I grew up with a very funny father who was a fan of good stand up comedy. I still remember watching TV with my dad and the way he would laugh out loud at comedians he liked. He would also sit in silence when stand ups were mean, unimaginative, or unfunny.
During the 1980s, when stand up comedy really exploded in clubs all over Boston, I spent hours laughing at the greats there, including Steven Wright, Kevin Meaney, Ron Lynch, Mike Donovan, Jack Gallagher, and Barry Crimmins. I took a stand up comedy class taught by Ron Lynch and got lots of laughs at my two appearances at Open Mics, one of which also marked the debut of an unknown named Bobcat Goldthwait.
Because I love stand up so much, I introduced it to my only son when he was very young. We would watch “Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist,” which featured the incomparable Jonathan Katz and wonderful comedians (including Steven Wright, Ron Lynch, Kevin Meaney, Jack Gallagher, Ray Romano, Jon Stewart, and Garry Shandling) delivering their stand up routines lying down or sitting up on the psychiatrist’s couch. Years later, my son Aaron got into stand up comedy and was eventually introduced by my teacher and friend, Ron Lynch, for Aaron’s first appearance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe when he was 17 years old. Since then, Aaron has appeared many times as a stand up in Edinburgh and his mother did some sit-down comedy at her own show at the Fringe called “Group Therapy with Ann.”
I still love good stand up. Just the other day, Aaron and I watched Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip, which I remember seeing with Aaron’s father in theaters when that amazing movie first came out. While the only stand up Aaron is doing these days is standing up at his computer in our basement applying to PhD programs in mathematics, we can still enjoy stand ups together.
Do you see any stand ups in my images for today?
I love the way I’m featuring my child Aaron (who is one of my favorite stand ups) in my blog on National Love Our Children Day.
Here’s an episode of “Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist” featuring Steven Wright and Kevin Meaney.
To start telling this story, today’s post title is a quote from the musical Hamilton.
Who lives, on the day I’m writing this?
I do, against all odds and even though a team of doctors at the Mayo Clinic essentially killed me* on September 21 in order to repair my heart before they brought me back to life.
Mel Brooks, thank goodness, even though he is 90 years old (and whom I’ll be seeing today in person in Boston).
Approximately 7.5 billion people, according to this link.
Who dies, on the day I’m writing this?
Kevin Meaney, suddenly at age 60, who was one of my and my son’s favorite comedians.
I’ll tell you who tells my story — it’s me, through this blog. Perhaps because my story has included so many doctors and medical institutions from the moment I was born, it’s VERY important to me to be the expert of my own experience — the primary teller of my own story. Of course, I can’t control how others will tell my story after I die, but to quote Kevin Meaney about that, “I don’t care.”
Here’s how I photographically choose to tell my story of October 21, 2016, when I went to one hospital for cardiac rehab and then to another hospital to get blood work to prepare for ANOTHER surgical procedure on November 2 and also to drop in on my amazing cardiologist Dr. Deeb Salem:
And because we do need help from others to tell our stories, I want to thank my friend Carol, who is such a wonderful woman, for capturing the story of those last four photos.
Here’s the last photo that I took yesterday, to tell my story:
Now, how would you tell a story in a comment, below?
I’ll end today’s story with live gratitude to all those living and dead who helped me create this post and to you — of course! — no matter how you tell your story.
* I’m glad you lived to read this part of my story from the Mayo Clinic surgeon’s report on September 21: “The aorta was occluded, and 800 cc of cold blood cardioplegia was infused into the aortic root obtaining satisfactory asystolic arrest.” Doesn’t that sound like they satisfactorily killed me?
Yesterday, driving home around 9 PM, after a long day at work, my cell phone was in my lap. At one point, my cell phone fell off my lap, and made a sound as it made contact with a surface. I thought, “Arrgh. It’s on the floor. It’s dark. I’m tired. I hope I can find it when I get home.”
After I parked the car, I looked for that friggin’ phone for about ten minutes. I thought, “Of course. It disappeared. Whenever I drop something in my car, I can never find it.”
Then I thought, “I don’t care.”
And I went upstairs to spend time with my boyfriend Michael and my 16-year-old son Aaron.
After I told Michael about my long day at work, I told him about the magically disappearing phone. I asked for his help, in looking for it. I speculated about where the phone might be, as follows:
Maybe it fell up.
Maybe it’s in a worm hole.
Maybe it needs to go away for awhile and come back later.
Michael accompanied me back to the car, this time with a flashlight. We both spent a long time thoroughly searching for that friggin’ phone. As people usually do when looking for something that is NOT where it’s supposed to be, we looked in increasingly absurd places and looked several times in the same place, in the car.
Finally, we gave up.
I said, “Maybe it fell up and out of the car, through the window or the moon roof.”
By the way, the moon was beeeoootiful last night. It was a just a sliver, but it was large and a really interesting color.
I had planned to take a photo of the moon, to show you today, but I couldn’t find my cell phone.
However, I did take a few photos yesterday, before the phone disappeared on my way home.
Where was I? Oh, yes. My lost cell phone, last night. I guess that’s not exactly headline news, but it IS the topic of this post, people!
So Michael said, “Why don’t you use your laptop to find your phone?” He has experienced me, several times in the past, thinking I’ve lost my phone, and using the Find Your iPhone feature on my laptop to try to locate it.
I may be repeating myself here, but I find it very strange that my iPhone has a find your iPhone app on it. I also may be repeating myself if I tell you that I have gotten very anxious in the past about using the Find Your iPhone feature on my laptop, since I always think I’m going to forget the password I need, and that password is on my iPhone, too.
I don’t care if I’m repeating myself. Also, here’s something new: I wasn’t anxious about any of this last night, at all.
Why? Because I kept realizing this: Even if my worst-case fears were true, about my iPhone … I don’t care.
I’ll live, even if my phone (1) fell up (2) is in a wormhole or (3) is gone forever.
I did eventually use the Find Your iPhone feature on my laptop and found that the phone had NOT fallen up and out of the car, on my way home. That is, the Find Your iPhone feature told me that my iPhone was in, or near, my car.
Okay, I thought. I’m going to look for it, again, by myself. So I took the flashlight and walked out to the car, with no fear and with the faith that if anybody could find it, that person was me. And, again, I thought, “I don’t care if I don’t find my cell phone.”
I reconstructed the situation and decided to look at the most logical places. I thought about Occam’s Razor, as described by Wikipedia:
It states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove correct, but—in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better.
Actually, that’s not the way I remember Occam’s Razor. In my mind, it’s this: The simplest and most logical solution is usually true. Is that an appropriate interpretation of Occam’s Razor?
If it’s not, I don’t care.
Anyway, after I had returned to the car, alone, with the flashlight, I thought about where I was sitting, where the cell phone was, and the sound it made when it left my lap. I noticed the mats on the floor of the driver’s seat — near the brake, gas pedal, and clutch — and said to myself, “Aha! That cell phone could have snuck between the mats.”
As I lifted up the floor mats, it was with an imminent sense of discovery and relief, because, at that point, I KNEW that the phone was there.
It wasn’t.
I thought, “I don’t care. I know I can find this cell phone.”
A few moments later, I did. And I thought, I am not touching or moving that cell phone. No way. I HAVE to get Michael and Aaron, and show them where it is.
I went upstairs, thinking, I’m going to make this a guessing game. I’ll tell Michael and Aaron that the cell phone is still there and ask them to hunt for it. I’ll offer to tell them if they’re “warm” or “cold“ while they’re looking, if they want.
Hmmm, I thought. Sometimes they don’t take me up on my guessing games.
I don’t care, I thought. I’ll ask them both, anyway.
At first, both of them were reluctant to come out and play this game with me. I mean, at this point, it was past 11 o’clock at night!
But I must have made the game sound interesting and intriguing enough, because they both came outside and spent a good amount of time, looking for that friggin’ phone. I would say that it became a competition between the two of them. They both refused any hints from me. They seemed to care, enough, to want to find the phone on their own.
Eventually, Michael found it. He was impressed. Then, Aaron found it, too.
As we all went back inside, I said, “I could have easily never found that phone. It could have still been there, when I sold the car.”
I don’t know if Michael or Aaron understood what I meant or what I was trying to express by saying that.
I don’t care.
You probably want to see where that friggin’ phone was, don’t you?
How can I take a photo of it, though? It’s not there any more. And even if I put it in the same amazing place it was, I still can’t take a photo of it, because I take my photos with my iPhone. And even if I did get my other camera, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get that phone back, exactly where it was. Also, I don’t WANT to put it back there.
Do you care?
If you really do, I promise I shall take a photo of where it was, with my IPhone, before tomorrow’s post.
In the meantime, feel free to guess where it might have been. Hey! Maybe you can post a picture, in the comments, of where might have been, in another car!
I shall leave you all, today, with a rendition of “I Don’t Care,” by Kevin Meaney, a comedian my son and I really like.
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally 