Sempre l'altra cosa

in which jason bourne runs through the marina in a ccfa t-shirt to cure crohn's disease

2010-10-23T16:42:00.000-07:00

I write to you now from an undignified ball position on my bed, where I am alternating grading papers and falling dead asleep. This morning, I ran nine miles for Crohn's Half-Marathon Training (it was supposed to be 8.5 miles, but did not take into account my poor sense of direction). I had every intention of doing this at a noble strolling pace, but it turned out that if I wanted to keep on course, I had to keep the rest of the group in my line of sight. Good-bye, noble stroll. Hello, running interspersed with occasional Jane-Fondaesque speed-walking.

I sort of liked having to run as fast as I could to keep the group in sight, particularly with all the turns. It was sort of Bourne Identityish for a while there. There they were rounding the corner! Quick, get them before they melt into the oncoming crowd! There's a bomb under that car! A really hot French woman wants to make out with me! I'm sailing away from this building by convenient steel cable!

Toward the end, however, I was beginning to lose hold of the conceit that I was Jason Bourne in a CCFA running shirt, making my way through the Marina to cure Crohn's Disease, and began to just feel really, really tired instead.

"Just finish," I thought, which swiftly gave way to creepy out-loud exhortations of "Just finish," and then, "Come on, just finish," and then, "Just finish, just finish, just finish, you're finishing, you're doing it, you're finishing," and then, before I knew it, I had done it. I'd finished it. Nine miles. Running.

"It's so hard to be in The Bourne Identity!" I told the group. They smiled kindly, as nice people will smile at the slightly deranged.

Fast-forward about forty-five minutes to Fort Phil Collins, where after a shower and an egg, I slept for three hours straight. Then I woke up, drank some Emergen-C, ate half an avocado, and went back to sleep again. If allowed, I think I would sleep for hundreds of years. How do people run long distances and then lead regular lives? I think I just expended the amount of energy it takes me to conduct a normal week of business.

What I'd really like to do is crawl into a cave in the Arctic with several hundred pounds of seal and sleep out the winter, like a bear. But I'm not going to do that (at least not yet). Grading calls. So much grading. And you know what? I'm a roll here; I'm going to finish that too.

just finish

2010-10-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

I've been a bad, bad marathoner.

A few weeks of suffocating workload followed by a week of colonoscopy + Tysabri somehow resulted in three (count them, three) missed weeks of training. In my defense, I had to finish the work or I would have been fired. And you can't really run when you're under anesthesia with a tube up your ass (if you can do this, please contact me: We have a lot to talk about).

However, the frigid truth remains that I will, come hell or high water, be completing the half marathon on December 5 on behalf of the CCFA, and I will be raising that money for research for our intestines, and I will set a good example for other Crohns who think they may want to run a half-marathon someday, for whatever deeply disturbed reason.

Today I went back to training. I did it on a treadmill at the gym, with the assistance of Pandora's Akon radio. (This was a special occasion, as I usually save Akon for writing, but I divined that I would need the extra push of the Soul Poet today.) I was right. This run was... just short of a near-death experience. Even with walk breaks. Even with Akon. Even with a voice inside my head alternating furiously between stick and carrot:
Voice A: Move it, you sorry sack of brussels sprouts! What a disgrace.
Voice B: You can do it! Great job! Just a few more miles!
Voice A: Is that the best you can do? I'm appalled!
Voice B: This is great! Look at you!

I finished. Not gracefully, but I finished.

And that's just what I'm going to do on December 5.

After my colonoscopy last week, I received the best report I've had in 19+ years of Crohn's Disease. This is probably the healthiest I'll ever be (unless a cure is found, in which case, whoa, everyone). But that doesn't mean I can do more than I've ever done before. In fact, it may mean the opposite. To keep my Crohn's in this kind of remission, my body is working extremely hard. It takes energy to stay in remission. And being given a good report at the doctor's office after 20 years of Crohn's isn't the same as being given that same report after 3 years, or 6 years, or 9 years. The effects are cumulative, your body gets older, and the apex of your physical ability isn't constant --- no matter how "well" you are.

There's a part of me that, in the spirit of Voice A, tells me I have no excuse but to run as fast and as hard and as long as anyone else. After all, I got a great report at the doctor's office. I'm in remission. But the other part of me knows I don't need an excuse. I don't need an excuse for anything. I'm already going above and beyond what my body can do, whether I run or walk or crawl the half marathon. Does this mean I can't do what other people can do? Absolutely not. It just means I have to do it differently.

I know a lot of you struggle with this back-and-forth too. I'm well/I'm sick; I'm normal/I'm different; I can/I can't. You can. You may just have to find your own way of doing what you want to do. I know people look down on those who walk the lion's share of a marathon, or who need breaks, or who run slowly. But I don't care about those people. I care about us. I'm finishing the race. I'm doing it my way.

PS. In the coming weeks I'll be posting more about my runs and my progress. If you want to support my run for more and better CCFA research and haven't had a chance yet, there's still plenty of time. Just click here.

day at the office

2010-10-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I drank some gallons of GoLitely. I vomited up some gallons of GoLitely. I responded according to the hopes and dreams and intentions of GoLitely. I also had three conference calls with students, graded four early drafts of their papers due tomorrow, and edited the first six chapters of my novel, which I am (gulp) sending (gulp) into the (gulp) atmosphere tomorrow.

Today Good Buddy Shaina drove to me to the hospital.

I'll tell you what: There's something strange about the anteroom in the endoscopy suite, about all the patients lined up foot-by-foot in our identical beds with our identical hospital gowns and identical oxygen nose tubes. Some of them had already had their procedures and were knocked out. Some, like me, were waiting. There was a man about my age in the bed next to me, hyperventilating.

The nurse told him, "Deep breaths! Look at this young lady here!" She indicated me. "See how smiley she is! See how this is no big deal for her? This is just like a day at the office for her!"

I smiled to show him it really was just like a day at the office. Another nurse jabbed a big needle into my wrist and set up my IV. She was wiggling it around to get into the vein. I kept smiling at the man.

Then they put on my little chest leads and my oxygen nose tubes. The man had apparently found some sort of zen point in me; he would not take his eyes off. I kept smiling. Keep smiling for that man, I told myself. It seemed like he really needed it. And the truth was, sadly or not, it really was kind of like a day at the office for me. Not only because I'm so comfortable in hospitals now, but also because getting bits of my intestines shaved out isn't actually more taxing to me than holding office hours. I enjoy office hours, but when I come home, I usually throw up or have a fever. Big, big smile.

As they wheeled me away I told the guy, "Don't worry. Maybe when they put you to sleep you'll have a prophetic dream." This, actually, did not seem to help.

When I woke up a few hours later, the doctor informed me --- here, you could probably fill in the blank as well as I --- that, well, I have Crohn's Disease. (There is a little part of me that always hopes she will say, "It's a miracle! We've never seen anything like this before! After twenty years, magically, you don't have Crohn's Disease! You are the first cured patient in history! You are free!")

But then she told me that after 13 months of Tysabri, the improvement is "very good." In other words, my intestines look a heck of a lot better than they did when I was under the employ of That University Where I Teach. She gave me the pictures so I could see. An early-90s David Bowie bust could be seen somewhere in the ileum, but other than that, it just looked like an intestine with Crohn's Disease. But not one that was going to die.

As I was groggily putting my shoes on I saw the Hyperventilator waking up beside me.
"Did you have a prophetic dream?" I asked.
He smiled at me, still a bit drugged.
"I dreamed this wasn't my life," he said.

do you celiac what i celiac

2010-10-11T11:40:00.000-07:00

In the period I've been away, I've been primarily doing three things.

1) Grading papers analyzing induction and deduction.
2) Copyediting manuscripts about 14-year-old girls whose romantic lives are in fact far more titillating than my own.
3) Not eating gluten.

Oh, I know what I said. How my love for pizza and sandwiches trumped the trends, how I always felt fine no matter what I ate, be it broth or shrapnel. But it turns out that the symptoms of gluten intolerance aren't always gastrointestinal. Sometimes, for example, an unresolved gluten intolerance can make you, well, extremely depressed.

I went to a doctor who marveled that in 19+ years of Crohn's Disease, I'd never been tested for celiac. And in the two weeks since that appointment, I've forgone the gluten and witnessed mood changes of spectacular proportions. That's not to say this was a quick fix, or that all the issues I was having are resolved. But I do feel a bit better. And eating gluten-free has been, so far, not difficult at all. If you know me at all, you know I rather like a challenge. Better if that challenge involves bread, but whatever. Beggars can't be choosers.

Today I'm not eating gluten-free foods at all, though. Today I'm not eating anything. Today, Crohns, I am drinking. Oh yes, it's GoLitely time up in here. Tomorrow I will have my annual colonoscopy (apparently I'm a 50-year-old man) and in preparation, I'm taking those awful tablets and drinking that awful stuff.

I don't know about you, but that stuff makes me extremely sick. Allergic skin reactions, vomiting, fever. Hate this stuff. Hate, hate, hate. And you know when they get in there tomorrow they're just going to conclude that... oh, my god!... no, wait, what's this?... sound the alarm!... It's Crohn's Disease!

To those of you who emailed me after the last post, thank you. Thank you for your insights and your support, and most of all for your patience. You're a pretty solid bunch, you know that? Good heads on your shoulders! Who raised you? I like them too.

happy birthday: the whole story

2010-09-26T20:48:00.000-07:00

dear crohns:

in a few hours, i will be 29. how did i get so old? i'll tell you how i got so old. through hard, hard work, motherfucker.

there are a lot of people who will understand exactly what i mean by this, because for you, too, every day is hard work; physical work. you will understand that 365 consecutive days of this living/existing thing --- nay, 10,585 days of this! --- is no small feat, particularly when eating is hard, and moving is hard, and staying awake is hard. you will get this concept without my even explaining. and it's worth just a moment to remind myself that being part of a community like that, like you --- even if it means having crohn's disease for 19 years and counting --- is a privilege that anyone would be lucky to claim.

a year ago today, i was lying flat on my back in clothes someone else had to dress me in. (thank you, juan.) i couldn't move side to side, sit up by myself, take a single step unaided.

(self, you could not eat. you could not move. and look at you now. you are eating and moving. you have a job, self! a great job! and you finished a book, self! you live in fort phil collins, the greatest fort ever!)

these italics, unfortunately, are not really mine. i'd like to be able to internalize the idea that i'm making progress, that all this effort isn't worth nothing. the effort it takes to get out of bed in the morning (i can get myself to a standing position in less than 90 seconds now). the effort it takes to walk on my bum leg or stay awake or eat what other people eat or drink what they drink. but the greatest effort of all is keeping up the veneer: the veneer that i am happy, that i am energetic, that i am content, that any of this means anything to me.

i want to be honest with you, crohns, because you are the only people with whom i feel i can really be honest: i am not okay.

physically, of course, i've been worse; i am practically an olympic champion compared to one year ago (ideally one of those deadweight lifters with the weird shorts). but i am not here anymore. i am just pretending to be here.

the hardest thing now is not pain management. it is leaving my house, talking to my friends, making myself look the way people are used to seeing me, with my content expression and my sarcastic comments. it is very hard to make plans, to feel happy about things. it is hard to pick up the phone or to feel anything. but i know it is required of me, and there is a little part of me --- the part that has always pushed harder and harder no matter what --- that insists that i must show my face, smile, make the jokes people are used to hearing from me. and so i do it. but --- and i know this sounds pitiful, but truly --- it hurts to do it, physically, in the same way that eating a slice of pizza hurts when you are in flare and you know you really, really shouldn't. it doesn't even taste good.

i know this is a gauche thing to say. to be a person of merit, or even a person at all, it seems you have to show that you are a fighter, that you are trying, you are happy, you are determined, you are present. onward, onward, onward! if not, you're weak or silly. people tell you, "it's okay! don't worry! we'll have coffee and catch up and i'll tell you great jokes and it'll all be better!" or "just get it together, fool!" and these people, the soft-love people and the tough-love people, are very nice, well-meaning people. but they don't get it, crohns.

this makes the whole birthday thing especially difficult. wonderful, very kind friends and family, who i love very much, have things to say that begin in "happy" and end in an exclamation mark. and i really do appreciate their friendship. but it puts a very fine point on the distance that is growing between me and them, the success i'm meeting with as i leave my apartment each day and put on my Great Big Smile and tell everyone how it's so great to see them.

although it's unpleasant and ugly and unattractive to say so, this is the truth, crohns. of the whole story, this is part.

thank you for staying here at sempre through the middle of this narrative. one thing we know about any narrative worth its salt is that it has a natural arc: what goes down, if we wait long enough, must come up.

love,

kara

"astrology.com is back there" and other bleak truths

2010-09-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't already know about my years-long relationship with horoscopes from The Washington Post, here's a little background. My sister started it. Because it's totally normal for a non-deity-following older sister to copy the whims and wiles of her younger sister (at the time, I believe she was in high school and I was in graduate school, but she still had superior knowledge of the world's best things), I began her practice of checking the next day's horoscope each night at washingtonpost.com.

The horoscopes were uncannily specific, and usually always right. Sometimes they would say "You are about to move to California" and the next day I, a NYC resident, would win a writing fellowship in San Jose. Sometimes they would say, "Enjoy your everything bagel with scallion cream cheese!" as though they knew what I was going to order. How did they even know I lived in a bagel city?

"Who is back there?" I asked my sister.
"Astrology.com is back there," she said.

Sometimes, when it doesn't feel like telling me what's going to happen ("Tomorrow, you will go on a date with a stupid douchebag, but the episode of Jeopardy! The Semifinals you will watch when you get home will set the world right again, you trivia genius, you!") it just mocks me instead. For example, when I was in the hospital it was constantly congratulating me on the glitz and glamour of my everyday life. I mean, IV poles are shiny.

Last night the WP told me to make a list of some things I was proud of. I rolled my eyes. Seriously, WP? Is that all you've got? Then I thought, Well, it usually has its reasons.

I opened a file on my computer.

Things I Am Proud Of: A List That The WP Told Me To Make Although I Don't Want To

Off to a good start.

I only got one item down before I had to get back to work, but it was a good one.

1. I am proud of my marvelous, friendly, supportive, intelligent family.

After all, that's how I got to the WP in the first place.

PS. Check your WP horoscope at this link. Creepy insights into the following day are posted at 12 am EST.

in which the washington post dreams big

2010-09-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Washington Post,

Finding the meaning of life in a student paper seems highly unlikely, but thanks anyway.

Love,

Kara

Libra September 23 - October 22

For Tuesday, September 21 -You've got an eye for detail, and that's precisely what you're going to need right now. Whether you're inspecting a shipment of toy robots for defects or a student's paper for grammatical errors, your eagle eye has never been so sharp. What will you discover? Sometimes, when you look hard enough, you see much more than you were looking for. Maybe you'll have a glimpse of the sense of things, the meaning of life, or a clue as to what you're really looking for.

produce market

2010-09-20T13:18:00.000-07:00

I have begun using one of those terrifying to-do list items, checking in frequently with its beady, color-coded gaze as I --- what is it that we do again, that we are expected to do? --- produce, produce, produce? Unfortunately I don't mean vegetables.

Between the imminent avalanche of rapid, time-sensitive grading; the prospect of my least-favorite kind of office hours, late-in-the-day office hours (which --- I don't know myself anymore --- I specifically asked for so that I might share the office with a colleague who I consider to be my close ally (at That University Where I Taught, this proved to be a valuable resource more than once, so I am trying to replicate it)); a gargantuan freelance copy editing project; editing a lengthy and complicated story for Joyland; going to the hospital; training for a half marathon; and, oh, right, wasn't I writing a book?; I have become a sort of smile-with-your-mouth shell of my former self, who already only smiled with her mouth a lot of the time. Also, I have been eating a lot of meal supplements.

I was telling someone yesterday how I am so excited to go to the hospital tomorrow for my Tysabri, because as soon as the tube went in, it would be a true and wonderful day off. I could close my computer! I could close my eyes! As soon as the words were out of my mouth I showed all my teeth, hoping that this would indicate that I was kidding, but it was too late. The truth was out there. My acquaintance grimaced at me. "For an unemployed person," he said, "you're really, really depressing."

Dear Crohns, it's you I've been thinking of. You and all the ways in which you balance the many things required of you with a heavy set of intestinal latitude and longitude. I'm starting to wonder where productivity ends and real life begins, and the only thing I've yet concluded is that the checkpoint is located where you decide it is. Where is the checkpoint, Crohns? What have you decided?

from the annals of the crohn's and colitis half-marathon training, volume 2, + a chance to help!

2010-09-11T18:22:00.000-07:00

I should really start taking pictures during these runs. Lord above, the salty rivulets. The spandex. Groups of Crohns. What's not photogenic about that?

It transpires that running on five hours of sleep, the remnants of a few gin-and-tonics, and the proverbial wing and a prayer, even beside a bunch of supercrohns and one of your best friends, is no short order. I trotted gamely along most of the way, walking a couple of times. I was prepared to walk it in when D., the supercrohn who drove me to practice last week, came up behind me and encouraged me to run it in instead. D. doesn't have a colon. D. has run about seven half marathons and rocks out these practices like a man possessed. You better believe we ran it in. And it was great.

But back to the night before practice.

I'm not exactly a stranger to these early Saturday-morning practices, having done the same thing for months with the AIDS team three years ago. During that time, I only wimped out on a practice once, and that too was because of a boy and some alcohol. (As I recall, I was at the beach, and it was dark, and it was so nice out, and the beer was so cold, and then okay maybe just one terrible 80s movie, and okay just one more beer, and geez the boy was really cute, and then I woke up and the run had already, uh, happened without me. Regards, fitness. Regards.)

This time it's slightly different because the weekend trainings, although strongly recommended, are optional. It's also different because I obviously have far better judgment, the mysterious ability to stop drinking after two drinks, the mysterious ability to sense that late-night pizza will just cause me to page the Ghost of Dr. Crohn, so no thanks to that. Although apparently not enough judgment to demur rather than titteringly agree when an extremely cute boy suggests hanging out just a little bit longer on a Friday night. No, I wasn't staring at your chest, my eyes just tend to naturally fall lower when I'm listening intently to what you're saying. (Yes, I said that. Aloud. In my defense, I had to come up with a plausible explanation for my pectoral-gazing behavior fast, and this was the best thing that came to mind. Should I go into politics?)

A few tips I've come up with so far for marathon training that Crohn's (and others too) might like to use:

-A good night's sleep ahead of time is imperative. Sorry.

-Drink lots of water the day before your big run, and afterward mix an electrolyte drink into your water. They make some with no sugar, for people with gluten, sugar, and calorie sensitivities. That's what I had.

-Stretch a lot. Hold each stretch for at least 30 seconds, even if you feel like an idiot doing so. Michelle also uses a roller on her IT band. More on this soon, once I've developed the balls to try it out.

-Running slow is still running. You know, I think the reason so many people think running is so hard is that they're going too fast. Particularly if you're training for distance, there's no shame in going slower than those creepy powerwalkers next to you. Running is really hard on your body. It will appreciate as few attempts at breakneck as possible.

Want to help us get closer to finding a cure for Crohn's Disease and UC? Here's the donation link for my race. Absolutely anything you could contribute would be so appreciated.

from the annals of the crohn's and colitis half-marathon training, volume 1.5

2010-09-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

6:51 a.m.

Dear Self:

Next time, no matter how cute the boy, if you have a marathon training run early the next morning, demur and go home. Thanks in advance for your participation.

Best,

Self

in which, benjamin-buttonlike, i grow ever younger

2010-09-08T10:56:00.000-07:00

I don't even know what to say. The nice folks at Narrative Magazine have now included me twice in their 2010 30 Below 30 roundup. ...Does this mean I'm only 15 years old?

Thanks a lot, Narrative. You guys are pretty much the best.

from the annals of the crohn's and colitis half-marathon training, volume 1

2010-09-04T15:20:00.000-07:00

My vast apologies if you thought that my "big announcement" was a book deal. Boy, did we at Fort Phil Collins get a hoot out of that, particularly Phillip, who lofted a sign with DREAM ON PARTY POOPER into the air for a full five minutes. At first I felt bad about that, but then consoled myself that he'd omitted the direct-address comma and that, of four words uttered, he'd chosen "pooper" as one of them. It's the small things, really.

Anyway, no, no book deal yet, gentle readers, but believe me, you'll be amongst the very first to know. Then I'll immediately deploy you all to buy the books out of the back of my mother's minivan.

This news is much greater, in a certain sense, because it's good news for all of us. Along with a bunch of other patients and friends of Crohn's and Colitis, I'm training to run the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon on December 5 in Las Vegas. For the next three months, I'll be running alongside some of the toughest (and seriously, most enthusiastic ever --- I nearly allowed my eyes to bug out of my head in disbelief, then thought better of it) Crohns and Colitises. We're raising money for research that will help all of us to find a cure, and in the process doing something good for our immune systems and our physical fitness; hopefully we're also making an example of ourselves for some younger IBD patients out there (hello!) who think things like marathon-training are impossible for a person living with a chronic illness. If I can do it, I'm pretty sure anyone can. Phillip, whose opinion of my physical fitness is dubious at best, agrees.

Our very first group training run took place this morning!

I awakened at the unfriendly Saturday morning hour of 6:45 in order to have time to digest my diet toast. Yes, I'm still eating diet toast after all these years. WHAT. Having been ferried to the beach by a very generous supercrohn with a car, I met up with the team, where we proceeded to freeze our butts off while a Cape of Achievement ((?) I told you these guys were enthusiastic) was awarded to someone who had done some mighty fundraising this week. Is 8 am too early for a Cape of Achievement? Look, ask them.

Then we set off on our run.

Today's run was a short one by marathon-training standards: three miles, out and back. My general goal was to run the whole thing without walking, and, additionally, not to die. Not only did I not walk and not die, I finished in very admirable time! For me. I don't think I would have outrun any Kenyan marathoners. But they weren't at the beach so we'll never know.

Afterward, we stood around the parking lot stretching and admiring our coach's new engagement ring. I learned that three people on the team have the same doctor as I do. We chatted amiably about colonoscopy preparations and prednisone, because that's a totally normal thing to talk about at 9:30 am in the middle of a parking lot on a Saturday morning. Then, generously ferried home again, I proudly showed my Crohn's and Colitis Team Challenge jersey to Phillip. He looked up from his pizza for a moment, unmoved, and then resumed chewing. Life seems pretty easy when your gastrointestinal system is polyester.

I'm aiming to raise $2,400 for Crohn's and Colitis research over the course of my training. In a few days, I'll put up a link to the donations page for anyone who wants to support me in helping us find a cure. And it's not too late to sign up to run the race yourself! If you're interested, contact your local CCFA chapter for more information on signing up for Team Challenge.

"The Mariposa"

2010-09-03T09:19:00.000-07:00

How about some new fiction for your Labor Day weekend? I'll have a large and dubious announcement tomorrow, but in the meantime, I bet you'll enjoy this superb story by Maggie Shipstead at Joyland San Francisco.

who the hell is in charge here?

2010-08-29T17:25:00.000-07:00

Beats me.

However, as it was swiftly becoming a FAQ, I added a new page to the sidebar explaining who exactly is responsible for all this nonsense. You can get there by clicking here.

More unanswered questions? As always, you can e-mail me at semprelaltracosa@gmail.com, where we can converse intimately on the topics that burn sizzling holes in your heart.

farewell, insuff'rable heat wave (and all the carefree people who loved you)

2010-08-25T20:29:00.000-07:00

You know the feeling: returned home from an infusion, maybe you'll just lie down for one minute, I mean just to test the bed really, ensure the bed's continued quality since your absence, and then seemingly moments later you awaken and it's dark and you're starving and there's a giant sitting on your head.

I bypassed that feeling yesterday (c.f. Marilyn dress blowage, frozen nut eating) but today, upon returning home from a run, errands, and then from the cafe where I was working with the ever-combative BW --- who does not believe that underwear drawers can be described as manicured! --- I suddenly found myself oppressively tired. I lay down on the floor and woke up again when my upstairs neighbors began having obscene zoo sex.

It was the perfect moment to awaken, it turned out, because the skies were turning oppressively gray, and if one got near enough to the window, a chill could be felt outside --- precisely the kind of chill that makes buttock-baring hipsters snivel into their bicycle seats and harrumphers like me, who can't live peaceably for a moment above 85 degrees, rocket into the outer atmosphere of happiness. In celebration, I ate tuna fish and oatmeal for dinner, which is a completely normal thing to do.

1-Year Tysabriversary! or, How to Readily Dispatch Unwanted Clowns

2010-08-24T21:29:00.000-07:00

The sad clown who sometimes dares to enter the infusion center, terrifying most, annoying the remainder, reared his overfluffed red curls again today, this time wielding a harmonica and a cane. (A cane? Really? Is that really in good taste in a center full of unwell persons?) The clown marched jollily into the room where three other women and I were receiving our infusions. One was sleeping, one appeared to be texting, and two of us were reading. I understand he's a volunteer, the clown, and I understand he means well, but we were perfectly content before he flopped in and began gracing us with a sort of ad-hoc version of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" on his harmonica, gasping every now and again at the verse breaks for a sort of Black Eyed Peasesque cheer like, "Hey-oh!"

At every subsequent "Hey-oh!" --- they appeared to be getting louder and more severe --- one of the women pressed her fingers around the bridge of her nose and squinched her eyes shut as though to will the nightmare away. The clown did not take the hint. Steadily, and with his classy exaggerated limp, he moved toward me at the back of the room. I set down my book and gave him an icy stare.
"Well, who have we here?" the clown said.
Who we have here, I thought, is someone who is trying to get shit done and dislikes clowns.
I took a deep breath and tried to will him away with my stony eyes, but his were focused elsewhere; I was reasonably certain he was going to try to pull a quarter from behind my ear, because he was looking at it with his clown eyes in a way that did not inspire confidence. He took a single step forward. Free quarter or no free quarter, no clown was going to get near my ear.
"BACK, CLOWN," I barked sternly, and the clown, hands up in surrender, bowed his head and hastened in reverse out of the room, forgetting to limp.

What unexpectedly simple victory! I gave a tiny fist pump with my free hand.
The other women burst out into a great cheer! For a moment, I was a hero. Then the women went back to sleeping, reading, and texting, and I wasn't a hero anymore, just a girl in a room with a tube up her arm.

One year of Tysabri and all its attendant dangers. I said I wouldn't do it for so long, but I eat my words. It's become far better than the alternative.

Back in Fort Phil Collins, it's about ninety degrees and I'm out of food. I ate some frozen nuts I had in the freezer on layaway for baking projects, then some frozen blueberries. Then, don't judge, some mustard directly from the jar, on top of a pickle. And I'm not too proud to tell you that I may or may not have pointed the fan directly up my glued-to-body-with-sweat dress, Marilyn Monroe-style, although likely far less glamorously (I can't confirm this, as I wisely stayed away from all mirrors while this necessary event was taking place). I never thought I'd say this, but today I would trade my weekly burrito for a freezing infinity pool, right here in the floor of the Fort, full of ice cubes and mystical breezes, minus the creepy cinematic figures who would use its glories to mine me for my organs.

Here's a song that's just right and good enough to listen to when the weather's this hot. Consume while standing shamelessly in the middle of your bedroom in the dress that someone once told you was "a very nice nightgown" while keeping the fan on high and drinking as much soda water as you could rightly carry back from the store.

quitters sometimes win

2010-08-23T16:53:00.000-07:00

I'm not a quitter. I don't quit. On the contrary, I would rather run myself into a ground-ditch, pulped and bloody, than quit something --- as evidenced by my propensity to overcommit myself past the point of dignity. But this time, things are a little different. You see, I have this intenstinal tract, and I want to keep it. And there's this novel, see, about other people's intestinal tracts? And I've got to finish it. And the fact of the matter is, I've already got a job. A teaching job that I worked long and hard to get, and I'm not keen on screwing it up.

So after a weekend of recounting in no uncertain terms to trusted advisors the toll that my new social-media job was taking on my general well-being, I did something I've never, ever done before.

I quit.

Almost as soon as I pressed "send," I descended into a near-Medusan panic, not unlike the experience I imagine sharks have when they accidentally wash up on to shore. (My gills! My gills!) But in a few moments, my boss responded with an eminently gracious reply, and The Dad, to whom I was helpfully communicating my moment-by-moment panic in the middle of the work day, chimed in with this strangely useful and pertinent advice:

"Yesterday, when I was left alone with Bis'l, for the first time I accepted the feature on the Boggle website that limits the number of games you can play in a single stretch. I felt great when I was released from bondage to the game. You should feel the same way."

I hope this makes it clearer where I come from.

I proceeded to put on a dress, go to a coffee shop where the esteemed and well-organized Loring was waiting for me, and have the best and most productive writing day I've had in months. I may need to scope out a little freelance work to supplement my income, but that's a far better (and more enjoyable!) prospect than the hefty commitment I made to the nice people at the social-media company. And oddly enough, I do feel liberated, almost as though I've been released from bondage to online Boggle while a small, elderly, yet noble Crohn's dog looks on in the background.

there goes the neighborhood

2010-08-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

So lately I've been feeling --- I'm not going to go so far as to say like crap, but let's say more like some very fragrant garbage that you've been meaning to take out for a long while and have resorted to spraying with Lysol until you get over your laziness. Sort of like that. My doctor recommended no caffeine and no alcohol until I get my labs at my infusion on Tuesday, and I decided that it might be an interesting experience, after nineteen years of pretty much not listening, to see what would happen if I listened.

So this week I had no caffeine and no alcohol, and instead drank a 16-oz kombucha every day, resulting in the most fantastical sprayings of kombucha mushroom all over my kitchen each time one of these bottles was broached. In certain ways, they did make me feel better, these kombuchas (kombuchae?). I felt very, you know, alive. I also felt like there was a large, air-based baby in my stomach that desperately wished to escape. It was so unfamiliar that I almost longed for the David Bowie heads. But I could stay awake for a whole day, and that was the point.

Fast-forward to last night, around 9 pm in a taqueria with my friend A., when I am seized by the overwhelming desire for alcohol. I polished off a bottle of beer and about a fifth of a burrito with no problem and instantly felt better! Kombucha and water be damned; beer and burrito is the answer! This is the kind of natural medicine I can get behind.

Cheered, I ordered whiskey at the bar and felt even better! Wow, this was going so great! Everything felt fine! Not only was I not falling into a fatigued stupor, but the David Bowie busts that so often try to gain passage from my intestines were silent, merely singing an undertone version of "Space Oddity" and occasionally humming during instrumental breaks. I had a second whiskey. I felt even better! Lo, I felt even more improved after my third whiskey. By that point, I was pretty sure I didn't have Crohn's Disease anymore, although that seemed like an awkward thing to share in polite company.

When I got home, I took stock. It was about one o'clock in the morning. I addressed some other portions of the burrito I had been eating earlier in the evening. Did I still have Crohn's Disease? Difficult to say. Impressively, I was not really drunk, although I did feel like a thousand bucks (or, in freelancer's terms, I felt like three bucks, which is a thousand bucks in normal people's terms). What was the magical answer? Was it beans and tomatoes in a tortilla? Was it A.'s sparkling company? Was it beer followed by three whiskeys?

This morning, just to be super sure, I had coffee. Oh my God, I'm alive. It's alive!

What is the moral of this story? Is the moral that you should willfully discard all of your doctor's advice and stuff shards of glass down your esophagus while leaping over hot coals wearing only the thinnest of exercise socks? On the contrary. It's just that the things that help you feel better are changing all the time. Sometimes they come from surprising places, or the last places you'd think to look. Sometimes they seem ill-advised. Sometimes their effects are temporary. And sometimes trying everything is just a good excuse to realize that having a morass of angry busts of David Bowie heads floating around in one's midsection, although problematic, is a familiar feeling it's hard to let go of.

in which i remain under 30 and the people at a swell magazine think that's okay

2010-08-18T16:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks again to the really fine folks at Narrative Magazine, who have included me in their 30 Under 30 roundup. Boy, are they nice! If you missed it and feel a deep desire to read about some Lupus in Central Europe, you can click here to see the story they featured today.

Eau, that's right, I have Crohn's Disease

2010-08-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

In other news, it transpires that I may have Crohn's Disease.

It's my 19th Crohn'siversary --- commence cake, commence streamers --- and the Crohn's is celebrating by making life difficult for me, as is its supreme wont. David Bowie heads are being thrown left and right, some meeting their stony ends against the marble floors of my innards, others floating gently away into space, carried by zero-gravity and a dream. I don't know what it feels like to be "normally worn out," the way normal people are worn out after a good run or a day of work. I don't know what it feels like to be spread a little thin, as a normal person. I've seen it on TV. Normal people come home, "exhausted." They kick off their shoes and put their feet up. "Whew, I'm beat!" they say. I often fear that I'm making mountains out of molehills, that what I'm feeling is what normal people feel uncomplainingly all the time.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure normal people can stay awake more than ten hours a day; don't come to on their floors with a lump on the back of their heads wondering how they got there; don't, after swallowing a vitamin, dry-heave into the sink for forty-five minutes. At least, I haven't seen that on TV. Something's not right.

Tysabri, where are you? Tysabri! David Bowie to Tysabri. Come in, Tysabri. Do you read me?

I'm working up to quitting or postponing one of my jobs. I'm getting some tests done. When I feel some pain, I'm trying to imagine that I'm a normal person and it's a normal workday and maybe I just strained myself somehow, maybe that feeling (which is, I am well aware, my intestines eating themselves away from the inside out) is just a normal feeling we're all having, all us human beings, on this 16th day of August in the year of our lord, and I'm part of a large human experience here, and all this is normal and natural, and I feel fine.

It's called Wishful Visualization.
I just made it up.

eau no

2010-08-12T17:09:00.000-07:00

Idea for a new perfume: Eau No.

Possible places and scenarios in which to wear this new scent, as I have:

-Upon arrival at a blind date about two weeks ago, about to disembark from the public bus, waiting in the stairwell for the doors to open out onto the street, notice a man who also waits to disembark; it is clear he is the date.
"Hello," he says.
Say hello, introduce self.
"I know," he says.
Say, "Oh! Did you see me sitting there all along? You should have come over and said hello."
"To tell you the truth," the man says, "I was sort of hoping it wasn't you. ...But it is."
Spritz and spray.

-Wake up at 5:30 am to begin freelance work for social-media company. Go on to edit friend's fiction manuscript. Correspond with authors for fiction magazine. After 6 hours of work, go to absurdly difficult pilates class that doesn't seem to be difficult for anyone else, including senior citizens present. Heave. Ho. Come home. Shower. Work on children's book copyedit. Begin reading course cases for new teaching job. Work on "professional business" bio for new teaching job.Wake up on the floor with a giant bump on the back of the head. Congratulations, you passed out in the middle of the work day! Bio, midcompletion, trails out to a oisnianfidunfisudnfisi. Professional. Businesslike.
Spritz and spray.

-Going back over recently-sent work e-mails (because that's a totally normal thing to do), realize that an e-mail to a colleague slipped by signed Love. Douse self in rest of bottle of Eau No. Who cares if it's alcoholic.

Next on the perfume factory line? Eau Great, which can be layered over Eau No on a variety of disappointing occasions.

winner's circle

2010-08-11T14:32:00.000-07:00

Last week, just before I began my first day of work at the social-media company, I received an e-mail informing me that I had won. Usually these e-mails declare me to be the winner of a deluxe penis enlargement or a free home remortgage, so I was surprised to find that lo, I had really won something.

Confession: I am a person who earnestly enters contests. ("Why, perhaps this time I will win! And I can waste five minutes!" Call it the love child between optimist's stupidity and procrastinator's delight.) I had entered a contest to win a free French press and three big bags of infused coffee, and in the act of entering, I had been required to write an explanation of why I should win. Apparently my argument was compelling (did I learn something after two years as the professor of an arguments class?) and the coffee and its accoutrements were to be mine. I was so excited that I told Michelle and Shaina this information four times that night. ("And I won on merit!" I exclaimed more than once, as though explaining why one likes coffee is a terribly difficult task.)

This morning the coffee and French press arrived. It was a large French press, the sort that assumes that you live with others or have a lot of highly caffeine-dependent children to feed. I made the coffee. I drank the coffee. It tasted good. But was it coffee? Because it seemed to me a very strong blend indeed if so, not unlike a sort of fragrant cocaine. O, so alive. So alive.

But alive in a bad way, like when televisions first came into HD focus and you could see everyone's pores. Suddenly the amount of things I needed to do seemed unreal. Insurmountable. Write a whole book? Grade zillions of papers? Fix lots of errors for social-media company? Copyedit young-adult book? Go on date with man who insists on calling me "lady"? All this in one day, PLUS laundry? I just don't know, man.

I am waiting for the ultimate caffeine rush to wear off so that the world seems manageable again. Is this what winning feels like? Insert face of grave terror. The loser's circle is looking okay again.

babar goes to business school

2010-08-09T18:53:00.000-07:00

This morning, like so many other mornings before it, I prepared to board the BART, then the CalTrain, then a bus, and arrive at a university where I would be teaching. Except this time I wasn't going to That University Where I Taught; I was going to Fancy University, off to make my first impression while wearing a shirt on which I had spilled copious amounts of soy milk at the coffee shop and had therefore turned around backwards to hide the stain. You want class? You're looking right at it. Class all the way, gentlemen. Mind the tag.

The problem was that upon disembarking the bus, I immediately determined that Fancy University is fucking enormous, and no one seemed to be able to direct me to the business school. It seems that in the summertime, the campus is populated mainly by international students who are there on language exchanges, tour groups of prospective students, and cadres of middle-aged runners. After wandering around for about twenty minutes, I decided to shadow a group of French tourists who I overheard saying, "Business, business," (or so I thought), only to be led directly into the bowels of a mysterious basement-level men's restroom. Upon departure, I happened into the Arts building and couldn't get out. (Life: "Dear Kara, it is me, Life! I am creating a Metaphor for you! Behold my Metaphor!") I finally found my way out of the Arts building (continued Metaphor: it locks from the inside) and sat down on the steps, dejected. Would I never find my way to the business school?

Then -- lo! Across the commons I saw a bunch of douchily laughing young men in suits carrying leather portfolios and headed somewhere at pace. I leapt to my feet. Surely these douche-men would lead me to the business school! O, sharpened instincts of supersleuthery! As luck would have it, the douche-suits did indeed lead me directly into the lap of the building where I was to meet my new (very excellent-seeming) colleagues and boss. Don't ever let anyone tell you that reading Sherlock Holmes novels in a parka under a beach umbrella while your friends are tanning on the sand is a waste of time, friend.

Everyone at the business school is so nice! They offered the new instructors confetti-covered cupcakes and gave us shiny packets full of memos and rubrics. Everyone wore slacks and had their shirts on the right way around. Everyone had a firm handshake. I waited until I was riding back up the peninsula with two of my new colleagues, crushed into the backseat of one of their cars, to let out the following effusion:
"Tee hee!" I cried ecstatically. "I'm a fiction writer who is teaching at a business school!"

on explaining to yourself what you can't explain to Them

2010-08-06T10:31:00.000-07:00

This week, I began my new job at the social-media company, which included training in the office on Monday and Tuesday. There's something appealing --- almost glamorous! --- about going into an office when you haven't worked in one in a while ("Hello, fellow BART rider. Are you going to work? WELL CHECK THIS OUT SO AM I") but by the end of the day on Tuesday the allure had worn off. The work is straightforward. It is done from home. It is twenty hours a week. No biggie.

But with the teaching, and the freelance, and the journal editing, and the writing of the second book... will it be too much?

It's hard trying to explain to a person without Crohn's what "too much" feels like. I am a reasonably clever, can-do individual, intellectually capable of large amounts of work and myriad responsibilities. But "too much" isn't about that. Nor is "too much" limited to activities that people would already agree are sapping (lumberjacking, for example. Logrolling? Bodybuilding?). It can be just as draining to sit at a desk all day --- and not just in the soul-sucking sense. There is a physical on-ness that is required to perform work, something almost imperceptible to a healthy person, that can take a cumulative toll on a person with Crohn's and present like laziness rather than a real thing. It's hard to explain it without sounding like you're making an excuse for yourself. And it's hard to remember that if you don't explain it, if you don't run that I-may-look-lazy risk, you're making something worse for yourself than an excuse: you're making illness, adding actively to something whose genesis you couldn't control, but whose progress you can.

But here's the truth: Even if you can't explain it to Them, whoever "They" may be, you can explain it to yourself. I'm learning this the hard way: that you can do yourself a favor by self-explaining ("this is what too much feels like!") before you take on a new job (or three); before you find yourself on the other side of town with no way home at 2 am; before you agree to wake up before the sun rises to "get that project in"; before you walk five miles home from the hospital after an IV infusion because selfsame infusions are making you grandiose in stature (let the grandiosity stand!); before you carry a cake in your own arms to another "borough" to prevent a frosting mishap (even though you're not in New York and boroughs don't appear to widely exist elsewhere).

Remember, Crohns, you're not in control, but you are. It's probably true that you can't explain this to Them. But just for a moment: Who cares about what They think?

your undercover tysabri correspondent: #11

2010-07-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

I lived. There was no clown.

on total and complete paranoia, and the importance of the San Francisco Swivel (nee Swarthmore Swivel)

2010-07-24T16:35:00.000-07:00

Today I had lunch with Loring and Gil. In case you're wondering, we're all going out with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (see comments in previous post). But it wasn't awkward.

However, toward the end of our lunch, I spoke in what were apparently carrying tones about my upcoming post at Fancy University. After a few minutes, I became aware of a man in his 40s at the table beside us, listening rather obviously to our conversation, and then began to suspect that perhaps this man was listening closely because he was my boss who I had not yet met in person! and heavens to betsy this was so embarrassing! and what must he think of me! and oh the horrors! and had I exaggerated anything? and so on. Because this entire train of thought makes total sense.

Once outside, I shared my fear with Gil and Loring, who patiently abided by my little moment of panic. They, too, once ate in a dining hall that encompassed an entire college community, and where many embarrassing say no more he's sitting right behind yous occurred. (Me: "It probably wasn't him. Right? Right? RIGHT?") Their reassurances were for naught, however; I was completely convinced that the eavesdropper was my future employer and that I had ruined my job before I'd even begun it. Because that would be just like me! Hand-wringing. Heartbeat. Weeks of work down the drain! After all the work I'd put into getting the job!

After we parted, I stopped into a grocery store to get some ingredients for the Guinness chocolate cake with Bailey's frosting I'm making for Katie's birthday tomorrow, and may or may not have idled in the baking aisle frantically Googling my boss to see if his headshot resembled the man sitting next to us in the restaurant. It was a possible, but highly improbable, match, given that my boss appears to have a goatee and glasses, and this man had neither. But what if he shaved and wore his contacts? YOU'RE DONE FOR, a tiny voice in my head said. Look, I never claimed to be rational.

It turns out that a pleasant, if obvious, byproduct of making a Guinness chocolate cake is the extra Guinness left over. And it turns out, similarly, that about half a Guinness, coupled with a double-check Google (okay, I know I took this too far) is quite enough to put to rest any lingering fears that one yakked about one's not-even-yet-held job in front of one's smirking soon-to-be boss in a restaurant without knowing it. Or, most of them.

extra extra extra pepperoni (and some unfortunate tofu noodles)

2010-07-23T12:14:00.000-07:00

Act One: In Which I Dart Rabbitlike from Underemployed to Part-Time Employed to Overemployed

When it rains, get out your umbrella or forever hold your peace.

On the same day that I accepted the teaching job, the people from that big, fancy social-media company called and --- to my surprise, given our earlier interactions (Me: "What's a 'Tweet'?") offered me a job at their place too. And you know me: I can't say no to work. It's deep in the freelancer's blood. So what did I do? I took them both.

Not before a grave conversation with The Dad, however, who seemed satisfied that I was prepared to quit the social-media job if even the forehead of a Crohn's flare began to peek up from beneath the table. Don't worry. I'm not going to screw this up. After all, I know the odds: I only have one set of intestines, and there are an infinite number of David-Bowie busts floating around in the universe just waiting to get lodged deep within them.

Act Two: In Which I Try to Eat Something For My Health

I'd read about these noodles that were made of tofu, very high in protein, low in fiber, extremely low in calories. They seemed like the kind of thing that models would eat and deem, not knowing any better, delicious. ("Wow, and these turf pellets are really excellent as well!") Nonetheless, when I saw them at the grocery store this week, I picked up a packet. Surely for $1.99 I could figure out whether I was capable of adding beaucoup de protein to my diet while consuming something like 40 calories for lunch. (I'm sure you've all experienced the freaky weight gain that happens when you go back into remission after a flare. In my case, we're talking like 15 pounds. Tofu noodle, anyone?)

So here they are, the tofu noodles. You don't even have to cook them. You take them out of their baggie, drain the water from them, and heat them for a minute in the microwave ("to reduce authentic smell," the baggie says. Hmmmm). I mixed them with some tomatoes and Laughing Cow cheese (which is one of those diety foods that is genuinely delicious) and sat down to lunch.

Oh, God, the texture. The smell. The taste. The... chew. It was awful. Still, I plowed through like a champ. This, my gigantic bowl of 75-calorie lunch, had to be consumed. I had paid for it. And so, grimacing all the way, I downed the entire thing.

Fast-forward to one hour later, when the whole thing comes right up. I'm not kidding you: I still feel nauseous, and it is the next day. It is not a good scene here. Next time you're compelled to eat noodles, just eat the regular ones, and leave tofu for your stir-frys. But you already knew that.

Act Three: In Which "Inception" Momentarily Cures My Nausea, and Then It Comes Back Again

Even though my workday had been punctuated by frequent post-lunch bathroom trips to vomit, I was supposed to see Inception last night and my friend A. had already bought the tickets. Plus, it looked rad. And let me tell you: It was rad.

I had a few narrative qualms as usual ("Wait, all that was to prevent a business merger?") although they couldn't have been so off-base, as A. seemed to agree with me (or maybe he was just being tolerant). The cast was also excellent, and I have decided that Joseph Gordon-Levitt can be my boyfriend now, since a spot has opened up following the absurd douchery of Will Scheuster from Glee. You're welcome, JG-L. Don't say I never gave you anything.

Almost as soon as we were out of the theater, however, the nausea came back in full force. Don't acknowledge it, I told myself. Nausea is like a vampire in my experience; if you don't invite it in, it can't come. I figured I was probably hungry, so when A. suggested eating something (even though it was 10 o'clock) I said okay, good idea. We went to an enormous cavern of an empty noodle house, the only place in the whole neighborhood that was open. In one corner people were watching sports in a sort of sports? bar?, in the other people were singing karaoke in another? bar?, and we sat in the middle, quite unattended, while about three hundred different songs played at once from different zones of the establishment. Phil Collins, Ne-Yo. (Like a great mix tape in which all the songs play at once!) I ordered something that was essentially noodles and broth, and only managed to get through about a quarter of it, not only because I was nauseous but also because it reminded me somehow of those tofu noodles.

I made it home without barfing on A. or anyone else, although not without walking right by a drive-by shooting on my way home from the BART. You've never seen a nauseous person run so fast, ladies and gentlemen. Luckily I had that extra protein to fuel the sprint. Tofu noodles, you served your purpose.

extra pepperoni

2010-07-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

Last night Phillip and I were discussing a very important matter: his pizza fund. Phillip's proclivity to order copious amounts of delivery pizza while I am away and then unsubtly tuck the empty boxes under the bed has not waned this year. Sadly, however, since I spent the better part of this year sick and/or recovering, my income has been, shall we say, non-toppings worthy. Moreover, as Phillip divulged to me last night, he's sick of Akon radio, which plays on a continuous loop when I'm working on the novel. (I'm sorry, I just can't write without Akon. Them's the facts. Akon, you'll have a special place on my acknowledgments page. Also --- and this is an aside --- it's just brilliant how Akon and his compatriots announce themselves at the beginning of their songs. "Akon! Konvict!" and then they begin singing. I'm going to start doing that at the beginning of each of my stories. "Kara!" and then begin.) The only way Phillip could see to fix these problems was if I went back to work: mo' money, less Akon. I couldn't have agreed more.

But as you know, my health situation is tenuous. I'm in remission, but my inflammation levels are sloooowwwly rising again. I'm committed to continuing on Tysabri past the one-year mark, since it's working for the time being, and there are no other treatments I haven't already failed. The risks of the medication continue to rise the longer I'm on it. And if I fail it, my only option left is surgery. Like, big-time surgery. Like, intestines and a colon free to a good home. They're very docile and love kids.

This is not the time to fuck around.

A few months ago, I applied for a very competitive teaching job that seemed perfect for me. I wouldn't do any lecturing, so I wouldn't have physically demanding days. In fact, I'd only have to be on campus once a week for office hours. My only job would be to help students with their writing. And it was at a private university that would finally pay me what I'm worth. Phillip endured weeks and weeks of application materials and interviews, sobbing PEPPERONI PLEASE and OSOS PARA PIZZA at intervals, and this morning --- miracle of fucking miracles --- they hired me. That's right: I'm going back to teaching.

It's not a conventional teaching job, not the kind of thing I want to do for the rest of my life. But it puts me back in the classroom doing what, in my humble opinion, I do best. (It's become apparent that a host of other things --- like laundry, car-washing, life-coaching, and swimming --- are not what I do best, so I've arrived at this by process of elimination.) And this year, away from teaching, was really sad for me. I gripe about the work, the idiocies of the students, the grading, the commuting, but the truth is that I don't feel happy when I'm not doing it. This job will allow me to be on campus only once a week, and do most of my work from home, so if I'm getting sick (or having a colonoscopy during business hours --- can't wait for October!) no one has to know about it.

It's good news in a year where I've been coming to terms with the fact that I may not be able to do all the things I always thought I would do, that my limitations might be more confining than I'd thought. That's probably still true. But sometimes, when you look hard enough for them, there are middle grounds. And in the best of circumstances, those middle grounds will net a pizza party for your favorite beardog. He's ordering a large one, with extra pepperoni.

Support the CCFC and "Rubber Side Down"

2010-07-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

More soon, but in the meantime, if any of you Bay Areans are interested in supporting the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada and watching what looks to be a Wow-You-Are-Some-Badass-Crohns-I'm-Tired-Just-Watching-This film in the process, head on over to the Clif Bar Theater in Berkeley this Friday, July 23.

Click here to watch the trailer for "Rubber Side Down," which its producers describe thusly:

It is an epic Canadian adventure best summed up in three words: Coast. To. Coast. Spanning over three months in the summer of 2008, two amateur cyclists would attempt to pedal 8000 km from Victoria, BC to St.John's, Newfoundland, in an effort to shed light on Crohn’s Disease and ulcerative colitis—tragic bowel diseases that are in dire need of a voice. What they discovered will astound you.

Experience a film that depicts the vastness of our land, the spirit of our people, the hilarious mishaps of two young lads, and a struggle that unites us.

And click here for information about viewing times and places.

in which we eat the whole boule

2010-07-10T16:19:00.000-07:00

This morning, Laura, Laura, and I met at a bakery we like. This is slowly becoming a sort of tradition: We convene at the bakery, which has a lovely back patio, and we drink coffee and eat chocolate bread, which is exactly what it sounds like --- bread with chocolate chips in it. The bread is baked in boules that are, I'm going to estimate, the size of two small female fists. (That came out sounding dirtier than intended, for some reason.) Anyway, the bread is a miracle of modern times. Once, about a month ago, having a terrible day, I decamped to the bakery and ate such a boule in the company of no one. Instantly, I felt better. Thanks, seratonin!

Our hearty consumption of today's boules, however, did not escape the notice of the bakery worker, who expressed amazement that both Lauras and I each had our own bread. Then, when she came to take our plates away, she expressed further amazement that we had eaten the whole things. ("Well, what were we supposed to do with them?" Laura asked me sensibly, after the bakery worker had retreated.) We decided that her behavior, in addition to being bad for business, was the behavior of a ceviche-sandwich woman. Beware, friends; rejoice, foes: The ceviche-sandwich women? They're out there.

On the way home, I experienced a moment of "fame." As I was waiting to cross the street, a woman and her boyfriend stopped me. The woman grasped my arm. Oh no, I thought. Another lady-mugging? You have got to be kidding me.
"Excuse me," the woman said, "are you Kara with Crohn's?"
People don't normally address me this way (like Richard the Lionhearted, I am now Kara with Crohn's), but I said yes, I was. (Where is my shield? My coat of arms? Would it have intestines on it? Rad.)
"I'm [name redacted just in case my sidewalk friend prefers it]! I have Crohn's, too. I recognized you from Sempre."
"You... you... did?" I asked, slightly frightened.
The woman asked me if I would like to have coffee sometime, and I said okay. (Gentlemen, take note: Apparently having Crohn's is a great way to meet the ladies!) In conclusion, as we were parting, she told me she thinks I'm more of a grilled-cheese than a hoagie.
"Thanks," I said, though I wasn't sure if thanks was the right response there.

I am so excited. Tonight marks the beginning of a great week, a week in which some of my favorite writers and I will decamp to a faraway mystery house, write (independently) all day, and cook and hang out all night. I am currently stuffing my suitcase with books, wine, sunscreen, external hard drives, and face wash. I understand that's all one needs to write a novel.

from the dating and employment annals: in which i go corporate and get my hands stroked in a dubious manner

2010-07-09T17:57:00.000-07:00

I don't know: Are things looking up? Last night a hot man told me I could be a hand model, and today I had an interview at a fancy corporate social-media company. I know what you're thinking: This could be a downward trend rather than an upward trend. Believe me, I know.

I'm trying to get back into heartier forms of employment, and to that end, I've applied for some jobs. It's not without some hesitation, especially given the precarious nature of my health situation and the seriousness of my treatment options at this point (continue on Tysabri, in which case possibly get PML and go right ahead and die; or else, excise all of my insides through a surgical procedure). That's the main reason why most of the positions I'm looking are work-from-home (not to mention the fact that wearing a suit is stressful, ladies and gentlemen).

Case in point: I showed up today to my interview, was given a visitor's pass, and was keyed up to the top floor of the building, where the lobby of the company looked not unlike an uber-hip German hotel lounge. I passed designated "bike garages" for employee bikes. Would I like a beverage while I waited? (I considered taking a beverage to put into my purse for later, but then realized that that would betray my freelancer's "hoard now or forever wonder how much you could have hoarded" mentality.) No, I would not like a beverage. I waited, looking out the plate-glass window over the entire city and beyond, until someone came for me, leading me through mazes of desks where hip-looking people worked at their shiny computers, drinking free beverages and eating free pizza. Were they happy? No one could say, but they certainly looked well set up, if nothing else. I contemplated my silly suit, into which I was stuffed like a swollen pimento. (It turns out that being in remission makes you super fat.) I was positive that the interviewers would be able to see --- nearly bursting through the tenuous seams of said suit --- that I was a total sham, no business in this corporate place: a fiction writer!

"I am a fiction writer!" I declared very early into this interview, apparently unable to hold back the obvious any longer. Once the air was clear, I felt a little better. But I still don't know if they'll hire me.

Back on the hoagie/hand model front, I have to say that this new development indicates a bank error in my favor. (Even if it does further confuse the metaphor: "And here on the right, we have an Italian hoagie modeling our newest collection of opal rings!") I was informed that my hands looked "perfect, long, and clean." You bet your socks they are! With extra mustard! And thanks.

from the dating annals: in which i am called a hoagie

2010-07-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

This just in.
Actual excerpt from an unsolicited email from M., a man with whom I went on one unremarkable date weeks ago and then never contacted again:

Dear Kara,

...So I hope you will take this in the spirit it is intended, which is just to be helpful because I really do like you and think you are a cool girl. Here is the only way I can think to explain it. Imagine that love is like sandwiches. [Ed.: I follow.] I am like a huge, delicious hoagie with all the fixin's. [Ed.: Uh, if you do say so yourself? Also, please never say "fixin's" again. ] The thing is, Kara, you are ALSO like a huge, delicious hoagie with all the fixin's. Obviously, hoagies are huge and delicious. [Ed.: Your descriptive writing style thrills me to the core.] It's just that in a girlfriend I think a lot of guys are not looking for a hoagie. They are looking for a light, nutritious sandwich, maybe a ceviche sandwich. [Ed.: Wait, what? A ceviche sandwich? That sounds appallingly gross.]

My response entire:

Dear M.,

Thank you for that illuminating discourse on love and sandwiches, one of which is a favorite topic of mine. I'm afraid, however, that a ceviche sandwich sounds --- rather than light and nutritious --- absolutely disgusting, and likely to give giardia and maybe also gonorrhea to any person who should eat it. With that being said, I think I'll stick to being a hoagie. With extra pickles.

Yours,

Kara

orbiting

2010-07-02T16:30:00.000-07:00

New fiction by Kim Addonizio up at Joyland SF this weekend. Check it on out.

make it matter

2010-06-29T21:45:00.000-07:00

An interesting piece over at The New York Times this week raises the question of whether nonfiction illness narratives should be held to the same standards of quality as stories that address other themes. Or, the writer asks, should we set our usual standards aside and simply take these stories on their own terms, regardless of their literary merit?

For my part, I think the writer's piece answers its own question. She says, "After years spent in the company of the sick, I know one thing for sure: there is no story out there that is not a great story. Every single one contains enough pathos, courage, comedy and surprise to power it right to the top of the charts." If that's true, then there's no reason that illness narratives shouldn't meet or exceed all of our expectations of literary quality. There are plenty of stories out there that deserve to be told, but it's not worth our time to read them unless they're told well. That bears on language and style, too.

If people dealing with illness want our stories to be taken seriously, we have to tell those stories intelligently, coherently, and entertainingly. We have to make our stories matter not because people feel guilted into hearing them, but because they want to hear them. Should narrative medicine be held to the highest standards? If we respect it, then absolutely.

IVs: a great way to let the fun and romance "come to you"

2010-06-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be in the hospital today. Here, courtesy of the Washington Post, is my horoscope. Thanks, Washington Post. Thanks.

Libra September 23 - October 22

For Tuesday, June 29 - On a day like today, you can pretty much just sit back and let fun and romance come to you. You should enjoy yourself even more if you make an effort to get out there and see and be seen. The more people you mix with, the more likely one of them can give you what you need. You get along so well with everyone around you that each new person you meet feels like a new BFF.

in which i scream so loud that i burst the eardrum of my dog

2010-06-23T09:44:00.000-07:00

I know, I've been gone a long time. I'll make up for my long absence shortly, but in the meantime, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

P.S. Fun Crohn's/soccer fact: If you weren't already a fan of all things U.S.-soccer, you might be interested to know that D.C. United midfielder Devon McTavish has Crohn's Disease and has done a lot of work to raise awareness.

of rejection, application, and the reasons why someone ought to hire me for something good

2010-06-03T16:27:00.000-07:00

Hi, FML, and welcome to another delightful afternoon of rejection letters and application letters. It's a whirlwind of "I'm writing to express my strong interest" and "we regret to inform you that" over here at Fort Phil Collins, and frankly, I'd like a gin and tonic.

There was a brief reprieve around 1:30 when the power went out.
"Yessss!" I cried, which may or may not tell you something important about my enthusiasm for my work. I celebrated by falling asleep facedown on the bed and then checking the mailbox, where there were a third and fourth rejection letter to add to the two I'd gotten over e-mail this morning. I returned to the facedown position.

Once the power came back on, there was no excuse but to keep working on my teaching applications, typing up agent letters that make me sound like a douchebag, and investigating ever more magazines that might consent, even by force or begrudgingly, to print another one of my stories.

Oh, right, and also the money-paying jobs, which are getting increasingly weird. Today's project involved copyediting a leaflet of obituaries (that's right, you heard me: leaflet of obituaries), to be printed up rather like the kind of thing you'd foist upon a pedestrian at a stop light. Aren't leaflets posted to electric poles when cats go missing? Anyway, one of these obituaries, which had been carrying on in the typical removed, omniscient-third person tone, concluded out of nowhere with a sudden, "You dead. You dead. You dead." Like, "He is survived by his wife and two sons. You dead. You dead. You dead."

I called the person who hired me to do this job and asked what she wanted me to do.

"Is it spelled correctly?" she asked.
"Well, yes, it's spelled correctly," I said, "but that's not really the issue."
"Hmm," she said.
"Maybe you ought to call the family who submitted the obituary," I suggested.
"We don't really do that," she told me.
"Maybe you should do it just this one time," I said. "Otherwise..."
"Sorry, but you're the freelancer, right?" she asked me.
I confirmed that I was.
"Okay, so I'll be the one to take care of this."
Okay, I said. (This is why no one liked to be my lab partner in high school.)

An hour later she called me again.
"The family would like the 'you' to be changed to 'u,'" she told me.
"Come again?" I said. "Like, U dead?"
"Apparently," she said.
"Aren't you glad you called?" I asked cheerily.
She harrumphed and hung up.

To Whom It May Concern: I am a really great teacher with lots of experience and a terminal degree. Please, save me from this existence of copyediting obituary leaflets, washing cars, and, I am not even kidding, acting as a life coach for aging hippies. I promise your students will learn how to spell "you" correctly.

All the best,
Kara

geyser and dolls

2010-06-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

The past two Tysabri infusions I've had were really deluxe: I got my IV on top of my arm. For years I've admired those ropy-veined individuals who come into the blood lab, the doctor's office, the hospital, the infusion center, and barely batting an eye, get IVs stuck in all over the place, no problem. Usually they are men, muscle-bound men, and they get those arm-top IVs that look so luxurious, allowing them to move around naturally as though they are on a beach somewhere, sunbathing, enjoying mai tais. As they look on with vague disinterest while nurses pop veins by the dozens on the inside of my arms, sometimes, when they are feeling generous, they give a little smile of encouragement, a smile that is meant to say, Greetings, my veins are enormous and plentiful, so I have no idea what you are experiencing right now. Mai tai, anyone?

But look what I got yesterday!

I know. I'm so fashion-forward. Mai tais everywhere.

Everything seemed fine until later that night, when I was home and took the gauze off. I'll spare you that photograph, but imagine one of those effervescent, healing geysers that are seen in consumption colonies in films. It was like that, except the geysers were not healing spring water, but blood. Blood everywhere. Blood on the sheets, the towels, the shirt, the carpet. I almost called a vampire in to clean up. Do the muscley, rope-veined people experience this too? I had the presence of mind to wrap it up tightly and put it over my head, and the bleeding appeared to stop.

Is this a lesson about grass and its greenness? Do those deluxe IVs only seem deluxe on the surface? I wonder if this means that Gael Garcia Bernal is not as sexy in person as he seems in the movies.

at least i'm not a dog on the outside

2010-05-28T14:58:00.000-07:00

Just so you know all this stuff doesn't simply roll off of me, I'll share with you an unflattering moment over here at Fort Phil Collins: Last night I canceled all my plans, shut all the blinds, ate carrots for dinner, cried on the floor, and then went to sleep at 6 p.m. because it seemed too depressing to stay awake anymore.

In the light of day, however, it turns out that there's nothing that Pandora's Akon radio can't cure. Furthermore, carrots are not a sufficient dinner and so I had to eat two bananas this morning instead of my usual one. Good thing the mugger let me keep my bananas. And carrots.

Today I braved the Safeway again, but not before an important conversation with a dog.

On my way to an appointment, I passed a beagle who had been tied to a parking meter and was howling mercilessly like this was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. His howl was positively lupine. I stopped.
"Hello, dog," I said. (Tip: Dogs love to hear the word "dog." It makes them feel affirmed.)
The dog howled.
"Don't howl," I said.
The dog stopped. I petted its head. It lay down and looked at me mournfully.
"I'm sorry I don't have any Akon for you right now," I told the dog. A passerby looked at me strangely.
I had to go; my appointment was imminent.
"I have to go, dog," I said, "but don't howl."
About ten seconds after I walked away, I heard the howling recommence. I called back over my shoulder.
"Don't howl, dog!"
I waited. It stopped.
A woman waiting with me at the stoplight was impressed.
"Wow!" she said. "Are you a dog whisperer or something?"
I shook my head. "No," I said, "I'm just a dog on the inside."

in which i am mugged in line at the safeway

2010-05-26T14:25:00.000-07:00

While checking out at my local Safeway this afternoon, the following exchange occurs between a somewhat drunk-seeming woman, who is behind me in line, and myself.

Her: [surveying my groceries] You eat pretty healthy, huh?

Me: Sometimes.

Her: You got bananas, you got peppers, you got spinach, you got cottage cheese...

Me: True.

Her: [producing switchblade seemingly out of nowhere] Give me your fuckin' groceries.

Me: [not seeing switchblade at first] What? No. [seeing switchblade] Oh.

Cashier does nothing.

Her: [lifting baggie of shredded mozzarella] What the fuck even is this?

Me: Cheese.

Her: What do you make with this shit?

Me: I don't know, you could make pizza, I guess.

Her: How?

Me: [Am I seriously exchanging recipes with a mugger?] Um, you could just put some on top of some bread, like with some tomato sauce, and melt it.

Her: I bet that would be good. In a microwave or something you melt it?

Me: Yep.

Cashier is still ringing up my groceries, ostensibly for mugger.

Her: Just on bread? That's some fucked up pizza.

Me: Feel free to adapt.

Her: [picking through other groceries, perhaps for other food-preparation advice] You can keep the lettuce. I don't want that.

Me: Great. Superb.

Security guard arrives, pushes past me, apprehends woman with knife. On her way past me, she cuts the hood of my sweatshirt. Cashier, nonplussed, asks me if I need help out with my groceries.

in which I appear on the Huffington Post!

2010-05-21T10:28:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning and Mike e-mailed me to say he'd seen me on the Huffington Post.

What? I thought. Is this a joke?

It wasn't.

Yes, this is me reading a story about Crohn's Disease three days before I went into the hospital for that very thing. But nobody knew it! My great triumph here is the tags: The first two are "books" and "chronic illness." I guess dinosaurs and Crohn's Disease are coming into vogue!

You can read the article and see the video here.

bronte sisters, power up!

2010-05-20T17:47:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, I really wish my sister and I could combine to create a dinosaur like this.

the excursion

2010-05-18T22:33:00.000-07:00

For all you Crohns out there who desire a modicum of fabulism in your day, or maybe who want to feel a little bit French --- because what person whose intestines are eating themselves away doesn't want to feel a bit French, I ask you? --- I encourage you to check out this swell story over at Joyland.

in which i am propositioned by cocktail napkin thanks to heart circa 1986

2010-05-15T12:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, after a requisite trip to The Cloisters, hallowed and much-beloved site of my former employment; some food and drink and the collection of a third member of our party; Abby and I found ourselves at a karaoke bar. Let me back up and say that Abby does not publicly sing; this was the brainchild of the third member of our party, a real and bona fide musician who has no qualms about doing a bit of Journey before strangers. I, who love nothing better than an excuse for some bad music (and had had five glasses of wine), decided this was an absolutely marvelous idea.

Between us, and with Abby adding a hoot or two from time to time, we sang a great many songs of dubious musical quality. I decided that I wanted to sing a song that might tempt my television boyfriend, Will Scheuster from Glee, to spontaneously enter the bar and burst into song with me. Therefore, I chose Heart's "Alone," the primary choral question of which is, "How do I get you alone?"

Will Scheuster obstinately failed to appear. However, at the end of the song, a man handed me a cocktail napkin on which he had inscribed a personal message:

How, the napkin wanted to know, do I get you alone?

What can I say, I'm a killer. What I am not, however, is a Usual Woman, and being that I am not well versed in what Usual Women are supposed to do when presented with a Heart-lyrics napkin, I merely engaged in a loud, uproarious cackle with Abby over the napkin, and stuck it into my bag for safe keeping. The man, discouraged, bored, or off to circulate cocktail napkins elsewhere, departed the bar at some point. Perhaps I should have written back, "Will Scheuster, is that you?"

Heart - Alone
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

zen monster reading in nyc 5/15

2010-05-14T08:23:00.000-07:00

Esteemed New Yorkers, or persons who happen to find themselves in New York:

Come out for the Zen Monster Issue #2 reading this Saturday, May 15, 6 pm at the Bowery Poetry Club!

Many, many persons will be reading, myself briefly among them. Please protect me should there be any actual monsters in attendance.

in which my middle initials become "rb" for "real boy"

2010-05-09T19:30:00.000-07:00

Dear Geppetto,

I'm a real boy now. I sold my story about cakes and necks! Awesome. I just knew neck tattoos of pastry case items were coming back into vogue.

Unfortunately, however, I'm still made of wood.

Sincerely,

Karannochio

census

2010-05-06T17:48:00.000-07:00

I have been avoiding the census people. I meant to fill out the census, but then didn't, and then, in the bed bug mania, I lost the form. Every day for the past couple of days the census guy, a pierced young person in tight jeans, has been forcefully ringing my bell. When I see that it's him, I drop below window level and crawl away to a safe space. I don't like being admonished.

Except last night when he was ringing, so were Michelle, Nate, and Josh, who were downstairs waiting for me. There was no escape. As I came out of the building, there they all were: Michelle, Nate, Josh, a Batman pinata they had purchased, and the census man.

Nate began to offer the census man information about me. I hid near the pinata.
"These are my friends," I explained, pointing to the Batman, "so I have to go." We agreed he would come back today at 10 am for my official census taking.

Lo and behold, I saw him approaching with his clipboard and piercings around 10 am this morning. I went on down. I provided my name, date of birth, and so on. Then he got to the gender part. This is San Francisco, so he was polite and asked me.

"Are you a man, or a woman?"

"I'm a woman," I said.

"Are you sure?" He looked at me with fake suspicion.

"Excuse me?" I said.

"Are you sure you're a woman? Ha ha. 'Cause I don't know, you seem pretty tough!"

"You better be careful with those jokes in San Francisco," I warned him.

"True," he admitted, but he did not seem very concerned.

Later, he asked for my middle initial. "B as in Boy," I said.

"Is your middle name Boy?" he asked. I said no. He told me maybe it should be.

"What the fuck, man," I said. "Is this part of the census or what?"

"See?" he said. "Tough. I knew it."

from the annals of undercover research: items about 28-year-old women

2010-05-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

I had a lovely weekend in Southern California with four exceptional persons, all female. Over the course of this weekend, during which I spent every moment with these persons, I learned a lot of things about normal girls my own age:

1. They don't sleep, ever. They would rather have fun than sleep. They don't even nap! Imagine! Total disagree.

2. They can put away some serious alcohol. I was stunned. Impressed. Stunned. Impressed? Stunned.

3. They can charm the pants off of waiters, bartenders, people on the street, and elderly individuals. Such radiant smiles! Such birdsong of banter! Curmudgeonly and silent, I sat by and watched the charm flow. Then I ate some nachos.

4. They look great in dresses and fancy shoes. I wore pants and sneakers. On the inside, I wore some Crohn's. That looked great as well.

5. They love to swim and some of them even have goggles. They are really good swimmers.

6. They love to sun. Reading, refusing to wear a bathing suit while the others swam and went in the hot tub, I still burned and now have two red legwarmers from the knees down. I am told they will go away, as real legwarmers did.

of crohn's and men

2010-04-28T17:38:00.000-07:00

I had an outing last night, a nice outing. I told myself I wouldn't tell the gentleman I had Crohn's, but then when he asked what my novel was about and Crohn's came up, an explanation was requested. I usually won't regale people with the plot of my novel because:

a) it's douchey and stupid to do so;
b) I'm a total dunce at talking about my own work ("Okay, so there are a bunch of layabouts and they work at a rodeo... well, two of them do... well, they're just traveling... anyway, one's a lesbian but she gets involved with this guy Constantine... but his real name is Sanchez... anyway, she ends up donating part of her liver to a local alcoholic!");
c) it always ends in talking about Crohn's Disease and then people look sad and feel sorry for me and say, "Well, it's nice you can get out your feelings by writing about it" and then I just want to punch them in their sweet little healthy faces and say, "Yes, and I'm glad you can get out your discomfort with illness by being totally condescending and belittling what I do."

But I was a little tipsy and he looked like Will Scheuster from Glee, and I can trust Will Scheuster because he dances to Sisqo and wears cravats, so I told him. When I said "Crohn's Disease" (referring to the protagonist, not me) he did what healthy people do and looked serious and sad, nodding a few times. So I asked him,
"You know Crohn's Disease?"

Him: Yes, I think so. Isn't it that disease where people are chronically tired?
Me: Well, it's an autoimmune disease of the intestine. It's chronic, though.
Him: Wow, that was an interesting disease to choose to write about.
Me: ... Um, yeah.
Him: How did you choose it?
Me: Um... what? [making static throat noise usually used in telephone conversations to indicate "going into a tunnel"] I can't hear you. [reprise static throat sound]
Him: Did you have to do a lot of research?
Me: ...In a manner of speaking.
Him: [weird face, to acknowledge I'm acting weird, including having made a telephone static noise in person]
Me: I mean, I already know a lot about it because I've had it for twenty years.
Him: [nods seriously, moves imperceptibly away]
Me: It's noncommunicable [gratuitous arm touching].

When I got home the Crohn's Poet was online. We talked a little bit about a trip he's taking today. He'd tried to get out of it, but ultimately couldn't find a way. So off he goes.
"Sometimes I just feel tired, you know?" he said. "I don't even know whether it's just me or the Crohn's."
I told him I knew just what he meant.
"When I get back from my trip," he said, "we should go on a long hike and talk about Crohn's and then look at nature and then talk about other stuff."
"Okay," I said. "Unless I'm too tired."
He blasted the screen with a barrage of "ha"s that would have put even the most uncomfortable healthy person to shame.

three dubious compliments

2010-04-27T09:17:00.000-07:00

On Saturday night, having hit about the lowest low I was going to hit during Battle Bed Bug, I stood in the center of my whirlwinded room and released a great string of curse words. I couldn't find any of my clothes, or the portion of them that hadn't been ruined by the high-heat treatment; it was not an option to lie down on the bed to nap, despite my extreme sleep deprivation; I had had dry cereal for lunch; and to add insult to injury, had just received a story rejection on a slip of paper that had "YOU ARE VERY MACABRE!" scrawled into the corner.

There was nothing to do but put on a very tight, very short dress and go to Michelle and Nate's dinner party, and get hollered at on the street on the way: "You look like you in porn!"

That's right, in case you're wondering, the tally so far is:
1. YOU ARE VERY MACABRE!
2. You look like you in porn!

By the time I met Janey for work & grits the following day, I felt a lot better. I had adopted the attitude (assisted by about five glasses of wine) that simply ignoring the bed bugs was best. Let them bite me. I had to sleep. I've said it once and I'll say it again: Sleep is the most important part of your health puzzle, period. Forget your Tysabris, your healthful eating, your physical therapy. Give me the sleep, mothers.

As I sat with Janey in the cafe trying to make my query letter shorter (yes, I'm trying to make my book longer and my query letter shorter; what of it) another rejection came in over my e-mail. The money line?

3. Shocking, hurtful piece. We enjoyed. Consider cutting by half?

he's gonna wake up in a smoothie

2010-04-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

Rejoice, foes.

It took me about eight hours to do all my laundry, at the end of which, still out of breath, I discovered there was a whole pile of laundry I hadn't addressed. In the process, I shrank almost all my nice clothes beyond recognition and, I am sorry to report, stapled my foot. It additionally transpires that pest control people won't treat your apartment unless you can convince your whole building to have their units inspected... unlikely at best, since one of my neighbors is an upscale restaurant. I spoke on the phone for hours to exterminators, administrative assistants, Target workers, Bed Bath and Beyond workers ("Yeah, hi, I was wondering if you carry triple-X large Ziploc bags? To put all my worldly possessions in, yeah"). In conclusion, I began running a fever, extracted the staple, ate six Biscoff cookies (yes, those are the ones you eat on planes and always think to yourself, hunh, these are strangely delicious), and wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed in a drugged stupor. Except, of course, that there are bed bugs in my bed, and they are making me sick.

Is this when the kids would say their favored phrase, the one that was a mystery to me for so long until my students literally had to spell out what it meant: FML?

I live under a rain cloud

2010-04-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

Aaaand scene. I have bed bugs.

Why do I have bed bugs? I'm pretty sure that the answer is because I'm me, and things like this just seem to follow me around. To sweeten the pot, it seems my immune system has been confused by the bites of said bed bugs, and has begun a round of low-grade fevers and migraines --- the beginnings, as many of you will know, of coming out of remission.

To which I say: No. No, I did not just spend the last year of my life having other people manually move my legs, blowing up my veins, sticking me through tubes, sticking tubes through me, barfing up bile, falling down stairs, and bleeding out in the shower only to be felled by a bunch of bugs that are invisible to the human eye. There is no way that I am going to fail my treatment, the last treatment available to me, because of a bunch of bugs. Sorry. No deal.

And so now (as Juan explained to me over the phone while I hysterically emoted about how I would have to throw away everything I'd ever owned) I will rent a car, convey all of the clothing, bedding, linens in my entire apartment to a laundromat. Wash everything on high heat. Throw out my comforter and pillows. Buy new comforter, pillows, vacuum. Vacuum entire apartment. Call exterminator.

But first I am totally sitting on top of my kitchen table (a "safe space") and crying hysterically while I listen to the Immaculate Collection. Holler if you need me.

in which I'm apparently punished ONCE AGAIN for all of my former wrongdoings

2010-04-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

Because I essentially just live under a permanent rain cloud, I think I may now have bed bugs. I'm not even kidding you. No, I haven't seen the spots on my sheets, and I haven't seen their fecal matter or shed skins, or even their distinctive little selves. But I have bites all over my back and from whence they came is a mystery.

A normal person would simply change their bedding and wait to see what happens next. Instead, I changed my bedding and then spent the night curled up on the kitchen table in tears, absolutely terrified that my entire apartment has been infested with a pestilence that will cause me to throw away everything I own, move house, douse myself in a toxic pesticide that will eventually kill me, and probably never now meet Gael Garcia Bernal.

It's true: I have an inhuman fear of bed bugs. They truly seem like life ruiners. And honestly, I have been very well behaved recently. I am meek and respectful. I speak kindly of all persons, except douchebags. I am always on time. I don't tell lies. I can't think of any reason that I would be smitten by bed bugs at this time, except that maybe the Smiting Powers were out of frogs, or first-born slayings. Unclear.

After consulting a number of people (Michelle, Nate, Shaina, and Josh surveyed the bites last night at burrito night, declared them bed bug bites, and upon my hyperventilating reaction, took it back immediately; Abby, via Harry, sent me pictures of bed bug and flea bites on the internet; helpfully, J. noted that it serves me right for all the wrongs I've done others in the past) I have made an appointment with my GP. Yes, I'm so freaked out that I'm going to the doctor.

I only see my GP like once a century, since I go to my gastroenterologist for pretty much everything. I'm pretty sure, though, that my gastroenterologist would at minimum be offended if I came to her with a fear of bed bugs, and at maximum write it up to paranoia and test me with an MRI for PML. I don't even know if my GP remembers who I am. I guess we're about to find out.

having so much talk bottled up inside him

2010-04-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

My friend M., a poet with Crohn's, passed on this poem by C.P. Cavafy to me tonight, a suggestion of what the experience is sometimes like. I thought you might enjoy it too.

people hangover

2010-04-19T13:03:00.000-07:00

No offense to People, but I really can't be around them more than three or four hours, maximum, per day. I am experiencing a terrible People hangover now, the earned aftermath of a weekend of People every single day and every single night coupled with hours and hours walking the city end to end, foods I'm not supposed to eat, and less than nine hours of sleep each night. Prompted by nothing (except maybe a deep desire never to see People again), I got up at 4 a.m. from the bed in which I had not been sleeping, and vomited. At 8 a.m., convinced I might never be able to sleep again, I posted a reminder on the refrigerator so I wouldn't miss it next time: REMEMBER, YOU HATE PEOPLE.

God, how very true that is.

This morning I was going to go to physical therapy, but I hadn't slept last night at all, and there would surely be People there. Responding to e-mails meant sending them to People's in-boxes. Even going downstairs to get my mail could mean interacting with a Person. This People-hangover is intense.

Like a bear in a cave, I gain and store energy by accumulated time alone, ideally with no interaction with other people. The longer the time alone, the greater the accumulated energy. The more time spent with others, the greater the expenditure. And the expenditure for me is costly, because it always comes in the form of sleeplessness and sick stomach and overexertion and general unhappiness. My writing becomes stupid and I retain water.

Is there a word for the state beyond being an introvert? Maybe core-of-the-earth-trovert? I think I may be that.

items from recent dates

2010-04-15T17:37:00.000-07:00

Number of times I've been asked if my book is yet sold at Barnes and Noble: 2
-Because Barnes and Noble is the only purveyor of books known to man

Number of times that a negative answer has yielded the response, "Oh, so you're not a writer": 1
-I delight, sir, in the amount of shit you are going to eat in a few years

Number of persons with IBS: 3
-"So I don't eat dairy!"
-"But it's not the gross kind"
-"I caught it from a keg"

Number of persons with actual Crohn's Disease: 1
-True.

Number of times resorted to Boggle to avoid conversation: 1
-It seemed like a good idea at the time

Number of sore losers at Boggle: 1
-He nearly overturned a table with rage that "lea" and "mot" are words; I excused myself to the bathroom, where I played JewelBuster on my phone for 20 minutes until it felt safe to come out

Number of persons who have claimed that their phones are unreachable because they are being "unlocked by a man on eBay": 1
-This could be true

Number of persons who asked me outright if I was a "ho": 1
-I was wearing a very high-necked sweater

Number of persons who offered me marijuana: 2
-One of them had Crohn's

Number of club sodas consumed whilst pretending to be drinking vodka: 4
-"Wow, this is really going to my head"

Number of followup texts received inviting me to "hizzang": 2

Number of persons who have asked if they could touch my hair, if only for a moment: 2

Number of times I hizzung, allowed my hair to be touched, accepted marijuana, admitted ho-dom: 0

Uh, wow. Stay classy, San Francisco.

fixer-upper

2010-04-13T16:17:00.000-07:00

There's nothing that makes one feel so distinctly virtuous as returning from a two-hour trip to the gym, dripping sweat, and eating eight cold brussels sprouts with a glass of water for snack. I'd venture that most of my insurance company's clients without preexisting conditions aren't doing that today. Guess what? I did that yesterday too. Hi, my name is Kara, and I have a superiority complex.

That's not really true, of course, although I do have a lucky complex: Through some miracle passed down from on high, my insurance has been reinstated. I can't explain how I got so lucky, because I promise you no skill was involved in this.

We all have our own ways of self-care. Mine is measuring everything that goes into my mouth and spending hours on my physical therapy, and never, ever getting less than eight hours of sleep a night. I recently met another Crohn, let's call him M. (and this, the story of meeting M., is a story for another time that you will all appreciate), who doesn't eat gluten, dairy, or sugar, but does drink what seems to be Amounts of white wine (including, I discovered, nasty white wine from dive bars --- don't tell his insurance company). However, he doesn't exercise. Last night over the internet he was trying to convince me I ought to try his way.
Straight-up no, I said.
When he asked why, I responded that I simply enjoy cheese.
Plus, I've always been able to eat cheese, so why punish myself further by having Crohn's Disease and not being able to eat cheese? I ask you. I asked him, too.

I didn't want to be one of those people who proselytizes her way (and what is my way, anyway? meticulous recording of food, lots of sleep, physical therapy? is that a way, really?) so I didn't try to push back against his suggestion. We all have to do what works for us. We all have to do what keeps us away from the types of treatments that cost us money and drive insurance companies to treat us like second-class citizens.

"Just try it for one week," M. suggested.
I said I would think about it, but what I was really thinking, too rude, perhaps, to say to M. --- who was only trying to be helpful --- was the mantra of someone who's already been lucky too many times: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

midnight snack

2010-04-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

Awesome. My insurance has been terminated. While I was away at the writing residency, not receiving my mail, it transpires that a bill came that I did not pay, and as a result my insurance has been terminated not only going forward, but also going backward, which means that about $16,000 worth of treatment just fell straight into my lap with a plop. Here is where the paths of the sick and the not-sick diverge once again.

It turns out that chemicals manufactured to make your body stop killing itself are expensive, and the companies that "pay" for them are animals. And not nice animals, like your pet dog or rabbit, but the kind of animals who wake up in the middle of the night, realize they are hungry, and eat their family members as a midnight snack.

new fiction! new fiction! new fiction!

2010-04-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

I am so, so pleased to tell you about the debut story of Tamar Halpern at JOYLAND SF! Tamar is an accomplished screenwriter and director whose first foray into fiction-writing will seriously blow your socks off.

Read her story by clicking here.

even clowns get the ukelele blues

2010-04-07T11:40:00.000-07:00

It transpires that the same man who dressed up as Terrifying Clown with Accordion at Christmastime, gracing the infusion center with his ill-received musical presence, dresses up as a folk singer in the spring, and plays a ukelele and harmonica. Guys, if you've never had a couple of IVs stuck in your arms while watching someone in plaid and suspenders ukelele/harmonica their heart out, congratulations. I wish you godspeed in keeping it that way.

I went to my infusion alone yesterday. (All the better, as anyone who came with me would have had to endure the above musical stylings, as well as three popped IV sites in a row and a geyser of blood that almost made me cry out, "He has risen!" I probably would have been shot had I done so, not adding positively to my health situation in the least.) I have a lot to think about, and sitting in a chemo chair with chemicals running up your arm, albeit vaguely unpleasant, is pretty much the ideal time to do your thinking.

But I didn't get to it: chatty neighbors, beeping IVs, other people getting their ports disinfected, the snoring of patients on pain drugs, a couple of people playing "I Spy." (Really? REALLY? How depressing is THAT to play in the hospital? One thing spied was my blood geyser. Happy to play.) One thing I do like about infusion days is their sort of day-off feeling, too tired afterward to work or think. It's just too bad the rest of the world doesn't see it that way.

After a refreshing sixteen-hour sleep last night (there's nothing like a good Tysabri infusion to make you feel like you've accidentally died on your own watch) I awoke to discover that my joke of sending a first draft in to a literary contest (don't ever send a first draft in to anything; it's just not good judgment) resulted in the selection of my story about neck-tattoos-in-the-form-of-layer-cakes as a finalist from among thousands of other entries. What does this mean? It means:

a) Reminder: Never send first drafts into contests.
b) Absolutely nothing whatsoever, as usual.
and finally,
c) I knew it! People are interested in reading about neck tattoos in the form of layer cakes!

Someday, my point of view about baked goods will prevail, Crohns. I just know it.

beware the mighty axe of dustin

2010-03-31T10:37:00.000-07:00

Remember my query letter from the last post? So tomorrow I have a phone meeting about the book. That was fast, Crohns, fast! Faster than the disappearance of flourless chocolate cake a seder. Faster, perhaps, than I am prepared for. As we all know, nothing --- but nothing --- is more bound to end in woe than me trying to act normal over the phone. Except maybe me trying to act normal on paper. Or in person. You know, if you took me out of this equation altogether, I think things would run more smoothly. Can't books sell themselves?

Speaking of seders, I didn't get to go to one. I'm not the most observant Jew in all of Christendom, but I will say that it bummed me out immensely that so many people got to go to seders this year (even people who didn't know what seders were!) and I, who practically begged my way around town trying to find one to glom on to, couldn't. Of course, I did have a lovely and flour-filled dinner at Laura V.'s that night, replete with gnocchi, Laura W., bread, Nandini, salad, Kate, mangoes, asparagus, and a heck of a lot of chocolate. We asked some questions of each other about the gnocchi ("how much flour to how much potato?") and declared them "the four questions," and there was even a sort of bartering over the chocolate, which came in varieties of salt-topping from a box. So really it was a pretty nice first night of Passover, overall.

As I wait for comments on the collection from my trusted and esteemed readers (marvelous writers and philosophers in their own right (one is a philosopher, what)) I am pouring all of my nervous energy into
a) physical therapy, and
b) the novel. Uh-huh, a Crohn's novel, raise the roof. Physical therapy involves a lot of leg gyration --- less embarrassingly but also less effectively done at home, so I've been doing this at my gym, which is unfortunately an open storefront on the most populated street in the neighborhood. Come one, come all, to the hurly-burly circus that is an overweight sick person swinging her bum leg around in public!

Novel-writing, it turns out, also involves a lot of embarrassing things. Yesterday I spoke on the phone to a medieval reenactor! (Research, people, research.) He performs in reenactments of medieval battles, sometimes in fields (often alongside Little League soccer games, he told me with great disappointment), and was allowed to choose his character's name.
"What did you choose?" I asked, with excitement. I imagined all kinds of Nordic names, Germanic names, toothless, curdling, mace-and-tackle names.
"I chose Dustin," he told me.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I couldn't hear you. I thought you just said you chose Dustin! Ha ha. Like Dustin Diamond, the guy who played Screech on Saved By The Bell."
"I did choose Dustin," he told me.
God, if this is my job, I love it, I love it, I love it.

every second

2010-03-29T13:26:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing I've never been good at, it's selling myself. Be it a job, a residency, a relationship, even my ability to poach an egg for someone else's breakfast, I have frequently had trouble convincing people I'm the man for the job. I'm much better on paper than I am in person, of course --- flashback to a certain teaching interview during which I burst into a plethora of voices, "gruff older man," "intrigued but ditzy young woman," "surfer," and, indeed, "pompadour-wearing ingenue," to my enormous detriment --- but even on paper I have trouble appearing compelling.

So, I'm trying to sell this book --- these two books, really --- about illness and the body. Unfortunately you can't just write to agents and be like, "Hi! Have you ever wondered what things would be like if you couldn't stop vomiting and then wandered into a lesbian rodeo, made a plaster replica of a dead ancestor's arm, tried to relive your affair with a blind veteran, escaped from the hospital for an internet date, built a robot to be your lover and your doctor, fabricated a tornado to keep your dead brother's girlfriend from going insane, stolen a baggie of your sick sister's adult molars, or had a three-layer cake tattooed onto your neck after a skin graft? No? Oh, okay... well... bye."

This is the hard part for someone like me, who does a lot better alone in front of the computer than in the Marketplace, whatever that may be. I wrote my first query letter yesterday, and---tee-hee!---it was hilarious! Except when I was done and my dad had checked it over to make sure I didn't sound insane (he's a good person to ask about this, as he has one-hundred-and-ten percent support for my project but zero patience for my authorial flourishes), I realized it really wasn't hilarious at all. It was a pretty accurate, a pretty true description of what I'd done. Except what I couldn't say was that I don't feel like I'm selling a book; I feel like I'm selling a point of view.

In the letter, I said that every day, our bodies make choices for us we wouldn't otherwise choose---illness, disability, disfigurement, lust, desire. My dad, a diligent editor, struck out "every day" and wrote "sometimes" instead. I changed it back. That's just the problem. Everyone, even people like my dad who have had to deal with illness intimately for years, really seems to believe that this dilemma is something that happens just sometimes. That this isn't something that we live with every second of every day, that new people aren't drawn into this narrative at every moment, that even when we are sitting there for a moment feeling fine, there isn't something happening inside us that we can't control. I shouldn't have said "every day." I should have said every second, every nanosecond, every measure of time too small to be contained by our words for it. This is what I wish I could make these agents understand: That our stories are real stories. I know what I've written, a bunch of silly pieces of fiction, pales in comparison to the real thing. But I want it to be a step in that direction, a step toward a few less people striking out "every day" and writing "sometimes," knowing that "every day" only gets at the edges of the problem.

where I've been all this time

2010-03-14T22:08:00.000-07:00

Well, hello. It's been a long time.

I was away for a month, just writing, alone about twenty-two out of every twenty-four hours. I can't say for sure, but it seems like a good thing when your best self emerges from being alone.

I was happy to come back, but it's been difficult to reenter a life of distractions. Of course, the first thing that happened when I left the residency was a nasty viral infection that I thought was a flare: sixteen-hour sleeps, constant vomiting, liquid diet, the whole works. When I had my Tysabri infusion on Monday, I had to stay the whole day at the hospital and get extra IV fluids, although they didn't seem to help right away. I think I'm getting better now.

I knew, of course, why I was so good at being alone. That's what being sick, in its chronic and intrinsic sense, really is. I've been doing it for almost twenty years of days. So have you. But I didn't know for sure what was going to come of it.

I wrote a book. A finished book. It's a book about us.

I want it to be the best I can make it, so I'm editing it some more now. Old habits die hard. But pretty soon, one day in the next few weeks, I'm going to print this book and send it somewhere else. Eventually, I'm sending it to you, because we are who I wrote it for.

Thanks for being patient with me here at Sempre. I'm hoping it will be at least a little bit worth the wait.

in which i depart for less internet-friendly climes

2010-02-10T10:08:00.000-08:00

Well, good-bye, cruel world.

Tomorrow I depart for a writing residency on an island where I will be quite alone with my projects and a bunch of writer women, with not even an internet connection or the dulcet street sounds of my neighborhood ("I'm gonna cut you!") to keep me company.

Other than the cottages in which we will live, I understand there are bluffs there. The only bluff I know with any real familiarity, of course, is Dead Man's Bluff, over which countless objectionable persons have been thrown throughout the years. (Friend: "And then he smiled his Tony Danza smile and told me he was seeing someone else, but he'd call me in the morning!" Me: "He's going over Dead Man's Bluff.") Yea, so many persons have now sailed over the precipice of Dead Man's Bluff that I fear the way down is not so far, due to the pileup. Recent Bluff-Hurlees may have just gotten up, dusted themselves off, and walked away, cushioned by the douchebags that came before.

"I don't seem to recall any bluffs in that part of the country," Laura W. told me last week.
This is too bad, as I was greatly looking forward to peering over the side to see who had accumulated over there. I think, in some cases, I have some of their books still on loan.

Since I won't have access to much there, I'm packing as though going into a terrifying bunker. If we ever wondered what I would take into a terrifying bunker, we now know: A lot of face wipes. Thirty-six books (yes, I know this is more than a book a day, but terror, people). A book of New York Times crosswords regifted to me by my parents (Juan: "I think I'll start with The Washington Post"). Fifteen pairs of socks. A shower cap. Six scarves.

Look, I never said my "terrifying bunker" scenario was a rational one.

Last night with some writer friends I was discussing the packing situation when they suggested I bring a vice.
"Like a flask?" I asked. Because Michelle and Nate have recently regifted me a flask. Regifting is all the rage, everyone. The group nodded.
"Or some chocolate," someone else offered.
"Do you think I should bring porn?" I asked seriously. "I mean you have to imagine there's so much porn up there already. There's probably a shoebox under the bed where I'll be staying with like thirty years' worth of porn."
Silence.
"Well, anyway," I said, the joke now over, "I have a vice to bring along. My mom gave me a book of crossword puzzles."
The look they exchanged was one of people who are very, very sad.

If I can provide a missive from the residency, I will. Otherwise, imagine me at the top of a large pile of douchebags, inches from a rocky bluff, where I will have hurled myself only to get up and walk away.

in which both david guetta and i try to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful

2010-02-01T09:51:00.000-08:00

I used to make do with my Phil Collins and Depeche Mode on my runs, but now, in the Gilded Age of Pandora, there is no need to blame my slow pace on the melancholy strains of "Against All Odds." (Fodder enough to compel even the most sluggish runner up Twin Peaks, right? Right, everyone.) It seems that no matter which Pandora station I choose, one song seems to be the darling of the musicons, a constant.

Although, Pandora, sluggishly panting along to chants of "Sexy bitch!" seems downright cruel. If any of my former students are secretly reading this, alert: this is a champion example of irony --- when words are used to express the exact opposite of what they are describing.

I also find the lyrics sort of horrifyingly delightful. The other day while working on a story, I had the song in my head and realized that (for once) it mirrored my plight exactly:

"She's nothing like the girl you've ever seen before/ Nothing you can compare to your neighborhood whore/ I'm trying to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful. Damn, girl."

Trying to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful pretty much sums up my entire writing life thus far. I'd be surprised, except this song features modern-day poet Akon, who has already shewn himself to know all the secrets of my soul.

dueling banjos

2010-01-28T12:54:00.000-08:00

This week, two momentous, dueling things occurred.

1. I finally fulfilled my life's dream of owning my very own KitchenAid stand mixer. Procured after years of research, hoarding Bed Bath and Beyond gift cards, and a 20%-off coupon from that selfsame store, I finally achieved this mixer for an out-of-pocket cost of pennies. It is white, it is gleaming, it makes superb whipped cream that I ate out of miniature juice glasses, with a side of wine, on the living room floor with my friends Katie and Andrew. It is large. At first, there was the issue of where to put it. (It lived on my bathroom floor for a day or so and got a nice steamup every time I took a shower. Only the best for my mixer.) Finally I found it a precarious spot in the kitchen, next to a framed picture of my dog. (Please don't judge me; my dog is pretty awesome.) Think of all that lies in store for me! Cakes as high as Conan O'Brien's hair! Pie crusts, cookies, bread! Betty Crocker, gun your engines, sister.

2. I've been waking up with these terrible hangovers. That side of wine you saw above? I had about one glass. But recently life after alcohol, or whipped cream, or baguette, or any welcome cousins thereof, has ended in this horrible, horrible feeling. I have finally accepted it: My blood sugar is simply too sensitive to eat refined sugars. Why, why was this knowledge visited upon me in the hour of my mixer's arrival? It's gotten to the point where the very thought of sugar makes me feel like I'm hung over already. So today is the first day of my attempt to eat mostly low-glycemic foods. All low-glycemic foods, you ask? Surely you jest. I am the owner of a stand mixer. But mostly. Because if there's one feeling I'd like to avoid this winter, it's feeling hung over every single minute of every single day without having had a drink.

Who wants some dark-wheat pumpernickel bread made from my mixer? Because I really, really want another excuse to sit on the rug again and eat dinner.

almost but not quite

2010-01-22T15:03:00.000-08:00

I returned from Maryland on Tuesday night to a rainy, taciturn San Francisco --- the kind of San Francisco where the only gaily singing arm-flailers dangling from trolleys are mentally disturbed or imaginary. There was a lemon in my freezer, and three eggs. Surely I was going to go to the grocery store the following day? O, you overestimate me.

Fast forward to this morning, at which point, having lived off of the contents of my freezer and chocolate chips for three days, I decided that the time was right to find less petrified forms of sustenance. Enter the granny cart purchased by Juan during her tenure at the Fort. I would simplify things, I reasoned, by taking along the granny cart. Except have you ever wielded one of those carts? They are, well, unwieldy, rolling and pitching every which way and frequently against your shins. Add to this pouring rain, one hand occupied by an umbrella, wet pants, a mile to the grocery store, and a fever, and hooooo momma, are we in business. We are making things easier now, yes sir! I returned home sweaty, drenched, with a bruise on my shin, but with what the self checkout tells me are twenty pounds of produce.

Waiting for me at home were two interesting pieces of mail.

The first was a check from the state of California, supplier of my health insurance, in the amount of one-fifteenth of what they owe me in reimbursements. On the State of California letterhead as it was, it reminded me of my paychecks from That University Where I Taught, where each month I would open the envelope to find one-fifteenth of what I should have been paid for my efforts. This isn't over yet, State of California. This isn't over yet.

The second was my first rejection for the title story of my collection. I just started sending it out this fall. I figure if past experience is any indication, it will probably take me the entire Obama term to publish it, even if this one is devoid of the things editors seem to dislike (vomit, one-eyed persons, mysterious rashes, references to women's cleavage, Constantinople). This rejection, however, was handwritten (in quill! what kind of office do they have over there?) telling me that they, the editors, were really sorry my piece didn't fit with the theme they were working on for their spring issue because it was so good and so interesting. ...Dude, they wrote to me in quill.

Sadness. That is the worst. Just the worst, I tell you. They liked it! But not enough to publish it. Way worse than my usual, which is "o you depraved monster, you beast of proverbial burden, you shit-roller and scuzz-sculler! nevermore shall we hope to see your bilious pen-wanderings in our pristine offices where we are eating our pretzel nibs! nevermore shall the putrid fruits of your hand offend our eyes!" And that's just the form letter.

If you need me, I'll be on the phone with the State of California. Are you there, Arnold? It's me, Margaret.

jewball

2010-01-12T12:27:00.000-08:00

Lest anyone become reassured that I actually do live in San Francisco, here I am back in Maryland, a mere ten days after my last departure. It seems I simply can't stay away. I'm back here for a number of L. Family Events: a major work event for The Dad; my sister's departure for a five-month trip to South Africa, where she will study or otherwise entertain herself abroad; and The Dad's birthday.

Since my sister will already be riding a zebra or breaking up a street fight by the time The Dad's actual birthday rolls around, we had a fake birthday for him on Sunday night after my plane arrived. This is a man of habit who prefers the same birthday dinner each year: spaghetti and chocolate-chip cake. Don't mess with a classic. And then don't mess with a classic again a week later, when we'll eat the same thing over again.

But the real dessert was a family outing to see brother-the-younger participate in a rousing game of Jewball. What is Jewball, you ask? Is it a game in which Jews are passed back and forth, with the hope of scoring? No. It is a recreational basketball league in which high-school synagogue members meet weekly to engage in lifeless, Hashem-fearing games of basketball. There are no practices, only games. Daniel, my brother, is about twice the size of most of the basketball players, many of whom spent the whole game sort of nimbly hopping back and forth with no regard for the basketball, perhaps like Michael Flatley doing a low jig over a dreidel. Daniel himself played admirably, but caused a great deal of shouting from the stands, where my sister and I continually called, "Keep it in! Put it in your mouth!" as Daniel preferred to chew his mouthguard as it hung from the corner of his lip. They won.

bacteria to the future

2010-01-06T10:20:00.000-08:00

If you, like me, are enamored of getting your seltzer water from the self-serve soda fountain at your local quick-food venture, you might want to think twice next time. BYOB, everyone, until your immune system hits the double mushroom on Mario Kart.

Read the article here.

how the other half lives

2010-01-05T15:12:00.000-08:00

I went to see my doctor yesterday, and when she entered the room she said, "Hooray!" The whole visit was much like being a contestant on a makeover show after the reveal. The nurses and receptionists all complimented me on how great I look, how far from death and so on. Did I look that terrible before? Is this what it feels like to be normal? What comes next is a mystery. Will I stay on Tysabri despite its long-term dangers? Will something new be developed and approved? Will McDonald's hamburgers manage to stay out of the news for more than six months? Will Gael Garcia Bernal finally move in with me? No one knows.
"In the meantime," said my doctor, "while you're healthy, just enjoy it."

A tall order for someone who has to plan and control every element of every thing (just ask my lab partners from high school, one of whom had half of her bangs singed off because I insisted on taking control of the contents of a particular petri dish). Nonetheless, it would be hard to say that the five days of 2010 thus far --- muddily hiking with dogs, eating soup dumplings and Yogurt Park, baking crazy cakes, walking the city end to end, reading four books, finally getting the "Shaft" theme song out of my head (until just now) --- have not been enjoyable, to say the least.

A new favorite song, perfect for walking the city end to end, writing cover letters, researching hundreds of pictures of swimming pools, and dutch-ovening a tiny apartment oven into oblivion. Turn it up, turn it up. Turn it all the way up.

the year of thank-you

2009-12-31T09:47:00.000-08:00

I've probably never been sicker than I was in 2009. Hospital stays, liver doctors, neurologists, colonoscopies and triple groin biopsies! X-rays and scopes and ultrasounds and diets! Two months of partial leg use, one month disuse of right arm, eight MRIs, one MRI accident! Fifteen IVs, over three hundred needle sticks, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Oh baby, is that a good look: Enjoying some hospital hematomas in March

2009 was an extremely crappy year, I'm not going to pussyfoot. But it was also an extremely lucky year. You don't need to hear all about it now; you already did. But suffice it to say I'm here, you're here, we're all here. And if you want to swing by the Fort, I will open the door with either one of my functioning arms, walk down the stairs with my two functioning legs, greet you at the gate, and promptly eat whatever food you have in your bag with my functioning gastrointestinal system. Oh man, is it good to live how the others live.

But how did this happen? How did the sickest year of my life end in remission? Is it a miracle of medicine? Ha. Hee. Ho. ....No. It is because of all the friends who lent me books, who ferried me around in their automobiles, who sat in shopping-mall basements calling emergency rooms with me and drove me to work in San Jose; who made soup and brought ginger ale; who came to my infusions with me; who regaled me with stories of their personal lives when I had no personal life to speak of; who told me I was doing great when it took me 50 minutes to walk a city block to meet them; who, in sum, continued to be my friends when there was no me with whom to be friends.

And most of all because of Juan, who spent a whole month of her life on a certain chaise lounge, manually moving my legs, pushing my wheelchairs, toasting raisin bread, keeping an ear out when I was in the shower, and taking her professional phone conversations in my bathroom, which she called her "phone booth."

Juan and me on Halloween, cleverly disguised

It isn't medicine that makes you better. It's other people.

So for --- in that respect --- an amazing, incredible, unparalleled, absolutely superb 2009, thank you. And here's to another one just like it.

Love,
Kara

mile-high baklava club

2009-12-30T16:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, waiting to board my flight back to San Francisco, I saw long-lost friend MG gazing dully at the departures board. MG and I ran and trained for the SF Marathon together in 2007, but since then our pace group has sown its seeds across the earth and fallen out of touch. (Case in point, MG moved to LA, then back to SF, and I didn't even know he was gone.) I picked my way over to him through the sea of screaming babies. Greetings! Delight! Exchange of confessions that neither of us is long-distance running anymore! It turned out that MG and his partner were sitting two rows behind me. We sampled Virgin America's chat system, which felt vaguely seedy. A message popped up on my screen:

Chat with Seat 7C: You come here often?

The women on either side of me, in the window and aisle seats, eyed my screen with suspicion.

Me: I'm a high flyer.

Chat with Seat 7C: Would you like some of my mother's homemade baklava?

I don't know whether the women thought this was a euphemism or what, but somewhere around Hour 5 of the flight, when I thought I was reading but was apparently asleep, MG breezed by and dropped a Virgin America barf bag full of baklava onto my lap, over the head of the woman in the aisle seat, who was apparently awake. What he had neglected to check before depositing the baklava, however, was if anyone had previously used this barf bag. They had. A few pieces of hardened, chewed gum rested comfortably below the baklava. If I weren't already a person with no immune system in a tin capsule filled with recycled air, I may have risked it. I didn't. But it was worth it to see the look on the face of the woman next to me as I opened the packet and exclaimed, "Mmm, baklava!"

it's a miracle!

2009-12-28T21:35:00.000-08:00

Congratulations, you've survived the Holidays, Part One. More on the dubious hurtle-montage that is said holidays before long, but in the meantime, an announcement. A suggestion. A heralding, if you will.

Check out the San Francisco launch of this superb publication (if I do say so myself!), where you can read a debut short story, "Miracle," by the fantastically talented San Francisco writer Ruth Galm. You can say you read her when. You can say you read her in 2009. You will be glad.

Do you live in the Bay area? Have you ever lived in the Bay area? Have you a short piece of fiction regarding the Bay area that is burning the proverbial hole in your J-pouch? Send it on in; we are accepting unsolicited manuscripts with tidings, comfort, and joy. Guidelines can be found by clicking the link above.

Hurrah!

the art of mixology, or of burying the lede

2009-12-18T19:10:00.000-08:00

Guys, I'm so into this list of holiday drink recipes. So into it. At least half of these could easily be made nonalcoholic for all your Crohnsian (or otherwise alcohol-averse) needs. If I had obscure ingredients like sachaca, Seville orange, and cubed pineapple here --- all right, maybe canned pineapple isn't chief among the world's obscure goods, but if you have Crohn's, it might be --- I would totally pour myself a Regent's Punch. Because you can trust us: We're all Regents here.

And we deserve a drink. What are you drinking to? Please don't be drinking GoLitely. Or if you have a colonoscopy tomorrow and you are indeed drinking GoLitely, and therefore drinking to your colonoscopy, be sure to have some really excellent seltzer water tomorrow, the kind with the bubbles large enough to eclipse the Earth.

As for me, I think I'll drink to:

1) The fact that my baby brother was admitted to an upstanding midwestern institution of higher learning. Big OH, represent! Big DL, represent! I know what you're thinking: But DL isn't a state! Correction: It's not a state right now. But by the time Daniel is done it might be.

2) Beyonce. I understand I have now mentioned Beyonce in two consecutive posts --- does this border on thought-stalking? --- but for some reason I completely missed the Beyonce train when it first pulled into the station. To continue this troublesome train metaphor just a little further, but also in a truthful manner, I was probably on the CalTrain. Her music is kind of horrifying and kind of amazing all at once, my favorite kind of thing since I apparently can't take amazement in unadulterated doses.

3) My first-ever writing residency! Me big winner! The Adventures of Rejection Man continue in 2010... in Washington State! ...Do I disturb you? Very well, I disturb you.

4) Two days until serious Big MD time with Bis'l, the Crohn's Dog, whose favorite drink from the above list would undoubtedly be the Tom and Jerry.

lunch money

2009-12-17T13:32:00.000-08:00

Just when you think you've tricked yourself into eating a large bowl of romaine with a few pieces of deli turkey on it for lunch, then you have to go and spy the bag of chocolate Hanukah gelt on the table, a mail-gift from Juan. That's right, I ate money for lunch. I ate gold coins. Hanukah, you're just a bad holiday, all around.

Now that my intestines are full of cash, what more can I tell you. Let's see. In no particular order.

1. I had my fourth (count 'em: one, two, three, four wow I'm playing with fire) Tysabri infusion on Monday. With the exception of a cranky nurse who labeled me "uncooperative" for requesting a certain vein for my IV, and a clown dressed in scrubs and playing Christmas music on an accordion while lightly swaying (trying to block this out), all went fine. Do you ever feel like you're living on borrowed time? So does that clown.

2. A fat fetish is sweeping San Francisco. Men are upgrading from small to medium, from medium to large, and from large into the great beyond. Why? Because they're worth it. Why settle for a girlfriend who can fit into your local mailbox when you can have a girlfriend who can crush your local mailbox? I ask you. In the past week my attendance on outings with male strangers has been requested yea, thrice. What's going on here? Is 1980s Ricki Lake the new Beyonce? Shaking the sidewalk beneath me with each word, I thrice demurred.

3. This morning at the gym, the single television was airing The Price is Right. Does it feel wrong to you every time you see Drew Carey on there? Me too. He's not nearly smarmy enough to be hosting that show. The man on the treadmill next to me was clearly rapt. He kept pumping his fist intermittently. At first I thought maybe he was just excited about his mileage or something, but then I discovered that his fist-pumps coincided with the price-reveals on the show. The man vicarously won a handheld video cam, a bar set, and also aaaaa newcar! I vicariously won a cheese wheel. I will say this about The Price is Right: ...Cheese wheel? The prizes are getting way better.

4. With all the news coverage recently about how unsafe our water is, this might not be a bad time to consider filtering your water. Of course, the news coverage doesn't reveal anything new, and in full disclosure, I've been happily gulping down tap water for decades. Then again, since we don't have any immune systems, it might not be a bad idea to get one of those Britas that all of your germaphobe friends have had for years while you chuckled derisively from your tap-water corner, feeling vastly superior.

5. Finally, the San Francisco cold snap ("cold") and rainy patch appears to be over, just in time for my departure to the icy climes of the Big MD. Nonetheless, I insist on continuing to wear my rain boots, heavy winter coat, hat, gloves, and tube scarf just in case. I can't imagine what I'd do if I lived in a real climate. I guess I just can't ever leave San Francisco.

frio con brio

2009-12-08T20:29:00.000-08:00

It's so cold here that I went out today in a tank top, a long-sleeved shirt, a turtleneck sweater, a leather jacket, a pea coat, a scarf, a hat, and gloves. That's right, it was a high of forty-nine degrees here in San Francisco today, and those of you who remember the Hercules of Weather I once was in my east coast days may now promptly shut it.

The real problem, however, is not the out-of-doors. It is the indoors. At night it is around thirty-three degrees, and Fort Phil Collins, delightful bunker though it may be, fares poorly in the cold. First of all, it is unheated. Secondly, it has eight windows, which is a lot for a studio. And thirdly and perhaps most relevantly, it is open to the air, thanks to a 1920s-style "icebox" that is my pantry --- a sort of closet that opens out onto a screen that, in turn, opens out onto the night sky. And if you were wondering, no, that closet does not have doors that completely close. When the wind blows, they have been known to burst open unannounced, anticlimactically presenting the Fort's terrified occupants with a view of cans of tuna fish! rotini! and powdered Gatorade! So much for ghosts.

Each night I have been opening my drawers and hauling all my clothes out. Then I pile them on top of my bed and crawl underneath. I sleep under underwear, hose, towels. Anything around. Last night, also magazines. I fear that when Gael Garcia Bernal gets here, there will not be room for him beneath the debris (and anyway, he would probably turn tail in search of warmer quarters, or one where doors do not burst open in the wind, revealing groceries). Fort, I love you, but I need you to heat up so Gael Garcia Bernal will stay here.

in which domesticity is once again revealed as my strong suit

2009-12-07T17:05:00.000-08:00

Returned from the cafe where I was intermittently working on the novel and cooing (literally cooing, like a pigeon) at a dachshund enrobed in a casual piece of purple knitwear, and where BW was intermittently doing something related to philosophy (it's philosophy, so that's the best I can do) and playing some computer game involving bubbles and towers, I was greeted by an enormous defrosting pile of black bananas. Sometimes I hate my former self.

My self of this morning, as I recall, was sick of seeing those erstwhile frozen black bananas in the freezer each day, so ignobly did they obscure one's way to the vodka. So before heading out to the liver clinic, my morning self put them on the counter to defrost, and there they absolutely were this afternoon when I returned from the cafe, looking for all the world like a mound of turds. There was no choice but to make cinnamon chocolate-chip banana bread. A double batch, because I obviously don't know how to buy bananas for one.

My kitchen is a small, somewhat operationally unwieldy kitchen, that often involves stacking things on top of other things in order to make even a turkey sandwich. However, this does not at all explain how I managed to crack three eggs not over the bowl, or even the counter, but right over the middle of the floor, where the rug is. Three. How my depth perception could be so off escapes me. (This morning at the liver clinic my doctor informed me that if I ever observe myself turning yellow, bruising easily, or feeling confused, to call 911. Um, 911.)

Annoyed, I decided to take a break. I would check the mail. After all, eggs are easier to clean up once they've hardened, right? Sure. Let's go with that. This is probably the first day of mail in months that has not yielded some medical bill or other. Small but not insignificant pleasures! Instead, there was just one envelope. A thin envelope. In the return-address corner, the address of a residency to which I'd applied in October. I opened it, expecting the usual "sorry, lots of applicants, apply again, best of luck with your work" spiel. No. This letter had taken the time, as one of its forbears had done, to inform me that my already-published story was "disturbing in a way [I] might not have intended" and that I might "revisit the story to investigate ways [I] might more diplomatically express the experience of illness for young people." What in the world is it about that story that offends people so much? Am I not a diplomat? I am a Libra, after all. Weird though it may sound, this makes me strangely happy. You know, what's so wrong with stories being war? Straight to the top, baby. Apparently offending people all the way.

When I got upstairs, the eggs were still there on the rug, gelling. 911.

If you'd like to make some of your own banana bread, here's the recipe I used, courtesy of Orangette.

too much finger food

2009-12-02T12:22:00.000-08:00

The Thanksgiving holiday concluded, I have returned to San Francisco apparently five pounds heavier, much of which seems to have accumulated in my right hand. Remember that time when my hand blew up to the size of Mount Olympus, and there was gadolinium trapped in it, and I couldn't use it for six weeks? And everyone cheered? I woke up this morning to discover the same hand in the same condition. And everyone cheered. Now, here's the confusing part: If the five pounds are in my hand, how are they also in my waist? And apparently (this morning, cartoonlike, I literally popped off a button) in my chest?

I think when I popped off the button, my shirt knew I am going to That University Where I Taught this evening, my first reappearance since May. Clothes seem to know that when they are headed to that dubious locale, unfortunate events may befall them (to speak nothing of the unfortunate events that may befall their wearer). TUWIT was a site of many, many wardrobe disasters, both my own and those of others, the most notable of which included:

a) two chest buttons of a buttondown shirt rocket into the outer atmosphere unbidden; solution: wear heavy coat through 3 hours of lectures in 70-degree weather, sweat copiously while students exchange weird looks and enjoy a light afternoon breeze

b) hem of pants unravels, trailing foot-long strings in wake; solution: tape pants, color black, with masking tape, receive titters from fashion-forward female students

c) skirt is way shorter than it seemed at home; solution: ungainly tugging, reprise long-coat wearing, this time looking more like a flasher than ever before --- respectfully abstain from exclaiming "ha-CHA!" and flinging coat open

Anyway, praise baby Jesus, those days are over. I can now have my wardrobe crises right here in my own Fort. I guess I have to lose five pounds now, too. What a drag. Time to start those finger exercises.

the things we do for rejection

2009-11-23T19:34:00.000-08:00

This is the third year in a row that Thanksgiving and three to four fellowship application deadlines have coincided, and the third year in a row that, though I knew this in advance --- wasn't that also me who, weeks ago, meekly sallied forth on the hated steed of "Hi, I was wondering if you could send out a 3,000,001th recommendation for me? In an act of futility? And maybe hatred for this world?" --- it seemed to creep up on me in an unpleasant way.

The past two years I have spent post-Thanksgiving days in my parents' house, furiously ransacking them for computer paper, manila envelopes. Then I have begged rides from brothers, parents, anyone around, to a nearby Kinko's so I could photocopy a bajillion copies of stories about vomit, sea whales, and empanadas. Usually my dad gets in on the action, fixing the printer and saying "Hm" with warranted dubiousness when I describe the story I am sending as my representative. By the time I get to the post office it is barely the day of the deadline postmark anymore. All this is because I am super organized.

Tomorrow I depart for Ohio (via a mysterious layover in the Chicago area, where I expect to be mown down by other travelers and then baked into a pizza). In addition to having my apartment in order, I decided I would try to get some of these fellowship applications ready. But besides the notable hurdle of having to photocopy everything in the known world to apply to these things, in some cases even your own buttocks, there are other hurdles that are difficult to overcome this year, such as:

1) A ten-page writing sample limit. I know there are very remarkable writers out there who write very remarkable ten-page stories, but I am not one of these remarkable writers, which therefore means

2) Shamelessly fucking with margins and fonts, a practice I have not employed since probably high school, but with which I am nonetheless familiar via the intense and often masterful wheedlings of my own students. Still, even with the font-fucking, the stories I submitted in recent years weren't good enough to get me said fellowships, so obviously I need to submit something different, which means

3) Sending out a story that has just been finished, and very likely could be a terrible story that should not have been shown to anyone, even to prisoners in a special study where they are shown stories that make them go insane with dislike, boredom, or a sense of despair, and in fact this story, if shown to said prisoners, might really go ahead and kill them, and then where would you be? In prison, that's where. You'd be in prison. For murder. Nice going.

With all of my efforts I only managed to get one application --- the one with the most photocopying, mind you --- in the mail. The apartment is still a shambles, I am utterly unpacked. Sometimes it is truly mystifying, the things we do for rejection.

we been played

2009-11-20T13:25:00.000-08:00

This morning I headed out to the doctor's office. It was raining a little --- just that fey San Francisco rain that sometimes comes, more of a spittle than real precipitation, just enough to ruin your hair. I had my trusty hole-in-the-top Walgreens umbrella. (Life just hasn't been the same since I lost The Duck on BART.) About four blocks in to my walk, it began to pour. Obviously this was no problem, since I had my umbrella, plus a functioning liver. Everyone knows that if you have an umbrella and a liver, pouring rain is no thing.

Moments later, however, my pants, socks, shoes, and a small selection of my head were soaked all the way through, and I had fallen gracefully, headfirst, into a curb puddle the size of Ryan Seacrest's ego. No problem, I told my body. You have a liver, remember? Whereupon --- maybe it was the word "remember" --- it also remembered that it was pumped full of Tysabri and had no immune system, and my lymph nodes and throat began to swell to the point where it was difficult to breathe.

So what did I do, being the savvy, classy broad-about-town that I am? I crawled (that's right, crawled) into an alleyway and waited for the rain to stop. Did I miss my appointment? Yes, I did. Did I get home? Yes, eventually. I got home by walking between alleys and then resting in alleys. When I got home, my fever was 104.2.

Now, see, this is what annoys me about chronic illness. It's such a player. One minute it's like, Baby, you the world to me, girl. We good. The next minute it's like, Oh, hi, you thought you were getting better? Yeah, I'd slam facefirst into a puddle and huddle in a city alleyway before we make any rash decisions. Plus, I'm boning Jeannette.

No more outings for me today. Although, the view out the window now reports that the rain has stopped. Of course it has.

getting ahead of myself

2009-11-19T12:29:00.000-08:00

I never thought I'd say this, but um (cough) thanks, Tysabri.

After my tests and infusion earlier this week, which involved an exploded vein, an overnight IV, and being tied down by the neck and placed into a radioactive tube (paging Aldous Huxley!), it has been determined that I do not have the additional autoimmune disease I was suspected to have; that indeed the bile ducts of my liver are not slowly experiencing a fibrosis that will later cause me to have a liver transplant; that in this case fiction and reality are staying well away from each other, which is fine by me. My high times in the liver clinic have been just about enough after-the-fact recon for me to feel good about the details of my transplant story.

And furthermore, after three Tysabri infusions, it seems like maybe they are working. I'm not in remission yet but my inflammation markers are a lot better. Instead of being as anemic as a matador after an unfriendly bull run-in, I'm as anemic as a temporary high school vegetarian. Maybe --- just maybe, because let's not get all crazy here --- I can go back to work in 2010. What do you think, a little lesson planning, a little grading? Oh baby, grading never sounded so good.

good reading

2009-11-18T23:45:00.001-08:00

Check out a great poem by a great poet, my friend Michelle Chan Brown, at The Missouri Review this week.

byoiv

2009-11-16T20:02:00.000-08:00

weeeee doggies. one blown vein and a tysabri infusion later, your correspondent got sent home with the tube in. indeed, as others bring beverages, guests, casseroles to parties, i can now bring my own IV. i'm keeping it in for my liver procedure tomorrow. is this a good idea? me not know. me just writer, me keep it real. today at the hospital after my first iv blew, juan encouraged me to imagine bis'l, our crohn's dog, rolling in a pile of leaves. excuse the one-armed typing.

my arm itches. i would like to claw it apart but, see above, i will refrain. unfortunately i suspect that tomorrow's procedure will be an old crohn's favorite: the ye olde "hi, drink this! throw up! stick needles in! insert toxic dye! put you in a tube! hold your breath!" favored by radiologists round the world. all i ask is that i'll have continued use of my arm afterward, unlike in august. one day of one-armedness (today) is enough. bitch, i got shit to write.

and on that note: it's come to my attention that what's wanted on this site are anecdotes about men, bus scenes, things observed, that vein scenes are out of vogue. believe me, they're out of vogue with me too. back to other programming as soon as there's other programming to program.

she's an easy liver/(she'll get a hold on you, believe it)

2009-11-09T23:40:00.000-08:00

1) I'm getting more liver tests. The people in the liver clinic are very thorough. They had no problem walking me through every possible scenario of what could be wrong with me, right up to the part where I get cirrhosis and need a transplant. But, they assured me, not in a scary way.*

2) I'm in love! Is something wrong with me? Is this going to show up on my next (seemingly weekly) MRI with arm-bursting contrast? I am in love with this man. He is dancing. He is singing Sisqo. Crohns, don't take your temperature now; it's so wrong, it has to be right.

*Note: On the sidelines of all this, in what I am trying to consider a completely non-creepy coincidence, I am sending out a story I first drafted three years ago, title "Transplant," which culminates in exactly what you would imagine. I would say this is life imitating art, but here I think we're going to have to settle with lifelike possibilities imitating another dubious story. "Art" it can hardly be called, as scores of people who have been subjected to it at readings can assure you. (At my reading in October, I looked up just in time to see one confused listener mouth to another, "WHAT?") I'm just wishing I hadn't done all that completely lifelike research where I learned about exactly what happens at every moment. In case you're wondering, it's gross. Incidentally, I think the next story I write is definitely going to feature someone winning the lottery, curing cancer, and then being energetically but sincerely seduced by the man in the above dance sequence. I mean, just in case I actually wield any power here. Maybe I'll also add a little epilogue where everyone who doesn't have eyebrows gets them! Because short stories can absolutely have epilogues all of a sudden.

what lacks in subtlety

2009-11-06T15:47:00.000-08:00

This morning, attempting to work on my "novel" (can I take away the quotation marks after page 150?), I allowed my iTunes to express what it would by authorizing its "DJ" function. (Those quotation marks, unfortunately, are non-negotiable, since there are no disks involved and no person or thing is expressly jockeying them. Sorry --- once a devotee of the Chicago Manual of Style, always a devotee of the Chicago Manual of Style.) iTunes had a few things to say. It had to say:

1) Ladytron, "Destroy Everything You Touch," followed directly by
2) Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around Comes Around," after which came
3) The Besnard Lake's "Disaster" and finally
4) Dolly Parton's "Jolene."

Seriously? Come now, iTunes "DJ." Somewhere in there someone, a gnome or rat, is tee-heeing its little heartlet out. I mean, "Jolene"? What my novel lacks in subtlety* iTunes "DJ" lacks in spades. Later on in the day, having moved on to other, less pressing subjects, it decided that the time was right for Datarock's "Nightflight to Uranus." A Crohn's joke, iTunes? If you're that lighthearted, be my guest.

Luckily for the "DJ" there's only a finite amount of music with which to jockey. I don't think there's anything about excessive consumption of pomegranates (possible song: "Get Them Seeds/Get Them"), four quick, almost jaunty vomits in a row ("And You Ain't Even Drunk, Girl") or a declaration at the doctor this morning that I think I may be losing my composure at large ("Jolene").

*I heard the market was undersaturated with ten-page reveries about the medicinal properties of Feverfew, so I went ahead and dropped one into the middle of chapter 3. See you at the rejection booth!

in which i proceed above the pace of 1 mile per hour

2009-10-30T16:59:00.000-07:00

This morning we got up very early to go to the hospital for my procedures. I felt like ass. I don't know about you, but when I have to get up very early, or when I am going to the hospital, I always dress like crap, in pants that do not fit me and T-shirts usually reserved for sleep or running. Absolutely no makeup, not even sunscreen. The sun is not going to get you in there. Besides, studies (my studies) have shown that with enough makeup and a big smile, people might actually believe you are a normal, healthy person, and in the hospital you don't want that anymore.

I got a wheelchair! Somebody noticed it was taking me a thousand years to get up the ramp to the entrance, and they got me a wheelchair. I love riding in wheelchairs. Even though Juan was walking next to me, which means I must have been going about the pace of walking, I felt like I was going inconceivably fast.

They ultrasounded my abdomen. In the women's center at the hospital, the ceilings are painted with flowers. I never thought I'd get so soft, but I like it there, and I appreciate the flower paintings. I enjoyed looking at the flower paintings while they used the roller to press on my gall bladder and liver until I gave the sign that it hurt, so they knew how far they could press. I liked how the word "women" was all over the center. I must be going really soft because the word "women" in so many places made me cry.

Afterward we went into a deli. I ate some toast crusts and the white part of one and a half eggs along with 40 ounces of mint tea. Then we went to the blood lab. I had ten tubes of blood taken, from the same site as Monday. When the needle went in I could feel the scar tissue breaking. I asked the lab technician, while the blood was running through the tubes, where her Halloween costume was. I know all the lab technicians there.
Today's technician blushed when I asked her about her Halloween costume. She said she was too old for costumes. I asked her how old she was and she said 28. I said me too. I told her she should have come to work as a vampire.
"That would have been funny," I said.
"Why?" she asked.

My legs are impressively heavy now. They're so, so heavy, like they're made of something denser than themselves. I've heard that dead bodies are extremely heavy, that they take double the people to carry them a distance. For a few hours every day they wake up and I hobble around to appear places where people expect things of me. One thing that people expect of you, even if you're sick, is that you will show up places and smile and talk about normal things and make jokes about being sick, like it's absolutely no big deal. It's hard to come up with normal things to talk about when you are in the hospital or in bed all day, but this is part of the deal. Usually Juan has to walk me partway, and I can only walk a few blocks, but even if it takes an hour that's better than none.

Every week for two months now I'll be giving the ten tubes of blood. I hope my veins arrive from Amazon.com soon. Somehow I ripped out the stitches from my groin procedure last week. I wasn't even touching it and then all of a sudden I heard a rip, and that was it. On Tuesday I may get new stitches. Then, later, I will go a different doctor and hear about my MRI and my ultrasounds and my biospy reviews and my blood tests. I will see the liver doctor and the leg doctor and the Crohn's doctor and the groin doctor.

Sometimes, because it feels unpleasant, because it's painful physically, it's easy to forget how extremely lucky I am. I am so lucky that these doctors are running these tests to see what is wrong with me, and that they are trying to fix me, and that my insurance is going to pay for the tests. And I am so lucky that Juan is here to help me get out of bed and walk down the street. I am so lucky that it is overwhelming. I wonder how I will ever be able to pay all of it back.

a revolution for ari

2009-10-28T14:39:00.000-07:00

Today I turned a full revolution in bed by myself, with no assistance. Next thing you know I'll be placing first in a logrolling contest. At least, that's what the optimists would say.

What was the occasion? Today marks the 21st birthday of my favorite and only sister, the beautiful, brilliant, crusading-for-justice Ari. Wow! you're probably saying to yourself. That means Ari will have her first interaction with alcohol and the institutions that serve it! No, Ari made her own milestone there years ago, when she was probably still in braces and yours truly was being kicked out of bars for using her real, valid, over-21 ID. It turns out that being beautiful and brilliant earns you more than just achievements for the good of man and scads of friends; it also earns you booze. Ari, a toast to you today, my friend. A legal toast. Hallelujah.

I sent away to Amazon.com today for more veins. I think I'm going to need them. Next up: What appear to be three million blood tests, and an abdominal ultrasound. No one will tell me what this is all about, except that it is about my liver. The good news is that if you buy a certain amount of veins, you get free shipping. I got free shipping.

in which the motion is carried by ayes from roadrunner and myself

2009-10-27T16:23:00.000-07:00

This morning I was the proud recipient of a triple biopsy of the groin, which sounds like something I would like to award to a hometown sports rival rather than myself. (Greetings, Dallas Cowboys! A Friend Has Gifted You One (1) Triple Biopsy of the Groin! Call at Any Time to Redeem Your Special Gift!) They kept warning me it was going to be so painful, utterly painful, and while yes, it was kind of painful, it honestly had nothing on, say, having your veins explode before your eyes and then having 20 cc of gadolinium leaked into your arm. Overall, I am a satisfied customer.

Afterward, cauterized and yet somehow also bleeding, I accompanied Juan on an errand where we purchased more of the childlike, dog-print cotton underwear I favor despite the fact that I am a 28-year-old woman. I buy the large size underwear even though that underwear is supposedly meant for people whose pants sizes are two to four sizes larger than my own. More cloth = better deal! Right? In Deliverance, a dude used his balled-up underwear to clot up a gigantic arrowhead wound in his side. If he had been wearing the small size dog-print bikini underwears, where would he be now? I ask you.

I guess something is seriously wrong with my liver now. I have been scheduled in Urgent Care at the liver clinic. I'm sorry, but, for real? Gastroenterologist, Hand Specialist, Gynecologist, Neurologist, Hepatologist. And that's just this week. Wouldn't it just be easier to explode me with some jolly-looking TNT and start from scratch? Roadrunner says aye, Kara says aye. The motion passes. Get out the TNT.

from the annals of bicep man

2009-10-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

I would like to correct my former diagnosis of "partial use of legs" to "occasional use of legs," as I had a brief renaissance yesterday during a Boggle match with Laura and Laura. After the Boggle match, I was able to walk for approximately ten minutes! (Thank you, Hasbro.) I figured I was probably cured until about two hours later, when I was lying on my stomach on the bed unable to move in any direction, flailing around for pain medications that weren't there, and sobbing like an idiot. I know, none of you would be sobbing. You would be grinning like casino winners and simultaneously receiving the Nobel peace prize. But you're just higher achievers than I.

Luckily, Juan is still here, manually moving my legs. If you've never had someone manually move your legs, do try. Whereas before you might not have been able to move your legs, astonishingly, when someone else picks them up and shifts them around, they attain mobility! It's a magic trick definitely worth a round of applause --- after you're done shrieking with pain, or winning the Nobel peace prize, whatever suits you.

Meanwhile, I have signed up for NaNoWriMo, national novel writing month. This is the act of a desperate person, a person whose e-mail correspondences with agents have gotten increasingly nasty in recent months:

Them: Hi! Loved your stories. Want to read more! Maybe represent you! Where's the novel?

Me: Hi! Thanks! Almost done, be right there.

Them: Where's the novel?

Me: Um, here are fifty pages from the middle. Disfrute.

Them: No, where are the first fifty pages?

Me: Apologies, I write middles first, then endings, then beginnings.

Them: You are a piece of scum born not unto man, whose organs should first be ripped out by buzzards and then distributed amongst the corners of the earth, where fires begun by moose turds will be waiting to burn them, the ashes then fished out and incorporated into McDonald's hamburgers.

Me: I thought you loved my stories?

Them: Stories are a piece of scum born not unto man, whose organs should first be ripped out by buzzards and then distributed amongst the corners of the earth, where fires begun by moose turds will be waiting to burn them, the ashes then fished out and incorporated into McDonald's hamburgers. Novels are the Lord's work.

Me: Oh. I did not know that.

So, since I can't walk, I might as well try this NaNoWriMo thing. In theory, there are more than enough hours in the day to also work on the stories and also work on the novel I already have in progress, plus write another one. I mean, I ask myself: Since everyone else in the world could write three books at once while unable to walk, I should be able to too, shouldn't I?

leg salad sandwich

2009-10-23T16:24:00.000-07:00

One thing they don't tell you when you are nine and begin taking prednisone for 18 years is that at the end, when you are in withdrawal, you won't be able to walk. Yeah, I was surprised too. Painkillers, not so much helping. Part of me wants to abscond into the Fort bathroom and just gulp down all the prednisone I can see, withdrawal be damned. Everything would be better then! I'd have my legs back and feel like eight to ten bucks! But no, because I was raised to believe that through hard work one can achieve all things.

Today at the doctor, I pulled myself up the stairs by gripping the railing hand over hand and dragging my legs along behind me. Raging biceps, anyone? Raging biceps. Anyone.

I am pleased to report back to you, Crohns, about what the MRIs of others are like. Did you know, for example, that for a brain MRI, you don't have to drink the "pina colada" contrast (pina colada my ass) that makes you throw up? You don't have to drink anything! How luxurious! Plus, I even got ear plugs! These other people are living large, Crohns. There was a prolonged argument about whether I would receive an IV and get contrast. The technician told me that the radiologist wanted me to have it. I said the neurologist said I didn't have to. Reprise kindergartenesque "yes, no, yes, no" back-and-forth. Ultimately, I won.

MRI with no drinking and no IV = heaven on earth. I know, I have no life anymore.

proud recipient of a pair of warm, moist tysabris

2009-10-20T20:33:00.000-07:00

I am now the proud recipient of two Tysabri infusions. Why does it make you this way, like a little sleep puppet, retching and writhing around? At least I feel connected to the renaissance this way, when people were constantly poisoning each other and turning each other into sleep puppets, things that retched and writhed and then eventually died and were hauled away on overloaded carts. I mean, nothing.

There's something somewhat wrong with my liver now, because if it's not one thing, let's go ahead and make it another. I should know lots about livers and their discontents: I wrote a story about a liver transplant (and read from it, with extremely borderline success, Saturday night in front of like one hundred plus people). While I was writing it, I read for weeks about livers and the things that happened to them. I enjoy doing this while I am writing: the research. I openly admit that approximately zero percent of said research appears in the stories themselves; I just like reading about new things. Mostly when I research I am checking to see if my idea is completely implausible, or just mostly implausible. It's the mostly implausible that I'm aiming for.

I got taken off of my pain medications and put on new ones so that my liver wouldn't be as taxed. I'd be sad about this except my old pain medications weren't working, and neither, perhaps just for some thematic continuity, are the new ones. I'm taking them for abdominal pain and also the most intense, shark-began-gnawing-on-it leg pain you could ever imagine. Apparently that's steroid withdrawal. Because if it's not one thing, you know, it's another.

My major coup of the week concerns my Thursday-morning MRI, which my neurologist (update: I don't have PML yet) says I can have without contrast! Which means no IV! Which means no chance of them fucking up my arm like last time. I literally said, "Woohoo!" and was met with a look that suggested I seriously needed to get out more. I had an IV yesterday for my Tysabri, anyway, and that pleasant experience didn't exactly make me eager to get another one on Thursday. (Although the nurse did compliment me several times on how "tiny, almost impossibly tiny!" my veins were while she was nosing around trying to get a hit. That's a compliment, right?)

Recently the doctors have all been asking me if I live alone, if I have anyone who can take care of me. (Juan is in town again right now, which is very nice.)
"Why?" I ask, after answering.
They are looking at me in an unfamiliar way I don't like, like I am smaller than I am, or something bad is about to happen to me that I'm not aware of.

i think this is what some writers call "foreshadow"

2009-10-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

In an hour, I am about to go give a reading. Except I have a fever, one of my legs is swollen, and both have broken out in what appear to be either hives or a spur-of-the-moment celebration of the earth and its many topographies. I'm limping around like an idiot, and the fever appears to be going up rather than breaking. The good news is that I appear to know what I am going to read, at least. Or, I appear to know what I am going to utter lifelessly, given the fact that when I tried to speak just now, on the phone, a fey sort of croak came out.

I hereby call upon my former self, who constantly appeared in places she should not have when she should not have, giving face for all the world of being a totally normal person of totally normal health, to step up and represent tonight. Self, you lectured on 200 calories a day! Come on, self! You have shown up in countless venues --- family parties, friends' birthdays, work, planes, trains, automobile, with a giant fake smile on your face and gotten away with it. One more smile, self! And make it look realistic.

in which i consider dressing in monochrome to deter disaster

2009-10-14T22:37:00.000-07:00

Do you ever feel like something really bad is coming, a terrifying, almost thick feeling of ominousness and a powerlessness to stop it? Michelle and Nate's cat Wallace felt like that three Halloweens ago when, clad in one of those last-minute what-the-hell type costumes (all red clothing, head-to-toe, purchased at a thrift store that afternoon, and red-painted face and hands), I caused him what was probably the most terrifying moment of his life. Dude puffed up like a powder ball. The tail looked like an all-feather duster. He walked sideways away from me, afraid to turn his back. Who knew monochrome could be so scary? The evening ended with the three of us sitting on the couch watching TV and eating Thai takeout, me in my head-to-toe devil garb and Michelle and Nate in street clothes. Fear basically just follows me around.

My next Tysabri infusion is on Monday. To say the first month of Tysabri has been awesome would be an understatement, if we mean "awesome" in the way of an inconceivably large skyscraper about to fall on you. Also on the docket for next week: There's been this small matter of not being able to feel half of my left hand. No biggie, but apparently biggie enough to warrant another MRI --- of the brain, this time --- and a trip to the neurologist. Gastroenterologist, gynecologist, plastic surgeon, neurologist ... I'm really making the rounds this fall. It's just that I would hate to discriminate.

Motions thus carried by the court of Abby and me, regarding the upcoming procedures:

1. The Tysabri will not put me in the hospital. (Abby: "Aye" Me: "Aye" Abby: "The motion carries!")

2. The MRI technicians will not fuck up my arm like they did last time, rendering it useless for a short time, or, possibly, forever. (Reprise ayes.)

3. The MRI will reveal that there is nothing wrong with my brain at all, save my inability to solve complex math problems and my 85%-of-the-time poor taste in men. Most especially not wrong with it will be PML, the brain infection that kills you, rendering you --- unsurprisingly! --- pretty much dead. (Ayes.)

I'm so glad that we live in a country where we can make our own justice system.

in which i earn my honorary doctorate from the showtime network

2009-10-11T23:30:00.000-07:00

Enough terrified Internet hypochondria, since I've come down with something resembling the flu and am awaiting the sure-to-be-not-awesome results of some tests I had done on Wednesday, has convinced me that I have the bubonic plague. I don't exactly know how my investigation led me there; at first I was just googling symptoms and key words, and the next thing you know I was reading about how I was going to develop bubons, which would burst and spew forth their toxic pus all over my writhing corpse.

And a happy Columbus Day to you and yours!

Today on The Tudors a bunch of people --- let's go with several tens of thousands --- died of the sweating sickness. The sweating sickness was a mysterious, probably viral epidemic that swept across Europe in the late 15th century, and then again in the early to mid-16th century, when the show and its events are set. To this day nobody knows exactly what it was, what its causes were, or what the correlation between its appearances and disappearances was --- except that, interestingly, one of its initial presenting symptoms was fear. During one of the episodes, people are continually exhorting themselves to fucking calm down because they don't have the sweating sickness they're just freaking out. Henry VIII (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers and his buttocks) looks into a window at night and sees himself turn into a gremlin. He dreams that he folds back the skin of a roasted salmon to find it's covered in maggots. He dreams he sleeps peacefully at night next to the corpse of his would-be bride, Anne Boleyn (and her corpse buttocks). (There are so many buttocks in this show, I can't even begin to describe.) Together with some of these Tudors, I took a few deep breaths. I mean, it's probably not the bubonic plague. It's probably just syphilis.

on the visual emergence of the elusive "head pore"

2009-10-09T12:50:00.000-07:00

I'm going to get a haircut today from my friend Rudy, who is a hairdresser --- so that seems like a good start, getting a haircut from a hairdresser as opposed to, say, myself. Since I'm losing my hair, I wonder whether I should just cut it all off, the way other women and sick people do when they are losing their hair. When they do it, they always look all militant and fuck-you and whatnot, but I know I would not look that way. Gigantic face + short hair = not a particularly good look. I would look like a festival balloon about to take flight. I know this because when I was eleven, I tried this combination, complete with Farrah Fawcett wings and a butt-part down the middle, and persons (albeit eleven-year-old persons) threw acorns at me and called me "Kara the chipmunk." Sure, that was mean, but let's be honest here: They were not wrong.

My other concern is that in the course of cutting it, pulling and blow-drying, Rudy will inadvertently just coax all the rest of the hair out of my head, and at the end will try to convince me that I am a fabulous bald person, which would also be, just objectively, incorrect. It stands to follow that not being fabulous with hair, I would certainly not be fabulous without. I imagine myself with a rhinestone-embellished skull and feel sad.

When I was in college I wrote a short-stort story about a woman losing her hair. It was a terrible, simply awful story, so of course I submitted it as part of my MFA application portfolio. Former self, did you really do that? (Former self: "Yes, I did. Sorry. I was a terrible writer. Eat me.") When I went up to Columbia to discuss my application with a professor there, a great person and talented poet who I will call Z, he smiled kindly and just sort of shunted that story off to the side.
"Let's discuss the other story," he said.
"You don't want to discuss both of them?" I asked.
"Let's just forget about that story," he said frankly. And then, to soften the blow, "For right now."

Upon finding the story some six years later, I was appalled that I had even been allowed to go to the MFA program at all. The story comes up with all the worst overdone images of hair loss: Drains are clogged! Palms are massaged, woefully, over barren scalps! Memories of sunshine! Jumping on the bed! Birds tweeting! Pores --- head pores! The worst part about the story was that it wasn't true --- it didn't ring true at all --- it just felt like someone who'd seen the movie Annie, inspired by the stylin' styles of Daddy Warbucks, had written three pages of whoozie-whatsit and then lain down for an energizing nap. If I were to rewrite the story now, I'd make it boring, and lame, because that's what losing one's hair seems to really be like. Don't worry: I won't rewrite it.

in which i flagrantly propagate the stereotypes of my gender

2009-10-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

You know how when you're a kid you tell yourself that when you grow up, god damn it, you're going to eat whatever you want? Cheetos for lunch, Cheetos for dinner! And Zach Morris will be president! I have descended there, to that dark place. My ten-year-old self (who, once, when left home alone, ate an entire container of whipped cream cheese plain out of the container) would be totally into this. Yesterday I had a cup of broth and a piece of frozen yellow cake, no frosting. That was breakfast and lunch, respectively. To round out this gourmet palate, some codeine, an iron supplement, prednisone, and a vitamin. No wonder I'm gray! Broth and cake? Come on, Kara. Your hair's falling out, your skin is gray, your ribs are showing, and all you've got is broth and cake? Even Marie Antoinette would be like, Honey, no.

What's good motivation for eating better? A baby. An adorable, tiny baby! Now, before you start panicking, I'm not pregnant. For the past two days, for my daily outing, I've been babysitting. On Monday I babysat a young person I've been babysitting for many months, a fine, mischevious two-year-old by the name of J___ who enjoys spearing my forearm with forks, jumping on his mother's bed, perfecting the high-five and the low-five, and eating hamburgers. But last night was my first time babysitting a new young person, one C____, aged seven (!) months (!). Per his mother's instructions, we went out on a walk with him in a sling on my stomach. He stared at the sky and I sang and told him jokes. Everywhere we went, people smiled at us. (People never smile at me! Not even when they know me!) When we passed by a pile of pumpkins, I compared each one to his head, which is rather large, for size. When we got home, I gave him a bath and put on his pajamas, and then I gave him his bottle and put him to sleep. I got milk and spitup all over me, and did not mind at all. Not that this is anything new, but, um, I totally want a baby. I know it's creepy. I know, I know. People who are going to have babies, however --- even if these babies are five years off --- need to eat more nutritious things than broth and cake. Today I have had some yogurt.

This morning, though, I woke up feeling terrible, like I have the flu and mono and Crohn's and crushed-by-anvil syndrome all in one. All these babies and their germs, maybe they aren't the safest daily outings for me, though it is nice to make some money. I'm so exhausted I almost canceled today's daily outing, except that it was a doctor's appointment. (The doctor, who was not a gastroenterologist but a gynecologist, was so weirded out by my gray appearance that she made me put on a mask for her own protection! (Me: "Don't worry, Crohn's Disease isn't contagious.") Wow, I'm moving up in the world.) Thank God writing is a sedentary task (and that I'm not babysitting again until Saturday).

on being caught by your boyfriend's mother when in a bookstore to purchase james dickey's "deliverance"

2009-10-05T13:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I ventured out for my daily half-hour outing. I try to leave every day to make sure I'm getting enough vitamin D. Weird things are happening to me; for example, my hair is falling out in clumps. (I asked my doctor if Tysabri, or staying in my apartment all the time, could cause this. Her response: "No, but being very, very sick can." Wha-bam! Monster-truck throwdown! She just has a way with words, what can I say.)

So I decided I would go to the used bookstore, which is about three blocks away, and look for this month's Book Cabal book. The Book Cabal was founded about three years ago when a bunch of people from my MFA program moved out to the Bay area, separately and coincidentally, at the same time. Every month we eat pizza at Ruth or Mike's house. One pizza has sausage and one has chicken. Yes, every month the same pizzas. For three years. I guess we just don't like vegetarians, or are trying to hold on to the meanness and pizzaness we once knew together in New York. There is a book involved each month. Some people read it and some people don't. There have been some major winners amongst these books, and some major non-winners as well. The month that we read Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, which, admittedly, had been my choice, no one finished the book except for me, who read it three times with sticky notes, then proceeded to give a nearly tearful oratory about what a spectacular work of art it was, how it was a firework in the bleak night sky of reading and so on, while the rest of The Cabal looked at their watches and moved mushrooms around their plates. If it were possible, I would like to form a union with Wells Tower. A union of any kind. But I digress.

In September, I did not attend Book Cabal because I was here in my apartment on ER watch. Only four persons, as it transpired, were able to make it to the Cabal, and it was those four persons --- trusted persons, mind you! --- who selected Deliverance as this month's book.
"Um, Deliverance?" I repeated over the phone to Ruth, who called me from Cabal to see if I needed a ride, post-Cabal, to the emergency room. (I did not.) "I'm sorry, I thought you said Deliverance. Ha-ha. Ha."
"Deliverance!" she confirmed. "It's sort of an adventure!"
Well, that's true.

The adventure continued yesterday in the bookstore, when, almost immediately upon entering, I ran into The Bay's mother. In the fourteen months or so that I have known The Bay and known his mother and known that his mother works in this bookstore, I have never seen here there. But of course it would stand to reason that the time I am there to look for Deliverance (oh, Cabal) I would run into my boyfriend's mother and have to tell her so. Hi there! Just sweet, trustworthy me, wandering around the bookstore, looking for a nice, sweet, girlfriendly afternoon read of Deliverance. Don't mind me. Oh, this? In my belt? That's a machete. Sometimes we housebound people need it for, you know, chopping down air between the bathroom and the bed. Additionally, I'm totally normal.

After first explaining what I was doing out of the house, I then of course had to explain what I was doing there, to wit, looking for Deliverance.
"It's for my book group," I explained abashedly. "I didn't pick the book, ha! Ha-ha!" I didn't dare mention that it's really a book cabal.
The Bay's mother, batting nary an eyelash, found the book in the mystery section, chatted with me a while, and was even nice enough to extend to me her employee discount. On Deliverance. Boy, is she nice.

I don't know about you, but if I were a mother of one single, solitary, precious son, I would be absolutely delighted if he embarked on a serious relationship with a decrepit older woman who first showed herself to be a workaholic; then a chronically ill person; then a person who lands herself in hospitals; then a person who becomes housebound like a modern-day Miss Havisham; then shows up at your own bookstore looking for a book on assault. I mean, it's really just a dream come true.

Lucky for me, The Bay's mom is a way cooler mom than I would be.

Cabal, if you're out there, pizza's on you.

from the annals of the victorian-era shut-in

2009-10-04T11:14:00.000-07:00

I guess being a shut-in isn't all that bad. If I go out of my apartment, I get a fever or my throat swells up. So I just stay in now. Actually it's really very Victorian. I even have a chaise lounge here! (Okay, so it's from Cost Plus, what's it to you.) In acknowledgment of our new lifestyle, Phillip has grown muttonchops and believes himself to have measles.
"Why, beardogs can't get measles, Phillip!" I told him jauntily.
He told me all the rules are changing.

I have been alternating between the following activities:

1. Writing
2. Reading books
3. Reading magazines
4. Reading cookbooks
5. Reading blogs about how other people's homes are delightful and stylish
6. Watching The Tudors on Netflix Instant*
7. Writhing around on the bed clutching at my abdomen
8. Taking my temperature
9. Cleaning

This morning I added a new activity, namely, gulping down codeine. My reasoning is the following: I'm a shut-in now. Now less than ever does anyone depend on me for anything at all. I don't even leave my house. Make an impression on anyone? Seem loopy? Doesn't matter. No one sees me! Therefore there's no reason at all why I shouldn't, every six hours or so, take some pain medication and make better use of my time --- writing, say, or even sleeping --- than crouching on my bathroom floor squeezing tears out and taking deep Lamaze breaths. The real question here is, why does it hurt so much? Aren't I supposed to be pumped to the gills with The Wonder Drug, Tysabri? Aren't I supposed to be so healthy I can barely stand it? I don't know if this has occurred to anyone else, but ever since I started taking this drug, I've been sicker and less a part of the real world than ever before in my life. Fifteen days until my next infusion! Boy oh boy, I can't wait.

*I finished Lost and now apparently have to wait until February to find out what happens next. Terrible anticipation. (Says the person who didn't even know Lost existed until it had been on television for five years.) So I started The Tudors. I had hoped The Tudors would be slightly drier, a little more PBS-meets-BBC than it is --- more, in other words, like history class or a book. Instead it's a lot of horses, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and butts. Not complaining, I guess. The book that changed my life, coincidentally, was about the Tudors. I read The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir during the summer after I graduated from high school. I read it on the Metro to and from my procured-by-simply-hanging-around-until-they-couldn't-get-rid-of-me political-magazine internship. History had never been so awesome. In the fall, I marched off to college, determined to major in all things pertaining to this time period. Turns out, nothing pertaining to this time period was available, but there was this thing called medieval studies, and it was rather earlier than the Tudor period and no one at the college seemed to be interested in it. One week later I was enrolled in a seminar called "The Barbarian North," reading about Huns and Jutes and wondering what the hell I was doing there. Fast forward four years and I had a degree in medieval studies and increased confusion to show for it. A degree in medieval studies? How had that happened? Who actually possessed degrees in medieval studies? God, it was terrifying and wrong. The thing I learned from Alison Weir's book, however, was not about the Tudors. It was that with enough narrative skill, one can make the real seem more urgent than it ever has been before.

another reason to feel good about staying home

2009-10-02T15:59:00.001-07:00

Dating Montage
by smithy00101

crime deserves a font size befitting its prestige

2009-09-30T21:51:00.000-07:00

For my birthday, Michelle and Nate gave me The Writer's Complete Crime Reference Book, copyright 1993. The word CRIME is in enormous font on the jacket. CRIME, people, CRIME! The beginning of the blurb?

"You're about to commit a crime -- on paper that is." Oh, how true. How true that is.

I decided this was a perfect book for me, since I am definitely going to jail at some point, although I'm not sure yet for what. "This will help me decide on a crime to commit, and how!" I announced cheerfully. They explained that the idea was that if I ever wrote about a crime, I could look inside and use the book as a reference. How will I ever get to jail now?

I am supposed to be in Maryland at this very moment, imminently on my way to Virginia to C & P's wedding. But where am I? At the Fort. All of my friends are going to C & P's wedding. Am I going? No. I am not going. Now that I am definitely not going, I have begun to convince myself that maybe, if I had gone, I could have lain in the grass beside the ceremony and watched from the grass; and I probably could have stayed up for a whole night, especially if I didn't eat or drink anything too challenging, and maybe I could have napped in the bathroom!; and I'm sure I could have driven from Maryland to Charlottesville -- I could just park and nap by the roadside... I'm sure I could have napped by the roadside...

What a douche I am. I am just not going, huh. Maybe I could go to jail for that! Things are looking up.