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So,
been having a hell of a
week. Spent
Mother's Day in the
ER, saw my primary the
next day and we have a
nice chat during which
she reminds
me—not her
precise words—but
she works for Jeff
Bezos and he can fire
her based on spending
too much time with a
patient. She begins to
talk noticeably faster.
That’s the bad
news. Good news is she
knows me, so…I
trust her.
Later, my oldest
who’s off to work
in Dallas for a month,
suddenly sends me a
text. Could you pick
up a prescription?
Sure, no problem. I can go over there, good excuse for a walk.
Taking a more or less
straight route past the
bakery to the back
where the Pharmacy is
located, I'm
spending most of the
time consciously
reminding myself I don't shop at Safeway.
And yet here I am in a
giant Safeway, boycott
be damned. The staff
back there’s
perfectly nice, but my
stubborn hippie ass has
personally to make a
holodeck out of it.
Pretend it's not
real, even though the
prescription is. At the
end of the day you
don't want
holomedicine.
Meanwhile, it's mango season and they got them everywhere so I
can proceed over to Trader Joe's (a little solidarity given this
recent mishigas over a developer proposing to tear it down and
build a pair of market-rate towers—21 story and 31 story—on the
site. That's another story though.) I don't go through the parking
lot. I go down the sidewalk to get to the entrance. It's safer.
And here's a guy standing with an accumulation of stuff, and as
I’m moseying past, he makes mention of my hoodie, which says I
stand with standing rock. He wants to know more and I tell him yeah I think they lost.
Bear with me. It's not possible to reproduce the conversation; the
only thing I can safely point out is that when I left home for
Safeway for a quick-pick-up son’s prescription it was 12:15 and
I'm now home.
It's 3:15.
I'm not usually the kind of person who talks on and on with some
rando on the sidewalk, but I have been known to engage. I could
say don’t get me started with a wee chuckle, especially about
recipes or music theory or voice teachers. Or protests when
strangers chatted with no agenda, no checking your watch or
making lame excuses. Lots of chances to maybe go sit in the
shade for a bit. A band is going by and you have to shout over it.
Happen to be cars? Motherfuckers gonna honk!
This was a little different because I had to stand up through the
entire time with no respite—not like it was hot out or
anything—but man, after awhile my dogs began to bark. Every
time I started to disengage, Mr. Thing pivoted. (I'm trying to
make a mental list): there is Stephen Hawking, Steven Hawking’s
wife, who apparently wrote a book about electromagnetism,
there’s PTSD, there’s a plant that he’s got growing in one of his
conveyances, and we take a picture of that and it turns out it’s
nightshade. I say man that is poisonous, and he's like hell to the
no I eat it all the time it fixes PTSD. He says he's half Mexican
half Italian, but grew up in Mexico. I tell him my French mother
spent 20 years in an apartment just down the street, where
coincidentally back in the day the whole area was an Italian
community, evidence of which still exists in the form of a
Colombo social club. He lights up with a giant smile. I say my
grandson is off to become a nuclear engineer and he immediately
responds make sure he avoids working on... something, I don't
remember what. We connect over the immensity of the cosmos
and bemoan the separation of beings from their blah blah blah.
We even give each other a hug and he says I’m a beautiful spirit. I
tell him all about the neighborhood up in arms about the
developers trying to infill us with giant towers. Hell, there’s
another one in the works right across from the Safeway I was just at, only it clocks in at only nine stories. Don’t get me started.
He’s horrified.
The only hint in the entire two plus hours that he might have one
oar out of the water was when he repeats what he had just told
me an hour ago. But by and large, it’s a pleasant conversation. We
get into inter-generational trauma: his with the family arriving
here and then splitting off, some going to Mexico and some
settling elsewhere; mine bi-furcating with my GI dad and his
French war bride. Both our families have world wars and
Vietnam in common. Then again, who doesn’t?
Now, I have to admit as a woman it seems baked into me that
there's a bit of, eh, you know, how do I put it? Compliance. And
that began to bug me so I quietly began monitoring it. Am I
reflexively nodding in agreement? Am I letting him talk over me?
Am I actually bored and I want to leave? The answer to all of
these things is equivocal. I feel like a woman exiting any situation
is fraught if you're with a man. There's a calculation that goes on.
At least that's my experience. I wasn't having an out-of-body.
That's happened before so I’d recognize it.
What was familiar about it was the gentle emergence of conflict
combined with fear. Rewind to the top of the page, remember
how I was at the ER? Guess who recommended that? A guy.
Guess who I see at the ER? Women. At no time did anybody there
say I put myself at risk by making the decision not to hustle over
there in the evening where I prolly would have been released at 2
AM. No, I made an executive decision to go counter to (a man’s)
Advice. All things being equal and no copious sweat/radiating
pain/vomity stuff, I made my own plan to get up and walk over to
the hospital in the morning. No rain in the forecast, so that was in
my favor. And goddam, after six hours and two EKGs, I’m good to
go. The weather is beautiful.
Jesus, now I'm collecting women. Amongst my primary, the
hospital and the pharmacy that overwhelming preponderance is
female authority figures.
Okay, this is weird. I'm recalling that in our exchange of niceties,
my Rando and I described our families. He brightened noticeably
when I said I had three sons. And commiserated at the lack of
daughters. I'm imagining that somehow if I say I have three
daughters and he commiserates that I have no sons, would that
be because of the imperative for male heirs…?
Anyway. I go buy some mangoes, give him half and then go
home.
The contact information from me to him that he begs in parting,
gentlemanly flourishes with pencil and pad, is all fake.
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