Malcolm was here today – the whole weekend actually, but today I got to spend the most time with him. Still it wasn’t enough time to really catch up. When we were walking through the park after the Whitney, I felt like we had forever left to talk. Then Columbus Circle, then the long train ride to Grand Street. Suddenly, it was almost time to meet our friends for dinner and I found myself talking with my mouth full, trying to enjoy a honeydew custard while quickly running through the last dark months of my life.

A TV in the bakery we were in was broadcasting a Chinese game show with all sorts of wacky challenges. One of them was to blow out a line of candles through a piece of nylon stretched onto a frame. Each participant lunged towards the candles blowing as hard as they could against the nylon, which distorted their faces in amazingly hilarious ways. I laughed so hard, I started crying. But then I couldn’t stop and I realized I was actually crying so hard, I was laughing. Each tear was a strong cocktail of emotion squeezed through my face. I don’t think Malcolm really understood what was happening and I was just glad I could laugh and cover up my complete sadness.

            I sat with my son, Colton, who just turned one, in Holly Park Playground. It was a spectacularly beautiful, cloudless day. I chatted with Michael, father of one-and-a half year old Ned.

            As Michael and I discussed our children’s sleep habits, Ned sidled up to Colton and tried to pry his current favorite toy, a purple rubber car, from his hand. Colton successfully defended his car, but Ned persisted. After a few tries, Ned had car in hand and strode happily away. Colton considered crying, then proceeded to play with the sand that surrounded him.

            Ned’s father seemed not to have noticed the exchange. My first reaction was also to act like nothing had happened. After all, Ned was Michael’s child, not mine, so how uncool of me would it be to say something like, “Be nice, Ned,” or “We don’t grab things from other people,” as I would surely have said to Colton if the roles had been reversed.

            But, although we continued to talk casually, my mind reeled.

            My unspoken philosophy has been each to his own, live and let live. I have prided myself on seeing the world in shades of gray. Delve deep enough into the mind of anyone, I have always thought, and you can understand, even sympathize with, their actions.

            Yet this apparent egalitarianism might just be a cover for laziness. Sympathize enough with someone, and you’ll never have to confront them. Look deeply enough, and you may never have to decide what’s right. The truth is, if I ask myself what behavior I want to model for my son, things get black and white pretty fast.  And how can I ask Colton to act certain ways, I wondered, if I ignore the behavior of other children (or adults, for that matter)?

            Colton and I spent an hour or so, that afternoon, in the playground. I pushed him in the swing until he stopped giggling. I supervised him as he climbed up and down the cement stairs. And I retrieved his purple car from where it had been discarded, underneath the slide.

            As we were about to leave, a five or six-year-old boy grabbed a little girl’s Barbie Big Wheel and rode it in circles around the playground. The girl chased after him, in tears, screaming, “Mine! Mine!”

            As the boy passed, I said quietly, “Maybe you should give the bike back.” He smiled and shook his head no, but a minute later, he stopped and got off.

            Believe it or not, I was stunned. I have been an adult for about twenty years, yet have rarely, if ever, consciously embraced the power that comes with adulthood. If making a statement could have such an impact here, today, I wondered, what kind of impact has never making a statement had on the world?

            I realized that I’m no longer just me anymore, I’m an adult and a parent. If only for Colton’s sake, it’s my job to speak up for what I think is right, no matter how silly or uncool it may seem.

            And I was struck again by how each day spent with Colton is as much an education for me as for him.

Nicole was out of town, visiting her mom.  I went to sleep, really just to nap, quite early on the 8th, at about 5:45 p.m.

I woke up at about 11:30 p.m PST and decided I did not want to sleep through the night just yet, so I got up and watched SNL and several episodes from the first season of The Wire before going to bed at around 4 a.m. PDT to read The Secret History of the World.  I did not set any clocks forward.

At around 10:15 a.m., I woke up, showered, and drove to meet Rory and Eddie to discuss our next improv show.  I enjoyed my first coffee in about 10 days. I have been a daily coffee drinker for about 12 years now and I recently decided to drink only on weekends or so. While we were talking, I got a call from my friend, Peter, who left a voicemail about it being March 9th and he sang a song about a man with two butt holes who could not decide which to shit from.

Right before noon, we went over to bang. for improv class.

Class ended at 3 p.m., and because I was meeting another couple of friends at bang at 5 p.m., I walked down to Cantor’s to have a tuna melt and a beer.  I read more of Tristram Shandy while eating leisurely, then went back to bang.

At about 5 p.m., Josh and Paul showed up to practice together.

At around 7 p.m., I went home to eat dinner, watch the new King of the Hill and more of The Wire and went to bed, reading a little more of The Secret History of the World before turning out the light and going to bed.

I had bad cramps and took drugs to help with the pain.  I did do laundry but mostly sat around on my ass watching television.  My preferred shows are on the Science and Murder channels and the Scientific Murder channel, though sometimes I took a break from murder and science to watch home decorating shows.  The cats joined me for much of the day and my boyfriend checked on me from time to time while he was taking over the medieval world in his office (video game).

I woke up March 9 with a throbbing and sharp pain in the back of my head.  I reach back, felt my head, and discovered a little bump.  As the day progressed, the bump got bigger and redder.  The pain got worse.  By the end of the day it grew to the size of a strawberry.  It looked like a strawberry too.

The following day, I couldn’t move my head without pain.  The pain got so bad, the back of eyeballs hurt…

So I went down to the Student Health Services Clinic.  The doctor said I had an infection. Staph… Sounds cute… “Staph.”  She put me on antibiotics, told me to put hot compresses on it, and not to mess with until it ripened.  “Come back in two days, we’ll see if we can lance it.”  Nice…

So I came back in two days, she shaved all the hair around the area off (about the size of a .50 cent coin).  Then she cut it opened and all this sour milk-smelling stuff oozed out down the back of my head! The feeling of syrupy liquid running down the back of your head is like no other!  I asked her to show me the discharge.  Man, it looked sickening.  Lumpy, yellowy, cottage cheese- looking stuff! Embedded in the discharge was hair.  Plus a lot of blood.

She bandaged me up, then I went to class.  My classmate were looking at me really strangely… Who wouldn’t stare at a whole lot of bandages/gauge on the back of someone’s head right? Especially when it was soaked with blood and pus.

It’s human nature, I guess.  We all slow down to look at automobile accidents or houses burning. We rarely stop to stare at a nice sunset or flower gardens,right?  But, if there’s carnage and destruction, we must have front-row seats.

It’s March 17.  I no longer have bandages on the back of head.  But there’s a patch of missing hair.  And my classmates still stare! Tomorrow I’m wearing my A’s ball cap.

It’s spring training for baseball and all.  Go A’s!

Enjoy the the flower gardens and sunsets.

So, on march 9 I was up on the roof trying to figure out what to do about the shingles I messed up when I was installing a bathroom fan vent outlet.

not very exciting but I guess you can use that if you want.