Day 69, Be Brave Project; Eavesdropping and Dis-ease

I'm feeling a little. . .thoughtful today. A tad on the contemplative side. Ruminative: slowly chewing things over with the teeth of my mind.

Oh dear. The teeth of my mind?? Let's continue nonetheless.

You see, the end of the year has rushed right up on me. It's come snaking right up towards my ass, and I do not appreciate it. It seems it was just a minute ago that I was at my old apartment, listening to the grinding churn of my air-conditioner. . .and suddenly I've bought my tickets home for Christmas. Gak.

6 weeks to the end of the year, and I haven't achieved enough. I haven't written enough. I haven't put myself out there dating-wise (and cannot really imagine that happening anytime soon). I haven't found a way to make some good money while putting some behind. I instead am still living in my hand-to-mouth sort of way, hoping for the best but not sufficiently planning for the worst. And not writing enough.

I think much of this was stirred up by what happened when I went back to my dentist's office yesterday. I tripped in merrily, said Hello to Maya at the desk--who knows me well enough now to just smile and point towards the seating area--and sat myself down to read a US News & Weekly Report all about the election. I was feeling quite perky; had just spent some time at the gym and then at the library working on structure for a novel. I was wearing my new "rich girl" Italian camel's hair jacket (from my favorite thrift shop--score!) that I'd recently had dry-cleaned, and elegant wedge-heeled suede boots.

Next to me was sitting a stocky European man with shoulder-length salt and pepper hair. The waiting area at the dentist's is a very small, narrow space like the kitchen seating in a mobile home, and this man's hands and knees seemed to be too large. He leaned forward anxiously to ask Maya a question about his treatment--from her rather weary answers, I could tell this had been going on for some time. "How much percent do I get off on the root canal?" He asked. "Your dental plan gives 15% off, but we need to call them to confirm your plan." "Okay."

There was a pause as Maya turned toward her work, but her very ponytail was stiff with irritation at the question she knew was coming next.

"How much percent extra can I get off on the root canal?"

"None. You pay what the price is."

Pause.

"Can I get the root canal to pay by the month?"

"No."

"You said before maybe I could."

"Sir, the doctor said No."

The poor bastard, I thought smugly. Got his root canal ahead of him and not firmly in the past. I knew that like me, he hadn't budgeted for dental emergencies--just had his discount plan, a wing, and a prayer. Or rather a tooth, and an infection.

When I grew up it seemed all adults had everything covered--massive amounts of insurance, of money for camps or schools or trips. . .roomy houses and freedom from financial worry. There was great sorrow and resentment in my childhood home, and some violence--but no worry about money that I could detect. Now of course I know that there must have been, and that people face this stuff all of the time. Sometimes you cannot organize your life sufficiently. . .but the poor stocky man's worried face and timid persistent manner made me feel his vulnerability, and the vulnerability of all of us who haven't perhaps made the money we hoped to make, or done what we hoped we'd do with our lives so far.

So I was already moving from smugness to sympathy when Maya told me I could go into the dentist's room. I sat down in the angled vinyl chair, said Hello to the hygienist, and twiddled my thumbs whilst gazing at the ceiling. . .until I noticed that the hygienist was placing the colored pins on the tray in preparation for the dentist's arrival.

Actually, they just look like pins with brightly colored tips, but they are really tiny pin-like files. Used to clean out infected canals.

"Uhm--I had the root canal last week," I pointed out, "I'm just here to do the molding for a crown."

Her perfectly painted eyebrows rose, in pity. "No, mami. You are getting the rest of your root canal today."

"Whaa--?"

"Too much infection to get it all last week. . ."

Oh crap. The dentist snapped on his rubber gloves and broke out the dental dam.

An unpleasant hour ensued.

So that kicked up a lot of stuff for some reason: I walked home with a numb jaw and an unsettled mind, and when in the apartment all I could think was I should have bought somewhere when mortgages were easy--fuckin' fathead. I thought of Christmas and my brothers with their families, while I go visit my poor drunken mother should have married some poor guy just to get away get secure get settled. I look at my bank account and it all becomes you've got to write something now you've got to sell something now do it do it. . .

Not a good night.

But I will continue to get my medical tests done, get my dental crap dealt with. I will check with the editor at Women's Health to push for a response on the piece I sent her. And I will keep working on that novel structure. . . I need to be set in a career in 2009.

I need to settle down. At last.

Day 68, Be Brave Project; Neighborhood Fun or Smug Eco Mummy Alert?

I received a flyer through my door around two weeks ago. "West 90th Street News", from the West 90th Street Park Block Association. This is not the type of thing that was distributed at my old address, where neighbor's dogs occasionally urinated outside my door but otherwise I lived in unbothered isolation.

Next weekend is apparently a biggie here on West 90th, with two days of activities including a street "Green Up" day, a Block-long tag sale and bake sale. The Green Up day is on Saturday from 11-1. The primary activities are getting daffodil bulbs to plant in containers and in garden fronts on the block, sanding and painting tree surrounds that haven't been maintained by the nearby buildings, painting yellow curb markings to define the no parking areas, and re-painting fire hydrants. Sounds sort of fun, actually. . .might get to know some of my neighbors. Seems like a friendly, helpful sort of thing to do. The kind of thing people do in Chicago, actually--not NYC.

But I am reluctant.

This seems like the kind of thing that might be made for people who have children--to foster a sense of community here in NYC. In other words, if I showed up, would I be surrounded by self-consciously virtuous eco-Mummies and their children?? If so, I cannot imagine anything more off-putting. I would smile my rictus grin at their kids--I never know what the hell to say to children, particularly these strange spoiled hyper-confident NY ones--and wish to hell I were at home.

However. An ex-boyfriend of mine did something like this, at his old place in Grammercy Park. He was assigned an area to keep clean, and one morning when he was out tending it, no doubt wearing his black biker's jacket and Ramones t-shirt, he began chatting to a woman in a suit who was walking by. Turned out she also had a little plot that she was keeping clean. Turns out she lived in the area. . . And then, Peter told me on the last night I ever saw him, it also turned out that she had inherited a three bedroomed rent-control apartment.

I knew he'd marry her, and he did.

But if leather jacketed Italian guys do stuff like this, then why not me? It's a good way to meet people in the area, and I do desperately need a cat sitter for Christmas.

Or I could put together a table for the tag sale on Sunday, though that requires 6 hours of sitting outside in the brisk chilled air. My final option is to bake something for the bake sale that day, which really is the wimp's way out because all I do then is give my banana bread to the relevant people and then walk away. Not much involvement.

So I will think about it today, and then probably call and volunteer for the Green-Up Day on Saturday. . .after I check the weather.

I don't see myself doing rainy day charity. At least, not yet.

*****

Re. the Be Brave Project:

I have continued on the medical front, and woke up yesterday to get my blood tests. Such an inconvenience, because (like most lushes) I am such a creature of habit that not having my morning cup of tea really chapped my ass. Sipping an abstemious glass of H2O somehow didn't do it for me. Hopped the D train down to Columbus Circle, where a large-busted lady in a very tight flowered smock took one, two, three, five vials of blood from me, and then wanted a urine test out of the blue. Good lord!

I am a little nervous about the results of the blood test, and also wondering if there's still some infection from those abscesses floating around my system. . .but I also am very curious to know things like my cholesterol level and my iron level. Next step on the medical front is to see the Doctor again in 9 days, and begin making appointments for gynecology and cardiology.

I'm getting it ALL checked out, for the first time this millenium.

Oh my I hope it all looks good. . . today another trip to the dentist to make sure my Lower East Side is infection free and to get fitted for a crown. Good bye, Europe money!

Day 67, Be Brave Project; Fabulous Autumn Soup Recipe

What a lovely weekend; no opiates, no tortuous pain or grotesque resemblence to Joseph Merrick. . . shopping and exercise and cooking, reading the newspapers and watching tv. I don't have much time to write this a.m., as I have to go get blood tests near Columbus Circle and I can't eat or drink tea until then.

But I did create a beautiful autumnal soup recipe from what I had around the house this weekend, so I will write it down:

Sweet Potato, Ginger, and Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

1 onion, chopped

1 clove of garlic, chopped

1 thumb of ginger, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

T of olive oil

1/2 t of nutmeg

Saute these over a low flame for 7 minutes, then add:

6 cups of chicken broth

1 peeled and coarsely chopped sweet potato

Let simmer over medium flame for 15 minutes, then add:

1 medium roasted butternut squash--no skin, of course. (I had one as a leftover--cook for 2x as long as the recipe advises.)

Mix, and then blend with immersion blender. Add:

salt

pepper

2 t brown sugar

1 shake Louisiana hot sauce

Let simmer over very low flame for a bit. Ideally, you would turn off the flame and let the soup sit for an hour or two for the flavors to blend (best is if you make it the day before serving). Serve garnished with a dollop of cream and sage or chives, as above, or just on its own.

4 servings.

Day 67, Doctors and Dentists and Popcorn, Oh MY!

Beware the humble popped kernel--whether coated in the most nefarious of chemicals, caramel, or salted butter, that seemingly innocuous treat can end up costing you. Turns out everyone knew this except me: One of those crispy popcorn skins gets beneath your teeth and eludes flossing. . .next thing you know you've got an abscess, your face blows up like a Republican election campaign, and you're shelling out big bucks to have the thing surgically removed.

Next time you're at your local multi-plex, shudder and look away from the popcorn. Or do as I did and have a separate emergency fund that you can tap into just for dental emergencies--of course my fund was in a money market account labelled "Savings For Trip to Europe", but that means nothing. Just girlish dreaming.

Sigh.

However, today is my first normal day since it all began, in the gruesome distant past, on Ooctober 28th. I still have a small hard lump o' pain on my lower east side (dentally), and I am still on mega-penicillin, but I feel normal! I will be going to the gym and the library to work! I will be going to my favorite market in the city--in North America, perhaps--the West Side Market on 110th Street, to eat their free samples and buy salad, lunch, and slivers of chocolate.

Then I'll march up the rain-sodden streets to the NYPL, Morningside Branch, for a look around at their videos. It's all terribly high-minded in there, with Kieslowski and Fellini and Truffaut videos being relieved by the occasional BBC production of a Hardy novel. I've always suspected that there are some professors who scurry up Broadway looking over their shoulders, guiltily aware of the copy of Fast Times at Ridgemont High they have in their leather satchels.

Today is a normal day, and I am so pleased about it. I will work in lovely Butler library overlooking Kim Mead and White's beautifully designed campus, meant to re-create an Italian piazza. I will snap on my iPod and listen to George Clinton's "Atomic Dog". I will exercise long and hard--I've missed it. Amazing how difficult to do that when in searing unfeasible unremitting crazy-making pain.

As far as the BBP goes, I went to my new doctor yesterday. Her offices are on a shabby stretch of 58th street, where the buildings are so tall that daylight never seems to reach the street and pedestrian faces are always in shadow, like E. Hopper paintings. When you step into the building, however, all is mahogany and velvet chairs, with a wolfishly grinning doorman directing you to the office.

I liked that. I love the feeling of finding a little oasis of civility in the dark loud hustling city.

It was an incredibly thorough first visit: I filled in many forms as to my own and family's medical history, my desires for the visit. . .I peed in a cup and then was weighed and measured (I AM 5'3"!! I always thought I was lying, that I was an inch shorter!), before the doctor came in. Then I spent a while alone, banging my heels together on that padded metal table.

Getting more nervous and ashamed of myself by the minute.

After a while I began to say the serenity prayer, but couldn't do it properly. I kept interrupting it with my own impatience.

God, Grant me the Serenity where the hell is she I'm freezing here

To Accept the things I cannot change, Oh god I'm a mess and I don't know where I'll start. . .

The Courage to change the things I can Should I lie about how long since I've seen a doctor??

And the Wisdom to know the difference. I don't want to know if I'm sick--I feel fine and I don't want to know if anything's wrong--ignorance is bliss is bliss is bliss knowledge is popcorn in my gums--



Then the Doctor walked in. She is blonde, with chin length hair and pale skin. She looks a little weary, very kind, and as if she has a dry sense of humor. And she spent an unbelievable amount of time with me. When was the last time you first visited a doctor and she looked over your histoy and talked to you for 45 minutes?

So now I'm set up. With a gynocologist and a cardiologist. With blood tests on Monday and a mammogram on the 28th. All this testing is frightening. . .but this is the stuff everybody faces. I don't get a free pass just because I want one, or because I'm a lush, or because I'm scared.

Life on Life's terms, once again. It feels okay.

Day 66, The Be Brave Project: Facts and Fears

Here are 3 Facts About New York City the day after the Election:

1. You couldn't get a single paper except the damn Daily News, which so offended people by referring to the Obama family as "The New Camelot" that I suspect it remained on the news-stands all night (we really, really are nervous for the man's continued health. Kennedy references are profoundly inappropriate: these Right Wingers have guns). The Times people were idiots in not cranking their papers out: London publishers could have told them that in times of emotion people regress a bit, and want something they can hold. That being said, hits for the NYT website were 29% higher than they ever have been.

2. For the first time ever, I heard racist comments on the street. There were 2 of them, and they were pretty mild, but I was shocked and disappointed. But I realized that some people's thinking will need an alignment and it's probably good to have it come out in 'jokes' than in sullen anger. . .and the longer this administration goes on, the more normal it will become. But it made me sad (we must note: I am still on massive amounts of medication so my defenses are not what they usually are).

3. More importantly, and far far more frequently, there was an air of friendliness and (if my drugged mind was not too distorted) a sort of almost sexual energy in the air. Everyone was checking each other out--so much more eye-contact than New Yorkers are used to. We are proud. We stood in line for hours to vote. We broke the Southern Strategy, we defied the Bradley Effect, we didn't vote according to gender or skin color or financial resources--a higher percentage of people earning more than $200,000 a year voted for Obama than for Kerry despite the fact that O has threatened them with greater taxes. On 81st and Broadway a family had just set up a table, and was giving away coke and cookies. The coke was cold and the cookies were good; I stood there and tried not to be shy--I grinned my swollen grin, and I felt what it was like to be excited by our political future.

On the BBP: Today I am going to see my new doctor for a first check-up. Due to the being a lush and all, I have not had a thorough check-up in a very, very long time. I am frightened by it, but living according to the "life on life's terms" and "face your fears" mottoes. I hope it will be all right. . .

Day 65; Election Daze and Opiate Nights

Fatigued from the shock surgery on my poor infected and opiate-dazed system, I realized that yesterday I wasn't getting much done.

Apart from voting.

Other than that, it was the kind of day when you bend over to pick up a newspaper and then stand half-erect in the hallway with your mouth hanging slack, wondering what you were going to do with it. Build models of the Nina, Pinta and the Santa Maria? Create a miniature reconstruction of the earth's atmosphere? Uhmmm. . . .hm.

So I took my mega-doses of amoxycillin and wearily got dressed. Found my voter registration documents, a passport, two bills with my name and address on, a New York Magazine and a bottle of water, and headed out for the Goddard Riverside Community Center. This time I knew there'd be no problem--I'd planned ahead and was going during the slow hours of the day. I'd checked out the locale in advance, so no wandering around.

Only, there was no one there. Or rather, when I pulled open the bullet-proof doors of the building, I found several painters at work, and a secretary looking at one of them flirtatiously. No lines, no pushy volunteers, no people apart from flirter and painters. They told me the voting was around the corner, at P.S. 58. Okay--walked down there and found the full voting system set up, including old-style booths with curtains and big red levers to pull. I began to get girlishly excited.

But the sign said District 10, and my papers said District 9, "Goddard Riverside Community Center". Oh crap. Went to the volunteers and showed them the paperwork that I'd so vigilantly had sent to me. They said that people were voting at the GRCC. I said, No--Flirting and Painting is going on there. I was told that I couldn't vote at District 10, had to vote at District 9. At . . .well, you know where.

Finally a small woman with the compact form of a fire hydrant dashed up. Her name tag said MARIA, and every other tooth was missing in her mouth, which told me that she has known pain. She gave me random papers and then looked at mine, all while telling me that she had so much energy that none of the other volunteers could keep up with her!! A glance at the other volunteers faces showed this to be her own rather positive spin on the situation. She then took back the papers she'd given me, grabbed my hand, and said we were going back to the GRCC and sorting this out--they'd been sending people there all day and they'd been coming back saying they couldn't vote--let's go let's go let's fix this right now.

She pulled me back to the Community Center, we saw the same secretary (who now was toying with strands of her long dark hair as she coyly told her painter that he was fucked up on fumes), and Maria stormed up to her. Within 12 seconds it was all straightened out: There are 2 GRCC's, within 5 blocks of each other, both with the same name and primary address.

Of Course there are.

I bid adieu to Maria and rinsed my mouth in some salt water as I headed for the polling place. Here, after a wait in line with nervously excited ladies wearing hemp clothes, older women in tweed jackets and hair helmets, and an intriguing amount of rastafarians (could this area be where musicians choose to live!? If so--excellent!), I reached the front of the line. An angry putty-faced man glared at me and my papers and looked me up in the book. "You're not there."

Well, I'm here--and here is my voting card and address change documentation.

"You can't vote here."

I looked around and saw that I was in District 9, and that a neighbor of mine was standing on line eating a bagle and reading P.G. Wodehouse.

"Oh Yeah?"

I pushed past him until I saw someone who looked both competent and important. Explained my situation and ended up sitting at a table (not a lovely curtained booth), voting by means of an: Official Standby Ballot for voters for the General Election

November 4, 2008

City of New York

County of New York.

My work was done. I pushed out by the crowds and walked home, trying not to cup my hand over my swollen mis-shapen jaw. As I walked, dazed by pain and opiates and stress and sudden oral surgery, I foolishly thought to myself. . .I am America--infected and tired and hi-jacked by combative, destructive, extremely costly forces that are sapping my energy at every step.

And I'm so tired. But we've cut the infection out.

Day 64; Be Brave Project; Agony & Upstate Continued

It's 8.43 Election Morning as I sit here at my desk the skyline of Manhattan's Upper West Side over my right shoulder and the sound of drilling. . .the sound of drilling. . .the sound of drilling coming from the building next door.

Can't get away from it. You see, I did travel upstate for Halloween weekend--for a time of crisp country drives and walks through a town consisting of 1 grocery store, 1 restaurant, 1 'video' store. To help my Aunt finish her canning for the year and to work on my projects upstairs in my room with the lovely golden quilted twin bed and the views over barns and rooftops.

What I did instead was roll on that bed, punching it in agony and shaking my fist at the skies. Or that was the first night, after my dental hell kicked back in, in high gear. By night #2 I was on codeine with acetaminophen. . .much less cursing and wailing, except for the early hours of the morning when the drug would wear off. I didn't cry--the crying came later.

And re. Codeine: That is, I must say, a pretty damn nice drug.

By Sunday my face swelled up to look as if my Aunt had been smacking me with a frying pan (enough codeine and I wouldn't have cared, really), and the throbbing twisting agony was making it impossible to sit still. Monday morning I had a pendulously large, square jaw--and a 3:00 meeting with my dentist.

Back in NYC, I wove my way down Columbus Avenue, clutching the hot egg-shaped swelling on my face--but like any self-respecting Manhattan woman was wearing a chic trench coat, immaculate heels, and clutching an over sized Canal street faux D&G bag. Glimpsing myself in shop windows I looked as if I were in a J. Crew shoot re-creating Munch's "The Scream"--one hand firmly clutched to jaw, eyes burning in pain, but a kicky little knot on my trench coat.

Got to 79th Street and my dentist--walked in looking forward to having this damn situation out of my hands and into someone else's. I expected the usual leisurely sit on the vinyl bench, more info about Madonna's divorce, some nervous glances from patients who wondered if my dental state was before or after treatment. . .

But one glance at me, and I was rushed into some secret back room I've never seen before: a lead apron was tossed over me, x-rays taken with quick intensity, instruments placed on high tables where I could only see their sharp tips gleaming. A gum specialist came in from God knows where. . .and next thing you know I'm being rushed E.R. style to another secret room--secret rooms come expensive in Manhattan, and should have made me worry--to be told what was going on.

I had a double abscess and would need an emergency root canal immediately. The infection over the last few days already had killed much of the gum surrounding the tooth and surgery would be required to trim the dead bits still carrying the infection. . .

Holy Crap. Emergency root canal. Not the way to begin the holiday season! It all began immediately, with the gum guy going in to the top abscess and pulling clumps of rotted gum out, before my guy went in to drill away my molar and do the emerg. root canal--such fun it was! The best part: Abscesses apparently don't take Novocaine as regular flesh does, so I had to have 3 direct shots into the burning infected center of the pain. After the root canal, the gum work proceeded, and then a temporary crown.

An hour later, with patients piled up in the waiting room glaring , until they saw the state of my face, I wobbled up to the desk and was given the bill. And that, after a week of what I was told is the worst dental pain you can go through, is when I began to cry.

I handed over my card, weeping. I wept in the elevator, and all the way home. I wept in the Duane Reade as I gave them my prescriptions for amoxycillin and more codeine. And in the elevator up to my apartment. Once I closed the door behind me, all pretense of stiff-upper lipping it was off and I wept like an Italian widow. . .

All my savings for a trip to Europe in the summer. Wiped out in one painful, painful afternoon.