I climbed today. I didn't do all that well. I am tired and wrung out - no one, not even my aunt who tells all, will tell me what my dad's prognosis is. I wish I could just kick my own plug out of the wall and have what the Warcraft players call a super-power. Mine, if I could have it, would be "Feel No Pain."
Talk to you next time.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Should I make that a dos?
I went to the bus depot today to pick up my ring. I discovered that in the 24 hours since I had dropped my ring into the change collector on bus #5193, I had become known as the Ring Girl around the break room of the depot. I walked in and heard someone say "It's her! Ring Girl!" And then someone else said, "Really? Is that her?" And then "Oh yeah, it's her, alright." And then supervisor said, "I am glad you came back. You have no idea what we had to do to get your... rings... (dramatic pause dramatic pause, dramatic pause).... back."
"Rings?" I asked.
"Rings," he said.
I thought it best not to seek further clarification. The dispatcher brought me back to lost and found and everyone in the break room stared at me with bemused _________, as I, Ring Girl, waited for the dispatcher to unearth my.... rings.... from the safe.
The first one was my diamond band. Exactly as I had hoped.
The second one was my sapphire-diamond band. The one I thought was back home in my jewelry box.
"I am guessing this one is yours, too, right?"
I had a mild stroke-like sensation as I realized how BOTH* of these items had fallen into the change collector. It happened because I was wearing the diamond band that day - but last WEEK - as in on the same day I had been wearing this particular pair of climbing pants AND also been wearing the sapphire diamond band that I had later zipped into the pocket of the pants so I could climb - which is where I later put the change that I needed on that other day - namely, Tuesday, on my way to climb.
Are you getting this?
Here is what you just learned about me, in case it's not clear.
I wore the zip pocket climbing pants a week ago, zipped an expensive piece of jewelry into the pocket, and then tossed that pair of climbing pants on the floor and left them there for an entire week before reapplying them to my body, adding change to that pocket for the bus, boarding the bus and then UNKNOWINGLY throwing my sapphire-diamond ring to the change collector at the same time as by magical coincidence the diamond ring I was KNOWINGLY wearing slipped off my finger and into the collector.
I am either the unluckiest bitch who ever rode the bus or the luckiest. I just can't tell.
What I can tell you is that, in the words of the great Cormac McCarthy, there is no definition of a fool that I do not meet.
Thank you for reading.
* The first age-appropriate Christian male human being who knows from whence the title of this post comes will be permitted to meet me in real life and also marry me because one thing I found out in the last twenty four hours is that my dad is "sad" that I am not married and that he would "feel so much better" if I settled down. I do not wish for him to be sad or displeased. So who wants to marry me? Anybody? Hm?
"Rings?" I asked.
"Rings," he said.
I thought it best not to seek further clarification. The dispatcher brought me back to lost and found and everyone in the break room stared at me with bemused _________, as I, Ring Girl, waited for the dispatcher to unearth my.... rings.... from the safe.
The first one was my diamond band. Exactly as I had hoped.
The second one was my sapphire-diamond band. The one I thought was back home in my jewelry box.
"I am guessing this one is yours, too, right?"
I had a mild stroke-like sensation as I realized how BOTH* of these items had fallen into the change collector. It happened because I was wearing the diamond band that day - but last WEEK - as in on the same day I had been wearing this particular pair of climbing pants AND also been wearing the sapphire diamond band that I had later zipped into the pocket of the pants so I could climb - which is where I later put the change that I needed on that other day - namely, Tuesday, on my way to climb.
Are you getting this?
Here is what you just learned about me, in case it's not clear.
I wore the zip pocket climbing pants a week ago, zipped an expensive piece of jewelry into the pocket, and then tossed that pair of climbing pants on the floor and left them there for an entire week before reapplying them to my body, adding change to that pocket for the bus, boarding the bus and then UNKNOWINGLY throwing my sapphire-diamond ring to the change collector at the same time as by magical coincidence the diamond ring I was KNOWINGLY wearing slipped off my finger and into the collector.
I am either the unluckiest bitch who ever rode the bus or the luckiest. I just can't tell.
What I can tell you is that, in the words of the great Cormac McCarthy, there is no definition of a fool that I do not meet.
Thank you for reading.
* The first age-appropriate Christian male human being who knows from whence the title of this post comes will be permitted to meet me in real life and also marry me because one thing I found out in the last twenty four hours is that my dad is "sad" that I am not married and that he would "feel so much better" if I settled down. I do not wish for him to be sad or displeased. So who wants to marry me? Anybody? Hm?
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Misty water colored narrow escapes
On my way to the gym last night, I boarded the 42 bus and pulled the $2 in quarters out of my pocket, and as I dropped the coins into the collector, I watched the diamond ring on my right hand slip right off my finger and into the change collector and down into the box. The one you can't get into unless you have an MTA supervisor, a specialized mechanic and a security guard all in attendance.
Jeez-us.
So I rode the bus all the way to the bus depot at 42nd and 11th and gathered up these people and said, "Hi! I dropped my jewelry into the change box. Please, I beg you, get it out."
Except they couldn't do it because they needed one more specialized security person in attendance and he was not scheduled to be there until 8pm.
So what did I do?
I left my jewelry on the bus, gave my phone number to the supervisor, and said, "Give me a call if you can make this work."
Then I went climbing.
At 11:30pm, a mechanic called and told me he had my ring and that it was in the safe at the depot.
Can I believe this? Can you? I'll let you know what happens when I go to pick it up.
Jeez-us.
So I rode the bus all the way to the bus depot at 42nd and 11th and gathered up these people and said, "Hi! I dropped my jewelry into the change box. Please, I beg you, get it out."
Except they couldn't do it because they needed one more specialized security person in attendance and he was not scheduled to be there until 8pm.
So what did I do?
I left my jewelry on the bus, gave my phone number to the supervisor, and said, "Give me a call if you can make this work."
Then I went climbing.
At 11:30pm, a mechanic called and told me he had my ring and that it was in the safe at the depot.
Can I believe this? Can you? I'll let you know what happens when I go to pick it up.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
It just went by
Yesterday, that is. There were many phone conversations and much drama brokering and a lot of tears and wringing of useless hands and we are all still... here.
Did you know that the human brain is numb? That it cannot feel pain? That a person can be wide awake during brain surgery because hey -when a person is cutting around in your brain, it does not hurt in the least? Do I need to point out the kind of pain that no medical intervention can dull is a produced in the one organ of the body with... no ability to feel?
(You are supposed to be laughing right now. If you are not, please begin).
Wander over there to the right side-bar and start following me on Twitter if you want moment to moment updates on the BSMP (Big Scary Medical Problems) of my dad. I am not going to post about them anymore because I just don't want to and at least in THIS tiny little vaporous non-entity, I get my way.
Moving on then: Last night I did stairs (am I even going to Africa???) and then I went to the gym and climbed. The first route I finished was a VO bouldering route called "Call the doctor" and the second route I finished was a 5.5 top-rope route called "Use the other foot" - I am not kidding.
Lately, I feel really extra double sure that God invented sarcasm and uses it liberally for his own amusement. I became even more sure of it when I went to the bar after climbing and the bartender comped us shots of his own creation - shots he calls "Legless Irishman" and the fortune cookie I opened - much, much later in the evening, read "No one progresses while standing still."
Ahem, God? I realize you are in charge of everything, including funny. But no one I know is laughing.
Love,
Nina
Did you know that the human brain is numb? That it cannot feel pain? That a person can be wide awake during brain surgery because hey -when a person is cutting around in your brain, it does not hurt in the least? Do I need to point out the kind of pain that no medical intervention can dull is a produced in the one organ of the body with... no ability to feel?
(You are supposed to be laughing right now. If you are not, please begin).
Wander over there to the right side-bar and start following me on Twitter if you want moment to moment updates on the BSMP (Big Scary Medical Problems) of my dad. I am not going to post about them anymore because I just don't want to and at least in THIS tiny little vaporous non-entity, I get my way.
Moving on then: Last night I did stairs (am I even going to Africa???) and then I went to the gym and climbed. The first route I finished was a VO bouldering route called "Call the doctor" and the second route I finished was a 5.5 top-rope route called "Use the other foot" - I am not kidding.
Lately, I feel really extra double sure that God invented sarcasm and uses it liberally for his own amusement. I became even more sure of it when I went to the bar after climbing and the bartender comped us shots of his own creation - shots he calls "Legless Irishman" and the fortune cookie I opened - much, much later in the evening, read "No one progresses while standing still."
Ahem, God? I realize you are in charge of everything, including funny. But no one I know is laughing.
Love,
Nina
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Sin of weak
Me. Weak posts. Weak ideas. Weak quads. Weak abs.
Weak fantasies about crawling out to the prairie and living under a rock somewhere. Even the rusty trailer home seems like too much hassle.
If you want a smallish dose of Catholicness today, read this article in the Times. I was shocked, shocked I tell you, that the article actually mentions one of my ex-boyfriends by name. Yes, one of my ex-make-out friends is named in this article and I am shocked, I tell you, shocked, that in a former life I was the sort of person who would date this person - and that this person would find me spiritually or in any other way... attractive. (We are still friends. He thinks it's hilarious that we made it past date two, also).
I do not even know how to feel about that.
I know how to feel about other things, one of which is that my dad's leg amputation surgery seemed like it went well but is now not going very well. The stump is not healing, and we have no other cards to play.
But you know what else? We have been optionless before this - more than once.
So we wait. (I am going to think real hard rather than praying, since that approach seems to get better results for me. If you, on other hand, find yourself light on subject matter for intercessory praying (or thinking real hard) then please and thank you.
Love,
Nina
Weak fantasies about crawling out to the prairie and living under a rock somewhere. Even the rusty trailer home seems like too much hassle.
If you want a smallish dose of Catholicness today, read this article in the Times. I was shocked, shocked I tell you, that the article actually mentions one of my ex-boyfriends by name. Yes, one of my ex-make-out friends is named in this article and I am shocked, I tell you, shocked, that in a former life I was the sort of person who would date this person - and that this person would find me spiritually or in any other way... attractive. (We are still friends. He thinks it's hilarious that we made it past date two, also).
I do not even know how to feel about that.
I know how to feel about other things, one of which is that my dad's leg amputation surgery seemed like it went well but is now not going very well. The stump is not healing, and we have no other cards to play.
But you know what else? We have been optionless before this - more than once.
So we wait. (I am going to think real hard rather than praying, since that approach seems to get better results for me. If you, on other hand, find yourself light on subject matter for intercessory praying (or thinking real hard) then please and thank you.
Love,
Nina
Saturday, July 12, 2008
21-30
If you want to put them together, check out 1-10 and 11-20.
21) I never thought it would be easier to think of never statements rather than always statements. Just goes to show I am a negative as I always suspected.
22) I once broke into a church. Oh darn. Make that twice. I did it once in college, which I really can't explain except my friends were really high and they wanted to do something bad. Well, we did it and it was bad. We didn't get caught. The second time I broke into a church it was technically a lock in. My former boyfriend and I were at a party on the roof of the church and gosh, then things got confusing. We had too much to drink and go the bright idea to walk down the back steps which lead not into the street but directly behind the altar. Once we figured out where we were it was all kinds of pretty and dark with only a few banks of candles to light the place. Then we realized we were locked in. Try fighting with your boyfriend in a darkened church and really not wanting to be heard. (Much better not to fight). We found our way out to the side doors by the light of my cell phone and then figured out how to unbolt the door. We didn't get caught, but we did leave a bona-fide cathedral unlocked all night. (Go ahead and notice how terrible a thing that is).
23) I re-confirmed yesterday what everyone around here already knows: I hate raw onions. I really, really hate them. Some of them accidentally made it onto my sandwich yesterday and I had to throw the entire thing out because it was onioned by association and entirely inedible.
24) I really do love plain non-fat yogurt with wheat germ and almonds. I know you all don't get that, well, I understand. You never did understand why I don't like bacon, either.
25) I haven't heard from my dad or anyone in contact with him in three days now. Yo ho ho.
26) It seems cruel that I have to do stair workouts when it's so pretty outside. But I have to. There is no way around it if I want to have a shred of a chance at summiting Kilimanjaro. In 2.5 weeks. Damn...
27) I got my eyes tested yesterday and discovered that my vision is significantly improved in both eyes. The doctor could not not explain this, but did ask me if I had been tested for diabetes. "Why, yes," I said. "Last week." Only I never did hear back from that blood test. I'll call on Monday.
28) I used to be so fastidious about my hair that I'd get it cut once a month. Last few years, I have made it into the hair place twice a year, tops. I am just guessing, but does this mean I have let myself go? Or just that I don't really care how long my hair gets anymore? Let's go with that: my hair is almost down to my waist and I just don't care.
29) Back in a former obsession, I did the Ashtanga primary series six days a week. I was made of metal. (And boobs, but whatever). I miss it sometimes but it is hard to picture going back to it now. Perhaps I should. Perhaps.
30) I need some guest bloggers for July 27 - August 1st. Comment if you'd like to help me out. If I get more than six volunteers, I will pull names out of hats.
Happy Saturday.
21) I never thought it would be easier to think of never statements rather than always statements. Just goes to show I am a negative as I always suspected.
22) I once broke into a church. Oh darn. Make that twice. I did it once in college, which I really can't explain except my friends were really high and they wanted to do something bad. Well, we did it and it was bad. We didn't get caught. The second time I broke into a church it was technically a lock in. My former boyfriend and I were at a party on the roof of the church and gosh, then things got confusing. We had too much to drink and go the bright idea to walk down the back steps which lead not into the street but directly behind the altar. Once we figured out where we were it was all kinds of pretty and dark with only a few banks of candles to light the place. Then we realized we were locked in. Try fighting with your boyfriend in a darkened church and really not wanting to be heard. (Much better not to fight). We found our way out to the side doors by the light of my cell phone and then figured out how to unbolt the door. We didn't get caught, but we did leave a bona-fide cathedral unlocked all night. (Go ahead and notice how terrible a thing that is).
23) I re-confirmed yesterday what everyone around here already knows: I hate raw onions. I really, really hate them. Some of them accidentally made it onto my sandwich yesterday and I had to throw the entire thing out because it was onioned by association and entirely inedible.
24) I really do love plain non-fat yogurt with wheat germ and almonds. I know you all don't get that, well, I understand. You never did understand why I don't like bacon, either.
25) I haven't heard from my dad or anyone in contact with him in three days now. Yo ho ho.
26) It seems cruel that I have to do stair workouts when it's so pretty outside. But I have to. There is no way around it if I want to have a shred of a chance at summiting Kilimanjaro. In 2.5 weeks. Damn...
27) I got my eyes tested yesterday and discovered that my vision is significantly improved in both eyes. The doctor could not not explain this, but did ask me if I had been tested for diabetes. "Why, yes," I said. "Last week." Only I never did hear back from that blood test. I'll call on Monday.
28) I used to be so fastidious about my hair that I'd get it cut once a month. Last few years, I have made it into the hair place twice a year, tops. I am just guessing, but does this mean I have let myself go? Or just that I don't really care how long my hair gets anymore? Let's go with that: my hair is almost down to my waist and I just don't care.
29) Back in a former obsession, I did the Ashtanga primary series six days a week. I was made of metal. (And boobs, but whatever). I miss it sometimes but it is hard to picture going back to it now. Perhaps I should. Perhaps.
30) I need some guest bloggers for July 27 - August 1st. Comment if you'd like to help me out. If I get more than six volunteers, I will pull names out of hats.
Happy Saturday.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Indeed
About a year ago, my dad and my nephew built this toy boat out of foam core.
I haven't heard from my dad in a few days, but my nephew (3.75 years of age, thank you very much) called to tell me he would like to have a trip to see Pop and Gram soon.
Uh, yeah. Wouldn't we all.
More to say when I have more news.
Have a great weekend.
I haven't heard from my dad in a few days, but my nephew (3.75 years of age, thank you very much) called to tell me he would like to have a trip to see Pop and Gram soon.
Uh, yeah. Wouldn't we all.
More to say when I have more news.
Have a great weekend.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Anyway
I leave for Tanzania in two and a half weeks. I haven't got much in the way of training done lately and I feel thick and ordinary. Which, of course, I am.
You might have caught that little whiff of pancreas worry on Monday. I haven't heard back from the doctor and I haven't thought much about it since. I assume she'll let me know if something looks not right in the blood work. Right?
Whatever. I do have to go get one more vial full of germs shoved into my arm before I leave; if there's evidence you've been hanging around in east Africa, you can't get back into the special happy place called the United States without evidence that you're immune to yellow fever. I need to get on it. Blech.
Wouldn't it be nice if my blog lost its medical theme, even for just a day?
Yeah, I think so too. Tomorrow I'll get back on the 100 things business and try not to mention anything medical or even medicinal.
Happy and excellent Thursday to you.
You might have caught that little whiff of pancreas worry on Monday. I haven't heard back from the doctor and I haven't thought much about it since. I assume she'll let me know if something looks not right in the blood work. Right?
Whatever. I do have to go get one more vial full of germs shoved into my arm before I leave; if there's evidence you've been hanging around in east Africa, you can't get back into the special happy place called the United States without evidence that you're immune to yellow fever. I need to get on it. Blech.
Wouldn't it be nice if my blog lost its medical theme, even for just a day?
Yeah, I think so too. Tomorrow I'll get back on the 100 things business and try not to mention anything medical or even medicinal.
Happy and excellent Thursday to you.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Yo ho ho
Dear Reader,
I admit it. I am a sorry ass feeling sorry for myself lump of sorriness.
Sorry.
The surgery went fine. The doctor was able to save most of his thigh. My dad reportedly said, "Yo ho ho," when he woke up this morning and then requested a parrot and an eye patch. It's, uh, probably because of the drugs that he is so cheerful, but probably also because he is out of pain for the first time in about two years.
Thank you again for all the lovely emails and comments and sweetness. I appreciate it a whole real lot and I promise I will try to not to be so dramatic and scary next time I am having an episode.
Love,
Nina
I admit it. I am a sorry ass feeling sorry for myself lump of sorriness.
Sorry.
The surgery went fine. The doctor was able to save most of his thigh. My dad reportedly said, "Yo ho ho," when he woke up this morning and then requested a parrot and an eye patch. It's, uh, probably because of the drugs that he is so cheerful, but probably also because he is out of pain for the first time in about two years.
Thank you again for all the lovely emails and comments and sweetness. I appreciate it a whole real lot and I promise I will try to not to be so dramatic and scary next time I am having an episode.
Love,
Nina
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Is it in there?
Ahab in this story, is, of course, my dad, who will be dismasted this afternoon after a long battle with bad-knee-o-fuckitallity.
Anyone who has the sack to call me a great white anything had better step the f*** off. I have been too emotionally challenged for the last two years to put down the whiskey and the cheese. Get your head in the right place pretty quickly or I'll bite your leg off, too.
And if you are noticing that the analogy - or wait? Is this an allusion? Anyway if you are noticing that it's not me and my dad engaged in a great moral battle with each other, neither of us sure who is the force for good or evil - if you are noticing that, I commend you for paying attention in whatever class made you pretend to read Melville. (I know you just read the Cliff Notes; that doesn't make you a bad person; I never finished Ulysses because so many allusions are... never mind).
The problem, of course, is the problem of evil. Evil, of course, is the special flavor in the air that occurs (naturally) because we live in an (un)natural world, a fallen world, a world where it is possible for things to go so very wrong but also a world where even smart people can get confused about the wrongness and come to believe for some illogical reason that being big and white and filled with rage has something to do with a brave man on a boat who has no leg because she (the big white one) just ate it. And that maybe she did that because there were some bad time with a harpoon that she thinks was somehow about her.
Do you see how gravely and deeply this doesn't work?
Where is the connection between my dad's problems and mine? Where does one person's leukemia lead to one person's whiskey saturation and the other person's knee-fuckitallity form a causal relationship with the great big terrible anger of the cheese-eating white one flipping around in the ocean yelling at the sharks because she is so angry?
This is the problem with me and my dad. I didn't give him cancer and he sure as shit didn't buy me the whiskey. I didn't bite off his leg and he definitely didn't follow me around the ocean in a great sulfurous bark trying to impale me with a harpoon barbed with misery. It only feels that way because my dad and I have a symbiotic thing - a thing of emotional interdependence that usually happens between mothers and their children and between spouses and their spouses. (Stop trying to remember the name of the German what's his name who said all daughters are creepy in love with their fathers. I have never tried to shield you from the fact that I suffer from exactly that psychological error).
But back to the problem of evil. The evil presents itself and does its finest work when a good thing - loving someone else a whole lot- causes suffering so great that one's logical faculties are impaired such that in the story, Ahab and the great white ungrateful spoiled fat daughter are actually out to destroy each other, when in fact the evil is doing the job of destroying both and meantime damaging the love of one for the other pretty successfully too. Ahab loses. The angry white one loses. Evil wins.
I know there is some stuff in the bible about how we should love God (lots of people have assured me that it says that in the bible and I totally believe them) but is there a bit in there where it says you are allowed to have hatred for the devil? Like really serious inky black violent blood thirsty hatred? Is it in there?
Thank you for all the comments and emails and prayers and drinking binges you have all offered up for my dad and for me. When this period of literary mis-allusion passes, I'll let you know what news I have and I'll try to do it without writing a scary post. (I just said I would try - not succeed. Stop looking at me like that).
Anyone who has the sack to call me a great white anything had better step the f*** off. I have been too emotionally challenged for the last two years to put down the whiskey and the cheese. Get your head in the right place pretty quickly or I'll bite your leg off, too.
And if you are noticing that the analogy - or wait? Is this an allusion? Anyway if you are noticing that it's not me and my dad engaged in a great moral battle with each other, neither of us sure who is the force for good or evil - if you are noticing that, I commend you for paying attention in whatever class made you pretend to read Melville. (I know you just read the Cliff Notes; that doesn't make you a bad person; I never finished Ulysses because so many allusions are... never mind).
The problem, of course, is the problem of evil. Evil, of course, is the special flavor in the air that occurs (naturally) because we live in an (un)natural world, a fallen world, a world where it is possible for things to go so very wrong but also a world where even smart people can get confused about the wrongness and come to believe for some illogical reason that being big and white and filled with rage has something to do with a brave man on a boat who has no leg because she (the big white one) just ate it. And that maybe she did that because there were some bad time with a harpoon that she thinks was somehow about her.
Do you see how gravely and deeply this doesn't work?
Where is the connection between my dad's problems and mine? Where does one person's leukemia lead to one person's whiskey saturation and the other person's knee-fuckitallity form a causal relationship with the great big terrible anger of the cheese-eating white one flipping around in the ocean yelling at the sharks because she is so angry?
This is the problem with me and my dad. I didn't give him cancer and he sure as shit didn't buy me the whiskey. I didn't bite off his leg and he definitely didn't follow me around the ocean in a great sulfurous bark trying to impale me with a harpoon barbed with misery. It only feels that way because my dad and I have a symbiotic thing - a thing of emotional interdependence that usually happens between mothers and their children and between spouses and their spouses. (Stop trying to remember the name of the German what's his name who said all daughters are creepy in love with their fathers. I have never tried to shield you from the fact that I suffer from exactly that psychological error).
But back to the problem of evil. The evil presents itself and does its finest work when a good thing - loving someone else a whole lot- causes suffering so great that one's logical faculties are impaired such that in the story, Ahab and the great white ungrateful spoiled fat daughter are actually out to destroy each other, when in fact the evil is doing the job of destroying both and meantime damaging the love of one for the other pretty successfully too. Ahab loses. The angry white one loses. Evil wins.
I know there is some stuff in the bible about how we should love God (lots of people have assured me that it says that in the bible and I totally believe them) but is there a bit in there where it says you are allowed to have hatred for the devil? Like really serious inky black violent blood thirsty hatred? Is it in there?
Thank you for all the comments and emails and prayers and drinking binges you have all offered up for my dad and for me. When this period of literary mis-allusion passes, I'll let you know what news I have and I'll try to do it without writing a scary post. (I just said I would try - not succeed. Stop looking at me like that).
Monday, July 7, 2008
Sound
When my brother calls and the news is not good, I know because before he says, "Hi Nina," he does this intake of breath - a long inhale - a sucking in of air so as to have the power so say whatever it is that sucks in one breath.
So when I got home from the doctor today after getting typhoid, tetanus, Hep A, and Hep B vaccinations (a comedy of needle fun I'll explain on some other sunny day) and reclined on the couch with a bottle of water and a handful of new prescriptions for God knows what all anti-malarial, altitude sickness prophylactics and the odd benzodiazepine refill... and the phone rang... and I heard the sound...
Let's just say I am so accustomed to it that it has become almost boring. I say "almost" because it's a lot like being forced to watch a puppy being kicked to death every single day for two years; it remains colorful and filled with the usual screeching, clawing, horror and existential flora (and fauna) but it lacks that special tang of all-new flavor one gets, you know, the first time one is forced to watch the kicking of the puppies.
Today, the sound meant that my brother was about to tell me that my dad's leg needs to be amputated, which my brother did tell me - after he made the sound and before he started to hyperventilate a little bit and say a lot of words that (if we are to believe what the good Sisters of Perpetual Agony say) guarantee us a spot in the roiling lake of fire kept hot just for us bad people. But like puppy kicking, those words have lost that special tang, too. They are hardly worth saying anymore, which should make you wonder why we bother. (Not wonder whether we do, but why. Because do we? Definitely).
The surgery will take place tomorrow afternoon. By the end of the week, my dad should be out of the hospital entirely and if we are extra lucky I should have the results of the pancreatic enzyme test my doctor ran today to determine whether the thing we were calling an ulcer is in fact not an ulcer and is really a pancreas problem of one of two kinds: pancreatitis (which is unpleasant but mostly just bullshit) or pancreatic cancer (which is unpleasant and entirely bullshit and would mean I would have an expiration date closer to that of the kicked puppy and for sure on the close side of my dad's).
Until tomorrow,
Nina
So when I got home from the doctor today after getting typhoid, tetanus, Hep A, and Hep B vaccinations (a comedy of needle fun I'll explain on some other sunny day) and reclined on the couch with a bottle of water and a handful of new prescriptions for God knows what all anti-malarial, altitude sickness prophylactics and the odd benzodiazepine refill... and the phone rang... and I heard the sound...
Let's just say I am so accustomed to it that it has become almost boring. I say "almost" because it's a lot like being forced to watch a puppy being kicked to death every single day for two years; it remains colorful and filled with the usual screeching, clawing, horror and existential flora (and fauna) but it lacks that special tang of all-new flavor one gets, you know, the first time one is forced to watch the kicking of the puppies.
Today, the sound meant that my brother was about to tell me that my dad's leg needs to be amputated, which my brother did tell me - after he made the sound and before he started to hyperventilate a little bit and say a lot of words that (if we are to believe what the good Sisters of Perpetual Agony say) guarantee us a spot in the roiling lake of fire kept hot just for us bad people. But like puppy kicking, those words have lost that special tang, too. They are hardly worth saying anymore, which should make you wonder why we bother. (Not wonder whether we do, but why. Because do we? Definitely).
The surgery will take place tomorrow afternoon. By the end of the week, my dad should be out of the hospital entirely and if we are extra lucky I should have the results of the pancreatic enzyme test my doctor ran today to determine whether the thing we were calling an ulcer is in fact not an ulcer and is really a pancreas problem of one of two kinds: pancreatitis (which is unpleasant but mostly just bullshit) or pancreatic cancer (which is unpleasant and entirely bullshit and would mean I would have an expiration date closer to that of the kicked puppy and for sure on the close side of my dad's).
Until tomorrow,
Nina
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Sin of the week, 7/6/08 - or 311
Last night about 7 o'clock, I heard a sound outside I had never heard before. I looked out the window and saw that in the playground below, someone had left a cocker spaniel - just put it into the fenced area, closed the door and left. The dog was crying so pitifully that it was drowning out the sound of season 3 episode 5 of the Sopranos, which I am sad to say I have recently started watching and even sadder to say that I can't stop watching because I am hopelessly addicted.
But we can talk about that later.
Someone abandoned a dog in the playground below my window. I considered going downstairs and bringing it water. Or some cat food, since I keep that around. But I didn't. Instead I called 311, New York City's idea of what to do if "there is no emergency - except that I am seriously annoyed and I complain about it."
You know what the "operator" said when I asked for the number to the ASPCA? She said the ASPCA is only open Monday through Friday from 9-5. Then she started giggling and said, "Why don't you just adopt the dog? He's a spaniel, right? Those are nice."
Tee hee hee.
I called my aunt this morning, who was in the Mexican restaurant across the street from the hospital. She has been spending about twelve hours a day at the hospital with my dad because my step mother had left Charlotte and gone back home of Friday and wouldn't be back until Monday. My dad, meantime, has stopped eating, has only been sleeping three hours a night, and only gets out of bed when the therapist makes him get out of bed. When I asked her whether it was time for me to come and say goodbye, she said "probably some time this week, but I won't know for sure until I talk to the doctor tomorrow. Of course, Erica will be back tomorrow and he usually perks up when she is around. I just can't tell yet. But I'll call you tomorrow."
I am not sure what the point of this post is except... I do.
I have been aware that my general life performance, sometimes measured in MELP, has been poor for some time. It's not like I haven't tried.
But I have definitely failed. My dad's illness and issues related to it have had the effect of total life paralysis. I have accomplished nothing in the last two years because everything I do or think of doing has a rider attached to it, the header of which is: "If dad dies this will go down like 'this' - but if he doesn't, it will go down in 'this' other way." This rider causes a total lack of focus - one that has the effect of wiping my hard drive of anything except the rider.
So I order all six seasons of the Sopranos and for hours on end, I watch people shoot each other because that is good and distracting and if I do enough of it, then sun goes down and then it rises again and I have accomplished nothing for yet another day - except that it's one more day knocked off the rest of my life that I am not really living while I wait for the whole fucking world to end.
Does anyone have a solution to this? It is not a rhetorical question, either. I need an answer. I've lost two years of my life doing nothing but reading the rider and doing... nothing.
(You're right - I could have adopted that cocker spaniel but I am not sure that's the right kind of something. Thanks for noticing that yet again, I did nothing).
But we can talk about that later.
Someone abandoned a dog in the playground below my window. I considered going downstairs and bringing it water. Or some cat food, since I keep that around. But I didn't. Instead I called 311, New York City's idea of what to do if "there is no emergency - except that I am seriously annoyed and I complain about it."
You know what the "operator" said when I asked for the number to the ASPCA? She said the ASPCA is only open Monday through Friday from 9-5. Then she started giggling and said, "Why don't you just adopt the dog? He's a spaniel, right? Those are nice."
Tee hee hee.
I called my aunt this morning, who was in the Mexican restaurant across the street from the hospital. She has been spending about twelve hours a day at the hospital with my dad because my step mother had left Charlotte and gone back home of Friday and wouldn't be back until Monday. My dad, meantime, has stopped eating, has only been sleeping three hours a night, and only gets out of bed when the therapist makes him get out of bed. When I asked her whether it was time for me to come and say goodbye, she said "probably some time this week, but I won't know for sure until I talk to the doctor tomorrow. Of course, Erica will be back tomorrow and he usually perks up when she is around. I just can't tell yet. But I'll call you tomorrow."
I am not sure what the point of this post is except... I do.
I have been aware that my general life performance, sometimes measured in MELP, has been poor for some time. It's not like I haven't tried.
But I have definitely failed. My dad's illness and issues related to it have had the effect of total life paralysis. I have accomplished nothing in the last two years because everything I do or think of doing has a rider attached to it, the header of which is: "If dad dies this will go down like 'this' - but if he doesn't, it will go down in 'this' other way." This rider causes a total lack of focus - one that has the effect of wiping my hard drive of anything except the rider.
So I order all six seasons of the Sopranos and for hours on end, I watch people shoot each other because that is good and distracting and if I do enough of it, then sun goes down and then it rises again and I have accomplished nothing for yet another day - except that it's one more day knocked off the rest of my life that I am not really living while I wait for the whole fucking world to end.
Does anyone have a solution to this? It is not a rhetorical question, either. I need an answer. I've lost two years of my life doing nothing but reading the rider and doing... nothing.
(You're right - I could have adopted that cocker spaniel but I am not sure that's the right kind of something. Thanks for noticing that yet again, I did nothing).
Friday, July 4, 2008
Try this
Want to make me furious and ill-mannered?
Call me up at 3pm on the 4th of July and say,
"HI! Remember how you said we could watch the fireworks at your place? And how we said we would rather go out instead? Yeah! That conversation we had back in May... that's the one!"
"Uh..."
"So yeah, anyway we changed our minds. We think we'll be over at about 8:30. See you soon!"
Fuck. Me.
See you tomorrow.
Call me up at 3pm on the 4th of July and say,
"HI! Remember how you said we could watch the fireworks at your place? And how we said we would rather go out instead? Yeah! That conversation we had back in May... that's the one!"
"Uh..."
"So yeah, anyway we changed our minds. We think we'll be over at about 8:30. See you soon!"
Fuck. Me.
See you tomorrow.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Do what you do (just do it at 3)
Or if you live out west, at 2 or at noon.
Remember how over the weekend I guest posted for Lisa at Clusterfook, and in that guest post, I asked all of you to pray even if you are not a praying type? And then as if I were a professional extortionist, I shook you all down for $5 to help Lisa keep her household running during her cancer treatments?
Lisa is having her CT scan this afternoon at 3pm to see if they chemo she had last week did any good shrinking those tumors. Since her procedure is at 3pm, I hereby re-request prayers, good thoughts, waves of light - whatever you are into - and if you are not into any of those things, drinking. Either pray for Lisa, or have a glass of something tasty at 3pm (juice boxes count) in honor of Lisa.
I'll post more stuff later, when I am finished dreaming up my "always" list.
Love,
Nina (I still don't know how my dad is).
Remember how over the weekend I guest posted for Lisa at Clusterfook, and in that guest post, I asked all of you to pray even if you are not a praying type? And then as if I were a professional extortionist, I shook you all down for $5 to help Lisa keep her household running during her cancer treatments?
Lisa is having her CT scan this afternoon at 3pm to see if they chemo she had last week did any good shrinking those tumors. Since her procedure is at 3pm, I hereby re-request prayers, good thoughts, waves of light - whatever you are into - and if you are not into any of those things, drinking. Either pray for Lisa, or have a glass of something tasty at 3pm (juice boxes count) in honor of Lisa.
I'll post more stuff later, when I am finished dreaming up my "always" list.
Love,
Nina (I still don't know how my dad is).
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Never, or 11-20
Today, the next installment of 100 things - all of them containing the word "never."
11) I will never understand why to sell 25 little pills (which, by the way, are inexplicably shaped like teeth) the man in the suit says that all this packaging is necessary:
12) I will never understand why I have never seen a rainbow outside my window in six years - and then last week I say THREE. Here is the latest:
13) I will never understand why people feel the need to shower more than once a day. Seriously. I get that there is possible gym sweat or work sweat - but sweat is pretty clean and... is it just me? Does no one else understand how bad soap and water is for your hair and skin? It's bad. The irrational thing we all do (I am probably just speaking for women here) is scrub ourselves and then dry off and smear moisturizer onto ourselves to replace what we just stripped out of our skin. And we do this... why? I get the part about not smelling bad - truly, but I hate showering. I hate it. It does terrible things to my skin and hair and if it were not for the sake of cleanliness being next to Godliness, I wouldn't do it but once a week. And that's no lie.
14) I will never do drugs. Ever. Again. I smoked a little something a few times when I was in college. I inhaled. It was awful. My heart started beating like a jackhammer and I thought everyone was trying to kill me. I totally don't get drugs. Not fun at all.
15) I will never ride a mountain bike again. Here is why:
OK, perhaps the pictures do not convey a proper sense of how much that s-curve fracture hurt. Nor do the pictures convey the debilitating effect of not being able to straighten my left arm for almost six months. The only thing that got me back to straight was rock climbing - and hanging off that arm. No more mountain biking for me. Ever.
16) I will never understand why No Country for Old Men won a bunch of awards. It was the most boring movie I have ever seen in my life. The book, however, was great.
17) I will never smoke another cigarette. Yeah, I have smoked a few, here or there, when I was drunk or dating a smoker. Never again. Too many people I love have died of cancer and I am not done losing people yet.
18) I will never try to come up with ten "nevers" all in one sitting. This is turning out to be too many. This is exhausting.
19) I will never understand why the good Lord made a little bit of chubbiness so unappealing to the male creature. I like having a some hips. My boobs are ok with me. Why is six feet tall and made with pipe cleaners the standard of beauty in our culture again? I get why the pipe cleaner creatures are attractive but seriously - is that ALL that is attractive? Might a girl have some more boob and butt than that and still be beautiful? FEH! I say yes.
20) I will never change my mind about bananas. I do not like them. I would go so far as to say I would never eat them again, but they are plentiful in a certain place where I was recently banished (Cuba) by Woodrow for the merest hint of a suggestion that maybe guns in the hands of women who were angry at their boyfriends because of lap dances at boobie bars were a bad idea. Woodrow promptly called me "commie" and shipped me off to Cuba -- for trying to protect a guy from his psychotic gun-toting girlfriend because she found out about the lap dance. And what could be more American than a guy's right to pay a stupid but attractive young woman to rub her boobs all over his face and maybe smoosh her pelvis around all over his pelvis? In a bar?
(I think we all know the answer to that).
Have an good Tuesday.
11) I will never understand why to sell 25 little pills (which, by the way, are inexplicably shaped like teeth) the man in the suit says that all this packaging is necessary:
12) I will never understand why I have never seen a rainbow outside my window in six years - and then last week I say THREE. Here is the latest:
13) I will never understand why people feel the need to shower more than once a day. Seriously. I get that there is possible gym sweat or work sweat - but sweat is pretty clean and... is it just me? Does no one else understand how bad soap and water is for your hair and skin? It's bad. The irrational thing we all do (I am probably just speaking for women here) is scrub ourselves and then dry off and smear moisturizer onto ourselves to replace what we just stripped out of our skin. And we do this... why? I get the part about not smelling bad - truly, but I hate showering. I hate it. It does terrible things to my skin and hair and if it were not for the sake of cleanliness being next to Godliness, I wouldn't do it but once a week. And that's no lie.
14) I will never do drugs. Ever. Again. I smoked a little something a few times when I was in college. I inhaled. It was awful. My heart started beating like a jackhammer and I thought everyone was trying to kill me. I totally don't get drugs. Not fun at all.
15) I will never ride a mountain bike again. Here is why:
OK, perhaps the pictures do not convey a proper sense of how much that s-curve fracture hurt. Nor do the pictures convey the debilitating effect of not being able to straighten my left arm for almost six months. The only thing that got me back to straight was rock climbing - and hanging off that arm. No more mountain biking for me. Ever.
16) I will never understand why No Country for Old Men won a bunch of awards. It was the most boring movie I have ever seen in my life. The book, however, was great.
17) I will never smoke another cigarette. Yeah, I have smoked a few, here or there, when I was drunk or dating a smoker. Never again. Too many people I love have died of cancer and I am not done losing people yet.
18) I will never try to come up with ten "nevers" all in one sitting. This is turning out to be too many. This is exhausting.
19) I will never understand why the good Lord made a little bit of chubbiness so unappealing to the male creature. I like having a some hips. My boobs are ok with me. Why is six feet tall and made with pipe cleaners the standard of beauty in our culture again? I get why the pipe cleaner creatures are attractive but seriously - is that ALL that is attractive? Might a girl have some more boob and butt than that and still be beautiful? FEH! I say yes.
20) I will never change my mind about bananas. I do not like them. I would go so far as to say I would never eat them again, but they are plentiful in a certain place where I was recently banished (Cuba) by Woodrow for the merest hint of a suggestion that maybe guns in the hands of women who were angry at their boyfriends because of lap dances at boobie bars were a bad idea. Woodrow promptly called me "commie" and shipped me off to Cuba -- for trying to protect a guy from his psychotic gun-toting girlfriend because she found out about the lap dance. And what could be more American than a guy's right to pay a stupid but attractive young woman to rub her boobs all over his face and maybe smoosh her pelvis around all over his pelvis? In a bar?
(I think we all know the answer to that).
Have an good Tuesday.
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