Day 47

A picture of my favorite place to shop:

This is a picture of the favorite place I go and actually occasionally buy stuff; my favorite place to go that sells stuff is Best Buy, but I can so rarely justify buying a single thing they sell.  I discovered Best Buy freshman year of college...back when a purchase there could surely be said to be the best possible buy.

(Hmm, maybe I could use a new camera before friend Kelly's wedding...)

But Target provides the foundation of my wardrobe.  Oh, I dress up the basics with Banana Republic and Macy's (you can take the preppy out of prep school, yadda yadda yadda), but really it's all about the black T-shirts and jeans.  Then I wander past the electronics section and see if there's anything interesting for me to buy on Amazon when I get home.

Besides, I cannot stand the button- and zipper-infested madness I found at the mall last time I shopped there.

A Sickle Cell Sufferer's Guide, Part 4

You make your way to the hospital.  There was once a time when my hematologist could admit me without visiting the ER; that was many iterations of American health care ago. Now, it's a tromp through the red tape and the waiting room and the interminable anticipation of someone actually treating your pain.


Once you have passed the gates, gotten your bed, and the leading edge of the pain has been taken away, you have a decision to make.  Are you going back home with a prescription for something a little more powerful than Pez?  Or are you headed upstairs to a room?  I tend to opt for the room.  Painkillers won't hasten the end of a Sickle Cell crisis; they just make the journey tolerable.  It's the fluids and oxygen we need, friends.  Those are our saviors.


However you decide - and enduring a lengthy hospital stay is a topic for another time - it is now time to confront those emotions.  If there are family and friends willing to support you, use them.  If you have some spiritual connection/affiliation: use it.  If you've got a therapist, make the call.  There is no use to suffering in silence when doing so increases your suffering; you cannot confront this challenge alone.  When your greatest enemy is inside you, your greatest allies are to be found outside of you. 


And here are the platitudes you've already heard: it's not your fault.  This can't be helped.  You can still live a full and meaningful life.  There will be other chances to ________.  No, your life is not just an endless cycle of pain and recovery from pain (and later on, the side-effects spiraling down off of that cycle). So hard, when we're in the middle of it, to accept those as the truths they usually are - "usually," because sometimes there really won't be another chance to ________.  But then, "normal" people miss once-in-a-lifetime chances, too.


Take heart, at least enough to see yourself through this crisis.  Realize this, if you can't hold on to any of those other truths: the amount of pain you're in is having a profoundly negative effect on your emotions and on your ability to regulate them.  My short-term solution?  Gallows humor works every time.  Make it all a cosmic joke, and refuse to stop laughing at it. Come on!  You suffer from a debilitating condition for which the best solution is frequent exposure to addictive medication!  Somewhere, Something is rubbing its hands together and wondering how you're gonna handle it - are you gonna give It the satisfaction of caving all the time?  Naw, scoff in the face of pain - actually say "Scoff" a bunch of times and paint a scheming sneer on your face! Cackle like a villain!


Laugh through the pain - both kinds.  It's a temporary sop to your emotions; it works just as well and as poorly as the Morphine's working on your pain.

Day 46

A picture of where I wish I was right now:

Maui, 1998

Not that a human being with a functioning soul needs a reason to want to be in Maui, but I've never felt peace like I did during the two vacations we spent there.

Well, the rest of the fam went a third time, but I stayed back to throw a party.  Possibly the most questionable decision I've ever made, which is saying quite a bit.

When I meditate, which I don't do often enough, this is where I take myself.  Right out there where the sand meets the water, while the sun hits the horizon and sets the sky on psychedelic fire; right then, when everything is timeless.

Maybe to go there as I am now would strip the moment of some of its magic; I don't think so.  I think such places are a bottomless well of serenity, available to any who know how to tap it.

Day 45

A picture of my room:

Vassar, Spring '01

"It has been said of the college male that he is a predictable beast, and perhaps this is truest when he is considered in his home environment.  Pictures of scantily-clad sex objects, favored sports-team paraphernalia, pilfered road signs, and second-hand furniture abound amidst the wreckage of his nightly ritualistic alcohol consumption.  Perhaps, shortly after our intrepid sociologist snapped this photo, these three college males engaged in "video gaming" using the now-archaic Nintendo 64 and television set.  Note the lava lamp to the right of that set; odds are, it saw considerable use as a mood enhancer whenever marijuana was smoked.  The Dunkin' Donuts box suggests to this analyst that, perhaps, marijuana would be smoked that very night."

Ah, the two-room triple, sophomore year.  Adam, Paul and I more or less lived together for three years; there were really rough spots along the way, but we were good enough friends to get through the passive-aggressive bullshit between us.  This picture was taken after our softball team, Old Sissypants and the Little German Girl, won the intramural softball championship.

Regarding our team name, it should be noted: a) Paul's girlfriend Meredith was the girl in question; b) while our team name freshman year was Old Man Sissypants and a Barrel of Poon, we quickly stopped letting Matt's roommate Greg have that particular responsibility...of course trusting Matt wasn't a big step forward; c) our jerseys (professionally screen-printed, natch) read simply "Old Sissypants" because that shit cost money and we were college sophomores.

Of all the things in my Vassar experience that gladden me to this day, I think my room situation makes me the happiest, resulting as it did from random chance.  I grew close to my roommate and to my hallmates - this was how I met Matt, that first day.  I'm glad because having Adam and Paul around meant being socially well-rounded: my friends weren't all performers, and as years passed this proved to be a real protective factor for my sanity.  It made my room a retreat from the drama.

Day 44

A picture of someone I'm told I look like:

coincidentally, I do a pretty good impersonation.

It was the summer before sophomore year.  My father came out to NY with me - I didn't need his help moving into the dorm, it was just a nice excuse for a father-son trip.  I had this sweet leather jacket at the time.

My mother's college roommate (VC '74 - they're all nuts) was a BFD at NBC at the time, and she scored us field-section seats to a Mets game while we were in the city.  Dad and I enjoy the game for several innings before the woman two seats to Dad's left leans over and asks - in that nasally Queens snarl that so endears New Yorkers to Angelenos - "Ah yew Chris Rahck?"

I say no - she's not entirely convinced.  I confess that I've heard it before; she claims it was my sweet leather jacket.  I don't give her the "No ma'am, we don't all look alike" spiel; while I don't see the resemblance, I'm told it's there too often to put down to that trope.

Some time later, a woman in the section two to my right gets cracked in the head with a foul ball.  Terrifying, I gotta tell you.  The EMTs are called out.  One of them stands idly in the aisle next to our row - I have the aisle seat.  I'm wondering whether an EMT should really be doing anything idly when he asks - in a voice that conjures to mind Mike Seaver with his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels, whistling Dixie and desperately trying to conjur a halo over his head - "Good game, huh?"

I have no clue what this is about, but I'll play along, because I want to know: "How's the woman who got hit?"

"Oh, she'll be fine, just a bruise."  I'm busy not buying that during the excruciating pause that follows, when:

"Can I have your autograph?"

I sputter.  I'm ashamed that my gift of gab, my talent for the retort, has completely failed me in this comedic crisis moment.  This is the improv theater of life, people, and I failed.  My dad had to answer for me, as it was clear from my agog expression that no English would issue forth for several more seconds.  "I don't think he is who you think he is," Dad says.  "Oh," says the dejected - and dubious - worst EMT ever; he shuffles away, perhaps to actually provide emergency medical care.

The fact that Dad said "I don't think..." leads me to believe that he somehow figures an EMT might want my autograph (d'aww...).  And my friends, with the gift of humorous hindsight, later reprove me: that's exactly what I should have given him.

Day 43

A picture of something I can't function without:

Why yes, my sweater does say don't stop believin'!  Bless you, Neighborhoodies.

 
At first, it was going to be a picture of music - then I started thinking of how I could find a picture of music.  Then I thought, "Duh, a picture of Dash on the mic."  That's when I realized that music isn't the thing I can't live without - it's my voice.

If you took away my music, I could just make some more.  I'd feel miserable, but I'd function - in fact, I have.  I was pissed when I lost every mp3 in my music collection, but mp3's are replaceable.  A lot of time, a lot of money, and I'm back in business.  If you took away my slightly-above-mediocre piano skills, I'd probably spend more time learning the guitar.

But if you took away my singing voice...I'm getting misty-eyed.  That's neither exaggeration nor artistic license.  I've been singing since before I could speak.  If I had to listen to music - because I'd be driven, uncontrollably, to do so - but I couldn't sing...it would take a psychological intervention beyond my imagining to keep me from serious suicidal ideation.  Again - not exaggerating.

Look - I'm good at it.  I know most of you haven't heard me sing, and the proof is in the proverbial pudding - but you don't actually need to believe me for this to make sense to you.  I'm not at the top of my game anymore and haven't been for years; I'm mostly okay with that, but when I notice the symptoms of rustiness I occasionally get frustrated.  So I know what would happen, if you took away my voice entirely.

It's my passion, my coping mechanism, my moment of zen.  It's my bliss.

I couldn't function.

Day 42

A picture of my dream house:

It'd be like Rivendell, but with central A/C.  And modern plumbing.

Here's something I've never thought of before.  Honestly, if I ever own a house, that will in and of itself constitute a dream.  But I suppose there's some image percolating around in my head.  It's on a hill, but it doesn't stand out of it; it sort of grows out of it.  So I think of Rivendell.  (Or, I suppose, a hobbit-hole, but I'm just a little too grandiose for that.)

I always think of having just enough space, but I realize that crap (especially my crap) expands to fill the space available. Vistas - infinity pool - some sort of sanctuary for me and my 360 - lots of social gathering areas...which I hope will encourage me to have frequent social gatherings.

Some day...nah, I can't even pretend that.  It's about as likely as me actually living in Rivendell.