Many things have come to me late in life and some of them are insomnia, a deep and abiding interest in anything sweet, bigger breasts, understanding how to really use a stick shift, allergies, creativity, and severe depression. There are other things but I've forgotten them.
There was a reason I thought I needed to sit down right now to write about things coming to me late in life but I've forgotten what it is. It's been that way all afternoon, ever since I took a dose of medicine which Doctor Doctor of the West Oakland Health Clinic prescribed for me a week ago. The last time I wrote about Doctor Doctor I was beginning to doubt that he was on my side, but I've been back to see him enough times now to know that I have nothing to fear.
Last week he gave me two drugs, Chlorpheniramine and Flonase, in an attempt to clear up the mess in my ears that allergies have created. These two drugs far surpass Ambien, which Doctor Doctor didn't want to prescribe for me no how much I whined for it because he felt it could make me walk in my sleep and get into real trouble, in their ability to put me to sleep. They also make me pretty stupid in the head. I believe this is the reason I can't remember anything.
For instance, I sat down to write but got up right away to let my two foster teenage boy cats into my rental house and as I let them in I realized I had forgotten why I'd sat down so I went on to do something else until I suddenly remembered that I was going to write about herpes, which is another thing that has come late into my life. Half a minute later, back in my chair in front of this computer, I'd forgotten I had herpes and that I wanted to write about it. By the time I remembered, I was so confused that I left this post altogether and didn't come back to it for a month and at this stage, I'm picking up where I left off.
During my hiatus from writing, I learned a lot more about herpes and how it isn't really something most people would write about in their blog. But what the hell, I decided, I am not most people and anyway, no one reads this blog so why not tell my blog about it?
Until I looked at Google's photo's of people with herpes sores, I had thought that this was my very first case of herpes. However, I recognized the itchy, little blisters I used to get on the tops of my fingers, starting when I was 12 and ending a few years ago and realized I've had herpes on and off all my life. This knowledge put a damper on the delight I felt at thinking I had such a youthful disease at my age.
One of the benefits of getting herpes at this late age is that I'm not bothered that my face looks as if the lower half has been gnawed at by small animals, but it certainly would have upset me when I was a lot younger and needed to be a guy magnet. Actually, I am still a guy-magnet with those bright red sores which are sure to get the attention of men who are drawn to openly infected women in their sixties.
Labels: allergies, herpes, prescription drugs

My Little Herpes

Many things have come to me late in life and some of them are insomnia, a deep and abiding interest in anything sweet, bigger breasts, understanding how to really use a stick shift, allergies, creativity, and severe depression. There are other things but I've forgotten them.

There was a reason I thought I needed to sit down right now to write about things coming to me late in life but I've forgotten what it is. It's been that way all afternoon, ever since I took a dose of medicine which Doctor Doctor of the West Oakland Health Clinic prescribed for me last Thursday. The last time I wrote about Doctor Doctor I was beginning to doubt that he was on my side, but I've been back to see him enough times now to know that I have nothing to fear.

Last week he gave me two drugs, Chlorpheniramine and Flonase, in an attempt to clear up the mess in my ears that my allergies have made. These drugs far surpass Ambien, which Doctor Doctor didn't want to prescribe for me no how much I whined for it because he felt it could make me walk in my sleep and get into real trouble, in their ability to put me to sleep and which make me pretty stupid in the head. I believe this is the reason I can't remember anything.

For instance, I had sat down to write but got up to let my two foster teenage boy cats into my rental house and as I let them in I realized I had forgotten why I'd sat down so I went on to do something else until, I suddenly remembered that I was going to write about herpes, which is another thing that has come late into my life. Half a minute later, back in my chair in front of this computer, I'd forgotten I had herpes and that I wanted to write about it. By the time I remembered, I was so confused that I left this post altogether and didn't come back to it for a month and at this stage, I'm picking up where I left off.

During my hiatus from writing, I learned a lot more about herpes and how it isn't really something most people would write about in their blog. But what the hell, I decided, I am not most people and anyway, no one reads this blog so why not tell my blog about it?

Until I looked at Google's photo's of people with herpes sores, I had thought that this was my very first case of herpes. However, I recognized the itchy, little blisters I used to get on the tops of my fingers, starting when I was 12 and ending a few years ago and realized I've had herpes on and off all my life. This knowledge put a damper on the delight I felt at having such a youthful disease at my age, since now I know herpes has little to do with youth and that it comes in many forms which I'm lucky to not have.

One of the benefits of being a lot older and having herpes is that I'm not bothered by this condition that makes my face look as if the lower half has been gnawed on by small animals, but it certainly would have upset me when I was a lot younger and needed to be a guy magnet. Actually, I am still a guy-magnet with those bright red sores which are sure to get the attention of men who are drawn to openly infected women in their sixties.

Shame

In September I was so crazy about writing posts on my new blog that I thought I'd never be able to stop, in fact one person told me I had written too many posts and should cut back, but that's one of the funny things about life: Sometimes a person can stop.

There is something I must do which I don't want to do, so much that my inner voices are telling me it is imperative that I write a post, instead. I'm pretty sure I've already written a post about this dilemma but I can't remember what it was that I was supposed to have done that I didn't want to do in September, so much so that I wrote about it. That's another funny thing about life: How much you forget right away.

My inner voice just told me, "Oh, for crying out loud, there you go again, writing the same stuff, over and over and over, no one wants to know about what you really should be doing instead of writing this post and no one reads this post anyway so why do you write it?"

My inner voice is always on my case. My inner voice muttered, "Shame on you!" last Thursday afternoon when a knock-knock on the glass of my front door interrupted quality time I was spending on my bed under a comforter with a crossword puzzle and my four foster teenage kittens. "Shame on you for being in bed on a weekday afternoon!" said my inner voice as I stumbled to the door to greet a stranger who looked like a Deadhead who asked me if I was who I am and when I said I was, he handed me an envelope with a Notice to Quit Premises in 60 Days in it. "Shame on you for being process-served!" screeched my inner voice as I watched the Deadhead walk away. He turned and waved and I waved back, wishing that he had the power to undo the process he'd served me with.

The sensation of realizing I've been process-served , and it's happened four or five times in my life, is similar to the sensation of realizing I've been hit in the face with a pie, and that's happened at least once. I wonder if it's the same feeling you'd have as you realize you're being thrown out of a moving car or that you've lit an exploding cigar: Shock. It's happening but you can't yet believe it.

When I was 19, I used to accompany a friend on his rounds as a process-server in seedy neighborhoods of San Francisco. I never saw the people he served but I assumed they were all men, deadbeats, skips, low-lifes. My friend and I thought it would be fun for me to serve a few. What guy would ever suspect that I, a beautiful young woman, asked to know their name only because I wanted to hand them an envelope that was going to wreck their day and possibly a lot of the rest of their life? It was mean, dangerous and exciting work and I got hooked on it and I never once process-served a woman. That is why, several years later, the first time I was process-served I felt ashamed, as if I was a deadbeat, low-life, skip of a woman. Actually I was being ordered to testify against someone who had stalked me and made my life miserable, but I couldn't shake off the feeling of sleaze I connected with having been process-served. Almost forty years later, it still feels sleazy.

I asked Google: Are there happy reasons to be process-served? There was nothing.

So now I feel shamed that someone doesn't want me to live where I've been living for almost three years, so much so that they've gone to the trouble of having a process server deliver the news. Am I that bad? No. Do I have a history of not paying my rent? No. Am I disorderly, loud, careless, do I sleepwalk, do I frighten the neighbors, do I ever make crack cocaine in my kitchen? No.

It's funny, the things a person can feel ashamed about. I knew a girl from Kansas who was ashamed that her cat had brought fleas into her home. "It's the stigma," she said. "In Kansas they look down on you for that."

I thought I'd finished this post until I remembered I never wrote about what it is I must do that I don't want to do, which isto gather up all the papers I need to take to a lawyer to protest this notice to quit the premises in 60 days. It took more than two months of looking on a constant basis before I found this place, and it was by chance that I found it.

I've got 45 minutes in which to write this post and it's going to be tough because I've got a hangover from not having blown my nose for six hours and from staying up too late watching YouTube.

There are many things I want to cram into this one post and they are bashing themselves against my brain, all wanting to come out at once in the same way the glop in my head that's been waiting for six hours for me to wake up wants to be let out when I have my first nose-blow of the day but I'm just not ready to do it.

I woke up with a cold a few hours after I went to sleep for the night after my birthday party ended last Saturday. Since then, I've been blowing my nose. There was plenty of coughing involved but it was nothing compared to the nose-blowing that's been going on for the past 8 days.

I want to write about the dream from which I was wakened just now, one which left me in a sad, lovelorn state. Its effect has been dampened by describing my cold but I won't let that stop me. In the dream, I had two roles: Observer and and actual star, a high-school girl in a rebound relationship with a tall, dull classmate. We were at a school dance where I was surreptitiously looking for my former boyfriend, and feeling annoyance with my new b.f. who was bossy. Whenever I was looking for my former b.f., I became the observer who had never before seen the b.f. and therefore didn't know who I was looking for. I, the teenage girl, was waiting for me, the observer, to spot him, hoping I wouldn't and hoping I would, all of which made for an emotionally tangled situation. My new b.f. and I strolled around the dance and came to the food table where high school girls were starting to make a chili con carne. One of them had just put a pound of bacon into a huge electric skillet. I wanted to know if she was going to drain off the grease, or drain off most and toss the rest, or use only the cooked bacon - there were so many things to be done or not done with that bacon, and as we were talking, my new b.f. disappeared, never again to be seen in that dream. I'll cut to the chase because there are 10 minutes left in which to finish this post: My ex-b.f. walked in the entrance to the dance as I was walking out. My teenage girl had to tell me, the observer, that this was him so we could get on with the dream. He was much shorter than my rebound boyfriend and he had a crew-cut with a large circle shaved into it, not very attractive, but he'd done it since we'd broken up. We looked into each other's eyes. I said, "Wait, don't go!", although I was the one who was leaving. He said, "Okay." End of dream.

Next on the list of things demanding to be said is that this morning I am taking my kittens to their first mobile adoption at the Home at Last site which will be located at one of the most trendy spots on Fourth Street in Berkeley. I will say, "Goodbye, my precious babies," leave before I get all wierded-out, and head across town to the Oakland fire training station where I am volunteering to be made up as a disaster victim and then instructed in how to act like one. When I was still going through menopause I was already a disaster victim and needed no instruction but things have settled down a lot and I need a refresher. With all the nose-blowing I am doing,

It's All About Me

I don't want to think that writing this blog has anything to do with exhibitionism, which is sleazy and cheap, which is not how I feel once I've completed a post and clicked “publish”. I always feel good when I've finished a post.

However, the part of me that pretends it doesn’t know that feeling good and exhibitionism go hand-in-hand is the same part that pretends I can’t gain weight while eating all the milk chocolate I could possibly consume for as long as I want, whenever I want.

Exhibitionism requires a public display, although it's often a private matter. For example:

Does Meryl Streep act because she needs the money? No! She does it because it feels good to pretend to be someone else in front of millions of people she never sees or has to meet.

Did Pablo Picasso create art because he needed the money? No! He did it because it felt good to create and to know his work would be seen by millions of people he never had to see or meet.

Did Angela Thirkell write basically the same book over and over and over because she needed the money? Possibly yes, but No! She wrote because it felt good to write, and she knew that thousands and thousands of people would read what she wrote and she would never have to see or meet any of them.

Do I write my blog because I need the money? Trick question, and no! I do it because it feels good. Out of the billions of people who get on the internet each day, surely one person will see it but I may never find out and that’s okay with me but really, I do think someone will read it. Or is reading it. Or has read it. If I play my cards right, I won’t know who it is was will be and will never have to meet them/it. I haven't really come to terms with this issue; it is enough now that I figure out how to edit my posts.

Now comes the question of the exhibitionist who masturbates in public, and to whom is he directing his work? The silly, shallow, self-absorbed side of me wants to think he's doing it for me, that it's all about me! However, I've never experienced the work of a masturbating exhibitionist whom I've previously met, not even briefly, who wanted to get to know me better. They've seemed to want to keep themselves to themselves even while exhibiting themselves.

One rainy winter night I was walking on upper Grant Avenue in San Francisco's North Beach when I saw a man sitting in the street between two closely-parked cars. His back was against the front bumper of one car and his knees were against the back bumper of the other car. He’d pulled down his pants so his bare bottom was on the cold, wet asphalt and he was jerking off. I continued walking a few steps until my brain registered what I’d just seen. I turned and yelled, "That is disgusting! Why are you doing that here?" He looked up at me through the rain, still keeping his rhythm, and said, "I can't help it. I have to do it. " It made him feel good, especially since he didn't know me.

Then there was the exhibitionist-peeper in a movie theatre in Los Angeles. He had to keep paying admission to movie theaters until he found one with an empty row through which he could crawl on his hands and knees, maybe even slither, on the filthy floor in the dark in order to gain access to women who were wearing skirts and watching "That Man From Rio", sitting with their legs up, knees bent, and feet on the back of the seat in front of them. My peeper got a long look up my skirt and we know what he was doing to feel good before I was able to tear my eyes from Jean-Paul Belmondo on the screen to investigate tiny flashes of light that kept coming from the floor, and jump up from my seat, trampling the person sitting next to me as I got out of our row to run up the aisle to the lobby where I was going to scream at someone to call the police because there was a pervert in the audience but I couldn't because I was suddenly speechless, able only to wave my arms as the peeper burst through the auditorium doors and into the lobby, and ran out of the theatre and into the street.

There’s a connection between these forms of exhibitionism but it is far too late at night to try to make it. I’ll bet someone’s going to not like this post.

Galliwampus today, Gloomiferous tomorrow

Can I, who have never written a piece of fiction that anyone has ever liked, write a successful, fictional account of my sixty-fifth birthday party? Let's see:

I arrived two minutes past our agreed-upon time at the north Berkeley home of my dear friend Juliet, her husband, Donaldo and their teenage daughter Gardenia, where my birthday party was to take place. Juliet had expressed an uneasiness that I would actually be late to my own party, leaving her to greet guests she'd never before met who might show up at the time the party was to start, which was 3 o'clock in the beautiful Saturday afternoon.

In my life, I had already been late to two important parties in my honor. One was a bridal shower for a wedding that didn't take place, and one was a wedding that did take place. I was proud of my prompt arrival for this birthday party, seeing it as a sign of of maturity and acceptance of social norms involved in - I'm getting sidetracked.

Juliet and I got crackin' at unpacking the food I'd brought, and setting out plastic bottles of mineral water I bought only out of fear that people would think me just too mean if I served tap water. After all, I wasn't providing a drop of alcohol for anyone, nor had I allowed even one soft drink because I don't drink them so why should anyone else, and they can be addictive, at least the one I like is and it is diet Coke which I drink whenever I can get my hands on it but do not keep it in my home. I can't even write about sparkling water with "natural fruit flavors", nor do I approve of fruit juices that aren't fresh-squeezed or pressed. All of this is yet another of the reasons my unborn children are lucky.

A person who normally would be unlikely to arrive on time and who did get to Juliet and Donald's house before any other guest arrived, and who was bringing my birthday cake, and the plates and forks with which everyone would be eating, was my dear friend Jayne. Her arrival was followed shortly by that of my dear friend Roverta and her two guests I had never met before, Ana and Leopold. The day of my party, which is not my actual birthday, was Ana's birthday, her 89th, so Roverta had brought a large birthday cake along with halvah, dolmas and tabbouleh. Donaldo and Leopold went outside to male-bond. Ana and Jayne had female-bonded instantly and were talking intensely, leaving Juliet, Roverta and me to get in each other's way as we tried to do everything at once until the doorbell rang, heralding the arrival of my dear friends, Capsy and Nervonica who came bearing an elegant eggplant terrine.

There was a problem with the drinks table which had been set up in a hurry with a few bottles of mineral water, a few glasses, and my dish of sliced fruit and fresh herbs which, I was told, no one knew what do to with. I realized I had expected my guests to know that the fruit and/or herbs was/were to be put into a glass and mashed around the bottom to release oils and juices, although I'd forgotten to add an implement with which to do the mashing, then ice and mineral water added, and that omission is what pushed me into a state of confusion that lasted for hours.

While Juliet wrote instructions on how to use the items on the drinks table, the female-bonded Jayne and Ana were at the cake and sweets table opening the box containing the very large cake Roverta had ordered for Ana's and my birthday but they ran into trouble and caused the cake to slide off its foundation and a large fault to split open the top and ooh, boy, Roverta was mad. I suppose no one should have opened that box until the right time, not even one of the birthday girls, although had I known what Jayne and Ana were up to, I would have been right there with them. Someone did a nice job of patching up the cake and afterwards we were allowed to finger up lashings of frosting that had wobbled off the cake which led to why not have some of that cake right now since there's a gap in the top of it that fairly screams it wants to be busted completely open. After I washed my hands thoroughly, I scooped up cake with one hand and ate it, and more. Juliet wanted me to use a plate, but it was my party and I'd eat with my fists if I wanted to.

More tomorrow.

Blog, My Best Friend

I love to write to this blog. It's my best friend. It always wants me to write on it. It looks right at me while I tell it whatever I want for as long as I need and it never interrupts, criticizes, plays devil's advocate, or holds up its index finger and mouths, "Wait. I have to take this call and I won't be a sec, really, don't forget where we left off." It gently corrects my missspellings and typo's, knows how to arrange itself nicely on the page. Its total acceptance of my words has given me a newfound freedom to not care very much whether I put the comma before or after the quotation mark and if my post is perfectly edited and will therefore make sense to all its reader.

When I used to write by hand in a journal, or type my thoughts on the computer, print them out and glue the pages into a journal, I would write about darkness, my depression, little gripes, loss, the imperfections of friends and acquaintances and their never-ending ingratitude for all the things I do for them, and the general sorrow of my life. But one day I after my annual and emotionally exhausting re-reading of the journals, I weighed them and when I saw I had over ten pounds of paper woe, I began to rip up those pages because I just couldn't read that stuff one more time.

It's not easy to rip up or dispose of ten pounds of paper with highly personal information written on both sides. At the time, I was living in West Los Angeles in the triplex with the smoking neighbors. I could have put the pieces in our recycle bin but if they were blown into the street while being hauled into the recycle truck, one would not know who might pick them up and read about my messy inner life so I decided to turn my life into objets d'art by making things out of papier mache. I was able to use up only two pounds of my journal before I tired of the process of making p.m.. I wadded the wet stuff into tight balls, let them dry, and put them in the trash. I eventually used some of the remaining eight pounds of journal to make a life-size wall hanging of a bride wearing an elaborate white wedding dress made of tiny scraps of journal. I thought she was beautiful and brought her to many art shows but no one bought her. By the time I was living in Bad Move, CA, the scraps of her journal-dress were so grimy-looking that I had to put her in the trash, too.

With blog, I am unable to write for long about unhappiness before an inner hand takes over the typing and writes about the truth of my unhappiness. Blog told me that at 43, I was still too young for a first marriage, that my husband and I were brave and sincere the night we spoke our wedding vows and we were devastated when we discovered we couldn't keep them and that we had to get divorced just like everyone else. I am assuming he was devastated but was able to recover far faster than I was because he got a girlfriend right away and started making friends in West Los Angeles which had been a vast wasteland of unfriendliness for us as a couple, and he moved on with his life whereas I was baffled about why his life and not mine was so damned fabulous. I was knocked off my feet by peri-menopausal misery and depression which are the same thing as far as I'm concerned, and my mother was in the early stages of dementia, and I couldn't make a friend to save my life. Blog tells me that I had every reason to feel miserable during that time and that my Mercury was stuck in retrograde from 1994 until the spring of 2009 so that there wasn't a thing I could do about it. Blog reminds me that I kept on painting about my life during that time and therefore have souvenirs of it that I can sell.

Who else would be able to listen to all that? At what sentence or paragraph would you simply have to get up to get away from hearing so many words that seemed as if they would never end?

Blog is strong. Blog can take it, and more.