Author: Mugtoe

A little of this, a little of that…

I arrived at cardio after-care this morning after a sleepless night, or what seemed like one, anyway, and discovered that my heart rate was pushing 150. They wheeled me over to the ER and applied various medicaments, until the readings they received from my body seemed to them at least somewhat less alarming. I didn’t have to spend much time there at all, really, I was unable to get my prescriptions filled in time, however. The girl at the pharmacy could tell I was displeased. I sent gas money to a friend to pick them up for me, and never heard back from them either. I will get it taken care of early tomorrow and get all those ducks lined up once more. Aim high and accept the results. Then aim high again,

I shouldn’t have trouble sleeping tonight.

Chores remain. Weather is good for now, and I should seize these moments as best I can and get as much as possible accomplished. This week I will complete the tunnels in the garden, finish cleaning the guest cabin, and get the light set up here in the front of the house so I can start more plants early for planting later. I also need to prepare for the arrival of more trees soon.

I worry about the trees I planted in autumn. They sat around for a good, long while before I got them in the ground. I was in worse shape at the time than I realized.

If I ever planned on getting anything written, now is the time to be busy about that as well. That is why I am blogging again, partly, at least. I just need to be in the habit once more. And I need to limber up my fingers as well. This takes a prohibitive amount of time still, but some evenings it is easier than others. I should write about Hambone, but there’s almost no way to do that without running the risk of it redounding poorly back on him. However, the qualities I admire about him deserve recognition. But there’s no way to shelter his identity on the western slope of Colorado. All the same, I know him to be a good man.

There are many others as well, however. I have assembled in my mind quite the cohort of angels and demons since leaving Texas. For that matter, there yet remains a considerable cadre of characters back in Texas who still people that endless parade of human debris always on the march in my head.

But it’s time for reading and bed now.

We have met the enemy…

I was brought low this week by the scheming of my most ancient foe, the one who knows me best and anticipates my best defensive measures. He rode in under the cover of my righteous anger, who I never trust for very long under any circumstances. But once inside my walls, he required very little help before I gave up the very idea of battle.

That was Monday. A missed appointment sent me stomping away from a clinic that had tried calling me to reschedule. They could have emailed me. I think that’s a rather weak retort, but it was the hill I chose to nearly die on this week. I’m certain I can be more creative than that in the future, but I didn’t have much to work with last Monday. I don’t require much, however. I am very efficient with my impulses, appetites, and emotional states. I have a marvelous force multiplier between my ears for taking random circumstance and creating enough of a situation that anyone in my shoes would themselves feel compelled to behave at least as self-destructively. They might lose points for style.

I set off walking across Montrose, Colorado and realized after only a couple hundred yards without my portable oxygen concentrator that this entire exercise was one of futility. Two or three hundred yards further I stopped at the hospital and asked if I could borrow the use of their oxygen for a few minutes and gave a very brief synopsis of the story so far, even to the point of self-deprecation. They were very solicitous of my well-being and even offered to admit me, but I demured and continued on my way after a few more minutes with a cannula on my face. It does make a difference.

I walked all the way to the old City Market (Kroger) downtown and bought a pack of Lucky Red 100s and gave several away, knowing I would regret the purchase soon enough anyway. I ran into a few people I know while loitering around the library and then called for my ride home and walked the half-block to the transit station to wait.

I knew there would be something of a hangover from all of that, but I misjudged the severity of it. I was bed-ridden for most of the remainder of the week, though I did ride down to the lower part of the property the following morning to talk over some work we need done and prepare to receive bids on. After that, the rest of the week is sort of a blur with days and nights running one into another with no sense to be made by me when one began or ended. I got nothing done, or very little, anyway. And I found myself also gaining weight and making some pretty poor choices at the grocery store.

Tomorrow I can turn all of that around. I can begin the slow, methodical, daily practice of arresting that slide and get my tent moving uphill once more. I began that tonight something as simple as doing the dishes. This morning I made my bed and took my morning meds more or less on time. Tomorrow I will make ride arrangements and see about whether I can do a sleep study here at home. I have a rather embarrassing history with sleep studies. So, I will arrange a ride to the nutritionist and see if she can meet me earlier in the day, since that is a gym day, and I’ll be right there. I will ask about home sleep studies. If I do all of that as well as my daily tasks, then I can consider that self-care of the best sort.

The best thing I can frequently do is whatever tedious or onerous business that I will be happy to have behind me tomorrow. So I will seek to accomplish today those things that the Frank of tomorrow can thank me for getting out of the way. This also involves a steady application of the word “no”. Part of moving forward and making progress involves saying no to myself and others with regularity. No is a complete sentence. Saying no requires no explanation or apology. Saying no frequently involves allowing the child in me to cathect with the adult, and that is something I do too infrequently. All you have to do is spend a few minutes with my medical files or my criminal record to see that very plainly. It should also be noted that it is generally easier to turn a no into a yes than vice versa. This is, I think, perhaps the most important tool I can use on the road to some sort of self-mastery.

It is, of course, so very simple.

So why do I have so many DUIs and a terminal medical prognosis?

My child regularly avoids my adult and jumps in the lap of my critical parent. The payoff in that is I get to say, “what’s the use?” and feel overwhelmed. Feeling the depth of this failure is not tolerable for very long. It requires oblivion. I’m hard wired for this game. For the last eighteen years or so, I’ve checked out.

I know how to do this, but am I willing to just let go?

Mac’s natal birthday. Breakfast in Paonia and saw him off. The entire rest of the day a complete waste. More accurately, the rest of the day hungover from all of the unchecked activity of tbe two days previous.

I did move some scrap lumber and got more seed after breakfast, and it was beautiful outside. I am not complaining, and screw guilt. And the day is not quite over in any case. I have some minor stuff moving forward in the guest cabin.

Things I’d like to grow in my garden this year:

1. lovage
2. Good King Henry
3. Sea Kale
4. Sorrel
5. Tansy
6. Comfrey
7. Walking (Egyptian) Onions
8. Skirret
9. Salsify
10. Horseradish
11. Orach
12. Sea Beet
13. Oca
14. Ulluco
15. Cardoon
16. Alexanders
17. Whorehound
18. Amaranth
19. Maslin grains for my scythe

We passed a new infrastructure bill here at the Needmore Land & Cattle Co, and it has fallen upon me to arrange bids from interested artisans or various trades who will then ably execute the necessary upgrades.I have also been documenting every corner of the place with the drone, so that I can more easily proceed with the layout and be more certain that there is adequate space fpr all the elements I envision in my mind,

I had a lot more to write tonight, but it’s after 1am. More will be revealed.

I’m not quite dead yet.

2025 was, perhaps, vying to be my Annus Horribilis. What it became in retrospect was simply another interesting, though sometimes difficult portion of my travels. It concluded with my Primary Care Provider telling me to either make some serious changes or get my affairs in order and reconcile myself to the fact that I would likely be in hospice care within twelve months time. My brother passed away from a heart attack in June, and one week later I found myself experiencing precisely the same thing in a room at the Days Inn in Delta, Colorado and debating whether or not to call an ambulance. I made the call, but only after moaning and tossing around on the bed and the floor for at least an hour or two and huffing poppers*, since they are, of course, a vasal dilator. What followed was two very difficult weeks in the hospital and a quadruple bypass procedure that kept me from stealing attention from my dear brother yet again one last time.

The path from that dark place to the restoration of my normal sunny disposition has not been an easy one, and it has been cluttered by many attempts to stir up the dust bunnies in my mind or find any distraction or delaying tactic to avoid coming to acceptance of where I am, what is now possible, and what will be required in order to achieve whatever is left for me. It has also been clouded by more of the usual sabotage, such as run-ins with the law and a perverse reluctance to sever relations with the hood rats and gutter snipes with whom I have always had truck of one sort or another for no discernible reason other than chasing tail or catching a rush from that roller coaster.

So now I take a veritable cohort of medications morning and night, and I am on oxygen 24/7. I no longer drink, smoke, or do drugs. I meditate daily, and I’m even giving serious thought to taking up yoga and tai chi.

My companion and my friends fuss over me to the extent that they can say they made an effort, and I love them for it. Mac secured acreage with a house so that we might have a place to do projects, and I seem to have wasted no time moving in and taking it over. I didn’t really mean to do that, but it’s a great sandbox in any case. And no matter how annoying I can be, he commands my eternal gratitude and love for everything he has done and for simply being the best version of a human being I know. Everything may happen for a reason, and I accept that. However, it would suit me just the same if I had made these changes long ago. Also, I wish I had met my model human a couple of years earlier than I did. Perhaps not. I don’t play what if like that, anyway. The hand life dealt me has been rather spectacular, and that’s been true since the day I was born.

What is left to me now is to avoid death for a bit longer, extricate myself from the toils of the criminal justice system yet again, and get another round of travel completed. My time and energies otherwise are ordered by planting schedules, mail-order nursery deliveries, and the occasional spark of genius and inspiration.

*Isobutyl nitrate