Barometric Pressure, the Sudden Onset of a Migraine, and the Homeopath, or How I Become a Flaming Asshole in a Matter of Seconds

I have very few friends but one of them is so intent on convincing me my doctors are killing me I never have an encounter with her that I don't smack my forehead and wonder what the fuck was I thinking when I told her I was okay with her dropping by on short notice.  For one thing she'll say she's in the neighborhood but it will take her an hour or two to arrive, and I almost always have a moment with her that I want to reach across the table and slap her a good one. So far I have resisted this impulse, but now I think for my mental health I should claim I'm unavailable next time she calls or I won't be able to resist the impulse.  She thinks of herself as a homeopathic or naturopathic healer, but I think she should heal herself before she starts in on her friends.  She has never taken my advise to seek psychiatric help so why should I take her advise to stop consulting actual medical professionals for my actual medical problems?

This latest contretemps started after dinner when her partner was trying to convince me I needed to learn the mathematical formula for calculating the slope of my back yard in order to use my neighbor's free irrigation water this Spring.  My neighbor has offered year after year, but not to help with the actual process of setting this up.  He says I need a small pump with a hose connected to it and, voila, I will be able to water my backyard for free too.  I'm the kind of woman who is neither mechanically inclined nor interested in learning the why of certain things.  The how will suffice for me.  But I also have lower back problems due to working like a hod carrier when I was younger with untreated scoliosis as the starting handicap.  Then in my fifties, while helping train polo ponies, I had my first bad fall in a lifetime of riding horses and landed flat on my tailbone on frozen ground.  I ended up with almost a year of sciatica. It doesn't really matter why I now avoid doing certain things by myself, but the issue Sunday night wasn't about my personal labor, it was about my inability to grasp the concept of barometric pressure (the weight of air?) to calculate the slope of my yard.  I simply know the slope of my yard is sufficient to accomplish this task-- it's a slightly greater slope than my neighbor's yard and no pumping is necessary for him to turn his yard into a pond on irrigation day every week of Summer. I don't need to know the mathematical formula to calculate the precise degree of slope.  I don't need to know the weight of air.  I need a man or mechanically inclined woman to help me with certain tasks. I just not that handy.  I know when I need a handyman. (The reason I don't have my own water rights is my crazy mother's decision decades ago to give up her water rights. Once given up they cannot be restored.  Use it or lose it applies to many things including water rights.)

This particular conversation gave me an instant migraine.  I think math is tedious.  I kept telling him to stop trying to teach me something I didn't need or want to know.  But he's a retired physics professor and took my unwillingness to really try to learn it as a challenge.  He just wouldn't give up.  Finally I pushed myself away from the table to go in search of my migraine medicine.  I was a bit frantic since the pills only work if you can take them at first sign of a migraine.  I couldn't find them and settled for an 800 mg prescription Ibuprofen which is great for back pain, but a poor substitute for Midrin which I now have discovered has been taken off the market once again.  Motherfucker!

The subject of my headache began a conversation about my history with headaches and my upcoming appointment for a neurological evaluation.  There isn't a single member of my family who didn't die of either a massive heart attack (which left them instantly dead) or the slow and horrible death of vascular dementia.  Sadly for me, it's the men who get the quick death of the heart attack and the women who all end up shitting their pants and wandering around the locked ward or a nursing home muttering obscenities and drooling for ten years.  My plan is to get a baseline reading on brain health and then do a follow up every couple of years.  I plan to take my life before I get to the shitting my pants and drooling stage, but it's a tricky bit of timing.  Wait too long and it's too late to make any decisions.

My girlfriend thinks doctors kill you. She asks me why I need a neurological evaluation.  Why test for a future that may not happen?  Maybe I'll be the first member of either side of my family that doesn't succumb to the heart's attack or the brain's little bleeds and slow demolition.  It's a very long shot, but I'm willing to imagine that I could be the only member of my crazy family to eventually get some unrelated illness that kills me. But you have to admit that we all eventually die, and it's often an unpleasant process, so why not plan ahead? There are many adventures I'm up for, but vascular dementia isn't one of them.  She says, "Why have the evaluation? Why not just do what you're planning?  Skip the tests and jump to conclusions."  I'm damn near out of my chair trying very hard to keep my tone even and not slap her when I ask, "Why should I kill myself now, when I seem to still have my wits about me?!?"  She says, "You seem to assume the outcome, why not skip the tests?"  She has a grin on her face and seems to be suppressing laughter.  "Why is this funny to you?"  "It isn't funny, but..."

And since we've made this leap, I verbally pat myself on the back for having the good sense to make plans for my corpse.  I've donated my body to the Anatomy/Medical School to use as it needs.  Then, when the body's done being useful or most immature of male med students are through getting their jollies by scaring Sorority girls with the odd disembodied hand or foot, what's left gets cremated and disposed of and my name gets added to a marble wall in the Hospital's garden thanking those of us who donate for our contribution to learning.  No funeral, no cost, no muss, no fuss.  I'm not even in favor of memorial services, though you can't stop people from talking trash about you living or dead.  I'm singularly unsentimental about death.  I detach quickly.  Once any body is dead, I cease to have any interest in it or fondness for it.  What I have instead is memory, fond or not.

I think most of the rituals of death are insane and should be avoided.  Especially the kind where the dying asks someone to take their ashes and sprinkle them over the Swiss Alps in the month of May or some nonsense like that. I think agreeing to do such a thing and then keeping the ashes on your dresser in a cardboard box for ten years because not to make the trip to the Swiss Alps in May is disrespectful of the wishes of the dead is the very definition of crazy. If you recognize yourself in this rant, I could be talking about you.

The Death of a Local Jazz Great

Wayne Christiansen was killed in a car crash on his way home from the Jazz Festival.  He was a monster talent.  He was a great pianist and composer.  I knew him from the time Tom Burton and I lived together up Emigration Canyon.  They played together for awhile.  They'd played together in the 60s at The Quarter Note.  It was the only bar in town where you could go almost every night and hear really good Jazz.  David Harrison owned it at the time.  Wayne was one of the few musicians I really liked personally.  I know that sounds harsh, but harshness seems to be what I'm left with.  My last encounter with Wayne was at a small club on State Street.  It was a complete surprise to find him there, and I went up during a break to say Hi and to make a request.  I asked him to play Round Midnight.  And he did.  If I were anyone else in the world I would have said, "Thank you, that was lovely."  But I'm not that nice a person.  I wanted the classic Round Midnight and I got a virtuoso bebop version instead.  It was a great deal more than I deserved.  But my reaction to it was to give him shit about overdoing the virtuosity.  It was the last time I saw him.

David Harrison just called to tell me, and to ask for Tom Burton's phone number.  And it shocks me how careless I've been with every man I've ever known.  I no longer have a way to get in touch with Tom.  But I gave him Pat Zwick's numbers (another man I've finally completely alienated with my anger). Pat will know how to get in touch with him. There will be a memorial for Wayne, and I've been told when and where to go. And then there will be The Bastille Day Reunion.  I won't be able to go to either event.  There are men from my past who I want to avoid and for perfectly good reasons, not just because I'm bipolar and careless with my insults.  But I have been unforgivably careless of Tom's feelings and for that too, I'm sorry.  To bad I won't have the chance to make amends for my past bad behavior, but any contact with people with whom I've had a long relationship and have bailed on, is another opportunity for me to be cruel and careless, or to be hurt again myself.  I'm a coward when it comes to close quarters with the past.  It's been too painful.  And much of that pain has been self inflicted.

So, goodbye Wayne.  I'm so sorry I was so awful.  And I waited too long to tell you.

I'm Writing an Obituary Today

Everything Changes

Yesterday I went to see Z. I think it might be the last time I ever get to see her. She is otherworldly now and I can't even say goodbye. She told me she was leaving Utah to visit her two oldest boys, her granddaughters. She says she'll be back in a couple of months. I doubt I'll ever lay eyes on her again, but since she can't admit that this is it, we can't really say goodbye. She seems so deeply delusional about her cancer and it's metastasis, the time so short, and she has ended treatment. She would not agree with me that she's ended treatment, since she's started treatment with hash oil, but it seems like palliative care to me. It seems like her version of hospice without ever admitting to herself or me or her children that she is close to death now.

Months ago she said she only wanted "positive energy" around her. She didn't want to hear anyone say, "You're too sick to be out of bed, too sick to scrub the fridge, you should be waited on, taken care of." And yet, she was too sick to do much of anything. Everything was such a life-sucking effort. Her youngest son and his family moved in to her house to take care of her. But I don't think she really let them take care of her. I went to see her one day and she was scrubbing the fridge, furious that it was so dirty, such a mess, so obviously needing to be done, yet she had not asked the kids to clean it.

Another day, a couple of months ago, she wanted fresh pita, hummus, yogurt, and halva from a Middle Eastern market just a few blocks from her house. Her daughter-in-law was now living with her and not working. But it was me she asked to bring her what she craved. I'm not sure she ever gave them the chance to help her, to care for her. The few things I did for her were so insignificant, and yet they always made me furious with the kids. To me it seemed as if they were living with her and not caring for her, not making sure she had whatever she needed or wanted. I have been mad at them, mad at her, mad at the world.

Ms M works at the University Hospital. She brought Z's medical records day before yesterday so I could take them to Z yesterday. It was so sweet of her to take her lunch time to go up to Huntsman and pick up all the records Z wanted to take with her to California, just in case she changes her mind about further treatment. Ms M has lived in my big house for five years this October. She has the run of the place. And I don't recall ever getting really angry with her until yesterday.

The night before last when she brought Z's records out to my place she had a glass of wine and spent some time visiting with me. When she got ready to go home she discovered that her roommate had locked the back door. Ms M borrowed my keys to let herself in and I said to her, "Don't forget to bring the keys back this time, I have a doctor appointment tomorrow and then I need to go see Z." She forgot. So when I got ready to go to the doctor there were a few moments of panic until I found the spare key to my car. I left my house unlocked. It wasn't such a big catastrophe, but it pissed me off. It was the second time she'd borrowed my keys to let herself in her house and forgotten to bring them back. Ordinarily I don't go anyplace so it wouldn't be a big deal. But yesterday, when I got back from the doctor appointment and grocery store, rushing to carry the bags in, unload them and hurry to Z's to see her for the last time, Ms M was sitting at the picnic table smoking. She was taking a break from leaf blowing. As I passed her I said, "You didn't bring my keys back to me. Not cool!" She said, "Sorry, I forgot. I'll get them now." I was loaded down and kept walking back to my place. I put groceries away, hurrying to get my chores done to go see my old friend for the last time. Ms M did not bring the keys out to me. I had to go pick them up from the picnic table where she was still sitting. Again I said. "Not Cool!" She said, "I was going to bring them to you." I said nothing. I grabbed the keys and left. We have not talked since. She is the last person in the world I would want to alienate. But in all the years we've known each other I have only been angry with her a couple of times. This was one of them.

When you're old and your best friend is dying, you are forced to face your own mortality. And in an instant, everything changes when you realize how very alone you really are.

Death By Intent

If I have died and you missed the moment
Know that I went peacefully in my sleep
Of my own accord and timing, by my own
Hand which could no longer pound the keys
Pull the ropes, the weeds, the rabbit out of the hat

Let it be said that "she was a woman who had great timing"
Take what you want and we'll say I gave it to you long ago
It will not matter to me now, and who's to say it wasn't my
Intention all along

Peggy Pendleton
5/10/09

And When I Die

Just so you know, when I die, you will be the only ones to notice my absence since I seem unable to shut up. Oh, yes there are a few here in the "real" world who might miss me for a moment, but it is you who have paid the most attention to my thoughts, and that means more to me than almost anything. It's you who have given me the confidence to believe, and maybe even know, that I can write. None of the men I have loved and lived with, sadly in some cases even married, have ever read a word I wrote unless it was a letter. Tom's comments on my impassioned letters were, "Nice penmanship." How insulting is that?

But many of you have taken me seriously as a writer. Fancy that. You have allowed me to help start blogs here and there for all of us solitary, unknown writers to write, and receive editorial help, to encourage, and make suggestions. And most importantly to grow and gain confidence.

So you have become a family for me, a woman with no living blood relatives of her own.

Yesterday I posted my blog roll to wish you a Happy New Year. And many of you came to say thanks and Happy New Year, and even offer words of appreciation. What surprised me most was the appreciation of a couple of men I didn't know were paying any attention at all. Dada of Dada's Daily was so lavish in his kind words. I do appreciate it.

But the words of one, thepoetryman, say best exactly what I'd hope I might wish to be, to become. This is the kind of immortality to which I aspire. And were anyone to ever read or speak a eulogy for me, these would be lovely words. So thank you Poetryman. Now I am going to publish on my blog your words without your permission. I hope you'll forgive me. But I want someone to know and remember. To be able to find this archived back at least twenty years and say...
That a Poetry Man said, "Utah,

When the wind has your breath within its throat
And the moon reaches you down within our grasp,
You enter a flame, a glimmering ember, a guide, and
We know you by your friends, whispering who you are.

When the rain drops your laughter upon our gardens
And the snow perches your spirit upon a window sill
Like a songbird warbling of our sloping lives-
We sense you; savage, tender, candid, thoughtful, loved… "