[NetBehaviour] medical, vector

[Alan Sondheim]

Thank you so much for this, it's eloquent of course and I hope you write
more, continue. I'm terrified of dying and terrified at the same time of
hospitals, of disappearing to anyone but myself. Now I am going in for a
difficult MRI and I'm frightened at that as well; it lasts for an hour and
I've been asked to wear a mask in the machine. I have trouble breathing
through these in any case and I'm worried about a panic attack; on Monday
I'll call the center and see if something else can't be worked out - they
take into account special cases. Like many of us, I think, I no longer
'recognize myself,' part of me wants to stop working, wants to stop
everything, part of me soldiers on, so to speak, not a good metaphor. We've
had to cancel our one tiny trip because of constant heat waves we're
experiencing. I haven't been outside at all in days again; I'm worried
about another seizure, heat stroke. Downtown is 'opening up' somewhat here
in Providence and Azure and I and others are retreating. The skateboarders
a block away have been out all through the lockdown and let up without
masks. We sit and watch British shows, Jonathan Creek and now Inspector
someone, Lynley?? as we've seen all of Silent Witness. I practice music but
no idea to what end; I write and work on various pieces outside of
community. Without a yard to sit outside, on occasion we do go downstairs
at times - 4 in the past 5 months - for a bite to eat outside.

I'd like to hear how others deal with all these things; it brings for me
the theme of my work 'home' - the somatic, somatic ghosting. Sometimes we
see shadows of people across the street in the office buildings, but they
seem largely deserted. Or we'll look out the window to the gravel space
across the street, wondering who are those people. We've saved several
spiders, a moth, a fly, and a wasp that were trapped in our place. Life
goes on, toddering.

Reading - John Bercow's autobio; Scott Rettberg's Electronic Literature,
anthologyies of Koans and early Buddhist literature, Elizabeth Smart's
journals, histories of the early Net and Net culture, occasionally a Color
Atlas of Physiology which relies on systems theory, Science Magazine, lots
of articles. Listening again to SW radio.

And how are you doing? Any advice to any of us would be greatly
appreciated. Everything in "Amerikkka" at this point appears greatly
distorted...

Thank you so much again, Alan

On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 1:22 PM Edward Picot via NetBehaviour <
netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:

> Alan,
>
> I absolutely lived every moment of this. I was just thinking 'Every
> single traffic light is against them' when you said it out loud - and
> then Azure shot the last one before the freeway, turning from amber to
> red as you reached it, which seemed really dangerous and reckless but
> also like some kind of symbolic victory over the system. At first I
> couldn't work out if you were on your way to the hospital or going home
> afterwards, but your remark that this could be the start of a
> cross-country trip had such a note of wishful thinking that I realized
> you must be on your way. With that in mind the satnav instructions
> started to sound more and more ominous, and when they announced that you
> were arriving at your destination, and as you drove into the car park
> you confessed that you were starting to get nervous, the tension was
> palpable. After watching the video I found myself having to read Philip
> Larkin's poem The Hospital: 'O world, /Your loves, your chances, are
> beyond the stretch /Of any hand from here!' That terrible sense that the
> hospital/medical world, the world of illness and mortality and fate, is
> the underlying reality we spend our lives trying to ignore, and that
> 'normal' life is just a dream. Very appropriate to the Covid crisis.
>
> Edward
>
> On 23/07/2020 01:38, Alan Sondheim wrote:
> >
> >
> > medical, vector
> >
> > on the way to the lab for a series of medical tests
> >
> > http://www.alansondheim.org/medical.jpg
> > https://youtu.be/UrcsXQKHiOk  VIDEO
> >
> > went to sleep around 3, up @ 7 to get there early.
> > about a 12 minute drive.
> > Azure drives, Dr. said I'm not to drive for 6 mo.
> > we'll see.
> > a kind of dawn breaking, then some other stuff
> > rain when we came out, umbrellas.
> > reading an old book, Sal Restivo, The social relations
> > of Physics, Mysticism, and Mathematics.
> > lots of David Bohm. Reidel, 1983. I was too nervous to
> > read in the hallway. 3 separated chairs in the hallway,
> > 3 in the office. everything makes me nervous. medical
> > makes me nervous but don't think for a moment avoiding
> > tests. that's all we have, tests.
> > the camera does poorly in poor light. once out of the
> > garage, everything adjusts properly. sound is 5.1.
> > lost in car noise, 2013 Honda Fit. huddled inside now.
> > again. no cloud formations are alike. my dreams aren't
> > good. it's worse when i remember them. what's about
> > this, it's normal. it's normal one way or another.
> > take a bus. walk. get a ride. drive. keep on going
> > across America. Keep crossing America, America!
> > Keep on going, America!
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > NetBehaviour mailing list
> > NetBehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org
> > https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>
>
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