Helping Gracie Up

Helping Gracie Up


Gracie’s Dead met for lunch on a terrace overlooking the heavenly Adriatic Sea. Well, the spirits gathered weren’t just Gracie’s Dead. Except for Annie Claire, they each had many, many links to the living. Annie Claire was a heaven-born, and having been among the living a mere eighteen weeks, and in a womb at that, she hadn’t time to make connections, other than to her mother and father. Because Gracie thought of her lost daughter every day, Annie Claire always had easy access to her mother, and knew Gracie inside and out. Her father? Not so much.

Teresa and Otto, one set of Gracie’s great-grandparents, were hosting the festivities in a spirited version of their beloved Trieste. The party was winding down, and several of Gracie’s dead relations were dozing, lulled to sleepiness by the mild sea breeze.

“Okay, dearhearts. Let’s all have a cup of whatever you want to help you get serious, and we’ll have this meeting about my mother, shall we?” Annie Claire, a teenager now, called out brightly from her seat at the end of the long table. The dishes quickly cleared and cups and saucers, carafes of hot coffee and teapots, creamers and sugar bowls arrived.

“I’ll start things off with a brief report about Mom’s progress. She’s only left her house once, for groceries, in the last two weeks, but she has started playing piano again. Although she’s promised her brothers she’ll come visit them, she hasn’t bought any warm clothes for December in New York, or made plane reservations or anything. I’m worried that she’ll poop out on the trip.”

Dorothy, Gracie’s mother, said, “Well, I’ve been badgering her about new clothes, you know. E-mails and catalogues in the mail. I’m afraid she still has the “too poor to buy clothes” thinking she inherited from me. Damn that Depression!”

“Keep trying, Grandma. She’s never traveled anywhere without some new things to wear, which she also got from you, and she’s got more money in the bank then she ever had. You’ll help her with this security thing, I’m sure of it! Look how far you’ve come!”

“I have come a long way, it’s true. Then again, I’m in heaven,” Dorothy said.

“I’ve been working on her about music,” said Alex, Gracie’s brother. “She doesn’t want to perform, but I’m getting through to her, I think, about giving herself a break. She’s done enough. Jeez louise!”

Gracie’s father, new to death, and still fairly dumbstruck with heaven-wonder, cleared his throat. “I want to help her, but almost every time I visit her, she ends up thinking about how miserable I looked in that nursing home. I’m beginning to think I should stay out of her mind, at least until she perks up a bit.”

Ollie, a handsome Springer Spaniel, barked to get the crowd’s attention, then spoke in heaven’s universal language. “As we know, this sort of thing happens to the living when deaths stack up on them like some of ours did. Our Gracie’s faith is wobbly right now, and she could spiral dangerously down. However, I’ve talked to Blossom, who’s a lovebug if ever there was one, and she’s agreed to go back to the living and become Gracie’s dog. We don’t have all the details worked out, but she’ll get there soon, and then Gracie will have to take Blossom for walks, and she’ll start talking to her neighbors, going to the store to buy dog food and toys, all that soul-warming pet stuff. And we have plans for a particularly comforting and personable cat, Harry, to hang around Gracie’s house so that she can rescue him. Leave it to us. Gracie’s going to be fine. In fact, I predict that very soon she’s going to learn to just be. Animals are the best at just being and that’s what she needs to do now.

“All right! Hey, everybody!” said Annie Claire, who’d begun flitting around when Ollie was talking. “Mom’s starting to lighten up a bit. We’ve helped, I’m sure, but I think she wants to feel better herself, too. She was playing Mahler on her piano, then she switched to Mozart, and now she’s playing Scott Joplin! Thank heavens! No one’s ever been sad and played Ragtime.”

Fear and Loathing on the Weather Channel

The Weather Channel people are nuts. Hurricane season will convince you they’re crazed if you don’t already think so. Watch them for spell. Once in awhile one of the weatherpersons slips and says something like, “Yes! We think this one will make it to a Category 3 and it has a great chance of making landfall!” Then later on you hear, “Well, as you see, Carmella didn’t make it- fell apart in the Caribbean, but we still have hopes for Dexter.” I find it whoppingly strange that the directors don’t give the weathercasters hell when they give it up about how much they root for disasters, but what do I know about keeping a 24/7 weather channel going? Did you know they have a daytime show called, “It Could Happen Tomorrow!” Yeah. They make stuff up.

Ah, “daytime.” I now sometimes watch daytime. ( Oh by the way, in the U.S., if you mention “daytime,” you’re talking about TV. We all agree on that, at least.) For most of my life I easily avoided TV before the 6 pm news. Way too busy to sit down in the middle of the day to listen to talk, follow a soap, sleep to the sports channel. My ex-husband watched golf on weekends when he wasn’t playing golf, but I was excused from either misery. When my dad was still alive and pretty much confined to his armchair, he’d have one sport or another on TV, sound muted. Tennis was his thing, but he’d watch them all, even bowling if there were no other choices. Damn if I didn’t get drawn into the Tour de France every year for the last five years. The scenery! Oh,God.

Just lately, while lurking about on my own, I’ve become a Turner Classic Movies fan. Not every day, mind you, but if my heart keeps me going slow or the Florida heat keeps me in the house, I may indulge. That’s how I happened to watch “The Cobweb,” starring Lauren Bacall, Richard Widmark, Charles Boyer, Gloria Grahame and Lillian Gish. Some cast, huh? Vincente Minelli directed it, and John Houseman produced it. The film was about who was going to pick the new drapes for the library of an upscale mental hospital. All those talented, smart people spent considerable time and energy on this amazingly dumb movie. There’s a scene in it where Gloria Grahame, eyes blazing and in a fit of jealous, defiant, and yet somehow sexy rage, climbs a handy ladder with an enormous curtain rod and hangs her curtains, damn him!

Anyways, between the nutjobs on the Weather Channel and the general freakiness of some of the stuff on TCM and its ilk, I don’t think I’ll take over Dad’s armchair and watch “daytime” too often yet. Maybe only when James Franco decides to do a spin on General Hospital. Now that was cool.

Taking Stock

Taking Stock

Lovely, lovely, lovely,
my cat’s furry belly.

My mind’s got some fluff
but she copes well enough.

I've foundered in Florida with its heat and humidity,
palms and shells and churchy stupidity.

I have a sick heart and I do less and less,
but I finally own a fine French writing desk.

I could use a cruise, a steadier step,
a long walk in Paris with Johnny Depp.

It appears gone for good are dramas and bothers,
threats and therapists and drunk, needy lovers.

just putting it out there

Oh, boy. Here goes my response to amazing Dr. Hawking and his friends. They get a bit silly, I think. And let's not even talk about that pastor with a gun down in Gainsville.

We each create God. Compassionate people create a compassionate God. Cruel people have a harsh God. Lots of us give our God a good sense of humor, and lots of us have Gods with long, puzzling list of rules. I think truly moral people create a God who is simple, courageous, and maybe most importantly, forgiving. How can science tell us about God? Beethoven, Shakespeare, Rosa Parks, people like that have told us something, and there have been holy men and women who were able to share their thoughts about God, but the God who helps me out is the one I need and love, and have since I was a little kid. When I heard about God from grown-ups, I don't remember being surprised, astonished, doubtful. "Yeah, okay. God-so that's what it's called." We're born knowing, I think. And maybe we die knowing. I hope so.

Some Touches

When I come home Blossom wiggles, gets her newest dog toy out of our bedroom, acts silly then sits and waits for me to say “bacon,” or “biscuit.” Sometimes, when we cuddle after a separation, she makes a particular sound. It comes from deep down somewhere in her small body and it’s a welcoming grunt that expresses such satisfaction and pleasure in my being there with her again that I feel like I must be quite all right after all.

My mother didn’t hug often, but when there had been months or a year apart she would smash me to her and not let go for a long time. These were fierce, no holds barred, gorgeous hugs. Then, just when I’d start the thought, “this is too much now,” she would let me go. And I wouldn’t get another hug like that until after another time when I’d been away from her. The year she did her dying we touched more than at any time since I was a baby, because she had to hold on to me to move from one place to another, every single time.

The last few years of his life I kissed Dad on the top of his head each night when I went to bed. I think this surprised him for a while. I’m not sure he knew what to make of it, but this goodnight kiss thing felt right to me. Dad got used to it, then expected it, then, finally, looked for it. It was hard for him to embrace me or anyone else unless he was sitting down, and that was awkward. I mean during his last years, when he used two crutches.

Sam is an Applehead Siamese. He’s a big guy and picking him up for a few minutes is sensual, gratifying, calming. Samish (my name for him) doesn’t fidget, can be counted on to purr, and sends you these luxurious vibes. He’s not a lap cat, but when you pet him, he participates. You know, gazes into your eyes, scootches around some, lifts his head for an under chin rub. Benefits a-plenty if you spend a bit of time with our cat.

Mom and Dad are both gone and I’m divorced. I live with one of my brothers, and he and I don’t touch much. Maybe we’ll hug before and after one of us goes on a trip, but it’s a brief affair, and with him the wide smile is the thing. He’s glad to see me; I’ve no doubt of that. Maybe he’s relieved too, because I have a wonky heart. My youngest brother gave me frequent, fine hugs, which were just right, unless he’d been drinking. Then they’d feel suffocating and uncomfortable. I don’t think he ever knew this. He’s gone now, too. My older brother has a gift for touch. He not only embraces warmly, he’ll give me spontaneous little squeezes, or put a hand on my shoulder at the right moments. He lives far away, though.

I have a lot more to say, but I’ll wind down here. The thing that occurs to me is that it’s a damn good thing I have Blossom and Samish for day to day whenever I want them caresses. I don’t think I’ve examined this business before, but it turns out I need to now.
Hmph. You never know when something will get your attention, do you?


Nonnie Augustine
August, 2010

NOW IT'S AUGUST, 2010

Blue, green, aquamarine,
black, brown, dangerous sheen,
salted, cool buoyancy,
poisoned slick murk,
fresh with dead,
crisp with crude,
the season to spawn,
to dive, to school-
ah, no, to be strangled
to be slathered and drown.

It’s fixed says he!
It’s over, writes she.
When desperate, we learn.
The next spill will be fixed
in days, maybe minutes-
we’ll spend to its end.
Some scientists crow
others study and cry.
Children quickly forget-
their parents pretend.

All watch while the tricksters
spin greedy new tricks.
But bellies churn.
and hearts ache.
Hope tries to fly
but the truth tramps it down.
In this God’s Gulf
oil and water won’t mix.

Nonnie Augustine
August, 2010

With a Bow to Dorothy Parker

When his fingers sped along the keys,
I’d need to sit. I’d such weak knees.
I thought him charming, tall, and able,
then he overturned the table.
Chili, crackers, cheddar cheese
crashed on me-he’d been displeased.
I screamed, sighed, cried and cried.
To keep me home, he rhapsodized.
He sweetly played a Chopin etude,
while he cursed himself for being rude.
I forgave him, (oh, yes) and took a bath,
soaped off the food that sparked his wrath.

We again enjoyed unwedded bliss
as long as nothing went amiss.
Light toast and eggs, once over easy,
no cats or dogs--they made him sneezy.
But it seemed to me that stray he might,
sex had slowed to once a night.
One day I woke up twenty-two-
the sky and I waxed moody blue.
I found a note that he’d been smote
by the pulchritude of some other.
Now I’m on my way to Santa Fe
to find one way or another,
a man with flair in the western air.
Why not? A cowboy lover!

What's New With Y'all?

Roberta’s husband had a stroke and has an aneurysm in his brain that's gotta be seen to. Means a trip to Shands over in Gainsville. Her thyroid’s acting up again. Sondra broke her back turns out. She fell and went to the ER because she knew she’d done something bad to her knee, but the broken back was a surprise. Now the poor woman is in a back brace and a leg cast. Art hasn’t had a binge in a year, but he’s got pain pills now for his back, and who knows where he’ll go with them. He’s done that before, you know. Gone from pills to beer to whiskey.

Business is down ‘cause of the spill. Not that you’d notice right off. You have to know what this place is like in a normal July to ‘preciate how empty the beach is. This is one tourist season when locals aren’t complaining ‘bout the damn traffic. It’s a sneaky thing. Even Debbie and Matt’s plumbing jobs are off. Places ain’t getting rented so there’s a lot less calls from property managers.

One thing though-we’ve had rain. So even if it’s 109 out there ‘cording to the heat index, the yards ain’t turned brown yet. Still green which is something I enjoy. Between the heat and the fleas, the neighborhood dogs are miserable. For dogs, I mean. Can’t get a dog down too bad unless you’re one of those cruel fuckers.

So, what are you gonna do? There’s good stuff, too, that’s for damn sure. Lindy and Mike’s baby was born over 8 lbs. and he’s eating like he wants to double that by the time he’s a month old. Hard on Lindy, though. Breast feeding. Carl’s working on a clean-up crew. Don’t know how they do it. On the beach in those boiler suits in this mess a heat. They say the oil stinks, too. Don’t know ‘cause I’ve stayed the hell away from it. BP station on Front Beach is gonna close, I’ll betchu. Ain’t a soul crying for them. Well. There’s local people owning the place that’ll have to get ‘nother line of business. Good luck to ‘em.

So, I got the word on heart failure. So? Doesn’t mean I’ll keel over tomorrow. Least I’m not out in that sun. House is cool and I got General Hospital, (James Franco’s been on it, you know) Dr. Oz, Ellen and when I need to, I get out. Maybe not like I used to, but what the hell anyway. Ain’t none of us is getting any younger. Dog and cat are doing good. God bless ‘em.

On a Drawing by Athos Menaboni

The female sparrow hawk, fierce,
glorious, hovers above her mate.
Menaboni sketches her with beak open.
I imagine her call, “killy, killy, killy.”
The male’s wings fold down;
his claws wrap around
the branch of Georgia pine;
his head twists around and up
to fix her with black, marvelous eyes.
His russet back is rounded but not meek.

She is set to hunt, is ready to fly wide and long.
He has just flown in. His belly almost full,
he’s at rest, reflective, quiet.
Perhaps she’ll settle close to her partner
or he’ll leave his perch to join her in fearsome flight.
The hawks will decide in their next quick moments,
but the artist has made his choice, and so does not care.

Nonnie Augustine
July 8, 2010

The Little White House

FDR had a summer home in Warm Springs, Georgia. As one might expect, there are servant’s quarters, a guesthouse, luscious mountain scenery, a fine verandah, and sentry posts that were manned by Marines. Three Marines watched over Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his guests. That’s all. Huh.

The main house has six small rooms, darkly paneled, and humbly furnished. The only piece I coveted was an excellent cook’s table because of its sensible size. The icebox was on a little porch and the pantry displayed mismatched china and silverware. The two-roomed guesthouse is in the same rustic style with more of the gloomy dark pine paneling. The cook had a room over the garage, and so did a married couple who traveled with President Roosevelt.

He had his fatal stroke while posing for a portrait in the “Little White House.” The painter, Elizabeth Shoumatoff, her easel, FDR, and Lucy Page Mercer, who was visiting that day, must have been crowded in that small sitting room. (Eleanor wasn’t there, but then she seldom visited the house in Warm Springs.)

After my tour of the museum and house, I went to the gift shop, of course. I bought two soup mugs for my brother Peter and I. They are printed with acronyms for programs that got started during the New Deal: CCC, FCC, FDIC, FERA, FTC, NLB, NRA (National Recovery Administration, not the rifle NRA) REA, SEC, SSB, TVA, and WPA. Whew! My new mugs have the full titles of the programs listed, too, and let me tell you, it’s an impressive list. Maybe you’d like to read about them. Just Google and they’ll be there. I’ve always thought well of FDR, but after visiting his summerhouse in rural Georgia, I love him.

Cars

My Dad’s Studebaker. That was the first car I remember. We’d moved to the New Jersey suburbs from Staten Island so Mom had to learn to drive. She did pretty well, too. (We had to go on the lessons when they couldn’t find someone to watch us.) The Studebaker was green and not very big. We were a family of five then.

When my youngest brother showed up we got a Chevy station wagon. Two-tone blue and white. It seems to me it was only a little while before our next door neighbors got a much fancier station wagon with a removable third seat in the back instead of the plain space we had. I was old enough by then to understand our wagon had been eclipsed.

About the same time we moved to a bigger house, because we needed another bedroom (because I was a girl and the other three kids were boys) and a second bathroom, if at all possible, Dad came home with a tan Chevy Impala. Sleek. And then, amazingly, he bought a Kharmen Ghia! Mom and Dad needed two cars by then, because even though Dad car-pooled to the city, Mom had a hard time on Dad’s day to drive because there was a lot going on by then. We were a busy family, although not nearly as busy as families of six tend to be now. Jeez Louise!

The gods were smiling on my next-oldest brother and I, because we each had a senior year in high school when we got to drive the Ghia to school. This gave me many cool points that I’d been sorely lacking because I was a ballet dancer and no one at Ramsey High cared about that. Peter was okay even without the Ghia, but it didn’t hurt. There were other family cars after that, but they weren’t important to me because I was in college and then on my own.

It was six years before I had to have a car. I moved from New York City to Albuquerque, you see, and of course, a car was a necessary part of life.

So, my family was addicted to oil, from the get-go I guess. Well, no guessing about it-we were. I’m sorry, pelicans and turtles and everyone else, but that’s how it was. I live on the Florida panhandle. In this town pretty much everyone has a car. When you see adults walking or riding bikes, it’s a sure shot they’ve lost their license for driving drunk. Not a damn thing to do with saving the environment. It’s a mess, isn’t it?

"Sore must be the storm"

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

Emily Dickinson


The corners of my mouth have turned down, there’s a slow burn in my throat, my shoulders have crept up and I wish I had a giant foot to stamp. All this has been going on since yesterday morning when I saw a photo of a pelican, sitting still, soaked in oil.

I felt better for some time in the late afternoon, when, returning from getting-the-mail-walking-my-dog, I found a Fed Ex box on my front porch. I’m glad I’m still thrilled by the sight of a package sent by someone I like. I hope I feel this way about presents as long as I last. Turns out I got fine gifts. He sent me a paper collage of wonderland, I think, beautifully framed and ready to hang. Taped to it was a Templar Cross, just the right size, on a silver chain. There was a magnifying glass in a black leather case, too, because thousands of bits of paper, most of them tiny, are in the picture.

I had a happy hour or so, then, as I do way too often, I checked my home page on the Net. One of the news feeds about the Gulf of Mexico, and its death, began with another picture. In it a pelican was trying to fly with ragged, heavy wings. The poor bird looked terrified. There was a link for more pictures by the photographer, Charlie Riedel.

How dare they? Or we? Do I have to hate myself, too, for a part in this monstrous insult? I can tell you with certainty, that never in my life have I wanted to move safely stashed oil from one place to another, more useful, place. I had a thin understanding that people were doing this thing, but I suppose I trusted that they knew what they were about. Horrible as the Alaskan spill was, a drunk captained that tanker. Exxon had a huge Human Resources lapse with that one.

So. My paper collage, its exquisite goodness, the cross, and the glass helped to soften the hard lumps in my throat and chest, but frustrated anger is brutal and its been holding on to me tightly. I don’t feel up to dealing with these physical symptoms of rage today. I have things to do, but I can't get going. Yoga would help, and I’m sure yoga practice won’t hurt the planet. Well, I do it with a DVD and that takes electricity, energy, all that. What doesn't?

I’ll stay home today. At least I won’t drive.

The Friendly Waitress

On my two-top young lovers gaze
at each other and talk, plan, share
her linguini, his prime rib. He butters
her bread and she murmurs, purrs.
Businessmen on per diems
pay for crass stares at my legs,
chest, hips with twenty percent tips.


Our king, the chef, rules his steamy
realm with steely eyes, paces his rum.
Later he’ll grow moist, maudlin, desperate.
The sous chef flirts, quips, chops and slices.
From behind the pastries, the old Greek
grumbles at the girls who pick up
meringues, tarts, and layer cakes.
The dishwashers talk broken-English
trash as they scrape plates-
not the paper-pale junkie.
His silence is frantic.

I hoist my tray with six covered dishes.
Never mind my bad back, no time.
At the big table a toddler’s made
an applesauce mess. His cool,
spotless mother requires my help.
Two more years and I’ll be a nurse.
With a gracious smile, I’ll dispense
pain pills a half-hour late

Barataria Bay

Barataria Bay

It’s a surprise that hearing from a particular man has had such an effect on me. Nothing like this has happened during these quiet years and I don’t think I ever wondered if it would. Oh, I must have. I haven’t been dead after all. How like me to pretend, even here, that I haven’t minded about being alone. I’ve ridden awesome, foaming, reckless waves of minding. Soon enough, I’ve found my feet again. There’s been no time to flail. Until now.


There are black pelicans in the Louisiana wetlands. They don’t like to be handled, so their rescuers tie their beaks closed as they try to clean them. But I wish these wild birds could attack with their long, efficient beaks, so perfectly evolved to do what they want to do. The oil has taken, will continue to take, their birdhood. They hobble and die on the beaches of Barataria Bay . There is no stopping it now. No, I don’t think so. Don’t even want to listen to the men and women at the microphones. Today I have heavy arms and sluggish legs. Tomorrow will be worse.

Punched in the Heart

Punched in the Heart

Whoosh! Right there in the Target parking lot. Unlocked my car trunk and saw a plastic basket filled with clothes and a bag with toothpaste, lotion… stuff my dad used at the nursing home. My brother put them there over two months ago, on the day Dad died.

I haven’t opened my trunk in that long. Something, huh? My brother took over grocery shopping, because of my angina, and, well, I’ve barely needed my car, let alone had a reason to load it up. But yesterday I checked to see if my yoga mat was where I left it the last time I took classes, a couple of years ago. Because it’s about time I did something, you know? I have the time now, don’t I? Doesn’t matter when I leave the house. So, yoga. Why not?

And there was Dad’s stuff. Really, really his stuff. A favorite pair of brown sweatpants, an olive-green vest that one of us kids gave him. Warm, and rugged-looking, you know? That’s the kind of thing Dad liked to wear, even though he hadn’t hiked in the mountains for twenty years. Maybe thirty.

It’s true that knees get weak when you’re hit like that. Mine did.  That damn nursing home. I didn’t want him to die there! He was supposed to depart from home, like Mom did.

The stuff is still in the trunk. My brother will get it.

I took the yoga class this morning. Wasn’t sure I’d go through with it until I actually left the house. I was late, but I took it. Dad would be pleased. Hell, I’m pleased. That’s all right, then, I guess.

A Novel Begins...

A Novel Begins

By Nonnie Augustine


She was washing the dishes in the sink, (you’re not going to start with a pronoun, are you? Give her a name, for God’s sake!)
Kate was washing dishes in the sink, (where the hell else is she going to wash dishes? In a creek?)
Kate was washing dishes (was washing-great! Now you’ve got a boring verb and a gerund.)
Kate washed dishes (so? How exciting can you get?)
Kate washed dishes and Zach (trendy name, there, but, okay) did his homework at the kitchen table (we know Kate’s in the kitchen, don’t we? And where else would a kid, big kid, little kid? do their homework but at a table? Oh, okay, he could be doing it at a computer. So, I guess you’re going with “poor” since the mom doesn’t have a dishwasher and he doesn’t have a computer. Or he’s young. Okay, but jazz it up fast, for Pete’s sake!)
Kate washed dishes while Zach did his second grade homework (sentence finally works, but where’s the jazz?)
Suddenly, (oh, God! An adverb, and the dreaded “suddenly” yet!)
The peace in the room was broken (no way are you going to use passive voice.)
A loud knock broke the peace in the room (one knock? Who knocks once?)
Loud knocking broke the peace in the room (no, don’t like peace in the room. It’s awkward and we’re writing about people here, not rooms.)
Loud knocking startled them both (both?)
Loud knoking startled them. (mispelled knocking.)
Loud knocking startled them and Kate (put Kate, and now's the time for a pronoun, in a new sentence-vary the sentence length and besides you’ve lost the peace thing. Are you going to use a whole new sentence to get it in? I don’t think you need to do that.)
Loud knocking shattered their peace. (think I like that better-maybe not.)
She dried her hands, patted her son’s shoulder, and slowly unlocked the door. (Okay. But they’re in a city, aren’t they? Why not put a bunch of locks on the door? Give it some setting, why don’t you?)
She dried her hands, patted her son’s shoulder, and slowly unlocked the door’s three locks (unlocked the locks?)
She dried her hands, patted her son’s shoulder, and slowly (watch your adverbs. You know you love them-they’ll be all over the place and puleeze stop re-writing the whole sentence. You’re just doing that to fill your “goal” time and you know it!)
undid the door’s three locks (of course the locks are on the door. Jeez!)
undid three locks (better.)
Two (you’ve got to decide what city, finally)
Miami (good. Know a lot about Florida. Miami? Not so much.)
police officers stood at the door (how about some tone, here? Wouldn’t Kate call them cops? Going to use third-limited, right? Or go with third omniscient? Oh, right. A novel. Change voices later maybe, for narrative.)
cops (plain clothes? Uniforms?)
uniformed cops (good-gets you out of explaining how she knew plain clothes guys were police)
stood at the door.(weak verb, and where else would they be?)
confronted her (thank God, a paragraph! Turn this damn thing off. It’s early, but go cook dinner. Revise later. Or delete. Not yet. Don’t delete it yet!)

After this last death,

After this last death,


I dreamt I lost at musical chairs, was forced to stand.

Strangers shoved me toward the outside door.

Fear stirred anger, overwhelmed grief.

Fierce, I yelled, “Don’t push me!”

Noise, smells, rushing.

Would out be better than in?

I turned the doorknob.


Cool, dark, quiet. Rustles.

Arms folded under my tight chest, I leaned

against the trunk of a tulip magnolia.

Nubs and edges of the massive tree scratched

so I stepped away, dropped my arms, opened my palms.

Breezes teased the insides of my elbows.

Dead family murmured, circled my wrists,

pulled me down the path. I was surprised by ease.

Bob and Doris

Bob and Doris

I cut Dad’s hair today.
He coached me.
This is still new for him-
needing help.

He was Special Ops during the War.
Solved the rape and murder
of a French woman. The guilty U.S.
soldiers shamed their uniforms.
Dad damn near killed a drunk in his own squad
whose stupidity nearly doomed them all,
but cooler heads prevailed, stopped the fight.
The war over, his fluent German meant
a year in an enemy town.
Billeted in a castle,
he helped them rebuild
and rid themselves of Nazis.

Mom didn’t know him when he rang
her doorbell two years after he shipped out.
She held her toddler, Robert Jr.,
and said “Yes, can I help you?”
when she opened the door.
Dad was heavier, older, weary-
not the smooth-cheeked,
scrawny tennis player she’d married.
That young man died in Europe.
They had three more babies.
Two jobs for Dad. Weekends
he wore a gun again.
Patrolled NYC docks for Jimmy Sullivan
who moved him from dock to lonely dock when Dad
caught thieves. Dangerous nights in the oily salt air lasted through the decade shocked by death.

A gentle Dad let
me trim his wispy hair today.
Released from my ministrations,
leaning on two metal canes,
he headed for my Mom,
who was in bed,
as she always is now.
Dad grinned like a boy-
all spruced-up.
Sparkling blue eyes said “look at me.”
Weak brown eyes saw her handsome husband,
and with a smile as fresh as twenty,
she said “You look fine.”
And I sat down to write a poem.

Nonnie Augustine October 23, 2005

Mom died on May 5, 2006
Dad died on March 3, 2010

THE FRIENDLY WAITRESS

On my two-top young lovers gaze

at each other and talk, plan, share

her linguini, his prime rib. He butters

her bread and she murmurs, purrs.

Businessmen on per diems

pay for crass stares at my legs,

chest, hips with twenty percent tips.

Our king, the chef, rules his steamy

realm with steely eyes, paces his rum.

Later he'll grow moist, maudlin, desperate.

The sous chef flirts, quips, chops and slices.

From behind the pastries, the old Greek

grumbles at the girls who pick up

meringues, tarts, and layer cakes.

The dishwashers talk broken-English

trash as they scrape plates-

not the paper-pale junkie.

His silence is frantic.

I hoist my tray with six covered dishes.

Never mind my bad back, no time.

At the big table a toddler's made

an apple-sauce mess. His cool,

spotless, mother requires my help.

Two more years and I'll be a nurse.

With a gracious smile, I'll dispense

pain pills a half-hour late.

View from a Train, from a Table

VIEW FROM A TRAIN, FROM A TABLE

January 14th

On the train, moving through Trenton

at twilight, I see the bleak back of the city.

The houses we pass are dark, waiting.

The office buildings are emptying of

workers and shirkers,

or have emptied, and darkened,

have the night to themselves.

Everyone is on the move--

sheltered in cars or buses,

or on foot, rushing toward warmth.

I’m snug, and somewhat smug,

as I move toward New York with a seat

to myself, wearing my best black coat.

January 15

Even my cousin’s steam-heated apartment

is chilly as we drink strong coffee

at the table by the window.

We eat English muffins spread with tart lemon curd

and her warmth sustains me.

On this six degree morning we see an arctic Hudson.

There will be no ferry to New Jersey today;

they are ice-locked and idle.

The sun is just for fun, and might

as well have the day off

for all the heat it provides.

Without the crisp blue sky,

the scene would be

of an unbearably

gray, cold palette.

My fragile optimism

would fail me

if there were

no sun today.

Amy Gets Help

Amy Gets Help

Gently placing the gingerbread man with the others, Amy pictured Langston’s long face peering through the icy windowpane, waiting for her to arrive with the promised basket of baked treats. As she turned away from the fragrant cookies to hang up her apron, she heard a tiny voice call to her.
“Amy, keep us. Keep us, please. Don’t let him eat us!”
“Oh, no! They’re talking again!” Amy pulled a ladder-backed chair away from the old table, slumped onto it, and buried her face in her hands. After a few moments of quiet, she raised her head, and after a few more, she opened her eyes. Nothing moved. Amy stood up, took her bonnet from its hook, tied the ribbons under her chin, wrapped her cape around her, and while trying not to look at it, picked up the basket. Her fiancé and his guests were expecting her. If she walked quickly, she could still be on time. The Potts house was only over on Fillmore Street.
Just as she went down the last step of her back porch, a squirrel dropped out of the oak tree alongside her path.
“Langston Potts cooks us in stews, you know,” the squirrel chattered. “He devours every single thing he can. He’s a greedy, needy man.”
Amy missed her footing and sprawled on the hard December ground. She was struggling to sit when one of the gingerbread men escaped from the dropped basket and ran away with the squirrel. Her neighbor’s barking dog flashed by her, then, apparently satisfied that the runaway cookie and his new friend were truly gone, trotted back to the young woman.
“My dear, it’s clear that you can’t marry that man,” Collie said. “He’s mean and he’s lazy and you’re surely going crazy.”
“Am I? Is that why everyone and everything is talking to me?” I don’t think I can bear another minute of it.”
Collie arranged herself beautifully on the brown grass, and beautifully rolled her eyes. “Oh, really! Can there be any doubt? Do cookies, squirrels, dogs, and yes, I know about the Blue Jay early today, talk to perfectly normal women?”
Amy scootched closer to Collie and put her arm around the dog’s neck. “No, they don’t, but I must say I’m rather glad you all do, now that I’m a bit more used to it. But you see, I have to marry him. That’s all there is to it. I’m all alone now that Mother’s gone, my money won’t last long at all, soon I’ll be old myself and all shriveled up, and even if all he wants is a nurse and a cook like the Blue Jay said, and he’ll boss me around all day and all night, what else am I going to do?”
The marmalade cat across the street joined them while Amy was talking, and curled up in the tearful woman’s lap. The ground was cold, but neither Collie nor Amy seemed to mind. Marmalade never sat directly on dry winter grass if he could help it.
“You’d be better off dead than living with that rat,” the cat said. “His whole family is a ratty family. Animal haters, they are. I should hope you know that people who hate us hate you, too. You do know that, don’t you?”
“I suppose I do. Or at least…I suspected. But I wouldn’t be better off dead. Oh, my dears, would I?”
Collie, not one to agree too readily with a cat, crossed her pretty paws and paused a moment before answering.
“I concur with Cat. The man is a snake. Life as his wife is a dreadful idea. Yes, dead would be better. Take our word for it. We know.”
“Oh, you are sillies. I’m perfectly healthy. I’m not going to die between now and Saturday. Why would I? How could I? I’d better get up and go on. I’ll take him my baking. These that are left are quiet at least.” Amy pushed herself up and brushed herself off. “Thank you for trying help. I think you might be right about dying, but never mind. I promised him, you see.”
Amy walked down her path and turned into her street, April Lane. There was only one motor car in town so far, but this car had heard the whole conversation between Amy and the animals, and just as his owner thought, he had a mind of his own. So, he started up with a growly shout, and ran her down.
Just like that, she was dead. She was better dead than married to that rat, Langston Potts, but that’s another story.

Nina

(Think summer.)

Art Coop

Nina, wearing a Mexican-flavored dress with a flounced voile skirt, fanned herself with a brochure about the Art Coop, sucked an ice cube, lolled in the armchair they’d given her when she’d first arrived. She’d been the warm-up act, the only poet, for the night’s open-air performance. Nina thought about removing her wide leather belt but didn’t want to make the effort. She was all but done in by heat, humidity, by August in Florida.

The second musician, who was a kid dressed in a plain black t-shirt and low-slung, baggy jeans, finally started. He sat on a low chair inches from Nina’s sandaled feet. She wasn’t expecting much. His teenaged girlfriend had been an annoying chatterbox since they’d sat down.

After a few nervous, jokey remarks, the boy checked the tuning of his glossy black guitar and played the first of several original, solo instrumentals. Nina closed her eyes and laid her head back against the scratchy fabric of the old chair. All the stuff taking shots at her that night- her drunken AWOL brother, her chest pain, the surprise of a friend’s rude behavior, discovering, mid-read, that she had the wrong version of a poem in her hands-disappeared. Nina swam through a cool sea of guitar notes, afloat and happy with the luxury of listening to extravagant talent on a steamy summer night.

Giving Care

GIVING CARE

Up in the attic yellow elephants, who love to go places, dance tail to trunk on my well-worn suitcases. They wear square hats on their heads and gold rugs on their backs. Exotic flowers and bits of squiggle are printed all ‘round the red cloth background. I’m afraid they feel dreary with the dust and the motes, the awful old smell of boxes and bags of who knows what, that’s been who knows where, and besides, there’s barely any air up there.

Neglected, yes, but it can’t be helped. My life’s in a time when I’m sore needed and I’ve happily heeded, but those cases are sad. I think they’d say the blame’s on me-these years that they’ve been up and I’ve been down in this quite nice house. At least they’re close to one another. One’s right inside the other.

They are meant to go. They can roll, you know. Inside them are pockets, zippers, and netting for keeping my shampoo and small things from slipping. They’d grown used to my clothes, their scents and their folds. They hate the wait. I know they do ‘cause I do too. Yet, I dread the day we can again go play. Before we can leave, I’ll have had to grieve.

We will go again, to Argentina or Spain. I’ll unpack in Venice, within sight of San Marco. We might take a boat to Tierra del Fuego. We’ll go to Scandanavia, Istanbul and Moravia. Take ferries and trains, drive on highways and lanes, and when we stop for breath, I’ll mourn Dad’s death. Near a sea’s cool blue calm, I’ll mourn again for Mom.

In Your Face, Man

What was I thinking? Of course this is what Adam Lambert wants to do. He was born in 1982! Pop music performances have been about flash, shock, bumping and grinding and techno-wizardry since he was a baby.

I watched the American Music Awards last night. Yup. The whole thing. Glambert’s act, and I do mean act, was the finale. It was interesting, and certainly busy, and Adam and the dancers were intense and energetic as hell. But most of them seemed really angry for some reason. Maybe I misunderstood, but since I couldn’t make out the lyrics, I went by the facial expressions, costumes, choreography, noise, stuff like that. Other acts were furious, too, though. Lady GaGa killed a piano. Dunno why.

JayZ and Alicia Keys did that neat New York song. I liked that and I understood that it was meant to connect to the audience and it did. Seemed like everyone had a good time during that one. But later on, when Alicia Keys did her single, her piano got lifted into the air with wires. I think it may have spun, too. Odd, that.

Jennifer Lopez had a prize-fighter thing going on for awhile, then she did a tricky on-stage costume change to a gold mini-dress with wide hips à la 18th century hoop petticoats. Or, maybe it was a Star Trek reference. Poor lady fell on her bottom. Given what the choreographer was going for with that move, I’m not surprised J Lo blew it.


Whitney Houston didn’t try to dance around, but she had this supposedly spontaneous moment of being too overcome with the adulation she was receiving, for finally getting her act together, to continue singing. The pause would have seemed less engineered if all the strings and what-not hadn’t stopped on a dime when she did. They knew just when to start up again, too.


You know who I liked? I liked Green Day. They played their instruments and sang their song. Oh, there were soaring flames going on behind them, but at least they had the front of the stage to themselves.

I haven’t been into country music since the inglorious end of my drinking days, but Keith Urban made me feel better for a few minutes and Kelly Clarkson sang her heart out and, hell, I’ll say it, maintained her dignity.

Anyways, back to Adam Lambert. See, I fell for him when he sang Mad World on American Idol. His voice made me catch my breath and come to a full stop as I was passing through the living room and I didn’t breathe again until he finished the song. He moved me to the extent that I watched AI every week after that and when he didn’t win, I felt almost as bad about America as I did the night Bush got re-elected. I’m not saying that makes much sense, but there you go.

Then, last night? Didn’t like the song, couldn’t hear it in fact, thought the S&M and sex stuff was stupid, wished to hell he’d stand still for a second and just sing, and his eye make-up was all wrong. He glared at the camera at the end of his song and his eyes looked crossed.

So the thing is, is I must be old. Am I old and easily shocked? Not so much. After all, men and women were naked on stage together in Hair in 1967. The Boys in the Band premiered in 1968. Do I sound crotchety? Ah, hell. I suppose I do.

I haven’t lost faith in Adam Lambert. Well I’ve lost some faith, but not all. I think he can do it. No, I know he can because of the performances he gave last spring. Glambert can stir hearts, connect, create moments that are really worth sharing with everyone. Yep, everyone. Does he want to do that? Can’t say, really. I’ve heard, though, that he only wants to be a Pop star. Damn.

Nonnie Augustine

The Dice are Not to Blame

The Dice are Not To Blame

Ted swam far from shore with a bar of lead.
He loved it, you see, until he drowned dead.
Mick had a trick of giving his money
to heartless bosoms that called him honey.
Sharon kept caring for drinkers and dopers
gamblers and cheaters and whiners and mopers.
Benny saw double and never could tell
which one had substance and which was a shell.
Mick, Benny, Sharon, and poor dead Ted
had luck that sucked they frequently said.
I didn’t agree and suggested instead
that they didn’t have to sink; they could listen to me,
and let go of their lead when they swam in the sea.

Nonnie Augustine

A New Notion about an Old Story

A New Notion about an Old Story

A dark girl, quite poor, who might have been four,
leaned on a statue of a horse and his man.
(The rider rode him in place, but as if in a race.)
Her dress needed patching, her heart needed smoothing.
She’d tried to sell matches all the cold night,
but none noted her plight ‘til up to her came
a blond boy who was lame.

"Can you sell those, you think, for some food and
warm drink?" asked the boy who was bigger, and
dressed slightly better, but dirty as well. He’d
apples to sell.

"No, not a one. I want to be done."
Tears plopped from her eyes,
left streaks on her cheeks.

"Have an apple, why don't you? I've still these two.”
The boy gave the waif his well-polished
fruit and a back-pat to boot.

"Do you two like that horse? He's my favorite of
course," said a girl, almost grown, also out on her
own. Her eye was blacked but she'd a warm coat and
hat. "I come here at night, when my Dad's fists
fight. Whiskey's his curse and he's home getting
worse." She pulled the tot to her lap with a plop,
and claimed the lad's hand. One's smile warmed
another's, till all three loved each other.

The horse, soot-streaked marble, was truly a marvel.
His coat livened to touch. His head tossed
with his snort. The rider, a soldier, stretched,
laughed, and fetched the big girl and little.
He soothed them to settle in front of his saddle.
Then he scooped up the boy
(who whooped high with joy) and put him
behind him and they all fit just fine.
The horse stamped his feet, whinnied,
and leaped as far as the stars.

By and by they arrived at the dawn of a day
in a place deep in memory, where, so happily,
they stayed on with others who’d
been far lost, woozy from poverty,
and froze from frost. Graced, none found hurt,
meanness, nor dirt, were with grown-ups
who cared and children who shared.





Nonnie Augustine
5/10/09

Glambert Obsessed

One night when American Idol ran over into
Fringe's time slot, (which I watch, wishing it
were X Files) I caught Adam Lambert
singing “Mad World”. That night I became…

Glambert Obsessed


So anyways, if anyone out there wonders how a
woman of a certain age could possibly have such a
thing for Adam Lambert: Darlings, my obsession
with Adam is not about banging him. It's a highbrow,
lofty, genteel appreciation, on a purely aesthetic
level, for his talent.

Oh, I may have noticed his tall, supple body, his
blazing eyes, his boyish smile, his curvy ass. But
honestly, dear, it's not a sex thing. Nope.

Besides, even if he weren't gay, it's too complicated
to get tickets to the show at this point, raise enough
cash to bribe my way to a meet with him, and figure
out how to convince him to be alone with me for say,
two hours. So, he likes boys? What the hey? No skin
off my bones.

And another thing: I discovered, and no I won't go
into how I came to this knowledge, you'll just have to
trust me on this, but men who have sex with men
don't necessarily eschew sex with women. Sometimes
they just extra-ordinarily enjoy sex.

However, once they get into the same-sex thing, that
tends to make them members of a group that is
definitely not part of the group of men who do not do
it with other men. There was this time I visited a
Christoper Street bar in New York City and I met this
guy, and the rest of the story was, for me, an exciting,
memorable, and, well, hugely fun, evening. But that
was far away, long ago, and private.

So, go, Glambert! Sing your rock and roll heart out.
Straight or gay makes no difference to me…you're
too young for me anyway.

The Linnet's Wings

My favorite online magazine (I'm the poetry editor) is live with its spring issue. We are going to have it available in print as well, and details about that are posted in the zine. This issue has a story I wrote about my Juilliard days. We haven't used our editors' work since the early issues of The Linnet's Wings, but this spring we decided, "what the hey?" I hope some of you read it. No, I hope all of you read it. 8-}


I listened to an NPR broadcast earlier this afternoon. Tiffany Christianson discussed her book, "Sick Girl Speaks," and I found her to be inspiring, indeed. She has lived with cystic fibrosis since she was a baby, and she has worked hard at living life with a disease. She said that she is not her disease, and discussed how she has learned to separate her symptoms from her spirit.

I want to read her book-because I don't do this. When I have angina, and I do, often, I succumb in spirit to the way I feel. It's as if I'm under the influence of something shameful. The constriction of my arteries becomes a constriction of my spirit and depresses me, but this woman who has had two lung transplants and lives with a daunting list of things that have gone wrong, recognizes them as problems with her body, only.

This is good stuff for anyone with chronic physical dysfunction. We may be people who allow our diseases to diminish us deeply, in our souls, if you will. Why do I, and some of you, do this? My coronary arteries are damaged; my "heart" need not be. Worth thinking about, eh?

My best day at Ramsey High School

It was April of my senior year, second period, French IV. The intercom interrupted Mrs. Plevin reading Moliere. There was nothing unusual about the annoying blare from the Principal's office, but they called my name, which had never happened before. I was told to call home immediately. I got my pass and raced down to the phone booth on the ground floor. By the time Mom answered my call, I had scared myself silly, but she said right away that she had good news and couldn't wait until I got home to tell me. I'd gotten my acceptance letter from the dance department at Juilliard! I was going to New York City! Oh,God, New Jersey,good-by! Finally!!!

Ahem...sorry for all the exclamation points. Later, after I got suburbia out of my system, and could think rationally about my high school years, I realized they could have been a lot worse. I just needed to get some perspective, you know?

From a Zoetrope discussion about probable scientific revelations regarding soul, spirit, God

Yes, well.

The explanation might be forthcoming, and when the people who are investigating explain these things (soul, spirit, God) to me, I'll listen, and I might even understand. Until then I'm happy enough referring to my mystery as my soul.

After the cop and I walked into my brother's trailer, (caravan in the UK?) and found Ric a day dead, my soul sickened, and it hasn't fully recovered.

I know when I danced on stage or alone in the studio, or when the answer to a choreographic phrase "came" to me, (sometimes it seemed directly from the music) my soul felt good, and somehow, big.

All my life there have been moments when my spirit has been shaken by the creativity of others, thank God.

Most of the time I go on with living without feeling moved much at all. But when something does touch me, it's my soul that's stirred. Science may well explain this someday.

When that happens, I might refer to my soul by it's new name, but I imagine I'll be old by then and I'll do what my 88 year-old father does. When there's a bit of new brilliance, he smiles, his eyebrows lift, he gives it a passing nod, and he lets it slide on by.

Akshually I'm glad this came up, and I'm gladder that I thought about it. I've been bored by my own brain lately. xxoononnie

TEXTURES, revised 2/20/09

Wear your grief like soft silk;

a shimmering air-light cloak against your skin.

Then, when the evening star glows

alone through blue-black light,

when perceptions loosen and solitude releases,

cover yourself in the purple velvet of queens and kings.

Let the weight drag against your limbs,

the heavy cloth round your shoulders

until you reach full stop.

Wait-then make the journey back through brocade, damask, satin-

sense again the silky, pliable

mourning-suit that allows you to move.

Inauguration, 09

A friend of mine, Donia Carey, wrote a few minutes ago about how fragile Elizabeth Alexander's fine poem seemed in the maelstrom of the inauguration and the drama of Obama's poetic speech. I thought fragile, too, was the John Williams piece, with it's Aaron Copeland theme, performed by that amazing quartet of musicians. Yo Yo Ma looked like he was having a fabulous time. That's what I love seeing: all these famous people, Obama supporters, looking so happy. Genuinely happy.

The stunning "plane landing safely in the Hudson river" incident seemed like a good omen for this new year, new administration. It so easily could have been tragic news; instead everyone came out of the crash landing and the frigid waters alive and pretty much well.

I'm fairly determined to have a positive attitude toward 2009. Open-minded, prepared for let-down, but hoping for good news. I keep comparing how I feel about things with how I most certainly would have felt if McCain/Palin were sworn in today.

Blizzard

Naked lengths knee to knee,
our bodies warm
while winds gust.

You scootch lower.
Lips, tongue to navel,
seeking heat.

How well we fit-
each limb fierce,
held, holding-
we ignite.


Our forms defy, protect, reel
in sublime time.
Then knee from knee
we separate. Lives wait.

Grief is a Sneaky Bastard

Grief is a sneaky bastard, isn't he? You think, fine. I'm off to get my oil changed when whoa the universe takes a 60 degree downward slope and you're hanging on to a street light to keep from sliding into some crater you know is there waiting because you've already made one or two visits and it's damn hard to climb out, once you're down there. Then too, if you are at all inclined to note the thoughts streaming along with the emotions, you'll be aware that they are all selfish. All about why did he leave us, leave me, just now, now when I wasn't the least bit ready? No one was. And why that horrible way? Alone? In a trailer, for God sakes! Not even a double-wide! Bottles everywhere. Although it did look like he was trying to taper off with beer. Not his roommate. His empties were all squared off heavy glass. Bourbon, I think. And the wanker, the roommate, was gone--never a trace of him again. Did he know my brother was dead before he left? Dunno. Ah, well. It doesn't matter, I guess. Maybe he could have dialed 911. Maybe the bleeding in my brother's brain could have been stopped. Can they stop that sort of internal bleeding once it's begun? More to the point, maybe, is whether Ric would have wanted them to save him one more time. Yes, of course, he would have. He would have wanted to return to us eventually. After one more excruciating detox, fighting hallucinations and sweats, chills and shakes, hauntings and cravings, remorse and self-loathing. He would only have had to make it past that, start with nothing again one more time, try to keep some food down for a while, work day labor before he could stand on his rubber legs properly, and he'd have been all right. Back in the world, coming to Sunday dinner, grilling steaks, using a linen napkin to wipe a blob of ketchup off his face. As it happened--he didn't have to do any of that this time. He fell, made it to his bed, and his brain, which had hit the back of his skull according to the autopsy, (there had to be one because it was an unattended death), started to bleed. They told me he had probably been dead over 12 hours when I found him. That's why he was gray. It's okay that I found him. Somehow I always knew I would be the one to do that. Funny how that, at least, worked out.

Poem about these days

Time Change in Florida

Used to be I’d keep busy.
Dreadful the time I spend sitting, standing,
staring. I lose track, now.

I believe it’s because he died.
It gets hold of me.

I’ll see him half on half off his bed,
a plaid blanket angled over his back and legs,
held tight in his gray fist. I might stop to think
about his being cold on an August Sunday
or I guess Saturday because he’d been dead a day
before I found him.

Time slides by while I rock or sway a bit.
Think about things.

Wonder if I’ll stay slow like this?
Feels like it.

SURAL NERVE BIOPSY

If you don't happen to know where a sural nerve is, or what it does, don't feel alone. None of the swarm of friendly, kind, people in our good hospital's outpatient surgery staff knew about it either. I could hear them discussing it. Didn't bother them-they just kept asking each other until someone knew. I had to laugh at how determined the staff was to get the correct ankle biopsied. Even though the surgeon came in to write a big yes (in permanent marker) on my left leg, they kept checking with me anyway. The whole business went fine and I was home be 1 o'clock, ate a big piece of apple pie with vanilla ice cream, and slept the sleep of the heavily drugged all afternoon. I'm fine. I have needed my cane to remain upright, but I was so afraid my heart would act up and they'd keep me overnight, but I was a good patient and got to go home.

Now my little piece of nerve is in Atlanta to be muttered over and tested. I see a new family physician tomorrow and hopefully she'll be the kind of doctor who will read her reports from other doctor's and have some means of knowing which patient is which (or at least good at pretending she knows.)

My brother Peter took me and picked me up. He was talking to the nurse about my "unsteadiness" and he said, "Oh, she's always like that now. But she used to be a ballerina and went to Juilliard." I swear the nurse had tears in her eyes.
You know, it was a moment. xxoononnie

Big Plans

BIG PLANS

Jane was propped up on her elbows, eating a slice of pizza and trying not to get sauce on her friend’s bed. Caroline, sitting at her computer with a slice in hand, complained yet again about submission guidelines.

“They all say the same thing. So boring. Twelve point type, no fancy fonts, word counts need not include the title, blah, blah, blah. Editors are all the same. I’ve discovered a brilliant font. I swear it’s art in itself, but it’s not one of their blessed regulars.

“Really? Did it come with that font software you bought? What’s it called?”

“Yes, really. Yes, it did. And it’s called ‘Mondrian Whirl.’ Totally cool. Here’s my new poem printed in it.”

“I Felt so Alone.” Hey, wasn’t that the name of the last poem you wrote?”

“No-o. That was called, “Loneliness is Misery.”

“Ah. My bad. But you do write about feeling lonely on Sundays in both, don’t you?”

“Yeah. So? Poetry should be about revealing deep shit, shouldn’t it?

“I guess, Caroline," said Jane. “I don’t read much of it. Fushia paper? I hope you’re going to submit it on white?”

“Nope. That’s one of the submissions. The guidelines don’t mention the color of the paper, or of the ink, for that matter. I used shades of green. Show’s up okay, I guess.”

“You’re out of your mind, sweetie. I can’t even read this font, and I want to. Why would an editor struggle with it?”

“They’ll think it’s daring, creative, attention-grabbing. They’ll think a poet who goes this far out on a limb must have something totally cool to say. They’ll think I’m eccentric and interesting without having to read a word. I’m sure that all the editors I send this to will be eager to publish whatever I’ve written.”

“It’s hard to tell, but I think you’ve got a typo here. Maybe.”

“Oh, that. Don’t worry about it--they’ll never notice.”

“You keep saying “they.” How many are you sending? Are you keeping track?”

“I e-mailed it to twenty something places. I pretty much have them all in my head. I hate record keeping. Maybe I’ll start keeping track when I get an acceptance. Like I said, it’s bound to happen soon. My mother always told me I wrote very expressively, and with complexity.”

“Are you writing a new poem, now, while we’re talking?”

“Sure. I can write poetry anytime. It’s my gift.”

“Jeez Louise, Caroline. Sometimes you sound more like a pre-teen than a college sophomore. But what do I know? I’m into math. Thank God.

Crossing the Little Styx

Not long after crossing the Little Styx from "young" to "middle-aged," I started having health problems.  Over the years little has been explained to me about them, I have not been given succinct causes, and I have gotten tired of hearing, "You know, as you age..." I've been stuck with a a growing list of parts that don't work well due to widely unknown reasons, and I've learned to adjust with ill grace and a gnawing sense of guilt. Why guilt? Why, because, we all know that if we had eaten properly, exercised, avoided destructive behavior, undue amounts of stress,  dealt with our emotions constructively, and of course, watched our BMI from birth, our Boomer bodies would not be acting out of spite.

I am, as of today,free of this guilt.  One kind, empathetic, doctor of humanitarian bent, assured me that many of my symptoms originated in my spine, and that arthritis, a pinched nerve, and a herniated disc all presented themselves clearly on an MRI. The news settled in the pit of my stomach last night, probably an unhealthy place for it bed down, but today I woke up feeling better about my poor old self than I have in ages.

When I was four, I saw a ballerina on television. My career choice was made. I started on the path to professional dance that very day. For the next twenty-seven years I did all of the horrible, gorgeous, thrilling things that a dedicated dancer does to her body with a true Scarlett O'Hara attitude. I had to do horrible, painful, fairly demented things to my body and feet in order to accomplish as much as I was able to in my art, and I'm happy today with the memories and glad as hell I "went for it." No regrets. And, by all that's holy (I guess), having a bad back is completely understandable and acceptable to me. So are the tingly feelings in my feet and legs, the fatigue, and the general difficulty I have persuing daily pursuits. If I owe these things in some way to dance, then fine! I wouldn't have skipped a single arabesque.

During a performance, when I was thirty-one, I tore an Achilles tendon. It refused to get better, and after floundering in depression for a few years, I became a teacher of emotionally disturbed children. I did this for fifteen years and during that time I ate-on-the-run, exercised but improperly, did not avoid self-destructive habits, had an undue amount of physical and psychological stress, swallowed tons of emotion, and had a dangerously low, then suddenly a risky-high, BMI. And guess what? No blame there, either. I'm glad I did that job for the years I did it. I hope I did the children some long-lasting good, but I know I did myself good that far outreaches the aches and pains, yes, even the "bad heart," that I'm saddled with now.

In short, (not my strength) the slings and arrows that brought me to this creaky place were invited by me to do so, and I will not be a hypocrite about them. I didn't exactly live the life of Jack Sparrow, but, as I believe would be true of him if he were real, I can say with honest fervor, that I'm glad my "young" and the young part of my "middle" years went just the way they went. Thank you Dr. Crayton.

Monday, Blessed Monday

O Frabjous Day! Callooh! Callay! I have found my treasure and I am grateful. Grateful, I say. It doesn't matter really to whom; maybe it's to the spirit of Lewis Carroll-or, more likely, my Mom. But the treasure reappeared, and I believe I had help. Can't convince me otherwise-because I won't listen.

Did You Do This?

Did you ever lose a treasure? Not in a disaster, a flood or a fire, but just on a regular Saturday evening? Something like a diamond chip and gold cross that your father gave your mother for her high school graduation in 1938? And now she's been dead for a year and a half and you've worn that cross every day since she died-not because it was a cross but because it was hers and it became your talisman? Something she had given you for your Juilliard graduation, but took back years later because she was afraid, when your drinking was bad, that you'd lose it? And now you have? Have you ever lost something like that? Felt so bereft, that at the moment you're not sure you'll be the same woman from now on that you were only a few hours ago? Wouldn't you keep looking, even though you feel that it's gone from your neck, wrist, finger, wherever your treasure had its home? Wouldn't you be unable to stop and examine each sparkle or flash of gold that you see out of the corner of your eye? Sometimes in ridiculously unlikely places? Impossible places? Or maybe your treasure was a paper, or a picture, and you are doomed to scan all the paper, picture fragments you spot? In spite of yourself? Did you feel guilty? Even though, of course, it isn't really proof of your carelessness, lack of discipline, lack of feeling? Then, at some point, did you think, maybe the priceless object will continue to have a life, will have meaning you can't imagine, to its finder? Did you find some small comfort in this thought? I wonder, did you?

December Wishlist

I don't know many of you. Maybe, if you were all live pine needles  or carpeting the forests of the world , I'd know a smidgeon of one of you. Even with the assumption we've never met, I can still have a wish or thousand for you. 

I can wish that, if you have an addiction, you seek help and recovery from it before it destroys you or your co-dependents. 

If you have children who are in danger from guns, gangs, or poverty, that they survive long for a shot at a good life. 

There are a lot of gadgets that you don't need but might want, and there are handbags that will steal thousands of dollars from you. I wish that you don't get these things because they will diminish you one way or another in the long run.  

If you can't get to sleep at night, because of pain, guilt, worry, or self-pity, I wish you would be able to sleep as soon as your head hits your pillow. I wish you a "just right' pillow. 

If you are holding back, I wish you become a person who gives forth.  

If there is a committee meeting in your mind that is messing with your will, I hope you can kick the creeps out so that you can listen to the single, sure voice that is yours. If your true voice is distorted or mad, I wish that it would become clear, comforting, and aware of the truth. 

 Truth exists. It's easy to ignore because it can either be quite soft spoken or so intense that you may not care to acknowledge it, but truth  exists and loves to be discovered by you. 

I wish that you are able to understand the people, places and things around you and that you learn which of these is of most value to you; I wish too, that on more than just a few marvelous occasions, the people in your life understand you. 

If you are alone, I wish it to be your preference, and if you are trying to feel less alone, I hope you succeed. 

I wish that you enjoy having the nose you were born with, and that you and your body are on reasonably friendly terms. 

Maybe if I stop writing now, I'll be able to sleep; I'm rather tired. I wish you a good night's sleep.

Oh, of course, I wish that someday soon, (tomorrow!) that you are able to live in a  peaceful world. Good-night, stranger mine.

BAD DAY IN THE SUNSTATE

So today  go car shopping with one of my two wimmen friends here in PC Bleach. We drive an hour to a cute country town that has a dealership with good ads in the local rag. I gets in a cream, Lincoln Town Car Executive Suite series or some damn thing . It's the most wonderful car I've ever even dreamed of driving let alone driven. Interior dove gray leather with tortoisehell dash doodads, a sound system that makes Jimmy Buffet sound ike poor dead Pavorotti, 20mpg's in town, $9,500 which I coulda gotten to $9000 because he started at $9,900, and 80,000 on it, which I own up to is a lot of miles. Kathy says she can see my head glowing as I maneuver this dreamboat (I know what that means, finally) out of a wildly crowded parking lot, even though the car is twice the size of the Cavalier 24Z I'm used to driving-WHICH IS THE WHOLE POINT. I don't want to drive a big car, but my Aged P can't bend his knees almost at all. He could slide into the back seat of this baby and his knees would barely have to creak. So I call derr Papa. NO!  In his best Christopher Walken voice he hoarsely shouts, YOU DON'T NEED A BIG CAR, YOU NEED A LITTLE CAR THAT GETS 75 MPG FOR CHRISSAKES, and I says, BUT I NEED THE ROOM FOR YOU AND I CAN MANAGE THE COST. And he says, NO! YOU CAN'T AND DON'T MAKE ME A FACTA IN THIS. I'M NOT A FACTA.  And I says well, then I might as well stick with the car I've got and you'll just have to bend your knees even though you can't, but of course he can't hear me he says and I hang up my friend's phone because I've lost another miniscule black cell fucking phone and she knows I'm upset and EMBARRASSED!

And my Dad and Brother P who I also live with don't think WE NEED A DOG either! But I do. I don't have anyone to sleep with. Do they understand this? Not is what I think.

So I get home and I'm gonna pout, you know, but Papa asks me if I've HAD ANYTHING TO EAT ALL DAY!  And I answer him POFUCKINGLITELY even though I'm thinking OF COURSE I KNOW PEOPLE NEED TO @##$$ EAT!

And then Brother R calls and needs my help immediately and begs and I cash a check for him and he tells me he knows a guy with the same kind of Lincoln with 212,000 miles on it and HE'S STILL DRIVING IT!

So then I'm back with my family house-mates (ha) making them turkey tetrazinni and I can't even stay mad enough not to make my father a hot toddy for his cold.

And then, I try to order Christmas cards from the Met for derr Walken Papa and they take on $20 bucks to the discounted la-di-da price for shipping and HANDLING! WHAT'S WITH HANDLING?  So I cancel and we will not have Childe Hassan Christmas cards from the Met, if you don't mind for CHRISSAKES! Sheesh!

Cultural Literacy

I taught special education in public and private U.S. schools for fifteen years and during that time probably gave fifteen hundred tests. A phrase I came across, again and again, was “cultural literacy.” There were, and are, facts, figures, fantasies, questioned on basic skills tests, i.e.; I.Q. tests, PSATs SATs, and even GREs exams for children and young adults. What do we mean by “the cradle of civilization,” Victorian society, and who were James Joyce, Horatio Alger, Daffy Duck, and Marie Curie? Who was Al Capone? These are the sorts of things we wish a college graduate to know, it seems. in addition to quantum physics or fluency in Arabic.

When I was a seventh grader in a parochial elementary school in suburban New Jersey, I took one of these tests, and my reading score was the same as a sophomore in college. I did not skip any grades. I had not been brought up traveling the world, and I certainly was no genius. But I grew up in an atmosphere of conversation about current events, fiction and non-fiction reading, and parental regard and encouragement. Wherever our interests lead us, within reasonable parameters, my mom and dad urged us (three brothers and myself) to journey.

Life magazine’s arrival by mail every week was an important happening in our household, possibly eclipsed by the monthly appearance of National Geographic. Ed Sullivan was “must see T.V.” and I’ll never forget my father’s laughter over Sid Ceasar and his Show of Shows. We had Rod Serling and we had the yearly showing of The Wizard of Oz and Mary Martin’s Peter Pan. There were also nights devoted to reading, homework, and or discussion, and everyone in the family, including my mother and father, were involved in these activities.

I’ve already written in The Linnet about my Nonnie, and her fabulous treasure trove of fairytales, nursery rhymes and songs, but there were also uncles, (Jerry was a soft-shoe dancer), aunts, cousins, my other grandparents, and my brothers, their friends, and of course my friends who shared what they knew in a mysterious carousel of knowledge. There was my ballet teacher. My father painted in oils. My mother took me to plays. Everyone, everyone read. And, yes, everyone talked about what they read.

Have I mentioned school yet? Not very much, have I? Hmmmm. Could it be cultural literacy, even then, had little to do with school and everything to do with family? The first volume of The Great English Poets didn’t sit among the picture books on my second grade classroom bookshelf. It sat in our living room. In a bookcase right next to the television.

The Underclass Keeps it All Up

i'm not a sociologist, nor an anthropologist, nor a psychologist. I'm not an ologist of any kind. Just so you know.

What I am is fed up with sad. There is entirely too much sad and there are way too many addicts. Sadly. I remember dancing to records about going to San Francisco. Believing I would get out of the burbs one day and that I would at that point be able to join the singers, painters, lovers who were busy making the world hum. When I did get to Berkely, in the mid-seventies, I saw yuppies and drug addicts. Drank cappuchino and stepped around the meth freaks as they ranted. Where did all those drugs come from, anyway?

There were the strong, sexy sixties, with remarkably unified voices protesting racism, military industrial war-mongering, poverty, then the war ended in Vietnam, Watergate happened, and a whole bunch of drugs came into the country and blasted the living brains out of some brilliant heads.

The same people are poor. The same dealers rule the streets. The same wars are fought for profit and adventure, and the people who populate the underclass are stil stoned, or trying to get stoned, or in prison or hospitals because they got stoned or got caught (!) doing something stupid. I put that cute little parenthetical exclamation point there because that seems so silly to me. The people committing crimes are not very well hidden. How do they decide which ones to catch, say, on Thursday mornings?

I'm fed up with sad. One of my family members married a woman who is addicted to crack. She was clean when they met, but crack is very good at keeping the people down. The drug doesn't leave anybody who has had a fling with it alone for long, apparently. She will be going to jail soon. She should already be there, but her current legal status is as mysterious as is the fact that crack is there for her, right where she expects it to be, right where everyone in this city knows it is, any time she wants it. Why is that, I wonder? It's a strange reality to get a fix on, isn't it? The underclass has, and knows, it's place, and the other classes are just glad it all keeps working out.

Noddleheadism

About fifteen years ago, I started having strange sensations in my arms and legs, double vision, sundry weirdnesses. So, I went through a gazillion tests, mostly aimed at ruling out Multiple Sclerosis, ended up seeing a rheumotologist at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D. C. and he had no trouble at all diagnosing me with fibromyalgia. Well, that seemed rather a vague thing to me, and I was a busy teacher, and fed up with going to doctors for tests that were inconclusive, so I decided, "Oh, well!" and put the whole business in one of the junk drawers in my mind.

Then in 2000, I was diagnosed with heart disease, had open heart surgery and an endarectomy (spelled more or less correctly) and that became a prime time health concern. I eventually went on disability, in fact, because the root problem (tiny arteries) could not be surgically treated.

This past summer, my stomach made her debut as a leading player in health dramas. Again many tests, a cancer scare, and finally, I end up with a rheumotologist again! (Who happened to be black and I very nearly said, pleased and surprised, "Oh, wow, a black doctor in Panama City, Florida!") And lo, and behold, he diagnosed me, without hesitation, ordering blood tests, or any tests for that matter, with fibromyalgia and he said that I'd probably had it for a long time. Duh.

I said, "So it's a real thing?"
"It's real, he answered."
"You know, I've heard that before, but I honestly forgot."

He handed me a pamphlet, and it was all about me. I have heart disease, and I have fibromyalgia. That's it. I'm done. I know what is wrong, I can explain weird things about my body to myself or to anyone else who needs to know, and I can carry on. What a thing!

Soul-Soothing Seaport

On Friday, October 5, a nurse told me over the phone that I did not have cancer. She gave me this news without shouting, She was casual, downright breezy when she informed me that "everything looks fine." What an odd thing. I've never been in a position to tell someone they did not have cancer, but knowing myself as I do, I imagine that if I were, I would be pretty damn excited when I delivered the news. Oh, well. We don't need nurses at the other end of the phone to share our joy, do we? But wouldn't it be a fine thing if they did?

So. Knowing I did not in fact have to face dealing with cancer, I decided I'd better do something about my dog-my heart, "Baby," (she came to me with the name) an impossibly sweet Maltese, had not been eating for a week. I would search for signs that my fourteen year old dog was just "off her food." Baby, too, did her best to deny the state of her affairs. She put on an eager show when it was time for a walk, our routine demonstrations of mutual love and friendship seemed almost normal on both our parts-I didn't let her know I was worried, and she tried to hide how badly she was feeling. We managed until I got the biopsy report, and then it seemed like my dog and I both knew it was time to pay the piper. Baby not eating was a clear, serious, extradordinary signal that all was not well with her health. So I took her to the vet that day. And later that day, because she had acute renal failure and wouldn't recover, I held her while she was euthanized.

If you love a pet, you know how I felt when she died. If you don't, or never have, you will not understand and there's simply nothing I can do about that. So be it.

A week later I took a short trip, by myself, to the small seaport town of Apalachacola. I stayed in an elegant Edwardian B & B for two nights and enjoyed the off-season ambiance and incredible October weather. The second afternoon I drove to St. George Island, across two fabulous bridges from Apalach, a drive covered in fifteen minutes, walked on the nearly empty beach on the Gulf of Mexico, and said good-by to my dog.

Seafood, antique shops, privately run bookstores, coffe houses, all these favorite things helped ease me into acceptance. Baby had driven from Maryland to Florida with me when I made the trip to try and get my sick mother's medications straightened out. She'd waited while I climbed in the window of a drunken brother's apartment so that I could see if he was still breathing, and when I opened the door for her, she insisted that he wake up and smile at us. A few years later, when I left my husband, Baby drove south with me again, and settled into our lives as care-givers of elderly parents. She was my assistant, providing the daily dose of comic relief.

Enough! Anyone reading this who understands, understands. Of course I was delighted to find out I didn't have cancer, although I still felt, and feel lousy, but it was almost unbearable to then hold my dog while she received her lethal injection. I am hoping life does not offer two such experiences in the same day again.

As far as the travel diary portion of this blog entry goes, Apalachicola is a gem, The Coombs House Inn a gracious, tasteful retreat, and there simply isn't weather any better than sunny October days on the Florida panhandle, If there is someone you need to say good-by to, or someone you need to share some loveliness with, I heartily recomment Apalachacola-home to the inventor of air-conditioning and 90% of the country's oysters-Florida

Eve of a Biopsy

Eve of a Biopsy

Tomorrow morning I’m having a biopsy done. My uterine lining has thickened when it should have thinned. I’ve been feeling lousy for a couple of months, so something must be going on down there. I haven’t been privy to the information, however. A teenaged gyn is going to have to tell me. Odd, isn’t it? That so often we are the last to know exactly what is happening in our own bodies. There are ultra sound techs, radiologists, pathologists, nurses, and doctors who all get the news before we do. They’ll take a sample of the tissue tomorrow, but it will still be days before I know the result. Maybe another whole week will go by.

I wouldn’t mind waiting if it weren’t for the inevitable mind games. Because I haven’t been feeling well, I don’t tell myself, “Shoot, it won’t be anything.” I want there to be some information out of all of this-information that will lead to my feeling better.

I also say, “You know that this will at least mean a hysterectomy, so there will be _ _ _ _ _time out for surgery and recovery." Then, there is the, “Oh God, what if they want me to go through radiation and chemo, and my hair falls out and I’m sick all the time for months? In and out of various medical venues, shlepping around? Ycch.”

The fatalist in me gets some prime time, too. “You have cancer everywhere, dear, and will be dead in six weeks, tops.” If I follow that thought path for more than a few seconds, I can actually get cheerful about it. You know, thoughts of spending the money set aside for older age on a fabulous cruise and flamboyant living. That’s tricky, though. For that line of perusal to work, I have to be feeling good for the duration of the “living in the lap of luxury,” portion of life left to me. I want to be looking my best, too, as I cruise the Aegean or the Scandinavian fjords.

Okay, I think-I’ll just stock up on painkillers and symptom relievers so that I’ll feel fine while dying. Oh. Shit. I didn’t mean to actually write that. Silly me. Of course, it won’t come to that. Of course the biopsy will indicate an annoying course of life-saving measures that will assure me my old age allotment. Which is what we are supposed to want, right? Long life at all costs? At all costs? All costs?

Must I think that is what I want? Will the health police shackle me to an IV pole if I politely refuse to pursue the dream of a healthy, happy old age, via a miserable, indeterminate time of abominable, noxious, treatment? I don’t have children to worry about or worry. And honestly, I can’t love the people I love any more or in a better fashion than I already do, so I’ve clear-sailing, conscience-wise, as far as they go.

I wonder if the thoughts I’m having about it all are quite normal. My inclination is to think that people do think this way on the eve of a biopsy. Never mind how foolish I’ll feel when I get the news, as I surely will, “Oh, nothing to worry about-just a little this or that. Take two aspirin and see me again in three weeks, but please don’t call.”

If they say the other thing, will I have the courage to beg off treatment? Even if the odds are bad, I think we are all expected to say, “Yes, doctor. Do with me what you will.”
I might much rather say, “Right. I’ll just take a prescription or two, get them filled, and enjoy a wonderful change of season. Autumn can be so beautiful.”

I’m kind of curious about what might be beyond the veil of this life. I can’t conceive of emptiness, so I’m really not expecting it. I can’t imagine myself not being, so I’m not afraid of that. I’m dead certain that if we are all indeed going through some kind of preliminaries, the Main Event will be well-worth the training, the waiting, the practise, and that those flashes of brilliance we've all experienced, however briefly, are trailers for the brilliance that is to come.

It's the stupidity, stupid!

I'm not talking politics. I'm talking politicians. Haven't they caught on that public figures are under 24/7 surveillance, so to speak? That they are a gazillion people out there just waiting to get "the scoop" on someone doing something? Did Bill Clinton think that La Monica would not talk? What woman that age (any age?) would not talk about being with the Prez? And even if Craig had not waved at an undercover agent, how did he know it wasn't Bob Woodward or someone much sleazier, journalism-wise, in the next stall? I don't care, and I'm not just saying that, what gets people off, unless it's violent, involves children, or animals, but I can't believe these people take such dumb chances, and that the revelations about them won't be instantly available. Well, I can believe it, but Jeez Louise!

Remember in Woody Allen's "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex, and (or was it but?)  Were Afraid to Ask? There was a couple who couldn't do it, unless they were in a super-risky public place? Wasn't it the woman who had that particular hot button? Maybe that's the problem with these guys? Dunno. Whatdayathink?

Trust Me

Of course I parked on the opposite side of the hospital from where I needed to go. There are two of them in this town, and I’ve learned to factor in time for getting lost when I time my arrival for a test. I can’t keep the layouts straight, and I’m rather glad is hasn’t gotten to the point where I have mental blueprints of our local hospital designs in my memory bank. I don’t care to know my way around them. If I make it to sixty without becoming that familiar with them, I won’t complain.

An indoor mile or so later, I arrived where I was supposed to for a “solid phase gastric emptying study.” I showed my picture ID and insurance card to two window people then sat in a small waiting room. I had just enough time to write down the names and dosages of my meds, which I’d dumped in a tote before leaving my house. They always want a list of meds, and I always forget to write one out the night before. Well, I need to have some non-compliance. After all, I’ve conceded to the point where I keep a bag in my closet, packed with an extra toothbrush, pajama bottoms, etc., in case my heart goes wonky enough to need a sudden ER trip. I think that’s a fairly strong admission of guilt regarding my health.

Just as, my list dutifully finished, I was sneaking out of the waiting room to find a Ladies, a young man with remarkably red hair called my name. I followed him and he, Michael, let me use the lab restroom before beginning the test. Soon enough I was sitting where he told me to sit.

“Did you take a pregnancy test,”Michael asked.
“I don’t know. Don’t you? I went and got the lab work done that Dr. Evans ordered.”
“Did they do a pregnancy test?”
“Maybe. They took blood and urine, so they probably did.”
“I need to see documentation.”
“I don’t have any. They didn’t give me anything.”
“You could have asked them.” He looked upset.
“No one told me to ask and anyway I couldn’t possibly be pregnant.”
“I need documentation that you are not pregnant if you are under sixty.”
“Trust me, if there were any chance, I wouldn’t lie about it. I might even put the news on the front page of the Herald Tribune.”

I like red hair, and his was a beautiful sugar-maple-in-Vermont color, but I don’t envy redheads their complexions. His neck and face were getting blotchy from annoyance with me. A woman, my age, sitting on a stool at a long counter, turned to us.

“Let her sign the waiver, Michael. You won’t get in trouble. She’s not pregnant.”
“Yes. Let me sign the waiver. I’m quite sure I know the facts of life-it’ll be fine.”

The woman smirked and went back to her paperwork.

The unsmiling tech handed me the paper, which he had ready on his clipboard (I suspected I wasn’t the first woman to arrive for this test without proof that she wasn’t pregnant) and I signed, my conscience clear.

He pointed to a paper towel covering a lump that was sitting on a side table which was covered with more paper towels.

“Underneath this towel are some scrambled eggs, with just a tiny bit of nuclear material mixed in with them. You won’t even taste it. What we’ll do is, you’ll eat the eggs and then lie under a machine and we’ll film their progress through your system for ninety minutes. Now when you eat the eggs, please be careful that you don’t spill any on the table, the floor or your clothes, because then the radioactive material will get spilled, too. Uh, it's best if you lean right over the bowl while you're eating." Michael's smile flashed briefly. "Ready?”

“Yes. Sure.”

With that he quickly slid the table in front of me, waited while I covered myself with napkins as he directed, and whisked the paper towel off a little Styrofoam bowl. Michael disappeared as soon as he exposed the eggs. Salt and pepper packets sat next to the bowl. They glowed intensely yellow, but I ate them, without seasoning. After all, I wasn’t having a meal, really, was I?

Michael, somewhere out of sight, called out asking me if the eggs were gone, and when I shouted my assent, he came back and directd me to lie on a narrow table. He covered me with a thin blanket against the sixty-five degree room temperature and left me under the nuclear scanner for an hour and a half. Not a bad test, really. I dozed, and even had a radioactive dream.

Hopefully they’ll find that the eggs followed the usual routine in leaving my stomach, without being held up by a nasty obstruction, and I’ll be able to wait in peace two more weeks until they do the biopsy of my uterine lining. It’s gotten thick, you see, and it shouldn’t have. I’ve done with the child-bearing part of my life. Honest. I’m not pregnant.