Someone is a little overdressed for Spring.
Saturday, November 8, 2014
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Artifacts
I only ever thought I might die once. That was on a vacation on a sidewalk in Tokyo in 2011 when the world underneath me wouldn't stop heaving. It was benign at first until the 60-second mark and then the 90-second mark when it seemed the force wasn't going away without me.
That earthquake started off innocent, but many of life's rattlers also do. I woke up in the night about six weeks ago with a strange tingling sensation on the top part of my head. I didn't think much of it until two weeks later when I was having a conversation with Daniela and felt a similar sensation, only this time on my face. Both incidents happened on the left side of my head only.
Thinking of a long lost friend my age who died earlier this year of a stroke, I told Daniela what I was feeling. She insisted we go to the hospital. I asked if she was sure and she said yes. So, we brushed our teeth and walked to the nearby emergency room where we waited for hours--me refreshing my fantasy football score over and over until my phone faded to sleep.
The doctor looked me over and said he didn't think anything was wrong, but with my kind of symptoms they (legally) couldn't just send me home. He ordered a CT scan and minutes later I was taking off my belt and emptying my pockets of anything metal. The machine sucked me in, took a picture and just as quickly spit me back out.
"Everything looks normal," the doctor said. Photos of the insides of my skull flipped by on his computer screen. "But we found this." He stopped on one slide in the middle of the group. Like the rest of the images, it was colored solid gray with healthy brain matter. Except for one part. He pointed at a dark little blip in the back corner of my head.
"We think this is a cyst," he said.
"What?" I replied.
He assured me that nothing was wrong. That this wasn't causing my numbness symptoms. That it probably wasn't effecting me at all. He told me I've likely had it since birth, which made me want to say, "Well, maybe don't tell me about it."
But he did.
Three days later, at his request, I stretched out on another hospital's table and slid into another large machine, this time for an MRI. My head, throughout the process, was cradled in a plastic cage and my forehead was taped down to the board. I was asked repeatedly to remain perfectly still. The conveyor belt beneath me slid inside the mothership. I watched the grey panels pass by overhead.
Getting an MRI is exactly like the final 30 minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you haven't seen the movie, allow me to clarify: It freaks you out. What the main character Dave saw in a vortex of colors, I heard through clinched eyes, clinched fists and earplugs as the machine rattled, thumped, hummed and chirped at a deafening volume for 25 minutes. It was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life.
I got a "break" halfway through, although honestly it was even worse than being in the machine. They pulled me out and, without being able to move my head to watch, injected my arm with a dye that would flow through my brain and show up in their images--an idea that honestly left me much more uneasy than it should have.
I laid my head in Dani's lap in the cab on the way home. I just wanted to get back to America and get some answers.
The truth of the matter was, I didn't trust what the doctors were telling me. Cyst, maybe, but I figured these guys had it all wrong. What if it was something more? The fact that I was in the middle of reading "Shrinkage"--author Bryan Bishop's memoir on living with a brain tumor--did not help in the slightest. What timing.
Just as difficult was the numbness that continued to recur in spurts. I was back in the US by then. I felt it in restaurants during meals with old friends and on the familiar interstates I used to drive. I played the winless game of wondering if I was feeling something serious. What about now? Do I feel weird? What about now? Daniela would see on my face that something wasn't right. She asked me about it. I would just lean close, kiss her head and tell her I loved her.
Like that earthquake that started with a slow churn under my feet, the trouble I felt really ruffled me when I realized it wasn't stopping. The doctor in Brazil told me not to worry. The articles on Wikipedia and WebMD told me it was benign. I knew the odds were in my favor, but to be completely honestly, I felt there was a fragment of a chance I was about to die, or at least be told that that was in the cards.
I've been in the US for two weeks and I've been on edge the whole time.
I sat down with my American doctor and explained my symptoms. He recommended a neurologist. I went to him and waited to hear my fate. He called me into his exam room and looked at my medical report, which was written completely in Portuguese. I tried to help him translate it. Not my specialty.
"Let me see the CT scan," he said.
The doctor loaded the disk onto his computer and scanned through the 30 or so images. I knew where the cyst was in the presentation. I watched it come and go on his screen. He scrolled through the pictures a second time and again missed it.
"Where is this thing?" he asked.
I took his mouse and stopped on the slide near the middle of the deck. "Here," I said.
He looked closely, flipped back a few images and then rolled forward a few more, stopping on it each time.
"This looks like an artifact," he said.
I asked him what that meant. Was there a historically important document in my brain that I was unaware of? He said no. An artifact is essentially an error in the film. Perhaps I was moving during a brief instance of the photo's taking. Maybe some fluid in my head was moving.
I blinked and then circled back on the issue. "Okay," I said, "But what if it is a cyst? How might this affect my life?"
He said there's no way to know until there are symptoms. "But," he added," I don't think you have a cyst."
A minute later, I was shaking his hand and walking out of there making a lame joke about hoping "I don't have to see you again. Ha!" We talked more about the numbness first--a symptom, he explained, that's impossible to link to a specific cause. It could be a number of things from stress to inflammation of a nerve and unless I feel something new happen, I shouldn't worry.
I guess I'm not completely done with this issue. I'll still see another neurologist if I can. I don't blame the Brazilian doctors for getting things wrong. I was one patient in a revolving emergency room door that night. I was right that they were wrong. Luckily, it was in my favor and not something deadly serious.
I'm honestly just relieved. The thought of something foreign stretching its dark legs inside my brain was unnerving. Turns out, ironically, it was all in my head.
That earthquake started off innocent, but many of life's rattlers also do. I woke up in the night about six weeks ago with a strange tingling sensation on the top part of my head. I didn't think much of it until two weeks later when I was having a conversation with Daniela and felt a similar sensation, only this time on my face. Both incidents happened on the left side of my head only.
Thinking of a long lost friend my age who died earlier this year of a stroke, I told Daniela what I was feeling. She insisted we go to the hospital. I asked if she was sure and she said yes. So, we brushed our teeth and walked to the nearby emergency room where we waited for hours--me refreshing my fantasy football score over and over until my phone faded to sleep.
The doctor looked me over and said he didn't think anything was wrong, but with my kind of symptoms they (legally) couldn't just send me home. He ordered a CT scan and minutes later I was taking off my belt and emptying my pockets of anything metal. The machine sucked me in, took a picture and just as quickly spit me back out.
"Everything looks normal," the doctor said. Photos of the insides of my skull flipped by on his computer screen. "But we found this." He stopped on one slide in the middle of the group. Like the rest of the images, it was colored solid gray with healthy brain matter. Except for one part. He pointed at a dark little blip in the back corner of my head.
"We think this is a cyst," he said.
"What?" I replied.
He assured me that nothing was wrong. That this wasn't causing my numbness symptoms. That it probably wasn't effecting me at all. He told me I've likely had it since birth, which made me want to say, "Well, maybe don't tell me about it."
But he did.
Three days later, at his request, I stretched out on another hospital's table and slid into another large machine, this time for an MRI. My head, throughout the process, was cradled in a plastic cage and my forehead was taped down to the board. I was asked repeatedly to remain perfectly still. The conveyor belt beneath me slid inside the mothership. I watched the grey panels pass by overhead.
Getting an MRI is exactly like the final 30 minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you haven't seen the movie, allow me to clarify: It freaks you out. What the main character Dave saw in a vortex of colors, I heard through clinched eyes, clinched fists and earplugs as the machine rattled, thumped, hummed and chirped at a deafening volume for 25 minutes. It was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life.
I got a "break" halfway through, although honestly it was even worse than being in the machine. They pulled me out and, without being able to move my head to watch, injected my arm with a dye that would flow through my brain and show up in their images--an idea that honestly left me much more uneasy than it should have.
I laid my head in Dani's lap in the cab on the way home. I just wanted to get back to America and get some answers.
The truth of the matter was, I didn't trust what the doctors were telling me. Cyst, maybe, but I figured these guys had it all wrong. What if it was something more? The fact that I was in the middle of reading "Shrinkage"--author Bryan Bishop's memoir on living with a brain tumor--did not help in the slightest. What timing.
Just as difficult was the numbness that continued to recur in spurts. I was back in the US by then. I felt it in restaurants during meals with old friends and on the familiar interstates I used to drive. I played the winless game of wondering if I was feeling something serious. What about now? Do I feel weird? What about now? Daniela would see on my face that something wasn't right. She asked me about it. I would just lean close, kiss her head and tell her I loved her.
Like that earthquake that started with a slow churn under my feet, the trouble I felt really ruffled me when I realized it wasn't stopping. The doctor in Brazil told me not to worry. The articles on Wikipedia and WebMD told me it was benign. I knew the odds were in my favor, but to be completely honestly, I felt there was a fragment of a chance I was about to die, or at least be told that that was in the cards.
I've been in the US for two weeks and I've been on edge the whole time.
I sat down with my American doctor and explained my symptoms. He recommended a neurologist. I went to him and waited to hear my fate. He called me into his exam room and looked at my medical report, which was written completely in Portuguese. I tried to help him translate it. Not my specialty.
"Let me see the CT scan," he said.
The doctor loaded the disk onto his computer and scanned through the 30 or so images. I knew where the cyst was in the presentation. I watched it come and go on his screen. He scrolled through the pictures a second time and again missed it.
"Where is this thing?" he asked.
I took his mouse and stopped on the slide near the middle of the deck. "Here," I said.
He looked closely, flipped back a few images and then rolled forward a few more, stopping on it each time.
"This looks like an artifact," he said.
I asked him what that meant. Was there a historically important document in my brain that I was unaware of? He said no. An artifact is essentially an error in the film. Perhaps I was moving during a brief instance of the photo's taking. Maybe some fluid in my head was moving.
I blinked and then circled back on the issue. "Okay," I said, "But what if it is a cyst? How might this affect my life?"
He said there's no way to know until there are symptoms. "But," he added," I don't think you have a cyst."
A minute later, I was shaking his hand and walking out of there making a lame joke about hoping "I don't have to see you again. Ha!" We talked more about the numbness first--a symptom, he explained, that's impossible to link to a specific cause. It could be a number of things from stress to inflammation of a nerve and unless I feel something new happen, I shouldn't worry.
I guess I'm not completely done with this issue. I'll still see another neurologist if I can. I don't blame the Brazilian doctors for getting things wrong. I was one patient in a revolving emergency room door that night. I was right that they were wrong. Luckily, it was in my favor and not something deadly serious.
I'm honestly just relieved. The thought of something foreign stretching its dark legs inside my brain was unnerving. Turns out, ironically, it was all in my head.
Preparing for the CT scan. I thought we would laugh about this later. Little did I know my "cyst" was about to make its debut.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Back in the US of A
Daniela's mother and younger brother enjoy their first ever tastes of Dr. Pepper and ice cream sandwiches.
Reviews are positive.
Actor and writer Greg Sestero is here.
Greg Sestero at As Was Written, October 25 at the Lyceum in Alexandria, VA.
Elizabeth Acevedo at As Was Written.
Emily Guagliardi.
Ryan Schutt.
Stuart Smith.
Greg Sestero reads to the sold out crowd.
Monday, October 20, 2014
The Flush
Brazil's got a dirty little secret. They're not proud of it. I haven't written about it before because I feel bad for them. It's rarely discussed and it won't be in your travel guide.
You can't flush toilet paper here. Like, at all. Well, one piece is okay. Maybe two. I've flirted with three or four before and paid the plunger price. It's not a pretty thing.
I learned about this when Dani and I were first dating. She showed me a video she sent her parents where she's giving them a virtual tour of her host family's house. In the bathroom, she showed them the toilet and then made a downward pointing motion with her fingers. Dani leaned over to me as we watched and said, "I'm telling them that we can flush toiler paper."
Silence.
"Why would you tell them that?" I asked cautiously.
"Because we can't in Brazil," she replied.
And it's not just her family. It's everyone. Finding a toilet in Brazil that accepts more than a couple of pieces of paper is like finding a gas station in America where they pump it for you--they're out there, but it's almost an urban legend.
I have to admit this depressed me at first. There's nothing worse than getting the sensation to go and then frowning when you remember what's involved. Our bathroom, like everyone else's in Brazil, has a little lidded trash can beside the toilet that you open with your foot. It's where the paper goes. It's much more sanitary than you're probably imagining, but still, emptying it every few days is everyone's least favorite chore.
I leave for America tomorrow and the plumbing is one thing I'm looking forward to the most. Last time I was home, it took me a day or two to get back into the habit of putting everything into the toilet. Brazil's bathroom etiquette is tough to break. Once I had, though, there was almost no going back. When I returned to Brazil, I had to start all over again. Depressing.
In reality, I think most of the bathrooms in the world are more like Brazil's than the US's. When athletes went to the poorly-staged Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, photos of their hastily thrown together lodgings swept the internet. One athlete took a picture of a sign in his bathroom that requested all toilet paper be placed in the trash can, not the toilet. The stunned athlete's caption was something like, "If there was one thing I wasn't ready for it was this!"
I sighed.
What he encountered is a reality most of the world lives with every day. And if that guy has a summer sport he excels in, then he'll probably run into the same problem at the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro.
Out of all of the luxuries of the modern world, plumbing and sanitation have to be the one we take for granted the most. It was never on my list of favorite things about the US until I moved here. Next week, it's one of the things I'll be happiest to see.
You can't flush toilet paper here. Like, at all. Well, one piece is okay. Maybe two. I've flirted with three or four before and paid the plunger price. It's not a pretty thing.
I learned about this when Dani and I were first dating. She showed me a video she sent her parents where she's giving them a virtual tour of her host family's house. In the bathroom, she showed them the toilet and then made a downward pointing motion with her fingers. Dani leaned over to me as we watched and said, "I'm telling them that we can flush toiler paper."
Silence.
"Why would you tell them that?" I asked cautiously.
"Because we can't in Brazil," she replied.
And it's not just her family. It's everyone. Finding a toilet in Brazil that accepts more than a couple of pieces of paper is like finding a gas station in America where they pump it for you--they're out there, but it's almost an urban legend.
I have to admit this depressed me at first. There's nothing worse than getting the sensation to go and then frowning when you remember what's involved. Our bathroom, like everyone else's in Brazil, has a little lidded trash can beside the toilet that you open with your foot. It's where the paper goes. It's much more sanitary than you're probably imagining, but still, emptying it every few days is everyone's least favorite chore.
I leave for America tomorrow and the plumbing is one thing I'm looking forward to the most. Last time I was home, it took me a day or two to get back into the habit of putting everything into the toilet. Brazil's bathroom etiquette is tough to break. Once I had, though, there was almost no going back. When I returned to Brazil, I had to start all over again. Depressing.
In reality, I think most of the bathrooms in the world are more like Brazil's than the US's. When athletes went to the poorly-staged Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, photos of their hastily thrown together lodgings swept the internet. One athlete took a picture of a sign in his bathroom that requested all toilet paper be placed in the trash can, not the toilet. The stunned athlete's caption was something like, "If there was one thing I wasn't ready for it was this!"
I sighed.
What he encountered is a reality most of the world lives with every day. And if that guy has a summer sport he excels in, then he'll probably run into the same problem at the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro.
Out of all of the luxuries of the modern world, plumbing and sanitation have to be the one we take for granted the most. It was never on my list of favorite things about the US until I moved here. Next week, it's one of the things I'll be happiest to see.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
The Pen
There's a good reason for the lack of posts recently. I've been too busy, well, writing.
While it's already true I've been writing more per day here than at any other point in my life, as of the last month, even that number has shot up. Each day I'm balancing a few hours writing/contemplating my writing with a strict schedule of work, gym and time with Daniela.
Brazil's the only place I can really live this way. There are just too many distractions back home. It reminds me of this interview I saw with Jonathan Franzen recently. When he writes, he goes into a small office with no phone, bare walls, covered up windows and a computer with no internet capability. Its as sparse and unromantic as it gets.
Everything about writing is horrible. But I can't sing.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Oh, Sweet News
If you know anything about me, or if I'm a stranger and you just read my last post a week ago, you know the importance of Ben and Jerry's in my life. So, you can probably imagine the euphoria that pumped through my feverish, flu-stricken body this week when I heard that my ice cream heroes had opened their first Scoop Shop in Brazil.
Not just in Brazil, but in Sao Paulo.
And not just in Sao Paulo, but a mile and a half from my house.
And not just a Scoop Shop, the biggest Scoop Shop in the world.
Oh, sweet relief.
One scoop: R $10 (US $4.19)
Two scoops: R $14 (US $5.88)
Three scoops: R $17 (US $7.13)
Not just in Brazil, but in Sao Paulo.
And not just in Sao Paulo, but a mile and a half from my house.
And not just a Scoop Shop, the biggest Scoop Shop in the world.
Oh, sweet relief.
One scoop: R $10 (US $4.19)
Two scoops: R $14 (US $5.88)
Three scoops: R $17 (US $7.13)
Thursday, October 2, 2014
In a Way That Only 20 Million Can Do
Seven and a half months in Brazil.
-Last night on Rua Augusta, Dani and I passed a naked woman on the sidewalk. She walked in the opposite direction alone. Naked. And I mean completely naked. Heads turned, looked, giggled or frowned and then kept walking in a way that only a city of 20 million can do.
-Headed home to the US again soon. Before I went home for the first time in August, I thought about it every five minutes. It's more relaxed this time. Not everything has to be perfect. I just want a Five Guys burger every 2.5 days and a lot of friends around me.
-The latest food trend here is Mexican popsicles. They sell them in the mall and the line is always like 50 people long. I don't know what makes them Mexican other than the cacti and sombrero decorations around the register.
As an American, I find this successful marketing campaign greatly amusing because it would clearly never work in the US. Of all the great Mexican cuisine out there, popsicles aren't the first thing that come to most people's minds. Or the hundredth. If you offered a group of American children some "Mexican popsicles" they would probably just stare at you blankly.
-Since the wedding, I've been in the gym more than any time since probably 2005. It feels fantastic. I'm up to about an hour a day, six days a week now.
-In the coming months, I'm back in the US about every two months. I think it's a good schedule for me. When I think about being in the US every day, it feels overwhelming. How does anyone get anything done? How did I ever do it? There's just so much to do and so many people to talk to all the time. My life here is the square root of my life in the US.
It's like living on a private island. Even though I'm surrounded by millions of people, I can only communicate with like 3% of them. It's really very nice. The amount of time I have to focus on whatever I'm doing, it's a luxury I don't know if I'll ever have again. It makes me want to move to Japan. Or Sweden. Or Mexico City. Or the Moon.
-Still don't miss having television at all. Last time I was home, I would return from work, have a seat, find Seinfeld reruns and slip deep into the couch.
-I've formed a regular group of friends that I hang out with on Sundays. We all go to the local gringo bar and watch football. Sorry, I meant to say real football. It feels good. Strangers walk around in their Eli Manning, Colin Kaepernick and LeSean McCoy jerseys. My friend John is amazing at bringing people together. There's a strong sense of community among everyone. Except for the Brazilian soccer fans. Come on. You're in a gringo bar.
-Ben and Jerry's. As soon as I land.
-Elections are on Sunday. It's a law here that every citizen has to vote. I haven't followed the race very much. Just as long as the incumbent doesn't win. I don't think the odds are in my favor.
I want whoever is the furthest right candidate to win. Here, the furthest right candidate would probably rank just left of a typical American Democratic candidate. A moderate here would fall in the deep liberal base back home. A liberal candidate here ranks just left of an state-purchased Marx statue.
-I'm beginning to feel 30 all over me. I googled "kale smoothie recipe" yesterday. That's not a 20s move. Then I had microwave popcorn for breakfast. That is a 20s move. But I also intentionally took it out before it finished popping so that I could technically say I didn't eat the entire thing alone. Back to 30.
-I got a text from Daniela today saying that as she was walking to work, she glanced at a man on the sidewalk standing nearby. He growled at her, "If you keep looking at me, I'm going to hit you in the face." He then proceeded to take a swing at the air right beside her face.
It made me furious. I offered to run over to her work to walk her home. She said she was fine. That the guy looked like he had some mental issues.
After calming down, I began to feel a range of things. Even though my anger persists for this man, I feel bad for him at the same time. Clearly, he's mentally unstable and he's living in a city that can do little to help with the problem. Unchecked mental illness is all around us every day in Sampa. Whether it's a man threatening a young woman or a young woman tearing off all her clothes and taking to the street, it has to be one of the city's biggest issues.
Without help, this man is definitely going to cross paths with the wrong person soon. That's a situation that's bad for everyone.
-Last night on Rua Augusta, Dani and I passed a naked woman on the sidewalk. She walked in the opposite direction alone. Naked. And I mean completely naked. Heads turned, looked, giggled or frowned and then kept walking in a way that only a city of 20 million can do.
-Headed home to the US again soon. Before I went home for the first time in August, I thought about it every five minutes. It's more relaxed this time. Not everything has to be perfect. I just want a Five Guys burger every 2.5 days and a lot of friends around me.
-The latest food trend here is Mexican popsicles. They sell them in the mall and the line is always like 50 people long. I don't know what makes them Mexican other than the cacti and sombrero decorations around the register.
As an American, I find this successful marketing campaign greatly amusing because it would clearly never work in the US. Of all the great Mexican cuisine out there, popsicles aren't the first thing that come to most people's minds. Or the hundredth. If you offered a group of American children some "Mexican popsicles" they would probably just stare at you blankly.
-Since the wedding, I've been in the gym more than any time since probably 2005. It feels fantastic. I'm up to about an hour a day, six days a week now.
-In the coming months, I'm back in the US about every two months. I think it's a good schedule for me. When I think about being in the US every day, it feels overwhelming. How does anyone get anything done? How did I ever do it? There's just so much to do and so many people to talk to all the time. My life here is the square root of my life in the US.
It's like living on a private island. Even though I'm surrounded by millions of people, I can only communicate with like 3% of them. It's really very nice. The amount of time I have to focus on whatever I'm doing, it's a luxury I don't know if I'll ever have again. It makes me want to move to Japan. Or Sweden. Or Mexico City. Or the Moon.
-Still don't miss having television at all. Last time I was home, I would return from work, have a seat, find Seinfeld reruns and slip deep into the couch.
-I've formed a regular group of friends that I hang out with on Sundays. We all go to the local gringo bar and watch football. Sorry, I meant to say real football. It feels good. Strangers walk around in their Eli Manning, Colin Kaepernick and LeSean McCoy jerseys. My friend John is amazing at bringing people together. There's a strong sense of community among everyone. Except for the Brazilian soccer fans. Come on. You're in a gringo bar.
John-Mark and John.
-Ben and Jerry's. As soon as I land.
-Elections are on Sunday. It's a law here that every citizen has to vote. I haven't followed the race very much. Just as long as the incumbent doesn't win. I don't think the odds are in my favor.
I want whoever is the furthest right candidate to win. Here, the furthest right candidate would probably rank just left of a typical American Democratic candidate. A moderate here would fall in the deep liberal base back home. A liberal candidate here ranks just left of an state-purchased Marx statue.
-I'm beginning to feel 30 all over me. I googled "kale smoothie recipe" yesterday. That's not a 20s move. Then I had microwave popcorn for breakfast. That is a 20s move. But I also intentionally took it out before it finished popping so that I could technically say I didn't eat the entire thing alone. Back to 30.
-I got a text from Daniela today saying that as she was walking to work, she glanced at a man on the sidewalk standing nearby. He growled at her, "If you keep looking at me, I'm going to hit you in the face." He then proceeded to take a swing at the air right beside her face.
It made me furious. I offered to run over to her work to walk her home. She said she was fine. That the guy looked like he had some mental issues.
After calming down, I began to feel a range of things. Even though my anger persists for this man, I feel bad for him at the same time. Clearly, he's mentally unstable and he's living in a city that can do little to help with the problem. Unchecked mental illness is all around us every day in Sampa. Whether it's a man threatening a young woman or a young woman tearing off all her clothes and taking to the street, it has to be one of the city's biggest issues.
Without help, this man is definitely going to cross paths with the wrong person soon. That's a situation that's bad for everyone.
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