Animal Horns and Conch Shells

I'm watching, semi-watching, the semifinal match between the man of my almost dreams, Novak Djokovic, despite his horrid haircut and ultra-slim cut wardrobe, and the tenth-ranked Kei Nishikori, who seems extremely self-possessed, given the situation.  It's fairly early in the first set, I just got here, my attention waylaid by a fine early performance of Detective Goren in one of the first episodes of Law and Order: Criminal Intent.

You know back when he's still considered a nut job with nothing to offer.  As opposed to the later episodes where his status as a proven nut job has morphed into a touch-not reputation for pulling the improbable out of his ass.  His invasions of personal space, violations of suspects' DSM oddities ("pushing their buttons"), his empathetic powers that would render your average NYPD dick insane within the length of one long day, they can be sufficient grounds for keeping the television tuned on L & W: CI for a background marathon while I research the various and the sundry, in distress, in pain.  I can eyeball whatever suspect is being Gorenized in the Interrogation Room, and remind myself that things could be worse.  I could be in a room with gray cinderblock walls, a mirrored window, locked door, and Detectives Goren and Eames, his head cricked, all jazzy-handed, her neat, under-made self smiling at me like a hungry anaconda.

Nishikori is pissing me off. After a LUCKY first set win, despite his excellent play, and Novak's plethora of stupid errors, Djokovic handily stepped up and took the second set 6-1, at which point I indulged in a D'Onofrio rêverie of tics and lightening strikes of vulnerability.  Suddenly I discern a tiebreak going on, and in a ridiculous way, in the third set.  It is now set point, and I can't watch.

"Third set to Nishikori."

Bite me.

I know it means something when a person feels feverish but is in no way even close to being so.  I've felt weak and wiped out, working my way up the pain scale as if it were the easiest of climbing walls, with wild, nuclearized, toxic colors, grips of Seussian shapes, all horns and Roman clown noses.  I am broken. My instructions on being discharged Wednesday were to check back in at a local ER to resume intravenous antibiotics if (and we all thought "when") I had a fever of 100.4.

100.4 is nothing for me, or maybe the marker of a damn fine day.

I haven't been above 98.4 since we got home.  Despite chills, the aforementioned claymation approximation of a wild cartoon vertical cliff of pain, a weird appetite, the death of Brayden Martin, the relapse of Kate McRae, deep and abiding concern for my brother GB, weird episodes of suddenly passing out, having an arm not respond to my iron will, deciding that calling a doctor would just make everything incrementally worse.

I was explaining to one of the HMO doctors at their "overnight observation" facility how this all started with what looked like a huge abscess on the top of my foot, that presented itself as a volcano.  I apologize to you, as I guess I should apologize to the doctors for having only the word and image of "volcano" come to mind, as hard as this brain tries to offer another descriptor.  It looked like a freaking volcano, such that I thought, and hoped, that it might burst while I (again hoping) slept.  Instead it melted and turned the top of my whole foot red and painful, swollen and angry.

Her response?

"Do you have a picture of that?"

Did I have a picture of that?  No, I didn't think to capture that painful moment -- LIE.  I would have snapped it if I had two working hands and a camera that had not been dropped in soapy water!  Mostly because it's a weird thing to see a bluish/purple, slightly square-sided volcano sticking out of one's foot.  But over the past 12 years of having CRPS, seeing my legs and arms do weird things became normal.

Djokovic lost.  Rather, Nishikori did a fine job of winning.  Yes, Djokovic played badly, but had every opportunity to raise his game, and proved it.  He was out-played.

Now, to complete my accumulation of bad karma for the day, I am going to root against Roger Federer.  Or really screw myself over and wish him a tiring 5-setter with heat cramps, and an inexplicable case of recurring wedgies requiring the assistance of court side trainers, with Roger carefully hidden behind a wall of towels as he switched from wedgie shorts to wedgie shorts -- and then moves on to the finals only to lose against this very talented Japanese young man, Nishikori, in straight sets.

Yes, you read correctly.  The brave and steroid-bloated baby of an old soul, Brayden Martin, fell to an opportunistic pneumonia after being ravaged in brain and spine by odious cancer. I think he was all of six. I know he was wholly happy and attracted others who were happy, or needed to be.  He was a gifted air guitarist and was a freaking rock star. He needed to die and though I'm sure he'd have loved to stick around to watch the antics of his darlin' mother Maranda, and girl-magnet brother Mason, and nuggle in the arms of his grandma Robin -- he had plans for heaven.  Unfettered tricycling, soon to be a two-wheeler with snazzy training wheels, then, baby-wheels gone, pushed by angels with feathers flying wildly in the ether, finally pulling up alongside his buddy Nolan, lad by lad, finally free, finding the first off road exit from that boring cloud.  Thumbs-up all around, and a Di Fara pizza stand, straight from Brooklyn's Avenue J, perfect foldable plain cheese slices inhaled by these boys as they explore the lay of their new land.

There is a rain delay in Queens. So they are showing Federer and Monfils from... Thursday? The quarters, the round of sixteen?  Ah, Monfils, about whom I have conflicting feelings.  Sometimes, he cracks me the hell up, as he just did, calling for a review of a point he'd just won.  It looks as if the goofy, hot-and-cold Monfils is about to go up two sets to love. Federer had to dig himself out of a ditch, apparently.

I cannot sustain visions of an earthly heaven, not even to honor Brayden.  He's somewhere, and he's fine. His family has to stay here a while and right now their paradigm has been woefully insulted, and hearts, broken.

Kate began having seizures several weeks ago, after what seemed to be an uneasy good time, mostly filled with settling in a new place near L.A., new schools, therapists and doctors, and that weird feeling that something was wrong.  Every time they sought answers, problems were attributed to post-radiation and post-chemotherapy syndromes, sets of symptoms that complicate and depress, but do not threaten life.  But the seizures were different and the MRI was finally moved up, and showed new brain cancer, her third relapse.  Her spinal fluid showed no cancer cells.

These kids.

Ah, the rain delay is over, and Federer meets Cilic in real time.

I fret over sadness, and frustration with hands and legs, burning pain, and spasms, and whether I want to bother with continued treatment, anywhere, by anyone.  I think of the week my brother just had, and how I want to hold him in a way that would be foreign to us both -- but to which I'm sure we'd adapt easily.  I can't hang on to another soul for any meaningful length of time, and lord knows, he'd be darned uncomfortable. Just grant me a hand on his brow, a hand held briefly to hand.  This part of me does not work, whole sections of him are nothing but pain, it could be the weirdest of Twister configurations ever. Fitting!

And I dream every night some version of TW flying here, then having Captain Haddock ferry us from our murky moat, currently home to a sweet pair of beluga whales, to that Sweet Spot that heralds the worm hole entrance that loves to welcome Haddock's sweet pink miniature submarine, taking us there where we need to go.  "Ahoy!  I bring the siblings lost and found together again..." he hums as he pretends to navigate from our unmappable home to Grader Boob's hideout.

I cannot make it happen.
But it could happen.
That an accretion of stupidity and the idiocy of idiots gone before should hinder the reunion of such sweet souls?  I don't understand.

Good news.  My left hand has ceased copying my right, so I've a functional hand again.  I think I hear trumpets -- you know, the long silly ceremonial kind, or natural, chromatic.  Maybe animal horns mixed with conch shells .

Cilic is up 3-1 first set.

© 2013 L. Ryan

Memorial Day

This is a repost of my Memorial Day 2009 publication. It resonates, as Grader Boob faces great struggles, and could give a hoot about tennis this year. I miss our annual Brother-Sister exchanges over the various Opens and Wimbledon, etc. But I look forward, as well, to renewing that old tradition next year, and starting some new ones this year.  

Turn, turn, my wheel!  All things must change
To something new, to something strange;
  Nothing that is can pause or stay;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,

  To-morrow be to-day.
-- Longfellow, excerpted from "Kéramos"

*********************************************************



[do you recognize the racket to the right? my first, my favorite!]

It's that time of year again, hooray!

Men's Singles Draw

Women's Singles Draw

The greatest joy, though, comes in the form of communication with the Brother-Unit known as Grader Boob. Some siblings talk every Thanksgiving Day, or on birthdays -- The Grader Boob and I arrange our lives around tennis Grand Slam events.

Of course, it is also Memorial Day. (Please to ignore the grinding sound of my shifting gears.) A day of remembrance "of those who died in their country's service."

There are so many ways of dying, but I won't belabor the obvious -- nor mention the scrambled grey matter of the walking brain-injured, the stress-disordered, the illusionless.

When I was in high school, the adults around me thought I was a phenomenal writer. No, I was a phenomenal people-pleaser, terribly hyphenated.

We had to write an essay for English class, and "the best" was to be submitted in the local VFW lodge's Memorial Day Essay Contest.

I wrote something that was very good, that was quite facile, as all discussions of war and death ought to be. It's not the most subtle of things.

Not Crispus Attucks, killed during the Boston Massacre -- not anyone whose name we know and parrot -- just someone -- that's who figured in my essay. SumDood. Killed -- and Killer -- in the Revolutionary War.

He's not "just a boy." He's not a white-haired geezer. He is intelligent and understands the theories and desires behind the idea of revolution (but not the red coats and ramrod-straight lines of his purported enemies).

Reality is a lot like a very bad movie.

He faces off, squares his body to the face and the body mirrored back at him -- though he has no bayonet, he is just as well-equipped for this ridiculous point-and-shoot exercise -- fish in a barrel.

There was a lot of lyrical writing at that point, ephemeral and awful.

I brought the boys, the men, to the moment of firing their guns. Muskets. Weapons.
Water Balloons. Slingshots. Whatever.

Not bullets, but balls.

The average soldier armed with a smoothbore flintlock musket was expected to fire off a shot every 20 seconds.

What was he doing in those 20 seconds? A lot.

According to the Continental army training manual, there were 13 steps to firing a musket. In short, a soldier had to get a cartridge, tear it open with his teeth, put a little bit of powder in the firing mechanism, put the rest of the powder and a gun ball down the barrel, ram the ball and powder home, cock the musket and fire.

The musket was not an accurate weapon, so even after all that work, the soldier didn’t have the greatest chance of shooting his intended target.

I've always loved the mathematical notion of The Limit, and felt it could find no better bastardized application than that of an ever-approaching, never-arriving bullet. Ball. Buckshot.

Whatever.

Death by some projectile or other, tossed about by generally nice young men, scared, but not scared enough. Those wise enough to not be found in front of a gun were safely closeted somewhere, designing the raids, envisioning the massacres, ordering the taking of a hill, a lane, a town, signing treaties, drawing up important documents, sometimes weeping and proud. Yes, but.

Yes, but probably more mindful than your average war-mongers, the cause being just and all.

We certainly are thankful for the sacrifice.

My essay did not so much end as fizzle, extinguish, tire of the wait. In it, the two shooters actually manage to see one another, to wonder -- a bit -- at the other's world. In my essay, one shot was enough to kill -- but the moment managed to stay an eternity.

In that same moment are men and women dying today -- and I am forever out of high school, undefeated on the tennis team, voted most improved at almost everything, french-kissing that enlisted boy with the cystic acne (in the park across from school, remember the smell of autumn leaves, a smokey sky, the unfiltered Camel), making out with the pitcher on the baseball team the very first night of Junior/Senior weekend (sloe gin fizz), happy as a clam, they tell me later, running running running into the surf, screaming because I always knew The Limit was just a construct for snotty kids hiding behind an education.

Please God, don't let it be my "way of life" or "freedoms" for which they fall.

Please don't allow that Crap Thought, that neat turn of phrase, to gain more of a hold.

I so look forward to speaking with The Grader Boob, to laughing, to bolstering my picks for the semis, for the championship. To forgetting the shrunken men at the VFW lodge, long dead now, who called me "honey," and gave me a $500 U. S. Savings Bond.

The Eternal Vagaries of Dwinelle Hall and That Green Bescherelle

This is a very precious Southernism:  I'm having me a day.

I could just leave it at that.

But really, continuing with the leitmotif made famous by elle est belle la seine la seine elle est belle, "whose blog is it, anyway?" -- I feel like telling you the gist of one of my recurring nightmares.  The gist, that's all.  Were "gist" a word favored by Joe Friday, you'd be reading:  "All we want is the gist, ma'am."

Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

So I'm sleeping the sleep of the innocent when the past hijacks my brain and I'm strolling down Telegraph Avenue toward campus.  having just opened a lucrative checking account at the Bank of America, I swing a right onto Bancroft, wiping out an entire Street Vendor Free Enterprise Zone [SVFEZ] with my various forms of rolling luggage.  By the time I hit Piedmont and climbed the steps to the International House, my face is bright red and my curls are fetchingly damp.

There's no rest for the weary, however, so I leave my bags with a pleasant young Arab and head over to Dwinelle Hall for an orientation meeting with a 1970's version of Fabio before teaching my first scheduled Very Important Class on the fourth floor of that austere educational edifice.

You need to know that:

Dwinelle houses the departments of classics, rhetoric, linguistics, history, comparative literature, South and Southeast Asian studies, film studies, French, German, Italian studies, Scandinavian, Slavic languages, Spanish and Portuguese, and gender and women's studies.

Who knows, that might be important to the plot.  I run a tight nightmare.

Yeah, that's how I roll.

[Oh, God.  Yes, I'll stop.  For once, the Reader on My Shoulder prevails... and has gone in search of something for stomach acid.]

[Oh, and, he says, "...and for a headache, for a GD headache..."]

There are a few new details in this recurrence of the nightmare, most notably that I've also stopped at a hair cuttery along the way and am inexplicably blonde.  I'm also carrying a tennis racket and am obsessed with detailing a return of service plan for some tennis match that the dream doesn't yet allow me to fully envision.

Blonde.  I am blonde.
Wait!  There were those odd under hair highlights, of a color yet to be determined. My memory hazes over and my eyes cross when I try to recall the hair of this recurrent nightmare.  But blonde, yes, I was blonde, with something extra twerking below my shimmering outer locks.

[Reader on My Shoulder just left.  Slowly, leaning on the bedside table, grabbing at the wall as if it had handles.  Oh, wait, it does!  "Twerking?  Are you shittin' me?  Twerking?"]

Well, screw my readership, then!  No, not YOU!  Just HIM!  And all of you born-blondes with naturally occuring RHYTHMIC underhair color schematics?

Eat my grits.

I knew I was a little dehydrated, but I didn't think it was that bad. Or is this chronic, degenerative, neurological pain disorder in control of my keyboard, mwa ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaa!?

Anyway. This is still bothering me, this walk back down the hill, head half full of pedagogical mneumonic lifesavers, but the other half teeming with tennis strategies and freaked out by the fact that I'm now carrying, as I should be, a Brunello Cucinelli triple gussetted briefcase, in which I've that well worn, much loved, long gone, green Bescherelle, and a David Oscarson "Lily" fountain pen... plus a Snauwaert Ergonom (graphite) which ought to be universally, galactically, against the rules of sporting decorum.

Wow.  I had no clue any of that was going on between my ears.  I haven't thought of that Bescherelle, certainly haven't even uttered the word "Bescherelle," in eons.  And do I really care about briefcases or fountain pens?  And tennis rackets?

Well, yes.  But not like THAT!  Except for maybe the tennis racket part...

Much more important? Extra- super- galactically important?

How far behind the damned service line do I need to be?  Or is this a really lousy player, maybe some famous dreamy person competing in their first oneiric tennis competition, who is just going to dink it over the net, then jump up and down, laugh and throw a party?

Yes, well, yeah.  Okay, so I get through the nightmare orientation session, which seems remarkably short (don't you LOVE dream versions of tedious crap?), and get my teaching assignments.  French literature in various forms, mostly, plus a remarkably important French One Grammar class. 

On the fourth floor of Dwinelle Hall.
There is no fourth floor of Dwinelle Hall, a building which anyone who knows it will describe as "bizarre." 

I suppose continuing the narration might take forever, and subject my more devoted Readers, as well as the bevy of forensic psychiatrists analyzing my texts in the name of "national security," to mind-numbing ennui.  So I'll give you what is called the "short" version:

I got kicked out of the International House, and so hit the streets of Berkeley again, bags in tow, searching -- in a daze of nocturnal lighting -- for an apartment, but only finding offers to take in a roommate, which, sadly, I had to turn down.  (For dream reasons unaccessable at the present time.)

My students were unable to be taught, as they were unable to be found, since the fourth floor of Dwinelle does not exist, in my nightmare as in every day University of California life.

My hair required some touch-up trimming and dye action, so I returned to a hair salon.  It was located, not on Telegraph or Durant or Bancroft, but on a Vegas-like section of Shattuck.  Upstairs, the chic salon, where not just the hair stylists consulted on my case, but even hair stylist interns vehemently opined in the large group meeting that ensued... before I did a quick change job and headed downstairs, where there was, of course, a huge installation of tennis courts, styled after the All-England Championship venue, Wimbledon.

Nota bene:  The Wimbledon championships are known, in our neighborhood, as "Wimpleton," a typical variant of the English pronunciation in Tête de Hergé, particularly west of the Lone Alp and when the speaker is in a singularly imperative mood.

My first round match was a breeze, and left no dream impact. However, the beginning of my second round match, which turned out to be the quarterfinals, was marred by the tragedy of the huge hole in my graphite bit of grotesquerie, that twisted Snauwaert Ergonom.

One of the hair stylists saved the day by loaning me an autographed mint condition Wilson Jack Kramer... meaning that I had the smallest head on the courts, both literally, and even more literally, in terms of racket size.  Given that it was a true nightmare (remember the savagely separated and lost professor and students? my eviction from the I-House?), I got to "relive" one of the tragedies of my UNDEFEATED high school tennis career -- being in a USTA regional doubles final and choking, developing back spasms so vicious I could not serve to save my life.  (Or my friendship with my doubles partner.)

The nightmare slowed to a snail's pace during my quarterfinal match, each service fault magnified in my experience, and highlighted for the partiers and hair salon patrons of Shattuck Avenue's hottest night spot.

Interspersed throughout these events were encounters with students, some as I remember them, some now grown to a middling age, on steps, in libraries, Sproul Plaza, at poetry readings, and a few smiling and nodding as we sat together in audiences, listening to important people, smart people, some of whom changed my life...

Except when I am at the mercy of a somnolent past, a hearty ego, and the eternal vagaries of Dwinelle Hall.

It was nice to feel the tiny heft and the equally tangible huge significance of that green Bescherelle *.

From Our Island Home

*****  **********  *****  

* Louis-Nicolas Bescherelle (10 June 1802, Paris – 1883, Paris) was a French lexicographer and grammarian.

With help from his brother Henri, he wrote "Le Véritable Manuel des conjugaisons ou la science des conjugaisons mise à la portée de tout le monde", a reference guide to French verb conjugation, in 1842. The book became so important that his last name is used as a noun to refer to any French conjugation book.




© 2013 L. Ryan Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Fly Boys

Poor, dear Buddy remains captionless in his recent dead-eye photo.  He looks absolutely devastated, but then, he always looks absolutely devastated.

When I was in high school, I was extremely bored, extremely obsessed with tennis, and determined to develop a reputation as a bad ass.  The tennis obsession was hard to hide, impossible to discourage, and resulted in being undefeated during my entire three-years on the team.  Of course, I played #6 singles and #3 doubles, so how hard could it have been, right?  We fervently "stacked the deck," but not in my case.  Our number 3 in singles was actually our number one, and our number 5 was actually our number 2 or 3, depending on how hard her week was.

She was, for a while, my best friend.  Her name was Teresa.  I thought she was beautiful, with long straight hair that looked professionally streaked, but wasn't.  She walked with a lilt, sort of took a little bounce when she pushed off the ground with her big toe.  Her face was very plain, but so was mine, so I thought she looked pretty.  Her father took a long time to die of lung cancer.  He was career military, air force, a flight mechanic, and somehow I thought that all meant that they were being taken care of.  Her mom worked a lot.  Her dad lived in a brown plaid recliner -- which would not recline -- with an oxygen tank hung over the back left of that Archie Bunker chair.  It struck me as odd, even knowing how sick he was, that I never saw him in uniform, be that a zip-up flight suit, overalls, blues.  No name tags, no decorations.  Their oven never seemed to be in working order, they did not leave each other notes, and tended to rarely look one another in the eye when conversing, and most conversations ended "okay, okay, okay."

They didn't have a lovely calligraphic version of Royal Canadian Air Force's John Magee's sonnet, "High Flight," beautifully framed and subtly spotlighted.  Some kids learn Bible verses by heart as their earliest accomplishment in Rote.  Not I, though I tended to stop, sometimes suddenly, sometimes joyfully, half way through the fifth line.  When my father built his "dream" house, with his "dream" study, the poem was hung behind his ominous desk, and carefully offset by fine photos, finely framed in matching dark woods, of all the "birds" he'd ever flown.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

I've wondered sometimes, as I have become a decrepit piece o' crap, myself, if it wasn't so much that the butt ugly chair would not recline as it was that Teresa's Dad's arms and legs had become either too weak or too mavericky to make the darned thing obey.  I have what used to be a lovely leather recliner, bought at the suggestion of MDVIP Go-To-Guy, back when my right leg started to go really, really bad.  The cats loved it, and I was stupid enough to think I could train them quickly and well enough not to want to arch their tight little backs and stretch those claws luxuriously into that leather.  I used the cats as my Frustration Referent because I was too embarrassed to admit that my legs couldn't push the chair into position.  Structurally, there's not a thing wrong with the chair, and I even bought a cheap (but cute!) matching ottoman to make up for my physical inability to make it metamorphose... but I am embarrassed by how it looks.

He was something of a dedocated dick, as some men are, but he was her father, and so Teresa lived a life of hard work, kept her head down, helped her Mom, cared for her younger siblings, and somehow managed to keep everyone's hands and minds off of her tennis.

I would pick her up, a quick beep on the ominous horn of my 1965 baby blue pristine Cadillac, and she'd come bouncing down the front concrete steps, neat as a pin in one of her three tennis outfits.  She had two white, classic tennis dresses that she reserved for competition and a pair of white shorts to practice in -- like most everyone, really, except that she alternated the same two tee shirts, one orange, one blue, both plain, advertising nothing.  She wore Tretorn tennis shoes with incredibly white anklets.  She was the first person I knew who was completely sold on Yonex rackets.  Her racket made my shots sit up, begging to be clobbered.  In her hands?  She was the Queen of Spin, deadly at the net.  And yet she had one of the flattest serves ever, with a toss so high that I was sometimes tempted to jog around the court a few times while we all waited for the ball to descend enough so that she could flatly whack it.

That was the only element of our doubles play that got under *my* skin.  The return of her serve tended to be aimed at my mouth or perfectly down the alley as I cowered near the ground, protecting my plain face.

Now... as for what might have irritated Teresa about my doubles game?  Well, choking comes to mind.  Not an occasional choke for those occasional tight moments.  No, choking like not holding service -- not even once -- during an entire match.

It came in the form of a frozen back and a spastic arm.  My lower back refused anything remotely like an arch;  My toss began at hip level, entirely powered by a jerking wrist.  It was the ugliest thing ever.

And she'd never turn around.  She never came to talk it over.  She never had any suggestions (not by then, not at match time... in practice, sure, but always something like: "So why can't you do that when we play X and X?").

My coach would disappear to the other end of the courts.  She never talked to me about it either.

The one time I got my Dad to come watch me compete, I started my period during the match, lost one of my contacts (even then I was "legally blind"), and, yes, choked.  He left before I won.

My greatest familial experience with tennis came with Brother Grader Boob, home from college, where he was quite the racquetball phenom, bearing, in fact, the titles of both singles and doubles champ for his area. He competed both indoors and out, but preferred three-wall outdoor sport.  There seemed to be infinite variations to the game, something that tennis is sorely lacking.  Even messing around with "wall ball" avec Brother Boob was a riot.

So he would play half-court, using his short racquet, and a standard fuzzy tennis ball.  I'd play the way I usually played.  Of course.  We messed a bit with the rules, something about number of bounces, something about service lines, but not much.  It was so much fun, particularly when the courts over at the country club were full and Suzy Q and Buffy were forced to join the rest of us slugs at the beautiful downtown courts in the park.

Anyway, I choked through our entire state doubles match.  I drop-served, so as to at least get the ball into play.  We lost.  You can probably guess by exactly how much, if I tell you that we played beautifully when receiving.  But between her flat, here-I-come serve and my oh-hell drop-serves, well...

Teresa ended up with a tennis scholarship -- one of those female things, a drop in a bucket, added to an offer to work slave hours at the library, all glommed onto the heft of a loan.  It was a good school, and I hope she did well there, had maybe some fun, too.  It was a shore-side state university, a lovely place to be, a very different place from where she'd been.

Ha!  You'd never guess where this post was meant to go.  I referred to little Buddy's "dead-eye" photo, which made me think, of course, of "Dead-Eye" Jones, my English teacher.  She had an artificial eye, she was big, pretended to be mean, and I loved to imitate her.  Until the day, that day that happens to every bad high school jokester, the day the person you are aping appears behind you without you having the least clue.

As in my favorite crucifixion song goes:  "[She] never said a mumblin' word."

She did not need to.  She owned me for the rest of high school.  And she never turned me in for playing tennis during fifth period when I was supposed to be in French.  She laughed big long belly laughs when we barracaded a classroom against an unloved substitute who kept stomping her little foot in anger, yelling "Open that door, open that door, right now!" She never called my folks about the pimply airman I french-kissed while waiting for the fifth period bell to ring.  She gave me good advice on the last day of school.  "Everything you think shows on your face.  Be careful with that."

Then, I wanted to write about tennis, it being French Open time and all.

I didn't mean to write about Teresa, and looking back at what I did write... I wish I really had.

We did not have a fight or officially even end our friendship.  It died a natural death, in my opinion.  In my stepmother's opinion, it was an impossibility to begin with, due to different social strata.

My stepmother.  Now that'd be a post.  She'd have been a perfect Brahmin.  Teresa was not untouchable, except, well, really, yes, she was.  Her clothes may have been clean, neat, and mended, but nothing matched in that breathless, thrown-together matchy way.  She didn't accept invitations to our home.  She was ugly. (As for me and my beauty?  The first time I plucked my unibrow, she said, swirling a scotch and soda, "Oh, profderien, that was your one good feature.")

Teresa and I were both barely hanging on, and we hung on through tennis.  We knew we could always find each other on a court somewhere, and that town had three options -- on base, at the country club, or in the lovely, lovely park.  She hung on through some very tough things, as did I.  Thanks to life and tennis, we learned to let them go, and in so doing, we lost each other.

Teresa and her bleeping slo-mo flat-as-a-pancake serve and a slowly suffocating father.  Me and my social anxiety, my various shames.

We'll call this the Father's Day-French Open combo post.

But I still want some suggestions for Buddy's Caption.  If it tugs at your heartstrings at all, Fred is determined that Buddy is feeling ill, or at least, "blue."  He is basing this conclusion on the fact that Buddy has decided to sleep on the living room rug rather than in the ether of his cat tree condo.  Some dude who passes himself off as the Cat Whisperer on Animal Planet claims that this is a bad sign.  Cats should want to be as high as possible and when they go low... well, uh-oh.

My point of view?  Buddy runs around like a crazed rabbit, plays fetch with abandon, chows down with gusto, drinks, pees and poops as if these were the most natural things in the world.  He comes to me for head pats and gentle finger chews.

Give the lad a caption, would 'ya?

Oh, and Happy Father's Day, and congratulations, Rafa!

In terms of what's actually happening -- surgery is Monday, June 18.  Today is another surgical pre-op, with one more later this week.  I'm stressed.  My hips were x-rayed and the one that is killing me looks okay, but the one that I put up with is in dire need of replacement.  Ha. Ha. Ha.  A former fracture of my sternum (from CPR) has decided to torture me again.  Why, no one knows.  I look the wrong way and bones break.  Breathing is interesting.  My kidney labs might look screwed up to the uninitiated, but really they are fine, I am just dreadfully dehydrated from daily fevers.

Me, and Damien Walters; Damien Walters and I!

parkour:  The art of moving through your environment as swiftly and effectively as possible using only the human body.

You should have seen me. You would have cheered.


It was the perfect storm of good things:  I slept an incredible four hours straight, enjoyed a balanced, rich cup of coffee in the predawn, then relaxed and laughed with the flitting, fighting chickadees.  


And, if I do say so myself, I was quite nattily dressed.


Yes, there were the normal oddities.  La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore was, inexplicably, curled up on the lower shelf of the kitchen block table, covered with an antique Point de Venise lace tablecloth.  Granted, she was sacked out in a kitchen that I don't normally use, as the replica of the Karaboudjan's galley is not my idea of the ideal place to prepare or consume food.  Still, for an early morning view of the cluster of spruce trees and the bud- and canker- worms so beloved by my beloved chickadees, nothing beats the view out of the galley's over-sized portholes.


Right. Well, anyway, things began well.  That's all I am saying.
I was feeling good; I was feeling lean and mean.


I had an early morning cardiology appointment and let's face it, early mornings are not exactly what we are known for around here.  Fred and I even retrained the circadian rhythms of all the livestock and domestic animals so that their days don't actually start until mid-afternoon.


Despite my penchant for equating left with west and north with straight ahead, we had an uneventful trip into Lone Alp. 

My MDVIP Go-To-Guy referred me to a new cardiologist this year.  It's not that the old one was in any way not a great doctor, he was.  Is.  No, it is more, for me, that I just cannot tolerate dealing with anyone or anything associated with the CrapAss Hospital that has so contributed to the demise of my earthly usefulness.  Not that I've given that much thought or anything!  


I remember, in fact, my Former Cardiologist with great affection, for he once told me that I would not die so long as he was taking care of me.  I loved that brash idiocy.


Unfortunately, ever since he actually had the chance to snatch me from the jaws of death, he has been caught up in the evil machinery of CrapAss Hospital.  Because of the great Shoulder Adventures of the last three years, I've only gone in to get an echo done, and only once, and did not deal with the doctor at all -- except to have one of his partners bless me out over the phone.  (When he was done blessing me out for having skipped a few echos, he told me not to worry about my aortic dilation blowing up, "because you will never see it coming...")


Oops!  Oh, well!


So we cruised into the Free Gimp Parking, gave Ruby the Honda CR-V a pat on the butt, and found the office with nary a wrong turn and not a bit of confusion.  [We don't do well in new office buildings.  Sometimes we duck into the first cozy looking waiting room and pretend we're in the right place.  It's usually the urologist's or the plastic surgeon's joint, though, and they catch on pretty quickly and toss us out.]


The New Cardiologist's place is incredibly well-organized.  I didn't realize how much I appreciated that until I was there, in the midst of streamlined forms and efficient people.  Everyone was so good at what they did, and they communicated!  Not just with me and Fred, but with each other.


Excuse my excitement.  Little things just send me!


Now... here is the part where it's all about me, and Damien Walters, Damien Walters and I!  That's this post's title, in case you've been distracted. 


I've long been a fan of parkour, then free running, free styling -- the martial arts, too.  As my body has crapped out and essentially imploded on itself, I've traveled beyond this body via the Internet and television, finally carving out for myself niches of the imagination.  


On one of my baseline days, I'll cue up the greatest of tennis matches, admire the most powerful and musical ballet dancers, and I let my body go.  It's enjoyment.  It's distraction.  For a few years, I could even pretend it was muscle memory!


On intolerable days, I might visit PopThatZit and replay Pete Popped a Pustulant Pimple ten times in a row... or I might not!  But I will *always* end up watching Damien Walters, usually his showreels, one right after the other.  I fly, jump, fall, push, pull, defy gravity and embrace gravity, all at the same time.  I feel no pain and my tendons never retract, my muscles never seize.  I'm lithe, light as air, fast as lightening.  Pliant, compliant, but steel, I am jiu-jitsu.


When I was escorted back to the echo room, this morning, the first thing that jumped out at me was the behemoth of an exam table.  It looked as tall as a freaking elephant.


The nurse asked me if I could change into the gown on my own.  "Sure!" I said.  She asked if I could walk to the exam table.  "You betcha!" I crowed, adding, "I brought my magic cane, even. But then you are out of luck, because there's no way I can get *on* it." 


"Not even with this stepladder?  How about if I hold you up?  How about if you hang onto me?"


Because of the instability, swelling, and pain in my ankles, knees, and hips, I cannot step up or down.  The last time I tried to use one of those stepladders was in a radiology department and the tech did not entirely believe my protests that I couldn't trust my legs.  I ended up on the floor that day, and pretty mad about it, too.  I have fallen quite enough in this lifetime, thankyouverymuch.


She picked up the phone to call for the nearest Big Guy, so that my own petard could be hoisted...


But something of the spirit of Damien Walters showed up in me, today, unexpectedly.  I told her that, no, we would not be needing assistance, and that, yes, I could do this if she wouldn't mind parking my wheelchair somewhere out of the way once I vaulted out of it, pirouetted in midair, onto the beastie table.


She looked a tad bit skeptical.  She was staring at my legs and wincing.


It might have been choreographed by Balanchine.  Danced by Edward Villella.  You'd easily imagine that I was inhabited by Martina, Chris, Monica, Hana, and Steffi, tour à tour.  


But it was in every way inspired by Damien Walters.


I planted one leg here, the other there, becoming my own source of symmetry.  I plumbed the potential energy of every surface.  Briefly, I was here, then there, now attracted, now repelled.  Once, twice, I was standing --sideways -- on a cabinet.  Thereafter, I was free of surfaces altogether.


I usually crane my neck and nervously watch the progress of the echo -- it's kind of neat to see your heart as it beats, to listen to the woosh-woosh.  The nurse, after verifying that I had survived my feats of athleticism with bones and internal organs intact, was all business.  She reminded me that talking, coughing, and such interfered with the test, so I stopped talking, never coughed, held my breath when instructed, but mostly just ran Damien Walters' videos in my head.


In a first, I managed to crack up both myself and the test operator, and did, I guess, disrupt things.  They record the sounds produced by various parts of the heart, concentrating, I think, on the valves.  I heard a series that were familiar from past tests... and then, out of the blue, came what can only be described as Island Music.  "They're having a party in there!" came out before I could stop myself from talking.  Seriously, we are talking ukuleles, tambours, maracas, and seven kinds of guitars.  


Go, mine heart, go!


There were a few abnormal results from the echo, but none of them were new, none of them were worse, and one of them was actually better.  I'm really happy with this new place.


The nurse was on the warpath as we left, threatening to quit if she wasn't given an adjustable table for her echocardiogram patients, going on and on about some "debilitated" people of her acquaintance.  Whoever they are, I hope they get better soon.


And I hope the cardiologists keep that massively tall, unwieldy table, maybe tucked away in some storage room for when I come back next year.  


I haven't had so much fun in I-don't-know-when.

Mala Fortuna: Stanford Stops the Streak

The jinx lives on.

Shortly after having this thought, I decided to search my blog for previous uses of the word jinx.  Having written about both college basketball and professional tennis, there was no doubt that my deleterious impact upon the success rates of my favored teams and players would be documented here.  I have been more true to my jinx attribute than to any other character trait.

In an aptly titled entry, Blather, I explained the genesis of the curse, as engineered, and then painstakingly nurtured, by Brother-Unit Grader Boob.*  Begun as a common-sensical remedy to my native curse, the jinx method expanded to encompass our mutual academic pursuits, something that would otherwise be inexplicable:

Good morning. It is lovely here: warm, sunny, clear -- you know, when the whites of the sky are opalescent, surrounded by true blue. I am tempted to say "Carolina blue," out of fondness for an alma mater... but as we approach March Madness, I cannot lend support to UNC, or even to little Davidson, despite last year's excitement and the incredible Stephen Curry-- no, I am obliged, academically, to prefer the much deeper blue hue of the Devil. I can't wait for the ACC Tournament, then that inconsequential old NCAA tourney thang... It's my favorite time of year, despite the fact that my brother-unit, the Grader Boob (who owes no allegiance to the Gothic Wonderland), long ago convinced me that I am a bona fide jinx, making a rule that when Duke, or whoever, is in a tight spot -- the fault being me and the bad luck I bring by my proximity to the television set -- I must retreat out of the viewing room and not cross the plane of the doorway. So he would end up munching on Malted Milk Balls, stretched out on his bed, blocking the screen, while I jumped up and down trying to see over him from my position in the hallway. Brother-Units are such fun.


Of course, he is jealous that I planned my academic career by the sporting accomplishments of the various universities I attended. It is a little known fact that admission to graduate programs is contingent upon one's knowledge of the money sports -- basketball and football. I went to every interview in full regalia -- the appropriate jersey, face paint, the giant finger. This and only this can explain my success.

As we promptly noted and celebrated in this space, on Tuesday, December 21, 2010, the UConn Women Huskies broke John Wooden's 88-game streak record for Division I college hoops.  They extended the record to 90 games, an awesome feat, but then ran smack dab into the Stanford Cardinals last night.

I had nothing to do with it.

I swear.

Stanford 71, UConn 59
Stanford Beats UConn to Halt Streak at 90


By JERÉ LONGMAN
Published: December 30, 2010


PALO ALTO, Calif. — The Connecticut Huskies had been undefeated during the Obama administration, untouched by the great recession, undeterred by the fiercest obstruction from any opponent in women’s college basketball.


No more.


Just as top-ranked UConn had feared, ninth-ranked Stanford was too big, too deep and too thorough inside and out on Thursday, defeating the Huskies by 71-59 at sold-out Maples Pavilion and ending Division I college basketball’s longest winning streak at 90 games.


UConn, which won by an average of 33 points during its streak and won all but two games by double figures, did not lead for a single second, falling to its first defeat since it lost to Stanford by 82-73 in the N.C.A.A. semifinals on April 6, 2008.


Just as Notre Dame bookended the U.C.L.A. men’s 88-game winning streak set from 1971 to 1974, so has Stanford bracketed the Huskies’ streak.

* I am pleased to announce that, on January 15, Grader Boob will be flying into the regional Tête-de-Hergéen supersonic transport hub -- a challenging landing on the southwestern slope of The Alp.  The Brother-Unit and I envision a leisurely manoral weekend with Fred, La Bonne et Belle Bianca, and the three extant Marlinspike felines.  G.B. has a longstanding and unrequited love for The Castafiore (and, truth be told, for the cats) -- I don't delude myself into thinking that filial love is behind this sudden need for a mini-vacation.  Anyway, great plans for great fun are in the works, thus far mostly involving food, flannel pyjamas, and U.S. American college basketball (with jinx provisions).

Oh God, Bianca is getting riled-up in anticipation of both Grader Boob's arrival and her chance to cheer on her favorite teams, an activity that includes dressing to the nines (elevensies and fourths) and operatic productions to beat the band.  As Spectator Athletes of the highest non-professional calibre, we take our Viewing Fashions seriously and can only wish that the athletes we visually support would likewise expend some money on appropriate couture.  Like words, it matters.  Do you recall the incalculably noxious impact of Caroline Wozniacki's tennis dress back in September of '09?  I barely survived that Fashion Sentinel Event...

[...] I became somewhat upset earlier in the evening, after watching the Clijsters/Williams match. [Aside: Please note that my customary role as jinx and source of mala fortuna did not come into play; That is, my favored athlete did manage to win, albeit not in a way she, or anyone, liked overly much.]


Actually, I was babbling even before Serena was subjected to that IDIOTIC foot-fault call by The Timid and Conniving LinesWoman. No, the smashing of her racket at the end of the first set didn't set me off -- surprising, I know, given my reaction to Gonzalez yesterday.


No... it was Wozniacki's tennis dress. She is the second woman in the tournament to be a fashion disaster in what can only be described as a Failed Dropped-Waist Contraption. And it was beige. Ecru, if you like. Sand. Café con leche. Whatever.


All that beige really brought out Caroline's pale visage and blond hair.


Yes, I know that the dress is from the new fall/winter Adidas line by Stella McCartney. It certainly does not look bad on Wozniacki, a beautiful girl. But imagine it on your average woman. Imagine it on La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore, for instance.


I'm sorry. No, I'm not! It reminds me so much of a schoolgirl's jumper, deliberately ugly, with a band that bisects the wearer at precisely her widest point. Oh, and then let's amplify that impression with... RUFFLES. Quite the philosophical construction -- all business up top, very hip, spare, monosyllabic, c'est-à-dire masculine -- and all fluff down below, very flouncy, excessive, babbling, c'est-à-dire feminine. Oh, the dichotomy. Oh, my. My.


Again, put The Castafiore in it and suddenly even the umpire would be howling "Foul! Foul! Fashion fault!" Alternatively, the tennis audience would cry out, in alarming syncopation, "My eyes! My eyes!"

Oh jeez-louise.  She is really gearing up;  She's deep into her favorite basketball chant-and-step routine, which has a rhythm that Bianca also employs to lend a pleasing cadence to her housework (an equally seasonal event):

f'blasticball! f'blasticball! allez, dooook-uh! allez, dooook-uh! [shuffle shuffle]

f'blasticball! f'blasticball! allez, dooook-uh! allez, dooook-uh! [shuffle shuffle]

A Good Night [repost]

the last of this series of reposts, each evidence that there is nothing new under the sun, I chose this one over 9,579,323,042 nearly identical others because my beloved sam-i-am is featured in it, asking for "an under." i don't know how he and i devised that whole "under" thing, or, for that matter, any number of other unique communications -- i just know that that was a huge part of sammy's charm and that i miss him. o readers, i am having such a hard time.

and yet? on the food network, this week's iron chef america challenge involves tongue (duck, lamb) and cheek (halibut, beef). tongue tartar, anyone? one of the judges just opined that he was looking forward to "the textures." i can relate. i really can.


i am working on several new posts, and if i can keep from deleting them, they should appear atop these nasty old reposts within the next few days.


tongue and cheek, ew.

*****     *****     *****     *****     *****     *****     *****     *****

Lemonade from lemons? Me? Not likely. Still, it being one of those days, I am trying to find some good in it, and am trying to *be* good, which is the considerably taller order.

I was up all of Saturday night from pain, but was very distracted from it by a rocking Australian Open men's final. While part of me feels so bad for Federer, things being, for so long, seemingly equal. Now, though, with this Grand Slam on hard court and Federer being well (he had mono last year), Nadal is clearly the better player. Yes, I know, "on any given day..." As a tennis fan, I am thrilled with this rivalry. I am thrilled by any hard fought five set match. Shoot, I am one of the crayzees that dearly wishes the women could move from best of three to best of five, as well. There should be no issues with conditioning in today's competitive tennis world. Anyway, it has been 21 years since the last five-set Aussie Open final -- Pat Cash versus Mats Wilander. 21 years. Wow.

I dozed through the women's final the night before! P-i-t-i-f-u-l. Something needs to give with the women's draw as the finals, more and more, seem to happen in the quarters and semis! Safina? Why did she even show up? Who wouldn't have preferred seeing Serena Williams and Jelena Jankovic battle it out? It seems like the departure of the Belgian contingent has taken away the magic. As usual, the Russians and Serbs are coming... I just wish they'd hurry up and establish themselves.

Serena's nose must have grown a yard. This is what she said after the match:

"Dinara was hitting the ball so hard that I had to go for broke, that was all I could do to stay in there. Dinara, thank you so much for putting on such a great show for women's tennis." I don't allow "OMG" on my blog... but if I did, this is where I might be tempted. Williams' wins the Hypocrisy Award and I am sure Safina might have picked up on this wee bit of condescension.

My brother the Grader Boob and I are always in close contact during tennis Grand Slams. Some people rely on birthdays, Christmas, those times of year. Not us. He told me last week to expect our Xmas gifts on Wednesday, and that my birthday cadeau might come next year. I wish we could agree to abolish gifts altogether.

I don't know what he is teaching this semester... I will have to wait, probably, until his first professorial meltdown. I always get to hear about those while they are still fresh! For some reason, he thinks I have wisdom to share. Ha.

I wonder how the other Brother-Unit, Tumbleweed, did over the weekend, what with all the betting activity on Super Bowl Sunday. (He's a bookie.) He emailed me that the thing he dreads the most seems to be happening with increasing frequency -- elderly folk trotting up, and saying, "I've never bet on anything before in my life! So how does this work?"

Last night, I spiked quite the temp and between that and lack of sleep, I was fairly miserable. Hot and cold, shivering and sweating, I prayed for some rest. And I got it -- only in hourly spurts and with cats. The Felines were in on it, I swear.

Sammy was chief prosecutor of the war. Marmy took the roll of Head *Ack*er and she seemed to enjoy standing on my chest *ack*-*ack*-*ack*ing away. Occasionally, she hissed -- a new behavior she is trying out. It's effective, garners her attention, but the attention is confused -- we've no clue what she is hissing about and suspect them to be gratuitous. Even the other cats ignore these verbalizations, fairly rolling their eyes in boredom. Should she add claws to the act, that will change, for sure, as she is well known for her deadly accurate slashing ability.

My Little Idiot, the Dobster? He is sent into the fray when I am alert enough to have a Cute Reflex. Dobby is disarmingly precious, and knows it, but as he is a certified Little Idiot, he cannot be obnoxious about it. I hate to be "one of those" pet owners? But? Dobby is perhaps the cutest, most intelligent of all domesticated cats. Ever.

I'm glad to have *that* settled.

The Felines are a wonderful gift from God and a fantastic source of comfort when I am so sick -- and terrific bearers of fun and distraction always.

They are so accustomed to my reclined body that they treat it much like an edifice. There are ports of entry -- they all want to hang out under the quilts and blankets, curl up under my raised knees -- and holy cow this is starting to sound like pet porn...

Anyway -- the concept of asking for "an under" must be understood. While it is true that a cat could burrow under the quilt from any perimeter point, the only correct and point-worthy entryway is over the left shoulder. And they know it. So while they might each half-heartedly attempt a foray via the feet, or under an elbow, they know that the One and Only True Path is along the left clavicle. (I have to stop saying "shoulder." I don't have any freaking shoulders anymore. I may *never*, at this rate, have a shoulder again. I am likely to be forever shoulder-less. Does anyone remember the "ruth-less" episodes of Firesign Theatre? I must keep laughing, I must keep laughing, I must keep laughing -- in between bouts of deep despair.)

Oh, Jesus. How did I get stuck on my woe-is-me again? The cats -- back, *ack*-*ack*, to the cats.

So they have learned what amounts to "knocking" at the door. Sure, they first attempt to get what they want without having to acknowledge B. F. Skinner, but they end up knocking. Sammy is the most endearing at it, I don't know why. He has always been able to project this very shy look and that's the look he adopts -- he drops his head and peers up at me with "big eyes." He waits until I ask, "What do you want?" and then, he takes his paw and taps several times on the ersatz shoulder. He also understands when I say, "I'm sorry, there is no Under under here." At those moments, he changes looks, adopts one that is pretty haughty, turns and stalks away.

The cat knows there is an Under under there and that I am just being petty.

Apparently, last night, The Felines decided that my penchant for sleep was me being petty. yet again. And for the first time, "knocking" knew a new context: waking me up. It's hard to explain the incongruety of my nascent dreams as they attempted to incorporate this physical *thud* *thud* into some sort of cogent storyline. Near nightmares? More like Kitty Cauchemars!

I found a way, ultimately, to make them stop. Surprisingly, it involved kibble. After a feeding frenzy, we all napped until 9:30 am. I started the day off with a temp of 100.6.

It's afternoon now, and I am topping off at 101.3. Not that great of an increase, but this is on top of Tylenol and ibuprofen. And it is all happening despite my daily dose of prednisone. I don't understand the dynamics of it, but most of my doctors will tell me that it is "impossible" for me to have a fever on prednisone. Well, all of this effing impossibility has been going on, almost DAILY, for over 14 months. I am ready for the impossibility of fevers. The banishment of sweats. The disappearance of dehydration. And emotional lability. And INSOMNIA!

The ceiling has probably not yet been met -- as it usually peaks in the late evening.

Most of the day has been spent meeting physical needs, checking tedious things off a tedious list.

Folding clothes, washing clothes, towels, sheets, washing dishes, putting up dishes, a little vacuuming (the price of having three cats), some dinner prep. Plus, I ate an organic apple and a small bowl of kettle popcorn, drank one diet cola and lots of water. Gee whiz, how can I complain about daily tedium?

I am not "supposed" to be doing most of these things... but here at the Manor deep deep in the Tête de Hergé? It's hard to get good help!

I am sure that I don't help my pain levels by vacuuming -- and wheelchair vacuuming is, in a way, more demanding than reg'lar vacuuming. But I assure you, it beats the upset that will happen should I have to see cat hair on my favorite raw silk pillows for one minute more than is necessary. The same goes for dinner -- having a good, healthy dinner with Fred and Bianca beats the heck out of some sad microwaved stuff eaten alone. Besides, Fred's cholesterol is sky high and someone has to counteract frozen pizza and sausage being added to anything edible. I love him. I want him to live forever, and healthily. Vibrantly. Joyfully!

Every fifteen minutes, I stop and rest. Sometimes the rest period lasts 24 hours! Not today, though. Today, I am dedicated to the proposition that Retired Educator can be worn out and, being worn out, sleep.

Where is all that laughter coming from?

The lack of sleep is hell on CRPS/RSD. I have had a severe worsening of it in my right arm, which figures, I suppose, since it seems the infection has returned there. But I also get to reexperience the symptoms that I remember from the very beginnings of the disease -- the shooting, lightening-like electrical impulses to individual toes, for example. They rarely occur when I am not febrile, infected, fatigued. I experienced many more tics and spasms when this tired.

There is a funny side to it -- for when it hits, either the shooting pain or the tic/spasm, I cry out involuntarily, and it is loud -- short, and loud, not unlike a BARK. Fred will roll his eyes but, at least, knows never to ask "What's wrong?" Nothing pisses me off more. I don't know why... it is just that I spend almost all my time fighting pain and part of me feels that he ought to know that -- he ought to know what is going on. Yet, given that I end here, and he begins there, how could he?

In two days, I see the orthopedic surgeon again. The poor man. He did my right shoulder replacement back in 2005, then removed the prosthesis last August -- needing two surgeries to get what he felt to be an acceptably clean field. He removed the left shoulder prosthesis in December... and now is going to have to go back in on the right side to remove what appears to be an infected shoulder spacer. In the interim, suspicious pain has set in in my left hip and lower back. My bloodwork sucks -- but just as in the preceding instances, nothing grows on cultures taken from these regions. Whatever is infecting me remains unknown, despite four aspirations and despite clearly infected samples taken during surgery and before antibiotics. Oh -- antibiotics! After each surgery, I have had 6 weeks of i.v. vancomycin.

As I said, "poor man." He is tops in his field nationwide, and I trust his skills implicitly. That is why I am so scared -- because he cannot forsee how this will end. He told me that he can see us chasing the infection from bone to bone, joint to joint. (Initially, we thought the infections were restricted to all of my orthopedic hardware -- then he discovered it hiding deep in my left humeral shaft... It literally exploded when he began to investigate. So osteomyelitis has been a new term to add to the list. This apparently means something -- I just don't know what.)

If the pathogen, be it bacterial, fungal, or whatever-al, were known, I think he would feel much better. So I don't know -- do we schedule this next surgery as we have the others, in haste, or could I possibly wait a while? I had hoped to be able to really rest and recover in this down time, but that isn't happening. Pain, fever, discomfort, and increasing disability and depression -- THAT is what's happening. Hopefully, and yes, probably, he will lead the way and be able to tell me what is best -- because I am so far down that I am not reasoning all that well. It shows even in my writing in this blog -- I barely recognize myself.

During the writing of this ridiculous post, I am glad to report that Sam-I-Am sought out, and received, permission for An Under. He is currently ensconced under a bright yellow blanket and a lovely, worn quilt -- and under a pair of aching, burning knees. He radiates a warmth that I really don't need but whose message of camradery I do embrace.

The Fredster, for his part, bought a DVD to watch, and some comfort snacks (whose cholesterol content I will have to approve). More importantly, he is willing to hang out with me. Even La Bonne et Belle Bianca has invested herself in the effort.

Good cat. Good partner. Good friends.

And, hopefully, a good night.

off to the showers

I've been stuck in bed for four days now, and sad to say, it's the best place for me. Every hour, I try to get Sammy to eat and drink, settling for a bite, downright giddy should he show more interest. Getting out of bed and into the wheelchair is so painful that I bypass Salty Tears and go straight to Total Despair.

It's not my shoulders, I don't think, because they don't hurt more than normal -- and my fever is actually higher than is usual. If you really want to know, I think it's a delayed reaction to the losses achieved by virtually every one of my Wimbledon favorites.

Yes, from the Belgian women [Vera Zvonareva just defeated Kim Clijsters] to sexy Andy... from... Oh, hell. I cannot get over Andy's loss. That was likely the blow that inflamed every freaking one of my osteoporotic joints. Huge congratulations to Yen-Hsun Lu, of course. Ranked 82, unseeded, the Taiwanese player's win was his first in four years of Wimpleton competition.

There is so little known of him that you will quickly become inured to the fact that his dead father was a chicken farmer. There are only so many ways that even the most talented of journalists can find to say "son of a chicken farmer."

Roddick and Lu had played three matches prior to this, Roddick winning all three. I confess to not paying great attention to this meeting, as I suffered from Assumptions.

Still, my interest flickered when the second set went to a tie-breaker. And again, when Roddick's return of service stayed perfectly flat. The last set was clearly his best, too late. Darned son of a chicken farmer!

When Roddick responds defensively to a lesser player playing hot, he opts for predictable safety, and fails to convert, fails to aggress. He just generally fails. So while his play since returning to competition after his knee surgery truly is excellent, the mind and an inhibited strategy cannot be trumped.

Lu, on the other hand, went with a more zen approach: “Today I just take a time, serve regular, and stay with him, try to find a chance and to win the set, set by set, set by set, until end, I shaking hand and I win. Yeah, I just don’t think.”

Lu's next opportunity for mindless advancement? Novak Djokovic, in the quarterfinals.

Is there an answer to why Andy only managed to convert one of eight break opportunities or is it as simple as complaisancy, and perhaps the last piece of his particular puzzle?

Clearly, he has improved tremendously as a result of intensely rehabilitating his knee. When he is "on," there's nothing finer!

No, complacency is the wrong word. Not self-satisfied, not unaware of trouble or danger.

Not non-chalant, either -- coolly unconcerned or indifferent. Not without warmth or enthusiasm.

I am at a loss. The danger is that I will choose an outside agency -- the wind, the sun, the stress, maybe even Yen-Hsun Lu, himself.

Never underestimate the son of a Taiwanese chicken farmer.

Now that all my picks have been eliminated, whom do I now choose to jinx? Let's see... I think I'll go out on a limb and choose Serena (Venus was eliminated this morning). What can I say -- I am a daredevilish sort. On the men's side, anyone but Roger, please. I love Nadal, but am very fond of Soderling. So... anyone from that side of the draw, I guess!

Berdych, I don't know at all. Ranked 13, on paper, he doesn't look to stand much of a chance against Federer. The great news is that the paper won't be playing. The awful news is that, after his shakey first two matches, Federer has cranked everything up a notch, and pretty much destroyed Jurgen Melzer on Monday.

The dirt on Berdych is that he tends to choke... if ever there were an occasion amenable to choking, I am guessing that the Wimbledon quarters is it. *

Okay, well, I am soaked in sweat. I am going to head for the shower to desalinate.
If that wasn't already a word, it is now.


* Okay, so this would be me, a day later, eating my words. Yum, yum! Not only did he not choke, Berdych won. Meaning that he elevated his play, looked awesome, and totally embarrassed Roger Federer, who proved less than sporting during his meeting with the press afterward. Instead of acknowledging Berdych's superior play, he produced a litany of his physical woes, and claims to have "[given] the match away." You don't get to Federer's level of competence without a healthy ego, but it would be nice to see some humility. Berdych earned his win today with deep and powerful shots, great movement on the court, and great serving. Congrats to the Czech!

Djokovic will face Berdych in the semifinals, and Nadal takes on... MURRAY! Yes, he finally has broken through and you know the Brits must be going crazy...

The other shocker today -- Serena and Venus Williams were ousted from doubles competition by Elena Vesnina and Vera Zvonareva.

The women's semi is set up as follows: Serena Williams vs. Petra Kvitova and Vera Zvonareva vs. Tsvetana Pironkova. That's right -- no Venus, no Kim Clijsters, no Justine, no Maria Sharapova. It's almost as if only Serena got the memo this year...

And, just because this is my blog and I feel like it, I would like to renew my plea for women's play to extend to best of 5-set matches. Slow-starters are often doomed in the 3-set system, and matches can end in a ridiculously short period of time. Wozniacki was out in 46 minutes! Billie Jean King has been calling for parity for over 30 years now... It's time to listen to her. In 2007, she was interviewed by NPR following the Wimbledon Committee's decision to provide equal prizewinnings to men and women players.

ROBERTS: There's an argument to be made that women tennis players play best of three, men play best of five. Often the women's matches are not as tough because there's not as much depth of field and that it's not equal work. So we're not talking about equal pay for equal work. What do you - what's your response to that argument?

Ms. KING: Well, first of all, in the entertainment business you don't get paid by the hour. And secondly, we've always been willing to play three out of five sets and if anyone knows the history of Wimbledon, they would know that when women first started to play back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, we did play three out of five. But you have to remember, we played in a corset, a full-length dress, couldn't show our ankles or our wrists. and I think one of the women that was participating back in the old days fainted or didn't feel very good and therefore the all-men committee decided that they would only let us play two out of three sets.

ROBERTS: So they shortened the sets instead of foregoing the corsets?

Ms. KING: You got it.

John Henderson took on the topic during Wimbledon 2008:

The origin of women playing three rather than five sets goes back to when sports were run exclusively by men who took the patronising view that women, poor dears, could not possibly compete for as long as their male counterparts.

This attitude is changing in other sports, particularly in athletics. For years, the Olympics allowed women to run no farther than 800 metres - the 1,500 was not introduced until 1972. Now women run all the distances, including, of course, the marathon. Britain's world-record holder Paula Radcliffe has shown conclusively that stamina, which has been defined as simply the guts to go on, is not a gender thing by doing a faster time than all her male compatriots, as well as female, in the London Marathon.

Stamina, the guts to go on. I like that.

the match that would not end

i just had to document that the score is 55-55 in the fifth set.

that's right. "set." as in, tennis set. fifth, as in, there were four that came before.

mahut versus isner, the longest game ever... dastardly even. to say these guys are tuckered (even though the match has been spread over two days) is a ridiculous understatement. play has now run over the 9-hour mark.

the quality of the *serving* alone is awe-inspiring.

the first 60 or so games, i thought "how cool to be witnessing tennis history."

(now i am kind of embarrassed for whomever wins -- and so bummed on behalf of the loser.)

now it is 56-56... 157 games in the match so far! holy moly*, guacamole!

chapeaux, all around.

6/24/2010: {CONGRATULATIONS TO ISNER! the two had to come back on a THIRD day and the match ended up lasting ELEVEN hours, five minutes... this is one that will be long on the record books. the final fifth set score? 70-68}

* [T]he origin of the word Moly... comes from Homer's Odyssey. In book 10, Hermes gives the herb to Odysseus to protect him from Circe's incantation. Homer describes Moly by saying, "The root was black, while the flower was as white as milk; the gods call it Moly, and mortal men cannot uproot it, but the gods can do whatever they like."