Summer fainted on Los Angeles the morning after the time change. Somewhere in that lost hour before dawn, the shadowy seasons of this desert town politely traded places, and winter waltzed away.
I wasn't shocked that Sunday brought record high temperatures- nothing in moderation, this place. Sick and sore as I was, I insisted on walking to the diner for brunch, as it looked like a gorgeous day from inside the windows. I was fooled, and I sweat out half my fever on the way back. I saw all the shade in Echo Park get small with children and church goers... watched the lake go glassy in my gaze. I slept off most the day.
And finally the evening came, an hour late, an hour brighter. I rolled down my windows in my car and let the dusk in. With it came the one real magic of Los Angeles: the smell of flowers in the air. In the sprawling neighborhoods of Los Angeles, there are as many rose bushes as palm trees. The scent has become ingrained in me, a thing of memory that will bring me back here after I've gone, like the smell of cut grass to my childhood home. It is pervasive, overpowering exhaust, taco stands, and donut shops in all directions. I breathed in the city's deep perfume, through stuffy sinuses, and summer flooded me...
No one in the city slept right that Sunday night. Sheets were tangled, pillows abused, and the time many alarm clocks was checked repeatedly in the wee morning hours when it should have been light but wasn't. We jarred the faults in time and this was the recovery. Amid the sudden heat, there was a degree of bewilderment on the faces of each worker in Monday's morning traffic.
Occasional morning frost is now occasional morning fog. The weather forecasters say "cooling off to mid-80s" and other ridiculous phrases. Instead of resolute nighttime, I drive home from work in fading sunlight, windows down, roses rushing by me on both sides.
13 March 2007
07 March 2007
Let Your Knees Fall
This is how it goes:
You go into the office, sign a form or two. You wait a bit and when your name is called you go behind a door. A nurse takes your blood pressure. You go into the bathroom and pee all over a plastic cup. Some of it gets inside the cup. You clean it off and give it back to the nurse. Go into another room, switch your clothes for big paper towels. Your doctor knocks, enters, rubs two hands all over you and inside you to check for abnormal cell growth, and finally, pries open your vag to scrape some cells off your cervix. You both chat about prescriptions, and your doctor exits. Switch back your clothes. Pay the receptionist. Wave goodbye, till next year, goodbye fair Gyno, goodbye...
It's not as easy as one might imagine, to get yourself in the position. You have to push yourself to the fatal edge of the table. Then you put your heels on cushions about three feet apart. When the Gyno calls action!, you have to relax your thighs all the way down. Without question, the most vulnerable positions for a naked human. My doctor always assures me that only patients who are yogis and Olympic gymnasts can do this the right way. (And I believe her, because you believe anything coming from a stranger who annually touches your uterus, and can determine something from what is felt. I mean, honestly.) As my knees pretend to play it cool, my face is pointed directly at a nick in the ceiling board, donning an expression I can't be held responsible for. It's somewhere between masked discomfort and questioning all of humanity. Thankfully, the doctor's attention is centered on my oven, and not my heinous visage.
My Gyno is an Angel. She was sent down from Heaven, speculum in hand, with a barely perceptible sexuality and most matter-of-fact frankness in all of Creation. She talks to me about my generic birth control during my breast exam, and never really pauses until my chart is filled out. She came into my life after a truly insane experience at a Planned Parenthood: my first attempt at the "Annual" (as they say in the biz) including yelling, crying, and not a pap to be smeared. I failed.
Angel Gyno rescued me.
No, I haven't changed partners, Angel Gyno.
No, I have no problems with my current brand of crazy pills- I mean, birth control.
Yes, I'll schedule my next Annual.
Go ahead, scrape away. If I had cervical cancer, it would already be too late to save me, wouldn't it? That's okay, Angel Gyno, Vag Soldier, Queen of Pap. We'll get through it, together.
You go into the office, sign a form or two. You wait a bit and when your name is called you go behind a door. A nurse takes your blood pressure. You go into the bathroom and pee all over a plastic cup. Some of it gets inside the cup. You clean it off and give it back to the nurse. Go into another room, switch your clothes for big paper towels. Your doctor knocks, enters, rubs two hands all over you and inside you to check for abnormal cell growth, and finally, pries open your vag to scrape some cells off your cervix. You both chat about prescriptions, and your doctor exits. Switch back your clothes. Pay the receptionist. Wave goodbye, till next year, goodbye fair Gyno, goodbye...
It's not as easy as one might imagine, to get yourself in the position. You have to push yourself to the fatal edge of the table. Then you put your heels on cushions about three feet apart. When the Gyno calls action!, you have to relax your thighs all the way down. Without question, the most vulnerable positions for a naked human. My doctor always assures me that only patients who are yogis and Olympic gymnasts can do this the right way. (And I believe her, because you believe anything coming from a stranger who annually touches your uterus, and can determine something from what is felt. I mean, honestly.) As my knees pretend to play it cool, my face is pointed directly at a nick in the ceiling board, donning an expression I can't be held responsible for. It's somewhere between masked discomfort and questioning all of humanity. Thankfully, the doctor's attention is centered on my oven, and not my heinous visage.
My Gyno is an Angel. She was sent down from Heaven, speculum in hand, with a barely perceptible sexuality and most matter-of-fact frankness in all of Creation. She talks to me about my generic birth control during my breast exam, and never really pauses until my chart is filled out. She came into my life after a truly insane experience at a Planned Parenthood: my first attempt at the "Annual" (as they say in the biz) including yelling, crying, and not a pap to be smeared. I failed.
Angel Gyno rescued me.
No, I haven't changed partners, Angel Gyno.
No, I have no problems with my current brand of crazy pills- I mean, birth control.
Yes, I'll schedule my next Annual.
Go ahead, scrape away. If I had cervical cancer, it would already be too late to save me, wouldn't it? That's okay, Angel Gyno, Vag Soldier, Queen of Pap. We'll get through it, together.
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