Cupid prevails

There is a lot going on, and I hope to write in a few days as a diversion while I am undergoing prep, beginning April Fool's Day, for the colonoscopy on April 2 and the hysterectomy and oophorectomies on April 3. I won't be able to eat for 48 hours, so I imagine it might be therapeutic to channel my delirium onto the blog.

But for the moment, simply this. Here is a felt heart that Laura and I tuck, surreptitiously if possible, into each other's front pocket, back and forth between us.

On Sunday I had left the heart in my jeans pocket when we did laundry. Also in the pocket was a toothpick. Damage from chemotherapy, coupled with aging, means I am able to store vast quantities of food in the crevices of my receding gums, you see. I rarely venture out unequipped.

Sticking to the side of the washer at the end of the cycle were arrow and heart, entangled, no doubt, as we all are, during the spin cycle of life.

I love when I notice that the Universe is winking at me. It really is such a rascally flirt.

gee whiz

Last July, insurance companies changed the criteria for covering genetic testing for a certain type of breast cancer patient. Those who have "triple negative" hormone receptors, a small percentage of breast cancer folk, seem to have a statistically significant risk for subsequent cancers. So at my most recent onco check-up, they suggested I take advantage of the new guidelines, and get tested. Chances are small that I'd be positive, especially since my only family history of breast cancer came from Grandma Ruby, who was diagnosed at age 104. For some reason, Grandma declined treatment.

Here is the statistical scene:
12% of American women will get breast cancer.
20% of those will be triple negative, bearing the more aggressive, less treatable type of cancer.
5% of those triple negative patients actually have the BRCA-2 gene mutation.
I learned yesterday that I have the mutation. Given how I have defied remarkable odds at every step of the way, I feel like maybe I should get a lottery ticket or something. I had up to an 87% chance of getting breast cancer from the time I drew my first breath.

The good news is that I can stop wondering about whether I ate too much Halloween candy, judged myself or others too harshly, enjoyed too many Cheetos, indulged in too many strips of crisp turkey skin on Thanksgiving, or just what I did to get cancer. I got born.

And am I glad I did! But gee whiz.

P.S. Good news for the medical geeks who follow this blog: my female plumbing, all the basement pipes and pumps, will be removed, soon. Gory details to follow.

displacement behavior

Upon graduation from college this May, our youngest child, Yani, will be looking for work in the place on Earth that has been voted most likely to fall into the ocean. This is how I see a move to the Bay Area. She is undaunted. "Everyone tells me you should live in California once in your lifetime," she says. To comfort me, she adds, "I'll be back for grad school or to have babies."

She and Laura are on their way to San Francisco this weekend to check it out. It's best that I stay home. I would be jumping on the sidewalk with all my might in an effort to trigger a tremor just to prove my point. While they are looking for cool aspects of California (there are apparently a few), I would be searching for reasons for her not to move there. Last night we were all on our computers at the kitchen table: Yani was counting Chinatown restaurants that serve soup dumplings, Laura was looking at IKEA cabinets, and I was playing Words With Friends and coming up with things like "WAIL" and "HOME."

It's unusual for Yani and me to be on such different pages, and I'm unhappy about it. I wish either she would change her mind or I would become a more enlightened being. Both seem like such remote possibilities, though.

I busied myself this morning by going to Goodwill and buying a few brightly colored men's cotton shirts. Note: the shirts were brightly colored; not the men. I washed them (again: the shirts, not the men), then cut them into small squares (I will assume you're with me on this being about the cloth for the rest of the story) and put them in my waiting room bathroom so my clients can dry their hands on old shirt pieces instead of paper towels. If I can't be enlightened, at least I can do this small thing for the Earth. 

I can say with some confidence that as the nest truly empties -- of children, aging pets, and my spouse herself -- I'm going to be doing more such projects. I hope I will be inspired to branch out beyond squares of cotton, because already in the past few weeks I've made more handkerchiefs than you can shake a stick at, using a torn shirt of Laura's and discarded pajama pants of Yani's. Alone and left to my own devices, no cotton garment will be safe. 

Accept All Changes

When you're in the "track changes" mode in Word, there's a final step where you have to click on "accept all changes." Once you've done that, you're good to go. I'm just putting it out there that if the Universe could offer an existential app called "accept all changes," it would be a major hit. Worth way more than the usual $4.99 of the very dandiest apps.

Some people crave change. When there hasn't been change in awhile, they get restless. They rearrange the furniture of their home or of their lives; they switch things up. It must occasionally be a high price to pay: that restlessness. But then again, they have this nifty flexibility that those of us who generally say "Not for me, thanks. I'm good" to change, don't.

Laura and I are in each other's lives for very good reason. It's so trite: Yin meets Yang. Yin rides the brakes and Yang is lead-footed on the gas pedal. We each keep a hand on the steering wheel, and you know what? Despite the circuitous scenic route we inevitably take, it works. I pump the brakes whenever she wants to steer towards getting a goat farm in Vermont. "Say the word, P! Just say the word and we can do it!"

But Laura's foot is on the gas pedal, and instead of heading to the goat farm, she accelerates toward a job in New York. Of course she does; she needs to. I want her to. But the change is hard.

My separation anxiety is showing up in strange ways. For years, Laura has harped on the advantages of a good, warm, sleeveless vest in our chilly house in the winter. "Keeps your core warm!' she says. Core schmore. My arms are cold. Not for me, thanks. I'm good. Puffy vests have always seemed like those sleeveless turtlenecks. Make up your mind already. You don't get to be winterwear and summerwear. But in the face of our impending lifestyle change, suddenly I had to have a vest. I wear it all the time now.  I know this weird change of clothes and heart came from separation anxiety. My new vest is keeping some kind of core of me warm.

Okay, everyone gets to change their mind about something like a vest. Stranger is my new fondness for goat cheese. All my life, goat cheese has been repellent to me. My beloved brother Lee had two goats when we were young. Their names were Nova and Capricia, and they were mother and daughter, as I recall. Lee built stalls for them in the barn, and fed them and routinely cleaned up the Milk Duds they dropped everywhere. Sometimes I would walk to the barn with him in the dark of night to keep him company. Do you know what goat stalls smell like? Go to Whole Foods, back in the cheese section, over there to the left. Open up that little roll of a package, and you can bring Nova and Capricia back to life. 


Laura has always had to double wrap the goat cheese she insists on buying. If I smell it in the fridge, I have a flashback to the poopy stalls of yore. But suddenly, as I anticipate Laura's being away 4 or 5 nights a week, I'm liking the goat cheese. You just have to believe me; I know it's related. 


We are having more long talks than ever, which, were you to be a fly on the wall, would astound you. The flies on our walls know that Laura and I talk all the time. That's all we do; we walk and talk. Sometimes I think the only reason I have a counseling practice is to engage in deep talk because Laura has other things to do. 


I've worried about feeling left out. I hardly, hardly ever feel unhappy about being left out. Leave me out of most social gatherings, I beg of you. But the people at her new school seem smart, kind, and funny. They'll probably engage in witty banter. Waah, I want witty banter, I wail to myself. I'll just be this phantom spouse who lives in Connecticut (snort). Connecticut!? Might as well be a goat farm in Vermont, to New Yorkers.


Yesterday I picked a fight with Laura about my feeling left out of the action. It's not her fault, but sometimes it's hard. There are announcements and press releases and cocktail parties being scheduled in her honor. I am doing things like advising whether the invitations should include her middle initial or not. But our fights are so gentle; neither wants to hurt the other, and we are excruciatingly careful of fighting fairly. I open with this: "I think I am not doing a great job of expressing my needs." Pow! What a punch.


Poor Laura is trying to help me work through this separation anxiety. On today's walk, she asked me to think big about my life. To someone who doesn't crave change, that's a funny question. "What's your biggest, biggest fantasy for your life, P?" she asks, eyes wide with enthusiasm. I think hard, and then say, "To see clients only two days a week, and to write the rest of the time." A beat, and then, incredulous, she asks, "That's your biggest fantasy?" To her, I think it was like she had offered the best meal of all time, and I had ordered oatmeal, with walnuts, blueberries, and maybe a dab of butter (actually sounds pretty good, doesn't it?).


Next time she asks--which she will, because Yang likes questions like these--I will tell her the deeper truth. My biggest, biggest fantasy is to be able to gracefully accept all changes.

apartment hunting

Laura and I have been apartment hunting. We have driven to New York four times in the past 12 days. I'm afraid we are leaving a terrible footprint, like one left by huge galoshes in mud, with all this driving. Generally I drive about 12 miles a week, to and from Whole Foods on Sunday. Maybe twice that if we run out of kale mid-week. Now we are just burning gasoline like crazy.

We are getting the opportunity to watch the progress of various construction projects along Route 84. We also have learned where the hawks generally hang out, and have clocked distances between any number of towns. We've begun to notice things off the exits that we've never noticed before. "That toilet was decent. What exit number was that?"or "Hey, I just saw a hardware store right off that exit. That'll be handy."

On the first trip, we looked at 8 apartments; among them was a two-bedroom co-op that we fell in love with. The owner accepted our offer and three days later we drove back to have it inspected. This was less than a week after Laura had gotten the job; we were moving quickly.

It wasn't until we got the disappointing news that we don't qualify for a mortgage (of ANY size!) that we began to see that we were moving TOO quickly. Maybe we were about to make a big emotional purchase anyway. Maybe we shouldn't get a place that big, if just Laura is going to be there most of the time and is coming home for weekends. Maybe getting excited about that place was a way of coping with the separation anxiety. Maybe we were too excited about Laura's having gotten the job. She'll be getting paychecks again! Woo hoo! Let's get sushi and buy an apartment!

Turns out the bank is attached to paychecks, too. Actually, they are mostly attached to the "two most recent paystubs." Which we don't have, since Laura is taking the year off and I work on my own. So no mortgage. They weren't even impressed by the nice contract letter signed by the nice Head of School on nice school letterhead.

So we have to figure out a way to buy an apartment OUTRIGHT. That's a bit of a game changer. For some reason, we are no longer stumbling upon apartments we love.

Looking for an apartment is a weird process no matter how you slice it. One place, for example, was completely empty except for a case of beer in the fridge and two large closets filled with dozens of identical black suits. It would have to be an otherwise perfect place for me to get past that. I dunno.

You end up making choices based on things you'd rather not admit to; like the apartment we said "nahhh" to because the welcome mat for the place next to it said, "WELCOME TO MY CRIB" and three doors down, the not-so-welcome mat said, "POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS." I don't know; I feel bad about it, but it didn't feel like home to me.

We've made another offer on another apartment, about half the size of the one we loved. It needs lots of work. And if you go outside and walk about 30 steps, this apartment has the same view that other one did. Except with that first apartment, you could have the view while you were inside, which was a nice feature. But Laura and I are learning a lot about letting go.

More soon. Laura is away for a few days, and I'm thinking too much about being apart next year. If I hadn't had the blog tonight, I'm afraid I would have gone out for a drive.

The walk worked

Saturday morning she got the call, and today we got permission to tell our world: beginning in July, Laura will be the Principal of the Upper School at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City. New York is the place where all the people live, and where they know how to dress. I'm told that in some parts of New York, little girls can walk in heels by the time they're 10 and little boys can tie a tie. The people have learned not to say hello to other people on the street, and it works for them. Saves a lot of time, I guess.

We both have a lot to learn.

Fortunately, the school itself seems quite friendly and down-to-earth. Fieldston is a progressive school --and actually I should put that in caps. Fieldston is a "Progressive School," which is an Actual Thing you can Google. The search committee members were very warm and kind at the meet-the-spouse dinner, and seemed to want things to go as smoothly as I did. They seemed to follow my mind and its wanderings. And most of them ordered the flan, too. I think we will get along well.

Laura and I will get to see what it's like to be together only on weekends, a serious downside to an otherwise fantastic turn of events. I think my blog may become my best friend in her absence, so don't go anywhere. Despite my genuine happiness about the job for Laura, I had several nightmares last night -- testament to my anxiety, I suppose, about all the changes afoot. The bottom half of my face fell off as I tried to ask for help, for example. I hate when that happens.

But overall, we are very happy about this upcoming adventure. It is important to mention, since I ranted in my previous post about the glass ceiling on Laura's career, that the Head of Fieldston wrote in his announcement to our new community: Please join me in welcoming Laura, her wife, Dr. Paula Chu, and their three grown children, Yani, Ting, and T’ai.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: you've just got to love evolution.

Let Robin drive the Batmobile

Laura is in the running for a big job in New York City. Toward the end of this week she's having a daylong, second-round interview, meeting the whole family. It is just about all we are talking about on our long walks these days.

Given her experience, ability, and Lauraness, Laura ought to have been a head of a school for the past ten years or so. But her forehead is bruised by bumps against a thick glass ceiling. People around us seem surprised. Surely not, they say. Surely we have shattered glass roofs and ceilings and the cloudless sky is the limit on Laura's career. But no. There are exactly zero boarding schools (where Laura has spent 30 years) in the country with a Head of School who is gay. Though dozens of search consultants have approached Laura over the years, when she tells them who will be flossing next to her in the Head's house, the message changes from "we are desperate for you to apply," to "well, we still welcome your application." It's enough to make me want to stop flossing.

So that's a lot of why this past summer Laura left her ten-year post as second-in-command at a school she loves. Not the flossing; the ceiling.

Laura makes a great Robin: she has a remarkable gift for supporting Batman. She can make him look sharp, watch his back while he careens around town doing his thing, getting his credit -- whether that superhero is a student, a colleague, a head of school, or a spouse. Heck, in many cases she has taught Batman to drive. So career-wise, it's frustrating when you can do that, and you know Batman will never pass you the keys to the Batmobile. You have to sit in the back all the time. You get frustrated and carsick.

Laura and I have had a wonderful few months together while she figures out where-to-from-here. My eyes still bug out when I come out of session and supper is on the table, the library books have been returned, and there is a bowl of peeled grapes on the table. Okay, that last bit hasn't happened. That would be weird. But having Laura around most of the time, when I am accustomed to her working 65 hours a week, has been fabulous. She tells me that when she was a long distance runner, the most important day in her training was the day of rest. This year, she is having that rest.

But we can only manage that for one academic year, and then back to making dough she must go. She also needs to go back to being part of a community. Laura was born to lead, even if it means being Robin, being second in command.

Now and then Laura thinks maybe she should be a counselor again. She's done that before. In three different schools in fact, she's started out as counselor and then, like a rubber ball held under your bathwater, she bobs up to the top. The Head taps her to be Robin. She doesn't ask for these roles; she just bobs up to the top.

Having Laura do what I do would be like having Secretariat give pony rides at the county fair. What a waste of leadership muscle.

Aaaanyway, we are gearing up for this interview! I won't say where it is, but it is at another school she thinks she could love -- maybe even as much as she loves the school she felt she needed to leave. I am tossing her questions and lobbing her fer-instances. And I am coaching her on how female candidates walk around a new campus. Not that I want her to be anyone but the boxer-wearing, shoulder-swaying, tooth-flossing wife I love! But let's face it: we want her to put her best foot -- not shoulder -- first.

Here is Laura walking before today's tutorial at the reservoir:

Here is Laura walking with instructions to move her arms, not her shoulders. You be the judge. Who's Robin now?