Amy

Once, when Amy and I were dating, I pulled an epic boner by suggesting we see other people. In my mind I imagined......... Well, I don't really remember what, other than a breeze, went through my head that day. Needless to say, my experiment, obviously double blind, (me blind to my own stupidity and she blindsided), proved disastrous.
      A back story should crystallize my ignorance. Amy and I started dating the summer between sophomore and junior year, our first official date being a trip to George's Pizza in East Peoria followed by a run out toward Pekin to catch "The Exorcist" at the Starlite Drive In. A perfect evening's events with which to impress a good Catholic girl. I know what you're thinking and I sympathize. I was king of the idiots back then and have yet to be unseated, cementing myself to the throne as I toy with my ALS.
      Anyway, a week later, marveling at the fact that she didn't dump me, I told her I loved her. She didn't vomit, but some may have risen to her mouth only to retreat down her throat, though I doubt it because she kissed me and I didn't taste anything bile-like. I was relieved.
      I told her I loved her every day after that, each time hoping for a reciprocal proclamation. I couldn't bear it when she simply told me, over and over again, "that's so nice". Months went by and my dismay mounted. Finally, in November, in the Pizza Inn parking lot on Sterling, I badgered her, I considered ultimatums, I cried and I got my way. She didn't deny me any longer. She told me she loved me. She also let me know that this was a 'forever' thing. Forever and ever.
      As I battle ALS, forever seems now. She wasn't kidding. I forgive her for taking so long to come to a conclusion that was forgone from the beginning. I knew right away.
       So, to get back to that infamous day the following spring, that brainless experiment where I nearly erased my love, my family, my life. Amy conducted the requisite torture, deservedly so, upon me, which I took like a boy, whimpering and apologizing in desperate anguish and fear until she felt my punishment had been satisfactorily meted out, whereby she holstered her figurative whip and ended my torment.
      She is strong where I falter. If there is a heaven, it was made for her.

An interim exercise

Offered up while I compose my thoughts, this is not a true story :       Alex was having a good day. He had finally mastered riding his big bike and was cruising down Biscayne towards the park. Even though his mom had told him to stay in the driveway he knew she wouldn't really be too mad if she knew how fun it was to fly down the road with the wind in your hair.
At the end of Biscayne, where Lake Highlands crossed, a huge puddle of muddy water had formed at the low spot where the two roads met. Alex grinned and pedalled harder. He hit the water at full speed. The cars traveling on Lake Highlands locked up their brakes and skidded into trees on both sides of the intersection. Muddy water spun off Alex's back tire and sprayed a skunk stripe up his back, soaking him down to his underpants. He laughed. Then he hit the ridge on the far side of the road and went airborne into a giant patch of thistles, lighting from his bike and flying head first into the brambles. The stickers peeled the shirt from his back, taking the skunk stripe with it, leaving Alex's mud streaked back exposed to the elements. His front tire popped and scared a girly scream out of him. If  he had peed his pants there was no way to tell unless you smelled them, Alex was pretty sure nobody would do that, not even mommy.
Then he flew over the handle bars and back flopped into the thorny brush. A thousand pins pierced his skin. A thousand thoughts flew through his head. If he didn't pee before, he was sure he was peeing now.
Alex jumped out of the patch and clutched at his back, trying to scratch the itch away. It didn't work. He looked back at the muddy puddle. In a frenzy, he fled toward it, spun around and back flopped into the foamy brew. When he splatted, the itching stopped. He smiled.
Someone grabbed his ankles and dragged him out of the Pond and lifted him like a broken doll. It was his brother. Isaac began petting Alex and running a hotwheels Camaro on his belly. Alex began to laugh. Then he saw his mom and he began to cry, then she began to laugh and he turned his cry into a laugh again, which felt much better, then he thought of the trouble he was in and he cried again, then he shrugged, scratching his back on the pavement, and laughed once more.    

Decomposition

I am witnessing a decomposition of my fan base that directly corresponds with the decomposition of my composition. I must remedy this or quit writing until the doors to my creativity open again, perhaps in another life.

What DO I mean?

When I come to a crossroad I treat it like a roundabout, circling in search of the least resistant path rather than turning down the hardscrabble dirt trail leading to healing. I expend all my energy warding off depression and fear, leaving nothing for mending, nothing for recuperation. Amy must carry the weight of my mind as well as my body. I cannot discount the enormity of her task.
      At a time past I elaborated upon my lack of fear. Today I must admit that fear plays a roll in my mind.
      I fear not dying, languishing and diminishing instead, destroying Amy in the process, draining accounts with my needs, failing to sever my ties to life........ Just melting away yet never quite succeeding. Lingering.
      Enough negativity. I continue to hope that we can kill the monster in the room. To date, we have slowed it down with lasers, magnets, infrared and determination.
     I need to end this post in a unique way, so I will add a couple silly stories I put together for my grandsons, primarily Alex. They are full of errors, but they translate well through my speak program. Enjoy or ignore.           
     Alex came home on the last day of school carrying a megalopolus 183 snot gun and walked into his house looking for somebody to glop. Isaac and B were goofing around in front of the TV until they saw Alex. B picked up Isaac and ran out of the room before he could get off a shot. Grandpa came down the ramp from his bedroom just as alex swung the megalopolus 183 snot gun to the left and pulled the trigger. The gun started glugging and tooting and burping and belching. Then it just exploded in Alex's face, six pounds of industrial snot covered his head. Grandpa laughed so hard he peed his pants and tooted so loud it scared some pee out of Murphy. Alex's mom had snuck in behind him and laughed so hard she peed her pants. B and Isaac came back and saw Alex and B peed her pants. Isaac laughed but had already pooped his pants.                   
     The most marbles Alex could fit in his mouth was 131, so he jammed two into each nostril and one into each ear, one under his chin, two under each arm, tickling his pits, a handful found its way into his underpants, and when he discovered room where his hiney hid, he dumped a hundred back there.
     It was hard to Walk with all those marbles sliding around, especially the ones in his underpants, and those in his nose felt like giant boogers. Sitting down was out of the question with 100 marbles rolling around his hiney.
    Alex waddled into the living room with over 200 marbles stuffed into every spot he could think of with the idea of showing his mom. She sat on the couch and when alex came in he tried not to smile but couldn't help it and a dozen marbles popped from between his lips which caused him to laugh, dumping a dozen more out of his mouth. Then he sneezed. The two marbles in each nostrils became bullets shot from a nose gun, breaking a glass on the end table and knocking the remote out the window and into the pool. The sneeze started a chain reaction that ended in a toot so powerful as to rip a hole in Alex's underpants, sending 100 marbles 100 miles an hour into the side of the refrigerator, blasting a hole so big that a Watermelon fell out and smooshed on the floor. The rest of Alex's marbles fell to the floor and were lost under the couch along with the marbles in Alex's head. His mom chuckled and checked her facebook.

Word rape

What am I doing? Why have I been wasting everyone's time by posting one word, a handful of words, nothing useful or interesting?
      I suppose I could blame my underindulgnce on my inferior eyegaze issue, an excuse, a poor one evidenced by the existence of this very post, denying a problem insurmountable. On the other hand, it might be that so much effort goes into lining up the letters and spelling the words that content rides in the trunk while my baggage takes a back seat in order for me to maintain my practical sanity. I can write nonsense such as this all day long (and often do), but nonsense is a cop out. I used to write about my ALS (ad nauseum), about my youth, about my apprehensions and, to a small degree, my aspirations, even on occasion my fantasies. Now my aspirations have devolved into fantasy. I must never forget what I could do before the disease lest I lose my dreams, where my abilities are intact, and my waking imaginings, where I can walk and talk as I did in my former life.
      So I falter and stumble and crack my head on a coffee table in my mind, hopeful of a trauma that cures me. I've tried wracking my brain to no avail. Meanwhile, you must navigate the flotilla of crap that percolates from the bowels of this blog.

Brevity has its advantage

I am going to the zoo today in order to confirm the superiority of the human race by observing animals presented in an environment designed to stifle the instincts we have extinguished from ourselves.

One word

Home!

I've not died

The internet in this Cleveland Holiday Inn is for shit and my Tobii device runs slow due to its 1995 state of the art processor. Apparently my eyesight has changed because now it is extremely difficult to focus on the proper characters necessary to write anything even remotely clever without longing for an anvil to magically materialize above me and come crashing down on my skull, thus releasing me from the agony of complete and utter frustration. Alas, all I can do is whine unintelligibly to Amy.

I am now in Louisville, Kentucky at a 50 dollar Econolodge with a better shower and functional internet. Who woulda thunk? ITS STILL HARD TO TYPE!!!! I'll fix it when I get home and git bak wit ya. I ain't foolin'.

Short on words, long on humble

This weekend has proven to me that the sum of family and friends is greater than its parts, and I can live with that.