growing up is cool

beastie boy adam yauch died 2 days before my 39th birthday. i was on the way from durham, north carolina, to the outer banks when i heard the news from my friend bucko, who had started getting into the beastie boys recently. he’s older than i am, so they were never really on his radar. they pretty much were my radar, so he decided to figure out why i was always talking about those guys. he wasn’t disappointed. other than that with adam yauch’s death, he joins the group of folks who are sad that there won’t be more from him.

bucko’s facebook post, breaking the news to me: “i just saw the news about adam of the beasties. i know you must be very sad about this. not sure what to say. i was just getting to know their music & learning to really enjoy it. what a loss.”

adam yauch 1964-2012

i’ve written about the beastie boys here a few times before. i wrote about my realization a year ago that i wouldn’t hear their new album in stereo, and then it was the first thing i listened to after i got my hearing aid. i also referred to them as pros when it comes to making your own fun. exhibit A:

yesterday a friend posted a link to an article about MCA’s death. it’s titled “MCA, kid forever: how the beastie boys united us by never growing up” and i think that it does a good job of looking at what the beastie boys mean to a lot of folks of my generation. the link in the article is to the video of my favorite beastie boys song – it’s always in position 2 on my personal soundtrack.

but i disagree with the premise of the article, that the beastie boys never grew up. i think that they actually modeled how to grow up, and that that’s a key to the reason that they stayed relevant. the beastie boys from my teen years wouldn’t have held my attention in my 30’s.

teen years beasties:

30’s beasties:

not surprisingly, teen years beasties were mainly concerned with partying. post-911 beasties said things like, “i’m getting kind of tired of the situation, the US attacking other nations.” i don’t think that they were being preachy – i think that they were talking about things that mattered to them as adults. there aren’t many references to the iran-contra affair in “licensed to ill” – makes sense because they were in their early twenties when that album came out.

another sign of maturity: when they got a little older and wiser they started changing one piece of the lyrics to “paul revere” (a song from their first album) that they decided was too offensive. there’s a lot of irresponsible teen-partying-type stuff on that album, but they were able to discern what needed a revision. they left the irresponsible stuff alone – they didn’t scrub that album clean. they changed a bit they they couldn’t in good conscience keep saying in light of the knowledge they’d gained as they got older.

ok, how’s this for maturity – i remember watching the MTV video music awards live back in 1998 when the beastie boys were presented with a video vanguard award. when it was MCA’s turn to speak, he used his time to talk about racism towards middle-easterners and the dangers of retaliation in the war on terrorism. it’s certainly worth a watch all the way through.

the atlantic article about MCA’s death said that the beastie boys made it cool to be white. i think that the beastie boys made it cool to grow up. they showed that growing up doesn’t mean that you have to give up having fun. growing up means that the ways you have fun are different – i think specifically that the fun grown-ups have shouldn’t be at the expense of other folks. i’ve always gotten the feeling that the beastie boys put a really high priority on doing things that amused themselves. a few examples:

and of course, possibly the coolest video over made:

it has always given me a smug sense of satisfaction that two of my favorite folks – elvis costello and david letterman – are big fans of the beastie boys. it seems like the boys always went the extra mile when they were on the late show. here’s an example:

and an amazing thing that happened on the SNL 25th anniversary show:

adam yauch was 47 when he passed away. part of his legacy was the example he gave of how to have fun and still be responsible in your forties. i’ll be there in less than a year, and i hope i can do as good of a job of it as he did. i’m sad that he won’t be leading the way into the fifties, but i’m looking forward to seeing how adam horovitz and mike diamond do it, if we’re all fortunate enough to get there.

i should also mention that nathaniel hörnblowér passed away this week.

here’s a rare interview with mike, adam, and mr. hörnblowér:

“i’m glad to know that all the love that yauch has put out into the world is coming right back at him.” ~adam horovitz

38 lessons from 38 years

my neurologist hipped me to this great blog called “zenhabits” and this post really spoke to me.  i’ve been 38 for a while now, and it got me thinking about what i’ve learned in those 38 years. i’ll be 39 in less than two weeks, so time to get crackin’.

it seems to me that my life falls into 4 sections, so i’ll break up the lessons that way.

kid –  birth to 17

1. fun is important

2. be as independent as possible

3. don’t let a kid win a game

growing up, we had a little cabin in the mountains east of los angeles. no tv. no phone. i played a lot of games with my parents. which means that i lost a lot of games to my parents. which also means that when i won a game, i really won it. when i was teaching, i loved to play wallball with kids during recess. i didn’t play to demolish them, but if i could get to the ball, i got to it. so they knew that when they beat me, they really did.

me with my folks in front of our cabin. 585 silvertip drive.

4. figure out how to be a good driver

5. neighbors matter

i first met the charnows when i moved across the street from them the summer before i started kindergarten. they’ve been my second family since then. in fact, i think that the definition of the word “charnow” is “noun: good neighbor” – look it up. i have fabulous neighbors where i live now. one of them is a two year-old who now bops into my apartment and makes herself at home. it feels really good.

young adult – 17-24

6. “cotton fields” by ccr is a great lullaby

7. it can be good to live someplace where nobody knows you

when i was 18 i moved from pasadena to arcata to go to humboldt state university. i didn’t know anyone there, and it occurred to me that this was an opportunity to change some things about myself. for instance, my sense of humor had a mean streak. but nobody expected that from me, so i was able to eliminate it.

the arcata plaza

8. larrupin sauce is delicious

9. raising arizona is an awesome movie

my college buddy hethir and i logged a lot of hours watching raising arizona. we ended up speaking a weird twin language based on dialogue from the movie. ah, the salad days…

we didn't even need to stop watching raising arizona to take this picture - self-timer off the top of the tv.

10. southern california is a super place to visit

teacher – 24-36

11. relationships are built on shared experiences

i remember a lot about my own elementary school experience. i remember which teachers liked me and liked being at school, and i remember the opposite. about 30 years after my time as a student at monte vista elementary school, it’s the moments of fun that we had in those classrooms that really stand out. i applied these memories to my own classrooms. i looked for opportunities for fun because those good times spent together are the way that you get through the hard times. looking back on the dozen years i spent teaching elementary school, i remember lots of good times. lots of laughs. and since former students find me on facebook, i know that they remember those times too.

a great thing about teaching is that you can pretty much play "i doubt it" whenever you want to.

12. you don’t have to like everybody (and they don’t have to like you), but you do have to get along with everybody

13. if you want to be a smartass you have to be smart or else you’re just an ass

14. elvis costello has a song for any mood you’re in

15. trying is everything

16. “i wrote it until it said ‘the end'”

you ask a stupid question… early in my teaching career i asked one of my students if his story was finished. that was his answer. he even pointed to the words “the end” clearly written at the bottom of his paper. he helped me improve my ability to talk with people about their writing, a skill that i still use to this day. so thank you, young man. you know who you are.

last day of school field trip to the beach

17. i learned a lot about how to be a good person from “to kill a mockingbird”

18. kids should know their teacher’s first name

19. bars can make great neighbors

20. a long commute isn’t bad if you use it well

21. the word “hamster” is always funny in a madlib

this fact was discovered when tyson used it as a plural noun in a madlib. it ended up saying, “tarzan was raised by hamsters.” this became a catchphrase in our classroom. and “hamster” was used in pretty much every madlib i’ve been a part of since then. go ahead and try to prove us wrong. i dare you.

"tyson is yelling at ms. york."

22. canvassing is fun

when i ventured out of my classroom, i got involved with the oregon bus project. i met a lot of great folks, and i discovered that i love canvassing – chatting with folks about what matters to them, checking out their yards, registering them to vote. i was once even given a popsicle on an especially hot day.

some really great people came into my life because of the bus project, including the gentleman in pink and his wonderful family.

stroke survivor – 36-38

23. people love to get mail

24. it’s amazing to still have people in your life who knew you when you were 5

i took this for granted, and through many conversations with friends i’ve realized how fortunate i am. i know some pretty cool people from way back when.

25. being alive is awesome

26. kindness matters

27. let people help you

28. thanksgiving is the best holiday

i’ve never been much of a holiday person, but man do i love thanksgiving now. and the plan is that this year i’ll host my first thanksgiving. we’ve been doing it at my parents’ house, and since my grandma florence was always a fixture of that meal, i thought that it was time to shake it up. we’ll be eating at the table that my grandma gave me, the anchor of my childhood thanksgivings. i was once invited to my friends ben and janet’s thanksgiving – they invited folks who couldn’t be with family for one reason or another. added card tables to their kitchen table, and did it as a potluck. it was such a good feeling to be a part of it – that’s how i’m going to do it this year. i have so much to be thankful for.

on the back of this picture, in my grandma's handwriting it says, "taken by mark thanksgiving 1979"

29. gratitude can save your life

30. jeff lynne is a genius

31. people who have grandparents are really lucky

for my entire childhood, i had 5 grandparents. incredible. my grandpa fred passed away about 10 years ago, and my grandma florence last month. my grandpa and step-grandma live in oklahoma, and my grandma betty lives here. i had breakfast with her on sunday. grandparents rock, and i’m a better person for having elders in my childhood and my adult life.

me and grandpa fred in what is now my chair

32. good nurses are the same kind of people as good teachers

33. oatmeal is delicious

34. getting tattooed (twice) with your mom is pretty cool

35. the universe is friendly and on my side

36. i took a lot for granted – things like walking carrying an umbrella, and buttering toast

37. what would elvis costello do?

through conversations with my friend bucko (a jimmy buffett fan) i’ve realized that one of the things i love about elvis is that he does what’s interesting to him. he doesn’t worry about what other people will say about it. for a while he got really into country. he did an album with burt bacharach. he’s in an american roots music phase right now. so what would elvis costello do? i think that he’d allow himself to pursue things that he finds interesting. and he’d encourage me to do the same. so that’s exactly what i’m doing. bucko is, too.

38. i will never enjoy wearing skirts/dresses

i’ve tried over the years, and i’m done. finished. and it’s a relief. i release myself.

i'm goofing off because i feel self-conscious

boy, i’ve learned a lot these last few years. this west coast woman will ring in 39 by dipping her feet in the atlantic ocean. seems like an excellent way to start my next trip around the sun.

gifts from my grandma

my grandma florence passed away this morning. she was 93.

my grandpa fred and grandma florence

grandma florence (sometimes known as gflo) gave me many gifts. these are some that come to mind.

my mom and aunt claire with g&g at their surprise 40th anniversary party

conversations at many tables

as a kid my parents and i regularly drove for an hour or so to my grandparents’ house in la mirada. we had many a thanksgiving and christmas meal there with my aunt claire and cousin mark. after my grandpa passed away almost 10 years ago, my grandma decided to move to corvallis, where my parents had moved a few years earlier. she sold the house on corley drive and downsized. i followed soon after. along with many other things, she gave me her dining room table. in corvallis we had many more meals together, on holidays and during my weekly lunch visits after she moved into an assisted living facility a year ago.

soon after she gave it to me, i put gflo to work polishing the dining room table.

my cousin mark

my cousin mark is an only child on his mom’s (my aunt claire) side, and i’m also an only child. our moms made sure that we spent a lot of time together at our grandparents’ place. grandma and grandpa mostly expected us to entertain ourselves. so we rode bikes and climbed trees and raced matchbox cars and watched the twilight zone on KTLA. sometimes grandma took us to thrifty’s to get an ice cream cone and a coloring book. mark usually got mad magazine. i realize now that she also gave me as close to a brother as i’ll ever have and could ever want.

mark and me in the olive tree in our grandparents' front yard

fantastic memories

here’s one. in my family the tradition is that on your birthday you get to choose a restaurant and we all go out to dinner. for her 93rd birthday, gflo wanted to go to papa’s pizza – a spot more frequently the host of 9 year-olds’ birthday parties. she had 2 pieces of pizza that night – more than i’d seen her eat in years.  while we waited for the pizza, mom opened up a pack of “birthday girl” conversation cards. gflo read the first one out loud:

her reply? “any man, straight to my bed.”

sass
my grandma was pretty damn sassy. she usually played the straight man – she and grandpa had their routine down. she epitomized that quote that goes something like, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me.” i remember a time that she was on a gurney in the ER a few years back. my mom and i were worried about her until we heard some dramatic conversation from two people on the other side of the curtain and looked to see her perk up and turn in their direction. she liked to gossip about the other people in the dining rooms of the two places she lived in corvallis. she was well-loved by the staff members of those two spots. she liked to give them hell, and they’d give it right back. several of those folks came out of their way to give my mom and me hugs today.

my mom took me and gflo winetasting.

help buying my first house

my grandma and grandpa gave me a little chunk of money to help me put down a down payment on my first house.

juicy fruit

when i was a kid, i wasn’t allowed to chew “sugar gum.” my grandma would tuck a stick of juicy fruit into anything she mailed to me. she continued this tradition long into my adulthood – when i was in college there’d be an envelope from her pretty much every week. and in that envelope there’d be a stick of juicy fruit and a chatty note (now called a “juicy fruit letter” in my family) about the weather and who she’d run into at albertsons and the phone conversation she’d had with her sister. i’ve carried on her tradition, except i tend to tuck a pack of poprocks in my letter. just trying to keep things fresh.

me loving life in front of my grandma's rose garden

an appreciation for dessert

my grandma loved dessert. in the last few months, as she wasted away, grandma still cleaned her dessert plate. she kept chocolates stashed everywhere. i bet that 3/4ths of the current contents of her fridge is some kind of dessert. she couldn’t pass someone selling see’s candies or girl scout cookies without digging deep into her wallet. when i got out of the hospital, i had lost a lot of weight and needed to build it back up. i adopted my grandmother’s habit of always saying yes to dessert. i started making trifles – the perfect dessert for the non-cook because they’re about assembly, not cooking. now that i’m able to get to the gym, i say yes to whip cream on my latte. it’s what florence would do.

amazing that in my late 30s i shared many meals with my parents and both my grandmas.

unconditional love

even when i was a pain-in-the-butt teenager, my grandma loved me. even when i stole a miniature jar of peanut butter from her, she was disappointed but she still loved me. even when i slept with two pillows, which drove her crazy for some reason, she still loved me. she was a calm, firm, and consistent presence in the first 38 years of my life, and that’ll be part of her legacy.

a spotter

when i was working on relearning to walk, my mom and i would pay visits to my grandmother’s retirement lodge. the long hallways were equipped with excellent railings and if we avoided mealtimes they were usually empty. one time particularly stands out. i was just getting started walking with a walker (a loaner from gflo). mom held on to my gait belt, and gflo followed behind me pushing my wheelchair so i could sit down when i got tired.

my first tattoo

my grandma gave me a little bit of money for my 36th birthday. around that time, i realized that i’d wanted the same tattoo for half my life, which seemed like a long enough waiting period. i tucked the cash away, and when i got my tattoo in berkeley i used that to pay for it. i showed it to gflo when i got back, and told her the story about why i wanted that particular image, and she was delighted. so i told her that it was her birthday present for me. she got such a kick out of it. i remember we were sitting on her balcony, and she said, “when you’re an old lady you can tell people about the tattoo i gave you for your birthday.” and i absolutely will.

i sat for a long time with gflo on friday. that day she was fading pretty fast but was still able to sit in her chair. saturday she spent in her chair too, but when she was awake she wasn’t very lucid. sunday she spent in her bed, and monday she passed away. but on friday, my cousin mark called when she was sleeping. i filled him in on what was going on (he lives in arizona), and he said, “you should watch jeopardy with her.” leave it to mark to think of something great like that. and in a weird twist of fate, a guy i knew was a contestant that night. when she woke up i told her what mark said, and at 7:00 she was awake and we watched it together. 2 days later when i was holding her hand while she waited for morphine i told her how lucky mark and i are to have had her for our grandma. i’ll miss her but i’m so thankful for all of the years that our lives overlapped.

mark and kriste and their fabulous grandma florence

driving lessons

it’s been a while since my last post. i’ve been spending a lot of time walking around corvallis, and there are a few things i think we need to review.

some background: at an impressionable driving age (18), i left southern california for humboldt county in far northern california. humboldt county is a land of redwood trees, fog, rain, and roundabouts. people there tend to be on the far left of several scales, including the polite driving scale. for example, when driving on the highway (that would be 101) and there’s one of those “right lane closed ahead in 1 mile” signs, everyone gets into the left lane as soon as they see the sign. when someone zips down the now-empty right lane and tries to merge in at the very end of the lane, everyone mutters “tourist” – but they still let the car pull in ahead of them. when i’d go back to pasadena for holidays, i’d end up frustrating other drivers because i didn’t turn left the second the light turned green to beat the drivers going the other direction. and i’d get over to the left as soon as i saw the “lane closed ahead” sign. and i’d give the right-of-way to pedestrians. which brings me to my point.

a humboldt self-timer - that's me and hethir and my beloved honda civic.

early in my recovery, the local newspaper dubbed me a “vulnerable pedestrian,” and i’ve certainly been feeling vulnerable the last few months walking around town. i think it’s time that we review some elements of safe and polite driving.

1. look both ways when turning onto a one-way street.

just because the street is one-way doesn’t mean that the sidewalks are too. remember to look the other direction to see if there are any pedestrians coming.

2. stop before the crosswalk.

yep. stop at the crosswalk and then pull forward to check for cars. give pedestrians a chance.

3. please don’t stalk me like i’m your prey.

so you’ve let me cross. no need to inch forward as i make my way across the street. does this get you to where you’re going any sooner? i don’t think so. i know you’re in a hurry, but here’s my suggestion (you can take the woman out of humboldt…) – take a deep breath while you’re waiting. be still. once i’m out from in front of your car, get back on your merry way. it’ll make our moment of overlap more pleasant for both of us.

4. leave early enough so you aren’t stressed by waiting for me to cross.

now i was a hard-core driver for a lot of years, so i empathize with how rushed you feel. but leaving early solves a lot of problems, if you think about it. try to get out your door 5 minutes earlier so that you can err on the side of polite driving. you’ll be in a better mood when you get to wherever you’re going, and so will the other drivers and pedestrians you’ve interacted with along the way. cue the kittens and ponies and rainbows.

5. turn signals aren’t just for other drivers.

i didn’t really understand this until i became a pedestrian. if you don’t use your turn signal, i think you’re going straight. if you aren’t going straight, let me know and everything will go more smoothly.

which brings me to your homework. please work on perfecting the wave-through. now in humboldt county the wave-through can grind an intersection to a halt, everybody waving everybody else through until nobody’s going anywhere. that’s not what i’m asking for. keep the flow of traffic moving. in baseball, a tie goes to the runner, right? so let’s let a tie go to the walker. especially if it’s raining! the other day i was walking through the intersection in the picture above, caught in a torrential downpour (i’m not exaggerating – i lived in humboldt county for a dozen years so i’m no rain wimp). i absolutely had the right-of-way, but a woman stopped her car, looked right at me, and kept right on going. wave ’em through and practice some gratitude for  your warm dry car. take a breath. make up a little story about where that pedestrian is going. i’m sure you can think of something to do for the few seconds it’ll take me to cross.

thanks in advance.

permanent accessories

i was about 18 when i decided that i wanted a tattoo from lafcadio, my favorite shel silverstein book.

as a kid i made my parents read lafcadio to me over and over. eventually i had it memorized and could “read” it myself. the tone and content of the book shaped me as a person. every school year it always the first book i read out loud to my class. i think that my tolerance for the unknown comes from this book. and a good chunk of my sense of humor.

when i turned 36, i realized that 36 is double-18, and that half my life was long enough to wait for a tattoo. i still wanted the same drawing from the book in the same spot on my back – seemed like a safe bet. my grandma florence gave me some money for my birthday. i decided to use it to get my lafcadio tattoo.

i was going to be in berkeley in june. my friend sandy lived in the east bay and he suggested a tattoo spot – sacred rose. i remember that after i got it i changed my facebook status to “i am not the same.”

thanks for the rad tattoo, grandma florence!

when i got back from my trip to the east bay, my mom greeted me with enthusiasm. and with a pile of information about tattoo parlors in corvallis. back when i was 18, she had responded to my desire to get a tattoo with an admission of her own desire to get one. she had a good story about what she wanted to get – her rattlesnake pendant on her ankle. i wanted to get the pocket watch from to kill a mockingbird, and we made plans to get them together on her 59th birthday that coming september.

but plans change. soon after, i was diagnosed with a brain tumor. my mom spent part of her 59th birthday visiting me in a nursing home.

after my medical drama i started to feel a strong need to have a more visible scar. my surgery scars aren’t easy to see, and i wanted something like a badge to mark what i’d been through and survived. i decided that i needed to get a tattoo of a phoenix, because the symbolism was too good to pass up. i certainly felt like a phoenix, and i wanted to represent all of the folks who’d been a part of my surgery and recovery. it turned out that i was going to be in hawaii on the 1-year anniversary of my surgery. i found a tattoo parlor in lahaina and met with rob there. i explained it all to him and he drew up some sketches. i wanted it to be round because i knew that i also wanted to get that pocket watch on my other calf and i wanted them to balance. rob’s sketches were great, so i picked one and walked myself over to his shop (maui atomic tattoo) on august 7, 2010. i wanted it on my left leg because that’s the weak side from my stroke.

that wasn’t the only tattoo i got that day. the other was inspired by my friend robyn. in a line down her calf she’s collecting small tattoos symbolizing important events in her life. i knew that i’d be collecting theme words and i wanted to do something special with them. robyn’s example gave me the idea to collect my theme words down my back. not wanting to miss the opportunity to customize things, i decided that i’d ask someone who was really involved in my theme word to write it for me and i’d get it tattooed on my back going down my spine. i asked emily to write “new” for me. she was a major part of my recovery and really helped me stay positive that first year.

my mom and i made plans to get tattooed together the day before she turned 60. we went to high priestess in corvallis – a friend had much praise to denise there. mom went first, and she agreed with my assessment that it hurts enough so you know you’re getting a tattoo. this time i wondered what it would feel like – i was getting the pocket watch on my right calf, and as a complication from the surgeries i have no temperature sensation on that side. the answer was that i could feel the needle vibrating but i didn’t feel any pain. since it didn’t hurt, denise zipped through my tattoo in record time.

i knew that i wanted to include a quote from to kill a mockingbird as part of my tattoo. when i was in the hospital, my mom read it to me and i had her mark lines that really spoke to me, so that i could choose one for my tattoo. the one that stood out the most was “one does not love breathing.” that part – when scout is afraid that she won’t be allowed to read with her dad anymore because her teacher doesn’t like that she already knows how to read – has always meant a lot to me. but that phrase has new meaning, because now i really do love breathing. i asked my dad to write it out for me – he’s always had really distinctive printing – and he reluctantly agreed. i had denise point the hands at the 7 and the 1 – my parents’ wedding anniversary is july 1st.

i love my pocket watch tattoo. i like it when people stop me and say, “can i read your tattoo?” but after spending some time with it, i decided that there was too much open space in the middle of it. my solution was to get denise to add the mockingbird from the cover of the paperback edition. so on the 2-year anniversary denise did just that.

august 7, 2011 was a busy day for tattoos in my family. my mom got a hibiscus on her other ankle – this had been her plan to represent the two sides of her personality with balanced tattoos.

i also got my word for year two – gratitude. i asked my friend vickie to write it – she’s been in my life for a decade now and has a lot to do with that word. a bonus is that she has lovely cursive.

i’ll crunch some numbers. i’ve been tattooed in 3 states and have 7 words tattooed on me in 3 people’s writing. 2 book tattoos. 2 bird tattoos. 1 gun tattoo.

in 2011 i’ll add another tattoo to my collection – “experience” – and the jury’s still out on who will write it. i don’t know how long i’ll collect theme words on my back. i think i’ll know when i’m finished.

i really love my tattoos. i feel like there are good stories about each of them – where i got them, who i was with, what they represent, their location on my body. now i find myself drawn to people who have tattoos. i want to hear the stories behind them.

my life was saved by patrick swayze

some lives are saved by rock & roll. mine was saved by patrick swayze.

i remember being in pre-op with my cousin mark and my mom, before what would become the first of four brain surgeries.

this is me about a month before i went to phoenix for surgery.

it gets foggy after that. i have flashes of memories – moments (my mom reading me a letter) to longer stretches of time (teaching bob dole to flip the bird). i remember being transported to a nursing home – my first time in an ambulance. i remember talking with the EMT about different ways to take a pulse – i’d experienced quite a few methods during the 5 weeks i spent in the hospital.

i was also doing some major hallucinating – the combination of a brain injury and some powerful drugs. i was seeing things lurking in the corners of my hospital room. i worried about a plot my mom and dr. spetzler had to cut my head off in an MRI machine. and perhaps the strangest was that i was being told that i’d been in the hospital for over a month, i could barely sit up without help, and my left arm seemed to have a mind of its own. so at the end of the day i didn’t know what was really happening and what was an hallucination.

when i arrived at the nursing home, i was moved into an empty room. in the middle of the night, there was a lot of noise and activity in the room. they were moving someone else in. i heard someone say, “dorkus? that’s a lovely name.” now with york for a last name, the word “dork” has played a pretty prominent role in my life. so hearing the word “dorkus” over and over wasn’t helping me to convince myself that i was living in reality. i remember hearing someone else say, “dorkus is an interesting name. where did you get it?” a gravelly voice befitting an elderly woman named dorkus replied, “it’s from the bible. my father gave me that name.” i managed to stop myself from saying, “was he illiterate?”

my friend emily has a much better knowledge of the bible than i do. she told me later that dorcas is indeed a name from the bible, and a quick look at wikipedia tells me that she’s mentioned in the book of acts, in the new testament. i also just this moment learned how to spell it correctly.

ok, ok. enough biblical trivia. bring on patrick swayze.

keanu and patrick - dream team?

the next morning, dorcas had the tv on at full blast. she was watching the local news. as i tried to get back to sleep, i couldn’t help but listen. they announced that patrick swayze had died. i remember thinking, “oh i am good, but i’m not that good.” but if patrick swayze really had died, then i was really living in a nursing home because of complications from my surgeries, and that wheelchair next to the bed was really for me. that morning i stopped hallucinating and started to wrap my mind around the new realities of my life. i also made myself a promise that 10 years later i would think back on everything  that had happen and be grateful that it did, that i’d managed to use those experiences to make my life better. and i can even put a date on that decision. patrick swayze died on september 14, 2009, so that must have been september 15th.

now maybe some of that was because i was being weaned off of the powerful drugs i was taking in the hospital. but some of it was also patrick swayze. probably 60/40.

resolutions

in my twenties i did the new year’s resolution thing.

some years with more success than others. one year i vowed not to punch my friend zari in the arm anymore – that was my traditional greeting. i haven’t done it once since.

around that time i also resolved to always return my shopping cart to the corral or back into the store. being a californian, i sometimes left it in the parking lot – always tucked carefully away, of course. that was another successful resolution -since then i’ve never once left a cart unreturned.

i’ve never enjoyed cooking. one year i resolved to bake one pie a month. that resolution lasted through january. i made a lemon meringue pie and haven’t made once since. that pie was probably 12 years ago.

in 2012 i'll try making my grandma's pecan pie recipe.

soon before my medical drama, my friend harriet introduced me to the idea of picking a theme word for the year instead of making a resolution. i really like having a word as a theme – it seems to lead more towards mindfulness and away from feeling bad about not making pies. it’s a way of choosing what you want to be aware of in your life. what you want to be tuned into.

i’ve done this for each year post-stroke. my new year starts on august 7th, the anniversary of the beginning of my surgeries, so i won’t be putting a new word into effect tomorrow. but two of my friends might be.

emily’s word for 2011 was “ready” – and boy was she! this year she met jeremy and they got engaged and just this week closed on a house. their wedding is in february. emily’s thinking that “trust” will be her word for 2012.

riding the tram in portland with emily, summer 2011.

my friend t.a./bucko is also thinking about a word theme for 2012: “connect” – partially to challenge himself to look for and take opportunities to connect with folks.

bucko has the duck, i'm in the black dress.

i really like both of those words. i just might share one with them when it’s time for me to choose word 4 this summer.

year one, my word was “new” – it was an excellent choice for a year with a lot of changes. it helped remind me not to think of things as bad or good, but as new. i feel like it kept me on a positive path, observing the things around me for what they were, then moving forward.

year two my word was “gratitude” – and it was another excellent choice. that word reminded me to be appreciative of the things i have, and maybe more importantly it reminded me to verbalize my gratitude. all of which certainly helped make for a good year.

i like words, and when i started this theme-word tradition i spent some time thinking over how i might visually collect these words. i decided that on august 7th, as one word was traded out for the next, i’d get the outgoing word tattooed on my back, centered under my tattoo of lafcadio (from my favorite children’s book). i decided that i’d ask someone who was really involved in how that word played out to write it for me and then i’d get it tattooed in their handwriting. i asked emily to write “new” and my former foster daughter’s grandma vickie wrote “gratitude” for me. i like the idea of having a map on my back of the road i’ve taken since my medical drama.

it’s year 3 and my word is “experience” – i chose that word for a few reasons. the first two years were really focused on recovery, and because of all the work that went into those two years i’m now able to do so much more, to have experiences. also, around the time of my 20 year high school reunion this year i realized that i really value people who have experience. the jury’s still out on who will write “experience” for me – over 8 months left.

someone recently asked me what will happen once my back is filled with words. my answer was that at some point i won’t feel compelled to do it anymore and i’ll stop. now it occurs to me that maybe my theme calendar will be like the chinese zodiac and after whatever year 12 is it’ll be the year of the new again. time will tell.

if you’re making a resolution this year, i wish you success. if you’re picking a theme word, i’d love to hear what it is and how it works for you. i’m always looking for inspiration for year 4.

above all, i hope for a great 2012 for all of us.

the soundtrack project

i think that it was my friend zari who brought the soundtrack project into my life. but she thinks that i brought it into her life. cat’s game.

me and zari way back. this year i got to see her graduate from college.

7 or 8 years ago, we made personal soundtracks and exchanged them. these are the soundtracks if there were movies made of our lives (we’re both wes anderson fans, so i’m guessing that his movies were the inspiration). not necessarily our favorite songs, but songs that are meaningful to us for whatever reason. it had to all fit on one cd. we made them and exchanged them.

zari's first soundtrack - she was in high school when she made this.

it occurred to me that it would be a good exercise for the new year. so the first new year after my medical drama (2010) i invited some folks to join me in the soundtrack project. i ended up with quite a few soundtracks, and i’ve enjoyed getting to know my friends a little bit better through their musical selections. i never fail to be surprised by a song or two that i find on there.

last year, kristin and i were struggling with putting together our soundtracks for 2011.

kristin and kriste working on their 1979 soundtracks.

both of us were trying to wrestle with our love of elvis costello – he was occupying a lot of disc space. we decided to make and exchange all-elvis soundtracks. i found out that kristin’s more of the ballad elvis fan, whereas my elvis taste leans more towards the kick-you-in-the-teeth 3-minute miracles. we even got to go together to see him play in 2011 – i credit the good elvis soundtrack vibes.

kriste and kristin many years later.

elvis costello, soundtrack hog

this year i’ll be spending some of the time between christmas and new year’s eve finishing up my soundtrack for 2012. i have a really great soundtrack for this year to build on. the basics will mainly stay the same, but as new songs come, others have to go to make room. that’s the only rule – it has to fit on one cd. it should matter to you – this isn’t the soundtrack to anyone else’s movie. if you love hanson then they better be on your soundtrack. the order of the songs matters. and you have to actually burn the cd – no links to playlists allowed. ok. i guess that’s more than one rule.

i highly recommend that you give the soundtrack project a try. it’s a very cool way to make a musical inventory of your life – it can take a pretty amazing amount of self-reflection, and it’s an interesting way to get to know someone. recruit a few of your friends and swap ’em. and let me know if you want to trade with me.

i’m currently listening to zari’s first soundtrack. and wondering what has survived the years and will be on her 2012 soundtrack.

make your own fun

someone recently said to me, “i hope you aren’t bored.” i replied that i’m never bored. which got me to thinking about it. and truly i’m never bored. but why?

i think that being an only child is a big factor. now, i know what you think about only children – that their parents cater to their every whim. i think that that’s one kind of only child, and i’m another – my parents mostly dug having me around when i was a kid but they also had their own lives, and they expected me to be able to entertain myself. some childhood highlights are writing and filming super-8 movies, endless scavenger hunts, and the “children’s craft fair” my friend tammy and i put on (with help from our families). i was fortunate to have a cool big backyard and to grow up somewhere where i could ride my bike and walk around by myself. i had lots of benevolent neighbors on my block, and the fabulous two strike park was just down the street.

also, as a former elementary school teacher and foster parent, i know that i should be prepared. i always have a book with me, and paper and a pen so i can write a letter. i often have my quiddler deck and a pad of madlibs in case there are other folks around to join me in my fun.

as an adult, i think that i continue to make steady progress in the making your own fun department. here are a few examples:

psychic greeting card

this game was invented with an ex while we were waiting for a flight at the portland airport. the gift shop had a rack of greeting cards. we separately went into the shop and picked a card from the rack, trying to intuit the card the other one would choose. we wrote notes on the cards and exchanged them.

now i play psychic greeting card with my friend molly. we choose a theme – the most recent one was “embarking on a new adventure” – and then on the same day we each go to a card store (she’s in california and i’m in oregon) and intuitively pick a card.

molly's most recent psychic greeting card is on my fridge.

bingo

i like to make bingo cards. when i’m in a frustrating situation, making a bingo card makes me feel better. i’ve made bingo cards for staff meetings, for a class i took with an especially awful instructor, and for many inservice trainings. yes, it’s passive-aggressive, but it’s a victimless crime. i have a reason to stay interested (i’m rooting for my coworker to say, “we tried that 30 years ago and it didn’t work” because that gives me 4 in a row) and i don’t revert to my default middle schooler mode of smartass. so really, everyone benefits.

you realize of course that you may never make a kriste bingo card.

bingo cards can also be used for good. my 3/4/5 grades class made bingo cards before we went on a hike – we brainstormed things we might see. yep, some kids figured out that they could arrange dirt, grass, a stick, and the sky, all in line with the free space, and more power to ’em. my friend zari and i once created a very complete game of “late show bingo” out of our love for david letterman. i found the cards when i cleaned out my file cabinet this spring. good times.

a lot of good stuff here, but "dave smells the guest" might be my favorite.

dinosaurs

when i was teaching primary multiage, i had a student i’ll call pedro. pedro drew a picture of a dinosaur with someone in its mouth. he elbowed the kid next to him, pointed at the mouth, and said “that’s you.” the school leadership leaped into action. i was asked if we should fear violence from pedro. my response was something like, “yep. if pedro has a dinosaur, we’re in a lot of trouble.”

my coworkers and i decided that pedro had a good plan – drawing pictures of our enemies being eaten by dinosaurs was a pretty good way of relieving stress. melanie uses the technique during grading periods:

jaqui has used it as a frustration-management technique with her middle school students:

jaqui's dinosaur-inspired art.

i once enlisted another student’s help in drawing a picture of melanie.

i think that "wha! mommy" was a nice touch.

drinking games

drinking games are similar to bingo cards. in my twenties i made a drinking game for the tv soap “all my children” – i don’t think that i ever played it. the fun was in coming up with it. i enjoy saying, “we should make a drinking game for this” when confronted with frustrating situations. i’m making a drinking game about a frustrating meal that i regularly eat (the kids call that “vaguebooking”). this year i was at a high school graduation with my friend vickie, and during the reading of the names of the graduates we came up with a drinking game. we decided that you should drink when someone has only two names, or four or more names. laughing about it got us through this year, but i’ll come prepared if any of you invite me to a graduation ceremony next year.

make a shirt about it

i like to make iron-on t-shirts. i’ve been known to make a shirt with a quote about someone i’m frustrated with and wear it under the rest of my clothes when i have to interact with that person. i think that i feel a little like what clark kent feels like knowing that he has his superman duds on under his suit.

this is the best shirt i've ever made. velcro letters so i could change the first part. perfect for intimidating opponents.

names/branding

having a cool name for whatever fun you’re making is important (see psychic greeting card above). my dear friends and childhood neighbors the charnows know this. michael’s hatred of celery has led to an annual party called celeryfest. madalaine had the idea to make an outdoor bowling alley. we came up with a name – the midnight bowlers – and made a portable bowling kit of 10 real pins, a bowling ball, and a long strip of astroturf for the lane. we’d load it up in the car and practice random acts of bowling.

scholars believe that these were the first midnight bowlers.

eventually there were several chapters of the midnight bowlers – “it’s always midnight somewhere.” michael gave madalaine a bowling-themed pinball machine. erin painted captain underpants on a bowling pin for me – it’s currently proudly displayed on my mantel. i sometimes bowl on sunday with friends – we call it the church of the ten pins.

oh. now i see why my grandma called my hair a rat's nest.

card games

when i taught 4th grade, i realized that i had a captive group to play card games with. i like the social skills that can be modeled and practiced during a good card game. and the shared experience of playing a game with a group of people. my two favorites are spoons and i doubt it (you might know it as b.s.).

"do we really have to play i doubt it again, ms. york?"

around that same time, i was developing a serious quiddler habit. quiddler is a card word game – kind of like scrabble but played in rounds and with letters on cards. it’s really, really a great game.

madalaine goes ultimate in quiddler.

now i’m loving apples to apples. if you ever see me with a group of 3 or more people, i’m probably thinking about how i can convince them to play apples to apples with me.

here are a few pros making their own fun:

i guess that the moral is that you can’t always depend on other people to make your fun for you. sometimes you have to make your own. and the more you practice, the better you’ll get.

this is spinal tap

ok. here’s the situation.

i have been feeling not great for the last 6 weeks or so. flare-up of my neurological symptoms – coordination’s off, crazy-dizzy, wonky arm is worse, much more easily and quickly fatigued. my neurologist here in corvallis sent me for blood work, x-rays, and a CT scan. they all looked fine.

the imaging department at my local clinic has rad 3 arm hole gowns.

next i saw my neurosurgeon in portland. i had an MRI and more x-rays (and let me say here that there are some good folks working in the imaging department at providence st. vincent medical center). he showed me the scans and said that if anything, things look a little better in there than my last MRI in february. i have a collapsed right ventricle and a shunt that drains it through a tube to my stomach. i don’t know how it works and i don’t really want to. installing it was the 4th brain surgery i had back in 2009, and it’s weird enough that i have this thing implanted in my head. i don’t need to know how it works.

yep. your brain has ventricles.

then he manually checked my shunt. it’s all inside my skin and is adjusted with a magnet, but what feels to me like a bump under my skin behind my right ear is actually a way that you can check to see how it’s working. he messed around with it for a bit and said that it isn’t draining properly. so my brain seems to be doing more of its own thing. but is it doing enough? dr. gore (that’s my neurosurgeon) said that he wanted me to go for a lumbar puncture. i said, “they should really come up with a better name for that.” dr. gore said, “they did. spinal tap.”

i studied for my spinal tap – i’d never had one before – by watching “this is spinal tap” with the audio commentary on. then my mom and i headed up to portland for my appointment. i had to be admitted to the hospital (providence portland medical center). it was quick and orderly – the staff folks i interacted with were kind and professional. i was totally impressed.  i changed into a hospital gown and filled out some paperwork. a nurse put in my IV and i met the doc who’d be tapping me. they wheeled me into the room, helped me get up on the table, and i drifted off while they were talking about thanksgiving recipes and wrestling. next thing i knew i was laying on my other side and talking to my mom about who knows what. she took a picture of me.

photo credit: penny york

i was so confused. i realize now that part of the confusion was because of the last time i remember going under. it was for my first brain surgery back in 2009. i remember being in pre-op with my mom and my cousin, then there are all of these flashes and about a month later i started putting things together. so when i asked my mom what time it was and her answer was only about an hour after the tap was supposed to start, it was kind if a new sensation. i got up, got dressed, and we headed home.

if the gown had been a 3-holer i probably would have snatched it.

dr. gore called me the next day. the tap showed that my brain pressure is elevated. he wants me to see my opthamologist this month to have an eye pressure test. then i go back up to portland in early january to talk things over with dr. gore. at this point i feel like there are a couple of options. he needs to operate to replace my shunt (and i just finally grew my hair long enough to pull back!). he wants to wait a few months and see what happens. or i keep on going with a shunt that’s not working and a brain that’s trying to pick up the slack. if that’s what happens, then i’ve taken a big step backwards and i have to get cracking on recovery stuff – the good thing about that is that i’ve done it before and i know the way.

meanwhile i can make some plans for december – i was keeping it open in case i needed to have brain surgery. i’ll know more next month, and nothing i do now will change what will happen. so i’m not stressed. not investing any energy worrying about it – if i have to get part of my head shaved i’ll just bring back the cyndi lauper “she’s so unusual” look. until then, i’ll keep on living my life, even if it needs to be within a shorter radius from my apartment.