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Conversation on the way to the MS Center

Every few years, one doctor or another decides that my latest neurological symptoms look enough like MS that they send me back to Dr K, the MS specialist. Then we go through a bunch of rigamarole involving reflex hammers and vibrations and testing sensation by poking me with something sharp. She orders a brain MRI, and then she decides that it doesn’t meet the criteria for MS and sets me loose for a few more years until the pattern repeats again. This time it’s my spine surgeon who, after deciding that the random tingling that keeps happening in half my face is not related to the hardware he put in my neck, has sent me to back to Dr K. So I was making my way up to the Mt Sinai MS Center on E 98th in a pretty grumpy mood because this feels like a waste of time and also I really really don’t want to add MS to my list of medical crap. Suddenly, my crabby thoughts about neurology were interrupted by a young man who said, “I was born in Lebanon but I came here when I was one ...
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From Chippendale's to the Javitz Center

I was not paying much attention to the older black man with the graying beard sitting next to me on the train with a book in his lap until he slid closer to me to let a young woman sit down on his other side. There wasn’t enough room for her friend to sit down too, but there was an empty seat on the other side of the pole next to me so I stood up and took that seat, the man shifted over and the other young woman sat down. By then he was smiling broadly, a striking smile. “I just went to the comedy club with a friend I haven’t seen in 30 years he told me,” pulling up a photo of himself posing with three women against a Harlem Comedy Club backdrop. Pointing out one he said, “she used to work at the Javitz Center with me, but she left in 1991, and those are her friends.” The photo blinked off the screen and was replaced by his screen saver, a photo of himself, much younger, posing with two women for a Newport cigarette ad. The glasses and grey beard were gone, but it was the same broad ...
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US Out of Everywhere

2/28/26 Ships blowing their fog horns as they passed under the Verrazano and into the Narrows woke me before dawn. Connor’s focused stare, willing me to feed him to make up for the dinner he rejected the night before, probably contributed. The thing about Trump being president, is that you wake up thinking, what now? This morning it’s another disaster – the US joining with Israel to bomb Iran. I don’t support the oppressive Iranian regime, but US intervention anywhere is rarely effective and it’s pretty clear that Trump’s agenda in this, whether it be oil, power, greed or distracting the populace has nothing to do with the people of Iran. This is the 7th country he’s bombed since his 2nd term began. He treats our military powers like a toddler with a toy, apparently oblivious to the potential consequences. So far an elementary school has been bombed killing dozens of little girls, three American soldiers have been killed, five soldiers are seriously injured, and the conflict is s...
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Home at last

I’m off today, but I am still thinking about yesterday’s new client, a trans 20 year old FIT student whose uncle decided to throw her down a flight of stairs. She fled in just her socks, walking through the snow to her friend’s house, where she can stay for a week. She told me that things had not been comfortable at home for a long time, but she was hoping she could get through school and then leave. I’m also thinking about the discussion at Rise and Resist last night about FBI agents showing up at the homes of members (and former members) of several environmental orgs including XR and Sunrise. We talked about what to do in such a situation – don’t open the door, ask if they have a warrant (which they often don’t), don’t talk to them, call Ron Kuby who has offered to represent any of us in that situation. Today Kuby also offered to represent the snowball-throwers – the NYPD and their supporters are all outraged because some officers got pelted by snowballs during a big post-blizz...
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Blizzard

On my way to work yesterday, the snow was coming down hard, but it was too warm for it to stick. There was a sense of hushed excitement - anticipation- throughout the City as people waited and wondered about the coming storm and rushed to get errands done. As I approached the building, I ran into one of our staff leaving - he lives in Jersey City, and he was making a dash for the train before NJ Transit shut down. "I've been here since earlier," he said hurriedly, "everything is done," by which he meant cleaning and setting up. An entire group of volunteers had cancelled, but between a few scheduled people and a few others who live in the area, we wound up with enough to get dinner done. Upstairs, Doug was slammed, seeing client after client who needed psych evals, medications, forms filled out. Stephen, stuck in Singapore, kept asking me for snow updates all afternoon. His chances of being able to fly in today were receding with each inch of snow that fe...
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Grief and snow blowers

it’s sad weather today, overcast, and the rain makes it feel like the sky is crying. “Chickenshit weather,” I think to myself dodging a singing guy wheeling a trash can around Herald Square. Suddenly I hear Kate S’ laugh, she found Dad’s pronouncements of chickenshit weather hilarious and even after he was gone she would still say it. “Stop!” I tell my mind, it’s bad enough there’s rain on my glasses, I don’t need tears too. It’s already hard because we are scheduling things in March and every time I hear the word, I think of her birthday, March 9th. I get to the office and find Misty very focused. H. has messaged her, asking how she got through her mother’s death, if it ever gets better. Misty doesn’t like H. because once in an out of control rage, she said some mean things to me. It was years ago, and even at the time I knew she was projecting, her anger at other people directed at a safe target, but Misty has never forgiven her. “This is different,” she tells me, explaining wh...
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American "health care system"

C., another now-adult former client, calls in crisis mode. She has been locked in a custody battle with her abusive trans. ex. who keeps calling child welfare as a way to harass her. She had been prevailing, but something changed. "He has temporary custody, and I have supervised visitation," she tells me, sobbing. "Am I a bad mother?" "No," I say, "you're a mother in a very challenging situation." She is dealing with poverty, her own medical issues, a special needs child and this abusive ex. "What should I do?" she asks. "What does your lawyer say?" "I don't have a lawyer!" It turns out that the domestic violence org that was supposed to provide her with legal services has dropped the ball. I look up another org in her area, send her the info. "The child welfare guy was actually nice," she says. "He said it's just temporary, that I am burned out." "Maybe you can take th...
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