Differences

The kids got back last night at 8. Jay got back at 6. We went shopping, briefly. Jay found about 6 books he liked and kept standing next to them saying, "hint, hint" I found 3 presents for other people. This is the difference between us: when we go shopping together, I look for things to give other people and Jay looks for things he wishes other people would give him.
Grrrr.
Then we went to Macaroni Grill and had a glass of wine. I felt wonderful yesterday. Mark put me off on call--"I figured you were still feeling under the weather, even though you hadn't called in"--so I stayed home and recuperated all day--drank nothing but fresh vegetable juices and spring water--did yoga in the afternoon and, finally, when the sun went down, had a little bit of scrambled egg and some organic bread from our local bakery. I felt so good. I even felt happy and in a good mood. My best frame of mind usually is this: "I'm not screwing up. I've done everything I was supposed to do today." And that's about as good as it ever gets. I rarely get beyond that. But yesterday, I really did. For about an hour.
When I was so sick at work on Friday, Wiz said, "One good thing about being sick is that you stop caring about what everyone thinks about you. You're just like..so what. Screw it."
I thought about that for a moment. I was sitting at the unit clerk's desk waiting for a physician to return my page. "I'm never like that, Wiz. I never stop being self conscious. Only one time in high school, when a mirror fell off the wall in the bathroom and gashed my arm--I was actually spurting blood--that's the only time in my life when I can remember not being self conscious. Isn't that awful?"
"Not at all. I wish I had that kind of self discipline and self awareness. You must have worked hard for it, don't curse it."
In my life, I had never looked at it that way. But it's true.
I asked for it. I got it.
I really did...ask for it.
I used to go to this religious summer camp in North Carolina when I was a kid, and the priest who ran it taught us one summer about breath prayers and meditation. You picked a mantra, one specific request, in 7 words or less, and you were to sit silently and repeat it for 5-30 minutes a day for the rest of the year. Mine was: "Oh lord make me aware." I guess it was granted. Until that minute with Wiz after throwing up in the trash can, I had always seen my discomfort as coming from me, something I needed to fix, but it's really just the pricking up of my ears to what's going on around me--and that's almost never comfortable.
So Jay and I had our glass of wine. I had Riesling. It was fresh and sweet and we broke apart the delicious hot bread they serve there. That's a good chain. I never eat at chain restaurants, but Macaroni Grill is a good thing to spread around the universe, I think.
"So, " he asks me casually, "what do you think precipated your little emotional upheaval yesterday?"
Hmmmm....I think....what could I say? Possible (I just forgot how to spell this word, I think.) answers...

• You spend all your free time with your married, cuckholding, narcissistic personality disordered bra-less, hairy arm-pitted ex girlfriend's child--who is, admittedly, very winsome, but who nonetheless is being used by her mother to keep you in thrall and away from real intimacy you might create with someone else..i.e. me.
• I'm 41 and my children are growing up and pretty much ignoring me
• I've got an ivy league education that seems to only have informed my taste in the novels I choose to read on my days off from my blue-collar job
• You don't have any photos of me anywhere in the house
• You never say I love you except accidentally and then you always change it..as in "I love you....uh....when you're naked!"
• you bought me a fleece for my birthday

But I say instead, "I don't know....just blue...November....you know..."

"Isn't it about time for your...um....I know you hate it when I think this...you know your...special time?"

"Oh, yeah--you're right. I forgot."

"I thought that might be it."

That's my 1/2 hour.

Pebbles

Didn't sleep very well last night. Pebbles, the cat, decided she wanted to communicate with me. She does this by jumping on the bed and standing very close to your face while you're sleeping. Then she reaches out with one clawed toe and touches you on the cheek.
You swipe her away in your doze, thinking it's a bug.
Then she does it again, harder.
She keeps patting, gradually increasing the sharpness of the touch until you wake up.
"What the hell is it?"
Then she sits, staring at you with her black eyes."Meow."
"What do you want?"
"Meow."
She wanted under the quilt.
Sometimes she wants to go outside. Sometimes she wants food. Sometimes she just wants me to know she thinks I should be up by now, damn it.
Pebbles is a calico--all calicos are insane. She's very tiny and fat, and her coloring sort of peek-a-boos on her face, leaving it and her paws white. She's roughly the size and shape of a soccer ball. She's almost completely round.
Pebbles has issues. Xavier wasn't very nice to her when she was a kitten: he threw her against the wall a couple of times. To be fair, he was in the throws of his eventual complete break from reality as you and I know it, but try explaining that to a cat. For years she bit us every time we tried to pet her. She formed a relationship with Nick's green grinch slippers and slept inside them. When she got too big for the slippers, she adopted Lilly's stuffed tiger and pretended it was her mother, even sucking the fur into imaginary nipples.
Nick is the one who fixed Pebbles. He worked on her month after month, year after year. He realized, for example, that she would let you pet her if you used the back of your hand, and only very lightly. He fed her turkey baby food. He magically got her to stop pooping and peeing all over the house. Now she is almost a normal cat
Almost.
She still will crouch in the hallway some mornings and for no reason hiss and spit at everyone who goes by. If you ask her what's wrong, she will stare at you malevolently and snarl. When you open the door for her to go out, she will hiss and spit all the way out the door, running down the street as if you were chasing her with a flaming broom.
She also likes to tempt fate. She will lie in the middle of our street on her back with her paws in the air. She will not move, even when a car comes. The car usually has to come to a complete stop and honk. Then, and only then, will she roll over, very slowly, and stalk out of the way. Sometimes she will start to leave the road, then change her mind and walk back the other way. Sometimes she will not bother to get out of the way at all, but will merely roll over, look at the car and hiss at it. Then I usually have to come out of the house, pick her up, apologize to the driver and take her inside
Abuse does terrible things to people, even cat people.
What she is saying is, "I used to be pushed around, but you can't push me around any more! Even you, you big stupid car."
Abuse changes your perspective on everything. It makes you see threats that really aren't there, and it makes you underestimate and defy the threats that really are there. It screws up your gauges. Great way to ruin a personality.
Jay called last night. "Are you okay? Are you feeling better about everything?"
Yes. It helped that my ex fiance from college called. He recently was fired from NASA. He's an astrophysicist. Now he's trying, unsuccessfully, to make a living selling solar panels. It put things in perspective. We never really let go of the people we love. It doesn't mean we can't move on. It's not like he has the picture album out on the table. I went looking for it. I'm like Pebbles, crouching in the hallway, hissing at phantoms. So what if I'm like Hali. (She spells her name a little differently then I do). Jay's not so different from other men I've dated. Roughly the same social class, education, excels at a sport (weirdly, everyone I've ever dated is some sort of a jock, even though I'm a confirmed nerd) Yoga-ing, singing, rock climbing hippie chicks are a dime a dozen. I play the violin, so I do have some actual hard-earned skill--if you're attracted to one girl of summer, you're probably attracted to another. Our families have both been in Crockett County for generations--we probably even share genetic material. We have a mutual friend who told me "she's the earth side of your air coin."
It's hard to trust, you know? You're fresher and sweeter when you're young, you're more open and more vulnerable. I feel like I have so many shells, so many outer layers of protection, I will never be sweet and warm again.
But I am sweet and warm sometimes. Just like Pebbles. It's a gradual thing.
At least I'm not hanging out in the middle of the road.

That's my 1/2 hour. 29 minutes, actually. My kids finally called me. Turds. "I'm sorry," they said, "we just got caught up in stuff."

Crumbling

I got sick.
Sort of sick.
And with it came all the crumbling hopelessness of sickness. I'm such a terrible patient.
Just a 24 hour thing people always say. But when you're in the middle of it, it's terrible. I went home early from work, which is the first time I've ever done that. But after throwing up 4 times, once in a patient's room, I decided not to be an idiot machita and just call it a day. My poor orientee. Abandoned. I lurched back to Jay's house, crawled into bed and shivered for the rest of the night. As a final coup de grace, at 3am, I shat myself. I made it to the bathroom almost in time, but my underpants were a mess. Fortunately it was all lovely watery mucousy stuff. I hid my underpants like a little kid. I'm not sure how hardy Jay is in the face of some of the grosser realities of life. Maybe I'm underestimating him. How horrible. I hope my patients aren't aware when they do this. I hope they don't feel this terrible sense of shame. My patient yesterday had alzheimers, and he did the same thing to himself while we were standing him up to transfer him to the wheelchair. I didn't feel very patient with him, and when he pooped, I vomited. I couldn't make it to the trash can, because I was holding him up, so I just kept it in my mouth. My orientee, a beautiful african american woman my age, hailing, of all places, from South Beach, chose that moment to ask me a question.
"Mmph mmmph mmmh" I reply
"Oh, no."
We got him back onto the bed, I quickly let loose into the trash can. Then we cleaned him up.
"You need to go home."
"I know."
"do you think that he saw that?" My orientee, Lela asks.
"I hope not, but since he's been mistaking you for Sharon all day, I think we're safe in thinking he won't take it to heart." Sharon is a white, 300 pound nurse on our staff about a foot shorter and a decade older than Lela.
"that's true. "
At Jay's, we watched Family Man. Jay cried, and I wondered if he would love me more if I looked like Tea Leoni. Then I threw up.
My fever broke in the morning and I woke up drenched in sweat, but feeling a lot better. Jay took off in the morning to go down to visit his kids. They live about 3 hours south of us. They're older--20 and 21--and things are a little strange and sad. Jay's daughter tried to kill herself last year. She was hospitalized for awhile, and now she's out and living on her own. But her behavior is still erratic and contact with her is always iffy. I've met his son, but not his daughter.
To be fair, he was really nice to me last night.
And then, after he left, I did something really stupid. I went through his photo album. It's not like it's hidden. But it got me upset. There are all these pictures of his ex--I guess it makes sense--I mean, they were together 15 years. Of course the photo album contains lots of pictures of her. But there was a card tucked in it with a picture of him with her new daughter and it said "I couldn't do it without you--and I wouldn't want to. Love, Us."
Fuck you.
And I just sat in that dirty bleak little house out there in the middle of the fields and I looked out at the grey november day and thought, why am I here? why am I giving time to this? I'm a ghost in this place, in this relationship. I don't get three dimensions. He doesn't even have any pictures of me in the house. He finally took down her picture in the bedroom last year. I'm a replacement. I'm as close a replacement to this woman as he could possibly find--with a few little improvements: I'm younger, truer, better educated, have family money and stable employment. We even have the same first name, for heavens sake. He's even making me into a climber. I just cried and cried.
Then I flipped a coin. Call him and yell? Heads yes, tails no. Heads.
Called him.
"Hey, baby, what's wrong."
"Nothing."
"Are you okay?"
"I'm a ghost," I wheeze incoherently,"I'm just a ghost,"
"Oh, baby, is this anything we can't leave til Sunday night to deal with?"
Asshole.
Well, obviously I can't tell him I've been snooping through his photo album and have decided that he doesn't really love me.
"I miss my kids." Which is true. The little bastards didn't even call me. "It's lonely out here."
"Don't I know it. It's terrible out there alone. They'll be back soon, honey, I know the holidays are hard on you, but remember you get their lives. You're just feeling bad, sweetie. It'll get better."
I got off the phone quickly hoping I hadn't dumped too much psycho energy on him. As most women go, I am not of the psycho variety. I am only rarely emotional. Usually after something like labor, or being up all night with a fever and throwing up for 24 hours and shitting on myself. So, you know.
Man. How did I get here? Choice by choice.
That's my 1/2 hour.
I'm sorry. Forgive me. I love you. Thank you.

The River Rock

My shoulder hurts, left one, at the base of my neck. It's from belaying. Jay and I went climbing yesterday on the bluffs by the river.
I like myself when I'm climbing more than I do at any other time ever. Except maybe when I'm windsurfing. I like climbing more than I like sex.
The weather held again yesterday, beautiful and balmy. We rode our bikes 10 miles down the gravel river road to the bluffs, hardly saw anyone at all. No one but a very beautiful older woman with short, glossy brown hair in a pink and orange harlequin patterned one piece running outfit. "Hello," she said to Jay, in a faintly russian accented voice as she passed. Women are shameless. Women always flirt with men I date, right in front of me, as if I'm not even there. I think it's because I'm sort of mousy looking and I always end up dating these adonises. I mean, I'm not bad. I'm in good physical shape (a little squishy around the belly thanks to Nick and Lilly--but I'm skinny and squishy, if you know what I mean) and I'm well-groomed, but that's about it. I don't consciously choose gorgeous guys, I just think maybe gorgeous guys aren't necessarily looking for gorgeous women.
So we get to the bluffs. Jay put up most of these routes. He knows them like the back of his hand. "This is my favorite place in the world." he tells me. He's told me this before. It's funny, because it's always been one of my favorite places too. I used to come here all the time on my own, before I knew Jay, before I knew climbers liked to climb these places. The John Crows like this section of the bluffs and the Indians used to call this part of the river the great mother, and they thought that this particular section of bluff was the place from whence all creation had sprung. I used to sit at the top of the bluffs and the John Crows (vultures) would come flapping next to me, and I would think about my friend, Chet Alexander and how he said that these birds were the most noble of all the animals, because they didn't waste. So it's funny that it's one of Jay's favorite places, too.
He picks out a nice easy route--a little 5.6, which is right within my range. I'm not very good yet. He wants to work on my belaying, because he doesn't feel very secure with me on the ground. There's this technique, where you sort of fold your arms up together, pinch off with your left hand and slide down with your right. And I can't get it. I get hopelessly confused. There's another way I think would work, but he's adamant that I not do it any other way, so we've been arguing about it. I'm left handed, though, and I keep getting confused. Finally, I just say, "would you please just let me try it my way? I think it's basically the same thing, but left handed." So he does, and lo and behond, it works. I'm belaying smoothly. Although it looks all wrong. He takes a small practice fall, to see if I can hold him, and that's the last we speak of it for the rest of the afternoon.
He leads. He's so beautiful when he climbs. I don't know how to express this. I just want to munch on him. His legs look so good when he's up there, like a dancer, and he just looks absolutely in his element. It's like watching a seal or an otter. It's a little harder than he remembered. I watch how he goes up, but I never watch him too closely, because I can always find my own weird way up something. "Hmmmm.....I never thought about doing it that way," he'll say. Besides, he's about a foot taller and 70 pounds heavier, so what works for him physically will not work for me.
Then it's my turn. I'm seconding for the first time, which means I'm removing the carbiners--and I know any climbers reading this will probably correct my vocab--I don't have the jargon down at all, in spite of hearing about it night and day for the past 2 years. After climbing for the first time last thanksgiving, I spent last year working on my upper body strength, and I have to say there's a lot of improvement from last year. I can trust my arms a lot more, something I've never been able to do in my life til now. It's a little unnerving removing the safeties and clipping them to my belt. And I'm doing okay until about 3 feet from the top, when all the sudden, I can't think of what to do next, and I temporarily panic. It's funny how suddenly this comes on. I'm just humming along--phht, phht, phht, like a little monkey and then all the sudden I'm like, "holy crap." it's like I come to 60 feet above the ground on the side of a bluff. I'm terrified. I want to pee myself. The rock seems absolutely smooth, unforgiving, offering no quarter. I suddenly don't trust anything about my body--my feet, my legs. Do you remember Watership Down and how the animals go "tharn" when confronted by danger? That's where I am on this rock. Tharn. Jay knows this. I can feel the rope, loose til now, not even noticed, tighten.
"You can come down, if you want." He says.
Ah. Saved once again by my inner "fuck you"
"no, I'm good," I say casually. I start humming, which is what I do at the hospital during traumas and I'm panicking and I run my hands over the surface of the rock, up and down. And I find a surprise. The rock only looks smooth. Below my waste, where I wasn't even looking or reaching for, I find a tiny little ridge, maybe 1/2 an inch out, sort of lipped over. It was hiding from me, I'm able to grab it with both hands, hold myself in close to the rock and inch to my left, where i'm able to find a foot hold and a friendlier hand hold above me.
"Nice!" Jay calls from the bottom.
So, grasshoppers all, keep going. There's always a hold somewhere.
That's my 1/2 hour.

Regular Happy Day

Here we go. No kids for 7 days. I don't know what to do with myself. I'm sitting in the basement blogging and eating cheezits, the new "Cheddar Jack" kind. Lilly was home yesterday. We had a good day--we all went to Ernie's at 6:30 in the morning, drove Nick to school, went to the library, went to yoga. Then we went out to the local state park and hiked around in the woods, which was really beautiful. We split a chocolate malt afterwards, picked up Nick from school and went to get his glasses fitted. $240.37 for glasses. It was so beautiful and warm that we put the top down on the convertible. It's really lovely driving on these small country roads, with the leaves blowing into the car and the wonderful grassy smells of fall all around. Just a perfect day.
"Oh my god--" Nick says, "I can see individual leaves on the trees!" He was twisting his neck around, staring at things, really entranced, reading signs out loud.
I felt really guilty. For some reason, I haven't taken Nick seriously when he complains about his eyesight. I mean, his grades are pretty good and he reads all the time and doesn't seem to have any trouble playing video games, etc. Finally, at the drivers license bureau, when he was taking the visual test and kept getting everything wrong, I decided that maybe there was something to it. Nick, to be fair, can be somewhat of a hypochondriac. But guess what--he really does have eyesight problems. Oh well, better late than never.
They took off in the afternoon. I really worry about them being on the road. I think it would be safer in a plane, but my folks, who write all the checks, refuse. And I certainly don't have extra money for tickets.
After they left I went to a staff meeting at work (it's kind of a pain in the ass that you never really get a day off from the hospital--there always seems to be a reason to have to drop in)--'just an hour' but it kind of screws up your whole day, you know? I mean, you have to dress up and say the right things to the right people and I don't know about you, but I need like 24 hours at a time when I can just retreat into my schleppy myself, you know--not worry about stray chin hairs and ragged fingernails or matching socks and ironing things. This is probably why I'm not married....
The meeting only lasted an hour, but it was still a pain in the ass. I made innocuous conversation about my dog, bought everybody chocolate. Argh.
Then I went out to the farm. Jay's back from a hunting trip, and he looked pretty rough. He's filming a hunting show for tv now--he didn't actually hunt. "animal snuff films" he calls them. But he had a good time on this one, I think. We fell asleep at 9. Then we woke up about 3 hours later and made love.
"Wake up," Jay said, "the moon's up."
And it was, filling the room with magic light. You could have read by it. So we tried to live up to it. Tonksie, my little injured dog was in bed with us, because I didn't want to leave her alone at my house, and in the middle of all the action, she decided she was being left out, so she engaged in some surprise strategic licking, which made Jay yelp and me almost fall off the bed laughing-but it all turned out okay. With a happy ending, as they say in the biz.

And that's my 1/2 hour.

Call

Oh, magic--I got called off yesterday. It's the kids' last day in town--they're going to their father's for thanksgiving. My parents are driving them. I don't understand why we can't just put them on a plane, but my parents are terrified of planes. The kids are getting really tired of driving to Florida every holiday, especially since my mother's a little hard to deal with. I mean, really hard to deal with--constantly angry and critical. This endless litany of wrongdoing. One time I taperecorded her, just to prove to myself that it really was that way. She once talked an hour and a half, just this rant against me, without interruption. My ex husband, used to do that. I think it's a form of abuse--I see the tendency in Nick, sometimes, and it really scares me. We've worked with him a lot on his temper. He now takes a walk when he starts yelling. I don't do that--I don't go on and on. I'll discuss something, but I keep it short. Hammering somebody doesn't ever help, it just makes them want to chew off their own paw to get out of the cage.
So yesterday went beautifully slowly. The weather is really good--almost balmy--and the leaves are still on the trees--it's the most beautiful fall I can remember. Lilly had spent the night with her friend, Samantha. Samantha's family is like ours--a little dysfunctional, messy, intellectual, kind. Her dad, George, used to be a nurse, but he had a nervous breakdown and now he stays at home with the kids, puttering around the house, playing his guitar and undertaking really strange home improvement projects. (the latest: 8 foot tall copper poles circling the house--something to do with keeping the house safe from lightning--he's decided their house is at high risk for being struck by lightning). His wife, Nan, is a dentist, and she just takes it all in stride. But he's fun to talk to, if a little bleak. I picked Lilly up and hung out a little bit playing guitar in their living room. Then we went home. Nick was marching in the holiday parade, so we drove him out to the school to get his uniform, then we went into town for lunch. He refused to get out of the car. "I look ridiculous." So Lilly and I went into the bakery to grab him something. Then, as we were scooting around to the parade drop-off, Nick says,
"um, we have to go home."
"Why?"
"I forgot something."
"What did you forget?"
"Just something."
"Well, if it's no big deal, you can just deal with it."
"It's a big deal."
"What did you forget?"
"Just take me home, okay?"
"No."
"Okay. My trumpet."
It was so funny, I couldn't even get mad, I just laughed. Of course, the route home was the parade route, which was already completely blocked off, so getting home was interesting. But we made it back.
Nick's band was 19th in the order, so I figured we had a long time to wait for him to appear. Lilly and I went to the coffee shop to kill time. She sat reading Beowulf, and I was reading the ACLS trauma manual. After about 15 minutes, we walked up the street to watch the parade and wait for Nick.
The Holiday Parade in our town is actually kind of low rent. The newer fundamentalist churches all have floats--if you can call them that--and a lot of businesses have representatives wearing santa hats. The skinny peaceniks march, trailing clouds of patchouli and throwing no candy, of course. Then the young republicans and the shriners follow--and they throw lots of candy. And this to me in a nutshell is why the liberal left will never gain any ground in the heartland--because they overlook the basics here--we eat fried chicken and we like candy. I mean, I religiously honk for peace when I drive past them standing on the corner with their signs--they can't spring for tootsie rolls at the holiday parade? What? We're just supposed to envy their skinny fit hairy bodies? And they feel so superior to the rest of us--and it so shows.
Arghh. Enough. So Lilly and I stand for this a little bit--then I think, more than 19 groups have gone by, where's Nick's school? "Where's Greenway?" I ask her. "You think they changed the order?"
"Oh," a woman says, overhearing me, "they changed the order. Greenway went first."
"Crap." Lilly says. "We always do this."
"Don't say crap. It's coarse."
"We're going to have to lie, now." she says.
"We didn't do it for either of the homecoming parades this year." I point out.
"Yeah, I guess we're getting better."
Nick is sitting on the curb by the post office, waiting for us.
"How did you like it?" he asks.,
"You looked great!" we assure him brightly.
He seems satisfied with this.

Herpes

I had a dream last night about Ayhan. It was a very sweet and simple dream: I was walking down the street in the evening in a strange small town somewhere on the coast. It felt like Cape Cod. It was winter, and even though it was early in the evening, it was dark. Suddenly, up ahead of me, I saw someone else walking. As I caught up to them, I realized it was Ayhan. He looked at me, but didn't say anything. We sort of walked together in silence--I guess we were going the same direction--and then I thought, 'this is ridiculous.' so I said, "Hi, how are you?"
and he said, "I don't want to talk to you."
"Don't be silly," I told him. "I just want to know what you're up to." And then we started talking, and I woke up.
"Were you dreaming?" Jay asked me. I mutter a lot in my sleep.
I didn't tell him about the dream. I asked him about his dreams and he launched into a big long story. He always forgets his questions if you get him to talk about himself--it's sort of funny how well it works.
But I started thinking--it's strange that Ayhan and I both live in this small town and know the same people and like the same things, and in almost three years we have not run into each other once since our breakup.
Ayhan was the best boyfriend I have ever had. We went out a long time. But he lied about something essential. I tried to forgive him and get over it, but in the end, I couldn't make a future with him. It was too big of an obstacle. It was sad, because I really cared for him. People thought I was just crazy for breaking up with him--if you met him, you wouldn't be able to imagine a better man. Beautiful. Looked like Armand Asante. People would come up and ask for his autograph. Courtly. Kind. Always remembered birthdays and occasions, always dressed beautifully--Armani suits, linen handkerchiefs, handmade shoes. But he had herpes. He knew it, but he didn't tell me about it, and so, after a few years, I got it, too. Looking back, I see that he tried not to give it to me, but he didn't try hard enough, and, most importantly, he didn't give me any choice about getting it. I should have been smarter, I guess, but we went out a long time, and frankly, when you go out with someone a long time, you relax on some things--like always using a condom.
The funny thing is, if he'd told me, our relationship probably would have slowed down--I would have had to back off and consider whether I wanted to get involved and take the risk--but you know, he was lovely and when you get older, something like herpes isn't really the big deal it would be if you were in your teens or twenties. I would have respected him for being honest, and we probably would still be together.
I didn't realize how awful not telling me was until I met Jay. Jay started out being my friend--I knew him through some other friends--and then, when I realized he was romantically interested in me--I felt absolutely compelled to tell him. We hadn't even kissed. But I didn't even want to lead him on a little bit--I didn't even care for him that much yet, it was just the right human thing to do. In fact, it was impossible not to tell him. How could Ayhan not do the same for me? And of course, he backed off, and I thought I'd lost him, which was really disheartening. But he came back about 6 weeks later. So when I get frustrated with him and start comparing him to Ayhan--which happens sometimes--I just remember my valtrex prescription--and how Jay makes jokes about it but still wants to make love to me anyways--and I feel really grateful. But I always have this little nagging voice that says, "you're icky, you're diseased" and I know that, even though it's not my fault, it's mine to carry always. And that's a horrible thing to give a person, this little daily frisson of shame, and it is unforgivable and intolerable that a potential mate would foist it on you unchosen.
So anyways, back to now, Jay's out deer hunting this weekend, Nick's at a debate tournament, and Lilly and I were on our own, so we went to the Macaroni Grill, which was really okay. Lilly's facing the door and suddenly she says, "Oh my God, guess who walked in!"
"Ayhan." I guessed.
"Aren't you going to turn around and look?"
I thought a moment, thought about my nice dream where we got caught up. "Nope."
And then I put him out of my mind. I mean, I really did. I went back to dinner and enjoyed it and had desert and coffee and focused on Lilly and had a good time.
This probably isn't very buddhist, or christian for that matter, but sometimes, you just have to be very solidly in your own camp, and when someone wrongs you, don't waste another minute on them. Men being stupid men you can get past--erratic phone calling, doing stupid men things, being weird about commitment, etc. But you can't let someone be dishonorable. It hurts you and it hurts them. I hate to sound like a gangster, but that has to be IT. Wiz says, "when someone reveals themselves, believe it."
Believe it. And move on
And that's my 1/2 hour.

Where I got my Tartan Skirt

Staff meetings yesterday. I got to dress up. I have this great couture Celine tartan skirt from the sixties--a hand-me-down from Mrs. Hennessy in Miami. It's so beautifully made--you can see the tiny handstictching on the pleats--it has a few moth holes now, but I don't care. She gave it to me when I was moving back to Missouri. "You'll have a chance to wear this--god knows we never do." She also gave me a green wool Valentino couture skirt and her wedding veil, a hundred-year-old white lace mantilla. I was getting married--or, I thought I was getting married.

What would I have done without the Hennessy's? They were my family in Miami. Beautiful, kind and ruined. Good people.

I was married then and living at the time in a very poor section of the beach, in a concrete 5 floor walk-up. The local park had broken crack pipes in the sand, so I decided to go cruising for another park. I decided to go for it, and drove into the richest neighborhood on the beach--right off Sunset Island--found a great park and began using it with my kids. Trouble was, it was in the center of an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, so my little goyim stuck out like sore thumbs, and none of the other little kids were allowed to play with mine. (It's interesting to note that in the crack pipe park in my neighborhood, the Cuban and Nicaraguan and Haitian and Jamaican and African American mothers all actively encouraged their children to play with everybody)

One day, we were playing in the park and Nick (2) seemed to have struck up a friendship with a little girl whose mother wasn't snatching her away. Mom was not inside the fence, but was sitting on her car, an ancient orange porsche, watching. She had long red hair and looked like a thinner richer prettier version of me. Lilly was just a few weeks old and hadn't yet had her first reconstructive surgery (Lilly was born with a pretty severe cleft lip and palate). Hurricane Andrew had recently hit, so Miami was just a shambles. After a bit, the mom came up to me and handed me a birthday party invitation.

"Would you like to come to a birthday party?" she asked. "Catherine's turning 3 on Sunday."

I laughed. "Would you like to come to a birthday party? Nick's turning 3 on Saturday."

I happened to be hosting the party at the park--so no biggie there. Frances (that was the mom's name) was hosting hers at her house. She gave me directions.

That Sunday, my husband was out all day playing golf, so he wouldn't know about me going to the party, I loaded the kids in the Explorer and began driving, becoming progressively more and more intimidated as the houses became bigger and bigger until, finally, we were crossing the intercostal and going through iron gates and past a guard who already knew my name. Ah. A mansion. This was the real deal. There was no one around.

A wizened old woman appeared, deeply tan, with a badly repaired cleft palate. She was small and bent and dressed in men's bermuda shorts and a catholic schoolgirl's pink button up blouse. "hey!" she yelled, "Getthosedamnkidsoutofhere,"
"What?" her speech was hard to understand and I wasn't sure I'd heard her correctly. "We're here for the birthday party."
"Toomanyfuckingdamnkidshatethefuckingkidsgetout"she said.
I walked up, holding Nick's hand and shifting Lilly. The woman stared at Lilly. "that'smethat'sme."she said, coming close and touching Lilly's head.
She patted her a second more.
"Okaycomeonin."she gave me a toothy smile and led me in to the hall. The house seemed empty. Where was everyone? Frances' porsche was in the driveway, so I was pretty sure I was at the right place.
The little woman scuttled into a little room off the foyer--a butler's room, maybe? A big closet? It's only purpose now seemed to be to hold alcohol. Bottles and bottles. Mostly Jim Beam. She got a glass for me and filled it with Jim Beam. Nick stuck his finger in his mouth.
"Drink,"she said, grinning and nodding. "Drink!"
"I'm here for the birthday party." I said. "Do you know where the birthday party is?"
"Ilikeyouyou'remyfriendyou'renotanasshole."
"I like you too. But where's the birthday party?"
"Oh CHRIST!" came a voice over my shoulder, from the hall. "JESUS CHRIST! Linda, go upstairs. GO UPSTAIRS!"
"FUCK YOU!" the old woman spat. "FuckyoubigfrancesthisisMY FRIEND!"
A woman entered the closet, now there were three of us, all gathered around the tiny table.
She was in her late 50's, blonde, a little overweight, and someone who had clearly, clearly been a world class beauty but had done nothing at all to preserve it. She was wearing a stained denim mumu and men's loafers. Her eyes were circled by the remnants of maybe 3 days of mascara. In spite of all this, she managed to radiate the comfortable, aristocratic glamour of a woman who is used to being the center of everything. She had a tight jawed connecticut WASP drawl--"LINDA GET THE FUCK UPSTAIRS OR I WILL LOCK YOU IN THE ATTIC ALL WEEKEND DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
"FUCKYOU!FUCKYOU!" Linda screamed, "THISISMYFRIENDTHISISMYFRIENDTHIS FRIENDISGOINGTOPLAYWITHMELOOKATTHEBABY LOOKATTHEBABY"
"NOW"Big Frances screamed. "GO NOW"
"you'reMYfriend" Linda said to me in a broken whisper, and then she was gone and I heard her running up the stairs.
"Hello," Big Frances said, as if nothing had happened. "You must be Haley! I'm Frances' mother, Francis. Everyone calls me Big Frances. Oh, look at that. You need ice." She was already putting it into the bourbon
I shook my head..."no...really...it's only 10am..."
"Oh, of course." she nodded and grabbed a bottle of soda water, which she poured into my glass, filling it to the top. "There you go. Follow me. Everyone's out back. You're the only decent one of the bunch, so thank god your here. We're so desperate for Frances to make normal friends. Drink up! I'll take the baby. God knows you look like you need a break. Just like Frances said. You're married to a real pisser, I hear." She said. I did take a drink, then, and followed her through the house, which as we went through it, seemed to be very dilapidated--peeling wallpaper, whole sections of the ceiling falling down, rooms piled with furniture. There were paintings and paint supplies everywhere and the entire place smelled like turpentine. I realized then that the stains on Big Frances' mumu were oil paint splotches. We went through the living room, which was filled with beautiful furniture with shredded upholstery. There were dogs everywhere--I counted at least 7. They all had various things wrong with them--missing legs, an eye here, bald patches. Strays, I guessed. Sleeping on the couch was a man who looked like Paul Neuman. We passed quickly through and ended up in a small room where bunch of people were gathered--I suppose it would be called the solarium.
The odd thing was there were no children. Only Catherine. The other people were sprawled all over the furniture and looked like they'd been up all night. They were club people, I realized. Some of them were still in their club clothes. Beautiful and skinny, the heroin chic look that was popular then as an alternative to grunge (grunge never got going in Miami--yuck, thank god. )Frances was standing in the middle of the room with a bewildered Catherine, proffering presents. The presents were mostly inappropriate--things club goers would pick up at Walgreen's at 4am when they remembered they were going to a child's birthday party. Things like a chess set. I had brought a stuffed bear. Dumb, I know, but safe.
Frances looked up. "Hi! Welcome to the party!" she said.
And that was the beginning of my friendship with the Hennessy's.

Well, that's way more than a 1/2 hour. I just got carried away by memory. I just talked to them on Halloween--Linda died a month ago. Got to get a card off. I'm sure I'll talk about them again.

Cast of Characters

I was thinking that I need to write up a cast of characters, so you know who's who. You. The one person a month who ever reads this. The person from Budapest who stumbles on this for like 10 seconds. Yes, YOU!

So--so far...

Me--Haley Patton. trauma nurse, single mom, confused episcopalian, zen buddhist (sort of...), liberal arts casualty, former party-girl searching for redemption and relevance
Wiz--Clinical Supervisor. One fucking great nurse. My partner on the floor. 50's. Polish. mysterious past, short, bald and carp-like, with an obsession for music and french literature.
Nick--my 16 year old son, dear and dorky
Lilly--my 15 year-old daughter, busy being 15, 5'9" and built like Miss October, whom I'm trying to get through her teen years without incident and who generally fills me with panic on a daily basis. They both fill me with panic on a daily basis. I am filled with panic on a daily basis. Enough.
Jay--my boyfriend, documentary filmmaker and legendary rock climber with the sweet simple soul of an eleven year old boy. And the tact. ahem.
Soupy--the local medical examiner and favorite rumpled pet of a friend, 70, terrible dresser, looks like Albert Einstein
Talen--the tattooed, butt groping waiter at Ernie's
Ernie's--the diner
Hunter--Jay's frog-like best friend, local pitt bull lawyer and casino owner.(In Monte Carlo! Can you believe anyone around here in Little Dixie actually owns a casino in Monte Carlo?)
Sybil--Hunter's beautiful grifter girlfriend--used to be Jay's girlfriend 20 years ago.
Baggins--our short, hairy ICU Fellow (that's an MD, top of the residents) Former nurse and army medic, gulf war veteran (the first one). Only dates teenagers.
Mark--hipster night shift supervisor
Alice--one of my best friends, an MD, missed a diagnosis on a child who ended up a vegetable as a result, now wanders the woods communing with plants. ("I talk to the trees..but they don't listen to me..." She does not find this amusing when I sing it to her.)
Staci Roberts--the best musican I know, but a little 'Jerry Springer' if you know what I mean...
Elizabeth--Another clinical supervisor, late thirties, 5 kids, a husband dying of leukemia
Lois--her Core.
Tonks-the lhasa apso at the center of all our lives.
Heather-my best friend from high school, who never speaks to me, except when she's in crisis
Xavier-my crazy rich Cuban artist/party promoter, etc. ex, who was institutionalized with schizophrenia
Madonna--Nick's heart's desire, xylophone player, charming chubby 16 year-old girl
Dartmouth--the college on the hill

And that's my 1/2 hour.

First Day Off

3 weeks now of keeping Tonks quiet. 5 more to go. She can only go outside and walk around 3 times a day for ten minutes at a time. When she does walk, she walks sideways, like a crab. It takes her a few minutes to get her backside in line with her front. I try to carry her around the house as much as possible because she hates the cage so much, but sometimes, I have to put her back in it. They say that golden lhasas are reincarnated dalai lamas. Not a bad way to come back, I guess.

Yesterday was my overtime shift. They gave me a student midway through it. Dumber than a post.
"Could you please turn on the lights?" I asked her. We were doing a dressing change.
"I don't know where the switch is," she said. "Sorry." The lights stayed off. She stood by the sink with her hands clasped behind her back.
Okay.
Call me crazy, but we're all Americans, right? And all the light switches here in America look pretty much the same, and ICU rooms are pretty small--so how much mental acumen does it take to scan four walls looking for the light switch? Christ, what does this woman do in hotels, sit there in the dark? Maybe she just carries a flashlight with her everywhere.
My patients were easy, but busy. One of them had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Not really an ICU patient, but he had had some respiratory distress on the floor and so had been taken up here for observation.
"Am I going to die?" he asked me.
"Not imminently." I said, heartlessly.
"What does 'imminently' mean?" he asked.
Sometimes, blessedly, you get a second chance to be human.
I pulled up a chair. "It means that you are doing really well up here." He was. He would get teary and strange sometimes (well, who wouldn't?) but he had a really great attitude and was willing to try anything we asked of him.
But you know, these talkers...these die-ers....they take up all your fucking time.
I didn't get home til 10.
Taco Bell. If you cut a trauma nurse open, you will find beans and cheese.

This morning, there was no milk of course, so no cafe con leche. The house was in shambles (it was perfect Friday night) and I started sobbing in the kitchen. It's garbage day, there are clothes all over the bathroom floor. I know my kids have a hard life, but couldn't they do a dish? I yelled, took away tv, car, and church.
Which is funny. I guess that's good about my kids--taking away church is a punishment. Huh.

So that was a lovely way to start the morning. I went to Ernie's, hoping to run into Soupy, our ME, because I wanted to talk to him about the girl we coded, but he sort of avoided my gaze. I wonder what's up?

But Staci was at the counter. I change most of the names in this blog and alter identities enough to make them fiction, I hope, but I'm going to keep Staci Roberts real, because she deserves to be famous, and she wouldn't mind being written about.

Staci is the best musician I know. She brilliant. Voice like butter, songs so startling and true you can't believe you don't already know them. She's a little bleary, a lot lost. When I met her ten years ago, she was 17 and living on the street. It was winter and she was sitting on a bench downtown with Pedro. Pedro was playing the trumpet and she was singing this song about the street she wrote called Simple Life. She had her guitar case open and was collecting change. She's not really pretty, she looks a lot like me. People often think we're sisters. Our voices are a lot alike: we've recorded together a couple times and you can't tell who's singing. Her voice is a lot richer and truer than mine is, though. I really need the mike, she never does. I handed her my tape and put a dollar in the case--I had just moved back and was looking for people to play with. She called 3 months later.

So we caught up. She'd actually been in the ICU a few weeks ago, the weekend I was gone. I hadn't even known she was there. Drunken car wreck, she'd been a passenger. Intubated, plastic surgery, tried to punch the anesthesiologist. The usual. She looked good, though.
"I'm just glad you're okay," I said.
"You just don't know what to do with me, do you?"
"I have no idea."
"I lost my brother," she said, "in the ambulance." Staci carried the ashes of her dead brother in a jar around her neck.
"I'm so sorry--do you want me to talk to security? See if they have them?"
"yeah, sure."
Talen brings me breakfast, without me even ordering it. "Did you hear," he asks, "I'm leaving."
I can't believe it. Talen's been at Ernie's forever.
"Where are you going?"
"New York. Brooklyn." He smiles. He looks so happy. "I'm going to be 40 next month. I can't stay at Ernie's my whole life."
"Yeah...your tattoos would all scrunch up together...it would be sad to watch..."
Ah...changes. He puts my gum on the counter this morning. In front of me on top of my check.

Mysteries

Sometimes the things that happen in my job are so surreal and strange I can't believe it.

I feel like people see me as someone outside of reality, I don't know how to put it. I'm not sure exactly what I mean. I feel people tell me things and speak to me in ways they would never speak to anyone else. I don't know how to respond, and I end up saying these sort of grandiose, prophetic things. I sometimes feel I am speaking in a dream.

Today, a girl came in, a trauma. A teenager. She coded upon entering the door of the unit. It was a terrible, long, desperate code. We gave her 20 units of blood, 7 units of FFP, 1 of Cryoprecipitate, 2 of platelets, and 45 bags of fluids. We squeezed it in with our hands, there were two OR procedures in the room, because we didn't have time to get her to the OR. and we suctioned 6 liters of blood--I kept refilling and emptying cannisters, emptying her blood into the sink. We didn't have time to think.

The code was called and she was pronounced. We began getting her ready and cleaned up--the place was an unbelievable mess--and just without thinking, I reached down and checked her carotid.

And felt a pulse. Strong and sure.

I always want to shout, but I've gotten really good at speaking quietly and evenly. In fact, the more I want to scream, the quieter and calmer I am. Wiz is good at this too, and so, when he acts like this--calm and sure and even, I get really scared, which the staff doesn't understand. so I whisper, "Baggins, she's alive. Feel. "
Baggins puts his stubby little hands on her neck. Baggins has an 18 year old girlfriend. He has a naked picture of her on his cellphone. Watching Baggins touch younger women makes me nervous.
"Fuck." Baggins says. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
I start bagging her.
"get her back on a board, do we have a med box?"
I yell for anesthesia. The respiratory therapist checks her pupils. They are reactive. They were fixed. For one incredible exalted moment, I feel like there's a swan in my heart, unfolding its wings. She's alive. Everyone comes back in. The attending is carping, "a thready pulse often persists for a few minutes, the patient is dead."
"With all due respect," Baggins says, "this girl is still alive." Oh, Baggins, you little asshole, I love you so, I think.
But in the end, we lost her. She just bled out, and there was nothing we could do.
The attending turns to me, she's a little dried up leaf of a woman,--"You," she says, "turn off the monitor, do not check a pulse, do not assess or evaluate her, we're leaving her alone now."
Whatever. Who knows what we lost in those minutes that we missed. Of course I checked her.
Then I went out to talk to the family. The attending had just gotten through telling them the news and is standing by the door. I walk into the consult room--a drab, windowless, soundproofed room that smells like cigarrettes, even though smoking has been banned at the hospital for years. The mother is dry eyed, my age, plump, in a green acrylic sweater.
"Hello," she says, "I'm the mother."
"Hello," I reply. "I'm the nurse."
"Did you see how beautiful she is, did you see how beautiful my baby is? Did you see her beautiful hair?" she asks me
"She is so beautiful," I say, feeling a little surreal. "Her hair is so thick and blonde."
And then the mother starts sobbing. I put my arms around her. There's a lot of family around, but they seem just flummoxed. "I've always been afraid," the mother says, "I've always thought I would die. I always thought I would never live to have children," she's sobbing into my shoulder, and I don't think the others can hear her. "Do you think this is an accident, and I was supposed to die instead, and that somehow I made this happen, by being so afraid of it? Do you think I called it?"
"No," I say firmly.
"Why was I always so afraid? Why?"
why do people ask me these questions?
"Because children connect you immediately with the miracle and mystery of life, and the mystery makes you afraid, but that's just part of it. You're afraid because you're alive in the mystery, and unsure of the outcome, and oh, so tied to it by your love. That's the fear And everyone has it. You didn't call it." I speak without thinking in these situations, I figure that what pops out of my mouth is probably better than anything I could actually plan on.
We are sudden allies, we two, who have never met till this moment. She wraps her arm around my waist like a sister. "I want to go see her, now." she says.
"Are you sure?" I ask. "You don't have to if you don't want to."
"Will you stay?"
"I'll stay."
"How long can I stay?"
"As long as you need to."
We walk into the unit, and even though her husband is with her, oddly, it is me she clings to. And the oddest thing is that this feels perfectly natural. I feel like I've known her my whole life.
So we go in and she holds my hand and tells me all about her daughter--all about her--and in this moment I would give anything and everything except my kids for these people not to have this happen. Iwould trade my house and my car and every single thing--if there was some bargain to be made somewhere along the way that would have spared them this--I would have made it, I swear to god I would have.
Sorrowful mysteries.
I'm nominally a buddhist, but at times like these, it is the rosary that makes the most sense to me. It is Mary's suffering and Christ on the cross.
Listen, oh child of noble family...we are all the same. You and I. There is no difference between us, here and now and past and present. You are your neighbor. You are the stranger. So, prayers and love to all broken hearts tonight. They are our own.
That's my 1/2 hour.

Love

Nicholas has friends over: the beautiful Madonna and three other boys that look exactly like Nick, differing only in the severity of their acne. They're all sitting on the couch eating fritos and watching Transformers.
Nick is doing better. His grandfather gave him a car on the day after Madonna broke up with him. It's a 92 Thunderbird, bright red, and he really souped it up. It's kind of a county boy's dream--floor matts with flames, red and black leather seat covers, which is not Nick's dream, but he's happy to have a car. So happy, in fact, that he actually jumped up and down a litle bit, just a teeny little bounce. He asked me, "How long do you think I have to wait to remove the flamey floor mats without making Granddad feel bad?"
So, nothing like a car to balance out a girl, I guess.
I'm so tired.
My orientee had to deal with her first death today. She had a hard time with it. I feel nothing, I think. Just tired. It went smoothly, the patient was elderly and the family withdrew care and within 15 minutes, the patient had passed. The doctor was there to pronounce this time.
Last night both kids were out of the house--Lilly at her best friend's and Nick at a debate tournament so I went out to Jay's. We had a drink with Hunter before we headed out--I told you about him before. Hunter has recently gotten himself trapped into a relationship with Sybil, an old girlfriend from 20 years ago of Jay's (things get incestuous in our town). For the annual pumpkin festival parade, he and Sybil and their kids dressed up as monkeys, and dressed their VW bug as a monkey, too.
"Let me tell you," Hunter says, smacking his reptilian lips, "Sybil makes a pretty sexy monkey."
"I think that's enough." Jay says.
"I mean," Hunter continues, "if Sybil really were a monkey, I would cross species." Sybil's a bit of a grifter--a pretty bird in her mid forties, running out of options, looking for a soft place to land. Never learned how to do anything, never held a job. I know a lot of women like this--and they all seem to end up okay. I'm a little resentful--I've worked so hard to make it by myself. Maybe I should have taken a different tack--but then again, I'm not that pretty. And then again again, who would want to end up with Hunter?
"If I were a monkey," Jay asks me, "would you still love me?"
He never uses the word love.
"Of course. What about if I was something, like a rabbit?"
"I wouldn't fuck you, but I would still love you."
"Would you date other women?"
"Well, that depends."
"On what?"
"Are you saying that you are a rabbit, or did you turn into a rabbit. Were you you first?"
"I turned into a rabbit. Sybil cursed me."
"Can you talk?"
"Yes,"
"Okay, then no. I wouldn't date other women. Or at least, I wouldn't bring them back to the house. Because you would yell at me and then they would freak out."
"But you would go to their houses. How would you protect me from the cats while you were away?"
"This is a silly conversation."
"You started it."
"I asked you if you would still love me if I were a monkey , a monkey is a primate. A rabbit is something completely different."
"the issue is unconditional love, not what species I've transformed into."
We stop talking, watch a movie about a guy who starts a movie theater on Fiji, stop watching in the middle, make love.
I'm falling asleep.
"I would still have sex with you, " Jay says, "and I would still love you, even if you did turn into a rabbit."
Well, I think, sometimes you just have to take what you can get, I guess.

That's my 1/2 hour.

Monkeys

Classes on "How to be the MAN" continue...Today instead of working the floor, they pulled all of us out for management classes. Wiz must have been taking his medications because he actually managed to say civil reasonable things to me in a setting outside the hospital. Usually at these things, Wiz looks at the table in front of him and doesn't make eye contact with anyone in the room, like an autistic child, but today, after my 3rd or 4th attempt at pleasant-ness ("would you like an apple? I brought two, and they're organic." did the trick)He even made a joke.
The administration building for the hospital is really interesting--it's built in a circle, with round windows like a ship. It doesn't have any square corners, which is actually a little bit unnerving, subliminally. I think I've managed to internalize euclidean structure and anything else really shakes me up. The building is also freezing--all the time--and located near the highway. For some reason, the building vibrates constantly, to the point that the powerpoint presentations shimmer. But if you're okay with sitting for 8 hours in a building that feels like it's in an earthquake at the arctic circle, listening to white men in suits who make a lot more money than you ever will drone on about compliance, the revenue cycle, and payroll, it wasn't a bad way to spend the day. On my breaks, when I could, I sat on one of the balconies that overlooked some red and gold maple trees. I tried to pretend the highway wasn't there and focus on the trees, and pretty much succeeded.
What amazes me is how much goes into making a hospital run. I can't believe this whole batch of monkeys (I mean humans) ever came up with it. I'm reading about bonobos (catching up on last month's Believer) and I don't think they're so different than we are--how did we get from there to here? I mean--this baroque insurance coding system--and whole professions dedicated to hammering out payment systems--and all the coordination--the food, the housekeeping, the billing--how on earth did we come up with it all? When I was little there was this story about a snail who's shell kept getting more and more elaborate, until eventually the snail couldn't carry it around and died. (surely it didn't die--it was a children's book after all--but I don't know--the 70's--remember Hope for the Flowers? Yuck. Hate that book. The caterpillars falling off the top of the pile...chilling)
We're all worried about the changes in Medicare, of course. Medicare pays for 40% of hospital bills. Starting in 2009, medicare will no longer reimburse nosocomial infections. So here's what's going to happen: 1)in spite of all the lovely feel-your-butt rhetoric about how this is not a shaming culture, nurses are going to be blamed for giving patients infections. 2)Hospitals--not our hospital because we're good guys (we are!) and we admit everybody--will start avoiding admitting tricky patients (like the horrible private hospital across town who turned away 19 illegal guatemalans from a car accident without triaging any of them 2 years ago, because they decided they were all Level one and needed to be sent to us--they weren't, and precious time was lost and hence, precious, albeit 'illegal' lives) 3) Docs will avoid last ditch/hail mary interventions which just might work because they're worried about infection 4)every single patient, whether he has a hangnail or chest pains will be subjected to every imaginable test within the first 4 minutes of arrival, so we can pick up on anything preexisting and get paid for what we do.
What a mess. Infection is a risk of any hospital stay. We already carry around most of the things that will eventually make us sick and kill us, the little buggies are just waiting for us to get sick enough in order to take over . Our immune systems do the job, but trauma and surgery depress our immune systems, and things that wouldn't normally make us sick, do. Of course, hospitals need to tighten up on infection control--but a lot of it is unavoidable, I think. The system's going to collapse.
Okay, that's my 1/2 hour and my soapbox. My Saab's in the shop and I have to get there before it closes.

Smoking

So I've been thinking about Russians this morning, and I'm also experiencing an almost uncontrollable desire to smoke. I used to smoke. I started when I was 14 years old and I took to it like a pro--I smoked about 2 packs a day until I turned 22--then I quit cold turkey. But it's interesting watching your brain flip around. You don't realize how much you lie to yourself until an old addiction rears its head. And so strong, too! It was like SMOKING has just been waiting, flexing his muscles, hanging around in his wife-beater shirt--still looking good, still smelling like sin and violetas, maybe a little scruffier. But good, good good. I'm driving back from dropping off Lilly and it just hits me like lust--and I start thinking--one won't hurt--and I can almost taste it--almost feel it between my fingers--and I start thinking about how I'll just smoke it in the driveway and then throw the rest of the pack away--and how my friend Matt's mom has been smoking 40 years and she doesn't have cancer, so not everyone gets cancer who smokes, and Robinson Crusoe smoked tobacco and he was just fine (even if he is a fictional character--remember that great scene in that book when he discovers tobacco?--it's so funny) And then I realize what's happening, that my mind is like this little kid trying to manipulate me--and I'm a nurse! The secret to managing an addiction--to anything--a person, a substance, an act--is this: You have to accept that you will never stop loving whatever it is you love. You will never ever stop wanting a cigarrette. There will never be a substitute. You just have to realize that you will wake up almost every day wanting one or 16 or whatever desperately and that you will live with that for the rest of your life. And then you need to realize that it is not any different from when you were actively using--you never got enough then, did you? And you're never going to get enough now, either. Suck it up. That's my daily motto: suck it up. Okay, not really. That's my daily motto....today. But finally after 12 years, the cravings went away, so today is a surprise.
18 years ago yesterday, I ran away in the middle of the night with someone I met in a bar--married him and had two kids (Lilly and Nick). My fiance had cheated on me, and I had just quit smoking the week before, so I think I might have been technically insane. We just jumped in the car and started driving. And then we went a little bit farther, and a little bit farther, and then we were in New Orleans, and then, we somehow crossed some line, the line when you can't turn around and ever go back, and it was completely out of our control. The road got us, the river just swept us out to sea.
It's hard this time of year--people talk about wanderlust--but if you're cursed with it, it's as much of a problem as smoking. I start chafing in November, and I still find myself going--always have--when I was 13 I ran to Atlanta--it's this strange thing, because, I'm seem so quiet and darn normal. But I slip out of back doors and find myself on trains or buses heading who knows where, and I feel so alive. When I'm running away, I feel so completely myself. I feel like the world is really mine, and that I am in the middle of my own story, instead of a handmaiden in the stories of others--I don't feel male or female, old or young. I just hold my nose and plunge...man...
we get this idea that we have to stay in the stories others have written for us--but we don't, not really. The world is a big place, and you are free, even though you might not realize it. We think we have to act out these scripts, but we don't. It's scary when you think of it, because the stories we receive kind of keep us in dreams, and keep us from living and waking up to our moments and our choices--if you really feel the clarity and potential of each moment--as well as the terror and the death in it--you can get overwhelmed.
But if you ever want to know it, who you really are, for a little bit, one morning, just keep driving until you remember your story and turn around.

Lawyers

While Lilly's at church on Wednesdays, Jay and I go out and drink.
Just kidding. We go up the street a block and get a glass of wine at The Bank, which is really a bar. I used to go to mass on Wednesdays before I met Jay, but now I go to the Bank. I have to say, dating a Muslim was healthier physically than dating a Catholic--no drinking, lots of veggies, and almost no nitrites--from bacon, etc. I drink probably three times as much as I did two years ago--which still isn't a lot, but I can see why Jay has a little trouble with the tummy. The Bank s on the corner, and everyone goes there to see who's with who and who's out walking around. It's owned by a friend of mine, Lisa, from junior high. I still can't get over the fact sometimes that we all grew up and ended up doing grownup things in our town--it seems like we're playacting. "Can you believe we're this old?" Lisa asked me once. "Speak for yourself." I told her.
Jay's sitting at the corner of the bar with his best friend, Hunter. Hunter is our local pit bull of a lawyer, who plays on a bigger stage, I guess. He owns a casino in Monte Carlo, of all places. He's hideous--like a James Bond villain--looks like a reptile--bald and oily and fat, but he's weirdly charming and mesmerizing--'like a snake who's about to eat you' is how Jay puts it. Our kids go to school together. I'm glad they are friends, because when Jay and I run out of conversation, Hunter and I can talk--about fiction mostly--Hunter's a big reader. But tonight, Hunter has another agenda:
"I'm deposing you soon," he says, smiling nastily.
"Oh, shit, you took the case?"
About a year ago, a Russian prostitute was admitted to the unit with mysterious sores, presumably burns, that had become infected. She had been hidden, and had become septic. She died, after one of the most disturbing codes I'd ever been through--I had to climb on the bed in order to give chest compressions, my hands had slid over the burns, which was gross--but the worst part was that right before she coded, she looked at me,--she'd been unconscious for days--and she tried to say something to me, and I couldn't understand her, She kept trying, but I just couldn't read her lips, I could almost hear her in my mind--but not quite, and sometimes I still see her face, trying to tell me whatever she was trying to tell me before she died. There were some very strange things about the case--before she died she had also started bleeding from her eyes.
Soupy had done the autopsy and he'd ruled septic shock as the cause of death, but for me, there were still unanswered questions. I was working the night shift when it all hit the fan. I went to the diner that morning and told Soupy all about it--but he couldn't find any hard evidence of hemorraghic fever--but her death was so strange. I think it stays with me still because she was so young, and I felt her life was just lost--there just aren't supposed to be people like this in Little Dixie--you know? I felt she was the tip of the iceberg and that more should have been done to find out who she was and why she ended up dying this way...there was a 'fiance' who was so clearly a pimp...I don't know. She was this person who never got to be a person at all, always living this shadow life
So, here's Hunter, ruining my time wih Jay
"Don't do this to me."
"You had her more than anyone else. You were there when she died." I hadn't told him that, so that means he's subpoenaed records.
"If anything happens to my nursing license as a result of this, Hunter, I and my children are moving in with you, do you understand? We will show up at your door with our 4 dogs, two cats and video games."
"Will you leave Jay and ride around on the back of my motorcycle?"
"Donor cycle."
"agh, nursing's ruined you. You used to be fun."
"I'm moving in with you, too" Jay pipes up.
"You can't ride on the back of my motorcycle."
He leaves. "I'll be in contact."
Jay and I nurse our drinks, after he leaves. I'm drinking Bailey's, he's having the usual vinegary pino grigio.
"We need different friends," I say at last.
Jay nods.

that's my 1/2 hour

Alice

"How do you reconcile your christianity with your buddhism?" Alice asks me this morning. We are sitting in the living room of her 2nd house, the house she keeps in town. Her real house is an old riverboat captain's mansion on the river, but the drive is long and when the weather gets bad or her kids just have too much going on, they stay here. She also uses the downstairs as her office--she's a physician. She's originally from Tennessee, part of a famous fundamentalist, right-wing tribe--converting to Anglicanism was just huge for her--caused a real rift in her family. She's ten years older than I am and is the only person I ever talk to about God and religion. We talk for hours. We used to talk about medicine, too, but no longer.Sometimes I get a little bit frustrated with her as a doctor--I don't think she's rigorous enough, which is the same reason, come to think of it, that I get frustrated with her as a parent. She was raised so strictly that she never disciplined hers, and as a consequence, they're just unbearable. Our kids are the same age, and I look at the mostly mannerly creatures mine have evolved into and compare them with her goth antisocial future serial killers and just want to get down upon my knees....all that said, I love her. It's funny how you can like someone so much and really not agree with a thing they do.
I ran into her at school when I was dropping Lilly off. She was getting out of her ancient Mercedes, balancing coffee and books--"Do you want to meditate with me?" she asked.
So here we were, in her decorator living room, sitting on lemon silk brocade couch pillows on the floor waiting to begin.
"I don't." I replied succinctly.
"Do you worry that it's idol worship?"
This is interesting. This has come up twice this week. A nurse at work asked me if I had buddhas in the house, and, when I said that I did, informed me that I was idol worshipping.
"Do you believe you're saved by grace?" I ask her.
"Yes."
"Is that going to ever change?"
She laughs. "No."
"if you sit and breathe for 1/2 hour, when you stop, will you not still be saved?"
"I'm saved."
"then I think we're okay."
"I know......" she drawls, swinging her grey hair out of her face, "I just started doing this a few weeks ago....and I remembered you said something about doing it...so I wanted to try it with you. I just wonder if I should spend the time praying instead."
"You pray all the time."
"Every minute."
"So, even if you just sit here, I'll bet you'll pray anyways."
Alice has felt desperately guilty her whole life and has no idea why this is so. She is forever trying to make it up, by praying all the time and doing good works. About a year ago, she missed a diagnosis on an infant, and the child is now a vegetable. The details are unique, so I won't go into them, and she was not found guilty of malpractice, but still it shook her to the core. She sort of skated sideways--has become deeply involved in alternative therapies, etc., but I think this is an abdication of the real work of medicine and one she will probably come to regret, but I do understand her desperate wish to not have the responsibility for bringing harm, however inadvertent. She has been losing herself in dreams, I think, wandering in the woods, doing shaman work with some guy in Colorado.
What she needs, and this is coarse, but true, is a good extramarital affair.
But I don't say this.
"Do you do something before you begin?" she asks.
"I say the bodhissattva vow."
"How does that go?"
"Ummmm....." my mind is suddenly blank. We start giggling.
"How long have you been doing this?"
"22 years. Okay, no, I have it. Shu Jo Mu Hen Sei Gan Do/Bon No Mu Jin Sei Gan Dan/HoMon Mu Ryo Sei Gan Gakku/Butsu Do Mu Jo Sei Gan Jo"
"And that means?"
"infinite are all beings, I vow to save them
infinite are all Dharmas, I vow to master them
infinite is the buddha way, I vow to attain it.
Wait. I'm forgetting something."
She shakes her head, "I'm so impressed. I had no idea you were this into this. How often do you do this"
"Every day."
"Since I've known you?"
"Way before that."
"How do I not know this about you?"
Good question. I just shrug. Everyone's a mystery, really, aren't they?
"I can't believe I can't remember the whole thing...."this is really bothering me. How can I say the same thing every single day and not remember it? I don't even remember which thing I'm forgetting. Do I have any of it right at all?
"nevermind, let's just do it."
"the guy who leads the vipassanna group says 'shall we'" Alice offers
I know the guy who leads the Vipassanna (sp?) group. Almost biblically. Another thing Alice doesn't know about me.
"Bong!" I say, doing my best impression of a gong, which makes Alice laugh again, and hit the button on the timer.
We sit for 1/2 hour, breathing. Alice moves around a lot, rolling her head back and forth, tapping her foot, looking around the room. I stay straight and keep breathing. The timer goes off. And right then, the missing piece of the vow floats into my mind, as if had been hiding from me, waiting to play a trick
"I kept having Fahre's (sp?) requiem run through my mind" she says dreamily.
"Infinite are all attachments, I vow to be free of them."
"My goodness, why would you ever want that?" she asks, bemused.

Well, that's my 1/2 hour.

Bad Credit

Oh, it's so hard some times.
I'm riding on my rims.
I applied for a loan last week to pay off my credit cards. I have $25,000 in debt wracked up. Ok, before you think this is too bad, please remember that for 3 years I supported myself and two children with no child support and no income while I went back to school. And I did it for $70,000. So that's 3 years of private school, mortgage payments, gas, clothing and food on $23,000/year. Which isn't that bad. Now, of course, there's family money--so if things got terrible we weren't going to starve--most people don't have that security, and my parents sprang for things like ballet lessons ($250/semester) and trumpet lessons, so we weren't totally pathetic, but basically, I did it and I think I deserve some props.
The loan officer ran my credit report. I've been working really hard on my credit for the last couple of years. I took all my bills that were in collections (and I had a lot left over from my divorce) and started sending each creditor $10/month. When one bill got paid off, I would shift that amount to the next and so on and so forth. It works! Now I have one left that I send $130 a month to. My credit was getting a lot better, but last year I was billed twice for my pap smear. I eventually got tired of fighting the charge and just paid it to save my credit. Then the doctor's office refunded the extra money and still reported it as delinquent to the credit company! It's really irritating.
"Wow," the loan officer said. "I'm really sorry. This is outside our parameters."
"Oh, well," I said philosophically, "thank you very much for your time."
"I'm still going to give you the loan."
"You are?"
"Yep."
I didn't question him. Signed all the papers. 8%. Most of my cards are between 14 and 29 per cent.
He got up to shake my hand as I left and walked me to the door of the bank.
"My mom was a nurse." he said. He had tears in his eyes. "Did it just like you, on her own. Watch out for your back."
Maybe Nick and Lilly will grow up and pass it on like that.
I hope so.
I know there are miracles and good people every where, but sometimes, you get so tired of seeing them hurt it's hard to, I don't know, let the gladness in, you know?
At 11pm last night as I was going to sleep finally, I remembered I hadn't told Mrs. Gore's family that she was an ME hold.
Why was she an ME hold?
Because, when I was giving her a bath after admitting her, I found dried blood on both sides of her groin and nowhere else on her body.
I told Wiz when I found it. "I think there's a possibility of assault."
"You watch too much tv."
"I don't watch tv."
"Oh, right. Well, there goes that argument. Are you trying to pussyfoot around the word rape?"
"You know what I mean by assault. It's the euphemism they use in the papers."
"they automatically check for that in the ER."
"Perez admitted her." Nina Perez is one of the residents, Puerto Rican, arrogant, nasty. 'Hates herself, hates others--so she decided to be a doctor' Wiz's assessment, and I concur.
No expression on Wiz's carp-like face.
"Tell the resident. I'll call the sexual assault nurse."
So the police came, and the S.A.N. and she did an exam, which bewildered and frightened Mrs. Gore. She clutched my wrist and whimpered and looked at me with her filmy eyes, as I helped to hold her legs apart and I thought, if she was raped, she probably thinks she's now being raped again. I wished I hadn't said anything.
What do you do? I don't know. Did Perez see it and ignore it? Would that have been more humane? But if she was raped, don't we need to know and investigate it? Who rapes a 95 year old?
But it would have been good to have spared her that, in her last hours.
I don't know.
Here's what my epitaph will be "I came to no conclusions."
Wiz stopped by the the room as the S.A.N. was packing up her things.
"I respectfully return my ticket." he says.
"Ivan to God. Brothers K."
"You should watch more TV."
"Duly noted."
Well, that's my 1/2 hour.

Pronunciation

It's daylight savings time. I know this because I showed up at work at 6am in the morning. After5 hours of sleep. I realized what I'd done when I walked into an empty break room. I sort of wondered why no one was coming in the building and why the parking garage was so empty--but, you know, too tired to really process it. Mark found this hilarious.
"Did you have sex last night?" He asks me.
"Yes."
"Well, at least you got to have sex..."
"It's not all it's cracked up to be."
Mark recently got a divorce. A spectactularly ugly one. "all the people I have sex with are psychos."
"Having sex makes women psycho."
"Is that it?"
I did have sex last night. Nice sex, surprise sex. But still....Jay has his this ex--the one who married the salsa dancer. And she called at 10:30 to ask how he was feeling (he has a cold). She has a little trouble with boundaries. She also dressed up as Marilyn Monroe on Halloween, plunging halter dress and all. Fortunately, she didn't shave her armpits and she has a lot of sun damage on her cleavage, so the effect was a little off putting. But you know, call me crazy, my hours are precious and I don't want to spend them on the ex.
So I started off grumpy. And got worse.
"What's wrong with you?" Wiz asks. "You're a little off your game."
We're short nurses again. Wiz is clerking, a thankless, horrid job, and charging as well. Sometime in the afternoon, he says, "Barbara's patient just passed, would you take care of it? She doesn't know what to do."
Barbara is one of our new travelers. Originally from Brooklyn Good hearted but oh so slow. And a little bit dense. A kind, lumbering woman with red curls piled on top of her head. I find her sitting in the conference room with the family of the patient. Everyone's crying. Barbara is talking about when her grandmother died, and how much her grandmother is exactly like their grandmother. Being southerners, the family is nodding politely, dabbing at their eyes. I sit, trying to find a place to interrupt and swing the conversation to the necessary arrangements to be made, but Barbara's monologue keeps blooming like kudzu. So I finally just hack on in. "Do you have her belongings?" Yes, they do. Barbara starts in again. They rehash the death in detail. Little by little I coax the name of the funeral home from them. finally, our business is done. They stand and leave, hugs all around.
"Okay," I say to Barbara. "Now, this is what we have to go through. This is the 'Death Checklist."
"Okay."
"This top part is filled out by the physician. What time was she pronounced?"
"1214."
"I can't believe he didn't fill any of this out," I say, scanning it, irritated. Doctors!
"Oh, that's probably because I pronounced her."
"You what?"
"I pronounced."
"You mean the Doctor doesn't know she's dead?"
"No. Well, I don't think so. I mentioned it to one of the doctors in the hall, but all he said was 'oh yes, she was very sick'"
"Which doctor?"
"Oh," Barbara scratches her ear with her pen, as if she is trying to dig ear wax out. "the one with the glasses. The Indian one."
This description fits about 25 doctors on our staff.
"Did he come look at the patient?"
"No."
"Huh." I say 'huh'because I really want to keep it together for Barbara and I don't want to make her feel bad, but this is really a cluster.
"So no one officially pronounced...."I say pleasantly, musingly...
"Well, I mean, she's dead. She's really very dead."
"Huh. Okay. " I say brightly. "Well, let's go tell the resident."
So we do. We have a new resident. Fortunately, he is about 50 years old and has spent a lot of his time doing something else, so he's fairly mellow and has some perspective on life.
"Mrs. Gore died." I tell him.
Deaths are usually busy affairs on our floor.
"What?"
"I just found out myself."
"We just turned around," Barbara offers. "We were all in the room talking and we turned around and she was dead."
"were you there?" he asks me.
"No."
"When did this happen?"
"An hour ago."
"Okay," he says, standing up. "I'll go look at the patient and speak with the family."
"They've left." I tell him.
"Who talked to the family?"
"Barbara and myself."
"What?"
"Just go pronounce, please."
"Jesus."
He goes into the room. "Yes, she's dead all right. Christ. Okay. Patient deceased at 1320."
Barbara says: "1215."
"I pronounce."
"But she died at 1215."
"Barbara, the shrouds are in the supply room by the refrigerator--could you please go get one?"
Barbara lumbers off.
"I'm so sorry. She's very good hearted, but she's not familiar with our protocol. It never occurred to me you had not been told."
"News to me."
We look at the woman. 95. A heart attack. Lived alone.
What do you do?
Wiz bought me coffee.
I'm exhausted. Barbara jumped ship, pretty much. Couldn't deal with the nuts and bolts. Death is so strange, it's so hard to touch people who have died, cleaning them up, turning them, realizing that everything you do is for the living--all the learned gentleness, all the small things that go into caring for the fragile, holding their skin so the tape doesn't rip it, supporting hips and shoulders. I admitted this woman the day before. I cleaned her teeth and held her hand. I washed her hair. I'm glad I took the time to do that. She wasn't conscious, but she would come to and clutch, afraid. It didn't matter now. But it still felt like it did matter. Zipping up the shroud. Leaves me empty and cold. Tags on toes. Covering a face, the series of steps that transform people into things.
Ok. I'm going to have a glass of wine now and go to sleep.

Rush Job

Yesterday started off in a rush. I'm late, to begin with. It's dark out and cold. No time to warm up the car. Put the radio on the right station so I can maybe win Modest Mouse tickets. So I park in the CEO's spot (he's never there on Saturdays and sometimes I get a ticket, sometimes I don't--much worse to walk in late) and rush across the street to the door. I'm about 5 paces behind a female resident who of course doesn't hold the door, letting it slam on me, which means I have to fish for my badge and swipe it. I grimly overtake her in the hall, passing her. Bitch. Then I lovingly let the elevator doors close on her before she can get on. Ha. No, I don't. I do pass her but when it comes to letting the elevator doors slam, when those damn elevators are so slow. I just can't do it. I'm a nice person with deep bitch fantasies. So I just sit and wait and fume and think bad thoughts as she catches up and jumps on the lift. Doctors treat nurses like we aren't even people. Like we're just ghosts. Well, they're so tired, we probably are to them.

Walk into our break room, which seems sort of empty. The reason? 3 nurses down. One hit a deer, two are no calls no shows. Hycwicz is one of the no calls/no shows. True to form, everyone is just sitting around. 'Where's Hycwicz? He's always here." Always. Hycwizc, aka "Wiz" is always here, 1/2 hour early, bald and ugly, scarred carp shaped head, knotted body of a boxer in his faded scrubs. He's like God, or Cerberus. He must be dead I think. "Did anyone call him" I ask the night shift sup, Mark. Mark's a friend of mine, funny, hip. Goatee, nice body, spiky bleached hair. Wiz hates his guts. Of course not. Of course no one called him. I call him--he thought he was going to class--scheduling conflict--he'll be in as soon as he can. As an aside, to anyone reading this: Give people the benefit of the doubt. 9 times out of 10 they deserve it. Call House Mom--"Maggie, I need 2 nurses." "I can get you them by 11." That'll have to do, I guess. 18 critically ill patients. 6 nurses.
"I'll stay til Gerald gets here." Mark says. (Gerald is Wiz's Christian name). So 2 down now. I take four patients. And I'm chargin'. At 9 we get another nurse, an agency guy, trembling in his boots--takes a pt coming back from the OR who went in for something simple but crumps upon arrival back in the unit. Pressures falling--Regina, prissy, plump, childless, hanging desperately to pretty (aren't we all) judgmental and treacherous weighs in--"He shouldn't have that critical a patient.--" She always does this. Always disses other nurses. I hate it. Never wants the responsibility of running the show, but always sitting up in the balcony throwing walnuts. An idea hits me like a flash--"Regina--you're right. But who knew? 14 was fine when he left the unit. Darling, would you please give our new guy your easiest patient and take over? You're such a good teacher, and they're going to be doing so many procedures on him--in fact, if you don't mind, I'll send all the orientees to you right now, so they can watch what's going on? Do you mine sharing your expertise?" Well, what could she say? I'll make a big deal of it with Nancy, our general mgr--how wonderful Regina is, blah blah blah barf and I bet queenie never dissses another nurse to me again. Cross your fingers.

Wiz showed up later and they found us another nurse by 11, so we did get staffed finally. I hand Wiz the supervisor pager-"Just keep going," he says. "You're driving."
So, 2 codes, 3 admits and 4 transfers later, it all worked out. It ended anyways, and no one died. I think everyone wants to kill me--but oh well.

I'd love to tell you more--so much great stuff to tell--but they just called me in to work.