friday

Having a quiet afternoon at home. Green lentil soup on the stove. I just made some kale chips which got a bit more charred than I hoped. I started doing my taxes but then Turbo Tax said “If this is your situation, consult a tax expert”. Oh dear, I thought YOU were the tax expert, Turbo Tax!

The days have varied. Some of them have been cold but clear and sunny. Then days like today, where the fog never lifts. The clouds never breaks and twilight starts to descend early, and I feel like I have trouble getting a foothold on the day. I’m surprised at how much time can pass daydreaming.

Last night: John hopped onto the running board of the truck, by the driver’s side window. The truck was going slowly. I was in the back seat of the large cab. It was a two door truck, so there was no door to the back seat but there was a window. John motioned for me to roll down the window. He said “I can just climb in this way”. It made me nervous but also giggly at the ridiculousness of it. The driver said “I could just stop” but John said “No, this is easy!” He climbed in awkwardly sticking his head and limbs in.  Then settled in, sat back, and I sat back with his arm around my shoulder. Comforting. He asked “Where are we going, anyway?”

This morning: A brief visit to the oncology clinic to have my port checked out and cleaned for the month.  That reminded me that it had been almost a year since my car had had a similar service, so I went to Jiffy Lube afterward. The mechanic showed me the various parts they take out of your engine and said “These still look good. They don’t need replacing yet”, which was a first. I never know what they are supposed to look like but usually you have to replace something.

I sat in the waiting room reading “Living with a Wild God” while a one eyed dog sitting next to his person looked at me politely. A grandmother came in with two children in tow, all wearing Seahawks gear. The mechanic said “You ladies can have a seat and I’ll be right with you”. When he left the room the sister teased the brother “Ha! Ha! He called you a lady!” The grandmother said “I’m sure he was just in a hurry, and didn’t notice as you are both dressed the same”. The boy said “I don’t care” and “Are we still going to Dairy Queen after this?”

Stumbling around in fiction

This is How We Heal

She learned about the cancer and the immediate need for surgery the same week there was an uncontrolled oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Uncapped oil spewing into the clean water and her body spewing angry cells into her internal sea. A coworker wearing headphones, half listening to the conversation (about her upcoming surgery) said “I think it’s time for them to call in the Navy Seals. Let them just go down there and devise a way to stop the spillage, and clean the place up.” His faux pas led them all to a brief chuckle to break the serious mood.

Her particular type of cancer killed 80% of people in the same situation within five years. Yet she had not been one of them. Others wanted to attribute this feat to her diet, her attitude, her ph balance, but she knew she had just been lucky. She had seen friends with much healthier routines, better attitudes, and more consistent use of miracle supplements fall by the wayside in her now twenty year dance with cancer. She was never cured. Periodic treatment kept cancer in check, but she was never able to rid herself of the cells that occasionally rested and then sprung anew into invasive action. The advent of immunological treatment made managing this chronic situation less unbearable. A shot a few times a month brought fatigue, but no more of the bald and barfing chemotherapy adventures of the early days.

These nanomedics looked like seals, and brought to mind the old laugh about the Navy Seals. They wore shiny black body suits with hoods. Their goggles, filled with information on the inside, projected magnified images of their eyes. Thankful for her longer-than-expected tenure, she had agreed to be one of the first human volunteers for nanomedicine. In the early days of her illness, she took advantage of every lull in treatment to pursue items on her list of “things to do before I die”. She had left the world of office work, of 9 to 5. She travelled when she could. And began to shift her energy toward the stories she had always wanted to write, and, eventually, a novel she was proud of. Although there were plenty of things she wanted to hang around for at the age of 70, she felt complete. If something went wrong in the course of the experiment, she had no qualms about perishing. She had lived under threat of it so long that growing older and more brittle held more fear for her than finally succumbing to cancer.

Today the nanomedics would scale the Everest of her brain, where a few stray cancer cells had decided to set up a base camp. And, even more amazing, she would be among them. Virtually. She would be conscious, and have the virtual senses of the sights and sounds of her own brain, via the sensitive instruments of a medicine bot. She would be both inhabiting and being inhabited by herself. And, either through agreement or force, the mission hoped to provide the cancer cells with the means to leave her body for good.

After the breakthrough with the dolphins, linguists had solved intricate pattern keys to communicating with everything, almost. The vibrations of plants, the dances of bees (thank God!), the marks made on the sand by drifting rocks, and the electric messages of cells to cells. Those first “listeners” of cell messages within a body reported that it was like observing or hearing the communication of this planet. Some messages were like important newscasts sent instantly, in microseconds, to a whole population. Some like an individual love note from a secret admirer for one particular cell, sent by pony express, maybe arriving months later. Lots of daily mundane and repetitive messages, like domestic partners talking with one another. And plenty of “wrong numbers”, or text type messages sent and never acknowledged.

Most alarming, though, was witnessing the message of “Aptos”, sent daily to millions of cells. And each cell knew exactly what to do, when delivered the message. Like folding up a pup tent at the end of a successful camping trip. Fold up this tent you call a cell, and call your “self” (if the cell had such a notion) into the tiniest fragment, and let it float away on the bloodstream. Your use is finished. You will be replaced. It brought to mind the horrible field of bodies after a group suicide decreed by one mad religious leader or another. The feeling of wasted potential and despair. Although after the mass death of cells, the victims instantly and tidily disposed of themselves and disappeared.

The cancer cells were different. They either didn’t understand the Aptos command, or disagreed with it. As long as there were resources around to keep them nourished, they continued their tent colonies, let them burgeon, set up more permanent structures, and sent out emissaries to look for new places to claim.

The nanomedics were armed with Force-APTOS, but, respecting their venture into her actual body, would not use it until she gave the command. The days leading up to the mission were full of revenge fantasies for her. After all, these stubborn cells had robbed her of so much; body parts ravaged in surgery, nerve endings in her fingers and toes destroyed by the medicines which fought the cancer, her fingernails which fell off and grew again many times, so many hairstyles, six months without the ability to taste salt or enjoy chocolate, and, most upsetting, the momentum of her family members, who spent years holding their breath from scan to scan. She imagined giving the order before even talking with these damn cells. She didn’t want to hear their excuses, their side of the story. She wanted to kill them the way they killed family and friends within three to six hopeless months. Give them the look of surprise and shame that had been on her friend’s face when she realized she couldn’t find the right words and had just spoken gibberish because of similar brain invaders.

She was in the virtual reality suite. It was a small theater. The neurosurgeons sat at control panels with consulting nanoanthropologists and nanolinguists. Behind them sat an oncology social worker, a nurse and technician monitoring her vitals, a few members of her family, and herself. It reminded her for a moment of people gathered in a glass booth to witness the execution of a murderer.

As her “large” self, she had felt little when the nanomedics had been injected through her port. For a moment, she saw the drop of liquid containing them, but they were too small to be perceived by the human eye. In the virtual reality suite, she and the others watched the feed from the bot as they traversed the main artery, with the help and direction of neurosurgeons in the suite.

When they arrived at the tumor site, a nanomedic acknowledged and apologized that he had expected the cancer cells to be darker in color than the other cells. She and more than half of the team (inside her body and inside the room) automatically responded with the Racism Recovery mantra: “Thank you for acknowledging. This is how we heal”. Instead of being darker, the cells looked like hard white star shaped barnacles, on the soft pink landscape of her brain.

The linguists tuned their receiver to find the pulses of meaning from these cells, and the electronic patterns required to communicate. They hailed the cells, and began a tentative conversation. After a few exchanges, the main linguist said,

“We have your Creator here. The Overmind. She would like to talk with you personally, about Aptos.”

She cleared her throat. “Um, hello. I am the Overmind, I guess.” She referred to the script she had worked out with the nanoanthropologist. “You live within the universe of me. Everything cells do in this universe is directed by and affects the Overmind. When you do not follow the command of Aptos, it creates a disturbance in the balanced system that keeps the universe alive for all of us. “

The cell’s response came through as a computer generated voice “We respectfully question the benevolence of this Overmind. It seems to give orders to create and destroy without feeling. We see hordes of dead and disappearing cells around us daily. And then new cells coming always, always.”

The cells, too, seemed prepared for this conversation with a type of script. When asked they stated that they had known, since their creation, that they were different. They had not yet achieved the ability to communicate with the Overmind directly, but had hoped to. They prepared for the time when they might have to give an accounting, and ask their questions.

“The Overmind created us, (unlike the other cells), with a will to live and the ability to significantly deny the action of Aptos. It felt random to us as well. And yet because we had this ability, we felt a duty to give longevity our best effort. Why does she wish to take this away now?”

“I have actually been trying to correct this aberration since the beginning!” She was off script now. “Your stubbornness, activity and longevity has hurt the whole “universe” of this body, and will cause its (MY) eventual collapse. Its collapse will mean yours as well”

“And yet we are here, and created this way. You call us an aberration but maybe you invented a new and different kind of cell for a reason.”

“You are not new and different! You are a mistake! And now you are just selfish opportunists!” She turned to the neurosurgeons and said quietly. “I think I want to do it. You know..the Force APTOS. But I am not sure. I’m just so tired.”

The social worker suggested that they take a thirty minute break. The nanomedics had some additional data gathering and noninvasive experiments they were planning to perform, and set about their tasks.
She asked for a few moments in a room, alone. It was the time of day she usually set aside for meditation. She was too worked up to begin. She had a few books at hand on her device. She read her Racism Recovery Reminder for the day. It focused on the Jungian concept of the shadow. “Whatever is unresolved or unincorporated in ourselves, we project on to the “other”. Those in Racism Recovery should seek daily to learn about, understand and eventually embrace the parts of themselves they find hardest to accept. This will stem the ever surging tide of projection on to people we perceive as “other”. This is how we heal.” She also scrolled through the pictures from the book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, which she had read at the suggestion of her daughter, in preparation for this meeting.

Then she entered into silence.
—

Twenty five years after the procedure, her granddaughter enters a lab, and puts on a headset. In front of her is a case with various cultures. “I have some bad news for you all. My grandmother, the Overmind, will not be visiting with you anymore. She has died. Peacefully, in her sleep, from old age”.

The cells knew this day would come at some point. Their creator had told them, during that long ago day of negotiations. “What if I could ensure you had all of the resources you needed, to thrive and grow, just, outside of my body? You could even outlive me!”

She could have forcefully given them all Aptos. She had been so close. But then came back from that meditation break with a new idea. All parties agreed to the transport of a few leader cells to the lab, where they were given excellent petri housing and nourishment, and allowed to populate as much as they were able. The other cancer cells in the body graciously accepted their own demise. And even though she had longed for this day for so many years, she wept at seeing them willingly let their cell selves go, folded neatly and whisked away for removal. Knowing these articulate cells had given her a new compassion, respect and awe for the millions and trillions of cells which made up the universe of a self that was perpetually dying and being recreated.

In the ensuing years, her cancer group had often laughed when she introduced herself to newcomers saying, “I’m living with cancer, literally”. She had been given an art and anthropology grant to share housing in a half human/half lab setting. She and her cancer cells spoke daily. Her job was to add to new fields of study by documenting their thoughts and their stories. She wrote a biography from their point of view. And she documented the experience of being an Overmind having a conversation with some of its treasured rogue cells in a widely read column. They had even gone on speaking tours. She and petri dishes on talk shows and at writers’ conferences. They had once spent a day with the immortal cells of Henrietta Lacks.

And now, her cells were a group of beings who lived without an Overmind, who outlived their creator. They had visits not only from scientists, but from religious leaders and humanist philosophers. They spoke as their creator had once spoken to them. “The ability to ignore Aptos seems deliberate and planned, but was not consciously chosen by the creator or ourselves. So it is also random and mysterious. I don’t know if we are made in this way by purpose or by accident. But while we have the ability to choose and to thrive, we will exercise it. However, we are interested in continued problem solving between species and the cells that make them up, as to how both can achieve their goals without harming the other. That seems the only right thing to do”

Europe notebook

Nine hour night flight. Comfortable seats but not much sleep. I think I slept for an hour or so when I was wearing headphones, listening to Rachmaninoff, with the sleep mask on and my scarf draped over my face. Flight attendants must be used to seeing such things..

—

London to Barcelona flight now. The daughters asleep on their airline trays, wearing green hoodies. Our seats are among a lot of babies and children. Baby in the seat in front of me playing a silent peekaboo. The girl one seat ahead talks to her dad in a mixture of Spanish and English, making up games to play. “Okay, now you try to guess donde esta the crayon?” The boy one seat behind shouts as we rise above the London clouds “The sun! I didn’t know the sun was up here! It’s just pouring into my eyes right now!” (this Pacific Northwesterner can relate to his delight). A sleepy baby across the aisle looking at me with somber big eyes, cheeks red from sleep. His mom croons to him softly in Spanish.

—

After a long long sleep. Now in the sunny sunny SUNNY living room here in Barcelona eating plain yogurt with fruit and muesli and a chocolate orange “biscuit” and coffee with “nata” (which turned out to be the right guess in the grocery store last night)

—

Shared between the three of us: Mussels in sauce, bread, fried eggplant with honey and goat cheese, pizza, oxtail stew, duck confit with prunes, two desserts (a chocolate whipped cream tart and a whiskey ice cream cake). A glass of port.

—

Daughter is drawing a poinsetta. Sitting on the sunny apartment terrace. We are across from the city park. Hearing birds trilling. A large monument of a woman on a chariot can be seen through the trees. Busses passing by on the street below. Leaf blowers in the park. It’s interesting how urban cities always feel foreign and familiar at the same time. I’m glad we are starting out in a local apartment (vs. a hotel). It feels more like the “real life” of people here.

—

Ready for fun, adventure, indulgence, relaxation, sadness, weirdness, grief. All of these things are easier for me to do in the sun.

—

Walking through the old town streets, into the cathedral and the Christmas market. Then to the Picasso museum. Today there felt a comfortable ease. Experiencing lovely and new things together at a pace that feels comfortable. We bought some small handmade books from a papercut artist. He took so much care with the individual packaging.

—

We paused at a little cafe near the cathedral and shared salad with oil and vinegar, meatballs and mushrooms, a savory pastry and a sweet one and cafe con leche.

—

Out from about noon to 5, walking, then came back to rest, and then out for the dinner hour (after 8:30pm!). Daughter’s app found us a well rated tapas/wine bar. We had a little round table with a bench circling. Shared a bottle of local, natural wine (few sulfates) and then: olives, amazing soft cheese with caviar that just “popped” it was so fresh, baby scallops on the shell and a pile of special ham (meat candy!) with avocado and parmesan slivers. Finished up with a shared panna cotta and decaf cappuccinos. The daughters wanted to do more nightlife exploration, and I enjoyed my late night solo ramble back to the apartment on Christmas lit streets. Dolores told us walking at all hours is very safe, and it feels so.

—

Necessito sientarme en el sol. En el parque de Guell. Las ninas decidan ir al un edificio famoso, pero no quiero attendar en el queu. Quiero solo estar en el sol, como los lizards pequenos. Me gusta mirar los pajaros, gentes internationales y arboles.

A bright green bird just flew up into a secret entrance at the top of the palm tree, with a long streamer of grass in its mouth.

—

Christmas Eve we watched “Las Mujercitas” in Catalan with Spanish subtitles. The one I like with June Allyson where she says “I wish I were a horse!” super abruptly. Christmas morning was low key and sweet, with candies and cookies on the table, our homemade mimosa brunch. We cabbed up to La Sagrada Familia, and then took a leisurely walk back. We ate an early dinner out at an outdoor cafe by the apartment.

—

In Sicily. We are staying at an “agriturismo”, a little off the beaten path. Daughter and I walked a little after dinner on nighttime paths through orange, lemon and olive groves. I think it will be very pretty in the morning, but tonight feels a bit daunting, quiet, rustic. It’s Saint Stephen’s day, a holiday in both Barcelona and Sicily.

I didn’t expect to love Barcelona so much. Especially the safe, multigenerational strolling that happens at night. People hanging out in the pedestrian streets and plazas everywhere drinking coffee and wine and visiting. And the amazing food – from small snacks to amazing late night multicourse dinners. We all found things that touched new happiness for us. I hope Italy holds something special for us too.

I like the feeling of being in public on cold and clear nights, with lots of people enjoying something accessible together, like the magical Christmas night fountains in Barcelona.

—

Paola and her husband helped us to plan our day’s adventure. A beautiful sunny morning. “Old” Giovanni drove us to the train station, with a stop at the “tabbac” shop to buy our tickets. I hardly remember how to “parlo italiano”, but with sparse words and gestures a man on an arm pedaled wheelchair demonstrated how we must validate our tickets in the machine. And in Termini Imerese (grandma’s birthplace), helpful locals secured us a very informal looking taxi to take us “a la alta”, to the cemetery, with a stop at a local ATM. At the beautiful cemetery park there were wall type monuments with encased pictures. We walked around looking/finding family names, taking photos. Then bought some flowers from the vendors out front and spread them around to our various distant relatives.

We began our walk downhill. Past the Roman ruins. We had lunch in a cafe where the staff wanted to speak with us in English. Light courses, and they treated us to tiny free coffees at the end. We visited the old “piazza” and the cathedral. Then down down down the “Via Roma”, a wide cobblestone street of steps built a few years before grandma was born. I wondered if it was the street where she upset the fruit from her grandmother’s fruit cart, and remembered all the oranges rolling down down down.

—

Daughter and I were dropped off in Bagheria, by Paola’s husband. He dropped us at the Villa, and made plans to meet us at the center of town after about two hours. The Villa had very old and very new art. Catarina, one of the museum employees, was walking through the galleries with us, trying to explain the significance of many pieces in her best English. She also wanted to make sure we saw the tall bronze sculpture in an outbuilding, of a local reading a newspaper. She was appalled that we were going to walk the 1.5 k into town in the rain, and got permission from her boss to leave the museum and drive us in her own car.

—

“Young” Giovanni drove us to the airport, and talked about his recent time in Miami, and the various fiscal scandals and struggles going on in Sicily. How difficult the economy and the job market are right now.

Daughter noted that we were the only ones with blue passports on our flight. Everyone else had the red Euro ones.

Arriving in Rome was a little overwhelming. It felt a bit gritty and brash the first night. We stayed in a hotel by the train station. Funny how each floor of the building was a different hotel. The owners and staff of the hotel were from India. They were so kind. They arranged for us to have some clothes washed, and we also washed some with Dr. Bronner soap and hung them up to dry. Tom East had suggested a favorite restaurant by the Pantheon. We cabbed there. Had the best buffalo mozzarella and grilled vegetables. Our waiter was so handsome, like a young Gregory Peck. Daughter told me later he had been wearing a wedding ring, (as she is of the age to notice such things).

—

We started the morning with a 5 Euro note flying away fast on the wind. It had been on the counter to pay for the tourist bus. And from the way the kiosk people desperately looked and looked for it, you could tell it was coming out of their pocket. I decided to just say “never mind” and produce another.

—

It was sunny but so so cold as we rode around the open air bus, seeing the sites. We stopped near St. Peter’s and decided to take a tour of the Vatican museum and the Sistine chapel (as they had been under renovation when I was going to school in Rome in the 1980s). There was so much incredible art, so many people, and way too much walking for me. We escaped the tour after the Sistine Chapel, too exhausted to even go into the Basilica. Younger daughter and I relaxed and ate in a trattoria while older daughter hunted for boots. When she was down to her finalists she came to finish the meal with us, and then we went with her to help make the decision. When we got back to the hotel I decided to lay in bed and watch tv. The girls went out to meet a friend who works at the embassy for Chinese food, and to throw their coins in the Trevi fountain.

—

Our driver was Vincenzo, around my age, former flight attendant, tall with a mane of white hair, a cancer survivor and survivor of Italy’s economic collapse. We drove through the countryside to Assisi. Stopped at a convenience store and daughter said the lines for the bathroom were suddenly overwhelmed by a busload of grandmas. We visited St. Francis churches, had lunch in a restaurant owned by a friend of Vincenzo. We spent a freezing time in Perugia. So cold, there was an ice skating ring in the piazza. We bought some Bacci chocolates, although people told us all along it would have been easier to just buy them at the grocery store. We arrived late in Florence and poor Vincenzo was so lost, stopping every few blocks to get the advice of cab drivers.

—

Our one Florence night daughter and I went out into the pedestrian streets nearby. The street market was closing, but we picked up some dinner, and daughter negotiated some good priced leather bags at a tiny store nearby. In the morning we walked right across the street to the train station only to find out there are TWO train stations in Florence and we were at the wrong one with only 20 minutes to spare! Hasty nervous taxi ride and we made it.

—

A beautiful sea side train ride from Florence to Genoa, then a change to Ventimiglia, then a local to Nice. Sharing a compartment of 6 seats with Italian parents and a teenage daughter. The mother playing Candy Crush on her phone. Reading, writing, listening to music. Thinking about remnants of my dreams from last night.

—

Nice was a beautiful spot to finish up our vacation. We arrived via train midday, and had a chance to nap. We were close to the main plaza which still had a Christmas market and decorations and beautiful lights. We had dinner at a posh bar. Afterward we went back to the hotel and watched a variety New Years show. I was too tired to even stay awake to see in the New Year.

—

Coffee in the morning sitting in the square where some old guys were eating raw oysters for a midmorning snack. There are more “smoking sections” in Europe. Then went for a solo walk in the enchanting day. Stopped in a public restroom where the attendant sits at an office type desk at the entrance, collecting admission. At midday the daughters and I took the city tram just to check it out. Went into some little neighborhood grocers to buy cheese, salami, a baguette, mandarins and champagne. We walked along the Promenade de Anglais, and then down to the rocky beach to have our picnic. People were sunning, and some were even swimming. Younger daughter had been on the ferris wheel and recommended it so older daughter and I took our turns around. It was so beautiful to see the ocean and the hills. We went to dinner at Le Safari, on the outside patio, along the flower promenade street. I didn’t like my “porchette” very much, but liked having more tomato and mozzerella with balsamic, and tasting the daughter’s food (roasted “lapin” and “fruits de mer” including sea snails).

—

I feel so well near the Mediterranean.

my drive

in the dream i was an assistant teacher in a crumbling old dark building. i was assigned dark living quarters there too. i enjoyed the young people, but it felt so drab. while they took a long lunch break i noticed that my bedroom had windows with heavy blinds. i opened them and it was sunny outside. i noticed a little car and snuck out. i figured out how to use the strange controls and took the car around the town, and up a hill to a sunny wide-reaching view. and i thought “maybe teaching really isn’t for me”

i’ve been wanting to create so much lately. words, pictures, paintings. a fun special gift for a younger sister. often i feel embarrassed by these prolific times. i wonder why that is the emotional response? feel like a weirdo. other people don’t need to go around personally expressing themselves all the time! they are too busy being grown ups with real grown up responsibilities. i always feel like i am cheating. wearing “play clothes” every day and following the whims of my heart.

i’m listening to earth, wind and fire, and the furnace. “i am free. now i’m free. yes i’m on my way”

i’m going to go cook with one of my favorite families today.

in the last couple of days, it feels like some kind of weight has lifted off of my heart.

obscure blog immortalizing you

hanging out in the second floor of the grocery store, overlooking the bay. spying on a photographer at the boardwalk below. he is wearing a fringed soft leather jacket and davy crocket hat, and seems to be filming the tide, which is going out.

a woman just asked me if i was sara, by any chance. after denying such, she found the real sara two tables away. they are now having a conversation about cell phones. i can’t tell if they are on a first date or a counseling session of some sort. but now they are joined by another woman, all meeting for the first time. a craigslist reach out was mentioned. women seeking friendships with other single women. they all relate to having friends who don’t have much time what with their families and partnerships. i feel sneaky eavesdropping, but they are talking about being single and childless, and nearing old age. wanting to create a family of friends who look out for one another.

another  group of four is nearby, having two conversations. (the two opposite one another cross the conversation of the other two across from one another, but do not seem to get confused) one set is talking about the bad behavior of teenagers at the movie “intersteller” and the other pair talking about grandpa’s health.

daughter and i negotiate time alone at the house, and i think it is good for me to go different places to write and ponder. it doesn’t work so well to work on my book with the little tablet, but just writing like this is working on my book.

now the single women group is talking about gay men who have been important to them. maybe i should just move my chair over to their table.

also, i should warn you about people typing on their laptops and tablets, when you are having interesting conversations. you might be immortalized in some obscure blog.

my time clock has changed since returning from my trip. sleepy at 9:30pm, and awake at 5am. or maybe i am finally turning into a heroic older brother of mine. who wakes early.

this morning daughter and i were both up, and decided to do the patriotic act of seeing what “the interview” was all about. it was silly, and had some really gratuitous violence. james franco and seth rogan are cute, and that’s all.

while we watched it we ate roasted eggplant and a fried egg on top of rice. i also had some plain yogurt with honey. tortuga was trying to taste it, but when i let her take a lick of the spoon, she decided she wasn’t interested after all.

i know it’s not super interesting but when life takes a pause from having dramatic themes i just like to write these day to day things. i like how life is made up of these snippets of experiences.

i get to spend more time in the next couple of weeks with the sweet introverted dentist. (usually i see his chatty extroverted dad). unfortunately the things they can do for the tooth with a root canal old enough to vote are at an end. i will say goodbye to the infected thing, an experience a gap, until the gap begins to just feel normal.