I [HEART] TEETH

Sheet of notebook paper from the 1980s.

(text of the PDF letter posted above follows, and then contemporary commentary)

Dear Tooth Fairy,

I know alot of people are loosing thier teeth, because of the Thanksgiving rush, but please give me $1.50 instead of $1.00.

P.S. If you dond have change and you only have $2.00 or twenty that will be fine.

I DON’T Have ALOT LEFT SO Depend on Nicholas, my baby cousin, he has lots!

***** original spelling and other errors preserved from original document

I still sort of remember how the P.S. was an afterthought. By this time, I knew the connections with the tooth fairy, and that being too overtly greedy would not work.  I love how I framed the option of rounding up to larger denominations as being satisfactory and convenient. But that’s after my first recall was one knowing that this was during my Monopoly-mastering stage, so I didn’t realize I was so diplomatic in the request. (I think I had another note when I was cashing in a tooth with a silver filling, but I’ve never come across that one.) The reason I didn’t have many primary teeth left had a lot to do with the missing top-front four, and another instance when I lost two teeth on the same day. Look how smart my parents were, though—they knew the teeth supply was limited, and so funded the tooth fairy trade. When it came to school, they never destroyed the intrinsic motivation of learning (or inadvertently raised the pay-off for cheating) by paying us for grades.

 

kaleidoscope eyes

"U went for glasses? Nurd or sexy?"

 

from correspondence…

“Hi Spammers,

here is the paper for Wed. Sorry for sending it so late! (see paper and models
in two separate docs.). This is about half of a
first draft of a paper – I have not written a word on entire sections, and the
ones already written need more care. It may sound familiar to other things I
presented in SPAM since I’m using the same data, dependent variable, and some
old ideas. There’s a monster inside me – like in the ALIEN movies – that makes
me write, even against my will, about why people protest using the ACPS … But
other emerging monsters are ready to take command of my brain and will hopefully
move it to distant places soon.
Although I need feedback on everything, the most pressing question for me now is
whether this is an interesting question to pursue. I’m pretty persuaded that
this paper should ‘fill a gap’ (at least for me), but I’m not sure if people
believe it’s a gap interesting enough to be filled. And as always, I would love
any suggestion for improving my English.

Thanks so much!”

 

“fire in the hole!”

The day started with omelets. Pictorial documentation’s imminent. I’m on the cusp of the 21st Century in one respect at least. Text is alright for this moment, right?

I’ve been on an activity drive since the flurried excitement of a morning allowing the Grands to rest while I engaged in the wonderful exercise of communication and bigtime planning with nephews C and D. What a great gig!

And my mind’s been cranking out the juice all day.

This is so surreal! I’m even gonna copy and paste some contemporaneous, same-day writings. I haven’t been this bold about revealing some of the raw innerworkings of my mind for well over a decade.

INXS just kicked in for the internal jukebox. So taste it, maybe:

New Sensation.

Are you feeling so good because you got an optimistic report from the doc?

No! LOL this is all on my head, just like my tons of tumors and all. I’ve NEVER been one to feel a way because it’s what’s expected. Always exploring what my body and mind might have to offer. Or at least that’s what I’ve always tried. Sometimes things click. Mysterious and grand!

Jamie

“I am totally in a Zen, present moment cycle here. Very similar to my recovery after extreme brain stem-shifting tumor removal of Summer 1998, that defied expectations and catapulted me into grad school and stuff. I am very much enjoying the ride. The level of clarity is astounding! It’s likely I’ll have a few manuscripts out of all this! LOL!!!

I love creativity. Man did I miss my brain there!!! It’s like a long lost friend is back.

What a ride! Lots of good music in my head!

Jamie”

Subject: More Research — mutated to Jamie Shifting the Paradigm

(Belated note: I was replying to something, that was being discussed in the conventional ways of clinical trial research enterprises, but had missed the context until I was well into elaborating on what had already commenced in my mind. It’s been good to have a sense of how the wheels turn from different ends of the crankshaft.)

I don’t want to freak anyone out on the Crew, or alienate folks with my inspired musings, but it’s entertaining me to see what’s coming out here. I’m highly self-regulating here, so I’m in control and you should not be worried. I’m just sharing this, if you feel like the read. :) As I said, though, I shifted the original context.)

Yeah, we’ll see how things go! It’s like I’m on a personal clinical trial of my own design!!! Of course the absolute best thing would be for whatever to translate into some use for other people. For the moment, I’m embracing all these really cool perspectives. And enjoying moving all over, too. Cleaning, showering, cooking, and taking care of/playing with nephews has been effortless. Pure joy: you have no idea, perhaps. (I know you guys haven’t been aware of my chronic problems because I just kind of endure stuff and get by, but I know there are people who can relate to the degree of effort put into each and every, everyday thing, that builds up for chronically and progressively ill individuals that does exist experientially.) (Though maybe we’ll get some fluidity and reversibility here, like you observe in collective behavior contagion models.)

Right now, though, it’s like I’m a little energy rich kid again. But with greater skill. And I hope it’s contagious! Very cool that we may biologically possess the power to retain that perceptual memory, and can perhaps draw on it when we fall into a vulnerable state, despite the bulks of tumors in our bodies, or controlling if or how rapidly they may grow. My body is functioning at optimal pace, and I’m tuned into the perfect balance of the past, present, and future. Simultaneously! Perfection! In ways, the world’s a state of mind, but it’s reciprocally conditioned by biological constraints. And we gotta respect those. Life and creation is so beautifully complex and elegant. What an elusive power, though, in the things that we can’t willfully force. Hope, yes. But what comes… It is most up to us to remain receptive. What are you building for yourself and others?

Benevolence.

————–

I’m on this wavelength out here. I started this theory stuff as part of formal studies, too, and it’s coming back via another round of lived experience, which is pretty exciting. Science requires repetition and replication. I’m getting a repetition of a local phenomenon (many levels and scales over the years, actually: training, practice). And then I see how my repeated individual experiences open an area that may universalize the possibility for others (any human being: we’re all vulnerable to threats to basic life-sustaining processes). Man this moves even beyond Irv Zola! How awesome! The synthesis of the biological and the social. All those beautiful connections and links!

My mind is organizing stuff internally, yet I’m not getting all bogged down in fretting about whether it’s gonna be possible to convey it in a form comprehensible to others because right now it’s about laying the blueprint for me and enjoying my current ride. Awareness. I’m extensively aware of the context I haven’t been able to provide yet for all this. (As well as some explication of prior philiosophers and humanists.) There’s tons. And it’s falling in the “manageable,” and “doable,” column once again. The opportunity to pursue such a wild living experiment. The bionic, the effects of technology that’s been integrated in my very being. Brainstem as body’s regulatory control center, and what’s with mine and the effect that the ABI has had, especially in light of having to withstand repeated mass damage and scar tissue–but what ameliorative effect has the electrical stimulation and phenomena of alternative auditory-sensation-production contribute as to enhancing functional capacity? Vast potential, even in the face of infinite variables, perhaps.

I know I have the capacity again to communicate all the subtle intricacies of what I’ve learned, through living in such vibrant and diverse spheres of experience. Of course, that was all socially generated. I guess I’m lifting that veil between the Private and Public spheres, or something like that.

Things are what they are. In the moment.

——
OK, so steroid weaning is still satisfactory. I have been riding a great natural endorphin high, or whatever. The contrast to chronic pain makes it that much more enjoyable. And I’m into reintegrating here. Very even-keeled about everything. Optimal healing environment.

Good drama and it’s free.

 

Teach the parents well, and let the ponds freeze

Nd won hockey sweeping mich out the door baby luv u mom

---------

This was an unsolicited message.  I am beaming with pride!  And way to go, Irish Icers!

 

Why, why, why…..

“Big moon. Luv u mom

Sent via ___ from ___"

Pull your pants up!!!

——————————————————-

I know she’s in public… so this is especially good advice.

Note: I’ve been making empty statements about posting various situation and dialogue snippets to my blog. I’ve refrained. (Largely because I forget what I was going to post, and forgotten snippets aren’t very funny.) I saw this stuff in print, somewhere, and figured it was fair game.

 

Way back, someone had written about how sometimes as frequently as every day there was a period of time where he allowed himself to mourn his losses (and the losses of others in the world) and sort of wallow in pity… and that this was something that he did for a very short period of time, but he let it happen if he felt like it… and then he was free to move out from there and live.

When I first joined the Crew I remember asking about advice for dealing with whatever happened (I asked a lot of questions back then!) and I remember someone (maybe one of the giants you speak of, but they lived in this world just as we are doing) saying it’s seldom a particular state of being that’s so difficult to live with, it’s that initial change in state.

I put the two together… and soon I had turned outward (and inward at the same time) and I was getting that balance: It’s hard because we don’t want to let go of things if they can be improved somehow, yet we need to know when to just fly with it and improvise.

The thing is, if we let go of something and are still receptive for it to return then we can move on and if it does return, then we are surprised and delighted (breathing, walking, eating, days free of constant and severe headaches, mornings not filled with nausea, and hearing music in my experience). If it doesn’t, then we just keep on keeping on (a full smile, and I know there’s other stuff for me, but I don’t even think about them anymore so I can’t name ‘em).

The reason why I’m “up” a lot of the time now and why the Crew rarely sees my “down” times is because everything is just part of a process now… and having come through a really rough few years of living day-to-day and experiencing total dependence on the people around me, I can use what I learned through those experiences to fuel my life every day. When I came out of my surgery in 1996, I couldn’t do anything for myself. At first it was pure torture because my body was completely out of control and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

It didn’t take long for me to just totally give into it… and instead of fighting the dependency, I reveled in it as an experience. I was still very much determined to get myself back in shape to do things for myself again, but it stopped being about me fighting to get up a mountain and just turned into me traveling down the path, learning what I could along the way and not really thinking about where it was leading. That’s how I dealt with the cycles of depression when the uncertainties were getting the best of me.

It’s not that I’ve always been happy (or even that I always am happy happy all the time now), it’s just that going through the extreme states that NF2 exposes us to had to be for a reason for me and it seems like no matter what was/is happening to my body, the constant has been my ability to define what it all meant/means.

You are one of the “WOW!” people.
It doesn’t mean you’ll always be in a cheery mood, but if you’ll stick around a bit and give things some time then I’ll bet the better days will overpower the others. Please give it a go because we need you.

By the way, I despised the rehab people and hated it when people kept telling me to be patient during periodic fits of thinking things were going too slow. Everything looks so much better when looking back, though! I hope you get to do the same, although maybe a little different.

 

. . . HOT TUB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!
I am there! I really like hot tubs. One of my nicest memories was a late Spring night in ‘96. We were in California, nestled between mountain ridges. The moon and the stars shone brightly in the sky. The air was rather brisk, but the night was made perfect as we slipped off our clothes and slithered into the hot tub; the steam rising to caress our bodies, the sweet motion of the spa jets to take away the day’s pains from our arduous journey. Yes, boys, there was gold in them hills–gold!

(portions of the above passage are completely factual)

. . .

[8/2006: the context of this excerpt included some references to watching Seinfeld at 12:30am, so I am assuming that J. Peterman catalogue-speak was fresh in my mind]

 

… I forgot to tell you earlier about the Rolling Stone issue I got today:

the advertisement for Fruit of the Loom underwear actually had a miniature pair of men’s underwear in it!!! complete with the name brand on the waist band and similar stitching, etc. like the ‘real thing’.
It was quite humorous. I started cracking up while my Mom was on the phone. I didn’t know who she was talking to, but she ’shushed’ me… I guess it was business… I held it up to her right away and she just about cracked up on the phone.

…