TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 224

Sat May 26 11:09:29 PDT 2007

May 26, 200000000000000000000000000007

Dear Family,

	You haven't heard from me for a while 
because things have been hopping, or maybe things 
have been having a seizure.  Wednesday, I had to 
bring Feyna to the hospital.  She'd been studying 
for finals.  She'd handed in one final in the 
form of a paper on Tuesday.  To finish it, she 
stayed up all night.  And after she got back on 
Tuesday, she went right to work on the next 
paper, due on Wednesday.  It had to be about 
eight pages long.  She was struggling with it 
while administering meds and food to her cat, 
Mint, through a feeding tube.  Mint was throwing 
up regularly, not doing so well.  Feyna stayed up 
all Tuesday night except for one hour of sleep 
she allowed herself.  I told her she needed to 
get sleep.  How could she work without sleep? 
But she insisted.

	 I've seen her like this so many times 
before, doggedly creating a reality for herself 
that just doesn't exist.  Now she was forcing 
about twenty hours of work into the two hours she 
had before she needed to leave for the city to 
hand in her second paper.  She was struggling at 
the computer, needing me to be there in the room 
with her.  She'd let me leave for a while,  even 
calmly released me to go on the scheduled 
excursion to Costco with my mother.  I left with 
some trepidation.  How long was she going to 
last?  Well, she'd seemed calm and determined 
when I'd left.  Maybe she'd be all right.

	We were pushing our carts up aisle number 
twelve when I got a page from her.  I took out my 
cell phone, fired it up, and called.  When she 
answered the phone, she was in desperate tears.

	"Come home.  I need you.  I've never bclmnek dkblie dm osprnk."

	"What?"  She was screaming into the phone 
and I couldn't make out what she'd said.

	"I've never kdshjnj aoikewm djeupl cnne!"

	"What?"

	"I'VE NEVER LK;ASDKJN;KLJ EJKL;8AE78CNK!!!!"

	"Feyna, you're screaming and I can't 
understand you.  Talk more softly."

	"I've never been so desperate.  You have 
to come home.  Please.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry. 
Are you mad at me?"

	"No.  Of course not.  We'll put these 
things back on the shelves and be back as fast as 
we can.  Hold on.  It may be half an hour.  I'm 
coming."

	When I entered her downstairs apartment, 
she was standing, half dressed, shivering in a 
doorway, sobbing uncontrollably.  Gasping for 
air.  "I can't work.  I can't focus.  When I sit 
down at the computer, I can't do anything."

	"Feyna, slow down.  Take a deep breath. 
Breathe, Feyna.  I'll help you."

	  "I can't do this.  I can't do this. 
There's too much to do.  I've got this paper, and 
I just discovered in the instructions that I need 
to put in a whole bunch of quotes.  It's too 
much.  That'll take me hours longer.  I'll have 
to search through the book.  It'll take forever, 
and I have to leave here in less than an hour."

	"Feyna, honey, you don't have enough time 
to do this in.  You're going to have to cut your 
losses, figure out an alternative plan.  Call 
your teacher and arrange to get an incomplete in 
the class.  You just can't do this.  There isn't 
enough time."

	She raged at the air.  "I have to do it. 
I have to get an A.  I can't get an incomplete. 
That would be like failing.  I can't."

	"But Feyna, you've only got less than an 
hour before you have to leave, and you can't 
finish this.  Please."

	This didn't sit well with her.  She'd 
keep ranting that she had to get an A, and that, 
in addition, she had to go to San Bruno (about 25 
miles from Berkeley) to her sales team's 
Wednesday night meeting.  They were holding a 
talent contest, and the stakes were high.  The 
winner would get a Cutco Japanese all purpose 
knife.  It was her only chance.  She was planning 
on bringing her cello on BART, walking half a 
mile with it to the meeting, and playing only God 
could guess what, since all the sheet music is in 
storage, and she hasn't touched her cello for 
over a year.  Somehow, in this mix, she was going 
to find time to practice and get some invisible 
piece into shape for a performance.  No sleep for 
two days, long trip on BART with heavy 
instrument, daunting hike with heavy instrument 
for half a mile each way.  I told her that she 
could drop the talent contest.  She didn't have 
to do that.

	"No.  I have to do that.  I can't just 
not show up.  And it's my only chance for that 
knife."  Then she'd break down in tears and 
repeat over and over again, "I don't know what to 
do.  What am I going to do?"

	Her ardent desire that the world bend to 
her, conform to the delusions she clutched in her 
fists, was breaking her.  The two realities were 
colliding.

	Poor Feyna, shifting her weight from one 
foot to the other, coming apart.  "What am I 
gonna do?  What am I gonna do?  What am I gonna 
do?  Help me!  Help me!  Help me!  What am I 
gonna do?  I need to get out of here.  Take me 
away.  I need to get away.  I need it all to go 
away.  I don't care if I flunk my classes. 
Nothing matters.  I just need to get away from 
everything.  I hate my life.  I hate life.  I 
don't want to be alive."  She was beyond reach.

	"I'm going to take you to the hospital," I said.

	"The hospital?"

	"We need to get you some help, sweetie. 
I'm going to take you to the hospital.  Put your 
pants on."

	After the decision had been made for her, 
the panic abated.  She held onto the idea of a 
hospital, a sanctuary, relief.  She dressed, 
threw a book, her CD player, her broken ipod, her 
medications, a hair brush and a tooth brush into 
her backpack.  Grabbed her purse.  I called the 
Veterinary clinic and told them that we had a 
family crisis and I would be bringing Mint by to 
be boarded and cared for there for a few days. 
We went across town and brought Mint to the vet, 
then circled back to the emergency room of the 
hospital.  We got there at 12:30.  By the time 
they'd seen Feyna, interviewed her, done blood 
and urine work, made arrangements for a bed at 
Herrick hospital, it was 6:30.  Then they 
transferred her to Herrick.  And I waited out in 
the hallway for an hour and a half for them to 
process her.  Finally, they called me in.  They 
had me take back the CD player, the ipod, the 
purse, the backpack, keys, anything metal, 
anything sharp, anything anyone could use to do 
harm, suicidal or homicidal.  They allow no 
string.  She got to keep her book.

	I have visited her every time visiting 
hours have come.  From one to two in the 
afternoon, and from six forty five to eight in 
the evening.  She has wept, held onto me, cried 
about her cat, worried that she is crazy or might 
go crazy.  What will people think after she comes 
out of there?  Will they think she's crazy?  What 
will she tell people who ask her where she was? 
She misses everyone.  She loves us so much.  The 
tears paint salty rivers down her cheeks.  She 
sleeps a lot.  There are some pretty unfortunate 
people on the ward.  Sometimes, even though on 
some level, their behaviour is amusing, it's 
frightening to be around such insanity.  Feyna 
goes to a group meeting every day, and has seen 
one of the resident psychiatrists several times. 
She says he's okay.  She wanted something to hug 
as she went to sleep.  She's so lonely.  She 
instructed that I bring her her huge stuffed 
octopus, Luna, that she got at the Monterey Bay 
Aquarium.  I walked in last night with her, and 
they passed me by the check-in, but when I 
brought Luna onto the ward, the nurse approached 
us and said I would have to bring Luna home when 
I left.  The tentacles are long and could 
possibly be used to choke, or hang someone.

	Yesterday, Natalie called and asked about 
the location of the hospital.  She and Alex were 
planning on visiting in the evening.  I stopped 
her.  "Natalie, Alex may not come and visit Feyna 
if he is going to agitate her or disturb her in 
any way.  There cannot be any fighting, any 
bickering.  He may not come if he can't behave 
himself."  She said, "okay," and went on. 
"Natalie," I slowed her down, "Did you hear what 
I said?"  She answered a definite yes.  "He's one 
of the reasons Feyna's in there, you know." 
"Oh," Natalie was surprised.  Oh yes, it's true. 
One of the other things going on in Feyna's life 
besides the cat, the schoolwork, the learning 
disabilities, the 36 hours without sleep, was 
that Alex and she had had YET ANOTHER big fight, 
at the end of which, Alex, as usual, announced 
that maybe they shouldn't be friends any more. 
He had called while she was in the middle of her 
panic to say that he'd thought it over and 
decided that they could continue to be friends. 
This is the way it always works out.  It is sick, 
and Feyna knows it.  She got off the phone 
quickly, telling him she couldn't talk.  No, she 
couldn't explain.  No, she wasn't going to tell 
him.  He'd find out later.  No.  Not now.  She 
can't talk now.

	Last night, they transferred her to 
another ward, a less restrictive environment. 
She is ecstatic.  She has internet access now! 
There is a wide screen plasma television.  There 
is a rug instead of linoleum.  The people are 
less extreme.

	She will be there for a while.

	That's why you haven't heard from me. 
And there are other things going on, too.

                                                ˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆ

A Thing About Penises

	David Wong had a penis that curved to the 
right.  Well, actually, his left, my right.  It 
rose for a short distance from the straight 
haired patch of black grass in his groin, then 
took its sharp turn curling over.

	By the time I saw David Wong's penis, I'd 
seen a fair number of them.  They all had their 
personalities.  Yvonne told me that she never saw 
her boyfriend, Tom Reich, without an erection in 
the eight years she knew him.  I'd never seen one 
like that.  But I'd seen circumcised and 
uncircumcised, thick, skinny, long, short, neat, 
sloppy, so many varieties.  My preference was 
something that was a manageable size, and was 
well groomed.  Circumcised was much better. 
Certainly I couldn't feel the difference, but the 
uncut versions looked silly and made me have to 
repress my urge to laugh.  I've heard that 
chuckling at a man's member is not proper 
etiquette, plus it hurts his feelings.

	When I was with Arthur, I was sitting 
cross legged on the bed and I remember him 
reaching over and tugging on the hem of my 
nightgown to pull it over my knees.

	"It's not exactly the most beautiful part of a woman's body."

	It was like he was scolding me for 
housing such an ugly thing.  And now, looking 
back on all those private parts, which are, as I 
write, becoming quite public, I see that David 
Wong's penis was one of the lovelier ones, as it 
had character, and a decent arch to it.  I am not 
thinking of the compatibility with my quite 
straight vagina.  This is purely aesthetics, I am 
talking.  Without context or association, those 
many public private parts were really quite 
homely.  It's only when you link them to their 
function that they make any sense.

	David Wong fucked like a bunny rabbit. 
Thumper.  I thought of him as Thumper.  He was so 
quick and so busy at it.  He concentrated so 
hard.  Someone like that has got to be good at 
producing pregnancies.  Don't you think attitude 
makes a difference?  Nothing was ever said about 
David Wong's arcing penis.  We both saw it.  We 
both knew.  He must have known, even though I'm 
sure I was more objective.  In fact, if you want 
to partake of the act with a real live penis and 
real live vagina, objectivity should be left 
behind.  You have to be swept away with the 
hormonal surge, the bio-chemistry of romance. 
Otherwise you'd just giggle through the whole 
thing, and that can't leave a good impression.

	"If you're just going to laugh while we 
do this, I'm afraid you're going to have to give 
me my key back."

	Men get pre-occupied with the size of 
their equipment.  And there seems to be a story 
going around that size doesn't matter.  You can 
never tell whether the person saying that is 
joking, bemoaning fate, or being dead on serious. 
And I think it's the size of his brain and his 
heart that matter.  Among all the protuberances I 
ever had the privilege to see, there was not a 
single one that made my heart palpitate.  They 
are tools, pretty much.  They do what their 
owners tell them to do, though I've been told 
they have minds of their own.  The attraction is 
to the man who is attached to the tool.  Maybe 
women are different than men in this way.  There 
must be some women who get excited when they see 
a penis to their liking.  But I don't know anyone 
like that.  It is men who gossip about some one 
being, "well hung".  When I hear the expression, 
"well hung," I think only of capital punishment, 
which I don't condone.

	The best penis ever for me was Harry 
Lum's penis.  It was the tiniest penis I've ever 
set eyes on.  It was tiny and purple and hard as 
a rock.  Harry told me that the Chinese word for 
penis was the equivalent of, "earth drill". 
Indeed, he could have used it to search for oil. 
Harry probably suffered some feelings of 
inferiority because of his dimensions.  But it 
was the superior implement.  It was what he did 
with it that endeared it to me.  I loved its 
little purple presence.  It was not menacing or 
narcissistic.  It had no delusions of grandeur. 
It could fit, all of it, from stem to tip, on a 
standard three by five.  And I could put the 
whole thing in my mouth without gagging.  Don't 
men know that these things matter to a woman?

	The most important factor of all is that 
you be madly in love.  If you are in love, no 
matter what shape or size, you are willing to 
accept it as is.  If you are not in love, you 
have no business examining it and passing 
judgment.  It's like a beauty contest with 
babies.  Every mother is in absolute awe of the 
perfection of her own baby.  Once you leave it up 
to the dispassionate judges, their objectivity 
actually gets in the way.  Beauty is not 
objective.  If I were entirely objective about 
all these disparate penises, I'd have them all 
put back in their boxes and returned to their 
senders, C.O.D.

                                                ˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆ

-- 

Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net