Going through my old blog

I (only sort of) wish I could say pure gold from 2011.

but holy crap, my seemingly inexhaustible rambles resulted in a couple gems in the rough:

 

I just read it for 3 hours (priviledges) only got three three months and will share a couple:
This is an entry I wrote on the last day I saw my grandmother.  I really treasure it because my recall of that day is a little different, and because of brains, I actually trust this write up more.

”

Those of you who haven’t had the joy of reading last private entry (Which’d be everyone, cause it’s private) have missed out on the news of why my gran (mom’s mom, the one who’s not recently put into rehab after a crippling stroke) was a little more difficult to put up with when I took her to the doctor.  Her second diagnosis (and I’m still pissed about the failure in the first) is acute leukemia.   On one hand, she’s a great lady who’spast 90 through the course a full life. She’s mastered her own life, raised a full fam, and enjoyed 56ish years of heavy smoking.  

On the other hand, she’s got acute leukemia now.
*face*

So there’s no decision to be made: we’re going to roll with it, in the most morbid sense that one can roll with punches.  Not to mention this’d be our choice anyway – when one of your larger late life pleasures is a full breakfast, as is my gran’s, a chemotherapy option might as well kiss your ass.  There’s that idea that your treatment can degrade a quality of life.

Mom’s being very good but told me realistically if I want to see her again to say goodbye I should do so within the next two weeks to a couple months.

I’m turning old and increasingly amazed at how fast time seems to fly.

Finally got her back to her home yesterday, her tight apartment on Park Avenue and I knew things’d be changed around.  Mom’s even hired a live-in helper so gran really has 24 hour care in between our visits.

Turns out one of her last requests have been – which I guess I’m kind of proud of considering I did the last two prior – was another lobster dinner.  She obviously enjoyed taking me to lobster dinners around her neighborhood when I was a kid and teen, when I got back to NYC that was obviously a lot of trouble for her, and for her last birthday and holidays, I came over with a couple live ones bought from across the street and cook the hell out of her kitchen.  So this was one of her latest requests.

But I was late, and stepfather-man Lucien wound up doing his best over the cooking, which was cool.  But I walk through the door and there’s my gran with a bed where her chair should be.   No table either – and these are legacy furniture to me, long-time fixtures at her place now – but these were apparently scrapped for easier live-in access for two in her apartment.

Gran’s now not been the same person for a little while.  Gone from tough old lady with badass new Yorker personality to more kitten-like, strong personality to a little more confused – these’ll never seem quite right to me.

We kind of throw down and even if it wasn’t a Fine Dining experience that I can now be super critical of, it’s nice.  Aid comes in and she’s very pleasant and bringing some peacefulness, complimenting and professional.  Reads a paper for a long while about Caribbean happenings and which organization bearing one acronym is warring or acting out against some other organization bearing another acronym for a while, but, she’s polite and wise enough to issue nice professional compliment.  Hey apparently I’m tall and handsome. Great, mm-hm.  I can tell she’s super qualified and pleasant to be around. She actually did decent, great things towards my grandmother too.  I guess that’s also important.

My family’s pretty down to earth and we’re amazingly capable of dealing with things like death.  We’re also strong willed people, and have so far been pretty cool about the idea of living ourselves out.

But it’s still new to me, eating around an elderly relative we’re treating as bed-ridden.  Who did ask the same well intentioned questions a couple of times, and who mentally, isn’t processing our information as much.  And giving her stuff away.  Which was always nice but weird, and it doesn’t help that mom’s explaining that this is so she can feel she has a sense of control over the future (I know.)  And while maybe not absolutely bed-ridden, who’s consumed and enjoyed so much dinner, that she dozed off for a catnap and then woke up right there.
Everyone’s cool with this – by my reckoning she’s kicked much more than 85 years of a calm, alert presence.

And we’re all pleasant enough.  But there’s only so much to talk about by a dozing lady before we’re ready to go home: Hey remember when. . .?  Hey I’m going to be bartending in a hotel near here as of Monday, yes it’s cool for all sorts of reasons!  Check that out- a lobster cleanly and completely demeated and consumed via bare hands.  Hey so, I upgraded my ram on my pc and since then have been #2 ranked in the world as a sniper in a video game, accidently.  Hey remember that time Gran ate the wrong batch of brownies at thanksgiving and thought that was just the greatest cup of tea ever? Hey, I can bake this Christmas.  Hey lets check stuff and joke around a little.  Yadda.

But then we’re getting ready to leave and I kiss her on her forehead goodbye she wakes up and time’s slower again and she thanks me for being able to make it over and we even wink at each other and shiyat (my gran taught me how to wink at people around when I was 8, and this ability has been one one of the sources of my power) and in addition to “love you” I realize most of my casual statements of “be well” and “take care” suck.  I want to be light, but now there’s tension in me because I want to not say goodbye with such a negative drama but feel some dumbass human cracking in my dumbass presentation, so I say “I’ll see you soon” but realize I need to arrange that shortly if I’m going to mean that statement and I actually might have cracked a little.

I’m not even used to trying not to crack.  I wasn’t even aware that I have a desire to not crack, but apparently it’s the case. 

I don’t want to make crying noises.  Ever.   Especially not in front of others – I don’t even like sniffling.  But getting that this very affectionate hand squeeze from a lady who’s always to demanded a bear-hug on a departure, and seeing god-knows-what’s going through her mind as she then kind of stares straight ahead as I’m standing to her right, kind of just breaks my heart.

About to crack and for reasons more about how this woman’s helped bring me up than wanting to be too cool, don’t really want to as a closing note.

So in a puss I fake doing a final check in the kitchen, grab a sneaky paper towel, and actually avoid eye contact on my way out.  Babble babble lolsy things which may seem too open but is also actually quite inane distracting banter on the walk to the subways with my mother and the stepfather man.  

Get control of the affect back and ended up sifting over detaching rationalizations.  I mean hey, while it’s amazing how humans have evolved to cry to show disturbance and grief, I’ve also evolved to not want to secrete extra tears and mucus in the presence of others.   And a tall dude walking around the streets bawling seems strange from my perspective.  So I try and retain coolness in my actions, but what’s this stupid expression in a hallway and eyeball leaking? Running against a cold wind after a steady high water + sodium diet maybe? Oh, no, I just really love my kickass gran. 

Fak.”

 

Onto something lighter:

 

This is less golden, but typical of my non-normalcy.

 

Apparently, this is how I point out that clingy voicemails will not lead to the perfect date?

“They could offer you a marijuana coated gourmet steak with lemon zest terriyaki spinach with a side of dumplings and penne al vodka miso sour with the greatest lime gimlet that’s ever cooled your jets that transforms into a 3am aphrodite-whispered blowjob followed by athenian intercourse chock full of ambrosia brimmed joint sweat in front of an air conditioner next to a table topped with pitchers of water hand delivered and spit into by naked baby cupid himself and you know what? You’re STILL NOT TURNED ON to this great outing because it was communicated within 6 missed messages 22 minutes before you even got home”