Anybody seen Dave?
I have been on a mission to lessen my time in front of the computer, unless it has something to do with my baseball writing for Fenway West, or my music. Social networking sites like Tribe and Facebook are taking the biggest hits. Contributing to my diminished visits to these 2 sites are my increased involvement in 4 bands (Planet Waves, Stackabones, Cancer Sucks Band, Leadfoot Betty, and for a while last year, Dave Stein’s Grateful Dead Acoustic Tribute Band.) Also taking a hit is writing about anything other than baseball. I’ve weaned myself off of the many variations of Law and Order and CSI, but discovered Criminal Minds and NCIS. LOST finally ended with a very disappointing resolution. I’m glad that’s over.
The past 18 months or so went like this: I was tapped to play drums for a Stackabones show in 2009 at The Connecticut Yankee with short notice, meaning I had a lot of new songs to learn in a short period of time; getting a long notice from my very cool landlord, (he was in the Jerry Band for 3 years), that I would have to move at the end of June (he waited until after my daughter graduated from high school to move back in there!); her prom and graduation; countless trips to Sonoma County looking for affordable housing; moving my daughter in with her mother; moving me; my longest trip back east ever; setting up the new place; playing in 4 bands; throwing a party; getting sucked into my neighbor's energy and time sapping drama; buying a new vehicle and getting rid of old vehicle; producing a cancer research fundraising benefit; tryin' like hell to get rid of stough; writing for Fenway West; playin' in the aforementioned cancer benefit; another trip back east, which included trips to McCoy Stadium and Fenway Park to cover ball games there; transcribing my father's memoirs; and I now am in the middle of scanning 1200+ slides that I shot in the mid '80's. I’m sure I’ve missed a few other time consuming issues. A lot of bullshit has finally been put behind me! I am now able to scan these slides, and soon will resume writing about something other than baseball, and practicing my drums and piano a little more.
This past year, there were lots and lots of trips to Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Novato, San Rafael, and San Francisco, as my whole world for the past 16 years had been centered in Marin. Sierra was getting used to living in a new town as well and didn’t know her way around RP, and neither did she have much money to do anything anyhow. She is now working 20 to 25 hours a week and taking classes at Santa Rosa Junior College. I am driving much less these days, thankfully!
I live way up on the Russian River now, out in the sticks where I like it in a rental that’s actually bigger than a shoebox. I'm above the flood plain, I have a great covered patio and a huge fenced in yard, and when it's 95 outside, it's nice and cool inside. My daughter lives only 20 miles away and comes to visit once in a while.
While I do miss being closer to friends, I am enjoying the solitude. It is nice not to have to worry about my daughter every minute of the day while she was a minor in high school living under my roof. She’s almost 20, has a job, goes to school, and lives with her mother. I have no housemate(s) to deal with. The last one before Sierra moved in with me turned into an unholy creature from the Great Abyss. I don’t have to slap the alarm clock around 5 mornings a week. I was seriously overdrawn in the REM department! I am able to get the rest that my body and mind need so badly. I don’t have to worry about bosses and/or jobs from hell. While my last job was one of the better ones I have had, it was not the smoothest functioning accounting department. Come to think of it, I don’t recall any smooth running accounting departments wherever I have worked. Every one of them was either understaffed or in serious disarray.
My health has slowly declined in the past 2+ years that I have been virtually without health insurance. COBRA costs were over $700 per month. For a while, my old caseworker in Marin County finagled my and Sierra’s accounts so that I was able to see my GP (but not my neurologist), and get my meds. Once Sierra emancipated, though, my share of cost with MediCal zoomed over $700. I have been able to get the single most expensive prescription on a program from the manufacturer, but the rest were paid out of pocket and have sucked most of the savings I was able to squirrel away when I was receiving State Disability payments and Social Security for both me and Sierra. MediCare starts up in less than a month! I have an appointment with a neurologist and my GP scheduled already.
My mother has been suffering from something for years now, but I don’t know what. I have a couple of close cousins on her side, one is struggling with Alzheimer’s and his son, very close to my age, has recently been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Thankfully MS has been scratched off my list; a 2nd opinion MS specialist at UCSF said this was more like Parkinson’s. I saw one more neurologist at a low cost clinic who said it wasn’t Parkinson’s, but I still don’t know what ‘it’ is.
I should have the slides all scanned this week, and the scanner rental returned. It will take me a few more days after that to finish my father’s memoirs. With those two time sensitive projects moving behind me, my schedule becomes extremely flexible.
On tap for the near future are to start writing more; lyrics, essays, poetry, maybe even a novel. I have lots of words in my brain trying to get out and into the computer. I will be playing the piano, playing the drums set and the hand drums daily. I hear music and songs in my head at times so I will be learning how to record, mix, and balance (relatively) simple projects. I need to be paying more attention to my plants, as well. Maybe someday I’ll get to those fountains that I have wanted to build. I have ideas for home based businesses that hopefully will provide some much needed personal revenue.
Hopefully no more bullshit will come my way- landlords, housemates, bosses, and jobs from hell for starters. I got a speeding ticket in Novato on my last trip there for anything related to moving. I received a fix it ticket during my last week of work for driving an unregistered vehicle. I registered it that week, again that same year, and again the next year, but no one at the DMV bothered to tell me that I hadn’t cleared the fix-it ticket. I neglected to inform the court in Santa Rosa that I had complied with the law. I had informed the DMV of my new address every time I registered my vehicle, but they never updated it for my license. The court kept sending notices to an old address that was listed on my license, so a $120 ticket had zoomed up to $520. My landlord’s girlfriend was interested in buying my Subaru. In between the time she took it for a test drive and the time I took it to get it smogged, something happened to one of the front brakes. It was making some seriously annoying sounds. As it turned out, I needed to spend over $200 to get that one brake fixed. Why that didn’t happen until after I sold it, I’ll never know, but that’s the way everything in my life goes.
Anyhow, I really, really hope that I have reached a point where I can concentrate on the things that I want to do, and not what I have to do, without all the bullshit that I have had to endure over the years- depression, horrible high school experiences, hospital time, cocaine addiction, homelessness, divorce, jobs & bosses & house mates & landlords, etc., from hell. Parenthood is not bullshit, and although it never does really end, it is extremely time consuming up until your offspring become emancipated.
As long as my health does not deteriorate any more, I will be fine, I will get by, I will survive.
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