The End

I know this subject has been run long and hard. Still I found this excerpt from Anna Quindlen's column in Newsweek (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7305204/site/newsweek/page/2/) to be very touching.

Last week my father and I received this short e-mail from my sister, a public-school teacher in San Francisco:

i'm telling you both this now
if i am ever in a 'persistent vegetative state' please let me die
do not have a feeding tube put in me
and in no uncertain terms: do not let the united states government get involved.
xoxo

No public official is going to tell me how to xoxo my sister. No church, no court. The Schiavo case has asked us to look at our own definition of life, not at some formless notion cobbled out of the Bible, medical textbooks and impersonal sentiment. My sister's throaty laugh, her prodigious knowledge of history, her garrulous nature: that's the true picture of her, the one with the light in her eyes. She's counting on me to make certain that image is not replaced by something empty and depleted. She's counting on me to safeguard her dignity and her humanity, which are one and the same.

Many of us feel the way she does. Once the feeding tube was removed, polls showed that the majority of Americans believed Terri Schiavo should be allowed to die. That's probably because they've been there. They are the true judges and lawmakers and priests. They've been at the bedside, watching someone they love in agony as cancer nipped at the spine, as the chest rose and fell with the cruel mimicry of the respirator, as the music of personality dwindled to a single note and then fell silent. They know life when they see it, and they know it when it is gone.

Call of the Wild

Night came on and a full moon rose high over the trees, lighting the land until it lay in ghostly day. And the strain of the primitive remained alive and active. Faithfulness and devotion, things born of roof and fire were his, yet he retained his wildness and wiliness, and from the depths of the forest a call still sounded.

Anticipation

Tick tick tick....2 more weeks to go.

We went to VT last week so The Frenchman could do his song and dance to impress the faculty at UVM as to what a great addition he would make to the team. Tappity tap tap.

I am both stressed, terrified, and hopeful. Am I ready to uproot my life and move to VT? Well why the hell not - I've been moving every 3 years since graduation. Although the plan was never to adopt this gypsy lifestyle, it just worked out that way.

Man plans, God laughs.

Haiku - Part 1 (from Joe)

In memory of Noman - put to sleep Feb 2005.





A handsome devil
I'm inbred to perfection
Why am I skittish?

Running forever
outside is my new inside
paws covered in mud

Going for car ride
That needle intimidates
stop tossing dirt on me

I buried my bone
suddenly have limp carcass
now I am the bone

Hiding in bathtub
displays spastic devotion
The noises scare me

Swimming in mud lake
Scratching Scratching Scratching pause
Scratching scratch again

Going back to car
Leave you to find where I've gone
Fear me when I yelp

Feeling Bad One day
Perhaps time for some new pills
These aren't Scooby Snacks!

That Guy

My cubemate across the cube-hall is "that guy." The guy who copies our boss on every email he sends me so that there is a record of our interaction. The guy who sends me email despite the fact that I sit here, literally 5 feet away from him, all day long. He is that guy who comments on my commings and goings ("Getting in early today?" or "Heading home eh??") as though he was keeping a physical log of my work hours. And sadly, might be doing just that.

Worst Party Ever

So for six months, The Frenchman and I have avoided horrendous work related social functions. We finally succombed Friday night as a young group of attractive French couples from work suggested a seemingly inocuous dinner party. I was slightly apprehensive but as we approached the condo and heard laughter eminating from the open windows, my hopes rose a bit. Then we walked in.

The entire group clammed up like a bunch of teenagers when the teacher enters the room. They all stood in unison to face the door as the American intruder (me) entered French territory. They all politely introduced themselves and we were hastily shuffled to a seat and offered some strange alchololic smoothie.

Turns out, about half of them were only slightly comfortable with the English language. The rest of them decided to avoid the awkwardness and spent the rest of the evening in silence. So The Frencheman, the few English speakers, and I proceeded to make awkward party chit chat for the next hour or so.

Dinner itself offered some reprieve as the French speakers all congregated at one end where they could politely continue on in French without offending the interloper. Thus I was at the end with a bunch of French PhDs who were vociferously debating the benefits of lab tests over complex computer models while I stiffled a yawn about every 5 minutes, all the while desperately pretending to be interested. I would have amused myself with alcohol except that there was a single bottle of wine for the entire table of 9 so it seemed rude to refill my small plastic glass. We had brought a nice plant as a housewarming gift. Should have brought wine.

I had hoped to be home by 9:30 but the endless rounds of food never ceased to come from the kitchen. First dinner. Then the cheese plate. Then ice cream and chocolate cake. Then cookies. All would have been lovely had each new plate of food not created a barrier to our polite departure.

But things didn't really get fun until one of the younger party members switched gears from work to "What is wrong with Amercians and their rediculous (insert -> healthcare, minimum wage, foreign policy, etc.)." Or my all time favorite, "How could you people re-elect Bush?"

All of a sudden I was a spokesperson for all America and all French side conversations stopped while I defended various aspects of American life. I had to stifle my knee-jerk response (if-you-don't-like-it-go-home) and kept a big smile plastered on my face with all of the realism of a beauty pagent winner. I frantically searched for data points vaguely remembered from the last time I read The Economist at the gym to defend our capitalists-centric healthcare system while I tried to dispell them of the notion that if you aren't insured and you show up at the hospital with a gunshot wound that they will simply send you home with a bandaid. And then send you a bill for $500 for said bandaid.

Eventually there was enough of a lull in conversation that The Frenchman was able to throw me a lifejacket and we graciously made our way to the door. At this point most everybody was ready to go although we clearly were the first to depart and nobody else had left the building by the time we pulled away. So it had that definite feeling of a group of people who paused just long enough to chat about the people who had just left. Or so my paranoid self seemed to think.

Dorian Grey

A long time ago an older friend of mine (who was then older than I am now) told me that at a certain point, your self image freezes and no matter how much older you get, in your head you still think of yourself as that person. I thought it was a strange point to make, as I stood there thinking that he was OLD (he was probably 37 at the time). Only now I am looking at my soon-to-expire passport photo and realizing that I don't really look like that person anymore. Nothing major, subtle changes, small lines when I smile, a thinness around my face. And I see that my older friend was right. In my head, I am still the girl in the passport photo.

My roomate is almost 10 years older than I am and he all but insists on dating women at least 5 years younger than I am. He seems oblivious to the fact that when you're 25 years old, 40 is ancient. I don't care how cool a car you drive, or what designer stores you shop in. So clear is his mental image that he is seemingly incapable of adjusting to the fact that no amount of situps will make it real.

But anyway....maybe I am just a little sad that next week I actually will look like my passport photo, and not just in my head.