(@work, 11pm, starting shift. suspect nurse #1 is sorting meds on a cart)
SUSPECT NURSE #1: (sorority girl perky) oh hi! do you think you could get vitals on 111? they had a fall today.
ME: sure i will. (setting voice tone to business casual)
oh hey did you photograph me sleeping on my lunchbreak and show it to our boss out of context the next morning?
HER: (blinks,swallows, looks down) um no but i heard about that afterward from a few people.
ME: oh good. so you know who did it.
HER: i...'m not.. getting involved. it's messed up. (pretends to write)
ME: it's more than messed up, they fire people over that. and now you're holding back information from me about it?
HER: (roadkill stare) it's unprofessional
ME: i agree it's unprofessional. i see a lot of unprofessional things here. maybe we should all start documenting them to make a better work place for everyone. you lnow what is unfortunate?
HER: (sighing) what?
ME: i did the math, considering i know exactly when i fell asleep cause it was on break. i know the date this photo of me was taken and presented to our boss, because they came in unannounced to observe me at 4am the next shift. i know all the insomniac residents who wander the halls at night because i take care of them and none of them have cellphones they can operate, much les understand the camera of or creep up and away to take a photo with if they had reason to. i can't think of a resident's family who would visit at 2am if it wasn't an emergency and there definitey weren't any that night if i could sleep through my lunchbreak. that leaves only 2 other people in the building on noc shift working that night--you and the other cna.
HER: (blinks)
ME: you want some coffee? i was going to make some for everybody.

(at work 2am, following screams and sobs down 6th floor hallway, finding 95 year old norweigan woman staggering in pink nightgown stained with purree'd shit leaking out of her broken colostomy bag. holy run on sentence)
NORWEIGAN WOMAN: (in tears) OH MY! OH MY! OH MY! OH MY!
ME: hello! can i help you?
HER: OH MY!! OH MY!! OH MY!!!
ME: shhh. i'm on your side. let--
HER: OH MY!! OH MY!! (wailing) I WANT MY MOTHER!
ME: (trying to remain neutral) i know. she's...not..here.
HER: (screaming) I WANT MY MOTHER!!
ME:well let's go get cleaned up first.
(after cleaning, dressing, tucking in)
HER: (small child matter-of-fact deadpan) my mother is dead.
ME: i'm sorry. do you miss her?
HER: you never stop missing your mother.

"That awkward moment" when i'm at work transfering a widow in her 9os from bed to wheelchair, doing the nightly gag of humming and pretending to slowdance with her, only instead of making her laugh this time she calls me by her husbands name and tries to kiss me like its our wedding night?

sat fantasizing at a stupid mantatory work meeting today about a zombie apocalypse movie set in a nursing home. it all happens on graveyard shift. i am the only one in the lone surviving building under 65 when disaster strikes and all of portland is suddenly chewed brainless in their sleep. not that you could tell. the morning comes. i am pissed no one relieves me. i try to walk out of my job but stop when i see a city's worth of zombies rattling the front door glass as the sun rises. senior citizens take little notice and ask when mass and bingo is. i board up the windows with the help of my very confused old ladies. we form a golden girls style army weilding fireaxes maintenance tools and kitchen utensils. depends, painpills and coffee are hoarded. naturally, a zombie has been hiding among us all along and chaos ensues. gore splatters sequin sweaters in the worst ways . hearts break and/or are eaten. both the cooperation and apathy toward fighting back varies from resident to resident and reveals their broad range of attitudes toward dying. it will be better than cocoon i swear. you will cry your eyes out. teenage boys will obsess over the cgi free special effects. tactless metal bands will sample the dialogue. and yes, i know what a goddamn blood borne pathogen is you idiot i am state certified. why does this require a meeting at 10 am on my day off?

following a 12 hour farewell bender in nola, a miserable 6 hour plane and two cabrides home, i returned to pdx this evening and lurched my way through a graveyard shift on zero sleep. tonight's nursing home donnie darko-esq moment was brought to you by the dynamic duo of both echo and the bunnymen & a screaming elderly stroke victim who can now only speak broken protest phrases of hungarian. as i may have mentioned in the past, said lady has no memory beyond 15 minutes and wails unconsolably like i am raping her the whole time i change her diaper every 3 hours. no hard feelings ,though. overtime, and through the magic of reoccurring similar stunts of extreme rest deprivation, i've come to accept that dementia is not such an unreasonable retreat for anyone trapped under the strain of ridiculous circumstances. what matters is how you choose to deal? for example: just as i am transformed into a hallucinatory ghost of a husband, son or aquaintance of the past to the nostalgic alzheimer sufferer whose mind no longer wants to interact with the misery, estrangement and bleak loneliness of the inescapable present situation, i too, inturn, eventually have my limits. around 4 this morning, i was reminded. as i blinked back sleep, endured furious hand swats and hysterical "NEM!!! NEM!!!! NEMMMM!!!!"s from below while attempting to tear off a pair of shit soiled depends™ , my mind suddenlt snapped and slingshot off. stifling a mantrum, a calm voice in my head commanded me to instead drown out her relentless crying with the redirectional crooning of the first song that popped into my head. for whatever reason, it ended up being "the killing moon", and while my mock Ian McCulloch lullabye didn't deter her background vocal fits at all, it did save me from doing something i'd probably regret and go to jail for. fate, up against your will, through the thick and thin, you will wait until..

 so this is one of the new songs we've written as a two piece and recorded at home. ayla plays guitar. i play viola. the breathing in the beginning and end is of a hospice patient friend i sat with and recorded sleeping onto my cell phone. the rest was all done in studioOne. "sundowning" is a medical term for the worsening effects of dementia at night, particuarly among Alzheimer's patients. dedicated to all the friends i've lost this year. rest in peace.

(@work, checking rooms for breathing and pulses, catching sight in the hallway of 21 year old mother nurse flipping channels)
ME: what are you watching?
HER: toddlers in tiaras
ME: .....
HER: girl. look it her. she look SO. CUTE.
ME: (staring at dwarf versions of vanna white and miss yvonne from pee wee's playhouse) wow.
HER: my daughter... she say she want to do this. be in pagents. compete with all the glitter and dresses. i said i don't know baby...
ME: oh man. my friend ivy did that?
HER: did it mess her up?
ME: she sings in a jean benet ramsey pop band. and she is obsessed with goiters and deformed children.
HER: oh. (flips channel)

almost lost patience for the very first time last night at work dealing with a woman whose memory is reset every 15 minutes by Alzheimer's. she is a total sweetheart and gentle soul and like most devote catholics toward the end of their lives, operates in perpetual fear of missing a single morning of church. i should probably add that the "chapel" she attends is built into a floor of the very same building she sleeps in, complete with artificial stained glass and that i wake her up everyday at the exact same time, which she has utterly no concept of. and it all sounds quirky and innocent enough until you sit down and do the math; i am in charge of 2 floors worth of demented old folks with various levels of needs every night. this ranges from repositioning bodies on an hourly rotation to prevent pressure ulcers, emptying catheters and colostomy bags, bathroom assistance, getting the fallen back up off the floor, taking vitals, getting nagged constantly in tears for painpills, comforting nightmares/sundowning hallucinations and checking rooms for pulses/ breathing every 3 hours to make sure no one has died while sleeping (which happens. it is, afterall called graveyard shift for a reason). i am alone with the exception of 1 charge nurse and another cna with the same set of responsibilites on separate sets of floors. some nights i am on my feet all night juggling call lights, and all the while at the same time, have this one severely confused woman consistently calling over and over again in a panic every 15-30 minutes, convinced she is missing mass and that i need to get her dressed right away before divine punishment. and we have the exact same conversation, verbatum, everytime. and everytime, she thanks me for my patience in a tone of genuine sincerity before calling back again in the same panic, the entire previous encounter forgotten and script wiped blank, mere minutes later. the real kicker is i still have to answer her EVERYTIME, never knowing for sure if she has rolled off the bed and dislocated a shoulder, wandered into the lobby leaking behind a goldilocks trail of piss from her bedroom or just simply wondered what this mysterious flashing amulet around her neck does when she presses the button in the dark. and, admittedly, this puts a fair amount of strain getting all the other things expected of me done, some nights more than others. this last shift was no exception. i'd been up 24 hours attempting to get a recording done the day beforehand, so my patience was especially shot. as sleep deprivation studies always reveal ,there is a certain level of exhaustion where everything flatlines onto one extremity of upset and you can no longer distinguish what is and isn't a big deal. that said, i said nothing. i entered the room. i turned off the pendant before "what time is church?" could even be fully pronounced. i walked back out. through a slammed door, a tiny voice whimpered back thanks for my patience. later i clocked out and drank 7-11's first malt liqour sale of the morning on the walk home, crying, feeling like the biggest monster in the world, knowing that i have been around crazy people my whole goddamn life and should fucking know better. and then, strangely enough, i mentally reviewed my job history, thought about all the restaurant customers i've flipped out on and swore at, the car windows i've unlock smashed as a messenger, the labrat hopital cabinfever fits, the legal secretaries i've cussed out, the housepainting/shipping warehouse/contractor work i quit in a tantrum mere months into the employment. and then i realized this next month marks my offical first year of caregiving, and this is a pretty good record for me. yay.

AND SO IT BEGINS. hi. this is me.

 
what follows are some random writings from different places that i've flung on here in an effort to trick myself into writing more.

that awkward moment when you find yourself about to explain to one friend who you made plans with that you may need to ditch out unexpectedly at some point in the evening as another friend just staggered into town on enough of a steady stream of daily heroin for you to recognize that they will probably die within the year, and you know, you probably want to enjoy the unforeseen amount time you have left with them. that even more awkward moment when you realize that this is something you have been through enough times with friends you have loved and lost and been in love with over the years to know what you can and can't feasibly do in the situation, what they will and won't hear no matter how many times you say it. and..that even more awkward moment where you draw a weird parrallel between bearing witness to hard drug use catching up to people you know and watching the elderly die unpreventable, equally tortuous slow motion deaths at your goddamn job. and by awkward ofcourse i mean fucking horrible.

hearing being one of the last senses you supposedly lose, i've begun a habit of talking to the fresh corpses at my job. when i discover someone dead in their bed during my shift, after the initial pulse check and charge nurse alerting, there is always some inevitable period of required cleanup time when i am stuck alone with the body. even on a cold stiff corpse, it's still admittedly a bit awkward. i only just recently noticed that i redirect the tension by talking to the person outloud throughout the process. who knows if they can hear? who fucking cares? i lower beds, are you comfortable? i fix hair, i moisturize skin, i change clothes, looking good. i carry on casual conversation while wiping up a small swamp of post mortem bowel voiding. i compliment waxy smoothed out wrinkles. i reminisce and tell stories. i thank people for being my friend if they were. this morning i was placing bets on which of my two death rattle fishtank breathers would expire first. it ended up being a normally bitchy old man, who asked my name for the first time and thanked me with uncharacteristic sweetness before removing his cannula sometime after i left the room. i found him around sunrise with his mouth hanging wide open and eyes half closed. the lids were no problem to shut, but the jaw would only budge a half inch before jamming and sagging back into place. i took the initiative and apologized for how fucking stupid he looked.

there is a little old lady i take care of now who recites hail mary prayers at a furious auctioneer speed continuously in her sleep. i swear it's the missing link between snoring and speaking in tongues. i keep finding her at the same time everynight and never know if i should wake her up.

in the past 10 months graveyard shift has transformed everything i know into a lonesome vampiric ghost town. i just woke up in an empty dark house, braved the snow outside to get food and when i turned around, saw my footsteps were the only ones going in both directs for blocks and blocks. instead of being endearing in a solitary sense i almost wept for the first time out of isolation. i think i am cracking. enough is enough. got to find other cna work on a human schedule.

i was cleaning up a freshly voided corpse at work tonight and noticed for the first time that right when you die, your skin constricts some and your wrinkles flatten out, making you look makeup infomercial smooth and better than you have in ages, atleast for a short period of time. also, one of the old men on the independent assisted living levels of the building is hiring call girls and there is not a goddamn thing my uptight creepy christian conservative boss can legally do about it.

one of my old ladies escaped tonight while i was busy repositioning and cleaning up a hospice patient. unbeknownst to me, our resident verally abusive drunk somehow managed to keep her mouth shut long enough to make it out past security (who was unfamiliar with what she looked like) but luckily ended up getting grabbed and sent back by the owner of the hotel across that street. no sooner do i get her safe and sigh and close the door to her room than i catch sight of sweet old italian grandma pushing a walker down the hallway, naked as a motherfucking purdue chicken and having a conversation with one of the nicer voices usually found in her mirror. last week i helped load someone's mother onto a stretcher while they watched and cried. this week i feel like i have kids.

Numerical Checklist I am Supposed To Use At Work

1. No atypical behaviors noted
2. Verbally Abusive/Argumentative
3. Does Not Communicate or Socialize
4. Taking Other's Possessions
5. Talks To Non Existing Other
6. Removes Clothing Inappropriately
7. Delusions/Hallucinations
8. Eating Non Edibles
9. Talks to self
10. Paranoid Delusions
11. Crying/Weeping
12. Suicidal Expressions
13. Sleeping Excessively
14. Destroying Objects
15. Throwing Objects
16. Uncooperativeness
17. Insomnia
18. Hitting
19. Kicking
20. Biting
21. Scratching
22. Spitting
23. Demanding
24. Wandering
25. Yelling
 26. Unsteady Gait
27. Tremors
28. Drooling
29. Tongue Rolling
30. Pacing with Drive
31. Self Abuse
32. Chanting
33. Pill Rolling
34. Other

the old man in the nursing home who thinks i am part of the staff of a hotel he ran in the 1930s died tonight and i feel like i have been fired.

 (@work ,2am, sharing coffeebreak with old veteran night nurse.)
OLD VETERAN NIGHT NURSE: i saw you asked off on new years. you got plans?
ME: (sips coffee) sort of. i'm going home to philly.
HER: what for?
ME: the mummers day parade.
HER: the what?
ME: it.. how do i explain? it's this thing my brother does? he plays saxaphone. it happens once a year. all men. mostly plumbers &electricians &longshoremen. they drunkenly take to the streets january 1st. sort of like a flamboyant orchestra marching band, but with coreographed dance moves & elaborate stage costumes they spend all year preparing. it gets judged infront of city hall. only happens in philly. it's a weird local tradition carried through generations.
HER: what are the costumes like?
ME: they have to pick a theme each year as a group but there are usually sequins, feathertails &makeup involved.
HER: ohh..
ME: yeah..
HER: so your brother is gay too.

(ps: this is them and they won)

(@work, 5am, answering call light on unfamiliar level of the building. a tiny, barely visible female form peers out from under the bedcovers)
ME: hi there...what can i do for you?
HER: (unflinching) you can kill me.
ME: um...(sniffing air) how bout i start by helping you clean up first?
HER: i don't care.
ME: (pulls back covers to discover woman has only one leg) oh.
HER: yeah. i probably should have warned you--
ME: no it's--
HER: --it's awful under that diaper. sorry you have to do this.
ME: (regaining composure) do you apologize to your dentist for having teeth?
HER: no?
ME: then don't apologise to the guy who gets paid to clean up your shit. i'm state certified, afterall.
(1 leg lady smiles weakly. Yolanda enters)
YOLANDA: hi mile! hi honey! (to woman) he help me. you lika him?
1 LEG LADY: oh yes. he looks like james dean.
ME: ??
YOLANDA: not jame. MILE.
ME: no she says i LOOK like--
YOLANDA: Mile! you know who you LOOKa like now with your beard?
ME: no?
YOLANDA: hahaha! Fidel Castro! (both women laugh)

"myles all your weird questions about rigamortis has me remembering this one lady we had in here. jesus christ.. she was on hospice. her daughter owned this fancy house up in the mountains. was a real piece of work that one. one night i come on, take a look at her care plan & there's a note saying don't leave this woman lying down after she dies. family instructions. i shit you not. &they want us to sit her up. & i'm praying it just don 't happen when i'm working but ofcourse it does cos *shrug* we are graveyard.sooo we look the other way & sit her up in bed.the family comes in.next thing i know i'm on the phone &they're wheeling her out of here past me, uncovered,in a wheelchair.what is this? weekend at bernies?!i fight with them not to use the main elevator so the living residents we have don't have heart attacks.they won't listen.throw a fit.home burial.no funeral announcement in the paper.she's probably still sitting in their living room. i swear you can get away with doing friggin anything if you have enough money." -Midwestern Night Nurse

(@work, 11:30pm, hearing noises comming from room of sweet italian grandma, who is found pulling her saggy face like a rubber mask in the mirror & laughing)
ME: *knocking on door* hi there. um what's so funny?
HER: oh..oh..oh..(catches breath) we were just talking that's all. and who are you?
ME: i'm..(looks around empty room) here to check in on you? do you need help getting ready for bed?
HER: no dear it's fine. thanks. goodnite.
(waves, exits. 30 minutes later her call light goes off)
ME: (entering) hi again. hey you're..dressed?
HER: (irritated,glaring) WHERE IS BREAKFAST? WHEN DO I EAT?!
ME: well it's midnight. the kitchen isn't--
HER: I HAVEN'T BEEN FED IN 4 DAYS. YOU ARE ALL TRYING TO KILL & POISON ME. WHERE IS MY FOOD?!
ME: ok i could make you some toast or
HER: I DON'T WANT ANY TOAST YOU IDIOT I SAID I WANT A GODDAMN MEAL!!
ME: i know. but i can only--
HER: (enraged,throws remote,gets out of chair) GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE THEN YOU ARE SO USELESS!!
(overheard muttering to herself through the freshly slammed door)
HER: CRAZY BITCH..

(@work, 2am, opening the door of a bathroom & finding withered old woman lying on the floor like a snapped marionette. blood is on the bathtub edge where her head struck and pooling on the tile)
ME: uh oh. (into radio.) we're going to need an ambulance and RN in 603.
HER: cliff?
ME: stay down. what happened?
HER: the people came out of my wall. they brought my husband and his father. and then they were gone and i was here. when am i going to see them again?
ME: uh..soon?

Dear Withered Old Woman-
Tonight when I showed up for my shift I was told that the people came out of your wall and took you away with them for the very last time. A goodbye would have been nice and i wish it hadn't happened on my day off, but I heard it was atleast peaceful. I hope you are in a less confusing and restrictive place now, that you fall less, that you can understand the languages you hear them speak, and that you asctually recognize the children, the families and the-man-who-says-it'll-be-ok. I got a little teary throwing out your nametag in the cafeteria tonight but know it is for the best. I give you mine. You will be missed.
Thank you for being my friend,
-Cliff

(@work, turning on a lightswitch to see the same withered old woman sitting in the dark talking to herself)
ME: hey who are you talking to?
HER: the familes
ME: are they here?
HER: cliff, they are always here. they go in the walls. is it dinnertime?
ME: its 5 am. you should sleep. can i turn off the light?
HER: yes.
(overheard after closing the door)
HER: you can come back out now.

(@work, punching in. old veteran night nurse is drinking coffee with a smirk)
ME: what's going on?
HER: oh nothing. haha...someone just got a crush on you.
ME: if it's not the maintenace man i don't fucking care.
HER: ohhh it's more than one. you know the new night nurse? the white girl?
ME: gross.
HER: she asked if you had a girlfriend. also that cna? with the glasses? she asked about you too and said she likes guys with beards.
ME: did you tell her i do too?
HER: no.
ME: why not?
HER: cause i like watching you get all pissed off.

this came on the classical radio station during a calm-in-the-eye-of-the storm moment at work around 3am last night while i was checking a long hallway of resident bedrooms to make sure everyone was still breathing while they slept. sometimes they are not. working at night, i am often the one who finds them. i can't imagine a nicer way to die, though.
 

work later tonight. a dated fine arts quartet lp version of this piece is crackling from my record player. sometimes i love that i can talk to 70 + year olds in the nursing home about chamber music with the same sort of sincere enthusiasm and curiousity as i do with people in their 20s and 30s about metal.
 

the withered old woman who reguarly communicates with ghosts in the walls and thinks i am her son has been seeing children. all this week she's been calling me into her room to drive them off, insisting they are intent on taking her to the cathedral. today she finally became unresponsive and they wheeled her out to the hospital. i miss my friend already.

 @work tonight i assisted in the restraint of a howling hysterical old woman who, in some midnight transformation, had managed to claw right through her brief & furiously smear its contents all over her body & face like fecal warpaint. we had to cut off her nightgown to begin the cleanup. as i held her hands & she screamed about the bugs under her skin, i glanced down into her gaping angry mouth, saw her exposed tonsils & realized just how much she resembled the soap lady from the mutter museum. my heart swelled. philly, i am deliriously homesick.

one of the most consistently demented old women in the nursing home has a background in opera and told me last night her favorite role of all time was singing in a production of Aïda as the title character, so that is what i call her.

(@ work, 5am, taking morning vitals on withered old woman)
WITHERED OLD WOMAN: say..
ME: yeah?
HER: i thought you were my son cliff. but you're not him.
ME: (impressed) no, i'm not.
HER: well, who are you then?
ME: my name is myles.
HER: myles?
ME: yeah.
HER: there was a fellow here a little while ago named myles.
ME: oh yeah? what was he like?
HER: very kind and handsome.
ME: (smirking) did he look like me?
HER: no.

rediscovering how much i love the string arrangement on this. poison girls remain one of the only "anarcho" bands besides kukl that ever did anything for me. also one of my favorite new hags in the nursing home asked me tonight what all the protests in new york are about and when i told her she rolled her eyes and grumbled "well, it took everyone long enough."
 

(@work, midnight, changing diaper of grimacing, uncooperative former new yorker crone.)
NEW YORK CRONE: (grabs my arm suddenly) dear god!
ME: what?
HER: what? whaddaya mean 'what'? what the hell did you do to yourself?!
ME: oh i got a tattoo. it's not done.
HER: (scowling) well what is it?
ME: it's a blindfolded queen design based on a baroque instrument scroll--
HER: (raising eyebrows) a queen? aren't you worried people will think you're..y'know..(bends wrist flamboyantly)
ME: gay? no that's never been a problem.

tonight at work a very confused old blind man asked if i had come through the hole in his wall and insisted in tears that he was ready to go back with me.

two women died at my job while i was working earlier this week. last night's casualty was a lady who has been losing her foot to necrocis & refusing care/ uselessly taking morphine for for it the whole time i've been there. i was appointed to "dress & make the body presentable" because as a gay man it is my duty to make str8 women look their best even if they don't have a pulse? was in the middle of turning her head when her jaw yawned open &all this air came out in a loud croaking hiss. apparently the dead can belch.

"am i going to her funeral? *sucks teeth* HELL. NO. i was her caregiver for years. i saw her almost every day. she knows i loved her cause i showed it. why would i want to see her damn family? they never even met me. " -coworker

the woman who now stares glassily through me waiting to die while i change her diaper everynight always has portland classical radio blaring. now that shes stopped talking, it's my constant company. all the quality baroque stuff gets played after midnight. obsessed with this instrument and composer.
 

everything in my life feels like a completely unreasonable endurance test right now and i am for once strangely ok with that.

(@work 1am, opening the door of withered old woman, who is lying in bed talking in the dark to the ceiling)
HER: who? oh cliff, it's you.
ME: yeah.
HER: how did you know i needed you?
ME: you disconnected your phone .(looking at bandaged head) are you ok?
HER: the people came out the wall & they were all around me. they were speaking a language i have never heard & then i was away.
ME: where were you?
HER: in their place. & i thought,say,i need to be rescued.

at work, a grumbling man i reposition 5 times a night finally died this morning. the woman who refers to her colostomy bag as her "baby" is npo & lying on her deathbed with her opera singer son chanting beside her in hebrew & clutching ram horns for dear life. the parapalegic zombie doll who thanked me for changing her diaper no longer speaks or smiles & just stares right through me. both women who call me by their son's names have bandaged headwounds & casts from falling. we are all waiting.

so everyone moved out and i never want roomates again because i now have the most amazing natural emptyroom acoustics in the world. listen:

 cosmic jackie in philly was right. i like this way too much to not have been a dandy in atleast one of my past lives.

i keep singing this in a falsetto while changing the diaper of a screaming hungarian woman at work. it doesn't deter her, but her eyes always widen and zero in on me while i do it. also, i want her crown.
 

(@work, 3 am, severely underslept/overworked/angry/

emotional/gay pms-ing, trying to change the diaper of my favorite elder paraplegic zombie doll)
HER: (mouth moves) ..... ...... .....
ME: did you say something?
HER: ....... ......... ......
ME: what?
HER: .... ......
ME: uh? one more time? (puts ear right by her mouth)
HER: (rasps/croaks/whispers) i'm...so happy..i have..you..to..take care of...me...
ME: (smiling/crying)
HER: ...sorry

on tour. woke up alone in the dark last night in a van with no lights after having a series of short nightmares about murder, ineptly disposing of bodyparts& botching fake 911 phonecalls. looked over & saw lying next to me in the van is an old woman. i reach a shaky hand over to her face to feel if she is real&her skin crumbles like a stale pastry.i start shrieking,can't figure out the door,scream more,climb out the window, stand in driveway,realize i am an idiot.
ps: this is my band

(2am, answering the call light of a withered woman in bed)
ME:hello!
HER:cliff, i need you to talk to the people.
ME:who?the medaid?
HER:no.the people in there.(points)
ME:that's a wall.
HER:it opens up.they come through.
ME:who?
HER:the little boy.the man who says it'll be ok.there's 3 of them.
ME:cool
HER:what?
ME:nothing.are they here now?
HER:yes.uh.no.i want you to tell them to leave me alone.they listen to you.

one of my favorite metal bands of the past decade called it quits yesterday. i blame ludicra for being one of the many convincing converging forces that, for better or worse, caused me to decide to move to the west coast one night almost 5 years ago. to be fair, they also had a pretty adorable rhythm section. r.i.p.
 

last diaper i change every shift belongs to the hungarian.she screams like i am raping her the whole time,but i can't just leave her lying in shit.last year she lived independently in an apartment.then the stroke happened,crossing some wire in her brain &causing only hungarian to come out of her mouth: "EEYOI!!" is her husband's name shrieked (and phoenetically spell),but he's not there,so i'm learning hungarian phrases:
 http://translate.google.com/?tl=hu&q=undefined#auto|hu|hello!%20i%20am%20here%20to%20help%20you.%20i%20am%20here%20to%20change%20your%20diaper.%20please%20don%27t%20hit%20me

the diva is 100 yrs old.never leaves her room or stops complaining.she is a sunless transparent deep sea creature&you can make out every vein in her body.skin tears like kleenex.voice is a gargle of mucus&she scolds every shift,accusing me of starvation as i bring meals&of suffocation as i apply cannulas.today i found her in a cower:"GODDAMN POLTERGEIST HIT ME"&then an ambulance took her away.

WHEELCHAIR WOMAN:(seeing me)Hi tim!
NURSE:that's not your son!
ME:hi! how're you doing today?
HER:oh i'm great. i never thought i'd run into you here, tim. whats new?
NURSE:that's not your son!
ME:i'm working. a bit too much actually.
NURSE:he works here.his name is myles.
WHEELCHAIR WOMAN:(crying) oh tim it's so good to see you. i've missed you so much. did your wife have the baby yet?
NURSE:(yelling) THAT'S NOT T--
ME:yes.

(3am knocking on door of 96 year old)
YOLANDA:Hi honey! i coma to you with my graveyard trainee. he need to see your baby.
ME:..?
96 YEAR OLD:ohh..(rolls over in bed, tosses back covers revealing near bursting colostomy bag).
YOLANDA:oh! such a big baby.myle, you think?
ME:yes?
YOLANDA:honey,myle take care of your baby.
ME:yes?
96 YEAR OLD:how is my baby?
ME:it's a boy?
YOLANDA: you see?you can talk shit with her.

NURSE I WORK WITH: um..could you do me a favor?
ME: sure. what.
HER: could you? like? take care of room 517? for me?
ME: ok. is something wrong?
HER: no..it's just..
ME: what?
HER: he just...you know? creeps me out..
ME: why?
HER: well.the other day? i was? like? helping his use a urinal? and he..
ME: ...got a massive hardon?
HER: yes!
ME: he did the same thing with me.
HER: oh.
ME: you're not special.

"this one time i come in the room in middle of the night and the man? he yelling yelling and he have the bm is all over his hands and on the bed and on the floor cause he trying to remove all by himself and ohh i put on gloves and he yelling yelling terrible names at me but i still do cos *shrug* this my job and his wife? she find out and she tell me "you an angel" and i say "i no angel. i yolanda." -coworker

there is a paralyzed skeleton woman at work. she doesn't talk.i change her diaper a couple times a day,feed her puree'd food&stop her from choking.i wonder why we put her through this.yesterday i picked up a book she'd written.in the1st chapter i learned that "demon" &"mosquito" sound similar in korean,so when i saw a bug in her room i asked if she had a "demon net".the grin&eye contact i got back was startling.

two friends of mine in philly did a tribute for leonora carrington, who died friday. one of them was responsible for originally turned me on to her writing. r.i.p to one of my favorite artists as well as writers.
 

i was cleaning up lunch in the nursing home&a confused man in a wheelchair crept up to me asking if i had something he could do.i gave him a pile of napkins.he began folding,talking about his days as a chemistry teacher.midstory he burst into tears&kept gesturing to the napkins,unable to speak.i thanked him,shook out the napkins & handed them back to him.he resumed folding&i went back to work,understanding.

dreamed this dude is fucking me cartoonishly hard and midway one of his thrusts there is a sudden awful muffled broken glass sound inside my body like a vase being smashed in my guts and this river of black tar shit starts immediately flooding out of me all exploded sewage tank style completely covering him and swamping up the room till i'm waist deep in my own waste trying not to breath too much back in but not really panicing until this BEING surfaces out of the moat like a fecal gollum and grabs hold of me and fights to pull me under and i struggle against it for dear (?) life until i realize it is just hysterical and sobbing and trying to get me to hold it while it cries. so i do.

Story about my friend KC written for a memorial book on her birthday. For her son to read, uhh, someday when he's older?

brook honeyford stencil on the wall outside kc's old bedroom @the farm
 "
What follows is my contribution to a memorial book people are apparently assembling for my friend kc,  who died 5 months ago. I was stuck at the time in the middle of nurse assistant training here on the west coast, so I missed out on the funeral and all the services that followed. In a way, writing this has also been my attempt to give myself as much personal closure that losing someone you really love will allow. Her birthday would have been today, but I think about her all the time.

 KC AND THE STORY OF BROOKE HONEYFORD                             
 (for her son Chase to read when he gets old enough to understand, or willing to try to?)     

    In 2006, I moved back from Baltimore to my native homeland of Philadelphia and it ended up being a total fucking disaster, although I have to admit, for better or worse, I was in some great company the whole time. I'd left town a little over a year beforehand in an attempt to escape suffocating my manic depressed self inside of a shelveless refrigerator one night while living alone in an efficiency apartment, so I was a bit wary about returning "home" for another round of possibly fighting whatever it was that drove me away again. For one reason or another and despite my best intentions to make things right, philly has never really worked out for me, but that's a separate essay, or perhaps a series of self pitying manuscripts to write someday.
    Anyway.
    Although i was born and raised on the other side of the Schuylkill , much like a whole secret tribe of people I've come to know, love and return to over the years, I came of age in West Philly; in the basements, in the warehouses, in the squats, in the punk houses, in the coffee houses, on porches with couches, inside ethiopian bars, at the foot of grafittied produce trucks, against the bulletproof glass of cheap chinese food places, quarantined inside of medical testing centers for cash and wandering a number of ever-vanishing but strangely romanticized sacred abandoned properties when i was feeling feral. Naturally, when I heard of an open room at a familiar house on Walton Avenue full of people I already knew, I made my move back.
    "We're like a fucking 'best of west philly' compilation here." I remember telling someone when i unpacked and mentioned the household lineup. Although I only knew KC loosely from her dating a friend of mine and us both hanging around a crumbled warehouse underground music venue in the late 90s, she quickly became one of my favorite"album tracks", so to speak. With a room directly below my own, I pretty much had her stuck on repeat every time i walked by. I also promise that is my last  abuse of this tacky metaphor for this paragraph.

                                              *Farm stencil by house resident Brad Dumville

     It's hard to explain to an outsider, given how most "normal" people only experience group living through college dorms, shortlived periods of  singlehood, or a craigslist necessity they're free of by their mid 20s, but it should be noted that, at best, there is an almost orphanage-like slumber party quality to a good punk house. "The Farm" definitely had elements of this--mixed with a lurking disfunctional streak characteristic of most of our shared upbringings--but still, above all things, it was a filthy, comfortable, needed home and in some sense we all recognized and honored this, despite ending up there for different reasons. In the case of me and KC, we bonded over a mutual history of depression and addiction, some peice of shit boyfriends, some dead friends we had in common, a love of metal, dark humor, and hatred of our miserable restaurant jobs.
      At the time I was a freshly retired bike messenger turned hoagie deliveryman on two wretched wheels. I hated every humiliating minute of it, but it made playing music possible, my boss couldn't see me half the time, I had no better ideas and I could sleep until the afternoon everyday. Also the fact that I was drunk every working minute made the urge to bitterly spit into promising young Penn Students' food an almost controllable impulse. All my bases covered, I suppose. KC was a waitress with a set of jellyfish resembling transparent rubber inserts tucked into her bra like armor each shift ("you'd be surprised how much it helps tips some nights."). I'd occasionally put them on inside my own shirt when she came home, wait while she was obliviously distracted by her jewlery making or busy ranting about how hard it was to stay sober and clean in food service and hope she'd look up and laugh because I had no solutions to offer that I was trying myself.
        Anyway, to cut to the chase, there was this one waitress who KC worked with that she held in high regard. very high regard. unreasonably high regard. KC fixated on her. KC idolized her. The waitress was called Brooke Honeyford, a woman with a name destined for a future in newscasting. or hollywood. or atleast porn. A name I should probably not use because she is, afterall, a real person, who I don't even know, despite what I, KC, and various members of the household eventually transformed her into.
        I'm not entirely sure when it happened, but at some point KC began comming home from work talking about Brooke all the time.
        Brooke Honeyford; alpha waitress.
        Brooke Honeyford; blonde and sassy.
        Brooke Honeyford; said the most brilliant thing today.
        Brooke Honeyford; the best thing about the job.       
        Brooke Honeyford; too beautiful for the restaurant.
        Brooke Honeyford; walks with all the best tables and cash.
        Brooke Honeyford; going places.
        Brooke Honeyford; trying out for a film now.
        Brooke Honeyford; does corporate espionage in her free time. seriously, can you beleive that?!?
        ..and I listened to these stories, possibly more than anyone else in the house, partially because my late hours meant i'd be the only one awake when she came through the door with tips and a new Honeyford fun fact, but also because i knew that deep down, at the end of the day, KC needed something positive to report back about when she was going through a recognizable rough patch herself. In a way, having a Brooke Honeyford of my own became something i secretly longed for. i looked around me but just couldn't find one and i guess i became a little jealous. or something.
        One night, KC materialized, giddy, with an autographed black and white glossy photo headshot of Brooke. As I stared back at the bob cutted bombshell frozen in a vidan sassoon ad pose and put a face on the revered name for the first time, I decided that she'd finally gone too far. There is a special sadness you get when you notice qualities in your friends that are so outstanding but at the same time so completely beyond the radar of their self esteem. KC could weld. KC could paint. KC's cleopatra costume at the godzilla wedding in the mummer museum was worthy of heiroglyphic preservation. KC was at her core, one of the toughest people I've ever met emotionally. In short, KC was too amazing to pin this mere mortal's image to her wall. Knocking down her Brooke Honeyford altar was the only way to save her.   
        I'm not one for planning much in life, so while KC was filling me in on the night's Brooke Honeyford celebrity guest appearance, I went with my gut impulse and made my move. Interrupting in the name of KC and all things worth saving in my world, i channeled the most psychotic, catty, venomous, evil, rumor spreading, bitchy junior highschool girl i could muster. and she came roaring out of me, complete with lisa frank stationary, hoop earrings and neon pink nailpolished talons.
        "oh. my. god, KC."
        "what?"
         "stop. just stop talking about brooke."    
         "why? i thought--"
         "KC, i can't  believe you even talk to her. didn't you hear?"
         "what?"
         "KC, BROOKE HONEYFORD IS A WHORE."
         "what?! you don't--"
         "BROOKE HONEYFORD IS ADOPTED."
          "ok, now you're getting--"
          "BROOKE HONEYFORD IS RADIOACTIVE"
          "ha ha. i have to go to bed. enough."
          "SHE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW"
          Not easily discouraged, or maybe a bit too into beating jokes to death, i continued this the next day. and the next.  and soon the rest of the house chimed in, singing a chorus of mindless slander:
          "BROOKE HONEYFORD HAS A PARASITIC TWIN"
          "BROOKE HONEYFORD IS A DICK SHARK"
          "BROOKE HONEYFORD'S PUSSY SMELLS LIKE DRIED CUTTLEFISH"
          "I SAW BROOKE HONEYFORD LAST NIGHT ON LANCASTER AVENUE AND SHE HAD A BEARTRAP CLAMPED ONTO HER LEG AND SHE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW. SHE WAS NUDE. I SAID NICE SHOES."
          Eventually, even KC joined in.
          and then , just when i thought we'd worn her down and exhorcized the demon disguised as a waitress from our beloved friend, KC made a startling confession to Michelle one night on the porch:
          "i autographed brooke honeyford's headshot and made it out to myself. She never signed it."
          Our blood went cold. we were horrified. desperate times call for desperate measures, so Michelle valiantly snuck into KC's room, stole the headshot and made for the nearest xerox machine. a couple hours of light table and razorblade carving paper sorcery later, she produced a guilded spray paint-ready image stencil of Brooke's face. It looked utterly fantastic. our weaponry had arrived. The plan was to use guerilla tactics starting at KC's room, spraypainting Brooke Honeyford's head onto everything we could think of in a trail from our house to the restaurant to Brooke Honeyford's apartment lair, with an assortment of nonsensical slogans beneath in a home depot font proclaiming "ADOPTED" "BEAR TRAP"  "PARASITIC TWIN" "CUTTLEFISH" "NICE SHOES" "DOESN'T EVEN KNOW" and last but certainly not least, "DICK SHARK".
we were going to save our friend from a fate worse than a lifetime  imprisoned in Brooke Honeyford's convent. unfortunetly, before we could finish, KC came home, caught us in the act, freaked out and dailed Brooke up herself claiming her "roomates have formed some insane cult around her headshot, complete with merchandise. don't worry. they'll make you a tshirt." ..As if. This slight betrayal, along with the disappointing discovery that Brooke Honeyford was surprisingly thrilled with the attention, caused us to abandon the entire scheme. We did, however, manage to stencil Brooke's face onto both KC's wall and directly onto the glass of a certain mirror. Legend has it, if you stand just right, you can see Brooke Honeyford's face imposed directly over your own reflection. That's just cause there is a little bit of Brooke in all of us. I recognize that now, KC.
 i love you. I miss you. This is one of the weirdest things I've ever fucking written. I hope it doesn't offend someone you love too bad.
               I don't know. I guess you had to be there. If nothing else, I'm really glad I was.

                                                                 R.I.P  KC

i traded one of my dead birds   today for a fully sequined antique jacket that makes me look like the missing link between a matador and a goldengirls cast member. a feast and hallucinogenic egg hunt at the vessile followed. special thanks to this rabbit and the camera/phone i had in my pocket with the lense that melted when i set myself on fire while trying to cook and as a result, only takes pictures like this now. in closing, i have recently met a fellow who resembles a really hot version of jesus christ.

happy to report that i will begin working in a nursing home monday. four years ago in philly i was breaking into an abandoned one in the middle of the night. hooray for progress. so happy to put the past 4 months behind me.

yet another week of nursing home job interviews under my belt. have a strangely good feeling about the one i had today, despite my 4 month track record of striking out. who fucking knows, though. i've reached a point where i'm no longer afraid of being rejected. progress? confidence? acceptance? apathy? doubt? dementia? it's all blurring together.
 

ME:(to a wheelchaired 93 year old crying,ignored, in corner of the nursing home) Can i help?
HER:(sobbing) i..want..a lawn!
ME:a lawn? like with..grass?
HER:yes
ME:could i mow it?
HER:yes
ME:we'd have some pink plastic flamingos?
HER:yes
ME:&some flowers?
HER:yes
ME:&a coy pond?
HER:yes (smiles,toothless)
ME:want your legs moved?
HER:yes

"mid august two thousand and six
south arm of uganik bay
kodiak island, alaska

dear myles

i write to you as a last resort, all other methods having failed, all other avenues found to be blocked impenetrably and irrevocably.
i write to you as a supplicant, with open hands and hope-filled, desperate heart; i seek your intercession with a powerful enemy of mine.
i write to you knowing that if there is anyone in this brutal and lonely world of danger who can help me it is you, myles, ranconteur, man of fortune, and friend to the jellyfish people.
there's no need for pretend humility--your affection for the jellyfish is well-known. you've proven yourself time and again as an admirer and staunch advocate of those strange and not-so-elusive creatures, those quiescent invertebrates that most people would dismiss as mindless and sedentary blobs. while others jeered, you championed those spineless sacs of goo, and it is for this reason that i believe they will listen to you.
myles, gentle myles, i beseech you: by all things holy and unholy as well, please, reach out to your jellyfriends and ask them to stop getting caught in our net and pulverized by our hydraulic spool. it sucks a great deal; the pieces of them get into my eyes and make me cry, which always makes me feel like less of a man, even though i was raised in the bay area. they are a burning soup of pain, and i fear them, and i hate myself for being afraid.
please, myles, you have to understand--the situation is dire. the jelly legions march into our net in tremendous clouds, tirelessly and without end. happiness and sadness are one to them, for they possess only the most rudimentary elements of a nervous system and are entirely oblivious to the anguish they cause, oblivious even to their own mangled, gory deaths. in the face of such relentless assault, what can mere men do? your aid is needed. time grows short, our strength is fading.
dear myles of destruction, very distant cousin and help of all unwashed malcontents since you appeared to wilder in the basements of philly, the problem that torments me i place in your blessed hands. remember OH! blessed myles that rarely has it been known that anyone who sought your help was left unaided. with confidence, humble and repentant, full of love and hope, this favor i implore.

your most devoted petitioner,

Andy"