New Year, New Me?

Let's just get the obvious out of the way and note that I'm already a bit late to be posting this type of entry, given that it's February and all, but I found this draft of a blog from a few weeks ago, and it seemed as good enough place as any to start. To explain my extended absence from this forum, I'd like to introduce two pieces of evidence.

1. My mom still has that fucking brain tumor.

2. It's the middle of the Jan/Febs in the Northwest, the Jan/Febs unofficially being that time of year where anyone who lives in Oregon or Seattle slowly but surely, loses most of their desire to live given the lack of sunlight they are experiencing for months on end. This manifests itself in several ways, personally in the form of rarely getting out of bed before 10 am, crying inexplicably, hating things inexplicably and an irrational fear that I may never see the sun again. Now, I've got one of those lights that one is supposed to use every morning in order to help these horrible side effects of the Jan/Febs, and sometimes I use them. When I do, I feel better. I just have to feel better enough to switch the damn thing on for 1/2 an hour every morning, and sometimes that's hard. I only made one resolution this year, that being to do more of this writing thing I do, but now I have another one: use the damn light every day. Or risk not getting out of bed for weeks at a time.

At any rate, the turnover to a new year has never been all that significant for me, as nothing much seems to change from December 31st at 12:00 to to January 1st at 12:01 and all those things I wish I'd been doing the year before follow me around the whole next year too, as I try and get my shit together. I usually note the passing of time with birthdays or huge life events, but this year, January seems not only the mark of a fresh start, but also beginning of the end for my mother, so it is a very strange mile marker this time around. Plus, I am now officially 37, which is a hellava lot closer to 40 than I'd like it to be. I feel on the precipice of so many things in my life - I'm in love in a way I've never been before and will soon have an entirely new life with him in the Bay Area sometime this year; my writing is growing and changing, everything, really, is changing, but in the meantime, my life is still much the same. That is, slinging mojitos, trying to write, struggling to get out of bed before noon.

I guess you'd call it limbo, what I'm in now, this in-between of knowing and not knowing of waiting for things to change, yet not really wanting them too, as when they do, it will mean my mom won't be here anymore. The strange thing is that most of the days I spend with her I forget this fact entirely. Or mostly. That has been the biggest gift for me in all of this, the ability to lose myself in the moment with her, whether it be just chatting or making her lunch or getting her dressed. Of course I know she's sick, but she's still here, which gives me the freedom to let go of her death on most days. (Not all days. Please. My shit isn't that together.) She might be a little slower than the mom I'm used to, but she's still sharp, witty, funny as fucking hell and able to give the sagest advice for everything I'm going through in my life - including what I need to do when she's gone.

According to her, all I will have to do is light a candle and think of her and she will be here, and after all these years of knowing one another, whatever dilemma and question I have for her, I will already know what it is she's going to say. I suppose that's true, and there is some comfort in that, although there will be nothing to replace the sound of her laughter or her voice. Yet those things are permanently imprinted on me; they are what have helped me survive this life up until now.

But it is the smallest of moments I will miss with her, one of which happened yesterday. It was my day to take care of her, and her morning visitor cancelled. She looked a little lost like, "Now what in the hell are we going to do all morning?" and I came up with this: trash TV. My mom is a strange dichotomy that way - she mediates, she reads voraciously about spirituality and various intellectuals, she reads the New Yorker and The New York Times religiously and she doesn't watch a lot of TV. However, she loves a little gossip and glamour and such as much as the rest of us - in fact, when I told her the Golden Globes were on a few weeks ago (she didn't realize) she let out a whoop and shook her good fist in the air and said, "There is something to live for!" I've let her know she's got to live until at least March 7th, because that's when the Oscars are on. I'm also tempting her with the DVD release of the 3rd season of Mad Men, which might keep her here until the end of March. She had a friend tell her what happens in case she died before she watched it - but she's already forgotten what they told her. How's that for airtight planning?

At any rate, we turned on The View and caught Mario Cantone ripping the Grammys, which made her laugh harder than I'd heard in awhile. Then Regis and Kelly came on and he kept talking about Jersey Shore's second season, and his desire to see them in The Hamptons. She had no idea what he was talking about, so I tried to explain, you know, Snooki and Pauly and The Situation and just the depravity. She wasn't quite getting it, so I showed her the SNL clip of the Snooki parody and she howled. "Thank God for comedy," she said. "Do you think anyone else has every had so much fun dying?"

No, Mom, I don't. And it's amazing to watch it all unfold.

Here are the clips, so you can share in the riduculous joy. "It's not deragatony!"



And "the squeakquel"....

Wow. I Can't Even Try To Say I'll Post More...

...because that's what I've been saying, and now we are nearly 6 weeks into no postings. Well, at some point, I'll come back with a vengeance. For now, you'll have to live with my witty Facebook updates and a new Forces of Geek column!



http://www.forcesofgeek.com/2010/01/diet-shmiet.html

The Road and Other Things I'm Ruminating On

Last night, after working another shift wherein I made little to no money, I met up with my friend Lynn in the hopes of forgetting about the tanking economy and my sick mother and well, my sick mother. At least for a few hours. It worked for awhile, at least during drinks and pizza. Then we decided to go see Whip It - you know, that girl-friendly roller derby romp directed by Drew Barrymore that hardly anyone saw? Yes, that one. Well friends, others must have needed a similar pick me up, because it was sold out. The only other thing playing in the next 20 minutes that neither of us had seen? The Road.

Now, I know what you're thinking, because my mom said it this morning. "No you didn't. You didn't!?!"

Yes, I did. I'd read a little bit of Cormac in grad school, which featured trees full of dead babies and a dude who liked to do it with corpses, so I knew it would be grim. But Oprah picked it, people, Oprah! (I will confess her that I did not read the book. And I won't. Two hours of that was enough.) And this isn't to say it was a bad movie, as really, in terms of Apocalypse movies, it's a solid A-/B+. And I know this might sound naive, but I just didn't think it would be so, well, apocalyptic.

This photo would be a taste of the mood and lighting of the entire film:

Um, Dad, I know we don't have food, but couldn't we get just a splash of color
somewhere in this new hell-on-earth world?

I will say I've never been a fan of the end-of-it-all movie, given that I feel there's enough horror right here in front of us every day and that it seems like overkill to spend one's time watching a tidal wave swallow NYC. But I sort of understand now why people do watch - life may be bad, but it's not holy-shit-there's-nothing-left-on-the-planet-but-some-crazy-rapist-cannibals-and-me-and-my-dad bad. And there is something to that, although this backdrop provided me no escape from thinking about my mother, because at its heart, The Road is about the enduring power of love, especially that of family. So there I am, watching *spoiler alert*as the father dies, this kid's only hope and humanity in the world and he is left to go on alone and find something to hold onto. The interesting part? He's got one bullet left, and he doesn't use it to kill himself. And I guess in that sense, he carries his dad and his love with him into the unknown.

It haunted me, those images, that idea, especially given that I will have to do just that when my mother dies, and I am terrified some days as I wonder what that will look like, how that will even be remotely possible. The world without her in it, and me, somehow continuing to exist. We are a little over two months out from surgery, and she is doing so well right now it's hard to imagine we aren't in some kind of magical remission, that she will just be disabled but will live on just fine, for like, well 40 more years. But then, when she is tired, or seems a little less with it, I panic, I think, "Is this it? The beginning of the end?" and I imagine watching her slow decline and eventual death, role playing it in my mind, making a feeble attempt to prepare.

When I get too far into that little game and suddenly find it hard to get out of bed or up off the floor, I remember the people in my life who will still be here to help me carry on. My amazing friends, her amazing friends, all of the people that have rallied around us. Then I call or text my boyfriend,Matt, who, like no one else in this world, understands. We spent Thanksgiving together, which was also the anniversary of his father's death two years ago from the same brain cancer my mother has. Watching him grieve, I was hit with the reality that I will have my own anniversary, my own enveloping sadness, and like he had to, I will have to go on into the unknown without the person I loved most in this world. Except there is this: I will have him, which provides more comfort than I ever thought possible. I sort of believed that having someone to help you through the impossible was a hollow promise, that in the end, you still do it alone. In five short months, he has proven me wrong time and again, more all the time. And that, along with the outpouring of love that has come to my mother since her diagnosis, is the hope I hold on to, the love that propels me into the next day.

All that said, I even managed to shake off my Road hangover today, in part by downloading some of the photos Matt and I took over the weekend - I hope you find them a splash of color in this sometimes gray world.

It's a little known secret that Mimosas really help with cooking. It's kind of amazing.

Matt's cat, Miles. She's had him to herself for 10 years, and wasn't super thrilled about me, but this visit I got some purring action and even a little leg rub, not to mention some curling up at my feet.
I think we are going to be just fine.

How about that turkey? Matt spent at least 15 minutes patiently stuffing sage butter
underneath its skin. What did I do? Made gravy.

Gravy, baby. And buttermilk mash.

Our dining room and meal, complete with a little Beaujolais and Duke Ellington.

Please forgive the sap, and the excessive cuteness of this picture. I couldn't resist. Did I mention I haven't had a boyfriend in 8 years? Yep. But this guy was soooo worth the wait. I am a lucky, lucky lady.

Giving Thanks

We are not huge on the holidays in my family, as growing up in a divorced household, we had four Christmases sometimes (one at mom's, one at dad's, one at dad's girlfriend's, one at the grandparents) which might seem great, but was really just a super long, exhausting day. Worse for my sister, I would imagine, as she had to hear me tell the same stories over and over again to different rapt audiences - which I couldn't get enough of, of course - so that to this day, if I repeat myself, she either leaves the room or interrupts with an abrupt, "Yeah, you already told me that. Like three other times."

The other reason the holidays have never been a huge to-do for us had much to do with the fact my mom was a single mother for so long, with little money, time or energy to put together a huge meal and/or decorations. She tried for years to make up for this, spending too many hours many years cooking for an audience of two who couldn't appreciate her culinary talents, while trying valiantly to put up the Christmas tree without at some point, bursting into tears. Imagine my mid-30s mother and my sister and me, 6 and 9 respectively, trying to: A. Get the tree into the stand and B. Trying to get the fucking thing to stand up straight. It was a nightmare from start to finish, complete with splinters in our fingers and pitch in our hair.

As we got older, Ma said, "Fuck it" to the pressure and traditions, and we often went out for Thanksgiving dinner or ordered in Chinese on Christmas Eve. With all of us living in Portland for the past five years, we've started up some traditions again (although Ma refuses to get a tree, something she banned in the early 90s, because as she said, "Nobody really gives a shit, do they?") but around Thanksgiving, Ma, my sister and I would search for recipes in Gourmet, Sunset and the like weeks ahead of time, and design a kickass menu. Then, after going to yoga in the morning on Thanksgiving day, the three of us would cook all day together.

This year is different in so many ways, obviously, as Ma can no longer cook or do yoga, and we are all a little strung out from the events of the last few months to slave for several days over the stove. This year, too, I'm leaving town to go see my lovely Matt in San Francisco. We are putting together the works of a Thanksgiving dinner for two, which I am dorkily excited about. (I'm even smuggling a pecan pie on the plane for him, his favorite. I am becoming so domestic as of late, sometimes I don't recognize myself. This is, surprisingly, not a bad thing. Post to follow on that topic later.) Given all of these circumstances, Ma decided to order cater in the whole shebang from New Seasons, which she has been telling everyone amounts to about $100 for dinner for 7 or so.

And I guess that brings me to what I have to give thanks for right this second, as I look at how our traditions have devolved and evolved over the years, mainly the amazing way my family has been able to stretch and change and grow around the things that have been thrown at us over the years - from divorce to cancer to death and cancer again. We seem to be able to pick up the pieces and reform them in a way that we are able to leave the past and our old selves behind and move forward, and for that that I am forever grateful. This kind of room for growth allows a space in which we can all keep moving towards the best version of ourselves. It is also the kind of space that allows for my mother to be beside herself with joy that I'm cooking Thanksgiving dinner with my boyfriend this year, even if it means being away from home and from her. For that kind of grace and love, I will be thankful today, tomorrow and every day after.

Wow, Is Anyone Still Reading This Blog?

I guess it's hard to read something that hasn't been updated in three weeks, and I really, really swear, I'm coming back with a vengeance to this forum, just as soon as my life settles down a bit. I moved back into my parent's house this weekend to help take care of my mom and just to be close to her during this time, and as soon as that was finished (or during really) the gear shift on my car fell apart, I ended up working like 20 hours in two days at the restaurant and my dear friend Margi came to visit. What does this equal? Zero time to blog. But soon, people, soon.

I will, however, regale you with my latest Forces of Geek column! Enjoy.

http://www.forcesofgeek.com/2009/11/me-myself-and-macabre.html

More Thoughts On Ma

I remember reading Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking" a few years ago, and while I was blown away by it and the beauty of the emotions it captured, the description of grief so eloquently stated and recorded, it was something I could put down and not fully understand. What would it be to see your husband of 40 years die in an instant at your dinner table? I had no idea, and was grateful. At the time, I could vaguely relate it to my sister's cancer diagnosis, to the changes and the fears I encountered as she went through treatment and recovery, but the difference is she recovered, and my grief subsided, went dormant, was, for the most part forgotten. As I moved forward with my life there were other problems to contend with, namely, my career and my dating life, both in a sorry states of disarray.

Now, though, I am remembering bits of Didion's book as my mom's cancer takes its twists and turns. I am overwhelmed in moments by a kind of grief that gives me no warning, no buildup, just takes me and lays my flat. If I am lucky, it happens when my boyfriend Matt is around and he scoops me up in his arms and lets me cry, wail and lament. When I am not so lucky, it is just me, pinned to my bed or my couch by the thought of losing my mother. I am not used to this kind of thing; I've always been fairly self-aware, able to handle what comes and when I can't, I know it, can recuse myself from the situation or the moment, breakdown and recover, rejoin life. This isn't like that. It's like nothing I've ever experienced. Didion writes about grief being like crashing waves that swallow you then recede, how it seeps in to every aspect of her life, how she doesn't drive down certain streets in Los Angeles, because there are too many memories there and for her that it would be like a vortex, sucking her in and swallowing her whole.

Although I'm sure there will be those types of vortexes for me when she is gone, for now my experience is different, as I can't avoid them in any real way. To be around my mother is to be in that vortex, a look, a smile, the sound of her laughter; anything and everything could be the moment that swallows me whole. And I wouldn't want it any other way, as to not be around her in this time would be more painful than any thing grief could throw at me, but there is a new phase of her illness happening now, one that can't be denied, and that is what I do fear might eat me alive. And that phase is this: she is dying, and there is no way around that particular vortex.

Her incredible doctors intervened a few weeks ago because they knew it was happening, and we perhaps knew it too. I could see it in the way she couldn't remember what happened the day before, didn't even want to try. How she shrugged about it all, simply had nothing to say, which is not like my mother at all. Then there was the way she lost her thoughts in the middle of them or reached for a knife three times in a row and didn't know what she was doing, simply sighed and gave up. She was sleeping more and more, and having small seizures despite the herculean amount of meds she was on. So they told us that surgery was the best option, and she had less than a day to decide. Yes, she said. And so did we. As to what exactly that would entail, well, she now says, we were naive.

We assumed it would be like her biopsy and when she recovered from her seizure, that she'd be fine nearly immediately. The 48 hours after surgery were nothing of the sort. She was so sick the day after it was painful to watch, nauseated and vomiting, so uncomfortable and out of it that there was little we could do. Then the next day, watching her search for language and not be able to get out the simplest of sentences, to think that she might never come back from that was also impossible. I knew in my heart she would, but just didn't know how long the lag time would be. The night after her surgery (the same day) she seemed able to understand us, and while I was talking to a nurse in the hall, she said, "Yeah," at a very pointed moment.

"Ma," I said. "You're not missing a beat, are you?"

"I understand everything," she said.

It was beautiful, but also the last sentence we would hear for awhile. I held on to it for days. She was stuck in her head for the next few days, unable to get out the words she was looking for, having trouble finding the word "no." Speech therapists came in, did ridiculous tests, left. Meanwhile, her head began to swell in a way I can only describe as pancake-like. I tried not to look startled when I came in one morning, but I mentioned it to one of her good friends, Jan, who's been with us since the beginning of this ordeal.

"Ok, that's it," she said. "I'm asking the nurses about it. I didn't want to alarm anyone."

"Alarm anyone?" I said. "You can't fucking miss it. Her head is huge."

She talked to the nurses, who told her that this, along with the nausea and the aphasia (her inability to find words, sentences) was all "expected." "I feel like telling them that none of this is fucking expected," Jan grumbled, and I agreed.

We spent hours in the ICU waiting room, my stepfather more upset than I'd ever seen him. "I just don't know if this was all a mistake," he said. "If we'll be able to talk to her like we have before, if her recovery time is going to be longer than her life expectancy."

Because I adored and trusted her surgeon, I just kept saying over and over again, with no real evidence beyond my gut feelings, "Listen, Dr. A wouldn't have done this if he didn't think she would pull through beautifully and have a better quality of life for awhile. We have to believe that. There's no other option than to believe that." He would nod and squeeze my hand and cry.

My sister brought in a point chart for our mother at some point in the middle of all this, a very simple one with a few key words in its center, words like "yes" "no" "hungry" "thirsty" and "fuck." Fuck has always been a very important word for my mother, something she punctuates many a sentence with, and using this word was a way she rebelled early on from her repressed childhood. It seemed important now that she had access to it, although a nurse in the ICU didn't necessarily agree. Jan had to pull her aside and explain what this word meant in our family, it's importance, all it stood for. She loosened up after that, but I'm not sure there's anything funnier than a grown woman post-brain surgery getting in trouble for pointing at the f-word. As Jan put it to said nurse, "Look, we don't mean to offend you, but we probably will."

I had to go to work on the second or third day of this ordeal, and went in to say good-bye to my mother only to find her with one eye so swollen it didn't even look real, like a prosthetic the size of half my fist had been glued on as some kind of horrible joke. I kissed her forehead and left, unable to think about anything else for the next 24 hours, nearly swallowed whole by that particular vortex.

By the time I came back the next day, Ma was talking, full sentences, fairly non-stop aside from when she would suddenly need an hour nap. Our relief was palpable, as was hers. "I was so frustrated," she said. "I was afraid I was going to be a vegetable. I mean shoot me now if I can't talk." And it would have been the cruelest of blows in all of this, that of her surviving, but without the ability to speak. The memory loss, the loss of the right side of her body, the inability to do anything on her own pales in comparison. It would be no life for her to live, and I could not be more grateful that she is at least allowed this for the last few months of her life.

As the days went on, her speech grew stronger, the swelling went down and she was transferred to a regular room. When Dr. A came to see her, she thanked him for the gift of time. He looked at her for a long moment and nodded, getting a little choked up. Next to her on the food tray was the chart my sister had made.

"Ah," he said, "Such a good word to have at hand."

We told him then about getting in trouble for using it.

"What?" he said. "Why? Listen, I've spent many an hour researching this issue, and aside from using it in way that would equal yelling fire in a crowded theater, saying it is perfectly legal."

There was no better way of summing up my mother's trials those last few days, a declaration of sorts, that for awhile, things were going to be ok. That my mother would say that word again and again and again, as loud as she wanted to, for everyone to hear. She is dying, yes, but for now, she is still here, and I can hold the vortex at bay for at least a moment every time I hear her voice.

And just in case we forget: Ma's t-shirt to remind us.

Publishing News!

I have waited months for this particular anthology to come out, as I was so honored to squeeze my way in and write about the long lost art of the mix tape. It's about my romance with a boy in college who made me a mix tape called, "Odes to Angst." There's more to the story, but I don't want to ruin it for you. Pick it up, people! It's hardback! Very exciting! And officially releases on October 28th, but you can get an advance copy at Amazon, etc., but wouldn't you rather buy it from Powells? I thought so:

http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9780312565527-0

I'm also in a local anthology called Voicecatcher and will be reading from it (a piece from my memoir) on Monday, November 16th, 7 pm., at the Hawthorne Powells. Come hear fabulous local writers and me. Mainly me. If you can't make the reading you can also order a copy here: http://www.voicecatcher.org.

And one last thing, a new Forces of Geek column. Very exciting, since I couldn't make the deadline last month.....

http://www.forcesofgeek.com/2009/10/so-i-cancelled-my-cable.html

P.S. My mom is out of the hospital and recovering well at home, and I'm catching up with my life. I'll be posting more about her and all that comes with it soon. Or relatively soon.