Computer Reading to Me

24^th of November 2010

Dear Cassi,

Let me get it out of the way that I'm still not sure how I should send the full novel to you more, because I think I need to give it two more edits rather than one than that I'm having mail issues. It feels like I'm never going to be done with this thing. I think this is the tenth full edit, but it all meshes together now. Endless hours of listening to a computer read it to me. I wonder if the two different computer voices alter my ability to hear the right words.

Each of my computers has its own reader voice. The laptop is a girl and the main computer is a boy and the two do sound different. The old laptop has a male voice named Sam but the computer can't handle text documents over so many pages, and it really gets its wires tied over the reader and word processor running at once.

One frustration among many in a life full of frustration. Well, what can we do the hours pass to quickly as the task takes forever, and I feel the work as a heavy load. The days pass on and I still have more work to do. Well then, enough of my lament.

I don't know if I have spoken to you about my friend, Alex, whose kidneys are inflamed. He came in Monday morning looking as if he would not make it through the day. I could hear him groan as is stomach worked at the fluids that his body could not pass. It was a pain to see him like that, and once again he admitted to not taking my advice. Feeling sorry for the man I gave him the sweet potato from my lunch and told him if he had it he would feel better. I had no other advice to give him having said it all already. What do you tell a man that will not listen?

Tuesday morning I saw him once again and he said that the sweet potato had helped him markedly. “It got me through the day.” He told me. You would think that if one right meal would change things he would have at least one right meal a day, but no he just keeps killing himself.

I don't claim to be a health expert, but what I tell him works. You have to wonder about a man that is willing to put himself through that without doing a few simple things.

Then, I asked him where he shopped, and he said that his sister did the shopping for him, and that she wouldn't by him soy milk because she was afraid of getting the wrong one. He had one carton of Costco soy milk and he was good for a week. I just don't get it. This man could be one day away from better health, and he just keeps doing the wrong thing.

I feel for the man because I've been there, and I don't want to be there again. It was agony when my kidneys overloaded. I couldn't exercise, it was hard to work, I just sat in bed for hours in misery. The worst part about it was that my body would never heal because of the nutrition deficiency. It was murderous and frustrating.

In the end I stumbled on the right things to keep my body going. It's helped some but I've still a long way to go. A man like me shouldn't go giving people health advice. I should go look after myself first. Then it’s a hard road with many hills to walk. It's a long and lonely walk. The kind that fills your boots with cold mud. That's my world.

Anyway, best get to it

Richard Leland Neal