Wow, I've got to get a draft done of my spoken word piece, "Standards," in time for the Sunday, May 23 reading at 5 p.m. at Five Points Arthouse on Tehama Street in SF, and I've got a bunch of jumbled words on paper and in the computer and, man, I tell ya, with this recovery from surgery and the, like, diminished brainpower associated with taking the pain meds and who knows what else, plus staring the column again, plus the general slowness of the body to recover from epic invasion by surgical tools and, man, that's got to be a trauma to the body to be opened up and rearranged and to actually find some of your stuff gone, like part of the sacrum gone, and some of the sacral nerves gone, so I don't begrudge myself the time or the weirdness or the occasaional bouts of minor depression (like this morning) or the disturbances in the sleep cycle, but I've got to get this little draft together for a run-through tomorrow, and heading down south to celebrate my nephew's birthday today.

Does it help to write, as far as improving the overall mental state? A little. Also it helps to just start writing as far as getting back in practice. Because, fer heavens sake, I've got to realize, the body, even dormant for just a few days, loses strength so fast! I guess maybe the mind does too -- a nind trained for years to do all these tricks of filtering, making hierarchies of meaning, creating coherence, gathering needed facts, and in my case also the strange wondering and unexpected meanderings which are a part of the performance but much harder to map out ... so I'm doing what I can but the footwork does feel a bit clumsy at times. But you know what? That could be good, character-wise, spirtual-wise, as in: Accept your limitations, dickhead. Chill out. Let go of some of that withering, debilitating, paralyzing perfectionism, dude.

I think maybe just calling myself "dude" is therapeutic!

Anyway, if you can make it to the reading, I promise to deliver some fireworks, as somehow the topic "Standards" has touched a nerve with me. (See, our little group picks a topic for each monthly reading; sometimes we adapt a piece we're working on, but in this case I'm coming up with a whole new piece dedicated to this topic.)

Look for my new column Monday morning. And also I'll introduce my new research associate, Stephannie Behrens!

More to come. Now, off to see the nephew and his crew.