The Gift That Keeps On Giving

So Amazon now has a policy wherein if someone sends you a present via Amazon, you can be forewarned and allowed to either accept the gift - - or allowed to change the gift, secretly, of course, along with sending the giver a thank you note that sounds as if you received the original gift and no one is the wiser.

Yuck. Ick.

Gee, I guess it really IS the thought that counts. Or the lie that counts. or......what IS it that counts? What (listen to the older generation blather on!) kind of people are we raising here? But that's not true, I know lots of younger people who would find Amazon's newest gimmick as abysmally awful as I do. Not that I'm the Poster Child of present giving. I've given my share of ....what are they called? Second-hand gifts? Gifts that had already been given away once.....by someone else....to me. But said gifts tend to be fairly fabulous gifts, given only because someone else collects them and I don't. Something like that. In my once-upon-a-time-really-really-skinny-days I was once given five or six gowns which had been owned by the actress Frances Farmer. They arrived at my home in a box wrapped in gold foil with a huge red velvet ribbon tied round and round into a huge bow on top. Each gown was slinkier and hip-bone-showier than the next. I chose one of the gowns, re-wrapped it and gave it to a similarly bodied friend. THAT kind of gift. Anybody wanna say "No" to that kind of gift? Not on your life.

Today I've heard what six individuals received for Christmas; from French silk scarves attached to airplane tickets to Paris, France - - to ten coupons for ten different kinds of kisses. I'm not much of a traveler. I'll take the kisses. Although on the other hand .....

I'm glad to know that gift giving is not the dinosaurish-activity I had feared it was. I used to hear so much of, "Oh, George and I don't bother with presents anymore, we have everything we want." Really? You have everything you want? I'll never be that person. I know it's unchic as hell of me, unchic and out of style and out of step and oh-so-ugly-American, but I don't think I'll ever get over my lust for silver jewelry or books or cd's or dvd's or blank journals or bracelets or necklaces or anything I deem as beautiful or magical or sparkly or glowy or wonderful. I loved the moment when, the day AFTER Christmas, Alan looked at me and said, "I wanted to wait till tonight but I just can't wait any longer, put out your hand," and he rummaged through his backpack until he pulled out a green package and plunked it into my proffered right hand, whereupon I hurriedly (I'm always in a hurry when it comes to unwrapping presents) tore off the wrapping paper and discovered the most fabulous pair of earrings - earrings for a gypsy queen, for an Spanish gypsy queen, for an ethnically beautiful (inside joke) Spanish gypsy queen with a sense of humor and good strong ears although the earrings are light as a dove's wing. Earrings beautiful enough to speed up one's heart rate, if for no other reason than one is racing to the nearest mirror to see how they look. Even though I am not especially adventurous, they make me LOOK adventurous, and that's good enough for me.

However, I am not altogether "thing-oriented" -- I am well aware that gifts come in all sizes and all sorts of transformations and transfigurations and that most often, the very best gifts do not come in any state of being wrapped or having ever been wrapped. No bows, no ribbons, no frills, just a state of being, often fleeting, like a grin or a giggle or a smile where, only moments earlier, a frown had existed in its stead.

Alan and I are, of course, in the magnificent process of learning each other. Really, there is nothing better, nothing more fascinating, nothing more curious or delicious or exultant or maddening or heavenly than to learn another human being....especially a human being of the opposite sex. It is a Shakespearean experience, worthy of William Himself. It is huge, like a Tsunami. It is epic, like Tolstoy. It is vastly entertaining. It is multi-layered and multi-fascited, causing the writer to misspell several words in a row. My computer is underlining all my "Multi" words with little red wavy lines and yet I proceed, because I still have three patients to go and I refuse to stop for spelling. I am not writing for my English professor, even though I know that some of you out there ARE or have been English professors. Bite me.

The other night Alan and I disagreed on what movie to rent...he didn't want to watch the movie I wanted to see and I, who am used to getting my way when it comes to such matters, was.....flustered and flabbergasted. I didn't back down. He didn't back down. I couldn't believe he wasn't backing down. One of the most difficult perceptual problems people have is to realize that others (most typically, one's own mate) do not share their own personal psychological perceptions. Jim and I agreed on movies. It was not that I "got my own way"....it was that "we" were in agreement about ALMOST all films. And, to be fair, as Alan points out, we agree upon lots and lots of movies.....but not all. And it is in this "but not all" space, this rare "new" space where I experience such a lacuna of.....shock and utter disbelief......oh, why is he making trouble, anyway? Why not just go along with me? Wouldn't it just be easier to acquiesce? Why not make nice? I mean, oh my God, how can he live with himself,.... there I am, with the CD in my hand, and there he is, going on and on about, "Movies with lots of guns, or movies about the end of the world or movies about car crashes, those are movies that are, by and large, about making money. Period. And I'm not buying into it. Sure, I loved PULP FICTION, there are some great movies out there with guns and violence and I love some of them, but I'm not going to love them just because the owner of some video store tells me they're great. You're asking me to spend two and a half hours of my life watching something that looks like it's about a bunch of morons with guns in their hands? I don't think so."

Really?
Really.

So I leave the video store and go to Safeway because we've decided to make a chicken salad for dinner. And suddenly there he is, in Safeway, in the vegetable aisle, because we've decided to make a chicken salad for dinner. And I've been a psychotherapist for twenty-seven years. And I've got a good reputation, pretty good, at least, for being a pretty good couple's therapist. And I don't know where to look.

I'll be damned if I'm going to look at him.
I'm not going to look at him.
No way.
Uh-uh.
Nope.

But I suddenly feel a giggle erupt in side of me, like a burp.
I want to burp, but it's a giggle.
I want to slap myself, because I want to giggle, only it's a laugh.
I want to laugh.

I look at him and his lips are trembling, like he's trying hard not to laugh. We are both trying hard not to laugh. We are standing, two adults, next to all kinds of lettuce, this kind and that kind, I can't even tell you all the kinds of lettuce we are standing next to, soft kinds and hard kinds, not to mention spinach, and suddenly we both let it happen, we both let our lips sway into smiles and then tighter into grins and then into laughter and then we are hugging and then it's okay, it's okay, and we walk to the video part of Safeway and we rent a movie called THE LAST STATION with Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer about Tolstoy and his wife Sophie, which I had seen, but I didn't tell Alan that until later because I wanted him to see it and he wanted to see it and I didn't yet know how delicate or how strong we were in the "I've seen it and you haven't" department category.........and we went home and fixed a delicious chicken salad and watched this deliciously marvelous (sad, sad) movie and then we watched one of Woody Allen's early hilarious movies, LOVE AND DEATH, and that was it. The gift was huge and it was in there somewhere. Where was it?

It was the smile and then the grin and then the laughter in the lettuce aisle at Safeway. As gorgeous as those earrings are, as gorgeous as all the gifts we gave each other, and we gave each other plenty, it was the smile and the grin and the laughter in the Safeway vegetable aisle that I will always remember. I placed the memory in my psychological and physical world of fundamental forces where it will always remain and help steady me when I am in trouble with myself or with Alan and I need a posse of psychological muscles to assist me in motation. Even if, as my computer is now telling me, I can not spell "motation".

And now my computer is informing me that I don't have any more blog space. Well, great. I need to go now, anyway. I just wanted to talk for awhile about gifts. So far this year, my best gift has been.....you guessed it...other than my kids and my grandkids and my friends....it's been Alan. He's become my best friend as well as my lover as well as my fiance. We've even spoken about marriage. While in Port Townsend we've even found me an engagement ring. And here is my conclusion to this raggedy blog - when (if) you marry your best friend, the talk (and nothing else, either) never grows old. It can't. It doesn't know how. The world becomes too fertile. The small world you two inhabit, your immediate intimate world, your neighborhood or neighborhoods, your country, your world....the world of art, of poetry, of literature, of music, of sensuality, of cuisine, of children, of grandchildren, of friends, of dreams, of life stories, of hopes, of dreams, of dashed hopes, of dashed dreams, of saviors, your own personal history, your parents' histories, your peoples' histories, your wishes, your fears, your successes, your failures, your personal saints and angels, the ones in your life you have blessed and wish to continue to bless, the ones in your life you have damned and wish to continue to damn or wish to forgive or wish to bash their heads in or wish to....or wish to.....or wish to......as long as you still wish to.........amen.....amen....amen......amen.....amen........it is all having to do with the gifts that keep on/giving.

We booked three nights at Port Townsend's Manressa Castle for the 24rth, 25th and 26th. Small room, okay view, hints of haplessly wandering ghosts, overly expensive Christmas dinner (of which we didn't partake), great bar - - we left after spending one night. We didn't have to look at each other and say, "Nah,", we didn't have to say, "We can do better than this," we didn't really say much of anything at all. We woke up on Christmas Day and I said murmured something like, "Let's get out of here and go down to the Tides," and Alan said, "Yeah," and we high-tailed it out of there. We didn't have to recite the reasons why. I knew the reasons why, he knew the reasons why, and we each knew that the other knew, without having said a word about it.

Kapish?
Right.
When you know you know.

Further back. June, 2008. I said to my friend Magge, "Someday I'd really love to live on Bainbridge Island" and Magge said, "Well, why don't you?" and four days later, I bought a townhouse on Bainbridge Island. I don't like to house shop any more than I like to do any other kind of shopping. If it isn't plaid, and doesn't have diamonds, I'll consider it. If I don't have t tie a knot, even better. If I can get somebody else to take a look at the kitchen and to see if there's any decent kind of storage space, whoopee.

Get it?
I'm easy, that way.
When I know I know.

At the party Alan invited me to, the family party held for his birthday, his cousin George's birthday and one other relative whose name (sorry! sorry!) I can't remember, that's when I knew. I knew as simply and surely as a thirsty man knows that water is what is absolutely needed. It was the third time we'd met. He spent just the right amount of time next to me. He spent just the right amount of time away from me. His relationship with his daughter looked loving and respectful on both sides. He touched me just enough. Years ago, oh, many, I'd taught that kind of social touching in workshops at the Bangor Base. He was a natural. I didn't need a second opinion. I didn't need another date. I didn't need a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eight opinion. Three. One, two, three. Just enough.

Three.
Like the legs of a milk stool.
When you know you know.

On the other hand,I know I shouldn't be doing. Driving, for instance. I know shouldn't be behind the wheel. I'm not good there. When I'm behind the wheel, I DON'T know. One of the gifts I received for Christmas this year (no, not from Alan) was a key-locater so I can even FIND my car-keys. Or: trying to read a map. I shouldn't even OPEN a map. It's ludicrous to try. Everyone who knows me knows this. Because, although "When I know I know," the opposite may also be said of me - - "When I DON'T know, I DON'T know."

Ah, well.

I wanted to write a terrific blog on the WHEN YOU KNOW YOU KNOW theme. I wanted to write it tonight. But Life got in the way and handed me a broken afternoon and then a evening. A fire, a metaphorical fire, but a fire, nonetheless, has broken out regarding my son, and I am torn into pieces inside my chest. I won't be okay for a couple of days and it's no use putting off writing just because certain pieces of me are going to be busted up for awhile; those pieces will just have to heal in their own good time while the rest of me, like Time, marches on. Crap waits for no one, especially during holiday time.Especially big cruddy pieces like these.

Like cow pies.
Like cow pies with steam spewing out.
Like cow pies still wet in the middle and you slip and end up all squished up on your butt in the middle of one.
And you feel like you're ten years old again.
And you want to throw back your head and yell, "Hey, if there's a plug out there, would somebody mind pulling it?"

But nobody you know has that kind of plug and if you knew somebody with one you'd dust yourself off and run like hell because you want to see where this next year takes you. Because there could be angels sitting on the fence posts. Somebody could bring you wildflowers. Maybe you could get married. Probably you could dance some more. Way, way more. Probably you're gonna laugh some more. A lot more. And listen to more Leonard Cohen and more the Reverend Al Green, especially his song,"Belle". And Tony Bennett. And Ray Charles. And eat more bagels. And make more chicken salad. And read more Lorca and Neruda out loud.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Phenomena is Us

Uh.....unusual, significant, a marvel. Three marvels. See them. Speak to them. Poke 'em in the ribs. Take 'em to lunch, why don't you. I am in the mood to write what I call "gut-busting" metaphors. "These Three Phenoms Will Blow Your Fruitcake!" "These three Phenoms Will Shatter Your Nervous System!" "Gut-Wrenching!" "Heart-Busting!" "Searing!" "Unequivocally Darling!" (Okay, okay, that's enough) - - I just like the picture, that's all. It was taken Sunday, when we were at Aleister's house.

I was engaged in conversation with a friend this morning. We were speaking about Jesus. Poor Jesus. We both agreed we just couldn't "get with" Him. He didn't seem real enough to us, we said. For one thing, He was too good. For another, there was no reference to a sex life. He was supposed to be part man. Well....where WAS that part? All the men WE'D ever known went around horny from age thirteen to ..... gee, does it ever really end? I mean, at least, in the mind? How can you trust a guy who doesn't suffer over the lack of a woman? How do you trust a guy who doesn't at least pay for a ticket once in a while? Is crucifiction really enough? Why? There are worse deaths. There were worse deaths then, there are worse deaths now. If crucifiction were really enough, I'd know how to spell it.


About presents. I like to work the week of Christmas because my patients bring me presents. So far, I've wracked up: a jar of real honest-to-God homemade mince-meat. Three gorgeous pieces of costume jewelry: a pin and a set of matching earrings. I'll wear the pin on New Year's Eve. And this Christmas evening at the Manressa Castle. A plate of homemade cookies. A plate of homemade fudge. And that's just so far today! There'll be more! Am I crass? Do you think I'm crass? No, no, no, no, no, I'm not crass. I'm just saying! I love it. I can't help it. I've always loved presents, ever since I was a little girl and my mother taught me how to open them without anybody seeing the evidence. We both did it. Then there was the year Grandpa got on the stepladder and piled our presents way up high on the tallest piece of furniture in their formal living room and, while trying to get at them with the broom, Mama knocked them all down the back of the tallest piece. Of furniture. And she had to confess. And I was so mad at her I wanted to spit. So we had to tell Grandpa. And it took three men - Grandpa, Daddy and Uncle John to move the tallest piece and drag out the presents. We hung our heads in shame (fake shame) until those presents were placed back under the tree ("where they BELONG"). We did it anyway. We got up at three that night and did it anyway. We opened them. Only Aunt Nettie, sitting in the big grey chair, dressed in grey silk, smoking her Canadian cigarette held in a real black onyx cigarette holder, drinking real liquor (usually forbidden) from a small champagne glass and chuckling quietly,saw. When she died, she willed all her old fur coats to Mama. Mama gave them to me. I still wear one or two.

Mama was a bad girl. Nettie was a bad girl. I am a bad girl, too. And, on the other side of being bad, Mama was a good girl. Nettie was a good girl. I am a good girl, too. That's what's right. That's what's right about this and every other picture. That's what's right about Christmas. That's what's right about The Day of the Dead. That's what's right about Mardi Gras. That's what's right about Veterans' Day and Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. Those Pilgrim's were a stupefyingly uptight bunch of geeks until you got to know their dark side, then they turned into new turkeys altogether. That's what's right about nearly every person you know. And that's what SHOULD be right about Jesus, if only we had all the information. I'm just tired of using my imagination to make Him be human. There is very little that is more miraculous than birth. Except for a man with no lust in his heart. And that ain't no good miracle, I'll tell you that right now. I know, I know, that's just me talkin'. I'm just sayin'. I'm just singin'.

I'm just singin' the Good Old Phenom Blues.

WINTER

I Took Alan to a party and introduced him around as if he were a big stuffed toy, like Jimmy Stewart did with his tall white rabbit Harvey,in the movie "HARVEY", whenever he got drunk. That is, when Jimmy Stewart got drunk, not Harvey. Harvey wasn't really real. (Or was he?) I've never had a big (well, Alan's not exactly big, he's slender, but he's certainly tall) - - toy to show off before. It's fun. And it's interactive.

You get to show the tall toy off and then the person you're showing the toy off to asks (they have to ask SOMETHING) how you met so you get to tell them and that leads to more questions and pretty soon you're just babbling away, happily filling them full of all sorts of information they probably don't really want to know but boy, do they ever know it now. It's good for diets, because, as everybody knows, if you're talking a lot, you're not eating a lot. I didn't eat until I got home. That was our one and only Christmas party and I'd say it was a resounding success.

We couldn't wait for Christmas, so we opened our presents this past weekend, paper flying everywhere. I had only Bainbridge Island to choose from so Alan's presents from me were a little........"Islandy".....and he had Olympia to choose from, so his presents to me were perfect. Perfect. Some were practical, like the beautiful knitted and lined wool gloves and slippers or the furry hat or the gorgeous multi-stone earrings with the turquoise in the center or the terrific book written by Kurt Vonnegut's son titled "Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So" or the beautiful little turquoise colored lidded pot which now sits on the table next to the turquoise blown glass bowl or the couple of ___________s I won't be mentioning here but they look like they could be fun when we have time and inclination. Well, we seem to have the inclination all the time, so I guess it's Time Itself we don't have. Would anybody out there like to donate us some of their precious time? Somebody out there with too much time, anyone?

We paid a visit to Aleister and his family on Sunday. When we walked through the door, Aleister was bent over a pamphlet-thing, filling in a page or two with check marks and words. "What are you doing, there, Aleister?" I asked. "I'm giving out vaccinations," Aleister said, "it's my Christmas present," he added. "You mean your Christmas present is going to be giving vaccinations to kids in Africa?" I asked, looking at the pamphlet? "Yup," he said, "fifty vaccinations for fifty poor kids." I pulled up a chair across from him. "Aleister," I said, "I think that is a really great Christmas present." He took a moment to lift his head and look me in the eyes. His eyebrows have turned really dark and, at the young age of ten, his voice has gotten quite deep. "Mama Kay," he said, "it is a super duper really great Christmas present," he said. Before we left I asked him what he planned on doing with the money I had given him for Christmas. "Uhhhhh," he said, "maybe give more vaccinations or some goats?" he said. "Oh, ALeister," I said, "how about taking some of the money and giving yourself something?" "Okay," he said. He looked at his Mom. "How much do one of those games I like cost?" he asked his Mom. "Fifty dollars," she said. "Then I'd like to buy one of those games and then give my Mom fifty dollars for her car engine," he said.

There's no stopping him. He's just a dang good kid, that's all. People can get wrecked at any time, of course, we all know it happens, we just don't like to think about it. Something happens and ka-boom. One night a rat crosses your path and your doomed. It's the spirit of the times. One morning you get up at an unlikely early morning hour and it's raining outside and even a priest can't save you. But these events are most unusual. But even more unusual is ALeister, hunched over his pamphlet with pictures of African children,his heart swollen in a mix of love and agony of sweetness of spirit, so deep and amiable that it is as stark in unconsciousness and consciousness as that perfect spot of purity that sways in silent balance between the light and the dark that keeps children mostly safe and adults mostly in awe throughout the greyness of the winter days.

Stop Christmas, I Want to Lie Down

I want to figure out how to make things stop happening to me. Or, better yet, I want to figure out how to stop myself from happening to "things". Days ago, in reading Jim's early Journal, I noticed he had written (in 1965) "One thing is: Kay must not be allowed to ever drive a car." I was indignant when I first read that statement, but later I understood. It's pure and simple and honest and true. Kay must never be allowed to drive a car. Because there is so much else one can do while driving a car and those people out there are doing them!! Not only do you have to keep your hands on the wheel and look back and forth and keep your eyes going forward into the rear view mirror and to the left and right and keep in mind that half of those drivers out there are on the verge of nervous breakdowns and heart failures and have just broken up with their loved ones and have just had appendicitis attacks or have been bitten by dogs or bees or their girlfriends - - but they are also yelling into their cell phones and turning up their Ipods and God knows what else, if only God had been keeping up with all this technical shit which, of course, He/She/It hasn't been because He/She/It hasn't had anything at all to do with any of this shit.

I found another pole to run into. That's three. Two on my very own drive way and one on the Olympia freeway. I backed into it because (denial? River of De-Nile?)---my car has no visibility. And neither do I. If I were a car, I wouldn't. I'd be a tricycle. I was highly successful as a tricyclist. Also, as a wagon-puller. I once had a red wagon that I pulled incessantly. But, folks, I can't even get a piece of toast to brown up to the standards of anybody who likes their toast to come out even, and, no, it's not the toaster, it's me. I'm impatient. I'm impulsive. I'm an instant replay sort of person. Not good for toast.

I was so embarrassed about The Third Pole I paid for the damage myself instead of letting my insurance pay. Why should they have to pay for my mistakes? These are things I do not understand. If the world were full of "me's" we would all be much poorer even than we are now.

So I went to the store today. Standing on the curb was a woman, nicely bundled up, holding a sign that read "NEED". I parked my car (I do happen to be a great parallel parker), went up to her and said, "What's going on?" "I need everything," she said. "I've got allergies, I need food, I came here on the train but I got off at the wrong stop, today is clothing day at Helpline House but I don't need clothes, last night was food night and I had a good steak but there won't be steak tonight, there all kinds of foods I just can't eat...." her teeth were all worn down and I'll wager she was quite a few foods I can't eat...." I pulled out a twenty and handed it to her. I gave her a hug. "Oh! You're perfume! You're perfume!" she called out, in protest. I backed off, muttered, "sorry" and kept on walking. I decided I didn't like her very much. I decided I don't have to be a wonderful, heartfelt, angelic giver, just a giver.

This past weekend, at Alan's house near Olympia, the one with the fabulous full frontal view of Mount Rainier rising above Puget Sound, we trimmed his Christmas Tree (a real one - - I put up an iron tree --not true, Robin put up my iron tree and it's beautiful- - maybe I could manage to back my car into my Christmas tree, as well) - - we each put up ornaments from our past. It occurred to me that this tree is a journal of sorts, his two marriages, my two marriages, his child, my children, my life with Jim, his times with his two wives, all the stories, the laughter, the disappointments, the parties, the Christmas dinners, the boxes and platters of cookies, fudge, fruit cake (which I happen to adore), the new robes, the old robes, the children banging their chubby little noses into the lowest ornaments, the children, shaking the boxes, me down there, shaking the boxes, Jim dragging me away from the boxes, the great Christmas music, the crap Christmas music, all those stories from Alan's life and lives and my life and lives and now here we are merging this tree with his precious ornament he made for his daughter Star, the one which is so fragile it keeps breaking year after year and he keeps patiently glueing it back together year after year - and the little perpetually damp pipe-cleaner angel which Jim and I hung near the top of every tree we ever had. Alan's tree has presents beneath it - my tree has none. His tree is the the pig that went to market, my tree is the pig that stayed home. This weekend he will bring his presents here and we'll open them up....I can't remember where or when. We'll be in Port Townsend at the Manressa Castle over Christmas - do we open them there? Or here?

I like our tree that is a Journal. Everybody who has been with each other for at least a few years - - or who is doing it "our way" - has a Journal-Tree - and is fortunate to have such a tree, so that they may tell each other stories, may hold the stories in each other's hearts, adding credence to the 'jimmied up' phrase, "Everybody's Christmas Tree is worth a novel."

The Habit of Being

So this is interesting, this falling in love occurrence. This isn't the so-called psychological "Transitional Object" thing, of which I have had about one thousand or so of, throughout my life, if you include all my pets and teddy bears and pillows shaped like Mr. Peanut as well the odd and not-so-odd men, women and children I have invested in throughout my life - - this is the Actual Love Thing, even if I am blogging about it for known and unknown eyes to see. I realize most people don't do this, but some people do, and I am one of them; I'm sure it would make most people nuts, but those are the people who stay well away from me, so they're okay and I'm okay. Sounds like a title of a book. I can tell this isn't purely infatuation because this doesn't always feel magnificent. Infatuation isn't real. That's why it feels so utterly terrific. I've been through infatuation once or twice and my imagination tells me it must feel like I've heard heroin feels - - profoundly, absolutely, fantastically, monumentally WOW. THIS feels good and swell and comfortable and sizzly and yahooey and a bunch of other words I don't intend to write down here. This feels interesting; fascinating, even. and it feels downright wonderful,often. It feels serious and significant. But it doesn't feel entirely blissful.

It just feels great.
But not all the time.
Sometimes it feels more than great.
And sometimes it feels comfortable and even normal.

We met on Match.com. I liked whatever it was he said. I liked his age. I liked his height. I liked his look. And, when I met him, I liked him. I liked his voice. I liked whatever it was he said, although for the life of me, I can't remember what it was. I can't remember what I said, either. He was late, I remember that. But he called. The second time we met I liked him even more - but I still can't remember what either one of us spoke about. He wanted a song, and I sang him a song. My eyes never left his, I remember that. Why do I blush when I write that line? Why do I continue to blush when I write this next line...nor did his eyes ever leave mine? The third time we met was at a birthday party in Seattle for him, his older cousin George.... and a nephew? I think it was a nephew,I'm not sure. I watched him with his thirty year old daughter. I watched him with his cousin, with his nieces, with each person with whom he engaged. I watched him like a hawk. I wore red cowboy boots and a skirt. And a top. He wore...a whitish shirt. And faded jeans. Blue jeans. He didn't eat much. Nor did he drink much. He spoke well and easily. Every once in awhile he touched my waist. Those little light touches men do. I liked that. Clearly, he knew how to be in a social situation with a woman at a party. that's a great skill for a man to have.

I'm not going to go on and on about this. I think I've done well saying this much. Every relationship creates its own habit of being. You laugh, you cry, you eat this, not that, rarely that, never that, you go to these markets, not those, you read these newspapers, invite these people over, hike here, not there, wake up and talk and cuddle for awhile or jump right up and get the day going, tolerate the clutter or don't, brush your teeth three times a day or two, get a pet or not, decide what's to be tolerated and what's not tolerable, decide what's appropriate and what's not, decide whether it's okay to feel badly or whether it's not okay to feel badly and on and on and on. Whether it's okay to give advice(personally, I hate it), decide whether it's okay to go to sleep while you're both watching your beloved's favorite movie. And more. And more-plus-more. By the way, while I'm on the advice thing, I just have to say that the worst piece of advice ever given has got to be "cheer up". And Ol' Man River, He Just Keeps Rollin' Along.

What I Could Tell You If I Told You

I could tell you that Aleister's voice matches his eyebrows. I could tell you that on Monday it took me three hours to get from Gorst to Bremerton's Mariott Hotel, where I checked in, ate MnMs for dinner and felt like Julia Childs personally rolled each one of those colored little pill-like things for me. I could tell you that yesterday I took 2,000 miligrams of prescription Ibuprofen in one fell swoop and felt nothing at all except pissed. I could tell you that I participated in a poetry reading created by Susan Sweetwater and, once again, heard her own terrific poetry and once more was honored to see her terrific encaustics. I could tell you that Alan met my wonderfully dear Dietz's, Susan Sweetwater, my best friend Christine and her husband Michael, my oldest daughter Kelly and my grandson Morgan, my grandson Aleister and his beloved mom Angela, my friend Robin and my dear friend Jennifer and her husband Michael. I could tell you I'm beginning a writer's class in January. Small. Free. I could tell that, less than twelve hours before a Thanksgiving to which I'd invited twenty people, including Kelly and Morgan, who were flying in from Sacramento, we hadn't had power here for three days, we made it. We did it. I mean, we didn't splice any wires together or anything, the power people put the power back together again, but we managed to cook the turkey and even the guests who still didn't have electricity managed to bring something delicious and we were all so glad to just BE together. I could tell you that I think I'm at least ten pounds fatter than I was before. I could tell you that I spent the night of the poetry reading at the Dietzs and Mel Dietz makes a FINE bed. I could tell you that Alan and I are trading weekends, he's here one weekend, I'm at his house near Olympia the next. He has a water view and a straight on view of Mount Rainier and who wants to give that up, and I;m thirty minutes away from Seattle (Bainbridgonian's call it "the City") and who wants to give THAT up?) so I'm crunching patients (no wrestling holds allowed but plenty of finely honed stacking goin' on).....and that I'm learning about bagels. There are bagels and there are bagels.

"On Island", as they say, there are apparently no bagels. There are packages that SAY they contain bagels, but they do not. Not REAL ones. Fake ones. Tough ones. Artificial ones. Too this. Too that. Not enough this. Or that. Ach, God! Nyah! Nyah! Are these bagels ever awful! I SPIT on these bagels! Spflit! Spflit! Olympia, now, Olympia has good bagels. Not as good as New York, not as good as Jersey (oh, my God, Jersey! Jersey!) but....good enough. Quite good enough, in some instances. My poor toaster, which I was given at my baby shower in 1965, was not a good enough toaster to toast ANY bagel, tasty or non-tasty. So I bought a second toaster, a toaster large enough for....well, apparently large enough for one bager. One. Singular. bagel. Which I took back (I DETEST returning things,) took myself to Macys (I HATE driving to Silverdale,) and bought a big ol' large-enough-for-TWO-WHOLE-DAMN-YOUR-HIDE-DON'T-LOOK-NOW-BESSIE-THE-CAVALRY-IS-COMING-INDUSTRIAL-SIZED-BAGEL-TOASTER-MACHINE. Now, ain't I the one?

Who has the best bagel toaster NOW, huh? Huh? HUH?

Yup. It ain't him.

Me.

Little ol' how-do-you-do-, I-wuz-born-in Silverdale-Washington, ME.

I COULD TELL YOU.

Last night we watched my favorite movie THE GODFATHER, which Alan had never seen. Which Alan had never seen. Which (did I say this before?) Alan had never seen. And there was one place where Michael Corleone, played by Robert DeNiro,(okay, sp) turned and said -- "No", only it came out sounding something like Alan's "no" - kind of like --"nya"--something like that - and we both caught it - and today Alan called and said he just sent Deniro some kind of legal-suit-form for stealing his "nya".....and I laughed.

I could tell you.

People tell me I look happier. Steadier. Realer. Calmer. My psychiatric supervisor has yanked me (okay, weaned me) off antidepressants I've been on since Jim died. I am most interested in all this. I AM happy, but I have NO idea what the hell it is people are talking about. What was I doing, walking around looking unhappy, unsteady, unreal and frenzied? Could no one have told me? I look ten pounds fatter, is what I look. Food will do that for you. Or maybe it's the bagel machine, I don't know.

Or maybe it's laughter.

I could tell you more but I'm tired and I need to go to bed.

Thanksgiving was fun. I made an apple pie with homemade pie crust. Homemade pie crust. Homemade pie crust. The kind I used to make all the time. The kind I will never make again. You hear me? Never make again. Alan's daughter, Star, is a star quality baker. I'll bet she has no trouble whatsoever making pie crust. She shoulda been here. I wouldn't have spent two hours throwing cold water on the pie dough, which lay there on my little kitchen island, looking as if it were having itself a little nervous breakdown.

Keep Hoping, and if you've lost all hope, try hopping.
Sayanara,
me

Better To Be A Baker

So yesterday I was talking to a woman in a local shop. She was describing a certain type of man to me, a kind of spooky, haunted, slightly red-neck-but-sexy guy--vague, a little ethereal, maybe smart, buried feelings,and....strange....and with strange friends....but she couldn't manage to describe the particular type of strangness....and my mind went to the film PARIS, TEXAS, and, more specifically, to the part Harry Dean Stanton played in that film, so I asked her...."Did you see the film, Paris Texas?" And she nodded Yes, and I went on, "Do you recall the man Harry Dean Stanton played?" and she half smiled and nodded her head Yes, and I asked, "Is he strange in that kind of way?" and the woman's smile became broader and she said, "I worked on two films with Harry Dean Stanton. I still have a silver bracelet he gave me. No, the man I'm talking about isn't nearly as strange as Harry Dean Stanton." So I said the usual Silverdale-Girl-From-The-Farm-Thing, which is, "YOU WORKED WITH HARRY DEAN STANTON?" and she said "Yes, that was right after I worked on BLOOD SIMPLE with the Frome Brothers," and I thought subtly sophisticated thoughts like: Wow. Golly. Gee Whiz. Holy Shit. I was afraid to ask her anything more for fear she might tell me she'd worked with Meryl Streep or Helen Mirren or somebody I really REALLY admired. Because too much admiration in one day is not good for a person.

And then I thought: hold it, kid. You KNOW you know that people are people. You KNOW you know that because you have lived among people for sixty-five years and worked intimately with people for twenty-six people. You have even worked with actors so famous that people in the waiting screamed when they saw them enter. SCREAMED. Not because they were scary, but because they were famous. Only, you knew them so well they were.....well, just people. "Just people". What a terrible thing to say. Whadda concept. And then I thought: fame must be shit. It just must be shit. Better to be a baker or a crane operator or a bank teller and not have to work with a persona, not have to jump developmental miles, not have to pretend to be more than you are, more mature than you are or more intelligent than you are or more "with it" than you are or more ANYTHING than you are......than to be famous. To live with that kind of shadow every day must be hell.

And then I thought: being anonymous is best. It's best, and you know it. It's best, you can count on it. It's best, you can put your money on it. And then I looked at the woman and said, "Hey, I'd like to see that bracelet sometime. Is it real silver?" And she smiled for the third time and said, "You know, actors are crazy people. We had to hold up the set for two whole days for Stanton. But the silver bracelet? Yeah, it's what's real." And I smiled back and said, "Well, wow."

"One more success like that and I'll sell my body to a medical institute."
-Groucho Marx in The Coconuts

The Dog in the Refrigerator

People, people, people, how I love them. Language, language, language. How I love it. How could I possibly ever want to retire? Cure, cure, cure. It happens! It occurs! Sure, I'm in the rowboat with them, but they're the ones rowing the hardest, they're the ones doing the revealing, they're the ones crying the fat tears and yelling and shouting and whispering and biting their lips and their fingernails. They're the ones saying things like:

"At least give me the dignity of rejecting myself first!"

or

"There just is not way you can be half drunk in a grocery store with a member of the opposite sex that isn't just be a capital terrific time!"

or

"He's like a goldfish in a fuckin' goldfish bowl - - in one ear and out the other!"

or

"See, because I'm not crazy, I don't use a scale."

or
"Pretending to be authentic is the new conformity."

or

"For someone to say 'It's not about you' when I'm dying here. It's like the narcissism of someone who's just been shot. You've got the whole world in your belly!"

or

"The baby boomers had the 60's and then they woke up a day later and realized there was shit on the windows and found a dead dog in the refrigerator and then they felt ashamed and they said 'never again in this gonna happen' and as a consequence they became politicians who feel they have to hide who they really are. If you were a baby boomer, in your older adult years you constantly have to take cover."

A Paper Airplane in A Bathtub

"How do you feel?" I asked my friend George yesterday, on the telephone. George lives in Bellevue and we've communicated daily ever since we met....what, a month ago? George taught himself Chinese and translated the Tao Te Ching. George knew Kerouac and Ginsberg and had coffee with Ferlinghetti and spoke with Brando and watched Auden come and go from somewhere to elsewhere. He's housebound now, on oxygen, and is the nly person I've ever met besides myself and maybe my first husband who has heard of the white blues singer Barbara Dane or the folksinger Hedy West. George and I have a grand time together in our letters which, although written on the computer, are, truly, letters. Anyway, so I asked George, I asked him "How are you feeling today, George?" and he answered, "Like a paper airplane in a bathtub."

The perfect Surrealistic reply.

I haven't been blogging because I lost my blogging password. I haven't been able to blog about Aleister, who informed me that every planet in the universe houses the very same stone faces as are on our own Easters Island, making them not our own at all. Or about how I managed to have a car wreck in my very own garage, nearly ripping off the car door, to the tune of $2,500. Okay, so I maimed my car but I saved the house behind me, owned by an elderly lady who sits with her back to the very wall I would have crashed into, had I allowed my car to keep on backing up at higher and higher speeds without me in it. That's all I have to say at this time. I had PLENTY to say when it happened. New news becomes old news and then, who cares? What use is it? Who wants it any more?

I haven't had a car for two weeks.

What have I been up to ? I sang a set of labor songs at a tavern in Everett on Eleanor Roosevelts Birthday. A grouping of musicians got together in order to form money for the Democrats AND a yearly scholarship for industrious students. I did that. I lost a friend. I gained a friend. I went walking with my new friend in the nearby Grand Forest, which is completely beautiful, amazing, magnificent. I'm looking forward to new walks, new places. This coming weekend I'm going with my friend to Oregon's Hood River, on the edge of Eastern Washington. We'll spend a couple nights in a hotel and walk and walk the paths my friend knows so well. I found my duck boots Jim bought me years ago. I found my slick yellow coat which, at a distance, makes me look like a sixth grader prepared to stop cars so the school buses can go.

I've eaten fresh bagels. I've bought a new toaster. I've eaten fresh rye bread.

I've been rereading Anais Nin's journals and Ferlinghetti, who wrote his poems mainly in the 1950's. I've been rewatching MADMEN. I've been dancing to regae: THE HARDER THEY FALL. I've been eating pistachios. Drinking a Spanish wine, a vintage called Temperanille. Exquisitely smooth. I am reading my own poems at Susan Sweetwater's art show on November 18, meaning I must write some poems on the topic of "Musing"....a lovely topic, yes? Yes. I've been playing around with color and cardboard. Soon I will begin a large project, a secret. Soon it will be my second Thanksgiving in this house. How do people do this? How do they go on?

Life loves life. Life wants to live.

So What IS IT With Doctors?

Got my cowgirl boots on today cuz I wanna KICK some ass! Had my brain scan, everything's good, no hidden tumors, like the doctor expected - - but, hey, doc, I still got this chronic pain thing goin' on....it's been four or five years so far and nothin's gettin' any better......and YOU'RE a neurologist, ain't that right?

N: "Yes, that's right."
ME: "So you happen to know a great deal about NERVES, right?"
N: "I do."
ME: "So I've told you the history of my severe pain, I've told you the history of the Big-Dog medication they've tried me on and how it doesn't work........"
N: "Yes, but those were PAIN pills, and you don't NEED pain pills. They won't work, not really."
ME: "So what WILL work?"
N: "It's very likely that an anti-inflammatory will work."
ME: "Yeah? So will you prescribe one for me?"
N: "No, your regular doctor should be prescribing those."
ME: "Why? You're a neurologist! You KNOW more than he does about these things!"
N: "Yes, but I don't PRESCRIBE anti-inflammatorys."
ME: "Look, I've been to my regular doctor several times, I've been to Dr. Green, I've been to Virginia Mason, I've been to the University of Washington......and nobody but you has mentioned anti-inflammatorys. So I'm pretty interested. So why can't you make an exception? I am sitting here right now, in great PAIN."
N: (Looking straight at me) "I know that, but I just don't prescribe that kind of medicine. Go confer with your regular doc."

So there you have it. In this country, men are more likely to be prescribed whatever they want, while women, 82% of whom are more likely than men to be given an antidepressant for pain instead of pain medication or other meds specific to their condition) - are less aggressive about getting what they want - or are dismissed as merely being hysterical.

Chronic pain is a toughie. Part of the curse ofchronic pain is that it sounds untrue to people who don't have pain. Patients grope at metaphors that seem melodramatic, both far-fetched and cliched. Author Elaine Scarry characterizes chronic pain as not only NOT a linguistic experience, but as a language-destroying-experience. Whatever pain achieves, it achieves in party through its unsharability, and it ensures this unsharability through its resistance to language," she writes."

Anyway. Brain good, pain bad. Boots pretty, but actually made for walking, not kicking. "Some days," says Anne Lamott, "the most we can hope for is to end up just a little less crazy than before. A little less lonely. A little less impatient."

When I left the neurologist's office, we were both rubbing our own foreheads, wearily, almost furtively, as if we had both been in the ring together and no winner had been announced.

Greetings from The Birthday Girl

For breakfast, I've just eaten a piece of frozen Pink Champagne Cake, the cake that you can only get at the old McGavin's Bakery bakery on Bremerton's Callow Avenue.
I love frozen cake; especially wedding cake, it's sublime. It's gotta be white with layers of white frosting. I forgive the pink frosting on the top of the McGavin's cake because it is, after all, named "PINK champagne cake". It fortifies me. It strengthens me for the day to come. I washed my hair and put it up in rollers. I am the only woman "On Island", I swear, who actually puts rollers in her hair. To top off the visual experience, I wrap a bright scarf around my head of rollers making me look as if A giant bee stung me in the head and my top blew up. The other day a friend took me to The Harbour Pub and I gladly went along, with rollers and a scarf on my head. A woman in a booth stared at me, or more specifically, she stared at my scarf so obviously and with so much interest that I smiled at her and said, "Yeah, I guess you don't see THIS much anymore, do ya?" When she asked, "See what?" I responded with, "Rollers on the top of a head", which sounded faintly like "Diamonds on the soles of her shoes." "Oh no!" the woman said, "I was thinking abut how exotic you look!" She smiled. I smiled broader than before. My friend smiled at me in a "See?" kind of smile. Everybody smiled. We sat down and ordered a bottle of wine.

That happened the other day, when I was younger. Today I am older, but even at this age I am not shy about the rollers in my hair. My hair is thick, thick, thick and needs to be overruled. It needs to be put in its place. It is a naughty schoolgirl who must be tamed. So. I tame it.

And this morning I made a pot of coffee from "Grounds for a Change", which is a catchy title, but a terrible coffee. The blend is "Agate Pass Blend", and DO NOT buy it, or else put only a few tablespoons of grounds in it, for "Grounds for a Change" has NO taste. it is vapid, ethereal, suffering coffee. I think it must have been either very cheap or very expensive, I don't remember now. These are the two extremes I go to - cheap or expensive. Sometimes I say, "Life is too short to not buy the best" and sometimes I say, "Life is too long to buy the more expensive!" It all balances itself out.

I know a man who doesn't own a dryer. He's certain that the reason all his clothes remain looking so swell (even his deceased father's clothes remain looking swell) is because he does not torture their cloth or threads in a dryer. He either hangs clothes outside or puts them up inside on racks. I am sure he is right and, indeed, I have more and more often been drying my own clothing by draping and shaping it over my furniture. So a blouse might come out looking like the back of a sofa. A pair of pants might end up looking like my kitchen stool. In this way, I am creating a new fashion style, wearing already interesting clothing in even more interesting ways, say, in the shape of various living room or kitchen furniture.

I am one yeara older today and I have a gorgeous bouquet of flowers at my side, sent by the Dietz's, our oldest "couple" friends. I do not mean "oldest" in the way of "their ages are higher than anybody else's", I mean it in the way of "we (meaning Jim and myself) have known them the longest. I am a year older and I love the Dietzs even more today than I did yesterday, I'm sure of it. My son sent me a beautiful and touching Japanese block print, meticulously glued to a piece of cardboard, with tiny precise holes pressed through the cardboard to hold precisely secured thread so that the print may be hung on the wall. He's been in jail for a few months and in the hospital for a goodly amount of time, so the fact that he would be able to find cardboard, some kind of device to cut the cardboard, thread (did he unravel it from a hospital sheet?) and the little print, is in itself a feat. A task of love. When you are a jailbird and you go to Harborview, you are watched closely by the policeman who stands watch outside the door. You can't just run blithely down the hall lopping cardboard, gluesticks, thread, scissors and art magazines into your bag. You don't have a bag. You can't run nowhere. You Stay In Your Bed and wonder how in the hell you are going to make a present for your mother. Kevin did it and I am touched. Over the years I have been the recipient of many, many such presents from various jails and penetentiaries around the country.

Last night my friend Robin gave me a bronze antique angel to hang on my bedroom wall, a Kewpie doll to stand amongst my upstairs bathroom-collection of other Kewpie dolls, a gorgoue turquoise and obsidian necklace and an antique cow. It is the antique cow I love the best.

Years ago, before my son became a bankrobber and went into the pen, he used to steal all my birthday and Christman presents from various antique stores. The things that especially caught his eye were small, antique animals, made of metal. Painted metal. I have, for years, always kept two shelves nailed into the walls of my kitchen filled with such articles. I don't believe I have ever received any gift from my son that came through more conventional means. I am neither bragging nor sniveling. This is a fact and it is somewhat an unusual fact. Robin has, though, added two antique animal-figures which have actually been paid for. With money. An entirely new trend.

And now it's time for me to go buy some champagne. For myself. Because I deserve it. I have managed to get to this new age by walking, running, falling, crawling, dancing and, sometimes, prancing. I intend to attain more age-mileage in the very same way. Happy Birthday, Kay. Let's buy some tulips, as well.

The Last Day of My Latest Age, Or............

...........Guess what, tomorrow's my birthday! I used to think I'd rather swallow crushed glass than make it to the age I will be tomorrow, but here I am, still auditioning for shows, buying fun clothes, wearing silver and pearls, still dancing to the Stones and the Eurythmics, still singing along with poor dead Mama Cass, going swoony over Leonard Cohen and Lyle Lovett, not to mention Carole King and James Taylor. Well, James Taylor. Do I have aches? In places. But some of them are GOOD aches. In places. Do I still have a memory? Please!I'm not THAT old!

So what have I learned in this past year? Well........I've learned I can still cook. The other night I made a fantastic curry soup filled with fresh sauteed shrimp. This morning I boiled an egg. I've read tons of books, including Jonathan Franzen's new book, "Freedom", which I can hardly put down. I've learned I can rebuild a private practice without the aid of telephone books or ads. I've learned that, even on "island", I can still run a viable business without a copy machine or fax machine or cell phone. Well, I DO have a cell phone, I just don't use it. It's too little. I've learned that Valentines do still exist, especially homemade ones. I've learned I'm still flexible. I've learned quite a lot about what Stephen Hawkings calls "Model-dependent realism", built from our own amazing brains. I've learned that objective reality may not actually exist. I've learned that a homely fourteen year old girl from Chicago began a blog about style and now hobnobs with the great fashionistas of the world. I've learned that romance still exists. I've learned that I am still not a great candidate for hypnosis and that the Episcopalian church may still be too Episcopalian for me. I've relearned that, next to Ibuprofen and a little bit of Alprazalam, laughter is still the best medicine.

My mother died at 47. My grandmother died at 63. I've outlived both of them. I've learned that movie characters keep gtting younger, as with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", which I just watched again after twenty-some years. When first I saw this film, I thought it was about a couple of fat old people who were funny. The other night I watch two leanish youngish people who were tragic. Two months ago, I reread Margaret Drabbles fine book, "Realms of Gold" and realized that now the book's characters are way way younger than me. They used to be much older.

I've learned that when someone says, "Now, this isn't about YOU..." it IS about you. I've learned that I can absorb people being mad at me without getting all defensive or scared. As long as they don't try to kill me, it's not that bad. And even if they DID try to kill me, and even they SUCEEDED, well, I've had a damn good year and we DO have to go, either gentle or not, into that good night, sometime.

The Drum-beat In My Brain

I've had what is known as an "essential head tremor" for decades. It's inherited. Kathryn Hepburn, she's got the same one I do, or rather, I have the same one she does, except she had her's first. Remember? She tremored all the way through ON GOLDEN POND. "Someday," my first neurologist warned me, "your voice could go, just like Kathryn Hepburn's."

This tremor nearly caused me NOT to become a psychotherapist, meaning this: I was embarrassed. What if my clients thought I was marred or deficient in some sadly awful way? Or worse - - what if they thought I was AFRAID of them? And how about this - - what if they thought I was constantly nodding "No, no, no, no!"??

But, as a friend told me tonight, "The tremor is simply a tiny part of your entire gestalt, and I look at the whole picture. When I first met you, I didn't think positively or negatively about the tremor. It is, quite simply, a very small part of you."

Indeed, very few of my patients have ever mentioned the whole-lotta-shakin-goin'-on at the top of my neck. Doctors don't mention it because it obviously is not a Parkinsonian in nature; mine goes side to side, Parkinsonian tremors go up and down. Once in a while a nurse patient will mention it, but other than that, my patients' just don't seem to give a fig. And if they don't, I don't.

Recently, though, I've wanted to re-enter the world of theatre, and nobody wants to see a woman up there on stage looking like a Bobbing Head Football star. I take medication, of course, but the medication does not work. Really, it's never worked. But it's the kind of medication one simply can not go off cold turkey and I am not a woman of patience.....I don't have the patience to get weaned. My mother breast fed me. Once was enough.

My first neurologist was brilliant. He was also arrested and imprisoned for sexually harrassing legions of his female patients. He never harrassed me, though. When it came to me, he'd say things like, "God! I love it when I see your name in my schedule book! You are like a pool of water in the desert!" Or better yet - - "You! you are like a tree! You are like a fine, beautiful, proud tree, standing alone amongst small, little, dank plants."

Well, yes. I could certainly see his point. And I was sad to have to learn how many innocent women (although one would be enough) he hurt. Goodbye, brilliant neurologist.

Hello, Idiot.

My second neurologist was an idiot, or so it seemed (and still seems ) to me. No social skills. And, worst of all....shall I say it? No metaphors! One day I brought a book by Dr. Oliver Sacks into his office (I happen to adore Oliver Sacks) and this neurologist looked at me and said, brightly, "I see you are reading Oliver Sacks."

To which I replied, "Yes. I have read all his books."

To which HE said, "And what do you think?"

To which I remarked, "I think he is brilliant. In fact, I would love to BE Oliver Sacks."

The second neurologist looked at me for a moment and then murmered, "But he is a MAN."

To which I whispered, "Yes. I know."


I met my third neurologist two weeks ago. She ran me through an hour's worth of tests and, at the end of the hour, announced, "I believe what we have here is MORE than an essential tremor. Your entire left side seems to be.....compromised. I am scheduling you for an MRI in order to take pictures of your brain. I especially want pictures taken of the thick, meaty part at the base of your skull."

The thick meaty part. At the base of my skull. She said it as if she were describing a meal. All that was needed was some juice or gravy in there and we would have had ourselves a feast.

So today I went in for the brain scan. Now, one of the little-known facts about me, by no means not the MOST eccentric fact about me, but unusual enough, I suppose.....is that I LOVE MRI's. I love the noise, which is incredibly loud and invasive. I love the encapulation. I love not being able to move. I love to create formulas by which to inspire myself with the unexpected rhythms involved in the various thumpings and bumpgins and screechings and screamings and wheezings that an hour-or-so long MRI can produce. I make up rhythms inside the silent, blank spaces. I create mathematical formulas. I try to find music to match up with the rhythms; inside my head I create choreography that one or two persons might dance to, inside the array of noises.

For today's MRI, the new neurologist prescribed a intravenious sedative so that my head would not tremor inside the magnet.One is not, after all, allowed to move. The nurse found a vein into which she stuck a port or a tube or some such thing, all the while exclaiming, "What wonderful veins you have!" I was Little Red Riding Hood. She was the wolf.

I was scanned by two other persons to make certain that I wore no metal: no earrings, no watch, no necklaces, no rings. "What about your bra?" the short blond nurse inquired, "any metal in that?" To which I responded, "I came here bra-less." In a tone full of pride and substance, as if I were saying, "I have come to conquer Rome."

They assisted me in laying down on the long white bed with the nesty-place for my head. Fat padded earplugs closed in around my ears (a new thing, since my last MRI). They gave me my instructions. I felt oddly joyous, like a kid at an out-of-town carnival.

At "half-time", the technician said, "We are getting lots of wonderful pictures."

"Go for it!" I responded. Lots of wonderful pictures was merely a bonus to the beat, beat, beat of the jungle.

And then, all to soon, it was over. The bed of the machine moved itself out and away from the magnet. I was once again in a normal room with normal noises and too few challenges. I was a grown-up woman in a Radiology Clinic who was slightly goofy from the sedation and whose mind was landing on every song about "dogs" she'd ever known. "I had a dog and he had me and Bingo was his name-o." "Had a dog, and his name was Blue and I betcha five dollars, he's a goodun' too. Here, Blue, you good dog, you." And, "How MUCH is that doggie in the window? The one with the waggeldy tail? How MUCH is that doggie in the window? I DO hope that doggie's for sale."

Don't ask, don't tell.

I sang my Dog-Songs to the friend who drove me home. "Mmmmm-hmmmmm," he kept saying, the way you'd say to an idiot who was singing you songs about pencils or beans, "mmmmmmmm-hmmmmmmm."

ALEX IS THE NEW ALESITER

Brown in the new black. Tequila is the new gin. Alex is the new Aleister. Except when it pertains to me, for I have been blessed to still beable to say A L E I S T E R and not receive a dark frown.Aleister is, of course, my ten year old grandson. This new guy, inches taller than the other guy, with these new thick black eyebrows and the lowered voice of which he does not yet seem to be aware - - whom I took, along with his mother Angela, to an on-the-water restaurant on BB Island today.

"Ask me 'The Meanings Of'", says Aleister to me, "but make them new."
"Okay," I say, "ummmmm.. okay, What is Life?"
"Everything that lives," says Aleister.
"And what is death?" I ask.
Aleister's eyes go down before they come up again. "The meaning of death is stuff that is not really useful anymore. Except for Grandpa Jim. Because I am actually talking about real stuff like....make-up. Almost."

Now, Aleister takes off:"It takes me infinity-death-caves sometimes to get - - by the way, what is the square root of infinity - - and, speaking of infinity, there IS a half life that can occur really often, you know."
I sit there. I nod. I hope he understands that I understand even if I don't truly understand. In this way, I feel like a kid myself.

"Are you excited about the beginning of school?" I ask. "Yes and no," he says,"school is good so you can learn and get educated so you can get smarter jobs - for instances, if you do not have an education you will only get a crap job or maybe just a finger-cracking job. But if you get educated you could be a guy who makes animated movies, which would be GREAT."

"What are the three most important things in your life, Aleister?" I ask.
Aleister: "Me, my family, and my friends."

And what are the three LEAST important things?" I ask.
"Um.....The devil, Hitler, and Napolean Bonapart."

"Why Napolean Bonapart?" I ask.
"Too short," he says. Aleister is not yet completely correct or in any way politically correct.

"I want to tell you about my dreams," he says. "In my dreams I meet people from the way way way far away past and also people from the future. And in the daytime I see people who feel familiar to me although I do not know them. I realize I either HAVE known them or WILL know them. But that is another story."

"Tell me the other story," I beg.

"Not yet, Mama Kay," Aleister says.

As we hug and leave, he gives me a quick kiss and says, "You want to know why I keep you around?"
"I sure do," I say. "I keep you around because you are fun and you believe in God and you make me feel warm and fuzzy. And I like girls."

"You DO?" I reply. "What is it you like about girls?" (He has never been responsive to speaking about girls.)

"I like girls because they are cute. Really, that's what it really is. They are cute, cute, cute, cute, cute."

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. This is primal. This is brain stem. This is, coming from Aleister, the boy who would not even go NEAR the (as he called it) "pink part" of stores - meaning: girl's toys, girl's clothes, girl's anything.....amazing.

With Aleister I always feel the happiest I've felt in a long time. Even if my weekend has been ecstatic, if I am sharing a Monday with Aleister, I feel even MORE ecstatic.

In the olden days, there used to be a universal preference for sons. Women were locked in as "Second-class-citizens'. Not so, anymore. Now, couples are requesting more girls than boys. Every social scientist knows why and every one of them have different opinions ABOUT their "why". All I know is this: I'll take Aleister over any girl, any cheesecake, any ice cream, any giraffe or tiger or lion or otter or seal or whale or bear or writer or dancer or ice cream guy or pizza man or woman.....over any living thing, than......................anything or any creature or any ONE.. Let the traditional order collapse! Let is crumble! Just. Don't. Take. My. Aleister. Away.

Strange Happiness

The plan today was to go pick up Aleister and take him swimming at the Bainbridge pool. His mama met me at the Silverdale Mall and off we went, Aleister in his long brown sweater, flip flops and swim suit, and me in my black pants and sweater (I don't dare yet enter the pool for fear something "poolish" might infect my still-healing scars).....when, suddenly, Aleister started a high-keening like crying. When he finally could talk, he talked. "I miss Papa Jim," he said, between sobs. "I know, I miss him too," I said. His high-cry turned into a full wail. He wailed. I have never heard Aleister wail since he was a little boy and even then, it wasn't like this. For one thing, although he doesn't know it yet, his voice has changed and his wailing is lower. For another thing, it breaks my heart.

I thought. I thought quickly. "Aleister," I said (I think I am the only person left in the whole wide world who still calls him 'Aleister') --we can either go swimming - or we can make our own funeral for Papa Jim. Which would you like?" It only took a second before he announced, "A funeral. A funeral for Papa Jim. So what will we do?"

"Well," I said, thinking quickly again, "we get some of his ashes and put them in two bottles, one for you and one for me." Aleister nodded. "Then," I went on, "we get some flowers and we think up things we would like to say to Papa Jim privately, so that nobody else can hear, and we bring along a picture of Papa Jim so that we can see him and get the feeling of him..." whereupon Aleister interrupted me, put his hand on my leg and said, "I do not need to get the feeling of Papa Jim, I have that already. I do not think it will ever leave me. Is that all?"

"Uh....no! Then I find a bottle, a strong thick bottle with a good strong cap - and we write notes to Papa Jim and put them in the bottle and we throw the bottle into the water, as well."

"I know exactly what I want to write," said Aleister. I gave him five skinny pieces of paper. On each piece of paper he wrote the exact same words: "I miss you." "I miss you." "I miss you." He did not sign his name, I think he figured Papa Jim would know whose writing it was.

With all that in tow, we drove down to the water and walked around until we found the perfect spot. "This is an important thing we are doing, Mama Kay," said Aleister. "Yes it is," I agreed. "We could have gone swimming but we are doing something for Papa Jim instead," he said. "Because he was the best man I ever knew."
"Me too, Allie," I said, "me too."

We whispered our silent words. We tossed in the ashes. Each ash-plunk made a circular design in the water. We looked at Jim's picture and Aleister cried some more. Then we wiped his tears and said, "the flowers." He threw in the red rose. I threw in the daises. He threw in the orange whatevers. I threw in the white and blue whtaevers. They had petals. They were flowers.

"I need to sit down, Mama Kay," Aleister whispered to me. We found a place. I sat next to him and was thunderstruck when he threw both arms around me, held me close and moved me even closer to him. Ten year old boys don't throw their arms around their Grandmas; they don't like to. The only time they do is when their Mamas tell them to. But Aleister did. He nestled me right into his arms as he said, "This is a very touching moment for me."

The sun came out. It had been dark and dreary and then the sun came out. "I think this is what Heaven is like," Aleister says. "When you do what you need to do and then the sun comes out."

We went, then, for ice cream. At Mora's. Both one scoop ice cream cones cost eight dollars. "Eight dollars!" Aleister exclaimed. "That's pretty pricey!" I felt a bit embarrassed but I said nothing. "Well," the young lady behind the counter said, "it's all natural."

"Hey," Aleister said. "I am all natural too, but I don't cost eight dollars."

The ice cream. It was good. It was natural. Although really it didn't taste any better than Breyers. I'm a hick. What do I know? We left the ice cream place and walked out into the sun.

"That was a perfect funeral," Aleister said. "They ought to have funerals for kids. And the sun should always come out after. Do you reallly think Papa Jim did that?"

"You never know," I said, "you never know."

"Mostly my life is a bunch of 'never knows', Aleister said. "School is for knowing, Life is for not knowing."

I agreed.

I drove Aleister back to his mama. She said that he often just starts crying for Papa Jim. "He won't even let me dust off Jim's photographs," she said. "He figures that that particular dust landed there for some particular reason and it is not my province to dust it off."

But ALeister was already onto a different subject. "Someday," he said, " in China, they will find the bottle with the notes and they will wonder what they say. And Papa Jim will be right there making the sun come out. And maybe we, here, where we are, will feel a little bit of strange happiness because on this day, Mama Kay, we did everything right."

Holy Tony's Restaurant and Bar

I decided to leave my last blog "as is" simply because it so cleverly reveals the mind on pain meds. All I can say is, you had to Be There. St. Anthony's, or "Holy Tony's" as the folks at Harrison call it, is one terrific place. I felt as if I had died and gone to Heaven and, for all I know, I nearly did. After six and a half hours of surgery, however (how can there be ROOM on me for that much time? My lover wants to know).... I was down for the count for a couple days and made lots of friendly relationships with lots of nurses, all (except for one who shall remain headless) I learned to love. By 11:45 p.m. on the night of my surgery, one of the younger nurses got so carried away in our love-fest that she asked me and my friend, "Would you like me to see if I can get a bottle of wine up here?" My friend's face and my face lit right up. "You bet!" we said at once. "We do this, sometimes," the other nurse smilingly informed us. "Our cafeteria is well stocked with pretty much anything." "Yes", said the first nurse, "we'll just have to call your doctor."

Now, I knew...I KNEW....that calling my doctor for a bottle of wine at midnight on a day when he'd already done four long surgeries was not a well-reasoned-out idea. But, as Eleanor Roosevelt said about something else, we decided to live life to its fullest and call Doctor anyway. He was not amused. Two days later, when I was standing in his office, he STILL was not amused. It's nutty what exhaustion will do to a person's sense of humor.

And the morphine. Could there be anything better than morphine? I had been put on morphine years before for a chronic pain situation I walk around this world with, but never realized what a highly terrific drug it was because I couldn't "handle it", as they say, during my hours with my patients, and therefore my interest in it simply dropped. Not this time, though, boy. Swear to God, that stuff kept me alive. And I got to have it whenever I wanted it! Sweet. I was hugging everybody in sight.

The first time they got me up to walk after my surgery was one of the funniest/nonfunniest events I've ever taken part in. One nurse pushing the IV, two nurses holding me AND the walker-thing up, my socks on wrong so that the tracks which were supposed to be on the bottom of my feet (so I wouldn't slide) got put on upside-down, which caused me to slip and slide from this side of the hall to the other side, sort of like an Olympic skater on....well,....morphine.....was funny. I'm sorry, but there is just something extremely comical about a weary, bruised, cussing, crying person who is worried about flashing somebody from behind - - trying so hard NOT to slide hither and yon, trying so hard NOT to lurch and jerk down a hospital corridor. I asked the staff if they ever made videos but all I got was a somber, "No, we don't."

No. We don't.

The surgeon did fine. The nurses did fine. The man who came to see if I had any complaints or tips about the menu or the hospital's nutrition plan did fine. I told them him the ycould put real suger back into the food if they wanted to, but apparently nobody wanted to. The woman who brought around free TACOMA TRIBUNES in the morning did fine. Even the Pastor did fine. He stayed away. The television had a nice big screen and I always love the ham and cheese sandwiches in the middle of the night, eating them at such an hour feels so thrillingly illicit.

So I've been home for nearly two weeks and this week I've gone back to work. So far, so good, I haven't taken any pain pills during the day so I'm lucid as the morning robin. I try to walk in a modified bent-over position like they showed me. I hate it. All of life's mundane daily chores have become huge enterprises. I need somebody to help me take out my garbage. I also need somebody to come alone and help me MAKE garbage.

Am I glad I did it? Not yet. But, since homo sapiens is pulled by but also fearful of risk-taking, I'm not in a bad psychological place at all. I am right in the center of the nature of Life.

A Short Small Tether to Reality

I was scared. Like a middle-aged dog skittling across the floor in any direction but the ready-or-not bathtub, I was dipping and diving away from the entrance at St. Anthony's. "Oh no, you don't," as my friend tried to maneuver me closer to "our" destination, "I'm not goin' in there to get carved up like a chicken, hmmmm, MMMMM." But even my skuttlin' came to a halt and, finally, in baby-steps, I made my way up to the entrance and the entrance, it opened automatically, it being ne of THOSE doors that are even friendlier than You.

I signed God-Knows-What more papers, waited a minute or two and was asked to "come this way, Mrs. Morgan," by a pretty dark khaired young girl. Anymore there are only young girls. The entrance RN looked like she was in Senior High. The anesthesiologist looked like he had just performed particularly well on his cellor at the local Junior High graduation. And there was Dr. Meeks, looking....well, grim. Thus far, this situation had cost Olympic Medical Personnel a bit more than $5,000.00 and that may not make for the best doctor/patient relationship. He thanked me for the card I sent, which told how him how grateful I was that he had "made this call".....even though 1) I wasn't actually all that gratful at all and 2) this surgeon hadn't been a part of that call. He had been educated and silenced and rolled over by the anesthesiologist who was NOT here today. So Dr. Meeks was on his best behavior around me and I was......well, let's say I felt as if I had "some capital" in this sutation. "Member ol' Georgie-Boy Bush and his "capital"?
Yeah.
I had some of that, myself.
And I liked it.
So, once again, I got out of my clothes, which were covered with a big slowly pulsating sheet, one of my fingers socketed into a monitor which keeps tabs of your oxygen levels from moment to moment, and now a catheter exquistely pushed up inside my by-now horrified uretha, yes, the very one that called 911 at least twenty times that very Thursday morning, with a little screamy voice, rasping out, "Get me out of here! Get me out of here! I do NOT want to proceed with this procedure any longer any further!" Alas, the little screamy voice was not loud enough to be heard.

The fourteen year old kid who was the anesthesiologist was named Dr. Week. So now we had Dr. Meeks and Dr. Week. I asked where Dr. Wong was, but nobody was ready to get or give a joke at 5-something in the morning. Perhaps the entire staff there at St. Holy Tony's, which is what the other hospitals in King and Kistap call them, were so used to jokes about Dr. Wong's name that they just learned to blink three times and keep on going, I don't know. Anyway, every staff member blinked three times and, after answering some more pretty funny questions, I was brought up to the OR and my friend was politely shown the way away.

Two minutes later, they told me I had undergone six and a half hours of surgery and I could wake up now and chew some ice chips. Were they kidding? Was this the best they could do in terms of practical jokes? You know how they do it. "Come on," I said, "don't kid me. Have you done the damn surgery or not? What's real? Am I alive?"

"Sure you're alive," I heard somebody's nearly recognizable voice. "Who are you?"
"Al," I said, "that IS the question." "Don't give them any more than they ask, I though. They're Catholic. They could be spies. "Kay? Kay! DR. MORGAN!" one male voice rang out. "es?" I answered meekly, "that would be me, but....."
No 'but's" about it," I recognized Dr. Meek's voice. "We are done,Kay (they like to say your name during these most stressful times} "it's one thirty, everything went well. As soon as we are able to take your vitals one more time, we'll wheel you down to your room."

"You intend to deal with my mother's womb?" I asked, incredulously. "Well, good luck. I don't think you'll get far."

But they did. Their idea of reality and my idea of reality was entirely different. Finally they rolled me down to my room with the view of the next building and a great TV screen and legs pads that went in and out, pumping warm oxygen around my lower leg muscles so that they would be assured I would not have a blood clot on THEIR watch, and I went to sleep again. A half hour later and I was calling people right and left, saying, "Hey! I love you! Wanna come on up and see my ______s? Wanna come on up and take a load of my ______s? But of course it was the end of a Thursday, a nice quiet Thursday with pastel butterflies on the sheets and a couple of monitors into which I was hooked. I thought to myself: I could travel down this path of life and never turn back. This is as good as it gets.

I made fast friends with every nurse who was assigned to me. One nurse even suggeted (NOT my suggestion THIS time, folks) that we order a bottle of wine, which was often done, she said, but first we would have to get Mr. Meek's permission. Now, about this part of the equation, I knew it was a wrong call. I KNEW that man did not have the sense of humor to be even remoted amused by such a suggestion, much less, MUCH LESS - - than THIS suggestion. Oh, Jesus, oh Jesus, and they were seriously making a CASE for it. Damn. What kind of hurly-gurly pole dancers WERE my new care-takers?

"It's okay,"" I kep saying to my disappointed staff, "Maybe tomorrow. Maybe he wants some, himself."

"But I WOKE HIM UP!" cried the little blond haired nurse, "and he didn't sound none too happy about it!"

So I woke up each morning in spite of my morthpine drip and my muscle relaxcent pills and my crazy hair which looked to be desperately trying to climb its way off my poot head and onto any other poor soul being wheeled down the corridor.

They brought me roast beef (too salty), with roasted fresh vegetable,s (yum, jum) - but I just did not feel like eating. About one o'clock a.m. I asked for and received within three minutes, a fresh ham and cheese sandwhich and a diet Sprite. It was the best ham and cheese I've ever had and believe you me, I've had many.

I was beginning to think of this place as a kind of nifty motel. I had not as yet felt any surgery-type pain and I remember thinking how thoughtful that was of "them" - - to be me in an existential position of NO-Pain. WHAT A GOOD DEAL! When I was finished with my delicious sandwich, I paid attention to my thoughts, which went something like :God [or Someone else] must have my address. Because I had not felt one iota of pain. Because I was still there and my parents and one of my grandparents had been dead and gone at this (my) point in (their/my) life and wadn't that good! Because It is good to meet nurses and hear about their lives {their fainting goats, their wonderful little phrases they brought from whatever town or culture they sprang from, how many dimples in their faces, what their husbands say, what their husbands don't say)...

"Oh, honey....." I remember that. I remember I just kept saying, "oh, honey......."

So when I got done with my "....and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever, amen," I was plenty calm. Because that is a long song, enough to live a semblance of a life inside of, and here I was, this old and saying it right and left, thirty seconds here and thirty seconds there. Shouldn't I be saing souls instead of lying in this lumpy bed and listening to my "head-voice" lumber out the words to this most beautiful song? "Ah, go get 'em, kid," I heard one of my patient's voices coming through to me, "Go get 'em. Enjoy it. Let those voices PUUURRRRR."

I let them voices purr.

The next day was Friday. My friend had brought me a rose and an.......I'm not sure. Maybe a home-grown orchid? I received a couple of cards. I did NOT choose to be given the Last rites" earlier yesterday by the chaplain. I decided to take my mother's and father's words to heart on that one: 'If they come to give you your last rites, DON'T SAY YES! They are not necessarily ON YOUR SIDE! You never know! Tell 'em you got your own set of brand new last rites and you gonna apply them to yo Own Self! And then, if you can,.....RUN!"" So I did.

My father actually did run. From the American army medic quarters in New Guinea to the middle of the jungle where we slumped down to die beside a tree. THAT was what my father felt about the last rites, it went like, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" I have never questioned his decision in this matter, although I'm sure it would have been intersting and, Who knows, it might have saved him his life. KEEP YOUR EARS OPEN AND YOUR MIND ON RED ALERT, said my Mama. I can hear her now. There she is, over there, in the big stuffed white leather chair. She's doin' that thing with her eyes and she's movin' her head right to left, right to left, waving me along. Come here. Go away. Come on over here. Go on, get out of here. She was a high maintenance woman and they say I am too, although I never once woulda thunk itto myself..

Nope, not even onct.

Pre-Op Bee-Bop

I asked a friend to program my GSA (is that right? That thing with the lady's patient voice??) - - so I could find St. Anthony's Hospital in Gig Harbor. Another friend Googled a map that was focused in on the hospital. I forgot the map at home and didn't realize I had to turn the GSA ON. So. Blind, blind as always, I took off towards Gig Harbor. I grew up around here. I know Gig Harbor. I have a cousin who lives close by, on Fox Island.

I found the hospital Approximately, as they say, five minutes before my appointment time. It's a lovely hospital, all new and sparkly and clean feeling. Like not too many people have died there yet. Like sticks and stones can't break its bones. I get my blood pressure checked (again)....it's ten points higher on my right side than on my left. So why am I not a "right-winger"? And, yes, my heart. "Sounds like you have a heart murmur," said the lab tech. "We've been together since birth," I said, making myself comfortable in the loungish padded chair. She smiled. "Together since birth," she mumbled, "that's rich".

The lady with all the papers to be signed ("MORE?" I groaned, "More," she said, but with a nice smile on her face - - knew how to read lab results. She looked at my blood pressure from "that time". "Oh my God," she said, "you really crashed." "I really did," I agreed. She padded my hand. "It's good that you're here," she said, "you'll have a private room." "Oh, baby," I said, "that's what I like to hear."

A private room. Perhaps with a view. Watch out, E.M. Forster, watch out, Virginia Woolf.

I passed everything. She called Bainbridge Safeway to find out the exact milograms each of my three medications contained. Precise, very. She called the clinic and asked more questions. I sat there, quietly. 'Ask more, ask more,' I demanded of her from my deepest Self. She was a large young woman who seemed fearless. She was my warrior. She stood up for me. Why HADN'T the anesthesiologist been shown the results of my last surgery? Couldn't they SEE something was WRONG?

Oh, baby, baby, I think ah'm fallin' in love again.

"You'll be getting a refund tomorrow," she said to me. "They promised me." She smiled. "Spend it frivolously. You could have died."

Oh, that outpatient Clinic is in the merde, I thought to myself. They really DID screw up.

There's really not very much to say. When things go well, writing something interesting is a cozy armchair in France and there just is not much to write about a cozy armchair in France, unless you are contorting yourself while making wild, passionate love - - or dying - - and I was doing neither. I was just sitting there, happy to be anywhere and especially to be happy to be amongst a hospital staff who wasn't treating me like one of those fainting goats.

Poor fainting goats.

So I drove home, home to more phone calls and e-mails, home to more episodes of "NIP AND TUCK" which I am now thoroughly hooked on even though it isn't near as good as The Soopranos or Carnival or any of those other HBO greats.

Safe (hopefully). A private room. Body and mind. Mind is that which thinks but cannot move. Matter is that which moves but cannot think. The mind and body interacting through some gland or other, maybe the pineal gland. Yeah, the pineal. That's how to get things accomplished.

The Surgery Day That Ran Away

The day before my surgery day I drank four bottles of Perrier water. I went out to a fabulous restaurant and, while my friend ate steak, I ate a blueberry slump that wasn't very slumpy, because I was supposed to get down something sweet. I didn't eat or drink anything after midnight. I got up at 4:20 a.m. I was my own captive audience for attending to my fantasies of fear. We drove to the outpatient clinic. They put me in the newest style of open-backed wear, took my blood pressure, weighed me, propped me up on a loungy chair and covered me with a white mattress-looking thing that had had warm air pumped into it. The surgeon came in with a packet of black marking pens and began to draw pictures on me. Just as the drawings were getting interesting, a nurse popped her head in and said, "Dr., the anesthesiologist would like to speak with you in the consultation room."

Poof, went the surgeon.

Woosh, woosh, went the warm air machine.

Shit, I thought. They're not going to do the surgery.

The anesthesiologist came in next. He said he wouldn't allow the surgery to go forward because I had experienced a traumatic event with my blood pressure the last time I had anesthesia, meaning this: they lost my blood pressure. Of course, I had warned the new surgeon about this event. Of course I had taken the event quite seriously at the time and had requested the records from that day but the then-surgeon had nicely slurred over the zero blood pressure trauma in writing, even though eight doctors swarmed into the room during that most stressful time and I awoke to the voice of a nurse saying, "Well, we haven't lost her, her heart is still beating. She's got a strong heart. She's a lucky woman."

Then the surgeon came in and both doctors began speaking at once, going over and over their reasons for not proceeding with the surgery. I finally looked at both of them and said, "I understand. You do not intend to do the surgery today or perhaps any day. I would now like you two to leave me alone. I want to get dressed."

They started in on the explanations again. Again I said, "I hear you clearly. But I do not want to look at either of you right now. I am not mad, just disappointed and I want to be disappointed in private. I want to get dressed. NOW."

I got dressed. The anesthesiologist came in again and sat down again. He said, "I can not find out what happened to you on that day from either the surgeon's notes or the anesthesiologist's notes but I won't take chances. You need to be in a hospital setting, with [something] going into an artery so that I can monitor your every second. We will make an appointment with you at St. Anthony's."

Whereupon I burst into tears. I did not know a hospital named St. Anthony's. I thought it was probably in Seattle. I didn't want to be in a hospital in Seattle.

"It's in Gig Harbor," he said. "You'll be spending the night. I began to perk up, although I still was disappointed. I haven't spent the night in a hospital since I had Kevin in the nineteen-sixties and, perverse creature that I am, I happen to be one who likes hospital food.

The nurse brought me out to my friend and my best friend, Christine, who had already been informed of my plight. They both looked at me sadly. I was crying. The doctors had begun their explanations again. They said them over and over again, same paragraphs after same paragraphs. Finally I said, "Look. I understand fully what you are saying. And I agree. I am crying because I am disappointed, which is a normal response. But I really think you are going over and over this material to make YOU feel better, not me."

Really, it was clear that neither of them knew quite what to say. This is where they should hire a good people-person like me to help them.

"This has never happened to me before," said my young surgeon. His face was flushed and he looked like he might cry. I reached out and tried to take his hand. The anesthesiologist nodded nicely and took off. My friends stood up and hugged me, assuring me that they knew I realized what was happening and that they also understood my degree of disappointment.

"I just wonder why, if you knew what had happened with Kay and the anesthesia before," Christine said, "you had not sent over her chart to the anesthesiologist BEFORE today so that he might review it THEN."

Entranced by her logic and her tone, I sat back, hoping she'd go on. "The anesthesiologist never sees the chart until the day of the surgery," said the surgeon.

"Don't worry, love, crying is normal," one of the nurse's said.


"Of COURSE it's normal," I said. "That's why I'm doing it. I'm a smart, normal person who thinks the doctors' call was a good call, but I am disappointed and therefore I am crying. It's absoLUTly normal to cry. And I intend to keep on crying until my tears make their way to a normal conclusion."

Christine smiled at me.

After being home a few hours, St. Anthony's Hospital called, with a surgery date for me. I go in next Thursday, July 1. Tomorrow I go in for the pre-op, although the clinic faxed the hospital every bit of information (EKG, blood panel, hair samples, DNA, just kidding, ha, ha) - - they had on me.

I asked my friend to take me somewhere for a glass of wine. I didn't care if he took me to my own living room or the local pub or a jail cell. Just so I could have a glass of wine.

I hate the way the medical profession (or any profession , for that matter, handles a normal physical function like crying. Crying? Don't worry, it's normal. You're already crying? Don't worry, it's normal, already. Still crying? Uh...you can stop now with your damn tears. They don't say that last part, but it's implied. A little crying is ok, a lot implies weakness, over-reaction, a tendency to be a victim, a martyr, a nutjob.

I'm no nutjob.

Today I tossed off a note to the surgeon, thanking him and the anesthesiologist (who attends to heart patients at Harrison) - for making what I felt was a rational and proper decision. I had tried several times to point out the day my blood pressure zeroed out, but nobody ever seemed to be impressed and the then-surgeon seemed downright flip.

Christine called, telling me to go by the book OXYGEN, but not to read it until AFTER my surgery. At the bookstore I found out that the author of OXYGEN is the head of anesthesia at a Seattle hospital AND a Bainbridge Islander.

"I don't intend to read it until AFTER my surgery,' I told the women behind the counter.
"Oh, I would read it BEFORE your surgery," said one of the women. "It just makes you want to Go Get Anesthesia!"

"Yes, but a child dies in it because of the anesthesia," said the other woman.

"Well, that's true," said the first woman.

"Uh-huh, I think I'll wait till AFTER," I said. The book is on my coffee table. I have an almost compulsive desire to read it today.

But I won't.

Last night I dreamed that The King of Surgery sat in his throne and spoke to me over a loudspeaker.

"Will you please take a number," he said. "Safeway's candles are on row 17."