A good news statistic: the blog has reached nearly 2400 pageviews, including 60 in Russia. Thanks to all who have been following along and often sending very thoughtful and encouraging messages, and Privestsvija to my Russian reader(s).
The last week, however, hasn't been a great one, marked by what seems like increasing fatigue, continuing struggles with intestinal problems (despite higher dosages of Imodium), and a loss of appetite. Yesterday, for example, we went to school to pick up a paper that Mohamed needed and then spent a pleasant 30 minutes in the English office. I had already taken an hour nap. Our plans were to stop at Lowe's and then have lunch somewhere. But a few blocks after we left Washburn, my mind and body shut down. The trip to Lowe's was scratched, but we still thought we could have lunch. By a couple of blocks later, there was no way I could stay awake through a lunch, so we stopped for take-out. Once home, I forced myself to eat, though chewing each bite was a conscious decision, and as soon as I had finished, I headed to bed for over two hours of sleep, clutching Philip Roth's "American Pastoral," a book I love and am re-reading for the second or third time, and fell asleep without even opening it. Later we did a grocery store run, picking out some chicken salad and croissants for dinner. But by six o'clock I needed another hour's sleep, and after that I could barely make it through half the croissant.
I also got some tanning lotion, despite Mohamed's assurances that I look fine the way I am. But since my summer uniform (shorts and a t-shirt) reveal skinny white arms and legs ("they will say how his arms and legs are growing thin"), I look at myself and think I look sick. I don't want to look like a spray-tanned dancer from "Dancing with the Stars" (or like John Boehner--a "color not found in nature," as Pres. Obama said), just, for vanity's sake, to be not quite so pale.
All of this is tiring (I'm tired of being tired) and a little scary. One possibility, suggested by the oncologist, is to stop the chemo for three days. I think I'd like to try this. Mohamed is adamantly against doing so: my body isn't going to suddenly recover in three days, and who knows what the cancer will do when there's nothing chemical fighting it. And I certainly share those concerns. Since the beginning I've taken 3/4 of the standard dose of Votrient (the full dosage drove my blood pressure to unacceptable levels despite taking three blood pressure meds), and Dr. Van also suggested that maybe we should go to 1/2 of the dose. That, too, sounds scary, but we've known all along that there will be a point at which my body can't support the chemo. We go back to the cancer center in about 10 days, so until then, I'll just keep the current schedule and hope that my appetite comes back and I can find some new sources of energy.
One day at a time (to fall back on yet another cliche)...
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Monday, May 28, 2012
Since today is Memorial Day, I'd like to take some time to remember my parents. Like all memories, these are not completely trustworthy, and since I don't have any siblings, there's no one to check them; over the years they've hardened into their own stable form. I think sometimes that I'm unfair to my father and feel bad about that. My dad (Howard, Sr., so I was called Johnny till I was 12 or 13) died of lymphoma on my birthday 30 years ago this July at the age of 68. My mom, Ruth, died on my friend and colleague Virginia's birthday 27 years ago at the age of 76. She died of pancreatic cancer three weeks after the diagnosis. It has been a long tradition to take Virginia out for dinner on her birthday. My partner and I had taken a break from the hospital vigil to take Virginia to Steak and Ale (a lot of good memories at that defunct restaurant). When we returned home, the hospital called to tell us to come immediately. My mother hadn't been in a lot of pain until the last 24 hours, but I watched her lose a little more strength each day. During those last hours, she had a morphine drip as the pain had dramatically increased. Her poignant last words were "Kill me before I die."
My mother was seven years older than my father. She didn't marry until she was 35 and had always worked in banks, first in Ames, then in Story City. She loved fancy clothes, and I have many pictures of her and her best friend all gussied up, ready to take a trip to Chicago or Minneapolis. My father drove a milk truck in Ames after spending two years in the Air Force. He was always extremely nervous and impatient with others, so he had a hard time keeping a job. For most of my childhood, he sold parts at automobile dealerships in Ames and Story City, moving from one to another in what seemed like an unending circle. One year, much to my discomfort, he was a janitor at my school. He wasn't great with kids, and that year was not a happy one for either him or me.
For the first thirteen years of my life, we lived on the second floor of a big, old white frame house with my mother's parents living downstairs. My grandparents doted on me, and my grandma would slip me milky coffee in the morning and quiz me from the World Almanac. She got dressed up in heels and jewelry at least once a day to play bridge with other women her age. We lived on a huge double lot with two gardens, three grape arbors, and tons of room to play. I remember many evenings of playing Capture the Flag (I have no idea now how the game was played). Story City had a movie house that showed two different movies a week (admission ten cents for children) and a public library where I spent hours. In the summer, we rode our bicycles (without helmets, of course) a couple of miles out of town to a Lutheran camp where we could go swimming.
Depression-era products, my parents never took vacations and rarely ate out. They built a house of their own (cost $13,000) in 1958, just before I entered high school and only when they could pay for it in cash. It was just a block away from where I'd lived before. I remember how impatient I'd get with them when they talked about Depression hardships and prices, and it was only much later that I understood they were talking about history only twenty years earlier, as if now I reminisced about 1992. My father didn't want my mother to work, and although she agreed, after her years having her own money, she chafed. Finally, he allowed her to work at home, so once a week, she and a couple of other women, drove to Nevada, the county seat, and picked up 5,000 envelopes (ten boxes of 500 each), which she addressed using an old black manual typewriter. There couldn't be more than a 1% spoilage rate and no errors. Most of the time, they were for Father Flanigan's Boys Town--5,000 pale blue envelopes every week. When it was time for her to cook, I'd take over. I learned to insert one envelope while I rolled the other one out. She typed from voter and motor registration rolls, and we compiled a long list of funny names. My favorite has always been someone who was named Fartney Blast.
Everyone loved my mother, a tiny and funny woman, who had mysterious ailments that prevented her from eating fresh fruits and vegetables, but not desserts. There were always freshly baked cakes and pies and cookies at my house, which made it a popular place after school. My father was somewhat more difficult but later in life found a secure job selling parts at the local Chevy dealership and discovered golf, which seemed to relax him. I came out to my parents in 1967. I had been called for the Vietnam war, and I had "checked the box," as we said then. And then I had to explain to my parents why I had gone from 1-A to 4-F overnight. Much to my surprise, my father was less upset than my mother (though I think they had suspected that I was gay). But after a short time, everyone adjusted to the new reality. I spent the 1970s with one man, whom my parents loved, as his parents did me.
They were good people, and I remember the seventeen years in Story City with enormous affection. We weren't a demonstrative family and we certainly didn't have much money, but I had everything I needed, everything I wanted. It's hard to believe how long it's been since my parents died. They would hardly recognize the America of 2012. But I know that they would still love their son as much as they always did in their very different ways, and so it's fitting that I remember them and honor them on this day of commemoration and gratitude.
My mother was seven years older than my father. She didn't marry until she was 35 and had always worked in banks, first in Ames, then in Story City. She loved fancy clothes, and I have many pictures of her and her best friend all gussied up, ready to take a trip to Chicago or Minneapolis. My father drove a milk truck in Ames after spending two years in the Air Force. He was always extremely nervous and impatient with others, so he had a hard time keeping a job. For most of my childhood, he sold parts at automobile dealerships in Ames and Story City, moving from one to another in what seemed like an unending circle. One year, much to my discomfort, he was a janitor at my school. He wasn't great with kids, and that year was not a happy one for either him or me.
For the first thirteen years of my life, we lived on the second floor of a big, old white frame house with my mother's parents living downstairs. My grandparents doted on me, and my grandma would slip me milky coffee in the morning and quiz me from the World Almanac. She got dressed up in heels and jewelry at least once a day to play bridge with other women her age. We lived on a huge double lot with two gardens, three grape arbors, and tons of room to play. I remember many evenings of playing Capture the Flag (I have no idea now how the game was played). Story City had a movie house that showed two different movies a week (admission ten cents for children) and a public library where I spent hours. In the summer, we rode our bicycles (without helmets, of course) a couple of miles out of town to a Lutheran camp where we could go swimming.
Depression-era products, my parents never took vacations and rarely ate out. They built a house of their own (cost $13,000) in 1958, just before I entered high school and only when they could pay for it in cash. It was just a block away from where I'd lived before. I remember how impatient I'd get with them when they talked about Depression hardships and prices, and it was only much later that I understood they were talking about history only twenty years earlier, as if now I reminisced about 1992. My father didn't want my mother to work, and although she agreed, after her years having her own money, she chafed. Finally, he allowed her to work at home, so once a week, she and a couple of other women, drove to Nevada, the county seat, and picked up 5,000 envelopes (ten boxes of 500 each), which she addressed using an old black manual typewriter. There couldn't be more than a 1% spoilage rate and no errors. Most of the time, they were for Father Flanigan's Boys Town--5,000 pale blue envelopes every week. When it was time for her to cook, I'd take over. I learned to insert one envelope while I rolled the other one out. She typed from voter and motor registration rolls, and we compiled a long list of funny names. My favorite has always been someone who was named Fartney Blast.
Everyone loved my mother, a tiny and funny woman, who had mysterious ailments that prevented her from eating fresh fruits and vegetables, but not desserts. There were always freshly baked cakes and pies and cookies at my house, which made it a popular place after school. My father was somewhat more difficult but later in life found a secure job selling parts at the local Chevy dealership and discovered golf, which seemed to relax him. I came out to my parents in 1967. I had been called for the Vietnam war, and I had "checked the box," as we said then. And then I had to explain to my parents why I had gone from 1-A to 4-F overnight. Much to my surprise, my father was less upset than my mother (though I think they had suspected that I was gay). But after a short time, everyone adjusted to the new reality. I spent the 1970s with one man, whom my parents loved, as his parents did me.
They were good people, and I remember the seventeen years in Story City with enormous affection. We weren't a demonstrative family and we certainly didn't have much money, but I had everything I needed, everything I wanted. It's hard to believe how long it's been since my parents died. They would hardly recognize the America of 2012. But I know that they would still love their son as much as they always did in their very different ways, and so it's fitting that I remember them and honor them on this day of commemoration and gratitude.
Friday, May 25, 2012
In the last blog entry, I talked about the "diminished thing," as Frost put it, which is my life these days. It was, in part, a catalogue of some of my daily experiences. But what the oven bird asks in all but words is what to make of this diminished thing, so perhaps the last entry leads to, suggests, entails (but not begs) the question of what I make of all this, of how I deal with it. (My language gene is constantly irritated by people who use "begs the question" in this context. To beg the question is a logical fallacy; it's to argue in a circle, assuming, somewhere in the line of argument, what you're supposed to be proving. It's not appropriate in my sentence, though from the frequency with which I hear it used that way, I think the battle may already have been lost.)
I'm not sure, however, that I have anything very enlightening to say on the subject. I don't think that we usually act on general (and generalizable) principles; we make our choices ad hoc and try to muddle through as best we can. For a few years now, my Washburn e-mail tag is a quote from George Eliot: "We must be patient with the makeshift of human understanding." And that's what we have: a makeshift understanding. It's what we have and all that we can ask for. And it's enough.
For forty years now, I've been a contented atheist, even now in the foxhole--or in my case, the hedgehog hole, since, using Isaiah Berlin's distinction, I'm definitely a hedgehog, not a fox. The world existed for billions of years without me and will continue to exist once I'm gone. Against all probabilities, I was born and existed. That doesn't seem to me depressing at all. When I'm gone, I'll leave behind some traces, some ripples that will slowly (I hope) dissipate. No soul, no spirit, no lingering awareness. I can't explain why I find that comforting (other than the fact that the concepts of heaven and hell make no sense to me and have no appeal), but I do.
I also live almost entirely in the present--no Proust's madeleine or even Zuckerman's rugelach to bring back an overwhelming flood of memories. It's not that I don't love my past. I do; at almost every stage of my life I've had wonderful, bright, lively, funny friends and experiences. And when I'm with those friends, either in person or in e-mails, recalling specific moments is always fun and cheering. I love telling stories about the past--as long as I have an audience, either someone who shared them or someone I think "needs" to learn about them. But when I'm alone, I rarely relive those times for my own pleasure or amusement. Again, I can't explain why this is so; it's just the way I live.
So, too, I don't think (and never have) very much about the future. When I need to make a practical decision, even the most important ones, I just do it without thinking much about the consequences. When, just as one example, one night I felt bored, I decided it was time for another year abroad. I didn't weigh the consequences; I just went online to the Fulbright site, discovered the deadline had passed, but thought what the hell? it can't hurt to apply. When they said there were possiblities in Syria, Oman, and Yemen and asked whether I would accept one of those, I replied yes without hesitation. And when they offered me Morocco, I took the time to look at a map to see whether I'd prefer El Jadidah or Meknes and typed an immediate response. I know that being more thoughtful about decisions might have spared me some unforutnate results, but to do so is just not my nature. And now, not thinking about the future (except in the most practical and necessary terms) has certain advantages. It's not really denial of the realities to come; it's just a continuation of the way I deal with things. I know that there will be a point when the pleasures are so severely diminished that life won't seem worth living. I certainly have no moral or ethical objections to suicide, and I would like to be in control of the end of my life. But I'm pretty sure that I'll be too cowardly or too afraid of missing something good to choose that option until it's no longer my choice to make.
And so in the present, I muddle through. I try to enjoy all that I have and try to limit my complaints (though I do wish I'd stop making those small groaning noises that are all too frequent, too indiscriminate, and, I'm sure, more irritating to Mohamed than he'd ever express). Do I get discouraged? Sure. Frustrated? Ditto. But then something that I read or see makes me laugh or makes my blood pressure rise or gives me another sort of satisfaction. And then I climb the stairs or put my sock on or savor my bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats (I'm a simple sort). That's my "makeshift understanding," and that's what allows me to keep on keeping on, as we used to say in another place in another time.
I'm not sure, however, that I have anything very enlightening to say on the subject. I don't think that we usually act on general (and generalizable) principles; we make our choices ad hoc and try to muddle through as best we can. For a few years now, my Washburn e-mail tag is a quote from George Eliot: "We must be patient with the makeshift of human understanding." And that's what we have: a makeshift understanding. It's what we have and all that we can ask for. And it's enough.
For forty years now, I've been a contented atheist, even now in the foxhole--or in my case, the hedgehog hole, since, using Isaiah Berlin's distinction, I'm definitely a hedgehog, not a fox. The world existed for billions of years without me and will continue to exist once I'm gone. Against all probabilities, I was born and existed. That doesn't seem to me depressing at all. When I'm gone, I'll leave behind some traces, some ripples that will slowly (I hope) dissipate. No soul, no spirit, no lingering awareness. I can't explain why I find that comforting (other than the fact that the concepts of heaven and hell make no sense to me and have no appeal), but I do.
I also live almost entirely in the present--no Proust's madeleine or even Zuckerman's rugelach to bring back an overwhelming flood of memories. It's not that I don't love my past. I do; at almost every stage of my life I've had wonderful, bright, lively, funny friends and experiences. And when I'm with those friends, either in person or in e-mails, recalling specific moments is always fun and cheering. I love telling stories about the past--as long as I have an audience, either someone who shared them or someone I think "needs" to learn about them. But when I'm alone, I rarely relive those times for my own pleasure or amusement. Again, I can't explain why this is so; it's just the way I live.
So, too, I don't think (and never have) very much about the future. When I need to make a practical decision, even the most important ones, I just do it without thinking much about the consequences. When, just as one example, one night I felt bored, I decided it was time for another year abroad. I didn't weigh the consequences; I just went online to the Fulbright site, discovered the deadline had passed, but thought what the hell? it can't hurt to apply. When they said there were possiblities in Syria, Oman, and Yemen and asked whether I would accept one of those, I replied yes without hesitation. And when they offered me Morocco, I took the time to look at a map to see whether I'd prefer El Jadidah or Meknes and typed an immediate response. I know that being more thoughtful about decisions might have spared me some unforutnate results, but to do so is just not my nature. And now, not thinking about the future (except in the most practical and necessary terms) has certain advantages. It's not really denial of the realities to come; it's just a continuation of the way I deal with things. I know that there will be a point when the pleasures are so severely diminished that life won't seem worth living. I certainly have no moral or ethical objections to suicide, and I would like to be in control of the end of my life. But I'm pretty sure that I'll be too cowardly or too afraid of missing something good to choose that option until it's no longer my choice to make.
And so in the present, I muddle through. I try to enjoy all that I have and try to limit my complaints (though I do wish I'd stop making those small groaning noises that are all too frequent, too indiscriminate, and, I'm sure, more irritating to Mohamed than he'd ever express). Do I get discouraged? Sure. Frustrated? Ditto. But then something that I read or see makes me laugh or makes my blood pressure rise or gives me another sort of satisfaction. And then I climb the stairs or put my sock on or savor my bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats (I'm a simple sort). That's my "makeshift understanding," and that's what allows me to keep on keeping on, as we used to say in another place in another time.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
After the last entry about the "Oven Bird," two long-time friends (I've known them both for over 40 years) wondered about the fact that after introducting the poem's idea of dealing with diminished expections, I spent the rest of the posting writing about poetry and criticism rather than with my own experiences of living during the last year (the surgery to replace my femur and part of the hip joint took place exactly one year ago today) with a diminished quality of my life. One asked as well whether the cloud of depression "wafted" around my days.
I don't think (but who can trust our consciousness?) that I was purposefully avoiding the implications of Frost's poem. What I wrote reflected what I had been thinking about over the previous few days, though, as I said, Frost's lines had been floating through my mind for a long time. Partly, too, the blog showed my refusal to give up the teacherly side of my personality. But perhaps a few more personal reflections are in order. To answer the question about depression first, no, it's not something that plays a part in the way I think about things. I certainly have as many neuroses as anyone, but depression has never been one of them. (Now that I've ruled out depression, anger, guilt, and I can't remember what else as components of my emotional character, I'm beginning to think that my friend Jill may have been right in suggesting--years ago to be fair--that I have a low EQ.) But I am aware, during all the waking hours, of the limitations and discomforts of life as I live it these days.
I'm aware of, and unhappy about, the fact that I will never go to France again. And what is going to seem silly, every time I see a commercial for Worlds of Fun, I'm reminded that I'll never ride a roller coaster again. I'll probably never travel very far, nor have the uninterrupted energy to cook a full meal. I'll probably never sit through an opera again, or when one of my talented friends is in a musical in KC, never travel to KC, have a good dinner, and then watch him on stage. I'll never again take my german shepherd, strong and badly trained on a leash, for a walk around the lake.
More important are the daily discomforts and assuming that they are going to become progressively more significant. My shoulder has been feeling much better lately, but for over a year now, I can't reach across the table with my left arm or lift a bottle of milk from the refrigerator with my left hand. I can't raise my left arm very high or far for a toast. I can't stand up from a chair or couch without a moment's hesitation and bracing myself with my right arm. Every time I go up and down stairs, my hip creaks and I half pull myself up using the railing. Because, I assume, of the daily anti-coagulant shot, a small cut looks fine at first, and then a few hours later, it's turned into an ugly scar which takes several days to go away. By the time I'm up in the morning and have had my best energy of the day, I shower, and then I sit on the edge of the bed, tired from all the effort, trying to summon the strength to put on my right sock. I can't go to a restaurant without taking Imodium first, locating the restroom, and wondering what I should order that isn't going to provoke an immediate reaction. When I first started the chemo, lots of food tasted "off." Diet-Coke has never tasted the same, and much more seriously, I rarely enjoy wine any more. Recently, however, food tastes fine, and it looks appealing, but after I eat about half of what's on the plate, I have no more appetite. I can't even force myself to take another bite. For the last couple of weeks, the need for naps seems to have become more frequent. I always take a book or magazine to bed, but I no longer even make the pretense that I'm going to read. The book is only a security blanket. Instead of clutching a pillow, I like the feeling of holding the book as I drop off. Scariest of all is that for the last couple of weeks, by the end of the evening, I've been having terrible cramps and can't sit or lie comfortably.
So there's a partial catalogue of dimished hopes and possibilities. Some I've become inured to (my right arm works just as well for lifting the half gallon of milk out of the refrigerator). Some--like the small groans I make each time I stand up--I hope Mohamed has become inured to. All are frustrating; each has changed my self-image from someone who was always energetic and adventurous to someone whose physical energy is indeed much diminished. Most important, because most frightening, is not knowing just what these limitations mean, just where in the arc of living with cancer I am, what each new twist implies. But there are still enormous pleasures left in life, much that's just as exciting and pleasurable as it's always been--friends, laughing, reading, becoming infuriated over politics and issues, discovering new authors and ideas, sex, and loving and being loved.
What I've really not expressed often enough in these postings is how much Mohamed does for me every hour of every day. No one else really sees the downs or the fears, no one hears all the groans. There is never a hint of complaint, never a request that he doesn't fulfill. Without Mohamed, the last year would have been diminished in ways I can't even imagine--and don't want to. If I'm not depressed, if the frustrations and fears are manageable, it's because of Mohamed's support and love. It took me a lot of false starts to get it right, but at just the right time, I finally did.
I don't think (but who can trust our consciousness?) that I was purposefully avoiding the implications of Frost's poem. What I wrote reflected what I had been thinking about over the previous few days, though, as I said, Frost's lines had been floating through my mind for a long time. Partly, too, the blog showed my refusal to give up the teacherly side of my personality. But perhaps a few more personal reflections are in order. To answer the question about depression first, no, it's not something that plays a part in the way I think about things. I certainly have as many neuroses as anyone, but depression has never been one of them. (Now that I've ruled out depression, anger, guilt, and I can't remember what else as components of my emotional character, I'm beginning to think that my friend Jill may have been right in suggesting--years ago to be fair--that I have a low EQ.) But I am aware, during all the waking hours, of the limitations and discomforts of life as I live it these days.
I'm aware of, and unhappy about, the fact that I will never go to France again. And what is going to seem silly, every time I see a commercial for Worlds of Fun, I'm reminded that I'll never ride a roller coaster again. I'll probably never travel very far, nor have the uninterrupted energy to cook a full meal. I'll probably never sit through an opera again, or when one of my talented friends is in a musical in KC, never travel to KC, have a good dinner, and then watch him on stage. I'll never again take my german shepherd, strong and badly trained on a leash, for a walk around the lake.
More important are the daily discomforts and assuming that they are going to become progressively more significant. My shoulder has been feeling much better lately, but for over a year now, I can't reach across the table with my left arm or lift a bottle of milk from the refrigerator with my left hand. I can't raise my left arm very high or far for a toast. I can't stand up from a chair or couch without a moment's hesitation and bracing myself with my right arm. Every time I go up and down stairs, my hip creaks and I half pull myself up using the railing. Because, I assume, of the daily anti-coagulant shot, a small cut looks fine at first, and then a few hours later, it's turned into an ugly scar which takes several days to go away. By the time I'm up in the morning and have had my best energy of the day, I shower, and then I sit on the edge of the bed, tired from all the effort, trying to summon the strength to put on my right sock. I can't go to a restaurant without taking Imodium first, locating the restroom, and wondering what I should order that isn't going to provoke an immediate reaction. When I first started the chemo, lots of food tasted "off." Diet-Coke has never tasted the same, and much more seriously, I rarely enjoy wine any more. Recently, however, food tastes fine, and it looks appealing, but after I eat about half of what's on the plate, I have no more appetite. I can't even force myself to take another bite. For the last couple of weeks, the need for naps seems to have become more frequent. I always take a book or magazine to bed, but I no longer even make the pretense that I'm going to read. The book is only a security blanket. Instead of clutching a pillow, I like the feeling of holding the book as I drop off. Scariest of all is that for the last couple of weeks, by the end of the evening, I've been having terrible cramps and can't sit or lie comfortably.
So there's a partial catalogue of dimished hopes and possibilities. Some I've become inured to (my right arm works just as well for lifting the half gallon of milk out of the refrigerator). Some--like the small groans I make each time I stand up--I hope Mohamed has become inured to. All are frustrating; each has changed my self-image from someone who was always energetic and adventurous to someone whose physical energy is indeed much diminished. Most important, because most frightening, is not knowing just what these limitations mean, just where in the arc of living with cancer I am, what each new twist implies. But there are still enormous pleasures left in life, much that's just as exciting and pleasurable as it's always been--friends, laughing, reading, becoming infuriated over politics and issues, discovering new authors and ideas, sex, and loving and being loved.
What I've really not expressed often enough in these postings is how much Mohamed does for me every hour of every day. No one else really sees the downs or the fears, no one hears all the groans. There is never a hint of complaint, never a request that he doesn't fulfill. Without Mohamed, the last year would have been diminished in ways I can't even imagine--and don't want to. If I'm not depressed, if the frustrations and fears are manageable, it's because of Mohamed's support and love. It took me a lot of false starts to get it right, but at just the right time, I finally did.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Robert Frost ends his poem "The Oven Bird" with these lines:
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
Joyce Carol Oates begins her review of Anne Tyler's latest novel, The Beginner's Goodbye, by quoting these lines in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books. "The Oven Bird"--and especially the phrase "what to make of a diminished thing"--has been haunting me recently, so its appearance in the review seems a good occasion for a few thoughts. In the review, Oates reinforces what I've felt about Tyler's recent work: that although I, like Oates, enjoyed the modest humor and compassion of Tyler's early work, the last several novels have been so quiet that there's not enough dramatic energy to hold our interest. I used to love Anne Tyler. Once, thirty years ago (tempus really does fugit), I read several of her novels in a row and was so impressed that I wrote her via her agent. I got a lovely and funny handwritten reply from her home address in Baltimore (always the setting of her books). A few years later, again impressed by one of her novels, I wrote her at the same address. She was still there (Baltimoreans have a firm sense of home and place, she said), and again she wrote back. So it's been sad to have been disappointed by her newer novels and to cross her last one off the list of books to download.
"The Oven Bird" is a sonnet, describing the loud songs of an oven bird who has, as the poem progresses, less and less reason to sing. In one startlingly original line, Frost uses a mathematical ratio ("Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten"), the world already diminished by 90% by mid-summer. But the oven bird continues, knowing "in singing not to sing" ("I sing because I'm happy. I sing because I'm free"--the traditional reasons for singing no longer applying to the bird). Rather its song becomes a question about the meaning of the diminished thing which is this world. The bird is, of course, like Frost the poet, the "dark" Frost not his public persona. Frost's poetry is an extended and various meditation (framed in words) on our diminished natural and personal world (Frost's poetry rarely deals with the mediating social world). And for me over the last few months, that question has been my own: what to make of, how to deal with a diminished world of possibilities and still keep, well, not singing, that would be frightening for everyone, but thinking, talking, writing.
I always taught "The Oven Bird" in the second half of the American lit. survey, and there was almost always a student who, despite a footnote explaining what an oven bird is and despite the fact that the poem takes place in the middle of a woods with nary a human in sight, would conclude that the bird was a Thanksgiving turkey, the oven was, well, an oven, which was probably a symbol of hell, and then suddenly the whole poem became symbolic of the beauties of American democracy or the perils of endzone celebrations or god-knows-what. The students would often become indignant when I wrote "WRONG" or "LMAO" in the margin. "Aren't all interpretations valid?" (No.) "If I can support my interpretation, isn't it valid?" (No again. We can all support our beliefs or else we wouldn't believe them.) I'd invoke Popper's idea of falsifiability, but that never worked very well. I'd try forbidding the word "symbol" in any essay, quoting Nabokov on students' finding symbols as like discovering their own tracks in the snow. That didn't work any better. On student evaluations, one word that they often used to describe me was "opinionated," which wasn't meant as a compliment. My modest ambition in teaching poetry was to teach students that the basic unit of a poem is a sentence, not a line (students paused at the end of each line, whether it was end-stopped or not, and started the next as if it were the beginning of a new thought, often reducing the poem to nonsense) and that the poems we read consisted of English words conveying first of all a literal English meaning. Does that mean a poem has one and only one meaning? the students would ask. I hope not; otherwise, I'd have been out of a job.
Often after that class, I'd teach Critical Reading and Writing, and, wondering what I was doing and why I was doing it, I'd launch into a discussion of Deconstruction with its focus on what's not there: here an aporia (impass), there a passage sous rature (having been "erased"), and everywhere absence as presence. I used to teach Derridean Deconstruction by starting with a Kabbalistic creation myth: tsimtsum, or contraction. Unlike most creation stories in which a god fills a void by creating something new, in this myth, since the creator initially fills the world, there is no space for creation. So the creator contracts to create a space for creation, an absence that enables presence. And then, to apply the principle, we'd attempt a deconstructrive reading of Mishima's story "Patriotism," focusing first on all the words that derive from pater and mater, and noticing that in column two, there was either absence (there is no 'matriotism,' for example) or negative connotations (to be a patron is good, to be matronly not so much) and then seeing how the story, inadvertently, deconstructs itself by undermining these pairs. So, too, with actor/witness, in which the first term is the strong one, but in the story realizing how the actor (the male hero) is actually dependent on the witness (Mishima always describes the wife as, for example, the moon to her husband's sun), while by the end of the story, the wife/witness becomes the truly independent actor.
As you can tell, I was always proud of my attempts to demystify deconstruction to a group of students who had had trouble reading a sonnet and whom I had just told to be nothing if not literal. Ah well, as American writers from Emerson to Ellison, from Whitman to Fitzgerald have argued, consistency is overrated. And, like the oven bird, as you also can tell, while feeling that I live in a diminished world, I just keep talking and writing.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
Joyce Carol Oates begins her review of Anne Tyler's latest novel, The Beginner's Goodbye, by quoting these lines in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books. "The Oven Bird"--and especially the phrase "what to make of a diminished thing"--has been haunting me recently, so its appearance in the review seems a good occasion for a few thoughts. In the review, Oates reinforces what I've felt about Tyler's recent work: that although I, like Oates, enjoyed the modest humor and compassion of Tyler's early work, the last several novels have been so quiet that there's not enough dramatic energy to hold our interest. I used to love Anne Tyler. Once, thirty years ago (tempus really does fugit), I read several of her novels in a row and was so impressed that I wrote her via her agent. I got a lovely and funny handwritten reply from her home address in Baltimore (always the setting of her books). A few years later, again impressed by one of her novels, I wrote her at the same address. She was still there (Baltimoreans have a firm sense of home and place, she said), and again she wrote back. So it's been sad to have been disappointed by her newer novels and to cross her last one off the list of books to download.
"The Oven Bird" is a sonnet, describing the loud songs of an oven bird who has, as the poem progresses, less and less reason to sing. In one startlingly original line, Frost uses a mathematical ratio ("Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten"), the world already diminished by 90% by mid-summer. But the oven bird continues, knowing "in singing not to sing" ("I sing because I'm happy. I sing because I'm free"--the traditional reasons for singing no longer applying to the bird). Rather its song becomes a question about the meaning of the diminished thing which is this world. The bird is, of course, like Frost the poet, the "dark" Frost not his public persona. Frost's poetry is an extended and various meditation (framed in words) on our diminished natural and personal world (Frost's poetry rarely deals with the mediating social world). And for me over the last few months, that question has been my own: what to make of, how to deal with a diminished world of possibilities and still keep, well, not singing, that would be frightening for everyone, but thinking, talking, writing.
I always taught "The Oven Bird" in the second half of the American lit. survey, and there was almost always a student who, despite a footnote explaining what an oven bird is and despite the fact that the poem takes place in the middle of a woods with nary a human in sight, would conclude that the bird was a Thanksgiving turkey, the oven was, well, an oven, which was probably a symbol of hell, and then suddenly the whole poem became symbolic of the beauties of American democracy or the perils of endzone celebrations or god-knows-what. The students would often become indignant when I wrote "WRONG" or "LMAO" in the margin. "Aren't all interpretations valid?" (No.) "If I can support my interpretation, isn't it valid?" (No again. We can all support our beliefs or else we wouldn't believe them.) I'd invoke Popper's idea of falsifiability, but that never worked very well. I'd try forbidding the word "symbol" in any essay, quoting Nabokov on students' finding symbols as like discovering their own tracks in the snow. That didn't work any better. On student evaluations, one word that they often used to describe me was "opinionated," which wasn't meant as a compliment. My modest ambition in teaching poetry was to teach students that the basic unit of a poem is a sentence, not a line (students paused at the end of each line, whether it was end-stopped or not, and started the next as if it were the beginning of a new thought, often reducing the poem to nonsense) and that the poems we read consisted of English words conveying first of all a literal English meaning. Does that mean a poem has one and only one meaning? the students would ask. I hope not; otherwise, I'd have been out of a job.
Often after that class, I'd teach Critical Reading and Writing, and, wondering what I was doing and why I was doing it, I'd launch into a discussion of Deconstruction with its focus on what's not there: here an aporia (impass), there a passage sous rature (having been "erased"), and everywhere absence as presence. I used to teach Derridean Deconstruction by starting with a Kabbalistic creation myth: tsimtsum, or contraction. Unlike most creation stories in which a god fills a void by creating something new, in this myth, since the creator initially fills the world, there is no space for creation. So the creator contracts to create a space for creation, an absence that enables presence. And then, to apply the principle, we'd attempt a deconstructrive reading of Mishima's story "Patriotism," focusing first on all the words that derive from pater and mater, and noticing that in column two, there was either absence (there is no 'matriotism,' for example) or negative connotations (to be a patron is good, to be matronly not so much) and then seeing how the story, inadvertently, deconstructs itself by undermining these pairs. So, too, with actor/witness, in which the first term is the strong one, but in the story realizing how the actor (the male hero) is actually dependent on the witness (Mishima always describes the wife as, for example, the moon to her husband's sun), while by the end of the story, the wife/witness becomes the truly independent actor.
As you can tell, I was always proud of my attempts to demystify deconstruction to a group of students who had had trouble reading a sonnet and whom I had just told to be nothing if not literal. Ah well, as American writers from Emerson to Ellison, from Whitman to Fitzgerald have argued, consistency is overrated. And, like the oven bird, as you also can tell, while feeling that I live in a diminished world, I just keep talking and writing.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
The three days since the last post have been more of the same: some happy social occasions (with a lot more scheduled for the next two weeks) and the now familiar downs--way too frequent and exhausting trips to the newly tiled and worker-free bathrooms and sleeping more than I would like. (Sorry about that. I know that most of my readers would love the freedom to take long, leisurely naps.) I did e-mail my oncologist to ask whether there is a medication stronger than Imodium, whether if not I just have to resign myself to gulping four or more a day, and whether it might be possible--without too many risks--to take a couple of days off from the chemo to see if my body might regain a little of its previous equilibrium.
I've had the time to read a long and fascinating book, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. The teacher in me kept thinking that an exam over the book would be incredibly easy to construct: short definitions of ten terms that inform the book:
extractive political systems
extractive economic systems
inclusive political systems
inclusive economic systems
critical junctures
creative destruction
vicious circles
virtuous circles
the iron law of oligarchy
historical contingency.
The book is an exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) overview of the historical, economic, and political causes of prosperity and poverty throughout time (from the Neolithic Revolution to the present) and throughout space (dozens of countries on every continent). The argument is, in short, that extractive institutions, where the elite control the state both politically and economically, may create short-term prosperity for the few, but that the prosperity is not sustainable. (Although the book refuses to make predictions, it clearly suggests that because of the extractive nature of modern Chinese politics and economics, China won't be able to sustain its current economic growth.) At critical junctures (the three major ones that the authors focus on are the Black Death, the colonization of the Americas and Africa, and the Industrial Revolution, though there are also less dramatic ones), the elite will try to maintain their powers. They fear creative destruction and thus discourage or forbid innovation, thus damning their states ultimately to failure. The iron law of oligarchy suggests that in extractive societies, even if one set of elite is displaced, it will normally be replaced by another extractive system. The authors argue, however, that this "law" isn't like a law in physics; it's a tendency only, and one that may predominate, but that does not always hold true. Although the book rejects such explanations of poverty as those based on geography (South America had more natural resources than America, yet the U.S. and Canada developed inclusive economic and political systems and hence became more prosperous) and on culture, in favor of historical explanations, the authors also stress that nothing is absolutely determined, that historical contingency can never be underestimated. The most important and original argument of the book, however, is that inclusive political systems precede inclusive economic systems. That is, the authors reject the notion that as countries develop economically and move to more inclusive economic systems they will inevitably become more inclusive politically.
For over two years now, I've read everything on my Kindle. Despite having loved books as physical objects since I was a kid, I've never really missed the feel of paper, the turning of pages, the dog-eared corners. This time, however, because the book covered so much ground, for almost the first time, I wanted to flip around in the book, to look back and ahead to see if I couldn't put all the information into a clearer framework. There are so many details of place and time that I sometimes lost the thread, not of the argument, but of the organizational principle. I've got a first generation Kindle, and I assume the newer ones are friendlier. That said, the Kindle remains the best present I've received in a long time. If anyone from Amazon is reading the blog and would like to offer me a huge paycheck for doing a commercial, I'm open to an offer.
I've had the time to read a long and fascinating book, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. The teacher in me kept thinking that an exam over the book would be incredibly easy to construct: short definitions of ten terms that inform the book:
extractive political systems
extractive economic systems
inclusive political systems
inclusive economic systems
critical junctures
creative destruction
vicious circles
virtuous circles
the iron law of oligarchy
historical contingency.
The book is an exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) overview of the historical, economic, and political causes of prosperity and poverty throughout time (from the Neolithic Revolution to the present) and throughout space (dozens of countries on every continent). The argument is, in short, that extractive institutions, where the elite control the state both politically and economically, may create short-term prosperity for the few, but that the prosperity is not sustainable. (Although the book refuses to make predictions, it clearly suggests that because of the extractive nature of modern Chinese politics and economics, China won't be able to sustain its current economic growth.) At critical junctures (the three major ones that the authors focus on are the Black Death, the colonization of the Americas and Africa, and the Industrial Revolution, though there are also less dramatic ones), the elite will try to maintain their powers. They fear creative destruction and thus discourage or forbid innovation, thus damning their states ultimately to failure. The iron law of oligarchy suggests that in extractive societies, even if one set of elite is displaced, it will normally be replaced by another extractive system. The authors argue, however, that this "law" isn't like a law in physics; it's a tendency only, and one that may predominate, but that does not always hold true. Although the book rejects such explanations of poverty as those based on geography (South America had more natural resources than America, yet the U.S. and Canada developed inclusive economic and political systems and hence became more prosperous) and on culture, in favor of historical explanations, the authors also stress that nothing is absolutely determined, that historical contingency can never be underestimated. The most important and original argument of the book, however, is that inclusive political systems precede inclusive economic systems. That is, the authors reject the notion that as countries develop economically and move to more inclusive economic systems they will inevitably become more inclusive politically.
For over two years now, I've read everything on my Kindle. Despite having loved books as physical objects since I was a kid, I've never really missed the feel of paper, the turning of pages, the dog-eared corners. This time, however, because the book covered so much ground, for almost the first time, I wanted to flip around in the book, to look back and ahead to see if I couldn't put all the information into a clearer framework. There are so many details of place and time that I sometimes lost the thread, not of the argument, but of the organizational principle. I've got a first generation Kindle, and I assume the newer ones are friendlier. That said, the Kindle remains the best present I've received in a long time. If anyone from Amazon is reading the blog and would like to offer me a huge paycheck for doing a commercial, I'm open to an offer.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
One more example of students' amusing us: Carol, my friend from graduate school days, reminded me of a student who had quoted from the Bible and had scrupulously included the reference in the bibliography: Ghost, The Holy. (You can call me Mr. Ghost. You can call me The. Just don't call me late to the Pentecost.)
The last three days have been marked by very pleasant ups and very difficult down periods. Thursday morning, we went to Washburn to deliver some papers, saw several old friends in the English office, and then went out for a nice, long lunch with Danny, the new department chair. Unfortunately, on the way home, I got very sick. We made it home before disaster struck, but barely. And then I had to crash. I think that one of the most frustrating things is how difficult it is to explain what it means to "crash" or "hit a wall" or however we want to describe it. It's not just being tired. It's as if both mind and body shut down suddenly and completely. The simplest thought, what should be the easiest movement become impossible. Except for Mohamed, most people see me for a few hours when I'm up (and socializing always energizes me) and the blog is, I think, generally optimistic in tone. But there are many hours, especially in the evening, when I feel as if I can barely function. Once home Thursday afternoon, I slept for a few minutes, but then the phone rang and a Bulgarian friend was in town and wanted to visit. He's a talker and has a penetrating voice. I enjoy his company, but after two hours, I couldn't concentrate on (or comprehend) anything he was saying. And the rest of the evening, though I stayed awake, was absolutely miserable.
Friday, the workers came in the morning (the two bathroom are now, after two weeks' work, finally tiled, and after two days, the yard has been relandscaped, so at least after the disruptions my OCD has calmed), but once again it was hard to sleep during the day. That evening, we went to Lawrence for an end-of-the-year party at Danny and Tami's. It was a very nice occasion. And I got to see even more people that I don't see as often as others. When I came in 1972 to Washburn, three of us, all Ph.D.s, were hired into a department that had only two professors with doctorates. The next year we got a new chair, and in 1974, two more new professors were hired. Those were turbulent and often divisive years. Two old-timers had applied to be chair and gotten no support from the others in the department, so there was bitterness over that. The old guard, who had always thought of a master's degree as sufficient, felt threatened. But then the department settled, and things ran smoothly for a long time. Although of course the department had its eccentrics (we are an English department after all), we all generally got along. When we did interviewing for new hires, we "showed well" and got many first-rate colleagues. I remember asking one candidate whether the interviewing had been too tiring and got the response, delivered with some amazement, "Not at all. You actually seem to like one another." After decades of relative stability, starting in 2006, the department began another period of great change. In my four years as chair, I hired five tenure-track professors; two more were hired after I retired, and there are more in the future. It is very good to see, as the gathering Friday suggested, that there is still that feeling of camaraderie, a lack of rivalry among the new hires. Once again, though, by the time we got home, I had hit the wall. I could barely make it to the couch, and climbing the seven stairs to the bedroom seemed impossibly difficult.
And yesterday, the pattern was repeated: a burst of energy in the morning, a huge crash, a lovely belated birthday dinner with my oldest colleague and co-writer of four books, Virginia, and then a complete internal revolt that not even four Imodium (not all at once) could calm. Up and then down, alert and then unthinking...and behind it all the nagging worry that maybe the downs are more frequent or lower, the energy flags more quickly than before.
Basta! Happy Mother's Day, and now let's have a spirited argument about attachment parenting and the Time magazine cover story. That'll get the synapses firing.
The last three days have been marked by very pleasant ups and very difficult down periods. Thursday morning, we went to Washburn to deliver some papers, saw several old friends in the English office, and then went out for a nice, long lunch with Danny, the new department chair. Unfortunately, on the way home, I got very sick. We made it home before disaster struck, but barely. And then I had to crash. I think that one of the most frustrating things is how difficult it is to explain what it means to "crash" or "hit a wall" or however we want to describe it. It's not just being tired. It's as if both mind and body shut down suddenly and completely. The simplest thought, what should be the easiest movement become impossible. Except for Mohamed, most people see me for a few hours when I'm up (and socializing always energizes me) and the blog is, I think, generally optimistic in tone. But there are many hours, especially in the evening, when I feel as if I can barely function. Once home Thursday afternoon, I slept for a few minutes, but then the phone rang and a Bulgarian friend was in town and wanted to visit. He's a talker and has a penetrating voice. I enjoy his company, but after two hours, I couldn't concentrate on (or comprehend) anything he was saying. And the rest of the evening, though I stayed awake, was absolutely miserable.
Friday, the workers came in the morning (the two bathroom are now, after two weeks' work, finally tiled, and after two days, the yard has been relandscaped, so at least after the disruptions my OCD has calmed), but once again it was hard to sleep during the day. That evening, we went to Lawrence for an end-of-the-year party at Danny and Tami's. It was a very nice occasion. And I got to see even more people that I don't see as often as others. When I came in 1972 to Washburn, three of us, all Ph.D.s, were hired into a department that had only two professors with doctorates. The next year we got a new chair, and in 1974, two more new professors were hired. Those were turbulent and often divisive years. Two old-timers had applied to be chair and gotten no support from the others in the department, so there was bitterness over that. The old guard, who had always thought of a master's degree as sufficient, felt threatened. But then the department settled, and things ran smoothly for a long time. Although of course the department had its eccentrics (we are an English department after all), we all generally got along. When we did interviewing for new hires, we "showed well" and got many first-rate colleagues. I remember asking one candidate whether the interviewing had been too tiring and got the response, delivered with some amazement, "Not at all. You actually seem to like one another." After decades of relative stability, starting in 2006, the department began another period of great change. In my four years as chair, I hired five tenure-track professors; two more were hired after I retired, and there are more in the future. It is very good to see, as the gathering Friday suggested, that there is still that feeling of camaraderie, a lack of rivalry among the new hires. Once again, though, by the time we got home, I had hit the wall. I could barely make it to the couch, and climbing the seven stairs to the bedroom seemed impossibly difficult.
And yesterday, the pattern was repeated: a burst of energy in the morning, a huge crash, a lovely belated birthday dinner with my oldest colleague and co-writer of four books, Virginia, and then a complete internal revolt that not even four Imodium (not all at once) could calm. Up and then down, alert and then unthinking...and behind it all the nagging worry that maybe the downs are more frequent or lower, the energy flags more quickly than before.
Basta! Happy Mother's Day, and now let's have a spirited argument about attachment parenting and the Time magazine cover story. That'll get the synapses firing.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Like most people, I always thought of my identity as composed of many traits: teacher, gay, left-wing Democrat, atheist, left-handed, adventurous... But probably the two most important were always what I did and whom I loved.
I've been asked many times whether I miss teaching. In some ways, no, since the first year after I retired, I taught as an adjunct, and then I got the cancer diagnosis, which changed everything. But in other ways, of course, it's been very hard to use the past tense tense in talking about my career. It's much more natural to say, "I've been a teacher for 45 years" than "I was a teacher." It's even harder to say I'm retired or I'm a retired teacher. Retirement must be difficult not only because all your routines change, but because a part of your identity is, in some ways, lost. I do have to point out, though, at this time of year when my colleagues are faced with piles of essays to grade and I've gotten e-mails complaining and forwarded articles with grading horror stories, that I have not one single essay to grade. I'm not going to read one sentence about a character who suffers from an "edible complex" in our "doggy dog world." I'll encounter no descriptions of "pre-Madonnas" (who would that be?). No student will tell me that Hester Prynne suffers from low self-esteem. Of course, I'll also never read again that essay that wows me and redeems the sighs (and laughs) that went with most of the others.
For a gay man, Tuesday was depressing as 61% of the voters in North Carolina approved Proposition One, a constitutional amendement defining marriage yet again as between only a man and a woman. 61%! But when I think of what things were like in the 1950s when I was growing up or the 60s or even the 80s, where we are now is almost unbelievable. Biden has been mocked for his comment that "Will and Grace" changed the landscape, but he's not far off. There's the famous story of Justice Lewis Powell, saying to his (closeted) gay clerk that he regretted his decision in Bowers but that he had never known a gay person. I'm sure, until I came out, that my parents would have said the same thing, although, after a moment's thought, admitting that the guy who ran the local theater was "a little queer" (my mother's words once, not really hateful, just the vocabulary of the times). But "Will and Grace" brought gays into households for nearly a decade. Who now would or could say they had never known a gay or lesbian? Despite all the state votes against gay marriage, the long arc seems to be moving in the right direction. And then, of course, yesterday President Obama said outloud what he must've believed silently (given his actions on Don't Ask, Don't Tell and his directive to the attorney general not to defend DOMA) for a long time. Which of us could have imagined twenty years ago, a President endorsing gay marriage?
Suddenly, a year ago, the cancer diagnosis seemed to change my whole sense of identity. It risked becoming my identity, making everything else of very tenuous importance. My whole life changed, both physically and psychologically. There was the operation and the brace. There was radiation. There are and always will be ten or more pills and a shot every morning and two or three more pills in the evening. There were practical tasks: arranging doctor visits, re-arranging furniture, re-writing my will. There was a new realization of the loss of possibilities and of dignity (though that was low on the list). And behind it all was the prognosis--10 or 11 months for stage four kidney cancer--and knowing that the cancer had metastasized at least six months before the correct diagnosis. (As I've said, I can't not count the months.) But I've lived with the cancer diagnosis for over a year now, and somehow it's taken its place as just one more facet of who I am. It doesn't define me as it did for a while. I've settled into a routine--not the most exciting or adventurous rhythm, not without an almost constant reminder of discomfort and side effects and limits, but not really unpleasant. One/you/I can't think about mortality all the time--not when there is so much interesting/heartening/discouraging/funny in the world. Give me a stack of essays to grade; I'll pitch in. And I'm sure I'll find occasions to write LOL or LMAO in the margin and, if I'm lucky an occasion to say, "Wow! I don't think I wrote that well when I was an undergrad."
I've been asked many times whether I miss teaching. In some ways, no, since the first year after I retired, I taught as an adjunct, and then I got the cancer diagnosis, which changed everything. But in other ways, of course, it's been very hard to use the past tense tense in talking about my career. It's much more natural to say, "I've been a teacher for 45 years" than "I was a teacher." It's even harder to say I'm retired or I'm a retired teacher. Retirement must be difficult not only because all your routines change, but because a part of your identity is, in some ways, lost. I do have to point out, though, at this time of year when my colleagues are faced with piles of essays to grade and I've gotten e-mails complaining and forwarded articles with grading horror stories, that I have not one single essay to grade. I'm not going to read one sentence about a character who suffers from an "edible complex" in our "doggy dog world." I'll encounter no descriptions of "pre-Madonnas" (who would that be?). No student will tell me that Hester Prynne suffers from low self-esteem. Of course, I'll also never read again that essay that wows me and redeems the sighs (and laughs) that went with most of the others.
For a gay man, Tuesday was depressing as 61% of the voters in North Carolina approved Proposition One, a constitutional amendement defining marriage yet again as between only a man and a woman. 61%! But when I think of what things were like in the 1950s when I was growing up or the 60s or even the 80s, where we are now is almost unbelievable. Biden has been mocked for his comment that "Will and Grace" changed the landscape, but he's not far off. There's the famous story of Justice Lewis Powell, saying to his (closeted) gay clerk that he regretted his decision in Bowers but that he had never known a gay person. I'm sure, until I came out, that my parents would have said the same thing, although, after a moment's thought, admitting that the guy who ran the local theater was "a little queer" (my mother's words once, not really hateful, just the vocabulary of the times). But "Will and Grace" brought gays into households for nearly a decade. Who now would or could say they had never known a gay or lesbian? Despite all the state votes against gay marriage, the long arc seems to be moving in the right direction. And then, of course, yesterday President Obama said outloud what he must've believed silently (given his actions on Don't Ask, Don't Tell and his directive to the attorney general not to defend DOMA) for a long time. Which of us could have imagined twenty years ago, a President endorsing gay marriage?
Suddenly, a year ago, the cancer diagnosis seemed to change my whole sense of identity. It risked becoming my identity, making everything else of very tenuous importance. My whole life changed, both physically and psychologically. There was the operation and the brace. There was radiation. There are and always will be ten or more pills and a shot every morning and two or three more pills in the evening. There were practical tasks: arranging doctor visits, re-arranging furniture, re-writing my will. There was a new realization of the loss of possibilities and of dignity (though that was low on the list). And behind it all was the prognosis--10 or 11 months for stage four kidney cancer--and knowing that the cancer had metastasized at least six months before the correct diagnosis. (As I've said, I can't not count the months.) But I've lived with the cancer diagnosis for over a year now, and somehow it's taken its place as just one more facet of who I am. It doesn't define me as it did for a while. I've settled into a routine--not the most exciting or adventurous rhythm, not without an almost constant reminder of discomfort and side effects and limits, but not really unpleasant. One/you/I can't think about mortality all the time--not when there is so much interesting/heartening/discouraging/funny in the world. Give me a stack of essays to grade; I'll pitch in. And I'm sure I'll find occasions to write LOL or LMAO in the margin and, if I'm lucky an occasion to say, "Wow! I don't think I wrote that well when I was an undergrad."
Monday, May 7, 2012
A few more unkind words about Martha Nussbaum's Not for Profit since I forgot to include them last time: one of her chapters is devoted to the psychology of children. She doesn't take much time to integrate the ideas about childhood psychology into either her views on democracy or those on educational reforms, but it's a topic she's previously published on, so there are plenty of opportunities to refer to her own work. Even more startling than the chapter's irrelevance, her ideas don't seem to have evolved in several decades. Once she has referred to the work of Solomon Asch, it's no surprise that on the next page she discusses Stanley Milgram. Turn the page again, and voila, there's Philip Zimbardo. Now when Prof. Nussbaum and I were in graduate school, Asch, Milgram, and Zimbardo were the Hart, Schaffner, and Marx of psychology: where there was one, the others were sure to follow. But that was over forty years ago, and all of their studies have long been criticized, modified, or discredited. Surely, if we're to take Nussbaum's chapter seriously, there needs to be an awareness on her part that Mssrs. Asch, Milgram, and Zimbardo are hardly the last word even on their one narrow interest, which is itself very tenuously related to Nussbaum's argument.
I thought of this because a current equivalent, this time in the realm of moral philosophy, seems to be the "tunnel" problem. Twice in the last week I've seen a Harvard philosophy professor on TV using the example, and I keep encountering it in reading as well. In brief, the supposedly exemplary situation is this: you are in a tunnel, driving a train which is out of control and headed toward five people on the track. If the train hits them, they will die. Suddenly you notice that there is a siding onto which you can direct the train, but there is one person on that track. What is the moral thing to do? And if we conclude that we should divert the train to spare the five, but kill the one, what general consequences follow from this decision? And then the scenario can be complicated endlessly. What if the five are members of Al Qaeda and the one is Nelson Mandela? What if we only suspect that the five are members of Al Qaeda?
The antagonist in all the discussions that use the tunnel problem is "moral relativism," that is, the philosophers are searching for a universal basis for morality. My two-bit argument would be that moral relativism (which doesn't equal subjectivism) is a straw dog, because it's the only possible stance that we can hold. Unless we're an omniscient and omnivoyant god, our perspective is always limited, always situated, and thus always relative. Nor, on the other hand, does John Rawls' popular idea of a "veil of ignorance" get us anywhere because there is no possibility that we can ever make moral choices blind to everything but general principles. We're neither all-seeing nor blind, and there is no possibility that we can ever be in either position. We're never not situated, and we all make ad hoc choices depending on our (literal) situation.
Here's my version of the tunnel problem, which I"ll call the professor's dilemma. Scenario #1: I'm teaching my last class ever, and I'm tired of grading. As someone who's left-handed, I believe that we southpaws are generally discriminated against in classes. There are never enough left-handed desks in classrooms, for example . Righties who end up in one of the rare desks whine. We lefties just suck it up and use the numerous right-handed desks. I decide to give all the left-handed students A's and all the right-handed students C's. A few students will be very happy; many more will be unhappy, but they'll still pass the course. I won't have to grade any papers, and I'll have a satisfying sense of justice achieved. Unfair? Agreed. What if I give all the right-handed students D's? Even more unfair since now they will have to re-take the class? Yep. What if I reverse my solution and give the numerous right-handed students A's and the lefties C's? Less unfair (as in the tunnel problem)? Are there unchanging principles that we can derive from this example?
Scenario #2: I realize the error of my ways and decide to introduce a more democratic solution (that still does not entail my grading papers). This time I put it to a vote: if the class agrees, all the right-handed students get A's, all the lefties get C's. Left-handed students get to vote; we include them in our democracy. (Would this be "less fair" if they were excluded?) Is there a difference between a right-handed student who votes yes and a left-handed student who votes no? Each is motivated by self-interest after all. Has a right-handed student who votes no made a more ethical decision than one who votes yes?
Are these scenarios sillier than the tunnel problem? Do any of them lead us to immutable, generalizable moral stances?
Just asking.
I thought of this because a current equivalent, this time in the realm of moral philosophy, seems to be the "tunnel" problem. Twice in the last week I've seen a Harvard philosophy professor on TV using the example, and I keep encountering it in reading as well. In brief, the supposedly exemplary situation is this: you are in a tunnel, driving a train which is out of control and headed toward five people on the track. If the train hits them, they will die. Suddenly you notice that there is a siding onto which you can direct the train, but there is one person on that track. What is the moral thing to do? And if we conclude that we should divert the train to spare the five, but kill the one, what general consequences follow from this decision? And then the scenario can be complicated endlessly. What if the five are members of Al Qaeda and the one is Nelson Mandela? What if we only suspect that the five are members of Al Qaeda?
The antagonist in all the discussions that use the tunnel problem is "moral relativism," that is, the philosophers are searching for a universal basis for morality. My two-bit argument would be that moral relativism (which doesn't equal subjectivism) is a straw dog, because it's the only possible stance that we can hold. Unless we're an omniscient and omnivoyant god, our perspective is always limited, always situated, and thus always relative. Nor, on the other hand, does John Rawls' popular idea of a "veil of ignorance" get us anywhere because there is no possibility that we can ever make moral choices blind to everything but general principles. We're neither all-seeing nor blind, and there is no possibility that we can ever be in either position. We're never not situated, and we all make ad hoc choices depending on our (literal) situation.
Here's my version of the tunnel problem, which I"ll call the professor's dilemma. Scenario #1: I'm teaching my last class ever, and I'm tired of grading. As someone who's left-handed, I believe that we southpaws are generally discriminated against in classes. There are never enough left-handed desks in classrooms, for example . Righties who end up in one of the rare desks whine. We lefties just suck it up and use the numerous right-handed desks. I decide to give all the left-handed students A's and all the right-handed students C's. A few students will be very happy; many more will be unhappy, but they'll still pass the course. I won't have to grade any papers, and I'll have a satisfying sense of justice achieved. Unfair? Agreed. What if I give all the right-handed students D's? Even more unfair since now they will have to re-take the class? Yep. What if I reverse my solution and give the numerous right-handed students A's and the lefties C's? Less unfair (as in the tunnel problem)? Are there unchanging principles that we can derive from this example?
Scenario #2: I realize the error of my ways and decide to introduce a more democratic solution (that still does not entail my grading papers). This time I put it to a vote: if the class agrees, all the right-handed students get A's, all the lefties get C's. Left-handed students get to vote; we include them in our democracy. (Would this be "less fair" if they were excluded?) Is there a difference between a right-handed student who votes yes and a left-handed student who votes no? Each is motivated by self-interest after all. Has a right-handed student who votes no made a more ethical decision than one who votes yes?
Are these scenarios sillier than the tunnel problem? Do any of them lead us to immutable, generalizable moral stances?
Just asking.
Friday, May 4, 2012
After Monday's good test results, the rest of the week has been devoted to the tiling of the first of our two small bathrooms. I had thought that job would take a couple of days, not a couple of weeks (and also that the price would be a third of what it turned out to be). The guy doing the tiling is extremely garrulous and meticulous (i.e., easily distracted and slow). Friendly is good, of course; budding friendship is not exactly what I contracted for. Sometimes I ask myself, "Why bother?" But answering that question with "no good reason" would lead to the inertia of not doing anything--and that's not good.
So I've been at home most the week and doing a lot of reading. One of the most disappointing books--no, the most disappointing book--was Not for Profit, a defense of teaching the arts and humanities throughout the educational system, by Martha Nussbaum, a professor of law at the University of Chicago and prolific writer. As someone who spent his life teaching literature, I certainly have no quarrel with Nussbaum's point, but the book is so feebly argued, so self-indulgent, and so badly edited that it hardly helps its own thesis. Nussbaum's argument, endlessly repeated (even though the book is only 140 pages with wide margins) seems to be that 1) democracy is the best political system, 2) the most important goal of education is to create tolerant citizens who can think critically, and 3) a liberal arts curriculum is the best way to accomplish this goal. Neither of the first two assumptions is examined; they rest just that: assumptions. None of us wants to seem anti-democratic, but it's hardly reassuring when Nussbaum informs us that Athenian democracy is the purest ever to exist (with the brief aside "not to mention" that women, slaves, and foreigners were excluded). Also not mentioned is the debate throughout American history about the limits of democracy and the protection of minority rights; there is nothing about our unease when Hamas is democratically elected in Gaza or our current worries about the outcome of the "Arab spring" in countries like Egypt, where democratic elections may bring a less pro-American government into power than that of Mubarak. She also assures us, with no support, that people would rather be poor in a democracy than well cared for under a non-democratic leader.
Indeed, there is no support for any of her argument except anecdotes, which may or may not be representative, and endless allusions to her heroes: Socrates, Rousseau, and Tagore. (In the first 60 pages we are told three times that Tagore won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. Had her editor dozed off?) In general, no one wants to be seen as intolerant, but the liberal notion that we're all going to leave our beliefs at the door to join in an open discussion of ideas isn't the way the world works. We can't step out of our beliefs; they're not like clothing. Years ago, the GLBT group on campus was having a gathering celebrating diversity. The flyer had phrases like, "Everyone is welcome" and "Come support inclusion." After several similar lines, the last line read, "No homophobes allowed." What tolerance, as poorly defined by Nussbaum as is democracy, seems to mean is tolerating the beliefs of people who already agree with us, which sort of takes the edge off the argument.
If Nussbaum can't convince me, a liberal, tolerant, democracy-loving reader, I don't think she has much chance with those who are supposedly the audience for her argument.
On a happier note, there's a lovely appreciation of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying by E. L. Doctorow in the new New York Review of Books. Although I may be prejudiced, I think Faulkner is the greatest American novelist of the 20th century. With most authors, there's one obvious book to teach (Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter or Twain's Huck Finn or Fitzgerald's Great Gatsy), but with Faulkner, there are so many great novels it's hard to choose. In survey courses, I always did The Sound and the Fury while a colleague taught As I Lay Dying, but I've also taught Light in August, Intruder in the Dust, and The Hamlet when I had the opportunity. I'm not sure what occasioned Doctorow's essay, but it's a thoughtful and enthusiastic introduction to this great, innovative novel. Just to nitpick, though, the character Darl, Doctorow writes, is "suspected of being mental," a word choice that seems inappropriately current; Dewey Dell's name is misspelled as "Dewy Dell" midway through the article; and Doctorow writes, "Who lays dying is Addie Bundren, the mother." I know that the conjugation of 'lie' and 'lay' is undergoing change. There's lie/lied/lied for to prevaricate and lay/laid/laid for the transitive verb meaning to place something: those are stable. But for the intransitive verb to recline, the traditional lie/lay/lain is smudged. None of us, I would guess, have ever actually used the word 'lain.' ("I had just lain down, when...") Still, to use 'lays' as the present tense, as Doctorow does, confuses what Faulkner meant when he titled the book. Addie's "as I lay dying" is past tense; she is dead throughout the novel (although she does get a surprising section as speaker midway through Faulkner's work with its multi-layered perspectives). Quibbles aside, though, Doctorow reminds us of one of the masterworks of modernist American literature.
So I've been at home most the week and doing a lot of reading. One of the most disappointing books--no, the most disappointing book--was Not for Profit, a defense of teaching the arts and humanities throughout the educational system, by Martha Nussbaum, a professor of law at the University of Chicago and prolific writer. As someone who spent his life teaching literature, I certainly have no quarrel with Nussbaum's point, but the book is so feebly argued, so self-indulgent, and so badly edited that it hardly helps its own thesis. Nussbaum's argument, endlessly repeated (even though the book is only 140 pages with wide margins) seems to be that 1) democracy is the best political system, 2) the most important goal of education is to create tolerant citizens who can think critically, and 3) a liberal arts curriculum is the best way to accomplish this goal. Neither of the first two assumptions is examined; they rest just that: assumptions. None of us wants to seem anti-democratic, but it's hardly reassuring when Nussbaum informs us that Athenian democracy is the purest ever to exist (with the brief aside "not to mention" that women, slaves, and foreigners were excluded). Also not mentioned is the debate throughout American history about the limits of democracy and the protection of minority rights; there is nothing about our unease when Hamas is democratically elected in Gaza or our current worries about the outcome of the "Arab spring" in countries like Egypt, where democratic elections may bring a less pro-American government into power than that of Mubarak. She also assures us, with no support, that people would rather be poor in a democracy than well cared for under a non-democratic leader.
Indeed, there is no support for any of her argument except anecdotes, which may or may not be representative, and endless allusions to her heroes: Socrates, Rousseau, and Tagore. (In the first 60 pages we are told three times that Tagore won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. Had her editor dozed off?) In general, no one wants to be seen as intolerant, but the liberal notion that we're all going to leave our beliefs at the door to join in an open discussion of ideas isn't the way the world works. We can't step out of our beliefs; they're not like clothing. Years ago, the GLBT group on campus was having a gathering celebrating diversity. The flyer had phrases like, "Everyone is welcome" and "Come support inclusion." After several similar lines, the last line read, "No homophobes allowed." What tolerance, as poorly defined by Nussbaum as is democracy, seems to mean is tolerating the beliefs of people who already agree with us, which sort of takes the edge off the argument.
If Nussbaum can't convince me, a liberal, tolerant, democracy-loving reader, I don't think she has much chance with those who are supposedly the audience for her argument.
On a happier note, there's a lovely appreciation of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying by E. L. Doctorow in the new New York Review of Books. Although I may be prejudiced, I think Faulkner is the greatest American novelist of the 20th century. With most authors, there's one obvious book to teach (Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter or Twain's Huck Finn or Fitzgerald's Great Gatsy), but with Faulkner, there are so many great novels it's hard to choose. In survey courses, I always did The Sound and the Fury while a colleague taught As I Lay Dying, but I've also taught Light in August, Intruder in the Dust, and The Hamlet when I had the opportunity. I'm not sure what occasioned Doctorow's essay, but it's a thoughtful and enthusiastic introduction to this great, innovative novel. Just to nitpick, though, the character Darl, Doctorow writes, is "suspected of being mental," a word choice that seems inappropriately current; Dewey Dell's name is misspelled as "Dewy Dell" midway through the article; and Doctorow writes, "Who lays dying is Addie Bundren, the mother." I know that the conjugation of 'lie' and 'lay' is undergoing change. There's lie/lied/lied for to prevaricate and lay/laid/laid for the transitive verb meaning to place something: those are stable. But for the intransitive verb to recline, the traditional lie/lay/lain is smudged. None of us, I would guess, have ever actually used the word 'lain.' ("I had just lain down, when...") Still, to use 'lays' as the present tense, as Doctorow does, confuses what Faulkner meant when he titled the book. Addie's "as I lay dying" is past tense; she is dead throughout the novel (although she does get a surprising section as speaker midway through Faulkner's work with its multi-layered perspectives). Quibbles aside, though, Doctorow reminds us of one of the masterworks of modernist American literature.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Spoiler alert: The test results were all good. Everything remains stable, and I'll continue with the current meds, which seem to be working quite well (just in case you want to skip the rest).
My day at the Cancer Center, an homage (or hommage as the French, as overindulgent with m's as they are with butter and cream, write) to Mr. Arbuthnot.
Yesterday the static from my radio alarm pierced the night at the crack of dawn, rousing me from the arms of Morpheus. Actually, it was pre-crack, since I had set the alarm for 5 a.m., giving us only 45 minutes instead of the usual hour to get ready to leave for KC. Psychologically, the difference between 4:45 and 5 a.m. seemed as stark as night and day. While I gulped a dozen pills, let the dog out and gave her a Milk-Bone, and tried to shake the sandman from my eyes, Mohamed showered. Then it was my turn, and by 5:45 we were ready to hit the road. The Med Center is just a stone's throw from I-70 on the Kansas side, and the affiliated Cancer Center just a hop, skip, and a jump south of the main complex. With a little fudging on the speed limit, we can usually get there in 75 minutes. Things were slightly different yesterday: for one thing, a couple of days earlier the long arm of the law had reached out and given Mohamed a speeding ticket, his first during his three years in Kansas, so he was nervous about speeding (though the patrolman, he said, had been as nice as could be). And then yesterday for almost the whole journey the fog was as thick as pea soup. Despite all this, we pulled into the parking lot at exactly 7 a.m.
We were so early that the parking lot was as empty as a Republican's promise. First, I checked in, and there was a brief wait before I was called for the blood work. The nurse, who had graduated from Washburn, put in a port, since I would later need to have dye injected for the CT scan, drew three vials of blood, printed out a sheet of stickers as long as your arm, and put a bracelet seemingly made of space-age indestructible plastic on my arm. From there we went to the basement for the newly scheduled x-rays and the scans. The x-rays have to come first because the barium you drink before the scans interferes with clear pictures. The x-rays went quickly and easily, and then I was given two glasses of what looked and tasted like ice water. Gone are the days of chalky "smoothies." The only remaining downside is that the water (which evidently has barium in it) gives you the chills. Luckily, they give you a warm blanket, which is as welcome as a warm blanket. Usually, the wait is 20-30 minutes, but the time stretched to over an hour because the machine analyzing the blood wasn't working as smoothly as it should have. Finally, I began the scans. They first do a series without the dye and then a second series once the dye has been injected. There's nothing painful or difficult about it (it's as easy as pie, though not as tasty), except that you have to put your arms above your head to go into the machine, and my left arm doesn't extend very well. When the dye is injected, as fast as a New York minute, you get an unpleasant, metallic taste in your mouth.
And then the tests were over. There was a brief wait before the consultation. I was as hungry as a horse, since you can't eat for four hours before the tests, so we grabbed a breakfast sandwich and some coffee. And then we met, first with Jennifer, the physican assistant, and then with Dr. Van Veldhuizen. While we were talking with Jennifer, I mentioned that I had discovered what a physician assistant meant. She had just said that talking with an old English professor made her feel as if she had to watch her grammar, and of course I laughed that off. And then, about three minutes later, comparing a physican assistant with an M.D. and explaining her choice, she said, "If I'd went ...." Only a crotchety old English prof. would focus on that slip while waiting for his test results. At any rate, all the tests were reassuring. The tumor in the kidney isn't growing, all the blood counts are good, and the extra tests revealed nothing unusual in either the femur or the shoulder. Dr. Van is going to send the results to the surgeon to see whether she sees anything he missed, but everything looks good, so I'll continue the current levels of medication. And the 75-minute ride home was much more relaxed than the ride to KC. Thanks to all of you who expressed concern about the tests and the results.
(While I've been typing this, it's been raining cats and dogs, or as the French so eloquently say comme une vache qui pisse. The French are vachement cultured!)
My day at the Cancer Center, an homage (or hommage as the French, as overindulgent with m's as they are with butter and cream, write) to Mr. Arbuthnot.
Yesterday the static from my radio alarm pierced the night at the crack of dawn, rousing me from the arms of Morpheus. Actually, it was pre-crack, since I had set the alarm for 5 a.m., giving us only 45 minutes instead of the usual hour to get ready to leave for KC. Psychologically, the difference between 4:45 and 5 a.m. seemed as stark as night and day. While I gulped a dozen pills, let the dog out and gave her a Milk-Bone, and tried to shake the sandman from my eyes, Mohamed showered. Then it was my turn, and by 5:45 we were ready to hit the road. The Med Center is just a stone's throw from I-70 on the Kansas side, and the affiliated Cancer Center just a hop, skip, and a jump south of the main complex. With a little fudging on the speed limit, we can usually get there in 75 minutes. Things were slightly different yesterday: for one thing, a couple of days earlier the long arm of the law had reached out and given Mohamed a speeding ticket, his first during his three years in Kansas, so he was nervous about speeding (though the patrolman, he said, had been as nice as could be). And then yesterday for almost the whole journey the fog was as thick as pea soup. Despite all this, we pulled into the parking lot at exactly 7 a.m.
We were so early that the parking lot was as empty as a Republican's promise. First, I checked in, and there was a brief wait before I was called for the blood work. The nurse, who had graduated from Washburn, put in a port, since I would later need to have dye injected for the CT scan, drew three vials of blood, printed out a sheet of stickers as long as your arm, and put a bracelet seemingly made of space-age indestructible plastic on my arm. From there we went to the basement for the newly scheduled x-rays and the scans. The x-rays have to come first because the barium you drink before the scans interferes with clear pictures. The x-rays went quickly and easily, and then I was given two glasses of what looked and tasted like ice water. Gone are the days of chalky "smoothies." The only remaining downside is that the water (which evidently has barium in it) gives you the chills. Luckily, they give you a warm blanket, which is as welcome as a warm blanket. Usually, the wait is 20-30 minutes, but the time stretched to over an hour because the machine analyzing the blood wasn't working as smoothly as it should have. Finally, I began the scans. They first do a series without the dye and then a second series once the dye has been injected. There's nothing painful or difficult about it (it's as easy as pie, though not as tasty), except that you have to put your arms above your head to go into the machine, and my left arm doesn't extend very well. When the dye is injected, as fast as a New York minute, you get an unpleasant, metallic taste in your mouth.
And then the tests were over. There was a brief wait before the consultation. I was as hungry as a horse, since you can't eat for four hours before the tests, so we grabbed a breakfast sandwich and some coffee. And then we met, first with Jennifer, the physican assistant, and then with Dr. Van Veldhuizen. While we were talking with Jennifer, I mentioned that I had discovered what a physician assistant meant. She had just said that talking with an old English professor made her feel as if she had to watch her grammar, and of course I laughed that off. And then, about three minutes later, comparing a physican assistant with an M.D. and explaining her choice, she said, "If I'd went ...." Only a crotchety old English prof. would focus on that slip while waiting for his test results. At any rate, all the tests were reassuring. The tumor in the kidney isn't growing, all the blood counts are good, and the extra tests revealed nothing unusual in either the femur or the shoulder. Dr. Van is going to send the results to the surgeon to see whether she sees anything he missed, but everything looks good, so I'll continue the current levels of medication. And the 75-minute ride home was much more relaxed than the ride to KC. Thanks to all of you who expressed concern about the tests and the results.
(While I've been typing this, it's been raining cats and dogs, or as the French so eloquently say comme une vache qui pisse. The French are vachement cultured!)
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