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Monday, June 8, 2015

Writing And Life

It's been hard for me to sit down and write anything. I can't blame Wally's care demands solely on my lack of writing nor can I blame it on the sudden death of a friend and her husband, another writer. But it seems to add up, in some sort of strange way, to a lack of will in committing myself. I haven't worked on much anything let alone this blog. Could it be depression? Maybe.

The only thing I can do about all of this is to persevere and try to move forward the best I can. I desperately would love to go somewhere for a while but can't. That's just a reality I'm faced with right now. Wally has gone to the Hollywood Bowl every summer since he was seventeen, but I can't take him this year, it's just too hard to do anymore. It tears me up inside not to take him but I don't know what else I can do. If we need to use the public restroom to clean him should he have a bowel  movement we're fucked. It's one thing to clean a baby's bottom at a public bathroom but a full grown adult? They don't have the facilities for that.

And friends, they mean well but for the most part friends act like friends. For instance, on Saturday I try to have some people over for company, what happens is they show up not when I've asked them to, while Wally is napping from one to four, so that I can have some time to be with them, but at four or after. Now I have to deal with the friends and get Wally up. This last Saturday, after getting Wally up after his nap, my guests showed up at last, one of them needs to eat before seven, so I put on a pot of potatoes to go with the fried chicken I was buying at Popeyes. When I returned with the chicken, the pot of potatoes boiled over, both friends were right there waiting for my return without so much as turning the heat down. And on top of that I got static for taking so long, they had no regular chicken only spicy so I had to wait for it. Now I'm trying to get the chicken out, mash potatoes(what was left of them), get Wally's medicine, and I asked one of them to set the table. He threw out in the middle of the table: forks, knives and napkins, literally threw them on the table, no organization. That was the help I got.

I was a little miffed and announced that next Saturday would be different. I'm getting take-out. No more cooking for me. You should have heard the comments. It was like they thought they were entitled to a home cooked meal. But I'm like everyone else, I want to sit in the shade and be waited on.

Then there is the caregiver. Humberto isn't as crazy as the others I've had, but he likes women A LOT. To the point that twice now, I've had to have women with their dogs or their kids live here with us in a one bathroom home. The latest is from Columbia with a young son. They don't speak English even though the father sent them here to learn English, he wasted his money, for the only time I hear English is when they have a question for me. Outside of that, they speak with each other in Spanish while I'm feeding or giving Wally something to drink. It's like living in your own home and at the same time being a visitor.

I think that's what bothers me the most. I have to share our home with strangers so that I can get help for Wally. There is no privacy for us. There are no intimate moments anymore, no mornings together with the newspaper and coffee. I cannot get ten minutes without an interruption. It took all day to write this between the caregivers girlfriend interrupting me, her son, or the caregiver. Then there is Wally's needs, and that's a whole different subject. I'm tired all the time now. I wake up tired and go to bed tired and still I keep trying to find time to write. It is very, very hard.