Me oh my, I really do have a book titled Normal Entries, tickle me ticklish in Normal entries

I am unfit for public consumption. My brother set up a memorial website for my father and in my blurb somewhere I said something to the effect of ---Not to speak dead of the ill. Just saying.

When I say I’m not fit for public consumption I say it snarly and with hints of aqualung, mildew notes and a roadkill after taste (making fun of wine critics, it’s only apparent if you are one). When my elegant and grace friend says it (accusing me of having started it when I leer) with her lush full lips, the term consumption takes on an entirely different meaning. I realize it’s all in my head, but whose head should it be in?

Except for the red tape which seems to stick to medical personal like toilet paper on the shoe or hanging like a flat white tail over belt loops, things are actually better for my father now that things are worse for them. God knows I’ve had arguments with pro-lifers about abortion and euthanasia --- they always balk when I wander from death to life; with euthanasia the wandering has to do with mercy for the living and healthy with abortion the burden of the unwanted.

Tom Waits wrote a song for the Dead Man Walking soundtrack, paraphrasing an old saw --- It’s the same with men as with horses and dogs, no-one wants to die. There isn’t a pro-lifer who would buy a crutch for their beloved broke leg horse, or keep their beloved rabid dog in a pen (ala Shaun of the Dead). Why? Because, in more words than the standard (“No, you’re wrong because I love Jesus!”) The quality of mercy is not strained, or it shouldn’t be t’any rate.

To quote Tom again apropos of nothing except the rhyme and my dad’s firm Atlantic City roots ---- Mercy Mercy Mr. Percy there ain’t nothing back in Jersey.

All the tests and invasions are in regarding my own peaked-about-the-gills-hitch-in-my-getalong. Mostly I’m fine, which would be fine news if I was fine. I don’t feel like death warmed over; I feel like the other riders of the apocalypse (Pestilence, Famine and, I think, Charlie) left out in the sun during a picnic, later refrigerated, microwaved and then left in the microwave for an hour only to have someone say “Will you try this and tell me if you think it’s all right?” Advice? Just say no. I’m unfit for human consumption.

Um, sometimes that just means “I’m fine, how’re you?” This may or may not be one of those times.