Why Thomas Pynchon Loves Nurses

For me it was a normal day- Long island City-Seven train to the uptown Six- in twenty minutes-walking across Lexington Avenue on the upper east side of Manhattan. As normal a day as any in the NYC strangeness of early 2002. But for a nurse working in a busy New York emergency room it was normal. And in many ways it stayed so. I went straight to the assignment board, got mine from the charge nurse-12 houres in the cardiac room, sharing the care of six or seven patients with another RN. I had three on the east bank, each connected to monitors- all looking fairly “well” considering their days were already sucking. But in general the monitors were blinking and beeping a steady rhythm; patient’s skin was all acceptably rosy, no ivory white pale scariness to indicate imminent badness for the human body. A normal day. I got a cup of coffee, and followed the night nurse, a dyed black haired fifty something goddess who after a well earned twenty something years of ER nursing in this shoebox department was way more interested in novel writing and her MFA. NY nurses are different like that. I took report on each patient, recording the incidentals, importants and to do’s. As is typical in the modern era of uninsured the department was overflowing with “borders” from the night shift. In addition to every bed being filled with patients awaiting admission, the hallways were lined with stretchers carrying white cotton lumps- under which were people hiding from the florescent lights, mean streets and the general unfriendliness the morning staff has to sleeping. I approached each in my generic gentle caring way, standing at least a foot away but not more than two, (masted after years of practice, to close- a lugi in the eye-too far and I may have to repeat myself. Years of experience demonstrated that twelve hours in a shoebox is best survived by not repeating oneself and not being lugied upon) and placed a gentle but firm hand on the “shoulder” of the lump- “um mister” –“um mam” and a gentle rocking led to a variety of sticking up hair fros emerging from beneath the worn white cotton blankets.-Jew (sticking up hair) fro, Wasp(sticking up hair) fro, Af (sticking up hair) fro Sticking up hair number next was really more of a plastered down blacky grayness. A clearly unwashed lost my comb more than a week ago sort of do, was sitting in a wheel chair, in the middle of the hall, just outside the cardiac room.
I gave him the aformentioned stand a foot away and reach gently technique. An unsurprising man, perhaps in his fifties, pale, unshaved looked up with attentiveness. I introduced myself and he did too. Cast on his left arm, or perhaps a sling. To what happened he answered that he had fallen. Drinking , I thought, came in here to get off the street last night. I’ll get him some breakfast I thought. Looked down at his clothes and some clothes- he’ll be out of here. “And my shoulder hurts”, he told me. “Did you hurt it when you fell”, I asked, unconcerned but doing diligence. He told me maybe, he had gotten dizzy. He didn’t remember. Could I touch his shoulder, did it hurt when I pressed? It did not. To how he got the cast, “I fell over a week ago”. To why it took him so long to come in- “no, I fell again last night”. I started to pay attention. Moved him into a newly vacated slot in my cardiac room. May I remove your shirt and get you into a gown. He was polite and passive. No pain when I moved his shoulder. No pain when I pushed on it. Just a constant dull achy feeling. “You fell ten days ago”, I asked again. Now here is where things get a little strange. His problem popped into my head, and I really don’t know from where or why. The best I can do it that a Chinese doctor in Bridgeport Connecticut has noticed the same thing one time, and had diagnosed my patient without hesitation based upon the exact story while I stood in awe at his brilliance. Fell 10 days ago. Now feeling week and falling again. The hair stood up all over my body, as it does when someone just got lucky and it wasn’t because of hard work but due to that weird silent snap. “May I touch your belly” led to firm tenderness across the upper left side. All you nurses and doctors new what was happening a paragraph ago. But I didn’t until that minute. “Your spleen is ruptured”, led to silence. My attending led to the surgical attending to the ultrasound department and back waiting for sutures in that soft organ.
An hour later he was back waiting for the operating room and there was a woman by his side. I introduced myself, and she too, as his wife. Surprised that my initial assessment had been so wrong, (homeless drunk was married to a nice women) but happy that my final one had been correct. I was in a bit of a proud and chatty mood. As he lay dozing in and out, what he did for a living came with small talk. He’s a writer, she told me. Is he any good, I asked, because I was feeling a bit proud and chatty, and must have felt I could. The best she said. How sweet I thought. When he woke I told him I liked to write too. You should stick with nursing he told me, “it’s useful”. I felt proud and chatty. I peeled a sticker off his chart and stuck it too my bag, I saved this guys live I thought, I’ll keep this.
It had started off as an average day, and for the most part had remained so, minus the life saving. Back in Long Island City after the twelve hours. To how was your day I replied, “it was alright, I saved some guys life”. “Really”, unsurprised but happy. “Yeah he was a writer”. To what was his name, “I don’t remember”. “Actually I have the sticker. Thomas Pynchon”, I said, “I never heard of him have you?” “Give me that” , she said.

plain and simple

Its neo colonialism or some such post (never was gone) imperial nastiness that follows the well heeled pha (soup) blisters of the picket fence cum loft crowd down Mexico way. Or better yet lets jump into the land of latrines and big brown eyes, blog back regarding the humility of it all, and then like a shitty cherry, on a college application sunday, avert our eyes from their vacant ones and eat it down. Thank you very much, may I have another?. Say it loud and say it proud! I'm not special, I have nothing to offer people in any country anywhere in the world. Everybody is better off without me. I gave the ghost my Apple inc. Cosmo(politan) in exchange for forehead touching and unblinking hunger. Big brown eyes can't crawl across the digital Rubicon. They just can't camp, scamp, kitsche while crying. Can we put it all to rest, that there is an altruistic ounce in taking the slow boat across the pond? There are weeds growing between the cracks, and even the lumberjacks (bd) have (much) more imagination than it takes to strap a Patagonia pack shoes for the trip of a lifetime

the end of the great pretend

what will go by the wayside when the end of the great pretend presents itself with hunger
what will become of trucker caps-key chains-tight jeans-soft hands-rough hair-acres of keds-fix bikes-what will become of art school?
What will become of-bumper sticker toting volvos-navel gazing whole foodies with an egg shell satisfaction of farmers market austerity and sanctimonious would have done it different had I not been finishing that remodel-
What will become of south east Asia- More importantly, how will the kids "really see the world" without it?
What will become of all that volunteer work when it no longer gets you to the front of the professional school line
What will become of professional schools when brain drain starts here and there is one doctor per gazillion.
Who will we be at the end of the great pretend?
I know I know I know a new theater will open, one always does. Some sort of earnest humorlessness probably.
Something must lie between pith helmets and unspeakable worse

X

My brother in law and I had a nice time carrying beams up to the house and thinking about fitness, especially as it applies to this type of activity. Five kids under five were running around on the deck and playing, swinging on the apple tree and generally having a five under five type of time. So we are having our heady conversation when two short people poke their heads around the corner and ask what we are doing. "Staking these beams" I tell them" At that moment I realized an opportunity in line with the type of fitness I'm trying to describe. They asked to help. My first thought was, this is going to slow me down, my second was how funny I am. you can help, nodding to brother in law, both of us thinking how enlightened we were becoming. Letting go of ideas like mass and time and integrating community, teaching and quality into the concept of fitness. I told the two of them to follow me and we could move a long 2x8 tongue and groove fir floor board. They followed, down the slope and over the hand dug stairs. I picked up one end of the board, "you two get this end" I looked up. I saw two backs and a cowlick disappearing back around the stack of lumber. "we don't want to actually" There is another type of flexibility, one that promotes an interest, that emphasizes what is important, but that at the same time recognizes the constructed meaning in all of our actions. I didn't need them to help, and perhaps they new this. A half an hour latter one of them was back, this time with another friend, a girl and my cousins daughter. They asked what we were doing and again, we told them we were heading down to the bridge to get more lumber. Would you like to come and help I asked. They nodded and began the trek down the trail. We walked more slowly, two grown men now quieter, a bit less pontificating. At the bottom I picked out two nice pieces of firewood for them to carry. " Bring this to Adeline's grandma's house OK" They made off, really quit proud of helping. I'll show you were to go I heard the girl tell the little boy as they passed above us on the trail.


ecological fitness
is as new as farming, gathering, hunting- Not new at all. Lift a little more, carry it a little further, feel colder in the morning, and get the warmth your movement created. It has been called everything from life, to country livin or mountain living, back to the land. I think there is a twist. The twist for today is that I'm speaking to those of us whose lives are not ecologically integrated. I can't imagine that is not each of us. Even some solar powered chamie shined anarchist living on bed bugs drove to the "land" they bought with a bond extricated at the top of time. Forget shame but dont sham we are historically situated (I've been told this is so). We have so much delivered to us by near slave labor.Ecological fitness begins where we are. It doesn't require leaving, and understands we are "in the country" right now, always. So, as much as being a fitness program, this is an attempt at re conceptualizing our articulation with and of the environment. How do we move in our environment? What is both the internal and external milieu, How is it supporting us and we it. Are we it distinctions useful?What might some basic tenants of Ecological Fitness look like? If you have a wood stove, your workout is getting firewood. If you can carry one piece, that's your workout. If that keeps you warm, an integration has happened. If your still cold, you might continue to collect more firewood, developing fitness in the domain of staying warm. Perhaps you need help getting firewood. Your neighbor might help you. That neighbor has now integrated fitness again, now bringing community and perhaps even caring into the equation. She is now stronger, both of body and whatever name we apply to those other domains. Simply Country living? Perhaps you are hungry in the city. You walk to the corner store rather than drive. Now, instead of conceptualizing this simply as a fitness regime, it is extended. You see your neighbors, they see you. A child sees you talking to his mother and his world is changed. Perhaps on the way you notice some litter. Tomorrow you carry a small bag and pick up a piece of recycling. An integration has occurred. Neighbor(hood)s are connected, body is strengthened, and those other domains, the ones with names like mind and spirit are altered. Ecological fitness is a recognition that the world and ourselves are always already in a natural state. The idea that city and country are somehow qualitatively discreet is dismantled or ignored. The belief that we and our world are either natural or industrial is recognized as the convenient construct that it is.Might ecological fitness be a movement? Sure. We can create workouts. An example goes something like this. I imagine you can be far more creative. Carry your neighbors groceries home two blocks, or, if you need it, let your neighbor help you. Perhaps talk with one and other en route. Advanced workouts? Boot camp becomes a month long volunteer project in your neighborhood. Do the labor. Feel the labor. Rather than simply trying to get the work done, re conceptualize it. It is making you stronger, it is integrating you ecologically.Clearly many are and have always done the workouts. As I said up front, this has gone by many names. Most of all I'm trying to create a new conceptual framework around fitness. This new model will include variable long valued and promoted. The only novel idea is that fitness is not only about the the movement of mass over time. It begins to employ or be made up of a more complex set of variables.You might argue that there is no need for this. It is fine to continue to define each concept in narrow terms. Fine to let fitness be about mass over time, and leave the other stuff to concepts of community, faith, love etc. One argument in favor of integration relates to time. If there is value deemed in community and love and faith, why spend not integrating those concept into our life. Why not integrate?

W

ecological fitness-fusing forms
The three forms which are currently merging to create ecological fitness:
European/Asian/NY City living
Country living (global)
Fitness (drawn largely from crossfit methodologies)

Brief outline of each
European/Asian City Living
Travel
Walking as a primary means of daily travel
bicycle as the secondary means
train as the third
Gathering/food
the neighborhood as marketplace within range of primary secondary transportation
Food can come from outlying growing regions to farmers markets
Work/school within tertiary range
SocialPublic space accepted as extension of personal (sidewalk-park- river- library-museum- pub/bar)
Fitness
Walking- cycling-personal sports (dance, gymnastics ,capoiera)

Country Living
Travel
Walking foot as a primary means of daily travel
bicycle as the secondary means
the Van/truck as the third
Gathering/foodthe regional marketplace within range of secondary (with effort) or tertiaryFood can come from outlying growing regions to farmers markets and be at least supplemented by personal gardens and livestock
Work/school
Within primary (uphill ten miles in snow both ways) secondary or tertiary range
SocialPublic space accepted mostly as the privet home and idea of guests, farmers market, post office, feedstore,Bar
Fitness
Building/Farming

FitnessAchieved by using more energy than is needed for the tasks at hand
Problem How to incorporate a formal fitness curriculum into the two lifestyles