Drove back to Columbia. I tell you what: the album Have Moicy! by The Unholy Modal Rounders, Jeffrey Fredericks & The Clamtones, and Michael Hurley is inexhaustible. Hilarious, cosmic, randy, catchy, subversive, sneaky, utterly original, it might just change your life. It changes mine at least a little every time I listen to it.
Had a reunion with Nicole and our feline falanx. I’d been gone for a several days, and I reallllly missed ’em. Unfortunately, we could only catch up for a few hours, because I…
Did an in-patient sleep study. I felt like a kind of inverted Hellraiser. Didn’t sleep that great–I’m a side-sleeper and couldn’t hack back-sleeping more than half the night; the CPap took some getting used to; my tennis elbow flared up–but the technician (known to her peers as “T”) was from Clarksdale and we chatted about hot tamales, Super Chikan and T’s late uncle Razor Blade, and the difference between here and there. She did a great job working with me and getting me over the rough spots. Now? More results to wait on!
A quiet day, but that was good. Mom and I got Sonic cheeseburgers for lunch–my first burger in a long time–and though it and the tater tots were delicious, I can still feel that sucker sitting in my guts.
I continued dawdling my way through the great Charles Portis’ wild satire Masters of Atlantis. One critic called it what Twain would have been doing had he been alive in the latter half of the 20th century, and that’s spot on. I’d also call it “L. Ron Hubbard filtered through The Three Stooges.”
We were visited by Jim and Melissa Hague, who brought us pizza and mini-bundt cakes. Jim talked voluminously about his stock and advisory ventures and we mostly listened (truthfully, I asked him about GameStop and learned much from his answer).
After they left, we watched the Netflix documentary Crip Camp–you should, too. It was my second viewing and I was inspired even more powerfully this time around.
Tomorrow night: sleep study at Boone Hospital.
Streaming for Strivers:
You can hear much Black history in this album’s grooves.
It was a good day, and that’s saying something. It started with a mild disappointment–because Springfield didn’t ship Monett’s hospital enough doses, Mom couldn’t get vaccinated (she is rescheduled for Friday)–but then I drove her to our old hometown of Carthage to visit with some of her best friends (at distance, masked, plus most of them had already been vaccinated). We visited happily for around three hours, and the host, Sunny Michel (my childhood friend Sherri Marney’s mom) laid out a terrific lunch spread for us. I love sitting back and listening to their generation chat, but I actually found some space to talk: I had forgotten that Kay Vaughan once taught at my elementary, Columbian, and actually knew most of my grade school teachers–including a really, really, really bad one who indirectly caused me to become a teacher. I told a few stories none of them had heard….
Mom likes basketball, so we spent the evening watching a ripping good tussle between the Brooklyn Nets and the Los Angeles Clippers.
Streaming for Strivers:
A powerful early American Black (Musical) History lineup to dive into.
For the first month in I’m not sure how long–many, many years–I didn’t buy a single CD, vinyl record, or download. I don’t really feel like I cheated myself; if anything, I didn’t contribute my share to gifted musicians. I’m going to keep going with this resolution. Also, I only bought four books: three digital Virginia Woolfs for a total of five bucks and Brian Coleman’s Check the Technique, Volume 2, which our libraries don’t have and which doesn’t exist in digital form. Self-abnegation is the bomb!
My mom Jane has been due for a break. Her husband died suddenly midsummer and during a pandemic; they’d been married almost 61 years, and had lived together in the same house for 40. In November, she fell when a strong wind caught her umbrella as she went out to get the paper and suffered a rotator cuff tear; the injury worsened to the extent she couldn’t lift either arm more than a foot, couldn’t sleep in a bed (only a chair), and felt such pain she was frequently reduced to tears. Her surgery to repair the tear was scheduled for 6:15 a.m. yesterday, and she was filled with anxiety about its prospects. However, she’d demonstrated as we sat drinking coffee that she could lift both arms, and when I looked surprised, she said she wasn’t feeling pain at all. Then, as she was being prepped for the surgery and the nurse asked her to rate her shoulder pain from zero to 10, she said zero: “I haven’t felt pain in several weeks.” This I didn’t know–and I began quietly freaking out about the procedure: was it necessary? As I was messaging my brother to share my concern, the surgeon arrived, introduced himself, and, after having flipped through Mom’s chart, asked her, “Do we need to do this surgery? I like to operate to relieve pain, not cause it.”
15 minutes later, with the dawn light still not peeking through, we were back at the house, trying to wrap our heads around a new reality of no sling, no extreme pain and meds, no six-week rehab and PT. That break had arrived.
And she got her $600 gummint check in the mail! Note: I’m no fool–I’m grateful and happy for her, but I’m still holding my breath.
Special thanks to my “niece” Madison Dickens for constant health professional wisdom and reinforcement. Bow to your school nurses today for me and my mom if you get a chance.
My day got off to a great start. Nicole and I did some very early shopping for essentials then snagged a half-dozen bagels at Goldie’s with which to finish off our smoked sockeye salmon. I’m tellin’ you, if you’re in Columbia, Missouri, and you love bagels, hit ’em up.
I hit the road late morning to visit my mom, get her to a surgical procedure, and help her during recovery (that procedure was canceled–more on that tomorrow). The day was cold and gray, so I needed serious musical fuel to power me for the three-plus-hour drive. Few rock and roll bands catalyze me like Dead Moon and Wussy. Who are your musical catalysts?
My mom and I watched Netflix’s The Dig (Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan on point, plus the story and camerawork are fascinating) and most of All Creatures Great and Small–Mom’s surgery was scheduled for 6:15 a.m., so we retired early.
Streaming for Strivers:
Black History Month is every month, because it’s everyone’s history. I always celebrate it to the best of my ability, and largely through music. Don’t know J. B. Lenoir? I invite you to click.
I was sitting at the table having coffee when, out of the blue, my friend from childhood, Shawn Baugh, lit up my phone. His first question? “What do you think of this political situation?” These days, such a query via telecom might cause one to have a sudden outage, but we’ve known each other for almost 50 years, so we pitched right in. We would seem to be on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but as our highly enjoyable discussion revealed, we have much in common regarding what we’d like to see fixed. We also laughed a lot about the absurdities of life, found ourselves remembering the world of our youth, and pondered our future road as oldsters. Neither of us are entirely sure we are excited to see what happens during the next 25 years, but this quote from Shawn sums up both our attitudes: “I love life.” He always has! And so have I, and I’m going to pursue measures to sustain that philosophy. That call was a great boost for my day.
Elsewhere, Nicole and I drove to the Columbia Farmers Market and picked up our usual weekend haul from Pasta La Fata, Uprise Bakery, and Happy Hollow Farm. I as usual picked the wrong basketball games to half-watch (Tide v. Sooners, Auburn v. Baylor) and mopped up a basement leak; Nicole made red beans and rice and some stir-fry to go with the smoked sockeye salmon we ordered from Sea Bear–I could almost have eaten the whole filet!
Movie Night: we finally watched Netflix’s adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s Horatio Alger-goes-to-India / Bildungsroman from Hell novel The White Tiger. The director is Rahmin Bahraini, one of our top five faves. Nicole’s side-eye review: “This is intense.”
One of yesterday’s highlights was finishing Hubert Selby, Jr.’s blazing Requiem for a Dream. I almost re-watched the film adaptation, but ended up deeming it a bit too much, so I watched the first special episode of Euphoria instead–which tied right in. One of the best post-COVID productions I’ve seen.
Another was participating in a post and thread started by Alyssa O’Day, whom I taught when she was a 6th grader and when she was a senior. She has always been sharp, spirited, and fearless, and we were discussing the difficulty of convincing some folks (particularly elders) that they’d demonstrably drunk the Kool-Aid (recalling that a former colleague once thought that phrase was an occupational compliment, I must clarify that IT IS NOT). We did not solve that problem, but I thoroughly enjoyed the attempt.
The capper was a FaceTime with our dear friends Kenny and Gwen Wright, of Helena, Alabama. We talked about politics, pets, and pain, as well as sports, sons, and salmon. I wish they lived next door.
Yesterday was somewhat of an art immersion. My mind and body call for one every so often. This episode featured a continued cruise through the oeuvre of Daniel Dumile, better known as MF DOOM (remember: all caps when you spell the man’s name), a master of improbable, poly-internal rhymes and sustained flow in spite of the jaw gymnastics who passed back in October. The man could craft thunking beats and allusive soundscapes as well. I’ve long been a fan–enough to buy a DOOM lunchbox and still be wearing a t-shirt I bought in the ‘oughts (Atlante Guarardo can testify)–and my cruise was stimulating. Also on the artistic menu was Hubert Selby Jr.‘s Requiem for a Dream; the best books can shut down mind-drift even in a burning world, and this one did for 75+ pages. I know I’ll have to revisit the film when I finish it (today), but neither tome nor flick are for the faint of spirit.
I received the data from my recent sleep study in the mail. Any other sleep apneaiacs out there? I drew a 43.2 AHI, and have another study next week.
My mom, who’s 83, reported that she will be getting her first COVID vaccine Tuesday, the day after her shoulder surgery. That’s some terrific news.
Nicole and I dined on #9s with curry and tofu from Bangkok Garden, then finished Season 1 of The Durrells in Corfu. I’m chompin’ at the bit for The White Tiger….
Streaming for Survivors:
He wasn’t totally comfortable performing live, but he had aching hands from breakin’ in mic stands. Hear below.
Nicole and I awakened to snow, beautiful and dangerous like human beings. Dad’s truck did pretty well without being put into four-wheel drive, and the snowfall was a calming backdrop to a few hours of work.
When I returned home, I networked with some former Hickman colleagues regarding the upcoming May scholarship in memoriam to the life and work of the only materially departed George Frissell. We have some very deserving candidates.
Dinner was smoked salmon, fresh spinach, and a baked potato. We read for a couple of hours with a Jimmy Smith soundtrack.
As promised (and it’s not that I am enjoying it or ever want to experience a repeat), here are…
The Ten Best Things About Being Isolated by the Pandemic:
We have been eating far more healthily.
Nicole and I will have been together 31 years in May. We have been in each other’s presence more in the last 313 days than we ever have, under stressful circumstances, and we feel strong. I guess the honeymoon period isn’t over yet.
Oddly, being stranded from work has made me more available to respond in-person to tragedy and need.
The virtual freshman comp class I taught for Stephens College this summer was truly one of my favorite educational experiences and I learned a few skills that will probably increase my professional lifespan.
I have been able to talk to my mom almost every morning since mid-June. I have no love for talking on the phone, but I have enjoyed that, even though we’ve had to talk through hard things.
We have been able to meditate and reflect on our days more consistently than ever.
I’m not sure a new president would have been elected with the last one’s predictably cruel and inept response to the pandemic, and I’m happy that change happened. I should have included January 6 on yesterday’s list, because that’s always going to be tempering my optimism.
Though I complained yesterday about being sucked into whirlpools of self-involved thinking, another perspective is I’ve had the quiet in which to really come to terms with realities about my self, which I think is always in flux but has some stable attributes.
In the category of domestic felines, I have improved my relationships with Goldie, BB, Cleo, Tux, Smoky, and especially Spirit. Junior and I have always seen eye to eye.
This. I have always enjoyed writing, and knocking these out every day has been good for me in many ways. When the project was suggested to me by a friend, I was skeptical and scared–I really didn’t want to do it–but (as with many things) once I got rolling, I truly took to it. Early on, after I’d already begun, the local historical society called for pandemic diaries, and I let them know what I was doing. Maybe one day these will be a primary source for a researcher trying to shed light on these times from a historical distance. In truth, I know I am unaware of much of what they really say; I just hope it’s been valuable.
Yesterday really was a slowwwww news day. Other than sampling The Durrells in Corfu, reading portions of six different books, taking the recycling to the center, and going on a Beefheart binge (yes, I’m an old ‘fheart-heart), I was in a bit of what I think they call stasis. Thus, it’s list time.
The 10 Hardest Things About The Pandemic (So Far–I’m Braced 24-7):
Mourning without proper closure.
Missing friends’ handshakes and embraces.
Having to regularly confront how much I am my job (occasional self-loathing and sadness stemming from the fact that I’m not in a catalytic in-person classroom several days a week).
Trying and failing to sleep seven hours / at least five consecutively. (Bad this week.)
Sitting on my ass far more than I prefer.
Adjusting to an almost totally immutable routine (teaching is hard but always unpredictable).
Falling into a self-involved thought-whirlpool far too often for my liking.
Slipping into cynicism about human beings in general (was it Charles Schulz who quipped that he liked people, it was the human race he couldn’t stand? “You stupid a**h**e / Baby, I’m one, too!” – Angry Samoans) since the great corrector (a public school classroom) isn’t available.
Experiencing moments, even days, when I look at stacks of books and records and have no enthusiasm for plunging in.
Resisting the charms of a well-made martini or a perfectly toxic margarita.
Tomorrow: The 10 BEST (?) Things About the Pandemic.
The Overeem Farewell Tour: Dispatches from the Public School Trenches 