Category: health

every inch

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Some days, it feels like a war of attrition (and we’re not talking about the cold now).

It’s just a fight, a relentless fight, one moment after the next, bloodied, beaten, without rest, without help, without anything to get us through but pure fucking grit and the sense that goddamnit, we’re gonna get there if we die trying.

This notion that life should be a dream, a dance through the tulips, it’s poison. It’s ephemeral opiate, a smoky high that keeps us from seeing what’s going on.

But the fight keeps us focused, no matter how many cuts and bruises, how many broken bones, no matter that our hearts are in tatters and we know we’ve gone far, far from the ideal person we intended to be at the start.

All that matters is the result.

And ain’t that a hell of a way to live?

Target: 1000 words
Written: 484 words, comic: Western Cradle #3

Read: Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris
Comics: Preacher 37-40
Music: I Can't Be Satisfied, Paul Rodgers & Brian Setzer

fighting back

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Well, mostly. I’m holding my own, but also partially drowning in phlegm and mucus.

This may be the birth of the Anti-Cold.

It’s like the Anti-Monitor, but against all things cough and snot related.

Snot robbed my mother, and I must avenge her! Mucus kicked my dog! Phlegm killed my Uncle Ben!

Can cough medicine make one delirious? Asking for a friend.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 2217 words, comic: Western Cradle #3

Read: Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris
Comics: Preacher 31-33, Preacher: Cassidy - Blood & Whiskey 1
Music: NWA Greatest Hits, NWA (fuck 'em, right?)

nope

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Coughing should not involve chewing.

Yeah, we’re going full manbaby.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 320 words, comic: Western Cradle #3

Read: The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Malcolm X/Alex Haley
Comics: Preacher 28-30, Preacher: The Good Old Boys 1
Music: Nurse, Sonic Youth

something inside me

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This cold is something else.

It’s got my blood pressure up so high I can feel it. It’s a terrifying prospect to know that something as simple blowing your nose could cause an embolism.

I’m coughing so hard that it’s giving me a chronic migraine and each cough comes with a growing terror that I might stroke out or have an aneurysm.

Fuck me.

I’m starting to think this might not be a cold.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 226 words, comic: Western Cradle 3

Read: The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Haley/X
Comics: Preacher 24-27
Music: Numbers, Cat Stevens/Yusuf

coughin’ so hard it hurts

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Literally. I’ve coughed so deep today that it just about gave me a migraine, or what I thought was the start of a migraine, but after checking my blood pressure, it might be a stroke or an aneurysm.

Fuck.

Can’t catch a break.

Fuckin’ cold.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 464 words, comic: Western Cradle #2

Read: The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, X/Haley
Comics: Preacher: The Story Of You-Know-Who (Arseface!) #1, Preacher 21-23
Music: Number One Blind, Veruca Salt

something that looks like escargot

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That’s what I’m coughing up now.

(Thanks, Phil Hartman)

Coughing non-stop; I’m hoping it’s the last gasps of this cold trying to cough itself out of my system; I fear it’s mutating into a chest infection.

Would that I had a doctor I could see; that our current health care situation is so fucked can only be the result of the typical Conservative “break everything, then use that as a sign everything is broken” policy of social services.

Assholes.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 746 words, comic: Western Cradle #2

Read: The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Malcolm X
Comics: Preacher: Saint Of Killers 3-4, Preacher 19-20
Music: Nuggets, Iggy Pop (it makes me shudder to think how many older bands have songs about underage girls)

slept in

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Until EIGHT. In the AM!

Crazy, right?

I haven’t had more than about six or seven hours of sleep in months, without being ill.

Of course, I’m ill today, but fuck it. I am using this downtime to push forward hard on the things that I love – writing, reading, comics, with a side of meditation, exercise, cooking and music.

That’s pretty much the sum total, although I think travel, sex, video games, and various other sundry storytelling mediums also play a part.

What else could you possibly need? A greater purpose? People who love you? Righteous vengeance?

I don’t know, but I’m feeling better, anyway.

Still sick, but hell if I couldn’t use eight to ten hours every night.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 2575 words, comic: Western Cradle #2

Read: The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Malcolm X/Alex Haley
Comics: Preacher: Saint Of Killers 1-2, Preacher 17-18
Music: Nowhere Generation I & II, Rise Against

cold

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Not physically.

The mucus kind.

It hasn’t been great. I’m trying not be a manbaby about it, but it’s hard. Grit and determination, man. No need to pull the wuss card yet.

Save it for when you’ve got a real disease.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 312 words, comic: Western Cradle #2

Read: The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Haley/X
Comics: Preacher 13-16
Music: Nowhere, Ride

the busiest vacation

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EVER.

And not like you’re travelling and seeing and doing things.

Nope.

House cleaning. In-laws that are mildly insane (okay, a lot insane – seriously, someday I’ll write about it, but it’s very difficult to write about it in a way that’s empathetic and believable, at this point. Seriously, you try to explain it to people and they either reduce it to a simple thing that can be easily fixed (it can’t) or they think you’re exaggerating or outright lying).

Hint: you’re not.

Anyway, my back hurts, my brain hurts, and I’m very, very fucking tired.

Fuck Christmas.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 150 words, comic: Western Cradle #1

Read: The Vegetarian Myth, Lierre Keith (cannot recommend higher - it's a shame she's apparently a TERF as well - I guess we'll have to agree to agree on this, and disagree on the trans thing)
Comics: Chew 60, Outer Darkness/Chew 1-3
Music: Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, Soft Cell

i get it; i’m late

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For all the things I wanted to do with my life, I probably would have had to have started as a teenager.

Unfortunately, the lessons I needed to learn, the skills I had to grow (and am still growing), the mindset, the life experience, all that stuff… it unfolded a little slower than it probably should have.

Maybe I could have gone a more traditional route, and maybe I could have been content with that, but when have I ever been content with anything? In the moment, I can be, in the midst of a good meal or a great book or great sex, a nice moment in the sun while walking the dogs.

But isn’t that the only time ever?

I know it will take me probably until I’m a hundred and no longer able to function physically or mentally to do the work that I want to do, to see the places I wanted to see, to have all the experiences I’ve desired.

I probably won’t make it, barring terrific medical advances. Of course, I could live that long but the growing spectre of fascism, the threat of climate change, bigotry and hatred, the complete breakdown of both civility and the willingness to stand up for what is right, in action more than words, is likely to end this planet (or at least my life or the ability to do the things I desire to do), all that pretty well guarantees that this is a fool’s errand.

But what’s the alternative?

Giving up?

I know I’m a late bloomer, but hell. Fuck it.

There’s no do-overs, so it’s now or never, and if I die in the attempt, without making the impact I would have liked, well, there’s no shame in trying.

Only in giving up.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 1479 words, short story: Late Riser

Read: The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho (also, this has nothing to do with this book, it was garbage, like Eckhart Tolle fucked Hans Christian Andersen and their baby read The Secret on the way out - stuff like this is why people get stuck in their own heads thinking they just have think things into existence, or that all skill is just natural, instead doing the fucking work.)
Comics: Chew 42-44, Chew: Warrior Chicken Poyo (POYO!) 1
Music: No!, They Might Be Giants