dad

HOT DOGGING DOWN THE EMOTIONAL SLOPES

My father died tonight. He died at 7 (or 8?)

He is lying (alone) in a funeral home right now.

I just spoke to my mother. She sounds clear as a bell and loud and strangely normal.

She tells me,

"I was feeding him. and I asked him if he wanted an egg, and he said, one. So I made him some bacon and some eggs with some butter and salt. I brought it over to him but he wouldn't eat it.

He was sitting in the new $1200 chair I bought him and I thought, I'll just let him sit there - we'll build him up tomorrow.

And then he was dead. I can't figure it out. I can't figure out how it happened. I’ll have to think about it. I'll figure it out tomorrow.

But it's late now. It's cold. It's sixty degrees out here on the deck and I'm cold. So I'll call you tomorrow, hunnie...

...Okay?"

My mother (like my aunt) is impervious to emotion. No matter how dire the situation, it is spoken of with flat and unemotional practicality. Bad news is delivered like you're getting instructions and scolded at the same time.

My aunt left this stony message - "Charlie?! Your Dad died. Call your mother but use her cell phone, the home phone isn't working."

(click)

But my sister reached me first.

I was sitting on a rolling stool in my kitchen. (I cook my food and eat it next to the stove because it's too much effort to carry the plate to a table or counter).

I was eating my fish dinner and my cell phone rang and I knew - could feel - that something was up.

As soon as my sister said, "Charlie?" and then pause - I knew my father was dead.

And I dreaded hearing it because I didn't want to experience how I felt about it. I didn't want to manufacture an emotion. I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel- how I felt. I didn't want to know.

My father’s been struggling since July. And because of this struggle, I haven't been able to make a connection to how he would get better. All this effort to keep him from falling backward... and for what? He seemed in pain, a lot of pain. He couldn't (shouldn't) drink alcohol anymore. He wasn't interested in food. Couldn't control his bowels. He seemed lost at times. He didn't always recognize neighbors. But still, even for all of that, my dad didn't want to die.

My father was still purchasing things (on the internet). (Later -we found a catalogue bookmarked to a very expensive sport coat for traveling (wrinkle free!) Where did my father imagine he was going?) His will to live- to continue to enjoy (with moody crankiness) the every day stuff -coffee -the newspaper, the game on TV - frankly it impressed me.

When I would see him (this past year) I would think... if it were me, I would just let go. My dad had no interest in letting go.

I’m on the phone by my Talapia.

My sister says to me over the cell phone

"Charlie? (pause) Dad died".

Died.

Died.

Strange and impressive to use that word. Like using the word mortgage when you buy your first home - or wife, right after you're married.

Died.

My dad died. The word died has an intimate smell and color to it (now).

My sister and I hang on the phone allowing the pauses their full due, daring the other to shape the conversation in a specific way.

And I think (as we talk) - I would be terrified for how my world had just instantly changed, but lately I've become an expert on (taking on) the unthinkable so I stare down the death abyss like a seasoned warrior.

My hand clutching my iPhone, I spin away from my talapia and ride the moments - hotdogging down the emotional slopes.

In my gut, I am worried for my dad. Death is a scary thing. Is he scared? Does he know what to do?

It's cold when your dead at first (I think). His body is cold and tiny on the white condominium carpet. Did my mother handle it right? I bet she didn't.

I allow myself to bawl, and it comes easily. I try to say to my sister,

"He was so.... tired."

But I am incomprehensible through my sobs and sloppy ALS voice.

"He was so what?" my sister asks.

"He was so... tired"

"He was so hungry?" she asks again.

"Tired!

TIRE - ERD.

He was so tired."

I'm really weeping (now) and later I realize that I was actually thinking about myself. I'm so tired. I'm so tired of trying to figure away to keep death at bay.

I'm so tired I'd just like to ... just give in.

I think about my Dad's cameras. The thousands of slides and photographs that will have to be sorted - his clothes.

I call my brother.

My brother asks If I'm alright and then wants to talk travel plans. My brother releases nothing emotionally.

I call my neighbor Jackie and ask her to come over.

I tell her my dad died.

Jackie, a repentant alcoholic and italian, is the opposite of my stoic mother and aunt.

When Jackie hears the news, she suffers.

We make my bed and she tells me how lucky and blessed he was to be home when he died. When I describe his life - she reminds me how fortunate he was.

"Not many people get a chance at a life like that, Charlie."

She gives me a hug and tells me she'll take care of the cat while I'm in Florida.

And lying in bed I realize, I'm not devastated, because my father left a while ago.

But I did have one good conversation with him last week on the phone. I described the three restaurants I was going to in New York for restaurant week. I described the outstanding service at Tocqueville, which I'd already been to, and my father listened brightly because he went out to lunch and dinner five days a week and sometimes nights too - in fancy restaurants all over Manhattan with an expense account from Time Magazine. His quiet knowledge of the New York restaurant scene created unacknowledged awe from me. He didn’t care he knew about it. I did.

When I described to him the joy of getting top notch service, my father listened and was far, far away from death.

He said,

"Now you see? We just can't get that here down in Naples, you just don't get that kind of service here!"

as if good service was the one thing keeping him from a night out.

My father wanted to live.

no deeper than that

My body is trickier and trickier.

This doesn't alarm me (exactly). I simply pile more things onto my "get better" list.

1. My feet are blue- buy a heated food massager.

2. I am exhausted - research Chi Gong.

3. My legs are weaker - buy a stationary bike.

4. My stomach muscles are lax- get a girdle.

I think.

I think as I have always thought.

My mind is a grayish maroon. My mind is continually on the edge of mild discomfort.

My mind is undisciplined. Along the way, my mind calls for action (large and small).

My mind is no deeper than that.

My mind circles - looking for a place to land - until sleep does the trick.

I think - I hope- this dimness will save me. My mind has kept my temperament in solid edgy

denial. Maybe the gray maroon will keep me from despair.

I have always held onto the idea of transformation. This idealistic grasping has led me on some dubious paths. It might help me now.

I sit a folding recliner chair (a Lafuma) in my apartment and face the Manhattan skyline.

I breath deeply.

I need transformation.

I need the magic formula.

I need the magic word.

My life depends on an answer to a riddle.

I not only have to figure out what the answer is, I have to figure out what the riddle is.

I was never bright. I didn't test well. But I enjoyed learning. Tutoring helped me enormously.

I need special help, now.

Is the answer, "There's no place like home"? or "To your own self be true" or "Reality's what you make of it" or " a rose is a rose is a rose" or "THIMK!"

Remember "Thimk!"

Stem Cells

All stem cell procedures are not the same. Monterey uses autologus; taken from your hip and cultured over night before replacing through holes bored in your skull. although i heard, now they're putting the cells into the spine.

Some use placenta cells, some fetus cells, others are making breakthroughs in re-engineering skin cells into pluripotent (undifferentiated) cells which become nerve cells.

I emailed the american company but haven't heard back. there should be a report out from Monterey in March. am waiting. no one who has had the procedure is shouting from the rooftops yet.

cheers charlie!

the cat

the cat
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

Bedroom

Bedroom
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

taxi

taxi
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

Taxi NYC

Taxi NYC
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

Today's Jane Brody

Rules Worth Following, for Everyone’s Sake

Published: February 1, 2010

In the more than four decades that I have been reading and writing about the findings of nutritional science, I have come across nothing more intelligent, sensible and simple to follow than the 64 principles outlined in a slender, easy-to-digest new book called “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual,” by Michael Pollan.

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Mr. Pollan is not a biochemist or a nutritionist but rather a professor of science journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. You may recognize his name as the author of two highly praised books on food and nutrition, “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto” and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” (All three books are from Penguin.)

If you don’t have the time and inclination to read the first two, you can do yourself and your family no better service than to invest $11 and one hour to whip through the 139 pages of “Food Rules” and adapt its guidance to your shopping and eating habits.

Chances are you’ve heard any number of the rules before. I, for one, have been writing and speaking about them for decades. And chances are you’ve yet to put most of them into practice. But I suspect that this little book, which is based on research but not annotated, can do more than the most authoritative text to get you motivated to make some important, lasting, health-promoting and planet-saving changes in what and how you eat.

Reasons to Change

Two fundamental facts provide the impetus Americans and other Westerners need to make dietary changes. One, as Mr. Pollan points out, is that populations who rely on the so-called Western diet — lots of processed foods, meat, added fat, sugar and refined grains — “invariably suffer from high rates of the so-called Western diseases: obesity, Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.” Indeed, 4 of the top 10 killers of Americans are linked to this diet.

As people in Asian and Mediterranean countries have become more Westernized (affluent, citified and exposed to the fast foods exported from the United States), they have become increasingly prone to the same afflictions.

The second fact is that people who consume traditional diets, free of the ersatz foods that line our supermarket shelves, experience these diseases at much lower rates. And those who, for reasons of ill health or dietary philosophy, have abandoned Western eating habits often experience a rapid and significant improvement in their health indicators.

I will add a third reason: our economy cannot afford to continue to patch up the millions of people who each year develop a diet-related ailment, and our planetary resources simply cannot sustain our eating style and continue to support its ever-growing population.

In his last book, Mr. Pollan summarized his approach in just seven words: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” The new book provides the practical steps, starting with advice to avoid “processed concoctions,” no matter what the label may claim (“no trans fats,” “lowcholesterol,” “less sugar,” “reduced sodium,” “high in antioxidants” and so forth).

As Mr. Pollan puts it, “If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.”

Do you already avoid products made with high-fructose corn syrup? Good, but keep in mind, sugar is sugar, and if it is being added to a food that is not normally sweetened, avoid it as well. Note, too, that refined flour is hardly different from sugar once it gets into the body.

Also avoid foods advertised on television, imitation foods and food products that make health claims. No natural food is simply a collection of nutrients, and a processed food stripped of its natural goodness to which nutrients are then added is no bargain for your body.

Those who sell the most healthful foods — vegetables, fruits and whole grains — rarely have a budget to support national advertising. If you shop in a supermarket (and Mr. Pollan suggests that wherever possible, you buy fresh food at farmers’ markets), shop the periphery of the store and avoid the center aisles laden with processed foods. Note, however, that now even the dairy case has been invaded by products like gunked-up yogurts.

Follow this advice, and you will have to follow another of Mr. Pollan’s rules: “Cook.”

“Cooking for yourself,” he writes, “is the only sure way to take back control of your diet from the food scientists and food processors.” Home cooking need not be arduous or very time-consuming, and you can make up time spent at the stove with time saved not visiting doctors or shopping for new clothes to accommodate an expanding girth.

Although the most wholesome eating pattern consists of three leisurely meals a day, and preferably a light meal at night, if you must have snacks, stick to fresh and dried fruits, vegetables and nuts, which are naturally loaded with healthful nutrients. I keep a dish of raisins and walnuts handy to satisfy the urge to nibble between meals. I also take them along for long car trips. Feel free to use the gas-station restroom, but never “get your fuel from the same place your car does,” Mr. Pollan writes.

Treating Treats as Treats

Perhaps the most important rules to put into effect as soon as possible are those aimed at the ever-expanding American waistline. If you eat less, you can afford to pay more for better foods, like plants grown in organically enriched soil and animals that are range-fed.

He recommends that you do all your eating at a table, not at a desk, while working, watching television or driving. If you’re not paying attention to what you’re eating, you’re likely to eat more than you realize.

But my favorite tip, one that helped me keep my weight down for decades, is a mealtime adage, “Stop eating before you’re full” — advice that has long been practiced by societies as diverse as Japan and France. (There is no French paradox, by the way: the French who stay slim eat smaller portions, leisurely meals and no snacks.)

Practice portion control and eat slowly to the point of satiation, not fullness. The food scientists Barbara J. Rolls of Penn State and Brian Wansink of Cornell, among others, have demonstrated that people eat less when served smaller portions on smaller plates. “There is nothing wrong with special occasion foods, as long as every day is not a special occasion,” Mr. Pollan writes. “Special occasion foods offer some of the great pleasures of life, so we shouldn’t deprive ourselves of them, but the sense of occasion needs to be restored.”

Here is where I can make an improvement. Ice cream has been a lifelong passion, and even though I stick to a brand lower in fat and calories than most, and limit my portion to the half-cup serving size described on the container, I indulge in this treat almost nightly. Perhaps I’ll try the so-called S policy Mr. Pollan says some people follow: “No snacks, no seconds, no sweets — except on days that begin with the letter S.”

Hey Blue Skies

Hey Blue Skies-
I feel hopeful and confident today. I think you wrote in your bio that you thought there would be a cure in your lifetime. Me too.

I rented a documentary from the History Channel on the brain. It was cheesy. They covered ESP and Joanthan Edwards - that medium guy. I know it sounds hoke but my sixth sense tells me- if I stay calm - I'll be okay.

I know how you feel about dealing with people. I haven't seen a sizable portion of my friends since I was diagnosed. I really hate the kind of attention this thing brings.

But I'll stay strong. I'll not dry up.

I get tired. My patience is wearing. My best days (I realize) are when the whole thing seems funny. I mean, it's not like I've been dealing with this my whole life. It's funny that everything I drop on the floor stays there until someone else picks it up. It can be amusing. I hope I don't sound too naive. I am hopeful. And today I am confident.

- Charlie

Tocqueville NYC

Tocqueville NYC
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

the horse whisperer

I cab to Tocqueville on 15th and 5th.

I'm meeting Phoebe and Adam.

We haven't checked in today. I remind myself in the cab - I should text Phoebe - " I'm on my way" - but I resist - I resist because I hate cluttering the moment with banal discourse, it ruins the day, the night. We said we'd meet. She'll be there. And she was.

The driver takes a crazy- assed route through midtown. When he drops off me off, I ask. "why not the west side highway and then straight across 14th? Why the urge to loop around midtown?" I hide my irritation to see if I can get an honest answer out of him.

The affable cabbie suggests I simply request that route next time.

"I don't know why I don't use the highway" he says, like he just considered it for the first time, "I don't know."

I get out of the cab on Fifth but the restaurant is down 15th. I'll have to climb up and down sidewalks. I will have to walk across a street.

I curse the cab driver for not delivering me to the exact address - when I hear my name.

"Charlie?"

"I look up from my feet, my canes, the sidewalk - and see Travi, Travi from the writing lab.

Travi has appeared from no where.

Like a hoke script, maybe she's here for a needed plot device.

"Charlie! How are you?"

"I'm good, I guess. I'm hanging in there."

I think that's the phrase I used.

Travi nods.

She understands - that this is the best I can do under the circumstances - that it is perfectly fine for me to say (anything I like) under the circumstances.

I add "I'm fine".

And I realize with my feeble voice, my canes, and my doomed disease, I must be a curiosity. I feel like a celebrity. I've always felt a little weird, a little different, and my illness merely adds a nimbus of further distinction.

Fifth Avenue is black and wet. It's eight. There aren't a lot of people around. I know this section of the city well because I worked on lower Fifth for years. Lower Fifth is ripe for martinis and raincoats.

"You never sent me the link to your blog."

"I didn't? Oh. Well send me your address."

"You didn't get my email?"

Travi looks kind and genuinely interested in my blog. I tell her I'll send it to her we say goodbye and I cane my way down 15th.

Tocqueville is on the ground floor. A beautiful young woman takes my parka. I'm wearing a poor man's blue blazer over a blue button down shirt. I'm dressed like I had to borrow something presentable to wear from the restaurant.

I see Adam and Phoebe at the bar. They look cozy in the warmth and privacy of the small restaurant bar.

My heart quickens, my eyes widen, my feet find their footing.

"Hellooo!"

Adam wears a coat to similar to mine - the tired blazer. We're trying just enough to pass. It's so insouciant. I feel proud.

Adam is drinking a real drink - a martini? a scotch and soda? Adam's relaxed. He belongs here. There is confidence here. I'm happy to be eating with (foodie noblesse oblige).

We're escorted into the one large rectangular dining room, candlelit, white linens, high ceilings, all male wait-staff in stuffy suits - dour expressions.

I'm looking forward to this. Their regular menu has appetizers for $30. Because it's restaurant week? Our three courses will cost a total of $35.

We order the suggested wines for each course. We sip, we compare, one smells of gasoline, another... cigarette smoke.

I have a Taurine (jellied chicken). Brisket (mouth watering) potatoes with horse radish (so good). Miniature cabbage (odd). Three delicate sorbets.

We taste the food like experts. We each test the miniature portions, each item described and noted.

As we dine, I realize I'm sitting with my former tennis partners. A couple of years ago I was bouncing around Central Park. I've become "the invalid" so easily. Was I born for this role?

I've been frustrated for so long that this new challenge seems a natural progression.

After desert and the sweet desert wine, like all good New Yorkers, we go our separate ways -back to the sobering street -to cash machines, to metro cards. The former intimacy dissolved into the harshness of the New York night.

I cab home and give Phoebe a lift to the subway.

When I get to my apartment building, a strange man greets me on the sidewalk.

He looks and acts like he might be a doorman out of uniform (but he's not). He tells me his name is Danny and he lives on the 17th floor. (Something isn't right, like he's a pervert).

And then I realize he's focusing on me because of my canes. He wants to help me but I resist.

"I got it, don't worry about it. Please don't take my arm."

He whispers, " its okay, let me help you, it's okay... god bless you."

I am a high-strung horse. He is the horse whisperer.

panic and pity

Have I stepped over a line? Is there something new about me that induces panic and pity?

I spent the day swatting away doormen, strangers on the street, and cabdrivers.

Getting into a cab on Seventh and 54th, a young guy raced over and tried to lift my legs into the cab.

"I'M FINE. I DON'T NEED ANY HELP. THANK YOU." - go away.

I lost my temper with Sprio, my doorman. He grabbed the front door way from me and I almost fell.

"Spiro! Stop! Please! I need to hold onto the door. I have my systems! Let go!"

Spiro colored at my wrath.

I cab to acupuncture. Again the doorman there and a random stranger will not leave me alone. I ha implore them to get out of my way and PLEASE DON'T GRAB MY ELBOW WITHOUT ASKING ME. I WILL F-CKING FALL OVER!!

__________________

My acupuncturist put many needles deep into my scalp and electrodes into my legs, shut the door, and turned off the light.

I thought about a million things but nothing I can remember.

My doctor came back and jabbed one needle into my ass (into each cheek) until I felt electricity.

"Do you feel that?"

"Ah! YES! I DO!!!!"

I did.

______________________________

I'm reading a book about the raw diet. According to Dr. Graham, all cooked food is poisonous. Fat is the culprit to high blood sugar, not fruit. Alcohol, salt, sugar, coffee, are poison. Juicing messes up your balance. Ditto vitamins.

The human diet is totally confusing (to me). It's all politics and theory.

But it does make sense to eat pure whole food uncooked to get the most nutrients.