when you're strange

so now my eye is jacked up due to an old war wound via in the Corps.

surgery @ the Balboa Medical Clinic 2002...i think.

now, docs @ the VA Long Beach told me it should "completely resolve itself within 10 days."

we'll see.

it's paralyzed.

literally just sitting there looking stupid.

corky mandia.

it's given me plenty of time to write, which is a good thing.

i guess...

Operation In Their Boots premiere is NOV 9th.

hoping to go.

really hoping to go -- little beauty I'd like to bring.

but if i'm like this -- gotta cancel.

don't want to,

really don't want to.

but thus is life.

funny 'cause i live a pretty healthy life.

no tobacco...for the most part;

no drinking...for the most part, lol;

no hard drugs;

veggies;

fruits;

swim;

bike;

yoga;

vitamins;

back is a bit better.

goes to show you, if you're fucked...you're fucked.

and 2010 has been rather fucked period of my life.

especially me health-wise.

career-wise, muy bueno.

pissed off christoff is getting old.

i'm still alive.

i'll survive.

add another caveat to my writing sensibilities...how it feels to be paralyzed and look silly.

but hell, i've got it good.

ever seen some of these Iraq/Afghanistan Vets?

WIA -- know what that entails?

not fun.

not funny.

at. all.

me, just a minor glitch...knock on wood

not sure it worked

but i hope it did.

'nother spinal tap.

'nother needle; big bulking needle, in my back.

this time they went low. very low and pulled my drawls down past my knees.

lying there on a gurney, a whole bevy of VA "residents," looking on.

nobody told me i'd be bare ass.

but i was. had to laugh, typical VA.

pants down. here comes the needle.

directed towards tailbone. the "residents," seemed distracted.

this asian, she wanted waffles.

and this indian, he wanted pancakes.

IHOP was the conversation as my heart rate shot up and they figured it was time to up the anesthetic.

apparently they hit scar tissue.

needle got jammed.

catheter wouldn't come out.

wouldn't squirt it's goo into my spinal column.

the college students asked the real doctor for assistance.

-- he was manning the x-ray.

and he came near, told me there'd be a little pressure and literally used all his body weight to jam this thick 'ole needle past my tailbone into the gap between my vertebra.

couldn't help but cringe.

yelp.

you just can't hold that kinda pain in.

least i can't.

nope.

but i didn't cry.

laughed.

don't think i have tears.

laugh.

can't find 'em.

laugh.

and they kept telling me i was doing a "great job."

laugh.

hell they know about doing a "great job?"

laugh.

honest to God, this kinda treatment should be reserved for prisoners.

these punk-ass bloods and crips and la emme.

they're tough, right?

they won't cry.

anyways, after a good twenty-minutes, i'm wheeled out.

numb.

used.

my Dad brought me there.

and then took me back.

two, three days, they say. then we find out if it worked.

sure hope it does.

this is no fun.

when the Lakers won

i was in the emergency room and my leg was bleeding real bad.
my buddy Andy was in the waiting room.

he came along -- made sure i didn't pass out on the drive.
so i limped into the Long Beach VA, my leg bleeding real bad, and asked for help.
took them a couple minutes to digest the scene.

guess they didn't get these cases often.
and this lady says, " hey Doni, look, these are the guys we got fighting for our freedom...shit."
of course, i was a little offended, especially being in a VA.
so i told the lady "why don't you just do your fucking job, huh?"
and she did. sneering.
didn't blame her. she was having a bad day.
me too.
so that was that and i was rolled into a room where a black guy was drinking pepto.
had some gastrointestinal thing going on.
we talked about the Lakers.

don't remember what exactly -- i mighta been in shock to a certain extent.
nevertheless we talked Kobe and Lamar.
hell to boston.

but the black guy felt better and he left me on the gurney.
-- my leg bleeding real bad.
the VA Cops came. talked to me.
they looked @ the wound, kinda amazed i wasn't screaming or something.
"you're a Marine, right?"
"yeah," i said.
and that little admission seemed to rectify the entire situation.
told em my story. think i embellished a bit.
but i mighta been in shock.
and i'd like to think i helped further the Marine Corps myth that night.
lying there in the ER, my leg bleeding real bad.

relatively composed.
one Cop; this young kid, asked to take a picture w/his phone.
we did.
and he left.
shortly thereafter this old old guy was rolled in.
bellowing.
drunk as a skunk.
think they gave him a sedative and he calmed down good.
turned to me.
we spoke shortly.
told me he was a Vietnam Vet.
this guy; the drunk.
one of those typical Vietnam Vet horror stories.
got wounded. got sent home. got addicted to VA meds.
got crazy.
and now it's about 3am and this guy and i are debating whether Mr. Roger's was a Jarhead.

maybe an hour passed, and the lady from before came in.

said i was good to go.

she apologized for earlier -- as did i.

these things happen...

and i left soon after.

my leg a little swollen.

my eyes very tired.

the needle was big

and she was an intern.

the "doctor."

so, technically, she wasn't a doctor. but, a real "doctor" was beside her.

asking her if she knew where the L5, L6, disks were.

she didn't. broad pointed to the wrong place.

and the "doctor" corrected her.

so she stabbed me with this monstrous needle - and it hurt.

pretty bad, i gotta admit.

then i felt a POP! and i think she breached my spinal cord.

penetrated me.

watching the needle squirm via live x-ray.

she could see the needle inside me, and she missed.

this goddamn intern missed. so she pulled out.

poked again.

hurt again.

missed again.

WHAT. THE. FUCK? why does it seem like i'm somebody's experiment.

some vietnamese intern who barely speaks english is fucking experimenting with my back.

with my life. sanity. family. career.

all of it.

and she's missing. finally i had to say something.

"WHAT THE FUCK? AM I GUINEA PIG OR SOME SHIT LADY?"

the "doctor" - the so-called real "doctor" - explained the Long Beach VA was a 'teaching hospital.'

essentially means these graduate students cut their teeth on Vets.

practice makes perfect, right?

finally hit the spot. i got numb. real numb. they patch me up. put me in a wheelchair - cuz i couldn't walk, and wheeled me out to the lobby - the staging area for other Vets seeking relief.

what a sight. nothing but old geezers.

buncha fat, old, depressed, anemic-looking, utterly soul-crushing, Veterans.

geez...

some guy in a wheelchair didn't even seem like he knew where he was.

mumbling. bumbling.

another guy, some former Jarhead who looked like a 50-year soda jerk, told me i'd probably have to live with this pain for the rest of my life.

have to come in for these goddamn shots every three-months.

but look on the bright side: you'll get %100 disability from the VA.

oh, and you can't forget this one: you'll be able to work @ the VA commissary, serving up slop to vietnamese interns!

woooyeah! - that's what i want from my life.

dishing slop.

to interns.

who don't speak English.

doped up and wheelchair bound.

don't get me wrong, i love helping Vets, and i'm a fan of young vietnamese women - but i'll pass.

needless to say, my experience @ the Long Beach VA, was horrible.

downright shameful.

magnetic resonance imaging

had a mri today.

drove to the Long Beach VA, in the rain on a Saturday, to have my lower back and pelvis scanned.

so i lay down in this white tube for thirty minutes, as a rotund mexican pulled levers and pushed buttons behind a plexiglass wall.

he blasted jazz in the B.G.

it mighta been the blues.

muddy waters.

but i lay in this white tube and for a moment i became really tense.

extremely tense.

panic.

so i breathed deep. filling the aeolia with oxygen.

through the nose. out the mouth.

and i calmed down, started to think.

the mri buzzing, moaning, generating heat.

and i lay in this white tube, motionless. barely breathing. just dead and thinking...

maybe that's the afterlife. just dead and motionless and thinking about everything you've done.

everything you've seen.

everything you've thought.

and i got to thinking how fucked up that's gonna be for me.

how fucked up that's gonna be for many Vets.

and how great that's gonna be for the skim-milk jollies who've been loved and cherished and never taken a life or participated in questionable activities.

just lived a good life.

free of pain.

on a pale blue dot called Earth.

-been reading Carl Sagan...

anyway, the rotund mexican stopped the mri.

pulled me out.

smiled.

told me i did a good job - barely moved.

and i thanked him. shook his hand.

put my clothes back on and told the rotund mexican "adios amigo."

spilled into the VA - empty.

halls - empty.

smelling of bleach.

pine-sol and sloughed skin.

with those recruiting posters, memorials and American flags.

"freedom isn't free."

"the frozen chosin."

"all gave some, some gave all."

nevertheless, i walked for quite sometime.

it was raining like a sonofabitch outside.

walked all the way to the mental health ward - ghostly, vacant.

walked all the way to prosthetic wing - smelled like lubricating oil.

later, i drove home to san pedro, to my granddad's house, to my warm bedroom, and took some pills.

within a few minutes i began to nod off.

motionless. barely breathing. just dead and thinking.