the very angry caterpillar...

I titled this blog as a play on words for a cherished children's book...because this week I cannot get the images of 21 murdered souls out of my head...19 children and 2 teachers...19 children still caterpillars...not yet butterflies...there is so much crowding the space in my brain that never seems to shut off at night...reading some of the background story of the killer...wondering where he might have fallen through the cracks...young bullied girls seem to let anger churn inward...cutting and starving and a host of other tragic behavior...young bullied boys sometimes churn and explode...we have seen this on repeat...why do we still make it so easy for them to arm themselves...when do we learn...the answer is not to seal children in their schools...it might seem like some half-baked solution...but fire, anyone?...then there is the old NRA defense card...mental illness...that guns don't kill...people do...then, I ask...what would be the harm in having age requirements...background checks...permits...do you hand your 10 year old kid the keys to your car and say..."go take a ride on the LIE...at 5pm...weekday...eastbound"...maybe a small course so that people really learn how to be responsible gunowners...2nd amendment, you say...it begins with "well-regulated Militia"...what we have is not well regulated...and abolish all AR 15's...that's it...if you have a problem with that...you have a problem...but anger...it is sucking the oxygen out of life as we knew it...and the grown-ups keep yelling...and the kids are dying...and I can't cry anymore...I'm becoming numb...and that is the most terrifying thing...next time I see a butterfly...I will marvel how it even came to be in a world suspended in hate...

bang...bang...

 shot...shot...boost...mask...mask...shit...Covid is an eye opener to the mess that is healthcare in this country...if you didn't already see it before...years ago, many of you probably had a primary care doctor you just called your doctor...maybe there was a partner, maybe two...you knew the front desk, you knew the nurses...urgent care was reserved for weekends when you had no choice...but even there, the doctors took their time, listened...if you needed meds, they were at the pharmacy you used for years...they knew your name...gradually, over the last few years this all evaporated...your doctor became part of a large group...your pharmacy was now dictated by your insurance provider...and now due to Covid... your urgent care is the McDonalds of health care..."I'll have a strep test with my fries please"...the driving force of all of this is not you...it is often not your doctor...he or she could not keep up with the black hole of reimbursements...it is insurance on one hand...and pharmaceutical companies on the other...and all the unsavory deals made in conference rooms and conference calls...you don't believe me?...start streaming "The Dropout" about Elizabeth Holmes, her company Theranos, and how Walgreens...yes Walgreens...was duped...how if it wasn't stopped so many people could have been seriously impacted...but back to doctors and your care...a broken thread of continuity...how many times are people seriously misdiagnosed...over diagnosed...to what end...all of this ruminated in what was left of my brain this week...working its way through a very unpleasant earworm of "Tubthumping"...watch out for what pops up on that car radio when there's fever floating in those brain cells...urgent care...once my rapid test was positive they couldn't wait to get me out of there...spitting out my treatment options...my quarantine requirements...but my cough, my chest I asked...barely a listen...it's Covid cough...which it was...a repeat visit confirmed, despite wheezing in a most unsettling way...that second visit, a doctor who listened...gave me a few minutes...her weary eyes above that mask...this is a war...and the soldiers are tired...but we sent them to battle without the weapons...we let our system go into the toilet and then we got hit with a nuclear bomb in 2020...and nothing has changed...so we start from the bottom up...next local election...see what those running think about issues like this...more importantly...if you go one level up to state elections...who are their donors?...shot...shot...boost...who rules their roost?

Step lively, and watch the closing doors...

I don't have to tell you if you are a New Yorker...we are kind of past the fall of the Roman Empire here...even hardened, "I've seen it all" city dwellers are weary and sad...the attack on the subway riders in Brooklyn is difficult to read about...the footage makes me wince...because somewhere deep inside I feel this is not the apex in our decline...Mayor Adams has inherited a ship riddled with deep holes...impossible in many ways to keep from sinking...and this all happening in the shadow of Ukraine...and the holiest of months for Muslims, Christians and Jews...for me, as I prepare for Passover...the third in this ongoing 11th plague of Covid...I do have to stop and think...about how Jews have always needed to be light on their feet...chased by war and pogroms...or journeying to be closer to the Holy Land...closer to G-d and at peace...light on their feet...have you ever eaten a Passover meal?!...but I digress...this year when you find that quiet space to pray...even if it is not to a G-d, but to Mother Earth herself...take a few minutes...pray for those who run to live...in Ukraine...in war torn countries in Africa...pray for those who we elected to be benevolent and wise in dragging our New York back on its feet...pray that with masks off we learn to smile at strangers...not snarl in contempt...and mostly when you look inward remember...never let the chance of redemption and change pass you over...

a night in Hollywood/a day in the Ukraine

March moves on...the weather is psychotic, at best, in New York...Sundays mean movie award shows...and most movies, sadly, were not seen in the theaters...but in living rooms constantly interrupted by life...the news chronicles Putin's march through Ukraine...in real, unrelentless time...it's an interesting fact that movie viewership soared during WWII...many films part of Hollywood's finest moments...others military propaganda...we have changed since then...and then again we have not...it is no great surprise that the highest grossing films today are pure escapism...and that those fans rally against the awards grab by serious, often depressing, arthouse films...it is no surprise that...with the exception of some actors who put humanitarian efforts above their careers...we view the acting community with some disdain when they lecture us in 5-digit gowns...as my friend and I watched the Independent Spirit Awards last weekend...we sadly wondered if we'd lost our love for award shows...or maybe for the movies themselves...our appreciation for that one really great script that touched the creative soul...and it really isn't that...it's this world...which plays out in the palm of our hand...on a cell phone...24/7...ugly and immediate...it is hard to cheer for your favorite actress when a maternity hospital blows up at a glance in real time...it is more than sad...it is soul crushing...but...maybe it is fortuitous that the pandemic is waning...hopefully not a momentary reprieve this time...and that the smaller movie theaters rise from the ashes...so that on a hot July afternoon I can sit... phone off...popcorn in hand... and look up to watch...the subtitled or dubbed vision of a filmmaker from across the continents...and realize that the artistic distance is small...and most importantly...that the artistic spirit lives under the rubble of hate...which repeats like a scratched vinyl record in the dark...

the dye is cast...

 "one test begets another"...this said a few weeks ago by my doctor, in typical internist deadpan...but true...while being subjected to one CT scan ordered by one specialist...with a sliver of justifiable reason...your other organs are all out there...and if you are 61...you have opened Pandora's box...and now several weeks later...I truly have almost forgotten why there was a scan to begin with...I only know that two MRIs later I have been granted the right to breathe again...follow ups down the road...a pesky growth in the liver...a bit elusive...but ok...enough to cause the two MRIs...and a right arm filled with IV marks that make me look like a junkie...I hate MRIs...after a few minutes in the tube you are disgustingly aware of your own breathing...or about how your neck itches...and you want to scratch it but you can't...so that's all you think of...despite the ear plugs...the headphones playing music...classic rock my choice for the first MRI...and direction blasting over that...breathe in...hold...breathe...and your mind races...kind of like Woody Allen in "Hannah and Her Sisters"...yeah, we are not supposed to talk about Woody Allen...but tough shit...his writing was so spot on then...especially the fear simmering until you get test results...the bargaining you make...the promises you won't keep after they roll you out...for my second MRI there was no music...no inane hit from 1976 to drown out my inner monologue...ugh...so in between the second MRI...30 minutes of hell...and the results today...there was Valentine's Day...we went to a favorite restaurant nearby...and the tables were nicely spaced...couples softly talking...until we ordered and a table for four was seated behind Mike...we were laughing...enjoying being out...and then a guy at that table loudly pronounced, "Hillary Clinton should be executed"...I look at Mike...you probably know which way I lean...but actually, this isn't a political thing...but just common decency...it was freakin' Valentine's Day...and all through my appetizer and dinner I had to hear this loud asshole pontificate on every topic for which his knowledge could fill a thimble...again, Woody Allen...in "Annie Hall"...and the classic scene when Woody and Diane are on line at the movies...with Woody pulling out Marshall McLuhan (google the clip)...halfway through dinner I noticed the couple to my right roll their eyes...we ended up joking with them...but that guy kept going...staring at me...me staring back...I'm surprised he didn't explode into smithereens...but despite that, a lovely evening...and after my various appointments I feel pointedly reminded that we are all here on borrowed time...and Covid has stolen more of that unfortunately...best we enjoy everything we are given...everything we create...and don't forget to breathe...

"faith is taking the first step even...

...when you don't see the whole staircase"...tomorrow, Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 93, had he not been assassinated in Memphis in 1968...my father, who passed in 2002,  would have been 93 too, born eleven days earlier...sometimes, those simple mathematical facts help put things in practical perspective...I think back to 1968...I was 8...when remembering life with my dad then...it is sobering and enlightening to realize how young MLK was when he was gunned down at the Lorraine Motel...and awe inspiring to grasp how much he'd accomplished and left as a legacy at 39...but I am thinking less of the fiery orator...passionate preacher...and more about that father and husband...a young man by today's standards...39...my father taking me to the park...teaching me to shoot hoops...ice skate...dance...helping with homework...especially math, which he had a natural aptitude for...Dr. King had four children when he died...four...I think about them on this holiday we use as both commemoration and as a day of service...the three children, now adults, who are still with us...and wish for them not the quotable words that have become part of his story...but of their private memories...the small moments that sustain us all when loss becomes the daily fabric of who we are and have become...I hope they have that quiet space to remember parks and swings...and holding hands in church on Sunday mornings...the few blessings his short life afforded them...the speeches, and non-violent teachings are for us...those memories are for them...and all those staircases they have had to climb since 1968...

Does anybody really know what time it is?...

does anybody really care?....and so we approach the end of 2021...or as I now refer to it as 2020 2.0...here we are again...omicron is rampaging...you can't get a testing appointment...a home kit...well, you can...but you'll wait...pay mark-up...if you were negative when you get on line, you'll be positive by the time you hear "next"...I think all of this is kind of like groundhog's day...the angst replays over and over...and the stupidity too...and it makes the concept of time very elusive...it still seems to slip through your fingers...but what have you done...because this is like fire...which needs oxygen to burn...and covid's oxygen is a host...to infect and mutate going forward...and that leads to vaccination...not just here, but in countries you might never have heard of...and the line between the haves and have nots...the inequality of this world might just kill us...and so I look to my salvation...the arts...and all those who are pushing back...still creating...giving us novels...streaming...music...movies...art...and I want to be wowed...because I need to be wowed...want to love a new movie...not based on a critic who heaps praises on it for its credentials, not substance...but this year that has not happened...so far this year I have only found that "wow" in one book...and two performances...the book is "Matrix" the latest from the immensely talented Lauren Groff...for the few days it took me to read, I was taken away from the relentless horrible news cycle here...and transported to an abbey in the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine...and taken to other terrible times...but also times of great redemption and heroism...and then last week...watching the segment on Joni Mitchell at the Kennedy Center Honors...Brandi Carlisle singing "River"...Brittany Howard singing "Both Sides Now"...google and watch...then google and listen to Joni in her prime...close your eyes...ignore breaking news on your cell...skate away on that river with Joni...breathe deep...glide into 2022 with time on your side, and hope in your grasp...