So, I've been saying how everything is kind of a lot right now, right?
I think I need to take a week or two off. I'm not in a good place right now. There's too much...muchness, if that makes any sense at all. You won't miss anything--it would all be doom and gloom and introspective vomit anyway, so I'll be back when things even out a little.
Or, y'know, when I have something witty or insightful to say.
Be well, kids.
I start a new job in about three weeks.
My feelings are mixed. On the one hand, I’m glad to have something in place for when my current job “expires”. On the other, I don’t want the current one to expire at all. And yes, I know I bitch about it sometimes, but it’s work. Everybody bitches about work. Even people who really, truly love what they do for a living. It’s just that there’s significantly less to bitch about with my current job than there was with the last one (thank GOD) and I have never taken that fact for granted. It’s comfortable. I’m comfortable. But, alas, these halcyon days are fast disappearing, and all of us have to alight because it’s the end of the line.
The new gig is effectively the same as the current one, just for a different payroll service bureau. One of the bonuses of this is that it’s the service bureau my biggest client group has chosen to replace my current company, which means I’ll already have a handful of clients whose nuances I’m familiar with. They were the ones who got me in touch with the new company to start with. I’m really very grateful for that.
It’s difficult, though, to get properly excited about something that you didn’t want to have to deal with in the first place. (And doesn’t that sentence just apply to SO many things…) I know that a lot of this malaise can be chalked up to the fact that I’m already so off-kilter from all of the nonsense this year has already flung violently in my direction. It really has been one thing after another recently. My major source of joy (not to mention quality social interaction) has been significantly curtailed what with that whole pinched nerve situation, which leaves me with far less of an outlet for the things that are eating at me—especially since the outlet has suddenly become yet another of the things that’s eating at me…at least to an extent.
I'd be grateful for a break, you know? Luckily I have a couple of one-weekers coming up on the calendar, which my new gig graciously honored. Of course, both of them are with my parents, but one can't win at everything, I suppose. It's actually a bit awkward, scheduling-wise, as I start the new job, have a week off, work a week, then have another week off, but oh well. I intend to make the most of my mostly-vacations-except-for-the-parents-bits.
Providing, of course, that I have the energy to do more than stare into the middle-distance.
Let’s talk about temperatures.
It’s mid-July. If you live in the northern hemisphere, that means that it’s summer. Summer means that it’s hot. Hot...well. Hot can mean a lot of things. Hot and humid. Hot and dry. Hot for the location. Hot for the time of year. Hot for one person can be perfectly temperate for another.
I grew up in Gilroy, California. We regularly got into triple digits in the summers. If the marine layer didn’t make it over the Santa Cruz mountains at night, we were very toasty indeed the next day. And if it didn’t make it over the mountains for multiple days in a row, we roasted. Ours was a dry heat. To me, dry triple digit days aren’t anything out of the ordinary. Are they comfortable? No. But do I go around bemoaning them? No. Because I’m used to that version of hot.
The east coast of the U.S. has this thing called humidity. Their hot is a wet hot. It’s awful, and I hate it. I spent six weeks at a ballet summer school in upstate New York in 2003, and all I can say about that is thank god for air conditioning. Any time we vacationed as a family in an eastern or southern state, I spent a great deal of time wanting to expire. Humidity and I are not friends. Give me my dry heat any day, thank you very much.
The further one gets from the equator, the further one is from the sun--regardless of the season. Even in their respective summers when they're tilted toward the sun, the northern and southern extremes of the planet are still farther away from it than the midsection. This means that the average temperature at the higher latitudes is lower than those closer to 0°. Basic fourth grade science, amirite? So it follows that persons living in the higher latitudes have a lower tolerance for heat. As a trade-off they’re better at being cold, so everything sort of evens out in the end, but it does rather leave half the population uncomfortable for half the year. People who live at the middle latitudes probably have the best idea, all things considered. Physics dictates they shouldn’t tip too far one direction or the other, temperature wise.
Of course, the weather doesn’t always operate in a way that makes any sense whatsoever--physics be damned.
I lived in England for two years. Now there are some people who are not suited to the concept of ‘hot’. It seems that they’re experiencing a spate of hot weather the likes of which they rarely, if ever, see, and--bless them--they’re not coping too terribly well. I saw something recently that said they were up to 104°F, but for whatever reason the publication in question was asserting that for the UK, this was the equivalent of Austin, Texas, at 129°F. I'm assuming that they're trying to factor in humidity or something.
And that leads us to something which, quite frankly, baffles me. "Feels like" temperatures. 58° is 58°. If it "feels like" 62°, then it ought to be 62°.
Don't even get me started on wind chill factors...
Any old way, I hope y'all are keeping cool wherever you are. Or warm, if you're in the half of the world where it's winter right now. Temperate. I hope you're existing at a temperature comfortable to yourself. Sure, that works. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to see if I can open the blinds and make my house feel more like a house than a cave-that-helps-keep-the-place-at-a-reasonable-temperature...
Well, sort of.
Between my pinched nerve, emergency ballet rehearsals at the Thursday Studio, and assorted breaks in class scheduling, I haven't been doing much in the way of dancing recently. This week, though, I'm back to tapping twice a week.
Now, don't get it into your heads that I'm back to normal--I'm nowhere near it. I still don't have full range of motion or full control of my right leg. For everyday purposes, this isn't much of an issue. If I were any other person, I'd be thrilled at my progress and the fact that I'm able to lead a perfectly normal life with minimal difficulty, even with the fact that the root cause of the issue is still very much on the mend. But I'm not any other person. I'm me.
I'm a dancer who hasn't been able to dance since April.
Between the pinched nerve, the ongoing battle with Kaiser about removal of my baby-making parts, and the fact that my job has an expiration date, I'm sure you can imagine that I haven't been the happiest little bunny recently. Exercise and endorphins and whatnot, you know. And with dancing being the biggest portion of my social activity, there was suddenly a distinct lack of quality humans involved in my day-to-day. And y'all know it has to have been grating on me if I--the introverts' introvert--am moaning about a lack of people.
So I can tap again. This is good. Not to my usual standard, mind you, but well enough to get by. Twice a week is better than nothing. And there will be people I enjoy. The thing is, though...I have no idea how long it's going to be before I can do more than this, and that's frustrating. I know it's no good dwelling on it. This is going to heal when it heals and not before. That's how these things work. You have to give your body the time to do its job. I should mention that I finally had an MRI, which showed disc bulge between my L4 and L5, and my L5 and S1. This wasn't at all surprising, though it was nice to have it confirmed that it wasn't anything worse. It won't require surgery. I could possibly get a steroid injection, but that means yet more bureaucratic bullshit with Kaiser. We'll see if I manage to win that battle.
In the meantime, I wait. And wait. And wait.
This is the time of year when I traditionally tell those of us who reside in the US to go to our rooms and think about what we've done. And hoo-boy have we been out of line this year! Between SCOTUS going to shit and people being increasingly less tolerant and accepting of, well, pretty much anything, plus all the nonsense we're managing to contribute to in the far corners of the world, we have very little whatsoever to be proud about.
And yet, and yet, a good portion of the population still turned out to do their flag-waving. The sheer balls we manage to exhibit in full view of the people we marginalize and terrorize and otherwise are particularly nasty to will never cease to amaze me.
Yes, okay, it could be so very much worse. I acknowledge that. I appreciate that. But at the rate we're going, it won't be long before we're in 'so very much worse' territory. The worst part is that I'm not sure we'll notice before it's too late. It can be pervasive. It won't all be as obvious as some of the more recent developments.
Doom and gloom, doom and gloom.
Moral: Be nice to people. It doesn't cost anything to be kind. If you're a protester, protest safely. If, like me, you're not suited to the crowds and the noise, write letters, sign petitions, and chuck money at the things that concern you and those you love, and the things that don't concern you and those you love, because someone else loves them.
And DON'T BE A DICK.
We had a for-real dance showcase this year! In a for-real theatre! With all the usual things that go with a for-real dance showcase in a for-real theatre!
Of course, nothing went quite as planned.
Last week, two of the senior girls got The Dread Disease. That put a huge ol' monkey wrench in the works because they were in about eleventy-bajillion dances each. Cue much mad scrambling to pull in replacement people and/or change choreography, etc. The ballet piece I was meant to have been in but pulled myself from because of the whole pinched nerve situation suddenly became more replacement dancers than original dancers. Our Thursday rehearsal (Yes, I was still in rehearsals. Someone had to keep our choreographer on task!) was chaos with two completely new people learning the whole piece in an hour, from scratch. But learn it they did, and we were on track again.
Until...
Yeah, Friday? Another dancer out sick--my replacement. So our choreographer had to stand in at the VERY last minute, and that meant that I had to stand in the wings during the piece and mark it for her like we do for the baby classes so that she had a security blanket.
Still, we muddled through. The closing number--the senior girls doing an abridged version of Cell Block Tango from the musical Chicago--became a trio rather than its original sextet, with two of the three girls standing in for the break-out solos which, of course, belonged to two of the sick girls. Still, it could have been worse. Maybe. Probably. I guess.
Since I was only doing one of the three pieces I was originally supposed to be in, I volunteered to help out at both shows. (I mean, I would have volunteered anyway, but it's harder to do the actual work when you're running around dealing with costume changes and the like, you know?) I think I went up and down the stairs from stage level to dressing room level about eighty-seven times, usually with about twelve small humans trailing after me. Of course, the small humans provided an entertainment all their own. One especially small human--who had to be newly three, if she was a day--got hold of my hand on the trip down to the dressing rooms...and then wouldn't let go. One of the older girls, we'll call her J., who helps in that class spotted this and together we did our best to get the kid to go to her, but I think the noise and chaos got the better of the little booger, because she was not having it. We finally had to pry the kid's hand out of mine and shove it into J.'s so that I could get away and collect the next batch of children to be delivered.
I now know how mama ducks feel. All the kids in a row, following behind, sometimes falling behind and having to be rounded up...
I was stationed in the older, non-competition-team girls' dressing room for the second show, mostly to make sure that no one died and any necessary costume changes got done. These kids were old enough to entertain themselves...for the most part. As we were finally getting toward the end of the show, one of the younger girls sidled up to me.
"I'm bored!"
I need you all to appreciate the fact that I did NOT respond with, "Hi, Bored! I'm Elizabeth!"
So, yeah. It was A Day. It felt like a battle. If battles were engaged in in tulle and sequins. But we made it, it's done with, and we don't have to do it again until next June, by which time we will have forgotten just how much effort it takes and will run gleefully into the fray...for about five minutes before we start questioning all of our life choices. Again.
So I've had this pinched nerve since April 23rd, right? My right sciatic nerve. It has not been fun. I still don't have full control of my right leg. There was a lot of time spent at the beginning trying to get the pain medication to the right place so that I was at least comfortable. I have been living at the chiropractor's office. X-rays were taken. Doctors were consulted.
It's been all kinds of fun. ::massive eye roll::
Before she would clear me to get an MRI--because my chiropractor is fairly certain that the root cause is a bit of disc bulge--my regular doctor wanted me to go see her in person. Okay, fine, that makes sense. The annoying thing is that trying to get appointments right now is like trying to catch a lubed-up, over-caffeinated weasel, so I had to wait a couple of weeks...and then make the MRI appointment another couple of weeks out...you can see where this is going. In the meantime, my doctor put me on a tapered course of Prednisone to try to target the inflammation and hopefully get this whole thing more of a jump start on healing itself.
I was not thrilled about this.
I have had Prednisone once before, when I was a teenager, and I remember hating it because it made me balloon up. Right now, I'm a dancer who can't dance, and the thought of also having to look like a walrus because a pill made me that way wasn't exactly thrilling. However, the arguments for doing the course of the medication were far more compelling than the ones not to, so off to the pharmacy I went for my twelve days worth of gradually-decreasing-in-strength corticosteroids.
I have not slept properly in almost two weeks. I have had no appetite to speak of for that same length of time. I have had an extremely reduced capacity for concentration. I have been existing on an emotional roller coaster so rickety it makes those sketchy carnival rides look like Dumbo at Disneyland. I spent the majority of the first eight days in Level One Panic Attack mode, where I was essentially vibrating the whole time.
But nothing, NOTHING, was worse than Thursday. It was abysmal. I hit a low I haven't hit in years. It was the non-stop anxiety buzz with this...just heavy, heavy depression. I felt like my body was going to physically fly apart if I didn't somehow manage to contain it, while at the same time I was inexorably weighed down. I wanted to stop existing. (Not die, there's a difference.) The physical weight of it was like a cement blanket. Everything was hopeless. I felt dead inside--like there wasn't anything left of me. I was a shell. Hollow. And hollow things break under pressure. All I knew was that I wanted it to stop. It needed to stop, or I was going to break. The anxiety buzz was shaking my atoms and trying to send them flying while the low was sitting on me like the metaphorical 800-pound gorilla, and the only thing that kept me from spiraling out of control was my constant mantra of, "It's the meds, this will pass. It's the meds, this will pass. It's the meds, this will pass..."
And it did pass. I had enough work to keep me going during the day, then I had appointments and dance in the evening, and I forced myself to be a human and do all of those things, and I felt better for it. But you know something? That low?
That low used to be my baseline.
I recognized it immediately. I existed in that state, continuously, for years. To experience it again was a fucking eye-opener. I honestly have no idea how I'm still alive. I've always said that existing is my biggest act of rebellion. It was always mostly a joke.
Except it's not.
I went to a celebration of life for a Tommy Bahama enthusiast last Saturday.
Got that mental picture yet?
My father's cousin passed away unexpectedly last November. He was in Las Vegas having a lovely trip with his lady friend, and then, BOOM. Emergency surgeries. The ICU. People flying in to say goodbye, because it had been determined that this was the end of the line. It was a shock to everyone. And, of course, a great loss. There was a family-only service a short time later, which meant the rest of us had to wait to pay our final respects.
Our time finally came. A family-style meal at a favorite Italian restaurant, an open mic, and eleventy bajillion Tommy Bahama shirts. It was...floral, to say the least. Now, I don't own anything from the particular shop in question, so I went to the shed and dug out the button-down that my grandmother made for my dad in 196-something from a bolt of fabric a relative brought back from Hawai'i. It was close enough. And, you know, floral.
So, there we all were. Being floral. Eating, and kibbitzing, and 'oh-how-did-you-know-him'-ing. Well, my dad was, anyway. My mother and I retreated to a corner and stayed put. We don't do parties. Eventually the food settled, and the talking started.
Here's the thing. I think it's lovely that we all wax poetic about a person when they're gone. It's a need. It's a stage of grief. It helps us cope with the loss. Everyone who stood up to say something had a lovely story to tell. But what I want to know is how many of us put that kind of effort into actually telling people these kinds of things when they're still with us? How many of us can consciously stand up and say, "I have said to a person I love something that I would also say at their funeral"? We allow ourselves to speak those hidden inner truths once the person is gone because we feel like that's when we're expected to--and we should still do that. But we should also make the effort to say things before we're left behind.
"Oh, c'mon. That's soppy and weird."
Okay, so make it fuckin' weird! Normalize that shit! Sit your humans down, make solid eye contact, and tell them exactly what they mean to you.
Because they won't know unless you tell them. And who knows? You might get the same in return. And how nice would that be?
Since our client base has now been notified, I am no longer required to keep schtum about the fact that the company I work for has been sold.
It's not a publicly traded company, and it's a sole proprietorship, so I don't want you all getting the impression that this was some kind of cutthroat boardroom coup. Our owner and CEO has just decided that he wants to retire--at least partially. He's at an appropriate age to do so, and none of us harbor any feelings of animosity toward him for his decision. Obviously it was something of a shock last week when we were told about it, but that's how these things are handled. I had had a premonition, however. I've been through this before, and I know the signs of an impending change of ownership. In the spirit of total honesty, I'm pissed I didn't start a betting pool on it, because I could have made some serious cash. Oh well.
The beauty of working for a small company is that you know everyone. The hierarchy is still there, but it's less stringent. My entire team refers to our CEO as "Boss Man", and we razz him mercilessly at any opportunity--and he does the same to us. He is a genuinely decent human being, and when he told us the news, he was the one getting verklempt. We don't doubt for a minute that he did everything he could to ensure the best possible outcome for all of us. He told us about all the deals he passed on, or tried to make and failed. In the end, he sold us to the 'devil'--payroll leviathan ADP. (Cue much groaning and exclamations of disgust during our meeting.) It was his best option, however, so he took it, and not a single one of us blames him. Though we do make a lot of faces any time ADP is mentioned, which, given the circumstances, is about every twelve and a half seconds these days.
We all have a "sell by" date at this point. We've been guaranteed our jobs until then, and the severance is nothing to sneeze at. We have time to look for something new without being too rushed. ADP does have jobs to fill, yes, but not in our area of specialty in our geographical area, so much as they've tried to push the "you can apply for our jobs" message, we did the job search on their website and determined that they were blowing smoke up our asses.
And none of us actually want to work for ADP, because ADP is evil.
A great number of our clients are ADP refugees. They came to us because we can offer that personal touch that the big payroll companies can't. I have about 200 clients on my books. I know all of them. They call and email me directly, because I am their dedicated payroll manager. ADP doesn't do that. They have a call center, and you get who you get. The thing I'm hearing most from my clients right now is how they came to us because the anonymity of being just a number on a list was too impersonal--and they're right.
We've had a range of reactions, from rage (which we transfer directly to our CEO for triage,) to disappointment ("We left ADP for you because we didn't like their quality of service!") to clients who have been with our company for so long that they feel like they're losing a friend instead of a payroll provider--and I'm talking clients who have been with us for twenty-plus years!
At the same time, we're getting an outpouring of support and sympathy. I've had at least a dozen of my clients reach out just to tell me how much they've enjoyed working with me and asking me if I'll be going with them to ADP, or what the sale of the business means for me and my livelihood, and one of my clients, a husband and wife team with whom I've worked very closely have a freaking prayer bowl, and they're going to put us all in it, and I'm not religious at all but dammit if that didn't get to me.
On a more gratifying note, several of our clients have already placed 'dibs' on some of us. Our CEO's keeping a list of people who want us after our time runs out. I'm going to be talking to the CEO of one of my larger client groups next week.
Not gonna lie, right now, it's really nice to be wanted.
Okay, so I'm covering two desks at work this week because one of my teammates is on vacation, which means that I haven't got a single brain cell to spare. They were all used up by lunchtime on Monday. So you're not going to get much out of me this week. It's difficult to find the motivation to churn out something clever or insightful or funny or thoughtful or any of those other marks of which I fall short every week when you've used up all your gray matter at your day job.
It is what it is, ya know?
I will offer you this gem, however.
As I was on my way to the office on Tuesday morning, I passed a teenage boy on his bicycle. He was cycling without holding the handle bars. Now, this is a feat of balance that many bicycle riders learn to achieve, so that wasn't unusual or noteworthy in and of itself. Heck, a kid I went to high school with rode his bike to school like that every day. "There goes [dude] again, riding with no hands." No, what gave me pause was what I saw as I pulled up alongside him on my way past.
This kid was riding his bicycle with no hands and with his full attention on his phone.
I swear to you he was mid-text or something. I can't decide if I'm impressed or appalled. I mean, props to him for being able to do the two things at once, but...really?
...but not the kind that's going to have me digging miles of trenches across Europe.
The American healthcare system can eat a veritable smorgasbord of dicks. Most of you are probably already aware of this fact, so for your benefit, TL;DR, Elizabeth is going to complain about that whole "getting treatment" thing.
Still here? You'll wish you weren't.
So I've got this pinched nerve, which has been giving me trouble for two-and-a-half weeks now, and is requiring multiple chiropractic appointments per week, loads of prescription pills, and a whole lot of back-and-forth with my primary care physician for things like x-rays and "hey, it's been almost three weeks and some of these symptoms haven't improved, maybe it's time for an MRI because my chiropractor (who is much more helpful than you, Medical Conglomerate) is almost certain it's a bulging disc and the x-ray will help but an MRI would be more helpful." I've been running around after prescriptions and medical record releases and scheduling a chiropractor--who is completely independent of my regular medical coverage--around my life which at the moment is really just work but still, it's exhausting. And quite honestly, I feel like this is really enough to be dealing with, but there are some sneaky judicial types who have decided they want to try to mess with my insides, but as you read last week, I'm going to beat them to the punch come Hell or high water. I knew that was going to be an uphill battle, but after what feels like about eleventy-bajillion emails to my lady-parts-doctor I'm still coming up against hurdles. JUST DO WHAT I'M ASKING YOU TO DO. IF CONSULTATION FINDS THAT THERE IS UNDUE RISK, FIND ME AN ALTERNATIVE THAT IS NOT ONE OF THE THINGS I'VE ALREADY DONE*. THE IDEA HERE IS PERMANENCY.
Frustrated? Moi? You bet yer fuckin' ass I am.
It's exhausting having to chase all of these doctor-types around. It's like an episode of Green Wing, if Green Wing had been meant to be anything like a real hospital drama and not a surreal comedy romp. In this universe, there might actually be a Dr. Statham interrupting operations and eating the patient's newly-removed gall bladder just because his parking space isn't as near to the entrance as everybody's favorite heartthrob surgeon, Dr. Macartney's.
...you know what? I've changed my mind. That might actually be better. Bring me a camel to pet and I want my anesthetist to look like Donkey from Shrek, please!
*And also is not "your partner can get a vasectomy." Bold of you to assume that there's a vas deferens involved in this equation in the first place, or that it would need to be consulted if it were.
A while ago I emailed my Ob/Gyn and inquired about permanent birth control options. Their reply managed to ignite my ire in a big way, and when they got to the 'regret statistic' I threw up my hands. I didn't have the emotional bandwidth to have the argument for the umpteenth time with the umpteenth human that yes, I really was sure that I didn't want any children.
Since there are Nefarious Plots Afoot to set this country's progress back several thousand years, my emotional bandwidth suddenly, miraculously increased. I sent a new email this week.
Here is the version I actually sent:
Hi Dr. So-and-so,
We had discussed [Procedure A] & [Procedure B] for me last year. We left off with the
"regret statistic". I haven't had the emotional bandwidth to have that
discussion (for the umpteenth time, with any human being) until recent
events lit a metaphorical fire under a certain portion of my
non-metaphorical anatomy.
Please be assured that I am as
certain today as I was ten years ago when I decided that babies are very
much NOT in my life plan.
I would like to have both
procedures listed above performed. If possible, I'd like to have them
done at the same time, as I'm going to need to be sedated for [Procedure A].
Please let me know what our next steps are...[blah, blah, blah]
Thanks,
-Etc.
Minimal soap-boxing, really, but enough to get my point across. I hope. Here is the version I did NOT send:
I have pinched my sciatic nerve.
I've basically been flat on my back since Saturday. My low back was a little tetchy after I got home that morning from substitute-teaching a couple of dance classes, but since that's not entirely out of the ordinary for me I didn't think much of it. Then, after a couple of hours, BAM! Major pain all down my right leg.
I tried stretching. I tried child's pose. I tried standing, walking, sitting, and lying down. I tried ibuprofen. I tried acetaminophen.
I gave up, and called the advice nurse.
They got me an 8am phone appointment on Sunday with a physician, who very kindly agreed with my assessment of what the problem was and sent in two prescriptions for me, to be picked up at the only open Kaiser pharmacy within a decent distance on a Sunday morning.
On the first day, they accomplished nothing.
I woke up at three o'clock in the morning on Monday and was in so much pain I thought I was going to yak. Luckily, the doctor had said if the initial dose of the nerve pain killer wasn't enough, I could have another one, and that helped enough to get me through the rest of the night. At a socially acceptable hour on Monday morning I requested the information for a chiropractor from a friend and was able to get an appointment just before lunchtime. That helped a whole heap, but it didn't fix it 100%. I have to go back a few more times for follow-up adjustments, which wasn't a surprise. It did really help, though. And so did the increased dose of the nerve pain killer, but still not as much as I'd have liked, so I got on the horn with Kaiser again. We've upped the nerve pain killer dose, ditched the muscle relaxers as they had accomplished diddly-squat, and given me a new dosage and schedule for my ibuprofen.
Monday was a total write-off as far as work was concerned. Thank goodness I have the ability to work from home if necessary, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to work at all. My immediate boss, whose son has suffered from this same injury, has been very accommodating, as she knows just how much it SUCKS. I'm putting in as much time as possible, but sitting for too long is The Worst, so it's going to be a week of in-and-out for me.
So, y'know, it's been fun around here.
I took last week off because I had a birthday. I expect a few of you noticed. I was hoping to encounter something worth writing about during my hiatus, and I only halfway did, but I suppose it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
Most things are.
So, this birthday. My house is the cleanest it's been since...probably sometime in 2020. No one's been here! Well, very few people, anyway. But I was determined to have at least some semblance of a celebration this year, come Hell, high water, or germs, so I had two (TWO!) people over. Two people who were not my parents who obviously are people but it's just different when you're related, m'kay? One person (BFF-Since-We-Were-Three, if you care,) showed up early and we went into San Francisco (!) on BART (!!) to pay Japantown a visit. I did not think this through very carefully. If you're not aware, flowering cherries and plums go cuckoo bananapants this time of year and in Japan they have a whole set of traditions around it--Sakura season. Well, it turned out that there was a festival going on in Peace Plaza so there were far more people there than was ideal, but they had sanitizer stations everywhere and I feel like there were more people wearing masks than not, but it was kind of hard to tell because a lot of people were eating because hello, cultural festival food. Anyway, we hit up the one store we had actually made the trek for, grabbed boba, and headed back down the hill.
That was another thing I hadn't thought about. "It's only just over a mile from the BART station, we can walk!" But San Francisco has hills. I celebrated part of my birthday with an unintentional hike. My shins are still pissed off.
The third thing I hadn't thought about was the fact that the route that took us up the hill was straight up Hyde Street, which is on the border of the Tenderloin District which is not somewhere I would want to be alone. Thankfully it was broad daylight and there were community-policing-type persons around in great numbers, so it wasn't so much nerve-wracking as...sad. Really fucking sad. Check-your-privilege sad. The sidewalks were lined with homeless people. There were addicts casually lighting up their crack pipes. One person had a syringe sticking out of their arm. Everywhere you looked there was some new horror. Open wounds. People who clearly needed mental health attention. Did-that-come-out-of-a-dog-or-a-person. Shells of what had once been human beings, staring into nothingness.
It made me want a shower. And if it made me want a shower just walking through it, imagine how the people living in it must feel.
Did that sound awful? Here's some people who help, and have been helping the Tenderloin community for nearly sixty years: GLIDE If you've got a few dollars lying around, maybe push them their way. I did.
After the wake-up call, however, the rest of the day was really very pleasant. When BFFSWWT and I got back to my place my pal PV joined us and we had food and cake (made by BFF... because she is a Kitchen Witch) and forced PV to watch The Birdcage because it is my and BFF's strongly held belief that everyone should see that film at least once.
PV wasn't even BORN when that film came out.
Happy birthday, I'm old.
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My best friend has been my best friend since we were three.
The thing about being three is that you sort of magically make friends with your peers. I honestly can't tell you what it was that started us off, but I can tell you that it was at the preschool that used to be at the Gilroy Parks and Recreation building at Las Animas Park. I haven't been to that part of town in years, so I have no idea if it's still there, but I can see it in my mind's eye. All I know for sure is that we found each other...and proceeded to put the baby dolls in the play oven. When kindergarten started, wouldn't you know it, we were at the same school in the same class.
I don't know what this world looks like without her in it.
We skipped through childhood together. We navigated adolescence together. We despaired through early adulthood together. And now, we're barreling at top speed toward middle age--together. We were always a good match, mostly because she was painfully shy and I...well, I wasn't. I've always been all edges, and she's always been more delicate. I feel like we've grown into ourselves in reverse--I've had to learn softness, and she's had to learn when to be hard.
She was always an artist--even when we were very small indeed. Now, she teaches art at our old high school, which is such a perfect thing for her to be doing, and I am so proud that she made that happen for herself. She made her own way there in her own time, the same way she's always done everything. She is an enchanting amalgam of every woman described in Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon. She makes me laugh. She's the person I moan to about life. She's the first person I tell about pretty much anything. She is my favorite, and my best, and my constant. I love her so much it hurts--but in the best possible way. She has been with me all of my memorable life. I don't intend for that to ever change.
Thirty-three years is a long time.
One hundred and thirty-three years wouldn't be long enough.
The photo is one I took in 2003 or 2004 for a composition assignment in my high school photography class. It remains my favorite photo of her to this day.
I was talking the other day to a friend of mine. Those of you who have been around a while will remember Friend-Since-I-Was-In-My-Mummy's-Tummy. The conversation started because I shared a picture of something shiny and new that had shown up in the mail that day.
Last December, on the twenty-eighth, to be exact, I did something extremely indulgent. I ordered myself a pair of Miller and Ben Triple Threat tap shoes in custom colors. Did I need them? No, not really. My regular tap shoes--which are already rather pricey--are just fine, and I have two pairs of them. The first pair is decently worn in, and the second is my performance pair, so they're newer and cleaner. No, I definitely didn't need new tap shoes. The thing was, though, that my pal P.V. (you remember her) has blown through* two pairs of custom shoes at this point, and I have been quietly seething with jealousy the whole time. You see, standard tap shoes don't come in a wide array of colors. Black, tan, sometimes white. Occasionally some sort of novelty color, but usually in collaboration with some artist or other company. For the most part, this is perfectly practical. I like practical.
Most of the time.
This was not one of those times. This was one of those times where I decided to hell with practicality, I want something pretty, and by god I'm going to get it! So I did. For the record, the Miller and Ben company has been in business for 30+ years for several very good reasons. Quality product, the ability to customize more than just the colors, and top notch customer service. I knew they were a safe bet. I ended up working directly with one of the owners (Mr. Ofer Ben, an absolute delight of a human being) on my shoes. It took us a while to get things nailed down because we were having to size me without the ability to actually try anything on, but we did it, and the order was finalized, and then started the wait.
Three months is a long time when you're excited about something.
But they passed, as I knew they would, and finally my schmancy shoes were in my hot little hands and I may or may not have spent the rest of the day doing a very silly happy wiggle every time I so much as looked at the box they came in. And, of course, I had to tell everybody and their mother that they had arrived.
You know, like baby pictures. Except instead of a baby it's tap shoes.
And that brings me back to my conversation with FSIWIMMT. She and her husband are my teammates on #TeamNoKids. She is also a tapper, so she understands the desire for fancy shoes. I mentioned how much they set me back, and she reminded me that it's not like we're saving up for kids to go to college. She and her husband love being DINKs. (Double Income, No Kids)
I pointed out that by that logic I was a SINK.
She pointed out that the most important part was the -INK. Because "that's how we get fancy tap shoes."
She's not wrong.
*P.V. teaches 30 classes/rehearsals/private tap lessons a week. She's hard on her shoes.
So I was subbing again at the Thursday Studio last Saturday.
Something happened.
I can't seem to process it. I think part of the reason is my subconscious trying to protect me and sort of refusing to let me access anything even marginally related. The other part of the reason is, of course, that it's hard. It does seem to be getting easier to feel something when I think about it the further away from it I get, but I've still got a long way to go before I can poke it with a stick and have it be productive in any way.
Yes, I know I'm being vague. There are Reasons for that. It's not just myself I'm protecting.
Oh. Hello. That's...that's a feeling. Nice of it to finally show up.
I think I'm going to be sick.
