it's friday the 13th and that's alright with me.

december 13th.

today was the day my Daddy died 35 years ago. it still hurts.

today was the day i got out of rehab 2 years ago, after 60 days. it's still hard.

there are no coincidences.

there is no such thing as "closure."

life is unfair.

but it can still be fun making a list about it.

THE DANVIAN TOP 40 COUNTDOWN of THINGS THAT ARE UNFAIR—with your hostess HENNYBIRD

40. it is unfair that Christmas has always been a season of melancholy for me. i do not need to watch "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" ever again. The Queer Elf, from The Island of The Misfit Toys—who just wants to be a Dentist—throws me over the arctic edge. and can i watch "It's a Wonderful Life" once, just ONCE, without completely losing it? [is this possible for anyone?]

39. it is unfair that i will never taste Daddy's tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches again.

38. it is unfair that U2's last album was kinda shite. [it really was.]

37. it is unfair that there exists no such career as professional groupie. [which is ironic considering the last statement.]

36. it is unfair that there are no words to describe a California sunset.

35. it is unfair that i can't appreciate running water more.

34. it is unfair that Daddy didn't get to walk me down the aisle.

33. it is unfair that i can't hug my niece, nephews and godsons whenever i want. [living in Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Tennessee—except for the ones in Pasadena!]

32. it is unfair that you post pictures of food on Facebook.

31. it is unfair that i burst into tears whenever i hear Dick van Dyke sing "Hushabye Mountain."

30. cellulite. [enough said.]

29. it is unfair that black licorice and coconut popsicles are not Superfoods. [like that ever stopped me.]

28. it is unfair that "Breaking Bad" ever had to end.

27. it is unfair that Fiorinal is addictive.

26. it is unfair that kidneys don't grow on trees.

25. diseasepovertyracismdiscrimination

24. it is unfair that i will never have tea with Bedstemor and Bedstefar again.

23. it is unfair that some people are paid well for doing nothing and others are paid nothing for doing well.

22. it is unfair that lilacs don't bloom all year long.

21. it is unfair that i cannot eat up my basset hound with a spoon. [because then she would be gone.]

20. it is unfair that i really couldn't have children.

19. it is unfair that i still have guns of steel and a belly of pudge. [and what the fuck is this back fat?]

18. it is unfair that "they" dared to remake "The Sound of Music—LIVE!" seriously. shame.

17. it is unfair that i have still not found the perfect pen. [this is my inner "Anne Shirley" plaintive cry.]

16. it is unfair that the Kardashians won't go away.

15. it is unfair that Daddy and I will never sing "Yellow Submarine" together again.

14. it is unfair that i cannot be alcoholic one day a week, a "day off" like Sundays,—like on the "Body For Life" program.

13. it is really unfair that orgasms don't last for an hour. [although the multiple thing is pretty rad.]

12. it is unfair that anyone is on dialysis.

11. it is unfair that no-one sings "Hallelujah" like K.D. Lang.

10. it is unfair that we just discovered "Dexter". [no spoilers!]

9. it is unfair how much i have grown to love and defend the bagpipes. ["they really are accomplished, talented players! and sexy! dead sexy!"]

9a. it is unfair that Daddy never heard Kevin play the bagpipes.

8. it is unfair that there does not exist a street named in Kevin's honor. [although i hear his mum is working on it.]

7. it is unfair how much i love you, E., for those 60 days.

6. it is unfair how much i love my in-laws for those 60 days.

5. it is unfair how much i love writing.

4. it is unfair that anyone pushingashoppingcart/living underneathabridge/beggingbythefreeway/livinginabox is ever judged or dismissed or ostracized. i am the same. i am exactly the same. but for the grace of god.

3. it is unfair that Kevin ever has to know another second of pain.

2. it is unfair that i will never go to an AA meeting with my Daddy.

1. it is unfair the amount of peace and love i hold in my heart today. on december 13th. today of all days.

when it rains, it explodes

when i woke up at 5:30 am yesterday morning, it was raining.

i lay there, thinking, "my husband is in the hospital."

it is my last thought at night, and my first thought when i wake.

you've heard about heart transplant recipients—how their taste in music, fashion and food will change. apparently, it's like that with kidneys too. i now pee every hour like my husband, and as if we weren't joined at the hip before—now joined at the kidney—my inner worry went off at 5:30 am, because something was wrong with him.

his body was exploding with heat and sweat—a fever of 102.7—impossible foreshadowing of what was to come.

my immunosuppressed body had crashed into a wall of sleep and my emotionally-suppressed brain had ignored my alarm.

"i have to get to Cedars" was the only thought i could grasp in the fog of morning brain.

i stood in front of the bathroom mirror, contemplating the effort it would take to cover up my puffy eyes, dehydrated from the hour-long drive home the previous night. bawling your eyes out is oddly romantic as you cruise home from Cedars-Sinai against the Friday Night Lights of Sunset Blvd., then turn north towards your Valley ranch. in one hand a makeup brush hovered over a brow scrunched in worry. in the other, my cell placed a call to room 8122, tucked against a shoulder carrying the burden of worry and wait.

and then i heard it. BOOM.

was it a car accident along Sunland Blvd. echoing up through the canyon below me? the garbage truck dropping the plastic bin with a careless thud?

and again—BOOM.

was it the thudding of my heart as my beloved updated me with the surgeon's report?

2 explosions in a row.

BOOM. BOOM.

i whirled towards the sound, and through the bathroom window saw a thick tongue of flame lick 30 ft. high against an ominous plume of smoke. black. frightening.

"omg. our neighbor's house is on fire!" i gasped and hung up, racing to our yard.

FIRE. unbelievably, FIRE. at the top of our property, it raged. i could hear its coarse munching as it devoured a shed-like structure, even as the sirens began overwhelm the soothing California drizzle.

denial had me in a chokehold. i stood there in disbelief.

"i guess i call 911", i gasped to no-one.

"911. what is your emergency?"

"my neighbors ! their house! it's on FIRE!" more sirens began to fill the air with their soothing screeches. help was on the way. i was transferred to "Fire and Somethingorother Services" and put on HOLD. just for a minute. just The Longest Minute Of My Life. and then a voice. and again, i stated my panic.

"my neighbors house! it's on FIRE! it's like 50 feet away!"

"ma'am, calm down. it's raining."

REALLY? REALLY. i'm not sure what was worse. being called "Ma'am" or having him sass me for being freaked during my first 911 call ever.

i didn't know what to do. did i evacuate my house with a bag full of immunosuppressives, his bagpipes [he would never have forgiven me otherwise] and our shockingly chill basset hound, or attend to my husband lying helpless in a hospital bed and take my chances?

so i went into our bedroom, and made the bed.

one of the gems i picked up in rehab, was to always make your bed in the morning. this, was not something i ever had to be encouraged to do. i seemed to innately know from birth why this was important. rumor is i tidied up Mum's womb before i left.

we make our beds, because it's pretty much the only thing we can control in our day.

and outside my home raged the proof.

chaos seems to follow us around like a puppy, nipping at our heels wherever we turn. maybe it's because we love dogs so much, but because we would never, ever kick an animal, the only way to get through this is to accept it as it comes—bit by crazy bit.

because all we really want now is peace.

the metaphor is not lost on me.

my husband carried the weight of our world around on his shoulders for years. and now his back is broken.

i can't fix it, but it is my greatest joy to be able to shoulder the load now. mine. and for a time, his. until he is strong enough to take it back again.

our house, unbelievably, is still standing.

"neither rain nor hail nor sleet nor snow nor heat of day nor dark of night..." can take us down.

kevin, its my turn to carry you, my love.

i am going to bed thinking, "my husband is in the hospital."

but, the fire is out.

and it has stopped raining for tonight.

things i noticed at cedars-sinai today

everyone is tired at 5 am. everyone.

i love the smell of hospital food in the morning.

when your husband is being prepped for back surgery, you CAN keep it together until you round the corner past the exit sign.
     
never underestimate the power of coffee. never.

every member of my husband's OR team was female: nurse, anesthesiologist. administrator. coincidence? i think not.

my husband's surgeon totally checked out my rack. twice. so touche.

men really, really, REALLY don't like catheters.

the oatmeal in The Ray Charles Cafeteria is bitchen.

you say a prayer in the chapel and find peace under The Star of David.

you are not above squatting on the floor of the waiting area next to a power outlet to charge your IPHONE. #addictedtosocialmedia

reigning in your inner Shirley MacLaine in "Terms of Endearment" [GIVE MY HUSBAND THE SHOT!!!] is oddly satisfying.

your husband is adorably sentimental when medicated. ["See Kevin, I TOLD you Dilaudid was awesome"]

when willing to sign up for the bone marrow registry, you can't because 1) you have had a whole organ transplant and 2) you have left the box [age 18-44]. broken and old? OR saved and set free? discuss.

whatever you do, SANITIZE.

how come i never looked that hot in a hospital gown?

the words, "i think my neck and legs feel better" sound like, "we have achieved world peace".

when you feed your husband ice chips, it's the most romantic thing on earth.

32 years as a patient did not prepare me to see my husband in pain.

we are overwhelmingly, ridiculous loved.

hey, McIntyre! The Elizabeth Taylor Suite AGAIN? geez, how many Cedars-flier miles has a girl gotta rack up to score da crib?

[and I can't wait to do it all again tomorrow. i love you, Kevin.]

they say it's your birthday

i'm not a fan of birthdays.

there's a brief period as a child when the hole inside you is still small. it can be filled with presents and balloons and cake. of course, nowadays it's gone beyond filling. we stuff our children. gone are the days of one "big" present and a few little gifts - oh, and the token present thrown at your sibling to keep him in his place. if your teenager's birthday party doesn't end up as an episode of something on MTV, you've failed as a parent.

i am not a parent, so i don't have to worry about this. but filling that hole has been a shopping trip of constant browsing, looking to acquire a lifetime-supply-of-something that would keep me satisfied.

the truth is, it's never been THINGS. i've never subscribed to the idea that material things would satisfy anything. i've been perfectly content to be a thrift store junkie, giddily digging for hidden treasures hanging somewhere between the polyester muumuus and "Poison" t-shirts.

"I love the smell of mothballs in the morning!"

not unlike a little girl with lipstick smears of joy, i happily and heartily accept hand-me-downs for my dress-up box.

i really don't know what to do with myself in a mall. the blitz of franchised names feels like a light show at the planetarium -it's supposed to be galvanizing, but it just throws me into an epileptic seizure; it makes me want to hang out behind the Orange Julius and shake in my leatherette boots. fake or fabulous finds, i've known for a while now that spending big piles of money gives me an intense case of buyer's remorse. almost immediately, i break out into anxiety, spreading like a rash as i scratch my head in confusion. i arrive home, the conquering heroine busting through the front door with my bursting bags of bargains. i unpack, try everything on and strut in front of my husband, parading with the secret knowledge that 5' 3", 40 year-olds are now all the rage in Paris. i then meticulously fold and pile everything away into my closet.

twenty minutes later, the rush is gone and i am limp with said remorse.

retail therapy is like eating Chinese. you pick and choose, graze and gorge on eighteen different items, but after half an hour, you're suddenly hungry again.

when my husband asks me, "What do you want for your birthday?", it's not an easy question to answer. when a husband gives a wife a kidney, the wife ain't in much of a bargaining position anymore. ah, gone are the days of my endless Trump.

"at least you have 2 kidneys..."

not only does he no longer have two kidneys, but he gave one of them to his wife.

touche.

[although, i'm still a girl, dammit! i concede! the robin's egg blue box still makes my heart flip like a freakishly-fit, stunted teenage-girl on the balance beam.]

"i didn't ASK to be born!"

this is a standard complaint voiced by children preparing to run away and bitter old people who never win the lottery. it's also a great attention seeking device.

another great attention seeking device is being a teenager. hair mousse was not the only trend to take off in the 80's. full-frontal drama began to expose itself during my '83-'87 birthdays. i LOVED to tell the tales of the crises my beleaguered self had to endure upon the date of my birth.

when i turned 15, i awoke in my closet - no, not because of some sexual identity crisis - i had slept there overnight, flagellating myself with extra-help math notes and shoe boxes full of "Dear Diary" over my behavior the night before. and...scene. my mother had dared - DARED! - to now restrict the length of my phone conversations after a moon fest with my bf went into overtime. and i had dared - DARED! - to tell her what i thought about that.

never challenge a Viking.

[ah, the 80's. a time of neon shoelaces, skyscraping shoulder pads and the single-phone household. the time it took to dial a number on the rotary! the time it took to find a pay phone and feed it a dime! the time you wasted answering the phone and taking a message! you kids have it so good today. you save so much time. you must get so much more done, like, have entire conversations by phone without talking to anyone.]

when i turned 16, i cut class and spent the day walking up and down Yonge St., Toronto's main drag of head shoppes and record stores. i purchased a glamorous pair of "gold" earrings - long, thin strands of metal, two on each side that hung all the way down to my shoulders. they were stylin', but completely impractical, dangerous even. one false move, and i would've pulled a Van Gogh. but i felt empowered enough to tell the vendor that it was my birthday and how old did he think i was??? "17?" he guessed. oh, the heart-pounding excitement!!! like front row seats at a Duran Duran concert!!! he thought i was an entire year older!!!

[the irony is seriously painful.]

when i arrived home with my bff, N., i was dressed head-to-toe in the day's score. black leatherette pants, a white, angular, New Wave shirt, and a cocksure attitude that skipping school was totally tubular when you were 16. oh, my god, it was not even tubular! not at all. my mother went narly on my bitchen ass, i'm sure. i went upstairs, bagged my face, and had a full on meltdown.

[where is your "Relax" shirt when you need it?]

when i turned 17, our basement flooded. 'nuff said.

when i was 18, i decided i HAD to have lobster for dinner when my mother asked what my stomach's desire might be. despite a heritage high in herring, being Danish and all, i don't ever recall having HAD lobster before, but i knew i HAD to have it. cut to my poor, relentlessly appeasing mother, who'd plattered what looked to me to be a gigantic orange spider. "I CAN'T EAT THIS!, wailed the arachnophob, and the evening was flushed down the garbage disposal to the sounds of crunching claws and babyish blubbering.

so much for fine dining.

and when i was 19, my kidney function was at 8%.

i could go through the years. but the kidney-transplanted-Hollywood-cliche-alcoholic-addict thread is getting old.

like me.

when you celebrate your age, you are actually marking the END of that current year. when you turn 21, you are actually marking the end of 21 years and moving into your 22nd year of life. it's an unfortunate anecdote often overlooked. no-one is born and gets a "Happy "Zero" years!" party. so technically, i'm moving-on-up into my 46th year of life. admittedly, there's a part of me that's freaked about moving up into a new box - leaving the age 39-44 box, for the age 45-49 box - boxes you see on shopping surveys, job interviews and government census forms.

it begs the question. do i care about growing older?

i look at it two ways. from the outside in. and from the inside out.

from the outside in, i check off, not unlike the surveys found at the bottom of receipts, the following hot mess:

Unemployed. [Successful Hollywood Cliche.]

Kidney Transplanted. [Does Not Qualify For Life Insurance.]

Alcoholic. [Talk To My Husband.]

Addict. [See above.]

Discovers New Pockets Of Cellulite Every Day. [Can See From Space.]

Cannot Get Rid Of Relapse Belly A.K.A. The Minus-Six Pack. [Bring On The Spanx.]
Should I Get Botox? [All The Housewives Are Doing It.]

Must Dispose Of All Concert And Ironic Catchphrase T-Shirts. [What Not To Wear.]
Called Ma'am Over Miss At A 10:1 Ratio. [Youth Is Wasted On The Young.]
Must Retire All Selfie-Taking Activity [For The Young And The Desperate.]

but, when i look from the inside out:

Unemployed. [Unblocked Writer At Last!]

Kidney Transplanted. [Not On Dialysis.]

Alcoholic. [Sober.]

Addict [See above.]

Discovers New Pockets Of Cellulite Every Day. [More Of Me To Love.]

Cannot Get Rid Of Relapse Belly A.K.A. The Minus-Six Pack. [Makes For Lovely Hound Pillow.]
Should I Get Botox? [Bacterial Toxins Found In Spoiled Beef? SO Not My Drug Of Choice.] 

Must Dispose Of All Concert And Ironic Catchphrase T-Shirts. [Opportunity To Transition Into Wrap Dresses and Chanel Suits Like Madonna.]
Called Ma'am Over Miss At A 10:1 Ratio. [Am Officially A Cougar. Can Now Flirt With Starbucks Baristas and College Freshmen.]
Must Retire All Selfie-Taking Activity [Unless It's My Birthday :-)]

today, all my needs are met. i have a working kidney. i am sober. i am married to a wonderful man. we have the sweetest hound. i have family and friends. i have a roof over my head, food in my fridge, gas in my car and a dream in my heart.

but, best of all, today the hole is filled. i spent most of my life feeling adrift, unmoored from a place where you all seemed to frolic and thrive.

today, i know that place isn't out there, it's been inside me all along.

and that's worth celebrating.

rehab revisited

2 years ago today i went into rehab.

fogged, in what they call a "benzo-coma", i protested limply, like an overcooked noodle.

i was cooked all right.

121 pills later, i was "FINE!...I'M FINE!", assuring my husband, as he paced on the phone with my neurologist. "She will die from the withdrawal. Bring her into Cedars-Sinai". oh, my sweet, tiny, Jewish neurologist, my co-dependent clinician, so delightfully prodigious with his prescriptive scribblings, who confessed to feeling guilty when next i saw him.

[guilt. such a useful emotion for the addict.]

i was fine. i don't remember a thing.

or much.

there was the slumped back of my kidney doctor walking away. my apathy, a cold shower dousing our friendship in confusion and pain. his newly-transplanted prodigy back in the ER for more, because she couldn't care less.

a shadowy shape in the corner, surreal in his stillness but for his eyes. a shimmering lake about to crest the levees and drown us all. a friend patiently waiting for me to wake up.

and anger, His anger - volcanic hot - surging through the hospital halls as he marched and marched, building to canter, to trot, to gallop away. a Prince ready to retire The White Horse. anger like an air popcorn machine gone turbo, spraying the halls with kernels of his rage.

it would be accurate to say i was scared, but in a self-eating, zombie kind of way. too flaccid to focus on my prey.

i just lay there.

"You deserve this." that Voice would nag sharply, like an old shrew demanding her rights in the "15-items-or-less" aisle. "That yogurt pack counts as 4 items! To the back of the line!"

to the back of the line.

again.

i arrived at night. it looked so pretty. white shutters. bright twinkle lights. canopied couches. like a Napa Valley bed and breakfast welcoming me for the next 60 mornings.

only without the complimentary Mimosa.

i stood there, wobbling like a bowling pin ready to be knocked down, in front of who came to be my 2 favorite techs, S. and C..

"How do you feel?", they asked.

"Scared", i answered.

was that the right answer?

it would be wrong to say i wasn't scared.

it would be right to say i felt like i'd stepped into my own episode of Intervention. finally! maybe now i would understand why junkies shooting up in abandoned warehouses looked good to me. "Why?", i wondered. why didn't i clutch and shake my head exclaiming, "OH MY GOD! WHAT'S WRONG WITH THEM?" no, i still wanted to try it. 

i want[ed] to try it all. 

i sniffed as they pillaged my open bags, seizing hand sanitizer, perfume, hair spray. Ambien. "But how will I sleep?", i wailed. "I'll give you something, honey", S. soothed.

i stood hunched, my soul like loose skin hanging off the bone, too flabby to feel. i couldn't muscle up any emotion, not even tighten a pretense. it dangled, like a freak benign tumor that serves no purpose, weighing me down under. as i drooped off to a tiny twin bed, defeated, head hanging, heart hung, i was ready, in the City of Altered Angels, to have it all snipped away.

it would be too easy to quip about the Grammy-award winning tune Amy Winehouse would croon with Stoly-crack-fueled resistance. the song that ran on a track around my brain, as i chased her defiance as my own, huffing and puffing 'til i collapsed in a pile of smelly old sweats and fresh new regrets.

"They tried to make me go to rehab, I said, no, no, no..."

but it would be a lie to say i never fantasized about doing the karaoke with Amy, belting out her hit together, testifying with pursed pouts and jutting hips that,"you don't know! you just don't know!"; teenage BFF's flipping birds skyward from unshackled arms stretched long and lean, pumping our venom outward, always outward.

towards you.
towards them.
towards all.

oh, yes, i was hard done by, don't cha know. i was in rehab.

it would be wrong to say i remember when the fog lifted. it took a long time to physically stabilize. my detox was long, and the cravings longer. it took months for them to subside. like water bubbling over on the stove, they calmed from a righteous, spiting boil to a low-grade simmer, and finally, cooled enough to slide to the back burner.

but never, ever off.

for 4 solid years, my disease palmed me into a desperate diner waitress, broke and broken, the heat, the pace of Its kitchen wearing me down into a sweaty, greasy mess.

"Order Up!". Its spinning metal rack of orders never ceased to turn. It squeaked orders from the moment my eyes cranked open with rusty resistance.

i didn't want to get up. i never wanted to get up. i didn't want to open my eyes, ears, heart, because The Orders kept coming.

"Get up. Take Your Pills. Buy Alcohol. Order Pills. Con Doctor. Manipulate Pharmacist. Lie to Husband. Hide Alcohol. Take Pills. Drink Alcohol. Ignore all Mirrors. Ignore Everyone. Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.

amidst a perfect storm of events, i had given up and poured the remains of my life down a funnel of fear, lubricating the journey with a backsplash of booze and dissolving baubles, anything to speed it up. it couldn't be stopped up with silly ideas like hope or serenity. i just shoved and flushed hard.

the invisible line between catch and release had been crossed. i had been caught by a disease i could not name, even though i had lived it from the other side as a child. a father's daughter who could not reel this one in without a little help from her friends.

it would be right to say i smiled when i got to rehab. i laughed. i flirted.

and it would be wrong to say i didn't feel relief.

after 4 years of holding my breath, i could finally breathe.

i had tea with the pharmacist who didn't take pills, rap with the gay son of a Texan and skip down Robertson with a suburban boy blue. and all our conversations were the same. our frequencies in sync, no feedback, crystal clear. invisible to the eye, we all wore the same uniforms. through sleet and snow and dark of night, we had all weathered the same storm.

and nodding. oh, the nodding.

to a 3/4 beat, i'd nod.

"i'm not/ a-lone/ i'm not/ a-lone/".

it would be wrong to say i didn't love them.

for the first time in my life, my hand was held, nay, grabbed as i attempted to navigate the landscape of insanity that sprawls between my ears. my brain untamed is hazardous to Your health, not mine. i was comfortable living inside the tornado, my delicious default. as You prayed for the Eye of The Storm to land, for calm air to descend, hot and moist, and wrap You in a blanket of peace, on all fours i'd position, angry and aroused, ready for the storm to carry me away again.

chaos, my cherub. my sweet spot.

where i could hate and hate loud and never hear the replies.

we drink because we are happy.
we drink because we are sad.
we drink because we get a job,
we drink because we are mad.

there is no answer to be found.
this riddle will not be solved.
we cannot change but with acceptance,
we drink because we are alcoholic, and that is all.

i used to HATE it when that old adage floated around like second-hand smoke; i'd hack on the esotericism of it all  - "everything happens for a reason." EGADS. who are YOU to know this? HOW do you know this? and why don't I understand?

i left rehab on december 13th, the day i lost my Daddy to this disease, 35 years earlier.

there are no accidents.

and when i understand this, i am empowered by something greater than reason.

[love.]

rehab did not fix everything, but a soul is not to be fixed, it's to be freed.

it would be right to say the fog has lifted.

and it would be wrong to say rehab didn't save my life.

what [not] to wear

we met when he was 18, barely out of diapers. couldn't even legally drink.

he was The Gap boy to this thrift shop junkie.

he had barely outgrown the Sears threads all the rage in Winnipeg, mandated at home by a fabulously frugal matriarch, and was beginning to spread his cottony wings into Franchise territory.

yes, The Gap, Club Monaco, Banana Republic.

and Kinsk. let's not forget Kinsk.

the boutique clothing store where Kevin worked was tucked away in a teeny, tiny corner on the 3rd floor of the Eaton's Center. he was their reliably unreliable cashier. flipping the "Be back in 5 min.!" sign and leaving for two hours to go to an audition. you'd leave too if you were inundated with ignorant Americans asking questions about our "funny money" and "why is it so many different colors?". but it all ended ceremoniously when the owners showed up in a panic, declaring a "bank run" type clearance on all merchandise, as Eviction appeared on the horizon marching steadily towards the store holding sickles and scythes high, ready to clear out the merchandise with an economic slice.

"Take what you want and run!" the owner whispered in a panic. i'm not exactly sure what happened, but i know i got a sweatshirt out of it.

i, on the other hand, was a fabricated fashionista, stitched together from rags and resources.

one part resourcefulness and two parts necessity, my wardrobe was borne from a material mish-mash of bargains from The BiWay bin and hand-me-downs from my mother and godmother.

i'm not sure when my mother allowed me to dress myself independently; she was pretty great about creative expression. i'd always had my color of choice on my bedroom walls, even when that color became, at age 15, grape juice purple. but at heart, my mother was a pragmatic lioness, dressing her cubs appropriately. so when the time came, she ditched all fashion sense in favor of practicality as any good mother should. "did you bring a jacket?", "are you wearing a vest [undershirt]?", and especially in Canada, "where are your mittens?".

i concede, the invitation probably clearly stated, "Play Clothes, please." and this was where my powers of manipulation vanished.

"But, MU-MMYYY! I don't WANT to wear pants."

"It says play clothes, so you must wear play clothes. You must be sensible."

sensible. ugh. SENSIBLE. is there any word worse than sensible? i'm not sure if my mother pictured private school princesses rolling around in puddles of mud, and french kissing the family poodle, but there was no talking her down.

pants. that's right, PANTS, to a little girls' birthday party.

it was a nightmare. when i arrived, i might as well have been strutting a catwalk naked for all the finger pointing and tittering my "silhouette" created. amongst the frilly frocks i stood out like a stained doily, head to toe in brown. BROWN. dark chocolate brown. brown top. brown pants. a unitard of poo. born to stylish European parents, this 1st gen. Canadian probably looked fairly Micheal Kors chic in a 70's-disco-pantsuit-y-kind-of-way, but to my 7 year-old mind this humiliation was beyond description. not only was i in PANTS, but they were the color of POO.

i was mortified. MORTIFIED.

then there was the first day of school. high school.

is there ever a day in your life when you are more scrutinized than the first day of high school?

and believe me, for as much as i wanted to look like Molly Ringwald in every John Hughes flick, i could never quite master her pouty, effortless chic. if she wore a hat, it tilted ever so "avant-garde". when i wore a hat, i got lice. [true story. another blog]. when she patted on lip gloss she was divine angst, when i patted on gloss, i looked like a porn star. and when she wore pink, she was...pretty.

when i wore pink...

after 11 years, emerging from the bubble of private school fashion is daunting. every day it's the same routine: oxfords polished? check. shirt ironed? check. toothpaste washed from tie? check. - it's predictability a boring bliss. so entering high school at age 13 with no clear vision of my style was a recipe for disembowelment - of the Mean Girl kind. on that first morning in 1982, pumped up in a personal huddle, THIS was my best line of defense; The Outfit that would plow through the line of scrimmage and score the game-winning touchdown...

[enter the pink.]

a hot pink terrycloth [yes, the fabric of towels] polo shirt, bright white terrycloth short shorts, those ankled white tennis socks with hot pink pompoms flirtatiously hanging off my heels and white Keds - the generic kind. they were probably called Kedz. my outfit was a winnah! i knew it! i matched! i was stylin'! i was Phat, before Phat existed. i was Vogue before the song, before the underground dance. i had arrived! until SHE walked by. the ubiquitous Mean Girl. she scanned me quickly, the studied once over through Maybelline blue-shadowed lids, flipped her Aqua-Netted floppy locks back with disdain [why didn't my hair bounce like that?], and quipped...

"where's your tail?"

she burst into uproarious, scornful scoops of high-pitched laughter with her superiorly dressed minions with whom i simultaneously wanted to hang and cast upon some teenage version of a voodoo curse.

i thought bubbled, "bunny? bunny. omg, bun-ny. tail as in bun-ny. she thinks i look like a playboy bunny!!!"

which was funny because i am literally missing a couple of qualifying elements. read: big boobs.

i was mortified. MORTIFIED.

until theatre school.

all bets were off in theatre school. we lived the permanent performance of the musical, "Anything Goes!" there was the girl who shaved her head. the "workshop" where my 3rd years, covered in mud, ran around naked in a circle, reciting something or other to Lou Reed. and then there was the NIGHT. I. WENT. TOPLESS.

theatre school's version of The Prom was called The Bunny Ball, i think because it fell around Easter, or maybe because we were all going at it like rabbits. i had purchased a sheer, read: see through, black shirt with brass buttons laddering up the front. one step up from the mid-80's fishnet fad, it was meant to be classed up with a tank or lacy camisole underneath. i don't know what i was thinking, but i know what i was drinking[!] because after the champagne toasts in my apartment, the "should i, or shouldn't i?" banter in my brain had stilled and i yanked off my bra to the enthusiastic hoots and hollers of "IV-A-NANS!".

just file the evening in triplicate:

"What Was She Thinking?"
Blackwell's Top 10 Worst Dressed List
and
The Wardrobe Malfunction Before It's Time

i was mortified. MORTIFIED.

it is noteworthy that as i described this blog to my husband, this was the first example of my fashion senselessness to blurt from his mouth.

then one day you wake up and realize you are wearing a "Princess" shirt. you think, "am I too old to be wearing this?" - a baseball-style shirt with navy sleeves and a lighter blue torso with "Princess" scrawled across the front in glittery raised letters. that and pigtails. at age 30. "How long can I pull this off?", you think. sure, you're getting carded everywhere you go, but you don't want to wander into, "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME!?!?!" territory.

the boy can't win.

"Does this make me look fa- ?"

"- NO."

don't pause. don't think. just answer.

"You didn't even look!"

"Yes, I did."

"Well, now I don't know what you think."

"You look fine."

"But do I look fa- ?"

"- NO."

"Yes, I do."

yeah. the boy can't win.

but, as the boy becomes a man, and you make peace with your scars and satellite cellulite [they can see this from space!!!], you make peace with your wardrobe. even when you hold up a new top and he pauses.

[tilt of head. silence.]

"Well, I like it! Just don't call it a Russian tablecloth!"

"It's more like a Ukrainian Easter Egg."

[sigh.]

no. you're even proud.

busting to the couple on the beach who love your new top -

"thanks! i just bought it at a thrift store!"

why, WHY do you feel the need to announce this to the world? is it a mini-ego trip? "See! I conned you! You probably thought I paid a fortune for this fabulous shirt that in no way resembles the national flag of some unknown African nation."

"That woman at the meeting like my shirt", you boast.

"Oh, she liked your bandana shirt?"

[sigh.]

if he can't win, you can't win.

some things never change.

and ain't that FABULOUS.

i shot the tariff

it's that time of year again.

no, not to make merry with Santa's Elves, 'cause, btw, those merry making days are long gone.

it's less fun than the dentist!, but more fun than a knock from The Grim Reaper!

the taxman cometh.

but, ah, i blog this in the afterglow of an empty table, cleared of the papered detritus of another year in our life.

they reveal a lot. those typed-up tales of our financial safari through the current economic wild ravaging America.

as i sort each and every receipt, i travel back in a time capsule wallpapered with very thin anecdotes, some boldly typed, some barely visible - numbers fading from an unchanged cartridge pounding out it's last few gasps of ink. i stack them into categories, like patchwork, and when sewn into a sheeted quilt they read like a scroll from medieval times heralding the announcement of "Ye Old Sob Story." indeed a story calls from every page of this unbound book, papers now bound together, organized by theme, not poignancy, with a large plastic clip, leaning by the door in a recycled "Brookstone" bag patiently waiting for tomorrow's appointment.

it's like reading Braille. our story is all there, you just have to learn how to decipher it.

there are the numbers that made me flinch.

did we really spend $4395 on gas? cry me a river. and make it a diesel deluge. i hear you get better gas mileage that way.

the $367 on bank and foreign transaction fees.

"Hello. Welcome to Bank of America. Please remove your pants and bend over."

and "who-the-fuck-is-getting-rich-off-these? parking charges. ouch. 276 ouches to be precise.

there are the numbers that made me ache.

call it our "May-September" period when we were, ahem, "exploring our options" - separately.

as i sucked down hard on Trader Joe's Lime Fruit Floes night after night, alone in my studio apartment with Tiffany-blue walls and a RainShowerHead in unsexy Glendale, Kevin should have been kicking himself for not taking stock in Subway. i crumpled up more Subway receipts than a 13 year-old boy crumples up Kleenex. i could smell the processed meat and enriched flour stench flutter up as i rifled through the evidence of his feral fast food habit.

and then there were the fun facts.

the cost of one "Maggie May McIntyre the Basset Hound" inflated from last year's veritable steal-of-a-deal at $2 a day to $6.11 a day. More than a gallon of milk! Less than a large rotisserie chicken! Maybe we should have been placing her 16 extracted teeth under her pillow at night, and whatever the canine equivalent of The Tooth Fairy might have floated translucent above her floppy ears and cold nose magnanimously waving away her/our medical bills with one generous swoop of her sparkling wand.

oh, and speaking of medical bills.

["should i?...i really shouldn't...oh, who am i kidding...", she thought bubbles, dragging her soap box across the stage, plunking it front and center.]

the stack, make no mistake, it is a STACK, of medical bills towers over the comparatively flat terrain of hilly sheaths below. it's shadow, appropriately casts the year in dark, not black. it stands a Goliath to our David, only we are still trying to find the right slingshot, never mind a chink in The Medical System's armor. it's like throwing a pebble at The Great Wall of China and praying centuries will suddenly collapse. or flying into Death Star with Luke Skywalker, only you've already taken your best shot.

[you get the idea.]

i've always said that pain is relative. and i believed it.

until 5 years ago.

no, i will never know what it is like to walk miles every day, barefoot, under the hot African sun for a bucket of water.

but, i do know what it's like to live the story of chronic illness for 32 years, wake up in the middle of its darkest chapter, turn the next page and read that i am also an alcoholic.

so maybe there's a teeny, tiny part of me that wants to roll around on the ground, jaundiced fists pummeling the air, legs kicking an invisible foe as i bellow with cheeks plump with rage,

"BUT IT'S JUST NOT FAIR!"

["and in the category of "MEDICAL EXPENSES: H. and K.!" - today's clear winner at...!"]

$21, 621.

give or take a few bucks.

[i will now abstain from comment over the Republican shutdown or any joyous trumpeting of Obama's policies that not only saved our house, but will reduce my health insurance premiums $300 a month except to say "recess is over you big bullies. stop fucking around, take your seats and get back to work."]

i choose to look at money 2 ways.

how much we can get with it. or how much it gives us.

money is a means, not an End.

because the only End is Death, when none of this will mean a thing.

money can't buy you love.
money can't buy you happiness.
and according to The Countess, money can't buy you class.

we will be forever in debt to Cedars-Sinai, even after the bills are gone.

after the scars are healed. and as new trauma is torn.

the memories from that time are not like the song..."like the corners of my mind"...they are front and center, cobweb-free.

but today i choose to pluck like paper petals, memories that yet blossom, and gather them into a tissued bouquet tight to my heart.

Vons. $9.99. Roses.

[Paid by: Debit Card/Kevin McIntyre]

incalculable.

thank you for being a friend...

insomnia for me is like a swarm of killer bees.

not just annoying, but frightening.

that ominous building buzz. from far away a mild drone, like the comforting hum of a jet plane engine that lulls you to sleep on a transatlantic flight. white noise as ambien.

but the engine would rev from mild, medium to red hot as i crashed and burned, electronic screams filling my ears; my soul.

withdrawal, the DT's, dope sickness. all euphemisms for what goes up must come down. hard.

in the past, this buzz was my anti-buzz.

i'd take the assigned position.

which was a sweaty child's pose: a) cramped over the toilet, b) fetal in the bath, c) drenched on our memory foam pillow top or d) all of the above.

but last night, it was none of the above.

it was only Mistress Migraine deciding to pay a visit after 3 months off on a meditatively-mandated sabbatical, arm-in-arm with a simply gushing Aunt Flow!

"we're so happy to see you!!!"

[wish i could say the same.]

so this morning, taking the assigned position meant taking up residence for several pre-dawn hours on the couch.

they are always on.

[what is that saying?]

if i threw a dart at the television guide, i would hit an episode of The Golden Girls.

anytime. any station.

and thank god for small favorites.

what a sight for my squinted, swollen eyes.

from underneath my ice-drenched washcloth and through the pungent fumes of Tiger Balm wafting up from my shoulders, as shimmering icy heat, i saw them.

in all their sophomoric, sitcom silliness.

Rose, Blanche, Dorothy and Sophia.

i didn't bother to surf. i knew all i would find would be infomercials and early morning news broadcasts. i was not in the mood to contemplate erasing the fine lines emerging around my eyes like tree rings. not in the mood for any more news about the Republican shutdown or i'll virtually vomit all over Facebook and beyond. and so not in the mood for some histrionic declaration of why "THIS. PRODUCT. WILL. CHANGE. YOUR. LIFE!!!"

nah. it was all coasting from here.

Dorothy. the Dominatrix of comedic timing. slaying us with her triple takes, her deep-throated quips and those sly nods to her perfect imperfect masculinity. the fucking hilarious way she whacks Rose with a newspaper. and oh, isn't it just the best when she slams the door after, "Hi, it's me Stan!"

Blanche. clip, clip, clipping her perma-hotandbothered buttocks all over the lanai. her mules pounding as metronome to her ferociously accelerated sex drive. the train of her bold-80's-patterned, poly-negligee sets, billowing around her from the heat between her "loins" or the wind from the revolving kitchen door of comedic declarations and misunderstandings. and oh, isn't it just the best when she oozes the word "bosoms!"

Rose. The only one who never got lost on those long and winding tales through St. Olaf. her enthusiastic delivery! the pained looks on their faces! and the moral that somehow always made sense around a kitchen table overflowing with junk food and joviality. and oh, isn't it the best when they scream, "Oh, SHUT UP, Rose!"

And Sophia. Picture it. the tales from Sicily. the tales from Shady Pines and the snappy one-liners that brought the house down. "Rose, that's cause you're an idiot!" and "Blanche, that's cause you're a slut!" and "Dorothy can't get a date!" and oh, isn't it just the best when she holds Dorothy's hand and croons, "I love you, Pussycat..."

and cheesecake. lots and lots of cheesecake.

like "Friends" and "Seinfeld", it was lightning in a bottle. the chemistry a potent potion that flew off the shelves of television's apothecary. a fountain-of-youth like elixir we drank, delivering bright eyes, light hearts and that warm and fuzzy feeling as we snorted and snickered over lines we'll forever quote.

after 2 episodes, i dragged my heavy head and shoulders back to bed, the washcloth dripping down my back, the Tiger Balm fumes stripping my nostrils raw. and as the freeway kick started into the rush of morning, my head still screamed in pain, but the ringing had changed.

from buzzing to laughter.

not canned sitcom laughter, but the real thing.

mine.

most of the time, when i look in "The Box" there ain't nothin' but dark.

and sometimes when i look, it's bright, shiny.

golden.

thank you for being a friend.

mirror, mirror, off the wall...

so i'm doing this little thing called writing a book.

and i'm trying every which way but lewd to tap into my creative chi.

[is tapping into your chi more like mining for gold? or drilling for oil? OR searching for a vein?]

prayer, meditation, books. oh, and popsicles. LOTS of popsicles.

Twyla Tharp's book, The Creative Habit" is a stroke of genius. or in the renowned choreographer's case,  a "pas de bouree" of genius. she cuts right to the heart of an artist's agony with her opening line,

"i walk into a large white room". it could, and does apply to any medium along the artist's spectrum.

i walk up to a large white page...i walk upon a large white stage...

i'm in a large white daze...

[you get the idea.]

the white, the space, symbolizing the emptiness that grows exponentially with every second you flail, mired in a bland, beefy stew of mystery meat and unseasoned vegetables; stuck in a traffic jam of creative roadblocks, unable to put any miles between you and your creative destination.

your journey has come to a grinding halt.

[and you've got the skid marks to prove it.]

it happens. we can't all be brilliant, all the time.

so Tharp gives you exercises. fantastic, "what-kind-of-tree-would-you-be?", theatre school-esque exercises. writing letters to your dead parent, rehab-esque kind of exercises.

[i can dig it.]

one of her nuggets is attempting to do without certain things for a week. she has 4 suggestions:

speaking, newspapers, clocks and mirrors.

well, immediately i nixed suggestion #1. it would have given my husband waaay too much satisfaction, and quite frankly, i ain't yet that humble or serene.

suggestion #2  i pretty much do anyway. it's not like i'm floating around, all silky clean, in some soft, soapy bubble of denial about "the war of the worlds" out there; walking around like an alien who's just landed, ignorant to your earthly ways. no, it's popped virtually every day with a simple click, scroll or touch. by virtual osmosis, i can't ignore the crap out there if i tried. and i've tried. ever since the crash of '08, i've tuned out all talking heads whose only credentials for hosting the "news" seemed to be their 1/2 inch layer of orange, oompa-loompa makeup and voices so grating, dogs howl all the way down to San Diego - zealots suspiciously excited about Americans! losing! everything!

[uh, yeah. i know. livin' the dream...]

suggestion #3 was a bust, too. i haven't worn a watch since - well, honestly, i can't remember. there's always a clock on the dash of l.a.'s ubiquitous mode of transportation - your car. your cell. and even back in the day when i was barebacking the toronto transit system, every station had an advertising board with a clock, tracking my E.T.A..

about 20 years ago, k. gave me a lovely watch for my birthday. it had a gold face and a brown leather braided strap. i thanked my sweet boyfriend and laid it to rest in my jewelry box. you've heard of "the girl who can't say no!", well, meet "the girl who can't say WH-OA!". i am a barely disguised nudist at heart. jewelry is like bondage. i cannot deal with bras, as many of the friends i've flashed over the years can attest. if i'd wanted to be "lifed" into a corset, i would have become a re-enactor at a Ren-Fair. i am a free-floater. literally. even thursday, my beleaguered man had to remind me to don panties under the black shift that kept floating up around my thighs; the l.a. heat wave breezing hot, twirling my dress up "7-year-itch", subway grate style. and socks? socks are for athletes and men over 40 who wear sandals. i don't need anything tight around my permakankles, nor do i want a layer between me and my Viking heritage.

nothing gets between me and my Danish clogs.

but, mirrors. hmmm. now that sounded interesting. to go a week without looking in the mirror. the objective, according to Twarp, was to "see what happens to your sense of self...instead of relying on the image you see reflected in a glass, find your identity in other ways."

there was a period of time in high school when i thought i was a cross between Molly Ringwald and the fedora-wearing bassist from Duran Duran. yes, once i discovered midnight blue kohl eyeliner and colored mascaras, there was no going back. kinda like my infatuation for pills. eyeliner was to my 80's as Percocet was to my 2010s.

more is more.

no, even after graduating from The Sunset Gower Makeup Academy in Hollywood, i never really spent excessive amounts of time in front of the mirror. don't get me wrong. i am a girl and periodically, i really like being a GURL. i luv gooping on the lip gloss, sashaying through a wall of perfume and tottering out the door on my knock-off mules.

but, strip it all away and that's where i'd rather stay.

i get my groove on splashin' in the Woodstockian mud puddle. let me roll around free, hairy and bare, caking it on thick, covering myself up from the waxing and shaving and cutting. i could never, ever work under those migraine-inducing florescents, clocking in with a manicured punch, smiling with pageant-like precision, straining my glossy grin as i reach under my pencil skirt to adjust the pantyhose mummifying my legs, cutting off all circulation to my crotch and beyond. the upkeep is too tremendous. as soon as the drapes are dyed and hemmed, you're returning to brazil to remove the carpet. it's like weed whacking a yard fertilized with radioactive waste. it's keeps growing and growing...and glowing.

and you can still see my unibrow from space.

so, no. i do not have an office job. but if i did, perhaps Tharp would forgive a quick morning glance in the mirror - a brief survey of my landscape lush with pillow lines, eye boogers and cowlicks. conveniently, my hair fell out again - a side effect of over 32 years of medication - so my peter pan shag works really well for this exercise. quite frankly, i barely wash it, never mind check it. and yet, somehow, this woman can always find a way to incorporate hair products into her life.

what are those addictive scents they add, anyway?

strawberries? the rare fruits of Guam? opium?

yes, i felt ready to go out in the world without hair products, makeup and nothing Narcissus would fall into. ready to rely on the kindness of strangers to point out the piece of spinach stuck between my teeth or the toothpaste smear on my chin.

so i went forth. to boldly go where my ego had not gone before.

the timing couldn't have been more perfect. i was slammed with a Grade B chest cold [be damned, Ye Ol' Pipers of Pleasanton!]. a bug you'd be over by sunset, set up camp in this immunosuppressed chest for a couple of weeks. no, not sick enough to stay in bed all day, but frantic for 10 hours of sleep a night, leaving Halls like Easter Eggs scattered all around our house, and convinced my red nose could be seen from space.

i admit, i had a Mrs. Roper moment.

[step away from the visor, Jackie O. shades and moo-moo.]

but after my hands stopped twitching in the direction of my makeup case, they clasped and folded into stillness.

i'd wash my hands in public, and not look up. i'd brush my teeth and not look up. and i'd pass buildings [yes! i walk in L.A.!] and not look up.

on day #1, i happened to escort a dear friend on a trip to the ER. what a trip. i don't know that i've ever been the supporter and not the supportee of an ER experience. either way, it's nothing like Gray's Anatomy. no-one's fucking in a supply closet, no-one looks gorgeous after brain surgery and no-one remotely resembling McDreamy takes your blood pressure. although, there was one cinematic moment when my friend's attending physician answered his cell mid-diagnosis and barked, "Kish!". for a second, i thought it was a new medical term like "Code Blue! or "STAT!". no. just short for Kishineff, but long on impact.

["Kish" will soon be appearing as a character in Marmaduke 2: Look at the Size of his Poo!]

when my friend and i returned to his condo, his wife greeted me with a huge and happy hello, exclaiming, "you look beautiful!". really? i'd been deep-throating lozenges all night, was cross-eyed with exhaustion and was sure i had a soy milk stash.

and so it went.

the Starbucks barista called me "miss". score one for Starbucks. it's pretty much a 50-50 deal now as i round the corner into the home stretch towards age 45. half the time i'm a "miss" and i want to skip out of the store like a kilted girl in pigtails. which means the other half of the time i'm referred to as "ma'am" and the charlie brown theme of despair starts playing in my head as i duck and run.

but this was not an exercise in vanity alone.

i always wear even the tiniest bit of makeup. even to the gym. the "made-up-to-look-natural" look favored by most women of a certain age. even though no-one, to my knowledge, has ever flung their forearm across their eyes in horror at the sight of my naked face, i always felt i looked like Oprah without makeup - bare, startling, and quite frankly, kinda scary. but, when unmasked, Queen O becomes a face in the crowd, persona become person, a soldier joining rank-

-without her war paint.

and we like her even more.

"i walk into a large white room."

there was a physical freedom to not looking in the mirror. more time, less dress.

but the spiritual freedom came today.

as i dressed for a seminar on dialysis and kidney transplantation, i layered on the colors and creams, and a doll-face emerged, rainbow brite. and i looked like someone gearing up for war, smearing black under the eyes, answering the battle cry not of the "war of the worlds" outside, but of my "war of the worlds" inside.

there's a reason they call it war paint.

i would cover it all up and i still couldn't stand to look.

always fighting, never winning.

so, maybe it's all right to be a face in the crowd. bare. bold. free.

me.

i don't have to stand out, to stand tall.

and the only one who has to like my face, is me.

and guess what.

walking into a large white room doesn't scare me anymore.

a blog for bedstefar [love in translation]

this should be no secret if you've been following my blog.

it's been an arduous journey to discover...

i.am.a.drug addict.and.alcoholic.

that, i can see.

the rest, is obstructed by weeds; thorny growth threatening to overrun the path i trudge. i hack with shiny, new tools sharpened every morning. i clear cut ferociously, my hands become bloodied, but strong, my body and soul satisfied by hard work. and i get glimpses. i rest my sweaty limbs and lean forward, peering into the future. golden slats break through the thinned-out shrub, like the bars of a jail i have escaped and i see it.

i see the petals of a rose turned in for the night. layer upon layer recharging in repose. waiting to unfold by the light of dawn and sing out with its perfumed voice, fragrant and full.

i see enough to keep me willing. i see enough to keep me coming back.

in the rooms, they dole out the tools. if you ask.

in the rooms of the coffee-clutching humbled, we find something greater than ourselves.

and still, despite the love and understanding that drifts down and settles on my skin, mixing as an elixir with my salty skin, basting me to a golden zen, i still defy. i cross my arms and raise an eyebrow. with hand on hip-bone-thrusting circumspection, i wonder.

who is this god you speak of?

and where has he been?

i began spending summers with my brother, n., in denmark in 1977. i was 8, n., turned 7. we would spend the entire 2 and a half month summer vacation with our danish family - my mother's sister, brother, their spouses and my grandparents, bedstemor and bedstefar. bedstemor was the nut. truly. she would be equally excited over the announcement of your engagement or the bowl of ice cream presented to her after dinner. there was no middle ground for her. everything was amazing. everything was "NEJJJ!". she would grab her breasts randomly, from maximusstimulus or a viking-sized sex drive, who knew. it happens to be a genetic quirk i lustily embrace, along with swimming and cleaning house, OCD-style.

if bedstemor was the nut, bedstefar was the shell, the encasing to her grenade, tempering her explosions until ready.

he was a fireman recently retired. still strong, muscles taut, his arms would pull me easily upon his lap, a cushion of sweet confection i could sink into, marshmallow soft. against his mythical heroic frame i would lean, as we sat outside and gazed over his well-tended carpet of green dotted with miniaturized daisies, yellow-centered white weeds too delicate to pluck. the days of danish summer were long, lazy. we would watch the danish sun sink tantric style - stunning in its payoff - as it finally said goodnight well after 11pm. and we would talk.

but to talk with bedstefar, was to barely speak.

against the melting northern sky, his roses popped like characters come to animated life. even in the shadows of the gloaming, i felt safe. i would sink deeper against him and sigh, aching to stay in the comforting cool of his embrace and forever escape the hot and humid Torontonian summer. across the ocean an oppressive heat was smothering our family alive, a father choking on a sickness we couldn't name. there my limbs dragged heavy with foreboding. here, with my protector, i felt equally buoyed and free. in his magical garden, upon his Wonka factory floor of natural treats - of roses and plum trees and afternoon naps -  i could twirl, light and lithe. with desperate gulps i would fill my lungs with his roses' musky aroma, clearing out the skunk stench that i could never sigh away.

and i could breathe.

i would point to the painted sky and say "heaven..."

he would look up and reply, "himlen." i would giggle.

again!

i would point at his manicured lawn. "garden..."

adjusting his glasses, he'd reply, "haven."

i would squirm on his lap with glee.

again!

and then at his roses. his beautiful roses.

i would gesture broadly. "roses..."

"roser", he would declare. and i would beam.

 the same word. the same soul.

bedstemor went to night school to learn english so that she could speak to her first two grandchildren better. she was the quintessential student bringing a satchel full of sharpened pencils and enthusiastic debate over the myriad definitions of "funny."

"do you mean funny/strange or funny/ha-ha?"

this was not for bedstefar.

bedstefar was nothing if not danish. stinky-cheese-lovin', beach-strolling, schnapps-skoling, swedish-hating, 101%-akvavit-proof danish. so as bedstemor endured our relentless teasing over her endearing attempts at pronouncing "TR-H-ree TR-H-ousand, TR-H-ree hundred and TR-H-irty-TR-H-ree - the english "TH", like a gymnastics' dismount the danish tongue could never stick - bedstefar became, if possible, even more danish. he dug his clogged-heels in deep, and just. spoke. danish.

he would never over enunciate, never "baby talk" us down from our confusion over the world's strangest language.

[i mean, do they really need three EXTRA letters?]

especially when we became unfortunate buddies in the war on chronic illness, soldiering side by side into daily battle.

"i know exactly how you feel. if you don't feel well, you go and lie down."

but in danish. always in danish.

and in our near silence, i was made whole.

you get desperate at the end of a long, canadian winter. at least, i did. after months of hiking over filthy piles of city slush, it was emotional anarchy when the crocuses hesitantly stretched their reedy green arms through our back yard melt. anticipation plucked at my heart nervously, like the tuning of a violin. my neighborhood vendors - the polish delis and asian grocers alike - would finally explode with color, fanning out their array of floral imports with the technicolor sass of a peacock's tail. and for a few bucks, you could take home a little spring in your arms, like the one now in your step, and the one you could smell under the melting ice, if you titled your nose towards the certified grey sky, stood very still, and inhaled.

these were the blossoms i would hang after death, preserving them long past their expiration date. feng shui be damned! bunches and bunches of roses, like stalactites, hung from every window in our home, their now muted colors no less glorious to this canuck craving all things flowered, all the time. and an idea was born. surely i could make one of those flower-filled oil lamps becoming so popular; birthed from the early 90's zeitgeist of scented candles and designer coffee shops? and with a glass bottle, a sports shoelace and my bottomless stash of dried petals, my roses were reincarnated, mummified in an oily soup and when illuminated, floated softly like foamy patches upon a moonlit sea.

i am so awesome! i will sell these city-wide! i will build an empire!

or, i will give one away as a gift.

so with all humility, i offered one of these amateurish floral coffins to my brother, as mother, grandparents and i gathered in vancouver to celebrate the addition of two letters to his name  - M.D.. we were all gathered round, squawking with praise, singing silly danish songs and offering gifts. after the requisite, ooohs and ahhhs settled like dust, i began to explain, without any irony, the subtle technique to trimming the lamp's wick to my newly-anointed doctor brother.

then i heard something. and i stopped. bedstefar had breathed something quietly, as was always his way. i looked up and cocked my head, poised for the instant replay.

"henriette is an artist."

he was lit from within, beaming brighter than the lamp's soft glow, like a car's headlight focused duly forward on its destination.

"henriette is an artist."

but in danish. always in danish.

for although he understood much more english than any of us could ever guess, it was how his skin fit best.

and he understood how my skin fit best.

almost without words.

there were often times when i would get mired in danish conversation and struggle to keep up. head bent over knees, left panting behind everyone else, lost in its abrasive rhythms and winding rhymes. but, with bedstefar, it never mattered. any gap between the two languages would be crossed. we would find our way out of the labyrinth by munching on a lifetime supply of black licorice, sharing that hot stream of Viking blood and pointing at his magical rose garden well into the dawn.

so on april 15th, a flurry of phone calls from Saskatoon to Los Angeles to Copenhagen.

bedstefar. pnemonia. hospital.

"it doesn't look good."

and my panicked heartbeat, like the whacking of a wooden spoon against a pot, growing louder with every second that passed. a child in defiance, refusing to hear the voice of reason.

and i reached my uncle who sat bedside, his painful vigil present in a strained voice run deep.

"here, henriette. talk to your bedstefar."

and i bubbled out an impossible froth of gratitude. a granddaughter unable to thank her grandfather enough for all he is and all he will be to her. despite a literal and figurative ocean between us, he dove right in and found a way to go the distance. he held his head up and kept on swimming, through the deafening roar and the eerie still, right until the end.

five minutes after i hung up, my uncle called me back. bedstefar had heard me. for after i'd closed my gushing valve of love and affection, he had whispered,

"i'm going to sleep now."

and never woke up.

i now believe god has always been with me. i just haven't been able to see.

but now i see him everywhere.

in the silence between words.

and especially the roses.

desperately seeking subterfuge [a.k.a. farrelly brothers, you suck.]

ok. it's been a while.

so shoot me. i've been writing my book.

but nothing will plant me faster on my virtual soapbox than the opportunity to vent about the low-brow, offensive humor of the Farrelly Brothers.

i can just hear the pitch.

"Okay, okay. Get this! Jim Carrey's character is a little lost, melancholy. He can't figure out why. So he goes to the doctor and is told, Dude! You need a kidney! You know, as in a transplant. So through a series of wildly comical and politically incorrect events, we discover that he has a love child. Perfect! Problem solved! He thinks, I'll just go and find my child and get a kidney from him! Dude! So, together with Jeff Daniels, they embark upon a wildly comical and politically incorrect road trip to find him...Are you with me, are you with me so far?...Then we bookend with a heartwarming father/child denouement. His child overcomes his resentment towards his absent father JUST IN TIME to save Jim Carrey's life by donating his kidney...

...just as the credits roll, to a sentimental, yet plucky, anthemic swell of string instruments.

And THEN, through a series of wildly comical and politically incorrect events, Jim Carrey has tons of energy to go on the road trip, needs no doctors' visits, specialized diet or anythingcloseto23dailymedications and definitely no dialysis.

doesn't test well.

[i added that last part.]

i don't understand it. i've never understood it. how is kidney failure funny?

every one's doing it.

"Friends" has done it.","Frasier" has done it. and every. single. time, my loose and comfortable laugh, limber from loads of well-massaged quips and puns, is choked off. i sputter. i cringe. my body freezes into a statue of disbelief. i shift in my seat. my smile falters, my lips unsure of which way to curl. initially, my mouth pinches upwards into "the Joker's" eerie, cynical smirk, then crumbles complete into a frown so droopy, so deflated, even Eeyore seems positively joyous by comparison.

cancer gets a pass. AIDS gets a pass. even other transplants get a pass.

there's something about kidney.

is there something cute and cuddly about the kidney? the beans we eat? the kidney-shaped pools we swim in? i mean, when was the last time you took a dip in a pancreas? is there something so conveniently science-fictionesque about being able to donate your "extra" organ that alights the Hollywood writer's pedestrian brain, sparking a crackling bonfire of below average humor and witticisms?

"Here, take my wife!"

"Take my kidney!"

It's all expendable.

more likely, it's an like an easy default for the overpaid Hollywood writer. having clutched too many lattes, hiked too many canyons, and taken too many meetings, way too seriously, the flatlining Hollywood writer, so darn frustrated by the industry's lack of recognition of his/her unique writing abilities - the unbelievably lucky asshole who cranked out self-indulgent shorts until he became one of 19 producers on a web series, and now finds himself grandfathered around town from writing staff to writing staff, has lost all perspective of the horseshoe way up his ass. yes, the lucky son-of-a-gun who thinks his treatment is the first and most brilliant reworking of any plot line from The Greeks through Shakespeare.

[oh, but don't cha know, what they really want to do is direct.]

yes, from a satellite perspective, and with the intelligence of an ant, kidney transplantation does seem as effortless as a link you COPY and PASTE onto Facebook. as easy as 1-2-3! Step 1. get tested! Step 2. have a quick and painless surgery! Step 3. recipient leads full life FREE of complications.

[can i get an AMEN? or maybe just a "like"?]

of course, nothing could be farther from the truth.

it's the desperation that they don't see. the desperation that pushes you into hell.

and in your desperation the only thing that can save you is the truth.

and without the truth, we all fall down.

with panicked flaps, they flew my coop with a bad case of "cold feet", squawking out some veiled excuse, sad in its transparency of their fears. "i just get sick a lot!"..."well, what if i need my extra one someday?"..."if you fly here i'll give you a kidney!"..."if you pay $75,000 we can do it in my country!"... "i have to pay my mortgage!"...

UH-HUH.

and then there were those who never offered. and never called.

everyone wants to be the hero, but you actually have to lace up and go into battle wearing that ridiculous gladiator skirt.

in my schizophrenic, new found serenity, i do understand that people do the best they can with what they've got. but, damn. i would have had more respect if they had just flat out owned it.

like, "i'm scared" or "quite frankly, you're a bit of a nut, soooo, i'm just not sure if it's worth it."

because, desperation makes you seek the truth with the vibrating intensity of a diving rod seeking water in your personal desert storm.

desperation spurs you to lasso the world.wide.web, hijacking social media with a rope around it's neck; a knife to it's throat.  you "friend" those from 20, 30 years ago, vulnerable in your virtual pleas for help; stripped of any pride your profile picture might otherwise suggest. you poke at these pixilated pictures from the past, images you barely recognize, praying they will poke you back. will someone see the pain behind my shiny, happy selfie? and then, out of the shadows of a row of rusted and dented lockers, steps salvation. under the florescent high school lights, an offer. "i will get tested for you." and for a moment, your desperation is blotted out by the halo of hope shining above you - up there with the asbestos in the ceiling and the student council election posters falling from the walls.

hope that you may never have to spend one. more. minute hooked up to a machine that filters your blood between 3-5 hours a day, detoxing your battered body from the toxins your poor kidney can no longer filter. hope that you'll have the energy to get home, collapse, rest and return to do it all again the day after next.

i know from desperation.

desperation annihilates you. your fingers frantically piano up and down your sides, searching for that side zipper to yank down with one quick, satisfying tug; oh, to unpeel out of your leathery, jaundiced skin. with a leaden head barely raised, like a feral beast, you sniff out for something, anything better. pills, alcohol, hate - anything that can motivate you for more than a minute to slither out of your bed, and squirm away from your soft, green bedroom walls gone chalkboard black.

[the writing's on the wall.]

i was so desperate for relief from kidney failure, i would do anything. go through every medicine cabinet i could find - steal his pills, their pills, your pills - lie to doctors and nurses and pharmacists, oh, my!, and search under my bathroom sink for more alcohol, more anything, just -

more.

anything to make me feel more than the mess of less i had become.

oh, if only life were like the movies! and richard gere would come crawling up that fire escape to each and every soul trapped on dialysis, clasping a kidney between his teeth instead of a bunch of wilted, supermarket mums!

[now THAT''S comedy!]

i'm sure Hollywood, in all it's fanatical, number-crunching wisdom discovered it's still cost-effective to make this movie. i mean, only 80,000 americans die every year from kidney disease. it's only the 9th leading cause of death in America.

[go forth and market!]

and so, for every winy, misunderstood Hollywood writer, of both the employed and unemployed variety, for every joke about buying a kidney, not needing your "extra" kidney, selling a kidney to pay off taxes, how easy it is to just "get" a kidney, ridiculing the torment fueling illegal organ trade, suggesting any slick convenience to dialysis - i suggest this. spend one day on a dialysis ward. follow the gurneys unloading the half-dead from the medical vans. follow them upstairs as they lie, glassy-eyed or hobble anxiously clutching their spouses' warm, taut hand in their own, cold and limp. follow them as they do the heartless shuffle and collapse with audible, ironic relief into their assigned chair. follow their eyes as their eyes follow the tubes sucking their blood through a jumble of plastic worms, through a tubular, plastic filter, and a cold, steel machine as they shiver uncontrollably under arctic conditions.

follow them.

then make your jokes.

in my recovery, i get on my knees every morning and give thanks. i give thanks that i am sober for today. i give thanks that i am no longer walking among the living dead, among those too dear to be on dialysis.

and i give thanks that i once was desperate.

i wish those writers desperation.

and not for a paycheck.

honorable - did i forget to - mention?

Scroll down to read my piece that received an "honorable mention". A collection of blogs from last year - edited and presented experimentally. I am in the "Creative Non-Fiction" category.

Share my excitement!

[The format is a little funky...]

 fyi...

We are pleased to announce the New Millennium Awards for Poetry in our 35th competition.

  

The deadline in our current contest is Midnight, June 17. This deadline may be extended once only. See details below or enter online at www.newmillenniumwritings.com or www.writingawards.com. 

Susan Maeder of Mendocino, CA, has won The New Millennium Prize for Poetry, for "Out of Blue," a wrenching imagining of Joan of Arc's first tastes of war. Maeder's attempt to release Joan from her martial context is a triumph, and we are proud to publish this "new take on an old legend."

As previously reported,

H. Boris Timberg of Hatboro, PA, won The New Millennium Prize for Nonfiction, for “Ladders.” This powerful story, with its gritty realism alongside portrayals of sweet family moments, never shrinks from the heartaches and challenges that accompany our closest relationships. We are honored to publish it. This was one of our most competitive contests, and those winning Honorable Mentions, listed below, should be proud. 

Dan Gemmer of Millersburg, PA, won The New Millennium Prize for Short-Short Fiction, for “Sorter,” his story of a medic station in war time. This powerful story, with its bold and vibrant imagery and compelling sense of place, reveals a dark aspect of our nation's presence around the world, tempered with a tone of compassion and empathy.

Watch for our Fiction and Poetry winners to be named in the next two weeks. All winning entries and selected finalists will appear in the 2014 issue of New Millennium Writings, due out next February, and also at www.newmillenniumwritings.com.

Honorable Mentions for Poetry

JoAnn Balingit, Newark, DE

Michelle Bonczek, Syracuse, NY

George Clark, Valparaiso, IN

Janet Foster, San Diego, CA

Linda Nemec Foster, Grand Rapids, MI

Benjamin Goldberg, Waldorf, MD

Janlori Goldman, Accord, NY

Emily Hipchen, Carrollton, GA

James Hudson, Augusta, GA

Marilyn Johnston, Bloomfield, CT

Mary Emma Koles, Arlington, VA

Eileen Malone, Daly City, CA

Barbara Mossberg, Pasadena, CA

Lisa Mullenneaux, NY, NY

Veronica Patterson, Loveland, CO

Elizabeth Porter, Tucson, AZ

Susanna Rich, Blairstown, NJ

David Sloan, Brunswick, ME

Shelby Thomas, Rockport, ME

Nura Yingling, Charlottesville, VA

Honorable Mentions for Nonfiction

Jacob Appel, NYC, NY

Erin Byrne, Auburn, WA

Stephanie Cassatly, Jupiter, FL

Leonora Desar, NYC, NY

Jocelyn Edelstein, Portland, OR

Janet Falvey, Green Cove Springs, FL

Carla Feinstein, Portland, OR

Harrison Fletcher, Richmond, VA

Amy Friedman, Los Angeles, CA

Mary Howes, Dover, MA

Phillip Hurst, Lanai City, HI

Henriette Ivanans, Sunland, CA

Gabrielle Kopelman, NYC, NY

Marina Petrova, NYC, NY

Frank Pettinelli, Cary, NC

Elizabeth Porter, Tucson, AZ

Charyti Reiter, Cambridge, MA

Keith Skinner, Berkeley, CA

Pierrette Stukes, West Jefferson, NC

Cindy Zelman, Stoughton, MA

Honorable Mentions for Short Short Fiction

Margo Barnes, Tucson, AZ
Shannon Beamon, Moyock, NC
Elizabeth Brown, Tucson, AZ
Gayla Chaney, Temple, TX
Jamal Ebrahim, Chateauguay, QC
Laura Edwards, Saxonburg, PA
Heath Fisher, Kansas City, MO
Benjamin Goldberg, Waldorf, MD
Andrea Ivan, Greenfield Park, QC
Lisa Lebduska, Salem, CT
James Lynn, Kent, WA
Ola Madhour, Fribourg, Switzerland
Leslie Munnelly, Nantucket, MA
Katrin Redfern, Brooklyn, NY
Kathryn Shaver, Louisville, KY
Zachary Slings, Blauvelt, NY
Claude Smith, Madison, WI
Alexandra Stang, Pittsburgh, PA

Michelle Walker, Graham, NC

Scott Winkler, Casco, WI

Our current contest deadline is midnight June. 17.

Visit www.newmillenniumwritings.com for user-friendly guidelines and much more,

 or jump straight to www.writingawards.com and employ our simple submissions process.

No restrictions as to style, content or number of submissions. Enter as often as you like.

Winners announced beginning in September.

All contestants will receive our high-quality 2014 anthology.

Winners of NMW Awards are showcased along with celebrated writers, past and present, such as Pamela Uschuk, J. D. Salinger, Julia Glass, Shel Silverstein, Khaled Hosseini, William Pitt Root, George Garrett, Ken Kesey, John Updike, Lee Smith, Cormac McCarthy, Lucille Clifton, Nikki Giovanni, William Burroughs, Shelby Foote, Paul West, Norman Mailer, Sharyn McCrumb, Allen Wier, William Kennedy and many others. 

To join NMW's online conversation, go to Facebook and “like” New Millennium Writings.

Here's my award-winning piece! ;-) 

“HEY, BUDDY, CAN YOU SPARE A KIDNEY?”

february 12^th, 2012

all apologies

they've been playing a lot of nirvana on terrestrial radio lately.

which is great, because i need all the nirvana i can get.

it was over 20 years ago that nirvana was unleashed on the world in all its rock-righteous, unbathed glory, but they still sound as volume-cranking, adrenaline-swelling, fury-injecting fresh as ever.

yesterday, i began the hauntingly resonant chore of catching up on back taxes.

[last will and testament of 1978: 3 years of back taxes.]

but daddy’s little girl is here to finish ours.

and as i thumbed through endless papers, ragged like a gambler’s deck of cards, i listened to the receipts tell a copyrighted, bound and printed story that had never been issued.

first edition. published 2010. a year in the life of an addict.

in true golden state style, this girl was the healthiest, well-balanced addict; hitting up all 5 food groups as hard as she hit the bottle.

"cherry tomatoes, salmon,  1 L vodka..."

"avocado, tempeh, 1 L vodka..."

"cantaloupe, cottage cheese, 1 L vodka..."

but it wasn't those white light receipts that paper cut my heart. just a solitary piece of paper with two words:

"water. tums."

and the image of a man, with tired eyes and a mortgaged future, pulling into a parking lot; desperate for relief, desperate for release.

[if a paper's worth a thousand words.]

remorse, slather me thick, cake hard and heavy; sandbagged soul.

[i didn't know.]

hose me down, power wash me; filthy, four-legged, fuck-up.

[howl.]

squinting into the florescent backlight, she flinches at the pharmacy's mistake. 120 fioricet, not 60. ecstatic horror. she's drunk dialing her lover, deep fried in a guttural orgasm; pan seared in rapturous, rock star fantasies.

but for a few hours, i didn't have to be me.

follow the paper trail. who’d want my life?

oprah likes to starfuck this phrase to exhaustion, "my friend, maya angelou says, "when you know better, you do better.”".

[i didn't know.]

i don't care. you don't have to believe it's a disease. i know it is. relentlessly pinballing; silver slivers of sanity streaking away.

we're sick and we're selfish.

[now i know.]

"all in all is all we are…".

sorry, oprah. i prefer nirvana.

["and i swear that i don't have a gun…".]

kurt and i. we're all apologies.

march 29^th,2012

d.d. and me

"is that for everyone?"

two circular confections stood, topped with numbers marking years so high in sobriety, that this 5 month-old newborn’ll be entrenched in medicare, or at least languishing,

with camille-esque intention, well into her third or fourth transplant.

it was her tone.

i could feel her desperation before i saw it.

her breath on my shoulder; moist with misery, landed hopeful like the morning mist.

there she stood. her eyes, pinballing wilder than her matted, two-toned, head-and-shoulders shock. the razored definition of, "the only the requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking".

and into those benzo-ed baby-blues, i glimpsed october and stuck out my hand,

"hi. i'm henriette."

"hi. i'm d.d."

she didn't see the gentle irony in passing over coffee at an aa meeting, deeming it corrosive. no, she needed a "lemon lift", reaching for the tea with adolescent awkwardness; hormonal havoc. d.d was a study in unstep 1. with white, stained sweats stiff with stink; her posture loaded low, she commanded deep unrespect of the room. but, with a clacking domino of the heads and an embarrassing tsunami of "ssshhhh!"s, they drowned her boisterous boom.

[“you got me in trouble, henriette”, she wagged. i sighed.]

but, it was post-meeting that this june bug relinquished her black lacquered sheen, and splayed her soft, fleshy underbelly wide.

in her chemical haze, her words ricocheted faster than the pinball wizard in his prime. we were on the east coast with her asshole ex-husband and 9 year-old son. we were in india. we were in turkey. we were in south central. we were on skid row defecating in the middle of the street.

and deep into the sex, lies and rape, my heart slit wide; dripping sticky ache and pain. and like a filthy, buzzing fly, i was trapped onto the paper trail of evidence leading to conviction.

but for two choices, i am her.

but for one of mine.

but for one of his.

and so i did the only thing i could.

i gave her my phone number. and said to call me 24/7.

because the difference with d.d was one thing.

she had shown up.

our shackled hands steered her a handful of blocks to glendale hospital, then this phoneless? homeless? helpless? addict climbed out of our car, clasping two clear hospital bags of belongings and blistered my heart. with a profusion of thanks she headed towards the e.r., doubtless to stake another panic attack and claim its rewards. but, as i sighed into my seat, my husband finished my thought and handed me a bill.

"d. ddddddddd........", i screamed.

"did i forget something?".

and we came together like long lost friends.

"no. here." i breathed, holding out the $20.

"that's too much.", she breathed back.

"just try not to use with all of it…", realizing how ridiculous it sounded as it slipped my lips. "just try to eat something.".

"but, i'm fat", she quipped, sounding equally ridiculous.

and then her eyes glistened. not with pill-popped, popcorned insanity. not with lip-licking anticipation of her next high. but with gratitude. and love.

at least, i'm going to believe that.

april 14th, 2012

6 months

"at the golddigger - sorry"

if timing is everything, then irony's her bitch.

when's k's text came in from the infamous vegas nightclub, i was soaking peacefully in a tub, and just as serenely drinking in a tale of a saleswoman diluting her parents' liquor stash, from the big book’s , "crossing the river of denial".

[yup. even i'm raising a brow over this one.]

a far cry from the equally cinematic image of last october. girl gone wild-eyed. where hovering hazily below a watery line gone frighteningly still, was no cause for alarm. for her reason to surface, was always, to swallow more pills.

so when i thought about that night at the "golddigger", i flinched.

in bridget jones speak, this "married", rocketed on narco-holic fumes, soaring like a fully-charged "singleton". fueled by uniformed flirtations, rock-starry-eyed fantasies and unrequited experimentation, she flew higher and higher, crashing flat on the tarmac; drawn and gold-quartered.

so what do you do when you wake up 6 months sober? alone?

you let your dog wag her bum so hard she scares herself.

you let your sober sorority swaddle you in praise, pointers and pain.

you let yourself get mauled by a thai woman.

and you think. i can do this. i want this. i want to be healthy and free.

but you miss that first cold, crisp sip on an achy, baking day. beads of sweat, you swallow, dry. then wet and sharp. ah. then you're wine wine rafting on a river of chardonnay; buzzing, churning. hands-free flight. until the river bed dries up and what lies beneath is mouthwash and rubbing alcohol.

and you miss that barbituate buzz. when ms. migraine crashes the party, there's no-one like fiorinol. the perfect friend. she shows ms. migraine to the door, holding vigil all night long. and the next day. and the next. helping find words your thick, drunk tongue can pass off; helping stuff your undergarments in anticipation of the night's release.

and you really miss your daddy. the twinkled-toed, rugbied md. he loved pele, stamps and the beatles. and what you know about daddy is that he wrote "alcoholism" in his address book under "a", and never called. and he rotted into a shuffling, robed zombie who ended up where i was 6 months ago. in the hospital. then.

38 and dead.

[oh, wait. you don't believe this is a disease.]

but, i do.

because 6 months ago, i took 121 pills in 2 and a half days.

coming out of my thai massage, the owner gifted, "you look beautiful. you never change."

and i thought,

"oh, honey, you have no idea.”…

june 12^th, 2012

separation anxiety

[ah, beware ye of little dysfunction.]

the addict and the codependent.

the prince, a not-so-charming-control-freak, and the princess-has-pea-ed-the-bed.

you sit there smugly behind the computer screen, anonymous, arms folded in self-righteous, knotted victory; finger taut, ready to delete; snap shut, shudder away my pain. ah. but, we were the chosen ones. news printed for all of toronto's morning glory; morning java. we were the mostlikelytorocket stars. and tonight i sleep in a stranger's bed. alone. trust me. it can happen to you.

the prodigal son's family feathers around him. and the hen feathers alone.

we are separated.

the transplanted, golden state couple. comely canucks en route-86'd.

now i chase pavements in mindless, maggie-less glendale.

suffering morning panic attacks, unflagellated by the serenity prayer, i back my mid-size rental out a rear driveway, an inch to spare on either side. sweetly soaked in deodorant-spray sweat, the technicolor town assaults circus bright, midway loud. it hammers heavily the obvious, nail-tearing truth.

four years, an auto-pilot passenger.

time to own the wheel.

[whoareyoukiddingaacultheadtherapyconvertdoyoureallygetonyourkneesandprayplease]

the guy looks great on paper.

the hero who slayed quick the disease, delivering the ailing princess his bloodied kidney, glistening thick atop his sterling silver sword.

but here's the thing.

sometimes, an extended arm; an open palm works better than a razor sharp object being pointed directly at your face. from a horse.

and as for that piece of paper. there are two sides. and two stories.

his side. my side.

the story is 20 years old. and addiction is but one of a thousand of threads that must be untangled.

two hearts have been declared broken and the crazy glue's been doled out with strict instructions.

you fix YOU. and you fix YOU.

[and don't get any on your hands.]

i had a thought the other day.

i used to beg him, for hours and hours for my pills.

but i never once begged him for my kidney.

and here's another.

it was his choice to be there.

i swing wildly on this pendulum of recovery, back and forth between wild-child hysteria

and leaping to connect the dots from a to z. and there are moments like saturday night, when i just wanted to drink. period. but when i allow the gyrating, the jerking, to cease, i am momentarily cemented in gray; in blissful zenhen.

these moments are pulled tightly around my shoulders, thoughts like silken threads i can knit together with my furrowed brow; hot, syrupy sips that clear my thin and trembling voice.

i am hen.

but there's only one person in the world i want to share these revelations with.

and it's scream8timesaday, heartstrippingly, bendoverthesteeringwheelsobbingly surreal.

[scream]

so for now, i do it on my own.

and so does he.

anxious.

separate.

july 5^th, 2012

yankee doodle danvian

i used to beat up little girls.

it was my first drug of choice.

how sexy is that?

yes, the little red haired girl would randomly prey on floral, frocked princesses; boldly, coldly pronouncing them targets for her simmering tidal rage.

"i'm going to fight you."

pummeling the stunned innocents with magnificent fury; unleashing the caged riot of parental anarchy burning her heart; her home to the ground.

unfortunately, generation z, bullying is not new to me.

this is my alcoholism.

[start me up.]

some progress rapidfirequick, and others, like a fine wino, progress into ocd, list-making obsession. then codeine addiction. and then obsess over the perfect fiorinol/chardonnay cocktail. and then they dissolve, delightfully into the sugar rush of the self-centered lollipop. obsessively, compulsively, fatally.

one lick, and you can't stop.

you are not weak.

you are not morally deficient.

you just can't slam on the brakes.

because you are smart.

you can whisper yourself out of a 51/50 at cedars-sinai. with breath so still you don't even know if you're alive. and you walk a quiet line between life and death, unmoving; uncaring. and the only sounds tethering you to terra firma are the ambien and xanax prescriptions rattling you away into discharge.

[90 mph.]

you are really smart.

you with your beady, greedy little eyes. with your scaly, skin-shedding ways. and that flickering fork of a tongue. with your poisonous prong, your cedars' social worker is obliterated, her cute, clueless attempts to sign off on your alcoholism are backhanded; swatted away like a pesky insect. next. with relentless arrogance, you convince the chief psychiatrist to amend that ridiculous drug and alcohol abstinence agreement.

["honestly, henriette, we've just never had anyone challenge this". next.]

[120 mph.]

and you glide [un]happily back under your rock, swilling beer and crushing xanax into your cracked molars while photographing your morphing kankles in various stages of

edema for your blog.

you are listed for a kidney.

you are dialysed.

you are transplanted.

next.

but you are really fucking smart.

you can talk your way into an oxycodone prescription at the pain center. months after your donor abandoned his script of tylenol 3s into the ceramic ocean. you talk your way onto so many prescription pads, with your slick, pick up and "deliver me" system, escobar took notes from you.

"but it's for the "pain" in my scarsideeffectsheadheartyourfaultgodsfaulteveryoneelsesbutminefault..."

[160 mph.]

and you are wheeling.

out of control.

donutting in the parking lot. manically laughing, tears pooling into your lap.

fingers clenched so tight; so dry they would snap off, stick by stick were you able to unpeel your frozen fist and navigate this black ice.

but in a whiteout, you can't see a thing.

"how did i get here?!" should be a game show.

and we could all win prizes.

kinda like a reality show version of orwell's room 101. if you survive, you get a parting gift.

once in a while, this unemployeddisabledseparatedalcoholic will be sitting in a meeting and suddenly, i've been tossed into a box of tarantulas. they are everywhere. hissing, nipping, crawling. i open my eyes to glittering dark beads, peering. odorous pus, oozing. limbs strapping, entrapping me. coarse, angry fur rubbing me raw; bloody.

if i beat them off with a stick, i'll only get bit.

so the only way out is to jesus myself; four on the floor.

and i shift it into 1st and surrender.

i had this epiphanous moment the other day.

a woman shared about her childhood. about the chaos she grew up in. how she never knew how to feel. how she was always putting on an act.

["jazz hands".]

she actually did the fosse move.

and i thought back to my grade 3 project.

"what do you want to be when you grow up?"

and i wondered if i'd ever really wanted to be an actress. or if i had just scribbled down an answer to a question? a god in the image that this 8 year-old girl worshipped every friday night. actress-singer-dancer, marie osmond.

["i'm a little bit country..."]

dear god.

because now that i'm eightandahalf months sober, the breath of relief i sigh when realizing i never have to act again, fills me with air so clean i vibrate. icy shock, defibrillation.

["clear!"]

the little red haired girl played two roles for too long. 

overprotective daughter. ferociously battling, baring teeth; all, for her embattled father; unknown peer.

and resentful child. "where's mummy?". longing for a mother who was responsibly absent. architect by default, building brick by agonizing brick, a house built for 4, in the end, fit only for 3.

sure. i have minutes when i want to flip back my fortysomething, silverstreaked, thin-wisped strands, run my fingers through my topomax-induced breakage, adjust my $5, l.a. county fair D and G knockoff sunglasses, load up, put pedal to the metal and plow through my feelings and into a 7-11 or some other franchise. and anyone who tells me they've got this thing called alcoholism licked, never mind "life", is a total douche.

[ahem. THIS is not serenity.]

so after throwing another charge on the card, my train left separation station and slowed in its tracks, dread in my tread, as i neared this week's rental.

C 45, C 46, C 47...

[say it isn't so.]

what i know from cars is nothing. but what i know from the 80's is everything.

there she stood, nay, screamed from her slot. beckoning to me from the annals of 1981. coated in the neon electric blue that swathed the eyelid of every lead singer of every r&b video ever to rotate on mtv. the seats, like slipping into madonna's "lucky star" fishnet top: cheap black polyester, with charlie-red sheen and bright red stitching. when i check for po-po, there's some kind of dolphin fin sculpture/wind deflection device on the back and the multiple, totally tubular, headlights/tail lights light up reminiscent of the bling of my barbie's 'vette.

[i have yet to pinpoint a demographic for this car.]

where, oh, where is my beige corolla? the bland beauty i revved to delicately navigate the los angeles labyrinth. dodging bullet trains, planes and automobiles, i hunched, skimming under the radar; skimming only the foam of driving delights...

[hmmm...the dodge "avenger"...]

so maybe my sponsor was on to something when she snorted, "you're supposed to learn something from this...!".

and maybe you're rolling you're eyes at the aa speak...

but there's no denying god has a sense of humor.

so maybe i do too...

[shut up and drive.]

august 15^th, 2012

ladybug sings the blues

i had an uninvited guest last night.

during a very unsober 3 am moment.

rigid and wide-eyed, frantically backhanding my nostrils as they dripped with ferocious, farm animal intensity; snorting and snotting, huffing and puffing, blanket-mouth stuffing.

[10 months doesn't guarantee you shit.]

but there, through the mist of my tears; unxanaxed panic attack, like the literal parting of the red sea...

red wings, with delicately painted black dots.

she appeared boldly, in a flash of cherry-red through a sad, squinty blur.

blink once. twice.

she was tenacious. weaving through the spokes of my gargantuan white noise machine; the fan's soothing symphonic now whirring in discord with my heartfelt histrionics, our cacophony awakening glendale's undead.

but nothing. not the howling winds of fan; of hen would keep this steadfast mofo away.

up and down. up and down. up and down.

unburdened by her beautiful, lacquered layer, steadfast she wiggled those black, shiny legs, sheltering her soft underbelly; her toughest meat. her heart.

i was mesmerized.

["fuck you!"]

anger, fear and judgment pelts down on me like acid rain, stinging my skin, leaving comforting welts. beautiful bruises. this is the skin i remember. this is where i belong.

sick. diseased. useless.

unlike storms that break and clear sky, i collect on the ground, in filthy, muddied pools.

tremors trip my fall. i sweat. i shake. and shake some more.

in the inch deep water, i choke mud. it's cold, freezing. i shiver deep and long. fever.

i turn my head to the side and gasp.

there is no air. no fair.

["you were a fucking terrible wife!"]

i was.

i was.

[maybe it's not an excuse, but it's an explanation.]

in canada, if you find a ladybug overwintering in your garage it brings good luck.

it has been the longest winter.

with such black, navy blue nights, the stars frosted the sky silver when they went to sleep; blinding cold light.

with such icy, thin air, your insides scraped raw on the quickest of inhales; you barely breathed for almost five years.

with such black hearts; black iced, can a spring warm enough ever be sprung?

and then i saw her.

my plucky little friend.

crawling around next to the sleepily spilled coffee grounds.

then i remembered.

"ladybug, ladybug, fly away home,

your house is on fire,

and your children are gone..."

my fears paralyze, choke; i hang with regret.

but after all the mud has been thrown, you are muddied; bloodied and no-one can see.

i cannot roll around in the mud anymore.

it may be good for my skin,

but it's just not good for my soul.

and we all have one.

[especially ms. ladybug.]

august 29^th, 2012

champagne supernova

it was our theme song.

the zeitgeist that fueled our candy red tercel with sweet dreams for the future, heralding us all the way down route 66. 

"slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball..."

[that and $1.15 a gallon for gas.]

like oasis, we lived and breathed infectious energy back in '95, until we choked. it's not that the city doesn't live up to its moniker. it's just angels vanish in the smog, when you live and breathe it too long.

so i arrived for my weekly visitation with my fur daughter. 

wagging tail. check. bum sniff. check. "where-have-you-been?" squeal. check.

but, it was checkmate for my not-so-sexy-looking, not-yet-ex.

"are you ok?".

"my back really hurts.".

a man who may very well have a fractured disc (mri pending), stood before me, all dressed up with no place to pipe.

for the last 12 years, k. has been playing pipes at a birthday party for "peaches". this is

not a code word. i don't think k. even knows her name. but i don't think "peaches" will be online surfing, accidentally stumbling upon my blog. "peaches" is 94. her daughter, l., hit on k. at a cemetery after he played a funeral, introduced herself, explained how much her "mother" adores the bagpipes, and k. being k., has played at "peaches" birthday party ever since.

but k. being k., who, for all intents and purposes, bit down on a stick for a week after having a kidney ripped from his guts, had not taken a pain pill. and looked it.

"do you want me to drive you?".

i'm not sure what was more surprising. me agreeing to drive him to simi valley, thereby sacrificing my floor exercise routine with maggie, or k. agreeing that he needed help. either way, it was a milestone moment in the ivanans-mcintyre household.

yum. the irony was delicious. i would have licked my fingers, but i was too busy adjusting my chauffeur cap and gloves.

there we were. the mirror image of the way we were. in the role of barbra, i drove, with a crystal clear view of kevin's past; defogged. petal to the metal, this legal eagle flew, under the speed limit now. no bugs to smear my vista, no drugs to steal my soul. i glanced over at k. in the role of robert, bob to his friends, and in my mind's eye i gently pushed back a lock of hair as he slept. i leaned over to turn on the radio, 

"someday you will find me, caught beneath the landslide..."

his silence directly proportional to his pain level, i was soon privy to buzzy musings about l.'s devotion to her mother, her hard-knock-life and the party that usually included subway sandwiches, faithful friends and care workers, all topped by a champagne cake.

[hmmm.]

you know, these are things you just don't think about until you get sober. 

and soon enough all i was thinking about was staying sober.

l. was definitely one of the reasons why, if someone had asked me a year ago at a party, "can i get you something to drink?", i would have rapidly, and most assuredly responded, "yes, PLEASE. a big FAT vodka soda with extra lime."

but this was a party that didn't even serve alcohol. god. no wonder they had a champagne cake.

l. was a lovely hostess. a gracious hostess. and i guess l. was trying to make up for the fact that "peaches" doesn't talk at all. 

l. was very concerned that her minor leg operation become the topic of conversation. the physio she was enduring! the horrible ignorance of doctors! all before the front door clicked shut. never mind the double-transplanted woman standing before her whom, "she'd heard so much about, and was finally meeting!". meanwhile, the double-transplanted woman felt her protective, albeit separated, wifely fur-coat hackle sharply, vibrate in high c.; screaming for the quiet soldier beside her. her man in uniform; suited up, doped up, quietly grinning and bearing-backing his load as only k. can. 

but, it takes one to know one, right?

this kindergarden certified chatty-cathy, ("henriette shows great intelligence, but is a little chatterbox.") thawed to l.'s siberian insecurities; initially isolating, but upon exploration, a vast, uncharted resource. l. was lovely, if not subtle, delegating marching orders to every member of the party, while constantly reminding us there were more a-listers on call.

but, at long last, the pipes called.

"your husband! he's so talented! you must be so proud!"

they clamored around the little red haired girl, while k., with mastered flexibility, snapped photos with his right hand, cradled his pipes under his left shoulder, and balanced the entire act with the smooth, comedic timing of a highly-rated neilsen sitcom. and with the deft deflection of the token quirky/overweight/gay/politically incorrect character, she quipped, "what was the third thing you did at k.'s wedding?", completely blanking as to the trifecta of talents he had perfected at his sister's wedding.

"sing!", k. called over his shoulder, on his way back out to strike up.

"oh, yes! k. sang, took pictures and played the pipes at his sister's wedding!", she proclaimed, hands clasped in front of her chest.

[i will not insert a joke about low self-esteem. i will not insert a joke about low self-esteem. i will not...]

and just to button up that "veryspecialblossom" episode, l. hovered over us, breezily

reminiscing as to the time and place she met k.. oh, then her sharp denoument, the moment she realized he had a wife.

"...then you pulled a business card out of your wallet, and i saw this stunning woman on it, and when you said she was your wife, i thought, geez, what a beautiful, perfect couple..."

and it just hung there. 

the truth. the truth that only we knew. and we smothered it quick with a blanket of soft chuckles, sidelong glances and awkward kicks towards a dying fire.

and through it all sat "peaches". through the party, the piping, the pursuit of perfection.

she reminded me of a mall santa with her chubby, jolly presence, so pretty in pink, silently soaking up each moment; distractingly dense with peace and joy.

and she reminded me of bedstemor. sunny, simple, smiling bedstemor, who was "just" a homemaker, and "just" a mom, but when she smiled, everyone felt it in their cheekbones. 

their ability to unearth joy from grim rot.

["how to eat fried worms", indeed.]

bedstemor with a cancer-riddled spine; morphine-coated throat, straining only for my self-preservation, self-respect.

and "peaches", a decade without breath for words or walk. but, for not one second does she need them.

there we sat. side by side. slices of cake passed overhead. my polite decline either unheard or ignored. and so it landed. and i stared. my favorite. the slice with grainy, neon-pink flower. innocuous rose. symbolic sin. just one bite. one sip. one pill. maybe not today, tomorrow, but suddenly, shockingly, you are begging, crying, dumpster-diving; shoving anyone who stands in the way into the current that is taking you down.

it was a simple gesture. surgically precise and quick. in and out. 

i blinked. and blinked again.

in the silent seconds k. had ravaged his fluffy slice, i had daydreamed about the room,

frozen stare; smile. and in a curt, covert action, worthy of insertion into an opening sequence of a daniel-craig-bond-flick, k. had sliced my piece in half, manoeuvred it onto his plate, and wolfed a reasonable portion thereof, before squishing the remainder to look like he was appropriately stuffed and sated with sugary sweetness.

it was the door slam heard around the world.

or for those not up on their ibsen, my world got a little bit brighter.

[my champagne supernova.]

whenever that song shocks onto the waves, we bolt into the past, and k. invariably comments, in a way that only a wife, ex-or-not, can find endearing, how the song reminds him of the time when we moved to l.a. 

[initially a fantastic explosion, that ejects most of its mass.] 

after the smoke and mirrors are packed away, what lies beneath is the truth.

and sometimes the truth is a half-eaten piece of cake; words don't matter.

champagne stops flowing and supernovas burn out.

"but you and i will never die, the world's still spinning 'round, we don't know why..."

love never dies.

[happy birthday, "peaches".]

oct 4^th, 2012

you don’t bring me flowers anymore

can a kettle be romantic?

it was my grand prize, the holy grail of gifts offered to me upon the disheveled sheets of a hotel bed in san bernardino, california.

silver, shiny, surprising.

[happy birthday.]

we are the couple with a patented armband. it slips over our sleeves, radiating satellite

signals of emotion; throbbing 'round with world to the beat of our open hearts.

yeah, i couldn't hide it.

"you bought me a kettle?", i drooped, dismayed.

"but, you like tea.", confucius say.

[sigh.]

here's the irony. i am your least romantic friend. i do not think your child's crayon scribbles are adorable, weddings with bubbles/doves/rice or any variation thereof is cheesy, and february the 14th, that flimsy, fabricated franchise, is for suckers.

ah, but it's the bud that gets me every time.

[non-alcoholic.]

heady blossoms of succulent, sensual sweetness; my nostrils toking on memories, my heart vaulting through time.

[ache.]

for this certified city child; downtown dweller, with a bedroom view of the world's tallest free-standing structure as it elevatored up into the sky, nature was but a panoramic picture of [high] park, not cognitive crunchings underfoot. only in a small and slow land across the ocean, did natural infatuation flower.

in bedstefar's rose garden i crushed to most traditional bloom, the rose, and have been blushing ever since. idyllic summers, bliss. windy beaches, black licorice and cycling trails of escape. child-wide innocence, pre-aids, pre-internet. squashed siblings united on the home front, n. and i'd bullet down the hallway; our apartment's gaza strip, dodging parental anarchy that never ceased fire. danish summers were a respite from our father's battle, the war he never surrendered. this 70's show was a true merchant/ivory film come to life, minus the corsets i was never able to fill anyway.

over the years, my floral favorite split-screened with the lilac. fruity, flirty flower. one whiff of its syrupy scent and i am drifting, twitching back into pubescent angst; melting overwintered, toronto days when gray slush still hulked curbside, but throaty breaths hinted at winter's retreat; spring's burgeoning blitz. crawling out of your skin; snowsuit, onto melting glaciers of yearn.

he lies tractioned head to toe, smarting submissive. he describes his pain level to the physiotherapist as a 6 out of 10. her heart twitches. she, sense memoried. so well versed in the rhythm of the pain scale, a "9" would roll off her tongue as trippingly as iambic pentameter to the elizabethan actor, landing a delicious, drugged reward for her high score.

now chauffeur to her loaded lad, her heart twitches again at the bulge in his pants’ pocket.

his painkillers.

[rattle, rattle, rattle....]

with an echoing ruckus smothering marley's entrance, as dickens' ghost clanged up from hell's holding cell, every drag of his leg rattles a delicious, distracting din. every hobble prattles his pills pavlovian, inflaming her cold coals of sobriety. while marley's torment spread equator fat, her purgatory's packaged in a pill, just a slight of hand away.

["it would be so easy..."]

but, then. paradise lost.

now, dead-weight dragging new baggage he wishes the airline lost, his pockets rattle 'n roll with oxycodone; norco-singing, endlessly repeating the seductive moans and groans of last summer's sin-soaked chart topper.

["so, call me, maybe..."]

so, if caring for the hooked-up, laid-up man taking 6 painful minutes to sit up in bed is poetic justice, then sign me up for the slam.

i've got a beret, pages of rehabus vomitus, and an audience of one held captive by bed.

[isn't it romantic?]

i dreamed a dream. years of hints, as subtle as celebratory plate crashing at a greek wedding. loud, longing admiration for every bundle prettying up the house. soft, squirrely sighs as i'd arrange and rearrange. and a pencil-pointed declaration of how. much. i. love. flowers.

but, eventually, like an exhaustive evening of uninspired erotic exertions, i ceased huffing and puffing and chose to walk over the finish line.

and gave up.

so you could have blown me over with a baby's breath, when suddenly presented with a fistful of sweetheart roses; deep pink, tear-stained mauve. fresh from bedstefar's fabled garden, the rosy bunch buzzed with silence, leaving me weak at the bees' knees.

i blushed.

and my first thought was,

"but, i stole pills from you."

you are the thorn in his side that can never be expelled; wily weed.

[wildflower.]

romance is not a well-tended garden; sterilized manicure. not trudging a pedestrian landscape of brick paths, automatic sprinkles and feng shui fountains.

romance is the steadfast slog of a man, through the surging swells of sickness. surviving mattress-turning nights, black-eyed peeves and a timer set every two hours to chart your intoxicated depth of breath.

romance is the cushion of his arms as you pillow the rare wetness upon his classic-cut cheeks. damp-pressed, your gray, failing form is cradled like the child you have become. and he holds your head still against narcotic waves lolling it feral; free.

romance is dodging words like darts; sharp, scarring. fleet of foot he'd sidestep your wild swings, as you belligerently battled his punching bag to a pulp with your poisoned spit.

a rope of words that can never be untangled, just noosed tight until there's silence.

our romance is now revenge against a monster; spearing passionate surrender.

and peace.

in our home, there is a truce. more than a truce.

[cease eternal tarry, starless nights.]

it is dawn.

the kettle's on the stove.

she's flowering, prettied with pink.

and romance is in the air.