Last day of the year

The last of the scars are several of these on my legs from vein stripping. Most are of em Dash variety. They make little hyphenated cuts and yank out the veins. I know because I was awake for this last one. I was numbed and I watched the guy yank em out. We ended with a little tray of worms that weren't really worms. It was my choice to watch. This procedure has cured open ulcers on my feet that would not heal. I got to stick my poor dogs in a mountain stream on top of Yosemite's north wall this summer and that was definitely worth a few Verdana dashes.

It's New Year's Eve. We're hanging in tonight. Having a big party tomorrow afternoon. A lot of musicians and a few writers are coming to share in a celebration of a new startover or whatever.

Happy New Year!

I know

I know. Its the fucking muse. His..

What The Hell Does This Mean?

This song has haunted my life since 1974. If you listen to it and think about the words, it drives you slightly crazy because it does not follow any logical sequence. You look at the idiot singing it, with the sweated-out white face and the intensity, you realize that he was crazy then too and could probably never explain it. Baez's book about the time makes him look even more crazy. Somehow, this insane song defines my life. We just have to figure out how.

Talos Hole

For those of you old enough to remember Jason & The Argonauts, I have a little plug (quite naturally made of my own flesh) on my right ankle, which when it's pulled acts a lot like the plug on the back of Talos' heel. Its broken open three or four times and the fluid just comes pouring out. The last time was on a backpacking trip and I had to go tell my buddy just in case, but it didn't act up again for the rest of the trip. Vein stripping has cured it twice now. Hopefully it will stay cured. But it looks a lot like a plug. We treat it with respect.

Magic Feet

I have magic feet. I grow things there that don't belong there. This first one of these I had for a very long time. I had no insurance until I got into my thirties and since I hadn't died, I imagined it to be benign. It was. It got to point however that it was hard to find shoes to fit over a large bump. The doc that removed it was going to write it up in journals cause it was so big. It was just a mass of tissue. The next one was a calcium rock. I'm growing a third one as we speak. Needless to say there were a few stitches.

More and More Scars

When we moved into the new house, I remodeled the garage into a studio space for me. I decided I would use the existing rafter beams as a bare rafter ceiling and put up ceiling tile in between them. I sanded down the beams to stain them and inhaled a lot of sawdust and then began coughing and then coughing up blood. So I went to the doctor.It was this idiot of an English doctor who was test happy. So he did X-rays and cat scans and blood tests and found that I had scar tissue on one lung and I had hystoplasmosis. You can only really get it the part of the country I come from or in Louisiana. Its a disease you get from airborne pores from chicken droppings in humid climates.  There are other sources, from caves and such. I could recall being real sick with a horrible cough at ten. You carry the disease with you like herpes. There are seldom any reoccurrances since it acts as a vaccine and your system is already prepared for it. The doctor was ready to send a camera down my throat and I decided it was time for a second opinion. The second doctor told me I had irritated my throat, coughed too hard, and had popped a blood vessel in my throat which caused the bleeding. I was no longer coughing or bleeding by this time, so I decided the second guy was right.

It was useful to find out I have scar tissue in my lung and the reason for it, so that later I can avoid test happy doctors and realize it might be a liability some day- or if I'm ever ready to go out on disability, it might come in handy.

Suicide Scars

Mine doesn't exactly look like this. And it really isn't an attempted suicide scar. My childhood home on Woodlawn Avenue had originally been a grocery store with living quarters in the back. When my parents closed the store, that area was remodeled into a new living room with large display windows left in front that were covered on the inside by curtains. Kinda looked like this:

Except it had a big wooden front porch on it. At twelve, one afternoon right after a summer storm I ran up on the porch and slipped on the wet wood and went flying through the window to the left of the front door. I did have the sense to put my arms up in front of my face. I got the wrist of my left arm and the back of my right. The tendon and artery in my left wrist were quite sliced up. They told me I yelled and neighbors heard me a block away. The lady across the street came running, bandaged me up as best she could, put a sheet in her car and took me to the hospital. My mother was at work. They stitched me up and I had to keep my left arm in a sling with the wrist wrapped with a metal brace so that the tendon could heal.

Years later, my friend in New Orleans, which I talked about earlier here, thought she had found a soul mate because she thought my scar was like hers, self inflicted. Could have been worse.

In today's world, my mother would have been arrested for child neglect and the lady across the street for kidnapping. My grandmother was at home around the corner all day. Children were just sent out or they would just go and not come back until dinner sometimes. I rode my bike all over my town. There were other adults that would look out for you. I was also a very tall 12 year old.