MBTA Unicorn

As I mentioned in my last post, Sophia had to have a medical procedure. I, of course, was her escort home. She’s of age where I don’t need to sign anything, but it’s helpful to be involved and know what’s going on. They had the procedure scheduled for 8:00 am, which meant—of course—we had to be at the hospital at 5:45 am. In Boston. Where the MBTA doesn’t run before 5:00 am.

Or so I thought.

Trying to figure out the trip to the hospital, I checked with them MBTA and as it turns out, the buses now start running at about 3:30 am on the weekdays. This is un-fucking-believable for Boston (granted it still shuts down around 1:30 am and the Boston bars close at about 3:00 am, but the window for drunk driving has lessened a tad). Now I’m Google Maps the trip to get us to the hospital on time. I expect to see a bus to transfer to one T and then transfer to another as it normally happens during regular MBTA bus hours; but every time I search, it gives me a route for the bus I know that stops by my house to a stop close to downtown where that bus NEVER stops and a 15-minute walk. Forget the 15-minute walk for a minute, I’m staring at the thing like I know the algorithm has lost its goddamned AI mind. But each time it’s very specific. I was thinking that I searched the route five days before the trip so something is not right, so I wait. Two days before the trip, it’s still giving me a route I know can’t possibly be right. Even looking at the individual bus had the bus before and after those times going to its usual route. Why the hell does this one bus literally almost take me door to door to where we have to be at such an early time?

12 hours before, I look at the individual bus schedule on my phone app, and apparently, this one bus at this one specific time in the morning starts at Fields Corner, goes past my house, and continues all the way to Haymarket. When did this happen? How did this happen?? They definitely never had this while I was working at Via Lago in Lexington, or I would have used that every day to get there earlier to make money. It’s great that it is, and I do realize it must have happened for those workers who need to get to downtown Boston before 5:30 am, but I’m shocked. If they can narrow the window for when the bars close and the buses are running, that will really help things.

Important (and Funny) Conversation with My Daughter

My daughter had a medical procedure the morning of Super Tuesday, and despite that she reminded me that we had to go and vote (I was so tired that day I came home and immediately took a 3-hour nap). So we walked to the precinct in the light rain and cast our ballots for the Massachusetts primary. She used to come with me on voting in certain places when she was younger, so this is just her continuing to be a good citizen. On the way home, because I remembered she just turned 21, I had to ask her something.

      Me:     Is this your first Presidential 
              election year?
      Sophia: Yes it is.
      Me:     Great. And I’m sorry.
      Sophia: It’s okay.

Honestly I think a lot of people out their should be apologizing to their kids for this upcoming election.  

“Last Voyage of the Demeter”: Movie Review

I read about the film in IMDB and was very intrigued. I wanted to see how they would handle this small but important part of the Dracula mythos. The “Demeter” is in most of the Dracula lore going back to Bram Stoker’s novel. It was the ship that transported Dracula to London that arrived as a ghost ship with no survivors on board. The producers even stated that they tried to do “’Alien’ on an old sailing schooner,” which really got my hopes up. This seems ready made for a horror/suspense movie. Unfortunately, the aims of the project did not follow through in the execution.  

It starts off well with, like the novel, the ship running aground and finding of the “Demeter’s” captain’s log, which then flashes back to the start of the voyage in Romania. They spend the first 20 minutes or so creating an atmosphere of suspense with superstitious tales from the locals, and a freak out from one castmate who refuses to board again after seeing a strange symbol on the cargo boxes. This seems to prime the pump for the story to come. But the rest of the story fails a great premise and opening.

What worked for both the telling of the “Demeter” story in the novel is that we the reader know it’s Dracula himself but is never fully described or seen in the book; he is referred to throughout as “The Thin Man”—another old nickname for the devil. In the movie “Alien,” part of what works is that we never see the fully grown alien until about halfway through the film. In the film “Voyage of the Demeter,” we are shown glimpses of the creature somewhat earlier that they should have been. It’s the not knowing that provides the suspense not seeing the creature makeup, or at least not such a big a view of the creature. The early glimpses kind of ruins any big reveal later on. Another aspect of suspense that was missing is the claustrophobia on the ship. “Alien” took place on a fairly large ship but the sense of the walls closing in was palatable throughout the movie. Here, no such feeling was there; sets felt open and not closed and betrayed any feeling of lost hope for the doomed ship. A big misstep.

None of the actors are to blame. They actually do well with the material given and help maintain a fearful crew—notable effort goes to Corey Hawkins, David Dastmalchian, and Liam Cunningham who try to anchor their fear in the story. The problem is that what they were given doesn’t fully gel and fails to capture the foreboding of the original story. This is also an example of when an idea languishes in development hell for a long time (the original script was written by one of the crew of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Dracula” in 1992) and goes through different changes and drafts. This also results in a poor execution of story, but also the poor representation of a character, in this case Anna (played by Aisling Franciosi). Whereas she was supposed to provide depth to the local lore, she functions solely as a plot device and exposition machine to fill in stuff the actors and audience need to know. I know this happens often, but I’ve never seen it so blatant as in this movie and really takes me out of the film in general.

It was a film I wanted to like but falls short of expectations due to poor execution. This could be a good film to watch to learn how not to do a suspense film, but it should have been a better example from the get.

Screenwriting Tips

I almost never do this, but this was interesting. As I own a copy of Final Draft, they send me occasional (nee spamworthy amounts) emails that link to their site, including their blog. The most recent one I got talked about tips to inspire your writing. As someone who has been kind of slagging a little, I decided to read it. As it turns out, I already use most of them. However, they are really good tips to inspire your writing. Yes these are geared towards screenwriters, but they are broad enough ideas and tips most any writer can take something from it.

If you’d like to check these out, I pasted the link below for anyone to read. I will say the first tip doesn’t interest me, but most of the others I’ve used with some success in the past. Enjoy.

Click here to go to Final Draft blog.

Too Much Medical Drama

My God, the crap that hit me since January. After my appointment with my doctor, he referred me for a colonoscopy and endoscopy to check out my insides after the stomach problems, as well as a liver ultrasound. I was already anemic; this would double check a few things and rule other things out. Of course, there was a lot of prep work on my part for the colonoscopy/endoscopy and that sucked. A week before the procedure I had to stop taking Trulicity because it affects the digestive process, even though it’s doing great for my Type 2 Diabetes. Four days before the procedure I had to eat a “light residue” diet, which was also to help keep the colon clear (really, it’s to make sure I don’t crap on them during the procedure, which I have to argue is a consequence of their own actions. Seriously, if you get to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to shove a camera up my ass, I deserve to shit on your head. Just saying). The day before, I had to be on a clear liquid diet—no solid food, only clear liquids for 24 hours; I did it, but, man, it sucked. Of course, one of the liquids had to be two doses of a colon prep drink prescribed from the doctors—probably the most horrible tasting substance known to humankind, and I’ve drunk Dr. Pepper (trust me, a fair comparison).

So the Tuesday finally came and I went for the procedure that afternoon. They scoped me from either end (only partially anesthetized, I wasn’t fully out which is what I thought would happen). My colon was fine, but the other route was apparently a mess. There was a benign polyp and a non-breaking hiatal hernia into the esophagus, and a bleeding ulcer in the duodenum. They took the polyp to biopsy and shot medicine into the ulceration to stop the bleeding. They prescribed me prilosec to clear the ulcer, and then schedule me for a follow up blood test on Friday; that meant another 48 hours or so of clear liquid fasting before the blood test. Thankfully the recovery orderly made a small mistake and gave me some pretzels right after, so I was able to start the fasting the following morning. I really needed the head start.

Two more days later, I get the blood test in the morning and head off to work. Later the doctor calls me at work to tell me the results and to get to the ER. Turns out some of the blood levels were not improving from the last blood test the month before, and they wanted to make sure nothing was bleeding internally anymore. Comforting that they care, but fucking hard to hear get to the ER right away when I felt fine. Took off from work, took the T to the ER, and they worked me up. Six hours later, my blood numbers stabilized and they saw no reason to admit me, so I was discharged. I already worried my daughter enough by telling her I had to go to the hospital, and now I had to wait to get discharged from it. On the way home I bought the chicken parmesan hero I was craving for the last two days.

Two more days later, I get the blood test in the morning and head off to work. Later the doctor calls me at work to tell me the results and to get to the ER. Turns out some of the blood levels were not improving from the last blood test the month before, and they wanted to make sure nothing was bleeding internally anymore. Comforting that they care, but fucking hard to hear “get to the ER right away” when I felt fine. Took off from work, took the T to the ER, and they worked me up. Six hours later, my blood numbers stabilized and they saw no reason to admit me, so I was discharged. I already worried my daughter enough by telling her I had to go to the hospital, and now I had to wait to get discharged from it. They told me the polyp biopsy came back as a bacteria, so they would prescribe me a two-week course of antibiotics in addition to the prilosec I was taking and would have to pick that up after the weekend. On the way home I bought the chicken parmesan hero I was craving for the last two days. It was incredibly satisfying to say the least.

So all I had to do now was pick up the prescriptions and wait a week for a liver ultrasound. No prep, no special diet, just go in, get wanded, and get my ass to work. I did all that Friday morning, and was going great until my daughter texted me that she thought she had COVID. I didn’t need to hear that, because if she has it, I have it. The tests we had at home were expired, so to be safe I bought new ones to test with. And yeah, we both had COVID. It being a Friday night, I wasn’t going to be able to get to a doctor to get prescribed Paxlovid, so we were a little screwed. Even dumber, I was given a COVID test at the ER and was negative, so why now? Luckily we didn’t get it so bad; I thank the previous vaccines for that even though we missed the booster for this year which might explain how we got it. But to be on the safe side we sort of followed my work protocols: I had to spend five days at home and retest on Wednesday. I’m glad it was only until Wednesday because of the Friday test because I had run out of sick time to use for my absence. I thought I was going to lose the week and a lot more pay. As it turns out I only lose one day of pay using the last 8 sick hours plus the floating holiday for President’s Day (don’t get me started on holiday time) to make do for the other two days.

Wednesday finally came and with it a negative COVID test for both my daughter and I. She goes back to classes (the ones she didn’t have online) and I go back to the office after five days of staring at the TV. On top of all the other medical procedures and drama, COVID was an unnecessary dick punch. I mean when it rains it pours, but enough with the Kurosawa typhoon please.

Weird Conversations with My Daughter

Two weeks ago I had to get a colonoscopy as a precaution to my previous winter stomach problems. I told Sophia that I was having a medical procedure, but not what kind of procedure. One night or so before I was complaining about the diet I had to be on for the procedure because it sucked.

      Me: I have to do an all liquid diet for 24 hours. I can do juice 
          and clear broth. Nothing solid. It's fucking horrible.
      Sophia: Wow. What are they doing? A colonoscopy?
      Me: (shocked) Yes. How did you know?

She just chuckled and went back in her room. That’s what I get for underestimating her.

Gut Check

Had a check-up with my regular doctor the other day, and apparently, I lowered my A1c to 5.8, lost five pounds, and am both anemic and constipated—all thanks to a stomach virus. I can’t say for certain the A1c dropped because of a virus, but certainly everything else happened because of it.

I don’t know exactly what the hell happened, but I hate to think it started with my daughter’s birthday dinner. It might have, but I hope not. We went out to a very nice, small Italian restaurant in the North End. Really good food, definitely felt full afterwards, but was okay. However, a couple days later I still felt like I overate from that meal. I compensated by eating light for those days and soothe things out. I was basically okay; then Thursday happened. Thought I could handle a slice of hearth pizza and a ginger ale, and instead my stomach exploded. I had food coming out of me from either end, none of it looked like recognizable colors from the electromagnetic spectrum and had to leave work early. The next few days was about eating only saltines and apple juice in hopes to calm my guts down. I felt better somewhere around the following Wednesday, but with weirdness for the next few weeks. Certain foods I could not manage anymore because of texture (e.g., sliced deli meat, toasted English muffins), I was alternately bloated, gassy, or hungry after meals. Yet none of this was consistent. I could down several Chinese spareribs (the big ones on the bone) with no problem, but peanut butter on a slice of bread made me take a nap. Day to day, nothing made any sense, but I didn’t go to the hospital (partly because I was intermittently fine and then not fine). Also, I was away in New York for the holidays so out of area insurance rates applied.

Somewhere in early January, things started calming down; since I had a doctor’s appointment coming up for my A1c anyway, I figured I’d wait until then and talk to him about my stomach. So I go in, repeat my winter tale of woe, and he checks me out. My doctor can be thorough so to be on the safe side, he ordered blood tests to rule out infection and an X-ray. I understood the need for blood tests, but the X-ray surprised me; and the results surprised me more. I had no idea that an X-ray could tell you that you’re constipated; I also had no idea how weird “backload” and “intestines” sound in the same sentence. And while the blood test cleared me for pancreatitis, it turns out I’m still anemic. The last time, my anemia stemmed from a series of gushing nose bleeds from a couple years ago. This time, it was possible I was bleeding in my GI tract. I know I’m not anymore, but they will soon schedule a colonoscopy to double check.

All this from a freaking stomach virus?!? I’m not looking forward to my 60s.

P.S. My hand post-surgery is recovering nicely, thank you.

Nothing to Report

Was trying to write a blog entry, and it was the weirdest thing: nothing interesting going on. At all.

No workplace distress or emergencies, no weird personal entanglements, no one yelling at me—in person or on social media. No drama, no chaos, nothing out of the ordinary. It’s weird. I know I shouldn’t be complaining about it, but this is strange for me. Very rarely does nothing happen. Something usually happens to me—good or bad depending on whatever karma is winding up; not right now. I’m used to waiting for the other show to drop at any time. Not even sure which shoe it is from which event in my life, but it’s gonna drop. The thing is, it isn’t. Nothing is happening. Zip, nada, bubkes. I’m so not used to this.

It’s kind of nice even with the imaginary existential dread of that non-existent boot. I’m trying to appreciate it, even just saying “so is this what stability is like?” helps. I don’t have a lot of excess energy right now, but it’s not because I’m running around like a chicken without a head. I’m just bored and trying to relax about it. Odd.

Facebook Flashbacks

A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog entry about having dealt with political debates online, specifically Facebook, that popped up in memories once a year. I’m always getting into political debates on Facebook every day; Facebook likes to remind you about them once a year. With that entry I was talking about how with some distance and time, the assaults don’t seem so personal, don’t cut as deep as they did at the time, and I can read them without completely blowing a gasket. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always translate to personal notes.

This time Facebook reminded me of a note I wrote to friends which included an email Sophia’s mom Susan sent to me in 2010 during a very contentious time when I had maybe one or two part-time jobs, very little money for me, much less my child support payments, and she was on a warpath in court about getting what she wanted financially and a lot of other crap. I re-read her email and it really set me off this morning (and even though I don’t drink coffee, that wouldn’t have helped this read). She was trying to justify how my not having enough money to pay $165/week in support when I no longer had a job at that income to pay it was equal to me not caring for Sophia and not meeting my responsibilities to her. I read it and have been seething ever since.

I’m so pissed about that time and the situation I was in—cobbling part-time jobs, borrowing money from my church and friends to scrape by and pay who I could as much as I could at any given time—and the lies Susan would throw at me that were blatantly untrue, but really cut to the bone about the state I was already in. I thought I was over a lot of that anger and pain even with Susan’s death, but I read the email and all the venom, all the rage aimed at me comes rushing back and I get sucked into that moment in time again and am trapped in that emotional wrought all through my head. It’s PTSD déjà vu all over again. It sets me off again and again even when I think I’m done with it. It’s been 11 years since Susan died and I’m still ducking for cover and cowering in fear for my life/sanity over a dead woman’s threats. A lot of those threats were aimed at me never seeing Sophia again, which really hit home; legally they can’t be taken at face value, but I fell for it enough; scared for both me and Sophia.

Maybe it’s still raw, maybe it always has been, maybe there’s portions of it I haven’t fully worked through. I don’t know, but I know that I’ve always tried to do the best for my daughter even when I wasn’t in the best shape mentally or emotionally. My daughter has always known this even when her mom was yelling about me. In fact, the note on Facebook was asking for help to mention the good stuff I’ve done for Sophia for a court date. At times like that, my memory of good things went right out the window, so I needed others to remind me of stuff I’ve done to counter malicious attacks. I couldn’t be positive, so I needed help with it.

I don’t know why this still gets to me and I don’t know how this still isn’t behind me by now, but it pops up now and again, and when it does, I’m fairly useless. To come all this way and still be brought down by a memory/email from 14 years ago, really sucks.

New Year’s Outlook

I don’t even have to say it; read all of last year’s posts and you know how 2023 went. It probably wasn’t as bad as it felt, but if felt pretty bad. I started out with a good job at a good company, lost that job and stayed at the company which was became a little mediocre, was placed in a bad job with the same company that nearly took everything out of me in the process, and finally rescued by a good friend with a good job it a great company that I am trying to maintain, all the while watching my financial situation creep down to emergency levels without going under. Was healing from one operation when struck with an emergency illness (kidney stones) that caused some ripple effects I’m still dealing with; had a third operation added to my second operation and the healing is only now starting come to an end; had to juggle doctors, health insurance, new schedules with old appointments, new appointments for the new schedule, new treatments on the horizon while trying to maintain my sanity. Kept an old group of friends close and in contact, lost contact with a few others, tried to repair ties between a few people, and discard only those I didn’t need—though finding out who was who was a mindfuck. Thought I was in love but it turned into a scam, then found someone real but the timing was horrible (which absolutely sucks). All in all I want to say I’m back to square one, but I’m not sure I even feel that lucky. I guess it’s a draw.

However I survived. At one time in my life I would have looked down on that as nothing gained, but I know better that is victory in and of itself. I don’t know if people have had it worse or better than I did—I know friends on both sides of the outcome—but it seems like there’s a lot of feeling about this past year. I don’t know about this next year, but I am hoping to get more focused on plans rather than dreams, improving things where I can that are within my abilities, and keep getting up when I get knocked down even if it’s not as fast as I used to. Here’s hoping we can all turn surviving into thriving.