T minus 9..

Star Date 28092016

Opera. Charlie never ceases to amaze me. More strings in the whistle, today. Nessun Dorma. Took me a while to figure out what the song was, but that is sometimes how Charlie works. He makes me work. Makes me want garlic bread, pasta, red wine…preferably a nice chianti, sans the fava beans (reference Silence of the Lambs…again) To take you mind off the image of Hannibal, listen to this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMl124VvFRg

Alas, egg whites and water are in my near future. Four solid hours of sleep, last night. Amazing I got any at all, really. Last night was scary. Steve E will appreciate this word, as he is fluent in the tongue: Schadenfreude. I tried to get a picture of the folks committing verbal diarrhea at the expense of others…as I am one to talk…but I was laughing. Anyone heard of Poetry Slam…or maybe, it’s Slam Poetry. No matter. It was astoundingly not either word:

(Boston, MA, 08/17/13) 2013 National Poetry Slam finals at Berklee Performance Center.. ( Saturday, August 17, 2013.) Staff Photo by Arthur Pollock

Wow…didn’t know there was a caption to go with this pic, when I pulled it from the intertubes. At least you know I’m not making this up. Next thing you know, they’ll call it a sport, but like other non-real sports, like NASCAR, soccer,…the list goes on. Soccer as seen and played by women…yes… a sport. Just to clarify. Soccer as played by supposed men, not so much. Why? Fair question. Because soccer played by men at a ‘professional’ level is played by drama queens who have athletic ability but all they do is act. They failed and fail at acting, and play at soccer. I digress. Last night is about poetry. Or is it? Perhaps for some it may actually be. For Jess, Red, Karen, and I, it was not. As defined by my unknown friends at Merriam-Webster, poetry is: writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. What we heard last night was the sound of angry kids…and a couple adults…including a midget from Russia, named…appropriately…Vlad. His Engrish was goodly. His poetry was sucky. I am not discounting the real pain that was involved in writing the very short stories these folks presented us. Nor am I knocking the intestinal fortitude it took to present those painful stories to a mass…well….small group of people…at a pizza shack. Sidebar. What kind of place, pizza or otherwise, offers neither a Moscow Mule (especially when one of their own is in attendance), or any…any…none, nil, nada, zero, zilch, bourbon. I would have given anything to just read their words and miss their theatrics. Okay…not quite. I was with framily. Additional sidebar. What is it with restaurants in Pittsburgh that are not open on Tuesdays? And…back to the story. As you can see from the caption under the pic, this is a real thing…a national thing. Amazing. I want to believe it is far better at the national level. Charlie is a realist, and he says there is no way that is possible. We made it through the first round …and left. Oh…almost forgot. One little fella did get up and his was poetry in the form of rap. My ears could not listen fast enough. The sound had rhythm and such…I just couldn’t catch all the words…so he was the winner, in my book. It was painful. I should have had bad dreams. I had none. No bad, no good, no dreams. And, as I awake way too early…yet again, I have no answers. Nine days away from being scalped and bored into, and no answers. How is that?

Shout out to Rob S. Great pic and exactly as I knew you could look. Happy. Thank you for sharing that, Tory. First thing I noted was the button. Most excellent smile. Right up there with Matt M, from last week’s outing to NY. Good sh**. That is what I know my peeps to have hidden in them. Super, top secret happiness. Joy. Pure.

Fast forward. We are rapidly approaching the weekend.

The party is planned. The countdown continues. And yet….wait…drama queen, Calamity Kevin just got a phone call. The Angio CT on my carotid shows a dissection of said carotid. Arteries have layers to them. The easiest…not necessarily best description…is that mine are showing blood between layers, as opposed to where it should be. This can be easily explained…not. Could be from an traumatic injury or a chronic condition. Ironically, today marks six years on the nose as to the last motorcycle accident I was in. That was a decent one. Or perhaps getting hit by a drunk driver 20 years ago that literally sent me down the osteoarthritis path. Maybe still it is one of many other traumatic occurrences from my life as a caucapino ninja. I am one of the very last of my name. A dwindling breed. I am literally extinct as a people with my namesake. How about that for finality? Do not misinterpret my words. I wouldn’t want a man cub over either of my girls. Nobody has it over my girls. I gladly give up the name. I do not have that kind of ego. I do have that kind of pride…in my girls. No one better.

Fast forward. It has been an unpleasant day. I feel every bit of fucked up the ass. The waiting game is not ever something I have been ….even remotely..good at. Loss of control and all that implies. I have been dealing with a single customer for the majority of my day. One of those people who says one thing and does another. Something I cannot stand. Nor tolerate. I have 12 tatts. I have only one in Engrish. It is a quote from John Wayne’s final movie with little Opie Cunningham (reference to SNL and The Shootist). There are only 5 of 162 movies in which John Wayne’s characters died. That is a staggering 3%.

In The Shootist, John Wayne’s character has a creed. That creed is my only tatt in English.

“I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted. I won’t be laid a-hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.”

When I wore a younger man’s clothes, I picked a fight or two. As I got older, I did not pick a fight, nor did I back down from one. Charlie does not get a hall pass because he involved Charlotte Francis, the carotid. My end around is this: There are five states that allow for euthanasia. California, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. I know peeps in 3 of 5. I’m likin my odds. I will not suffer a debilitating CVA…cerebrovascular accident. A stroke. I will gladly swallow a bullet from any number of guns. I will find the strength for that.

Final thought. I can control when and how I die. Yes…I get that God knows this. My decision is my decision and I pay the consequences of that decision. I will not inflict or afflict Jess with me. I will regain control for a moment in time to give the final FU to a tumour or an aneurysm.