DermerDays

Here I am sitting in Starbuck�s again. This time in Harvard Square. My therapist�'s office is here and I am doing some work while drinking my macchiato and eating pumpkin bread until my appointment time. I have to get to the area early or else I will be late for my appointment. When I leave my house to arrive to my appointment on time, I am always late. So, I come early, do some work and then go to my appointment. Works for now.

I was in this Starbuck�s yesterday, again awaiting my appointment time and doing some work. In fact, I was sitting at this very same table; there is safety in sameness. I was busily writing when a woman with a rather large stroller carrying a boy whose age would probably be measured in months attempted to get to a table by mine. This is a small Starbucks. I moved my chair over, smiled and she excused herself as she squeezed into the area by the table next to mine. I went back to my writing. Her voice interrupted me.

�"Excuse me, but could you watch him while I get a coffee?�" she queried in a heavy British accent, "�Don'�t want anyone to take '�im,�" she continued quietly.

I looked up at her and she looked down at her boy. I smiled. �"Oh, ok,�" I replied.

She turned the boy�s stroller so that he could look directly at me. He sucked quietly on a pacifier and looked at me with big, blue eyes. I said, "�Hi."� I went back to writing while staying in tune to his presence. Then I started thinking that it is a bit odd that this woman would leave me with her son. What would stop me from taking him? Is my face that innocent-looking? There were certainly more people in the caf�e that she could have queried or trusted. Why me? Proximity?

I did not steal her child. As I was talking nonsense to him, however, a very strange looking woman with a suspicious affect approached the boy. She looked at him for a moment and I looked at her. Drool escaped from the corner of her mouth and the cup she was holding was nearly tipped enough to spill it's contents. She then bent over on the side of the stroller opposite me and picked something up off the ground. She handed the boy a crumpled up piece of paper that she had just retrieved. �"Here you go."� Then she sat down at a table nearby.

I looked at the crumpled paper in the boy�s hand and worried. He opened his mouth slightly to release the pacifier and it fell to his side. I worried that he might put the paper in his mouth; but, I did not want to offend the odd woman and I did not know if perhaps she was a family friend. She acted as if she knew the boy. So I waited and I watched. The boy simply held on to the paper and his mother soon returned.

�"What�'s this?�" she asked the boy as she took the crumpled paper from him.

�Great,� I thought, �now she�ll think I gave him dirty wadded up paper.� I�'m not sure why I was concerned about that given that she�d left her child with a total stranger.

�"Did you give '�im this?"� she asked me.

�"Uh, no,"� I replied and nodded toward the strange woman at the table next to hers and said, �"She did."�

I went back to my writing, feeling a little uncomfortable. A few minutes later, the British voice once again interrupted my progress.

�"Did they bother you, then?�"

�"Huh?"�

�"Those folks,"� she nodded at the table where the woman had been sitting with a man. I had not realized that the strange woman had left nor that she was accompanied by the man. �"Were they bothering you?�"

�"Oh. Well, the woman gave your son that wadded up paper. That was weird. I thought maybe you knew them or something. She acted like she knew your kid.�"

�"Oh, no,"� she said with a look of horror. "�I was here yesterday and they kept trying to give my son drinks and the like. It was awful. They'�re a bit off. I walked in today and saw that they were here and wondered what I�d done wrong to deserve this. . ."�

I commiserated as much as I could. It was time for me to walk to my appointment. �"Well, have a good day,"� I said as I walked toward the door.

�"Thanks. You, too, then.�"

Posted by at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jesus IS Lord

While I was in Arizona, I finished a ride and, driving back to my parents house, I found myself following a white Ford pickup with the cursive words, �Jesus is lord� spelled out on the tailgate. Behind the word �is� was a yellow circular form with rays emanating from it that emphasized the word. Jesus IS Lord.

I thought, �OK, Jesus IS Lord. Fine. So what.�

I mean, I�'m sure that'�s quite important. That Jesus IS Lord. Especially to the guy driving the truck. But, why? Is Jesus Lord, say, as opposed to someone else being Lord; or, is the argument that Jesus is Lord as opposed to being, say, a plumber? But, without the article, �a�, I guess the determination is that he is the only one. Jesus is not �a� Lord, he is Lord. I guess it'�s a metaphor as opposed to a simile; Jesus is Lord as opposed to Jesus is like a Lord. But, if Jesus is Lord, then why not just call him Lord--�just have a bumper sticker that says �Lord.� Why the declarative? I guess the necessity of the bumper sticker implies that others might think that someone else is Lord. Cynthia is Lord. Is that blasphemous? The bumper sticker is attempting to rectify any potential confusions as to who is Lord. Or, perhaps displaying the bumper sticker declares to all who follow the truck that the driver is virtuous and is aware that Jesus is Lord, as opposed to those who do not display the bumper sticker who may or may not be aware that Jesus is Lord. And, by implication, if they do know that Jesus is Lord and are not displaying it in a prominent manner, then they are less virtuous than the driver of the pickup truck. So, I guess the bumper sticker is somewhat like those �my kid is better than your kid �cause he�s on the honor roll� bumper stickers: � I am better than you because I am displaying on my vehicle�s bumper that Jesus is Lord�and therefore I will go to heaven.� If I buy one of those bumper stickers, will I be guaranteed a spot in Heaven?
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Lawlessness

Several of the Phoenix-area parks that I bike in are state parks requiring a fee of $5 for entry. Much of the time, this fee is collected through a �self-pay� station where one takes an envelope, puts the requisite fee inside, and tears off the end tab of said envelope to display in the car as proof of payment. Although there is really no one to check, I am one of those people who always pays. In fact, once I did not have a $5, but only larger bills so I overpaid. I though it was a good cause. My last day of biking in Arizona, I went to Usery Park. This park has a $5 fee for entry. Every other time I�ve biked at this park, there has been an attendant (maybe it�s a Park Ranger) at the entry collecting the money. This time, however, there was no person and a sign instructed, �USE SELF PAY STATION.� I followed a red Pontiac into the park. The Pontiac pulled over briefly by a bulletin board with maps and then drove on. I assumed that this is where the pay station would be so I pulled over there, as well. I thought of how much better I was than the person in the Pontiac because I planned to pay the $5 without the enforcement of an attendant, while they simply drove on. Unfortunately, I could see no pay station. I paused, considered the possibilities which seemed limited to me (should I tack my $5 to the bulletin board?), and drove on, feeling a little less self-righteous. I was planning to pay, but after all, the heat was increasing by the minute and I could not see any pay station. Summertime in Arizona is brutal on the desert mountain bike path. I drove on in.

The trails I ride are about a mile into the park. I drove carefully along the curvy road to the parking area. As I pulled into the parking area, I looked in my rearview mirror to see that Sheriff�s full size pick-up truck was tailing me. My heart skipped and I felt a slight panic. But, I calmed myself by reviewing the fact that I had not seen him at the entrance to the park. Then, he turned to the left where some other cars were parked, so I relaxed. I parked my rented PT Cruiser and unfastened my seat belt. I looked up as I was about to release the door handle and the Sheriff�s pickup truck was parked along side my vehicle. The Sheriff smiled a disarming smile and spoke to me.

�"Do you come here a lot?"� He asked.

�"Well, no, I�'m from out of town.�" Out of Town -- �who says that?

�"Did you pay the fee to enter the park?"� He queried with a friendly smile on his face.

Drat. Busted.

�"No. I did not see the pay thing. I saw the bulletin board, but no place to pay the fee,�" I meekly offered.

�"Well, it�s right there by the gate. It�s red.�" He kept the big smile pasted on his face.

�"Oh.�"

�"Would you go back and pay that for me?"� He asked as if he was really making a request rather than telling me to do something. Good law enforcement technique, I thought.

�"Absolutely,"� I replied with far too much enthusiasm, ultimately indicating my shame and suggesting to him, I'�m sure, that my failure to pay was intentional.

I felt like a damned idiot as I re-fastened my seat belt, started the car and drove to the gate. He had pulled out ahead of me and was waiting at the entrance. As I approached I saw, plain as day, the bright red square, hollow pay post�directly beside the entrance gate. Driving in, the pay station is located so the recreational user could pay from the seated position inside the car. The bulletin board, where I pulled over along with the Pontiac to look for a pay station, stands several yards after the entrance gate. In my defense, at McDowell Mountain Park, where I more often bike and there is never an attendant, the pay station is located several yards after the entrance gate, right beside the bulletin board. I felt so ridiculous that I slowed the car down as I reached the bulletin board and pretended to scan that area for the pay station. I looked up at the Sheriff who pointed vehemently at the bright red pay station post. I smiled sheepishly, shrugged and pulled out of the park, made a u-turn and pulled up to the gate and the pay station. I used grand gestures to take a pay envelope, stuff $5 into it and deposit it in the red square post. The sheriff nodded and drove away.

The feeling that I am a complete moron did not leave me for hours. I am certain that the Sheriff thought I was either a complete idiot or a pathological liar. Certainly, he did not spend the amount of time that I did considering the incident after the fact.
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Brando, The New Yorker & Psychopharmacology

I have been trying to stop using anti-depressants, anti-anxieties and sleep aids. My body has been a veritable psycho-pharmacopoeia, of late. I have been on anti-depressants for over ten years; I began my career as a psychiatric patient with a diagnosis of bipolar II. My current therapist and psychopharmacologist both believe this diagnosis to be specious. I would like to agree with them.

Since I got my cancer diagnosis on April 1, 2003, I have become increasingly reliant on pharmacological interventions to function in my day to day life. I experience anxiety that is like nothing I have ever felt before. Additionally, being unceremoniously and completely inappropriately terminated from my job added tremendous weight to the initial trauma of the cancer diagnosis. Far from being unrelated, I feel that my termination was a direct result of my fight with cancer. That aside, I want to stop taking so damn many pills every day.

I went to see my psychiatrist a couple of days ago to talk about not taking pills anymore. I was sitting in his excessively trendy waiting room and picked up a copy of The New Yorker. I turned to an excerpt from an article by Truman Capote on Marlon Brando. This was published subsequent to Brando�s passing and the article excerpted an interview that Capote had done with Brando in the year before he died. In the interview, Brando speaks about the emotional difficulty of his existence. He declares that certain people, creative people, feel things more deeply, more intensely. He presents this as a double-edged sword�it enhances creative drive while crushing the person who attempts to function in such a cruel world while feeling things so deeply. I thought, �Wow, sounds like me.�

As I was finishing the short article, Dr. M. appeared to signal me that my appointment time had arrived; he lead me back to his office. Actually, it was about ten minutes past my actual appointment time. I entered his office and was again amused by the pretension of his office space. In the back half of the space, he has a large, glass-top desk with a Mac 17"� flat panel display poised on the right corner. A large, black office desk chair is positioned behind the desk. To the left of the desk is a simple straight-back chair; it is pushed up flush to the short edge of the desk. The remaining portion of the space holds his black leather analytic couch and matching black leather therapist�s chair. I only visit him for medication, so I sit in the chair by the desk while he sits behind the desk with easy access to my records on his computer.

On this day, he tells me that he�s �never subscribed to the bipolar diagnosis,� and that he �understands and supports my desire to be off medication.� He explains to me that some people are prone to depression, that they �feel things more intensely, more deeply, than others,� and that this can create �an emotional memory of depression� that remains and is easily triggered by life�'s disastrous unfolding. Me and Marlon.

Dr. M. removed his prescription pad from his dayplanner and he wrote me three new prescriptions.

Posted by at 6:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The night before last, I stayed at the Holiday Inn in Mesa. Although my parents have a room in their house that I had been staying in, my position was usurped by my niece. My sister is redecorating my nephew�s bedroom. This happens regularly and is always thematic. The theme of this endeavor is �cowboy.� It�s his �big-boy room.� That is, he�s graduated from the crib to a real bed and this necessitates redecorating the entire room. So, for my brother-in-law, this fourth of July weekend is dedicated to painting walls. Fencepost brown on the bottom and sky blue on the top. Yeehaw.

After yesterday'�s painting, apparently the fumes were too intense to let the little guy sleep in there, so my sister calls my mother and says she'�s bringing the boy over to spend the night. My mom says sure and why not bring my niece, too, so she won'�t feel bad or left out. My sister loaded up the crew into the giant SUV and they all came over to grandma�'s house. My mother told my sister to have Lexi, my niece, sleep in her room, but, unknown to me, my sister tucked the girl into my bed.

Because I am so god damn fragile, this launches me into a full-blown panic attack. I guess Lexi wanted to sleep with me in my room, but I can�t handle that and no one bothered to ask me how I might feel about it. I have a nighttime routine that absolutely cannot be interrupted or altered. I am not flexible about how and where I sleep.

My mother was at the gym when all of this transpired. When she got home, I told her I had to go to a motel. My father had been out of town on some crazy driving trip through Wyoming and Montana and he arrived home at about this time. He was confused, as always. Chaos.

I looked up Motel 6 on my computer and found one nearby. I snuck into my room (now my niece's room) to retrieve some clothing and took off in my dad�s pickup truck. I got to the Motel 6 to find that there was some sort of all-night party happening around the outdoor landing of the motel. The people looked different from me and so I was frightened. The room doors opened into the world (as opposed to into a hallway) and so I went to a Holiday Inn that I spotted nearby.

�$59,� said the man behind the desk.

�I'�ll take it.� I handed him my American Express and took the cardkey. I went back out to my dad'�s truck to retrieve my bag and then went inside and made my way to the elevator. A tall man fell in step with me and waited for the elevator after I pushed the request button. In one hand he held two bottles of beer; in the other, a leather flogger. I was concerned and a little freaked out. He kept whapping the wall with the leather flogger, as if it were perfectly normal to be walking around brandishing a sex toy and bottled Budweiser.

The elevator arrived and we both boarded. I hit my floor number, 5, first and then cursed my own stupidity: �now he'�ll know my floor,� I thought to myself, �I�'ve just made his crazed sex-killing that much easier.�

He punched 7 for his floor and I thought, �how convenient that his floor is higher than mine --� that way he can find out where my room is.� I looked at the cardkey in my hand and noticed that the room number was written on the paper sleeve. I quickly flipped it over and tried to discreetly look at him to see if he'�d seen. I couldn'�t tell.

Cleverly, however, when the doors opened on my floor, I got out and walked left, toward the 500 -� 515, according to a sign, instead of the other way, toward 516 -� 540 where my actual room, 534, was located. I walked until I heard the elevator doors close and then I turned around, made sure that he had not exited the elevator, and made my way to my room. It was a nice room with cable TV and good air conditioning. I locked all of the accessory locks and listened a while to make sure no one attempted to get in. Eventually, after some pharmacological intervention and several hours of television, I found sleep. I guess the guy had someone waiting for the beer and the sex toy.

_________________

Do you ever just want a thing to be the thing that you think that it is? Can we ever get rid of interpretation? I am forever attempting to get the baristas at various Starbucks to understand my needs. It'�s not a huge problem as far as problems go, but, to me, it�s significant. I would like four shots of espresso with just a touch of non-fat foam on top. I used to order very dry cappuccino, but found that was far too vague. One person�'s dry is another person's normal. Then, I took to ordering a totally dry, no liquid cappuccino. That worked ok, but many baristas would still add in some liquid for good measure--�they just didn'�t believe that I only wanted foam. Often, I would be questioned, '�Just foam? No liquid at all?�'

�That�s right. Just foam and espresso.�

Finally, I found that Starbucks actually has a drink called an espresso macchiato (which my friend Karen, the Italian elitist, tells me is a mis-use of the word macchiato), that in Starbucks-land is espresso "marked" with foam. I now order a four-shot non-fat espresso macchiato and usually this works out quite well. It leaves little room for interpretation�--I mean, �'marked with'� could cover a range in terms of amounts of foam, but never does it mean that I will get liquid in the drink. Or, at least I thought so until today. I ordered the usual from a jolly young lady whom I had not seen here in Gilbert so far. She calls out the drink and when I pick it up, it is like lead. You can tell a good drink by it�s weight (obviously, foam is much lighter than liquid). I did not accept this concoction, but instead told the young woman that I wanted four shots of espresso with non-fat foam. And then, to my subsequent embarrassment, I started explaining to her that a macchiato was espresso with foam. I'�m telling the barista. I mean, I�'m not sure why she put the liquid in my drink, but certainly I do not need to tell her how to do her job. She was apologetic and she made it over again�--correctly this time. Maybe I should just drink black coffee.

Although, when I first moved to Boston, I failed miserably at a Dunkin�' Donuts attempting to order just a black coffee. I walked in and asked for a large coffee.

�"Regular?"� queried the server.

�"Yeah,�" I replied. Seemed simple enough�I thought she was asking whether I wanted flavored coffee or just regular coffee. I was entirely unaware that in the East, 'regular' means two creams and sugar. The woman starts squirting cream into my coffee and I tried to stop her.

�"Oh, no, just black, please.�"

�"Black? You say regular --� regular mean two cream, two sugar,"� she rebuked me in broken English.

�"Ahh, sorry,"� I stuttered, "�I just want black coffee�--nothing in it.�"

She let out a big sigh as she used a grand gesture to dump the coffee she was working on and grab another cup using more great exaggeration to display her irritation. I just didn'�t know the code.

Posted by at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am sitting at the table where Jim Kaufman introduced the word bashert into my vocabulary. It is outside at Starbucks on Warner road in Gilbert, Arizona. It is about 2 miles from my parent'�s house. The misting system almost makes it comfortable out here, but the 4-shot espresso tips the scale to the hot side and I might have to retreat inside to the air conditioning soon.

I had my first really good ride today. I am finally dealing with the heat and my body is performing in a way that is satisfying and fun. I rode 8 miles and I met a guy named Steve. Steve introduced himself to me when I was done with my ride and loading up my bike into my dad'�s pickup truck. Steve says he�'s passed me several times on the trail. He tells me, �"You always have the biggest grin covering your face, it stretches from ear to ear.�"

�"Really?�" I reply, thinking he might be kidding, as I�'ve been struggling with the riding since I got here because of the heat and my abdomen.

�"Really�--you'�re always smiling like you are having a great time.�"

The first time I did a cyclocross race in Massachusetts, it was pouring rain and extremely cold. Andy Ewas was there as a spectator and after the race he said to me, �"You were smiling from ear to ear for the entire race. If your first race is this miserable and you are having this much fun doing it, then you are a natural �cross racer.�"

�"But, I finished last.�"

�"Who cares, you were obviously having a blast. That�s all that matters.�"

I know that I love being on the bike. I love it. Sometimes I hate it, but I also always love it. I do not feel myself smiling when I ride, so it is interesting to me that I am. I want to mount a camera to my bike that records my affect for the duration of my rides.

On my ride today I was first obsessing over ____________, but then started thinking about whether or not I am a survivor. A woman that was in my cancer support group wrote me an email once in which she called me a survivor. But, I do not know if I am one. When does one officially become a survivor? They say that my cancer is gone, but for how long? I know I lost my job because of the cancer�--so how does that fit? Is surviving simply being subjected to a never-ending series of injustices, disappointments and traumas? How long do you have to live after a cancer diagnosis to earn the label survivor? Are you a survivor right up until you do not survive?

Cancer sucks.

Today I rode fast and hard and then I came around a bend and there were trees with shade. I stopped to look and a coyote appeared. He was ten feet from me and I thought that maybe I should be alarmed, but I was not. After all, I am in the desert and a totem animal paid me a visit. I know that the coyote is the trickster, but I know little else right now. I will pursue the application of meaning to this incident. Ultimately the coyote seemed undisturbed by my presence and I believe he was close to civilization to drink water. There was pooled water under the shade of the trees. Finished with his drinking, he made his way up the rocky slope of the mountain and I watched him until he disappeared.

I am still sitting outside. The heat is comforting and not overwhelming; the hot espresso is not pushing me over the edge.

Posted by at 3:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)