The Tit Show!

I was on WYPR's "The Signal" this weekend with Aaron Henkin.  Here's the interview.  For the entire episode, go to The Signal.

I did this interview to promote poetry and The Tit Lit Show at the Creative Alliance this Thursday!

armed against cancer

In a photograph, Susan Spence is wearing a green swimsuit covered with peace signs, her outstretched arms revealing names written in grease marker. These are the people for whom she will swim the open waters of the Chesapeake Bay: in honor of those on the left, in memory of those on the right.

She and her brother had returned to their childhood passion of swimming to assuage their grief and loss after a series of family tragedies. As a result of her participation in the Bay Swim, Susan was put on a mailing list announcing the inaugural Baltimore event for Swim Across America, a national organization donating to cancer research centers in major cities. When she read that it would benefit the Kimmel Center at Johns Hopkins, she was all in.

"I knew my return to swimming had a bigger purpose than just relieving stress," Susan says. In September of 2006, she lost her sister, Chris Weitzel, to metastasized cancer, origins unknown, just six months after her diagnosis. Before she started treatment, however, Chris lost her husband, ostensibly to broken-heart-syndrome, so Sue accompanied her to chemo at Kimmel, where she says she was treated with compassion and professionalism.

Swim Across America was a convergence of her passion for swimming and her love for her sister.

Tomorrow is the anual event, and Susan, combining passion with cause, will continue her tradition of writing on her arms the names of those touched by cancer. "Unfortunately," she says, "some of those people had moved over this past year to the 'in memory of' [arm].

This year, I am sorry to say that I have had to add to the lists on both arms, and my arms are not long enough."

But they are strong.

When I wrote this Swim Across America story for Johns Hopkins  Magazine, Susan's portion was cut.  She was my lede and my close.  Two days ago, I received an email from her that at least two more names would be added to her arms, one on each.  They are mine and my father's.  Thank you, Susan.  Thank you.

missing

Me, my father.   Read our story.

fun

When I started my MFA program at Goucher College, my mind was in a frantic race for a thesis.  Would I write Kisstory: The History of the Kiss?  Would I write The Law of Average: How Mediocre Became the New Great?  Would I finally write the book of essays—about running and climbing, amusement park riding, and camping: Things That Were Fun When You Were Young (But Hurt Now That You’re Old)?  (Instead, I wrote The Book.)

I meant to delve into the history of those activities and compare how it feels to do them as a child with how it feels as an adult fraught with a physical intolerance for vertiginous puking agents and bug bites, ground sleeping, and immobility.  Give me songs around the campfire, then drive me back to the hotel.

I’m thinking about fun now because I’ve had my fill of it this weekend.  Friday night, I went with a friend to see Boister, a local band with national proportions, at the Wind Up Space, a comfortable venue on North Avenue.  The place was filled friends: former, old, new, Facebook, ex-, ex-Facebook, wanna-be, and wanna-be-ex friends.  My husband was asleep at 9:30 p.m., when I left.  So I told him the next morning that I’d had fun

“Fun?  What’s fun?” Marty wanted to know.  “What’s fun about watching a band and drinking?”  His argument was that I might have had a good time, but enjoyment didn’t make for the wild, childlike abandon of fun.

But I disagree.  Friday night, I smiled endlessly.  I flirted with friends.  I hugged.  I talked and laughed.  And damn it, I even danced (or, rather, moved in a pre-dancelike fashion).  It felt more heady than enjoyment to me.  It felt let’s-do-this-again good.  And what makes it fun instead of enjoyment could be this: for nearly three hours, I didn’t think about my father being dead or the things I needed to do the next day. 

I forgot the woes of life and felt only the joys.  So playing Scrabble with my mom is enjoyable.  Seeing Chuck Prophet is fun.  Having coffee with my friends on Friday mornings is enjoyable.  Riding a rollercoaster is fun.  And sex is both—enjoyable for most of it, fun for seven point three seconds.

At lunchtime yesterday, my cousin in Delaware sent an email that she was thinking of popping over to say hi one day; would that be a problem?  Were we averse to people popping in?  Nuh-uh.  But if she came now, I was cooking chili; I’d just make more, and we’d make it an early dinner.  My sister had a ticket to see Linkin Park, but she canceled those plans to come. 

Marty went shopping for bread and corn; I cooked a gargantuan crock pot full of chili; he made super-size salad; Serena-rella scrubbed the toilets.  We straightened up.  I set up a mini-PA in the living room, and we took breaks for singing and playing.  At 4:00, my cousin and her husband and their three children (6, 4, and 3), and my sister, my brother-in-law, and my nephews (5 and 13) invaded our house.  The kids ran around screaming and touching things, and I took 200 pictures of them doing it.  We talked, sang, ate food, and drank growlers of hoppy local-to-Delaware ale.  Music happened in every room in the house, and nearly everyone contributed. 

We sang for hours.  We sang “Hallelujah” in four-part harmony (sometimes).  Serena sang and I sang and Stacey and Beth sang and the kids sang in the microphone with the harmonizer on.

When they finally left just before 8, the house was already straightened up, and we were exhausted—asleep by 10.  This morning, we talked about how tired we were to have passed out so early.  “That was a lot of work!” Marty said. 

And then he added: “But it was really fun.”

By all accounts and definitions, all that cooking and cleaning, all the kids running around, compounded six-fold by the fact that we’re all related, shouldn’t even have placed this event on the enjoyment scale.  Add the household chores that faced us at every turn, and there wasn’t even any forgetting involved.

So what makes something fun?  It must be your own active participation, with a little bit of joyful noise.  Fun is some kind of boister in your soul.

eulogy for my father

I just took this photo for him in the window of a law firm
in Hampden because he had everything.  It became a
challenge to shop for him, so we started making sleep
shirts with pictures of the kids on them.  They were his
favorite gifts ever—and he wore them all the time. 

 My dad could fall asleep anywhere.

What is important to remember about my dad is the taste of grilled crustless bologna sandwiches.  He cooked few things, but he was a whiz with an aluminum pie and sandwich cooker.

It is important to remember playing cards with him—Pitch was our favorite.  He coined the term "card off!"  If he accidentally threw the wrong card from his hand, a timely "card off!" would allow him to correct his mistake. I still say card off when I need a do-over.  I say it now, for the last year of our lives.  Card off.

It was important to know my father.  He was a connector; he knew everybody.  I first learned of this when I was eight, and he almost  got our family on the set of The Courtship of Eddie's Father.  And then again when, at eleven, he almost got me a lunch date with David Cassidy because he knew the teen idol's manager.  He knew a record promoter and brought me home a stack of New Wave albums—The Cars, Blondie, Patti Smith, and Elvis Costello—before there was even a new wave.  I remember he thought Elvis would have less-than-zero longevity, like Elton John.

Here's generosity for you: a family cruise to Bermuda,
everything paid, including kids' face painting and
off-ship meals and a few souvenirs.

If you needed a back doctor, knowing him could get you a faster appointment.  He could get you a last-minute reservation or a special deal on a car or just some extra nice treatment somewhere.  There's a waiter at the Prime Rib who used to fawn all over my husband Marty when we came to the restaurant.  It took me years to figure out that it wasn't Marty who was so special; it was my father.  The waiter had assumed Marty, also Mr. Miller, was his son, so when he asked, "How's your dad?" I said, "I'M Harvey's daughter."  He sucked up to me from then on.

When Beth and I were kids, Dad's sales jobs often took him on the road, but even when he wasn't away, he worked all the time.  To make up for it, he gave us lots of stuff—TVs and telephones and stereos in our bedrooms, crazy bowling-ball shaped radios, radios you wore on your wrist, fancy souvenirs from his travels, and even a new car when I got my license.  I thought we were rich.

Even in the hospital, my dad would work, though
each successive hospital visit would make that less possible.

When he became successful in his business, he became more generous.  You couldn't go anywhere without him saying, "You want it? I'll buy it."  If you would so much as touch the fabric of a pair of $300 jeans, he'd say it.  "You want it I'll buy it."  But who needed a pair of $300 jeans?  There's a shop owner in Rehoboth who loves him but hates his crazy ass family.

My dad was, at times, too generous, insisting, when I was pregnant, on replacing my paid-off Honda Civic with a Nissan Pathfinder, so his grandchild could travel in the manner befitting a grandchild of his.  I said no a lot, but the arguments would wear me down. 

In fact, I spent a therapy session learning to cope with my father's generosity. How come I couldn't figure out on my own what my therapist said in an instant: This is how your dad gives love.  And every time you say no, you reject it.  So shut up, and get some new clothes."  From then on, I touched fabric more discriminately—and only that of sensible things or stuff I really needed.

Panic:  How is it that the most recent
photo I have of myself with my father
was taken 18 years ago at my wedding?

So I think of sandwiches and games and generosity when I think of my dad.  And I think of love.  He loved fiercely and loyally.  And if something was wrong, he wanted to fix it for you.  He hated seeing the people he loved struggle or suffer for a moment without something they needed or wanted. 

The people he loved became members of his family, and they included the people we loved: my sister's, my mother's, and my best friends, who came on vacation with us, out to dinner for our birthdays and sometimes even for theirs.  They included my husband long before he was my husband, when he was just the naked boyfriend passing him in the hallway after midnight on the way to the bathroom.  He adopted Steve, one of his employees.  He adopted André, the guy who delivered his home oxygen and detailed his car.  He and his business partner, Tom, adopted each other. 

It was so easy to love my dad because he loved so easily.  And the best benefit of losing someone like that is that you never have to wonder if you loved enough or well.  You did.

tonic

Daily beer aside, I’m not much of a drinker anymore.  My goals as a grownup are different; I drink ale because it tastes good, not because it makes me tipsy.  But in the past few weeks, I’ve come to appreciate (rather than, I should make clear, depend upon) its analgesic effects.

On Saturday night, I’d had an emergency shiatsu treatment at the place I affectionately call Jim Hill’s House of Hellishly Painful Poking and Pulling.  That’s exactly where I go; that’s exactly what goes on.  But the whole way home from treatment, I was thinking of booze.

I wasn’t in the mood for what usually ales me.  I wanted a Baileys and club soda.  No, I wanted a frozen mudslide.  No, I wanted gin and tonic.  I would go to The Liquor Pump, because I could also get a hug—free.  I would get Kahlua, Baileys , and a six pack.

The Liquor Pump had no power, like most of the places near Old Harford Road.  But Lou’s was open, so I picked up my liqueurs and paid the man (whose name I don’t know despite having shopped there for 19 years) through the carousel in the bullet-proof glass.  It was a hug-less, joyless purchase.

We didn’t have vodka or gin at home, so today, after another shiatsu treatment just four days later, I stopped at the Liquor Pump for more booze and that hug.  While I was picking out the vodka, there he was, arms outstretched.  Worth the price.

I took my selections—including cake vodka for my mom’s birthday—to the counter and went in search of some gin.  What do I know from gin—Tanqueray seems to be the thang.  But I saw as a sign the bottle of Martin Miller; even at $35, it had to come home with me.

When I put it on the counter, Harry seemed impressed with my taste. “That’s the best gin you can buy.  It’s the only one that doesn’t have an overwhelming flavor of juniper.  I mean, you can taste it, but it’s not overpowering.” 

“Well,” I hated to admit, “I picked this one because my husband is Martin Miller.”

“You have a husband?” Harry asked, faux dejection in his voice.

"Yeah," I said.  "But don't you have a wife and kids?"

“Sure,” he said, “But I can have lots of wives.”

I suppose if I could have lots of husbands (though why anyone would want lots of either is beyond my capacity for reason), I could do far worse than a handsome fellah who owns a liquor store.

But I’m better off sticking with the one I have.  Diet tonic and a squirt of lemon, please.

scenery

I wake up every morning, and I say, “Ugh.”  Sometimes it’s “Uck.”  Sometimes it’s “Fuck,” truth be told.  I don’t wake up much these days with a song in my heart, unless it’s a melody-less song with ugh and uck and fuck in it.

 

Last Monday, my dad took a fall and wound up in the cardiac care unit.  He’d had a heart attack, but it wasn’t the typical exertion-related kind, and there’s no—according to today’s heart catheter procedure—blocked anything. 

For nearly a decade, he’s had aortic stenosis.  The aortic valve becomes calcified, narrowing, and it causes a backup of blood, resulting in very low blood pressure and heart episodes like these.  Eventually, the dopamine drip will no longer work to keep his blood pressure up to 85/69.  But if he can’t get off the med, he can’t go home.

During his heart cath procedure, the doctor discovered that more of his aorta is calcified, so he’ll need a CT scan to determine whether it’s operable.  If he passes that test, he’ll need to fail the next one.  Two heart surgeons will need to agree that he’s not a candidate for open-chest surgery due to his limited lung capacity (he has COPD and asthma).  If that goes well, he could have a percutaneous valve replacement, which is a brand new (like—yesterday) treatment.  It wasn’t available before his chemo began, or it’s likely that he’d have had one of those years ago—possibly avoiding all these extra trips to the hospital to bring up his blood pressure.

That’s Dad.  Me?  Well, I am due for my six-month CT scan to see if the cancerous nodes in my stomach have grown.  If you were to look at my actual stomach, you’d think they’d grown the size of a watermelon, because it’s clear I have a giant squash growing there.  At the same time, I’m ditching my oncologist because, after making me wait an hour to see him, he spends my visits with his back to me, asking me questions, typing the answers on his laptop, and addressing the multiple laptop crashes.   Then he turns to face me, pokes my stomach and underarms, and sends me off.  I need a little more bedside manner.  A little more face time.  A little less technology.

One year ago in August, I started to get some bad leg and back pain, so I went to see my back surgeon.  He looked at my MRI and said I needed two fusions.  I fretted.  I told him I really didn’t want another back surgery, and, as I was still talking, asking him what else I could possibly do, he was getting up and walking out of the room, telling me to call him when I was ready for surgery.  So I ditched him, too.  When I told my second-opinion doctor the story, he said, “Did he really do that?” but it didn’t sound like a question.  Unfortunately, he agreed that I needed two fusions.  The issue that took me to see the back doctor in the first place—some nerve damage and leg pain—has returned with ferocity.  Back surgery looks imminent.  Hooray.

Dad and I are both feeling a little overwhelmed.  We’re a little depressed.  We cry.  We wake up and say, “Ugh.”  If will were the only thing we had, we probably wouldn’t wake up.

Sometimes the pain isn’t worth it.  Sometimes the scenery just ain’t so good when your bed is facing the hallway and not the window, and you don’t know if it’s day or night, and the beeping is incessant and not even in time with the seconds so that you can precisely count the minutes of lying there, and the only thing good you have is the pure oxygen streaming from the cannula.  But even that loses its sexiness after a few days, especially without a companion opiate.

But I’m not 75 and in the hospital.  My scenery has a gorgeous, talented daughter in it, some sweet dogs, a good husband, so many friends, a comfortable home, and a good job, where people appreciate me—and tell me so. 

I’m not ready to stop looking.  At least not until I stop writing.