thoughts – cranky and droll – from a feisty geezer determined to ride his quick cancer into the ground

It’s a little after 4 AM.  Today is Monday, August 1, 2011.  We’re about six weeks past the Summer Solstice. Six weeks ago, it would have been getting quite-apparently bright outside, by this hour. Today, I have to turn off the light at the desk, to be able to discern the sky beginning to lighten in the sky east of us. I feel some familiar dismay – at the thought that Summer is on its way out, Fall is readying to move in, and Winter will be here all-too-soon for a thin-skinned boy like me.  And… I feel a mixture of both relief and uneasiness, to think that I can’t expect to have that season-turning experience again.

As “planned”, it’s going to be a short week, for me. I’ve decided that I want to have my funeral-burial next Saturday. That means I have to be ready for burial; I have to get dead, between now and Saturday. It’s Monday morning. I intend to walk the plank sometime Wednesday. I have two days to get myself ready for Wednesday’s big transition. The sky is now quite noticeably brighter, north and east of me, now. It looks quietly gorgeous. It feels good to be alive, right at this moment.

The Unitarian Church minister is coming over tomorrow afternoon – Two O’clock. Todd is “brand new”. He just arrived about four weeks ago, to begin his new settlement. He looks like he’s going to be a good one. He allows as how he does drink beer, and that he can stay the whole afternoon, if I would like. Hell, I’d be happy to have him stay for a few years – if I could just stick around and BS with him. That don’t look like a good likelihood. In anticipation of a high social event, I spent about $50 at the two grocery stores in our neighborhood. I collected six kinds of beer, a small puck of smoked Gouda cheese, a half-pound of “Tapenade” from the fancier store’s deli, three kinds of crackers, and a few other sundry staples for life ongoing.  I think I must have spent about $12 on just six bottles of beer. Woo-hoo!  Somewhat more “sensibly”, I think I need to get some fresh vegetables to slice up for Todd’s visit, as well. I suspect he’s going to have some struggle with holding his weight down during his tenure here.  It’s a classic occupational hazard for a guy in his line of work.  Everyone wants a piece of the hem of the minister’s garment.  They also want to feed him.  At 47-years-old, he looks like he tends a bit toward fattening up.  He also appears, though, to be a guy who can handle that kind of struggle, if need be.

I shouldn’t be up now. I’m perpetually short of sleep. I don’t think I went to bed before midnight. But – this seemed important: sitting down to bang out what are likely to be my last posted thoughts, here at Kathy McMahon’s “Feisty Life”. Maybe I can do an hour, and then go back to bed. I could use a lot more sleep. Then again, a salty old girlfriend of my grandpa’s used to admonish, “We can sleep when we’re dead!”  That seems an apt point. Uh-oh – I see that my fingers are doing that thing, in cahoots with my drooping eyelids – they’re resting on the keypad – like this: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

It’s now 5:15; the sky is quite bright and clear in all directions. I think I’ll head for the sofa for another couple of hours sleep – before I do another row of meaningless lower case alphabet…. and I start drooling on the key-pad.      Stop.

Back.  No nap.  I spent the last two hours defying my own “inability to eat” – by eating.  ”Breakfast” was the small butt-end of a piece of mocha cheesecake, soaked in half&half, a dozen or so miniature shredded-wheat biscuits, with more half&half, and the last cupful of some tapioca pudding I made a few nights ago.  Probably 500 calories or so – it took me two hours to eat that much, one slow little bite at a time.  Eating is slow and difficult, usually very uncomfortable, even painful.  Often, part way through some trivial bit of solid food that requires a bit of chewing, and swallowing  (there’s the rub: swallowing!), I have to stop, because my throat has swollen up from the irritation of the process.  It just locks up, as if to say: “This shall not pass!”  [And, so, it doesn't.]   That, and the frustration about not being able to eat so many things I crave and was used to eating, formerly, and the frustration and resentment of watching everyone around me eating and enjoying so many of those same things.

Jan just arrived, home from work early.  It’s 9:00 AM.  She says she’s home for the week.  She’s feeling very “loaded up”.  She is very loaded up.  Whether I’ve left things finished or not, by the time I check out, once I check out, I’m “done”.  Jan’s load remains – whatever isn’t finished will still be there, to either do, or to write off.  She’s been on the phone, talking to newspaper representatives about an obituary notice (I wrote something a bit “different” several months ago).  Another phone call to her supervisor, re his notarizing a statement by me, that, “I, Dan Treecraft, on this date, do solemnly affirm that I believe myself to be of sound mind – though I’m intending to commit suicide in two days – do hereby swear that my resolve to commit suicide remains firm…”.  She’s also blowing around the house, picking up mislocated stuff (much of it mine?), and dusting,sweeping, washing, mopping – all that.  And, now, I tell her I feel “not-so-resolute” about shutting myself off two days from now, in light of Molly’s rapid decision to come here.  Kinda crazy-making.

Jan has just told me that her daughter, Molly, who lives on the other side of the continent, will be arriving here tomorrow night, having hastily obtained an airline ticket, and then spending the entire day – tomorrow – flying across the country to be here with her mother, and to say good bye to me.  Funny, the barrage of somewhat conflicting feelings that news kicks up.  Pleasant thrill to hear that Molly and I will get to see one another, and say good bye.  Unease about her dropping all that she’s doing – a lot on her plate – to come here, while I continue to march resolutely toward “my final sundown”.  My resolve to carry on as planned, “on schedule”, is rattled a bit by this little change in the environment around me.  I don’t feel quite so resolute to continue on schedule as I did earlier.  I don’t feel quite so resolved about leaving “on time”, now that Molly has “set her life aside” (even for a few days) to be here.  It’s all very dynamic and unpredictable.  Volatile.   Crazy-making.  Who could have imagined?   (Indeed)

My casket has been delivered, as of early-last-week.  It sits, now, on top of the twin bed in the spare bedroom, with its pyro-engraved “Dan Treecraft”  bracketing, above and below,  a ten-inch high depiction of a lovely ponderosa pine tree.  We both seem to take some pleasure out of showing it off to visitors.  It certainly seems to have some “conversation value”.  Not everyone is eager to see it.  Jan helped me pick out and prepare my “last outfit” – dominated by a green tee shirt, which proclaims, in a sort of Celtic-Arabesque design, the admonition: Transcend The Bullshit.  It’s an authorized rendition of a classic art poster done by Harold Balazs, one of Spokane’s most beloved resident artists.  Having changed my mind about being put away in a pair of vintage, wool plaid, bell-bottom disco pants (too cool to waste, thusly), I decided on a pair of clapped-out, somewhat-ragged, “boot-cut” jeans, that had defied retirement for the past decade.  A pair of pink cotton socks complete the ensemble.  They were borrowed from the county jail, where I spent an afternoon reflecting on my willful transgression of dancing in the street without a permit, when Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, visited Spokane, to offer help with quelling gang activity in Spokane County.  A week later, amid some fuss about gang activity inside the White House, and in the Department of Justice, Gonzales resigned to spend more time with his affection-deprived family.

I see, now, that (whether I can get to it or not) this blog cries out for at least one more entry, chronicling the thoughts in the mind of one peculiar Dead Man Talking.  Too many questions remain – like: “What is this guy thinking?”   Surely – there must be one deep thought in there, someplace.  I will try to get to it, tomorrow to see if something profound (or interesting) slips out.

Perhaps, some comments on the state of the world I’m escaping from would be appropriate?  I do have some thoughts about all that.  Maybe, also, more could be said about why – with some smattering of wits remaining – I might be so hell-bent on retiring from the race of rats.  We’ll see what, if anything, seeps out.