Vampire Diaries

It's another beautiful day of sunshine in the second week of middle summer as Bill Felker informed me on my way to work this morning. And literally, the couple of months I look forward to all year long--peek the weather tab on this blog.

And it turns out that (a) Lupus flares are caused by exposure to sunlight, so we ought to keep Li'l A under wraps and out of the light as much as possible. (b) Since Big A started to nightshift it, he sleeps all day and works most nights and he goes out even less than he used to, the blacked out  bedroom is one chord G away from being a crypt.


It's like living with vampires, with all the heartache and anguish and regret that implies.

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SUPER 8

Loved it. And the shout out to Dayton was the highlight of our quiet midwestern phase of life.

We've been putting off seeing it because of the Lupus-suspicion related anguish and Big A's even weirder hours. And as we walked into the movie theater, Li'l A said--I look at that poster for Super 8 and  I have no idea what it's going to be about.

I should have taken that opportunity to give my mom a heads up, because she told me later that she kept counting and recounting the kids and kept coming up with just six, so how were they the Super 8? She was thinking of the kids clubs we used to read when I was a kid--like Secret Seven and Famous Five :).

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With Caveats

After calling the derm for results repeatedly and being told that the results weren't in, computer was down, no one was available to read the results, we'll call you back (but no one called). After suspecting the worst, I finally received a call back. The nurse's assistant (nearly everyone had broken early for the long weekend) starts out by asking me how I'm doing. (How do you think?) And after talking to me about the weather, the upcoming weekend, apologizing for not calling sooner, says she went over it with a colleague to be sure, but it looks like the bloodwork appears to be in the normal range. So now we await biopsies.

Relief. Uncertainity. Not sure if we deserve this reprieve.

Knowing that if the biopsies come back clean, I'll be looking at shorter hair, and grandparents, husband, and eleven-year-old with shaven heads, and a life without chocolate.But it will be worth it to have a child with a host of other persnickety ailments that completely swallow our health services to the point where my dental work has been postponed for two years, but hey--perhaps not eating chocolate will resolve that.

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Still in Shock

And feeling like things make sense. Li'l A's biological father died of ALS, which is another unpreventable, incurable disease, so this feels a bit like ugly deja vu.Like resilience is futile.

There's a constant argument on in my head. Is it? No it isn't. But if it were, it could explain the grades--poor baby. How am I going to motivate a child if the doctor gives him what amounts to a death sentence. Elzabeth Edwards's wisdom about how all of us are dying. I could be dead tomorrow driving home from work.

(I almost killed the entire family on the way back from the doctor's. At least three times. My mom riding shotgun didn't notice. But dad in the back with the kids, totally noticed and didn't say anything till we got home. I also forgot to turn off the engine when we stopped at Compunet to get the bloodwork done. And I was a total harridan to the cheery, perky, young person who tried and repeatedly failed to find a place to prick him.)

Completely blown away by how supportive people I don't know very well have been. Even people whose judgement I don't trust on most issues suddenly appeared to be full of compassion and wisdom. Except for the jerk who said the good news would be that Li'l A appeared to be skinny. Which (a) Since when is skinny--skin and bone-- a positive thing? (b) Fuck you. (c) Do you not know that Indian moms never think their kids can be chubby enough?

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I thought we were going to a regular dermatological appointment this morning, but instead got to watch as four nurses dug biopsy samples out of my skinny 11-year-old's arms. They strongly suspect Lupus. Tell me how to explain an unpreventable, incurable, chronic disease with frequent and frightening fatalities to my sweet, funny little chap. (And if you know the secret, tell me how I can stop breaking on the inside.) 

Summer Clouds

Is that dusty skin smoke?
there's no word for sea
in the midwest, speak
from necessity, not fact

No flower chalices lie
warmed like your ear
pick one bird song--
run just one for life.

What would you match?
on some deserted island
what would you catch?
Everything seems parrots

repeating repeating:
immortal new names
now costly like blood
--orange sum of sun.

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Campaign

[I'm not particularly depressed. Not at all. In fact with parents (long visit) and kids (summer vacation) around I'm happy albeit in a sort of militaristic way (trying to rally the--suddenly doubled--dependents and get things done as close to schedule as possible). The poetry has been all pouty lately though. That I've noticed.]


Holding Folding up both
ends of our conversation:
corners, tablecloth tidy,
put away. Picnic's over.

Flag: surf and sulphur heaven
wave disease, spread pleased
so many tiny, tiny hands march
and halt in veiled fields overhead.

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