Rooful.

It's about time I tried something new.

Those angel wings floated disembodied over my blog since its renamed resurrection, back in 2008.

My old workplace. My old work.

That image-- the headless, armless angel-- meant a lot to me. Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings, and no eyes figure unheedy haste…

That's not me anymore. I've taken my arms back, to hold my little boy. I've taken my eyes back, to practice seeing clear.

I've taken my fingers back, to type overwrought prose! With a reckless disregard for adverbs!

Not so long ago, I was spending virtual time with someone who hated makeover shows. I don't understand that. I love the chance to re-imagine myself, to shed a old skin for a new one that might fit better. And I love watching the look of wonder on someone's face when they encounter a reflection of someone lovely, someone worthy of respect-- someone they didn't know they were, or had forgotten.

So my blog is trying on some new clothes. I'm not worrying too much this time about finding the perfect look. I'm playing around to see what fits for the moment.

That approach seems apt.

This weekend, I'm doing some family/life jujitzu and skipping out on a dreaded visit with my in-laws and going clothes shopping instead. Sprog will have fun with his grandparents, and I'll finally get a chance to spend some of my gift-card money from Christmas. Hopefully I'll find some good stuff. If not, I'll keep looking.

A work in process...

I don't want to post about this.

The day after Sprog was born, a social worker visited me in the recovery room. She was sunny and down-to-earth. She talked about epsom salts and sitz baths, and the warning signs of post-partum depression. I nodded and grinned and said pleasant things and thanked her for her time.

I'd been tempted to tell her, "Oh, don't worry-- I have a team set up to help me watch out for PPD." I didn't, because I was sure she knew that already. I was sure that information was in my medical records, since my nurses, who were bringing my meds, among other things, certainly knew about it. Plus my doctors came to visit me in my shared room, and meet my baby.

And, in an interesting confluence, my OBGYN was also the doctor to two (not one-- two!) of the doctors on my psych team. One of my doctors actually gave birth just two days before me. My nurses chatted with me about it, and laughed at the cute turn of events.

Anyway, it never occurred to me that this social worker wouldn't have access to my history. And she had rounds to make. I thanked her, and she left.

The next morning, my OBGYN met with me, and asked me how I was feeling. Well, physically I was spent, and sore. Apparently giving birth really takes it out of you. Who knew?

But I was happy. No. Happy's the wrong word-- I felt radiant. In love.

What I was feeling was nothing I'd felt before. But, since my diagnosis requires this sort of caveat-- I didn't feel ecstatic. I felt grounded, but full of joy.

"I'm sore. But I feel good."

" Good. I've signed your release forms. So you can bring your baby home today."

We talked a bit more. She answered questions, gave me some important information and some tips, and told me my kid looked cute working away on his pacifier. Then she left.

I called J. "Bring the carseat when you come today, sweetie!"

"We're going home?"

"Our family is coming home! For the first time!"

Cheers and I love yous and then he hung up to get organized to come get us.

My day nurse, a queenly older woman with an island accent, sat with me and Sprog and gave me a wealth of information about sleep, feeding, skin care, post-partum care for myself and Sprog.

Breakfast came. Then J came, and spent time with the boy-o while I took an uncomfortable but still heavenly shower and got dressed in my civvies.

I came out, and sat down to eat a bit. My nurse came in, with a furrow in her brow but a casual. businesslike air.

"Your doctor signed your release papers?"

"Yes, she met me this morning and told me she'd be signing them."

"She must have forgotten."

"She didn't sign them?"

"There's been a hold-up. I'm sure it's nothing."

"Oh. Because that's funny. She said she was signing them."

"We'll figure it out. Those women yesterday, they were your doctors, right?"

"Yes-- they've been monitoring my birth and post-partum treatment."

"That pregnant woman, right?"

"Well, yes, her, and the woman with her. Actually, another one of my doctors is here on the floor somewhere."

"That's what I thought."

"Is there a problem?"

"No, no. Just a miscommunication. We'll straighten it out."

After she left, I turned to J. "Well, that sucks. Are you hungry? Do you want some of this?"

"I'm fine."

We watched our boy, and I worked on packing up. I was trying to fit a box of witch hazel pads in my big suitcase when I heard someone calling me Ms.__, in strained, formal tones.

It was the social worker from yesterday. She stopped dead halfway across the room, in front of my roommate's bed, and said, "Ms.__, I need to discuss with you this item on your medical history. Do your doctors know about this?"

"Yes, all my doctors know about this."

"I'm referring to your hospitalization, on January__, 2010!"

"Yes, my doctors know about that--"

"Yes, her doctors know about--"

"Because I don't feel it's right to send your child home until we've had a chance to investigate."

"But I'm in treatment, and I've been in remission since I left the hospital."

"I want one of our nurses to come examine your home situation."

"But I already have a team of psychiatrists who are meeting with me and the baby to help manage the transition."

"This is a serious illness."

"Yes, I'm aware of that."

"She has a focused medical team that's been working with her and her OBGYN to manage treatment."

"Would you accept one of my nurses visiting your home?"

"Well... if they have to... but I don't see why it's necessary. Believe me, this is well-covered territory."

"This isn't for your protection, ma'am. It's for his." She gestured at Sprog, sleeping in his bassinet. Then she clicked her way out of the room.

I turned to J. I was fighting back tears.

"Ohhh..."

"Oh honey, don't... This isn't a big deal... We still have him..."

"They want to come in to our home!" --in low tones, so the roommate wouldn't hear any more than she already had.

"That's okay."

"But they'll be in our home, passing judgement on everything. This is one of the things I went into treatment to prevent!"

"It'll be okay, honey. We'll get through it, together. Don't get upset. Everything will be fine."

"But the way she looked at me-- Did you see the way she--"

"She looked scared."

"That's what I'm saying! She looked scared of me."

"She looked scared she was gonna lose her job."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you saw her yesterday, and everything was fine. Today, she looked like that. I'm thinking she only just got around to looking at your file today, panicked that she'd made a mistake, and threw down the brakes to cover her ass."

"Oh."

He continued in this vein for a bit. He claimed me down as best he could. Then he left for a smoke break, and to grab us some coffee that wasn't gross.

While he was out, my nurse came back in. She had forms to sign.

"There was a mix-up. But we're straightening it out. I think your doctor forgot to make a note in the chart. If she'd made a note in the chart, they'd know your situation. But here, just sign this, showing that I talked with you this morning."

I looked, and saw she was a social worker too.

I remembered her giving the sprog a sponge-bath at the end of her shift the night before. She smiled down at his waving arms, then looked at me and said, "He's got a good nature. You can tell. He takes after his mother. He has your kind nature."

I think she was working for me, somewhere behind the scenes. She was rooting for me.

The scared look in the social worker's eyes-- it scarred me. I was on the joyful and terrifying cusp of bringing my child home for the first time, eager to start my new life but deathly afraid of everything I could do wrong. She found me in that moment and treated me like a menace. She told me my child needed to be protected from me.

I don't know if I'll ever shed how she made me feel.

But my nurse gave me a gift that more than counterbalances that. She said, "When you go home, you will feel sad. You will want to cry. It's natural. It's natural. But don't let it get the better of you. Whenever you feel like that, just look at your beautiful boy and think: How have I been blessed."


It works.

But why Charles?

Were any of you wondering?

I need to frame this discussion. Where I grew up, a little less than an hour outside Boston, there was a local television station that filled up its hours primarily with rebroadcasts of Taxi, Cheers, and M*A*S*H. Every day, after my paper route and before dinner (and Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune-- which we watched while we ate) I took in a couple episodes of the life and times of the 4077.

Even before that, I used to listen to the strains of the theme song, "Suicide is Painless," drifting up (well, blasting) through the floorboards to my sister's and my room, back when it was still an original series that aired after my bedtime. (There are a couple themes I feel close to for that reason-- the one from "Hill Street Blues" is another. I used to play them both on the piano. Badly.)

J's experiences with the show were similar. It's rare that we see an episode we don't remember. And considering the series ran longer than we've been married, that's saying something.

I don't know what it says about us, or the current state of basic cable, that a show that's been in syndication since we were in elementary school is still frequently the most appealing thing on.

So, I thought I'd explain why, when I said J would be Charles Emerson Winchester were he a character on the show, he accepted it with little demur. Not to mention why I saw that connection in the first place.

Because it doesn't seem like a flattering comparison, does it? After all, Charles came on to the show to replace Frank Burns as the annoying roommate in the Swamp. But Charles is no officious buffoon or sycophantic climber. He's a Boston Brahmin, of the first order. He doesn't care about military rank-- he's a legacy from Harvard Medical School.

He's a snob. You can tell, because he sways a finger in the air while he listens to concert music on his portable turntable. You can tell, because he will tell you himself. He's an elitist and he feels no shame for it.

Americans generally don't cotton to someone like that. But there's something brave about a person who's willing to assert that what he likes is better than what other people like-- and here's why. There's something attractive about someone who fully owns his sense of taste.

I'm not saying Charles and J like the same things-- just that they share a sense that there are finer things, better things, that are worth valuing, and worth holding out for. And they can be equally sharp in their dismissal of things that don't hit the mark.

These are things I'm talking about here-- I'm not talking about a dismissal of people. Because neither of them do. Charles... I think Charles gets lonely at camp, because there are so few people to talk to that take an interest in things he cares about. Every now and then he'd encounter someone who really excited him-- a woman who surprised him by playing Rachmaninoff, when he'd thought she only did the boogie woogie. Someone who knew how to appreciate an exceptional meal...

And Charles cares very deeply about his patients. In marked contrast to Frank Burns, Charles is an exceptional surgeon. In his very first episode, though, we see how that excellence is Charles' particular cross to bear.

He's scrubbing his hands. People tell him to get a move on. He informs them, "I do one thing. I do it very well. And then I move on."

But this isn't Massachusetts General. This is Korea. This is meatball surgery.

Charles gets knocked down to size. And that costs him, in that particular respect, much more than any of the other surgeons. Consider Hawkeye, writing letters to his doctor father back in Crabapple Cove, Maine. Hawkeye is a good doctor, a very compassionate one. But don't you think he was cut out to be the local doc? The county GP who delivers babies and sets broken bones and occasionally gets paid in bushels of corn?

Not Charles. Charles became a surgeon, because that was his way to be an artist.

He's very frank about it, in an episode that is my favorite Charles episode by far. A young man in his care had suffered a blast, and Charles tells him with pride how he was able to save the man's leg (I get the sense, watching this, that few of the other doctors would have had the skill, or would have taken the time in the rush of casualties, to do so.)

The man doesn't care about his leg, though. He can't move his fingers.

Three fingers on the right hand were paralysed. Charles assures him, "It will look perfectly normal."

But the young man doesn't care. He was a concert pianist. His life is ruined.

Charles tries to bring the man out of his despair. He orders some sheet music of Ravel's compositions for the left hand. But that's just a token, to open up a discussion about art and music and identity.

Charles tells him how long he tried to learn to play well. "I could play the notes, but there was no music. I didn't have that gift. I have hands that can make a scalpel sing. But music... isn't in the hands. It's in the brain. It's in the heart."

Ah, I'm paraphrasing here. But this scene makes my heart break for both of them.

Charles enjoins him to remember he can compose. He can conduct. He can teach. He can write.

Slowly, the man begins to play. Then he starts to play with more confidence.

Charles watches him, with wistfulness. Then the music leads him to something that looks like transcendence.

Charles Emerson Winchester is a beautiful man.

That's why I could see my husband in him.

Studio Saturday.

I had my final painting exam today.

This morning I had to gather up my bags of brushes, sketching supplies, lunch, and other sundries, and catch a train that took me to another train, which took me to yet another train, which left me in a busy yet barren-looking section of Queens. Then I walked, keeping one eye on the print-out of directions from the website, until I found the warehouse/studio space where the exam would take place.

Someone pointed me towards a steel gray door, that opened up on to a large room. The wide floor was covered with brown paper. Twenty-odd canvasses, primed in white, were mounted to the floor in rows.

I picked one, and started to unpack my stuff. Candidates made shy greetings to each other, arranged partnerships for certain things that require more than one person-- like snapping a chalk line, or sharing an electrical outlet. Candidates also checked each other out as competition. But it felt friendly.

A monitor passed out postcards of our project image. We were to reproduce this Diego Rivera painting. You might know it-- a man and a woman in a field of grain, napping together. His sombrero is resting on the side of his head. She's propped in a prone position over the side of his lap, with her breasts exposed. They both have giant hands and feet.

Anyway, the exam ran from 9 to 4. At four, we would be told to lift our brushes and stand.

I could tell most of the other candidates were already working in the field-- simply by the breadth of their supplies. I confess, money's tight, and even though bamboo extenders (long handles for holding a brush or charcoal) had been on a list we'd each received of recommended supplies, I decided against. I would have had to mail order one (or more), and I wasn't sure I wanted to be trying out a new piece of equipment during an exam. And I didn't really understand why I'd need one for a piece that's only roughly four feet by six feet.

But I've always worked upright. On the floor is another story. Other people could stand and draw, and really see what they were doing. I was sitting and hunching and reaching. I took off my shoes so I could walk on the painting, from dry spot to dry spot, gardener style.

So that slowed me down. And man, my back is KILLING me.

But I managed. There was a trestle table of paints along one end of the room, and some slop sinks on the other, and I stretched my arms and neck as I made the necessary trips, then got to come back and look at my work with a fresh eye.

There were probably five or six judges/monitors that wandered around the space, taking notes, talking to each other in low tones. Most of the other candidates were already working in paint while I was still sketching, and the judges radiated a certain unspoken "Hmm..." as they'd pass. But when I switched into paint and began to find my stride, all of a sudden there were clusters of judges, lingering in my periphery, or solitary ones off to one side, watching.

I was too busy to feel nervous about it.

And actually, at one point I was feeling quite good with what I was doing. I'd found a technique that was fast, but really seemed to capture Rivera's brushiness.

But there was a lot to do. And I'm new enough to this kind of work that I don't estimate my time with much accuracy. At two hours left, I had the background finished, but, beyond the sombrero, hadn't done a lick on either figure.

The man who runs the exam announced that unfinished work might be acceptable, if it was looking good. But unfinished work that wasn't looking so great, well...

I kept my eeek! internal-- the only way to win this game was to stay cool and keep my eyes on the prize. What absolutely needs to be done to convey the sense of this picture? If I have to stop before I'm done, what things can I leave out?

First, I painted skin, and hair, and faces. No one wants to look at figures with beautifully rendered clothes but no eyes. Well, at least not in this case. I think.

I tried to capitalize on the brushy texture, the emphasis on chunky shapes defined by fine lines. I tried to be smart about my color choices-- finding four to substitute for eight.

That'll do, That'll do-- NO. Leave it alone. Move on.

Then their shirts, because I could use the primed surface of the canvas to do some of the work. Then, okay, only a half-hour left! block in the color of her kerchief, his pants, her skirt...

"Time! Brushes up, everyone!"

I wouldn't say it was finished, exactly. But a lot of it was. The parts that I consider truly finished, I'm happy with. And all the colors were blocked in. I mean just blocked in-- I did this last little swoop just as the monitor called time.

I'm just grateful the entire canvas was covered with the correct colors of paint before I had to stop working.

We were told to go wash up while the judges had a last look around. Then we were given our home projects back. We were provided with staple-pullers. We each loosened the staples holding down our most recent paintings (now dry, or dry enough), peeled them up from the floor and rolled them with our other work.

The judges laughed and chatted while they rolled up the brown paper that had covered the floor. I gathered up my gear, and my giant roll of paintings, and wished them all a good weekend.

And then I had to haul all that stuff back through worn-out industrial Queens to the subway, to the other subway, to the final subway that would take me home.

My arms are sore. My neck is sore. My shoulders are sore. My back is sore.

I think I did okay. But I don't know. I won't know for sure until I get a letter, maybe next week.

All I can do is wait.

She said "I almost dropped the Archangel Michael on his head."

Never mind that.

J and I have just spent the last five minutes or so trying to remember what Archangel Michael's qualities were. It's much easier to remember Gabriel, with his trumpet and such.

Neither of us felt like actually looking it up, though. Is he God's mouthpiece? That's the best we could come up with.

Well, J came up with that bit. All I could add was, "He's deadly, right?"

"Well, all the seraphim are."

On a related note, on his way to the tub our son looks just like a putti (putto? not sure of the singular-- chubby little Renaissance angels that I think actually were used to indicate sexytimes.) Except his hair is wrong-- properly, he should have ringlets, instead of downy fuzz that sticks straight up.

The day after Valentine's.

"Don't fart right in my face."

"Oh, so the only person who can fart right in your face is Sprog."

"He doesn't fart right in my face. He's too short."

"Harumph."

And to my little sweet potato --

Every day you make me feel lucky.
I love you so much.

Happy First Valentine's Day.

To my valentine.

Don’t run anymore. Quiet. How softly it rains

On the roofs of the city. How perfect

All things are. Now, for the two of you

Waking up in a royal bed by a garret window.

For a man and a woman. For one plant divided

Into masculine and feminine which longed for each other.

Yes this is my gift to you. Above ashes

On a bitter, bitter earth. Above the subterranean

Echo of clamorings and vows. So that now at dawn

You must be attentive: the tilt of a head,

A hand with a comb, two faces in a mirror

Are only forever once, even if unremembered,

So that you watch what is, though it fades away,

And are grateful every moment for your being.

Let that little park with greenish marble busts

In the pearl-gray light, under a summer drizzle,

Remain as it was when you opened the gate.

And the street of tall peeling porticos

Which this love of yours suddenly transformed.

--The Two of You, by Czeslaw Milosz

I still remember, honeypie.


I love you.

Ba-leeted!

Or-- The End of the 30/60 Rule.

There's this advice column/blog that I discovered shortly before X-mas, tailored towards wordy nerds with poor social skills. And I really liked it. I thought the author was smart and witty, and gave cogent, sensible advice that I frequently found useful.

(I should note: I still do think those things.)

It was a blog crush, I guess. Any of you ever have one of those?

At any rate, I decided to email her a quick "I'm really enjoying your blog" love-note-- which isn't really in character for me, but seemed to go with the culture of her site, which has a nicely-integrated social group of commenters/fans.

At the time, I was really feeling lousy about my body ( I posted here about it.) I'd gotten all kinds of snarky comments, from strangers, and even from a guest in my home. So when she had a post about dieting, and how sick everyone there was of listening to people talk about their diets, and fat acceptance and such, I decided to share some of what I was thinking. Well, it ended up being kind of a brain-dump about what I was thinking-- wanting to accept my body the way it was, wanting other people to treat me well no matter my size, but still wanting to stay healthy and fit and so forth.

I'd have just deleted it elsewhere, but here comments regularly were five or six paragraphs long-- and it was late in the thread, so I wasn't worried about derailing the main discussion. Plus readers frequently posted personal anecdotes, and if mine was a little anxious and weird, well-- it was on a site that was for anxious and weird people.

Plus, I really needed to talk about it.

And she deleted it, along with another person's post, because the letter-writer in the OP didn't need to hear about my body issues. Fair enough, though many, many people in the thread, including the blog author, already had discussed their body issues. The difference was that I talked about wanting to lose weight, because I'd seen how obesity created huge health problems for my parents.

Later, the blogger emailed me back to thank me for my little note, and when I apologized for making an awkward comment right out of the gate, reminded me again that American culture and the diet industry were working to control my thoughts about size.

Well. Yes. I guess they are, to a point. Doesn't change that being fat has health repercussions. But I agree, there are many things people do that are unhealthy that don't earn someone the kind of disdain being fat does. And that's not fair or right.

But. Can I tell you how mortified I was to have made that comment that got deleted? And THEN, I felt worse, because not only did I feel bad for being fat, I felt bad for feeling bad about being fat, because now I was just participating in this culture of oppression.

I ended up writing several blog entries of my own, trying to work out those feelings-- and sort of hoping she would see I'd taken her words to heart (I knew she read my blog from time to time).

Ugh.

I still enjoyed her site, but I found myself getting nervous every time I posted, because I didn't want to be found unacceptable again. I'd keep checking back, to make sure no one had taken offense.

The fuck? Why was I acting like this? I know, I had a crush on her whole little blog community, and I wanted to be a part of it.

Anyway, the other day there was a letter from a writer who wanted to be sensitive towards a co-worker who has bipolar-- a co-worker who is very difficult to work with.

One commenter griped about a former co-worker of her own who'd had BP. Then, in a second-comment afterthought (or at least that's how it read to me) said something to the effect of: " Don't worry, not all people with bipolar are terrible in the workplace."

I admit, I'm sensitive on this point. I wrote, "Well, that's generous. Just most of them?"

Later on in the thread, I commented on the letter-writer's description of her own behavior-- mentioned my own diagnosis, gave her big props for sensitivity, reinforced that she'd been right to enforce boundaries regardless of the co-worker's illness, and so forth. So, I didn't just drop into the thread to snark and then disappear.

Anyway, I finally braced myself to check back today, and that first comment had been deleted.

Fine. It's her blog-- she can delete whatever she wants. But man, did I just hit my limit in terms of my willingness to put myself out there to be judged.

Actually, I would have been okay with being judged. I could have dealt with an angry response, or an email asking me to explain myself.

But this-- Nope. Not acceptable. You're disappeared.

In retrospect it shouldn't surprise me that a woman who gives advice as a hobby might be pushy and opinionated, and in this case her opinion is that deleting comments is the way to keep things civil.

Fine.

In fact, I just followed her advice, and deleted her column from my blogroll.

And I feel great.

I almost forgot to mention...

I passed!

I got the email the other day. Boo-yah! I did it!

Of course, I'm not done yet. This exam process is like a series of medieval challenges.

My next task is to go out into the forest, and chop down the tallest tree I can find-- with a PAINTBRUSH!

Not really. Next weekend, I need to report to a studio in Queens, where I will be given a small image to reproduce large-scale. I must complete the project, start-to-finish, in the time allotted (about seven hours), while also demonstrating good skills and a courteous, professional demeanor.

And then, if I pass that test... I think I'm in. ? !!!

So, keep your fingers crossed! I'm in the home stretch. And no matter what happens, I made it this far, which is awesome.

I passed!!!