Carpal Tunnel, Klonopin, and Crazy

The thing I have been fearing most for my entire life happened to me in the spring of 2010–I Was struck by a pernicious nerve disease that was sure to render me disabled.

 Ever since I was a little boy I was obsessed with inexplicable cramps, pains, twitches, and other odd things our bodies do. To the average person these sensations were the normal course of living a life in a biological body made up of cells, chemicals, and nerve bundles–but to me these were signs of the impending doom of great suffering, disability, and yes, death!

My earliest bout of hypochondriasis (which I’ve learned is the real medical term for health anxiety) was the morning in sixth grade when I woke up with a severe cramp in my lower right side so severe I was barely able to stand upright. When I stumbled out of bed, and felt the sharp pain in my side I knew it was cancer and soon I would be lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by friends and loved ones sobbing, “Oh he is too young! What a tragedy!” To which I would reply something very profound like, “I have loved you all.  God speed and I will be waiting for you on the other side.” But  by the time I was struck with this intestinal cancer, my mother was used to my phantom illnesses (and the not so convincing phantom ones when my only goal was to play hookey) and said that I either had to go to school, or go to the doctor. This was cancer, and there was no playing around on my part, so I readily volunteered and we headed to our family physician, Dr. Nelson, who was a friend of my parents. After arriving at his office he asked me to lie down on the exam table and pull down my pants. As he talked to my mother about his upcoming vacation and some remodeling he was doing to his house, he slipped on some latex gloves and  lubed up a finger with KY Jelly. “What are you doing?” I asked, unaware of what was about to happen to me. “Just lay down,” he said, “try to relax.”  And then shoved his finger up my ass, dug around for a bit  and said: ”I think he has appendicitis.” While this is certainly a better diagnosis than cancer, it wasn’t better than the ass raping I had just experienced. Up until that point in my life, I had no idea that anything was stuck up someone’s ass. Ever. And to a twelve year old boy it was the ultimate violation and before I was able to think about the various complications of an appendectomy, I fainted. Right there on the floor of the doctor’s office.

When I awoke, Dr. Nelson said he couldn’t be one hundred percent certain of the diagnosis but on that day we were lucky because Dr. Roja, a proctologist from Victoria, was at our small county hospital seeing a patient, so he suggested my mother rush me right over and have the good doc take a lood. The ride over was filled with shame and despair–I had been violated in front of my mother, who found my ass raping and subsequent fainting spell a bit humorous, and as soon as I was able to gather my thoughts, I was able to consider the myriad complications of my impending appendectomy. Bleeding, infections, ruptures, discovery of some terrible malignant tumor deep in my intestine what was making my appendix hurt so.

 When we arrived at the hospital I was robed and rushed into an exam room by several nurses who cleaned my butt and put me up in a holster of some type to make the exam easy. This wasn’t the sly and unexpecting ass raping I experienced in Dr. Nelson’s office. No, this was a systemized affair with many players, including three young nurses who, along with my mother seemed to find my terror humorous. Lo and behold, here comes Dr. Roja, who was probably 6’7″ with fingers the size of bananas. I gripped the bed with fear when he snapped the latex glove on his hand and lubed up. After several excruciating seconds of him digging deep in my bum, he pulled his finger out, yanked off the glove and said to my mother: “He’s constipated.” No cancer. No appendicits. Constipation. The cure: two Ex-Lax and a couple of hours on the toilet that night.

Fast foward twenty-five years and countless other near death experiences, including cancers, strokes, and rare and virulent illnesses and we arrive in spring 2010, when, after several weeks of clomping up and down the halls of the capitol in dress shoes, I developed pain in both feet. Explainable, right? But shortly after that, I was at the gym one afternoon bench pressing when all of a sudden I felt a pop on both hands and they began to burn like they were on fire. And for the next few months, for the entire session, I hobbled around on my sore feet and constantly rubbed my aching hands. Clearly something systemic was happening to my body. What could this be, I wondered? At first I wasn’t worried–I’ve been a very active man and although I immediately catastrophize any pain, I’ve gotten used to them coming and going all over my body. But this lingered. And lingered. And lingered. When session finally ended on June 23rd, I was no better off, so I began what would be an epic journey of doctor visits, tests, prescriptions, and therapy.

It began on July first when I had back to back appointments with the foot and hand doctors. The diagnoses: metatarsalgia in the feet and muscle/ligament strains in my hand. The cure: rest. Easy enough. I follwed the instructions, the feet got better, and the  hands seemingly did as well. But then Chris and I went to England for two weeks and my hands began to burn like fire after carrying my large suitcase up and down stairs everyday as we moved hotels. When we got back I went and saw a different hand doctor, who I will refer to as the Evil Dr. B_____. He said I had tenosynovitis and put me on a prescription of Celebrex and Prednisone. This was my first true plunge into the world of pharmaceuticals and I will just say this about these two drugs: they are the devil. Prednisone spiralled me into a world of insomnia and anxiety that I couldn’t believe was possible. It was terrible and although the I took both medicines for only one week, it took me a very long time to get over the trauma of the side effects, one of which was a growing belief that something was terribly, terribly wrong with me. And my feet began hurting again. So I consulted the internet and discovered that I had rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, along with some ALS thrown in for complete destruction of my body and life. And this began an epic medical odyssey that would include blood tests, body-wide xrays, an EKG, nerve conduction studies, electromyography, and an MRI, and it would also include the administering of various medicines besides the prednisone and Celebrex, including Ambien, Mobic, a cortisone shot, Zoloft, Clonazepam, Lunesta, Lortabs, and a round of antibiotics. I began talking to everyone about my hands and feet pain and the response was seemingly universal: “That sounds like something systemic!” and “I’m really worried about you.”

So I found a general practitioner, who I will call the Dr. Wood the Good, who gave me a complete physical in September, including xrays, blood work, and an EKG. Results: excellent health. He told me that I had been hard on my body and after years of heavy physical activity it needed to rest. I followed his advice and rested easily for about a month, but the hands and feet didn’t get better. I went back to the Evil Dr. B_____ just to see if there was anything else I could do to speed up the recovery of my hands. This time the prognosis wasn’t good, as he told me, “There’s nothing I can do. Obviously, you have something systemic going on.”

Systemic. “Well, I went and had a full physical just last month! All my tests came back ok!” I argued

“Well, maybe your doctor is not trained well and maybe he doesn’t know what he’s looking for,” he barked back at me. “It’s been months and your hands and feet aren’t getting any better. Clearly, there’s something wrong with you.”

“Like what? What could it be?” I pleased.

He shrugged. “It could be anything. Rheumatoid arthritis, gout, lupus, maybe even a malignancy.”

I knew it. I knew it. Here it was on the Friday afternoon. The dreaded diagnosis I had been waiting for. “Doctor, you’re scaring me,” I said.

He shrugged again, “It is what it is. I’ll refer you to a rheumatologist.”

This was terrible, this mysterious disease that was well on its way to destroying my life, slowly hobbling and crippling me. Before long I’d be in a wheelchair going from specialist to specialist, and after that I would be bedridden and spoonfed until my feeble body finally collapsed under it’s own malfunctioning destruction. NERVE DISEASE!

I rushed to Dr. Wood the Good first thing Monday morning and told him he’d missed something–the hand doctor had put the pieces of the puzzle together. I had something seriously wrong with me! He shook his head and said, “he’s a hand doctor.” After a careful examination, he said that maybe it was carpal tunnel syndrome and was going to refer me to a neurologist. I argued that I had seen two hand doctors and neither thought it was carpal tunnel. Well, maybe Dr. B_____ is the one who isn’t trained so well, he snorted.

So, in order to save some time and space here’s the chronology of what happaned next:

-The rheumatologist says I don’t have any disease.

-The neurologist conducts a nerve conduction study and an EMG on both my hands and feet, which show I have severe compression in my wrists, nothing wrong as far as nerves are concerned in my feet. Thus, he diagnosis carpal tunnel syndrome in my wrists and mechanical problems in my feet.

-Dr. Wood the Good gives me a cortisone shot in my wrist, which provides no relief. Also recommends occupational therapy, which I attend several times a week for several weeks.

-When these two attempts to resolve the carpal tunnel dont work, he recommends surgery, but I request a second opinion from another neurologist to make sure it is indeed carpal tunnel. This doctor says no, and says I should get an MRI–AN MRI!!!!–to see if there is any sort of demylenating disease going on. (At this point you should be able to infer the up and down pattern of my mental health. I am convinved I have something seriously wrong with me and that crippling disability is just down the road. I am no longer sleeping, I’m obsessing about my health, I’m not interested in anything, and I’m severely depressed. I began crying to Chris every ten to twenty minutes that I have a nerve disease.)

-The MRI comes back perfectly normal, but the second neurologist still doesn’t think it’s carpal tunnel so he puts me on Zoloft and Klonopin, the latter of which is good for relaxing but I’m scared of pharmaceuticals. Zoloft makes me absolutely bat shit fucking crazy. Twitching, headaches, unstoppable hunger.

Still none of these efforts stop the pain and the more I use my hands and feet the more they hurt, so I break down and go to the foot doctor one more time (plantar fasciitis is the diagnosis this time and again the cure is rest) and schedule my carpal tunnel release surgery. Dr. Hubbard performed the surgery, and it was a breeze. Great drugs, great hospital staff, in and out prededure, and instant relief from my carpal tunnel symptoms. And what’s best is that the scars look like I’ve been crucified, so I get to play Jesus often, which is super fun.

It’s been fourteen weeks since my surgery and the healing has been long and slow. After several weeks pain free, the hands became sore and irritated and still are. I’m told it can take months to heal completely but I want some relief NOW! My mental health depends on it. It’s still difficult for me not to think I have somthing wrong with me. I miss painting and lifting weights. Cooking causes me discomfort. Typing irritates my hands. My anxiety is still pretty amped. I still turn to Chris, hold up my healing hands and cry, “NERVE DISEASE!” (He’s really sick of that game.) Since the Zoloft was a terrible fit for me, Dr. Wood the Good suggested I try some Celexa and see if it can’t alleviate the anxiety. He seems to think that if I stop obsessing, then my symptoms will be much less. I tend to agree with him. But at this point my mind has become a beast of its own will, completely untrained and undisciplined. After months of focusing on every little twitch, pain, and ache, I’ve developed mental habits that are very very bad for me. But guess what? I’m still alive. While the physical takes a long time to heal, so does the mental. I’m thirty-eight and a half years old now. I’m not close to death, but it is getting closer. I don’t want to be one of those people who freak out at every little physical setback, I want to be one of those courageous people you hear others talk about, the ones who despite not being able to walk, are record-breaking swimmers, the ones who can’t hear but yet write music, the ones who have a terminal illness but yet still enjoy the here and now. I’m a long ways from that, though. I’ve got much to work on to be that courageous. Through this whole process I’ve felt weak, and even humiliated at times, but I’ve learned my lesson. I’m a little stronger and a little braver, and I’m gonna be just fine.

My Paintings

So I said I was going to start painting this year as my New Year’s resolution. So far I’ve done four pieces and here they are in order of their creation. More to come soon!

The House Where the Devil Lives

You can see him between the railings on the porch, beneath the aloe and hen-and-chick plants. A dark shadow. This is where he waits and when you walk by he thrusts his head through the railing and lets out an endless string of furious cries. He is pitch black–and when I say black, I mean BLACK. I used to think it was just a dog on the front porch, but now I know that this creature is something else–confined to his little front porch of a hell, he knows nothing but the railings and the world of freedom and movement that dangles outside, torturing him. His cries are not angry, but madness and despair.

My dog and I walk this street everyday, sometimes several times. Rooster is a great dog and I walk him without a leash. The neighborhood kids run out to pet him and say, “Hey Rooster!”. Charlie, a few houses over leaves bones and scraps in his yard and we always have stop for Rooster to nose through the grass and find the treats. But when we reach the fringe of the neighborhood something changes in my dog, and me. We get quieter and pick up our pace. When we go by the house, the fur along Rooster’s back lifts and his ears fold back, long before the Devil even knows we’re approaching. I wonder what Rooster thinks as we go by and he slinks away from the house as the Devil lashes out through the railings. I know that he thinks what I do: what a place of misery and unhappines. That poor Devil, who was once a dog, forever behind that prison of latticework and railings and aloe plants, never feeling grass or dirt, never trailing a scent, except his own shit and piss, his brain rotting from not being able to be the kind of creature that God intended him to be.

My neighborhood is one of the oldest in Baton Rouge (and Louisiana for that matter), designed by Captain Elias Toutant Beauregard who decided to use his land holdings in the late 1700′s to lay out a town designed on the Grand manner of european cities–a town with plazas, formal gardens and public buildings. The grid of the neighborhood is one of the few remaining examples of the Manor Style of urban design in the United States–the most famous one being Washington, DC. We walk this neighborhood in the afternoons, cris-crossing along the streets named after famous Europeans (Napoleon, St. Charles, Maximillian) that run east-west and those named after European territories (Spain, France, Louisiana) that run north-south. Once a place for upper-echelon whites, it became a mostly black neighborhood during the “white flight” that proceeded integration, but is now a “transitional” neighborhood in which young professionals are moving in and remodeling the homes, boosting property values. It’s the most wonderful mix of all types of people. It is a beautiful place, just blocks from the Mississippi River and, as you walk along the crumbling sidewalks, you can feel the very pulse of the North American continent as it drains down from Canada and the Ohio Valley. The streets are lined with crepe myrtles and this time of the year the delicate fucia petals pile up along the curbs and in the cracks in the sidewalks, and litter the hood of your car and bunch up on the windshield wipers. It’s funny how something so beautiful can also be so messy, I think.

The devil does not believe that Beauregard town is a beautiful place. Sometimes at night when I sit on my porch overlooking the neighborhood, I can hear his mad cries a few blocks away, barking at what I don’t know. Another dog? The moon? At the lattice and aloe demons that now must constitute his mind? I wonder what kind of person gets an animal as big and beautiful and intelligent as a dog and locks them in such a prison, only to throw some food and water their way and otherwise neglect them? For what, for protection? To guard the house?  What fury would be unleashed on the world should that lattice come down?

The Rasslin

Last night after I walked the dog and grilled some chalky chickenbreast for dinner (it’s difficult at 36 to stay lean) I settled onto the couch for an evening of a learned PBS documentary. Much to my disappointment they were playing Night at the Pops or some such nonsense, so I cruised the channels, going from an annoying (albeit chirpy) Rachel Maddow to the Food Network (God, I HATE “Iron Chef”), to the History Channel (enough with the Ice Truckers!) to the Myth Busters Network (formerly knows as the Discovery Channel). None of my regulars were working out for me so I resorted to going up the dial (do we still use that term in the age of remote controls?) through each channel when suddenly I was captivated by a beautiful and half-naked specimen of a Greek god emerging through some pyro special effects to the music of some really obnoxious grunge metal. It was WWE Monday night Raw. The Greek god, none other than Randy Orton, aka “The Legend Killer”.

  

Now, there are many things I can find amazing about the whole wrestling concept, the most obvious being the homoerotic nature of the “sport”. I mean, these guys come out in the itty bitty bikinin underwear and get so close in each other’s face they might as well be kissing, the proceed to roll around half-naked grabbing and clutching each others’ half-naked bodies. Not to mention that other than the hair on their heads, they are shaved completely and totally smooth. And they have fake-n-bake tans! The only reason the “sport” is not more appealing to the gay population is that other than the naked muscley men, the aesthetics are not that appealing–cheesy costumes, bad tattoos and hair, silly dialogue and even sillier plots. Plus, we gays are not that keen on sports to begin with, much less a fake sport. While no gays that I’m aware of are loyal fans of wrestling the crowd at these events probably aren’t fans of any gays. The people in the audience look to me like the exact same crowd that go to those monster truck rallies at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center, where the trucks with 20 foot diameter tires run over and crush a row of ten cars. There are ladies with bleach blond hair (of the hydrogen peroxide kind) and beer bellied men in cutoff shirts and John Deere caps holding signs that say such inane things as “Tristan 3:16″ and “U Don’t C Me”. It is not unfair to judge by their excitement that they think the whole affair is real.

Last nigth I was especially lucky because it was the premier of Freddie Prinze, Jr. as the newest host of WWE Monday Night Raw. I’ve always thought that Prinze was a handsome guy, but I couldn’t name one movie he was in. Judging by the delivery of his lines last night it’s no surprise he’s not making movies anymore and instead has this WWE gig. I’m not sure how these things work in the wrestling world but there are characters (i.e. Orton’s name is “The Legend Killer” because he attacks the old champs of wrestling, shaming them into old age, or something like that) and there are plots, most of them very simplistic. Anyway, so Prinze announces that tonight he’s pairing Randy Orton with John Cena in a match against Chris Jericho and The Big Show. Well, apparently Randy and Cena are blood rivals and upon hearing this news, Orton busts through the pyrotechnics and tells Prinze that he refuses to be paired with Cena. Prinze stands his ground despite the fact that the scowling and growling Orton is right in his face. Prinze demands that Orton follows his orders. Apparently, you don’t mess with Legend Killer Randy Orton, even if you’re some B-list dead ender movie star, because Orton picks Prinze up and bodyslams him. Pow! Prinze is on the mat, the crowd is booing, Legend Killer stands in defiance. The announcers then act like they have to cut to commercial break real fast. When WWE Monday Night Raw returns, Prinze is still on the mat with some referees attending to him. The announcers say in what is supposed to be an ad-lib-caught-on-camera whisper, “It’s his neck, it’s his neck.” Wow, it’s so much fun! There’s nothing like homoerotic sillines to get a crowd going. Finally, Prinze is carried out of the ring and all the raw action commences.

I used to work with a guy named G___, who was the real deal bona fide coonass from New Iberia. This was back in my oilfield days. He was a referee at the weekend cockfights around the state. He and his wife, who he affectionately called “Well Done” because she suffered some burns on her face when a lawnmower blew up, loved The Rasslin (as they called it) and blocked off every Monday night to watch (this was in the ’90′s) Stone Cold Steve Austin whip some ass. Well, as it so happens, Stone Cold grew up in Edna and G___ and his wife became enamored of me just because they thought I had some sort of familiarity with Steve, even though he was several years older and had left Edna by the time I was in middle school. Anyway, Tuesdays at the office talk was nothing but The Rassling. G___ had his favorite women, who are known as the Divas and his wife loved Stone Cold. I was always amazed at how The Rasslin affected their lives, how they referenced it in many conversations even when the subject had nothing to do with it at all. Most tellingly, they’d say that the only time that they “cut” (this is a term frequently used for “sex” in New Iberia) was after The Rasslin. Something about the staged spectacle, the silly plot lines, the raucous crowds, the half-naked bodies, compelled them to have sex. “Oh, we cut good last night after The Rasslin,” G___ would tell me first thing Tuesday morning. “We watched [so and so] fight it out and then I hit that thing real good!” Well, I can’t say that it affects me the same way, but I can say that I found watching those guys wrestle around titillating. I’ll be watching it again on Monday nights for some raw action, especially when WWE Champion Randy Orton is on the mat defending his title and killing some legends!

Edna, Texas

Rooster and I headed to Texas for my summer vacation a couple of weeks ago. This year has been brutal to the part of the state where I was born and raised–months and months of no rain–and you feel this the minute you drive through Houston and you hit a wall of heat so powerful it saps the moisture right out of the cab of the truck and quickly every part of the vehicle is radiating the same immense heat. It’s almost surreal right now, everything so hot and so parched. The river is dry and the cattle stand in the shade of the trees all these long days of summer and then, when it’s finally cool enough in the evenings for them to move, there’s no grass anywhere. As they scour the bone-dry earth for something to eat with their muzzles, the force of their breath blows the dust. While it was a great trip home and lots of fun, there was a pervasive sense of depression about the place. The heat and drought were the anchor of every conversation: “Is it dry in Louisiana like it is here?”, “Have yall been getting rain?”,”Dubby, we’ve been so hot and dry”. Questions like this made it seem as though Louisiana, or anywhere else for that matter, was like another planet, a strange place where water inexplicably fell from the sky and grass grew from the earth. Here the people only knew the sun and wondered why the rain had left them.

When I was a boy I stayed at what then could only be described as a “daycare” run by a couple known to everyone as Momma Helen and Pa Dewey. I write daycare in quotes because it was nothing like the facilities of today–we kids spent the day locked outside in her enormous back yard with nothing but spoons and a few old Tonka trucks, and were fed sandwiches made of American cheese, white bread and miracle whip along with some chee-tohs and red punch to wash it all down with. It was the most wonderful and imaginary of places, almost a child kingdom where adults were as rare as the rain now is in Edna, and Momma Helen loved her kids more than anything and we were always welcomed. My parents then were still young and it wasn’t rare for them to drop me off in the wee hours of the morning before they headed down to the coast for a day (or weekend) of fishing, and it was even less rare for them to pick me up in the wee hours of the morning after a night at a party. Momma Helen was a country woman whose dentures clacked everytime she spoke her colloquial English and I loved her very much. She always told me that I was one of her favorites and I often went to her house on the weekends when the other kids weren’t there just so I could climb up into her chair and nuzzle in her bosom and the click click click of her dentures would soothe me to sleep. One of my favorite tricks was to ask her every single day what was for lunch, to which she’d reply without fail, “Poke and grits…poke ya head out the window and grit your teeth!” I still have no idea what poke and grits are but sometimes I like to answer the question the same way when someone asks me what I’m cooking.

Momma Helen ruled her house with a firm but sweet hand. If you violated one of the few rules that governed the place, like biting one of the other kids or being a tattle tale (“Nobody likes a tattle tale,” Momma Helen would admonish), you either had to sit at the table for an unspecified amount of time or you got your mouth washed out with soap. During the hottest part of the day, Momma Helen called us inside where we were forced to sit and watch cartoons until the unrelenting summer sun passed far enough in the sky to give some reprieve. The house had only one air conditioner, which was in the living room and this is where Momma Helen retreated to watch “the stories” amongst her collection of dozens of china dolls that peered with their porcelein eyes from the rows of shelves. We kids sat in the sweltering heat of the den, waiting for Momma Helen to announce it was snack time and unlock the back door and dole out some sort of delicious popsickle or ice cream we could then resume speeding our Tonka trucks down our spoon-dug dirt roads to our imaginary houses made of twigs and leaves. When it rained, we huddled underneath the wall-less tin shed that housed our toys. As long as it didn’t thunder or lightnening, Momma Helen would let us stay outside, and then we’d pretend to be Indians and perform our rain dances.

Rain rain go away.
Come back another day.

Back then in Edna we used to get daily afternoon showers during the dog days of summer, just like we do here in Louisiana. When the rain stopped falling and the sky cleared, we thought it was us and the power of our imaginations that moved the clouds. We looked around in wonder at what we had done before lining up our Tonka trucks and pushing them down the now muddy dirt roads, laughing and playing until our parents came to pick us up.

Delicious!

From Death, I Return; or, I dreamed of Sonia Sotomayor

Wow it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything on my blog and I continue to be impressed by how many many people have commented on my pitiful few postings. What can I say, I’ve been busy. The 2009 Louisiana Legislative gavelled to order on April 27th and at the same time I died. Not the kind of death that turns you back into worm food, but a Catholic kind of death in which one lingers in some weird purgatory of endless committee meetings and mindless deliberations on such issues as whether or not Louisiana needs to do more to protect the freedom of religion in the state (The answer is yes, according the votes of our legislators) or whether we should appeal the motorcycle helmet law (an issue which rumbles through every legislative session since it’s repeal several years ago, and which will return next I’m sure, as it failed). Yes, there was a budget shortfall of somewhere around $1.3 billion and yes, there will be more budget troubles in the upcoming year, but that’s not the issue that consumed most of the time and energy of the session. I don’t want to say much here about political issues because I can get fired–you can ask me my opinion when I see you. But I don’t really need to because the 2009 Legislative Session ended in the glorious spectacle of Hurricane Chris performing his best-selling rap song “Halle Berry (She Fine)” before the House of Representatives. Mr. Chris was called to the floor by his godmother, Representative Barbara Norton (D-Shreveport) who asked for a “Pernt” of Order for Personal Privilege and then introduced the young rap star. I’ll post the first two stanzas:

Bow bow
Bow bow bow
Bow bow
Bow bow bow
Bow bow
Bow bow bow
Hurricane
Bow bow
Bow bow bow
Bow bow
Bow bow bow

Bum bum bum
Bum bum bum
Bum bum bum
Bum bum bum

And with those opening lines, Hurricane Chris artistically and accurately captured the political rhetoric of this past legislative session. It was wonderous.

So what about me, the walking dead? Purgatory doesn’t end with a siren call in the form of a young rap star, nor did it end with the bang of the gavel at 6pm on June 25th. I stayed dead for a few days, including the following Monday (which I took off work) and the rest of the short holiday week (July 4th) in which I tried to purge the legislative demons by spending my time catching up on my reading (8 issues of the New Yorker behind!). No, I officially awoke from death just before the holiday when I was visited in my sleep by Sonia Sotomayor. I have been very interested in the future Supreme Court Justice, obviously because of her politics but also because I’m just fascinated with the Court in general and the possiblity of being vested with that sort of power–being the final word, the final opinion, having a lifetime appointment in which no one can remove you no matter how crazy you become, etc. (Maybe I’m even a little bit jealous?) Anyway, in the dream Sotomayor was just walking past me in some white moo moo dress and well, for supposedly being so brilliant and powerful she’s really frumpy. I thought to myself in my dream, “Sonia, girl, you need to get rid of that dress and do something with that hair, you’re about to be a Justice on the United States Supreme Court!” I guess her frumpiness had occurred to me in real life but I hadn’t given it much thought. So, in my dream as I stood judging her in that moo moo, she looked my way but seemed not to notice. She just walked on by. In my insignificance, I was dismissed! And by such a homely looking chica! I tossed and turned, drenched in sweat, wrestled with the sheets and cried out, “I’m here Sonia Sotomayor! Look at me! I’m smart! I’m not frumpy!” And then I woke up. Not just from my dream but also from my purgatory. I awoke refreshed and renewed, with a new sense of purspose and direction. No more committee meetings this year, no more debating whether or not we should save higher education, no more wrangling over whether or not healthcare providers should be able to refuse to treat someone based on whether it violates their moral sensitivites. I am free!

So today is the first day of a string of months in which I don’t have to worry about legislators and their bow bow bow bum bum bum-ing and instead can worry about me and what I love. Sonia Sotomayor came to me in a dream and showed me that I shouldn’t be insignificant, that I need to cultivate the things I love (my book, my paintings, my realtionship with Chris). So these months of relative freedom I plan on doing just that. Look for more insightful postings on this blog, a book manuscript, several oil painting masterpieces, some great bread, and just all-around fabulousness–and I won’t be no homely chica while I do it, either!

Office of Communication

By popular demand I’ve been asked to post more on this blog. Other than putting a link on my facebook profile I didn’t tell anyone I was making the thing and yet, in the last week, I’ve had three friends tell me that they enjoyed reading it (You read my blog? I asked in disbelief. Shout out to you S.S. Titiania, my old improv friend from Drama Class in High School!) It’s a great feeling to think that people are reading the bullshit you write and then ask for more!

I love my job title and feel like it’s more than just a career position. Much more like a judge or something. Just like my great-uncle, who was a judge, was called Judge Joe years after his retirement, I think people will refer to me by my title for the rest of my life. “Hey there, Communication Specialist Dub!”

More communications to come soon…

UPDATE: A correction: it won’t be my formal title Communication Specialist Dub that I’ll be addressed as for the rest of my life, but rather Communication Specialist Mr. Lee. Thanks for reminding me how I prefer the formal. What was I thinking?

Riddles…

I wonder what this sign in the window means? Is it a riddle of some sort? Just WHO exactly are they trying to keep out???

Bread of Heaven

I decided to cook on Sunday night. I made a lovely chicken and sausage gumbo to go along with the delicious French bread I made from scratch. I’ve been making homemade French bread for about 4 years now and have just arrived at the point where I’m making the kinds of loaves that I want. Other than the few things I’ve read, this has mostly been a self-study. My goal is to bake the kinds of loaves that when you bite into them, the crispy crackle of the crust immediately transports you the the French countryside. Baguettes (as they are called) are the most difficult form of bread to make. With only flour, water, yeast and a little salt, it is entirely up to the baker to create the kinds of texture and flavor that he desires. A recipe for classic French bread is only an approximation–everything from the weather, to the age of your flour, to the type of yeast and how many live organisms make it into the dough affect the outcome. So it’s a skill I’m quite proud of and there’s something symbolic about the bringer of bread. With a couple of baguettes, a few bottles of wine and 12 of my gay friends over, I feel like Jesus!