Lessons Learned this Week

1. One person who I expected to be there for me in an emergency wasn't. Two people that I didn't really expect were...
2. My beloved pets are going to die someday. I will have to continue to live after they do, if only to care for the surviving ones. I need to accept it and I will - but it will be easier to accept if I feel that they've lived long and happy lives. I need to let go of our "pact" - they will not be able to live as long as I do. I can only hope that I can help them to live happy and joyous lives, full of love.
3. Certain of my neighbors have become good friends. Sometimes just being friendly turns into true compassion.
4. My issues with Ph.D. vs. M.D. expertise (and respect) need to be resolved. I'm not an M.D., nor am I a V.D.M.. I'm intelligent and a good scientist, but I'm not a clinician and I should never think I know how to be one without any training. I've been humbled.
5. Love trumps shame.
6. Even my mother cannot always be there for me the way I'd like her to be.
7. Sometimes I know what I need to do better than my parents. It's time to start trusting myself.

My Prayers

I don't pray to God or Goddess. I don't pray to Jesus. I've never met them and I cannot feel a connection to someone(s) or something(s) I don't even know exists for sure. I do, however, have monologues with my sister, Jodi, and my good friend, Abby, who both died at the ages of 19, 18 and 15 years ago, respectively. Mostly, the monologues are in my head but sometimes I accidentally say something out loud. Sometimes it's in a written form, usually in the form of a letter that, of course, never gets sent.

Today I prayed to Abby. Abigail Bates Rinehart. I named my cat, Bates, after her. I got him in 1998, two years after her death. Well, he was born on November 15, 1998. I think I may not have actually gotten him until after the new year, but it was love at first sight/hold. He clearly wanted ME as his mom. I think Abby told him to go with me. Maybe. Who cares if she did or didn't, I'd like to think she did so there. It comforts me. They have a connection in my mind so that's all that really matters. And he's been with me ever since. He is my baby. Bates. My handsome boy-cat - beautiful white long-haired fur with gray tips (it's called "blue point"). He's extremely affectionate and sweet. When I've cried and cried over broken hearts or whatever, he'd come up to me and lick my tears away...(ok, granted, he may have been more interested in the salty flavor, but still...it felt very loving and sweet.)

Bates is at the vet right now. He's not doing so well. They have him on dialysis and are watching him overnight. [update: he was not on dialysis - they were just flushing his system with fluids via IV - dialysis would be $15,000 and they'd have to send him down to San Diego or something!] He has a mixed bacterial/yeast infection in his ears. I gave him approximately 50mg of ibuprofen for the pain cause he seemed to be in a lot of pain over the weekend and then almost immediately afterwards I realized I made a mistake and looked it up online to find that even at small doses, ibuprofen can be toxic to cats! So I brought him to the emergency vet on Saturday. The animal poison control said that the dose (for his weight) was under the kidney failure dose but since he's 12, they wanted to do some blood work to make sure his kidneys were functioning normally and at that time they were. However, they said to bring him back 48 hours later to check again. Well, today, Monday, is 48 hours later and I brought him to another vet emergency and they did more blood work, but this time they said he seemed to be showing signs of toxicity. Also, he has anemia and may have some other chronic issues that could explain his semi-frequent vomiting. So tomorrow they're going to run more tests. It all worries me immensely and of course costs a small fortune. Well, to me, at least. So far it's already at $1350. It's probably going to be another $800 on top of that, if they keep him another night.

I prayed to Abby to have him pull through. I don't even know if she has any way to help but I still prayed to her. I want him to have a full life - I feel like he should have at least 6-8 more years with me! I'm moving to a place with a yard (well, hopefully - it's one of my stipulations) for him! I want him to be able to have his adventures outside that he always seems to be dreaming about! I'm not ready to lose him....not that I'll ever be but it'll be easier to let him go when he's already enjoyed a long, wonderful life!

The night before I found out that Abby died (so it was either the night that she died or the night before she died), I prayed to my sister, Jodi. I also tried praying to Jesus and God if they existed and were listening. I don't really know who they are but I know who my sister is and she's a loving being - always was! I pleaded, I begged. To no avail. But I know it's not my sister's fault Abby died. I don't even care about blaming anyone, though, cause what's the point? She's gone and blaming someone (such as the doctor who may have done her last two radiation treatments too close together, thus frying her lungs) won't bring her back. Anyway, doctors are only human, too. It's just hard to swallow when their fuck-up leads to the death of someone you love. Also, radiation therapy is pretty brutal. It's like taking an axe to a house to kill an ant infestation or something. It's just not very specific - but neither were most of the chemotherapies back then. Although, they're not that much better now, either.

Medicine is a lot less specific than people think - we theorize how specific it should be, but we hardly know what other things than the primary target is being hit and even if the primary target is the primary hit, we also don't completely know if that's specific to the disease, either! Unless we do - unless it's a microbe or parasite or something foreign to the body - but that's not cancer. Cancer is the body gone wrong. Or really, just gone "right" but pushed to the edge of "right". I mean, it's really just micro-evolution. Our cells are just stressed to the level of selection for the fittest in that stressful situation, and then the selection is made - the fittest cell lives longer, at least long enough to have progeny, right? That's the definition of "fitness". But most cells are not supposed to have progeny. Most cells are done dividing and are busy doing stuff. It's when they're pushed to divide for reasons not entirely known - maybe repair - such as in the lungs, repairing the epithelium lining the airways due to the toxins and reactive oxygen species (ROS) in smoke which cause the cells to die. So cells are induced to divide more and then selected for their ability to divide under stressful situations - thus selecting cells with heritable aberrations in the expression of certain genes that may regulate the cell cycle, cell death, cell migration including adhesion, etc. Also, some cancers are, at least partially, due to heritable genetic mutations - but usually only heterozygous mutations cause the homozygous ones probably would not be viable. In any case, that's also just evolution at work - survival of the fittest. Unfortunately, people with those mutations are not as "fit" as people without them. If we step back and look at it from a population's perspective - we want those genes to be selected out of the population! We don't want more people with those genes! But...then in some cases, maybe we do, so they're heterozygous mutations (one allele inherited from one parent has it while the other from the other parent doesn't and may require that the other allele be mutated spontaneous and then, when under selective pressure, it becomes homozygous and thus that cell has a major advantage micro-evolutionarily! Anyway, so that's how cancer happens. It's part genetic and part environmental or sometimes it's almost entirely environmental that changes the readout of the genetic makeup - or even directly mutates it (as in the case with UV light - it causes cross-links in the DNA).

Wow. That was a bit of a tangent. It's so much easier for me to talk about biology than to talk about loss. I really miss my sister and Abby. It's really painful to think about how I can never just hang out with them again. It's also been a long time since they were around so the pain is different. It's just a sadness now. Just memories. It sucks - I would really like to have more, to be able to experience more of them. I don't want to lose Bates. I want more with him. He's my buddy. He's my boy-cat. He makes me feel like a girl sometimes cause he's the only boy in my life on a daily basis - I mean, boy that's close to me. Well, he's a cat and kinda effeminate sometimes although also masculine. I don't know. I really love to cuddle with him and kiss him and he kisses me! (no tongue! Well, not my tongue!)

Anyway, I guess I'm coming full-circle here. I prayed to Abby. I just looked at her yearbook page again to double-check that I spelled her name correctly. She has "Abigail B. Rinehart" in the yearbook. But I know what the B. stands for. It makes me feel kinda special. Even if I'm not. Or ever was to her but I'm pretty sure she knows how special she was to me and maybe that means something to her now. I will have to write the post about why I'm pretty convinced that our consciousness exists even after our body dies. I guess I would say our consciousness is equivalent to our soul. And not only that - well, there's so much about it but really I mean to say that I know that Abby had a life-review when she died and she would've felt how I felt when she saw/felt the parts with me in them. Maybe she would have seen/felt how I felt when I told her I was gay....and she thought I was playing a joke on her cause she's bi but I didn't know that! I had a crush on her! But I was dating April...and she had a boyfriend, too...Greg. Yeah, and he was in a band. I think their band was named "Rail". Yeah, and Abby quoted from a song of theirs in her senior yearbook page quote! I had two U2 quotes but I didn't attribute them to U2 or Bono, per se, I used his real name - Paul Hewson! Aw man, now I'm blanking on Edge's real name - Dave Evans...got it! HA! And I just confirmed it on Google...

Ok, to be fair and honest, I've been getting progressively stoned as I've been writing this. So it may not be the best post ever but now I've decided to conclude it. Essentially I pray to Abby that Bates pulls through and gets better and lives for at least 6-8 more happy years with me!

River Runs Through Us

On a different, yet similar, note from my post about River Phoenix, I thought about my deep feeling of connection with River Phoenix for some time and I have come to the consideration that perhaps when we feel strongly that we see ourselves in another person - their personality, their facial expressions, the way they display their emotions, even maybe similar physical features, too - maybe we literally are seeing a little bit of ourselves in them. We are a considerably homogenous genus (Homo) - there is only one of our species in existence anymore - sapiens. Other genuses have multiple species such as dogs/wolves - Canis familiaris (dog), Canis latrans (coyotes), Canis Lupis (wolf), Canis mesomelas (jackal). But us humans only have the one, Homo sapiens sapiens. Apparently, there were two other subspecies - archaic and neandertalensis as well as other Homo species. However, these species and subspecies all died out 30,000-1,600,000 years ago. Back to my point: we are a considerably homogenous genus/species. We are 98.4-99.4% identical in genetic sequence to chimpanzees. Uh-oh...I just ran into a snag in my thesis here - this paper that I just referred to for my sequence identity suggests that chimps should also be considered part of the Homo genus because of these identical sequences. Well, that really does throw a snag into my argument except I don't know how well-accepted that new classification is. I don't keep up with taxonomy or phylogeny research.

In any case, my point was more about how similar we are to each other - humans - and that we, therefore, easily share many of the very small variations in our DNA that give rise to our subtle differences in characteristics (which include personality, facial expressions and emotions as well as physical features that we can see or susceptibilities to diseases) even if we cannot easily connect our family lineages to each other. Therefore, I hope my train of thought is clear: maybe when I look at pictures of River Pheonix or watch him in movies or read interviews with him and I feel like I can see a little bit of myself in him...well, maybe there is a little bit of him in me, you know? Purely genetically speaking, of course.

If we agree with my suggestion above, the next obvious question is: what makes us the different beings that we are if we share nearly 100% of our DNA sequences with each other (it's somewhere in the 99.99% range, I think, although I would honestly need to do some research on that - but if Chimps are up to 99.4% identical to us in DNA sequence, then it's certainly higher than that in our similarities between individual humans)? It's an intriguing question - of course, it includes the assumption that our DNA determines who we are, which there is ample evidence that is not the case - take identical twins, for example - they have almost 100% identical DNA sequence (except the DNA in lymphocytes which need to change in order to produce the diversity of antibodies made in order to protect against exogenous agents in the body and mount an immune response) - they still have different personalities. - sometimes wildly different! We know that personalities are a combination of something innate (encoded in our DNA?) and experience - there are anecdotal cases of people who have almost complete amnesia and do not remember who they are or any of their memories but who still know how to talk, write, all motor skills - people from their life (who they knew before) describe that these people have somewhat different personalities from before they had the amnesia which suggests that your personality is shaped by your experiences and memories formed from them as well as whatever is innate.

Anyway, these are just thoughts, you know? I'll write more about the concepts of personality and what makes us who we are - our consciousness? - in a different post. Time to post this one!

Slightly Embarrassed

Hi, I'm a wee bit embarrassed about my previous post regarding Charlie Sheen. Here's why:

1. I predicted that he was near death and he hasn't died yet.
2. We all may have been taken for a ride - it seems he knows how much he's worth regarding pop culture, voyeurism, the paparazzi and how to milk it. He milked it and will probably continue to milk it.
3. It's just a bit embarrassing to be caught up in pop culture trash. I am only human, though.

So that's all I'm going to say regarding C.S. I don't really care what he does with his life, I really just find it disgusting that we, as a culture, get caught up in the media train-wrecks that are shoved in our face. I wish we were stronger than that temptation to look and stare, but I guess we are not. At least, I'm mostly ashamed that I am not.

T.V. (Tele-Voyeur)

I'm ashamed to admit it but I am one of those people who is mesmerized by all the media about Charlie Sheen and his behavior in it. It's a spectacle. And I am one of the sheep, drawn in like everybody else.

I realized tonight that that thing - that undeniable compulsion to watch this train wreck - is really one of my voyeuristic curiosities - especially curious when it comes to death. And we're watching Charlie Sheen slowly kill himself. Someone said that on a TV program (probably Entertainment Tonight). I guess it's a common voyeuristic subject - cause it really comes down to the ultimate question: what happens when you die? And after... so to watch someone do it - die - in such intimacy while in a public realm - which only TV and the internet can give us while we (the creepy voyeurs) remain anonymous.

Then there's all the judgment - which may or may not be warranted, but it feels wrong to be so judgmental like we'd know what we'd be like in the same situation - like we're "better" than him,  like we're "special"! But then we all have our temptations...and he's certainly not holding back from his temptations... but then again, he's an addict and is in the final stages of his addiction - he'll either hit rock bottom and get help or he'll just fall right through (die). The way he's been talking in all the interviews on TV and the radio is like it's not a big deal and he'd do it again, which is why I think he's going to die soon.

I also just feel it in my bones. Sometimes I can totally predict the future - most things hint at where they're going. Like the Oscars. The final award - for best picture - gave it away when the background of the montage of all the nominees was "The King's Speech" (I don't know if it was the speech but clearly a regal speech in a British accent). Not to mention that both best actor and best director were from that movie, too.  Anyway...it's not like it took much talent or luck to know where it was leading. And I'd say the same for Charlie Sheen. We all know where he's heading and we're watching him go there, voyeurs through media - tele-voyeurs (T.V.)!

River Phoenix is dead

I was watching TV last night when I saw a commercial for a new movie coming out that stars Johnny Depp as the voice of the main character ('Rango'). It's an animated movie. I think it's even in 3-D. I'll certainly go to see it if it's in 3-D. I only really go to 3-D movies now since it's too expensive to go to a movie that I could easily rent on DVD a few months later for only a few dollars.

Anyway, I was watching the commercial and thinking to myself - Johnny Depp is a really good actor, has he won an Oscar yet? He must have! So, of course, like any curiosity I have anymore, I looked up Johnny Depp online - via Google - and found out: 1) No, Johnny Depp has not won an Oscar yet although he has been nominated a few times and 2) River Phoenix's death will always be linked to Johnny Depp (as it seems since there were a bunch of hits mentioning River Phoenix.) [Actually, after reviewing this I realized that this is not how I got to River Phoenix - I guess he will always be linked to River's death in my mind since I think I just wondered if they ever were in a movie together because I knew they were friends and they both have that same je ne sais quoi but I couldn't find any references to a movie together and couldn't remember it and anyway if you do look up both of their names you will find most of the links to be about his death.] That, of course, opened a wound I had not thought about in a long time.

In fourth grade, or maybe it was the Summer after fourth grade, I went to a birthday party - a slumber party (which I always dreaded since I had issues cause I liked to actually go to sleep and I had homesickness problems) - at a friend's house fairly far from home (about a half hour). Almost all of the girls in my class were there (I went to a small, private school with approximately 30-35 kids per grade/class). I remember it was a warm late Spring or Summer evening, we played tetherball in the backyard...and other such activities. There might have even been an above-ground pool. Then, after pizza and cake and presents, we went to a room that we set up our sleeping bags in for the night and we chose between two movies - one that I cannot remember, the other one the majority picked: 'Stand By Me' which I don't think I wanted to see but I also didn't know much about it. So our friend's mom put the VHS tape in the machine and we all got comfy and watched it. Well, I think it's probably "needless to say", but yes, I fell in love with that movie - but really, I fell in love with River Phoenix and his portrayal of Chris Chambers. It was 1987 and I was 10.

There was something about River Phoenix that felt real to me - he made me feel like he and I were one of the same or definitely similar. His emotions onscreen were my emotions inside. Even his facial expressions somehow seemed reminiscent of my own facial expressions. For a long time I thought I was in love with him - a deep, bonded love, more than just sexual. Then, years later, I realized it wasn't that I wanted to be with him - it was that I wanted to be him. For years after, I was obsessed with getting my hair cut like Chris Chambers' hair in the movie - a "buzz cut"! I read interviews with River Phoenix which only made me love him more - he was just a good, clean-cut, genuine, kind and peaceful person - just like Chris Chambers in the movie (except in the movie he had a bad reputation because of his family). Even his name feels peaceful - natural. I used to wish my name was like that - I even thought of 'Ocean' as something I'd want to be called! I read somewhere that he lived in San Diego, CA, with his family and I immediately became fixated on someday living in San Diego! River Phoenix was a no-drug-taking, vegetarian, peace-and-nature loving kid, as far as I knew.

Then, after a few years of a lot of life for me - I woke up on November 1st, 1993 (almost an entire year since the untimely and tragic death of my older sister and her newborn son, my nephew) and heard on the radio that River Phoenix died the night before outside a nightclub in L.A. from a drug overdose.

I couldn't believe it. I was shocked. I was floored. I was devastated. It felt like my soulmate - or part of my soul, even - had suddenly turned into something unrecognizable and vanished into thin air. I thought it was a lie - River Phoenix didn't do drugs! He was a "good kid"! He was anti-drugs! He can't die - he's only 23! (Although, at the time, I was 16 and felt like 23 was an "adult".)

Still, to this day, I find it hard to accept. This was a mistake. A fatal mistake. This wasn't the River Phoenix most of us knew. But now it will be the River Phoenix that most of us will remember forever. It makes me sad and angry. It angers me because it's just the smallest fraction of who he was - I know cause I felt it - doing drugs and what not (I even went through a brief phase when I did some hard drugs around the same age!) And if he had lived he would've figured it out as bullshit and moved on with his life to create more meaningful performances and art that would truly affect people and move them. But in this Universe, in this version, he died and his legacy is fixed.

One of the websites I found when I was on my internet search last night gave a very detailed description of what happened that night that he died - as detailed as someone who wasn't there might be able to give. It was really quite graphic even though I didn't click on any of the links to see his coffin or to hear the 911 call that his brother, Joaquin, made outside the Viper Room (Johnny Depp's nightclub that will forever be associated with River Phoenix's death.) I'm usually one of those gruesomely curious people who will click on those links and listen to the calls but the idea of it disgusted me in this case. I don't want to see him like that - I had trouble even reading the description of his death - his foaming at the mouth, yelling at the guy who gave him the last bump of a drug ("Persian Brown"), uncontrollable flailing and seizures. He did so many different drugs that night - marijuana, valium, cocaine, crystal meth, heroin. It's almost as if he was trying to kill himself. Instead, I think he just had too many opportunities - he probably was just given each drug to try. Most people can't afford that many drugs! Well, no one can in the end.

Honestly, maybe I'm also a little scarred from reading that description. It reminded me of my own drug experiences. Doing drugs is scary. The last time I did cocaine I felt that horrible feeling when we were coming down from it (cause we ran out!) - like I would never feel good again. My heart was racy and I was jittery - I think it felt like drinking way too much coffee but not feeling good and happy and free - it felt like being caged in my own body as it tried to get rid of the poison. I was 22 at the time, living in Staten Island with a girlfriend who was 18 and I was supporting both of us on a graduate student stipend, attending NYU for a masters in music technology. I never finished the program, let alone the first semester! Moving out of NYC probably saved me from becoming a drug addict (and possibly saved my life, although I don't know if I'd ever let it get that bad.) I wanted to move, in part, to get away from the easy and sleazy access. That girlfriend was into drugs and picked up sleazy people all the time to hang out with and get drugs from. So we moved to Pittsburgh. And I applied to Pitt and got into their doctorate program in biology - MCDB: Molecular, Cell, Developmental biology & Biochemistry. The rest is history...

(Actually, all of it is..)

Just to truly complete this blog and not leave it all hanging, I guess I just really miss River Phoenix. I wish he was alive now and continuing with his art. Sometimes it feels like a piece of me died when he died. Or maybe a piece of him stayed alive in me.

About that time

It's long been said that there are several phases or stages of grief. I found a website that outlines seven, to be exact: 1) Shock & Denial 2) Pain & Guilt 3) Anger & Bargaining 4) "Depression", Reflection and Lonliness 5) The Upward Turn 6) Reconstruction & Working Through 7) Acceptence and Hope. Honestly, that seems like a lot and also I believe the order is not always as described and yes, of course, each individual will experience it in a different way. In any case, as far as my newest addition to my ex-girlfiriends is concerned - it looks like we've entered stage 3) Anger (and I'm not sure why "bargaining" is here...I feel like that is more in stage 1)). It feels like she is collecting data, evaluating it and getting angry at me now. So, of course, I am reflecting on data I've already collected and showing her how it angered me. Maybe that's not fair - you know, for me to do that. In fact, maybe this is the time when we should stop all communication.

You might wonder why we're even continuing to communicate in the first place right now. Let me explain. I think maybe Lesbian Break-Up Grief has a slightly different take on the regular version. For instance, I think we, lesbians, like to think that we can be friends seamlessly immediately after breaking up. Just turn the formerly sexual relationship into a non-sexual one. However, that never works. But I believe it is the first stage of Lesbian Break-Up Grief. The problem is that it's not a separate stage - all the normal stages happen at the same time - kind of like: 1) Let's slightly adjust our relationship from sexual to non-sexual and stay close friends 1a) Shock & Denial 1b) Pain & Guilt 1c) Anger...then there's a problem. Cause 1c) Anger brings out the problems which caused the end of the relationship to begin with. Hence, the friendship cannot work, either, and there's the end of the friendship as stage 2). Then, again, we go back to 2a) Shock & Denial 2b) Pain & Guilt.. all the while still angry. Then, maybe the regular stages resume. I don't know.. I can't quite remember. It seems like the first three stages last until time dissipates the emotions.

Anyway, we're on anger. She's angry at me for breaking up with her over and over again during the course of our (almost) two year relationship. Then she's also angry that I broke up with her this last time despite saying I'd try to work it out with her. But the question is, when have you tried hard enough? When do you throw in the towel?

To be honest, she has legitimate reason to be angry at me for breaking up with her over and over again while we dated. I know I should've just stayed broken up with her after I broke up with her the first time (after a month of dating). But I was weak. And wanted it to work...we always made some sort of deal on how it would work but usually it was me who compromised or promised something. Usually - but there were two clear changes that she made after I broke up with her at two different times. In any case, I guess I wanted her to change more. And some things I couldn't figure out how to get her to change. But the truth is - if you base your relationship on how you think it could be and not how it is, then you're really playing with fire as far as the stability of the relationship is concerned. I've known that the whole time, too. I just put it out of my mind. Did I mention that she's gorgeous? At least to me.

I guess I'm not really that angry at her except that she has no idea how she is to others. She has no idea how her behavior affects others. I don't think she really cares, either. Maybe I'm angry about that. Mostly I'm full of guilt and sadness still.