The checks and balances of the universe and of each and every person and thing that inhabits the universe work in a cycle. I, being a creature of said universe, am no exception. And today I am seeing the upswing, the light at the end of the tunnel, the fat purple lollipop after a somewhat scary few days of agony.

Damn, I am such a Woos. But I am sorry, that fucking HURT.

I am out of it now. But it is a wake up call to be so messed up. Gotta start taking better care of myself, drink less wine and take Omega three gel caps and shit. It is a wonder that I am in the somewhat decent condition I am in, after all this abuse.

In my early years in San Francisco, I knew a photographer who I had worked with, had an affair with (in Boston during Hurricane Gloria) and eventually just ran into, from time to time. The guy had been in a motorcycle accident and fucked up his knee, and the constant pain CHANGED who he was. He ceased being the cool, fun photographer guy and became the guy who whenever-you-were-around-him-bad-thoughts-would-happen guy. The pain permeated him and everything around him. I remember sitting in his bedroom with him once, coming down off a crazy weekend of ingesting who-knows-what, and Patsy Cline was playing on the turntable. He went on and on about his pain and how he was drinking a pint or quart of vodka or whatever a day to kill it and before you knew it, I was crying hysterically (maybe that was his game). One time I sat in his kitchen and he rolled the I Ching for me. The I Ching told me “there is no relief or hope in sight.” Hmmm.

After a while I stopped hanging with the photographer so much (otherwise I might have hung myself. Seriously) but I ran into him from time to time, mostly at the Rainbow Grocery, when it was still on Mission Street. Every time, I would say hey Paul, whaddup? And he would answer something horrible about his knee, and how he was taking this or that or doing this or that. It was a fucking broken record, man. Eventually, after maybe a year of not running into him, I did again and he immediately went into the pain. And I just started laughing. I couldn’t stop. All the people looking at the index cards advertising room rentals or Spanish lessons in the foyer of Rainbow Grocery looked at me with furrowed brows, but I could not stop. The photographer yelled “it’s not FUNNY!” but fuck, after all those years of hearing about it, it WAS.

I guess my point is, I never want to be like that. After a few days of major discomfort, I see how it would be easy to kill everyone with your pain. And a pain that is there for always? Deadly for the bearer, deadly for everyone else.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 12th, 2005 at 9:07 pm and is filed under How do we all stay grounded when the world is spinning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.