There's someone in the building next door threatening to throw themselves off. I don't begin to know what to think about that. Lennart had to tell the police at the police line that he lives in this building in order to get through. There's a big inflatable "mattress" prepared for if the person does jump, however, so I really think there's not going to be any deaths in this event, as obviously the person is getting the attention they need just now (and I would think some therapy offers after s/he comes down), and if they had actually wanted to kill themselves, it would have been very easy to just jump and have no one notice until it is done with. (I've been up on the roof of this building several times when no one else was in sight. Such a thing could be done.) But it is all a little surreal.

Chicken Teeth

I was four, and it was the most beautiful building I'd ever remembered seeing. Grandpa was constructing a new chicken coop and only the framework was up. The bright sun was glaring off of the clean smelling, yellow wood which was standing behind the house like a strange geometric skeleton. The floor joists were slightly too far to jump between, but if I took long enough steps my toes would just reach. Back and forth, to and fro, I walked along the length of the building. From one two-by-four to the next, hanging on by one hand to the smooth, upright boards that Grandpa said would soon be covered by walls.

Once I got brave and decided to step across without holding on to anything. What a thrill. I felt like an olympic gymnast, or at least the world champion chicken coop walker with my own private practicing coop. Back and forth and back again, I stretched out, reaching from beam to beam. Then my foot slipped off the two-by-four. I don't know how, I only remember seeing a board come up to hit me in the face, or rather the mouth.

My front teeth were gone and steaming, salty blood was washing over the magnificent yellow board. I must have been screaming like a steam engine because Grandma was immediately there taking me back into the house, and I was gushing blood all the way. I can't remember if it hurt. I'm sure it did, but I have no recollection of that.

Later I went out to look for my teeth. I found two of them tangled in the matted green grass and weeds now crusted with blood under the chicken coop, but the third was embedded deep into the wood. I couldn't get it out. It's probably there now. Grandpa just laid the floor over it, so if the boards were pulled up I'd find it. A little, white tooth stuck in a board.

I still do stupid, dare-devil things like that, and I still get hurt doing them, but nothing stands out so vividly as the chicken coop. Even after I knocked my teeth out, I went back to walking the chicken coop beams.

Urgle.

What I thought was a cold seems to have been the flu. I don't think I've been this sick in YEARS! Lots of fever dreams, aches, cold-like symptoms in the worst way. It's now more than a week later. I'm starting to get better, yes, but even today I had to crawl back into bed (taking the kitty cat as a good fuzzy pillow, of course) and zonked out for several hours! Much of the time now, I'm feeling that level of good that is just well enough to WISH I could go out of the wretched prison of an apartment and do something, ANYTHING, but as soon as any such attempt is made, I'm exhausted by the feat of, say, putting on my shoes. Much heavy sigh-heaving and whining then ensues, and I go lie down again.

I've heard of some new magical medicine called Airborne that will save me from catching the nasty germs when I ride an airplane. Does anyone out there know if this is true, or if it's just empty promises?