it's NOT ok to contact this poster

fuck you, fucker.

D.amn E.very B.ody - w4w

Reply to: pers-798420543@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-08-15, 5:10PM

I wish we could speak a few kind words to each other. Whenever we see one another you become so out of sorts...not the effect I wish to have on you. I know you've had a difficult year and there are so many times I've wanted to reach out to you to tell you I really fucking loved you.
I'll always have this:
She sings a song and
I listen to what it says
If you want a friend
Feed any animal...
There was so much space
I cut me a piece
With some fine wine
It brought peace to my mind
In the summertime...
And it rolled

• Location: sing sing
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

3 months

my father is dead. 3 months today. 3 months from 7am california time, 4.15.08.

my mother is miserable. she tortures herself with countdowns. every day has poetic & painful significance. if i operated like her, my thoughts would run to the demented: this is the day he died. yesterday was the day his breathing changed. 2 days ago i told him we have no unfinished business. 5 days ago i got to san francisco. 7 days ago he said he was done with this life. 6 days ago he took it back. 4 days ago he said he was done, again. 2 days ago he wanted us to kill him. 7 days ago he managed to say "sweetheart". 3 days ago i started sleeping at the hospital. 3 hours ago i held his hand and didn't let go. 10 minutes ago i rested my head on his leg until his breathing stopped. 3 hours from now my mother will finally let them take his body out of the room. 2 days from now is his funeral. 250 people will be there.

counting. counting. counting. this is insanity waiting to happen. will every month for the next year, next 2 years, be like this for her? is it going to be like this indefinitely?

i am not like my mother. i can't sink into the obsessive minute-to-minute quagmire of memories that my mother does. it would literally crush me. dad was her husband. the counting is her coping mechanism. not mine.

to be clear. i am not in denial. not the slightest. i know my father is now dead. i know we went through hell together. i know i will never speak to him again. i will never hold his hand again. i will never be able to share my life with him again. i know. knowing & actualizing are 2 different things.

i've compartmentalized. i simply refuse to deal with his death. i can't. i'm not ready. i am my own psych experiment in coping.

first i need to go far, far away. from everything. soon i'm away. away. from everything.

i'm giving myself one more month. to not feel. when i come back, i'll unpack my emotions. i'll let the feelings come.

post script

i am responsible.

i'm not dense. it's just my perspective.

letting go.

this year. oh this year has been about letting go. definitely the last 12-13 months & even more so in the extreme, the last few.

letting go of the poison in i let into my life is something i continually struggle with. poison cruelly cloaked as love. but finally revealed as lies. i'm still recovering from my emotional self-hospitalization from what that toxic life, that toxic person did to me. what i did to me. to this day some of the more tangible reminders - & the junior high school behavior that accompanies those reminders - don't help the healing process much.

then there's dad. maybe i don't have to "let go" of him. perhaps it's letting go of his suffering, letting go of the 5 years he fought & journeyed through what life dished out & made it his own. it's letting go of his physical presence. that i can never hug him again, never lean my head on his shoulder, never hold his hand, never seek his counsel again. this is a harder lesson. but i might approach it the way my surprisingly resilient (i didn't give her enough credit!) mother is doing. she talks to him. all the time. time for me to start that, i think. so whatever voice inside of me answers to my soon-to-be conversations with him, i'll know it's him...

& the hand i hold inside my heart, that will be him, as well.

and that, i will never have to let go.

xoxo

with.

my father died. he died april 15. he's somewhere in the earth & somewhere in the sky.

my mom told me to get to sf. my tickets were for 4 days but i packed for 2 weeks.

ames, who is my f*in savior, picked me up from the airport, dropped off my bags at the house & brought me to the hospital.

i spent the next 5 days with my father. the first 2 nights i slept at the house. the last 3, i slept at the hospital in his room.

i held his hand the last 3 hours of his life. i rested my head on his leg as he took his last breath.

i was with him.

and he will always be with me.

tomorrow

i'm flying to sf tomorrow. to see my dad. i got to talk to him last night, just a little. he doesn't have a lot of words but managed to get out "sweetheart". i told him i'm going to see him very soon. mom says he mostly sleeps when he's not in pain. she's doing what she can to make him comfortable. she told me it's good i'm coming thurs instead of next weekend. she thinks it's going to be soon, now. very soon. it's not looking good. as if it was before.

i'm scheduled to fly back sunday night. but i'm packing for longer. i'm packing my suit.

mom vacillates between a few mood/outlook variables. on one front, she can be optimistic. i.e. if we get him back into ucsf, he'll regain his strength. or, next week we're going to put dad back on the avastin. my responses to these types of comments are the polarities of either words of comfort or a gentle but firm reality check. i mean, why put him back on the avastin? to see if the tumor will shrink more? to sustain his life a little longer? why? this isn't a life. i know she hears me. sometimes i get through, sometimes...

the other variable is sad, defeated, with a tinge of the alarmist. though i know she's trying not to be. she wants to be a cheerleader for dad, for everyone, hence the ventures into pollyanna-land. but ultimately, the reality, & the unbearable sadness of it all, takes front & center. because that's where we have to be if we're going to deal with what's in front of us.

we all grapple with ways to cope i guess.

we talked about hospice, maybe somehow getting him home. if there was a way to make that happen. we'll talk to him about it when i get there. before mom called me, i'd been on the phone w/ my cousin mimi. she talked me through what hospice can do for dad. seems like a lot. earlier in the day, while talking to ames, i don't know why but i wouldn't listen to reason about hospice. now reason seems to have planted itself a little better in my mind. i don't know. i just want his suffering to stop. which means his end. but whatever gets him to that end now with the least harm, i'll take it.

for now i just have to get through the day. get through these meetings. try to stay focused. try to make sure i get sleep tonight. try to hold on to my heart & myself. until tomorrow.

xoxo

six

today marks 6 years i've lived in nyc. milestone. so here's a bit of brain barf for the day. utterly unorganized musings, if you will.

moving here: absolutely the best thing i've ever done for my life, some parts triumphant, many tragic. fraught with mistakes (ooohh... euphemism!) throughout these 6 years. we all know the last 3 have been particularly messy. but i'm back on the rise, i think. i hope. i try. flip side of my indelicate stumblings are the people who've blessed me all this time here. those who helped get me here, those who i met here & keep me going. there is no mistake in the beauty of my incredible friends.

so i'm ringing in year #6 at the office. of course. where else would i be? tho given the state of my heart, a little of me is merely going through the motions, wrapped in my thoughts. it's bittersweet. so much sadness today, most of which related to my father.

more flip side: some sweet reflections on just the day itself: kelly called - yay! matt sent me a pie-driven poem that made me laugh my heinie off. i got to play w/ jess's dog frank & then run around on the roof w/ rob's dog, rookie. & i mean run. doing that felt like i was shaking off the melancholy for a bright moment in the sunlight. ps, one of these days, if i ever actually move, i'm getting a dog, dammit.

i'm leaving the office soon, while there's still sun in the sky & heat in the air. take a moment to really get quiet will all the crazy rumblings around. think about how in 40 some-odd hours i'll see my dad & let myself feel however i need to feel about that.

you know, today i also made myself a mix called "cry" so i can just let the music in & get all the emotion out into the universe. keep it all flowing b/c holding this in will keep me out of the moment & that's all we have in the end. this moment.

until the next milestone.

final thoughts? a good note, shall we?
a toast: here's to the people who've kept me going, who give me their love & care & support, who have graced me with their friendship. through every triumph & tragedy, even through the mundane, i feel your amazing energies & it fills my heart. thank you. i love you all.

xoxo

i want to talk to my father

but he can't talk. i'm going crazy.

fuck.

this.

shit.

he has brain cancer. he has pneumonia. he has pancreatitis. he has something else called c-dif (whatever that means). he's in pain. he can't move much without assistance. he's as fragile as a newborn kitten. we don't know if he can still read. he's not entirely cognizant. he's trapped in his deteriorating body & mind. with no escape. he's on a million different antibiotics. he's on steroids. he's on fluids. his neuro-oncologist is going to put him back on the avastin (an antibody that prevents the growth of new blood cells so the vampire tumor has nothing to feed off of). they're sustaining his life but he doesn't have one anymore.

mom thinks he's given up... wouldn't you?

i just want to talk to him.

but he can't talk.

makeover

giovanni says i need to fix my diet. apparently, my tongue is coated (ew) which is evidence that my insides aren't right. he's going to write me up some ideas of what i should eat throughout the day. i'm going to listen to him. i mean, there's no point in everyone saying you're skinny when you're out of shape. and i'm not getting any younger. this isn't just about vanity, though. i have got to get healthy. i've got to take care of myself. for some reason, this is harder to do than it should be.

food is the first part. there's a lot more i need to revise.

i look at my apartment, my teeny tiny apartment. i've been out of this apartment 3 times in less than two months with my trips to sf to see my dad and family. the way i'm operating these days, my apartment is a layover spot until my next trip. a hotel. with no damn maid service. it's tolerably clean by most standards but by mine, it looks like 6 frat boys have been setting up shop in here. i can't get organized. but i've got to. this place was my sanctuary until lately.

see, in high school, i was fairly troubled. and often in trouble. there was one point at which my mom looked at the chaotic interior of my little turdball car and said that if that was an indication of the state of my mind, she was scared for me. that's kind of how i feel about my apartment. to the untrained eye, it's functional & homey, in spite of its size. to me, it's utter chaos.

but starting the cleaning/organizing process is so daunting i just can't get started. but it needs to get done. kind of like the food sitch. why is this so hard? i ask myself, how does one embark on a makeover?

and let's be honest, relatively speaking, while incredibly important, these are more superficial makeovers. the bigger makeover i have to do is less tangible. how to make the intangible tangible?

you can change your diet. get your ass to the gym. clean out your closet. dust. mop the floors. go through the piles of crap & sort or toss them. take out the trash. (yes, i'm getting metaphorical, yet again.) let me tell you, what i have to clean up is plenty.

it's not enough to know what your faults are. though it definitely helps because taking ownership is a decent starting point to working them out - not unlike a masseuse on a bad knot between your shoulder blades. you know the knot is there, you can maneuver and work on it & get it to heal. but how to stop getting those damn knots in the first place? prevention... that's the key.

what i need to do is nip it all in the bud, for crying out loud. stop piling up the mess - or building up those damn knots - so the cleanup is less daunting. for now, i'll start w/ food & some baby steps in my home. but once i get past those tangibles, i just have to face it all & do a real damn makeover.

so i can start clean.

2 days weak: my dad

the summation of wednesday's events. sleep deprivation. brutal, hideous & in my case, mostly driven by my neuroses & stress. & the bottom line as to why i'm 2 days weak.

let's break down the triumvirate, shall we? work? sucks. state of the heart? sucks (but today on the mend).

but family? my dad? to say this whole situation sucks is the understatement of the millennium.

after the emotional bomb went off in my home on weds  - while i tried to recover myself & desperately grasp at ever-elusive sleep with my mind spinning & my hair on fire - at oh-dark-thirty in the am, my brother called. something horrible was going on w/ my father.

wait a sec. rewind for a moment. fill in the blanks.

the painful backstory to the recent events i'll describe is that my father is having a recurrence of his brain cancer. this time the tumor is inoperable, inadvisable to radiate or to utilize chemo therapy. essentially this is the beginning of the end. and for the last couple of months, i've been back & forth to sf watching my father become a shell of his former self. yet never knowing how much time we have left.

a week & a half ago, he went to the ucsf emergency room, experiencing unbearable pain in his gut & was subsequently admitted to the hospital for pancreatitis & an pseudo-paralysis of his large & small intestines. luckily, i had already scheduled a visit & was able to be with him over that weekend while he was being watched over by nurses, doctors, pca's...

after i left sf, just this tuesday, they moved him to a rehabilitation facility, st. mary's. not my fave institution but ucsf does not have a rehab facility & dad needed to start rebuilding his strength. all that said, it seemed like all these steps were moving dad in the right direction.

so back to weds nite. recap: hell day on hell account + the heartache of realizing i was so wrong about a situation with someone i care about so deeply + desperate attempt to fall asleep + brain/hair on fire... so it was late. brother calls. something awful with dad.

it's hard to even recall the full content of the next 2 hours of the middle of the night on the phone w/ my brother & sister-in-law. unable to reach my mother. my brother on the phone, trying to explain what's going on, my sister-in-law getting on the phone, clarifying medically what my brother was telling me. dad's blood-pressure through the floor. dehydrated, maybe? dangerous infection, maybe? bottom line, he's not ok, he's crashing.

can't stop crying, much less think straight (although, for levity's sake, it's not easy for a lezzie to think straight). i'm texting ames, who has been my west coast rock through all of this, but we keep missing each other. where is my sanity?

do i get on a plane? why can't i reach mom? is he going to die & i won't be there to hold his hand & kiss his forehead & tell him it's going to be ok, that i love him & to be free of all this agony?

fucking turmoil.

my sister-in-law (a doctor, btw) tells me that my original plan to fly out in 3 weeks isn't going to work, that i need to be on standby. & that they'll call me when we know more.

i crawl into bed. try to relax. mom finally calls, tells me that st. mary's had a paperwork glitch & never gave him his steroids. hello!!! so they were going to start his dosage back up & to hang tight, that she'd call me thurs & give me an update & to try to rest. yeah, it's almost 4am.

i emailed my key people at work to let them know the scenario & also that i needed to sleep in a bit.

thursday. i'm a wreck. construction in building. no sleep. hating work. hating my heart. hating my family sitch. just hating it.

can't reach mom all day. haven't spoken to my father which is slaying me. can't reach my sister-in-law. texted w/ bro. no news. i'm in a haze. trying not to cry. workload is a blur. amelia gadala meets me mid-day to talk me off the ledge, praise the little baby geezus & i miraculously make it through the day without a full blown meltdown. though i do think i might be going mad.

i finally hear from my sister-in-law & she says dad's on the mend but there is some pneumonia in his lungs. but things are a wee bit better. i try to rest, bail on all plans, but i'm too tired to sleep. they say life isn't fair.

fast forward to today. still in a slight fog but functioning. blogging my ass off to get all this shite out of my head & working somewhat half-heartedly, yet running interference all over the place. then i finally hear from mom. dad's doing great. totally improving. my sister-in-law is wrong. just come out in 3 weeks, as planned. everything is fine.

fine. my mom - the woman who for a month straight tells me regularly that dad is dying, he's dying, he's dying, dying - sounds like a fucking stepford wife. but i'm just going to take "fine" to the bank & make a deposit & try to relax.

am about to go see my rockin therapist, who i lovingly call "yoda". the blog is an outlet & she is an outlet. & then i'll see gio for a few... he's an outlet. maybe with all these outlets, and perhaps some xanax, i'll sleep tonight.

and my work drama, my injured but healing heart, and my soul completely full of my father will all take a breather. so i can become maybe 1 day strong.

xoxo

rodent i love you's

no words left. words escape, they run from me. mice fleeing to dark corners and chewed-out holes in the walls of my heart. they nibbled at something, a fresh piece of fruit that managed to fall from a safe hiding place now no longer safe. back to the corners scurry little words, useless now that they hold less in their bellies to keep them nourished. scuttling and playing at being grateful for the scraps left behind. it's better in the dark. there's so much of it, easier to navigate. and the light blinds beady little eyes wishing for more. more. it's only dust. words fading faded farther by the dust.