4. Distant

Distant

            Is “distant” really a feeling? Or is it a way to avoid feeling? I’ve often said that writing lets me get those feelings that bedevil or confuse me out of my head so I can make more sense of them. But am I also distancing myself from those feelings? Perhaps I'm being too hard on myself. If I can only identify my feelings by writing them down, isn’t making them somewhat distant a good thing for me?

            Distant is safer. Distant is useful. Distant is hiding. Distant is camouflage. Distant is protective. Distant is observant. Distant is watchful. Distant is spying on myself.

 

It’s NaNoWriMo Day 4. I will be writing about feelings, because that is what I have the hardest time articulating. One feeling a day.

3. Aggravated

Aggravated

            Was I merely aggravated when the laundry card didn’t work in one machine this evening? Or was I angry? What’s the difference? I yelled after the card gave me an error message when it worked in two other machines; I yelled, “Fuck!” That feels more like anger than aggravation. Aggravation is irritable, stronger than frustration, not as strong as anger. Anger is fire red; aggravation is a sickly maroon; frustration is a brownish green. Aggravation gnaws, it lingers, itching intermittently in hard to reach places. Aggravation kvetches, it complains in low tones repeatedly. Aggravation wants you to know there’s something wrong, you’d better fix it or else. 

It’s NaNoWriMo Day 3. I will be writing about feelings, because that is what I have the hardest time articulating. One feeling a day. 

 

2. Grief

Grief

            Loss, the never having again, never seeing, never hearing, never knowing, never, never, never, never, gone forever in material form, losing the connection, losing the “other.”

            Grief becomes common as I age. More people slip out of life at later ages and come holes in the world. I need to learn to accept loss as inevitable, as part of life as I go on living past the lives of others.

            Grief is a hollowness that never gets filled. It does not close; closure is a cliché that doesn’t warm. Grief is its own homecoming. It comes for all of us and takes different communal forms. I keep being drawn to abstraction, to reporting someone else’s experience, someone else’s feelings. The feeling inside is too chaotic. The language of closure implies a set way of feeling, a schedule to be followed. If you don’t follow the schedule you have fallen too far into grief. You have allowed grief to control you, you have lost control of your feelings, of yourself.

            Death is the ultimate loss of control, “you” are no longer here, only your body, cold, motionless, stiffening. The death of someone I love, or I have known for a long time, or a member of my nuclear family is the notice that I can happen to me. Perhaps I am next in line. The moment of my death is a mystery. Another loss of control.

It’s NaNoWriMo Day 2. I will be writing about feelings, because that is what I have the hardest time articulating. One feeling a day.

Calm

It’s NaNoWriMo Day 1. I will be writing about feelings, because that is what I have the hardest time articulating. One feeling a day.

 

Calm

            A coworker once told me that I always seemed so calm, even though I had an extremely stressful job. I was perplexed. I did not feel at all calm. I often cried in the shower before I went to work. Why didn’t that show, in my demeanor, in my behavior?

            What is calm? Quietness. A sunny day. A smile or a facial expression that looks attentive. A low voice, not shouting. Relaxed limbs, hands folded loosely in the lap. Questions rather than commands.

            Is this how I appeared to my coworker? Did I intend to project this image? How I looked on the outside did not match what I felt on the inside. But I wasn’t always sure what to name how I felt.

A byzantine Voice conspiracy

 

Here’s the problem I am having cutting down the huge file recounting my seven years as copy chief at the Village Voice. There are many stories like the one below, which feel very characteristic of the Voice. But does anyone who wasn’t there at the time care? If it is interesting, how many of these stories can I leave in, how few are enough, and how do I decide which ones to keep and which to let go? If you read this, please let me know in in the comments what you think.

                  Early in 1985, Jack Newfield and Wayne Barrett try an end run around David Schneiderman, now acting publisher, by claiming to me late on Monday night, as we’re closing the issue, that they have an emergency item for the NYC column on local politics, implying to me that David has okayed it. Then Wayne offhandedly says that Nat Hentoff and Newfield are signing this item, but Geoffrey Stokes isn’t going along. Why? They asked him to write about it in Press Clips, but he said he wouldn’t. This rings alarm bells.

                  I call Stokes to ask what’s going on, and he says David begged them not to write this; it’s speculation about who might be the next Voice editor-in-chief. Stokes reports to me that David told Kit Rachlis, the managing editor, about this “item,” that it needs more verification and it can’t run in this issue. I’m now furious. Newfield and Wayne could certainly have been fired if they’d succeeded, and would have gotten me fired, too. “What assholes they are! And what a fool they must think me,” I write in my journal.

                  The next day, Wayne calls to yell at me at the plant because I “didn’t have the courtesy” to let him know his item was killed. Kit calls to have the item read to him and maybe it will run. But it mentions Murdoch, and Susie, production manager, asks if David has read it. Does the publisher get to read anything that mentions Murdoch? Susie says yes, Kit says no, I’m not sure. Kit now says there was a misunderstanding; he thought David said no to the item, but Newfield and Wayne say he said yes, and the story will come out in a few days anyway. I tell Kit I think he’s being used, as they tried to use me.

                  That evening, Stokes explains the backstory. Newfield had started a rumor that he knew who the new Voice editor-in-chief would be and it wasn’t good. He called Stokes and asked him to do an item in Press Clips. Stokes knew a Voice editor-in-chief was about to be named, it wasn’t who Newfield thought it was, but it wasn’t confirmed yet, so he couldn’t tell Newfield. Stokes called Kit about Newfield’s theory, Kit called David, and David also didn’t tell Kit that another editor is about to be named, so too many people don’t know what other people do. And I think no one cares about this story except Voice people anyway.  

 

SOLTuesday: It’s Work

Getting old is hard work. We have lots more visits to doctors, physical therapists, dentists and ophthalmologists (if we can afford them). It seems to take longer to do almost everything, especially when trying to find things, like the keys when we’re getting ready to go out, or a photo I saw just the other day and now has vanished. Our glasses. Where are our glasses, and which ones do we need, the reading ones, or the ones to watch TV?

I’m now discovering that even going to bed has become work. A pain in my right hip turned out to have nothing to do with the hip joint. My physical therapist said I had a compressed tendon, the one attaching my butt to the underlying bone. How did this happen? I sit with my legs crossed ALL THE TIME. So I have to stop that.

 

But in addition, I have to be careful of what position I place my body when I get into bed. I’ve never been able to sleep on my back, so that won’t work. If I lie on my side, I have to put a pillow between my legs. Have you ever tried to sleep like that? I can’t relax in that position. Lying on my belly seems safest, but with my head turned either right or left so I can breathe, and a pillow under the leg with the compressed tendon. But this does not feel natural and sometimes hurts my hip, and I wake frequently, toss and turn, get tangled in the sheets. Sleeping is now work to avoid the hip pain. Will it work? We’ll see.

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It’s Slice of Life Tuesday over at Two Writing Teachers. Check out this encouraging and enthusiastic writing community and their slices of life every Tuesday. And add one of your own.

 

SOLTuesday: Poor Hospital IT Communication

Today, I went to a nearby hospital for an x-ray of my hip. The x-rays are done on a walk-in basis, so I did not need to make an appointment. I arrived and was, I guess, logged into the computerized system at 12:20 p.m.

 

Here’s the e-mail I sent to the hospital about what happened next. “Almost AN HOUR LATER, I received three e-mails, one telling me to check my Mt.SinaiAccount because I had a new message, the second telling me to Prepare for my visit by completing forms online, and the third had the subject line ‘Have you arrived?’ and the following text: ‘Hello Sonia, It's almost time for your 12:20 PM appointment. Once you arrive, let the clinic know by logging in.’ The three texts said exactly the same thing.

 

“THIS IS RIDICULOUS. I was already there, the x-ray was done. Why is the system sending me e-mails and text AFTER the fact? Obviously, the system has to be told to NOT send these e-mails and texts for walk-in appointments. It's extremely annoying.”

 

I wanted to inform the hospital that something was wrong with their default e-mail and text communications. First, I went to the the hospital’s website and found a phone number for Patient Relations. A recording reported that because of “higher than usual call volume,” I should leave my name and phone number. About 15 minutes I got a call from a difference phone number.The caller was clearly in a call center, as I could hear sounds in the background. I told him what I later described in an e-mail to the Patient Relations e-mail address. The caller then started asking questions. He knew my zip code. He then asked whether I had diabetes — and his accent was so thick I did not understand him for several tries. He asked if I had pain and if I had arthritis. Then he wanted to know my Medicare number. I do not know why he needed to know that, I said several times I didn't have it with me, and he kept asking if I could get it. I began to wonder if he really was calling from the hospital and hung up the phone. I've never been asked for my Medicare number when speaking to anyone else at this hospital.

 

After this abortive phone call, I sent the e-mail above to the hospital’s Patient Relations office. And then I sent another e-mail to them: “If the number I called above, 212-659-8990, is not your number, your webpage needs fixing. If the number that called me, 212-601-9340, is not from your call center, then perhaps your webpage and phone number have been hacked.”

 

At least I didn’t give out my Medicare ID. But how did this happen?

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It’s Slice of Life Tuesday over at Two Writing Teachers. Check out this encouraging and enthusiastic writing community and their slices of life every Tuesday. And add one of your own.

 

 

Siblings

 My brother died almost a week ago, and I wrote this almost immediately after I learned.

Siblings

 

My brother died yesterday, suddenly, unpleasantly.

Am I sad? If not, why not?

I was an only child for a year and a half

Then this squalling creature took

My mother away from me.

The skies filled with dark clouds,

Anger turned visual.

He was a thing called a brother.

He lay on a blanket in the sun while

I held a knife-like object over his head.

Two years later came a new baby,

This one a thing called a sister.

Wasn’t I already a sister?

Why did they need another girl?

Thirteen years ago my sister was gone

Done in by her third round of breast cancer.

LIFO, Last In, First Out.

Now the brother is gone, and

I’m an only child again.

Only now I’m the matriarch.

From here on out, it’s all fiction.

SOLTuesday: I made a joke!

            Yesterday I stopped at the Shake Shack to get a chocolate milkshake and fries for my supper. No one was at the counter, so I went to one of the screens to order there. I had to give my phone number and name so they could send me a text. So I went outside to sit and wait, reading on my phone so I’d see the text when it popped up.

            Instead, a young man came out with a bag and called my name. As he brought my order to where I sat, I said, “You’re a human text!” It cracked him up, and I was glad that I can still come up with a snappy comeback.

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It’s Slice of Life Tuesday over at Two Writing Teachers. Check out this encouraging and enthusiastic writing community and their slices of life every Tuesday. And add one of your own.

SOLTuesday: Why I Hate Insurance

Back in March I had my annual mammogram. It included a sonogram since I’d had some pinchy feelings in my breasts and they are dense, so easier for mammos to miss things.

A few weeks ago I got a bill for the sonogram, which was unusual. I called the radiology center (only had to wait on hold for four minutes) and was told that Medicare had started routinely rejecting these as not medically necessary, and that I should have my doctor send Medicare a letter explaining the medical necessity, and the center would follow up. Today I called center’s customer service again (only had to wait on hold for five minutes), of course got a different representative, so I had to explain the situation twice. This representative said she would pass on the information.

 

Is traditional Medicare thinking it will save money by following the private insurance companies’ practice of rejecting claims in the hope that we will give up fighting the rejection?

Later I ran into a neighbor who said her method of fighting the insurance rejection was to try to get the name of the doctor who works for the insurance company who made the “not medically necessary” judgment and get her doctor to call that doctor. Would that really work?

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It’s Slice of Life Tuesday over at Two Writing Teachers. Check out this encouraging and enthusiastic writing community and their slices of life every Tuesday. And add one of your own.

 

SOLTuesday: Bird Poop

Yesterday I was sitting alongside Riverside Park reading a book. What looked like a thin green leaf fell onto a page, and I brushed it aside. Only it wasn’t a leaf. It smeared green bird poop across the page and onto my finger. Yuck!!! I wiped off my finger and the page, continued reading for another six pages, then thought, I should go home and wash this finger. Thoroughly. Twice. And then rubbed hand sanitizer on it. I hope nothing toxic seeped into my skin in the five or so minutes before I washed it clean. Has anything like this ever happened to you?

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It’s Slice of Life Tuesday over at Two Writing Teachers. Check out this encouraging and enthusiastic writing community and their slices of life every Tuesday. And add one of your own.

 

Covid Blues

Covid has struck.

It took four years, almost to the day, after lockdown,

before Covid invaded my body and settled in.

I thought my O-neg. blood type protected me.

I was Covid cautious, wearing a mask outdoors,

wearing a mask indoors among strangers.

I took every booster, and none of them caused a problem.

But one night I felt so tired it was worth recording

in my journal. I thought the hit of sugar from a piece

of pie I ate late was to blame.

Next morning I had a sore throat (common symptom),

fever (common symptom), cough (common symptom),

fatigue (common symptom).

At-home Covid rapid test said “positive.”

I’ve taken multiple Covid tests over the past four years,

and this was the first positive one.

This is a positive no one wants.

My doctor said to take Paxlovid.

I need a special, kidney-friendly Paxlovid, 

which was hard to find and to be delivered.

My usual pharmacy no longer carries any Paxlovid.

Eventually, I got it, started taking the two pills

twice a day.

It stopped the common Covid symptoms,

but it caused diarrhea, and loss of appetite.

I could still taste and smell, but more than two bites

of food made me feel like a stuffed goose.

I lost five pounds I don’t need to lose.

It’s been two weeks since Covid took over my body.

It wears me out, makes me want to sleep all day.

Covid doesn’t want to leave.

I keep testing positive.

I want to be positive, but not Covid positive.

Covid, begone!

SOLSCMarch 22: Where Does the Time Go?

            A friend in my age group (post-80) and I were commiserating yesterday about how we have no time anymore. And here is one reason why.

            I have spent almost 40 minutes the past few days double-checking that my primary doctor got the report on my routine mammogram and sonogram. The tests were three weeks ago. On Monday I called my doctor's office to verify that she'd gotten the results (the tests were not done in the same hospital system that my doctor is attached to). Four days later a nurse in the doctor's office called me back to say they had not gotten them. Today I spent some time finding both the phone number of the site that did the tests and the fax number for my doctor. Then I called the site where the tests were done, had to wait through what seemed endless choices from the recording that answers the phone and finally spoke to the person who sends the reports. She said the report had been sent the day after the tests were done (she had the correct fax number), but she would send again. Then I called the doctor's office to alert them to look for the faxed results. The person answering the phone said she’s be on the lookout and would call me that they were received. She kept using the word “uploaded,” and I had to remind her that faxing and uploading are different methods, and this report was coming via fax.

            (I’m having trouble writing something every day. There just doesn’t seem to be any time!)

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I’m participating in the 17th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 22 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOLSCMarch 19: Be Prepared

            I have to have some blood work done today, so go to a nearby lab. At the reception desk is a sign saying that the person sitting there at the computer is doing other work, so I should use the automated check-in kiosks against the far wall. (One of the two kiosks is not working.) I’m a good girl and follow instructions. At the kiosk I have to show a photo ID, so I put my expired driver’s license under the reader. It’s accepted. Then it’s not clear to me if the medical insurance info is up-to-date, so I do the same with my insurance cards. Nothing changes on the insurance info page, so maybe I didn’t need to do any of that. At the end, there’s a survey asking how my check-in experience was, and I click on 1. I hate online check-ins.

            Before I finish, a man comes and talks to the woman at the reception desk. (I guess he’s not a good boy.) He says he has a 2 p.m. appointment, and it’s not even noon yet! Does he plan to sit here for two hours, or does he hope to get whatever he needs done earlier? Two people were waiting when I arrived. Four more have come in since.

            After maybe five minutes (I’ve done about half of the newspaper’s daily crossword puzzle), the woman at the reception desk calls my name and asks for my paperwork. A couple of minutes later I’m sent to Room 3. The nurse/tech is a 7.5 on inserting the needle. And I’m in and out in just half an hour. Not nearly as bad as I’d expected (an hour, two hours?).

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I’m participating in the 17th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 19 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOLSCMarch 18: No More Nice Girls

 

 

            No More Nice Girls was a feminist guerrilla theater group in the 1970s and 1980s. Perhaps Ellen Willis came up with the name at a meeting in July 1977, shortly before the lights went out all over the Northeast. I think our first action was in the early 1980s, when Reagan’s administration was cracking down on abortion rights and pornography. We wrote a skit called “Sex Cops,” with half of the group ordinary women and girls going about our lives—taking birth control, having an abortion when the birth control didn’t work, looking at porn or making porn, having sex without being married or being married having an affair—and the other half were cops arresting us for doing any of those things.

            In another skit, half of us were pregnant women being forced to keep our pregnances against our will by the sex cops. For this performance, we had to put pillows under our garments so we’d look pregnant, and while it had been about 10 years at that point since I’d been pregnant, the feeling of being so was distinctly disorienting and unpleasant. I did not even want to imagine myself pregnant, willingly or unwillingly.

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I’m participating in the 17th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 18 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOLSCMarch 17: 50 Objects, Political Buttons

 

            I have a huge collection of buttons collected over  the past 60 years. Several years ago, when I still had an office, I pinned some of them to black strips of cloth and hung them from bookshelves. But I still had many others, which have been residing in two envelopes in the top of a closet.

 

           Today, I went to the Museum of Art & Design to see if I could find a bowl or basket to hold the buttons. There was this lovely ceramic, handmade by Ana Martin (her name is etched on the bottom), and a label on the bottom reads “This is Latin America.” So I don’t know what country Ana Martin is in, but I’m guessing Mexico or Central America.

            The subject matter of the buttons is varied: anti-censorship, pro-union, feminist, political campaigns, antiwar, and some just generally opinionated. Here are some of them.

 

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I’m participating in the 17th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 17 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

SOLSCMarch 16: Easter Eggs

            No, not the hidden message ones — a meaning I only recently learned from the Strict Scrutiny podcast (which is about the Supreme Court, not about video games).

            No, this is a real Russian painted Easter egg. I think I got this one from Valentina Uspenskaya, political scientist and founder of the Association of Independent Women's Initiatives, as well as women’s studies at Tver State University, in Tver, Russia, neither of which may still exist. Sadly, I have not kept in touch with her over the years, and do not know how she is faring in the authoritarian and patriarchal Russia of Putin.

            I also once had a Ukrainian painted Easter egg, from one of my students. The designs were quite distinct from the Russian ones. Alas, that one broke some years ago, and I had never thought to take a photo of it, so cannot show you the differences. Images I find online show some alternative designs.

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I’m participating in the 17th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 16 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

SOLSCMarch 13: A Boring Day

             I agreed to do a couple of extra days of copyediting for Publishers Weekly, today and tomorrow. This means I sat in front of my computer for most of four and a half hours, reading 15 reviews of forthcoming books and a feature about small publishers who did really well during the past three years.

            I learned that Natalie Goldberg has a new book out this summer on what she doesn’t want to call “writer’s block.” She titles it “Writing on Empty.” Also a book about how life came to be on Earth, including the suggestion that kelp forests (in the ocean?) could work to capture carbon from the atmosphere. Interesting. The feature was mostly biz info—how much sales had increased, what books were leading those sales, etc.—so I like being able to help the writing be less repetitive, but I’m not that interested in what the story is about. Though it is encouraging that these small presses are still doing well after the first two years of the pandemic sent book sales way up.

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I’m participating in the 17th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 13 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

SOLSCMarch 12: A Family Photo

             I love this photo because it shows so much of family dynamics that I was not aware was being revealed.

            By which I mean, that’s me, on the left, leaning away from all these other people and staring into the distance. I’m 13, and I know I was thinking something like this: I don’t know what I am doing in this family. They don’t understand me, and I don’t understand them. I sometimes wished I was adopted, or found in a cabbage patch (old fairy tales sometimes had babies found in a cabbage patch; the Cabbage Patch Kids didn’t exist in the ’50s), but I also knew my parents were married two years before I was born so they probably were my parents.

            My father, on the right, looks very pleased with himself. Maybe he’d been out in the garden, or inventing something in his workshop in the basement/garage. I know we were living out here in what was still country in West Haven, Connecticut, because that’s where he wanted to be. I didn’t know until many years later that he’d been blacklisted after WWII (“I belonged to a political discussion group,” he told me, and a woman in the group talked to the FBI), so perhaps he felt he was hiding out here.

            My sister is between us, very unhappy. She never felt she belonged in our family either; she felt stupid because her interests were spiritual, while the rest of us had no concern for anything like that.

            My brother looks like he might be the same age as my sister, but he’s two and a half years older, 11 to her almost 9 (unless this photo was taken after August 10). Was this the year she was still taller than he was? I’m guessing he might not have been comfortable with that, and I’ve never asked him.

            And my mother looks so delighted with him, like he’s her favorite, which wasn't particularly true in real life. Maybe it’s because of what he is about to read, as he’d holding a piece of paper in his hands and looking expectantly at whoever is taking this photograph—it’s probably our grandfather. What was he going to read? I have no memory.

            We’re on the patio in the back of our small house, built on an acre, from a floor plan my father may have bought from Sear’s.

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I’m participating in the 17th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 13 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOLCMarch 11: The Meaning of Dangerous Winds

            I have sometimes watched the weather reporters at hurricanes, with the wind blowing their ponchos and whipping at trees, and wondered what that felt like. Even considered taking the subway to a beach when a big storm was headed my way. Pictures never substitute for reality. 

            I don’t know what the wind gust speed was on my street today. But when I went out, just to walk around the block, I had to hold onto a building to turn a corner into the wind.

            To establish the setting: I live in Manhattan, Morningside Heights, on a side street known for winds blowing off the Hudson River and up the canyon of apartment buildings. The windiness is mostly unpleasant. Today was different by an order of magnitude.

            A magazine had been delivered to my door that should have been delivered to the building on the next street over. I could have just given it to my doorman to hand back to the magazine delivery people the next morning. Instead, I thought to take it over myself, just to make sure I got out of the house.

            The wind was fierce when I first went out and walked west, toward Riverside Drive, stronger than usual, but not unusually strong. (For those not in New York City, there is a big park between the Drive and the river, so wind isn't directly off the river.) I turned the corner and walked up the block toward the next street. As I reached the corner, however, a gust felt like it would push me back unless I grabbed onto the decorative cornice on the building’s side.

            Once around the corner and out of the wind, I stopped to catch my breath. A man crossing the street stopped, and I recognized the superintendent of my building. He’d seen me struggling with the wind and offered to stay and walk me back home holding onto his arm. I readily agreed, and a good thing I did.

            After delivering the magazine, I took the super’s arm and we started to turn the corner onto Riverside Drive. At that moment, there was a wind gust so strong I could not move into it. Even holding on to the super, I felt like the wind could pick me up and blow me away. After a moment or two, the wind abated enough so we were able to get down the street. If the super hadn’t appeared at that moment, I don’t know how I would have gotten home.

            I have never experienced any wind that I could not walk against, that felt overpowering. Was this a 40-mile-per-hour gust? or stronger? I can't help wondering whether my age (81) and probable loss of muscle mass makes me less able to counter this particular force of nature when it is increasingly forceful.

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I’m participating in the 17th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 11 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!