effects of surgical procedures

my mother had pelvic prolapse surgery and a hysterectomy back in november. though the surgery went better than anyone hoped to expect, it still took a certain toll on my mom, who is quite active and youthful, especially for someone who is almost seventy years old. by christmas she was finally back semi-up on her feet again, busy in the kitchen, where she and my dad began to argue. why? well, while mom was convalescing, dad had grown accustomed to cooking and he had sort of made the kitchen his own, and the style he developed wasn't at all how my mom was used to doing things. so when she came back into the kitchen, there was a little chemical reaction. when i realized all this it made me smile.
so anyway, last week i found out not only that some of the pelvic prolapse procedures had "slipped" since the last surgery, but also that the doctors had found cancerous cells in mom's uterine tissue. so she went back into surgery this week-- in fact, today-- to have her bladder suspended in mesh and to have her ovaries removed.
apparently the ovaries were small and looked healthy. i suppose time will tell in terms of any other activity that might be going on. i went to the hospital at about eight this evening and sat with mom and dad and watched the state of the union address with them. mom, heavily morphined, drifted in and out. i held her hand and watched our president speak. i felt interested, yet emotionally detached. i guess that whole clapping-after-every-sentence mentality seemed hollow and inferior next to the reality of my mom's existence in a hospital bed.
they didn't use stitches after the laproscopy; they used glue.
i'm going to stay with her in the hospital tomorrow night. i'm looking forward to that, as a sort of weird hospital adventure and also as a way to express my appreciation for her. when i see her in the hospital bed the only thing i think that it might compare to is the feeling a parent might have for a child-- a need to take care of someone, to love them and protect them in their vulnerability. it feels good, satisfying to be able to take care of her, after she has taken care of me for so many years.

weekend

i spent most of my weekend at a speech tournament. i didn't mind it. i've started taking my sketchbook and pens to these tournaments, and sometimes i even have the opportunity to indulge in my iPod while waiting in the cafeteria for postings and for the kids to come back from their rounds. this time i drew sketches of my left hand in different positions, which was fun. i also drew one sketch of my right hand holding the pen, which was sort of freaky-- a hand drawing itself drawing. at times i got that dream-within-a-dream feeling, or the picture-within-a-picture type-thing.
my dad let me use his ford f150 today to help nic take his bed back to costco. nic has wanted to return this bed since december and today was the first sunny sunday on which we were both free to do it. so it's taken care of. i'll go return the truck tonight, and have dinner with my parents, whom i haven't seen in weeks.
nic and i ate and had drinks at la fogata last night. the mariachis were loud and wonderful, though nic expressed a little discomfort at how loud they were, which was true. he ordered a marinated mushroom appetizer that was quite scrumptious. as for me, i had my old standard-- tacos nortenos a la parilla. ahh... what a treat.

freda

sometime in september i dreamt i went into a house where this 8 year-old kid lived. this boy had somehow misbehaved and his parents had punished him by drowning his pets in the bathtub. i went into the bathroom and saw the drowned gerbil and the drowned kitten, which was black and white. when i woke up the dream was still very vivid, and i remembered feeling particularly bad about the little drowned cat.
a few days later my friend antonio called me and invited me to go to dinner. when i went to his apartment to pick him up, he said, "i want you to meet someone." he went into the other room and came back out holding a little black and white kitten.
i said, "i just dreamt about that cat!"
it was weird.
about a week later, antonio called me to ask if i would like to take freda, the little black and white kitten. freda hadn't been getting along with gandalf, antonio's other cat, so antonio needed to find another home for her. seeing as freda and i had already met on the astral plane (albeit under sad circumstances), i felt like my taking her was a foregone conclusion. i checked with my brother (who owns the apartment where i live) and made sure it would be okay, and got freda a little while later.
her actual birthdate is sketchy, but we think it's sometime in april, so i'm just giving her my birthday, which means she's around nine months old now. she's quite petite and fluffy. both the vets commented on her sweetness when i took her in. i guess she's more comfortable being held than most cats...?

fetching cats 'n' screwy incentives

maybe it's not that unusual to have a cat that fetches things. nonetheless i was pretty elated to be lying on my bed tonight throwing a wadded up piece of paper and having freda, my cat, bring it back to me numerous times.
in other news, teachers in houston are being rewarded monetarily if they have students who have high grades on standardized tests. a bizarre development, though not particularly surprising. apparently teachers are so desperate to be paid more, they're willing to gauge their value according to the results of these inane tests. other teachers disagree with the measure. as for me, i think standardized testing is a joke, just another symptom of the dysfunctional state of public education in this country; and giving teachers this kind of incentive to "teach to the test" is another way to limit and trivialize the teaching profession altogether.

shiznit

it's easy to be sucked in. laziness, apathy and consumerism abound. i'm sure previous generations have felt that the america they knew was dying. there have been enough movies made about the 1960's to give us plenty of examples. but what do we do? how do we change things? why are good people so passive, and bad people so active? (i know at least one of the answers to that. "good" people adapt, see beauty in everything, avoid fearful reactionary aggression, find themselves paralyzed by the weight of all the contradictions.) i've been annoyed by these questions before. i still have no answers. i resort to simplistic creative diversionary tactics: create more beauty and love in the world. despite my exposure to evil, i remain childlike, naive, idealistic. or is it fear, causing me to retreat into my drawings and music?
really, i'm trying to go further with this thought, but i keep coming back to simplicity. aphorisms i coined as a young adult. "everything is temporary." "all you can do is do what you do." "joy and sorrow walk hand-in-hand shouting, 'we are in love and never shall we part!'"
gulp. sigh. wince. blink. hit the post button and for now stop typing.
but no, i keep typing, because i realize that i resort to creating because in the final analysis it's the only thing i have control over. someone can take away my computer, my blog, my right to marry, my privacy, my freedom. they can do that. they have before. but they can't take my drawings away. in my small corner i perfect what i can, indulge in a cross-hatched shadow, create a beautiful line, commit a smile to memory and try to recreate it.
screw abject cynicism! it doesn't get me anywhere.

and i feel fine

i hereby celebrate martin luther king jr. day by partaking in my favorite breakfast of old: beer and coffee. don't knock it till you try it.
still figuring out the way iTunes works. i've been erasing my entire library accidentally on purpose. that is, it's accidental, but i don't really mind it when it happens because it forces me to replenish the library with a whole new set of songs.
a lovely day. belle and sebastian languidly playing. cat cleaning her paws by the open window. cars going by outside.
you've heard about the end of life as we know it in 2008, haven't you? i think that every age has had its share of doomsday predictions. it's not a bad way to live, thinking you'll lose everything in a matter of years. it makes you prioritize. so even if it's just another Y2K-esque round of hoop-la, it could still serve a useful purpose. i am living in the present moment. i am breathing and witnessing life.

desire to create

i can only assume that at one point i showed promise as a writer, an actor, an artist. there was something like the kernel of a prodigy in a few of the things i produced. what is it that bestows that electric energy on the things we do, and what's bothering me more, what takes it away? maybe nothing takes it away except our increasing cynicism and/or self-hatred. maybe the prodigy is always there and we just learn to filter it, corrupt it, scrutinize it, bury it.
i'm reading david b.'s epileptic, an engrossing autobiographical illustrated novel. i learned about it from nik's spatula forum. one of my new year's resolutions, helped along by beth, was to write my first graphic novel this year. today, while talking about graphic novels with fran and ryan, i felt a stab of insecurity. "you have to be really good to sustain that for a hundred pages," ryan said.
then, as i sat in the office and looked up at the one corner i've left alone on mr. h's old bulletin board, i read a quote by martha graham about art. it had something to do with creating as much as you possibly can, because you're the only you, so you must persevere: "There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost."
alas i always have to be reminded in this way; my faith in myself is so tenuous. but whenever i do create, i always know it's right, because i feel rejuvenated, hopeful, and whole.
(as a counterpoint to martha graham, check out this nietzsche quote.)

one quiet day

i had such a nice day yesterday. didn't wake up till around eleven, lay in bed for a leisurely amount of time petting my cat, yawning and generally lolling. nowhere to be, nothing to see, nobody to talk to. spent the day reading chekhov and copying scenes and short plays into workable formats to use for my theatre II classes. it was a necessary time of quiet nourishment.

on saturday i had to get up and be at a region 20 training at 8:30. i'm currently fulfilling requirements for my teaching certificate. i'm glad this option exists; these classes, offered in this condensed time frame, are convenient and relatively undemanding. but sometimes they seem repetitive. they can be tedious.

i want to take this moment to say tony kushner is continually inspiring.

recent events

friend beth came to visit last thursday and left today. we ate at the hole in the wall, made pelmeni and had vodka with friend marc, and went to a new year's eve party in austin on saturday. the party is a story in itself, which i was tempted to vividly depict on this blog. but i have since thought better of that idea, deciding instead to mention three carefully chosen details from the evening's revels:
1. a half-drunken psychic healer cleansed my pineal gland by sucking on my forehead while we were stopped at a red light (she was driving);
2. near the river, i walked through a big, long hallway of scaffolding which had many long strands of white twine hanging down and was dreamy and seaweed-like in the evening breeze;
3. at some point during the spectacular show of fireworks, i made a conscious effort to look around at people's faces, lit up in joy and wonderment.
beth and i also ate sushi, laughed, played with the cat, smoked cigarettes on the back porch, and saw brokeback mountain-- a tender, terribly sad movie.

going back to school has been slightly hard, but only because of the physical change of getting into the groove again. classes themselves have been fine, and i actually do feel refreshed after the holiday.
i went to barnes and noble and ordered mugison's mugimamma! is this monkey music?. i had downloaded it and paid ten bucks, then accidentally erased it from my iTunes. i'm looking forward to hearing it again, and having the packaging to look at.