Fragile Industries

The Woman Who Mistook Her Brain For A Dog

Lazarus walks -- I'm yet again clearing out the Return Of The Collyer Brothers around the house, particularly in my studio.  When it’s tamed in there, I may unearth all the constituent parts of several projects languishing since March and finish them.  Two art books, one altered book, and the long-awaited vintage family album of photos taken between the Civil War and 1900.  This result is the happy outcome of some brain science I've been reading about.  The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge describes the revolutionary advances in the field of neuroplasticity. It's a great follow-up to all the Oliver Sacks books about "funny brains" I've gobbled since the first of the year.

Basically, neuroplasticity is how the brain can and does physically wire and re-wire itself, adapting to brain injury, using unused territory, making new and breaking old connections.  Old school neurology thought that various skills were locked into specific sites, and while the normal brain has its preferences, its physiology is sufficiently plastic, i.e. changeable, to adapt. Electrical activity in the neurons and its chemical environment work symbiotically.  Brain chemistry reinforces bad or good neuronal associations, from fetishes and addictions to stoic strengths.  We all sorta knew this instinctively, but brain scans and other recent advances in mapping show just how dramatically this theory plays out. The useful part is knowing how to train or re-train brains, impaired or otherwise.  Unwittingly, I've served as my own lab rat, or lab dog, as it were, over the last few years.

For me, 2003-2004 were such emotionally ghastly years that it bent my brain, more than it was already bent, which was considerably.  In the midst of the worst psychic pain of my life, I was committed to tasks that all involved organization, planning, creating (or trying to create) order out of chaos: house remodeling with limited funds, sorting and packing acres of possessions for three separate moves, the logistics of divorce and selling a house, etc.  I also embarked obsessively on physical self-improvement.  It just so happened that the accompanying brain chemistry and emotions were agonizing, so the payoff was more misery for completing these tasks.  (If they ever got finished ... I'm still cleaning up messes from 5 years ago.)  In effect, I was giving myself a mental training consisting of "good dog, here’s your whipping, and NO biscuit."  Like that beaten dog, my badly trained brain then whimpered and trembled when presented with any similar job -- whether actual physical clutter, attending to my diet and exercise, more abstract business or financial organization, or bringing any, ANY, plan to completion.  I thought that my mental abilities for these things, marginal at best, had become permanently lost, like speech for a stroke victim.

Well, neuroplasticity studies have shown hope for mistreated dogs and aphasiatics. "Neurons that fire together wire together," even damaged ones, and improvement can appear with astonishing rapidity when specially designed exercises are given to autistics, ADD's, OCD's, and brain injury patients, especially via computer.  I found a curative exercise in the unlikely and unexpected form of a computer game.  I normally avoid them, but I played "Hell's Kitchen" once and LURVED it so much that I bought it and played for 30-60 minutes every day for the past couple of weeks.  The game is idiotic on the surface.  It's based on the cooking reality show, where contestants run a restaurant under a tyrannical chef and brutal time constraints -- juggling customers, cooking, prioritizing service and preparation tasks.  The game didn't teach me knife skills or recipes, but as I got good at it, I was training, with positive rewards for completion, my ability to break down chaos into manageable tasks in an orderly fashion.  I found I had better mental energy all day if I played the game for about half an hour first thing in the morning.

 Within a week, I was able to start clearing clutter for short periods without panic attacks, and handled other small but long delayed jobs that formerly left me bedridden just to contemplate.  I made the connection between game and increased functionality only a couple of days ago, and it's undeniable.  Compared to less bent brains, I'm barely crawling, but I continue to improve and feel at no risk of overtraining and ending up as anal as Martha Stewart.  I plan to treat my beaten dog of a brain better in the future -- "Good dog, THREE biscuits!"

What confounds me, now that I’ve experienced a full cycle of neuroplasticity in action, is how some people facing even more agonizing psychic and work/life demands do not end up crippled.  I have a friend who endured two solid years of unimaginable emotional wreckage and adversity, yet she soldiers on, a little shaky, but intact.  I started with less skill and worse brain chemistry, I know, and maybe her coping abilities were just too hard-wired to break.  In other words, her dog could survive without biscuits for a while.  A close relation also had a full-life catastrophic meltdown, and very publicly, to boot.  I’m sure he has private scars, but he’s still in the game. Some folks have neuronal wiring as resilient under stress as a pit bull; fortunately, these friends are much less likely to bite.  

How’s your dog doing these days? Sit, Ubu, sit.

PS: It's amazing how many hits my blog gets through Google searches for "Collyer Brothers."  Occasionally, someone leaves an anguished comment about the effects of compulsive cluttering and hoarding.  There's not much out there to read -- it's a hidden illness by its nature until exposed by a dramatic denoument, as with the Collyer Brothers.  My version is mild and the improvement merely anecdotal, but suggestive.  Perhaps more serious cases could benefit from similar neural calisthenics.  If a neuroplasticity researcher stumbles across this account, I urge this for your next grant application.  It could be an interesting study.

While I was otherwise distracted ...

I've been a somewhat abstracted correspondent to the Fragile Industries Chronicles for the past month or so.  The occasional knitting report notwithstanding, I've been not entirely, what, engaged in my ego-driven monologue here.  The thing is, I had a bad mammogram.  After three years of ignoring my duty towards my annual exams.  My bad.  So I waited until I had the whole story.

This health care ignorance was not the result of cheerful denial, but rather due to insurance nonexistence.  Due to my co-insured's decision to not pick up his half of the bills, I decided that $453 a month for both of us was too much to pay by myself so fuck him.  And, unfortunately, fuck myself because, once not under a general health policy, I turned out to be uninsurable on an individual policy, even a catastrophic health policy with a $5,000 deductible.  I had, under the prior joint coverage, the bad taste to go to a loony bin, and future insurers therefore viewed me as a bad risk.  "But I'm not seeking mental health coverage," I said to the various insurers who turned me down.  "Under California law,." said the oh-so-reasonable insurers, "we are required to provide mental health coverage, and we must factor that in.  The lower rates are only available to those who do not present a bad risk for any of these coverages."  What that meant was that I could not obtain individual catastrophic coverage for less than $500 a month.  At those prices, it was cheaper, so I thought, to pay cash and take my chances.  Thanks to whoever decided that mental health coverage was mandatory, therefore an automatic denial was meted out to anyone who had any need not only for mental health coverage, but also more pedestrian health concerns.

So, since 2005, I pretended I did not have breasts or a cervix or uterus.  The annual women's exam was a high-priced exercise in "no news is good news."  Then my dear friend of decades past, my law school study partner, the bride to whom I was bridesmaid and vice versa, got her own bad news about her hooter health and had to face a malignancy.  "What can I do for you?" I asked.  She replied, "Go get a mammogram."  So I faced the out-of-pocket nether zone of "cash patient," found a doctor willing to risk a bad check and went for my annual. This included a blood panel.  My Pap turned out to be the expected non-news event, all clear, but the blood work revealed that my thyroid had dropped to barely perceptible levels.  Much lower and all metabolic function ceases entirely, i.e., death.  Turns out that at least one-third of post-menopausal women have low thyroid.  This would explain a whole lot of things, such as my ebbing energy levels and semi-chronic depression, and the 30-pound weight gain and 30 point cholesterol jump.  Take heed, all women over 50 who read these tales: it could be you.  Within 10 days of one very cheap prescription later, I felt oodles of energy, a lift in spirits, and my skin and hair improved to tameable levels.  I mean, this is a beauty boost, never mind the endrocrinological benefits.  I don't need to look for more and better plastic surgery.  Just take the thyroid pills.

So nothing but good news until my mammogram results.  I had reported to the imaging center and had watched with some amusement as my hooters were compressed to the diameter of tractor tires, and held my breath while some sadist tickled odd, distorted images of my tissues.  A few days later, I got a callback.

Why, when I had the brief illusion that I was an actress, had I never had a callback?  My tits garnered more interest than my 1970's audition monologue from "Waiting for Godot."  So I reported back for more boob compression.  My right tit was deemed unremarkable, but my left garnered me an immediate appointment with the ultrasound room.  There, in a more magisterial gloom and hush than the mammogram room, I was swabbed with cold gel and poked and prodded with a device that resembled a staple gun, and watched as images appeared on the screen that looked like every photo of the Loch Ness Monster ever recorded.  The technician pulled a long face and went to hobnob with her fellow wizards. Then a male radiologist manned the helm, or staple gun, and after much fussing about, pronounced my left titty to be worthy of a biopsy.  I told him that I couldn't tell what the hell was causing the furor, and he was very helpful.  As the first male to have touched me in such regions in two years, he had my attention.  He prodded my fatty tissue about with the gizmo, then pointed to the screen and showed me what looked like a jellybean.  "This," he announced, "is questionable."  It was novel since my 3 year old images.  "It could just be a fibroplasmia something something, but it could be something else."

OK, let's find out, I said.  Well, that took a special needle, on back order, and would be at least three weeks, but don't worry.

Right.

So I had an ultrasound-guided vacuum-needle biopsy scheduled for the 21st of April.  Fine.  I made the appointment, went home in good spirits, then I realized that all these professionals were getting their knickers in a twist about the possibility of CANCER.  The big C.  Let's call it what it might just be.  No more denial.  And I'm uninsured.  I am in an enviable position among the uninsured.  I have family with resources.  Should I need really expensive care, there are bank accounts, not my own, into which I could tap, so I wouldn't be completely without options.  But that pissed me off.  I don't want to bankrupt parents who did nothing more than conceive me and have good moral sense.  And I'm not some feckless will o' the wisp, relying on the kindness of blood kin to bail me out of some malignancy.  I'd tried to do the responsible thing for health care, and had been shown the door marked "bad risk."

I went to my best friend, the internet, and found a plan within Medi-Cal called "Every Woman Counts."  Based on income only, not assets, it guarantees every woman whose income is below a certain level to annual exams and coverage for female bad news, like cervical or breast cancer.  Over the phone, I was qualified and was then sent a package of information and lists of appropriate folks with whom I could consult.  I brought them my reports, mammo and ultrasound screens, and they agreed that the biopsy was the logical next step.

I let slip my uncertain cellular status to a select few angels, and asked for good thoughts on the day of the biopsy.  I was, to a humbling degree, rewarded with email, phone, snail mail and other support, and promises of prayer and other sacrifices to my heavenly credit.

It's hard to pick out the most blatant demonstration of love, but bragging rights probably go to my dear pal who shall remain nameless.  He's been witness to much bad behavior, my compradre, and partner in crime since 1990.  He performed the wedding ceremony for my most recent ex-husband and myself in 1995.  When I told him of my situation and that I was uninsured, he drawled, "Well, I married you once already, sugar."  My dear darling big gay brother would  share his excellent health benefits with me in the only way recognized by the legal system, as that system would deny him those benefits and rights should he have a spouse of the same gender.  "We've always been outlaws, honey," he purred.  I have never been so grateful for a proposal, and this was not my first.  I have never, also, been the recipient of such a gesture of absolute love and generosity.  After a few hours to mull it over, I accepted, provisionally, the proposal.   If the results of the biopsy were positive, with all that might entail, I would become his wife.

My mother (my roommate, here in Bakersfield-by-the Sea, at Casa de Gray Gardens) was over the moon, of course, and was having fun planning a beach wedding.  Mom would be best man or bridesmaid, depending on her whim, and she would finance a white linen Armani suit for the groom.  My groom's mother, another Dorothy, aged 82 or so, could be flower girl, and maybe, just for symmetry, we could talk my most recent ex-husband into pronouncing the vows.  It all escalated into wonderful heights of silliness while we avoided thinking about what might bring it all about.

The morning (mind you, this was an EARLY morning) of my exam, just as I'd fished my keys out of the black hole I call my purse and I was heading my newly bathed and shaved bodily parts towards the door, I got a call from the imaging center.  The radiologist would be out that day.  I would have to wait a week.  I rescheduled, as that was my only option, but I warned the other end of the line that if I heard the radiologist had merely been improving his golf game, there would be blood on the walls.  I never got an explanation or excuse, but I'm willing to cut him some slack.  I alerted the prayer circle of the delay and joked that the saved-up prayers, good intentions and incense would not only spare me bad news on the biopsy, my jellybean would have disappeared entirely when I reported to the hushed enclave of the ultrasound room.

This last Monday, I underwent the biopsy, which also included 1) the complete removal of as much of the jellybean by means of a gigantic needle and heroic suction as was visible by ultrasound, 2) the implantation of a titanium chip at the jellybean's former location should that become relevant for further surgical or radiological procedures, 3) a final compression and mammogram of my left hooter from several angles to document removal of jellybean and location of bionic woman titanium chip.  The biopsy procedure included administration of painkillers at various tissue depths with needles of increasing circumference, and a secondary administration of a needle as wide as a #2 pencil with vacuum assist, which emitted a noise far less reassuring than a dentist's drill.  I found new applications for my lessons in self hypnosis and monitored the tension in my knees and jaw and toes, willing them to relax while I slipped into a lovely beta state of stupidity.

The personnel attendant on the procedure were fabulous, gave me all appropriate warnings, cautions for future after care, and assurances that I would receive the results within 48 hours.  I went home and conducted a phone barrage of messages to ensure that I would be informed of the results by anyone able to read and speak at the other end of the fax-machine payout.  I then retreated into a quivering mass under the covers with an ice pack over the bruised, sore and swollen left hooter and was hateful to one and all.  For the continued health of my mother, who is dependent on me for the mail, morning coffee, and basic nutrition, I had frozen dinners perched in the microwave and told her to have at them.  In the meantime, I alternately froze my swollen, hot left hooter and scratched at the adhesive on the compression bandage.

Within 24 hours, the radiologist gave me the good news: benign.  And no threat of the jellybean's revenge, as it was, to all intents, completely gone, sucked away in the needle.  My joke had come true: it was not only a negative test, the blob was gone.  Prayers work. 

So I've sent a swift global email to the prayer circle, including the jilted bridegroom.  All recipients have been stellar support, and I've been staggered by the warm response.  In the meantime, I wanted to go to a spa next week for R'nR.  Turns out there ain't a hot springs hotel, mud bath vendor, etc. in California that will permit drinking and smoking and bad behavior on the premises.  We must all take our Purification and Detoxification very seriously.

Fuck that.

I'm going to Vegas, where drinking and smoking are almost required by statute.  I'm not a gambler, I don't get throwing money away like that, but I can have a massage and facial in my room while surrounded with bottles of Crystal.  I don't plan on putting that to the test, but I like the idea that I can go raise hell and sign up for the Hangover Special Reflexology the next morning.  Wish me luck.  I've got a lot of living to do, and the wedding's off.

On the other hand, I'm still knitting like a fiend.  Hope to God I find a better use of my time in Sin City.  I'd promise an on-the-road report, but remember, What happens in Vegas ...

Lumpy Charity -- an invitation

I do love doing stuff for a Good Cause.  That goal takes away all my crippling perfectionism.  Maybe it makes my efforts less immaculate, but hell, whatever crap I churn out is, I figure, better than what the poor recipient has already. 

Currently, I'm knitting baby hats on the idiot proof knitting loom called a Knifty Knitter.  The result is couture by Dr. Seuss.  On the left is a completed hat, on the right is a work in progress.  It's for a wonderful organization called Afghans for Afghans, a grass-roots group that ships warm woolly garments and blankets to the refugee children in camps in the cold mountainous areas.  They must be made of at least 80% wool or alpaca, because polyester or other synthetics are useless for the kind of cold these kids suffer.  Currently, they have a drive for newborns, and hats are the easiest and quickest thing to churn out - 2 hours max each.  They have to be sort of long and tall and goofy to cover ears and other tender baby bits.  My extensive yarn stash is very low on wool.  Instead, I'm recycling the bags of scrap wool my mother used to use in needlepoint which is pre-cut into 12 inch lengths I'm randomly linking together.  Hence the rather festive color palette.  I'm getting very good at square knots.  The group encourages using up leftovers, reassuring us that the Afghans LIKE multicolor creations.  Hope so, 'cause that's what they're getting.  At any rate, Afghan mothers will be able to pick their kid out of a crowd wearing these crazy things.   I used my fat-head cat Peabody as my mannequin to check fit.  No photos, he wouldn't sit still.

If any of my devoted readers like to keep their hands busy while watching TV, this is an easy way to do good and not worry too much about the beauty of the product.  Check out the website and their guidelines.

Another Worthy Cause is Soldiers' Angels.  This is another grass-roots organization that provides great troop support.  I hate what and those whom have created the military effort, and especially loathe the shabby way the government treats the very people who have to put their lives on the line for the idiotic war. So I at least try to lessen the evil through this organization's efforts.  I don't have to be a jingoist warmonger to offer personal support for the young men and women most affected, via cards and letters to injured troops or e-mail pen-pal correspondence to those on the lines. These profoundly ugly things on the left are not lumberjack potholders or tea cozies.  SA had a drive for warm hand and foot booties for injured troops during the cold flights on the medevac choppers.  They have to be big and shapeless to cover bandages, dressing, IV tubes etc.  I suppose there's no money for Halliburton in heating the flight, or in supplying manufactured hand and foot coverings.  I knitted about a dozen big tubes on the loom device and sent them in.  Then I came into some wool fleece and sewed these.  My needlework skills will never win me blue ribbons, but they'll do the job.  I gather this drive is about done, so I'm rushing these in at the last minute. In the meantime, I've found a use for my art scraps into strange notecards I send to base hospitals.  I've gotten some very sweet replies, and plan on adopting another pen pal.  My last guy made it home safely and we had a fun correspondence.  The process was a wonderful education on the clusterfuck in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I'm sure I got more out of it than he did.

It feels good to do more than stew in guilt and fury over US actions.  Keeps me off the streets.  And sticking a "support the troops" ribbon magnet on your car has to be the stupidest, emptiest gesture imaginable.  So I make and send my lumpy handmade efforts. 

If any of my devoted readers would prefer to delegate the handiwork, but have wool yarn (at least 80% wool or wool-alpaca blend, any color, any weight, and lengths as short as 10 inches long -- attention ex-needlepointers!) they'd like to share, I will gladly exchange them for your choice from my extensive synthetic stash of yarn.  I've got all sorts of fancy and fun fibers, in a rainbow of colors (photos sent on request).  And some baby's head will be warm with your leftovers, which defines the "warm fuzzy feeling" of charity.  Even if it's goofy looking.  Please leave a comment and let me know.

I'm Not Dead Yet ... My Computer Is Another Story

My absence here is due to computer malfunction.  I'm typing on borrowed time -- the next crash could come any moment -- so this will be a brief post.  My next computer is supposed to arrive Any Day Yet.  Then comes installation, the Vulcan Mind Meld memory transfer, and THEN I'll be back with my usual blathering at great length. 

In other news, I offer this, with the comment that I agree totally, and wonder what I could get for my now useless law degree. 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=220188158914

Mine cost just over $40,000 in 1980's dollars from USC.  I notice there were no takers at $100K, but mine is only gently used.  Frame extra.

Ack.  The processor is making that ominous buzzing again.  Gotta go.

Rushing the Season

Things are good here.  Mom has been in great positive spirits and for some reason has lately decided that I am an asset, or at least not a cause for martyrdom.  Makes life much easier.

Thanksgiving was interesting and surprisingly wonderful.  Visited my godmother Ruth, now 85 and well into the twilight world of Alzheimer's.  Although still nominally living on her own, she spends most of her time with her nephew Michael's family, who should have gotten Al Gore's Nobel prize for their loving care of her over the past few years.  Mom and I made the trek to Frazier Park, a rustic hamlet about 2 hours away on the far side of the I-5 ridge route, elevation 4000 feet.  It was about as different as a Thanksgiving observance could be from a Mom-run holiday, which usually exceeds Buckingham Palace standards for ceremony.  This was wildly informal and unstructured, with about a dozen assorted relatives, in-laws, hangers-on, and drop-ins.  To a man, every male present wore the Harley-Davidson insignia in some form -- t-shirts, jackets, belt buckles, tattoos. No waiting to start eating until all were seated, no saying of grace, just immediate gorging.  Nor were nouvelle or health cuisine in evidence.  Vegetables were not in their native, recognizable form: corn pudding, broccoli casserole, and so on, each topped with cheese or cracker crumbs or both. And it was utterly, utterly delicious.  The meal defined guilty pleasure food.  I heaped my plate and had seconds, followed by both pumpkin and pecan pie.  Ruth was happy to see us and we all (even Mom, who amazingly refrained from a single snarky comment about the pervasive Middle Americana atmosphere) enjoyed ourselves. There should be a photo of this family in the dictionary next to the word "good-hearted." 

My contribution to the feast was my Orange-Glazed Yam Baby.  The appalling amount of sugar and butterfat takes it right out of the vegetable category into a sneaky way to have dessert with your main course.  Even so, I noticed that its resemblance to an actual product of nature scared away some people at the gathering.  One brave soul did venture into the world of yam baby and couldn't get over it -- I think his four or so helpings made up for the others' reluctance. 

I went into a frenzy of Christmas decoration the day after Thanksgiving and had a blast with my new 8-foot faux tree while I played the Phil Spector Christmas album over and over.  Fake trees have come a long way.  They used to look like an assemblage of wire coat hangers and green pipe cleaners.  This model, pre-lit with clear (non-blinky) fairy lights actually looks realistic, especially because every last branchette has something shiny dangling from it.  My vast collection of ornaments all fit, just barely.  A Glade pine-scented plug-in hidden in the outlet behind the tree helps.  I came to Xmas cheer late in life, about 10 years ago with the first holiday open house A and I threw, and revert to giddy childhood this time of year.  Mom has all the yuletide spirit of Ebenezer Scrooge before the visitations of the spirits, but has the good grace to allow me to play demented elf, dangling holly and mistletoe from every corner.  I'm in the process of creating slew of handcrafted Christmas cards, which should shock recipients -- I haven't sent even store-bought cards in decades.

I may be verging into hypomania, as I'm doing quite a bit of internet spending, too.  Christmas shopping is all done.  That sounds a lot more heroic than it actually is.  Mom and I have griped for years that everyone in the family, mainly us, have TOO MUCH STUFF already, and we're all impossible to buy for.  So this year we've taken the plunge into the charitable do-gooder thing and bought virtual livestock for the hungry through heifer.org -- a remarkable group run on the "teach a man to fish" theory -- pairs of animals (properly sorted for gender, of course) do have a tendency to reproduce, and soon a village has a herd of whatever -- cattle, goats, sheep, llamas, guinea pigs (ewww, but a delicacy in Ecuador, I'm told) and so on, and thus has sustainable protein, wool, and other by-products.  Everyone on our list is getting a gift card telling them about the agriculture done in their name for the impoverished.  We have two vegans on the list; so as not to offend their sensibilities with a parade of meat, trees have been planted in their name.  Elegant, simple, and if some grasping members of the family feel deprived, we've taken the prophylactic step of asking everyone to NOT send gifts to us, lest anyone feel shortchanged in the reciprocity department.

Believe it or not, this reaction actually happened the last time I tried a charity Christmas -- back when Jesus was a teenager and "We Are The World" rocked my generation of spoiled American youth into the realization that somewhere someone was hungry.  I pooled my holiday dollars into an African relief donation, bought a case of wine (regrettably, a blush zinfandel) wrote out little cards explaining the donation in their name, and everyone got a bottle and a card.  I was a poor law student and the simplicity of the idea excited me.  I settled back into a warm fuzzy approximation of Mother Theresa at the family Christmas Eve orgy of excess and waited for elevation to sainthood.  The reaction was muted, to say the least, from siblings, My stepfather at the time, a stranger to the notion of charity or graciousness, was visibly and audibly furious.  "You call this a present?!?!!" was the kindest thing he said.  No, really, I'm not making this up.  The man earns a zillion dollars a year and lacks for nothing, except kindness. My best friend and her husband were guests that year and it was their first visit to a gentile observance of Christ's birth.  And probably their last, after witnessing my stepfather's version of Christian values.

The long-divorced stepfather's not on the list, but even so I don't expect much in the way of gratitude from anyone.  I say fuck 'em, in the best loving Christian spirit of the holiday.

Other money splurges: a bit of vanity cosmetic work on Monday -- no cutting involved, but I got my face sucked.  Genetically, I've been blessed with good skin, so wrinkles aren't a big concern.  However, gravity takes its toll on us all, and my youthful chipmunk cheeks had fallen to chin level, creating a fearsome set of dewlaps.  My beloved dermatologist (he's young, energetic, funny and loves his work) said that I'd be crazy to go to the extreme of a lower face-lift, which scared me anyway, and the problem could be remedied with a bit of liposuction on each side.  It's all supposed to tighten back into the approximation of a regular jaw/chin line.  While he was at it, he had a good time with the laser machine, zapping off every little brown and red spots from my hands and face.  It was quite painful the next day, but now I feel fine.  I look, however, like I ran into a sadist armed with a lit cigarette and a baseball bat.  A veritable Arizona sunset covers my lower face, with blistery bits everywhere else.  Ah, but by New Year's, I'll be carded at bars.  If I did that sort of thing any more.

Also: many many used books (recommended: The Last Solution by Michael Chabon, Hollywood Station, the recent Wambaugh revisit to LAPD fiction); CD's (discovered obscure group called Explosions in the Sky, every song sounds alike so one CD is sufficient, but it's a good grandiose sound with insane drumming); Back To Mono, the boxed Phil Spector set -- he may be a murdering madman, but I love that Wall of Sound; One Kiss Leads To Another, a 4-disc Rhino compilation of the girl group phenom 1959-1968.  I get a sex flush from the harmonies of the Chiffons, Shirelles, Shangri-las, Exciters, Cilla Black, Darlene Love and their ilk. The set also includes arcane groups like the Fabulettes, the Goodies, and more who never cracked the charts but work the girl-boy-heartache trope brilliantly.

Gotta go check the mirror to see if I look like Angelina Jolie yet and play more kitch Christmas albums.  Happy early holidays!

Separated At Birth: 2007 Edition

For prologue, look here.

Mr. Clooney explained the 1970 shot, in part, with the remark that his mother was cutting his hair at the time.  Wow, what a difference a good barber makes, yes?

I had to giggle when Paula thought he was Bill Gates.  That may be the first time anyone has confused the two, but I can see why.

I anxiously await the reunion with my "twin."

Oh, the prize: Here's some sweet geek lovin' for you: http://youtube.com/watch?v=y6Z66U31wr4

Smoky (cough cough), but fine

Yup.  Nothing is burning in My Little Town, or in the county of My Little Town.  Fire crews seem to be getting a handle on the various conflagrations in the absence of the Santa Ana winds.  Now the air seems to be moving in its normal pattern from water inland, good news for those of us near the water, not so good for those in one of those impacted inland areas near the foothills.  Mom woke up this morning with a horrendous cough, even for her, and so did I.  Last week's fire smoke is a culprit, but Mom's 50 years of cigarettes and current pulmonary fibrosis, may play a role, as might my own renewed enthusiasm (suicidal and foolhardy) for the inhalation of burning tobacco.

Boy, how dumb can you get?

I have to blame Katrina.  Were it not for that hurricane, I would not have come in nearly 24/7 contact with my dear friend and fellow Red Cross veteran Steve.  I've blogged about him before.  I adore Steve.  We've stayed in touch these two years and it seems mutual.  When we had adjacent cots (NOT adjoining, mind you) to minister to the dispossessed in Alabama, he'd crow to me morning and evening, "Ah wanna adop tchew!" in his Kentucky accent, then tell me the latest nefarious scheme on the part of the Powers That Be to screw the people we were trying to help.  He was and is an ordained, seminary trained Baptist minister who worked 30+ years on the Ford assembly line and diehard supporter of underdogs to the point that Ford, in the last years of his career, kicked him upstairs to being a diversity and tolerance educator for the other employers.  He was and is also a complete tobacco addict, regularly taking 5-minute breaks between "clients" (the folks we wrote checks/vouchers for) to "check the tires," i.e., sucking down another Marlboro in the parking lot.  Not that he shirked.  He managed to give out more money than I did, with perfect paperwork and completly charming everyone within a 50 yard radius, usually by asking female clients Of A Certain Age for their birthdate (required by paperwork) then erupting in a frenzy of disbelief.  It works.  It worked on me, every day for two weeks.

I was immune to the lure of his tobacco.  I hadn't smoked in over 12 years.  By my mid-thirties, I had tried every method of quitting and failed until late 1993, with a combination of nicotine patches and being head-over-heels in love with a righteously devoted non-smoker.  Between tobacco and my future ex-husband, I chose my future ex and never regretted that choice.  (Even if it didn't work out, he was still better for me than cigarettes.)  Then after Katrina, I was thrust into a situation when it seemed the world was ending, and we should all play, "Ashes, ashes, all fall down," along with those enduring the 13th and 17th century eruptions of the Black Plague.  I still would not have smoked except for one client, name forgotten but not particulars.

An elderly woman of regal bearing, fragile but with PERFECT hair, was escorted by a nice young man into the relief center.  She reminded me of my mother's mother -- a gracious, perfect gentlewoman, soft-spoken and very bright.  I greeted her and we got down to business.  Before Katrina, she had owned her own home outside of Biloxi, and ran it efficiently, even caring for her (younger) sister who was incapacitated with Alzheimer's.  Just the day before Katrina hit, she placed her sister in an inland nursing home just in case the hurricane came ashore.  When it was hours away, the nursing home sent a car for her and insisted she evacuate, so she packed an overnight bag, locked up, and weathered the storm with her sister.  A few days later, she learned that She Had Lost Everything.  Her house and everything in it, her car, everything, was simply GONE.  She was sharp, competent, and had all her paperwork, but her hands trembled slightly as she handed over her driver's license.  I filled in the info, and came to a dead halt when I saw that she was born on my birthday, July 5 ...

... in 1915.

This lovely woman was 90 years old.  Suddenly I was doing an imitation of Steve's flattery, but for real.  "This CAN'T be right!" I exclaimed.  With some pride, she affirmed that she was indeed 90 years old.  With a current, valid driver's license yet.  For some reason, after 10 days of hearing terrifying stories, tragic stories, inspiring stories, THIS story tore out my heart completely.  Neither she nor her sister had children.  There was no one to take her in.  Everyone else that had appeared before me had a determined gleam to rebuild in their eyes, even if their eyes were haunted with tragedy.  This fine lady, who could be my grandma, how could she start over at NINETY?  How could someone build her life for ninety years, survive two world wars, the Depression, care for an ailing sister and then at the hard-earned sunset of her days have all her security ripped away?  The WRONGNESS of it all.

I fudged the Red Cross form and gave her AND her sister full allowances, even though her sister's paperwork was not before me, and handed her the pittance.  I could tell she had NEVER asked for this kind of help from anyone.  She mentioned several times that it had been the idea of the the nice young man (he worked at the nursing home and seemed to take very good care of her).  I looked her dead in the eye at the end and told her that it had been an honor to talk with her and that I would pray for her and her sister.  Her eyes and mine misted over for a second, then she shook my hand briskly, and left.

I had 15 minutes until my next scheduled client, and I raced to the bathroom and sobbed for 5 minutes.  All the stories cascaded in my mind, but I kept coming back to this fine woman, who reminded me so much of my Nanny, my grandmother.  I splashed water on my face and stepped out back, where Steve was "checking the tires."  "Hand me one of those," I said, Steve took one look at my swollen eyes, and without a word, lit me up.  Don't let the do-gooders lie to you.  It tasted WONDERFUL.

But enough is enough, already.  A dumb way to grieve, and after two years, it's not even a barely understandable excuse any more.  I will quit.  I will, I promise.  I say that every time I sneak outside for another one.  "Just checking the tires," I call to my mother as she sucks down her oxygen.  She gives me a gimlet eye and says, "I really enjoyed all my cigarettes too, look where it got me."  Yeah.

Separated at Birth? 1970 Edition.

Both pictures taken exactly 37 years ago.  A bad year for haircuts and glasses.

Name the geeks and win a prize.

Hint: They both aged pretty well.

Respite from fire news: Dumbledore Is Gay

My friend at Everybody Knows wonders why JK's announcement causes such consternation: "Did people not read the bits where nasty Rita Skeeter accused Dumbledore of having an "unnatural interest" in Harry? I thought that innuendo was pretty unmistakable. Sure, Rowling couldn't have made Dumbledore overtly gay and more's the pity. But why the great surprise?

"And, at some point soon, doesn't Ms. Rowling have to let the books speak for themselves and stop writing her own fan fiction?"

Good point.

As one of the Homeland-Security-registered Harry Potter geeks, and a 3 on the Kinsey scale, I have spent actual time considering Dumbldore's sexuality.  Not because of Rita Skeeter's comments, although that may have set up some subliminal gaydar.  But in "Deathly Hallows," Dumbledore's own description of his adolescent relationship with Grindelwald seemed so familiar, that I remembered my own adolescent crushes on both sexes.  Also, I always thought the perfect Dumbledore would be played by the openly gay actor Sir Ian McKellen.  The thought came and went in about 30 seconds, because Dumbledore's sexuality was so incidental to the story and its larger issues.  I find much more interesting the other comment by JK: that one of the messages to youth of the story is "Question Authority."  If I still had my first car, lo those ages ago, it would have a tattered remnant of a bumper sticker reading just that.  I heard that pertinent message loud and clear in the last 3 books.  Not only pertinent, but timeless. 

I don't want to deny JK her time to demystify her personal universe which has become a global destination.  But I do agree, the time draws near when she should simply say, "res ipsa loquitor," or "the thing speaks for itself."

Coming to you in REM State

Speak quietly, I'm still not awake.

This morning I got out of bed even more fuzzy-headed that usual.  I've always woken up ... SLOWLY ... and putter about until the fog lifts, about half an hour and a cup of coffee later.  I prefer to do this alone.  Conversation in this state, if possible at all, annoys me no end. 

I had slept quite late for no discernable reason.  The last wispy fragments of a dream were still floating on the fringes of consciousness.  In my dream, I was a successful jewelry and fashion designer, Tim Gunn had something to do with this (I have a huge crush on him) and my specialty was called "interstitial jewelry."  I still can picture the end result and it looks, well, odd, but like something I'd make.  Very assemblage.  The clothes I made looked like what Little Edie Beale might wear if she rummaged through a bag of old table linens and bedding made by an elderly relative with an obsession for cross-stitch and crude embroidery.   The end result was a look I'd call "milkmaid bag lady."

Mom had beat me to the kitchen and had coffee started, a clear indication that I'd overslept.  Usually I'm up for hours before she stirs and begins reading the paper to me.  I'll write later about our usual morning dance.  Today was different.  I caromed randomly around the kitchen fumbling for a cup and milk, and asked, "What does 'interstitial' mean?"  She looked up and said gently, "I think it has something to do with spaces."  She's used to my first-thing-in-the-morning state and treats me with the utmost delicacy, like a sleepwalker.  Spaces, yup, that's what I thought.  Shuffling to my computer, I googled "interstitial jewelry." 

Eureka, I'd won a game of __________.  I forget what it's called, but there's some sort of Google excercise that involves submitting two words in quotes and finding a single instance of it on the entire internet.  Quite hard to do.  A very strange blog popped up -- I have the feeling it's a spamblog designed to catch the unwary internet traveler because it's entirely gibberish that ALMOST makes sense, full of random word strings and peppered with C!alis and Viagr@ ads.  Disturbing to read it in this state because even the most measured, precise prose reads this sensibly when I'm not fully awake.  I puzzled at it for at least five minutes before I realized that, no, it wasn't me, it really didn't have any meaning at all.

Of course, now that I've put those two words together, I've ruined one of the few remaining winning combos in that game.  Once the googlebots find this.

Anyway, I think I've found a term for some of my artistic creations.  "Interstitial Jewlery" from Fragile Industries Studios.  I'm sketching out what I remember from the dream, even though I can't imagine who would wear it.  For some reason, my subconscious wants me to make this stuff, and Tim Gunn approves.  Who am I to disagree, even when I wake up?