Stuck In Old Lodi Again

If I could somehow predict the arrival of these intermittent days of heightened confusion, I would just stay home and do something less demanding--wash the dishes, or do the laundry, or vacuum the rug. Or sleep.

But their arrival is quite unpredictable, and moreover you don't even know your having one until you find yourself right in the middle of it. Suddenly you hear that familiar music. No point in adjusting your TV set--for you have entered the Twilight Zone.

It was my day off work, and my wife had given me a simple list of things to do, the accomplishment of which should have taken perhaps an hour, certainly less than two.

But folks, it took me the entire day, such that I finished the last chore no sooner than ten minutes before she came home from her own full day of work.

Much of this time was spent driving back and forth between my house and one location or another in order to retrieve whatever I had forgotten--the same item being crucial for the specific task at hand. This means arriving at the bank to buy money orders without remembering to bring the money. It means arriving at the postbox without the letters to be posted. It means taking three trips to the store in order to buy three items--0ne item at a time.

What have you been doing all day? she asks. I have heard this question so many times that they are far beyond counting at this point. She imagines perhaps that I have been sleeping, or maybe just sitting, or maybe watching TV. It seems quite clear to her that I cannot account for six or seven hours of my time.

And the truth is, I can't. Not in any reasonable way, not in a form of accounting that would seem even remotely believable.

So maybe I've been having an affair. Affairs take time, right? And they're much more fun than driving back and forth, over and over, within a radius of three square miles or so.

It is an answer that would fill in the blanks, that would seem to make sense, that would seem more satisfactory even to me. It's not the truth, and yet seems kinder somehow to the reasonable parameters of credulity.

Fried Myelin With Anemone

. . . a wise man's heart discerns both time and judgment,
Because for every matter there is a time and judgment,
Though the misery of man increases greatly.
For he does not know what will happen;
So who can tell him when it will occur?
No one has power over the spirit to retain the spirit,
And no one has power in the day of death.
--Eccl 8:5-7

Wake up calls.

I have already written of my recent hour-long brain fart fiasco with forgetting my user name and password. That happened the day before yesterday.

Remembering one thing, however, does not lead to remembering another. Remembering one thing does not restart nor restore the brain--it simply sits in your head waiting to forget the next thing.

Yesterday, having left the Winco store along with Albert with our bags of goodies for a barbecue, it happened that I could not make the car move out of its parking spot. Perplexed, I checked the brake, I adjusted the gear shift--drive, neutral, reverse--right. Everything seemed to be in order.

"Uh, Dude, you need to start the engine first," Albert observed.

I begin to see, slow as I am, that there is no respite now, there is no delay, there is no recovery as from a common illness. Broken bones will mend, and be stronger moreover in the broken places, but the brain just lies there in the head, curiously unaware, as defenseless as a sea anemone.

"Fried myelin, anyone?"

"Umm, what else is on the menu?"

"Sorry, that's all we have."

Honestly. Has a strip of bacon ever unfried itself? Has an egg ever returned to its shell?

And so this is it. My lot from here on out. This, and more of the same.

Redeem the time becomes therefore the phrase of the hour, and of every hour remaining. It is the only reasonable approach to the reality that is upon us.

Will my spirit eventually hide itself as well in the same sorts of dim corners and crannies to which my memory has already fled?

O banish the thought, for it is too harsh for the morning to bear.

Procrastination

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!' --Frederick Goethe

It has just this morning come to my attention that a certain penchant for procrastination has begun to overtake my person. This comes as somewhat of a surprise, for I have not been given to procrastinating in the past, to the best of my recollection.

Nonetheless, what I have noted is the existence of a growing backlog of intentions, a catalogue of things I am going to do when such and such a time arrives. When, for instance, I feel better; when my brain is working better; when I'm over my head cold; when the Swallows come back to Capistrano.

I track myself, elusive as I am, according to trails of yellow sticky notes, scribblings on the calendar, shy little jots and tittles on page corners and on napkins. These notes pertain either to things I am going to write or things I am going to learn. One hopes that the former will precede the latter (but of course hope, in the final analysis, is no more than a four letter word--five if you add the s).

The irony in the very existence of these notes is that the depth of the matter about which they intend to be a reminder will have long since fled recollection by the time they are viewed again. So it happens that procrastination leads to a void. There is no better advice for the post MS person than Goethe's, as presented above.

MSFLT--Coming Soon!

I find myself increasingly locked out of my own life by passwords that I cannot remember. These are not exotic sequences of code, but rather simple, easy to remember sets of letters and/or numbers--like my name or birth date.

There are some user names, some passwords, that require letters and at least one number. There are some that do not. But which is which? For me, logging into the Internet, or LiveJournal, or my bank account, or my own website, is a matter of trial and error. I keep trying until I get in, or until an administrative message pops up and tells me I have tried too many times.

Try again later.

I have therefore determined that a need exists for the MS-Friendly Laptop and Internet (MSFLT). This will be a system devoted to people with MS in particular, but also handy for any person suffering from cognitive, spatial, coordination and/or memory challenges.

First off, no user name or password will be required of each individual user. In fact, these will not be allowed. Attempts to invent a personal user name or private password will result in a critical system failure, and the user will be referred to a website marketing refurbished IBM typewriters and transistor radios--the one to be used for preparing documents, the other for surfing.

As with my prototype X-Box for MS (MSX-Box), these consoles (i.e. laptops) will be roughly three times the size of your standard Dell or Compaq (so just a bit shorter than an upright piano), in order that the keys may also be three times the normal size.

Logging onto the Internet will require the depression of only one key, labeled MSI. Again, no password, no user name. Upon arriving at the MSFLT Home Screen, one will again merely type in his desired destination (in the large box titled Where The Fuck Do You Want To Go?), and voila! The specially programmed MSFLT system will find your page, update your account, protect your identity, and order a pizza--all with just one keystroke!

Say goodbye to frustration, goodbye to pockets stuffed with yellow sticky notes, goodbye to eyestrain and migraines. MSFLT IS HERE! (or on the drawing board, anyway).