Interviews

Darin Strauss Imitation:

If I had wanted to divulge anything that I condemn myself for, I would have done so already. I would have come right out and said it, and not withheld anything from those who wanted to know.

All the same, the escapability of admitting my shortcomings keeps me from writing them out on any piece of paper with my name attached to it. And I'd like to pretend that everything about me is normal, but that in and of itself would not be normalcy. I rarely admit my faults out loud. No one ever taught me how to do it: Hey, just tell them you can get a little neurotic sometimes. Mention the flaw in passing, Don't draw too much attention to it.

Back then, I didn't know that was how you were supposed to do it—quickly, so that the flaw can't get too comfortable. Next, change the subject as fast as you can. Or you can take a negative flaw and try to make it into a positive. “Sometimes I over-extend myself at the office” or “I can be too organized.”

Why didn't I know these guidelines back then? Why did no one debrief me? When I look back now, it strikes me as odd that I never deliberately considered the negatives. You'd think all of the time spent being self-critical would have lead me to identify the most pronounced weaknesses and attack them. Or to figure out what these pitfalls of my personality are and to accept them. But the truth is, I never really let myself think about my shortcomings. Except when someone points the finger at me, calls me out, tries to force me to see just exactly what's wrong with me. Yet when that happens, I shut them out, a world outside of my own, refusing to listen. Isn't this normal? Doesn't it make sense that we repress our recognition of our bad parts, to keep them from being too real?

So when they asked me, “What's your greatest weakness?” I sat there for a minute. I shifted my eyes to right, transfixed them up above on the ceiling. I wriggled in my seat, the interview came to a screeching halt.

be still my heart

"He is in critical care," the Intensive Care Unit nurse had explained to us as we sat in the waiting room. "By that, we mean that we are unsure if he will survive." I remember thinking that her tone was far too methodical to be delivering news about the fragility of life, the newly tangible possibility of death that had burst into the foreground. We all recognized it was there, but sidestepped the topic in conversation, like barefoot people avoid a shattered wine glass on a tile floor. Death was our new next-door neighbor.

Critical Care. Unsure if he will survive. We.

Who was this “we” she was referring to? Was my family included in the collective “we,” or was she exclusively referring to the medical team, who to me consistently seemed like they knew more about his condition than they were letting on? Was my familial “we” merely seen as a group of outsiders looking in on the spectacle that had suddenly and with an overbearing sense of emergency become our lives, like a group of elementary school students staring through the glass to see some sort of zoo animal? We must have been, for it all seemed much bigger than we were, with more fortitude. What an incredible powerlessness, to watch a pack of M.D.s aflutter, circling around him on a hospital bed. Which is why I didn't watch at first. The condition was invisible but weighed so much.

“You can go see him if you want to,” someone in the waiting room suggested. The doctors and nurses had him hooked up to a thermo-cool machine, which they said was to prevent the brain damage that goes along with the loss of blood flow during cardiac arrest. At the time I remember being perplexed by this—why would they induce hypothermia on a sick person? After the fact, I looked into it a little more to get a better understanding of what it all meant.

Approximately 300,000 people in the United States {experience sudden cardiac arrest each year} ...Despite nearly 40 years of prehospital advanced life support, the survival rate of out-of- hospital cardiac arrest is very poor. Less than half of victims who develop return of spontaneous circulation survive to leave the hospital alive, and the cause of death is anoxic brain injury in most patients who die within one month of the cardiac arrest. Inducing mild therapeutic hypothermia {using thermo-cool catheter} in selected patients surviving out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest has a major impact on long-term neurologically intact survival and may prove to be one of the most important clinical advancements in the science of resuscitation...Hypothermia after cardiac arrest in humans demonstrate{s} decreased mortality[i].

This was when the doctors weren't sure what the results of his stent surgery would be, so we waited impatiently as children on Christmas Eve, but bereft of the excitement; in its place, there was dread and anticipation of the worst.

In times like these you lose track of what day it is. You completely forget your work schedule. You systematically respond to phone calls and texts asking about his progress, asking if you need anything. You always say “The prognosis is good. The doctors are optimistic. No, I don’t need anything,” but you aren't sure why your impulse is to lie. Are doctors ever optimistic? And your needs are through the roof. I guess you know there is nothing anyone could offer you that would ground you in the present, that would fulfill the capital N needs like Stability, Answers, Time, The Future.

People you have never met before are suddenly dropping off dinners in square Tupper Ware containers that you will never eat, and every time you walk in the front door, your grandmother is vacuuming your living room again, the home phone is ringing, and the tea kettle seems to perpetually whistle.

---

[i] emedicine.medscape.com

Benioff Imitation

He entered the coffee shop on West 29th completely stoic, and as he pushed through the swinging glass door, the bells jingled. It seemed a cheerful entrance for such a bleak expression.
I notice him after feeling the breeze as the door swung open, chilling me just enough to remind me that it was January, and that the circumstance of our meeting must have been somber. I eagerly flagged him over, waving my winter hat. He conceded without changing his expression. Although Wes was never the type to let on too much about how he was feeling, he seemed especially cold and detached, his face blank from what I judged to be exhaustion.
“Hey,” I said to him. “What's going on? I haven't been able to get a hold of you lately.”
He collapses into the booth, shrugs with his whole body, and glances down at a list of the available lattes and flavored coffees. The chocolate pastries, fresh fruit and breakfast options were nothing but another novelty to scoff at. The waitress came by, her plastic smile seeming plastered on a little bit too intentionally for her to not have the inevitable tip in mind.
“What can I get for you?” she chirped, her little pony-tail bouncing around as she spoke.
“Coffee,” he said with no inflection, never looking up from the menu.
“Do you want a flavor shot? We have peppermint, gingerbread, hazelnut, raspberry...we also have some really yummy seasonal creamers and this new kind of sweetener, if you--”
“Give it to me black,” he cut her off coldly. She walked away, certainly feeling that her battle had been already lost.
“You'll feel better if you just talk about it,” I assured him—my futile attempt at coaxing the clandestine information from his hypothetical death grip. He stared blankly at me, the bags under his eyes pronounced, his lips chapped—he was surrounded by a sallow haze. He personified the drudgery of winter that seemed would never subside.
“What happened,” I demanded, banging my fist on the table for emphasis.
He finally looked up at me, with a strange detachment and said, “use your imagination.”

* * * * *
She had never worn that look before, and he couldn't quite classify it. When they met, usually on weekend evenings, she approached wearing a smile—one she really committed to with her painted lips, fully exposed teeth, blushing cheeks, and squinting eyes; but not contrived—natural. This look was different, she appeared to be dispassionate from the redundancy of the recent grueling turn of events, a prisoner of her own pain. She was not wearing the one year anniversary necklace, the two year promise ring, the two-and-a-half year earrings, and she did not reach for his hand reflexively like she usually would.
He did not even shave for this outing, the prickly pores seem to her almost a personal attack. Care more, she wanted to throw the words at him and let them shatter in the atmosphere like a porcelain vase, for they were certainly as fragile. He smelled less of cologne and more like Five Guys fry-cookers. She was certain that he had forgotten the fire that went before, his usual response to her presence was missing.
“Hi,” she said, crossing her arms instead of opening them for an embrace.
Sensing that there was an issue, he fumbled for her hand.
“What movie do you want to pick?” he asked. “It's your call,” he added, grasping at straws.
“I don't care,” she said, staring straight ahead at the movie listings and times, avoiding his eyes at all costs, trying to ignore the warmth of his fingers on her palms.
He immediately regretted not stopping for a bouquet of flowers on the way over.

?

I learned at an early age that everything has a price,

especially the words that we let escape our lips.

So if I'm looking for an exit from conversation, a way to distance myself,

it's another way of saying I'm avoiding .....

(I have to finish this later)

Dad

Dad loves his family more than life itself,

though he never had the smarts before.

He is beginning to learn about blank stares,

eye-rolls, stark yes and no, I don't knows,

and when to let it go.

He is no longer too proud to understand

that we are defined by other factors,

more than just a product of his DNA,

although he still shovels the snow

even though the doctor said not to.

a reaction to the homily on Sunday

I went to Church this past Sunday for the first time since Christmas Eve. The priest said that 10% of our happiness depends on circumstance, the rest depends on our attitude.

Food for thought: you wouldn't say that a child growing up in a low-income area with addicts for parents can gain entry to a high-achieving school just on his or her good attitude, would you? Circumstance is everything.

Circumstance sways our attitudes. If I'm driving down the road in a good mood listening to my favorite song with the windows down and suddenly I have a flat tire, I'm not going to maintain my good attitude...that's for sure.

I don't know, that homily just made me think a lot.

My parents can't help that they have a developmentally disabled child. They did not choose that for themselves. No matter how good their attitudes are, that will always remain their reality.

It's easy to make blanket statements about the importance of having a good attitude, but it's not easy to keep a good attitude when circumstance is constantly slapping you around.

DEPTH IS IMPORTANT

my inability to allow myself to be visibly angry with you

keeps me from sleeping at night

I think about it, what it all means about how you feel about me,

and what's wrong with your hypothetical lack of feelings--

repressed fury looms all around me

and here I am at 1 AM,

gonna skip the gym again in the morning because I stayed up late wondering why you can't figure it out that I'm mad,

and I'm a human traffic jam all over.

Fucking appreciate me.

Why can't I sleep?

I'm going to miss another work out.

Why doesn't he appreciate me?

Maybe he would if I went the gym every once in awhile.

That's stupid, just go to sleep...

^^and we are stuck. I am stuck.

would I feel better to lash out?

cathartic, yes, but you would just lash right back, and I'd cry.

there's no directions I could give

to get you into my mind,

and there's no road-map, either.

and you're just a guy.