Please get off my eighth cranial nerve

I cleared out of Bugville on Monday. On Tuesday morning, I arrived at the neurologist's clinic two hours early for my long-anticipated 8:00 a.m. followup appointment. I made coffee on my camping stove in the parking lot. No way was I going to be late. Or uncaffeinated. 

The Tucson skies were blessedly cloudy. Clouds meant higher than normal humidity; clouds also meant relief from the sun, which turns my car into a stifling hothouse. 

Just as I finished forking over my copay, the doctor's assistant called my name. She led me through a maze of hallways to the doctor's office. I sat in one of the visitor chairs. The doctor was already seated behind her big mahogany desk. She pointed to a young woman in scrubs sitting at a laptop by the window.

"This is Sheena. She'll be our scribe today."

"Hi, Sheena," I said. Old 12-Step habit, hard to break.

I sat in the chair, feeling numb and disconnected. I pulled out the 3-part script I'd prepared at the suggestion of my doctor friend. The remedies you prescribed were ineffective. I would like to try an antiseizure medicine now. Which one would you recommend? That's it. Two statements and a question. 

It didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped. The doctor scanned the report from the physical therapist. I could tell by her snippy tone that she wasn't happy with what she was reading. 

"I didn't ask her to diagnose you," she snarled. "I asked her to treat you for BPPV."

"As I understand it, she found nothing to treat," I replied. "She gave me some good balance exercises, though. And she did the hyperventilation test again. You can see her results didn't match yours."

"You don't have vestibular paroxysmia, you have BPPV and vestibular migraine."

"The NIH literature seems to show that the hyperventilation test is not 100% confirmation of the presence or nonpresence of vestibular paroxysmia," I said. "The sample sizes were small, but not all the patients who definitely had vestibular paroxysmia showed evidence of nystagmous."

She looked at me like I had two heads. At least, I think she did. I for some reason was having a hard time making eye contact with anything but the floor. I was kind of on my last nerve.

"Would you be willing to do the hyperventilation test again?" 

I followed her to the exam room. She put the goggles on my head and led me through an abbreviated version of her battery of tests, which consisted of her grabbing my head firmly in both hands and shaking it repeatedly from side to side and up and down. I knew she was watching on her monitor to see how my eyes responded. I'm guessing they didn't. Because I don't have BPPV. Duh. 

"Okay, breathe fast for 40 seconds." She panted to demonstrate proper panting technique. "I'll stand in front of you so you don't fall."

I held onto the exam bench, blinded by the goggles, and panted fast for 40 long seconds. I ignored her warm backside pressing against my knees. 

"Okay, stop." 

She took the goggles off my head. For a few minutes, she didn't say anything. Then she muttered something about a mild left downbeat, and I knew then that she had seen what the physical therapist had seen: possible evidence of vestibular paroxysmia. Yay, I thought. Finally. At last.

"I'll write you a prescription for lamotrigine," she said. "It addresses both vestibular migraine and vestibular paroxysmia. 

"Great. Can you have it sent to a different pharmacy? I'm going to be dogsitting in Scottsdale for a month, starting the day after tomorrow."

Her eyes lit up. For a second she looked human. "You are a dogsitter? It's so hard to find a good dogsitter. I have two big dogs. It's so hard to get away."

"I just dogsit for my friends," I said. I didn't say it: you aren't my friend. 

"We need to look at your most recent bloodwork."

We went back to her office. Her assistant pulled up my labs. 

"January? Where's the WBC number? It's not showing. Can you get this for me? After you get me that number, I'll send the prescription to your pharmacy. Call me when you get it."

I went out to my car, turned on my computer, and found an electronic copy of the January lab report. The WBC value wasn't showing because on the original it was red, indicating an abnormal number. Bummer. Still, it was only one number shy of being in normal range. I still had hope at this point that I would finally get some relief from the freight train going round and round in my head. I called the clinic and left a message with the phone answerer to tell the doctor the WBC number. Then I made my breakfast and ate it. It was 10:30. 

My phone rang. The neurologist said, "You had an irregular heartbeat the first time I saw you. Did you ever contact your cardiologist?"

"No," I said.

"This drug can negatively affect your heart. We need to talk to your cardiologist first. And you need to get more recent labs."

"Okay. Do they need to be fasting labs?"

"Yes."

I searched for Scottsdale appointments at the preferred chain of labs. The earliest I could get was a week away. While I was pondering what to do next, my phone rang. It was the neurologist's medical assistant, asking for some more information. In the course of our conversation, I found out I could get my labs done at the lab on the premises. She also told me that the prescription for lamotrigine had been sent to my pharmacy. Hallelujah!

First thing the next morning, I was sitting in a chair outside the lab at the neurology clinic, head in hands, starving and uncaffeinated, waiting for the phlebotomist to arrive. She was a few minutes late. When you want coffee, even a minute can seem like an eternity. I left bandaged and bruised but feeling so hopeful I went to Denny's for breakfast. It was either Denny's or IHOP. I chose the closest one.

Somewhere during that day I called the cardiologist's office and left a message. Sometime later someone (not my cardiologist) called me back to ask me what the heck was going on. Apparently they had received multiple messages from my neurologist. 

"Sorry for the confusion," I said. "Basically I want to know, will this drug kill me?"

"I'll leave a message for your doctor."

Later I visited the pharmacy. The pharmacist looked up the new prescription. "I have to call your doctor. This makes no sense," she said. "The instructions aren't clear. And I can't put all that on a bottle." After that, I went to the mall and sat in the air conditioning, surrounded by the din of screaming kids riding tiny motorized cars around the food court. When the sun went down, I chose a parking lot to swelter in for the night, and the next morning I left for the air-conditioned haven in Scottsdale. 

Yesterday I was interrupted three times during a Zoom call by a persistent caller whose number didn't appear in caller ID. Finally, I put my Zoom call on hold and answered it. 

"I never heard back from your cardiologist," the neurologist said. "I can't prescribe anything. Your WBC, hemaglobin, and hematocrit numbers are too low."

So here I am, back where I started. Again. I'm trying to feel grateful that the neurologist cared enough not to prescribe a drug that might kill me. I wonder if she realizes how tempting it is to . . .  nevermind. Not going down that road yet. 

Here I am, back in the present moment, bludgeoned by textbook vestibular paroxysmia symptoms in my head and 110°F heat outside the house. The washing machine in my head revs up for its 15-second cycle once per minute, day and night. For about 45 seconds I'm merely dizzy rather than falling over. I lean to the right if I'm not watching where I put my feet (yikes!). Monsoon is coming. I can feel it in my bones and in my head. I will sit it out in Scottsdale, try to stay hydrated, and let you know how it goes. 

Change is coming

I miss my stuff. Almost all my possessions are ensconced in a 5' x 5' storage unit over by the mall. The cubicle is 8 feet tall, otherwise no way could I have stacked my shelves, bins, and boxes into that small of a footprint. I marvel at how many possessions I still have, given all the moving and downsizing I have done in the past three or so years. Swedish death cleaning may be a thing, but in my case, it has not resulted in total cleaning . . . or death, I might add, so there's that.

Speaking of death, I'm feeling transparent these days, uprooted, barely clinging to something I don't recognize anymore. I just want to get away from everything, but of course, that is not possible, because as we know, wherever we go, there we are. However, I can live with myself in my own brain. What I cannot live with for long is the clamoring of well-meaning people who think they can save me. Or the criticisms of confounded people who can't understand why this is happening to me, given how white and well-educated I am. Or the judgments of fearful people who subconsciously realize their lives are one wildfire or flood or divorce away from being in the same predicament. 

I can live with my own fears, but I can't manage the fears and criticisms of others. 

Meanwhile, my dear friend from college is sinking fast into some terrible form of dementia. I don't know what the diagnosis is, but who cares what it is called when it's obvious her brain cells are exiting stage right, like rats from a sinking ship. Folding, perforating, evaporating, no idea what is happening in that head, but it is total disaster. Nothing is firing right in her brain anymore. It's utterly terrifying to witness. I could hardly sleep last night, and I'm not the one experiencing the inexorable disintegration of my executive functions. It's one thing when it happens to your 90-year-old mother. It's another thing entirely when it happens to your same-age friend. Death is staring her in the face, and she can't even find the words to express her despair. 

I'd rather have cancer, to be honest, than dementia. I can only pray to the gods of young drug addicts at the U of A campus that there will be a handful of fentanyl tabs left for me when it's time to go to the great art school in the sky. And that I remember what they are for and why I should quickly take them, before someone else does. I do not want to go gently into that big state-run memory care tenement, where I will be ignored by underpaid medical assistants and abandoned by distant family to overloaded social workers. I'm pretty sure there will be no internet. I mean, I ask you! No internet. If that happens, if I have a brain cell left in my head to make a decision, I will make a run for it, somehow, I will find a last shred of freedom. I'm not ashamed to be a silver alert. 

It's monsoon in southern AZ. It sucks, but no more than any other season here. I feel so out of place. I thought I would love this place . . . warm, dry, what's not to love? I used to chase the sun. In Portland, even as a kid, I would perk up whenever the sun came out. Clouds were my enemy. I craved blue skies. In Los Angeles, the sun was a gentle presence, filtered by fog and smog. Skies were pale robin's egg blue, like a fine china teacup. Not so in the desert. When the sky is blue, the sun is my enemy. Clouds are my shelter, even when winds are whipping up the dust and I'm dodging rain drops. I'd rather be struck by lightning than let the sun touch my skin.

The first monsoon was exciting. So energetic and raw, who knew! The novelty quickly wore off. If you've seen one spectacular desert sunset, you've truly seen them all. I have grown to hate this place. And this place hates me right back. No matter how many knuckles they have, or how gnarled their fingers, all the cactuses on all the hillsides everywhere I go have their middle fingers raised. Every last cactus in this dirty, noisy, unholy town is flipping me off. I ask you, have you ever been so aggressively dismissed by nature? I know. It seems impossible, and yet, everywhere I go, there they are, these angry bitter saguaros, telling me, You don't like it here? Go back to where you came from, gringa blanca. 

I don't want to go back to where I came from, but I know I can't stay here. I seem to have a habit of moving first and regretting later. Maybe this time I will try a new strategy. Maybe this time I will look first before I leap. Regret might follow, but at least I can say I tried my best to keep my eyes open. 

Spinning like nobody cares

A life lived in fear is a life half-lived. I know that is true because Fran said it in my favorite movie, "Strictly Ballroom," and Fran was a wise woman. It is possible to live one's entire life in fear. People do it all the time. I've been doing it. I can't think of many stretches of time when I didn't live my life in fear. Fear is as familiar and uncomfortable as a pair of old running shoes that have sprung a hole in the sole and are now taking on water with every step. 

Some fears are reasonable. We need those fears, and I will most likely keep them, the ones I have gathered close around me like a hazmat suit. For example, when I complain about being afraid of things, I'm not talking about fear of tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and wildfires. Fear of those things is rational. I'm not talking about the consequences of runaway climate change. I'm not talking about specific cases of insane or deluded people with guns. Those fears are rational. 

I'm talking about the fear of alternative lifestyles, fear of unusual self-expression choices, fear of appearances and actions that fall outside the norm, way out there on the bell-shaped curve. Outliers used to scare me. I used to be afraid of anyone who looked weird. I viewed people who didn't conform with wary disdain. What kind of person leaves their holiday lights up all year round? That's just laziness. Who would patronize a store that opened inside what used to be a house? That's just wrong. It's so easy to be afraid of something unfamiliar, and from there it's an easy leap from that's scary to that's wrong to that should not be allowed to I need to join that mob over there and shut that thing down.

No worries. I'm not a joiner, not for Bluebirds and not for mobs, so I won't be coming for your Christmas lights anytime soon, or ever, actually, because in my old age, I have learned to appreciate people who tread the road less traveled. Go ahead, leave those lights up all year, and what's more, go ahead and turn those suckers on in July! Why not? We could use some holiday cheer in the dog days of summer. Feeling like wearing pajamas all the time? Me, too! Let's do it. Feel like swearing sometimes at the inanity of life? Me, too! No need to stand on decorum around me. Let it rip. 

Fear of dumb things is dumb. I think you get my point. But what about the options that fall in between? 

What if one person's fear is another person's adventure?

My head is spinning from the constant rise and fall of the barometer. It's monsoon in Southern Arizona, finally, and now it rains almost every day. It's great, don't get me wrong, but even as I'm out twirling in the rain, my head is a slushy mess from the sledgehammer pounding inside my brain. I sleep when I can, just to exit stage right for a while. The only time I know I'm safe is when I'm lying down. But I know I have to keep moving. I walk in the evenings to keep my arthritic hip from seizing up, but walking doesn't help the aberration bashing my cranial nerve every sixty to ninety seconds. I fear the side effects of the antiseizure drugs the ENT might prescribe, but at some point you just have to say, bring on the side effects, what could be worse than the maelstrom in my head? I have not been offered drugs yet, just to be clear. I see the ENT dude on Friday. I've been told another MRI is in my future.

I knew a cat who, when confronted with an earthquake in his house, ran fast and far and didn't stop until the shaking subsided. He ended up across the street under a neighbor's house. I feel kind of like doing the same thing: running fast and far until the quake in my head subsides. I fear I might be running forever. 

Holding on for monsoon

The Art Trailer is a dark cocoon. The windows are now blocked with reflectix and cardboard to ward off the afternoon sun. In addition to the window coverings, box fans have been strategically placed in the main living areas to blow cold air around corners and walls. It's working. Instead of being 91°F inside the Trailer, it's only 88°F.  

In my room, three fans run constantly. Fans alone won't cut it, though. I learned from my first summer in Tucson that the answer to extreme heat is evaporative cooling. That is how I survived the days without AC when the temperature outside was 115°F and I had to wait for the AC technician to save me. Now, well into my third summer in Tucson, I know the trick. I wrap dripping wet underwear around my head and neck.  

Days are barely tolerable. Nights are endless. Without wet cloths on my head, stomach, and feet, I'd be laying on the floor panting like a dog. The good news is that cocoons have a lot of potential. Whatever grows in them might turn out to have a beautiful set of wings.

Now, I could end the blogpost with that happy poetic thought, and if I were seeking an awwww out of you, that is probably what I would do. But you might know me by now. I have often been sentimental, but not today. It's too damn hot. 

Monsoon 2023 is overdue, and I'm cranky. I don't know why, exactly. So we get a few thunderstorms. It will be just as hot in between, with the added gift of high humidity. I'm embarrassed to admit I am tired of nothing but blue sky. Wait, that's not true. I would welcome blue sky if it came with reasonable temperatures. I'm bored with the heat, that is what it is. I want a break.

Over the past couple weeks, crews blocked our roads and driveways with big trucks and cranes. They were trimming the telephone pole palms in the mobile home park. In high winds, big dead palm fronds go flying. I can imagine why: Flying fronds could take out a window or maybe knock an unsteady unbalanced wobbly old-ish person off their feet. Just saying. Anyway, I was in awe. Those guys were out there in the burning sun when the temperature was 108°F, bundled up in long sleeves and long pants, helmets, and neck scarves. How do they do it? 

The sun feels like my enemy. I always thought I was a creature of warmth and sun, but I guess I'm a lizard only within a certain range. My comfort zone is narrow. I can walk around the park in 102°F, but not until the sun goes down. Now I live in a fortress, barricaded against the threat, waiting for the insidious, relentless invasive foe in the sky to sink below the horizon. 

Leaving the burrow brings of feelings of existential angst. Last night I ventured out in the hot dark gloaming to wash my car's windshield. Then I walked around the park in the dark, trying to watch where I put my feet while I looked in people's windows. Many of the windows are dark: Their owners wisely fled the Tucson summer. However, many others stay put year round. Some of the perennials (I know for a fact) keep their thermostats set at 78°F. Imagine that. I can't.

On my last nerve

During yet another hopeless search through the medical literature, at long last, I found a description of my vestibular symptoms. I could hardly believe it. I was so relieved, I almost started weeping. After all these years, maybe, just maybe, I can get a diagnosis and maybe find a treatment.

Of course, I'm a doctor's worst patient, self-diagnosing with Dr. Google, but in this case, I'm relying on academic research articles published by the National Institutes of Health. I feel confident that the sources are reliable, even if my interpretation is not.

This particular phase of my chronic dizziness has morphed from BPPV and maybe vestibular migraines (I'm not sold on that idea) into something called vestibular paroxysmia. My symptoms are as follows, in case you know someone who has this weird and annoying malady:

• recurrent (for me, that means occurring every 45 to 120 seconds, it could be different for other people)
• spontaneous (I cannot trigger it, but I can make it more intense by moving my head)
• postural vertigo (some people have rotatory vertigo, which would be the absolute pits)
• 10 to 15 seconds in duration (others might have shorter or longer duration)
• Accompanied by ear crackling in right ear (others may or may not have some kind of tinnitus)

My head is possibly affected by changes in air pressure (causing narrowing and widening of blood vessels). That is why I went on that epic roadtrip searching for a place at low elevation that might have less variation in air pressure. 

The symptoms are no longer treatable with gravity maneuvers (Epley, Foster, etc.), thus, not likely to be BPPV. My hearing is not affected except for some minor hearing loss in my right ear during an attack, thus not likely to be Meniere's. Vestibular migraines don't come in recurrent waves with tinnitus.  

Apparently it is a biomechanical problem stemming from a vascular compression of the root entry zone of the eighth cranial nerve. That means a blood vessel, probably an artery, is encroaching on the vestibularcochlear nerve and wreaking havoc in my balance (vertigo) and hearing (tinnitus). I always suspected it was something mechanical. Why else would the waves of vertigo be synchronized with the ear crackling? Now it makes sense. A stupid blood vessel is interfering with the eighth cranial nerve. 

The nerve! 

The good news, vestibular paroxysmia is probably treatable with antiseizure medication. In fact, that is how they often diagnose this illness. They give you the drug first and if the vertigo stops, then you have it. If it doesn't, well, then there are other avenues to pursue. The down side is, the drugs can have side effects, so it's kind of like testing for witchcraft by waiting for the person to sink to the bottom of the pond. Oh, well. Guess she had it. 

The alternative to drug treatment is brain surgery, but I'm not going to think about that right now. Next step is vestibular testing, coming up this week. I can hardly wait. I'm so excited. From what I've read, it's a grueling, puke-inducing experience. 

I can't disclose what I've learned the moment I walk in the door. As a researcher, I know I need to keep my mouth shut and not proclaim my belief that eureka, I have discovered the problem. I don't want to skew the tests. I don't want to influence their reports. I will let the ENT do his thing. Then, when he looks at me and shakes his head and says what I expect him to say, sorry, Carol, we think you need to see a psychiatrist, then I can say, well, have you considered this?

I don't have the energy to fight. Today the barometer nosedived this morning, a steep 16-point decline in just a few hours. My head has been going crazy. On top of that, an old friend of mine has dementia, and it's heart wrenching to see her struggle for words. Plus, the weather in the Sonoran Desert is stupidly, ridiculously, unbearably hot. You can see I have many things to ponder. Meanwhile, the train keeps rolling through my head every minute like someone tapping me on the shoulder reminding me I'm here, I'm still here, pay attention to me. 

I can't think anymore. It's late. Tonight, the moon is full and golden. The AC is resting, so it's blessedly silent in the Trailer, and tomorrow will be another day to try it all again and maybe get it right this time. 

I do not heart monsoon

It has become very clear to me that my inner ears march to the unseen unheard drumbeat of fluctuations in air pressure. I am a creature of the weather. I did not anticipate this problem before moving to the desert. In fact, I didn't know what monsoon meant, except in a general way, like a whole lot of rain dumping all at once. It is that, and more. Sometimes monsoon is exciting. When the lightning gets going, it's really quite festive, in an electrifying sort of way. Not a good time to be out riding a bike, but there's nothing like a clap of thunder overhead to elevate the heart rate and make you feel alive. Sometimes in the desert, it's hard to tell. Siestas exist for a reason.

The air pressure graph for Tucson is a series of jagged peaks and valleys. No smooth transitions here, no gentle slopes signaling the serene passing of highs and lows. The line is either shooting to the top of the scale or plunging to the bottom, no refreshing pauses in between. My ears never have a chance to catch up. The bucket of mucky goo in my ears is constantly on the move. And being a human, I'm constantly on the move too, at least when I'm not laying prone on my bed with a pillow over my head, trying to block out the crackling and hissing in my right ear. It's very hard to hold completely still. Have you tried it? Sooner or later you have to breathe. Monsoon sucks.

Last February, I visited an ENT doctor. I was coming off two weeks of relatively stable air pressure, feeling fine to the point of ebullience. She couldn't do much for me but clean the wax out of my ears and set me up for a follow-up appointment in six months. During monsoon. If vertigo was going to return, she said, now would be the time. 

Well, here we are. The afternoon I saw her, it started raining. My vertigo returned the next day and it hasn't let up for more than a day here or there since. Now it's August. Monsoon is in full swing, and the bucket in my head is sloshing constantly. Unless the ENT is a weather god, there is nothing she will be able to do. Can she control air pressure? I'm predicting she will tell me I have vestibular migraine and I should stop drinking coffee. I wonder what she would say if I came to the appointment with a pencil jammed in my ear. She seemed like a pretty cool cookie. She probably wouldn't bat an eye. She's probably seen it all, here in the desert during monsoon.

Enjoying the storm

Once again, I have lifted and transported every possession I own. This week was spent vacating the Bat Cave and invading the Trailer. Well, one room in the Trailer. My presence is limited but profound. From long experience, I know how to fully inhabit small spaces. I once lived in a ten by ten square foot storefront in Santa Monica. The bathroom was two doors down the street, in a dark courtyard. Ah, those were the days. 

These days are different. With shelves, you can store a lot of boxes. Too many boxes. Even after all the downsizing of the past two years, I still have too much stuff. Maybe not the typical possessions, though. No couch, no easy chair. No dining room table. I built a platform for my bed, but I wouldn't classify that as furniture. I don't have many dishes, just a couple bowls and some coffee cups. I have Mom's microwave and a dinky toaster oven I used to toast almonds. I have hardly any clothes, because who cares how I look, not me. But I have Mom's old TV, on which I get like five channels. Yay. 

What am I dragging around with me? Shelves, for one thing. Wooden ones I built myself and wire racks I bought after I got to Tucson. What is on those shelves? Thanks for asking. The dregs of my creative life. Two flat plastic bins of art supplies. My crummy Singer sewing machine and a box of notions and patterns. A box of methodology books left over from my grad school days. Some office supplies, because who knows when you might need a lime green #10 envelope. Two big plastic bins of travel gear, collected toward the day when I finally make good on my promise of going car camping. 

Compared to the average American, if there is such a person, I don't have much stuff. But packing, lifting, schlepping, unpacking, and organizing the possessions I do have has just about ruined me. I am very tired.

So, to celebrate, I pumped up my bike tires and went for my first bike ride around the mobile home park in some months. 

Monsoon is trying to happen here in the city but it's been hit or miss this year, especially compared to last year, 2021, the third wettest monsoon on record. Morning skies are clear. In mid-afternoon, the clouds start boiling up to the south. If the wind starts kicking up, I know there might be a chance for rain. Last night around midnight a thunderstorm rolled over us. We got a little rain, not the downpour I remember from last year. 

Tonight clouds ringed the mobile home park in three directions. The only sky showing was to the west, where the sun hung just above the horizon. The rest of the sky was a mashup of bubbling white clouds, gray puffy clouds, and flat black, against which lightning streaked earthward from time to time. The rumbles of thunder were far away. I figured I was safe. So I rode my bike up to my friend's Bill's house. Is that what I named him? I can't remember. He's the one who gave me the bike last summer, in his quest to rid his mobile home of his dead wife's lingering presence. I have her bike, which she rarely rode, and her Persian rug runner, which she hated (and I love). 

Bill was glad to see me. He got his bike out of his shed, and off we went into the stifling hot gloaming. 

Did I mention Bill is 83? Bill is a tall man, but he's built like a stick. A strong gust would blow him into the next county. As I watched him repeatedly ride his bike into the curb, I asked him if he ever wore a bike helmet. He said no, but he'd thought about it. He said something I interpreted as "sh-t happens."

Well, he was right. Sh-t happens. At the end of our ride, when it was almost full dark, we returned to his trailer. He tried to ride across his white gravel lawn, bogged his front tire in the rocks, and fell over in a heap on the asphalt. 

I dropped my bike and ran over to help, praying nothing was broken. Neither one of us wore a helmet. I feared the worst. He waved his arms and legs like a bug for a moment, and then rolled over on his knees. I helped him stand up. His arms were shaking. He wobbled for a moment as we took stock. His elbow was skinned and a little bloody. His legs looked bruised, but I think those were previous injuries. 

I suggested he go inside and clean up his wound. Instead, he told me a story about what happened the day after his second Covid shot (he fainted). He told me the best remedy for a skin wound is a thin layer of Vaseline. Then he invited me to come with him to the Air Force base commissary, where I could shop and he would pay for stuff.

I pointed at his door and told him to go inside. For a brief moment, I considered going in with him, but I had already promised myself I would stay outside. I had my mask, but the inside of Bill's trailer smells like a bottle of Downey fabric softener. In other words, like a peculiarly fresh hell. 

Finally, Bill went inside. I rode back to the Trailer in the dark. I'm guessing Bill will be sore tomorrow, if he doesn't die of a blood clot or brain injury in his sleep tonight. 

All the windows in the Trailer are closed tight and covered with blinds to keep in the AC and block out the heat and sun. I can't see a thing outside. I'm back in a cave, looks like. I can hear, though. Thunder is rumbling as I write this. Usually the storms roll up from the south, curling around the left side of the high pressure bubble over the four corners. Last night I sat on a tall chair in my new bathroom, looking out the window at the lightshow. It was too loud to sleep. Tonight the radar shows the storms rolling down from the northwest, over the Catalinas. I heard rain briefly, just a light shower. It's still 95°F outside, too hot to open the window. 

Five minutes later, now it's pouring. NWS says the temperature has dropped to 84°F. Time to open my bathroom window and enjoy the storm.

 

Taking wing

When I first came to Tucson, I couldn't imagine I'd ever contemplate becoming one of those residents who vacates for six months out of the year. I don't remember thinking the actual thought how bad could it be? But I must have, because what I feel now is chagrin, regret, and embarrassment. After a year in Tucson, I begin to understand that I've moved to the Mars. Being a snowbird is starting to seem like a survival option, rather than a way to flaunt how many homes one has. 

I've read that many desert cities swell in the winter and shrink in the summer. Some people have winter homes in the desert and summer homes in the mountains, and they travel back and forth. Two homes! What a concept. Some people take their homes with them wherever they go. I'm thinking of the infamous nomads who live in RVs and vans and trailers, follow the weather, and have roundups to share tips and take videos they post on YouTube to make a few bucks.

Only poor Tucsonans are out in the daytime. They stand on street corners holding up signs in leathery hands. They set up house in the culverts that drain into the washes—not a good place to be in monsoon. Have you seen video of a wall of sticks, trash, and floodwater tearing up trees and shrubs as it moves down a wash? If I ever happen to see the actual beginning of a raging river, it most likely means I didn't get out of the way in time and off I go, headed for the next county. 

It's mostly the poor people who get creamed by speeding cars as they cross the street to the grocery store after dark. Tucson ranks thirteenth on the list for U.S. pedestrian fatality counts. It's not just my imagination. Walking here is dangerous. If you walk in the mid-morning you fry from excessive UV rays. If you walk in the afternoon, you run the risk of heat stroke, not to mention getting torched by lightning if a thunderstorm cell happens to sneak up and dump on you. If you walk after dark, you run the risk of getting mowed down by a texting Tucsonan in an SUV. 

Bicyclists don't fare well here either. Early mornings are most dangerous. They ride in packs, wearing bright uniforms, but that isn't always enough to save them.

Heat is a tangible thing. Along about noon, I wet a tank top, drape it over my head, and stand in front of the fan for a minute. The water coming out of the cold water tap is warm. Really hot days (over 110F) require two wet tank tops. Evaporative cooling works well here in the desert. 

Around 5:00 pm, when I'm done with my Zoom calls, I punch the button on the wall unit and let the roar overtake me. It sounds like a jet is warming up in my living room but it throws out cold air, and that's all that matters. After thirty minutes, the place is cool, but it heats up rapidly as soon as I turn it off. The entire front wall of the apartment radiates heat. It's a wonder the fridge still works. (Knocking on wood now.)

In the mornings, the skies are clear blue. Around 2:00 pm, I usually see big white fluffy clouds starting to boil up to the south. Within an hour, the visible sky is a grungy shade of gray, a color I am very familiar with, having grown up in the Pacific Northwest. In Portland, that kind of sky in summer would indicate 70F, maybe sprinkles, good walking weather. Here, it means 107F, humidity, excessive UV risk, and threat of thunderstorms. Who can live like this!?

Now my computer is notifying me of rain off and on, showing me a little umbrella icon. Isn't Windows cute? If a thunderstorm parks itself over me, an umbrella won't do much good. Thunderstorms here tear down powerlines and uproot trees. So far this season, very little rain has fallen in the actual city of Tucson. Waiting for rain is a useless waste of time. I keep thinking I hear rain but it's just the neighbor kids on their bikes outside my window. Storm cells move through bringing dust clouds but no rain. 

My sister suggested I get in my car and go north. Or up. Either one or both. She's right. I think the only way to survive living on Mars is to be a snowbird. People who don't escape to a summer home in the Northwest clog the roads to 9,000 ft. tall Mt. Lemmon, the local equivalent of Mt. Hood, where the temperature is thirty degrees cooler than in the valley. I see the mountain forecast on the news. People ride on the ski lifts, even though there's no snow. 

I haven't driven up to Mt. Lemmon yet. I continue to wait for monsoon, keeping cool in the Bat Cave and packing for my move next month to the Trailer.

 

Strategic thinking departed with the art

It's a cool 94°F outside. I'm sitting in the Bat Cave with two fans blowing and a wet tank top wrapped around my head. I really don't need the wet tank top. The fans are enough. Like many Tucsonans, I keep hoping to see some rain. Sprinkles come and go, but so far I have not seen anything but dirt spots on my windshield. The ground is never wet. I know that is going to change once this monsoon gears up for real. Right now, this wind phenomenon is  revving it's motor, testing its ability to suck water out of the Gulf and dump it on this desert. 

This is the strangest place. Well, strange to me, compared to the other two places I've lived. After a year here, I still haven't figured it out. Everything here seems so precarious. Maybe it's because I still haven't found a direction. Maybe I should get a job. 

How do people cope with the uncertainty of life? Is everyone going around saying prayers under their face masks like I am? No, because hardly anyone is wearing a face mask anymore. I was at the pharmacy yesterday to pick up yet another drug for my hypertension, and I counted barely a handful of people wearing masks. The people inside the pharmacy cage aren't wearing masks. They have glass windows between them and me. It must be nice to have the illusion of feeling safe. I've decided not to care. I will not succumb to peer pressure. My fear of getting COVID far outweighs my concern about what people think of me. 

I'm trying to peer inside my head to discern what might be changing. That isn't possible, I know. You can't see inside your brain using your brain. I want to find the place where I've misplaced the thoughts that sum up my life and help me make sense of things. I know those thoughts are here somewhere, because I'm a strategic thinker. According to the Strengthsfinder, four of my top five strengths are strategic. I don't remember what the fifth one was. At least, I used to be a strategic thinker, before I tucked that ability into a box somewhere and then forgot where I stored it. Thinking strategically is now a memory, sort of like the memory of doing handstands or step aerobics. That is what I'm missing now, that ability to assimilate and summarize all the events of my life and the world into a single cohesive equation or directive that will let me know, finally, here is what it all means and here is what to do about it. 

Meanwhile, since the strategic thinking skill seems to have deserted me for the time being, I have been exploring another skill, one I never had to develop because the boss driver in me always knew where the bus was headed. What do I call this new skill? I guess, being in the here and now. It's a new thing for me. Now I'm pulling off at every scenic rest stop, metaphorically speaking, to sniff some stupid flower or watch another dumb sunset.

In the moment! Who knew it could be so confoundingly unsettling? 

There is a lag between the question and answer now, when I look inside my head. Well, I never used to have to ask the question, did I? I always knew who I was and what I was doing. So sure I knew. Now, I know so little. 

I mentor many artists, as I've mentioned, mostly about marketing their art. In the thick of our conversations, I am fully immersed and present. I enjoy the brainstorming process, and I am pretty sure I'm being helpful. After the conversation is over, however, I return to my flatline state. When they send a follow-up email, updating me on their progress, to me, it's like the conversations never happened. I have to review my notes to remember what we said. I think it's because I really don't care much. Should I care more? After descending into the messy emotional bog of interacting with artists who think the world owes them a living, it takes all my energy to dig myself out after we end the video call. Oh, they don't say it like that, but I recognize my fellow kindred spirits. 

 

Life in the trailer park shadows

 

Howdy, Blogbots, all seven of you. How is it going? It's Sunday again. I don't have much to report on the Occupy an Apartment front. I'm still waiting for more data before I initiate Operation Freakout. Meanwhile, I take each day as it comes. Daily, it seems, I'm gobsmacked by some new Tucson experience. 

Last week I mentioned I saw a tarantula crossing the road. (There's a joke there somewhere, see if you can find it.) Two nights ago, around midnight, I had the front door open to entice cooler air into the trailer after a heavy downpour. I heard footsteps crunching in the gravel outside. I thought, who would be out on the gravel at this time of night? Some creepy neighbor, perhaps? I peered out the window and saw a shadowy creature moving between the trailers. Hmm, I thought, is that a dog? As the animal moved slowly across the path by the front porch, I saw the unmistakable outline of a javelina strolling next to the neighbor's carport. 

This monsoon is apparently already one for the record books. We have received over five inches of rain since June 15; monsoon officially ends September 30. These almost-daily thunderstorms are unsettling. As long as the metal roofs and awnings hold, we'll be okay, but the clamor of wind, rain, and thunder is deafening. I keep dreaming a freight train is coming through the living room. 

Up till now, I've learned to keep the blinds drawn to ward off the desert sun. My mole-like eyes are adapting to life in gloomy shadows. Today's gloom, however, was because of an enormous rain cloud sitting over much of southern Arizona. This cloud emitted a purposeful drenching downpour from a pure white sky. Being from the Pacific Northwest, I'm used to that sort of sky. It's the kind of sky that makes you think, Wow, the mothership is squatting over me, dumping buckets with no end in sight—guess I'll stay indoors today. I have the local NWS radar bookmarked in my browser. I check it more often than I check email. Today, on the radar, a huge solid splat of green obliterated Tucson. There it sat, for hours. 

The desert mantra is turnaround, don't drown. Some roads in outlying areas cross normally dry washes. During and after rainstorms, those washes fill up with fast-moving water, which flows through various channels toward the Rillito River, which flows west to the Santa Cruz River. Almost the entire state of Arizona has been under a flash flood warning for a few days. After particularly violent storms, my phone lights up with obnoxious emergency alerts, day or night.

This morning I checked the radar and during a lull, I walked over to see how the Rillito River was doing. Meaning, how much water was flowing along its wide tree-filled channel. I saw more water than I did the last time I looked a couple days ago but not close to full. The sound of the rushing water was eerie, though. The water is the color of milk chocolate, that cruddy stuff you eat only if you can't get ahold of any 85%+ cacao. Medicinal chocolate, yum. I don't buy chocolate of any kind, because I can't eat only one square—I'm an all-or-nothing kind of chocolate eater.

Anyway, the floodwater is an unappetizing brown, but that's not the memorable part. That water moves fast. It is not fooling around. It would transport you into the next county before you could catch a breath. It would probably take your car too, if you were stupid enough to drive through one of those washes. Which apparently drivers do quite frequently. I saw it happen in Oregon, too. There's some sort of magnetic attraction between Jeeps and mudpuddles. I once saw two teen girls weeping in a Jeep that they had managed to mire in a mudpuddle to the top of their big-ass off-road wheels. I'm guessing the hankering to drive your vehicle through fast-moving floodwater is probably similar to a jaywalking compulsion. Sometimes you just gotta do it.

Back to my nocturnal visitor. I read up on javelinas and learned that they tend to travel in small packs. The one I saw seemed to be alone, although in the dark, I could not be sure. It crossed in front of the trailer. I grabbed my little flashlight and stepped warily out onto the side deck, keeping close to the back door in case the critter should decide to mince up the steps on its cloven hooves and come at me with its tusks. 

That desert creature couldn't have cared less about me. It was busy nibbling on little succulents and green weeds that have sprung up in the gravel. I remembered reading that javelinas have a keen sense of smell but their eyesight is poor. I shone the flashlight on it and saw small red eyes peer in my direction. I was clearly of no interest whatsoever. I got the feeling I had perhaps met the real manager of the trailer park.