CarlHoliday

Thank you for your comment. Yes, Chapter 3 will be very eventful for Ed.

Luckily, the psychiatrist I was referred to had his office in the medical building across the street from North Park General Hospital, so Syl didn’t have to drive me into Seattle. Dr. Vickers was a short man with graying black hair and a bushy graying beard. He spoke with an accent I couldn’t place. His graduation certificates said he went to college in Massachusetts and medical school in Illinois. Also, he had some kind of certificate from the University of Cambridge in England. I asked him abo

Thank you for your comment. I'll endeavor to keep your interest throughout the posting of this story.

For as long as I can remember somewhat clearly, I saw my life as a story. I first recognized my role in my story in 1955 when I was four-years-old. I was the protagonist. Syl was always the antagonist in my story. Syl never seemed to be happy as my mother. Maybe it was because she was shorter than my father, E3, so slender she could be called skinny, had breasts so small as to be nearly insignificant, had a very prominent nose, and an obvious overbite. I don’t think I ever called her Mommy, Momm

Ed has a story to tell about survival. It begins with an incident so horrible you may think Ed isn’t going to come out okay at the end. There are many low points in his life, but Ed keeps trying to make things work no matter how bad it may seem. Just when he thinks he’s finally in the clear, we’ll let him tell his story.

It's been a while since I last visited Blogland here at the ol' GA, so I might as well update you on how things are going in my little corner of the world. First off, my service-connected disabilities were reevaluated by the VA. I'm no longer rated at 50% for Bipolar Disorder. I've been rerated at 70% for Schizoaffective Disorder Bipolar Type. The only reason I wasn't rated at 100% (the next level) was because I wasn't frequently hospitalized, had many suicide attempts, or homeless. Also, my knees were rerated. When I got out of the Air Force back in '75, I was rated at 20% service-connected disabled for both knees due to Chrondromalacia Patella Bilateral (that's both knees). In 2011, I was again rated at 20% disabled for Chrondromalacia. Now, my knee disability has been redefined as Degenerative Arthritis and rated as 10% for my left knee, plus another 10% for my left knee, plus 10% for my right knee, plus another 10% for my right knee. Now, if you weren't paying attention that's 10% + 10% + 10% + 10% = 10%. Yep, in the wisdom of the VA bureaucracy 4 X 10 = 10. What I want to know is why didn't they just continue with the 20%? Oh, that novel I wrote? Well, let's just say that I'm not going to bother getting it published in any shape or form. First of all, I found out there are a ton of books out there in its genre. I don't know where they are, but an agent flat out told me, at present, there's no market for that kind of stuff. So it looks like you guys get to peruse it a chapter at a time. As far as other writing projects, I have a story almost ready to submit for the Spring Anthology. Since it took me five attempts at getting a story for the Spring Anthology, that means that there should be at least four stories I can post in the coming months. The first one is about a 12-year-old boy whose mother won't tell him anything about his father. Then one day a relative lets slip the name, Jim Bob, and he sees the front page of an old newspaper with the headline, JAMES SWANSON GUILTY! He goes on a search for his father and, in the end, may wish he let sleeping dogs lie. In the near term, I'll be getting my first COVID vaccination dose on Tuesday and the second in three weeks. I look forward to getting back into a gym because I've tacked on quite a few pounds since moving to Plano.

Interesting story with a lot going on, but in many ways unspoken. The older man looking for companionship. The younger man looking for extra money to have extra money. Looking at the story from Harold's POV I see a man who isn't ready to go out to pasture, but is wary of who's in the barn. Good writing.

Thank you for your comment. I'll try harder next time to satisfy your needs. Maybe I'll murder the lot, at the hands of the well-liked lead character, in the end.

Thank you for your comment. Yes, it did turn out to be one of those out of the frying pan only to land in the fire.

The binary stars above Moresby’s Planet brightly glared down on the scrub land west of Water Station 37G3. The search party was four days out of Village 31K2.6. They were afoot because the natural sandstone bridges across Langley’s Chasm weren’t wide enough for personal terrestrial transport units, wheeled or living. The widest bridges were, in fact, barely wide enough for a person to walk across. Most weren’t even that wide. At least they had been charted, and the party had the latest maps of t

The Moresby Collective Association controls life for Terrans living on Moresby’s Planet in the Andromeda galaxy. Twenty-one teens are running away from Village 31K2.6 because of unspoken horrors afflicting young people. There goal is the land on the other side of the Great Western Sea where legend says they will live free for the rest of their lives. Chasing them are thirty-one adults who will kill every teen, except for their leader Edgar Christiansson. He will be returned to the village to be executed in a way only humans can imagine.

I like the pace of the story. At first I thought this battle was taking place during WWI, but it quickly evolved into another time and place. Tactics were played out to achieve the strategic goal. Good story.

A nice well written story. I enjoyed the continued suspense leading up the final solution. I also enjoyed reading about Teddy's forever being a princess. I suppose the ending was inevitable considering there had to be a funeral.

It's been a fun two weeks so far in my new hometown of Plano, Texas. My old faults have come back and are having a blast messing with my attempt at independence in the sunset years of my life. First, I suffer from chronic procrastination. What can be put off until tomorrow will enable me to do fun things, like write a story or read an article in The New Yorker, today. I have tons of broken down cardboard boxes that can't be put in the trash. They're supposed to be taken down to special dumpsters in the parking garage to be recycled. I have an extra IKEA bookcase to put together. I have all my books unpacked and put in two bookcase, but the other one patiently waits for me to get a round-to-it. Then there's the second bar stool that came in pieces. One came put together, but the other came in a box. I know there's another round-to-it someplace around here, but I haven't found it. Then there's the new vacuum cleaner. I know it was unhappy in the box, so I took it out, read the "put together" instructions, and put in a corner until I find the round-to-it that I put somewhere, but can't remember where. My desk is put together, but for some unknown reason the printer wouldn't talk to the wifi router. My new insurance agent gave me an HP USB cable and now the printer is hardwired to the laptop. Funny thing happened the other day. The printer's been disconnected from wifi software for over a week, but suddenly the wifi button has started blinking as if it's trying to connect to the wifi router. Well, I'm sorry, it had its chance to play ball according to its very own software, but I'm not about to undo everything I had to do to make it work just so it can start acting the way it was manufactured. There are principles here that have to be acknowledged. An idea that's been floating around in my head for a couple years finally came to my attention in a moment of actual consciousness (I have this slight insanity problem). Since my previous VA psychiatrist changed my diagnosis from Bipolar Disorder to Schizoaffective Disorder, Bipolar Type, I've been ruminating the idea of putting in for a reevaluation of my VA service-connected disabilities. So after I arrived here, I decided to contact the DAV (my official VSO) and see if they'd be willing to help me with submitting the reevaluation. I called their local office, but they didn't answer, it didn't even go to voicemail. So I used their email submission tool, but I haven't received a response from that. I suppose they're using the COVID-19 "we can't do our normal job" excuse to not do their job of supporting disabled vets. Last Wednesday night I looked on the VA website and found I could do this on my own, so I did it. I included having a reevaluation of my knees, too. They've gotten to the point where I've developed a limp. Now my ankles and left hip are going bad because of that. On Thursday, the local VA vendor who handles disability reevaluations called and said they would be setting up a couple appointments for interviews on the current state of my disabilities. The one for bipolar will me a teleconference appointment and the knee one will be face-to-face. Just goes to show that DIY sometimes works. Driving around Plano, I've become frustrated with the drivers in this town. I've never encountered drivers who invariably drive ten miles per hour under the speed limit. That's a twenty in a thirty, thirty in a forty, thirty-five in a forty-five, and forty-five in a fifty-five. Why? You can be too careful. The weird thing about those drivers is that most of them are alone in their cars and wearing face masks as if they're afraid the virus is going to come in through the air conditioning. Maybe it's that they have the air conditioning turned off, have their windows rolled up, and are slowly suffocating while driving to Walmart. Then there are the street racers. Corvettes, crew cab pickups with their tires sticking six inches out beyond the fenders, Mercedes coupes and roadsters, Lamborghinis, and all the rest driving sixty-plus in a 40 MPH zone, weaving in and out of traffic, going thru red lights, and all the other shit. It's enough to make someone consider walking or using public transportation. Unfortunately, there aren't that many sidewalks, buses don't go from here to there, and everything is so spread out. It doesn't help that I can't walk anymore. It's gotten to the point when I go to Walmart, Target, or Tom Thumb, I use the shopping cart as a walker. I refuse to even consider getting one of those scooters. I'm not a scooter kind of guy. You know what people think when they see an apparent healthy person riding around in one of those things. They're wonder if both legs are artificial, whether the heart is counting its last beats, or possibly they convinced some fly-by-night doctor their made up disability is serious enough for a blue handicapped tag to hang from their mirror and a free scooter from Medicare. My feet may ache because of neuropathy, my knees maybe severely arthritic, but you're not going to see me riding around in one of those scooters. But to get by I have my writing. I've got my novel waiting go to England for analysis (someone spent a ton of money on a totally impractical move to Texas and there's not enough money on the credit card to cover the fee). I've written a new story for the Fall Anthology. And, there are all those other novels waiting for me to get back to them. Plus, there's that collection of short stories to write and get published. That's the news for now. It's Sunday and since I played lazy yesterday, I have to get cleaned up and walk down to the mailbox to see how much junk mail I got.

The biggest problem with the Garland Medical Center is that the VA doesn't show a phone number or website for them, so in reality there's no way to make an appointment or to see what services are available there and per VA reaction to COVID-19 you can't just show up and expect to see anyone. Maybe the VA will eventually get over this COVID-19 issue and start providing medical service again.

I've moved on. Back in 2011 I came to the end of my residence in the VA Homeless Shelter at the Salvation Army facility in Dallas, TX. My original plan was to get an apartment somewhere in the north end of Dallas, but my son said, "Hey, come on up here an live with me." His intention was for him to be my caretaker/caregiver in the sunset years of my life. Unfortunately, I get all my health care from the VA. Where he lives it's nearly 40 miles to the nearest VA clinic and nearly 60 miles to the nearest VA medical center. It got to the point where doing either drive was something I no longer wanted to do. So I went searching for a new home somewhere near a VA clinic and/or VA medical center. I found an apartment north of Dallas that is 4 miles to the VA clinic and within walking distance to a light-rail station that will take me to the Dallas medical center. I left Washington last Saturday morning and made Boise, ID, by nightfall. The next day's destination was Moab, UT, then to Tucumcari, NM, and finally to where I'm living now. It was an interesting drive. The first day I was suicidal as shit eyeing every oncoming semi or bridge abutment as an easy out, but I recognized the issue and made frequent stops to refocus. After that first day, everything went fairly decently. Most of the route was on roads I drove when I was driving long-haul truck. The only roads I hadn't been on before was US-64 east out of Shiprock to Bloomfield, NM, and US-550 south from Bloomfield to Bernalillo, NM. I even stopped at the Ute Mountain Travel Center south of Cortez, CO, and bought a colorful vase for my new apartment. My apartment is a one bedroom in a building with its own parking garage. The apartment has a shower, so I don't have to climb over the side of a bathtub with my arthritic knees and ankles. Plus, the peripheral neuropathy doesn't help at all. After signing the lease and paying the first month's rent yesterday, I got my keys this morning and took all nine boxes out of the car and moved into the apartment. Then it was down to Spectrum for my internet modem and wifi router, finding a cattle ranch in the middle of town, first stop at Walmart for dishes, glasses, kitchen utensils, and bed linens in that order. The cattle ranch was the surprise, Tomorrow my furniture will be delivered. According to the delivery instructions, I'm stop 5. The salesman told me the delivery truck will give me 30 minutes notice. So it looks like I'll be hanging around the new place all day waiting for my furniture. I'll stop at Home Depot for some lamps and a couple stools for the kitchen counter. Saturday will be a trip to IKEA for a POANG chair and ottoman and three BILLY bookcases. Hopefully, they'll hold all my books. Then it's back to Walmart for a vacuum cleaner, silverware, and pots and pans. Once I'm settled, it'll be back to writing. I've written a novel about a boy who has childhood-onset schizophrenia. I'm working on a synopsis and then it's off to Jericho Writers for an analysis. Once I get it back and make the suggested changes, I'll start looking for an agent. If that doesn't work out, I'll be looking at Amazon. The only unknown is the cover. I need a picture (drawing) of a flying Dodo. I know, it was a flightless bird, but I need one flying because it directly relates to the plot.

I've been renting a bedroom from my son since October, 2011. I pay him a suitable amount for my share of the utilities, upkeep, and miscellaneous expenses. In the beginning, it was good living here way out in the country. It was relatively quiet, if you don't count the yoyos playing with dynamite, target shooting with their AR-15s, the empty coal and crude oil trains taking up slack down at the siding with house shaking BOOMS, and not being able to get out of town because all the tourists and skiers clogging the two-lane highway every Saturday and Sunday afternoon and evening as they head downriver to their homes in the cities. Though, the biggest problem is having to drive over an hour a mere 35 miles to my VA primary care provider in North Seattle or 60 miles that usually takes nearly two hours to the medical specialists down at the VA Medical Center in South Seattle. Traffic is getting to be a nightmare and I don't have the patience to deal with the idiots who got their driver's license out of a Cracker Jack box. My son used to take me to my appointments, but that used up his sick leave and personal time. Now that his stomach and liver are on the fritz, he has to have time saved up for frequent downtime. I needed to find a solution to getting to the doctors and the only solution I could come up with was moving closer to a VA clinic, while at the same time being within a reasonable distance to a VA Medical Center. I definitely didn't want to move to Seattle or anywhere near there simply because it's just too F'n expensive. That meant moving to Boise, ID, Reno, NV, Dallas, TX, Atlanta, GA, Asheville, NC, or unbelievably Wappingers Falls, NY. I figured I needed at least a one bedroom apartment. It took a lot of research and a lot of time, but eventually I think I found the ideal solution. On October 1, I'll be moving into a one bedroom apartment in Plano, Texas. It's four miles from a VA Clinic and across the street from a light rail station that will get me to the VA Medical Center in Dallas. It seems the VA is starting a new Medical Center in Garland, which will be only 9 miles away or I'll be able to get there via light rail and a bus. The apartment building has a parking garage, pool, fitness facility, and is a secure building. What's really great about my apartment is that it has a walk-in shower. No more climbing into a bathtub with my arthritic knees and ankles. The peripheral neuropathy doesn't help either. I've already lined up furniture for the apartment. I won't need cable TV because I no longer watch TV, but I'll get TV for movies. Finally, I've written a novel, The Flight of the Dodo. It's about a boy who has childhood onset schizophrenia. It takes place in the Sixties and reads like a memoir, which puts it in the pseudo memoir genre. Edvard is fourth generation Norwegian immigrant who is physically, emotionally, and verbally abused by his mother. He weathers mental hospitals, psych wards, electroconvulsive therapy, panic attacks, a delusion his IQ is 73, attempts at employment, an attempt to get through the physical to enlist in the Air Force, suicide ideation, attempted suicide, and a horrific traffic accident that nearly kills him. Surprisingly, it has a happy ending. I'll be attempting to get it traditionally published, but will settle with Amazon if necessary. Aim high, accept what you get.

I'm currently a Washingtonian. I was born a Seattleite. Currently I live in Gold Bar and everybody around here call themselves Locals or Valleyites to distinguish themselves from the Tourists, Flat Landers, and F'n City Slickers driving their Escalades and Mercedes to our grocery store to buy up all the toilet paper, paper towels, bleach, sani wipes, cookies, peanut butter, and dog food. Come October 1st, I'll be counting myself as a Texan.

Thank you for your comment. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy my story. Well, maybe, you'll like one of my other attempts.

Great story. Enjoyed it immensely. A little too close to home, but I am happy to see it turned out okay for Patrick.

Thank you for your comment

Thank you for your comment.

Thank you for your comment.

Did I ever tell you I hate nights when the moon is full? I stand at the bus stop half a block down from the grocery dry goods warehouse where I work. My job title is stock picker. I drive a forklift all through the warehouse to wherever the little voice in my earphones tells me to go. If the item I need to put in the cardboard box on the plastic pallet is at floor level, I’m okay with that. If it isn’t, then I have to stand on the pallet while it rises to the shelf where the item is stored.

Bob has a fear of mean dogs from his childhood when he was attacked by a male Dobermann. Tonight he dreads having to walk home under a bright full moon down streets that have unrestrained pit bulls and other such dogs that have tried to attack him before. He has pepper spray and a book bag for defense, but sometimes he’s come close to being bit, again.