I'll get back to the meningioma book tomorrow. I am still struggling with the details of the dark time. Kenny took notes, and after I woke up I have "snapshot" memories - not continuous video but flashes of a moment, a conversation, an hallucination or three. I was surrounded by people who loved me, and who wanted me to come back. Now, I am hypersensitive to how vulnerable we all were. Me, certainly, but my husband and children, extended family, and friends were pushing up against the margins. 

In telling my story, I am also telling theirs. Saying you are going to write about something this dark is entirely different than doing it.

And so, today, on a sunny Sunday I think I'll share another strange story with you - another chapter from "Big Purple Foot".

A Strange Protuberance

When I was working in Los Angeles, I had a client whose office was in a city building on Spring Street right downtown.  Nasty, nasty.  I am a fan of gentrification.  I think you should critically look at your storefront to see whether or not it adds to general harmony.  These shopkeepers didn’t to that.  Ugly shops in strange old buildings that had been repurposed more than the whores who worked outside.

I parked my car in the only close lot, turned the corner to hurry inside, and there was some old guy with no teeth yelling at me.  That, in itself, was no surprise and wouldn’t have bothered me on a regular day.  But, he had some kind of tumor-thing growing out of his chest, about three feet long with about a six inch diameter.  Floppy, it was, and he was shaking it at me.  I stopped for a moment to take this in, and then is when I saw he had the end of it inside a clear, plastic sandwich bag held on with a rubber band.

Oh dear, what to do.  I opted for the obvious thing, backed away and got inside the building as fast as possible, went to my client’s office, and asked her, “What the hell?”   

This is another one of those moments that will stick with you.  It makes you wonder about the appropriate response.  Obviously, he wanted one.  Did he want me to faint or have a fit of the vapors?  Did he want me to comment on this thing’s length or flexibility?  Should I have asked what it was?  I don’t know.  I feel, even today, as if there was an opportunity missed to help this man. Maybe. I should have done something, but what?