BEATNIK BOOMER STRIKES AGAIN

a catheter at close range

I've reduced most days to only three catheterizations: bedtime, morning (as late as possible) and in the afternoon. I've discovered that I can urinate normally for several hours before my bladder gets so extended that the urge to go becomes uncomfortable and it's time to insert the old catheter once again. This urinary practice extends the time between catheterizations. It is one of the benefits of not drinking 64 fluid ounces a day. I've had to learn all these things by myself. No one in the medical profession seems to be expert on the actual trials and tribulations of using a catheter.  

Now some happy literary news. I've had a poem accepted at Work Literary Magazine. Julie Madsen who edits it put out a call on Facebook. She hadn't received enough submissions to fill her online magazine. She's been doing the editing for ages. The poem combines a moment in Henry Miller's Tropic Of Cancer when two turds appear and my job cleaning toilets as a janitor in the very college I received my undergraduate degree from. I was janitoring at the University of Dayton after I had earned my BA in English. The labor was during my drinking and falling apart days when I was cruising the bottom of my capacities, but for all that, the poem is quite interesting, and it's about time someone gave it a home. You can find it online after October 30th.

THIS IS A MYTUBE PRODUCTION

Four times a day, I shove the red rubber foot and a quarter worm that I hold in my right  hand [that's right, my "right" hand], into my terwilliger until its snout says, "ur in." I then direct the "result" into a plastic pail to be quantified and logged in my "Daily Urination Log". That's right, I've joined the Urine Nation. Six, noon, six and midnight I do the deed. Often, I'm left with an uncomfortable sensation  — although the process is more uncomfortable than painful — that resembles an urge to urinate. This sensation keeps me awake when I'd rather be sleeping. I believe I'm living on 3 to 4 hours of sleep a day. Today I tried to go to the gym to exercise. I could only exercise about 20 minutes, but I did feel hale enough to go to the senior room where I attempted to play cribbage. I hesitated to join in playing cribbage because I suddenly feared I couldn't remember how to play cribbage after a lifetime of playing cribbage. I imagined at first that my mind was going, but I believe, now, that my exhaustion is so severe as to deprive me of my full mental capacity at times. If you think I can do much writing in this state of mind, you must be losing yours. My life resembles the life of someone in a railroad car where a terrorist bomb has just gone off. However, I am messing around with rewriting some very old poetry that I cannot do much damage to. I sent five of them off last night when I wasn't sleeping. I asked my urologist the other day, if I would be needing to do this "drilling" for the rest of my life. He didn't make any promises but suggested he has a few tricks up his sleeve. Meanwhile, for the next few months, I'll be trying to adjust my life to this daily boring process.