oh, dry up, p

     My dad was the child of poor Chinese farmers. He could get enough chicken meat off a carcass to put together two chickens. My mom was an unbelievably good Quaker who was, as incongruous as this comparison may seem, like Spock in her unwillingness to judge others.
     Above and beyond being frugal and generous by nature, both my parents were exceedingly uninterested in objects of monetary value. The single exception would be Chinese paintings, which were to be collected and preserved for one's great-great-grandchildren, who should then give them to a museum or sell them to pay for college tuition. Preferably, my dad would say, at Yale.
     I have to specify that it was objects of monetary value that were uninteresting to them. A piece of driftwood in the shape of a face, or a really good grapefruit, well, those things merited their attention and awe.
     I have not a single memory of my parents commenting on someone else's appearance or belongings, or coveting a material object beyond the driftwood/grapefruit ilk. When a car of theirs would finally sputter to its rusty end, they would surrender it to the junkyard and pick up another lowest end VW.
     They did not shop for clothes, decorative items, tools, appliances, furniture, electronics. These things appeared in their lives because friends and offspring brought them into their house. Since my dad's nickname was Little Frog, they had more frog carvings and candlesticks than you could shake a stick at. They had the same couch all my life, and when we asked Goodwill to come and get it after my parents died, it took four unhappy men to move it. It had been made back in the Stone Age, after all; it was like the Flintstones' couch.
     Food they bought--by the VW-ful--but I don't think purchasing food to serve the constant flow of company counts as materialism. They were just feeding all the people who brought the knick knacks.
     It's lovely, this legacy, but hard to match in my own floppy character. I do covet things. Not a lot, but enough to disapprove of myself. Close blog followers will remember that I can and do wear the same clothes for several days in a row. Honestly, I only wash my jeans because I see Laura throwing hers in the laundry (with what I feel is alarming frequency), and now and then I think she will be pleased to see that I have thought of tossing mine in as well. Did you know that people wash jeans so that they look more "crisp"? This is a WASP secret she revealed to me not long ago.
     I'm having a very non-Quakerly, non-poor Chinese farmer reaction to the process of getting Laura launched in "our" (we try to remember to say "our," but even that effort tells you something) new co-op in Hastings-on-Hudson. The kitchen and bathroom are both being redone before she moves in. It needs a new fridge, a new dishwasher, a new microwave, stove, shower, sinks, a shiny new toilet. With her new job comes a new iPhone, a new laptop, a new iPad. And now that she will be commuting, today she picked up a new car--one that is better on gas and equipped with Bluetooth. That last decision I, worrier that I am about her careening along the highway manipulating a phone and a 3,000 pound car at the same time, fully support. Still, I climb into my perfectly good 2003 car and feel sorry for myself. Then--worse--I feel terrible about feeling sorry for myself, when I actually have so much more than I need. So much more.
     But it's taking place, within me, that unseemly little pout. Laura is going off to be Superwoman at a fabulous school where they put up signs welcoming her and throw parties in her honor, and I am staying in Farmington. She gets to drive the new car and I get to take over the kitty litter.
     I know it's more complicated than this. My pout about stuff is covering a lot of anxiety about our impending separation. But for the moment I am falling painfully short of my own expectations. My inner jerk is having a heyday. I am hoping that exposing it to the light in this way will force it to dry up.
     

back to normal

Here we are serenading Laura's sister, Kim, before turning out the lights. Things seem back to normal.

(P.S., the video doesn't seem to work on iPads, which also seems normal)

tired old ass soak

Today Laura and I went in for the post-op appointment with the surgeon, who I guess likes to check out her work after it's all crusty and dried. It must be kind of odd to see the wounds she so expertly made and last saw bright red and angry, now two weeks old. Time has passed, glue has peeled off or curled up, bruises have yellowed, lint is back in the navel. Life and the healing process have just been puttering along doing their thing.

When you are BRCA positive, the lab picks apart your excised organs and pipes with great attention, looking for errant cancer cells that might be hiding behind a pole or a plant. I am delighted to report that there are no such cells. The report was entirely clean. Which is great. It's great. No question. But it's also sort of...gee. Sorry about that, bits. Sorry about removing you while you were enjoying being healthy.

I got the green light from the surgeon today to take my first post-op bath, and had planned to make a shallow dive into the tub tonight. When we got home, there was a care package from Loyal Blog Follower and Giver Extraordinaire, Marilyn Morrissey. In it was a jar of bath salts labeled "Tired Old Ass Soak." Tired old ass indeed. And it does need a soak. I am loving the synchronicity of it all.

Cannonball!

insomnia

     This torment should not be called insomnia. Insomnia sounds sweet, like ambrosia, that drink of the Greek gods. That's the stuff that made you immortal, right? Which actually is what you sort of feel, with desperation, around 2:30 in the morning. Maybe this night will last forever. Maybe I will be awake forever.        
     I suffered from inflammation of the somniatic sac last night. That's sounds more accurate. Or maybe somnitis, somnitosis. Something with pain.
     Laura saw it coming, which made it worse. T'ai was visiting from New York, and had borrowed the car to drive to Mystic for a wedding. He texts, around 10:00: They have booked some hotel rooms for out-of-towners, so I may stay. Okay, we say. Have fun! Then, soon thereafter: I think I will come home, but will be late.
     Laura thinks, uh oh, but types in my falsely chipper dictation: Okay, sweetie. Be careful. See you in the morning!
     How late can late be, right? I stay late at a party and it's...well, gee, I don't stay late at a party. But parties tend to end by 9:30 anyway, I think. Maybe 10:00 when things are really on a roll.
     He must be about to leave, then.
     He must be about to leave by now.
     He must have left by now.
     He must be on the road.
     Maybe he has been hit by a drunk driver.
     Maybe the car exploded and they can't find our address anywhere.
     How will I ever survive without T'ai?
     What is wrong with me? Sometimes parties go until midnight!
     He must be about to leave.
     It's 1:30. I will text him so I don't wake Laura. T'ai, ignore my earlier lecture about texting and driving, and just send one character or letter to let me know you are okay.
     Hm. 1:33, 1:37, 1:41. I will check for his response less often. 1:47. 1:48. Oops.
   
     My ancestor must have been the one that paced at the entrance of the cave until everyone came back safely from the hunt. I'm just going to go look at the horizon one more time. Save my place on this bed of leaves, woudja? I'm sure she was a nice person, but sometimes it feels like all she passed me was that funky BRCA gene and this anxiety.
     2:25. Here comes T'ai! Thank God, thank God, thank God.
     I wonder if he closed the garage door.


     

if it weren't for the peritoneal tissue in the way

     The night following surgery, the doctor-in-training is checking out my incisions. She points out the glue that covers each one; a clear, shiny layer that does the trick stitches used to do. Yes, I say, I recognize that glue. I've gotten it on my fingers doing little repair projects around the house. I'm not trying to be funny, really. Superglue does sometimes find its way onto one's fingertips, and the little layer remains for days. But I am curious as to whether this person will engage with me, or if she is following a script. Well, she says. This glue we applied on purpose, to close your incisions. 
     Oh oh. She thinks I don't get that.
     Do you have any questions? she asks. It's generally risky to ask me if I have any questions, particularly when there is nothing else occupying my attention. Particularly if I am trying to see if you will engage with me. I can always come up with questions. Just ask me.
     Will my bladder retain its integrity? That's the foremost question, and a serious one. I count on my bladder, and want to trust its integrity. I worry that now that its roommates have moved out, it will think it owns the place. No one wants a bladder that cranks the music, leaves trash around, lives like a slob.
     Yes, she says. The surgery should not affect the integrity of the bladder.
     That's good news.
     Any chance the operation might have affected my personal integrity?
     No, she answers, oblivious to or uninterested in the woozy twinkle in my eye. The operation has not been shown to affect one's integrity one way or the other.
     Pity. On a couple of levels, pity.
     I try one more time. Is it theoretically possible now for me to reach in and get at a tickle in my throat from the inside?

     I'm afraid not, she says. There is a band of peritoneal tissue blocking your way.
     THAT'S the problem with reaching in to get at a tickle in my throat from underneath? She has trumped and stumped me. I flop back on the bed. For once I am fresh out of questions.

haiku

Almost the moment I turned 50, my ovaries began petering out. That September, I wrote this Haiku in their honor:

Tiny firecrackers!
Celebrating fifty years
Ovaries go bang.

I liked that haiku, back then in 2005, particularly with its reference to firecrackers -- a nod to my Chinese ancestors and how they liked to celebrate. In the spirit of historical accuracy, I will admit that there is no evidence that our Chinese ancestors actually marked menopause with firecrackers.

It's a pet peeve of mine that some people think you can write "Haiku" by just stringing together some short lines, willy nilly. Even if people try to keep to the correct 5-7-5 syllable form, sometimes the line breaks don't make sense. So you get exasperating creations like this:

At end of fifty
years, ovaries starting to
go bang. bang. bang. bang. 

It hurts, right? It just plain hurts to read bad Haiku.

You know what else hurts?  My bod. Here is exhibit A.

I was going to try to photoshop a connect-the-dot drawing that included all my frontal scars -- the five new ones from Tuesday, the vertical scar that marks Yani's birth, and the two horizontal ones where my breasts used to be. But all the designs I came up with required a terrible stretch of one's imagination, like the way we all pretend that Ursa Major resembles a great bear. Sure.

Instead, this goodbye message to my bits, through Percoset fog:


Must you go so soon?
Sorry 'bout the mutant gene.
Thanks for the great kids.

...although, strictly speaking, tradition says that Haiku should have some reference to nature. So here is a more proper one:

Sacred cave is dark.
Small light appears with the dawn.
Laura bringing meds.

so far so very good

There was no reason for us to expect any kind of funkiness in my colon, but then again, Laura and I are both a little spooked of late, and we had begun to peer around corners expecting unpleasant surprises. Colons are funky in and of themselves, besides. Who knows what they are really up to when we're not looking.

My colon is just chugging along doing its business, it turns out. I feel proud of it today, and so grateful that it is healthy. Its life is as quiet and unassuming as my own.

Unassuming. I wonder if I could do something with that word here. Colonoscopies, despite our shared terror of the awful news they might bring, seem to beg for references to everything coming out all right in the end, this too shall pass, and so on, but those are so overused. I hadn't thought of ass words. I'll bet I could come up with an assortment of those.

ANYway, the fast is going fine. I'm hungry, but not even remotely delirious. I am relieved. It would be a bummer to be delirious and hungry.

A bummer! Gee, bum words are yet another untapped resource.

Maybe I am delirious after all. Well.

I just wanted to post, because I promised I would, to say that the colonoscopy is behind me.

Behind me! Oh, man.