life after brain surgery

It's been quite a while since I've published anything..My father died...I had brain surgery, and now see double. It's been high trauma..I tried to post some things and could only type squiggles. Now the problem seems to be resolved..let me see if this publishes, and if so, I can continue writing..

A note from my sister in Texas about Dad in the nursing home for Alzheimer's:
....went at dinner time tues. Dad was in the big room seated for dinner because the
east wing floor was being waxed. He was just beginning to dig into his meal when
I got there. He looked good...I sat with him, he introduced me to the guy next to
him (correctly as his daughter)..he ate well, I only had to help him a bit. Much
better than Sunday. His butt gets really uncomfortable when simply seated in the
wheel chair without an inflated cushion and fuzzy pad. On Sun. it was his main
complaint "my butt hurts"....I requested they find his cushion but no luck..it
seemed like Sun. they were very short of hands (perhaps because it was fathers
day). Anyway, yesterday I talked to Heather and she had that taken care of and
he was much more comfortable. I asked him if he'd like to get some exercise and
he said yes and attempted to stand. I guess he still thinks about walking with me
but he can't anymore. I told him I'm sorry dad but we can't do the walking anymore
but you can pull yourself along the rail and use your feet in the chair...so we did
and he said "there's nothing else to do"....I told him his tennis days were over but
we just have to do the best with what he can do. After a couple of hours he pointed
to his bed and said "we should be in there"...he was tired, so I had him put in bed
and he asked me to stay with him and I did till he fell asleep.

Tuesday at home..my day job is cutting back on days for us workers, and we have to pay 1/2 of our health insurance, so I'm going out to hock some jewelery so that the kid has some money for his graduation on Friday..the raindrops keep falling on my head in the living room, my landlord is in the process of selling the house, (has been for the past year)..and refuses to do any repairs..we get more water than the Amazon rain forest....we'll be playing out in the Hamptons next weekend, and the people are really nice to us out there..when I think that I live in America, and most of the people of the planet are worse off than me..it's totally wierd...

We were supposed to play in Princeton NJ but our driver got in a car crash and wrapped himself around a traffic light. This was a major first.."the show must go on" is a serious mantra..we sat in Sly's place up in Harlem, listening to the rain and watching HBO, cursing the guy out (after all the fund raisers we did for him..etc..) hoping he wasn't dead, cause noone wants to curse out a dead guy..he called and said he had amnesia for 6 hours after the accident..sounds really nuts..I want a van of my own..I thought we were on a tour of all the rich zip codes, but unless Springsteen writes a pardon, we'll never play in Jersey again (just kidding, Roxy the agent was very philosophical..adversity builds character..they must read a lot of Nietsche down there..or Christ..) Meanwhile monsoon season is upon us in NYC, my roof is leaking, and I wonder if I should install some umbrellas outside of the house.

back at the day job..we're playing out at westhampton beach this weekend..i guess they'll be celebrating the tax dividend check that mr. bush just cleared for the wealthy..meanwhile back at the ranch, i can't seem to make ends meet on my funky little salary..it's partially the economy, partially me, i'm just not enthusiastic enough..i love the paper, capitalism for the working class, a penny paper, but i'd like to earn enough to press up the record, and sit at home and write, like i used to in the good old days..oh well i'm learning that i can hold my own in the normal world, thank god for my college degree..but the world seems to be divided into the haves and the havenots..what do i have to complain about with half a million kids dying each year of malaria? or cholera?..even polio? the us has to give more to the poor nations, 10 % of the GNP to foreign aid (blowing them up to smithereens doesn't count)..to build clean water supplies, and sewage disposal, and give them 12c a day to treat malaria..jimmy carter said we give the least amount of money to poor nations, of any industrialized nation..we're turning into a bunch of marie antoinettes..i know there's a seperation of church and state in this country, but every religion tithes..gives to the poor..we've got to know that it makes economic sense to build up our neighbors, or we will be creating enemies instead of friends..that is the new challenge, the new mindset..we get so much more, by giving...

thank god it's friday, working people's happy land..jezz5000 (da kid, aged 14) is coming back from the school trip to salem massachusetts, where they studied intolerance by way of the witch trials..i'm going to chill out at home..elaine sent me some info on nyc nursing homes..she's a good friend and is a geriatric social worker, so she knows the good spots..recommends anything run by nuns..that makes sense..she says even tho i'm jewish, give me the nuns anytime, for compassionate care..my friend kieran died of aids in a catholic hospital..and they were wonderful to him..so i guess she's got something there..our single should be coming out anyday now from the pressing plant, peter and i will run around to college radio stations..i could use a decent car..but i hate all the car payments..we'll be going to atlanta blues festival this summer to play, so i guess i'll have to break down and buy something soon..also i'll have to transport my delusional dad from texas..alzheimer's is a bitch..so i'll need something roomy..oh to get a royalty check..turns out i applied too late for some film music i did years ago..they only collect for the last 3 years..i coulda been a contessa...

day after mom's day, matisse picasso show at moma with "da kid", what a pal, to actually go to an art museum with mom without major kicking and screaming..he was actually kind to me, we laughed a lot..then "da kid" cooked up some lasagna..a day of parental nirvana..co-worker deborah mentioned that museum hours are anti working folks, open til 5 when most working stiffs are finishing up the daily grind..it's true, it's true..the show..nice colors, nice shapes, i felt their spirits more than i felt the shapes..tough picasso and pervie matisse...the rest? nice permanent collection..the bagdad blogger is back on, wow, this guy deserves a pulitzer..i'm trying to come to grips with my status as prole in the big world of movers and shakers, but i still want to change and re-arrange the world..get clean water to haiti and india and bangladesh, get malaria pills to africa..bill gates on with bill moyers..explained the earth shaking "aha" fact that contrary to darwinian opinion (which had a hand in wiping out a lot of people from the irish potato famine on down to present day) giving people access to health care actually does not contribute to overpopulation, but makes the population lessen, as people realize that more of their progeny will live to be adults..this was the argument i heard from some, wars famines and plagues naturally keep the population under control, and if everyone were healthy, we'd be all dying of starvation..just ain't so, mr.malthusa, mr. darwin..the more healthy people, the more chance we have of having a healthy balance of humans on the planet..

saturday..a day of rest..the judeo christian sabbath has created the WEEKEND! I'm down to 4 days a week at my job, selling classified ads, because of my tiredness owing to interferon cocktail, i can do gigs alright, did an april 19th show at cbgbs for rc records, but came down with massive headaches the next day, owing to (I think) a reaction to the adreneline rush of performance..not unlike a hangover, but i don't drink, so that's the best idea i can come up with..it can't be the cigerette smoke, there is non in nyc clubs..smokers hang out with panhandlers in front of the clubs and restaurants all around the city, gives a whole new twist to networking..jess is upstate with my ex husband...i've been sending out for applications for him for schools..he loves the experimental school he's in now, but it might be a nice culture shock for him to try out private school, with 1 teacher for 10 students..backround notes on family.do schools ask for this stuff..if so i guess i could make a little backround history...mitrochondrial dna suggests that his patrilineal line came to the new world via the bering straits about 20,000 years ago, became choctaw indians who intermarried with runaway africans from sierra leone (mandigo people) in the 18th century..also some roots in georgia as slaves for the rebsamen family, a swiss bunch who got their landgrant around 1700...on my side there were haywards who came over via plymouth mass in the 1600's who migrated to bermuda, and were british subjects til they emigrated to nj in 1850, my great granddad joined the us navy as a coal heaver at age 16, enlisting the day before the ny draft riots, running away from his indenture to a cruel upstate farmer, and lying about his age...afterward he got us citizenship..married a nice scottish girl who's parents lived in a tenement on elizabeth street, nyc..other relatives include famine irish refugees migrating to south carolina and pennsylvania...thanks for the internet..i guess that makes our family pretty american..

it's good friday..peace to everyone..i'm at my job where it's quiet..the judeo christian passover makes ny a ghost town..i'm thankful for a seat on the train and a chance to read the papers online including the al jazeera (english version)..which has been unblocked, i guess..went to the catholic church on wednesday nite before rehearsal and sat in on a mass and a reading of the rosary..the prayers of my childhood..i'm not so into repetitive prayer..jesus said not to pray "vain repetitions" like the heathen, i'd prefer to speak to him directly, and i do, but it was beautiful, an old wacky man telling me not to stop myself from receiving communion, because thats what Jesus wants, that's why he died..what does he want now? Is this armageddon? I go to the Armageddon website..read Revelations...where it says all the nations of the world will try to rise up against Israel..certainly that is the theme of most of the Arab nations..to kill Israel..and America, because America supports Israel so heavily..jesus said when he comes back, he's coming back with a sword..is that why the europeans are anti israel, because they supported the holocaust in the first place? i know they are anti war because they have known the terror and the humiliation of war..the defeat..

back from el paso visiting my dad with alzheimers..he's living down the road from my sister and her family, in a nursing home..mostly it's spanish speaking folks..dad sort of thinks he's in a hotel or a ship in japan, and is very angry at the government for putting him in jail. he wants mostly to get back to "our country" and to get out of jail..my sister feels he's too fragile to move..he's stopped eating more than 40 percent of his required calories, he may need a belly bag to push nutrients into him..my aunt has one..4 out of 7 siblings have gotten alzheimers..2 didn't make it to 70 years old, and one was okay...the 3 last living siblings are all on aricept, in the world of delusions..some worse than others..my poor poppa is so helpless..bagdad fell yesterday, but with international jihadis swarming the terrain it could still be a scary situation...i hope they get water and food to the people, and get the looting under control, and sort out the good guys from the bad...this weekend we're recording again...

Today has been sleep, cspan, msnbc, medicine, then the whole thing all over....I've started interferon to kick hep c, and it's a year treatment, full of nausea and tiredness in the first couple of months..everyone says keep going with it..i couldn't make it to the office to sell advertising today..it was a put your head under the covers day..the war coverage is giving me flashbacks of that day..9/11/01..watching helplessly from the fire escape as those people burned to death..now we're at war and there's so much protest from the world..if the bush team had been more diplomatic, we wouldn't have alienated so many...security council supported resolution 1441..but didn't like being pushed around...been to some of the arab sites, and the photos are so heavy, pix of kids with their brains blown out..not a great way for mcamerica to win hearts and minds....the muslims are attacking all over the world..phillipines, kashmir, this thing is without borders and very pervasive...went to a catholic website, and saw how most of the muslim nations don't allow other religions to practice..killing and torture for people converting to christianity..reminds me of the catholic church in the dark ages..

Here goes nothin'..I've erased 2 blogs already, trying to figure out how to make this
thing work..I'm gonna just post these notes and see if i can get the hang of this...