This Ro(a)mantic Life

Baby steps

2012-01-24T10:43:00.001-06:00

"Would you like to hold the baby?"

It's a simple question with an ostensibly straightforward answer: yes or no. But I'm caught off guard. Lara, one of the friends D and I are having dinner with, doesn't let on that she's noticed as she bounces her four-month-old daughter gently, but it's too late for me to cover my hesitation. Lara's husband, absorbed in conversation with the men at the other end of the table only a moment ago, glances toward me, waiting for my answer with interest. I suddenly wish I weren't sitting directly across from him -- or anyone -- where the blush that is beginning to rise into my face is impossible to hide.

"Sure, if you want me to," I say, regretting my word choice instantly. If you're okay with that is closer to what I'd meant to convey, not this noncommittal, indifferent-sounding reply. I'm actually dying to hold this baby, to feel what an infant feels like in my arms. But the last half-hour of conversation with Lara has been all about her new-mother anxieties -- over finding the right nanny, enrolling her daughter in infant-level music and dance classes, even teaching her how to use sign language. "So the baby can express her thoughts even when she's preverbal," Lara explains. A budding helicopter parent? Maybe a little. Later in the evening, when the baby is asleep in her stroller, Lara will keep one hand on her chest to make sure she's still breathing. "I'm freaked out about SIDS," she'll say.

While I don't quite get the reason it's so urgent to put a non-ambulatory child in a dance studio, I understand this last concern and, given the newness of motherhood for Lara, the instinct to hover. Which is why I initially resisted asking to hold this little girl -- I didn't want to add to her mother's worries. If it were your baby, I tell myself, you'd be obsessing about the germs she'd be exposed to from strangers. I've picked up that tendency from my own mother, always conscious of what my hands have handled before I touch anything that goes near my eyes, nose, or mouth. Unfortunately, as much as I don't want to become her, I suspect this particular disposition will be hard to suppress when it is my turn to be a parent.

And when will that be? I wonder. D and I are still at minimum a few months from trying to start our own family because of some uncertainties in the results from the last half year of food sensitivity testing and my doctor's warning not to conceive for twelve weeks after getting a measles vaccine (which I obtained right after returning from our holiday trip). Add this to the three years we've been waiting to move forward with our plans, and suddenly, I'm unable to keep my eyes off this infant sitting happily in her mother's lap, the perfect embodiment of everything I've been trying not to want more and more as the delays have continued. Or so I think. There are still days when I'm not sure if my reasons for wanting children are motherly in nature or more rooted in the desire to have a family of ours, different from my family of origin or D's. After our most recent visit to my parents' home, we are both readier than ever to make the idea of us -- whatever that may be -- more distinct.

Maybe because Lara is keenly observant -- and knows some of our story -- she can see all this in my gaze. Or I'm just doing a terrible job of hiding my longing, which, in my mind, sometimes borders on the unseemly. Either way, when Lara offers the baby to me, I feel exposed, embarrassed by the possibility that she's picked up on the thoughts I'd rather keep private. These breaches -- spillovers, really, of emotion I can't quite hold in -- happen so much more easily these days. I am as tender-skinned as the oncoming bundle of arms and legs I reach out to take.

The baby is unwieldier than I expect. Perhaps, because the only living thing I've held in the last year and a half has been our cat, I expect her to have a different center of gravity -- or at least some such sense of mass in my lap. But so quickly does she try to change position, arching her back to see what's behind her from this new perspective, that it is all I can do to keep her from launching backward, her head too close for comfort to the table's wooden edge. I turn her automatically to get her out of harm's way; still, she wriggles in her purple-footed pajamas, curious about everything but me. To my relief, she doesn't seem alarmed to be in a stranger's hands. Do I let her explore? I give her some room to peek over her shoulder at D, seated to my right, whom I don't dare to look at -- I won't be able to bear it if he's laughing at my predicament. I know my inexperience is showing, but I don't need the one person who knows how emotionally complex the idea of motherhood is for me to be amused when I am anything but.

I know I cannot know this baby's habits or anticipate her movements as her mother does. I remind myself of this as a less rational part of me waits for her body to feel less foreign in my arms, as if those storied mothering instincts every woman is supposed to possess might relax me, give me the knowledge of what to do next. To feel next. Because isn't that what I'd wanted to find out? What I might feel in this moment with not my hands but my heart? As much as I haven't wanted to admit it to myself in recent months, I fear, with every pang of desire for motherhood, that I don't have the capacity for it. That my heart isn't built to love a child -- which holding this one, I hope, will disprove.

Of course, this test is fundamentally flawed for the same reasons this baby feels so strange to me: she is not mine. Still, that less rational part of me insists on searching for just an inkling of motherly response, whatever it believes that might look like. Delight in her impossibly round cheeks? The irresistible urge to tickle her belly? Anything but this mode of intellectual observation and analysis I keep reverting to -- I'm apparently unmoved by cuteness. I let my gaze drift from the baby toward the half-eaten dinners on the table, not from disinterest but discomfort. To look at the baby directly is to torture myself with the expectation of feelings that refuse to surface. What must Lara be thinking of me? I wonder. Now that I'm past my initial panic over protecting her daughter from injury, my stoicism in the face of something biologically designed to melt me with its pheromones must look unnatural if not outright bizarre. I might as well be holding this infant on the end of a ten-foot pole, I think, afraid that if I look down, I'll find out that it's true. I stare obstinately at my water glass, desperate to find something to distract me until I can compose my interiors and hand this baby back to her mother without completely revealing my disappointment in myself. I don't want Lara to see the letdown in my expression and misinterpret it as distaste.

I don't realize I've taken the baby's hand in my own, gently massaging her palm and fingers as I do our cat's paws. It is habit, almost like manipulating a worry stone -- our cat inevitably hops onto my knees whenever I'm seated at the kitchen table, and after some time, we settle into this position. Suddenly, I'm aware that the baby's fingers are gripping mine. With surprising force, the baby pulls one digit to her mouth and gums it, exploring the texture of my skin. A pause. She draws her prize back out, looks at what she's tasting, adjusts her grip, squeals. Before I know it, she's got a second finger in her other hand, a look of satisfaction on her wide-eyed face.

There, a voice in my ear whispers. And then it is silent again.

Is that all? I ask, though I already seem to know there is nothing more to be said as the tension I didn't realize I was holding in my shoulders eases. I look again at Lara's daughter, who cannot get enough of her new discovery, reaching for a third finger, a fourth. My body relaxes more.

I am not suddenly enamored with this baby or babies in general -- and, to my relief, I no longer expect to be. But I understand what my heart wished to feel as it waited for my mind to get out of the way: connection. To know that it is possible.

"My hands are clean," I reassure Lara, as the baby grabs for a knuckle.

Mother knows best

2012-01-05T14:04:00.001-06:00

On New Year's night, the final evening of our holiday visit, my mother and I are the last ones standing in the kitchen. D is in our room down the hall getting ready for bed, and my father, after a weekend of being on call, is sound asleep. We keep our voices low so as not to disturb them, but my mother, finally alone with me, makes her whisper more purposeful.

"You know, now that you've changed your last name, ours will be lost forever in your family."

Before this visit, D and I agreed, should anyone start to ask me about my health -- a challenging subject, given all the questions we still have and the skepticism we often hear from my family about the kinds of testing and treatment we've pursued -- that I would go find him, bring him into the conversation, so that I would not have to defend our choices alone. I don't expect an attack from the angle my mother takes, though, as she scrubs at her wok with her hard little hands. Leaning on the granite by the sink, I am suddenly vulnerable. I can tell she's been waiting to talk to me on my own.

Where is this coming from? I wonder. And why now, five years after my name change became official? Maybe my mother is thinking of the family we've wanted to start for so long but have held off on because of my health, how our children will bear only D's name instead of his and my father's. Or it's my writing, the essay I had published in the fall but never mentioned until this visit. I used a pseudonym as it was, unwilling to place my name, maiden or married, on the work -- because the subject was so difficult for me to write about, much less discuss, I didn't want anyone to find me just yet for further questions.

I wouldn't have brought up the essay had my mother not pressed me so hard to find out what I was really going to do with my life instead of tutoring as I have been. What are your goals? she'd asked.

"Putting something together that I actually believe in publishing," I said, which, without a detailed plan attached, was an only somewhat satisfying response. Whatever my mother's reasons now for raising this other concern about lost legacies, I feel her disapproval like a blast of west Texas wind carrying the smell of cattle ranches from the next town down the highway.

I know I shouldn't respond -- there can be no good outcome from midnight conversations about family differences -- but so much of my writing is tied to this very issue, the knots in our relationship I am forever trying to untangle by examining them, sentence by sentence. I've chosen to be published under a pseudonym not just to give myself privacy but also to protect that process of personal and relational inquiry, taking on a persona whose name won't be recognized by anyone who knows my family. This way, I can write without fearing their real-life loss of face. Not that I expect my parents' friends to read the kinds of literary journals I'd submit my work to, but in this electronic age, I am searchable, linkable, forwardable, potentially viral.

My writing persona, regardless of her name, needs protecting too. To use either of my surnames is to be who they imply I am: wife, sister, daughter, with everything those identities carry with them. Not that I wish to deny those aspects of my life experience, but I am more than all that. I am other thoughts and questions and indeterminacies that do not yet know how to bear up under the labels automatically bequeathed or contracted to me. For now, then, it is easier to shed these names temporarily and just be me, with a pseudonym as a neutral placeholder where it would be inconvenient for someone to address me simply as "she" or "you."

But that's not the answer to the question my mother is really asking on this night.

Why couldn't you have kept our name? It's a loaded question because it immediately implies that I did not choose as I should have (consider why did you change your name for comparison). The differences are minute, but words and meanings are my territory; I can't help being attuned to the subtexts in my mother's query even if she doesn't realize they are there. Why the clannishness tonight? I'd like to ask in return. I glance inadvertently toward the guest bedroom, confused by my mother's sudden coolness toward my husband. I'm hurt on his behalf.

And then it all comes out. Suddenly she's on to our financial arrangements (joint), our career decisions (too much in favor of D's advancement and not mine), even our past marital problems (the particulars of which she can only guess at since I don't share them -- and she is, of course, largely off base). It is all I can do to parry with fragmented sentences in the face of this onslaught. "You give him too much control," she says at last, still at a whisper but eyes blazing, angry for reasons I can't fathom. Do I just run?

I wish I had.

Cornered by so many accusations, I lash back. "My marriage isn't like yours," I spit. "The choices we've made have always been ours -- not just D's or mine."

The argument deteriorates from that moment. I've found the bruised places in her heart, and everything she throws at me from then on is more of the irrational -- which I don't recognize until long after I've met her barb for barb. I am terrible at refusing to engage.

That is what I need to learn, though, because the boundary that marriage establishes between me and my parents is a necessary one. Like my decision to use a pseudonym to separate my writing persona's role from the roles I have to take on in real life, my decision to limit the information I provide about my married life when my mother asks is protective -- young marriages, like young writers' identities, have weak places, foundations that need work. The protection that such a boundary affords as D and I contemplate starting a family of our own has never been more important.

But the price of maintaining that boundary is clearly something I didn't completely anticipate. If anything after this ambush, I've learned that much of what my mother thinks of my marriage is what she assumes about it, perhaps based on her dissatisfaction with her own, because I've left her with little real information to take its place.

Still, some of her last words to me on New Year's night tell me that the alternative -- sharing it all to prevent so much misunderstanding -- will be more costly. "We'll never be able to have a heart-to-heart," my mother says, "because you won't let me be honest with you."

As long as her idea of a heart-to-heart is for me to accept unconditionally her opinion on anything I share, I'd rather keep the details to myself.

This will be brief

2011-12-28T11:29:00.009-06:00

... because I'm writing this on my phone. My laptop's sudden refusal to boot this morning caps this year of technical difficulties, several of which were specific to the machine: the fried adapter, the bad sector. Add the recent fridge fiasco and the midyear failure of a backup drive to the list of unfortunate electronic events and you begin to wonder what else is about to go.

I'd be a lot less incensed -- these things can happen to any appliance over time, and the laptop had reached an average lifetime when its performance started going downhill -- if I hadn't been nearly done editing and commenting on a good friend's application essay for a Ph.D. program. I'd promised him the draft notes by today. I'm hoping he can take a week's delay so D can rescue the file when we get back to Seattle, but if not, I've got a lot of text to reconstruct this afternoon.

2012, you are on notice.

Sense and sensitivity

2011-12-23T11:27:00.006-06:00

The smell of fresh biscuits is wafting upstairs from the kitchen in my parents' house in Texas. We've been coming here for the end-of-year holidays only since 2006, so the room I'm writing in -- a loft above a garage -- is not the one where I used to wake up to the promise of butter, flour, baking powder, milk, and salt, in those perfect, golden, flaky proportions that are my mother's standby recipe for daughterly bliss. It's just a loft with an elliptical machine in it, and I cycle along, willing myself to recall the tender center of this favorite baked good, how it releases a ribbon of steam when it first breaks open under my much younger fingers.

The last few years have been an adjustment -- first, the limit on sugars and starches after I became insulin resistant, then the limit on dairy and gluten after those food sensitivities came to light. I can choose to ignore these inconvenient circumstances -- nothing truly dire will occur immediately if I eat from the tray my mother has just pulled from the oven -- but I know it's unwise. At the very least, I'll feel sick and be less able to enjoy this time with my family. So I soak up the memory of warmth and comfort that the aroma brings back.

But the coziness of a different kitchen in a different time fails to materialize. I'm needled by earlier moments from the morning. "Can you butter the tray for me?" my mother asks, as I am about to leave the kitchen in search of a writing spot. "Oh, there might be flour on the counter. You can touch that stuff, right?"

I tell her it's fine -- I can wash my hands -- but then, as I clean the baking utensils left in the sink, I hesitate before setting the sponge back on the edge of the basin. "Is it okay to put this through the dishwasher?" I ask. Without a thorough soaping and scalding, a good quantity of gluten particles can stay lodged in the fibers.

"Oh, it'll never get completely clean," she replies, waving a floury hand, as if whether the sponge goes through the machine isn't important. I know she doesn't mean to be cavalier, but a flood of resentment at what feels like her insensitivity rises in my chest. Just because the sponge can't be sterilized doesn't mean I can't take the measures with it -- or anything else in her kitchen -- that will decrease my exposure to what makes me sick. It has only been a day since my arrival, but the few things I've asked her not to do for food I will eat -- like using wooden cutting boards, which are porous and also harbor gluten easily -- she's done anyway.

I wonder whether to say anything. When I do remind her, she makes the excuse that this is all new to her, which I understand. But she makes no move to apologize.

Am I wrong to feel hurt? I ask myself. Don't be so -- well, sensitive, part of me says in reply. Still, the scent of my mother's biscuits, hanging in the air of the loft, refuses to transfer the pleasure I wish it would.

Not biting

2011-12-14T11:59:00.003-06:00

Back in July, after my thesis received final approval from Little U., one of the last tasks I had to complete to tie up loose ends on the manuscript was to get it copyrighted. For Ph.D. dissertations, Little U. makes copyright mandatory and takes care of this detail to ensure the filing with the U.S. Copyright Office actually happens. For MFA degree holders, you retain the right to pursue official government protection -- or decide your thesis is so objectionable to your artistic eye that you'd rather not afford it such an honor.

I have to say, by the time I was done with my manuscript, I felt only 40 percent of it was really decent enough to consider reworking for future use -- as smaller essays to send to literary journals or as a jumping-off point to reshape the work into a very different book. As it stood, 75 pages wasn't enough to sell as a complete work, especially since it had no ending. (Yes, it stops, but it has no sense of conclusion.)

Because that 40 percent had merit, though, I did go through with registering for a copyright. And within a few months, I started to get postcards from a certain company claiming interest in publication.

Don't get excited yet. This is not a company that likely pays its authors for their work. It is a subsidy press, also known as a vanity press, which will ask its "candidates for publication" to cover some or all of the printing, distributing, and advertising costs. Obviously, I haven't done further research on the particular organization that mailed me, but it is generally safe to say that any group that calls itself a subsidy press does not follow the standard publishing model -- possibly to the author's financial, if not reputational, detriment. So if you've ever been contacted by one of these companies, be forewarned (and then laugh, as I did, because you've seen through their attempt to flatter for money).

How did they even find me, you wonder? Well, per the postcard, a "researcher" "discovered" my registration -- not my manuscript, my registration -- with the Library of Congress; i.e., someone who regularly trolls the record of copyright applications, which is in the public domain, picked out my name along with hundreds of others and put me on a mailing list. How do I know no one has actually looked at what I've written to determine its literary merit? Well, when the postcard is addressed to a "Mr. Contemporary Troubadour," it's pretty clear. Really, if the work is written in the first person and begins at the patient check-in desk of an obstetrician's office, you'd guess the writer was a woman, right?

Unplugged

2011-12-06T14:07:00.006-06:00

I'm not totally off the grid these days, but it feels like it after our two-week Thanksgiving trip, which ended with the discovery Sunday evening that our refrigerator had died during our absence and left its rather pungent ghost behind. Not the warm welcome we were hoping for! Everything I'd been depending on for the last few months of allergen avoidance -- organic meats amassed on sale and frozen for later use, homemade soup stock, all the gluten-free baking I'd done -- had to be tossed.

This elimination diet thing is getting a bit too literal for me.

After a day of research, we chose a new fridge last night, which will be delivered tomorrow, but until then, any foods that need chilling are crammed into a cooler on the back porch. Believe me when I say I'm counting the hours until the delivery truck shows up.

With the exception of this electronic snafu, our Thanksgiving was a good one. D and I spent the holiday and then some with his family in central Illinois -- we're trying to alternate Thanksgiving and Christmas with his parents and mine so that we don't have to do one marathon multi-city trip at the end of the year. So far, I think I like the change. We did throw in a small road trip to visit D's brother and sister-in-law in Michigan, where both are graduate students, but that was a relaxed six hours in a borrowed family minivan with leg room, rest stops, unrestricted access to personal electronics, and no worries about someone else's seat back reclining into my lap.

Of course, the view was a lot less impressive than it might have been by air, but the road did offer some scenic gems. Seriously, how can you not appreciate the comic irony in strip malls like this one?*

* I have no idea who took this picture -- we didn't have time to stop to take one ourselves -- but I am thoroughly impressed that Google, using only a search string that contained the names of the stores shown and "strip mall Indiana highway 30," was able to provide me a link to a discussion board where this image was posted.

Testing, testing

2011-11-14T13:36:00.001-06:00

Plans are afoot chez Troubadour.

Some are sizable -- to the point that trying to write about them here in the last week has produced three different post drafts, none of which seemed to get at what I wanted them to. And that is usually a sign for me that the ideas need more than a little fine-tuning if I can't even elaborate on them in this space, where nothing has to be complete but just somewhat organized.

So, not to keep returning to food allergies, but that's what I can write about. And with the first of our many fall and winter holidays approaching, I've been busy trying to figure out how to make traditional baked goods (because what else does one eat at this time of year more than any other?) using nontraditional ingredients.

There are resources out there. Many, many resources, posted on the web by people who have similar dietary limitations. They're impossible to search through efficiently and most still include ingredients I can't eat. It's one thing to need recipes that are strictly gluten-free. But how about gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, corn-free ...

Well, what about the professionals, I wondered. The people who sell allergen-free baked goods? Could they have advice?

A few weeks ago, I discovered the website of a bakery that is known for its friendliness to those with food sensitivities. Refined-sugar-, gluten-, wheat-, soy-, casein-, and egg-free -- yes, they do it all. And there was a cookbook, written by their founding chef, in their online store!

I had huge hopes as I waited for a copy to become available from my local library. Could hardly walk to my car once I had the book in my hands -- I was already perusing the contents: muffins, biscuits and scones, teacakes, cookies and brownies, cupcakes and frostings. Something in here had to work.

Except that nearly every recipe in the book calls for a pre-blended gluten-free flour mix that contains potato starch (or the recipe requires just potato starch itself), and potatoes are the latest GI enemy to make it onto my list.

Yes, I felt a little cheated.

But -- but! -- it's one step closer. I still don't have to reinvent baked goods; I just need to figure out how to use the research in this book to inform my substitutions. Troubadour-friendly, gluten-free flour blend, you will be mine.

Of course, if you know of other professional resources out there that might help me speed up the testing process, I'm all ears.

Substitutions

2011-10-29T17:41:00.001-05:00

If you've spent any time in my kitchen in the last three years, you've seen a lot of these in the meals I prepare.

Ever since D and I stopped being able to eat much refined sugar and starch, thanks to reactive hypoglycemia, we've been using any stand-ins that would produce similar results in cooking -- even if the ingredients in question weren't those that naturally occur in foods you could buy at the farmer's market. We're talking products that have been enzyme-modified or chemically transmogrified to fool our bodies into ignoring them. Our pantry was a shrine to the gods of Splenda (packet-style, available in boxes of 700 from Amazon's subscription service), maltitol syrup (straight for baking or flavored for coffee), erythritol (granular for creaming into batters and powdered for whipping into frostings), and xylitol honey (in a squeezable bear-shaped bottle to boot).

It turns out our bodies don't take lightly to being deceived. Cue insidious digestive deterioration.*

The elimination diet forced me to stop using our usual sweetener stock, among many other staples: wheat flours; corn, soy, and dairy products; even eggs and yeast. Did you know that baking powder contains corn? And some vanilla extracts too? What in the name of all baked goods is left to make a pan of muffins with?

Plenty.

Of late, I've been craving cornbread. It's cold out, hearty soups have returned to our menu in full force, and I've been missing the sweet-savory flavor of a fresh-from-the-oven pan of golden goodness to go along with a bean-and-chicken stew. D's mother's cornbread recipe had been languishing in our kitchen file for too long, and I was getting tired of eating rice at every meal. So I pulled out the instructions and started making substitutions.

But wait, you're thinking. How do you make cornless cornbread?

With millet.

The results were more than I could ever have hoped for. These tiny little grains, when cooked, produce an uncannily cornmeal-like texture and flavor. I won't say the final product was indistinguishable from true cornbread, but it was a more than respectable stand-in that I had to remind myself not to consume in a more than reasonably sized portion. (For anyone with reactive hypoglycemia, it's still full-strength on the carb scale, even though it contains no refined sugar.)

The success made my week. It's been hard not to think of the food I've been allowed to eat as a second-rate option to the foods I've had to give up. But that is exactly what I've needed to change in order to move forward with the body I have now -- the one that probably will never be able to eat wheat or dairy again. No more thinking of our allowed options as substitutions. They're alternatives, incredibly freeing ones because they won't mistreat my body.

That said, I'm not settling for lesser quality in our baked goods. If an alternative bread or scone or muffin doesn't make me want to go back for seconds (against my better judgment), then the recipe needs tweaking.

So. I'm posting this week's cornbread recipe with original and alternative ingredients side by side. For anyone with food sensitivities or just a curiosity about different baking options, you can employ as many or as few of the suggested changes as your palate desires. (N.B.: the directions account specifically for alternatives; if you use only standard ingredients, simply mix the dry then add the wet and pour into your chosen pan.)

Corn/{millet} bread

2 cups all-purpose flour / {1 cup gluten-free oat flour and 1 cup brown rice flour}
4 tsp. salt
5 tsp. baking powder / {2 tsp. arrowroot starch, 2 tsp. cream of tartar, and 1 tsp. baking soda}
4 tbsp. sugar / {3 tbsp. sucanat** and 4 tbsp. pear butter***}
1 1/2 cups cornmeal / {3/4 cup millet flour and 3/4 cup cooked millet****}
2 eggs / {2/3 cup water and 2 tbsp. ground flaxseed}
2 cups milk / {2 cups coconut, rice, or almond milk}
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp. melted shortening / {1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp. olive oil}

1. Mix flours, salt, arrowroot, cream of tartar, baking soda, and millet flour in a large bowl. Add sucanat and cooked millet, breaking up clumps with a fork.

2. In a separate bowl, mix water and flaxseed. Allow to stand 5 minutes (mixture will gel slightly). Stir in pear butter and milk.

3. Add wet ingredients to dry; beat quickly with fork. Stir in olive oil until combined.

4. Pour into 12 muffin cups (place extra, if any, in mini loaf pan or ramekins). Bake at 400 F for 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean (crumbs are okay, batter coating is not). Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then unmold and transfer to wire rack. Centers will fall slightly -- without gluten or egg, the bread has less structural integrity -- but should not cave in. (Xanthan gum is a recommended additive to rectify this problem, but I'm holding off on experimenting with it until after the remaining food trials are done.)

Makes 12 muffins plus one mini loaf. Half recipe makes one 9-inch square pan of bread. We use a muffin pan to make single servings easier to measure.

* I do not claim that substitute sweeteners single-handedly caused the GI disaster of 2009-2011. But they were certainly associated with the problem; once they were eliminated from our diet, I started to feel better. Symptoms returned during repeated trials with at least one of the sweeteners mentioned above, as they did during trials of a number of other foods. Which just means I won't be consuming any of those items in the near future.

** Sucanat is plain old dried sugar cane juice (but not the same thing as evaporated cane juice, which undergoes more processing). We've found it at Whole Foods, on Amazon, and in our local co-op.

*** We make our own pear butter by boiling down ripe pears with a little water and honey. If you want our recipe, just send me an e-mail; otherwise, similar fruit purees can be used (e.g., unsweetened applesauce).

**** I had leftover millet that I'd prepared in our rice cooker (one part grain to two parts water). For simple guidelines on cooking millet on the stove, check out this site.

And then I got a job

2011-10-17T23:52:00.000-05:00

Not the first thing you expected after a vacation absence, right?

It wasn't what I expected either. But a week before our departure, a posting landed in my inbox offering the chance to work as an online tutor. True grammarian wanted, the ad said, flexible hours available.

I was a little skeptical about the quality of the employer, given the odd (read: unorthodox, bordering on misspelled) abbreviations elsewhere in the text, so I asked Marketing Sis if it looked legit enough to consider -- my goal was to start earning a wage through some form of teaching while still trying to balance that commitment with my own writing, among other necessary fall projects D and I are working on. So when Marketing Sis's magical search skills didn't turn up any employee complaints (or evidence of a scam), I threw together a resume and sent it off. Look at this as a chance to get your feet wet, I told myself, and if it ends up being disastrous, you can always walk away.

The business, it turns out, is owned and managed by one woman out of her home on the opposite side of the country, from which she contracts tutors all over the U.S. for students primarily on the East Coast. She failed to notice my Seattle address and called to interview me two days later at 6 a.m., without any prior contact to schedule said conversation.

I have to admit, I'm not swift to wake up and probably sounded a bit bewildered when I answered, fearing a close relative had gotten sick or injured. But when the woman quickly made her disdain known -- "Do you even remember sending me your application?" she asked, perhaps in response to my silence after she'd introduced herself -- I snapped to attention. Simple oversight, I thought, as I explained the time difference, after which the woman was effusively apologetic. So I padded downstairs from the bedroom, D still half-asleep in the darkness, and took her questions in my pajamas.

"You'll be tutoring students who need help on the grammar section of the SAT exam," the woman explained, which sounded manageable enough, even attractive. Subject-verb agreement, pronoun-antecedent agreement, misplaced modifiers, parallel construction -- I'd always enjoyed the rules of syntax, thanks in part to my own middle-school grammar teacher. The orderliness of language that she'd revealed, the characteristics of each part of speech, the algorithmic ways of determining the functions of each word in a sentence -- I loved all of it. Could I teach it? Oh, yes.

So I left for Hawaii, agreeing to start work within the week of my return.

Given my long silence since the beginning of October, I'm sure you've guessed at this point in the story that the job has turned out to be much more of a commitment than I believed it would be. Not because I have that many students -- there are just four -- but because my employer is more disorganized than, say, a five-paragraph persuasive essay with no thesis statement and randomly collected statements of fact instead of substantiated arguments. Teaching materials? Sent the day of my first tutoring session, minutes before it was supposed to begin. Oh, and did I mention that this woman decided during my absence to assign me some SAT writing students? My feelings on teaching essay writing to college students have been, at best, mixed -- comp instructors, breathe your collective sighs with me! (And then think about doing what you do, only with high schoolers. Mm hmm, specifically what I didn't want this job to be.)

But of course, given my experience, the woman "thought I'd be perfect" and went ahead with the plan without asking if I cared.

I've spent the last week putting some safeguards in place to keep my sanity from leaking out my ear, but let's just say that there's still plenty I need to do in order to get more timely information from my boss before each tutoring session -- and prevent her from transforming my job description any further. I've promised myself that I will live up to my new duties, but I'm drawing the line at further unforeseen demands.

As for our Hawaiian vacation: it was a getaway better than any we could ever have imagined. More on that trip -- which deserves so much more than passing mention -- once I get my work-life balance back.

Nine weeks

2011-09-18T17:45:00.002-05:00

That's how long I've been on this crazy elimination diet.

Yes, I chose not to write about the testing while it was ongoing -- it was life-consuming enough that I needed this space to think about other things, like what I've been examining through my most recent series of musings. I plan to continue adding to that, but more intermittently now that it's established (for me, as a commitment through habit of thought).

In the meantime, I'm beginning to get the much-wanted answers I'd been looking for. Preliminarily, we've determined that dairy products from cows do not love me, as much as I love them. Goat dairy is kinder, but ambiguously so. Eggs lie somewhere in between on that spectrum. Corn and soy are friendly.

Today I will complete one of three different gluten trials, and then we will suspend testing until our return from Hawaii. Our original plan was to be done with all the trials before the trip -- this Thursday! -- but because the dairy tests worked me over so thoroughly, I needed a lot of extra recovery time between each of them, which pushed our testing timeline much further into the fall than I'd anticipated.

I'm a mess of mixed feelings about it all. Relieved to have results at last, some of them quite definitive. Frustrated but resigned to the fact that more testing has to continue when we get back. Disappointed that the dietary limitations we've discovered so far will mean some significant changes to our original vacation plan.

I'd wanted a true getaway, where we'd have largely unstructured time to lie on the beach with a stack of books, bob around in the ocean, catch some tropical sunsets, feed ourselves on inexpensive local cuisine. We can still do plenty of all this -- but we'll have to be vigilant about what I eat that I haven't personally prepared (don't get me started on the pervasiveness of dairy in commercial foods, but do check out this site if you need guidelines for your own dairy sensitivities). And we'll need to cook some food as backup for moments when we're unable to find something that works at those mom-and-pop restaurants (or roadside stands) whose plate lunches or noodle bowls we were so looking forward to sampling. I guess it's the dream of being totally carefree -- not having to think so hard about what needs to be done ahead of time or what contingencies we ought to anticipate -- that is looking more and more unrealistic, and it makes me sad.

Still, I'm determined to be over this by the time we leave. This trip is meant to celebrate our surviving much, much worse. Like, say, all of 2010; the residual aftermath of an extended thesis year; the accumulated tension from the two-year commute that changed us both indelibly.

So I'm making a plan now, to minimize the mental effort we'll have to put in when we arrive. Grocery stores? Located. Cooking facilities? Secured, through our bed-and-breakfast hosts. Restaurant menus? Downloaded and vetted. Restaurant staff? Where practical, already contacted to ask if they can accommodate my dietary needs.

I hope, hope, hope that it all pays off. We may not get to throw caution to the wind, but at least these preparations will let us use the majority of our time to relax, rather than spend it on pesky logistics ...

Scenes from a graduation, part 6: these ceremonial rites

2011-09-10T14:02:00.001-05:00

When we get to the concert hall several hours later, no one is wearing academic regalia -- at least, not yet. The graduates will not arrive for a little while from morning exercises. But there are families milling about, some members clutching black robes striped in kelly green, the colors for those who already hold degrees in medicine. These are for the hooders, most of them parents of the graduates but some of them spouses or siblings.

The gown my mother hands my father is cardinal red.

"He insisted that it had to be this color," she says, rolling her eyes, "because he's a fellow." Red denotes not just my father's doctoral degree but his board certification in a sub-specialty, cardiology. My mother sighs. "Look at him; now he doesn't want to put it on because he knows he'll stand out."

And she's right. As the rest of the hooders begin to unfold their garments, my father hesitates, glancing self-consciously around. Perhaps he's second-guessing his insistence on the "proper" colors for his rank. There are, without question, numerous other fellows in this crowd, but they've all opted to keep the information to themselves. Each doctor will be on stage for mere minutes, half obscured by the graduates they will hood. Why the need to make such a particular visual statement? Pride, yes. But in the case of my father, it feels misdirected. While I can't know for certain what his motivations were when he ordered his robes, I suspect self-importance guided the choice more than the desire to wear his best, so to speak, out of respect for my sister.

I pity him a little, as his insecurity flickers into view. He couldn't help himself, I want to say to my mother, not sure if it's meant to excuse his hubris or condemn it. Neither seems appropriate, so once again, I pull out my camera. Even if I can't sort out the color of my thoughts, I can save the image of the moment to muse on later.

Rewind six months. I am elbow deep in boxes of photos and memorabilia at my parents' house, not sure what I'm there to find, but the clock on my thesis is ticking. The idea of graduation -- mine or anyone else's -- is far from my thoughts.

My mother and I have been talking since late summer about the whirlwind weeks of my parents' courtship. Four, to be precise. They'd started dating in the final month of my father's senior year of college at a Canadian university, after which he started medical school in the U.S., on a campus nine hundred miles away. My mother still had a semester to finish and hadn't planned on moving to another country.

But my parents wanted to remain a couple, she said -- the story of which I'm intrigued by, tempted to write. They'd already started talking about marriage by the end of those four weeks. So they courted by airmail for the entire four years that my father was studying to become a doctor.

In his home office, surrounded by stacks of unread medical journals and copies of call schedules, I finger the edges of a photo taken on the day of my father's medical school graduation. His school, unlike my sister's, does not have a special robe color for degree candidates, so he stands on the lawn that flanks the university chapel, in black and green like the faculty. He is alone in the picture, hands clasped in front, mortarboard as square to the top of his head as his gaze is to the camera.

"Who took the photo?" I ask.

"A classmate," my mother says. It was too expensive for her to fly down for the festivities, she explains a little sadly. "No one from his family went either -- too far to travel from Hong Kong." This latter excuse, we both know, is only half true; my father's parents rarely made much of personal achievements. These were to be expected rather than praised or celebrated, as he'd learned early on in his childhood.

We are quiet for a moment. The story that follows is familiar now to both of us: how my father left for Canada immediately after the degree ceremony, driving all night to get back for their wedding, which was to take place within days. It's misleading, then, this portrait's pomp and circumstance, its staid, unhurried pose. That someone managed to capture it -- my father was likely on his way to his already packed car when his friend offered to take the shot -- was fortuitous and may have been the only moment, however brief, in which someone else shared in his achievement the way a family might have.

It is this image that I suddenly remember in the concert hall foyer, as my father finally lets the folds of cardinal red fall open, and I wonder if he is thinking of that day some thirty years ago, footnoted so fleetingly on film. As he fumbles with the sleeves, the zipper, the hook, his face remains unreadable, his eyes focused solely on the task at hand. Because he has been raised to be this way -- practical, unsentimental -- he will not let on, even if this garment reminds him of the chapel and the lawn and the few seconds' pause before the click of the camera's shutter.

Perhaps my mother remembers the photo too as we reach automatically to help him smooth and straighten. The hood, lined in his alma mater's colors, flops and dangles like a superfluous appendage -- "Hold on! Don't walk off yet!" we tell him as we try to get it to hang at least somewhat centered down his back. When we are finished, my father examines our work and chuckles for the first time that morning, at himself. In spite of the curious looks he's beginning to draw -- "They think he's the university president," my other sister whispers -- he looks pleased.

My father and Almost Dr. Sis see each other for the first time that day from across the concert hall. Or maybe only he sees her. In the images we collect from that hour, my father stands against the right-hand wall leading to the stage while my sister stands on the opposite side. The room is too large to capture them both in the same frame. In my father's picture, though, he is clearly looking toward his daughter, whose own eyes are aimed at the line of deans whose hands she will soon shake.

I do not remember thinking much in this moment, though so much thought has gone before it -- my questions about what I would feel, watching my sister and father partake in this long-running ritual, the symbolic induction into an exclusive circle, both professional and familial. All I know is that I have a job, to record the moment as it unfolds. (The video capabilities of my phone are limited, but it is the best we have.) Though I won't realize it until afterward, I'm relieved to have this duty, to be able to focus on the task so that any other thoughts -- and the emotions they might carry -- do not become overwhelming.

We know they will announce my sister's name, followed by the name of her hooder, but hers has barely been broadcast when we, too excited by the first-time use of the word doctor as her official title, cannot keep ourselves from hooting like fans at a sporting event. My father's name is completely lost in the roar.

A wisp of guilt blooms within my chest -- I would have liked to capture my father's honors here too. I know then that in spite of his ego, I still care that he has missed so much in his life: not just the presence of family -- his and ours -- but the affection that comes with it, something he has been so used to living without. You are important too, I want to tell him, for each moment he ever privately doubted this -- and felt the need to compensate for it.

It takes my sister some time to cross the stage, so we are calm when she finally reaches my father, who stands with hands folded just as he did on the day of his own graduation, serious and proper. She passes her green velvet hood to him, turning to face the audience as the deans have instructed each graduate ahead of time, then bends at the knees slightly, as if curtsying, so my father can place the hood over her head from behind. Even so, he knocks her cap slightly askew. She grins as she straightens it, and -- is it possible? -- seems to look directly at us as we wave. I wonder if my father can see us too.

There is no time to find out; they must exit the stage to make room for other graduates. Quickly, my sister turns to hug my father, her enormous diploma in its cover between them. And then, to my surprise, instead of offering his usual one-handed pat on the back, my father raises both arms, almost as if opening a pair of wings. He folds them around her, pulling her close, draping her in the scarlet of his own mantle, oblivious to the leather folder poking them both in the ribs.

The moment lasts only a few seconds. But his smile, when he finally lets my sister go, is just as broad as hers.

For more from this series, please click here.

Scenes from a graduation, part 5: details

2011-08-12T12:13:00.004-05:00

"Dad's going to ask where he needs to go when you pick him up," says Almost Dr. Sis. I nod, still a little groggy after a few hours' sleep, at the sheaf of maps and schedules tucked next to the gearshift in her car.

In twenty minutes, after I drop my sister off at campus, I will be back in her apartment, where our other sister is still slumbering on the living room couch. At that time, I'll review the route to my parents' hotel that my sister has marked in pen and pink highlighter -- there's a road race that will close many nearby streets; I don't want to get caught in detour traffic -- and I'll reread the printout of the e-mail she's forwarded to our father about where to wait with all the other physicians who will be hooding a graduate. Though she's explained to him that all he needs to know is spelled out on this single piece of paper, we both know he'll ignore it.

It irritates me that as a doctor, this man is meticulous about procedure and expects everyone else he works with to be too, but that for this event, he won't even glance over these instructions. He's trained us well. This little exchange in my sister's car is one of too many in recent years, where we scramble behind the scenes to ensure his good humor. There's too much at stake otherwise, too many casualties in the cycle of blame. If he is tardy, fails to locate the processional line, enters by the wrong door, it will be his loss of face. But he'll tell us that we -- wife and daughters -- should have known where he was supposed to go, and then he'll sulk. The idea rankles because he is unfair, but more so because it would be especially unfair to my sister to have him mar her day so unnecessarily.

I've gone back through every page my sister's given me and added my own notes, just to make sure everything is clear, fighting off the familiar tightness in my chest that makes my breastbone ache whenever we have to keep my father on his best behavior. But I don't say anything as we drive, my sister and I, through the foggy streets of the city toward the university, where I'll deliver her for the all-college commencement exercises. (The rest of us will join her just for her hooding, a separate medical school ceremony.) Frowning into the passenger visor mirror, she fusses with the angle of her cap; I silently admire the blue-black sheen of her hair, which dulls even the rich velvet of the same color.

I can't imagine what is going through my sister's mind in this moment. At one time, I might have tried, but we've both changed -- not unexpectedly -- in these years since we lived under one roof, and the sisterly understanding we may have had when we shared an address has shifted into new territory. I want to sense, as I thought I once could, what she's feeling, but she doesn't speak, and I don't wish to disturb her silence. I can't trust the read I'm getting from the tension in her jaw, but I'm conscious of my own discomfort, that she can sense it, and that it's irritating her.

My thoughts turn to the terse whispers I overheard between my sister and her roommate as I was waking, a misunderstanding about who needed the shower first. (The roommate is on rotation at the hospital.) And then the box of Kleenex I finished shortly afterward -- not seeing a recycling bin but loath to add to the disarray spreading through every room, half of it the detritus of a messy roommate and the rest my sister's packing-in-progress, I catch her while she's ironing her dress. "What do you want me to do with this?" I ask, holding up the empty container.

"Don't recycle it," she says.

Dutifully, I break down the box and put it in the garbage can. Five minutes later, she clucks with dismay. "I needed that to hold other things," she says, exasperated.

It's a simple misunderstanding but somehow an emblematic one too. Such small incongruities -- if these exchanges are so hard for us to navigate, what else will I misinterpret? Back in the car, I'm gun-shy from the memory. Our disconnection feels more pronounced in this space than it has since those first years after I left college, the last home we ever shared.

I will myself to relax for her, not to make things worse. "You look great," I say as she gives her cap one last look in the mirror. I pull up to the curb of a circular driveway; she snatches her robes, peacock blue, from the back seat, and I tell her to call if she needs us to bring anything she's forgotten.

As she crosses the driveway toward the main hall, others in peacock emerge like rare birds. I feel the day's first ripple of excitement in my chest at these sightings, remembering what I am here to celebrate. I want to take out my camera, to catch my sister as she walks away, pulling her robe up by its billowing sleeve while juggling her purse. For a moment, in this awkward pose, she feels less intimidating to me, still very much that confident woman but with the spirit of a little girl playing dress-up.

She turns, though, noticing that I haven't pulled away. Maybe she sees me leaning over the passenger seat as I fumble through my bag and thinks I'm examining the maps to get back to her place. She steps back toward the car; I pull forward and open the window. "You're on A________ now, and you'll turn right onto E________ at the intersection," she says, not unkindly.

I smile and withhold my regret -- no picture, just the memory. I need to get out of the way so she can move on with whatever comes next.

For more from this series, please click here.

Scenes from a graduation, part 4: limits

2011-07-18T11:32:00.002-05:00

Hello! As you may have noticed, the writing's slowed down here -- we are in the midst of a heavy rotation of back-to-back visitors. (Our friends and family know the best time to come to Seattle is in summer, when the sun is out.) We're nearly done with B&B duty, though, so please stay tuned for more!

Dinner is easier -- just family. Although this is the first time we've all been in this city together, most of us have visited my sister enough individually to have dined with her at the place she's chosen for this evening, one known for its seafood. We settle in at the table together, laid with heavy silverware and votive candles, as if we've been doing this for a lifetime.

In a way, we almost have. Fine dining -- whether it's while traveling or at my parents' house -- is what my father has come to enjoy, of very little else, in the last fifteen years, so this is what we do with him. He cites his busy hospital schedule as an excuse for his lack of hobbies. I look at Almost Dr. Sis, who'd usually rather be out -- alone or with friends -- than in on free afternoons and evenings, and know my father's limits are more a product of temperament than anything external.

I'm an admitted homebody. And maybe, just maybe, if I'd become a doctor myself, I would be, like my father, too exhausted to do more than eat. That I resemble him in many ways -- habits, aversions, quickness to anger -- has been undeniable all my life, as much as I've been dismayed as I've grown more and more aware of these similarities. On a scale of predictable to spontaneous, we both skew away from the impromptu and, as a result, miss out on the joys of surprise, happenstance, discovery. Or so I believe, when I see the tension in his small, dark eyes, which mirror my own, as a well-laid plan goes astray.

My father is also, more often than not, testy and demanding, intolerant of change or other people's differing opinions. When these tendencies are at their worst, he's able to clear the living room at home just by walking into it, each daughter conveniently finding a reason to disappear, if only because conversation among us is impossible -- too likely to invite a lecture or judgment from him, born of his need to be in control. Left alone, then, he dissolves into the couch cushions, remote in hand and laptop on his knees, lost to their steady stream of I'm not sure what for the rest of the night, save for our evening meal together. Even then, the news blares from across the room. We try to ignore it; he does not.

I see what he misses -- and what I miss -- because of who we are, and the fear that I will become him tightens around me like a straitjacket. It's irrational; I know I have a chance at a different life than he may ever have because I do see, do fear. Still, when I'm feeling frazzled or inflexible, I have to remind myself that I'm not my father's carbon copy, even as I resist and moderate the tendencies we share, perhaps more rigorously than necessary.

For more from this series, please click here.

Scenes from a graduation, part 3: projection

2011-06-24T12:09:00.013-05:00

In the auditorium of a local hotel, finally done traveling for the day, I slip into a cushy ergonomic chair that rotates. This isn't theater seating; it's conference hall seating. An enormous projection screen dominates the front wall, and the School of Medicine's glossy logo has been carefully applied to the wooden podium beneath it (removable decals, I'm guessing). Individual ethernet jacks and power outlets, built into the console table stretching across each row, make me feel like I ought to fire up my laptop to take notes. But we -- Troubadour Mom and Dad, my youngest sister and I -- pull out cameras instead.

Of course, we're not here for a lecture. This gathering of parents, siblings, children, other relatives, and friends is like Class Day from our undergraduate commencement festivities, a smaller celebration before the next day's all-graduate ceremonies with the lawyers, the engineers, the MBAs, and so forth. Tonight, a class-chosen faculty speaker will bestow light words of wisdom, a classmate will offer humorous reflections on these last few years of training, there will be a few awards, and then we'll all disperse for heavy hors d'oeuvres. My sisters and I share the same alma mater; I wonder if they also feel a certain déjà vu as we wait for the proceedings to begin. But maybe the conference room setting is too different to them. Class Day, so many years ago, was an outdoor folding-chair affair that, in Almost Dr. Sis's case, took place in a downpour.

I have to laugh a little at myself, always seeking the structure of things, the bones of each new experience. Is it just my way of handling the unfamiliar? Perhaps -- the parallels underneath, analogous armatures, ground me. But it is also a way of remembering, better to secure the details. For our family, there will be no other sister who passes through this medical program or any other. One chance, then, to enjoy these moments for what they are.

The soon-to-be graduates process in, the men in suits, most of the women in dresses. Academic regalia is reserved for the next day. I have not yet seen Almost Dr. Sis since arriving -- does she see us? No time for her to look up, but we follow her with both eyes and camera lenses.

I don't snap any shots, though. The pictures I might get would be blurry, I realize -- the camera on my phone isn't the best for subjects in motion -- and I'm happier without the filter of a viewfinder limiting what I can see. I lean forward, watching my sister in a soft white frock, glossy like meringue, cross into her assigned row.

It turns out that she is in charge of presenting the class gift this evening. As she steps toward the podium, the screen behind her suddenly lights up -- the audiovisual crew working this event has zoomed in, and my sister's head, now ten feet tall, smiles back at us in startling digital glory.

And I can't focus on her, the small woman in the flesh at the microphone. Her slight movements -- a nod, a turn, a tilt of the chin -- become giant ones on the screen. I'm reminded for a moment of Dorothy's audience with the Wizard of Oz. Of course, my sister and her video image are identical, unlike the thundering puppet head and its master, but the projection is still a bit disturbing. So dramatically magnified, it draws the eye away from the real person below.

But isn't that the point of it? I think. To help us see better, to allow us an enhanced point of view?

Maybe. I feel like I'm losing something, though, if I ignore the woman standing right in front of me in favor of the bobbing on-screen head. I can't watch both. I try to anyway.

The hors d'oeuvres at the reception are, indeed, heavy. Fortunately, to save me from eating too much, there are scores of my sister's friends to be introduced to. Some I recognize from my last visit a little over a year ago. Others are mentors I've heard of only by name.

There is one woman whose face gives me a double-take. The wire-frame glasses, the slightly upturned nose, the sandy curls, front teeth that peek out below a thin upper lip with a bit of mustache, and that raspy voice with a New York accent -- she is the doppelganger of a professor who has sat on my thesis committee for two years. The woman at Little U. is the sort of person who invited my research methods class, which she also taught, over to her house for potluck on the last night of the semester, just before I moved back to Seattle.

The woman at this reception supervises a group of medical students who travel each summer to run a clinic in South America. I realize my sister introduced me to her on my last visit, at a coffee-shop planning pow-wow for one of those trips. The woman doesn't remember me -- and I don't expect her to -- but the memory of her warm hug from that first meeting comes back as I greet her now. She is effusive, pouring forth compliments about my sister, this class, how special they are to her. It's impossible for me not to remember my own professor's words from potluck night, the same sort of praise overflowing from her in uncannily similar tones.

I'm not looking for these parallels in this moment; they've somehow found me. But for once they aren't grounding. In fact, I realize, I wish not to see what I see this time because it's made me aware of the other comparisons I can't help making -- between the path I chose, to write, and the path I rejected, to become a doctor myself. At one point, that was what I truly believed I wanted to do.

The need to be present for this rite of passage, then, the importance of getting here. You wanted to see what could have been, a voice whispers in my ear, and I recoil.

Don't, I hiss back silently, guiltily. This isn't about you. I glance around the circle my family has made around my sister and the woman who continues to effervesce. Good -- they haven't noticed the extra head I've suddenly grown, or the conversation I'm having with it.

For more from this series, please click here.

Scenes from a graduation, part 2: compromises

2011-06-14T12:56:00.004-05:00

To my relief, the electronic monitors at O'Hare have no abnormalities to report. There's just enough time to grab a salad from one of the vendors on the walk between Terminals H and G, call D to let him know all is well, and fall into line at my connecting gate.

I am, short of my footwear, dressed for the evening reception we'll be heading to directly from the airport -- no time to change -- so I'm careful as I poke my fork into the chicken and greens in my lap, wary of wayward dressing drips. Though I would have preferred one of my favorite dresses, a soft silk whose pattern reminds me of thin washes of gray ink with occasional streaks of butter-yellow watercolor, I've opted for darker wool slacks and a pink paisley blouse. Still pretty, but slightly less feminine -- at least, as it feels to me. But I guess that's the point: in pants, I can stride, even run if I have to, without having to worry that my skirt has rotated or hiked itself into unladylike territory.

As I eat, I make note of the things I have to do when I land: call family, find bathroom, apply makeup, change sneakers to heels, unpack purse from luggage, transfer wallet and phone. The makeup and purse are already within easy reach toward the top of the items in my backpack, the shoes at one end of my suitcase. The heels are low in case I have a lot of walking to do with the heavy bags. I am, if nothing else, extremely practical.

I know, though, that my mother and sisters will all be in dresses tonight, that this will bother me even though I resist the feeling adamantly. This -- blouse, slacks -- is what is comfortable for me on this 2,500-mile travel day, and yet, in their company, it will leave me not ill at ease but something like it. As if my lack of willingness to do as they would -- just wear the dress -- is indicative of some personal deficit in the quality all Troubadour women ought to have, a tolerance for inconvenience in the name of feeling our outward best.

I picture the gritty airport bathroom stalls at my final destination, the acrobatics of changing in that narrow space with luggage to boot, and I know I will feel anything but my best -- inside or out -- after attempting a transformation there. I'll be meeting my sister's doctor colleagues and doctor professors, whom I'm mildly intimidated by, at this evening's reception, and I'd prefer not to be fighting a case of the cranks after playing public restroom Twister. So, gaping toilet? Questionably sanitary walls on which to hang so many dry-clean-only garments? Given my choices, I'd rather feel the needling sadness of being conflicted over how I look, sadness that I can't just be confident in this fairly inconsequential decision, rather than feeling certain frustration with trying to be more than I'm able. Just for today, anyway.

For more from this series, please click here.

Scenes from a graduation, part 1: getting there

2011-06-05T12:34:00.003-05:00

This is the first in a series of posts chronicling my whirlwind second half of May -- there was too much to put in a single post, and the trip generated much for me to think about, so here's the compromise: a story in parts. For the entire series, please click here.

My suitcase gapes at me from the bedroom floor and I wonder if the zipper will close. Nine days of clothing for three different cities with three different climates and three different kinds of celebration -- this is what I have to pack within the confines of a single carry-on.

My first stop on this trip is Almost Dr. Sis's graduation from medical school, which promises to be cold and rainy. Very rainy. Here in Seattle, we're used to mist and drizzle, but in the Midwestern town where she's lived for half a decade now, there are thunderheads gathering and a long sweep of heavy gray downpour following behind.

On this Friday afternoon, I've just tucked a pair of wool slacks into place -- it promises to reach the mid-40s in the evening, though we're in the latter half of spring -- when the phone rings. It's my mother. "Our connecting flight was canceled and we're driving from Chicago," she says, with irritation. "Can you look up directions for us?"

I can hear my father at the wheel in the background naming interstates. "Do I want 290? 294? Ask her which one, which way -- " His agitation rises with what I'm guessing is each passing road sign. They are on the arteries that skirt O'Hare, circling blindly.

My mother tries to address my father's question before I've even had a chance to grab my laptop from the bed. He doesn't trust her answer; they bicker. I fumble at the keyboard, calling up maps, the hair on the back of my neck beginning to stand on end. The memory of previous car trips from childhood: my mother misreading directions, their ensuing fights, my sister and me shrinking small and silent in the back seat with our younger sister, still a baby, between us. My hands work faster now as their voices escalate.

"Here," I say. They're too busy arguing to notice. "Mom. Mom." No answer. In my own home, two thousand miles away, their presence is suddenly too loud, too close. "WILL YOU BOTH SHUT UP ALREADY?"

Silence.

I wince, expecting even now, as an adult, a sharp reprimand from my father for my tone of voice, but maybe only my mother has heard me clearly -- she is the one holding the phone. I plunge ahead before either of them can say anything, offering exit numbers and mileage estimates in lieu of an apology. "It's about seven hours," I note.

"We'll make it in less time," my mother assures me. "You know how Dad drives. By the way, he wants to know which flight you're on tomorrow."

I suppress a sigh, knowing my father is worried that I'll end up in the same predicament -- except with the graduation ceremonies scheduled for Sunday morning, I'll have much less of a window to get from Chicago to my final destination. It matters. My father, a doctor himself, will be the one to place the doctoral hood on my sister, a moment that, to me, feels somehow essential to witness in person, though there will be professional photographers and videographers to capture it all. And I wonder, suddenly face to face with that truth, why it should be so. Of course I am proud of her. But it is more than just being present to let my sister know, more than sitting in the same room with her for this long-anticipated, hard-won induction into the professional circle my father has been a part of for many decades. What is it? I ask myself. And -- with even more curiosity, as I suspect it is for different reasons -- what is it that makes my presence so important to him?

There isn't time in this afternoon to muse, only to finish packing. "Can she take the red-eye tonight?" I hear my father ask.

"No, but I'll look into bus options for tomorrow afternoon, just in case," I promise.

On the jet bridge the next morning, I check my seat assignment: 10A, on a window. When I can, I pick seats with a view; it helps with the tendency toward motion sickness both my sister and I have inherited from my father.

As I step into my row, however, I'm greeted by a solid wall. No porthole, not even half of one like some seats get when they happen to fall between windows. Just a beige expanse of siding. I peer at 10F on the opposite side of the aisle; the oval pane there throws light back at me, ordinary as can be.

I feel, not surprisingly, closed in against this blank barricade. I check the status of my next flight on my phone; still on time. But this flight, the captain suddenly tells us over the intercom, will be delayed. Chicago's still having weather.

D has my flight information and instructions to be near his phone around the time I'm supposed to land at O'Hare, in case he has to make a quick bus ticket purchase for me online. Will I be able to make my connection? Will there be a connection to make? I turn my frown to the wall to my left. I can't see what's on the other side, can't see what's to come.

It is the first flight I'm taking from Seattle after finishing my thesis, and for a moment, when we finally leave the runway, I'm a little giddy. When the flight attendant announces that we may now use approved electronic devices, I will not need to wrestle my laptop from my backpack and attempt to write. The goal I've been working toward for four years is all but done; only Little U.'s approval of the document -- formatting compliance, verification of my committee's signatures endorsing the final submission -- is pending. Perhaps by Monday, I tell myself, the day my sisters and I will fly to Texas to spend the middle of the week at our parents' home.

But as I speed toward the thunderheads in Chicago, without a view and without the deadlines I've been so used to, I'm forced to sit with my new lack of purpose. It's only transient, I know. Still, I envy, just a little, my sister's waiting future. A residency at a prestigious hospital in Boston is the next step for her. What the experience will hold is certainly unknown, but it's better defined than the summer I have before me. The plans for whatever I choose to do next with my life still wait to be constructed.

The plane banks as the captain adjusts our trajectory. I turn automatically to the window I don't have and feel my stomach protest. A quick glance to the right, to the view I can steal from 10F. It's limited, but it's better than nothing.

In the last two weeks, I ...

2011-05-26T18:05:00.000-05:00

... visited three cities in three separate time zones via seven airports.

... slept, because of travel, an average of five hours per night. Yes, an average.

... received final clearance on my thesis from Little U. on the Prairie.

Which of the above is the most likely reason I've been catching up on R&R in the last 24 hours (and, as a result, neglecting* this blog)?

* A return to more regularly scheduled programming is promised as soon as the circles under my eyes are a little less prominent. I'm off to take another nap.

It's not starting over

2011-05-11T12:06:00.001-05:00

It's just a new point of embarkation.

That's where I feel I am, now that Monday is past. That's when I mailed my final deposit of my manuscript to Little U., where, hopefully, it will arrive and undergo review for archiving by the end of the week. Once it receives clearance, I will be DONE. My degree should arrive in the mail in late summer.

We -- D and I -- are thankful to have this nearly behind us. It's been an incredible strain on both of us for four years, first because of the return to a commuter relationship it required and secondly because the thesis portion dragged out and drew resources from me in ways that made our marriage suffer. I can't begin to encapsulate how exactly that worked (or, rather, didn't), but the effect was a stagnation in our growth as a couple. We'd never had the chance to have a "normal" existence together because of the long-distance situation that limited us before we were married and then our work schedules afterward (D worked days and I worked nights and weekends). We did our best, but we were inexperienced. We floundered.

The holding pattern we maintained during this last year was only just bearable, with much of the credit to the help we sought. Now that thesis work is essentially done, we are refocusing on what we need to get to a better place.

D's been angry about the idea of starting over. That's how it all feels to him -- that somehow, everything we'd been through in the last twelve years together "didn't count." I'd argue that it very much does. We learned a lot of survival skills; they just don't apply as much anymore.

So, as we construct a new set, I'm doing my best to foster some optimism for both of us, even though he's not quite there yet. It's exhausting. You want, at times, to scream when you feel someone else scattering the fragile pieces of hope you've propped together like tinder waiting for a spark. But it's not nearly as crazy-making as battling a past-due project, deadlines come and gone, alone. As much as D wanted to, he couldn't help me write, and the responsibility I felt for our misery put me in a constant low-level panic (with intermittent high-level spikes). Now that the precipitating factor for much of that is gone -- and I'm saying no to any new deadlines that involve paying tuition on top of having to meet them -- I feel like the balance in our dynamic has a chance at restoration.

There will, without question, be other events to throw that balance off. But before then, my hope is that we'll have better tools in place to make what comes more manageable. That this will be our hope soon.

Things I can no longer ignore

2011-05-01T10:47:00.001-05:00

It's funny how timing works out.

I've had my head in my thesis pretty steadily (and intensely) since February -- and in the midst of concentrating on the project with so much of my brain, I had to let a lot of other things on my radar remain, at best, peripheral. Which included some aspects of my health. Nothing debilitating: some skin irritation, nerve wonkiness in my hands and feet, intermittent GI protests. The last issue has been ongoing since the middle of 2009 (despite the work-up a year ago), and after so long, I'd practically gotten used to it.

But about two days before I turned in my thesis to my committee, things started to get noticeably worse. Fortunately, I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor (the new one) the day after my draft was due, and her advice, after hearing everything that had been going on for so long, was to consider a food sensitivity as the culprit.

"Gluten and dairy," she said -- these were the most likely suspects. So she suggested an elimination diet followed by an allergen challenge. "Just try going gluten-free for three weeks then dairy-free for three weeks," she said, "and see what happens."

What else is a girl to do with all her newly available time?

I took the news back to my dietitian, who happens to specialize in this kind of testing, and she printed up the protocols. I figured the process wouldn't be fun, but it would be short-lived. Then I looked at the instructions.

"To make this kind of testing accurate and meaningful, you'll want to do more than eliminate gluten and dairy," she told me, pointing to a greatly expanded list of foods and food additives. "Sensitivities can occur in groups. So ideally, you'll want to test all of them."

I won't reproduce the whole catalog here. But let me name a few choice items besides gluten and dairy. Corn. Soy. Eggs. Peanuts. Tomatoes. Peppers. White potatoes. Processed and/or non-organic meats. Shellfish. Strawberries. All citruses. Caffeine. Alcohol. Refined sugars and artificial sweeteners. Processed oils. The list is, even for someone who already has experience with dietary restrictions, more than daunting. And the diet has to be followed for nine weeks, four to allow the body to get rid of residual allergens, then five that cycle in -- very carefully -- each group of potential irritants, one set at a time every third day.

Let's just say this isn't how I envisioned I'd be spending most of the summer.

There is an upside: if I can get this done by mid-September, I will potentially know exactly what's making me feel less than terrific -- and, after getting rid of the little menace(s), be able to go to Hawaii feeling better.

So. After the thesis is officially finished, I'll be looking into the logistics of this new project. It wouldn't be quite so intimidating if I lived on my own and had no one else to answer to. But we've been looking forward to being more social, inviting people over for potluck, taking an extended bike trip with a few friends, visiting and being visited by family. All of that suddenly seems incompatible with the trial because it's inconvenient for the people around me. Imagine subjecting visitors to all of those restrictions when we eat at home or outside the house. Or, in the opposite vein, consider the culinary acrobatics of preparing dual meals so guests can eat "normally," hosting a potluck but not eating what your friends have prepared, going to restaurants but not ordering anything and packing my own food to consume before or after. (Seriously, what are the chances a mainstream eatery will have something, besides a naked lettuce leaf, free of refined sugar, processed oil, corn, soy, eggs ...)

And then there are those looks. The ones you get from people who don't understand your limits and, once they realize just how many there are, back away warily. I shouldn't have to apologize for my circumstances but I often feel like it's warranted -- for the relatively few restrictions I have now, which already make some people uncomfortable.

I know -- those instances are occasional and I shouldn't expect to run into them all the time, but they reduce me to a sense of profound and irrational loneliness. I can't let that prevent me from doing the testing and I can't let the testing keep me from having a life. But how?

Well, if there's anything I'll learn from this experiment, it will be some kind of answer to that question.

Printed and mailed!

2011-04-21T18:15:00.000-05:00

And good riddance.

I can't say I like the revision I sent to my committee on Monday afternoon, but in the limited time I had to address all the comments from my advisor, I did the best I could with the file. The hard copy, which goes to the graduate college review board for more technical assessments (formatting for the purposes of binding, archiving, etc.), went out from the post office today.

So I am, until my defense a week from Monday, free of responsibility for this draft!

The last two weeks have been disheartening because the writing really did become an endeavor for the purpose of finishing my degree, to satisfy my advisor's concerns rather than adhering to the larger vision I had (and still have) for the book project. Because the work is by nature incomplete -- writing a book and writing a thesis are not on the same scale -- and because the thesis also needs to be "complete," i.e., must set forth enough evidence of thought and inquiry into my subject to merit a sense of a focused investigation, I found myself revising at cross-purposes when I tried to satisfy my instincts and my professor's. Obviously, she and the rest of my committee will determine whether I graduate, so I ended up making some changes that I will be taking out again once I have the degree in hand. (I'm trying not to think about the remaining round of post-defense revisions that I'll have to complete before that happens.)

Life here has calmed down some since my last post. It's a relief. Thank you to the lovely people who sent private words of encouragement -- you know who you are. You helped me endure a craptacular two weeks where everything seemed to go pear-shaped and I had no choice but to get through it.

In the interim before my defense, I'll be doing some serious decompression (in between a lot of backlogged household chores). And I have a new project. Not one I'd say I elected to take on, but one that has taken on unexpected priority. More on that very soon ...

How to eff the ineffable

2011-04-07T11:43:00.002-05:00

A writer classmate of mine once used that phrase, which she'd acquired from a former professor. I'm invoking it now because, well, there's a lot I'd like to eff.

I don't mean eff as in that wonderfully flexible expletive I would have liked to utter (as noun, adjective, verb, or other part of speech -- thank you, George Carlin) when, at the end of yesterday, my manuscript was not in my hands. Yes, I've e-mailed my professor to get the tracking number.

No, I mean, the unbloggable kind of things I'd like to eff. There are those things that, though usually not trotted out in conversation with acquaintances, I do write about here: thoughts on family, thoughts on illness.

But then there's the stuff of ugly fights, in person, on the phone. The kinds of things you take to a mediator because you just don't have the perspective to work through them in a constructive way. Because both parties involved are raw.

That's been the last month, after many more months of buildup. And I'm not inclined to go into it here because it's not constructive. Not yet.

But that plan for getting through thesis? Well, it works when it's just thesis stuff getting me down. It's not enough for the specific kind of loneliness you feel after you hang up (by mutual agreement), after you sit for hours in silence not knowing what to say or do (because the alternative -- speaking -- will make things worse).

This is what makes my thesis feel so pointless sometimes.

Yes, we have professionals lined up; yes, it's helping. A lot. I don't want to imagine where we'd be without all that in place. We are so new, however, to the changes we've agreed to make, so used to the old habits. Under duress, we fall back on what we know and everything refragments.

I confess: yesterday, I totally effed my plan. Today, I get back to it. And reshape it to address what I can't eff here.

Pruning and grafting

2011-04-05T12:20:00.002-05:00

My manuscript is somewhere over the U.S. today.

I'd e-mailed the full draft to my advisor last week, as instructed. She wrote me a harried reply late Sunday night to say she'd only started reading it that day, was halfway through, and was exhausted. (She's teaching an overload and is on seven other thesis committees, she said, as she's said numerous times this semester.) She'd been writing directly on the hard copy she'd printed off. Could I give her my address so she could mail it to me, two-day air? Just the first six chapters. On the seventh, she'd had nothing to suggest.

Nothing? That gave me some pause. They say any editor, when she's giving your work the attention it ought to have, should be able to find something.

I gave my advisor the information, hoping she'd keep duplicates in case what she was sending got lost. I almost asked her if she'd do that for me, just for my own peace of mind. But I couldn't quite ask her to make copies. She was already fried. She didn't need to hear my implied mistrust -- of her judgment, the postal service, the universe. I'm working on that last one, but old habits die hard, especially after last year.

When that package hits the front porch tomorrow, I'll need to be in the frame of mind to dive in, assess what and where to add or subtract with my advisor's guidance, limited as I'm afraid it might be. And I knew that, when I sent it off, given her increasingly frazzled notes in the last two months. So I took the last days of the previous week and the weekend to leave the draft completely, to prepare myself: laundry, yard cleanup. I can't edit well when I'm surrounded by clutter.

The lavender we planted two summers ago is turning green again after the winter. And it was looking leggy. I squatted for an hour, clipping away dead wood, tidying, shaping, peering at tiny silver shoots, trying to determine how the plants would look in a few weeks' time when they had filled out.

This morning, I saw them from the kitchen window -- six little fuzzy globes by the flagstone walk -- and mumbled some kind of prayer: let me be able to see what I need to see tomorrow and for the rest of this month.

The routine my advisor and I have kept for the past two years has been more like this: I send her pages; she writes a note back summing up her general impressions with a list of specific concerns at the end. It sounds like I'll be getting the specifics as they appear in the margins, but the big picture, right when it really matters? That's what she won't be pulling together for me; she asked my permission, in a way, to be excused from that. I'm disappointed. If there was ever a time that the larger impression felt crucial -- but I can't worry about it. There just isn't anything more I can ask of her, so enough. I'll make do.

Six little fuzzy globes, six hairy chapters. At least it's not a delicate bonsai ...

Addendum 4/6: No package as of 8 p.m. PDT. Insert choice expletive here.

Alternatives

2011-03-30T17:54:00.002-05:00

The hazards of heavy deadlines: a heavier Troubadour.

Not by much, but I can feel it in the way my clothes fit and I know exactly where it's coming from. I wish I could say it's just the excuse and abuse of a few irresistible restaurant menus from celebrating our birthdays earlier this month (both D and I had them). But really, it's days of an extra spoonful of this at lunch, an additional morsel of that at dinner, straight-up standing in the kitchen with one's head in the pantry in search of something to take the edge off all the stress, the kind that builds up in between those outings I wrote about last week. Salty or sweet, this girl has been going after snacks that sate her inner child who is long past tired of being told just one more page, hell, one more sentence ...

And I need to, um, scale that back.

But I also need alternatives. Because I still have a month to go before the defense -- Chapter 7 is heading off to my advisor tomorrow, after which we will do a broad assessment of the project for the purposes of revision -- and mental resources are running thin. I'm still five pages short. There are other unbloggable things going on that are making me crazy in my downtime. And my habit of medicating with food, while a tried-and-true (tried-and-false?) quick fix so I can get back to the so-called degree-finishing plan, is not working in my favor.

I'm holding myself to this by writing it here -- a plan to help me deal with my other plan. To wit, instead of sticking my head in the pantry, I will ...

stick my head in a book, even if only for fifteen minutes. And if I don't like the one I have on hand, I'll go find another one. Who says you have to read books one at a time? Different moods, different texts. To make this work, I'd better pile a few choice items in one place. It's ridiculous, but the endgame of thesis writing increases personal inertia some thirty fold. Don't ask me about the laundry that hasn't been done.

do something nice for somebody else. Small things that don't take a lot of time, like looking up and e-mailing a recipe that someone asked you about. Because if you're thinking about other people, you're not thinking about yourself, and that is EXACTLY what I need when I'm trying to get away from my own stress.

work on plans to go to Hawaii. Yes, travel preparations come with their own stress, but what's fifteen minutes of reading about where I might stay/sunbathe/swim in a lagoon fed by a natural waterfall/forget I ever thought this degree was a good idea/reward myself for getting done?

indulge in some TV via Hulu or Netflix. I usually save this exclusively for when I'm working out on the elliptical machine, but since January, I've been writing while on it (a funny picture, I'm sure, but it works). So I have a backlog of shows I keep telling myself I'll get to. Such entertainment without accompanying cardio may indeed lower my resting metabolism further, but at least it's not more calories in, just fewer calories out.

look up potential bike trails in our area. Summer is coming, and D and I want to try a few local outings once all of this thesis business is out of the way. It's not skiing, but we need an outdoor physical activity during non-snowy months that we enjoy together. We've figured out it's one of the better ways we bond.

Okay, I think that's enough for now. Take that, thesis! I will get done with you yet.

Feelers

2011-03-21T20:06:00.006-05:00

I've been quiet here, I know. It's a mixed silence, some of it imposed largely out of respect for the devastation in Japan. What sorts of things that I normally write about here have any importance in the face of the aftermath there? I've watched the headlines, counted my blessings. Inched forward with writing elsewhere -- thesis, primarily, and other notes to self.

I'm on the home stretch, despite my advisor's rejecting my most recent plan to get my page count where it needs to be. We don't do analysis in this program, she said; it's not required. By which she meant, no, I don't want a report. I want more of the story.

So I went back to my draft. She'd looked it over and sent good comments, so I had new ideas on how I might make Chapter 6 grow. Early last week, I forwarded a revision to her. Now, with Chapter 7 under construction, I have just nine pages or so to go.

It's a relief -- April 1st is my goal for the final chapter -- but it's also meant a certain amount of living under a rock (beyond reading the online news). I'm taking it in stints. Each weekday, a morning session, an afternoon session. Nights off. At the worst part of the struggle to get Chapter 6 started, I was staring at the screen at all hours, still getting nowhere.

To counter the feeling that I'm turning into an earwig, I've imposed mandatory outings that involve interaction with people. To get lunch with new acquaintances during the week (a girl has to eat). To peruse an art exhibit on a Saturday afternoon, to attend the symphony with D on a weeknight, even to ski. For that last one, I took the thesis with me and nearly got carsick working on it while D drove into the mountains, but it was worth the effort. I wrote until I was nauseated and then skied until my legs threatened to buckle. Went back home with a clear head, which, above all, is what I need to keep my writing brain moving.

It's not what I expected my writing process to be, but it's true that you can't write well if you spend all your time with your attention turned within. So I'll take it, even if the workaholic in me keeps tapping my shoulder and pointing at the time.

Nine pages. The end's in sight.

Addendum 3/22: Airline tickets for the defense have been purchased. No turning back now!

Creative writing?

2011-03-04T19:31:00.001-06:00

Another week, and still not much progress. My thesis is trying to write itself in the best way it can, but there's no brain behind it. Or rather, no heart. The paragraphs I've strung together have technical finesse, but the words feel hollow and directionless, like a blurry facsimile of the real story I want somehow to tell. And the writer in me knows it. After letting the thesis grow so many lines of text, like mutant tentacles searching for a place to catch hold, my own brain balks. This just isn't going anywhere, it says.

I've hit the point in the narrative where the story is too big for me to see its arc again. Unfortunately, this isn't a block that can be solved by reading the words of other writers for reinvigoration. In a way, it's like I've been trying to work my way out of the center of a bull's eye. The tiny circle in the middle was the first chapter; the next ring out, the four that followed. Finding a vantage point from which to see that second group of chapters took months -- from last February to last August -- and I don't have the luxury of time anymore.

I have some twenty pages to fill and two years' worth of research. Even if the story isn't falling into place, my process of seeking answers is certainly well documented. So my plan, which I've now e-mailed my advisor, is to use all of that to write an afterword. It'll give voice to a lot of questions that haven't yet been asked within the narrative and reveal the as-yet-unaddressed pieces of the story, rough as their introduction there might feel to me.

It's not the way I want to finish this. But finished is what this needs to be.

Addendum 3/6: My laptop fried a portion of its hard drive today. First the adapter cord, now the disk itself? I'm not liking this trend.

Note(s) to self

2011-02-25T17:32:00.000-06:00

I feel like I need to write them.

I have been, actually. A quick e-mail here and there, just a sentence or two. Don't forget to do this, be sure you remember to pick up that, call this person, mail that letter, tell yourself these things because if you don't, they will blow away like powdery snow that refuses to stick.

But there's more than a list of chores accumulating in my inbox. There are ideas, baby ones, for writing. For essays that will have to wait till the thesis is done.

Trust me, I'd work on both if I could, but I know the limits of my energy and concentration. Still, I'm excited. For so long, I've wondered if all I had was this work, and if it was never to get finished or I lost interest, what then?

What then.

I wrote about inspiration in the days after my conference, and then I found myself without it last week. Out of some instinctive need, I went to the library and turned to the voices of the writers I'd met -- some in person, some through the mention of their work. And the fog in my mind began to clear.

It was not the exact subject or idea that helped me. In fact, reading someone else's work on the same thing you might be writing about can be very intimidating -- it's been done, it's so easy to think. And there are critics who will say that it's true, that love and death and trauma are all tired topics. But it's not the what of the writing; it's the how. One of the panels I attended was dedicated to that idea, what happens when we're told that something is too "done" -- or so the language runs -- to write about anymore.

I came away from that panel with more resolve behind what I'd been trying to do in the last few years. Not that this alone can clear those pesky blocks from my mind when the work doesn't know where it needs to go. But in reading the prose of one of the panel members this week, I was able to get away from my own tangled thoughts and understand, through her way of narrating her story, that sometimes not knowing how to proceed is itself the fiber that can tie words together. Instead of trying to sew up holes, I needed to point them out. And what each person doesn't know, how she navigates that -- this is what fingerprints a work, making it its own.

Chapter 6 is at last under way, and no, I still don't know where it will end up. But I know with certainty now that this is okay. That the examination of the unknown itself may be just where it needs to go.

Thank you to everyone who's sent me suggestions, exercises, and even talismans for kicking the writer's block! It's been incredibly helpful to know you're cheering me on.

Wordless

2011-02-21T20:49:00.001-06:00

So I turned in Chapter 5.

And then I crashed.

Not that I wasn't trying to get the next part of this thesis done -- I spent every day last week staring at a blinking cursor, typing sentences only to delete them or hit enter to move them down the page because they led nowhere. False starts. Words that felt labored and unclear because the direction of the work itself, at this juncture, is nebulous too.

I fear these moments most. Chapter 5 closed a major section of the project -- an accomplishment to be proud of. But with it, the momentum of the story shut down too. There's much more I need to say, and in turning this work into a book after I finish my MFA, I will. But for now, for the next two or three chapters that I must write to make my page count to graduate, I need to know what piece comes next in this puzzle. And because all the previous chapters have so cleanly packaged themselves together (not something I anticipated, but that's where the writing went), it's like I'm starting a new thesis, in a way.

I'm not good at beginnings. And last week, in the face of this unexpected return to one, I thrashed, going back again and again to the keyboard when I should have just given myself a break. You see, I wanted to speed up the process. These blocks don't crumble without a lot of trial and error, and I figured the more time I put in, the sooner I'd find a way through.

It hasn't happened. And after so many miserable days, I need a new approach. So I'm reading other writers' words, hoping for inspiration, and trying to ignore that feeling of powerlessness as the clock ticks on.

It's still staggering.

Reconnecting

2011-02-10T20:46:00.003-06:00

The conference is over, and I'm spent. Three days of attending panels, meeting editors and agents, and familiarizing myself with -- well, I'm not sure there's a term to describe what the ins and outs of being a writer entails. It's art and business and mentorship and a tenuous work-life balance, at the very least. I got to hear about that in detail from many different people, who have experienced it in vastly different ways.

I'm still wrapping my head around it all. And I hope to do that in part by writing about it here. But first, I need to get down in words a different story that has run alongside the writing I've been doing for many years.

When I was an intern at a magazine in D.C., the summer before I started my last year of college, a fairly prominent photographer, but not one I'd ever heard of, gave a talk during lunch. He was about sixty at the time, married without children. He spoke about his work, which took him around the world, but more importantly, he spoke about how he came to it from a childhood in rural Ohio and described the family he grew up with there. While he didn't say this explicitly, I saw how their stories were entwined with his and, as a result, were knitted into the photos and writing he crafted long after he'd moved away, like fiber wicking ink.

Under his words whispered a stranger language that my ear didn't understand but some other part of me did. I wouldn't have called it a soul at the time, but I will now. It sat up and took notice, recognizing, though we'd never spoken directly, writing-kin. I was only beginning to learn, in crafting narrative essays, what he seemed to be demonstrating in his photos: the act of examining one's life by looking at and documenting, counterintuitively, the lives of others we encounter. And I wanted to say, yes -- yes! This is what my work is for me too, and thank him for revealing this to me, even as more questions about that impulse threatened to overtake the thought before it was fully formed.

He invited the interns in attendance to contact him at any time after his talk if we had questions or were interested in chatting more, so I sent him a note toward the end of the summer. Coffee, I suggested. Dinner, he replied, his treat. And so, at a tiny Japanese restaurant, with a chef who would introduce me to my first taste of sushi, we talked in the way an intern and a mentor might about writing and life -- or were they, in some breaths, the same? -- until the lights were bright on the sidewalk and the heat of the city had gone.

We didn't speak again for years. I graduated, began teaching, got engaged, took a different job that leached what soul I did know I had from me, planned a wedding, and neglected my writing throughout it all. Then came grad school and commuting, not a year after D and I were married. I had no reason to go to D.C., and certainly nothing I felt compelled to share with this man who had encouraged me in his own way to pursue what mattered to me. The challenge of the commute overshadowed my work at Little U., and it made me doubt my drive to write. I stared at white space without excitement or joy or even curiosity about what might appear.

But I remembered what the photographer had said in his talk, so many years ago, about his own challenges before a near-empty page. "Never stop in a tidy place," he said. "Leave a sentence unfinished, an idea only halfway developed, a paragraph mid-stride, as it were. That way, when you come back, you will be able to pick up and re-engage."

So as I did begin to put one word in front of another in this last year, I followed his advice. And the work that has emerged is in some ways the result.

Once I knew I'd be going to D.C. for my conference, I wanted to find the photographer to return, at the very least, the kindness of the meal he'd treated me to. I found his name in a posting for a photography class several months old, but fresh enough that the media contact might still know how to reach him. I wrote to her, telling her in brief this story.

Two days later, the photographer wrote me back. "I remember you well and have often wondered where you were and what [you] have been doing," he said. He'd moved away from D.C. but still visited the city from time to time to meet with his editor. "So please tell me when you will be there. Perhaps your visit will coincide with one of my trips. I hope so."

On Monday, we met for lunch. I was early and tried in vain not to be nervous; he was late and put me completely at ease. From the moment we saw each other, it was as if we were simply picking up the conversation we'd suspended. And so we talked about writing and life, just as before, but this time as friends.

I remembered then what it was to love what I do but even more so how much a connection to other writers is essential to me in sustaining such a solitary art. So I am glad for this dialogue we've restarted, one that promises to continue for a long time. As it turns out, the photographer visits Seattle once a year, so we have an informal standing get-together for the foreseeable future.

As for that strange language I first heard during his talk, I was surrounded by it all week, even in the moments when I was overwhelmed by all there was to take in. So I think it's safe to say I was doing what I needed to for a long-forgotten part of me, and I won't question that further. Or at least, not as much -- as long as this language is mine to hear.

And there goes another one

2011-02-02T14:10:00.000-06:00

Fastest chapter on record -- yes, No. 5 is off into the electronic ether. It may very well remain out there for a few days while both my advisor and I are at this week's conference (assuming she's able to get in tonight), but that's fine. I'm relieved that it's off my desk and I can now focus on the next few days here.

Speaking of here, I very nearly didn't make it because of the weather yesterday. But I was lucky enough (seriously, how long has it been since I've gotten to say those words!) to finagle a flight change out of Seattle when my original itinerary through Dallas was canceled -- as well as the second and third rebookings automatically generated by the airline's computer system. No. 2 routed me through Chicago (into even heavier snow?); No. 3 put me back through DFW on the red-eye (16 hours after my original flight, into sub-zero conditions in a metropolis that handles temperatures in the 20s only rarely). Damned connecting cities!

I'm no fan of six-hour flights, but when the very cranky gate agent I sidled up to managed to find the last open spot on a nonstop operated by a partner airline, I was delighted. So, only an hour after I was originally supposed to take off, I squeezed into a seat between two gentlemen and tried to get comfortable.

Believe it or not, that's where I finished Chapter 5.

It was definitely a challenge, trying to do that with so many interruptions -- captain's announcements, the shuffling of beverages, turbulence (the flying-over-a-blizzard kind, not just a few bumps here and there). But with the new laptop battery that arrived just in time for the trip, I got a solid two hours of writing done. A big thank-you to my seatmates for being the quiet kind (one seemed to be studying for an interview; the other was writing a PowerPoint presentation on his own laptop). Not that I don't like being social, but the window of opportunity was invaluable.

So now I'm on page 51. Twenty-four to go ...

I just wanted a trim, really

2011-01-27T18:34:00.001-06:00

Next Tuesday, I will get on a plane and head for the Other Washington, where I'll be attending a conference. It promises to be lively -- hundreds of writers talking about what they do, how they do it, and why. So I'm excited. Mostly. After all, it's also intimidating to wander among the well-published or -- gulp -- their agents.

I'm in prep mode, trying to get all my ducks in order before I leave. Bills paid? Check. Clothes washed? Almost check. Toiletries packed? Check, and check. How about a haircut? Check ... please.

I present, for your amusement, a conversation (sort of) that transpired when I went for a trim this week. Let's just say that the small talk the stylist tried to engage me in was not what I'd expected.

Scene: a local bargain-basement hair salon (conveniently advertising half-price cuts). The service in the past has been hit-or-miss because of the rotating staff. But the long layers our protagonist usually requests are a fairly straightforward job, and even a few misplaced snips disappear within two weeks as her hair grows out. For $7.99, it's still a deal.

Hairdresser: [Draping her client in a smock] "What would you like today?"

C. Troubadour: "Just a clean-up on the ends, please."

H: "No problem."

She begins combing and snipping. CT watches in the mirror but stays quiet so as not to disturb the woman's concentration.

H: [As she runs her fingers through a section on one side] "Love that Asian hair. So thick and strong. When I was younger and wore extensions, that's what I would get."

CT: "Oh?" [Looks up at the woman's longish chestnut-colored pixie cut.]

H: "Yep, I loved it because you could bleach it but the pigment in it was so strong that it would turn orange -- I liked that look."

Unsure what else to say, CT nods.

H: "I still dye my hair now -- do it myself." [Smiles proudly.] "But it's to hide all the gray."

CT: [Relieved to find something to respond to, swiping at trimmings gathering on her face] "I've got some of that coming in at the crown."

H: "You do!" [Continues snipping.] "Mine's at the temples. I always thought that looked so good on a man. But on me? It sticks out all over the place like little wires. As if I needed pubic hair coming out of my head."

CT pauses mid-swipe.

H: [Gesturing with her scissors at random points around her head] "I mean, it's like sproing! sproing! sproing! sproing! sproing! -- "

CT's eyes widen.

H: "So that's why I dye it. You know, I wonder why armpit hair doesn't turn gray. I mean, don't you?"

CT is speechless.

H: "I wonder too sometimes if my eyebrows are graying as well. It looked like they were getting lighter, but I couldn't tell for sure since I started coloring them to match. What a nuisance, eh?"

A pause. CT flounders for something, anything to say --

CT: "Well ... at least you know what you're doing?"

End scene.

In between

2011-01-18T18:29:00.003-06:00

Chapter 4 of the Thesis That Would Not End is off to my advisor as of last night. Which makes 40 pages of semi-polished work (as opposed to the 40 pages of not at all polished work I had at this point a year ago). I need 35 more by the second week of March for that fun little deadline known as First Deposit. Essentially, the work has to be "complete and in final form" for the graduate college to review before I can schedule a defense.

It was so much nicer when I thought I didn't have to have all this put together until mid-April.

I'm catching a breath and squeezing in some housework before plunging back into Chapter 5, which is easier said than done. Between D's brother and sister-in-law visiting for the last week (they left yesterday) and some other stuff (yes, I'm being vague because it is way too complicated to go into on a breath-break), my concentration hasn't been at its best. But I have this amazing tool drowning out the indignant howls of the kitty, who is wondering why the heck I've been holed up in the bedroom, where she's not allowed. I can't write with her begging to hop into my lap (or while she's in it), as much as I have tried. So the low hiss coming from my speakers -- rather D's; I'm still waiting on new adapter parts after the hissy fit my old power cord threw -- is kind of helping me focus ...

Emptying the dishwasher and cleaning all the sinks and mirrors in the house should not be all I count toward my measure of productivity today, but everything else feels so much less concrete.

2011

2011-01-07T23:55:00.000-06:00

... is off to quite a start.

For the moment, I'm going to ignore the fact that I'm writing this on a borrowed laptop -- mine suffered a catastrophic loss of power yesterday that will only be remedied with a new adapter -- and focus only on the previous week. It was a decent one.

Given the mess that was 2010, I consider that fantastic news.

I had my concerns as the last moments of the year approached. Please, I said to myself, snuggled into a booth at a wine bar, where my family had opted for a late dinner after the concert we'd attended at Lincoln Center. Please let 2011 be better. Really, it wouldn't take much, all things considered.

I don't have a faith I can fall back on, having grown up with a mix of Buddhism, Catholicism, and atheism coloring various years in my spiritual development (none of the aforementioned schools of belief actually stuck). But the wish I couldn't give voice to, as the final seconds of December fell away, might very well have been a form of prayer. To whom, I don't know. Of late, especially as I've written more and more about family history for my thesis and studied the beliefs that shaped it over a generation or two, I've felt the ghostly presence of my ancestors in the aftermath of their influence. Whether they handed them down whole or in parts, their values -- cultural, philosophical -- had their role in making my parents who they are. So as I've attempted to bring my parents to life on the page, I've found myself consulting, in some ways, with the dead, trying to understand and illustrate my parents' ways of being as they stem from their families of origin.

My grandparents believed that their ancestors watched over them and, in some ways, protected them. In the absence of any other spiritual influences in more recent months, I'd say my own meditations on my ancestors have brought them -- or at least the idea of them -- close enough for me to feel their metaphoric gaze.

So perhaps, my wish for a year better than the preceding one was meant for them to hear. Certainly no one else would have been able to as the New Year neared -- everyone, including my family, was playing a horn or other noisemaker handed out by the maitre d', laughing, cheering, raising flutes of champagne. A perfect chaos of anticipation.

I felt some kind of weight lift as the chef and his staff appeared at last, parading down the main aisle of the restaurant while banging pots and pans to signal the official arrival of January. And that lightness has stayed with me, despite travel exhaustion (mostly jet lag), the unceremonious return to post-vacation life (mostly bills and errands and household chores), and lingering uncertainties about how this year will go.

It's a good sign.

Here's hoping the fact that my adapter fried itself at 4:44 (an extremely unlucky number in Chinese superstition because the word for four is homonymous with the word for death) means absolutely NOTHING.

To the guy at the Johnston & Murphy store

2010-12-20T11:58:00.005-06:00

It's been a few unbloggable weeks. The outcome of all that will be good things in the nearish future, but the reality of December has been a lot of tension between D and me. So we weren't in the best of moods Monday when we decided a last-minute trip to replace his formal footwear was necessary. We leave this morning for sixteen days with the family (both sides as usual).

In a break with tradition, my parents decided they wanted to do New Year's Eve in New York City. At Lincoln Center. Which will be amazing and novel and likely a very good time. But we haven't been to any event that posh in years and D was feeling a bit self-conscious about the not-really-formal loafers he'd been wearing with his suit to the last few dress events (weddings where no one would really care what was on his feet). The pair of shoes he bought for our own wedding was destroyed in the Great Deluge of 2008, and we hadn't found the motivation or justification to invest in another. But the upcoming trip seemed like good reason to D. So we headed out, damaged leather in hand, to see if we could find a similar pair from the company that had sold us the first.

The guy behind the counter was chatting with another customer on the way out the door when we arrived, but as soon as he saw our Trader Joe's bag (clearly containing something other than groceries), he asked how he could be of help. We pulled out the shoes and told him what had happened to them.

"You've got to be effing kidding me," he said, turning them over in his hands. We both smiled at his candor. He seemed a bit older than we were, closer to our parents' age, but not quite there yet.

"Can they be repaired?" D asked, with a hopeful look.

The guy inspected the tear by one toe, the creases and abrasions from three days of water-logging. "You hadn't even had them for very long," he clucked. He tapped for a few seconds on his computer keyboard. "What's your address?"

We gave him the information. He hummed a little as he tapped some more, clicked through a screen or two, examined the labeling inside the shoes. At last, the machine spit out a foot of paper, which he folded carefully before handing it across the counter.

"I like you," he said, with an extremely pleased look on his face. "And no, the shoes can't be fixed. But because you are such nice people, a man in brown shorts is going to appear on your doorstep in three days with a brand-new pair of these."

D and I gaped. As far as we were concerned, we had not been very nice people for most of the day. But, it seemed, the universe had decided at that moment to send us some love anyway.

We thanked the man profusely. "No, no," he said, "I'm happy to do it. I figure the last thing you need to worry about replacing after an ordeal like that is a pair of shoes."

He couldn't have known that the incident in question had happened two years prior. And he couldn't have known what these last weeks had actually been like, bloggable or otherwise. But his wanting so much to give us a bright spot in our day was what touched me. It couldn't have come at a better time, refreshing my view on life when I needed that most.

So thank you again, sir. You did more than I think you realized. Or maybe you knew. Either way, I'll have this memory as I head off into the holiday. Despite what this month has largely been, I can say, because of your kindness, that I feel more optimistic about what remains.

Wishful thinking

2010-12-05T18:19:00.002-06:00

I bit down on my tongue. Hard. Held my breath, fixed both eyes on a spot on the carpet by the bed, told myself don't cry. I'd managed to get from Seattle to the panhandle of Texas despite surgery, despite infection, without letting on to anyone how I was feeling. My doctor had cleared me to fly, and I needed to go home. For my research, I'd told myself -- to look firsthand at the photos and old letters from my parents' early years together, before I was born, to begin untangling their story for my thesis. That's what I'd finally realized this project was about.

Don't cry, I thought harder. Don't cry don't cry don't cry. But my mother had her arm around me.

"You've been so good," she said. "It's okay, you don't have to be strong anymore today."

Don't have to be strong? Since when did she ever use words like that? The spot on the carpet dissolved into a uniform blur and I buried my head in her shoulder, bewildered but relieved.

"You're so warm," she said after a few minutes.

I lifted my head. "It's fine," I said. I reached for a tissue and glanced toward the door, hoping my father, who usually spent the evening watching TV on the couch just outside the room, couldn't hear us. "This fever's not as bad as the first."

My mother frowned but said nothing, a hand still holding tightly to my shoulder as she surveyed the suitcase on the floor, the airline ticket stubs on the nightstand. "You've had a long day. Now you should just rest."

I pulled the robe she'd lent me closer, leaned my head against hers, and closed my eyes.

I remember getting sick as a kid -- flu, strep, bronchitis, the usual. All of which meant long mornings at the pediatrician's office that smelled like old vinyl seats, worn-edged board books, and that nose-wrinkling soap you found only where there were doctors. We never said it aloud, but I don't think my mother or I particularly liked that place.

My mother tended to look worried during those visits, but not because of me. My father would be irritated when he got home. While he doctored the sick every day at the hospital, giving his all to an endless string of cardiac patients, he didn't tolerate illness in his own house. Most of the time, he'd just ignore the problem, leaving my mother to handle all the nursing duties -- administering medication and fluids, keeping track of symptoms, cleaning up vomit. On occasion, he'd pop his head into the bedroom doorway to assess the situation, but he never crossed the threshold.

He did, however, expect my mother to keep the rest of the house running as usual. A hot meal ready to serve, the newspaper waiting by the couch, bills paid, phone calls made, my younger sisters bathed and fed. If things weren't as he felt they ought to be, he'd whine -- at me ("Are you still throwing up?") and at her ("How much longer before dinner? It's getting late."). My mother couldn't help growing annoyed in turn. She never said anything directly to me, but the look on her face when she was caught between my needs and his said plenty: he wouldn't cut her any slack. Couldn't I?

Hers was obviously wishful thinking, but I felt guilty all the same. So I learned to downplay how I was feeling, even if I was miserable. It was better than feeling like a nuisance, even if I wished deep down that it didn't have to be that way.

My body remembered this as I leaned against my mother, so many years later, in the dimly lit guestroom of my parents' new house. The mattress on the bed was old, but the comforter was brand-new to match the pillow shams my mother had sewn. "To update things," she'd said a few weeks earlier on the phone, telling me how much she couldn't wait for me to see what she'd put together. She'd wanted to work on the room sooner, but in my parents' nearly four years in Panhandle, she hadn't gotten around to it until then. It didn't matter to me -- being with her, no matter what kind of bed I slept in, was what made home feel like home. Though I did like what she'd chosen, knowing that I would be the one to curl up there.

And how I wanted to do just that. But I didn't want to move while she sat next to me, holding me close. How I'd wanted this too, in those moments when she'd been forced to choose between me and my father. Even early that evening, he'd only grunted, when my mother mentioned I'd been ill, and then complained about what had taken her so long at the grocery store, where she'd gone to get the fresh fish he'd wanted for dinner. Nothing seemed to have changed.

But my mother's arm stayed around me as I glanced toward the door, listening for sounds of the TV, long after the meal had ended. "He's gone to bed," she said. "Don't worry about him."

I dabbed at my eyes, not sure what to say. But for once, she seemed to understand how much I needed her, even more than I'd realized.

Things I am grateful for, or an epistle to the powers that be

2010-11-24T22:51:00.005-06:00

Dear Life:

You and I have had our ups and downs this year. Mostly downs, by any measure, but let's not quibble over the finer points therein. Suffice it to say that in general, 2010 has been unmatched in this Troubadour's experience of "rough patches," "tough spots," "suboptimal circumstances," or any other euphemistic label you'd like to slap on it -- despite multiple appeals for relief. To which I have to ask, at the risk of sounding repetitive: WTF?

I have not, in the past, been a big bright-side seeker. I lost my innocence a little too early on to develop the habit. But I'm willing to try almost anything at this point, given the November you've served up so far. And as tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I figure now is as good a time as any to start. So whatever you are -- an entity indifferent to the human plight or one whose intentions for me have yet to make any sense -- listen up.

In the last week, I was grateful for the following:

Getting to see one of my dearest friends from college, who happened to be interviewing in Seattle for a medical residency at the UW and needed a place to stay. Never mind the kidney infection you decided to make apparent to me with a raging fever and teeth-rattling chills, about the time her flight was going to arrive. The ER was on the same route as the airport, so it was convenient for D to drop me off and continue on to pick her up. A reunion in one of those skimpy hospital gowns was not what I'd envisioned, but I have never been happier to have company. The laughter that came from behind the curtain in my ER bay for the hours we were stuck there should be proof enough of that.

Having my white cell count remain oddly normal in the ER, despite the fact that the infection had already spilled into my bloodstream by the time the poor nurse assigned to me found a usable vein to get the IV antibiotics going. (Is laughter, indeed, the better medicine?) The delayed immune response fooled the hospital into discharging me on the same night rather than admitting me for what was actually a much more serious condition (bacteremia, with the potential to turn into straight-up sepsis). It was nice to get to spend a few extra hours with my friend outside the hospital, which we used not wisely but very well. We took the conversation home and didn’t end it till nearly 3 a.m.

Having the blood cultures come back soon enough the next day to get word to my urologist, who promptly called in the extra antibiotics I would need to make sure the infection was properly treated (the ER doctor prescribed only 7 days' worth; turns out I needed 14). Without them, I would have been short on meds for the length of my research trip. Which brings me to ...

Getting to go on said research trip, despite the severity of the aforementioned infection. I know the party line, per the infectious disease consult ordered by the urologist, was to cancel my plans, but she and I decided that the calculated risk of getting on a plane for a few hours to spend a week essentially under my parents' care (the arrangement was for me to stay with them while doing the research) was reasonable to take. Yes, you made me pay for it by giving me more chills and fever while I was somewhere over Utah, but I was armed this time with enough antipyretics to kill a buffalo. So I'm still glad I went. Recovering in Panhandle, Texas, is essentially no different from recovering in Seattle. And Mom's chicken soup beats any I could make.

Being lucky enough to have scheduled my return flight between that arctic front's passage over Seattle and its subsequent arrival in Panhandle. For a few days before the anticipated snowy cold snap, we were concerned that I might get stuck in Texas for the holiday, leaving D on his own for Thanksgiving. But I'm home now, thanks to a little mercy from the travel gods, and we will have turkey together tomorrow. Given the last month's health ridiculousness, we will not be throwing the usual fete we love to put on nor will we be traveling to share the holiday's bounty with the numerous folks from out of town who have invited us. But we are glad that I'm on the mend (for real this time, we hope) and look forward to the long weekend, if only just to rest.

So. Here's to a happy Thanksgiving. May what remains of 2010 offer much to be grateful for. (I wouldn't mind, though, if the things to be happy about were packaged with fewer associated challenges ...)

Sincerely,
C. Troubadour

In which I am a bad patient

2010-11-13T16:29:00.006-06:00

This whole recovery thing is not what I'd anticipated.

Don't get me wrong -- I know I had surgery, which means not trying to do more than my body can handle. Even if all that that entails is sleeping A LOT. (Seriously, I had no idea I could crash all day and then still sleep a full night without waking up in the middle of it.) But I'm off the prescription pain meds as of today, which means I have a clear head for the first time in 48 hours (yay!) even if I'm still stuck in bed.

It also means the gears are turning.

They should, if anything, be turning on Chapter 4 of the thesis. (Forgot to mention somewhere in the last two weeks -- I turned in a revision of Chapter 2 and a new Chapter 3 to my advisor!) If recovery continues as expected (and it should), I should be cleared for a research trip I'd had in the works long before the health mess ever happened. That's scheduled for next week, so I'm looking guiltily at my files, which I need to back up and organize so I can make the most of my time while I'm up to my elbows in old photos and supplementary documents. Actually finishing the Chapter 4 draft would be good too.

But the kitty is pawing at the bedroom door, which is not conducive to any sort of concentration, and the ibuprofen is only so effective, and I've been distracted by more pressing thoughts since I got my brain back.

It's been an isolating year.

Seattle, I've been told, is a friendly place but a difficult one in which to make friends -- as in those who will make room for you in their established social circle. This cultural oddity even has a name: the Seattle Freeze. Seriously, a name? How's that for intimidating. I know I haven't tried my hardest in the last year to reach out to people, but I have tried, despite all the other stuff I've written about here (2010, you've been difficult). I've gone to get-togethers hosted by D's work colleagues; tried to start conversations there with the wives and girlfriends; suggested and pursued follow-up lunch dates, coffee dates, dinners. Much response?

* Crickets chirping *

I'm still looking and asking, because it's not healthy to be so isolated. I've even gone so far as considering sites like Meetup.com (where there are actual references made to the Seattle Freeze). But a lot of what's offered isn't quite my style -- dance parties on a boat in themed costume? Sure, but I do better in smaller settings. Then how about speed friending? Um, that's kind of an oxymoron.

How about just a meal and some good conversation?

I know, these are things I shouldn't be worrying about before I can walk around the house without feeling exhausted. But being stuck in bed gives you a lot of time to think. And I'm thinking my list of local friends could use some rejuvenation.

So, dear bloggy friends (how I wish you were geographically nearer). How do you make opportunities for new friendships where you live -- and encourage them to grow?

The last thing I remember

2010-11-11T18:05:00.001-06:00

... is the room beginning to spin.

It was kind of cool, the pinwheeling, marbleizing filter that had suddenly fallen over my eyes as I lay on the operating table. I wanted to remove the oxygen mask to tell the anesthesiologist what I was seeing, but before I could reach for it, I was out.

And then someone was saying my name, and I was propped up in some bed with a lot of blankets but I was still cold and there was no way in hell I was opening my eyes because -- well, there was just no way in hell. "We're going to move you to a recliner, okay?" the voice said, bright and sonsy. "Just swing your legs over the edge and we'll help you stand."

Amazingly, my body complied. (Apparently, I'm very good at following directions even while semi-conscious.) Teeth chattering, limbs shaking, eyes still mostly closed -- why the recliner? I wanted to ask; let me stay in bed, please. But I couldn't muster a word. It didn't matter, though, because I was out again before I hit the chair.

At some point, the urologist came to talk to me. "We got the stone," she said. "It was impacted."

"Great," I said. And then I remembered why I was there to begin with.

The suspected kidney stone from early September never passed. And after weeks of waiting, hurting, and bleeding, it was time to figure out if the stone was the problem or if something else was going on. So I met with a urologist -- not the one who first found the stone but another recommended to me after my third trip to the ER. She scheduled the imaging studies for yesterday -- x-rays, with contrast injected into the urinary tract -- to see what there was to see. If there was indeed a stone, it could be taken out at the same time, while I was under.

"How's your pain" -- suddenly, that other sonsy voice was speaking again -- "on a scale of one to ten?"

"Two?" I ventured. My bigger concern was my ability to think or move (or were they really just the same thing?) -- both still muddied and slow and exhausting, like trying to levitate from a bed of quicksand.

"Good. I need you to drink something -- can I get you apple juice?"

My brain cleared for a moment. Apple juice equals sugar. "Don't think I can have it -- prediabetic," I said, eyes still closed.

"Water, then," the voice said. "And how about some crackers?"

"Can't," I said, fighting harder against the quicksand. "Carbs."

"I don't want the pain meds to make you nauseated," the voice insisted. "I'll bring you just a little to nibble on."

"Okay," I said, too tired to argue or try to explain anymore.

They're eye-opening, these moments of limitation. I'm used to being able to handle my own basic needs. When I can't, I fight hard to do it anyway -- for weeks, I've gone without more than over-the-counter pain relief because I needed to be able to function. To drive a car, to take care of household chores, to engage with other people just to feel connected to the outside world. And to monitor my health care in a system with a lot of cracks in it. I can't do that effectively on stronger meds, though, apparently, I still try.

I'm clearer today, but only just. I made the mistake of letting the pain meds wear off at one point yesterday, hoping to get my brain and body back, but it was too much. So here I am, typing five words a minute, reaching for clarity that feels just beyond my grasp.

I think I'm okay with that. Fragmented as this memory will be when I return to it in a few days or weeks, it will be here. To remind me that the limitations I feel are relative. Three days ago, I was complaining about not wanting to work out. Today, it's not a question of want at all. I'm just glad to be able to get down the stairs on these jelly-filled legs to brew some coffee. And come right back up to bed.

Warning: rant ahead, or a peek into the mind of a food-anxious freak

2010-11-08T18:12:00.012-06:00

What follows is an account of one day in my battle with disordered eating. I have fought this problem since before I was old enough to drive a car. It is one of the reasons I finally sought professional counseling through a dietitian this summer, though I didn't know it at the time.

In the months since my work began with the dietitian, I've made many gains. But under the right (wrong?) circumstances -- such as the recent weeks of stress -- backsliding happens. I'm writing about that for the first time here, now, because it's better than keeping silent.

I should have paid attention to the sinking feeling this morning.

It's the kind you get when you haven't eaten in a few hours and your blood sugar dips. Your stomach is growly and your head gets thick and it is all you can do to remember where you were supposed to go next -- much less what you were supposed to do once you got there -- on that list of errands you'd set for yourself.

It was another early morning. And you didn't count on things taking so long. Take a snack, your brain was saying as you headed for the car, wishing you could just stay home. But you were tired and you didn't want to have to have that snack. In the fuzzy logic -- or plain mule-headedness -- of on-the-way-out-the-door thought, you told yourself a doctor's appointment, a haircut, and an in-and-out trip to the grocery store should not take more than three hours. You'll be home right on time for your next meal,* you said. Screw the snack. It's extra calories you don't need. You've lost a little weight in the last month -- don't you want to keep things the way they are?

So you get through your appointment. When you get to the salon -- the bargain-basement walk-in one that also happened to put out a coupon that you needed to use this week if you wanted the additional savings -- you find two other people ahead of you in line. Okay, no problem. You flip through the look books since you haven't had a trim in six months -- better find a picture of what you're supposed to look like so whoever on the rotating staff is assigned to you will do the job right.

And you wait.

And you wait.

And you wait some more. No reason things are slow except that there are only two people working. By the time the woman with the scissors is ready for you, you're regretting that snack you told your brain to forget. The stylist does a good job, a thorough one. So thorough you're wondering if she's cutting each hair individually. And this is just a trim? The morning you thought you'd still have, after finishing these errands, slowly begins to slide out of reach. But, oh good, the stylist is finally done.

This, if you weren't going to take that snack, is where you should have gone home right away instead of trying to stick things out.

After leaving the salon, you head over to the grocery store. What did you need? It takes effort to remember, even though it's just two items. One of them -- salad greens -- wouldn't even be necessary if the greens you bought last Thursday, with an expiration date of November 10th, hadn't already decomposed by the 7th. But you need those greens. What the hell else are you supposed to fill up on if bread and crackers and cereal and all the rest of the food you've ever loved can only be eaten in portions that would make a mouse cry?**

At last, you do get home. You make that salad -- a quarter of an apple, an ounce of goat cheese, not quite a tablespoon of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, tossed with the greens -- and slap some turkey with mustard on low-carb bread. It's a good lunch, a filling one. But you've eaten the same damn lunch for five days straight*** because you've been on autopilot with everything else going on. And now you want what you know you can't have: anything with more than 15 grams of carbs per serving. In any quantity you like.

You wait out the cravings. You're supposed to get on with the rest of the day anyway -- so the morning's gone, and you haven't showered yet, and the workout that you've been hating lately but that you cling to because it means your body still functions and your weight is still under your control needs to be done. But then the phone rings. And you're so lonely that you will totally blow another two hours talking when you know you'll be mad at yourself for shoving off more of the afternoon. Your resistance is waning.

When you hang up, you head for the kitchen. You need fuel for the workout, or that sinking feeling will get you halfway through. So you allow yourself some carbs.

But you've got no willpower left. Between the sugar lows and the lost morning and the loneliness and the sheer sense of defiance you have against all that the universe has thrown at you this year and the last with no rhyme or reason, you've HAD it. Before you can stop yourself, you've inhaled enough from the pantry to horrify your (former) endocrinologist and alarm your dietitian, the latter of whom you should call and 'fess up to right now so she can help you.

And I will.

Tomorrow.

* Eating meals at regular intervals is helpful in maintaining optimal blood-sugar levels and preventing binges.

** Obviously, this is a bit hyperbolic, but when your brain has no fuel, it doesn't process thought very logically or reasonably.

*** Creating variety, even only slightly, in what you eat can be helpful in preventing boredom, which can otherwise trigger binges.

Foggy

2010-11-06T20:47:00.005-05:00

My writing brain is sluggish tonight. Yesterday morning started early for me; I had to beat traffic going downtown to have some labs drawn. And even though I slept in today, I'm dragging now. Thank goodness for the end to Daylight Savings Time. The day we "fall back" is one of my most favorite in the year.

When I got to the doctor's office, things were pretty quiet, unlike Wednesday afternoon, when I was there for follow-up with the new internist. The lab techs were just getting started with their preparations for the day -- filling syringes with flu vaccine, restocking vials for blood -- and I didn't have to wait to be called in. The woman with my lab orders waved me over right away and started tying a tourniquet around my arm.

"You fasting?" she asked.

I nodded. I hadn't been sure if the tests required it, but it seemed better to err on the side of caution than to have to reschedule the draw -- one of the tests could only be done first thing in the morning.

I glanced at the labels the woman had printed out for each vial of blood and noticed the number was remarkably short for what I'd seen on the day of my follow-up appointment. (The tech who had originally printed them that afternoon had advised me to wait, given the morning-only test, and have all the blood taken at the same time to save me an extra needle stick.) So -- "We're doing cortisol, anti-TPO, vitamin B-12, and vitamin D today?" I asked, just to be sure.

"Hmm? No, no, I've just got lipids and a hemoglobin A1c," the woman said. "Wait, what's your name again?" She fumbled around with her order sheet for a moment as I gave her my information. "Oh yes, I remember! The other girl said you were going to come back today to get everything done and she taped your other labels to the fridge -- "

We both turned to look at the refrigerator, whose doors were bare.

"Shoot," the woman said, untying the tourniquet. "Wait right here."

I've learned not to be surprised when snafus like this occur. Even as recently as Wednesday, there were some near-mistakes that happened -- the physician ordered the wrong test and only realized it when I asked her why she'd chosen it over an alternative that was purportedly more accurate; then the lab tech handling a urine test gave me the wrong label for the specimen cup and only realized it when I pointed out that it was for the second of two urine tests my doctor had ordered, which could only be done while I was symptomatic (I wasn't that day).

Is it just me, or does it seem like I'm having to double-check what shouldn't be mine to check in the first place?

The woman taking my blood Friday morning eventually found the labels she needed -- in a garbage can. Lucky for me; apparently, once those labels are printed, the request records leave the lab computer and go to a completely different facility where specimens are received (that way, the folks handling that step in the process know exactly what to look for). I don't know whether we would have ended up having to call the receiving facility to figure out what testing needed to be done or if anyone was even at said facility at that time of day. Either way, it wasn't going to be a simple fix.

So. I'm grateful that everything worked out in the end. I just hope the incidence of error drops in future visits. For the next set of tests, scheduled for Wednesday of the coming week, I'll be sedated -- and there's no way I can look out for myself like that!

Two-faced

2010-11-01T23:43:00.002-05:00

Halloween was a low-key affair this year. Last week, we again attended the annual pumpkin carving party one of D's friends likes to host, but we didn't go in with a plan as we did the first time. Just a gourd of a ghoulish hue and a vague idea of what we might put on it. Here's the end result:

A pair of eyes apiece -- the ones on the right are mine (adapted from a template) and the others belong to D (carved freehand).

I'm amused that the creepy gaze I thought I was creating ended up looking more concerned than anything else. I guess having another face emerging from the side of one's head would be a good reason ...

Halloween night in question was busy, and not just because we got about 200 trick-or-treaters (fairly standard in our neighborhood). We had a last-minute guest, one of our friends from Portland, who was supposed to be on vacation in Venice but had had his passport turned down the day before at the Portland airport. Too beaten up, the gate agents told him. His only option, if he still wanted to make the trip, was to get a new document issued from the nearest emergency processing center -- which was in Seattle.

"I'm going to be fairly rotten company," he warned me ahead of time. Which was completely understandable. But I paused before telling him that I might not be much fun either. Even though we've known each other for more than a decade, I still hesitated to say anything about what's been going on in the last few weeks. On the outside, there are no obvious signs that mark me -- perhaps I look more tired than usual and my clothes are a little looser, but no scars, no broken bones. Still, I've had my resources tapped repeatedly, dealing with unpredictable pain, diverting whatever energy I have into finding a doctor who will listen, waiting for a diagnostic plan to take shape.

As I hinted here, these aren't things I like to tell people in real life, not even my family, because pain, both physical and emotional, is so intimate. To admit to someone that you hurt is to take a risk -- that the other person will respond insensitively, that he or she will downplay your experience, that you will feel worse for having said something in the first place. So I've learned not to talk about pain out loud if I can get away with it; I do it in this space instead.

But with someone I've known so long, it also feels dishonest to pretend all is well. And I'd been run down enough in the last few weeks that the act of pretending was going to be too much in person, especially because the physical pain is so unpredictable; it can flare up at any time. So I told my friend in brief that I wasn't in the best shape. The result was an awkward few seconds on the phone -- he acknowledged what I'd said but didn't seem to know what else to offer. Then someone came to his door and he said he had to go.

So I'm still turning one face to the outside world and letting the other exist here. I wish there were a way to integrate them more. But for now, this is the best I can do.

A tour, as promised

2010-10-30T20:03:00.006-05:00

By now, you've seen the front page here -- thank you to everyone for the nice things you've said or e-mailed as you've stopped by. Hopefully everything is actually working (no missing images or other obvious errors), but if you run into a problem, do let me know. I've tested and tested things, but Blogger still has its mysteries.

So what's new around here? Stand-alone pages! Thank you, Blogger, for creating these. This blog was beginning to feel a bit all over the place in the last few months -- since D and I had finally finished commuting, that initial topic running through the blog was no longer the primary reason I was coming here to write. But there were other themes that had been showing up, so I decided to group posts accordingly under some new headings, which are at the top of the sidebar at right. Yep, it's my filing gene at work again.

All the clutter in my former sidebar was driving me slightly nuts too, so that's been given its own space as well. If you haven't already checked out my blogroll, it's hanging out behind the button with the little mouse on it in the new sidebar. If I'm a regular visitor to your site and I've left your link off or mislinked to you, please let me know! And likewise, if you've blogrolled me, please check that my link is updated: thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com. The extra (a) makes all the difference.

I've been reading (mostly for my thesis) even though I haven't written recently about it -- those resources, along with other stuff I've found worthy of note on my bookshelves (real and virtual), are now behind their own sidebar button too. More to be added to the list soon. The library's been keeping me well-stocked in the last few months.

So there you go! That's the short and sweet version of the tour. Again, feel free to explore, and thanks, as always, for reading.

New starts

2010-10-28T11:10:00.005-05:00

I've been busy, as you can see. After the last month's serious shortage of happiness, I decided I needed a project to make some. So I took a really deep breath and asked D if he would teach me some basics in Photoshop and CSS. The new look here is the result!

I'd been considering a redesign since Blogger came out with its new template editor, but nothing I saw out there really felt like me. Trying on templates? Kind of a cross between clothes shopping and interior decorating. Only so much fun when things out there aren't quite your style. But the idea of coding was more than slightly intimidating -- I'd never written anything before in a language other than the ones I grew up speaking or studying in school.

Without question, I've learned TONS in the process, thanks to D. There are a few bugs that may be out of our control (functionality on Blogger's part and browser weirdness) but I'm pretty happy with the end result, especially since this was my first real attempt at such a project. I'll tweak a little more, but only to fix behind-the-scenes stuff. The diversion's been great, even fulfilling -- so, mission accomplished!

I promise an official tour very shortly (but feel free to explore on your own). For now, there are chores around the house that need some serious attention ...

Square one

2010-10-18T21:10:00.007-05:00

So, about Wednesday.

It was a small adventure, locating the clinic. The place is in an area of the city I don't normally spend much time in, so I was more than out of my element, trying to find parking, looking for the right building, attempting to understand the electronic directory, then finally giving up and guessing which floor to take the elevator to. No signs, and no one to ask.

I'd stuck all the information I'd gathered into a folder I'd recycled from -- believe it or not -- ninth-grade English class. (Last summer, as I was digging through the boxes of stuff that used to be in storage at my parents' house, I tossed the old homework assignments and kept the office supplies.) It was a little weird to feel the thickness of all that data crammed into the space that used to hold a semester's worth of journal assignments, but it was strangely appropriate too. Replace one narrative with, in essence, another even more intimate: blood counts and other analyses set in order like entries in a diary.

To my relief, I'd guessed correctly, and the elevator opened into the foyer of the office I needed. In a few minutes, I was sitting with a lap full of new paperwork.

I couldn't finish it fast enough -- a nurse took me back to a room very shortly. She indicated the examination table and the gown folded at one end, so I got undressed. Hopped up onto the paper liner, folder and forms still in my hands. I was still scribbling when the doctor came in.

"Hi," she said, as she headed for the sink to wash her hands. "I'm Dr. ________, but you can use my first name." She smiled and pulled a rolling stool up to my dangling legs. "What's brought you to our clinic today?"

I held up the paperwork. "I'm sorry; I'm not done with these -- "

"It's okay," she said, taking the forms and my folder, setting them on a chair out of reach. "Tell me what's going on."

I froze. The folder, which held my story, also seemed to have my voice in it. But the doctor was waiting, so I offered the first things I could remember: four specialists, each with their own work-ups, no comprehensive picture. "I need someone who can look at the whole, not just the parts," I said, nodding toward the chair.

She opened the file immediately, eyes widening. As she scanned the contents, I explained when my health problems had begun, trying to get a better beginning, middle, and end established for the fragmented narrative I'd started with. She nodded, taking notes, asking a question here and there to clarify. But for the most part, she listened.

When I was done, she closed her eyes, fingers to her temples, as if she was thinking hard. "This is a lot of information," she said, "and if you're willing to trust me with this, I'd like to keep it for a few days, just to synthesize all of it more thoroughly in my mind. I'm thinking several things right now, but I want to see exactly what's been done and what hasn't so we can put together some next steps."

I nodded. A doctor taking this kind of time before trying to formulate a path to a diagnosis? It was more than I'd hoped for. For the first time in months, I had the sense that I'd found someone who could help. But what kind of follow-up was she envisioning?

"Early next week," she said, eyes seeking mine with a reassuring expression. "I'll be in touch with you with a plan. We're going to get to the bottom of this."

This time, I think I can believe that.

And then things got ugly

2010-10-10T17:54:00.002-05:00

I've been waiting.

At first it was just waiting for an appointment with a new doctor -- an internist to start with; she comes highly recommended. She works within a well-reputed medical center I've been referred to in Seattle, one whose philosophy emphasizes continuity of care: a single system, linking all of its specialists. Everybody has access to your records, your history. No faxing things to separate people, no need to dig channels of communication. They're already in place. But you have to have a primary care physician within the organization -- he or she acts as your point person -- before you can arrange to see anyone else (like, say, an endocrinologist).

So my appointment, which I made the day before my last post, is this Wednesday.

The same day of my last post, within the hour I hit publish, my body threw a hissy fit. I'll spare you a list of the symptoms, but suffice it to say, they weren't something to ignore.

We weren't sure of the cause, but the first suspect was that kidney stone. Its initial presentation was odd, which I knew, but it turns out the urologist's report hems and haws about whether it was ever even a stone. If it was, it's up and done something unkind. If it wasn't, then something else is going on and we need to figure out what that is.

In the interim between the Friday I got sick and this Wednesday (not quite three weeks), we've done some stopgap investigating. As much as I didn't want to, we went to an ER on the first Saturday (on the advice of the nursing consult service D's company provides to its employees) to make sure nothing imminently life-threatening was happening. After that, we were advised to follow up with a urologist. Of course, the earliest appointment I could get was after the first appointment with the new internist (this is how new-patient scheduling sometimes goes). I was still feeling off, so my remaining option while waiting was to go back to my current doctors.

At some point in April, when the endocrine guy was beginning to run out of ideas, he referred me to a rheumatologist (suspecting something autoimmune). "He's a very good diagnostician," he told me. So I saw that person in June (see what I mean about new-patient scheduling?) but in the end received no new answers after one more round of tests.

Given the new symptoms from September, I figured it might be worth going back to him. Fortunately, he had an opening the Tuesday after I got sick; still no answers, but he repeated his tests.

The Thursday of that week, we left for D's brother's wedding weekend, during which my symptoms got worse. Tack on one more ER visit.

Then we came home. Symptoms even worse. Decided to forgo the ER visit against most natural instincts, sensing from our track record that we wouldn't get answers. The rheumatologist's tests came back a few days ago with nothing new either. And now, we're here.

I've got all my paperwork gathered and organized, all the records I could pull together from the last eighteen months. I've sat down and charted from scratch on a timeline all the weird things that have happened with my body since I got diagnosed with prediabetes, and then some from the time before. I've noted diet changes, weight changes, GI changes, urological changes, medicinal changes, mental changes, environmental changes. There's nothing more I can think of to add.

I wanted to wait to write about any of this, hoping I'd have better news. But here I am, waiting.

I just have to make it to Wednesday. We start fresh there.

Them's fightin' words

2010-09-24T12:46:00.005-05:00

I knew getting a dietitian was the first step toward some important changes, but apparently it's starting a small revolution.

I think I'm firing my endocrinologist.

It's not a straightforward story, but the short version is that on my visit to said endocrinologist's office last week to follow up on that pesky kidney stone, I updated him on the diet adjustments I've been making with the help of my dietitian. And he wasn't happy -- the caloric allowances she'd laid out for me didn't jive with what he thought I should be aiming for (he was advocating a much tighter budget). Not one to sit helpless when given conflicting information, I asked him to speak with the dietitian so that we could determine where the disagreements were in their assessments of my needs. His response: "Tell her that I have a subspecialty degree in metabolic disease" -- or some such field, I can't remember his exact words -- "and if she still has questions after that, she can call me."

Huh. Did he really think she (or I) was going to accept credential-waving as an adequate reason to follow his plan?

Sensing I was getting the brush-off, I e-mailed the dietitian after I got home, explaining the discrepancies between the recommendations, and expressed my concern. She immediately got back to me, promising to contact my doctor so that we could get the diet guideline questions resolved.

Apparently, he wouldn't talk to her.

Instead, he left a message for her with his nurse -- one that wasn't far off from what he'd told me to relay, from what I've gathered. And he's still refusing to take the dietitian's calls.

Is it ego? Insecurity? A control issue? All of the above? I'm done speculating. I need a care team, one in which the various members work together. If someone's refusing to communicate, much less collaborate, there's no way this is going to work out in my best interest. So I'm removing myself from his responsibility.

This has been a long time coming -- over the last few months, this guy has said and done other things that left me feeling unsupported and unheard. It's not worth going into detail, but each incident eroded my trust in him just a little bit more. I'm glad to be able to leave his service, knowing without question that the problems with him aren't "just in my head."

But finding that next person. I can't say I've got a lot of confidence in the current remaining team members (with the exception of the dietitian) -- they communicate minimally, by faxed lab results at best. This endocrinologist was kind of the only person who at least went through the motions of examining the bigger picture (he made the referrals to other specialists, so he got their letters back interpreting the results of their tests). I need someone willing to take the time to look closely, to pursue answers.

I happened to read Big Little Wolf's commentary on the doctor-patient relationship as all this was going on, and that, among other things, has reinforced what I've known for a while: that my search isn't going to be an easy one. But I'm looking because I have to. This mess -- or message service -- masquerading as coordinated care has gone on too long.

And I will totally sic all seven pounds of my attack kitty on the next M.D. who tells me his degree is what makes his plan (or lack thereof) superior to anyone else's.

Bone weary

2010-09-18T18:55:00.007-05:00

I thought the weekend was supposed to be for relaxing, but I think it's just allowed me to feel the weight of all the stuff from the past week (or two), now that there is space for that. And the feeling is necessary, so fine. But I'm warning next week right now: ease up or ... else.

(I'm not very good at actually coming up with threats, but I'm cocking a very pointed eyebrow at Monday and everything after it. It's my teacher look, which actually won a stare-down contest in a teacher-training workshop many years ago. See that, next week? See that eyebrow?)

My thesis is moving forward for real. I have two solid chapters that make sense in succession and are pointing very clearly to a third, which is more exciting than I have the means to describe. But it's been drawing on a lot of mental resources, and when I've come to the end of the day, I've had nothing for anyone else. D and I both go through this -- he'll return after a particularly intense day, having successfully left work at work, but he doesn't quite make it home in his state of mind for several hours after he gets through the door. He floats in some kind of limbo that makes for pretty quiet dinners. I understand -- sometimes the brain doesn't reset for a little while. So I leave him alone until he's ready.

Last week was my turn to be zonked -- not just from all the research interviews and the mental gymnastics of writing, but from the emotional pull of trying to tell a difficult story. (Forgive me if I don't get more specific than that; I did just spend the week up to my ears in the details.)

I'm glad the writing is working. But it's at the expense of other pressing concerns I need to resolve, like the fallout of getting sick while no one was around. D and I didn't come through that situation in the best way, and we've wanted to talk about it, but I've been too frayed to do it without getting upset, which D doesn't deal well with. Our attempts to have a conversation about how we handled things on both our ends have been kind of rocky. And then there's the question about what all these seemingly separate problems -- blood sugar, GI tract, kidneys -- are really indicative of. I've pushed that out of my mind for a while, but Labor Day weekend was a reminder that all is not perfectly well and that we still don't have real answers as to why three different body systems decided to get wonky, all starting in the first half of 2009.

So I want some emotional reserves for this stuff. I know I can't always have enough for all of it, but for next week, I need more.

This

2010-09-09T18:56:00.006-05:00

... is how I feel.

Last week's issues are more or less fading away (hooray!) but yesterday was another thesis deadline and I'm now totally brain-drained.

It's a mostly good sort of drained -- I feel like I hit a stride I hadn't achieved in ages, really writing, not just transcribing or starting a scene only to abandon it for a different start. For months, I'd accumulated those starts, 19 pages of them. Yesterday, I turned in a completed chapter with a beginning, middle, and end.

I'm supposed to be writing up a short item for another professor right now, but I think I'm still not quite recharged. Rather, I think I used up my quota of writing brain on an e-mail I had to compose this afternoon. I'd gotten an inquiry from a prospective student, asking about the ins and outs of my program (I'm listed as a student contact for such questions).

Of course, the applicant wanted to know what I thought about the classes, the faculty, etc., etc., and I'm glad to provide my take on my own experience -- which I can only characterize as mixed. But it's not something I share without a lot of consideration about context.

I imagine if you asked each person in my year what he or she thought of the program, none of the responses would be the same. There would be similarities in some areas, but also enormous differences, depending on each individual's personality and expectations. We're all as different as the work we produce. So whenever I reply to someone's inquiry, I have to emphasize the importance of asking other students the same questions he or she has asked me. And I have to word my response so it is absolutely clear that my experience is by no means representative of anyone else's, that in fact there are people I have met who would answer very differently.

For some reason, I don't trust these eager applicants to remember that. I'm sure there are those who will romanticize the "highly intriguing" and "highly illustrious" program I'm a part of (words straight out of today's e-mail), no matter what I say, only to be disappointed when they arrive (if they're admitted). Perhaps I think this because so many people I met in the program eventually found themselves disillusioned with it. The fact is there were (and still are) limited resources, not just in terms of funding but in terms of mentorship, and if you don't fight hard to be your own advocate when you feel like you're not getting what you need, you'll be less satisfied with your experience. I don't want the prospective students who contact me to go into the process of applying -- to this program or any program -- without the understanding that this is part of what will greatly influence how things end up for them.

And then there will be those who'll get turned off before they've gathered enough opinions, taking my comments, no matter how carefully I couch them, as bald-faced denunciations.

It's out of my control, in any case. I can only choose my words so carefully. I just hope I did a good enough job that it'll make the right difference to the right person, if that makes any sense. That's my reason for replying in the first place.

Every kidney has a silver lining, the sequel

2010-09-04T19:48:00.009-05:00

Yep, this little nuisance again.

You'd think I'd recognize a kidney stone after the first one, but no, this one presented itself quite differently. Referred pain? You got it (rather, I did).

So a good part of Friday found me waiting here (the hospital's walk-in imaging clinic):

Not exactly my first choice for where to spend all that time. But when the ultrasound didn't reveal anything amiss in my gallbladder (a good thing!), the GI folks had to refer me to somebody else (with a practice in the same medical facility, but an entirely separate registration/appointment process). That doctor, whom I got to see only on the luck of some other patient's cancellation, sent me back to the clinic for an x-ray, which revealed the real cause of all the trouble.

The doctor was very kind and hung around after his office had closed, just so he could interpret the x-ray for me (it was late in the day when he ordered the test, so there was no way the radiologist would have the official report to him in a timely fashion). He could have gone home and told me to wait for the results, to be delivered by phone after the long weekend, with orders to go to the ER if things got worse before then. But he didn't, and I'm thankful. Because of his kindness, I was able to go home with an answer and greater peace of mind. I'm still under orders to go to the ER if anything untoward occurs, but given the size and location of the stone, that's very unlikely.

Who knew I'd be glad to have a kidney stone instead of the alternative?

(Don't get me wrong; it still hurts. But given the choice, while alone, I'd rather deal with a problem I can treat from home as opposed to something that requires hospitalization, no matter how routine. Who would feed the kitty?)

I just hope I'm not in for a repeat of this in the future. Especially since it occurs without warning and in such misleading ways! Worst fear: that it happens while I'm on a plane. If I'd gone with D on Thursday instead of staying behind to work on my thesis, I'd have been somewhere over Texas during the nastier part of that afternoon. I suppose I should thank my writing obligations for preventing that ... ?

Grumbling rights

2010-09-02T23:03:00.009-05:00

I'm exercising them. Because the gods of timing just won't leave me alone.

The short version: D left town this morning to throw his brother a bachelor's weekend before said brother's wedding next month. This afternoon, the nagging stitch in my side that started yesterday after lunch turned into an unrelenting pain that still hasn't gone away. A trip to the GI doctor got me some prescription painkillers and orders to return to the hospital in the morning for a thorough ultrasound (the one attempted today wasn't clear enough, so we'll try again when I'm fasting). The hope is that the gallbladder doesn't need to come out.

I'm pretty good at being alone most of the time -- years of living apart from D while we were commuting has trained me well. But this is one of those instances where I really, really wish he were here.

On a lighter note

2010-08-24T18:48:00.011-05:00

It's been busy, as I'm sure you've guessed, but life chez Troubadour is back to normal as of yesterday. In relative terms, at any rate.

I'm not going to go into all the details right off, but I'm happy to say that my parents' visit was manageable. All the prep leading up to it figured significantly in making it so, but there were also moments that were enjoyable entirely for what they were, not because I used any magical thinking or conversational stealth to make a difficult situation better.

Troubadour Dad stayed for an extended weekend; my mother stayed for an additional week. During the last part of her visit, we drove down to Long Beach, a tiny town at the southwestern corner of Washington, for their annual kite festival. It's been running for thirty years, but D only found out about it early this summer.

Road trips to new places with Troubadour Mom are always fun because she still has her sense of adventure (my dad is another story, but Mom works on him every now and then). We were pleased to give ourselves lots of firsts on this brief weekend, which included:

Mom's first visit to Oregon! (We stayed Friday night in Astoria, which is just across from Long Beach Peninsula by way of this bridge.)

First time flying a Revolution kite for all of us, and the first time flying any kind of kite for both me and Mom. A master Rev flier was giving lessons to interested bystanders, so we lined up for a try. What a rush!

Mom even managed to land the kite on her second attempt without crashing:

These aren't easy to fly in light winds, but they can do amazing things. Each of the Revs in this clip is flown by a different person:

Then there was my first time dipping a toe in the Pacific Ocean. Even though we moved to Seattle three years ago, I'd never had the chance -- the Puget Sound isn't the same thing even though it's technically connected.

Two weeks of playing parental vacation director means more than a few things around the house are in need of attention. And the fall semester started yesterday! So it's back to earth after much flight. But I'm on both feet and glad.

First photo courtesy D; second, third, and above photo courtesy Troubadour Mom

Fire burn and cauldron bubble

2010-08-11T16:07:00.006-05:00

Because I needed to take care of at least one of the items on my list of beefs just to get back some peace of mind over the weekend, I waged war on the mysterious (and impossibly hardy) microbes in our laundry.

I think we have detente.

We won't know for sure until D tries out the most seriously affected item (a t-shirt), but so far, everything else has proven to be odor-free. So, for your amusement -- and actual use, if you ever run into this problem -- here's what I did on Sunday morning. N.B.: this approach is only recommended for clothing appropriate for the regular hot cycle in your washing machine.

Materials

large pot with lid (ours was a 6.5 quart)
distilled white vinegar
water
measuring cup
stove
large mixing bowl or other similarly sized receptacle
tongs or chopsticks

1. Using measuring cup, fill pot about halfway with hot water from tap (this will reduce time required to bring to boil). Note quantity of water and add about 1/12 this volume in vinegar. Cover and heat on stove until a rolling boil is achieved.

2. Place one laundry item in pot. Poke with tongs or chopsticks until completely immersed. You may add more if the items are small, but dyes do come out of fabric and may discolor other garments.

3. Cover and boil for 5 minutes, 10 for garments with especially resistant odor problems. At the halfway point, stir garment to resoak any parts that may have puffed out above water line from steam.

4. Carefully lift garment with tongs or chopsticks and transfer to mixing bowl. Empty pot and repeat boiling process with fresh vinegar solution for each remaining garment.

5. Place boiled items in washing machine and launder on regular hot wash cycle with detergent. DO NOT add bleach as this will mix with the vinegar to produce poisonous fumes. Select the extra rinse option on your machine if you have one -- this should help prevent any residual vinegar smell from remaining.

6. Tumble dry as usual.

And now, I'm off to the airport. Life will be unpredictable here for a little while, but I'll be checking in as best I can ...

The writing on the wall

2010-08-06T11:54:00.008-05:00

It's not a good sign when you wake up and the first thought that flits through your mind is oh no.

I admit, I'd gone to sleep feeling anxious. Despite all the effort I've been putting in to take care of myself in preparation for next week, there's still this panicky thing doing jumping jacks in my guts, and no number of countermeasures will get it to calm the hell down. You can only trick the mind and body so much. Add to that the usual random obstacles life offers and suddenly the reserves I thought I'd been storing up look so much smaller.

I've been trying not to dwell on the less than pleasant stuff (and I'm good at dwelling, so this takes effort). But after a certain point, I can't ignore what's right in front of me.

So, my beefs with the universe, some trivial and some not. Because it all takes energy to deal with, and I really can't devote what's meant to be for my parents to this:

Introducing us to the most sweet-tempered, affectionate kitty on the planet but having her hate catnip and all manner of kitty treats, which are essential strategic tools for getting a cat to scratch her scratching post instead of the furniture. Also having her general aversion to drinking water and the aforementioned treats foil the administration of preventative dental care. (There are specific water additives and dental chews that can help if your cat is prone to tartar buildup.) Am I a bad parent for thinking dental care for a cat is a wee bit of a racket? You don't want to know the quote I got for the cleaning our cat supposedly needs, just in case her gums are reabsorbing one of her back teeth.

Making the price of a central cooling system so ridiculously high that even over the course of ten years, it will not pay for itself. We're lucky enough to have cooler summers out here, but during those few weeks when the temperature spikes, it's more than a little unpleasant in the house. This has been one of those weeks. As a result, I think my body has retained enough water for both me and the cat who will not drink. Which brings me to ...

Bloating. Who the hell thought that was a good idea? As if I really want to manage a visit from my food-obsessed parents while also feeling how uncomfortable my waistband is before being taken on a traveling smorgasbord with them.

Mildewing. Back in May, when we were visiting our friends in Portland, we stayed at their place. Well, they had a bit of a moisture problem in their linen closet (and their apartment in general), so the sheets we slept on definitely reeked of something foul. No worries, we said -- two nights and we'll go home, wash everything we're wearing, and all will be fine again. Well, we've put some of those items through the laundry three times now, and they STILL begin to smell after a few hours of wear. I'm at my wits' end (and it's time to do another round of general wash before my parents arrive). Do I take ye olde fashioned approach, boiling the clothes and whatever they're harboring in a pot on the stove? And how are we supposed to get around future invitations to stay for a weekend when we do very much want to hang out but obviously can't throw away what we wear after each visit? They'll think it odd if we book a hotel next time around, won't they?

Okay. I think that's all that's bloggable. Now I'm off to check on the kitty, in hopes that maybe, just maybe, she's gotten hungry enough to try the treat I left in her food bowl in lieu of breakfast this morning ...

On organization

2010-08-05T16:01:00.006-05:00

Whoever came up with the idea of "a place for everything and everything in its place" -- that person knows the inner workings of my (home-making) heart. Places like The Container Store speak to some strange, deeply seated longing I still don't quite understand, a need to sort and streamline what I use around the house. Maybe because I hate actual housework, and organizing the tools I need to get things done in the least time possible makes all those chores easier to tackle before procrastination leads to neglect.

But The Container Store ain't cheap. So what's a girl to do?

Eat salad. And peanut butter. Not in the same dish! (Unless you happen to like them that way -- I'm not judging.) Then save the containers.

For months, we've been collecting the plastic clamshell boxes from prewashed greens, as well as the jars from all the nutty goodness D and I consume. Slowly, they've worked their way into our cabinets and closets, the former corralling sponges and bottles of cleaning product, the latter keeping random paper clips and rubber bands from scattering. And now that the shelves in the garage are finished, we're putting these makeshift stackables to use out there too. See?

Mind you, the clamshells aren't sturdy enough to bear huge amounts of weight. But for little odds and ends (in the ones above, a glue gun and its half-used ammo, random rolls of tape, and D's multi-accessory Dremel tool), they work perfectly. Attach labels and you're done. They're even see-through for quick perusal.

As for the peanut butter jars, this is my favorite use so far:

It's been one of those weeks where !!! has been with me mentally but not physically, so please forgive the lack of actual !!! index card in the photos. How about a button instead?

On that note, I'm off to store up some more !!! before next week. Not necessarily to be blogged about, though it's so easy to want to -- I know, it's been kind of !!! all the time for a bit here, but I've needed it. Six days till the parents arrive ...

Powering through

2010-07-28T13:34:00.007-05:00

The end of my summer course is coming up very shortly, and the project I've taken on (let's call it "thesis in disguise") is demanding some long hours.

The scope of it has turned out to be too large for the length of this mini-semester -- no surprise, given the amount of material I started with -- but whatever I turn in to my professor on Sunday won't be the end of the work. Just a "here's how far I got" submission. I'm hoping, after that, to keep going with this research into the fall so that it might help generate the writing I wasn't able to accomplish in the spring. So far, it's already done that -- just a few paragraphs, nothing huge. But they feel solid, and that is huge to me.

I'm wary. I feel like I'm emerging from a hole or a cave or somebody's badly ventilated basement. I'm afraid of things that will send me back to that place. My parents are coming to visit in exactly two weeks. And I think, if you've been following along, you know how much of an impact they can have on me, despite my best efforts.

The parents Troubadour love their food -- love eating it, planning where they'll get it next, taking special trips just to enjoy rarer forms of it, talking about it ad nauseum. An extended visit from them means their food obsession, among other delightful traits of theirs, will be unavoidable. For me and my food anxieties, this is suboptimal. Issues of control and neglect that have entangled us since we became a family get exacerbated, which either leads to ugly confrontations or one or more of us stuffing our emotions away because that's just how we've survived with one another.

Obviously, stuffing how I feel into the equivalent of a mental basement doesn't make for progress on my writing since my writing is about how I feel ...

So I'm putting some professional backup in place. First, the nutrition guru I found a month ago. Secondly, the counselor she recommended for the other work -- beyond just food -- that has to go hand-in-hand with the work I'm doing with her. I've started seeing the new counselor in the last few weeks, and I feel much more at ease with her than with the previous guy. So they're my go-to peeps for the twelve days in August during which D and I will be playing hosts (and afterward too).

In the meantime, we're preparing the house. We've had boxes in the hall since our guest room painting project began, and they've needed a place to go. There's no basement here, but we do have a garage, which Marketing Sis helped me paint last summer.

So last week, D and I finally got around to this:

What is it? Well, let's try a different view:

No? All right, then; how about this:

Yes, we put up shelves! And I learned how to wield this:

My parents, and all the insecurities they revive in me, may be looming in my future, but for a few days last week, I got some major !!! from revving that drill.

Now if we can just get everything sorted onto the shelves before my folks arrive ...

As promised

2010-07-24T06:31:00.002-05:00

Here's what we did to make our upside-down cake, modified from the original version in yesterday's post to make it Troubadour-friendly.

Peach and Cornmeal Upside-Down Cake
adapted from Martha Stewart Living, August 2008

Ingredients

5 1/2 oz. (1 stick plus 3 tbsp.) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup erythritol* sugar substitute
1/2 cup Splenda granular, divided
4 medium ripe peaches, skins on, pitted, and cut into 3/4-inch wedges
1 cup coarse yellow cornmeal
3/4 cup Carbalose flour**
2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. dried lavender
1 1/4 tsp. coarse salt
3 eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup heavy cream

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Melt 3 tbsp. butter in a 12-inch skillet (ours was stainless steel, works as well as cast iron) over medium heat, using a pastry brush to coat sides with butter as it melts. Sprinkle 1/4 cup Splenda evenly over bottom of skillet, and cook until Splenda starts to form a crunchy skin (will not caramelize), about 3 minutes. Arrange peaches in a circle at edge of skillet, on top of Splenda. Arrange the remaining wedges in the center to fill. Reduce heat to low, and cook until juices are bubbling and peaches begin to soften, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from heat.

2. Whisk cornmeal, Carbalose, baking powder, lavender, and salt in a medium bowl. Beat remaining stick of butter and erythritol with a mixer on high speed, until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl. Mix in remaining 1/4 cup Splenda, vanilla and cream. Reduce speed to low, and beat in cornmeal mixture in two additions.

3. Drop large spoonfuls of batter over peaches, and spread evenly using an offset spatula. Bake until golden brown and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 30-35 minutes. Transfer skillet to a wire rack, and let stand for 10 minutes. Run a knife or spatula around edge of cake. Quickly invert cake onto a cutting board. Tap bottom of skillet to release peaches, and carefully remove skillet. Reposition peach slices on top of cake as needed. Let cool slightly before serving.

* This creams WAY better than Splenda but lacks sweetness, hence the use of both in our substitutions.

** When using Carbalose, a general rule of thumb is to lower baking temperature by 25 degrees, double the rising agent, and increase baking time by at least 5 minutes (can be more, depending on the oven and the recipe). All adjustments have already been made here.

Upside down

2010-07-23T15:32:00.006-05:00

Cake, that is. I'd found yet another recipe in the inspirational binder to try, but I needed some help because (a) I'm allergic to raw stone fruits and (b) a 12-inch skillet is hard to flip when every bit of it is oven-hot.

So D rescued me. He peeled the peaches from the farmer's market and sliced them into a pile of juicy, golden wedges so I wouldn't get hives all over my hands. And when the cake came out of the oven, he gamely clapped a chopping board over the pan, palmed it with ease, and inverted the whole mess with a daredevil grin. I loved him for it.

In the past, I counted on him to be that rescuer for bigger things, things with greater emotional stakes -- family and all its traps, especially. I leaned on him because I (understandably) couldn't lean on myself. Then our own problems began to emerge, and I was alone, still unpracticed at being there just for me. We learned to avoid conflict -- easier to step around each other, swallowing our frustrations so as not to have those all-out fights, ones that would leave me waiting for him to patch me back up.

It's not sustainable, that dynamic. And I've known it for a while but haven't had the resources within to draw upon. But I'm working on that now, relearning, in a topsy-turvy way, how to repair myself.

I won't lie: it sucks. On many days, I'm not sure which end is up, and figuring it out leaves me spent and spread-eagled. And let's not forget afraid -- I fear that after so many months of emotional wreckage, D will have reached his limits. He has reached his limits. I've felt his patience wear long past thin, and it's terrified me. I can't learn quickly enough.

But he's still there, waiting, willing to offer a hand if I really need it. I think we both sense there's a new equilibrium to be gained for me and for us.

For that, I can only be grateful.

For the original recipe, click here. Modified recipe to come.

Still scattered

2010-07-19T18:54:00.008-05:00

Post-vacation brain fog continues to dog me. A new week is in progress but I'm somehow still standing at the starting line. Am I losing the ability to focus? Or maybe it's all the change in general that's been going on around here. Transitions mean feeling like I have two left feet. Not especially effective for maintaining a straight trajectory ...

But, in taking stock, I can say that by the end of last week, I did turn in a 30-page chunk of work to my independent study advisor. Not the same advisor directing my thesis, but another professor on my committee who happens to be supervising some summer research I've been doing on the side. It's thesis-related, just not formally so. The work is quite different from the kind of writing I've been trying to do, so much so that it almost feels like a completely separate discipline. But it examines the same material -- family -- and I've needed a new angle from which to examine the past: one less fraught. My instincts tell me to keep going even though the other part of me, the one having fits that I've written so little on the actual thesis, is sighing and wringing her hands. "This is just procrastination! You'll never finish if you get sidetracked so easily!" she says.

Well, 30 pages, whatever they're about, is 30 pages more than I ever got staring at the thesis file for the last two months.

In between sessions with the research, there have been other happenings afoot. Or shall I say, not-happenings. I took this shot while waiting to get on the highway, going home from my counselor's office.

After telling him that I didn't want to continue with him anymore.

Okay, I didn't say it quite like that -- I said I needed a break of indeterminate length. I couldn't, for my own sake, truly abandon the work I've done with him by closing the door for good, so it's there, in storage. But the end result is the same: no more awkward silences in his office when I've run out of things to say, waiting for feedback from him that almost never comes. I was dreading the conversation because of that very silence I was sure I'd be met with, but I got through it. And he seemed to understand.

Just in case things ended up going particularly badly, though, I reminded myself right before my appointment that I had this waiting for me at home:

She was originally our latest foster, but after a week, I knew she was the perfect kitty for both me and D. We have slightly different tastes in cat personalities -- he favors the enthusiastically playful ones; I like the mellow ones who will cuddle -- and this little lady has both traits in abundance. Not a typical combination, in our experience! So we made her an official part of the family Troubadour right before we left for Victoria.

She says hi. When she's chosen a name for herself, I'll post it (yes, even kitty gets a pseudonym). But for now, she wants to go back to enjoying my lap, which she just discovered as a prime napping spot. I was afraid she'd never try it out, but today -- !!!

For more !!!, check out the Intentional Happiness project here and here.

A return to ordinary

2010-07-16T00:30:00.014-05:00

Sometimes after a trip, I welcome that. Home, with its familiar spaces and smells and schedules, can be a relief after living out of a suitcase, not knowing what time the next meal will be.

Then there’s post-trip disorientation. What was the plan for the day after the return? Oh, right -- there wasn’t one. But there’s laundry and mail to sort and groceries to buy and the rhythms of the week to relearn.

Monday was one of those days-after where I couldn’t get my bearings.

Trip photos! Let’s look at those, said one voice.

Deadline coming up for thesis work, said another. You haven’t touched your writing since early last week.

Anniversary !!! -- don’t let that evaporate, a third voice chimed in. Blog already, before the high is too far into the past. Not that you won’t have fond memories of it all, but writing about it won’t be the same.

What are you making for dinner, asked a fourth. Ugh, there’s nothing in the fridge, and D’s going to be home in a little while, and then you’ll have to go to the store, and you’ve done nothing all day.

Shut UP, I wanted to say.

Ultimately, I’m glad I saved the details of the weekend getaway for a separate post -- I think I need the boost to help me through the wall of current reality. (Have I really done nothing but laundry this week? No, but that’s all that really feels like a measurable accomplishment!) So, a virtual escape is in order. To ...

Victoria! Specifically, Butchart Gardens. This was one of our few planned destinations for the trip. To give ourselves maximum exploration time, we left Seattle at noon on Friday and arrived for a mid-evening dinner (after a little bit of driving and two ferry rides). Which allowed us to get to the gardens early Saturday morning.

It was, as you can see, VERY sunny. It was pleasant in the shade with a breeze, but wandering the big open beds left us quite warm.

The enclosed butterfly garden down the street was amazingly cooler, despite the temperature and humidity that have to be maintained for its winged tenants. We managed to snap some pictures of several beauties that posed for us. An identification guide is available here.

We had trouble capturing the elusive Blue Morpho –- the brilliant sapphire color on its wings is only visible when they’re open, and this species tends to keep them folded while feeding. (These guys below are licking up some tasty banana juices.) But D managed to sneak a peek at an angle.

And this one, newly hatched from its chrysalis, had to let its wings dry -- so it couldn’t fly away.

After a day of flora and fauna, we were ready for dinner at a darling spot in old town Victoria. Bonus !!! –- a corner booth that gave us extra privacy (see, that’s the corner):

And from another angle:

To the left, you can see part of the beautiful antique door that was repurposed as a wall to enclose the bench seat. I thought it made for a special little nook.

The next morning was an early one, as we wanted to fit in a bit more sightseeing before catching the ferry back home. Major !!! for my own personal pot of coffee at the hotel restaurant:

Properly caffeinated, we set off on a tour of the harbor via one of these cute little pickle boats.

They have impressive maneuverability –- so much so that the captains perform a “water ballet” with them, set to the Blue Danube waltz, on Sunday mornings. Naturally, we timed our tour to end just before the performance so we could watch. (I did get video -- but the patience to edit it requires some sleep first.)

Then it was off to a nearby castle for some history on a man who came to Victoria as an indentured miner and died the richest man in British Columbia. (The photos on the website are better than any I could take in the lighting there.)

And finally, on our way to the ferry, a side jaunt to the Fisgard lighthouse.

I figured I’d gotten to see a lighthouse on the eastern coast of Canada exactly a year ago, but (very sadly) without D -- why not make up for it with one on the west?

Now I’m home, and the week is nearly over. Still dealing with post-vacation inertia? Oh, yes. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. We actually did quite a lot in those 48 hours away -- all very much worth it.

Busy, but still !!!

2010-07-12T10:30:00.007-05:00

So the first week of July was quite packed. There was the long holiday weekend with company in town and then a quick getaway trip just for us the next weekend. As a result, I’m behind again here.

But I’ve been keeping track of things. The camera’s been with me for much of the time, so what’s better than a little !!! to help with catching up?

If you live anywhere nearby, you know we had a bit of a heat wave last week. In a house without central air, that means retreating to the one room with climate control or putting together alternate cooling aids. Straight from the inspirational binder, I present:

Why all the excitement about watermelon? Because it’s been soaked in a tequila-based marinade with orange zest and some other tasty additions. For the recipe, click here. (We didn’t have Triple Sec, hence the addition of the orange zest. We also substituted Splenda for regular sweetener to make it blood-sugar friendly.)

Also excellent for bringing the temperature to more manageable levels:

I actually put this on to add a little color to my otherwise naked face (I’m not a frequent makeup user). I was headed out in the middle of one of the hottest afternoons and swiped some on my lips without thinking about much -- except how I wished it were ten degrees cooler. And suddenly, it was! For my mouth, at least, and the rest of me followed somewhat for a little while. Yay, peppermint oil! (Hey, I’ll do anything to feel more comfortable without having to pay the power company.)

Which brings me to another heat-busting option:

Yes, that is Canada. Or the gates to the ferry that took us to Canada for our wedding anniversary. More on that trip in a separate post -- it didn’t actually turn out to be that much cooler, but the idea of a cooler destination (no matter how small the temperature decrease) was extremely !!! by Friday morning.

Believe it or not, I still have some !!! shots (specific to our getaway), but I’ll sprinkle them into the larger story later this week. That’s fair, right? I figure it’s a good thing if an anniversary gives you things to be happy about even after it’s passed ...

This !!! project

2010-07-03T13:12:00.005-05:00

I first saw something about this at The Kitchen Witch, a blog (and blogger) I've loved since I started visiting her place last fall. At least, I think it was last fall. 2009 is kind of a blur.

The actual project originates with Momalom and Bad Mommy Moments. I love the idea: Intentional Happiness, or seeking out and documenting the things that put the !!! in your day. So I'm finally joining in after locating some index cards -- essential to making this work.

What's been the !!! in my week?

Well, to some degree, it started off last week after I'd picked up some of this

and this

which Marketing Sis encouraged me to try during my visit. Skin problems, hair problems; I was feeling pretty down about how I looked after several months of feeling pretty down. "Use my stuff while you're here," Marketing Sis said. "If it helps, great! And if it doesn't, you won't be out the cost of the whole product."

Both products seemed to help -- at least, they worked better than what I'd been using. So off to Target I went.

I looked in the mirror this week and someone with a bit more life in her face looked back at me. Maybe it was just the act of doing something a little special for myself. Or maybe it was feeling the moment of connection to my sister. Either way, I'm grateful -- !!! grateful.

Then there was this:

I've had a subscription to Living for a few years but the back issues have been collecting dust in a bookcase -- not a great use for the ideas in there and definitely not a good use of shelf space. So I decided several weeks ago to collate the recipes that were appealing (and adaptable to the Troubadour diet) into one binder, a project I finally finished this week.

I know, I know; why not just use the online archives? Because I'm tactile. I like to get my cooking inspiration by flipping through pictures of tasty food, serendipitously falling upon a recipe for celery root and apple salad while searching for a way to braise a roast. D and I have been trying out new recipes in the last few days, a refreshing change from some of our weeknight standards. (Sometimes habit gets the better of us during weekly meal planning.)

But the topper to it all? This:

I went outlet shopping on a whim Wednesday, not knowing what I'd find. Lo and behold, a Le Creuset store with a sale on already discounted merchandise! D and I had just been talking about how half the recipes we wanted to try requested a Dutch oven. So I called him up and told him about the deal. Was he interested enough to jump on the promotion?

I have a feeling the recipe binder is going to get a lot of use in the coming weeks ...

The view from above

2010-06-23T20:44:00.011-05:00

I want it.

And today, I got myself a guru who will help me get it: a dietitian.

I'd been mulling over the idea for a little while -- a year of unexplained creeping weight gain will do that to you, particularly if you have a complicated relationship with food. There is, of course, much more to that story, but suffice it to say that after these last two weeks of eating a traveler's diet and seeing the results on the scale, despite my best efforts to manage the damage while I was away, I decided I'd had enough of going it alone. I have too much on my metaphorical plate to worry about -- thesis, marriage, family -- to make room for food anxiety.

Not that food anxiety is totally separate from all of those things; I dare say it's a common element among all three, even if it's not at the surface of each. In the here and now, though, I need a guru who will take on the day-to-day questions and concerns about food with me so I can focus on the less straightforward business of sorting out my life as a whole.

For just shy of a year, I've been talking to a different counselor about the things that have gotten me down. And despite multiple attempts to ask him to show me the bigger picture, the map -- hell, even the path -- he's managed to get around my question: what are the problems and what do I do with them?

I didn't see the pattern for several months, which baffles me. But it's been a confusing year, one in which I second-guessed my instincts many times over. In recent weeks, I started bringing up the food anxiety in our sessions, outlined its severity, its years of entrenchment. "I know it's easy to focus on that since it has a handle that's easy to grasp," the counselor said. But nothing more.

So on Monday, I told him I was going to find a dietitian.

I met with her today, and from my first impression, I think she's going to be great. I felt better after talking to her, felt like we could tackle the anxiety, felt like she had a plan for me even if we didn't get into the nitty-gritty details all at once. I know she can't be the person to answer the larger questions on life for me, but she'll help me clear away some of the debris on the path. Which is what I've wanted all along from the other guy.

Maybe it's time to clear him away too, in favor of someone else -- a search process I'm hugely reluctant to begin, especially since it's taken so long to determine how dissatisfied I am with my current counselor. How can I prevent this from happening again? What if the next person -- and the next one, and the next -- are worse? Am I really willing to throw away a year's working relationship? I don't know.

But that view.

I want it.

Photos taken at the High Line, New York.

Ahem

2010-06-18T19:18:00.007-05:00

You know when you get a backlog of stuff you want to blog about but life gets in the way? And then you try to pick up from where you left off and your brain laughs at you?

Hi.

I'm just going to start with where I am now -- home, for one. After D.C. Part the First, the Toronto Interlude, D.C. Part the Second, and a wedding in New York tacked on at the very end, I'm back in my own time zone. I am cried out, danced out, and slept (on other people's couches) out, and I do not want to see another plane unless it comes with a one-way ticket to a state of bliss.

D and I wandered part of Riverside Park on Monday (we had several hours to kill before our early evening flight). It was the first piece of alone-time we had since I'd left, and it felt like I'd been away from him for months. Before my trip, we'd been having ups and downs with each other because of all the May-hem (and, in general, most of 2010), so it was a strange feeling to walk hand-in-hand, connected but also not.

I found a curlicue in one of the monuments just before we left in search of lunch. I can't remember if I pointed it out to D or if I just snapped the picture in silence.

The week's been okay, though. We finally pinned the hems on the remaining two curtains, which I'm hoping to work on tomorrow while D finishes putting up the brackets for the garage shelves, and we picked some new recipes to try this weekend. Last night, we watched a light movie together, the first romantic comedy in months. And tonight -- well, tonight we have no plans. Maybe that's a good thing; it gives us flexibility, the chance to be spontaneous. But the possibility of silence scares me more than a little.

Landing

2010-06-09T16:35:00.009-05:00

I've done a lot of that in the last week. First in D.C., where Marketing Sis lives -- several months ago, I'd planned a visit, hoping, among other things, to catch a performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring at the Kennedy Center with her. (We have a more than slightly irreverent appreciation for this piece, but that's a story for another post.) Arrived last Tuesday. Took off again Friday for Canada. Came back for the remainder of my visit Sunday.

My grandmother passed away just before I was supposed to come to D.C. I'd meant to write something to honor her nearer to the date of her death, but I knew the stress of travel prep would keep me from doing that properly. So here I am, trying to find words, but none are coming. There are images, snatches of beautiful things other people said at her funeral last weekend. Still, this isn't the right moment for me to think of her in the way I'd like. Perhaps in a few days. I'm leaving again on Friday to go to a wedding in New York. Once that's over, once I've landed for good in Seattle, I can do this. It seemed important, though, to mark her departure sooner in this space; hence these sentences.

Landing here twice in one week has let me remember my first trip alone to this city too. I was moving here for the summer to intern at a magazine, with only the address of a university dorm anchoring me to the world beyond the airport. The rice cooker my mother insisted on letting me borrow -- there was no stove, just a microwave and fridge in the efficiency I'd found -- didn't fit in my luggage, to her dismay. But it wasn't until my plane was gliding in over the Potomac, giving me a clear view of the Capitol dome, that I started to feel panic. "What have I gotten myself into," I whispered as we touched down, suddenly doubting my credibility, eligibility, whatever had supposedly earned me the right to be there. I'd never held a paid writing job before.

Returning so many years later, following the same trajectory past the Capitol, remembering my fear on the plane's final approach -- it was an odd feeling. I still write, in a slightly different form. And there's fear that goes with it, not so much about the prospect of doing it but whether I can sustain it, given its emotional demands. What have I gotten myself into? I'm still not sure. But I have to believe in it, or try my best to, even when words refuse to stick to the page.

So today, even without a clear sense of what I'm trying to say, I attempt.

So, about May

2010-06-02T10:37:00.005-05:00

That was kind of a wash, wasn't it?

That's sort of how I feel, looking at it from June. Not that I want to negate the good things that happened (irises, foster placements, and that random rainbow), but seriously, May, you threw some rather unwieldy wrenches into the mix, and I'm beginning to wonder what I have to do to make it stop. I don't think I can deal with another month like that, nor can my family or my marriage. Or, for that matter, my thesis, but that at least can be put on hold -- which is essentially what's happened for the last week, given the new chaos that erupted during that time. The situation's not bloggable yet, but suffice it to say that it's not pretty and will require some time to resolve.

So shape up, okay, 2010? These last few weeks haven't been representing you very well at all.

I've never been a willing roll-with-the-punches kind of girl, but I've done it out of necessity. That strategy is all that seems to be working in the short term these days. It's not sustainable, though. So I'm asking myself, what is?

I've asked that question for a while now, deciding to focus on small efforts, trying to push back without shoving -- because that doesn't work either, not with people, not with life. And I know I'm making mistakes, ones that make me want to give up trying because they cause frustration not only to me but to the people in my life. My husband, my sisters, my parents; the people who know me but don't know what to think of me or do with me in this state of flux as they too struggle with things like May. I'm tired; they're tired. And when I sense they're about to tire out, I back away, afraid they'll say, "Enough! Too much!" -- and leave. Which doesn't exactly help me with the learning process.

Give me the quotidian. Let me work with these challenges first, not the big ones that were May. I know; I don't really get to call these shots and May already happened. But I'm asking -- hell, begging -- whoever is in charge of the universe to cease and desist, or at the very least, dial down the intensity. Because no number of rainbows is going to help me make up the balance if it continues like this.

At long last

2010-05-24T17:53:00.007-05:00

Meet Tessa.

Of the four irises we picked out on our visit to the farm almost two years ago to the day, the tawny gold one bloomed last Thursday afternoon. She waited through a year in a planter on a too-shady apartment balcony and a long fall and winter in the ground at our new house. Finally, finally. Welcome to the world, pretty one.

(Yes, before we started fostering kitties, we named our plants.)

I'm so glad we didn't miss this moment. We'd planned a last-minute weekend trip down to Portland to see the same friends we were visiting when we went to the iris farm in 2008, and I had a feeling this iris would bloom while we were away. And then once it did open, I wasn't sure I'd get a decent picture because the weather was uncooperative -- up through last Friday afternoon, it rained pretty steadily. But just after I loaded up the car, the showers slowed and some sun sneaked through. So I slipped to the front of the house and snapped some quick shots.

A lucky interval, those five minutes. I'll take them.

A quiet night

2010-05-19T23:11:00.005-05:00

D is out for a coworker's birthday celebration this evening. So right now, it's just me and my thoughts and the soft weight of one of the foster kitties against the backs of my knees. Both of our guests got adopted last week, and the new parents plan to pick them up tomorrow. I'm glad -- it happens to be convenient that the cats are going, given our uncertain travel plans, but it's also wonderful to know they'll be in loving hands, even if I'm losing their companionship.

Speaking of company, I'm grateful for the kind words so many of you have left here in the last few days. I know the blogosphere's been extra busy of late, so it means even more that you've stopped by. Thank you -- I can't say it enough.

This week and most of the last has been a lot of going through the motions -- waiting and trying not to think about the inevitable. My mother's family has decided to transfer my grandmother to palliative care, which means there will be no more trips to the hospital. We've had word that my grandmother is still eating, but only minuscule amounts from a syringe, not unlike the kind we've had to use to force-feed sick cats. Swallowing is a challenge.

I've managed to keep working on my thesis, in spite of everything. Just a few fresh pages that have ultimately been whittled down -- my editing eye seems to take over two days out of three. It is slow, but not as slow as I imagine time must feel when it's measured in drops of food.

There's plenty else I'm sure I could do. There are still two curtains that need hemming, and there's laundry. We've got trips, planned ones, coming up very soon, and I ought to take care of the end-of-month bills. And -- wasn't there more? I can't remember. None of it feels important.

But I'll do them, these things and whatever else I happen to think of. Like the sometimes mechanical act of sitting down before this screen, laying fingers on the keys, hoping habit will lead me through the slowdowns of thought that are also inevitable. I'm hoping the mundane will make time feel less present.

Or, like writing, allow me to slip out of the present for a little while.

Hold, hope, repeat

2010-05-12T17:17:00.007-05:00

I was finishing the hem on one of the curtains when my phone rang last Friday, a call from Canada. I've known in my heart for at least a year that such a call might come at any point. But I hadn't thought about what I'd do when it did come. At least, not recently.

It was my grandmother, my aunt said. She was in the hospital, some kind of infection -- a lung, her bladder, her kidneys. It wasn't looking good. Was my mother around?

I told her she wasn't -- Troubadour Mom was actually visiting Almost Dr. Sis -- and gave my aunt their cell phone numbers.

That's where it got complicated.

Some time later that night, while D and I were grocery shopping, the calls started coming in -- Troubadour Dad (also visiting my sister) and Almost Dr. Sis, trying to figure out what exactly my aunt had told me about my grandmother's condition, updating me on my mother's plans to fly to Toronto right away. Was I planning to go?

I didn't know.

"Of course you should go," said one voice in my ear as I stood immobilized in front of the meat counter. "You want to be there."

"But are you really up for this?" said another, the one I've been trying to listen to more. "Can you handle it?"

"Well," I said to them both, "what does it entail?"

It was never clear for three days afterward. More calls, back and forth, trying to assess how serious my grandmother's condition was, whether there were imminent end-of-life decisions on the line. She was fighting the infection but unable to eat, or so it seemed. Not having an answer, I held tickets to get me to Canada on a red-eye every night of this week, since I couldn't get updates on the situation until the end of each day. If this was indeed the end, I did want to be there, to bear witness -- my grandmother was unlikely to recognize me or respond to much, given her condition, so being there for her was sadly not the primary reason to go.

But being there would also mean getting drawn into family politics, volatile and difficult to navigate (in crisis or at any other time), and the associated pressure to look after others first before myself, as I'd always been taught. This, in a larger sense, is what I've been trying to disentangle myself from for so long: the familial forces that make any decision to act in my own interest so hard. The forces that have made me fearful of being a nuisance with my own needs, fearful of being hurt because I put those needs out there only to have them struck down. Stay or go, speak or keep silent, and for whom?

Last night, my grandmother was released to go back to her nursing home. Yes, she rallied and survived, to our relief. She still can't eat much, which is of great concern -- dehydration and the dangers that come with it will keep looming unless she's monitored closely, and the staff in her residence are spread thin. What concerns me more, though, is this battle of my own, selfish as it may sound. I didn't go because I couldn't bring myself to face my fears. It was too soon after I'd finally identified what those fears were.

But it kills me now that I was and still am in my own way, at such a crucial moment. I'm better than this. Or at least, I want so much to be.

Waiting

2010-05-04T15:18:00.003-05:00

I knew today was off to a slow start when we realized we'd put dirty dishes in among the clean ones in the dishwasher.

Not that it takes much effort to add more detergent and run the machine again. It's the drying that frustrates me. The whole thing is set to perform that convenient little function so I don't have to towel everything off, but inevitably, when the door opens, all the plastics (mostly food packaging we've saved from the garbage for storing leftovers -- margarine and yogurt tubs, peanut butter jars) are still beaded with moisture, dripping onto everything else. So you have to let it all air dry. I try to run the machine right after dinner and then pull the racks out before bedtime so that this can happen overnight. Hence my frustration this morning when I realized I'd have to wait through another evaporation cycle before I could deal with the dirty items crowding the sink and counter.

It's a linear process, which is something that's also true of writing for me. Sunday night, I sent the intro chapter of my thesis to my advisor, the chapter I'd been working on since January. Somewhere in the midst of my February trip, I'd revised that chapter based on her feedback and had sent it to her again. Knowing I needed to keep moving things along (especially since I was still hoping to graduate this spring), I started on the next chapter, or what I thought that would be, based on the context created by the first. The narrator's quest, as my advisor likes to call it, was established in my mind and on those initial pages.

Two weeks later, I got the revision back -- with more questions about what I'd changed than my advisor had had about the original version. The quest? More muddied than it was clarified, she said. In the end, we agreed that much of what I'd added needed to come back out. Which also meant that the next chapter I'd been working on, which referenced key parts of those additions, no longer made any sense.

So I'm sitting here, awaiting news of the revision of the revision while trying to write a new second chapter. I know I should keep going with what's beginning to emerge on the page, should trust that this time I've finally figured out and explained what the quest is. But I'm feeling skittish. Afraid that some time in the near future, I'll get my first chapter draft back with requests for yet another full-scale rewrite.

Meanwhile, my ideas are crowding my brain, in need of processing. I just want to be able to set them, clean and dry, in the places they belong.

Is that so much to ask?

A serious request

2010-04-30T18:16:00.008-05:00

Even though I'm away from Little U. on the Prairie, I still get e-mails from my department. Reminders about registering for classes each semester, invitations to readings, job postings, spam -- check to all of the above. Most of it isn't relevant to me at the moment.

But today, I received this.*

If you enjoy the alphabet, then have I got a job for you! I'm looking for two people to alphabetize and shelve about 2,000 books for me very quickly -- either tonight or tomorrow. (But preferably tonight.)

My mom is visiting me soon and is going to be appalled to discover that I haven't quite moved in to this place that I supposedly moved into several months ago. So I'm hoping to diguise [sic] the fact that I own no furniture with many shelves of meticulously alphabetized books (plus a couple hundred DVDs).

Sound like your idea of a Friday night? Then e-mail me and I'll give you some details. I think the job will require two people, so contacting me with a partner already in place would be ideal -- otherwise you risk being partnered with someone potentially annoying. I will pay you each 150 bucks in cold/hard cash, and I'm guessing that the job will take you about 5 hours total. If you're pleasant I'll also order pizza.

Yours,
A. Professor

Yes, this was sent by a member of the faculty at Little U., who has been teaching there longer than I have been one of Little U.'s students. And no, s/he is not on my thesis committee -- I never did end up taking a workshop under this person, so it didn't make sense to ask.

I know; it's a quirky request, humorous because of the situation it describes. But I hesitate to laugh for two reasons. One, because I think this prof is being earnest -- as in, the situation is of a serious nature to him/her. Parental visit, lack of furniture. I know that kind of judgment all too well. I could substitute a good number of items (concrete or abstract) for that missing couch and coffee table s/he's talking about in that e-mail and remember the squirmy feeling of not measuring up to somebody's expectations on how I should live.

The other reason? Well -- and you can laugh about this -- I like filing.

D makes fun of me for it, but when he needs a document we don't reference on a daily basis, he's very glad I am the way I am. Need a receipt for the sofa we bought three months back? Three years? Sure. Records from bank accounts two out-of-state moves ago? Got it. How about the operating manual for the decades-old sewing machine your mother passed on to us last year? Give me thirty seconds; I know exactly where it is.

So, alphabetizing books. I so would have done it for this prof. And cash (and pizza) aside, I would have enjoyed it.

But I also would have been getting ready to defend my thesis and/or give a final to my students, so I guess it's a good thing I'm not there, tempted by this distraction ...

* Edited to protect the identity of the original sender.

Measure by measure

2010-04-25T19:38:00.003-05:00

"I think I've got it," D said, and he pulled the piece of folded silk taut between his fingers, waiting for me to pin it just so. When I was done, he moved his level a few inches to our left and started on the next section of curtain hanging from the rod he'd installed earlier with the help of the same level. Fold, level, pin; fold, level, pin. All in the name of perfecting a hem.

These curtains are going to hang in our bedroom, which means no one but us will see them. If any part of their hems happens not to fall exactly one inch above the carpet, only we will know. So I was more than a little amused, sprawled on hands and knees this afternoon with D and his level, our chins practically grazing the floor as we measured on.

But these curtains -- something we started the weekend before with D's aunt, who came out to help us make them as her housewarming gift -- they are for us. Our first home decor project to dress up our most private space. It feels right somehow that we're taking the time to make it as close to perfect as we can. Even if using a level is kind of hilarious.

I'm sure that if we were more experienced, we'd know some sort of trick not involving carpenter's tools to do this properly, but we're also accustomed by our nature to making do with what we have (within certain limits). There's fun in improvisation, seeing if our inventions will work. There's a little high I get when they do. And of course, disappointment when they don't.

I've been improvising around here a lot in the wake of the last month or so, letting parts of my old routine fall away in the hope that I will open myself to invention, some kind of insight on how to treat myself, a self that feels foreign. "You're getting your bearings," a friend said to me. "You won't always pick the right tools for coping, but trying them out is part of the process."

So a level it is for now.

Tuesday

2010-04-14T15:20:00.004-05:00

... was hard.

Well, for that matter, Monday was too. I had my follow-up appointment with my local GI doctor to talk about the plan going forward after what he lightly referred to as the Million-Dollar Workup.

I was glad he wasn't put off that I'd gone to someone else for all the testing. I'd planned to be forthright about discussing the findings, no matter how he seemed (I did have all the new data sent to him). But it was a relief all the same that we didn't have any awkwardness about it.

The good news he had for me: my liver enzymes are completely back in the normal range. Which means I can drink again -- at last! -- with continued monitoring every few months.

The bad news I had for him: this little problem called depression is not going away.

It is not the fault of any single thing. But we were supposed to start trying to have a baby this month. That was, in essence, the plan D and I framed up last summer, which was why we were so intent on getting my health issues fixed -- or at least properly examined to see what kinds of risks and other concerns we needed to take into account before trying to get me pregnant. We went to a reproductive endocrinologist, who ran the usual blood tests to get baseline readings, which revealed the abnormal liver numbers (you know the rest of that story). He also discussed the things I ought to consider to get my body in the best shape for this new adventure -- including tapering off the antidepressants I'd been taking since mid-2008. Commuter marriage? Not good for someone who's been dealing with chronic blues for a long time. But D and I were done with that, and I was working through family stress in my writing. I felt ready to move forward.

So I timed the step-down very carefully, waiting till after the holiday season to attempt it. The process seemed to go well; by the first week of February, I was done.

But the combination of things that was the rest of that month -- I didn't anticipate how they would affect me. I thought I was in a better place; really, I did.

No.

Of course, it's not just February I'm trying to work through. February was just a month of triggers. But, given their effects, it's clear that there are underlying griefs I haven't found a way to manage completely. And knowing that, knowing I haven't yet achieved that goal is what kills me now. Because I wanted to be ready for motherhood (at least, as ready as one can hope to be). The reality is that there's no way I can look myself in the eye and say, "Sure. You can handle it." I know at least that much about where I am, even if I don't know much else.

And yet. No matter how wise that decision, for me and for the little life that will be utterly dependent on me, it is still heartbreaking -- because of the delay, because of the reasons for the delay, because there is no clear mark on the horizon to tell me when the delay will be over. And the irony of it all: the antidepressants were quite likely the source of the liver damage.

I know I shouldn't be hard on myself about this as it certainly won't help. If there's anyone who needs to be in my corner with me, it's me. "You've got a lot going on," the GI doctor said sympathetically as I confessed to him that I'd relapsed (with not just the GI problems but also depression) and what that meant for our plans for a family. He urged me to take care of myself first.

I spent much of Tuesday trying to write this post, but it was still too hard to put everything into words, so I gave up and cuddled our foster kitties for a while. They seemed to know I needed their company and stayed close. Today, to my relief, felt better -- even though what I've described isn't a fraction of the way it all feels, at least some of that was writable, which means I'm working through it. I am taking care of myself here.

I just wish I didn't have to.

I knew it wasn't time yet

2010-04-08T12:15:00.006-05:00

Remember that little rose plant we saved from near death back in November? It was touch-and-go for a while, even after it started putting out new leaves. Some curled up and fell off; others started out looking fine but became slightly deformed as they grew. We couldn't tell if it was planning to stay or go.

Well, last week it bloomed.

There was a bud when I got back from my February trip, but I didn't know if it would survive -- the plant had put out buds before but couldn't sustain the energy to bring them to full flower. So I watched and watered very carefully, sneaking some photos when it thought I wasn't looking.

I almost decided to plant this outside after its blossom was spent. When I picked up the gerberas two weeks ago, the florist at the grocery store tried to sell me another miniature rose. "They do wonderfully in our climate," she said -- which is true. I've seen many a happy rose in our neighborhood in summer. But I wasn't so sure about mine, given its rough start. How I understand those.

It's not so much the individual stressors -- an aphid here, a chillier night there, a few too many cloudy days in a row. It's all of them at once, too many things to react to, that would keep it stunted, possibly preventing it from ever making a full recovery. So my rose and I are staying indoors until we're ready.

Good thing, too, because it snowed today.

This is my reason

2010-04-01T12:58:00.006-05:00

... to be happy today: my answer to question 7 on our census form.

I almost wrote in some arrows and exclamation points and a great big smiley face. But I figured it was better not to take any chances with whatever system, human or automated, is going to process this.

$%!#

2010-03-30T17:45:00.008-05:00

I hadn't been blogging about the outcome of all the testing for a lot of reasons.

For one, I needed a break from thinking about it. And I certainly didn't want this space to become all medical, all the time. Then the diagnosis, while a diagnosis, was still preliminary, so I didn't want to jinx it by talking about it -- I figured I'd get my prescriptions filled (a combination of antibiotics and probiotics), start treatment, and await the results before mentioning anything here. Things were looking good too! No nasty GI symptoms for a week and a half. I was stoked.

But this morning, I woke up to a gastrointestinal mutiny.

What the hell happened??? Of course my brain shifted into analytical mode and started counting off possible causes. Last night's leftovers? (Not likely, barely two days old, quite properly refrigerated, and without effect on D.) Side effects of the antibiotics? (Doesn't make sense -- wouldn't they have made themselves known early on?) How about the shellfish from two weekends back. (Again, doubtful, given the time lag.) That leaves -- uh oh.

Did I mention we picked up two foster kitties on Friday? And that one of them recently tested positive for giardia? I had no idea until after I'd gotten them home and had time to read their medical files thoroughly. Kitty's been treated, but still. Gulp.

I've always been very, very careful about handwashing after handling any of our fosters. These parasites, however, are especially tenacious -- you have to boil them to death. Unfortunately, as much as I'd like to, I cannot plunge my hands into boiling water every time I finish grooming our furry guests or scooping their litter.

Please, after these last nine months of GI evil, let me not have gotten giardia.

The problem is that its symptoms, from what I've read, are essentially indistinguishable from malabsorption resulting from other causes (the issue I had to begin with). In my case, Dr. Specialist was guessing I had a bacterial imbalance in my small intestine. And a significant reduction in symptoms after this course of antibiotics would mean he was probably right.

But now, now there's this new variable. Possibly throwing off this test, as it were. Does it mean further months of not knowing for sure what's wrong? Are we going to be playing the watch and wait game all over again? And which doctor am I supposed to call -- Dr. Specialist, who is nearly impossible to get hold of because of the system he works within, or my local GI guy, who seems to be a bit more conservative (read: in no rush to get an answer) in his diagnostic approach?

I know, I'll call both -- Dr. Specialist first thing tomorrow and as many times as is reasonable (it's too late in the day to reach him now). If no answer after a day or so, I'm moving on to local GI guy. That's the best I can do. I just wish I could do something more in the here and now to help me feel less frustrated.

Well, in a way, I suppose I already have. I bought myself some potted gerbera daisies last week because they caught my eye at the grocery store. Took them directly to our bathroom, our makeshift spa for plants. They're hanging out at the edge of the tub, the first thing I see whenever I walk in there.

In hindsight (yep, back to the poop humor again), flowers were a great idea.

A last-minute adventure

2010-03-25T23:25:00.002-05:00

We were hoping for geoducks.

If you've never seen one before, let me point you to this helpful video. If you already know what these things are and where they live, then you know it's not easy to dig them up yourself.

But we were game, D and I. And so were three dear friends from college (two currently living in Portland, the other visiting them while attending a conference). They told us they wanted to come up for the weekend, do something outdoorsy, and eat exotic food.

We said, why not roll all of that into the same adventure?

Our friends, being of the same slightly crazy bent, heartily agreed that this was the thing to do.

Okay. Here's the disclaimer: I've never been clam-digging and neither has D. We didn't have a clue about where to find geoducks, much less how to go about harvesting them, but since these big bivalves are native to our region, we figured there would be locals in the know if we needed advice.

So D looked up which beaches were specifically recommended for our geoduck hunt, when low tide would hit, and what sort of license we would need (yes, you do need a license in Washington to dig for clams). And he got basic tips on how to locate our prey (more on that shortly) and what kind of equipment to use for proper excavation.

Sunday morning, we headed for the Olympic Peninsula.

We were told that geoducks would be accessible at tide levels of minus two feet and that even then, we'd need to do some serious digging to get to them. So we furnished everyone with boots and various gardening tools (a spade here, a trowel there, and even a collapsible snow shovel). We also stopped at a hardware store to get this:

A garbage can? Oh yes. For shoring up the walls of the holes we'd be digging in waterlogged sand. Just saw off the bottom and ta da! Instant brace. (It was the best we could come up with in place of the metal drum recommended for such purposes.)

We got to the beach about an hour and a half ahead of low tide, looking every bit the first-timers we were. What were we supposed to look for, we wondered. Siphons, supposedly, sticking right out of the sand. But there wasn't much to be seen right away.

A little surface digging, however, turned up great numbers of cockle clams, among other kinds. So we set about harvesting those for a while.

In the process we also unearthed several moon snails (not to be taken home, according to regulations, but fascinating to observe). This one was shy and went into its shell when I pulled out my camera:

This one, on the other hand, was curious. Hard to believe all of that body could fit inside that tiny house!

Then an enormous sea star floated by:

We offered it a cockle in exchange for a look at its tube feet.

Suddenly, there was a shout.

"I saw it! Something squirted water a foot in the air!" said one of the boys, pointing at a burbling hole in the sand.

They dug madly for a few minutes, throwing cockle-loaded chunks of beach aside until --

"I've got its neck!"

"Hang on to it! Let me free up the shell -- "

"Wait, where's the garbage can? The walls are coming down!"

"No time, just dig. Can you rock it loose?"

"Um ... "

(Shouting gives way to organized grunting. The girls step away from the hole, not sure whether the boys or their prey will win.)

And then:

Victory!

Numerous victories, in fact. As the afternoon went on, we started to recognize the holes in the sand that indicated there was something below. I'm sure the other people on the shore could tell we were amateurs by our excitement at each find. But we didn't care. At the end of the day, we had seven giant clams in our cooler.

When we went to have our catch weighed by the warden, though, we learned that they were not in fact geoducks.

"Horse clams," she explained with a gentle smile. And she showed us, in her well-worn guide to shellfish, pictures of our find next to its even larger cousin, which, given the day's low tide of only -0.3 feet, was well beyond reach.*

Both clams, said a fellow digger who overheard the verdict, could be cooked the same way -- the siphons blanched and skinned then sliced thin for sashimi. (The rest of the innards, unlike our 120 whole cockles, were not recommendable for the steamer.)

Yes, we were a little disappointed. But only momentarily. The point of the trip was to experience something we hadn't before, and we certainly had, with much abandon. So we headed for our return ferry still pleased with our adventure.

And the meal that evening?

Well-earned.

* If, after all this, you're interested in trying for geoducks yourself, this page provides excellent tips. Good luck -- and I totally want to hear about your experience if you go!

Little reminders

2010-03-24T00:21:00.010-05:00

So you now know about the significance of curlicues for me and D. It's funny -- when I was writing that post, I didn't really expect it to have relevance to anything beyond the cracked glasses. But a few days into my visit with Almost Dr. Sis, we went to a concert where I saw this:

And when I gave the stage a closer look, I realized the walls were embellished with these:

Which reminded me of -- who else? -- D.

That's how curlicues used to operate for us in our long-distance relationship, as a reminder of the other person. Whenever curlicue sightings happened to occur, we'd report them to each other. "I thought of you today when I saw ___________," it went.

I had forgotten about that. But it was nice to remember during my two weeks away from D, especially when I was wishing he could be there.

I got back just in time to celebrate our birthdays together. We'd recently discovered a low-carb flour, so we decided why not test it out on a cake? (Neither of us had enjoyed such a novelty since D's hypoglycemia diagnosis in 2006.) It turned out all right, especially with chocolate cream cheese icing and whipped cream filling.

What we put on it to make it extra special:

Fun with some sun

2010-03-15T14:34:00.007-05:00

SuziCate of The Water Witch's Daughter has given me a Sunshine Award. Thanks, SuziCate!

The award is supposed to be passed on to twelve other bloggers (no other rules as far as I can tell). But I've noticed that, within my blog circle (small but growing), this award has been handed around to many deserving people. Some folks have even been tagged multiple times! I do want this to remain fun and special when I pass this along, but if this is your fourth nomination, you're probably wondering, "Twelve more blogs to pass this to? And I thought the first thirty-six were hard to come up with."

So. In consideration of so many of you who have received so much well-deserved Sunshine, I'm revising the rules a bit.

I'm sure some of you, when you were growing up, heard this medley by The 5th Dimension at least once on the radio (and if you remember the second half of it, then you know why I'm mentioning it here). It won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Best Contemporary Vocal Performance by a Group at the 12th Annual Grammy Awards. I was not yet around to remember that, but the recording has also, according to Wikipedia, been referenced in the media as follows (and I quote)*:

French's mustard used portions of "Let the Sunshine In" for their commercials in the late '80s.

Hans Zimmer created a version of the song for the opening sequence of the 1990 film Bird on a Wire.

In the third season episode of The Simpsons "Bart the Lover" from 1992, the Twirl King Yo-Yo company uses the "Age of Aquarius" portion of the song during their school Twirl King Champions yo-yo exhibition assembly.

The song appears as the fifth track of the second disc of the soundtrack to the 1994 movie Forrest Gump.

In 1998, Burger King used this song to promote their breakfast menu.

The 1999 remake of The Out of Towners used "Aquarius" when Steve Martin's character has a psychedelic scene after ingesting a hallucinogenic.

In the 2001 Disney movie Recess: School's Out, "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" plays during the end of the movie, moving into the credits with the chorus "Let the Sunshine In."

"Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" is performed with dancing at the conclusion of the 2005 movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin after the lead character's first sexual encounter.

Société Bic (brand name, Bic) also used the song in the 2007 advertising campaign for the debut of their "Soleil Triple Blade Razors" in America.

The "Let the Sunshine In" portion of the song was used as one of the official theme songs for the 2008 general election campaign of Barack Obama.

"Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" is also used in commercials for the Kia Rondo.

The "Aquarius" song is used in commercials for the Aquarius sports drink.

William Shatner sang a version of "Aquarius" in a commercial for Priceline.com.

Used in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, 2001, second walk.

Okay. Here's what I'm asking you to do. Examine the bulleted list above and give yourself a point for each item you can count in your own viewing/listening experience. Then report your point total in the comments below and tell us about at least one of those experiences! (Seriously, I want to know if you've seen William Shatner's performance and/or remember that French's mustard commercial -- what was going on in your life then?) Ten bonus points to anyone who has heard the medley performed live by The 5th Dimension. (Anybody know if they did that at the Grammys? I'm guessing they did, but ... ?)

Once you've done that, feel free to grab this award and pass it along as you see fit (by offering it to twelve deserving bloggers, if you so choose, or by using the modified rules I've created). You are, of course, still welcome to play even if you don't want to pass the award along. Enjoy!

* Clearly I have not verified said media references, but I am supposed to be working on my thesis, people. Forgive me?

Whew

2010-03-12T14:51:00.006-06:00

I am, for the time being, very relieved.

I'd been worrying about the looming deadlines for my thesis, which I'd intended to defend in May. With the mess that was these last few weeks and the continuing unpredictable evolution of the narrative I'd been working on throughout the past several months, I was really unsure that I'd have something coherent to submit, much less something well-revised.

So I talked with my advisor today. We were on the phone for nearly an hour about the new developments in the work and the (further) changes in direction it's undergone. And we decided it was absolutely a much better idea for me to give the work and myself the time and space necessary to continue growing. Which means there will be no more talk of a defense until fall.

I have to say, my advisor may not always get what I write, but she does understand me. And thank goodness -- without the flexibility she was able to give me, I was going to be this for sure with an end-of-April deposit deadline:

(I know, I know; it's Spanish for sun, but I'm sure you can imagine how the sign looked from far away when D and I came across this restaurant!)

I am not this person

2010-03-10T11:46:00.003-06:00

... who has suddenly lost the ability to do -- well, almost anything. I’m not, I swear, this person who is letting the weekly dinner plan fall to only what comes out of the freezer in vacuum-sealed packages: tilapia fillets, mixed vegetables, pot stickers. Not all within the same meal either.

I’m not this person who crawls back into bed after breakfasting on coffee. I used to do laundry and dishes and file the innumerable bills and other important items from the mail. I would read the news over my cereal, then start my workout. I’d shower before lunch. I'd even floss. I could go about my daily responsibilities without feeling like each small task required so much will. And pleasurable things -- they were effortless to pursue, not these chore-like endeavors they've suddenly become.

It will get better. It has to. But this person who's taken over my body in the last week since I got back -- you're not welcome. You're no stranger to me; I remember you all too well from previous dark times. I'd just forgotten how sneaky you could be. I mean, twelve days ago, I really did think I was fine. I was up to my elbows in revisions; I was chasing down thesis committee members. Hell, I even managed to sell a TV and a microwave on Craigslist to two different people and get a foster cat adopted by a third while I was three time zones away (thanks, D, for doing the in-person follow-up for all that).

And then, some time in the early morning of the last day before I was to fly home, you showed up. You hopped into the bed while I was in the hospital and curled right up under the skimpy white sheet like a delighted child who had found a new playmate. I'm sure I told you to go away. But you knew I'd been worn down, knew my defenses were gone. You'd been watching me for days, waiting for your moment. I realize that now and wish I'd recognized you sooner. Maybe I did and was just in denial.

I understand that you've decided to sojourn here for a stay of indeterminate length, but I'm not cool with it. Do what you have to do (or don't, as the case may be) -- I'll give you that. But tell me what it is you really need, tell me how to provide it, so I can send you away again, this time, I hope, for good.

Because you don't get to stay forever. One way or another, I will figure out how you work. And when that day comes, I'll be the person in charge again. Yes, me. And I won't make it pleasant for you to hang around. So do us both a favor. Help me help you so we can go our separate ways. Really, it'll be better for everyone involved.

Because this never happens

2010-03-05T11:05:00.003-06:00

... I had to take a picture. Yep, those are my (rather foreshortened) legs stretched across all three seats on the plane from Chicago to Seattle on Tuesday. Thank you to the two passengers who decided they wanted upgrades or standby seats on an earlier flight. You made those four hours so much better than they might have been.

It looks like all the testing is over for at least a month. And several of the tests came back with results we can actually work with, so it was very much worth all the trouble. Many thanks to Dr. Specialist for the very thorough work-up and for helping me retain some sense of dignity through what were some fairly dignity-robbing circumstances. Many more thanks to Almost Dr. Sis for getting me where I needed to be for all those appointments -- I know it couldn't have been easy with the tough stuff you were dealing with in your own life. The gods of timing, eh? How they mock us sometimes.

I'm happy to say I've recovered from the last round of sedation (Versed + Demerol = one very groggy Troubadour, even more so than after general anesthesia! WTF?). That said, it's taking me longer to bounce back from these last two weeks than I thought it would, for a lot of reasons, some unexpected.

Fortunately, D and I have a long weekend planned just for us at a local bed-and-breakfast. So I'm looking forward to that. Maybe when we get back, some more trip-related news. And if not, then definitely one more curlicue-related story.

Cracks and curlicues

2010-02-28T14:59:00.006-06:00

It happened two weeks back, the day before Valentine's Day.

I pulled the glass out of the dishwasher that morning and noticed a small but clearly visible line under the pattern printed on its surface. It was time to retire this one, just like its twin, which cracked a few years earlier.

I bought these a decade ago from a little boutique that may or may not be in business now. I passed its window on the way home from class and went inside on a whim. These glasses were set on a sale shelf toward the back of the store with other random items.

Why these glasses? I don't completely remember how it came to be, but somehow, we adopted the curlicue as our symbol. I think it had something to do with time being a spiral -- cycling but still moving in a line. We needed a sense of forward motion but couldn't deny the detours our relationship was having to undergo. So, the curlicue. We'd doodle it on things, the way people would carve their initials on tree trunks, to remind ourselves of the possibility of a future in one location, even if we had to get there in a roundabout fashion.

So just before Valentine's Day ten years ago, I found these glasses waiting for me on that shelf. I took them back to my dorm, filled one with red and white M&Ms, and wrapped it up in cellophane. I sent that one to D and kept the other for myself. For the years we were apart, we used these. And when we had to separate for a second time, I made sure to take mine with me.

Of course, with all of that history, I can't bring myself to throw these away, but I haven't figured out what to do with them. Perhaps they'll become homes for small plants. Or candleholders. No matter what, glasses, we've had a good run. Here's to having you side by side.