writing about "it"

So should the blog tell all of my feelings about my new health stage, or should it focus on other things. Not sure. Let's just say I feel there is a countdown to Friday at 1:30 when i face the Gastroninerologist,  Just want to arrive at that place. Now, however, feeling kind of mellow. I have admitted to myself that this is not an easy place to be in. Last night, very restless, could not sleep much---today, this afternoon, finally caught up on some of the sleep I missed.
  Have read a lot about the protesters at 1214 Dean Street in Brooklyn where a vicious landlord tried to evict many of his tenants with no warning. The response was strong---in the tweets that I see many people are out there, protesting, protecting the tenants,  and are determined to not let the buidling's owner get his way.  If this was a "normal" (healthwise) summer, I would probably be out there with them--how I wish that was possible. But not feeling strong enough---this would not be a good idea today.
  Finished another story by Deborah Eisenberg---I really admire---no, let's just say I am in awe of the way she creates and molds a short story. About four more to go in her book of them. Also read a little bit of The Sound Inside again---there is something that draws me back to parts of the play, even though I don't feel a need to read the whole things through again.
  Close to 7, still waiting for my appetite to ask for supper--will report again soon.

Let's get to it!

All right, cityboy, must admit it. The doctor whom I saw today gave me some hard facts, and convinced me that this time, I must get a colonoscopy. I am seeing the doctor who performs that procedure on Friday---hopefully we can arrange for the procedure to happen quickly. No more demons knocking at my door---actually I am very anxious now to get to the bottom of all the stomach craziness that I am experiencing.
   In spite of the bad news, when I left the clinic, I bought myself an ice coffee around the corner (Columbus between 97th and 96th street) and very easily walked the 21 blocks south and three blocks east my apartment. No problems there. Will discuss with friends---I already called a doctor friend of mine who urged me to get the colonoscopy, but thought that some of the other recommendations that the doctor made were not particularly valid. Well, we will see.
   Remember the four reading choices from yesterday?  Finally chose to go back to The Mask and the Face. Glad that I did; I read the whole thing and found it more powerful then ever. Started fantasizing readings of it that i would direct---casting it in my head---as I used to do back when I was directing. Will something like that ever materialize? Hard to say, especially now. After Sarah reads it, I am not sure to whom it will go. Whatever---I found myself so stimulated and moved by it---amazing that the first time I read the play I was a Sophamore at Hopkins, and Professor Ross assigned the play---he was a great teacher who had luckily taken the class over from a fraudulent teacher who had died suddenly at the end of the first semester. Yeah, modern drama---that is what the course was called. Also read Mother Courage and (I think) Right You Are if you Think You Are, that puzzling play by Pirandello. Quite an introduction to the world of European dramatic literature, a world that still fascinates me now.
  This is where I stand at the moment. Will report soon.

Monday afternoon...

Nothing happening. That's right---time seems to have stopped. No tasks today (unless you think taking two bags of garbage out to the garbage can outside your house is a task), and no plans to leave the neighborhood. So there is only one thing to do: read, read, read.  What are my choices.
1. Another short story by Deborah Eisenberg, from her short story collection, Under the 82nd Airborne. She is really good, but do I want to read another of her reflective stories right now/
2. For one dollar I have just bought a book about Bobby Knight, a famed University of Indiana basketball coach. This one, called A Season on the Brink, by John Feinstein, well respected sports writer from DC, follows him through the 1985-86 season. Looks like a good page turner; I enjoy reading about basketball, and needed a change from the Wes Moore book, which chronicled the five days after Freddy Gray's funeral. Don't need another book that focuses on social justice right now; Moore's book is incredibly strong. But I have to take a break. Feinstein's book might absorb me in a more relaxed way.
3. When I bought The Sound Inside at Barnes and Noble last week, I also bought an Agatha Christie mystery. This one is called Spider's Web---I know nothing about it except that it should be good escapist material, which is what I need now
4. Return to the play that haunts me: The Mask and the Face---I am giving it to my friend Sarah to read probably tomorrow---I should at least read Act I over again before giving it to her. This is the most complicated of the three acts---I want to be a little more clearer about the way it develops.
   So that is it. Which will I do? Not sure--time to leave the apartment and sit on a shady bench in Riverside Park and get some reading done. What about another trip to Brooklyn? Had fun yesterday, for some reason a little bit too self protective today. But that could change later. Will report soon.

Sunday evening---nice news...

Have just returned from  trip to Brooklyn, had a very good time, only to read about the many shootings that took place in Brooklyn and Manhattan last night, and the young woman killed when a car plowed into her group in Seattle. Very, very sad. Perhaps good news is not relevant, but here it is anyway.
My friend Riley and I agreed to meet in Brooklyn this afternoon. Riley is a graduate of Friends from the class of 15. Last Sunday I ventured into Brooklyn, but not since then. A little anxious when I left, but the subway ride into Brooklyn on the 3 was very direct (there was at the most, three people in the car for the whole ride) and Riley and I met outside BAM (now closed, unfortunately, even the bathrooms). A few blocks east on Lafayette we found a coffee shop and hung out there for about 45 minutes. Good conversation, mostly going over memories we had of other students from Friends whom we both knew.  After that took a short walk around Fort Greene---then Reilly headed home to cook dinner for his parents and brother in Park Slope, and while I thought I might go out to Bushwick and see if Cobra Club was open--maybe hunt down some of my barista friends there. But when Riley left,  the sun was beating down on me, so I figured that I should probably return to the upper west side. Which is what I did--got on the 2 at Atlantic Avenue---it moved very fast, and had as my companion a really well written story by Deborah Eisenberg. Part of a book of short stories by this author---I hope to read the rest of them soon.
   Yesterday morning I completed Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City. Really glad that I read it--it really packs a wallop---forces one to consider how to "fix" the glaring inequities that exist in the poor black neighborhoods of Baltimore. Wes Moore (the book's author) lives with his family in Baltimore now---its in his hands to start the process of empowerment.Would like to help anyway that I can--will see how this evolves.

Saturday morning...now what...?

Yesterday no post. Stomach was insane! Gritted right through me. What do I do when that happens. Just wait it out---I am very used to by now, what I call "stomach cycles". After one intense day the pressure on my stomach diminishes and a kind of "normalcy" is established. Then BAM! it happens again. Nothing much I can do at this point---felt pretty tired all day, stayed close to the apartment, read the Wes Moore book a lot. It is, as I have said in earlier posts, devoted to the five days after Freddy Gray's funeral in Baltimore--Moore, the narrator, takes the reader into the world of about six different people either immediately or tangentially involved in the rage that took part in the city after the funeral. Most are black; two, a public defender and John Angelos, an owner of the Baltimore Orioles, are white. Of the black participants, there is a high ranking police officer, a "street guy", a City Council person and a few others. It is all very riveting; perhaps the most frightening aspect of absorbing the book is the understanding that one section of Baltimore---the one that contains the poor black population---has been treated by the police as an occupied country. Unjustified cruelty by the police to anyone "suspected" of any wrong doing is common place. Physical beatings are the norm. I knew some of this before but reading this now leaves me horrified and enraged. But what is one to do? Moore lives in Baltimore now; in an interview he identified the problems in the poor neighborhoods that have been going on for years. Can he, as an important Baltimorian begin to work to solve these problems of inequity? How do you rebuild  a system that seems so brutalized and forgotten by those in power? Those are the greater issues posed by the book---I have about five chapters to go.
Stomach better today. Still a lot of time left in the day. I think I will stay around the apartment and wait until Falstaff comes on. The last Verdi opera is today's broadcast. I saw the production a few years ago---did not like it at all, but listening to it, I can just focus on the music--which I know and love. After that---will depend on the energy flow that i am experiencing Will report soon.

Yesterday's post, kind of "heavy"

Today's post---much more positive. That's because I have accomplished a lot (at least what must be considered a lot during the pandemic). First, traveled from the upper west side to my,bank , around Union Square to shift  some money. Finally, that bank is easy to get into. During the early days of the pandemic, it wasn't. Closed more than opened. Long lines to get in. Rediculous.  Subways fairly empty---after I made the deposit turned east to 3rd Avenue and then north on 3rd to 23rd Street and Fifth. Nice walk---very easy on the body. Wanted desperately to get a sweet-needed some sugar-- but waited until I returned to the upper west side---discipline very important when dealing with my stomach.
  Next, believe it or not, I finished Prep, and believe it or not, the last hundred pages of the book have some really nice writing in them. So finishing was less of a chore than I thought it would be. Last night I read about six chapters of the book that I bought yesterday at Barnes and Noble: Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City. About the riots in Baltimore in the days after Freddy Gray's funeral. Really strong and intense. I will be reading it very shortly after I finish this post. Still have to decide if I want to buy one more book at Barnes and Noble tomorrow, to help move me through the weekend. Store may be closed on Saturday (July 4th)--not sure. Could be the essays on Shakespeare that I have browsed a lot when I have been there, or----.
I will decide tomorrow.
  Last night and morning---another restless time---again got my coffee from the neighborhood convenience store at around 5:30--then collapsed when I returned from my bank trip and slept for an hour. But right now I am feeling pretty strong. Can I gather this energy and feel good enough at 4 or 5 in the afternoon, to maybe go out to Bushwick or Williamsburg? Maybe, it is definitely something to shoot for---got to make the next few days as interesting as possible.

today, wednesday...

Yesterday so proud of myself for steering the post away from complaints and into a likeable and possibly funny tract on getting books to read. Not so funny today. Yes, I did go back to the bookstore and bought Five Days: the Reckoning of an American City, the book that explores the aftermath of the killing of Freddy Gray in Baltimore. But nothing has caught fire for the rest of the day. For some reason, my body has felt fatigued most of the day, so I have not been far from the apartment. Why? Is it because I am awake by 4:30 A.M. and today was getting coffee at 5:30. Is that when my body is strongest? Is it because life is so focused around the apartment anyway, that fatigue just comes with it. How can i go out to Williamsburg or Bushwick in the early evening if by 4 or 5 I just want to read and rest?
  Had a strange dream this afternoon. I am three feet off the curb of a street, in front of a bus stop. It is dark. I seem to have dropped a cup of take out coffee in front of me---I see a bus and car approaching and know that I must get out of the way for the bus. But I am having trouble picking up the cup of coffee--it is hot and filled---I hate it when the coffee maker fills the coffee right to the top--I struggle to pick up the coffee, regain my balance and move out, meanwhile I see the bus and the car waiting for me to get out of the way. I think that the bus driver must despise me for being in the way. Feeling humiliated, I begin to pick up the cup when---I wake up! Why such a dark and odious dream?
  So there you have it---the weekend approaches with its fourth of July holiday on Saturday. The city will be hot!! I will have the book I have just bought and probably one or two others to keep me company. Travel to another borough? I hope so---but everything is day by day.