[296] Screed City

[296]

08/20/2024 Tuesday. Cardboard Box. The Writing Room. The Chalet. Granville, Vermont.

There are now two dead mice in The Writing Room. The second one died long enough ago that it doesnt smell in here. It is 50F right now. I am wearing a hoodie and a suit jacket and a button up sleeved shirt. Last night I had a fire in The Chalet. Professor Curly is currently in the hot tub soaking her wary Olive Oils. We just got done bonin'. It had been so long that I shot out backwards and slammed against the wall when it was my turn. Initially I was supposed to walk her to the hot tub with a glass of wine [Whine!] when we were done. As I was packing up my computer and getting some ice she asked me what I was doing.

"I'm gonna go write." I said.

"What? Its so early." She bellowed.

"Its six thirty." I retorted.

"I thought you were going to walk me to the hot tub with wine. [Whine!]?" She whined.

"Things change once you blow your load." I spurted.

I wasnt going to Screed tonight, but it has been a day of one-liners. You got to strike while the iron is hot as the bridesmaids say. I need to stand up [You know? Because I use a standing desk?] and finish that treatise on the trip to Wyoming, but things have changed since the last time I sent out a newsletter. For one, I am in Vermont at the moment, which might tell you something. For two, it is because of lousy reasons. For three, because of the nature of the world we live in, I have been knocked off balance by events and once again have changed directions. There is time still to right the ship, but it is already the end of August and mentally I have already moved the goal post, so we will see.

When we got back from Wyoming I sent G up north on a train by themselves. It was interesting that they were able to not only get up at 5a by themselves and get on the road by 6a, but also to take the subway. Transfer twice and still make the train up north. I mean, I was up the whole time. Keeping tabs and making sure they made it, and it was very nerve wracking, but they did it. I tried to go back to sleep but I couldnt because D Dick and PC were coming to the apartment to get her car and stuff and drive back to New Ham. It was the very end of our trip. D Dick was sucking on a cigar. It was early. The cab dropped them off in front of the apartment. PC went inside to get stuff. I went to get the Real Estate Wagon. D Dick guarded the luggage. Things were stressful, but they worked out okay. We loaded the REW with luggage and D Dick. He complained that he felt sick. I knew, as somebody that has used tobacco that he was sick from his cigar. From the nicotine. Professor Curly was annoyed. Not because he was sick, but because he picked a fine time to be sick. She asked him if he needed to puke. He was so anxious to get home that said he would be alright. They should just go. That is how I left them. Or they left me, I suppose. I went back inside and managed to get back to sleep. Waking up when G made it to Hudson.

That was Tuesday. By Saturday I was standing in line at gate 69 [nice] in the gruesome guts of Port Authority waiting for a Peter Pan bus to Boston where I would then get picked up by Aunt Dianne and Anne to drive to Manchester, New Ham where Daddy Dick was surely dying in a hospital bed in the ICU.

Sometime during the week he had gone to open a drawer below his center of gravity and had fallen over. His wife couldnt get him up again so she had called the fire department. The fire department came and picked Daddy Dick up, all 136 lbs of the guy and unfortunately had to take him to the emergency room as per protocol. From there things did not get better. First they tested him for covid, which was positive, causing all sorts of panic, then, because of last summer when he was put on life support, he refused all of the invasive treatments they wanted to give him, tubes down his throat, tubes up his dick, tubes up his butt, tubes in his ears, to cut him off from food and movement, to shove him in a bed and force him to suffer as much as they could possibly make an 84 year old person suffer, Dick refused all of it. Said he would rather die. And suddenly, somebody that never should have been taken to the hospital in the first place was dying in the ICU.

When we got there it was very apparent that D Dick was not dying. He looked as ruddy as a gay sailor and just as frisky. He wasnt pinching the nurses asses, that is not his style, but had it been his style he would have been.

That was four days ago. Since then there has been covid diagnosis's, panics, hotel rooms, screaming matches, security escorts, wangs in the cafeteria, a stinky bathroom so foul that days later the smell lingers, lots and lots of interstate driving, a million cups of coffee and really, everything coming right back to where it should have started, with Daddy Dick not needing to be in the hospital.

I am not saying that things arent serious, but today he said, while talking about a friend of his that would certainly let him leave the hospital, a doctor, he said, and I quote:

"Yale! Yale! Yale! Y-A-L-E. He went to Yale, not one of the cheesy schools, he went to Yale!"

Compared to last summer, this entire operation has been a farce. He was taken to the hospital because the fire department didnt want to get sued. The hospital received him because they didnt want to get sued. They tried to intubate him because they didnt want to get sued. And his is now languishing inside the hospital because they dont want to get sued. Even if he is dying, which I dont think he is, but even though, he would much rather die at home than in some hospital bed surrounded by prods and stabs and non-movement. He is bored and irritated. He has nothing to do but get treated like a child. Because he is in "Comfort Care" which means they are just trying to make him comfortable, he can eat all he wants, see whoever he wants and doesnt have to follow certain "Life Saving" protocols he is doing okay. We brought him fried clams for lunch today. He has been drinking Cokes and chocolate milkshakes. He just doesnt want to be there. And the only way he is getting out is if he goes to rehab. Which is okay. Rehab is good. But he was great in Wyoming. I swear it. He was doing all sorts of fancy moves with his walker. He knew it would be his last trip and he lived it up. But the nurses keep worrying about his aspiration. That he is sucking in food into his lungs when he eats. Causing pneumonia. But he doesnt have pneumonia. I am not even convinced he has covid. He is just an old man who got shoved into a hospital bed and everyone is afraid that if they dont follow procedure and he dies they will get sued.

Personally, I told him he had to arm-wrestle the nurse and win if he wanted to get out of the ICU. He said he could do it. I showed him the best way to beat somebody. How he should hold his arm and how to place his hand on their elbow to give him the best advantage. He didnt mimic my movements, but he did seem take my advice in tow as the bridesmaids say.

We'll see. Me and Professor Curly drove up to Granville with the idea that the next few days would be uneventful for Daddy Dick. She needs to work on this screenplay she has been writing and I need to get back to the City. But I think I will stick around tonight and tomorrow, make sure things dont go sideways again and take an expensive train down on Thursday. All day long I have been making great jokes everywhere I go. One-liner zingers that land quite well. When we walked into the waiting room first thing PC reiterated the joke I told her to Anne when I saw her:

"Oh, Anne, Joe was going to say something when he saw you, what was your joke again?"

"I dont know, I didnt know where you would be, but I See You [ICU]."

Anne laughed. The other two people in the waiting room laughed, "So true." And then later, when we passed one of them as they were leaving the hospital, down on the first floor she said, "I See You later."

Later, after spending the day with me, after zinger after zinger, spending the day in the hospital, going to get fried clams and then stopping at Paddingtons to drop off her car that we borrowed, after checking out the pants she had pinned in a way that she was thinking of sewing shorter, when, as she was showing us what they looked like with her shoes on untied and stopping herself from walking around because she didnt want to trip on them and I said,

"Be careful, you might end up in a room in the hospital next to Dick."

"He should be so lucky." she said. Followed by a disparaging remark about his wife.

Me and professor Curly carried bags of trash to the trash can for her and got into the Real Estate Wagon to drive up to Vermont, I said:

"Did you ever think you would get so lucky to get married to a guy with such hilarious one-liners?"

"The one-liners are fine, its the married part that I dont like."

Ooof.

[Insert a good photo]