Gnarly Genocides and Other Things Overheard at the Hairdresser

Saturday was my monthly, in this case, a bit over monthly, jaunt to Second Street in Long Beach to dye and trim my hair. The trip is a mini-vacation particularly as I hit Ocean Avenue and the sprawling water. The sun, water and air each and all are liberating. I park on Nieto, nearly always finding the perfect spot and grab my Long Beach Grunnion, a cup of Starbuck's Joe, put on the smock, and begin my two hour reading of every tabloid I can lay my hands on, and listening to the gathered quasi-private conversations of other customers with their stylists.

It is always fascinating. One time, after I had my salivary gland and concomitant calcified stone removed due to an infection (through the neck!) I came into the place and saw a man with a bandage in the exact same spot, except on the other side of the neck from my own. I had never heard of the surgery until I had it, and there we were comparing notes on the peculiarity of having a stone grow in your neck and the nerves that surround the locale of the surgery, lingual and facial, as well as the closeness of the carotid artery.

This Saturday, despite the economy, it was pretty crowded. Usually, the customers tend toward the middle aged, like myself, or older, but this day, there was a fair spate of the younger set. I never really have been one to ogle young men, not even when I was young enough myself to have them reciprocate, but one tall incredibly handsome fellow came in and I listened intently to him and his even younger stylist as she reduced the length of his straight thick hair. He was in his last year of college at Long Beach, and he was telling her his plans, to go to the East Coast for Grad school, as close as he could get to New York, where he'd stay (his certainty and optimism seemed so pure) for ten years and then maybe he'd come back to Los Angeles. She was a year younger than him, and to the best of my estimation, she wasn't in school, but she had done some interesting things, one of them to work for a few months (I wasn't quite sure of the time frame) in Rwanda. Apparently in rehabilitation areas, people of different backgrounds, would go and stay for a while and teach women who had been horribly brutalized, while they were being counselled, to learn a trade, one trade being a hair stylist. She had found it to be a startling, and satisfying experience, though hard. I was impressed as the two of them seemed to have a meaningful working knowledge of that place and a sensitivity to the complexities and indecencies of man against man, or in this case man against women and children. Typical of the "older generation" I thought to myself, maybe all is not lost with "young people." And I was perhaps a little ashamed that I have never done something quite so dramatic whether to help others or not. The thing though that was cognitively dissonant, though, was two words that she used to sum up the tragedy to which she had offered her kindness and care by offering the teaching of her talent. They have had a "gnarly genocide" she sort of summed it all up. That description sort of jarred me. I've heard a wave described as "gnarly" by a surfer, meaning extreme. Or a person described as a "gnarly dude". The adjective is for the extremely good and the extremely bad. I suppose then, she was right, genocide was an extreme, a despicable, inexplicable extreme. But that this casual urban lingo was attached to these acts of cruelty by mankind----as wonderful as this kid had been to do what she did, go there, help, I could not stop myself from feeling that the phrase trivialized the evil. But I haven't gone to the ends of the earth to save humanity, who thus am I to complain about her expression. I am not complaining, just observing, and marvelling at the variety of other experiences, some enigmatic, or interesting, or exotic or altruistic, and others, like mine, a bit of a straight line, from birth to grammar school, to (the same) high school, to college a mile from there, to law school, to LA, to the same apartment and job for 28 and 23 years respectively with nary a digression. I guess maybe I am complaining, yet again, but then, a bit about my choices, not about the universe in which I made them. That's an improvement at least!

Echo of a Heart

Note: This entry was accidentally placed on "Legacy of a Courtly Curmudgeon" the more infrequent blog that features stories about and stories by my father. I could not for some reason cut and paste, so days later, it is retyped here and deleted there.

I have a new cardiologist. I had an old one because my father had his first heart attack at 51, at least two others after that and a quadruple by pass in 1989. Despite the fact that it wasn't his heart that killed him, or the diagnosed bladder cancer, but a sepsis that I attribute to the lack of proper care by his doctors, I haven't ignored my family history of heart disease, particularly since I also have had high cholesterol and blood pressure.

My old cardiologist was also my primary care physician, the one who dishes out who I am allowed to go to for insurance purposes if I want it all paid for. Those who know me well know gthat for the last five or six years, I have felt less than attended to by my attending physician. A few years ago, a regular swelling of my salivary gland resulted in an infection severe enough to warrant removing a stone from my neck. I had raised the penultimate episode with my doctor, and he had said, "if it happens again, go the hospital". I did. They referred me to someone who was actually helpful. But my internist, on the eve of my surgery when my mouth was literally so swollen I could not articulate without a lisp, tried to convince me to put it off and see his reference. Still I stayed with him. But when I called to tell him I was lightheaded, and the front desk did all the diagnosing, and a call back was not forthcoming, that small episode was the one that did it. Two friends have been suggesting their respective doctors. I picked one who was also a cardiologist, and he has seen me, and accepted me as a patient, but he isn't an internist requiring me to keep my old internist, as internist. We had a heart to heart before I decided to do just that, in which I allowed him to chalk up our breakdown in relationship entirely to my "perception". I also allowed him the cognitive dissonant insistence that he always calls people back except on rare occasions. I guess the failure is only with me then. But he'd disagree, back to perception again. He also let me know that while my new doctor was a good one, if I call in an emergency, he won't be the one to answer, unless he is on call. I did not, again, biting my agitated tongue point out that my emergency needs were not met by him, when purportedly he was always available. I did not remind him of his "go to the hospital" in emergency exhortations. I did not, therefore, say that his availability was a fiction. He also said, with that dual edge of the back handed compliment, that my new doctor "did a lot of tests." Hmmmmmm. That can't be goo, right? He finally said that some of my new doctor's patients had been unhappy with him and had fled (the "fled" is my word) to my ersatz internist. I allowed that I suppose it was possible that I might not be happy, but I'd like to try. I didn't foreclose anything. So, today, me, my heart and my perceptions took their first echocardiogram, at the new guy's office, a test that is designed to more fully examine the heart using ultrasound.

As I write I still have goop on my chest that is used I suppose to conduct the waves. And I don't have the results, although I do know from the chest x-ray taken previously, that as is consistent with a person with high blood pressure, the wall of one side of my heart is thicker than in a person without that condition. There is something surreal about watching your own heart and hearing its beat. This is all that is keeping me conscious. I found myself surprisingly relaxed while watching the red and blue colors, the manifestation of the electric energy, flashing the flow to and from the muscle. It occurred to me that no matter what I do, however careful or ill conceived my behavior toward my heart, in a span of time, no more than 30 or so years, if I am lucky, it will simply stop.

When I was a teenager, I recalled, right after my dad's first heart attack, the reality of the organ's paradoxical strength, and concomitant fragility triggered a year of hypochondria in me. I was convinced I was having a heart attack, all the time. I was heart aware. Every beat, slow or fast. I drove my family crazy. I drove myself crazy. Listening to the echo of my heart in whatever fluid it floats in, that relaxation was a passing acceptance of what will come. It made me a bit ashamed that today, again, I was angry at virtually everything, right up to the man who was delaying me in putting my money in the communal parking meter. I raged and cursed in my head. Lying sideways on a crumpled paper atop the exam table, I thought, yet again, I have got to stop that, before my heart stops and its echo dies with me.

Moody Day

I woke up this morning, and realized I was in a mood. A shower. I feel better. The outdoor cats scramble for water and food, and I talk to them with my usual fondness before I hop into my car. I always check for my office key card. It is really a bummer to have to give my identification to the guard who knows me when I forget it, and then to stop in yet a second place to get a temporary one for getting in and out of "employee only" office spaces. Oh, and I haven't put on my lipstick, both of these in my cavernous bag. I find the badge immediately, but the lipstick is elusive. My hand pushes item away from item. No lipstick. Those who know me, know, that reapplying lipstick is an obsession for me. Applying it for the very first time of the day is downright urgent. "I hate this bag!" I shout I to the seat on which it lays. Before though I go into a complete rage, I find the little cannister and swipe the color on. Deep breath. I'm ok. Really.

A morning meeting is rather enjoyable in addition to being useful, and I am laughing with the members of my unit. But as morning becomes afternoon, I begin reviewing a file in which the issues are not only tedious, but convoluted, and several interruptions find me developing a hard to control irritation, that I know can lead to an eruption. A staff person who needs to update me on an absence calls when I am having a particular struggle to apprehend some factual details of my file. I am annoyed that I am having to review this file and unforgiving toward those who, in my self-righteous view, who forwarded this file without giving it a thoughtful screening. I answer the phone with an unviting pronouncement of my name startling the caller, who is apologetic for having disturbed me, when she has done nothing wrong. I had been doing some "spiritual reading" last night and promising to be a more faithful disciple, and in a flash, promise was dashed, as human nature seems to ordain it. I meant to call her back later, and I forgot. Great.

Even now, as I write, with my reading glasses in the living room so that I am having a wee bit of trouble navigating making this entry, a bubbling anger rises, seemingly out of nowhere. Like this small inconvenience requires retribution. Against who? Against what?

I had yet another tussle with my purse on the way home via the supermarket, looking for something, and emptied it out onto the seat in an effort to avoid a superagitation. Though it was late, there was unusual traffic on all the streets, and the lollygagging of some drivers, indecisive moves, unexplained delays found me suddenly hitting the inside door with my hand, as if my hand were not the servant of the rest of my body. I prayed for a patience and calm that I have only intermittently. When I experience it, I think, "Ok, now, He's giving me the Grace. I can take it from here." And then I don't, and I feel like Tantalus reaching for precious food, though I know that if i am prevented I am preventing myself. I'd rather blame someone.

I'd like to attribute this internal cacophony to the fact I have had trouble sleeping for some time now. Hormonal trouble, suggest some women friends. Maybe. I'd agree if I did not know that I have had these moods, these eruptions, all my life. Some might say, ah, she's bipolar, sudden eruptions of irritation, with periods of high mood (hypomania or mania, depending I guess on who is viewing it). I don't know that it matters what it is and what causes it. I think it's something to be dealt with and conquered, as part of a moral evolution. Some days I just do better than others. And I do know this, when I have those moments of equanimity, of passing joy, even better, I am very grateful.

Looking Down the Road

The air, last night, was cool enough to deserve a sweater after days of swelter. I savored it, and the last of our attendances at the Bowl celebrating, joyously, the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The voices of the late and great echoed through the hills, accompanied by a live orchestra that captured every nuance of the strings and woodwinds and horns. Gordon McCrae, Shirley Jones, Dick Haymes, Julie Andrews, Nancy Kwan. I cried at "If I Loved You" as if hearing it for the first time. The moon was full. And a lighted cross oversaw us all, punctuating the preciousness of this moment of our lives.

I thought a lot about "the Cross" yesterday, even before we shared our last hurrah at one of the wonderful sites in Los Angeles at summer's unofficial end of the summer. Some Christians call it "The Royal Road of the Cross". Many of us, of all faiths, and no faith, simply do not accept its reality, as if our subjective denial negates fact.

Julie Andrews' whose pristine tones animated audience after audience lost her voice to a surgery some 15 or 20 years ago. Gordon McCrae, young, strong, virile, on the screen forever, has been dead for many years. I seem to remember very public struggles that corroded the talent. They, as we, have walked down that road, struggling with each day, finding moments of connection, losing them again, watching the very physicality they, and we, take for granted, dissipate.

I have been attending the same Church for over 25 years. For much of that time, I have lectored, and as lector, I sit in the sanctuary during the service. Year upon year, someone sits in the same pew, giving to me the impression of invulnerability. And then, gone. Sometimes it has been sudden. Other times, their illnesses have been palpable, as they struggled to walk the aisle to their usual seats. Their names go on the sick prayer list. I wonder if that fact alerts them to the fact that they may never come off the list and move to the prayers for the dead.

In some ways, this process from robust and new to frail and old which, if we live long enough, is the inevitable for all of us, has been, for me, emphasized, by watching the brave decline of my former pastor. I remember how he used to glide down the middle aisle, straight and strong in his black cassock, stopping at the side of his elderly mother, in her regular pew, third from the front, to greet her, to kiss her on the head. She has been gone since 1999, well into her 90s. He is only in his 80s, but a medical ailment of many years passed has worked itself fully into his being, and for some time he has used a walker. But he has steadfastly continued to celebrate Mass, truly as if his life depends on it. I think perhaps it does. Back to service from his latest medical crisis and hospitalization, he struggled even more assiduously, with assistance, to the altar, where, by permission of the hierarchy, he is allowed to sit to celebrate. I want him to be there, doing that, for as long as is possible, even as I know what is possible is likely limited. For his struggle is mine. I am watching a version of myself, if I should make those years. He labors under the watchful eye of the crucified Christ, literally, as a large Cross hangs above his head. I look out into the gathered, and I remember many of those gone long before, Charles Gremillion, Paco DeLa Rosa, my own father, Ed Sullivan (not THE Ed Sullivan, but an individual who should not be forgotten just the same), the Ricardo Montalban, the Vincent Price, the Audrey Meadows, the Danny Thomas, Sonney Ottey, Eleanor, whose last name I cannot spell, Rosalie, the pastor's mother, Chris Hewitt, Ed and Ernie---I remember how their heels would click as they came into the Church. Faces fade and others replace them. In time, my face, sitting in the sanctuary will fade and hopefully, it will remain in someone's mind's eye. We are all experiencing the Cross. And joining in the suffering which leads to Resurrection. It may not be proper theology but I believe that we join in that suffering, to our spiritual benefit, whether we are in full communion with a particular faith or not. The phrase, "No one comes to the Father, except through Me" is about God's power, not our puny efforts at belief or our reluctance to do so.

I am looking down that road now, closer and closer to the kind of suffering I fear and resist, that which so many before me have already experienced. All I can do is ask the Progenitor, the Second Person who suffered in a way I hope He spares me, to keep me in His Care, and good enough, as neither prayer nor piety comes easily to me, to hear, "Well done, my good and faithful servant!"

Slightly Slothful Saturday

As I begin this entry, I have just gotten out of the shower in preparation for an evening sojourn at the Hollywood Bowl, the penultimate of my season. Essentially, my day is starting now. I have engaged in deliberate dawdling during the previous hours. Sort of, deliberate. The morning began about 10 with a call from my New York aunt to check on the Los Angelean me surrounded by the smoke of a now determined to be arson fire, the biggest ever on record in this state, and to talk about my aunt in Hawaii who needs more serious physical care than the place she is now in can provide. We talked well over an hour. And by that time, I couldn't actually decide what I wanted to do with the day. So I apparently decided not to decide. I puttered. I ironed, something which I usually put off until I have run out of everyday clothes. I sat outside on a first fairly clear day since the fires began and journalled, while Elwood and Parker, two of three backyard cats, competed for petting attention. I watched several marathon episodes of "House".

Excuse me for now, while I go to put on make up and dry my hair and pop in the contact lenses. Len Speaks, Mr. Anonymous, and a visiting friend from Texas will be here ever so shortly to pick me up.

And so, 12 a.m. of the next day, I am returned to the bosom of my little apartment.

It was "John Williams and the Music of the Movies". Mostly it was his movies. Which was fine except the selections were uneven and seemed to be taken from the most remote of scores. One was from the 1970's "Dracula" with Frank Langella. Not only did Langella then have hair, but it was 70's slicked back. The clip was dated and not because it was in black and white. And, my dear, while I am a big "Harry Potter" fan, having the entire first half of the show devoted to endless selections from the various movies was enough to drive one to become a Deatheater. I was rooting for the show to pick up when Mr. Williams returned with a medley from Warner Brothers, Casablanca, Exodus, The Pink Panther, Magnificent Seven, and, bringing out the light sabers for the first time, Star Wars. But then there was the series of jazz themed pieces from "Catch Me If You Can" which I would have been happy listening to at a dimly lit bar over a cosmo rather than under the full moon at the Bowl. It was pretty, but the momentum from medley was lost. The audience was politely receptive. I was taking a nap. More Star Wars brought out the light sabers, this time, moving in unison to whatever was played. Blue, red, green, pretty much all held by adults well past 30. I am not criticizing, cause truth be told, I wish I had had one and I am well, well past 50. Da Da Da DadaDA dadaDA! One woman, neglecting to bring her saber, waved her cell phone in time with the music. We waited for Indiana Jones, but he never came, musically speaking, as it was 11 p.m. and the ordinance imposed required end of all Bowl presentations. If I seem to be complaining, it isn't my intent, for as I frequently say, here or elsewhere, is that I almost don't care what I see at the Bowl, or whether it is precisely my cup of tea. Mr. Williams has a right to play what he wishes. More power to him. And let's face it, the man is a prodigious musician, and I am just one of 17,000 in the bleachers. Besides dinner at the roof top Patina restaurant before the show, as the sun set over the Hollywood Hills was enough to overcome any deficiencies, real or imagined. That tomorrow is our last foray into the E, K, or M Sections for the 2009 season (Rodgers and Hammerstein) is cause for a tad of sadness. But for now. . . .

It is now a cool summer night in Los Angeles, specifically, the Fairfax District, and my lazy day is just about concluded. It was quite the quiet joy.

Hot, Humid and Pyrocloudy!

I got home tonight, just before the sun set, with the hope of catching its uncharacteristic redness as it hung for the last moments in a web of ash haze. But just as I grabbed my cell phone camera, it was gone. Los Angeles. The City. And the fires are all around us.

I think this is the worse fire season I can remember. As someone who lives in the flatlands near the groovy Grove, I am not in any danger. At least I don't think I am, unless an earthquake hits, a passing concern I did have today given the heat and the Blade Runner like feel of the day. Still, aside from knowing people whose homes are in the endangered areas, and watching the around the clock coverage on the local news, the ubiquity of the Station Fire and the others of less well known nomenclature, was pronounced even for me. The sickly sweet smell of smoke has greeted every morning. Today, when I opened my car door ash flew around me. On Saturday, I saw this beautiful mushroom like cloud that I have come to know as pyrocumulus rising with agitation from behind every hill that surrounds us.

This beautiful Los Angeles landscape so readily transformed into a kind of overhanging day darkness and a pervasive sense, at least to me, of doom. Apocalyptic, comes to mind. Today I could not help but remember a rather dire bibilical promise from You Know Who involving the end of the world. But, no. Not yet, I thought. Ok, Lord, really, not now. I was distracted from the idea of earthly cataclysm by the high school students practicing in full regalia on a field and wondering whose brilliant idea was it to have kids exercising with particulate matter all around them. Was it my imagination or were the drivers particularly bad today? Californians apparently cannot drive in rain, or ash. All right, it wasn't that bad, the ash, not the driving. Me, the woman who loves summer found myself wishing for a coolish fall day to give reprieve.

They say that by the end of the week or early next week, the firefighters, those brilliant brave souls, will have a handle on it, having lost two of their own to save houses and lives, in the middle of brush where houses probably were never meant to be.

Tonight, I give them my thoughts and prayers, and thanks. And hope that tomorrow will be a safer California day.