Paradoxical Reality
As May tumbles on, and I prepare for summer half marathons, a possible November marathon, and a Lupus walk, I am keenly aware that I haven't diatribed on the makings of Lupus as of late. Sometimes it seems moot and trite to continually harbor on about the rashes and aches and fears and fevers and . . . sometimes. I also like to forget.
My world evolves on like a seamless ocean of student faces, runs in the park, Yankees games, papers for scoring, and shapeless and nameless encounters on the street. Bad dates abound, as a recent one with a MD ended with an expensive glass of scotch in his lap. On the first date. He asked me what I do for a living, after affirming to me his greatness with a scalpel, and then he asked how many professors I've slept with. Alluding, or outright saying depending on your take, that I couldn't possibly have a fancy three letter degree without having shagged my way there. Yes, a mother fucker is needed here. Mother Fucker. Sadly, I've had a similar encounter to this in my not-so-distant past . . . Mother fucker, indeed.
Intertwined within these moments and days of commonality and sameness aches, pains, and creeks abound. Lying beneath the covers on a fifty degree night I will sometimes shiver like it is the depths of winter with chills in the negatives. Lifts down stairs leave me shaky and feeling twice my age as I gasp for air and clutch the railing as I am uncertain of my spacial realm. Then on other days I scorn the covers on a fifty degree night and lay there in sweets suitable for a crack fiend gasping for a fix. Runs up and down stairs are agile and full of grace, like the classic image of women in heels making every man's head turn within a fifty mile radius.
In a paradoxical reality I have the comfort/safety of a full line, and health insurance is toted via a card in my wallet's slots. Climbing the stairs is easy, after a day of teaching and writing. My long-haired golden retriever named Kentucky greets me with kisses and snuggles. I sink into a couch with a glass of red, watch the Yankees beat the shit out of the Red Soxs (or any opponent they have), and the sirens and trains of the city rock me into a peaceful slumber. When the morning alarm buzzes I slap the snooze (let's face it, that ain't ever gonna change), Kentucky pulls me for a walk, and when I look in the mirror I am not appalled and often horrified at the face starring back at me. Sometimes in this reality there is the companionship of a lover-type, but the bad dates and wasted glasses of very fine scotch don't exist.
On a cool summer evening I eat shrimp salad from the local market. I eat at restaurants without fear that some shit will ignore my request of sans red pepper.
My fictional story of Piper and Vaughan has the time to complete and the academic books don't get carved for moments of minimal existence. I sleep peacefully, and stories of Lupus patients leave moments for ponder. When I sing along to Adele and Daughtry I sound sexy and soulful.
Instead, my mainstay reality has me teaching an obscene amount of classes for part-time pay, living without health insurance, and the uncertainty of the next paycheck is constantly on my mind's forefront. The parallel bitch, who lives within me, leaves her opaque marker on my skin in bruises and discolorations causing layers of makeup and far too long in front of the mirror hating what is starring back at me. I know the aches and pains. I read Lupus news and stories and my heart always breaks knowing that this life is my permanent reality. Handfuls of Wonder Woman aides still sit on my dresser, and blood shot eyes send alarm for anemia. The bed is lonely, as Kentucky is Lialia . . . the dog I borrow from my roommates. Glasses of red wine are rare and small, as the sulfur preservatives hate me. I slip Advil when people aren't looking if I decide to indulge in normal amounts of adult consumption.
I eschew shell fish, red pepper, and meat. I miss shell fish and red meat. Sometimes I eat chicken and turkey, to know that I will feel swollen joints the next day. I go out with friends, painstakingly searching the menu for something easy to order so that I will not appear needy and a shit.
I try to date, but for the most part I have given up as I have little tolerance for stupidity and arrogance. I thrive on conversation and intellect. Far too often, the douches I meet are of inferior quality and do not have the slightest grasp of what an academic does. More so, the pain of men who slinker away with the thought of a girlfriend with Lupus is getting harder and harder to bear. Liars who are with another woman are beyond belief.
As sad as I sound, I do what I love and love what I do. I actively publish and write, and I live happily and unabashedly within the grim, sirens, and insanity of NYC. I love it here, where my heart has made itself whole. I have friends within a stone's throw who I see semi-regularly, and those who aren't in the mecca are only a text or Facebook message away. I run along a skyline view of this place I call home, I order my coffee every morning (like a hardened New Yorker), I know the characters of the block, and I am welcomed by my neighbors in my small Queens building. As my music blares through my door and down the communal building hallway it mixes with the piano upstairs and someone's television. This is the New York and life I love. Yet, Lupus resides just inside me avoiding photographic detection unless she rears a very ugly head on my outer skin. I do well at keeping her at bay. I do well at hiding her from those who don't need to know.
I do damned well at pushing her bitchy head down as I plug through a run, cussing, and closing my eyes through the pain. Some days I end a multi-mile route with a feeling of glee. Sometimes I ache like a Lupus patient does without a run. I push on. This is the reality I live in, and this is the reality that most of us have to embrace. It's a hard psychological position to be in. Our disease doesn't have an entire industry of support here, or massive waves of capitalism pouring in various amounts of donations. Instead, we are still on the fringes of respectability and donation mainstream.
This month is Lupus Awareness Month, and I'm doing another Lupus walk in the mecca I call home. In light of that, donations are welcome. I set the bar low, so as I wouldn't seem overly needy in asking for money . . . let's face it, there are a lot of causes these days. But, go donate a dime or more. Perhaps one day my paradoxical reality will become the mainstay of my life.
My world evolves on like a seamless ocean of student faces, runs in the park, Yankees games, papers for scoring, and shapeless and nameless encounters on the street. Bad dates abound, as a recent one with a MD ended with an expensive glass of scotch in his lap. On the first date. He asked me what I do for a living, after affirming to me his greatness with a scalpel, and then he asked how many professors I've slept with. Alluding, or outright saying depending on your take, that I couldn't possibly have a fancy three letter degree without having shagged my way there. Yes, a mother fucker is needed here. Mother Fucker. Sadly, I've had a similar encounter to this in my not-so-distant past . . . Mother fucker, indeed.
Intertwined within these moments and days of commonality and sameness aches, pains, and creeks abound. Lying beneath the covers on a fifty degree night I will sometimes shiver like it is the depths of winter with chills in the negatives. Lifts down stairs leave me shaky and feeling twice my age as I gasp for air and clutch the railing as I am uncertain of my spacial realm. Then on other days I scorn the covers on a fifty degree night and lay there in sweets suitable for a crack fiend gasping for a fix. Runs up and down stairs are agile and full of grace, like the classic image of women in heels making every man's head turn within a fifty mile radius.
In a paradoxical reality I have the comfort/safety of a full line, and health insurance is toted via a card in my wallet's slots. Climbing the stairs is easy, after a day of teaching and writing. My long-haired golden retriever named Kentucky greets me with kisses and snuggles. I sink into a couch with a glass of red, watch the Yankees beat the shit out of the Red Soxs (or any opponent they have), and the sirens and trains of the city rock me into a peaceful slumber. When the morning alarm buzzes I slap the snooze (let's face it, that ain't ever gonna change), Kentucky pulls me for a walk, and when I look in the mirror I am not appalled and often horrified at the face starring back at me. Sometimes in this reality there is the companionship of a lover-type, but the bad dates and wasted glasses of very fine scotch don't exist.
On a cool summer evening I eat shrimp salad from the local market. I eat at restaurants without fear that some shit will ignore my request of sans red pepper.
My fictional story of Piper and Vaughan has the time to complete and the academic books don't get carved for moments of minimal existence. I sleep peacefully, and stories of Lupus patients leave moments for ponder. When I sing along to Adele and Daughtry I sound sexy and soulful.
Instead, my mainstay reality has me teaching an obscene amount of classes for part-time pay, living without health insurance, and the uncertainty of the next paycheck is constantly on my mind's forefront. The parallel bitch, who lives within me, leaves her opaque marker on my skin in bruises and discolorations causing layers of makeup and far too long in front of the mirror hating what is starring back at me. I know the aches and pains. I read Lupus news and stories and my heart always breaks knowing that this life is my permanent reality. Handfuls of Wonder Woman aides still sit on my dresser, and blood shot eyes send alarm for anemia. The bed is lonely, as Kentucky is Lialia . . . the dog I borrow from my roommates. Glasses of red wine are rare and small, as the sulfur preservatives hate me. I slip Advil when people aren't looking if I decide to indulge in normal amounts of adult consumption.
I eschew shell fish, red pepper, and meat. I miss shell fish and red meat. Sometimes I eat chicken and turkey, to know that I will feel swollen joints the next day. I go out with friends, painstakingly searching the menu for something easy to order so that I will not appear needy and a shit.
I try to date, but for the most part I have given up as I have little tolerance for stupidity and arrogance. I thrive on conversation and intellect. Far too often, the douches I meet are of inferior quality and do not have the slightest grasp of what an academic does. More so, the pain of men who slinker away with the thought of a girlfriend with Lupus is getting harder and harder to bear. Liars who are with another woman are beyond belief.
As sad as I sound, I do what I love and love what I do. I actively publish and write, and I live happily and unabashedly within the grim, sirens, and insanity of NYC. I love it here, where my heart has made itself whole. I have friends within a stone's throw who I see semi-regularly, and those who aren't in the mecca are only a text or Facebook message away. I run along a skyline view of this place I call home, I order my coffee every morning (like a hardened New Yorker), I know the characters of the block, and I am welcomed by my neighbors in my small Queens building. As my music blares through my door and down the communal building hallway it mixes with the piano upstairs and someone's television. This is the New York and life I love. Yet, Lupus resides just inside me avoiding photographic detection unless she rears a very ugly head on my outer skin. I do well at keeping her at bay. I do well at hiding her from those who don't need to know.
I do damned well at pushing her bitchy head down as I plug through a run, cussing, and closing my eyes through the pain. Some days I end a multi-mile route with a feeling of glee. Sometimes I ache like a Lupus patient does without a run. I push on. This is the reality I live in, and this is the reality that most of us have to embrace. It's a hard psychological position to be in. Our disease doesn't have an entire industry of support here, or massive waves of capitalism pouring in various amounts of donations. Instead, we are still on the fringes of respectability and donation mainstream.
This month is Lupus Awareness Month, and I'm doing another Lupus walk in the mecca I call home. In light of that, donations are welcome. I set the bar low, so as I wouldn't seem overly needy in asking for money . . . let's face it, there are a lot of causes these days. But, go donate a dime or more. Perhaps one day my paradoxical reality will become the mainstay of my life.
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