nadir

Right around this time last year started the most difficult series of trials I've faced in my life.  Every time one insurmountable challenge seemed to finally be resolvable, a new and improbable catastrophe arose.  

After Penny was born, I wanted to believe everyone who told me how motherhood would be, that there would be routine hardships but that all would pass.  As the weeks and months passed, it became clear that in this situation, too, things were not normal--the delivery, my recovery, and most importantly, Penny's health.  This was all overlaid on our family's pending international move.  

This past week, as we hopefully finished a month-long series of doctor's visits and tests for one of Penny's medical issues while Peter was abroad, she became violently ill.  Somehow I still believed that she was normal, that this was a routine illness like all babies get.  She had turned 6 months the day before, and I figured her immune system was robust enough to handle whatever it was.  Instead, she got worse, had to be rushed to the hospital, invasive testing was performed, and we got a new and again improbable diagnosis.  Because she is an infant, she will have further invasive testing done, and there is a significant chance of permanent damage from not only the illness, but also the testing, and the treatment.  She will have to be rushed to the emergency department every time she has a fever, and furthermore, there is no consensus among doctors regarding how to deal with the condition, which is the subject of much heated academic and clinical discussion and is extremely complicated.  There is no cure, only damage control.

I am exhausted and profoundly sad.  Sorry to everyone for being so out of touch.

bukowski

from buzzfeed


also, for those that don't mind more classic bukowski vernacular:



The History of One Tough Motherfucker


he came to the door one night wet thin beaten and
terrorized
a white cross-eyed tailless cat
I took him in and fed him and he stayed
grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway
and ran him over
I took what was left to a vet who said,"not much
chance…give him these pills…his backbone
is crushed, but is was crushed before and somehow
mended, if he lives he'll never walk, look at
these x-rays, he's been shot, look here, the pellets
are still there…also, he once had a tail, somebody
cut it off…"
I took the cat back, it was a hot summer, one of the
hottest in decades, I put him on the bathroom
floor, gave him water and pills, he wouldn't eat, he
wouldn't touch the water, I dipped my finger into it
and wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didn't go any-
where, I put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to
him and gently touched him and he looked back at
me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went
by he made his first move
dragging himself forward by his front legs
(the rear ones wouldn't work)
he made it to the litter box
crawled over and in,
it was like the trumpet of possible victory
blowing in that bathroom and into the city, I
related to that cat-I'd had it bad, not that
bad but bad enough
one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and
just looked at me.
"you can make it," I said to him.
he kept trying, getting up falling down, finally
he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the
rear legs just didn't want to do it and he fell again, rested,
then got up.
you know the rest: now he's better than ever, cross-eyed
almost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in
his eyes never left…
and now sometimes I'm interviewed, they want to hear about
life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,
shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,"look, look
at this!"
but they don't understand, they say something like,"you
say you've been influenced by Celine?"
"no," I hold the cat up,"by what happens, by
things like this, by this, by this!"
I shake the cat, hold him up in
the smoky and drunken light, he's relaxed he knows…
it's then that the interviews end
although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures
later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photo-
graphed together.
he too knows it's bullshit but that somehow it all helps.



from yourcatwasdelicious

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