Ship of Fools

Reading the morning news these days is a strange experience. It's kind of like the way one feels when a loved one has recently died. You wake up in the morning and sit down with your coffee and kind of realize all over again, piece by piece, that new realities prevail in the world. It was not a bad dream. This, in fact, has happened, and will continue happening from here on out. You scan through the stories, looking for a loophole in the narrative. You think that perhaps things are not really what they seem. Surely the world will soon regain its senses.

For a long while, through the impossible march of the months after November 2016, I found the news very upsetting, distracting really. But as time lumbers on, I begin to slump into a general sigh of apathy on the one hand and a raised brow of curiosity on the other. How strange this all seems, how alien! How is it that the actual shape of the world is so different from what I thought it to be? 

Things that once seemed outrageous now become commonplace. Predictable. Life has been speaking a different language all along, and I've only just now realized that I don't understand it. How to make sense of this gibberish? 

Ship of fools on a cruel sea, 
ship of fools sail away from me. 
It was later than I thought
when I first believed you.
Now I cannot share your laughter,
ship of fools. 
[lyrics from The Grateful Dead]

Sixteen Candles

I happened to be thinking yesterday about an old movie I had very much liked at the time--Sixteen Candles, with Molly Ringwald. Now, as it happens, one of the particular blessings that come with MS (my brand, anyway) is the inability to remember the details of anything not seen in the past hour or so. This makes viewing favorite old movies or reading favorite old books practically a new experience all over again! 

So what the hell, I  looked up Sixteen Candles online and watched the flick--and I must say that I found it delightful and hilarious all over again. This, to me, is a truly endearing, mature (so to speak) 'teen movie', and provides the viewer with an opportunity to revisit the nightmare of high school days without having to suffer through actually being there. How nice it is to be able to sit back and laugh, and think "Whew, I'm glad that's over" before it even begins. 
  

Living Arms Manor

Curiously, for the last two nights, I have been without 'dead arm syndrome'. I'm not sure why (not that I'm disappointed, mind you). It could just be coincidence, the whim of MS. It could be that I had been taking one methylprednisolone tablet in the morning. It could be this skin cream, Armicare Cooling Gel, recommended by a friend. Who knows? It has been pleasant, in any case, to have living arms upon awakening, in that it makes my whole body feel a bit more alive and well than usual. The trouble with methylprednisolone, for me, and perhaps for many, is that it tends to be terrifically constipating. But oh well. Small price to pay. 

Iron Man and Green Lantern

When I went out the front door this morning, just about to head off on my walk, I found the air filled with the smell of sizzling bacon, and instantly fell captive to the aroma, as to an angelic song, reaching to the recesses of memory and experience. I close my eyes and breathe and stand suddenly before my mother as she kneels above the glowering coals of the campfire, turning the strips of bacon and four small, crisp brook trout. It is July and I am at the Metolius River and the day is already hot and I can hear the  buzzing of wings in the air, of birds and of flying bugs, and the insouciant harp-sound of the breeze in the grass and the chortling, chuckling river close by, and the accidental tune my father plays as he juggles tablespoons and metal pans upon the Coleman stovetop, preparing a pot of coffee while he puffs on his pipe. There will be bacon and eggs and fish and hash browns and coffee and Prince Albert rising like a genii. Later, when my father swirls down the stream a-fishing, we will go up the hill, my brother and I, between the uncombed cowlicks of sagebrush and the salt-dry soil and the porous red lava rocks, to where the Ponderosa Pine trees grow taller and taller and smell of sweet vanilla, and I will be Green Lantern and my brother will be Iron Man, dying day by day as his miraculous iron heart fails, burns low, brings him to his knees. Such goes our story, tragic but for the fortuitous intervention of Green Lantern and the incomprehensible powers of his ring. God, I miss you, Gary. My God, I miss those days. 

Arthur

I've been calling this guy "Arthur", although he may actually be more of, a "Spence". I'm not sure. Anyway, he's a sweet little dog, quite friendly and personable, with some intelligent things to say. 

I first met Arthur not long ago on my morning walk. His territory seemed to be the area on the other side of the cow pasture, but I  don't know who he belongs to, if indeed he belongs to anyone. He has no collar, and has not seemed to display an attachment to any particular house. More than likely, as with many Bali dogs, he is loosely associated with a person or household in the neighborhood, but pretty much runs free.

Arthur began to follow me home because he was following the big fat brown dog who was in heat and who generally accompanies me on my walks. Since then, however, he has fallen into the habit of visiting my house 'just because' (or maybe just because he will often get a sausage or a cookie or a bit of cheese). Like the big fat brown dog, he will come and go throughout the day, just hanging out, or snoozing for a few minutes, or what have you. Curiously,, he is irritated if he happens to find me snoozing on the bed, and stands there at the bedside growling at me. Why he is angered by my naps, I do not know, nor has he said. 

Arthur has the coloring of a classic Bali dog--brown with black striping. He is sharp-witted and independent--although still too young at this point to have developed a suspicion of human beings and the resultant stand-offish-ness that typifies most dogs in Bali. 

Since Arthur has no collar and roams freely, he is fairly liable not to last very long; for, you see, every citizen in Bali is deputized to kill unaccompanied, unmarked dogs on sight, if they feel like it. No penalty. It is a bit of a hysterical, not to mention brutal, reaction to the threat of another rabies outbreak. One can think of any number of ways the situation might be addressed in a more humane, and more efficient fashion. Public education, for instance? Free clinics or neutering programs? A leash law? 

Ah well. Take care, Arthur. Watch your back. Good luck, buddy! 

Liberty Valance Rides Again

My MS symptoms, which started some eleven years ago in my feet and legs, prefer nowadays to roam about an area generally described by the triangular region of my upper back, shoulders, neck and head. Let's call it 'The Devil's Triangle'. Like the outlaw gang which periodically shows up to terrorize the frontier town, MS rides roughshod through the region, whooping and howling, guns blazing, tormenting one quiet hamlet  on the plain and leaving behind ruin and destruction as it rides on to the next point of riot on that wild west stage, or simply returns for a time to its base camp, the box canyon just behind my right shoulder blade.  

I note over the past few days that my eyesight has been the victim of the latest raid, as I am unable to read print on a screen--especially that on the screen on my iPhone. The letters just simply won't stand still, but each letter must mix with its neighbors, rendering words suspiciously like Arabic script. At the same time (and this is totally weird), I am suddenly able to see things clearly at a distance, which has not happened since I was about 12 or so. Yes, I'm sitting out in the yard this morning when I note that the clothes hangers on the distant clothesline are quite crisply distinct while the news stories on my Facebook page, seen close-up, are all in inscrutable Arabic! 

Annoying, sure--but at the same time a blessing! How wonderful it is to see things faraway--my goodness, just look at the sharp green leaves on that tree, and the fact that there is a tree there! Who knew? And that little mouse that just ran under the washing machine. Ha! And he thought I couldn't see him! Thanks, MS! 

Sometimes, the renegades will split into two riotous groups, simultaneously attacking one town in the west and one in the east--or in other words, my arms. Last night, for instance, it wasn't enough to kill one arm or the other, but both must die! So it happened that I awoke between two dead bodies. Who can this be who is in bed with me? Oh. It's just me. 

Sadly, there is no Jimmy Stewart, no Rance Stoddard, in this drama, standing for law and justice; or, rather, there is, but there is no John Wayne, no Tom Doniphon, to protect him. There is no man who shot Liberty Valance. There is only Liberty Valence shooting me. 

Our Cartoon President

I just noticed yesterday that there is a TV cartoon series (Showtime) about Donald Trump called "Our Cartoon President". Lol. Only in America, right? Well, not only. I suppose this could happen in any western country (if there was another such that could find an equally foolish Head of State). But I'll tell you where this wouldn't happen (and I do mean "wouldn't"). Russia, that's where. 

The funny thing about the cartoon, kind of a Family Guy style thing, is that it's actually not very funny. That's because Donnie and his band of goons have actually said and done most of what is depicted in the cartoon episodes. In other words, we've already heard the 'jokes'. Another reason it is not funny is that this rampant government stupidity is currently very negatively affecting any number of people who are having the suffer the real-time consequences--the poor, minorities, people in need of health insurance, people on Social Security and Welfare, Veterans, asylum seekers, refugees fleeing war and death, and so on and so on. I can see that it would be funny at some future time, when the threat is gone, times are better, and people can laugh at the absurdities that an earlier generation endured, but right now, in the middle of the mess, not so much. 

And, of course, the people who need to see a graphic, cartoon-style representation of what's going on in order to grasp the meaning of the same will not be likely to watch the show in the first place, because nobody likes to feel stupid or, indeed, complicit. 

I suppose that to some extent the show might work in a cathartic way in as far as humor might provide us with a moment of relief, appealing to the 'misery loves company' effect. In other words, 'Whew, it's not just me. This whole thing really is bat-shit crazy!'