Low energy day…

It’s Labor Day and it’s supposed to get blisteringly hot.

At the moment I’m seated at the outdoor dining table on our deck, in a comfy and supportive high backed chair, finally in a position where my back isn’t throbbing. I woke up this way.

Woke up with Lilith standing on my chest, pawing my shoulder, demanding I get up & pay attention to her. She’s full grown with puppy energy, a joyfully tiring combo. I made b’fast for us, grateful that LJ had already made coffee before taking each of the dogs out to walk.

I’ve been tuning into Twitter in quiet moments, generally avoiding the big names and loudest voices, opting for interesting people of intersectional views. Among the folks I follow are a number of Jewish people of color, including a Southern, African-American lesbian, who’s a veteran & also a reform Rabbi. (A friend recently referred to her as a one woman study in intersectionality.) She lost her mother earlier this year and in this time of Covid & social distancing, she has turned to Twitter to gather a minyan to say Kaddish. I’ve been one who has joined, paying forward my debt for the Friends who stood with me when my obligation to chant Kaddish for Pop came. Hard to believe it’s almost 25 years that he’s gone. I’m now as old as he was when he left this mortal plane.

Speaking of intersectionality, last night I finally started reading Isabell Wilkerson’s new book on caste. It’s become clear to me that the only way were going to get to a point of All Lives Matter will be to embrace and accept that Black Lives Matter, Brown Lives Matter, Indigenous Lives Matter, Queer Lives Matter, Women’s Lives Matter, etc. Wilkerson herself, a highly educated woman of color, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist & academic, clearly understands that racism is more than just black & white, either figuratively or literally. Her book’s prologue spoke to me specifically, recounting the story of a German factory laborer in a photograph of a factory full of workers, the only man unwilling to return a Nazi salute. He was an ordinary individual, except that he was also a German Gentile in love with a Jewish woman.

Do not be surprised if I refer to this book again, as I read through it. Better yet, get a copy and read with me. It may clarify why this coming election in the US is so critical, and how we make peace with disarm the president’s Republican base.

Migraines are weird…

I’m sitting and doing a mental post Mortem on this headache.

If you’ve never had a migraine, nor anyone who does, they are not just a headache. Classic migraine, which is what I have, is a neurologic condition. Other than being male, my description could be found in a textbook. My headaches started during puberty, there was a family history (in my case on both sides of the family), there’s a warning aura, in my case visual (scotomata, a combination of flashing lights and jagged lines across my visual field), and there are known triggers. My very first migraine happened half an hour into a wine and cheese party my freshman year in college. Tyramine, a decarboxylated amino acid found in both aged cheese and red wine is a specific trigger for many.

I, like my mother, can also have visual triggers. I absolutely abhor op-art, and strobe lights. Mom often had trouble with fluorescent lights especially towards the time a bulb needs to be replaced. I learned the hard way never to drive across a north south bridge at sunset or sunrise. Similarly driving past regularly spaced trees at dawn or dusk. Visual field testing for glaucoma is no picnic & I have to premedicate with a couple of cups of coffee to be on the safe side.

I am fortunate that I generally appear to be responsive to caffeine. For years I relied on triptan medications, also highly effective for me when the occasional migraine aura began. As a young man, my residency was an absolutely miserable experience because constant fatigue and sleep disruption are common migraine provokers. Daily periods of meditation, some thing I rarely had time for during my residency, were successful preventatives when I could do them.

One of the early medications that I was given back in the early 70s was caffeinated ergotamine tablets which almost always was successful in aborting a headache. There were unfortunately limits in how often you could use it. When our godchildren were young, I was caught during a trip to the San Diego zoo by an aura, when I had no triptans on hand to treat it. In a moment of panic, I remembered that Cafergot had once been effective for me and decided to slam some caffeine to see if I could prevent the headache. Two pots of coffee later, the aura was successfully aborted, & the headache avoided. Since headaches at this point in my life are infrequent, & triptans expensive, whilst coffee Is readily available, caffeine is now my usual go to. Pissing like a racehorse is decidedly preferable to cowering in a dark closet.

In any event, I am suspecting my moments on the deck this morning looking out onto the redwoods on the near side of the deck railing, shimmering in the early morning sunlight, probably was the equivalent of driving across the Golden Gate bridge at dusk. Note to self, next time face the house instead.