Socks and Parties

We're trying to go as long as we can without turning on the heat. We only had the heat on a few days last month, and our bill jumped to $120. So Lilly and I are wearing long underwear and heavy sweaters and spending most of our time in the library. Jay bought me three pairs of Smart Wool Socks, unexpectedly. He dropped them by the house while I was at work. "Why socks?" I asked on the phone.
"I can't stand your socks. You need good socks. Socks are important."
Well, okay.
I love them. They're so beautiful and thick and cushy. They make me feel rich. I like them so much, I safety-pin them together when I wash them keep them from getting separated. I never do things like that.
Maybe socks are important. I like wearing them at work, except they don't really do anything for my legs, which are swelling up more and more. Bilateral pitting edema. +2-3. Why? It used to resolve during the week. Now it just hangs around, swelling my trim little ankles. Breaking my heart.
"What do you think this is all about?" I ask Wiz.
"Right sided heart failure." He says dispassionately, and moves on.
Wonderful.
Drunken Disaster and I had two codes together over the weekend. During the first one, as we were desperately slamming fluids into our triple A, who was exsanguinating in front of us, I said "Get the plasma up," and she said, "It wouldn't hurt you to say please once in awhile."
Several retorts came to mind. 1) "Please--kiss my ass" 2)Only if you stop drinking! But I said neither. I said, "Oh, Morgan, I'm so sorry." Then afterwards, she told me that she thought I was a little bossy.
"Really?" I secretly felt sort of proud. It's taken me so long to be bossy. I mean, in my life, I've never been bossy. I can't believe I've become bossy enough to have people complain to me about it! But I didn't say that. I said, "I'm sorry you feel that way, Morgan. Sometimes in a crisis situation I do become a little terse. I'll tell you what, I'll work on softening up if you work on not taking personally."
"Done." She said. And I started to like her a little bit.
I asked Marcy later, "Am I bossy?"
She just started laughing. "Oh my God. Are you kidding?"
"I am?"
"You are SO bossy."
I asked Wiz. Who also started laughing. "Oh no, not you. Never you."
Hmm.
After work, I dragged Lilly and Marcy and her kid out to a party at Hunter's in Deerville, where he owns a building in their tiny downtown. There was an R&B band, made up of middle-aged white people that was pretty good, and lots of food. Everyone we know is there. Sybil, dressed in velvet and cowboy boots, hair long blonde and flowing, overly made-up eyes glazed and wild--she looks like she's done a lot of acid at some time in the distant past--smiles ecstatically at me as I come in, kisses me on both cheeks. Then she kisses the redheaded woman behind me square on the mouth. Guess I got off easy. "Oh, my God, Mom," Lilly hisses, "She just kissed that woman on the mouth. " "Act casual," I tell Lilly, who starts giggling. There are other kids there, hanging out upstairs, playing games and reading. Lilly joins them.

Sybil and Hunter dance in front of the band, Sybil moving like a snake and Hunter sort of stumbling his bulk in rhythm, his bald head gleaming, in the dim light. He clearly has an erection, his khakis stretched across his groin. The band's playing "Werewolves of London" Jay and I are outside on the porch watching the scene through the window.
"Acck." Jay says. "there's something really wrong with this picture."
Marcy comes up beside us. I think Marcy's life would be better if she had a little lovin, so that's been my project lately: the Marcy Lovin Project. She's wearing a bowler hat made out of ostrich feathers. She looks exactly like a muppet. "I think she's a witch." She says, watching Sybil slithering around the floor.
"It's bad when hillbillies get experimental."
"It's so....french."
"Those french people have a word for everything." We all start laughing. A guy comes up, asks Marcy to dance. She bobs off, feathers flouncing.
"Let's do some Crocket County Woman Flinging," Jay says, and pulls me close. We dance on the porch, by ourselves. It's nice, because neither of us are very good dancers, but we do like dancing with each other. The band starts playing "Take Me to the River"
That's my 1/2 hour.

White Rabbit

White Rabbit!
Say it! Don't think why.
You'll have good luck for the rest of the month.
What you're supposed to do is wake up on the first of the month and say "White Rabbit" first thing without even remembering why. Then you'll have good luck for the rest of the month.
Fantastic luck. Prince charming, free parking, lottery ticket winning, all green lights from West Boulevard to Old 63 on Broadway good luck.
This is very hard to do. I know because I have been trying to do this every single month since I was 5 and have yet to do it. So 36 years. Times 12. That's some really big number. 10 times 36 = 360. 2 X 36 = 72. 432. I've tried to remember to say White Rabbit on the first of the month 432 times unsuccessfully.
So I settle for the next best thing: I tell other people to say it without knowing why. Then they have good luck, and the way I figure it, the good karma I bank more than makes up for not having the good luck month myself.
I went back to work today. I got paid. Hooray! As usual, I didn't eat all day. Every weekend I work I drop about 2 pounds. If my life is stressful outside work, I keep it off. If it isn't, I put it back on. Over the course of 2 years in the ICU, have dropped 25 pounds. 22 in the first 6 months.
Trauma nurses are skinny.
The drama with Jay just took the sauce right out of me. I spent a lot of time lying in bed and sleeping. Reading. Eating organic cheese doodles. Finally, on Thursday, I mustered enough gumption to drag myself to Yoga. Sirrocca's class. Her real name is Alison. But she got divorced and became a lesbian and changed her name to Sirrocca. "Call me 'Sirrocca'" she pronounces. She has a husky voice, that she 'covers' to use Linklater speak. It is a very consciously produced voice--and my voice teacher always told me that when people are covering their voices, they're lying--either to you or to themselves--most likely both. People who lie to themselves usually lie to other people. She's very pretty, my age, with huge breasts, but carries the extra belly fat of a drinker. She used to date Hunter, but dumped him for another woman. She told me once that she has cervical cancer--was diagnosed about 7 years ago--but is doing nothing to treat it.
"What my gynecologist doesn't understand about me is that I come from such a place of health, I have no place for cancer." She pronounces.
I am aghast.
I've lost two friends to cervical cancer that metsd. They were idiots. They didn't get pap smears. Cervical cancer is one of the easiest to treat and cure. You find it, you cut it out, you move on. Letting it go is just crazy.
But I don't know how hard to come down on Sirrocca. Because I believe that dumb blind hope and faith can medically do as much to keep you going as almost everything else.
"You probably think I'm crazy."
"I think you should treat your cervical cancer. You can still come from a place of health and acknowledge you cancer..."I told her, very carefully.
But all that aside, she teaches a class that kicks your ass. She teaches a class that you come out of feeling beautiful and agile and challenged I felt so much healthier after class. I didn't feel as much of a cuckold and a fool.
But I still don't know how I feel about Jay. I just don't know. I was supposed to have a date tonight, but fortunately (unfortunately?) Nick didn't feel well and Lilly was spending the night at a friend's, so I felt funny leaving him alone and sick, especially since he'd been home alone all day. He's on the couch right now. For some reason, Nick won't sleep in his bedroom. He's been sleeping on the couch in this house since we moved in--when he was 9 years old. He says he feels safer this way. Since in every other respect, he seems like a regular teen, I don't worry too much, but I think he feels responsible for a lot, and I worry that maybe this is too much for him to handle, that he'll hit 30 and realize he hasn't really had a childhood. All the animals love Nick, and they all jump on top of him when he sleeps. Even psychotic Pebbles the cat.. The Puppy climbs on his head, most nights. So it's just us, tonight.
He asks me what I want to watch on TV.
I stop and think. I honestly don't really want to watch anything. Except the muppets.
So now we're watching the muppets.
This entry is jumping around a lot.
My favorite muppet is Gonzo. I think the muppet you most identify with tells a lot about you. I look at the people I work with, and they all look like Muppets to me. I observe the squabbles they get into with a sort of detached indulgence. I think this is because the people I work with are all basically such good people. Like the muppets. They all have their eccentricities and ego problems, but no one's malicious. Even the old guys in the balcony. Even Miss Piggy.
Well, that's my 1/2 hour.
White Rabbit!