can't. . . not . . . do stuff (part deaux)

Ow.

No really.

Ow.

Calvin gave me the perfect line for the next song.

"Why are you broken?"

It'll be like the anti-power ballad. I envision incredibly peppy satirical lyrics wrapped around minor key melodies.

It takes the perfect song cliche "I'm broken, you're broken, we're all broken" and kind of tosses it in the air to watch it splatter to the ground.

I live for turning phrases.

Live for for it.

So what to I do now?

ow . . . ow . . .

I might have tendonitis. or tendinitus (a fine distinction). I could have bursitis, or cardiovascular disease. (Just ask WebMD) I could have a dislocated shoulder, or gout.

That's right.

Gout.

The advice nurse at kaiser asked me if I had ever had gout.

Thank god it was over the phone so she couldn't see me finishing my sausage in abject horror.

Then she asked if I had diabetes.

Then she asked me if I was pretty healthy.

Then she asked me if I was pretty and if I liked naughty girls.

I made that last part up.

But I am. And I do.

But the moral of this story is that I can't play. if I can't play, I can't write.

this is because I discover melody by mistake. I play and I play until I reach a particular zen with the universe and then everything spills out of my head like half eaten lipstick from a bag lady's purse.

I even worked myself into a very cozy postion with my back on the floor, my feet on the couch and my ukelele resting on my chest. No luck.

Any pressure on the frets sent shocks down my arm.

Then Calvin jumped on my belly and told me he was hungry.

I tried the piano with just my right hand. I leaned my face down on the bass keys and let my bad arm dangle.

You wouldn't have guessed it, but even dangling hurts.

If I wrote hip-hop, a painful dangle would be the kind of stuff legends are made of.

So I'm frustrated.

Not by writer's block, but my own potential and looming death.

And if not death, then maybe just inactivity.

Which is like death.

But with an ending.