वेल थिस अनोठेर फिने मेस इ'वे गोत्तें म्य्सेल्फ़ into

Title: Well this is another fine mess I've Gotten myself इन्तो

3.3.10
“You’re in the bull’s eye,” my insurance agent said.

“What’s the bull’s eye?”

“Oh like this girl I had girl- two car accidents in under 10 days.”

Yeah, Yep, ah-huh- my car was hit again, and again I wasn’t in it, and again it was in the parking lot but -nice change since -oh a few weeks ago- the guy stayed for the police report and giving insurance info because I was a little freaked out. I mean whose insurance company would believe they got hit and run, again, same address, same time of day….

I felt like asking the agent “how long does the bull’s eye last,” except there’s no how long it will last: because I live there. Which seems just wrong as I’m very boring person who likes to garden.

The following is the mess that came up in between my car going from not a dent to three panels needing to be replaced:

2.28.10
I went to the post office the other day to send a registered letter; the postal agent suggested certified and so a plain white envelope was appropriately tagged.

Like all messes there was a building process. And like any mess it began the same as items not put in their proper place because where is the proper place? What category does this fall in because its not at all apparent? That and I don’t read people well though now I don’t think that’s accurate; I think it’s more that I’ve been resisting that and the more I see of the world the more I know why.

Last year upon reaching out and getting an email that was very honest about her present circumstances I’d been forthright about my own with an old high school friend about my own. I received a curt reply offering to research and direct me “to resources in your area”. As I was already living in a local resource, the shelter, and the shelter’s homeless advocate was working on my case and the shelter matches people with resources as well as a local neurophysiologist seeing me pro bono- there was really no need for a reply. What I needed was a friend to talk to and I certainly wasn’t going to find that as I had become what homeless people are: non- persons.

Though lack of healthcare and health related issues is and has become the leading cause of homelessness you’ll still find the old stand bys: addicts of one sort or another, thieves, bullies, the mentally ill, dementia and Alzheimer’s patients, the working poor, the out-of-work-for-so-long and then of course there was the hourly staff. The shelter, for me those 351 days were like being home again. I needed some place I could be honest, some place where keeping my head down and my opinions to myself wasn’t the golden rule of self preservation and so I chose to try it again, tell someone again -this time with a guy I’d known in college and that’s how I got in my most current mess. What gets me is I never asked for help, as a rule I don’t. Nor do I share the circumstances of my life because in my experience all either buys you is a first class ticket to someone else’s bullshit. Sorry but that’s how I see it: show someone you have a jugular and watch them leap for it. If I’d remembered Ramon then as I do now I could have, should have seen some portion of this coming.


Over the weeks and then months that followed he had talked of seeing each other when he came to town. He came to town after which I received a message stating that he had been too busy, to which I took no offense- I mean who wants to visit an old friend who’d become homeless.

Ramon and I kept exchanging social network messages, eventually he asked for my email and he talked about meeting me somewhere on his upcoming visit. As I had my car back I told him I could easily meet him somewhere though I was no longer living at the shelter. Officially because I was garnering unemployment, unofficially because they’d nearly lost their license after one night when I wouldn’t look the other way on something. I’d tell you how but why bother- ya’ wouldn’t believe it.

Hearing of my plight a former resident of the shelter offered me a place to stay for as long as I needed “for free so you can save up and get your own place”. Of course I’d had a nagging bad feeling about that, something I couldn’t put my finger on, just something in her eyes that had always made me nervous- too like my mother. So I did what I do: I listened to the words, recorded them and presumed them as truth which I’m learning is the single dumbest thing anyone can do in this world.

On Ramon’s next visit he wanted to meet and I suggested the Starbucks on Calhoun and East Bay . Truth was I was excited, someone from my past would see me even though I’d become “one of those people”. I was early and got a spot of coffee, Ramon came walking through the parking lot.

“You look good,“ he said, correcting himself “better than I would have expected”.

As long as you can shower regularly, have access to an iron and have clean clothes even with only a 12 by 24 by 15 locker to live out of- you’d be surprised how not homeless a person can look. A shelter resident and I had once been talking outside of the library, waiting for the three hour window it opens on Sunday as a man stood behind us. That we lived at the homeless shelter was mentioned and his face changed like he’d been shocked and suddenly was re-evaluating everything he took as true in the moments preceding because Ann and I never looked homeless.

“Thanks,” I said to Ramon’s compliment as to looking good though I didn’t know what to say to his surprise of whatever it had been that he’d been expecting.

There was a weird tense vibe that I happily ignored for an old friend had come to see me, would see me. Someone not from the world I’d been in for the last year. He kept saying “if I’m going to help you,” and then would ask more about my limitations. He must have said “if I’m going to help you” a dozen times and I became more and more uncomfortable because I hadn’t asked for help. I hadn’t asked for so much as the cup of coffee I bought for myself and drank from as he sat there drinking a small overpriced Naked fruit drink and seemingly conducting an official inquiry.

I hate talking about the TBI with people who don’t know TBI because they don’t get it and even if you tell them, let’s say perspective employers about things like non narrative based sequential difficulties or the inability to group tasks or just how far and bad neural fatigue can throw someone, me, they’ll invariably sit there hearing the words, having no idea what they mean in practice but somehow believing they do.
“ I wouldn’t know there was anything wrong with you sitting and talking with you,” Ramon said and then more with the: “if I’m going to help you”. As if I’d ever asked.

Being able to present well had been something I’d worked on, how I’d kept getting jobs and then getting fired on a near quarterly basis for nearly three years. I’d worked hard on speech for that very reason and because seeing that look on someone’s face when you’re trying your hardest but you can’t mask it and they know there’s something wrong with you because your words come out wrong or slurred or you just plain can‘t maintain the pace of normal conversation. I’d absolutely hated that and still do when I get taxed enough and those bits of filament in my head can’t maintain the load burden or properly direct the bio-electrical traffic?

I was not at all enjoying my visit with Ramon, his ride showed up and I was kind of glad. When Michelle and her husband arrived, for a moment, it got a little worse. The husband looked at me like he was angry with me, like he didn’t me like before he even met me. His wife Michelle was nicer, very - what’s the word when someone is almost excessively friendly? But I knew I mean I understood or at least I‘d thought I did.
Being homeless makes other people really uncomfortable, that you are, that that’s who (or what) is in front of them. I’d seen it at the shelter. Like it’s a disease they’re afraid they’ll catch. Most every night volunteers would come to “serve” dinner and a good deal, most, most of the time- if you try and make eye contact with a volunteer or smile they look away. There are exceptions of course because a few groups sit at the tables and eat the meal they’ve brought to the homeless people with the homeless people. I generally felt badly for them, the volunteers who’d introduce themselves, sit and stare at their plate. At which point I’d become a communications major again and start asking them questions. People almost always relaxed when they started talking about their work or family or where they were from, maybe by gaining a certainty ‘this‘ could never happen them. For me the worst ones were the Bible beaters who like talking about “the end of times” a lot and are convinced the only reason a person could be in such a situation is that they don’t have God (because God obviously doesn’t have them).

I never ascribed to that philosophy, the one where disaster or disease are punishments for those who follow/ed a different book of God, or were of a different sect, etc.. To me that’s always been about as ungodly a perspective as a human being can have but as that seems a human specialty I guess it shouldn‘t be too very surprising.

Over my time at the shelter I came to believe the poor and the ill aren’t those being punished but are there as a challenge to everyone else like the universe saying “I see you and I raise you“. I had and have no illusions about where that put/s me as I’d been one of those people who locked my doors and looked away as I’d drive past that particular section of Meetings Street until of course I was living there. I’d been just as afraid of it as anyone.

So that Ramon, Michelle and Mark were all uncomfortable, I could understand that. So - everyone uncomfortable and me thinking I’d understood why it hadn’t been like sitting and talking with a friend, why there’d been no warmth. The emails hadn’t struck me that way but I can sit and pound on the keys like I’m talking to my best friend so I guess I’m not really in a position to discern that sort of thing.

Michelle smiled some more and introduced her daughter and said they were going to a get Mexican- did I want to come?

I’d already bought a coffee and I was occasionally starting to pick up a New York Times and the car and the small storage place I had gotten near the shelter so I could have seasonal clothes changes… Did I say no? or was it just about to come out of my mouth when Ramon said “It’ll be on me, come”.

I knew where the Mexican place was; I’d become familiar with parts of downtown that I never had expected to be familiar with. I knew where Michelle was talking about, across from that great old brick MUSC was renovating that used to have “Ishmael“ written in its windows facing I-26. Now I remembered that building from the perspective of the bus and had the noticed Mexican restaurant simply because of all the plants.

When at the restaurant I asked what Ramon was having, trying to find out what the price point was.
“Order whatever you want,” he said.

So I did. Everyone ordered drinks except for me, ever sporting a Camelback filled with water.
Mark or Michelle. I don’t know which but somebody prompted me to talk about the brain injury, how it happened, what kind of symptoms I’d had or was having.

I might have said what I was learning not to say- “ it’s much better than it used to be”. That phrase had been problematic because once a person for the state hears that anything else you say is just disappears. I think I mentioned the flashing triplicate thing or it could have been differing visual formats or why the tinted (polarized) glasses to flatten out a the three dimensional plane. In other words, I don’t know what made Mark say “You damaged your visual cortex,” smiling -which had been an odd sudden change in his demeanor.

“Yes,” I exhaled, started tearing up but held it together.

“Mark and I have both worked with TBI’s,” that had been how they met.

I started to cry. I was so happy because that’s worst thing about it, nobody knows what you’re talking about or can contextualize it. They’ll try to compare to their own experience: visual floaters, being someplace loud for a few hours and then really enjoying the quiet. Like “a rupturing aneurysm- yeah I get headaches,” as if such unlike things can even be likened.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked looking at Ramon, still not at all getting the picture as to why he wouldn‘t have told me we‘d be meeting with two people versed in TBI.

“I didn't remember- forgot,” he said but not in my eyes, nope his eyes were exactly nowhere in my line of sight, looking down and away. Which of course I completely ignored because I figure- not so very deep down- I didn‘t want to see it.

“Oh, okay,” I said before staring to talk to Michelle again, and Mark. Ramon sat quietly eating his tacos.
How did I frame Ramon not telling me that I was about to meet two professionals versed in brain injury? What self-explanation did I provide for him “forgetting” that he was about introduce a TBI to two professionals versed in TBI?

“kind of sweet really, Ramon just thinking of Michelle as his friend and Mark as her husband… what they did isn’t who they were- . Nice really, just who they are not what they do...”
Yep. That’s how this idiot framed it.

The next day I got a text from Ramon asking if we could meet up, he wanted to get something to eat. A little odd since he was staying at Michelle and Mark’s, they drove BMW SUV and thus there was probably food available…Would I pick him up at the Chick Fillet across from Roper’s?

Yes, yes I could do that. We met up, Michelle dropping him off and still very smiley suggesting I come to the house when we were done. As Chick was closed and Ramon wanted pizza I took him to the best place in town: Andolini’s. He offered me a slice and we sat outside, though too close to a speaker really. He still seemed tense and depressed though I didn’t take it personally and was kind of amazed that of the two of us I was the lighter of spirit. He mentioned how Michelle didn’t really have any girlfriends and was in need of company. I asked about his dating life, job, etc. - it was all some form of bad. His students? Same thing. Nothing good at all in life to hear him tell it.

The first surprise: He had said as I drove him to Michelle’s that he was trying to get a job in the US, in Charleston or Atlanta “and you could live with me”. I told him the truth I’d be needing income adjusted housing - no way I could afford anything else. “But no, no you could live with me for free”. There was something in his voice I didn’t like. “Ramon we’re just friends that’s all it is, was and is ever gonna be,“ and man that felt familiar, this all felt too familiar. His head went down the same way it did in the restaurant like a child being caught, like when he said he’d forgotten that Mark and Michelle had both worked with TBI’s for years.

The second surprise came when I drove him back to Michelle and Mark’s - under half a mile from the Chick Fillet which explained the weird look he got on his face when Michelle had suggested I come over for dinner as she dropped him off. I’m still not entirely sure what that was all about but the only thing I can presume is that it was a security protocol: she’s been homeless do we really want her knowing where we live?

The next surprise Ramon left for upstairs to his room leaving Michelle and I to talk which we did and I got complimented a lot which was nice but I think should have alerted me to everything I wasn’t catching: that there were hidden agendas a foot.

We all had dinner together and for perhaps the rest of my life I’ll always be glad when anyone presents me with something other than: fried chicken, white rice and canned green beans. The volunteers’ favorite meals to serve. That and sugery sodas and baked desserts at ever meal- just what the homeless need: low nutrient, high fat, high sugar. I know it’s wrong but within a few weeks I was having huge cravings for fresh produce and when they volunteers would say “Lord Jesus , please let this food nourish their bodies..” I’d think well- yes, let a miracle occur.

It was past sunset when I said I had better head back to Mount Pleasant, Michelle and Ramon were still talking to me in the driveway as she asked what year my car was and commented on how good it still looked for a six year old car. Then Mark came from basement and though it made no sense I stood there in the driveway feeling surrounded.

Michelle said I could spend the night which seemed odd as I had a place to stay. She went on “you could sleep on the couch…ooorrrr you could sleep with Ramon in his room?” which seemed an odd thing to say. “No,” and I just wanted to bolt like a horse from the paddock. This had been the second time in a few hours that something…I stood in their drive and couldn’t quite process, what- the-hell- kind-of-impression are these people under-?

Then Michelle started talking about God and bringing people into our lives for a reason, you brain injured -we trained in brain injury and that’s when I should have known but like the idiot I am I started talking about two books: Saved by the Light and the one by a guy who’s been hit by lightening a couple of times.
“Danion Brinkey- I was just talking to him on the phone,” Mark said, standing there holding the phone which struck me; I can’t even say how, it just struck me.

Before I left Ramon said “Well- now you have people you can depend on in Charleston”.

“Thanks,” I said and gave him a hug goodbye. Many weeks later I struggled to wrap my mind around something: why would he have said that? Why would he have said that when now he’s saying “Michelle does that she drops out of people’s lives, she’s unreliable”. Why would he have presented her as the opposite? And why, why after she requested a letter from me granting her the authority to speak to housing officials and gain access to my records, why would she then not show up for two housing appointments Why would someone say “I’ll be your patient’s advocate, I’ll keep track of everything…” and then do the exact opposite?

Prior to all of which Michelle had driven me to lunch one day and went on a - well she was the only one talking and it started as “You know physical attraction- I mean I wasn’t physically attracted to Mark at first”. A long tale ensued and there was a point she kept referring back to, what her own therapist had told her , about Mark of course, “give yourself the opportunity to be loved by someone who can love you the way you need to be loved”. But every time it didn’t feel like she was talking about she and Mark, it felt like she was trying to introduce an idea I was resisting. So I typed a letter to Ramon making myself really clear yet again and this, this had happened in college too. It made me uncomfortable then but now, now twenty years later it pissed me off. I mean how many different ways does a female have to say no before its understood ?

So why even though I had changed my mailing address with the Housing Authority to the apartment I was and am now in and why after getting a letter from them confirming my address change for notifications from Michelle’s to my new address-Why are they mailing her my notices?

Why for over two months now has she refused to return the letter and/or acknowledge she is aware those powers were rescinded? Why would I get a notice late after she or Mark forwarded it? Why was I culled from the Housing Department’s wait list- oh because for some reason it went to Michelle and Mark, and for some reason I didn’t receive it until after the due date. Three weeks transit time in a town this small.
And now, now two months later: I’ve sent an informal note, I’ve left a phone message and sent a text and yet she won’t just write a note acknowledging that she is aware that she is not empowered to speak on behalf regarding housing issues. No reply even after I asked her to spare me the expense of sending a registered letter. Nope no reply, so a registered letter.

I n closing, this sort of thing is precisely why I don’t and never really did tell people what’s going on in my life because mostly it seems like all people do with that sort of information is 1) not believe me 2) find an angle so that they can a) find a new place and interesting place to twist a knife or b) enact their own personal bullshit.

So now I have more non narrative sequentials (not a word?- oh I’m making it one( “Abrahamic is/wasn‘t a when I typed it yet I‘m reading a book where its all over the place- and damn it I tagged it first)). So more non narrative sequentials to tackle with my brain that really, really doesn’t do that sort of thing well. Michelle had said she’d make me a color coded work book- but I’ve tried that before and the problem becomes the subsections- I always wind up with so many friggin subsections within a category.When I’d told him where I’d been living and about the TBI he hadn’t been curt and we even started exchanging conversation back and forth via a social network.

माय स्टरोके ओं इन्सिघ्त

Funny- if I enable Hindi- it comes and goes- where it lands- nobody knows.

Title: My Stroke of Insight


The book is a neuroanatomist's take on her own stroke which has been %ing 4 me because I can know just what part of my brain was/is having trouble directing traffic/ routing information/ accessing or unable to access files- though the worst is when the routing results in a narrower and narrower amount of active to files to engage. On a particularly trying day I'll still wind up saying "drain bramage" instead of brain damage but by the time I'm at that place I tend to keep my mouth shut.


Essentially a TBI is a diffused stroke and Jill's suggestions for dealing with a stroke or brain damaged person- they should be standard issue.


I rememeber standing and talking to Linda Page- well trying to get information and I had these big delays between what she said, processing it, (I hadn't yet developed the really bad habit of saying whatever came into my head - so as to avoid) the look of impatience, 'what's wrong with you". Reading that on someone's face when u're struggling realy sucks - so try not to do it to anyone:)bcuz being slow really does suck enough that one doesn't need help on it sucking further


One of the things that has seriously bitten, (have I mentioned how nice it is not to be homeless anymore?)-


But back to what bites and has bitten: being without someone to explain things about the world that I no longer knew or understood. Plus visual information can be very difficult to navigate (visual cortex damage)


Having to relearn the world- which by the way is a truly brutal place far too much of the time. Sorry but people lie near constantly and it's not like I always thought "the most prevalent lies people tell are the ones they tell themselves".


Total Bullshit, mostly people seem to lie near constantly and though there are certainly subroutines of lies to self running... strsight in the eyes falseness in my experience since the TBI seems the rule. That, and running games. Lots of gaming behavior. For instance (and I freeely admit I have had all kinds of trouble with this sort of thing) but could someone explain to me how the second quote winds up on a search of beholdtherelish:


youtube? "%ing the 1st time I commmented on 21st century kid my comment wound up here: "Florida Hurricane News Videos Safety Tipsbeholdtherelish (December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm). This song gave me chills when I first heard it and still does. cutie51595 (December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm) ...
www.floridahurricane.net/videos/video/BUJiMBgvD1c"
-granted I was a highly verbal child...
- and my middle name is for hurricane...
* anybody know what all the john/tom foolery with dating is about?
- just curious."


The thing about exposing one's jugular - you get to see what people do with it.


Lastly for this month: FB crowd- sorry regaining memory is taxing, the pixels refreshing on a monitor - well it took a couple years for it not through me into an altered state of consciousness, unbelievable nuasea and waves of "is the ground moving or is it just me?". TBIs, Strokes, etc.- our visual cortexes can register light cycling- fluorescnt lights. I was at Best Buy visiting an old neighbor- smart kid- fabulous and just interested in anything interesting, in other words: a learner. he took me aruond the store and said look in that monitor/tv screen because -


I did, and my stomach slid the way it does on a rollercoaster. I promptly looked away. Lateef was spotting me- just in case. He finds my visual neural weirdness an interesting lab to run at work.


Anyway thanks for the messages ( I hope) and though - well okay I'm willing to offend.


-Anyone with Wiccan beliefs, practices, etc. please defriend me asap as you're not welcome here, there or anywhere.


(bummer- google has changed the parameter- there4 I can no longer colorcode my entries- providing me with more negative space when I log into this site)


Twerps.


2.12.10
It’s been one heck of a month, though that’s not strictly accurate.


TBI, amnesia etc.- so at least on that particular aspect what do you do? Research, and that’s what lead me to remember what was easily the greatest ethical failure of my life: Aarron.


Whom like so much I completely forgot about and had not even the vaguest inkling of his existence and then, and then I did and then I remembered and then I decided to get out in front of that, this and pretty much ever since then, every three weeks or so (if I’m lucky) a bomb goes off in my life. It’s been fielding a constant a barrage since August. A barrage of distractions so now- after the latest, greatest and I’m sure not the last I’m back on track?


Maybe. These last few months have been off the charts and scales. More than once - maybe enough for some meaningful alteration to take place? Trouble, the most upsetting kind for me has taken form after I do what I do, what I’ve always done but got so much worse after the TBI and can I even stop?


I remember six months ago, still living at CM, finally qualifying for unemployment, SC’s one of those states where if you aleave a job for another job and then lose that job there is a penalty: you can’t get unemployment for ? Well for me it was 3 business quarters, almost a year which meant, among other things, parking my car, turning in the tags and bus and biking for a year. As a TBI it meant having to learn the bus system- always such fun for a brain injury. But once I started getting unemployment it meant getting the car back into working order to sell? But of course when VW repaired eight recalls at once something got screwed up which if course will apparently take either a) and act of congress or b) $85 an hour for them to figure out. And then of course three nights ago I got slammed in a parking lot, though I wasn’t there someone left a note saying that a car tagged AA(1/L) 848 hit my lovely tank and left. So - one more thing and the fact is I’m still three months behind- so more fun for me.


But before all that , before my ‘in’ box had a good twelve matters for me to negotiate I stood in line at the DMV wanting to check if there was anything outstanding, trying to find any bumps in the road ahead of time . My first rep was a gay guy- and I love the gay man- a difficult to path to be on anywhere but in the southeastern United States- a really difficult road. He mentioned how surprised he was that the DMV had let me wear my glasses in my driver’s license photo and we just got to talking. The south’s a talky place.


At one point I said “I’ve always given people the benefit of belief,” in that wide eyed smiley way I’ve had about me ever since the TBI gave me a second childhood. But that, that chronic naiveté, that wasn’t new, that was just something that got worse became more acute and pronounced following the TBI. The consequences seem to be higher stakes, or thicker now with my 25% drop in IQ, more difficult to manage. All that’s standard issue for TBI’s as well as something called: judgment errors.


Those errors of course manifest in very base terms now, particularly if I’m tired and life or me+life equals my pushing past my limits and then I’m bumping into door jams, unable to judge the distance of myself in relationship to the physical space. Aahhh-there’s nothing quite like visual cortex damage. But those are the judgment calls easily spotted because hey I’m bouncing off walls as if I’m inside a pinball machine. Predictably that’s when the bruises of unknown origin start. I hurt myself but I can’t really feel it which - hmmm.


I don’t feel the physical knocks like I would if it weren’t for that cervical sprain so in a way that’s an advantage. A few months ago I went to a yoga class where something rather illuminating occurred: I got back the feeling in the right side of my face, from my ear to my jaw. I could feel the tendons moving and had tactile sensitivity like I haven’t had in almost nine years now. It was awesome


and short lived


lasting only three days.


After the thrill and sensation was gone I wondered: if I were to get that level of sensory awareness back could I even handle it? Would my synapses become so overwhelmed that simply managing that data would be a full time job?


But too I’d feel a little less like a ghost wandering the earth…


and too, it made me appreciate that for me I’ve been in and continued to live, walk around in and be conscious in what amounts to a sensory deprivation pool.


A limited pool I grant you, I can still technically hear though my relationship with those particles and waves has completely changed. As I listened to a rebroadcast of an interview with a an autistic woman whom Claire Danes will undoubtedly be nominated for a prize or two for portraying- as I listened to this woman, and this interview that I’d heard years before I related, I related all too well on the topic of sound. How something as small as a bell ringing, a buzzer, something errant or simply too many sources at once can go straight into your spinal column and you, she, the cow whoever panics or so it seems but mostly it’s just one’s nervous system exploding and all you want to do is get as far away as possible as quickly as possible because it feels like an animal’s tearing you apart.


I was never what one would call an outdoorsy type except for the beach where I‘d ever be amazed by people would bring music? Why ? Surf and wind- what exactly tops that? They‘re a form of white noise within a organic chaos construct. I‘d always liked those sounds but now, now it’s the only place sound and I aren’t at war with each other. Well that and white noise, the lower range. The hum of a fan or freezer, an air-conditioning unit , the signal-less static of an older television, the wind in your ears - better yet the wind and the surf and I’m temporarily rebooted as if some virus in the living computer of my brain has been stunned into dormancy. But under water, a bathtub, the ocean, I could spend hours, days there. Though I was like that as a kid too spending most of time at the community pool underwater, diving for pennies like some Polynesian in search of pearls.


Yeah if I had my druthers I’d be under water 24-7 and except for reminders like sound or seeing things in flashing triplicate that’s what it feels like in my body as if I’m a water creature forced to land. Physically it probably feels like that too, that other worldliness of an altered physical experience as though surrounded by something insulating. So when I bounce/d off doors, don’t quite get the distance right between me or a another person I don’t feel it, just a pressure, no pain- well embarrassment, frustration, etc as well.


People- well do people still pay to go into and spend time in sensory deprivation pools? Late 70’s and early eighties there was a thing wasn’t there? I seem to remember something about that, a womb pre-birth experience baby boomer phase?


On the rare occasions I went to a TBI support group sponsored by the state there were fluorescent light bulbs.


Fluorescent light bulbs!


It’s still amazing to me because TBI’s our brains tend to register the cycling and can’t handle the input . Kind of like if someone were to put you in a small room, invite a brass band and have them all start playing different and totally unrelated pieces. That’s what it feels like. So where better to have a TBI meeting room than a room with Fluorescent lights and - oh yeah computer monitors. Those screens cycle too.


For the first few years following the accident I couldn’t hardly be on computers and even now I try not to look- just type , access, retrieve and get he hell out of there. I don’t lose my physical balance anymore- I’ll get a little unsteady but the nausea- that was the worst. And not one of those not so brilliant minds attending my case never mentioned that would or could be a problem.


I suspect my first neurologist was a creationist. Never got me any kind of therapy while I still had insurance, he let that first critical year just tick- tock by.


Once I said “Isn’t there something because people weren’t designed for this kind impact”.


“YES they were!”


No they weren’t 0-45mph-0-45-0. Inside two seconds no, and not with all the force going to your head and neck which in my case, at my angels meant a force equivalent of not one- but two baby grand pianos landing on my head.


A pox upon anyone driving one of those ton plus SUVs and talking on the phone at the same time. That’s what happened to me: sitting at a red light and Shawn How()- who still probably bemoans the hike in his insurance hit me at about 45 miles an hour…which eventually led to my becoming homeless.


Yeah - and Angela this one’s for you because people really don’t get it: Healthcare IS rationed NOW . Has been since before the Nixon administration.


Think this can’t happen to you- maybe you’re right but as the number one cause of homelessness is becoming lack of healthcare- ya‘ sure about that?


Greed is not the most efficient deliverer of anything. And greed has pervaded our system long enough?


Or maybe not. Maybe when it’s your neighbor (gee what did that book everyone’s so fond of swearing on say about that?)- …okay so maybe not your neighbor. But what about your child or your grandchild then maybe you’ll think:


“ya’ know- other people have access to healthcare…but some people don’t…Gee that sounds kinda’ like rationing don’t it?…and I‘s did heard themz people overseas git thar drugs f’ah cheaper than wez do here…hmm wonder why that kids a dyin‘ fur what theyz git elsewheres fur h‘rdly nothin’a bottle‘ ?”

The Man Who Lives With Wolves

2/22/10: structurally google wouldn't let me do what I wanted 2 do. Bummer and as a result I've removed the copy as it isn't applicable.


1.23.10


A story can be told from any starting point-


2/22/10: Wolves always remind me of shepherds, the german variety, though all herders and all wolves for that matter engage in the same patterns -physical patterns whether hunting a herd or protecting a herd.


%ing stuff.


The most important thing to me regarding the above title amoung many things is and was his desire to protect the wolves.


The only thing for me to say regarding dogs- their sometimes kissing cousin- is the following:

The most importnat commands for a dog are:
stop= velcro those paws to the ground no matter what
drop= no matter how high the adrenaline rush of rough housing with a pull toy- when I say drop- you drop it.
Y?

Well what are the two greatest dangers to a dog?

a) being hit by car- (remember Buddy?)
b) biting someone- and particularly not leting go should that happen

Sit, lay, stay aren't commands for the dog- they're commands for the human's comfort rather than the dog's protection.

Lastly the average dog has a 120 word capacity, above average 250 with the ability to convert and understand one word as let's say english and that same word as german, or french etc..


If your dog doesn't know english- why is that exactly?


Oh as for that "expert chick" telling everyone on O's networks that its not the words but the tone of voice. Bullshit. All she's teaching anyone is to use their "I'm begging you" voice with your dog.


Dogs, being kindly creatures towards humans, if you beg- they'll try to help you out. But when the stakes are high: like a car or your leash breaks when the fun can truly begin if your Buddy isn't just as good on as off leash)- well then by not teaching your dog well- your dog could next be dead.


Who's fault would that be: their dumbass human.


Sorry but that's how I see it.


And that's how it is.

The Time Traveler's Wife

I finished it, the book- very, very slowly.



I've long used this space and those related for unabated ranting and thrashing and I've long thought before entering the library "I'd really like to read The Prophet again which I remembered today and exited with two other Gabrins.



I went to the Housing Department and ran into a couple from the shelter: three kids, moved from another state and he was a veteran. "We just saw Miss Margaret," they said and I stood there trying to place Miss Margaret.



"She rode the bike," one or both reminded "the hat".



"Oh yes," I'm doing such a good job at forgetting all I'll need to remember for my next writing project. First one since 2006.



"What's she up to?" I asked.



"She found herself a job taking care of an old lady," they shared; Miss Margaret being at least 60 herself.



I'd always suggested Shirley draw Miss Margaret. Though not what one would call beautiful, with her sixty plus years, men's clothing and knit hat covered by her straw hat both of which she wore until the minute our Personal Responsiblity Counselors would yell "LIGHTS OUT". I don't know that Miss Margaret was ever drawn, a waste of a fabulous face. An artist who had gone to and left SCAD just short of graduation, Shirley's stuff was more sugar and spice and scripture. She had come to Charleston from a small town with few resources. - that's what I'm fixin' tah' write. And I hope I don't botch that task again.


I won't write it for here of course and not because of my long held practice of trying to protect a ghost from information, and protect myself from disappointment in the bargain. Not a great bargain.


As I'd walked my library picks out to the car, Khalid and the final Harry Potter seem entirely and more appropriate than a Christmas Carol, but paid-by-the-word-Dickens-. I always want to take a red editor's pen and start slicing through what he doesn't need. Sparks I actually took a red pen too, but even then he's just too awful to read.

So with my christian carols, maybe because of the book, or the picture, or the last post for this space I've been toiling at having decided I'm rather dangerous live here. Except for right now, nothing exploding in my life presently for which I was so angry at my family and a man named John who shares my last name. The John who doesn't share my last name, as I held The Prophet, The Storm and The Spirit, I thought about his line "Tell me about your now".


If I had alot would have been pre-explained, simplified everything later and been horribly embarrassing:


-"I see most everything in quadruple, they don't flash as they bright as they used to and those false three white images don't rotate between 12 and 3 o'clock all the time anymore..."
-"I'm relearning how to..."
-"I don't fall against walls much anymore, I can walk in a straight line almost all the time..."
-"All my syllables come out in the correct order almost all the time now"


I didn't because it had already been too awful and I didn't want him to know that; I never wanted him to know were I'd been or where I was presently, but then, then I had to.

That went well.

Not.



Did and does the brain injury teach me a lot?
Yes



Did homelessness and the in-coming of it, as a state, as an address teach me a lot?
Yes

Could I wind up there again?
Certainly



And now to write about all that, and how to write about it.



Someone certainly has a request in for this entry's title, I did but oh how I want to read it again, study her structure. I screw around with writing a great deal, heck I wrote an intro to Crash where the narration is from the perspctive of an alien, his/her/it's log of new brain-body/computer-interface. and a fun first page but I don't think it's structurally supportable.



Should anyone or everyone have been freely entertained here: Hi W.S., again- my apologies. Especially Robin. Not that I let myself think or saw it in myself at the time. I had a lot of rage and unfortunately he'd told me just how to hurt him back. trembling voice:


"Maren, I live in a small town," his voice trembled "those letters are all anyone can talk about". He was terrified.

I was too and as that seemed like some sort of mere amusement to him? A laughable matter? for he did just that. A disctraction from what was really important? A distraction that took me three years to recover from. Three years until I could see J. Ross's make, model, color and logo and not feel extreme fear, not have my heart racing in my throat.


(Had to switch terminials)

The self described ADD librite (regular library patron( yes I made it up - there simply aren't some words yet9 it's the nice thing about the language: we keep making them up (ie: truthiness))))....

So the female librite next to me asked if this blog's title is a book; then the air was dead between us. I was silence shocked at someone reading my monitor.

She continued "Because... The Time Traveler's Wife. I've read that. From Dean's List to Homeless, is that a book?"

"Not yet"

But maybe a good title.

Maybe not, I'd have to include a lot of territory.

Whatever it is, it will be adjacent tohttp://www.2karialfordwilliams.blogspot.com/, where my target audience/s have already been.

12.17.09 4:40pm est
edit post 12.17.09 5:19 pm est

odd girl out

11.30.09 What were the odds of two men who each in their own way had huge impacts on my life I'd known being pictured at the same time in hazmat suits? One in particular because - does it erally make sense to have your FB picture as a hazmat guy?... in both cases maybe so.

It could just be the bronchitis talking but I was thinking I might be getting to where I'll be done with this site, this identifier. But then again- I may have developed a small, twisted and anonymous following- maybe an audience of one. Feel free to stop by Rev. Anti- Choice.

Part of what got me about 2006 and though I couldn't write about it- I probably could now. Any way what got me was that there's no making up source material that rich and unlikely. I was, and may again some day be an odd addition to the homeless crowd and maybe Ramon is right, maybe Michelle is as well and maybe I will book it someday but for now. Maybe considering the where and how that became this blog- maybe this is still part of that. I've told my biggest secret. So why not? Of course I'll leave it up- another failsafe mechanism, a place to direct some energy should need be or maybe a place to get where I never could get with a guy I met half a lifetime ago.

As I've procrastinated this long, I'm waiting until after the holidays for KY Adult Services. The holidays are hard enough, Kari may wind up getting a call and as she decided to go into a field with the highest yield of suicides. I'd hate to see what her odds look/ed like having already been doubled.

Now to home, after 15 months of homelessness, 351 days in a homeless shelter - I have one Oh look I buried my lead. What a surprise . And that's why over these years I've needed to process so much John rage see it's the Johns in my life that - well same lies, each one of them. Family is the first crack in the system I feel through; it's a phrase that gets spoken to me, of me regularly: "you feel through every crack in the system". Now that I've finally had access to those who actually know what brain injury is- see they've actually teared up because this sort of thing isn't supposed to happen.

My crash date was June 13, 2001 - amazing the size of the SOS I had to put out; I actually had to do it twice so the state would mandate me to accept help I'd been asking for and denied for 7 years. I hadn't applied for SSDI or SSI because it seemed an irrational notion: If on the state level my file didn't qualify me for assistance - well the idea that I'd qualify on a federal level - that didn't make sense to me- but that's the nice thing about brain injury- everything seems so simple: because you are that simple. It's the crappy thing about brain injury and not having a patient advocate . When I made those calls family were as family's always been.

I finally got the help I needed after two bosses failed to observe my limitations and I went into neurological freefall, not that hadn't happened once already when life required cognitive skills over time periods that I'm simply not capable of maintaining. I have window, once I reach that window I'm either allowed to cocoon with ample silence or white noise- OR, well the or isn't fun for anyone most especially me.

The moment a camera flash goes off unexpectedly and/or turning on a sealedcar's engine and the full sound shock of music set loud, for open windows and speed. That moment can go on for hours, days, weeks.

I'd always been a type A, I pushed myself- whatever it was I pushed and I wound up with something that essentially forbids that or at the very least I start bumping into things, the syllables of words -spoken or typed coming out in the wrong order. Sequence has been my constant nemesis, still is.

Some of the assistance I'd been applying for for years, 7 to be exact but there wasn't enough or the right things in my file. But if you fall hard enough AND publically enough so that there can't be anymore debate as to whether or not you qualify for help, and programs- that you have an actual medical condition. It never did occur to me to ask why HASCI had rejected me as a client, a neighbor years later had said that it didn't make sense. The reason I was rejected, I later found out, was they wanted more medical documentation: mobile PET scans, interactive MRI's. A nice little aspect of american healthcare-less system: though there are services avaliable unless you are already on public assistance or have kickass health insurance- the very system that is there to assist you can't and won't because you're not already in the system. Sounds circular doesn't it?


It took a little over 8 years from the TBI forward for me to get actual help, input, insight from anyone in the field of brain injury, a very limited pool in this state.

Though I haven't logged 10,000 hours- we'll see if I can write this thing.

The Shack

“Have you read The Shack?” I know I’ve been asked that on a half a dozen occasions over the last year.

While waiting for reference to arrive for their shift I browsed the rolling shelf, skimming the titles and noticed The Shack was in without a reserve. I picked it up read till about page six.

Donna never doesn’t jump a bit at the sight of my face, she hasn’t grown used to it, Maura Tierney’s face at her desk. I smile and she purses her face at no one but herself these days for still looking at me and seeing a television screen instead, a face that doesn’t belong in her physical reality yet

“I think I’m going to have to start paying for parking,” she says.

I’ve never gotten how a walk in that part of downtown Charleston can be anything other than baseline enjoyable. That’d just be one more thing to add to my very long and large: I don’t get it list. It’s ever expanding

That night I tucked myself into bed with The Shack , reading past the prologue I found myself in the Gorge. Bothered, I laid my index finger between the pages,She was fifteen minutes late for her shift “I’ve been driving around for almost an hour looking for a spot”.

“Parking’s free at the Battery,” I volunteer.

“But then I’d have to walk and that would be exercise,”

“Yeah,” I said smiling and not at all catching her meaning “free parking and a walk”

What seemed a double positive to me was and is not to her. Different strokes, she’d have to alter her shoe choices, throw off the outfit and “I hate exercise”. a human book mark.

There’d been something familiar about the prologue. I’d read this sort of thing before. Something to do with San Francisco- yes that farcical offering from Tan, which was more than appropriate given the piece. I wondered if Young had applied the same technique but I hoped not because from what I’d read on the jacket, to me you don’t play with an audience about death and God. Unless of course you’re writing comedy.

Flipping to the back of the book, there was and is a rather thick section for fiction where type changes, no footnotes but paragraph after paragraph in smaller print like an adendum to contract or a child not so confident in themselves, trying to disappear a bit.

I read what the reader is intended to read once they’ve read it all and suspended their disbelief, only to find their disbelief founded. I wonder where it started, this trend? Introducing a character as the life force behind the tale, borrowing the dead or shy as the trustworthy writer arrives on scene and tells you what this otherwise extraordinary individual can‘t or couldn‘t. The author is not the author merely assisting and reporting, with perhaps some artistic license, but delivering true story -except not.

The reader in a way becomes a character as well, a dupe too, assuming a part and playing a roll in the fiction themselves by converting fiction to non-fiction, playing pretend with the author. I don’t understand the practice really, truth is so much stranger, richer and unlikely that any fiction writer could or can ever conceive.

So into the shack, Kate’s obvious aftereffect of wondering what if the she hadn’t tipped the boat, certainly the antisocial explanation. Into the shack where Nan and Mack are stronger for it and I wonder if Young interviewed couples who had suffered, endured and kept going and keep going everyday, every birthday, every marking point that their child is gone. I hope he interviewed them; there are lots of them, too many and I hope he heard their stories, asked the questions and was surprised and informed before usurped their stories. I hope their losses weren't treated as mere props like a chair or a lamp.