So here's what happened yesterday.
Yesterday, it all went out the window.
They were withdrawing care on a patient I'd been taking care of for more than a month. It was my day off, but I'd become close to the family and wanted to support them while it happened. I couldn't find any socks, so I wore boots over my bare feet. I also couldn't find my parka, so I ended up wearing my embarrassing mink coat. That coat is bad luck.
I dropped by the hospital, sat with the family for a little bit. I didn't stay for the whole thing, because I felt it was a private matter, but I think they were glad I was there. I worked very closely with the next of kin and I know that coming to that decision was the most wrenching thing they'd ever done (I don't want to even give a gender on this due to privacy protection.
Then I drove downtown to my shrink's. I see my shrink every other Wednesday.
Since it's ass biting cold, there wasn't much parking downtown. There was one open spot in front of a bank. I pulled in, fed the meter, and went to my appointment. When I got out, I ran into an old friend of mine I hadn't seen in 6 months. She used to be my boss. She's an amazing person--who I want to be. About ten years older than I am--a former single mom, an executive, a deeply devout woman. In almost every difficult situation I get into, I ask myself, "How would Carrie handle this?" Then I do it. She's very nice, but sharp as a tack, and tough, too. And she's pretty.
"Want to go for lunch? I was just going to call you!" she laughs.
So, nice long lunch. Parking meters only last 2 hours in our town, so I was a little worried about getting a ticket--I'd been away 2 1/2 hours. But I'm friends with the parking attendant--I was the only person in our junior high who remained her friend after her uncle murdered her entire family--so she usually skips my car when writing out the tickets. My car's easy to spot: the ancient blue Saab convertible with all the bumper stickers. "No one is free when others are oppressed!" "Any day above the ground is a good one"
Well, when I get back, my car's gone!
Since my violin was in the trunk, I was pretty upset. I also always leave the keys in it.
Okay, okay, I tell myself. Maybe it hasn't been stolen. Maybe it's just been towed.
I run into the bank. "Excuse me," I ask, "Did you see the blue saab outside? Did someone drive off in it?"
"We had it towed." the teller tells me.
First, I'm relieved. "Well, that's good." I start to say. Then I stop. "Wait a minute, why did you tow it?"
"Those spaces are reserved. There's a big sign on the meter."
"There isn't a sign."
The teller comes outside with me to look at the meter. Sure enough. No sign.
"No sign, right?" I say.
"No sign. I'll get the manager."
"I'll get the manager."
I walk into her office, where she's sitting with a slightly bewildered looking older woman I sit down next to her.
"I'm in the middle of a meeting. " The manager is overweight, with some evidence of bells palsy or maybe a former stroke on her face. She's forty, blonde, in black pants and a pink acrylic sweater.
"I know. I'm interrupting. I so apologize," I say to the old lady, "but you'll understand, I'm sure as you hear my story," which I then relate.
"there's a sign on the meter." The manager says.
"No there isn't. Come look."
The manager comes outside with me. No sign.
"Well,"she says, "there should be. The tow truck driver must have taken it off to tow the car."
"Why would he do that?"
"I don't know." she's getting irritated.
She goes back inside, roots around behind her desk, finds the sign and goes outside and puts it over the meter.
"there."
"Okay," I say, "but you can't tow me if I didn't know not to park there! You didn't have your sign up."
"You were there too long anyways. That car had been there since 1030 this morning."
"No it wasn't. I was withdrawing care on a patient at 11. My doctor's appointment was at 1115. You're lying."
"You were parked there over three hours."
"I'm calling the police." I do so. I stand in the lobby, pacing back and forth, telling the story very loudly. Then I call Hunter, Jay's friend. I tell the story to him, again very loudly, leaning on the door jam of the branch manager's office. Then I called the parking authority, and told them the whole story, very loudly. Then I called Jay and my father and repeated the whole thing to them, each time very loudly. Standing in the middle of the echoing lobby, so that every single person in the bank could hear me. I called the towing company.
"Can I talk to the driver?"
"He's hard of hearing."
I tell the guy who answers the phone the story. He puts me on hold for a moment. "I just talked to him. He said yes, there was a big green sign next to the car."
"That isn't the color of this sign."
"Oh. Where are you?"
I'm on hold again
"Ok, he says, he was wrong. It was a big white sign."
"Right."
Finally, I give up on getting the tow money from the manager. Before I leave, I sit down in front of her desk.
"I'm on a call."
"Then you'll have trouble concentrating on what I'm saying, I guess, but I'm not leaving your office."
"Angelique, I'll have to call you back." She hangs up and glares at me.
"You and I both know that you're lying. You know there was no sign on that meter. You should have handled this differently. I don't know why you can't just simply admit that you made a mistake--big deal. You're human. We make mistakes all the time. For Christ's sake, you had to go get that sign out of your office and put it on the meter yourself. You're so into defending your little hillock you can't do what's right."
"I'm not going to say anything that will incriminate myself, and you shouldn't either."
"You're a liar. I may not get my $110 back, but at least I'm not going to have to look at myself in the mirror and know I'm a liar. I'm going to tell this story far and wide. This is a small town. Your word is important here, and your word means nothing."
Then I left.
"You have to look in the mirror, too, hon!" she calls after me.
"Don't call me hon."
So my dad picks me up at the Dakota, and I go out to the towing company to get the car. The lot's open. I walk right up to it and drive it out. Whewww. The fiddle's still there.
I hand the guy behind the counter a check. There are two gorgeous little kids, a little girl and a boy sitting there, eating sandwiches. "What are you eating?" I ask.
"Peanut butter and jelly, My mom made the jelly."
"Yummmm." I hand the guy a check.
"We don't take checks." he tells me. "Cash only."
"Okay, well, I'll be back."
"You can't take your car with you."
"Listen, I just drove my car off your lot and came to your office anyways to pay you. Do you really think I'm going to screw you over? You wouldn't have even known."
"You got a point there."
I try to call Jay. Can't reach him. I know he's at a conference down South. I call the hotel, get his room. He picks up the phone. Then I remember--oh right, I'm not supposed to know about this. I know he's at the conference because my drummer is going, too. Actually, Jay has told me he's going, but he told me he's going on a different day. Why he would lie about one day when I'm not going and he travels all around the country anyway with no complaints from yours truly, I don't know. Some folks just have to spice things up with a lie I guess, even unnecessary ones. I hang up. My cell rings. It's Jay.
"Is everything okay? Did you get your car?"
"Yeah. How's the conference?"
"I'm not at the conference. I'm in the capitol."
Normally, I would let this slide. I'm very in to not crowding people. But today, I'm just so sick of being lied to.
"Okay, Jay. Let's cut the crap. You're at Tan-tar-a. I just called your room and you picked up the phone. I checked up on you because I don't trust you. Sorry."
There's a big pause.
"Okay, yes. I'm at Tan-tar-a. How did you know?"
"You told me you were going."
"I did?"
"Yes."
Apparently he doesn't remember this. I don't know which is the bigger problem--the pathological lying or the early onset alzheimers.
"We sat there and talked about it with Dave and Leann."
"We did?"
"Yes"
"Wow. Was I drunk?"
"I hope so, because otherwise you need symmetrel and you're going to have trouble wiping yourself soon."
"Funny."
There's another pause.
"I'm not a pathological liar," he begins. "I mean, I didn't even need to lie about this. I don't know why I did."
"Huh."
"I guess another way to look at this is, what is it about you that makes me want to lie to you all the time--I mean, I don't think this is all me."
"Well," I sigh, "it sounds like you have something to think about. Have fun" Then I hang up. He calls later that night, but I don't answer. I take the kids out to Macaroni Grill.
"Stop crying," Lilly tells me. "I hate it when you cry. You look like the puppy."
That's my 1/2 hour. Nick has a fever and I have to run and get him ginger ale before the storm sets in.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Money
4 days in a row. Yesterday was my overtime day. I charged--surprise! The Monday supervisor, Helen, was out sick. One of our nurses was no call, no show. Full house of patients. Crazy families. Shrunken meth addicts. No reasoning with people like that. Full of emotion and anger. The problem with public hospitals is that sometimes this is the only place where our patients and their families have ever felt any sense of power--of being catered to--and boy, do they revel in it. They treat the nurses like waitresses. Nurses get victimized a lot--by the iron clad caste system of the hospital--by the patients who see them as a weird cross between maids and hookers. No wonder we get so weird and hard. Hooray, they think, finally someone for me to boss around. The problem with poor people bossing you around is they don't know how to do it properly.
Ugh.
Since my father used to work for one of our attending's father-in-law in Pakistan, it is apparently no secret that my family has MONEY (butter on saltines predilections aside). One of the things that is misunderstood about this is that you can have a lot of MONEY but not a lot of cash. I still live off my paycheck--but true, some of the bigger worries about the future that plague people in poverty aren't mine. I guess the best way to put it is that I struggle--but I'm not going to fall too far if it all goes to hell. It's the problem when you have a bunch of people living off a big old pile. Anyways, I guess the secret's out, because yesterday we were sitting in rounds, and our new trauma attending, McQuinn--big guy, balding, genial, kind--but a little rough around the edges--turns to me and says, "Did you realize that there's a website where everyone can look up everyone else's salary?"
"Of course It's the blue book."
"Am I in it?" he asked.
"I don't know. I never look. I advise you not to. It will just make you bitter."
One of the residents pipes up: "We're all in it."
Only doctors were in the room, no other nurses or other staff. They wouldn't have dared to have this conversation with anyone else.
"Let's look everybody up!"
So we went through all the attendings--astounding. I shook my head. Thought about my very respectable $46,000 I made with my nights and overtime. Tried to feel virtuous. But, man, looking at those numbers--all those zeroes!--it can grate.
"Wow, look at me!" McQuinn says. He smiles innocently. "They really recruited me."
I'm struck by how open everyone is in the room about this. My people are so weird about money. It's never okay to talk about in my family. You're just supposed to pretend you don't have it. I think I've written about this before. My Nana said you never want to talk about your money or anyone elses because a) you don't want someone who has less money than you to feel badly, or feel that you value their friendship any less because of their pecuniary status and b)you don't want someone who has more than you to feel you value them because they have a lot of money. So this happy crassness is sort of refreshing, but it's also sort of uncomfortable. Jay's like this, too--kind of crass about money.
Then he looks at me--"I hope this is okay to talk about in front of you--"he looks unsure. And I think, hmmmm...someone's been talking.
"That's okay. It's just a way for the proletariat to know who to line up against the wall first." I deadpan. Nervous laughter.
Money. Moneymoneymoneymoneymoney. That's a line from that funny old movie--Our Man Godfrey.
Moneymoneymoneymoneymoney.
That's my 1/2 hour.
Everyone laughs nervously
Ugh.
Since my father used to work for one of our attending's father-in-law in Pakistan, it is apparently no secret that my family has MONEY (butter on saltines predilections aside). One of the things that is misunderstood about this is that you can have a lot of MONEY but not a lot of cash. I still live off my paycheck--but true, some of the bigger worries about the future that plague people in poverty aren't mine. I guess the best way to put it is that I struggle--but I'm not going to fall too far if it all goes to hell. It's the problem when you have a bunch of people living off a big old pile. Anyways, I guess the secret's out, because yesterday we were sitting in rounds, and our new trauma attending, McQuinn--big guy, balding, genial, kind--but a little rough around the edges--turns to me and says, "Did you realize that there's a website where everyone can look up everyone else's salary?"
"Of course It's the blue book."
"Am I in it?" he asked.
"I don't know. I never look. I advise you not to. It will just make you bitter."
One of the residents pipes up: "We're all in it."
Only doctors were in the room, no other nurses or other staff. They wouldn't have dared to have this conversation with anyone else.
"Let's look everybody up!"
So we went through all the attendings--astounding. I shook my head. Thought about my very respectable $46,000 I made with my nights and overtime. Tried to feel virtuous. But, man, looking at those numbers--all those zeroes!--it can grate.
"Wow, look at me!" McQuinn says. He smiles innocently. "They really recruited me."
I'm struck by how open everyone is in the room about this. My people are so weird about money. It's never okay to talk about in my family. You're just supposed to pretend you don't have it. I think I've written about this before. My Nana said you never want to talk about your money or anyone elses because a) you don't want someone who has less money than you to feel badly, or feel that you value their friendship any less because of their pecuniary status and b)you don't want someone who has more than you to feel you value them because they have a lot of money. So this happy crassness is sort of refreshing, but it's also sort of uncomfortable. Jay's like this, too--kind of crass about money.
Then he looks at me--"I hope this is okay to talk about in front of you--"he looks unsure. And I think, hmmmm...someone's been talking.
"That's okay. It's just a way for the proletariat to know who to line up against the wall first." I deadpan. Nervous laughter.
Money. Moneymoneymoneymoneymoney. That's a line from that funny old movie--Our Man Godfrey.
Moneymoneymoneymoneymoney.
That's my 1/2 hour.
Everyone laughs nervously
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Saltines
Long break.
I'm better, but I'm bitter.
Better bitter. Butter on saltines. That's how my grandmother always said you could tell we were really white trash at heart....we liked butter on our saltines
"Poor food." Jay says, watching me eat, shaking his head.
No, silly. Poor food is ketchup on saltines. For supper.
Butter is expensive.
If the butter is organic, does that raise the socioeconomic level of my favorite snack?
What if the butter is organic, and the saltines are made with free trade organic wheat? What if I recycle the box afterwards? Does that raise the spiritual level of my white trash snack? Am I still white trash?
Is being spiritually conscious strictly the provenance of the upper middle class?
Maybe if we weren't so fucking insular and snotty, we crunchy granola east coast educated hairy armpitted stinky peacenik buddhists, we'd have more people on our side.
Do the wide butted crackers slowly water buffalo-ing their way through the aisles of Wal-Mart looking for deals, my oh-so-secret brethren, buying their non environmentally conscious dollar dishwashing soap even have a right to enlightenment?
All, all, all, all beings.
Why are the poor of other lands so picturesque, while ours are just distasteful?
But these people fill the ICU's, they sit by the sides of their dying loved ones and they pray and pray and pray and hope against hope and whisper in their ears. These are the people who are riddled with cancer because they worked in factories that didn't provide basic protections, or drank themselves into liver cancer because their lives were so circumscribed that liquor was their only horizon, or they stayed with brutes who beat them up. These are the people whose diets have been so poor because of poverty and overwork and lack of education that their bowels are obstructed and have perforated, or they're morbidly obese and diabetic and losing limbs and on dialysis. It can kind of get you, if you let it.
"What are you eating?" the wife of one of my patients asks me. She is tiny, in her mid thirties, skin leathered and lined already by smoking. She looks 45.
"Butter and saltines." I reply.
"That's my favorite thing to eat!" She says.
Mine, too.
I've been walking the dry brutally lit hallways of the loveless this last week. I've just been doing my chores in order. Setting my timer. Taking my adderall. Last night the band came over, and my fiddle softened me a little bit. I started crying again yesterday. Of course, the breakup or whatever is going on is messy. My shrink told me the relationship isn't salvageable and I needed to get out of it right away. So why am I still sort of in it?
I'm still sort of in it. But I'm doing creepy things like checking up on him and reading his emails and checking his voice messages (he told me all the passwords). I don't believe a single word he says about anything. I'm waiting to see if this feeling goes away.
I think the way out of this is right action.
You know, the good old eight-fold path.
But don't you have a right to defend yourself against lies? I ask myself.
I think, now that I'm regaining some sanity, that there's still a "best" way to do things, and I think checking up on him is self-destructive.
So I'm going to stop.
His lying is his responsibility. That's too bad for him, that he lies. That's bad karma. I'm sorry he feels he has to do that. I have compassion for him. (Well, I don't yet, but I'm going to pretend that I do. Fake it till you make it.)
My anger though, is my responsibility. It's better. It flashes up, then it recedes. It's like a wave.
Difficulties are really opportunities for spiritual growth. They are a chance to practice hard. It is amazing that I can find any peace in the midst of this, but I truly have been able to. I'm really not derailed. Kind of shaken up. And I fall back into ugly habits, but then I recover after about a half hour. It's been kind of interesting. Sometimes I feel like I'm watching the whole thing from a distance.
"I take refuge in my own good nature!" I yell, in the car, doing the dishes. "I take refuge in my own good nature." And then I laugh hysterically.
I don't know what to do. I really thought this guy was the end point for me. I don't want to touch anybody else. I'm not attracted to anyone else. But I'm so darn pissed. We have sex, I don't climax. I can't sleep when I'm over there.
Do I stay? Do I go? Do I stay? Do I go?
I, I, I, me me me. What in terms of buddhism, do you owe yourself? People lie. Men lie. Do you throw them out? Does having compassion mean just laying down for this? Is it even bad treatment?
Do I just want him out of craving and addiction, or do I really love him?
That's my 1/2 hour.
I'm better, but I'm bitter.
Better bitter. Butter on saltines. That's how my grandmother always said you could tell we were really white trash at heart....we liked butter on our saltines
"Poor food." Jay says, watching me eat, shaking his head.
No, silly. Poor food is ketchup on saltines. For supper.
Butter is expensive.
If the butter is organic, does that raise the socioeconomic level of my favorite snack?
What if the butter is organic, and the saltines are made with free trade organic wheat? What if I recycle the box afterwards? Does that raise the spiritual level of my white trash snack? Am I still white trash?
Is being spiritually conscious strictly the provenance of the upper middle class?
Maybe if we weren't so fucking insular and snotty, we crunchy granola east coast educated hairy armpitted stinky peacenik buddhists, we'd have more people on our side.
Do the wide butted crackers slowly water buffalo-ing their way through the aisles of Wal-Mart looking for deals, my oh-so-secret brethren, buying their non environmentally conscious dollar dishwashing soap even have a right to enlightenment?
All, all, all, all beings.
Why are the poor of other lands so picturesque, while ours are just distasteful?
But these people fill the ICU's, they sit by the sides of their dying loved ones and they pray and pray and pray and hope against hope and whisper in their ears. These are the people who are riddled with cancer because they worked in factories that didn't provide basic protections, or drank themselves into liver cancer because their lives were so circumscribed that liquor was their only horizon, or they stayed with brutes who beat them up. These are the people whose diets have been so poor because of poverty and overwork and lack of education that their bowels are obstructed and have perforated, or they're morbidly obese and diabetic and losing limbs and on dialysis. It can kind of get you, if you let it.
"What are you eating?" the wife of one of my patients asks me. She is tiny, in her mid thirties, skin leathered and lined already by smoking. She looks 45.
"Butter and saltines." I reply.
"That's my favorite thing to eat!" She says.
Mine, too.
I've been walking the dry brutally lit hallways of the loveless this last week. I've just been doing my chores in order. Setting my timer. Taking my adderall. Last night the band came over, and my fiddle softened me a little bit. I started crying again yesterday. Of course, the breakup or whatever is going on is messy. My shrink told me the relationship isn't salvageable and I needed to get out of it right away. So why am I still sort of in it?
I'm still sort of in it. But I'm doing creepy things like checking up on him and reading his emails and checking his voice messages (he told me all the passwords). I don't believe a single word he says about anything. I'm waiting to see if this feeling goes away.
I think the way out of this is right action.
You know, the good old eight-fold path.
But don't you have a right to defend yourself against lies? I ask myself.
I think, now that I'm regaining some sanity, that there's still a "best" way to do things, and I think checking up on him is self-destructive.
So I'm going to stop.
His lying is his responsibility. That's too bad for him, that he lies. That's bad karma. I'm sorry he feels he has to do that. I have compassion for him. (Well, I don't yet, but I'm going to pretend that I do. Fake it till you make it.)
My anger though, is my responsibility. It's better. It flashes up, then it recedes. It's like a wave.
Difficulties are really opportunities for spiritual growth. They are a chance to practice hard. It is amazing that I can find any peace in the midst of this, but I truly have been able to. I'm really not derailed. Kind of shaken up. And I fall back into ugly habits, but then I recover after about a half hour. It's been kind of interesting. Sometimes I feel like I'm watching the whole thing from a distance.
"I take refuge in my own good nature!" I yell, in the car, doing the dishes. "I take refuge in my own good nature." And then I laugh hysterically.
I don't know what to do. I really thought this guy was the end point for me. I don't want to touch anybody else. I'm not attracted to anyone else. But I'm so darn pissed. We have sex, I don't climax. I can't sleep when I'm over there.
Do I stay? Do I go? Do I stay? Do I go?
I, I, I, me me me. What in terms of buddhism, do you owe yourself? People lie. Men lie. Do you throw them out? Does having compassion mean just laying down for this? Is it even bad treatment?
Do I just want him out of craving and addiction, or do I really love him?
That's my 1/2 hour.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Yes. Good Bicycles are Expensive
I called Joseph this morning from the gym.
"I need your help."
Joseph used to work for me when he was in college. He's 25 now, 6'2", Irish Catholic, the son of a plumber. He used to be our nanny/driver/cook--my rent a husband. He kept the house together when I went back to school. He was very interested in Zen, I introduced him to Seido. My kids loved him. He was just perfect to have around pre-teens. Our lives ran like clockwork
"Sure, anything. What."
"Can you bring your truck and go with me to get my bicycle from the farm?"
"Ohhhhhhh.....man....Haley......you okay?"
"Yeah."
"That guy fucking sucks. I always told you that guy fucking sucks."
So Joseph picked me up and we drove out, and I told him the story. Jay had told me he was going to be in the city today, so I figured we wouldn't run into him. But who knows? Jay and I actually talked yesterday.
"It's good that you're going to climb El Cap," I quipped. "Perhaps you'll find your balls at the top."
"Tell me," he demanded. "What you would have done if I'd told you the truth? I had to lie. You would have been upset, right?"
"I would have been upset. And we would have had an argument. And you would have had to put on your big boy panties and negotiate with your woman. But at least I would still want to look at you."
We had taken a drive in his car to discuss the situation.
"Do you love me?" I asked him, suddenly.
"No."
"Then turn the car around, because there's nothing more to discuss."
"There's a lot more to discuss!"
"There is nothing more to discuss. Hooray! Problem solved."
And finally, because I wouldn't say anything else, he had to. I got out on 8th street.
But in the evening, the phone rang.
"I'm sorry. I love you. I really do love you." He said. Then he hung up.
So, I decided to go get my bicycle.
So Joseph and I drove out to the farm, and he loaded the bike into the bed of the truck. I went into the house to get my climbing gear, but decided against it. Bad karma. If this does go down the toilet, I'll get my own. I sniffed the pillows. They still smelled good. Like him. Elena's toys were on the couch.
I took Joseph out to lunch in repayment and listened to his woes. He did some work for Seido over the summer which he wasn't paid promptly for. I intervened and got him the money. Seido can be a bit strange. Then we went to the Peace Nook, a tax free bookstore/hippie watering hole and bought some books. He's just enough younger than me to feel like a nephew rather than a prospect, but I feel very close to Joseph, very protective.
I feel so tough and ugly. I hate feeling this way, like all my pretty and my softness is just out the window. I feel like a dyke. I guess this is self protection. I've been in this strange good mood, this sort of "git her done" mood. But I feel very detached. This state of mind is very dangerous for me. All the big changes in my life have come about when I've been feeling this way. I feel past all emotion. I scheduled myself for a Juvederm injection with my dermatologist--with his married female partner, actually, since the last time I went in for something, he handed me his cell phone number and told me to call him any time. I think I'll dye my hair blonde--see what that's all about.
Lilly and I sat on the couch last night and took turns reading each other The Sweet Far Thing. Do you think Yeats means Mary, the mother of God, when he says "rose of all roses, rose of the world"? I need to find the poem.
I don't want to feel.
I went to Yoga yesterday. I was able to go farther in my forward bends than I ever have in my whole life. I think the weight lifting is actually making me more flexible. I think the strength somehow helps the stretch. I thought--this is sort of a metaphor. I've been pursuing this for years--and what finally gets me where I was going was heading in the opposite direction. I've had terrible issues opening my hips. I injured one about 10 years ago, and it's been tight as a cord ever since. I couldn't even sit cross legged--but after about 8 weeks of weight training, the other night in class it opened right up. And I could sit there like everyone else. Amazing. It was strength I needed, not stretch.
Ahhhhh.
In Shivasana I just lay there. "think of your heart's deepest desire." The teacher said (he used to be my bass player 8 years ago)
"Help." I thought. It was the only thing I could think. "Help."
And I felt this peace, this lightening of spirit. I felt a breeze blow through my heart. A reprieve for my poor aching soul.
It didn't last, but at least I know it's there.
"Thanks."
Thanks.
Oh, wow. I don't know. It's never easy is it?
"Did you ever do anything like this to mother?" I asked my father, calling him for advice.
There was a long pause.
"Oh, Jesus, great. Great. That's just great. Put mom on the phone."
I shouldn't have told so many people. But I needed to at the time. I feel like such a messy idiot.
I'm sorry. Forgive me. I love you. Thank you.
That's my 1/2 hour.
"I need your help."
Joseph used to work for me when he was in college. He's 25 now, 6'2", Irish Catholic, the son of a plumber. He used to be our nanny/driver/cook--my rent a husband. He kept the house together when I went back to school. He was very interested in Zen, I introduced him to Seido. My kids loved him. He was just perfect to have around pre-teens. Our lives ran like clockwork
"Sure, anything. What."
"Can you bring your truck and go with me to get my bicycle from the farm?"
"Ohhhhhhh.....man....Haley......you okay?"
"Yeah."
"That guy fucking sucks. I always told you that guy fucking sucks."
So Joseph picked me up and we drove out, and I told him the story. Jay had told me he was going to be in the city today, so I figured we wouldn't run into him. But who knows? Jay and I actually talked yesterday.
"It's good that you're going to climb El Cap," I quipped. "Perhaps you'll find your balls at the top."
"Tell me," he demanded. "What you would have done if I'd told you the truth? I had to lie. You would have been upset, right?"
"I would have been upset. And we would have had an argument. And you would have had to put on your big boy panties and negotiate with your woman. But at least I would still want to look at you."
We had taken a drive in his car to discuss the situation.
"Do you love me?" I asked him, suddenly.
"No."
"Then turn the car around, because there's nothing more to discuss."
"There's a lot more to discuss!"
"There is nothing more to discuss. Hooray! Problem solved."
And finally, because I wouldn't say anything else, he had to. I got out on 8th street.
But in the evening, the phone rang.
"I'm sorry. I love you. I really do love you." He said. Then he hung up.
So, I decided to go get my bicycle.
So Joseph and I drove out to the farm, and he loaded the bike into the bed of the truck. I went into the house to get my climbing gear, but decided against it. Bad karma. If this does go down the toilet, I'll get my own. I sniffed the pillows. They still smelled good. Like him. Elena's toys were on the couch.
I took Joseph out to lunch in repayment and listened to his woes. He did some work for Seido over the summer which he wasn't paid promptly for. I intervened and got him the money. Seido can be a bit strange. Then we went to the Peace Nook, a tax free bookstore/hippie watering hole and bought some books. He's just enough younger than me to feel like a nephew rather than a prospect, but I feel very close to Joseph, very protective.
I feel so tough and ugly. I hate feeling this way, like all my pretty and my softness is just out the window. I feel like a dyke. I guess this is self protection. I've been in this strange good mood, this sort of "git her done" mood. But I feel very detached. This state of mind is very dangerous for me. All the big changes in my life have come about when I've been feeling this way. I feel past all emotion. I scheduled myself for a Juvederm injection with my dermatologist--with his married female partner, actually, since the last time I went in for something, he handed me his cell phone number and told me to call him any time. I think I'll dye my hair blonde--see what that's all about.
Lilly and I sat on the couch last night and took turns reading each other The Sweet Far Thing. Do you think Yeats means Mary, the mother of God, when he says "rose of all roses, rose of the world"? I need to find the poem.
I don't want to feel.
I went to Yoga yesterday. I was able to go farther in my forward bends than I ever have in my whole life. I think the weight lifting is actually making me more flexible. I think the strength somehow helps the stretch. I thought--this is sort of a metaphor. I've been pursuing this for years--and what finally gets me where I was going was heading in the opposite direction. I've had terrible issues opening my hips. I injured one about 10 years ago, and it's been tight as a cord ever since. I couldn't even sit cross legged--but after about 8 weeks of weight training, the other night in class it opened right up. And I could sit there like everyone else. Amazing. It was strength I needed, not stretch.
Ahhhhh.
In Shivasana I just lay there. "think of your heart's deepest desire." The teacher said (he used to be my bass player 8 years ago)
"Help." I thought. It was the only thing I could think. "Help."
And I felt this peace, this lightening of spirit. I felt a breeze blow through my heart. A reprieve for my poor aching soul.
It didn't last, but at least I know it's there.
"Thanks."
Thanks.
Oh, wow. I don't know. It's never easy is it?
"Did you ever do anything like this to mother?" I asked my father, calling him for advice.
There was a long pause.
"Oh, Jesus, great. Great. That's just great. Put mom on the phone."
I shouldn't have told so many people. But I needed to at the time. I feel like such a messy idiot.
I'm sorry. Forgive me. I love you. Thank you.
That's my 1/2 hour.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Should I go back for my bicycle?
So, Saturday night things changed a lot for me.
Jay and I got together Friday night, because he was leaving for the weekend to film a spot in Illinois for a hospital there--gone all weekend--wouldn't be back til Monday. He was psyched though, since the show got canceled there hasn't been a lot of work, and he'd spent a lot of money in Cozumel. I was happy for him. We had a wonderful night.
So Saturday, I get off work, and I'm pretty tired, and as I'm turning out of the parking lot I get this flash from nowhere that he's lying. It hit me like a bolt of lightning. Absolute certainty.
I started driving home, talking myself out of it, with an interior monologue that went something like this:"you can't blame your man for the mistakes of the past, he wouldn't lie to you, he loves you, and who would go to so much work to create a fiction? I mean, he talked about the story boards for the shoot, and the person who gave him the work, and told you the hotel he'd be staying at, and you guys talked about, Tom, his James Joyce-loving, alcoholic irish cameraman--and he told you he'd send Tom your love. I mean, you guys talked about the pending shoot for 45 minutes, and he sort of complained about it, but you know, work is work....get real. He's not lying."
But there was this voice in my head, going like a ambulance beacon---"he's lying, he's lying, he's lying, he's lying."
So, I thought, okay. I'll settle this. I'll just drive out there. He probably forgot to feed the cats anyways (we live together summers and holidays, so I know this) and I'll set this to rest and feel guilty about not trusting him later.
So I did, calling his cell once as I drove along the twisty roads...no answer.
And it was really like a bad dream. Because the lights were all on, of course, and there were two cars in the shed. He was there, with Hali.
So, I walked down the long path, past the grove where all the dogs are buried, through the naked redbud trees, under the quiet stars--there are no lights to blot out the sky out on the farm, thinking "this is too bad. This is the last time I'm going to do this." And knocked on the door.
He opened the door, looking very surprised.
"Hi!" I said cheerfully, sticking my hands in my pockets. My hair was squished in its usual messy ponytail from work. I had the irrational thought that I wanted to look really really pretty at this momen--and that maybe I should have brushed my hair. Oh well, at least I had mascara on. Aren't women weird? "Hey--I just tried to call you, but I didn't get an answer--to ask if you'd found the code pager? I think I left it here last night--did you find it?"
"No."
"Oh. Too bad. Change of plans, I see?"
"Yes, I had a change of plans."
I just nodded. Then I left.
And haven't spoken to him since.
And it hit me. If you don't want your man to lie to you and you don't want a life of lies.....DON'T BE WITH A MAN WHO LIES! Bye, Bye, Liar. Oh, I've gone round and round with this. There is one solution, I think. I hope. Maybe I'm being too harsh. He's called a couple of times, but each time I hear his voice I feel repulsed. He wants to have lunch today and talk about it. On one of his messages, he told me it was my fault that he had to lie to me, because I was uncomfortable with the Hali/Elena situation.
One happy family.
Oh well, now I don't have to deal with the whole drama any more. I don't have to feel slighted. And I don't have to wonder whether he loves me, because he obviously doesn't. I mean, I wish he did. It sort of sucks to have spent 2 years loving him and have this happen, but, oh well. That's life.
I take refuge in my good nature.
Yesterday at work it kept popping through, the grief. I'd be fine and detached, and then I'd just start crying. Usually when someone was nice to me.
Fortunately, my patient was on CRRT, which involves a machine the size of a refrigerator. So when I'd have a crying jag, I'd just crouch behind it until it was over.
Wiz caught me.
"are you okay?" he asked. He's so matter of fact.
"No." I said, and started crying again. "I'm sorry."
"Can I do anything for you to make this better?"
"Just don't be nice to me."
"Got it. Okay. " He hands me a ten "Go down to the cafeteria and get yourself a treat Then take a walk. Bring me back a cup of coffee, the good stuff, see if you can get it when it's first brewing, because that's the strongest stuff. Okay? Go. Now."
So I did.
And I did feel better.
But...
well, that's my 1/2 hour.
Jay and I got together Friday night, because he was leaving for the weekend to film a spot in Illinois for a hospital there--gone all weekend--wouldn't be back til Monday. He was psyched though, since the show got canceled there hasn't been a lot of work, and he'd spent a lot of money in Cozumel. I was happy for him. We had a wonderful night.
So Saturday, I get off work, and I'm pretty tired, and as I'm turning out of the parking lot I get this flash from nowhere that he's lying. It hit me like a bolt of lightning. Absolute certainty.
I started driving home, talking myself out of it, with an interior monologue that went something like this:"you can't blame your man for the mistakes of the past, he wouldn't lie to you, he loves you, and who would go to so much work to create a fiction? I mean, he talked about the story boards for the shoot, and the person who gave him the work, and told you the hotel he'd be staying at, and you guys talked about, Tom, his James Joyce-loving, alcoholic irish cameraman--and he told you he'd send Tom your love. I mean, you guys talked about the pending shoot for 45 minutes, and he sort of complained about it, but you know, work is work....get real. He's not lying."
But there was this voice in my head, going like a ambulance beacon---"he's lying, he's lying, he's lying, he's lying."
So, I thought, okay. I'll settle this. I'll just drive out there. He probably forgot to feed the cats anyways (we live together summers and holidays, so I know this) and I'll set this to rest and feel guilty about not trusting him later.
So I did, calling his cell once as I drove along the twisty roads...no answer.
And it was really like a bad dream. Because the lights were all on, of course, and there were two cars in the shed. He was there, with Hali.
So, I walked down the long path, past the grove where all the dogs are buried, through the naked redbud trees, under the quiet stars--there are no lights to blot out the sky out on the farm, thinking "this is too bad. This is the last time I'm going to do this." And knocked on the door.
He opened the door, looking very surprised.
"Hi!" I said cheerfully, sticking my hands in my pockets. My hair was squished in its usual messy ponytail from work. I had the irrational thought that I wanted to look really really pretty at this momen--and that maybe I should have brushed my hair. Oh well, at least I had mascara on. Aren't women weird? "Hey--I just tried to call you, but I didn't get an answer--to ask if you'd found the code pager? I think I left it here last night--did you find it?"
"No."
"Oh. Too bad. Change of plans, I see?"
"Yes, I had a change of plans."
I just nodded. Then I left.
And haven't spoken to him since.
And it hit me. If you don't want your man to lie to you and you don't want a life of lies.....DON'T BE WITH A MAN WHO LIES! Bye, Bye, Liar. Oh, I've gone round and round with this. There is one solution, I think. I hope. Maybe I'm being too harsh. He's called a couple of times, but each time I hear his voice I feel repulsed. He wants to have lunch today and talk about it. On one of his messages, he told me it was my fault that he had to lie to me, because I was uncomfortable with the Hali/Elena situation.
One happy family.
Oh well, now I don't have to deal with the whole drama any more. I don't have to feel slighted. And I don't have to wonder whether he loves me, because he obviously doesn't. I mean, I wish he did. It sort of sucks to have spent 2 years loving him and have this happen, but, oh well. That's life.
I take refuge in my good nature.
Yesterday at work it kept popping through, the grief. I'd be fine and detached, and then I'd just start crying. Usually when someone was nice to me.
Fortunately, my patient was on CRRT, which involves a machine the size of a refrigerator. So when I'd have a crying jag, I'd just crouch behind it until it was over.
Wiz caught me.
"are you okay?" he asked. He's so matter of fact.
"No." I said, and started crying again. "I'm sorry."
"Can I do anything for you to make this better?"
"Just don't be nice to me."
"Got it. Okay. " He hands me a ten "Go down to the cafeteria and get yourself a treat Then take a walk. Bring me back a cup of coffee, the good stuff, see if you can get it when it's first brewing, because that's the strongest stuff. Okay? Go. Now."
So I did.
And I did feel better.
But...
well, that's my 1/2 hour.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Karma
It's raining. Can't drive the Saab, because the wipers don't work. Every time I take Elka in to get something fixed, something else breaks. It's like...which do you want? Windshield wipers or brakes?
So it's Margaret the Mercury today.
I took my yellow lab, Karma, on a long walk today. She's the only lab I know who's afraid of the rain. One of my new years resolutions is to be more sensitive to my dogs. They have all the basics: food, water, shelter, regular veterinary care, but sometimes I think their lives aren't very enjoyable.
Karma's a pound puppy. I did something crappy about 8 years ago, and getting a dog from doggie death row was my secret agreement with the universe to settle the debt. But that's a story for another time. I have had an uneasy relationship with animals in the past. Jay taught her how to swim this summer, stripping off his clothes and carrying her naked into the pond, taking her out just a little bit farther each time and letting her swim back. She still gets nervous, swims out to the raft, then panics and tries to climb on our heads. Nothing like having a wet 80 pound wet dog try to climb on your head, I always say. But she's still afraid of the rain. She has a sixth sense for it.
We started off walking bravely in the winter sun. It wasn't too cold out. I decided to head towards my folks house, a little longer walk than usual, but Karma started acting up, so I turned around and made our usual 1/2 hour circle. Oh, desire is everywhere isn't it? The house I most love in this town is for sale, and I know I can't afford it. You can't even take a walk without it biting you. So anyways, we get to our street and just as we turn onto it, it starts raining. I swear there wasn't a cloud in the sky. We just made it inside before the rain set in for real. "How do you know?" I ask her, for the hundredth time.
She's so smart.
She isn't the dog I wanted. I went to the pound and asked them to show me dogs who were about to be put down.
"Well, " said the college girl working there, "we can't really do that...but I'll show you some dogs that are probably not going to be adopted by anyone soon."
"And you put those down?"
"There hasn't been much interest in these dogs."
I had promised to myself and to God, I guess, that I would take the first dog shown me. The girl showed me this wretched yellow dog, emaciated and ill looking, with skin that had turned black from bad nutrition and neglect. Too big, I thought. There was a much cuter smaller black one right next to her. Did it really matter, after all, which dog I took? I was saving a dog, right? I was still doing good. "What about this one?" I asked her, pointing to the other dog.
And while I asked the question, the ugly yellow dog stuck her nose through the cage and licked my hand. 'Remember your promise,' the lick seemed to say.
So I took the ugly yellow dog instead. The ugliest dog in the place that day.
And that's Karma. Who is now fat and beautiful and afraid of the rain. She's almost a perfect specimen of a labarador retriever--except for the fear of water, and she won't retrieve. She just stares at you like you're an idiot.
She's really smart, though.
One time, I got lost in the woods. I had parked the car and taken Karma in for a ramble. I got completely turned around and I had no idea where I was or how to get back to the car. We wandered around for about an hour trying to find our way. I was going in circles. Finally, in desperation, I took Karma's leash off.
"You want to go home? Let's go back to the car!"
She turned around and took off. I followed her. Every few minutes she would sit down, wait for me to catch up, then take off again.
She led me straight to the car. A little more wet and muddy a route than I would have preferred--but then I wasn't the one doing the choosing.
She was pretty skittish for a long time. For some reason, the only strangers she would let touch her were asian women. Go figure. She's better now, but she still hides under the stairs for days at a time sometimes. Know the feeling.
That's my 1/2 hour
So it's Margaret the Mercury today.
I took my yellow lab, Karma, on a long walk today. She's the only lab I know who's afraid of the rain. One of my new years resolutions is to be more sensitive to my dogs. They have all the basics: food, water, shelter, regular veterinary care, but sometimes I think their lives aren't very enjoyable.
Karma's a pound puppy. I did something crappy about 8 years ago, and getting a dog from doggie death row was my secret agreement with the universe to settle the debt. But that's a story for another time. I have had an uneasy relationship with animals in the past. Jay taught her how to swim this summer, stripping off his clothes and carrying her naked into the pond, taking her out just a little bit farther each time and letting her swim back. She still gets nervous, swims out to the raft, then panics and tries to climb on our heads. Nothing like having a wet 80 pound wet dog try to climb on your head, I always say. But she's still afraid of the rain. She has a sixth sense for it.
We started off walking bravely in the winter sun. It wasn't too cold out. I decided to head towards my folks house, a little longer walk than usual, but Karma started acting up, so I turned around and made our usual 1/2 hour circle. Oh, desire is everywhere isn't it? The house I most love in this town is for sale, and I know I can't afford it. You can't even take a walk without it biting you. So anyways, we get to our street and just as we turn onto it, it starts raining. I swear there wasn't a cloud in the sky. We just made it inside before the rain set in for real. "How do you know?" I ask her, for the hundredth time.
She's so smart.
She isn't the dog I wanted. I went to the pound and asked them to show me dogs who were about to be put down.
"Well, " said the college girl working there, "we can't really do that...but I'll show you some dogs that are probably not going to be adopted by anyone soon."
"And you put those down?"
"There hasn't been much interest in these dogs."
I had promised to myself and to God, I guess, that I would take the first dog shown me. The girl showed me this wretched yellow dog, emaciated and ill looking, with skin that had turned black from bad nutrition and neglect. Too big, I thought. There was a much cuter smaller black one right next to her. Did it really matter, after all, which dog I took? I was saving a dog, right? I was still doing good. "What about this one?" I asked her, pointing to the other dog.
And while I asked the question, the ugly yellow dog stuck her nose through the cage and licked my hand. 'Remember your promise,' the lick seemed to say.
So I took the ugly yellow dog instead. The ugliest dog in the place that day.
And that's Karma. Who is now fat and beautiful and afraid of the rain. She's almost a perfect specimen of a labarador retriever--except for the fear of water, and she won't retrieve. She just stares at you like you're an idiot.
She's really smart, though.
One time, I got lost in the woods. I had parked the car and taken Karma in for a ramble. I got completely turned around and I had no idea where I was or how to get back to the car. We wandered around for about an hour trying to find our way. I was going in circles. Finally, in desperation, I took Karma's leash off.
"You want to go home? Let's go back to the car!"
She turned around and took off. I followed her. Every few minutes she would sit down, wait for me to catch up, then take off again.
She led me straight to the car. A little more wet and muddy a route than I would have preferred--but then I wasn't the one doing the choosing.
She was pretty skittish for a long time. For some reason, the only strangers she would let touch her were asian women. Go figure. She's better now, but she still hides under the stairs for days at a time sometimes. Know the feeling.
That's my 1/2 hour
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Another Apple
The other apple story.
When I was a freshman at Dartmouth, I decided I would get over my shyness by sitting with a different person at lunch every day. I decided I would just walk up to somebody and say, "May I join you?" sit down, and get to know them. Of course, it never occurred to me that people might not like this.
One day, I sat down at the table of this Korean guy who always ate by himself. He didn't look too thrilled, but he did start passing the conversational ball back and forth.
We ate in this big dining hall called Thayer, a big echoing place. It always felt like a viking hunting lodge to me--big painted beams crossed the ceiling, long wooden tables stretched from end to end. As a freshman, you were required to eat there. I thought the food was pretty good. Everybody else complained. Maybe they'd grown up on something other than cream of mushroom soup--my mother has about 77 dishes she makes with cream of mushroom soup.
All the sudden, there's a hush. A guy, Jay Qamar--that's his real name, jumps up on a table and starts singing a song. It's a terrible song--one of the worst I've ever heard. It's got lines about women fucking dogs. It's demeaning and ugly. I'm really not a prude--now and then--I almost never get offended, so when I do, I pay attention.
At Dartmouth that fall, I'd encountered a level of misogyny I'd never experienced in Little Dixie. I was completely unprepared for it. It seemed so sly and deep--hard to point to--but here it was bubbling up in this terrible song no boy from my county would ever be caught dead singing around girls. So I picked up an apple and I threw it. I can't usually throw very well and I have terrible aim, but this time, it arched beautifully across the length of the dining hall and hit him in the thight, right by the crotch.
Song over.
But not the hate.
You wouldn't believe the things that happened because I did that. The guys at the table belonged to Theta Delt. They pissed under my dorm room door. They carved things into it: "Haley's pregnant." They destroyed my bicycle--my poor purple 1967 Western Flyer. They would interrupt my classes and scream, "Haley Patton is a Cunt." They continued this campaign all fall.
I had worked so hard to get there. I was the only person from my town that year to go to an Ivy League college. I went with visions of Winter Carnival and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I came from a cramped, two bedroom house, where my mother, from fear of lack, stacked crates of canned food in the living room. You could hardly walk. My parents drove one 20 year old car and sold all their treasures to pay my tuition. It was my big chance. It was a nightmare.
I couldn't tell anyone from home about it, because I didn't want them to feel bad and I also didn't want to admit I was having a bad time. It didn't occur to me that this was harrassment and I needed to report it. I was ashamed that it was happening. I failed two classes. I was afraid to go to the library. I started dating a guy who lived off campus and moved in with him. I never went to my room. I was 17 years old and school was terrifying.
I haven't made the best choices, but when you don't feel safe, you never do. Now, at 41, I'm pretty good at keeping a clear head even when I'm very frightened and not making decisions that will later sabotage me. But when you're young, you don't usually have that capacity. You just react. I didn't think--if I don't get a dean involved in this situation, I will screw up my future and not get into medical school. I just tried not to walk alone at night and stayed away from class.
But you know what? I'm glad I threw the apple.
I just wish I'd thrown a rock. instead.
That's my 1/2 hour.
When I was a freshman at Dartmouth, I decided I would get over my shyness by sitting with a different person at lunch every day. I decided I would just walk up to somebody and say, "May I join you?" sit down, and get to know them. Of course, it never occurred to me that people might not like this.
One day, I sat down at the table of this Korean guy who always ate by himself. He didn't look too thrilled, but he did start passing the conversational ball back and forth.
We ate in this big dining hall called Thayer, a big echoing place. It always felt like a viking hunting lodge to me--big painted beams crossed the ceiling, long wooden tables stretched from end to end. As a freshman, you were required to eat there. I thought the food was pretty good. Everybody else complained. Maybe they'd grown up on something other than cream of mushroom soup--my mother has about 77 dishes she makes with cream of mushroom soup.
All the sudden, there's a hush. A guy, Jay Qamar--that's his real name, jumps up on a table and starts singing a song. It's a terrible song--one of the worst I've ever heard. It's got lines about women fucking dogs. It's demeaning and ugly. I'm really not a prude--now and then--I almost never get offended, so when I do, I pay attention.
At Dartmouth that fall, I'd encountered a level of misogyny I'd never experienced in Little Dixie. I was completely unprepared for it. It seemed so sly and deep--hard to point to--but here it was bubbling up in this terrible song no boy from my county would ever be caught dead singing around girls. So I picked up an apple and I threw it. I can't usually throw very well and I have terrible aim, but this time, it arched beautifully across the length of the dining hall and hit him in the thight, right by the crotch.
Song over.
But not the hate.
You wouldn't believe the things that happened because I did that. The guys at the table belonged to Theta Delt. They pissed under my dorm room door. They carved things into it: "Haley's pregnant." They destroyed my bicycle--my poor purple 1967 Western Flyer. They would interrupt my classes and scream, "Haley Patton is a Cunt." They continued this campaign all fall.
I had worked so hard to get there. I was the only person from my town that year to go to an Ivy League college. I went with visions of Winter Carnival and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I came from a cramped, two bedroom house, where my mother, from fear of lack, stacked crates of canned food in the living room. You could hardly walk. My parents drove one 20 year old car and sold all their treasures to pay my tuition. It was my big chance. It was a nightmare.
I couldn't tell anyone from home about it, because I didn't want them to feel bad and I also didn't want to admit I was having a bad time. It didn't occur to me that this was harrassment and I needed to report it. I was ashamed that it was happening. I failed two classes. I was afraid to go to the library. I started dating a guy who lived off campus and moved in with him. I never went to my room. I was 17 years old and school was terrifying.
I haven't made the best choices, but when you don't feel safe, you never do. Now, at 41, I'm pretty good at keeping a clear head even when I'm very frightened and not making decisions that will later sabotage me. But when you're young, you don't usually have that capacity. You just react. I didn't think--if I don't get a dean involved in this situation, I will screw up my future and not get into medical school. I just tried not to walk alone at night and stayed away from class.
But you know what? I'm glad I threw the apple.
I just wish I'd thrown a rock. instead.
That's my 1/2 hour.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Apples
Mondays.
I worked. 4th day in a row. The census was so low in November that I got no overtime (we get paid the month after)--but the good news is I'd been sticking a little extra in my mortgage account here and there--and actually ended up saving enough to skip my mortgage payment this month! I guess that's what they mean about not living paycheck to paycheck. What an interesting idea.
A storm was coming in, we went from room to room covering our patients with blankets and moving them away from the windows. The sky got dark and the air smelled heavy, like rain, even inside the unit and more than ever I had the sense that we were on a spaceship, our little twilight ship, steering it through. That's what I am...the captain of twilight. Storms get me a little agitated--I went through Hurricane Andrew. I read an article in the Miami Herald about a year after that describing post traumatic stress syndrome--it essentially said that the whole city was suffering from it. As if we needed to be any crazier down there! Both our attending and our fellow are combat vets--Viet Nam and the first Gulf War, and Johnson, that old dragon, was stalking around giving poor little Baggins hell. Humiliating him in front of the unit. I thought Baggins was going to cry. Something must be wrong somewhere else, because I've never seen him so upset. He was speaking in this very calm, quiet, fuzzy voice, as if he were choking.
We have a teenager in the unit--well, we have a lot of teens in the unit. Scares the hell out of me. And one of them is double vented and very touch and go and a bronchoscopy was scheduled for 1300, but RT didn't show up. Fat Alice was our respiratory tech and she must have been having troubles at home, too, because she screwed up all day--missed my OR transport, didn't respond to pages, forgot labs...and she never does this...so it was really her fault, but Johnson just went on and on...and Baggins is going all military, clasping his hands behind his back and standing there like a sailor, the wide white dented scar that cleaves his cropped head from crown to occiput looking even whiter, because he's turning red. So I just walked up in the middle of it and handed him an apple. (I always carry a bag of organic granny smith apples--do you know they are the only apples that don't feed yeast?).
Baggins looks at me like I'm nuts.
"An apple a day keeps the doctor away." I say. Then I go back into my patient's room.
The pod just dissolves in laughter.
Tirade over.
I mean really, Johnson can't do that to our Fellow, in front of staff and patient's families. It will destroy their sense of trust and it's completely inappropriate.
Apples have gotten me into a lot of trouble. I guess, if you subscribe to the Judeo-Christian world view, they've gotten us all into a lot of trouble.
One time, I threw one. And it changed my life.
I did this when I was a freshman at Dartmouth. But that's another story, and that's my 1/2 hour.
I worked. 4th day in a row. The census was so low in November that I got no overtime (we get paid the month after)--but the good news is I'd been sticking a little extra in my mortgage account here and there--and actually ended up saving enough to skip my mortgage payment this month! I guess that's what they mean about not living paycheck to paycheck. What an interesting idea.
A storm was coming in, we went from room to room covering our patients with blankets and moving them away from the windows. The sky got dark and the air smelled heavy, like rain, even inside the unit and more than ever I had the sense that we were on a spaceship, our little twilight ship, steering it through. That's what I am...the captain of twilight. Storms get me a little agitated--I went through Hurricane Andrew. I read an article in the Miami Herald about a year after that describing post traumatic stress syndrome--it essentially said that the whole city was suffering from it. As if we needed to be any crazier down there! Both our attending and our fellow are combat vets--Viet Nam and the first Gulf War, and Johnson, that old dragon, was stalking around giving poor little Baggins hell. Humiliating him in front of the unit. I thought Baggins was going to cry. Something must be wrong somewhere else, because I've never seen him so upset. He was speaking in this very calm, quiet, fuzzy voice, as if he were choking.
We have a teenager in the unit--well, we have a lot of teens in the unit. Scares the hell out of me. And one of them is double vented and very touch and go and a bronchoscopy was scheduled for 1300, but RT didn't show up. Fat Alice was our respiratory tech and she must have been having troubles at home, too, because she screwed up all day--missed my OR transport, didn't respond to pages, forgot labs...and she never does this...so it was really her fault, but Johnson just went on and on...and Baggins is going all military, clasping his hands behind his back and standing there like a sailor, the wide white dented scar that cleaves his cropped head from crown to occiput looking even whiter, because he's turning red. So I just walked up in the middle of it and handed him an apple. (I always carry a bag of organic granny smith apples--do you know they are the only apples that don't feed yeast?).
Baggins looks at me like I'm nuts.
"An apple a day keeps the doctor away." I say. Then I go back into my patient's room.
The pod just dissolves in laughter.
Tirade over.
I mean really, Johnson can't do that to our Fellow, in front of staff and patient's families. It will destroy their sense of trust and it's completely inappropriate.
Apples have gotten me into a lot of trouble. I guess, if you subscribe to the Judeo-Christian world view, they've gotten us all into a lot of trouble.
One time, I threw one. And it changed my life.
I did this when I was a freshman at Dartmouth. But that's another story, and that's my 1/2 hour.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Shit
Watched Stranger Than Paradise with Lilly. Lilly looks a lot like the actress who plays Eva. It's 22 days late. One of my New Years Resolutions is not to do stupid things with my money--like get parking tickets and late fees. Last year I spent $500 on parking tickets, and god knows how much on late fees at Cherry Street Video. They're the only place who lets me rent videos. I have a real problem returning them. I always do, eventually, and I always pay, but I mean, it's five minutes away from my house--why can't I remember to return my movies? What is it I want to avoid/sabotage? Why can't I leave the house 5 minutes earlier in the morning so I don't have to park in the CEO's spot in the parking garage and get a ticket? Why can't I remember to put change in the meter downtown? I mean, really. Aren't I too old for this crap?
Nick is slamming around looking for his glasses. Blaming Lilly. Lilly finally got out of bed , walked into the living room and found them immediately.
Lilly is the finder.
Whenever any of us lose anything, we go to Lilly. And she finds it. One time, Lilly didn't have school and was sleeping in and Nick couldn't find his geometry textbook. We turned the house upside down. We woke Lilly up, finally, and half asleep, she shuffled right over to where it was and handed it to Nick. Then she went back to bed. She holds this ability over us: "I'll only find the keys if you promise to let me go to the moview with Amanda...'
Speaking of geometry, Lilly flunked it this semester. She picked the right day to bring home and F, though. We had admitted a 14-year-old head trauma that morning. My former preceptor from the ER, Grass, was there. "Just don't go in there, Haley. I'll tell you everything you need to know." Grass protects me.
So that night, Lilly hands me her report card. "Are you mad?"
But I wasn't. I was just so glad that she was mine and sitting at the table, alive, telling me about it.
Today kind of sucked, which was too bad, because I was really excited about coming in to work.
Transferring my patient today, his Swan Ganz came out. Diverticulitis. Bowel perfed. Septic from stool in his belly. Open abdomen, dialysis, vented, ostomy, arterial line, mahurkar. So much to catch on. Poop is so damn important. I used to make fun of my poor grandfather for being so obsessed with it.
Be obsessed. Eat lots of veggies and drink lots of water and be very sure to poop each and every day.
Foot long floaters.
Ah! Zen moment! Your own shit is what gets you....waste is as important as consumption.
If your nose is covered with shit, shit is all you will smell. That's a favorite of Seido's.
So anyways, that is the first time I have ever lost a line on a patient. The first! Wiz was really mean about it. "I can't believe you did that. You're going to have to PSN yourself."
And the resident: "How did that happen? What is wrong with you nurses today? Everybody's losing lines and tubes. You have to be more careful."
I almost cried. I was so pissed off at myself. I've been nicer to Wiz when he screws up.
James, one of our newer nurses--one who really annoys me, usually, came in the room where I was slamming around, hiding out.
"You know," he says, "everybody pulls out a line at some point. This guy has more stuff sticking out of him than an octopus, you took every precaution--6 people helped you transfer him--and you were doing it for his own good, so don't feel bad. You didn't hurt him. He's okay."
"What are you doing?" I asked him.
"I'm giving you the exact same pep talk you would give me." He grins.
"Thank you."
And then I remembered "I take refuge in my own good nature" and there it was, waiting for me. like a big comfortable chair, easy, warm and amused. "Oh, there you are, " I said to myself, and just hung out in it the rest of the day. Nice I spread enough of it around so that someone was holding a little of it to give back to me.
Wheww. We're all in this together, aren't we?
That's my 1/2 hour
Nick is slamming around looking for his glasses. Blaming Lilly. Lilly finally got out of bed , walked into the living room and found them immediately.
Lilly is the finder.
Whenever any of us lose anything, we go to Lilly. And she finds it. One time, Lilly didn't have school and was sleeping in and Nick couldn't find his geometry textbook. We turned the house upside down. We woke Lilly up, finally, and half asleep, she shuffled right over to where it was and handed it to Nick. Then she went back to bed. She holds this ability over us: "I'll only find the keys if you promise to let me go to the moview with Amanda...'
Speaking of geometry, Lilly flunked it this semester. She picked the right day to bring home and F, though. We had admitted a 14-year-old head trauma that morning. My former preceptor from the ER, Grass, was there. "Just don't go in there, Haley. I'll tell you everything you need to know." Grass protects me.
So that night, Lilly hands me her report card. "Are you mad?"
But I wasn't. I was just so glad that she was mine and sitting at the table, alive, telling me about it.
Today kind of sucked, which was too bad, because I was really excited about coming in to work.
Transferring my patient today, his Swan Ganz came out. Diverticulitis. Bowel perfed. Septic from stool in his belly. Open abdomen, dialysis, vented, ostomy, arterial line, mahurkar. So much to catch on. Poop is so damn important. I used to make fun of my poor grandfather for being so obsessed with it.
Be obsessed. Eat lots of veggies and drink lots of water and be very sure to poop each and every day.
Foot long floaters.
Ah! Zen moment! Your own shit is what gets you....waste is as important as consumption.
If your nose is covered with shit, shit is all you will smell. That's a favorite of Seido's.
So anyways, that is the first time I have ever lost a line on a patient. The first! Wiz was really mean about it. "I can't believe you did that. You're going to have to PSN yourself."
And the resident: "How did that happen? What is wrong with you nurses today? Everybody's losing lines and tubes. You have to be more careful."
I almost cried. I was so pissed off at myself. I've been nicer to Wiz when he screws up.
James, one of our newer nurses--one who really annoys me, usually, came in the room where I was slamming around, hiding out.
"You know," he says, "everybody pulls out a line at some point. This guy has more stuff sticking out of him than an octopus, you took every precaution--6 people helped you transfer him--and you were doing it for his own good, so don't feel bad. You didn't hurt him. He's okay."
"What are you doing?" I asked him.
"I'm giving you the exact same pep talk you would give me." He grins.
"Thank you."
And then I remembered "I take refuge in my own good nature" and there it was, waiting for me. like a big comfortable chair, easy, warm and amused. "Oh, there you are, " I said to myself, and just hung out in it the rest of the day. Nice I spread enough of it around so that someone was holding a little of it to give back to me.
Wheww. We're all in this together, aren't we?
That's my 1/2 hour
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Nana
I just got done working out. I'm obsessed with working out. I just discovered pumping iron. Arnold Schwarzenegger has this quote from his first movie, and I'm paraphrasing, but he says, "pumping iron is better than coming." And for me, this is absolutely not true (although, in some desperate situations, I've found sometimes pissing is better than coming, but that's another story and everyone who's ever been pregnant knows that already) But for some reason, after doing the nautilus circuit here at the university gym using the lowest weights possible because I'm such a pansy, I feel like a bad ass. And my arms look really great in the Cozumel photos--not the lunch lady flabby things they used to be. I've only been doing this 6 weeks! Sometimes I resent the time--I mean, what normal person works out 1-2 hours/day, 6 days/week? But spend a little time in a trauma/surgical ICU and witness what time and neglect do to bodies--you would, too. Not that this will protect you from car accidents, random diseases, pianos falling on your head, etc, but if you do suffer a trauma, you will stack the deck in your favor if you've been taking care of yourself. The people that make it, that crawl back from the endgame, are 1)loved 2)in good shape. So if every minute I spend in a gym saves me five at the end of my life in an ICU, it's money well-spent. No one should have to go through that. No one.
One of the reasons I'm a nurse is because of what I did to my grandmother.
My grandmother was 90 years old. She was in fantastic shape for 90, sharp as a tack, as they say. She wasn't the softest, nicest person on earth--she was pretty catty--a Kappa, rich, funny, with that clenched jaw wasp drawl--like Katherine Hepburn. But she was vital and fun. She had friends from all different age groups ('You have to stack your friends' ages' she said, 'if all your friends are old, they just die off and depress you. It's just like dogs.') She was doing just great, and then started feeling tired all the time. She had had a lifelong heart murmur, which eventually had developed into mitral valve prolapse. They gave her 6 months, however, there was a surgery she could undergo which would take care of the problem.
"I've had a long life, Haley," she told me. "6 months is fine. I'm ready."
"Nana," I told her, "listen, you're strong. You could have ten more years--ten years of weddings and lunches and friends and shopping. Stay with us. Get the surgery."
I talked her into it, and she did, and she died. A terrible, painful death, septic and intubated in an ICU. Her last words were, "You're a lunatic."
Which is just like her, actually.
Everyone was really nice to me about it--my family--but her longtime phillippino maid, Hermes, didn't pull punches.
"I feel like I killed her," I told her at the funeral. We were standing on the sunset cliffs behind her house, looking at Catalina.
"I know--you kind of did. Why did you talk her into it?"
"I thought she was stronger than she was."
"Oh, Haley, I wish you had been smarter about that."
Me too.
It's funny, we both used our inheritance to become nurses.
That's my 1/2 hour.
One of the reasons I'm a nurse is because of what I did to my grandmother.
My grandmother was 90 years old. She was in fantastic shape for 90, sharp as a tack, as they say. She wasn't the softest, nicest person on earth--she was pretty catty--a Kappa, rich, funny, with that clenched jaw wasp drawl--like Katherine Hepburn. But she was vital and fun. She had friends from all different age groups ('You have to stack your friends' ages' she said, 'if all your friends are old, they just die off and depress you. It's just like dogs.') She was doing just great, and then started feeling tired all the time. She had had a lifelong heart murmur, which eventually had developed into mitral valve prolapse. They gave her 6 months, however, there was a surgery she could undergo which would take care of the problem.
"I've had a long life, Haley," she told me. "6 months is fine. I'm ready."
"Nana," I told her, "listen, you're strong. You could have ten more years--ten years of weddings and lunches and friends and shopping. Stay with us. Get the surgery."
I talked her into it, and she did, and she died. A terrible, painful death, septic and intubated in an ICU. Her last words were, "You're a lunatic."
Which is just like her, actually.
Everyone was really nice to me about it--my family--but her longtime phillippino maid, Hermes, didn't pull punches.
"I feel like I killed her," I told her at the funeral. We were standing on the sunset cliffs behind her house, looking at Catalina.
"I know--you kind of did. Why did you talk her into it?"
"I thought she was stronger than she was."
"Oh, Haley, I wish you had been smarter about that."
Me too.
It's funny, we both used our inheritance to become nurses.
That's my 1/2 hour.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
The Hangover Leftover Party
I have another resolution. I'm going to really learn how to play chess. I already know how to play, but I don't have any idea of the shape of the game. Jay played with me once, beat me in like ten minutes, then decided I wasn't a worthy partner and never played me again. This was one of the many small chivalric kindnesses Ayhan afforded me. We played chess (sort of, I found out) every day--and Ayhan would let it drag on as long as he could and then beat me, or, as I realized, let me win.
There was some overlap between the two relationships and I had already played chess with Jay when this hit me--Ayhan let me win.
"You've been letting me win." I told him
"How did you realize that?" he asked. And it was over.
Hmmm.....letting me win at chess/giving me a venereal disease....didn't make up for it. Some small part of me whispers that it is coarse to judge him for that, that he didn't mean to and really thought he wasn't contagious, and that he was kind and decent and held all the doors and helped clean up after the parties and was nice to my mother, and the only price I had to pay was this silly little skin condition--but then I think--no. It's really not okay at all. You have to be honest about what's dangerous about yourself to another person. It's disregarding them in the worst way.
So I'm really going to learn chess this year.
Yesterday was the hangover leftover party. So many people showed up! I couldn't believe it. I ran out of wine. I was absolutely not expecting that many people. It's like that--some years there's nobody--someyears--everybody. I made a big kettle of hoppin john, and just let it roll. I didn't enjoy it very much, though, because a lot of people showed up I didn't know very well, so I felt I had to babysit them, which I did, but that's always a bit of a pain. It wasn't relaxing...which is kind of the whole point of the party. And what a crowd--lots of conservative people--mostly the parents of Lilly's friends. I guess they wanted to check me out, since Lilly has sort of evolved into the official social coordinator of her school and everybody's usually over at my house. My neighbors came over and my old bandmate, Rashid, bringing his guitar. Rashid sort of freaked everybody out, I think, with his swarthy good looks and intense gaze and black leather and galoises, but oh well. Then he turned off the stereo and started playing music, which I don't think happens much at the parties these people usually go to. Then Dave, my drummer,brought his djimba in and my neighbor, bless her heart, ran to her house and brought over all these wonderful musical instruments collected on her travels and we distributed them to all the guests. it was really cute. Two of the most straightlaced parents fell in love with a little xylophone and sat on the couch playing it together. I got out my fiddle and for about 1/2 hour, everybody just played and played. Rashid wanted to keep going, but Jay came up to me and whispered in my ear:
"I know another joke. Want to hear it?"'
"Sure."
"Okay. What's more boring than a hippie drumming circle?"
"Nothing?"
"Yep."
So I gently discouraged him. Actually, what happened was, he went outside in the freezing cold to suck down another Galois, and I put the stereo back on.
I think there was just enough of that.
Then someone showed up with a baked alaska--a baked alaska!!
Hali called right at the start of the party to tell me that she and Juan wouldn't be able to make it.
"But I want to tell you how truly grateful I am for your invitation." she says.
One big happy family.
The kids had their own party downstairs. For some reason it's freezing down there. They watched movies and played charades and ate cookies. I made random unpredictable surveillance sweeps, which I find to be the best deterrent to illicit undesirable teenage activity. How to keep your kid out of trouble? Don't hound them, question them, harass them. Just frequently, magically, and unpredictably.....materialize.
Poof!
Happy New Year.
that's my 1/2 hour.
There was some overlap between the two relationships and I had already played chess with Jay when this hit me--Ayhan let me win.
"You've been letting me win." I told him
"How did you realize that?" he asked. And it was over.
Hmmm.....letting me win at chess/giving me a venereal disease....didn't make up for it. Some small part of me whispers that it is coarse to judge him for that, that he didn't mean to and really thought he wasn't contagious, and that he was kind and decent and held all the doors and helped clean up after the parties and was nice to my mother, and the only price I had to pay was this silly little skin condition--but then I think--no. It's really not okay at all. You have to be honest about what's dangerous about yourself to another person. It's disregarding them in the worst way.
So I'm really going to learn chess this year.
Yesterday was the hangover leftover party. So many people showed up! I couldn't believe it. I ran out of wine. I was absolutely not expecting that many people. It's like that--some years there's nobody--someyears--everybody. I made a big kettle of hoppin john, and just let it roll. I didn't enjoy it very much, though, because a lot of people showed up I didn't know very well, so I felt I had to babysit them, which I did, but that's always a bit of a pain. It wasn't relaxing...which is kind of the whole point of the party. And what a crowd--lots of conservative people--mostly the parents of Lilly's friends. I guess they wanted to check me out, since Lilly has sort of evolved into the official social coordinator of her school and everybody's usually over at my house. My neighbors came over and my old bandmate, Rashid, bringing his guitar. Rashid sort of freaked everybody out, I think, with his swarthy good looks and intense gaze and black leather and galoises, but oh well. Then he turned off the stereo and started playing music, which I don't think happens much at the parties these people usually go to. Then Dave, my drummer,brought his djimba in and my neighbor, bless her heart, ran to her house and brought over all these wonderful musical instruments collected on her travels and we distributed them to all the guests. it was really cute. Two of the most straightlaced parents fell in love with a little xylophone and sat on the couch playing it together. I got out my fiddle and for about 1/2 hour, everybody just played and played. Rashid wanted to keep going, but Jay came up to me and whispered in my ear:
"I know another joke. Want to hear it?"'
"Sure."
"Okay. What's more boring than a hippie drumming circle?"
"Nothing?"
"Yep."
So I gently discouraged him. Actually, what happened was, he went outside in the freezing cold to suck down another Galois, and I put the stereo back on.
I think there was just enough of that.
Then someone showed up with a baked alaska--a baked alaska!!
Hali called right at the start of the party to tell me that she and Juan wouldn't be able to make it.
"But I want to tell you how truly grateful I am for your invitation." she says.
One big happy family.
The kids had their own party downstairs. For some reason it's freezing down there. They watched movies and played charades and ate cookies. I made random unpredictable surveillance sweeps, which I find to be the best deterrent to illicit undesirable teenage activity. How to keep your kid out of trouble? Don't hound them, question them, harass them. Just frequently, magically, and unpredictably.....materialize.
Poof!
Happy New Year.
that's my 1/2 hour.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Cast of Characters
Cast of Characters-- revised
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'sErnie'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
Hali Cordoba--Jay's ex of 15 years who left him for and married a professional salsa dancer is weirdly enmeshed in our lives and never shaves her armpits (or wears a bra) and calls us at 10:30 at night.
Lena--her winsome 2 year old daughter
Juan Cordoba--her patient beleaguered Brazilian husband
The Hennessy's--Frances, Big Frances, Linda, Catherine, etc--the Irish-Catholic family who took me into their home and hearts in mean ol Miami
Dartmouth--the college on the hill
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'sErnie'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
Hali Cordoba--Jay's ex of 15 years who left him for and married a professional salsa dancer is weirdly enmeshed in our lives and never shaves her armpits (or wears a bra) and calls us at 10:30 at night.
Lena--her winsome 2 year old daughter
Juan Cordoba--her patient beleaguered Brazilian husband
The Hennessy's--Frances, Big Frances, Linda, Catherine, etc--the Irish-Catholic family who took me into their home and hearts in mean ol Miami
Dartmouth--the college on the hill
Compromises
Happy New Year! I've had an unremarkable one so far.
Lilly and Nick didn't want to be seen with me, of course. Nick went downtown with his friends. He drove. Our town has a celebration called First Night--the whole town turns out to ring in the New year. It's usually wonderful, but last night was a little dull. There didn't seem to be that many people. Hali asked Jay if he could please watch Elena last night while she went out with her husband.
Bitch.
Nice way to throw a wrench in our New Years Eve plans. She's just bent on drying us up. I don't know whether it's conscious or not. Probably conscious.
So we took the Lena bean downtown. I think she was a little overwhelmed. They cover the whole plaza in front of the courthouse with layers of bubble wrap,and they have a kids celebration at 10, and all the kids just pour out in masks and crowns they've made earlier in the evening and they set off fireworks and the kids jump upand down on the bubble wrap--which is actually really satisfying. I'm thinking of covering my entire house in it.
"Big party!" she says, grinning.
"Big party," I agree. We jumped up and down on the bubble wrap for awhile. Then that was enough. She's struck up quite a relationship with Tonks, our Lhasa.
"Tonks loves me." she declares.
"Tonks does love you."
"Tonks is little and sweet and good and she loves me."
"That is very true."
After we made our masks (the Methodist church hosted the masks--the churches usually are open and participate, but my church was closed up cold for some reason. Damn anglicans. No wonder we're losing people) she wanted me to take her in to the bathroom so she could look at herself.
She stared at herself in the mirror for a minute. Then she turned to me and licked me.
I just started laughing. "Why did you do that?"'
"I'm Tonks. I kissed you. Kiss me."
I do so.
Well, what a strange situation.
After the courthouse, she said, "I want to go to another Big party." And Jay was actually considering keeping her out. But I dissuaded him.
"2. 10. Bed."
So we went to Hali's big house (she owns one of the biggest, oldest, most beautiful Victorian houses in our town, right on Broadway, which is a very prized place to have a house). It's always clean, too, unlike mine. Oh well, I do it alone. I don't have two husbands, plus however many roommates they have renting there to keep it all afloat. We're standing in the kitchen, talking, sort of. Hali doesn't make much conversation with me. I don't believe she's ever asked me a question about myself. She's wearing jeans which show the top of her black thong when she bends over and a ribbed turtleneck which skims the top of her waistband. Her hair is down. She takes Lena and they immediately go over to a rocking chair in the corner of the diningroom and starts nursing her.
Hallelujah.
So I invited her and her husband to the hangover leftover party. (This is a New Years Day party I have every year. It's kind of fun. Everybody just schleps over with their leftovers and hangovers and musical instruments and hangs out. Sometimes it's big...sometimes it's small.) I mean, fuck this. Let's get this shit on my turf. I'm tired of these games and I'm tired of being excluded. If there is to be a pretense of one big happy family--which it isn't--it's just an excuse to have the cake and eat it--we'll make the lie the truth. No more games. We'll stick her in the circle of my women, my family, my friends, and we'll bring those pressures to bear. It'll be good for everybody and it will inject a little reality and context in the situation and maybe we'll actually be able to pull something healthy out of it, like a friendship and community out of this weirdness. Here's my gift--I'm healthy and kind and strong. I'll let myself rub off on all this.
You want one big fucking happy family, bitch,
you got it.
That's my 1/2 hour.
Lilly and Nick didn't want to be seen with me, of course. Nick went downtown with his friends. He drove. Our town has a celebration called First Night--the whole town turns out to ring in the New year. It's usually wonderful, but last night was a little dull. There didn't seem to be that many people. Hali asked Jay if he could please watch Elena last night while she went out with her husband.
Bitch.
Nice way to throw a wrench in our New Years Eve plans. She's just bent on drying us up. I don't know whether it's conscious or not. Probably conscious.
So we took the Lena bean downtown. I think she was a little overwhelmed. They cover the whole plaza in front of the courthouse with layers of bubble wrap,and they have a kids celebration at 10, and all the kids just pour out in masks and crowns they've made earlier in the evening and they set off fireworks and the kids jump upand down on the bubble wrap--which is actually really satisfying. I'm thinking of covering my entire house in it.
"Big party!" she says, grinning.
"Big party," I agree. We jumped up and down on the bubble wrap for awhile. Then that was enough. She's struck up quite a relationship with Tonks, our Lhasa.
"Tonks loves me." she declares.
"Tonks does love you."
"Tonks is little and sweet and good and she loves me."
"That is very true."
After we made our masks (the Methodist church hosted the masks--the churches usually are open and participate, but my church was closed up cold for some reason. Damn anglicans. No wonder we're losing people) she wanted me to take her in to the bathroom so she could look at herself.
She stared at herself in the mirror for a minute. Then she turned to me and licked me.
I just started laughing. "Why did you do that?"'
"I'm Tonks. I kissed you. Kiss me."
I do so.
Well, what a strange situation.
After the courthouse, she said, "I want to go to another Big party." And Jay was actually considering keeping her out. But I dissuaded him.
"2. 10. Bed."
So we went to Hali's big house (she owns one of the biggest, oldest, most beautiful Victorian houses in our town, right on Broadway, which is a very prized place to have a house). It's always clean, too, unlike mine. Oh well, I do it alone. I don't have two husbands, plus however many roommates they have renting there to keep it all afloat. We're standing in the kitchen, talking, sort of. Hali doesn't make much conversation with me. I don't believe she's ever asked me a question about myself. She's wearing jeans which show the top of her black thong when she bends over and a ribbed turtleneck which skims the top of her waistband. Her hair is down. She takes Lena and they immediately go over to a rocking chair in the corner of the diningroom and starts nursing her.
Hallelujah.
So I invited her and her husband to the hangover leftover party. (This is a New Years Day party I have every year. It's kind of fun. Everybody just schleps over with their leftovers and hangovers and musical instruments and hangs out. Sometimes it's big...sometimes it's small.) I mean, fuck this. Let's get this shit on my turf. I'm tired of these games and I'm tired of being excluded. If there is to be a pretense of one big happy family--which it isn't--it's just an excuse to have the cake and eat it--we'll make the lie the truth. No more games. We'll stick her in the circle of my women, my family, my friends, and we'll bring those pressures to bear. It'll be good for everybody and it will inject a little reality and context in the situation and maybe we'll actually be able to pull something healthy out of it, like a friendship and community out of this weirdness. Here's my gift--I'm healthy and kind and strong. I'll let myself rub off on all this.
You want one big fucking happy family, bitch,
you got it.
That's my 1/2 hour.
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