A Whole "Nother"...

Well, as I suspected...I went to see the surgeon today to have him reveal my newest scar to me by removing my surgery dressing and checking to see how that scar was progressing. And...Voila! It's a cute little thing about an inch long on the left side of my major scar. It's still a bit swollen and not completely healed but the interesting thing to learn was that, yes, there was actually a piece of the tube still inside of me which was why I had that horrible infection for those couple of months. Of course, he'd already told me this when I was coming out of the anesthesia but what is the point of talking to someone when they are completely knocked out? I remember him saying, "Trish...Trish...Blahblahblahblah..." But that's about all I remember. I'm thinking now that I should get some great fabulous stomach tattoo to bring together all of my operations. I also have an appendix scar and a cesearian scar and I can only imagine what a master tattoo artist could create with those beginnings. I don't know, The Empire State...a forest scene maybe...Air Force One...

I think I must have said that last one because I watched part of the Republican debate from the Reagan library. Here's what I want to know... Was Reagan ever actually IN a library? I don't know why but I don't picture Reagan glancing through a Thackery or a Faulkner, for that matter. Let's be honest, I haven't glanced through a Thackery. In fact, who the hell is Thackery? I certainly do not want to be thought of as elitist. And have you noticed that these days? That if you are curious and you read and you want to get educated you are thought of as an elitist...Or full of yourself or greater than thou... It's crazy. What is wrong with reading and learning and trying to help the environment. I've heard people on the radio say horrible things about people who drive Hybrid cars. Hello...Is that a bad thing? It might be trendy in a certain way but it is certainly not a bad thing.

Although sometimes when I'm putting in those wacky lightbulbs that give off that kind of sickly neon light...And I fill up my Prius which doesn't take much gas and only needs to be filled every two or three weeks...Sometimes I wonder if I am actually doing anything to save the planet. What about the big corporations that are spewing gunk into lakes and into the air? Are THEY doing anything to help? Is my changing a light bulb or two actually going to save Antarctica? Is Ed Begley Jr. really doing anything except becoming a very eccentric older man? Riding a stationary bike to generate electricity. Is he insane or is he actually changing the planet? I don't know. I just don't know.

But here is one thing that I know for sure is insane...Primaries...Rudy Guiliani spent FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS in Florida. Just Florida! Fifty Million. And we don't have money to save our schools or pay our police? What is wrong with that picture? Let them do their debates which don't seem to be debates at all, at least not the kind that I saw kids do in high school...Anyway, let them do them and then send them on to the convention and let people raise their hands and vote here here or hear hear or nay nay and that will be that. Poof, we've got a candidate and then all that primary money can be saved for important things like fixing levees. Or buying tiaras. Hey honey, if you've got the money and want to buy a tiara...THEN BY ALL MEANS BUY ONE. So a little kid goes hungry for a few days. It is not your problem. Your problem is that you've got this charity ball to attend and you've got to look spectacular and Town and Country Magazine said that tiaras were in and it's not easy finding the perfect tiara and thank goodness they are not having the primaries this year so you don't have to give your money to Rudy who is a loser anyway and you can spend it on something important like looking fabulous....

I have nothing against rich people.

Nother. Is nother a word? And if it isn't, shouldn't it be? I have heard people on the radio say many times something like..."And we've got a whole nother problem." Nother. I rather like the sound of it. "Today a whole nother scar was revealed to me for the first time." Maybe I'll ask the tattoo guy to design me a "nother". A big, bright nother all over my abdoman. The Empire State Nother.

I actually think I need to write a whole nother blog entry...........................

Yo, Adrian

Okay, raise your hands if you ran out and saw Rambo 25 this past weekend...Aha. Not even a breeze of hands moving skyward. Could they not have taken that money and fixed all the schools all across America? Or how about using it to pay the real soldiers who are still in Iraq doing that thankless job. You don't hear the media talking about Iraq anymore because the economy is sexier right now and because soldiers and civilians are not dying in double digits. Hey, what's one soldier...Or two. I'll tell you what it is...It's someones daughter or son or spouse. That's what it is. You lose your house, that is sad and difficult. You lose your son, you will live with that horrible pain until the day you die.

Gee, I'm actually in a pretty good mood today. Don't know why my mind went there. Must have been Stallone and his human growth hormone face. And have you seen Julie Christie's picture in Los Angeles Magazine? She looked great in that movie, a little older, a little wrinkled, but still beautiful. But in the magazine they air brushed her so much that she actually ended up looking dead. She was like an older woman with no wrinkles or character or any indication that she had actually lived for over sixty years. And another thing about that magazine...The last twenty pages are all ads and pictures of lawyers! Twenty pages. What is that about? Does everyone in this city need a lawyer? Are they all suing somebody? It's really a horrible magazine but I saw Philip Seymour Hoffman on the cover and thought it might be interesting but with twenty pages of lawyers I really felt like I got ripped off. Hmmmm...Maybe I've got a case here.

Two friends of mine, who shall remain nameless...Gretchen and Mimi...(Did I tell you that I can't keep a secret?) Anyway, these nameless friends got a hot dog from Cedric. And they, too, were charmed and apparently talked his ear off and he told them to come back on Valentines Day. And I am sure he was charmed by them as they are very beautiful women. I had a hot dog somewhere else this past weekend, I think it may be the salt that's attracting me, and I got sick. Even from a very few bites. Though I must admit that I have been getting sick much more than I would like these last couple of weeks. I get sick then I feel fine. Maybe that's just the routine of my life from now on and I have to get used to it.

My computer is telling me that there is going to be an "outage" at four o'clock. It's now three thirty six. That guy who came and "fixed" my computer should be shot. At dawn. With his own guns. And I waited all morning for this "expert" to come and check out the damage done for free and they call and tell me he had a flood in his house and he's out of commission for a while and would I take the other guy back? No, I said, because what I would really like to do is beat him over the head with my keyboard or this broadband router that he told me to buy and I have no idea what to do with that thing and my computer is going to shut down in twenty minutes FOR NO REASON and between the computer guy and Officer Rubbish my life is just pure hell these days.

Oh, that is such a lie. My life is fine. I know someone who was killed in an avalanche on Friday. One second he was alive, the next second he was dead. And I feel so lucky that though I've had cancer I now have life and I can hug my son and cook him soup and laugh with my friends and though I know I will die one day sooner or later, I am alive and aware of the precariousness of it all and I know that Chris, who died, was having a wonderful time until he was swept away and I hope we can all have a wonderful time before we're swept away because we just don't know about anything , do we? It is all a complete mystery.

Like this outage that's supposed to happen in fifteen minutes. Now that is a mystery. Not a profound one but enough of one to make me sign off before I finish my thoughts and oh I had something very exciting to tell you.

I have the honor of going to

I Have A Dream

Actually, I don't have a dream because I haven't been able to remember my dreams since high school but since it is Martin Luther King day I've been thinking about his speech and how you can hear it a million times and it never fails to send chills through your body and bring tears to your eyes. And even though the people in Louisiana and all the areas of poverty in our country are still getting screwed by an uncaring government, I think Mr. King would be thrilled to know that a Black Man AND a woman are running for President of the United States and one of them might actually win. Just how cool is that?

I did remember one dream I had just a few weeks ago. It was about an owl. I wonder what Jung would say about dreaming about owls.........Probably, "Who, who, who am I?"

The policeman who gave me the speeding ticket was not named Officer McCarthy. I just made that up but I looked up his name on the ticket and it's even better than McCarthy. It is Officer Rubbish!! No kidding. Can you imagine growing up with the name Rubbish? You'd have to carry a gun if your name was Rubbish. "Little Billy Rubbish, get back to your seat right now!" No wonder he didn't care if I was throwing up. The guys been tortured by his name his entire life and now he's getting back at the whole world by gleefully writing tickets. "I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Rubbish." No wonder he looked so angry. "Friends, family, today we say goodbye to Mr. Rubbish and turn him back into the soil from whence this Rubbish came..."

Oh, I could go on and on but in the end...I still have to pay the damn ticket.

A guy came and worked on my computer for three hours on Saturday. And it's acting up again today. He told me that computers aren't made to last more than five years or so. That can't be right, can it? I had the same typewriter for my whole writing life before computers. Pounded on that thing day and night and all I ever had to do was change the ribbon. (Do I sound a hundred years old now? Yes. That's because I'm closer to a hundred than I am to nineteen and I can see now why people my age have always said things like..."In my day we walked ten miles to blah blah blah...I cannot believe I am one of those people now but I guess it's better than NOT being one of those people...Or is it?) Anyway, I'm pissed that the computer guy was a nice guy and I don't want to report him to his company because he just got this job and just graduated from DeVry University and was in a car accident and was a marine and is married and has guns in his house that his wife is not happy about and has a knife the size of a hari kari sword and eats hamburgers a lot and...........See, this guy was here for a looooong time and something is still very wrong with my computer and I spent three hours feeding him potato chips and I have this perfectly good lap top that he tells me is almost obsolete. Hey, I wanted to say, I'M almost obsolete. So they took out my tummy to get some more mileage out of me and they said I'd be fine 'til I dropped and they can't do that with a computer?!! No, he said, I need a new model. A more updated model. And, of course I started thinking about that man who was formerly known as my husband and his updated model. Maybe she's only good for five years. Hey, I was good for twenty five. Can't snub a thumb at that.

Snub a thumb? Can you tell I'm missing an hour of sleep.

Hey, how about those Giants? I'm a Bear fan, of course, and I was sort of rooting for Green Bay but my father's name was Eli and I love that name so any team that has a quarterback named Eli I can't ignore.

I do not believe I will be able to write for the rest of the week. But maybe I will but I don't think I will so don't count on it or worry that I'm sick because I always sort of am...Sick, that is...But maybe I'll get better. Sort of better. Someday. Maybe a week from Tuesday. Now that would be a dream come true.................

Everyday Life

Yes, Everyday Life is a play by Rilke but it is such an apt phrase for things one sees on a daily basis that I am stealing it from Rilke who stole it from God know who else.

So today I am driving along to my drip and I seem to be keeping up with the other traffic and a policeman pulls me over for going 45 in a 35 zone. Oh, come on, I'm thinking. Everyone was driving at the same speed and I'd had a bad 2007 and you are not going to make me go to one of those places where I have to listen to bad comedians tell bad jokes about cars and traffic and COME ON. But he is all business and I'm starting to get upset so I did what everyone should do when they get pulled over...I got out of the car and I threw up. Right there on the curb. I guess I AM sensitive these days and after all I did have an operation three days ago. And you should have seen his face. This is one thing he did not learn in policeman school. How to deal with a woman who is so upset that she throws up on his boots. (Well, I didn't actually throw up on his boots but I saw them there on the ground and I thought about it for a very short moment and decided against it.) Anyway, this cop just went about his business and presented me with the ticket and did not say a word about my sudden illness. And I looked at him for a long time thinking he might ask how I was feeling but he had no intention of doing that and he just handed me the ticket and told me how to go about it and that was that. I drove away, sucking on a lifesaver, and thought that we are all in very good hands if we are being protected by seriously focused guys like Officer McCarthy. Or else they are truly a bunch of sadists and you'd better make sure you go 35 in that 35 mph zone.

Okay, so today's guy in the vitamin drip room is my favorite so far. He walks in wearing three coats, a hat, carries a plastic grocery bag filled with letters, carries a huge camera case, the old fashioned kind and pulls a small suitcase on wheels. He starts talking as soon as he takes off the first coat. And he says...

"I just got back from nineteen days in Odessa."

The other woman and I exchanged a look and he went on about his trip to Odessa...IN DETAIL...Starting with every minute he spent on the airplane and that he went by himself and left his wife of two months at home to pursue her career. His wife is Russian. She makes him wear his wedding ring on his right hand. As he continued to talk I realized that this woman had married him to stay in the country and she did not want to be married to him and convinced him that in her religion everyone wears their rings on their right hand. I asked what religion she was and he said something like..."Balmudian." Ah, I don't think so. Anyway, she had sent him to Odessa to find her MOTHER...Oh, this story gets better...But of course her mother was not there so he just roams around Odessa looking for the best pizza parlors!! And then he goes on and on about pizza and pulls out a picture of his Russian wife who is "pleasantly plump" to put it nicely and he says she's a great singer and wants to be the next Britney Spears.

And this was all before he took off his second coat. All I know is that he seems to be going next to Prague to find her Uncle who is in the music business...In Prague. In the music business. To help her be the next Britney. In America. With a Russian accent.

I am telling you...Everyday life.

And then I saw...Cedric. I couldn't finish the whole dog but he didn't see that, thank goodness. I think I'm still a little tweaky from the operation. But once again he said one of his profound little pearls. I finally told him I'd had cancer. He was, not surprisingly, very concerned and I told him I was in remission (which I think I am) and he was pleased to hear that. Then he told me that he, too, was in remission. "I am in remission from something that is actually worse than cancer. I am in remission from poverty."

Wow, huh? He is from Louisiana and he said that Katrina revealed only a tiny view of what is really going on down there. And that's what he comes from. And if this is becoming just a bit too Travels with Maury, or whatever the hell that corny book was called...I can't help it. There he is. This guy with his truck and his hot dogs and his pearls and he's like one of the best people I've ever met.

Everyday heroes.

By the way, my spellcheck told me that there was no such word as Balmudian. Someone should tell that to Mr. Odessa when he finally removes his hat.......................

The Remarkable Pain

Well, today I am not sore anymore, my belly feels okay, but I am a bit woozy. Light headed. Could be the antibiotic. Could be that I haven't eaten enough in the last couple of days. Could be that my head is light. Meaning I don't have a fat head which I think is a good thing.

My friend Tone who stayed with me last weekend told me that I have to put more DeNiro stories into my blog to keep it interesting because how booooorrring is a blog about antibiotics?! So he reminded me of this one and yes, Tone was with me as a witness so you don't think I was just making all of this up.

My play, "Thighs" was playing off Broadway. Way off Broadway. Sheridan Square. And the marquee read, "Opening Tonight...Trish Soodik's Thighs" I always thought I should have taken a picture of that. Anyway, I was in New York and Tone, who was the stage manager, and I were walking down something like 42nd Street and a limo pulls up in front of us and out steps DeNiro, whom I had already spent many hours with, and he took one look at me and with just his eyes said, "Do not say a word. Pretend that you don't me. Just keep walking." And his girlfriend got out of the car and they walked away with him turning around just once to nod. True story. I am not making it up. Just ask Tone.

I was talking with a friend this morning and I described the feeling of the man formerly known as my husband leaving me as "one remarkable pain." She thought using the word remarkable was interesting. But I could not really think of another word that would best describe how I felt at that time. It was remarkable in that I had never felt a spiritual pain so deeply. A wound in my soul that, at the time, felt like it would actually kill me. And I thought I would never, ever be able to get rid of that pain. And then I got cancer in the same place I had my soul wound and you just have to wonder, don't you? Is there any correlation? How can there not be? And now both wounds are healing and with one wound I am left with a bit of vomiting and no sugar and with the other I am left with a bit of scar tissue that is slowly being covered up by the healthy tissue until I can almost not feel it anymore. It's funny how quickly one adapts. So I don't eat garlic. Chocolate. So I sleep alone. Cook meals for one. It is not so bad. I can rub my own feet. I can change a light bulb. I have the love of my son. Of my friends. I think it was that feeling of being safe, of finally finding a home that could swallow me whole and let me swim around and make mistakes and learn as I dog paddled in circles, trying to figure out this thing called love......................And when that home was split in two and the water spilled out onto the carpet with me as a beached dolphin not sure whether to try and get to the shore or try and swim out to sea by myself, I just lay there for a few months in that remarkable pain.

But I chose to swim again and though I'm sometimes not sure where I'm going and certainly unsure where the waves are taking me, I am trying to enjoy the journey and leave the remarkable pain behind to be swallowed up by seaweed and hopefully sunk with the heavy weight that it carries to the very bottom of the ocean...............

The Golden Glubs

"And this year's winner for Best Actress in an overwrought autobiographical drama..."

Me?!! Are you kidding? Me?!! But where's the red carpet? Where are all the photographers? The media? I just have to accept this honor all by myself in my very own living room?

Yes, Trish, you do. Take another pain pill and stop complaining.

Okay, I am not complaining. My surgery went well. Today I am feeling the pain of stitches in my belly. But I do feel that the infection is gone and when I finish the antibiotics I think I am going to feel like a new woman. Oh God do I want to feel like a new woman. Or maybe just ANOTHER woman. Someone else. Like...oh, I don't know, Julia Roberts maybe. She seems awfully happy. Last night post surgery I watched La Vie En Rose. The Edith Piaf movie. (The actress is amazing.) But Edith had just an awfully rough life and I'm watching her age and she's all bent over and taking pills and I stood up to go to the bathroom and I was all bent over and about to take a handful of pain pills and I realized that La Vie En Rose is a great movie to watch when you're feeling sorry for yourself. You think your life is bad? Oh no. Check out Edith's life.
Or Judy Garland's. Talented, tragic women. And they seemed to end up with the same eyebrows. None. Pencil brows. I guess the lesson is that if you find yourself drawing in your eyebrows with a pencil then you know it's curtains. You are dead meat.

But here's the thing. I think I'm on the road to recovery...Again. Feel a little shitty today but it's already almost two o'clock and in Antarctica I would already be asleep so I'm thinking that tomorrow will be much better. And who knows about the day after that.

There is a movie out now called "Teeth". It's about a young woman who has teeth on her vagina. Don't we all?

Vagina. Why is that word so hard to say? Aren't you embarrassed just reading that word. Penis is not so bad. Vagina is hard. Penis is easy. Didn't Laurence Olivier say that? Or was he talking about comedy? And can you tell I'm on pain pills? One, actually. I am not one of those writers who can write stoned or drunk or on anything except vitamins so this is a first. And why am I talking about vagina? Maybe I took a viagra by mistake.

Change the subject, Trish.

Right. Have you seen the poster for that Terminator TV show? It's a girl with only the top half of her body. Wires are coming out where her...bottom half would be and her top half is naked and her breasts are covered with her long hair. Sickly erotic, I suppose. And it's on BIG posters. Golly gosh in my day young men would sneak a Playboy and check out the breasts but the girls had bottoms, although demurely covered. Now they don't even have bottoms. Just wires. Who needs a bottom anyway, I guess.

Oh my goodness, I seem to be on the same subject, sort of. I wonder what he removed during surgery? True story, they did wheel me into the wrong operating room at first and I almost spent the rest of my life without a kidney.

Aha, well I see I do not become a Faulkner when I write while I'm a bit high. Or a Fitzgerald. I just become stupid. Maybe tomorrow I'll mix my pain pills with a little scotch. Or is that a guy thing? Maybe I should cut my hair off and wear frumpy skirts like Gertrude Stein. Now she had a bottom.

Sorry. I will come back tomorrow when my mind is out of the gutter. La Vie En Rose is La Vie En Rose is La Vie En Rose....................

Uganda and Beyond

I met a young woman today who had just come back from Uganda and was putting together her photography exhibit and it was quite obvious that life had been treating her well and it was exciting and hopeful and I am so draggy because of this open wound that I didn't even have the energy to shout out, "FOR GOD'S SAKE, CALM DOWN! HORRIBLE THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU SOMEDAY. I CAN GUARANTEE THAT BECAUSE THEY HAPPEN TO EVERYONE! AND ESPECIALLY ME. CAN'T YOU SEE THAT I DON'T FEEL WELL? HOW CAN YOU BE SO HAPPY."

And then I realized that I was feeling just a little too sorry for myself. That my inner voice had gotten out of hand. To want someone who is having a good time to NOT have a good time is so wrong and petty. Oh, I am such a small human being. And getting smaller.

Actually, I AM getting smaller. Today for lunch I ate one shrimp. Without sauce. One. A shrimp. One shrimp. And then I started thinking...What if I become really small? Pocket sized. Like Tom Thumb? Or Stuart Little? And I'd have to have a little mouse door to get in and out and I'd be chased by cats and terrorized by rats and I'd have to vie for little crumbs on the floor with my dog and my shoes would be way too big and what if my hair stayed the same size that it is now and didn't shrink with me and I was just a bunch of hair running around the living room and the sound of the vacuum cleaner made me screech with horror but nobody would hear me....................................................

Okay, that was insane. I really need to get rid of this infection. It is sucking the life out of me. And the brains. So Monday I go in and they operate and they take out...Something. Maybe they'll take out my pettiness. Hey, maybe they could replace that with William Faulkner's work ethic. Certainly no harm in asking.

So I sign off for a few days. Don't worry. Be happy.

Just not TOO happy.