Ghost Knife – Two tankas

I had forgotten
the sharp knife of loneliness
that carves grey into
flesh, bone, leaving gaping holes
Nothing fills them. Nothing. Nothing.

 When will I remove
my wedding band? When you stop
ignoring my words.
Searching for why, for answers
to questions I never asked.

Beer Coffee Water Saline

It all tastes off
not right
not smooth
not as remembered
bitter gritty
acid sour spoilt
IPAs, glory of hoppy sharps
mouthfeel of rusty spikes
soothed by
milk stout thick sweetness
a curdled stinking mug of last month

Coffee is mud sluice over ancient cobbles
Water the perfect neutral, pH 7
foams like baking soda and vinegar
childhood science Vesuvius
in the mouth

All that is left is a saline drip
Bypassing the mouth, the taste buds
laced with morphine
And
It
Is
Closing Time!
Last Call!

There is no after-hours club
Cocaine and Xanax in every candy dish
Jack and Jim and Jerry, vying for attention
entranced by the steady hum of
milliliter per second
Waiting for cold toast with margarine
served by Perky Smile
with a side order of
endless repeats of
forgotten game shows 

All My Roads, Pt 6

I wake, confused
you are not here
the space beside me cold
I remember, I am away, not home 
It is natural that you are not here.

Soon, soon
the bed at home will be empty
your space grown cold
without your fevered restlessness
labored breathing
middle of the night stagger to the toilet.

It will be cool and smooth
books and papers and laptop
will reclaim the space they ceded you
or I might slide back to that side
given to you during some long-forgotten illness 

Perhaps, someday, I will mistake a street person
For you, wearing one of your old shirts.

 

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Staring at the out of focus mirror, at the baby smooth skull, I smile. There is a safety razor on the edge of the bath, and I know the blades will be counted later.
I’m not allowed to keep the extras, not since they found out that I’d found out and tried to make a quick and almost painless blink but since then I’d acceded to their wishes,
drank the Kool-Aid and lain in the hum hum hum machines.
They do give me a little bit of privacy.
The soap lather is slick, squishy, making quick work of my final depilation.
If I make myself bald now, then I will be bald all over.
Head
Eyebrows
Arms
Legs
Toes
Groin
I can’t reach my back, but I think that’s pretty hairless anyway.
I look like one of those very naked mannequins, hairless and sexless.
I won. Not them.
I tricked them, tricked them all, not waiting for the hum hum hum machine to take my hair, take my sex, take my me.
I’m going to use a whole bottle of lotion now and make me feel pretty.
And then I’ll count the stitches on my ribs.

Polly Wanna Cracker

I should be used to it by now, to death walking through the door and sitting on my shoulder, squawking, "Polly wanna cracker, Pretty Boy, Polly wanna cracker."
I'm not.
I've done this for years, long enough to see babies conceived, born and walking in on their own, asking if they could please have some milk and cookies while they wait.
But I'm not.
Used to it, that is.
"I'll be doing this as executrix for the estate, filing on his behalf."
"I found your name in her papers. What do I do now?"
"Do you need to see the death certificate?"
"Can you help me?"
I'll never get used to it.
Especially when it knocks on the door from the inside, when it's here and now, sitting on my sofa, not on someone else's shoulder, but hovering over the dinner table, salting the food with bitterroot.
She doesn't know.
I know, but she doesn't and ignorance is bliss, sweet bliss, chocolate covered pretzels, whipped cream with slivered almonds, a fig tree, comfort with apples, letting her function, smile and concentrate on important things, whether the black and turquoise top goes better with the white jeans or the khaki shorts.
Priorities.
Don't snatch this from her, Polly, don't.
Eat my crackers. I don't need them any more. I am fat. I am a feast.
Eat my crackers, Polly. I'm ready. I've been ready for years.
Give her a chance. Let her stack crackers, crumble them, enjoy them with dabs of jelly.

Leave her alone, Polly.

Modern Medical Miracles

"Just take a deep breath. Yes. Another. Another. Good. Now, roll up your sleeve. That's fine, just going to hook this up so we'll have a constant read. What? Oh, it's an electronic blood pressure cuff, we watch your pressure right here on the computer monitor. It beeps if your BP goes too high or low, so we can adjust your drip. Yes, there is new technology every time you blink. This is so much safer, before one of us had to sit and watch you. Now, we can take care of other patients and the machine alerts us if there is any aberration. Excellent. Okay, then, you relax, the doctor will be with you in another minute or two, the anesthesiologist, too. Relax, honey, you'll be fine."

She blinked. It'll be fine. They'll start the drip, 100, 99, 98, 97, 96 and when she woke up, in five or ten or twenty minutes, it would all be over.

Again.

Again and again and again and again.

They'd start the drip and she'd go to sleep and when she woke up, she'd be peachy keen, right as rain, all things bright and beautiful, neat and clean inside and out, good as new.

Again.

Again and again and again and again.

Why?

What was wrong with her?

She turned, watching the monitor click, the gentle inflation and sudden deflation of the cuff on her arm a warning, a link to everything else that told her what she wasn't. 70/40. Well, that couldn't be good. If her pressure started too low, they couldn't put her under. If it dropped too low, they wouldn't be able to wake her up. Could they? Did they have paddles here? A crash cart? They must, it's a surgical clinic, they had to have emergency equipment. Paddles weren't even anything special. For goodness sakes, Disney had paddles. Restaurants had paddles. And they had transport here, if the paddles didn't provide enough power. She giggled. Maybe they had tazers, those would wake the dead.

Yes, paddles, just in case someone decided to go to sleep and stay asleep, decided it was easier to go on in that lovely twilight of nothing where there was no more trying and failing, no more planning and counting, and certainly no more watching and mourning. Sleep is a wonderful thing. Maybe she would sleep now, for a bit, before the hullabaloo started.

She closed her eyes, head still turned to the machine and lay very still. Another minute and the ruckus of scrubs and sprays and latex gloves, talk talk talk, should we do this, should we do that, as long as we're in here, snip snip, can you make a decision, not making a decision is also making a decision, you won't feel a thing, it'll be done, scrape scrape snip snip, no worries, be happy.

She despised Bobby McFerrin, with his noisy mouth and twisted a capella renditions of classic crock. That ‘Be Happy" tripe? That was the worst of all. How could any thinking person be happy in the messed up world?

One eye open, slow. 64/38. Hmmm. Shallow breathing, oxygen in only the upper lobes. Keep it steady. 64/36. Fine. No more again and again and again.

"Oh dearie, this will never do, no, it won't. We can't have you like this." The nurse picked up her head and shoved another pillow under it. "This simply will not do. You have to sit up, get your pressure up. Doctor can't operate if your BP starts that low, it has nowhere to go, and believe me, you do not want to undergo this procedure without anesthesia.

Procedure. It was a procedure. Not an operation. Not a test. A procedure. Did calling it a procedure make it smell any less foul? She sat up and took a few deep breaths, tightened her legs, balled her hands into fists. 80/48.

"Much better. We'll just keep you up until the doctors come in, there they are." The nurse nodded in the direction of the hallway. "I'm going to watch you myself, I am, after. The feed is right here on my waist. It'll only be a few minutes, but we don't take chances. You keep breathing like that. Excellent. We don't want any problems, now do we?"

She smiled at the nurse, at her own thoughts, at her power. She could do it. She could do it easily, just let it drop-see, 74/46, back up a tad- let it drop until it was done. No more masquerades, curtain drops, fine. She took another deep breath.

"No, we don't want any problems, no we don't. Thank you, nurse. Thank you so much."

My Right Foot

My third toe, right foot,
It's name is Bill. It still moves
any way I want.
But one day, maybe
soon, or not, it won't.

Heritage of Ashes

Once upon a time, there were two little girls who had little curls right in the middle of their foreheads, past their shoulders, streaming down their backs.

Once upon a time, but that was then, this is now and the birds took the curls to insulate their nests and make them beautiful for the baby birdies,

So the little girls wore wigs of blue and orange and green and red.

Except when they didn't, when their bald heads got too hot or itchy or they wanted to make a fashion statement of some sort or other or they just didn't feel like it anymore.

The little girls grew up to be just like their mommy with long necks and sloping shoulders from too much grief and jutting hip bones where the fat melted away, Holocaust thin.

Just alike.

Except one little girl had deep shadows between the breasts the doctors built and the other had just one, she didn't care if she was lopsided because to her it was a truth not stranger than the fiction of her sister's perky, youthful-for-eternity, what will the archaeologists of the future say about the silicone sacks nestled on her ribs, tits.

Once upon a time, a BRCA1 gene was passed down...

Dearly Not Yet Departed

sss sss sss that soft rasp...
Do I know you?
Do I know you any longer?
Grey tinged, hairless, curled,
skin breaking away in pieces, bedsores.
In the olden days, before medical interventions of extraordinary measures,
I'd have held a candle to your lips, waiting for the exhale, the last exhale,
the exhale that leaves the light burning.
In the olden days.
But now, I watch the monitors, blip-blip-blip, etching you on thin strips of green paper.
Kissing you, cool, dry, kissing you goodbye last night, tonight, and I think, tomorrow night, too.
The goodbye kisses will go on as long as there is paper to feed through the machine,
writing your long agos and maybe somedays and most of all, your nows in ink
that will be stored away, protecting someone somewhere from possible future liability issues.
I carry you, inhale your exhalation and the blue flames rise, guiding a chisel on granite.
It writes your name, but it doesn't write you.
I write you. I write you inside me. I write you.

Rainbow in Drab

If there could be a worse choice, a sadder selection, she certainly didn't want to know what it was. Infinite spectrum beckons and to be forced onto the one path she dreaded, well, perhaps there was an ironic justice, a karmic balance in it, if she looked deep enough, but she didn't want to go there, remove the first tendrils of scab cheeseclothing across her wounds. Too much of her life had been wasted in sucking mud, paralysis a function of the plethora of ‘what ifs', everything coated with a thin layer of bleak, just enough to turn it to drab.

Drab is a color. It really is. It's a sort of greyish khaki, not a green or yellow khaki, a greyish khaki with goes with nothing, not even itself. Drab is her life.

She blew a smoke ring, watched it halo the moon. Angels have halos, so she'd been told, although she'd never seen one. The closest she'd come to seeing an angel was the man in the moon wearing a smoke ring, harbinger of death. Some people refer to nurses as angels, but she couldn't see the connection. Nurses dispensed pain, not painkillers. She blew another ring, another mist of drab.

Not making a decision is also a decision because, at some point, options disappear.

Can't find shoes in drab, she thought, unless you get them dyed to match and if I'm getting shoes dyed to match, I suppose I'm a step closer to dying, aren't I? Which isn't the worst thing in the world, not by far, not compared to what else is out there, to what she had already seen, felt, endured. The cigarette scorched her fingers and she stepped on the butt. Smoke danced with the dust motes, then seeped into the dark behind the moonlight.

Her only vice. Why give up the only pleasure left? Liquor made her heave, most foods did, too. Sex? She couldn't remember the last time she'd had anyone other than herself or her doctors manipulating her crotch. She pulled another out of the pack. My perfect friends, never asking, demanding, criticizing, a hot comfort in my lungs, the only part of me that isn't cancer riddled.

It was back. Or perhaps it had never left, despite what they'd told her, done to her. Back. Another full moon closer. She marked time by the moon, sun cycles were too long for her. Short term goals only now, no point in long term. Setting a long term goal was another sort of smoke ring, another fantasy she'd never fulfill.

She looked in, eyes closed, looked in at herself, at the only choice open so that it wasn't a choice at all, but a fait accompli, a non-choice, looked in to see if she could salvage anything from this shipwreck life that had been seized by Somali cells.

A tear leaked. No Navy SEALS coming to her rescue, no UN peacekeeping mission seeing to her comfort and well-being just like they'd inspected Terezin, making sure everything was A-OK. Nope. If there would be any rescue, she'd have to affect her own.

If you have nothing, you have nothing to lose.

The moonlight streamed down on the path of most resistance. The trees had backed off, the usual cathedral of leaves open to the mirrored sunlight, spots of bright drab on the path like pebbles leading to a somewhere else. Reflected sunlight doesn't register with the rods and cones, doesn't recognize hue, tint, intensity. Just drab and brighter drab. She sighed, looked at the unlit cigarette in her hand and wondered how many were left in the pack.

Every journey begins with a single step.

Drab. She hated drab. She wanted bright. She wanted purple hair.

And wings. She wanted wings, dragonfly wings, larger than herself. Multicolored dragonfly wings with four segments on each side so she could fly high enough to see the top side of the clouds and the moon never blacked out, not ever, maybe even see the sun. Fly high as Icarus, but instead she got drab.

She reached into her pocket for her lighter and pulled out a ten dollar bill.

She could buy hair dye, even if she couldn't buy wings.

No matter how bad it was, no matter how much worse it was going to get-and she knew it would get worse, the moonlight end and the drab eat her-she would go down with purple hair, or at least the dream of it.

Things You May or May Not Know About Me. And Even If You Do, Why Would You Care?

i wrote this a few months ago, never posted it. lately i have been writing things of too intimate or controversial a nature for me to post. so, dear readers, feel free to make comments on the veracity or falsehood of any statements you find below.

in honor of my birthday.....

my favorite color is purple. especially dark purple.
i have NEVER lied about my age. yeah, i know. 49 DOES sound like a lie but its not. i look forward to when i turn 50. 50 sounds real.
i carry my passport at all times.
i believe in sparkling lights and fireworks.
i ride a 21 speed bike but have no idea how to shift. Or why.
i am addicted to motorcycles and LOVE to ride shotgun.
I live behind a kawaskai dealership. coincidence? i don't think so!
when i have the spare time and cash, i AM going to get my motorcycle certs.
my three favorite evening dresses were bought in 1977, 1980 and 1986. black knit, gold/black crystal pleats, black suede. and they still fit.
the SHOES are real and go with each of my three favorite evening dresses, but they knew that before i brought them home.
i cry when i listen to music.
people cry when they hear me sing.
i am a terrible card player, but a very cheerful loser.
my favorite perfume is STILL obsession. for men and women both.
i have my first diary. it scared my girls when they read it,to see how screwed up their mom was at the age of 12 or 13. hasn't changed much, unfortunately.
i have aural ADD and can't process verbally transmitted instructions.
i have OCD and HATE IT when i have to shake hands. or when people breath near me. or touch my arm or shoulder or pat my head or try to give me polite kisses. or maybe its just that i'm from new york. i carry antibacterial waterless hand cleaner.
i wasn't given any painkillers when i birthed my girls. NOT EVEN A FUCKING TYLENOL. not even for my breech birth baby, who is STILL telling the world to "kiss her ass."
i have the doll Big Brother gave me for my first birthday and the stuffed dog my mom gave me when i was 5 and really sick.
i had my tonsils out the week president kennedy was assassinated.
i meet celebrities in odd places: on the subway, at seaworld, waiting for cabs.
i wake up when people die.
i can do every form of needlework but can't knit despite many hours of lessons.
i cannot read my own handwriting sometimes.
i have too many salt and sweet tastebuds and not enough of the others. i rely on 'mouth feel' texture more than taste to determine my enjoyment of a meal.
i dream in more advanced latin than i understand.
i speak french and sign language but only obscenities.
i don't like adverbs, especially 'obviously'. adjectives are an evil necessity which must be controlled so they don't take over the world. obviously.
one of the best gifts i ever got was a swiss army knife.
i have a black thumb. if i get too near plants, they die.
i never learned to 'inhale' and it upsets me that my girls smoke.
i have never taken illegal drugs.
i am addicted to public transportation even if, especially if, it goes nowhere.
i am more afraid of living than dying. much more.

Homage to Hemingway

Hemingway is credited with writing the shortest short story ever, "For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn." Every time I read, hear that, I get a chill. Chill? Oh, tell the truth. You don't get a chill, you are ruptured, torn. Your guts are pulled out, displayed, stabbed over and over and over with a dull, jagged knife. No quick clean cut, too simple. This is fluttery edges that never realign, never heal. They keloid, ugly scars like bloated leaches.

Tell the truth for once about how you feel. Me? Tell the truth? You talking to me? The great liar, the greatest liar denier crier ever born? The truth. Huh. What an alien concept. Truthful Robyn, oxymoron.

Fine.

But I don't have to. It's all written down and out in my own illegible cursed cursive that even I find hard to read at times. Especially when the paper is wrinkled, a testament to tears, to what is missing. Here's to you, tears! To you tears. Here's to u-tear-us. Here's to a uterus with scarred walls, too many ridges for a placenta to attach. Here's to a uterus that shakes free whatever it decides has no place within. Here's to you.

You tear us limb from limb and push us out bit by bit, drip drip drip. Days and night, drip drip drip, slow seepage of blood and amniotic fluid as you proceed on your sickening, funereal mission, slowly expelling your dead, one scoop at a time.

Hand me a shovel, let me bury it once and for all. Rapid shoveling, no more of these individual scoops. Weeks, or does it just feel like weeks, until the blessed doctors, oh blessed 100, 99, 98, 97, 96 going under, that sweetness, until they finish the job.

Can't even finish expelling your own dead, you useless u-tear-us. A vestigial organ, a void, no point to having you if you can't do what you are meant to do. 95, 94, 93 and under. Let it be over, let it be over once and for all.

It is written.

Spike.

Eagle.

Drummer.

And Lafite. Grenoble. Clover. All here, the empty books. The oh-so-empty books.

"For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn." Six words.

"Freecycle: Pregnancy diaries. 3/4 empty." Five words.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Cemetery

I was thinking about my brother this morning. Yes, I realize I think about him every morning (I think about you too, Big Brother, but I do not discuss you here.) but a favorite incident has been tickling my brain the past few days. David was a character. We all have slightly twisted senses of humor, ways of dealing with our past that some may find a bit off-setting.

We have more dead than many people of our generation. Well, perhaps not now, not now that I am a little old lady, much closer to my demise, so close I can smell the cordite and treacle, than I am to my beginning, but when we were in our twenties, it seemed we were the only two who had more relatives in Wellwood Cemetery than in our phone book.

Every time ten people in my phone book die, I replace my phone book.

I have had many phone books.

I don't keep a physical phone book any longer. That is another story.

So, David and I would often talk of our dead, our ghosts, speak of them and to them. I still do. He still does. We had a nice little chat yesterday morning. He agreed that the new purple sheets were a really nice shade of purple and reminded me to wash them before first use. And I better watch out, the last time I had purple sheets, I was five years old and ended up head to toe purple hives. I replied, these are sheets, not sulfa drugs. Which also turn me purple, FYI. As do other medications, but not penicillin. I am such an old fashioned old lady. Give me a poultice of moldy bread, that'll fix me right up, good as new. But I digress.

Back to David, who was also allergic to sulfa drugs but took large dosages of them during the week before he died, blood pouring out of every orifice in his body, the morning after they would not let me see him, his visitor passes already in use, his phone line dead. I stood there in the hospital lobby, so desperate to go upstairs, making such a scene, hoping they would have rachmunis on me. They threatened to have me arrested, sent me out into the night.

The doctor called me at 6:15 the next morning.

I was already awake, waiting.

I was already awake, waiting when my mother called to say that my dad had died.

I was already awake, waiting when my uncle called to say that my mom had died.

I was already awake, waiting when Kay called to say Richie had died.

Is that why I never sleep?

Am I always waiting for the phone to ring?

Alright, Robyn, you wanted to tell a tale, stop staring at the computer screen. The flickering diodes hold no answers, no insights. The warmth and pressure of the laptop on my thighs will have to suffice as an answer, a comfort. It is the closest I get to losing myself in physical pleasure, the solace, my drug of choice to make it all go away for a while. It is the closest I get to not being alone.

David was widowed. After a while, he dated. He would meet men in bars or at clubs or wherever and decide whether or not they were worthy of going home with him. When the first throes of mourning had passed, the random faceless fucking of shloshim, he resumed his selective tendencies and decided to pursue a relationship. After a third or fourth or fifth date, he'd determine whether or not to introduce the person to his family.

"I want you to meet my family."

"Wow, I am honored. Great. When?"

"Now is as good a time as any."

The person hopped on the back of David's bike and wrapped his arms around David, thinking, oh wow, I am going to meet Kid Sister and Most Amazing Niece and maybe even Long Suffering Brother in Law. This is great, I must really rate.

And they took off. Down Eastern Parkway, Linden Blvd, onto the Southern State they'd fly, exceding whatever the posted speed limit was (you thought I was the only one who exceeds the speed limit? Daddy and David were each ticketed at over 100 mph.) until they turned in at the gates of Wellwood. David would continue, much slower, pulling up in front of our parents' tombstones.

"XYZ, I'd like you to meet my parents. Mom, Dad, this is XYZ. Okay, Grandma and Aunt Ettie are right over here and then I'll introduce you to Jeff and Erica. And Cousin Irving, he's in the front. Oh. You thought I was going to introduce you to Kid Sister? Maybe later."

Depending on whether the person politely introduced himself to the granite markers, helped trim the bushes, laid pebbles on the base of each grave, how the person responded to David's dead determined whether he would get to meet David's living.

Not a bad way of winnowing the wheat from the chaff.

Maybe one day I'll tell you about David and Vita's list of repairs.

August is Extremely Slow

Arriving at the outpatient clinic at the ungodly hour of 6:25 am, I enter into utter chaos. I wish. Seriously reader, this is Floriduh, not NYC. In NYC, any outpatient clinic adjacent to an emergency room entrance would be an obstacle course of gunshot wounds, stabbings, heart attacks, strokes and those who, lacking medical insurance or a primary care physician, use the ER as their GP. No. Wait. That was NYC in the bad old days. Now, post Guiliani, post 9-11, ER's are as eerily calm as the forested mountains of Idaho. You can't hear the buzz but you know it lies just under the surface, coiled and ready to strike.
In any case, I enter a ghost town. There is no one at the entrance, the admitting desk, in the corridors. I wander the halls, wondering how I'll get into the clinic. Maybe it's an omen that I should just turn about and leave. It is a medically indicated procedure, but not a medically necessary one. Preventative, ergo optional at this time. I can leave and continue the family tradition of acting against medical advice. I remember the results of my parents and brother opting to ignore their physicians' preventative treatments. Suicide by inches.
I stand there, in that deserted hallway. Turn. Turn again. Consider my options. Which, truthfully are more limited than you might think, as I have no escape vehicle to jump into and take off for parts unknown, exceeding the speed limit just enough to not be accidental. Suicide by inches? Oh no, that is not for me. When I go, if I opt out earlier than my five year allotment, it will be in a blaze of glory. Full tank of gas, skidding head first into a pylon and exploding with sufficient heat to melt whatever I crash into. Or just having the good luck to be on a structurally deficient bridge at the exact moment it chooses to collapse. When I was a child, I envied those who died on the bridge at San Luis Rey. Only a friar questioned their innocence, their reason for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, since there is no such thing as coincidence. I wanted to be one of them, feel the rush of free fall, of knowing that sooner than I could count it would be over.
I turn, in that deserted hallway, pondering my most recent brush with sudden death. How I knew I would be alright, that it was not time. There is a security in knowing it is not yet time. I can live life as the Shakers did: Do your work as though you had a thousand years to live and as if you were to die tomorrow. Put your hands to work, and your heart to God.
Except I know I will not die tomorrow or the next day or the next day after that. I have a reprieve. I still have some time to squander in idleness, although not as much as most. I cannot afford to waste time in illness. Ignoring medical advice will result in more intervention in the long run, more tests, more examinations, more poking prodding sticking drawing. More fear. Ever so much more fear. Chilling, paralyzing fear. Despite my outward calm, my blithe assertion that it is really just cosmetic, preventative, the memory loop playing is of my doctor twenty years ago asserting that, if certain changes were to take place, this procedure would have to be done.
Change happens. The exact changes I was warned about. And I am here. Turning around and around, ever so slowly in the deserted corridor of a hospital triage area. Making myself dizzy, giddy with dizziness, to cover the gut wrenching fear I try so hard to deny.
"Ma'am, can I help you? Were you looking for the main entrance to the hospital? The cafeteria? Outpatient surgery?"
I blink, startled. Look at the nurse as if I've never seen one before.
"Ma'am?"
"Oh yes. Thank you. Outpatient surgery, please. I'm supposed to be here at 6:30."
"Well, you're right on time. Let me get these doors and you just go right on through. Someone on the other side will guide you."
"Is Virgil waiting for me, then?"
"Virgil? No, he's not on duty this morning. I believe Kathy and Julia are doing intake."
She presses a code for the doors. They swing open. I smile my thanks at her and step through to the other side.

Just How Slow is August, Anyway?

For a very minor outpatient procedure, not only have I been poked, prodded, pinched, x-rayed, MRI'd, ultra-sounded, squeezed but anything and everything else you can imagine. Much of this manhandling under other circumstances, the world being context and meaning only determined by what frames the context, I would have considered pleasurable to some degree or other. In another frame. Not in this one.
Does my life start to remind you of "The Perils of Pauline"? Shall I change the name of my blog to "The Reversals, Ravages and Raw Deals of Recidivist Robyn"? Please feel free to comment and I will feel free to ignore, as usual.
In preparation for the latest, I spend part of the day in "pre-op". Pre-op starts with a jaunt down the turnpike, exceeding the speed limit by 5-8 mph. Exiting the traffic-free turnpike, I am most appreciative of the heavy volume of vehicular (rhymes with one of Dubya's favorite words) transportation adding to global warming. As if we'd notice here in Floriduh anyway.
Locating the hospital where I will be sliced, diced and julienned on Wednesday, I gave reception/intake my medical cards, credit cards, ID cards and the passwords to mine and my children's fiduciary accounts. Mi dinero es su dinero. Cuanto? Todo. Todo el mundo es su dinero. Next!
They took blood. LOTS of blood. They took urine. They took blood pressure. FYI 100/45, am I dead or alive? They took resting pulse, 56 bpm. They did an EKG. I'm not sure why they bothered. Anybody that actually knows me would tell the doctors that I am a heartless, soulless cruel little bitch. If they want to know my state of being, they should do an EEG and watch the synaptic connections in my head, which have been compared to Epcot fireworks and various laser light shows.
Finally, a chest x-ray. Still looking for a heart? The tin woodsman is standing in the forest. He has a purple heart. How apropos. A purple heart for the walking wounded. If I had a heart, it would be purple. And broken. Snapped, crushed, shattered. A story for another day perhaps. Only modern fairy tales have happy endings. And Friendly's. I am a traditionalist. The only happy ending is to live another day. Step into the shards. Bleed. Step over them. Heal a bit. Have the chance to wipe your tears. Grow. Learn. Perhaps tell your tale so someone else can benefit from your mistakes. Perhaps.
Perhaps not.

We've Reviewed Your Files

As if I don't have enough tsuris, now this?
Between my kinda sorta homelessness and unemployment, my beloved psychotic perpetual victim older daughters and my youngest who is truly otherworldly at times, and that not in a good way, I still need more?
That which the gods would destroy they first make great. I'm not great.
God does not give you more than you can bear. Sez who?
That which does not kill you makes you strong. Knock me over with a feather.
I am neither great nor filled with fortitude nor strong. So what am I? In any case...
Not enough to have every other brick in my tower tumbling down, burying me, the foundations crumbling neath my feet. Not enough to be dragged into an abyss, tentacles twined lovingly around my ankles. "Would you like a glass of water, dear?" So says the torturer. "Drink deep." So says. Now to have this trivial stress added?
"Ms W, we've reviewed the results of your recent MRI. The doctor would strongly advice you to see a specialist. We've already referred your files to Dr C. You should call him ASAP to make an appointment. Here's the number."
You've reviewed? The doctor reviewed? WTF? Two damn months ago the doctor reviewed my files and sent me for the MRI. NOW he looks at the report? WTF?
Okay dear readers, time to spill. Because you have to understand something not obvious. This was NOT an MRI of my brain. We all know what an MRI of my brain would look like: swiss cheese. Moldy swiss cheese. Drippy moldy swiss cheese.
No, this was an MRI of another body part. I should use the plural to be perfectly accurate, it being a pair of body parts. The body parts which are specific and used to easily and obviously identify the female of the species. So to hear the dreaded words, "We'd like you to see a specialist," especially when the hearer is well aware of how high risk she is, does not make for a good afternoon.
Except....
They waited two months to call me on this? Is this for real incompetence and inefficiency (we are in floriduh) or does the doctor have August billing doldrums? Back in NYC, if there was an anomaly on an x-ray, test, MRI, you were called in a day or two. Surely this necessitated a call within a week if there was real cause for concern? Surely?
Because while I may love going topless, I do not look forward to being topless. At least not for a few more years.
So. I can give credence to this and worry my freshly dyed head (more grey, so much more grey than a week ago) OR...
I can make chocolate mousse.
I made mousse.

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