Awkwardly Social

When you check in at the House Ear Clinic, there is a sign that basically says, “Look, we know you’re here because you’re having some ear problems, let us know if you need us to come tap you on the shoulder when we call your name, because you very well might be too deaf to hear the lady call you.”  I felt good that I was at least not so deaf that I couldn’t hear the lady call my name.

First, I had to get a hearing test.  It was hard, y’all.  I am terrible at the Opthamologists office, when they’re like 1 or 2, this or that, and in this one, it’s not a multiple choice.  It’s just, can you hear this?  We don’t tell you when to expect it, do you hear it?  Anything? How about now?  What about this?  Can you repeat this word?  (What word?)  And on and on.

She lead me back to the waiting room and I told Seth I was completely fucked that I had to repeat words and I couldn’t fucking HEAR them.  And there were no 2nd chances!

We got called to the front of the waiting room in a group of 5 people, and I thought, what the hell is this?  Group hearing therapy?  But she separated us off and we waited in a freezing cold room.  Doctors like things to be cold.  I guess it’s better than sitting in a room and sweating.

When Dr. Goddard (the cutest doctor I’ve had in a long time.  Maybe ever.  Like farm boy, central casting, cute doctor cute) came in he told us he works with Dr. Friedman (the doctor I’d been referred to) and that he was going to look in my ear and he did.  And he said, “Oh, there it is, it’s not that bad.”  Which is way better than what my other ENT did, which was go, “WOAH.  THAT’S A BIG ONE!”  He talked to me about my ear and Seth made him blush when he did some tests by touching my face, Seth bellowed out, “Don’t you touch her!”  He giggled.

He told me that because of the location of the hole in my ear drum that surgery is recommended.  The reason is, skin can grow into my ear canal and fuck things up, like cause my face to go paralyzed.  And ever since this girl in high school had Bells Palsy, I’ve been afraid of facial droopy paralysis situations.  Then Seth asked him, “What would you do?”  And he said, “If you were my sister, I’d tell you to have the surgery.”  And I was like, I can be your sister…. I can be whoever you want me to be. (But I only said that in my head.)

Then, he pulled out my hearing test.  And he said, all dramatically, “So, let’s talk about your hearing.”  And I was thinking, oh here it comes, I’m gonna get fitted for hearing aids today.  He looked very serious, and he said, “In your right ear [the good one] you have above average hearing.”  And he showed me the chart, and I was like, “Are you saying, I’m like a superhuman in my right ear?  Like I have an A++ in that ear?”  And he smiled and said, “Yes.  Your hearing is excellent in that ear, and that is why you are perceiving the difference in your left ear, which is also still in the average range, just slightly lower than the right.”  Basically, I’m not only not deaf, I have one bionic ear and one average human ear.  Woo!  (I’ve been bragging about this all day.)

So we consulted with the surgeon, Dr. Friedman, and he used a fancy magnifying and projecting ear looking thingy and I got to see it on a TV screen.  The ear is kind of cruddy looking inside there.  It’s gross, and now I can’t even use q-tips.  I was contemplating how one cleans one’s cruddy dirty looking holey ear when Dr. F took a phone call wherein he had reason to name drop his brother.  When he got off the phone, Seth said, “You’re Robby’s brother?  I knew him when he was at Warner’s.”  And Dr. Friedman said, “Yeah, I want his life.”  And I was like, fuck that!  You’re a damned surgeon, he’s just the head of a billion dollar studio.  His parents must be so proud.

So, I’m waiting to hear (pun intended) when I’m going to have this surgery.  And when I’m going to get married.  Because there’s a whole health insurance situation that’s going to need to be squared away.  Who’s got their marrying license?

We were waiting for our dangerous garage door of death to make its rickety rise open, when a bug landed on my arm.  I yelped and almost smashed it, but looked down and saw a heavily spotted ladybug.

“Make a wish!”

I did and I’ll let you know if it comes true.

I’ve had a weird weekend.  Fits and starts, naps and late nights, books and movies, tv and radio.  It was a gorgeous day today and now that the Yankee game is over, I can relax or start worrying about not sleeping tonight.   Maybe I’ll do both.

I’m reading a slightly embarrassing self-help book for writers called Walking on Alligators.  In it there are daily (hourly?) meditations on writing and strategies on how to get your ass into the chair and write.  One of the strategies is to look at oneself and the demons you keep in your closet and use them.  If there are things you don’t like about yourself, use them in characters.  Build those things into story lines.  Use them in your villains.  Use them in characterizations of your family.  Use everything, good and bad.

I have a lot of bad.  I think if we’re honest we all can find a lot of bad.

My demons are plenty, but mostly I feel like shit physically right now.

I am dealing with a bum ear, and those that know me know I’m a terrible sick person.  I need a cave to hide in and someone to throw medicine and food at me from a safe distance.  I am having a hard time hearing on the left side, thrice daily drops poured into my ear canal, congestion, hives, sleepless nights, and all the while dealing with a new daytime situation that has me commuting to the dreaded valley and sitting at a table made of plastic.  It’s a hard knock life, for us.

So, if you notice a bit of extra angst on these here pages, I will just tell you, I’m working some things out, and this is my safe place.

On the upside, I got to go to the Dodger v. Yankee game tonight, something I had been looking forward to for a while.  And aside from the extra obnoxious vibe of Dodger fans, it was good to be back at the park.

The internet has been on sappy letter writing spree as women write (figurative) curlyqued cursive letters to themselves in their twenties.  Oof, we bloggers are a drippy feel-good lot.  And since I’ve been in a bad mood since I left the womb, I’m giving you  a letter to 20 year old Tamara that she would actually listen to, not some love song to a time gone by that 20 year old Tamara would have flipped the bird to.*

Dear Idiot,

1. Get rid of the overalls.  You are not a farmer.

2. Keep the Doc Martens, you are going to miss them when you’re 34.

3. No, that guy is not giving you mixed signals, asshole, he thinks you’re a chubby 20 year old who gets ugly drunk.

4. That guy too.

5.  None of those boys like you.

6.  Stop pining.

7.  And while you’re at it, stop eating fast food.  You are getting fat.

8.  No really, you don’t look good.

9.  Oh god, slam poetry?  You are so fucking embarrassing.

10.  Keep writing that stuff in your journal, though, it’s hilarious when you’re 34.  Like, seriously?  You thought boys just didn’t get you?  Believe me, they got you, you desperate embarrassing idiot.

11.  You will lose that freshman 15 weight in your 30s, but it will be hard because you’ll think you remember a time when you could just eat fast food 3 times a day, forgetting that you were fat when you did that.

12. If you stop wearing the same jeans every day, you’ll be forced to see what size you really are, and that size will make you unhappy, and you will lose weight.  Let’s get on that.  Before your metabolism takes a dive.

13.  That guy doesn’t want to marry you.

14.  Don’t worry, he doesn’t either (THANK GOD).

15.  Seriously, give up on the boys.  You’ll be fine in your 30s when you stop fucking caring so goddamned much.

16.  The no bangs experiment goes on too long.  Just let it go.

17.  And finally, it’s going to be ok, asshole, don’t panic.  Crying makes you look terrible.

Love,

Future You

*I haven’t forgotten the Ode to my 20s I wrote when I turned 30.  So, I was a little sentimental then.  Whatever.

We were staying in an apartment we rented from a stranger who solicited us in the train station in Prague.  We took the subway from a station 2 blocks away from our apartment to all the must see places listed in our Berkley guide to Eastern Europe in the Prague section.  That day we were supposed to meet Lara at 7pm at an Irish pub before we went out dancing with some cute ex-pats we met at an American bar watching the NBA finals. That morning we heard about OJ Simpson and his car chase.  We missed every frame of it.  We had no idea what our mom was talking about.  It sounded so… unimportant.

We were in an Irish pub when Ireland beat Italy, when Lara finally met us, 2 hours late, and said, “Y’all, we were robbed!”  Surreal?  I don’t know.  I remember feeling at the time that it was an important thing to be doing and experiencing, so far away from home, so grown up, so fucking clueless.

I’ve been listening to NPR in the morning and they’re doing a feature on people’s World Cup memories.  Mine are all about that summer in Eastern Europe when I was just a kid, traveling across countries I could barely point to on a map a month before.  Watching a sport I hadn’t cared about since I was a kid on the AYSO team, the Burros.  One time, as a Burro, we were told our uniforms didn’t fit with AYSO uniform standards because our team name was printed on the front of the uniform.  We, both girls and boys, stood around doing stretches and warming up, without our shirts on while our mothers hastily patched over the team name.  I distinctly remember feeling like it wasn’t fair that the boys didn’t really care that they weren’t wearing shirts, and we girls, did.  I remember wishing I could crawl under the grass so no one would look at me.  Shirtless.

Will I remember anything about this World Cup?  I hope not.  I want this one to remain as uneventful as all the others since 1994.

Seth and I are walking down the wide hallway of the ICU.  On the right a control station, serious looking nurses watch giant screens, people’s stats roll by like a stock ticker.  On the left, patients lay in beds, tubes and wires connecting them through the walls to the monitors and the computers and their heart beats are streaming across the screen.  Ahead of us, Seth motions to the man with a black stocking cap who looks 90 years old, “He’s been having trouble all day, I think his people are saying goodbye.”

We visit with Seth’s dad, we say stupid things and make dumb jokes.  We talk about the Lakers and the nurses and the monitors and Marshall’s heartbeat ticks by on the screen and we watch while Seth rubs a popsicle on his father’s lips.  We say goodnight but not goodbye.

I cry out in agony when the alcohol hits my inner ear canal.  I’m curled in a ball, and Seth touches my back.  We’re on our way to the emergency room again, I’m shot through with pain on every bump.  I try to keep my head still and breath through the stabbing jarring impossible pain.  I sit alone on a bed in the ER.   I have a prescription for pain killers and $100 ear drops.  The nurse sits on the bed next to me and explains my medications.   Her body is touching mine, I almost move away, but she’s so nice and she’s just handed me a pain killer, I like having the contact. Seth is finally allowed to come back and sit with me.  I tell him my news, burst ear drum, I can’t hear on my left side.  I’ve had two doctors look with astonishment at my inner ear and I just want to be home in bed.

We get home and I am glad to hear that his dad is doing better and will be leaving ICU.  Seth walks through our bedroom.  “You remember the ancient guy with the black stocking cap?”

I picture the old man at the end of the hall and nod.

“He died last night.  He was 30.  He was there, now he’s gone.”

“Where did he go?”  A sad smile and a nod to the movie we both cried during a few weeks ago.  “He was that young?”

Seth walks to the end of the bed and looks at me, “I don’t know why I thought of it, but I can’t get it out of my head. I just keep thinking, we were some of the last things he saw, stuck in that bed, staring down that hall.”

I don’t often think about the end.  We will get there when we get there and I’m ashamed that there are days when I wish I could get there sooner, but most days I am glad I’m laughing and crying and strong and weak and here.  It’s so short.  We’re here so briefly.

Seth’s dad is back in the ICU again tonight, and we’ll go back to the long hallway with the monitors and the hard cases, the serious nurses and the young doctors.  All I can think is don’t go anywhere, please stay here.

I’m not a strong swimmer.  I tell people I can’t swim, when really I mean I can’t put my face in the water and swim a regular stroke that makes me look like I know what I’m doing, not like some crazy person flailing around in the water.  When one of my friends e-mailed me and a group of work friends that she wanted to sign up for the Malibu Triathlon in September as a relay team, I told her to sign me up, as long as I didn’t have to do the swimming part.

She e-mailed back that night saying there were no team spots available anymore, but if we still wanted to do it we could sign up individually through the Team CAF website.  The Challenged Athletes Foundation is an amazing non-profit organization that helps athletes without limbs, with physical disabilities and other injuries get the equipment and artificial limbs they need to return to the sports and activities they love. I signed up and hoped no one would donate so I wouldn’t have to swim in the scary ice cold Pacific in mid-September.

On Saturday night we got a phone call from Seth’s mom.  His dad fell and was taken to the hospital with a broken hip.  He had surgery on Monday morning and by Tuesday we were all sure something was going on.  Either he had completely given up and was prepared to stay in his hospital bed until the inevitable end or… we didn’t know what.  They took him for an MRI and discovered he had a stroke.  They aren’t sure when.  They know it wasn’t during the surgery, they suspect it’s what caused his fall, but it could have been the night after the surgery.  They know that it was minor and that part of his frontal lobe was affected, but that his recovery should be full.  No motor skills were affected, no language or cognitive areas were affected, he just feels really sad.  I would too if I was stuck in a hospital being told part of my brain was dead.

I signed up to do the triathlon, and agreed to raise $500 for the CAF foundation so I could participate in the race.  I can’t really swim, I haven’t been running lately, and my fear of biking in Los Angeles has me taking leisurely bike rides on quiet Sunday afternoons, but that hasn’t stopped me from being a complete moron and signing up for the triathlon.  Thank god my friend is doing this as well, because if I drown in the ocean all by myself I’ll be really pissed off.  But most of all, I know that if I don’t keep being active, if I don’t continue to use this meat machine I’ve been given by a higher power or a magic man with a beard or a chance firing of proteins coming together, I’ll be really pissed off someday laying in a hospital bed wondering why I never got off my ass and learned to do a stupid breast stroke.

You can donate to my efforts if you see fit by visiting my donor page - click here.  Or if you can only afford to cheer me on with your moral support I’d like that too.  If you live in the Los Angeles area and want to come see me on the day of the race, (September 12th, 2010) if for no other reason than to see my ass in padded bike shorts and a wet suit which is bound to be comedic, I would absolutely adore that.  I’ll keep you posted on my efforts.