Profoundest apologies to the spider whose web I just walked through this morning. I think the midge I inadvertently released is very grateful, though.
I sleep so well here. I just fall.
We're in Ohio, I think I mentioned. 9 days with my family. My folks have a house on Lake Erie. It's not the house I want to have here, but it's the one I've got. I want one of those old victorian houses on Kelley's Island--hang on, the espresso's done. Got to boil the milk. There, it's done, and I'm sitting on the bench on the promontory in the bright sunlight. It's 0730, very bright for this time of day. Here comes my heron.
I can see my reflection in the computer screen as I'm typing--I never look at myself from this angle. Good thing, too, I've got a nice double chin starting to develop. Aack! How did that happen? Maybe it's always been there? I can kind of hold it up with one hand, but then I can't type. I think I've gained weight. My nasolabial folds seem nonexistent. God--Ohio. The Polish Riviera. Where I'm fed like a pig for the slaughter.
Arthur came to visit. I slept with him maybe 3 or 4 times about 21 years ago. He's married and he's been visiting us here for years. I didn't tell Jay he was coming--part of my revenge for the plum poetry.
We used to fool around more when he came up, but then I got this new shrink and decided that whole situation was too confusing and put the kaibosh on it. I sometimes wonder if I''ve made a big mistake not having a big affair with Arthur--you know, maybe I'm just a prude missing my big romantic chance and my bourgeois morals keep me from enjoying the passion of life, blah blah blah. But the problem is that I have this weird sense of exploitation that I just can't get past. I've had one affair with someone married and wanted to basically kill myself before, during, and after it--big depression--wandering around with no bra in my pajamas at the grocery store stocking up on frozen healthy choice dinners for the kids because I knew I wouldn't be able to cook, fired from two jobs, alienating all my friends because the only thing I could drone on about was him, him, him 2am, 6 months after the breakup "leslie--I saw his car in the parking lot at the super walmart. OH GOD! The PAIN!" so I think...lesson learned. And I'm very frank. I tell him this. My shrink warned me that our friendship probably wouldn't survive the shift in dynamics, but so far it has. I like Arthur. I guess I probably love Arthur but his visits are a mixed bag. Not during, but afterwards. Okay, during, too.
For one, Arthur just likes to spend time with me, as me. Which is very affirming. Because Jay doesn't like to just hang out with me. I have almost no one in my life who just wants to be around me for the sake of being around me. So, it's really good, and god knows, you need a shot of that every once in awhile, but I kind of wish that particularly flavor was more of a constant in my daily life salad.
For two, Arthur's friendship is a rejection in a way--"I love you , but not enough to marry and not enough build a life around." I know that's probably not the whole thing, but there is that element, and it hurts. He makes me feel like a spinster.
So--ambiguity, Freud said the hallmark of adulthood (and I'm really paraphrasing here) is the ability to accept ambiguity.
I could make a connection with all this to non duality and the present
Went with my crazy family to Cedar point last night. My mother wanted to ride the race horses (they have a carousel there with painted race horses that move back and forth, "racing" each other) They wouldn't let us on with our purses (what, honestly, can possibly happen on those slow little horses with a purse? Do they think we're carrying grenades?) They're her favorite ride. She's been riding them since she was a little girl. I remember going on them with my grandmother. I held the purses and watched my parents and my children go round and round, racing each other. I thought about my mom as a little girl, I thought about all my civil servant immigrant polish/irish relatives, coming here for fun since 1930, I thought about them all being young, and dancing at the palladium, flirting on the horses, bringing their children later. It seemed like everyone was riding with us, the past selves, the children we were, the children who are coming. It seemed so crowded and lit and joyous, exciting, the round house and the carnival lights, still running, cool sunset wind blowing in off the lake, still racing, knowing it wasn't real, getting off--the same old joke between us--did you win?
That's my 1/2 hour
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Redemption Song
6th day in Ohio. It's raining today. We had tornados last night. There's a little wooden bench out by itself on the end of the promontory by the docks--no shade, but it's nice to sit on in the evenings and watch the swallows chase the bugs. There's a heron that has a nest on the rocks. He's always been there--ever since I can remember. I guess he couldn't possibly be the same heron...but maybe. I don't know anything about herons--how long they live. Jay would know. He knows all sorts of things about animals. I miss Jay.
One day, when I first started sitting, I was up here. I was in college. 17. And I had just heard of Bob Marley and learned the words to Redemption Song. I decided to meditate on the promontory. My grandmother owned the lake house then--she was still alive--and she kept very tight control over things--so I snuck a pillow and a towel outside early in the morning before she woke up. New to sitting, my thoughts wandered easily (they still wander easily), and I started thinking about the song.
"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our mind....all I ever had, redemption song.."and I started thinking about redemption and how redemption was salvation found after forgiveness--it gave you back to life, to the present, I started thinking and following my thoughts all the way through. But it seemed that redemption and returning, to the breath to life were the only essential things. The thought hit me like a gasp, and my eyes opened fully and at that moment, the heron spread its wings and took flight across the water in the grey dawn, and it seemed that all the world was in its wings right then and that there was nothing more to know. Who was the heron? Who was I?
And last night, there was the heron again.
Over the years, I have formulated my own set of internal tarot cards--a deeply personal major arcana--a code the world sends me to let me know what's really going on. Messengers. Owls tell me someone's lying to me. Turkey buzzards confer their blessings (everyone misunderstands turkey buzzards). And herons always tell me the one I love is true.
He knew I was coming as I walked up. But he doesn't bother flying off anymore at my approach. He knows me well and will stay perched as long I don't do anything different. So I sat there and watched the swallows diving. The heron stayed perfectly still and so did I. The wind started picking up and the waves became grey and high with white caps. I suddenly noticed the yellow, leaden color of the sky and that the tops of the trees were whipping back and forth like feather dusters--and, more ominously--the swallows had disappeared. The heron still stood there, though, neck extended--one eye on me--I heard something break free--something metal, from the sound of it--and go clattering across the docks. I decided it was time to go inside, but I somehow wanted to make it okay with the heron, wanted a sign from him it was okay to leave. But you know, he's a bird, and he probably doesn't understand the weight of mystical responsibility he bears in terms of my own personal mythology, and he just wasn't complying. He seemed in fact to be more interested in looking for easy fishing due to wind and approaching storm etc.
Even the zen birds are opportunists.
I decided to save my own skin and go back to the house. Where every one of my fat polish cousins had called and left us voice messages warning us about the tornados in our area.
That's my 1/2 hour. Well more than that, because my father kept coming onto the porch and interrupting with vacation ideas for me. Christ, you can't finish a thought in this family. I know, I know. I sound like an ass, but if you'd grown up with these people, you'd know. They want to own every piece of you. Ah, if only everything and everyone would comply! The universal psychosis...
Later.
One day, when I first started sitting, I was up here. I was in college. 17. And I had just heard of Bob Marley and learned the words to Redemption Song. I decided to meditate on the promontory. My grandmother owned the lake house then--she was still alive--and she kept very tight control over things--so I snuck a pillow and a towel outside early in the morning before she woke up. New to sitting, my thoughts wandered easily (they still wander easily), and I started thinking about the song.
"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our mind....all I ever had, redemption song.."and I started thinking about redemption and how redemption was salvation found after forgiveness--it gave you back to life, to the present, I started thinking and following my thoughts all the way through. But it seemed that redemption and returning, to the breath to life were the only essential things. The thought hit me like a gasp, and my eyes opened fully and at that moment, the heron spread its wings and took flight across the water in the grey dawn, and it seemed that all the world was in its wings right then and that there was nothing more to know. Who was the heron? Who was I?
And last night, there was the heron again.
Over the years, I have formulated my own set of internal tarot cards--a deeply personal major arcana--a code the world sends me to let me know what's really going on. Messengers. Owls tell me someone's lying to me. Turkey buzzards confer their blessings (everyone misunderstands turkey buzzards). And herons always tell me the one I love is true.
He knew I was coming as I walked up. But he doesn't bother flying off anymore at my approach. He knows me well and will stay perched as long I don't do anything different. So I sat there and watched the swallows diving. The heron stayed perfectly still and so did I. The wind started picking up and the waves became grey and high with white caps. I suddenly noticed the yellow, leaden color of the sky and that the tops of the trees were whipping back and forth like feather dusters--and, more ominously--the swallows had disappeared. The heron still stood there, though, neck extended--one eye on me--I heard something break free--something metal, from the sound of it--and go clattering across the docks. I decided it was time to go inside, but I somehow wanted to make it okay with the heron, wanted a sign from him it was okay to leave. But you know, he's a bird, and he probably doesn't understand the weight of mystical responsibility he bears in terms of my own personal mythology, and he just wasn't complying. He seemed in fact to be more interested in looking for easy fishing due to wind and approaching storm etc.
Even the zen birds are opportunists.
I decided to save my own skin and go back to the house. Where every one of my fat polish cousins had called and left us voice messages warning us about the tornados in our area.
That's my 1/2 hour. Well more than that, because my father kept coming onto the porch and interrupting with vacation ideas for me. Christ, you can't finish a thought in this family. I know, I know. I sound like an ass, but if you'd grown up with these people, you'd know. They want to own every piece of you. Ah, if only everything and everyone would comply! The universal psychosis...
Later.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Pillow Talk
Things eased up at work. It's amazing how things change when you guess right. Grudgingly, the night supervisor, in morning report, Liz, reads my patient's summary and then adds..."and she's surprising us all by getting better..." significant look in my direction. Then, Barbara, later in the day coming into my room, grunts, "color's better. Maybe there's hope after all."
I look into my patient's eyes, boy is she ever there. I want to say, "please keep healing."
So 5 days all in all. I was bananas the night after. I felt that my personality had been scourged, gouged out with a burnt stick. Hypersensitive. Went over to Jay's that night, parked the car in the barn and trudged over the soggy path in the rain to the door. Felt like Wee Willy Winky. Jay was lying and probably lie-ing haha on the couch, reading. I knocked.
"Come in."
No. After 5 14 hour days changing dressings on a patient every hour, I request all lovers to get off the couch, come to the door and take me into their arms upon arrival.
Then, in bed at midnight, Jay cuddles next to me naked and says, "is it all right if we just cuddle and listen to the rain tonight?"
So--5 days of no food and cafe con leche and being locked one on one with my poor patient, and facing 11 days without him--and he's bought new sheets and fixed up the boathouse. And now he doesn't want to make love.
I'm not too rational at this point. Who are the sheets for? I think. The other Halie? The one he sent the poetry book to? Is he saving his sperm for her? Will they eat plums and roll around on the new 300 count cotton sheets in the boathouse and read post-coital poetry to each other while I'm gone? While I'm in Ohio, schlepping along with my elderly parents and sullen teenagers to fudge shops--oh excuse me, shoppes and japanese steakhouses? Then I think--this is terrible. I can't say anything to him about this, because if he is planning to cheat on me, I'll lose the advantage of being virtuous and wronged when we do break up (always worth points and desperate pleas for reconcilation on the part of the betrayer--so satisfying). I'll come off being paranoid and strident and then he'll feel justified in cheating on me. If he isn't attracted to me for some reason--if I've said the wrong thing or maybe just somehow conveyed the fat clammy despair I'm feeling in general to him--discussing it will just make it worse. Attraction is never increased by discussion. Talk is the enemy to all sexual attraction. But if we don't make love, then that means we will go almost 2 weeks without making love and that will be awful--that means he's trying to erase me from his memory to give himself permission to cheat...and so on and so on...
and so what? so what if the lying fuckhead dumps me and rejects me sexually? Big fucking deal.
"Are you okay?" he asks, in the dark.
"yeah," I say, deciding to go with honesty, "only I guess I wish you hadn't made this big deal about getting naked, because now I feel sort of rejected."
"I'm just really tired. Aren't you tired?"
Yes, actually, I'm exhausted. On almost every level. It's midnight, and I've been up since 4 am. In fact, I was going to suggest cuddling, but hadn't because of leaving town, etc. I'm just mad that he did it first.
"I'm tired. But is everything okay? I mean--not getting up to let me in, new sheets we haven't used, the boathouse all fixed up--but us not sleeping in it--is anything up?"
As we say in nursing narratives: "reassurances given."
But who knows? Trust is hard to reestablish.
Well, three years. Not too many messy conversations in the dark, so one every once in awhile is probably survivable. We kept talking, then we made love.
That's my 1/2 hour
I look into my patient's eyes, boy is she ever there. I want to say, "please keep healing."
So 5 days all in all. I was bananas the night after. I felt that my personality had been scourged, gouged out with a burnt stick. Hypersensitive. Went over to Jay's that night, parked the car in the barn and trudged over the soggy path in the rain to the door. Felt like Wee Willy Winky. Jay was lying and probably lie-ing haha on the couch, reading. I knocked.
"Come in."
No. After 5 14 hour days changing dressings on a patient every hour, I request all lovers to get off the couch, come to the door and take me into their arms upon arrival.
Then, in bed at midnight, Jay cuddles next to me naked and says, "is it all right if we just cuddle and listen to the rain tonight?"
So--5 days of no food and cafe con leche and being locked one on one with my poor patient, and facing 11 days without him--and he's bought new sheets and fixed up the boathouse. And now he doesn't want to make love.
I'm not too rational at this point. Who are the sheets for? I think. The other Halie? The one he sent the poetry book to? Is he saving his sperm for her? Will they eat plums and roll around on the new 300 count cotton sheets in the boathouse and read post-coital poetry to each other while I'm gone? While I'm in Ohio, schlepping along with my elderly parents and sullen teenagers to fudge shops--oh excuse me, shoppes and japanese steakhouses? Then I think--this is terrible. I can't say anything to him about this, because if he is planning to cheat on me, I'll lose the advantage of being virtuous and wronged when we do break up (always worth points and desperate pleas for reconcilation on the part of the betrayer--so satisfying). I'll come off being paranoid and strident and then he'll feel justified in cheating on me. If he isn't attracted to me for some reason--if I've said the wrong thing or maybe just somehow conveyed the fat clammy despair I'm feeling in general to him--discussing it will just make it worse. Attraction is never increased by discussion. Talk is the enemy to all sexual attraction. But if we don't make love, then that means we will go almost 2 weeks without making love and that will be awful--that means he's trying to erase me from his memory to give himself permission to cheat...and so on and so on...
and so what? so what if the lying fuckhead dumps me and rejects me sexually? Big fucking deal.
"Are you okay?" he asks, in the dark.
"yeah," I say, deciding to go with honesty, "only I guess I wish you hadn't made this big deal about getting naked, because now I feel sort of rejected."
"I'm just really tired. Aren't you tired?"
Yes, actually, I'm exhausted. On almost every level. It's midnight, and I've been up since 4 am. In fact, I was going to suggest cuddling, but hadn't because of leaving town, etc. I'm just mad that he did it first.
"I'm tired. But is everything okay? I mean--not getting up to let me in, new sheets we haven't used, the boathouse all fixed up--but us not sleeping in it--is anything up?"
As we say in nursing narratives: "reassurances given."
But who knows? Trust is hard to reestablish.
Well, three years. Not too many messy conversations in the dark, so one every once in awhile is probably survivable. We kept talking, then we made love.
That's my 1/2 hour
Friday, May 30, 2008
What was the question again?
In rounds:
"Can I please have a PCA with a basal? 3 weeks. His pain is not being adequately managed."
"How much are you giving?" Sala is attending. She's here as a package deal, because her husband is such a hot-shot heart surgeon. She's pretty and smart but she's not a trauma doctor.
I show her the medication record. We've been pushing dilaudid on this chick every hour, 2 mg, since the 5th of May.
"Fentanyl drip. You think 50-100 mcgs/hr?"
I nod.
"50-100 mikes an hour. DC the dilaudid."
"DC the dilaudid?"
"The fentanyl will take care of the pain."
"Maybe."
"Okay. 1-2 dilaudid q 2."
"Why not q 1?"
"you'll over medicate."
"It's a prn med. It's administered at our discretion."
"Well, I don't want your discretion to overmedicate."
"Because that's a big plot--big nursing plot. We want to depress the respiratory drive of all our patients...."
Baggins shoots me a glance..."Relax...."
"listen, if we're going to be switching pain meds, you're can't tie my hands like this. I've got to be able to titrate this to what she needs."
"I'm not tying your hands."
"April, you always do this. The first thing you do is cut pain meds. You cut our options at the patient's expense. Trust us. We went to school, too."
Carla, who's supervising today, big box like Carla--smart and treacherous--50's, passive aggressive, lies through her teeth, "And then you say the nurses are doing drugs."
She hates Dr. Sala. It was the Dragon who said that about the nurses, not Sala. Fuck, I think. I was just about to get what I wanted out of Sala. Now Carla's queered it.
"How about just for one day? Til I can transition her to the drip and get it right" I say, ignoring Carla. I'll pay for that later, I think.
"Fine."
I leave.
My patient is in multi system failure. Lungs, kidneys, liver, heart. Broken ribs, broken pelvis, broken clavicle, c collar. GI bleeds, pancreatic bleeds, Everything. And they want to cut pain meds.
She's probably dying. I don't know. I'm not sure. Honestly, I've seen worse.
The family held a care conference today. No one wants the burden of deciding what to do. But you can't just blow this off. It's complex. There is no easy answer. They request a chaplain to pray with them. You have to navigate through fantasy and hope.
They decide to ask the patient. Who's having liver and kidney problems and who probably isn't at her sanest right now. Not that I dismiss the wishes of the patient.
"Do you want to die?" They ask her. The chaplain is with them.
Okay. I don't want to sound like the devil, but chaplains often do more harm than good. Some of them aren't very intelligent. They are often interfering and self-righteous and don't really understand pathophysiology. They tend to want simple answers and, quite frankly, our chaplains seem to be a little in love with death.
"Do you want to die?"
The patient nods.
"Praise God." The chaplain says. "Well, I guess we have our answer."
Lots of drama, people weeping over the bed.
And then I come in, like the nasty little rational spoiler I am.
"No, we don't have our answer, with all due respect." I say. "We have a little more information. You still as a family have a lot of work to do before you decide on withdrawing care. You need to take into account, for example, that she may not be in her right mind. Has anyone in the room gone through natural childbirth? " (nods) "Wouldn't you have said anything at some point during it to have it over? This is the most serious and important decision all of you will ever make. You are deciding whether she gets to keep fighting for her life or not. I am sure that Reverend Clive will pray with you for discernment. He is here to support you spiritually." I emphasize the word "spiritually" hoping that Clive will get the message.
Clive, man. Ghoul.
Later, Carla corners me. "Did I just hear that the family was going to withdraw care and you talked them out of it?"
"Clive?"
"Clive."
"Luther, man. Luther started all this. Priests don't act like this."
Carla sighs. She's Catholic, too, like I used to be. "I know. You're right. "
Wiz is at the desk listening. "They should have taken away his shoe. Did you hear those heretics even read the bible all by themselves? Come up with their own opinions about it, too..."
"Shut up, Wiz," Carla says.
"It was too easy," I say defensively. "Clive was pushing them towards withdrawing care. It's not his place. That man isn't ready to die."
"Oh, Haley," Carla says, "he's suffering..."
"He didn't understand the question. Go ask him again." I tell her.
Carla gets Dr. Sala.
"Is he with-it enough to answer questions?" A dig at me. She's mad. Sala doesn't usually take revenge, though.
"He's been on narcotics for the last month, every hour. I don't know how rational that's left him." I shoot back.
She goes in. The family's gathered around the bedside. Clive is there too, looking self righteous and smug.
"Do you want us to continue treatment?" Dr. Sala asks. "Do you want to go on?"
The patient nods.
Sala then lays out to her and everyone in the room exactly what this may entail. She doesn't make any bones about it.
Then she asks her again.
The patient nods again.
"Do you see?" I say. "She has given us two very different answers. Your work for her on this is not done." I tell them as gently as I can.
No Christmas cards for me from these guys.
Oh, well, nobody loves you cause you're easy.
That's my 1/2 hour.
"Can I please have a PCA with a basal? 3 weeks. His pain is not being adequately managed."
"How much are you giving?" Sala is attending. She's here as a package deal, because her husband is such a hot-shot heart surgeon. She's pretty and smart but she's not a trauma doctor.
I show her the medication record. We've been pushing dilaudid on this chick every hour, 2 mg, since the 5th of May.
"Fentanyl drip. You think 50-100 mcgs/hr?"
I nod.
"50-100 mikes an hour. DC the dilaudid."
"DC the dilaudid?"
"The fentanyl will take care of the pain."
"Maybe."
"Okay. 1-2 dilaudid q 2."
"Why not q 1?"
"you'll over medicate."
"It's a prn med. It's administered at our discretion."
"Well, I don't want your discretion to overmedicate."
"Because that's a big plot--big nursing plot. We want to depress the respiratory drive of all our patients...."
Baggins shoots me a glance..."Relax...."
"listen, if we're going to be switching pain meds, you're can't tie my hands like this. I've got to be able to titrate this to what she needs."
"I'm not tying your hands."
"April, you always do this. The first thing you do is cut pain meds. You cut our options at the patient's expense. Trust us. We went to school, too."
Carla, who's supervising today, big box like Carla--smart and treacherous--50's, passive aggressive, lies through her teeth, "And then you say the nurses are doing drugs."
She hates Dr. Sala. It was the Dragon who said that about the nurses, not Sala. Fuck, I think. I was just about to get what I wanted out of Sala. Now Carla's queered it.
"How about just for one day? Til I can transition her to the drip and get it right" I say, ignoring Carla. I'll pay for that later, I think.
"Fine."
I leave.
My patient is in multi system failure. Lungs, kidneys, liver, heart. Broken ribs, broken pelvis, broken clavicle, c collar. GI bleeds, pancreatic bleeds, Everything. And they want to cut pain meds.
She's probably dying. I don't know. I'm not sure. Honestly, I've seen worse.
The family held a care conference today. No one wants the burden of deciding what to do. But you can't just blow this off. It's complex. There is no easy answer. They request a chaplain to pray with them. You have to navigate through fantasy and hope.
They decide to ask the patient. Who's having liver and kidney problems and who probably isn't at her sanest right now. Not that I dismiss the wishes of the patient.
"Do you want to die?" They ask her. The chaplain is with them.
Okay. I don't want to sound like the devil, but chaplains often do more harm than good. Some of them aren't very intelligent. They are often interfering and self-righteous and don't really understand pathophysiology. They tend to want simple answers and, quite frankly, our chaplains seem to be a little in love with death.
"Do you want to die?"
The patient nods.
"Praise God." The chaplain says. "Well, I guess we have our answer."
Lots of drama, people weeping over the bed.
And then I come in, like the nasty little rational spoiler I am.
"No, we don't have our answer, with all due respect." I say. "We have a little more information. You still as a family have a lot of work to do before you decide on withdrawing care. You need to take into account, for example, that she may not be in her right mind. Has anyone in the room gone through natural childbirth? " (nods) "Wouldn't you have said anything at some point during it to have it over? This is the most serious and important decision all of you will ever make. You are deciding whether she gets to keep fighting for her life or not. I am sure that Reverend Clive will pray with you for discernment. He is here to support you spiritually." I emphasize the word "spiritually" hoping that Clive will get the message.
Clive, man. Ghoul.
Later, Carla corners me. "Did I just hear that the family was going to withdraw care and you talked them out of it?"
"Clive?"
"Clive."
"Luther, man. Luther started all this. Priests don't act like this."
Carla sighs. She's Catholic, too, like I used to be. "I know. You're right. "
Wiz is at the desk listening. "They should have taken away his shoe. Did you hear those heretics even read the bible all by themselves? Come up with their own opinions about it, too..."
"Shut up, Wiz," Carla says.
"It was too easy," I say defensively. "Clive was pushing them towards withdrawing care. It's not his place. That man isn't ready to die."
"Oh, Haley," Carla says, "he's suffering..."
"He didn't understand the question. Go ask him again." I tell her.
Carla gets Dr. Sala.
"Is he with-it enough to answer questions?" A dig at me. She's mad. Sala doesn't usually take revenge, though.
"He's been on narcotics for the last month, every hour. I don't know how rational that's left him." I shoot back.
She goes in. The family's gathered around the bedside. Clive is there too, looking self righteous and smug.
"Do you want us to continue treatment?" Dr. Sala asks. "Do you want to go on?"
The patient nods.
Sala then lays out to her and everyone in the room exactly what this may entail. She doesn't make any bones about it.
Then she asks her again.
The patient nods again.
"Do you see?" I say. "She has given us two very different answers. Your work for her on this is not done." I tell them as gently as I can.
No Christmas cards for me from these guys.
Oh, well, nobody loves you cause you're easy.
That's my 1/2 hour.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Train of Faith
Ok--so I found out a little more about Becky Doisy.
She disappeared on August 5, 1976. The year of the bicentennial. She was a reader for the blind. She had dinner with someone named Johnny Wright the night before she disappeared. He turned out to have a long rap sheet. He's since disappeared.
That's all I know for now. I'll keep you posted.
Back to West Virginia--
My ex had been hired as the drama counselor at this camp for the high school kids. For the little kids, they'd hired a woman name Sherri Faith. Or maybe it was Cheri Faith.
She was in her mid to late thirties at the time, I guess. I've always been rotten at guessing ages. She had been beautiful, you could tell, but was now a little down on her luck. She was overweight and had long, straight dark hair which was colored with one of those purplish burgundy washes so popular in the 80's--cellophanes? Right? She had a wonderful smile and this sort of "show must go on" quality.
She was definitely out of her element.
She'd once been a fashion model and had, notably, once been engaged to Rod Stewart. (We didn't believe it when she told us, but one of the older camp people remembered it as being true). She had a lot of big stories that seemed too big. She seemed not to know how to relate normally to people--she played instinctively to men, and didn't have any idea what to do with older, non glamorous women--or younger, non-glamorous women, for that matter.
But she tried hard, and the little kids seemed to really like her. She wore brightly colored clothes--tye die mostly. I guess she was sort of grating. It was mainly that she was just uncomfortable. People who are uncomfortable are often sort of annoying. She was so vulnerable, just stank of it. Rob zeroed in on this of course, with his famous tight end instincts.
He was never fully happy unless he had someone to bully--and single, overweight women a few years removed from an ever receding prime were his favorite targets.
He became obsessed with getting her fired. "She has no qualifications." he'd complain to me, in our shack. "Spent her whole life selling herself--now she thinks she can teach acting. There's a lot more to it than just getting up there and smiling. Those kids are getting no training."
He would always convince himself he was getting his mean rocks off to help someone else. He made her life miserable--turned the other counselors against her, viciously mocked her--her hair, her clothes, her way of speaking. I mean, so what? We were only there 12 weeks. So what if the other drama counselor wasn't a real "ACTOR" So what if she was just an aging fat fashion model trying to get a little breathing room--a little time to regroup and gather before she sailed off into middle age. So what if the camp play was under parr?
He got her fired 4 weeks into the summer. She left sobbing, left all her stuff--her beads and bright scarves and tye die. Fred had it all thrown into boxes and dumped in a parking lot somewhere in Hialeah.
I saw her again several years later in the ladies room at the Colony on South Beach. We were standing next to each other in front of the vanity. I had been divorced for a few years then, and my life was completely different. She was more overweight. She smiled at me, recognizing me but not really placing me. "She will," I thought. Her smile froze. There it was.
"We're divorced." I said immediately. Her smile came back. Bright and amazing. "GRRReeaat. That's just great." she said in her showbusinessy-way.
And that was that.
There's this great story by Nadine Gordimer called The Train from Rhodesia. In it a newly married couple are on a train on their honeymoon. The wife has been collecting these little native carved wooden animals from different stops along the trip. There's an old black man selling carved wooden animals at this stop, but his are really good--the work of an artist. And he's charging more--a fair price, but one the bride can't afford. At the last moment, as the train is pulling out, her groom, thinking to please her, throws some money at the man and grabs the animal she'd been admiring. The marriage, essentially, is over. I know I've talked about this before--it's one of my favorite stories.
That was Sherri, Cheri, Sherry, whatever Faith. She was my train from Rhodesia.
Choo choo.
That's my 1/2 hour.
She disappeared on August 5, 1976. The year of the bicentennial. She was a reader for the blind. She had dinner with someone named Johnny Wright the night before she disappeared. He turned out to have a long rap sheet. He's since disappeared.
That's all I know for now. I'll keep you posted.
Back to West Virginia--
My ex had been hired as the drama counselor at this camp for the high school kids. For the little kids, they'd hired a woman name Sherri Faith. Or maybe it was Cheri Faith.
She was in her mid to late thirties at the time, I guess. I've always been rotten at guessing ages. She had been beautiful, you could tell, but was now a little down on her luck. She was overweight and had long, straight dark hair which was colored with one of those purplish burgundy washes so popular in the 80's--cellophanes? Right? She had a wonderful smile and this sort of "show must go on" quality.
She was definitely out of her element.
She'd once been a fashion model and had, notably, once been engaged to Rod Stewart. (We didn't believe it when she told us, but one of the older camp people remembered it as being true). She had a lot of big stories that seemed too big. She seemed not to know how to relate normally to people--she played instinctively to men, and didn't have any idea what to do with older, non glamorous women--or younger, non-glamorous women, for that matter.
But she tried hard, and the little kids seemed to really like her. She wore brightly colored clothes--tye die mostly. I guess she was sort of grating. It was mainly that she was just uncomfortable. People who are uncomfortable are often sort of annoying. She was so vulnerable, just stank of it. Rob zeroed in on this of course, with his famous tight end instincts.
He was never fully happy unless he had someone to bully--and single, overweight women a few years removed from an ever receding prime were his favorite targets.
He became obsessed with getting her fired. "She has no qualifications." he'd complain to me, in our shack. "Spent her whole life selling herself--now she thinks she can teach acting. There's a lot more to it than just getting up there and smiling. Those kids are getting no training."
He would always convince himself he was getting his mean rocks off to help someone else. He made her life miserable--turned the other counselors against her, viciously mocked her--her hair, her clothes, her way of speaking. I mean, so what? We were only there 12 weeks. So what if the other drama counselor wasn't a real "ACTOR" So what if she was just an aging fat fashion model trying to get a little breathing room--a little time to regroup and gather before she sailed off into middle age. So what if the camp play was under parr?
He got her fired 4 weeks into the summer. She left sobbing, left all her stuff--her beads and bright scarves and tye die. Fred had it all thrown into boxes and dumped in a parking lot somewhere in Hialeah.
I saw her again several years later in the ladies room at the Colony on South Beach. We were standing next to each other in front of the vanity. I had been divorced for a few years then, and my life was completely different. She was more overweight. She smiled at me, recognizing me but not really placing me. "She will," I thought. Her smile froze. There it was.
"We're divorced." I said immediately. Her smile came back. Bright and amazing. "GRRReeaat. That's just great." she said in her showbusinessy-way.
And that was that.
There's this great story by Nadine Gordimer called The Train from Rhodesia. In it a newly married couple are on a train on their honeymoon. The wife has been collecting these little native carved wooden animals from different stops along the trip. There's an old black man selling carved wooden animals at this stop, but his are really good--the work of an artist. And he's charging more--a fair price, but one the bride can't afford. At the last moment, as the train is pulling out, her groom, thinking to please her, throws some money at the man and grabs the animal she'd been admiring. The marriage, essentially, is over. I know I've talked about this before--it's one of my favorite stories.
That was Sherri, Cheri, Sherry, whatever Faith. She was my train from Rhodesia.
Choo choo.
That's my 1/2 hour.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Summers
There are lots of teenagers in my basement. Lilly's having a party. Her entire grade is over. There are only 5 girls in the grade--one of them is one vacation, and two elected not to show. But all the boys came. The pizza arrived, after some back and forth---one store told me they didn't deliver to my street--then the other store told me the same thing. Finally it got here. I was so annoyed.
Young people annoy the crap out of me. They don't seem cute or curious or on the verge or myself when young or whatever. They just seem like idiots. Even my own children seem like idiots. Everyone under 34 seems like an idiot.
Oh, God, now they've all come upstairs. I brought down pizza and all these white hands reached up and tore apart the boxes--it was sort of like day of the dead. The poor pizza didn't have a chance. I've never seen 5 large pizzas go so quickly. Like a cow being attacked by a school of piranhas.
Lilly dyed her hair red yesterday. We used henna. I used to have red hair when I was 21. It was beautiful. I don't have it now--I think women make a big mistake dyeing their hair red when they start getting older--it starts looking bad and brassy and dull. Of course, even your real hair starts looking bad and brassy and dull. We had to do it twice. The first time didn't take for some reason. Lilly sat in the kitchen on one of my old antique T chairs that I bought in West Virginia. We lived there when I was first married. Nick was just a baby, and Rob (my ex husband) got a job at a camp for rich Jewish kids in the mountains. The camp was owned by a man named Fred, who also owned one of the big circuses--either Barnum or Ringling--I forget which one. We lived in a 2 room shack for 3 months. We were the only goyim there. I mostly loved it. I walked around smelling the top of Nick's funny little head and thought of myself as the mommy tree. They gave me a job as the nature director, which meant basically that I fed the animals and sat up in the treehouse with two very unhappy overweight teenage girls who became my unofficial assistants and talked about the meaning of life, etc. I got a library card from the Handley Public library--starting my collection of library cards from weird towns around the nation. I did a lot of reading that summer--good stuff--Anna Karenina, The Count of Monte Cristo, Brothers Karamazov. And I wrote a short story about my grandfather which I thought was pretty good--it garnered a very nice rejection letter from Ploughshares I think--one with a nice handwritten codicil at the bottom offering encouragement and the generic "dear author" crossed out in ballpoint pen and my name handwritten instead. I still have it. It's my only brush with publication.
It was also at that time I fell completely out of love with my husband.
That's my 1/2 hour.
Young people annoy the crap out of me. They don't seem cute or curious or on the verge or myself when young or whatever. They just seem like idiots. Even my own children seem like idiots. Everyone under 34 seems like an idiot.
Oh, God, now they've all come upstairs. I brought down pizza and all these white hands reached up and tore apart the boxes--it was sort of like day of the dead. The poor pizza didn't have a chance. I've never seen 5 large pizzas go so quickly. Like a cow being attacked by a school of piranhas.
Lilly dyed her hair red yesterday. We used henna. I used to have red hair when I was 21. It was beautiful. I don't have it now--I think women make a big mistake dyeing their hair red when they start getting older--it starts looking bad and brassy and dull. Of course, even your real hair starts looking bad and brassy and dull. We had to do it twice. The first time didn't take for some reason. Lilly sat in the kitchen on one of my old antique T chairs that I bought in West Virginia. We lived there when I was first married. Nick was just a baby, and Rob (my ex husband) got a job at a camp for rich Jewish kids in the mountains. The camp was owned by a man named Fred, who also owned one of the big circuses--either Barnum or Ringling--I forget which one. We lived in a 2 room shack for 3 months. We were the only goyim there. I mostly loved it. I walked around smelling the top of Nick's funny little head and thought of myself as the mommy tree. They gave me a job as the nature director, which meant basically that I fed the animals and sat up in the treehouse with two very unhappy overweight teenage girls who became my unofficial assistants and talked about the meaning of life, etc. I got a library card from the Handley Public library--starting my collection of library cards from weird towns around the nation. I did a lot of reading that summer--good stuff--Anna Karenina, The Count of Monte Cristo, Brothers Karamazov. And I wrote a short story about my grandfather which I thought was pretty good--it garnered a very nice rejection letter from Ploughshares I think--one with a nice handwritten codicil at the bottom offering encouragement and the generic "dear author" crossed out in ballpoint pen and my name handwritten instead. I still have it. It's my only brush with publication.
It was also at that time I fell completely out of love with my husband.
That's my 1/2 hour.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Constipation
For some reason, the transliteration toolbar on my blog decided to take over this morning and everything I was typing was appearing in Hindi. Which was really exciting, except I didn't know what I was saying. Maybe I just should have kept going. Maybe that woud have been the lesson today. To just let your words go. I mean, we think we say things, but who knows how they are really being heard?
Communication, right?
I don't know how to reply to the comments yet, but there's one posted on Mysteries--about Becky Doisy--thank you, if you're reading this. You're right...but remember, this blog is all fiction.
Okay, it's shohetsu. Have I talked about this before?
Barry Gifford (who might or might not be a really good kisser) wrote a book called A Good Man to Know which is roughly about his father--and he explains in it that shohetsu (sp?) is a Japanese form of biography which gets at the spirit of the truth, if not the exact actual facts.
I'm supposed to go to Ernie's this morning to have breakfast with the anesthesia attending, but I'm blowing him off. I decided that if it's okay for Jay to send erotic fruit poetry to old girlfriends and meet them for drinks and lie about it, it's okay for me to eat greasy fried eggs with doctors. Okay, so I guess I've really decided that it's not okay and I'm just going to sit in the peace room in the basement and blog and fucking suffer. Our actions tell the truth, don't they?
My heart is true.
Yesterday was Memorial day. I worked eight hours of it. I've been working on Tong-len (sp?) And I probably need some help with it because all it's doing is making me sick. I can't seem to release any of the energy. Tong len is when you breathe in the suffering of someone and take it upon yourself, then you breathe out something good in it's place. The problem is...I can't seem to breathe anything good out. It helps like hell with my patients, I don't know whether it's because it actually works, or because as a practice it forces you to pay attention to what your patient is feeling. It's so easy to turn them into task lists--it's safer emotionally. But you can't really treat people humanely unless you put yourself in their shoes, or, better yet--put yourself first in their heads, then in their breath, then in their belly, etc. What I am finding is that every single person is infinite, as is their suffering.
Okay--so I got really constipated. And because I'm a nurse, and crazy, I convinced myself that I had ovarian cancer, or maybe colon cancer, or maybe a prolapsed uterus.
And because I work with other crazy nurses, they were right on board with all of this, looking things up on UptoDate. ("Maybe it's your liver" Regina suggests. "Maybe you just need to take a big crap" Wiz interjects.)
Well of course, 2 cups of coffee later....
"Everything go okay?"
"I know a lot more about hockey than I used to, and I think I just gave birth."
As Seido says, if your nose is covered in shit, that's all you'll smell.
Watched Breakfast at Tiffany's with Lilly, Jay and Nick. As Holly Golightly is running through the rain, crying, looking for the cat, Nick says, "Psycho...."
"Exactly," Jay affirms.
What a mean fucking world. What on earth has happened? Babbitts everywhere...even my own.
That's my 1/2 hour. Be gentle, everybody.
Communication, right?
I don't know how to reply to the comments yet, but there's one posted on Mysteries--about Becky Doisy--thank you, if you're reading this. You're right...but remember, this blog is all fiction.
Okay, it's shohetsu. Have I talked about this before?
Barry Gifford (who might or might not be a really good kisser) wrote a book called A Good Man to Know which is roughly about his father--and he explains in it that shohetsu (sp?) is a Japanese form of biography which gets at the spirit of the truth, if not the exact actual facts.
I'm supposed to go to Ernie's this morning to have breakfast with the anesthesia attending, but I'm blowing him off. I decided that if it's okay for Jay to send erotic fruit poetry to old girlfriends and meet them for drinks and lie about it, it's okay for me to eat greasy fried eggs with doctors. Okay, so I guess I've really decided that it's not okay and I'm just going to sit in the peace room in the basement and blog and fucking suffer. Our actions tell the truth, don't they?
My heart is true.
Yesterday was Memorial day. I worked eight hours of it. I've been working on Tong-len (sp?) And I probably need some help with it because all it's doing is making me sick. I can't seem to release any of the energy. Tong len is when you breathe in the suffering of someone and take it upon yourself, then you breathe out something good in it's place. The problem is...I can't seem to breathe anything good out. It helps like hell with my patients, I don't know whether it's because it actually works, or because as a practice it forces you to pay attention to what your patient is feeling. It's so easy to turn them into task lists--it's safer emotionally. But you can't really treat people humanely unless you put yourself in their shoes, or, better yet--put yourself first in their heads, then in their breath, then in their belly, etc. What I am finding is that every single person is infinite, as is their suffering.
Okay--so I got really constipated. And because I'm a nurse, and crazy, I convinced myself that I had ovarian cancer, or maybe colon cancer, or maybe a prolapsed uterus.
And because I work with other crazy nurses, they were right on board with all of this, looking things up on UptoDate. ("Maybe it's your liver" Regina suggests. "Maybe you just need to take a big crap" Wiz interjects.)
Well of course, 2 cups of coffee later....
"Everything go okay?"
"I know a lot more about hockey than I used to, and I think I just gave birth."
As Seido says, if your nose is covered in shit, that's all you'll smell.
Watched Breakfast at Tiffany's with Lilly, Jay and Nick. As Holly Golightly is running through the rain, crying, looking for the cat, Nick says, "Psycho...."
"Exactly," Jay affirms.
What a mean fucking world. What on earth has happened? Babbitts everywhere...even my own.
That's my 1/2 hour. Be gentle, everybody.
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