Okay, the Beatles song is playing and I’m between tasks wondering what to do with my life, at least the next ten minutes or so. I like writing. Not sure why. I am far more faithful to blogging than billing for my business, which says a lot, I think. Some folks lose themselves in a novel for hours. Others swim for two hours in a movie. We all have a thing. I write. It’s therapeutic. I enjoy my own company most of the time and the slightly psychedelic fishing trips I some times take on the banks of the Cyber River.
When my future son-in-law suggested that I try to monetize my blog rants, I paused; took it simultaneously as a compliment and a mad statement. “Maybe you could make YouTube videos of your routine when you come home blathering madly and comically. I’m sure folks would watch it, like a cult following kind of thing.” Uh, I like the little privacy I have, and I don’t trust myself to be consistently appropriate. Like the other night over dinner, my daughter asked what I’d like for dessert. I said, “How about an Oxy 80?” due to severe back pain. When my 4 year old granddaughter asked, “Mommy, what’s a Oxy 80?” I got the “I’m so disappointed and annoyed and don’t know what to do with you” look from Grace. “Leah, it’s one of Granpa’s made up words, like Bambooomba.” That word got me uninvited to her next three birthday parties.
“Granpa needs a filter, Honey.”
Hmmm where to fish? Fiction or non fiction or some mashup combo? What sort of fish am I looking for? That would be my imagined audience. Am I writing for folks who know me, or for strangers? Is my message slightly hostile, sarcastic, facetious, inspirational, cautionary, etc.? How heavy should my gear be– tone, vocabulary, rhetorical tricks, figurative language, imagery, etc? What should I use for bait? You know, the lead in, the teaser paragraph, the set up, the pacing that keeps a reader snapping at the purple worm of suggestions? Then there is the wrap up, the gotcha, the laugh line, the smack down. Hopefully that last paragraph nets the fish I sought to snag. Sometimes, okay often, it is an un-nettable non sequitur’s non sequitur, like an eel that slips right through the mental mesh.
So here is a random grouping of oddities in my week. On Tuesday at 7:00 am I got my MRI at the hospital. It was pretty empty at 6:30 when I arrived. After 25 minutes in the tube listening to classic rock that I did not like, to drown out the jack hammer noise of the super magnet, I felt like I was walking through a Star Wars corridor in an out of body experience.
You’re wearing out things that nobody wears Tra tra tra tra tra
You’re calling my name but I gotta make clear Ting ting ting ting ting
I can’t say baby where I’ll be in a year Tra tra tra tra tra ta trup
Said my get up and go must’ve got up and went Spit, spit, spit
Well I got good news, she’s a real good liar Boom, boom, boom
‘Cause the backstage boogie set your pants on fire Bodaboppbop bop, bodyabop
Which collection of noise was worse? I guess it was a tie. Other forgettable songs played, one about blood, in a hospital play list? C’mon. I wandered back to my locker and could not get it open… then I realized that I had the key in my hand. Truly disoriented. Anyway on my way out the empty hallways,
I heard a voice call out “Burrito”. I was at the intersection of two long empty hallways, but I could see the chapel ahead and daylight pouring through the double doors next to it. “Yes, God?” I was ready to genuflect like a good Catholic school boy in the confessional when I turned around to see Bill, a nurse friend from church men’s group. Relieved, sort of, I chatted with him for several spine tingling moments. Whew! that was close.
Onward I drove–> home rather than directly to work, in an attempt to get out of my out of body experience. Strange how a little Vicodin slows you down a step. The day was a bit backwards and mixed up. I went to my endoscopy doctor later for an intake type meeting. They gave me a form that had all the same questions on it that had been asked of me on the phone chat. The receptionist gave me the same list of questions to answer on a different sheet of paper. I gave it back to her completed. An assistant lady took my pulse and blood pressure and asked me some of the same questions. She left me in room 4, assuring me that my nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant would be right in. After 40 minutes of solitary confinement I told the receptionist to reschedule me.
burritospecial 