Since When

My Baby

2011-05-08T20:04:00.000-07:00

This is Chip again. And this time I'm really stumped. What would Frannie say?

Frannie's gone. I told you that she was in the hospital, and that her breathing had gotten worse. What I didn't know at the time was that something had gotten catastrophically worse. And just five days later we were out of answers, out of options and out of time. Fran died yesterday evening.

I think Fran would probably tell you that she's ok with this. She really didn't want to be sick anymore. She didn't want to be poked and prodded. She asked me to be sure that the doctors listened to her and treated her with respect. For those of you who have followed this blog from the beginning, you know how much Fran wanted to be heard...needed to be heard.

She would also probably tell you that the life that was thrust upon her by Hodgkin's Disease, and ARDS and Pulmonary Fibrosis just didn't work for her. Never worked for her.

So Fran Lipman, our girl from Fresh Meadows Queens; product of the Port Washington Union Free School District, Penn, and NYC; the adoring step-mother of my son, Lydon; my friend, my great love, my rock, my life is gone. I'd like to believe she's somewhere she can breathe easily, but I'm not sure I'm left with enough faith to believe there is a better place. I know for certain that she is not sad anymore, she is not gasping for breath, and she's not scared.

Thank you all for reading Fran's blog. She loved writing for you. And was so excited to sit at the computer and tell you about her anger, her struggles, her triumphs, her friends and her family. It gave her a place for that remarkable voice to be heard. And it made such a difference in her life.

So, I'm pretty sure that Fran would tell you that this is ok. But I miss her so much.

Guest Author

2011-05-03T04:00:00.000-07:00

What would Fran say? "Hello cherished readers."

This is Chip writing.

Frannie is in the hospital, and we're not sure when she's going to be able to post. Characteristically, she was concerned about you all. "They'll think I just abandoned them."

Her breathing has gotten really bad, and her choices are limited. We're trying to get her name on the Columbia-Presbyterian transplant list.

So. Prayers accepted from those of you who are of that persuasion. And from the rest of you, you know who you are, good mojo? Positive energy? Anything...send it our way.

It's Alive! (beta)

2011-04-14T20:41:00.000-07:00

I have been hanging on by the tips of my fingers. I don’t quite know how I got here, but I did. I have one insidious disease, and at no time has any doctor ever told us what to expect post-hospital. They’re just thrilled they can shove me out of there alive. (Day’s over. Let’s have a drink.)

Yes, I survived Hodgkin’s Disease like a trooper. A cancer with an unheard of ninety-eight percent survival rate. While technically I’m alive (I think, to join that two percent for real, I’d have to have truly dropped dead as opposed to faking it which I’ve been doing for the past four years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Dead people can’t count. Because they’re dead.) I believe I fell into the bin of two percent of patients instead of sailing through this mere trifle of a lymphoma.

I often forget I had cancer.

After four years I can tell you it could be worse, and it is, “my breath of sunshine” ENT becomes less and less cheery each time he sees me. He did give me a back-ended compliment yesterday though. He told me he had expected me to look much, much worse than I had when he first saw me many light years ago. Given how miserable last week’s CAT Scan is, I should look like a piece of shit.

To that, I’ll say to him and any others with similar expectations,” Au contraire.”

He took back his promise of permanent stents. These were to solve the hearing problem I’ve been suffering for months now. Instead, he put in another set of impermanent stents back in my ears knowing that they will fail, but may improve my hearing as we choose A HEARING AID. I have no more than the usual amount of hearing loss. Permanent stents require surgery. Surgery, infection. Infection, GAME OVER. Thanks for playing. Please follow lights at end of the theater where our ushers will tell which way you exit the building. (“For You, you take the BQE over the Kosciuszko Bridge…”)

So I ‘m also a member of the small group of people with complications that doctors’ usually find are a snap to fix. (I have four practitioners who come to my home to treat me in various and sundry ways. It doesn’t do anyone any good if I can’t hear them. It’s like there’s a scrim between me and the rest of the world.)

But that’s nothing. There’s The Skype of yesterday evening. Just me, Chip, and my psychopharmocologist. Nice and cozy.

Background: My drug-combo isn’t good. Not at all. I’m either tired or frightened. The sleepiness has to be my clever means of escape. Who needs therapists when I know myself so very well? Me, you toadstool.

I wanted to be crystal-clear to my psychopharmacologist about what was going on with me

Look, I’ve been doing this for four years. And it’s about all I can take. Nothing is pleasant. Nothing is fun. I feel sick every day. I’m petrified to exercise, because it makes my choke and gasp for air. I think I’ve had more than enough. And for me, death is my most appealing course. I want to die.

Was I clear enough?

He was really quite the gentleman and gave me props for four years of hell. He said he still wants to find a way to allow me to have some joy in my life. Lovely man. I was impressed. (I guess after all those years doing exactly this, he better be damned good. Otherwise, his office would be surrounded by piles of dead New Yorkers. Not a good look.)

My talk therapist who is one smart cookie. She said, “What you need are girlfriends.” (They could be boys too.) Yeah, like I used to have when I was I kid. When we shared everything and all. Okay, I don’t have that kind of staying power anymore. We’ll start with fifteen-minute visits and go from there. Whaddya think?

(Better than a visit to the theater.)

The Foot Stamp

2011-04-05T23:56:00.000-07:00

I wrote this post about a week ago.

Fear. I am paralyzed by it. I think I’m going mad. I don’t want to see anyone. I don’t want to speak to anyone. I want to be Bubble Girl who has access only with mother, brother(s?), and my honey. A Seinfeld episode included Bubble Boy. Bubble Boy was an asshole. A real a shitheel. I‘m working on my asshole and shitheel parts. I want to be just like Bubble Boy, I have what to be an asshole and a shitheel about. I don’t do very well with those parts. But I’m a whiz at paralysis, shame, fear and loathing,

When my P.T., the best P.T. in the whole entire world, watches me as I cough and cough and gasp for five minutes or so. (This was a good day. You should hear me cough between every single, fucking rep on a bad day.) I said to her, at least you’ve seen this. You get it.

But she hadn’t. She had never seen a good Fran “Time out, all! Just give me whatever the hell time it takes to get my breath back, could you please?” I know I do my damndest not to cough excessively if I can manage to do it. It’s like stuffing the snakes that pop out of the can back in. There’s probably some exercise value to making that work over and over again.

I know she knew how rotten I feel, but I think she saw for the first time the depths of my rotteness and can’t be far from home.

Because when I go into my daily gasping, people who don’t know, don’t get it, become frightened. “Are you okay? Do you need more oxygen?” And they always look more panicked than I. I had to explain how the remainder of alveoli work to my oncologist/internist, ENT. I received totally incorrect information from my original pulmonologist. There are very few people with such severe case of ARDS who survive. Lucky me. I should get a ribbon or maybe even a medal for this.

Because I have so many fewer working alveoli, I can’t get oxygen in my blood fast enough. You can bathe me in oxygen if you like. It doesn’t make a whit of difference. I can only metabolize what my ruined lungs can metabolize. Period. (So the crazy thing is that I have slight pulmonary high blood pressure.)

Regarding nothing yet not. I just listened to Robyn Hitchcock sing, “Because he wouldn’t make love to a loaf of bread unless of course it were in his bed.” My thoughts exactly.

My eyes are always wet. I’m not experiencing an allergy. I still have a toe touching the ground that allows me to tell the difference between sad and an allergy. You’d think I’d want company, wouldn’t you? I am impervious to most of what goes in the outside world. I wish I still cared about everybody else. Oh no, I wish you all happiness and good things. They just won’t ever happen to me. That’s pretty hard to take.

I don’t see my ever accepting my situation. It’s hell on earth as it is and can only get worse.

Hey, I’ve lost ten pounds. I don’t have ten pounds to lose. But I don’t want to eat. My eighty-seven year old mother has taken to making things I’ve always loved. (The best damned chicken soup with homemade noodles. Kosher for Passover even.) Smart cookie, that one. And a damned fine cook to boot. Ma, I salute you. She sure as hell didn’t want to see her baby go through this. I think someone told me that she said way early on in this mess, “I wanted so much more for you.” This from a woman who lost her husband and mother within months of each other. (For real.)

Ma’s had it with this shit. I wish that were enough. When we were kids, and she got really pissed at us for whatever the hell we’d done, she would stamp her foot. It was loud. It was scary. And we, stupid kids that they were, jumped back utterly petrified. I like to think, if Ma stamps her foot, the whole of it, ARDS scars and the Bronchiectasis (gesundheit) would tear ass in fear. While the Foot Stamp was guaranteed to make us quake with fear, we never pushed the envelope. (What else could it do?) I never wanted to tempt failure to have Ma use the Foot Stamp to rid me of ARDS and Bronchiectasis (geundheit), and it not work. (But it would be so cool if it did!) But we all know the truth. If the Foot Stamp were so powerful, my Dad would still be with us. There’s my answer.

Ma assured us that the foot stamp had no power in my pathetic situation. (To this day, if she stamped her foot, Doug and I would turn in to jelly.) Are we not pathetic?

Actually, I didn’t have anything to lose except my poor beautiful quadriceps that I worked so hard to get. My skinny legs disgust me. I suppose if I took every waking minute every day forever and ever and ever, maybe I’ll get something back working with puny ankle weights. Frankly, I don’t think forever and ever is quite enough time. Too damned bad, Lipman.

To be continued…

The Port Washington Union Free School District

2011-03-24T17:01:00.000-07:00

I know I’ve said this too many times and in too many ways. But everyone needs a reminder now and then.

I am not brave in any way shape or form. I’m petrified. Fear has always been my motivation for everything I do. Without it, I’d be off somewhere lying on a beach chair drinking a piña colada. Fear gave me my “game face” when my whole world fell apart.

I used to live in Queens as a little girl. Right by Fresh Meadows in one of those really cute – they still are- starter houses with sidewalks, nice neighbors on porches to visit who would even welcome you with open arms, and a real honest-to-god life on The Block. It was beautiful. There was even a farm a few blocks away and we had a farm stand to pick produce. The farm closed several years ago. There was a plan afoot to use it in conjunction with our old school P. S. 26. I don’t know if it ever got off the ground. But that farm was the very last one in the city of New York.

Our family moved to Long island rather than Jamaica Estates, which was really close by and would have made every single one of us happier. Fall of ’68 was the New York City teacher’s strike and times were ugly. We didn’t honor the strike, and I remember climbing up the steps of elementary school, waving gaily to my picketing kindergarten teacher, “Hi, Mrs. Sammelson!” At least Mrs. Sammelson who never said much anyway, had the decency to look at me like a deer in the headlights.

Other teachers were hardly as pleasant, “Your parents don’t love you!” was one of the epithets I can recall. Now I didn’t see this, but a teacher, I’ve been told, lunged out to me. To do what, I can’t imagine. You try and hurt his little girl; you’re messing with the wrong man. A cop had to hold him back from ripping that woman apart. Well, they got me in and then they still had to go to the junior and senior high schools to do the same for my brothers. We all made it in and out alive and all in one piece.

Reluctantly, in lieu of the lovely Jamaica Estates, my parents decided the move would be to Long Island. And we did. To the edge of Port Washington with a Manhasset address. The basement leaked like crazy, both parents got horribly depressed and so did we three kids. (What choice did we have?) The family lore was,
“Thank goodness Franny so young. She escaped the horror that was Port Washington.”

Well I didn’t. How the hell could I unless I lived in a bubble away from my terribly unhappy family? I played it tough. I can handle it. (We all do what we have to do to get by.) I knew I wasn’t happy. But everyone around me said I was. You see, I learned at a very early age to doubt my instincts. By the way, I don’t do that anymore.

The schools were really nasty. Yes the vaunted Port Washington Union Free School District. Since we were “city” kids, we had to be ignorant and poorly educated. Doug and I were both placed in roughly the bottom of our respective classes completely ignoring the fact that our grades were sterling. For me Mom included an enormous list of books I’d read. No matter.

Doug was made to take a placement test which in the intolerable heat of an August day in the Carrie Palmer Weber Junior High School of The Port Washington Union Free Public School District. The thought balloon over his head must have something like, “Fuck you. I’m not taking your fucking test.” Whether I have the contents of the thought balloon right is irrelevant. Brave Dougie refused to take the test. And as a prize, he was placed in track two with a mess of thug-like people. Lucky for Doug, “He’s good with people.” He managed to become the “pet” of his fellow classmates as he worked himself out of the hole in which the school had placed him.

And the smartest one of us all, Eric, was kept on pins and needles for two years while the grand poobahs of Paul D. Schreiber High School of the Port Washington Union Free School District decided whether to accept his credits from his Queens high school. A week or two before graduation, he was told his old credits were just peachy.

I think it’s becoming clear why I feel as I do about Long Island in general and Port Washington, specifically. I never needed to figure out the rules of play while in Queens. I believe I was born with them. I was happy and friendly. And people responded back in kind. That was it. Simple and got the job done.

I had really big problems with Port Washington, and I think an awful lot of us had similar social issues. That’s why it’s so amazing to find such lovely people now who were there all the time.

So, fear has been a close friend of mine for a long, long time. Helped me be one of those “high achievers.” (Ugh.) And now, I go through my exercise and walking rigmarole, because, I’m more frightened about what will happen to me if I don’t do it. Except my newest hell is that I’m in a panic about doing any exercise at all. I’m so afraid of gasping for air and not getting it back. I can’t win.

Thank goodness, the psychopharmocologist recommended more Klonopin when I flip out. It’s something.

"Indian Princess" circa 1970

2011-03-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

I’m so glad didn’t write to all of you last week. Trust me, this one is way cheerier than what you would have seen.

I had two episodes of not getting enough oxygen which put me into the gasping for air abyss and thinking that I can’t imagine an uglier more painful way to die. As soon as your body realizes it’s not getting enough air to breathe, the body and hence the human caught kicking and screaming within that body, are in automatic Panic Mode. Under W.’s color-coded terrorism warning system, this would be Code Red. Everything seems to be hooked just perfectly. What the fuck is going on?!?

The first was an oxygen line squished in a doorway. This scared the crap out of me. A mere crimp can send me into a paroxysm of hysteria. Then on Friday in the bathroom…(why do these things always take place in the bathroom? Because, you silly thing, we (the gods) are in a festive mood: let’s make the situation as miserable and as embarrassing as possible…isn't that fun?) I’m sitting and I cannot catch my breath. I cough. Over and over and over again. (The kind that used to break ribs until my Pecs of Persuasion developed sufficiently to allow the bit of lung that I’ve got to remain functioning. Now they just do evil things to my back muscles. I can handle those, piece of cake. Ha!) Chip hears the commotion and checks to see if the air is going through all the tubes on my tether. So what the fuck is going on???

He jiggles the bottle of water into which my oxygen passes before getting to me. Without this little step, I’ll dry like a raisin.

Suddenly, I’m getting air. Who, beyond Chip, will think of doing this? I need not only a babysitter, but a handy babysitter at all times. No joke. I’m off in Panic Land, so I’m entirely useless. I guess whoever’s here calls 911. What other option is there?

These frightening episodes exact a toll. There’s always some of “I don’t want to live anymore’s.” But it’s what happens to me every day that makes living such an unpleasant thing to do. I’m petrified of walking and exercising—the two things I must do if there ever is treatment for this terrible disease. For it is terrible. Being a shut-in is terrible.

My fears are sometimes insurmountable. Those are my “days off.” When Franny is on overload. But a constant these days is not wanting to eat. (The really slow and painful way to die…starve yourself. Big move Lipman.) True, that I’ve lost muscle mass is to be expected, but I’ve lost nine pounds since, unlike Humpty Dumpty, I put myself back together again. I ate last night. Not a lot but enough.

Mom and Doug were over. I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t take part in any conversation. I went to bed mid-evening. The night before, in a fit I had while only Chip was around to watch. I threw soft objects in the living room.

I really wanted to break every breakable I could. This took incredible self-control on my part. Chip said “What do you what?” (Attention, for one.) Me: “I want nothing! I’m nothing!” Bless that man, he put me in a bear hug. (Everyone should have a Chip. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed. You can’t have mine. I found him first.

I do find it hard to be part of this world. Especially as I’m not a participant. I imagine you might say I’m more of a participant with this blog than I was when I was alive. Interesting thought.

Oh, I realized I had read Catch-22 recently when I reached the last page.

One more thing. I finished the Springbok “Indian Princess” doll from the kit my mother bought for us to make together way back in 1970. She’s 16 ½ inches tall. She looks lovely. I’m now sewing the body for “Katrina,” the little Dutch girl. This is the second kit my mother bought. It broke my heart thinking she might not be here to see them (Or hell, I might go before they’re done.). Like an idiot, I found two more on Ebay which I promptly bought. Asshole.

This Is It

2011-03-12T16:31:00.000-08:00

These stents don’t do shit. It’s not only embarrassing when I ask all my therapists, “Could you please repeat that?” over and over and over again. If I can’t get it all the second time, I just nod. These are extremely problematic when spending my two-hours a week with my talk therapist. If I can’t hear when she’s telling me, what good is it! Please tell me I’m in a nightmare and I’ll wake up soon.

I woke up from a nap the other day with such a start. After I told myself (thought balloon) that this is it. I was beyond demoralized and sat up, bleary-eyed. I had never allowed those particular words to enter my mind or- good heavens- (in that order, otherwise I do use the word themselves quite often, actually) to enter into my conscious mind. To quote Group Captain Lionel Mandrake in Dr. Strangelove on learning that the United States had entered into nuclear war with the USSR, “Oh hell.”

The impact the prospect of nuclear suicide just about equals this is it.

I will not get better. Ever. Years pass. And I’m promised help in ten years (“So hang in there!”) no matter how many have passed when this all started. Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland says it best “Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never jam today.”

So fucking much has been taken from me. Please, not my hearing too. All I need are allergy tests and the appropriate shots. But my allergist won’t take the risk with my piddling lung capacity. I’ve gone beyond the EpiPen. Doesn’t the U.S. give out awards for shit like that?

I’m reading Catch 22. I’m not sure, but I think I may have read it a couple of years ago. Since my short-term memory is such an abomination, it’s a plus to be able read books over and over again and have no wind of it.

I have to assume that I’ll have a really heavy depression after every visit from my lovely masseuse. (Because, lo and behold, it happened again.) She must have the means of getting close to the spigots whereas I’m totally clueless. It isn’t at all fun, and I hate putting you in this position, but Rachel, look at it this way, you’re doing me a mitzvah. No one’s come close to doing what you do.

Charlie, your comments go straight to my heart and each time I read them I get weepy. (But no, they’ve never sent me into anything close to a massive depression, so, please don’t take that as a reason to stop commenting. When you feel like it, please do. They’re important to me. I know you get it. And how.) Thank you.

So this is it. Oh hell.

Urinetown

2011-03-07T17:32:00.000-08:00

My last appointment with my therapist this week was highly unusual. My did I suffer- about what to do about what I figured would be a likely break with my brother (!) and his family. (At least for now.) This is assuming I chose to be a hard ass about the vicious, interminable email I received from my sister-in-law. I’ve never been hard ass. This is virgin territory for me, not only sticking up for myself but also telling someone to shove her cruelty up her ass.

I actually had a moment of zen. When I knew that I had to shake off her idiotic nonsense. She and my brother are poison to me. I can rip myself apart all by myself thank you. I felt confident and relaxed. Big move, Lipman.

In my first life, I tended to float with the breeze rather than risk confrontation. Not to say that I had no opinions. I always had opinions except for years and years I didn’t believe them to have any validity, so why voice what was clearly wrong? So I floated. But I didn’t like it. Not one bit.

In another world, I’d still be a good little girl and take the punches from my sister-in-law. I could always take punches. ARDS and Bronchiectasis (gesundheit) are two powerful diseases. They taketh away way, way too much, but they giveth back one nasty, fantastic chip on the shoulder. No more floating. No more acquiesing. Late, but better than never, I have finally learned to assert myself. (At least when pushed to the extreme.) I won’t take shit I don’t have to take. I have to take my limited lung capacity. I have to take funky bowels that have no business being funky since ARDS and Bronchiectasis (gesundheit) attacks lungs lungs only. So lay off my gastro-intestinal tract please.

Then why I am I so completely, out of control tonight saying over and to myself, “I can’t do this anymore, I can’t do this anymore?” Or, “I have no life.” That’s actually kind of true. But how can I share something so horribly bad with anyone? I know there are people out there who love me, but how to explain this…? Really what does a visitor say to me, “Feeling any better?” Well, of course I don’t. And I won’t. How does a person make a conversation with that? I’m stumped. I guess that’s why people attend groups with other people in the same infernal boat. It sure makes the initial explaining part move quickly without any, “What!?” “Huh!?” “You’re kidding me!?” We can get right to the nitty gritty (see below). No one has mind-blowing thought balloons. I don’t much like mind-blowing thought balloons of this kind. I can’t imagine anyone who would. My sister-in-law?

Just last night, I had an episode straight out of the August 25, 2010 (Hide the Knives!) post without the Exorcist-worthy projectile vomit. (Too bad. That was cool. And I tried to be so polite about where I’d leave it. Why add a stranger’s vomit to somebody else’s pathetic, little life? It just didn’t feel right to me.)

The gist of the problem are the times when I’m in desperate in need of air. (Like the gasping I do after I take my walks in the apartment hallway.) And when in dire need of oxygen, my body (as would anyone’s) tries to excrete everything it can.

To save me from suffocating? Nah, it has to be a fear response. I don’t know where I read this but in Auschwitz, many of the people chosen to be gassed right off the bat excreted everything out of every orifice where it was possible to excrete anything while on line awaiting their fate.

My original experience of that fun sensation of “mega excretion” was just after a chemo treatment. In all his thirty years as an oncologist, my doctor never had a patient who responded to receiving chemo like that. Yay me. The usual time it should take to begin feeling the chemo is four hours or so. And that doesn’t include excreting anything when not planning to do so.

But last night. I always spend an inordinate time in the bathroom before going on my hall walks to empty my bladder as much as humanly possible. On occasion, where I get back to go (do not collect two hundred dollars), I feel close to losing the drop or two that had refused to exit my body. Slowly, my breath returns. All is well. Last night, post night time ablutions as I put on my extra-sexy Lanz of Salzberg flannel nighty just seconds from hopping into in bed, I sat down on the grey bench meant to help the disabled get into the shower, (we just use it as a bench). I started to pee. I don’t know why. And as during the post-chemo episode, once the excreting starts, there’s no stopping it. I screamed for Chip to get the Clorox wipes and a washcloth for me. As I’m always very thoughtful in moments like these, I hiked up the oh-so-sexy Lanz of Salzberg flannel nighty so not to soil it. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the nighty remained clean. As did the bathroom rug.

There must be a million things I haven’t yet thought of to make me desire to lay down and die. But as soon as they happen, you can bet you all will be the first to know.

One tiny thing. I’m very deaf again. I now have stents in both ears, and they aren’t doing shit. They were put in earlier in the week, I think. I’m not holding my breath on these. Permanent stents next? And why does mucous fuse itself to my throat which makes walking the halls a fearful event? (Chip has found blogs of very angry people who can’t believe that the medical establishment has nothing to remedy the situation. It’s true. There’s nothing except Cepacol lozenges which don’t last very long, but they’re all we sufferers got, so no excessive complaining. And I get to use a word lozenge that isn’t required all that often. !!! I just love the sound of it: lozenge. Beautiful. It’s a shame that Cepacol Oral Anesthetic/Analgesic, instant acting lozenges don’t taste as good as they sound. They’re kind of nasty. ) How long will it take to be able to breathe again? This qualifies for excitement in the Lipman-Sleeper household.

P.S. Karen, what other Karen do I know? I am apologizing thirty years too late for being such a miserable correspondent. I didn’t do the right thing. You deserve the apology so fuck you and accept it whether you like it or not. I (love you, and I miss you terribly, by the way.)

Thinking, thinking, thinking...

2011-03-02T19:13:00.000-08:00

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the past week or so. (FYI, don’t ever waste your time doing this. About anything. All that thinking doesn’t lead you to enlightenment. I’ve learned it can only lead to trouble. So naturally, this week I managed to upset myself more than if I had stopped thinking altogether and played Maggot Brain ten times in a row. (I find it soothing. Go figure.) My brain began getting out of hand.

Stopping function of the brain in its tracks (if it had tracks to stop) can be done. With less effort than you imagine. A bit of thought will remind me that I’m not responsible for the problems plaguing humanity. What a stupid thing, wasting a week worrying myself about other people’s insanity. Specifically, worrying about my brother and his family who went apeshit when I accurately described my sister-in-law as an extremely unpleasant person. Comparable to a shrew.

If I had taken simply trashed the unintelligible email she sent on over to me last week (me?!), I’d end up in the same place I am now minus all that lousy hurt. That’s what thinking gets you. Feeling like shit. So don’t do it.

To my dear family in Texas, do any of you realize that you’ve created a cozy, bizarre existence? Of course you don’t. No, my honey of a sister-in-law, you saved poor Eric from the evils of the Lipman family. Just to make this crystal clear, the New York Lipman’s are still the coven of devil spawn (thank you Allen). To be completely honest, we always have been and we rather like it. (Perhaps this explains my love affair with Rosemary’s Baby.) Better yet, we really like it this way, so we’re not going to change. That you can bet on.

This is all so simple. I should be dead. And if I’m terribly unlucky, I could get a stupid bug, and it’s wham bam thank you ma’am. Pay when you pick up your urn.

Don’t you see? Don’t waste your time with all this crap. I refuse to play these mean games that you all seem to like to play. They’re part of your innards, aren’t they? But they’re not part of mine. I have twenty-four percent lung capacity. Medical science has no treatment for me. I work my ass off to maintain physical strength on the sheer chance (My friend Mike the microbiologist says it will happen soon. A decade at the latest? Anyway, he ‘d rather I not off myself with treatment on the horizon. I hope he’s not just blowing smoke up my ass.)

And I take lots and lots of drugs to avoid despair. I will do my damndest to live as serene a life as I can in this apartment. I have too many demons of my own to wrestle with. Please take your dysfunctionality elsewhere. It is not welcome here.

See, why did I get myself all worked up over this? I knew what I needed to do all along. Like Dorothy. (I, too, already had the ruby slippers.)

Stay away from bad shit.

All the Sturm und Drang for that?

P.S. To my niece: you are the only innocent of all these loutish Lipmans. You didn’t ask to be born into this crap. I totally understand if you want nothing to do with me after this most recent tectonic shift. If you ever change your mind, I’ll be here. (Let’s assume I will be.) FYI, Doug is a seriously cool dude. And even better, he hasn’t crapped on anyone that I can think. (Unlike me.)

Back to regularly-scheduled programming next post.

A Shandeh

2011-02-26T19:49:00.000-08:00

I was greeted with an email Monday morning. Three pages long. From my fucking sister-in-law. It seems this email was prompted by the fact that she doesn’t much like being called “a controlling harridan.” Who would? I understand her fury. And I may be wrong (about "the controlling harridan" part). She feels she’s been entirely misunderstood by me and the rest of the ever-shrinking Lipman family. (I feel, post-ARDS, I've become half a person...) I’ve been wrong before but I feel pretty good about this one. I’m right on the money.

She demanded that I never mention her or Eric again in this blog.

Now, of course, this shandeh, for which I am now paying for dearly, calling a person such a name must stab my brother in the heart. For goodness sakes, my brother and sister-in-law are each almost sixty years old! Do you think that they may be old enough to deal with a wee bit of unpleasantness from an annoying relative (me)?

And what about me? I’m a loving (and my Eric knows that to be true and Eric, if you don’t, DO, because it’s true) sister who wonders in her blog how her friendship with her wonderful brother could become all farcockteh? I said nothing that came as a surprise to anyone.

Before I became ill, I always was polite (at best) when I encountered my sister-in-law. Post-ARDS, who or what am I holding back for? Oh, I’m not going to go berserk or anything. ARDS doesn’t give me a license to kill. But I don’t have to play a silly game anymore which only makes us upset. Now, we’ll get upset out in the open. I don’t need to get colitis again. (Yeah, long before my current despicable disease took my life away from me, I had colitis. Fun.) I had to learn not to swallow my anger, because all it did was make me sick. Instead, I learned to deal with it. Hot damn! No more colitis! And no more tough guy.

Oh, dear people who are still with me after my long absences, I’m a different person from the pre-ARDS Fran. I want transparency. I want to say what I mean. (Not what I think I should.) As I want all of you to do with me.

My mother’s first reaction to the Mother of all Emails, was to placate Eric, and asked me not write about them (him and her) anymore. I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I said that if I place parameters on the blog, I am tucking my new-found voice into a pocket, never to be heard again. Then, it really wouldn’t make any difference being alive or dead, would it? If I live a life where I have to think, tread on eggshells, each time before I tell you how I feel, what is the goddamned point?

I think I told her that using other words. She is not a blog reader. She has no point of reference for this. She had no idea what the blog means to me.

I’ve said, probably too many times, for me, this blog needs to honest. First and foremost. I don’t care how stupid I might sound. How ridiculous I may seem. If I salient point to make, I must make it regardless how of how it makes me “look.” What’s that? (Especially the youngish looking middle-aged lady with the Hannibal Lector mask. (Hey! I always have a Halloween costume!) And in honor of my belief in transparency, the mask is transparent. Coincidence? Oh, I don’t think so.

I don’t look for ways to be mean. I’m sure I have been, but I really don’t want to be hurtful. (Karen, I know I pissed you off time and time again for never writing you back. I deserve totally your opprobrium. Just so you know, I never wrote back to anyone else either. Love you, sweetie, by the way…) Will you let me know how I’ve screwed any of you, please? (I apologize in advance.) But my sister-in-law has issues. How can I ignore my estrangement (getting fuzzier, a good thing) with my oldest brother?

So I won’t. I’ve had it. This is all I have, and I won’t ever be mean (certainly never intentionally) and I will not use this as a vehicle for passive aggressiveness. Any problems (and I hope there are none because I’m beginning to love you) will be dealt with for real and in private.

Just the thought that this blog could be something made ordinary and impersonal makes me feel that that would be the end of me. My connection with all of you in my connection to the world and to life. To hell with my sister-in-law.

An Angry Bear

2011-02-20T17:21:00.000-08:00

I’m sitting here all washed and scrubbed with a back that still hurts and klonopin that appears to be not doing its job. This is so strange, every single day without fail, about late afternoon, early evening, I get a bout of anxiety. My hands shake. (So no more cursing the yarn as I have a thousand more French knots left to do. Yes, I’ll behave. Like hell…) I’m crawling out of my skin. Right now. It’s just s slight shake, but it comes fully-loaded. I’m nervous. Irritable, unable to sit still. And the disgusting belief that I must be useful. And I don’t have enough hours In the day to do it: walk the hallways, “exercise,” sew my baby’s clothes, write this blog, write the new book which is going to be a bear.

I like bears, but I suppose we’ve all seen either in photos or at the zoo, when they’re pissed off. I guess I expect this writing this new book will either scare the bejeezus out of me or eat me alive. I’m curious myself how this turns out.

French knots on her clothes. Never sew with yarn. Oh, she’ll look great. When she’s done and ready to rock Manhattan. I hope she won’t be too disappointed that she’s a shut-in doll and stuck here with Frau Frankestein.

I am a masochist. I bought two more on ebay. Rosita the some sort of Latina girl and Michi who is most definitely Japanese. The goal: complete all dolls before I’m dead.

That’s a big part of my problem. I think I may have so little time left I must get these things done now.

Perhaps this is one of those tricks like Scorcese’s The Last Temptation of Christ giving me a taste of the hell where I’ll be ensconced sooner rather than later.

If you remember the movie, Jesus is offered a normal life. Gets married. Has kids. He sure looks happy. But no, he doesn’t let himself be enticed by the proposition before him, and he chooses to be nailed to the cross. I could never do that. I guess that’s why I’ll never be in the running to be God’s long-lost (really lost) daughter.

You know what people? It was only after seeing that movie that I understood Jesus’ story. My brother said the same thing. I was in tears when he chose to stay nailed to the cross. I’m Jewish. I don’t know this stuff. That movie showed me how Jesus was special, was different. No, Mr. Scorcese didn’t make a convert out of me. (Especially difficult when an atheist Jew.) But I got it. I felt it.

Isn’t that the point? Certainly in that movie. Make your audience feel what your protagonist feels or at least understand what he feels? I never understood why that movie was boycotted and condemned by some believers. Hey, if Scorcese changed or mangled the story, isn’t this a perfect Sunday school topic of discusson?

Anyway, if you are not of the Jewish persuasion and despised the movie at least you know two Jews in New York found the story very moving. (And we got it!!!)

But if I were Jesus, I’d accept the offer (a no-brainer, really- c’mon now). A normal life? Happiness? I’d accept the devil’s offer in a nanosecond. No need to ponder. You mean, I can breathe again and have a life? Sign me up.

No this is not what makes me a Jew. This is what makes me a desperate, lonely human being who is completely unable to make any sense- no, fuck, forget sense. I am stubbornly refusing to accept my crappy existence.

And if I don’t, I guess I spend the rest of my life in misery. (I’m not feeling the suicide thinking these days. I don’t have a clue why that’s so but it has been sent to the back of the room for a “time out.”)

My lovely masseuse, Rachel, will be here later today. To quote Bette Davis in All About Eve, “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” I hate going through it. Never the massage (which ain’t fun, it’s deep tissue massage which is not for the meek), only the aftermath. Kicking the rubble.

A Very Merry Un-Birthday...

2011-02-12T20:05:00.001-08:00

This was the most non-birthday I have ever imagined. The stars were aligned, the moon was in the seventh house, Jupiter and Saturn played Ring-Around-The–Rosie, and the Super Bowl (an actually interesting game at that) was aligned with Mars How insignificant is a birthday compared to all this gobbledygook?

I was thrilled. I wanted to ignore the day, and the universe helped me in my duty to myself most handily. My mother and brother came over at dinnertime just as I was collapsing into the couch for a nap. I had a right to be exhausted, I was put through the works by the best P.T. (and I’m not joking) on the planet, Tamar Amitay.

Look, I still don’t think there’s anything to celebrate in my life. There are amazing people in my life (Chip, first and foremost) who take such good care of me and keep me going when I want to pack it all in. The remarkable Tamar, the best P.T. on the planet, Kristen my therapist brought to me by the angels, Sweet, caring Rachel my masseuse, Laurie, my chiropractor whom I miss terribly. (I need these people for mojo. If I’m to have any mojo. I’d like some, I think.) They deserve to be feted. Not I. They humble me. I’ll party with them, for them and love them forever and ever. But no celebrations for me yet. I’m not ready.

I awoke from my nap sometime late in the second quarter and Chip brought me a turkey burger from the joint across the street. They make really tasty turkey burgers, but I wasn’t interested in any food let alone that fine turkey burger.

I’ve been having eating issues as of late. I still slobber over my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I drool just thinking about it. For me it’s sandwich heroin. After starting my day with choppers blazing, I lose all interest in food. There can be only two reasons this is happened and they’re not mutually exclusive. (Is anything, these days?) One is that I take so much fucking medication, it’s screwing up my appetite. The second is losing the desire to eat is a symptom of depression. Duh.

Instead of real meals, I’ll down bottles of Ensure (on the rocks, please). Eat bowls of cereal. (Cheerios and rice milk. That shit tastes pretty good.) And Zone Bars. All three are quick and go down easy. Problem solved.

All right, there is a third reason for my lack of appetite. Eating takes time. And time is the one thing I can’t rely on. I have too much to finish before I die. (And no, I’m not talking suicide. I’m taking about a quick upper respiratory infection and it’s wham, bam, thank you ma’am. You can pay as you exit. And have a nice day!) I’m being compulsive, because there are too few hours in my day to get everything I want done, done.

I’m rewriting Since When as a mother/daughter story. I have all the pieces in my hot little hands. No, I don’t have all the pieces in my hot little hands. What is this new book about anyway? It took me ten years, before I finally figured out that the original Since When is about. (It’s about loss.)

This too is about loss. I can’t get away from that. But this book will be trying to say what about my mother’s and my relationship? I need to keep rolling this around over and over in my head and create chapters that flow naturally from the immigrant girl and the confused Long Island kid.

I never could figure Port Washington out, but I think I can figure out the crux of this new book. Frankly, I think that figuring out this book is a helluva lot easier than figuring out Port Washington even from my vantage point as an adult. I just can’t imagine why anyone would actively choose to live there. I think the five Lipmans would agree on this though my Dad did find that elusive place he clearly needed away from everything: Bar Beach. Facing those gorgeous smokestacks in Glen Cove. I don’t get it, but the man spent hours there was his New York Times. New Yorker, and New York Review of Books. Go figure.

Back to my problems…I need to get a grip on the story I’m trying to tell. I’m afraid I still may be too close to be able to see it. I have pieces of this book already written. How do they all fit together? And once past that, together in a way that will keep the reader interested from start to finish and cut and cut and cut and make it as good (sotto voce) as the original? (Rich, please don’t think you are any less Spectacular than you are. You amaze me, All the time. Our Since When is sacrosanct. To be self published? I’ll keep you apprised of all happenings. And don’t be surprised if you receive an email asking for your professional opinion about lord knows what. You know I will, too.)

I certainly won’t achieve any success if I write gazing at my navel. My apologies. I have no free seconds. I’m exhausted so much of the time. Don’t forget, I have my Indian Princess doll I’ve been sewing like mad. She’s the one Mom bought for me thirty years ago. I will feel so happy when she’s done. We’re spending so much time together, she’s my new baby sister or new baby or something like that.

And I started a Brian Aldiss (sci-fi) book I should have read eons ago.

I have so much to do before I die.

Let’s get cracking.

(This post started out okay, but I’m sorry if it became a dog post. I’ll try harder next time.)

Hit It and Quit Part II

2011-02-03T17:45:00.001-08:00

I promised a Part II after the last post.

Part II

I’m not one to often fall short of her promises. (Being human (I still am), it happens now and again. I like it not one bit when it does.)

Perhaps, the key to this problem is to transform from a human being to something else. (Yes, becoming a beloved house cat is awfully tempting. They’re expected to break all promises. We beg them for what should be our due (snuggling and purring) for the room and board we supply. Yes, I know the truth. We humans are due nothing. Not one damned thing. And we stupid humans don’t seek out a more rewarding companion. (Goldfish?) That is the perfect beauty of being a cat. That’s the point of them.

We, Chip and I, must have shortcomings. Otherwise, why would Conway deliberately turn his back to us when we coo at him and tell him what a sweet, wonderful boy he is? Yeah, I’d like to be one of our cats. They’re bloody spoiled rotten, my sweet little peaches…

This all may be moot. The unshakable depression, like toilet paper on a shoe, needed an alternative to the Effexor that made me truly insane. It’s best when I feel like that to spend the day sitting quietly and/or doing what I consider exercise. Like putting on my sneakers. Do you realize that I actually have to sit and catch my breath after putting sneakers on my feet and tying the laces?

My doubling the Klonopin seemed to make matters better. But I think, with zero evidence to back me up except my bodily functions. Especially brain function. How I’m supposed to evaluate my own brain function is a mystery to me. “Chip, honey, I think I’m feeling that my personality has been disintegrating for the past week.” However, I really meant it. I’m usually precise in what I want to say. I learned early to drop the hysteria, leave room for people to agree or disagree with you. Without the air, most people feel pressured and get annoyed. As they should be. When the fuck did I become the authority? About anything?

In this particular instance, I lost interest in all things, all people; when my darling brother and stepson were over the other day, it was too difficult to follow conversation. (Could you just imagine me at a party?) My toe stayed in the human pool, because I was and remain perpetually weepy. Given the possibility of losing all of myself (can it be so?), this is a very good thing. I just want to have one goddamned out and out cry. Wailing. Rending of clothes. The whole nine yards.

Besides the weepiness, I had a great time watching the hour-long HBO shows leading up to the Winter Classic, and the “post mortem” show. Great stuff. I can also live on a diet of Real Sports. That HBO again. Who knew my needs were so easy?

However, I did have a very real problem on my hands. What sucked royally is that instead of going back to being plain depressed- the very reason my doctor upped the Effexor- I had that horrible anxiety. You know that crap. When you feel like you’re jumping out of your own skin and mine combined that with “the shakes.” Now I have been diligently working on the doll my mother and I never made thirty years ago. I sure know why I didn’t tackle it and her friend then (Mom bought two of the kits), they are for people who really know what they’re doing. But now, this is my new baby doll. (I haven’t made her hair yet. I’m assuming she’s an infant rather than a cancer patient until it’s done.)

A couple of days ago, I had six pieces of fringe left to decorate. After a seriously long learning curve, I’d finally got it. Woohoo! It was late. I chose to leave the last six for the following afternoon.

I can’t tell you how long it took me to figure out how to do the goddamned French knots that decorate the goddamned fringe the first time, but I did, after a fashion. We all know, the lord giveth, and the lord taketh away.

Sonofabitch, I remembered nothing from the day before. Nothing. I looked at those fringes as if I had never seen them before. (Fuck, I’m in trouble.) It took a long time, but I figured it out all over again. There was zero carryover from the day before. I’ve noticed other weird brain functioning problems post ARDS nightmare, but this one was the worst.

Okay, okay. I got it now. I picked fringe number two. I looked at it as if I’d never seen it before. Holy shit, there was no carryover from five seconds ago. What the fuck is going on?

This happened five more times. For each of the fringes I had left to decorate. I was completely unable to extract anything I had taught myself on that day’s fringes let alone the ones I had completed that day before.

So if any of you tell me something, I’m warning you all right now, there’s a damned good chance I won’t remember you spoke to me a moment ago, And about what, pfft, don’t be ridiculous.

I don’t know if I have brain damage. If this is the worst of it, I guess I emerged from hellhole number one, one lucky bastard. I’m confident I don’t have Alzheimer’s. But no wonder Alzheimer’s scares the bejeezus out of all of us.

Being cognizant that my brain is behaving as if it’s turning to mush is paralyzing and frightening as bloody hell. Hey, I’m on tons of medication. This could be screwing with my brain. C’mon, the drugs are supposed to screw around with my brain. They’re just not screwing around with it correctly yet.

Dr, Ira has addressed the anxiety issue and I’ll need to assess my brain function (and shaking and creepy-crawlies) and whether the new stuff is sucking the remnants of human energy like the Miele vacuum does with all that cat hair. I’ve had this perpetually running nose. It’s too bad these new pills don’t come with a hepa filter.

But I do think it’s funny that the patient is, in effect, running the funny farm. Even though I’m nuts, I’m the person the doctor relies on for symptoms and interesting new funky bits to decide which medication should make me sane.

P.S. These posts are a wonder. I find I very often I think of a word like “what” but instead type something like “wagon.” My brain wanted “what,” but my fingers stubbornly insisted on “wagon.” I often leave whole words out of sentences. Important ones like nouns and verbs. Sometimes they’re easy to fill in when I reread this mess. Other times, I’m as stymied as anyone reading the incomplete sentence. Please be patient when you bump into one of these. Thanks.

Hit It and Quit Part 1

2011-01-31T23:30:00.001-08:00

I am incensed. Incensed. Which is a very good thing as this is as much human feeling I’ve had in a week.

No, I did not have the divine gift (for that is what it should be) to experience life as a cat. That would have infinitely preferable. How such quiet little mammals can be so damned persuasive is a mystery to me. They give you these hurt expressions all the time, and we slavishly 1) cuddle them more. 2) feed them more, 3) pick up and put on lap, 4) talk to it in baby talk because baby talk appears to relax said cat, 5) give it a treat, 6) brush and comb cat with the luxurious coat, but it’s never enough even if you spend the entire day working on it, 7) put cat in your bed where it promptly deigns to give you a tiny corner without blankets while they manage to take up the rest of the whole damned thing.

But we love them.

But, no I haven’t been a cat this week. I think I’ve been a shadow of my former self. (I mean I’m already a shadow of my former self, but I’m wispy. Partially transparent? And I don’t mean that I’m compelled to show all. No, I mean transparent. I said to Chip last week, “I think I’m disappearing.” He didn’t much like this one bit.

I wanted to see no one. Ever. I didn’t want to do anything with my time. Ever. I certainly had no interesting the internet. Woohoo. I really failed to see the point of any of these things. And if I continued to fade away into the ether, who besides my immediate family would notice? Not for a long while. I’d be like one of those mummified corpses that are found time to time. (Either that, or a really stinking corpse, and one of the doormen would be forced to check out what was going on in 4R, because 5R was really getting annoyed at the putrid smell coming from somewhere below.)

I got an absolutely lovely letter from a literary agent who went to Paul D. Schreiber High School of the Port Washington Union Free School District. This dude was a literary agent as soon as he was able to talk and became a partner in his Dad’s business. He also happened to be a very good friend of Doug. It’s now a big muckety-muck agency, and he agreed to check out Since When. The dude read 200 pages. 200 pages! That’s unheard of. He said I was a wonderful writer, but in it’s current form, as this mega-family epic, he couldn’t sell it. (He must he been an awfully good friend of Doug's.) Of course he couldn’t! How I wish I could give him a big smooch for his candor.

People often forget that candor goes a long way in this world. What does Judge Judy say (what doesn’t she say, that Solomon of the airwaves?), “You don’t need a good memory if you tell the truth.” I think that’s brilliant. I had a boss who was pathologically unable to say the truth even when there was no damned good reason to lie. She get herself all tangled in it, and had Chip make “all better.” Chip is no sorcerer. When he wasn’t, he was left to eat the shit she left in her wake. There’s a lot Chip doesn’t miss about Grace & Rothschild. But we met some really incredible people there. Pathological lies and all, it was a magical place. No one I know has ever had an experience like we all had there. So I gave up a fat career by not leaving, but I couldn’t leave these great people for some high-paying job at any other agency. We were unique. And we’re all still friends. Creepy, yes?

But let’s get back to mummification and transparency. I wasn’t even depressed. (Well not in its usual manifestation.) I could finally accept that I loathed my days. I hated “exercising.” (I move my arm, that’s cardio.) I also had to walk the hallways until I gasp and cough, gasp and cough, (etc,) until I was able to breathe and do the whole fucking thing over again. (Mind you, I’m not doing this on my own. Chip walks besides me with the mega tanks of oxygen I need to attempt a “walk.” I guess, you guys, when the weather’s nice, strolling is out of the question. Sorry. But I can get wheeled about in my cute little wheelchair though I’m still tethered to mega oxygen tanks. I look simply adorable. (When I’m wearing my oxygen mask- in addition to the cannula in the nose- I swear I resemble- okay only slightly- Hannibal Lector when he’s wearing his muzzle.) I thlnk that’s a hoot. Though Hannibal Lector was never a look I was going for, when you got it, baby, flaunt it.

But let’s head on back where we started (this post does have a beginning if you’ve forgotten. (If you weren’t sick like me, you would have forgotten or recognized this beginning as anything other than a couple of sentences I’d soon forget having written.. I forget everything now. I make no judgements either way.)

I have never liked my next door neighbor. She is a nervouse chahlairya (per my mother from Leah in Florida). Her husband had terrible bowel issues and has had a colostomy bag several times in his relatively short life. (Too much information! Yeah, right.) The two of them are our age? Could it be? Sure can. Isn’t that just terrible? /but I’ve found, through his misery, he’s a very pleasant man and looked forward to bumping into me and chatting. This man is not a chatter. His wife, a Long Island pediatrician, is another story. They have two kids. The older one looks just like her mother and seems like a major pain in the ass. The younger looks just like Dad and appears to be rather normal and pleasant. The nanny (with her Island accent) often mutters under her breath about the older one. Never the younger.

Chip and I seem to schedule my hall walks (the big cardio of the day), when Mama is going in, out, to the compactor room and she does either of two things: when I’m in my full Hannibal Lector gear and Chip is carrying the heavy-duty oxygen tanks, she seems to think she’s cheering me on somehow by loudly exclaimed “Faster! Faster!” with a big smile on her face. Now in my day, I walked fast because I live in NYC and many of us do that here. She knows my diagnosis and the uselessness of my speeding up my already quick(ish) pace. Fuck, I’m not a cripple in the usual meaning of the word. My lack of lung function makes me a cripple and the fun mental issues that appear permanent (more on these in a later post- when I’m not too low to talk about them. Oy.)

“Faster! Faster!” Is distracting. It’s not cute. It’s not funny though she seems to think so as she shoots us a big grin when she opens her fucking mouth. But this is annoying. It does not make me incensed rude as it might be. (You realize that every single atom of my body has to focus on this walk or I won’t be able to complete it. Frankly, if that happened, I’m not sure how I’d finish. I suppose I could always crawl back in.)

No, my neighbor lady doesn’t like cats. She’s not allergic. I think she’s just one of those people who are weirded out by mammals living amongst them or anyone else. Chip wants to lock the cats up for my little walks. Yes, Conway would love to slip into anybody’s apartment. Cleo, not so much. But Conway is the large, fuzzy fourteen pound boy, As cats go, perhaps he’s imposing. Neither cats are at all mean, but if you stick a finger in Conway’s face, he looks at it as an invitation to bite it. How fun!

But I really like when the cats come into the hallway with us. This lady sees Conway, out of her mouth comes , “Cat! Cat!” She is farblonjid and must be attended to before the cripple walking the fucking hallway. Chip leaves me leaning against a wall while he digs Conway out of the compactor room. Poor lady. She could put away those smelling salts. She was saved from the big, nasty puddy cat. Thank the lord!

I was beyond livid. While walking, my back pain is dull and tolerable. (People are so resourceful. I guess we’re like the frog or lobster placed in warm water which slowly gets hotter and hotter. For awhile they adjust to the warmer water. Hey, gotta make the best of it, right? They try and keep swimming. Yeah, until they’re parboiled and ready to eat. Yum!).

Leaning on that wall made my back pain shoot up seventy-two notches. But was I relieved my neighbor was taken care of and saved from the evil feline. If we were both on the Titanic, I’d shove her ass off (even now I know I could take her) the lifeboat and squish Chip and the cats in. Maybe as she treads water seconds before freezing to death, I’ll call out to her showing my pearly whites, “Faster! Faster!”

When this was all over, I was batshit. Chip is afraid Conway will go off in an open elevator never to be seen again. He has a point. But what are the odds that’s going to happen? I don’t think they’re very high. Then again, neither were the odds of my getting ARDS?. At the very least, I want the damned cats to join me on my walks. Fuck you, lady.

Dreckitude

2011-01-21T19:31:00.000-08:00

I hardly remember the content of my last post. It was written so long ago. It’s slowly coming back to me. Oh yeah. Mom. Since When, regrets. If I’d gotten today’s post started yesterday, it was to begin: Damnit, damnit, damnit!

I should have stayed with my original plan. It’s certainly much more exciting than “ I hardly remember…” It gets my attention whatever value there is to that. Damn it!

As y’all might have imagined, this has been s tough week, and I see no signs of its “dreckitude” ending any time soon (Parentheses around dreckitude, It’s not mine though I think its divine and wish it were. It belongs to one of the newest judges on America’s Next Top Model- the only show watching these days. (Okay, Jon Stewart is usually quite good. As well as Sarah Silverman if you happen to be in a Sarah Silverman state of mind.)

I had a new line to scare the shit out of both Chip and therapist today (who won’t let it show that it does.. (No, I don’t keep the bad shit bottled up. --That’s worthy of a guffaw from every reader of my hellish existence -- No, I’m not kidding. That’s funny. In a dark, mordant sort of way. Who says I can’t laugh at myself?)

I said, “I think I’m losing myself.” Meaning that the person you know or have come to know is fading away, Soon I’ll be transparent until one day, I’ll wake up invisible and gone. Heavy, babelas, heavy. I have less purpose than I had before, and I didn’t have all that much to begin with. My sense of humor has gone out the window flitting away in the city winds to wind up in some gutter somewhere. Doesn’t everything seem to end up in a gutter? I never looked all that closely. Only on days when I had to puke outdoors. Find the gutter and avoid car doors. Words to live by. Could do worse.

So yeah, the Effexor is now back to what had been its effective level except, it wasn’t effective before (hence the heinous increase in dosage). What next for Franny’s depression?

Well, guess what boys and girls, reducing the Effexor didn’t bring me back to where I was. I now shake and am crawling out of my skin. The only thing that helps is doubling my Klonopin dose. Which I always thought of as a stop-gap measure before a “real’ solution is found. No Chip says. If this works, my double espressos of tranquilizers remain in my goody back of drugs.

The anxiety brings out the worst of tendency toward being a wee compulsive. Ha! Come on over, and you will see compulsiveness at its finest. I can’t put anything down. I told myself it will (whatever the fuck it is) be done today so it fucking better be. I knew I had a big problem when I started keeping poor Chip up until four a.m. when he has to get up like most human beings and work. Houston to Apollo Fran, I think we have a problem.

So, you don’t get any ideas, I don’t get pleasure from completing anything, There’s always something else on the docket that must get done this fucking minute because I’m already late and I still have to walk, exercise, read, use the nebulizer, organize my sixties r&b, and god knows what else. What’s this lolly-gagging I’m hearing about? Get moving bitch!

And I do. With terrible reluctance, I steel myself every morning to face another day. I do all my shit—again— and there’s no time to be a human being. But I keep forgetting what that’s like.

Hey, by the way, what’s a smile? (I shouldn’t have been such a hot shot and quit Brownies. At least at the end of the Brownie manual were instructions how to make “a great, big Brownie smile!

Mom

2011-01-15T21:35:00.000-08:00

It’s wonderful to be rid of the extra fifty percent boost of Effexor that my body “was unable to tolerate.” The latter is shorthand for constant shakes, crawling out of my skin, and magnified fear. No, I wasn’t able to “tolerate” that.

After the initial euphoria wore off as the dose was reduced back to where it did me some good, I’m still stuck with the problem that made my psychopharmacologist raise it to begin with. I’m sad again. No, sad is normal. Unpleasant, perhaps, but a normal human feeling. No, I’m talking about nagging depression. We’ve stabbed and shot at it with poison arrows (with all the psychotropics in my “If depressed, please open and follow directions” satchel) but the damned beast refuses to die.

Now what? Beats me.

I’ve recently switched bronchial dilators. New drugs that are delivered three times a day from a nebulizer. Bless my allergist. He guessed right. (“Guessed” because the diagnosis was done over the phone.) I was suffering coughing spasms. The new coughing “pearl” I’ve been taking seems to be working. Very few coughing jags. Cepacol seems to handle the rest.

Rachel, my sterling masseuse said I had the best massage yet meaning I opened completely allowing her to work. I’ve never done that before. Opened up like that. Like a cooked clam. Duh. Of course I feel like shit. What’s beneath all the layers she had to go through except pain, depression, and anger. I most definitely am keeping the duck and the uber-Scandinavian for Journey to the Center of the Earth: The Final Mission. I’ll be wanting company confronting those demons all by myself.

I had an idea as I lay on the table. Rachel: masseuse by day, Iron Hands by night. She’d make a great superhero. I need to find the right roles for Tamar, the best P.T. on the planet, and Laurie, the magnificent chiropractor. Rachel was completely down with it. I’ll tell Tamar tomorrow when I see her. It’s great to have characters while lacking any sort of storyline. Just like the grand old days of the Internet boom when venture capitalists threw money at anything with the name internet in its title workable business plan or no. I could certainly understand if someone found my writing tedious and Since When so bad that the agents have to stop giggling when they each send me a uniform, Thanks, but no thanks.” But no one can ever accuse me that my characters are filled with air and nothing more. Well sure, anyone could say this, but I’m completely confident they’re wrong. But I actually believe, especially with the guiding hand of Rich (who put me in his end-of-year letter! I’ve never made it to one before! Thank you! You are just plain remarkable, young man) it is pretty well written. So there.

But why the hell can’t anyone stop my nose from constantly running like a fucking faucet? I’m told allergy shots are too dangerous for one with such crapola lungs. Oh yeah, I can use Spireva with its clever “drying agent.” Perfect, no? Yes, if you prefer mucous the texture of glue and stuck to your throat and vocal chords and rib-breaking coughs (no kidding) to try and move it from where it has decided to rest in my innards like in a hammock, most likely. Who wouldn’t? (Will I ever see a hammock again? In life, photos, I’ve got.)

I recall a year or so ago complaining that I felt like shit all the time. And what I was told by those close to me, “Hey, you don’t know how you’ll feel in a year.” That was meant to give me hope. Because in a year, how could things not be better? I don’t have a degenerative disease, I exercise every day and am assuming no upper respiratory nonsense is percolating, why shouldn’t I feel a little better?

No, no sweethearts. This disease doesn’t work like that. I haven’t found any logic in it. Nor has anyone with a medical degree. Damn it all. I don’t feel worse than I did a year ago, but I feel no better. No one is telling me I’ll feel better anymore. No one is saying, “You never know how you might feel a year from now” to boost my spirits. God help us if it’s otherwise. But I have been asked to hold on, because a stem cell therapy is in the offing. (Have the researchers moved past small mammals yet?) I suppose I should be heartened that the stem cell community has graduated to mammals, period.

I’m still so damned exhausted that I can’t get up in the morning. The books I read are fat. (This Lindbergh bio I’m in the midst of is fascinating. I’m getting to the anti-Semitic part; I’m champing at the bit.) I have my doll to make. She’s a big job. I can’t just curl up with it and sew away happily with thread and a blanket stitch and ponder her dress where I’ll have to fucking sew the pretty details with yarn. (Yes, yarn again. At least this time I know what I’m in for.)

Why do I care? I care because it was a project meant for me and Mom to do together. I need to make the dolls in the kits she bought for the two of us 1972ish. To be honest, when I looked at the instructions all those years ago, I’m sure I blanched. That’s why the two kits have sat undisturbed in the same place for all these years. They made the move to Manhattan one box atop the other. I knew exactly where they lived. Still untouched but not given up for dead. She (my ‘Indian Princess”) must be made and made beautifully (if I have to stand on my head) along with her buddy “Katrina, the little Dutch girl.”

My mother is 87. She looks great. She’s healthy. I feel compelled to make those two dolls right now. This very moment. Five minutes ago. Their “births” are completely intertwined with Ma. Since When is really her story. Sure I tell the stories of her Hungarian aunts and uncles, but the backbone of the book is the story of my mother at age six-and-a half year wrested (it sure felt that way to her) from a life she loved, from, her magical (it was) home in rural Czechoslovakia to the Brooklyn of 1930. I found as I interviewed her for hours upon hours, I could finally admit to myself how very much alike we are. (You all know of a time in your collective lives when the last thing you wanted to do was to resemble a parent, any parent. True?) Hell, you all may have avoided this interviewing process I went through to get there, (which was loads of fun by the way). Now I’m more than okay with it. No. I love being a part of her.

I know Mom so desperately wants me to live. (And yes, she has said to me, “I wanted so much more for you.” Me too Ma.) She wants me more than alive. I know she sure has no intention of outliving me. For Mom, and for all mothers, I must keep on, because I can’t imagine anything worse than having your children predecease you . Mom. I will not do that to you but you realize, I can’t possibly imagine life without you.

(I’m not shortchanging Dads. The same goes for all of you.) My Dad died at age sixty in 1982. I never had the chance to scare the shit out of him as I scared Mom, Chip, and Doug-every day for eight-weeks plus that I was in danger of waking up dead.*) So I have to live. For Mom, for all of them. And my doll babies have to grow up now. From those intimidating patterns and folds of felt to cuddly, sweet smiling girls just like on the box. As a gift. To Mom. To me. To fill every promise I ever made to anyone and didn’t come through. (These little girls are carrying one heavy load.)

Oh, how much fun would we have had making those two together back in 1972!

Promise me something. Never put anything off what you want to do in life ever. All there is is now. And my regrets.

*I’ve always wanted to use “wake up dead.” I find that expression kicks ass. I can die happy. Or maybe ”happier.”

Like Hell You Can Sew With Yarn

2011-01-10T23:26:00.001-08:00

I can’t do a backstitch with yarn! You try it. That’s one motherfucking achievement if you can swing that. I would even lie prostrate at your feet saying over and over and over again, “I am not worthy; I am not worthy’ By the way, did you know I’m not worthy?” Embroidery thread. Piece of cake. Regular thread, c’mon now. In my sleep I can make a backstitch.

As you can tell by the above, I find sewing soothing. I mentioned the two doll-making kits my mother bought for me in 1972. But she didn’t realize that these were not kits for the faint of heart. Am I actually saying that these kits have remained untouched for thirty-nine years? Can it be? That I left everything in each box untouched, and took them both pristine boxes with me when the Lipmans left the ‘burbs for good? I did. They were so sweet. Like that book I stole from my fifth or sixth grade classroom. Pioneer Germ Fighters because I knew, knew, that no one would love that book more than I.

As I mentioned before, I still have that book too even though I’ve rather outgrown it.

Last night, I saw my brother for the second time since becoming ill. Ah! I don’t remember when I’d seen him, but I did see him once post ARDS and asked him the $64,000 question, “Why didn’t you come?” He never came the whole time I was in the hospital. Chip, Mom, and Doug came every goddamned day. Perhaps Eric could have, if nothing else, provided solace to his brother. (As far as I know, there’s no bad blood between those two.) A reminder of the highlights of my hospital stay: eight weeks in a medically-induced coma on a vent plus another five weeks in the ICU. Looking like a camp victim at a staggering 85 pounds.

People who get such a severe case of ARDS and wind up with crazy-damaged lungs plus bronchiectasis. I love to say bronchiectasis. It just trips off the tongue like ”babbling brook.” (Bronchiectasis is the twisting of now-no-longer useful lung tubing; they’re twisted and hence, fucked up forever and always.) Basically, I have a mélange of tissue that in another form would be happy, healthy lungs. And the word bronchiectasis is pleasing to my ear, because when I hear it or say it, I have a vivid picture etched in my mind of the happy Sinclair Brontosaurus. Yeah, yeah, I know the fossilized beast had been named prior to Sinclair incorporating that cute, smiling Brontosaurus into its public imagery. Except know one knew about it. Not then. I would’ve kept it mum. An Apatosaurus just doesn’t fly. Then the crack Sinclair marketing team would have to fire their agency, and who the hell knows what they’d come up with. The Brontosaurus would kick any other Sinclair mascot’s ass. Like a Sinclair version of the Philly Phanatic. Show that and this is the best you’ll get: “We must have new boards by Friday of we’ll fire your ass.” Oops, that’s my other life talking. Madmen, Take 2.

FYI, no, even back in the day did most admen did not have booze in their offices. (Except, perhaps the big shots.) Anyone who needed to imbibe got drunk off his ass at lunch, and there was always the bar downstairs if you needed, “new surroundings to work on that tough pitch.” Two Gibsons, please.)

Some changes I’ve never understood. “Honey, let’s fill the tank at Esso.” Does honey really care to go to Exxon? For me, the name Exxon evokes the military-industrial complex Ike warned us about. Exxon frightens me. Esso was so tranquil, so soothing. Exxon wants to crack your head open with a hammer. But that’s just me.

Which brings me back to my brother. He is still my sweet, gentle brother on the outside. But after spending the past thirty plus years with his impossible, controlling harridan of a wife, he is filled with more rage than I can imagine. I’m sure as hell not going to go there. What’s the point? If he had made any move in that direction, I would have made him feel it was okay to speak freely. (For real. We were best friends growing up. We grokked each other like no one else did or could. He knows. He remembers though it was an awfully long time ago.) But he didn’t speak about what had become, no exaggeration, a family debacle.

He wanted to see me. He wanted to make sure I knew that he now understood what I’ve been living with and how horrible it must be. He didn’t get it for a long time. And he didn’t need any words to tell me this. I think he also threw in a pinch or two of contrition into our wordless conversation. That was nice. My brother hurts himself more than I ever could, and none us want him to hurt at all. That’s why it’s been so damned difficult watching him become more and more wretched and see that he actually believes he deserves the terrible life he’s made for himself. Now that was a choice he made. No one made it for him. I wasn’t the best-equipped person at promoting myself in those dreadful mid-eighties. I got knocked down. I made tons of mistakes. But I didn’t repeat most of them.

Dinner was more than pleasant. We ordered in a ton of Indian food. (Eric’s all-time favorite, and one of ours too.) When he kissed me good night he asked if that were okay. I nodded. “Of course, you silly brother!” (The latter was not spoken. It was a thought balloon.) My mother is so happy that Eric and I are no longer estranged. Eric, I think, is relieved that I didn’t have a cow at any time during the evening,

But after they left, I was still a ball of pent-up energy. What the fuck was I going to do with it? Remember I said it was not fucking possible to make a backstitch with yarn. Not for me. So I got the brilliant idea of taking regular thread. (In the exact same fire engine-red as the yarn, to neaten up the smile- mainly pulling the yarn stitches tighter with the thread in the back where no one will (thank god) ever see. I worked on that doll’s mouth (for that was what required the fucking backstitch.) One stupid “U,” concave up. I worked on it until it earned my satisfaction. That was at was 3:40 a.m. (Did I have energy to burn or what.)

I am in the middle of a bio of Lindbergh. Absolutely fascinating. Before that, David Remnick’s Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. What a fantastic, yummy book! It’s a rare thing to savor something that good. The last book of the Edmund Morris’ Teddy Roosevelt trilogy is out! I can’t help it. I am such a non-fiction girl…(FYI, From now on, the Lindburgh bio or the Remnick are not ever to be used in the same sentence as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.)

I’m here writing this post tonight, because the Lindburgh baby was just kidnapped. I’m not strong enough to get through it tonight. It was time for a break, write a post, and sew the doll pieces together using a nice little blanket stitch. Sewn with thread.

One Tough Cat

2011-01-06T21:09:00.000-08:00

I’ve noticed that I have been living this conundrum for several years to one degree or another (Glass half full…Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.) While it gets rather lonely stuck up in my fourth floor “garret” producing zero works of art and occasionally getting one or two brilliant works read that were not or ever could be composed by me. Believe me, I realized I had what I thought was an “artistic temperment” (whatever that means) minus any talent of any kind whatsoever. I rationalized my fatal flaw by telling myself that the world needed people like me who can simply enjoy the work of others. So that’s what I do. I adore Maggot Brain, Thomas Hardy, and El Greco. The world needs people to do this or else the art might never be produced. QED: I’m a critical part of the creative process. You need an audience? Give me a holler.

I lock myself in my apartment looking more like a Morlock or some eyeless mole by the day. I have no problem looking like a Morlock. I could always relate better with the Morlocks anyway. Eloi were just particularly like the stereotypical stupid surfer-type dudes for whom I have little patience.

Doug found out a little more about our friend Chip. For the last year or so, he’d been closing himself up- withdrawing from life. He knew there was a terribly dangerous surgery ahead of him with a good chance of dying on the table. He withdrew. I not only understand it, I do it. I know it. I live it. My god, I wish I could have spoken to him, but he didn’t even tell his closest friends what was happening. Like with my darling Cliff, I understood the pain and fear he was living. We could cry to one another. If you haven’t been there, you can’t possibly know.

Goddamnit. Now I understand why my father chose to die rather than subject himself to the vicious chemotherapy that only had a slim chance of putting in remission. We kids saw what those drugs did to him. Within days, this robust, strong man was reduced to a skeleton with skin stretched over it. He didn’t look human anymore. But we kids, when his disease returned, were horrified that he would just let the leukemia run its course. And let himself die. We begged him to try to put the disease on hold one more time. Now he was a grown man, he could do what he felt right. He knew what he would face with that heinous chemotherapy. But my Dad, my incredible Dad couldn’t disappoint his kids. Not his kids. He went ahead with the chemo. And in days that followed, he entered into that shadow world somewhere between living and dying. Two weeks later he was dead. Oh Dad, I’m so sorry to we put you through that again. We couldn’t imagine ever losing you. We saw, but seeing isn’t understanding.

That’s while I’ll be damned if I put myself on the lung-transplant list. I know the hell of this drill, and it’s a drill I refuse to repeat. Sounds an awful lot like my thirteen weeks in the ICU. Thank you Dad. I’m just sorry he had to relive that hell-even for two weeks- for us.

I find that I cocoon myself. I so rarely see anyone. Sure, it takes lots of energy for me to have visitors. (Anyone who has come here to visit came, because I wanted that person to come. No one has imposed his or herself on me. Laura J., Joanie, Bob et al were here, because I wanted them to be. No feeling guilty, okay? You brightened my life. I’m strong enough to say no. And I’m strong enough to say yes, capeche?)

As I have said many times to my therapist/angel, that I can’t burden my friends with my Sisyphean boulder of crap. I say all the time that the only people (besides my mother, Doug, and Chip) I can unload on are the people whose time I pay for: my therapist/angel; Tamar, the best P.T. on the planet; Rachel, my terrific masseuse, and Laurie, my beloved chiropractor. That’s a damned fine group, but this shit cannot be laid on the general public.

Usually when we visit the ill, we wish them a speedy recovery and then talk about life as usual. For me, not only will there not be any recovery, there is not one in the offing. (But they’re doing an awful lot of stuff with mice.) And I reminded Chip that if there were some new experimental procedure, who knows? Perhaps, I’ll never get off the table like Chip Rabkin.

I am stopping right now the specious comparison that many have used, because no one knows what the hell to say to me. “Well, you can get hit by a bus tomorrow.”

Ugh, strangle me please.

Yeah. Sorry. (I really am.) This does not fly. It only upsets me. I hadn't figured out why or how until I started putting it to paper. But here it is: Saying so is dismissive of my illness and all I've been through these past four years. My fears (“Is today the day?”) and all the hell I continue to go through are being equated to being whacked to kingdom come by a bus.

Okay. I’ll buy it. But let's play it my way. You survive the bus accident, you are now limbless (or maybe, your limbs just no longer work), and your heart is fucked in such a way that it cannot be surgically corrected. Transplant? Maybe. As the boys from Pittsburgh said to me over and over and over again, “Please remember, you’re just exchanging one disease for another.” Welcome to my world.

Then maybe we can talk about being hit by a fucking bus. Why do you think Chip Rabkin began withdrawing from life? When you know what’s coming and there’s no chance for a do-over, it’s awfully difficult to embrace life. Life has become a dirty word. Your own personal dirty word. Why bother anymore?

Death by bus may provide you some comfort, but it sure makes me feel an awful lot worse. From my standpoint, that bus sounds pretty fucking good. (“Glass half full…) Boom, it’s done. No, sorry everybody. I live with my near death experience every fucking second of every fucking day. God bless that bus. May it only fly up to the fourth floor. (Please be careful not to hit Chip or the cats, okay?) I may look just fine, but I feel sick every single day. I hate gasping for air which I must do all the time. Gasping creates a panic response automatically. (Water boarding, anyone?) I really don’t like to panic. My throat always hurts. I live with a painful cough. Side effects galore from my high-tech medication. But one stinking respiratory infection, and it’s sayonara kids.

One of our cats developed a hideous cancer. One of those that once you see it, it’s too late for treatment. The damned thing became an enormous tumor on his jaw. He used to tap me on the arm for more pain killer. My poor sweet baby. What a wonderful boy Jazzy was! The vet told us we’d know when it’s time because cats turn inward as they get closer to the end. When I bring Jazzy back to the vet, he is stunned that this is the same cat he saw six weeks earlier. How could that cat still be alive? Because he sure shouldn’t be.

I started balling, “You said, when he’s ready, he’d turn inward. He hasn’t! He hasn’t at all! He still wants to live!” The vet took one more look at Jazzy and said it was time. When he brought Jazzy to the room where they first put him into a deep sleep before kicking you out when they give the Kevorkian injection, Jazzy just wandered around the room checking it out. Just like a cat. Not a dying cat.

The vet sends out condolence cards. This is the first one I’ve ever seen him personalize one. He wrote for Jazzy, “To one tough cat.”

The Final Mission

2011-01-04T18:12:00.001-08:00

A week and a half ago, I was depressed yet again. (I’m such a dumbshit. If I used my light box regularly, I might actually know if it had any impact on how I’m feeling. I don’t, so I don’t. Foolish girl. Big news: a new plaint has tumbled from my lips: “I can’t bear it.”

Yes, on the face of it it’s yet another whimper (or yelp) that I can’t live any longer feeling like I do. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. (Spoken à la Yul Brynner.)

I’ve had the idea that I’m getting closer to the core of my own personal version of my Journey to the Center of the Earth. And you’re all invited, as I write (and rewrite) the sequel. (Like “penne alla vodka except it will be “journey à la Fran.” Huh?) If anyone prefers the penne, I can’t help you.

Actually, I can’t help you with either pasta or movie scripts. But if you feel the urge for movie sequels or at the very least, the idea of movie sequels, let’s play pretend. Because that is what I live for, you know. (It reminds me of strange bit on the Sarah Silverman Program. Sarah and another young women are supposed to taking out a “mentally-challenged person” out for fun and games. It seems a mistake has been made and the women argue back and forth: No, you’re the retard! No, you’re the retard! No you’re the retard!” And so on. It was very funny. Ah, guys, you embarrass me! But you already knew how insensitive and appallingly politically incorrect I can be, aw shucks. I’m beet red. No, you’re the retards!

All right there is nothing but strange on The Sarah Silverman Program.

Back to let’s play “pretend Franny’s life.” Okay not a pretend life, but a pretense of a life. We can play “script write and rewrite” if you want to try? Let’s do it! (No, I’m a retard!) First of all, get this straight, in my Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Final Mission, Gertrude the duck comes back. S’alright? Or I'm not playing.

Now that we have that out of the way, the big Icelandic he-man would be awfully nice to have around but sadly, I have to let him go. I’ve got Chip. And he beats the he-man Icelandic dude hands down.

About a week and a half ago, I blurted out a brand new message of pain and sheer nastiness. “I can’t bear it” What felt different about it is that I’ve been so incessantly down without many breaks. (Except when watching the HBO lead up shows for the Winter Classic. Those and The Winter Classic itself were my Calgon (Take Me Away!). I should live in Canada.) But the Winter Classic is history, and I’m not. I may be splitting hairs, but as I open up more and more during my weekly massage, the sadder and sadder and more frightened I become. I have been warned umpteen times to expect this. I must tell you, that doesn't provide a muon of backbone when the inevitable happens when even a muon is better than none.

From day, hmmm, let’s say fifty two, I’ve gotten weepy now and again for me. My poor dear Chip Rabkin drew real honest-to-god tears. But a tear (or maybe even two, could that be so hard, for crying out loud?)?) never for me. Never for drawing the short straw. I’ve kept my demon hidden away. I think, as Rachel, my lovely and talented massage therapist, peels me like an onion, I get closer to all of my crap I’ve held back for four years now.

Chip Rabkin. He was my guy. He was my partner in illness. We became sick together. His success was my success. Who have I been kidding besides myself? I’m walking a tightrope without a net. I can drop dead at a moment’s notice. Should I be shocked at this? No, I just can’t bear it.

P.S. Re: Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Final Mission. I think some of this is workable. Now how to get me down to Atlantis in a wheelchair with enough oxygen tanks will be a toughy. Hey, perhaps there’s room for the Icelandic he-man in this sequel. Gotta keep thinking. Thinking, thinking, thinking…

Chip Rabkin

2010-12-30T20:53:00.001-08:00

I imagine this is my last post of the year. And it’s ending on such a cheery note. One of Doug’s friends died. And became one of mine albeit a more distant one. But he always included me and Chip in the summer soiree upstate in a beautiful spot with beautiful grilled (hmmmmm!) food. He was a really nice guy. He was part of the New York Ranger ticket sharing crew. We were all part of a bunch of New York Ranger fans who bought into a friend’s season tickets that he could never afford on his own. (Who the fuck can?)

No more live Ranger games at center ice for me. Lucky me, they look beautiful on the television my Chip and I received from Lydon and my mother-in-law last Christmas.

Our friend who is no more: his name was Chip Rabkin, and we were the same age and lucky us, we became ill at roughly the same time. Unbeknownst to him, he had congenital heart problems, which we were all told were fixed once they were correctly identified. (I thought it took too damned long, if you ask me. But no one did, and I think my urging Chip’s doctors to “Move along, move along” as they dawdled during recess would have fallen on deaf ears. I would have made one lousy instructor.) Ultimately, the doctors made the correct diagnosis in time. Phew!

Them surgeons opened that boy up and found what they’d expected to find. Chip was told that if he didn’t have this gargantuan surgery, he’s have only a twenty percent chance to live to old age. Duh, he chose the surgery. There were no complications. He went back to work in a matter of weeks even though the doctors had to open up his chest to fix his heart. Chip was fixed! Me, we know I wasn’t quite so lucky. I lost lung function, and then I lost more lung function. I don’t think I can lose much more without being switched to a ventilator. Do any of us really want to live attached to a ventilator? Don’t raise your hands all at once.

I don’t know why Chip had to have another procedure sometime last week. But he did. This time, he had a massive stroke and died without ever regaining consciousness. (Not that that would have been a good thing. But I don’t think he- or his brothers- ever imagined that the procedure would have gone anything but swimmingly. He’d been through the worst, right? Those scary days before his condition was initially recognized when the congenital defect could have done him in.

It’s crossed my mind more than once that if medical science finds, if not a cure, something to help me out so I don’t have to be so frightened with every new thing I feel. I’m always on edge that I’m losing lung capacity. I’m not. Not yet anyway. But panic sure makes it feel so.

I received high marks two weeks in a row from my masseuse. My body is responding to her touch. I’m opening up. That’s the one thing I’ve never done since this nightmare began. How long has it been, four years? I must be petrified to let whatever’s in there out. I have been feeling low these days. But Rachel, my crack masseuse, explained that the emotions massage can release don’t necessarily release while on the table. They might the next day, later that night. She assured me that releasing these feelings is totally normal and not to get freaked out whenever they choose to announce themselves. (Rich gets a major thumbs up for warning me about this months ago. Glass half full?)

My therapist has given me a powerful tool, which, I admit, has kept me from leaping out the window. For Franny to remember: when I’ve worked myself up into a lather what’s put me there are just vicious, destructive, painful feelings that push me over into the abyss (oooh, that abyss again!). They are not reality. (Oh, they may resemble reality, but I don’t have to accept every nasty feeling that comes my way as the god’s honest truth.) This isn’t easy. It’s fucking hard as hell especially when wrestling with my life and especially today, my death.

My new one that popped out unexpectantly, “I can’t bear this!” Shaking my head vociferously, and repeating my new mantra over and over again. To escape, I tried to go back to sleep after waking from my afternoon nap. Even with my beautiful Lunesta, you can’t sleep when you’re not tired. Around 10:30 I gave up and joined my very much alive Chip in the living room.

Eons ago, my mother bought me two kits to make dolls. She chose the Indian Princess and Katrina, the little Dutch girl. They’re darling, and I felt so sad and teary that I never sat down with Ma and put them together. These include patterns, different stitches (a lot of sewing). These are not beginner’s projects, and it would have been a fun activity for the two of us to do together. I had her bring them here. I have begun the Indian Princess. The pattern for her body is pinned down and ready to be cut out. Scares the willies out of me that I’ll screw this up. Ma will come over and help me along. My therapist loves this. This work takes me out of my head.

It’s like mending underwear and darning socks except here I’ll end up with sweet smiling faces to look at. Don’t pooh-pooh sweet smiling faces. They’ve got serious mojo. Uh-huh.

I need to be taken out of my head. For all my qvetching about wanting to die, I’m petrified that I’ll follow the way of our friend Chip. I don’t want that.

Hey, and I have two dolls that need to be made, a book that needs to be published, and a new Facebook organism that I need to screw with. I think that’s reason enough to live, don’t you?

Chip Rabkin, I’m just stunned. You were one of the good ones. They fixed you, damnit! I’m sorry. This is not supposed to happen.

A Schreiber High School Anti-War March? You're Joking, Right?

2010-12-23T20:33:00.000-08:00

It’s déjà vu all over again again. Years and years ago, back in the early seventies when subjects that were once taboo, were taboo no more. It was the age of Norman Lear, Phil Donahue, Watergate Hearings, the Equal Rights Amendment, and John and Yoko cohosting a whole week on Mike Douglas. That’s pretty fucked up, isn’t it? But in such a good way. There was the first Earth Day. Somebody developed a spanking new icon-to-be, the ecology emblem. (I had stickers of it on my fifth grade notebook.) These were the “good old days.”

The emblem never took. (Hey, those kids who lived through the gas crisis are the ones buying the biggest, fattest gas-guzzling SUVs and whining when the price of gas goes up. Americans can’t seem to think past their own nose. Fran, you commie prevert you!)

Yesterday, a good friend of mine posted a recent poll result from Gallup that roughly four out of every ten Americans believe in strict creationism. Say what!?! Four out of ten, you’ve got to be kidding me. No wonder science in this country is in the toilet. Science is getting kicked into the gutter, and only I and another friend of ours bothered to be disgusted and frightened by these numbers. Call me crazy, but this just can’t be good. Could it?

What happened from those heady early seventies?

My brother told me about the anti-war march (Spring of 1970: post covert bombing of Cambodia and post Kent State) which started at Paul D. Schreiber High School (of the Union Free Port Washington School District) and ended in a park opposite the A&S way down on Northern Blvd- Manhasset Valley Park for a rally. That’s one fucking long hike!

I think somewhere along the line the student marchers walked past the local draft board somewhere on Northern Blvd. Eventually these Schreiber kids hooked up with a sizable contingent from Great Neck. This was one fucking big deal. Doug recalls (he was in eigth grade, so he was still at Carrie Palmer Weber Junior High School of the Union Free Port Washington School District) that the Weber students were threatened with suspension if they did not appear at school the day of the march. No complaining about napalm and bombing innocent civilians for you.

Well, Doug did march along with our mother (as did my eldest brother) and Mrs. Cohen (she needs no explaining) and her daughter Beth who was also a student at Weber. In our house, it was pretty much impossible to be radical when our parents were as or more radical than we. We just hadn’t caught up yet. C’mon, I had just reached double digits. (I turned 10.) I still had much to learn. So please cut me a break.) But I do understand Doug’s sheepishness marching with “his Mommy.” The rest of Weber stayed put.

Déjà vu. Did I say something about déjà vu? Back in the early days of Midday Live. Before Bill Boggs. It was hosted by Lee Leonard who must have had the activist Bill Baird as a guest. And I remember so vividly, a black and white photo of a naked woman, her butt high in the air. Her head and torso front down on the floor. She was dead. From an illegal abortion. I ask anyone, could that photo ever appear on television today?

Abortion is taboo in Hollywood. Look at Knocked Up, Juno. Where the “family- planning clinic” was made to look like it was staffed with a bunch of insensitive, uncaring people. If the vignette of the receptionist snapping gum, on personal phone call with her feet crossed on the desk appeared to epitomize incompetence, the director succeeded.

Could Maude get her abortion today? Walter his vasectomy? Could they even venture to speak of them now? And in the same episode no less? (After the discovery of Maude's pregnancy, Walter was going "to get a vasectomy after golf." To which Maude replies, "Vasectomy after golf? It sounds like a new play by Noel Coward.") I don’t think so.

That photograph. It was obscene. Here was some young woman forever immortalized for the audacity of getting pregnant. In The Pianist, a woman was shot in the back. Dead. She ended up lying dead in that very same position as that poor woman in my Midday Live photo. No swooning graceful death allowed. It was obscene.

Cut to 1991. There is a pro-choice rally at twenty-third and Broadway? I could be wrong, but where the thing was is irrelevant. I went with Doug, his girlfriend, and her brother, a priest (not in garb) who was also pro-choice, That’s one helluva priest. As I look around, what do I see? A placard of that black and white photo of the naked dead woman. Butt still in the air. As horrific as when I first saw it. My jaw dropped to the pavement. My god, how far have we come from all that hope and belief that we could actually make a difference like we had in those early seventies?

Why this now? I’d been thinking of the power of seeing that photograph some twenty-odd years after I innocently bumped into it on Midday Live. Can you believe this would be an appropriate topic on television today?

Today, a Facebook member referred to the Nixon Senate Hearings as bleak. Rather I found them kind of refreshing. Exhilarating even. So I write and write…

In the Schreiber of the early 1970s, the school organized an assembly with Bill Baird and a person representing the belief that abortion is murder. Could this have happened at our Schreiber? No fucking way. The goddamned 1980 Yearbook advisor couldn’t admit that a smoke bomb spoiled “Holiday Cookie Day” and refused to allow it to be mentioned. It’s thinking like that that landed us all in the land of “Morning in America.”

Everybody, please open your eyes.

Fresh-From-The-Farm

2010-12-20T20:29:00.000-08:00

It’s so peculiar. I’m miserable, I can’t stop coughing, my life sucks, why me, wild coughing fits scare the bejeezus out of me…waah!

I guess if you speak just loud enough, something might actually change. Like a swath of my medication. Between Friday afternoon and Monday morning no less, I made these docs get off their loathsome, spotty behinds (I can’t take credit for the latter…it’s Monty Python) and haul ass. I didn’t know I could do that.

Yes, Chip made the phone calls, sent the faxes, and did the follow up, but after I had had enough with the status quo. My status quo stinks. I’ve actually become sort of, kind of, a little bit used to losing my breath to the point where everything that can, exits at the closest orifice. (Before I do my hallway laps, I sit on the crapper for so damned long to get whatever I can out. I’d rather my waste material exit where it’s supposed to rather than while I’m sitting my goddamned wheelchair into which I collapse after a “lap.”

I lied.

When I’m beyond out of breath, I’m only dealing with waste products. Once, with chemo, everything said bye, bye. (I’m insane. I’ve walked two blocks and, strangely, I become nauseated until I urgently need to vomit. (That’s not supposed to happen. I shouldn’t feel the effects of the chemo until four hours have elapsed.) I’m at 77^th and 3^rd. What do I do? All the cars were parked fairly close together. I couldn’t, heavens, mess up the sidewalk! But I kept in for a few valuable seconds what turned out to be the best projectile vomiting experience ever! Depending on how you define “best.” Boy, did that stuff fly!

The nuclear explosion of vomit remained inside my pathetic self until I found a suitable spot between two parked cars. By choosing this particular spot, there would be no evidence of the carnage in front of any of the car doors. I really hate stepping in dog shit (or cat shit as the case may be), and I really hate walking into some stranger’s vomit. It’s plain disgusting. That night I could sleep easy knowing that I didn’t subject anyone to my expectorations. I, even, with the help of my beloved friend, Dr. Audge, who keeps a million bags on her for her daughter who invariably gets carsick, kept the cab that took me home clean. That took some doing, but it never would have been possible without Audge’s bag. Bless you, Audgela.

But yes, I do try and excrete all I can before attempting exercise. Because if I’m going to pee in my pants, it better not be more that a drop or two. So far, that’s been the worst of it. I despise not being able to breathe, but I now accept the fact that it will never come back. As you know all too well from my last post, the damned coughing scares the shit out of me.

Man, this morning the pulmonologist prescribed this fresh-from-the-farm gel caps (“pearls”) that stop the coughing mechanism. You still are able to cough when you need to, (you won’t choke to death) but you won’t when you don’t. Woohoo! So far, so good. Dr. Pulmonologist also changed one of the drugs in the nebulizer, so I can have relief all day. We have improvement.

Charlie, you are beyond right. You have to be your own advocate, because your doctors aren’t going to give you the heads up about new drugs that may help you live another day. Or live a better day. Right now, all I want is to have a life that I would choose to live given all my obvious limitations. I want my conscious moments to be as pleasant as they can be. I think after this wild weekend (for me) of change this may yet be possible. To be continued.

Which leads me back to my beloved Maggot Brain. “Maggot Brain” is a remarkable guitar instrumental that leaves me breathless, speechless, and awestruck every time I listen to it. It begins with a word from god or at the very least, the guy who is the disembodied Voice at The Hayden Planetarium if he were a black dude.

But no. I think it’s George Clinton speaking to us all from somewhere out in the galaxy. (Forget the end of The Moody Blues Days of Future Past. That’s just plain silly and pretentious. George Clinton may be too. But I don’t think he’d mind if you told him so. I think he would shake his head internally knowing that you just don’t get it.) He says:

(static, echo)

Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time

For y'all have knocked her up 

I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe 

I was not offended 

For I knew I had to rise above it all 

Or drown in my own shit

Amen.

Tutti Frutti

2010-12-17T22:08:00.001-08:00

Fear is corrosive. I had a full-fledged panic attack and then relived it the day following, because the scene was the same, I had a cough, and I was constipated. Not much to panic about. (Does anyone remember Dyan Cannon in Heaven Can Wait scream after she thinks that the husband who has been murdered has apparently not been murdered? Charles Grodin, the husband’s lackey and Dyan Cannon’s lover, is quick on the take? He says, “She just saw a mouse.” Warren Beatty is looking around quizzically for said mouse. Grodin thinks quickly, She relived it.”)

Well I relived the “The Coughs From Hell” that I described all too vividly in my last post. Oh my god, I can’t breathe. Just heading back to the john where the initial panic occurred was more than enough to send me into a tailspin. Like a soldier on his first stint back in Kandahar where his buddy was blown to bits. Well, now he’s back in Kandahar again. This time, no one gets blown to kingdom come, buddy or otherwise, but that poor soldier might as have lost his best friend. He suffers as if were happening again. In real time.

Fear eats you alive.

No more playing with oxycodone. Not that was ever my intention though it had become tempting of late. Fuzz the fear. Now who can find fault with that? Everyone, that’s who. If I made oxy my new best friend tempting though it might be. So far, no evil reactions to the huge increase in Effexor. And I must live through whatever panic attacks come my way. And trust me, this is not like the nauseating butterflies before a major exam. (Yeah, I never had any perspective whatsoever. So I would always worry excessively (and needlessly) before exams. Using the tired joke yet again, when I hear the whirring helicopters, I’m back in ‘Nam.)

I inadvertently discovered why mucous was clinging, glue-like, to my throat, causing what I now know were bronchial spasms. I hit a big, fat emotional wall at around eleven last night. I’d had enough. I had to sleep. That’s my only means of escape. Fuck brave, strong Franny. No, she doesn’t exist. C’mon, I’ve been telling y’all I’m a wuss for months. Please believe me. I am a coward. Hey, if I weren’t, I’d probably be dead, so I suppose wussiness has its benefits. (Glass half full again. What am I thinking?)

In my hurry to get to bed and snuggle down with my Lunesta. (Don’t you just love those gentle butterflies? The ad agency should get a bonus for them. I buy into the whole butterfly/tinkerbell concept completely. And that was even before I started taking it. Now, hands off my fucking butterflies, or I’ll break your face.)

I went to bed without medication that dries me out. (Since ARDS, I’ve produced way too much mucous. Spiriva solved that one.) But I found, on waking up this morning, there was no more glue in my throat. When I coughed, the damned things were productive. Say what? Spoke to my allergist (who seems to know more than all the damned pulmonologists combined). He put me on a nebulizer containing Albuterol and Pulmicort. Fuck if I know anything about this shit except it will stop the spasms that have, until now, caused me to cough uncontrollably…

I love this man.

So I sit here listening to Little Richard’s Tutti Frutti wishing it had been recorded with his original lyrics:

Tutti Frutti, good booty

If it don’t fit, don’t force it

You can grease it, make it easy

Fucking awesome.

It's Nixon, By A Nose!

2010-12-15T17:29:00.000-08:00

Have you all forgotten me? No, sweet ones, you haven’t. I wish I could. No such luck. Damn. The oxy saga finally comes to a flaccid ending. (If endings can be such. Well, they can now. You wanna argue with an extremely pissy, ill, menopausal woman? Are you crazy?)

I never felt comfortable using the oxy as my “anti-suicide pill” or as my “mood enhancer” though it performed the latter function with aplomb. My mother, of all people, was so happy to see her usually miserable daughter so gregarious, so social, so relaxed. I suppose, if my choice were that or nothing, depending on my mood, I might as well go for the narcotic that would quickly have me addicted and wanting more. Not a good look.

My psychopharmacologist missed last Thursday’s phone appointment to solve my conundrum: misery or not giving a shit, salut! What the fuck was that all about? Chip thought I didn’t want the appointment rescheduled, didn’t reschedule it assuming that everyone agreed that oxycodone was everyone’s drug of choice. I knew that was no solution, and I was shocked that Ira (the psychopharmacologist) would go along with this. We had our belated appointment yesterday. I was only taking the oxy when my back was not happy and was yammering for a hit of something, thank you very much. And that’s what I did.

Ira thinks that last week’s walk to the very edge of the precipice may have been partly caused by withdrawal from those few measly pills I’d taken, I thought, so prudently. So I thought. I’ve since gathered, best to take it regularly, on a schedule, for as long as necessary, and them wean yourself off the stuff by cutting your dose little by little. I know this shit. I just haven’t had to deal with this all that often in my life.

Yes, I know you can’t go cold turkey on psychotropic drugs, as my internist so lovingly refers to them. I’ve been weaned off those before. I know the drill. But getting weaned off anything is pretty unusual these days. It feels to me that I just keep adding drugs and upping dosages. Nothing fun, mind you. But perhaps life saving, so I shouldn’t complain that they don’t have me doing the hula, cannula, tubing and all, in my living room. Though wouldn’t that be fun if I had the urge? Hmmmm. Oxy, oxy, oxy.

Resolved after my appointment with Ira, Effexor has been upped by fifty percent. (Effexor just kills sex drive. Whoopee. One more thing to look forward to.) That’s a whole lot of Effexor. I should know in a day or two if I can tolerate that high a dose. If so, I’ll need some time to see if I hop back from that precipice and contemplate dancing the hula. (Sorry, y’all, that’s the best I can do.) If I spent last week being proverbially kicked in the nuts from oxycodone withdrawal, I’d really not like to go there again.

I’m no longer in excruciating pain. That’s one reason I can be so blasé about dropping the oxy. Slowly, achingly, my back improves. Maybe, I can get by with Alleve. (Glass half full.)

I can’t catch a break. Just when I think its safe to go back in the water…(Actually, I wonder when that might be. I love the ocean. I even love swimming pools. Being wheeled along Long Island’s gorgeous beaches comes in second, though just by a rather large and eminently caricature-able nose, to Richard Nixon walking along the beach in a suit and wing tips. I’d be ridiculous. (Though he wins the ridiculous contest, no question. Certainly not in my mind.) And impossible to push along- at least on the dry sand. What a nightmare.

No today, and it has been happening since the heat has poured out of our radiators, my throat and sinuses are filled with a glue-like mucous (Nasty but healthy mucous. No funky colors. When that happens, no if that happens, then I’ll be up shit’s creek.) I can’t get the crap out without ever more violent coughing. I was coughing like that when I first came out of the hospital. That’s when coughing was responsible for two fractured ribs. Albeit hairline cracks, but cracks just the same. That’s not normal. That’s fucked up. This time around, my hearty pecs protect my ribs and allow me to breathe through the scarred wreckage that are my lungs. (Yes, I worked on the pecs some, but they really appeared without any conscious help from me. Amazing what the body can do when forced to. I love those damned pecs. They’re seriously multi-purpose. They also keep my sagging middle-aged breasts a bit less saggy than they would if left to their own devices.)

So I’m coughing again. Instead of cracking ribs, these coughs mostly throw my back out of joint. The clavicles are a nice easy target that my coughs toy with regularly. I also get lumps on my back just about anywhere you slice it, and I point them out to Rachel, my very fine masseuse, as if she’d miss them on her own. Oy.

Today, I had finished stretching my neck when I was overcome with Coughs From Hell. Those are the ones that fail to move much of anything, go on for what feels like an eternity, and make it impossible for me to catch my breath. Oh shit. I can’t catch my breath. I panic, because besides making me a fine set of pecs, my body panics all on it’s own with no help from me. During a tiny respite, I take my four o’clock pills twenty minutes early, because that batch contains a Klonopin. I thought that was clever of me to do that, don’t you? Too late, I was already in the thick of it.

The best cough suppressant is oxycodone. I swear. If I hadn’t quit Brownies I’d make a Brownies promise to you all. Just when I thought I had this one figured out, no more oxy, the insidious drug calls out, “Wait for me!” (“ Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.”) I have to wait and see. If this fucking cough is what I have to look forward to all winter, it’ll be…long time no see, Mr. Codone!

The Ghost Map

2010-12-11T19:28:00.001-08:00

I’ve been low. Really low. Wish I were dead now. But wishing isn’t doing, and I know I’m not there yet. As a doctor is wont to ask if you say you no longer have any interest in living, they counter with the question, “Do you have a plan?” I’ve received this line from two docs, so it must be part of their Official Training. I’m not sure if it’s meant to throw you or for them to do a quick and dirty evaluation as they check out your response.

No, I don’t have a plan.

It’s really not important why I feel this way. But I’ll tell you a few anyway. I feel like a burden. I think chemicals are doing me wrong. I am finally grokking that I’m not going to feel much better than I do now. I still require tons of sleep- because I’m ill? Because sleep provides me with a means of escape? Getting up earlier than I do (feeling chipper and bouncy) necessitates a complete personality shift. I’ve never been chipper and bouncy though on occasion I might have appear as such. I promise you, it was only an illusion. Well, maybe not all of it. But after being slammed by a two by four (ARDS and its aftermath), I think that part is gone for good. Or it’s twisted into something I don’t yet recognize. The twisting part I get.

My friend Audge recommended to me The Ghost Map- the telling of a real-life story of two men and their search for the source of a cholera epidemic in 1854 London. She knows me all too well. Of course I was into it. She warned me, the author can get a bit redundant but he writes so beautifully, he can be forgiven. I forgive.

He prefaces the book with a passage from Walter Benjamin from Theses on the Philosophy of History. I was clueless as to who he was and found out he was a twentieth century German-Jewish intellectual, philosopher, translator…Ugh. He and his sister were literally steps ahead of the Nazis. They had obtained travel visas to cross the border into Spain which they did with the intention of heading to Portugal and from there, the United States. Bless Franco who cancelled all transit visas, and Benjamin was to be sent back to France. He killed himself in 1940, with an overdose of morphine, before the Franco regime could make good on its promise. |

Shit. I swear I didn’t know about his suicide until I just read up on the guy. And what a guy. What a mind. I was going to check him out, because I fell in love with his concept used almost word for word by Laurie Anderson in her song, “The Dream Before” dedicated to him right under the song title: “For Walter Benjamin. ” I just never noticed the credit before. Laurie certainly placed it front and center. Impossible to miss. But too long ago for me to simply Google the name and find out who the hell he was. The song is off her 1989 album Strange Angels. (Utterly, completely wonderful.) Here is Laurie’s pithy version but carefully using the same words as Mr. Benjamin:

What is history?  

History is an angel being blown backwards into the future  

History is a pile of debris  

And the angel wants to go back and fix things  

To repair the things that have been broken  

But there is a storm blowing from Paradise  

And the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future  

And this storm, this storm is called Progress

When I bought the album, this passage moved me with such force that I tried to pass on my excitement and awe to friends I thought might feel it too. I was beyond passionate about it. Benjamin’s/Laurie’s words still do it for me. And to find it as the preface to The Ghost Map was as unexpected and so read with power as if I had never seen it before the very day Audge left the book for me.

I guess the fact that I so wanted to share the passage with you means there's life in the old girl yet. Fuck, l'm not ready to call it a day. Who knew?

Bravo Walter Benjamin!

Brava Laurie!

Brava Audrey!

Maggot Brain

2010-12-08T21:29:00.000-08:00

I’ve been feeling really low. Oxy makes me constipated, which makes me nauseated, which makes me not eat a damn thing. The oxy may also be helping out with the nausea as narcotics are wont to do. The killer: the oxy not only helped ease my back (or head or neck) pain, it also me more relaxed. More gregarious. Happier. It gave me a quality of life when before I had none. What to do? I freely admit to all my doctors and therapists that a measly five milligrams of the drug changes my life for the better one thousand fold. Except for the nausea.

My oncologist has sent me an email with this whole mess of over-the-counter remedies for constipation. He wants me to take the oxy. No caregiver wishes to deprive me of the oxy. I will take it again but with massive amounts of trepidation. And make sure I have every goddamned constipation remedy on hand. Stuff to be taken at night, will be taken at night. Morning drugs, in the morning. Stuff to mix in liquid will go directly into Gatorade. (I find everything goes down just peachy with a glass of Gatorade. Original, naturellement.)

I’m not ready to begin the bowel clinic this evening. Tonight, It’s weed toast. I prefer rye myself. I’ve just ingested it. It is remarkable how it instantly dissolves nausea with one toke. (No tokes ever again for me with one quarter lung capacity!) The toast takes a bit longer to work but when it hits, it hits hard. (Good) No nausea tonight, but I’ve been feeling that life isn’t worth living and this should help me brush that thought out of my mind. I know it worked beautifully with the nausea- better than any legal anti-nausea drugs. Did it clear up all the nastiness? I don’t remember. That means it either worked perfectly, or it doesn’t and the rest just doesn’t matter anymore. So. I may spend the rest of my days stoned off my gourd. Hell, my short-term memory has turned to shit post ARDS, what the hell’s the difference? I just will no longer care and still remain smiling.

I finally received Maggot Brain from Amazon today. (Along with Let It Bleed to get SuperSaver Shipping. I’ve never been nuts about Let It Bleed, and I’ve been a stubborn cunt about getting the thing on cd. I have it on vinyl. Okay in a little more than a year I’ll be fifty. I think I’ve proved my point that I care less about this album than the others from their period of greatness. Gimme Sticky Fingers and Beggar’s Banquet any day. I can now have “You Got the Silver,” which I have always loved. And Susan Tedeschi does a terrific cover of it on Hope and Desire.)

The title track to Maggot Brain is one of the most beautiful pieces of electric guitar I’ve ever heard. I have now listened to the entire album, about four times in a row. There will probably be a fifth. There’s no bullshit. The album was released in 1972. One of the songs on it is “Whole Lot of BS.” Led Zeppelin II came out in 1969 with the smash “Whole Lotta Love.” Coincidence? I don’t think so. I think it’s hysterical. This is great music, and it’s intelligent. (Imagine that!) Funkadelic doesn’t ask you to buy into the whole rock star nonsense. Because it’s crap. And those later incarnations of Funkadelic, Parliament, and P-Funk with their wild space-age costumes...they're funny. Over my little head, foolish girl that I was. They were smarter than we were. It’s parody, but it works straight, too. Fucking brilliant. If I were only so smart way back when. But I’d still be locked in this apartment waiting for kingdom come. Now wouldn’t I?

(Scene: guitar is crying as Maggot Brain plays in the ears of the disabled, stoned gimp.)

P.S. I have used the "c" word to describe only myself. It makes reference to no other women in the universe even though some may actually deserve this designation. And I will never use it again except when I believe it describes me perfectly. Certainly the word is offensive, but it's what tripped off the fingers and what I've learned post-ARDS, follow the fingers. They know more than I do. Bottom line: women, you are all safe from me.

I asked Chip if he could think of any alternatives to the "c" word I liked as well, and none felt quite right. I figure, what's really obscene about this post is that I haven't felt there's any reason to go on living. Not my use of the "c" word.

Hiroshima, Mon Amour

2010-12-03T22:07:00.000-08:00

I had my first real, honest-to-god freak-out when I was twelve. The date was August 6, 1974. It had to be a weekend day, because Dad drove the lot of us to the Mid-Island Nathan’s for dinner. (I guess Long Island had at least one thing going for it. One of those ginormous Nathan’s that offered everything you could imagine. You know, pre pre-fab franchises: corn on the cob, lobster rolls, shrimp rolls, pizza, “Ipswich” clams and god knows what else. I always got the same thing. Hamburger pickles and grilled onions. With ketchup of course. And those fantastic crinkle cut French fries.

I wasn’t feeling well at all that day and as we are now well aware, queasy doesn’t sit well with me. I was the Queen of Car Sickness. It was especially acute driving home from Grandma’s on the Belt Parkway. My brothers haul-assed to opposite end of the back seat- squished together as tightly as possible. (Actually, they made me sit in the middle seat for the most part, so they must have suction on their fingertips so they could glue themselves to the backseat windows to leave as much space between me and them when I said the magic word “…mommy….” Battle stations men, immediately! I was the equivalent of a canister of mustard gas or at the very least a land mine. One false move and you’re toast.

Now being my little precocious self, I knew that the United States dropped atomic weapons on Japan completely destroying two cities to end World War II. August 6 is the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing when “Little Boy” was dropped on the unsuspecting city. (I suppose that was the point. I think the possibility of dropping the bomb on Mount Fuji was discussed to give the Japanese an opportunity to capitulate before the destruction of cities and the death of thousand upon thousand civilians. But what if the bomb dropped on Mount Fuji didn’t work? What then? Wouldn’t the Japanese be more determined than ever to continue the war daring us to invade? We didn’t want that. Get those boys home.)

That queasy afternoon, I flip on the TV in the middle of a program commemorating the Hiroshima bombing. I tuned in just in time to watch color footage of a man kicking at rubble that moments before had been a living, breathing city. The voiceover was testimony from survivors of what they saw. Arms and legs. Heads. And a whole lot of nothingness that once before was a living, breathing city. Just like the New York City where I wanted to be so badly I could taste it.

So you twit of a precocious kid, this is what you were talking about when so blithely referred to the atomic bomb in class. (How we got there in sixth grade is a mystery to me, but somehow we did. For a nanosecond. And I was Miss Smartypants.) On August 6, 1974, I flipped out. This was my first face-to-face with my mortality and the possibility that I could be vaporized at any moment. The ground was no longer steady. There was no longer any damned thing I could think of to hold on to. Not when we’re “on the eve of destruction.”* In a nanosecond. There was no longer anything I could call a sure thing.

I remained queasy through dinner at me beloved Nathan’s. Later at home, someone turned on a movie I have since learned was a British film called The Angry Silence from 1960 starring Richard Attenborough as a factory worker who refuses to participate in a wildcat strike. All I remember from it from that day was that Attenborough, for being his own man, and his were threatened with violence if he didn’t comply and join his fellow workers (some of whom were already bullied into taking part).

But the only actual scene I recall in appalling detail is Attenborough looking frantically all over crummy post-war London for his little boy who has gone missing. He finally finds him in what seems to be a disgusting public toilet, perhaps only a privy. The child is sitting on the seat. His legs, from his feet to the top of his short pants, were covered in tar. I was petrified. Could things like this actually happen? (My, my did I live a privileged existence.) That a mob of angry men can resort to tarring a little boy’s legs? For what?

Still nauseated (or by now, well beyond queasy), I headed off to bed. The next day I experienced my first panic attack. Three whole days it lasted. I could not stop shaking, How could I when every plane I heard overhead was carrying the bomb that was coming to incinerate us?

Sure I remember friends’ families having fallout shelters in their basements. And those ridiculous air raid drills in school where sticking your head under a desk or lining up on our knees in the hallway, hands over our heads was going to protect us from Armageddon. I think we all recognized their stupidity at the time. (I seem to remember lots of giggling during air raid drills. How could we not? And if we tykes knew that diving under the desks wasn’t going to save us from nuclear incineration or from just plain old run-of-the-mill bombs, can you imagine what any adult in his or her right mind thought? Were these people crazy? Okay, fire drills made sense. Air raid drills were so insane it’s a wonder how the teachers’ could keep a straight face while trying to force us to behave.

My mother was very gentle with me during those three awful days. Without using the term M.A.D., she explained the concept to me. I got it. I lived through my panic attack and now could continue living knowing that the United States and the Soviet Union could destroy the world any times over. And what the hell would I do about it anyway?

(Irony of ironies. Three days after August 6 was the bombing of Nagasaki. Thank goodness it hadn’t occurred to me it was now the ninth of August. And thank goodness I didn’t stumble on a television program commemorating Nagasaki dead. If I had, I think my poor mother would have had to send me to a rubber room at some hospital. And I bet the food there was beyond bad. Not worth flipping out if it only leads you to really bad eats.

Postscript to all of the above. One night senior year of high school, I hung out at my buddy Martha’s house till about five in the morning. All we did was chat and watch old movies. The first one we saw was really creepy. Black Narcissus. Trust me, it’s creepy as hell. Maybe not in the middle of the day, but in the middle of the night, it scared the crap out of me. We then start watching a Richard Attenborough movie about a factory worker…holy shit…Martha…There it was, it was as depressing and as frightening as I remembered it. But no, we watched them back–to-back, tough chicks that we were. As I slowly moved my ass to go, a moth the width of my head has flattened itself smack in the middle on the outside of the screen door I was to walk through moments later to get to the car. We both screamed. I guess we disturbed Mothra and while it was pondering its next move, I got my ass out of there as fast as I could, into the car, out to Port Washington Blvd., and headed home. I’m here to tell you, if any of you had any question, I escaped without injury and I lived.

*I had never heard “Eve of Destruction” during elementary school when we were good doobies and did our air raid drills albeit while giggling.

The Cats Stay Indoors. Period.

2010-12-01T17:55:00.001-08:00

You don’t participate on Facebook, no cookies for you. I owe responses to an awful lot of people. (Maybe not so many, but even a few are a daunting prospect.)

The (sort of) big news: I received an email yesterday from a literary agent whose name was given to me by a high school friend of Chip’s but is slowly (and magically?) becoming one of mine. No deep and meaningful conversations have arisen unless you consider a tête-à-tête about the fact that Debra Winger no longer looks like Debra Winger deep and meaningful. String enough of these chats together and something happens. (Or it doesn’t as the case may be.) I think something is, and it was she who gave me the name of a good friend who is a literary agent. I can now say that I have my very first response to my query letter for Since When. She’d (the agent) like to talk to me over the phone. I’m not getting my hopes up, but I could sure use good advice and I have a hunch she will be happy to supply me with that. We just have to wait and see. But having a friend in the making is really nice. It feels awfully good. Thank you!

I am on more of an even keel today. Hormones on the wane? Perhaps. Or maybe my big crash of the day is yet to come. Oh goody. That and the finale of America’s Next Top Model.

I’m reading what seems to be the book of the moment (or was the book of the moment), The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It was a gift. All my gifts are books, because besides listening to music, reading is pretty much all I can do. I’m enjoying the book. I don’t read much fiction, but this one’s intelligent and so far has kept me interested. Works for me. But I just hit a snag. The mutilation of animals. (Which had been discussed as a very Bad Thing earlier in the book. As we all know, children who hurt or kill animals will do much much worse once all grown up.) The nice red cat had been left at the door completely and utterly mutilated. I did not sign up for that.

A few years ago, before the Hodgkin’s Disease, before the ARDS, I cracked up. (“I don’t think it’s funny no more. Cracking up.”) Popped the cork. Walked the plank. Crapped in my shorts. Spat up the popcorn. Guys, I went nuts. Really blotto. And the stuff that set me off without fail were atrocities committed to children or animals. One of my little mini-sessions with the psychopharmacologist instantly digressed into an uncontrollable bout of sobbing babbling about the frozen cows in a Montana blizzard. And did I forget the drowning of kittens? (Brought to you in oh-so-graphic detail by the aptly named Judy Blunt in a book called Breaking Clean. Her discovery that she cannot, would not live as a Montana cattle rancher’s wife.) Fuck, I don’t blame her. There is no romance about life on the ranch. It is brutal and ugly and back- and spirit-breaking. Yes, it is a powerful book. But too powerful for me.

I stopped reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay after they shot their dog, For the hell of it. That’s it. Game over. No, I can no longer watch the Shackleton footage of his ship iced in and crushed in the seas surrounded Antarctica. To survive, he and his crewmen killed their beloved dogs one by one. Shackleton was a decent man, and he didn’t do this without a heavy heart. Every human made it out alive. But the dogs…That’s why I’m never going to Antarctica, and my cats will always stay indoors. They’re very happy here in the apartment. They are relaxed. They feel safe. They don’t need any more romping room. And they’ve both been fixed so there’s no issue of kittens to drown. (Good god.)

Hey, I can see adults drawn and quartered. Murdered. Mutilated. Tortured on the rack. (In movies, TV, and books of course.) Civil War battles. No problem. The aftermath of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Not so much. Actually, no fucking way. Seen more than enough of that. Beyond horrible. But don’t make me read about tortured pets who didn’t ask to be put on this earth. Or on a voyage to Antarctica. And don’t make me look at that little girl screaming, her clothes ripped off because she was hit with napalm. You get the idea.

I hate people.

Old Brown Water, Keep on Rollin'...

2010-11-24T21:03:00.000-08:00

I didn’t expect I’d be writing so soon, but I need to. (Even if I fuck up my neck doing so.) Today began like any other day. For forty-five minutes or so, the hot water chose to exit the faucets brown. Calling downstairs, no one else had yet complained of the problem. As magically brown water appeared, magically it disappeared.

The need for clean hot water usually is something less than an emergency. This was too, but I often can’t tell the difference anymore between a real emergency and a not-so-real emergency. (I still have a vague fear of the shower.) Well today, I had to shower before Rachel the fine (and I have learned though it never crossed my mind she wasn’t) extremely kind masseuse arrived. Time was a wasting as my faucets gushed brown. I’ve become increasingly aware that when I get tense, my whole head tightens up. Obviously, this has become particularly problematic when I have a screwed-up painful neck and head. (Limited range of motion blah, blah, blah…) Yes, I am well aware that this “head” problem is quite different from the one that requires oodles of psychotropics for me to maintain a semblance of emotional stability.

So I got tense. I took an oxycodone. It helped both head and screwed-up back a bit. My fine masseuse arrives and is horrified to see my upper thighs covered with very ugly bruises. She is more horrified that they were caused by the splendid deep-tissue work from the prior week’s massage. She gets upset. She’s not supposed to do that. I said, “Yeah, I know, first do no harm." I’m not concerned about the bruises. I must have a high tolerance for pain and for whatever reason, my legs have always been tight. No, I have beautifully stretched muscles. I stretch like a maniac. I have to. With one quarter lung capacity, there isn’t a whole lot else I can do. This is not a stretching issue. It’s a fascia issue. Massage opens fascia releasing pent up emotions, stress and makes a person just feel plain better.

My massage therapist says she won’t go into the tissue as deeply as she did last week. This really rattled me. I was soooo relaxed last week and my body just let her in. This was not Nazi massage. So I turned a little purple. I know how tight I am , and there is no painless way around opening me up. I know it. I expect it. I accept it.

I feel guilty that I made my poor masseuse think she was Dr. Frankenstein or worse, Dr. Mengele. Guilt makes me tense. Where did I have a real hard time letting go? My goddamned head that’s where. And Chip, angel that he is, started to make a cheesecake while I was getting worked on. He forgot that the first part of the recipe requires use of the blender. Oops. I’m feeling guilty, trying to relax while knowing I have upset my masseuse for taking the damned pain, and the blender is blending in the next room. Not a surprise, this was not my best session.

After the session, I tried to explain to her why I didn’t give a shit whether my whole body was one big bruise. No, I didn’t burst out sobbing though it would have been very helpful if I had. But I did go a step past weepy. I’ve been weepy a lot. I can do weepy on the turn of a dime. My problem is that I haven’t ever been able to get past weepy. Not in three and a half years. I spoke to my masseuse, and this is what came out:

I don’t care about the bruising or the pain. I’ve had so much taken from me that I refuse to give up anymore. Back pain, neck pain, bruising. Who the fuck cares? I’m locked up (figuratively) in my apartment. I’ve lost the life I loved. I just want what has become crapass chronic pain to disappear. You add that to my inability to breathe, I don’t have much left. So if I have to walk on hot coals to make this extraneous shit go away, I have no problem with it. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand?

At this point, I’ve gone past weepy. My fine masseuse tells me she happened to work on the area (somewhere in or near my gut?) that is tied to emotions. She finally gave me a reason bruising is no good. Bruising can lead to scar tissue which she must later break through to get back to where we were prior to the bruising, That’s logical. This makes perfect sense. I can wrap myself around that. I don’t want bruising, because it may very well be making me less able to rid myself of my chronic pain.

That’s where we left it. I feel low. The oxycodone has long worn off. My fucking back hurts. Looking to the right is a no-no. (If nothing else, the left feels better than the right. Sometimes we need to grasp on to tiny things, because that’s all there are. Pick a mote. Any mote.) I had to write this down. Perhaps, I’ll feel better, Better enough to walk my three laps in the hallway gasping for breath. Oh yay. Isn’t life grand?

P.S. Yeah, I was right. My neck feels worse after typing out this post. Let’s just hope I feel better. (Can’t get no worse.)

Happy Thanksgiving y’all!

My Brother the Texan

2010-11-22T22:20:00.000-08:00

Hello sweet ones. Another Monday and another antsy day. (It doesn’t help that I took my klonopin an hour and a half later than I should have. Word to the wise: Never be late taking your tranquilizer. This is not helpful behavior.) I think crazy raging hormones are making it much more difficult to breathe. There is actually a logical medical reason that this might be so. But I swear to this fucking god, I stub my toe, it’s more difficult to breathe. The cat looks at me funny and again, breathing is more labored. (Okay, those last two are completely untrue, but they might as well be. I have no clue why I feel different from one day to the next. Yes, it sucks.)

Since I never leave our lovely apartment, (no, I’m not being sarcastic; it’s very nice here.) Thanksgiving has to be here. But no one has the energy or the inclination to put the damned thing together. So I suggested ordering in Indian food. Years and years ago, we went to Mitali West for Thanksgiving, They gave us, on the house, a turkey curry. We were the only ones there. Having Indian again was my suggestion. It’s horrible depressing to order in all the shit that your mother and grandmother made and receive for an exorbitant amount of money not Thanksgiving dinner, but an incredible simulation. Forget everyone’s Thanksgiving favorites and instead we’ll stuff ourselves with bhujia, garlic naan, tandoori mixed grills out the wazoo, malai murgh tikka, biryani and whatever the hell else suits our fancy. I think this will be a major success. Hey, I have nothing to celebrate. For me, the scales have still not tilted to life. Because my life stinks. Even with the greatest husband in the world. And a pretty damned good mother and brother.

Today I received a call from my brother Eric. This is my brother in Texas. From whom I’m estranged. I picked up the phone by accident. (Could have knocked me over with a feather…) “Hi.” “Hi.” “How are you?” “I’m shitty. I’m always shitty.” (Which is true.) Then I just started talking about Ulysses S. Grant. (I just finished a revisionist bio after reading his memoirs. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.) Unlike a friend of mine back in high school who always found someone to pine over in whatever band we were listening to no matter what. She never said, “You know what? I like the tunes, but these guys are really vile.” No she always found someone. Yes, I had my rock and roll loves, but they really were few and far between. I’ve found as I age, the fall-in-love-with-the-unattainable gene has been turned on. And it’s powerful. Historical figures make me hot. (Even though they're quite dead.) They make me sweat. Right now, I love, love, love Ulysses S. Grant. And no, I’m not in love, because they’re sexy. No. And I’m not in love with him, because he was the greatest general of the nineteenth century. (Though that’s more than enough to seal the deal.) He was just a great guy. (All the scuttlebutt regarding Grant is a load of bullshit.) If Lincoln had lived, between the two of them, this country would be a radically different place. They both would have forced the South to let the freedmen vote. (And a shameless supreme court began gutting Grant’s laws for true equality and for the next quarter century culminating with Plessy vs. Ferguson (separate but equal.)) Wild fact: the last fair election until 1968 was 1872. So when anyone says the civil war ended 155 years ago. Laugh in his or her face and inform the person of the latter.

I love Ulysses S. Grant.

And I will always have a soft spot for Charles II. (He loved women. Not just fucking them either though he loved that too. He loved their company, their conversation. He loved their minds. Though pulchritudinous wasn’t a deal breaker...) He was, most important, a perfect mensch to take the throne after the death of Cromwell. Charles II wasn’t out for blood, retribution, and civil war. He got the people behind him and had a productive, peaceful reign. Long overdue. Cromwell and his dudes beheaded his father, Charles I; Charles II had what to be angry about. But he looked beyond personal vendettas and did his job awfully well. (He’ll always be my honey.)

What does this have to do with anything? I suppose that if the passions of Franny are evidence of nerdlyness. (Which I think I might be accused of if someone had the guts to say to me, “Yo, back in high school, you were one fucking nerd. And reading this nonsense, you still are.”) But though I haven’t heard it, I’m sure if I had any label at all (the other being, “Huh? Who?), that was it. I love that this stuff turns me the fuck on. It lights me up like a Christmas tree, and I’m just a measly Jew. And anything that can brighten my day, gimme. Nerd my ass.

My friend Audrey dropped off a book she really enjoyed called The Ghost Map a non-fiction book about a cholera epidemic that hits London mid-nineteenth century. It’s wonderful. I called Audge up to tell how much I loved her for knowing me inside and out and how she knew that this book would make me happy.

Today started off really lousy. I felt under the weather. Chip was working his ass off. I missed him. And I was struggling to exercise and couldn’t breathe. I get a call from my brother who in so many ways I don’t recognize anymore, but I knew he’d be just as excited as I was about President Grant. This is what my life with my brother had always been. He was usually (he’s eight and a half years older) the one getting me excited about something cool- like astronomy. We had a kids’ book (The Big Book of Stars) that gave thumbnails of the big names: Copernicus, Newton, Tycho, Kepler among other cool stuff…Who introduced me to the book? And here I was waxing poetic about Grant. This was soooo comfortable. So right. Can we get passed the last twenty years of weirdness? Good God he was my best friend from day one. My first word was his name- not mama or dada.

(My brother Doug is totally digging the Grant stuff. The cholera epidemic, not so much.)

And yes, it was I who stole the soft-covered book Pioneer Germ Fighters in fifth or sixth grade. Because, I knew. I knew. That no one would ever love that book more than I. It needed my love, and I gave it. I don’t know how many times I read the damned thing. But I betcha that book would have sat gathering dust if I hadn’t taken it. I didn’t do much taking of what wasn’t mine, but this book needed me. And I needed it.

Eric will be in January 8. I’ll see him.

"I bet you can squeal like a pig. Weeeeeeee!"

2010-11-18T21:27:00.000-08:00

Vain thing that I am, I used the magical, dry spray shampoo my hair stylist, the adorable Aisha gave to me. Anyone remember Psssssst? The commercial glued itself to my brain:

“It’s not a dry shampoo. Oh no. It’s not a wet shampoo. Oh no. Clairol freshens your hair instantly with P-s-s-s-s-s-s-t.”

The above was sung to a seriously lame jingle. It did do exactly what Clairol said it would if after spraying, you never touched your hair ever until ready for a real washing. Because if you do, watch out. Your hair ends up greasier and more hideous that it was before you sprayed. The product is still available. I thought it went out long ago in the seventies. Apparently not. I suppose there are people out there with more self-control than I (you now know I have none whatsoever) and maintained their lovely Psssssst hair for the day.

Well now, there exists a product that makes no bones about it. It is a dry shampoo. Just like Psssssst. (Or if you’d like me to be technical about it, they both spray out of a can.) The difference is, this new shit really works. (I had a panic this morning, after a carefully executed shpritz, that I breathed some of it in. I believed that I did this, because it’s yet another terrible thing that can go wrong. My Life’s Motto since my initial illness: “If it can get any worse, it will.”

Breathing in these toxic fumes will naturally have ruined my lungs even further, which of course would make it even more difficult to breathe than the normal gasping for breath. Who knew that some silly hair product could trigger PTSD? A car’s backfire, the whir of helicopter blades, being kidnapped, blindfolded and dropped in some unknown desert…that I can understand. Those things should trigger PTSD. And now we find that this new shit that actually works (unlike Psssssst) making your hair look and feel clean even when it isn’t triggers PTSD In me. How ‘bout that? I may have a cool diagnosis, but I feel as lame as Arlo Guthrie trying to explain to real felons on the Group W bench that he was arrested for littering.

But I’m here today to talk about my inability to let go (verbally) during massage. I've taught myself how to relax even when it's killer painful, but I won't ever make a peep. Silly girl.  I'm afraid I have so much locked up inside that one day I'm going to blow.  I even tried an on the spot exercise that I thought was just so damned clever. I asked my masseuse "permission" to let go. The poor girl was so befuddled by my question. I just told her, “Amuse me, just go with me on this.” She did. She gave me permission, and I explained to the still confused young woman (with hands of steel) that this acting exercise was in fact giving MYSELF permission to scream like a banshee. Sounded like a good idea, but it didn't work. Not last week. Oh, and I know I need it bad. This may take some serious work. What’s the expression? “You’re too clever by half.” Yup. That’s me.

My man Rich, to whom I confided this dilemma on Facebook, was quite amused by the idea of my being a Submissive. (Asking permission to go zoo on the massage table and such.) Perhaps I need to move further in that direction.

If Franny doesn’t behave and squeal like a pig…they’ll be more pain forthwith. (The goofy thing is that deep tissue massage is more often than not excruciatingly painful, so that threat won’t do shit.)

But the “squeal like a pig” (yes, which I did use deliberatively to bring us all back to the first (and for me) last time I saw Deliverance. Those words, “Squeal like a pig” may frighten me more than anything in this entire world. I have put together an early 1970s playlist that includes everything I can think of: Deodato’s Thus Spake Zaruthustra, Billy Preston’s Space Race, Kenny Rogers and the New Edition’s Something’s Burning, and even the treacly United We Stand sung by Brotherhood of Man whoever the fuck they were. But I cannot bring myself to include the formerly ubiquitous Dueling Banjos on that playlist. If I were never hear it again that would be too soon.

I think I’ll continue my quiet ways on the table. She, Rachel my fine masseuse, has the capacity bring me to my knees, but she’ll not hear a peep from me. Let’s say…I’m a work in progress.

Or maybe playing Dueling Banjos on repeat during the massage? If that doesn’t get a rise out of me…ohgodno! It’s more likely to clam me up forever. Forget it.

P.S. I thought I would have, at the very least, a mess of angry comments for writing about Deliverance for a second time. Once was too much. This time I expected an angry mob outside my building with tall flaming torches and pitchforks forcing their way in come to rip me to pieces. (Not that I don't deserve it....)

Where the Hell is Bobbie Gentry?

2010-11-14T22:15:00.001-08:00

Today I have provided beginning students of physics a perfect example Of Newton’s Third Law of Motion. For every force, there is an equal and opposite force. Really simply put, there is no net gain or loss in the universe. There are mutual forces of action and reaction between two bodies that are equal and opposite.

Yesterday, I had a lovely visit with a friend I haven’t seen for a long time. It was good. It was easy. I didn’t feel like I had to pretend to play host. We just were. And that’s a very cool thing. I encourage you all to do the same. You’ll thank me for it, and you’ll rest easier to boot.

This was all great until after several hours of honest-to-god energy and genuine enthusiasm flagged like a car on empty. Then, I have to try real hard to maintain some verve (I like thinking I have verve. Yummy word, that one. Verve. I’ve never had any need to use it in the past and that’s what popped up when I thought about how mine just withered away.)

Dudes. This is three and a half years since I took ill. Is this all that I’m ever to expect? Today (back to physics 101), I pressed the PTSD button.
Everything fucking thing frightened me. This is extremely annoying and horribly unproductive. The stretching and shit I do every goddamned day to maintain a normal looking body was one hundred times harder than it usually is. (FYI, my other choices, if I don’t try and stay fit, are becoming a super-fat load who is unable to get up from the couch or the other, camp survivor chic chica. I don’t like either of them.) Wasn’t that Peggy Lee? Is that all there is? But at least she could keep dancing.

All the love from Saturday turned to fear on Sunday. My inability to get a hold of myself made it so much more difficult to breathe. I finally asked Chip, after I’d spent the entire morning in bed feeling queasy, if I could I put my head in his lap and conk out. Bless him, he said yes honey. An hour and a half later, now awake (but shaky). He had taped Sixty Minutes which he knows usually absorbs my attention. (But not as much as Real Sports. That show fucking rules.) We watched. It helped.

So I thought I’d whine about it to you. And don’t you get all high and mighty about Sir Isaac. Hey, all my love on Saturday turned 180 degrees on Sunday. The universe is behaving as it should. No space-time continuum problems here. My feeling especially rotten today proves it. Physics 101.

Let’s talk about cutting. I saw a week or so ago that Secretary was being aired on one of the 10,000 HBO channels. I never saw it when it came out, and a friend I love whose tastes very often dovetail with mine, liked and recommended it. In it, Maggie Gyllenhaal is an unhappy young woman whose means of comforting herself is by making cuts in her skin (Or painful burns on it.) Either choice, same goal, relief. No, this isn’t a preamble to suicide, because I grok that. I know that. Suicide is something else entirely. Cutting is to provide relief from the otherwise unrelievable. Suicide is just cutting loose.

So as I looked at the many Band-Aids on Maggie’s legs, I found a kindred spirit. No, I didn’t cut. Nor did it ever occur to me. Even it had, I don’t think I could ever achieve the sense of relief, because I think that cutting is way to out of control for me. Maggie should have been a surgeon. I not.

But I could scratch off every scab, bump, mosquito bite, as well as anything else I’m forgetting. And make them bleed. This provided me with that very same relief. I also chewed my cuticles like crazy. If there was a piece of skin to pull, I pulled it. Sure, the first part didn’t hurt. (It was already no longer a living part of my body.) But what it pulled with it was quite alive. Just regular old flesh doing it’s quiet flesh job. I tore it. And boys and girls? It bled. Of course it did, my pets. And in the strange minds of people who have nowhere to turn, this was comfort. This was control. I controlled my pain. Not somebody else who had power over me. (Usually teachers, occasionally fellow classmates in the Port Washington Union Free School District.)

Now, we cutters, pickers, bleeders are ashamed of ourselves. And god forbid anyone see the evidence of your work. Here it was, bright and bold- youaresopatheticlookattheshityouhavetoresorttogethroughtheday. When other girls were “cute as a button,” I was so damned ashamed. Of myself. That I had no power to stop doing It. That no one would ever love me if they knew how sick I was. That It actually made me feel better. Oh, this is all wrapped up in shame. Not so easy to have be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when I needed to make myself bleed to cope. What am I, some monster? Shameful.

For me, the most pivotol scene in Secretary which made me teary is when James Spader showed his cards. He knew what she did, and he didn’t judge her for it. He says to her, to paraphrase, “Lee, you are to never, ever to cut yourself again.” After that, she then goes to a bridge (the Tallahatchie? Sorry, couldn’t resist) and throws her neat box of sharp instruments into the river. (Like when I finally figured out that the critical scene in Gone With the Wind is when Scarlett makes it back to Tara and finds her mother dead. It is at that moment, when there no longer Mommy’s arms to run into, Scarlett begins to become the tough, unlikeable Scarlett many of us love to watch over and over again.)

Believe it or not, through my bout with hell, I’ve been able to control my urge to comfort myself with controlled pain. Maggie, as narrator says “Each cut, each scar, each burn, a different mood or time. I told him what the first one was, told him where the second one came from. I remembered them all. And for the first time in my life I felt beautiful.” I got there too. No more shame. Even with my crapass life.

By the way, Jill Sobule has a great song on her latest album, “Where is Bobbie Gentry?” It’s denouement:

Yeah I was the baby

Thrown off the Tallahatchie Bridge

Postscript: D- It really was a horror suffering from a desire for self mutilation and having no way to stop it. I was so ashamed of it; I couldn't talk ever talk to anyone about it even though my mother was well aware of the problem. But she was stymied as to what to do about it. How do you tell a kid to take control of something that was uncontrollable? That requires that this problem be a logical one. (Like using the Gaussian Number System to solve the square root of negative one, remember? On our math field trip in tenth grade?)

My little problem came from some place in my person to which I had no access, let alone Mom. (No fucking way.)

One of the most mortifying moments of mine was when a high school (Paul D. Schreiber High School of the Port Washington Union Free School District) friend of Eric's asked what were all those spots on Franny? Now this was elementary school Franny. Covered with every damned place I had picked at it, especially then, when I really had absolutely no will power to stop it. I was crushed. (Eric, thanks for sharing.)

The older I became, the more intelligent I became in "hiding the evidence." I assumed, like Lee in Secretary, no one would ever find me beautiful after seeing my shockingly mutilated body.

Oops. As you get older, you learn things. If young, eager college guys are going to get some, they don't give a shit about a scar here and there. (And by then, those horrific bloody spots had long healed any faded into history.) And if a boy loves you, you're beautiful. Period.

But yeah, when I'm stressed, I find something to pick at. And I no longer feel the need to draw blood. I'm content to remove an ingrown hair. Now that's what I call progress.

Q-Tip

2010-11-11T21:23:00.000-08:00

Another day, another post. Confirm that one of the common side effects of oxycodone is nausea. How great is that? I love to feel nauseated. I drool just thinking about it. Fuck it I’m taking the shit. Anyway. I drool even more for debilitating back pain, so I think we have a perfect match, don’t you?

The only time I ever despaired was the first chemo Saturday when the miracle anti-nausea drugs didn’t work. I received the chemo the day prior and appeared to handle it so well, Chip decided to spend Saturday moving the Boy into his new apartment. By the time Chip had come home, I think I had managed to drag myself up from the floor where I had lain prostrate for hours asking anybody, anywhere I could think of to make it stop. I even left a message for the oncologist on call who had the brilliant suggestion of taking more of the miracle pills that had previously been useless. Those remained useless. Uselessness on top of uselessness if very stupid. Perhaps he thought if I could distract myself from my misery, it could somehow help. Please.

In my arsenal of drugs, there was nothing to make it stop. Nothing to make it even an iota better. Trust me, there is nothing worse in your life than experiencing nausea that shows no signs of looking for a new gut to torment while it’s happy and comfy in yours. Try that in Guantanamo. (The hell of hells in the hell of hells. Nice.) It’s not like stomach flu. You get sick. You drink ginger ale. Mom’s very nice to you. You get off from school, and it’s all right. (That is I think it’s not too bad…)

This was nausea as I’ve never seen before or since. It neither worsened nor improved. And who’s to know when it would ease? It had too sometime, right? Will I have to go through this every treatment? (Good god.) I wanted to hang myself if that were so. (I wanted to hang myself without waiting for Round 2.) I was in tears when Chip made it home. I begged him never, ever to leave me on chemo weekends. He wouldn’t. He didn’t. He must have been freaked by agonizing nausea neither of us were led to expect. The Boy (bless his heart) found me weed fast. I can tell you that while it doesn’t solve the entire nausea problem, it made a magical difference and worked from toke one. Hey, I really never needed a toke two. I coughed like a mad woman. Who knew I was in the embryonic stages of viral pneumonia that helped make me the person I am today. (Somehow, I feel I should commission a monument for that bout of pneumonia. It needs to be real big and in very poor taste.)

The nausea started to dissipate sometime on Monday.

This oxycodone nausea, while annoying, is kid’s stuff.

Saw the ENT yesterday. The left ear is still no good. I have new antibiotic drops which should fix the “Problem” whatever it might be. It’s been about a month since the fever and ear infection and the heavy-duty antibiotics. Why do my ears still hurt? My hearing has gotten worse over the past week. What’s that about? After a recent shower, I touched my left eardrum extremely gently with a Q-Tip. Searing pain went from my ear to points all about my head. That’s just not right. My ENT said I must have scratched it, because there was a blood clot in the ear. But when I pulled that goddamned Q-Tip out, there was a bit of dried blood on it not fresh. The dude knows the drill. And he sure doesn’t want the blame of killing me off laid on him I can tell you. And he’s a very nice man. I’ll do as he asks.

I changed my profile picture today. I got my first haircut in over a year. My truly talented and sweetie pie of a hair stylist came over on Sunday. She kicked ass yet again. I absolutely Love my gray hair. (It really looks good.) It’s too bad it doesn’t show up in the picture. So I look great, and I’m ready to conquer the world. All right, well I can walk the long hallway outside the apartment. With copious oxygen, mind you.) I’m very proud. My profile picture now includes my ever-present accessory: the cannula and the tubing that accompanies it.

What the fuck is the point of all this?

P.S. Mazel Tov Bob! I imagine you still have a job. FYI, Fatboy has now become an integral part of a brand new playlist. I call the playlist “Newish.” It certainly is for me. The hip and initiated can have a good laugh at my expense. I’m only happy to help.

Marijuana Toast

2010-11-09T18:54:00.001-08:00

As promised, today was psychopharmacologist day. Given that oxycodone, if it hasn’t rid me of pain (the stuff dulls it down some), has given me a life back, the rest of my drugs will remain as is. What’s really funny is that I had no life to begin with. I guess the good news is that I’m out of the minus column. (You know, I’m afraid I’m really going to regret saying that.)

I didn’t want to fuck with what works. I’m way too close to suicidal to be stupid and try and wean myself off some of this crap now. (And there’s a lot of it.) No, sweethearts, I’m not feeling the least bit suicidal and haven’t since I emotionally recovered from my recent upper respiratory infection. (Put me face to face with death, why suffer longer than you have to blah, blah, blah?) Also, going into the winter is a bad time for me to screw around with mood-altering drugs because, if you all remember I suffer from S.A.D- Seasonal Affective Disorder along with Anxiety, Depression and PTSD. (Knowing that I suffered most of my life from S.A.D. explains so much the crud of my painful adolescence. I understand behavior that otherwise remained inexplicable to me. I feel like I should always have slapped on my person huge gummy red letters, “How ‘bout that!” Not quite To Sir With Love, but that’s as close as I’m ever going to get.) Now, I just sit in front of a light box, and I remain stable. I sure wish I had it back then. (The light box. But come to think of it, the huge gummy letters would have been cool.)

Oh, why huge gummy, red letters?

I don’t know. They just popped up into my head. They feel right. Let’s try and explicate them, shall we? There’s no Bocarde around to tell me my stream of consciousness is all wrong. Which it may very well be. But I’m sorry Mr. Bocarde, you can’t make that determination. Well, you can, but who would listen? Certainly not I. What’s even lovelier (than those big, fat sticky letters) is that I don’t give a shit. And odd man that he is (was? I hope not), he’d probably like that. I think he would also enjoy like this foul blog. (“Foul” was one of my darling Suzanne’s favorite words.) Bocarde loved Suzanne.

How could he not? She ripped apart everything he had us read. Those precious works he found so important and special that he wished to share them with us. He always gave her an A+ because she shred every single point he made about any of these beloved works- like Portrait of an Artist…one rip at a time.

He ate that shit up. Bizarre as you were, you, sir, you were one of the only interesting teachers in the whole goddamned school system. But let’s not speak of such things now.

Huge, gummy red letters. Ahh! They’re so perfectly clumsy, awkward, bizarre, and impossible to miss. The adolescent me knew only a few who what went on in my fevered, little brain. (Sorry to say, it’s not all that different from the crap you’ve been reading. Except I confess my tough-guy countenance is pure fantasy. Well not exactly. I hang my head in shame. I’m actually a very sweet person. No one would ever think so from reading this damned blog, but I confess. It’s kind of true. But no matter. This time, I’d be noticed all right. I think that’s kind of cool. Hey, it’s a helluva lot better than a zit the size of Mount Vesuvius. Oh, I’d sure wear my letters with pride. Yo, I don’t consider this humiliating. I find it liberating. My scarlet letters. You know, that is kind of sweet. Warped perhaps, but sweet.

Back to teachers in the Port Washington Union Free School District. One day Mrs. El Kadi who, for those who didn’t have the pleasure of her acquaintance, was a mad woman. Flat-out bonkers. One class she announces, “Don’t you find it interesting that the smartest person in the room has the smallest forehead?” I slump in my seat. Shit. The class is looking around. Obviously, they can’t discern forehead size like Mrs. El Kadi. Finally, she breaks the suspense and points to the back of the room. At me. No one in the room gives a shit. But I’m mortified. What was this woman thinking? Who said she was qualified to teach anyone anything ever? Good old Port giving the enfeebled or just plain mad a chance to live a normal life.

Back to me and the present. After the visit with the psychopharmalocogist, Chip made an appointment at my behest with the Heebie Jeebie Lady chiropractor. Oh how soon they forget! My goilfriend the doctor recommended her because she was “a good practitioner” and right in the neighborhood. My beloved chiropractor is in Washington Heights. Among weekly visits from Tamar, the best P.T. on the planet, Rachel, the fine masseuse, and Kristen my angel, my therapist who comes twice a week, I’m physically unable to make the trip up to Washington Heights to Laurie, my darling chiropractor. (It ends up about an hour each way.) I do miss her terribly.

Besides the screwed up back (which I actually think is responding to all the attention paid to it), my head and neck decided to get in on the fun and flip out too. Sons-of-bitches. Here’s where the Heebie Jeebie Lady comes in. Since she stopped coloring her hair, she doesn’t give me those same heebie-jeebies she had years ago when first saw her. I knew I needed to see a chiropractor and fast. I really was desperate. ) With each passing moment, it became more and more difficult to turn my head left or right. (Besides being rather restricting, it was painful as all bloody hell.) C’mon, don’t I already have enough on my “plate” to contend with? It doesn’t work that way, does it?

But as she was on all my past visits, she is a fine practitioner. She’s good too. I have a head and neck back. You really don’t know how much you’d miss them if they flat-out went cuckoo on you. Not crazy. Loony tunes I know intimately. No, that they just don’t work. (I can’t even imagine what stroke patients go though.) Let’s just say you miss them an awful lot. Now, they’re behaving themselves, and I know have a chiropractor in the hood if I need her again. I think she has a new name. From now on, she’s “The Good Practitioner.”

Flattery will get you everywhere, even when you’re dealing with lumps of flesh. Oh they know. Yes they do. They just remain impassive as always. Slowly, but surely, they poke up their little invisible antennae and if you coo just right, they’ll cut you a break and stop leaving you in agony. It’s a subtle cross between love and diplomacy. Difficult. But left in the right hands, they’ll- the lumps of horrifically painful flesh - eventually cut you a break. And the oxycodone sure doesn’t hurt.

Even if it may be making me queasy. (Damnit!) Hello marijuana toast! (A most beautiful and often necessary invention.)

The Celestial Sphere

2010-11-04T21:02:00.000-07:00

I feel so goddamned down, I could do battle Daniel Johnston and have a shot, only a shot mind you, at winning a round. That’s down. Yeah, I admit it, he has me beat. I mean who doesn’t he beat who’s still living? Frankly, I’m not sure how he’s managed to continue living. My assignment (if I still choose to accept it) is to make certain I always lose to Daniel Johnston. (“Psst, that’s good. She doesn’t want to be dead today. Woohoo”!) This kind of talk makes me queasy. Too often down. Real down. Not good. I think it’s pharmacologist time. Oh goodie. (I have an appointment with him on Monday.)

An utterly, delightful sick story from a cousin recalls meeting the family patriarch, her uncle, for lunch. She had been something of a wild child and hadn’t gotten past it just yet. (Maybe she was in her early twenties at the most?) She remembers the peas on her plate dancing about. Uncle asked would she like help from him? She (I think realizing that peas don’t dance) accepted. He immediately took her to the psych ward of the best hospital. (Bit of backstory: she was just about to join a new cult where you create a new identity for yourself. First step is choosing a new name—Sunshine, Petunia, Orange Blossom… Coffee Grinds, whatever. This appears to have been a happy cult, doesn’t it? Wasn’t Jim Jones’ a “happy” cult until that last day or two?) No matter. Anyhow, my cousin was now checking herself into the psych ward with help from her very kind, non-judgemental uncle and is innocently asked by the nurse, “What’s your name?” She replies, “I haven’t decided yet!”

Bingo! They sure got a live one that day. Anyhow, my cousin believes that Uncle saved her life. He was quite something, and she’s still a pistol with more stories just as good or even better than this one.

Bummer for me is that I can’t be checked in anywhere. Not on all this oxygen and taking more shit than a girl knows what to do with. No rubber room. Even if I want the rubber room. At least for a little while. I’d like to be in solitude. Straitjacketed? Could be a hoot.

But damnit all, I can’t go there.

So tonight, I fall into the pit. Refuse to speak to Chip. I don’t want to punish him. Wait a minute, maybe I do. Is it punishment for telling me I’m hot when I feel I look like a leper? (You know, the Hollywood Epic lepers. As leprous as humanly possible.)

I felt like I was heading off to school with the nastiest zit on the planet, and my mother says, “Oh, you can’t even see it.” "Yeah, really?" I almost bought it. Well, she's right. It’s not so bad…Until I went to the bathroom at school, looked in the mirror and saw, my god, the Mount Vesuvius of zits. That’s the way I feel when Chip compliments me while I have tubes exiting several orifices. C’mon, honey. Moral of story: Never believe the people who love you most. They have ulterior motives…like not having you feel bad about yourself. But you idiots, it always backfires. And after that I never believe a word you say. (I know, I know—the “Do I look fat?” question is no-win. But you’ll earn respect. And when your babe is hot, she’ll actually believe you.)

I’m exhausted, Today is little bit of an exception to the rule. I’ve been doing all my new stuff stretches from Tamar, the greatest P.T. on the planet. I can’t stop. If I stop. I’ll stop again, and then again. I can’t stop. So I work out like a lunatic. (What an assshole.) And I hate typing at the dining room table. This is another one of those irrational ones. So here I am at the couch again except this time with the computer plopped on a stack of pillows bringing the screen to eye level.

Now it’s Thursday. I found it to physically painful to continue on last night. (I’m back at the table. Unhappily, but a helluva lot more comfortable than the couch.) The Civil War has just ended. (In my Grant bio. No I’ve not entered into some strange time warp. “Edith Keeler must die!) You know I’ve looked at this from multiple angles. Conclusion: I unfortunately wouldn’t have any effect on the space-time continuum. How do I know this? I don’t, but let’s get real here. Let’s just say I think that it would be a surprise to everyone if I did. You’d certainly knock me over with a feather with that one if I’m wrong about this. Look, I’m no Joan Collins.

I guess I’m coming out of my “funk” (not the good kind), by being busy every waking moment of the day. Right now, it remains exercise. Day and night. There are two serious reasons for doing it: it’s my only chance to rid myself of this hellish back pain for good, and I need to maintain a certain level of strength for the time when there is a fix for my sad lungs. My body must be strong enough to withstand surgery.

I hope there are frivolous, shallow fringe benefits to this masochistic (because exercising with little air is a misery) playtime. Perhaps my ass might reach its pulchritudinous zenith? But why should I care when I lock myself indoors? The glass half full shiny happy view of my shitass life is that I no longer look like a camp victim. While gasping for breath. That’s real progress. Nah, I still think obtaining a harder, more-shapely butt is a worthy aspiration and always satisfies. (To hell with “cures.” They’re really not as exciting as they’re made out to be. So anti-climactic.)

A toast to firm and young! (And firm)

Heat

2010-11-01T20:26:00.000-07:00

I never fancied myself a poet. Nor have a even tried to write one since sixth grade when we had to.

But I have discovered the source of the Nile: I can galumph forward in my life with oxycodone. Oxycodone! Doesn't that sound beautiful. It positively sings. No, I get no highs. Not ever. (I take a meagre five milligrams of the stuff.) But I can't function without it. Not because I've become addicted to it. Far from it. I literally cannot function in this world without oxycodone as I can't function in this world without my psychotropic drugs.

Without that damned drug, I'm just overwhelmed with pain. How much shit am I expected to put up with? How much can a body take? How much can this body take? I draw the line at chronic pain. Well, that's not exactly true. No, it's not true in the least. The line was drawn for me at chronic pain. I can't go on like this.

The call is in to the orthopedist. Can I just keep taking the shit? Do I need to play the old switcheroo with other painkillers from other drug families. Or in the same family?

"Shake hands with your Uncle Max my boy and here's your cousin Sid. And here's your cousin Isabel who's expecting another kid..."

-Alan Sherman

Introductions can be made.

I knew yesterday the only hope I've got is a fucking painkiller that actually works. Oxycodone doesn't rid me of pain. But it takes the edge off like a lovely glass of Shiraz. (Which I used to partake in another life. Now wine? Alcoholic beverages, what's that? I just ignore myself and don't answer. What I don't know can't hurt me.) I'd like to know if there's anything that dulls that edge just a little more. If not, I won't be surprised. I haven't received much good news in four years. Why should I now?

I know, though, that that oxycodone has some powerful mojo. In about fifteen minutes last night, I put together a playlist called "Fran Heat." Al Green (of course), War- The World is a Ghetto (it's hot, what can I say...my tastes run a little to the peculiar), Isaac Hayes (Hot Buttered Soul to Shaft...), Curtis Mayfield (Superfly sends me), Gimme Shelter...When did I last think this way? Let me make this clear. A "Fran Heat" playlist is a seriously positive thing. Those choices are very me. It's not some bizarro aberration, and I'll recover and get back to some normal choices like "You Light up My Life," "Feelings," and anything by Kenny G.

Mind you, I'm still a mess and desperately need to sob loudly with big fat tears falling down my cheeks. My darling Robyn Hitchcock has as album Moss Elixer. And now I've found mine. Staring me in the face, and sitting in the plastic, orange drugstore bottle in the basket next to my doughnut on the couch. My elixer is my beloved oxycodone.

I can slog on for another day.

Shakespeare, Watch Your Back Babe

2010-10-30T20:46:00.000-07:00

I’m cold. My nose is running. I’m falling. There is no bottom.

I whiz past the blur, which must be the walls of this nasty hole.

I’m falling deeper than the Chilean miners.

Cool. Maybe I’ll warm up as a move closer to the earth’s core.

Fat chance.

The hole isn’t real. It’s all in my crazy head.

I’m sane enough to recognize this. Oh good.

Later in the day, I might be stuck in a vortex. In my head.

Maybe I was. Who can remember? But I try and focus on the positive.

(That’s very funny.)

I just do my “exercises.” The only positive thing I know I can do.

While my back feels like it’s being torn in two.

Strengthen that body, stretch those lungs. Where’s Jack LaLanne when I need him. Doug and I would watch him when we were young after The Modern Farmer. I didn’t pay attention much then.

I can’t cry my brains out. If I did. Maybe there’d be no nasty holes or vortices where I could stuck.

Fran, you sonofabitch, you’re too tough to cry. Aren’t you?

I hate when people refer to themselves in the third person. It’s obnoxious as bloody hell. That’s what it is. Who do I think I am, Dennis Rodman or something?

Afraid of losing control? The problem of my whole fucking life.

This new one and for sure the old one.

It’s a small world after all.

Can’t come up with completely new neuroses? Have to reuse an old one? Evergreen or no, isn’t that a little lazy, not that I’m being critical or anything.

Isn’t it cute, this shit follows me like that piece of toilet paper. This kind is unable to removed from my shoe.

I’m cold. My nose is running. I’m falling. There is no bottom.

The Wonders of Prostitution

2010-10-28T00:22:00.000-07:00

So what’s next? I’m a teary mess post massage. The damn thing not only helps a soul from physical pains, it also often purges toxic emotions. So I’m a teary mess. And this is with a tranquilizer. (Yeah, let’s fuck around with my medication now to resuscitate my sex drive. Not a chance.) If I insisted on making changes to my medications now, I’d being a fully-functioning woman except for one teensy, piddling fact also I’d be a corpse. But boy, could I get it on! (If I could.)

I’m teary under the skin. I need some honest out and out sobbing. I think I have what to release, but I can’t imagine how awful it will be the day subconscious me decides to go for it. Yes, I know that massage is a perfect tool to make this happen. I just feel so damned sad. I hate sad. I don’t do well with sad. I get morose. Morose is bad.

I suppose all tearyness, sadness and such means is that I may be ready to handle the truth. (“You can’t handle the truth!”) I look at the photo of the girl (really the middle-aged lady) on this blog, and I don’t recognize her anymore. (Chip took the shot fall 2006. I was 44. Sounds middle-aged to me.) I have an idea what I’m not anymore, but I’m really clueless as to what I am. Anyone? Scared, miserable (to live in, to be with). Sounds about right.

I can’t even dream of a healthy desirable me. Aprés massage, I crashed on the couch as is my wont post-massage. Ninety minutes of being beaten up, I think I deserve it. During one of those moments when you’re not quite asleep and not quite awake, I dreamt I was being sexually molested. In a public restroom no less. The molester was some anonymous white guy, middle-aged, and wearing a suit. He derived pleasure by sticking his hands into his victim’s underwear. The horror of the “twilight sleep” dream is that I liked it. And looked him up for more of the same. Now, we’ve all had sick sex dreams…and if you don’t fess up to it, you’re kidding yourself. But I thought this a pretty sick one given my current state of mind. I don’t think I could dream about being desirable anymore unless it’s somehow twisted and demented.

As I lay one the couch in my half sleep, I recalled a movie I saw umpteen years ago. A Russian woman and her son fly to the U.K. where her fiancé supposedly waits. He isn’t, and she’s stuck in immigration limbo. In some self-contained little town, and no way out. An British “entrepreneur” asks her if she wants to do some porn for the web. She’ll be paid handsomely for it. She’s desperate for money. (As are his other actresses in immigration hell.) She agrees. The entrepreneur has her dressed like a little girl, and I guess she’s supposed to do lurid things in front of the Web cam. Instead, she just bursts into tears and is unable to stop crying. I guess after a bit more of this, she is removed from the stage.

Weeks later the entrepreneur tells her he’s been looking for her for weeks on end. His phone calls, his emails have skyrocketed. Money poured in. “Where’s the crying girl?” She didn’t have to take off a damn bit of clothing. She just had to sit on the bed and cry, and the crowd called out for more. Bless the entrepreneur. He gave her a fat wad of money, “You earned it.” And told her to find him if she ever changes her mind and chooses to resume her acting career. (She didn’t.) As I lay on the couch half conscious I thought, “Hey, I can do that. There must be scads of weird men out their who would be more than happy to jack off to a woman hooked up to machines with a mess of tubes. During my light dozing, this seemed to me to be sensible and perhaps even lucrative to boot. And I’d know I’d be turning some people on just as I am. Not as I was. That’s the crux of the whole problem. I need to be desired as I am now. Period. Anything else just doesn’t cut it.

As I’ve mentioned more than once, for the most part (I can’t really speak for all), tubing isn’t sexy. A cousin of mine said that he used to take a relative who suffered from Lou Gehrig’s Disease (the actual disease, not the one from uber-concussions) to a brothel, because that’s the only way he was ever going to get laid. I thought that very sad, but also very resourceful.

I still think that the people I speak to most about my crapass health (besides my poor Chip who hears everything. What an incredible man for every reason you can imagine) are the people I pay to spend time with me. My fantastic therapist around whom the earth orbits, Tamar: the best P.T. on the planet, Laurie my darling and wonderful chiropractor. I love them, and I think they me. Tamar, the best P.T. on the planet, are on our way there. In an odd way, on my side, it’s not a far cry from prostitution. I’m the john. Get it however you can. Even if you have to pay for it. “It,” in this case, is a friendly face, fantastic advice with a pair of ears trained on you. And there is no guilt involved, because it is, bottom line, a transaction. (Ooh, this is getting funky, but I’m on to something.)

By jove, I think I just had a tiny epiphany sitting here at 3:20 a.m. Maybe they’re (my fantastic therapist, Tamar: the best P.T. on the planet, and my wonderful chiropractor) who I need to focus on during my moments of doubt regarding my usefulness on this planet. And my right to take up space on it. Sure I pay them to care for me. But it doesn’t mean we haven’t made real, honest-to-god human connections. Granted, I’ve been wrong about this kind of relationship in the past. (Pay to play.) The over-the-top magazine reps who are always ecstatic to see you, hang on to your every word, and then drop you like a hot potato when you switch accounts. And a couple of them I actually thought had become friends. Oops. But I think I can recognize love when I feel it. (My god, I most certainly don’t feel that way about any of my doctors.)

Let me continue to love them back for all they give me.

And boys and girls, how the hell can I let Chip down? My husband. The man who kept me alive as I teetering on the edge in the ICU. And has given me more loving care than I deserve for all the hell I put him through How can I fail him?

Love the man who loves me more than anything in the world. The man I was smart enough to marry. Just love him.

Perhaps if I follow my advice, I can avoid seeking out sexual molestation in public restrooms or becoming a worker ant in the Web cam porn industry.

Sexual Madness

2010-10-25T20:33:00.000-07:00

I’m working my ass off to clear this back shit up. I still, of course, have Tamar, the greatest P.T. on the planet. By the way, I’m not kidding about that. And having had a fucked up back in my past life courtesy of an overzealous trainer, I know that soft tissue back injuries can take eons to heal. Add my new and exciting limitations, this will be a more difficult slog than the first mess I made of my back. (That first bit of back torment eventually healed following chiropractor’s orders. We got it before it spread like a jam on my beloved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (No, the latter sentence is not nonsense. The beauty of all that I’ve learned is that there are all new and exciting ways to make yourself feel worse. But as my life is now nonsense, I think it’s high time to embrace it. So I gave my surreal hell of an existence the little cuddle it so deserves. Back to cuddling later.)

I am immersed in ways to sit correctly at this lousy computer. (I seem to fear less using it at the table than I had when I found I was no longer allowed to use it on the couch. (If I want to feel any better…yeah, I really do. While I’ve discovered I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, I still have no fondness for it.)

But I promised cuddling. Sex. My psychopharmachologist tried his damndest to put me on medication that left my sex drive in place. I think Jill Sobule gets it best. In Happy Town, her boyfriend said she made him miserable, but they stayed together because the sex was really good. Post Prozac:

"We don't fuck anymore, but we sure can snuggle down.

I used to sit under a gloomy cloud of gray

And now the sun's come out and it won't go away.

I used to go up. I used to go down.

Now I'm just even here in Happy Town."

I think I have a real problem when I watch Rubicon and have a visceral reaction to the administrative assistant who has the hots for Will. I find her to be lacking in any oomph whatsoever. (Okay, she has a fine body.) But her character is like a limp dishrag. And she looks like there’s nary a thought in her head. (Always be suspicious of those who look empty. They’re either actually empty or what the hell are they hiding behind that blank expression. I’m fucking angry at a television character. Not intellectually. But this is bullshit. She's a whole person. I'm just part of one. (In so many different and fun ways.) This is visceral, and I’m out for blood. I am crazy.

Have I really gone completely mad that I actually feel threatened, no jealous, by a fucking character on television show? Yes I have. By changing from Zoloft to Effexor, my sex drive dropped like a stone. (Zoloft, which left my sex drive out of this mess, made me shake to the point where I was unable to hold a book steady enough to read it. Otherwise, it worked beautifully.) Welcome to Effexor Country aka Happy Town. There’s a semblance of a sex drive, a vicious tease that’s what it is, but most of it has gone pfft into the ether. So I get jealous of stupid-ass television characters because I feel sexless, no longer human.

The little nasty secret about anti-depressants. I’m not depressed, I’m functioning okay, but I’m miserable because I feel less than human. I’m desperate. I now can really appreciate oddballs like the guy who worked at G&R who found girls with physical problems really hot. (Like one girl he lusted after with coke bottle lenses in her glasses. Crutches were great. I think this boy would see me today and sit up and take notice. And he was a good-looking dude. With money. He also thought there was some medieval king who had a hot rod stuck up his butt. I think that kind of turned him on too. Guys like that have a place in this world I know now in a way I never did before.) If I have to be someone’s fetish than it must be. Yes, my husband tells me I’m hot as ever. But I’m not. Tubing and clear breathing masks don’t add to pulchritude. Now other kinds of masks are another thing entirely. Gimme.

Do I try something else? Can I without walking the suicide gauntlet yet again? The sexual mechanics are all in order. I just have a post-it stuck to me that says “Under Repair.”

What the hell else can I do without completely losing my mind? Fuck. C’mon! Don’t take the little that’s left of my humanity. I am not a hydra. I’m a menopausal woman who only feels the menopausal part. I want the woman back before I completely go to seed, and I want her now.

I want the world to want to fuck me.

Ergonomics

2010-10-22T20:11:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in my new spot at the dining room table at this moment, the only place I am allowed to use the computer without causing evil things to happen to my neck and head. But I really liked sitting like that fucking lump on the couch with this damned laptop. I guess ergonomics are super-duper important for a gimp like me. It's so damned easy to get a body part out of whack with minimal effort. I just have to get over my fear of sitting at the table. Yeah, more irrationality. Aren’t I fun? You just never know what you’re going to get from me, do you? Maybe you do. I sure don’t.

Today I had a session with Rachel, the lovely and eminently capable masseuse, who was pleased with the improvement I’ve made. She has no idea what it has entailed me for this to happen. Pointing and flexing feet for me is a cardio exercise. And not because I am pathetically weak. I just do them like I mean it. FYI, translation: that’s pretty damned intense.

I still haven’t gotten my splendid quadriceps back (one thing at a time Lipman). Oh, they were as quadriceps should be. But I can't give them much thought until I get this back crap put to bed. And how will I do that? By continuing all the new, fantastic exercises I’ve learned from Tamar, the greatest P.T. on the planet. The three laps walk in the goddamned hallway every night. I’ve added stretching quads, hamstrings, and glutes every day. I’m a little slow. If I did this shit say, once a week, I can’t ever make any progress at all. Meaning my mobility would remain static which is better than having my legs tighten up (if I did nothing), but I can’t make any progress like this doing all this shit piecemeal.

Reading this, you might actually think, “My, what a motivated person! Especially after that terrible disease that knocked her down and good.” Nah. I’m the same lazy shit I’ve always been. What happened to that “high achiever” of years ago? I was a lazy shit then. Now, as I did then, I am motivated by fear. Fear has always ruled my existence. My life has been a lie. I think that’s pretty funny, pathetic though it may be. So now I aim my fearful ferocity into recreating my body sans lungs of course. But if I could, I’d do that too. One fucking alveoli at a time. I’ll shove my hand down into my lungs and place new ones there myself if that were an option.

I am listening to one of my favorite playlists. (My guilty pleasure. Creating playlists.) Right now it’s David Lindley doing a semi-reggae version of Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London. Trust me. It works. (David Lindley is a genius. Grease, dirt, polyester be damned.)

Oh Warren. I still find it difficult to listen to you, babe (This was prior to my becoming ill, so this isn’t some personal fear manifesting itself in the death of Warren Zevon. I remember buying his album Life’ll Kill Ya with the song “Your Shit’s Fucked Up.” Sounded like a fine Warren tune. The title alone made me laugh. What was this boy up to. I didn’t laugh so much after I listened to it. Naturally I didn’t realize that the song is his visit with his doctor telling him that he has inoperable lung cancer and that he’s going to die. Oh man.

Well I went to the doctor

I said, “I’m feeling kind of rough…”

“Let me break it to you son,

your shit’s fucked up.”

He ends the tune:

The rich folk suffer like the rest of us

It’ll happen to you

No wonder I have trouble listening to Warren. I adore him. He and his buddies made a film which I think ran on VH1 shortly before he died. I missed it, but my brother said it was Warren wry as ever bathed in a watercolor wash of sadness. Doug (the brother) said it was surprisingly not as painful as you’d expect it to be. Warren, I admire you immensely. I guess you came to terms with his illness. Or maybe the last laugh is on us. That you came to terms with nothing and was pissed as bloody else that your time on earth was sorely limited. When the cameras were off.

I don’t think I can come to terms with anything. I just get more and more angry as I get farther from the 2007 Life-Altering EVENT. I just had a check-up. Woohoo. Everything is fucking perfect except my lungs, asshole. This is one stinking, dirty trick that would deserve kudos if there was anyone to give kudos to.

Lucky for me I’m an atheist, because I’d be cursing out god on a daily basis. What a fucking evil thing to do a person. The only reason to do it is to laugh at that I have become a human oxymoron. Perfect, yet fatally flawed.

Fuck you.

General Washington

2010-10-20T14:45:00.000-07:00

To state the obvious, I’ve been writing a lot less the past few weeks. The ear infection wore me out. Yeah, I was wiped out by the infection, but the damned thing ate me alive. And I morphed again. This time into an appetizing quivering lump of fleshy Jell-O. (Wow. I’ve even grossed myself out. The latter is plain repugnant. Like a huge hunk of aspic.) I was petrified. I still am petrified, but much more functional than I was which was not at all. My currently unsolvable dilemma scares the crap out of me. The “currently unsolvable” is a tip of the hat to my wonderful biochemist friend who says that science is closing in on an answer to my problem. (Of having way too few working alveoli.) Me, I’m not so optimistic. And if it takes the scientific community ten years (if so soon), can I hang (oops, poor word choice!) in there?

My dilemma scares the crap out of me. I read somewhere it took Michael J. Fox seven years to accept his Parkinson’s Disease. I have four years to go to before I can join the Zen Disabled Club. Until then, I go down or more down, anxious or uncontrollably anxious, and/or paralyzed and panicked.

I started this blog for a mess of reasons. Since Since When is “done.” (If any one-literary agent or publisher (ha!) really wants it, it’s far from done and the process of sending out queries to agents is not like writing. It is awful drudgery, that shit is. So voilà, my writing outlet.

But a public outlet? I guess after being so fucking frightened to speak, I wanted to strip down nude for the whole world to see. (No waxing, no retouching.) If I could expose even more of myself I would. I’m not sure why, but I feel compelled to do so. (Yeah, I’m sure you all thought I’ve been holding back, haven’t you?)

The blog gives me the opportunity to write about whatever the fuck I want. I can tell everyone all the nastiness involving my illness. My idiot doctors and caregivers. My fears. My suicidal thoughts. (Last week I was definitely testing the waters- getting my toes wet. Not literally. That I did eons ago. Got that out of my system, but the real deal is always hovering about in the background. We are each aware of each other and made actual eye contact last week. We haven’t actually spoken in a long time.)

I also thought this was a way of having a conversation. I may be having a conversation. With myself. A conversation I’m letting everyone who feels like it to listen to. But I don’t want to have yet another stinking conversation with myself. I’ve been doing that my entire life; while it does have its charms, writing them out would be a grand waste of time.

Hey, I have my Grant bio to finish. Grant Memoirs have been read. Read them if you love the intricacies of battles. If not, knowing the incredible poignant story about why he wrote them when he did is more that enough. I wrote about that in some old blog post. Though I can’t remember which one, because my short-term memory stinks. But FYI, this bio confirms, that Grant, besides being the best military figure of the nineteenth century, was also a great man. His huge flaw (not when he commanded armies in the civil war) was that he was too trusting and was easily swindled. A businessman he was not. I can think of worse.

Norman Mailer would publish a book Conversations With Myself. He kind of already did: Advertisements to Myself which I found unreadable though it was cool that my professor is mentioned (who assigned it) in two spots in the book. But how my nice professor (Bob Lucid. Is it even possible to come up with a better name?) could be buddies with Norman Mailer is one of Life’s Mysteries. (Stick with The Naked and the Dead and you can’t go wrong. My mother liked The Executioner’s Song, bless her heart. I’m sure it’s beautifully written. Not for me right now…I don’t think…)

I think Facebook has been a bust. (For the most part. Sadly, it’s not going to replace my old sand box. NYC. The Earth.) My expectations were too great, because I need it or something like it so terribly much. With those requirements, of course it must fail. There are highlights:

I’ve found a few old friends. Danny. Sharon, my Sha. (!!!) I feel I’ve known Rich forever. I love him madly. And then there’s Bob. The diamond in the rough who is rough no more, whom we sadly missed so many moons ago. But he’s here now. And Donna. My god, Donna’s back. (!!!)

Just a small housekeeping detail. The hormones have taken a break from their trip around the universe and have taken refuge once more in my body to, I imagine, have 40,000,000 light years check, change oil, before heading out again. Bob, to keep the Fantastic Voyage image front and center, I wonder if Raquel Welch has taken residence in my body and has anti-bodies plastered over her breasts. Chip loved that image as a kid, and I don’t think he likes it any less now. (I think it’s pretty hot come to think of it.)

I have been stalling to get to the crux of this post. (There is a crux to this post. We’re there now.) I think I wanted a conversation. Facebook just skates along the surface of everything. It is rare to find anything personal on FB. I think I need connection.

What was it, in 1776, when the south has walked out of the Continental Congress. "It’s no use John.” The rest follow them out. Leaving John Adams and the clerk Thomson, Adams asks where Thomson stands on independency. “I stand with the General.” And Thomson reads from George Washington’s latest letter to Congress, “I have been in expectation of receiving a reply on the subject of my last fifteen dispatches. Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody care?" (Everything about that movie brings me to tears. Yes, even before I first became ill.) I guess I, too, stand with the general.

Postcript: You realize when I talk about FB being a bust is not a commentary on any of you I met, became, reacquainted with (Colleen) through that medium. I appreciate each and everyone one of you. I see that you all take the time to read my posts. My (teary) thanks to you for your patience with me while I stumble about. You help me. I need you.

I Am Alive

2010-10-17T21:34:00.000-07:00

I am alive. I was planning on taking a break from this blog. Certainly, it’s a novelty when someone is completely honest about everything (of which she is aware…I get dispensation for lying to myself) she writes. It is pretty ugly.

As I recover from this last “oops,” what appears to be an ear infection run amok, I’ve become more and more grim. New fun fact. When ill, especially fighting a fever, your body requires more oxygen than usual to fight the bug. Running only on a quarter tank, I can barely function with the little that I had left for basic human functions- like breathing.

When ill but with healthy lungs, you’re tired and you’re using more of oxygen than usual. But you don’t notice the loss of breath. Gasping is for lucky people like me. And there is truly nothing more frightening than not being able to breath. Not a surprise that waterboarding was so damned effective in scaring the crap out of our Guantanamo guests. The seconds before drowning must be hellish.

I was assured that as I recovered I’d get back to where I was. (Not that joyful moment when you find out everything will be okay, but it’s the best that I could do. Take what you can get and don’t dare let go.) I’ve spent the past week in a state of panicked paralysis. I can only imagine that was the PTSD talking. Anxiety I know. You feel like you’re jumping out of you skin. Depression is the almighty abyss.

The better I feel physically, the more grim, panicked, and paralyzed I become. I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want to live like this anymore. It’s lonely and can be nothing more unless I venture out into the world and risk catching that fatal bug. The one that descends on my scarred lungs and wreaks my final havoc. (I know this sounds melodramatic. If only it were so. I’d much prefer to be a whining diva than a human living on the edge of life.)

Can any of you actually believe I could enjoy “the world” with Henry’s ax (or Anne’s blessed never-miss French swordsmen) hanging over my head. I guess I’d have to reach a point where dying was no longer an issue. Live for the moment. I was never very good at that at my best. And I truly would need to go for broke- damn the torpedoes. I’m still a scared little Jewish girl. I’m not ready for the big stage. The grand gesture. It’s not in my gene pool. The Hungarian lunacy not withstanding.

So, I was ready to put this blog on hiatus. Every post “…today was horrible…” “I feel so lousy today…” “I had a bad day…” This is tedium. Fresh and different becomes a stale piece of cheese. I am not just writing for myself. If that were so, I’d keep a personal journal. But the illness gave me a voice I thought crazy to waste. (No, that sounds as if I made some cool intellectual choice. Fat chance. I’m no less honest than I have been. I’m just much less interesting. That alone is very difficult to swallow. How do I know this to be true? I don’t. I’m making an assumption. I feel so alone (well I am alone), and the idea that I might be driving away the people who chose to read what I had to say, has just been too much for me.

I was saved by a phone call today from one of my “new cousins” who isn’t new at all. A 2002 family reunion introduced the Kallus family to one another. (My mother was born a Kallus, so we are dealing with the crazy Hungarian branch of the family.) I met David Stein in 2002. He lives in Amsterdam and came in for the big event. On my last vacation of my old life, Chip and I had a full day layover in Amsterdam on the way to Barcelona. I called David to see if he’d be around that day. He was. And he treated us like royalty. He picked us up at the airport at dawn and fed us everything and took us everywhere. Chip and I swore our next trip would be to Amsterdam, but that was not to be. No trips for me. But David, Chip, and I grokked each other. He called to check on me this afternoon at the very moment I needed someone. Forty-five minutes of yacketing did us both good. And for the first time since this stupid-ass ear infection, I feel human again. And maybe, just maybe, there’s a reason to keep on living.

Autumn of Doom Redux

2010-10-12T13:56:00.001-07:00

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water. Saturday was strange. When I take my glut of morning pills, I always down them with a Trader Joe’s Breakfast Bar. I don’t know why, but I had no stomach for that bar or any food item that morning. I wasn’t sick to my stomach. Yes, hormones were raging as it seems is their wont, but they’ve never impinged on my ability to eat.

I had Tamar, the greatest P.T. on the planet coming over later in the afternoon, so I had to eat something. Good lord, I had a Zone bar. I think the last time I had one of those was a lifetime ago. But at least I some energy to burn for the beloved Tamar, the greatest P.T. on the planet.

In the afternoon, computer activities that require no thought at all suddenly became difficult. Puzzling. Scary. Chip came and made all better, and I breathed a sigh of relief. But what the fuck is going on?

Saturday night, I started to go through about double the number of oxygen tanks than the usual. (I didn’t notice. Chip told me this today. He had the gall to say to me, “You had the mask on most of the night.” Like I’m supposed to put two and two together when I’m no longer able to handle basic computer function. (Do you remember when we were elementary school kids, and I guess in an attempt to teach us beauties higher math skills, they used “The Function Machine.” Except no one really ever bothered to put the damned thing into context. All I know is one number went in, and another number came out.. Why? Don’t ask me, I didn’t get it then, and I would like to think I’d get it now without outside help.)

Another thing in life where context would have been everything. Hey kids, back in ancient times they had what they called “The Seven Wonders of the World.” One was this humongous statue of a man. I mean so seriously humongous that it made the list. He was called the Colossus of Rhodes. Stay with me kids. This poem “Give me your tired your poor/your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”and so on. Does anyone know the name of that poem? (No, off course we didn’t.) It’s called The New Colossus, and the woman (Emma Lazarus) who wrote the poem was writing about the Statue of Liberty. America as a haven for immigrants. Now let’s talk about immigration…

Wouldn’t that teensy bit of context been helpful? And I just found out that the damned poem doesn’t even begin with “Give me your tired your poor…” The first part explains exactly what the fuck Emma was talking about. So you understand the goddamned poem and title without even knowing dong about the Colossus of Rhodes. Aren’t teachers blithering idiots? Or are we too stupid to get the big picture even though the little one just floats in the ether, attached to nothing or no one.

Goddamn, I’m one pissed off human being tonight. I remember in fourth grade learning the names of three very important “statesmen.” Not a surprise, they were Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun. I don’t ever recall knowing what made them “statesmen.” I don’t ever recall know what a “statesman” was. I knew these dudes were American. That’s about it. I had no idea what they did for this country except that it must have been very important. So, it’s good to be a “statesman,” and these three were particularly good at being “statesmen” because the teacher is bothering to tell us about them. Do we have any other “statesmen?” Besides this three who have names? (And why is only one allowed a middle initial?)

I sure knew nothing about our system of government back then. C’mon everybody, you can do it quick and dirty: You know the president, right kids? The statesmen are people who are elected from every state, and they write the laws. There is a third part, the judiciary, but let’s save that for another class, shall we?

Oh, and by the way, Emma Lazarus died at the age of thirty-eight of Hodgkin’s Disease.

Back to Saturday night. I think I may have felt a little under the weather, but I was really perturbed that walking my usual laps in the hallway were near impossible. The first is always the hardest, but number two was pretty rough too. I have never, ever done this: “That’s it for tonight. No lap number three. I can’t do it.”

So off to bed I go. Chip, as usual, wakes me up for glut of morning pills. I take the pills. I tell Chip to get me a thermometer. I have 100.4 fever. Not a big deal except when you know there’s an infection in your body and your lungs have only quarter capacity. Chip gets the pulmonologist on call, (my wee pulmonologist’s big macher partner.) I’m prescribed a combo of steroids and antibiotics. (The only treatment to try and keep the lungs out of this.) Good news, the infection has not gotten into my lungs. If it had been, we might really be saying farewell.

I should only be so lucky. No more fever. I’m using a lot less oxygen than I was before, but it’s still more than it had been before all this crap started. I have zero strength. Until it all actually comes back, I’m making no assumptions.

Now it’s a new day! I’ve been awake for a nanosecond today and already, I need to nap. I’m not sure why this was so important last night, but I’ll see if I can figure out why. Ah, we have a lithograph that we bought on a whim at a gallery that only sells surrealist art. The thing is fucking ginormous. The only wall space large enough to accommodate it was in Lydon’s room. We hung the thing. And boy, does it freak him out! He insists it’s a representation of death, which I suppose is totally possible. Even though it lacks the typical death accoutrements (no cowl, no scythe). But this is surreal, so it shouldn’t include the usual death symbols, right?

Okay, he’s a young man, dressed up in green robes (plus maybe, just maybe, a medieval version of a back pack). He carries a brightly-lit staff and is standing be a cube of space that appears to continue on for all eternity or at least as far as we can see. I really relate to this guy. The lithograph has a name. And it isn’t “Death“ which would certainly be a dead giveaway. (Stupid pun not intended. I don’t have time for stupid puns.) No, it’s more subtle than that: “…nè in cielo nè in terra…” Neither heaven nor earth? Neither sky nor earth?

Yes, it’s Limboland! That’s where I live. I’m totally young and spry except I have a quarter lung capacity (and that’s when I’m healthy). It must be less- at least until I fully recover from this piece of nonsense. I’m disabled, but everything except one vital organ works perfectly. So, I like that guy. If by keeping that damned staff lit, he saves some poor schmuck from falling down that really nasty abyss, then I’m all for him and the whole lithograph. He’s stuck in the miasma just like me. Wait a minute he is me.

The Wonders of Modern Medicine

2010-10-09T16:41:00.001-07:00

Today I have taken an oxycodone. I am mostly pain free (in what in my world constitutes pain free), but the dose these little pills provide is the bare minimum. All it does is cut the edge off the really wicked stuff. I mean, my tendinitis in my right shoulder hurts like hell. What’s that about?

Last night, I was all teary and whimpery, because I hurt so fucking much but somehow thinking that there’s something shameful about taking a prescription painkiller. Yet another thing that we can add to my insanity. I was also afraid to move from the couch to the dining room table as I am no longer allowed to use the computer on the couch. Actually, I will not allow myself to use the computer on the couch anymore. I have made a choice. In some weird way the Venus aligns with Mars, I get terrible pain in two points behind my ears and have trouble turning my head. (Don’t even ask about Saturn.) These are not good things. Magically, the planets align properly when I sit at the dining room table in a chair like a mensch. I have remind myself I’m not a cripple. (Emotionally, the verdict’s still out, but physically, all body parts work as far as I can tell.)

But I was afraid to walk the few steps over. Am I afraid I might fall? No. Am I afraid it will hurt? Not anymore than usual. (Though pain can really fuck up your head. I mean scrambled brains, not sore pressure points.) No, I think this was just irrationality at its best. (Like being afraid of the shower. Not slipping. Or tripping getting in or out. Or even water boarding. No, I was just afraid of the shower. I’d have made more sense if I had thought the damned thing were infested with demons. That should embarrass me. Not taking a teensy oxycodone that never hurt anyone. (I mean the actual pill I’m about to swallow- not Oxycodone in general. No, I’m not taking pot shots at people with drug problems. I only take pot shots at myself. Anyone caught in the line of fire, my most sincere apologies.)

I just bought a bunch of Pointer Sisters songs. They kick serious butt. And thought they might be empowering. I need a hit. Couldn’t hoit? Now, I’ve got Marvin’s Let’s Get It On in my happy ears. Empowering too. But in a different way.)

*********************************************************************

It’s Saturday and saw Tamar (the best P.T. in the entire world.) I do my damndest, but I get out of breath so fucking easily. Hell, Tamar said we may only be able to get me only a little less tight. The tightness might not be coming from my body refusing to cooperate. (I never did learn to play nicely with others.) Really that’s not exactly true. I just always refused to take part in any competitive sport. I just hated looking like a numnutz I knew I would be. Better to sit on the sidelines. Isolating? Yeah, just, a bit. Very helpful in my coming age. I remember once the school had a pep rally. My friends and I took that opportunity to go home. If there had ever been any others during our three years at Schreiber, I missed ‘em.

In gym class, as much as I tried, I was stuck participating. Sophomore year, I was playing flag football. I hung out in the back of the mass of girls. My opponent’s quarterback threw a forward pass. The wobbly ball moved through the air as if in slo-mo coming straight at me. I caught it. (Not too hard, I never had a problem with hand-eye coordination. I just issues participating.) We were at the opponent’s goal line, so I had to run down the whole fucking field. Touchdown. Whoopee. I don’t think we had an extra point kick or even a kickoff. Somehow were around the opponent’s goal line again. (We weren’t pushed there by a fabulous offense. I think that’s where the gym teacher started us because if we did, she didn’t have to go tramping around the field.) Once again the quarterback threw one more wobbly ball towards the end zone. Shit, it was coming straight at me. Again. I ran down one more time. TD! I think our gym teacher had enough of flag football, because she sure as hell wasn’t going to move her ass under any circumstances.

Gym class improved immensely when they introduced a selection of sports we could choose to play. I square danced an awful lot. I fenced once, but the layers of Lysol permeating the mask was more than I could take. All I knew, if I wanted to live another day, I had to get away from Soccer Speedball as fast as possible. I don’t remember much about it except that people threw balls at you with incredible speed and force. The fucking “game” hurt like hell. If you enjoyed taking the risk of being decapitated by Sue Murray, play away. Once was enough, after that I avoided it like the plague.

Then I discovered the fabulosity of weight training. The class was made up mainly by a bunch guys keen on expanding their muscles. No teacher taught. There must have been one there, but he or she was one quiet dude. The muscle-bound boys were really friendly and very nice. They showed me the machines and shit. I did lots of sit ups to make the class go faster. I must have been in this section with a friend, because I recall entertaining ourselves by discussing what we actually wanted our “weight” to do as we trained it. Jump through hoops? Catch poorly thrown footballs?

I must be on drugs looking at the shit I just wrote. Note to self: one oxycodone gets me fucked up, and I don't even know it.

The Angry Inch

2010-10-06T17:35:00.000-07:00

I didn’t write yesterday. I was in one of my “blue periods” like Picasso. Just like. It was so bad I was unable to see the sick humor of my situation. “Situation” really is such a misnomer, isn’t it? A situation is only a piece of time. It’s long overdue that I start referring to my situation as my life. And get each other properly introduced. Hi How Are You?

Come now. Do I really think that those researchers are going to find a fix for me? (“Please Mr. Postman look and see…”) To use one of my mother-in-law’s favorite expressions, anyone who believes that, poke out your right eye. So blue, blue, my world is blue…What the fuck is it with these songs that have no relation to one another. Except they’re real sad. Aha! Caught you! Thought you’d sneak out on me, didn’t you? Well fuck you, I got it, and I got it.

I was reading the blurb that accompanies most albums on itunes or Amazon. Not important why, but I had to have, “Sing This All Together (See What Happens). It lives on Their Satanic Majesties Request. I don’t have the album. I don’t want it. Not my cup of tea. But the descriptive bit speaks very positively about how the Stones used that album to experiment with their music by leaving out the blues which, at least to my untrained ears, goes part and parcel with the band. I always thought Their Satanic…to be an overreach and especially stands out as such as it was released not long after the still fucking amazing, incredible Sgt. Pepper’s…Uh-Uh Mick and Keith. Stick with what you’re good at. And they did and I think that in doing so, released the greatest music of The Stones oeuvre. (Don’t you love that you can use oeuvre in the same sentence with The Rolling Stones?) Hell, they’re my favorite Stones albums. So sue me. Blues rules.

I find it interesting that it’s so easy and such a relief to write about music. I’ve kept Franny really close to the vest today. I know. I apologize. To give you all an idea of what we’re dealing with: I’ve been feeling like a completely useless lump of flesh. “Lump of flesh” is not my creation. It’s a twist on the “Angry Inch” from Hedwig and the Angry Inch. (Asshole that I was, it was being performed mere minutes from my home, and I had no clue how remarkable it was. So it closed before I figured out.) But the movie is beautiful, painful, and so very sad. For Hedwig, her one inch mound of flesh is what’s left from a botched sex change. For me, I’m the lump of flesh. Listening to the soundtrack makes me cry. The song with the animation accompanying it, The Origin of Love,” is genius and makes me cry even more. I need to cry.

I am welling up. Writing about Hedwig and listening to Sympathy for the Devil can do that. A strange fact of nature. And I still have to figure why life is worth living. I haven’t gotten there yet. And let those tears come hot and heavy.

Where Are You At?

2010-10-04T18:39:00.000-07:00

I have just finished from an afternoon of mending and napping. The nap is quotidian and of no import here. At least not today. I screwed up on getting medication down at the right time. This was not earth shattering but if I’d paid better attention, I wouldn’t feel the need for my own Dr. Feelgood upon awakening. (I want Aretha’s Dr. Feelgood, but he I’m not sure even he could have made all the bad stuff go bye, bye. You know, I just may not be giving him enough credit. Fool, that Dr. Feelgood is everybody’s salvation and amen. Helloooo Dr. Feelgood.) By the way, I’m fully aware that I have Dr. Feelgood in my apartment 24/7. This is not to provoke an, “Awe, how cute.” I got him. I just have to make better use of him. I don’t think he’d mind.

The mending is comforting. While you may not think that sewing holes in underwear and tee shirts one hell of a good time, it strangely provides me with a real feeling of accomplishment. Another Port Washington Union Free School District disappointment.

It was still the day where girls were required to take a year of home ec and the boys, a year of shop. For all the power tucked up in my great brain, I was lost when it came to the sewing machine and patterns for swell looking items that never looked as good as the illustration of the lovely young thing, all decked out in something you thought you we making.

I loved my sewing home ec teacher. That’s not true. I loved the idea of her. I’d go to her with a problem (which was all the time) and she’d always say, sounding like the Baleboosteh that she was even though she most certainly wasn’t Jewish, had blond bouncy hair, and a vague southern accent, “Where are you at?” (With strong emphasis on the “at. ”) She’d come to my machine that was a complete mess, she righted the ship, and I couldn’t understand a word that that honey bun said. I didn’t mind floundering too much because there was always, “Where are you at?”

This was progress. Girls no longer had to take sewing classes. (As my mother recalls, “Ten stitches to an inch, ladies!”) Now this is a skill I’d love to have. I was never going to get a sewing machine. Was I ever going to make my own clothes? Not a chance. Being able to neatly mend or hem, that’s a different story. I have the children of the Depression disease. Why throw away a perfectly fine pair of underwear if all you have to do to make them perfect, is to sew a seam? Or darn a hole? (If you don’t, the open seam takes over and strangles you in the night. Or the hole envelops you and your family, and you can never climb out. Even though, for chrissakes, it’s just a hole in my underwear. You think it would be easy. Guess again. (I think my ARDS may very well have been a warning from the Sewing Gods. “Where are you at?” I shudder at the thought)

So far, this has been a productive day. Next is working out and walking the hall. These are all very unpleasant things for me to do and hang over me every fucking day like it did my buddy Anne Boleyn. (Except it was a goddamned axe that was hanging over her head. Sometimes I wish I had that problem. Then I wouldn’t have to work out any more.) I am now waiting for the oxycodone to kick in. Then, I won’t feel quite like I’m about to go to my execution. Every fucking day, this crap hangs over my head. And I can’t make myself chill about it.

I need serious drugs for that to happen. (You all think I’m already taking serious drugs? Nah, this is just kid’s stuff.) And I’m always afraid that if I give myself the night off, one night will become two then three…I don’t trust myself. My motivation. The truth comes out. The raison d‘etre for a lifetime of “high achievement.” I’m just petrified I’ll bolt. So I mend. And darn. Takes the edge off. Like a nightcap.

Privacy Pad

2010-10-02T17:44:00.001-07:00

I have been doing my “homework” assigned by my masseuse. The pain I’ve getting in my head and neck has reached the level of excruciating. The cause? The position of this goddamned laptop. Today, I have been following orders sitting in a real chair with the computer on the table. (With strategically placed pillows and lumbar support) Rachel (who is becoming one of the best massage therapists in New York) knows her shit. I’m not going to hope to eliminate my problem. (I haven’t been all over this like I have the back. The non-functioning back trumps all.) I was never a Lisa Loopner and Todd fan (sorry y’all) though I adored Mrs. Loopner. She always killed me with “Poor Mr. Loopner. He was born without a spine.” I often think about poor Mr. Loopner these days.

This is a big move. It gets my ass off the couch. Which Tamar (the best P.T. on the planet- of this I am entirely sure) has been telling me to do for weeks. A great Tamar aside: I just ate it up when Chip and I, after confirming I have a soft-tissue injury in my back (big move), conferred and said, “Yeah, we’ll give Tamar a call…” No last names, just Tamar. My orthopedist is stunned, “You know Tamar?” (C’mon, this is a big city. Tamar. In the orthopedics/P.T. world, it’s like saying Madonna’s doing my P.T. No last names necessary.) Even better, “You get Tamar to come to your house?” (This from the most laid back doctor I’ve ever met.) “Yeah, we do.”

My other piece of homework was to soak my feet and then have Chip give them a massage. Rachel said they’re tight as little stones and if we can get them loosened up, this will loosen up legs and finally my pissy back. This piece of homework is a good thing. I love the whole shebang and my blessed husband says he love massaging my feet. Go figure.

After my massage, I’m, supposed to try my daily walk in the afternoon as opposed to 1 to 2 A.M. as usual. I tried. It’s not only not better than the early morning stroll, it’s much, much worse. I take a drying medication late in the evening that clears me up for that pleasant stroll up and down the hall which always ends dramatically with my flinging myself in my wheelchair parked in the foyer for just that reason. I heave for the next few minutes until I can breathe again. And then we go and do the stroll twice more. Every day.

Now, isn’t it easier to see how frustrated I am that I’m not going to get much better than this. But I have to keep it up. Since life these past few days the glass is half full, what choice do I have? (If it were half empty, don’t even ask.)

I must have written about the entire Pittsburgh nightmare last December. The loveliest persons I met with, believe it or not, were surgeons. You remember that the whole fucking week I and the two other women with me on the Block, 50% 5 years, 10 or 14% or thereabouts 10 years (I can’t remember, damnit!) The head surgeon took both my hands in his and said what I already knew, but no one else dared touch with a ten-foot pole. He looked me straight in the eye and said softly to me, “Those aren’t your numbers.” What an angel! (Meaning I am very likely one of those transplant recipients who pull the numbers up. Strong, young, otherwise healthy…

While that its likely that would be so, I could also react badly to the new lung and have to go back on the vent for????? They had a young woman in the program who received her new lungs two years ago and hasn’t left the hospital. After my hell, I just can’t go there. Not again. “Franny, say bye-bye.” “Bye.”

My best friend there was a man I call Dr. Asshole, the most pleasantest asshole you’re bound to meet. Who said, “If we could squeeze another six months out of your lungs, you’d have five and a half years, isn’t that good?” (Great! Five and a half years and then I drop dead with god knows what complications during those fun, transplanted five and a half years.) And best of all, “In two years, (with his smarmy, cheeriness dripping from every pore of his body), your lungs will be two bags of pus and then no one would do a transplant on you.” How I kept my wits about me, I don’t know. I asked him, “Are you telling me I’m dying?” (He didn’t expect that. That’s not in the script. “Director! (whine) This patient is improvising! (panic) What do I do?”)

The uncooperative patient continues, “No one’s ever told me I’m dying. Are you?” I was livid, and I cried. A real good one, long overdue. Where’s this shit coming from? I ended up making him feel like he fucked up, because I ended up with a visit from the Grand Poobah of all Transplants with a non-apology apology. If nothing else, Dr. Asshole knew he had done something not quite right.

I apologize to you all. I may very well tell you this same tired story every week. I just don’t remember. Just like I can’t figure out long division. Just like I’m having serious trouble spelling correctly. Every time I make one of these discoveries, it hurts. Big time. I guess I was something once upon a time. Who knew? Not I. But maybe it was so. A little late on the uptake.

In the recovery room, after my double heart catheterization. Now there was a roomful of mensches! I loved those guys. We talked music the whole time. (I had to stay awake while the doctor wormed catheters through both veins and arteries through the heart and out. I frightened one of them when he asked me what bands Eric Clapton had been in. And I rattled them off. (That’s when I frightened him.) C,mon. dude, that’s an easy one. Next catherization challenge me. “Are you in the business?” No, I just listen to music. Silly guy. But actually very nice. The surgeon was a doll. I thanked him profusely. I don’t think that happens very often. I felt nothing. I believed he was in total control. He deserved it. And he seemed to really like the thank you.

Maybe these folk want to make you feel powerful and smart. Patients must behave better when they’ve proven themselves and can lie back, smile, and be cocky. Lying on your back covered by a “privacy pad.” I guess it must make everybody feel better. After lying on my bed stark naked at 85 pounds getting a szigmoid during rounds, a “privacy pad” does seem kind of silly. I guess it’s just the separation of church and state. I can’t imagine how dehumanizing crap I’d have to get through to feel dehumanized. Maybe some people are more sensitive about these things. Hell, is the team going to get horny seeing a tuft of hair? Will I? (Thank god for my Chip. At least there’s still someone who does. Kinahora.)

Massage Hell

2010-09-30T19:19:00.001-07:00

I always feel blue after every health-related appointment. Today was massage day. One hour and and a half of deep tissue massage. Bliss? Deep tissue massage is never bliss. I hate massages that just feel nice. I feel them to be a waste of time. I get oodgy. When will this fucking thing that’s a complete waste of my time be over?

That’s how I feel about reading books that require nothing of me. I am constitutionally unable to read them. I get distracted in a nanosecond, and I don’t give a bloody damn. Now Tom Jones was funny. Wildly funny. (FYI read all the bloody footnotes, they're priceless.) Evelyn Waugh is a scream. Most modern literature (if it can even be called that) is one fucking waste of time. I need meaty. I must have it, or I’ll go bananas. And I’m already so, so this tripe can’t possibly be good for me. As I suppose you all can tell, reading shit is irritating. Seriously irritating. And often I am just physically able to read it.

But why ever should I feel blue after having a successful deep-tissue massage? (Success is measured by whether I open up and “let the therapist in” to the nasty painful spots.) I received an A+ today from my masseuse today. This pleases me. Go figure. But if all has gone so well, why am I blue? Each appointment with anyone who is supposed to make me feel better is accompanied by sadness. I would guarantee my life on it.

I ‘splain: Each and every health-related appointment (which seem to be all I have on the calendar these days) reminds me that I am not convalescing with the expectation of recovery. I am convalescing to continue convalescing ad infinitum with less pain. I still can’t wrap myself around the fact that I will never heal. That I will never get better. I am working to remain alive and as comfortable as I possibly can. Appetizing, is it not? (This while my fantubulous husband is giving me a foot massage, homework from Rachel the kickass massage therapist.) We open up my feet, the rest of the tight-as-a-drum legs should eventually follow. A fine plan. I receive a foot massage, and I’m sad. Like I need reminders.

The Fen or the Dingo Ate My Lozenge

2010-09-29T16:00:00.000-07:00

Lucky me. I have a draining, stented left ear. (Mazel tov, honey!) The right one. That’s another story. After redraining my right ear, my ENT saw that my right eardrum had become swollen since our last visit. This should not be. He poked at it a few more times hoping he’d find room for a stent. No dice. So no stent for right ear. But I do get antibiotic drops to use for the next two weeks to see if the swelling has gone down (which he likely made worse by poking around the ear drum around some more). If it hasn’t, another Cat Scan for you, baby blue.

So I’m still pretty damned deaf. (I know, I know, I have to chill about the left ear and let the sucker drain.) Kristen (the best therapist in the world) will be arriving momentarily. If I can actually hear the session without too much trouble, I will be pleased.

**********************************************************************

Two hours later… “pleased” is too strong a word. Two words would work much better: barely improved. I still felt like a tadpole. Fuck. This has already gotten old. (For all of us, I know.) But I actually heard most of what was said to me. That is an improvement. That I heard it from beneath surface of a fen…that’s where the “barely” comes in. Damnit.

As we all know, when we can’t hear, our own body sounds seem much louder than for those who live above the fen who usually don’t hear your body sounds at all. (No I’m not talking about farts here…) Right now, I’m referring to breathing and the mucous that is settling on my throat and probably my vocal chords too. I heard what I think is a slight raggedness in my breath. That frightens me. I associate this sort of raggedness with a bug that has or is settling in my lungs. Now, if I could hear like a healthy human being, I don’t think I’d hear a thing. But I‘m not, and I heard it, however faintly.

I get my poor husband who’s on a conference call to help strap me into The Vest, the thing that while in action looks like a “Flotation Device” in all its flotation-ness and beats the crap out of my lungs- front, sides, and back. Clever bugger, isn’t it? We get me in my harness and twenty minutes later, Aretha in Paris (of which I listened about halfway through last night) and I are done almost simultaneously. Crap is moving. No more raggedness. Fear subsides. Lovin’ on Aretha. (This album gets a bad rap. Totally undeserved. I think it’s pretty kickass.)

Time for my afternoon nap. (Yes I take a nap every afternoon.) Still coughing up stuff. (This I really do have to get out or else I can get myself into real trouble.) Given my new lease on life (oxycodone) I’m really not in the mood to drop dead of a cold. (And boys and girls, I only take it when I need it. Haven’t needed one for the past few days.) So now, kids, oxycodone, is not my new favorite candy. Cepacol lozenges were for a awhile. (But they taste something awful, but they, unfortunately, work. I still take them when desperately needed.)

Isn’t the word “lozenge” just great? Lozenge. It’s so unusual to find a word in English you can really sink your teeth into. Lozenge. It’s good. I’m reading a little of my new Grant bio (not Cary, though that would work just fine), before I tank. (I think I’m in love. First it was Charles II. You woman-loving rascal, you. But now, what about my Ulysses??? The greatest general in the world. And such a nice boy.) Lozenge. Isn't it yummy?

I Feel Tzkruchen

2010-09-28T12:22:00.000-07:00

Saturday, I was all ready to write one of the most depressing posts I’ve ever written and shared with you all some utterly disgusting incidents while I was being sized up in Pittsburgh. All I wanted was to let out was the worst of the worst. I was even going to include a warning up front not to read further if easily grossed out.

I didn’t do any of those things. I ran out of time, and I still haven’t figured out how to use this fucking laptop without doing a real number on my neck which the P.T. (Tamar, the best P.T. on the planet.) finally fixed on Friday that I promptly fucked up again by getting back on the computer. I have come to the conclusion that I don’t like pain. My back hurt something fierce on Saturday. I couldn’t hear. My sex organs didn’t and don’t work as they should. (Not just on Saturday.) I’d had enough. More than enough. I was beginning that great fall into the abyss, but I didn’t think I’d still be alive to hit bottom. I’d be gone long before that. I’d had enough.

The next day, we planned a brunch to celebrate Lydon’s twenty-ninth birthday and his engagement to Joanna- (not at the Bowery Ballroom). Chip’s mom and our nephew Nye were there as well as the usual set of dubious Lipmans. (Bagels, nova, the whole schpiel.) I popped an oxycodone two hours prior to arrival. Back pain gone. I announced to the entire group my litany of non-lethal, but still real lousy “cascading problems.” (The most lethal thing I’ve got to deal with is I. Even more than an upper respiratory infection. Either can kill me. I think the former is more likely to get me than the latter.)

But pain free, life feels different. Maybe even worth living. I no longer have the need to disgust you or myself. I think that’s serious progress. In one five milligram little pill. If only I could figure how best to place this fucking computer, so my neck stops hurting like bloody hell.

Tomorrow is stent day. Right now, I don’t think I’m very deaf. I could be and have not a clue. I’m here sitting in the living room by myself. But yesterday, in a room full of people, it was rough. My mother and I were having problems hearing the conversation. You don’t know how miserable it is asking someone to repeat something, again. Even when you know you’re speaking to someone who loves you, you can just hear that tiny edge in his or her voice because it’s a pain in the ass to have someone say to you, “Excuse me, what did you say?” Over and over again. I can better understand why so many of us (I sheepishly raise my hand), have difficulty dealing with older people. All I can say, hey guys, you just have to have a little bit more patience. They don’t mean to be difficult. And when they are, you’ll recognize the difference instantly.

It is now Tuesday. Stent day. I head to the ENT in about a half hour. I became very upset last night. As I’ve bitched about (I think) over and over again about my short-term memory problems. (Often I don’t have one.) Spelling confusion. (I never misspelled anything in my life…until now.) I also found out that I was completely befuddled by long division. Long fucking division. Yes, I had taken an oxycodone. (Back and neck.) But that wouldn’t make long division into the math equivalent of a Rubik’s Cube. (I could never figure those things out.) I was and am freaked by this.

And will I ever know if a part of my brain is damaged (during the eight-week medically-induced coma) or am I just fucked up by the medication I’m taking. I’m afraid I’ll be on these “psychotropic” drugs forever. Anyone want to risk reducing these babies? Not when I figure while on all these drugs, there’s still a chance of an “Au revoir, mes petits!”

Right now, all I want to do is give my head and neck a fucking break and put this computer down and far, far away. First Since When submission is this week. (For an agent, not a publisher.) Oh boy.

Spelling of "tzkruchen" courtesy of my mother who worked it out phonetically with Leah from Florida.

The Fly

2010-09-23T15:41:00.000-07:00

Have you ever given yourself a wedgie? I most certainly have. Many times, in fact. Not because I enjoy them. Oh, quite the contrary. But those de rigueur thong underpants (no undie lines girls!), makes it a snap. You transform yourself from human being to Guantanamo Bay torture victim in one painful quick second. Do you know how horrible it feels to be held up totally naked by a string looped between your legs? Well that’s what it feels like. And just having suffered a doozy, please be understanding when I appear to be sticking my fingers up my butt. I’m only trying to remove that string which at that precise moment is slicing through my nether regions. (My butt doesn’t need any squinching or fondling of which I’m aware that would also requiring undergarment adjustment.) Franny’s poor butt just requires the implement of pain removed as quickly as possible.

Oh why can’t I just get the love for those adorable boy briefs? (End of self-induced wedgie problem for all time.) They are awfully cute, n’est pas? Yes they are, and you can’t have them sweetie poo. Because the girls who wear them are young enough to have been birthed by me. I would be pushing the youth thing surreptitiously. Not a good thing when you’re 48.

Now I now understand in a way I had been unable to do as a youth: my mother’s disgust when she saw 50-year-old women in hot pants. There is such a thing as age appropriate or better said, looking like an idiot. (This was the early seventies, the Age of “Who wears short shorts?” and James Brown’s Hot Pants.) I grok it now. I’d rather have the wedgie, because I would know I’m being the asshole (for continuing to tempt the evil thong gods) yet acting my age. I just wish to God that I hadn’t bought into the nonsense that panty lines are an embarrassment to all of humankind and must be eradicated.

My other bugaboo. I rather dislike or hate with a fucking passion when someone (could even be me) steps on my tubing that follows me everywhere like a good little doggie. And it rips the cannula out of my nose. This is not something I can get used to. Frankly can you think of someone who would? Stepping on my life-line isn’t dangerous. (Unless you count a nasty growl from me dangerous.) Getting pulled like around by a nose leash is miserable. It hurts. Not only do I hate it, I also find it terribly humiliating.

Stepping on my tether, my leash. My leash on life. Ugh. (For the godawful pun and for being leashed.) Like on Judge Judy, when she lays into people who don’t leash their dogs. She’d approve of my set-up. I’m on a long lead, but it only allows me a taste of freedom. I can’t leave the apartment by myself. If nothing else, the neighbors don’t have to worry about rabies.

My hearing is better today. Yesterday not so much. It’s a problem when I’m straining to hear my therapist. Or the masseuse. Or Tamar, the best P.T. on the planet. I see stents in my future. (Obviously, the back still cries for love.) The E.N.T. has been convinced. (Blow noisemakers, throw confetti.) Let’s see how much we can take away from Fran before she's locked up in the attic and madder than a hatter. Or better yet, lock me in a cage, like a dog crate. That would work in an apartment. Bingo!

“I can’t take it no more baby…And furthermore, I don’t intend to…” (FYI, Janis, at the fade out of Move Over.) Big words from the ill one- me- though it could easily be Janis, couldn't it? I know it's just bravado. Sometimes I like to think I have some say in any of these matters. (sigh.) Please be patient while I act like a tough guy. It's the closest I'm ever get to actually being one.

Do you remember the original movie The Fly? At the end, the man-fly is sitting on a bush and in a squeaky high-pitched voice calls out, “Help me! Help me!” (Long ago and far away, I used to do a very good imitation of the Fly’s plea, I scared the shit out of my normally tough, cool older brother Doug. This, he could not take.) That man-fly, he was so totally fucked. He knew it too. (He was the brilliant scientist who got himself in this hideous mess.) But he couldn’t help but cry out, even when he knew it was all for nought, “Help meeee!” I’m beginning to feel a kinship with that goddamned man-fly.

Haikus for Jews

2010-09-21T16:38:00.000-07:00

Hormones have officially gone missing. Oh they’re here. They’re making their presence known those sons-of-bitches. I’ve just be unable to reel them in and give them the long timeout they most richly deserve. When will my body stop conspiring against me? It’s done enough damage. Now, it feels the need to rub my face in shit for the fun of it. How cruel. Yo body, I’ve got the message.

No, I don’t. (As I hang my little head in shame.) I don’t know a damned thing. Because if my dot of a crisis plays a role in the trials and tribulations of the Universe, that’s really silly. That’s really too much. That’s really too funny to fathom. Whoever you are, I think you could have picked on someone who actually has a role in the trials and tribulations of the Universe. “Oops, my mistake, Franny babe.” I can forgive, once you correct the fucking situation. I promise, after such “correction” has been made, I’ll be generous in forgiving your stinking, lousy mistake once you right it.

Randy Newman’s got it hands down:

"I burn down your cities--how blind you must be

I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we

You must all be crazy to put your faith in me

That's why I love mankind

You really need me

That's why I love mankind"

Cool fact of the day. The reason Key to the Highway appears on Layla is because the band overheard the song in the next studio being recorded for Sam Samudio’s Hard and Heavy. They liked the tune. They recorded it. Wow. Fuck, it just doesn’t get any better than that.

Today I embrace my curmudgeonly-ness. Yes, I love the small stuff. (Though every now and again I would appreciate a really big good thing. May I have one now please?) But realistically, where I’m at is it, my darlings. Oh, over the past three years (after relearning how to walk and such), the improvements have been teeny and incremental. (Redundancy seems apropos here.) I feel perfectly entitled to be one fucking curmudgeon. And even if I wasn’t entitled, who’s going to stop me?

It’s a riot to feel so free locked up in an apartment. They could make a sitcom out of it. Nah, way too much depressing , and each episode would be one thought balloon after another. Now I am big fan of thought balloons, but I think they need to meted out judiciously or else they lose their punch.

When I first got the cancer diagnosis (back in the good old days), Chip had heard of these adult (as in “grown-up” not “porno”) cartoon books where the authors/artists each tell of her own experience with cancer. One was okay. Not haha, but it had a hopeful ending. Then Chip found another one that the reviews all said this is the one to get. Hysterical, really helpful as you begin your ordeal. Another young woman gets breast cancer, has lumpectomy, cancer come back with a vengeance, she finds she looks best in a blue wig she picked up (that must have been the uproarious part) for cheap one day out with her girlfriends. More cartoons relating to the illness. Then they just stop. Just stop. Well all you asshole critics, it stops because she’s dead. She’s dead. She is dead. A real pick-me-up. All I can say, if you or a loved one has cancer, you’re better off with Haikus for Jews. They really are funny. And no one dies in the end.

Are You Experienced?

2010-09-20T20:36:00.000-07:00

I had a horrible day yesterday. I felt completely out of control. (Not being able to keep computer files and panicking when I can’t get a handle on the mess. I have a god-awful short-term memory. Ask me something from five minutes ago. Forget it. I can’t do any of it anymore. And so many other stupid things that I used to find easy.) I sometimes forget how fragile I am. I misinterpreted an email, because of my low feelings of self-esteem I’ve been feeling these days. (Why? Because I can’t do the shit that all you can do. And I never will.)

Okay, I didn’t exactly misinterpret the email. I just read it in such a way that made me feel deficient for not “doing more.” And not appreciating the small joys in life. Hell, if I try to appreciate anything smaller, they’d fucking need a microscope to see the fuck it is. What’s more, I haven’t the foggiest what more I can do. More exercise? More writing? “Touching base” with more people? (Oh, puhleeze.)? Loving my peanut butter and jelly more than I already do? (And I can’t do what you all can do.) But oh, this stuff hurts so much! I feel like I’m hanging on with just the tips of my fingers. No, don’t worry. If I die, it will be a natural death. So chill, s’alright? (s’alright.) Good.

Complete change of subject: I know I’ve come a little late to this game, but I fucking adore Jimi Hendrix. I never was crazy about the stuff the d.j.’s played over and over again. Those songs are still not my favorites. But the tunes I never heard on those three records are remarkable. And there is something so sweet about him that brings out the mother in me. (Somehow, I don’t think that’s what Jimi was going for.) So with three “new” albums to get to know, I’ve got what to listen to. (And I can also relate…the second song on Are You Experienced is Manic Depression. Why the hell do you think he was self-medicating? (and Kurt Cobain…Janis…)

Well, I think I'll go turn myself off,

And go on down

All the way down

Another one of my sweeping statements: most artists suffer from manic depression. They love manic. And when they’re manic, watch them magically create until they crash. They crash hard. Like Jimi. What a perfect song. I’m not manic-depressive, but I’ve recognized two manic periods in my life and shit, were they productive as bloody hell. Both in relation to Since When. The second time preceded my trip to see if could get placed on the lung transplant list. And that month prior, I got more and more wound up. I finished Since When. Rewrote the damned thing front to back. Then off to Pittsburgh to crash like a flaming hot air balloon.

When Chip and I got home, I really wanted to avoid “the big crash” that I expected when the possibility of transplant blew up in my face. (Survival stats beyond low…) So I just continued to write and magically, I didn’t fall to pieces. (The first time was the big one, oooh baby, never to be repeated.) But if you’re manic depressive, your highs are so much higher and your crashes are lower than low and unavoidable. (That’s where my maternal instincts come in. I would just rock that poor baby to sleep and tell him that I love him.)

I must have written about my Duane project. I’m telling you, that baby has kept me out of trouble for at least a year. I am trying to collect every piece of music Duane Allman played as a session musician. (FYI, side one of Layla doesn’t include Duane. He had to have been gone by the time it was recorded. Otherwise, why record any of it without Duane?) He died at only twenty four. God knows what we would have heard from him.

Duane Allman did not suffer from manic depression.

Relax, Damn You

2010-09-16T16:14:00.000-07:00

I was in the midst of my deep tissue massage (as deep as I would allow Rachel to get in…Meaning not deep enough.) Note to self: work on forcing yourself to relax. You all may think that’s funny, but I tried that one before and hot damn, it worked.

I took a vacation at a hiking spa in southern Utah eight million years ago. The only reason I was placed with the toughest guys (mainly women) was because I was the little girl who just followed directions. We had to run this course through the rocky, hilly sparse terrain. We were never told to run but run was the only way for me to keep up. At the end of the course, those who bothered to finish (yeah, I finished because they said to, don’t you get it?) were told to ascend the “six-minute hill.”

I have no fucking clue how steep that damned thing was, but I’d never seen a hill so steep that I was expected to climb. Just one steep mother of a grassy hill, that’s all. They (those spa people) told me to, so I did. I couldn’t believe there were actual young people saying, “Oh no, this has been enough for me!” I climbed the godddamned thing. Chip would say to those laggards, as he says to me when I ask him for something, “What! Are your legs broken?”

We hikers were never told this was our placement test. When I was told I made the top team, I burst into tears. I went to the man who looked most like a camp director and told him there had to be some kind of mistake. (We’re already in November. Little Franny is closing in on high tide with her Seasonal Affective Disorder. (I’m one fucking mess aren’t I? But a highly functional fucking mess.) I burst into tears again and told him there was no way I’d be able to keep that shit up. “Oh, we just speed things up to see who does it and who doesn’t.” And the hill…if you say, no hill, no serious hiking for you. He said you were great out there. (Like he knew.) Well I did it. He told me to.

Among parts of the spa package were three massages. I had never had a massage before, and I was more than dubious. This Slavic sports massage therapist kept insisting that I relax. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. I seemed perfectly relaxed to me. Sometime in the next day or so, I got it. I had my goddamned epiphany. A real “aha” moment. I knew what I had to do.

I went back to the Slavic master who was shocked to see me after what he must of thought was a debacle of a massage. “I know how to do it now.” He looked dubious- wouldn’t you? But okay, take off your clothes, get under the sheet, and we’ll begin. I told myself, “You fucking little turd, you will relax. “And I gritted my teeth and voila Mr. Slavic Master, dig in. there’s plenty for everyone. I opened up, gritted teeth and all. “How did you do that?” “I forced myself to do it.” I think he thought me crazy, but we both had a helluva lot more fun than the first time. And I fell in love with the glorious pain of a deep tissue massage.

Today was massage day. Ninety minutes. Some real fine pain. Man, I’ve started to open up, but I have a ways to go. But I can still make myself do it. I force-feed myself relaxation. That’s sick.

Midway through the massage, I thought about a recent David Letterman Show. (All while making myself relax, ignoring that I had to pee in the worst way, and passing on the fact that my neck hurt in a bad way). Michael Douglas was on- with a ton of very coiffed hair I imagine hawking his latest Greed movie. Besides his hair, I noticed he didn’t look all that good.

And Dave (many years after sharing his heart disease scare and his quintuple bypass very openly and movingly with his audience) asked Michael about what was happening with him. You know Dave knew…I didn’t. Michael Douglas told us he has been diagnosed with stage four throat cancer. Stage four in any cancer isn’t very good. It usually stinks. He said his one saving grace, the cancer has not spread below his neck. Yeah, I’ll say. Poor guy. He was diagnosed three weeks ago. Had his first chemo treatment. I‘m telling you, just one knocks you for a loop. No wonder he looked like shit. The two men then hugged. And then I imagine we went to commercial.

As I was lying facedown with all my breathing apparatus impressing runes in my face, it finally dawned on me. Was that warm hug goodbye?

July 4, 1826

2010-09-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

This is crazy. But I can’t stop writing. This one is completely cathartic. (Fuck, that’s what I’d prefer it be.) I’m terribly sad. I’ve written about my lost group of darlings who kept me sane through three horrible years at Paul D. Schreiber of High School of the Port Washington Union Free School District a bunch of times before.

I’ve never been the most prompt of letter writers. Often , I never wrote at all. (Which angered those who were on the receiving end who received from me…nothing.) I guess this is payback time. The phone and I don’t get along as well as we used to. (My voice usually paying the price.)

Sad. Oh weeks ago, I indicated to a sibling a lovely story of her sister- one of the lost. (I know, I make them sound like The Lost Tribe, don’t I? But that’s actually not a bad way to think of them.) I wrote that I had a post about her wonderful sister (who is unable to rejoin the world). Something dreadful happened in the years she was away- transforming her into someone unrecognizable and unreachable. That’s the horror. The terrible sorrow. She was delightful, wickedly funny, loving, and totally unaccepting of self.

The latter I learned many years later. I think in our few intense years together, we all took her behavior as simply neurotic, invisible, smart girl pains that would slowly heal only after leaving the hell that was Paul D. Schreiber High School of the Port Washington Union Free School District. Well they didn’t. And hope against hope, I thought making contact with a sibling on FB would somehow get me closer to my lost sweetheart. But that can’t happen. Not in real life. There is no substitute for the real thing, but I wasn’t looking for a substitute. But I was looking for something I frustratingly never found. (Expectations will be the death of me yet.)

In fact, I felt a hand in my face, attached to an arm stretched forward as far as it could go. I was not to be allowed in. I wasn’t wanted. Not like when I was a fixture at their house. The days when her sister and the rest of the tribe could read each other’s minds was long, long, ago in the Dark Ages. I was asking for a taste of something that is no more. It is not she, the sibling, who is at fault. It is I for wanting more. More than possible for anyone to give. That hurts.

I feel so goofy “becoming a blog exhibitionist.” It’s the same damned me I always was. I’m just on a written page for the world to see if it bothered to take the time to read my “poils of wisdom.” Some are you are wise beyond your years. Give yourself a hand. Always a little (sometimes a lot) angry, usually acerbic, very often funny. There’s a lot of funny in this world. Unfortunately, many fail to see the humor in it. Too bad. I find it much easier to live as if we’re part of some ghastly uber- Super Thing’s big joke. That’s helluva lot more interesting than God.

There is nothing good about when I feel lousy the way I do every fucking day. There are no lessons to be learned from this. I’m not of the school (surprise): “cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me.” Anyone who says that is not being honest with himself or is a blithering idiot. Yeah, so you survive your cancer. You’re always looking over your shoulder for the horrid thing that’s next. Or waiting for the other shoe to drop. Pick your cliché. The effects of chemo stick to your psyche like a piece of chewing gum. (Juicy Fruit?)

Yeah, so I’ve learned not to be frightened (for the most part) to say what I feel. Trust me, this wonderful ability to communicate and share really bites when it comes with the everyday worry of picking up some ordinary upper-respiratory infection and dropping dead. (I always feel so terrible for poor Freddie Mercury. He was so frightened about the reaction he’d get telling the public he had AIDS. When he finally screwed up the courage and did it, he died the very next day. A la Jefferson and Adams both surviving to July 4, 1826 and then dropping both down dead as if they planned it that way. Like when you’d tell a girlfriend, let’s both wear skirts tomorrow! Yeah, just like.) C’mon, y’all, we live in a bad place, so let’s enjoy as much as possible.

Oh, about the communicating and sharing? Don’t even think so for a second. I’m just on my soapbox pontificating. I don’t see any dialogue here, do you? Any sharing. Nah, fuhgedaboutit. I wasn’t made that way. I just often appear so. (Oh my, so curmudgeonly today, aren’t we?)

I’m just sad.

Fin and Tail Rot

2010-09-14T17:15:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the bloom is off the rose. The new and exciting is no longer fresh. Have I become a circle? Thoughts, feelings, ideas that sound suspiciously familiar? I feel I’m long past that point. At this point, I’d rather be The Cyrkle. They had two, (yes both jangly and upbeat) two megahits. I’m still looking for my first. (Blog post, not book. A published book would be an insane kick.) A megahit blog post. A triple platinum blog post. A Triple Crown blog post.

I’m just not that good. Perhaps if I had more disgusting yet fascinating leftover presents from touch and go bout with fin and tail rot. Uncontrollable drooling is always a good one. Fail safe, that one. Incontinence is not. (And I’m not.) My left ear is still leaking ear-wax colored water from where it was lanced and drained last Friday. That’s not bad and even better, it happens to be true. Aha! My hormones have been located. They are hovering around Mars as they make their way home. (Metaphorically, have no doubt about the latter’s veracity. I tell you no lies. At least none of which I am conscious.)

But these are nothing to write home about.

While I have nothing physically disgusting or otherwise to report, I am ecstatic that the LP of Sam Samudio’s Hard and Heavy (1971, Atlantic) has been transferred to disk (Emmy-winning liner notes to boot) and has finally arrived! Duane Allman appears on two tracks. One of which I already own on one of the two Duane Allman Anthologies I have. For one fucking song, I bought the only copy of Hard and Heavy I could find anywhere. Someone was selling one on Ebay.

Now people, I have a working turntable and bought the upgraded Yamaha receiver (when I was up grading) because it had a phono jack. So I have not given up on vinyl though I am ashamed to say that I don’t play my records often. The stereo components live in one room, and the records, another. I can’t easily remedy the problem being that this is a “grown-up” living room not a dorm room. (Except it really is more like a dorm room now, so I can have easy access to my beloved corner of the couch) But what sucks is that I can’t just pop between rooms grab a few, play’em, and then grab some more. Fin and tail rot makes moving difficult, as you all well know.

While Duane was the impetus for this purchase and transfer to disk (an all-Duane session work playlist- the tasty just got tastier)- I was really hot on checking out the record. Sam Samudio, my friends, is Sam the Sham. Sam the Sham! Of Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. Is that not crazy or what? Of course I had to have it. The man behind Wooly Bully? Count me in.

The music is good. It had to be. The irony for poor Sam. Atlantic issued a single of Sam singing a cover of Kris Kristofferson’s Me and Bobby McGee. He sung a quiet, wistful song. It was out a couple of months before Janis released hers. Forget it. Who remembers anything but that stellar version? She made it her song. Like Harry Nilssen took Badfinger’s Without You and transformed it. Joe Cocker with Dave Mason’s Feelin’ Alright? Like Aretha with Otis Redding’s Respect.

When Janis single came out. Atlantic pulled Sam’s off the market.

I say, Sam baby, yours still lives. With me. And it moves me. As it was supposed to.

Oh yeah, I really like music. Fin and Tail Rot notwithstanding.

Bye Bye Johnny

2010-09-12T18:48:00.000-07:00

For the very first time, I removed a "friend" from my list of many on FB. You have to have misbehaved terribly for me to reach this point. Honestly, the old Fran would have turned it around, upside down, twisted it in ways it wasn't meant to be twisted, and I still wouldn't remove you. Wipe shit all over my face, it's okay, let's see how we can work this out. I still went too far with this, but I was tired of being insulted. I was tired of being called a moron. Am I supposed to find this cute? Does he have such an inferiority complex that he assumes he's being attacked and attacks back? Did I crush his buzz with my little size five feet? Why so fragile? What do I care? How the hell did I become the lucky one?

I didn't allow him to be King Shit. I actually tried to have a conversation. I'm sick to death of lol and all the other clever internet argot. So much of that crap is so fucking dull. Being provocative is fun. I love it. It always gives me something new to chew on or allows me to see something in a whole new way. Convince me. Don't call me a moron. With this dude, I must have appeared to be on the attack. Me? I just respectfully disagreed. Did I make him feel like less of a man? Good grief. If he can find some little ole stranger so antagonistic, to quote Chuck Berry, "Bye Bye Johnny."

All from the right-hand corner of the couch. A scene. I've had a scene. A real honest-to-God scene. Hot damn. Bob did say I had strong opinions. I guess I must. I must get used to it. Fran 2 lets 'er rip whereas Fran 1 kept it all inside. (Except at work. I could speak my piece when it was for or about my client. I was not able to ever do the same for myself. Until now.) Cutting ties. My goodness. This was one big step.

I suppose if everybody liked me I'd be like a bowl of farina. Tasteless mush. (I must confess I do like that mush with a little maple syrup and a lot of milk. Hmmmm.) You know what I'm getting at. I probably just saved me and my new unfriend a lot of grief. We'd continue to piss each other off. Over and over again. He'd thank me when he's 72, except this whole kettle of fish will be long forgotten.

Did the hormones have anything to do with this? I think so. But I only did what I wanted to do. I just did it. Without the sturm und drang that might go with Fran without stupid pills. (Amazing. stupid pills really have a use. Good to know.) Anne Boleyn, rather than facing the axe asked for a French swordsman. The swordsman, like a surgeon. The Brit with the axe, not so much. Big move, Anne. Quick and neat. Neat.

Sure Plays a Mean Pinball

2010-09-12T17:03:00.001-07:00

As I sit watching football with the mute button on though I am a human mute button so why even bother? (No, I can hear. Only not very well. I just like the idea of being my own mute button…I find it amusing. I’ve lost my touch. Please, you needn’t tell me what I already know. It disgusts me. (Perhaps a good narrative device? Make note to self.)) Like I give a shit about the NFL. Don’t get me started on them. I think them evil incarnate.

I sit on the doughnut placed as always on my spot on the couch. (At the far right.) I'm annoyed at my continued deafness. (Conveniently forgetting that seconds ago I was amused by it.) I know that my hearing will improve as the day goes on. I don't know why it does that. If I did, I'd do it all the time and do away with this annoyance once and for all. Why am I convinced I'll be spending the next three months with stents in my ears? Can't wait.

Today, Chip is riding to eradicate some incredibly rare genetic disease that has only been found in fewer than 500 Ashkenazic Jews. No I didn't miss a zero. 500. What a nice boy he is! I’ve completely ruined him.

I'm being babysat by my mother today. (I cannot be left alone.) She made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (God love ‘em!) And brought me a nice glass on water with plenty of ice just like I like it. We sit here like a couple of alta kockers. She can't hear either. We make a great pair.

I have been told by my P.T., the very best in the entire world, to make sure I drink lots of water after she's finished with me- leaving me nothing more than a limp dishrag. (No, she doesn't give me a dish rag, I am the dishrag.) She said it was important to wash out the toxins her work had released during the session. I always knew it. I now have proof. I am toxic. Poison. Venomous. Contaminated. I guess that's something, isn't it?

Next week, I am emailing my query letter and a couple (or maybe three) of chapters to an old Carrie Palmer Weber Junior High School and Paul D. Schreiber High School classmate of the Port Washington Union Free School District who is now a literary agent. Hamana, hamana. I'm actually really happy with the query letter. But I have absolutely no fucking idea which chapters to send. A me, a Europe, and a Brooklyn? Which ones? As my (toxic?) hormones are now off for a visit to Alpha Centauri, I'm entirely useless. May my husband be of some assistance in this matter.

My uselessness: I just published this post as is, because I have taken an overdose of stupid pills (in addition to the output of my the endocrine system that now stretches well beyond our galaxy) which allow me to remember nothing, make moronic choices, and misplace all remaining brain cells. Pain in the butt, that’s what this is. So, I’m deaf and dumb. My glasses are prescriptions behind, so I’m working on blind. It’s too bad, but I think I’d only be worse at pinball which I was never very good at in the first place. Franny’s Holiday Camp.

(Don’t fret, I deleted the post so if I’m lucky, no one will have been the wiser.) But I was smart enough to copy and save it in word first. Wasn’t that clever for a (temporary) idiot?) I’m pleased as punch.

I have just slept for the past two hours, and I’m now fresh as a daisy. Fresh to eat the Vietnamese food Chip, my rider, my tough guy, is hunting and gathering right now. Life is good is it not? No not really, but the dinner should be dandy. I guess lying down for two hours doesn’t help clear those Eustachian tubes. Maybe peak season will last a bit longer this year. Get ‘em while they’re hot.

Haute Cuisine

2010-09-09T22:09:00.000-07:00

Stuffed eustachian tubes. It almost sounds like some weird delicacy prized in some strange corner of the world with a very short growing season. "Oooh! It's the season for eustachian tubes. Let's get some while they're still available!" "You just have to try those stuffed eustachian tubes. They're divine here!"

I just was battered by my fantastic P.T. (Battered in the way I like. reminded to drink lots of water to remove all the toxins released during the session. I'm toxic. Cool.) My god, does my body have eons to go or what? Everything is tight. I've got every last thing so damned tied up tight into everything else that it would take an army to loosen me up. (You know the rack may be of some medicinal help here. Yes, that rack.)

In a few minutes Chip and I and my stuffed eustachian tubes are off to the ENT to get the verdict to stent or not to stent. Since I feel like there is a fat water balloon in my head, I think the answer is obvious. But I've thought a lot things I assumed obvious for a long time that just fucked me up and good.

Chip was out at a meeting this morning, so he set the alarm for me to make certain I take my medication on time, do all my morning ablutions, and get my ass up in time for Tamar (the best P.T. on the whole goddamned planet). I discovered upon "Gee, let me see what time it is" that Tamar was arriving in 45 minutes and I missed the alarm Chip so carefully set for me, because I was to damned deaf to hear it go off. Shit. Scheduling the ENT appointment for today was finely well chosen.

I made it. With 15 minutes or so to spare. Though I don't know how. All ablutions were abluted. Clothes, clothed. Pills swallowed and inhaler, inhaled. I may have been a tad disoriented, as if struck by lightning but still very much alive and on two feet, but am I not always disoriented for some goddamned reason anyway? (And I was also still in the Cone of Silence. I'll miss it's peacefulness.) Who cares for what reason?

When I see Tamar or now Rachel, the massage therapist, I know very how far I have to go to before I could fit somewhere on the wee edge of the bell curve of humanity. At this very moment, I am downing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Mmmmm. Fuck, I fit on that fucking bell curve for that sandwich alone.

I remain stentless. For now, anyway. I was offered another option that had not been posed to us before. I could try another course of steroid, no way in bloody hell. My poor cousin who was compelled to take high dosages of them for six years, is now in chronic and horrific pain. Steroids and their relatives destroy the liquid in the connective tissue in the entire skeletal system. She is now just bone on bone with nothing in between. This is agonizing and permanent. (As you can well imagine.) We touch base on a regular basis. Only when you've been in hell yourself can you truly understand.

This afternoon, my eustachian tubes were drained. A quick snip, a little suction and whooee! I can hear again! The idea here is to break the cycle of the stuffed tube. If this is only a temporary fix, stent heaven, here I come! So get 'em while they're hot. Unstuffed eustachian tubes, a little fresh ricotta, a nice little provencal sauce, you've got something. But all I can promise is that their availability is limited. Soooeey!

Take My Wife, Please

2010-09-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year, mein kinder! I'm much less deaf today. I think it's because I choked on the super-hot mustard that comes as a condiment with tonkatsu last night. The stuff is wasabi-esque, and I love it madly. Last night, it must have hit the wrong bit of gullet as it was going down. (This was not one of those "wrong pipe" deals) That piece of gullet didn't like the mustard. Though I can't imagine why, it so perfectly compliments the tangy/sweet tonkatsu sauce. A perfect go-with. In fact, my gullet had a major problem with it, so I ended up in a coughing fit that lasted about ten minutes, long after the guilty mustard was washed down the pipe.

I believe that fit helped clear out those stuffed eustachian tubes allowing me to breathe like a person. I don't know the last time I felt like this. Even though there was something really pleasant about the utter silence. I felt at peace with the stuffed sinuses, excruciatingly-painful back, and one quarter lung capacity. Chip reminded me last night that the last time I had one of these mega coughing fits, it ended with my throwing up. I forgot that part. And lucky me, I didn't get a chance to re-experience it. Dinner stayed down. What a great night!

**********************************************************************

Today is 9/9/10. The massage therapist came in yesterday and beat me up. And how. That is exactly what I wanted and asked for but shit, it hurts like bloody, fucking hell. (I already have an enormous visible bruise on my right buttock). We've booked her for ten more sessions.

A few years ago, I saw a seriously gentle massage therapist a couple of times. I couldn't take it. I couldn't stand having someone making nice to me like that. Forget the foot reflexology. I didn't get it then, and I'm sure as hell not going to get it now. I went batshit (internally) She was a very sweet woman and gave a great massage, I'm sure. But I couldn't ever see her again. It's probably then I knew I needed the deepest deep tissue massage or fuhgedaboutit. I want to ripped open from the inside out. I want to be purged, dissected. I want to hurt like hell. I want my guts removed and shoved still pulsating in front of mine own two eyes. I found my torturer and muse. Her name is Rachel.

Now, my hormones have been roiling for a week or so. They've gone totally batshit, which means I've gone totally batshit. My hormones, this very second are orbiting Jupiter when they're supposed to be here, minding the store. I hate roiling.

Oh, my deafness, to spite me, I got clogged up as the day wore on. Right now, I'm in aural limbo. Chip still needs to look at me if I'm to understand him. But his hearing stinks, so it works out well for the two of us. You should listen to a minute or two of my therapy sessions, "What was that? Could you say that again? Huh? Wha?" Very revealing stuff. Now that's what I call getting to the heart of the matter.

Rachel asked if I suffered from any panic disorders. I said no until I remembered, you numnutz, you've been diagnosed with PTSD. That's one cool panic disorder to have. And I didn't have to to Iraq or Afghanistan or 'Nam to get it. Just go in one door and exit as a shard of your former self, needing to relearn most physical functions it took you forty-five years to get right. And no longer able to breathe. That'll work just as well. Like a charm.

I've been walking the hallways every day, and I hate it with a passion. Each lap ends with five to ten minutes of gasping for air. Who knows why some days are more difficult than others. To maintain some semblance of human-ness, I have to force myself to reach a point where my body is crying for air every fucking time. (I have to make sure I've made a visit to the bathroom prior to all exercise because when reaching gasping apotheosis, you want to empty both bladder and bowels. So far I've avoided this.)

No wonder I want someone to rip my guts out.