04.02.25: Today was a great day physically, which doesn’t happen often, and I worked on rearranging my office for longer than expected. Now it’s almost midnight, the room is still in disarray, and my thoughts aren’t any more organized than the stacks of books I need to reshelve. For almost an hour I’ve tried to make something happen here, typing and deleting, rearranging and deleting. The only thing I came up with is this:
It occurs to me that I should probably go back and correct last night’s entry to clarify that my dad’s ancestors have probably suffered in silence since time immemorial; “there was a lot of that for a couple generations” refers specifically to the suffering associated with the cancer mutation. To give you an idea of the scope of this genetic scourge, it has stricken a double-digit number of my dad’s aunts, uncles, and cousins — and now some of his cousins’ children have added to the count.
From there I wanted to mention how terrible my dad is at the kind of stoicism his family practiced (he’s rather more anxious than they were), but I couldn’t get it right. Then there was a failed attempt to reminisce about how my dad, in his twenties and thirties, used to huff that his family was healthy, and his genes were superior to my mom’s, when they bickered like 14-year-olds about why I was sick. The cruel implication was that Papa’s MS and Brandon’s CP were proof of her genetic inferiority, when in fact neither had a genetic condition.*
To write about that in a way that’s funny requires more alacrity than I currently possess, but his certitude was a laugh riot; the only thing his family’s richer in than cancer is mental illness and alcoholism.** Of course, he knew nothing of the mutation then and was still grappling with the pall those other issues had cast over his adolescence, which was when he started to realize there was something wrong with his dad and some of his uncles. But the biggest knee-slapper was still to come: my parents arguing over why Felix was mentally ill.
* They were never curious enough about IBD to read about it, which bothered me when I was a kid but was probably for the best. Had my father known Ashkenazi ancestry is a major risk factor, he never would’ve let her hear the end of it; that’s how immature they were at the time.
** His parents’ generation wouldn’t have laughed at that, but Dad and his cousins can crack jokes about it now.
04.01.25: No post tonight because Crankenstein and I have plans, but I’ll be back tomorrow.*
* Plans wouldn’t normally stop me from stringing a couple paragraphs together but the time I would’ve spent doing that was consumed by a call from my mom. She said “I’ve been thinking about my girl and wondering how you’re doing” about 17 times, and I assured her I’m fine. Then she spent 20 minutes (rightfully) complaining that my dad doesn’t take his health seriously enough and 20 minutes cataloguing the surgeries our Jewish relatives have either recently scheduled or were concerned they might need to schedule.
It would’ve taken twice as long when my grandparents, their siblings, and Papa’s hypochondriac mother (and her 32 equally hypochondriacal siblings) were still alive, but their ranks have thinned to only one survivor. On my dad’s side of the family, which was full of Methodist farmers and a smattering of Presbyterians, you were only supposed to see a doctor right before — or preferably after — you died of painful conditions that might’ve been treatable if not for your stoicism. There was a lot of that for a couple generations, until a few of my dad’s cousins all got cancer around the same time and a curious doctor ordered testing that identified a genetic mutation they had in common. My dad waited a long time to get tested; he didn’t want to know his status. He finally saw a geneticist a couple years ago, after much badgering from his wife and daughters, and didn’t have the mutation.
03.31.25: Since January, February and March were washouts, I’ve decided that April should be the month of the Cranky comeback. I worked on that this evening (the daytime was devoted to housework) but don’t want to say much more since previous attempts to get back in the saddle went nowhere. This time I’m trying a clean slate approach — new movie, new writing — in an attempt to build momentum, rather than stubbornly returning to old drafts that have already stymied me for too long. Whether it’ll work is anyone’s guess, and whether it’s a worthy use of the mental resources it consumes is up for debate, but I really miss writing about movies.
With that in mind, I could leave you tonight with a comprehensive list of insults Kathleen Wilhoite hurled at Charles Bronson and others in Murphy’s Law, but some of it’s so vulgar (and the rest is so puerile) that I can’t in good conscience dump it all here without context; it would be too rude. Instead, here’s a photo of the Blu-rays and 4K discs that need to be filed away now that I’ve cleared more space in the closet. Four of these are Crankenstein’s and they probably stick out like sore thumbs.*
March is an exceptionally discount-heavy month for movies, with yearly 3-for-2 deals at some stores and 50% sales at others. (My buying preference is for used media but it isn’t always cheaper, particularly for limited editions and imports.) Other than Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, which was needed for my collection of Sylvester Stallone masterpieces, this was a respectable haul and some of its cost will be covered by the sale of older discs.**
* Crankenstein got Sleepy Hollow, Mulan, Inside Out 2 and Hocus Pocus. The older three of those are films she looks for on streaming services once or more each year and can’t always find.
** Kino’s spring sale didn’t start until last week or some equally lamentable Burt Reynolds bombs available on Blu-ray for under $10 each (Skullduggery, Stick, Paternity) would be in the photo. Also, Fanatic, which is near the bottom of the stack, is better known to US audiences as Die! Die! My Darling!, with Tallulah Bankhead and Stefanie Powers. I’d be remiss not to bellow in my grandfather’s fashion that Stefania Federkiewicz was Powers’ actual name, or would’ve been had her Jewish father’s surname not been changed to Paul.
03.30.25: This was a nice weekend, one that didn’t pass too quickly to fully enjoy, and I was able to catch the second set of the men’s Miami Open final just now while doing some digital housekeeping here and at Cranky. I’m still easing my way back into tennis and expect things will get worse before they get better (the season begins in January and typically concludes in November), but what little I saw of this tournament was refreshing even though Alcaraz and Świątek continue to struggle. Two 19-year-olds, Jakub Menšík of Czechia and Alex Eala of the Philippines, provided most of the excitement, with Menšík capturing his first career title tonight against Novak Djokovic, who looked gassed throughout.
Eala, a wild card entry ranked 140th in the world, ousted three Grand Slam winners — Ostapenko, Keys and Świątek — on her way to the semis, where Pegula sent her packing. The American was, as usual, cannon fodder for Aryna Sabalenka in the final, but we’re left with something to look forward to in May, when Eala makes her main draw debut at Roland-Garros. As for Świątek, my gut feeling is she struggles with change and there’s already been way too much of it for her this year. We’ll save that spiel for the upcoming clay court swing, but I hope she can keep it together and give new coach Wim Fissette a fair shake; a premature split might only cause additional setbacks.
Other weekend goings-on included an afternoon date with Crankenstein; a Saturday night screening of The Man with Two Brains (which earned her seal of approval); and some light garage organization. There was renewed weather suspense involving Youngest Sister’s family, which was one of the reasons for my grousing about Tom last night, but they were given a reprieve this morning when the forecast improved. I also realized while organizing a pile of receipts that I’d forgotten about a major expense in a recent post about back pay: my aligners. The first trays will arrive within the next couple weeks and now I can replace what I’d pulled from our savings to cover it, which is a relief.
Poor time management means I have to wrap this up, but there’s a Charles Bronson movie that I need to write about this week: Murphy’s Law, which is possibly exiting Tubi tomorrow. It’s essential viewing for anyone who loves terrible ’80s action flicks, casual homophobia, or Carrie Snodgress committing a string of bizarre murders while wearing wigs and pumping iron. Less importantly, there’s the matter of Jason Statham’s The Beekeeper, a 2024 film that I was unaware of until this weekend. Does he use the bees as weapons? Might he don a turban? At the very least, it’s worth investigating whether Gloria Swanson should be Photoshopped into any Beekeeper stills.
03.28.25: It took another few hours and no small amount of suffering — in correcting yesterday’s final console assembly gaffe, I managed to screw up again — but this was the sight that greeted Crankenstein when she arrived home today. I’m not thrilled with the final product, which looks approximately as cheap it was; it arrived with a few dings to the front and is a lighter ‘walnut’ than expected. But it’s fine overall, and we can eventually replace it with something smaller and darker that matches the speakers should we decide to keep it on the main floor of the house.
My hands were too clumsy for setting up the turntable or dealing with wires, which Crankenstein can help with later. Since we still haven’t received my grandfather’s records, I’ll have to dig out some of my own. What might Crankenstein want to listen to first? Judy Garland? Laura Branigan? Bette Midler? Kenny Rogers? Sheena Easton’s Take My Time? If it hadn’t perished circa 2015 during a horrific storm, she’d eagerly reach for Sleater-Kinney’s All Hands on the Bad One, which I’d preordered in 2000 and listened to countless times as a teenager.
There’d been a portent of doom earlier that day, when I unexpectedly heard from Former Partner, so it seemed appropriate when the sky turned black — as dark as I’d ever seen it in the daytime — and meteorological violence commenced. When I got home that evening, the basement was damp; a power outage had allowed the sump pit to overflow. Crankenstein was on her way over for a date and made dinner, including roasted asparagus, while I tended to the basement, setting up box fans and a dehumidifier and preparing to yank up the carpeting.
The basement, like the rest of the house, was nearly empty, and the few items I kept there were elevated in case of plumbing disaster. But a plastic milk crate full of records, some mine and some Ex’s, had been low enough and close enough to the sump closet to sustain minor to moderate damage. After she’d abruptly left town during the biggest and most explosive BPD episode she’d had up to that point, I figured Ex would cool down and return once she was satisfied she’d made her point. When that didn’t happen I packed and shipped the many belongings she’d left behind, along with anything else I thought she might need.
She hadn’t wanted her albums but I couldn’t bring myself to throw them out; she’d been so deliberate in her own teenage selections, patiently sorting through trash to find treasure during a time when she had few possessions of her own. Had she ever really enjoyed listening to Shonen Knife or Lydia Lunch? (Shonen Knife, maybe, but does anyone enjoy listening to Lydia Lunch?) The answer was irrelevant; the music was less important than what it represented, and the carefully curated eclecticism of her modest collection was achingly poignant.
My teenage vinyl wasn’t as pretentious as hers — I saved that for books and movies. There was a tattered copy of The Motown Story, a five-LP set that cost $5 used; some of the Gilbert and Sullivan that Papa insisted I listen to; and comedy records by Nichols and May, Woody Allen and Mort Sahl. Most of it’s freely accessible online now, so I probably won’t rebuild that collection. But if Crankenstein’s not in the mood for my eldergay music, we own at least one (double!) album by a Jewish comedian: Gilbert Gottfried’s Still Screaming.
This curiosity (he was generally opposed to recording his act) was purchased last year, even though we didn’t have a turntable then, to support his widow’s fundraising cause. Ten minutes of his vulgar screeching might make Crankenstein wish we still had a sump pit, but we also know from personal experience that she has an unusually high tolerance for obnoxious Jews.
03.27.25: You’d have to ask Crankenstein how many times I murmured “Almost done…” earlier without actually finishing what I was working on, but four or five sounds about right. The stereo console had looked easy enough to assemble when it was unpacked, but spatial reasoning continues to torment me in ways I sincerely find disturbing. My skills in that area were never too sharp, as anyone who ever saw me try to parallel park could attest (legend has it I married Crankenstein specifically because of her parking prowess). But over the past year or two it’s declined enough that even putting together simple shelves can overtax my brain enough to make steam come out of my ears.
Tonight’s progress was especially plodding because I worried that major missteps might be difficult to reverse without cosmetically damaging the boards. A couple of minor missteps were caught and corrected by the time of my final “Almost done…”, and victory was so close I could taste it. That’s when I realized that the board I’d just fastened was upside-down. By then I’d been at it for hours, so engrossed in trying to complete it by dinnertime — the original goal — that I hadn’t noticed when dinnertime came and went. As usual, I wanted to keep going, but what was the point? My movement was even slower and clumsier than my thinking, and I was hungry and needed more levodopa, and Crankenstein wanted to watch the latest Abbott Elementary on Hulu.
Strangely, this site also came to mind. Did I want to have to write another post about my stubbornness consuming much more time and energy than was needed to finish the task? “All right, this can wait until tomorrow,” I announced, gathering pieces of Styrofoam padding and stashing the remaining screws and fasteners in a Muriel-safe location. Crankenstein’s expression — equal parts impatience with my slowness (and stubbornness) and relieved we were moving on with our night — reminded me of the examiner who accompanied me on the driving test to get my license. The final skill she asked me to demonstrate was parallel parking, which I would’ve spent the next 90 minutes doggedly attempting to do if she hadn’t curtly stopped me about 88 minutes short of that to say “OK, you can stop. You’ve already passed.”
* Felix and I watched Billy Madison many times together in middle school and I strongly felt the license examiner wanted to say, “Ms. [Cranky], what you have just done is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever seen. At no point in your rambling, incoherent attempt at parking were you even close to being parallel with anything. Everyone in this car is now dumber for having witnessed it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
03.26.25: We received the judge’s decision in the mail today and it was long and boring. So far I’ve only skimmed it — it seemed clear enough after the hearing what sort of information was most important to her — but I was surprised by a few things, including how many independent medical experts examined my files at different times over the past few months and all came to the same conclusion: that I’m severely restricted in my ability to work due the nature of my conditions. Why all the hullabaloo, then? I presume it’s because their opinions are only marginally more important than the consultative examiner’s; ultimately, all that matters is the judgment of the person evaluating the claim.
Crankenstein was curious about the medical jargon and read the whole thing this evening, then shook her head and stared bemusedly at its final page as she took a sip of beer. “Your condition is expected to improve?!” Indeed, it ended with a recommendation to check in on me two years from now, since my condition is expected to improve.* I’ve heard of that being slipped into decisions with a much bigger “WTF?!” factor than mine, so I didn’t give much thought to its incongruity with all the details that preceded it. The judge is known for rarely approving anyone and even when she strays from that and grants a fully favorable decision, she has a reputation to uphold.
Sorry this was short, I have to be in bed early to see whether this latest three-or-four-hours-of-sleep streak can be broken. If you missed last night’s post and want to browse some movies I bought in the early aughts or feel personally insulted by my sister thinking 1992 was six million years ago, you can find it here. I looked up some old email receipts today to see how long I’ve had a few of the DVDs and found that I purchased “Manhattan” new 24 years ago, “Happy Together” used 17 years ago, and spent $4.76 on a used copy of “The Eel” almost 20 years ago (with $4.75 of that being the shipping cost). Imamura deserved more respect than that.
* Best-case scenario, something magical happens and I’m capable of full-time work again. Worst-case, they come a-knockin’ for a review sometime (medical, not Patty Duke) and interrogate my doctors about whether I’ve defied everything we know of science and medicine by regrowing a colon and reviving dead dopamine neurotransmitters.
03.24.25: It was dark outside and Crankenstein was still in bed when I left for the mammogram appointment this morning; it was over so quickly that I returned home before she left for work. I was operating on three hours of sleep, a deficit that wasn’t erased by a short mid-morning nap with Muriel, and I’ve already yawned thrice while writing this — “thrice” chosen as an affectionate Golden Girls reference while the Świątek-Svitolina Miami Open match plays in the background.
There’s nothing on my schedule tomorrow besides laundry and clearing out the office closet to assess movie storage options, so I plan to write a longer post then about topics undetermined. Maybe it’ll be musings on Janis Paige’s guest appearance in the fourth episode of Night Court, and whether it’s a sign that now truly is the time to rewatch it for the first time in decades and see if Joe was right all along.* Night Court, like M*A*S*H and Matlock and In the Heat of the Night, played constantly on KPLR, a local antenna station, when I was a kid, but it already feels somewhat new to me because I’d forgotten that Markie Post and Charlie Robinson weren’t there from the start.
Tomorrow was also when I was going to learn whether the SSDI portal was right that my backpay was issued today, but it’s almost midnight and I just received a deposit notification. Our share is in the upper end of low five-figures, if that makes sense, and the lawyer got the maximum allowed by law, which was $7,200 when we signed our agreement and is now $9,200. The first thing I wanted to do with this payment was buy Crankenstein the perfume of her choice as an appreciative gift for her support during all of this, but she’s not yet made a selection. My only other immediate plan is to pay the $2k or so in medical bills I’ve racked up so far this year.
More important to us than the money was the Medicare coverage you’re extended once you’ve been on SSDI for two years. If Crankenstein predeceased me or if marriage equality went kaput, and through some strange and chaotic confluence of political events (a far-right specialty), our marriage wasn’t grandfathered in, I’d lose my coverage as her dependent. The thought of that was stressful to both of us and frightened her because of her belief that my health requires subspecialty expertise and, by extension, decent insurance. Due to my onset date, I’ll be Medicare-eligible later this year and the premiums will be deducted from my monthly SSDI payment.
Are there less exciting topics I could’ve covered tonight than KPLR and Medicare? Maybe tomorrow’s challenge will be to write about something even duller, like the tweaks I made to my DIY Beau Monde seasoning to make it zestier.
* He usually was, though he had his blind spots the same as anyone else, like his love of Starship Troopers.
03.23.25: Last night’s entry is still in dire need of editing — Crankenstein was indeed having nightmares but I couldn’t quite make out what she was shouting — and I apologize to anyone who tried to make sense of it. The soonest I’ll be able to clean it up is tomorrow, once I’m back from an early-morning (routine) mammogram appointment, because tonight’s writing time was devoted to other things. From the time I woke up around 10 am, roughly six hours after falling asleep, the day had already gotten away from me, but other than that I have no complaints; my levodopa worked well enough to give my facial muscles a break.
There’s an idea I have for a review feature, Sinemet Cinema, that would occasionally spotlight movies relating either directly or indirectly to Parkinson’s. Awakenings, which is about sleeping sickness but prominently features levodopa, would be an obvious selection, but I’m more interested in having a bit of (occasionally morbid) fun by highlighting offbeat horror films like William Castle’s Mr. Sardonicus (about a man’s grotesquely frozen face), or movies about impulsive or eccentric behavior. This concept isn’t as important to me as the TV movie beat but it has some potential.
More tomorrow, including an SSDI update (additional information has been slowly making its way to us through the online portal), or maybe updates about past updates. Do I, for example, still plan to reckon with Tammy Faye Messner’s musical legacy? The answer is a solemn “yes,” I’m just waiting for the spirit to move me.
03.22.25: I couldn’t interest Crankenstein in Full Body Massage this evening, I’m sorry to report; she wanted to watch Prizzi’s Honor, so we saw Jack Nicholson naked instead. (Don’t worry, I did my best to picture Bryan Brown standing behind him, brow furrowed, awkwardly rubbing his arm.) She admired Kathleen Turner’s performance, just as she loved her in Serial Mom and Body Heat, and as a connoisseur of trash I’m naturally conflicted about whether to continue introducing her to Turner’s classics or make a sharp detour toward her worst offerings, such as Undercover Blues or Baby Geniuses.
It might be too soon for V.I. Warshawski, which bridges the golden and leaner years of her career; I’ll have to prepare Crankenstein for my unrestrained laughter when a terrible synth-heavy part of its score starts to play. (A great effort was once undertaken, unsuccessfully, to make it my Tracfone’s ringtone.) Maybe I’ll show her The Man with Two Brains next, if she promises to pause it every five or 10 minutes rather than every 30 seconds to critique its handle on neuroanatomy and other noggin-related matters. It’s been a few years since I heard Turner exclaim “Ouch! My balls!”, which would also make a fantastic ringtone.*
What else have I got for you tonight? The pickings are even slimmer than usual because I spent much of the day distracted by my face, or rather its various muscles that are afflicted by dystonia. Without veering off into more specific complaints, yesterday’s dystonia seemed charming and quaint compared to the misery of today’s, and it’s been hard to concentrate. Nonetheless, Crankenstein and I were able to track down almost everything she needed from an Asian market, minus vegan oyster sauce, and she whipped up a lunch that had Muriel salivating onto the kitchen floor.**
Meanwhile, I realized all too late that we were out of Beau Monde seasoning, which I needed for snack preparation, and made my own, which was subpar. This is the sort of thrilling content that keeps longtime readers coming back for more, and if alarming noises weren’t emanating from upstairs right now I’d muse about whether it’s time to revisit the original Night Court (it’s currently free to stream on Amazon), a show that Joe loved much more than I did. But Crankenstein seems to be having a nightmare and I need to make sure she’s OK and get ready for bed myself.^
* I don’t use custom ringtones, I embarrass myself enough in public already without my phone pitching in to help.
** Neither of us are vegan, she just needs a particular sauce. Crankenstein gave that alternative lifestyle the old college try, though, much to her parents’ shame — alas, her attraction to cheese was too powerful to ignore. (Speaking of passions, Crankenstein might never be ready for Turner’s performance in Ken Russell’s Crimes of Passion, but should she decide to experiment anyway she should do so with my unrated director’s cut 2-disc special edition and not the R-rated version that streams on Pluto.)
^ We might cancel our Prime membership when it comes up for renewal but for now we aren’t boycotting Amazon or Target. I’ll attempt to explain our reasoning on a future occasion, when Crankenstein isn’t sleep-shouting.
03.21.25: How many films about erotic massage were made in the early ’90s? Rubdown, a 1993 TV movie starring Dynasty’s Jack Coleman, was already in the Cranky review queue, and while rummaging around Tubi this evening I found Full Body Massage, a 1995 Showtime flick that almost sounds too good to be true. Directed by Nicolas Roeg (!), who’d apparently fallen on hard times after The Witches failed to conjure box office magic, and costarring Mimi Rogers and Bryan Brown (who is alternately known as either Rachel Ward’s husband or “the guy who wasn’t Richard Chamberlain in The Thorn Birds“), it’s forgotten today by all but nudity Roeg and Rogers enthusiasts. Might it, against all odds (Ward pun intended), be ripe for rediscovery?
What I’ve gleaned from its sparse Wikipedia writeup is that it involves an art dealer discussing romance, sex and philosophy with her masseur, presumably while nude and slathered in massage oil for 90 minutes; its DVD synopsis contains perfunctory references to liberation and “strange, erotic mysticism,” and winkingly calls the masseur Rogers’s “handy muse.” Sure, this makes him sound like Jennifer Love Hewitt in Lifetime’s ridiculous Client List (which also streams on Tubi), but since the cover art sends us mixed messages — Rogers is towel-clad and practically writhing, while Brown has the grim concentration of an emergency room physician poised to perform a closed reduction of her shoulder — we need all the help we can get.*
I could’ve used a massage today myself (and not the kind that got Robert Kraft in trouble) because my levodopa wasn’t working well and my neck, shoulder, and left foot and calf have been painfully tight for most of the last 24 hours. Between that, a couple of near-falls, and Muriel making a series of poor decisions in the backyard earlier that resulted in some Exorcist-like vomiting (hers, not mine), it wasn’t a banner day ’round these parts. Crankenstein and I haven’t yet brainstormed about new hobbies — maybe we’ll find one to do together — but one thing I plan to chip away at in the coming months is beefing up my Blu-ray and DVD collections.
Currently I’m well-stocked on foreign films, screwball comedies and noirs, but other than Rent-a-Cop all the countless horrible thrillers Burt Reynolds made while trying to fend off bankruptcy (and feed his pill habit) in the ’80s are conspicuously absent. Similarly, my Woody Allen collection has been a shadow of itself since the great 2014 purge of my belongings (which technically started in 2009), and I want to rebuild it bigger and stronger than ever before, preferably in Blu-ray. While we have no immediate need for these small and silly luxuries, the Musk administration wants to gut libraries in much the same way it’s attempting to destroy anything else that benefits all of society and promotes learning, and I’m not comfortable relying on streaming services to fill in the gaps that will inevitably form as a result.**
Thrift stores and used bookstores that also sell movies are good places to start, but what I’d really like to do is get clear-headed enough to resume reviewing all kinds of films, not just TV movies, so I can once again request screeners of upcoming releases. Maybe by the time I’m capable of that, Rubdown and Full Body Massage will have earned deluxe limited edition releases by Arrow, Shout! Factory, or KL Classics.
* Incidentally, Rogers wanted everyone to know her body “was not what it usually is” during filming since she’d recently given birth. Whether she made that announcement defensively or apologetically, I’m not yet sure (since I won’t read more about the film until I’ve watched it), but it seems unnecessary either way.
** Yes, libraries are locally funded, but they’re also aided by federal resources. In any event, they’ll hurt the same as the rest of us if the economy craters. Our well-funded library system has been tightening its purse strings for the last several months and I expect it will only get worse.
03.20.25: Now what? That’s what I kept thinking today as I looked around my home office, unsure of what to keep and where to put it. You could just as easily substitute “life” for “office” without losing considerable meaning — neither of us have much of a dedicated purpose anymore. If I’m not a worker, not a mom, and rarely feel like a wife, what am I? (I’m a writer, yes, but not the one I was before. Writing well is difficult when your brain’s as inelastic as your frozen muscles.)
That probably sounds more sullen and depressed than I actually feel, though, especially now that it’s spring. It’s my Bryan Ferry time of year, pregnant with possibility, and while my outlook often brightens in March or April, Crankenstein’s typically does the opposite. That was also the case for Joe last year, which I’m reminded of every time I walk past raised garden beds; his lost passion for gardening was a slightly dread-inducing sign that something was seriously amiss.
In keeping with the season’s promise of renewal, I’d like to resume some hobbies and projects that fell by the wayside over the past year or so, as weather and illness and sadness intervened. But I’d also like to pick up a hobby or two that’s entirely new and possibly even unexpected. Clog dancing is out, for my safety and Muriel’s, and learning to play the accordion requires too much coordination. Almost every unexpected hobby that immediately comes to mind, like juggling or riding a unicycle, is impractical for similar reasons.
Dungeons & Dragons makes a modicum of sense, given its overlap with painting miniature figures, but I already spent enough time around nerdy guys with poor hygiene and seething resentment toward women in high school. We’ll figure this out later, maybe after consulting Crankenstein and the broader Internet for ideas, but chess is an option, one that would naturally complement the Papa corner.
Your eyes do not deceive you, I didn’t check in last night. There was no interesting or exotic reason for my absence, I just fell asleep earlier than expected. Unfortunately, the ZzzQuil honeymoon is over and my sleep is again choppy at best.
03.17.25: After the disability hearing was over, and once we’d rejoined Crankenstein in the waiting room, my poker-faced lawyer reiterated what she’d told me on our way out: “You did great!” She explained that she’d have access to the decision days or weeks earlier than I would and to contact her when I received a status update from the SSA portal. Her parting words to us were “You deserve this. I hope she makes the right decision,” a thinly veiled reference to our judge’s notoriously low approval rate.
The judge had told us to expect a wait of six to eight weeks. Tonight, fewer than two weeks after the hearing, I received an automated alert about a change to my account and logged in to see whether it was appropriate to notify the lawyer. At 7 pm, I sent her an email that read “The SSA portal says we’ve moved to step 4, so I would assume you’ll be able to see something soon.”
Twenty-eight minutes later, she replied.
Yes, I will call tomorrow! This evening, Judge [Redacted] issued a Fully Favorable decision on your case – you won!!
I will also send a more detailed email tomorrow as well, but wanted you to know.
Congratulations!!
My surprise is surpassed only by relief, but I’m too dazed to say much more than that this evening. More tomorrow, once she’s filled me in on the details — and once I’ve had time to take a photo of that hideous (but very comfortable for short people) new chair.
03.16.25: It’s now nine minutes past my self-imposed bedtime and I still have to brush my face and wash my teeth, having been waylaid for the past hour by additional family intrigue.* My original plan for tonight’s entry was to mention a handful of trivial things like our ugly new IKEA chair, an orange corduroy number that sits rather low to the ground, which might make it attractive to Muriel. It’s destined for our Papa memorial listening corner, where it will sit on an equally unattractive shag rug of some sort, and I’ve selected a special Grandma Elaine tribute for the space as well, which will be unveiled later this week.
But, if you’ll forgive another sad-sack interlude, I didn’t feel much like writing after watching the women’s final at Indian Wells. Mirra Andreeva played an awful first set, which she later cheerfully acknowledged was mostly due to a bad attitude, but turned things around in the second and won another tournament. She’ll have a chance to win back-to-back-to-back Masters 1000 titles in Miami as the Sunshine Double concludes, but Iga Świątek might have something to say about that after falling to Andreeva, the eventual champion, in both Dubai and Indian Wells. And if not, well, Sabalenka already vowed to seek revenge in her characteristically charming runner-up speech.
How could I have possibly found myself sad after experiencing all this excitement? The answer is obvious: Joe would’ve loved this match and wasn’t there to share it. Tennis, among other things, will never mean as much to me now as it used to, and every happy moment it inspires will also be tinged with sadness. I know from prior losses that the ferocity of the pain you feel in a loved one’s absence eventually becomes easier to endure, but we’re still a long way from that — and this first full tennis season without him is still young.
03.14.25: It was a long day and a longer night, with no time for watching tennis, but the women’s semis went as expected: Sabalenka wiped the court with Keys and Andreeva went the distance in her three-setter. I’d love for Andreeva to pull something off against Sabalenka, who easily owns their head-to-head, and charge into Miami with a full head of steam; the WTA could use a Big Three and Elena Rybakina’s probably out of the running until she can extricate herself from her abusive coach/boyfriend’s clutches.
More tomorrow — and last night’s sleep was as successful as Thursday’s, so we’ll see whether this ZzzQuil reset has a lasting impact.
03.13.25: Forget about ambrosia, ZzzQuil’s the true nectar of the gods. My watch was still charging when I passed out last night, so there aren’t any AutoSleep screenshots to triumphantly share, but I got around eight hours of sleep and don’t recall waking up once. This morning I felt rested and invigorated, which has been a rare occurrence so far this year, and the timing was perfect because Crankenstein and I have a lot going on today and tomorrow.
There wasn’t much time for lallygagging on the computer and I’ve mostly been avoiding Indian Wells, but tomorrow’s women’s semifinals are intriguing: Madison Keys and Aryna Sabalenka last met in the Australian Open final and the Belarusian will want her revenge, and Mirra Andreeva and Iga Świątek are both on hot streaks. The Russian phenom — she’s all of 17, which practically makes Coco Gauff seem geriatric — beat Świątek convincingly in Dubai just a few weeks ago, on her way to her first Masters 1000 title.
If Andreeva continues playing like a top five contender (her current ranking is #11), there’s no reason she couldn’t do the same tomorrow, but beating Sabalenka in a final would be a tougher task. It’s easy to root for all four semifinalists, so I’ll be happy with any outcome, and maybe I’ll even tune in tomorrow night if we’re free. Tonight I have a date with The Pitt on HBO Max, which surprises me as much as anyone because ER was one of my most-hated TV shows as a kid and this John Wells/Noah Wyle reunion has more than a few things in common with it.
I disliked medical shows then for obvious reasons (or maybe not so obvious, if you’re unfamiliar with my many hospitalizations) and have typically avoided them as an adult. Crankenstein’s a killjoy about that kind of stuff anyway, so when I first caught The Pitt on a lark she wasn’t around. Since then she’s seen an episode or two, and snippets of a few more, and though she remains a killjoy it’s given her less to complain about than most medical dramas.*
Having rambled longer than intended, I must now abruptly segue to signing off — it’s time to slam a shot of ZzzQuil — and when I return tomorrow maybe we’ll do something really crazy and not talk about TV or sleep.
* She prefers medical sitcoms: St. Denis Medical, which is Superstore in a hospital, is her favorite show of the year, and she has historically ranked Scrubs as TV’s most accurate portrayal of medicine.
03.12.25: In lieu of words, which I lack the mental zing! to string together tonight — I just tried for over an hour and came up with all of three now-deleted sentences — here are two images that explain why I’m nearly at the breaking point.
Two hours and forty-eight minutes of sleep last night! That’s just under 1/4th of a Rivette.
Apparently none of it was deep sleep, which is also reflected by that elevated heart rate. I rarely open this app and don’t care about most of the data it tracks, but nights like this have been too common lately and it’s having a horrible effect on my health and concentration. If desperate times call for desperate measures, this should surely qualify (though I usually prefer chocolate, carbs, or another viewing of Sidney Lumet’s A Stranger Among Us in circumstances so dire). And so, with apologies to my MDS, I’m going to skip the melatonin tonight, and maybe even the levodopa, and guzzle some ZzzQuil instead.*
* Diphenhydramine and levodopa can cause confusion when taken together, so it shouldn’t be a regular event. But insomnia has the same effect, so I’m willing to take a walk on the wild side and see what happens; maybe I’ll wake up Crankenstein by sleep-fighting Barbara Stanwyck for Capucine. (Stanwyck remains my favorite actress, but by 1962 she’d been wed to that dowdy, matronly East Side, West Side hairstyle for 13 years and rarely strayed from it thereafter. There are so many private regrets I entertain while tossing and turning at 4 am, few more haunting than my failure to be old enough, or connected enough, to have intervened and gotten Stanwyck to wear crazy wigs during the second half of her career.)
03.10.25: There was nary a time I wanted to smash my life like a watermelon today, but I might’ve fantasized about taking a golf club to my insomnia after another night of fragmented sleep. Determined to resist napping (the better to improve my chances of going to bed exhausted) and hopeful I might accomplish enough to elicit a now-unfamiliar sense of satisfaction, I tried to remain in motion during my levodopa “on” periods and succeeded in staying awake. Progress was slower than I would’ve liked, both for the usual reasons and because my attention was divided between household chores, basement tasks, and office strategizing, but it was an acceptable start to the week and produced some momentum I’ll try to sustain tomorrow.*
* I’ll also try to write a proper post tomorrow, when I’m not too tired to think straight. And I’m adding another topic to my ‘stuff to write about’ list: my shameful childhood love of the band Heart, whose self-titled album was one of my most-played cassettes, right up there with Paula Abdul’s Spellbound, Billy Joel’s Storm Front, and Michael Jackson’s Thriller. There’s nothing inherently wrong with Heart fandom, mind you, it’s just embarrassing that their mid-’80s giant hair output captivated me more than their ’70s classics. Anyway, I need to close my computer now, before I start yammering into the wee small hours about the hilarity of Nancy Wilson’s cleavage in the “Alone” video or the magnificence of the band’s Kennedy Center Honors tribute to Led Zeppelin, so goodnight — I’ll terrorize you with aggressive 1980s décolletage later this week.
03.09.25: How many times did I want to take a sledgehammer to my life today? Not in a darkly destructive way, more in the tradition of a prop comedian foolishly attacking produce, but it was a persistent urge that blinked and buzzed in my wearied temples like a roadside motel’s neon sign on the fritz.
My disgruntlement went far beyond the usual Springsteenesque ennui of wanting to change one’s clothes, one’s hair, one’s face; I wanted an almost entirely new existence, one without this house, these relationships, these problems, this future. Was it the aggravation of the time change, which caused the derailment of my medication schedule for the second day in a row? Ongoing resentments about an inability to fully relax in a home that often seems to demand 98% of my attention because it receives 0% of Crankenstein’s? (Muriel helps with the other 2%.) Increased feelings of hopelessness after finally figuring out my administrative law judge’s name and realizing she has one of the highest denial rates in the country, not just the state?*
Whatever the reason, I was irritable all day and so was Crankenstein. But we avoided a Three Stooges poke fight, if only by a hair, which made the weekend a success.** Tomorrow I’ll start on a few small projects I’d like to finish throughout the month, from the office overhaul to making a cozy basement nook of some description. There are also several topics I want to write about here, most of which I’ve mentioned before, including rising familial tensions and the bizarre ‘prepping’ efforts of hysterical liberal women who don’t realize how insane they sound when they talk about walking from the US to Canada over the course of days or weeks, with 70 lbs of supplies on their backs, to seek political asylum.^ And if those posts don’t come to fruition, well, Family’s on Tubi and surely there are many jokes to be made about Kristy McNichol and Meredith Baxter as sisters.
* Crankenstein and I originally misheard it but not by much.
** We would never physically scuffle. As bookish sorts it’s beneath our dignity, we prefer to wound each other emotionally. (That’s a joke, which is how our arguments usually end, with us laughing at our stupidity.)
^ I’m increasingly alarmed — and I mean this earnestly — by the extreme tolerance my fellow liberal women nurture for the very abnormal theatrics of the far-left, whose attachment to reality is currently about as tenuous as that of my alt-right German Chocolate Cake hoarding aunt. Don’t get me wrong, I’m also gravely concerned about where our country’s heading, but please, for the love of God, focus on things that matter and stop giving trolls, even those who inhabit the White House, the exact reactions they’re trying to provoke with 98% of these cockamamie measures (many of which are unlikely to survive legal challenges).
03.08.25: Last night was almost entirely sleepless (through no fault of my neck’s) and this morning’s makeup sleep was woefully insufficient, so I’m hitting the sack early tonight and hoping to wake up without a headache. No progress was made in rearranging my office today because the conditions were too dangerous: Muriel was relentlessly clingy in response to my many absences during the week and I was extra unsteady after snoozing through a smartwatch reminder to take my second dose of levodopa. But if there’s time tomorrow I’ll take some measurements, share some photos, and try to talk through the puzzle of what belongs in the home office of someone who’s only marginally more employable than Scott Baio.*
* Maybe we’ll also tackle the mystery of why miniatures take up so much space.
03.07.25: I only have a few minutes for tonight’s check-in, but that’s more than enough time to apologize for an editing error that’s since been corrected — last night’s entry would’ve made more sense if I hadn’t accidentally removed a sentence explaining that Tom Bradford turns 50 yet again in A Family Reunion. In my defense, it’s been mentioned here before, and it’s a probably a safe bet anyway that the only readers who dare keep up with my Eight is Enough content are familiar with Bradford lore already; either as fans or because they’re slowly charting my descent into madness via Auntie V. shout-outs and obscure continuity complaints.* But I regret the error nonetheless, since it’s my goal to write with enough clarity that new and occasional readers can still easily follow along.
Today was busy, including a swing by the dentist’s office to pay for my aligners and submit to one last scan before the trays are manufactured. Later this month I’ll return to pick them up and then my teeth will be in a clear plastic jail for 21 to 22 hours per day, which the dentist belatedly informed me will probably lead to an increase in jaw-clenching and teeth-grinding until the trays are replaced with a retainer, at which time I should experience some relief. I was a little disappointed to only hear that from her now, since she’d left out the exacerbation-of-current-problems part before, but beggars can’t be choosers and short-term pain’s a fair trade for long-term gain.
More this weekend, including handwringing about how to rearrange my office and where to store my DVDs since the current setup is driving me crazy.
* Don’t get me started on Abby’s ever-changing family tree and whether she’s actually related to Jeremy.
03.06.25: How many times will Tom Bradford turn 50? It seemed to happen once a year on Eight is Enough, and now that I’ve watched the series in its entirety all that’s left to do — besides write another half-dozen promised blog posts and maybe a PhD dissertation about it — is watch the telefilms it spawned, Eight is Enough: A Family Reunion (1987) and An Eight is Enough Wedding (1989). Luckily, they’re free on YouTube, but at what emotional cost? We’ll have to hear Willie Aames sing again, for one thing, and his Wedding hairstyle was such an affront to basic human decency that Tipper Gore tried to get a parental advisory label slapped on it.
Sadly, Betty Buckley’s not there to make it more tolerable; she wanted nothing more to do with the Bradfords and was replaced by Mary Frann in Reunion. By the time of Wedding, Abby might’ve been played by a craft service worker who wore the right size clothing; Frann couldn’t be bothered to return.* But I suspect the most unforgivable recast of all will involve Merle ‘the Pearl’ Stockwell, who is played in Wedding by whatever Van Patten son was most underemployed at the time. Brian Patrick Clarke wasn’t just immensely likable as the aw-shucks Merle, he was easy on the eyes, and now I can only hope that Merle and Susan are divorced by the time of Wedding so it doesn’t look like she’s married to her dad.
Next on the agenda, if I wasn’t about to fall asleep, would be why the heck it currently costs eight trillion dollars to purchase all four seasons of Scarecrow and Mrs. King on DVD. The first season is priced normally, if memory serves, and possibly the third as well, but the prices for the second, fourth, or for the entire four-season bundle, are temporarily outrageous on eBay and Amazon Marketplace. It’s not a big deal as long as it’s still on Tubi, but this gives me agita as a semi-reputable Kate Jackson scholar and wholly reputable fan. Once it’s available again for a reasonable sum, I’ll acquire the whole series for safekeeping. The Dark Shadows box set, on the other hand, is likely to remain out of reach, since she was only in a fraction of its 1,225 episodes.
* Crankenstein and I are still watching Newhart, having recently started season two, and we’re having trouble adjusting to St. Louis’s own Frann. Don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t without her charms, but her comedic stylings were rather more passive than Suzanne Pleshette’s, at least in the early seasons. Fortunately, we’re at the point where Julia Duffy, a national treasure, becomes a regular, so things are looking up.
03.04.25: Oh, hell, Grant Goodeve really did record at least two Christian music albums, though it’s hard to find information about either of them. In the Storm was probably his first, its 1996 release roughly coinciding with his religious conversion; its title track currently has 382 listens on YouTube. Throughout the Ages is more of a question mark since I wasn’t able to find any old audiocassette releases confirming its provenance, but both have been rereleased on streaming services, including Spotify, where the actor and TV host has 20 monthly listeners.*
Tomorrow I’ll add a listen to that YouTube tally but today was devoted to other things, beginning with the ALJ hearing. The first thing the lawyer said afterward was “That went very well,” but I’m not sure whether that means anything; there wasn’t much time to ask questions because she had another hearing coming up. I’ll write more about this later, once my thoughts are clearer, but my initial impression of the judge was positive and I liked that she took time to correct a few small but important details previous adjudicators or consultative examiners got wrong, including who prescribed my Zoloft and why I’m taking it.
Once that was out of the way, Crankenstein and I stopped by a new bagelry and picked up some bagels and schmear, then went home for brunch with Muriel. I didn’t feel great today and was briefly worried about having to reschedule upcoming commitments, until an itchy welt on my arm reminded me of yesterday’s annual physical — and the pneumonia vaccine I was given after the PCP noticed the ones I’d gotten just prior to starting Humira in 2017 predated Prevnar 20. Now my assumption is that I’ll feel better in the morning and might finally have time tomorrow to finish a longer post.
* That isn’t unimpressive considering how niche those albums were and how long ago the more popular one was released. For comparison’s sake, “Eyes of My Heart” legend (around here, anyway) Terry Meeuwsen has 33 monthly Spotify listeners.
03.03.25: The end is nigh. A judge is mere hours away from determining whether I’m a “wuss, crybaby, faker” who oughta rub a little dirt on her Parkinson’s and Crohn’s and get back into the full-time employment game — but the lawyer cautioned her decision could take weeks or months to arrive.
Nearly a year after electing, reluctantly and with great ambivalence, to apply for SSDI, my expectations of success remain so low as to be subterranean. While my current situation is considerably more Bananas farcical than Naked Gun slapstick, I’ve privately regarded tomorrow’s hearing as “the final insult” since its date was first set. I’ll write more about that later, and why I decided to keep most of this private (other than detailing it here), but would rather not dwell on it — or anything else — tonight. Back tomorrow with either thoughts on the hearing or additional complaints about Grant Goodeve.*
* It’s not come up here yet because it isn’t relevant to Eight is Enough, but it is potentially relevant to future Tammy Faye Bakker discourse: Goodeve’s a born-again Christian and he was a Trumper the first time around (I’m not sure if that’s still the case). Between those grifts and his late ’70s musical aspirations, I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if he’s released an inspirational album or two. We’ll take a closer look at that sometime, unless Lesley Stahl beats us to the punch.
03.02.25: I’ve finally finished Eight is Enough, albeit accidentally; it concluded so abruptly that I double-checked IMDb to make sure Tubi was correct. It ended the way it was always going to, I suppose, with Grant Goodeve hoovering up valuable screen time that would’ve been better spent on any other cast member — or even on Preparation H commercials.
David Bradford was such an insufferable character by the first of his many breakups with Janet that Goodeve, who’d supposedly agitated for their divorce to restore his diminished status on the show, should’ve been given an ultimatum: accept a smaller role or get lost. (For God’s sake, wasn’t that terrible five-hour-long theme song enough? Was there no end to his sense of entitlement?) I’m sympathetic to the writers, who had a huge cast to juggle and a lot of offscreen misfortune to deal with, including Diana Hyland’s death and Lani O’Grady’s personal issues restricting her ability to work, but Ralph Macchio and more David were never going to be the solution to their problems — the daughters were the heart of Eight is Enough, along with Dr. Maxwell’s ugliest golf pants.
One thing I won’t be watching tonight is the Oscars, which was hardly an imprimatur of quality to begin with and becomes a more facile celebration of mediocrity each year. This year’s nominees are particularly forgettable and without Joe’s running commentary there’s nothing to make me even slightly interested in what happens. Someone, perhaps Baz Luhrmann or Julie Taymor, will eventually craft a sweeping epic about a one-legged consumptive nonbinary prostitute in a wheelchair dying aboard the Titanic; or Julian Schnabel will direct Come On, Aileen, a jaunty, trauma-informed musical about a chronically unhoused, schizoaffective transgender hooker who normally kills her johns improbably finding love (and understanding!) with one, a mute alcoholic tormented by memories of the years he spent as a Tourette-afflicted circus clown in Bergen-Belsen.* It will sweep every category, magically ending both world hunger and genocide in Sudan, and we’ll all become fully actualized beings. Then we can raze the Oscars to the ground and start anew, but not before giving Madonna an honorary award for her contributions to cinema.**
* The late Jerry Lewis will get a screenwriting credit, but only after his estate threatens to sue.
** Namely, that she mostly stopped acting after Swept Away. (If my concentration ever improves, I’m going to write a 400 page book about the erotic thrillers of the early ’90s and the varying debts of gratitude they owe Barbara Stanwyck, Lizabeth Scott, Kathleen Turner, Alfred Hitchcock, and Joe Eszterhas; Body of Evidence, currently on Tubi, will naturally make the cut.)
03.01.25: Maybe last weekend’s post should’ve been called “It’s 3 AM, I Must Be Screaming.” That’s around the time I woke Crankenstein up last night with a piercing shriek that set her heart pounding and adrenaline surging. It also woke up Muriel, whose collar jangled from downstairs as she dutifully rose to investigate and, finding nothing amiss, trotted back to bed. For an hour or two leading up to it, I’d been straddling the line between barely awake and barely asleep; I kept waking in a state of mild agitation caused by a lack of restful sleep.
Then I slipped into an obnoxiously vivid dream in which it was the middle of the night and Crankenstein and I were asleep when street noise nudged me awake — at which time I realized we were being burgled. I was alert enough to know on some level, at least briefly, that it was just a dream, but it wasn’t enough to stop what happened next. Dream Me looked out a window, found a band of thieves storming our (detached) garage and stealing everything in sight, cars included, and opened the window to scream and scare them off. Real Me, still in bed, frightened my wife and our dog instead.
In my dreams, as in reality, I have trouble shrieking; the old needs-to-scream-but-can’t trope was a recurring theme as early as first or second or grade and continued until somewhere in my teens. That I was capable of producing enough volume to jolt anyone last night is as shocking to me as it probably was to Crankenstein, who half-woke me afterward by slinging a leg over mine. She kept stirring and got out of bed to use the bathroom, which woke me up the rest of the way and prompted me to turn on my bedside lantern (which is preferable at 3:30 am to a brighter bedside lamp) and ask “Are you OK?”
“Yes,” she sleep-slurred. “Are you? You screamed really loud.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, knowing she wouldn’t remember our conversation in the morning. “I’m fine, it was my dream. These people broke into the garage…”
Around 9:30 am, when we next interacted, one of her first questions was “Do you remember what you were dreaming about last night?”
We make quite a ridiculous pair, at least overnight, when I’m up to God knows what and she’s engaged in all kinds of shenanigans, and sometimes entire conversations, she can’t recall. If my half of it’s going to happen regularly — and my guess is it’s already a steady occurrence but I’m rarely loud enough to wake her — I hope my dreams can at least shift from confrontations to something funny, like a Roger Daltrey scream or Bela Lugosi’s “Karloff?!” rant from Ed Wood.
02.27.25: Cue the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s Messiah: I’m barely aware of my neck this evening because it’s almost entirely pain-free. The range of motion’s still not great but this is either a fantastic fluke or a promising start to the next few weeks, either of which is fine by me. You’ve gotta strike while the iron’s hot, so I’m going to bed early tonight (it’s just shy of 9:00 pm) and will be back tomorrow with an explanation of assorted recent and upcoming events — and possibly questions of why writing about Lisa Whelchel’s Hearts of Spring is almost as thankless as parsing Vanessa Redgrave’s Second Serve, despite its comparatively uncontroversial subject matter.*
* I’d like to stay up late enough to continue rambling about Hearts of Spring but have to be up early. What it comes down to is mommy blogging, the alleged profession of Whelchel’s character in this 2016 Hallmark offering. If you don’t remember Whelchel’s days as a fundamentalist Christian mommy blogger, it’ll be my job to remind you, and figuring out how to do that without confusing and alienating readers who wouldn’t normally visit Cranky has been vexing.
02.26.25: It only took two days but I finally noticed that I’d rearranged the alphabet to put ‘I’ before ‘G’ on the 2/24 book list, so that’s been corrected. My neck might’ve been corrected as well at this morning’s MDS appointment, but it’s much too early to gauge our success. What a gift it would be — not only to Crankenstein and Muriel but readers fed up with my grumbling about sleep, sleep, sleep — if this restores some normalcy around here and makes it easier for me to dig out of this sleep-deficit hole and become less of a zombie.
The neurologist got the dosage increase she’d sought from my insurer and happily noted “We used all of it!” as she tossed the empty Botox syringes into a wall-mounted sharps container.* We played it safe, though, and she didn’t experiment this time to try to improve my swallowing; she followed the injection map from our second-to-last appointment and decided after the physical exam to allocate additional resources to my shoulder, upper back, and the back of my head. That whole area essentially felt like a brick, so any relief will be an improvement.
There are a couple of medication and sleep aid changes we’re making that might also prove beneficial, which I’ll cover when expanding on yesterday’s call with the lawyer since it all intersects. But now it’s time to get ready for bed since we’re having some exterior work done on the house tomorrow and they’ll be out early to set things up, much to Muriel’s chagrin.**
* Some of her patients get upset if any’s left over since it’s so expensive, which isn’t a concern I share since (a) I want as little Botox as possible; and (b) it’s financially irrelevant under my current plan, anyway, since I’ll hit my deductible regardless.
** I’d be remiss not to address Michelle Trachtenberg’s death in some way, though I have nothing novel to say about it. Felix and I grew up watching The Adventures of Pete & Pete at our grandparents’ house with our cousins Brandon and Keith, and all four of us loved Nona; then we saw Harriet the Spy countless times because of my younger sisters. Like most Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans, I wasn’t immediately sold on Dawn, the titular slayer’s surprise sibling, but Trachtenberg made her one of the few remaining characters worth caring about by the end of the show’s run. She worked primarily on TV before personal struggles disrupted her career, but Trachtenberg’s premature death leaves behind “What ifs…” of Brittany Murphy proportions. (One of those TV projects was a holiday telefilm that I still plan to write about as part of a Jews-in-Christmas-movies feature.)
02.25.25: My head’s still swimming from this afternoon’s long call with the disability lawyer; once my thoughts are clearer I’ll recap what’s going on with that. She walked me through what the hearing will be like, among other things, and I feel no better about it now than at any point in the past — even though she repeatedly emphasized that she has a strong case. I say “she” because it’s hers more than mine, even though it’s predicated on my history; she’s the one doing all the work and making all the arguments. My only job, as it were, is to continue existing in my natural state while waiting to take it on the chin again if the judge is unmoved.
In happier news, my last-minute Kindle archiving (see last night’s entry below if you’re confused) took less time than I anticipated. When all was said and done there were about 50 volumes I saw no need to grab since they’re in the public domain, and another 40 to 50 that weren’t transferable as long-forgotten library borrows I hadn’t manually cleared from the deepest recesses of my Kindle history.* The only truly “What the hell?!” discoveries were several Knut Hamsun tomes I’d gotten for free and never opened because I didn’t want to have to grapple with his antisemitism.
* I’d forgotten about those early freebies and the primary motivation behind it, which was to replace my physical media collections with digital counterparts to mollify an unreasonable ex who was never going to be satisfied by my deference, anyway, since it didn’t feed her self-loathing.
02.24.25: This was an unusually productive day in the basement, though I have nothing to show for it here: I cut up as much carpet (and carpet padding) as could fit in this week’s trash pickup and relocated some salvaged wood scraps to the utility room to make maneuvering easier. Having to do this work solo has been overwhelming at times (not to mention infuriating), for reasons you’ll understand once I’m done and explain more about it, but it’s best for everyone’s sanity to keep ‘Niles’ away from all the dust and detritus for now.
After reaching a good stopping point — something’s that harder to do now that my impulse is to keep going and going, even when it’s the worst choice I could make — I took a much-needed shower and started working on tonight’s post. Then I remembered the window for downloading computer backups of Kindle book purchases is swiftly closing and shifted my attention to that. Tomorrow’s the last day Kindle users will have access to that feature, which you can read more about here if this is the first you’ve heard of it.
This is quite a chore since it can only be done one title at a time and there are over 300 books in my collection, purchased over a span of 12 years.* Not all are worth saving but many are, so this has been a multi-day effort and one that remains unfinished. If anyone’s curious, my Kindle library’s mostly niche material my local library doesn’t offer via digital loan and mainstream stuff I expect to consult again in the future. Here are the 10 books I downloaded before pausing to write this entry, listed alphabetically by title so it’s easier on the eyes**:
- Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke (Patty Duke)
- Glamour and Mischief!: A Memoir (Michael Woulfe)
- Intimate Companions: A Triography of George Platt Lynes, Paul Cadmus, Lincoln Kirstein, and Their Circle (David Leddick)
- Moonlighting: An Oral History (Scott Ryan)
- My First Hundred Years in Show Business (Mary Louise Wilson)
- The New York Stories (John O’Hara)
- Picture (Lillian Ross)
- Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator (Oleg Khlevniuk)
- Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places (Laud Humphreys)
- We Believe the Children: A Moral Panic in the ’80s (Richard Beck)
If I find anything strange or amusing tomorrow, you’ll be the first to know. I’m uncertain whether to alert my mother, an avid Kindle user who mostly downloads free smut romance novels, to this change; it’s doubtful she rereads any of it since every book’s the same. That’s not meant as an insult, either — back when she devoured Nora Roberts paperbacks and Danielle Steel hardcovers (oh, how it hurts to write that), she occasionally made it halfway through a new one before realizing she’d already read it; the covers and plots were so interchangeable it was hard for her to keep track.
Sometimes I noticed before she did, which I usually kept to myself since 10-year-olds aren’t supposed to read Jude Deveraux and V.C. Andrews. You can imagine my confusion upon realizing sometime in the ’90s that Andrews had been dead for years and only wrote seven of the approximately 12,000 novels published under her name. Admittedly, it felt like less of a betrayal than Francine Pascal’s byline deception, but my trust in prolific authors was shaken.
* I paid for few of them out of pocket. First they were purchased with gift cards and then Amazon started offering digital credits as incentives for choosing slower shipping methods; I would strategically break up purchases into smaller batches, especially around the holidays (when incentives were larger), to maximize those credits. At the same time, I kept a private wishlist of titles and swooped in when they went on sale, often for $1.99 to $4.99, and paid with credits. Probably 95% of my Kindle library was built that way. Even Tearoom Trade, the most expensive e-book I own, cost $44.99 when I bought it in 2022 — only $9 of which I forked over after using promotional credits.
** Here’s the obligatory legal disclosure that I’m an Amazon affiliate. This means if someone clicks my link to a Lifetime movie on Amazon and streams it for $2.99 or buys a $5 pair of socks while they’re there, I earn a few cents. These commissions don’t add up to much for esoteric sites like mine — I’ve made a couple dollars over the past few weeks — but if you’re a YouTuber with a million followers and you hype a $50 handheld vacuum or a $300 air fryer that just so happens to offer sales bonuses during the week you spotlight the product, you’ll rake it in, so you can see why disclosures are necessary.
02.22.25: For the second time in two weeks, I slept idiotically late (after tossing and turning deep into the night) and felt jet-lagged the rest of the day. Next week I’ll see the neurologist and we’ll reevaluate our sleep and Botox strategies; the tinkering we did with the latter three months ago had such a deleterious effect on my sleep that I’m not sure it’s worth trying it again, which she might suggest if my insurer granted her request to cover a higher dose. If there was only one thing she could wave a magic wand and fix, I’d currently choose sleep over rigidity, slowness and dystonia — and probably even cognitive fuzziness, if only to see whether the blurriness sharpens once my sleep quality improves.
Once I was sufficiently alert, Crankenstein got wild and crazy and suggested getting takeout from a restaurant down the street (minus her favorite salad, which she deemed too high a norovirus threat). The fun continued this evening with a screening of Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu on Peacock. She’s a fan of his folk horror, and of Dracula in general, and enjoyed Nosferatu very much. So did I, though she had to glance over to see whether I was joking following my “This is just like my previous relationship” lament during a particularly gruesome scene.*
Incidentally, that conviction only intensified during the film’s horrifying conclusion. Now I found myself wondering what scary movie is the closest parallel to our marriage — Hereditary seems too obvious. I’ll report back once I figure it out (but not before finishing the post about yesterday’s uncomfortable Lyft ride).
* Her estimation of this latest Nosferatu might increase in the coming days but for now I think Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula remains her favorite. It’s still mine, though Nicholas Hoult was a much better fit for the material than Keanu Reeves.
02.21.25: “A Tale of Two Lyft Drivers” will have to wait until tomorrow, but that’s OK because it’s anticlimactic despite one of them unexpectedly shouting something rude about “Polacks.” That was his word, not mine, as you likely deduced, and he spoke a great many words on our 20-minute drive, virtually all of them stupid. I wasn’t in the mood for it after again notching fewer than four hours of sleep, so I looked out the window and thought of my car in the garage back home and tried not to feel aggrieved about needing help with tasks I’d rather do myself.
Not all was lost: I crossed the first of several upcoming (routine) medical appointments off my list and was able to devote the rest of the day to slow, frustrating work, occasionally stopping to go outside with Muriel, who enjoyed her romps in the snow. And I saw that a (presumably) new reader was up all night zigzagging between reviews and silly Cranky content from almost 20 years ago, which is gratifying. I always get a kick out of it when truly obscure and ridiculous articles are dusted off by someone who shares the same weird interests, though it occasionally sparks a brief moment of panic in which I think “Oh no, not that one!” about posts I suspect were moderately to wildly insensitive.
02.20.25: This evening’s post was preempted by an urgent family crisis tech problems my mom wanted me to troubleshoot via text. How this turned into a 45-minute ordeal, I’m not quite sure, but I feel better about my absentmindedness now because at one point she sent me a Bitwarden screenshot of her login credentials for a site she couldn’t access and her password was rejected. “Let me see if I changed it!” she replied, and while awaiting her next message I idly attempted to pinpoint when she began punctuating everything with exclamation marks.*
She had, in fact, changed her password without updating her password management app, which reminded me of the dog-eared index card she’s kept in the interior pocket of her purse for the last 30-odd years, the one that lists the names and Social Security numbers of each of her children. As an adult I’ve asked her several times to please redact my information since purses are easily snatched, and she always says she will. But I’m sure if I called Felix right now and asked him to rifle through her newest bag, one she got just a couple years ago, he’d find it — probably next to a roll of Certs from the late 1990s and a plastic baggie full of Cheerios, her go-to purse snack when we were toddlers.
She kept that card in her purse in case we had medical emergencies and she had to rush to the hospital. It didn’t matter that we were all insured by the same plan and that our coverage cards were in her wallet, which was also in her purse, we were her responsibility and she had to be prepared. (Had her purse been any larger, she would’ve stored copies of our birth certificates, fingerprints, and possibly dental impressions as well.) Because she’s a consummate mom, I know she’ll still feel like that when she’s 90 — unless she forgets us first. If she ever changes her mind about being buried, the card should be kept with her.**
On that unintentionally morbid note, it’s time to transfer the relevant contents of my purse into a backpack ahead of an early appointment tomorrow. What it lacks in cereal and an entire family’s birthdates and Social Security numbers, it makes up for in mini Altoids, dollar store toiletries (don’t ever leave the house without Kleenex, floss, and hand sanitizer), and small flashlights.
* I believe it started in her late forties but only spiraled out of control with the birth of her first grandchild. She’s going to send a group text one day that reads “Your uncle’s in the hospital with liver failure! The doctor says it doesn’t look good! Not looking forward to the funeral!! Who’s coming to Thanksgiving? What sides does everyone want!”
** My father can’t be buried in our family’s Jewish cemetery because of its Orthodox origins (had it been established as Reform, exceptions could be made) and my mom doesn’t want to be buried at his family’s farm, so they’ve instructed us to have them cremated. Dad has further specified he wants my maternal grandparents’ rabbi to conduct his service and that we should tell his antisemitic older sister “to fuck off” if she has a problem with that. That special request of his would be easier to honor than our mom’s. She wants us to divide her cremains and for each of her kids to place a small urn on our bedroom dressers so she’s always watching us. “You can turn it toward the wall when you need privacy,” she suggests. I really wish she were joking, so I could turn it into a depraved version of the beloved children’s book Love You Forever, but she’s mostly serious.
02.19.25: Anyone interested in a slumber party? We can catch up on Rachel Maddow’s latest broadcasts if nothing good’s on TCM, listen to Muriel snore, maybe pass around a tin of Blue Diamond’s Sweet Thai Chili-flavored almonds. Crankenstein has taken ill with a sore throat, mild cough, and feverless chills, so I’ll bunk with Muriel or sleep in the Grandma Suite to spare her my nocturnal Rockettes act and avoid the germy Darth Vader breathing she directs at my face all night. It’s probably all for naught since my throat’s already a bit scratchy, in which case a slumber party’s a terrible idea — not to mention I have no idea whether any of you are sticky-fingered types who’d make off with my priceless collection of Golden Girls tchotchkes and tawdry tell-alls.
Rather than turn this into a footnote, I’ll digress here and mention that Crankenstein and I sometimes joke about how disappointed the average burglar would be as he ransacked our house. We have little in the way of jewelry (and her earrings tend to be odd, depicting, say, squirrels… or Judith Slaying Holofernes) and most of our electronics are cheap or outdated. There aren’t any guns, recreational drugs or thick wads of cash, and our medications are thoroughly unexotic; the only stuff potentially worth stealing has such a narrow market that an intrepid investigator could easily track it. Just follow the trail of Golden Girls figures; vintage Judy Garland, Barbara Stanwyck, and Pedro Almodóvar posters; lobby cards from long-forgotten Sandy Dennis films; framed Lucille Bluth art; and hardcover Liz Renay books back to the glittery den of turban-wearing thieves seeking retribution for something dismissive I once wrote about Joan Collins.*
Anyway, I’ve wandered far enough off-track that I forgot where I was going with this, a lapse that has less to do with cognitive strain than having worn myself out clearing snow again in frigid weather. I’ll go floss and brush my teeth and grab some pillows and blankets, and anyone who passes a background check can help themselves to popcorn or an assortment of Aldi cheese and crackers and stream some Falcon Crest on Plex.**
* One day I’ll write about the theft of Alvy, my first laptop, but the grief is still too raw 24 years later. (Windows needed names assigned to the computers and mine had a theme — Alvy, Isaac, Boris — in keeping with my early interest in Woody Allen films.)
** If you’d rather watch The Colbys, the complete set is in my DVD closet, assuming those vindictive gay thieves — I believe they have a Maltipoo named Farnsworth “Dex” Dexter — haven’t already absconded with it.
02.17.25: It was a rough day physically and mentally, enough so that anything I try to write about it right now would be an ill-considered and unsatisfying read. You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, and tonight I’m folding ’em and heading to bed. If tomorrow brings a reduction in stress, as it probably will, I’ll be able to joke about today’s challenges (complete with photos!), which have no real significance in the grand scheme of things but can wear you down sometimes anyway. Apologies for the lackluster non-post, which probably could’ve been avoided if only I’d sought inspiration from Tammy Faye.
02.16.25: We need to talk about Christian music again, which I’m mentioning now so you can prepare yourselves accordingly. In typical convoluted fashion, this started with the decidedly non-Christian grandfather who wanted me to have his record collection when he died. For reasons we’ll get to later, I never collected my inheritance, which in recent years has resided on a ping-pong table in my parents’ basement. Other relatives occasionally expressed mild interest in claiming it for themselves, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been stripped of anything they mistakenly believed had monetary value, but nobody ever wanted the whole enchilada — until now. A crate of Papa’s records is headed my way and maybe it’ll inspire some future posts here.
Unfortunately, there’s going to be a slight listening delay. Each component of my high school stereo system had been carefully wrapped, boxed, and shelved in my parents’ basement in the early aughts, when I switched to a unit with a smaller footprint. Later, by 2009 or 2010, having acquired both an iPod and a girlfriend, I’d sold most of my CDs altogether and rarely used a stereo at all. Within a few years of that, Felix, who was always breaking his own audio equipment or selling it to finance his video game habit, asked if he could borrow my original stereo — which meant he’d already taken it, because he has no impulse control. Since I didn’t need it and none of it was high-end, anyway, I told him that was fine as long as he didn’t sell it, trade it or destroy it.
The exact fate of that setup — the five-disc changer and dual cassette deck, its five shelf speakers, and the entry-level Sony record player I later connected to it — has apparently been lost to time. My dad checked his basement yesterday and found no sign of it, and Felix was conspicuously silent when asked if he could recall its whereabouts. It’s not a big deal, we can easily replace it, but first I’ll need to read about newer technology and establish a preliminary budget if we go in that direction. Older gear is also fine, so we’ll put out feelers to Crankenstein’s parents, who are trying to downsize and regularly hound us about whether we’ll take this-or-that off their hands, and I’ll keep tabs on neighborhood buy/sell groups for castoffs.
This has all the makings of a fun side project, which brings us to Tammy Faye Messner and the albums she released as Tammy Faye Bakker on her own PTL Club Records & Tapes label. Certainly it’s nothing Papa ever owned, but I stumbled upon a few of these treasures today while searching for a secular LP I’d like to buy if it’s not included in his crate. The album covers are incredible, her song choices intriguing, and this is a spiritual journey we should probably take together if these shameless money-grabs are freely available on YouTube. More later, once we’ve had time to pray on it, preferably while dressed like a genteel churchgoing brothel owner.
02.15.25: Checking in with only minutes to spare to confirm that Crankenstein survived last night’s introduction to Bridget Jones and even occasionally paid attention. Granted, she understood Daniel Cleaver, Shazza, “giant mummy pants,” and the callbacks to Mark Darcy’s Christmas sweater and Bridget’s knack for public self-humiliation roughly as well as I did all the archery and fire and destruction of the Hobbit trilogy finale we saw on our first movie date. But it was comfort food viewing for me and I’ll admit without embarrassment that I teared up more than once. Zellweger was particularly great in her scenes with Jim Broadbent and Colin Firth; Bridget’s evening stroll with Mark is as good a representation of the Ivy Compton-Burnett grief I’ve previously written about as you’ll find anywhere. If you, too, are old and sad and sentimental, check it out.
02.14.25: Unless you’ve experienced Parkinson’s fatigue firsthand, it’s hard to understand just how crushing it is; as Johns Hopkins attempts to convey here, it goes beyond regular exhaustion. Other than griping about it on the pages of this site — and to Crankenstein and my MDS — it’s not something I’ve tried to explain in detail to friends or family because they have no frame of reference for it. What happened to me today might make it click for a nearly universal audience: I was so tired I fell asleep while getting a cavity filled, complete with drilling.
The dentist, who kept working, administered nothing more than a numbing shot, so I wasn’t under sedation; I’d gotten five or six hours of sleep the night before, so I wasn’t running on empty. Over the past year or two there’s been a growing list of odd places where I’ve almost fallen asleep, including in Lyft vehicles (which would be dangerous) and the bustling waiting rooms of various hospital buildings (where you risk becoming a Snapchat story or accidental TikTok sensation), in a very loud MRI tunnel, and even while standing in my own backyard.* Zonking out in the dentist’s chair was more embarrassing than those incidents; short of snoring in the middle of a Pap smear, I’m not sure anything could top it.
In other news, Crankenstein gallantly allows me to choose our February 14th viewing each year, a tradition she started on our first Valentine’s Day as a married couple. Since then she’s endured many films she never would’ve selected on her own, such as the 2018 remake of A Star is Born, 2019’s Judy, and Jennifer Lopez’s Marry Me. Tonight’s selection, a new addition to Peacock, won’t just make her groan and roll her eyes, but possibly feign convulsions and death as if she’d ingested strychnine. That’s right, we’re watching Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, and I’m as excited as she’ll be downcast, so keep her in your thoughts.**
* While Muriel took her sweet time getting down to business.
** This one might hold her attention if she gives it a chance — Crankenstein always forgets she likes Renée Zellweger, a favorite of mine whose Judy performance impressed her and whose limited series, The Thing About the Pam, she ultimately enjoyed more than I did. And Zellweger’s not the only draw, who doesn’t love Chiwetel Ejiofor?
02.12.25: We’ve entered the David Chase era of Northern Exposure and the show is losing its magic; its unique rhythms and continuity have all but disappeared, replaced by irredeemably lazy subplots like Shelly’s secret fluency in Italian. (More absurdly, this talent is revealed when she finds endless spare time for reading Dante to Ruth-Anne despite having a newborn at home.) If there’s a silver lining to the senseless destruction of such a wonderful show, it’s that Chase’s disinterest in Cicely, Alaska, might be the push I’ve needed to rewatch The Sopranos for the first time since it ended in 2007.
This is something I’ve looked forward to for several years now and have continually postponed, because The Sopranos is an experience best shared with others and it also requires your full attention. Crankenstein’s never seen it but I know her usual antics — immersion in her phone, getting up a half-dozen times in the course of a half-hour (followed by angst when Muriel seizes those opportunities to steal her spot on the couch), asking me to hit “pause” with 60 seconds left in an episode — would drive me to despair. I guess if I do this, it’ll be solo, unless a friend who had a connected uncle or two wants in on the action. Afterward I’ll finally read The Sopranos Sessions, which includes extensive interviews with Chase.
First, though, I must wrap up my Auntie V coverage and finish some reviews. There wasn’t any time for that today since I was chasing my tail after yesterday’s disruptions, but we’re due for more winter weather soon and if we’re left snowbound I’ll work on it. Or maybe I’ll get distracted by memories of my favorite Baby-sitter’s Club Super Special, which was titled Snowbound, and rant for five paragraphs about how stupid it was to pair Kristy with Bart when she was obviously gay. Of course, that was later surpassed by pairing Stacey with Robert, a dashing young man in preppy attire she met on Fire Island.*
* I still have the form letter and thick packet of resources a mailroom intern pretending to be Ann M. Martin sent me in the very early ’90s in response to a fan letter that mentioned my interest in writing. It also included a glossy headshot of the author, whose bio I checked with every new BSC release to make sure it didn’t suddenly mention a husband. I’m not sure I had a crush on her, it was more like I recognized something about Martin that I couldn’t quite put a name to; I knew it would be wrong — as in unsuitable or incongruous — for her to have a husband, just as it would’ve been wrong for Harvey Fierstein to have a wife. When she officially came out in 2016, I wanted to rant about Bart and Robert and send her a packet of silly lesbian resources, but resisted the urge since she’d been gaying it up longer than I’d been alive.
02.11.25: It’s a new day and a clean slate for these updates, but you can still access the old ones here, not that they’re worth rereading. This morning was a strange one: I didn’t fall asleep until sometime after 3 am and at 6:45-ish I heard Crankenstein get up, at which time I took my first dose of levodopa and dozed off again. An hour later (or so I thought), she appeared at my bedside looking extra put-together and said “You have to get up.”
“No, I don’t,” I mumbled, my voice barely audible. Her makeup reminded me she had lectures to give, which I assumed she was about to deliver over Zoom; she’s normally dressed more casually on Tuesday mornings, when she has administrative time. She leaned forward to better hear me and I added, “If you’re worried about [Muriel], there are KONGs in the freezer.”*
Whether she replied to that is a mystery, because I was almost immediately asleep again. Annoyingly, it wasn’t a deep, restorative sleep, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. A half-hour or so later, I was up for good and checked my watch — it was almost noon. How was that possible? Slowly and rigidly, I got up and took my overdue second dose of levodopa, aware that something more was ‘off’ than just my perception of time.
My swollen knuckle still hurt but that wasn’t it. The problem was clear once I’d shuffled to the dresser to get my slippers and a change of clothes: my thin pajama shirt was sweat-soaked despite the coolness of the room and bed.** Alas, it isn’t menopause, and I don’t think I’m fighting off a bug; it’s either PD or my old pal, arthritis, rearing its ugly head.^ The latter would also explain why I was extra tired, so I again wanted to kick myself for messing with my medication.
Crankenstein later explained that she’d already gone to campus and given her talks by the time I mumbled at her earlier; she’d just gotten home and wanted us to have lunch together. She’s usually the one who can’t wake up (unless she has to answer work calls), so this continues to strike her as bizarre and unsettling and I’m not a fan of it, either; I felt groggy the rest of the day. Now it’s only 9:59 pm but I’m heading back to bed since she requested we spend time together before she falls asleep. Fingers crossed this semi-lost day helps get my schedule back on track.
This is unforgivably boring, I know, but the good news is it can’t possibly get any duller tomorrow unless I’m comatose or decide to solicit opinions on what to do with some unsightly old tile in the basement.
* Muriel has been known to bark at neighbors’ UPS deliveries while Crankenstein’s giving presentations or answering journalists’ questions.
** The flannel sheets were put away once the temperature climbed above freezing but will return soon enough.
^ What an abundance of alluring diseases genetics has given me — Crohn’s could’ve also been the culprit, but there’d be more signs something was amiss — that it took a little time to narrow things down.