with his friends as the long goodbye continues), not because we have some particular interest in the outcome but so that we can hang out, spend some time together in the increasingly busy lives of the growing boyos. 

I miss Pops... i tell him that all the time, i tell him he'd be tickled to see his boyos, the I-mac would be four inches taller than him now and his boy Lil Mac (Pops' nickname for Nick Disaster), with his skinny, giraffe like legs would soon be speeding past him too. I know he'd laugh at my tales of the boyos, about the challenges of a certain father of a teenage boy and his foul-mouthed little brother and i'm sure he'd chuckle and say, "damn? that reminds me of someone i knew". There are times when i wish he was around so i could ask his advice but then i remember that he taught me everything i need to know about handling this parent shit and so i just do what he would do, i sit back and think on it, i think about how he might have handled it or better yet did handle it with his rather rambunctious young son and take it from there. 

Four years later and the hurt is gone... if that is possible? I feel honored that my father wanted me to be the one to take him, i still harbor some feelings about not being able to spend that last night at his place (a post for a different time), talking and hanging out like we once did but that has nothing to do with him. He could have had his brother or my big sis take him but he wanted me to do it, it was my job, as his son, to do this and yet it wasn't a job at all. He was most comfortable with me, knew i'd be the most relaxed even in the most un-relaxed of circumstances. We strolled into it knowing the deal and understanding we were putting our money down on a long shot but  sometimes that's just what you gotta do. Hindsight being what it is i understand the Longest Day has taught me about living, about dying, about love, about handling whatever might be thrown at you because in the end we can handle whatever is thrown at us... even death. 

So now it's my job to impart this wisdom or knowledge or whatever one wants to call it to the boyos. That if all goes as planned it will be their job to bury me... hopefully under a small tree near the ocean so it can use the organic part of me to grow... and if they ever feel like talking they can visit that tree or better yet just look around and know that my energy is there... not in the form they knew but still hanging about. They will understand you only go around in this form once and to make the best use of it that you can... run, play, work (maybe just a little) screw, sing, dance, laugh, smile, cry, think and most importantly love. Cuz in the end that's all we got. I love you Pops.... wherever and whatever you are... 

The Mushroom Diaries - vol. 11

 There is a little known fact about these lovely bits of fungus i so enjoy devouring. They are excellent pain relievers, granted the caveat is you might be out of your "mind" for a bit but the relief is there and from what i've read you don't really need to take a huge dose, more a micro-dose, but what's the fun in that? Having spent two of the past three weekends shuffling the I-mac off to various futbol matches in my native state, one in Cincinnati and one in Canton/Akron, between the driving and the standing around in the rain, sitting on freezing cold metal benches, the lack of swimming for the last year due to the pandemic, my back was/has been in right shit shape. Knowing what i know about the lovely experience of back spasms the last fucking thing i felt like doing was going through that again but when you add in the fact that my gig as a modern serf means i drive quite a bit, albeit locally,  i was in a word, fucked. 

Add in the fact that i'm still houseboy and receive little to no help in the domestic department only compounded the fact that i was walking a tightrope between pain and agony. It sure would be swell if the Breadwinner recognized the fact i could use some help when the back goes to shit or even give me a day off from riding in a car, something i still have to do as adult-sitter on her weekday off, but as we know that is not in her plans. As previously documented after being chastised for my back issues i no longer talk about it and do my best to get through it while trying to take care of it the best i can. The boyos actually understand now but it's still a laugh to be busting my ass with a sore back while someone takes a nap or sits at the kitchen table scrolling the Iphone and sucking the e-cig. Luckily Jah has provided me the bread, namely cannabis and psilocybin. 

But enough pissing and moaning, these missives are about joy, the joy of laying on the couch and wandering the universe that is you and me and everything in between. What's lovely about shrooms is that if you keep them cool and dry they last damn near indefinitely. In one of the bags i acquired there was a specimen that was absolutely perfect. To be honest they're all perfect but this one was such a beauty i actually took a photo of it, set it aside in it's own bag and waited for a special occasion to take it. Apparently any random Friday night can be a special occasion and so with the back screaming and a weekend off the soccer circuit i decided it was time to become one with my special friend. 

One may be asking themselves right about now how far gone is this tall and wasted man hiding in his downstairs lair in some suburban enclave who is claiming to be friends with a bit of fungus? My reply would be to smile. You see i respect these plants and their properties because of the wonderful things they can do. As Terence McKenna said, the mushroom speaks to me, and this particular mushroom had told me all along that she would be a fine dance partner when the time came. Usually because of my trouble downing said fungus i grind them up to make them easier to ingest but this perfect little beauty i could not bring myself to grind, i had to eat it, albeit dipped in peanut butter to help mask the taste. So i stood in my little room and gazed adoringly at my friend who would soon be me and me it. Alan Watts was once asked about eating meat and the animals involved in it. Alan of course responded in the way only Alan could be stating while one could debate the facts and merits of carnivores the truth was that animals tended to eat each other and that if this cow or chicken or pig or what have you has given it's life for my sustenance then i should honor it by preparing, cooking, and eating it in the best way possible. Relish it and respect it for you and it are now one. Alan then reminds us that as some point we will be the nourishment for something as well. My hope is that i can be firmly planted under a young fruit or food providing tree where the physical part of me can go back into the universe in any number of ways. Seems about right. Let me feed the plants, birds and animals as they have fed me. 

And so i ate my mushroom, followed by a two pinches of dust. Once again i wasn't sure how much i'd taken but i sat back and waited for the stars to rise... and rise they fucking did. My gorgeous friend did not take long to kick in and when she did she was absolutely glorious in her wisdom and beauty. I was laying on the couch grinning and the only word that really came to mind was Wow! As the mushroom took hold there are times when i take these deep breathes, not consciously mind you they just sort of happen, it's a bit like the universe flowing through you and the whole body is tingling and the mind is doing what it does and the body feels as if every synapse and nerve is vibrating in glorious joy with the universe at large. The best way to understand it is to experience it. It really is an amazing thing. 

In my, i guess you'd call it more serious exploration of the fungus, i've become adept at letting it take me where it wants. Sometimes it takes me into the beautiful nothingness and sometimes it lights up the mind like a carnival midway. It casually strolls and drifts from thought to thought to memory to nothingness before doing it all over again. That was this trip. The mind was at ease and drifted to thoughts of women, of Veronica in particular but others as well came and went, i understand why seeing as that's been at the forefront lately but it wasn't planned and there was no conscious effort to do so. In between there would be those exquisite moments of nothingness which i have come to love so well. When it all becomes clear that so much of this modern world is rubbish and that the only thing that matters is love, for the people, animals, plants that occupy your brief existence. Call it sappy, call it naive, i call it the truth. 

Of course being human can't all be about philosophical musings and there is a definite physical component to these forays. There are times when i'd like nothing more than to be laying naked with a woman while this is all happening, of course i'd be a gentleman and bring her a dose as well, so we could lay there naked and add to an already intense and blissful experience, it's been a long time since i've been tripping and fucking and as one gets older it does seem a bit more difficult to find a partner in this exercise. Yes i'm sure i could join a "dating" site and state that i'm a lover of psychedelics and would like to find a partner who would like to experience/ partake in said activity but i'm not sure what sort of response that would get. I don't know many people my age period who are still into this sort of thing except of course for the lovely humans who periodically stop by the lounge for a visit. But there is always hope as they say. There is karma and dumb luck and cosmic accidents and so i will keep my antenna alert because one never knows when the universe will turn your way and grin... (actual photo of my dance partner.)