balaams_ass blog

Life's like that (or this)

I prefer to think that I spend a lot of my conscious time relatively happy and mirthful, I like to think maybe even 80 %. The rest of the time I am melancholy, sad, bitter, angry, resentful, anxious, caustically sarcastic, sardonic or otherwise not someone I like much. I think that this place of my thoughts is a reflection of that percentage. Lately I've been mostly sad, thinking about (and missing) my Mom. If you've read these entries for sometime you know my Mom has succumed to Alzheimers or some form of Dementia. Mom and Dad live in NJ and I don't get down there very often. Partly because I'm kept pretty busy in CNY and partly, I have begun to admit to myself, because it is hard on me emotionally to visit.

My Mom loved words and language. She taught me to appreciate clever word plays and how to look at any word from as many directions as possible, to see how a word could be used in ways different then most people use them. This has been of course a blessing and a curse since I have what my friend Kyle calls "David Letterman's disease" which is characterized by the following logic pattern.

Think of something funny -> Say it -> Consider consequences.

Mike a former co-worker used to tell me in all seriousness that I could irritate* anyone by simply uttering 2 words. Didn't matter who it was Mike would say. I could figure out how to irritate* them. Mother Theresa, Billy Graham, Ghandi....

My Mom's illness has has of course robbed her of any communication. She simply drones on in mumbling sing song. I hear her in the background when I talk with my Dad on the phone. It is a hard thing.

I'll close this entry with these simple words chosen very carefully.


ba

* Mike used a two word vernacular expression that ended with the word "off" that I'll forgo here.

posted by balaams_ass @ 1:53 PM