The pink room in the Navesink house

Whenever I see a video, and let’s face it, I watch lot of videos, someone sitting on the floor or minimally as folding chair, I think of my pink room in the Nevis sink house.

A word about that room: I couldn’t believe it was mine! I thought it was the best room in thehouse.com, when it’s round wall plaster, a pale shade of Pepto-Bismol. But not too, it didn’t shout at you “I am pink “. It was the perfect Room for creating music acoustically. It had an echo that I thought I wasn’t supposed to like but I loved it.

I think I told you about my little red Panasonic cassette player before. I loved that thing, and it replaced the office.Eee When I had prior. This was my Karen Carpenter/John Denver era. I was singing away the pain of having been rejected for choir. Less you think I’m gonna move into when everyone gets a trophy grant rant, well, yes, yes, I am ex

Sitting on the floor with my guitar in my new antique house, with mine, terrorizing bus ride ahead of me every day I had no time to worry about mood swings. I was in a survival mode, which I had been since my birth.

Thank you Tony CoTony for all you do and your inspiration to write these things down. The irony is not lost on me. If I didn’t have a stroke I wouldn’t be doing this.

Edward Albee revisited

When I received the note, I was so starstruck that I held a piece of paper in my hand that was written on by one of the last great American poets, who lived in my time. The reason I bring it up again is because it seems so profound to me That he said every theatergoer sees a different play… Of course they do! But I didn’t realize it initially. Now I would say every post I’m seeing is carrying this same theme, and I don’t believe that that’s a coincidence in any way, shape or form. This is a message that Was meant for me.

This Isn’t Funny Anymore: My Stroke

The trained journalist in me doesn’t want to bury the lead, although that was always one of mine, Kinda, stylistic trademarks. You would have to really hold onto the idea of getting through the piece if you were gonna read me. I was way more suited to poetry or I could pretend that I didn’t say, or do it on purpose. It was all poetic justice, while it seldom was in my mind.

I thought it would be fun to try to get down some aspects of my recovering gray matter. I always thought I would use these opportunities to help others but now of course.

Thinking very highly of myself, whatever I’m involved with at that time I think that it is the thing that I should be involved in. It never occurs to me that someone else’s agenda might be more appropriate for the present time. The idea of a poem seems structurally the way the idea of getting down the stroke experience Hass to go. But the palms don’t come the same way they used to . All I had to do was pick up a Peter Mikey book, literally any of them with us inky fingers one kind of became standard for this purpose.

There’s a big difference between trying to get down the brain, tumor experience and the stroke experience. I imagine, dear reader, that this is clear to you, but it was a brain store to me several weeks in a. Sometimes my poetry method is very primitive, but it has always worked for me, especially under the gun when there’s a deadline involved. I just free associate and get down the general ideas of what it’s going through my head at the moment, and then go through and rip out all the unnecessary words which will be at least 50% of them and often way more, then I just slide much like a Snapchat filter what face I want to put on the poem, and usually once that decision is made, the poem is written in a half hour at most, most often what can go as far as two days. After that, I lose interest. If I have not entered, if I have not captured, what it was that I thought I was going to capture or anything at all for that matter and two days go by the chances of recovering anything from that exercise are really small.

I really need to hard copy poems more than ever but I never did really like reading them online. That’s why I like chapbook so much and I was really hoping to get one together for the next contest that is right where I was right before November when I became frozen in time From a small stroke. 

Like live

Live blogging my stroke, recovery!

Some days are more stroke ey we othan others

Sometimes, it really is. The other guy is not always. It seems to be maybe so. I really noticed a lot of self deprecating behavior from almost everybody that I interact with is that a thing is that the way it is now or is it because of the pandemic, I just don’t know, but it’s pretty pervasive and intense .



A few words on suicide, and other taboo things.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 800-273-TALK

“I have a lump in my breast.”

With these words, Edith Bunker informed a generation, despite the stigma, that these things need to be talked about.

It’s hard to imagine in these “pink” days a time when it was not OK to discuss breast cancer, to encourage each other to get checked, to wear pink ribbons in honor and in memory of our loved ones. People my age remember where they were when they heard Edith Bunker say those words-her lump became our lump. We were all in this thing together.

I started thinking about 70’s comedy while reflecting on the passing of Robin Williams, and the comedy he brought to our lives. I couldn’t help but remember Mrs. Doubtfire, since boobies were on my mind. Boobies on fire, and other trying aspects of womanhood, brought to you by one of the world’s hairiest men. My my personal favorite of his was the use of the water bottles in his HBO special. Lets just say you wouldn’t want to be sitting in the front row.

While the world is still raw with the news of his passing, some “blaming the victim” articles are beginning to emerge.  The chats are lighting up with a common theme: selfishness.

You will not find “the selfishness of suicide” comments here.

Like the breast cancer of Archie Bunker’s day, suicide needs to be OK’d for discussion. Likely get a boost in the news for a month or two following Williams death, we can begin to help by keeping the conversation going. Eventually, it will likely go back in its neat little closet, because it produces a type of grief that leaves us helpless as we become victims of the sadness, too.

If you had a lump in your breast, you’d get it checked out. If you have a lump in your psyche, please get it checked out. Tell somebody. The national suicide hotline has resources to get you to immediate help. You can also use this number to make a donation to help others, and you can do it in Robin Williams’ name.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 800-273-TALK)

 

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image credit: http://www.facebook/suicideisnntstupid.org