Me and everything I don't know

Why 2007 Will Be Better: Exhibit A

Proof that 2007 would trump 2006 by a long shot came at 2:30 a.m. on January 1. I was heading back home after a celebratory evening at Rosemary's.

We had gathered at her Upper Westside flat and snacked on crudités and played Cranium and taken many picture of one another taking pictures of one another with our many digital cameras, and then taken more pictures of one another scrolling through the slideshows on our digital cameras of the many pictures we had already taken of one another taking pictures of one another.

Then we got serious: Rosemary distributed pens and paper, and we grew quiet, writing down everything from 2006 we wanted to let go of. Grasping the pages with tongs, we set them aflame above a Pyrex bowl filled with water. Thick and black with ash and unburned edges, the water was then dumped into a garbage bag. Rosemary held it aloft as we marched single file down her hall, past the closed doors of curious neighbors, to the garbage chute. I opened the chute, the bag was placed on the slanted metal tray, I closed the chute — we waited with bated breath — I opened the chute — and tada! Everyone cheered. I punched my fist into the air. All of it was gone, all that we were so glad to leave behind. (Can you guess what might have been on my list? A medical condition or two? Oh, perhaps. More like twenty-five.)

Back in the apartment, we launched into part two: On strips of construction paper, we wrote all that we were grateful for in 2006, from the most mundane (the N train) to the miraculous (the Republicans lost!), and linked each strip, ring after ring, into a child's colorful chain. Six feet later, a pessimist like me might begin to believe 2006 had not been so trying and intolerable as previously thought, or at least, that the long stretches of darkness had been studded with small jewels. (Your name appeared on one link, and oh yes, yours on another, and yours, too. Do not doubt it.)

We looped the chain around the string of fairy lights that stretched across Rosemary's living room. On her TV, a stroke-frozen Dick Clark began to count down to midnight in Times Square, the place all of us were so glad not to be. 10-9-8-7-6...1! We jumped up and down and hugged wildly. Our gratitudes swayed above us. A quiet boom sounded in the distance and we gathered at Rosemary's window, peering above and between the tall buildings to catch fragments of the Central Park firework display — brilliant red teardrops falling from the sky.

Finally it was time to head back to Brooklyn. I was wearing the small treasure I had found at a Lower Eastside boutique the day before. Midnight-blue wool mini-dress: Red, blue, and white stars cascaded down my shoulders and chest; the London skyline, done in brown and white, stretched from my waist to the hem — Big Ben, the London Bridge, Buckingham Palace. Heavy ribbed tights and tall black boots completed the outfit. In theory, absurd; in practice, adorable. I pulled on my heavy hooded coat and headed into the night. It was 2:30 a.m. and balmy enough to go gloveless. I was still awake and energized — a week in San Francisco had proved a mighty restorative. I felt for the first time in many months my age again. Vibrant and 35 — not gray and parched and deep-bone-tired.

I boarded a 2 train at 72nd Street and curled onto a seat, hugging my red handbag to my side. The car was quiet, only ten or so others riding along with me. I rested my forehead against the metal pole. The passengers swelled at 42nd, ebbed at 14th. Suddenly two boys appeared at the front of the car. They could not have been more than eighteen — tall, lanky, loping. They sauntered down the car. "Happy New Year," they called to each passenger, flashing tipsy grins. The first boy reached me. "Happy New Year!" he grinned. He was guiless, glowing with youth. "Happy New Year!" I said and smiled back. He stopped, eyes widening. "Damn," he said, "you look good!" I laughed, startled.

The second boy was upon us now. He bumped into his friend. "She look good!" announced the first boy happily. The second turned his eyes on me. "You do look good," he echoed. I laughed again. "I'm getting on my knees for you," he announced and began to lower himself to my feet. "Let it be known" — he wobbled before me — "I'm on my knees for you!" I was blushing, chuckling. "Really, you're too kind," I said. He took my hand before I knew what was happening. "I'm on my knees," he repeated proudly and kissed my knuckles. "Okay, maybe you should get up..." I said, flustered and tickled all at once, while the first boy soliloquized about beauty. All of a sudden I felt a kiss on my knee. "Time to move on," I said. I helped him to his feet. "Happy New Year!" the boys offered again, and I smiled, and off they went, spreading cheer down the length of the train.

I was still blushing beneath my bangs once they were gone, too shy to raise my head and face the witnesses to this theater. My chin tucked into my coat, I peeked to my right. A woman my age sat down the row of seats. She was bundled up against her boyfriend. Our eyes met. We smiled — knowing, complicit. "Wasn't that something?" I said with my eyes, "Wasn't that a delight?"

"Oh, yes," her gaze said silently, "Teenage boys! At your feet. What a way to ring in the New Year."

Christmas Gifts

The black fleece vest my bro Mushu requests annually

Annie Liebowitz's book of stark, stunning photos, per Mom and Pops wishlist

A silky crumpled scarf in gray and black for Mom, from MOMA

A Fats Waller box-set for Pops, whose feets really are too big

A large, astoundingly round gourd for Mom's front porch.

Jess's face emblazoned on a portable mug, so Mushu can stay close, even on the road

Da Least Bad-Lookingk

Tuesday afternoon, a tall man with a combover came to my apartment bearing many plastic machines with metal parts. He was dressed elegantly, all in black, and he had the greatest Brooklyn accent I've ever heard: "So, ya thinkingk da mold is whea?"

I had contacted him after a mold sample I'd taken from the shower tiles suggested three different strains. It's all about ruling things out. Make sure the apartment isn't making you sick. Call in the mold man, if that's what it takes.

He rolled his yellow phone-thing along the walls and ceilings to test for moisture — not a peep until the shower, when all of a sudden it's beeping like mad. Aha, major "moistchah buildup behind da tiles"! Indicating likely need to dismantle the shower and remediate before re-tiling.

The air-particle testing antennae, meanwhile, cited 300 mold particles (per some dimension that I don’t remember) in the bathroom, versus a mere 80 in the kitchen. Then again, "Of da cases I seen dis weekend, dis is da least bad-lookingk." But to conclusively determine the mold severity, fancier tests had to be taken: two capsule air-particle tests, and a swab from the shower grout. "They're expensive," he warned me, seemingly reluctant to add to my bill. But no matter. I had to know.

The tall man had climbed up and down the four flights to my apartment three times, once carrying a fifteen-pound growling box necessary for the fancy tests. But he smiled about it all. I had made him happy. "I like when customahs ask me questions. Whadelse? Whadelse d'ya wanna know?"

He told me about one of the worst cases he ever saw. "These Polish guys. They were from Poland." Big guys sitting around — big like bears. This house in Queens. Every wall black with mold. "You wouldn't believe it — up to here!" (He held his hand up to his chest.) The air was so bad, he said, he was coughing, could hardly breathe. Turns out these guys had been living there eight years, and it had always been like this. "Eight years we been here," one guy bragged, "Never had a cold, never sick, not one of us!" Every year, they just added a fresh layer of paint over the chest-high mold. "You’re crazy," the tall man told them, "Why don't ya do something about it?" "Ah!" cried the Pole, sweeping his arms through the air. "It's all bullllsheet! Waste of money. Bullllsheet!"

The tall man was so tall that when he swept his arms through the air like the Pole he filled up all the space in my studio.

He promised to have the test results by the weekend. I wrote him a big check. Then he trudged down the stairs with his fifteen-pound growling box and drove away.

The Bolts Are Out

My friend Steve had a dream about me last week. He described it in an e-mail:

"There was a terrible flood. The ocean slowly rose, and everyone had to move into the woods with a sleeping bag. 'That's it,' I thought, 'All of my belongings are underwater somewhere.' I had a strange feeling of acceptance and calm about the whole thing.

"I didn't know anyone in the dream. It was all very anonymous, though not lonely. Then....I saw you! You were very You, very Lilan. You bounded up to me and said, 'Look, Steve! They took the bolts out of my leg! All better!' You lifted your pant leg and there were two or three faint scars, above and below your knee, where bolts had held some kind of brace in place. You seemed not in the least concerned about the flood. And around then, I woke up, quite content."

Me, bounding? Unperturbed in the face of disaster? I can't wait.

Ssssshhh...

This blog is sleeping.

Lilan has been struck low by a combo of chronic fatigue and viral infection. Double-whammy.

Whee!!! Fun.

This SUCKS

So I had hoped I'd be getting back to life as normal by now, telling funny anecdotes on my blog and stuff like that. But here I am once again asking for your support, because I don't know what else to do: My health feels rotten, as bad as it has at any point since surgery, and my spirits have plummeted too. They are scraping the ground behind my heels, like a pair of pants that need hemming.

The chronic fatigue symptoms have persisted for the past five weeks, and now I have some kind of cold bug too. Together they've teamed up to keep me at home, in bed, in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon.

It's hard to keep hoping I'm going to get better when every day I don't, you know? And it's hard to keep telling myself the surgery will make a difference when so far there's no indication.

I don't have anything positive to say. Only: THIS SUCKS. I am SICK of it.

I am assuming you guys might have a sunnier outlook on my life than I do. Please share with me. Please.

Waiting

Waiting for the swelling to subside and the scars to fade.
Waiting for the Dems to take the country back.
Waiting for The Parenting Group to be sold and my career to be secured.

But mostly...waiting to walk a flight of stairs without losing my breath.
Waiting for my eyes to stop burning and my ears to stop aching.
Waiting to wake from less than eleven hours sleep feeling rested and refreshed.
Waiting to travel...to date...to hit the gym...to go out on a Saturday night(!) — and to do it all without finding myself blurry-headed achy-all-over too-weak-to-rise mystery-sick the following day.

Oy, pathetic.

You would think I'd be up and at 'em, what with the seventeen supplements I'm now taking. Yes, you heard me. Seventeen. They form a two-foot line along my tabletop.

There's your standard multivitamin, your vitamin C, your woman-friendly Omega-3. There's the enzyme to take before eating and the high-potency probiotic thereafter (20 billion bacterial strains restoring the microflora balance of my gut).

There's the supplements to enhance my body's post-surgical healing: Dry Vitamin A; Zinc Palitonate; a big fluffy scoop of Whey Protein — the same gaggy, tinny taste of the Carnation powdered milk from my childhood camping trips.

To build energy, there's another pale powder, CorValenM (what's with the caps in between?!), commonly used among the fibromyalgic set. Couple that with a sweet liquid Tbsp of L-Carnitine and a fat red capsule, Co-Q10, and the fatigue is supposed to be put to rest. Transfer Factor Plus (what is this, Star Trekk?), with its thymic factors (?) and glyconutrients (?) apparenty builds immune support, as do my 2 tangerine Emergenc-C packs a day. Mmm, fizzy drink.

Don't forget the detox: WellBetX, which contains I know not what; ButyrEn, a calcium-magnesium mix; and Super Milk Thistle X, which wipes the liver clean of whatever it is that builds in it.

Have I forgotten anything? Oh, right, the gooey white Tbsp of liquid Calmag to send me into peaceful sleep.

You think that's a lot? I haven't even started on the meds yet.

Come back, life the way it used to be. I'm ready for you. Come back.

God Bless the FDofA

Saturday I heard the news:

"The government ended a 14-year virtual ban on silicone-gel breast implants Friday despite lingering safety questions, making the devices available to tens of thousands of women who have clamored for them."

The FDA's Dr. Daniel Schultz said manufacturers must gather detailed information on 40,000 implant patients over the next 10 years. Information will be collected on:

rupture
connective tissue disease
neurological disease
effects on offspring
effects on reproduction
effects on breastfeeding
cancer
suicide

Now let me ask you, if something is safe enough to be on the market, why exactly would the FDA order manufacturers to track these health risks (mild as they are, ahem) in 40,000 implant recipients? Wouldn't it be wise to do the research before the potentially rupturing, leaking, toxin-filled sacks are inserted into women's bodies?

I guess there's just some super sophisticated scientific reasoning behind the decision that I'm not smart enough to understand.

Then again, the National Organization of Women doesn't get it either:

"In recent months, more and more evidence has accumulated that manufacturers withheld critical information clearly demonstrating that silicone implants are not safe. The FDA has shown little interest in examining concerns expressed by their own scientists or the allegations of industry whistleblowers.

"A recently published peer-reviewed study showed that women with implants, and their children, who are ill with autoimmune diseases and other health problems, have high levels of a toxic form of platinum, which was found in samples of their blood, tissue, hair, nail, urine and breast milk. Rather than attempting to replicate the study, FDA officials responded by dismissing it, following the lead of scientists who are paid consultants to implant makers."

But that's not all:

"'Women should be outraged by this reckless decision. Bush-appointed FDA leaders are once again endangering the public health, this time to enrich manufacturers and cosmetic surgeons,' said NOW President Kim Gandy. 'Sadly, we are not shocked that this agency is swayed more by money and politics than science and medicine. And I doubt it's a coincidence the FDA issued approval during the 'lame duck session' just before Congress is set to change leadership. The new Congress would likely have exercised more oversight, in order to limit political influence over decisions at the FDA.'"

Those NOW ladies sure are pissed (but what do you expect: they're feminists).

Dr. Sidney Wolfe, Director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, is equally uncooperative:

"Silicone gel breast implants are the most defective medical device ever approved by the FDA... It is a terrible reminder of the double standard for women versus men that the FDA has not approved silicone gel testicular implants because of the inadequacy of clinical trials on these devices."

As for me, I'm grateful for the men in suits. You know us females. We get all hysterical about stuff. We're always making up illnesses and complaining about things that don't actually exist.

Turns out I haven't actually been sick these past four years. It was all in my mind. What a relief.

Shut Up and Draw

What life's been like:

What dreams may come:

Nothing in the World Worse (okay, maybe something)

Sunday night I woke suddenly, chills chasing down my body, nausea rocking me on my futon bed.

I didn't know what it was. Dairy reaction? 24-hour flu?

The way I was trembling, my insides swimming — I remembered a BiBimBop dinner years ago, 33rd Street (aka Korean Row), my friend Tanya crumpling to the curb, pale as paper, too queasy to take one step further. I hailed a cab and sent her home to Williamsburg, where she spent the night vomiting up Kimchee and julienned egg.

Now I could feel something rising up in my chest. All I could think was: You have got to be kidding.

China Tung was to blame. China Tung and its $7.50 quart o' steamed chicken and broccoli — no sauce, no seasoning, no rice, no nothing — but apparently something. I'd been ordering from there for months, ever since the fatigue, when the prospect of rinsing asparagus, dicing carrots, and setting water to boil after a long day's work became, well, unthinkable.

I came upon China Tung via takeout menu, the kind that breeds on your doorstep when you're not looking. Its pagoda illo and red-inked options hinted of cracked linoleum floors, backlit food photos strung above the counter, a kitchen you can peer into but would really rather not. The kind of joint you find on every New York block, the kind you'd never enter.

Ten minutes. From phoned-in order to doorstep delivery — ten minutes is all it took. That was the reason I ignored what my gut had been telling me all along.

I crawled to the bathroom and buckled over the toilet. The nausea rolled in, wave after wave. Please get out of me, I mumbled, please. Relief came in chunks — but within seconds I'd be shivering, spinning all over again, praying to vomit. Thirty minutes might have passed, maybe an hour. I lay my cheek on the toilet seat and began to whimper.

I wanted not to be alone. I wanted someone there, holding back my hair at the nape of my neck. Handing me tissues. Walking me back to my bed. There was only Cleo and she doesn't say  much.

The last time I'd known nausea this bad was after my first surgery five years ago. My chest was bandaged and throbbing; the anaesthesia and pain meds wracked me further. I was like a ship thrown against the cliffs, over and over again. I'll never forget the look on my father's face. Powerless to anchor me. As if the pain were his own.

Now slumped on the cold tile floor, I decided there was nothing in the world worse than nausea. Real full-body nausea. Nothing.*

And then I thought how lucky I was that, with all my mystery ailments, I rarely felt this way. So many women I've known who've had to cope with chemotherapy and all its woozy side effects. Or my friend G., who was hit by that rare pregnancy affliction — nine months of morning-sickness rather than three — not once, but twice.

See, there's always something to be grateful for.

Within a few hours it was over. I made it to work Monday morning and, by midday, was eating normal. For dinner I did not order in. Tuesday morning I discovered something new. It burned and I whimpered. I didn't know what it was. Then I recalled another friend's recent complaint, and I realized I was suffering the same: my first-ever h—  Oh, I can't, it's just too embarrassing.

Suffice it to say: You have got to be kidding.

*Okay, sure, there's being eaten by a plague of locusts and drowning in a vat of Strega Nona's pasta, but I wasn't exactly in the best shape to be thinking beyond my curremt frame of reference.