quick story

Incisive election commentary

I enjoyed watching the election-coverage programs with my mom. A dependable liberal Dem, she manages to combine strong partisanship with unshakable politeness.  Thus, I was surprised by the following exchange.
Well-behaved em mom: “It’s time for McCain and his funny little arms to get off the stage.” 
em: “I know! What is with those arms?? They’re like robot arms that can’t bend! ”  
Well-behaved em mom: *Scolding* “His arms were injured during his POW imprisonment. They strung him up by them for days.”
em: *Guilty* “Oh. Well that’s just awful.”
Well-behaved em mom: “None of that means he can govern effectively for anyone other than those in the upper class. Anyway, they’re more like Tyrannosaurus Rex arms.”
em:  “Or short little fetus arms.”

O Trenton, 2 cities

I jog through bad neighborhoods because it takes my mind off the pains of running. I chug up Hermitage, past the open-air drug market with all the people milling about, watching. And during this I am not thinking '*huff puff* I'm out of breath I want to stop.' or 'hmm, look at that shoe lace. I should stop.' or 'hoooo, my side hurts. I need to stop.' As I've told you guys before, most of the people there think I'm a cop, many want to sell me drugs, and some want to hit me in the head with a quart bottle. Yup, it's all good, fuel for the run, grist for the mill.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to stay within bad neighborhoods when you run in Trenton, it's too spotty. I live in the aptly named area called The Island--a sweet neighborhood. Rippling out across the highway, however, is crap. Around the corner from that, worse crap. But up the hill is a different story--a lovely neighborhood with stately homes, including the mayor's. A tick down Sullivan Way is another interesting dichotomy--on the right side of the street, Trenton Psychiatric Hospital (the former New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum at Trenton), and on the left, Trenton Country Club.

Saturday I decided to take a route I hadn't covered since last fall--I skirted along the grounds of the looney bin and then circled around the outside perimeter of the country club. A safe route, eh? No. As I chugged along the road that runs along the front 9, I scanned the ditch at the edge of the street for lost golf balls, as you do, and wondered what it would feel like to get hit by one, as you do. And as if on cue, I heard it clearly, like a whistle, slicing through the leafy trees just above my head--a long drive. Way long. I stopped dropped and covered. Not to get melodramatic, but THE GODDAMN BALL GLANCED OFF THE TREE NEXT TO ME, CAREENED ONTO THE PAVEMENT AT MY FEET, AND GALLOPED OFF INTO THE MEADOW  ACROSS THE ROAD.

Fucker.

So I looked back up the freeway, and there was this orange speck of an Izod-guy, climbing into his electric golf cart.       

I tapped my foot, waiting. He buzzed down, looking for his errant ball. He buzzed down farther, now off the fairway, out of bounds, and finally, down to the street.
Me: "Did you hit that ball just now?"
Golf guy: "Yeah, where'd it go?"
Me: "It nearly took my ear off."
Golf guy: "Where is it?"
Me: "Don't you want to apologize for almost killing me?"
Golf guy: "Where. Is. It."      

Fucker. I'm back to Hermitage next weekend.

Rabid dog

If a city were a living breathing being, my city would be sick. Diseased. Afflicted with some horrible dermatologic infection that manifests with blackheads, pimples, cysts, boils, carbuncles, and furuncles.  An old stinking stumblebum with open sores.

Your garbage is everywhere people. It's scattered throughout the weedy grass along every street. It's piled up by the wind against fences, walls, and hills. It surrounds and taunts the public garbage cans. It is hideous. And the broken glass, while sparkly and almost pretty, is insidious, like a suntan that suddenly turns squamous, destroying skin, tire-rubber, and denim.

Who do you think is going to clean all this up? The city? Like they have extra money to throw around to clean up after your mess. And let's get real here, it would be like a thin water-based zit-concealer spread over an angry weeping abscess--at the first drizzle, it's all gone, and the garbage heaps grow larger.

Question: What's the difference between residents of Trenton and dogs and their dens? Answer: Dogs don't crap in their own dens.

Just makes me angry is all I'm saying.   

Toro bull! toro!

I am a veteran insomniac, and while I'm in my bed waiting on morning (and John Cusack), I like to listen to the BBC News World Service. The warm round audio is so very lulling. Plus it's interesting, informative, and balanced (shut up Colin/Ron/Ray). I especially like the in-depth features---that's good stuff. The men and women who do that fine work are true stars.

So imagine my surprise. I got an email late this afternoon at work from Tilly C, from the BBC World News Service Washington, DC, Bureau. She's working up a piece on the newly-affirmed pharmacist's right to refuse to dispense medications based on said pharmacist's moral beliefs. I thought about doing that story too, because it's just the sort of red-flag topic that gets me snorting and pawing at the ground with my right toe. (btw if you see me doing this and I glare at you and then lower my head, RUN!) But 2.5 seconds later I remembered I work on the "happy news!" pharmacy publication.

But imagine my amused surprise. It sounded like she wanted to interview me! This would be loads of fun and lord knows I've got 10 or 20 thousand words to say on the topic, but I chose to interpret her request for an interview as a request for pharmacists to interview. (Plus I want to keep this job for a little while longer.)  So I replied and asked whether she wanted to interview clinical pharmacists or thought-leaders in the profession or what--"just let me know and I"ll hook you up!" Later, however, I reread her note and saw that she wants to do a piece that is *favorable* to the ruling. What!? Noooo! Tell me it isn't so!

Now imagine your surprise. You present your *legal* prescription, obtained from your *licensed* Medical Doctor for your *professionally diagnosed* medical condition to your pharmacist so that he/she can dispense your *medically necessary* therapy. Instead, this smock-wearing pocket protector-sporting pill counter tells you "No. You can not have that medicine. It would be wrong for me to give it to you." And in a blink, you can be denied access to birth control pills and patches as well as emergency contraception to help following unintentional exposure to the potential for pregnancy (eg, thoughtless fun/rape/incest) because your local pharmacist is a Right to Life supporter. And just so you don't get the idea that it's all on women, imagine that your prescription for any one of the many drugs for erectile disorder is declined--"Ha ha, no, ha ha, I'm sorry, but we don't support FORNICATORS! here." And imagine bellying up to the pharmacy bench with your prescription for Z0vir@x, a safe and effective treatment for herpes virus--"You're dirty! DIRTY!"  Sounds a bit Twilight Zone, doesn't it. How can an entire profession become Stepfordwived like that? It's crazy, right? No. Not at all.

Imagine your surprise again. You move to a good neighborhood with your family--Tight-Knit Nabe with High-Perfoming Schools, Ohio. But there's an unreasonable, but highly mobilized and heavily funded element within that community. You don't worry because it's only zero point three percent of the population of your community, but it is so incredibly noisy and obnoxious and intimidating that everyone else falls silent, business owners cower, retreat, and *kowtow.* The doctors fall next, unwilling to even prescribe "controversial" therapies, and soon thereafter, entire communities are denied access to certain types of health care. Next we're saddled with some kind of bandy-legged ape for a leader and are caught in all manner of outrageous quagmires around the globe while at home we stand by silently while our social programs are dismantled and the finances plundered by ultra-rich insiders.  Oy , I seem to have gotten off on a rant here...Please excuse...

 

Hello, my name is em

and I’m an addict. I can get addicted to almost anything. I guess you could say that I have one of those “addictive personalities.” I'm not talking about heroin here people, although there-but-for-the-grace-of-God and all that. I'm talking about simple mundane things in life to which I readily become addicted. Like a bottle of water every morning as I get ready for work. I must have one and don't you get in my way. As they say, a [bottled water drinker] fears nothing 'cept running out of [bottled water]. OK, a case could be made that water is necessary for life itself and hence can't be counted as an "addiction," but what about these obsessions:

• Blistex Herbal Answer lipstick—I buy it in bulk; apply it maybe 30-40 times a day, which I suspect might be excessive.
• Scented candles--what could be nicer? So I've got a closet full of them. What of it?
• Blogging—yeah, well, so are you.
• Gardening—the rare healthy addiction, but I will admit it abates by mid-August; the weeds tell the tale.
• Tuna—a person can’t go too long without a restorative tuna sandwich on toast.
• Back scratches—absolutely anyone can apply.
• Alias, season 1—NetFlix is the best invention ever. I can rent *anything* and it magically appears in my mailbox 2 days later. Yes, I watch a lot of TV…
• Drama--I have quite the cast of characters in my wake--Mr. Barrel Chest, Evil Creepy Skeevy One, my children, Rovey etc etc etc.
• Fires in the fireplace—The soothing warmth on my skin, the golden light bouncing around the room, the spicy smell of burning cedar--intoxicating. But I ran out of wood the other day, and I’m down to my last dining room chair, those antique Stickely's that I got from my grandmother burn good. ;-)

Let this be a warning to you kids.

I give and I give

Is anyone else out there being bombarded with requests for charitable donations? Not the fly-by-night kind, but the big non-profit charity associations—the Alzheimer’s Disease Society, Cystic Fibrosis and the like. I do my best to give where I can to these groups, but I’m being buried under the heartfelt pleas that come in the mail every day. And let’s face it, Em Financial Inc is a bit depleted right now. 

So here’s my quandary. When I can’t give money to a particular organization, can I still use the personalized mailing labels and note pads that they send me? It seems like such a waste to throw them out, yet I don’t feel entirely entitled to use them...Because if it’s ok to use them, I won’t have to labor away at writing my address on anything for the next 40 years or more.

Em’s top 10 ironic endings

1. Gets run over by Bud Light beer truck
2. Works herself to death
3. Is run off the road by a driver in the grips of road rage
4. Dies in the midst of a rip-roaring “little death”
5. Exercises herself to death
6. After careful and thorough estate planning, dies in a long-term-care facility at the age of 98
7. Chokes to death on that “just 1 bite!” of a kid’s PBJ sandwich
8. Gets stabbed by an enraged Rovey
9. Kills herself in a murder-suicide involving evil creepy skeevy boss, but before killing evil creepy skeevy boss
10. Is shot to death by Secret Service while running up to Pres Bush to present him with a revolver-shaped solid-silver paperweight

Yup, slow day for blogging ideas.

A monkey on your back

The woman is cracking up. She insisted--insisted--that I call the police last night to report the theft of the batteries for her radio. I can’t figure out if Rovey has some sort of mental illness or if she just goes insane when she’s doing her drugs. Then again, she’s under a lot of stress too—her apartment is in the small building around the corner and they *still* don’t have power or telephone service since the hurricane washed us all out 3 weeks ago. So she’s got more than her fair share of tribulations to deal with.

Fortunately, Rovey’s Baby Boy has been staying with her mother most of the time, until the power comes back I suppose. Unfortunately, this has unleashed the Rovey. Unleashed her on me. She stops by at least 4 times a night. Sometimes she is clear and lucid. When she’s like this, she talks about how exhausted she is and fed up with the situation over at her building; she also tells me how upset she gets with herself for “going all wild.” Her sadness and contrition tug at my heart. Usually though it’s the incoherent, sweating, paranoid, and volatile Rovey energetically stringing together obscenities about her persecutors while asking me for $5 for [insert anything believable here]. I’ve handed over my last fiver, however. She just pushes my willingness to lend a hand too far. Last week one night, she showed up at 6 and asked me to watch Baby Boy while she went around the corner for something. And she gave me back $5 of the money that she owed me--excellent. So I watched Baby Boy and she finally came back at 9, looking a bit haggard and spent. She packed up the boy and I went to bed. But at 1:30 in the morning, my doorbell started ringing. I tried to ignore it at first because 1) who comes knocking at 1:30 in the morning?? And 2) I was afraid to go downstairs and answer it. But the damn thing rang over and over and over, so I finally went down, peeped out the window, and there was Rovey. “Give me that $5 back! I need to give it to my brother—he’s taking Baby Boy.” Angry? You betcha. But at least Baby Boy got shunted out of the picture.

And now that I’ve stopped giving her cash, she hits me up for beer. She’s also developed quite the taste for hot tea with a large splash of brandy--for her head cold. Why I ever made her one of these I’ll never know. Now I can’t turn down the kettle cuz she’s forever Johnny-on-the-spot with her (actually my) empty mug.

I’m trying to be a good neighbor. But to be honest, I want to knock her down the porch steps. I need to scrape her offa me.

What am I, nuts?

Most of the time, he just wants to throw a weighted net over me. I go off half-cocked with some regularity, and my brother, .rz, gets exasperated.

We heard her first—yelling, mostly gibberish, and cursing. She sat straddling the low wall outside her apartment building. As she ranted, she flung her arms around wildly and stamped her feet up and down. The tall-boy can of beer in her hand momentarily forgotten, the beer arced out of the can with each pump of her arm. And there he was--Baby Boy--propped up in between her legs on the wall, precariously slumping this way and that way with his crazy mother’s manic motions.

He said let it alone, but I went over anyway.
“What in the world is the matter, Rovey?”
“Em honey, it’s the m0therfucking TAE QWON DOE!!” As she said it, she zoomed her face in close to mine and the sweat nearly spurted off of her and onto me. Then she let out a stream of profanity that would curl your hair.
“Can I hold the baby?”
“Sure!”
“He’s wet. Can I go change his diaper?”
“Sure honey! Apartment number 3, just upstairs.”

It was a bit of a mess. When I came back down I said if she ever wanted me to watch the baby.... She nearly leapt into the air at the idea, and off she bustled to parts unknown.

That baby was so good! We played with Joey’s squeaky killer whale and watched TV and walked from room to room, having a conversation about the pictures on the walls. He barely made a peep. She finally came back. A quick eye check with .rz showed that we concurred—I asked Rovey if she wanted me to watch the baby for the night, so she could relax for a change. She thought about it for a bit, but said, “No, I’m gonna do the right thing and be a good mother!”

Handed the baby back.

Trying to help

Lavinia and James were down on their luck. We met one summer about 6 or 7 years ago, and I helped them as best I could—food, a place to rest and clean up, some money. They were good kids, just going through a tough patch. By summer’s end, they were gone, moved on. I ran into Lavinia again about 2 years later, and she looked used up. James was gone and she was living with some 70-year-old man in the ‘burg. Dressed in raggedy old clothes, she was wild-eyed and wasted. I felt bad for her, unable to help. Fast forward to this past Saturday—I was running through Cadwallader Park, and as I chugged along, a woman at a picnic table who was reading the newspaper and eating lunch called out to me by name. I recognized Lavinia right away, and she looked fabulous—clear-eyed and cleaned up. We hugged and chatted a bit then she said a funny thing—she apologized for that summer. I really didn’t know why she was apologizing—they were always pleasant and well-mannered--I had no complaints. Seeing her and how well she’s doing made my day.

But now there’s Rovey. She moved in around the corner at the beginning of the summer. I’d see her out for a stroll with her infant baby boy and we’d say hihowyadoin niceweatherwerehavin. She popped up at my door out of the blue last week, asking to borrow $10 because she needed diapers, but for some reason I didn’t catch, she didn’t have access to any cash at the moment. She promised to pay me back within a few days and she did. Fine. But then this weekend, here she was again, repeatedly knocking on the door looking for me and grilling my brother and mother (who happened to be visiting) about where I was. She caught up with me Tues evening at about 6:00—hit me up for $10 with the same story about money access problems and the same promise to repay me this week. So I thought, what the hell, I’ll float her the $10. But you know what? Contrary to popular belief, I do have a limit. When you come knocking on my door later that same night, dripping with sweat and incoherent, and push your way past me into the living room, you have stepped over it. She talked so fast I could barely tell what she was saying, but I did gather she wanted more money.
No. I gave you all my money earlier.
“C’mon, let’s just go get those quarters out.”
No.
Aggressive—“C’mon! you know I’m good for it!”
No.
Now wheedling—“I know you understand honey, so let’s break out the quarters!”
No.

I saw her again last night when I was outside kicking a soccer ball around with Katie and Joey. She was literally stomping up the block, yelling and cursing a blue streak. She was also shoving that little baby along in his stroller, yanking him this way and that way as she stormed up the street. She came at me and wanted me to go with her--she needed to ask me something. I told her that I was in the middle of something with my kids, and off she stormed, propelling that baby in front of her, ranting and cursing and sweating.

OK, so yes, I’m worried about that baby—where’s the baby when the mother is out scratching together money for her drugs? And where is he when she’s doing her drugs? These questions nag at me. Should I say something to her? Should I call someone? Should I butt out? Please advise.