So, I'm sitting in the Mental Hospital again, the third time in just four months. This has become a standard occurrence while completing When People Go Away; every time I finish a draft, I end up in the looney bin. The first time this happened four months ago, I was walking through my house, digging into my wrists with a kitchen knife. My living room looked like Pollock had gone through a "red period." The second hospital commitment was a little less Dexter-y, but still got me handcuffed to a hospital bed (figuratively) for two solid weeks. This third commitment sucked another three weeks out of my life, but I believe I can confidently say that the book is finished. Good thing too, as I'm running out of veins to slice and patience to resurrect.
I'm writing this blog in the psych-unit's "common room" (or "day room"), a study in Wedgewood blue, fluorescent lighting, and dirt. The place is a cement-pit, a mid-century monstrocity with tired ceiling tiles, uncomfortable plastic chairs & rockers, faded institutional carpeting, ugly wall art, a television in a ceiling-mounted cage, and several strands of red Christmas lights for some reason. I am surrounded by some genuinely sick people including schizophrenics, manic-depressives, patients with more personalities than Sybil, and of course, Democrats. Biden was on TV last night, and despite the fact he resembled a cadaver on puppet strings, everyone cheered him on even though he clearly had no idea where he was. Nice job, Joe! You've definitely got the crazy-vote!
I'm writing this blog in the psych-unit's "common room" (or "day room"), a study in Wedgewood blue, fluorescent lighting, and dirt. The place is a cement-pit, a mid-century monstrocity with tired ceiling tiles, uncomfortable plastic chairs & rockers, faded institutional carpeting, ugly wall art, a television in a ceiling-mounted cage, and several strands of red Christmas lights for some reason. I am surrounded by some genuinely sick people including schizophrenics, manic-depressives, patients with more personalities than Sybil, and of course, Democrats. Biden was on TV last night, and despite the fact he resembled a cadaver on puppet strings, everyone cheered him on even though he clearly had no idea where he was. Nice job, Joe! You've definitely got the crazy-vote!
It's absolutely impossible to describe what happens in my head during the creative process. I become obsessed - or "manic" as my doctors tell me - and with the exception of keeping my house clean, writing becomes my only focus, to the exclusion of everything else. (Well...I do try and keep my cats alive.) I ignore...everything, and I scare the shit out of people. I forget to pay my bills for months at a time, and I completely space out on major news stories. Chuckling...I totally missed that Laurie Lightfoot lost her election at one point, and when I sent When People Go Away to FoxNews at 9am 9/11, I had no idea that all of Drudge's headlines were BLAZING RED. For those of you who don't read The Drudge Report, let me clarify: red headlines, spattered across the title banner like arterial spray, are never a good sign ...
The last Drudge headline that really hit me hard was the blazing RUSH IS DEAD banner on o2/17/2021. I remember spilling my coffee and falling to my knees in spasmodic, guttural, gut-wrenching sobs. I didn't shed a tear shen my own Father died, but Rush's passing literally tore me in half - and kept me that way for days. I loved that man. His optimism was the sole guiding light during twenty-five of the most difficult years of my life. Rush kept me from committing suicide several times, and the confidence in his voice made me focus on writing, long enough to complete two books: Goodbye to Beekman Place and The Saturday Night Everlasting. Had it not been for Rush, I'd have died decades ago. Rush Limbaugh will always be my God.
It's hard to find God in my current surroundings, but I know that he is there. For me, God is in my humor - and my ability to find joy, even in the darkest of places. There's humor in the hospital staff - and how they desperately try to cope with their boredom by bedazzling their Crocs, and wearing whistles that match their shoelaces. There's humor in the meals served, big pasty piles of carbs with lukewarm chocolate milk, and fruit cups that are impossible to open without sending syrup splattering across the shared dining table, like cum at the moment of climax. There's humor in the newly-arrived bipolar-something-or-other, who's handler sings the theme to RAWHIDE every time the patient walks without assistance. And then, of course, there's me in the middle of everything, writing this blog on pen-cartridge & paper. SIR-real! The blog's original title: "Are you there, God? It's me, Sir Dave." And as I observe the hopelessness in the patients & staff around me, Yes! I'm assured. God is with me now. And at risk of spreading Depeche Mode's Blasphemous Rumours, God certainly has a sick sense of humor, and when I die, I expect to find him lauuuuuuuughing ...
The last Drudge headline that really hit me hard was the blazing RUSH IS DEAD banner on o2/17/2021. I remember spilling my coffee and falling to my knees in spasmodic, guttural, gut-wrenching sobs. I didn't shed a tear shen my own Father died, but Rush's passing literally tore me in half - and kept me that way for days. I loved that man. His optimism was the sole guiding light during twenty-five of the most difficult years of my life. Rush kept me from committing suicide several times, and the confidence in his voice made me focus on writing, long enough to complete two books: Goodbye to Beekman Place and The Saturday Night Everlasting. Had it not been for Rush, I'd have died decades ago. Rush Limbaugh will always be my God.
It's hard to find God in my current surroundings, but I know that he is there. For me, God is in my humor - and my ability to find joy, even in the darkest of places. There's humor in the hospital staff - and how they desperately try to cope with their boredom by bedazzling their Crocs, and wearing whistles that match their shoelaces. There's humor in the meals served, big pasty piles of carbs with lukewarm chocolate milk, and fruit cups that are impossible to open without sending syrup splattering across the shared dining table, like cum at the moment of climax. There's humor in the newly-arrived bipolar-something-or-other, who's handler sings the theme to RAWHIDE every time the patient walks without assistance. And then, of course, there's me in the middle of everything, writing this blog on pen-cartridge & paper. SIR-real! The blog's original title: "Are you there, God? It's me, Sir Dave." And as I observe the hopelessness in the patients & staff around me, Yes! I'm assured. God is with me now. And at risk of spreading Depeche Mode's Blasphemous Rumours, God certainly has a sick sense of humor, and when I die, I expect to find him lauuuuuuuughing ...
But with all the time that I've spent in mental institutions, it's only a matter of time before I write my own "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." I'll cast myself as the main character of course, and I'll surround myself with the most fucked up people on the planet. Nancy Pelosi will be Nurse Ratched. Chuck Schumer will be the doctor-in-charge, with his glasses perched on the tip of his nose. Patients will include the cast of The View, and Whoopi Goldberg will throw the water fountain through the hospital window at the end. But through all the despair, the golden beams of EIB light will always be visible through the filmy windows. And rather than classical minuets, the turntable will play nothing but Rush's bumper music:
"I'm walking on sunshine! Oh-oh!"
"I'm walking on sunshine! Oh-oh!"
"And don't it feel good?"
"I'm walking on sunshine! Oh-oh!"
"And don't it feel good?"
And it does feel good I suppose to finally be finished with When People Go Away. I started writing the novel at a former friend's kitchen table last December, and it's taken this long to finalize the manuscript. But what will really feel good will be when I get to talk to a publisher's professional editor. I want to hear their opinion, and what they think of the novel's potential. Cuz, when I think of my own potential, at the age of 54, I'm only just getting started. I'm definitely one of those people who doesn't hit his stride until later in life, and I have a lot of lost time to make up for.
So, I'm holding up my tepid chocolate milk in a toast, a "cheers" to the passage of time. And as humanity embarks on the Era of Quantum Technology, time - and time travel - will be things that we master over the next thousand years.
Personally, I can't wait for this to happen. I want to be walking in the sunshine on January 1st. 1980, after spending New Years Eve dancing in white leather, in the spectacle of Studio 54's infamous glitter party.
I will be...in...Disco...Heaven.
- Sir Dave
So, I'm holding up my tepid chocolate milk in a toast, a "cheers" to the passage of time. And as humanity embarks on the Era of Quantum Technology, time - and time travel - will be things that we master over the next thousand years.
Personally, I can't wait for this to happen. I want to be walking in the sunshine on January 1st. 1980, after spending New Years Eve dancing in white leather, in the spectacle of Studio 54's infamous glitter party.
I will be...in...Disco...Heaven.
- Sir Dave