May 4: Zaphod Beeb, "Star Wars" Day, the Force

Ford and Arthur are about to meet Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Imperial Galactic Government . . .

"Yeah, just show them in, would you, Marvin?" came another voice.

Arthur looked at Ford and was astonished to see him laughing.

"What's . . . ?"

"Shhh," said Ford, "come on in."

He stepped through into the bridge.

Arthur followed him nervously and was astonished to see a man lolling back in a chair with his feet on a control console picking the teeth in his right-hand head with his left hand.  The right-hand head seemed to be thoroughly preoccupied with this task, but the left-hand one was grinning a broad, relaxed, nonchalant grin.  The number of things that Arthur couldn't believe he was seeing was fairly large.  His jaw flopped about at a loose end for a while.  

The peculiar man waved a lazy wave at Ford and with an appalling affectation of nonchalance said, "Ford, hi, how are you?  Glad you could drop in."

Ford was not going to be outcooled.

"Zaphod," he drawled, "great to see you, you're looking well, the extra arm suits you.  Nice ship you've stolen."

Arthur goggled at him.

"You mean you know this guy?" he said, waving a wild finger at Zaphod.

"Know him!" exclaimed Ford, "he's . . ." he paused, and decided to do the introductions the other way round.

"Oh, Zaphod, this is a friend of mine, Arthur Dent," he said.  "I saved him when his planet blew up."

"Oh sure," said Zaphod, "hi, Arthur, glad you could make it."  His right-hand head looked round casually, said "Hi" and went back to having its teeth picked.

Ford carried on.  "And Arthur," he said, "this is my semicousin Zaphod Beeb . . ."

"We've met," said Arthur sharply.

Two semi-relatives, trying to outcool each other at a chance meeting.  It's happened to me before.  I've written about it in this blog before--a run-in with cousins at Disney World.  Zaphod and Ford, both from Betelgeuse Five, thrown together millions of miles from home, in a stolen spaceship with an Improbability Drive.

You know, I've been a science fiction fan since I was a kid.  I remember reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when I was a teenager.  I got the original trilogy for Christmas one year and spent the rest of the day reading it.  I think I got through the first two books by the time I went to bed that night.  Zaphod and Arthur and Trillian and Ford and Marvin were pretty good company that holiday season.  Like semi-cousins from Betelgeuse Five.  That was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . .

You've probably figured out where I'm headed with this post by now if you're a Star Wars fan.  It is Star Wars Day--May the Fourth, as in "May the Fourth be with you."  This became a thing many years ago.  A time for all the Solos and Skywalkers and Vaders and Oganas to let their geek flags fly high.  My love of Star Wars goes all the way back to 1977.

I was ten-years-old when the original Star Wars appeared.  This was before it was known as A New Hope, when it was just this little, weird science fiction film that hit movie theaters in May.  I saw it for the first time in June.  I remember the day distinctly.  It was an incredibly hot summer.  The kind of heat where the bugs start sawing the air at 7 a.m. and don't stop until ten or eleven at night.

A whole crew of my siblings and I piled into my parents' van and drove the twenty minutes to the movie theater.  When we got there, the line for the show was already over 80 or 90 people deep.  Before we even got to the ticket booth, the movie was sold out.  We piled back into the van and drove back home.

The next day was just as hot.  We got to the theater two hours early and were the first in line.  The smell of buttered popcorn was in the air, and that original Hildebrandt poster--the one with Luke holding the light saber above his head and Leia by his leg, showing her leg suggestively and brandishing a blaster in her hand,--was in front of me.

I was the first person in the theater and ran down the row to one of the front rows.  It was 45 minutes before showtime, and I sat there, craning my neck around, watching the auditorium fill up.  By the time the lights dimmed, we were packed into the seats like droids in a Sandcrawler.  The lights went down.  The curtain in front of the screen opened.  Darkness.

Then, the initial blast of John Williams' theme.  Buuuuuummmm-ba-ba-buuuuuummm-ba-ba-bummmmmm.  The Star Wars logo blasting yellow against a field of stars, and the crawl of words began.  It was ah-mazing.  I was hooked.

That summer, I returned 27 times to see the movie.  When I sat down in my seat, I would look back at the projectionist (this was still the celluloid era) and wave.  He would wave back.  And then, my dose of Star Wars for the night.

I have nothing deep or profound to say today.  My geek side is exposed for all to see.  I am wearing my Star Wars tee, listening to a Star Wars radio station on my laptop,  basking in his Yoda-ness.

May the Force be with all of Saint Marty's disciples.

May 4: "Star Wars" Poem, Book, "Dagobah Meditation"

So, I've only written one Star Wars poem in my life.  I had this idea many years ago of writing an entire book of Star Wars poems.  The poem below was supposed to be the start of the project.  Wrote it.  Never returned to the idea.  I got sidetracked by Bigfoot.  I may return to the idea in the future.

For now, this May the Fourth, Saint Marty has this little meditation . . .

Dagobah Meditation

by:  Martin Achatz

Yoda sends Luke into that place
of swamp and root and snake,
a test to see if he can face
truth, stare it down without
wanting to saw it in half
with light.  Sometimes darkness
breathes like a volcano, looks
like your father, wrecked
by loss.  What force can keep
a man moving when the woman
he’s loved for 62 years can’t
remember the song they danced
to on their wedding day?
He rises at 2 a.m., clamps on a mask,
searches the galaxies
for rebel moons and ice planets,
outposts where memories hole
up to fight a losing battle.
Luke fails his test, lets
himself be pulled into
the gravity of his dad’s collapsing
star.  There is no noise when love
dies.  It just slips away, winks
out, its final light reaching you
years after it’s gone.

May 3: Fall Apart Where I'm Standing, Finals Week, Broken Healthcare

Marvin the robot and Arthur and Ford are on their way to meet Zaphod and Trillian (if you've gotten this far into the blog and don't know who these characters are or what novel they're from, abandon hope all ye who enter here) . . .

Vague whistling and humming noises were coming from Ford.  "Well, well, well," he kept saying to himself, "Zaphod Beeblebrox . . ."

Suddenly Marvin stopped, and held up a hand.

"You know what's happened now, of course?"

"No, what?" said Arthur, who didn't want to know.

"We've arrived at another of those doors."

There was a sliding door let into the side of the corridor.  Marvin eyed it suspiciously.

"Well?" said Ford impatiently.  "Do we go through?"

"Do we go through?" mimicked Marvin.  "Yes.  This is the entrance to the bridge.  I was told to take you to the bridge.  Probably the highest demand that will be made on my intellectual capacities today, I shouldn't wonder."

Slowly, with great loathing, he stepped toward the door, like a hunter stalking his prey.  Suddenly it slid open.

"Thank you," it said, "for making a simple door very happy."

Deep in Marvin's thorax gears ground.

"Funny," he intoned funereally, "how just when you think life can't possibly get any worse it suddenly does."

He heaved himself through the door and left Ford and Arthur staring at each other and shrugging their shoulders.  From inside they heard Marvin's voice again.

"I suppose you'll want to see the aliens now," he said.  "Do you want me to sit in a corner and rust, or just fall apart where I'm standing?"

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  I totally get Marvin.  Get his attitude.  Get his sense of humor.  Get his funereal tone.  If I were a robot, I'd be Marvin.

Finals week always drives me to this state.  So much work to do, not enough time to do it.  Then the e-mails from students start rolling in, each one wanting to know grades on papers and final exams.  I understand these student requests.  I, too, was one of those anxious, grade-obsessed students when I was younger.  I wanted to know my grade the day that class ended.

Now, if I were a full-time professor, I would have been holed up in my office at the college, cranking out grades and sucking down caffeine.  Unfortunately, I am a contingent professor.  Therefore, grading is done before I go to my full-time medical office job, on my lunch breaks, and after I'm done working, before I collapse into bed at midnight.  Then I get up at 5 a.m. and do it all over again.  That is the life that I've chosen.

Today, I had plans to grade during my breaks at work, at lunch.  Instead, I got a call mid-morning from one of my sisters.  It seems that Rose, my sister with Down syndrome, had a major seizure this morning in bed.  She was choking, foaming at the mouth.  An ambulance was called.  She was taken to the hospital. 

You can imagine that the rest of the day consisted of texts and more texts and replies to texts and group texts.  I got very little grading done today.  My sister Rose was evaluated at the ER.  Given an MRI.  Scheduled for an EEG.  Put on two anti-seizure medications.  Discharged.  Translation:  they really didn't figure out what has been causing the seizures, just put her on some drugs and sent her home with fingers crossed. 

If I sound a little frustrated, I am.  Here comes the Marvin-side of my personality.  I know healthcare.  I've been working in the field for going on 25 years now.  Never thought that I'd make a career out of it.  Anyway, I know when people in healthcare are passing the buck.  The buck was passed on my sister.  Instead of trying to get to the bottom of her issues, they wanted an empty ER room.  I saw doctors do the same thing with my other sister when she was suffering with lymphoma of the brain for almost a year-and-a-half before she was diagnosed.  By then, it was too late.

I get very frustrated with America's healthcare system.  It's not really about the patient.  Ever.  It's about insurance.  And money.

My sister is at home.  She's acting like her old self.  Perhaps the medication she was prescribed will stop the seizures she's been having.  That is my hope.  And I'm ashamed tonight of being a part of a broken healthcare system.

This message has been brought to you by Saint Marty.

May 2: Marvin Trudged, End of Semester Crush, Uncle Walt

Back to Marvin, the depressed robot . . .

Marvin trudged on down the corridor, still moaning.

"And then of course I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left-hand side . . ."

"No?" said Arthur grimly as he walked along beside him.  "Really?"

"Oh, yes," said Marvin, "I mean I've asked for them to be replaced but no one ever listens."

"I can imagine."

Arthur is feigning interest in what Marvin is saying.  To be polite, I guess.  Marvin is simply difficult to be around.  He complains all the time.  The universe is a bleak and miserable place in Marvin's head space.  It's not Marvin's fault, though.  He was programmed that way.  

I, on the other hand, was not programmed to emulate the state of depression.  I can't blame a team of AI specialists for my continually dark moods.  It's just the way I am, like it or not.  I have an affinity for pessimism, I guess.  That is mostly the result of being tired a lot.

I am nearing the end of the semester.  Tons of grading to do.  I know that all of you out there are tired of hearing my complaints about the end-of-semester crush, but, unless you've experienced it as an instructor/professor, you really have no idea of the stress and exhaustion.  There's nothing like, unless you count near death experiences.

Tonight, however, I am conducting a poetry workshop at the Joy Center in my hometown.  (It's an artist retreat in the middle of the woods--there's no better place to write.)  I'm celebrating the 200th birthday of Walt Whitman this month.  (Whitman was born May 31, 1819.)  So, it's going to be Uncle Walt, me, and a bunch of poet friends, hopefully.  I've been looking forward to this event all week long.

So, trudge along with me for a few more days in this blog.  I promise it will be getting better.  Grades are due by noon next Tuesday.  So, a weekend and a day.  Then I will be in a much better state of mind.

Until then, Saint Marty has Walt Whitman.