Thanks to Dave ...

For reminding me that I find this terrifying.

Y… M… C… A
(Tonight's workout accompaniment: Dream Theater: Awake

I made it to the gym for the first time since January 12, tonight. Having been ill for most of January, and then being away for a week for the death of my grandfather, it seemed like I hadn't been to the gym in ages.

Much to my surprise I managed 45 minutes on the elliptical machine. But I'll leave the weights until tomorrow night, thank you very much.

It's funny, how giving up an hour of one's evening to exercise can make one more creative and feel like there's more hours in the day. Completely anti-intuitive, that.

I'm finally beginning to feel like my life's a little bit back to normal. Work continues to be busy, but in a good, creative way. Thank God for five-week magazine deadlines, every once in awhile. And I even made it to Lenten services last week, and plan to do so again.

I've actually even had a few hours to work on Chapter Two of my derivative fiction. I'm doing a final edit tonight and should be able to get it off to my beta before bedtime. Horray!

Next weekend, Beatrice is coming to Milwaukee with me. We're going out for fish fry Friday night (though I don't think she likes fish) and we're making cookies with Grandma on Saturday. She said she's going to sleep in the car. I think her normal bedtime is 9:00.

At home ... but not

I went to a poetry reading at a local high school tonight. My friends Em and Eric invited me. Of the two schools represented, Em and Eric's was certainly the most poetically gifted. Though there were some nice surprises from the other school.

Sure, I live near Chicago and I could go to a poetry slam any night of the week, if I wished. But it's Chicago, and I never really feel up for dealing with the pretentiousness.

It felt like home to sit in the high school auditorium under dim lighting and listen to the students read their work. I'm ten years older, but I still miss that easy camaraderie, that supportive environment of being surrounded by other artists.

I miss the spikes and the painted-on tears and the mail-order-molded-to-fit fake fangs. I miss the sex-and-death poetry, the my-heart-is-on-a-plate-with-a-fork-in-it poetry and the kill-cute-and-fuzzy-bunnies poetry. I miss the interpretive dance and the barbershop quartets.

I miss keeping a guitar around, not because I play, because at any given time one of my guitar-playing friends might drop by.

I miss the community of people which self-identifies as "artists." I work with self-identified writers and designers, but for the most part I don't get to breath words and color and metaphor with these friends outside the working day.

My art, my writing is a solitary practice, now.

Sometimes I regret having said:

"James LaBrie has very nice thighs."

My funny valentine
(And other assorted thoughts)

• Someone (my "secret pal") sent me a very strange valentine involving a wallpaper heart-basket, a profane poem and a nice poem. Was it you? Seriously. I have no idea who it's from.

• I have dragon-arms, much to the envy (I'm sure) of Dinosaur Neil, Rob, and the thousands of kiddies I'll be fighting to get my hands on a midnight copy of Half-Blood Prince.

• What's this about a FARC Halloween party in D.C.? Sign me up!

Where is thy sting? Part One: The Facts

I got the telephone call late a week ago Saturday. It was 9:30 p.m., and my mom told me they'd just taken my grandfather to the hospital.

Grandpa's been seriously sick with emphysema for seven years. It's not terribly unusual for him to go to the hospital. His body just doesn't work the way it should, and often he just needs an "oil change" as he calls it.

Usually when he's in the hospital, I ask my mom whether I need to come home. She usually tells me "no." Saturday night, she said "I can't decide for you whether to come home."

I got to Milwaukee at about 11:30 on Saturday. Sunday morning we went to the hospital, and stayed with Grandpa for the whole day. My uncle drove down from northern Wisconsin. Grandpa didn't look good and was an exceptionally high concentration of oxygen, but his spirits were up. There was a student nurse named Kate who'd taken to him, and who was quite attentive. She was exceptionally accomodating to the family, and let us stay late past visiting hours. He asked whether I needed to get back to Chicago for work on Monday, but I told him it was more important for me to see him.

I was having a hard time keeping myself together. When we held his hands, he told us not to be sad when he died. He told me not to cry for him. He said he hoped he didn't make it through the night.

My uncle, mom, dad and I came home, ate ice cream and had a couple of drinks. My family medicates its psyche with comfort food.

We got a call at about 11:00 p.m. that his pulse oxygen had dropped to 70, and the nurse suggested we come back to the hospital to be with him, if we wished. We asked the nurse to ask Grandpa whether he wanted us there. He said "no."

We half-slept all night waiting for the call. When I opened my bleary eyes Monday morning and ambled out to the kitchen, it was very clear Grandpa had pulled through the night.

We spent all day Monday with him. My dad picked up Grandma at her home and brought her over to the hospital to visit. My aunt and cousins came down from northern Wisconsin, then drove back the same night. Relatives that happened to be in town to visit another very ill relative stopped by to visit. My grandma started crying when she saw them. Grandpa decided to stop the intensive breathing treatments, begin a morphine regimen (morphine decreases a person's air-hunger) and start hospice (end-of-life comfort) care the next day.

We said tearful goodbyes again, Monday night. And on Tuesday, we were back to the hospital. Grandpa was not doing as well. The morphine helped him breathe, but also made him less aware of his surroundings.

My mother had promised Grandpa we wouldn't let him die in a hospital if we could help it. He hated hospitals, with all their beeps and sterilized surfaces and constant activity. We made an appointment to take him back to his home.

The ambulance took him home at 3:30 that afternoon. The hospice social worker and nurse were waiting for us when we arrived. The oxygen compressor and morphine had not yet arrived.

Grandma and Grandpa spoke to each other, and said their goodbyes.

The oxygen arrived a moment later, but we waited, panicking for the morphine's arrival. We'd promised Grandpa a peaceful passing. When it became clear that he needed another dose, the nurse (Warren), improvised by modifying the dosage of one of the medicines he had on hand.

The director of the residence where my grandparents live stayed with us, bringing us sodas, coffee and snacks.

Warren could have left at 5:30 and asked the other on-call nurse to come. Instead, he stayed until the morphine arrived at 9:30, missing a steal dinner with his father-in-law in favor of McDonald's with us, and helped to explain how the symptoms Grandpa was exhibiting (a loss of circulation in his extremities and decreased urination) meant his body was beginning to shut down.

He explained that when the kidneys stop working, they release a chemical that mimics sleepiness and sleep.

Grandpa's eyes stopped focusing, and he stopped responding to us. But his chest rose and fell with the imperative to breathe.

The director of the residence finally left at midnight, after introducing us to Angela, the on-duty staff member who'd be administering his morphine and other medicines. She was nervous, because she'd never cared for a terminal patient before. We told her there was nothing she could do wrong, as he was dying already.

We took shifts sitting with Grandpa, and talking to him. I took a catnap in the hallway for about 20 minutes. At 1:30, my mom went across the hall to sleep, after telling my Grandpa he should "come good home," a bidding he bestowed on my mom and uncle when they were growing up.

My uncle and I kept vigil. Angela brought us coffee. I'd given up coffee a few months ago. I told Grandpa I'd blame him if I became addicted again. Then again, he never understood why I gave it up in the first place.

My uncle sat in the big green armchair, and I took the dining-room chair next to Grandpa's hospital bed. I kept a hand on his shoulder, to let him know someone was with him. I gave him a couple of kisses, a bunch of hugs, and told him we loved him about a million times.

I told him he could go when he was ready. I leaned onto his bed, shared his pillow, and fell asleep for a little while.

At 2:30, my uncle got up to make a cup of coffee. I looked up, and noticed Grandpa was breathing very shallowly. "Donald, I think he's not doing well, I don't think he's breathing," I said, as un-panicked as I could.

My uncle and I each took a side of the bed. I put a hand on Grandpa's chest, and felt its slight rise-and-fall. We told him we loved him. He drew three shallow breaths, swallowed, and died.

We cried for awhile, and then I went to wake my mother. I left her and her brother alone with Grandpa for awhile, and went to walk the halls. I found Angela and told her the news.

We decided not to tell Grandma until she woke. I called my dad, who came from home.

We stayed with the body until 6:30 a.m., when the funeral home came to collect it. You'd think it would be weird, sitting with a dead body. It wasn't. It seemed just like the thing to do. We laughed at ourselves when we discovered we were whispering and moving quietly, as though he were asleep.

When Grandma woke, she came into the room. She said goodbye to him, and cried a little. The woman is stronger than I gave her credit for. If it had been my spouse of 60 years, I don't think I could have kept my composure.

The funeral home driver arrived to collect the body. We made a noon appointment at the funeral home to make arrangements. Angela gave me her card and asked that we tell her about the arrangements. I went back to my parents' house and cried myself into two hours of sleep.

I called work from the funeral home, told them I wouldn't be in until Monday the 14th, and gave them details about the service.

We picked out a metal casket (Grandpa wouldn't have wanted "good wood" to be put in the ground), arranged the times of service, gave details for the obituary, and picked out prayer cards.

After lunch, we went to the farm, where they used to live, and picked out a suit for him to be buried in. I started crying, then fell asleep on the couch for ten minutes. It felt like hours.

On Thursday, a reporter from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel called and took notes for a featurized obituary they wanted to run on Grandpa. My uncle spoke to her for a half-an-hour.

I ran some errands, picked up some copies of the paper in which the paid obituary had run and met the rest of the family at the church to plan the service.

We met with the reverend, shared stories and decided on readings and hymns.

We celebrated my cousin's son's fourth birthday that night, at a garish child-focused entertainment establishment whose name I am dread to mention. Few of us were in a mood to celebrate.

When I got home, I found a wonderfully compassionate note from simpatico guy in my email. His mum had told him Grandpa had died. He's lost significant family members, and knew exactly what words would comfort me.

We spent most of Friday putting together photos and mementoes for the service. We picked up my Grandma at 3:30, and went to the church. We greeted people for two hours. My work had sent a beautiful tree — potted in a bushel basket. It was the most appropriate presentation, given that Grandpa raised apples for a living. We're one of the few families that can sing the "I love you ... a bushel and a peck" song and know exactly what units of measurements these refer to.

The service was surreal. Grandpa didn't look much like himself ... the funeral home had done a great job, mind you, but without life and love in him, the man in the caseket didn't resemble my Grandpa.

I think it made it easier.

Angela, the health-care worker, came to the service with her husband. What a gift to our family and my Grandma, who will be able to have someone to talk to about it.

After the service, we went downstairs for cake and coffee. My aunt had brought along a jug of apple cider Grandpa had made over ten years ago. She'd kept it frozen for all these years. We served it in tiny plastic cups in the church basement. It tasted as sweet as I'd remembered, a toast to the man whose life we'd celebrated. There was just enough to go around.

On Saturday, we had the graveside service. An uncommonly beautiful Wisconsin winter day greeted us with sunshine and temperatures in the 50s. I volunteered to be a pall-bearer. I don't know what the funeral directors thought, me, being a woman and in my teal sunglassess, punky Mary Janes and leather jacket, carrying my grandpa's casket surrounded by older, respectable men.

It was the least I could do.

Driving home, February 2

The city makes us starless
despite the wintry night;
the pink incandescent haze
and lights of landing planes
are the celestial wonders
of this metropolis.

Driving home, I have
both hands on the wheel,
Over The Rhine on the radio
and your name on my lips.
The dirty sky shudders
and births brightness;
something afire falls
for me. And for you.

Let's shine for a heartbeat
and burn up in the atmosphere.

Chapter One

For anyone who's read the Harry Potter series through Order of the Phoenix, Chapter One of "A Better Wolfsbane" awaits you here.

Derivative fiction update

Y'all have been asking ... so here's the update. I'm done working on my first chapter with my (very cool) beta-reader, and have submitted it to Madam Pince for posting. I will make an announcement here when it is available to the general public.

If you're interested in reading my fan-fic, please read the first five Harry Potter books in preparation. Kathy (who doesn't blog) began Goblet of Fire tonight. Way to go, Kathy.