Auntie Dynamite

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September 11, 2003

Volume 34: So Kiss Me In The Moonlight

There are two schools of thought on how to stand under a scalding tap. You can maximize the pressure, to get it over with, and the water as hot as it can possibly get. Or, put it on as low pressure as possible without shutting off, since this (like pouring tea from high above the cup) gives the water time to cool a little. It is still disagreeably hot, and then you have to stand under it longer.

Either way, if you are focused, you can emerge clean and mostly dry already, because the water's so hot, in about four minutes. If you remembered to evict the cat first. If you don't notice the cat until after you start, you're fucked. Because the cat is claustrophobic. THE CAT WANTS OUT. You can't possibly stop to let the cat out or you'll be blanched. Not letting the cat out means a furious 'MOOOOAAAAAWWW!' every five to ten seconds while you are frolicking intently under burning spray. Means the whole enterprise takes six minutes instead of four, because every time the cat protests, the mind flips into some novel way of persuading him to be calm. None of them work, not even the singing.

The cat is perfectly happy now, sitting on a box, staring out my bedroom door, as the plumber tests his shower repairs. I feel like I've been scrubbed all over with a toothbrush. I'm eating an organic nectarine that's hard as an apple. It's all a little novel and nice. Everything lately is a little novel and nice. I have these amazing air filters, previously mentioned, and the longer I have them, the more amazing they seem. Which is part of a trend: about a dozen long-term problems on the cusp of resolving themselves.

It's not as automatic as I might make it sound. I've worked very persistently to get to a point where everything would tie the room together like a rug. Swam upstream with (or against) my doctors for four solid years now -- couldn't've done it without Puddy and Galahad and my mother -- and Gunnar and Pi and Hermes listening to me gripe -- and even you, Demon, yes -- but now --

Yes, I'm still very sick. It's much more manageable though. For the last six weeks especially, between the filters and the steroids and the nervous system regulators, I'm marginally able to eat banned food if I'm careful. Sleeping more consistently. Much more patient and focused. Much lower percentage of stupid useless days. Less trouble with the joints and the sinuses and so on.

The clearer my head gets, the more reevaluation and decision I end up doing, whether I like it or not. The more I want to take chances -- to get on with life -- to be happy. I'm willing to be patient, but the more I get to know what I want, the more I want to just, click, let's see how it is. Right now. Let's get on with it.

Right now, I'm picking music to send to Iraq. My once-fella from Santa Barbara is over in Tikrit, Saddam's birthplace, so I asked, what do you need, books, chocolate, whatever, and he said, send music, he has no time to read. They're pretty well set up otherwise, with the X-box and the VCR and his laptop that plays DVDs. There's no internet access. Also, they're getting shelled from the hills. He nearly got hit by an RPG round. Aside from that, though...

So, building a little package, Brahms, Ella Fitzgerald, DJ Shadow, bunch of soundtracks, etc. I love picking music. I prefer the agonizing Rob Gordon route of assembling a mix, but delivering entire albums (or masses of albums) is gratifying too. I particularly like providing the right music to people that I particularly like. And receiving music. And prefer receiving the agonizing Rob Gordon mix.

Posted by gtaylor at September 11, 2003 11:36 PM

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