What I Came For .. Intimate, Late-Night Conversations with a Singer

••• today's entry continues here below •••

The original page is where I was writing to Miranda. And I remember being surprised how much her piece was speaking to me. And how strongly.

When something speaks to me .. and I can feel the writing thing engaging with it .. then, something in me feels like I must write about it.

I am kinda surprised at myself that I am writing directly to you like this .. because you are such a force. Who that has come before you is like you?

You are your own thing.

Even with Ariana, some people will say that she is like Mariah .. and there is an element of truth to that. It's a valid comparison .. in multiple areas.

But who are you like? Certainly nobody that I am aware of. (What do you think of Josephine Baker? How about Billie Holiday?)

I feel like I can explore things with you that I cant explore with anyone else.

And dont you feel that the people who help us develop our creative talents, our gifts, our art .. dont you feel that we naturally have a special place in our hearts for these people? (Because we appreciate them so much.)

Do you have a Muse? Do you have someone who stimulates your creative energies? Someone who brings things out of you .. things that you did not even know were in there?

Before today, I liked you primarily because you helped Marshall bring the thunder. But now I can feel a shift .. and I like you for you.

Arent most guys intimidated by you? How can they not be? Has anyone ever pee'd their pants with you before?

Marshall is obviously sweet on you. You two are a team. A good team. Even if there were nothing else, that alone would endear me to you. And there is plenty more else there to endear.

» Horrible Writing Funk

I was in a horrible writing funk earlier today .. so bad that I didnt feel like I could handle it.

So bad, in fact .. that I was actually thinking about shaving off a little bit of powder from one of these pills of this morphine-based narcotic that they gave for treatment.

I am lightweight when it come to these narcotics. But they do indeed take off the edge nicely. I was thinking of shaving off a quarter-pill. That's should be plenty for me.

» My Experience with Morphine-Based Narcotics

Of all the shitty moments during treatment .. the shittiest of the shitty, perhaps .. was when a piece of one of these pills got caught in my throat.

In my highly irradiated throat .. which was not working very well, because of the daily blasts of radiation that they were shooting me with.

So much radiation that, when I woke .. my hand immediately went up to my mouth .. because it felt like somebody had punched me in the mouth.

(You know about getting punch in the face, so I'm sure you can relate. I feel like you can feel me here.)

I had cut one of these tiny pills in half with a little pocket knife that I purchased in Yosemite (.. yes, because I was indeed feeling very shitty at the time).

And the rough, pointy edges must have been the thing that got caught in my throat. So I started drinking water like a madman in order to try to flush this thing out of my throat.

But it wasnt working. So I kept trying to drink more water.

And with chemo, which fucks up your gut something fierce .. you can only drink a small swallow or two of water before you feel like you are going to start heaving and blowing chunks.

Except there are no chunks in your gut .. because you cant eat jack shit .. which is why I lost 40 pounds frighteningly fast.

And now, because I am pouring so much water down my throat, I feel like I have to puke uncontrollably. And it wasnt working. I couldnt get the pill dislodged from my throat.

It's hard to breathe when you are trying to pour water down down your throat at the same time that your stomach is trying to send that water back up. Very difficult, indeed.

And the voice in my head is saying, "You are going to die right here on your bathroom floor. They will find you in a few days after you start to stink."

I did finally manage to get the pill dislodged, but it was a horrible, horrible thing .. even during a period that was indescribably horrible.

After this, I started using a fingernail file to file down the rough edges first.

But I did not like the way that these pills made me feel .. because they made me feel like I wouldnt breathe unless I actually focused on my breathing. (They must somehow affect your respiration.)

Oh, here is a video that says (at t=2:45) exactly what I was experiencing:

I never took more than a half a pill at a time. I could feel it taking me and remember thinking, "Wow, this shit is very strong. I'm glad I didnt take a whole pill. That would've been way too much."

I eventually said, "Fuck it .. I'll just deal with the sore throat. It's easier to deal with that than the feeling like I wont breathe unless I focus on it."

I still have most of the bottle sitting here that they gave me for pain. Later I learned that they have a liquid version. But I found this out too late.

My chemo doctor wrote the script for me and sent it to the pharmacy, but I never did fill that prescription because treatment was already over by then.

The fact that I am sharing with you one of my most horrible moments speaks to me. It says good things about you.

Perhaps my reason for sharing this story with you .. is to illustrate how (the writer is continuously challenged to show-not-tell) that » I wasnt thinking about taking this thing because of the way it would make me feel.

People take these things to GET AWAY FROM things .. not to GO AFTER things.

July 11, 2016 » I couldnt help but notice that the Sunday edition of the LA Times, which we get delivered to the house here, featured a big story about these narcotic pain pills on the front page yesterday.

I was talking to my brother a few weeks ago .. he is a surgeon. He went to Yale and to Tufts Medical school. I just called to say hi and we were talking about everything and nothing in particular.

And I was telling him about my experience with these narcotics .. and how I was surprised that I didnt like them, because so many people obviously do .. because they made me feel like I wouldnt breathe unless I consciously focused on my breathing.

And he told me a little about this problem, which has become epidemic.

He said that the drug companies, in an effort to maximize profits (money, of course) got lawmakers to make them very easy to get, and that the government prevented the DEA from going after outfits that were clearly fraudulent.

Ana knows what I am talking about here.

Bro went into some detail on the subject, which he would be familiar with, being a surgeon and whatnot. And I forget all the details that he gave me ..

.. but I remember, particularly, when he said that, when the government finally did start to crack down .. then, all of these addicted people .. where are they going to go for their fix?

Right .. they are going to the street to buy heroin. Hence the current epidemic.

But, what struck me was that .. it came out of a desire to grow profits. Bro did not spell it out for me like that .. but clearly, this was my take-away from our conversation.

Our government is very much focused on maximizing profits for people who put money into their palms .. regardless what consequences their policies might have for the citizenry at large.

The government has no problem with people consuming fantastic quantities of powerful narcotics .. long as they get their cut.

Am I saying anything that has not already become abundantly clear to everyone? Painfully clear, I'm sad to say. Made in America.

< end insertion July 11, 2016 narcotic epidemic front page LA Times Sunday edition >

Oh, this is good news. For people who need such a thing. Which seems to be a lot of people.

Part of the key to being a good writer, I feel, is embracing the angst .. becoming one with it. But this was a lot today .. even for me.

» When Anxiety Becomes the Ultimate

Notice at t=3:45 here where it says » "Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate."

I think that the reason Kierkegaard calls this "the ultimate" is because it is so difficult. This is something that you learn by doing.

From a certain perspective, this 'anxiety' comes from bridging the gap between the infinite and the finite.

Or between the finite and the infinite. Which is just a different way of looking at the same gap.

Do you know about this anxiety that comes from bridging this gap? (I dont see how you could not.)

The wider the span, the more the anxiety. This span speaks strength to me.

» An Example of Good Writing

Oh, speaking of good writing .. this here is one of the best things I have ever read. Roxane .. wow.

[ Here she is again. She writes well. She writes in my particular groove. Maybe that is why I feel her so clearly. This is exactly why you want your own server. It takes a little configuring to set up, but it's definitely the way to go. Fuck their Terms of Service. 14 years worth .. ouch. If they can get the original files from the Blogger database (from Google), then they can probably find a stud-coder somewhere who can craft a conversion program that will port the posts over to a new system. I bet Drupal people could do it for them. I would call the boys at MODx myself, and get me some of their Revolution. That'll do you right. I use Movable Type myself. Back when I was researching moving the site to a more powerful server, I asked the owner of the company what he thought about 'The Cloud.' He said, "It's an unproven technology." ]

I have never read anything like that before. That is not easy to do. She has a number of highly quotable sentences there.

But it is this existential angst that provides the raw fuel for such writing. You still, however, need a soul who can deliver it with skill and finesse.

I am totally fucking impressed. That actually made me feel less alone in the world to read that.

Dyson does a similar thing here. (See note.)

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