The New Normal

So, today I did what it looks like I will be doing off and on forever.  Back to the hospital so they can pull more blood and see how this new drug is affecting my little Invader.

They do this in the room where chemotherapy  is administered via IV.  Old men and women looking tired, blank... and sometimes forlorn.  Young, French-manicured girls texting on their smart phones... Varying faces of the same insidious crap.
Believe me, I am very aware that I have it easy in comparison, but it is odd to sit in this room, in these chairs on the same level and see who is affected and how.
Clearly, cancer is extremely ecumenical in its choices...

It is an unpleasantly decorated room.  Robin's Egg blue walls, baby-shit brown easy chairs... no magazines and pictures of THE LORD are everywhere.  It's a 7th Day Adventist hospital... whatever that means.   I've always gotten 7th Day Adventist and Latter Day Saints mixed up... so maybe the nurses wear magic underwear and are good at math while being vegetarians.  All very confusing.

I stare out the window at the vivid blue sky and green mountains that surround the building--contrasting with the very deep and apparently damaged red coming out of my vein, through a small tube into a vial to be dissected by triage nurses and interpreted by my Oncologist.

This is the new normal.  That and fighting dizziness and humourous onset of fatigue that has me bumping into things, reeling and forgetting what I'm saying in the middle of a sentence.

What is also strangely new is a deeper and surprising appreciation of ... well...everything.  Conversations, food, friends...  Focusing on things and finding that it is indeed oddly easier to be more present for the present.  (Taking the moment present as a present for the moment.  Ah, Stephen...)

Had dinner last night at Sierra Nevada and the table ordered things like Pig Cheeks...
Someone ordered bone marrow and my inner inappropriate thirteen year old almost asked the waitress to check and see if it was a match.  I may need it.   Ah, black humour...

In the middle of all this, Spring has descended where I live; the rarefied splash zone where The Smokies meet The Blue Ridge and Appalachia.
So, what to do...
Well, garden my ever-narrowing arse off.  How about that?

Today, I put up a Bluebird house made of cedar and a "squirrel-proof" Bluebird feeder filled with mealworms.  Oregano, Parsley, Mexican Tarragon, German Thyme, Lavender, Chives, Dill, Marjoram, and--just because I want to watch them (hopefully) grow and bloom, Dahlia, Lilly of The Valley, Morning Glory and a very aptly named Sarah Bernhardt Peony... Seemed appropriate... The Drama Queen of Flowers.  And a magenta hanging petunia.

I have this weird feeling, I may start growing vegetables and generating my own electricity out of what Dawg leaves in the ivy.  Beard to my belt and spouting Foxfire quotes while looking like a ZZ Top refugee... I'd fit right in.

They say every seven years, time waves a hand over your face and your soul... Aging you and adding vintage.  I have to say, looking back, that is absolutely true.
So... bring me your tired, your poor... your hungry wine snobs yearning to breathe free.
Here I stay.

Chemo Fun

Yesterday, the Chemo (Sprycell... still can't get over the name... ah, Marketing) arrived and I took the first pill.  Sat and stared at the box for a while before opening it, as I was grateful to my Doc and her team for getting it to me for a 25 dollar co payment.... (12 grand a month... GAWD...), but wasn't exactly looking forward to see what side effects would commence.

All I felt was some big-time grogginess and a bizarre urge to hit the bathroom when I was at a friend's house.  I think my dog must have felt some empathy, because when I came out of the bathroom, he squatted down and dropped a deuce on my friend's floor in solidarity---looking up at me with a goofy grin on his face.  And he's housebroken!!!!!! Humiliating...  Cleaned it up, apologised like a shamed serf and got the beast outside.

I reeled around her house for another half hour, bumping into things and cursing and then decided that this was completely ridiculous, so I drove off  and raided the plant nursery at Ace Hardware.  Dahlias, Peonies, Lily of The Valley, herbs and lots of dirt.  If I'm gonna go down Chemo Lane, it's going to be LOADED with flowers.

As this is also about food, I made this amazing little ramekin dish called Oeufs en Cocotte.  You butter a smal porcelain ramekin, put a tablespoon of cream in it and drop it in a quarter inch of simmering water on the stove ("water bath").  When this is hot, you break an egg into the ramekin and let that get hot for a while...then you take this out, drop another tbs of cream on top and add a dollop of butter (unsalted).  Toss it in the oven and bake at 375 for 7 minutes.
Take it out and let it set for about five.
Eat.
GLORIOUS.

I love French food.  My Grandfather had a disturbing antipathy toward France and all things French, which I found inexplicably odd as that is primarily the DNA on that side of the family, but lucky for me, I do not share this affliction.

Vive la Freakin France, y'all!

Life's little detours.

One of the horrors of doctor visits are the routine check ups that produce... unexpected results.
For instance,  I go for a normal blood lab/check up and am told that my white cell count is at 280,000.  It's supposed to be no higher than 20,000.  I am then immediately sent to a Hemotologist/Oncologist.  This is also told to me at 7:45 in the morning.  Hearing both, "I don't know" and "...Oncologist" at Dawn Thirty dwindles the day's normal pursuits to nil.

After a bone marrow biopsy--in which they corkscrew a 20-gauge needle into my rear right pelvic bone and yank out a 1/8" thick piece of bone with marrow attached, it is then sent off to Yale Hospital and biopsied. 
Yep... My ass went to Yale.

Sure enough, I have Chronic Myeloid Leukemia.
When the doctor said these words, I'm sure my outward appearance didn't change, but the panoply inside my brain was more or less:  "You have Cronic Myeloid Leukemia and....".  My hearing  ceased at "Leukemia" and that word repeated itself on continuous loop--sounding more and more like Charlie Brown's teacher, Miss Othmar.  The Doctor's lips were still moving, but I wasn't actually hearing anything.  Memory waxes poetic, I'm sure, but this is my recollection of hearing The News.

In 24 hours, I became a layman's expert on this disease. 
Prior to 1991, it was more or less a death sentence, but due to the invention of a medication called "Gleevek"... and now it's second generation, "Sprycell" (interesting name.... as if my cells are about to skip off to a Jazzercise class), it is now possible to send this into a very long remission.  How long?  No one knows, but everyone in the chronic stage in 1991 who began this drug is still asymptomatic and doing well.

Sprycell is an oral chemotherapy that I will apparently be on for the rest of my life, long or short, until I have a bone marrow transplant.  This all sounds rather Grand Guignol, but I apparently a good candidate.   I am seemingly "Young and in good health".  When I was told this, I wanted to look behind me to see if the Doc was addressing some stallion with perfect teeth, giant biceps and a tan, standing just up right.  Apparently the criteria is low.

Today, the meds arrived FedEx.
I have good insurance, thank you Cigna/Actors' Equity... as this crap is TWELVE THOUSAND DOLLARS A MONTH.  Due to the work of the Social Worker assigned to this (my) case, I only pay a co-payment of 25 a month.  Less than a gym membership. 
To a bad gym. 
...On the wrong side of town.

So...
Today begins the "Journey", as friends are calling it.  Frankly, that sounds a bit too Hallmark-y.  How about...
Today I started chemo.
Let's call this what it is.
I have cancer.
Cancer.
It is treatable, manageable and ostensibly the Monaco of cancers, but I hate sugar coating things.   Tell me the truth, be direct and then let me know what I can do to kick this sorry, invasive bitch into the dirt where it belongs.

The good thing is, I have this little reminder in my brain to be aware that life is short.
To that I say--Life is short, but it is wide. (Borrowing a quote from Rebecca Wells).  I have no symptoms, I feel fine and I plan on continuing that paradigm!

In the meantime folks-- eat well, buy good wine, don't sweat the petite ca ca, make up with your family members and fr-amily members, take your vitamins, call your mother and come by my place for dinner.

44, meet 12.

The other day, I realized that I was approximately 8 minutes and 31 years from Camp Arrowhead--where I was packed off in 1979. I remember it distinctly because Vivian Vance died that summer and it was the first time I was away from home for an extended period of time.

NOT THE BEST IDEA...

When you're twelve and your concept of team sports extend only to brunch and shopping--and hormones are doing what hormones are gonna DO at that age--to be surrounded--in the freakin' wilderness by a bunch of other feral, sports loving boys is an invitation to abuse, terror and confusement.

Paraphrasing-- it was a horrible experience but for winning a horse show and learning how to sail on Lake Summit. I was never more homesick in my life. And there were spiders... BIG SPIDERS... the kind with visible, unblinking eyes, fangs... and HAIR.
GOD!

So, cut to 2010--thirty one years later, I am doing a play at an Equity theatre here and realize that I am closer than I ever wanted to be again to this place, but seeing as how I was here, I thought--well, might as well go and put the demons to bed.

I drove off the highway, on to a state road.. then on to a county road, then onto some gravel... Turning up the radio VERY loud to a current station, I tried to remind myself that I am a 44 year old, grown man. A few deep breaths, then a turn onto the property to find that NOTHING HAS CHANGED THE SLIGHTEST BIT IN OVER THREE DECADES. Holy crap.

The current and very kind staff (who had seen our show here in Flat Rock) allowed me carte blanche to roam as long as I was long gone by three as that was when they locked the gates. As that scenario was far too Dante-esque to contemplate, I turned pale, gulped and quickly agreed.

I started by heading to cabin 5... my cell-- I mean home for five long weeks. Surprise led to complete shock when I saw that there was still graffiti on the walls and ceilings going back to 1957. I found my old bed and laid down on it. When I saw, "Preston Dyar. 1979. I HATE it here!!!", on the wall I jumped to my feet and high-tailed it out the door.

Walking all over the place, I tried to come to grips with what had been an unusually scrappy and miserable summer. I realized that it was not the place... The place was idyllic and absolutely charming... nor was it SOLELY the other kids. I knew that I was ... well... an UNUSUAL child, so I had to take some responsibility for it all.
Roaming every square inch of the place, smelling long gone scents of trees and cedar that made the logs of the cabins, I forgave the others... the place... and myself.
Joining me on this little uphill schlep on Memory Lane was an Irish Setter puppy that truly refused to let me be alone until I got back to my waiting car.
It was lovely to have the company, because frankly, I could see this turning into a Stephen King movie at any moment.

As I drove away--knowing that I would never see the place again, I locked myself more firmly in the present knowing that the distant past was just that. Remote and VERY past.

Then I pulled into Umi and ate my own weight in sushi and raised a glass to old wounds, new lessons and the grace that unites them both.

Then I took a VERY long nap.

Flat Rock, My Ass.

Two days of gardening in Flat Rock, North Carolina at my friend's house.
The name of the town in this particular case is misleading as the rocks are not so much flat as shattered into hundreds of pieces and scattered about the back garden of her place.

Day one included denuding the area of every weed known to mankind and getting lashed across the face with a swathe of poison oak. Lovely. Yet, we managed to get the area clear and then take off to all the nurseries of the area with a vengeance and purchase a Japanese Maple and a "Burning Bush". Lovely Autumn additions to what is becoming an Asian-inspired, terraced rock garden.

Dig the hole, add the soil, scream at what you thought was a rock as it uncurls itself into some creepy hybrid of Cricket/Locust/Tarantula and run for the refrigerator where all the Coors Light is kept. Sit for a few moments, sweat like a field hand, stare blandly into space, start an argument--just to get the blood flowing and then back to the Back 40.
By the end of the first day, we really began to have something nice.

Day 2:
The Rental of the Log Splitter. A GIANT Jurassic Maple Tree fell over in their yard and the bottom-most parts of the trunk are positioned around their fire pit. The rest of this monstrous tree snakes off into the woods like some long dead, serpentine remnant. As we hauled them all over to the log splitter, I pulled all the weeds (some taller than I) out of the soft ground. At 9 am, we started a fire and at 11 pm that night, it was still going. Unbelievable. Logs, rotten fence, weeds and Rhododendrons all chucked on this inferno as we saw a garden emerge.

On a personal note, I loathe Rhododendrons.
They are gritty, bulbous and the flowers are ugly.
Like dirty, fat people with bad hair. No wonder it's the Regional Flower of The South.

12 pain-killers, umpteen beers and countless cracks and groans later, I returned home to sleep. We later sat around the fire pit and roasted hot dogs, made S'mores (Have never had those things... wow) and drank champagne...

From cursing the ground in the am, to drone-like work in the pm, to catatonic champagne stare in the darkness, "Never again!!", became... "Look at all that wood we found... You know... an ARBOR...and what about Wisteria???"

Bland stares became bright-eyed, whispering complicity as our backs heal, her husband rolls his eyes and we think about tomorrow...

We are winding down a run of The Producers here at Flat Rock Playhouse and it has been nothing but nonstop joy to be onstage in this production.
I feel as if something terrible is going to happen to me because it is truly the most fun I have ever had on stage. The songs are in my key, the comedy is a joy to play and the damned dress fits!!!!
It will be sad to put this away, but this is moving to the top of my resume.
As always, it is a joy to be here.
Our audiences have ranged from joyfully intelligent (getting every nuance and joke) to silent and hostile (not getting any of it and probably thought they were about to see South Pacific), but I don't care as this wins the prize for THE best production I have ever been a part of. Working with old friends, making new ones, getting giddy reviews, cooking for "framily" and laughing my butt in rehearsals and backstage at old and new jokes.
It is a bit scary to return to being a nameless New Yorker, but shows like this are the reason I am in this business and I can only hope to play the part again!
Thanks, guys and gals of FRP!

Halal, Help and Humour

Had the great idea to make Chateaubriand last evening. STUPIDLY, having lived in Manhattan in the past--where I can pretty much be assured of getting cuts of meat without need of a Berlitz guide, I thought I could pretty much just walk into any butcher and ask.
Ah... silly me.
First Stop. C-Town. No such luck. Didn't have it, but at least she spoke English... well, sort of.
Then off to Trade Fair--deep in the heart of the Hood, however it's open 24 hours and USUALLY has everything and anything. Just never need to ask anyone who works there a question. It's not a language barrier because I asked in Spanish. They're just kind of ...dim. We went to the Halal butcher in the back (yes, the same place in which I was asked last December if goose was meat) and asked for tenderloin. He said yes, and handed us cheap sirloin, then argued that yes this WAS what we were looking for. Deciding not to take the meat and hurl it at the surly son of a bitch, I let my FAR more diplomatic roommate handle the situation.

Off to butcher number three.
Another Halal joint on Jamaica Blvd. Replete with no a/c, no refrigeration to speak of, flies, an unidentifiable smell of putrification and a glass counter full of severed and bloody GOAT HEADS.
I think I managed a gasp and clutch, before I almost ran to the car.
BAAAAAACK to C-town where Mrs. Kim gave us "good price" on steaks. Served that with demi-glace, Gratinee Dauphinois, Mussels steamed in Vermouth, butter, shallots, parsley, bay leaves, thyme, salt and pepper, my roommate's near perfection in the form of Ceviche and a Tarte Fraise which we just ate out of the plate without cutting it. "Family Style". Sounds better than, "We went at it like refugees".
Overwhelming heat, alleviated by a newly bought and oddly successful fan in the window and hauling my a/c down several flights of stairs.
Last big dinner of the Spring.

Two more weeks of this nonsense and then off to the mountains of North Carolina.