Everyone I speak to lately is learning how I’ve resolved my long-time sleep problems. I relate in detail about my CPAP machine—short for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure. I explain how sleep apnea closes the airway in the back of one’s throat. And I hold forth about how often the apnea was waking me up before I began to strap a snorkel-like mask to my face at bedtime, and how it hardly does now. The best part of these conversations: My CPAP’s benefits seem to be contagious. By the time I’m done, I’ve solved my listeners’ sleep problems, too.
You don’t need sleep issues, though, to agree that some nights you can just forget about getting some rest. Apnea sufferers keep score by the Apnea/Hypopnea Index, or AHI, which averages out how many times per hour they stop breathing and briefly awaken. Knowing your AHI is dandy if you’ve got apnea. But the many people who have trouble sleeping without any apnea should be allowed to keep score, too. After some careful thought, I’ve apparently caught the sleep-medicine community snoozing, for I’ve come up with sleep scores for everyone else.
DBI. If you have a dog, chances are you were a sucker for those doleful eyes from the first and only time they pleaded with you to say, “Come on up, boy.” And having allowed it once while the dog was 12 pounds, you now have an 80-pound anchor with bad breath and gas sandwiched between you and your spouse. The DBI, for Dog Breath Index, is how often per hour you come face-to-face with Rex and wake up from a royal blast of halitosis.
HCI. You don’t need a pet to keep track of your HCI: You just need to live with someone. Family members talk about all sorts of things in the course of the day, and if they’re all equally committed to good sleep, late-night conversation stays light. But if you think family life is that easy, you’re dreaming. The Heavy Conversation Index (HCI) measures how many of the first hours of bedtime you’re staring at the ceiling because one of you brought up something that couldn’t wait till morning, such as life, the universe and everything.
SDI. Most common in October’s run-up to Halloween, the Scary Dream Index (SDI) tracks how many times during the night you wake up in a cold sweat because you’re being chased by vampires, zombies, or something original plumbed from the depths of your very soul. If something’s after you, you’re not asleep and it’s not tax season, never mind trying to keep score…you won’t be sleeping anyway.
FIFI. Some adults, we hear, toss and turn in their nightlong quest to find that perfect sleep position. Unfortunately, that prime spot could mean the other person in the bed is out of luck. The Foot in Face Index (FIFI) counts how many times per night one sleep partner’s rotation in the bed means the other wakes up with toes up her nostrils.
PDII. Occurring for a few months every four years, the PDI might be the most pervasive. (It’s like MLBI, a score related to watching too much late-night baseball, but on steroids.) Whatever else you plan to do the night of a political debate, chances are that you’ll still end up in front of the TV and stay there till it’s over. Just try to fall asleep then. The PDII, for Post-Debate Incredulity Index, measures how many times you wake up from sleep, fists clenched, over something this one or that one said. Or should have said. Either way, just remember that you elected to watch the thing.
With only one score to keep, which the CPAP machine calculates for me, I’m sleeping just fine these days. Or at least I was sleeping. After years of needing to fall asleep using the traditional SCI (Sheep Counted Index), I now have myriad sheep grazing on the property with nothing to do. Some friends of ours wouldn’t sleep till they’d contacted the nearest government agency. They’d ensure that every member of the herd was counted—and would feel proud that it still mattered in the world.
Me? I lie awake, wondering where on earth we could ever find enough mint jelly.
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Monday, October 17, 2016
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Sorry, I’ve never riesled
He is always in black, which matches his long, flowing hair, goatee and baritone voice. In a ’70s horror flick, he would have played the coven’s high priest—one who does not understand the director’s order of Cuuuut! Or that he is acting in a movie. “But the sacrifice is not yet complete! It is Walpurgis Night!”
Today, he sells wine at my neighborhood liquor store.
His gaze is penetrating as he describes the personality of any wine, and he probably knows all the spirits, too. (They’re the tenured faculty of the Wiccan seminary.) And he is coldly serious as he holds forth about each wine’s complexity, acidity, aromas and other characteristics. I learned this after my wife, Elena, stopped in to ask him to recommend a wine we could serve with a given dish to company. For some reason I cannot fathom, she added this challenge: “My husband won’t be happy if I come home with the wrong wine.” She later reported that he began to stare. Very intently.
All of which meant that when she brought me to him, a few days later, his spigot was open all the way. “I find this one très elegante, a full-bodied bouquet of blackberry, cherry and currant, with an intense yet delicate aroma of oak.” As he spoke, one hand was gesturing; in the other, he seemed to be holding and staring wistfully into a glass of the stuff.
“Uh huh,” I said with a nod, trying to play along. Elena wasn’t doing much better, but she wasn’t the one granted the imprimatur of expertise.
“Or perhaps this Chianti, medium-bodied yet full-flavored,” he added as if recalling the company of a long-ago friend. “The delicate nose speaks of berry jam with floral hints and country nuances.”
I thought to ask how that worked anatomically but decided to take instead what, for me, was the high road. “Which one costs less?”
To the country-club set living all around us, he must seem a high priest of wine. The trouble is that such pretensions are wasted on the likes of me. I enjoy a good glass of wine, but if I wanted to pretend I knew the difference between Chablis and Riesling I’d have applied to work at Wine Enthusiast magazine, which is walking distance from the house. Mostly I make fun of the seriousness of it all and, now and then, pick some random wine myself just to see his expression.
And though I’d never act on it, I’ve been plotting to ask him, with all seriousness, whether a Merlot or a Pinot noir would go better with Dinty Moore Beef Stew. Or in what proportions I should mix red and white wine to make rosé. If I ever indulge this fantasy, I’d better have someone hold the door open: He’s certain to be a good shot with a dagger.
On days I truly feel too intimidated to meet his withering gaze, I remind myself I have an alternative. Even closer to home is another liquor store where I can pick up a wine of some vague hue without feeling I’ll say the wrong thing and end up manacled to a wall in the basement. So I haven’t exactly been worrying about the guy.
To tell the truth—for once—something came over me one day that I passed the store, on the way to the supermarket. I hadn’t realized I was habitually looking in to see if he was there, as if I believed I would one day spot him doing something completely out of character, such as laughing or doing anything whatsoever with a cellphone. He would invariably be there, whatever the day or time, as long as the liquor store was open. But this time I saw someone else. The next time, too. Was the high priest gone?
Whatever his name was, I realized I had misjudged this fellow and decided the world needed more people like him. If everyone felt such pride on the job and strove for excellence, the world would be a better place.
I was still wishing him a job as a sommelier at some exclusive Manhattan restaurant when I learned that he didn’t need a new job at all. My revelation came when we decided to drive to a local restaurant for dinner, and neither car would start—and not just because they’re old. Their distributor wires were missing.
Strung to the front door were a lifeless bird and a sprig of woodbine.
And under the door was an invitation. A limousine would soon arrive to take me, alone, to an unspecified event at our local cemetery. Since I would be guest of honor, I suspect I know who sent the invitation.
I daresay he’s taught me a bit about wine, but I guess I’ve taught him something, too. I’m no virginal, nubile female, the usual candidate for human sacrifice. But as with wine, sometimes anyone will do.
Today, he sells wine at my neighborhood liquor store.
His gaze is penetrating as he describes the personality of any wine, and he probably knows all the spirits, too. (They’re the tenured faculty of the Wiccan seminary.) And he is coldly serious as he holds forth about each wine’s complexity, acidity, aromas and other characteristics. I learned this after my wife, Elena, stopped in to ask him to recommend a wine we could serve with a given dish to company. For some reason I cannot fathom, she added this challenge: “My husband won’t be happy if I come home with the wrong wine.” She later reported that he began to stare. Very intently.
All of which meant that when she brought me to him, a few days later, his spigot was open all the way. “I find this one très elegante, a full-bodied bouquet of blackberry, cherry and currant, with an intense yet delicate aroma of oak.” As he spoke, one hand was gesturing; in the other, he seemed to be holding and staring wistfully into a glass of the stuff.
“Uh huh,” I said with a nod, trying to play along. Elena wasn’t doing much better, but she wasn’t the one granted the imprimatur of expertise.
“Or perhaps this Chianti, medium-bodied yet full-flavored,” he added as if recalling the company of a long-ago friend. “The delicate nose speaks of berry jam with floral hints and country nuances.”
I thought to ask how that worked anatomically but decided to take instead what, for me, was the high road. “Which one costs less?”
To the country-club set living all around us, he must seem a high priest of wine. The trouble is that such pretensions are wasted on the likes of me. I enjoy a good glass of wine, but if I wanted to pretend I knew the difference between Chablis and Riesling I’d have applied to work at Wine Enthusiast magazine, which is walking distance from the house. Mostly I make fun of the seriousness of it all and, now and then, pick some random wine myself just to see his expression.
And though I’d never act on it, I’ve been plotting to ask him, with all seriousness, whether a Merlot or a Pinot noir would go better with Dinty Moore Beef Stew. Or in what proportions I should mix red and white wine to make rosé. If I ever indulge this fantasy, I’d better have someone hold the door open: He’s certain to be a good shot with a dagger.
On days I truly feel too intimidated to meet his withering gaze, I remind myself I have an alternative. Even closer to home is another liquor store where I can pick up a wine of some vague hue without feeling I’ll say the wrong thing and end up manacled to a wall in the basement. So I haven’t exactly been worrying about the guy.
To tell the truth—for once—something came over me one day that I passed the store, on the way to the supermarket. I hadn’t realized I was habitually looking in to see if he was there, as if I believed I would one day spot him doing something completely out of character, such as laughing or doing anything whatsoever with a cellphone. He would invariably be there, whatever the day or time, as long as the liquor store was open. But this time I saw someone else. The next time, too. Was the high priest gone?
Whatever his name was, I realized I had misjudged this fellow and decided the world needed more people like him. If everyone felt such pride on the job and strove for excellence, the world would be a better place.
I was still wishing him a job as a sommelier at some exclusive Manhattan restaurant when I learned that he didn’t need a new job at all. My revelation came when we decided to drive to a local restaurant for dinner, and neither car would start—and not just because they’re old. Their distributor wires were missing.
Strung to the front door were a lifeless bird and a sprig of woodbine.
And under the door was an invitation. A limousine would soon arrive to take me, alone, to an unspecified event at our local cemetery. Since I would be guest of honor, I suspect I know who sent the invitation.
I daresay he’s taught me a bit about wine, but I guess I’ve taught him something, too. I’m no virginal, nubile female, the usual candidate for human sacrifice. But as with wine, sometimes anyone will do.
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Check out my spare tire while you’re at it
Enjoying those long wait times in doctors’ waiting rooms? It’s looking like we’ll be some 90,000 doctors short by the time the last baby boomers skid toward retirement. But no worries: Soon we won’t need any doctors. Thanks to an uptick in laparoscopic surgery guided by people looking at computer screens, yet actually performed using robots, soon you won’t need a physician to operate or even do routine checkups. Nevertheless, you can’t have just anybody. So my vote goes to people with similar qualifications. Like Joe.
Joe is our mechanic, the guy who has kept two Toyotas running through the rough equivalent of 16 times around the earth. With such cred, he’s clearly meant for better things, which start with keeping two separate rag bins. What’s a physical but an inspection? Like any capable doctor, he’ll check that you start and idle properly, that you accelerate and cruise smoothly and work well in the clutch. By the time Joe is done, you’ll even run without jerkiness; he’s apparently a management consultant, too.
Take those creaky bones and sore muscles. To an orthopedist, they mean pain meds, cortisone shots, weeks of physical therapy and maybe surgery. Instead, we can call Joe the afternoon before and tell him the problem, which to him are a few hours and maybe new struts and shocks—suspension without the suspense. Spinal issues? It’s just another drive axle. “Come in by eight,” he says.
Digestive issues are no problem, either. Colon surgery, once a lengthy procedure requiring weeks of recovery, takes an afternoon—as long as he has the parts. The colon, of course, is mainly there to process the body’s waste products. “That’s a catalytic converter,” Joe tells me with a shrug. You’ll be happy to know he puts his rubber mallet to some good use before he fires up the welding torch. Hopefully, when you wake up you won’t roll over; you’ll be face-up on the lift.
And when the situation gets truly critical, such as heart surgery, Joe breaks out the lanolin hand cleaner. What’s a heart, after all, but a more elaborate internal-combustion engine? He’s done lots of valve jobs, and he’ll have your blood oxygen’s intake and exhaust as rhythmic as a Mazda Miata’s.
Unlike a doctor, Joe will charge nothing if we take in one of the cars for a perceived problem that turns out to need no attention. But when it comes to fixing people, it won’t long before insurance policies catch up—along with all those medical examiners. Repairs of all kinds, human or automotive, will require high-premium policies, thousand-dollar deductibles, and exclusions. And we’ll need weeks before an appointment, enough to blow your mind.
Not to worry, though. Joe replaces head gaskets, too.
Joe is our mechanic, the guy who has kept two Toyotas running through the rough equivalent of 16 times around the earth. With such cred, he’s clearly meant for better things, which start with keeping two separate rag bins. What’s a physical but an inspection? Like any capable doctor, he’ll check that you start and idle properly, that you accelerate and cruise smoothly and work well in the clutch. By the time Joe is done, you’ll even run without jerkiness; he’s apparently a management consultant, too.
Take those creaky bones and sore muscles. To an orthopedist, they mean pain meds, cortisone shots, weeks of physical therapy and maybe surgery. Instead, we can call Joe the afternoon before and tell him the problem, which to him are a few hours and maybe new struts and shocks—suspension without the suspense. Spinal issues? It’s just another drive axle. “Come in by eight,” he says.
Digestive issues are no problem, either. Colon surgery, once a lengthy procedure requiring weeks of recovery, takes an afternoon—as long as he has the parts. The colon, of course, is mainly there to process the body’s waste products. “That’s a catalytic converter,” Joe tells me with a shrug. You’ll be happy to know he puts his rubber mallet to some good use before he fires up the welding torch. Hopefully, when you wake up you won’t roll over; you’ll be face-up on the lift.
And when the situation gets truly critical, such as heart surgery, Joe breaks out the lanolin hand cleaner. What’s a heart, after all, but a more elaborate internal-combustion engine? He’s done lots of valve jobs, and he’ll have your blood oxygen’s intake and exhaust as rhythmic as a Mazda Miata’s.
Unlike a doctor, Joe will charge nothing if we take in one of the cars for a perceived problem that turns out to need no attention. But when it comes to fixing people, it won’t long before insurance policies catch up—along with all those medical examiners. Repairs of all kinds, human or automotive, will require high-premium policies, thousand-dollar deductibles, and exclusions. And we’ll need weeks before an appointment, enough to blow your mind.
Not to worry, though. Joe replaces head gaskets, too.
Monday, March 14, 2016
To sleep, perchance to scream
The very notion of a sleep clinic suggests a peaceful sanctuary, a sound-proofed facility with temperature and humidity control, a comfy bed, and absolutely no distractions—not even from the various professionals who would somehow, from behind the scenes, monitor my sleep. You might think of it as a hotel with the additional amenity of a sleep spa.
In your dreams.
As I recalled in my second visit to the sleep clinic, the only way to tell that I’m not sleeping properly is for someone to hook various electrical wires up to me. The attached machine records how I breathe, how often I wake up, roll over, play dead—oh sorry, that’s doggie obedience school—and collects other data.
Anyone who read about my previous overnight at the local sleep clinic would know I expected the worst. The same sleep center, last time around, seemed infested with Asian beetles. More orange than red, they’re as cute as the ladybugs they resemble but with a couple of minor differences: They’re larger, swarm by the thousands and prefer to raise their offspring indoors. Oh, and they bite—which did wonders for my anticipation of blissful sleep. At my last sleep study, I could hear their little feet on the lampshades and the acoustical tile of the ceiling. I didn’t see a single one this time. But just in case they planned to show up after lights out, I brought earplugs.
But of course, the noise wasn’t the greatest distraction. Neither were the two wide straps wrapped tightly around my torso. No, it was those wires, about twenty in all. Two pairs, attached to each leg, were barely noticeable. The rest? They led to my head, face and the vicinity, with electrical leads covered with a gob of conductive paste, which solidifies when pressed. Little pieces of bandage covered every gob so that I looked like I had been wearing an oversized deep-sea-diver helmet…with a ferret trapped inside.
All in all, there were enough wires tangled around my head that I resembled a male Medusa. I knew that if I had to use the bathroom, all I needed was to call out the technician’s name; hearing me on the intercom, he’d come to temporarily unplug the device to which the wires were connected. What I didn’t know was whether glancing at the mirror even once, in the bathroom, would turn me to stone.
Among other updates to the sleep center since my last visit was the mode of observation. My room last time had a window with two technicians behind, staring at me all night for my comfort. How times change. Now there’s an infrared camera that watches my every move—as if I could move given the attached imbroglio of wires. Since today’s remote cameras typically relay high-definition video to a smartphone or computer, I fully expect the video to emerge amid my 2024 run for President. “He uplinks to his Alpha Centurian masters at night!” my opponent will charge.
I was plainly too wired to sleep, so I thought I’d pretend I really were at a hotel. Three other patients—er, guests—were here tonight also, and the technician asked if I wanted water or fruit juice. (What, no cabernet?) So there was sort of room service. But the next morning, I found no complimentary breakfast. And while the bathroom had a towel or two, I found no little shampoos, soaps or moisturizers. Just wait till I hit TripAdvisor.
No matter what results I get, I already know my prognosis will be good. With two sleep-clinic visits under my belt, I know just how to go to sleep—and stay asleep till the morning. I merely have to remind myself how comfortable I feel when I’m not bound tightly in straps and wires, barely able to turn over, like at the sleep clinic. I’ll be afraid to open my eyes till dawn.
In your dreams.
As I recalled in my second visit to the sleep clinic, the only way to tell that I’m not sleeping properly is for someone to hook various electrical wires up to me. The attached machine records how I breathe, how often I wake up, roll over, play dead—oh sorry, that’s doggie obedience school—and collects other data.
Anyone who read about my previous overnight at the local sleep clinic would know I expected the worst. The same sleep center, last time around, seemed infested with Asian beetles. More orange than red, they’re as cute as the ladybugs they resemble but with a couple of minor differences: They’re larger, swarm by the thousands and prefer to raise their offspring indoors. Oh, and they bite—which did wonders for my anticipation of blissful sleep. At my last sleep study, I could hear their little feet on the lampshades and the acoustical tile of the ceiling. I didn’t see a single one this time. But just in case they planned to show up after lights out, I brought earplugs.
But of course, the noise wasn’t the greatest distraction. Neither were the two wide straps wrapped tightly around my torso. No, it was those wires, about twenty in all. Two pairs, attached to each leg, were barely noticeable. The rest? They led to my head, face and the vicinity, with electrical leads covered with a gob of conductive paste, which solidifies when pressed. Little pieces of bandage covered every gob so that I looked like I had been wearing an oversized deep-sea-diver helmet…with a ferret trapped inside.
All in all, there were enough wires tangled around my head that I resembled a male Medusa. I knew that if I had to use the bathroom, all I needed was to call out the technician’s name; hearing me on the intercom, he’d come to temporarily unplug the device to which the wires were connected. What I didn’t know was whether glancing at the mirror even once, in the bathroom, would turn me to stone.
Among other updates to the sleep center since my last visit was the mode of observation. My room last time had a window with two technicians behind, staring at me all night for my comfort. How times change. Now there’s an infrared camera that watches my every move—as if I could move given the attached imbroglio of wires. Since today’s remote cameras typically relay high-definition video to a smartphone or computer, I fully expect the video to emerge amid my 2024 run for President. “He uplinks to his Alpha Centurian masters at night!” my opponent will charge.
I was plainly too wired to sleep, so I thought I’d pretend I really were at a hotel. Three other patients—er, guests—were here tonight also, and the technician asked if I wanted water or fruit juice. (What, no cabernet?) So there was sort of room service. But the next morning, I found no complimentary breakfast. And while the bathroom had a towel or two, I found no little shampoos, soaps or moisturizers. Just wait till I hit TripAdvisor.
No matter what results I get, I already know my prognosis will be good. With two sleep-clinic visits under my belt, I know just how to go to sleep—and stay asleep till the morning. I merely have to remind myself how comfortable I feel when I’m not bound tightly in straps and wires, barely able to turn over, like at the sleep clinic. I’ll be afraid to open my eyes till dawn.
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
As conspiracies go, it’s a stinker
Any one of us could count off a handful of conspiracy theories we’ve heard over past years, and it can be hard to keep them all straight. You know, like the myriad accusations of who put the Baab in the Al Shabaab Shabaab. With, of course, the related query of who put the Ram in the Ramadan-a-ding-dong.
I try not to give people who conjure up such fanciful notions very much encouragement. Other suspicions make much more sense—take, for example, the one about how the NSA won’t listen to your phone conversations if you imitate an accent sounding vaguely Mideastern. That’s why Elena and I have been careful about what we say aloud in our own home. It’s from the occasional visit of something resembling halyomorpha halys, a critter better known as the brown marmorated stink bug.
The real ones come from the vicinity of China, and they’re said to be a menace out in the garden. Their ugly little faces are outfitted with a natural straw they stick into fruits, vegetables and ornamentals to slurp up everything they’ve got. Indoors, though, they have no real purpose. They don’t bite, eat or reproduce. We don’t find many in the house, but when we do, they’re nearby— for instance, on the wall or curtain as we sit in the living room. Now and then one will take flight, buzzing around my head like a baby June bug, which is when it really gets annoying.
When we get one too many on a given day, I reassure Elena with the prospect that back in the Cretaceous Period, stink bugs were probably about six feet long and perhaps stood on their hind legs. Strangely, she doesn’t find this comforting.
That they have no reason whatsoever to be indoors, yet they occasionally come in, is all the evidence I need to attribute their entry to some entity with nefarious purposes, a.k.a. the government. Suppose the stink bugs that mysteriously make it inside the house only resemble those outside but are actually mobile listening devices? That deep buzz when one is flying could be its little motor, and the smell when you crush one is…need I say more?
I could have been convinced that I’ve been letting my imagination run away with me. That is, until I read about the Ehang 184 drone, which the Chinese (see?) manufacturer was showing at this month’s Consumer Electronic Show. Ehang calls it the world’s first autonomous flying taxi, large enough to carry one passenger, but I know better. It’s actually the Queen Stink Bug, which wirelessly issues orders to every presumptive halyomorpha halys that lands on your shoulder.
The company says the Ehang 184 runs on batteries. Still, I want a closer look, for every conspiracy requires the sniff test. Electric power or not, this giant drone has an exhaust somewhere.
You already know how it smells.
I try not to give people who conjure up such fanciful notions very much encouragement. Other suspicions make much more sense—take, for example, the one about how the NSA won’t listen to your phone conversations if you imitate an accent sounding vaguely Mideastern. That’s why Elena and I have been careful about what we say aloud in our own home. It’s from the occasional visit of something resembling halyomorpha halys, a critter better known as the brown marmorated stink bug.
The real ones come from the vicinity of China, and they’re said to be a menace out in the garden. Their ugly little faces are outfitted with a natural straw they stick into fruits, vegetables and ornamentals to slurp up everything they’ve got. Indoors, though, they have no real purpose. They don’t bite, eat or reproduce. We don’t find many in the house, but when we do, they’re nearby— for instance, on the wall or curtain as we sit in the living room. Now and then one will take flight, buzzing around my head like a baby June bug, which is when it really gets annoying.
When we get one too many on a given day, I reassure Elena with the prospect that back in the Cretaceous Period, stink bugs were probably about six feet long and perhaps stood on their hind legs. Strangely, she doesn’t find this comforting.
That they have no reason whatsoever to be indoors, yet they occasionally come in, is all the evidence I need to attribute their entry to some entity with nefarious purposes, a.k.a. the government. Suppose the stink bugs that mysteriously make it inside the house only resemble those outside but are actually mobile listening devices? That deep buzz when one is flying could be its little motor, and the smell when you crush one is…need I say more?
I could have been convinced that I’ve been letting my imagination run away with me. That is, until I read about the Ehang 184 drone, which the Chinese (see?) manufacturer was showing at this month’s Consumer Electronic Show. Ehang calls it the world’s first autonomous flying taxi, large enough to carry one passenger, but I know better. It’s actually the Queen Stink Bug, which wirelessly issues orders to every presumptive halyomorpha halys that lands on your shoulder.
The company says the Ehang 184 runs on batteries. Still, I want a closer look, for every conspiracy requires the sniff test. Electric power or not, this giant drone has an exhaust somewhere.
You already know how it smells.
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
A germ of grievance
Read the news, and you can’t help but learn about the unrest at many college campuses over myriad offenses…some perfectly justified, some contrived. I can sympathize. There’s much to complain, after all, about an insular institution where the cost of room, board, and other essentials is borne by others, and most activities are set according to a schedule—oh wait, that’s jail.
But because protests at Yale, Princeton, and other top colleges seem trivial compared with, oh, ISIS chopping off Christians’ heads, the collective term for students’ beefs has come to be known as “microaggressions.” Oops! Even my use of the word “beefs” in the previous sentence could classify as microaggression to a vegetarian. Ah, for my salad days. (Better?) You should know you’re overdoing things when even the President says to grow up.
All this thought about everything I could never again say in once-casual conversation made me seek out one place I’d be safe: the living-room sofa. I would just lie down for a few minutes and clear my head. Soon after I did, though, I heard high-pitched, staccato sounds from the kitchen. Elena was working in the other room, so it wasn’t anything she was doing. Nobody else was home.
I couldn’t see anything, but the sound was coming from the trashcan. I opened it and saw nothing inside the liner but a sponge we’d tossed out. Picking up the sponge—from which the sound was coming—I put it close to my ear. Yep, that was it. I dropped the sponge back into the can, deciding that what I’d heard was the sound of air escaping from the sponge. Then I decided to wash my hands.
Once in the bathroom, I opened the vanity door to get another bar of soap. And heard the sound again, only louder. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounded like the tiniest of people chanting something over and over. The sound came from near the can of scouring powder, the one with bleach. I grabbed a bar of soap, closed the little cabinet and washed my hands. But behind me, once I shut off the water, I heard the sound again. I opened the shower curtain and leaned in. This time, it was coming from a little shelf on which was a bottle of body wash. Anti-bacterial body wash. I could almost see what I was hearing.
It took a few minutes to find the old microscope from my elementary-school days, but before long I’d rubbed off some sort of specimen from around the base of the bottle. I prepped a slide, clipped it down, and look a good look:
You’d never guess that bacteria had language skills, but there they were on display. I still couldn’t make out what they were saying, let alone how they spoke at all. But their little signs—apparently ultra-nanofine markers exist—decried our various offenses, such as tossing a sponge, cleaning with bleach and committing the ultimate sin: murder by triclosan. By further adjusting the focus, I could read the largest signs. The spelling wasn’t perfect (whattaya want from one-celled organisms?), but the messages were clear:
NO MOORE EMINENT DOMAIN ABUSE
STOPP THE COMET GENNOCIDE
ANTII BACTEERIA, ANTI LYFE
In other words, we multicellular imperialists needed to apologize, remove the hateful cleaning products from the premises and preserve their ancestry (formerly known as “icky kitchen sponges”) in the utensil drawer.
I had met the microaggressors, and they were us.
With a shake of my head, I realized that I’d fallen asleep, and all those little protests were but a dream. Still, I thought as I sat up, there was no point in taking chances. “Hey, Hon,” I called out to Elena. “Let’s eat out tonight. I’ve just the place! Chipotle’s….”
But because protests at Yale, Princeton, and other top colleges seem trivial compared with, oh, ISIS chopping off Christians’ heads, the collective term for students’ beefs has come to be known as “microaggressions.” Oops! Even my use of the word “beefs” in the previous sentence could classify as microaggression to a vegetarian. Ah, for my salad days. (Better?) You should know you’re overdoing things when even the President says to grow up.
All this thought about everything I could never again say in once-casual conversation made me seek out one place I’d be safe: the living-room sofa. I would just lie down for a few minutes and clear my head. Soon after I did, though, I heard high-pitched, staccato sounds from the kitchen. Elena was working in the other room, so it wasn’t anything she was doing. Nobody else was home.
I couldn’t see anything, but the sound was coming from the trashcan. I opened it and saw nothing inside the liner but a sponge we’d tossed out. Picking up the sponge—from which the sound was coming—I put it close to my ear. Yep, that was it. I dropped the sponge back into the can, deciding that what I’d heard was the sound of air escaping from the sponge. Then I decided to wash my hands.
Once in the bathroom, I opened the vanity door to get another bar of soap. And heard the sound again, only louder. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounded like the tiniest of people chanting something over and over. The sound came from near the can of scouring powder, the one with bleach. I grabbed a bar of soap, closed the little cabinet and washed my hands. But behind me, once I shut off the water, I heard the sound again. I opened the shower curtain and leaned in. This time, it was coming from a little shelf on which was a bottle of body wash. Anti-bacterial body wash. I could almost see what I was hearing.
It took a few minutes to find the old microscope from my elementary-school days, but before long I’d rubbed off some sort of specimen from around the base of the bottle. I prepped a slide, clipped it down, and look a good look:
You’d never guess that bacteria had language skills, but there they were on display. I still couldn’t make out what they were saying, let alone how they spoke at all. But their little signs—apparently ultra-nanofine markers exist—decried our various offenses, such as tossing a sponge, cleaning with bleach and committing the ultimate sin: murder by triclosan. By further adjusting the focus, I could read the largest signs. The spelling wasn’t perfect (whattaya want from one-celled organisms?), but the messages were clear:
NO MOORE EMINENT DOMAIN ABUSE
STOPP THE COMET GENNOCIDE
ANTII BACTEERIA, ANTI LYFE
In other words, we multicellular imperialists needed to apologize, remove the hateful cleaning products from the premises and preserve their ancestry (formerly known as “icky kitchen sponges”) in the utensil drawer.
I had met the microaggressors, and they were us.
With a shake of my head, I realized that I’d fallen asleep, and all those little protests were but a dream. Still, I thought as I sat up, there was no point in taking chances. “Hey, Hon,” I called out to Elena. “Let’s eat out tonight. I’ve just the place! Chipotle’s….”
Sunday, November 29, 2015
With apologies to Wynken, Blynken and Nod
“If you don’t like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.” Mark Twain, of course, was talking about the weather. But if you enjoy coffee, eggs, wine, red meat and the occasional tuna sandwich, you know that the above witticism—in the reverse—applies to nearly everything you like. In other words, if you like a food, enjoy it without guilt…while you can.
We could blame the media for how every new medical study on a given topic concludes the exact opposite of whatever the previous study found. Whoever’s at fault, this notion has been keeping me awake nights—though I’m not sure it should. I’m wondering, you see, whether the traditional advice about how to get to sleep could itself be due for a flip of the medical-research spatula. With this in mind, here are a few tips we might expect to see should a new study reverse everything we already know about sleep:
Screens rule the day—all 24 hours. Doctors have long warned that staring into TVs, computers and various mobile doodads are a no-no at nighttime, and that we should shut them down early and relax before hitting the sack. The approaching new advice: Get the biggest TV you can get and watch it till your eyes slam shut—you wouldn’t want Samsung, after all, to waste the millions it spent to sponsor the latest sleep research. Better yet, install that TV on your bedroom ceiling and watch the same old reruns in style.
When the chips are down, break out the pretzels. We’ve been told that munching in the hours after dinner could result in trouble sleeping, but that’s before the coming research refutes all that. Tomorrow’s news flash: When your digestive system is working overtime, it lets the brain relax. At least you’ll hope you feel relaxed as you stare upward, wondering whether hiring the cheapest installer to secure the TV to the ceiling was your wisest move.
Exercise till you drop, if at all. Any sleep specialist will tell you not to exercise in the last hours before bedtime. But given tomorrow’s research, you can take that with a grain of salt. (What’s a little more salt after all those pretzels?) And besides, you’ll need to be in shape for all that vigorous tossing and turning, not to mention the thumb-muscle strength required to write texts all night to friends who’ve seen and followed the same research.
You can so make up all that sleep. And you’ve probably heard for years about how you should give yourself a good eight hours in bed per night, for lost sleep is lost for good. Sure…at least until the next studies publish. Next we’ll be catching a few winks here, a few winks there, and waking up just in time for the next office meeting. Or at least the end of it, when you awaken from the bright flashes of your colleagues’ smartphone cameras as they shoot video of your snooze. Ah, virality!
Worried that tomorrow’s sleep regimen is the stuff that nightmares are made of? Take heart. If you don’t like the research, just wait a few weeks.
We could blame the media for how every new medical study on a given topic concludes the exact opposite of whatever the previous study found. Whoever’s at fault, this notion has been keeping me awake nights—though I’m not sure it should. I’m wondering, you see, whether the traditional advice about how to get to sleep could itself be due for a flip of the medical-research spatula. With this in mind, here are a few tips we might expect to see should a new study reverse everything we already know about sleep:
Screens rule the day—all 24 hours. Doctors have long warned that staring into TVs, computers and various mobile doodads are a no-no at nighttime, and that we should shut them down early and relax before hitting the sack. The approaching new advice: Get the biggest TV you can get and watch it till your eyes slam shut—you wouldn’t want Samsung, after all, to waste the millions it spent to sponsor the latest sleep research. Better yet, install that TV on your bedroom ceiling and watch the same old reruns in style.
When the chips are down, break out the pretzels. We’ve been told that munching in the hours after dinner could result in trouble sleeping, but that’s before the coming research refutes all that. Tomorrow’s news flash: When your digestive system is working overtime, it lets the brain relax. At least you’ll hope you feel relaxed as you stare upward, wondering whether hiring the cheapest installer to secure the TV to the ceiling was your wisest move.
Exercise till you drop, if at all. Any sleep specialist will tell you not to exercise in the last hours before bedtime. But given tomorrow’s research, you can take that with a grain of salt. (What’s a little more salt after all those pretzels?) And besides, you’ll need to be in shape for all that vigorous tossing and turning, not to mention the thumb-muscle strength required to write texts all night to friends who’ve seen and followed the same research.
You can so make up all that sleep. And you’ve probably heard for years about how you should give yourself a good eight hours in bed per night, for lost sleep is lost for good. Sure…at least until the next studies publish. Next we’ll be catching a few winks here, a few winks there, and waking up just in time for the next office meeting. Or at least the end of it, when you awaken from the bright flashes of your colleagues’ smartphone cameras as they shoot video of your snooze. Ah, virality!
Worried that tomorrow’s sleep regimen is the stuff that nightmares are made of? Take heart. If you don’t like the research, just wait a few weeks.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
So many meals, so little time
It has taken some soul-searching, but I have come to a realization: I am a dismal failure. The first warning came more than a week ago, when I hit the buffet restaurant Golden Corral, my favorite feed trough, on the first night of a recent business trip. I’d paid homage to it once before.
What, you haven’t heard of Golden Corral? It’s where you stride in for a bounteous, all-you-can-eat meal at low cost—and afterward wonder how you’ll get back out to your car. If the song “Rawhide” (with its chorus, “Rollin’ rollin’ rollin’….”) isn’t being blasted from speakers above the exit door, it should be.
But to the hush of the cooks, the wait staff and my fellow patrons, I ate my dinner and left the restaurant without the aid of a wheelbarrow. In disgrace, I trudged the mile and a quarter back to my hotel.
It happened again the other day, when Elena and I dined at a local Italian restaurant. I’d ordered my favorite dish, veal parmigiana, which came with pasta and a small salad. But near the end of the meal, as my wife asked the waiter to wrap up what she couldn’t finish, I found myself pointing to my own plate with a trembling finger I recognized as my own. A voice croaked the words, “M-mine, too.”
Understand something about me: I have not been one to take prisoners. More than 70 percent of American men are overweight, and it would hardly be me to leave food uneaten and shame such a…um…sizable portion of the population. And sorry, Michelle, but I’ve considered it my duty as a natural-born citizen of Earth’s sole superpower to super-size a few meals a year.
Best of all, I could always get away with it. As a child, I fully expected to grow up to be Mac, the skinny guy who gets sand kicked in his face in those Charles Atlas comic-book ads. (I didn’t care as much to become the Hero of the Beach as much as attract a loyal girlfriend.) Even if I couldn’t beat up bullies, those early years taught me a lasting lesson: No matter how much I ate, my speedy metabolism would keep even a forkful of fat from sticking to my scrawny frame.
Fast-forward to the 21st century, when eating has come to represent my complete reward system. It isn’t exactly impeccable timing, for cheap junk food since my teen years has permeated the shelves of stores across the nation. And alas, I’ve discovered a device, called a bathroom scale, that apparently responds to my eating habits. A friend at work, Kimberly, tells me I’m lucky to have gotten away for so long without having to worry about gaining weight. I have a different perspective: Those decades left me totally unprepared. I’m a babe in the woods, and a chubby little one at that.
You’ll be happy to know I’ve already come up with a solution. It’s so easy, in fact, that it’s a wonder anyone is overweight. All I have to do is eat as little as possible in between those unavoidable occasions, during which I allow myself an extra calorie or two.
I’m talking about those major holidays, plus Super Bowl Sunday. And Valentine’s Day. The birthday celebrations of all family members, friends and colleagues. Add in meals away from home: business trips and office lunches, dining out with the family, meals during vacations and visits to friends and family. Barbecues at home. Ballgames, including at the stadium. Samples at supermarkets, country fairs and farmers’ markets. Snacks my coworkers put out. Movie-theater treats. Italian dinners at home, too. Not to mention pizza—no matter when or where it calls me by name. And did I forget Saturday breakfast?
In between those occasions, don’t even think about offering me food.
What, you haven’t heard of Golden Corral? It’s where you stride in for a bounteous, all-you-can-eat meal at low cost—and afterward wonder how you’ll get back out to your car. If the song “Rawhide” (with its chorus, “Rollin’ rollin’ rollin’….”) isn’t being blasted from speakers above the exit door, it should be.
But to the hush of the cooks, the wait staff and my fellow patrons, I ate my dinner and left the restaurant without the aid of a wheelbarrow. In disgrace, I trudged the mile and a quarter back to my hotel.
It happened again the other day, when Elena and I dined at a local Italian restaurant. I’d ordered my favorite dish, veal parmigiana, which came with pasta and a small salad. But near the end of the meal, as my wife asked the waiter to wrap up what she couldn’t finish, I found myself pointing to my own plate with a trembling finger I recognized as my own. A voice croaked the words, “M-mine, too.”
Understand something about me: I have not been one to take prisoners. More than 70 percent of American men are overweight, and it would hardly be me to leave food uneaten and shame such a…um…sizable portion of the population. And sorry, Michelle, but I’ve considered it my duty as a natural-born citizen of Earth’s sole superpower to super-size a few meals a year.
Best of all, I could always get away with it. As a child, I fully expected to grow up to be Mac, the skinny guy who gets sand kicked in his face in those Charles Atlas comic-book ads. (I didn’t care as much to become the Hero of the Beach as much as attract a loyal girlfriend.) Even if I couldn’t beat up bullies, those early years taught me a lasting lesson: No matter how much I ate, my speedy metabolism would keep even a forkful of fat from sticking to my scrawny frame.
Fast-forward to the 21st century, when eating has come to represent my complete reward system. It isn’t exactly impeccable timing, for cheap junk food since my teen years has permeated the shelves of stores across the nation. And alas, I’ve discovered a device, called a bathroom scale, that apparently responds to my eating habits. A friend at work, Kimberly, tells me I’m lucky to have gotten away for so long without having to worry about gaining weight. I have a different perspective: Those decades left me totally unprepared. I’m a babe in the woods, and a chubby little one at that.
You’ll be happy to know I’ve already come up with a solution. It’s so easy, in fact, that it’s a wonder anyone is overweight. All I have to do is eat as little as possible in between those unavoidable occasions, during which I allow myself an extra calorie or two.
I’m talking about those major holidays, plus Super Bowl Sunday. And Valentine’s Day. The birthday celebrations of all family members, friends and colleagues. Add in meals away from home: business trips and office lunches, dining out with the family, meals during vacations and visits to friends and family. Barbecues at home. Ballgames, including at the stadium. Samples at supermarkets, country fairs and farmers’ markets. Snacks my coworkers put out. Movie-theater treats. Italian dinners at home, too. Not to mention pizza—no matter when or where it calls me by name. And did I forget Saturday breakfast?
In between those occasions, don’t even think about offering me food.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
A little too much for women to swallow
You might think that after 26 years of marriage, a woman would feel she knows her man. Elena certainly would. And she did…until she walked in and saw me watching that show again.
I guess I know what you’re thinking. Browse your own TV channels, and you never know what is suddenly there before your eyes—never mind if you’ve got young, impressionable kids. It’s there. And I got caught dead to rights. Even worse, it’s time I admitted…I’m a fan.
Of Man V. Food.
“You’re watching that again?” she inquires. As a matter of fact, I am.
In case you haven’t seen this Travel Channel show or the successor show Man V. Food Nation, I’ll spoon-feed the details: A fellow named Adam Richman tours the country, taking on the challenge to eat whatever humongous entrée some bar or restaurant says nobody can eat. That nobody should eat it somehow never enters into it, which is part of the fun. And it looks nothing like the new food portions the government has begun recommending—to replace a food pyramid that turned out, for a populace growing in girth, to be merely the tip of an iceberg.
During the show, he leads up to the actual meal by describing the restaurant, interviewing its cooks and showing how the dish in question is prepared (make that “piled”) and, in the process, building what passes for suspense. His experience? Besides having eaten food every day of his life, he has a Masters in Fine Arts from Yale. No, I don’t know how that explains things, either. Maybe more food in my stomach would help.
“It would be a better show if they didn’t always have the same stupid guy.”
When I first heard of Man V. Food, I was attending a trade show in Las Vegas. As it turned out, the Nascar Café in the very hotel I stayed at served a dish that was featured on Man V. Food. The Big Badass Burrito (B3 for short) is an 18-inch, six-pound missile aimed at your heart, not to mention your ego. The good news? You can have one for free. The bad? You have to finish your whole meal to dodge the bill. And those rules. You have only 90 minutes to finish the burrito, and you can just forget about going to the bathroom—or even standing up—till you're done or the clock runs out. I have a feeling most of every B3 served stays in Vegas.
Fail to finish the B3, as one foolish guy did as I dined nearby, and your photo joins those of many others before you on the “B3 Weenies Hall of Shame.” And you pay $20 plus the cost of whatever drinks you foolishly thought would provide lubrication. Alas, the B3 itself might be doomed—the Sahara Hotel, which included the Nascar Café, closed this spring. Guess somebody was eating up the profits.
“I can’t believe you watch that show. Every single one is the same.”
No, I explain, they’re not all the same. Sometimes Adam finishes the dish and, well, sometimes he doesn’t. And there’s another part I must explain. I myself am trying to eat less these days, barring the occasional buffet on the road. And pizza. Pulled pork. Okay, okay, those Drake’s Apple Pies, too. But besides all that, I’m watching portions more than I ever used to. I scan labels for the sodium, the high-fructose corn syrup and those dastardly trans-fats. What I won’t eat, though, I ingest through my eyes—which were always bigger than my stomach. What better escapism than to watch a guy stuff himself silly on meals prepared contrary to all medical advice…before a cheering crowd?
The more I think about it, the more I realize Elena has a point. In fact, I’ve conceptualized a better spin-off to Man V. Food than the unimaginative Man V. Food Nation. The new show I envision wouldn’t just give a truer challenge to our hungry friend Adam. It would also keep my wife glued to her seat. Somehow, though, I’m not sure I myself would watch Man V. Dishes.
I guess I know what you’re thinking. Browse your own TV channels, and you never know what is suddenly there before your eyes—never mind if you’ve got young, impressionable kids. It’s there. And I got caught dead to rights. Even worse, it’s time I admitted…I’m a fan.
Of Man V. Food.
“You’re watching that again?” she inquires. As a matter of fact, I am.
In case you haven’t seen this Travel Channel show or the successor show Man V. Food Nation, I’ll spoon-feed the details: A fellow named Adam Richman tours the country, taking on the challenge to eat whatever humongous entrée some bar or restaurant says nobody can eat. That nobody should eat it somehow never enters into it, which is part of the fun. And it looks nothing like the new food portions the government has begun recommending—to replace a food pyramid that turned out, for a populace growing in girth, to be merely the tip of an iceberg.
During the show, he leads up to the actual meal by describing the restaurant, interviewing its cooks and showing how the dish in question is prepared (make that “piled”) and, in the process, building what passes for suspense. His experience? Besides having eaten food every day of his life, he has a Masters in Fine Arts from Yale. No, I don’t know how that explains things, either. Maybe more food in my stomach would help.
“It would be a better show if they didn’t always have the same stupid guy.”
When I first heard of Man V. Food, I was attending a trade show in Las Vegas. As it turned out, the Nascar Café in the very hotel I stayed at served a dish that was featured on Man V. Food. The Big Badass Burrito (B3 for short) is an 18-inch, six-pound missile aimed at your heart, not to mention your ego. The good news? You can have one for free. The bad? You have to finish your whole meal to dodge the bill. And those rules. You have only 90 minutes to finish the burrito, and you can just forget about going to the bathroom—or even standing up—till you're done or the clock runs out. I have a feeling most of every B3 served stays in Vegas.
Fail to finish the B3, as one foolish guy did as I dined nearby, and your photo joins those of many others before you on the “B3 Weenies Hall of Shame.” And you pay $20 plus the cost of whatever drinks you foolishly thought would provide lubrication. Alas, the B3 itself might be doomed—the Sahara Hotel, which included the Nascar Café, closed this spring. Guess somebody was eating up the profits.
“I can’t believe you watch that show. Every single one is the same.”
No, I explain, they’re not all the same. Sometimes Adam finishes the dish and, well, sometimes he doesn’t. And there’s another part I must explain. I myself am trying to eat less these days, barring the occasional buffet on the road. And pizza. Pulled pork. Okay, okay, those Drake’s Apple Pies, too. But besides all that, I’m watching portions more than I ever used to. I scan labels for the sodium, the high-fructose corn syrup and those dastardly trans-fats. What I won’t eat, though, I ingest through my eyes—which were always bigger than my stomach. What better escapism than to watch a guy stuff himself silly on meals prepared contrary to all medical advice…before a cheering crowd?
The more I think about it, the more I realize Elena has a point. In fact, I’ve conceptualized a better spin-off to Man V. Food than the unimaginative Man V. Food Nation. The new show I envision wouldn’t just give a truer challenge to our hungry friend Adam. It would also keep my wife glued to her seat. Somehow, though, I’m not sure I myself would watch Man V. Dishes.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
The breakaway dash isn’t just for football
My beloved, Elena, loves to watch women’s gymnastics during the Summer Olympics. It’s her sport, after all. But not the part with the running, flipping and somersaulting. Naw, her favorite part comes at the end of the “floor exercise,” when the gymnast lands upright, arms spread skyward, in a dramatic ta-daaaa. She does that part very well.
I enjoy football in the same way. Only I’ve never had the build, the patience or the grasp of the rules actually to play the game. No, my favorite part comes after the quarterback throws to someone who, occasionally, breaks free from everyone chasing him and runs elatedly for a touchdown. That’s me all over. No, not on the football field—there, I’d be under the beefy mass, losing a dimension. It’s me at big store and malls. Stadiums. City streets. In short, wherever other people are in numbers.
Though few seem to share my viewpoint, for me it’s not much different from driving. Take your average highway at rush hour. Nobody is getting anywhere quickly, but everybody knows it. All drivers have, in other words, some notion of when they think they deserve to reach their destinations. Plus absolute knowledge of who needs to get over already.
Once they leave their car, most people leave such crisp awareness of their surroundings behind. Not me. You won’t, of course, see me walking several steps ahead of friends or family, making them run to keep up with me. (They, um, wouldn’t.) And on a completely empty street, I’ll actually take my time in tranquil contemplation. But once you sprinkle a few people in my way? First off, I’ll pay anything, anything, to get that sprinkler from you. Second, the part of my brain that controls locomotion will floor whatever passes for a pedal.
Those walking ahead of me might be very nice people. They’d probably give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation if I suddenly passed out.
They’d better step aside if they know what’s good for them.
It’s not that this sort of thing is never helpful. In the supermarket, I’ll often go to get things at the opposite corner of the store to save time. The way Elena tells it, she’ll ask me to get something, turn away from the cart for an instant and, when she looks back at the cart, I’m there. “Didn’t you…?” she might once have started asking. But after 25 years of marriage, she knows I did. And she still talks about when we made the mistake of visiting the Museum of Natural History the day after Thanksgiving—when parents from apparently all over the world, even other planets and galaxies, bring their kids. Late in the day, I realized I had only a few minutes to get the car, four blocks away, before the meter ran out. With the kids so young, we’d never make it unless I went alone. From my wife’s perspective, she left the gift shop when I did and took the kids out to the door to wait for me. I was already out front, idling the car.
My problem is that, as if we were on the road, I cannot fathom the possibility that people don’t know who is coming up behind them (isn’t everyone from the projects?) and how quickly. In the mall, I’m the unfortunate one who knows precisely which store he’s headed to—and what he wants to buy. The others? They mosey. Of course, it’s their right to walk at whatever speed suits them, to spread their party six abreast if they want and to stop at whatever shop windows they feel like. Just don’t expect me not to take the long way around, say, a fountain to get around you.
In the store, I’ll whoosh down the wrong aisle to go around to the other end of the right one. On the street, I’ll pass a city bus or cab—on the street side—to go around a congested stretch of sidewalk. And if I smell the cigarettes of people even a half-block ahead, I’ll quicken the pace even more. Last I checked, it’s still their right. But they won’t even see me till I’m upwind, exercising mine.
I suspect this particular piece of madness owes to both nature and nurture. My dad was always a brisk walker and, in his '70s, took up competitive racewalking—as fast as walking gets before it's a jog. And two blocks east of my building was the human beehive known better as the intersection of Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing, New York. We often passed through this intersection, at which more than a dozen bus lines originated—not counting the cabs. Myriad stores and restaurants lined the streets in all four directions, and each corner of the intersection had a 7-line subway staircase that further impeded foot traffic. As a teenager, I avoided the intersection altogether when I could. In a pinch, I’d run down the subway stairs and cross the street underground.
In her wisdom, Elena has told me that I give people more credit than I should for being alert. However deliberate I might think people are as they walk more slowly through a foot-traffic bottleneck, they really didn’t notice me coming—and would probably make room if they knew it mattered so much to me. “They’re in their own little worlds,” she says.
Even wisdom, however, needs fertile soil to take root. Instead of shrugging off people’s harmless foibles, I’m much more likely, when someone is in my way, to think my unspoken mantra: “What are you, stupid?”
God willing, I’ll also have my stride well into my ’70s. And once I don’t, I hope eventually to become like the fellow in the motorized wheelchair who raced past my daughter, Katie, who’s a fast walker herself—but was in high heels that evening. A few yards in front of her, he turned his head toward her. “Ha!” he cried and sped away.
I enjoy football in the same way. Only I’ve never had the build, the patience or the grasp of the rules actually to play the game. No, my favorite part comes after the quarterback throws to someone who, occasionally, breaks free from everyone chasing him and runs elatedly for a touchdown. That’s me all over. No, not on the football field—there, I’d be under the beefy mass, losing a dimension. It’s me at big store and malls. Stadiums. City streets. In short, wherever other people are in numbers.
Though few seem to share my viewpoint, for me it’s not much different from driving. Take your average highway at rush hour. Nobody is getting anywhere quickly, but everybody knows it. All drivers have, in other words, some notion of when they think they deserve to reach their destinations. Plus absolute knowledge of who needs to get over already.
Once they leave their car, most people leave such crisp awareness of their surroundings behind. Not me. You won’t, of course, see me walking several steps ahead of friends or family, making them run to keep up with me. (They, um, wouldn’t.) And on a completely empty street, I’ll actually take my time in tranquil contemplation. But once you sprinkle a few people in my way? First off, I’ll pay anything, anything, to get that sprinkler from you. Second, the part of my brain that controls locomotion will floor whatever passes for a pedal.
Those walking ahead of me might be very nice people. They’d probably give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation if I suddenly passed out.
They’d better step aside if they know what’s good for them.
It’s not that this sort of thing is never helpful. In the supermarket, I’ll often go to get things at the opposite corner of the store to save time. The way Elena tells it, she’ll ask me to get something, turn away from the cart for an instant and, when she looks back at the cart, I’m there. “Didn’t you…?” she might once have started asking. But after 25 years of marriage, she knows I did. And she still talks about when we made the mistake of visiting the Museum of Natural History the day after Thanksgiving—when parents from apparently all over the world, even other planets and galaxies, bring their kids. Late in the day, I realized I had only a few minutes to get the car, four blocks away, before the meter ran out. With the kids so young, we’d never make it unless I went alone. From my wife’s perspective, she left the gift shop when I did and took the kids out to the door to wait for me. I was already out front, idling the car.
My problem is that, as if we were on the road, I cannot fathom the possibility that people don’t know who is coming up behind them (isn’t everyone from the projects?) and how quickly. In the mall, I’m the unfortunate one who knows precisely which store he’s headed to—and what he wants to buy. The others? They mosey. Of course, it’s their right to walk at whatever speed suits them, to spread their party six abreast if they want and to stop at whatever shop windows they feel like. Just don’t expect me not to take the long way around, say, a fountain to get around you.
In the store, I’ll whoosh down the wrong aisle to go around to the other end of the right one. On the street, I’ll pass a city bus or cab—on the street side—to go around a congested stretch of sidewalk. And if I smell the cigarettes of people even a half-block ahead, I’ll quicken the pace even more. Last I checked, it’s still their right. But they won’t even see me till I’m upwind, exercising mine.
I suspect this particular piece of madness owes to both nature and nurture. My dad was always a brisk walker and, in his '70s, took up competitive racewalking—as fast as walking gets before it's a jog. And two blocks east of my building was the human beehive known better as the intersection of Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing, New York. We often passed through this intersection, at which more than a dozen bus lines originated—not counting the cabs. Myriad stores and restaurants lined the streets in all four directions, and each corner of the intersection had a 7-line subway staircase that further impeded foot traffic. As a teenager, I avoided the intersection altogether when I could. In a pinch, I’d run down the subway stairs and cross the street underground.
In her wisdom, Elena has told me that I give people more credit than I should for being alert. However deliberate I might think people are as they walk more slowly through a foot-traffic bottleneck, they really didn’t notice me coming—and would probably make room if they knew it mattered so much to me. “They’re in their own little worlds,” she says.
Even wisdom, however, needs fertile soil to take root. Instead of shrugging off people’s harmless foibles, I’m much more likely, when someone is in my way, to think my unspoken mantra: “What are you, stupid?”
God willing, I’ll also have my stride well into my ’70s. And once I don’t, I hope eventually to become like the fellow in the motorized wheelchair who raced past my daughter, Katie, who’s a fast walker herself—but was in high heels that evening. A few yards in front of her, he turned his head toward her. “Ha!” he cried and sped away.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Driving myself to distraction
Lots of traffic today, but I’m finally on the highway. And none too soon. I have my fork, napkin’s here…let me get the lid off this coffee—hey, who taught you to drive, lady? Yeesh…get the straw into my orange juice, and I’m in business. Mmmm…good eggs. Toast? Just right. Let me get a piece of sausage onto my fork…oops, missed. Whoa, buddy! Why don’t I pull into your driveway and lean on the horn while you’re having breakfast?
Oh, yeah, gotta get the GPS ready for those errands I need to run over lunch. Let me set it up, plug it in, turn it on…. Excuse me, guy, there’s plenty of room in the right lane, last I checked! What was that address again? Oh, yeah, W-H-I-T-E SPACE P-L-A-I-N-S. Okay, okay! so I took my eyes off the road for a second! Maybe I was going to exit, did you ever think about that, huh? M-A-M-A-R-O-N-E-C-J…oops. It was your fault for yelling out your window, stupid. M-A-M-A-R-O…oh, forget it, these people are getting on my nerves. I’ll do it later. Creeps! Did your mother teach you those words?
Now…darn, breakfast’s getting cold. Let me just…. Well you wouldn’t expect me to spear dead air instead of home fries, would you? I have to see what I’m eating! Oh, okay, lots of traffic here, let me watch where I’m going. Hmmm…that bumper sticker looks clever. But that…type is too…tiny. Hey, no slamming on the brakes—I don’t care if there’s a turkey on the road, what about the one in the driver’s seat? Just because I help bring home the bacon doesn’t mean I want it draped over the brake pedal. Oh, forget it. Some coffee, that’s what I need. Ahhh! Oh, but it needs sugar. I have some here in the glove compartment….somewhere here…behind—yes, Bub, sometimes I do need both lanes! Can’t you see I’m busy? Do I tell you how to have your coffee?
Here’s the sugar. Oh, and I forgot I had this CD. Let me put it in—oh, not that song, it was the…sixth or seventh I liked best…no, not that one, no, not the next—or maybe it was the fifth. Anyway…oh, what’s that buzz? A text! I was wondering when I was going to hear back from my friend. Is it? Hmmm…no, I don’t recognize that number. I don’t…I don’t know this person! Stupid, stupid, I don’t care about you or where you’ll be when…and I’m going…to tell you that…right now…. Oh, hey, my speedometer’s broken or something, I never go that fast. Oh…oh, I’ll be at work in ten minutes, and I haven’t even started in the newspaper!
And now, uh oh, flashing lights behind me…let me get over here so he can get whoever—or is “whomever”? The grammar book is under the seat. Or was that the thesaurus? Let me just reach down and find…. Hmmm, he’s getting over, too. He wants…me? Aren’t these guys supposed to be going after d-dangerous p-people?
Officer, w-was I…hey, where’d he go? I’m not…wait a minute…I’m not on the highway. I’m lying on my bed! I’ve been asleep! It must have been…the Vicodin, my pain medication…plus lingering anesthesia from my shoulder surgery this morning. What a…what a nightmare!
Oh, I was so scared—thank God it wasn’t real! Well, another couple days recovering, and I’ll be back to work. Back on the road, too. And just in time to be behind the wheel again. After all, I haven’t yet finished my latest DVD.
Oh, yeah, gotta get the GPS ready for those errands I need to run over lunch. Let me set it up, plug it in, turn it on…. Excuse me, guy, there’s plenty of room in the right lane, last I checked! What was that address again? Oh, yeah, W-H-I-T-E SPACE P-L-A-I-N-S. Okay, okay! so I took my eyes off the road for a second! Maybe I was going to exit, did you ever think about that, huh? M-A-M-A-R-O-N-E-C-J…oops. It was your fault for yelling out your window, stupid. M-A-M-A-R-O…oh, forget it, these people are getting on my nerves. I’ll do it later. Creeps! Did your mother teach you those words?
Now…darn, breakfast’s getting cold. Let me just…. Well you wouldn’t expect me to spear dead air instead of home fries, would you? I have to see what I’m eating! Oh, okay, lots of traffic here, let me watch where I’m going. Hmmm…that bumper sticker looks clever. But that…type is too…tiny. Hey, no slamming on the brakes—I don’t care if there’s a turkey on the road, what about the one in the driver’s seat? Just because I help bring home the bacon doesn’t mean I want it draped over the brake pedal. Oh, forget it. Some coffee, that’s what I need. Ahhh! Oh, but it needs sugar. I have some here in the glove compartment….somewhere here…behind—yes, Bub, sometimes I do need both lanes! Can’t you see I’m busy? Do I tell you how to have your coffee?
Here’s the sugar. Oh, and I forgot I had this CD. Let me put it in—oh, not that song, it was the…sixth or seventh I liked best…no, not that one, no, not the next—or maybe it was the fifth. Anyway…oh, what’s that buzz? A text! I was wondering when I was going to hear back from my friend. Is it? Hmmm…no, I don’t recognize that number. I don’t…I don’t know this person! Stupid, stupid, I don’t care about you or where you’ll be when…and I’m going…to tell you that…right now…. Oh, hey, my speedometer’s broken or something, I never go that fast. Oh…oh, I’ll be at work in ten minutes, and I haven’t even started in the newspaper!
And now, uh oh, flashing lights behind me…let me get over here so he can get whoever—or is “whomever”? The grammar book is under the seat. Or was that the thesaurus? Let me just reach down and find…. Hmmm, he’s getting over, too. He wants…me? Aren’t these guys supposed to be going after d-dangerous p-people?
Officer, w-was I…hey, where’d he go? I’m not…wait a minute…I’m not on the highway. I’m lying on my bed! I’ve been asleep! It must have been…the Vicodin, my pain medication…plus lingering anesthesia from my shoulder surgery this morning. What a…what a nightmare!
Oh, I was so scared—thank God it wasn’t real! Well, another couple days recovering, and I’ll be back to work. Back on the road, too. And just in time to be behind the wheel again. After all, I haven’t yet finished my latest DVD.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Where a man can shed his anxieties
Listen to my wife, Elena, and you’ll come to think it has a flat-screen TV, the latest digital-surround sound, a satellite dish, reclining leather chair, and a temperature-controlled wine fridge. Plus the requisite fold-out table to put the pizza box. I hear my beloved myself whenever I grab the little key and mutter something indecipherable about yard work. Invariably comes the grin, followed by the comment. “Ohhhh,” my darling chimes in, “you’re going there.”
Some guys buy red sports cars when they hit their mid-life crises. Me? I put up a shed.
If the shed’s construction was my mid-life crisis, I have a funny way of choosing one—it probably took five years off my life. I couldn’t even have predicted the very idea of needing a shed, having spent the first two-thirds of my life in an apartment. There, I needed only a little shovel for when the plows pushed snow up against the parked car on three sides. Lawn gear? Snowblowers? Those contraptions were what those people needed to take care of the grounds. In fact, snowblowers seemed specially designed to pile up snow against parked cars on the fourth side.
During the many years we looked for a house, I understood that those people would someday be rolled efficiently into one person: myself. Still, I never thought I’d need so much equipment to take care of the property that it couldn’t all fit in the garage along with the car. All that changed two winters ago, when the little snowblower gave up the ghost after years of being grossly outmatched. The new, beefier one indeed would also fit snugly in the garage. As soon as I finished sawing the trunk off the car.
“Hey, Andrew,” I said to my son, “let’s put up a shed!” Both of us were game for the idea; there’s something exceptional about a father and son sweating like pigs together in the summer sun. Besides our smell, I mean. For an eight-by-ten-foot shed, we needed to clear a space at least a foot wider all around. Which meant removing several hundred pounds of hill, along with a mélange of stubborn roots from nearby trees. It was slow, tedious work, and eventually reason made an appearance. “Hey, Andrew,” I said. “Let’s finish clearing the site—and let someone else put it up.”
As it turned out, the most labor-intensive part of putting up a shed is everything that comes before the actual shed itself. You won’t understand until a pickup truck comes to deliver a couple of cubic yards of gravel and crushed rock you ordered, and dumps little mountains in your driveway before driving off. Forty wheelbarrow trips later, Andrew and I spread out the stone to form the shed’s foundation. And as we finished, a heavy rain came. The two of us sat for a while on our little wooden bench, drenched, and shivered as the cool rain ran down our backs. If I’d ever regretted taking on this onerous task, I’d have changed my mind as we sat together, relishing our success.
I consider the shed a win-win on several fronts. Because I can get at the mower and other lawn gear more readily, the property theoretically looks better—except for grass-scorching droughts like the one we just suffered. The site prep kept my physical therapist busy for several months. And now we can get in and out of the car while it’s in the garage. Not that I want to drive places anymore, though: I have a shed.
The one we had delivered and installed has a little window with a planter beneath, which made it good for Elena, too. My sweetheart, after all, needed something nice to look at as she peers out the back window…and wonders what I’m doing out there this time.
With such troubling news lately, I know I’d better enjoy the new addition while I can. Any day now, I expect to come home one day and go to the shed to find the lock broken and all the outdoor gear piled up in the pachysandra. I’ll open the door; a shaft of afternoon sun will reveal several puzzled faces. “Cierra la puerta,” I’ll hear a woman whisper. “The baby is sleeping.”
Some guys buy red sports cars when they hit their mid-life crises. Me? I put up a shed.
If the shed’s construction was my mid-life crisis, I have a funny way of choosing one—it probably took five years off my life. I couldn’t even have predicted the very idea of needing a shed, having spent the first two-thirds of my life in an apartment. There, I needed only a little shovel for when the plows pushed snow up against the parked car on three sides. Lawn gear? Snowblowers? Those contraptions were what those people needed to take care of the grounds. In fact, snowblowers seemed specially designed to pile up snow against parked cars on the fourth side.
During the many years we looked for a house, I understood that those people would someday be rolled efficiently into one person: myself. Still, I never thought I’d need so much equipment to take care of the property that it couldn’t all fit in the garage along with the car. All that changed two winters ago, when the little snowblower gave up the ghost after years of being grossly outmatched. The new, beefier one indeed would also fit snugly in the garage. As soon as I finished sawing the trunk off the car.
“Hey, Andrew,” I said to my son, “let’s put up a shed!” Both of us were game for the idea; there’s something exceptional about a father and son sweating like pigs together in the summer sun. Besides our smell, I mean. For an eight-by-ten-foot shed, we needed to clear a space at least a foot wider all around. Which meant removing several hundred pounds of hill, along with a mélange of stubborn roots from nearby trees. It was slow, tedious work, and eventually reason made an appearance. “Hey, Andrew,” I said. “Let’s finish clearing the site—and let someone else put it up.”
As it turned out, the most labor-intensive part of putting up a shed is everything that comes before the actual shed itself. You won’t understand until a pickup truck comes to deliver a couple of cubic yards of gravel and crushed rock you ordered, and dumps little mountains in your driveway before driving off. Forty wheelbarrow trips later, Andrew and I spread out the stone to form the shed’s foundation. And as we finished, a heavy rain came. The two of us sat for a while on our little wooden bench, drenched, and shivered as the cool rain ran down our backs. If I’d ever regretted taking on this onerous task, I’d have changed my mind as we sat together, relishing our success.
I consider the shed a win-win on several fronts. Because I can get at the mower and other lawn gear more readily, the property theoretically looks better—except for grass-scorching droughts like the one we just suffered. The site prep kept my physical therapist busy for several months. And now we can get in and out of the car while it’s in the garage. Not that I want to drive places anymore, though: I have a shed.
The one we had delivered and installed has a little window with a planter beneath, which made it good for Elena, too. My sweetheart, after all, needed something nice to look at as she peers out the back window…and wonders what I’m doing out there this time.
With such troubling news lately, I know I’d better enjoy the new addition while I can. Any day now, I expect to come home one day and go to the shed to find the lock broken and all the outdoor gear piled up in the pachysandra. I’ll open the door; a shaft of afternoon sun will reveal several puzzled faces. “Cierra la puerta,” I’ll hear a woman whisper. “The baby is sleeping.”
Sunday, July 18, 2010
It’s the slice of life
Yes, doctor, I’ve been told I should see someone about my favorite…obsession. I won’t keep you in the dark: It’s pizza. My wife has mapped out my brain, you see, and pizza forms the biggest part. No, she’s not a scientist, doctor. And you are, yes, of course I’ve noticed your certificates; you positioned the couch so I’d face them. So—cheesy. But that’s what I mean. And it’s gotten worse, as I’ve been pining for a long-lost pizza place.
Let me stop you there, doc…. Where I come from, the word “pizzeria” might be on the sign, but nobody who grew up in Flushing, Queens, a generation ago used that word to describe a business that made and served pizza. It’s a pizza place, Bub. Okay, okay, Doctor Bub. Not a pizza parlor, shop, or restaurant. And certainly not “ristorante” unless you want tomato slices in place of sauce.
Yes, doc, I know I have just an hour, but it’s my dough. So...back to my obsession. I don’t often make it down to Flushing these days. But I’m plotting to go back. To a pizza place I’ve never visited. To have another slice or two of the best pizza I ever ate.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I can explain. My brother Vinnie tells me that Gloria Pizza opened a year before I was born, and it’s among my earliest memories. It was on Main Street in Flushing, a block from where the 7 line ended, and it had a narrow storefront whose customer space wouldn’t fit a fat man—ironic considering how many Gloria must have created. Judging from that belly, doc, I’m sure you have a favorite place of your own! Anyway, its counter was on the right. It ran front to back plus a street-side window that also sold ices. The left wall was all mirrors, and along it ran a shelf for eating what you bought: just pizza and soda in those early days. In between, no matter when you went, it was wall-to-wall people.
Tender and gooey, with sauce that had just a hint of sweetness, the pizza was always fresh out of the oven. In the mid-sixties, a slice cost 20 cents; a cup of soda, a dime. But you could get both for a quarter, something you with your fees could appreciate. It’s a pizza that other people, not just me, talk about on lots of websites, including this one—take it down, Doc. You have room in the margins of that crossword puzzle you’re doing. It even has its own Facebook fan page. Pretty good for a place that closed down in the ‘90s, huh?
But even though my favorite pizza place is long gone, I suppose I’ve been looking for that taste ever since. When the kids were small, I remember paying close attention during those pandemoniac birthday parties. Not to our kids but to the stacked boxes of hot, steaming pizza that some local pizza place would deliver. If the pizza showed up and no one made a move to serve it, I was prone to get agitated. Weren’t they…? Didn’t they see…? Shouldn’t someone…? And if any pizza was left once the kids were done, well, those bite-sized half-slices went down pretty quickly. Which was a good idea in case one of the little buggers came back for more.
Before I go on, doc, the seven-letter word you want for 8 Down is “anchovy”—yes, I can even smell pizza questions. And I thought something was fishy in how seldom you were spouting the requisite “uh huhs.” Not that I’ll eat pizza with any old thing on it. In fact, doc, if people ordering for a crowd with me in it plan to get that so-called pizza with broccoli, radicchio, artichoke hearts, pineapples or other such nonsense, they’d better also have plain-cheese slices around, or it won’t be pretty. You might think it’s more efficient to have your salad and pizza at the same time, doc, but I don’t see a single certificate on this wall for good taste.
Okay, doc, I know I’m talking in circles; if I liked Sicilian pizza, I’d talk in rectangles. So back to Gloria Pizza. That little hole-in-the-wall business is long gone, but apparently the pizza itself never quite did. No, I’m not getting all supernatural on you. My best friend, Jack, just told me that members of the same family that ran Gloria for years apparently have been running another pizza place, in a different part of town, since I was a teenager. Jack recently went back to Flushing to learn if it was indeed the same stuff he and I grew up on. He couldn’t just walk in; the line went out the door. But one slice, one soda, and he was back in time. So you think I have to go there, too, doc? Not quite.
Oh, you’ll want to answer that buzzer—they’re right on time. Stop your little clock and maybe you can have a slice.
Let me stop you there, doc…. Where I come from, the word “pizzeria” might be on the sign, but nobody who grew up in Flushing, Queens, a generation ago used that word to describe a business that made and served pizza. It’s a pizza place, Bub. Okay, okay, Doctor Bub. Not a pizza parlor, shop, or restaurant. And certainly not “ristorante” unless you want tomato slices in place of sauce.
Yes, doc, I know I have just an hour, but it’s my dough. So...back to my obsession. I don’t often make it down to Flushing these days. But I’m plotting to go back. To a pizza place I’ve never visited. To have another slice or two of the best pizza I ever ate.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I can explain. My brother Vinnie tells me that Gloria Pizza opened a year before I was born, and it’s among my earliest memories. It was on Main Street in Flushing, a block from where the 7 line ended, and it had a narrow storefront whose customer space wouldn’t fit a fat man—ironic considering how many Gloria must have created. Judging from that belly, doc, I’m sure you have a favorite place of your own! Anyway, its counter was on the right. It ran front to back plus a street-side window that also sold ices. The left wall was all mirrors, and along it ran a shelf for eating what you bought: just pizza and soda in those early days. In between, no matter when you went, it was wall-to-wall people.
Tender and gooey, with sauce that had just a hint of sweetness, the pizza was always fresh out of the oven. In the mid-sixties, a slice cost 20 cents; a cup of soda, a dime. But you could get both for a quarter, something you with your fees could appreciate. It’s a pizza that other people, not just me, talk about on lots of websites, including this one—take it down, Doc. You have room in the margins of that crossword puzzle you’re doing. It even has its own Facebook fan page. Pretty good for a place that closed down in the ‘90s, huh?
But even though my favorite pizza place is long gone, I suppose I’ve been looking for that taste ever since. When the kids were small, I remember paying close attention during those pandemoniac birthday parties. Not to our kids but to the stacked boxes of hot, steaming pizza that some local pizza place would deliver. If the pizza showed up and no one made a move to serve it, I was prone to get agitated. Weren’t they…? Didn’t they see…? Shouldn’t someone…? And if any pizza was left once the kids were done, well, those bite-sized half-slices went down pretty quickly. Which was a good idea in case one of the little buggers came back for more.
Before I go on, doc, the seven-letter word you want for 8 Down is “anchovy”—yes, I can even smell pizza questions. And I thought something was fishy in how seldom you were spouting the requisite “uh huhs.” Not that I’ll eat pizza with any old thing on it. In fact, doc, if people ordering for a crowd with me in it plan to get that so-called pizza with broccoli, radicchio, artichoke hearts, pineapples or other such nonsense, they’d better also have plain-cheese slices around, or it won’t be pretty. You might think it’s more efficient to have your salad and pizza at the same time, doc, but I don’t see a single certificate on this wall for good taste.
Okay, doc, I know I’m talking in circles; if I liked Sicilian pizza, I’d talk in rectangles. So back to Gloria Pizza. That little hole-in-the-wall business is long gone, but apparently the pizza itself never quite did. No, I’m not getting all supernatural on you. My best friend, Jack, just told me that members of the same family that ran Gloria for years apparently have been running another pizza place, in a different part of town, since I was a teenager. Jack recently went back to Flushing to learn if it was indeed the same stuff he and I grew up on. He couldn’t just walk in; the line went out the door. But one slice, one soda, and he was back in time. So you think I have to go there, too, doc? Not quite.
Oh, you’ll want to answer that buzzer—they’re right on time. Stop your little clock and maybe you can have a slice.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Hey, I heard that
You know who you are. Actually, you probably don’t—though it’s time you knew. If you’re like most people, you don’t even notice when fluorescent lights buzz or floors creak. Or when someone close by is tapping, tapping, tapping.
But if you’re like me, you notice everything.
It isn’t a matter of exceptional hearing. Plenty of people besides me ace their hearing tests, even a select few who attended more concerts as teenagers. Yet I don’t miss much. Cars that pull up in the driveway. Conversations in other rooms of the house. The difference between the low and medium fan settings on the kids’ air conditioners. Upstairs. When I’m downstairs.
Mostly, though, it’s that that my antenna is always up. If I’m having a conversation or deeply engrossed in something I’m writing, little that’s going on around me will jar my concentration. (The political yappers in the office hallway are the exception.) But trust me: Those other little sounds have not escaped my notice. I suspect I’m the product of having grown up in a family of eight. Any time we were home at the apartment, chances were that someone, in some room, was talking about me.
Is it a problem? You tell me. I wake up each morning still peeved at whichever bird outside was discourteous this time. (I don’t happen to believe that a bird whose call is Jeter-Jeter-Jeter, for instance, should wake up a Met fan.) If I park to get coffee on the way to work, I’ll notice every SUV that simply must bark to tell its owner that the keyless-entry remote works. Should your watch’s alarm go off—tattling on you for never learning the settings—believe me, it registered. And don’t get me started about Velcro.
I’ve known for some time that I lack the ability to tune out ambient sounds. At one school I attended in the Coast Guard, I wished I could change my morning schedule so that I wouldn’t be shaving at the same time as one fellow student. He’d run his razor down one swath of his face, then strike the razor against the edge of the sink to knock off the excess: Tap-tap. Another swath: Tap-tap. And so on for seemingly ten minutes, which I found odd since his beard didn’t leave much surface to shave. Never a tap. Never a tap-tap-tap. Either of these would have broken his unintentional yet accursed pattern. I considered deserting.
And these days, I drive to work with special memories about the years I spent riding the Metro-North commuter train into Grand Central. Yep, there’s something about riding a train, that certain rhythm of the wheels as the air beneath the cars stumbles over the rail ties with a gentle woppata woppata that can lull me to sleep. And would have, too, if not for my fellow passengers. It wasn’t merely the cellphone talkers, however much I’d wished them into a special prattle car. It also wasn’t just the loud headphones, or the man who once napped beside me and hummed a long note each and every time he exhaled. My special beef was with those who habitually came onto the train with a newspaper and proceeded to tear it to shreds. One article after another: a little reading, then a lot of ripping that, somewhere inside my brain, was breaking apart lobes. If this happened today, I’d be writing Santa. Not for noise-canceling headphones but, rather, a few online Times subscriptions—for them. Smart phones and laptops are a lot harder to rip.
Fortunately, what often seems a curse can become a blessing. My wife, Elena, often tells the story from once, in Ogunquit, Maine, that we were walking through an open parking area at Perkins Cove, on the way to some shops. Without warning, I suddenly gave her a good, hard shove. What added to her shock was that she was seven months’ pregnant. But before she could respond, the car that had been approaching us from behind, its driver passing out from a stroke, rolled by. An instant later the passenger, the driver’s wife, got her foot on the brake. Elena hadn’t heard it coming.
So I’ll take it. If anything, I’m first in line at the ice-cream truck.
But if you’re like me, you notice everything.
It isn’t a matter of exceptional hearing. Plenty of people besides me ace their hearing tests, even a select few who attended more concerts as teenagers. Yet I don’t miss much. Cars that pull up in the driveway. Conversations in other rooms of the house. The difference between the low and medium fan settings on the kids’ air conditioners. Upstairs. When I’m downstairs.
Mostly, though, it’s that that my antenna is always up. If I’m having a conversation or deeply engrossed in something I’m writing, little that’s going on around me will jar my concentration. (The political yappers in the office hallway are the exception.) But trust me: Those other little sounds have not escaped my notice. I suspect I’m the product of having grown up in a family of eight. Any time we were home at the apartment, chances were that someone, in some room, was talking about me.
Is it a problem? You tell me. I wake up each morning still peeved at whichever bird outside was discourteous this time. (I don’t happen to believe that a bird whose call is Jeter-Jeter-Jeter, for instance, should wake up a Met fan.) If I park to get coffee on the way to work, I’ll notice every SUV that simply must bark to tell its owner that the keyless-entry remote works. Should your watch’s alarm go off—tattling on you for never learning the settings—believe me, it registered. And don’t get me started about Velcro.
I’ve known for some time that I lack the ability to tune out ambient sounds. At one school I attended in the Coast Guard, I wished I could change my morning schedule so that I wouldn’t be shaving at the same time as one fellow student. He’d run his razor down one swath of his face, then strike the razor against the edge of the sink to knock off the excess: Tap-tap. Another swath: Tap-tap. And so on for seemingly ten minutes, which I found odd since his beard didn’t leave much surface to shave. Never a tap. Never a tap-tap-tap. Either of these would have broken his unintentional yet accursed pattern. I considered deserting.
And these days, I drive to work with special memories about the years I spent riding the Metro-North commuter train into Grand Central. Yep, there’s something about riding a train, that certain rhythm of the wheels as the air beneath the cars stumbles over the rail ties with a gentle woppata woppata that can lull me to sleep. And would have, too, if not for my fellow passengers. It wasn’t merely the cellphone talkers, however much I’d wished them into a special prattle car. It also wasn’t just the loud headphones, or the man who once napped beside me and hummed a long note each and every time he exhaled. My special beef was with those who habitually came onto the train with a newspaper and proceeded to tear it to shreds. One article after another: a little reading, then a lot of ripping that, somewhere inside my brain, was breaking apart lobes. If this happened today, I’d be writing Santa. Not for noise-canceling headphones but, rather, a few online Times subscriptions—for them. Smart phones and laptops are a lot harder to rip.
Fortunately, what often seems a curse can become a blessing. My wife, Elena, often tells the story from once, in Ogunquit, Maine, that we were walking through an open parking area at Perkins Cove, on the way to some shops. Without warning, I suddenly gave her a good, hard shove. What added to her shock was that she was seven months’ pregnant. But before she could respond, the car that had been approaching us from behind, its driver passing out from a stroke, rolled by. An instant later the passenger, the driver’s wife, got her foot on the brake. Elena hadn’t heard it coming.
So I’ll take it. If anything, I’m first in line at the ice-cream truck.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
About this experience? I’d like to sleep on it
My mother’s dad, at least, was one serious sleeper. The event I recall hearing about occurred when Grandpa, just a teenager in West Virginia, awoke to the smell of smoke in the middle of the night. He jumped out of bed and woke up his parents and siblings, all of whom got out safely. Minutes later, the fire department arrived and put out the fire without much damage. Once things quieted down, though, the family noticed someone was missing. “Where’s Clyde?” they asked of my grandpa. They eventually found him on the far side of the house, opposite where the fire had been. He was on both feet, leaning against the house. Fast asleep.
Despite what my brother Stephen told me for years, I really wasn’t adopted. I might even have inherited my grandpa’s sleep gene. I needed it while growing up amid the sounds of subways, buses, 18-wheeler trucks and jets that passed scant feet above our ten-story building—we just had to live on the tenth—en route to landing at LaGuardia Airport. Barring the occasional night, as a teenager, that I tossed and turned over this or that girl, I slept fine those years. Could it be these past twenty-five years in quiet suburbia that have brought me to an appointment at a sleep center?
After all the years I put off a sleep study, my imagination had had lots of time to prepare. In this fictional narrative, I’m be shown a room where I’ll spend the night. A big two-way mirror is there to monitor my every move, and I’m tempted till the lights go out to make faces and stick out my tongue. A nurse on the other side documents every flail of my arms and legs during the night, especially after I kick off first the polyester covers, then the loose-fitting hospital gown. The room’s temperature is too warm, or too cold, and feels more humid—or less—than home. Before I lie back, humorless nurses fit my head and body with electrodes designed to monitor my every thought, eye movement or smile. Myriad wires the thickness of those going into our cable box are connected to the electrodes, and when I turn to see the clock bolted to the nightstand, they pull at my hair. “Now sleep,” one snaps before disappearing for a smoke break. Fumes waft into my room, and I hear the occasional shuffle of cards. I cough once. Again. The sun comes up.
In truth, the setting was more soothing and professional. Two soft-spoken male technicians greeted me and showed me to a small room with a bed, a lounge chair, tranquilizing hotel art and dark-wood wainscoting. The pillows looked flat the way I like them, and warm air wafted into the room with a benign hum. Yes, I thought, I could sleep here.
But in the short while the technicians let me be as they wired up other patients, I learned I wasn’t exactly alone. I stepped over to the window to close the drapes and noticed two ladybugs on the sill. Except they weren’t those cute red ladybugs but rather Asian beetles. We’d gotten these orange bugs in the house over the winter, and unlike ladybugs they don’t come in one at a time by accident. They like the warmth of homes and gather in numbers wherever in the house it’s warmest. With the first few, we’d thought they were just orange ladybugs and courteously escorted them out the door. Asian beetles, though, aren’t so friendly. They fly in your face when annoyed. They’re known to bite. And in a room where I needed no distractions, I thought it best to rinse these two down the sink and be done with the problem. I found four more and dispatched them the same way.
Then I pulled back the curtain—to find at least fifty more.
The facilities guy and his vacuum took a good hour to show, during which the technicians weren’t sure I’d be there for the night. How scientific could the study be if I’m kept awake from the sound of little feet scratching across the rigid-plastic acoustical-time ceiling? (Yes, alas, my hearing is even better than my memory.) The man must have sucked up beetles for five minutes straight. A few more showed up before the technicians returned, and I resolved that whatever I didn’t hunt down while mobile, I’d be hearing till dawn.
That crisis over, the technicians returned and more than met my expectations. Granted, the wires were thin. But these fellows indeed stuck 22 electrodes to my face, neck, hair (think Rogaine in reverse) and calves. Three heavy straps around my chest weren’t too tight—unless I inhaled. The men attached a nasal cannula to monitor my breathing and draped the tubing over my ears. On one middle finger, they taped an oxygen monitor; I’d have to hide its red glow if I turned onto my left side. I didn’t think this would be a problem. Though I eventually did turn, and often, I felt at first that I could hardly move, let alone turn. I suddenly felt very sleepy. Just one night, and it’ll be all over. Just one night. Just one….
I didn’t really fall asleep that quickly. I took at least an hour, which included calling the technicians to get a green light on the TV to stop blinking. Also, little feet scratched across the ceiling above. Don’t yawn, I reminded myself. I’d just fallen asleep, though, when THE SOUND came. Never mind the beetles. Never mind the occasional flushing of toilets or the peg-legged pirate pacing in the room above. I awoke, startled, to what sounded like a 55-gallon drum of water being slowly poured down a metal pipe that emptied onto a plate of sheet metal—with a microphone catching every drip and gush. (Even without its utter loudness, it was not a relaxing sound given our family’s recent experience.) In a daze, I called out to the technicians to kindly inquire what the hell they were doing across the hall. The older gentleman came in, listened and shrugged. “It’s the heater,” he said. “Just a sound. Sounds are okay.” He left. Easy for you to say, Bub. After that 20-minute cantata I needed another hour to fall asleep, and I was awake again long before the 5:45 a.m. reveille.
As the pair of technicians yanked off the various tapes and electrodes, the older guy explained that they’d analyze my data and get back to me within the next couple of weeks. I didn’t care: I felt freer by the moment. And when the younger one removed the cannula from the front of my nose, I commented that it had been the most uncomfortable part of the whole ordeal. “Well, we only put that on the first time,” he replied.
“The first time? You mean….”
“Yes, some people need to come back a few times.”
Nevertheless, I’m grateful. I’m going to sleep well tonight. I’m going to sleep fine from now on. Because I’ve learned the purpose of a sleep clinic. It isn’t merely to monitor your sleep and diagnose, say, sleep apnea. It’s meant to provide a point of reference for all nights to come. It’s okay, I can tell myself. Whatever else is going on while I’m trying to sleep, no matter what’s troubling me, at least I’m not there.
Despite what my brother Stephen told me for years, I really wasn’t adopted. I might even have inherited my grandpa’s sleep gene. I needed it while growing up amid the sounds of subways, buses, 18-wheeler trucks and jets that passed scant feet above our ten-story building—we just had to live on the tenth—en route to landing at LaGuardia Airport. Barring the occasional night, as a teenager, that I tossed and turned over this or that girl, I slept fine those years. Could it be these past twenty-five years in quiet suburbia that have brought me to an appointment at a sleep center?
After all the years I put off a sleep study, my imagination had had lots of time to prepare. In this fictional narrative, I’m be shown a room where I’ll spend the night. A big two-way mirror is there to monitor my every move, and I’m tempted till the lights go out to make faces and stick out my tongue. A nurse on the other side documents every flail of my arms and legs during the night, especially after I kick off first the polyester covers, then the loose-fitting hospital gown. The room’s temperature is too warm, or too cold, and feels more humid—or less—than home. Before I lie back, humorless nurses fit my head and body with electrodes designed to monitor my every thought, eye movement or smile. Myriad wires the thickness of those going into our cable box are connected to the electrodes, and when I turn to see the clock bolted to the nightstand, they pull at my hair. “Now sleep,” one snaps before disappearing for a smoke break. Fumes waft into my room, and I hear the occasional shuffle of cards. I cough once. Again. The sun comes up.
In truth, the setting was more soothing and professional. Two soft-spoken male technicians greeted me and showed me to a small room with a bed, a lounge chair, tranquilizing hotel art and dark-wood wainscoting. The pillows looked flat the way I like them, and warm air wafted into the room with a benign hum. Yes, I thought, I could sleep here.
But in the short while the technicians let me be as they wired up other patients, I learned I wasn’t exactly alone. I stepped over to the window to close the drapes and noticed two ladybugs on the sill. Except they weren’t those cute red ladybugs but rather Asian beetles. We’d gotten these orange bugs in the house over the winter, and unlike ladybugs they don’t come in one at a time by accident. They like the warmth of homes and gather in numbers wherever in the house it’s warmest. With the first few, we’d thought they were just orange ladybugs and courteously escorted them out the door. Asian beetles, though, aren’t so friendly. They fly in your face when annoyed. They’re known to bite. And in a room where I needed no distractions, I thought it best to rinse these two down the sink and be done with the problem. I found four more and dispatched them the same way.
Then I pulled back the curtain—to find at least fifty more.
The facilities guy and his vacuum took a good hour to show, during which the technicians weren’t sure I’d be there for the night. How scientific could the study be if I’m kept awake from the sound of little feet scratching across the rigid-plastic acoustical-time ceiling? (Yes, alas, my hearing is even better than my memory.) The man must have sucked up beetles for five minutes straight. A few more showed up before the technicians returned, and I resolved that whatever I didn’t hunt down while mobile, I’d be hearing till dawn.
That crisis over, the technicians returned and more than met my expectations. Granted, the wires were thin. But these fellows indeed stuck 22 electrodes to my face, neck, hair (think Rogaine in reverse) and calves. Three heavy straps around my chest weren’t too tight—unless I inhaled. The men attached a nasal cannula to monitor my breathing and draped the tubing over my ears. On one middle finger, they taped an oxygen monitor; I’d have to hide its red glow if I turned onto my left side. I didn’t think this would be a problem. Though I eventually did turn, and often, I felt at first that I could hardly move, let alone turn. I suddenly felt very sleepy. Just one night, and it’ll be all over. Just one night. Just one….
I didn’t really fall asleep that quickly. I took at least an hour, which included calling the technicians to get a green light on the TV to stop blinking. Also, little feet scratched across the ceiling above. Don’t yawn, I reminded myself. I’d just fallen asleep, though, when THE SOUND came. Never mind the beetles. Never mind the occasional flushing of toilets or the peg-legged pirate pacing in the room above. I awoke, startled, to what sounded like a 55-gallon drum of water being slowly poured down a metal pipe that emptied onto a plate of sheet metal—with a microphone catching every drip and gush. (Even without its utter loudness, it was not a relaxing sound given our family’s recent experience.) In a daze, I called out to the technicians to kindly inquire what the hell they were doing across the hall. The older gentleman came in, listened and shrugged. “It’s the heater,” he said. “Just a sound. Sounds are okay.” He left. Easy for you to say, Bub. After that 20-minute cantata I needed another hour to fall asleep, and I was awake again long before the 5:45 a.m. reveille.
As the pair of technicians yanked off the various tapes and electrodes, the older guy explained that they’d analyze my data and get back to me within the next couple of weeks. I didn’t care: I felt freer by the moment. And when the younger one removed the cannula from the front of my nose, I commented that it had been the most uncomfortable part of the whole ordeal. “Well, we only put that on the first time,” he replied.
“The first time? You mean….”
“Yes, some people need to come back a few times.”
Nevertheless, I’m grateful. I’m going to sleep well tonight. I’m going to sleep fine from now on. Because I’ve learned the purpose of a sleep clinic. It isn’t merely to monitor your sleep and diagnose, say, sleep apnea. It’s meant to provide a point of reference for all nights to come. It’s okay, I can tell myself. Whatever else is going on while I’m trying to sleep, no matter what’s troubling me, at least I’m not there.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
So this is the underwater housing market
Here’s something you never learned in your mythology class: When Neptune shows up at your door with his pillow, his toothbrush and a big smile on his face, you’re not sending him off to the local Holiday Inn.
As a house guest, he makes your worst-behaved relatives look like Miss Manners. He lets himself in, heads right downstairs to the basement and proceeds to sprawl right out across the floor—soaking everything within reach. If I didn’t know better, I’d guess he thinks he’s god of the sea or something.
Oh, we thought we were ready for him after his last visit, three years ago during another nor’easter. It was then we learned something about this house guest; let’s just say he needs a little oversight. We went to bed, exhausted, with a few puddles downstairs and woke up to about eight inches. To be fair, I won’t say he had the outright rudeness of stopping up the drain in the basement floor. If only he had blocked all water whatsoever from passing through. The basement, you see, wasn’t draining to the outside; the outside was draining in.
This time called for more desperate measures if we were to avoid a recurrence of the hundreds of dollars of damage we’d incurred in ‘07. Sleep? For losers. Eating? Fuhgeddaboudit. And that’s only half the story. Elena looked as dreamy as ever—and lost three pounds, to boot. But me? By the end of this past Monday, I looked like the Geico caveman without the metrosexual flair.
An editor client of Elena’s emailed to check on her. “Are you still rowboating around your basement?” she asked. But thanks to our diligence and a secret weapon, we at least kept our house guest from doing real damage while we awaited the one good contractor that wasn’t totally…immersed in projects.
The secret weapon few house guests can tolerate, after all, is none other than a baby. As luck would have it, we were one short of the usual screaming, vomiting kind. Instead we learned what an incredibly finicky child a sump pump can be.
An electric sump pump sits in water, draws it up through itself and expels it through an outtake hose. Deny it the one simple pleasure it demands, and the baby really starts to hint that, well, maybe it likes the pleasure of ol’ Neptune’s company. To account for the pump’s standing on rather than in the water, we swept a water at it over and over for hours, actually days, while the drain resupplied all we pumped.
When it gurgled, we knew it was happy, slurping up water like an infant sucks milk. Occasionally it would merely sit there, humming softly to itself—or maybe to Neptune—till we realized it wasn’t pumping. And hadn’t been for several minutes. Nyahh nyahh. Don’t think it’s like a baby? Then tell me, someone tell me, why it sometimes needed me to burp it before it would start pumping again. Never mind how I did this. The bigger question is how, on practically no sleep, I figured it out.
Neptune finally took a powder, but he didn’t go gently. Last I heard, he was out around Little Falls, New Jersey, doing significantly more damage than he’s ever done while under our hospitality . Can you keep a secret? We hope he never comes back. If he does, we might have to take the advice of Elena’s oldest friend: “Have you considered leaving the water and adding some Koi?”
As a house guest, he makes your worst-behaved relatives look like Miss Manners. He lets himself in, heads right downstairs to the basement and proceeds to sprawl right out across the floor—soaking everything within reach. If I didn’t know better, I’d guess he thinks he’s god of the sea or something.
Oh, we thought we were ready for him after his last visit, three years ago during another nor’easter. It was then we learned something about this house guest; let’s just say he needs a little oversight. We went to bed, exhausted, with a few puddles downstairs and woke up to about eight inches. To be fair, I won’t say he had the outright rudeness of stopping up the drain in the basement floor. If only he had blocked all water whatsoever from passing through. The basement, you see, wasn’t draining to the outside; the outside was draining in.
This time called for more desperate measures if we were to avoid a recurrence of the hundreds of dollars of damage we’d incurred in ‘07. Sleep? For losers. Eating? Fuhgeddaboudit. And that’s only half the story. Elena looked as dreamy as ever—and lost three pounds, to boot. But me? By the end of this past Monday, I looked like the Geico caveman without the metrosexual flair.
An editor client of Elena’s emailed to check on her. “Are you still rowboating around your basement?” she asked. But thanks to our diligence and a secret weapon, we at least kept our house guest from doing real damage while we awaited the one good contractor that wasn’t totally…immersed in projects.
The secret weapon few house guests can tolerate, after all, is none other than a baby. As luck would have it, we were one short of the usual screaming, vomiting kind. Instead we learned what an incredibly finicky child a sump pump can be.
An electric sump pump sits in water, draws it up through itself and expels it through an outtake hose. Deny it the one simple pleasure it demands, and the baby really starts to hint that, well, maybe it likes the pleasure of ol’ Neptune’s company. To account for the pump’s standing on rather than in the water, we swept a water at it over and over for hours, actually days, while the drain resupplied all we pumped.
When it gurgled, we knew it was happy, slurping up water like an infant sucks milk. Occasionally it would merely sit there, humming softly to itself—or maybe to Neptune—till we realized it wasn’t pumping. And hadn’t been for several minutes. Nyahh nyahh. Don’t think it’s like a baby? Then tell me, someone tell me, why it sometimes needed me to burp it before it would start pumping again. Never mind how I did this. The bigger question is how, on practically no sleep, I figured it out.
Neptune finally took a powder, but he didn’t go gently. Last I heard, he was out around Little Falls, New Jersey, doing significantly more damage than he’s ever done while under our hospitality . Can you keep a secret? We hope he never comes back. If he does, we might have to take the advice of Elena’s oldest friend: “Have you considered leaving the water and adding some Koi?”
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Physical therapy is my current event
You’ve probably heard the George Santayana quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” When it comes to working around the yard, that’s me in a nutshell. For the past few months, I’ve been getting physical therapy from hurting the same shoulder by misusing the same hedge trimmer on the same bushes. With all that sameness, I’m foolishly expecting the same quick results—though I’m five years older.
To be different, this time I have a complication: My opposite elbow now needs therapeutic work as well thanks to the extra duty it’s had in covering for the shoulder. The result? I can’t lift with my right arm and grip anything tightly with the left hand. It’s a development, I have to say, that I’ve taken rather poorly. How would you like, after all, to hear from your orthopedist that for the next six months, you can’t pick up someone by the collar with one hand and punch his face with the other?
So I go twice a week for physical therapy. First comes the STIM, shorthand for electrical stimulation of the muscles needing attention. For 15 minutes at a time, electricity pulses through probes into my shoulder and elbow while I lie on a mat and dwell on the news of the day. Picture someone digging long nails rhythmically into your muscle—yet it feels good—and you have the idea. The therapist, very nice and capable guy, sets the machine’s voltage before leaving the room but waits till I tell him the level feels right. What if I’ve misjudged? I did only once…all I remember is that the lights were flickering.
Next the therapist does some ultrasound to the muscles using a wand coated with a gel. Woman readers who’ve had children, sorry if the very word “ultrasound” invokes memories of having to drink a quart of water before the imaging procedure during pregnancy. And just when you feel ready to burst, the radiologist begins his scan. Nothing like that happens here. In fact, it feels good. After that comes a half-hour or so doing various exercises, concluding with a few minutes of icepack before I go home to resume the usual snowblowing and shoveling.
I like my therapist and his assistants very much; they’re real pros. Which made it all the more upsetting the other day when, during a day off from work, I actually forgot to go to therapy. (I guess my arms felt good that day.) An hour after the appointment should have started, I called to apologize knowing someone would still be at the desk. I got the machine.
In all the years before I married Elena, I never once stood up anyone. So I don’t quite know what to expect tomorrow when I go for my next appointment. My guess? It’s probably not a good idea to stand up someone who, when he first sees you next time, will be saying it’s okay while fondling a voltage switch.
To be different, this time I have a complication: My opposite elbow now needs therapeutic work as well thanks to the extra duty it’s had in covering for the shoulder. The result? I can’t lift with my right arm and grip anything tightly with the left hand. It’s a development, I have to say, that I’ve taken rather poorly. How would you like, after all, to hear from your orthopedist that for the next six months, you can’t pick up someone by the collar with one hand and punch his face with the other?
So I go twice a week for physical therapy. First comes the STIM, shorthand for electrical stimulation of the muscles needing attention. For 15 minutes at a time, electricity pulses through probes into my shoulder and elbow while I lie on a mat and dwell on the news of the day. Picture someone digging long nails rhythmically into your muscle—yet it feels good—and you have the idea. The therapist, very nice and capable guy, sets the machine’s voltage before leaving the room but waits till I tell him the level feels right. What if I’ve misjudged? I did only once…all I remember is that the lights were flickering.
Next the therapist does some ultrasound to the muscles using a wand coated with a gel. Woman readers who’ve had children, sorry if the very word “ultrasound” invokes memories of having to drink a quart of water before the imaging procedure during pregnancy. And just when you feel ready to burst, the radiologist begins his scan. Nothing like that happens here. In fact, it feels good. After that comes a half-hour or so doing various exercises, concluding with a few minutes of icepack before I go home to resume the usual snowblowing and shoveling.
I like my therapist and his assistants very much; they’re real pros. Which made it all the more upsetting the other day when, during a day off from work, I actually forgot to go to therapy. (I guess my arms felt good that day.) An hour after the appointment should have started, I called to apologize knowing someone would still be at the desk. I got the machine.
In all the years before I married Elena, I never once stood up anyone. So I don’t quite know what to expect tomorrow when I go for my next appointment. My guess? It’s probably not a good idea to stand up someone who, when he first sees you next time, will be saying it’s okay while fondling a voltage switch.
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