Hmmmm...I should remember to mention from time to time that everything in this blog is fiction. This is my fiction experiment. Done anonymously so's I can develop my chops as a writer. Any reference to anybody living or dead is purely coincidental. Also, if in reading this, you do get a feeling of where Little Dixie might be, and you think you recognize a patient or someone else you know--you don't--I've hopelessly scrambled everybody--changed men into women, old into young. Some of the disease processes are pretty standard, so I'm letting them stand--just thought I'd let everybody know...
We're sick again in our house. Fever and upper respiratory stuff. My ribs hurt so much from coughing I can hardly breathe. The right side of Nick's face is swollen--it just disappears into his neck. I missed three days of work--I never miss work--but I've been flat--my back hurts from being in bed. Even Pebbles the psycho cat is being nice to me. If I don't get out of the house soon I think I'll lose my mind. Jay has been in Las Vegas the last 3 or 4 days, climbing at Red Rock. He got back late last night. I gave him five dollars to play for me. He called me from the airport--I was ridiculously happy to hear from him.
"Did you win any money?"
"No--$26--okay yes. And it rained."
"It's not supposed to rain."
"That's what I thought. So we didn't get back into the canyon at all--but we did get some nice one or two pitch climbing done--easy stuff--I'm getting better."
"Gravity's less of a problem?"
"Seems to be.
He played my five at the slots at the airport with me on the line, lost it all. "It goes quick in Vegas," he laughs.
I felt guilty for not working. I have a new orientee whom I really like--I like all of them, actually--and I didn't want to leave her in the lurch. I need to get her a little braver about jumping in. She's nervous about correcting the doctors.
"Just make it into a very polite, sincere question, as if you yourself are truly confused" I tell her.
She looks at me like it's a revelation. "Oh, my god. That's what you've been doing all along."
I smile. But inside, I'm a little irked. Did she think I was an idiot?
"You have to do it. You can't let an error slide--that's your responsibility to the patient. But you can't piss off the doctors either, and you don't want them feeling too demeaned--their egos are fragile at this point--but you have to get it done. "
I hate being in this position. Who cares about their precious egos? But that's the nursing game...part of it. This emotionally abusive relationship we all have with physicians. Not all of them, of course. For the most part, the ICU is refreshingly and shockingly egalitarian. The doctors know and respect the job we do, all baiting aside.
In rounds there was a question about in's and out's on our patient. The Dragon was presiding.
The ins and outs on our patient were dramatically out of proportion.
"Well, obviously," Dragon says, "the nurses screwed up the documentation. They always do"
"Darn!"I said,"you're on to us. That's why you're the doctor...."
"lent...."he says warningly.
I had decided to give up baiting The Dragon for Lent. He's been merciless.
Lasix was duly prescribed.
That's my 1/2 hour.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Grasshopper Weather
I think I'm officially sick. I decided to deny this by going to the Dakota and sitting here as if I'm not, but I'm sitting here, feeling cold and hot at the same time, my left eye aches and my voice sounds like Bea Arthur's. A red haired girl is sitting in my favorite spot, the one behind the counter that no one can see me at. Jay comes into the Dakota a lot ( it's where we met) and I think it's just bad to run into him randomly. I'm afraid I'll run into him with Hali, or that he'll feel hemmed in. Or that he'll see me and decide to ignore me--he's done that, too--and I think it's bad for a relationship for someone to be put in that position. Christ, I'm so tired of managing this. This is classic codependent stuff, I think. Tiptoeing around the crazy.
What would happen if I just stopped doing it, I wonder?
Would we break up?
Probably. Everytime I decide to drop the fallacies, the relationship ends. There hasn't been one strong enough to lose the game.
Ok, that's not true.
Arthur, my best friend from Dartmouth is still around, even after I changed the rules. He's still my friend. He's slightly more unpleasant than he was a few years ago, but I think that's because he was always hiding that side from me
Chris, my ex is still my friend--really and truly my friend.
So, maybe you can change the game. Maybe people are more resilient than I give them credit for.
I'm kind of amazed that Jay and I are still together after this terrible month.
That's probably why I'm sick.
And I've been eating like crap.
Lilly was sick, too, yesterday. We had to go to the doctor, get antibiotics. We just laid around on the couch, drinking campbell's soup and ginger ale, eating organic cheese doodles and cookie dough. Reading books. When I got the energy, I would take out my fiddle and noodle around on it. I'm trying to learn some Irish reels by heart.
In the evening, Nick went to the grocery store. He bought a bag of organic spinach leaves.
"Here." he said. "we've been eating like crap for the last week. Everybody needs to eat a handful of these, whether you want to or not."
So we did.
Vegetables, gross.
Never let a 16 year old boy go grocery shopping for you. Here's what he brought:
What would happen if I just stopped doing it, I wonder?
Would we break up?
Probably. Everytime I decide to drop the fallacies, the relationship ends. There hasn't been one strong enough to lose the game.
Ok, that's not true.
Arthur, my best friend from Dartmouth is still around, even after I changed the rules. He's still my friend. He's slightly more unpleasant than he was a few years ago, but I think that's because he was always hiding that side from me
Chris, my ex is still my friend--really and truly my friend.
So, maybe you can change the game. Maybe people are more resilient than I give them credit for.
I'm kind of amazed that Jay and I are still together after this terrible month.
That's probably why I'm sick.
And I've been eating like crap.
Lilly was sick, too, yesterday. We had to go to the doctor, get antibiotics. We just laid around on the couch, drinking campbell's soup and ginger ale, eating organic cheese doodles and cookie dough. Reading books. When I got the energy, I would take out my fiddle and noodle around on it. I'm trying to learn some Irish reels by heart.
In the evening, Nick went to the grocery store. He bought a bag of organic spinach leaves.
"Here." he said. "we've been eating like crap for the last week. Everybody needs to eat a handful of these, whether you want to or not."
So we did.
Vegetables, gross.
Never let a 16 year old boy go grocery shopping for you. Here's what he brought:
- Milk
- Cheese doodles
- cookie dough
- strawberry kiwi juice
- freezer biscuits
- ginger ale
- fried chicken
- organic spinach
- brillo pads
- potato chips
- campbell's soup
okay, actually, it's not that bad. I just thought the cookie dough and freezer biscuits were very typical teen choices.
All three of us are going to die of pernicious anemia if we're not careful.
My father wants to have my mother's birthday today--4 days early. I don't know why they do this kind of crap. Why can't we just have it on the right day, the normal day? And why do they announce the change, like, the day of? So you have to rush out and buy a present. Then they tell you not to get them anything expensive, but they're pissed off if you don't....craziness.
Arrrghhhh.
And I have therapy today, and I can't afford it, but I can't deal with my life if I don't go, and I have to admit, things are better in my life since starting with the good doctor. The proof: my mother told me: "you just seem so much more 'with it' this last year--as healthy as I think I've ever seen you." She should see my bedroom, then she'd change her mind.
Okay--what else, since this has turned into a random gripe session--
I've gained 4 pounds. My period came a week early and my breasts hurt. I've felt too sick to work out for like 3 weeks now--anything other than yoga.
I want my house to be wonderful and clean and a refuge, but I feel too crappy to clean. I just want to read, sleep, and fiddle. Grasshopper weather, I guess. I hear the cricket going by the fireplace. I guess maybe he's affecting me.
Oh, well, I mean, my parents have lived like this their whole lives. They're not bad people. I come by it honestly.
La, la, la.
Nick's taken over the peace room as his bedroom, so I'm back to meditating in the living room. Nick's bedroom upstairs is this place in flux. We have to think of something to do with it.
That's my 1/2 hour, thank god.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
My Grandfather's Fiddle
The computer's doing something weird.
I am reading a book by Charles de Lint called Tapping the Dream Tree. Nick has really gotten into him lately, so, in an effort to have things to discuss with my children, I'm getting in to him, too, and boy is it worth it. The first story in the collection had me hooked--it's about a fiddler whose fiddle can open doors to other worlds (calling on music), and the devil's in it, and a scarecrow with the beginning's of a psyche, and all the things in it that I find in myself, and Robert Johnson, still playing, hiding in dives, ducking the devil. He's got his finger on the pulse of something--this amalgamation of celtic myth and Indian lore--everything. Even Baba Yaga is in it.
I feel that way about my fiddle. I feel like it has a life of its own. I feel like it calls things on.
Have I told you about it?
My great-great-great-something or other grandfather made him. His name was Robert Thompson. He was a Scottish immigrant and he ran a travelling dance troupe.
One day, so the story goes, during rehearsal, he danced off the stage into the orchestra pit. The accident left him a paraplegic.
Can you imagine? A paraplegic in the 1840's? This was before ramps and vans with special hand driving accomodations (although I bet horses worked pretty well with paraplegics). And he had something like 10 children to support.
So he taught himself to make fiddles. He was already a fiddler, so he knew what he wanted. Then he started making mandolins. He made a lot of mandolins, apparently, but he only made 27 fiddles. I have the 23rd. It's the only one we can find anywhere. He signed the inside with a pencil with the date and his name. Robert Thompson, 1854. #23.
My Nana had the fiddle for a long time. It had never been played. I'm the only one in the family who can play the violin, but she wouldn't give it to me. After she died, though, it came to me. She didn't will it to me specifically, but the whole family agreed that I was the one who should have the fiddle. I took it to my friend, Tom Verdot to get it refurbished, and now I play it.
He told me "it's like a brand new, 150 year old fiddle. It's like a time machine."
The funny thing is, it has some of the problems newer violins have--it isn't really seasoned, you know?
But playing problems I've had my whole life have disappeared--intonation problems, double stops. That thing is made for my hands. Our hands, my grandfather's and mine, are probably somewhat alike. It just fits.
From his hands to mine. I swear I can feel him in it--just in the musical ideas I get--they're so much different than the ones I get on my other violin. Much more dance-y. He's been in the attic all these years, unstrung, unloved, unplayed. He wants to dance. So I do my best to let him.
Oh....today is going to be a good day. I'm going to put away the laundry and make the house good. I'm going to cook and drink my carrot juice.
And later, I'm going to play my fiddle.
That's my 1/2 hour.
I am reading a book by Charles de Lint called Tapping the Dream Tree. Nick has really gotten into him lately, so, in an effort to have things to discuss with my children, I'm getting in to him, too, and boy is it worth it. The first story in the collection had me hooked--it's about a fiddler whose fiddle can open doors to other worlds (calling on music), and the devil's in it, and a scarecrow with the beginning's of a psyche, and all the things in it that I find in myself, and Robert Johnson, still playing, hiding in dives, ducking the devil. He's got his finger on the pulse of something--this amalgamation of celtic myth and Indian lore--everything. Even Baba Yaga is in it.
I feel that way about my fiddle. I feel like it has a life of its own. I feel like it calls things on.
Have I told you about it?
My great-great-great-something or other grandfather made him. His name was Robert Thompson. He was a Scottish immigrant and he ran a travelling dance troupe.
One day, so the story goes, during rehearsal, he danced off the stage into the orchestra pit. The accident left him a paraplegic.
Can you imagine? A paraplegic in the 1840's? This was before ramps and vans with special hand driving accomodations (although I bet horses worked pretty well with paraplegics). And he had something like 10 children to support.
So he taught himself to make fiddles. He was already a fiddler, so he knew what he wanted. Then he started making mandolins. He made a lot of mandolins, apparently, but he only made 27 fiddles. I have the 23rd. It's the only one we can find anywhere. He signed the inside with a pencil with the date and his name. Robert Thompson, 1854. #23.
My Nana had the fiddle for a long time. It had never been played. I'm the only one in the family who can play the violin, but she wouldn't give it to me. After she died, though, it came to me. She didn't will it to me specifically, but the whole family agreed that I was the one who should have the fiddle. I took it to my friend, Tom Verdot to get it refurbished, and now I play it.
He told me "it's like a brand new, 150 year old fiddle. It's like a time machine."
The funny thing is, it has some of the problems newer violins have--it isn't really seasoned, you know?
But playing problems I've had my whole life have disappeared--intonation problems, double stops. That thing is made for my hands. Our hands, my grandfather's and mine, are probably somewhat alike. It just fits.
From his hands to mine. I swear I can feel him in it--just in the musical ideas I get--they're so much different than the ones I get on my other violin. Much more dance-y. He's been in the attic all these years, unstrung, unloved, unplayed. He wants to dance. So I do my best to let him.
Oh....today is going to be a good day. I'm going to put away the laundry and make the house good. I'm going to cook and drink my carrot juice.
And later, I'm going to play my fiddle.
That's my 1/2 hour.
Monday, February 11, 2008
The Crone
Something's chirping in the house. At first I thought it was the smoke alarm, but now I think it's a cricket.
I hate men. I hate getting old. I hate the cat who only loves me because I feed him. I hate Jay. I hate everybody.
Not really.
3 days on the floor. We have a patient on our floor--good looking older guy. Comatose. All these women are showing up. Two of them were fiances, the rest were girlfriends. A new one pops up every day. Nice women. A little older--late forties, fifties. Realtors and schoolteachers. Middle class. Not the usual Jerry Springer regulars who frequent the unit.
The family finally said "no more girlfriends." So we're literally barring the door. They're so tricky and aggressive! They stand around the door and watch the nurses go in. One of them got the door code and just started showing up.
I asked her to leave.
"I'm so sorry," I told her. "I understand how hard this must be for you, but the family has been very clear about visitors."
"I understand," she tells me. She's a well-kept red head with too much foundation. "My daughter's a nurse, so I know exactly what position you're in."
"Good," I tell her. "That's a relief. So often we get people who don't really understand. What a gift you are! Thank you for understanding."
We eventually had to call security. She stayed all night in the waiting room and kept showing up in the unit.
Another one was sitting beside his bed, staring at him, holding his hand and sobbing.
"Will you give him a note for me when he wakes up?" she asked.
"Of course."
"Do you think I should mention that I know all about the other women in the note?" she chokes out.
"No, I think you should just keep it to 'get well soon'. You can work all that out later."
Geraldine, our tiny elderly unit clerk, who hasn't figured out how to use the paging system (she just screams) and has a voice that could wake the dead, shakes her head, looking at the women on the monitor, buzzing to get in.
"Women are fools." she barks
"Geraldine, if I am ever acting like this over any man, you need to thump me."
She reaches over and hits me.
Great.
"Shame on you," Wiz says. "Call no man a fool...and on the sabbath."
"Call no man raca" I correct him, "and I'm talking about women."
I got back together with Jay, but I'm ashamed to tell anyone.
I like the sex.
Even though I don't really like him any more, I still like the sex. And I don't want to touch anyone else Ever again.
Is this how the French feel?
Maybe that's what this guy has going for him.
I don't know....maybe we expect and want too much. Maybe these ladies were lucky to get a little loving in the last flash of their sexual viability and if they needed to lie to themselves to enjoy it (he loves me, I'm the only one), maybe that's okay on some level.
I mean, don't we all really know the truth about things? Who is ever really surprised by the actions of a loved one.
And it's amazing...how many "fiance's" show up when someone's injured and can't give them the lie. You're loved more when you're silent, when someone can project their dream on you. So who knows. Maybe these women, lonely, past their motherhood years, out of their marriages, just wanted more out of him than he could give. Although he tried very hard to please them all.
Or maybe he's just a shit, and karma got him.
We were standing around his bed, wondering where he found the time or energy to keep all these relationships going? One of the benefits of retirement.
I've got to face the fact that I may end up alone. I keep telling myself it will all work out one day and I will find someone wonderful, but you know, that just may not happen.
I'm already getting kind of funny, I think, kind of old lady in the hills with her axe and weird hat and peace signs and cats--funny. I mean, I'm still okay, but I can see her crazy sharp crone's eyes staring through mine. I can see the shadows of her jowls, hear her coarse hooting cackle.
Oh, well.
That's my 1/2 hour.
I hate men. I hate getting old. I hate the cat who only loves me because I feed him. I hate Jay. I hate everybody.
Not really.
3 days on the floor. We have a patient on our floor--good looking older guy. Comatose. All these women are showing up. Two of them were fiances, the rest were girlfriends. A new one pops up every day. Nice women. A little older--late forties, fifties. Realtors and schoolteachers. Middle class. Not the usual Jerry Springer regulars who frequent the unit.
The family finally said "no more girlfriends." So we're literally barring the door. They're so tricky and aggressive! They stand around the door and watch the nurses go in. One of them got the door code and just started showing up.
I asked her to leave.
"I'm so sorry," I told her. "I understand how hard this must be for you, but the family has been very clear about visitors."
"I understand," she tells me. She's a well-kept red head with too much foundation. "My daughter's a nurse, so I know exactly what position you're in."
"Good," I tell her. "That's a relief. So often we get people who don't really understand. What a gift you are! Thank you for understanding."
We eventually had to call security. She stayed all night in the waiting room and kept showing up in the unit.
Another one was sitting beside his bed, staring at him, holding his hand and sobbing.
"Will you give him a note for me when he wakes up?" she asked.
"Of course."
"Do you think I should mention that I know all about the other women in the note?" she chokes out.
"No, I think you should just keep it to 'get well soon'. You can work all that out later."
Geraldine, our tiny elderly unit clerk, who hasn't figured out how to use the paging system (she just screams) and has a voice that could wake the dead, shakes her head, looking at the women on the monitor, buzzing to get in.
"Women are fools." she barks
"Geraldine, if I am ever acting like this over any man, you need to thump me."
She reaches over and hits me.
Great.
"Shame on you," Wiz says. "Call no man a fool...and on the sabbath."
"Call no man raca" I correct him, "and I'm talking about women."
I got back together with Jay, but I'm ashamed to tell anyone.
I like the sex.
Even though I don't really like him any more, I still like the sex. And I don't want to touch anyone else Ever again.
Is this how the French feel?
Maybe that's what this guy has going for him.
I don't know....maybe we expect and want too much. Maybe these ladies were lucky to get a little loving in the last flash of their sexual viability and if they needed to lie to themselves to enjoy it (he loves me, I'm the only one), maybe that's okay on some level.
I mean, don't we all really know the truth about things? Who is ever really surprised by the actions of a loved one.
And it's amazing...how many "fiance's" show up when someone's injured and can't give them the lie. You're loved more when you're silent, when someone can project their dream on you. So who knows. Maybe these women, lonely, past their motherhood years, out of their marriages, just wanted more out of him than he could give. Although he tried very hard to please them all.
Or maybe he's just a shit, and karma got him.
We were standing around his bed, wondering where he found the time or energy to keep all these relationships going? One of the benefits of retirement.
I've got to face the fact that I may end up alone. I keep telling myself it will all work out one day and I will find someone wonderful, but you know, that just may not happen.
I'm already getting kind of funny, I think, kind of old lady in the hills with her axe and weird hat and peace signs and cats--funny. I mean, I'm still okay, but I can see her crazy sharp crone's eyes staring through mine. I can see the shadows of her jowls, hear her coarse hooting cackle.
Oh, well.
That's my 1/2 hour.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Ash Wednesday
Went out last night with Jay for Mardi Gras. I think I'm going to stop talking to people about our problems because every time I tell people the story they tell me to break up with him and I don't really want to.
But things feel bad--they feel choked up.
I feel so bad--in a way that extends to everything.
My appetite is gone. Which is okay. I've lost more weight.
But even things like magazine ads look strange to me. Women in makeup look strange to me. I don't want anything. Anything at all. I don't want god, I don't want a new purse, I don't want to look pretty. I just want to work and sleep and have other people bring me food.
I'm sitting in an Italian restaurant, waiting for Nick. He gets out early today and wanted to have lunch with me. It's weird going to a restaurant and waiting for my kid to meet me.
Well, I don't want to write for a whole 1/2 hour today. I'm too sad.
But things feel bad--they feel choked up.
I feel so bad--in a way that extends to everything.
My appetite is gone. Which is okay. I've lost more weight.
But even things like magazine ads look strange to me. Women in makeup look strange to me. I don't want anything. Anything at all. I don't want god, I don't want a new purse, I don't want to look pretty. I just want to work and sleep and have other people bring me food.
I'm sitting in an Italian restaurant, waiting for Nick. He gets out early today and wanted to have lunch with me. It's weird going to a restaurant and waiting for my kid to meet me.
Well, I don't want to write for a whole 1/2 hour today. I'm too sad.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Umbrellas
It's raining. Dumping down. Lilly was ecstatic. Me, I'm more like Marlowe, our gigantic grey tabby tomcat, who scooted in like a shot when I opened the door and then sat in the middle of the qashqai, meowing at me like it was my fault. Perhaps that's what cats actually believe? Could part of the ancient antipathy between cats and humans, the passive agressive resentment even the friendliest of them seem to harbor, be due to the fact that all cats to a kitten believe we humans control the weather? Is this passed down from generation to generation? Enculturated cat lore--it could explain a lot. Is there any way at all, do you think, to resolve this?
"It's not my fault." I tell Marlowe.
"Meow."
"Fuck you."
Of course, we couldn't find an umbrella. And this wasn't the sort of rain you could dodge between the drops, on if you know what I mean. Oh, there was this great movie I saw a few years ago--based on Rashomon, with Forest Whitaker. Zen and the white dog, or something like that. And there was this quote--keeping to the eaves in a storm, you will still be drenched. Ah so. We really needed an umbrella.
For some reason, the commandment "thou shalt not steal" does not apply to umbrellas. People just lift umbrellas with impunity, with no guilty conscience at all. I had an umbrella I loved--I've replaced it three times--then I gave up. It's the Magritte umbrella, black on the outside with the clouds inside. I think it's the best umbrella in the world, but every time I order another, it's stolen right away. And in very respectable places--like my office, or at parent/teacher day, or from the break room. I decided it was just too tempting after the third theft and went back to cheap,nondescript umbrellas. But those were stolen, too. Or lost. But today, I just had it. After rooting through all the closets and the cars and finally giving up and running to the car, dropping my yoga pants on the way into a puddle, I went to Walgreen's after letting Lilly off at school and bought 5 umbrellas. Big golf size ones. One has polka dots, one has green and white stripes, one has blue and white stripes, one is red and black, and one is just black. I'm going to put one in each car and three in the house (for Nick, Lilly, and myself). Hopefully, with 5 umbrellas, we will always have one. 80 bucks.
"My favorite is the polka dot one," the girl behind the counter says. "You should keep that one for you." She actually let me get ahead of all the other people in line by opening up the cash register in the cosmetics aisle. One of the secrets of getting out of Walgreens fast. Trust me, I have a strategy for every single situation.
"That's what I was thinking!" We smiled at each other in mutual recognition.
"You don't need a bag, right?" she asks "I mean, they're umbrellas, so it's okay if they get wet..."
Right. So I stepped out triumphantly into the wet parking lot, hitting the button on my new poka dot umbrella, feeling as if I was engaging my light saber.
And as I stepped onto the asphalt, a volkswagon Jetta went skidding past me, maybe missing me by 3 feet, and carreened (spelling?) into one of the cars parked there.
The rain was really coming down now, and the temperature had dropped. A bedraggled, harried looking young woman got out of the car and inspected the damage to the other car. I stood on the curb, recovering, staring at the cars. She looked over at me--"It's okay," she told me. She looked like she was going to cry. "I'm going to leave a note." she said defensively.
The woman who owned the car came out of the store just then. I walked over, too.
"Would you like to use one of my umbrellas? I just bought 5."
"That's why I was coming here in the first place! To buy an umbrella!" the harried looking woman said.
"I'll wait in my car."
They picked the blue and white one. I sat in Margaret the Mercury and listened to the radio. The station was playing a track from the new album from Los Lobos, and by the time it was done, they had finished exchanging information and inspecting the damage and the rain had slackened.
The girl returned my umbrella and went into Walgreen's, presumably to complete her errand.
Maybe it isn't that people steal umbrellas. Maybe it just looks like we steal umbrellas. Maybe we are like children in this, and the splattering equal justice of the rain (when the rain falls..it falls on all alike) brings us to the truth, to the essential "should" and rightness of the situation. You don't really want me to get wet, do you? How nice of you to leave this umbrella here where I can use it.
I think maybe the rain somehow makes us all brothers, and umbrellas offer travelling sanctuary. Who owns the moon? Who owns the rain? And, who really owns an umbrella?
"It's not my fault." I tell Marlowe.
"Meow."
"Fuck you."
Of course, we couldn't find an umbrella. And this wasn't the sort of rain you could dodge between the drops, on if you know what I mean. Oh, there was this great movie I saw a few years ago--based on Rashomon, with Forest Whitaker. Zen and the white dog, or something like that. And there was this quote--keeping to the eaves in a storm, you will still be drenched. Ah so. We really needed an umbrella.
For some reason, the commandment "thou shalt not steal" does not apply to umbrellas. People just lift umbrellas with impunity, with no guilty conscience at all. I had an umbrella I loved--I've replaced it three times--then I gave up. It's the Magritte umbrella, black on the outside with the clouds inside. I think it's the best umbrella in the world, but every time I order another, it's stolen right away. And in very respectable places--like my office, or at parent/teacher day, or from the break room. I decided it was just too tempting after the third theft and went back to cheap,nondescript umbrellas. But those were stolen, too. Or lost. But today, I just had it. After rooting through all the closets and the cars and finally giving up and running to the car, dropping my yoga pants on the way into a puddle, I went to Walgreen's after letting Lilly off at school and bought 5 umbrellas. Big golf size ones. One has polka dots, one has green and white stripes, one has blue and white stripes, one is red and black, and one is just black. I'm going to put one in each car and three in the house (for Nick, Lilly, and myself). Hopefully, with 5 umbrellas, we will always have one. 80 bucks.
"My favorite is the polka dot one," the girl behind the counter says. "You should keep that one for you." She actually let me get ahead of all the other people in line by opening up the cash register in the cosmetics aisle. One of the secrets of getting out of Walgreens fast. Trust me, I have a strategy for every single situation.
"That's what I was thinking!" We smiled at each other in mutual recognition.
"You don't need a bag, right?" she asks "I mean, they're umbrellas, so it's okay if they get wet..."
Right. So I stepped out triumphantly into the wet parking lot, hitting the button on my new poka dot umbrella, feeling as if I was engaging my light saber.
And as I stepped onto the asphalt, a volkswagon Jetta went skidding past me, maybe missing me by 3 feet, and carreened (spelling?) into one of the cars parked there.
The rain was really coming down now, and the temperature had dropped. A bedraggled, harried looking young woman got out of the car and inspected the damage to the other car. I stood on the curb, recovering, staring at the cars. She looked over at me--"It's okay," she told me. She looked like she was going to cry. "I'm going to leave a note." she said defensively.
The woman who owned the car came out of the store just then. I walked over, too.
"Would you like to use one of my umbrellas? I just bought 5."
"That's why I was coming here in the first place! To buy an umbrella!" the harried looking woman said.
"I'll wait in my car."
They picked the blue and white one. I sat in Margaret the Mercury and listened to the radio. The station was playing a track from the new album from Los Lobos, and by the time it was done, they had finished exchanging information and inspecting the damage and the rain had slackened.
The girl returned my umbrella and went into Walgreen's, presumably to complete her errand.
Maybe it isn't that people steal umbrellas. Maybe it just looks like we steal umbrellas. Maybe we are like children in this, and the splattering equal justice of the rain (when the rain falls..it falls on all alike) brings us to the truth, to the essential "should" and rightness of the situation. You don't really want me to get wet, do you? How nice of you to leave this umbrella here where I can use it.
I think maybe the rain somehow makes us all brothers, and umbrellas offer travelling sanctuary. Who owns the moon? Who owns the rain? And, who really owns an umbrella?
Monday, February 4, 2008
Who Needs Who
Today I had an orientee--she's new to our shift. It's my fourth day in a row. I charged all weekend. Wiz went on vacation without telling me. Everybody else knew. Typical. I was sent home on call at 11, but stayed to give my patient an enema (I didn't think the nurse taking over from me would give it to him, and I was pretty sure the night nurse had lied about his stool). I've decided that my instincts about almost everything are dead on and that I'm going to pay attention to them.
I liked this one--I like them all. She's my age, a single mom with two teenagers, left handed, working on her masters. I took her to lunch after my shift. As I walked through the halls of the hospital to the coffee shop, I realized how many connections I've made--it's interesting to see things through someone else's eyes. From the housekeeper to the security guard to the attending to the Serbian girl behind the counter at the shop I do Yoga with, I must have greeted 25 people from the floor to the lobby. I showed her the secret courtyard. It's a beautiful warm day today, and some of the trees in the courtyard, which is more protected from the elements then the rest of the city, are showing signs of spring. A warm little rabbit ran across my path, too on the way in to work. We sat and ate our almond chicken sandwiches. I feel worn to the bone. I can hardly put together a sentence. The only thing stringing my personality together is the adderoll. I haven't had much sleep, and the weekend has been brutal.
"You're going to go insane if you keep working this much overtime," Jay tells me last night.
I saw him last night. I was supposed to see him Saturday night, and I did try. We were supposed to watch Elena together. I went over to his house after work and getting dinner on for the kids. Elena was manic. She's just been weaned. At 21/2. At one point, she lifted up her shirt and showed us her nipples. "Are you hungry?" she asked us. "Do you want some milk? My titties have milk for you!"
"No thank you," we replied cheerfully.
Aackkk. I can safely say Lilly has never done that. Christ on a crutch.
Hali had thoughtfully given her a four hour nap that afternoon, right before she came over to the house. Bitch. So Elena had lots of energy. She was wearing purple striped tights and fuzzy feathery purple slippers and a turtleneck. She was running around like feral cat trapped in a chinese restaurant. She looked like a doctor Seuss character, like a little "Who". We finally got her to lie down at 11. We looked at the stars outside the window. She wanted to know their names. I surprised myself. I know a lot of star names, and constellations. I told her about Orion, because he was the easiest to see. Pointed out his belt and his sword and his dogs. Then Jay got her a bottle and she lay down between us and we patted her back. She loves Jay. She loves him so much.
And then she reached over and grabbed for my hair in the dark and wrapped it around her tiny hand, just like Lilly used to do, when she was little. And all the sudden I was completely overwhelmed. I thought about all the lost years, about all the times I would lie down with Lilly, impatient, just wanting her to fall asleep, and how she would clutch my hair and it would hurt and I would feel sort of annoyed. I bought her a blanket with fringe, so that she would have something to wrap around her hand when she fell asleep. I thought about how so many of the things I went through with my children when they were little just seemed like drudgery, just sheer drudgery. I mean, I loved them but God it was hard. It felt so unreal. And I remembered the feel of their little bodies and how they would crawl into bed with me, even if I'd put them in their own beds to start with. And I'd lie there in the old apartment in Miami, listening to the traffic roar by, smelling gasoline and jasmine and rain through the latticed windows. Oh, I missed them so. I missed them so.
And then I thought about my own kids at home now, here, in Little Dixie. And here was this little girl, who I like a lot, actually. But she's not my little girl. This is not a family I have been offered entry into: these are not people who really care about me, who in fact see me as anything but a comfort. Like a chair maybe, or a nice well-behaved pet. And I'm trying to get over the lying, but why do I have to? The time is precious. My own children, who I am essential to, are more important. I am the only adult in their world who has taken the time and made the commitment to be essential to my children, and boy do I suck at it. I'm so flaky and inconstant. So I got up, put on my shoes, and went home. Drove back through the night. Got home at midnight.
Lilly looked surprised. She was sitting downstairs, watching The Office. "Why are you back?" she asks. "It was okay for you to go. We're good."
"I know. I just missed you." I told her what happened.
"Oh, mommie, it's okay." she said.
"Go to sleep, Mom," Nick said. "You look really tired."
"Are you guys going to stay up?"
Yes, they'd rented movies.
I felt sort of silly, listening to them as I fell asleep, watching the movies, laughing. They're so self-sufficient.
But at 2am, my door opened, and Lilly came in. She wrapped her arms around me.
"You're a good mom." she whispered, then she fell asleep. All five feet nine inches one hundred and forty pounds of her unshowered post basketball game self. She pulled the good feather pillow out from underneath me--she likes the way it smells--she thought I was asleep.
Oh well, at least she didn't pull my hair.
That's my 1/2 hour.
I liked this one--I like them all. She's my age, a single mom with two teenagers, left handed, working on her masters. I took her to lunch after my shift. As I walked through the halls of the hospital to the coffee shop, I realized how many connections I've made--it's interesting to see things through someone else's eyes. From the housekeeper to the security guard to the attending to the Serbian girl behind the counter at the shop I do Yoga with, I must have greeted 25 people from the floor to the lobby. I showed her the secret courtyard. It's a beautiful warm day today, and some of the trees in the courtyard, which is more protected from the elements then the rest of the city, are showing signs of spring. A warm little rabbit ran across my path, too on the way in to work. We sat and ate our almond chicken sandwiches. I feel worn to the bone. I can hardly put together a sentence. The only thing stringing my personality together is the adderoll. I haven't had much sleep, and the weekend has been brutal.
"You're going to go insane if you keep working this much overtime," Jay tells me last night.
I saw him last night. I was supposed to see him Saturday night, and I did try. We were supposed to watch Elena together. I went over to his house after work and getting dinner on for the kids. Elena was manic. She's just been weaned. At 21/2. At one point, she lifted up her shirt and showed us her nipples. "Are you hungry?" she asked us. "Do you want some milk? My titties have milk for you!"
"No thank you," we replied cheerfully.
Aackkk. I can safely say Lilly has never done that. Christ on a crutch.
Hali had thoughtfully given her a four hour nap that afternoon, right before she came over to the house. Bitch. So Elena had lots of energy. She was wearing purple striped tights and fuzzy feathery purple slippers and a turtleneck. She was running around like feral cat trapped in a chinese restaurant. She looked like a doctor Seuss character, like a little "Who". We finally got her to lie down at 11. We looked at the stars outside the window. She wanted to know their names. I surprised myself. I know a lot of star names, and constellations. I told her about Orion, because he was the easiest to see. Pointed out his belt and his sword and his dogs. Then Jay got her a bottle and she lay down between us and we patted her back. She loves Jay. She loves him so much.
And then she reached over and grabbed for my hair in the dark and wrapped it around her tiny hand, just like Lilly used to do, when she was little. And all the sudden I was completely overwhelmed. I thought about all the lost years, about all the times I would lie down with Lilly, impatient, just wanting her to fall asleep, and how she would clutch my hair and it would hurt and I would feel sort of annoyed. I bought her a blanket with fringe, so that she would have something to wrap around her hand when she fell asleep. I thought about how so many of the things I went through with my children when they were little just seemed like drudgery, just sheer drudgery. I mean, I loved them but God it was hard. It felt so unreal. And I remembered the feel of their little bodies and how they would crawl into bed with me, even if I'd put them in their own beds to start with. And I'd lie there in the old apartment in Miami, listening to the traffic roar by, smelling gasoline and jasmine and rain through the latticed windows. Oh, I missed them so. I missed them so.
And then I thought about my own kids at home now, here, in Little Dixie. And here was this little girl, who I like a lot, actually. But she's not my little girl. This is not a family I have been offered entry into: these are not people who really care about me, who in fact see me as anything but a comfort. Like a chair maybe, or a nice well-behaved pet. And I'm trying to get over the lying, but why do I have to? The time is precious. My own children, who I am essential to, are more important. I am the only adult in their world who has taken the time and made the commitment to be essential to my children, and boy do I suck at it. I'm so flaky and inconstant. So I got up, put on my shoes, and went home. Drove back through the night. Got home at midnight.
Lilly looked surprised. She was sitting downstairs, watching The Office. "Why are you back?" she asks. "It was okay for you to go. We're good."
"I know. I just missed you." I told her what happened.
"Oh, mommie, it's okay." she said.
"Go to sleep, Mom," Nick said. "You look really tired."
"Are you guys going to stay up?"
Yes, they'd rented movies.
I felt sort of silly, listening to them as I fell asleep, watching the movies, laughing. They're so self-sufficient.
But at 2am, my door opened, and Lilly came in. She wrapped her arms around me.
"You're a good mom." she whispered, then she fell asleep. All five feet nine inches one hundred and forty pounds of her unshowered post basketball game self. She pulled the good feather pillow out from underneath me--she likes the way it smells--she thought I was asleep.
Oh well, at least she didn't pull my hair.
That's my 1/2 hour.
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