This is Therapy

As long as I am not a threat. It is hard to be over emotional and yet it isn't if you count anger and rounding up a little today only because I recieved support from a friend and my dear mother who really has done enough for me. It's a new learning curve. I recieved rejection/suspension letters from the county and I have a new social worker. They mailed it to an apartment down the hall who were nice enough to slide them unopened under the door. I hate hearing how my SO hate the sole job. Though I do support and coaching for them. It's the feeling I am stuck here dukkaThe brain monkey not monk needs sensation and driven by fear or hunger or both. Sensuality. Jazz swing. I have the elements and I get there once in a while. Honey it dont' pay the rent. There must be better ways to get a little dough. It's hard enough with nothing to do. Give me something to do. Water on the seeds planted when hope had diminished. Getting better if I try I might get through.
The microfauna still pull for me even as I stop they are down there. Keep moving. Keep blowing. try a dream .

Nihilism

It's still not funny though I wish i could laugh. Gaia is dying. Inside of me and inside of you. I appreciate your offer of refuge but I have run long enough. It would just exchange one roof for another. The guy on the bench where I wanted to sit until I saw he was sleeping off something awful. His body shaking with withdrawals and the evening's coldness. Hey at least I don't have a heroin jones. Is this gratitude? No it's hypocrisy. I haven't fallen to the street. No one wants me to end up there yet it is the next step on the way out if I have no courage then I stall. Is it to wait for patience? Or just because i am a coward too scared to fight for myself or do i have enough faith in myself to get over all this humilation and torture. It would be easier to be sick or to have pain i could take an analgesic. The shrink and the DRs all want me back on brain meds. I think I am just fine considering everything. If i could just unconsider everything> i guess that is what the meds are for. I did that for a long time. Those years are gone now because I didn't feel a thing(pain or joy)as they went by. It's(antidepressants) my "insulin" for low brain function or is it? Reality bites unless you get the right transmitters. I am out of those and slowly running out of time and patience.

On the Edge Again

Whew! I made it through the week. I get to play music for drunks and such tonight. This is what I live for, at least it is what I believe I live for. I am no fun in the morning in general and especially on Saturday. My reputation as an AM asshole is well established. I "slept in" until 9:45 and got up to find the step-child had no breakfast nor did the old lady with blood sugar issues(same as me maybe because she is a bear in the morning and I am not talking hairy man) I guess it is my job to make sure everyone has food at a regular time since I have no "job" nor McJob to go to, I am a "no go to" guy.
A reminder to my own ego
I do have experience and some small bits of wisdom but it is not any special type of wisdom or experience to savor or to preserve. To some, my floudering around for 30 years as a sideman may seem to have some romantic value. Why am I writing a blog instead of new songs for the world to sing? I guess this exercise in self expression aka rant/blog is my way of finding a slight bit of meaning here on earth with this body that carries me about the world.
Yes I should be grateful. Gratitude is a wonderful way of grounding and mellowing my doshas. Unfortunately, I am suffering from IMS (Irritable Male Syndrome) and any small event is taken as threat to my masculine identity and since I have lost my job and status of a 6 1/2 year residency at the restaurant there is little really holding me here. At least this is how I feel on days/weeks like this. I know I am needed to help with the "family". Only the "family" is not my family. I guess the pain is in not being real or genuine just acting and going through the motions.I don't smile or laugh anymore(once a week really doesn't indicate an end to my clinical depression)How can I when I am such a hypocrite. My schooling and training has shown me how to live. I have these days of desirous craving not for material things like money and comfortable peace but for annihilation I crave the nothingness/emptiness of death because the temporary escapes/daily numbness do not help enough to give me hope or optimism. I wish I could muster the faith-like religious joy I project others may possess. Religion has left its' scars on my soul and my woundedness is salved by the muse which only appears through my whorns(whoring horns). It has been over 2 years since my last creation and I grieve my last blessed communion lost to anger grasping and neglect of my soul work. I sold out very cheaply for a few thrills. I await the end because I have lost the ability to see the future. One of my past therapists told me this is a clear symptom of depression. The loss of optimism.
The boy is afraid of me because he senses my pain and thinks it is anger. He has tried to heal me in his own way as has his mother but what science and professional assistance has not accomplished in years of therapy will not be alleviated by 3rd grade jokes and weekend gigs. These things help but they do not let me be free. I am a prisoner of my own ignorance my own desire to not follow the empty ways of the culture that poisons the planet including my own mind.
I am grateful for these insights but "insight without actions is wasted".
So how can I act besides angry and despondant? How about kind and compassionate? I have but there are limits and because of these limits I have an all or nothing sensation of failure. I have sinned fallen short of the goal and missed my opportunity to be an exemplar of kindness,clarity, and insight. By small efforts a change can be realized. I did better since I was "needed" this week and I had an extra gig so I didn't have to sell myself to others or choke back tears in front of strangers. Thank you for this small blessing. I got what I wanted so I was nice. How nice am I when things are not going my way? Like every Saturday morning when my kitchen space is encroached upon? I have a long way to go if I choose to keep fighting this beast. If I was uglier maybe as ugly as the depression makes me feel people wouldn't mistake me for normal. Hey he's funny. Most comedy comes from the agony of being. Yes I am hilarious. It's one of the blessings from being on the edge.

A Little Clarity Can Be Dangerous

Today, I drove the old lady to the VA to find out if the shrink would have a magic pill to take away all the antisocial and rude violent stuff that she has recently revitalized(Are there many 86 year old punks around? I think not).
She wanted
me to drive her to the CA DMV to "straighten out those people who don't want me to drive."
I really wanted to scream. " You are a menace. No one wants your car and, by the way, you're fucking crazy!" But I held my breath and I became persona non gratis once more as I was the asshole who dreamed/conspired all this up about the Alzheimer's and of course I tricked all the medical staff into going along just so they can get the hub caps after we strip it and sell the old Buick to gangsters. But first the job of getting the shrink on board.
She came alive under pressure and the Dr stated she made sense and seemed clear. Which makes us all look like we got it in for her. Except she has had too many visits and too many staff members charting on her scattered delusions and accusations of incompetency to anyone who differs from her own diagnosis of "ready for a road trip to Virginia and a new job as head nurse at the hopstal around the corner."
I am glad she is not my nurse. Her brain is missing a lot of words. Words like card receipt record report are all now "tickets". Try paying your gas bill with a ticket. Try getting your son to write a ticket on cats. "I paid the bill. Here is my ticket>"

So with one clear interview with one Dr. on one day( we were all shocked) and she has all the ammunition to deny any plans we have made for her placement in a home or nursing center. Now she wants her own home car and autonomy. We all nod our heads "NO." She tries the next argument someone else will do this for me aka granchildren who never call write or visit. "NO"
I walk out. I can see this is going nowhere because the parent is still running the show in spite of the fact she has not a lot of memory left and is running on bravado and farce. But its same stuff she has scared the hell out of her daughters most of their lives. They recall the damaging ridicule the non-support they got growing up. I see revenge they see shame and fear. Its time for her to leave and stop running roughshod over all of us. She did all she could to get out of this house but she has no where to go. We are her last best bet. Yet she treats us like shit. How could anyone love such a selfish and mean person? A person who is filled with shame and lacking self-esteem. No names. Its too common we are nothing special in this game. People get old and are hard to deal with yet there is not much going on in our culture to help so we fight each other and our lives get wasted. Not for much longer for this guy.

Hump Day in a Private Asylum

I am playing my once a month gig tonight so today I am semi-gainfully part-time employed.
Wahoo.

Only I am now trying to keep my roommate's mother from getting too freaky on anger worry and madness aka Alzheimer's. Ask her and she will say it is(the diagnosis) all a grand conspiracy to take away her oil wells and her '96 Pontiac. I am not ready to take her disease on unaided today so she gets her second 150mg quetiapine of the day. It usually slows her down a bit and quiets down the agitation. She non-verbally cues me she is getting worked up by slapping her hands together and again verbally with the Reaganesque talking sotto voce around the back of her hand, "Can you tell me how to get out of here?"
Yes, Sir! Yes, Sir! Three Bras Full
She gets dressed but it takes a little convincing she hasn't had her clothes stolen and she can wear something else today. She calls me back to the bedroom. She has a bra on inside out and can't fasten it. I help her and she says, "This is where I slept last night." "I have three new bras they should last me the rest of my life." I am not sure if she is telling me how long she expects to live or that she only needs one bra or something else.
I sit and wonder if the seroquel will take away the restlessness or I will have to take her for a drive, a shampoo and set or she will fall asleep. This is new to all of us even the shrink isn't sure what this will do to for an 86-year-old with agitated Alzheimer's. Boredom a dangerous state of mind with a hole burning in her pocket an itch to settle her affairs and to get going on her way home. She needs us to take care of her. Just a short time ago, she was ready to go into the hall to look for her things in her nightie. Only she struggled with the locks and never made it outside. She asked me how she looked after she got dressed. I said she looked "sporty" to which she remarked, "Yeah and I am 86 years old!"

Her daughters praise her and pamper her a lot and she needs the attention to feel good about herself. Having her way is what she knows and she was/is a tyrant to her family. I am just learning her M.O..
I have been promised she will be "placed" somewhere and we can get back on track but several setbacks have left me skeptical or at the least not holding my breath.
It is hard to have compassion on someone who is mean and nasty to you but if they are mentally ill, organic or not, there are chemical(MEDICAL) solutions, "lay down take a red, Grandma" I wish there was a pill for angst that wouldn't drop your dick in the dirt and rape your hepatic cells. I don't think it exists. Some AK-47 would do.(AK-47 a hybrid descendant of Matanuska madness)
"safe and restful sleep sleep sleep" soma sominex seroquel lexapram mota

What the World Needs Now
How can we take the edge off the world the "existential angst" that quivering fear that eats us alive? Budweiser? Sports? Tequila? Sex? nah have sex first then Jose

I remember I have a gig today, its not endless day watchman there will be treats served after the meeting. Surprise, Friday I get to take the old lady to the VA shrink whom she showers with unlimited contempt. "Don't piss off the shrink, Grandma." 400 mg is headed your way, the 'ol chemical straitjacket. She's really old school and the psych ward is where they put the really crazy ones and( a remark behind the hand) "I ain't crazy." "It's all a conspiracy," she reminds me. She isn't over her latest paranoid delusion quite yet. Conspiracy theories, great fodder for the blogmill. I thought this was going to amount to nothing. Maybe I am part of the conspiracy.Something tells me this is so.

All dressed up and nowhere to go

It s 10:30 am and my partner's mom is coming out of her slumber induced by seroquel and atavan. It' sthat or she is a wild and unruly beast that we are in no way prepared to deal with. A veteran she gets the best treatment with an orthopedist for her 4 artificial joints (both hips both knees) and her shoulder which she beleieves will be surgically replaced. She has a psychiatrist for her anxiety and tension, a GP for a referee, a master pharmacist to monitor her coumadin levels, a social worker to referee her family, and a neurologist to monitor her benign brain tumor(meningioma). I have inherited the grunt job. Shopping cooking and answering phones and driving her to the endless appoinments to those VA Dr.s.

She has been worried about her "home" in Virginia that she intends on driving to and "straightening things out". Unfortunately, she can no longer drive or understand the property was sold years ago and her relatives do not have the time energy or will to care for her at all. I am here to watch her to keep her busy and occupied which without the tranquilizer can not be done anymore. Her daughters are almost on the same page about all this but with unfinished business all around there is a reluctance to move on and place her in full time(sic) care. I wonder how many millions are going through all this with aging and dying parents. An illness like cancer or parkinson's might be easier than the slow burnout of the mind. These people with Alzheimer's take a huge toll on society our time our energy our health and at times our very sanity. There is no plan no solution no place for people like her to go unless they are rich or very poor. No compensation for most of the caregivers who watch after them as they rot away mentally and physically and suck the life out of their families. My goal today is distract her from her obsession of going to the bank and "fixing those people" "you know" those people who do those things"
The scary part was she asked me yesterday(she doesn't remember)to go to the bank because she "needs a man" to go there and straighten things out. I don't want to be the muscle for her sordid errands. When she gets frustrated about not being able to drive she says she is calling the sheriff. She had hallucinations before she moved in with us. She can't dial a phone anymore but she can rant and swing her arms around and threaten to "kick your ass" but this is all she has left in her quiver. It is sad its pathetic and its annoying beyond my tolerance at times and that is why I err on the side of adequate medication otherwise she's dangerous .

It is still two hours before my partner gets home and I get a break to take a walk and chill a bit.
There are no jobs I want to apply for today even if I could get away. Another week lost no money coming in for me.

Memorial Day

What will they say about us after we are gone? Memorials of those dead or lost happens once a year. We are supposed to get into this holiday or not and go to the mall and spend a lot of money to distract ourselves from this awareness of death and loss. Memorial Day was for remembrance of warriors lost in wars or who fought in wars and died later. Life outside of war also has casualties not necessarily blessed by Pentagon bullets or terrorist IEDs.
If I called it "Day of the Dead" instead who would know if it was Halloween or Memorial Day. I could call it "buy flowers and drop them at a graveyard day" but that's too long and sounds like a florist's holiday. Or a salute to memory a mental resource slipping away out the door in many boomer's homes included here with an aging parent getting excited about meeting up with her grandmother who has been dead for 30 years. (ancestors calling)
This(life) is the place between birth and death. More human beings alive than dead on this planet(celebration time?) yet the ancestors get top billing since they already made their marks on the world.
The old one talks like she is once again five years old then she is a teen getting asked out on her first date with the preacher's son. A dream? Medication(side effect) or dementia. This is the way she lives each day, immersed in memory desire and regret(aversion)nothing new here on memorial day.
I do think of it as a day of the dead. Friends and family gone on to the next stage some by nature some by choice and others by design, I suppose, or if a deity is involved all by design. This would be easier if I had faith in design of manifest destiny or destiny period. I have been reading James Hillman's tome on calling and character. The soul that accompanies us on our journey and forces us to follow a path i.e. soul purpose or was that sole porpoise...
Why think at all if everything is just easily and blindly following with trust faith and devotion? I sometimes envy the dead or the religious braindead. They have no(or fewer) anxieties nor regrets. Of course later(maybe) in hell they may have some regrets but no ablity to make a shift in their karma. My own fate is still in flux I still have a slight chance of making a difference(redemption) if I can remember how to live fully and celebrate life without bitterness (salvation).
That is THE challenge for me. The peaceful happy times were not so really and I wish not to repeat them nor wish to relive them. It is this frame of mind that makes me miserable realizing the past is not great or my resume, bank balance, and references would look better. So I lie a little to myself but I know what it was really like deception betrayal defeat and many recoveries. I still have some attachment to false competencies and retaining a semblence of reasonable success. My beliefs and sanity depend on self-defined sucess or what I define as life and what life defines as me. I remember my tribe and my life as a monk. I was a part of mindful living after losing my father and a hole was left inside of me. I guess the pain is bearable now because I know I can endure a lot and still emerge to live again.
This is what I remember today. I can be happy and I can be sad I hope it all comes back to me.
All of it. Then I will know I have arrived here ready to go there. Happy Memorial Day.