This one's for me
Not for anyone else
I need it, you see.
I threw all I had
into the sea
Now I want a little back
This one's for me.
You don't even know what you've got till it's walking away.
We knew that our return to New York would be a return to a new and possibly difficult chemo regimen. So Baltimore was free time. And we used it wisely, both together and in our own ways. We know each other well enough to know that sometimes we enjoy ourselves most together, and sometimes what I think is fun strikes her as, well, just stupid.
But, with promises to be careful and not let being on my childhood stomping go to my head and make me forget the inherent fragility, we both had a wonderful time.
N's readings went really well:
She had a good crowd at College Park, and sold out her books.
Then she had an even better crowd at the library in Baltimore in Highlandtown, under the blessing of the bust of Frank Zappa.
Where she sold out all of her books again.
The reading was well attended,
and Hank and A.Jay and I had a chance to recreate a photo that had been taken of us at my mother and Jim's marriage, leaning against Edgar Allan Poe, another deeply valued Baltimoron.
I'm crouching because I was a lot shorter than they were back then.
And we all had hair. Lots and lots of hair. But we're pushing forty and I think we're doing OK. My shirt used to fit better, and will again, and A.Jay (inexplicably nicknamed Red) was hoping to win a fourth blue ribbon at the West Virginia Apple Butter Festival, where the beard contest is something of a main attraction.
After the reading, a bunch of us went out for crabs.
I think I had eight, which counts as an extreme example of restraint. Seriously. The best two moments of the night for me were provided by Red's kids. One told my mom that for a long time he didn't like crabs, but he liked the process of getting at the claw meat, so he would just prep claws for his mom.
I did the exact same thing for years until I wised up, realized that Blue Crab is indeed a delicacy (the cockroach of the deep, and proud of it) and started hoarding the claws for myself. Then I got a bit more wiseder-up and went back to prepping a few for N or mom, or both, in between slurping back-fin gobs for myself.
Later in the evening I was telling a story of A.Jay's first ski trip, a voyage we took with our Homophobes--I mean Boy Scout troop. Red and I took one lesson slide down the green dot hillock and then figured we were ready, so we went up the real lift to a red square--intermediate--and hurled ourselves downward. I somehow managed to stop/fall near the bottom, and was rewarded with the sight of Red, skiing a line as straight as the scout masters pretend to be so they won't get kicked out. He hurtled past the end of the blue square and went on onto the green dot practice hill, at a good 25 miles and hour.
Where he proceeded to get launched off a bump, fly perfectly trough the air, and spear a poor unsuspecting woman in the base of the spine with his left ski.
Which sort of stayed stuck to the nice lady, along with the boot.
Red, however, left sock flopping, half off, began a gorgeous set of mid-speed somersaults in the air, followed with alarming alacrity by some less genteel somersaults on the snow, resulting in what skiers refer to as a yard sale: most of what you were wearing only seconds before is now strewn across the accident scene like some wintry and overly-specific flea market.
At the base of which, Red, in good if lightly concussed spirits, tried to regain control of at least one eye long enough to see if he had killed the nice lady.
Upright, eyes wide, and with a ski and boot resting behind her, all she could say was "Are you OK?!" Apparently the depth and genuineity of her down parka saved her from the lumbar puncture we thought she'd suffered through.
So I am sitting there, surrounded by crab carcass and people I care about, and the story ends.
N points out that Red's boys were rapt, frozen, devouring the story. Their dad had been Young?! A kid?! Had accidents?! Laughed about it?!
It was a lovely moment
The next night N and I met Hank and Reb for Hibachi steak, and the prerequisite Onion Volcano that comes before it.
Two nights in a row I had pushed the limits of the food restrictions. OK, who are we kidding? I had taken the boundaries, loaded into my truck, driven them to the state line, and told them to never come back.
But during the days I was still eating clean and safe for the most part, allowing for a bit of safety should the evening gorge prove debilitating.
But it all went wonderfully. Food, friends, N, coke on the rocks. Good stuff
Hibachi for Birthday was started by Hank's family a long long time ago for his birthdays. They did it a few years running, his father always embarrassing all of us by asking the chef his name. This was in the pre-outsourcing days when people from other countries still felt they were allowed to use their real names, as opposed to the nice man from Hyderabad named Prakash--which isn't all that hard to pronounce if you take the American Flag out of your ears and your head out your ass and try to say it--and instead says 'My name is Kevin, how can I help you?"
Anyway, the chef would say "My name Todaji" and Hank's dad would say "Toad, great to know you. I'm Geoff Mitchell, this is my (then) wife Mary Ann, this is our son's friend Holter (which I learned while visiting Japan years later to pronounce 'Hortel' so that the Japanese L and R reversal would kick in and they would say my name perfectly) and this is my son Henry, and it is his birthday! So we want the best you've got, Tad, because it is a special day!"
He meant well, but his hearing was going even then He'd lost the high end working around munitions in the army: one of the best car-ride games was to make our then-new-fangled digital watch alarms go off and hold them right up to his ear from the back seat, and he wouldn't hear it. We could do that ten, maybe fifteen times and laugh so hard we'd snot on our shirts every time.
Anyway, after they stopped doing the hibachi birthday, my family picked it up, and so Hank was the guest. It kind of blossomed and became a perennial meeting, and grew as we found out that the mother of The Smartest Man In Medicine (one of mom and Jim's best friends) had a birthday near mine--or I guess mine is nears hers, allowing for seniority and respect. So she (who also happens to be another avid Scandinavian mystery fan) and her clan and me and mine and my friends and N and flipping knives and fried rice in the shape of a heart. And the onion volcano. Some things just get better over time.
The next day N went down to DC to catch up with a friend for dinner, and I ate a cheese-steak from Pepe's.
I know, I know: Philly blah blah blah. You know what? Philly cheese-steaks bore me, OK? They try and all, but Pepe's uptown and Steve's Lunch downtown in Baltimore make a cheese-steak that is an event, a goddamn gut-adding, artery-clogging, if-it-doesn't-drip-off-white-shit-on-your-shirt-you-ain't-eating-it-right double handful of grease, shredded iceberg, tomatoes, mayo-esque...stuff, fried onions and the lowest-grade frozen beef slabs available. Culinary orgasm, plain and simple.
By that day I had run twice during the week and eaten bland food a lot, so I risked it. And my pancreas had the common decency to keep it's fuckin' opinion to itself, and for that I appreciated it.
Then we went sailing.
N loves a good sail, but loves being left to do some work and lie in bed and read Scandinavian mysteries twice as fast as I can as well, so Hank and Reb and Rich and I spent five hours on so on the Bay.
The wind was choosy and we mostly sailed-then-motored in lazy circles at the mouth of the Patapsco where it spills into the Bay. Rich dove in and seemed to avoid the jelly-fish that are ranging further in this year than in recent memory because the drought has raised the salinity and so they can go deeper into the rivers and creeks than the normally do.
Then an adolescent seagull fell on me. I shit you not. When I told N, she said it was good luck...OK.
He 'landed' on me, fell of, bounced off Reb, who was at the helm at that point, then spent the rest of the trip hanging out behind the tiller, watching us with trepidation but no real fear.
We all thought it was a pigeon. N, who knows pigeons, knew better. Now, looking at the pic, I concur. But the "...a pigeon with AIDS!" punchline got pretty beaten to death for the rest of the trip. He didn't look sick, really. But he didn't fly, and I'm pretty sure that birds tend to do that more than, well, ride. Or sail.
For the record, pigeons with AIDS who are most likely adolescent seagulls who are tired or lost don't like really spicy chips as much as they do crushed pretzel.
Once we docked, Hank lifted him off the boat and put him on the dock, where he didn't seem too interested in leaving. He flew a little, but not much. But he seemed better when we left than when we...received him from the heavens.
I drove home from the marina and Mom and N and I had a calm Indian meal from the place near Hopkins. Saag and Tikka Masala under the moon in the backyard: peace.
The next day we went to a Ravens game. I know; you didn't think it could get better. But it did.
Just N and me, after my lovely mother made some short notice calls and probably paid too much for really great tickets provided by Kendy Chan, the head of operations for Ravens security. Great guy, very helpful. We sat here:
In one endzone corner. Anquon Boldin's second (of three) touchdown catches from Joe Flacco was pretty much in our lap. The guy next to us had the same 'hairstyle' I do, and offered us sunsflower seeds and lollipops (I thought that made him a pedophile, N just thought it was nice of him. She was, shocker, right.) The guy two seats to our left had the smallest bladder in football, knocking not one, but two waters out of the beer-cup sized drink holder attached to the seats. Ah well.
The Ravens beat the Browns. It wasn't the win it should have been considering team talent, but it was a win, and N's first NFL game, and a grand time was had by all. We stayed till the Ravens started taking a knee to end the game, then drove home for some stir-fry, then drove back to NY.
And here we are again, back at the scene of the crime. The river below has been alternately shrouded or totally hidden by the rain all day. I started my 24 hour methotrexate drip at 10:30 last night, with the attendant sodium bi-carb and fluids to keep my kidneys from failing. Then at 10:30 tonight I go off the meth and onto the Ara C, also in significantly higher doses than I am used to. So far I have not felt bad, but they say it is more likely to hit when we get home. Ad he Ara C had more nausea issues than the meth ayway.
A couple hours ago I had my first LIVE! DIRECT FROM HELL! THIS IS SPINAL TAP! in a while. And tomorrow I get another CT scan of my abdomen to make sure my pancreas is no longer an issue.
I am also back on the pred, and deeply depressed therefore. But it is only the days we are here and a slightly lower dose, so I think it will not get me as ramped up and rabid-dog twitchy as last time. We'll see.
Once the Meth has been out of me for 24 hours--during which they hit me with Ara C to be efficient--we're checked, and we hope to get home during the second half of Thursday. They'll send me out with a Neulasta shot which will cause bone pain but should help me recover fro the chemo faster.
I am still totally unsure how this regimen goes. It is all new again, like seeing people you hung out with years ago but they're all on steroids now and so you aren't sure if they'll just laugh a lot or each pull a tire iron out of their trench-coats (did I mention they were wearing trench-coats?) and beat me until I crap myself.
Or something.
Talk to you soon.
