I went to see a storyteller at the library yesterday. He’s a storyteller, and he makes a living at it. That little fact to me is far more riveting than any of the stories he told.

Which is not to say that his stories were not riveting. But the idea of getting paid to tell stories stretches the world of the possible for me.

Maybe I lack faith. I feel like I have been dangling my feet off the high dive for a long time. I want to take the leap off, to trust the my talents as a writer, as a creative person, will be the water to catch me.

But I really believe that jumping off will kill me. I believe that if I let go of the stable, traditional job, I will be homeless and hungry.

So I sit, with my feet dangling over the edge, looking at the water below. FAR below. Sometimes, I see people run past me and leap off the high dive. They plunge into the water and are fine. But I can’t believe that the water would be there for me.

Like last night. Joel ben Izzy, professional storyteller, jumping off the high dive every day. Doing cannonballs, jackknives, perfect tens. Makes me drool with envy.

I wonder if my water might be there after all.

sorry everyone…I am having to tell this story in pieces, because I am remarkably weak still.

So I gathered all the strength I had, and propelled myself to the front door, dragging my trashcan behind me. I thought I was going straight down the hallways, but the wall came right at me again. I used all my strength to get to the door and flip out the chain lock.

Then I sat in spinning, sweat-soaking misery until Chris arrived. I was getting cold because I was so wet.

It wasn’t very long, but every moment took a lot of concentration. When I heard chris turning the lock I called out, “Watch out, I’m right here.”

I didn’t want him to hit me with the door. I needed to maintain my sense of space in order not to spin out again.

He stopped entirely. “It’s okay,” I said. “Just don’t hit me with the door.”

He came in carefully and leaned down over me. I tried to open my eyes. I really wanted to see his face; but the room started spinning again and I had to shut them again.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. He had no idea.

“Everything is spinning! It’s spinning and it won’t stop. It’s making me sick.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Umm…” It was hard for me to think. “I need to see a doctor. I need your help.”

“Yes, you need to see a doctor.”

I was shaking from cold and sickness at this point. He looked at me and said, “You need to get to bed.”

“I have to go to the bathroom.” It was true. I had had to go since I first woke up. But it didn’t seem possible. At the different stations of the apartment i had ended up in, I had contemplated this situation among the other dilemmas before me. How could I possibly take care of this? While vomiting, it’s hard to remain in control of my bodily functions. I contemplated going in my pants, but thought I should save that for a last resort.

Good thing. Chris helped me to the bathroom. He got me on my feet. At first I lurched way over to the side, but he got a firm hold on me, and helped me to the toilet. I pulled my pants down, sat down and vomited into my faithful trash can some more.

There is a lot of vomit in this story. I am sure it is not that much fun to read about but it was less fun to be the protagonist.

You can, in fact, relieve yourself and vomit at the same time. I gave myself fully over to being sick, but the other just sort of took care of itself. Then I breathed for a while. Breathing was a very deliberate activity.

Wiping myself seemed impossible. But I thought about it, and decided that I must. I could move my hand and feet slowly without disturbing the stillness. But my head couldn’t be moved. Raising myself up to complete this task took some courage. But in the end I leaned into the can again and simultaneously took care of my needs.

But puling my pants up again was realy beyond. As soon as I could talk, when the sickness subsided, I called for Chris. He helped me to my bed, although I collapsed half in and half out. I was shivering, and he immediately covered my with an extra blanket.

That bed felt so good, but I was cold. Chris was trying to call Kaiser, and was on hold for quite a while. He said I had to get under the blankets in bed, because I had to get warm. He helped push me in.

Even while I was being sick, the bed felt so good I never wanted to move again. The pillow was heaven, the blankets felt so good and warm. Still on hold, Chris stuck a thermometer in my mouth. “that can’t be right….”

He took my temp again…”94.7..This must be malfunctioning…”
I said, “I’m cold.”

He could see I was shivering.

He finally got through to the doctor. “Baby?” he said. “I’ve got an appointment for 45 minutes from now. Do you think you can make it if I drive you to the doctor’s in my car?”

There was a challenge. I didn’t know. This pillow felt very nice.”I don’t know.”

“What should I do baby?”

“I don’t know.” I thought some more. Maybe…”Go get the car ready, and I will see.”

I concentrated very hard. I had made it to the phone because I had to. I’d gotten to the chain lock because i had to. What would this involve? I would simply be sick the whole way. Could I throw up for the 15 minutes it would take to drive there? But what about in the waiting room? Doctors always made you wait. Did they give precedence to vomiting patients? I suspected not. How long would they make me wait?

Oh this pillow felt good.

I envisioned the path to the car. I would have to ride in the elevator. How would I do that? If I had to concentrate so hard on keeping a still room from moving, how would I do in a room that actually was moving?

It seemed unlikely that I would actually be able to do this.

Chris came back. He saw me with my eyes screwed shut, shaking with chills. “I don’t think you can make it in the car.”

“I think you’re right.”

“I’m gonna call 911. After all, they did say that I should do that if this was an emergency.”

He went into the other room to call 911. I lay there and imagined being magically whisked off to someplace that would make me feel better. I pictured a helicopter, with me being strapped into a bed and swaying at the end of a rope.

Swaying made me start to feel spinny again, so I concentrated on feeling still. No, there would not be a helicopter. There would be an ambulance, and a gurney. They would lift me onto the gurney.

Oooh…Moving. That would be bad. Riding in a car. Maybe they would give me morphine or something. What did they do, anyway?

Just breathe. THink of peace. Peace. Still. Still.

I heard the sirens. “Hear that baby? They are coming for you.” Chris was taking good care of me.

They were coming.

I’ve been sick all week. Actually, I’ve been sick even last week.

I was feeling woozy, and extra tired. The bus ride made me especially ill, and then it seemed to last all day. Friday, I was feeling motion sick all day long. By the time I was ready to go home, I began to think, “something is not right. There is something wrong going on.”

I almost asked Chris to pick my up from work. But I hate to do that. Then i almost took a cab home.

Then I thought, “Maybe I’m jsut really hungry.”

So I ate something, and that made me feel better enough to take the bus home.

But saturday, I was supposed to go to Palm Springs. I just didn’t feel up to it. I felt like lying around and resting.

Sunday, I took myself to the doctor and got a prescription for antibiotics to cure a supposed sinus infection that was messing with my sense of equilibrium, and hence making me feel woozy, motion sick, all the time. I called in sick for Monday.

But Monday, I dreamed that I had collapsed at the bus stop. I woke, and had to throw up. But while crawling to the toilet, I realized that I had no sense of balance whatsoever and that i was completely sick. The world would NOT stop spinning., The walls reached out and smacked me when I tried to move, because i didn’t know how to stay upright, even while crawling.

The sweat poured off me as I retched into the toilet. I had to do something. This was bad. I needed help. But I couldn’t move! How would I get help?

I concentrated as hard as I knew how on believing that te world was not spinning. I closed my eyes and breathed very hard, pressing my head against something solid and immobile. “You are STILL, STILL, you are STILL”

Finally, I could gather my thoughts enough…i needed to get someone to help me. But I couldnn’t move at all without vomiting…

I made my plan. I would launch myself back to my bed, where my cordless phone was, and on the way I would grab the trash can to barf into. I would either call Chris or 911.

But I really wanted Chris. I would call Chris. He would help me.

I made it, with my eyes shut to keep the room from spinning. After throwing up for a while, I contemplated how to dial the phone with my eyes shut. I didn’t figure out a way, So I had to open them for a few moments.

I got Chris’s answering machine, like I knew I would. “Chris! Chris! Help! I need you help!”

He picked up right away. “Murphy!”

“Chris! I need you! Come help me!”

“I’ll be right there!”

“okay”

and then I sat there, dripping sweat and vomiting some more. But I was thinking. I had put the chain lock in place. Would chris be able to get in without my help? Is there a way to unlock a chain from the outside?

I decided that i had to go unlock it.

Chris came by to see me yesterday. I was having a rough day, and he was worried about me.

It wasn’t particularly difficult, I had just lost my sense of humor. You HAVE to have a sense of humor over here, or you grind out.

So, he helped me feel better, just by being there. As I was getting sleepy, we had this conversation:

“I have to be up very early in the morning. Tell me something.”

“What do you want me to tell you?”

“Sleepy things. Tell me a story.”

“I don’t know any stories.”

“Well, tell me what happened in the world today.”

“Let’s see….Do you know about Skull and Bones?”

“…other than their literal meaning, I couldn’t tell you. What are Skull and Bones?”

“I was listening to the radio today, and this talk show guy was talking about Skull and Bones. They are a secret society at Yale; this guy claimed they controlled everything.”

“Oh yeah…I remember hearing about them. They control everything?”

“That’s what this guy said…”

“If they control everything, I want to talk with them. There are a few things that need some improvement. How do we get a hold of these people?”

“This guy was claiming that they orchestrated the Kennedy assasination, and the Mars landing.”

“We need to find these guys and put them to better use. If there is somebody controlling everything, I say good. Too many things are out of control.”

Pause

“Chris..You’re going to become that guy, aren’t you?”

“what guy?”

“That guy who works from his home and listens to talk radio all day and turns weird.”

“I do NOT listen to talk radio all day! I only listen to it in my car.”

“WHATever. Next thing you know, you’ll be staying up late listening to that one talk guy.”

“Oh…Yeah…that guy…But he’s not on anymore. You mean Art Bell. They have another guy doing his show now. He only comes on for special occasions.”

“See? This is what I’m talking about. You already know all this stuff. You are gonna be that weird extremist right-wing guy.”

“I am not. What about you? you listen to NPR all day. Are you gonna be a left-wing extremist.”

“NPR is not extremist anything. They are all about the money. Do you know they play different songs depending on how the market is doing?”

“They do?”

“Yeah. If the market is up they play, ‘da da dedada’.”

“‘We’re in the money’…”

“Yeah. I don’t remember what song they play if it’s down. I don’t pay attention to stocks.”

“Yes, you put your money into your condo.”

“Right. But that just shows how NPR is all about the money. Whenever they do bring up some social cause, it’s so far away you could never do anything about it, so you don’t have to be distracted from worrying about your stocks.”

“Well…What’s the left-wing equivalent of the talk shows?”

“Pacifica radio. They are the ones who incite the peace marchers.”

“oh yeah. They’re weird.”

“I don’t listen to them very often.”

I already mentioned my new flower baskets. I love them! It is marvelous to have a living display of pretty flowers right out my window.

When I went to the nursery to pick out these flowers to fill my baskets, I chose out all different kinds of random flowers. I thought I would have some sort of theme, but them I figured, what the heck? I’ll jsut pick whatever i like.

As I was happily browsing the flower aisles, I came across these most interesting plants: they had a hairy stem and a hairy bud. They were iclandic poppies.

As soon as I saw them, i flashed back to 4 years old. Back in Alaska, we had all kinds of flowers, wildflowers, everywhere. Of course, I loved to pick them and present them to my mother. She loved it too.

But once, I picked a new kind of flower, a very pretty flower different than any I had seen before. It was growing by the side of the new freeway, and I couldn’t resist picking it and showing it my mother.

“Oh! Oh no!” She laughed. “You shouldn’t pick those flowers.”

“Why not? Isnt’ it pretty? Don’t you like it?”

“Someone planted that flower. You should leave it tere for everyone to enjoy.”

Well, I had never heard of that. Someone planted a flower? Flowers sprung up out of the ground. Why would you plant one? They were everywhere.

It turned out that the new freeway had been planted with Icelandic poppies to beautify it. This was the first landscaping I had ever encountered, and it confused me very much. Flowers were for picking. I couldn’t resist picking them, and only afterwards I would remember that THESE flowers were forbidden.

They never actually took off that well, anyway. A very few poppies dotted the banks of the freeway. They were rare enough to cause excitement when one was spotted.

But when I saw those poppies in the flower nursery, I remembered the feel of the hairy stem in my young hand. I had to buy some right away.

I bought the one that didn’t have any blooms on it yet. I wanted to watch it unfold and pet the furry blossom pod for a little.