Pak Pinjam

There's a guy here in my neighborhood whom I call Pak Pinjam, which means Mr Borrower. He is also the guy who regularly brings food for the dogs. They are not my dogs, but they are generally camped out on my front patio in the morning and the evening, waiting for their food. I guess they figure it's a nice place to eat. The dish brought them is usually rice with chicken feet and a little soup. 

But that is beside the point. 

Pak Pinjam comes from time to time not only with food for the dogs but with a request for money from me. Not for the food, of course, but because he continually needs money for some reason. Neighborhood gossip has it that he gambles, but this cannot be proven. In any case, he always kind of whispers and bows and says that he needs X amount of Rupiah, which he can return to me on the next day. But he never returns the money on the next day, or on many days after. 

I don't know why I keep falling for this. For one thing, the request makes me feel embarrassed somehow. Embarrassed for him, perhaps? Or just embarrassed that anyone would stoop so low as to be asking money from other people, especially a person he doesn't really know or have a relationship with. I don't think I've ever spoken with the man other than when he asks for money.

This last time it was 500,000 he asked for, about 27 USD. The promise once again was that he would pay me tomorrow. 

He did not pay me tomorrow. He did not return any of the money until about a week later, when he gave me half of the loan. Now, some weeks on, I am still waiting for the other half. 

The curious thing is that he shows up every few days and assures me that the money will be "transferred" that very night, which I take to mean that someone for some reason will be transferring money into his account, if he even has one. But then that doesn't happen, and I can't help but wonder why he even says this. I mean, I've heard about three times now that the balance of the loan will be transferred to his account by the end of the day or by tomorrow, at which time he will repay me. Why does he say this? Or better yet, why do I loan him money in the first place?!

At this point, I'm not really figuring on getting the money back at all. Perhaps I will live and learn this time. Perhaps not. If the return is tardy, it has still been returned. But still, it is the principle of the thing, you know? How does the old saying go? Neither a borrower nor a lender be. 

Official

Well, the official diagnosis of my latest shoulder injury is torn tendon in the rotator cuff, along with the pre-existing diagnosis of narrowing ("penyempitan") of the acromioclavicular joint. 

I got two steroid injections into the rotator cuff, and of course I'm told that I need to do physiotherapy. 

I am glad, at least, to find that no operation will be needed. Now if I can just avoid further injuring myself until I get back from Japan, which will be sometime in early November. 

In other news, here in Bali we are suffering through a major gas shortage on the island, which is apparently, as recorded anyway by those responsible, the result of  some kind of delay in the arrival of fuel from Jakarta, from whence it is sent to Bali. It is hard to describe the lines of cars and motorbikes cued up at the gas station. These lines stretch as far as a kilometer and more in each direction on the street. It is taking many hours to reach the pump, and last night I saw people setting up tents to sleep over and wait for the opening in the morning. But there are two pieces of good news, as far as all of this concerns me. One is that I have not been able to drive my motorbike lately because of the shoulder injury, and the second is that I do have 3/4 of a tank when I am ready to try. This, I hope, will last until the fuel situation is straightened out.

Virtuosity

I am amazing. I am a genius. I am a virtuoso of diseases. Usually I develop one problem after another with a space of variable length between problems. But I have advanced. Having barely managed to end up with acromioclavicular joint pain, I have moved straight on to a rotator cuff problem, leaving no space between the two. What did I do to achieve this most recent injury? I really don't know. I remember standing that my kitchen counter and then reaching behind my back my left arm to scratch at something. There was an audible snap and then immediate sharp pain behind the shoulder blade. Keep in mind that the left arm has not had a problem, ever. It has always been a 

The right arm--the broken shoulder surgery, the acromioclavicular joint pain, and now the rotator cuff disaster. And I can tell you that this one hurts. I advise against injuring your rotator cuff in any way. It's not worth it. This has been severe pain, for which I was given muscle relaxers and pain relievers and told to obtain an MRI of the shoulder. This I have now done and I'm scheduled to see the doctor yet again tomorrow for the reading of the MRI and the conclusion regarding what I should do. To make things worse, I am scheduled to travel to Japan on October 30th. Woe is me. They shoot horses, don't they?

Monthly Report

 I see upon glancing at my blog that I have not kept up with reports of my health disorders. I'm sure no one has missed these, but who knows, I might need to look back at some point to keep track of them myself should a doctor want to know when I had this or that. So the last one I wrote about was actually kind of two in one - -a problem with eczema occurring in concert with the flu. Well, I've moved on from that. Always moving forward, as far as poor health is concerned. 

After the flu, or rather on the tail end of the flu, I developed a serious case of gastroesophageal reflux. I've had this before, most notably back in 2019, as I recall. After that time I had little flare-ups now and then, but this latest case was a doozy. I finally seem to have gotten on top of it, although I am still following a very bland diet and taking omeprazole twice a day. 

Therefore, with nothing better to do, I decided to reinjure my shoulder. Apparently this happened when I was raising my arm above my head, as the orthopedist had told me to do. Listening to him as it turns out was not a good idea. What happened was that I irritated my acromioclavicular joint. This is the space between your shoulder blade and your arm. Of course, I did not know specifically what had happened, all I knew is that it hurt like hell over the entire shoulder and down into my chest and back. 

So after suffering for a week or so, I decided I had best go to the doctor, especially considering that I will be headed to Japan later in the month and I did not like the idea of sitting for 8 hours or so on a plane while having an insanely painful shoulder. But, you know, the tickets had already been purchased. 

I had an x-ray at the doctor's office and was informed that, thankfully, there was no damage done to the recent surgery site. Nothing out of place, nothing broken. That was my great fear - - that I would end up in the hospital again with another hospital bill, on top of the expense of the Japan trip. Ruination! 

But no, the doctor explained that this unimpressive little space between bones was responsible for all that impressive pain I was having. I am surprised that no one has ever mentioned this little particular to me before, either in previous physical therapy or after the shoulder surgery. In my case, this space has become extremely narrow due to arthritis and degeneration of cartilage between the bones. 

So now I am taking muscle relaxers, pain medication, and learning exercises designed to decrease pain and keep the joint as stable as possible. 

And I'm not lifting my arm above my head. 

Ever. 

Again. 

Apart from all of this trouble, I have purchased all four books of Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend series. I am currently reading book 2 in Indonesian, which for some reason was not available here in English. Go figure. I'm not really sure why I'm so fond of these novels. Maybe it is because of the excellence of the female viewpoint communicated by Ferrante. For a male reader, it's kind of like continually saying to oneself, Oh, I see, so that's what they are thinking! I dunno, it's just a very engaging story filled with interesting characters, both female and male. 

Twain

I was watching a documentary on Mark Twain the other day and I was shocked to find that he was only 74 years old when he died. I say only, only as an old man, I suppose. But the surprising thing was just that it was surprising--surprising because I have read several biographies of Twain and of course I've seen many pictures of Twain, but somehow it had not sunk in that he was not more like 90 years old. He certainly looks 90 years old in some the photos I've seen. But here is what I am getting around to. I myself am nearly 73 years old now. Could it be that I am nearly as old as Twain and ready to die? That I have just one year left? Surely I cannot live longer than Mark Twain, because, I mean, after all, he was Mark Twain for God's sake! And lived a life worth living, and left so much behind for the rest of us. His imprint on life, even in death, far supersedes the impression made by most other people who have ever existed. Indeed, it absolutely blots us out. Now how do you like that? Anyway, I wish now that I hadn't watched that documentary and found out how really old I am. Thanks a lot, Mark.

Aposiopesis

... Did you know that there are more bacterial cells in your body than human cells?

    Seriously? 

    Way more. You have 500 different species of bacteria just in your intestine. There's enough bacteria inside you to fill a two-litre bottle. Scientists believe some human genes originally came from bacteria. 

     Well that's disgusting, she says. 

     Yeah, you say. But when you think about it, it's also pretty interesting. People get so hung up on are they this kind of person or that. But if you have ten times more non-human cells than human cells, then, in a way, you're not even you. 

     It kind of takes the pressure off, you say. I feel like if people knew they were mostly bacteria it would solve a lot of problems. 

--The Bee Sting, Paul Murray

One last bit of biting hilarity from The Bee Sting, the second reading of which I enjoyed even more than the first. This novel ends in what is called, in literary terms, an aposiopesis--a really keen term meaning that it has an open ending, it is a non-closure narrative. The story ends at the point of maximum tension and provides no clear resolution. That part is up to the reader, and in this case, it serves as a litmus test for whether one is an optimist or a pessimist, or perhaps something in between. It gets you to thinking ever more deeply about the story, and indeed about yourself. It is interesting, if you delve into the thing online, to find how many different reactions and opinions there are, each seeming very sure of itself. My own reaction on the second reading was of a somewhat different shade than on the first. The book itself hasn't changed, and so that means, I guess, that I have. It seems that a new shaft of sunlight has appeared out of nowhere. Or maybe it's just that proverbial light going on in my brain. 

Ready or Not

Everything seems radiant with self, and at the same time distant somehow, as if it were receding from him -- moving away in time, while he stays where he is. This must be what it feels like to be dying, he thinks; the world remains around you, like a lover who does not want to hurt you by leaving, but in spirit it's already gone, taking with it the meaning of everything you shared. In truth it is already transforming into a future you will never be part of; and you realize only then that it has been transforming all the time, throughout your whole life, and you with it; and that, in fact, is life, though you never knew, and now it is over.

--The Bee Sting, Paul Murray

A penetrating, insightful passage from Paul Murray's excellent novel (which I am reading for the second time). Transforming into a future you will never be part of. That one stings. And I feel that way myself. I feel on the outside of the life that is unfolding around me. I am already not here. I'm watching someone's home movie. And that right there is how out of it I am--because people don't have home movies anymore, do they. Do you remember the old projector and the white screen on its folding stand? Do you remember having to watch someone else's life? Aware that it is important to them, at least, but that you yourself have no part to play. You are an observer. Or maybe you show up in one or two of the flickering images. There I am, you think. Proof of life. And then it's over. And you realize that as your own life unfolded you should have watched more closely, you should have lived with greater intention, you should have loved more completely, because this, this very short long life, is down to its final ticks; and what is left is nothing more than cliche - -if only I had it all to do over again ....