Follow Up. Normal Activity. The Sound of Silence. Gifts. K. The Girls of KSU.

…This doctor, he’s young. He spends no more than six minutes with me. Looked at some new x-rays without even seeing the ones they took in Colorado. He tells me that I can’t exercise, that I should not teach for awhile, that I’m not well. He’s there long enough to call me “buddy” a dozen times.

As in, “You’re lungs are full, buddy.”
As in, “You’re not doing anything for three weeks, buddy.”
As in, “Be well, buddy” as he’s rushing out the door.

And I’m sitting there with a new prescription and a bunch of questions.

…The pharmacist, she’s young and almost pretty. Behind me is a woman shifting from foot to foot. I cough.

I lean toward the pharmacist, and I say, “Sorry, maybe you don’t know, but with pneumonia, if I had a girlfriend…”I glance over my shoulder. The woman behind me shifts. I look at the pharmacist.

“As long as her immune system…” she says.
“No, I’m not worried about giving it to her,” I say. “What I mean, how…inactive…do I need to be, I mean if I had a girlfriend?”
I don’t have a girlfriend, of course. I just need to know.

The pharmacist, she looks like she thinks I might be trying to pick her up.

She tells me she’s not certain, but that maybe if I take my pills I can resume normal activity in a few days.

I like her advice better than the doctor’s. Normal activity.

…I’m going to watch a lot of movies.
I’m going to read.
When my computer is fixed, I’m going to blog.
I’m going to work on a rewrite of Fruits of Lebanon and Bloodletting.
I’m going to work out, slowly and without breathing much.

All this normal activity.

…Things have gotten serious for K, as they must, as they will, as all affairs end, as all affairs begin, at the intersection of the two, after the marriage crashes and the airbag of another possibility opens to make it feel ok, the reality settles around her, the realization that in every direction is pain, that no choice can be made without regret, that the divided heart suffers, that the heart divides before you even know it, that if you could have guessed, could have known, you would have remained quiet and blind and otherwise senseless.

And she’s into all of this, and she’s getting out of all of this, all these things that cause you to feel, these lives where we’re bored when were still and everything else hurts, or almost everything else.

There’s nothing to do for her. But listen. No real advice. Just the truth: It’s going to hurt worse. You’ve got to be strong.

And a girl crying on the phone, in person, it always gets me.

…I have a theory that when men cry it is usually for others, and that when women cry it is usually for themselves. I mean the typical woman. I mean the typical man. I mean usually.

But this is not the time for that discussion.

…And Jared, he tells me about Herbert. Doing ok. Have surgeried.
And that he collected 235 toward these operations.
Which means, I haven’t forgotten, I owe silence.
Not 235 hours, because 100 of that is mine.
But 135 hours. Of silence.

I’ll lay it out.
I’ll blog it all.

My silence will have its witnesses. My witnesses will have their silence.

…And the season, it’s over.
New Year, Christmas.
The things we give, the things we get.
Everything new settled into our lives, the year, the gifts, assimilated.
I think of how much more comfortable I am with giving then getting.

I think about those thoughtful gifts that came out, those ones that had meaning behind them, how they leaved me touched and how that leaves me raw, the way a real kiss does.

You ask yourself, Are you prepared for this?

…In my office, where I come while my home computer is down to check email, to upload this blog, etc, I find a calendar that has been slid under the door.

The Girls of KSU.

Students, I presume, young women, in all manner of near undress. Girls one would think he would recognize but does not.

Girls who under their bikini photos mention their majors—none of them in our department—and ambitions.
Things like: Get married and start a family, and most important, be happy.
And: To love the Lord, my God, with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.

The guys that put together the calendar have photos of themselves, fully dressed, and thank, amongst other people, their KSU marketing professors, who, I imagine or mortified. And, I suppose, the PC thing to do would be to feel some sort of indignation about this as well.

Indignation. I’m trying to work some up, but so far, just can’t.