Sorry I’ve been MIA the last few days. I find that I have the same anxiety holding me back here as in recording Gord’s Gold, it’s choosing the subject matter. There are so many musicians I love; how do I single one out? There’s so much on my mind, how do I decided which one to write about? There’s an added problem when I blog, there are so ideas I want to write about every day, and that would get boring. Then there are things that I strongly believe in, but I know people will take the wrong way and I’ll end up convincing people of the antithesis of the point I’m trying to make. It’s always easiest to deal with my adventures. Can I have adventures when I don’t go outside? Today I did.
This morning I heard a knock on my door. A loud knock followed by the bell ringing. I hadn’t let anyone into the building so I couldn’t think who it could be. I grabbed a mask and answered the door. It was one of my neighbors, one I don’t know. I hardly know anybody in the building. He got off on the right foot as he was wearing a mask. He then gave me disturbing news. My roommate put an American flag out the window for July 4. We then both forgot about it and it was still flying. He told me that somebody tore it down and dumped it on the ground. I’m on the second floor. He said they climbed up and in the process broke the mount holding the flag. Anyone who could do that could have also climbed in through the open window. I was surprised that I didn’t hear anything. I put on my shoes and went to retrieve the flag. Fine leaving the house was part of the adventure, but I never left the property. I found the flag in the bushes at the end of the handicap ramp. I retrieved it and brought it inside. I’ll have to wash it. That is allowed in flag etiquette. One of the weird things I’ve read up on over my life. I always wanted to know more than the right-wing flag wavers that so often go against proper etiquette and use the flag as a cudgel.
I was upset at the vandals that would come into my personal space to desecrate at flag. Nobody in my neighborhood is political. We have some BLM posters up but that’s it. There have been no protests. I figured whoever did this was doing it for the pleasure of vandalizing. Then as I stared writing this an idea came to me. There’s a tropical storm with high winds. I bet the flag was just blown down. That’s now my working hypothesis. I’m not going to worry about people climbing in my window.
The next adventure is a thriller. The cats are trying to gaslight me; they might be succeeding. My roommate is away; it’s just me and the cats in the apartment. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. It starts with me going into the kitchen to make brunch and finding a bottle of wine on the table we use as a kitchen counter. I keep the table clear, so I have a clean workspace. While both my roommate and I have occasionally left something on the counter, I’ve never seen a bottle of wine there and more importantly if it had been there earlier I would have noticed. I told myself that someone I missed it earlier. Cats can’t carry bottles of wine and there was no one else in the house.
My next time in the kitchen I saw the kitchen window was open. My roommate spends a lot of time in the dining area, so she likes it open. I don’t so I close it. The exhaust fan is in the kitchen and I want the outside air being sucked into the house to come from the living room or bedroom windows to keep the air flowing through the entire house. I close it whenever it is open, and my roommate isn’t in the room. I had been there many times since she left. It couldn’t have been open that entire time. Have the cats taught themselves to open windows? I was starting to seriously doubt my sanity.
Today was the third attempt at gaslighting me. I went to make breakfast and saw the exhaust fan was off. I always keep it on. I don’t have the AC in the windows and that’s all that keeps the apartment from getting too hot and stuffy. Yet there it was off. If you have seen the film Gaslight you’ll recognize that this is exactly the kinds of things that Charles Boyer did to Ingrid Berman to make her doubt her sanity. I have to worry about mine as I’m blaming the cats. What’s wrong with me? Cats can’t carry wine bottles, open windows, or turn off fans. Perhaps someone is climbing up the wall and entering the apartment and doing all these things. Perhaps I am going insane. Perhaps the explanation is something truly outlandish; that I have been unobservant and forgetful. If I witness a murder and nobody believes me because they think I’m insane make sure to point the police to this blog, so they’ll know what happened. It might help them solve the case. They won’t believe me as they’ll be convinced that I’m insane, and I might by then agree with them.
I discussed this theory with my therapist. At least I’m trying to stay sane. That reminds me that I did some selfcare. As soon as I was finished with therapy I made an appointment for my next infusion. It looks like I can go back to having it in my neighborhood. My next order of business as finding a primary care physician. I was going to just call Montefiore, I’m in their system, and ask for them to help me choose one but then I realized that I have a friend that’s a doctor that works there. I asked him to recommend someone. The important part is that I wrote him immediately. I didn’t put it off.
I got my COVID-19 test back. It was negative. It just said COVID-19 test so I’m assuming it’s the one that checks for the virus not the antibodies. As I’ve been so careful I’m not surprised. I might well have caught it early on before the lockdown and been asymptomatic, so I am more curious about the antibodies. New York City is urging everyone to get tested so they can understand how the disease is spreading in the City. It varies widely by neighborhood, in the aptly named Corona 68% of those tested have been positive. In more well-off neighborhoods the numbers are much lower, 14%. If you want to motivate me to do something tell me it’s for the common good. I don’t like letting people down and I try hard to be a good citizen.
Wise Madness 