Your day in a nutshell. Share please.

[oettinger]

I have a cane to help me

Aren`t you eligible for some electric wheelchair? Steal one from costco maybe?

If I was rich I`d buy you one

[Thompson]

[*]

I have a cane to help me

Aren`t you eligible for some electric wheelchair? Steal one from costco maybe?

If I was rich I`d buy you one

No no no. The electric wheelchair will rob you of your independence. Everything that plugs in robs you of your independence. What if when you plug it in nothing happens? And then since you’ve become a slave to the electric wheelchair your muscles will go even more to shit that they are now. Then you have to have access to a ramp every motherfucking place you go. It’s similar to Hugh’s dilemma, now that he’s sold his soul to the insurAnce company he’s got to find the doctor and nurse practitioner (never heard of the nurse practitioner until recently) who belong to his insurance plan. And that fucking nurse practitioner will try and bust Hugh’s balls, make him feel small, make him sing country songs all liquored up on PBR. Thompson is still making up his mind which beer is the worst - Hamm’s , PBR, or Miller High Life. Hamm’s is the best of the three in a blind taste test.

[scream ale]

I'm a slave to the stereo. I'm ok with it.

[Thompson]

I'm a slave to the stereo. I'm ok with it.

Right! I’m figuring all this out as we go along. 4 years ago or so my brother and myself were at good ol’ Mom’s house in Moline just waiting around for her to die. We tried everything, nothing worked, she was 85 and her time was fast approaching. It came, She was in home hospice and we were the medicine (good old fashioned high powered dope) givers. Hey, Michael , I said, what say we try this liquid morphine and this other shit while we wait for the hospice ambulance to come and take Mom away. Okay, he said. And we did. Both of us passed out immediately and woke up in Hospital. Nurse Ratched comes in and I tell her Fuck, I have to piss, where is the pisser. I get up back from pissing and the nurse asks me if I have medical insurance. No, I reply. Your time here is over, says the nurse practitioner. What about my brother, I ask? Oh, he’s got plenty insurance, Nurse says. We will probably keep him on suicide watch indefinitely and make him go to some drug therapy classes. Okay, I said. How do I get home to my mom’s condo? There’s a bus stop around here somewhere, says Nurse Practitioner.

So yeah, you do need prooof of insurance to get in the door. Medicare takes $175 a month out of my SS money that I fought for to no avail. If those people think I’m paying any copays - numerous they are too - it ain’t gonna happen. I was more than a little pissed off that neither one of us, my brother nor myself, got a buzz from the dope. We Just went straight down to the ground.

[oettinger]

We Just went straight down to the ground.

That sucks. It was "opposite effect on dope day" I guess.

How does Ladybug afford all those HIV screanings, being an escort n stuff? If I may ask of course

[Thompson]

We Just went straight down to the ground.

That sucks. It was "opposite effect on dope day" I guess.

How does Ladybug afford all those HIV screanings, being an escort n stuff? If I may ask of course

She mainly gives blow jobs. Fancies herself an expert.

[Thompson]

Since being in Hospital my sleeping pattern is fucked up. I’ll sleep two, maybe three hours at most, then I’m wide awake. I guess I’m sleep deprived which is leading to problems. I find myself at The Club (4.5 blocks) at 5am nursing a beer and a shot waiting for the bodega to open at 7am so’s I can get the ‘big’ breakfast for $7.99 and take it back to The Club (1 block) and sit in a booth to eat it. Three sausage links, three scrambled eggs, toast, and a generous serving of grits. I save the grits for last because that’s the way I eat the ‘big’ breakfast.

So I’m working on the grits (excellent by the way) and there is this woman screaming at me that comes into view. At first I think it is Ladybug but no, she is much better looking and way younger than The Bug. I’m in The Twilight Zone. Slowly I’m coming out of it and when she mentions calling an ambulance I understand what has happened. There is a shift change at 8am and the new bartender is the one 86ing me for falling asleep and not responding quick enough I guess. “Please don’t call an ambulance!” I plead, wide awake now. So I grab my cane, bus the table, and hit the door. This falling asleep phenomenon has happened three times. One time I was upright and feeling great because I had almost made it home. Then I was pulling myself onto the curb and tending to a rather nasty gash on my forehead. Okay, I’d been drinking, but nothing new there. So it’s not a ‘pass out’ but an actual falling asleep.

Isn’t there a rock band called Asleep at the Wheel?

[Thompson]

Hugh, is there a release date set for your new book of poems. I don’t know how you can top A Home to Crouch In. Did I explain that along with this ball, this mass, lodged in my colon, my eyesight suddenly when dim and fuzzy? Then Ladybug attacked me with her claws and pretty much ripped out my left eyeball. It is getting better though, and the eyeglass joint just called and my bifocals are ready for pick up. I think I will start with Ed McBain and the 87th precinct series. A Home to Crouch In lives in a secure place, away from whisky and beer spills. It’s Mardi Gras though, tough to get around. They told me in Hospital that if I relapsed bad things would happen. They didn’t tell me I would be falling asleep before I finished my grits. I was too embarrassed to get the ‘big’ breakfast this morning, so I saved $7.99 and sucked on some rocks for breakfast and peeked in The Club, but didn’t enter.

[whiskeyprick]

wake up early again, pee. drink some coffee, go back to sleep, wake up, pee. have a dream about the shit I'm supposed be doing. wake up and start doing that shit, nuke some brunch, food coma, wake up to someone in my kitchen, look outside and next storm of the century starting, get pissed off, start answering my messages and scrolling facefuck, find out for real that Mojo has died, realize I can't be undrunk for this evening.

[Savage]

that it's national hug a drunkard day. I did not get a hug. This is why grandma drinks.

[Hugh]

wake up early again, pee. drink some coffee, go back to sleep, wake up, pee. have a dream about the shit I'm supposed be doing. wake up and start doing that shit, nuke some brunch, food coma, wake up to someone in my kitchen, look outside and next storm of the century starting, get pissed off, start answering my messages and scrolling facefuck, find out for real that Mojo has died, realize I can't be undrunk for this evening.

[Nausea]

that it's national hug a drunkard day. I did not get a hug. This is why grandma drinks.

I'd give you a hug but I can't stand the smell of booze.

[Thompson]

wake up early again, pee. drink some coffee, go back to sleep, wake up, pee. have a dream about the shit I'm supposed be doing. wake up and start doing that shit, nuke some brunch, food coma, wake up to someone in my kitchen, look outside and next storm of the century starting, get pissed off, start answering my messages and scrolling facefuck, find out for real that Mojo has died, realize I can't be undrunk for this evening.

The Universal Angst is picking up speed.

[Hugh]

Hugh, is there a release date set for your new book of poems. I don’t know how you can top A Home to Crouch In. Did I explain that along with this ball, this mass, lodged in my colon, my eyesight suddenly when dim and fuzzy? Then Ladybug attacked me with her claws and pretty much ripped out my left eyeball. It is getting better though, and the eyeglass joint just called and my bifocals are ready for pick up. I think I will start with Ed McBain and the 87th precinct series. A Home to Crouch In lives in a secure place, away from whisky and beer spills. It’s Mardi Gras though, tough to get around. They told me in Hospital that if I relapsed bad things would happen. They didn’t tell me I would be falling asleep before I finished my grits. I was too embarrassed to get the ‘big’ breakfast this morning, so I saved $7.99 and sucked on some rocks for breakfast and peeked in The Club, but didn’t enter.

Never read the 87th Precinct novels. It looks like there are more than 50 going back to 1955.

Do you have diverticulitis? I've heard fiber and exercise will straighten it right out.

Don't know when my next book is out, they didn't say and I didn't ask. This is the same publisher that did my novel last year. They accepted it in January and it came out in August, so maybe that'll be the same for my poetry book.

[Thompson]

Never read the 87th Precinct novels. It looks like there are more than 50 going back to 1955.

Ed McBain, aka Evan Hunter, aka ‘his birth name’ was one of those ‘more than a hundred novels’ writers’. Got up in the morning and wrote away. Donald E. Westlake aka Richard Stark (and others) was the same. Westlake made an interesting distinction between writers and authors, I can’t remember now what it was but it was an interesting distinction.

McBain is funny as hell. I don’t think any author or writer can touch his recurring character Fat Ollie Weeks. Ollie isn’t from the 87th but he is prominent in the series and worth every penny.

I particularly like Westlake’s alter ego Richard Stark, writer of the Parker novels. Any fan of film noir will be impressed with these babies. In fact, I’m pretty sure Lee Child stole Jack Reacher from Westlake, but I’m all in favor of theft when it comes to the ‘arts.’

I don’t know about diverticulitis, none of the doctors mentioned that word. They referred to my thing as ‘the ball’ or ‘the mass.’ I could see it, after they did the barium enemas, on the X-ray machine. It was nothing to sneeze at. Oh, I was big time when I entered Hospital. I don’t think they figured I would make it so I was given some code number and put in a private room.