The Wormlips Scrapbook

The instant-messages that fly between Lulu and me are always scintillating and, as you can see, sometimes even touching:

Yo-Nenny — I keep telling you: if you want me to write about you too, you have to come over so I have something to say. Okay?

Honestly: daughters!

I spoke with one of my doctors today. Not my new foot guy from England or my old foot guy whom I miss. Not the eccentric surgeon who became an MD at 21 in India. Nor my GP whom I’d follow to the ends of the earth and in fact do follow all the way to Folsom. No, this is another of my legions. When I log onto my HMO’s web site, the dropdown menu of my docs practically hits the floor.

Don’t worry: I won’t rattle on about what body part is doing what (though “rattle” is descriptive of my general comportment). Suffice it to say that something’s been up for the past six months, maybe an allergy, that makes eating painful. And there are unidentified neurological goings-on that have my medical battalion baffled.

So on the phone today, Doc 847 asked a number of questions, probing for the tiniest clue. Suddenly his nose twitched (probably) as he scented a warm trail. Something about temporal lobes.

Have you been experiencing a heightened religiosity lately? he asked.

Huunh? I replied delicately. Me?

Or are you writing more than usual?

Uh, well, actually…

I ask you, gentle reader of my imagination: Do those four blog entries last night count?

No, really. That’s creepy. How did he know about all this writing? Suddenly I don’t feel like writing any more. Goodnight.

Speaking of which, I dreamed last night about my dead friend Kathy. I saw her in a rich but subdued garden: exotic, dark plants without blossoms or color. It was her garden, she told me, and she’d planted it in the year since she died. Now she spends all her time tending it and redesigning it. She’s doesn’t miss radio at all, she said, and the gardening keeps her from missing us too much. She’s used to being alone anyway. Unlike my most of my dreams about dead people, I got to touch and hug her before she faded.

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I want chocolate. Now. But I’m not allowed to have any for another month.

How are you today? Did you have a good week?

I didn’t, and am glad it’s over. Chocolate flake mint ice cream on a sugar cone would would be a fitting way to celebrate.

First of all, I had a certain test scheduled which I’d been dreading on account of its requiring that I drink four liters of a certain foul liquid the preceding night. It wouldn’t have been half as bad if I could’ve cut the taste every cup or so with a handful of potato chips. The test itself was great: superior drugs. All along, as I watched very ugly things on the TV monitor, I chatted with the medical team. About what, I have no idea. I have the unfortunate habit of yammering when sedated. My theory is that it’s an artifact of my obsessively polite Northeastern upbringing. During procedures I’m terribly afraid the doctors and nurses will be bored. Not just that: here they are doing this thing for me, and I’m not even helping. The least I can do is engage them in running conversation.

As I left that appointment a nurse (not the one who missed my vein or the one who told me about her sex life) gave me a glossy, full-color photograph, which I promptly scanned and sent to my daughters.

I’m grateful to my dear daughter Yo-Nenny who chauffeured me. When we got home, I decided it would be unwise to try to make changes to my pride and joy: the brand new The DNA Files Web site. So got into my PJs, put my chocolate bar on top of the icebox and watched the rest of The Staircase.

Speaking of which, I really don’t see what harm just a little chocolate would do.

I’m getting tired of writing. This is boring.

Week’s Highlight

Last night at 11:00 pm I heard clompy footsteps and ebullient voices on my front porch. There was a sight that made me run and grab my camera: M and two buddies, passing through from the U to a party.

I hadn’t seen my little girl for the longest time ever — close to a month — and it was bliss just to get a good look at her and give her a hug before they headed off into the night fifteen minutes later.

Really, it’s not that I want chocolate. I need chocolate.

Photo of the Week: Stella

Goodnight.

[chocolate flake mint ice cream]

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Cheryl & I just Skyped. It appears we’ve had a miscommunication — a friendly one. She’s had a long-term plan to trek with another friend this spring.

• I could swear I remember her saying that, because of this, spring is not an option for my visit.
• She thought she’d told me that she can shuffle plans with her other friend to free up time for a spring trek.

I felt a jolt of hope when I realized I might see Nepal after all, depending on a million variables. Then I got confused. Having painfully but finally cut loose that idea, I’d begun investigating other destinations. Now I no longer know what to do. I really want to visit Cheryl in Nepal. I also really need to get away before spring, and South and Central America have been calling. Can I do both? I guess it’s a good kind of quandary to be in. And as Lulu philosophized when she was three, “Oh well. Life is life.”

Notes to self: Ideal trekking time = last three weeks of April; contact Thakur about good rafting at that time of year (Cheryl sez the Marsyangdi is beautiful; I still want to go to the Kali Gandaki, or if I had ten days to spare I thought I’d want to see the Sunkoshi — despite the following excerpt:

Speaking of Lulu, I’ve just been instant-messaging her. (If Internet technology didn’t exist, I wonder what I’d be doing tonight.) I’ve told her about this latest unfurling and asked for her advice:

“Play it by ear. Don’t stop looking at other options, but continue to hold Nepal as one too.”

She’s as wise now as at three. With exceptions. Like deciding to ride her bike in flip-flops today:

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