another long time...

between posts---just had the apartment cleaned---hardly recognize it. Once every 4 weeks, this woman---I honestly don't even know her name---I just call her the "niece" of my previous cleaner---that is how she was introduced to me---cleans my apartment. She does a great job---on the way out, urged me to keep the apartment a little cleaner during the time when she is not there But what can I do? I truly hate dirt--but--well, I really try. 

        Lost my sheet yesterday to "spillage"; now am sleeping just on my five year old mattress---but not bad---I can do it. Will keep it that way for a while.

Suspended--at least until Friday--that is when I see the surgeon--he will decide the next move. Cleared with my two oncologists, so it is all up to him. Meanwhile I try to figure out what June will be. As I wait, I must admit that i have found a comfort zone with my current life pattern---am comfortable staying in at night, except for short walks. Scan the baseball scores, follow the nba playoffs, an occasional phone call--that seems to do it---read a bit, then look forward to the next day. Will that soon end? Change means hospitalization--probably a little leary about that. Well, will find out more on Friday. 

I read, and my imagination goes deeper. Getting more out of reading then ever before. Currently reading a series of essays by Vivian Gornick, and an early novel by Jerry (Jerome) Charyn. Ironically I have chosen to read books by two  authors anow in their eighties---both born and raised in the Bronx, probably within walking distance of each other. That part of the Bronx is directly south of the Bronx zoo---my family lived in the first neighborhood north of the Bronx zoo--a little more middle class at the time. Gornick and Charyn's neighborhood was much more hard scrabble jewish working class, and being the poorest, it was the first neighborhood to be "invaded" by the Puerto Ricans who arrived in the Bronx in the early fifties. As a teen ager, I had one or two dates with young women who lived in that area. I always felt safe there. Still "visit" that area on google maps---always filled with a kind of hunger--nostalgia---I see my childhood--but it is gone.

Have found a facebook group where I can share some of my memories of plays and musicals that I saw in the fifties and early sixties. Like it---getting comfortable in my "solitude"--perhaps too comfortable. Will reveal all the next time.