work

Well, I was able to step out of caregiver mode long enough to have something published in Computoredge. Software patents, Linux, the law, and so forth. Exciting, edgy stuff. ;)

family

[The following few graphs are from October, but nothing has changed. This very day, for instance, I took both of my parents to the dentist -- each one had a significant appointment. After filling out their paperwork, I bounced back and forth all afternoon, between my father's and my mother's treatment rooms, answering questions, providing comfort, taking notes on treatment plans, having info faxed to and from their previous dentist, ad nauseam. My brother says that the only difference between caring for his granchildren and his parents - which he never does -- is "weight." That's almost obscene to suggest. Try emotional weight. But that's the thing, he's emotionally detached from everything that my parents go through on a daily basis. It probably makes things easier for him. Well, good for him. My Dad has symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's, and my Mom is still recovering from hip replacement surgery. I feel bad for them in so many ways, including the fact that they both rely on me for almost everything. They're wonderful, amazing, honorable people, deserving more than this.  OK. Here is my entry.]



It’s vulgar. The intense sunshine of a Texas fall afternoon -- a day that feels like summer. I’m propped up in bed still trying to recup from a Sciatica exacerbation, a back injury sustained from lifting my Dad, who weighs some two-hundred and forty pounds, several times a day for weeks. The poor man is again being cared for around the clock by attendant nurses, and my Mom and I are left to hold each other up in an increasingly sad and difficult set of circumstances.

We drove fifteen hundred miles to be closer to immediate family, and now feel more alone and desperate than ever before. My oldest brother asked us for years to move down here, and now that we have, he has endless trump cards -- everything is more important than his parents. Work. His grandchildren, who he is helping to raise because the parents, including my niece, are too irresponsible and young. The karaoke singer that my Sister-In-Law manages as she tries to become an actual performer takes precedence. My Sister-In-Law herself, and her much celebrated suffering to take care of her own beautiful grandchildren. For her efforts of taking care of them a portion of the day, not only is she paid financially, but is taken out for the finest meals in the city, along with trips to the coast, and is out driving around on her own to escape, somewhere, anywhere, at least once a day.

In the meantime, we’ve gone through some of the worst times of our lives, alone, with family less than an hour away. Alone.

Thank God for family.

crash

I haven't had the energy, time, and so forth, to do anything with this blog -- not yet.

Blog entires are incredibly odd -- each one, a very, very, very public note to self sort of thing. I'm a rather private person, so what I'm doing here, exactly, remains to be seen, and so forth.

Ten years ago, I was involved in a high speed collision in south Miami, on the edge of Coral Gables, during a torrential downpour. Limited to no visibility. An elderly gentleman, who I suspected was rather medicated, slammed into me, sending the vehicle that I was driving in a spin -- multiple 360's. The gentleman was unharmed -- I repeatedly asked the officers once they finally showed up. I was incredibly rattled, and my neck really snapped hard in the spin(s).

My now f-o-r-m-e-r fiancé took me to the hospital, where they gave me a neck wrap, muscle relaxants, and pain meds. But her only real concern was the fact that the car, her car, was totaled. Her Dad had given her the car, an old Toyota, and had since passed away. I'm not sure which made me feel worse -- the fact that I had demolished this material link to her father, or that she held my own life in such obvious disregard.

She had been discussing the idea of trading the car in for months in order to get a new van. But, she didn't have the cash. With the insurance money, she finally could. Nonetheless, I became a sort of "big bad," and was never forgiven for that accident.

The storm off the coast that day, not far from where Andrew had made landfall, washed my third eye (thinking of Bill Hicks), forcing me to realize that the life I thought I had, and my love as I knew it, was already over. I was fine.

"That's great it starts with an earthquake ..."