The feverish feeling that set in Tuesday, when I was just barely able to donate plasma (after reading the thermometer, the intake nurse consulted some kind of chart before continuing) turned worse Wednesday and, after blogging from the Uxi Duxi that evening, I returned home to lie down and shiver while sweating profusely the whole night into Thursday.
I looked through a bag of first aid type stuff that was with the rest of Travis' belongings and found some Tylenol with Oxycodone, took a couple and then started drinking hot tea, in between lying down feeling too hot with a blanket, but too cold without one, and sweating enough to soak through my clothing and leave a spot on the couch.
It was hot enough outside Thursday (and I hadn't had the strength to get up and flip on the A/C) that it must have been over 80 degrees in my place, yet, I felt cold.
I couldn't think of what the adage was about starving a fever or feeding it. But it was pretty much a mute point, as I was just about out of food.
Thursday evening, I was feeling well enough to take a hot shower and change into dry clothes. I still had time to make it to the dollar stores to spend the 4 dollars and change, that was all I had, on a couple cans of cat food, a gallon of spring water, a packet of coffee singles, and a one dollar bottle of aspirin. I was about 15 cents short, but the cashier let me slide.
I walked back to the apartment feeling much better, and realizing that Rose and Ed would be getting their money a couple hours from then, and would be able to give me the 5 bucks that they borrowed; provided they remember lending it to me. This would be my only salvation, as far as being able to equip my spotlight with batteries, then and take the trolley to the Lilly Pad.
Lilly will begin to worry if she doesn't see me on a Friday night.
I would hopefully make at least enough for a bus pass, so I could donate plasma, and reap the bonus of my 7th visit this month.
I would have gone today, and almost did, but one more day of recovery from the flu won't hurt.
Busking would depend upon me finding Rose and Ed and getting the 5 bucks, so I wouldn't be playing under dim lights.
It was early in the month when I lent it to them, and it was most likely they who called several times again throughout the month; when I hadn't answered, because I didn't have money to lend.
I suppose the decent thing would have been to at least answer and tell them politely that I had no money -the plasma place had short changed me on a technicality, or I had had a 10 dollar night of busking, or whatever.
Hard Boiled Dreams
A lot of things goes through a man's mind when it is boiling at 102 degrees or so.
Thursday afternoon, I had a strange dream...
I was riding in a speedboat the size of a yacht.
It was being driven by a black guy, who shouted something like "Yeah, that's right!" as we pulled out, past a bunch of onlookers. I had explained to someone that he had yelled that to imply that he knew that, to a lot of people, a black guy piloting a yacht was an anomaly; but he was recognizing this prejudice by yelling that.
But then I looked to see a guy who resembled Tim, my caseworker, shaking his head, as if to imply that it had been racist of me to say that.
And then the speedboat went up on land and over kind of an island, following a V shaped groove that was kind of like a bob-sled track, before we plummeted down a slope (giving the sensation similar to, but not as intense as the "roller coaster" dream or the "elevator cable snapping" one) and back into the water after narrowly missing a rock that was in the track but which the captain avoided.
Then, I was at the country club where I had worked as a kid, and Jim O' Leary, the golf professional who was my boss back then was there, along with his assistants as well as his daughters and his wife, whom I all saw regularly then, and they had all aged, commensurate with it being 2017.
I felt like they were going to take me to task for the results that my life had produced to this point.
Jim had been a mentor to my teen-aged self and had tried to instill in me the qualities of morality, honesty, decency, hard work, professionalism, etc., and that "our attitude towards life will determine life's attitude towards us," for one thing, and that "the customer is the boss; the customer hires and fires; the customer gives you a raise or cuts your hours, etc."
I'm sure that it was his hope that he was preparing me, along with the other youths that he employed over the summers, to go out and live productive, successful and exemplary lives.
One particular other kid that I worked with; went on to get some kind of computer degree and made enough money to eventually buy a bunch of land in Florida and run a golf school for children and adults -a definite O' Leary success story.
But, in the dream, Jim and crew disappeared to somewhere, leaving me standing there alone in the pro shop that hadn't changed much since I was 15, wondering if they had washed their hands of me and had left the room without having even greeted me, as a gesture of disapproval. I wondered if I should have taken the bull by the horns and gone right up to him and extended a hand to him, proud of myself and my accomplishments and ready to fill him in on the details, and to answer any one of his typical questions like: "So, how is the world a better place because you've lived?"
I woke up from that dream, drenched in sweat, Thursday afternoon.
I wondered if Jim O' Leary had just passed away; perhaps even when I was having the dream. I did some math and estimated that he would be right around 80 years old now.
I wonder if he would appreciate it if I wrote to him, now 40 years later. I'm a street musician in New Orleans, sure, but I can picture Jim saying "You should never be ashamed of who or what you are, as long as your motives are pure" or, maybe working the customer into it somehow...
Friday Afternoon, September 28th
The people at Sacred Heart Apartments who get money on the first of every month have gotten it already; because the 1st falls on a Sunday.
It was easy to tell, by the crowd gathered in front of the building as midnight drew near, exactly which day of the month it was; and what was going on with the cars pulling up after midnight and the brief exchanges between their drivers and the residents. And the residents coming and going on borrowed bikes at 3 AM.
I always get different looks from them that are hard to read. In a lot of cases they ignore me in a way that suggests that the only reason they don't ignore me other times is because they are not within an hour of getting their 742 dollars; and are just trying to skeeze me. When they are within hours of getting what they see as a fortune, they don't feel the need to speak to, nor even see, me.
I feel kind of weak. It is 7:30 PM. This is the kind of flu that will seem like it has gone away and the fever has broken, perhaps in the morning, only to then overtake you towards the end of the day.
I haven't had a flu like this since February, 2005.
Getting the 5 bucks from Rose and Ed would make it easy to busk tonight; and, who knows, it could always be a 60 or 80 dollar night; though I don't feel like I have the energy to produce that much.
But, I don't know what would be more draining, busking for 3 hours, or having a pint of plasma taken from me tomorrow, for perhaps the same 40 bucks.
I looked through a bag of first aid type stuff that was with the rest of Travis' belongings and found some Tylenol with Oxycodone, took a couple and then started drinking hot tea, in between lying down feeling too hot with a blanket, but too cold without one, and sweating enough to soak through my clothing and leave a spot on the couch.
It was hot enough outside Thursday (and I hadn't had the strength to get up and flip on the A/C) that it must have been over 80 degrees in my place, yet, I felt cold.
I couldn't think of what the adage was about starving a fever or feeding it. But it was pretty much a mute point, as I was just about out of food.
Thursday evening, I was feeling well enough to take a hot shower and change into dry clothes. I still had time to make it to the dollar stores to spend the 4 dollars and change, that was all I had, on a couple cans of cat food, a gallon of spring water, a packet of coffee singles, and a one dollar bottle of aspirin. I was about 15 cents short, but the cashier let me slide.
I walked back to the apartment feeling much better, and realizing that Rose and Ed would be getting their money a couple hours from then, and would be able to give me the 5 bucks that they borrowed; provided they remember lending it to me. This would be my only salvation, as far as being able to equip my spotlight with batteries, then and take the trolley to the Lilly Pad.
Lilly will begin to worry if she doesn't see me on a Friday night.
I would hopefully make at least enough for a bus pass, so I could donate plasma, and reap the bonus of my 7th visit this month.
I would have gone today, and almost did, but one more day of recovery from the flu won't hurt.
Busking would depend upon me finding Rose and Ed and getting the 5 bucks, so I wouldn't be playing under dim lights.
It was early in the month when I lent it to them, and it was most likely they who called several times again throughout the month; when I hadn't answered, because I didn't have money to lend.
I suppose the decent thing would have been to at least answer and tell them politely that I had no money -the plasma place had short changed me on a technicality, or I had had a 10 dollar night of busking, or whatever.
Hard Boiled Dreams
A lot of things goes through a man's mind when it is boiling at 102 degrees or so.
Thursday afternoon, I had a strange dream...
I was riding in a speedboat the size of a yacht.
It was being driven by a black guy, who shouted something like "Yeah, that's right!" as we pulled out, past a bunch of onlookers. I had explained to someone that he had yelled that to imply that he knew that, to a lot of people, a black guy piloting a yacht was an anomaly; but he was recognizing this prejudice by yelling that.
But then I looked to see a guy who resembled Tim, my caseworker, shaking his head, as if to imply that it had been racist of me to say that.
And then the speedboat went up on land and over kind of an island, following a V shaped groove that was kind of like a bob-sled track, before we plummeted down a slope (giving the sensation similar to, but not as intense as the "roller coaster" dream or the "elevator cable snapping" one) and back into the water after narrowly missing a rock that was in the track but which the captain avoided.
Then, I was at the country club where I had worked as a kid, and Jim O' Leary, the golf professional who was my boss back then was there, along with his assistants as well as his daughters and his wife, whom I all saw regularly then, and they had all aged, commensurate with it being 2017.
I felt like they were going to take me to task for the results that my life had produced to this point.
Jim had been a mentor to my teen-aged self and had tried to instill in me the qualities of morality, honesty, decency, hard work, professionalism, etc., and that "our attitude towards life will determine life's attitude towards us," for one thing, and that "the customer is the boss; the customer hires and fires; the customer gives you a raise or cuts your hours, etc."
I'm sure that it was his hope that he was preparing me, along with the other youths that he employed over the summers, to go out and live productive, successful and exemplary lives.
One particular other kid that I worked with; went on to get some kind of computer degree and made enough money to eventually buy a bunch of land in Florida and run a golf school for children and adults -a definite O' Leary success story.
But, in the dream, Jim and crew disappeared to somewhere, leaving me standing there alone in the pro shop that hadn't changed much since I was 15, wondering if they had washed their hands of me and had left the room without having even greeted me, as a gesture of disapproval. I wondered if I should have taken the bull by the horns and gone right up to him and extended a hand to him, proud of myself and my accomplishments and ready to fill him in on the details, and to answer any one of his typical questions like: "So, how is the world a better place because you've lived?"
I woke up from that dream, drenched in sweat, Thursday afternoon.
I wondered if Jim O' Leary had just passed away; perhaps even when I was having the dream. I did some math and estimated that he would be right around 80 years old now.
I wonder if he would appreciate it if I wrote to him, now 40 years later. I'm a street musician in New Orleans, sure, but I can picture Jim saying "You should never be ashamed of who or what you are, as long as your motives are pure" or, maybe working the customer into it somehow...
Friday Afternoon, September 28th
The people at Sacred Heart Apartments who get money on the first of every month have gotten it already; because the 1st falls on a Sunday.
It was easy to tell, by the crowd gathered in front of the building as midnight drew near, exactly which day of the month it was; and what was going on with the cars pulling up after midnight and the brief exchanges between their drivers and the residents. And the residents coming and going on borrowed bikes at 3 AM.
I always get different looks from them that are hard to read. In a lot of cases they ignore me in a way that suggests that the only reason they don't ignore me other times is because they are not within an hour of getting their 742 dollars; and are just trying to skeeze me. When they are within hours of getting what they see as a fortune, they don't feel the need to speak to, nor even see, me.
I feel kind of weak. It is 7:30 PM. This is the kind of flu that will seem like it has gone away and the fever has broken, perhaps in the morning, only to then overtake you towards the end of the day.
I haven't had a flu like this since February, 2005.
Getting the 5 bucks from Rose and Ed would make it easy to busk tonight; and, who knows, it could always be a 60 or 80 dollar night; though I don't feel like I have the energy to produce that much.
But, I don't know what would be more draining, busking for 3 hours, or having a pint of plasma taken from me tomorrow, for perhaps the same 40 bucks.
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