For the sake of my father's privacy, I won't go into great detail about his health.  He has many illnesses competing with each other.  Right now we are not sure which one will win.  My brother Steve and I have been working alongside his longtime companion Kate to make sure he is comfortable.  We think he is, as much as he can be.  I will just say this: please let America figure out its healthcare system SOON.  We feel that one of us must be with him at all times due to the poorly run facility he is in (he calls it the hellhole). And this place has won multiple awards! Pay our healthcare workers better and let people get the help they need to die at home. Nothing freaks people out like entering a nursing home.

I have been thinking about doing art again.  When I was a teenager I spent most of my time in my room painting and writing songs. When I graduated from college I knew my two career choices would be either music or visual art.  I went with music which worked out beautifully. Now I am contemplating an online gallery to sell my art. 

My father Robert Cunniff is the person I credit with supporting these seemingly ridiculous career paths.  I have rarely seen someone so excited by music and the arts.  I now have most of his records and my children will get that education, much of which is out of print.  They seem as excited by these vinyl records as I am! Something about holding an actual record in their hands is mysterious and makes them curious. I put my albums together with his and now we have a library. Chloe likes this Lydia Lunch record that sounds like hell.  I think I got it when I was 13. Maybe she likes it because it is Pepto Bismol pink. I haven't let her hear the song that goes "Little Orphans running through the bloody snow, through the blood through the blood" etc.  Lydia must have been processing some serious sh*t through her art.  I remember my father popping his head in my room while I was blasting the Sex Pistols and saying "sounds good!" I hope to carry on his open mindedness with my kids.

9:50 am just walked in to my father's room here at the hell hole- once again he has forgotten where he is and how he got here.  I try my best to reorient him.  He had no pulse two nights ago and here he is again eating breakfast with eyes wide open.  There is no predicting.  I will just say that my brother is amazing and has beem sleeping here every night in a reclining, dusty rose colored vinyl atrocity of a chair. 

This place makes me want to throw on some Lydia Lunch. I'll listen to it while I read Pema Chodron.

Jill