ATAXIA'S GREATEST HITS

In 2010 about, my friend Bob, who I'd met in Thailand and hadn't seen since '07, came to visit. This was before the walker. We'd been hanging out on my back porch a couple hours, drinking beers. The illness never came up. At some point, I got up to pee for the fiftieth time. I was not drunk, yet I still trudge-reeled my way back to my seat and after a minute Bob goes, "Sooo ... you walk like a zombie now." Pretty funny.

Me and my friend Sonia were going out somewhere. I have a flight of stairs and I keep my walker on a bicycle hook at the bottom for when I leave. Every time I go outside I take it off the hook. I let Sonia go ahead of me and she waited at the bottom of the stairs. I'm slowly making my way down the flight and Sonia asks, "Should I grab your thing?" That is the best thing a girl has ever said to me.

My friend Selena and I were filling out paperwork to get me on Medi-Cal. I used to be one of these people that didn't do things for myself, and negotiating the labyrinth of applying for food stamps, Medi-Cal, the card that would give me a disability discount for BART and MUNI and a new passport was not gonna happen, especially when ESPN.com has 24-hours of radio shows and my laptop had Spider Solitaire programmed into it. Talk about endless diversion. Also, sounding drunk on the phone when calling federal agencies at 9 in the morning don't go over so good. After months of terrifying my friends and family with the eventuality of me falling down, breaking something and not having even homeless-guy-insurance, Selena finally came over and said, "Mike. We are gonna get all your shit done. I'm gonna help you. Please let me do this. If not for you, then for us, cuz we're all worried." I was like, "Right on." I was very grateful but I am not always the best with getting stuff done. Selena knows me well and used the promise of imminent alcohol as an incentive. So she'd come here, make phone calls for me, fill out applications, etc. Then after we'd gotten as far as we could, we'd go to the bar. Sometimes we'd fill out stuff IN the bar. It was during one of these times -- filling out an application over 2PM beers and Dio's "Holy Diver" at the 21 Club -- that I went into my bag for a paper Selena needed. My hands flail a ton any time I extend my arms or try to hold something so I got the paper and started involuntarily waving it wildly as I brought it over and down to her. This is not a two second process. It goes on for so long it looks like I'm trying to get someone's attention from across the street. Imagine a person on the deck of a ship trying to put a burning piece of paper out with the air. I'm used to this by now and kind of try to ignore the fact that I'm doing it. The shit is funny sometimes, though, especially when trying super hard to not spill coffee from the tiny hole in a takeout lid onto my friends sitting with me and instead spraying it onto tables/confused people -- no lie -- 15 feet away. Anyway, the paper's making this loud flapping crinkle noise and I'm wrestling with my arm like it's got a mind of it's own. Selena doesn't even look up from her writing and exasperatedly quips, "Calm DOWN."

This may only be funny to people WITH ataxia but here goes. I was on a plane. Oh wait, first you should know that when I'm asleep, I make these noises. I used to pride myself on being a silent, motionless bed partner, good to sleep next to. But somewhere around 2007 I started making these noises. I've never heard them myself but I do wake myself up with them from time to time and the sound I DO hear is awful. My fear is that they are a like nasal, effeminate, snort -- like when Felix Ungar is having an allergy attack. Please God don't let it be that. My friend Val shared a room with me a few years ago and said it sounded like I was eating cookies and they tasted really good, but also scary somehow. I don't even know what that means. Can't I just talk in my sleep like a normal person? I know it's ataxia-related though because both my mother and my sister did it. My mother kind of moaned and Dee Dee sounded like she was communicating with the freaking underworld. It was creepy. OK so I have no idea what I sound like, I just know there's something going on. Last year, I'm on a plane and not only is there a girl next to me but she's cute! This never happens. Really, at 42 it was a first. There was no plan to hit on or even talk to her but, for me, it's better to sit next to a girl than ... anyone, really. So I was psyched. Pretty quick I realized two things. One, because it's not real obvious that I'm disabled if I don't have the walker and I got into my seat without incident, this girl had no idea what she was in for when I started fighting with my Subway sandwich and shredded lettuce, mustard and capicola were sure to become weaponized projectiles. I also knew that before we reached that positively enchanting moment and she figured out I was ... um ... different, I'd fall asleep and start making God knows what kind of racket. I decided I had to warn her but I didn't want to say, "By the way, I'm handi-capable!" I settled on "Uh, just so you know, it's gonna start sounding real weird around here." The story ends there. Hmmm. Kind of a long way to go for that punchline. The thing is, the whole scenario is funny. It's definitely on the list of things I never expected life to give me, right along with accidentally locking eyes with a fucking 9 zillion year old dude taking a shit, which happened at Dee Dee's nursing home once. But that's a story for a different day.

Now that I think of it, Sonia's question may not have actually been the best thing a girl has ever said to me. My friend Jill is telling me about the ghetto phenomenon of girls wearing Cool Ranch Doritos bags in their hair, as well as the practice of shaving "Cool Ranch" -- in the Doritos font and everything -- into their pubic hair. Then she exclaims, "You should totally see my pussy right now!" This has nothing to do with ataxia but it's goddamn funny.

There are more of these, I know it. I'll add them as I remember them/they happen.