Betta' Beta.

Clarence my cross-eyed muse and I, and the other I, were having a conversation. See, I’m kind of more or less done with the drafting of the manuscript heretofore known (to me anyway) as “Bea and the Smart Kids.”

Drafting, yes...editing, no. That’s being difficult. I’ve been working on the thing for so little and for so long that not a one of the three of us (Clarence, I or I) can even comprehend it as more than an overly-familiar pablum of uninspired blah-ness. I probably need to work on something else. But, you know, there’s this problem I have with not completing something. I’ve not-completed something in the past and it doesn’t feel right. The not-completed thing wanders the deserted highways of my imaginary world like a waif in the night (ok, it’s not really that pathetic...it’s more like that broken window screen you never fixed, in the garage.

Anyway, Clarence says it’s my fault for not showing up for work often enough, and I blame me, and then it’s this whole merry-go-round of buck-passing. That kind of merry-go-round they used to have at children’s play parks with four different colored textured metal quadrants, and galvanized hand-rails. You’d spin the other kids until somebody either fell off and bonked her head or barfed, and no parents thought of municipal liability.

Normally, at this point, I’d edit to a fare-thee-well while still managing to overlook a handful of blatant typos and some really awkward constructions, then I’d sketch some fifth-rate cover art and try to disguise its dorkiness with watercolor paint, and then I’d send the whole assemblage to Lulu, which would happily provide me with another box of books to store in the closet. Trimmed in turquoise, or maybe yellow.

Trouble is, neither I nor I nor Clarence can summon enough love for the manuscript to jump into that solid book creation phase. But we’ve also agreed that we’re not sending it to live with the waifly window screen. So I think we’re going to (for now) settle for beta testing. (“Beta testing?” says Clarence. “You mean that cloud-o-sphere called emilygillespieclement.com?” “Yes,” says I. “It’s very much like The Island of Misfit Toys, only the residents aren’t as cute as the doll in the gingham dress who had no apparent flaw. And we give them marshmallows for their campfire. Don’t look at me that way.” Clarence suggests that perhaps betta testing--where we drop it into a tank of small pugnacious fish would be better. I ignore that.)

Anyway, I think I’ve got Clarence on my page now because until he gets his eyes fixed you can’t expect anything more brilliant to roll out of our fiction mill. So, yes. Pretty soon I’ll be mounting the chapters under the heading “new but stale" or something.

But first I have to at least try to edit. A little. I will leave some terrible prose though. Don’t worry.

going

I remember exactly how I felt this time last year when I was in a flurry of travels. End of summer beach week, two trips to Connecticut, and a cross-country Southwest Amtrak adventure. I believed the end of opportunity was impending and I wanted to make hay while the sun shone. Shined. (I don’t like “shone” there, but I think it should be. Is this breaking the third wall? This is not a play, so no.)

Then, in April, we managed the Northwest Amtrak trip with Mom...so my sense of impending closure was a little premature, maybe. Or maybe not. Things are and were closing in. Yet here I am, a year + later, planning more comings and goings. But I’m nervous in a way that I wasn’t last year because Jeff’s world is shrinking and we can almost see it day to day. Shrinking, in this case, means...maybe...the breadth of meaningful ways in which he can interface with the world. Well, that’s vague and fraught with jargon-babble. That’s because this is really hard to describe. You sense it more than you quantify it.

Let’s try another way. There is a balance between the pleasure you get from visual stimuli (because of its meaning to you, because of the way the things you see pluck the strings of your intellect and emotions,) and the bothersomeness of the visual cacophony which is too much for you to sort in a pleasant way. As more data defects from the pleasure to the bother side of the scale, less is attempted. More is shut out. A new experience may have very limited worth, if it is even tolerable. (Yet, ironically, susceptibility to boredom still exists.)

Boredom, speaking of boredom, is a condition to which I am supremely susceptible, even though I was talking about Jeff. But now I’m talking about me. Yes, caregiving can get pretty boring. Honestly, I don’t know that it makes an owl’s hoot of difference to Jeff whether I create adventures. But for me it does. I have to try to squeeze what remains out of his capacity to go, see, experience, and I’m not sure how I’ll deal when the door closes to a pinpoint.

For now, I have ways to offset the disorientation. I hold onto him. The worse he gets, the closer I pull him. It seems like being close, held, and guided, with verbal commentary to distract him from the visuals which may be too fast to process, make any experience manageable for Jeff. At a park, at a pace that average folk might find tedious, we can stop, occupy a bench, and let the visuals pass by without multiplying the relative velocities by moving ourselves. Until we’re ready.

I don’t mind that every trip is experimental. That an aspect of each adventure we attempt is the gauging of whether or not we can keep managing such things. I don’t want to be stuck without even the option of half-baked adventures. So I’ll keep pushing this cart, until all 4 wheels fall off.

splash.

I’ve made a plan. I’m tucking Jeff into a duffel and heading to Florida for a four night 50th birthday present to myself. This will occur just after my birthday, in the first week of December.

Now I’m aware that Disney is not everyone’s idea of “real” travel —and without a doubt, I like reality-based adventures very much—but this is what I whimsically want to do, so I’m not going to try hard to explain myself. We’ll stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and see...animals. And eat stuff. And take what slow-paced, low-key pleasure we can in a few short days at the parks, (uncrowded in early December,) enjoying mostly things like The Jammitors. To be followed by sitting on the veranda at the AKL watching ostriches.

I’m a little worried today though. Jeff’s had a foggier than usual 48 or so hours, and you just wonder...are we encountering a new set-point, or is it just a passing low pressure system? So we’ll see how things play out. I have trip insurance for the cost of lodging and whatnot and won’t lose out too much if I must cancel.

The thing about AD is that it’s like Splash Mountain. (Disney reference...to an attraction we will not visit this trip.) You know that while you might be on a manageable horizontal boat ride with just an occasional swoop to port or starboard, you’re going to hit the 45º downward flume, and you’re going to be at a lower elevation at the end.

And then I’m going to be looking around like...what am I supposed to do with this? Where’s Uncle Charley? (You know...William Demerest from My Three Sons.) Or some other avuncular type who wants nothing more than to move in to the room currently housing Hazel the crazy kitty, and Be There for Jeff. Because Jeff would love him and be comfortable with him and vice versa. And I wouldn’t have to imagine that I’ll be doing everything and housebound if there’s something scary like that at the bottom of Splash Mountain.

And of course there is. It’s Alzheimer’s.

Maybe an arrow would help?

Yesterday morning I stepped into the bathroom onto a damp bath mat. This was curious, since I’d last taken a shower 2 days earlier. A sniff suggested the cause. Actually, it was a little more forceful than a suggestion, nasally speaking.

There is a scene in the Swedish movie “A Song for Martin” in which Martin, the symphony conductor now suffering from Alzheimer’s, excuses himself from a restaurant table and takes a pee in a potted plant. Things like this come to mind. Especially after this morning. I was doing sink business at the sink and Jeff came into the bathroom. He stood on the (clean) bath mat and faced the shower. “What are you looking for?” I asked. “I’m waiting for a turn,” he said. “A turn for what?” I asked. “A turn to pee,” he said. I showed him a better target.

This is a reminder of the fact that much of what we humans do is not really in our nature. We train ourselves and our children. Cats are more natural than humans at getting with the bathroom hygiene program. (Well, not my cats in particular depending on which of them you’re asking about, but cats in general.) Anyway, I recall that Jeff is not the only person I can think of with a declining mind who has selected a bath mat as a likely patch for business. And why not a potted plant, if you stop and think about it. I used to have a cat who thought likewise.

Wow, I've fussed about my brain...

...for two blog posts in a row. Sorry about that!

Who's on First? Don't know...but I'm picking clovers in left field.

There’s a bit of a disconnect between the portion of my brain known (in neuropsychiatry) as “Executive Function” and the part known (in common parlance) as “Slacker.” Or perhaps it’s more that Executive Function never took Slacker to puppy training school at Petsmart, and now Slacker, when asked to perform, falumps onto the floor belly up and says “no, not fetch, belly rub.”

Anyway, Slacker is evidently asserting passive-aggressive control of the situation this morning, as I sit at an outdoor table at the Baltimore Tea & Coffee Company with my working notebook (from which I am intended to derive where my story is meant to go next) open at my right elbow.

Slacker, though hopeless at home, is easily distracted by the parade of humans coming in and out of BT&C. Ruddy business suit guys who don’t quite have their shirttails all the way tucked, or the pristinely makeupped Asian girls coming and going from Bella—Lifestyle Nail Salon & Spa next door.

Slacker, now that I stop and think about it, has more or less helmed the ship as a lifelong habit. And this explains WHY I didn’t, to my present-day chagrin, learn Latin, geography, and the Encyclopedia Britannica as a kid like my brother.

What I have done, despite Slacker’s insouciant but unquestionable grip on the control-stick, is squeeze out 3.823 books. It’s that last 17.7% of my current effort that Executive Function and Slacker are presently tussling over.

Now, you would think (well, in fact you probably would not think, but you would hope,) that almost-four works of fiction, wrassled from the playful but resolutely ornery jaws of a bad puppy would deserve (if real-life were stories) to turn out to be sparkling with the sort of free-spirited wit that is coveted by the reading and editing world. Actually, what happens is that you get chewy gooey remnants with their squeakers ripped out. Because real-life is not stories, and this outcome is what makes the most real-life logical sense. Still, we carry on...Slacker, Executive Function, Clarence my cross-eyed muse, and I. Because that’s all we can think of to be.

Goal: By the end of today’s work period, only 17% will remain to be written. That’s a few hundred words, that 0.7%. And this blog-post doesn’t contain a one of them.

flicker...*pop*...oops.

The Whole Foods Market internet connection is not working. It usually does, so perhaps I will bundle my flotsam and decamp for a more central work area. This one, though, has a window with a view of a) traffic coming and going from the shopping center and b) Giolitti Italian Food & Wine (Homemade, Local and Extraordinary.) The alternative would have a view of the “Thank You For Shopping With Us” sign.

I did not leave the house with much of a plan this morning when Kimberly arrived. Not much of one. Although, as I have reached the climax-through-denouement stretch of my “Smart Kids” book (whatever it intends to be called,) that’s the obvious choice of activity. But my brain is working with a scattershot functionality which suggests that oatmeal for breakfast is not as good a choice as nuts and seeds. Nor does this Allegro tea...”Engage Your Brain” (or something) is the name of it...seem to be living up to its promise.

I have to wonder about this theory of humans, and the idea that one member of the species can be wholly responsible for another one whose circuitry has failed. Some of us (though as “intact” as we’ve ever been) still operate like a Kliegl light board with about 30% finicky switches. So you’d think there would have been some kind of quality control applied when they handed out life stories, but you know there’s not.