"Good news, ma'am..."

I've mentioned this before on my blog, but to reiterate: you should certainly add Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson to your reading list. Add it to the top. You should probably start reading this book this weekend, or maybe just start it tonight.
Lawson, a bloggess priestess, composes a memoir of the good, awkward and the horrible in her life in a way that provokes her readers to honk jellyfish onto the page in fits of laughter. If you've never laughed so hard that you've cried, you certainly will when you read this book. Lawson takes even the most sensitive of topics and spins them into hilarity. Bursts of laughter will be synonymous with blushing embarrassment for thinking something so awful is so goddamn funny.

I seek to channel Lawson for this blog.

Oh the creativity of deployment doldrums. Since Nick left, I've had to kill big bugs, catch two geckos in my house, replace light bulbs and fire alarms, and both cars have died. The litany of bullshit is creative. Each time (after I've panicked or been grossed out or cried in frustrated) I just smirk at my independence. Fuck you, deployment doldrums.

Ah but the curve ball. Two and half months in and I was arrogant. Whatever else could go wrong, I was ready. Eleven days ago, scrambling to organize papers to grade and Writers' Guild meetings, I remember the moment wherein my gland pulsed with the threat of a sore throat. A small ache, but my arrogance wrote it off since it was the weekend. I could sleep in. I could watch movies. I didn't have anywhere to be. A sore throat is do-able. Maybe I'd even acquire a sexy, raspy voice for a week.

But it wasn't a sore throat. The ache melted into a throb. And in less than 36 hours, the bulbous growth of my gland immobilized my neck. Last week turned into one of the most painful weeks of my entire life. The swelling protruded and the ache stretched its fingers beyond my left gland, into my ear, the back of my neck and my throat. I couldn't move. I couldn't sleep. I could barely swallow. To lay down or move my head, I had to use both my hands.

Rosalie hunkered next to me in bed. Occasionally, she looked at me in wonderment. I'm sure, poised on her tongue, if she could only ask me why I had seemed to quit my job, she would have. But thank god she didn't. It would have only reminded me that I had 400 fucking papers to grade, classes to teach and students to email.

By Wednesday, however, the antibiotics started working. I had a little more energy. I took Rosalie for a walk. I was still uncomfortable and couldn't sleep for long, but I knew I was getting better.  A month ago, Dad bought a ticket to Hawaii thinking warm beaches, breezy palm trees and cool waters would consume his Spring Break. Last year on his first full day on the island, Dad conquered the Koko Head hike. My follow appointment, however, resulted in my doctor sending me to the ER. So this year, in stead of Koko Head, Dad drove me to Tripler Army hospital and we sat in the ER. Both are on the top of a mountain, so I suppose that's a similarity?

Nick says that I now get to share this fun fact as an introduction:

Hi, I Mia and I was a Dr. House case for a week back in '13. 

Within thirty minutes, I had a team working on my bulb, which I lovingly named Richard Parker. What? It needed a name, a full name (this thing was huge! It should have had it's own list of degrees and probably title of Ph.D.!), and I watched Life of Pi earlier in the week. 

For a girl who sees a needle and suddenly transforms into a twenty pound cat in a bathtub, I've become uncomfortably comfortable with drawing blood. The ER assigned me two nurses, one of whom was my primary nurse. Nurse Mark was my blood drawer. Then, he checked on me frequently with updates on the blood cultures. But my favorite moment in all of this was two hours into the ER purgatory when Nurse Mark came into the room.

"I have good news, ma'am..." He said convincingly. Finally! An answer! Or an explanation! Perhaps they've isolated the thing, which surely, given his tone, was simple and easily fixed! Richard Parker would go into the woods tonight!

Nurse Mark flashed a typed piece of paper at me written in code.

"...you're not pregnant." My hope collectively organized in the furrow of my brow. Suddenly, the appreciative-patient filter broke like South Fork dam in Johnstown.

"Well that's good, because I wouldn't know how to explain this neck baby to my deployed husband."

Nick's uncle is a nurse, and I've been warned not to be rude to nurses or they practice with the biggest needles.
In that moment, I solidified all future anythings would be done with the biggest needles available.

Nurse Mark didn't laugh. I wasn't following the patient script. I was improvising, and so I wasn't hitting my cues for his next line. He stopped checking on me so frequently after that.

As a footnote, for those of you wondering what the hell happened as a result of Richard Parker. He's still around, though he isn't as big. I'm still waiting for the goddamn army hospital or my doctor or anyone to return my phone calls, tell me my test results or let me know if Richard Parker will be extending his stay or if he's a threat to my livelihood. I'll paraphrase Lawson in saying that at least I've documented this partially on my blog as primary evidence if this turns into a court case and Richard Parker turns me into a vegetable. Somebody bring this blog to my lawyer if that happens. 
I suppose I'll give them another week to fix their incompetence. Then, I will go to some journalist with the story, quit my job, move back in with my parents and use civilian health care for my answers while I stand on my soapbox from New York. But surely it can't get to that point.

Obsession

This blog is specifically for my father. I will publicly call him out for not answering my calls in the last two days-- but of course, had he answered, I wouldn't be composing this blog tonight.

For the purpose of the collective 'you' appreciating this story, I have to flashback into something that happen to me & Dad in my childhood.

It was Christmas Eve, and I was little. I remember, because I was wearing a dress, and we went to church at nighttime. Let me be clear. We rarely went to church; and, the very few times we ever did go to church, we sure as hell didn't go to church at nighttime with the ultimate exception of one Christmas Eve mass. Also, I didn't wear dresses after the age of five. Additionally, the church was absolutely packed full of people. Indisputable evidence: it was Christmas Eve, and I was a young child.

The pews were drowning in the sea of people. Winter coats floated between each body. It was hot, and my dress was itchy.

Never mind the day or the year or the age that I was, it seems as though every time I'm in a church, my wedding not withstanding, the acoustics are horrendous, spewing the words from the microphone through the speakers and off of every wall, post and statue. My dad once told me that if I had to go to church, to really listen to the stories. Sometimes, he said, the stories were really good. And I liked stories. But the echo of the microphone bounces so badly that night, I couldn't hear anything, except my itchy dress.

The world of my little-girlness consumed me. I was wrapped up in the tulle under my dress. I was thinking about Christmas. I negotiated with God to not let Santa pass Cortland because we were all in church and not in bed. It wasn't paying attention to any stories or anyone.

It was a little while into the service when I shared a moment with my father that I will forever remember, or be haunted by. A woman walked in very late; perhaps she was standing in the back of the church and spotted an opening in front of our pew. She quietly approached the seat in front of my family and sat down. And with her wafted the most putrid perfume gas I have still, to this day, ever smelled. Her sharp sea of stench ripped the innocence of my little-girlness away, and I looked up to see if anyone else had be punched in the nose, too. It was this moment when I locked eyes with my father. We had a very adult, silent conversation in the next milliseconds, wherein we concluded it was time to leave. Dad stiffly cleared his throat, in an effort to find a clear whisper while simultaneously not dry heaving in my mother's lap.

"We'll be in the back," He grabbed my hand, and we left the pew.

But it was too late. In the time laps of seconds, we had be inundated with the odor. Despite our bolt for the door, despite the December air or the calculated new location, fifty yards diagonal to this woman and her perfume, it clung to us like dog shit on a shoe.

I'm pretty sure that was my first headache, and I remember my father, on our way home (we took two cars and Dad and I were the first to leave the church that night) telling me that that woman was wearing Obsession.

"One of Uncle Rick's old girlfriends used to wear that. It's called Obsession. Mia, when you get older, don't ever wear perfume like that. Ever. Or I won't let you come over for Christmas Eve."

And at twenty-five, I still rarely wear perfume.

But that is the back story. THIS is what I have been dying to call my Dad about all week...

My older brother and sister-in-law gifted me with a really great present for Christmas this past year: Birchbox. Birchbox is a beauty store. The idea behind it is that you buy a membership, and each month, they send you beauty samples: mascara, eyeshadow, hair product, nail polish, whatever. The sample sizes are enough to use for the entire month, and Birchbox provides incentives to purchase the full size products...

I received my February Birchbox a few days ago. I brought the package inside as I returned home from work, and I couldn't wait to open it. Before I opened up the house or flipped on the fans, hell, before I even really put my school bag down, I was tearing into the pretty pink box. And before I could fully open it, before I was even at the top of my stairs...

 That smell. Obsession. Like a goddamn punch in the face. It instigated a cough and my eyes watered painfully. I couldn't believe in 2013, fashion and beauty would still deem Obsession socially acceptable.

But they changed the name. "Harvey Prince Skinny Chic". New name, same goddamn perfume. I salvaged what I could from the box; Harvey Prince spooged all over the contents and soaked a probably perfectly good candle in its filth. I had it on my hands. It got in my hair. I not only threw away the box, but I had to also take it outside to the garbage bin. Then I had to wash my hands and pull my hair back.

Even the salty, Hawaiian air couldn't cure the ambush. On my afternoon run, the scent lingered, beckoning a headache and threatening violent dry heaves if I took deep of a breath.

Dad -- I thought of you and that grown up moment we shared on Christmas Eve at St. Mary's. My Birchbox reminded me of the horror I saw in your eyes that night when that woman sat down in front of us, with her 90s perm and church coat and fog of Obsession. I promise that there isn't a trace of the stench left in my house, so it's still safe to come visit next week.

Newest Guild in the Pacific

And the desk is cleared and the wine is poured and now, for something to tickle my muse.

Let me start by dropping to my knees in a humbled apology for promising a semester of rich writing, only to silence my blog yet again. It feel like it's an old shirt; I won't let it go, but I can't seem to find a reason to wear it. Surely I am not suffering from writers' block. Bukowski would roll his eyes and string a line of profanity around me like a goddamn Christmas tree if I tried to crutch on that excuse.

This semester is moving ever so slowly and yet it's already March. I feel as though I've been perpetually buried under papers that need to be graded....

Here's the stack that's sending voodoo at me as a blog away (surely, they are the reason for my heartburn this evening).  

Everywhere else, March is a museless month. A purgatory between the nostalgia of winter and the fire of summer. "It's one of those [months]... when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light and winter in the shade" (Dickens). But ... not in Hawaii. Here, March is just like May, or September, or November. So I have no excuse.

As of late, however, I've been embedded in a project, a baby if you will; not of the written word, though a derivative thereof. At my college, I've started a Writers' Guild, a writing community for the students, faculty and staff wherein we can meet for an hour each week to think, write, inspire, be inspired and workshop each other's work. 

Our group is of royal lineage. I was inspired to model this group after the SUNY Tompkins-Cortland Community College Writers' Guild. In fact, the TC3 Guild members are mentoring our Guild members. They are fostering our growth as a writers' group. But long before that and inspiring the birth of the Guild at TC3, are the writing communities of Gertrude Stein, of James Joyce and of Hemmingway's son. The expatriates, the Lost Generation of artists who flocked to Paris in the early twentieth century to avoid oppression and censorship of their artistic muse. These writers met in cafes. They workshop and wrote and labored toward legend and legacy. 

So we have initiated the next legacy of writers in Hawaii. Our writers' community is 1 month and six days old. It weighs in with eight students and six faculty members. The logistical administrative paperwork is complete and as of Friday, we are officially recognized by the college as a student co-curricular club. Of course, I made the empty promise to myself that blogging would surely ignite once the foundation of the Guild set firm. Since Friday's official club notice, however, I've received four additional emails with dates, meetings, reports and adjustments that need immediate attention. We haven't gained enough moment to coast, but we are surely exerting enough energy that we should get there by next semester.

I wish I could share the club website with the collective 'you' (hi mom! hi Nicholas!), but for now, I can share our Facebook page. Hopefully our Minister of Propaganda will feverishly update Facebook with photos and news to share with our followers. Here's my shameless plea: 'like' us on Facebook to spread the word about the newest Writers' Guild in the Pacific ocean.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Writers-Guild-at-Leeward/188914651232521