Breakfast of Champions

The book came out a year before I was born.  1973, to be exact.  I didn't discover Vonnegut's writings until I ventured off on my own to college, nearly 20 years later.  Like other author's that I quickly become enamored with, I devoured his library of work as fast as I could.

Admittedly, many of the more subtle points of Mr. Vonnegut's writings escaped me, for I was a simple babe in the woods in those younger years.  Wide-eyed, questioning, but not yet really understanding much of how things really worked in this world.

When I re-read many of Vonnegut's books about a decade later, they made a lot more sense to me.  By this point, I had a little world travel under my belt, had surfed and skied and gotten really drunk in a lot of different places on the planet.  From all outwardly appearances, things seemed to be going swimmingly, but really, I was just a robot, going through the paces.  I was quite sick during this time, and not one person understood what I was going through, including myself.  I just knew I was slowly falling apart and rotting away. 

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It's been over a week now since I received my first Lyme Disease antigen shot.  I still don't have much information to share about this yet, but will after my next appointment - I promise.  For now, however, I just want to share a very relevant passage from the preface of Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 book "Breakfast of Champions", a passage that was pointed out to me by my doctor on my last visit (he had just started reading the book).

When my doctor asked me if I had read Vonnegut before, I just smiled.

"I've been to the location of Slaughterhouse Five in Dresden", I said.  "Yes, I'm a fan of his work".  

The doctor then reminded me of that passage in the preface, and as he described it, it all came back to me.    

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As for the suspicion I express in this book, that human beings are robots, are machines:  It should be noted that people, mostly men, suffering from the late stages of syphilis, from locomotor ataxia, were common spectacles in downtown Indianapolis and in circus crowds when I was a boy.

Those people were infested with carnivorous little corkscrews which could be seen only with a microscope.  The victims’ vertebrae were welded together after the corkscrews got through with the meat between.  The syphilitics seemed tremendously dignified - erect, eyes straight ahead.

I saw one stand on a curb at the corner of Meridian and Washington streets one time, underneath an overhanging clock which my father designed.  The intersection was known locally as “The Crossroads of America.”

This syphilitic man was thinking hard there, at the Crossroads of America, about how to get his legs to step off the curb and carry him across Washington Street.  He shuddered gently, as though he had a small motor which was idling inside.  Here was his problem:  his brains, where the instructions to his legs originated, were being eaten alive by corkscrews.  The wires which had to carry the instructions weren’t insulated anymore, or were eaten clear through.  Switches along the way were welded open or shut.  

This man looked like an old, old man, although he might have been only thirty years old.  He thought and thought.  And then he kicked two times like a chorus girl.

He certainly looked like a machine to me when I was a boy.  

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A little FYI:  The bacterial spirochete that causes Lyme Disease is a close cousin to the spirochete that is responsible for Syphilis.  Even many of the symptoms that each causes are similar.  Before it was known that a simple shot of penicillin could cure syphilis, many struggled and lived with the disease.  Kind of like Lyme today, except no magic bullet has yet been found to eradicate the Lyme spirochete.

I plan on doing more writing in the future.  Of course, my plans and desires don't often pair up well with the physical state of my body and the need for my body to rest.

The last couple of weeks have been rough.  I've been filled with the desire to do so many things lately, my mind on overdrive.  The 18 hours of bright, beautiful sunshine we've been getting probably has a lot to do with this.  However, my lower back and left knee and head, jaw, and right wrist, and…. have had other ideas.  Due to their conspiratorial efforts,  I've spent most of my time recently in my zero-gravity chair or on the floor.  At least my head has been a bit clearer as of late.  It's a blessing and a curse.  I can read without too much trouble, but I'm also now more aware of how bad of shape certain parts of my body are.  One of the many Catch-22's when dealing with Lyme.  

The Dresden Messe on the outskirts of Dresden, Germany.  The location of the actual Slaughterhouse from Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death"

This is approximately where the entrance to the actual Slaughterhouse was located.  The whole area  sits on a wide bend in the Elbe River, so a lot of industrial type stuff went on out here.  It is very slowly being built back up and restored since the reunification of East Germany with West Germany in 1990.

Un-Total Recall

This last week has been a relatively good one.  Overall, certain neurological and cognitive symptoms have declined while on the most current antibiotic protocol of Doxycycline and Flagyl.  Other symptoms have increased or gotten worse, likely a result of the Herxenheimer reaction and the huge load of crap I'm dumping down my throat each day to get me healthy.  My back and body and arthritic pain has been substantially worse, yet I'm filled with anxious energy most of the day.  If I'm not moving or doing something that's keeping me occupied, I get bored and antsy.  It's frustrating as hell, because there really isn't a whole helluva lot that I can do.

Another thing that the Flagyl-type antibiotics do to me, and I know I've mentioned this before, is they make me feel a bit loopy and scatter my emotions all over the place.  When I do get up to walk around, I feel a bit like the alien character Vincent D'onforio played in "Men in Black".  You know, the stumbling, bumbling, leg dragging zombie-looking dude with his head barely attached that emerges from the crashed flying saucer?  Yeah, I feel like that a lot.

I've still been having a really hard time typing and using a mouse to work on the computer.  The last few days, I've been limited to only an hour or two each day of being able to do anything.  I'm glad I've finally embraced Siri on the iPhone.  I wish she existed on this laptop. The arthritis in my hands and arms and fingers (and the rest of my body) is definitely getting worse with time.  The future ain't looking too bright for me and computer work.  Reminds me of the days when my right wrist or elbow would swell to the size of a baseball, be red and hot, and I'd go into work and do everything left handed for a couple weeks.  Yeah, those were the days……

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The above is just me bitching about my situation, or telling it like is, I guess.  My aches and pains likely go beyond most people's, but we all deal with this shit as we get older (as I type this one day before my 40th birthday).  I'll deal.  Always have.

Something occurred last night, however, that kind of scared me.  An old friend posted a picture on Facebook of a play that our 6th grade class had performed back in 1986.  I recognized the gym, I recognized all the faces and remembered all the names.  What I can't remember is participating in that play, or any details of it for that matter.

As I laid down for bed, this was really bugging me.  I searched my memory for everything I could, focussing on those years in 5th and 6th grade at Fullerton IV Elementary.  Nothing came.  Actually, some stuff did, but all bordering on the negative.   They weren't exactly pleasant memories, but simply the stuff most kids go through and learn from.   But I KNOW I had fun at that school.  I made some awesome friends, played sports with some great guys and gals, but where are these specific memories?  Bits and pieces, sure, but not much else.

So I tried to reach back farther, and lo-and-behold, I was flooded with childhood memories, happy ones, fun ones.  For the sake of brevity, I won't list them here, but these memories were also associated with a surge of energy through my body, telling me I had hit upon something.  What I'd hit upon was a big, huge, thick-ass wall that went up in my life between 4th and 5th grade.  It was during this time that I was infected with Lyme Disease.

I have had the problem on dwelling on the negative for most of my life, and I think I know why now.  I am highly, highly aware of this problem, and being aware, have tried to remedy it in numerous ways numerous times.  It's often driven me batty, my overactive mind always trying to find answers to questions such as, "why am I like this?".  "Why do I act like this?".  "Why can't I control it?"

I've never did read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, so I don't know how cognizant one was of the other.  In my case, when I'm being, as Joe Rogan likes to say, a cunt, I know I'm doing it.  And I can't stop.  And then I breathe and think, "what in the hell did I just do?  why?".   And then I'm back to being a nice, laid back guy who is really easy to get along with.  You know, until I blow up again and alienate myself from everyone.

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I want my friends, old and new alike, to know that these negative feelings are only memories being affected.  My feelings towards people I know and respect are almost always positive, and those haven't been changed by Lyme.  Looking at that picture made me smile.  Seeing all of those familiar faces from those early years really made me long for "home", that abstract feeling of a place where so much of one's energy resides.

I'm really glad that picture was posted (thanks, Misha!).  It has provided me with another piece to my health puzzle, a once fuzzy picture that has now come into much better focus.

Now, to see if I survive until tomorrow.  Frankly, there were times I didn't think I'd see 40.  Like the time I was stuck on a 50 degree slope with hundreds of feet of exposure in way too warm of spring weather with slumping snow conditions in the Alps somewhere in Austria……. okay, for some reason, that's a 'negative' memory that makes me smile :)   I know, I'm weird….