Thurmont on a Summer's Day (c)
by Henry Farkas
Passing through Thurmont, Maryland
Visiting the goldfish farm.
Large breeder goldfish laying eggs on mats
Mats transferred to indoor tanks.
Fingerlings hatched in those concrete tanks.
Slightly bigger goldfish sent to the ponds.
It's a cycle of nature with regular size goldfish
Driven in plastic water filled bags
To BWI and shipped by air all over the country
While fish poop washes downstream from Thurmont.
The poop should be captured and used as fertilizer
And not sent directly to the Chesapeake Bay.
Not your ordinary memoir
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Letter I Wrote to a Woman on JDate
Hi XXXXXX,
It's nice to have an actual name to write to. Thanks for that.
I'm relatively new to JDate, about a month, so when I tell you what I look for in a profile, that doesn't constitute advice from a veteran of the wars between the sexes. It's just my amateur attempt to find the right person.
So, I have to admit, shallow as that seems, I look at the photo. I've yet to respond to any letter or profile that doesn't have a picture. Your photo, by the way, is stunningly beautiful.
I have met a few women who, in person, look considerably older in person than in the photo. I try to convince women to have a video chat with my via Skype or Gmail. Only one, so far, has accepted that offer.
I, personally, have a certain amount of baggage that will probably make it difficult for me to find a mate on this, or any other site. I spend half my year at my primary residence in Maryland and the other half in Los Angeles. That's going to be a hard sell with any woman.
Anyway, on to the comment about what I look for in a profile and what I've tried to do with my profile. First off, I put in several photos so that anyone looking at it gets a really good idea of what I look like, in sharp focus. I don't want anyone to be surprised about what I look like when she meets me in person or when she sees me on Skype.
I asked my daughters to help me write the profile to make sure it's essentially correct, and I put in a bit of humor. The essay questions are very important. When I look at a profile, I want to know if the woman is a non-smoker, but other than that, I ignore all the check off items. In the check off questions. There are a bunch of women who are adventurous and who like to lift weights, but that doesn't impress me, or even convince me of anything. I want to see that the woman is articulate, funny, and sure of herself. And what I want most is to get the impression that if I don't measure up to her standards, then she'll dump me right away. There's no point in my becoming a starter date that a woman checks out just for practice. It's the essays where this sort of information can be communicated. So don't waste the opportunity of fill out every essay question. I tweak the essays in my profile every so often to keep them fresh.
You might think, "Who does this guy think he is, giving me advice?" Actually, I just like to write essays as a form of self-expression, and you just happened to end up on the receiving end of one of them.
Henry
It's nice to have an actual name to write to. Thanks for that.
I'm relatively new to JDate, about a month, so when I tell you what I look for in a profile, that doesn't constitute advice from a veteran of the wars between the sexes. It's just my amateur attempt to find the right person.
So, I have to admit, shallow as that seems, I look at the photo. I've yet to respond to any letter or profile that doesn't have a picture. Your photo, by the way, is stunningly beautiful.
I have met a few women who, in person, look considerably older in person than in the photo. I try to convince women to have a video chat with my via Skype or Gmail. Only one, so far, has accepted that offer.
I, personally, have a certain amount of baggage that will probably make it difficult for me to find a mate on this, or any other site. I spend half my year at my primary residence in Maryland and the other half in Los Angeles. That's going to be a hard sell with any woman.
Anyway, on to the comment about what I look for in a profile and what I've tried to do with my profile. First off, I put in several photos so that anyone looking at it gets a really good idea of what I look like, in sharp focus. I don't want anyone to be surprised about what I look like when she meets me in person or when she sees me on Skype.
I asked my daughters to help me write the profile to make sure it's essentially correct, and I put in a bit of humor. The essay questions are very important. When I look at a profile, I want to know if the woman is a non-smoker, but other than that, I ignore all the check off items. In the check off questions. There are a bunch of women who are adventurous and who like to lift weights, but that doesn't impress me, or even convince me of anything. I want to see that the woman is articulate, funny, and sure of herself. And what I want most is to get the impression that if I don't measure up to her standards, then she'll dump me right away. There's no point in my becoming a starter date that a woman checks out just for practice. It's the essays where this sort of information can be communicated. So don't waste the opportunity of fill out every essay question. I tweak the essays in my profile every so often to keep them fresh.
You might think, "Who does this guy think he is, giving me advice?" Actually, I just like to write essays as a form of self-expression, and you just happened to end up on the receiving end of one of them.
Henry
Saturday, September 18, 2010
The Power of Editing
Those of you who read my blog, and who know me, will realize that I'm not a person who likes shows, or movies, unless they reach my emotions. And lots of shows don't. They need to be both dramatic and funny. I have to actually feel what the writer wants me to feel, and what the actors pretend to feel. That actually doesn't happen as often for me as it does for most of the critics and for most of the public.
For example, Cats ran on Broadway for 18 years. During those years, my daughters, teenagers at the time, wanted to see it, and I agreed to drive them and some of their friends to New York to see the show. Since I needed something to do during the time they'd be seeing the show, I went ahead and bought myself a ticket to see it with them. It was in a theater made up to look like a garbage dump, and, for most of the show, I felt like a garbage dump was the perfect metaphor for the script. You know, if the script is boring, then no matter how good the performers are, the show is still garbage. Fortunately I was able to sleep during most of the show. I view that sleep with the appreciation that someone having his appendix out appreciates the sleep of general anesthesia. There was one mildly amusing special effect where some people made up to look a bit catlike rode through the air on a large thing that looked a bit like an auto tire. You couldn't see the wires, but you knew they were there. And there was one memorable song in that show that woke me right up, but then, back to some boring stuff about Jellicle cats, and, fortunately, I was able to go back to sleep.
But I'm not writing this blog entry to toss kitty litter on Cats.
One of the Broadway shows that deserved every accolade it got was A Chorus Line. I didn't see that on Broadway, but I saw the movie. It was an amazing show. Probably everyone reading this knows the plot and has heard the songs so I won't give a summary here. That was a show that got me involved with the characters. I felt like I got to know them, and I cared about them. I felt happy when they were happy, I laughed at the funny parts, and I cried when the writer wanted me to cry.
The director, Michael Bennett, came up with the idea for the show. He interviewed lots of dancers about their lives, picked out the ones with stories that would be dramatic and moving, and, with the help of his writers, edited those stories down to something that could be shown in one evening. It's no longer on Broadway, but there are still professional theaters in the US where you can see it, or you can rent the movie.
OK, so the show edited the life stories of people and made them interesting. Of course, it also had amazing music, clever lyrics, a great script, and outstanding actors. So why, you might ask, am I devoting a blog post to the show.
Actually, I'm not, exactly. Normally, I don't watch documentaries. That's not to say I don't appreciate good editing. I do, and documentaries are all about editing. And there are some documentaries that lots of people like. Not me, but lots of people. Al Gore won an Oscar for a documentary. I suppose lots of people liked it. I agree with the message of that documentary, but it was stilted and boring. Michael Moore does mildy amusing documentaries, but they're boring most of the time despite pretty good editing.
The documentary I'm writing about, Every Little Step, was made during the casting process for the 2006 Broadway revival of A Chorus Line. The concept, doing a documentary about the process of casting a Broadway show where the show is about the process of casting a Broadway show, is wonderful. Whoever came up with the idea of doing that probably thought, "Wow, this is a no-brainer. I wonder why someone else hasn't already thought of doing this? How can it lose? It has great music, and lots of amazing actors will come by and perform those great scenes, and that great music, for free. Whee!!"
Well, it could lose by not being well edited. But it was amazingly well edited. These are real people doing what the characters in A Chorus Line did. We get to see them audition for the show, talk about themselves like the characters do in the show, and, at times cry, and make us cry, about the things in their lives they're talking about.
And these dancers grew up singing the songs from A Chorus Line, visualizing themselves as those characters. This is where the editing makes the show so great. Out of the hundreds or thousands of hours of footage, the editors pick out events that happened months apart in the prolonged casting process, and put them into the final cut in such a way that we can appreciate things such as where one actress does a scene so well early in the process that she makes us, and the producers, cry, but seven months later, at the callback, she can't remember how she did the scene the first time, even when the producer takes her aside and says, "Just do it like you did it last time." But we can remember, and we can see the difference.
So I got involved with, and cared about, the Chorus Line characters and the dancers who were auditioning for the parts in the revival. Out of the hundreds or thousands of hours of footage, they edited it down to a standard movie length. I felt as involved with it as I'd normally feel with a scripted drama that's both dramatic and funny. I laughed at the funny parts, and I cried at the sad parts. Seeing the documentary, Every Little Step, was an experience, like the experience I had watching the movie, A Chorus Line, that I'll never forget.
For example, Cats ran on Broadway for 18 years. During those years, my daughters, teenagers at the time, wanted to see it, and I agreed to drive them and some of their friends to New York to see the show. Since I needed something to do during the time they'd be seeing the show, I went ahead and bought myself a ticket to see it with them. It was in a theater made up to look like a garbage dump, and, for most of the show, I felt like a garbage dump was the perfect metaphor for the script. You know, if the script is boring, then no matter how good the performers are, the show is still garbage. Fortunately I was able to sleep during most of the show. I view that sleep with the appreciation that someone having his appendix out appreciates the sleep of general anesthesia. There was one mildly amusing special effect where some people made up to look a bit catlike rode through the air on a large thing that looked a bit like an auto tire. You couldn't see the wires, but you knew they were there. And there was one memorable song in that show that woke me right up, but then, back to some boring stuff about Jellicle cats, and, fortunately, I was able to go back to sleep.
But I'm not writing this blog entry to toss kitty litter on Cats.
One of the Broadway shows that deserved every accolade it got was A Chorus Line. I didn't see that on Broadway, but I saw the movie. It was an amazing show. Probably everyone reading this knows the plot and has heard the songs so I won't give a summary here. That was a show that got me involved with the characters. I felt like I got to know them, and I cared about them. I felt happy when they were happy, I laughed at the funny parts, and I cried when the writer wanted me to cry.
The director, Michael Bennett, came up with the idea for the show. He interviewed lots of dancers about their lives, picked out the ones with stories that would be dramatic and moving, and, with the help of his writers, edited those stories down to something that could be shown in one evening. It's no longer on Broadway, but there are still professional theaters in the US where you can see it, or you can rent the movie.
OK, so the show edited the life stories of people and made them interesting. Of course, it also had amazing music, clever lyrics, a great script, and outstanding actors. So why, you might ask, am I devoting a blog post to the show.
Actually, I'm not, exactly. Normally, I don't watch documentaries. That's not to say I don't appreciate good editing. I do, and documentaries are all about editing. And there are some documentaries that lots of people like. Not me, but lots of people. Al Gore won an Oscar for a documentary. I suppose lots of people liked it. I agree with the message of that documentary, but it was stilted and boring. Michael Moore does mildy amusing documentaries, but they're boring most of the time despite pretty good editing.
The documentary I'm writing about, Every Little Step, was made during the casting process for the 2006 Broadway revival of A Chorus Line. The concept, doing a documentary about the process of casting a Broadway show where the show is about the process of casting a Broadway show, is wonderful. Whoever came up with the idea of doing that probably thought, "Wow, this is a no-brainer. I wonder why someone else hasn't already thought of doing this? How can it lose? It has great music, and lots of amazing actors will come by and perform those great scenes, and that great music, for free. Whee!!"
Well, it could lose by not being well edited. But it was amazingly well edited. These are real people doing what the characters in A Chorus Line did. We get to see them audition for the show, talk about themselves like the characters do in the show, and, at times cry, and make us cry, about the things in their lives they're talking about.
And these dancers grew up singing the songs from A Chorus Line, visualizing themselves as those characters. This is where the editing makes the show so great. Out of the hundreds or thousands of hours of footage, the editors pick out events that happened months apart in the prolonged casting process, and put them into the final cut in such a way that we can appreciate things such as where one actress does a scene so well early in the process that she makes us, and the producers, cry, but seven months later, at the callback, she can't remember how she did the scene the first time, even when the producer takes her aside and says, "Just do it like you did it last time." But we can remember, and we can see the difference.
So I got involved with, and cared about, the Chorus Line characters and the dancers who were auditioning for the parts in the revival. Out of the hundreds or thousands of hours of footage, they edited it down to a standard movie length. I felt as involved with it as I'd normally feel with a scripted drama that's both dramatic and funny. I laughed at the funny parts, and I cried at the sad parts. Seeing the documentary, Every Little Step, was an experience, like the experience I had watching the movie, A Chorus Line, that I'll never forget.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
You've heard of "Night at the Museum." How about a month of nights?
In a recent post on my other blog, Henry Farkas Widower Blog, I mentioned that I'd decided to enter a contest where the winner gets to live in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry for a month, play with all the exhibits at night when there aren't any lines, and blog about the experience. This isn't the kind of contest where all you have to do is write your name and address on the inside of a cereal box top and send it in. You have to work at this. There's a long application form, a five hundred word essay, a five by seven photo, and a one minute video that you have to send in. They have a committee that decides, and the members of the museum (of which I'm one) get to vote among the top three finalists. I'm pretty sure the selection committee gets the final say, but they're going to care about what the members actually say.
Clearly this isn't the right venue for my appealing to you to send email to the museum pointing out to them that the many followers of my blogs all want the winner to be me. As far as I know, there are only six subscribers to one or another of my blogs. I'm doing this for posterity, or for fun. I haven't decided which. Anyway, once my materials arrive at the museum, by 4 pm EDT tomorrow, the museum will own the copyright on everything I sent them. So my only chance to get some extra mileage out of the essay is to publish it here right now. Here it is.
---------------------------------------------
I'm Your Person, and the Month in the Museum is my Dream Job
Henry Farkas, MD, MPH
I'm your person. I've been a science fiction and a science geek ever since my father first took me to the Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium by subway when I was six. That was sixty years ago.
I've gotten a reprieve from stage IV lung cancer (never smoked, wife never smoked, got it anyway). That's unusual. The only reason I'm still alive is the Trilogy, the radiation robot that zapped my cancer. There's now no evidence of cancer in any of my scans.
Cancer survival makes a person re-assess his goals. I've been wondering what I could do that would make a difference. I'm retired from my profession as a kindly old country doctor (emergency medicine full time and hospice part time). Now, I want to do something different.
On August 2nd, my brother and I were passing through Chicago, and we visited the Museum of Science and Industry. At the information desk, we saw the sign about the contest. Live a month in the museum. This is the kind of thing I'm looking for. OK, it's only a month, but I'll know I did it. At the end of life, people regret the things they never did.
I'm prepared. I've been fascinated by science and technology all my life. During my lifetime, technology, at least in some fields, has surpassed the imagination of the science fiction authors that I read avidly when I was a child. Cell phones, for example, are better than most versions of mental telepathy that I read about in science fiction stories back then. The telepaths didn't have to count minutes, but they couldn't access the web.
During the 30 days, I'll be able to talk with patrons about the museum's exhibits. I'm already tuned in on biology, chemistry, some physics, and a bit of engineering. I could assess each visitor's level of interest and knowledge, and then point out interesting things about the exhibits that they may not have noticed, or appreciated, on their own. That's how I'll enhance the museum experience for our patrons. Most museum exhibits have interesting details that are easy to miss.
Because I'm a licensed pilot, I'll put in lots of hours flying your outstanding flight simulator after museum hours. That's going to be the best perquisite of all. Thanks for that exhibit.
There's a line in the description of the prizes you're offering about how you'll provide the winner with lots of electronic gizmos to use during the month. Actually, I pretty much have one of anything you might want me to have except an iPad. I mention that just in case an iPad wasn't already on your list of gizmos the winner should have.
----------------------------------------------
OK, that's my essay, slightly edited. There was also a one minute video. I can't embed it here, but I can give you a link to the first draft.
Click here to see the first draft of the video. It will be available only until August 16th, 2010.
Actually, it's way better now than it was when I got my brother to take the video of me talking the words. I sent that, plus lots of other feeble attempts at video production (about which I know nothing) to my son-in-law, Chris, who does editing for a living and even got an Emmy nomination for editing. He perked it up with embedded stills, took out some of what I'd said, and made it actually interesting.
Thanks, Chris.
Clearly this isn't the right venue for my appealing to you to send email to the museum pointing out to them that the many followers of my blogs all want the winner to be me. As far as I know, there are only six subscribers to one or another of my blogs. I'm doing this for posterity, or for fun. I haven't decided which. Anyway, once my materials arrive at the museum, by 4 pm EDT tomorrow, the museum will own the copyright on everything I sent them. So my only chance to get some extra mileage out of the essay is to publish it here right now. Here it is.
---------------------------------------------
I'm Your Person, and the Month in the Museum is my Dream Job
Henry Farkas, MD, MPH
I'm your person. I've been a science fiction and a science geek ever since my father first took me to the Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium by subway when I was six. That was sixty years ago.
I've gotten a reprieve from stage IV lung cancer (never smoked, wife never smoked, got it anyway). That's unusual. The only reason I'm still alive is the Trilogy, the radiation robot that zapped my cancer. There's now no evidence of cancer in any of my scans.
Cancer survival makes a person re-assess his goals. I've been wondering what I could do that would make a difference. I'm retired from my profession as a kindly old country doctor (emergency medicine full time and hospice part time). Now, I want to do something different.
On August 2nd, my brother and I were passing through Chicago, and we visited the Museum of Science and Industry. At the information desk, we saw the sign about the contest. Live a month in the museum. This is the kind of thing I'm looking for. OK, it's only a month, but I'll know I did it. At the end of life, people regret the things they never did.
I'm prepared. I've been fascinated by science and technology all my life. During my lifetime, technology, at least in some fields, has surpassed the imagination of the science fiction authors that I read avidly when I was a child. Cell phones, for example, are better than most versions of mental telepathy that I read about in science fiction stories back then. The telepaths didn't have to count minutes, but they couldn't access the web.
During the 30 days, I'll be able to talk with patrons about the museum's exhibits. I'm already tuned in on biology, chemistry, some physics, and a bit of engineering. I could assess each visitor's level of interest and knowledge, and then point out interesting things about the exhibits that they may not have noticed, or appreciated, on their own. That's how I'll enhance the museum experience for our patrons. Most museum exhibits have interesting details that are easy to miss.
Because I'm a licensed pilot, I'll put in lots of hours flying your outstanding flight simulator after museum hours. That's going to be the best perquisite of all. Thanks for that exhibit.
There's a line in the description of the prizes you're offering about how you'll provide the winner with lots of electronic gizmos to use during the month. Actually, I pretty much have one of anything you might want me to have except an iPad. I mention that just in case an iPad wasn't already on your list of gizmos the winner should have.
----------------------------------------------
OK, that's my essay, slightly edited. There was also a one minute video. I can't embed it here, but I can give you a link to the first draft.
Click here to see the first draft of the video. It will be available only until August 16th, 2010.
Actually, it's way better now than it was when I got my brother to take the video of me talking the words. I sent that, plus lots of other feeble attempts at video production (about which I know nothing) to my son-in-law, Chris, who does editing for a living and even got an Emmy nomination for editing. He perked it up with embedded stills, took out some of what I'd said, and made it actually interesting.
Thanks, Chris.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Concepts on Energy
I've seen people write that the reason we don't have clean energy is that there's a conspiracy of the fat cats who own the oil companies.
Actually, there's another way of looking at this, from an engineering perspective rather than from a big oil conspiracy perspective. And frankly, I suspect that the engineering perspective is correct. Here it is:
The problem with alternative energy sources is that for the past hundred years or so they've been way more expensive than oil and coal. Billions of dinosaurs and plants died so that we could tool around town in gas guzzling cars and have air conditioning in our houses. All that oil and coal is essentially nature's way of storing up millions of years worth of solar energy in a compact, easily retrievable form. It's quite difficult and hugely expensive to collect enough solar energy to match our current energy usage each year. It might not even be possible.
And collecting renewable energy also has a big environmental impact. Wind turbines cause turbulence in the atmosphere near the ground. That turbulence dries up the ground and the plants. Solar collectors shade the ground. If you put them in the Mojave desert, you'll be messing with a very delicate ecological system.
If you put those same solar collectors in the Sahara desert, there aren't any life forms to bother, but you're still making the Arabs into world energy czars. And you can't transmit electricity from there to here no matter how efficient your transmission lines could become. You'd have to use the energy to form hydrogen from sea water and transport the hydrogen here. Then we're still dependent on foreign energy. Not to mention that with current technology, hydrogen, like matzos and potato chips, doesn't travel well, or cheaply. Using the energy of the tides is nice near the ocean, where fifty percent of people in the US lives, but it doesn't help middle America much, and collecting that energy probably will have a negative effect on tidal wetlands which are vital to the health of the sea life that we depend on for food.
So the big oil and coal companies don't even need a conspiracy. Nature has conspired to help them. The only solution is technology that hasn't been invented yet. Fusion would do it. Even fission, but we'd have to build lots more nuclear power plants with the resultant problems of nuclear waste. In theory, fusion wouldn't create radioactive waste.
We still don't know how to build a controlled fusion power plant. If we did, I'm sure that the energy companies would like to get in on that business since they're running out of oil, and they must feel a little bit bad about all the environmental damage they do with coal mines and oil spills. At least, I hope they feel a little bit bad about that.
So there won't be new energy sources making a huge difference any time soon. What we can do is make fossil fuels so expensive that people will be motivated to conserve energy by insulating their houses, using public transportation and driving energy efficient vehicles. That technology already exists, and conservation can make a huge difference in the next few years. I hate to say it, but I'm a Democrat so I'll say it anyway, we need to greatly increase taxes on any fossil fuel use. That will motivate people to conserve energy. It's the only thing that will get people to conserve energy.
Oh, there's one more thing that I hate to say, but I'm a Democrat so I'll say this too. Population control would be helpful for reducing world wide pollution and global warming. I realize that there are way more cockroaches than there are people, but the roaches are perfectly willing to use public transportation. You hardly ever see a roach driving around town in a Hummer. She might be hitching a ride in one, but it's a human being at the wheel.
Actually, there's another way of looking at this, from an engineering perspective rather than from a big oil conspiracy perspective. And frankly, I suspect that the engineering perspective is correct. Here it is:
The problem with alternative energy sources is that for the past hundred years or so they've been way more expensive than oil and coal. Billions of dinosaurs and plants died so that we could tool around town in gas guzzling cars and have air conditioning in our houses. All that oil and coal is essentially nature's way of storing up millions of years worth of solar energy in a compact, easily retrievable form. It's quite difficult and hugely expensive to collect enough solar energy to match our current energy usage each year. It might not even be possible.
And collecting renewable energy also has a big environmental impact. Wind turbines cause turbulence in the atmosphere near the ground. That turbulence dries up the ground and the plants. Solar collectors shade the ground. If you put them in the Mojave desert, you'll be messing with a very delicate ecological system.
If you put those same solar collectors in the Sahara desert, there aren't any life forms to bother, but you're still making the Arabs into world energy czars. And you can't transmit electricity from there to here no matter how efficient your transmission lines could become. You'd have to use the energy to form hydrogen from sea water and transport the hydrogen here. Then we're still dependent on foreign energy. Not to mention that with current technology, hydrogen, like matzos and potato chips, doesn't travel well, or cheaply. Using the energy of the tides is nice near the ocean, where fifty percent of people in the US lives, but it doesn't help middle America much, and collecting that energy probably will have a negative effect on tidal wetlands which are vital to the health of the sea life that we depend on for food.
So the big oil and coal companies don't even need a conspiracy. Nature has conspired to help them. The only solution is technology that hasn't been invented yet. Fusion would do it. Even fission, but we'd have to build lots more nuclear power plants with the resultant problems of nuclear waste. In theory, fusion wouldn't create radioactive waste.
We still don't know how to build a controlled fusion power plant. If we did, I'm sure that the energy companies would like to get in on that business since they're running out of oil, and they must feel a little bit bad about all the environmental damage they do with coal mines and oil spills. At least, I hope they feel a little bit bad about that.
So there won't be new energy sources making a huge difference any time soon. What we can do is make fossil fuels so expensive that people will be motivated to conserve energy by insulating their houses, using public transportation and driving energy efficient vehicles. That technology already exists, and conservation can make a huge difference in the next few years. I hate to say it, but I'm a Democrat so I'll say it anyway, we need to greatly increase taxes on any fossil fuel use. That will motivate people to conserve energy. It's the only thing that will get people to conserve energy.
Oh, there's one more thing that I hate to say, but I'm a Democrat so I'll say this too. Population control would be helpful for reducing world wide pollution and global warming. I realize that there are way more cockroaches than there are people, but the roaches are perfectly willing to use public transportation. You hardly ever see a roach driving around town in a Hummer. She might be hitching a ride in one, but it's a human being at the wheel.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
My Neighborhood in Manhattan
My memories of where I lived don't go back before the age of three. I'd lived in Texas and Oklahoma during WWII because that's where my father was stationed. He was a second lieutenant during all or WWII. I think that's a record. But I don't remember any of that.
Between the ages of three and seven, I lived in Manhattan at 155 Ridge St. We had a three room apartment (not three bedrooms, three rooms all together). The building was in the shape of an H. Our apartment was on the third floor and the windows of our apartment looked down into the courtyard in front of the building.
At the time, the neighborhood was a bit of a slum in that there were vacant lots and vacant buildings within a block of our building. My friend, Angelo, and I explored many of the vacant lots and buildings even though I was, in theory, not allowed to cross any streets. The problem with the vacant buildings was that there was lots of broken glass and dog poop in them. Otherwise, they'd have been great places to play. Once, I slipped on a staircase in one of the buildings and got dog poop on my right hand. It took me what seemed like a very long time in the rest room of a nearby restaurant to get the poop, and the smell, off my hand before I could go home. I didn't want my mother to know I'd crossed the street to investigate a vacant building.
There was a bigger kid, whose name escapes me at the moment, who my mother paid to walk me to school once I was six so I could cross the street with someone who was tall enough so the drivers might actually see him. There were two girls, Eileen and Nancy, sisters, who Angelo and I would play with at times. Not often though since they usually wanted to play girls games.
I never actually went to kindergarten. My mother took me there the first day, but I didn't understand how she could know we were in the correct line at the beginning of the first school day. Then some girl started to cry so I started to cry, too. My mother took me back home, and I never went to Kindergarten. Angelo didn't go to Kindergarten either, so we got a whole year of playing around when other kids had to go to school. When it was time for me to start the first grade, my father took the day off work and brought me to school. I knew that crying wouldn't get me out of school if my father was there so I didn't bother to cry. It turned out that I liked school anyway. I got to sit next to Angelo. I suppose his father brought him to school that first day of the first grade, too.
There were three reading groups in that first grade class, the roses, the tulips, and the zinnias. Looking backward, I suppose the teacher, whose name and face escape me, used flower names to prevent the kids from knowing which group was the upper, middle and lower group. But it was clear to all of us that the roses were the top group, the tulips were the middle group, and the zinnias were the bottom group. To this day, those three kinds of flowers are the only flowers I can actually name if I see them. All other flowers, to me, are just generic flowers.
Between the ages of three and seven, I lived in Manhattan at 155 Ridge St. We had a three room apartment (not three bedrooms, three rooms all together). The building was in the shape of an H. Our apartment was on the third floor and the windows of our apartment looked down into the courtyard in front of the building.
At the time, the neighborhood was a bit of a slum in that there were vacant lots and vacant buildings within a block of our building. My friend, Angelo, and I explored many of the vacant lots and buildings even though I was, in theory, not allowed to cross any streets. The problem with the vacant buildings was that there was lots of broken glass and dog poop in them. Otherwise, they'd have been great places to play. Once, I slipped on a staircase in one of the buildings and got dog poop on my right hand. It took me what seemed like a very long time in the rest room of a nearby restaurant to get the poop, and the smell, off my hand before I could go home. I didn't want my mother to know I'd crossed the street to investigate a vacant building.
There was a bigger kid, whose name escapes me at the moment, who my mother paid to walk me to school once I was six so I could cross the street with someone who was tall enough so the drivers might actually see him. There were two girls, Eileen and Nancy, sisters, who Angelo and I would play with at times. Not often though since they usually wanted to play girls games.
I never actually went to kindergarten. My mother took me there the first day, but I didn't understand how she could know we were in the correct line at the beginning of the first school day. Then some girl started to cry so I started to cry, too. My mother took me back home, and I never went to Kindergarten. Angelo didn't go to Kindergarten either, so we got a whole year of playing around when other kids had to go to school. When it was time for me to start the first grade, my father took the day off work and brought me to school. I knew that crying wouldn't get me out of school if my father was there so I didn't bother to cry. It turned out that I liked school anyway. I got to sit next to Angelo. I suppose his father brought him to school that first day of the first grade, too.
There were three reading groups in that first grade class, the roses, the tulips, and the zinnias. Looking backward, I suppose the teacher, whose name and face escape me, used flower names to prevent the kids from knowing which group was the upper, middle and lower group. But it was clear to all of us that the roses were the top group, the tulips were the middle group, and the zinnias were the bottom group. To this day, those three kinds of flowers are the only flowers I can actually name if I see them. All other flowers, to me, are just generic flowers.
Healing
Writing/Cancer Support Group Tuesday 7/13/10
What does healing mean?
=======================================
Healing is a medical term. It refers to the process by which a part of the body that has a lesion (a wound, for example) gets back as close as possible to how it was before the lesion existed.
Doctors don't actually cure anybody. What they do is help the healing process along. If there weren't a healing process, people would fall apart a whole lot quicker than they do.
For example, when I used to sew up lacerations in the ER, what I'd do is clean out the wound because dirt and germs retard and prevent healing. Then I'd close the wouund with stitches. The person would thank me for curing them, but that's not what I'd done. I'd just made conditions better for more rapid healing than would have taken place if I hadn't done what I'd done. It's the healing process that did the actual trick of curing the patient. The stitches wouldn't last forever. Without that healing process, the stitches would fall out, the wound would re-open, and the patient wouldn't pay his bill. Fortunately, the healing process pretty much always kicked in.
The soft sciences have co-opted the term, healing, to mean something else. I'm not a soft science kind of guy so I'm kind of guessing here. I'd guess that the counseling type folks have re-defined the term, healing, so they could apply it to people who actually aren't going to get better at all.
In my hospice practice, the social workers and other counseling people tried hard to convince the patients that they were healing when, to me, and to the nurses, all their lesions were getting worse, and were incurable.
Eventually, I needed to buy in to the concept that even a dying person could heal in some way. So, the way I'd address the concept when I'd make a home visit is by encouraging the patient and the family to heal their relationships before the end came. Even when you're dying, relationships can heal.
That healing doesn't make any long term difference to the person who'd dying, but it can make a big difference to the family members who need to get on with their lives. Whenever we managed to get family members back together when they hadn't spoken to each other in years, I thought of that as a hospice triumph.
What does healing mean?
=======================================
Healing is a medical term. It refers to the process by which a part of the body that has a lesion (a wound, for example) gets back as close as possible to how it was before the lesion existed.
Doctors don't actually cure anybody. What they do is help the healing process along. If there weren't a healing process, people would fall apart a whole lot quicker than they do.
For example, when I used to sew up lacerations in the ER, what I'd do is clean out the wound because dirt and germs retard and prevent healing. Then I'd close the wouund with stitches. The person would thank me for curing them, but that's not what I'd done. I'd just made conditions better for more rapid healing than would have taken place if I hadn't done what I'd done. It's the healing process that did the actual trick of curing the patient. The stitches wouldn't last forever. Without that healing process, the stitches would fall out, the wound would re-open, and the patient wouldn't pay his bill. Fortunately, the healing process pretty much always kicked in.
The soft sciences have co-opted the term, healing, to mean something else. I'm not a soft science kind of guy so I'm kind of guessing here. I'd guess that the counseling type folks have re-defined the term, healing, so they could apply it to people who actually aren't going to get better at all.
In my hospice practice, the social workers and other counseling people tried hard to convince the patients that they were healing when, to me, and to the nurses, all their lesions were getting worse, and were incurable.
Eventually, I needed to buy in to the concept that even a dying person could heal in some way. So, the way I'd address the concept when I'd make a home visit is by encouraging the patient and the family to heal their relationships before the end came. Even when you're dying, relationships can heal.
That healing doesn't make any long term difference to the person who'd dying, but it can make a big difference to the family members who need to get on with their lives. Whenever we managed to get family members back together when they hadn't spoken to each other in years, I thought of that as a hospice triumph.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Monkey Bars
In my earliest detailed memory, I was three. My mother was pregnant. I was playing in the park and was up on top of the monkey bars. They don't seem to have monkey bars in parks anymore. Anyway, I was up at the top, and I yelled out to my father, "Look Daddy, no hands."
As you might expect, I fell. I remember falling, but I don't remember hitting the cement. I must have been unconscious for a while because the next thing I remember is my father taking me back to our apartment. I was crying because I'd scraped my thumb. My father took me to his uncle Benny, a GP, and uncle Benny took an X-ray of my skull. He diagnosed a fracture and said I needed to stay in bed for a month
Just so you'll know, they no longer prescribe quite so much rest for a linear fracture of the skull that doesn't need surgery, which I didn't need. I remember that at night, I was in my own bed, but in the daytime, my parents let me rest in their bed. That was good because their bed was much springier than mine, and whenever they weren't in the room, I'd be jumping up and down on the bed.
It was only a three room apartment so, thinking about it, my parents must have known what I was doing. Jumping on the bed has a distinctive sound. But they let me do it. I'm not sure they kept that bed rest thing up for an entire month. My sense of time wasn't all that accurate, and I didn't know about calendars when I was three.
I have a tonsillectomy memory from around that same age. I'd been
getting sick pretty often, and the doctor would come to our little
apartment and give me a shot. Eventually, he told my parents I needed
to get my tonsils out.
My parents took me to Beth Israel Hospital in New York, the same hospital where I was born, I remember a doctor in a mask holding a bad smelling rubber thing on my face and telling me to count to ten. I never got to ten, My next memory was that I was in an elevator, asking my mother when they were going to take out my tonsils, She told me they were already out and that I was going to get ice cream.
They put me in a pediatric ward with lots of other kids,and they told me I'd have a special nurse who would be right by my crib all the time. My problem with that was that when I woke up in the middle of the night, I was a bit reluctant to tell a stranger that I had to pee. Eventually, I did tell her.
I have no specific memory of actually getting any ice cream.
As you might expect, I fell. I remember falling, but I don't remember hitting the cement. I must have been unconscious for a while because the next thing I remember is my father taking me back to our apartment. I was crying because I'd scraped my thumb. My father took me to his uncle Benny, a GP, and uncle Benny took an X-ray of my skull. He diagnosed a fracture and said I needed to stay in bed for a month
Just so you'll know, they no longer prescribe quite so much rest for a linear fracture of the skull that doesn't need surgery, which I didn't need. I remember that at night, I was in my own bed, but in the daytime, my parents let me rest in their bed. That was good because their bed was much springier than mine, and whenever they weren't in the room, I'd be jumping up and down on the bed.
It was only a three room apartment so, thinking about it, my parents must have known what I was doing. Jumping on the bed has a distinctive sound. But they let me do it. I'm not sure they kept that bed rest thing up for an entire month. My sense of time wasn't all that accurate, and I didn't know about calendars when I was three.
I have a tonsillectomy memory from around that same age. I'd been
getting sick pretty often, and the doctor would come to our little
apartment and give me a shot. Eventually, he told my parents I needed
to get my tonsils out.
My parents took me to Beth Israel Hospital in New York, the same hospital where I was born, I remember a doctor in a mask holding a bad smelling rubber thing on my face and telling me to count to ten. I never got to ten, My next memory was that I was in an elevator, asking my mother when they were going to take out my tonsils, She told me they were already out and that I was going to get ice cream.
They put me in a pediatric ward with lots of other kids,and they told me I'd have a special nurse who would be right by my crib all the time. My problem with that was that when I woke up in the middle of the night, I was a bit reluctant to tell a stranger that I had to pee. Eventually, I did tell her.
I have no specific memory of actually getting any ice cream.
Which Mask Should I put on Today?
Writing / Cancer support group 6/30/10
Topic: In the closet of my mind, I have many masks. Sometimes I wonder which to put on.
============================================
Not sure if this is on topic, but it brings to mind an experience I had in high school.
I went to a high school that had many more girls than boys. Back then, there were four gender segregated high schools in Baltimore. Most of the boys in my neighborhood went to one or the other of them, City or Poly. I was uninterested in taking the bus to school. I'd done that for junior high school, and I was done with that. So I went to Forest Park High School which was around four blocks from where I lived.
I was invited to join a class, called the enriched class, for people who were interested in learning more than what was in the standard curriculum, and I joined that class. Because of the gender imbalance in the entire school, I was the only boy who opted to join that class. There were eighteen girls in the class, and me. We took most of our classes together.
Since it was a class for smart kids, and snobbery was rampant in our class, we all figured that we were smarter than all the other kids, but there was a smartness pecking order within our class, too. Carolyn was in that class, and she was in the top tier on the smartness scale, but you had to figure it out. She didn't flaunt her IQ. The girl who made it quite clear that she was in that top tier was Margie, and it was certainly true that she was in the smarter section of our smart group.
I was somewhere in the middle of the pack, and I found that a bit intimidating. I was also quite shy about talking to girls. Somehow, I thought they'd be bored with whatever I had to say. So the mask I wore was one of aloofness. I tried to make it seem as if the reason I wasn't talking to the girls much was that they didn't have anything to say that would be of interest to me.
Because we were snobs, we'd have class parties that included only the people from the enriched class so I was the only boy there. The girls would all be chattering away, laughing, and giggling in their high pitched high school girl voices, and I'd just sit around quietly and eat the party snacks.
The mask issue happened at one of those parties. Margie came up to me and started asking me questions about my life, and about my plans for the future. I was amazed that she was interested in anything about me. The mask came off, and I started answering her questions. Like most boys, and men, it turned out that I enjoyed talking about myself. Still do. Hence this blog. The party got quiet, and all the girls were listening to Margie essentially interview me. It was an amazing experience. It turned out that all I had to do to get girls to be interested in talking to me was to just take off the mask and be myself. What a concept.
-------------------------------------------------
Off topic entirely, there was another of the class parties where we were all playing dodge ball in the back yard when, suddenly one of the girls on the other side of the yard sat down suddenly, a bunch of the other girls near her crowded around her, and one of them came over to me and told me to just stay where I was and sit down on the grass, which I did. Nobody was telling me what had happened across the yard, but, although I didn't have the terminology at the time, I figured it was a wardrobe malfunction. One of the girls went into the house, brought something to the girl sitting on the ground across the yard, and a few minutes later, the game started up again. What's mildly amusing about that episode is that Carolyn walked up to me after everything had settled down, and she said that she'd explain to me what happened in thirty years, after we'd been married for a long enough time.
I wasn't dating Carolyn, or anyone, while I was in high school. I have no idea how she knew we'd get married, but we did, and on our thirtieth anniversary, Carolyn did tell me what happened, and it was a wardrobe malfunction as I'd suspected.
Topic: In the closet of my mind, I have many masks. Sometimes I wonder which to put on.
============================================
Not sure if this is on topic, but it brings to mind an experience I had in high school.
I went to a high school that had many more girls than boys. Back then, there were four gender segregated high schools in Baltimore. Most of the boys in my neighborhood went to one or the other of them, City or Poly. I was uninterested in taking the bus to school. I'd done that for junior high school, and I was done with that. So I went to Forest Park High School which was around four blocks from where I lived.
I was invited to join a class, called the enriched class, for people who were interested in learning more than what was in the standard curriculum, and I joined that class. Because of the gender imbalance in the entire school, I was the only boy who opted to join that class. There were eighteen girls in the class, and me. We took most of our classes together.
Since it was a class for smart kids, and snobbery was rampant in our class, we all figured that we were smarter than all the other kids, but there was a smartness pecking order within our class, too. Carolyn was in that class, and she was in the top tier on the smartness scale, but you had to figure it out. She didn't flaunt her IQ. The girl who made it quite clear that she was in that top tier was Margie, and it was certainly true that she was in the smarter section of our smart group.
I was somewhere in the middle of the pack, and I found that a bit intimidating. I was also quite shy about talking to girls. Somehow, I thought they'd be bored with whatever I had to say. So the mask I wore was one of aloofness. I tried to make it seem as if the reason I wasn't talking to the girls much was that they didn't have anything to say that would be of interest to me.
Because we were snobs, we'd have class parties that included only the people from the enriched class so I was the only boy there. The girls would all be chattering away, laughing, and giggling in their high pitched high school girl voices, and I'd just sit around quietly and eat the party snacks.
The mask issue happened at one of those parties. Margie came up to me and started asking me questions about my life, and about my plans for the future. I was amazed that she was interested in anything about me. The mask came off, and I started answering her questions. Like most boys, and men, it turned out that I enjoyed talking about myself. Still do. Hence this blog. The party got quiet, and all the girls were listening to Margie essentially interview me. It was an amazing experience. It turned out that all I had to do to get girls to be interested in talking to me was to just take off the mask and be myself. What a concept.
-------------------------------------------------
Off topic entirely, there was another of the class parties where we were all playing dodge ball in the back yard when, suddenly one of the girls on the other side of the yard sat down suddenly, a bunch of the other girls near her crowded around her, and one of them came over to me and told me to just stay where I was and sit down on the grass, which I did. Nobody was telling me what had happened across the yard, but, although I didn't have the terminology at the time, I figured it was a wardrobe malfunction. One of the girls went into the house, brought something to the girl sitting on the ground across the yard, and a few minutes later, the game started up again. What's mildly amusing about that episode is that Carolyn walked up to me after everything had settled down, and she said that she'd explain to me what happened in thirty years, after we'd been married for a long enough time.
I wasn't dating Carolyn, or anyone, while I was in high school. I have no idea how she knew we'd get married, but we did, and on our thirtieth anniversary, Carolyn did tell me what happened, and it was a wardrobe malfunction as I'd suspected.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Here's a poem Carolyn wrote more recently
A Maiden's Lament
=== By Carolyn Farkas ===
It isn't fair.
I'd heard rumors of his plight,
His Royal Frogness.
I hiked all week, scrambling over rocks painted with slime,
Clambering over fallen trees,
Pulling off well-fed leeches,
Vomiting lichens and praying that the mushrooms would not kill,
Pondering my choice—mud-packed skin or mosquito bites?
All this to save him.
At last I reached the Doleful Swamp,
Worst land of all,
Snakes dripping from moldering trees,
Beetles beneath every leaf,
Scurrying creatures which I dared not seek,
A stench I thought would kill.
Careful footsteps,
Short breaths,
Tears streaming.
And then I saw him.
Forlorn upon a drifting log,
Squatting with squads of frogs around,
His toad-servants on the pond-bank
Croaking a valediction to the prince.
By his wealth I knew him,
His sceptre resting on a mossy log,
His diadem askew but shining.
The crown had shrunk just as the person had,
Now sized for the green forehead of a frog,
The gold contracted,
Tubies once the size of peaches, now of peas,
But so handsome, so regal, so I thought,
At least no warts (Thank God he's not a toad.).
He wanted to speak, but with his mouth still full of fly,
And so I kissed him, as I had been told to do.
Then, TRANSFORMATION.
The earth shook, fog swirled,
The pond scented vaguely, now, of lotus.
Then, there, before my eyes
(So far, so good; the stories were not lies)
The handsome prince.
Golden hair to match the medals on his chest,
His silken garments, out of style, but with such sheen,
His crown and scepter now a regal size.
Just as I'd dreamt him.
Tenderly he kissed me, only once, upon my disheveled hair.
"Oh, thank you, dear. It's so dull, being a frog.
My only sport—the hunt.
But no prancing stallions chasing deer,
Just myself, flicking my tongue at slow-paced gnats,
Or worse, the prey of cranes longing for lunch.
"And now there's your reward,
Eight hundred golden ducats,
Well, call it an even thousand if you'll show me the path to home,
From Doleful Swamp to the nearest of my castles."
"What about marriage?
Surely that's the right thing to do."
I tried to sound so shy,
The demure virgin who'd rescued her true love.
"The right thing to do?
My dear, why that?
Money should suffice.
Gold is its own reward,
And if you're pregnant,
The tadpole isn't mine.
Don't you suggest it.
No!
Think about it.
Marriage?
Surely you jest.
Not in the job specs.
I've heard the tales myself.
That happily-ever-after bit's unclear.
The frog ends up as a prince, and they live happily ever after.
Perhaps she's happy with the cash:
He's happy getting back to throne and realm.
But there's no marriage.
"Besides, you see, there's this girl I met last year,
A week before my frogging.
Well, actually, she's the witch who did all this.
A lover's spat. It happens.
Surely we'll work it out,
And she's a beauty.
Enchanting."
"She didn't rescue you. I did. Don't I get preference?"
"I see your point.
It makes a kind of sense.
That kiss I gave was nice, but passion wasn't there.
Anyway, I'm a prince.
I suppose a commoner might be my wife,
But I like my women clean.
No mosquito bites, no scratches, no smell of puke,
Not layered with mud,
And certainly not the sort who'd kiss a frog,
No matter who she thought the frog might be."
"You've eaten flies."
"Now that's unkind.
I had no choice. Stag-beetle stew or starve.
But you chose to kiss me.
You tasted of mushrooms, lichens, and so much else.
A tongue that licked toad will never touch mine.
Marriage?
Not even shacking up.
Princes don't do shacks.
"Be honest.
Would you have come
If I had been a peasant or a serf?
Remember—a thousand ducats.
That's quite enough
To buy a handsome farmer
If you buy the farm.
You'll get your man, one used to mud and muck,
And I will find my bewitching, noble love.
Now let's be going.
And we'll all live happily ever....
Well, you know how the ending ought to be. "
But I begged him.
"Just kiss me once on the mouth,
Just once,
While I hold your crown and sceptre,
While I pretend to be royal.
Then, if no, then no.
Though I have my expectations."
And so I kissed him, as I had been told to do.
Then, TRANSFORMATION.
The earth shook, fog swirled,
The pond scented vaguely, now, of muck.
Then, there, before my eyes
(So far, so good, the stories were not lies)
The handsome frog.
Well, not so handsome, even for a frog,
Without his crown or sceptre.
They sold for quite a price. And now my mansion
High on this mountain
Overlooks the Doleful Swamp
But at a distance.
My farms expand as we drain the swamp.
My beauty products help peasants and queens alike,
Especially the mud packs.
I need only smile, relax,
Rest on velvet sheets,
Wear silken dresses,
Dine on caviar and frog legs.
(Perhaps, one of these days....)
And I’ll live happily ever....
Well, as he said, you know how the ending ought to be.
=== By Carolyn Farkas ===
It isn't fair.
I'd heard rumors of his plight,
His Royal Frogness.
I hiked all week, scrambling over rocks painted with slime,
Clambering over fallen trees,
Pulling off well-fed leeches,
Vomiting lichens and praying that the mushrooms would not kill,
Pondering my choice—mud-packed skin or mosquito bites?
All this to save him.
At last I reached the Doleful Swamp,
Worst land of all,
Snakes dripping from moldering trees,
Beetles beneath every leaf,
Scurrying creatures which I dared not seek,
A stench I thought would kill.
Careful footsteps,
Short breaths,
Tears streaming.
And then I saw him.
Forlorn upon a drifting log,
Squatting with squads of frogs around,
His toad-servants on the pond-bank
Croaking a valediction to the prince.
By his wealth I knew him,
His sceptre resting on a mossy log,
His diadem askew but shining.
The crown had shrunk just as the person had,
Now sized for the green forehead of a frog,
The gold contracted,
Tubies once the size of peaches, now of peas,
But so handsome, so regal, so I thought,
At least no warts (Thank God he's not a toad.).
He wanted to speak, but with his mouth still full of fly,
And so I kissed him, as I had been told to do.
Then, TRANSFORMATION.
The earth shook, fog swirled,
The pond scented vaguely, now, of lotus.
Then, there, before my eyes
(So far, so good; the stories were not lies)
The handsome prince.
Golden hair to match the medals on his chest,
His silken garments, out of style, but with such sheen,
His crown and scepter now a regal size.
Just as I'd dreamt him.
Tenderly he kissed me, only once, upon my disheveled hair.
"Oh, thank you, dear. It's so dull, being a frog.
My only sport—the hunt.
But no prancing stallions chasing deer,
Just myself, flicking my tongue at slow-paced gnats,
Or worse, the prey of cranes longing for lunch.
"And now there's your reward,
Eight hundred golden ducats,
Well, call it an even thousand if you'll show me the path to home,
From Doleful Swamp to the nearest of my castles."
"What about marriage?
Surely that's the right thing to do."
I tried to sound so shy,
The demure virgin who'd rescued her true love.
"The right thing to do?
My dear, why that?
Money should suffice.
Gold is its own reward,
And if you're pregnant,
The tadpole isn't mine.
Don't you suggest it.
No!
Think about it.
Marriage?
Surely you jest.
Not in the job specs.
I've heard the tales myself.
That happily-ever-after bit's unclear.
The frog ends up as a prince, and they live happily ever after.
Perhaps she's happy with the cash:
He's happy getting back to throne and realm.
But there's no marriage.
"Besides, you see, there's this girl I met last year,
A week before my frogging.
Well, actually, she's the witch who did all this.
A lover's spat. It happens.
Surely we'll work it out,
And she's a beauty.
Enchanting."
"She didn't rescue you. I did. Don't I get preference?"
"I see your point.
It makes a kind of sense.
That kiss I gave was nice, but passion wasn't there.
Anyway, I'm a prince.
I suppose a commoner might be my wife,
But I like my women clean.
No mosquito bites, no scratches, no smell of puke,
Not layered with mud,
And certainly not the sort who'd kiss a frog,
No matter who she thought the frog might be."
"You've eaten flies."
"Now that's unkind.
I had no choice. Stag-beetle stew or starve.
But you chose to kiss me.
You tasted of mushrooms, lichens, and so much else.
A tongue that licked toad will never touch mine.
Marriage?
Not even shacking up.
Princes don't do shacks.
"Be honest.
Would you have come
If I had been a peasant or a serf?
Remember—a thousand ducats.
That's quite enough
To buy a handsome farmer
If you buy the farm.
You'll get your man, one used to mud and muck,
And I will find my bewitching, noble love.
Now let's be going.
And we'll all live happily ever....
Well, you know how the ending ought to be. "
But I begged him.
"Just kiss me once on the mouth,
Just once,
While I hold your crown and sceptre,
While I pretend to be royal.
Then, if no, then no.
Though I have my expectations."
And so I kissed him, as I had been told to do.
Then, TRANSFORMATION.
The earth shook, fog swirled,
The pond scented vaguely, now, of muck.
Then, there, before my eyes
(So far, so good, the stories were not lies)
The handsome frog.
Well, not so handsome, even for a frog,
Without his crown or sceptre.
They sold for quite a price. And now my mansion
High on this mountain
Overlooks the Doleful Swamp
But at a distance.
My farms expand as we drain the swamp.
My beauty products help peasants and queens alike,
Especially the mud packs.
I need only smile, relax,
Rest on velvet sheets,
Wear silken dresses,
Dine on caviar and frog legs.
(Perhaps, one of these days....)
And I’ll live happily ever....
Well, as he said, you know how the ending ought to be.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Here's a poem Carolyn wrote about ten years ago.
Hair
by Carolyn Farkas
I’ve watched my hair grow long, the last ten years,
too long for someone well past middle age.
For birthdays, anniversaries, such events,
the beautician who smooths my twisted curls
suggest some style that would be simpler, shorter, right,
easy to live with,
and I must answer.
How should I decline?
I pause, as though I listened to her thought,
then speak “No, not today.
Just trim uneven ends,
but leave me long for now.
I must hurry. So much to do.”
How can I tell her that I need to see its length,
each time I shower,
that moment when it snakes down my neck,
crawls to my chest
and covers the decade-old scar on my left breast,
reminder of what once made me lose my hair
but let me keep it now,
for so long, so long.
by Carolyn Farkas
I’ve watched my hair grow long, the last ten years,
too long for someone well past middle age.
For birthdays, anniversaries, such events,
the beautician who smooths my twisted curls
suggest some style that would be simpler, shorter, right,
easy to live with,
and I must answer.
How should I decline?
I pause, as though I listened to her thought,
then speak “No, not today.
Just trim uneven ends,
but leave me long for now.
I must hurry. So much to do.”
How can I tell her that I need to see its length,
each time I shower,
that moment when it snakes down my neck,
crawls to my chest
and covers the decade-old scar on my left breast,
reminder of what once made me lose my hair
but let me keep it now,
for so long, so long.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Writing/Cancer Support Group 6/16/10
Assignment:
What is the greatest source of frustration about your health?
=================================
Mortality
They say that getting old is better than the alternative. It’s also worse. It depends on whether you consider the alternative as dying or just staying young. Ten years ago, my brother mentioned to me that he’d heard that we were in the last generation that was actually going to die. I pooh-poohed the notion back then. These days, with stem cell research and regenerative medicine research making breakthroughs very often, I’m not so sure he was completely wrong. It might be that it’ll take another generation to get to where most degenerative diseases can be reversed, but there’s a chance it could happen.
It’s not unknown to have virtual immortality in biological species. There’s a kind of jellyfish, Turritopsis nutricula, that’s immortal in the sense that after achieving sexual maturity and reproducing, it changes itself back into a juvenile form and then goes through the maturation process again. In the presence of sufficient food, it doesn’t die.
Of course, in a species like people, you might not want to go through adolescence, and have to attend high school, again unless you were a jock and high school was the best time of your life. If you're like most of us, you'd want to keep your knowledge and experience, something jellyfish don’t have to deal with as far as we know. So I can envision a whole generation of Doogie Howsers once this immortality thing gets going. It’ll be cute.
What is the greatest source of frustration about your health?
=================================
Mortality
They say that getting old is better than the alternative. It’s also worse. It depends on whether you consider the alternative as dying or just staying young. Ten years ago, my brother mentioned to me that he’d heard that we were in the last generation that was actually going to die. I pooh-poohed the notion back then. These days, with stem cell research and regenerative medicine research making breakthroughs very often, I’m not so sure he was completely wrong. It might be that it’ll take another generation to get to where most degenerative diseases can be reversed, but there’s a chance it could happen.
It’s not unknown to have virtual immortality in biological species. There’s a kind of jellyfish, Turritopsis nutricula, that’s immortal in the sense that after achieving sexual maturity and reproducing, it changes itself back into a juvenile form and then goes through the maturation process again. In the presence of sufficient food, it doesn’t die.
Of course, in a species like people, you might not want to go through adolescence, and have to attend high school, again unless you were a jock and high school was the best time of your life. If you're like most of us, you'd want to keep your knowledge and experience, something jellyfish don’t have to deal with as far as we know. So I can envision a whole generation of Doogie Howsers once this immortality thing gets going. It’ll be cute.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
This one's from Carolyn
A few years ago, my wife, Carolyn, wrote a poem that's a spoof of several poems we all read in high school. I was going through some old emails and came across it.
Here it is.
Henry
=========================================================
Annabel Lee Muller and Sam "Judge" McGee: A Romance of the Frozen North
There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold;
It was many and many a year ago, In Alaska by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know, By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge She cremated Sam McGee.
He was a child and she was a child, In Alaska by the sea;
But they loved with a love that was more than love-He and his Annabel Lee;
There’s the wonderful love of a beautiful maid,
And the love of a staunch true man,
And the love of a baby that’s unafraid—
All have existed since time began.
But the most wonderful love, the Love of all loves,
Even greater than the love for Mother,
Is the infinite, tenderest, passionate love
Of one dead drunk for another.
And ere the languid summer died,
Sweet Ann became McGee's bride.
But on the day that they were mated,
Ann's brother Bob was intoxicated;
And Ann's relations, twelve in all,
Were very drunk in the barroom hall.
And when the summer came again,
The young bride bore him babies twain;
Sam thought of the twins, and wished that they
Looked less like the men who raked the hay.
And there be women fair as she,
Whose verbs and nouns do more agree.
So Sam soon thought his Ann a whore,
And she thought him a weak-willed bore.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam ‘round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.”
And this was the reason that, long ago, In Alaska by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling handsome Sam Mcgee;
And that very night, as they lay packed tight in their robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to her, and “Hon,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I’m asking you, don’t refuse my last request.”
Well, he seemed so low that she couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
“It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ‘taint being dead--it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and she hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that she couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;
And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on she went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
And the trail was bad, and she felt half mad, but she swore she would not give in;
Still, she had to eat, and he was fresh meat, and she hearkened with a grin.
Some planks she tore from the cabin floor, and she lit the boiler fire;
Some coal she found that was lying around, and she heaped the fuel higher;
Then she made a hike, for she didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
Ann was sick with dread, but she bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep in there.
I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked; since I'd like him medium rare.
But the winds did howl, And Ann ran afoul, of his sister, proud and cold,
"She's like Alferd Packer! We all must attack her!" Sis said, vain of her rank and gold.
So that his highborn kinsmen came and bore away Annabel Lee
To shut her up in a prison cell in the penitentiary.
But Ann's love it was stronger by far than the guards of the prison by the sea
And the moon never beamed without bringing her dreams of her taste for Sam Mcgee,
So she looked at the stars and then broke through the bars of Nome's penitentiary. The Dawson Trail she dashes and returns to the ashes of her lover Sam Mcgee,
And the stars never rise but she tastes the bright eyes of delicious Sam Mcgee
And so, all the night-tide, she lies down by his side In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In his tomb by the sounding sea.
God pity them both and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
If, of all words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are, "It might have been,"
More sad are these we daily see:
"It is, but hadn't ought to be."
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
by Carolyn Farkas, Bret Harte, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Service, John Greenleaf Whittier, and, of course, Anonymous)
Here it is.
Henry
=========================================================
Annabel Lee Muller and Sam "Judge" McGee: A Romance of the Frozen North
There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold;
It was many and many a year ago, In Alaska by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know, By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge She cremated Sam McGee.
He was a child and she was a child, In Alaska by the sea;
But they loved with a love that was more than love-He and his Annabel Lee;
There’s the wonderful love of a beautiful maid,
And the love of a staunch true man,
And the love of a baby that’s unafraid—
All have existed since time began.
But the most wonderful love, the Love of all loves,
Even greater than the love for Mother,
Is the infinite, tenderest, passionate love
Of one dead drunk for another.
And ere the languid summer died,
Sweet Ann became McGee's bride.
But on the day that they were mated,
Ann's brother Bob was intoxicated;
And Ann's relations, twelve in all,
Were very drunk in the barroom hall.
And when the summer came again,
The young bride bore him babies twain;
Sam thought of the twins, and wished that they
Looked less like the men who raked the hay.
And there be women fair as she,
Whose verbs and nouns do more agree.
So Sam soon thought his Ann a whore,
And she thought him a weak-willed bore.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam ‘round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.”
And this was the reason that, long ago, In Alaska by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling handsome Sam Mcgee;
And that very night, as they lay packed tight in their robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to her, and “Hon,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I’m asking you, don’t refuse my last request.”
Well, he seemed so low that she couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
“It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ‘taint being dead--it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and she hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that she couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;
And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on she went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
And the trail was bad, and she felt half mad, but she swore she would not give in;
Still, she had to eat, and he was fresh meat, and she hearkened with a grin.
Some planks she tore from the cabin floor, and she lit the boiler fire;
Some coal she found that was lying around, and she heaped the fuel higher;
Then she made a hike, for she didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
Ann was sick with dread, but she bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep in there.
I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked; since I'd like him medium rare.
But the winds did howl, And Ann ran afoul, of his sister, proud and cold,
"She's like Alferd Packer! We all must attack her!" Sis said, vain of her rank and gold.
So that his highborn kinsmen came and bore away Annabel Lee
To shut her up in a prison cell in the penitentiary.
But Ann's love it was stronger by far than the guards of the prison by the sea
And the moon never beamed without bringing her dreams of her taste for Sam Mcgee,
So she looked at the stars and then broke through the bars of Nome's penitentiary. The Dawson Trail she dashes and returns to the ashes of her lover Sam Mcgee,
And the stars never rise but she tastes the bright eyes of delicious Sam Mcgee
And so, all the night-tide, she lies down by his side In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In his tomb by the sounding sea.
God pity them both and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
If, of all words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are, "It might have been,"
More sad are these we daily see:
"It is, but hadn't ought to be."
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
by Carolyn Farkas, Bret Harte, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Service, John Greenleaf Whittier, and, of course, Anonymous)
Friday, June 11, 2010
The rainbow story
Our house in Elkton, MD, the place where Carolyn and I lived for most of out adult lives, and where we raised out children, is in the north east corner of Maryland. There were days when it rained in the afternoon and then stopped in the late afternoon. On those days, there would be a rainbow. The way rainbows work, they're always on the opposite side of you from where the sun is located, and in the late afternoon, the sun, at least in Elkton, and probably in the entire northern hemisphere, is located southwest of your location. That means the rainbow is located northeast of your location.
Carolyn would load the kids in the car and tell them they were going to look for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. After the first time, the kids kind of knew that they'd never find a pot of gold, but there were scenic little country roads swirling between woods, farms, and horse ranches that led northeast to a friendly little ice cream store. That store was at the end of the rainbow.
Carolyn would load the kids in the car and tell them they were going to look for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. After the first time, the kids kind of knew that they'd never find a pot of gold, but there were scenic little country roads swirling between woods, farms, and horse ranches that led northeast to a friendly little ice cream store. That store was at the end of the rainbow.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Writing/Cancer Support Group 6/9/10 Topic: Fear
The Fear
My son-in-law, Chris Angel (nope, not Criss Angel, the magician you've heard of, Chris Angel, the movie director you've never heard of) has directed five movies. The first one was, "The Fear: Halloween Night." In that movie, a group of young adults decide to confront their deepest fears. Naturally, they head into the woods, to a remote cabin far from phones and roads where, by a happenstance that turns out not to be pure chance, there's a supernatural serial killer named Morty on the loose. That turned out to be an unwise way to confront their fears. Really unwise. It really takes the dignity out of death when you're killed by a thing named Morty.
I confront my fears differently. Frankly, when I came down with cancer, I wasn't as afraid as I thought I might be. I'm a hospice doc so I'm well aware of the discomfort that can attend end stage cancer, but I'm also aware that there are good techniques for alleviating suffering at the end of life. It's not death that's scary. Anyone can be dead, and, eventually, all of us will be. It's the process of dying that can be scary and messy.
I've been free of any sign of cancer for about a year and three quarters. It took a year and a half since my initial cancer surgery for my recurrence of cancer to show up. I'm scheduled for a follow up scan tomorrow. Wish me luck. If I pass the test tomorrow, I can put off my fear for six months before I'll even need another scan.
My son-in-law, Chris Angel (nope, not Criss Angel, the magician you've heard of, Chris Angel, the movie director you've never heard of) has directed five movies. The first one was, "The Fear: Halloween Night." In that movie, a group of young adults decide to confront their deepest fears. Naturally, they head into the woods, to a remote cabin far from phones and roads where, by a happenstance that turns out not to be pure chance, there's a supernatural serial killer named Morty on the loose. That turned out to be an unwise way to confront their fears. Really unwise. It really takes the dignity out of death when you're killed by a thing named Morty.
I confront my fears differently. Frankly, when I came down with cancer, I wasn't as afraid as I thought I might be. I'm a hospice doc so I'm well aware of the discomfort that can attend end stage cancer, but I'm also aware that there are good techniques for alleviating suffering at the end of life. It's not death that's scary. Anyone can be dead, and, eventually, all of us will be. It's the process of dying that can be scary and messy.
I've been free of any sign of cancer for about a year and three quarters. It took a year and a half since my initial cancer surgery for my recurrence of cancer to show up. I'm scheduled for a follow up scan tomorrow. Wish me luck. If I pass the test tomorrow, I can put off my fear for six months before I'll even need another scan.
Writing/Cancer Support 6/8/10 -- Control
Control
What am I in control of, and what am I not in control of?
What do I want to change?
The main thing I'm not in control of is whether or not my cancer is going to come back. That affects my long term plans. Actually, I don't have any long term plans right now because I feel like those gladiators in ancient Rome. You know, "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die."
Back in February, my oncologist told me that he'd have to decrease the frequency of my follow up scans because I might be cured, and, if I am, he doesn't want to cause me to come down with a new cancer caused by the radiation from all the scans. Initially, I got frequent scans on the theory, I suppose, that I was going to die anyway from the cancer so I wouldn't have time to develop any new cancers from all the radiation. The docs tend to think that way when a patient has recurrent lung cancer that has upstaged itself to stage IV.
I'm scheduled for a new scan the day after tomorrow. If I pass that one, it'll be more than a year and a half from the time I had my last cancer treatment. The last time my cancer recurred, it was approximately a year and a half after my surgery.
I'm trying to remain optimistic. I go out on long walks, eat less than I used to eat, and drink Kefir, a pro-biotic drink that's supposed to improve the immune system. I think Kefir is just a foreign sounding name that lets the company charge more for a bottle of the stuff than they could charge if they called it buttermilk. But it tastes suspiciously like buttermilk.
Control in the past six months or so has involved going to lots of Wellness Community activities. You have to be a cancer survivor to join The Wellness Community. But, now, control is finding other activities, not cancer related, to enjoy. On Thursday evening, I'm going to join the Tinseltown Toastmasters, a chapter of Toastmasters International. I've always known there was an organization called Toastmasters, but I could never figure out why someone would have to join an organization just to learn how to make a toast. I don't hang out in bars very much anyway so the opportunity to make a toast doesn't come up that often, and, when it does, I just raise my glass and say, "L'chaim." Non-Jews can't even say that unless they're devotees of "Fiddler on the Roof." But for me, it's not hard to make a toast. I found out recently that there's more to being in Toastmasters than just making a toast. It's about public speaking. I like to talk so I'm sure I'll have fun. And there's no requirement that you have to have a fatal disease to join the club.
When my wife was alive, we used to take long car trips—sometimes several months at a time. We were like those retired couples who sell their houses, buy recreational vehicles, and travel the country without any fixed address. Except we didn't sell our house, and we traveled in a Prius. That gave us way better gas mileage than those gas-hog RVs. And sleeping in a motel is just as comfortable as sleeping in an RV.
I haven't done that since Carolyn died, but I'm planning to—this summer. Control.
What am I in control of, and what am I not in control of?
What do I want to change?
The main thing I'm not in control of is whether or not my cancer is going to come back. That affects my long term plans. Actually, I don't have any long term plans right now because I feel like those gladiators in ancient Rome. You know, "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die."
Back in February, my oncologist told me that he'd have to decrease the frequency of my follow up scans because I might be cured, and, if I am, he doesn't want to cause me to come down with a new cancer caused by the radiation from all the scans. Initially, I got frequent scans on the theory, I suppose, that I was going to die anyway from the cancer so I wouldn't have time to develop any new cancers from all the radiation. The docs tend to think that way when a patient has recurrent lung cancer that has upstaged itself to stage IV.
I'm scheduled for a new scan the day after tomorrow. If I pass that one, it'll be more than a year and a half from the time I had my last cancer treatment. The last time my cancer recurred, it was approximately a year and a half after my surgery.
I'm trying to remain optimistic. I go out on long walks, eat less than I used to eat, and drink Kefir, a pro-biotic drink that's supposed to improve the immune system. I think Kefir is just a foreign sounding name that lets the company charge more for a bottle of the stuff than they could charge if they called it buttermilk. But it tastes suspiciously like buttermilk.
Control in the past six months or so has involved going to lots of Wellness Community activities. You have to be a cancer survivor to join The Wellness Community. But, now, control is finding other activities, not cancer related, to enjoy. On Thursday evening, I'm going to join the Tinseltown Toastmasters, a chapter of Toastmasters International. I've always known there was an organization called Toastmasters, but I could never figure out why someone would have to join an organization just to learn how to make a toast. I don't hang out in bars very much anyway so the opportunity to make a toast doesn't come up that often, and, when it does, I just raise my glass and say, "L'chaim." Non-Jews can't even say that unless they're devotees of "Fiddler on the Roof." But for me, it's not hard to make a toast. I found out recently that there's more to being in Toastmasters than just making a toast. It's about public speaking. I like to talk so I'm sure I'll have fun. And there's no requirement that you have to have a fatal disease to join the club.
When my wife was alive, we used to take long car trips—sometimes several months at a time. We were like those retired couples who sell their houses, buy recreational vehicles, and travel the country without any fixed address. Except we didn't sell our house, and we traveled in a Prius. That gave us way better gas mileage than those gas-hog RVs. And sleeping in a motel is just as comfortable as sleeping in an RV.
I haven't done that since Carolyn died, but I'm planning to—this summer. Control.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Control
Control
What am I in control of, and what am I not in control of?
What do I want to change?
The main thing I'm not in control of is whether or not my cancer is going to come back. That affects my long term plans. Actually, I don't have any long term plans right now because I feel like those gladiators in ancient Rome. You know, "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die."
Back in February, my oncologist told me that he'd have to decrease the frequency of my follow up scans because I might be cured, and, if I am, he doesn't want to cause me to come down with a new cancer caused by the radiation from all the scans. Initially, I got frequent scans on the theory, I suppose, that I was going to die anyway from the cancer so I wouldn't have time to develop any new cancers from all the radiation. The docs tend to think that way when a patient has recurrent lung cancer that has upstaged itself to stage IV.
I'm scheduled for a new scan the day after tomorrow. If I pass that one, it'll be more than a year and a half from the time I had my last cancer treatment. The last time my cancer recurred, it was approximately a year and a half after my surgery.
I'm trying to remain optimistic. I go out on long walks, eat less than I used to eat, and drink Kefir, a pro-biotic drink that's supposed to improve the immune system. I think Kefir is just a foreign sounding name that lets the company charge more for a bottle of the stuff than they could charge if they called it buttermilk. But it tastes suspiciously like buttermilk.
Control in the past six months or so has involved going to lots of Wellness Community activities. You have to be a cancer survivor to join The Wellness Community. But, now, control is finding other activities, not cancer related, to enjoy. On Thursday evening, I'm going to join the Tinseltown Toastmasters, a chapter of Toastmasters International. I've always known there was an organization called Toastmasters, but I could never figure out why someone would have to join an organization just to learn how to make a toast. I don't hang out in bars very much anyway so the opportunity to make a toast doesn't come up that often, and, when it does, I just raise my glass and say, "L'chaim." Non-Jews can't even say that unless they're devotees of "Fiddler on the Roof." But for me, it's not hard to make a toast. I found out recently that there's more to being in Toastmasters than just making a toast. It's about public speaking. I like to talk so I'm sure I'll have fun. And there's no requirement that you have to have a fatal disease to join the club.
When my wife was alive, we used to take long car trips—sometimes several months at a time. We were like those retired couples who sell their houses, buy recreational vehicles, and travel the country without any fixed address. Except we didn't sell our house, and we traveled in a Prius. That gave us way better gas mileage than those gas-hog RVs. And sleeping in a motel is just as comfortable as sleeping in an RV.
I haven't done that since Carolyn died, but I'm planning to—this summer. Control.
What am I in control of, and what am I not in control of?
What do I want to change?
The main thing I'm not in control of is whether or not my cancer is going to come back. That affects my long term plans. Actually, I don't have any long term plans right now because I feel like those gladiators in ancient Rome. You know, "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die."
Back in February, my oncologist told me that he'd have to decrease the frequency of my follow up scans because I might be cured, and, if I am, he doesn't want to cause me to come down with a new cancer caused by the radiation from all the scans. Initially, I got frequent scans on the theory, I suppose, that I was going to die anyway from the cancer so I wouldn't have time to develop any new cancers from all the radiation. The docs tend to think that way when a patient has recurrent lung cancer that has upstaged itself to stage IV.
I'm scheduled for a new scan the day after tomorrow. If I pass that one, it'll be more than a year and a half from the time I had my last cancer treatment. The last time my cancer recurred, it was approximately a year and a half after my surgery.
I'm trying to remain optimistic. I go out on long walks, eat less than I used to eat, and drink Kefir, a pro-biotic drink that's supposed to improve the immune system. I think Kefir is just a foreign sounding name that lets the company charge more for a bottle of the stuff than they could charge if they called it buttermilk. But it tastes suspiciously like buttermilk.
Control in the past six months or so has involved going to lots of Wellness Community activities. You have to be a cancer survivor to join The Wellness Community. But, now, control is finding other activities, not cancer related, to enjoy. On Thursday evening, I'm going to join the Tinseltown Toastmasters, a chapter of Toastmasters International. I've always known there was an organization called Toastmasters, but I could never figure out why someone would have to join an organization just to learn how to make a toast. I don't hang out in bars very much anyway so the opportunity to make a toast doesn't come up that often, and, when it does, I just raise my glass and say, "L'chaim." Non-Jews can't even say that unless they're devotees of "Fiddler on the Roof." But for me, it's not hard to make a toast. I found out recently that there's more to being in Toastmasters than just making a toast. It's about public speaking. I like to talk so I'm sure I'll have fun. And there's no requirement that you have to have a fatal disease to join the club.
When my wife was alive, we used to take long car trips—sometimes several months at a time. We were like those retired couples who sell their houses, buy recreational vehicles, and travel the country without any fixed address. Except we didn't sell our house, and we traveled in a Prius. That gave us way better gas mileage than those gas-hog RVs. And sleeping in a motel is just as comfortable as sleeping in an RV.
I haven't done that since Carolyn died, but I'm planning to—this summer. Control.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Introduction to me
My friends say I should do a memoir blog. They think people who don't even know me will enjoy reading it. Personally, I have my doubts. If I weren't me, I wouldn't be interested in reading it. The pieces in here will be little essays I've written, and will write, at classes I attend around writing. We get writing assignments in the classes, and I somehow twist the assignment around so it's always about me. I seem to get pleasure from thinking about, and writing about things I've done, things I've thought, and experiences I've had. Is that sad? Yep.
Recently, I attended a class about how we want to change our lives after cancer. For some of us, cancer is way in the past. For others of us, like me, it was more recent, and not definitively in the past. In this blog entry, and in future ones, if the entry is the result of a writing assignment, I'll put in what the assignment was.
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Henry
Recently, I attended a class about how we want to change our lives after cancer. For some of us, cancer is way in the past. For others of us, like me, it was more recent, and not definitively in the past. In this blog entry, and in future ones, if the entry is the result of a writing assignment, I'll put in what the assignment was.
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Discuss ourselves from an occupational viewpoint describing an “Ah” moment, an “Aha” moment, and a “Ha ha” moment. Add a metaphor for value—what’s it worth to me?
Hello, I’m Henry, an old, retired, fat guy.
1. Ah I was three. My mother told me I was going to be a doctor when I grew up. She might have told me that previously. She certainly told me that plenty of times subsequently. But my actual memories go back no farther than the age of three.
2. Aha I looked in a microscope in seventh grade science class at a slide that had some grass from the schoolyard in a mild salt solution, and I saw a paramecium swim by. My textbook had said that I’d see that, but somehow, I never really believed that what they said in the textbooks was actually so until that day. I thought, “Doctors get to look in microscopes.”
3. Ha ha I took an interest test at B’nai B’rith when I was in high school to see what I’d like to be when I grew up. My father sent me there. My mother already knew what I'd like to be when I grew up.
I flunked the test. You might ask, how can you flunk an interest test? Well, I'll tell you. The test result said that I’d like to be a rabbi. Now you know the old joke, “What kind of job is that for a nice Jewish boy?” In my case, I decided that I’d have to believe in G-d to be a rabbi. And while it’s true that I’d had some textbooks in Hebrew school that said there was such a thing as G-d, I hadn’t seen him (her?) swimming through a saline slide under a microscope.
They gave all of us that same interest test during my first registration week at college. I was much more careful about how I answered the questions, and I passed. The test ended up saying that I’d like to be a doctor.
4. Ah I had another Ah moment when I came down with cancer. Everyone who comes down with cancer probably has this one. I had to assess my previous priorities. I ended up essentially retiring the day after I got my cancer diagnosis. After going through all the mishegoss (Yiddish for crazy stuff) you have to go through when you get diagnosed with cancer, surgery, chemo, experimental treatments, I got too short of breath to do ER shifts anyway.
I decided I was going to travel with my wife and hang out with my kids and grandchildren a lot. Then, my wife, Carolyn, died. I never expected to outlive her. It’s been 3 ½ years since I got my cancer diagnosis, and I can't travel with my wife anymore.
I suppose I should be trying to do more than just working on becoming an old retired skinny guy. I’m thinking about it. Some people are smart enough to write songs that lots of people want to listen to, or novels that lots of people want to read. I'm not. But there's another kind of writer.
All some writers do is have some experiences and then sit down at their computer and write about themselves. I have enough energy, and enough IQ points, at least when I'm well rested, for that.
Metaphor for value. It turns out it's not money. It's nachas. No, that's not a kind of corn chip, it's a Yiddish word for good stuff that happens in your family.
If I can figure out how to put some pictures in here, maybe I'll put some in. I know it's possible because I have some other blogs around here someplace that have pictures in them. So you'd think I'd just automatically know how to put pictures in this one. Well, I don't, but I'll figure it out. Henry
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