Well, not to crib again from the annals of James Casey, but his mother Ann just sent along another anecdote that must be shared. To wit:
After swimming today James and I were in the locker room and he says "When we get home we should ask Kay to come over and build us an indoor pool"
me - "why would we ask Kay?"
him - "because Kay came make anything"
me - "is that right?"
him - "well, I HOPE so!"
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Crazy Crap Item #218: The part where James demonstrates his knowledge of things spiritual
I crib this story from Ann, James' mother. James is 4.
James wanted to read a story so I told him to go pick out a book. He came back with one and I told him "This is a book about what happens after you die". (It's a picture book that Rose gave us when the boy's grandfather died called "The Next Place".) James said "I already know what happens after you die, they make a statue of you and put it in church.........................or you become a ghost and fly around a castle".
James wanted to read a story so I told him to go pick out a book. He came back with one and I told him "This is a book about what happens after you die". (It's a picture book that Rose gave us when the boy's grandfather died called "The Next Place".) James said "I already know what happens after you die, they make a statue of you and put it in church.........................or you become a ghost and fly around a castle".
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Crazy Crap Item #217: The part where James sums things up quite nicely
Recently, my neighbor Ann had to go to the dentist to get a crown. She asked if I would hang out with James (age 4) while she did so.
I cherish any time I can spend with either or both of the Casey boys under any circumstances, so I readily agreed.
Most of the hour or so were spent with him demonstrating his many toys, making my knight battle his (I always lose), and with the eating of snacks. But we also steeped ourselves in philosophical discussion. To wit:
James: What comes before 4 and 102?
Kay: I don't think I understand your question.
James [said with greater emphasis]: What comes before 4 and 102?
Kay [not wanting to have to count from 1 to 101]: Well, every number before 102 is what comes before 1o2.
James: Yes, and 1, 2, 3 come before 4.
Kay [relieved]: Yes, that's exactly it.
James: 1 you wear diapers; 2 you wear diapers; 3 you wear underpants; 4 you wear underpants.
Kay: Yes. And what comes after 4? What do you wear then?
James: After 4, it's all underpants, all seasons.
And....scene.
I cherish any time I can spend with either or both of the Casey boys under any circumstances, so I readily agreed.
Most of the hour or so were spent with him demonstrating his many toys, making my knight battle his (I always lose), and with the eating of snacks. But we also steeped ourselves in philosophical discussion. To wit:
James: What comes before 4 and 102?
Kay: I don't think I understand your question.
James [said with greater emphasis]: What comes before 4 and 102?
Kay [not wanting to have to count from 1 to 101]: Well, every number before 102 is what comes before 1o2.
James: Yes, and 1, 2, 3 come before 4.
Kay [relieved]: Yes, that's exactly it.
James: 1 you wear diapers; 2 you wear diapers; 3 you wear underpants; 4 you wear underpants.
Kay: Yes. And what comes after 4? What do you wear then?
James: After 4, it's all underpants, all seasons.
And....scene.
Crazy Crap Item #216: The part where I share important information
From Elizabeth's England: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London, by Liza Picard
"Farting, like pissing, should ideally be done when alone, if at all possible, but if it is not possible to withdraw, 'let a cough cover the sound', which is not the whole answer to the problem. In all this, one has to remember that there were few lavatories, public or private, to which one could withdraw. The unfortunate Earl of Oxford farted as he bowed before Queen Elizabeth one day. He was so mortified that he left the Court for seven years. On his return the Queen greeted him reassuringly. 'My Lord, I had forgotten the fart.'"
"Farting, like pissing, should ideally be done when alone, if at all possible, but if it is not possible to withdraw, 'let a cough cover the sound', which is not the whole answer to the problem. In all this, one has to remember that there were few lavatories, public or private, to which one could withdraw. The unfortunate Earl of Oxford farted as he bowed before Queen Elizabeth one day. He was so mortified that he left the Court for seven years. On his return the Queen greeted him reassuringly. 'My Lord, I had forgotten the fart.'"
Crazy Crap Item #215: The part where I am delighted by my homecoming surprise
OK, so I just returned from Banning, blah blah blah. Aside from being seated next to the WORLD'S ANGRIEST TODDLER for 3 hours of my trip, the trip was fairly uneventful.
Just prior to my return, Eamon posted a most enticing Facebook status update:
Eamon hopes Kay likes her surprise!
Well, I'm always someone who likes to come home, but this little missive really sealed the deal. But before I reveal said surprise, I must back up a bit.
I, dear friends, can charitably be called a "picky sleeper." I started developing insomnia in college, and committed myself fully to this endeavor by graduate school. My good friend, Mr. Czjaka, was always amused by my capacity to awake for no good reason at all, and stay awake for hours. "Are you like Jane Eyre," he'd ask. "Were you awakened by a shaft of moonlight breaking through your curtained window?"
This eventually led to a phenemenon I like to call "migratory sleeping." Fed up with my inability to sleep in one location, I'd move to another--a couch, the floor, whatever came to hand as a reasonable sleep surface.
My restlessness has also led to a phenomenon my brother has recently dubbed "pillow madness." It started as an attempt to pin myself down. I found that after tossing and turning for several hours, putting my pillow on top of my head would secure me in place and, sometimes, anyway, allow me to drift off.
Later, I discovered that a pillow laid along one side of me only helped matters. And then one on the other side.
It was only when I met Eamon that I was introduced to the greatest invention mankind has yet to create: the body pillow. For the unenlightened, this is an ENORMOUSLY long pillow that runs the full length of the body.
So, for those of you keeping up, at this point in our story, I am sleeping with:
-a pillow under my head
-a pillow over my head
-a body pillow on one side
-a pillow on the other side
As if this weren't insane enough, then came the physical woes. Chronic shoulder pain. Chronic hip pain. On opposite sides of the body. This means, of course, that I cannot sleep comfortably on either my left or my right side. (Later, I developed a carpal tunnel-esque condition that seemed to kick in when I lay on my back ... cruel irony ... but I've managed to get that under control).
So, anyway, to properly bolster all my body parts, I found I needed:
- aforementioned pillows over and under head
- body pillow with additional pillow on it when lying on side opposite my sore shoulder (so as to prop it up)
- two pillows laid end to end on the other side, so as to bolster my sore hip when lying on that opposite side
I call it the Kay Daly Sleep System (tm). Patent pending.
Clearly, I'm now taking up enough bed space for three stout souls. Eamon and I can no longer fit in our queen-size bed. Add in my migratory sleep patterns, and I'm soon permabulating from one guest bedroom to the other. In the wake of my recent nervous breakdown, I finally settled into our haunted guestroom. It's dark and soothing, quiet as a tomb, and has a mattress I quite like.
But I miss, you know, my actual bedroom, and the guy I share it with, so this makes me a bit sad.
Which brings us to my SURPRISE.
Upon arriving home from Banning, I'm escorted to the bedroom where Eamon has contrived THE BIGGEST BED THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN. It's bigger than a King-size bed. It's bigger than a California King.
He has moved out our previous bed, a queen-size Comfort-aire, which had always made me feel like I was sleeping in a hammock, no matter how much I filled my side with air. It now lives in the haunted guestroom.
He has moved the double bed that I like from the haunted guestroom into our bedroom.
He has moved an old twin bed from our basement up two flights of stairs to our bedroom.
He has cunningly pushed these two beds together to form one TITANIC SUPER-BED.
He has purchased new, high-quality sheets for each of the components of this new bed (unlike the nasty, low-thread-count affairs I usually cheap-out with).
He has purchased coverlets and decorative pillows to match the brown pillowcase I had chosen for my body pillow.
And thus it is, we now own the largest bed in the western hemisphere, and I am the happiest of girls.
P.S. I'm also a sheet stealer. But we found a solution for that as well.
Just prior to my return, Eamon posted a most enticing Facebook status update:
Eamon hopes Kay likes her surprise!
Well, I'm always someone who likes to come home, but this little missive really sealed the deal. But before I reveal said surprise, I must back up a bit.
I, dear friends, can charitably be called a "picky sleeper." I started developing insomnia in college, and committed myself fully to this endeavor by graduate school. My good friend, Mr. Czjaka, was always amused by my capacity to awake for no good reason at all, and stay awake for hours. "Are you like Jane Eyre," he'd ask. "Were you awakened by a shaft of moonlight breaking through your curtained window?"
This eventually led to a phenemenon I like to call "migratory sleeping." Fed up with my inability to sleep in one location, I'd move to another--a couch, the floor, whatever came to hand as a reasonable sleep surface.
My restlessness has also led to a phenomenon my brother has recently dubbed "pillow madness." It started as an attempt to pin myself down. I found that after tossing and turning for several hours, putting my pillow on top of my head would secure me in place and, sometimes, anyway, allow me to drift off.
Later, I discovered that a pillow laid along one side of me only helped matters. And then one on the other side.
It was only when I met Eamon that I was introduced to the greatest invention mankind has yet to create: the body pillow. For the unenlightened, this is an ENORMOUSLY long pillow that runs the full length of the body.
So, for those of you keeping up, at this point in our story, I am sleeping with:
-a pillow under my head
-a pillow over my head
-a body pillow on one side
-a pillow on the other side
As if this weren't insane enough, then came the physical woes. Chronic shoulder pain. Chronic hip pain. On opposite sides of the body. This means, of course, that I cannot sleep comfortably on either my left or my right side. (Later, I developed a carpal tunnel-esque condition that seemed to kick in when I lay on my back ... cruel irony ... but I've managed to get that under control).
So, anyway, to properly bolster all my body parts, I found I needed:
- aforementioned pillows over and under head
- body pillow with additional pillow on it when lying on side opposite my sore shoulder (so as to prop it up)
- two pillows laid end to end on the other side, so as to bolster my sore hip when lying on that opposite side
I call it the Kay Daly Sleep System (tm). Patent pending.
Clearly, I'm now taking up enough bed space for three stout souls. Eamon and I can no longer fit in our queen-size bed. Add in my migratory sleep patterns, and I'm soon permabulating from one guest bedroom to the other. In the wake of my recent nervous breakdown, I finally settled into our haunted guestroom. It's dark and soothing, quiet as a tomb, and has a mattress I quite like.
But I miss, you know, my actual bedroom, and the guy I share it with, so this makes me a bit sad.
Which brings us to my SURPRISE.
Upon arriving home from Banning, I'm escorted to the bedroom where Eamon has contrived THE BIGGEST BED THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN. It's bigger than a King-size bed. It's bigger than a California King.
He has moved out our previous bed, a queen-size Comfort-aire, which had always made me feel like I was sleeping in a hammock, no matter how much I filled my side with air. It now lives in the haunted guestroom.
He has moved the double bed that I like from the haunted guestroom into our bedroom.
He has moved an old twin bed from our basement up two flights of stairs to our bedroom.
He has cunningly pushed these two beds together to form one TITANIC SUPER-BED.
He has purchased new, high-quality sheets for each of the components of this new bed (unlike the nasty, low-thread-count affairs I usually cheap-out with).
He has purchased coverlets and decorative pillows to match the brown pillowcase I had chosen for my body pillow.
And thus it is, we now own the largest bed in the western hemisphere, and I am the happiest of girls.
P.S. I'm also a sheet stealer. But we found a solution for that as well.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Crazy Crap Item #214: The part where I rechristen the cat
Well, not to beat a dead horse, but I'm currently in beautiful Banning, Ca., home of my parents, assisting as my father recovers from a broken arm.
Local lore says my dad was felled by a small tabby kitten. Aforementioned feline had been purchased in the hopes that she would provide some nice distraction and amusement for my parents, whose range of activities have become a bit more constricted of late.
We, you see, are cat people. Worry not: I shall not digress into some cliche about "dog people" versus "cat people." Instead, I will note that throughout the years of my growing up, we owned somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 cats. Not at once, mind you. The most at one blow was five, and that was because of the birth of kittens, which were quickly dispersed to good homes.
And let me say, in our defense, we actually sought out only very few of these cats. Rosie, our first cat, was picked up, I believe, from a "free kitten" box at the local Gemco. She was promised to my sister Liz--her sole pet. Liz soon proved too young to take on such a responsibility, and was manipulated into making Rosie the "family cat" in exchange for what was termed a "knickknack doll." I'm not sure what a "knickknack doll" actually is, but it is family lore, and must be reported accurately.
Of our other cats, I recall selecting a feisty white kitten with orange tail, dubbed Boris, from a local pet shop, in later years. I believe our two Petunias, Petunia 1 and Petunia 2, were also deliberately acquired.
But more typically, our cats found us. There was Blue Eyes (named for her blue eyes), who I believe was found on the shoulder of the freeway and taken home. Also, there was Bones (a quite skinny cat, you see), who, emaciated and weak, wandered out in front of my mother's car as she drove down the street. My sister leapt out to put him back on the curb, only to have him wander suicidally back into the road. Into the car he went.
Then there was my personal favorite, "Little Kitty" (by this time, we'd given up trying to come up with names). She simply wandered up on our front porch and peered in the front window (a large, plate glass affair). My dad opened the front door, and inquired, "What do you want?" She skipped merrily in, and we had ourselves a cat.
Sparky, a feisty, fire-engine red kitten who later grew to a lazy, grumpy, strawberry blond, similarly wandered into our yard, and lodged himself under our house. Several claw swipes and one big bite to the thumb (my brother's), and he was ours.
I'll omit the rest, except a brief mention of Roger (who turned out to be a girl) and Jubilations, a wild tom cat who never really "belonged" to us, but rather lived off the bounty of our offerings of backyard snacks.
In fact, I've always rather suspected that we operated something like the underground railroad for cats. I've imagined whispered mews in back alleys, consisting of, "If you're ever in trouble, hit up the Petersons." Perhaps they even had a code of hobo symbols that had been scratched into the olive tree in our front yard. "Endless kibble, guaranteed home, moderate teasing."
But I digress. Back to the main topic, the borderline-insane kitten who currently makes her home in Banning. Like Roger, she looks like a boy to us all, but she is in fact a girl. Due to her boundless energy and penchant for flying around the house as if the very devil were on her tail, she has been named "Zipper."
It was during one of these wild sprints that she careened into my dad, knocking him off balance on a slippery kitchen floor. The result: one broken arm (not the cat's).
So, it was assumed, the cat was a very bad idea. A menace, one might say.
Subsequent to this, my dad had yet another fall, non-cat-related, and was taken to his doctor. In the waiting room, he fell again. Since there were now no cats to be implicated, it was decided that further investigation was required.
A trip to the emergency room later, a check-in to the hospital, and a very thorough exam by a wonderful intern named Dr. Haddad, and some interesting results developed. My dad, it seems, has sky-high sodium levels. He is chronically dehydrated. His kidneys are struggling. His blood pressure is a perilously low 60 over 40 (normal is 120 over 80).
Dr. Haddad looks at his entire medical record and concludes that the approximate 412 water pills they have him taking (an exagerration on my part) are EXCESSIVE IN THE EXTREME. His current doctors (seen for a variety of issues) have simply not gotten on the same page, and by not looking at the big picture, have created a whole parcel of new woes.
So, given my dad's extreme dehydration, weak kidneys and low blood pressure, it's no wonder a kitten could knock him over.
In fact, one could argue that if it hadn't been for our small spastic tabby friend, none of these issues would've been uncovered. The broken arm put my dad in a position to receive thorough and comprehensive treatment--something he apparently had not been receiving.
Given all this, I've decided Zipper needs a new name. I have thus dubbed her: "Lucky Break." "Lucky" for short.
Local lore says my dad was felled by a small tabby kitten. Aforementioned feline had been purchased in the hopes that she would provide some nice distraction and amusement for my parents, whose range of activities have become a bit more constricted of late.
We, you see, are cat people. Worry not: I shall not digress into some cliche about "dog people" versus "cat people." Instead, I will note that throughout the years of my growing up, we owned somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 cats. Not at once, mind you. The most at one blow was five, and that was because of the birth of kittens, which were quickly dispersed to good homes.
And let me say, in our defense, we actually sought out only very few of these cats. Rosie, our first cat, was picked up, I believe, from a "free kitten" box at the local Gemco. She was promised to my sister Liz--her sole pet. Liz soon proved too young to take on such a responsibility, and was manipulated into making Rosie the "family cat" in exchange for what was termed a "knickknack doll." I'm not sure what a "knickknack doll" actually is, but it is family lore, and must be reported accurately.
Of our other cats, I recall selecting a feisty white kitten with orange tail, dubbed Boris, from a local pet shop, in later years. I believe our two Petunias, Petunia 1 and Petunia 2, were also deliberately acquired.
But more typically, our cats found us. There was Blue Eyes (named for her blue eyes), who I believe was found on the shoulder of the freeway and taken home. Also, there was Bones (a quite skinny cat, you see), who, emaciated and weak, wandered out in front of my mother's car as she drove down the street. My sister leapt out to put him back on the curb, only to have him wander suicidally back into the road. Into the car he went.
Then there was my personal favorite, "Little Kitty" (by this time, we'd given up trying to come up with names). She simply wandered up on our front porch and peered in the front window (a large, plate glass affair). My dad opened the front door, and inquired, "What do you want?" She skipped merrily in, and we had ourselves a cat.
Sparky, a feisty, fire-engine red kitten who later grew to a lazy, grumpy, strawberry blond, similarly wandered into our yard, and lodged himself under our house. Several claw swipes and one big bite to the thumb (my brother's), and he was ours.
I'll omit the rest, except a brief mention of Roger (who turned out to be a girl) and Jubilations, a wild tom cat who never really "belonged" to us, but rather lived off the bounty of our offerings of backyard snacks.
In fact, I've always rather suspected that we operated something like the underground railroad for cats. I've imagined whispered mews in back alleys, consisting of, "If you're ever in trouble, hit up the Petersons." Perhaps they even had a code of hobo symbols that had been scratched into the olive tree in our front yard. "Endless kibble, guaranteed home, moderate teasing."
But I digress. Back to the main topic, the borderline-insane kitten who currently makes her home in Banning. Like Roger, she looks like a boy to us all, but she is in fact a girl. Due to her boundless energy and penchant for flying around the house as if the very devil were on her tail, she has been named "Zipper."
It was during one of these wild sprints that she careened into my dad, knocking him off balance on a slippery kitchen floor. The result: one broken arm (not the cat's).
So, it was assumed, the cat was a very bad idea. A menace, one might say.
Subsequent to this, my dad had yet another fall, non-cat-related, and was taken to his doctor. In the waiting room, he fell again. Since there were now no cats to be implicated, it was decided that further investigation was required.
A trip to the emergency room later, a check-in to the hospital, and a very thorough exam by a wonderful intern named Dr. Haddad, and some interesting results developed. My dad, it seems, has sky-high sodium levels. He is chronically dehydrated. His kidneys are struggling. His blood pressure is a perilously low 60 over 40 (normal is 120 over 80).
Dr. Haddad looks at his entire medical record and concludes that the approximate 412 water pills they have him taking (an exagerration on my part) are EXCESSIVE IN THE EXTREME. His current doctors (seen for a variety of issues) have simply not gotten on the same page, and by not looking at the big picture, have created a whole parcel of new woes.
So, given my dad's extreme dehydration, weak kidneys and low blood pressure, it's no wonder a kitten could knock him over.
In fact, one could argue that if it hadn't been for our small spastic tabby friend, none of these issues would've been uncovered. The broken arm put my dad in a position to receive thorough and comprehensive treatment--something he apparently had not been receiving.
Given all this, I've decided Zipper needs a new name. I have thus dubbed her: "Lucky Break." "Lucky" for short.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Crazy Crap Item #213: The part where Mom hits the nail right on the head
Currently still with parents in Banning, Ca. A recent conversation:
Mom: So now, will your husband take you out to dinner tonight after you take me home?
Kay: No, mom. I'm staying with you tonight. I live in Chicago now.
Mom: Chicago! Why did you come all the way out here?
Kay: To help with dad's broken arm.
[pause]
Mom: Well, no offense, but I think we'll want to see a doctor for that.
Mom: So now, will your husband take you out to dinner tonight after you take me home?
Kay: No, mom. I'm staying with you tonight. I live in Chicago now.
Mom: Chicago! Why did you come all the way out here?
Kay: To help with dad's broken arm.
[pause]
Mom: Well, no offense, but I think we'll want to see a doctor for that.
Crazy Crap Item #212: The part where I make a totally predictable discovery
Still in lovely Banning, Ca., that bastion of the 55-and-older set, and enjoying the quirks of a community that has molded its offerings entirely around the needs of those in the autumn of their years.
At a recent trip to the grocery store, I thought to myself that since I'm here for the semi-long haul, I'll purchase some foods that suit my discriminating palate and fit well with my beleagured jaw. Hummus, I thought. That delicious puree of the chickpea, so favored by those of the Middle East. Surely, this most cosmopolitan of communities would offer such a delicacy.
No such luck. Ranch dressing they had. Salsa by the tub. Spinach dip. But hummus, no siree bob.
Not such a surprising revelation, but an unfortunate oversight. I think hummus and dentures would be a natural pairing.
At a recent trip to the grocery store, I thought to myself that since I'm here for the semi-long haul, I'll purchase some foods that suit my discriminating palate and fit well with my beleagured jaw. Hummus, I thought. That delicious puree of the chickpea, so favored by those of the Middle East. Surely, this most cosmopolitan of communities would offer such a delicacy.
No such luck. Ranch dressing they had. Salsa by the tub. Spinach dip. But hummus, no siree bob.
Not such a surprising revelation, but an unfortunate oversight. I think hummus and dentures would be a natural pairing.
Crazy Crap Item #211: The part where I benefit from being such a pill-pusher
So, as many know, I am currently in Banning, California, assisting my father, who broke his arm while doing mighty battle with a small tabby kitten.
While packing for this trip, I was a little alarmed to realize that I had packed far more in the way of pharmaceuticals, home remedies, over-the-counter tonics, and physical therapy equipment than I had clothes. Healthy I will be. Healthy and naked.
Once here, my hypochondria had an unexpected benefit. My dad was released from the hospital one day after surgery, and I whisked him homeward. My greatest concern was to get his prescription for pain pills filled, so that he'd have relief on hand ASAP.
I didn't, however, want to leave him and my mom alone with him fresh from the hospital, and while my sister Liz was hot-footing it out to join us, she was still about an hour out. What to do?
So I asked, "What is this painkiller you need?" The prescription listed a mouthful of chemical gobbledy gook which meant nothing to me, and on a whim, I double checked the doctor's original order. The alphabet soup name turned out to be the generic. The brand name: Vicodin.
As luck would have it, as I packed my many, many remedies, I had tossed in a bottle Vicodin I had left over from my recent jaw procedure. I don't take them, but as I packed, I thought, "Why not?"
So all was solved: Dad had his Vicodin -- or at least an interim bandaid -- until I could get out to fill his official prescription.
Hypochondria: we salute you!
While packing for this trip, I was a little alarmed to realize that I had packed far more in the way of pharmaceuticals, home remedies, over-the-counter tonics, and physical therapy equipment than I had clothes. Healthy I will be. Healthy and naked.
Once here, my hypochondria had an unexpected benefit. My dad was released from the hospital one day after surgery, and I whisked him homeward. My greatest concern was to get his prescription for pain pills filled, so that he'd have relief on hand ASAP.
I didn't, however, want to leave him and my mom alone with him fresh from the hospital, and while my sister Liz was hot-footing it out to join us, she was still about an hour out. What to do?
So I asked, "What is this painkiller you need?" The prescription listed a mouthful of chemical gobbledy gook which meant nothing to me, and on a whim, I double checked the doctor's original order. The alphabet soup name turned out to be the generic. The brand name: Vicodin.
As luck would have it, as I packed my many, many remedies, I had tossed in a bottle Vicodin I had left over from my recent jaw procedure. I don't take them, but as I packed, I thought, "Why not?"
So all was solved: Dad had his Vicodin -- or at least an interim bandaid -- until I could get out to fill his official prescription.
Hypochondria: we salute you!
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Crazy Crap Item #210: The part where I share beard lore
Well, I'm about to head out to Southern California. Sailor Jack has fractured his arm -- and injury encountered in a violent brush with a kitten, or so I'm told. I think he just regularly breaks or replaces body parts to ensure I come out to visit.
Before I go, however, I must share two recent beard-related phenemona.
Phenomenon #1: Eamon's out of control facial hair
As many know, Eamon has ceased removing any hair from his head. No hair cuts, no beard trims, nothing. This has been going on since August.
Me, I'm cool with it. I've enjoyed tracking the various characters he takes on as the hair grows. These have included:
-- A young Santa Claus
-- A cast member of Cats
-- A Greek god
-- The Gorton's Fisherman (from Gorton's of Glouchester)
-- A Russian mobster
-- Rasputin
His two latest favorite phrases have been, "Go ahead! Tug on it! It's strong!" and "It's like wearing a mink on my face."
Recently, he decided to memorialize his growth in fantastic collage entitled "Things my beard can lift." The set of photos also include closeups of various components he is lifting.
Phenomenon #2: A wonderful new ode to the beard and what it goes with
We do not know the master songsmith who created this ditty, but we were directed to it by Mr. Chris Czajka.
Before I go, however, I must share two recent beard-related phenemona.
Phenomenon #1: Eamon's out of control facial hair
As many know, Eamon has ceased removing any hair from his head. No hair cuts, no beard trims, nothing. This has been going on since August.
Me, I'm cool with it. I've enjoyed tracking the various characters he takes on as the hair grows. These have included:
-- A young Santa Claus
-- A cast member of Cats
-- A Greek god
-- The Gorton's Fisherman (from Gorton's of Glouchester)
-- A Russian mobster
-- Rasputin
His two latest favorite phrases have been, "Go ahead! Tug on it! It's strong!" and "It's like wearing a mink on my face."
Recently, he decided to memorialize his growth in fantastic collage entitled "Things my beard can lift." The set of photos also include closeups of various components he is lifting.
Phenomenon #2: A wonderful new ode to the beard and what it goes with
We do not know the master songsmith who created this ditty, but we were directed to it by Mr. Chris Czajka.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Crazy Crap Item #209: The part where Sailor Jack cracks wise
In a recent email, my father updated me on the latest in his California homefront:
Today, rain, snow, (SNOW!) 32 deg. temp., and 15 MPH wind. Throw in a crooked governor and we'd have Chicago.
Love to both,
^^^^ SJ ^^^^
Today, rain, snow, (SNOW!) 32 deg. temp., and 15 MPH wind. Throw in a crooked governor and we'd have Chicago.
Love to both,
^^^^ SJ ^^^^
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Crazy Crap Item #208: The part where I marvel at the gall
Okay, so, as many will recall, I just spent the worst summer and fall ever, which included six weeks of physical therapy for mis-diagnosed and mis-treated TMJ syndrome.
Last week, we finally got the bill.
Today, I got a call from her billing service to "remind you of your balance."
I'm like, yeah, we got the bill A WEEK AGO.
So I guess they're not so good about diagnosing and fixing ailments, but really good at demanding payment.
Last week, we finally got the bill.
Today, I got a call from her billing service to "remind you of your balance."
I'm like, yeah, we got the bill A WEEK AGO.
So I guess they're not so good about diagnosing and fixing ailments, but really good at demanding payment.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Crazy Crap Item #207: The part where Piatt and Eamon quip
Last Friday night, Eamon and I found ourselves at the Bong Ho, our favorite local Korean karaoke dive bar. Shiow, a long-time friend of young Roxi and the original source of knowledge about this oasis of off-key singing, was planning a birthday celebration behind the mic. So how could we not go?
Though he doesn't know Shiow, I invited our good friend, Mr. Christopher Piatt, theater editor extraordinaire and all-around man-about-town. He has taken up the mic at the Bong before (his "Mac the Knife" always brings down the house), and knows well the allure of this stinkiest of nightspots. (Yes, that is pee you smell. Pee and Raid ant spray.)
After reviewing two shows and enduring a commute that involved no fewer than three CTA buses, he arrived at midnight, just as I was preparing to leave. So, of course, my plans changed.
He'd missed my dazzling rendition of Billie Holiday's "Come Rain or Come Shine" and my signature show-stopper "Cabaret" (a la Liza), but he was lucky enough to catch my eerie evocation of Leslie Gore ("It's My Party) and Petula Clark ("Downtown").
Finally, as I finished a gut-wrenching "Hopelessly Devoted to You" (Olivia Newton John, Grease), he turned to Eamon.
Piatt: How does it feel to be married to a gay icon.
Eamon: In some circles, I'm considered a gay icon.
And ... scene.
Though he doesn't know Shiow, I invited our good friend, Mr. Christopher Piatt, theater editor extraordinaire and all-around man-about-town. He has taken up the mic at the Bong before (his "Mac the Knife" always brings down the house), and knows well the allure of this stinkiest of nightspots. (Yes, that is pee you smell. Pee and Raid ant spray.)
After reviewing two shows and enduring a commute that involved no fewer than three CTA buses, he arrived at midnight, just as I was preparing to leave. So, of course, my plans changed.
He'd missed my dazzling rendition of Billie Holiday's "Come Rain or Come Shine" and my signature show-stopper "Cabaret" (a la Liza), but he was lucky enough to catch my eerie evocation of Leslie Gore ("It's My Party) and Petula Clark ("Downtown").
Finally, as I finished a gut-wrenching "Hopelessly Devoted to You" (Olivia Newton John, Grease), he turned to Eamon.
Piatt: How does it feel to be married to a gay icon.
Eamon: In some circles, I'm considered a gay icon.
And ... scene.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Crazy Crap Item #206: The part where my father taunts me
I just received this email from my father:
DBK [Doctor Baby Kay],
Your governor is corrupter than our governor. (to the tune of Nya-Nya)
^^^^ SJ ^^^^ [Sailor Jack]
DBK [Doctor Baby Kay],
Your governor is corrupter than our governor. (to the tune of Nya-Nya)
^^^^ SJ ^^^^ [Sailor Jack]
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Crazy Crap Item #205: The part where Roxi weighs in on a proposed charitable act
I have not cut my hair for a year. Last holiday season, I decided, in a fit of tipsy philanthropy, that since my hair was just sitting there, doing nothing, I should harvest it for Locks of Love, an organization which supplies wigs for kids who, due to medical reasons, can't grow their own hair.
I've had long hair in the past. It's been straggly, thin. In a word: unfortunate. So I was not looking forward to this.
But lo and behold, it's grown out rather nicely, lovely layers and all. Which led young Roxi to say to me, just last night:
"Screw the kids with cancer. You look great with long hair."
God bless us, every one.
I've had long hair in the past. It's been straggly, thin. In a word: unfortunate. So I was not looking forward to this.
But lo and behold, it's grown out rather nicely, lovely layers and all. Which led young Roxi to say to me, just last night:
"Screw the kids with cancer. You look great with long hair."
God bless us, every one.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Crazy Crap Item #204: The part where I attempt an essay on a seemingly arbitrary topic
So, today is Thanksgiving. And I suppose I should compose some paean to the day--thanks for our many blessings, mullings over the sacrifice of the pilgrims who founded our great nation, panegyrics on founding fathers and fruited plains.
But instead, I feel like writing about a topic that just keeps popping up in my life over the last few weeks. And if it doesn't initially seem like it's a topic relevant on a day of national thanksgiving--of celebrating the plenty in our lives, the traditions we share, the communities that bring us together--then stick around. You might just be surprised.
The topic is hair. Specifically, black hair. Now, of course, I have black hair (see profile photo), but that's not what I mean. I'm instead referring to what we used to call "African American hair." Someone told me recently that "African American" is over, and now it's all about "black," but I may be confused on that point. So for the sake of this exercise, I will stick to the term "black hair" to refer specifically to hair on the heads of black people--those of African American descent. I just can't see typing "African American" over and over and over on a holiday.
But to resume my theme: I'm embarrassed to admit that it wasn't until I was well into my 20s--teetering, in fact, into my 30s--that the idea that black hair was significantly and fundamentally different than white hair entered my consciousness. It's not that I hail from some snooty, all-white suburb. San Gabriel, Ca., my home town, was integration-central, but in our neck of the woods, the idea of "race" entailed the almighty triad: white/Latino/Asian. And I think, in terms of demographics, the Latinos were winning. There was a small handful of black kids in our school; few enough that, paradoxically, the fact of their blackness was incidental. So my exposure to black America was slight, at best.
So fast forward to--gulp--graduate school. One afternoon, I stop by the apartment of my friend Nicole. We had plans later that day, and since I was killing time, she told me just to stop on by. When I arrived, she had some mysterious cream smeared along the roots of her hair. She said, "Sorry, you caught me in the middle of an African American hair ritual."
This is the embarrassing part: It had never before entered my mind that Nicole straightened her hair. That OF COURSE she straightened her hair. That her hair, which always was so carefully coiffed, didn't just grow out of her scalp that way.
Now, this realization was strange and embarrassing because, although I did not grow up in a neighborhood replete with black kids, I had somehow picked up the knowledge that black people generally have curly, kinky hair. That cropped close, it makes tight little curls. That grown long and picked out, it makes wild, wonderful Afros that I've always secretly coveted. In fact, as a child, I purchased at a local flea market a little fashion doll that was black, and I always loved her tight little 'fro. I used to pat it lovingly after dressing her up for a night on the town. So, clearly, I had lurking in my brain a basic knowledge of black hair and its characteristics.
So it was with great mortification that I realized not just how remarkably ignorant I was--but how unable to see what was right in front of me. And trust me, that's an unsettling realization.
Fast forward about six years. I'm out of graduate school. I'm part of the work force, taking the Red line downtown everyday to work. During my commute, sometimes I'd read, sometimes I'd gaze out the window. But sometimes, I'd just stare at the heads in front of me. And since Chicago--though still shockingly segregated--holds a healthy mix of black and white, often the heads I found myself staring at were black.
It was at this moment that little kernel of realization planted by Nicole and her hair-straightening ritual took root. I started to notice--really notice--the remarkable variety in black women's hair and how they had dressed it. I became aware of the many options they were choosing from--straightened, au natural, extensions, colorings. And wigs! Why had I never noticed how many black women were wearing wigs?
Next, I began to reckon with the sheer amount of effort that went into these creations. The straightening alone, I knew, must be time-consuming, annoying, and must be done with steady regularity. But then there were pasted-down curls and squiggles of hair, arrangements of braids, careful interweavings of hair, natural and synthetic.
Dear God, I thought. How much time must that take? Hair-wise, I've always been pretty darn close to au natural. There was a spiral perm in the late '80s, but that was never repeated. My entire first year of graduate school, I stopped getting my hair cut at all, just to see what would happen. Turns out, it got really long.
My main point is, besides washing, cutting, blowdrying, and a very infrequent spritz of hairspray (for special occasions), I don't really spend a heck of a lot of time on my hair. And I resent the small amount of time its maintenance does require.
As I pondered the hair of my train-mates, I began to appreciate that, given how little inclined I am to dress and attend to my hair, I'm lucky I've got white-girl hair. It's straight. It's durable. It grows ridiculously fast, and it can be easily coaxed into just about any style. Or it can be pulled back in a ponytail and ignored.
So I mused on this fact, and decided I needed to learn more. Pushing aside all apprehensions about being one of those annoying liberal white folk who want to appreciate the "black experience" as a way to show how enlightened they are, I gingerly instant-messaged Nicole. My message was something along the lines of: "So, this black hair thing, it takes a lot of work. What's up with that?" But, I hope, with more grace, tact, and clarity.
Nicole, being a patient and amiable soul, helpfully enlightened me. She opened my eyes to the world of black hair maintenance. The regular visits to the neighborhood salon that take up the entirety of one's Saturday. The painful process of cornrow braiding. The ongoing, never-ending toil to keep one's hair up to code. (Believe it or not, I still have the transcript of the conversation saved in a Word file. It was that significant to me.)
But she also gave me a glimpse into the culture of the black hair--that when she used the phrase "African American hair ritual" so many years before, she wasn't being glib. She was referring--tip-of-the-iceberg style--to a rich, complex node of community life and culture. She told me how the local salon or barbershop was a neighborhood institution. One spends so much time there, one can't help but make it a center of shared culture.
Her account put me in mind of a salon that Eamon and I used to pass when we lived in Rogers Park that advertised "Styling, Weaves, Braiding, Neighborhood Folklore." We'd always loved that sign; now I felt I actually, in some way, understood more fully its significance.
So, I decided, I wanted to learn more. Mind you, this was before the outbreak of Barbershop, Salon, and Hair Show movies. This was before Tyra compassionately explained to a white girl contestant on America's Next Top Model that, yes, extensions hurt like the bejesus, and you have to pat them so you don't scratch your scalp and cause more problems down the line. So really, I was ahead of the white-folk curve, I like to think.
Naive and presumptuous as I was, I thought maybe I'd try to write an article about this phenomenon. I did a little research to see what else was written on the topic, and ran across an exhaustive book about the history of black hair. I was so blown away by the book that, paradoxically, I have kept no notes from it, not even its title. Googling like a fiend just now, I suspect it was Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America, by Ayana Byrd and Lori Tharps.
How, you may wonder, could I have failed to keep note of the book title--especially considering I kept an entire transcript of my IM conversation with Nicole on the same topic? The truth is, as I read the book, I could not escape the dawning realization that any role I'd try to play in recording or reporting on this cultural phenomenon was pretty suspect. Who was I? The great white translator of black experience? Did I think black writers couldn't sufficiently describe, analyze and celebrate this tradition on their own? And who was my audience? Clearly, black folk already know about this stuff. So I'm just talking to a non-black audience, which once again raised this spectre of the great white translator. Ick.
So while I pored over the book, intrigued by its scrupulous tracing of the history of black hair culture, stemming back from its African roots, through centuries in America, and up to today, I realized this was a conversation I needed to enjoy as audience, and keep my big, blabby mouth out of. As a result, I took no notes. Not even the title. Dang.
But the topic has stuck in my head. And in the last few weeks, it just keeps coming up. A friend of mine who is a teacher in the public school system was recently bemoaning the fact that she only just learned about the need to "pat" new cornrows to lessen the pain till they loosen up (revealing, in her mind, her ignorance about her students' experience). I've mulled over accounts I've read of cross-racial adoption--in which white parents must educate themselves in hair maintenance for their child, and how hard it is to cross that cultural line.
And then last night, Nicole posted as her status on Facebook the following: "Nicole is looking forward to the meeting of the White House and the hot comb."
As I drowsed into consciousness this morning, all these notions stewed in my brain, and I began to ponder the paradox at the heart of black hair culture. As was explained in that wonderful book I read, black hair culture grew out of the need to try to conform blackness to whiteness--to force kinky hair into straight silky locks--as a way, if not to gain the power of the dominant race, at least to align oneself with it aesthetically. At best, it was a means to get a toehold into that power. But at the least, it was a way to avoid calling attention to one's "difference"--a difference that could, as history all too clearly attests--be deadly.
But there's more to the story. This drive to conform, of course, starts as a sort of imposition from without. But soon enough, it's internalized. Black culture forms its own rules about how one manages one's "difference" via hair. There develop standards within the culture itself for the proper upkeep of one's hair--standards the dominant culture (white America) hasn't a clue about. It becomes self-policing.
And if that sounds grim and disappointing, there's actually a flipside to consider--one that's far more encouraging and even inspiring. In creating these internal standards, black America creates its own law, its own identity.
This can lead to concrete power. As recounted in the regrettably untitled book I consulted, the development of black hair culture both drove and was fed by the rise of black-owned businesses that served a black market, a chief example being Madame C. J. Walker, a pioneering entrepreneur in the field of beauty products designed especially for black women.
So some blacks gained real power--financial, political--from the industry that arose around black hair care. But hand-in-hand with this--and probably with more impact on the lives of everyday blacks--the culture of how one cares for one's hair provided a powerful community-building force: the neighborhood barbershop and/or salon. As Nicole had recounted to me so many years ago, the trip to the salon was like a weekly hajj to Mecca, and that many women travel miles to return to their childhood salons after they've moved out of the neighborhood. And where salons weren't plentiful, an aunt's house or Grandma's kitchen could fulfill the same purpose.
Mulling over this, I think back to my own childhood. I had a close, loving family. I was briefly a Girl Scout. (Hated it.) I was a member of several choirs. My family went to church. But I can't say I had a "community." If anything, I'd say my experience was "anti-community." We belonged to one parish, but another church was closer, so we went there. We weren't "joiners." I never felt a love for my Alma Mater. I've yet to go to a football game at the two universities I've attended, and can't even imagine going to an alumni event. Hell, I didn't even attend any of my three college graduations (undergrad, masters, doctorate).
Only now, as an adult, do I grasp what it means to be in a "community." I live on a fantastic block. As I've often recorded, whenever possible, we gather at the benches in front of Ruth's house and while away the hours sharing recipes and gossip. We keep an eye out for each other, and lend cups of sugar.
It's in experiencing this sense of "community"--and how it's formed by some accident of habit or behavior or geography--that I feel like I begin to experience something like the black hair thing. Here on 1500 Norwood, "community" has formed around the ritual of the sitting on the benches in front of Ruth's house and the fact that 6-year-old boys need to spend at least 3 hours a day simply running around and shooting fake guns at each other. For black communities, it's the fact that every week, you must spend hours tending to your hair.
I have no doubt that black hair experience has caused psychic scars for many--the push to conform, the belief that one must alter one's appearance to be acceptable. But I know that it's also provided strength and cohesiveness, a sense of shared experience that has empowered millions. I have no doubt that the civil rights movement found its impetus in the barbershop chair or while a small child wept from the sting of chemical straightener on her poor, red scalp.
And that's the weird, rich paradox of America and of human nature. Don't think any phenomenon will have a single, predictable outcome. Oppression become conformity becomes solidarity becomes a dream of power.
And then, suddenly, you've got hot combs in the White House. Amen.
But instead, I feel like writing about a topic that just keeps popping up in my life over the last few weeks. And if it doesn't initially seem like it's a topic relevant on a day of national thanksgiving--of celebrating the plenty in our lives, the traditions we share, the communities that bring us together--then stick around. You might just be surprised.
The topic is hair. Specifically, black hair. Now, of course, I have black hair (see profile photo), but that's not what I mean. I'm instead referring to what we used to call "African American hair." Someone told me recently that "African American" is over, and now it's all about "black," but I may be confused on that point. So for the sake of this exercise, I will stick to the term "black hair" to refer specifically to hair on the heads of black people--those of African American descent. I just can't see typing "African American" over and over and over on a holiday.
But to resume my theme: I'm embarrassed to admit that it wasn't until I was well into my 20s--teetering, in fact, into my 30s--that the idea that black hair was significantly and fundamentally different than white hair entered my consciousness. It's not that I hail from some snooty, all-white suburb. San Gabriel, Ca., my home town, was integration-central, but in our neck of the woods, the idea of "race" entailed the almighty triad: white/Latino/Asian. And I think, in terms of demographics, the Latinos were winning. There was a small handful of black kids in our school; few enough that, paradoxically, the fact of their blackness was incidental. So my exposure to black America was slight, at best.
So fast forward to--gulp--graduate school. One afternoon, I stop by the apartment of my friend Nicole. We had plans later that day, and since I was killing time, she told me just to stop on by. When I arrived, she had some mysterious cream smeared along the roots of her hair. She said, "Sorry, you caught me in the middle of an African American hair ritual."
This is the embarrassing part: It had never before entered my mind that Nicole straightened her hair. That OF COURSE she straightened her hair. That her hair, which always was so carefully coiffed, didn't just grow out of her scalp that way.
Now, this realization was strange and embarrassing because, although I did not grow up in a neighborhood replete with black kids, I had somehow picked up the knowledge that black people generally have curly, kinky hair. That cropped close, it makes tight little curls. That grown long and picked out, it makes wild, wonderful Afros that I've always secretly coveted. In fact, as a child, I purchased at a local flea market a little fashion doll that was black, and I always loved her tight little 'fro. I used to pat it lovingly after dressing her up for a night on the town. So, clearly, I had lurking in my brain a basic knowledge of black hair and its characteristics.
So it was with great mortification that I realized not just how remarkably ignorant I was--but how unable to see what was right in front of me. And trust me, that's an unsettling realization.
Fast forward about six years. I'm out of graduate school. I'm part of the work force, taking the Red line downtown everyday to work. During my commute, sometimes I'd read, sometimes I'd gaze out the window. But sometimes, I'd just stare at the heads in front of me. And since Chicago--though still shockingly segregated--holds a healthy mix of black and white, often the heads I found myself staring at were black.
It was at this moment that little kernel of realization planted by Nicole and her hair-straightening ritual took root. I started to notice--really notice--the remarkable variety in black women's hair and how they had dressed it. I became aware of the many options they were choosing from--straightened, au natural, extensions, colorings. And wigs! Why had I never noticed how many black women were wearing wigs?
Next, I began to reckon with the sheer amount of effort that went into these creations. The straightening alone, I knew, must be time-consuming, annoying, and must be done with steady regularity. But then there were pasted-down curls and squiggles of hair, arrangements of braids, careful interweavings of hair, natural and synthetic.
Dear God, I thought. How much time must that take? Hair-wise, I've always been pretty darn close to au natural. There was a spiral perm in the late '80s, but that was never repeated. My entire first year of graduate school, I stopped getting my hair cut at all, just to see what would happen. Turns out, it got really long.
My main point is, besides washing, cutting, blowdrying, and a very infrequent spritz of hairspray (for special occasions), I don't really spend a heck of a lot of time on my hair. And I resent the small amount of time its maintenance does require.
As I pondered the hair of my train-mates, I began to appreciate that, given how little inclined I am to dress and attend to my hair, I'm lucky I've got white-girl hair. It's straight. It's durable. It grows ridiculously fast, and it can be easily coaxed into just about any style. Or it can be pulled back in a ponytail and ignored.
So I mused on this fact, and decided I needed to learn more. Pushing aside all apprehensions about being one of those annoying liberal white folk who want to appreciate the "black experience" as a way to show how enlightened they are, I gingerly instant-messaged Nicole. My message was something along the lines of: "So, this black hair thing, it takes a lot of work. What's up with that?" But, I hope, with more grace, tact, and clarity.
Nicole, being a patient and amiable soul, helpfully enlightened me. She opened my eyes to the world of black hair maintenance. The regular visits to the neighborhood salon that take up the entirety of one's Saturday. The painful process of cornrow braiding. The ongoing, never-ending toil to keep one's hair up to code. (Believe it or not, I still have the transcript of the conversation saved in a Word file. It was that significant to me.)
But she also gave me a glimpse into the culture of the black hair--that when she used the phrase "African American hair ritual" so many years before, she wasn't being glib. She was referring--tip-of-the-iceberg style--to a rich, complex node of community life and culture. She told me how the local salon or barbershop was a neighborhood institution. One spends so much time there, one can't help but make it a center of shared culture.
Her account put me in mind of a salon that Eamon and I used to pass when we lived in Rogers Park that advertised "Styling, Weaves, Braiding, Neighborhood Folklore." We'd always loved that sign; now I felt I actually, in some way, understood more fully its significance.
So, I decided, I wanted to learn more. Mind you, this was before the outbreak of Barbershop, Salon, and Hair Show movies. This was before Tyra compassionately explained to a white girl contestant on America's Next Top Model that, yes, extensions hurt like the bejesus, and you have to pat them so you don't scratch your scalp and cause more problems down the line. So really, I was ahead of the white-folk curve, I like to think.
Naive and presumptuous as I was, I thought maybe I'd try to write an article about this phenomenon. I did a little research to see what else was written on the topic, and ran across an exhaustive book about the history of black hair. I was so blown away by the book that, paradoxically, I have kept no notes from it, not even its title. Googling like a fiend just now, I suspect it was Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America, by Ayana Byrd and Lori Tharps.
How, you may wonder, could I have failed to keep note of the book title--especially considering I kept an entire transcript of my IM conversation with Nicole on the same topic? The truth is, as I read the book, I could not escape the dawning realization that any role I'd try to play in recording or reporting on this cultural phenomenon was pretty suspect. Who was I? The great white translator of black experience? Did I think black writers couldn't sufficiently describe, analyze and celebrate this tradition on their own? And who was my audience? Clearly, black folk already know about this stuff. So I'm just talking to a non-black audience, which once again raised this spectre of the great white translator. Ick.
So while I pored over the book, intrigued by its scrupulous tracing of the history of black hair culture, stemming back from its African roots, through centuries in America, and up to today, I realized this was a conversation I needed to enjoy as audience, and keep my big, blabby mouth out of. As a result, I took no notes. Not even the title. Dang.
But the topic has stuck in my head. And in the last few weeks, it just keeps coming up. A friend of mine who is a teacher in the public school system was recently bemoaning the fact that she only just learned about the need to "pat" new cornrows to lessen the pain till they loosen up (revealing, in her mind, her ignorance about her students' experience). I've mulled over accounts I've read of cross-racial adoption--in which white parents must educate themselves in hair maintenance for their child, and how hard it is to cross that cultural line.
And then last night, Nicole posted as her status on Facebook the following: "Nicole is looking forward to the meeting of the White House and the hot comb."
As I drowsed into consciousness this morning, all these notions stewed in my brain, and I began to ponder the paradox at the heart of black hair culture. As was explained in that wonderful book I read, black hair culture grew out of the need to try to conform blackness to whiteness--to force kinky hair into straight silky locks--as a way, if not to gain the power of the dominant race, at least to align oneself with it aesthetically. At best, it was a means to get a toehold into that power. But at the least, it was a way to avoid calling attention to one's "difference"--a difference that could, as history all too clearly attests--be deadly.
But there's more to the story. This drive to conform, of course, starts as a sort of imposition from without. But soon enough, it's internalized. Black culture forms its own rules about how one manages one's "difference" via hair. There develop standards within the culture itself for the proper upkeep of one's hair--standards the dominant culture (white America) hasn't a clue about. It becomes self-policing.
And if that sounds grim and disappointing, there's actually a flipside to consider--one that's far more encouraging and even inspiring. In creating these internal standards, black America creates its own law, its own identity.
This can lead to concrete power. As recounted in the regrettably untitled book I consulted, the development of black hair culture both drove and was fed by the rise of black-owned businesses that served a black market, a chief example being Madame C. J. Walker, a pioneering entrepreneur in the field of beauty products designed especially for black women.
So some blacks gained real power--financial, political--from the industry that arose around black hair care. But hand-in-hand with this--and probably with more impact on the lives of everyday blacks--the culture of how one cares for one's hair provided a powerful community-building force: the neighborhood barbershop and/or salon. As Nicole had recounted to me so many years ago, the trip to the salon was like a weekly hajj to Mecca, and that many women travel miles to return to their childhood salons after they've moved out of the neighborhood. And where salons weren't plentiful, an aunt's house or Grandma's kitchen could fulfill the same purpose.
Mulling over this, I think back to my own childhood. I had a close, loving family. I was briefly a Girl Scout. (Hated it.) I was a member of several choirs. My family went to church. But I can't say I had a "community." If anything, I'd say my experience was "anti-community." We belonged to one parish, but another church was closer, so we went there. We weren't "joiners." I never felt a love for my Alma Mater. I've yet to go to a football game at the two universities I've attended, and can't even imagine going to an alumni event. Hell, I didn't even attend any of my three college graduations (undergrad, masters, doctorate).
Only now, as an adult, do I grasp what it means to be in a "community." I live on a fantastic block. As I've often recorded, whenever possible, we gather at the benches in front of Ruth's house and while away the hours sharing recipes and gossip. We keep an eye out for each other, and lend cups of sugar.
It's in experiencing this sense of "community"--and how it's formed by some accident of habit or behavior or geography--that I feel like I begin to experience something like the black hair thing. Here on 1500 Norwood, "community" has formed around the ritual of the sitting on the benches in front of Ruth's house and the fact that 6-year-old boys need to spend at least 3 hours a day simply running around and shooting fake guns at each other. For black communities, it's the fact that every week, you must spend hours tending to your hair.
I have no doubt that black hair experience has caused psychic scars for many--the push to conform, the belief that one must alter one's appearance to be acceptable. But I know that it's also provided strength and cohesiveness, a sense of shared experience that has empowered millions. I have no doubt that the civil rights movement found its impetus in the barbershop chair or while a small child wept from the sting of chemical straightener on her poor, red scalp.
And that's the weird, rich paradox of America and of human nature. Don't think any phenomenon will have a single, predictable outcome. Oppression become conformity becomes solidarity becomes a dream of power.
And then, suddenly, you've got hot combs in the White House. Amen.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Crazy Crap Item #203: The part where I prove to be a girl of small ambitions
Lately, I've noticed a strange trend in my dreams. No, not the unearthly appearance of spirit visitors that lately garnered such attention.
Rather, I've discovered an uncanny ability to realize I'm dreaming while in the midst of my dreams, and to react to the situations around me armed with this knowledge. I chalk it up to the fact that I've taken to the habit of arising at a normal hour, then rolling back over for an extra hour or so of sleep. These strangely reasonable dreams tend to occur just before I arise for good.
Here's an example: I recently had a dream that I was on a business trip (clearly a sign I'm dreaming), and was taking a work-out in the hotel gym. As I step on to the exercise equipment, I notice I am wearing my very costly silver watch. So I remove it and fling it to the ground. I hop on to exercise, and almost immediately realize that this is not a smart move. One does not simply fling one's fancy watch onto a gym floor, where it could be broken or purloined!
I hop off said equipment, and begin to search for my watch. I quickly discover that nearly everybody in this gym has done the same thing, so there are watches everywhere! How, oh, how shall I ever find my watch!! How could I be so stupid as to do this?
At which point, another part of my brain chimes in and says, "You wouldn't. Nobody would. This is clearly a dream. You can look all you want for that watch, but when you wake up, you can check your jewelry box, and it'll be there." I realize that this is probably true. I regret I can't somehow go check right now, but I assure myself this makes perfectly good sense. I abandon my search and go on my merry, dreamy way.
(For anyone who's interested, my dream-self was correct. The watch was in my jewelry box.)
So this morning, a similar thing occurs. I dream that I'm on my way to some sort of rehearsal, and realize that I need to grab a meal first. I stop in at a very seedy fastfood joint. Zany hijinx ensue--too disjoined to try to recount--but I end up ordering a chicken sandwich, a donut, and a diet Coke.
As I wait for my order to come up, it suddenly strikes me that I have no idea if I have any money to pay for this meal. I pull out my purse, which--as it turns out--is a triangular, "Hello Kitty"-inspired affair, made of transparent plastic and trimmed in pink. Since it is transparent, I quickly see that my big black wallet is not inside. It is totally empty.
But before I can even worry, that same, oddly rational part of my brain says, "This is a dream. You make it go any way you want. Just put your hand in the purse and pull out a $10 bill. That should cover it."
I do, I pay for my meal, and go on my merry, dreamy way.
It's not till later this morning, as I'm recounting this dream to Eamon that I realize I could’ve told myself to reach into my purse and pull out …. A $100 bill. A credit card. The Hope diamond. A gold-plated tiara.
But, no, I pull out a $10. Because that should just about cover it.
Dream big, little lady. Dream big.
Rather, I've discovered an uncanny ability to realize I'm dreaming while in the midst of my dreams, and to react to the situations around me armed with this knowledge. I chalk it up to the fact that I've taken to the habit of arising at a normal hour, then rolling back over for an extra hour or so of sleep. These strangely reasonable dreams tend to occur just before I arise for good.
Here's an example: I recently had a dream that I was on a business trip (clearly a sign I'm dreaming), and was taking a work-out in the hotel gym. As I step on to the exercise equipment, I notice I am wearing my very costly silver watch. So I remove it and fling it to the ground. I hop on to exercise, and almost immediately realize that this is not a smart move. One does not simply fling one's fancy watch onto a gym floor, where it could be broken or purloined!
I hop off said equipment, and begin to search for my watch. I quickly discover that nearly everybody in this gym has done the same thing, so there are watches everywhere! How, oh, how shall I ever find my watch!! How could I be so stupid as to do this?
At which point, another part of my brain chimes in and says, "You wouldn't. Nobody would. This is clearly a dream. You can look all you want for that watch, but when you wake up, you can check your jewelry box, and it'll be there." I realize that this is probably true. I regret I can't somehow go check right now, but I assure myself this makes perfectly good sense. I abandon my search and go on my merry, dreamy way.
(For anyone who's interested, my dream-self was correct. The watch was in my jewelry box.)
So this morning, a similar thing occurs. I dream that I'm on my way to some sort of rehearsal, and realize that I need to grab a meal first. I stop in at a very seedy fastfood joint. Zany hijinx ensue--too disjoined to try to recount--but I end up ordering a chicken sandwich, a donut, and a diet Coke.
As I wait for my order to come up, it suddenly strikes me that I have no idea if I have any money to pay for this meal. I pull out my purse, which--as it turns out--is a triangular, "Hello Kitty"-inspired affair, made of transparent plastic and trimmed in pink. Since it is transparent, I quickly see that my big black wallet is not inside. It is totally empty.
But before I can even worry, that same, oddly rational part of my brain says, "This is a dream. You make it go any way you want. Just put your hand in the purse and pull out a $10 bill. That should cover it."
I do, I pay for my meal, and go on my merry, dreamy way.
It's not till later this morning, as I'm recounting this dream to Eamon that I realize I could’ve told myself to reach into my purse and pull out …. A $100 bill. A credit card. The Hope diamond. A gold-plated tiara.
But, no, I pull out a $10. Because that should just about cover it.
Dream big, little lady. Dream big.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Crazy Crap Item #202: The part where I spin a Halloween yarn
It seems my attempt to exorcize all the cobwebs of the worst summer ever has worked, as I am now able to document some more appealing events, appropriate to my claim of having crazy crap happen to me nearly every day. So let me return to quasi-normalcy with a tale quite befitting the season.
Some of you may recall a past episode which made my hairs stand on end. Dear friends, I admit, I love a good ghost story. I love thinking there's something mysterious there, just out of reach--something pointing to larger spheres we can't even imagine.
But let me be the first to say it: I am not one of those invested with the gifts of a sensitive. Besides occasionally thinking of someone just as the phone rings with a call from that very same person, I am utterly non-psychic. Profoundly so. I do not feel creepy presences. I do not sense "being watched." I do not glimpse eerie movements out of the corner of my mind which cannot be dismissed.
And yet, just the other day, I had an experience of such sheer uncanniness, I've been unable to shake its sense of otherworldly ookiness. And since it's nearly Halloween, it seems more appropriate share the wealth than keep it to myself.
So here it is: Kay's Uncanny Experience
Let me preface by saying, as revealed with such endearing candor in my previous post, I'm in the recovery phase from a good-old-fashioned, Valley-of-the-Dolls style nervous breakdown. So, goodness knows, there are some funny, funny chemicals oozing around my synapses. And I'm recovering quite nicely, thank you very much. I typically awake sometime between 6 and 7:30am, pop a soothing doll, and snooze for a few hours more. I chalk it up to my body really, really needing sleep, and am simply reveling in it.
So this morning, this typical transaction occurs. Pop a doll, back to bed.
At some point, I think I'm awake, but so woozy and sleepy, I don't want to get up. I'm absolutely certain I hear someone come in the room. My brain decides it's my mom, who is concerned that I need to get up, but doesn't want to wake me. I make sure not to move, and hope she'll just leave, because I just want to sleep and don't want to be roused further--kind of the way you lay very still when you've fallen alseep in the car on the way home so your dad will carry you in.
At this point, I should add that I'm currently sleeping in one of our guest bedrooms. It's dark and quiet, and allows me to flop about without disturbing Eamon. It's a disheveled little room, with a threadbare carpet and a kind of sad-making patch of plaster on its cracked, robin's-egg blue walls. Because of its dreary condition, I've always jokingly referred to it as "the haunted bedroom."
The haunted bedroom opens out onto the second story of our disgracefully dilapidated porch. When we first viewed the house, the door was marked with a sign that said, in daunting letters, "DO NOT STAND ON PORCH." We do not.
So back to our scene. I'm still drowsing, eyes shut, head under pillow, my usual sleep mode, and I sense that my mom is moving toward the door to the porch. It crosses my mind I should tell her not to go out there, as it's dangerous.
But I'm drowsy, and if I stop her, the jig is up, she'll know I'm awake, and I'll have to get up. At the very least, the sheer effort of exertion will rouse me past returning to sleep, and I really want to sleep. I let myself off the hook, thinking the odds of the porch suddenly collapsing as my mom puts her tiny frame on it are infinitesimally small, and she'll so enjoy the view. I swear I hear her going out there. She steps out for a minute, then comes back in. And I think, see, she was just curious, and everything's fine.
I remain as still as possible, as I just want her to leave so I can go back to sleep.
Then, at some point, something weird happens. It almost feels like the quilt by my face is jerked up slightly, or maybe it was that I had one of those weird sleep shudders one sometimes has--where you're drifting off to sleep and you suddenly jerk to action. I'm not sure if this happened right away or later ... but I do recall looking down toward my chest as I lay on my back, and seeing that my quilt was tented up so I could see under it. And what I see/sense is a kind of dull yellow glow. And I remember thinking, "That is just not right." And thinking I should really investigate further, but just being too sleepy to do so.
I also recall, and have no idea of the chronology in terms of when I was sensing all these things, realizing that there is no way my mother could not possibly be in the room. My mother lives in California. And I get this strange flash -- not really a vision, not really a thought -- a sort of weird sense of just "old lady" -- a stooped, white figure. Maybe white hair. Dolores, my recently passed neighbor, I muse. Or maybe Babe O'Malley. But those are really the most deliberate logical thoughts I had in the whole experience. Like that's the label I'm putting on the generic "old lady" essence that was the original impulse.
Later after this, not sure if it was few minutes or longer, I became aware of really loud irritating sounds that I couldn't make out. Eventually, I decided it was my brain trying to process the noise of workmen working on my neighbor's house ... only I realized later that those guys finished the job weeks ago. So I don't know what the hell that was.
And then, at some point, I am dead certain that someone hear someone else coming in to "check on me." I am sure it is Eamon, and again, I stay quite deliberately immobile because I don't want to get up. I want to go back to sleep.
But I give up. At this point, I think, what with the loud, irritating noises earlier, and the weird sensations, I might as well get the hell up. Besides, I can just catch Eamon to say goodbye before he leaves for work.
Only his car is gone. And when I look at my computer, I see he's online, which means he's been gone for at least a half hour.
So that's my creepy story. Serotonin run amok? Grandmotherly figure from the Other Side worried that I'm oversleeping. Who's to say?
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Crazy Crap Item #201: The part where I open myself up to the accusation of TMI
Dearest reader:
No doubt you have noted a serious decline in both the quantity and quality of my installments of insanity in the Daly household. Some have even asked: "Why no entries? Has nothing crazy happened in your life?"
In actuality, much crazy has happened. Unfortunately, the "bad" crazy has far outweighed the "good crazy," leaving me little energy or inclination to document even those blessed beneficial moments of insanity that have occasionally wafted down upon me like unto manna from heaven.
I had originally planned to weather the storm, await the return of a larger proportion of good crazy, and proceed with my labors as if the summer of 2008 had never happened.
I'm finding, though, as summer turns to fall, that celebrating the joyful crazy crap without first giving due place to the difficulties of the past few months seems somehow... dishonest...? Levity, I like to think, is my habitual frame of mind, but until I discharge this past summer's flat-out badness, any show of fun feels forced and false. And you, dear reader, deserve better than that.
So here's the deal: What follows in this post is a description of my worst summer ever. Many of you have heard part or all of this saga -- say, if you are a denizen of 1500 Norwood or have ever been to my house to watch the season premiere of Ugly Betty and eat empenadas. Those of you who have not heard the tale may simply not want to veer off the path of crazy crap comedy. If you number yourself among them, please feel free to wait for my next, hopefully more cheerful posting.
The point is, I'm sharing too much here. I know it, and I own it. So here goes: my account of "Crazy Crap Gone Bad: The Summer of 2008":
June: A fine afternoon, I prepare a meal of hummus and veggies. As a precursor, I pop a handful of Beano in my mouth. I chomp down. I feel brief pain. I chew. One tablet will not dissolve. I ponder the matter, and realize that I've actually broken a tooth.
Thankfully, my dentist can see me immediately, fits me for a crown, and glues in a temp. Two weeks later, I have a permanent crown. It doesn't feel quite right. I start to notice discomfort in my cheek. I return to the dentist and have her adjust the bite. No relief. I ask her to do it again. She tells me the bite is fine; I need to see someone about TMJ syndrome.
In the meantime: Eamon and I consult a friendly neighborhood fertility specialist vis-a-vis the baby-having (you may recall, he looks like Bob Balaban). He works up all sorts of tests, sonograms, probings and so forth. It is discovered I have not one but two uterine fibroids which require yanking. (I have recorded this bit before).
My surgery is scheduled for July 11, so I decide that I will delay doing anything about the TMJ. I know it will require weeks of physical therapy, which I won't be able to do, so we'll just wait till afters.
July 4: Eamon and I take a delightful walk on the beach, and return home to find a block party on the dreaded 1400 Norwood block. As we chat with local denizens, I'm approached by a neighbor who informs me that Dolores McDermott -- she of song and story -- has passed away suddenly. We are all stunned and saddened.
July 11: I go in for surgery. We were told to expect it to be about 2 to 3 hours long. In truth, it takes 6 hours. One of the fibroids measures 8 centimeters. I've been under anesthesia so long, they can't release me the same day, as we had expected. I spend an utterly sleepless night in the women's hospital (seriously, it's called that), counting how many seconds it takes for my decompression boots (which ensure no blood clots form) to inflate and deflate. Over and over.
Eamon gallantly offers to sleep in a recliner beside my bedside, but I send him home. He picks me up the next morning, and we arrive to the welcome of our summer block party, which I cannot attend, as I find I can barely sit upright due to the four incisions in my gut.
Recovery is much worse than I had anticipated. Pain pills seem to do nothing, my jaw pain continues, and I must lie almost exclusively on my back. And I develop some pretty severe insomnia.
My jaw pain is still troublesome, so I drag myself to the dentist a few days after surgery. She's amazed I'm standing. She suggests soft food and ibuprofin. I tell her, due to surgery, that's pretty much what I've been doing. She says after I'm recovered I should go to an oral surgeon.
Five days after surgery, I learn a project I've been working on needs a revision NOW. I manage somehow to put in something like 10 hours of work over the next couple of days, and decide to knock off when STABBING PAINS develop in my gut. Fun.
Two weeks after surgery, we receive very sad news. Our dear friend Jonathan, who has been fighting leukemia for more than three years, has received his final treatment, and it has failed. We organize with friends of Jonathan and his partner Chris to come out for support. We arrange a schedule to ensure that someone is always there to help. Eamon and I will be leaving in 2 days time, and will stay for 8 days. When we leave, we will be replaced by another friend.
July 29: We arrive in New York, and in the cab on the way to Mt. Sinai, we learn via cell phone that Jonathan's condition has suddenly declined. All friends have been summoned to New York. As such, many friends will be staying at Jonathan and Chris' apartment. We call our dear friend Michael, who lives up in Washington Heights, who selflessly offers us his bed.
I won't recount much about our time in New York. It was very, very difficult. We ended up staying 12 days, as Jonathan's condition continued to decline. We had some blessings during that time, too. A testament to Jonathan's and Chris' character is the remarkable group of friends they surrounded themselves with. Many of them I knew from my time at Northwestern University (where I met Chris), but I also met friends from other parts of their life as well as Jonathan's family. If I ever find myself spending 10 hours a day in a hospital lounge for nearly two weeks, looking on as one friend suffers and another grieves, these are the people I'd want to do it with.
August 10: We returned home. That night, at about 3am, we received the news that Jonathan had passed away.
Once the dust settled, I decided to return my attention to various of my physical ailments. As many know, I am the physical therapy queen. In the past couple of years, I've experienced chronic pain in my hip and shoulder, and done something like a year's worth of physcial therapy treatment to try to get them under control. This past summer, I got add a new ailment -- stabbing pains in my forearms and elbows that particularly hit just as I would lay down to sleep. So another trip to the orthopedist. Who sends me to physical therapy.
At PT, I learn that my PT insurance coverage for the year has been all used up, and in fact, was used up a few months ago, so I'm already paying for several visits out of pocket. I learn some nice stretches and techniques for my forearms from my therapist, and tell her, I don't think i can prioritize this now. She understands, and tells me to continue with the exercises, and come back for a check in some time if I wish.
So I cue up my next ailment: TMJ. It's now quite severe. My dentist sends me to an oral surgeon. He questions me for 3 minutes, and refers me to a physical therapist, "a miracle worker," her calls her. I see her twice a week for a month. And yes, I'm going to be paying out of pocket. She reduces my visits to once ever other week. Then she says, "Well, we have one more visit, and we're done!"
To which I say, "But I still have symptoms." And she explains that I seem to have plateaued, so in her experience, there's no point in continuing. We do my exercises. She joggles things about. I go home. And I brood. So I decide to call her an clarify.
"So," I ask her on the phone, "Am I going to be in pain for the rest of my life?" And she explains that people thing therapy is a cure, but it's not always, and though we want therapy to help, sometimes it doesn't. I ask her if there's anything else I can do. She says if I continue with my exercises, I can keep further damage from being done.
I am upset. What I'm hearing is, "yes, you will be in pain for the rest of your life." It is now September. I've been tolerating this basically never-ending pain since June.
And it is at this point that the entire deck of cards which was once my mental and physical state comes crashing down. I have been exercising about 2 hours a day for my various pained parts. I have done my TJM exercises every 2 hours for 6 weeks. And now I am to understand that none of it matters, as I will be in pain for the rest of my life.
Oh, and on Monday, I'm supposed to start fertility treatments, which entails self-injecting hormones every day and driving out to suburbs every few days to have my blood tested.
And all the while I'm thinking .... How the fuck am I going to do this.
So this is the when the uncontrollable sobbing starts. And the intense anxiety. I spend the weekend sleeping little and eating less. I somehow manage to sing at a wedding .... not sure how I pulled that off.
The weekend ends, and Monday morning, I've had something like 2 hours sleep. So Eamon and I talk. We decide to defer fertility treatments for a month. I'm supposed to see a periodontist later in the week about a gum tissue transplant I need (oh, did I forget to mention that?), and he says, "Let's see if he'll see you today." He also urges me to see my GP, who I had an appointment with later that week anyway.
The periodontist tells me to postpone the tissue transplant. He offers to do some research for specialists I could see about the TMJ.
I talk to my shrink, who insist I demand anti-anxiety meds from my GP.
I see my GP, who gives me all sorts of delicious drugs, all of which help, with the sleeping, with the eating, with the thinking, with the not sobbing constantly, which is nice.
I cancel my final appointment with my TMJ physical therapist, as it was to be a follow-up to the gum tissue surgery which I'm now not having. I receive a very effusive phone call in which she insists that she thought I had improved and that she never would've closed the door on me, and all sorts of other things that completely contradict the tone and content of our earlier conversation. I conceded I perhaps did not communicate my discomfort clearly enough, but inwardly wondered why, in our previous phone call, the questions "Will I be in pain for the rest of my life?" didn't ring any chimes for her. I let her know I will "think about" her offer to continue treatment with her.
In the interim, I call the oral surgeon who treated my mother-in-law for TMJ years ago. His assistant says he can't see me till December. He only sees patients every other Saturday. I say, fine, I'll take it. I tell her I'm hoping to become pregnant, so should I do xrays now, in case the blessed event occurs. She says I can come in for xrays any time!
So I do the next day, and a miracle occurs. By the time I get home, I have a message from the receptionist saying she explained my situation to the doctor, and that he said if I'd like to come in that night at 8:30pm, he'd see me then!!!! Calloo, Callay!!!! I happily agree.
I meet said doctor, and he is everything the last oral surgeon was not. He is kindly. He is leisurely. He wants to hear my whole story. He pats my arm reassuredly when I speak of my trip to New York. He examines my bite, moves my jaw around, pokes and probes.
His conclusion: the right side of my jaw, which has been hurting, and upon which I have lavished treatments and exercises is not the problem. It's actually the left side which is immobilized. The right side hurts because it's being over-extended.
Which simultaneously makes me want to shout for joy and scream in anger.
He recommends a treatment -- an injection of saline into the immobilized joint to wash things out. The rub: it can't be done if I'm pregnant. So... logistical headache....
Finally, I muster some clarity. I get an MRI so the doctor can confirm his suspicion. I consult my calendar and do some reproductive-related calcluations. I call doctor's office, explain situation again. Thankfully, it's the same receptionist, so she gets it. I explain that I want to go ahead and schedule the procedure, if I'm "blessed," I'll cancel it. So we schedule it.
And that brings me to now. Delicious drugs have tamped down the jaw pain and evened the mood. Decorating for Halloween has had the effect of basket-weaving on inmates in the asylum. I still sob occasionally, and have wrestled with the guilt that Eamon had to miss Roller Derby Regionals in Madison, Wisconsin, to stay home with his crazy, enfeebled wife.
But it's getting better. And now that I've enforced this catharsis on you all, mayhap we can all look forward to a finer brand of crazy crap in the future.
No doubt you have noted a serious decline in both the quantity and quality of my installments of insanity in the Daly household. Some have even asked: "Why no entries? Has nothing crazy happened in your life?"
In actuality, much crazy has happened. Unfortunately, the "bad" crazy has far outweighed the "good crazy," leaving me little energy or inclination to document even those blessed beneficial moments of insanity that have occasionally wafted down upon me like unto manna from heaven.
I had originally planned to weather the storm, await the return of a larger proportion of good crazy, and proceed with my labors as if the summer of 2008 had never happened.
I'm finding, though, as summer turns to fall, that celebrating the joyful crazy crap without first giving due place to the difficulties of the past few months seems somehow... dishonest...? Levity, I like to think, is my habitual frame of mind, but until I discharge this past summer's flat-out badness, any show of fun feels forced and false. And you, dear reader, deserve better than that.
So here's the deal: What follows in this post is a description of my worst summer ever. Many of you have heard part or all of this saga -- say, if you are a denizen of 1500 Norwood or have ever been to my house to watch the season premiere of Ugly Betty and eat empenadas. Those of you who have not heard the tale may simply not want to veer off the path of crazy crap comedy. If you number yourself among them, please feel free to wait for my next, hopefully more cheerful posting.
The point is, I'm sharing too much here. I know it, and I own it. So here goes: my account of "Crazy Crap Gone Bad: The Summer of 2008":
June: A fine afternoon, I prepare a meal of hummus and veggies. As a precursor, I pop a handful of Beano in my mouth. I chomp down. I feel brief pain. I chew. One tablet will not dissolve. I ponder the matter, and realize that I've actually broken a tooth.
Thankfully, my dentist can see me immediately, fits me for a crown, and glues in a temp. Two weeks later, I have a permanent crown. It doesn't feel quite right. I start to notice discomfort in my cheek. I return to the dentist and have her adjust the bite. No relief. I ask her to do it again. She tells me the bite is fine; I need to see someone about TMJ syndrome.
In the meantime: Eamon and I consult a friendly neighborhood fertility specialist vis-a-vis the baby-having (you may recall, he looks like Bob Balaban). He works up all sorts of tests, sonograms, probings and so forth. It is discovered I have not one but two uterine fibroids which require yanking. (I have recorded this bit before).
My surgery is scheduled for July 11, so I decide that I will delay doing anything about the TMJ. I know it will require weeks of physical therapy, which I won't be able to do, so we'll just wait till afters.
July 4: Eamon and I take a delightful walk on the beach, and return home to find a block party on the dreaded 1400 Norwood block. As we chat with local denizens, I'm approached by a neighbor who informs me that Dolores McDermott -- she of song and story -- has passed away suddenly. We are all stunned and saddened.
July 11: I go in for surgery. We were told to expect it to be about 2 to 3 hours long. In truth, it takes 6 hours. One of the fibroids measures 8 centimeters. I've been under anesthesia so long, they can't release me the same day, as we had expected. I spend an utterly sleepless night in the women's hospital (seriously, it's called that), counting how many seconds it takes for my decompression boots (which ensure no blood clots form) to inflate and deflate. Over and over.
Eamon gallantly offers to sleep in a recliner beside my bedside, but I send him home. He picks me up the next morning, and we arrive to the welcome of our summer block party, which I cannot attend, as I find I can barely sit upright due to the four incisions in my gut.
Recovery is much worse than I had anticipated. Pain pills seem to do nothing, my jaw pain continues, and I must lie almost exclusively on my back. And I develop some pretty severe insomnia.
My jaw pain is still troublesome, so I drag myself to the dentist a few days after surgery. She's amazed I'm standing. She suggests soft food and ibuprofin. I tell her, due to surgery, that's pretty much what I've been doing. She says after I'm recovered I should go to an oral surgeon.
Five days after surgery, I learn a project I've been working on needs a revision NOW. I manage somehow to put in something like 10 hours of work over the next couple of days, and decide to knock off when STABBING PAINS develop in my gut. Fun.
Two weeks after surgery, we receive very sad news. Our dear friend Jonathan, who has been fighting leukemia for more than three years, has received his final treatment, and it has failed. We organize with friends of Jonathan and his partner Chris to come out for support. We arrange a schedule to ensure that someone is always there to help. Eamon and I will be leaving in 2 days time, and will stay for 8 days. When we leave, we will be replaced by another friend.
July 29: We arrive in New York, and in the cab on the way to Mt. Sinai, we learn via cell phone that Jonathan's condition has suddenly declined. All friends have been summoned to New York. As such, many friends will be staying at Jonathan and Chris' apartment. We call our dear friend Michael, who lives up in Washington Heights, who selflessly offers us his bed.
I won't recount much about our time in New York. It was very, very difficult. We ended up staying 12 days, as Jonathan's condition continued to decline. We had some blessings during that time, too. A testament to Jonathan's and Chris' character is the remarkable group of friends they surrounded themselves with. Many of them I knew from my time at Northwestern University (where I met Chris), but I also met friends from other parts of their life as well as Jonathan's family. If I ever find myself spending 10 hours a day in a hospital lounge for nearly two weeks, looking on as one friend suffers and another grieves, these are the people I'd want to do it with.
August 10: We returned home. That night, at about 3am, we received the news that Jonathan had passed away.
Once the dust settled, I decided to return my attention to various of my physical ailments. As many know, I am the physical therapy queen. In the past couple of years, I've experienced chronic pain in my hip and shoulder, and done something like a year's worth of physcial therapy treatment to try to get them under control. This past summer, I got add a new ailment -- stabbing pains in my forearms and elbows that particularly hit just as I would lay down to sleep. So another trip to the orthopedist. Who sends me to physical therapy.
At PT, I learn that my PT insurance coverage for the year has been all used up, and in fact, was used up a few months ago, so I'm already paying for several visits out of pocket. I learn some nice stretches and techniques for my forearms from my therapist, and tell her, I don't think i can prioritize this now. She understands, and tells me to continue with the exercises, and come back for a check in some time if I wish.
So I cue up my next ailment: TMJ. It's now quite severe. My dentist sends me to an oral surgeon. He questions me for 3 minutes, and refers me to a physical therapist, "a miracle worker," her calls her. I see her twice a week for a month. And yes, I'm going to be paying out of pocket. She reduces my visits to once ever other week. Then she says, "Well, we have one more visit, and we're done!"
To which I say, "But I still have symptoms." And she explains that I seem to have plateaued, so in her experience, there's no point in continuing. We do my exercises. She joggles things about. I go home. And I brood. So I decide to call her an clarify.
"So," I ask her on the phone, "Am I going to be in pain for the rest of my life?" And she explains that people thing therapy is a cure, but it's not always, and though we want therapy to help, sometimes it doesn't. I ask her if there's anything else I can do. She says if I continue with my exercises, I can keep further damage from being done.
I am upset. What I'm hearing is, "yes, you will be in pain for the rest of your life." It is now September. I've been tolerating this basically never-ending pain since June.
And it is at this point that the entire deck of cards which was once my mental and physical state comes crashing down. I have been exercising about 2 hours a day for my various pained parts. I have done my TJM exercises every 2 hours for 6 weeks. And now I am to understand that none of it matters, as I will be in pain for the rest of my life.
Oh, and on Monday, I'm supposed to start fertility treatments, which entails self-injecting hormones every day and driving out to suburbs every few days to have my blood tested.
And all the while I'm thinking .... How the fuck am I going to do this.
So this is the when the uncontrollable sobbing starts. And the intense anxiety. I spend the weekend sleeping little and eating less. I somehow manage to sing at a wedding .... not sure how I pulled that off.
The weekend ends, and Monday morning, I've had something like 2 hours sleep. So Eamon and I talk. We decide to defer fertility treatments for a month. I'm supposed to see a periodontist later in the week about a gum tissue transplant I need (oh, did I forget to mention that?), and he says, "Let's see if he'll see you today." He also urges me to see my GP, who I had an appointment with later that week anyway.
The periodontist tells me to postpone the tissue transplant. He offers to do some research for specialists I could see about the TMJ.
I talk to my shrink, who insist I demand anti-anxiety meds from my GP.
I see my GP, who gives me all sorts of delicious drugs, all of which help, with the sleeping, with the eating, with the thinking, with the not sobbing constantly, which is nice.
I cancel my final appointment with my TMJ physical therapist, as it was to be a follow-up to the gum tissue surgery which I'm now not having. I receive a very effusive phone call in which she insists that she thought I had improved and that she never would've closed the door on me, and all sorts of other things that completely contradict the tone and content of our earlier conversation. I conceded I perhaps did not communicate my discomfort clearly enough, but inwardly wondered why, in our previous phone call, the questions "Will I be in pain for the rest of my life?" didn't ring any chimes for her. I let her know I will "think about" her offer to continue treatment with her.
In the interim, I call the oral surgeon who treated my mother-in-law for TMJ years ago. His assistant says he can't see me till December. He only sees patients every other Saturday. I say, fine, I'll take it. I tell her I'm hoping to become pregnant, so should I do xrays now, in case the blessed event occurs. She says I can come in for xrays any time!
So I do the next day, and a miracle occurs. By the time I get home, I have a message from the receptionist saying she explained my situation to the doctor, and that he said if I'd like to come in that night at 8:30pm, he'd see me then!!!! Calloo, Callay!!!! I happily agree.
I meet said doctor, and he is everything the last oral surgeon was not. He is kindly. He is leisurely. He wants to hear my whole story. He pats my arm reassuredly when I speak of my trip to New York. He examines my bite, moves my jaw around, pokes and probes.
His conclusion: the right side of my jaw, which has been hurting, and upon which I have lavished treatments and exercises is not the problem. It's actually the left side which is immobilized. The right side hurts because it's being over-extended.
Which simultaneously makes me want to shout for joy and scream in anger.
He recommends a treatment -- an injection of saline into the immobilized joint to wash things out. The rub: it can't be done if I'm pregnant. So... logistical headache....
Finally, I muster some clarity. I get an MRI so the doctor can confirm his suspicion. I consult my calendar and do some reproductive-related calcluations. I call doctor's office, explain situation again. Thankfully, it's the same receptionist, so she gets it. I explain that I want to go ahead and schedule the procedure, if I'm "blessed," I'll cancel it. So we schedule it.
And that brings me to now. Delicious drugs have tamped down the jaw pain and evened the mood. Decorating for Halloween has had the effect of basket-weaving on inmates in the asylum. I still sob occasionally, and have wrestled with the guilt that Eamon had to miss Roller Derby Regionals in Madison, Wisconsin, to stay home with his crazy, enfeebled wife.
But it's getting better. And now that I've enforced this catharsis on you all, mayhap we can all look forward to a finer brand of crazy crap in the future.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Crazy Crap Item #200: The part where James learns to spell
This latest item from my neighbor Ann, regarding a dialogue with her son James, age 4:
This morning James said upon waking up ,"I know how to spell teeth, t-o-n-e." I told him that that doesn't spell "teeth."
James --"What does it spell?"
Me -- "It spells tone"
short pause....
James -- "Oh, then I know how to spell tone"
This morning James said upon waking up ,"I know how to spell teeth, t-o-n-e." I told him that that doesn't spell "teeth."
James --"What does it spell?"
Me -- "It spells tone"
short pause....
James -- "Oh, then I know how to spell tone"
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