My Lumpy Valentine

We’re sitting at the kitchen table, reading the Saturday newspaper amid coffee cups and empty cereal bowls, and enjoying the sunshine coming through the bare branches of our mimosa tree. Across the street, our neighbor is wearing a red t-shirt to hang his Christmas lights. “How very California-Christmasy,” I think. “Too warm for a jacket but he’s got that holiday spirit.”

“So don’t freak out, but they found a lump on my mammogram,” Lori says, watching my face. “The doctor thinks it’s nothing, but they want to do a biopsy. Just in case.”

Against every impulse, my jaw remains clamped shut for ten fragile seconds as I carefully set down my mug of coffee. My neighbor vaporizes before my eyes. I’m grasping for something mature and supportive to say to my sweetie instead of jumping up from the table and screaming. I’m trying very, very hard to not freak out.

I exhale slowly and give her my best “OK, let’s-hear-it” look and ask a few questions about what, when, and where. We smile and reassure each other that there’s no reason to worry. Several years overdue for her first mammogram, I nagged her into scheduling the appointment. Now hazy feelings of culpability mingle with a froth of fear creeping up my throat. I know this lump is not my fault but this road-trip may be scary and painful just the same. And what if it is …something not benign?

The biopsy place is on the far side of a huge medical center. We sit in an unfamiliar waiting room and scan the pinched faces of the men and women staring at bad institutional artwork, waiting their turn to be poked and perforated. Suddenly, after 12 years together, Lori and I find ourselves back in the first weeks of our relationship, joking and gentle, asking instead of assuming, whispering sly comments about cute earlobes and the nurses’ ugly shoes. A nurse calls Lori’s name and steers her into a changing room and I stand in an over-lit hallway, fighting back tears as I look at anything except the posters advertising cancer support groups.

The procedure was brutal but as quick and painless as possible. Waiting for the results was much worse—for me, anyway—but I realized that waiting for bad news is like a lottery ticket in reverse. Instead of imaging the possibilities, you take note of what is real in this moment. Today, as far as I know, I am in perfect health. That could change tomorrow with a single phone call. Today, my neighbor is standing on a ladder, hanging his Christmas lights, and I marvel at all that he has: agility, mobility, appetite. Oh yes, and the desire to celebrate the holidays.

22 Things You Should Know About Me

1. A frosted Pop-Tart once saved my life.

2. My winter skin is the exact color of regular Band-Aids. If I were in a Band-Aid forest, I would disappear.

3. I went to great public schools in Cleveland Heights, OH from first to seventh grade. (1960-70s)

4. One reason I’m becoming an oncology tech is so I can afford a horse before I’m too old to ride. My dream is a multi-week horse-packing/camping trip deep into the backcountry.

5. I have four sisters, three brothers, and about 25 first cousins. I look vaguely related to everyone in Ireland.

6. I always knew my life would hit “reset” when I turned 40 years old. I was right.

7. My father owned a 1920s fire engine. He took it out on Memorial Day and sometimes the Fourth of July and gave rides to kids all over the neighborhood. We took turns hand-cranking the siren.

8. I’ve come to believe most forms of charity are deformative to both the giver and the recipient.

9. I was fired from my first job—at age 15—for insubordination.

10. I’m in genuine awe of people who choose to teach junior high school.

11. I tutored literacy to murderers and rapists at San Quentin Prison. I taught gardening concepts to the children of meth addicts. Yet I can’t get my idiot dog to stop barking at squirrels across the street.

12. I love a really great piece of cardboard.

13. I have degrees in anthropology, commercial art, fitness and nutrition, horticulture, and the Wilton Cake Decorating Method.

15. For my senior project in high school, I took small aircraft flying lessons.

16. I like to read newspaper obituaries.

17. I wrote a complete novel for teens/young adults (as yet unpublished).

18. If you think I’m funny—then I’m really, really funny. I can make people cry from laughing; now I want to see if I can make them wet their pants—followed by falling down the stairs.

19. I once experienced a propane explosion that blew off my eyebrows.

20. I’ve married the same fabulous woman three times.

21. I went on an archeology dig in New Mexico and worked on a 2000-year old Anasazi kiva. We found lots of animal bones, some broken pottery, and a human skull wedged in a chimney shaft.

22. I’ve never once regretted my college degree in anthropology or the liberal arts.

Dear Miss “Nice’n Easy” Clairol:

I am writing to inform you that your product, Nice’n Easy #120A, does not create the “natural dark golden brown” hair color pictured on the box.

I spent about 30 minutes in the hair-color aisle, holding up one box after another to the side of my head and checking out my reflection in the sunglasses display. I’ve used hair color before — my gray is past its debut and putting in a regular appearance — but this was my first time using your product. With a description like “natural dark golden brown,” how big was the risk?

The first sign of trouble was the eerie resemblance to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” shower scene as I rinsed the dye out of my hair. Never before have I seen so much color going down the drain, made worse by the feeling I’d just murdered Barney. My God, the purple! The purple!

When I stepped out of the shower and looked in the mirror, my heart nearly seized. I told myself, “It’s still wet. It always looks darker when it’s wet, and it’s not really that black...” As my hair dried and became darker still, my eyebrows completely vanished and my eyes became two dull, dime-sized buttons. And when did these jowly lines appear next to—what the hell!—age spots.

Now I have never been a “hair-and-nails” kind of woman. I’m grateful to have straight teeth, decent skin, and facial features where they belong. I’m more of a wash-n-go girl who ditches her brassiere whenever possible. Mirrors don’t hold much fascination for me but for the past three days, every time I catch a glimpse of myself, I don’t recognize this strange woman wearing my clothes as she rushes out the door for work.

I tutor K-8 children at one of those big, noisy group-education places, so you know my sensitive side was beaten out of me long ago. Some kids are easily startled, however. It was as though they couldn’t reconcile the picture with the sound on a television: Miss Tisa seemed the same but something was seriously off. The older kids took one look at me and asked, at 372 decibels, “Miss Tisa, did you DYE your HAIR BLACK?!” I’m sad to say, these older children received uncommonly poor scores on their quizzes that day.

The last time my hair was this dark, I had a poster of David Cassidy above my bed. What did I think I’d be doing when I was 48 years old? Not learning anatomy and algebra, trying to qualify for radiography school while negotiating mortgage payments and health care benefits. When I was a recent college grad (the first time around), I imagined myself living a comfortable life with dinners at hip restaurants, nice clothes, reading The New Yorker book reviews in a big back yard filled with towering elm trees. Maybe helping the downtrodden or some such. I’m sure punching a clock or worrying about retirement never entered my mind.

Well, reality is a touchy topic for a woman who keeps trying to scrub off her age spots. At the moment, I look like one of those “older” women who dyes her hair too dark and carefully draws on some eyebrows before pulling up her support hose. The one who keeps a tissue shoved up the sleeve of her sweater, just in case.

With the exception of my stupid hair, what else would I change at age 48? What do I wish I’d done differently? Spent less money on crap from Target, that’s for sure. Flossed more and slept more, maybe said yes to more adventure, but I’m actually OK with how my life’s turned out so far. Even the hard parts — divorce, death, and related mayhem — were worthwhile events. Dyeing my hair back to the color I has as a teenager has a way of making this girl take stock of her blessings.

Miss Clairol, I’m not looking for compensation or even sympathy. It’s just that the promise of Nice’n Easy #120A falls short; instead of looking younger, I just look prematurely senile. But I’m not worried; it’ll grow out soon enough and hey, my hair isn’t gray — those are my highlights.

My Kids...

may be homely, and perhaps even a little stunted, but at least I don't have to worry about the cops bringing them home at 3 am.

Bummer About Your Stroke

So I’m standing under the fluorescent lights in the “greeting card” aisle at the drugstore, and I know I’m not going to find anything even remotely close to what I need: “Sorry to Hear About Your Alcoholism-Induced Stroke.” I find myself humming along to John Denver on the Muzak™ as I scan the standard categories for ideas, trying to imagine creative ways to shoehorn my grief and frustration between the Hallmark sentiments:

Miss You. Well, not really. When I see your name on my caller ID at 3 am, I know you’ve miscalculated the time-zone difference. Again.
Get Well. Not likely.
Cope. Getting warmer, though these cards usually imply the death of a family member, a friend, or a pet.
Encouragement. This will have to do. I choose a card with an earnest Maya Angelou inscription suggesting there may be hope in your future yet.

Nearly 30 years have passed since I met R. at a keg party. He was my college soul-mate, a port in the storm, a non-judgmental rock I could lean on. At least that’s what I thought back then; in fact, R. was the only person I’ve ever known who could match me drink for drink. Consuming large quantities of beer and Jack Daniels (or vodka, scotch, or whatever was available) wasn’t a diversion, it was our vocation, and something we practiced every single day with gusto. Naturally we became friends despite having few common interests outside of intoxication.

After graduation, years passed and we lost track of each other. My drinking got exponentially worse. When I was 29, I dreamt that God was sitting on my chest, trying to suffocate me since I seemed determined to kill myself anyway. I quit drinking soon after that. Years passed and I stayed sober, got divorced, came out of the closet, and left high tech. I met a nice girl and settled down to a comfortable, middle-class life.

Two years ago at Christmas, I decided to contact R., figuring he had to either be sober or dead, his skinny frame surely incapable of withstanding two decades of unremitting alcoholism. To my surprise, he was neither sober nor dead. I told him about Lori, my landscape design business, and the book I was writing. R. told me he had no family or friends left, despite living in the city where we attended college and where he’d lived his entire life. He couldn’t exactly remember, but he’d been in and out of rehab at least seven times. After we hung up the phone, I knew in my gut that R. was describing the life I might have had. We were no different in our alcoholism with the exception of that “moment of clarity” when God tried to kill me.

Two months ago, the phone rings with an unfamiliar area code on the caller ID. My friend R. says hello and makes chitchat before blurting out, “I had a major stroke.” His roommate found him unconscious on the couch and called an ambulance. After the hospital, R. was placed in a nursing home for long-term care and physical therapy, where he’s now a ward of the state and living in a wheelchair. He is 47 years old, the same age as me.

Don’t ask me to explain why one alcoholic gets sober and another doesn’t. “Sobriety” feels so random and unpredictable and has absolutely nothing to do with merit or potential. I do think it helps if an alcoholic can imagine himself in better place without the alcohol. Maybe R. calls me because I represent a different way of life, or maybe I’m just someone who still gives a damn. Before our phone call ended, I gently asked R. if he thought his drinking had anything to do with his stroke. He replied, “Actually, no! It was the weirdest thing: after the ambulance came, they discovered a bottle of vodka in the freezer. I hadn’t even opened it yet.”

I waited a few days before I mailed the card. I wanted to send an inspirational and funny message; instead, I wrote, “You’re a schmuck. Get help. I love you.” I’m not sure Maya Angelou would approve, but until Hallmark comes out with a Bummer About Your Alcoholism line of cards, this will have to do.

April 2008

My backyard in Spring.

Ode to a Stainless Steel Coffee Carafe

You save me from cold, greasy java.

Reheated in the microwave two or even
Three times.
I swore I would NOT be like my mother, at least in the coffee department, but alas.
I failed.
Sparks popping on the souvenir cup from Princess Cruises,
The spiff mug from Lori’s job a few companies ago
Overheats like that bad, bad boss she had.

Sometimes, in a rush, I heat up a plastic to-go cup, even though it means
Certain Death and Cooties. Our planet suffers for my impatience.

Starbucks, Peets, Newman’s Organic, the Fair Trade stuff on sale
Splenda and some half-n-half,
A biscotti stolen from Lori’s stash
Java be not proud!

Our last carafe turned mean and bit me
One day as I washed it out I heard a clink
And I ran a finger inside the rim.
The cut was deep and the blood abundant as I cursed that
Ugly white plastic bitch and threw her in the trash.

The best Valentine’s gift ever!
$30 silver stainless steel coffee carafe
from Bed, Bath & Beyond.
From Beyond, my prayers were heard
No stupid roses or chocolates, please!
Send me something I really need!

O carafe! Nectar protector
Brushed metal exterior spotless and pure
Glassless and indestructible
Noon comes so soon and yet—
And yet—
Fresh, hot, and lovely you are
Like my little latte Lori!
You save me from cold, greasy java
Certain Death and Cooties.