The Bloody Doors Off

There’s a guy just off to the side of an open manhole cover. He’s jumping up and down, repeating “fifty-four today, fifty-four today, fifty-four today”.

A guy, let’s call him Paul, walks up to the dude. Ask what’s going on?

“fifty-four today, fifty-four today.” Arms are gesticulating towards the man-made hole.

Curious, I, I mean, he bends over to take a look.

“Fifty-four today,” he puts a boot to the unaware person’s ass, pushing him off balance, and causing the poor man to fall through the manhole.

“Fifty-five today, fifty-five today, fifty-five today…”

Another milestone.

My brothers both retired at or around this age.

I’m never gonna retire. I can’t afford to.

Eh, I’ve talked that to death.

You can’t solve the problem if you don’t shake up the equation.

Or something like that.

Was at the dentist again today. More fillings on the bottom right teeth. I’ve got a follow-up next month to assess/game plan about the teeth up top. The only way I got through it emotionally unscathed was the nitrous.

Ugh. Boring.

I’ll come back when I get out of this funk.

Happy birthday to me.

In my 54 years, I’d never been to a tombstone unveiling.

I’ve been to many funerals.

But I don’t think Catholics, of which I am recovering, did such a thing.

And we, as a family, never did spontaneously hop into the car and drive to Mount Pleasant cemetery.

Not with me, at least.

The funerals? I remember those.

You never forget those.

Dear friends asked me to emcee their mother’s celebration of life. Of course I said yes. Not just for them. She was like my second mother.

Losing her made my own mother’s passing hit that much harder.

Not once was there a tombstone unveiling.

It was very moving.

Okay.

Stop.

Stop fluffing and write what’s on your mind.

I feel like shit for not attending Bern’s funeral on Wednesday. But there’s not a thing I can do. I don’t drive. Reason number 48 I need to get my licence. Drive two hours east, one hour for the service, Covid protocols mean not everyone can congregate after. Then it’s two hours west.

On my birthday.

Yes, that is a contributing factor. I’m not gonna lie.

So I feel extra shitty.

I’d go to confession, but I haven’t kept up my dues.

I wrote a short play about a man (possibly for-hire, I haven’t defined that) who goes to confession. It stops just as he admits to a plan to kill someone. An act he must do, but is conflicted emotionally.

It’s never revealed who the target is. Many assumed it was the priest.

That seemed too easy. Too obvious.

And that’s where I got stuck.

So I tried to move on with another idea. One that took way too long to present itself.

If there was one uniting factor on this world, JOEL FISHBANE knew, it was no one in their right mind liked folding laundry. A pile lay before him. Half sorted between his and hers. He picked up a black dress, turned it over. Convinced it was inside out, Joel laboriously inverts the garment. Only to realize that the tag of the dress now faced outwards. With a scowl that could turn Medusa to stone, Joel rights his mistake.
JOEL: Jesus Christ.
AND LO, for His name was spoken aloud, the son of our Lord, JESUS, appears. A swarthy man, draped in blinding white robes and well-worn sandals.
Announcing His arrival, the heavenly choir called out:
HEAVENLY CHOIR (OS): B seven. B as in Bob, seven.

The Sacred and The Profane

That one, has some issues that I need to resolve. Like, what the hell?

(Update: I just read a few pages of it. It’s… not good.)

And since then.

The well has been dry.

So this blog has further solidified as a writing touchstone.

Without it, I would wither.

Yes, I know they have pills for that.

Do they have pills for that?

We’re listening to John Denver tonight.

(Quick aside, I nearly wrote ‘Bob Denver’. Gilligan’s Greatest Hits. I’d have bought it.)

We’re listening to John Denver tonight.

My wife’s idea/choice.

I know every song.

And it takes me back to my childhood home. Which is funny, because I’d been thinking about the old homestead earlier in the evening. I remembered the floor plan, my orange room, my brothers’ shared yellow room. The model train set up in an unfinished part of the basement. The downstairs rec room, adorned top to bottom with faux wood panelling. There’s a fake fireplace against the wall in the middle of the room.

I loved sitting beside it. I craved forced air heat. Since I was a kid. In wintertime, I would sneak into my parents’ room in the middle of the night when the furnace clicked on. I’d sit next to the air duct grate and hold my toes over the hot air until I couldn’t take it any longer.

We had two televisions. Eventually. My earliest memories, and there’s photographic proof out there, of me, nose pressed against the upstairs television. And maybe 7 or 8 years later, playing Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea while watching the show in the basement.

Some time after the divorce, mum met Larry (on a flight to a vacation destination, I don’t remember where) and they became inseparable. After he moved in — can’t remember if it was before they got married or after; I mean hey, that’d be pretty progressive 40 years ago. (Oh my god I’m old.) Anyway, Larry renovated the basement to create a new master bedroom for them, and Wayne got their room. I was stuck in orange incarceration until he moved in with his wife.

I remember parties they had. Most of the faces are blurry with time.

But my uncle Bern was there.

And now he’s not.

I told my dad and brothers that I won’t be at his funeral on Wednesday. They seemed okay with it.

‘Sides, I always worry that church bells will alarm the congregation if I step on holy ground.

Oh! My original reason for this post.

How the hell did John Denver happen? I mean, one day he’s plucked from obscurity and becomes a Country & Western cross-over artist. Me, never liked the stuff. Too many men and women leaving their partners, their love of ‘Murica (sorry friends to the south, I love you, but it’s true) and their trucks.

And he was so wholesome. I’d bet he drank a glass of milk every night before bed.

Of course, after hearing just how much of a hound dog Bob Hope was with the USO ladies, for all we know John Denver was a coke addict who sold his soul for a hit-making guitar.

I’m not saying he was.

He starred in Oh God! with George Burns. A better match you could not ask for.

The kid’s future was bright.

And he had to go and get killed while flying a plane.

(Full disclosure: when I first went to Google to find his cause of death, I typed in ‘Bob Denver’.)

Do yourself a favour, and stream Oh God! Carl Reiner directed.

No, Rob Reiner directed The Princess Bride.

You’re welcome.

I was about to brag about exerting self-control over my impulsive need to purchase a ticket to the Postmodern Jukebox tour when it stops in Toronto next February.

Look at me. I stopped myself.

But did I?

Was this the battle or the war?

The answer may surprise you.

That’s the part fucking me up right now.

I’ve tried ignoring these impulses before. Failed almost every time.

The temptation was too great.

And my justification always made perfect sense.

I don’t know how to describe the sensations.

There’s a generalized sense of anxiety, that you have to do the thing.

Because not doing the thing is wrong.

Your head buzzes. Arguments back and forth. Pros and cons.

You don’t notice how bunched up your shoulders are until you give in, and they fall back down.

Teeth unclench.

You can breathe again.

Oh.

Endorphins.

Anyway.

The show is four months away.

And my impulses like to play the long game.

Seeing how she (yeah, the impulses are female, because they’re so seductive) occasionally resides in my brain.

Maybe I should give her a name.

Make her more tangible.

Like Harold, my despair.

He’s not some dark cloud wrapping itself around me.

He’s a ‘physical’ presence.

Something I can fight against.

Don’t worry. It’s not dissociative identity disorder.

If you want a comparison, think Inside Out.

But Harold and — I’ll come back to her later — can’t co-exist.

So if one is around, the other is on the couch, binging Netflix.

Harold is intense. He hits fast, and hard.

She, on the other hand, is like a gentle breeze. Gives you goosebumps.

Teases.

There can be more.

Right.

This post took a turn for the strange.

Wonder what my psychiatrist will make of this?

I harbour a lot of feelings about my father.

Not all of them positive.

But I realized last night most, if not all, of these negative emotions are rooted in the past. And as my brother Wayne said last night, “All that matters is now”.

That hit home.

Looking at my father today, he’s not the man he was in the 1980s and 1990s.

He truly seems to be in a good place. You couldn’t say that 10 years ago.

I need to stop punishing him for the affair.

I need to stop punishing him for his actions when he, Kevin and I shared his split-level townhouse. (And while it was a very short period of time, there’s a lot to unpack.)

All that matters is now.

Who knows how much time I have left with him.

I’ve seen first-hand how it can be swept away without warning.

It’s time I forgave him.

And let the negativity dissipate.

I had this idea.

For a blog post.

I wrote it in my head.

And got distracted by shiny. In this case, animal shaming pictures.

Several were laugh out loud funny.

Swung back over here.

And.

Nothing.

Not a stitch.

Fuck.

Just had a moment of lucidity.

I’ve got problems.

I’m bi-polar 2 with anxiety and depression. I’m overweight. Type 2 diabetic on insulin. Too many pills per day to manage both. I have debt.

But they’re manageable.

May not feel like it sometimes.

I’m prone to anxiety attacks at the drop of a pin.

I’ll never be cured.

But it’s manageable.

I’m not sure why I wrote this post.

Ontario’s top doctor just announced that trick-or-treating got the green light this year.

Makes me a little wistful.

I doubt Coltrane will want to go out.

Don’t blame him. He’s at that age.

So then I wished we lived in one of those houses on popular Hallowe’en streets that pull out all the stops to give the kids an experience, not just candy.

Make no mistake. I love where we live. It’d be nice if there was a grocery store nearer to us (and you know, not being torn down to accommodate more condos). But I’m across the street from the Distillery. Access to two different bus routes, one just outside my door, the other a block away and travels the majority of King Street. We are walking distance to Corktown Common. Less than five minutes to the Lakeshore and the Don Valley Parkway.

But for one day a year, I’d like to live in one of those big houses with the spooky music piped through outdoor speakers and fake webbing and hand out chocolates and chips.

Come over to the window, my little darling,
I’d like to try to read your palm.
I used to think I was some kind of Gypsy boy
before I let you take me home.
Now so long, Marianne, it’s time that we began
to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again

So Long Marianne, Leonard Cohen

I just wrote a condolence letter.

Expressing regret at not being able to attend my uncle’s funeral next week.

It’s the right choice, given circumstances.

Doesn’t mean I don’t feel some guilt.

And I realize now I should’ve called.

I should’ve called when I got the news.

Why haven’t I?

And now that I’ve sent the email, will that make a phone call awkward?

Goddammit.

Kevin would’ve called.

It’d be reflex.

The man is the saint among us brothers.

He tends to various members of family, helping with errands, groceries, etc. And I think, now that he’s retired, this has given Kevin even more time to lend a helping hand.

When he isn’t playing golf.

Wayne is the family man. He and Donna raised two boys who both made the decision to move to Alberta. And with no hesitation, the moment after he retired the house was sold and they were pulling up stakes to be with their kids and grandkids.

I wish we’d had that kind of relationship with our grandparents. I only remember visiting Grandpa Koster at his house (they had a pool) but I don’t remember him ever coming to Scarborough. And while we saw Grandma and Grandpa Kirby almost every Sunday, it wasn’t what Wayne and Donna have with their progeny.

And me.

The late bloomer. I had fun in my 20s, but didn’t come into my own until my mid-30s. And shortly after turning 55, I’ll have been married for three years. It took me until my 50s to settle down. Not like I hadn’t wanted to. Nearly did 20 years ago. And while I’m not where I’d like to be professionally, I’ll keep slogging it out until I do.

(I decided on a whim that I would try being nice to myself and see how it feels. I’m uncomfortable.)

Clearly I am distracted today.

I couldn’t remember Kristen Stewart’s name. I’m staring at a photo of her on Entertainment Weekly, and drawing a blank. I can tell you four films she’s been in, but not her name.

And now I’m unclear whether I took my pills this morning.

I so wanna say no.

But there’s 2% of me that thinks, I must’ve because it’s my routine; every morning I get up, relieve the bladder, wash up and then take my pills.

Only 98% disagrees this time.

I’m sure I took my metformin after breakfast.

But can’t guarantee I took my anti-depressant.

Fuck it. I’m gonna take the pills.