Yesterday, I witnessed somebody telling a writer that their story did not answer the “Why should I care?” test. Why should I care about that? Well, sometimes I wonder why my loyal and lovely readers should care about the personal words and photos I share in this blog.
Why should you care if I went to the dentist yesterday and got a new dental crown that was created, before my eyes, in a 3-D printer? Why should you care if Michael and I took Oscar to the vet and he got a clean bill of health? Why should you care if Harley escaped going to the vet by scratching Michael, hissing, growling, and making it impossible for us to corral him in time to make the appointment? In other words, why should you care about what I care about?
Why should you care about how I recorded some of yesterday’s moments?
Why should any of us care about allowing cats and people to communicate their stories in an authentic, personal, and full-bodied way?
Why should anybody care about this video I took of the creation of my new dental crown?
Why should I care about the comments you make on this blog? There are SO many reasons I care. I can only hope I convey that caring in every post and every answer, every day.
Yesterday, on a special day, I noticed “Special Operations” on a parked police motorcycle.
I thought, “I’m going to be interviewed for a special podcast tonight about my special heart and several special operations, including open heart surgery.” As I was taking that special photo for today’s “Special Operations” blog post, I heard somebody speaking to me and that turned out to be special operations officer Hicks:
I explained to Officer Hicks, “I took that photo because I’ve had many special operations on my heart.” He said something special, like “Those special operations must have gone well because you look pretty good considering you’ve had all those special operations.” He also said he didn’t think he was handsome enough to be in a blog, which I thought was especially modest.
Officer Hicks and many other special operations officers were in Boston yesterday, in preparation for the special Boston 4th of July celebration today. Minutes after I photographed special operations officer Hicks, I noticed something special on my car.
I thought, “What?!?! It’s true that I just spent a long time getting a special teeth cleaning and also talking to my special dentist Dr. Del Castillo, who is doing so well after having the special operation of a double lung transplant, but I don’t think that took over two hours!” I looked more closely and saw this special reason for that ticket:
Since when do they give out special tickets for being over 1 ft from the curb, especially since only the back of my car barely met that special criteria?
I know that special operations officer Hicks is not somebody who gives out tickets and — in case he thinks that I’m looking for special treatment — I already did an online special operation last night to pay it.
Do you see any special operations in my other special photos from yesterday?
As you can see from those photos, I did a special operation of pre-medicating before my dental cleaning and did a special operation when I got home — trying out a new cat carrier on Oscar, our cat-in-a-bag.
After my special boyfriend Michael and I walked around our special neighborhood last night (and saw some unexpectedly special fireworks and a special beach bonfire), we danced to this special 4th of July song:
Now, I’m going to request that you do the special operation of making a comment, below.
Happy July 4th to everybody who performs the special operation of reading this blog, including YOU!
It took me several special operations to upload my photos today. I hope you don’t have to perform any special operations to see them!
Look at me, writing a second blog post titled “Look at me!” almost exactly two thousand and two hundred days after the first one. (Who’s counting? Look at me!)
Look at me, sharing what I drew in a therapy group yesterday, when the topic chosen by the group was “children.”
Look at me, seeing my wonderful dentist for the first time since his double lung transplant eight months ago.
For the first few years of this blog, I didn’t let anybody look at me!
Look at me, sharing all my other photos from yesterday.
Look at Harley, letting me look at him without running away.
Look at me, warning you not to watch that unless you lower the sound before you get to the dubbed rapping. Here‘s 7-year-old Mir Money‘s actual performance on the show:
Look at Howard Stern hugging Mir Money after he made him cry.
Look at XXXTentacion performing “Look at Me!” live in 2017, almost exactly a year before he was murdered at age 20.
Look at me, looking forward to looking at all your comments about this “Look at Me!” post and also thanking all who helped me create it.
If you look at the good comments in yesterday’s post, you might notice that some good people had some trouble discerning whether that post had good news.
The news in today’s post is that I can relate to that confusion. When I look at the news these days, I often ask myself and others, “Is this good news?”
It’s probably not news that I’m going to share many new photos and relate them to today’s topic. I ask you, good readers, is this good news?
Is this good news that my son Aaron took so many photos of camera-shy Michael? I guess it depends on your perspective and on who you are.
Yesterday, in the home office of a major medical institution in Boston, a therapy group discussed the topic of “home.” This hit home for me, because soon I’ll be changing my current home for a different one.
I asked the group to write, draw, or otherwise express thoughts and feelings about home. Here’s what I did:
From my home this morning, I’d like to share this music about home.
As I look at my list of “What Makes a Home a Home?” from the comfort of my home, I see that I wrote “pictures.” Here are more pictures from yesterday.
I also wrote that “People make the home” and listed gratitude on “What makes a home a home?” Many thanks to the people in my therapy groups, to my bass-playing dentist Dr. Del Castillo, to my friend Deb, to Simon & Garfunkel, to all the other people who help make this my blogging home, and to you — of course! — for visiting me in my home, here and now.
In honor of the 50th anniversary of the release in the USA of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper, here’s another Home song:
Dr. Kogelman made it crystal clear during my appointment with her that
my pneumonia is gone,
my heart failure has resolved,
I am ready to go back to work today,
I am no more likely to contract pneumonia in the future than anybody else,
we are doing a good job preventing me from getting endocarditis (a dangerous inflammation of the heart which I’ve had three times before because of my leaky heart valve),
she misses seeing my wonderful dentist, Dr. Luis Del Castillo (who used to be her dentist too),
it’s okay for me to go to Edinburgh, Scotland in August with my son and my ex-in-laws,
she thinks it’s going to be “great” when I get a new mechanical valve for my heart in September, and
she liked the idea of my transforming my future open-heart-surgery scar with a tattoo.
I made it crystal clear to Dr. Kogelman that I did NOT like her idea of turning that scar into the medical symbol of a snake climbing a rod. I told her, “I have plenty of medical symbols on my body already” and informed her that if I do decorate that new scar after I get it in September, I’ll probably add some flowers and leaves.
What is crystal clear to you, here and now?
Are all of my photos from yesterday crystal clear?
Is it crystal clear to you that I made that t-shirt and that I especially like to wear it to medical appointments?
Yesterday, somebody named Jeanyne, who works at Tatte Bakery in Boston (not pictured), made three things crystal clear to me:
she loved my t-shirt,
she wanted to own a t-shirt like that, and
her mother, Diane, who recently retired, is just now starting a new business marketing cool new wearable items.
For example, I never knew there were exactly 100 things I never knew about my own brain.
I never knew there was a brain user’s guide available for purchase, even though I used to write user’s guides in the 1970s.
I never knew they made peeps for dogs.
I never knew how to weld.
Before I started this blog, I never knew I could write about the coolest topics. I also never knew that writing about something would bring more of that into my life, almost immediately.
I never knew where I could find the coolest looks, before yesterday.
I never knew all the anagrams for the word “cake.”
I never knew it was okay to advertise with backwards letters, even though I had an advertising company in the 1990s.
I never knew people decorated cars like cakes.
I never knew cats liked baseball.
Before I met him, I never knew there was a cat that could be as omnipresent as Oscar.
I never knew my dentist would read my blog, every single day.
Yesterday morning, I looped by Tufts Medical Center before work, to get fitted for a new loopy mask which loops around my head and attaches to my loopy sleep apnea machine.
While I was at the sleep lab, I saw this loopy sight:
What loopy people would loop a hat and a sleep-apnea mask on a loopy piñata?
After that loopy experience, as I was looping back to my car, I heard somebody say my loopy name. Loopily enough, it was my dentist, Dr. Luis Del Castillo.
We were both loopily surprised to encounter each other in our intersecting loops through the Tufts Medical Center garage, even though I know he teaches dental medicine there and he knows I get my medical care there.
As we were loopily chatting, my mind looped to my concern — which I had loopily texted Dr. Del Castillo about — that my recently installed dental filling had looped out of my mouth, immediately after I had looped through his dental office last Tuesday. I was loopy enough to ask him, right there in that loopy garage, if he could check the filling. He said, “I don’t have my loops,” but he was kind enough to look at my mouth, loop-less. Without his loops, he couldn’t see whether the filling was still looped into my tooth, so we both looped over to the Tufts Dental School, where he put on his loops
and told me my filling hadn’t looped out of my tooth. I was loopily relieved that I wouldn’t have to loop by his dental office, any time soon.
Did you know those special dental glasses were called “loops”? That was news, to loopy me.
If you loop by this blog with any kind of loopy regularity, you know I take loopy pictures in my loops through Boston USA and its loopy environs. Which of these loopy photos from loopy yesterday seem particularly loopy, to you?
In one of my favorite loopy encounters of the day — as I was looping back to my car after work through lots of loopy fans looping their way to Fenway Park for a loopy Red Sox game — one of the guys who was looping cars into a loopily priced parking lot by looping around a big flag said these loopy words to me:
It’s a beautiful life. I’ve never seen so many happy people. It must be the Prozac.
I wonder if he thought I was loopy when I laughed with loopy delight, loopily replied, “You think?” and then looped back to take a loopily unclear picture of him …
… loopy moments after I wrote down all his loopy words, so I wouldn’t forget them.
Is it loopy to admit that I agree with his first loopy sentence? Is it loopy to admit that he seemed better at diagnosing people’s use of a common anti-depressant medication than me, a loopy psychotherapist?
I need to loop some loopy music into this loopy post, so I can loop by to get my loopy hair cut to loop attractively around my loopy face in time for my 45th high school reunion, in two loopy weeks.
Here’s some music I heard last night in my loopy yellow car, as I was looping my way home for quality time looping through a sushi restaurant, a Dunkin’ Donuts, and a pet store with my loopy boyfriend Michael and my loopy son, Aaron (not pictured, because they’re not loopy about my taking loopy photos for this loopy blog).
Loopy thanks to all the loopy and non-loopy people who helped me loopily create this loopy post, including my loopy friend and co-worker Jan (seen, above, loopily looping a loopily yellow stethoscope at our sometimes loopy hospital). Especially loopy thanks to Dr. Luis Del Castillo for loopily inspiring this post with his loops and his loopily wonderful kindness. And particularly loopy thanks to you — of course! — for looping by this loopy blog, here and now.
