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Browsing Blather

One Evening in St Paul

This is a true story. I’ve plagiarised an email I sent to my brother on the day after the evening described. It serves as a companion piece to my I’m Still Here post.
  To my friend Eleta Donaldson, who passed away from ALS April 22, 2022.  
 

Hot September Night

September 19, 2019 at the Orpheum, St Paul, MN

The six oldest in the family (sorry Meadowhaak!) saw a live comedy show in downtown St Paul. Frequent Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me panelist and Iranian-American comic Maz Jobrani was the (hilarious) headliner. We all enjoyed it. Masks were required throughout show, and there was a 25% capacity limit in the large well-ventilated venue (St Paul’s Ordway Theater).

My recent hermit-like devotion to my mancave, increasing disability (I don’t wheelchair-drive so good according to critics), growing dependence on my BiPAP to breathe, and complete loss of speech leaves me anxious when left alone in public—even for a minute. So if alone there in the theater I would sit like the Spinx waiting for an emergency to occur (a fire drill; a spontaneous but mandatory conga line; the audible “splat!” of my condom catheter falling to the stageward-sloped floor; a “patriot” bursting through the door, shouting about “Ayatollah-loving, NPR-swilling, mRNA-chipped, Minaj-testicled commies” and swinging around around a pair of numchucks). Anything might happen.

But there I was: Joann got me all situated, then left for the entrance lobby to get tickets to Cole and Nic (parking the van) and Nick and Tam (arriving separately). After which she apparently topped off St Paul’s wastewater treatment pond by dribbling and drabbling a week’s worth of what Gwenneth Paltrow might call (and sell as) “tea.” She was gone for about a week. By the time she came back I had almost peed myself. Which would’ve been fine and, for a bit, acted as a soothing heating pad for my right calf muscle.

My mind was “doom scrolling” at a very high rate (and I was experiencing a side effect of my herbal medicine—the one that might make me think having a “light snack” at an iHop or Taco Bell would be a good idea).

Joann had told everyone in the lobby that I wasn’t really thrilled to be there, and nervous about breathing through a damned covid mask for two hours in a crowd where if I wanted to escape… Yadda, yadda. So when Nicci and Tammy got in, they were saying “we didn’t know you didn’t want to be here” and “let’s just leave,” but by then I was fine, and looking forward to the laughs.

It turned out to be a fun night!

See the more forward-looking companion piece I’m Still Here for more.