I am working hard to look on the bright side. I am very worried about Mabel, as it is my nature to worry. She is the sweetest dog. I probably won't post anything until I get back next week sometime. Please send good wishes Mabel's way. Thanks.

maintaining calm (trying)

This morning walking Mabel I picked her up because she was being a stubborn girl. I felt a large lump on her lower belly. She has had a fatty tumor in that spot for over a year, checked by the vet and very common in dogs. It was, however, firmer and larger than before, although I check it at least once a week. I freaked, and we ran to the vet a few blocks away. I was panicked. The vet checked her and said she needs to biopsy it, but that fatty tumors can change suddenly and become firmer. After examining it she is almost sure that is what it is. I trust her and I am trying not to worry. We will curtail our trip, and return from Vermont on Wednesday rather than Saturday.

vacation

On Saturday I will leave for a week-long vacation in Vermont. I am looking forward to my first vacation in two years, but with some trepidation. My last vacation, two summers ago, was scary because I was so horrifically depressed that my stay in an isolated mountain town in Pennsylvania was like torture; I could not enjoy the quiet or solitude. I could not sleep. I thought I was losing my mind and all I could do was listen to the Japanese pop singer Hikaru Utada sing this song called "Distance" and cry. This picture that I took while I was there says it all. I was quaking every waking minute. So I fervently hope that this trip will be much much better.

be thankful...

I just read this article. It makes me very thankful that because my neighborhood is a "landmark district" I will never lose my unobstructed views. Imagine living in a bright, sunfilled apartment, only to have a big building go up and take that away. Ugh. Here is the view from my bedroom, taken in a wild raging snowstorm last winter. On most days you can see the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge and, once upon a time, the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

update

It occurs to me lately that finally my mood is stable enough to allow me to function reasonably well. The irritations and frustrations and worries of the last few weeks--Tuna, and to a lesser extent, my car--have not derailed me the way they might have a few months ago. I am feeling overwhelmed, though, the last four days or so. The stress of Tuna's surgery, and all the things I must do to prepare for my week away, are chipping away at my resolve. This morning I had that feeling of panic and despair, a bleak outlook, that makes going through my daily obligations tough. I hope it is just a minor bump, not the start of a crash.

thinking alike

My job these days is to think like a seven-week-old kitten. Then I know what to hide, what to move, what to place out of harm's way. Patsy is figuring out how to jump everywhere and she is quite brave and curious.

It is not easy to think like a kitten but I enjoy it.

Patsy

I was talking to B this morning and I told him that I had officially crossed the line from simply being a guy with a lot of pets to being a crazy animal person. Three cats and a dog in a one-bedroom apartment...what do you think?

But I am just upholding a family tradition. During our peak, in my childhood, we had three cats, two dogs, two horses, a guinea pig, a gerbil, fish, and four snakes including two boa constrictors (the snakes were my brother's domain, although for a while I kept a particularly vicious garter snake named Slickster).

Patsy is adorable.

little sleep

1. Wake up at 2 am to check on Tuna. He seems fine.
2. Go back to sleep, have nightmare of horrific violence. Wake up in a cold sweat.
3. Go back to sleep, wake up at 4:30 with allergy attack. Can't breathe and start sneezing.
4. Take zyrtec and try to sleep.
5. Give up on sleep, get up, sit in living room and read Sunday TIMES with Pomona.

success

Tuna's surgery went well!! He is home, he ate, and now he is sleeping. He doesn't seem bothered by Patsy, nor she by him.

Patsy

Y wrote from work: "...she (Patsy) is a gift from the tuna cuz he want you to be happy and not worry about him." I think he's right.

kitten

As I dropped off Tuna, Dr. N. showed me a bunch of kittens she has who need homes. I remarked that one, a little grey female, was particularly adorable. She told me that I was taking her home. She picked up Patsy (as I have named her) and put her in my cat carrier. Y. and I took Patsy home. Mabel is delighted. Pomona does not seem to care. Patsy is very curious and very tiny. She has big green eyes. I love grey cats. She is very cute and has a loud voice. I am a sucker, but as Dr. N said, it is good for my elderly cats to have a young one around. And it is excellent for Mabel, who will have a playmate. I will post pictures of Patsy soon...

In a little over an hour I will drop off my Tuna for his surgery. He is very upset because he has no breakfast. He is lying in the kitchen with a pissed look on his face. I am trying not to worry, but I am quite worried. He is perhaps the sweetest cat I have ever had, and I have had a number of cats. I have loved all my cats and been amazed at their distinctly vivid personalities. But never have I had a cat who was so gentle, a "gentle giant" as Dr. Norton, his vet, calls him. Because he is huge, 25 pounds at his peak, although he is shrinking some in his old age. So please, anyone who reads this, wish him the best luck today.

Pomona is obsessed with drinking out of my water glass. I usually have one on my bedside table. Even if I move it to some place that is more out of the way, she will try her best to get to it and have a drink. Today I gave in and put it on the bed. Last evening she drank some raspberry seltzer.

two things

Two things are weighing heavily on my mind today. First, and heaviest, is my Tuna's surgery tomorrow. I will be quite worried but am very hopeful that he will come through it fine. I will think positive thoughts. He is a brave and stoic cat.

Second is the disaster with my car yesterday. I am fed up. This is the burden of trying not to participate in our throw-away society. My sister said "your car is twelve years old. These things happen." She is right. But most people would not keep a twelve-year-old car; they would trade in for a newer one. I am determined not to do that. My car is in excellent shape mechanically and this little problem is easy to fix. I am just agitated when things go wrong, usually agitated out of proportion to the size of the problem.

feng-shui

Y. is trained as an architect, and worked for a time for an architect who is also a feng-shui master. According to feng-shui principles, if you are having bad luck you must clean and de-clutter your home. So since we finished dealing with the car and related tasks, we have been cleaning the apartment. He is a far more fastidious cleaner than I. I hope it works. I like the idea, anyway.

trials

Well, I will think of it as a positive thing: if the hood hinge of my car had not broken this afternoon, underground in the hot parking garage of the Atlantic Terminal market, it would have broken on the way to Vermont, or the day before I was due to travel, or while I was there. So I must look at it as a blessing, otherwise I would lose my mind. The hinge enabled the hood to close completely and securely, and it simply snapped. So the hood (or bonnet, as the British say) does not shut and I had to leave the car at the shop (which was closed) with the hood taped shut.

a picture is worth...

a picture is worth...

a picture is worth...

Hot, Worried

It is almost ten pm and it is 86F (30C) outside, and the humidity makes it hard for me, asthmatic, to breathe. I am worried about Tuna and worried about money and sick of the heat and worried about going on vacation and leaving Tuna alone and very stressed out in general even though I should be happy that I finished my piece and I am, just very stressed out.

Tuna

My sweet cat Tuna has to have surgery on Monday. For years he has had a benign cyst on his neck behind his ear, but it has become infected. My vet will remove it. I am worried because of the danger of the anaesthesia, and also that it is something serious. But the vet said at his age, sixteen and a half, that even if it is cancer he is too old to put him through chemotherapy, and the best thing to do is remove the cyst and keep him happy. He was very good at the vet, a little frightened, but his usual gentle self. I am going to be a nervous mess this weekend. I pray that he is ok.

step forward

I am very happy to report that, in spite of my headache (or perhaps because of it), I have completed the composing of FIELD MUSIC: ASH. This piece took me two years to write; that is not to say that I worked on it continuously for two years, but that it took that long to form itself. I don't push a piece unless I have to. Rather, I work out ideas and then let them percolate in my subconscious until they are ready. Now I have to edit the score, something I hate doing. But the hard part is over. I feel great relief and also confidence that it is good, and that the (very awesome) performers for whom I wrote it will do a beautiful job. It will be performed throughout Europe early next year.

It's Back!!

My headache is back. F-ck.

I Won't Complain Anymore

Ok, I have promised myself that I would not use this blog to complain. But here is one last complaint: I wish that when I were ill I had someone to take care of me; to take care of things: walk the dog, feed the cats, go to the grocery store. To help me rest and answer the phone. That's all.

vicious cycle/vicious circle

When I feel physically ill I get depressed; or when I get depressed I feel physically ill. I think this current down state is due to the former. Yesterday's migraine put me under, and last night I finally took imitrex to end the headache, which worked, but it also exhausted me--I slept for ten hours (!)--and today my mood is low low low. I want to finish FIELD MUSIC: ASH but I just can't face it. I want to hide in my apartment; I want the sun to go away and darkness to prevail. I hate feeling this way and I wish I could snap out of it, but as anyone who knows depression can affirm, it is not that simple.

Please Silence David Brooks

When I read David Brooks's columns in the NEW YORK TIMES I am filled with a feeling that I can't accurately describe, but it is not a pleasant feeling. This man is well educated, writes clearly, and yet his ideas are those of an elitist, disdainful and shallow man. His attempts to be funny fall flat, so that one gets the sense that he is not sure himself whether he is joking or not. And his blind devotion to conservative causes--and to the egregious reign of George Bush--are enough to disqualify his thoughts from serious contemplation. I just wish the TIMES would fire him. Certainly if they wish to have a conservative on the Op/Ed page they could find a more interesting one. And the smug photo of him that appears with his columns would make a fine dartboard. If only I played darts...

massive (headache)

I have had the most ungodly headache all day. No matter what I do--advil, water, rest, darkness, silence, caffeine, more advil--it tortures me. I used to get migraines at least once a month but it has been a long time since I have had one, until now. I have to figure out something...

can't sleep

I tried. I stayed up until 12:30 am. But I woke up at 4 am, wide awake. I tried to go back to sleep, but to no avail. So here I am at 7:06, having been awake for three hours.

look closely

Brooklyn Heights, being a "historic district" and home to an increasingly affluent population, looks quite neat and well-preserved. But if you look closely it still has a more gritty urban side.

Fire!

Around the neighborhood there are these old call boxes for the fire department. I don't think any of them work. This one most certainly does not.

watch your step

While I was waiting for my car to be examined I took Mabel on a long walk. I had my camera with me. Everywhere you look there is construction. The ever-busy Jehovah's Witnesses are constantly building and rebuilding. They are meticulous, and they have laid out this maze of a walkway on Columbia Heights. They all look so neat and tidy in their little hard hats. Once a friend of mine from out of town remarked that the majority of them, the young ones who build things, look gay. I would have to agree.

missing

I wonder if anyone noticed the kid was missing a shoe.

$$

I have a complex relationship with money. I work in a field where many of my peers come from affluent families, or have independent wealth; this wealth enables them to engage in a profession (artist, educator) that pays little. And in the past six or seven years Brooklyn Heights, always home to a certain number of wealthy folk, has become extremely expensive and thus the population is disproportionately wealthy. So I am surrounded by signs of affluence. Yet I myself am not; had I not had the foresight to buy my apartment when I did, there is no way I could afford to live here; there is no way I could afford to live in NYC unless I lived in the far outer boroughs. I have some savings, but I worry a lot about extra expenses, like the cost of car repair, veterinary bills for my pets...I have little cushion if something goes wrong. I know that many people are far worse off than I. But I also know that while money does not buy happiness (this is obvious) it does insulate one from some of the little worries that can eat away at a person. I would not have to decide "do I get the car fixed or do I get Tuna's teeth cleaned?" "Can I afford to go to the dentist this month, or do I wait until winter?"

sharp edges

The yucca plant has beautiful leaves which radiate from a central stem. It grows easily under rough conditions, and is a favorite houseplant as long as it gets enough bright sun. I had a huge yucca plant, a somewhat exotic variety, but during the winter it succumbed to some sort of bug, powdery mildew or scale (I was not sure which) and I had to get rid of it.

But beware, because the edges of its leaves are quite sharp and can leave a nasty cut if you are not careful.

belly

Mabel's favorite game might be "Belly." She lies on her back on the sofa or the bed, and twitches all four legs at once, thrusting them upward like she is trying to launch her entire body into the air. She makes demonic noises and faces when she plays Belly.

unique

I know this sounds cynical, but it occurred to me last night, as I read the harrowing article about death in the NEW YORK TIMES magazine, and then reading some random blogs this morning, I thought that we all do the same things, and try to understand the same aspects of our human condition: life, love, hurt, sorrow, joy, tedium. And we all face the same fate, our days dwindling, whether we face up to it or not. So as much as I might wish that I am some special, singular person, I am really just one in a great sea of humans going through the same cycle as everyone else. Does this make sense? What is unique is the "surface" of our lives. Like snowflakes, each of us has a unique shape, but it is our similar properties that makes us all just part of the huge human snowpile (forgive my metaphor; it's cheesy, I know). So if I think I am unique, I am just indulging my ego.

patience

My beloved car is trying my patience. Now it seems to be leaking oil. I don't think it is a bad leak, but I will have to get it checked this week.

Million Dollar Baby

I had not seen MILLION DOLLAR BABY in the theater, when it quietly became all the rage among moviegoers and critics. I avoided it because, reading about it in reviews, I felt it would be overly sentimental and I am not generally a fan of sentimental Hollywood movies. Last night I watched it. It really did get me, although it was blatantly sentimental and full of cliché. But how could it not be, given the "pulp fiction" nature of the story? The acting was poetic, the cinematography also. The fight scenes were terrible and wonderful (the ancient Greeks had a word for that, "daenos." I don't like boxing. I don't have the stomach for it. But I could not take my eyes off of the screen during those short, staccato sequences. Bravo to Clint Eastwood. And to Morgan Freeman. And most of all to Hilary Swank. She is awesome.

More House in PA

This is the front of the house, as seen from River Road looking northwest.

House in PA, continued

This is a view from the back, including the second-floor windows and the top of the door to the back porch.



It is not a "country house" because it is really in a small village. But it is an extremely small and quiet village, on the river.

I went to the beach today. I am sunburned. Not severely, but I was not impeccable in putting on my sunscreen so I have some odd patches, and the tops of my feet are quite cooked.

house in PA

This is the doorway leading from foyer into the kitchen. Actually the north kitchen wall will probably go, to open the kitchen to the dining room. And the kitchen needs paint. The owners left all the original woodwork intact. This is an "arts and crafts" style house, with a lot of character. It does need some significant structural work; nothing really major except roof and chimney repair, also a rebuilding of the retained wall the lines the driveway and separates the house from River Road, a very beautiful road that runs the length of the river from above Bucks County down through New Hope and beyond.

heat

This is the roof and chimney of the house in PA that my brother is buying. It sits close to the banks of the Delaware River and has water rights, so that he could build a dock for a boat. It is an older house, bungalow-style with front and back porches. It needs some work, but it is in a great location and is sunny and has "good bones," as people say.

The heat has made me crazy and I did not swim today, which makes the neurotic me a bit guilty. I got lazy in the afternoon, slept, because I had been awake so much of last night because of allergies. I was productive, though, and also settled some things that weighed heavily on my mind (thanks B.).

thwarted

This is me in the early morning. I was thwarted from my attempt to sleep by a wicked allergy attack at 5 am. So I was wide awake by 6, which is about when I took this. By then I had already taken a shower, and in a short while I would go walk Mabel and get locked out of my building because, having lost my keys on Wednesday, I did not have the proper key to get in the front door. The doorman does not come until 7 am, and it was too early to buzz my neighbor. So there I was. It felt like the deep South outside, the air so thick with humidity and even then the buzz of insects.

do I scare you?

I just returned from swimming. It was great. Without swimming I might have lost my mind a long time ago.

rain

I wish it would rain. It has been horribly hot all week. I am wilting. I want to go swimming, but this entails a long walk, a subway ride, another walk...but swimming itself, once I arrived, would help me. So I am working up my resolve. I am still shell-shocked from yesterday.

warning, part II

no apologies

My brother never apologizes. I have never heard him admit to any responsibility when we have had an argument. So time and time again I just forgive and put it behind me, but it is difficult to do that sometimes. I will just need time.

warning

My day started out rocky (mood touchy) but in the afternoon it quickly turned awful. I went with my brother, at his urging, to go look at the house in Pennsylvania that he is buying, and to be there for the house inspection. I agreed to go but had to take Mabel, because I could not arrange for anyone to feed/walk her and I would be gone until late. In the car somewhere in New Jersey my brother put on this Steve Earl CD. He loves it, but I absolutely suffer from it, it is so awful to my ears. I have never said this to him. I asked him if we could listen to something else, something we both liked. Incredibly, he launched into a raging stinging rant: I was spoiled, I was a dick, I was an asshole, I thought the world owed me something. I did not understand; I did not know where this came from. I thought that I had to escape. I was so upset and furious that if I had not had Mabel with me I would have jumped out of the car and hitch-hiked my way back home without hesitation. I tried to explain to him that if I were driving I would not put Bartok String Quartets on, if I knew that he didn't like them. Simple enough. But he was like a crazy man, so enraged. Now I still feel rattled and upset, so much so that I managed to lose my keys on the way home. I am exhausted, shaken, and furious. Tomorrow is his birthday and I can't even face the thought of having to talk to him.

file under "sleep, lack of"

While I don't wish to complain so much on my blog, I realize that there is one thing that, if remedied, would go a long way in improving my "mood disorder."

If I could just get a decent night of sleep, or a whole row of them, I think I would be much better.

Last night I went to bed at 11:30. I woke up at 1 am, 3:12 am, 4:22 am, and at 5 am I was wide awake. Now I am exhausted, but I know that if I tried to take a nap I would not sleep either.

I do everything the doctor tells me: exercise, take my medication, don't eat a few hours before sleeping, breathe, relax, keep a regular schedule. Still, I almost never get enough REM sleep.

If anyone out there knows of something that works, please please tell me. Please. I am desperate.

memory, continued

Thinking more about memory:

Once Y. coerced me into renting the film "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." I was reluctant mostly because I don't like Jim Carrey's acting, finding it far too histrionic and hysterical. This film was no exception. He was subdued but there was still a hysterical quality to his low-keyed portrayal (or maybe I just can't get over my prejudice). But the premise of the film appealed to me. The idea is that one can have memory completely erased, so that a new bigging, a "clean slate," will enable a better state of being.

I would alter this premise. I would like to erase bad memory and maintain good memory. Good memory creates a sense of place and self. But what good is a memory that just brings pain and sadness? These could be erased. Maybe that is just a form of denial, an attempt to eradicate bad memory and to prevent new bad memories.

progress

I am actually making real progress on FIELD MUSIC: ASH (saxophone and `cello), a commission which I was supposed to finish a year ago. I had so much trouble getting going on it, and now it appears that I might actually finish it by the end of the month. This is a tremendous relief. In many ways starting a piece, even working after it has begun, is like crawling through a cave without a flashlight. Some days I would rather do just about anything than have to work on it, because it can be so damned difficult. Ask any composer (or any artist or writer) and I think that he or she would agree.

stupor

I am sitting here in a benadryl-induced stupor, because my allergies were so bad this morning that I had no choice but to take some. Ugh.

morning

In the morning, after he eats a lot of Fancy Feast (Gourmet Seafood flavor today) Tuna likes to lie on the bedroom floor in the sun.

We are led to believe a lie
When we see with and not through the eye.

(William Blake)

petty

I admit that sometimes I am quite petty. Here is an example. Across the street lives a young guy, maybe 25 or so. He drives an expensive late-model Saab, a car that I could not afford now if ever. I don't know if he works, as he seems to live in flip-flops and is around during the day (then again I am around during the day and while I don't wear flip-flops I might appear to be without employment but not impoverished but I am getting sidetracked). This morning he has left his Saab parked illegally in front of my building with the flashers on. The car has been there like this for several hours. If that were me, most likely my car would have been ticketed and probably towed as well. So I am wishing that his car would meet the same fate, because I am petty and slightly evil sometimes. Part of my rationale is that last week the same Saab was parked in such an erratic way that it was clear that the driver had arrived late at night and was drunk. No sober person would have parked a car like that: the back end was angled about 45 degrees to the curb, and he is quite lucky that no one smashed the rear of his car for the two days that it sat there, a sitting duck for erratic truck drivers.

Fluxus

Fluxus was an art movement that celebrated the mundane and the absurd by elevating acts that describe these qualities to the level of "high art," and in doing so created the question that bedevils us in the present: is there validity in any distinction between "high" and "low" art. Is the music of Britney Spears as much art as Beethoven's Third Symphony?

But Fluxus seems dated, not uninteresting, but a dead end. That is why I was quite surprised to come upon this series of works by a young Italian composer. What might have been original and surprising in 1970 does not work for the present, and I am surprised to see that anyone is still following this path so doggedly.

isolation

One thing that occurs to me more and more (when I talk to friends about their growing-up, and when I read about people's memories) is the isolation that my parents created for themselves and their kids. I think it is a reason why I, genetically prone to depression, succumbed to it so early. There were no cousins around, no grandparents. We did not have the sense of family that most people do, that one is part of a group that encompasses generations and cousins and aunts and uncles. My father's parents lived in New York and we saw them rarely. They did not really know either my brother or sister or me. My father has one sister, and her family lived on Long Island. We would visit them once a year, twice at most. My much-older cousins came to stay with us in Pennsylvania once, but we certainly were not close, although I always enjoyed seeing them. But there is no sense of shared history. I don't think I could sit with any of my cousins and share some mundane memory.

My mother's father died before we were born, and my grandmother too lived several hours away, and she and my mother had a bad relationship, so we saw her rarely and when we did it was not always pleasant, although she clearly did love us. We saw them about once a year. My mother had one sister, and they fought a lot. She has two kids, adults now, but they grew up in Florida and I barely know them. My other cousins on my mother's side are close with one another, and grew up together, but my family was so far from them that we have no shared memories. We are like an island, and this, I think, is not good for kids. That is why I try to see my nephews a lot, and kick myself for not spending more time with them. But I have no children, so there are no cousins for them to play with. My brother had better get busy and have a kid or two before it's too late.

memory

Whirlingboy writes: "What good is memory if only you remember it and no one else could relate?" This makes me think.

My answer is that my memories create the present. Memory is personal and subjective. So many of my memories are of seemingly insignificant things: a phrase someone once spoke, an image of some passing thing--a house, a person's face--that I saw only once. And the memories I share, with old friends: each of us remembers an event uniquely. That is why the truth is not the same for any two people. Maybe this is part of the reason why people seek religion: it creates order which can replace the chaos of our memories.