From Pathetic Life #6
Sunday, November 6, 1994
Feeling fairly crappy, I called the dentist again, and again left a message telling anyone who’s listening (is anyone listening?) that I’m infected where the tooth came out. Moderate agony here, and the pain pills are running low. Please call me back or just call the pharmacy and get me a prescription for antibiotics.
I was electronically promised, “Your call will be returned shortly,” but again, my call was not returned shortly. I also called my doctor from Kaiser-Permanente, and left a message there. They also promised that my call would be returned shortly. That call has also not been returned.
Yeah, I know, it’s Sunday, but the doctor and dentist’s messages didn’t say they’d get back to me Monday, they said they’d get back to me soon. The doctor’s machine helpfully suggests, call 9-1-1 and go to the emergency room if it’s an emergency. Well, yeah. Of course.
But I’m not doing that. Not until I’m closer to death, sorry. Non-lawyers can’t comprehend much from the four-page small-print basically-bullshit contract Kaiser-Permanente sent when I’d earned “coverage,” but I found the words “emergency room” directly adjacent to something saying I’m responsible for the cost incurred.
Instead I continued bathing the infection in generic Bactine, taking the pain pills (only two remain), and taking aspirin. I also did some doobie, because I’ve read that it helps deaden pain, and ate a lot of ice cream. The ice cream serves no medicinal purpose, just tastes good, but that’s important, too.
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Speaking of useless phone messages, do you remember the phone tag my mother and I were playing? She kept calling and saying simply, “Please call me,” which is not like her at all. Usually when she calls and gets my machine, she talks and talks and talks.
Anyway, I kept returning her calls, and getting her answering machine, so I’d say, “I called back. Whatever you keep calling me about, please leave a message on my machine.” And then she’d call me back, and simply say to my machine, “Please call me.”
After six rounds of this, I quit calling back. After that, Mom quit calling. Now it’s been weeks since I heard from her, so today I called her number, and she answered, and we talked until I ran out of quarters for the phone booth.
And she’s fine. Nobody was sick. Nobody’s died. “Well, why did you keep calling, Mom, and keep saying, ‘Please call me’?”
“Oh, no reason,” she said. “I just miss your voice, and wanted to talk.”
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Felt lightheaded. Took a long nap. Woke up wet, but wet with sweat this time, not rain like yesterday. It’s mostly stopped raining.
Generally I’m miserable, but what the hell, I’m going to the movies. Packed the backpack with candy, water, and codeine I wish was cocaine, and BARTed to Berkeley for a noir double feature at the Elmwood — free with one of my Forrest Gump memorial passes.
Key Largo (1948) is Humphrey Bogart at his best, and Bogey’s best is basically the best. We’re at a small resort in lovely Florida, but a hurricane is coming, and so are some bad guys. Lauren Bacall simmers on the side like buttery green beans with slivered almonds, and Edward G Robinson is Edward G Robinson, nuff said. There’s a subplot that’s racially insensitive by present-day standards, but the movie was made almost fifty years ago.
Casablanca (1942) is simply one of the greatest films ever made, and there’s nothing new I can say about it. If you haven’t seen it, or for that matter Key Largo, you don’t know squat about good movies.
The theater seems to have solved its sound problem of a week ago, but now there’s another grave problem. The popcorn was far too salty.
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Home. Ate a little. Tired. Mouth hurts. Took more happy pills. Took more aspirin. Smoked more pot. Went to bed. Obviously I’m alive to type the tale, but I am not having a good time.
This is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago, called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting things, so parental guidance is advised.
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