It’s been 10 days now since I had my back operated on. I went into this experience without any expectations, and I believe that was the only way to approach it.

I remember changing clothes in the hospital, needing help from a nice African American nurse with an accent from I do not know where to tie by gown. Why is it so dang hard to tie those hospital gowns. That was a recurring nightmare during my stay at Rex.

After that, I remember putting on the socks – XL women’s socks – that would stay on my feet until a nice nurse with red hair asked me days later if I wanted more comfortable ones. Those were XL men’s socks.

Go figure.

I don’t remember getting up under. I don’t remember waking up.

I remember Alisa being there when I did wake up. And that my back didn’t really hurt. Kind of expected to wake up and at least say “ouch.”

But by the end of the night, my stomach started hurting. And for two days and nights of no sleep, no rest, walking because it was the only way my bowels worked, it was awful.

I’ve been constipated before. And from drugs.

This was worse. I got “treatment” and I had diaherra for a half day. Then nothing. But the fifth day they sent me home.

Day two at home, I finally gave birth to a poop baby at 4:15 a.m. It was the most awful thing I’d felt since the two inch, glass shard-esque kidney stone came out of me years ago. That was worse than the solid peanut sized one from years prior.

Kids, if you get anything from my first blog entry in forever – drink water. Don’t drink sodas and beer.

And sit up at school. At work. At home.

I remembered a dream one night when I got home. I was at private school in Wilson. Inside the gym. No clue why that place decided to visit.

I was scheduled to get private basketball lessons from their basketball coach, who I’m assuming is still there, but I really have no idea since I got shit-canned (laid off) back in 2016. Which, in reality was the best thing any Trump luvin’, Capital Building Storming event attendant (but not participant) ever did for me.

But anyway. I’m in the gym, with a basketball jersey on that was really a sweater of some kind. And nothing else. I figured this out while dribbling the ball and looking downward.

At some point I backed into the wall, and started talking to the coach about his next “big time” stud. I watched as he dunked a few times. Looked like any other high school hoops guy to me, but that’s why I’m not a coach or a scout. The coach told me some recruiting tales and then said – “no reporting on this shit.” Gave me a look, and walked away.

Having not written a newspaper account of anything since a girls tennis match in 2017, I didn’t feel he need worry about my typing.

I woke up and just thought about that dream. And wondered why that was my dream to remember for 2024? It’s rare I remember anything about them, so, I guess I should be happy?

In other things that happened recently, I gave away my dad’s old coffee table. I’d had that thing for a bit now, probably since I moved to the beach in 2010. It served me well. And I’m sure it served him well.

I wonder that things he did on that table. Drink? Certainly. Homework back in high school or college? Maybe.

I know I drank a lot of beer. Typed a lot of shitty and not so shitty words. Cried. Ate lots of pizza and mac and cheese.

It’s gone now. Gave it away to a lady here in Cary. She said it would be used by her theater student group. “It’ll get lots of love,” she said.

I think he’d be happy about that. That it’ll be on stage helping others dream. He seemed to genuinely care about helping my niece and nephew achieve their dreams up on stages all over Virginia. I’d hoped that he’d play a part in my son’s youth.

That never happened as he died before he was 1.

Which is exactly the number of photos I have of all three of us.

My mom, who was helpful, but was still 2 ½ hours away, I had hoped the same of. She tried. I know. But it wasn’t in the cards either. She drove down here at 79 in February of 2023 so Alisa and I could have a date – saw John Waters at a small theater in Newton NC. That was one of the only dates we’ve had in nearly 10 years now. Sigh.

I saw her two other times. Once, a couple days before her stroke. I went to see Springsteen in DC with my buddy Josh. I stopped and spend the night. And on the way home, stopped again to have lunch. Just a couple days later, she had a stroke. A month later, she was gone.

I still have not grieved. I don’t think I know how to. It’s why I hold on to the past. Relationships. People. Places. Things. Ideas (hey, I’m a writer!).

It makes me want to drink again. But, I know that ends with me where I was before. A person trying to write that one story that is inside him, but for whatever reason, can’t say what needs to be said.

Anyways, I think I made my 750 quotient. That’s what this is all about right? Getting back to typing. Even if it’s just words, words, words.

Oh, what I’ve did learn from this surgery… We’re all alone. Especially those of us who don’t have a lot of friends. I’ll let Neil Young finish this one…

They were hiding behind hay bales
They were planting in the full moon
They had given all they had for something new
But the light of day was on them
They could see the thrashers coming
And the water shone like diamonds in the dew

And I was just getting up
Hit the road before it’s light
Trying to catch an hour on the sun
When I saw those thrashers rolling by
Looking more than two lanes wide
I was feelin’ like my day had just begun

Where the eagle glides ascending
There’s an ancient river bending
Down the timeless gorge of changes
Where sleeplessness awaits
I searched out my companions
Who were lost in crystal canyons
When the aimless blade of science
Slashed the pearly gates

It was then I knew I’d had enough
Burned my credit card for fuel
Headed out to where the pavement turns to sand
With a one-way ticket to the land of truth
And my suitcase in my hand
How I lost my friends
I still don’t understand

They had the best selection
They were poisoned with protection
There was nothing that they needed
Nothing left to find
They were lost in rock formations
Or became park bench mutations
On the sidewalks and in the stations
They were waiting, waiting

So I got bored and left them there
They were just deadweight to me
Better down the road without that load
Brings back the time when I was eight or nine
I was watchin’ my mama’s TV
It was that great Grand Canyon rescue episode

Where the vulture glides descending
On an asphalt highway bending
Through libraries and museums, galaxies and stars
Down the windy halls of friendship
To the rose clipped by the bullwhip
The motel of lost companions
Waits with heated pool and bar

But me I’m not stopping there
Got my own row left to hoe
Just another line in the field of time
When the thrasher comes
I’ll be stuck in the sun
Like the dinosaurs in shrines
But I’ll know the time has come
To give what’s mine