So, the “Lost” reading took place at Grumpy Bert’s on Saturday night.
Continue reading The Lost Show
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Category Archives: Rehab
Apoplexy Live!!!
Today’s blog post is a little different. This Saturday I’ll be doing a reading at the Lost Lit open mic and photography show and reception in Boerum Hill/Downtown Brooklyn. I’d love to invite you all along, but it’s being held in a small space, and there will be twenty writers presenting. So, in lieu of that, here’s a version of what I’ll be reading, on the theme “Lost”. Hope you enjoy….
Continue reading Apoplexy Live!!!
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The Card Cheat
There’s a solitary man crying, “Hold me.”
It’s only because he’s a-lonely
And if the keeper of time runs slowly
He won’t be alive for long
[Disclaimer: nobody actually cheats at cards in this post.]
Continue reading The Card Cheat
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The Psychology Test
I can’t say enough good things about the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine…. subject to one caveat. Setting up, or checking in for, an appointment is an exercise in occupational therapy in itself. After getting through the process, one is disorientated, anxious, and, generally, functionally impaired. Continue reading The Psychology Test
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Mr. Personality
[I hope you enjoyed last week’s post inspired by The Myth of Sisyphus, and were not disappointed, like the reader who misread it as The Myth of Syphilis (or, The World’s Most Absurde Excuse for not Wearing a Condom). I have a vision, now, of a rakish intellectual lounging on la rive gauche, writing such a treatise. Maybe la rive gauche de la Gowanus….]
I remember, as a younger man, or, more, likely, a teenager — because teenagers are given to Deep Thoughts — hearing friends tell of how their outlook on, or approach to, life had radically changed at a particular age. Continue reading Mr. Personality
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The Myth Of Sisyphus
“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.“
[Referencing Albert Camus, goalkeeper and absurdist king of the existential French philosophers, and author of The Myth of Sisyphus, might be a bit adolescent for a 38-year old stroke survivor, but then, Camus wrote La Chute when he was 42. And one could suggest that his philosophy of the absurd was inspired by a youthful bout of TB which curtailed his nascent soccer career and cut his university studies back to part-time. How much more profound might his work have been if he’d had a massive stroke, too?]
Continue reading The Myth Of Sisyphus
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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Stroke Patient
This Sunday was a pretty quiet day. As Sundays should be. Beth was a little under the weather in the morning, so, for once, I got to be the doting partner. Wouldn’t wish a stroke on you, Honey, but that was nice. We spent a good part of the early afternoon daydreaming about the next post-recovery steps in our relationship. That’s important for a couple recovering from a stroke, I think. The dreams and aspirations that can do so much to sustain a relationship can be drowned in the blood, shit and snotters of the harsh reality of a stroke, and it’s good to remember from time to time that a partnership is for better, as well as for worse. Day trips to St. Kilda and flowers, as much as puncture wounds to the groin and angiograms. Continue reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Stroke Patient
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This Be The Verse…
“They #^<{ you up, your mum and dad/They may not mean to, but they do…” [With apologies to Philip Larkin. And my mum and dad.]
They say that a big part of growing up is becoming aware of one’s parents’ mortality. Continue reading This Be The Verse…
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The Hypertension Tolerance Test
Although when I was taken to Methodist, Beth correctly indicated my religious preference as “atheist” (and if you can’t back it up on your near-death bed, what kind of a rubbish atheist are you?), I’ve always thought that any given piece of writing can’t have enough biblical text in in it. I even whipped out 1 Corinthians 13:13 to send in a text while I was in rehab at the Hospital for Joint Disease. Today’s text is, “Physician, heal thyself.” (Luke 4:23) Continue reading The Hypertension Tolerance Test
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Three Short Posts About Hemorrhagic Strokes
This post is a tribute to François Girard and Don McKellar’s Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. Admittedly, I’ve never seen it, so the tribute aspect will be necessarily loose. Continue reading Three Short Posts About Hemorrhagic Strokes
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