Two and a Half Months on the Island of Bed

I have begun to think of this last two and a half months as resting on an island -- everything I need is nearby -- water, juice, the dogs, books, a notebook, pen, napkins and kleenex, a kitchen towel to protect my clothes from spillage when I eat. At night I wrap myself in a lavender (not the best color, but so comfortable) quilt on top of the bed and sleep until I wake up, then watch PBS or read, then maybe sleep again.

Recently I've lost the marvelous zing that characterized my middle of the nights since I started getting prednisone in the hospital. I've decreased the dose, two weeks-by-two-weeks from 60mg to 20, so that's probably why. I hate to admit that I miss it because that bit of personality that appeared so startlingly at 1am, or maybe 3, was closer to my real, remembered self. 

Two nights ago, "Hamlet," a filmed production from London, was repeated sometime very late. I'd watched most of it the previous afternoon, but wanted very badly to see it again, since I've never been really read or thought about Shakespeare (in spite of one college class, so many years ago, that I never noticed.) And there it was, in my precious high-time, only there I was, flat, dull and eager to fall asleep again.

The bed still beckons me during the day. Right now I seem tied to it most of the time whether it's because of the change in medication or because when I started to walk, fifteen days ago, I thought that going up hills was the best way to strengthen, not having considered what lying down for two months does to a person. So, as is characteristic, I did too much and probably got to the piraformis muscle which is never, never fun.

Chris and Krissy still drive me to work, only now he's taking the big dig and then the expressway. I get to go over the Zakim bridge which is truly gorgeous though I would never drive on that highway myself, being phobic. Often I shut my eyes or mutter things like, "The right lane is a very good place to be. The right lane is really nice." But I can tell how much I've calmed down since I first drove with Chris.

On the way back from my class (where they dropped me conveniently and retrieved me after three hours), we stop at the Victoria Diner, where I order steak tips. I never imagined eating beef, but I am. Which reminds me of a woman I knew who said, "Never say never." I'd been photographing in a Catholic church in Roxbury, a predominantly black congregation and an Irish priest, for a project about the old elevated Orange Line trolley that ran from Jamaica Plain down into Boston, set to be torn down within the year. 

I'd decided to photograph and interview people who lived along that stretch and managed to spend a good bit of time with most of them -- a doctor from Healthcare for the Homeless, the daughter of my friend from Guyana who moved to Boston, the art librarian at the university, and the never-say-never nun, a Sister of St. Joseph, who took me to various folks that she visited in Via Victoria and became a good friend. She lived in a pleasant house with four or five bedrooms shared with others from her community. We often had lunch in that sunny kitchen. Was it there or somewhere else that I met another woman who was talking about her rather unpleasant position in a cloister, and I must have said, "But I thought everyone is equal." and she said, "Oh, yes, everyone is equal, but some are more equal that others." I loved that simple phrase. (What was odd, wonderful, is that folks in that church group accepted that I am an agnostic, just allowed me to be me.) Of course, the images with their transcribed text, difficult and complicated and very satisfactory to make, got lost in some bureaucratic shuffle. 

But as my daughter said, when she was a little girl, and I'd just gotten out of the hospital for an infected toe nail (give me a break) and got back to the apartment to see her and found that there was no heat, no hot water and that the cats had torn down the Christmas tree, "You can't have everything." (She's right and we went to stay with a friend and her son in their loft....)

Last Sunday, when I was feeling better than I am now, I decided to test out driving. I knew perfectly well that I'm not capable of normal Boston driving, but thought I could manage to get to Winthrop to have tea with the vespersparrow. I hadn't seen her in probably three months, or at least close to it. And knew that there's very little traffic on that route which actually takes me past the barn area of the racetrack. My car can do it in its sleep....      

I won't say that I was entirely secure or that I would have been happy driving with me. My reflexes are slow and one has to drive with great defensiveness here. I'm not sure where this city is on the scale of bad drivers, but it's very high on the list. A lot of extremely impatient people drive way above the speed limit in town, run red lights, honk if you're the slightest bit slow, cut you off in a minute, turn right on the light just in front of you when it's  your right-of-way. Etc. 

I brought her the muffins I'd made with the recipe from my Panera friend, but there were only two for each of us. I could have eaten seven, with that lovely honey.

Tulip and I weren't entirely sure about the drive. She's been reading up on the traffic rules, but wasn't all that helpful, except for her earnest interest in the trip.

I still, even though I've gotten even slower and it hurts to walk, make my way down to Ping at Marketbasket where he (or Peter) make the inari with avocado and shrimp. I convinced a friend, K., to have lunch with me there which was particularly nice. He got his form of treats and I ate my usual, very pleasant fare.

I apologize for being behind on reading blogs, most especially the Cuban in London, whose site I read, but too hurriedly, but will read again, along with the next two installments. And I'm behind on Tuesday Poems, but I'll catch up.

Perhaps this wasn't the best week because I finalized my decisions to stop teaching as of this fall, even though I'm scheduled for a class. It's very hard to give up a career that meant so much to me, especially since my pension is very modest. The decision was hard, not because I'm sick, but because I've worked since I was 14 and define myself in that way. But I'd gotten to a point where I would be happier bagging groceries in a supermarket (I've never done that before!) than I was working in someone else's photo program, much as I like the person who slid into my positio personally. Obviously this was hard, perhaps a reason for fatigue, but I think it's a combination of physical factors. But who knows? Only the Shadow. I e-mailed that attachment containing my letter on Sunday.

In class on Monday, we had a critique that started at 1:15 and ended at 3:30. It involved me thinking and talking about student work, encouraging them to talk, making sure it was clear that I might voice an opinion, but it's only an opinion, not meant to sway a decision and talking about the problems with the printer not being calibrated to the computer screen or visa versa, and that you can't use 16x20 paper ($3 a sheet) without sacrificing a piece for test strips, and that it's necessary to chose satin or matt paper for digital prints, etc. By the end, most everyone seemed fried, but I was major-league gone and decided to leave early. I never do that. But as I walked to the bathroom, I thought, "I was in the hospital, 6 or 7 weeks ago, near to needing a transfusion. Who am I kidding?"

I'm kidding myself, not believing that being 71 (ouch, ouch, ouch, ahhhhhhhh) is different than being 57 or 42. I would not have been this sick at those ages. But, I think, look who I was last summer, in the barns every morning, washing water buckets, mixing feed, walking a lot, the illusion that I had built myself up considerably. And I had, even if I now walk an uneven line and imagine the police assuming I'm some drunk carrying  her two bags of groceries back from the market!

Many thanks...

Gifts

It has been a remarkable week, starting with the arrival of Krissy's friend, Parker, last Saturday, this delightful person. (Please take a look at A Glorious Sunday blog post because Parker is such a gem and I just can't give enough sense of that here.)

When my daughter was brought to me in the hospital, a tiny baby, her eyes were open and I had every sense that she was looking around, saying to herself, 'Okay, I'm ready. Let's get going.' As a child, I swore that she'd talk to a doorknob if no one was around to listen. She was alive, alive, alive, running, dancing, chattering, making up stories and languages. And she still talks, a lot, but not as much as Parker who is just chock full of stories, one after another and plans.

On Wednesday morning, Krissy and I went through my jewelry and found earrings that looked like Parker that Krissy put into little cloth bags, tiny boxes and then into a basket. After that K. and I took my first walk, as in truly first walk after I'd made the decision to try a few blocks toward the Chelsea City Cafe. To my surprise and relief, I made it to a bagel and ice water. 

When I got back, Parker and I sat on the back porch, and she opened her hand-me-down presents (quite nice, often silver with amethyst, or tiny jade leaves, all lovely gifts from I don't remember where), each pair reminded her of a story, often about someone in the ashram she visits every few years to continue her studies with her swami. (Twenty-two hours, not counting layovers and the taxi ride to the tiny village, yes, I would like to see India, but no, I won't ever, just tell me more stories about the two Nomads who came into the ashram, their muscular arms showing through the wraps, bracelets covering their arms so that they displayed their level of wealth and jingled when they strode out, having decided not to wait until swami appeared, tinkling bells and smiling -- these most fully-possessed-of-themselves, beautiful pair of women she'd ever seen, she couldn't stop starring. How could a pair of earrings remind her of them as we sat on my rickety steps overlooking the straggling back yard with a few daffodils starting to fade.)

Today, Parker's last day in Boston where she has been to Memorial Drive, Harvard Square, Marblehead (see Sunday blog), Salem,The Elisabeth Stewart Gardener Museum and on the Freedom Trail, she wanted to have tea at the Chelsea Cafe, the three of us, before we went to Revere Beach to walk the dogs. (So I could photograph Krissy and Parker, both with Cherokee cheekbones. Can you tell?)

THAT'S RIGHT. WALK THE DOGS. ME. ON THE BEACH. WALKING. It was quite amazing to be there, cool ("Is it always this cold? I'm freezing," Parker says. "This is nice," I say. She shivers. The dogs run ahead, around, Bogie rolls continually on his back, managing to unhook his leash and lose it for a while.)

The walking started last night after I got an e-mail from a friend of Elsa Dorfman's who has been advising me. Her latest hint is to keep up strength training. And my response ten minutes later was to decide that I could draggle around after Krissy when she walked the dogs. And to decide that I will walk twice a day, brute force if necessary. But it wasn't. I could actually do it. Followed by lying down, but who cares. I'd walked, slowly, for an hour.





Otherwise, I would be lying here reading Suetonius, something I never imagined I'd ever get around to.

I was touched to find a very old issue of Caterpillar 3/4, cost $2.50, with Atagawa's note to Masao Kume, dated 12 June, 1927, saying

 "Whether or not this manuscript ought to be published, and of course, when it should be published or where, I leave to you.

    You know most of the people who appear in it. But if you have it published, I'd rather it didn't have an index.

    I exist now in a most unhappy happiness. But strangely, without remorse. Only that I feel very sorry for those who had me as a husband, father, son.   Goodbye. In the manuscript, consciously (underlined) at least, there is no attempt to justify myself.

   Last, I leave this manuscript to you feeling that you knew me better than anyone else.   (The skin of this cosmopolitan me stripped away)  At the fool in this manuscript, go ahead and laugh."

Akutagawa (1892 - 1927): popular genius of his time.  Voracious reader, immersed in Chinese classics, Japanese history, Western literature. Author of "Rashomon" (1915), basis for the famed film..."

A Glorious Sunday

Krissy's friend, Parker, is visiting for a few days. What a gift. To me. She flew into Boston on Saturday, then C. took her for a long walk on Memorial Drive, and to Harvard and the Square, all of which was fascinating since she loves history and finds it remarkable to be here, where it's embodied almost everywhere.

When she got back later that evening, she came up, sat on the bed and talked to me for a couple of hours. Heaven. Many stories about the remarkable people she's read about -- like the woman who had been a laundress for all of her life, washing and ironing clothes, tithing, saving a third of her very small salary, centering her life about the family and her love of Jesus. After she had, little-by-little, saved more than a million dollars, she wanted to do something significant with it (but wasn't interested in recognition) and decided to endow a scholarship at the University of Mississippi (I think.) The whoever she spoke with couldn't imagine that a woman with no public stature, who had earned so little all of her life, had done this and naturally made a big fuss which lead to this humble woman giving public lectures on living modestly and doing something significant with savings.

A consummate extrovert, part Cherokee and from Tennessee, Parker's recovered (put behind her) a childhood that makes most, including mine, look like a walk in the park, and is consumed by a quick intelligence combined a remarkable openness to different experiences, an inner sense of joy, hope and enthusiasm. She's learned to forgive and exudes curiosity and, dare I say it, love. She has a lean face, high cheek bones, large eyes and an expressive mouth. Watching her face move is a past time in itself, as is following her breathless conversation. Heaven.

The first photo shows her beginning her demonstration of how a sari is 16 yards of cloth, folded into a gorgeous garment, so practical and comfortable. When she's at the ashram in India, she wears both western clothes and saris. At home and at work, she wears saris and western clothes, choosing to integrate both worlds that she lives in, instead of keeping them separate. The guru, with whom she has studied for many years,  discourages everyone from engagement with 'him,' as the focal point and she's thoroughly integrated this lesson. She has made part of her living doing complex astrological charts for well over twenty years as well as art modeling which is where she met Krissy some years ago.

The game plan for Sunday had been for C. to drive us up the coast (Krissy was working in New York) to Marblehead. I thought I was good for three hours, maybe, but at the last minute volunteered to stay home because I'm more than a drag, and because Parker really would have liked to stop in Salem, but fortunately, for me, they wouldn't let me. 

C. says that I'm like a wind-up doll. Get me going, shoved into the car, and I stay upright for a certain amount of time before the batteries run down and I have to eat. By the time we'd reached the restaurant I had in mind, seated ourselves at the counter overlooking the bay, I had disappeared. At least until the food arrived. I couldn't even listen to Parker and C. talk about whether there really was a white cross in back of the light house way across the water. The waitress didn't know, but by then C. and Parker had fabricated a story about all the fishermen lost at sea and this memorial. (Which later turned out to be something entirely different.

My aim had been to eat and then walk to Fort Sewall (1742, an earthworks fort) where I've been any number of times. I couldn't imagine walking further than the first bench (about 100 miles), but ended up making my way all around it and looking into the gated windows of the minute kitchen, guard and storage rooms. That's where Parker told us about the Sari.

While C. was driving around Marblehead earlier, I spotted a boat storage area and asked him to stop (he'd already stopped many times so Parker could photograph forsythia, lobster pots, a wooden swing in the middle of an island of daffodils. Later they would climb up into the cemetery and find gravestones so old that the writing has disappeared.) so that Parker could photograph the wrapped boats. And I found myself, for the first time, VOLUNTARILY getting out of the car and going to take pictures myself.

For several years I'd compulsively photographed (with film, black and white) any wrapped items, buildings under construction in winter, plastic wrapped boats, etc., with the intention of making a mock-Christo (sp?) piece. (His/his wife's work has so penetrated my references.) I never did, but here I was, VOLUNTARILY walking somewhere that was a mere luxury (instead of toward Ping and the Sushi bar...). Or toward my classroom, where I will go today.

That was quite a surprise. A fabulous day. Six hours outside. And Parker will be here until Thursday!

Adventures this Week

The last time I moved, an abortive attempt to buy a condo in Jamaica Plain, I rid myself of endless books with no real sense of why I kept what I kept. Such as Lying Stones of Marrakech by Gould. I started the first essay in the middle of last night, as I ate watermelon we'd bought earlier after a visit to Ping for the avocado and shrimp sushi.

I would have sworn that I've never read a book about structuring narrative, but my underlining is right there in a book that's on the way out.  I glanced through it and found a quote by Strunk which denotes the profound lessons of my teenage years --  use the clearest language, in the simplest way, to make the strongest statements. My father bought the book since he definitely conveyed those lessons with his economical, but still interesting prose. And I've taken them to heart, somewhere deep inside me, even though I've occasionally longed to clothe my ideas in sparking language, stacking on four adjectives when one, at most, would do, (though I hate to admit that.) I have never, never gone as far as wanting to use language like Updike did.............(I'd like to have black curls, a gold tooth, wear sparkling colors, lots of jewelry and sequins. Oh, yes, and gold tennis shoes!

Years ago, I found a novel on a Marlow case and sent it to a friend in L.A. It arrived back on my doorstep by return mail because she doesn't like graphic novels of this style. Why on earth did I keep it? Gone now.

I can't imagine having read Pasternak's book, "I Remember," when I was twenty. What would I have understood then when I understand so little now, except these marvelous paragraphs in the section called "Three Shadows."

"Ehrenburg spoke to me in high terms of marina Tsvetayeva and showed me her poems. I was present at a literary meeting at the beginning of the Revolution at which she, among other writers, red her verses. During one of the winters of the Civil War I went to see her with some kind of message. I talked about all sorts of unimportant things and listened to all sorts of trivialities in turn. Marina Tsvetayeva made no impression on me.

My ear was at the time perverted by pretentious extravagances and the break from everything natural that were in vogue in those days. Everything spoken in a normal way rebounded from me. I forgot that words by themselves can mean and contain something apart from the cheap toys with which they are strung.

It was just the harmony of Marina Tsvetayeva's, the clarity of their meaning, the presence of find qualities and absence of defects that interfered with and barred the way to my understanding of their true nature. It was not the essential I looked for in everything, but some nicety which had nothing to do with it.

For a long time I underestimaged Marina Tsvetayeva as in different ways I had underestimated Bagritsky, Khlebnikov, Mandelstam, and Gumiyov.

I have already said that among the young people who could not express themselves intellgibly and who raised their tongue-tied babblings into a virtue and tried to be original at all costs, only two, Aseyev and Marina Tsvetayeva, expressed themselves in human language and wrote in a classical style and language.

And suddently both of them renounced their skill. Aseyev was tempted by Khlebnikov's exmaple. Marina Tsvetayeva had undergone some inward changes of her own. But it was the original, the traditional Marina Tsvetayeva who in the end prevailed over me long before she suffered a rebirth."

Of course, I can't truly assess what Pasternak means. Though I thought I had a book of Tsvetayeva's work, I can't find it. Nor can I find Mayakovsky's poems, which I remember liking a great deal (though Pasternak didn't.) And I've read nothing of Pasternak's poetry. So, why was I so happy lying there, rereading this basically incomprehensible book? Probably because he was so hard on his early work, so interestingly dismissive.

Though I hardly had energy (I'm still not voluntarily been on my feet or sitting at a computer for a  whole eight hours a day,) I was determined to buy some pants that fit to wear when I teach on Monday. So we went to Kohl's, an exhausting outing made far more difficult because I find it so hard to eat in the mornings. My stomach is still swollen, but my body is smaller and I hope I found pants that fit. And underwear. By the time I was finished trying things on, I was totally exhausted. 

Luckily C. knew of a food bar in the mall, endless little islands of different foods. Though I'd like to eat all organic food, there are moments when that's not possible and this was one. I was so grateful for the little pieces of sole which I combined with pickled beets and a tiny bit of mashed potatoes.We all went up to fill our plates three times. Though I'm generally not excessively pushy, I stood at the cantaloupe, having figured out that the tender pieces are at the bottom of the tray.

It's all slow. The mornings, medication and eating, not barfing when I introduce a food that doesn't agree with me. But I'm getting better. I'm grateful for that, happy to be reading. Looking forward to starting on my own work again, sometime.  In the meantime, grateful.

Turning A Corner

After almost two months, I've turned a corner.

The celebration of it was actually meeting Ping, the manager of Market Basket sushi bars and the fellow who has so kindly made Krissy the Inari pouches that she bought so many times before I could go out.  

But there I was, tottering over to his stand to thank him. And, while I was standing there, I began to wonder what else I can eat that he makes. Avocado rolls? No sea weed. He understood that and showed me a package of tofu paper that works just as well. So my first fore beyond Inari was a package of six avocado rolls. 

And yesterday I asked whether he has any cooked fish. Yes, crab, but they are spiced. Why not try shrimp? Three avocado and three shrimp with avocado. You can see them here because I managed to take a photo before I ate them all! Today I'll order all shrimp and avocado and then K. & C. will sit with me while I edit some material for them and eat. (Yesterday they watched part of the Red Sox-Yankee game along with the guys who had parked themselves in this convenient corner of tables to stare into the nice flat screen.

The first night they took me to meet Ping, and I stood waiting for them to shop, I finally realized that I've been really sick. Really sick! It seems odd that I could have written this undoubtedly nauseating blog about this ulcerative colitis smack down without truly acknowledging how sick I've been. But, perhaps, when you're going through the worst, it's hard to face that.

After Marketbasket and my meal, we actually went to Mary O'Malley Park where I walked, not far, but farther than I'd imagined. When I got home I went to sleep immediately, but later I found myself on my yoga mat, doing what used to be my daily routine of back exercises and stretching for the first time in two months. I'd been imagining myself doing that for a week, but was surprised to find myself out of bed, on the floor. I've turned a corner.

Before the Sushi, we tried out Starbucks where I spent hours writing and editing material on my laptop for the last year. Though I hadn't been there in two months, the barristers asked if I wanted the usual - a tall, non-fat, extra hot latte. Yes, I did, very badly, but I had apple juice. I'm not quite ready for Starbucks yet, and certainly not ready to start writing or editing again. Soon, I hope.

It will be a milestone when I spend eight hours out of bed during the day. But lying there and reading has been curiously interesting. I finally found Allen Shawn's book that S. sent me more than a year ago. I read half of it before it disappeared. This time I started again and went right through it. Sometime I'll blog about my mild phobias, enough to plague me, but nothing, nothing, nothing like the prison that his have created. The odd thing, as he often mentions, is that he functions so well in many areas of his life, including teaching, composing and performing (as long as he doesn't have to fly, etc.) that he forgets that he's phobic.

And there are my underlinings in "Steppenwolf," so predictable, characteristic of who I was in the early 60s. 

And it's here's the Mary Poppins book that my mother bought me, long before she died. I loved Mary Poppins.

Such a Good Afternoon

Yesterday morning, I cleaned out the cat litter for the first time since early February (K. has been taking care of that detail, along with laundry, shopping, encouraging, etc...) and vacuumed my tiny living room. On the other hand, I threw up from the morning medication and then peed in my pants just as we were going out. (What's happening to these internal systems? Damn! And don't tell my daughter this. She can't stand me giving so much, too much, information. I have long since given up caring about what was once, when I was younger, a  humiliating accident, since I can't do anything to make my body behave.) (Once I was walking about Avenue B toward our tenement, have had a colitis attack a few blocks before, when some guy came along and said, "Hi, pretty lady." All I could think of was, "Can't he smell me?") So, I was pretty discouraged and also hungry, having failed breakfast and lunch.

We'd been invited to an Easter dinner with L. and K. They have such an interesting set of friends, some of whom I know well...and our Thanksgiving dinners there have always been so much fun. So, worried that I was, I was really looking forward to being there and to testing out whether I could pull sentences together with any cogency.

On the way over, we stopped at Wholefoods (also known as Wholepaycheck) and for the first time in months, I was walking through a (glorious, glorified, rarified) market, wheeling a basket, picking out food. Amazing. And picking out some food that I could possibly eat for dinner, knowing that my diet is too restricted to find much from offerings for mortals. I was so hungry that I had a small preliminary meal -- noodles that were too spicy (they tasted so good) and some beef! C. had noticed it in a nearby case and the woman behind the counter carefull chose two lovely, reddish pieces that actually tasted wonderful. (I ate a small piece, savoring it.) K. picked out a chocolate easter-egg cake to take along with us, a far cry from the homemade strawberry short cake, the apple, cranberry and raisin pies that others had brought. 

We got there early, actually, and had lots of time to sit in the back and talk to various people. Ten or so years ago, Bogie was the inspiration for Rosie's purchase, and he really loves going over there to visit, though I have no idea whether he has any particular passion for her. They have their own busy ways, going in and out of the house, sitting by our respective feet, wandering around. Another large, beautiful black and white dog came later - Oscar. He managed to create his own world, not bothering too much about them.

This colitis smack-down seems to have changed me. At least I hope it was. A conversation with P.,  a bubbly, talkative woman who has decided to accept the strength of her past experiences, no longer measure them against profound losses of a number of years ago, to live with mellowness and cheerfulness, was really inspiring. Then overhearing M's fascinating description of volunteering in a hospice, how much he gains from the relationships he develops, lead to a continued talk in the living room -- comparing notes on what we've both learned, far more than we've given, in volunteering -- may lead me in other directions toward more volunteering. It was such a relief to talk with both of these people, as it was to find someone who was studying at MIT just a few years after I stopped teaching there. She's a film editor, working on an engrossing project now, the best friend of the bubbly woman.

I generally failed food again, though the chickens that L. roasted were delicious and proved my hatred against chicken is unfounded. It just has to be organic. The food I brought tasted awful, but the sweet potatoes P. made and a hard boiled egg resting on the seductive asparagus (no, no) were good.

It was so nice to have become a real person again -- to have been able to take in these conversations, to enjoy the hospitality of L. and K....   K. and C. were, as usual, perfectly at home, talking and laughing. 

What a nice day! Thank you....

The Problem of Eating

The problem with a no lactose/low residue diet and no appetite is pretty serious. I can't thank Dutchbaby enough for actually doing some research on this and writing such a wonderful blog comment. How generous for her to take time with this problem.

Yesterday was particularly difficult. Quite against inclination, I pulled myself together, committed myself to going out for dinner with K. and C. and then, when it was time, got up to do it. We went to a steak house, inexpensive, very noisy, peanuts on the floor, in a bucket on the table. I thought about steak, but ordered salmon. It came with a fabulous baked sweet potato, but wasn't nearly as good as the Monday meal at the Victoria.

I sat, glaring at K.'s salad, wanting nothing but to stab the rest of her salad dressed lettuce and stuff it into my mouth! By then, I'd read the drinks menu (Marguirettas) and about the deserts (only three, including cheese cake and a brownie) and had shouted with everyone else, one, two, three, whoopie, for the young woman at the opposite table who was seated on a saddle, waving a napkin, for her birthday.

I felt better after dinner, and C. walked me over to Paneras where I bought a cinnamon bagel, the kind that my poet-friend particularly loves. I imagined that it would bring some spark of normal life into the early morning which begins at 5 when I take a thyroid pill, then at 6 the pill to protect my stomach against prednisone (that often makes me gag half an hour later), then 8:30 is the prednisone, then 10:30 is another anti-inflamnatory, and then, in the afternoon, a bit of Lexipro, followed up much later in the evening by another two anti-inflammatory pills.

In the afternoon, I'd forced myself downstairs and outside instead of lying there, rereading Oliver Sachs (No Leg to Stand wasn't worth it.) I've reread Dubliners, Travels with Charlie (what a wonderful book), a study by Luria, the first third of Stephen King's book on writing (I've never seen one of his movies or read his books, but the part about his childhood, marriage, alcoholism is touching.) I thought Liar's Club, though it's so novelized, gave interesting information about the cultural and economic plight of her family. A book on NY by Dan Wakefield and another on a trip down to see Ted Williams before he died that was so baseball technical that I could hardly understand it. And more.

But basically I failed food for the day. The miso soup didn't have the right proportion of miso, though the tofu tasted good. Carrots weren't worth it.

This time I tried sauteing the sole, but the couscous and zucchini tasted awful.

(In the early nineties, I took portraits and did interviews with women who had been homeless for an exhibition and catalogue. I'd met one of the women a few years earlier when I was working some 3-11 shifts in a women's shelter. She was a remarkably articulate woman who I'm quite sure had grown up with money, but fallen off her uppers. Therefore, her use of language was gorgeous, as was her ability to promote various schemes including renting an apartment on Commonwealth that she furnished almost entirely with things she found in the back alley on garbage day -- most of them not even unwrapped. Electric coffee pots, toaster ovens, sheets, towels, blankets. Some man who she met every month or so rented the furniture for her and she tried to rent out the downstairs apartment.

Over the time I knew her, she gave me any number of things including a brass lamp that needed rewiring ("What, you don't know how to rewire a lamp?"), another multi-headed lamp that I promptly ditched, and this parsley plate. I was so sorry that when she got really ill, just before she died, she wouldn't let the social worker call me. I would have thanked her for the experience of knowing her.)

I love to peel and cut a macintosh apple, but am I allowed to eat it? It's not apple sauce.

What I like in the morning is that K. comes up with Happy, sits against the wall, her face in sunlight, and talks about this and that. It's very comforting.

Now I'm waiting for her to take the dogs out and then they will drive up the coast for lunch, an outing..... that's good. I had half the bagel and have peeled an apple and will continue onward with the job of eating. I'm horrified by how much weight I've lost since February.