11/4/2022 A Quick One (that’s what she said)

Black Sabbath, close friends, dogs, cancer

Photo by Scott Gummerson on Unsplash

Normally I’ll likely write in the evenings, after my day, so that I can reflect on What Happened during that time. But since I’m going to my girlfriend’s for dinner tonight, and will likely end up staying over—and since I have exactly one hour before my first dog-walk today (Benny and Marlo, my Mastiff/Frenchie combo; yes, it looks as funny as it sounds)—I figured I might as well pump something out right now, at 9:33am. Why not?

To some degree it’s been an “unusual” morning. It started out routine: I shucked my bed covers off at 5:30am (an hour and a half later than the previous morning, which is progress) and made Irish Breakfast tea in my gigantic black metal mug which I “inherited” (read: Stole) from my father, which says, “World’s Best Grandpa” in thick white letters across the black side. (When my dad started suffering from the symptoms of his Myasthenia Gravis due to the immunotherapy last October, one of the first things to occur was his loss of the ability to swallow. Ergo, he couldn’t use the mug. He can now swallow and drink coffee, yet I have not returned the mug.)

Anyway, I had tea. I read more of my Andrew Jackson biography (“American Lion,” Jon Meacham; see earlier posts for more specifics). I Substacked feverishly, commenting on various Stacks, as well as listening to several, including an interview on Substack Reads between Hamish McKenzie (co-founder of SS) with the wondrous author George Saunders. They discussed social media, meditation, “monkey mind,” culture wars, etc. It was fantastic. I commented on it, of course.

I checked my emails. Nothing fun. Nothing connected to making money. Yesterday I scored a new dog client, a man who has an 11-week-yearold Rhodesian Ridgeback, currently twenty pounds but one day fated to land in the 130-pound arena. Yeah. So that was good. Hopefully will be long term and several days a week. I’m continually shocked at how well I’m doing solely with dog-walking. Of course I get paid to edit a book here and there, and I make a little money via my Substack writing, so far only on my other SS, “Sincere American Writing.”

Things became new and different this morning when I decided to start listening to music. Specifically, Black Sabbath, the 1970 album “Paranoid.” It was glorious; the sound waves covered me like a warm, malevolent (in a good way!) blanket. About halfway through the first track—“War Pigs”—a good friend of mine who I’ve known for about 17 years called me. It cut off the music immediately. I was half annoyed, half delighted. I picked up the call and we chatted for 15 minutes. She just wanted, she said, to “hear my voice.” We briefly caught up. A huge fan of Black Sabbath, she chuckled in joy when I mentioned “War Pigs” playing before she called; I knew it’d continue the second she hung up, automatically, as if God grasped it was my morning medicine.

Funny, because I’d been thinking of this friend lately and had planned to call her soon. She said she’d had the same sensation/intuition. Strange how life works sometimes, isn’t it? As if the puzzle pieces are all just sitting there waiting to drift cosmically into each other at just the right precise moment. I’ve never understood that, really. But I don’t think we’re supposed to understand it. Understanding is a human cognitive concept, not a natural organic one.

After we hung up—we planned a catchup call for next week—“War Pigs” carried on again, right from where it’d been cut off, as if it’d actually continued playing the whole time. It’s sort of like Father Time, right? No matter what happens in life—a birth, a death, a tragedy, an international trip, a breakup, etc—Time keeps beating its bitter, vital drum. I can accept that. It’s both good, bad and neutral; in its highest, cleanest essence it’s simply The Way Things Are.

I Substacked a bit more, then ended up texting with a good friend from NYC. She’s a rising-star painter in Manhattan. We dated for a while in 2019 and I wrote about her fictional doppelgänger in my “fictional memoir” which I’ve published seven chapters of on my other SS. (More to come of that later.)

Now, after I post this, I’m going to head to Goleta (I live in Santa Barbara) to walk Marlo and Benny. After them it’s Barkley again, the 145-pound Mastiff/Saint Bernard mix. Then I’ll return and obsessively check my SS stats. (Such is my insecure, self-conscious, ego-driven nature.) And finally I’ll head to my girlfriend’s parents’ house 45 minutes north of me, in Lompoc, around 5pm, for dinner.

My NYC friend asked how my dad was doing. I told her. He’s doing overall much better than he was say 6-8 months ago (when he was in the throes of MG and could barely speak, see, swallow) but a tumor has recurred in his brain. The oncologist got him in for radiation last week on that. Now we’re suspicious there may be a new growth in his lungs. MRI on 11/7. I’ll keep you updated. We should get a call by 11/10 or before that. If there is a new growth, it’ll likely be more immunotherapy, but not the powerful stuff which gave him MG last year. We’re going to be very careful about that. Once was enough. Quality of Life is pertinent here.

More later. Have a good day, everybody.

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Michael Mohr