THE TRIALS AT ST TIMMY'S 14 ================================================================= THE TRIALS AT ST TIMMY'S -- The Continued Saga of Paul Ess's Rehabilitation ================================================================= This is episode 14. Before I became tardfarm[tm] bait, I had a daily uniform of charcoal grey khaki pants, yellowed white shirt, plainfront deliveryman's jacket (brown) (think UPS) and my dark blue Kangol cap. I buy my leather shoes from a mailorder outfit in Massachusetts because they are reasonable in price and last nearly forever. They are large, wide, clompy, and black. They aren't that far off of the Doctor Martin thang. We mustn't forget that out of doors I wear metal framed dark prescription glasses a la John Lennon. This is sort of a severe way to package oneself but it worked for me on the street by giving the message, Don't bother me with your shit; I'm in a shitty enough mood of my own. Just to make people nervous or to cause them to ask questions so I could growl at them, I wore odd bits on a 24-inch piece of bathtub bead chain. My favorite piece is a one-inch jade penis. People would pick it up off my chest and look at it and say Oh what is that and Isn't it cute -- until they realized WHAT it is. I have two small shrine boxes each with a different Hindu deity statuette inside it. The blackish elephant-headed god had a server in a buffet restaurant Mr Cheez and I pigged in ready to rattle rosary beads. He considered me to be of the Christian devil. Among the more whimsical items is a faucet handle of chromed metal and porcelain which is engraved HOT. I tend to have a high opinion of myself. Probably the items which make more people more nervous than any others are the ones Auntie Lenore says I must tell you about. They are my sado-babies. They are a pair of tiny pink rubber dolls, naked as can be, through which I ran a large safety pin through each. I wear them on my jacket shoulder in the manner these lower middle-class idiots wear those sickening Angel-on-my-Shoulder things. They are worn in reverence for the possibly late Charles Pierce, San Francisco's most celebrated female impersonator. Mr Pierce does a hilarious take-off on Mommy Dearest with a large blonde doll having a coat-hanger run through its head. Other than my collection of lavalier junques, I collect small earrings. I used to give one of each pair to either Mr Cheez or to a wildly queenly late friend of ours, Alex aka Miss Phoenicia Mae All Done Up in a Red Dress Honeychile. They would wear the earring in their pierced ear or, in Cheezie's case, in his tit. I wore mine on my hat. I got a lot of curious looks on the city buses I rode eschewing owning a car where there is no place to put it when you are done with it. Sometimes I'm surprised at the amount of my off-beat personality I've put on hold since the leg swoll up and got me into this tardfarm business. I find myself more and more able to accept going back into being who I was. Age tends to make you comfortable with yourself. I also am surprised to discover that so many things I considered to be boringly individualistic actually count as somewhat tasteless. Gee, maybe I was putting people's noses out of joint a long time ago and was blissfully ignorant of my calling. * * * * * Today we had a resident council meeting. Miss Ralph, the social worker, was mistress of ceremonies. Miss Vicki, the activities director, played Kathy Lee to his Regis. We went over a lot of the same things we discussed when the owner's daughter came here and sparkled for us last week. I won't hold my breath until any of it causes improvements because blue is not my color. It seems there is a resident's charity fund of some sort with about $400 in it. The fund was started with the idea the place would obtain a big-screen television. Said set would end up in the fireplace lounge up front replacing the existing console set which is highly serviceable and not that much watched. But some of the old ladies want to bring their records and play them. The 1960s stereo radio-phonograph in the dining hall only radios these days. The stylus for its turntable arm was discontinued years ago. The council decided that inquiries would be made to get a system which can play records, tapes, and ceedees. I. as resident electronics queen, will probably be hauled to Circuit Shitty to select the components. Can't you just see these old girls ODing on Rosemary Clueless and Vic DuhMoan? While we were conferring, not less than two ambuli came up to deliver new people. It was mentioned in the meeting that of some 100 beds, we have more than a dozen open. I warned you people to avoid tardfarmery if you could, and I'm glad to see you're taking my advice. Three others I didn't know checked out permanent-like over the weekend along with Goddammit Lady. They must've finished a new batch of condos in the Up Yonder. The lady across the hall inherited our latest acquisition in human misery. Her new roommate is an old crone with a toothy grimace who jabbers incoherently and is likely to do so to the point of HappyJuice[tm] or exhaustion, whichever comes first. If such a person became _my_ roomie, I would complicate the equation by adding possible asassination. As you know, we no longer have Goddammit Lady quietly chanting by day and loudly banging bedrails by night. We do still have The Screamer down the hall. Every morning about five o'clock the CNAs go around checking to see if people need their diapers changed. As soon as anyone so much as _touches_ The Screamer, she goes off like an air raid siren. You'd think they were murdering her slowly with dull implements. (Not a bad idea, come to think of it.) From the other direction comes the responsorial, some old man yowling as though Swan was twisting his nutsack. I've _got_ to get a recording walkthing in here and put some of these noises on tape for .WAV files. There are .GIF possibilities, too, from time to time but I don't have a camera here either. Mr AAAAAUUUUURRRRRNNNNNHHHHH next door has been quiet lately. It's his roomie who ordinarily is quiet who's been carrying on. I end up shutting both the bathroom doors all the time to keep their vocal noise and the noise from their teevee out of here so I can hear myself mutter and enjoy my Dracula music. Anyway, the roomie was yelling GODDAM SONOFABITCH GODDAM SOMOFABITCH over and over. I think somebody forgot to give him his pain pill is what. There is simply no question that I am Quality on a stick. Every time I come around a corner or turn near a piece of furniture, I risk bashing the back of my hand. When this happens I get a blood blister or a nasty tear in my thinned out oldfart skin. If torn, it bleeds pretty copiously. If it pools under the skin, it takes on a rich burgundy tone, not your usual plebein blue black nasty. We talked about the janitorial staff in the council meeting this morning as though they all had ears and tails. (Apologies to Delsie) They move night stands, jostle teevees, get closet doors off their tracks, leave bathroom doors open, and put waste baskets back down right in the middle of things. This sloppiness must stop. It's all right for stuff be to cantered or out in the middle if I put it there; it is not all right for a janitress to do it, especially when she wears too much of the latest gagging perfume they're advertising on teevee during soap opera hours. George's daughter came to see him for Father's Day. She was terribly late is all. In California, nobody is ever supposed to be on time. Arriving at the stated time is considered rude. When a shindig says seven, don't show up before half past. This nonsense even has official sanction in that you can be to Mass late. So long as you are there for the Gospel through to the Consecration, it counts. They took George out to a local coffee shoppe for prime rib. When he came back, he was so happy you'd think they'd taken him to the Mustang Ranch and had given him to the three best girls in the place. His FD present is a new Sony headphone radio. It has so many buttons and wheels on it to make it do anything that he couldn't figure it out. I helped him. Then he gave me two dollars in quarters. He knows my price. =================================================================