FireVaney

Today is Uncle Redacted’s birthday.  How old he is EXACTLY, I'm not sure.  He's over fifty, I know that .  I got him a card, but I don't know what to write in it.  It already says, "Have a Happy Birthday."  The front of the card shows someone's hand just barely pressing a long, presumably sharp, needle to a large, red balloon. The inside of the card reads: "Have a Happy Birthday, or the balloon gets it!"  Under that, I don't know what to write other than, "Love, Pop, Betty, and Howie."  Pop and Betty don't yet know that I've purchased a card. I'm pretty sure they don't even know that it’s Uncle R.’s birthday. Pop can barely recall his own daughters’ birthdays, let alone those of his three sons-in-law. Yes, he’s old—older than most—but, to be clear, he’s not mentally diminished. Remembering birthdays and mailing cards was always Grandma’s job.  Uncle R. lives one suburb to the south, so I'll just drive over and slip t...

We regret to report that we’ve replaced your newish Timex digital alarm clock (id est, the one with the recorded water and forest sounds) with your grandmother’s ancient Westclox (id est, the one with the slowly sweeping second hand and orange sherbet-colored “Dialite”). This ought to serve as an vitally important reminder: Whilst the complication— any complication—makes money for the capitalist, one often finds comfort in the simplest of things. (exempli gratia, a crisp apple.) This is not to suggest that simple things are perfect. No, no. Set the aforementioned Westclox to buzz its buzz at five o’clock and it will buzz its buzz at four-fifty. But perhaps this “bug” or “feature” wasn’t always so. Whoever wasn’t the early-bird (whether Grandma or Grandpop), they’d left the aforementioned Westclox in the basement to collect dust, mold, rust, and/or other forms of rot. But then it’s entirely possible that it wound up in the basement thanks to its overzealous alarm setting. We’ll never kn...

This morning, for breakfast: a “Home Made Daily” ham and cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee from the hospital cafeteria in the basement. My first question: In whose home was this sandwich made? My second question: What’s the deal with the white writing on the orange dot sticker stuck to the sandwich’s cellophane sleeve? It says, “SAT.” Below that, it says, “SABADO.” Today is Sunday. (Pop’s spending his worst birthday in ninety-three years up in room 4132.) So has my sandwich expired? Or is this orange dot telling me that it was made yesterday? (Not the dot, the sandwich .) I didn’t notice the dot until I finished eating the sandwich. Yesterday, and the day before, for breakfast: doughnuts and roast beef sandwiches and coffee. The doughnuts at the hospital are much tastier than the doughnuts from the Dunkin’ Donuts up the street. But then, as far as hospitals go, this one’s a bit ritzy.  July 2005

Happy birthday, Hemingway! You’re one in a million. No, you’re one in a billion. No, you’re one in a trillion. No. You’re one. Yes. You’re one. Well, you WERE one. And, you’ve won! A brand–new toaster–oven. You like toast, don’t you? Who doesn’t like toast? My grandfather only likes toast in the morning. After that, he refuses anything that is or could be toasted. He thinks that toast, later in the day, will be too hard on his teeth. For the record, I do not burn his toast. The toast I toast for him is always lightly toasted. So I don’t know what he’s talking about. But he is beginning to act his age. Or, rather, more and more, he’s beginning to act his age—you might say he’s “running on automatic pilot,” that is, so to speak, more and more. He can’t process most new data. He’s content to recycle all of the old data—rather, what’s left of all the old data. But he does like crackers. He’ll eat crackers any time of the day. He doesn’t crush the crackers into his soup. Rather, he’ll sl...

Pop got up early today. I was awake early, too, but I didn't get out of bed until I heard him lumbering down the stairs.  Usually, I'm downstairs at least an hour before Pop wraps up his morning routine—id est, brushing his teeth, making his bed, dressing, a bit of weight lifting, and a ten-minute walk on his bedroom treadmill. Normally, while he's upstairs doing that, I'm in the kitchen organizing the day's regimen of pills, slicing the banana he takes with his meds (he needs a little banana to help stretch his "smaller-than-average" esophagus), sweeping and/or mopping the kitchen and living room floors, fetching the paper from the driveway, and straightening up his "piles" of letters and financial statements.  Most days, after Pop’s through with the Trib, he spends his waking hours reading financial and business periodicals.  Sometimes, for a change of scenery, I drive him over to the library. There, he reads different financial and business pe...

What are your answers? The answers you provide are few and far between. Worse, your answers bleed ambiguities. That’s right, your answers are the mutilated corpses of an at-large serial killer. In other words, your answers, they have no life. They suck the life force out of every question posed, your answers do. Worse still, your answers embarrass my questions. More oft than not, when you’re around, my questions run for cover! To answer my questions—as to what your answers are—they are deadly, and, thusly, they are worthless. Indeed, worthless. I cannot overstate just how worthless your answers are , but I will try. Your answers have less worth than a single atom in a grain of sand. And you may ask, “How many atoms in a grain of sand?” And I may answer (correctly), “Quintillions.” And I will have you know, sir, that there are more atoms in a single grain of sand than there are grains of sand on all of the beaches on the entire planet! But, sir, your answers provide no hope. Your an...

“I leaned over the edge of the bed and saw the shine of metal biting off pieces of gum I knew by heart.“ — Ken Kesey , One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 

This vertigo, it’s been going on since last Wednesday. It was at its worst last Thursday, when I went to the hospital. The doctors and nurses set me up with an IV drip, they set me up with a CAT scan, they set me up with an MRI, they also set me up with a bottle of meclizine. And, yes, the entire ordeal warranted the use of three comma splices. And the doctors, they let me go home when they couldn’t find a tumor. Instead, the doctors, they think I’ve got an “inner ear virus.” That, or there’s a “stone” in there... that’s too small to see, I guess. And if in the next few days it doesn’t go away or roll out on its own? The follow-up internist says I’ll have to go back for another MRI. All of this might make one wonder: Is the practice of medicine simply the practice of educated guesswork? I’m allowed to take the meclizine “2 or 3 times a day as needed,” but I’m avoiding it. I’m worried about constipation; I’m worried about fattening up. I haven’t been to the gym since last Wednesday. Dri...

It is important to remind one of the purpose. The purpose if not to get it straight is not to end with the prologue to the séance. No: Lie not in the forest with the naked bears every morning. No: So this time you won’t want to bite down on the necks of the precious needles. No! I want to state the purpose. But I follow with right might the happening of every mistake. So, I, thus, avoid getting to the point. The purpose is to get the brain to ignite. When this is going well, thine brains tingle. And by thine I mean mine. Mine brains tingle when this is going well. My brains tinkle. Brain tinkle. This is a good thing. How could it be a bad thing? The faster I write the more mine brain tingles. And/or tinkles. This is true. So when the next boob takes his turn at the babe she’ll shut up at the dock. Why? I would want to not eat. No! I DO NOT want to use the words “eat” “tomato” “dog” “cat” “tree.” No more of eating! No more of food! No more of the plant-life, of the vegetables, of the ve...