So that “umbilicus-not-umbrella” business in the prior Confession box.  I want to touch on that theme briefly this morning.  Before, hopefully, burying it forever.  
“Trilobite swink fish”… was written—or rather… spewed forth… when I was thirty-three years old.  Now I am sixty-three.
Or possibly dead.
Everything.  Everyone has changed.  
Yet, here I am.  
No longer typing “hypertridiministerically” on a “Flesh-warm Smith-Corona marble font…” or… “sample(ing) globin-globigerina ooze flame word-worship” perhaps;  but, nevertheless, I am here… with faithful fingers, failing eyes and febrile brain… attached to a modern, electric… wireless Apple keyboard… viewing a twenty-seven inch monitor, on an Apple iMac desktop computer.
Interesting thirty year>> blink of the eyes>> shift.
“Umbilicus-not-umbrella” occurred during a period of my life when I was working as a house cleaner, and general handyman, for an aging retinue of “proper Bostonians”.  There was Mrs. Charles Darrow Gowing
Hello Mi’Lady!!
… the unrivaled queen of the hill… who hired me first… when I was truly “down and out”… from an add I put in a local paper  
She chortled, “You were the most expensive house cleaner advertising— so I thought I would try you first to see if you were worth it.”
She presided at the 101 Chestnut Street on Beacon Hill.  As a result of her kind recommendations, I also was allowed to serve, work for, Mrs. Thomas Clark Howard, Mrs. Nathan Hale, and Mrs. Thomas Hazard… to name a few of my “grande dame” favorites.  All of these highly cultured, fine pedigreed, illustrious housekeeping “clients”, (who generously employed me at twenty-five dollars an hour in the mid-to-late-nineteen-eighties),
lived in exquisite homes, surrounded by treasure troves of beautiful art objects… priceless historical… as in, “Made in Colonial America” original… truly fine, handmade furniture, famous paintings, sterling and coin silver table settings, tea services… the “first edition”, hand-tooled leather-bound classics… and, those antique flying persian carpets, of course… all of the lifelong, self-collected artifacts, the family-acquired, or, “hand-me-downs”… the “museum quality” swaddling clothes… the goose down-filled upholstery of a well-padded… “silver spoon” swallowing lifestyle… the once glorious, the meticulously mended again and again, and… the sentimental junk… the familiar, humble “ties that bind”… the tumbling, broke-back accoutrements of… centuries-long continuity… that “old money” hoards… “just can’t let go of”… until it all becomes just… “too darn valuable”… “just too much, really too much, darling”… and, “no one in the family can afford to pay the insurance premiums on all the stuff”… or, “no one in the younger generation in this family gives a damn about any of this stuff”… And so.  Sadly.  After eighty-eight-plus years…  after nine-hundred-and-ninety-plus years!… of accumulating all this blessed junk…  It’s time to call Christies Auction House
Oh.  I forgot to mention Miriam!  Excuse me— the aspiring Mrs. Sidney Stoneman……  My one over-achieving, beloved Jewish Princess!  My one fine pedigreed… Blue Blooded Boston Brahmin… Not!!  With the fabulous, newly-purchased-antiques-filled apartment at the 101 Chestnut across the way from the (incomparable intimidator) Mrs. Gowing, the not-too-shabby penthouse suite apartment at the Plaza/Ritz-Carlton Hotel overlooking the Boston Public Gardens… the 19c "impressionist period" self-propelled.... think Renoir and paint Monet... swan boats and the bronze-haired, horse surfer el Generalissimo Jorge "no digas mentiras" Washington…  with the belagered Boston Commons in the distance, then, the civilized wasp ranch... or was it a northern plantation?... in scintillating Sandwich on the Cape... a "stone's throw" from Hyannis


Oh.  Maybe another time, Mz. Miriam, dear.  I have some other heavy lifting to do at the moment.  Right now—

Signs and symptoms[edit]
During generalized febrile seizures, the body will become stiff and the arms and legs will begin twitching. The child loses consciousness, although their eyes remain open. Breathing can be irregular. They may become incontinent (wet or soil themselves); they may also vomit or have increased secretions (foam at the mouth). The seizure normally lasts for less than five
minutes.[3] The child's temperature is usually greater than 38 °C (100.4 °F).[3]
Causes[edit]
Genetic associations[6]
Febrile seizures are due to fevers,[5] usually those greater than 38 °C (100.4 °F).[7] The cause of the fevers is often a viral illness.[1] The likelihood of a febrile seizure is related to how high the temperature reaches.[1] Some feel that the rate of increase is not important[1] while others feel the rate of increase is a risk factor.[8] This latter position has not been proven.[8]
Another factor that increases the risk is a number of vaccines.[9] This increase in risk, however, is small.[9] Implicated vaccines include measles/mumps/rubella/varicella, diphtheria/tetanus/acellular pertussis/polio/Haemophilus influenzae type b, whole-cell pertussis, some versions of the pneumococcal vaccine, and some types of influenza vaccine when given together with the pneumococcal vaccine or diphtheria/tetanus/acellular pertussis vaccine.[9]
The seizures occur, by definition, without an intracranial infection or metabolic problems.[1] They run in families.[1] Several genetic associations have been identified.[6] An association with iron deficiency has also been reported, particularly in the developing world.

Right now.  I wish to comment on the peculiar “umbilicus-not-umbrella” episode.
The umbilicus writings went on for apparently nineteen… triple-set, repetitive, highly toxic… pages.  Or, at least, that is all I knowingly saved for posterity.  If I am to believe my recorded titles, these automatic writings occurred from October 31 to November 17 of the curious year, 1988.  I have included only eleven pages of these bizarre “otherworldly transmissions” because on the whole they appear to my sixty-three year old “citta”… or… mindset, as
Well.
Deranged.

I have included a sampling of these hypervolemic, necrotic encryptions because… “one never knows”—
Anything with certainty.
One never knows what new meanings, what lucid discoveries— what “wish-fulfilling gems”— might lay hidden, might be provoked in the void by the uncovering of old forgotten texts which have lain silent for many decades gathering dust.  Pharaoh’s curses aside…
That said.  I do remember that at the end of these self-inflicted, irremediable psychotic  “transmissions”, I had to lie down on the iron-rebar-reinforced-eleven-inch-thick cement floor in my very recently acquired live/work studio space in Brickbottom Artists Building in Somerville, Massachusetts and
Wrap my head in a big bag of ice from a local mini-mart.
“Occasionally bits of brain casing melt”… would be no exaggeration of the state of mind I found myself in— upon completing the skittering course of this “swink fish swim” for world peace?  
Perhaps the frightful measure of all of that “spirochaete dust”… which flew up my nose from all those years of— “piano wire neck-tie mustard sponge(ing)” the musty environs within and around the ancient midden mound of Beacon Hill reached critical?  
Perhaps the inherent liability of living within the same multi-storied concretized metal enclosure… the art bunker… with all of those poor, starving… deranged artists— the “Dust feast of the Guardian Angels” overwhelmed my delicate instrumentation?
It is true.  Thirty truth-thirsty years earlier at the tender, heavily vaccinated age of three.  I was inclined to have “febrile seizures” alone in my bed late at night.  Occasionally my parents would hear me scream and come in to find me, “white as a sheet, stiff as a board, panting, sweating, shaking…  eyes wide open
un-wakable”… apparently unreachable for some minutes 
But.   “Night terrors”, being a common occurrence for young children.  No one thought much of it back then.
“It’s a frightful world. The sooner they get used to it, the better”.
No one asked.  No one dared.  No one knew.  
What sublime mental treasures.  What luminous feeling mysteries.  
What secret joys—what unspeakable abominations—lay hidden deep within the ever-weeping sea caves of my tiny cockle shell heart.
But.  
Furious, therapeutic… a clockwork indigo sessions?… replete with inner-disney-technicolor-dolby-surround-mindscape-sound— “transpersonal” visions of violent lifetimes upon violent lifetimes.  (See: Down the Rabbit Hole in Confessions)  
Recurrent childhood nightmares about
Being a helpless bland piece of white
Sunbeam bread
Floating on the scum-laden
Sun-shining waters of the lagoon
“By the shores of Gitche Gumee
By the Shining Big Sea Waters…”
At the back of Audubon Park—  
Being eaten alive!
By hideous giant white honking
Yellow-billed voracious geese… “febrile seizures”.  And.  
Autonomous, paranoid paranormal…  “ trigger-happy trilobite” transgressions aside.

Nothing.  Nothing within the range of my prior experience, could have prepared me for the tumultuous year, 2014.
The frightful, slippery… death-tangoing year!  The fateful Year 5.  The “make it or break it”… “decisive moment”
The Legendary “Cancer Cure” Year 5!  (That is, if you live five years with cancer you are considered “cured” by modern western medicine…?)
That’s right.  2009 + 5 = 2014
And I did mention this important fact to Senor Cancer, my dancing partner.
More than once on the freshly mopped lab… dance floor.
Yes.  I have been trying to avoid this deadly year since beginning these rocky cliff confessions.
But.  I guess.  We’ve arrived at the then… zen edge of the computer axial tomographic abyss.
The yearly cat scan.  The oracular death donut.  
December 30, 2014.
Five years into the process of living and dying with stage three colon cancer.
I put it off until after my Christmas visit to my elderly parents and kids in New Orleans.
And now.  The envelope please.  The moment of truth we’ve all been waiting anxiously for… since 2009.
The verdict?

STAGE IV!!!!    

YES!!

Finally the suspense is over!
You’ve made it to Stage IV!  A "grapefruit-size" malignant neoplasm is growing out of control in the right lobe of your liver!!
Congratulations.

(When would you like to schedule your surgery for?  asked Dr. Hughes, my fourth oncologist at Eureka Internal Medicine.)
You want to hear that l’il kernel of fear pop!?
You want to feel that tiny seedling of hope wilt?
Get in line for a ten-thousand-dollar yearly cat scan, bro.
Twelve-grand next year!  Get it while it’s a bargain.
Ye un-repentant PCIP sinners!!
Join the “survivor’s club” for stage yadda-yadda…
Regular crucifixions next door, pal.
Next.  Next.  Next

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