Atmospherics

Atmospheric pressure is the force per unit area that is applied perpendicularly to a surface by the surrounding gas.


Yesterday when I was getting dressed to go get Z for her first radiation treatment we had a downpour. It was the kind of thunderstorm with great crashing thunder that pours buckets of cold rain. It rained so hard when I walked to the car my sleeveless top and khaki skirt got soaked and I was wading in ankle deep water. As I went through the gate I realized that the basement was probably flooding just then.

Every intersection on the way to Z's neighborhood was a lake, and oncoming cars didn't slow down enough to keep from creating a wave of spray. I remember once in my distant past going through an intersection in a sports car and then hitting the breaks to slow for a car in front of me and my breaks didn't grab. I know wet roads are slick. Now standing water in an intersection makes me remember that experience and adds a bit of terror to my ride to pick up Z. As if there were not terror enough in this day. Yet oddly when I get a few blocks from her house the rain stops and there is no standing water in the intersections.

I left home early since it was the deluge. So, despite the heavy rain most of the way, I arrive at her house early. She's not thrilled that I'm there before she's dressed. And it is in the couple of moments of watching her slip into her pants and don her long sleeved T shirt that I notice how terribly thin she really is. She has always worn oversized clothes. Part of that is the length of her incredible legs--it's hard to find pants that fit her hips that are long enough. But most of it is body dysmorphia. Oh she knows she's thin, she's just never been quite comfortable with her body.

I'm apologetic about arriving early. It hasn't rained hard at her house, so she cannot fathom what I mean when I speak of the deluge downtown. Her house is just outside Salt Lake County. It's possible to drive through quickly moving storms and have them stay just over head, so as we head back to town and it starts pouring again, it's as if the storm has found its home and is staying put. But now we are on the upper East bench of Salt Lake heading toward the U of Utah where Huntsman Cancer Institute is located on the side of a small mountain. This rain is running in little streams toward my house down below. Again I think about my basement and my ears pop.

Atmospherics: effects intended to create a particular atmosphere or mood.

She wants me to wait in the little circle where patients are dropped off and picked up, but we're fifteen minutes early for her appointment. I'm jonesing for a cigarette and think its a bad idea to sit in my mommy mobile smoking a cigarette while the cancer patient's family members are waiting for their loved ones to come out after radiation or chemo. So I drive down the hill to the University Hospital and pull in the lower level of the parking lot. It's huge so I can find an uninhabited corner to park in for a couple of stolen moments. I stand outside my old Dodge Caravan watching scrub jays shit from the rafters where it splats on the concrete ramp below. I watch like a criminal afraid of getting caught. I hear children's voices and drop my cigarette and stamp it out. Half a cigarette and my nicotine level is now high enough that I can drive back to Huntsman and park in their lot. Once inside radiation is one level up.

Huntsman is a gorgeous facility. No expense has been spared on its marble floors, it's three soaring stories of pale blue glass so every interior space has a stunning view of the Salt Lake Valley. On a clear day you can see Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake and the Ocher Mountains behind the lake. But today, not so much. It's a steady rain up here. And every drop is headed for my basement which has no drain and a furnace with it's essential parts about half an inch above the damp concrete. Even with the furnace turned off for the summer if that control panel gets wet it has to be replaced. Once the washing machine overflowed it's drain and killed the furnace below. It cost several hundred dollars to replace the control panel.

I am the only person in the huge and luxurious waiting room in radiation. I walk to the reception desk and ask the attractive, middle aged brunette with an unidentifiable accent to please let Z know I'm waiting in the waiting room and not in my car out front. She smiles and says "Off Corze" and disappears for a couple of minutes. When she comes back I'm seated across the room in one of the tasteful chairs, thumbing through a Harper's Bazaar. She smiles at me when we make eye contact, so I figure all's well. An hour goes by. Z was scheduled for a half hour of radiation. And then another woman joins the brunette and they start closing the security gate at the reception desk. This alarms me. I put down the Harper's Bazaar and walk across the big open room. When I get to the desk, I say, "Is my friend Z still back there?" She says, "Yez, Zer ah schtill zeveral Pashunz boc dair," with a reassuring smile on her face. Somehow this does not feel right. I turn around to scan the rotunda and see Z leaning against the marble terrarium. I cannot see her face but it is impossible to miss that lean, old dancer's body and long light brown hair. Oh christ! I rush over apologizing. She is scowling ferociously and says, "What happened to you! I thought you were in a car wreck." I begin my explanation, and she waves my words away in a dismissive gesture with her arm. I keep trying to explain and then realize that nothing I can say will change the fact that she's been waiting where she said she'd be and I was not there. I hate myself.

When I start the car in the parking garage my windshield wipers are swiping like crazy on dry glass making an annoying scraping sound. She says in her newly breathy high pitched voice "For god's sake, shut those damn things off!" And I feel just like a stupid and irresponsible teenager. I have a moment's empathy for her youngest son. It only lasts a second. And then the rain is pouring and I have to turn the windshield wiper on again.

How Sane Do You Think I Am Twittascope?

My Twittascope: Gemini
Things slowly begin to come back into focus today, but it may take another day or two before you fully return to earth. But as the volume is lowered, you are tempted to turn it back up. When that doesn't work, a wave of fear or even desperation could provoke you to express feelings that might be better kept to yourself. There's no need to shock someone with your unconventional desires just so you can experience another adrenaline rush. Thursday, July 2, 2009

Jesus twittascope I'm a gemini, born in the year of the monkey. Cap that off with the fact that I'm bipolar and you have six of me living in here. What do you expect, balance? Get a grip! This is real life! I move from disaster to disaster throughout the day. So really, is this a reasonable request? I was raised to shock. Why do you think my mother taught me to smoke and mix cocktails at five years old? Snap out of it will you?

To Whom It May Concern

If I have made radiation treatments seem terrifying to any of you I am sorry. I have been telling you about my friend's discovery that she has cancer and her reactions to the reality that she cannot treat this with "alternative modalities." She is a life long proponent and practitioner of naturopathy and homeopathy and Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture and magic water, and I have grown impatient, afraid, furious, and terrified that she would not act soon enough to avert her own premature death. It took coughing up a lot of blood to get her in the hospital. It frightened her youngest son who was the one to call the ambulance. My fear has never been that the medical professionals at Huntsman Cancer Institute would be unable to treat her cancer, but my fear was that she would fight them so hard that there would be no radiation, no chemo, no time to save her life. I did not doubt for a second that she could be saved. I feared she would refuse to be saved or wait too long. I feared she had more "faith" in the "alternative modalities" and no faith at all in western medicine. She has hated all but one of the doctor's she's seen so far. The only doctor she's liked was the doctor from India who treated her at St Marks Hospital where they took her when her lungs started hemorrhaging. I am grateful to that one doctor for earning her trust, for making her entertain the notion that western medicine might just work. It is not western medicine, nor radiation or chemotherapy that scares me. It is my friend's belief in "alternative modalities" and her revulsion toward western medicine that scares me. It is like "faith healing" at the expense of medical care, this acceptance of one approach at the expense of the more traditional that scares me. I have no faith "alternative modalities". I believe in science. I am sitting here typing because of science. I'm taking bipolar drugs, drugs to treat my heart arrhythmia, blood thinners to keep me from having to face the future that claimed every member of my mother's family--the slow crawl toward dementia and a nursing home. There is no one to take care of me. And with any luck there will be no need.

My therapist called me while I was gone this afternoon. I need help. I know that. I am on shaky ground, but I keep doing the things that keep me semi-sane. I have not skipped my meds yet. I'm not the one with cancer, but the one with cancer's reaction to her treatment is cause for worry for me. And worry isn't going away real soon. I'm venting on the blog. I've been a recluse for years and now I'm going out every day on one errand or another. It's probably good for me, but I'm hating driving in traffic and having to be nice where ever I go. However the biting my tongue is starting to take its toll on my personality. And apparently my running blog about this situation is starting to piss people off. Let me make this clear. This is me writing about the things that I care about or that interest or concern me. So in that sense, it is all about me. I'm sorry if that's offensive. I am many things, but saintly I am not! I can be a right vicious asshole as we all know. Ask Cal.

Email From An Old Friend

Peggy

I know that with all the caring you already are giving in so many ways to Z the following may not be worth much to you. But I offer it anyway.

I remember the terror I felt, inside, when I first saw this huge machine that would soon be bombarding my body with killer radiation beams. It made a most unwelcome whirring sound as it rotated and zeroed in on the little red targets that had been painted on both sides of my throat.

It bothered (and frightened) me even more when I had to return years later for another bout with the
"terror rays."

I then read in some periodical that an individual should make make friends with the killer machine that can also heal. So I did. I went in to the room before a treatment and just sat on the bench that places you inside the maws of the monster. And I communicated with it.

Following treatments because easier as I let my mind wander n healing ways.

It worked for me.

Scott

Miles Davis, Blue in Green

Sublimation's a Bitch

I have held my tongue so long it's strangling me. I know that the area in my throat and chest that is effected by this tongue holding is the exact area that is strangling my friend. But today, while I waited for the phone call to go pick her up from her first day of prep for Radiation at Huntsman Cancer Institute, I have tried to put my house in order and this house keeping has seriously inconvenienced all the dogs. So I have shouted at dogs to move, go outside, shut up, stay! all day long. I finally took to using a water sprayer to surprise Marley in mid-bark at the kids playing in the yard across the alley.

I have stripped all dog beds or their coverings and washed them. I submerged Marley's bed in the bathtub and scrubbed it. It's been drying in the sun all day and is now a lot sweeter smelling than Marley herself. Tomorrow morning Marley gets another bath. I stripped my bed and washed sheets. And I did all this cleaning because I couldn't leave my phone for fear of missing Z's phone call.

When she called I had my clothes laid out to hop into so I would look respectable when I pulled up at Huntsman to pick her up. I wore a sleeveless white cotton blouse and a black cotton skirt. I wore earrings and a bracelet. I wore my good summer hat--it goes with everything. She was waiting in the circle at the entrance, and as I drove up the hill I saw her standing there dressed in a long sleeved brown top with matching brown pants. She is reed slender and this willowy frame from a distance has the look of the girl I first met at the U forty eight years ago in a room full of boys. I do not look like the girl I was. My hair is shorter and I weigh at least forty pounds more than I did as a reed thin girl. I look my age. But at a distance Z looks just like that willowy girl, that ballet dancing girl. And a lump forms in my chest as I think about the journey we both have taken to end up here now.

Tonight her sister-in-law is cooking for her. Tomorrow I pick her up at 3:30 to take her to Huntsman again for a half hour of treatment. She is feeling better all ready.

Marley on the other hand has her very long nose very seriously out of joint. At least I didn't kick her.

Shopping, Cooking, Feeding

Tuesday has been spent shopping for an all organic and very tasty meal for Z. I found eggplant, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, shaved parmigiana, and organic olive oil. I'm growing basil and oregano and it's organic, so I have the ingredients for eggplant parmigiana. The marinara sauce took longer than anything. I cooked for most of the day. Thank god I have a swamp cooler. It was hot today. I had two burners on for an hour, then the oven for 45 minutes. I wore nice clothes while I shopped and cooked. I say that because I wanted to respect the errands I was on. I wore my favorite white linen sleeveless blouse and a nice cotton skirt. I wore a bit of jewelry. I never do that. I even wore my favorite summer hat.

I made a salad of torn fresh organic leaves of romaine lettuce with a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, and a bit of soy sauce. I fixed garlic bread using a coarse Italian bread, unsalted butter and fresh garlic, wrapped it in foil and baked it.

I found a very nice small watermelon and cut it into bite-sized pieces of cool juicy sweet fresh from the heart of the melon and then chilled it while the marinara sauce and eggplant were cooking.

I bought organic raisins and bananas. I bought raisin, nut, cinnamon bread for tomorrow's breakfast toast. I took organic cream of tomato soup, a small container of sour cream for the requisite dollop for a start on tomorrows lunch. I bought ten containers for serving sized portions. And then I bought a rum cake.

As soon as the eggplant parmigiana was out of the oven, still bubbling around the browned cheese, I packed two servings and loaded all of this nice healthy clean tasty food into my good shopping bags. I included two shallow bowls, a fork, and two napkins. When I got to Z's it was almost 5:00 PM. I just walked in, went down the stairs and into her bedroom. I told her what I had with me, and she chose to start with the watermelon. We reminisced about all the times I cooked eggplant parmigiana for her: the most recent time was when Tom and I were together, the first time was in LA when she and V owned a chic little Indian clothing store. I was the cook for all the vegetarians who worked there. It took all day to shop and cook and plan for the next days meal. I was also a private cook for a wealthy widow in Santa Barbara in my spare time. Occasionally I forget what a good cook I am.

Z ate with relish. She ate everything I served her. I sat and talked while she ate. She didn't have room for the slice of rum cake but promised me she'd eat it later tonight. When she was finished eating she said she felt like a nap. I packed up the dirty dishes, kissed her on her cheek and let myself out.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, I pick her up after her first radiation treatment.

The Elements of Work

This is the chair, this
brown one
An antique office chair from my best Santa Barbara therapist's office when she remodeled.
No, it is not ergonomic.
It's magic and far better than merely
Ergonomic space age functionally
Modern and with no leather, no wood, no
Witness to my own disintegration and like a puzzle
She put me back together again with no king's horses, no king's men. On this chair I could take flight...

Can your chair do this?

Cancelled Dinner Plans

Z just called to tell me she just wants to be alone. She's so tired. I have no doubt. What I wanted to do, and will still do if given permission, is to take food to her. I would prepare well balanced, organic, vegetarian meals for her and deliver them. I could cook a couple of days meals and deliver them every other day. But she says she has cottage cheese and an avocado. That's a snack to me, not a meal. She ate her well balanced and hearty vegetarian three square meals a day at the hospital with relish. How am I going to get her to eat? I have gone over her dietary restrictions and don't find anything in the food plan the hospital sent home with her that would be a problem for me. I make myself hungry just planning imaginary meals for her. Will she let me feed her? She's always loved my cooking or so she says, and so it seems, when she's here eating. I will have to figure this out and fast.

Z Leaves the Hospital Today

Monday AM
I'm leaving shortly to go pick up Z from the hospital. She was going to stay with a friend who lives alone in a two bedroom condo near the hospital, but her friend is fussy about noise and traffic. Z's worried that her coughing will be a problem. Her fussy friend seems to have reservations about sharing her space with someone who might need something. I have never liked this woman, so this just caps it. Now Z goes back to her house where her youngest son, his paramour and her toddler and their baby are living. Z will reside in a basement room. I worry that this will not be a terribly peaceful place for her to go through radiation and chemotherapy. The toddler will want max attention, and any attention Z gets will seem to the boy to be attention he's not getting.

Monday 1:00 PM
I'm now home from picking her up. I took her to her home and was appalled that all the cloths we pulled from her closets are now bagged and pilled up in front of the washer and dryer. Her room is tiny and is packed with things that are stored down there. There is barely room for her bed, and there were no pillows on her bed. She keeps making excuses for the kids for not getting things ready for her. I want to strangle someone.

We talk about her diet. I told her Ms M and I had discussed cooking for her and putting pre-made meals in bags or containers and freezing them. But Z wants to come to my house for dinner. That's fine with me, but I worry about her driving by herself. She insists this is no problem. I have promised myself that I will not argue with her. So, I say "fine, whatever you're comfortable with." I'll fix organic tomato soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, and salad for her. I have some poppy seed cake--it's a couple of days old, but is great heated in the microwave and topped with vanilla ice cream. I have both cantaloupe and watermelon sliced and in separate containers in the fridge. I can feed her this evening without going to the grocery store, but tomorrow I'll shop for things my vegetarian friend can eat. I am determined to fatten her up.

She starts her radiation treatments Wednesday. I begged to take her, but she wants to drive herself. I will work on her about this issue. Her blood pressure is very low. She's on Coumadin. She hates all real medications but it willing and happy to take all manor of bizarre supplements which have been prohibited by the doctor who will be overseeing her radiation therapy. I bite my tongue. I'm on Warfarin which is another name for Coumadin. I love Warfarin. Yes I bruise, but I'm not likely to end up with my mother's vascular dementia while I'm on blood thinners. Yes, I have to work on eating a healthy diet too, but since I have no problem getting enough protein, I don't have the dietary problems she has.

Fran and I In Conversation

Fran said:

I have a very close friend who has been near & dear to my heart since the first grade.
She is from a large family of 12 kids. The extended family has had a series of deaths.
She said to me, you try to pick the best Doctors, hospitals, make the right choices, but in the end, a greater power makes the choices of how things end up.
You do your best to be supportive & help make good choices. Who's to know if this would have happened even if she had rested quietly that day?

At some point, you have to give it up to whatever powers of life that are greater than us.

Your plan was probably wiser, but we don't know if the joy she got from watching that toddler full of life and toddler chaos was something she embraced.

Somehow you have to find peace with the way things are.
Even if they suck, and the pain & suffering are more than you can bear.

I hope this makes sense.
It is meant to help you heal and wrap your head around the way things are right now.

Sometimes we have to breathe deep & get through it. Kind thoughts to you.

I attended a World Beat Festival yesterday.
Celebrating worldwide cultures.....
So many cultures celebrate death, as a part of one's life.

I heard a great song that said death set the soul free. "Don't worry about me, I am free"
If you think of it in this way, passing is a kind of sweet relief from whatever pain & suffering a person was burdened with.

I say this in a very respectful way.
Trying to give you another perspective to see all this in.

Namaste

June 28, 2009 11:58 AM

Utah Savage said...

Fran, thank you for that wisdom. Intellectually I know all this. I would make the choice to go, to let death take me, but I am outraged that death would take my best friend first. Why her and not me? I have lived my whole life as if death were my very best lover, I have courted death in every way. I have tried in a very active way to die, only to wake up with a headache and a sour stomach.

Z has lived her life as if life were sacred and everything that she eats and drinks is holy and sacred and meant to keep her body the temple of her soul.

I have thought my soul was killed off fifty years ago and only the rotting carcass left walking, talking, hiding out like a criminal.

My Twittascope: How Apt Is This

My Twittascope: Gemini

It's important for you to set aside your preconceived agenda because unexpected events today can quickly turn your home life upside down. If you attempt to prevent things from falling apart, you'll probably just speed up their demise. Don't try to hold on to a lifestyle that is no longer working for you. Instead, use your common sense and focus all of your attention on facilitating change. Sunday, June 28, 2009

Ephemera

We may be but ephemera
floating through these waters for an instant
where death drifts common as the dragonfly
no more frightening than life my dear he says smiling
Death winks and he is a handsome lad who carries us in his arms
For just a lovely moment and then off he goes on to other business

I Am Not a Bullshit Artist, But I'm Learning to Play One In Real Life

Shortly after I left her yesterday Z began coughing up blood. Not the smattering of blood that finally got her to see a surgeon in the first place, but lots of blood. Her youngest son called an ambulance. She was admitted last night to the nearest hospital. She has pulmonary emboli. She was dehydrated, was getting very little oxygen to her brain. She sounds so much better today than she did yesterday when she was lifting the baby, and I kept saying, "Don't do that," and she kept saying, "Oh I'm fine." She asked me to get the half empty glass of water from her bedside. We sat on the porch for awhile then went inside. I had to go back out to get the half empty glass of tepid water left untouched on the porch. She never drank even a sip of water in the three hours we worked on closets. The toddler wanted to be in my path to her, blocking the attention flow from our task to him. I know that's what toddlers do. It is the natural order that a toddler would be right in the middle of everything, but he should have been with his other grandmother yesterday. It isn't his fault, any of it, but still... Z probably encouraged his young mother to bring the babies. That would be what she would want even if it isn't the best thing for her. She needs rest and being cared for. She needs a calm, quiet, clean house with someone near to wait on her. She needs a strong female hand. But the only strong female hand she'd accept to run things for her is in the Pacific Northwest about to get married and who has two daughters of her own out of school for the summer.

I have never been much of one to let bullshit go uncalled. So I am not always the easiest of people to be around when you're busy rewriting recent history. I am trying very hard to learn to shut the fuck up and just nod my head.

Emptying Closets

We sit on her back porch for a half an hour or so talking about her recent medical history, and now she admits that Ackerly and Hitchcock are probably better at what they do than the doctors in San Diego she hasn't yet met who will fill Ackerly's prescription for the radiation she was refusing to believe she needed here. She says Ackerly wasted three weeks he could have been treating her. I remember it well and start to remind her and then realize that there is no point now in going over the recent past. She was barefoot the whole time I was there. I thought she looked good, her hair freshly brushed, a bit of color in her face. But she insists she looks half dead. Truth is, in the past several years I have seen her look much worse. Grey and bone thin, hair in a tangle, knotted, skin hanging from her bones. But there is no point looking back. I am here to empty closets. We will go through all her upstairs closets so her son and his girlfriend can move in and put their stuff away. They will put their furniture in storage. She is leaving everything behind but doesn't talk much about returning, though she has said she will come back. This is good that she has stated her intention to come back.

Out of two packed closets she has a small pile of things she will take with her to San Diego, a larger pile she will store in the basement and a huge pile that goes to the Junior League. She has made a pile she believes her new granddaughter's mother can sell. I have a feeling the young woman will just take the whole gigantic pile of once nice clothes to the Junior League drop up the street and be done with it. While we did the sorting I noticed how many things were once mine or my mothers. Z has several once lovely pieces that belonged to her long dead mother. Only two of her mother's beautiful things survived the moths: A perfect little black dress and a good winter coat. We both love the little black dress, too small for me or her or her son's beloved. And so off it goes to the Junior League. The good winter coat is in very good shape and actually fits me quite well. I am now about the same age her mother was when she bought the coat. Or so I guess. It will be warm and dressy enough that if I do go out and wear the new dressy brown dress, the coat will find a warm body inside it once again. It's a long shot. But without the clothes to wear there is very little chance I'll ever venture out again, after dark, dressed for an occasion, so long as I live. Anythings possible I guess.

When I left I turned to see Z drift out to the back porch. We blew kisses to one another. And the two grandchildren, and the young woman were alone in the mess of Z's drifting life, the house undusted since her only daughter left almost a month ago. I have offered to do such things as dust, but we both know it's not high on my list of priorities in my own house, so why would it be a priority of mine for her? Well, it just is. But she has put me off and I have let her. I feel guilty that she has been so reluctant to let me do those kinds of things for her, but she has had her middle son taking care of her for at least a couple of weeks, and it's just not something he would notice or do. I wonder who dusts for him?

Z leaves alone Sunday to fly to San Diego. Nothing will ever be the same again. This is the first time I have ever thought that, though I know things change moment by moment never to be the same again ever. You can see the shape of the mass under her skin, strangling her. They will start Radiation Tuesday.

Now I am cleaning my own closet as if my life depended on it.

June 25th, 2009 The Day of Punctuating Deaths

I set my alarm this morning. I know. Shocking! It was to me too when that sucker went off at 8:06. I hardly ever set the alarm, so when it goes off, there is no snoozing. I get that adrenaline rush that only an emergency sets off. It pretty much poisons me. But I'm out of bed like a shot.

The reason for the ungodly wake-up hour is an 11:00 dental appointment. I've been fighting a recurring toothache in my lower right back teeth. I know from past experience that it involves more than one of those giant molars and there is a bridge between those affected teeth. So all in all, losing those two teeth will leave three spaces that are my main chewing surface. Go ahead, laugh. Remember you may be young now, but you are growing older by the day. One day your teeth will fail too.

I took my shower at 9:30. Well, that was uneventful. Maybe it's a good omen. Clean and shampooed in under ten minutes! Maybe a new record for me. The moisturizing and deodorizing and hair drying takes longer than the shower. Finally I am newly dressed and clean all over. I have forty five minutes before I have to leave the house. More coffee and another couple of smokes.

My dentist's office is in my neighborhood. This is one of the reasons I go to Harold. That and the fact that he's both good looking and an accomplished musician. He, like Tom, my ex, can play anything. I have never heard him play, but know that Tom doesn't exaggerate anyone else's talent. And until my teeth started failing, I thought Harold was one hell of a dentist. But now all he wants to do is get rid of the old dying teeth and put implants in their place. I will not do my "implant rant" now, but I'm sure you can imagine how a poor old woman with no dental insurance feels about implants. I sometimes contemplate having them all pulled and getting myself a set of loverly choppers just to get it over with.

I put my hand on the doorknob of Harold's office at exactly 11:00. It's locked. I look in the almost shuttered windows and see that the place is empty. What the Fuck! This is wrong. I go to the dentist's office next door and ask them if they know where Harold went. They have his number and call his office. Marilyn, Harold's receptionist answers the phone and tells me they moved a year and a half ago. "Well, Marilyn, that doesn't explain why you didn't inform me that you'd moved! Did you send cards to patients?" She tells me the new address and I am not amused. It might as well be in Bum Fuck! She says,"It'll only take you five minutes." It actually takes fifteen. But as I'm driving there I hear on NPR that Farah Fawcett died. I always thought she was a bit to whispy and flaky, but men seemed to like her. Tom used to force me to watch Charlie's Angles. But then I saw her in Extremities and The Burning Bed, I thought she was stunningly good. I saw her documentary about her fight with cancer and it was moving. By the time I get to the dentist's new place, I've mellowed a bit thinking about Farah.

By the time I get home, it's close to 1:30. Ms M is having her latte and smoking a cigarette at my kitchen table watching the news when I walk in. I just get inside when the phone rings. My neighbor T wants to bring her dog over for a romp with Marley and to help me trim Marley's nails.

Marley is a strong and vociferous opponent to the nail trimming procedure but is no real match for the two of us. On my own she'd be a handful. She may look sweet and small, but she's one strong and squirrelly little actress screaming before a single nail is trimmed. Oh the eye rolling hysteria of it all.

The next phone call is the tree guy my neighbor recommended to finish cutting and removing the Navaho Willow the Power Company topped earlier in June. He says he's a few minutes away. I put Roscoe in the big house and grab my clippers. When I was walking T out front I noticed a few over hanging limbs that needed trimming so they didn't smack people in the face as they walked on the sidewalk in front of my place. That's how seldom I go out front and look around.

The tree removal guy seems nice and the estimate's reasonable. We walked the property looking for tree problems and he seems impressed with my forest. He knows his trees. He came here from South Carolina but grew up in St. Louis. I like his accent. We schedule for next week and shake on it. I have a copy of the estimate in my hand.

I go inside and call Z. She answers on the second ring and sounds better than she has in weeks. Then she asks me if I can come over tomorrow and help Rachel, her youngest son's mate, go through Z's closets and clear them out. This is something that I can do, but after I hang up I get a very strange and creepy feeling. It's is as if we are to clean out the deceased's closets. She wants us to decide who gets what and then cart the rest to the thrift store. I wonder if she'll live to regret this plundering of her clothing. But then this evening I remove my closet doors so I can clean it. I too will lighten my load. Take the burden off the living. Make better use of space. I know we are just place holders in this moment.

I was distressed all evening listening to the wall-to-wall coverage of Michael Jackson's death. I am appalled at the wretched excess of it all. As if there were no other news story worth covering today. It reminds me of the Anna Nicole insanity. I know Michael was a monster talent. I get it. He was talented and famous and terribly fucked up. And god help his children and all the other children he fucked-up. I know he was a talented victim and I know he victimized other children. I know I will offend some of you, but I had no doubt about the fact that MJ was a pedophile. It was a shame the prosecution was so bad. There were other cases to chose from. Picking the one they did to prosecute was a stupid mistake. I know someone is tearing his hair and screaming "Leave Michael alone!!!!"

F-22 War Planes Are Not Wanted By Military, Yet House Passes Defense Bill That Includes The F 22. Please sign yet another petition.

Dear Peggy,
Tell the Senate - If you don't stop the F-22, Obama will!

Email your Senators now and tell them to cut these wasteful warplanes so Obama doesn't have to!

The other night the House Rules Committee denied Barney Frank's amendment to strip out unnecessary F-22s from the Defense Authorization bill.1 We were really angry when we got the news, and we weren't the only ones: President Obama has announced that he might veto the entire authorization bill if the planes aren't taken out.2

But there's another chance for our leaders to do the right thing - the Senate is taking up their version of the bill right now, and if they leave the planes out, we can avoid an ugly confrontation.

Email your Senator right now and demand that they keep these wasteful warplanes out of the bill - so the President doesn't have to.

http://www.truemajority.org/nof22

Why the added F-22's were allowed to remain in the House version of the bill is a mystery. But the weapons-builders are a powerful lobby in DC, and sometimes have influence regular citizens don't know about. Fortunately, we've got some powerful allies in our corner too: including President Obama and his Secretary of Defense who called these planes 'a big problem' for the Pentagon.3

Now the fight moves to the Senate where we've got plans to work with the president's team and the Pentagon to make sure that the Senate version of the bill does not include these unneeded planes. You can help by sending an email your Senator right now and asking him or her to get on board.

-Matt
Matt Holland
Online Director
TrueMajority / USAction

A CONVERSATION...

Sitenoise was kind enough to give me the only great laugh in days, and I only read the first character's first few lines.

I was a big fan of Deadwood.

Fuuny man, funny women

“Why are men, taken on average and as a whole, funnier than women?” inquired Christopher Hitchens in “Why Women Aren’t Funny,” Vanity Fair, January 2007.

That’s a good question. And by that I mean, fuck you.

~Elissa Bassist collects a bunch of writing by women from McSweeneys.net.

I wonder if McSweeney's thinks it's funny to publish in such a small font. You decide.

For Governor Mark Sanford

One more lying, philandering, hypocritical republican scum-bag bites the dust. So who's your blue eyed boy now GOP? Who is your next best and brightest? Who can live up to your high standards?(sic)