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| Climbing a mountain of mulch in Central Park. 3:30 PM. Photo: JH. |
September 9, 2009. You realize: the date is 9999. Whatever that means to the numerologists. What does it portend?
Yesterday was a warm and cloudy day in New York to greet all those summer people returning to their caves and concrete and glass canyons.
The city still seems quiet although I noticed activity at the two girls schools just a corner away – Chapin on 84th and East End and Brearley on 83rd and East River. A week from now their early mornings and mid-afternoons will briefly tie up the intersections with buses and schoolbuses and taxis and limousines. And kids. Occasionally with parents.
Although I don’t remember anyone specifically, I am aware of watching the growing process before my eyes. A few years ago, walking east on 84th on my way home, I passed a group of Chapin girls (they wear green skirts), lighting up. They looked like they were about twelve and the cigarettes almost longer and skinnier than they were. It was a funny sight. I was reminded of when I first lit up (and how nauseous I got) about the same age over at Nancy Link’s house when her mother and father were away. A ciggie.
It still makes me laugh to think about those girls on 84th Street. When I was growing up we lived right around the corner from the high school. The cars and buses passed the house each weekday morning and afternoon. And the kids walking, with their books. I realize now what the neighbors on my street were looking at. And thinking (those who had a sense of humor). Kids lighting up.
Yesterday I went to have a colonscopy. My first. I had already met the doctor, a man in his late 30s. Dr. Pallmon. He was sharp and pleasant and seemed genuinely interested in me as a patient. This is what I was used to growing up with doctors back in that little town in Massachusetts. It is not what I have become used to as a grown up in New York living on the Upper East Side. Although I should add I have a physician I see periodically whom I do like. And before that I had a wonderful doctor in the late George McCormack.
Anyway, anyone who’s ever had a colonscopy or heard about it, has always heard about how horrible they are. That’s what I was hearing in the lead-up. Horrible especially the night before when you don’t eat and drink this awful stuff. As it happened the stuff I had to drink was a mixture of water and some powder that tasted faintly salty. Dr. Pallmon had already told me that it would be “a little like drinking seawater.” It was, but hardly. It was at worst, boring. And I got hungrier and hungrier on Monday night.
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Yesterday I was at the doctor’s office at noon. I was lying on my left side on the doctor’s table (that padded gurney like piece of furniture) and the anesthesiologist, Dr. Ko was injecting me with the serum Propofol that seemed to have put me to sleep in an instant. He also told me that this was the same drug that Michael Jackson had an overdose of.
Then I woke up. Almost like you wake up from a sleep. Hardly groggy. It was about a half hour later. The doctor and the nurse were putting things away. When the doctor left, the nurse took me back to the room I changed in.
A few minutes later I went into Dr. Pallmon’s office. He was looking at everything. He had pictures of my colon. Fascinating. Color. The side of you that only you feel and that you never see. It reminded me of those photographs of very deep sea life. They looked like scientific images.
Included also was the Procedural Report, telling the whole story, findings, etc. In the next to the last sentence of “Procedure” it said: “The patient’s toleration of the procedure was excellent.” I felt like that third grader whose report card said the kid did good. And I got to bring the report home. To show my dogs. Otherwise, business-as-usual.
A number of friends who were sharing my dread/anxiety about it were surprised to hear it was no biggie. There was, of course, the additional element of the unknown, before the procedure. That’s what is decisive in our thoughts, and fears. We hear alarming stories. I tried to put it out of my mind, not think about it. I thought of canceling except I knew I’d have to pay the big fee anyway. But that was my Big Baby talking. The Big Boy knew he had to suck it up. That’s why I mentioned the good doctor. A good doctor heals by his person. Cures are for the Almighty or the universe of research but healing is aided by the human touch. We live in a society where that is sorely missing very often. So when it is there, it is a gift. And one to be grateful for.
Meanwhile back at the pulpit I never left. I got mail yesterday about Mickey Avalon, the kid who sang at Dana Hammond’s end of summer party last Saturday night. He was very controversial. His lyrics were controversial. From what I can gather, his lyrics are controversial because they are very naughty boy. I know the term is antiquated but the explanation isn’t.
I never heard of Mickey Avalon until I heard someone rhapsodizing on the “who” was Dana’s “secret” guest entertainment. And even after hearing, I remained uncurious. Nevertheless I googled him and the Wikipedia. I read the LA Weekly quote on him.
I was back in L.A. I lived in L. A. Just up the hill from the Roxy. In those days (the 80s, a Saturday night on the Strip was wall to wall those kids, the passing cavalcade of nubile fecundity Southern California style. I’d go down the hill for a bottle of milk and they’d be shooting a rap video just outside the market by the dumpsters. This was the Hollywood of Now. Not to be confused with the Hollywood of Then. What the Then would call grubby or raunchy (or verboten), the Now would call stylish and cool. Although stylish is probably not the word they’d use.
A very well known and very smart writer here in New York emailed me yesterday to tell me he loved the Avalon performance. He said there were a lot of other “grown-ups” at the Hammond Stubgen party who loved him. They were singing right along (so they’d heard it before):
“My dick looked like a luncheon, yo’ dick looked like McCauley Culkin ...”
Uh-huh; I’m quoting here.
My friend who is nowhere near boarding school preppie age, at least not socio-economically, or actuarially, said he went out and bought the CD. It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. I wouldn’t be inclined to listen to lyrics like that anyway. I’m still caught up in:
“The self-deception that believes the lie ... (I wish I were in love again ...”*
or
“If you can’t be with the one you love, then love the one you’re with ...”**
And leave it at that. In the end, it’s all about toleration of the procedure anyway.
*Rodgers and Hart “I Wish I Were in Love Again.”
**Stephen Stills, “Love The One You’re With.” |
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