Just To Say "Happy Easter."

 

I was slightly apprehensive about calling to wish my mom a happy Easter, Sunday evening, because I knew she would probably ask me if I have been going out to busk every night, to which I would have to inform her that, after getting paid by the plasma place, it became easy for me to find excuses to do other things than go out and busk. Night time has become more dangerous in general in this post "pandemic" situation, with the daytime buskers seemingly raking in good money, which proves that there are plenty of tourists; but the diminished number of them that I see at the Lilly Pad after 10 PM seems to be a tapering off of the number of them who are doing the "out all night" type of thing...

But, I found that my mood was lifted after having called her, although the question in question was asked...

I had to tell her about the recent return of a condition that causes a swelling in the throat, one which I hadn't had since about 2013, called something like "quinsy."

quinsy, also called peritonsillar abscess pus-filled swelling in the throat that develops infrequently as a complication of acute tonsillitis". It extends through the tonsillar capsule into the loose connective tissue of the neck and displaces the involved tonsil toward the midline of the throat. Extreme pain accompanying the condition interferes with swallowing and talking. Often there is high fever and general prostration. Although acute tonsillitis is usually caused by streptococci bacteria, these organisms are not always present in the quinsy pus. Surgical incision and draining are sometimes needed if antibiotics are not given promptly.

It might just be a tonsil becoming inflamed, something that doctors would probably be chomping at the bit to assign me to surgery in order to remedy. It feels kind of like having a boil somewhere in the throat. The first time I had this, I could feel the swollen area which, at its peak, almost interfered with my singing as it was palpable when I changed notes from high to low or vice-versa.

Then, while busking one night and playing the harmonica, one of the residents of the block where I play, an older guy, who lived a few doors down was walking by me as I was struggling to bend to a particular note on the harmonica and said: "You need to kill that thing," which was probably a reaction to the tone that I was getting out of the 10 dollar Hohner I was playing, while also contending with the swollen whatever it was in my throat.

My reaction to someone making a derogatory comment is usually to double down and play even more intensely and so before he was out of ear shot I bent a note as hard as I could and was just thinking in the manner that could be confused with schizophrenia by a non believer in such things, that there might have been another meaning in what the guy said. But only schizophrenics believe that everything they see and hear is being directed at them personally, in a solipsistic way.

All that aside, I felt something distinctly "pop" in my throat as I played the note and had to pause to spit out whatever had flooded the back of my mouth, rather than swallow it. And that was the end of what I think is called something like quinsy; that time.

I remember the onset of it, in 2013, as being when I had bitten into something tart -a chicken wing that had some kind of tangy, perhaps lemon, flavor added to it. My mouth being pretty dry at the time, and having been given the wing out of the blue without having had time to salivate in anticipation of eating it; plus it being mid morning, when my body usually only got liquid energy drinks, I felt almost a cramping sensation in whatever glands make the mouth water, as if I was struggling to secrete saliva out of a dry gland, which was a pretty noticeable pain that only gradually subsided. But, it didn't totally go away, it turned into the quinsy. It probably was about 10 days from then until whatever it was popped.

But, that time I did "kill that thing." 

I "know" the old guy was probably talking about the harmonica, but, once you start to see the world in the way that I started to, back when I was around 22 years old, and had "turned the world around," and started seeing it as something that I was creating my experience of, and in effect had control over, rather than seeing myself as being subjected to random occurrences and my life being shepherded by my constantly reacting to them, never knowing what was going to happen next, then it is easy to believe that the old guy running to the Quartermaster for a roll of toilet paper or something, had delivered a message to me from God or the cosmos, suggesting that I play the harmonica even harder than I was -don't pussyfoot around, kill that thing!, type of thing...

This time I am using the Wim Hof deep breathing exercises, along with meditation while listening to Beethoven, and a bit of acupressure -trying to feel where it is and pop it without a harmonica (it had been a note that I was drawing air into the thing with, while moving my jawbone around in search of the right embouchure). I can still feel it when I swallow.

After hanging up with my mom, I felt in a good enough mood to go out to the store and gather up whatever tobacco I might find along the way.

On my way out, a heavyset black man who habitually hangs out in the lobby -some people just "need people," and become lonely by themselves in their rooms, I guess- asked me if I was going to the store and if I would pick him up a couple cold drinks, giving me a five dollar bill.

Getting to the corner bar and finding a few half American Spirit's in the trays on one table, I was aware of a young black guy coming towards me on the sidewalk. I resisted the urge to wait until he passed, out of embarrassment over being seen picking the ashtrays. I was aware of the guy stopping behind me and thought for a second that he might have been a second tobacco sniper, trying to get to the trays on the table behind me, in case I hadn't already grabbed all the half cigarettes out of its trays. I had already gotten those, and so I knew that there hadn't been a 5 dollar bill sitting on the bench nearest me. But, when I turned around to continue towards the store, there it was, folded in half and sitting there. An act of kindness by the young black guy that he probably intended to be anonymous.

That kind of surprised me, yet it didn't. I saw it as a reward for having been humble enough to pick the ashtrays in front of another human. If I want some tobacco, then why would I let my perception of what others might be thinking stop me. If a certain person judges another's worth by how much material they have and is going to be thinking: Look at that guy, he must be indigent and can't even afford a pack of cigarettes, what a loser, then that person needs to check his own attitude and stop being such a loser, the way I see it. Besides, he could be thinking: Look at that guy who is so secure in his self worth that, if he wants tobacco, is going to get some and not be deterred by whatever someone might be thinking. I think I'll leave 5 bucks where he'll find it.

Of course I could have turned towards the people a few feet away that were ignoring me and asked if one of them had dropped the 5 bucks, but I wanted to respect whatever had led them to be ignoring me...

"Ala 'na laykoom!"

Then, at the store, I used my food card to get the 2 drinks for the heavyset man, and some food for myself, and grabbed a beer and a pack of cigars, that I figured I would buy out of the 5 that I had found. But the cashier just didn't ring them up. It was the one upon whom I had said "God bless you," to, in Arabic the night before, after having learned the phrase from a cashier at the store across the street from that one. He swiped my card for the food items and then handed me the bags with everything in them, not asking for any cash for the beer and cigars...

"Ala 'na laykoom!" I repeated, on the way out..

Then it was to the other store, to break one of the 5's so I could give the heavyset guy his correct change, where I found a fat roach of potent weed sitting on one of little tables nearby. Upon returning to Sacred Heart, I gave the guy his 2 drinks, who then said: "You can keep the change..."

So, I wound up with tobacco, beer and weed, plus 10 bucks in my pocket. And, again, some might think that was all just due to random events. But, the more I believe they aren't, the more frequently they occur. Maybe I'm a schizophrenic. One psychiatrist diagnosed me as such, about 25 years ago. But he was probably just chomping at the bit to prescribe me something profitable to both him and the pharmaceutical industry...