Interlude #2 -- A Rant

Oh, for Gods' sake!  I made the mistake of looking at one of those "fattest cities in the U.S." articles and I see that Detroit has outstripped New Orleans to take the First Place Honor.  Great.  Fabulous.  I searched the entire article twice and could find no documentation of criteria used or how this was determined.  It couldn't've been done by doctor visits; our unemployment rate is too high -- not that many people are insured any longer.  Can't blame me for it; I don't live in Detroit -- I'm in the "rich" 'burbs.  :D

Sorry, that just flew all over me; what are articles of this nature supposed to do?  Allow people in other cities to "tsk tsk!" themselves into a frenzy?  Let Ann Arbor feel even more superior than they already do?  Get federal money so Lansing can spend it on everything BUT making things better for Michigan as a whole?

Oh, who the fuck knows.

Interlude

I've been having to rebuild my computer over the last week and between that and getting ready for Christmas, my posting rhythm has been broken.  It's my plan to change that starting no later than Monday.  I hope to work today, as this is my one year anniversary of beginning to Make My Life a Better Place.  Let's see if I can pull it off.

Prelude to a Dream Part 2 -- Nashville to DFW

 I'm no angel, but yes, as referenced earlier, I decided to Look Homeward. Yes, dear lord, I moved back to Texas in June, 2010, the beginning of one of the hottest summers on record. Now, what most people don't know about Texas if they've never lived there is this: Summer starts in April. You can begin planting your flowers and garden vegetables in February. No one in his right mind relocates to Texas between April and November. The key words in that last sentence are “right” and “mind”.

My mama and I often discussed this phenomenon of seasons (or lack thereof) in Dallas: there is hot, and there is wet. That would be about it. Mama would always claim three: hot, wet and frozen but it was my contention that frozen was a subset of wet and didn't count. After many such discussions, I came to realize that wet and frozen were in fact two different things and that “subset” was the type of sass that would cause an asswhipping 90% of the time.

Yep. Hot, wet and frozen, that's the ticket.

So, yes, fled Nashville. I'd already lived through a flood of Noah-like proportions, my apartment being located in the part of town hardest hit by the all-surrounding waters from the overflowing Cumberland and Harpeth Rivers. The thought of the warmth of Texas filled me with weird joy, as my faulty memory assured me that the heat was “less humid” than what I had in Nashville. Well, less humid it may be, but not by much and the overall high temps are murder – absolute murder. Every time I leave the house in which I live, I have to fight an asthma attack. And well, I'm not exactly in Dallas; I'm in what is referred to as the “mid cities” – that arid wasteland between Dallas and Fort Worth that contains DFW Airport, old Texas Stadium, the NEW Cowboy football shrine and not a helluva lot more. As someone whose favorite regional joke as always been “What does Ft. Worth have that Dallas never will?” “A major city 35 miles away.” – I am perhaps not in a place meant to feel like home.

Then August hits. Oh, god, August. So hot, always so hot, worst month of the year August. There is a line from a short story I've always loved that says that August in Texas often lasts all the way to November 1^st. God help me, it's true in the Horrible Summer of Two Thousand Ten. I'm unhappy, I can't get it together to find a job, I'm drinking more and more – 1.5 liter bottles of vodka by the case – and I wake up one morning in Late September, start to pack my things back in the various boxes and bags. If I'm going to drink myself into oblivion and die underneath a goddamned overpass while living in a box, I'm going to do it in a place I bloody well want to live.

I contact my friends in Nashville for visiting/crash space as I come through on my way back Home. I am graciously received by myy beloved C. and her husband, who allow me to hang out and bug them and reconnect for several days. It's brilliant; I have a purpose again. I am feeling better than I ever have, the further and further I get from the putative place of my birth. I now realize that “home” isn't where you're born any more than being a parent is giving birth; Home is where you want to be, and I'm headed there at a rapid clip. Oakland County, I've been gone too damn long and I'm Coming Home.

Prelude to a Dream, Part One -- Detroit to Nashville

 I've been thinking about doing this for months now, and I've finally gotten off my ass long enough to actually do it. I'm going to chronicle the year I've just had and the year coming up.

For this to make actual sense, I need to back up to 2008, the Year When Things Fell Apart. I know I'm not the only one who had a complete lifestyle crash when the economy took a shit on us all but I'm the only one who lived through my particular bit. I'd been on and off unemployment and long term temp jobs, which do keep the food and rent money coming in but don't include “luxuries” such as oh, I don't know, medical insurance? No medical insurance meant no maintenance medications whicih meant absolutely no concentration. I managed to secure a truly plum position at one of the pre-eminent IP firms in the Detroit area, only to lose it a scant four months later; thank you bipolar and ADHD.

No money, no unemployment, sick cat, nowhere to go, on the verge of a complete mental breakdown, I held my kitty while she died then packed my car and headed south. Back to Nashville, where rumour had it I could find a job, some job, any job. Oh, please God, let me find a job. I left Detroit in November, 2008, and headed south.

Well, I had a place to stay and I found a job in December, but not one that was going to set any sorts of income standards. However, I will always be grateful to the company who gave me the opportunity to make SOMETHING vs. sitting around doing nothing, drinking, smoking dope and drinking more. At this point in my life my self-esteem is nonexistent, I'm passively suicidal and worst of all, the old lesion on my left leg breaks open again from all the swelling and pressure from my weight. The wound constinually drains and I have no insurance to cover any doctor visits. So I do my best and try to not freak out.

In April 2009, I get a much better job working a long term contract with the Department of Human Services in Nashville. I'm doing attorney-supervised reviews of appeals for Medicaid disenrollment. The irony of this is overwhelming; I'm listening to bitchy appeals using words like “entitled” and “owed” regarding medical benefits and I sit with a rapidly growing wound that continues untreated because I have no insurance, no money and nothing to use on the wounds but Neosporin, with Advil and alcohol, lots and lots of alcohol for the pain. My Advil consumption is running about 24 to 30 200mg tablets per day, on average.

I worry that I'm not going to have a liver much longer. I've had this worry before, but that was usually because my friends and I have slurped up too many martinis at some Birmingham bar. The wound that started out as a two inch lesion on the outside of my left ankle is now creeping around, and even more frighteningly, UP my leg. My right leg is now also being affected. I lie in bed at night, sobbing quietly, wondering how long it will be before this damned thing goes septic, spreads more and finally, inexorably, kills me. Even the hospitals in Nashville won't help me because I have no health insurance and cannot pay for treatment in advance.

I sit at home, and I hold a paper bag that had once held books from my precipitant flight south. It is a bag from Holiday Market in Royal Oak, Michigan. I rock back and forth, holding the bag in my lap, sobbing, tears dripping down on the brown kraft paper, feeling so far away from home. I miss Michigan so much, it's a constant ache in my belly.

The contract finally comes to an end on May 28, 2010. By this time I know I won't find another job/contract in Nashville. I spent hours talking about options with friends in Nashville and decided to do something that Thomas Wolfe warned against in every novel he ever wrote: I decided to go home again.

Wow. Yes, I moved back to Texas in June. Where was MY head?