Despite the many close calls I’ve had since I was born in 1953 with a very unusual heart, I’m still alive to blog another day and to share my latest images with you.
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Tomorrow (which is National Talk Like a Pirate and National Butterscotch Day), this wife will be working from home providing psychotherapy for people who are still alive. (Usually I’m in-person at the hospital on Mondays, but since I’m still alive after my T.I.A. last week, staying home seems like the smart thing to do.) Because my love of group therapy is still alive, my plan is to keep doing this work for as long as I’m still alive.
Here’s what I find on YouTube when I search for “still alive.“
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As long as I’m still alive, I’ll be expressing gratitude for YOU.
People shared many good titles for their autobiographies in response to my question, last night, on Twitter. At this point, my good titles for my autobiography include
A Very Unusual Heart
The Backwards Heart
It Takes One To Know One
Assault and Batteries
That Must Have Been Scary
I reserve the right to come up with more good titles before I actually write it.
What’s a good title for today’s collection of images?
What’s a good title for this precious day?
Here’s what I find on YouTube when I search for “What’s a good title?”
What’s a good ending for this “What’s a Good Title?” blog post?
My husband Michael, who exceeds my expectations, often says “It’s never what you expect.”
It’s never what you expect on Twitter.
It’s never what you expect, and based on that last tweet, you wouldn’t expect that one of my most important posts of the last eight-and-a-half years (and I never expected I would blog for more than a year) is titled “Very Unique.”
Is it never what you expect when I share my photos from the day before?
It’s never what you expect, and I expected to see a photo of the amazing meal Michael prepared last night — delicious vegetarian meat loaf with mushroom sauce, couscous, and vegetables — but apparently I fucked that up.
Here’s what I find when I search YouTube for “it’s never what you expect”:
If you were expecting some music here today, it’s never what you expect.
When I taught at Boston University over thirty years ago, I never expected that one of my students from back then would ask to have lunch with me today. Just a few months ago, I never expected that I would be dining out in a restaurant again.
It’s never what you expect and who knows what comments I’ll find when I check back later?
It’s never what you expect and how do people expect me to end my posts?
I know things ordinary people don’t know because I
was born with a very unusual heart,
grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household,
had an incredibly funny, creative, and kind father, who loved to make people laugh,
had an incredibly caring, kind, clean and neat mother, who loved to laugh,
realized I had a connection with cats when I was very young,
had my first major heart surgery when I was 10 on the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated,
have relied on cardiac pacemakers to keep me alive since that day,
spent a lot of time in hospitals where I met many different types of people,
danced in our basement to musicals when nobody was watching,
read voraciously when I was young,
learned to play the piano, guitar, and ukulele,
attended three schools where everyone there knew I had a heart condition,
travelled across the USA by bus when I was 21,
visited many different countries,
danced, danced, danced in the 1970s even though my heart rate was fixed at 72 beats per minute,
majored in English literature at college,
worked as a technical writer, marketing writer, teacher, manager, and psychotherapist,
volunteered for several years at a suicide hotline,
attended graduate schools for film studies and social work,
love hearing other people’s stories,
married two extraordinary men,
gave birth to an extraordinary son when I was 45 years old,
saw people behave at their best and their worst and everything in between (including me),
survived the coronavirus,
have kept learning from all the people I have encountered in my long life, and
have the Daily Bitch calendar, which knows a lot.
Can you tell that I know things ordinary people don’t know from the rest of today’s photos?
Harley knows things that ordinary cats don’t know, but he’s not telling.
It’s a good thing I know things that ordinary people don’t know, because I’ll be teaching several interns about my Coping and Healing groups this morning at 9.
Here is “I Know Things Now” from Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim, whom I’ve known I’ve loved for a long, long time.
I also know gratitude that ordinary people don’t know, every day, so thanks to to all the extraordinary people I’ve known, including YOU!
Have you ever experienced a stranger time with so much danger? Above all, there is danger because of the stranger in the White House.
Do you see stranger danger in today’s images?
I am having an echocardiogram today at 3 to discover whether COVID-19 has damaged my heart, which is stranger than yours. Everyone will be wearing masks during this procedure, so that strangers won’t cause danger to each other. Even though masks might make us look and feel stranger, it’s the strangest behavior in the world not to wear one to reduce danger to oneself and others.
The stranger in the White House is endangering countless lives of strangers with his stranger and stranger behavior. If you are voting for him, nothing is stranger to me.
Truth is stranger than fiction, and “Stranger in Town” from Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion showed up in my headphones yesterday when I was taking my “Stranger Danger” photos.
What are your thoughts and feelings about this Stranger Danger post?
Thanks to all the friends and strangers who help me create this daily blog, which reduces my danger during these stranger and stranger times.
Personally, I’m not bored, at all, and I wonder why so many people worry about being boring. People are SO interesting, as I hope you can see in these photos from yesterday:
I don’t want to bore you with it, but Michael cooked a new fish last night.
I don’t want to bore you with this story, but when I was in my first year at college, one of my professors told us on the first day of class that he would not remember any of our names and quoted a biology professor saying, “Whenever I remember the name of a student, I forget the name of a fish.”
I don’t want to you bore you with this, but I can’t remember the name of that new fish Michael cooked last night.
I don’t want to bore you with this, but
I get my teeth cleaned every three months because I got endocarditis three times in my life,
I don’t want to bore you with it, but I’m in the photo at the beginning of this post:
I don’t want to bore you by quoting more lyrics of the Stevie Wonder song but “I don’t want to bore you with it, but I love you, I love you, I love you.”
Why oh why am I writing a fourth blog post about Why? Why am I linking to the previous three posts (here, here, and here)?
Why did I write “Why?” on two different white boards at work yesterday?
Why do white boards consistently get more difficult to erase?
Why were people in therapy yesterday asking so many WHY? questions, including:
Why is there so much traffic?
Why did it take me four times as long as usual to get here today?
Why do people back their cars into spaces in parking lots?
Why do people do what they do?
Why do I deliberately act like a mischievous child?
Why am I in so much pain?
Why am I in therapy?
Why aren’t other people in therapy?
Why did I take the rest of these pictures?
Why is it taking so much longer for me to access and transfer my photos? Why does that happen periodically? Why does it bother me less each time it happens?
Why am I still having trouble writing that letter from the President for my professional organization’s newsletter? Why did I start fresh yesterday with a new topic? Why did Michael say he thought my first, abandoned topic (the rejuvenation of Spring) was better? Why am I going to finish the second topic and then write another letter with the first topic if I have time? Why am I using the quote “If you want something to get done, give it to the busiest person” in my letter?
Why did I ask all the questions I did in this podcast (starting at 19 minutes and again at 28:34)?
Why did Michael not want to listen to that podcast last night? Probably for the same reason he doesn’t usually read this blog. Why did I think I could find the post that explains that by searching on “Why Michael doesn’t read this blog”?
Why would you leave a comment today?
Why would I thank all those who help me write these posts and also YOU? Why do you think?
Got a second? I’d like to tell you about yesterday’s appointment with my cardiologist, Dr. Salem (who is second to none). While I was waiting several seconds in the exam room for Dr. Salem, I took a second to snap this:
Got a second to hear about my conversation with Dr. Salem? Dr. Salem said he couldn’t be more pleased about how my heart is beating every second, as I begin my second year after my heart valve replacement surgery last September. I seconded that opinion.
Got a second to look at some more split-second photos?
My very unusual heart was happy to connect, yesterday, with two people who also have very unusual hearts.
Andrena, Vicki, and I have congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries (cctga). That’s a very unusual heart condition and it’s very unusual when three of us can share a heart-to–heart-to-heart talk.
My very unusual heart overflowed with gratitude as we shared what was in our hearts. Then, my very unusual heart spent another unusual day in the heart of their very unusually beautiful and busy city of Edinburgh.
For Andrena, Vicki, and me, living with very unusual hearts is business as usual. Because we’re in this together, we are not afraid.
This very unusual heart loves jazz, so last night I attended ” Jazz at the Movies” …
Do you think that everybody wants to be a cat? I hope you express what’s in your very unusual heart in a comment, below.
Thanks, from the bottom of this very unusual heart, to all the very unusual hearts and very unusual cats that helped me create this very unusual post and — as usual! — to you, for reading it.
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally 