Things that've happened in my tiny little life and tiny mother mind™

It's Been a Week Listicle

A while back I heard a podcast or some radio interview about the popularity of listicles. I hate the word listicle for some reason that has to do with sound and the word lick, maybe? I don’t know.

1. Last we spoke, Los Angeles was reported to be going up in flames (again, but not real this time) and Dear Leader was sending in the troops to beat us all up. I won’t go into the whole shitty week, but dang if it wasn’t wonderful to be living here in the city of angels with the majority of us fighting back. It’s beyond sad, though — it’s disgusting, really — to feel and hear about and sense the fear that permeates every corner of our beloved city. The place is silent, deathly quiet, waiting.

2. Sophie had a visit with a specialist — a neurologist who specializes in movement disorders. She is a remarkable doctor — semi-retired — who had done a deep dive into Sophie’s medical records and history. Honestly, she knew the most about Sophie than any other doctor I’ve ever been to. She also talked directly to Sophie, admired her eye gaze, listened carefully to me and collaborated. While we don’t know why Sophie has lost so many of her gross, fine and oral motor skills and now has chorea/dystonic movements, she had some ideas. This was hard to listen to. Before our visit we had done a trial of a drug called Levodopadopalopa (I’m exaggerating the ridiculous name because I am endlessly fascinated by drug names, imagining a room in a pharmaceutical company where the marketers run these names by one another using an easel or an overhead projector like Darrin in Bewitched or Don Draper in Mad Men), but I called it off — 86’d it, like we said back in the days I was a pastry cook in a big, fancy kitchen in NYC — because I didn’t like Sophie’s response to it. The doctor agreed that it wasn’t the right drug for Sophie and that I’d made the right decision. Lest you think I’m so powerful and confident in the workings of the tiny little mother mind™, during the long appointment, I did have one of the three out-of-body experiences I’ve had in my tiny little mother mind™ career. At some point in the conversation, I escaped from my body, hovered near the ceiling and watched my head nodding and my mouth moving and all the intelligent, articulate things I can say even under extreme duress. Think nod think head think the words hmmm and yes and how about and why. Eventually, I descended back into the tiny little mother mind™ but later felt like I was going to faint when I was sandwiched between Sophie’s wheelchair and the technician who was going to take her blood so I said I’m not feeling too well so please hold on a sec, and I went out into the waiting room and asked Saint Angela (Sophie’s LVN) to stand in for me. Then I sat in a plastic chair and closed my eyes for a bit. A lot of time — too much time — went by and when I checked back in to see what was happening, I was told that they were only able to get three vials of blood and they needed five and both hands were wrapped in pink tape so I 86’d that, too, and backed Sophie out of the room and out of the lab and out of the office and down the elevator and

3. I needed to break that long thing up, but there’s still some saga left. UCLA has three enormous medical buildings — the 100, the 200 and the 300 — in addition to attached parking garages that descend into the bowels of the earth. I am not writing hyperbole here. After the appointments we trudged back, from building to building and then to our car, the sexy Kia Soul, and I felt like whimpering the entire time. I felt like muttering pray that I die, pray that I die over and over, just like my Nonni, but I paid the $4,789,000 for parking and drove up and out of the bowels and into the Westwood evening.

4. A short thing I wrote and submitted to the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine’s literary journal “The Examined Life” was accepted for publication which is super exciting because I really don’t write write much anymore. I’ll keep you posted when it comes out, but they did say it would be in their next issue. Weirdly, it’s about the 100 200 300 buildings of UCLA and the parking garage which resembles Dante’s Divine Comedy, now that I think about it — particularly The Inferno — as illustrated by Botticelli. Look it up and ponder.

5. I got into a bit of a Facebook spat with a neighborhood fascist sympathiser, and don’t ask me why I’d argue with such a person. It just feels really necessary to remember your values these days. Write them down, even. Ponder that, too.

6. My friend, the writer Lidia Yuknavitch, posted the above graphic on her social media with these words: “just reminded me of something useful so i'm sharing for those of us who give a shit :: take turns collaboratively, and don't fall for the lone hero trope when we all know (er many of us anyway) it's going to take all of us :: and don't let anyone convince you that you are worthless we all have something to give.” I’d love to hear what circle is yours. Here’s a link to the site. That’s for you, Mary Moon. You know what I’m talking about.

7. I attended the wedding of my beloved friend Lisa on Saturday evening, and it was easily the most joyful wedding that I’ve ever been to. It was in another friend’s backyard, and everyone brought food, and I made the wedding cake, and all four of their young adult children gave toasts that made us all cry (mom a widow and dad a widower), and even though we’re all sad, and the streets of Los Angeles are eerily quiet as our friends, neighbors and fellow citizens stay in their homes (whether documented or not), afraid of the masked men who disappear them, who separate children from their mothers and fathers, who chase them through strawberry fields, zip-tie their children and corner them at car washes, there is good in the world, and it’s all around us.

8. Stay safe, stay strong, be peaceful, be brave.