A Good Friend....

 two days to the cat scan that will bring me more information about what was discovered in the colonoscopy. 

Just got off the phone with my friend Bob, who is being very supportive at this time. How do I know Bob? We met in September of 1957 when we were placed in the same 10th grade class at Bronx Science. Our class was one of 10 10th grade classes in the Science Annex, housed on the top two floors of an elementary school, about six blocks east of the  true Bronx Science. As such, our class traveled together---and this was stifling (looking back on it) because it meant no real experience of other students, save for the 30 one saw every day. Bob and I became friends immediately (coincidentally, my mother had been his science teacher at his Junior High School---we would compare notes, and actually went to a few plays together that year. In the next few years---high school and college, we remained in touch, but did not see each other very often. After he attended Columbia School of Journalism, he left for a job down south and we lost touch. When the internet made it possible to look up old friends, I found him around 2002 working for the Los Angles Times. We did not get together until 2007. By that time he was retired and living in a suburb of DC 

It was actually last year when we went to a National baseball game that he got tickets for when I visited Washington, that I felt very relaxed being with him, sharing memories, etc. He got us great seats for the game---kind of a runaway for the Nationals, but it did not matter. We stayed in touch but since my medical situation has become more specific, he has been very empathic and helpful. Its a nice feeling--I value his support---the fact that we go back as far as we do---that we rode the subway together back to our respective apartments after seeing those plays, gives our relationship an almost mythic feeling to it.

Otherwise, not much else; continued reading Suite Francaise---it portrait of the french people, trying to cope with the Nazi invasion remains intense and brutal. Also, WQXR is having a week of programming mostly devoted to the works of Mozart. Ah, Mozart immersion, can't beat it. How much will I get out of it? Will report soon.

In the house, or out of the house....

 Where do I belong?  A good question. Yes, the colonoscopy was a great "success" from an emotional point of view---I had challenged myself to do something that I felt was impossible and I did it. Nice sense of accomplishment there. But since then---the stomach makes it own rules---things have not gone back to "normal" and I wait for some kind of change. So I am stuck, for the most part, in the apartment. Not really what I wanted, but at times, I think of the chance this will give me to really immerse myself in the novels I am reading---also, all sorts of classical music adventures out there, either on you tube or WQXR, that I can take from. Listen to all the Mozart piano concertos that I don't know (about 4 or 5 not counting the really early ones); watch one of the really early Verdi operas (like I Due Foscari, or Giovanna D'Arco) and try to find some brilliance in these early but obscure works that could be linked to the later work. It all seems very good. 

Yet I want to be outside. But in the middle of the day, I am sometimes very tired. Why?  Where does the fatigue come from, sometimes very quickly without warning? Is it because in this new pandemic normal I have created for myself, I am usually up at 3A.M., feeling very strong and ready to start the day. But to go where? I let the next two hours go by, any way I can, then by 5, know that I can start to get ready for my "coffee trip" to the grocery store four blocks away. And that is the beginning of my body at its strongest. But what toll does that take on my body later---sometimes by ten in the morning, it wants to sleep for a short time, to get back some of that rest that I lose by waking up at 3. Or is it what my blood tests revealed a short time ago--lower red blood cells, slightly increased white blood cells, or the growth that was discovered during the colonoscopy?  Or maybe it is just that the day has no structure---no goals to be anywhere, so the body just decides it wants to rest? Can I come to a conclusion about this any time soon? Well, the cat scan is Wednesday--hopefully I will get some answers then.

So no recent trips to Brooklyn---no walks southeast on Broadway from Myrtle Avenue to the Junction to watch the change in the area. No travels in Flatbush or Ditmas Park to see the lay of the land there, or perhaps a nostalgic trip on 5th or 7th avenue in Park Slope to remember the time in my life when i spent much time there.  No, now there is only watching the opening number from A Chorus Line many times on youtube, or taking one of the neighborhood rides that have been posted on it. Or getting involved in the baseball match ups---i could turn on the Yankee game right now, except that the two narrators of the game are becoming too predictable for me. 

So here we go---happy Sunday---at least lets see if I can get to Barnes and Noble, six blocks away, to do some heavy browsing. Will report soon.

 

The story of my stomach: 8/6-8/7 2020

 9:00 P.M.Time for a desert. I walk to the Grocery Store on West End and 72nd street, one that I have been using a lot since the pandemic began. I grab a coffee and cream yogurt and go back to the apartment.
What had I ate before? Oh, just the bagel with the American Cheese that I got in the morning. Enough to keep me full until the yogurt trip. I assume that I won't need any more food until tomorrow morning's usual 5:30 coffee, and because I am tired---soon fall asleep. 

11:00 P.M.  I awake with a start---from a pretty solid sleep. I am starving. I can't believe how hungry I am. Of course, there is nothing solid in the fridge---I could have bought a "just in case" sandwich but I didn' It is either the Grocery store or Fairway---which I usually try to avoid. I get dressed as quick as I can---stomach still demanding some food, and practically run the four blocks to the grocery store, hoping that the sandwich man has no orders a head of me.  It turns out he does, but he takes my four pieces of roast beef on rye bread (no toast) very quickly and makes the sandwich. For some reason my approach annoys him---I am a little peeved, but I will not start conflict---just grab the sandwich, pay for it, and even as I walk back to the apartment on West End Avenue start to eat it. And it is very good. Now I am in a good place---I expect no more hunger pains until maybe tomorrow morning.

3:45 A.M. I awake again. Now I am having a sugar fit. Hungry for a sugar snack. Nothing to help me in the fridge---of course I could have bought a "just in case" snack at 11, but I did not. My stomach wants a yogurt or an ice cream or a danish---this minute. But it is close to 4---even the extremely safe West End Avenue four block corridor between the apartment and the grocery store, with all its doormen building is a little daunting and nervous making at 3:55. So I reason with my stomach:

Me: you know we should not be on the street until the sun comes up. You never know who is out there at this time of night-I don't want to be a target.

Stomach: I don't care---I am hungry for some desert.

Me; Come on, let's be reasonable--it is not that long until 5:30.With some patience we can make it.

Stomach: You think so---I doubt it. Take a risk, dude, run down there and get me my yogurt.

I realize now that all arguments simply won't work. The stomach has won the day. I get dressed, leave the house, look around very cautiously, see nobody, hear nothing and proceed. Four blocks later I pick up my yogurt and return. No problem. I am happy, the stomach is sated and happy, and you see, it can be done---one can travel on West End Avenue between 76th Street and 72nd street at around 4 A.M.

That's it for today---Yankee game on in 2 hours---should keep me occupied---will report soon.

 

Remembering Pete Hamill..

of course, heard of his passing yesterday. I remember the first article of his that I read that caught my attention. It must have been in June or July of 65, and it was in the New York Post, then a liberal newspaper.  It was an interview with a Puerto Rican mother from the Bronx, who had just gotten the letter saying her son had been killed in Viet Nam. "Porque?" she kept saying, why did this have to happen. And Hamill was outraged that this unnecessary war had taken her son who was simply an innocent cog in the military wheel. It made me want to read whatever he wrote, and in the next few years, I read many of his articles, both in the Post, and some, I think in the Village Voice. But the article listed above is the only one that I remember. I did read his autobiography: A Drinking Life, full of vignettes about growing up in

South Brooklyn, and also with much information about his love life in his formative years. I liked it---glad that I read it. As the years went on, I am not sure how I felt about his high profile dating, and "cool man of the city" attitude. Was it too much "self" and not enough about the world around him. Still, till the end, I always admired him and trusted his vision of the city.

  Before he moved back to Brooklyn, he lived a long time in Tribeca. Then he moved back to Brooklyn---I don't know where---maybe Park Slope or Fort Greene. I always thought that on one of my long walks through the different neighborhoods of Brooklyn I might pass his porch, see him, and start a conversation. We both perceived the city as a world of tremendous excitement--we both understood that just by changing one block, one's whole sense of life in the city could change.  But it did not happen. I wonder how he must have felt as he returned to the borough of his birth and thought of his childhood---in a Brooklyn that was full of poverty, disorder---people fighting to just get by---to the well ordered, safe, complacent and expensive Brooklyn that he returned to. In a way he had lived through a an amazing

cycle of change. But wasn't the reason he could move back because he himself was a success story---somewhat

of a legend in his own time---did the arc of his own success mirror that of Brooklyn itself.

  He and Jimmy Breslin articulated a populist vision of the city--a place where a guy making a decent

salary could be comfortable---a place where the eccentrics and the rugged individuals might suffer

a bit, but make it through and be part of the community. A street corner place--a place where the

neighborhood bar could become the center of one's life. But neither of them wrote much after

2000, when a lot of the city became dominated by the wealthy. Whatever rage this evoked

in either of them, one did not see much of it in print. Their vision of the city was disappearing

before their eyes, and they were powerless to stop it. Their writing could not stop the

aggressiveness of developers or the passion for luxury housing that exploded in

city many times during those years. During that time, I hoped that one of them would

write an explosive piece of defiance, but to the best of my knowledge it never happened.

  And then, right before his death, came the protests--the explosion of pent up rage by both

blacks and whites. I wonder what he must have thought of those protests. Were they the

apocolypse that he longed for--the rejection of the power of the establishment that had

turned its back on his everyday people? Or did his celebrity make him too much of

that very establishment to accept it? We will never know. Still, an important life in

so many ways.

A wide open life....

but not a life trapped in my apartment. First day after the colonoscopy. Very tired this morning. Did not eat well for lunch. Now I wait for the Yankee game ( double header with the Phils) at 4:15. But what does the future hold?

The tests continue---a cat scan of my stomach, to determine what to do with the growth they found yesterday, will happen soon. Then we will see. But I want to move out. There is a protest this afternoon at

6 in Flatbush. Would love to be there---but I don't think I feel strong enough to make it. The next one is Saturday afternoon at 3, also beginning in Flatbush, and moving through Crown Heights. That one I hope to make, at least at the beginning and then maybe walk a little ways on the march. Oh how things have changed? Remember last summer? I walked everywhere. Myrtle Ave from Downtown to Broadway. Broadway from Myrtle to the Junction. Walks from Molasses book store into the eastern part of Bed-Stuy. Stuyvesant Street from Broadway to Fulton Street. And many others. I look forward to taking these walks or similar ones soon, but can I really do it? Is it my stomach and its disorders that limit me from too much acitivity, the early rising and out of the house to the Grocery Store at 5:30, which puts stress on my body as the afternoon comes around, the lack of iron (which I should correct)? We will see---my planning for my colonoscopy happily over, all choices have, at least in theory opened up to me. Its still a long summer.

  Yesterday, after the procedure, just hung around the apartment, faced with many interesting books, but did not pick up any of them---radio---on and off the computer, that was it. Could not stop thinking about

"the journey" that is the last two days with its prep and the procedure itself. Looking back on my resistance in the past (very strong resistance) I ask myself were those fantasies that blocked my commitment, those memories of sadness that I thought would overwhelm me the day before, the rage at having my "autonomy taken away" valid or just silly. I think valid---for some reason at those times I

really felt it was impossible to do the colonoscopy. Now, I am amazed at how simple a procedure it was, also how nice it was to be treated warmly by the five or six professionals, in addition to the head doctor, who were in the room.

  Tomorrow is Thursday---just a few minor errands to begin with--what after that? Don't have to "do anything", but what does that mean. Can I break out of this pattern--so helpful to me while I awaited

the colonoscopy, but which seems to offer me little right now? We will see.

So it is "over".

Yes, friends the event that for the last two years I have scrupulously evaded, the event that evoked all kinds of fantasys of fear and passivity---the "dreaded" colonoscopy was completed today, with all those barriers broken. How? Looking back, not too sure, but somehow the need for understanding the information that the colonoscopy could give me, ultimately was more important then the self protection I gave myself previously for not taking it. Still, it was a trip, a voyage into a world that unsettled me, and now that it is over, I am relieved, and a little empty as well.

   How did I do it? Well, lots of conversations on Sunday, the "day before the day before". That kept me focused. Then on Monday, my friend Sarah gave me a lot of her time, bringing me broth that served to keep me going in the morning, and helping my put together the "potion" that one has to use starting in the afternoon. But for most of Monday, I was by myself---but in a simply pragmatic head zone. The day before, I have learned, is about reality, the reality of not eating most foods, and later the reality of allowing the go-lightly to enter you. That focus was there at all times. Occasionally I would read a chapter from Suite Francaise or listen to the Yankee game---but it all came back to how I was feeling. The prep worked on me very slowly, the complete opposite of what the instructions promised--then about 2A.M.---only five hours before I was due at the hospital, the explosions began. It was as if barrels after barrels of brown wawter were pouring out of my stomach. I was awed, amazed, overwhelmed, but I realized that this is what the go-lightly was meant to do---free my stomach so that the doctor could enter the colon and see what he had to see. More of this happened at 4A.M., I wondered if I could pull myself together for the procedure--but I pushed through, and at 6:30, Sarah was waiting to take me to Mount Sinai.

   Looking back on this morning, it reads to me like a dream. About five different people were involved in the colonoscopy prep; all were warm and conscientious, and very clear about what they were doing. I was not even aware that I was being put under. I felt great on returning to consciousness and Sarah was there to drive me back to the apartment.

  So, it was over---I sort of feel like the college student who has just finished the fifth of his final exams. That's great, I feel wonderful, but what do I focus on now? My mind is going in all different directions. Books surround my bed---is it back to Suite Francaise, escape with Agatha Christie, an Auchincloss short story (they are really good)---can't make the decision.

 There will be some follow up to the colonoscopy. The doctor found a tumor in the rectum---it has to be explored--I will have a cat-scan very soon. But in spite of that news, at this moment I feel relieved, freed, ready to return to the outside world.

 But the pandemic continues--no movies, plays, hanging out to experience---still very much on my own

in this new world. We will see what happens.

whirls and swirls around the day

Saturday morning---two days before the beginning of the procedure. Feeling kind of optimistic. As usual, began my morning by going to the convenience store at 72nd and West End and getting my coffee there. That was at around 6. Strange, how this trip has become so much a part of my life---it is important in that it brings me into the real world---and exorcises some of the over-introspection that I have experiencing in the apartment. Have spent the last half hour with some theater memories,  some discussions (in my head) about the Sondheim songs that mean the most to me. I have probably gone over this territory a few times in the blog, so lets just say that my favorite now is "We've So Little to be Sure Of" from the much maligned--somewhat (but not completely) forgotten Anyone Can Whistle.
Recollections of seeing a preview of the original in 1964 are included in another entry, so I won't go into it here. But as of now, it is my favorite Sondheim.
  An interesting sidelight into my preparation for Tuesday's procedure is the possible presence of hurricane Isasis (not the correct spelling, sorry) into the equation. The hurricane is on top of Florida now, and is then coming up the east coast. But with how much power? No one seems to know for sure---it could burn itself out before hitting New York, go further east, and avoid it, or it could come at the city with its fullest power. If that is the case, it will be here between Monday evening, and not leave until late Tuesday. My procedure is for early morning Tuesday. Its possible that the medical department might cancel all procedures if it appears that the effect of the hurricane will be strong.
That would be ironic, after all my thought preparation that has gone into this so far. No way of knowing now, can only follow storm's development over the next 48 hours. But if I am in doubt, I will check in with the medical department at the hospital. They have been very good about informing me of all things relating to the procedure. But nothing to do but wait.
  Time to get things going. Feeling very "up" as I said at the beginning of the entry. What direction that will take me in I can't say. Will report soon.