come on, April

Yeah, I'm done with March this year. In like a lion and out like a caged lion on fire, clawing and roaring and biting and, well, on fire for fuck's sake.

Turning the page tomorrow may not change a thing, but it's going to feel good, still.

I wonder how they handle April Fool's Day around the hospital?

"Your tests have come back and I'm afraid... well... perhaps you should call your family. And tell them... that your doctor is some kind of nut! Ha! I was just screwing around! Ha! Got you! Why are you clutching your chest and not breathing? Are you just screwing around back at me? Sir? Umm... sir? Uh oh. Nurse! Nurse! Get my lawyer on line one, please!"

And Nurse Rita goes through this every year on April 1st. She's on the phone with the lawyer,

"Yeah, Randy? Yeah, it's Rita. He killed another one. I know. I know. All right. Will I see you tonight at the place? All right. Love you, too."

Click.

The weekend was all right, all things considered. My folks flew in from St. Louis and lots of good people came up to the Unit and distracted Ms. Walsh. She busted out yesterday morning, Teapot Splint and all, wheeling her IV tree right out of the front doors of the hospital to stand in the sunshine for about twenty minutes. Hospital security and random New Yorkers just staring at her in her hospital gown.

She was beaming like the Sun Itself.

She can only go through doors sideways, left arm leading the charge. Kind of like a human battering ram. Which is what she really is, I guess.

Trying to get some work done this morning. Edinburgh, Winchester and I'm doing a ten-minute thing next Monday at Dixon Place. Will have to rehearse that at some point this week, I suppose.

Missed the Monday Morning Music Quiz last week. The only song I could hear that day was Art Blakey's A Night in Tunisia, banging and rattling through my head at top volume, had to shout out my thoughts to myself over the racket.

I'm better now.

So, let's play Spot the Phoney:

Three of these songs are real and sound great when played loudly. One of them hasn't been written yet.

1. Take Me Down to the Hospital, The Replacements

2. Tuff Enuff, The Fabulous Thunderbirds

3. Drive the Pain, The Soup Dragons

4. Baby's Burning, Rev. Horton and the Heat

Extra points if you can quote the opening lines of the real ones, gold stars if you can write the opening lines of the phoney.