up and around on a limited basis

01/10/10

I'm up and around again but, I gotta warn you, I'm sure not feeling all that inspired. And I bring back no little nuggets of inspiration from the netherworld in which I spent several hours this past Thursday. But it's done and I say God bless to that. I think I'm well on the road to recovery but it's not likely that I'll be the only judge with an opinion.

The doctor who cut me open and sewed me back together might see me as a challenge and a threat to his good name since, in a few moments of Christmas Day ice ballet, I managed to undo all of his good work of last July. And Miz Susan is certainly going to have something to say about my progress. Oh wait, she's already had plenty to say.

But for all of you who helped during either of the two recoveries (and there's plenty more of this second one), thanks very much; keep thinking good thoughts. And if you're feeling like I got what I deserve (schmuck that I am) keep in mind that the ways of the universe are many and mysterious and that all that mental trash talking may be just the sort of burden you don't want to be carrying around with you. I, for example, worry that there's some sort of payback in place for my hating Mark Teixeira so much. God, I hope that the payback isn't tied into my left knee thing because it feels so right to despise him. C'mon, I hated him when he played for the Rangers and the Braves and the Angels before he went over to the Yankees. Leave me a little something here.

Thursday went by in a blur. We got out of the house and into the car and down to Regions in good time even with a light dusting of snow hiding every little patch of ice between our front porch and the car (or, say Hibbing) and turning them all into malevolent death traps. And we may even have been making progress for a future day when Susan, once behind the wheel of the car, allowed as to how she maybe didn't really need to have given the house a quick once over with the vacuum cleaner before we left for the hospital. Who am I to argue?

Regions treated us just as well as last time and the staff didn't seem to be sneering at me too often. At least not that I was able to catch. We were on our way to surgery by 1:30 which was about the point at which I was checking out for my little nap. I vaguely remember the clock showing something in the neighborhood of 5:15 when I came to. I remember that and the sensation that my knee was the size and consistency of a bushel basket of quickset concrete. They'd done such a nice job of giving me a nerve block for the leg as well as conking me out with a general anesthetic that I wasn't feeling any horrible pain, just a sense of moving in very slow motion. Maybe others of you have noticed that about me before. Keep it to yourselves.

Thursday night and Friday were pretty much a write-off. We did manage two episodes of The West Wing and I'm eager for the show where Jean Luc Picard comes in the Enterprise to escort President Bartlett to his his new digs in the Intergalactic Imperial Palace. By Saturday I was feeling much more lively and even entertained visitors. Well, family but they didn't stay so they must have been visiting. Both of my charming daughters put in appearances, Liz on her way to work, and Kate, on her way home from an info session for some foo-foo women's school out east. I approve of these activities. Liz needs to go to work every once in awhile so she can go back to collecting unemployment during the political dry seasons and if Kate wants to go to college, then so be it. I personally thought her future pro softball career was shaping up nicely: state champions, nice development in her secondary power numbers plus real progress in her diamond smarts. Aren't there a ton of kids going straight to the pros out of high school these days? These are her prime income earning years but if she wants to go off to some college library and read Jane Austen and study molecular biology and work in the food service, fine.

I did have one strange thing happen to me last night. As I was drifting off to sleep at 11:30 I'd had the radio on to catch some late night Bob Parlocha action on KBEM. I'm sure that almost all of you out there know full well who Bob Parlocha is but bear with me for the handful who don't. Bob Parlocha is a guy who gets played late-nights on KBEM, 88.5FM out of the Minneapolis Public Schools. I think that Mr. Parlocha has way too much common sense to be based out of the Twin Cities but the station picks up his syndicated "broadcasts" for the time slots when there's no one at home in the studios. I picture him recording two tune sets which include the music and then his commentaries to fill up approximately 15-minute blocks of time and then putting the "sets" into some random cyber shuffle player for the affiliates to spit out at a later date. He seems knowledgeable as hell, his website says he's knowledgeable as hell, he either owns or has access to a collection of recordings that kicks my ass (a tip of my hat on that one) and he's got a great late-night jazz radio voice. Every three or four minutes he refers to his mix as mainstream jazz which I don't like not being a fan of labels but, hey, that's a petty little beef on my part. He's got a great job and most days I'd probably be willing to lower myself to endorsing Alan Sickbert's fashion choices to have a gig like his. One of the last things that Parlocha played before I turned off the radio and fell asleep was an Ellington tune called "Stevie" from a CD by Harold Danko. I don't know Danko very well but this I liked, a recreation of the Ellington/Coltrane session on Impulse! from way back in the early '60's. Hmmmmm, check it out tomorrow morning.

When I'm not sleeping well I have this recurring dream thing that drives my crazy and then makes it even tougher to get any sleep. Maybe it's REM sleep getting interrupted and reinterrupted and my brain playing what would normally be a random access bit stream as an unending loop of decipherable nonsense. I woke up in one of these fits this morning at 5:30, choking on a clogged up throat that I couldn't clear even with a cpap assist. Not only was I unable to breathe but I was stuck in this terrible dream that wouldn't resolve itself and which featured a couple of guys in loud polyester suits selling something out of briefcases.

Once I was able to breath normally again I flicked the radio back on to catch the last few minutes of Parlocha before KBEM would switch over to its own locally produced music in a can for the time when they can't afford Bob Parlocha. And I'm damned if the same song wasn't cued up again. "Stevie" by Harold Danko. Ever so occasionally I've heard the local station play the same 1/2 hour student DJ pre-recorded segment twice in a morning. Bad planning but one of the things that gives KBEM its own gritty little funk. They're trying hard. But to hear this coming out of a professionally produced operation that's getting airplay on dozens of stations across the country, I was amazed. And to pinpoint my own psychosis so perfectly besides. How hard would it be to program the shuffler not to replay the same segment more than once a week? Maybe there's still hope for me in the world of jazz broadcasting.

On the other hand, some might wonder, "When are you going to get your shit together enough so that you can stop dreaming the same lame little dreams over and over again. And furthermore, if you're dreaming about guys in polyester suits maybe you're not even good enough to be commenting an anyone else's fashion sense."