Here's what I think--I think I'm going to actually garden this year.
The house is a mess. Working 4 days in a row is almost impossible to do, and keep sane. Jay warned me I would go crazy if I continued to do this. I think he might be right. I'm taking some time off next week, thank goodness. The kids will be gone. Everyone I meet and see seems like an imposition. Everyone an annoyance. I don't know how people live the way they do, self included. People seem too close. Their smells bother me, their hair, their conversation. Everyone looks foolish. Everyone is too fat or too thin, or too loud. I'm becoming a fascist.
The worst offender, of course is myself.
I don't want people to talk to me, sound itself is almost intolerable.
I felt better after I sat for awhile, but it's safe to say, I think, that my nerves are pretty raw.
By the fourth day of work, my inner dialogue is almost unbearable. Mondays. I hate Mondays. The most self-righteous, patronizing group of nurses work Mondays.
Wiz calls them the Monday Saints.
"Ahh...the saints of the unit, so clearly aware of their superiority--what would we do without them?"
Ughhh. They are insufferable, the bunch of them.
$564 I get for dealing with them.
Monday money.
Who are the Monday saints?
There's Regina, who I've told you about before. The one who refuses patients. There's Nathan--29, self-righteous, full of advice, always delivered in this folksy way, with the subtext of "you suck"--i.e. "Did you want her in the chair that long?"
There's Walter. Who puts Jesus into every sentence. Such as "do you think we have enough nurses to handle another admission?"
"I think we do, but it doesn't matter if I think so, it matters if Jesus thinks so."
or.."How's your wife doing after her gallbladder surgery? Is she getting better?"
"Jesus is making her better."
or "Achoo!"
"Bless you, if it is what Jesus wants."
or..."How are you?"
"I believe I am well, but I know I am blessed by Jesus."
SHUT UP!
Jesus...
It's my orientee's second to last week. Then she's out on her own. I'm not sure how much I actually like her. She's a good, reasonably competent nurse but I'm finding she has this strange, almost psychotic blind spot when it comes to her own errors. For example, last week, we had an admission--septic, pressures falling, and we were starting pressors. She didn't check or label her lines and started the dopamine at the same rate the maintenance IV fluid was written for--a dose that would have probably outright killed the patient in about 15 minutes. Because I'm on top of her, I caught it, but when we discussed it at the end of the week, she had completely rewritten the incident in her mind.
"the drugs we use are scary," she said.
"Yes, they are. You found that out the hard way, didn't you? We had a near miss."
"Yes we had that dopamine hanging and we didn't know whether it was ours or whether it had come from the other hospital."
"No, that's not the incident I'm talking about."
"Well, don't you remember?" she asks. "There were two bags and you were running them both?"
"No, " I said slowly. "That isn't what happened."
"Yes it is."
"No it isn't. Let me remind you--you started to run the dopamine at the same rate as the IV fluid because you hadn't checked or labeled your lines."
"I don't think that's what happened...." she started to get really defensive.
"That is exactly what happened. Do you remember it now?"
"I don't remember it that way."
I started to feel exasperated.
Finally, I got her to admit what happened. But the incident, and our review of it, really has me worried.
Things move so fast in our unit that mistakes or almost mistakes are bound to happen. It's why we have so many checks and double checks and it's why we try to cultivate a blame-free atmosphere. It's got to be a place where you can admit to mistakes, or lack of knowledge, so that everyone can bring their best to treating the patients. If she covers or reframes, she'll screw someone up, and the hostile blankness in those opaque brown eyes really bothered me.
During rounds, the Dragon did a terrible thing.
I was letting my orientee handle rounds, and she was interrupting inappropriately--this is another thing that bothers me about her--she doesn't listen to other people.
He turns to me and in the middle of her sentence he growls, "You don't like her very much, do you?"
I was taken aback. I don't. But I thought I was covering it.
"Of course I like her!" I mean, what do you say?
"She doesn't like you very much," he says to my orientee. "You'd better step it up."
Well, two points for the Dragon, I guess. But...I'd rather be putting a nurse I could trust out there. I really think there's something a little wrong with this one. But how do you quantify that? She's hitting all her marks...
well that's my 1/2 hour.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Who breathes?
Folded in, contracted, like an umbrella, rusted together, welded stiff. Curled in agony, curled like a fetus. Malnourished--the rehab in Virginia hadn't been doing their job. Tried to put pillows between her knees, couldn't pry them apart. Veins flat and flaccid, bones piercing the skin from the inside out. Jaw clenched like a pit bull, the teeth loose and dirty from lack of oral care, bed sores, break down, perfed stomach, septic. Cold. Warmed her up. The only thing that moves are her eyes--her left eye seems to see and perceive. I didn't get this at first.
I've become hard. I watch students and new nurses come into our unit and they're so soft, so compassionate and caring. Slow. Gentle. But if you're going to become good at this, you have to make a compromise between fast and gentle. And sometimes gentleness and kindness aren't what you think they are--but that's a different meditation. I have lately very few patients that really get to me, but I wanted to throw myself over this child and weep.
First time on a motorcycle. 17. Went for a ride on her best friend's (a boy) new motorcycle. Climbed on the back. Here she is in our unit.
Old head injury--over 7 months. I don't usually see them after they leave here and go to rehab.
She looks like a concentration camp victim.
"Is this normal? Is this what happens? Was she neglected at the rehab?"
Cindy Chang, our impeccably dressed, workaholic, incomprehensible chinese unit dietition answers me, "is what happens, head injury, no muscle, cachexis. See it all time."
But I'm still horrified. "But couldn't we fatten her up somehow?"
She smiles. "Obesity big problem in America."
"Shut up."
When the girl doesn't like what we're doing, she bites down and holds her breath. She's intubated, because she's been septic. But it resolved miraculously quickly. God, young bodies are miracles. So are old ones. But young ones, even compromised. Boom boom boom. Life force surging through. She hates the tube.
I try all weekend to get her extubated. Over the weekend, we have, unfortunately, our laziest nastiest respiratory therapist working. She just wants to keep her intubated. The residents, new to the floor are scared and intimidated. The RT keeps finding excuses.
"She'll get pneumonia."
"Her lungs are clear," I argue
"She doesn't have the ability to clear her secretions."
"So she should stay intubated all the time? She wasn't intubated in rehab."
"We might have to go to the OR again."
"Anesthesia could intubate her again...I believe that's part of their skill set..."
I don't want to get to nasty with her, because, in the long run, I need the good will of this fucking RT more than winning my point of extubating this girl 2 days early. It's like a chess game around here, some times. Know your pieces, know how they move. How far you can push them, when you can get them into position for someone else to take them off the board. If it was life threatening, I'd get nasty, but we aren't yet to the critical point of risking VAP (ventilator acquired pneumonia). I could push it faster, but in the next room, someone is busy dying--on pressors, desatting, and this RT isn't good with stress--to be effective with the other, more critical patient--but at 1500 on Monday, after battling it for 4 days and being put off--I finally get hot. I drag Baggins, our diminutive fellow into the room. The girl's lips are swelling and blistering around the tube, the tape cuts into her cheeks.
"RT didn't extubate?" he says, surprised.
"RSVI's too high--but that's her baseline. It's just an excuse. All day."
We get the RT in--
"We're extubating now." He says.
"Her RSVI's too high. And she holds her breath when she's mad"
"Let's just give it a shot."
"Okay--I've got to go check the ventilators on the other side, and go to CT scan, but then I'll do it." Hedging.
"Okay," Baggins says, "I'll go ahead and do it. You have your pager, right?"
Sometimes, I hate Baggins, and sometimes I love him.
So we extubate. The girl sighs a long sigh. Then starts breathing and falls asleep. Sats high. Jesus.
Would you do that to your kid?
In between our usual inane conversations about things like excess body hair, we talk about this.
Quality of life.
But how can you ascertain that? And you know, you're not here just for yourself. You're here more for other people. We fear suffering so much, we say we fear causing it, but we cause it all the time. I don't think this is true, when people say that. I think they fear something else. If it were my kid, and he was still looking out at me through his good eye, and holding his breath when he got mad and biting nurses, I could not let him go. We think a life is worth something only if meets certain standards, and this error in thought is what leads us to both passively and aggressively commit acts of violence on others--others of other races, of other creeds and faiths. It's why we're able to go to war in Iraq, it's why we're able to ignore the Sudan, it's why we're able to ignore the poor of our own country. Same error--we think we're God and can decide when a life is worthwhile and when it's not.
Who breathes you?
Who is breathing?
The girl, the creature, skin and bones, lies in our tower, our twilight ship. Breathing just as surely as you and I.
Breath of the world. Breath of all. We can only serve.
That's my 1/2 hour
I've become hard. I watch students and new nurses come into our unit and they're so soft, so compassionate and caring. Slow. Gentle. But if you're going to become good at this, you have to make a compromise between fast and gentle. And sometimes gentleness and kindness aren't what you think they are--but that's a different meditation. I have lately very few patients that really get to me, but I wanted to throw myself over this child and weep.
First time on a motorcycle. 17. Went for a ride on her best friend's (a boy) new motorcycle. Climbed on the back. Here she is in our unit.
Old head injury--over 7 months. I don't usually see them after they leave here and go to rehab.
She looks like a concentration camp victim.
"Is this normal? Is this what happens? Was she neglected at the rehab?"
Cindy Chang, our impeccably dressed, workaholic, incomprehensible chinese unit dietition answers me, "is what happens, head injury, no muscle, cachexis. See it all time."
But I'm still horrified. "But couldn't we fatten her up somehow?"
She smiles. "Obesity big problem in America."
"Shut up."
When the girl doesn't like what we're doing, she bites down and holds her breath. She's intubated, because she's been septic. But it resolved miraculously quickly. God, young bodies are miracles. So are old ones. But young ones, even compromised. Boom boom boom. Life force surging through. She hates the tube.
I try all weekend to get her extubated. Over the weekend, we have, unfortunately, our laziest nastiest respiratory therapist working. She just wants to keep her intubated. The residents, new to the floor are scared and intimidated. The RT keeps finding excuses.
"She'll get pneumonia."
"Her lungs are clear," I argue
"She doesn't have the ability to clear her secretions."
"So she should stay intubated all the time? She wasn't intubated in rehab."
"We might have to go to the OR again."
"Anesthesia could intubate her again...I believe that's part of their skill set..."
I don't want to get to nasty with her, because, in the long run, I need the good will of this fucking RT more than winning my point of extubating this girl 2 days early. It's like a chess game around here, some times. Know your pieces, know how they move. How far you can push them, when you can get them into position for someone else to take them off the board. If it was life threatening, I'd get nasty, but we aren't yet to the critical point of risking VAP (ventilator acquired pneumonia). I could push it faster, but in the next room, someone is busy dying--on pressors, desatting, and this RT isn't good with stress--to be effective with the other, more critical patient--but at 1500 on Monday, after battling it for 4 days and being put off--I finally get hot. I drag Baggins, our diminutive fellow into the room. The girl's lips are swelling and blistering around the tube, the tape cuts into her cheeks.
"RT didn't extubate?" he says, surprised.
"RSVI's too high--but that's her baseline. It's just an excuse. All day."
We get the RT in--
"We're extubating now." He says.
"Her RSVI's too high. And she holds her breath when she's mad"
"Let's just give it a shot."
"Okay--I've got to go check the ventilators on the other side, and go to CT scan, but then I'll do it." Hedging.
"Okay," Baggins says, "I'll go ahead and do it. You have your pager, right?"
Sometimes, I hate Baggins, and sometimes I love him.
So we extubate. The girl sighs a long sigh. Then starts breathing and falls asleep. Sats high. Jesus.
Would you do that to your kid?
In between our usual inane conversations about things like excess body hair, we talk about this.
Quality of life.
But how can you ascertain that? And you know, you're not here just for yourself. You're here more for other people. We fear suffering so much, we say we fear causing it, but we cause it all the time. I don't think this is true, when people say that. I think they fear something else. If it were my kid, and he was still looking out at me through his good eye, and holding his breath when he got mad and biting nurses, I could not let him go. We think a life is worth something only if meets certain standards, and this error in thought is what leads us to both passively and aggressively commit acts of violence on others--others of other races, of other creeds and faiths. It's why we're able to go to war in Iraq, it's why we're able to ignore the Sudan, it's why we're able to ignore the poor of our own country. Same error--we think we're God and can decide when a life is worthwhile and when it's not.
Who breathes you?
Who is breathing?
The girl, the creature, skin and bones, lies in our tower, our twilight ship. Breathing just as surely as you and I.
Breath of the world. Breath of all. We can only serve.
That's my 1/2 hour
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Nick's Birthday
Today's Nick's birthday. He's seventeen years old. After I dropped Lilly off at school today, I took the car in to be inspected (you would not believe cosmic forces arrayed against renewing my tag--all of yesterday was about trying to get my tag renewed and failing, miserably--but that's another story). The mechanic, a very blue-eyed base player, hit on me last week. I had stopped in at the station to fill up the Saab and it broke down right there. Right at the pump. I had to buy a new battery, but at least I got flirted with. So, long story short, I decided to get the car inspected there--I mean--go where you're appreciated, right?
"It'll take about 45 minutes." he told me. He had told me yesterday the car didn't need to be inspected, something which the girl at the DMV, dripping with bling set me straight on. I have never seen more rhinestones on a daytime ensemble. Earrings, fake chanel pendant, jeans, even the tips of her nails.
"The mechanic told me I didn't need to have the car inspected."
"He told you wrong--"waving a gleaming hand. "Just go back and tell him from me. I'll let you in to the front of the line. I'll remember you."
I love the Little Dixie DMV. This is the only DMV in America that's actually kind of fun to go to. I've never had a bad time there. I've never waited more than 6 minutes for help.
I went back to the garage, but they were full. So that's why I was there this morning.
So this morning I'm there in the cold with 45 minutes on my hand. Near the garage is the town cemetery, Office Depot, a Walgreen's, an Sherman elementary school (where I went to school--one of the first integrated classes--I was beaten up daily and had corn thrown at me every day at lunch), and the public library. I decided to go to the library.
My dad bought Nick this huge black down coat from a store in a mall. Nick refuses to wear it. "It's a gangsta coat, Mom," he informs me. It is. But it's warm. So I wear it. It can probably stop bullets. I walk up the hill to the library, and peek in the door. A well groomed young woman walks up who cannot be anything in life other than a librarian. She smiles. "Are you Libby? No badge yet, huh? I'll swipe you in."
I must look sort of eager and respectable. She thinks I'm a new employee. For a second, I play with the idea of pretending to be Libby for the morning. Good practical joke? Yeah....but I'm all respectable now and too many people know me. They would think I'm losing my mind.
"No...."
"Oh,--the library doesn't open til 9" she tells me pleasantly.
So I keep walking.
I decide to go to the cemetery. Every day, I try to do one weird thing. No matter how small. It keeps me engaged. And, believe it or not, other than the time I accidentally kicked a ball into the cemetery in 1st grade and had to go retrieve it (the cemetery borders the playground), I have never gone in by myself.
So I turn in down the narrow black asphalt road.
Funny how we keep our conventions, even in death. The tombstones of married people, for example--the wife's is always shorter than the husband's. Here are the names I've grown up with--the names of streets and stores and colleges. Some of the dates are heartbreaking. Farther back, the stones change, smaller, carved, names fading, dates in the 1700's--and lots of phrases like this: "born in Virginia in 1786--died here in 1850." The first people came to our town in the early 1800's from Kentucky. I look across at the empty fields--sparsely scattered with stones. The Taco Bell. The empty part was supposedly filled with slave graves. The plots are for sale now. The Taco Bell was built on the graves. It was stuck by lightening the first year it opened. We know why...
There's the stone for the 1st president of the university--and next to him is one for his son. I read the dates--1839-1859. Buried his son. Nothing in here can tell that story.
I think about Nick, 17 today. All the birthdays behind us. The childhood behind us. His childhood's in the proverbial can. Done. All the things I wanted for him.
On his first birthday, Nick and I went to the zoo. We rode an ancient, patient, sawbacked elephant. I still remember the stiff hairs on its back and it's astonishing shiplike sway as it walked in a circle. There were flamingoes, and Nick was so delighted--we had to go back again and again--he loved them best.
"It'll take about 45 minutes." he told me. He had told me yesterday the car didn't need to be inspected, something which the girl at the DMV, dripping with bling set me straight on. I have never seen more rhinestones on a daytime ensemble. Earrings, fake chanel pendant, jeans, even the tips of her nails.
"The mechanic told me I didn't need to have the car inspected."
"He told you wrong--"waving a gleaming hand. "Just go back and tell him from me. I'll let you in to the front of the line. I'll remember you."
I love the Little Dixie DMV. This is the only DMV in America that's actually kind of fun to go to. I've never had a bad time there. I've never waited more than 6 minutes for help.
I went back to the garage, but they were full. So that's why I was there this morning.
So this morning I'm there in the cold with 45 minutes on my hand. Near the garage is the town cemetery, Office Depot, a Walgreen's, an Sherman elementary school (where I went to school--one of the first integrated classes--I was beaten up daily and had corn thrown at me every day at lunch), and the public library. I decided to go to the library.
My dad bought Nick this huge black down coat from a store in a mall. Nick refuses to wear it. "It's a gangsta coat, Mom," he informs me. It is. But it's warm. So I wear it. It can probably stop bullets. I walk up the hill to the library, and peek in the door. A well groomed young woman walks up who cannot be anything in life other than a librarian. She smiles. "Are you Libby? No badge yet, huh? I'll swipe you in."
I must look sort of eager and respectable. She thinks I'm a new employee. For a second, I play with the idea of pretending to be Libby for the morning. Good practical joke? Yeah....but I'm all respectable now and too many people know me. They would think I'm losing my mind.
"No...."
"Oh,--the library doesn't open til 9" she tells me pleasantly.
So I keep walking.
I decide to go to the cemetery. Every day, I try to do one weird thing. No matter how small. It keeps me engaged. And, believe it or not, other than the time I accidentally kicked a ball into the cemetery in 1st grade and had to go retrieve it (the cemetery borders the playground), I have never gone in by myself.
So I turn in down the narrow black asphalt road.
Funny how we keep our conventions, even in death. The tombstones of married people, for example--the wife's is always shorter than the husband's. Here are the names I've grown up with--the names of streets and stores and colleges. Some of the dates are heartbreaking. Farther back, the stones change, smaller, carved, names fading, dates in the 1700's--and lots of phrases like this: "born in Virginia in 1786--died here in 1850." The first people came to our town in the early 1800's from Kentucky. I look across at the empty fields--sparsely scattered with stones. The Taco Bell. The empty part was supposedly filled with slave graves. The plots are for sale now. The Taco Bell was built on the graves. It was stuck by lightening the first year it opened. We know why...
There's the stone for the 1st president of the university--and next to him is one for his son. I read the dates--1839-1859. Buried his son. Nothing in here can tell that story.
I think about Nick, 17 today. All the birthdays behind us. The childhood behind us. His childhood's in the proverbial can. Done. All the things I wanted for him.
On his first birthday, Nick and I went to the zoo. We rode an ancient, patient, sawbacked elephant. I still remember the stiff hairs on its back and it's astonishing shiplike sway as it walked in a circle. There were flamingoes, and Nick was so delighted--we had to go back again and again--he loved them best.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Lent
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.
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.
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.
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