No One Believes Me

"The Thing cannot be described -- there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order"

Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

"I am a doctor after all..."

It seems in an effort to outdo my fiancée, I've managed to come down with the same throat infection, or bug caught we suspect two days ago while visiting an elderly lady, whose caretaker/sister was sick. Naturally, I've come down hard with this bug in the last hour, or so, of course when I first laid down to sleep. Clearly, I'm not going to work tomorrow - insomnia, sore, dry throat, cough, aching muscles, stuffy nose - as this bug has managed to infect two or three people rapidly, and simultaneously in under two days. Except my lungs feel strained, too, as they always do whenever I'm sick and/or can't sleep--I really do want to sleep, my eyes are sore with the ache of lethargy and insomnia but when I lay my head on the pillow my head feels cloudy, and I can't focus on sleeping. Instead, I'm sitting here miserably typing away to pass the time until I have to wake up around 9:00 AM - because, regardless, I have to get my passport signed by my doctor today.

Godspeed. And good health.

All's Well That Ends Well

I found out some alarming news this morning: my grandmother suffers from severe, violent dementia. Apparently she's had this unbeknownst to me for the last year, and she's been taking medicine for it. Lately, it seems she hasn't been taking her medicine because she's had countless violent outbursts - this one last night so severe she had to be hospitalized in the psych. or geriatric ward. They're re-assesing her as we speak, or at least some time today. Unfortunately, the one who receives the blunt of her violence during her heightened states of dementia, is her husband, my grandfather--whom she has thrown a boiling pot of potatoes at, physically abused on several occasions, and verbally abused with accusations of cheating on her with my aunt and an imaginary woman named Lilly. My aunt Pat, the one whom my grandmother also accuses of committing adultery with her husband, my aunt's father-in-law, first informed me last night that she had shaken her sister-in-law, Aunt Millie as we call her, violently like a rag doll - so the sons and daughters, kith and kin, had to get together to decide what to do, and to provide family support last night for my grandfather from Noon until about Four this morning. How my grandfather (or kin for that matter) feels about this, I suspect, only he, or my parents and aunts and uncles will know - and they're tight-lipped about this, of the repressive, don't-talk-about-it-or-you-have-to-deal-with-it variety when it comes to family problems (though in time they'll talk about it). Now that my grandmother is deeper in the throes of dementia, apparently, it might be advised that she be placed in a nursing home, which I highly doubt will happen because her husband, my grandfather is a quiet, proud noble man (then again, it may be better for his health and safety since he's received the blunt of her violent outbursts).

That's all I know for now--and can recollect after sleeping at 5 AM and waking up 2 1/2 hours later to get ready for a day of work. To be honest, too, after hearing this news--from her hospitalization to diagnosis--earlier yesterday afternoon, I've been uneasy, off-kilter and feeling down in general. I know this is what happens to a small percentage of the senior population - 6 - 8% I read somewhere - but when it happens to you, personally, it's hard. It's nearly as heartbreaking as someone dying, at least that's how I can describe it feeling for me--which I'm not sure about either if that's healthy, or monstrous of me. In the mean time, I'll keep myself busy getting ready to head back to school, starting on my upcoming readings such as Frye's The Great Code, and Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well.

That's the news for now.

Groan

Twice. That's how many times today I've sat down in front of my computer to write an interesting entry that might redeem this blog. After all, I abandoned it like an orphan, and hope to foster it again. It's a hard thing to break a habit - something I've folded into these last few months - and not feel a sort of strain to get back on track. That's probably why I have for the subtitle under my plain MSN name of 'Dave' as: "If I'm out of kilter, where can I get more?" - a weird, bizarre thing to explain or justify considering I have no exams, and finished writing the one essay I had to write for the entire month of December. I don't know what is wrong with me - but I can think of no other phrase than 'out of kilter' to epitomise how I feel this month. That's probably why I wish for my life to whirl like a subway, or car ride because when you're in motion, or sleeping away life like a somnambulist in automatic mode, everything is a blur, or a numb dream. You don't feel anything. But the pain you can't numb for long - the stuff of the mind and spirit like memories - eventually catches up with you. That's what I've been feeling lately, a sort of real, jarring experience of a dull, numinous nightmare as I spend my time working five days a week, and withou the excuses I need to escape the harsh reality of home. That's why I rushed to write that assignment on McLuhan and Lovecraft, because I'm living the sense of what they write this very moment - when I should channel my understanding and express it healthily in my writing I wanted to hide it, escape it, and numb it. Now I've escaped into one of my fond, recent literary discoveries - Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan, part one of the Gormenghast Trilogy - the Lucifer/Satan of the 1940s and 1950s ignored today in lieu of that self-righteous Holy Trinity of writers en vogue currently like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Oh well. People like nostalgia. Makes them feel safe, and secure. Peake, on the other hand, is deliberately sardonic and bleak in his writing - willing to confront the living, present reality of his world, both the material and ineffable spirit of his age - yet, waxing elegiac for a world (embodied by the image of Gormenghast, a castle) of images (embodied by stringent, unbroken traditions) slowly being dismembered, and liquidated from within by imploding change or fortune, that dark mistress of revolution.

That is my present world, and I love it in the end.

If You Call Leave A Message

I finished writing my last assignment earlier today--around 2:30 AM--on Marshall McLuhan and a McLuhanesque reading of H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu. Finally, I can enjoy my holiday break to the fullest without feeling that queasy, nagging feeling I get in my stomach and lungs whenever I have to write an essay. This must make me one of the worst English majors. Every single assignment brings this loathsome feeling, which is followed by indignance, self-doubt and moodiness--a male version of PMS. This I suspect is the reason I never complete assignments as I believe to the best of my ability--I get anxious, start feeling like I want to get everything over with, and rush to allay this feeling haphazardly. The essay usually gets done with a half-assed effort, but it is finished. Somehow, apparently, I manage to come out with Bs and As, which I suspect is because the standards are so low in English at University these days--what with the rampant ignorance of cultural and literary traditions. So what if I have a general feel for classical, biblical things--I'm no expert, just go with my general gut-feeling and perception of things.

Anyways, I'm heading off to work.

Riding Life Like A Subway

As I meditate on this blog forsaken after months of school, and try to think of something novel to write or say--I realize there isn't anything left. Life happened in rapid moving pictures like a movie these last few months. Words would be insufficient, too slow and awkward like a fat kid in gym class to keep up with the constant iron man marathon of my life, and homework recently. It's only when you stop moving that motion or kinetics finally catches up with you. Then it usually hits you like a blasting fulgor of wind, or snow--hence the word 'thunderstruck'.

Perhaps it's because I'm using another blog for a class that I've abandoned this one--plain sick of anything to do with blogs outside of class. But I'm finding myself interested in staying in a flurry of discombobulating kinetic motion in everything from emotions to mind, riding life like a subway with brief moments of trembling, inert pauses only to be on my way and maintain the schedule. Let's just hope I'm not living the life of the TTC.