I am out of sorts today. I was up all night doing nothing, just watching tv and having this feeling that something wasn't quite right. It made me restless but also tired, too tired to do what I really needed to do, which was lie down. I just wanted to stare at the tv with the cat in my lap, so that's what I did until 5am. I was awake when the world was asleep and asleep when the world was awake.
This morning my friend Bruce called to tell me he is in the hospital. Again. His sickness has been going on and off again for a few years, but this year has been especially bad. He has cancer on top of everything else, and has had a few rounds of chemo this summer, which were pretty awful. But he has had a clean bill of health for a couple of months, and is taking care of himself now, so when he called me last week to say that he had come down with the flu, I was hopeful that it was just that, the flu.
So, no. It's not just the flu, and he has to have surgery next week. It's never that simple anymore, and I guess I just have to accept that. But you know what? I don't accept it. I don't accept that he is sick and I don't know what is going to happen, and despite doing everything right, it may not be enough. Fuck. Not acceptable.
We had a good talk today. Bruce is one of those people that I am happy to do even the most mundane things with - going to the grocery store, making breakfast, lying in bed watching TV. We love to come home after we've been out to dinner and listen to Striesand on the stereo and sing, and he always turns it down for "Evergreen" because we both love that song, and he loves the way I sing it so he wants to hear my voice. He wants to hear my voice over Streisand's voice - can you imagine?
He told me that everyone has been to visit - his family, boyfriend, friends. He is well-loved, my Bruce. He said, "You know what? It's exhausting to have people here. I feel like I have to entertain them, and my father goes around checking and double-checking everything, and after they leave I just want to pass out!" He told me that all he really wants is for people to sit next to him and put their feet up and watch tv with him, and no one ever does that. He said that is why he wants me there, because that is what we do, and we don't even need to talk, and that is why we are such good friends because we both get that it is okay to be quiet.
His fever makes him sweat through his t-shirts. He bought a bunch of really cool long-sleeved t-shirts this year, and that is what he likes to sleep in, because they are comfortable and they stretch and they keep him warm. He wants someone to wash his t-shirts, because he sweats through them about every 2 hours with his fever, and they tell him that he should wear the hospital gown instead. But he doesn't want to wear the hospital gown - it's cold and doesn't fit and doesn't stretch and he just hates it. And let's be honest, Bruce is not willing to give up his fashion. I don't blame him. It makes me sad that I am not there to wash his t-shirts for him. But he is on Long Island, and I am in San Francisco - so I can only hope that someone will do it for him.
I couldn't bring myself to do too much today. I was back in the chair with the cat in my lap, being quiet. I was feeling so guilty - here he is stuck in the hospital, and I am inside on this perfectly lovely day when I should be outside enjoying it. I thought about what he would say if he were here. You know what? He wouldn't say a thing or give it a second thought. He understands that there are days when you don't want to see people, or do things, or be productive. We would heat up leftovers out of the fridge, eat them out of the containers, and lie on the couch reading magazines.
When I think of it that way, being quiet is a perfectly aceeptable way to spend the day - something I can accept along with all that I don't.
