September 8
 
 

Here, a rabbit loves her curtain...
 
 
 
 
 
 

[deletia]

That leads me to wonder about myself.  If I knew, really knew deepdown that there was something terribly wrong with me, because I think that people often know just by the way we know our bodies, and I had that horrible knot you get when you know something, would I be able to ball it up and ignore it or pretend that nothing was wrong?  I think that it's both incredibly brave and intensely stupid, how this patient is choosing to live.  Brave because he is acknowledging the fact that he is alive.  He is opting for  "Well, fuck, if I'm going to die anyway, which we all are, I'm going to do it in a yurt or on a camel or on a Cessena or swimming in the Medeterrainian.  I am not going let it linger.  I will stay this way, untouched by doctor's opinion or surgeon's knife and I will just die when my time is up." Which to me is, at first glance very brave, the whole idea of meeting your maker whenever it happens to happen.  The flipside to brave, however, when it comes to health is almost always stupidity.

Each year that passes, each month going by each time he calls and asks for an medical opinion he really doesn't want to hear, he is getting weaker.  And again I ask myself what I would do.  I think of my grandmother who has lived a life choked by heart disease and I remember her face when the surgeon told her she'd likely need another bypass.  That is brave.  It's brave when someone tells you something you don't want to hear but you listen to the voice inside whispering "not doing this means something far worse" when you have a burning desire to be alive.
 

It's a close call.   I get not wanting to lie down on a table for someone else.  I understand the unwillingness to give over control to a stranger.  I definitely admire the spirit which would send this man out on a boat alone with his thoughts (and unquestionably a big, fat wallet) and the knowledge of exertion-that hoisting of the sail, that dive into the water--could bring on debilitating illness or death.  This, too is brave.

I guess that the botton line is relatively simple:  choose wisely, there isn't always a second chance, even if you are afraid.
 
 
 
 

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Note:  Tomorrow is Angelo's (81st!) birthday and we're all (Nick, me, Angelo, Eleanor and my mom) going away.  I'll be back Tuesday.  In the meantime, why don't you engage in retarded gossip started by fuckwits and  whisper it in tedious, repetitive detail until I get home, okay?  That sounds like it'll be a good use of everyone's time!