Music for Lump
Music can tame the savage beat, harnessing rhythm and melody, but my curiosity is usually propelled by the lyric. This stack is called This Is Not Music! Because sometimes you need more words than music to express what is going on.
Lump has a lot going on. There is the usual work related chaos, the creative highs and lows, enquiring lumps consumed with the dry delivery of Dr. Google. I know, don’t go there you say. It’s like when I have blood taken, and I’m sitting there in the chair, one arm resting on the platform, and the technician prepares the needle, I can’t look away. I have to look. She says to me,” Most people don’t look. Most people turn away as their blood is drawn.” But I have to look, past the initial plunge into the vein, the sting, the prick. I cannot turn away as the little vials fill with my blood.
Last Wednesday my Doctor phoned me at home with the results of the biopsy. The message does not dim my love of language. FINAL DIAGNOSIS. Final. The word final imparts a seriousness to the situation. This is not a temporary thing.
This is final.
adjective
coming at the end of a series.
"the final version of the report was presented"
In music, final means:
noun
MUSIC
the principal note in a mode
My mind transforms that line to “ the principal node is a mote. The principal node is not only mote, it is mute. Use your words little lump. Tell us your hopes, your dreams, your fears of tomorrow.
At this moment my dog interrupts the flow. She is up. Which means I have to go out. Now. Or risk spending the next half hour changing her diaper. Dog diapers. This is what it has come to. Not as simple as cutting a hole in the back of the pampers, doggy diaper removal requires more than a wipe. A full doggy diaper requires wiping while they wiggle ( no different than human babies), but there is also fur. Which necessitates a bath. Which is followed by cleanup of the bathroom, your hands, perhaps the hall entry, who knows, better check the apartment.
The nose leads us.
Poor little dog. I must subsume my father’s rage and my mother’s disgust. It’s not like it’s her fault. It’s not like she planned this.
Or did she?
I quickly get dressed, put my fresh unzipped coffee in a thermos. I meant unsipped, but autocorrect.
Unzipped opens a whole world of possibilities. I put my headphones on and dial up the new Aaron Trory record DIY DENTISTRY on Bandcamp.
It jumps out of the speakers.
God, I love this kid.
I put her leash on, and leave the apartment. She is on one of her slow walking jags. Step by step. Excruciatingly slow. My impatience to get back to my writing, and also to get ready for work, and even finish the breakfast I had begun. Not to mention my unzipping of the coffee.
So I pick her up. Gather my little canine cutie in my arms and stride down the hallway to the elevator. I put her down on the slate floor of the elevator. Her back legs splay out. Her feet sliding in all directions.
Everything Everywhere All at once.
Lump is miffed. He thought this stack was about him and his final diagnosis. But no, Maisy has other plans. Or not. Who knows what goes on in that little doggy brain. I implore her to use her words. But no. She is mute. Her mode is mute.
My node is rendered moot.
Please join me again tomorrow, when we take a deep dive into the words that followed Final Diagnosis.
Music for Lump today is
Aaron Trory. DIY DENTISTRY
Available on Bandcamp for $6.66
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