Me Talk Pretty One day

I want to say so many thanks to everyone who has emailed, texted or called saying "I know you can't call me back, but..how's your voice?"

Better! And such support (see above) is part of why, I'm sure.

But it's been maddeningly slow for a singer. Today is 24 days since I got sick, and 19 days since I woke up unexpectedly - silent.

On about day 7 I could make a couple hooting sounds.

By day 10 I could speak and be understood - barely. Every other word escaped behind the rasp or the squeak.

By day 14 I could be understood, unless I was trying to express sarcasm. You'd be surprised how much of what's BEHIND what you say is off limits when you have only an octave range. And I could access that octave only if I sang on "oooo" and slid carefully around. Not ideal for normal conversation.

Day 19 - today- I still sound like I have a cold, but I have about 2 1/2 octaves, and some of it even has that "forment" singers are always talking about. I actually hear overtones! Whew! It still feels a bit "foggy" and I'm missing my top octave or so, but with steady progress each day, I'm satisfied.

And I still have the steroids in hand if I feel I need them.

I've never lost my voice before. I keep wondering if it's going to be "reborn." I'll come back a mezzo. Or I'll be so glad to have it back it'll constitute a mystical religious experience, and I'll be a spirited dynamo who never tires of vocalizing. Maybe it's like re-booting a computer - my voice is going to come back to me - reformatted somehow.

In any case I'm glad to have what i have of it back.

Phoenix

Today was day ten without a voice. I have to say it's a little weird that in the same month I lost my voice, a dancer friend broke her ankle, and a very discerning artist friend who's hard on herself lost part of her breast. What is it we are supposed to be learning? Maybe it's how to survive without something to which we are very attached.

But I think we are all not to be separated from them forever. When I woke up I had a feeling. I saved my voice all day, and when Colin came home I knew it. I knew I'd be able to talk.

"Hhhhhhhi!" I honked. "hhhhwelcmhhhhhmmehhh!" OK he can only understand every other word, and it's really more of a duck imitation with some consonants worked in, but it is a voice. Later I discovered I had five whole notes I could sustain...actually sing...sort of sing...right, smack in the middle of my voice. No high, no low. But it's a voice.

Before I move back into the world of the voiced, there are a few things I must admit I will miss about my period silence. Perhaps this is what I have learned.

One: Not talking with credit card companies, insurance companies, or people who want to rent our house. Not that I have anything against the latter, it's just that I get anxious when they ask for a rate and I have to pull out my calculator and get on our website because I've forgotten the rates and come up with something. And I'm self conscious about sounding too desperate. That people pleaser comes out and it's hard to hide.

Two: Not having to think about what I'm going to say next in any conversation.

Three: The fact that when I do have to communicate, I have to do it face to face. Closely. This is especially poignant with Colin. There's no calling from the kitchen, "Do you know where the lids to those containers are?"

Instead I have to move, across the whole apartment, if necessary, to wherever he is, with container, get right up in his face and whisper, very verrrry softly because I know raspy whispering is bad for the voice... "These c's...lid?"

Likewise he must come to me. If what he says is important enough to need an answer, he's aware that he needs to come near me. It takes his utmost concentration to understand me. I've commanded his...attention, yes, that's it.... every time I wish to "speak" to him, we must look one another in the eye and make the information pass between us.

I've noticed his retention rate of what I say has actually gone UP since I've had no voice. I love it. How ironic.

Now that I have a few noises back, there is the rest of me. I haven't felt so close to having mono since I had it. I keep thinking, has this something to do with the new medication, Plequenil? Dr. Rackoff insists not, but I was exposed to a - cold. The sniffles for three days in my dad's case, a slightly more bronchial thing for Colin which took maybe a week. Others I know have lost their voices for 2-3 days, but not 10.

I slept 'till after noon today - Solid. I was dreaming of this bird who had a double set of wings, and could fly like a normal or a humming bird. Twin orange feathers made a triangle of a white tuft on her tail, and when she turned to speak to me the face was dark, like an owl's. And then she spoke to me without speaking.

Perhaps like the bird I am meant to fly at two different speeds. And communicate sans words for a little bit longer.

King of Crickets - or - Say Ah (or not)

"Oh, My God, that is SO inflamed!" Dr. B., normally a mask of professionalism, self-consciously closes her own mouth.

The professional is back. "I'm sorry, that's probably the last thing, you want to hear from your doctor, 'oh, my God,' but..." she looks in my throat with the flashlight again. "Oh my God!"

It's about the baby. Just back from maternity leave, my primary Care Physician has a three month old at home, and I doubt she's high on anything so much as lack of sleep. And guilt.

"Do you see it written all over my face?" she asks when I mouth the word "HOW?" and make rocking motions with my arms. "I feel so guilty. Everyone is coughing," she ads, and I wonder passingly if children of doctors grow up with these immensely well functioning immune systems, because they're exposed to everything from e.coli to typhoid by the time they're one. Or if they grow up sick.

I feel her struggle. Clearly Dr. B feels just as guilty about having left her medical practice for a few months. "What is this about a chronic fracture at C5?" she asks me, for all the world as if I'd wet the bed. "I was coming in every week, I should have gotten this!"

I don't know what to say, and couldn't if I did.

"Have you had a bone density test?" I shake my head no. "It'll be a fight with your insurance company because you're so young, but a chronic fracture...you should have one."

I kind of like this version of my doctor. Her relaxed sense is catching. "Now, what about this laryngitis. I've heard of people having it for two, up to three days, this virus going around but...eight?" She smiles a little wryly. "You want some 'roids?"

Now I know she's high. The word slips from her mouth like a teenager who's been drinking a little too much for the first or second time, a little amused at her own audacity. "' 'Roids" is not a word the old Dr. B. would use to discuss prescribing so serious a substance as steroids. I bet Dr. B hasn't had a full night's sleep in over three months.

"Maybe," I mouth and make a balancing motion with my right hand. "Remind me about side effects?..." I whisper.

"Oh, well you'll have lot's of energy..." she laughs and goes to explain exactly what to expect if I should take the 6-day dose of steroids. Reminding me this is only the secnd time she's ever done this. I am regularly impressed by how much information this diminutive woman keeps somewhere. She's like her own self-contained database. She pulls phone numbers out of her hand-held device, processes what's in front of her quickly and retrieves lists of the most random information out of her head. Dr. B is to me a tiny, whirling walking wonder.

I pantomime writing a prescription, and indicate that I'll take it home and think about it. I think I may be getting better without 'roids. Yesterday I was able to make this one honking sound, precisely on a B flat. And today I can make two sounds. When I put them together I sound like Tarzan. I keep my experiments to a minimum out of respect for my ailing vocal folds and my neighbors.

Today is day nine without a voice. My friend Stacy says maybe the King of Crickets has it.

El niño busca su voz.
(La tenía el rey de los grillos.)
En una gota de agua
buscaba su voz el niño.
No la quiero para hablar;
me haré con ella un anillo
que llevará mi silencio
en su dedo pequeñito.

The little boy is looking for his voice
(The king of the crickets had it.)
In a drop of water
the little boy looked for his voice..
I don’t want it to speak with;
I will make a ring of it
so that he may wear my silence
on his little finger.


-Federico García Lorca

Silence of the Am

The funniest thing is that it really happens - when you whisper, everyone in the room begins to tiptoe. They creep along in silence as if...as if there's really something to be quiet about.

It's day four of my acute laryngitis, and it's been mostly entertaining, as I use Colin and my friend Stacy, visiting from Chicago, as my "translators" for phone conversations, and we laugh at the oddities of life around a person who can hear but not speak above a whisper. It's like driving on the left side - everyone feels the need to re-orient. Colin can't help but whisper back - I think it's a sign of empathy - and though with Stacy around there've been three people consistently, we're all beginning to feel how my relatively constant stream of conversation fills the room. The silence is - just weird.

But immensely comforting, to be with people with whom speech isn't necessary every minute. We were upstate when my voice left me and it started to snow, and in front of the fire I lay in silence on one couch with my head in Colin's lap as Stacy typed into her laptop on the other. I can count on one hand the times in my life when I remember feeling so - content. And complete. Actually kind of nice, that my "disorder" keeps me from ruining a perfectly companionable silence by filling it up with unnecessary chatter.

Only yesterday afternoon - day three- did I begin to entertain the notion that there may be something more lasting going on than vocal folds slightly inflamed due to my recent cold. Maybe I really injured them coughing. In twenty years of professional singing, I've never had laryngitis, therefore I'm unsure as to its "normal" track of recovery.

It's strange to imagine a world without my voice. More than part of my identity, more than an extension of my ego, my voice is almost another person with whom I feel I've always lived. Like my "deamon" (a la The Golden Compass.)

Already yesterday I heard the outgoing message on our answering machine and thought, she sounds so far away. Who is that girl? What if I lost my voice, or I regained it and it wasn't...pretty to listen to? Imagining such a world requires reorganizing the pieces of my soul. It's not entirely a bad thing, ...just...completely different.

Maybe being sans voice would help focus my now scattered energies. Funny how over the past few days I've become more diligent about practicing my harp. And I'm more interested in that dance class I've been studiously not attending for ten years. Perhaps it doesn't matter what my mode of expression is. I just need one.

Maybe without my voice I would finally get that job with Doctors Without Borders and do something important in the world. Maybe focus my energies on healing. Maybe many things would be different.

Anyway, I'm settling in. We've pulled out the sign language dictionary, and changed the outgoing message on my cell phone so it instructs people to leave an email address, FAX, or some way to reach them which does not involve my speaking. I'm wondering how I'm going to change that plane reservation for which I need to speak to a person. How much can I depend on others to be my voice, and for how long? How much does one of those TDD devices cost?

Colin thinks maybe I cursed myself by taking the picture above. We were in a special place in Glacier Mountain National Park called The Trail of the Cedars, where gigantic trees have grown without being molested by fire, some for over a thousand years.

The Cedar forest feels holy. Footsteps fall almost silently on the ground softened by pine needles over eons. Like when you walk into a church, all but the most insensitive immediately lower their voices. And look up. To where a canopy of ancient trees instructs your soul upwards, to your third eye and then the Baihui, the point in Chinese Medicine which translates as The Point of a "Hundred Meetings."

There's a reason monks take a vow of silence in order to hear the subtleties of the energies around and within. I can see why. Losing a voice is like losing one of your senses - all the others immediately become heightened. In the sanctity of the forest I suddenly wanted to feel how soft one of those pine branches was and instinctively put it to my lips. Colin said it looked funny, so I made eyes and he snapped a picture.

I think I can live in this space happily for some time. Hopefully, though, not forever.

Listening to my Rheumatologist

Listening to my Rheumatologist

"Do you think this could be an underlying cause to my Interstitial Cystitis?" I ask, scanning the small room but seeing nothing beyond the little wheels in my head.

She nodded with a knowing smile, almost a smirk. "And all your other inflammatory issues. I see it all the time."

This must be the kind or news a doctor loves to deliver. You have something wrong with you, AND I think I know how to solve it. I'm making a mental list of all the people I need to share this information with. My IC group, my Fibro group, everyone I know with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. My boyfriend, my friend Keri, who years before earning her medical degree said to me, "I dunno, Niki, but this sounds an awful lot like an auto-immune condition..." my parents, my massage therapist, my gynecologist.

And I think, Thank God I have a Blog.

"This is the medication for you." She writes on a pad. "Plequenil. It's the least harmful of all the medicines I prescribe." She brushes a dark lock of hair away from her temple. "It used to be used to treat malaria."

I giggle.

"What?" says she.

"I've had malaria. And some anti-malarial drugs. This isn't one of the drugs that gives you hallucinations, is it?"

"No," she laughs. "This is much older than those. It was found out quite by accident that it helps with this condition. You will need to have your eyes checked by an opthamologist every six months, though. And it may take two to three months before you feel anything. But you've already waited..."

"Twenty two years," I heard myself murmur. "I've felt like crap for twenty two years."

There was nothing left to say. I've never had fewer questions. This is exactly the disease I've felt like I had, from nearly the beginning. Roving, raging inflammation which seems to travel from one part of the body to another. Slippery. It has seemed to have its own toxic agenda, and has masqueraded as at least a dozen different diseases. All of which I actually have. But this may be "the man behind the man."

This is turning out to be not the appointment I expected. Thinking it would probably be a waste of time, I'd already rescheduled my follow-up with this rheumatologist twice, and almost rescheduled today in favor of a quick trip upstate. A little fresh air'll do me more good than chasing doctors, I thought.

As I waited for the doctor in my little room and pondered on the best laminate square to set my bag down on, I began to feel the usual hackles of fear and certain, impending humiliation rise on my neck. I HATE being left in a waiting room. How many times has that room, in a hundred different offices, in a dozen different cities, resulted in pain, disappointment, and confusion, but worst of all, embarrassment. The doctor pats me on the head and says, "Sometimes we all get a little stressed out..." or laughs openly at the range of diseases I've supposedly come in with, all diagnoses of exclusion. "You can't possibly have all those things. You'd be dead." Well, maybe part of me is.

My chart is sitting in a clear plastic container which hangs from the door. I pull it down and open it.

Pause, please. My Mother is going, What? Read your chart? Isn't that kind of, well, sneaking around?

Absolutely not. When a doctor makes notes about you, those notes belong to you. A common misperception pervades that somehow we are not supposed to ever peek at our notes. But it is completely within your rights to read them. You can request copies of them to be sent to you, you can request copies be sent to another doctor, they are YOURS. Not only that, it behooves one to become acquainted with their contents. I have on more than one occasion found important information lurking about those notes, whose authors neglected or forgot to tell me.

Rewind. Play. I pull it down and open it.

At the top there is a letter to my primary care physician. She thanks my doctor for referring her in the usual manner, (though she didn't, really) next is a summary of my first discussion with Dr. Rackoff. And in the last paragraph: "I think it's very likely that Nicole has autoimmune disease, and am ordering the following tests..."

See, she's not going to tell you you're crazy, I repeated to myself behind the door, She doesn't think you're crazy.

But she probably does. Dr. Rackoff seemed like a no-nonsense kind of doctor last time I saw her. I can't imagine her having patience for any of these "touchy-feely" diseases like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Hell, I don't even believe in it.

"The good news is, you don't have Chronic fatigue Syndrome, " she said as she whisked the papers down onto her desk. "And you don't have lupus."

Great, here it comes. I knew it. We've ruled everything out, there's nothing wrong with you, a pleasant handshake, then I'm done. Maybe I can still make a batch of candles and make something productive of my day. I should have gone upstate, really

Dr. Rackoff has more to say. "Let me show you this blood test. There's this protein...in any case, what you do have is significant auto-immune disease. And it causes Inflammation. Non-specific. All over. Inflammation."

That would explain why every time anybody has ever scanned, poked, prodded, filmed, photographed or otherwise investigated my body, they've found inflammation, or the white blood cells which accompany it. But it's like how three blind men describe the elephant; the gynecologist looked at his part, the wrist doc looked at hers, the stomach guy at his, etc., etc. It would also explain why I seem to have weak to middling defenses against any infection.

In fact, looking at the diagnosis, Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease, or UCTD, it would seem to explain just about everything.

On my way home I wander around Union Square for a while. In Brooklyn I hit the pharmacy.

"I only have 20 of these I can give you today, the rest will be in tomorrow," the pharmacist shouts over the half-wall. He has a heavy Brooklyn accent, and scarily, he and his staff know me by face. "You want some now, or you wanna wait?"

"I would like to start my new life now, thank you." Not sure if I'm joking, he looks at the other pharmacist. They look down at the piece of paper; together they let out a loud guffaw. It's catching - pretty soon the whole pharmacy has the giggles. The staff will ask them later what it's all about.

I could walk on air. What would I do without this fucking monkey on my back? Make a better living? Focus on my career? Oh, if I have energy I'll have to volunteer, no more excuses about being a sicko, I can take voice lessons instead of get massage, maybe acting lessons, make that demo tape I've been meaning to....maybe physical therapy will work, now that my muscles won't just get irritated from it, and I can join martial arts again and maybe take a dance class. Tonight, why don't I make chili? Colin says he's hungry for Mexican.

Whoa Nellie. You're not cured YET. You my not be able to tolerate the medication. It may not work. The entire diagnosis could be completely false. What if they switched my blood with someone else's? I wander into the very yuppie-shi-shi Union Market, mind looping in the clouds, thinking, I should buy something to celebrate. Everything appears to be enhanced. Every detail is displayed to me in high-definition. Clearly I'm experiencing a mild drug rush. Oxytosin? From my brain? The flowers look gorgeous. Would flowers be overkill?

I'm looking at people in the market, people shopping, people who work there, and for a moment I feel like I'm circulating on their level, like I'm not one step out of synch and behind, like I usually am. In fact I think I can pick out the sick ones as if by radar; it's something in the way they move their eyes, tracking slightly above and beyond like looking at the world full-on would make them dizzy, and suddenly I'm standing in the middle of the market where I usually salivate over all the gourmet food I can only have a little of, and I'm thinking: I don't need this. I don't want anything I haven't got.

I mean, I wouldn't turn down some of those concord grapes right now, but I'm perfectly happy without them. If I have energy, I can want things again. But not these shi-shi yuppie things. Much bigger, much better, more important things I haven't dared to imagine in years. I've always believed you can get just about anything you want in life with hard work and perseverance, but that hard work takes energy. A commodity for me and others with chronic illness. It's been so long I haven't really thought about what I actually want from life. I'm so accustomed to asking, what can I actually, realistically get, and do, with the energy and pain levels I have, that this new life script comes at me like a train wreck. The movie machines are flickering, rewinding and putting in a new reel. I may be a free woman again. Out of prison. Suddenly emancipated. Off death row. Maybe I got lucky.

Colin knows what kind of state I'm in when he walks in the door, because I called him hours ago, my voice shuddering. He takes one look at me and sees I'm practically still on the ceiling.

"Don't get too excited about getting well, 'cuz you'll just make yourself sick," says Colin. He grins and folds me in his arms. Touche´, my friend. Touche´.

Listening to my Uterus

Grampa Gyne pushes at his glasses. I know something must be up, because instead taking the seat at his desk, where he usually sits after examining me and writes prescriptions, he's chosen to sit on the couch opposite me.

"So," he pushes his lenses again, then leans with his elbows on his knees, his expression a grandfatherly mixture of wisdom, professionalism and sympathy, "where are you in your decision- making about child bearing?"

Talking to your body is a little like talking to a computer. Or a small child. Or a horse.

A child or a horse or a computer can't necessarily tell you, in so many words, why it's acting out. Maybe sometimes an animal, machine or child is having temper tantrums because of some obscure inherent condition, or malfunction. But most often I think it has to do with something you're feeding it, doing to it, or putting in its environment. There's something triggering the outburst.

That's why I'm taking time today to Listen to my Uterus. I think it must have something to tell me. In fact my whole body is screaming for attention, and not necessarily in productive ways.

This month in medicine I've been officially diagnosed as hypo-thyroid, seen a physiatrist (neuromuscular specialist) who couldn't believe I can walk after looking at my MRI, and with Grampa gyne, officially opened negotiations about the permanent removal of my uterus. What gives?

I'm regularly amazed at how we Americans are more in tune with the needs of our children, our pets, and our machines than we are to our own bodies. My friends Lynette and Charles have two cats. Says Lynette, "When they eat raw meat, they get the runs; they run around and around and around the couch until they've run it out! It makes them so hyper!"

How often do we personally notice any connection between what we eat and how we feel? Dozens of studies are now at our disposal regarding childrens' diet and their behavior. Do we think this stops when we're adults? We still ride the sugar see-saw - eat it for breakfast, crash mid-morning, eat more for lunch.... The news is full of the latest on diabetes and heart disease in the West. No, as much as we'd like to think so, we're not immune to food.

We're not immune to environment, either. The air we breathe, the noise we're exposed to, the stress we endure.

The problem is it takes attention to ferret out cause and effect. Attention and time and effort - which seems just one more thing "to do" among the kaleidoscope of things we're "supposed" to do every day. And as long as all systems aren't failing catastrophically, we tend to move on.

In the midst of another uterine flare, I've decided I'm tired of battling one infection after another with antibiotics, steroids and other toxic substances, with time between marred by inflammation which feels like a constant migraine in my pelvis.

"I'm concerned about the microbes mutating, getting more tolerant of the antibiotics and stronger against me," I told Grampa Gyne. "And I'm sick of being responsible for educating the bastards. I feel like I've already paid for their college education. I'll be damned if I'm gonna throw in for the masters and doctorate degrees, as well."

I'm ready for a new path.

But all Western medicine has to offer is to cut it out.

So, let's think about this. If your computer had a virus, and you'd been to all the top computer specialists in the world and they couldn't get rid of it, what would you do? (No, you can't buy a new one. This is a metaphor.)

You could smash it to bits (but that would be suicide -always a last option.) You could grit your teeth during its slowness, and keep working it into the ground while it keeps crashing and crashing and crashing.

Maybe you could take some of the load off. Maybe delete some files, run just the software you need. Maybe you figure out that if you just want to do some word processing and get on the internet, your computer works just fine. Maybe you don't need to run the fancy graphics software to get by.

I think that as Americans, we'd rather take a pill than seriously consider any changes to our lifestyle. A shorter workweek, a diet rich in whole foods and low in sugars, an active jaunt three times a week. All beyond consideration for most of us. Our country was built on hard work,and, damnit, we're going to push it to the wall, so we can get things. We will run the fancy graphics software. We will put it on credit. At any cost to ourselves, our bodies, our self esteem, and our relationships.

But wait, I remember this obscure little feature on my computer. It took me a long time to find it. It's called "disk repair," and not everyone knows about it, though it's there for the asking. Apparently it works much like "defragging" on those PC things.

When I run it, sometimes it fixes whatever problem I had. In most cases running it is just considered good computer "hygiene," preventing and correcting problems along the way.

Hundreds of studies support the logic that there are things we can do besides take pills which help "defrag" our own systems. Meditation calms the heart, reduces blood pressure and boosts the immune system. Touching, or being touched by another person releases oxytocin, regulates glucose levels and increases natural killer cells. Yoga reduces muscle spasm and pain. Massage, acupunctue, tai chi...all have well documented positive effects on our body's ability to cope with disease, pain, and the environment.

I learned how to meditate in college. Three times a day I sat and pictured white blood cells, like Pac man, eating up all the bad things in my body. I did Tai Chi and practiced martial arts, then sort of fell off it. I got more concerned with success, personally, professionally.... I felt it wasn't "working." I wanted a cure - one thing I could do which would fix everything. Pronto. As I meditated and practiced Tai chi, my lab results were improving, but not fast enough for me.

In retrospect this is exactly the crazy Western, American attitude which digs a lot of people further into trouble. Why not do the defragging? Why not do the disk repair? Perhaps in listening to my uterus, as opposed to just talking to it, I should hear a wake up call. I must step up and do the daily "fetching of water and carrying of wood" as described by Eastern philosophers.

Toward this end, as you are my witness, I aim to make the following efforts: to quiet the volume of activity I've grown used to in response to my pain, and deepen with it, by being quiet several times a day. If I do nap, to make that time more productive, more potent, by activating my mind around my body's own ability to heal. To make time for yoga, not half a session every other week, but a full session, twice a week. To budget a massage for myself every 10 days.

(BTW, for free yoga you can do at home every day, check out http://www.yogatoday.com/ They post new routines regularly!)

In Chinese medicine, the kidneys hold the energy we have "on credit." The theory goes that once that store is depleted, it needs to be replenished somehow. One needs rest, good food, warmth and a good balance of things, like human interaction and quiet.

Why do I keep going to doctors? Sometimes they do have something useful to say, it's true. But in the silence between appointments I am beginning to hear voices. When I stop talking and barking out orders, I think I hear the voices of my body calling. There is better way, a deeper way, a more productive way, and you've made progress, but you must consider giving up some things. The hardest things, perhaps. Walk with me.

Is my body calling for democracy? Disillusioned with my 30+ reign as sole dictator? Maybe if I put my own CIA to work seeking out microbes which are actually harming me, as opposed to punishing the organs which are only doing their job, I would ultimately win the war. Then again maybe not.

But when you think about it, it's not that hard; the body doesn't really ask that much. Only fundamental change. But in such small portions. Incremental, daily changes, which take so little from our lives, and add so much. A little meditative sitting 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there, cutting up a red pepper instead of eating crackers, adding quinoa to some miso soup, playing the pain meditation CD while napping.

"I haven't decided for sure about child bearing," I told Gramps Gyne," I think I'm probably not going to have children, but I figured I had at least a few more years on the final decision yet." And he agreed with me that we'd try other things.

The NY Consortium

From: "niki naeve
To: "colin young"
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 4:46 PM
Subject: Naeve/Young Consortium (A.K.A. "NYC")

BTW Naked Kandles bought the Naeve/Young consortium some items today: like an oven mitt (to replace similar sullied with wax by proprietress of Naked Kandles months ago), a new cheese grater (to replace similar accidentally melted by same proprietress while preparing beeswax for lip balm), and some paper towel (used to clean up previous).

Niki Naeve, Licensed Massage Therapist also bought us some screws and did some maintenance on Colin's old fondue pot, so she can continue using it for hot rocks.

Love,
Niki Naeve, LMT and Naked Kandles


From: "Colin D Young"
LOL - now if we could just get Colin D. Young Photography to pull his weight!

From: "niki naeve"
yeah, wasn't he supposed to pay for half the printer?


From: "Colin D Young"
I thought I did.

What, the 5 almost full ink tanks weren't good enuf for ya?


From: niki naeve
OK, OK, the Naeve subsidiary relents to let you use the printer, based on the precedent that you have been using the printer already for nine months. But Naked Kandles requests the same squatter's rights for the storage of the new roaster.

From: "niki naeve"
Hi-
Also wanted to let you know I just set up auto payments for the Discover card (the loan for our sewer for the rental house, etc) from our joint acct.
I did use part of the$XXXX loan to bring my personal acct up...

From: "Colin D Young"
Right, so the N/Y Consortium owes the Naeve subcorporation $XXXX (plus interest).

Is there anything else on that card? If not, we can just pay off the card once we get $$$ from M-ARK Project and winter rentals and call it square?

From: "niki naeve"
Then we're just behind for october rent, right? So less than one month.

...

I heard some advice once long ago about choosing someone to marry. "Would you run a business with this person? Because that's what you're doing. When you run a family, you run a business, no two ways about it."

In my youngish, idealistic heart, I thought it reasonable advice, but nothing to mull over very long. Love conquers all, right?

I took business sense for granted. After all, I'd never wanted for much of anything. I must have survival in my genes. Being from a family of stock holders, I picked stocks - profitably, apparently - when I was like 10 . Someone asked me how, once, and I said it was like a game, where you keep track of points. Each dollar is a point. That's how I thought about it.

I never thought about points as equalling food, or rent, or health care. It just wasn't that scarce.

When you're part of a couple it starts innocently enough - usually with food. One of you is short on cash at a cash-only restaurant, and the other puts in. The other rents a movie in exchange. A candy bar at a bodega, a cup of hot cider and a muffin at the farmers' market. And soforth.

Pretty soon pennies owed are forgotten, then dollars...then you move in together, and one of you has the TV and the other one has the DVD player. One of you buys the box springs and the other the mattress, so now who owns the bed?

When money's tight, there are two solutions. You track it with the meticulous mind of an accountant, or you just throw up your hands and say, "what's mine's yours and vice versa, so on and soforth. Let's get on with it." Right. And maybe you never really mean it. Maybe small grudges begin to grow. Pretty soon there are thousands of dollars , cash or debt, or both, floating about in the universe and no one knows who they belong to. Or who covets it.

Colin and I have attempted an attitude which falls slightly in between miserly and hippy-esque. We walk a delicate line. Between the two of us we run six or seven careers, (depending how you count - for instance, is Colin d. Young Lighting and Photography two careers, or one?) three small businesses, four websites, a rental house and a not-for-profit theater company. We both sometimes volunteer, sometimes work for money for local political causes.

Taxes (oh add one career - Colin's my accountant) are a veritable nightmare. On the other hand, there is almost nothing in my life which is not tax deductible. I have hanging files for just about every receipt which touches my hands.

Somehow all these businesses must fit in a one-bedroom apartment, a small office in Manhattan (which is shared with yet another theater company) and the garage of the rental house upstate. My refrigerator at home is now filled to the brim with supplies for Reverie productions' 10th Anniversary "TENtacular" celebration and fundraiser tomorrow. The fridge was not intended to store provisions for 100.

So each business has become - somehow - symbiotic with the others. Colin Young - whether acting as lighting Designer, Photographer, Producer or Draftsman, must not occupy the apartment when Niki Naeve, LMT is working there. Naked Kandles often takes over the kitchen for production. Then it is cleaned and Colin Young, Photographer uses it as his dark room. Then Colin Young, Producer uses Naked Kandles' printer to print some scripts, while Colin Young, photographer burns a disk for Niki Naeve, Singer/Actor, because her computer has no disk writer.

Sometimes we get to use these spaces and things for personal use, as well. Like when we sleep. Or write in blogs.

And now we are nearing the end of the year; the reckoning. At the end of it all, the IRS would like to know exactly in what increments each item or service is bought, used and maintained. And we can write part of it off.

But which parts? Well, let's see, I brought my massage sheets to the laundry today, but it so happened that the shirt I wore for the audition last week was a little smelly, so it want in, too. Do I put the receipt (when they will condescend to give me one) in the massage file, the singer/actor file, or rip it in half?

Come to think of it, I was wearing underwear that day, too. Was that for personal use? Or was it business? And the bra, I wore it the day before when I was making candles, and it's dirty, too. I'm so confused.

We are not the only artists in NYC who maintain several faces in order to make ends meet. Having a small business which can be maintained "on the side" increases one's flexibility so that when "real" work comes you can make a quick turnabout mid-stride, and take it. I meet lots of actors who are computer tecchies, organization consultants or interior designers.

We've taken to calling ourselves "The Naeve/Young Consortium" - or "NYC" for short - and have begun to refer to ourselves in the third person. It's a little scary.

And I think what's most disorienting is the question of where your personal life begins and where your professional one(s) begin(s). One creeps into the other almost innocuously, and then suddenly you can't honestly say whether the light from that lamp is more important as an adjunct to business or pleasure, the book you're reading is education or recreation, and that man you're sleeping with is your business partner or your boyfriend.

And as an artist, who in theory does artistic things for pleasure, where does that fit in? Am I really a business, with all this singing and acting stuff?

Have I made money? Yes. Much? No. And is it work? Does it feel like work? Yes and no, no and yes. The lines are blurred.

When I first moved to New York I was most concerned with proving that I could "play at this level" as a singer/actor. I wanted paying gigs which I could live on, and more or less got what I asked for. Now I'm pretty content that I'm competitive. Of late I'm more interested in developing relationships with quality artists - competent directors and musicians and actors who will call me in to collaborate with them when they have an interesting project, and vice versa. This is a thing which takes time. It's a more organic process than the "splatter" technique I used for just getting jobs in the past. It does require that I nurture other ways to make a living. But I find this place ultimately more rewarding.

So we continue to cross-pollinate our businesses and our pleasures. The cheeses and the salami continue to visit in my refrigerator with the marmalade Coin's Dad makes from his own Seville oranges in Florida, my wax lives in the kitchen and costumes from old Reverie shows grow musty in the basement of the rental house.

It's not the life I would have pictured for myself when I was sixteen, but how could I have? I didn't have any career-minded, professional artists in my family, nor my family's family, or in my circle of neighbors and friends, or in my family's circle of family and friends. Not one. I wouldn't have thought of this life. I stumbled into a dream, and now I find myself looking back through the mottled mirror with less regret, and more pleasure in being one in a community of artists of competence and skill.

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But who can afford to travel?

I admit it. I was the naysayer. I was the one who said, "Nay." "Nay, beloved, we absolutely cannot go to the Canadian Rockies, (nor any Rockies, for that matter) as we have no money, and are both marginally employed. We have debt. We have dentist bills. Here in the city we have not yet paid rent, and upstate there is a sewer hook-up to penny up for, besides. Nay. Nay nay nay nay nay."

"Ah," said my lover, ignoring my goat-like allocution. "What you do not realize is that we are both mostly unemployed. My dear, there is a big difference between mostly unemployed and all unemployed, now isn't there?"

These sound like the words of the Devil if I ever heard them, not the quote from The Princess Bride I know it is. Temping me further into debt. Debt, a four-letter word synonymous with Lucifer in my mid-west upbringing. My grandmother, 100 years old this summer, would not take out a loan if her life depended on it. Especially if her life depended on it.

But I found a list in the bedside table soon after that day, in the drawer on my side we never open. It was a list of all the national parks he'd like to visit, and there are check marks next to the ones he's been to, (all three of them) and pitiful, vacant little squares outlined next to all those he hasn't. I've been raving about the color of the water in the glacier fed lakes and rivers in Banff ever since I visited years ago. I know he would love it, with his photographer's eye and his outdoorsman's heart. And I am drawn back to the mountains like a flower to the sun.

"Let's make a budget," says he. A budget. Just like his always next-thing-to-bankruptcy theater company is always having meetings about. No, thanks. I can do the math in my head. A budget will not give us more money than none! Anything we have "extra" should be going toward debt. Or classes for me, or a new camera for him.

To humor him, mostly, I sit down at the budget meeting.

And next thing you know, (four months later or thereabouts...) we're on a plane. Eight hours by way of Dallas, to Calgary, from New York, albeit, but...on a plane. To the vacation of a lifetime.

You know you're on a vacation of a lifetime when there are lots of Asian people and old people already there when you arrive. They know how they want to spend their precious days on the continent, or left on this earth. They know exactly where they want to be. And that was where we were, at the feet of glaciers, gargantuan things drifting and melting like ice cream between your toes, but between cyclopian, beautiful mountains, embracing you from each and every direction you look. On the American side of the park, those will be gone by the year 2030 or before.

How often have I heard this from my friends? "I would love to travel, but I just don't have the money." I'm here to tell you that with a little determination, it may not be entirely as out of reach as you think. For the record, this is how we did it:

First, we got American Airlines Citibank credit cards. (I accidentally got two. 'Nother story.) At the time the deal was, you get 20K miles after you spend $259 on the card. Colin got himself bumped off planes over Christmas and got some vouchers. Between us, we had more than enough American Airlines "cash" to get us there for free.

So, our expenses were:

Taxis $61 (unavoidable expense with luggage in NYC)
Gas 160.05 (we did drive over 1200 miles - it's pricey in Canada)
Lodging 614.58 (camped 3 nights, stayed with friends 2, then B & B's)
Boat rentals 80 (couldn't pass up a ride on a blue lake...)
Park fees 78.40 (bummed us out a little that it was that much)
Car rental 383.08 (yeah, that was a biggie)
_________________
SUBTOTAL = 1397.91

(I don't count food, because you have to eat anyway, but in the interest of full disclosure we did spend 400 bucks on food.)

Subtract ($470) We sublet our apartment for $500, minus $30 in PayPal fees

TOTAL COST OF TRIP = $927.91
(Split in two = 463.96)

So, for less than 500 bucks a piece, we had ten days of the most fabulous vacation ever!

Our itinerary at a glance:

Day 1) Flew into Calgary, drove down to Glacier Mountain National Park in Montana and spent the night at a hotel in rural Alberta between. (When I called to confirm the reservation, a young woman's voice wailed, "You're from New York and you're staying HERE? That's Hi-LAR-ious!!!"

Days 2,3 &4) Camped in many Glacier Campground three nights, were joined by our friend John.

Days 5 & 6) Stayed with John and his lovely (and newly expectant) wife, MB, in Kalispell, for 2 nights.

Days 7,8 & 9) Then we chugged up to Banff and stayed in various B & B's for three nights,. which ate up most our budget but was worth it for the fireplace at the first, which yes, we needed to take the chill out of the August air.

Day 10) Stayed at a Thriftlodge in Calagry, ready to get our 7am flight. blech!

A lot of my IC friends admit astonishment that I would attempt such a trip. Many of us won't get on a plane, plane and simple (get it?) much less have sex. And 8 hours? Fugettaboutit. The wait on the tarmac, the stress on the pelvic floor muscles caused by sitting, the general sick feeling you can get...but I have a couple weapons.

First and foremost, I got an aisle seat. Second first, I got a massage the day before we left, with emphasis on the low back and pelvis. Second, I make my way quickly to and from the bathroom just as I notice the door closing and fasten seat belt signs illuminating (if it's spasming, a little hand pressure onthe lower abdomen always does the trick for me) , and engage the help of the flight attendants if there appears to be an unforeseen wait (almost always when flying out of La Guardia.)

I say, "I have a bladder disease and will need to use the restroom about every (half hour)? " "?" denotes tone of voice. But it must also be accompanied by certain body language and facial expression. For those who were not raised in the mid-west or are otherwise friendly-challenged, practice this in front of a mirror: Eyebrows upturned, slight smile (but eyes steady...you do not expect to be denied such a reasonable request...) and lastly, the universal gesture of peace, palms upraised. I'm serious, studies have been done on this. Eyebrows raised and palms upturned is the posture least likely to get you killed when making first contact with another culture. Try it.

Then I say, "Can you tell me right before we're about to take off,?" (or help me figure out how to get to the bathroom within my contraints, etc.) This way you've 1) not done anything sneaky, like get up when you're not supposed to (horrors!) which pisses them off (get it?) 2)enlisted their HELP and appealed to their greater sensibility as a good employee and good human being, as opposed to making demands which put one on the defensive.

I have seriously never had a flight attendant deny me after this approach. In fact, they seem eager to help. from what i can gather with my super-human intuitive skills, the most flight attendants want to 1) encourage us to follow the rules and 2) have something easily within their power they can help with. 3) be proud of the job they're doing. 4) know they've helped somebody out, just like that! It's win-win. We folks with Interstitial Cystitis CAN fly!

I sometimes add drugs like Bentyl or Pyridium to this routine, or a motion-sickness drug. And a little stretching in the airport, walking about during the flight , etc. This time I didn't feel I needed the bladder anasthetic, but I did make sure there was a steady stream of Celebrex in my blood for a few days, to control inflammation, bladder and elsewhere, and I used it liberally on my trip. I also took a small amount of muscle relaxant.

ON the trip, we camped near the bathrooms, and I kept a small "chamber pot" (tupperware) in the tent for those really cold nights - it got down to 38F. I have a Thermarest Dreamtime. If you're not a camper, well, what can I say but that it's the shit! It's an inch of blow up mattress, a half inch of foam and a fleece cover on top of that. I knew that no matter how the beds were wherever we stayed, I could sleep on that comfortably without tweaking my back.

When deciding daytime activities, I let my Ego have a discussion with my Self. With full knowledge that my ego does not always do what is best for my Self. I caused my Self to win. Sure, my ego wanted to do that all-day hike 1700 feet up to Grinell Glacier, like I would have before, and it made it worse that the boys were going (C and his friend) . But I found another ranger-led hike going to Grinell lake, which was only 1.5 miles in and mostly level, I had really good, new tennis shoes, and I hiked with the old people and the children and I liked it. I even kept radio contact with C part of the time, so I felt liek I was part of the fun.

Even better, I could walk the next day. And the next.

The trip was spectacular. I could go on and on. Look for links to C's 900 photos in the future - they'll probably go up on his website. I just want to say that what you may think impossible may in fact be within your grasp, with a bit of planning, talking with you Ego and willingness to be flexible. I'm glad C talked me into it with is Barnum-like sales pitch. It was way worth it.

Now there's only the problem of re-entry.

Talking to My Uterus

So, I saw my Grampa Gyne today. My gynecologist for the past couple of years, I call him Grampa Gyne because of his gray hair, crackly voice, sharp eyes, little glasses and most of all his patient, gentle manner. Gramps never rushes me.

I came to Grampa Gyne on the recommendation of a nurse practitioner at Planned Parenthood, where I've found I usually get some of the best care in the land, no matter what state I'm in. This woman sensed she was out of her element quickly, and wrote down his name and number. "He's an immunologist with a specialty in gynecology," she said. "He's just the guy for you."

Framed pictures of his four grown children are yellowing on the walls of his office, and one of them is the spitting image of a dear friend from Christian summer camp I lost touch with years ago. Somehow this put me at ease. Unusual for a doctor, Grampa always asks how my career is going (dismal, I'm afraid) and how my pelvis is feeling (part of the cause of the former).

GG is a short, overweight, stumpy kind of man, turning seventy this year. I still can't get over how it is that after his wife passed away just over a year ago, he always seems to be on a date. Not that i suspect foul play. It's just that - he's Grampa Gyne, you know? Having asked about what performances I was up to these days, he brought one to my last choir concert. She looked to be in her late 40's, long, sleek black hair, intelligent, slim, and confident. All I could think was, god, women must be desperate these days.

For the first months of our relationship I was very positive. GG seemed to know just what was up. A true scientist, he had more ideas than the last 700 stumped docs behind him. Under his care my yeast named "Crusai" was slaughtered, which had for 16 years withstood onslaught from about a thousand doses of monistat, fluconazole and other antifungals. This man may be old-fashioned, but he has a microscope and he knows how to use it, I mused happily.

GG plunged just as methodically into the question of why my pelvis hurts all the time. Yes, we know about the bladder disease. But why does my uterus hurt? And yes, as a team we can distinguish that from the ever-nagging bladder pain. And why all these white blood cells, this inflammation, and my general feeling of malaise? "Even a hang nail can make you feel very lethargic." he explained. "There's a whole cascade of chemicals which respond to any infection, which cause a whole resulting cascade. All your body is interested is in that one little thing."

This man was determined. Together (and he made me feel it was a team effort) we tried things no one had ever tried in almost 20 years of pelvic purgatory. Several courses of antibiotics (some of which took me to the edge of puking daily) and a couple courses of steroids later, (what are you doing? Oh, just shooting steroids up my hoo-ha!) we had our results.

He says I have just as many inflammatory cells as before. And my uterus still hurts, thank you, you can stop poking that, which means the source of the inflammation is probably the uterus or thereabouts. And yes, I've had it biopsied. (The doc who did that PROMISED it was more painful than childbirth.) It was negative.

GG explained this kind of chronic endometritis is usually seen in people who have infections from their IUD's. I've never had an IUD. I've never dared.

But I do have chronic inflammation elsewhere. Why, just last week I had an MRI of my wrist and what did the film say to my doctor? Inflammation. Years ago somebody stuck a camera down my gut and looked around there. Results? Inflammation. Somebody else peeked inside my bladder, once, too. What did they find? Inflammation. Knee? Inflammation. Hip? Inflammation. Throat? inflammation. Vocal folds? Inflammation. Ankle? Inflammation. I think that soon I will blow up like a balloon.

But all of these doctors will insist that these results have absolutely nothing to do with each other, the eldest with the most vehemence. Meanwhile, all the natural medicine people are out there crying "Inflammation! Inflammation! Inflammation is the root of all evil! HARK! The heart disease, the diabetes, the muscle strains! Exorcize it now! Eat as much stinky-burpy fish oil as you can possibly consume! Drink liquid silver! See your acupuncturist! Eat raw veggies! Do it NOW!!!"

GG asked me if I FELT like any of the antibiotics had made me feel better. No. Steroids? Maybe a little. He said we could keep trying those and see if we get any results.

Call me crazy, but isn't that the definition of insanity? Keep trying something and expect different results?

...other than that or a hysterectomy, he's out of ammo.

I keep talking to my uterus: "What did I ever do to you? I never beat you, I never said nasty words, I never had any babies to beat you up, or stretch you or stick you with little fingers and arms and legs to disturb you in any way. And you! Bladder! What is is you got a gripe about, eh? Did I cheat you in poker in another life? Hip, knee, ankle, wrist, shoulder. You! UTERUS! WHAT! tell me! WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"

Grampa Gyne said maybe it was just feeling ignored.

Fire Escape Garden

There is a song to summer in Park Slope, Brooklyn. There's music everywhere; an old man playing a Japanese 2-stringed violin on the subway platform at Atlantic Avenue, Opera in Central Park, Latin dance beats coming from open car cars along Sackett Steet which rattle the glass sitting next to my bed. Today I'm drawn out the window of my kitchen by the sound of a woodwind quartet practicing. The sounds float upward for four stories, from a yard 48 feet down and exactly three postage stamp lawns to the West.

I love such an excuse to climb out the window and visit my Fire Escape. My haven - A.K.A. "my "deck." It's my little corner of paradise in rent stabilized Brooklyn where I can escape it all. As the ceiling to the bathroom literally implodes from an unabated flood in the building, and we try to blow up tiny inches of space inside the apartment as if they were some kind of balloon by re-organizing and micro-organizing each desktop, each closet, each cubical foot below the bed, the space OUTdoors gains and gains in importance. Thus, so does summer.

I know the fact I have ten- no, look! Eleven - tomatoes ripening on two vines on my little iron playground in the sky has nothing to do with the spate of 90 degree weather we had at the end of May; their performance must be solely because they know they are loved.

In the midafternoons I pull a rug out to soften metal rungs, place a pillow against the brick wall at my back, spread my legs out where my toes can touch the opposite rail and watch my tomatoes grow in the sun. All mine. (And yes I've been reading books on managing chronic illness and I'm learning about what to do after a stressful day.) I count them, I touch them, water them, dig around in their soil to make sure it is just loose enough, and most of all watch them for any nuance of change, however subtle, since yesterday or the day before, in their little fruits. These have to be the best loved tomatoes in New York City.

There are a few days each year, magical days, when trips out to bask in my green, mid-tree view are not accompanied by the low hum of air conditioners all around. It is not too hot, and not too cold. Someone practices singing in a building across the courtyard. A bluejay alights on the edge of my pea plants and pecks, and I fix the damage done by yesterday's hungry squirrels. In contrast to the competition for space, money and success in the whole of the city, two tiny tomatoes rising from even tinier yellow flowers which I planted in the dirt seems a small miracle.

Of course, I'm not supposed to have this. Any sort of obstruction on the fire escape is strictly vorboten by fire code and a million other laws of common sense, I suppose. But I'm careful to keep things arranged against the outer edge, or hanging; there is plenty room for passing foot traffic (which will surely be necessary in my life time, I'm not altogether naive.) And I figure my landlord will get around to officially forbidding my garden as soon as he fixes the doorknob which has fallen off once a week for three years, the fogged up windows, the broken heat registers, the dark, dangling hallway light and the imploded ceiling, which is about the same time hell will freeze over or thereabouts, so I'm not over worried about losing my little fragment of green just yet.

And the naughtiness of my fire escape garden is half of what is so appealing. I sink into it like a sensual dream. Eve probably felt similarly for her apple. So delicious. So tempting, to pick a tomato a little bit early or over-harvest the herbs. So unlike the rest of my world, where the financial realities of being an artist in NYC bite at my ankles with regularity and the noise of traffic and subways insult embarrassingly delicate ears. Where restless legs disturb sleep, only to become a true nightmare when one discovers a thumb-sized cochroach on one's side in the night. The crushing forces of the Big City have sharpened me, like a pencil, and now I am free to draw the outline of my destiny.

I took my first Indian singing class last Wednesday. Friday I watched a skilled chorus perform a piece written by a friend from Chicago. Last night I walked three blocks to hear an African fusion band. A friend played cello. Two weeks ago Reverie chose its annual playwriting competition winners. The winner is a favorite of mine, about a group of Vietnam Vets who reunion in a Northwestern Cabin and wind up talking about today's military engagements. A friend is premiering a short version her new company's manifestation of Orpheo et Euridice last week and next.

The woodwind players down on the ground are not very good - they squeak and squack with the telltale signs of adult beginners. But there is almost a scent to the air which carries such tones, and it gentles the aura of ineptitude to one of a private, happy, and lofty nostalgia. Here in my Escape in the trees, a reminder of all the good reasons I've come to live in this place of unrelenting fire - distinct challenges, unique opportunities and fine artists who make good music.

Dreams

The town car is quickly encroaching on my space in the cross walk. It's black, and it moves like an animal; impatient, and menacing. Hunting pedestrians, I presume.

It's 11am. I'm a block from home, and still wearing my pajamas. Colin has already made one valiant effort to get the drain in our shower working, and I've already made one valiant attempt at eating. Both have failed. I've come out here for stronger Draino and baby food.

"Hey!" I yell! I reach out my free hand to tap loudly any metal I can touch, which is what walkers and bikers in the city do when threatened as such. The predator/car stops before I get the chance.

It's then I notice the Jesus decals, affixed, one each, on the car's headlamps. I wonder fleetingly if those have been installed just so that when a pedestrian like me is finally run down, in the last moments of their life, they will see the face of Jesus. Getting closer and closer, and then , BOOM! Perhaps they will mistake it for the light at the end of the tunnel, with Jesus, just as they'd always thought he would look, floating at the center of the funnel of light. Perhaps the driver finds that comforting.

What I would find comforting right now is simple food. Having taken only 6 of the 14 required days of my course of two antibiotics for an infection of my ovaries and uterine lining, I must anticipate a bumpy week ahead. I've taken metrodinizole (flagyl) several times before, and always been treated to days on end of nausea and general stomach upset. Followed by months of chest pain, which no one believes, because no one else has ever reported it to Phizer. Now it's gone generic, and even Phizer balks and responding to any such report. This time I'm obliged to mix it with another antiobiotic, at half the dosage but twice the length of time, so I'm laying in supplies for the coming week. White bread, meat, rice, pasta, and sugar for when I need a quick boost.

Boost in energy or spirits, I'm not sure I can tell the difference. Colin came home last night from the theaters at 59 East 59th (called, incidentally, 59 East 59th theaters.) Dr. Ruth came to see Rearviewmirror, (http://www.reverieproductions.org/ ) and loved it (or so the person sitting in front of her said - "there was this little tiny woman sitting behind me who loved the show!") There have been three very positive reviews published. The director is well known and the writer, a brilliant, award-winning friend of ours, is also beginning to make a name for himself. The venue is equally reputable.

Yet the New York Times has not come. Normally a show with such a pedigree would attract the attention of the Times - After all Billboard, Reverie's last show, with less well-known actors, writer, and director, and at the same location but a smaller theater, at least scored a big photo and some coverage, if not a review. Half the Times review staff is on vacation, or so they tell the P.R. representative at 59 E. 59th, and they won't review a show a week before it closes.

The irony is that if The Times reviewed Rearviewmirror, it may not have to close, The theater is encouraging Colin to extend it, which, however attractive to the two actors who would get their Equity cards if that occurred, is tremendously financially risky. Colin is lamenting his fate when I get in the door. Bitterly lamenting.

When a child falls down and skins its knee, a parent has a couple of choices about how to respond. Does she coddle the child, smothering it in kisses and hugs and words of comfort? Or she can freak out and feed them anxiety about the risks of going out into the world with all those knees and elbows all over the place. Or shall she discipline the child, going on a tirade about the new jeans he's just ruined? Ignore said child until he calms down?

I usually choose a combination of coddling, judging and ignoring when Colin gets like this. Yes, it sucks but it's going to be OK, and yes, you should probably be more financially responsible and get a day job to support your theater company habit, and having said that I think I'll ignore you until you calm down.

Tonight I turned on him. (This may fit into the "freak out" category of coping with the hurt child.) "Aren't you just SICK TO DEATH of other people controlling our lives???" I think he was a little shocked. "I mean, I've been auditioning SOLIDLY for months now, and only ONE CALL BACK! And you labor and sweat over this theater company and the Times doesn't come and it's like some major tragedy, you leave the house early before I'm even up and come home after eleven and I never see you except tired and grumpy, we still can't pay fucking rent!!!"

Well, that's not exactly what I said, but you get the idea. Maybe it's because my infected female organs have not been dutiful in producing whatever happy hormones keep me sane (or deluded) on a regular basis. I feel I've been given a dose of empathy, these past few weeks, for my friends with clinical depression. It's as though someone picked me up by the scruff of the neck, lifted me over a pot of depression, and dunked me in. I wake each morning for my daily dose. So I have to tell it like I see it.

Colin sat on the couch. Silence. "Are you ready?" I asked. "Are you ready to give this all up and have a reasonable life? We both have masters degrees and I haven't been able to buy a new pair of tennis shoes in four years! What the fuck is WRONG with us, anyway?"

We watched Little Miss Sunshine last night. The thing that struck me was that by the end of the movie, every single character had a dream they held dear utterly shattered. Sometimes it was their fault, but most the time it was due to circumstances beyond their control. The teenage boy was colorblind, the father didn't have a recognizable name, the little girl had a bad coach for her routine. But at the end of the day, everybody was fine. Just fine. 'There are winners and losers in this world," the father kept repeating. "The winners never quit." But despite heroic efforts on his part, even he could not force events to shape as he'd wanted them.

Thanks be to Grandpa, who sets Olive straight. "The real losers are the ones who never tried."

I've never suffered delusions of grandeur. All I've wanted in coming to the city was to work in my chosen field, grow in knowledge and skill, and be part of high-quality work. Because the pursuit is artistic doesn't make me different from anyone else. If you were an enterprising scientist, you would want to go where all the best scientists go, right? If you were into space, you'd settle in Houston. If you had cancer, you'd be heading to the best cancer center in the world if it could be afforded.

I was inborn with the skill of singing and communicative movement, therefore naturally I ended up in New York. I've always enjoyed sharing my talent, and honing it. Indeed, it's made up the greater part of my life's work. As a child I was counseled by my father to "Do something you love, and you'll never work a day in your life!" and so I did. And it was fun. When I was actually doing it.

Now I spend 90 percent of my time auditioning for work, and almost none actually doing it.

I had a few regional jobs and a stint on a Broadway National Tour, (which I quit) and since then I've been involved with a few start-up shows in town, all produced on a shoe-string, with material of lower quality than anything I ever did in the middle of the country. At what point does having a dream become counter-productive? When pursuing it causes you to be unable to grow?

Clearly we're not alone on this rambling existential path. Last month I noticed a sign up at the Equity Building: "Starting: A support group for those in their 30's who are thinking of giving up the business. Meets first Tuesday of every month. 7pm, Room 204." Pretty much ALL my actor friends in their 30's are thinking of giving it up. They begin to pine over things like children, a stable a home, and health insurance. And then things get - interesting. Some keep going. Some continue thier waitressing job and continue to train and audition. Some move to Montana, get a job at an architecture firm, and buy a house.

I'm picturing myself, around 80 years old, sitting on my chair, reflective (what are the odds I won't be the reflective type even when I'm 80?) I'm trying to predict which action I take today will produce more regret - not having given to the end of my talents with my very last breath, or not having savings to live comfortably, or even afford that oxygen tube I need up my nose at all times. Or will I wish for something in between?

Then again I may not make it to 80. One of those town cars with Jesus on the headlamps could end my dull if somewhat bizarre life today, or, people apparently die each year from coconuts falling on their heads. (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/020719.html)

For years I've joked about any number of alternate paths I could take. I could dismantle my entire life and moved from the city, on my own or not. With Colin, I could move upstate, where our mortgage on our three bedroom house would be less than what we pay in rent for our one-bedroom apartment here. I or we could open a B & B in the Caribbean - Colin could take people our on sailboat rides for an extra fee.. With my leftover college/retirement fund, I could start a school of International Folk Music in the City. ("World Institute of Music," or WIM - I have already named it.) Would Colin, for his part, be willing to take a right turn or a left with me?

And would turning to a different path produce regrets, or instant and life-long bliss?

"Maybe." Colin says to my query, for the first time in our acquaintance.

Lost and Found

Diaries, 2-13-07

Lost and Found


Above: Mr. Hammond with my Wallet. Alex with his phone


I pack the box carefully. Two white pillar candles and one yellow scented one which I made by hand, wrapped in several layers of bubble wrap and nestled between inches of crisp, shredded paper. Gently, I place a naked kandles business card on top. Next to it, I press a twenty dollar bill. Now to the next box.

These boxes are made of the strands of the fabric of the un-torn part of the universe, I remind myself. No sense shirking on the good stuff. I put a silver phone in one, and close them, snug.

Flashback to last Wednesday, when neither Colin nor I could catch a break. I was in Brooklyn, which, like most of the northeast, has been held under a spell of intense cold for weeks. No cold snap, it promises to linger for weeks to come.

My car, Striker, is beginning to show sure signs of transmission failure. Sure signs. Knowing the cost of a new transmission, I begin to sort out my options. Buy a new car? Out of the question. Buy a used one? Possible, but what would I really get on my meager budget? More problems, for sure.

Leave it parked in a neighborhood where I can be almost certain of its meeting with a chop shop within hours? An interesting consideration. But, oh, morals.

A little disappointed to abandon my exciting plan for insurance fraud, I turn to Alex, proprietor of the body shop which fixed my car after I totaled it in the rain on Flatbush Avenue last year.

How did Alex get in the picture? It's the friends network, of course, working again. My friend Amber knows this girl, Jessica. Jessica used to live across the street from this Turkish repair shop. I don't know how they did it, but they fixed my car for one third the cost I'd been quoted at any other shop. Of course I paid in cash. Of course there were splatters of silver paint all over the car, and used parts left inside. But what did I care? It ran.

This time I show up with baklava in hand. "Sure, we feex transmissions!" says Alex, Turkish accent heavier than usual in the cold. Then he looks down. "Nooo. actually we don't." he smiles. "But I take care of you, Nee-Kee, I take care of you."

He hurries to the door, where there are a number of numbers written down. He picks up the phone. I think years of working in a body shop have erased Alex's ability to speak at medium volume. "Hey! Nikolai! I got nee-Kee here, she is my bes, bes-bes-bessst customer! '95 Satrrun! WHAAT can you do?"

And I find myself promising to bring it back Monday, for a transmission fix at half the price and twice the warrantee time I'd previously been quoted.

"Where should I drop it off? " I ask.

"Oh, no," says Alex, "I drive! *I* take it to da place! You bring it, HERE and I will take it for you!" Big smile. MAybe too big. What, is it going to some witness protection hideout, some top secret warehouse in New Jersey? To a member of the Turkish mafia?

It should be ready Tuesday, he says - plenty of time for me to drive down to Richmond, VA for a call-back audition for Into the Woods next week. Plenty.

I will bring cash, of course.

Back to last Wednesday, the air in the apartment on Sackett Street is dry as the Sahara Desert. I've been waking with my mouth so dry it hurts too much to sleep. Time to get a humidifier.

So I put on my winter suit: two pairs of socks, (one wool), two pair of pants (one polartech) , a long cotton tank, a long-sleeve shirt, a polartech sweatshirt, a large polartech scarf, and wool hat with polartech inlay, boots, and my big, black winter coat. I take most the bulk out of my wallet, carrying only essentials, and I head out.

Which sets in motion the following sequence of events:

Walked 5 blocks, up the hill, bought humidifier.

Walked 5 blocks, down the hill, to bank. Oh, no! I don't have my wallet!

(Stuffed in layer up on layer of winter clothing, the Almighty only knows where I might have dropped it and not noticed.)

But do have a large, cumbersome box dangling from my arm. Need to ditch.

Walked 5 blocks home, up the stairs, deposited humidifier.

Retraced my steps, up the hill, hoping to find wallet. Asked several crossing guards if they'd seen it.

Back at humidifier place, searched boxes of humidifiers - just in case I left it on top.

Guy there suggests perhaps I left it in the box with my humidifier.

Seems like reasonable suggestion; I walk back home. Down the hill, up the stairs.

No wallet. Went back to bank.

Cancelled my ATM card, along with other errands I'd originally intended at the bank.

I kid you not - LEFT MY GLOVES at the bank.

I don't know if I can blame this day on the well-known phenomena of CFS/fibromyalgia "brain fog," or not. Surely we all have times when we walk into a room and can't remember why we're there, but incidents like this have been multiplied many fold for me, ever since I got mono in 10th grade.

Like, I remember, before 10th grade, math was not so easy-breezey like all the other subjects. I had to concentrate, and sometimes got confused. But after returning to school post having mono, I remember sitting in alg/trig class, with the distinct sensation that my teacher had suddenly started expressing herself in Russian. Her copious, curly blonde hair became tentacles which zoomed in and out of focus as I wildly tried to grasp at the merest notion of what she was trying to say. Then I gave up, sitting up, sleeping. Then and there, a whole swath of career paths closed their doors to me. I heard the thud.

Anyone who's ever watched The Princess Bride will remember the scene when Inigo finally comes face-to-face with the six-fingered count. Cornered, the Count promises him fame, riches, power - anything he wants.

"I want my father back, you son of a bitch!"' Inigo says, as he rams the knife into his victim's gut. How many times I have imagined that scene; I am facing my illness, I have cornered it, it is up against a wall, perhaps one of us -or both- is dying.

"I want my BRAIN back you son of a bitch!" And I kill it, right there, on the slope of my semi-consciousness.

It makes me feel better, every time.

Meanwhile, across town, and despite the fact that he appears to have access to most his brain cells, Colin's not faring much better than I.

Two nights ago at 59 E. 59th Theaters, several of us stayed until well after midnight, tearing down the last remnants of Billboard, Reverie's latest show. It was a sleek set, and thankfully not very involved, but lights have to come down, equipment organized and returned, garbage disposed of, workers fed, and lastly, the floor of the theater re-painted. Several hours' work for several people. We made it fun. (Until my car, driven into Manahttan expressly for sherpa duties, was ticketed to the tune of $115. But that's another rant.)

By Wednesday, Colin had but one thing to return - a sound board which would not fit into my ailing Saturn or Dave's hatchback. So, on Wednesday, Colin:

Called a cab service for a van. Set aside the quoted $30 to go 2 miles to the shop.

Van showed up, only it wasn't a van - was a car.

Driver wouldn't help by calling in for a van (as if that would lose him his fare???).

Called the cab company. They told him sure, they'd send a van - in 30 minutes, and now $50.

Said, "fuck that!" So started hailing vans on Park Avenue.

All refused to lower seats in the back for the sound board.

Trekked to U-haul, a mile away, rented a van for $19.99.

Van was in a separate lot, with 7/8 tank of gas... Know where this is going?

Dropped off the sound equipment, put two gallons of gas in the van.

I kid you not, that U-Haul is still trying to charge him $30 for gas!!!


A week later, thinking it would perhaps have been better if I'd never gotten out of bed for the duration of the cold spell, I was still trying to pick up my car. Twice I actually showed up with my $800 in cash, in 50's, to pick it up, and it wasn't ready. Friday at 2:50 I come again, and it'll be ready in 1/2 hour.

So I go to Dunkin Donuts, burning with the cash. Cash feels like a strobe light, especially in such a "transitional" neighborhood. At least they have a bathroom...

doh! psyche! "Out of order" signs posted on BOTH of them. Out of Dunkin's mood, is more like it. Explaining that I'm not a vagrant, I try to gain access. No dice. I go back to Alex's. "I bring it to you tonight, at home!" Promises Alex, an hour later. I am not thrilled; I'm meant to leave for Richmond in the morning.

That night the car never arrives. The next morning, sweetly, Colin offers to pick it up. And he does.

So I'm driving down the New Jersey Turnpike, thinking, wow, this week has been a pain in the ass.

But all is as rectified, as much as it will be. I guess. Credit cards are cancelled, sound board returned, and the car, except for a few intermittent rattles and pings, appears to be in good health. Striker, now over 113,000 miles old, will live to crash another day.

I'm listening to a book on my ipod when I hear some strange music emanating, I think, from somewhere in the car. Radio? Should be over-ridden by my ipod. Pod? Must be some sort of mal-function. Maybe from a passing vehicle. It stops. I begin to peer around me in the car. No - focus on driving.

My phone takes a message. It's Alex. "Nee-Kee! Hello! How arrr you? Listen, I tink I left my phone in your car!" Calllll me, let me know!"

You see what this was, don't you? Perhaps it's because you're reading a streamlined (really!) story, and you know I wouldn't give you any information which was not relevant to the telling of it. Because I, unlike the universe, value your time. (Meanwhile, my real life has plenty of irrelevant information passing through it, and plenty of wastes of time.)

So I didn't put it together. Even when the strange, dance-mix music started up again, and again, I totally figured I'd imagined it. (Another common side-effect associated with chronic illnesses like IC, fibromyalgia and CFS - spontaneous lack of belief in your own perceptions...)

But in the end I did figure it out, find the phone, called Alex, arrived at Rick's In D.C., ran down to Richmond to do the audition, drove back via Amanda's place on the opposite side of D.C., and headed home a day early, in order to beat the "COMING! WINTER STORM!" Two and a half days after picking up my car, exhausted and barely able to sit down, I listened to my messages in Brooklyn.

This is nearly the end. Really.

Beep. "Hi, Nicole? This is _____ from Commerce Bank calling. We've been contacted by a person who found your wallet? If you would like to contact him, his number is..."

No. Way. No WAY did I lose my wallet on the street in Brooklyn, and someone not only didn't steal it, but made the effort to locate me using the few clues available to them.

But it's true.

I called the Hammonds. They regaled me with tales of trying to find me, based on a Colorado driver's license, a Commerce Bank ATM Card, my inhaler, and a receipt from J & R, where I bought the humidifier. A retired couple, clearly they had little else to entertain them for a few days. That, and the impending "COMING! WINTER STORM!!!" Mrs. Hammond tried to make it sound like it was a bit daunting, but really, you could tell it was fun for her.

"I was like a private investigator!" says Mrs. Hammond. "he found it on the ground, on 7th Avenue, and first we wondered if it was someone in the bank..."

So today, I am not going to try to accomplish anything - it seems that by trying, I only pull myself in deeper. Instead I strive only to mend what was unraveled in the past two weeks. Rewind the stopwatch to zero. Return what's lost and retrieve my own. I have packed a little box of my most attractive candles for both the Hammonds and for Alex.

I will set out by foot to pick up my wallet, swing by the bank to retrieve the gloves I left, (and by then my hands will be nearly frozen, so that's a good thing) then get in my car and drive to the body shop, where Alex's phone will be returned to him.

As the Narrator in Into the Woods says, "ALL IS ...REPAIRED!!" And then he dies.