sins and decisions

Gluttony. One of the seven deadlies. In my job, which has recently become bigger because my boss retired and the new boss isn't here yet, and the nurse, the second in command, is on vacations, so I am pretty much everybody, well, in my job, I meet people. They are typically in need, in crisis, at the end of their life or their rope or both, and I have to interview them for placement. Placement. What a word. In its wisdom, the Great State of Oregon has contrived a new language to make what I do a little more palatable. For example, folks are no longer admitted, they move in. They are never discharged, they (you guessed it) move out. They get move out notices, not evictions. But placement is still placement. There really isn't another word for it.


Jesus.


What I am getting at is not the language of long term care, but this fat fat woman I met today. I am working on placing her. And, as you might imagine, placing a 350 pound woman has its own set of concerns. You would want to consider, for example, where to place her, and on what? And for how long, and can she get up from there? And I was taking someone else's word for it, and I needed to see for myself that she could move because if she couldn't and we had to call the fire department because she was stuck, they'd get mad at us, and I hate that. But shit, sometimes, like a kitten in a tree, people have trouble getting out of places.


So I went to her house. "I need to see you move," I said.

She started struggling around with her robes and blankets and stuff, and I was a little concerned that she wasn't decent, so I just turned my head.

I asked her if she'd checked out the apartment she was going to be renting. I never go anywhere," she said. Never.

She has opted to eat rather than, well, anything else.

It made an impression is all.

noturpathic

I never did follow up on the naturpathic business. Well, to no one's surprise, I am not Noah. I could not hang with the HCG 500 calorie a day diet. I lost 18 pounds in 14 days and was so sick at that point that I bailed. She said I'm not the biggest loser, but the fastest. But then I quit.

Here's the problem. She was so nice. She put nice oils on cotton balls and taped them to my feet and playes swishy water music while I lay in the dark with needles poked here and there and that was fine. But really, who wouldn't lose weight like that?

And the cost was obscene. At each visit there were more and more supplements, more and more drops and oils and it all just makes me sick. Nauseous. I can't take multi-vitamins, let alone forty different things. I can't take ibuprofen or anything in that family. So, I got pretty sick.

I went to my knee/shoulder MD and told him the naturpathic thing was a flop. I told him I think you have to believe it for it to work and I just don't. I wish I did.

He said, fingers making the twinkly, do-wah sign: "You are not the Jedi they seek."

I love that guy.

random acts

I am in Cannon Beach, a swanky town by my standards, for a writing conference. I have my fluffy little white dog with me and we have a lovely room with a fireplace and a view of the beach.

I like this conference. It gets better each year: good faculty, interesting information. For instance, I found a way to organize my book that I have been lacking, given my general, habitual, genetic lack of organization. Excellent.

And, one of the presenters was/is a senior editor at a good publishing house and he offered to look at agent queries and first pages for critique. What I didn't realize is that this would be done in front of the entire conference.

He critiqued five submissions, each one worse than the one before it, saving mine for last. I was, understatedly, anxious. Sweating bullets. Was mine to be the final straw, so flawed as to hold a special last place?

I waited.

I had included in my query letter, by way of bio, my alma mater, a short story publication in an obscure literary journal, and having received the 2004 award for fiction. You do that in queries. You tell on yourself that way. It builds cred.

So he begins his critique of my piece by mentioning the fact that there are no page numbers. This irritates him. (Well, I think to myself, if it was a REAL submission, I'd include them.) Then he talks generally about the query, which was pretty good. Then..... then he talks about the bio. He says, "Now this bio shows us exactly why it is a good idea to include a bio."

Drumroll...................

"Turns out," he says, "I went to THAT alma mater, was the editor for THAT obscure literary journal and won precisely THAT award for fiction -- only in 2003."

I wasn't exactly listening, but when he got to the end of that last sentence, I realized he wasn't joking. I blurted from the rear of the audience, "Are you fucking serious?" But I didn't say fucking out loud.

He was serious. So, after the thing, I approached him and asked if I could send him a manuscript. He said, of course. I'm interested.

I means nothing, really. Not in the scope of getting this thing published. But each little push makes the work seem worthwhile.

Random? I think yes.

delilah

Well, after a very long haul, Delilah finally passed. Her funeral was a Catholic mass, which is always confusing for me, all of the standing and sitting and kneeling and drinking and repeating phrases that everyone but me knows about. I felt like the only heathen in the room, but my mother always told us that the pope is the anti-christ, so who's heathen now?

Anyway, it takes a really long time to die of just Alzheimer's and Delilah was otherwise healthy. She was a teacher, and she thought, because of my desk (and my commanding presence) that I was her principal. If we had a party -- christmas, you name it -- it would make her anxious. Parties make most people with dementia anxious, which begs the question: why? But I digress. When anxious, she would march into my office and say, "If you can't get these kids to quiet down, I'm getting the nuns."

Okay, Delilah. I'll deal with the kids.

She wore a wig, kicked the cats, chased my dog, tore down bulletin boards each night, and didn't sleep for years. Years. She made up anything you wanted to know. She wasn't a liar, but she didn't want to seem uninformed, so she'd just confabulate.

In the end, she went for a long sleep. Finally. At last. Her daughter was a wonderful advocate. She kept her wig washed and set long after Delilah had forgotten about hair. She understood the ravages of dementia and never missed an opportunity to speak for her mother. She cared what was important to her, not just what was important for her. Often those of us in the helping industry forget the difference.

noah

If he can do it, I can do it. I'm on day 7 of 40. Fifteen pounds and counting.

As much as I detest using my blog as a diet diary, I'm a bit consumed by what is happening to my body. I feel better most of the time, am not so much hungry as weak, and had accupuncture yesterday for the first time. It didn't hurt, and may have helped. The only lingering problem is leg cramps. I was having them prior to the cleanse/diet, and am trying some natural measures to stop them. Thanks to asia for her wisdom, and for running until she cramps so she knew what to tell me. There is always someone in front of me on whatever path I find myself on.

My conclusion at this point is that naturpathic medicine is still medicine, is pricey, and there is still alot to do about my once-failing self. I do feel better, lighter, and hopeful. Diets are for fools. Call them cleanses, call them what you will. I know this. But my knees hurt and I was so sick. I just wanted something like a zipper that I could unzip the last 5 years of stress and cortisol and fast food and step out of the fat suit I've acquired. The only lasting solution is movement, something I don't get with my current set of hobbies. Change. Ah. I remember change.

This weekend we will observe Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as we used to call it in the nursing home. We used to load all of the old women, they usually outlived and outnumbered the men, on the bus and take them around to local cemeteries because everybody pretty much lived and died in the same place. Most men went to war and were buried out at the Veteran's cemetery. My family did, and is. Women grew gardens specifically for Decoration Day, tulips and lilacs and daffodils and iris. Things that would bloom by May. My father is buried on the coast and he said he only wanted flowers from our own gardens. Never store-bought. I wish I'd known him better.

My former mother-out-law turns eighty today. We will celebrate her with a big party at Jackson Park on the Applegate River. She is a remarkable woman, the most influential in my life. She loves my son and I without reservation, even though his father and I never married except in a biker-sort-of-way. Her dignity surpasses anyone I've known. Her advice is sound and never given without asking and I've never heard her say a bad word about anyone -- and I can't say that about anyone else except my brother Doug. She is equally comfortable in a remote cabin cooking for a pack of men and mules or bringing out the fine china. I am blessed to be counted among her daughters.

Well, my wax is melting and I am working on a small piece for her birthday gift. Wish me luck. I'll put a bird on it.

elixer

Don't misunderstand. I'm still all for the natural way, however, I have now signed up for the diet program. Why, I'm wondering, are all nutritional specialists tiny? What do they know? Do they understand the intrinsic mistrust of the fat for the thin? Seriously.

Naw. She was nice. Just in a tiny way.

So I feel much like Jack in the hours just after he purchased the magic beans. I am hoping for a beanstalk outside my window tomorrow morning. I have purchased many magic beans in my lifetime, but, as usual, that's another story for another day.

So don't come for dinner for 40 days and 40 nights. I won't be cooking except for 100 gm. portions of meat and a plain vegetable. one. at. a .time.

cold feet

I'm complaining, formally, about the weather. I'm not complaining about the luscious lilacs in my back yard, or the sprouting baby grass where the dogs used to poop. I'm cold. I'm tired of being cold. I want to be warm now. I'm done. I am, to quote any teenager, over it. My feet are cold. They've been cold for months. I am grateful not to be in Mississippi right now. I'll give you that much.

So, anyway, back to my life on Clinton Steet on a cold and rainy sunday morning. The trucks were out today, two big metro vans of men on overtime hanging our new street art above our streetsigns, on our dime. I think the art is nice, bicycles, to indicate that Clinton is indeed a "bicycle boulevard" as if you couldn't tell from the volume of bicycles. Its part of the Clinton Street Bicycle Boulevard Street Art Project and costs 70,000 dollars. My husband had to set them straight, sign-maker that he is, and offer his opinion. I told them to ignore him. He's grumpy.

Speaking of grumpy, Duffy is guarding my bay window, warning of cats and wire-walking squirrels and crows that threaten our airspace. Kurt calls him Dick Cheney because of his continual grumbling. He still doesn't understand birds. He doesn't yet grasp the impossibility of catching something capable of spontaneous flight. Oh! to be so simple again, to cover my eyes with tiny hands and believe that what was there is gone simply because I can't see it. I hated learning the name for that: Conservation of Mass. I think there should be a better name for that kind of magic.

As summer approaches, sneaking up behind this vicious spring, I am not prepared for the heat that is sure to follow, but will welcome it with open, if sunburned, arms.

fine.

I am subdued. I finally think I understand the psychological underpinnings of my poor health. Fair warning: I am going to try to explain it to you.

As you've read, I grew up dirt poor. Not third world poor, but make your own clothes poor, no dental/health care poor, charge groceries at the corner store so your mother can have wine poor. See? Somewhere along the line I developed this notion that going to the doctor was reserved for the rich. That it ensured health.

So... along goes my life, then my child's life, and we are poor (not third world poor, but steal groceries so your mother can have heroin poor) and we don't have insurance. We have welfare, but that isn't the same thing. When you're on welfare, you're not encouraged to come back for the follow up care. They patch you up and send you home and you can't afford medicine so you do without.

The logistical leaps that follow are many and high. Stick with me. Eventually, my conclusion is that having health insurance is the key to good health. The beauty of this theory is that it requres nothing of the insured but insurance. It requires no lifestyle change, no running, no avoiding haagen das ice cream or creme cheese and crab enchiladas. Not that I eat those things. If you have insurance, you can make as many appointments as you want and fill all of the prescriptions you can get to treat all of the diagnoses that apply after a sedentary lifetime of resentment and unmet expectations.

I married up. I had finally reached the pinnacle of health: I had Blue Cross/Blue Shield full meal deal health and dental and vision. I was diagnosed with high blood pressure, high cholestrol, obesity, diverticulosis, interstitial cystitis, type 2 diabetes, asthma, chronic bronchitis and the great thing was that there were pills for all of these things. If I took the pills, I didn't have high blood pressure, ad nauseum.

But I did.

On occasion, my tiny little asian gynocologist would say, "whatever you eat, eat less; whatever you do, do more." I laughed. Great Idea.

But I kept taking the pills and getting sicker. And then I'd get more pills. Antibiotics. And more antibiotics. And I was getting sicker and sicker and sicker. And going to the doctor more and more and more and the guys at the pharmacy know my name. And the thing is, this made me feel affluent. Rich. Finally: I had arrived. I had healthcare.

But no health.

bummer.

So, on monday I had my first visit with a Naturpathic MD. We had a great time. I am now taking un-drugs: Pro-biotics and healing agents. I am going to the doctor not so he can fix me, but so he can teach me to fix myself. We hope to unwind the past ten years of passive consumption. It will take effort on my part. I told him he had a narrow window of opportunity that I call willingness, a condition brought about by exhausting all other avenues. Easier, softer ways.

Its just like being poor, only without the heroin.

seven years

The Canby Spring Garden Faire is this weekend. I bought eight Lucifer Crocosiums, three Spanish Lavenders, two Beefsteak tomatoes, one Golden Keriea and one Clair de Lune Clematis. I'm not certain of all the names, but, like my sainted mother, I'm willing to make up what I don't know for sure. There was so much to choose from, so many unusual plants and garden art. The art was mostly sharp and rusty. Some pieces looked like they should come with a voucher for a tetanus shot. Let me be clear: I'm not against rust, just sharp ugly rust. And dishes stacked and pasted together in a wobbly ornament of some kind. Not really sure if there is a use for these things or if they are of purely ornamental value. If I had some extra dishes, and I do, I'd just give them to the kids, or Goodwill, or, like my pig neighbors on the corner of 27th and Clinton, stack them on the sidewalk, put a free sign on them and be freegan/slothful/slobbish.

Today, all but the tomatoes are in the ground. Each year I plant and plant and plant. Some thrive, some fail. I keep trying. I don't care how much it costs.

Today is our seventh anniversary. We had dinner and fun last night at Montage, a great Cajun joint under the Morrison bridge. I usually have the flat iron steak and save room for Gooey Butter Cake. My husband of seven years has pasta, some spicy thing with shrimp in it. They wrap leftovers in foil sculptures and yell alot. Kurt orders oyster shooters just to hear them yell. Everyone sits family style so you get to know your neighbors. Its a rowdy, SE Portland kinda place. This morning we had breakfast down the street at Sub Rosa, a small, friendly Italian place who finally caught a clue and started having breakfast on weekends. The sausage is excellent and the eggs benedict was good.

This blog has chronicled our romance -- with the exception of the first twenty-five years. I have no wisdom to offer other than it is important to marry the right person. I'm grateful I did. I gave him a little glass box with seven copper beads in it. He gave me roses.

easter campfires

If you read this sad little column (put a bird on it ,Portlandia) and you skip the comments section, well, you really are missing the best in life. Those of us who thrive here in the blogosphere, or who once-thrived and now make guest appearances due to interlopers such as facebook stealing our thunder which wasn't so much thunder as rumbling in the distance, grumbling, more like it -- there remains a "campfire-ness" about us, around which we tell our timeless and irreverent stories, dropping in and out of topic and tantrum, past and present.

Ken Kesey said it would be like this. I saw him once in Ashland, learned at his feet. I signed up to learn about writing, which, some 60K in hindsight, cannot be so much taught as chased after and subdued (ruined). What I learned is that Kesey was a great storyteller, a great liar -- as I am, as any fiction writer is -- and when he referred to the internet as a campfire, I couldn't imagine the psychosocial detachedment that would make it seem so.

I know campfires like the back of my hand: the stink of old charcoal and of bootleather left too close to the campfire to dry. I own camping implements in triplicate. I love sleeping beyond the lights of the city, in campgrounds of likeminded souls who want to be alone, together. Except for those who bring radios. I hate them.

So, on this Easter Day, as I celebrate a passe faith with coconut anglefood cake, ham and chocolate bunnies, I am grateful for campfires, and for those who sit around them with me, wherever you are.

the news from clinton street

entropy and anomie live together in perfect harmony.

I've been deathly ill for a week now. Well, three years, but let's not quibble. I've been in my spot overlooking my street for many days in a row, now. since last Friday, really. I am so sick. I've been so sick for so long that I really think I'm going to not so much change doctors as investigate additional ideas.


I donated about a quart of blood this morning to find out what is wrong with me. One thing is that I am too fat. The other is that I get little exercise. I know these things. But when I feel bad I want ice cream -- mint chocolate chip is my current weakness and, as luck would have it they now make Klondike bars in mint chocolate chip -- and when I feel bad I don't want to exercise. Bad combination. I think this is true of most people, but most people are able to rise above their - well, their cozy little sofas and teaspoons -- and just do it.

The sun is out and I'm not planting flowers. That's how crappy I feel. If the Canby Master Gardner's Faire was today, I wouldn't go. That's bad. I think/hope its next week. It is usually the first weekend in May.

Addendum: one week later: I planted 47.00 worth of flowers today. More to come. On the mend.

livewire among other things

Let me apologize in advance for the apparent loss of the paragraph function in my blog. Not sure what's up or how to fix it. I like run-on sentences, but run-on paragraphs are a big fat blur to me. Well it was pretty fun to sit with my friend Athena in the OPB audience and clap when the sign was lifted. I've always wanted to see a live radio show like Prairie Home Companion, but Garrison Keillor is losing his edge (or so he says and I think when he says it he is kidding but in my opinion Lutherans have lost their comedic edge) and Livewire is up and coming Portland entertainment. I bought tickets because Anne Lamott was on the schedule. I haven't seen her in years. her schtick hasn't changed, but her dreds are gray now, and she is still an unconvincing Christian, whom I emulate. Her book "Bird by Bird" is still an important book for beginning writers. She's fun to listen to, but she was clearly very tired, on a book tour, and the annoying factor is that on my way home I noticed the marquee at the Bagdad and it said, "Anne Lamott, 6:00. Shit. I could have saved my money, walked down to the Bagdad and seen her for three bucks, earlier, when she wasn't so tired. Still, she is kind of my idol, and I really was happy to see her. I give a copy of her book to newer writers when I have one lying around. The mayor was there, and was giving a proclamation of some sort. He was a little funny, which helps, because he seems like a complete dick to me, at least someone with poor judgment. God, I can't stand people with poor judgment. Work remains difficult, challenging in a couple of important ways, and I am happy to have a job and money to spend on spring flowers.

tomorrow

I dumped all of the dirt out of many of my many pots because tomorrow is FUSCHIA SATURDAY AT FRED MEYER!!!!!!!!!! FREE DIRT. I'll stop yelling now. It is a great thing they do. I take all of my pots and plant the heck out of their little fuschia starts. I like "dark eyes" and "lena" and "pink marshmallow." but each year, I get what I can and I think that some years the fuschia elves go in the middle of the night and switch all the little signage sticks so you pretty much get a crap shoot of colors. But that's okay. My need for order is slowly giving way to the entropy of life in SE Portland. We (the royal we) are building a fence so the dogs have somewhere to roam. I'm glad about it. I want the front yard back. I'm tired of looking at chickenwire, sawdust and dogshit. Sue me. Even entropic living has its limits. Also, the fence will serve as a barrier for Duffy's enthusiasm to meet and greet passersby, which looks more like a desire to tear the throat out of passing dogs. Not that he could, or would, but his act is pretty convincing. I'm just wondering if the neighbors will care about the fence. They don't seem to care about much of anything. They are roommates that shift and change with the seasons; they all look alike and some of them come and go, so its hard to tell sometimes. My husband used to live in the house nextdoor, so he takes the "Toddler Property Laws" view of things. Look 'em up. Nevermind. I did it for you. Toddlers' Property Laws 1. If I like it, it's mine. 2. If it's in my hand, it's mine. 3. If I can take it from you, it's mine. 4. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine. 5. If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way. 6. If I'm doing or building something, all the pieces are mine. 7. If it looks like mine, it is mine. 8. If I saw it first, it's mine. 9. If you are playing with something and you put it down, it automatically becomes mine. 10 If it's broken, it's yours.

art as livelihood

what if.....

eureka

They make gold encaustic wax. Just sayin'

requiem for a priest

Sometimes I think I know how things should go -- who, for instance, should get an easy death. I think my priest should have gotten a pass.

I don't know if I have explained in my not always succinct manner what hard work it is to die. Or how earnestly we hang on, for that matter, as our attachments, each one a thread, unravel in unpredictable succession.

We tend to focus on how hard it is for the family to watch someone pass (floating, skipping, slipping, wandering, marching, tromping by) -- when in fact -- because here at bluesky we deal in facts-- it is hard physical labor coming in and going out of this world.

Don't let me sugarcoat this for you.

I don't know much about priests. I don't know much about Catholicism except that they have nice windows and some good cathedrals. So it is difficult to know how to comfort a priest who is in unmanaged discomfort, spewing black vomit around the room. I thought I was on the set of the Exorcist only I was the girl and the priest's head was going to spin around. Do you say, "Its going to be okay, honey." ? Do you call the priest honey? Is that wrong?

And I thought about praying with him, for him, then remembered that Catholics don't believe mere mortals have access to God, big G, without an intermediary. But in this case, the middle man was dying so I had to improvise. I chose the 23rd Psalm.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He leadeth me beside the still waters
He maketh me lie down in green pastures
He restoreth my soul

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me

And that's when it got me. He was sitting in that valley. And he struggled and struggled

And then came the social worker, one of those well-meaning sorts who wants so badly to assign spiritual meaning to physical events. She didn't know my priest. She didn't know that he would thank you graciously if you stuck a needle in his eye. She watched as my priest was touching his mouth and reaching out his hand repeatedly, smiling and nodding, and she was certain he was giving everyone a final blessing, but as the outcome showed, he was just looking for a place to puke.

encaustic images

Encaustic painting (painting with melted, pigmented beeswax) gets to that place in me that always wrecked the candles, dripping layer after layer, color after color, until the candle was no longer a candle, wax spent, morning arriving too early, again.

So this is what my busy little hands have been doing. Please buy one. The wax is expensive.

They are titled, top to bottom: Solitary Crow, A bird in the hand, Four Little Blackbirds, Old Paper, Red Ball, Crow on Barbed Wire.

pneumonia

I should get healthy. But to do this, I need to get well enough to leave the house. So I stay home and paint wax pictures and write books. This is my epitaph: I tried.

Seriously.

The encaustic work is going well. It is the perfect combination of image and language that has always appealed to me. Layers of color and words, graphic images, a beautiful mess. the real draw for me is that I don't have to clean the brushes, just buy new ones. It speaks to the degree of sloth I am capable of.

Gosh. This sounds so negative.

gold star

I like to think work doesnt' really matter, that my job is just a means to buy books and new colors of encaustic wax and nice pens for writing and valentine presents for my own true love. But this week the great state of Oregon showed up and graded my performance. I was so happy when I got an A+ for working.

My husband just finished watching Men Who Stare at Goats. He thinks we should drop acid and get back to our roots. I reminded him just where our roots come from, what they look like, gnarled and rotting, even in the considerable distance of retrospection.

Then, after I got my gold star, I started feeling really shitty again, went back to the doctor and learned it is not a virus or sinus infection that is torturing me. I have pneumonia. I am such an invalid.

zealots

I'm not crazy about zealousness. Not about anything. My mother was a Christian zealot. I was completely surrounded by zealots at one time in my life and my soul was nearly consumed by them. They meant well. Really, they did. They had my salvation in mind when they sought to control my behavior. I'm not mad at them. I get it. What pisses me off is when zealots, who do not believe my eternal life is at stake, who only have an opinion or an axe to grind, take my weekend in their busy little hands and grind it to dust. I can never get it back.