Think I'll walk out in the rain...

Trish is still working at the Double Meat Palace, home of Cow & Chicken. Last night we had a terrible thunderstorm, & she wound up taking the cab home, which is very counter-productive, as she has to work a full hour just to cover the fee. She called home, & asked for Fred's number. Fred sang at our wedding (Truly, Madly, Deeply) & comes over once in awhile to jam on guitar & keyboard. I'd thought of calling Fred when the rain started, but waited until Trish called. She asked for his number, dialed it wrong, & wound up taking the cab. When she arrived at our house I questioned her as to what number she'd dialed, & she said, "6874" when it should've been "6847", so I called & Fred had been home all evening. He's coming over to jam tonight, but has to sing at church at 5:00, & Carmen (the world-famous Car-girl) is sick, & probably won't be able to give her a ride--chance of rain tonight is 70%. We may try to see if Bryan can do it, though Trish feels he's untrustworthy--that's partially her paranoia.

Other than that, things are going fine--sort of. Biggie (my brother Dave) has gone gonzo & moved 1/2-way across the country to escape from the "government wiretap", but you can't convince him to see a psychiatrist about it, & his dingy wife doesn't believe in "addictive experimental antidepressants; why can't we give them marijuana instead? It's an herb, & it's been used for 1,000s of years", so even if we got Biggie in to see a doctor, he'd stop taking the "pills" under his wife's influence. The main reason I was worried--not that I can do anything; sooner or later he'll get court-ordered--was that he has power of attorney over my mother, & was threatening to take Union Maid out of the rest home, take her off all of her medication, & take care of her himself, cuz his wife "knows all kinds of things about medicine; she used to work in a nursing home". I thought we'd just about convinced John, who is just down the street from mother, that Dave needed to be hospitalized for a mental illness, when he found out that his medical power of attorney supercedes Dave's financial power of attorney, so Dave can't check her out of the facility, & now we're back to having Fearless Taco proclaiming that "sometimes, the government really does open people's mail". Suzanne (takes you down to the living water...) told me to just forget about the dread Blanket-man & his Karen Relationship (which is what made him psychotic; she's a Vadisystem) as there's nothing I can do about it, though it frustrates me that there's nothing that can be done about it, & that some of my family members will even defend Biggolith, but if I say there's a wiretap on the phone, it's Rootboy gone gonzo.

I've been doing a fair amount of writing recently, & think that I have "Trinities" about ready to go off to Interzone. I'll work on that some more tonight. Then it's back to work editing MINDSTORM. I've contacted yet another agent about it, & hopefully he'll think it's real atomic.

VEP

Yesterday was my birthday; I've hit the Big 5-0 & accomplished nothing--I shouldn't say that; when I was in the City of Night I couldn't get laid & now I'm married to a beautiful Bublebee Girl. I'm the Bumblebee Tuna...

So the alarm woke us up around 7:00 & we had the last of the Cheerios, before Car-girl picked us up in her batmobile. We drove down to Great Falls early, as Car-girl had an appointment with the ear doctor. That didn't take long--they put some kind of tube in her ear--but then we wasted a lot of time in the Golden Corral, where we ate the last time. I had carrot cake for my birthday.

The test involved gluing electrodes to Trish's head & having her watch a flickering checkerboard pattern for 1/2 an hour. The results were normal, but we need to repeat the MRI in 6 months.

John called to wish me happy birthday, but since he found out the dread Blanket-man can't take Union Maid out of the nursing home without John's approval, he's backed off from trying to have Dave deemed incompetent. The guy clearly belongs in a mental hospital, but even if we got him there, his wife would ruin things by telling him to go off his "addictive antidepressants" & use fucking herbs instead.

Revenge of the Invisible Blanket-man

Yesterday, I called Fearless Taco to ask if there'd been any word on the dread Blanket-man--Biggie hasn't called home since he parked himself in the middle of Nowhere, in the State of Confusion, save for the one time he was in Nite City, by the Suf Sea, when he answered the phone when I tried to tell Taco about Trish's MS. & all the children are insane.

When I called, Marianne with the shaky hands answered, & I asked her about the dread Blanket-man, if he'd found a place to stay--ever since his Karen Relationship, he's had these wild, impractical, irresponsible paranoid dreams of running away from the government conspiracies & the wiretaps by moving somewhere where they couldn't find him. The middle of Nowhere, Montana, might actually have been a better choice; whatever the case, he sold everything he had, packed up the Batmobile while his wife turned up her nose at Slime-thing, & drove away into the Sunrise East.

So last month when I called, he'd come up to the City of Night to pay the bills--Union Maid gave him power of attorney when her basular syndrome first hit, & he's hanging onto that so his greedy wife can further embezzle her funds. Taco Jack, Marianne, & the Jung One weren't there, but Biggie picked up the phone. I found out that he'd been sick--like usual; he's had it for the past 2 years--& Fearless Taco had taken him into the ER vomiting blood. He's always refused to see doctors, as he's too cheap (no insurance), but mostly, he's paranoid: he thinks doctors kill people so "they can collect their thousands", just like when Uncle Bill had his heart surgery. I heard that he'd eaten a little yogurt & got back on the road to Nowhere, I guess so he could escape the Evil Doctors & take herbs with his gold-digging, flaky, paranoid manic-depressive wife, who likes to turn up her nose at my Slime-thing.

Anyway, John was doing some kind of construction project in the back yard, & came in for a few minutes, to talk. He had some rather alarming news: Blanket-man wants to take Mother out of that expensive nursing home & take care of her himself, as his wife knows "a lot about medicine", since she supposedly (might be a delusion on her part) worked in a nursing home for a year. John said that he got an earful of that when Dave was visiting.

There's no way we can let this happen! Mother will be dead inside a month if she moves back in with my paranoid schizophrenic brother & his paranoid manic-depressive wife. They can't possibly replace skilled nursing with "herbs" & they can both take their econacea & cram it up their ass. I think the solution is obvious: we must have Dave (& Karen) committed to a mental hospital. He's endangering Mother's life now, as his illness has progressed. The main thing I'm afraid of, though, is that unless both of them are committed, when Dave gets out Karen will tell him to go off his "addictive experimental antidepressants" & take fucking herbs.

But it must be done. Biggie is insane. I just wish we could've found some help for him before all this happened. Mostly, I wish he'd never met Karen Relationships: he was a little paranoid before he met her, had always been that way, but now he's floridly psychotic. The main thing he needs is a shot of haldol:

When the haldol is in my blood & the blood is in my head, then I'm better off than dead!