Click images for desktop size: "Down And Out" by Any Mouse Confusing set of times. Much happens and all it does is remind me of the past. I went to the doctor yesterday. Maybe a bit more aggravating than expected. I have four new pills to take . . . one of them is just penicillin but it adds to the number; its legitimate and makes me seem less of a whiney baby.
One is to lower my blood pressure . . . since it is only 120-60 that seemed extreme. The explanation is that I'll live longer. That is a hard argument to rebut.
One is to lower by blood sugars to hypoglycemic levels . . . that's to keep me from really going blind.
Lower blood pressure and lower than average blood sugars . . . I predict a lot of falling down in my future.
The last is an additional pain pill that shouldn't have the narcotic effect of the ones I refuse to take.
They took 500 ML of blood for testing and gave me a flu shot with the usual caveats warning me of the danger of me contracting any diseases.
With all that I was pretty loopy yesterday evening.

No word from my potential house mate . . . since we had a tentative appointment to swap checks for keys last night its cause for concern. Not great concern. My puppy and I are very very happy in our little empty house with the big yard.
I'm realizing that a major part of the problem is that people are looking for housemates to save money, but what I'm asking for, while a very good deal, is still out of their comfort zone. They see the place and think of how nice things would be and then they get home and calculate and try and stretch the dollar and . . .
Maybe I'll hear from the guy, maybe not. running an ad again in any event, and will do so until someone gives me a check and it has cleared the bank.
Did hear from him and it was unsettling. I feel I'm being bullied. I don't bully well. This time I may have told him forget it, but he probably doesn't understand things unless you yell at him. If he can't treat me like a human being how is he going to treat my dog as she deserves?

Todays practice was odd. Some of the kids looked discouraged beyond the facts. We play our last home game tomorrow and whatever happens this should be a great time to revel in memories. Talked to my guys and removed the doubts in their minds. They're aggressive kids - sometimes I think I breed aggressive children - they should get the message through to some of their more negative teammates, remind them we are a team and that there is a place for this frustration.
The genesis for all this was a silly newspaper story where some woman was making a case that her sun in the band worked harder than the team!!!!!
I'm not making this up - she claimed that he had gotten chapped lips and sunburn from all the practice he had to do.
I appreciate and sometimes love the bands at games, they are part of what makes the game unique, but when I look at my 8 guys - 8 out of 56 - and count the sprained wrists, ankles, broken fingers, contusions . . . I find it hard to sympathize that this is somehow easier to cope with than chapped lips and sunburn . . . Its been an odd season.


Click images for desktop size: "Hong Kong By Night" by Deterling Yesterday I got into an reverie. There was a group of “special” adults at the bus stop. They were cool. One fellow was very tall and angular and kept moving to some unknown beat. He had a complicated set of hand movements that I found fascinating. After a minute or so he repeated them very precisely, till I realized the gestures were part of a song, the repeated gestures were the chorus.
It made me think of one of my kids. He was a young stallion, a pure stud - one of those athletes whose athletic abilities eclipsed my abilities as a coach.
He was 6'5“ 260 pounds and ran a 4.4 forty, benched 425. This when he was 17. He was unblockable and attacked our game with self satisfaction. He played DE. On one play against the All-Stars they triple teamed him, he moved the whole pile and got to the QB for a hurry up. The QB still got the pass off, it got deflected and caught. My kid made the solo tackle 30 yards downfield.
That was just one play. He did that all the time.
I managed to convince my friend to sponsor him on a trip to America. He was set to go to Penn State. Joe Paterno WANTED him. He saw a killer edge line backer.
He returned to England.
Then, well. He came to my house one evening. I was in the kitchen and suddenly saw things fly out the upstairs bathroom window, the scale, medicine cabinet.
My kid had locked himself in the bathroom. His mother was screaming hysterically. I finally got him to open the door. He was stark naked. He was clearing everything out of my bathroom that would interfere with his transmission to Tramador.
He'd constructed a communication device in my bathtub. It consisted of a whole lot of books and magazines being submerged in water, the shower curtain and shower rod being arranged in some exact fashion. I regret not asking him if it had worked. I mean maybe he was right and the problem was I had the wrong books and magazines or maybe my shower rod was the wrong metal.
The poor kid had, what they tell me, was a psychotic break. His mother was an ambulatory schizophrenic, the doctors said that it wasn't uncommon.

Click images for desktop size: "MacBalls" by 1st Tiger They took him to the hospital. He escaped. He came to me. I went back with him and found out that they were terrified by his behavior but more by his size. I couldn't bring myself to be afraid of him or anything except devastated for a fine young man to have such a hurdle thrown in front of him.
They'd put him on an adult ward and were over medicating him.
I let my sadness over his lost future turn into anger, righteous anger the worst kind. I made a lot of enemies getting the hospital to admit their wrong doing and to treat him properly and with the respect he deserved. No matter how eloquent I'm supposed to be I could never convince these doctors the kid had a future.
I miss him and I miss the future that could have been his. He was a good kid.
They said all of his wild tales of being a hero who had to vanquish the Evil 7 were just psychotic delusions. I wish I could be as sure of things as they were. All I knew was that he was in a lot of emotional pain. I worried that I had pressured him into this. They were my private worries.
The enemies were of course public.
But I still pay attention and listen when ”special“ people are trying to communicate and trying to sing me a song with their bodies.

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