I Don’t Know How She Does It . . .

“She,” in this case, being Joyce Carol Oates, who has lived with a diagnosis of tachycardia for the past 40+ years. I recall reading an interview with her a bazillion years ago in which she mentioned that the heart condition could kill her at any time, and that the knowledge of that potential sudden death helped her get over any anxiety she had about writing.

But maybe I’m misremembering that last part. Since getting out of the ER last Friday, I’ve been on a rollercoaster. The heart/lung symptoms that prompted the ER visit changed by the beginning of the week; the “weird fluttering” is gone, but I found myself having episodes where I was yawning repeatedly, almost compulsively, never quite able to get enough air. I’ve got a cardiologist appt. early next week, and I’m hoping to get confirmation that whatever-this-is is stress- and/or allergy-driven, and that my heart and lungs are fine.

It’s been a very difficult stretch for me, especially because I spend so much time alone. If I’m not talking to other people (or the dogs), I talk to myself. I’ve spent much of the past week with two voices in my head: one yelling, “You’re a hypochondriac!” and the other yelling, “You’re going to have a heart attack and die tonight!”

(There’s a third voice, actually: my dad’s. He’s been calling every day to see how I’m doing, which is kinda astonishing. At first, I was short with him, because I didn’t want to compare our respective conditions, or because I’m too cool, or because I didn’t want to let him in to see the dread that I’m experiencing. It took me a few days to really get the notion of, “This is your father, man. And, sure, his behavior in your childhood was a big part of the reason that you developed all that guardedness and anxiety, but he’s calling you because he loves you and can’t bear the thought of losing you, even if he can’t say that.” Tomorrow, we’ll go to the Chabad service so he can pray for his parents’ souls. I shouldn’t be writing on Kol Nidre, but I want to get this out because I haven’t really addressed how I’ve been feeling.)

All that anxiety magnified the severity of my symptoms, making it feel like I’ve got a time-bomb in my chest, making it more difficult for me to draw a solid breath and feel at ease, making me believe that the end is nigh. Is my right hand going numb because of an aneurysm or because I haven’t eaten for 8 hours? That crick in my neck from sleeping badly or is it an artery about to go? That stabbing sensation in my chest? Oh, wait, that’s just the itchiness from the hair growing back where they had to shave it for the stress test.

But when I could just talk to people about quotidian stuff, it would take me out of myself and I’d feel just fine. Either the symptoms would abate or I just become less aware of them.

As long as I don’t think about it, I think I’ll be okay.

So one part of me has been trying to maintain my routines and act as though nothing serious is happening, while another part is trying to total up all the things I should’ve done in my life and what I’ll still have time to do. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Quit work and go to an ashram? Be calm and carry on? I’ve got people out the wazoo telling me to relax, not to stress so much, but none of them offer to do my work for me. (And it was a lot of work, with a 150-page issue that had to go out by Wednesday in order to print and ship in time for a big show in Germany that I’m supposed to attend in a few weeks.)

On Tuesday night, things got so bad that I was afraid that I wouldn’t make it through to morning. I found myself regretting, of all things, that I wouldn’t get to read the newest issue of Love & Rockets. I’d heard that Jaime Hernandez had a monumental story in it, and it saddened me that I wouldn’t see it.

There weren’t a lot of other regrets that occurred to me on Tuesday night. I regretted being sharp with Amy during the drive home from the train station that night, but I knew she understood how shaken and scared I was. Once home I decided that, if this was to be my last night alive, then I’d go out with a little joy: having a fine gin & tonic and watching some baseball.

And if it turned out that I was being a hypochondriac, then I figured the G&T would relax me a bit. And I’m a long way past getting worked up about a Yankees game.

I felt fine on Wednesday morning, and pushed on with a positive outlook most of the day. When I got home from the office (and that work-stress from the first three days of this week didn’t help me any), the annual issue of L&R was waiting for me at the door. I took the dogs for a walk around the block, then fed them and lay on the sofa with the new book. I cried like a baby at the final pages. It was that good and I’m that emotionally raw.

Now (Friday night, just about one week from when I left the ER) I’m feeling a million times better. I still get short of breath/yawny on occasion, but I’m almost certain it’s due to anxiety. Among the lessons I learned this past week, the big one is that my anxiety is so much more vast and subtle than I ever imagined. It’s one thing to actively think, “I’m going to die,” and trigger a fear-reaction. But no: I found myself falling into those thoughts only after these episodes began. I got a real taste of how dread works behind the scenes, the chimera obscura. The longer I went without talking to someone or opening myself up to something like music (even when the iPod in my car thought it would be funny to shuffle up Breathe or Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?) or a good podcast or some silliness with the dogs, the more this dread gathered.

Walking the dogs around the neighborhood last night, I wondered what it would be like if I could get those two voices in my head in harmony. What if I could be reconciled that I’d been worrying over nothing, but also retain that immanence unto death? Would there be some way to use it, like Ms. Oates did, to let that specter pervade me, guide me past my dissipated routines, let me face the fear of the end and shatter all this anxiety?

Can I write like there’s no tomorrow?

What It Is: 9/20/10

What I’m reading: The Iliad and about 500 pages of Jaime Hernandez’ Locas comics.

What I’m listening to: Not much of anything, sad to say.

What I’m watching: Not much of anything, sad to say.

What I’m drinking: Bluecoat & Q-Tonic

What Rufus & Otis are up to: A Sunday grey-hike, demolishing new squeaky-toys, and not getting used to their new beds.

Where I’m going: New Brunswick, for Contracting & Outsourcing 2010!

What I’m happy about: Getting called up for an aliya during Yom Kippur services and not embarrassing myself. Although I can’t remember if I started the blessing with “barchoo” or “baruch” . . .

What I’m sad about: Not being able to cajole my dad into coming along for any of the high holiday services besides his annual prayer for his departed parents’ souls. Also, that I’ll never dress as well as Brad.

What I’m worried about: Getting most of my October issue together before our conference starts Wednesday night. Gotta transcribe two interviews, start writing another story, and lay out the rest of the articles and columns in the next two-and-a-half days.

What I’m pondering: Whether Jaime Hernandez’ comics had a downturn or “treading water” phase in his career. I’m not in love with the Ti-Girls story he recently did, but I respect it as a working-through of his longtime love for superhero comics. Reading his stuff from 1984-1999, as I did this weekend, I’m inclined to think that he’s been on an upward trajectory pretty much since Love & Rockets debuted in 1981, which means he’s been getting better for nearly 30 consecutive years. The most recent issue, as I mentioned last week, was mind-blowingly good. I was worried that the melodrama qualities of some of the story, with their native emotional hooks, were magnifying the overall intensity of his work, but there was so much more going on in those stories, so much economy in the writing and art, and so much intelligence expected of the reader, that I’m still floored by it.

What I Love and What I Don’t Like

I had a sort of crappy end-of-day at work. I tend to internalize my frustration and play out phantom conversations endlessly. This tendency gets exacerbated by the fact that I don’t talk to friends very much. I drive home from work, IM with my wife for a few minutes to find out how she’s doing and see when she expects to get home from work, then take the dogs for a walk usually about half an hour or so.

Rufus & Otis are great, but their conversation skills are lacking, so I tend to keep talking silently to myself and letting these frustrations fester. The weather’s so lovely this evening that I it would sooth my soul, but I kept slipping back into little tirades. I should’ve called one of my old pals, but it’s just not in my nature anymore. Don’t know when that changed.

got in and fed them, checked work e-mail and some other work-related stuff, which only fuels my nonsense. Then I decided to go downstairs to my library sprawl out on the couch, and read the new issue of Love & Rockets. And that’s when I got out of myself. Jaime Hernandez’ stories in the new book flat-out transported me. The moment young Perla saw the girl-mechanic on the parade float, I had a grin from ear to ear. My heart was broken after the story of her brother. I lost myself in his amazing storytelling, and I’m thankful for that.

Love and Rockets: New Stories #3 by The Hernandez Brothers - Jaime detail
(I also may be the last reader of theirs to realize that Beto Hernandez is this generation’s Russ Meyer.)

In other news, Barking, a new Underworld record, came out yesterday. I love a lot of their music, but I’m just befuddled by this new stuff. I gather they used outside producers for the first time, and the result is really . . . pedestrian. Which is a funny term to apply to dance music, but there it is. It’s almost like reading a serial comic book with a new creative team that fails to Get It.

To me, Underworld’s best music is like having drug-crazed nanobots devouring the language and motion sections of your brain, so that words don’t really make sense and you’re possessed with an urge to dance/thrash. This new record, on the other hand, has a lot of shimmery keys, banal disco beats and sensical lyrics.

Worst of all, the decision was made to have Karl Hyde sing, despite the fact that he doesn’t have much of a singing voice. Oh, and there’s a ballad. Except it’s not absurd/surreal, like Good Morning Cockerel, a song from their previous album, Oblivion With Bells, about which I’m rather ambivalent. I’ll give this one another try or two, but it’s a very disappointing record.

So that’s a little of what’s going on. I also spend a lot of time thinking about Achilles and Odysseus in The Iliad.

Funny books

During the height of the finance boom, I was able to get paid $375 per hour — and a minimum of three hours — by investment groups that wanted my advice about pharmaceutical facility acquisitions. I knew then that banks were going to implode. After all, people responsible for hundreds of millions — if not billions — in investments concluded I was an expert worth paying for advice? And that my advice was worth taking? The center could not hold.

I’m glad that I lead a relatively inextravagant lifestyle, because I managed to spend around $300 in little more than an hour at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival today. Sadly, I actually budgeted that amount before heading into NYC for the event.

The damage, in chronological order:

1. Lincoln Tunnel toll: $8

2. One-day admission: $12

3. Jaime Hernandez illustration of Maggie Chascarillo (the 7th Jaime illustration I now own): $100

4. Fantagraphics Books table: $90 (with tax)

5. Picturebox table: $25

6. Top Shelf table: $6

7. Drawn & Quarterly table: $50 (with in-show discount)

8. Barbecue turkey burger at Pete’s Tavern: $11 w/tip

9. Parking: $13 w/tip

Grand Total: $315 in a little more than an hour.

So, um, if you know any investment groups that need advice on facility acquisitions, send ’em my way!

Because you’re all clamoring for it, here’s the Jaime drawing I bought.

maggie

You can view all 7 of my Jaime illos over here.

And a couple of pix from MoCCA are over here.

What It Is: 9/14/09

What I’m reading: This note about the 400th anniversary of the death of Rabbi Loew inspired me to re-read Introducing Kafka (mainly for R. Crumb’s drawings & strips). I also read Locas II, a huge collection of Jaime Hernandez’s comics. Occasionally I forget how wonderful it is to live in an era when artists like Xaime are doing such fantastic work (and making great illustrations).

What I’m listening to: A great B.S. Report podcast with Patton Oswalt, and an okay one with Bill Hader.

What I’m watching: The Basketball Hall of Fame class of 2009 induction ceremony, in which I learned that John Stockton can be kinda funny, Vivian Stringer had a tough life, Jerry Sloan has enormous hands, and Michael Jordan cannot handle retirement. Also watched a ton of NFL, and the Vandy-LSU game.

What I’m drinking: Cascade Mountain & Q Tonic.

What Rufus is up to: Meeting a ton of greyhounds at the annual grey-picnic in Bridgewater, NJ on Sunday. Pictures to come. (Here’s one from my wife!)

Where I’m going: No plans! Got any ideas?

What I’m happy about: Writing those Gary Panter & Gillian Welch posts last week.

What I’m sad about: Norman Borlaug’s death. He did have a full life, reaching 95 years and saving countless lives, but still.

What I’m worried about: Not my conference next week. At least, not as much as past years. We’ve already taken care of a lot of the things that usually get taken care of late in the game — the USB drives are much better than last year, for example — and our attendee count is surprisingly good, esp. given the economy. I’m sure something crazy will happen that throws everything askew, but I’m less nerve-wracked about things. Now I just gotta hope all 11 speakers actually show up for their sessions.

What I’m pondering: Whether I’m too old to start a band called Umvelt of the Dog.

Locas & Locos

Anyone who’s read Jaime Hernandez’s Locas comics in Love & Rockets knows that the men take a back seat to the women in the cast. Ray D. is pretty much the only male character who jumps to mind when I try to recall men who demonstrate even half the depth of Jaime’s women.

Still, I’ve been hoping for a while now to compliment my three Jaime Hernandez drawings of Maggie & Hopey, Terry Downe and Penny Century with a trio of drawings of Jaime’s guys.

Comic-Con International in San Diego represents the best opportunity to do this, since Jaime and his brother Gilbert bring binders of drawings to sell at their signing sessions. But I haven’t been out to the Con since 2005; my wife didn’t have a great time when I dragged her to it that year, although now that she learned Ray Bradbury was in attendance at this past Con, she’s full of regret. So maybe next year. I guess I won’t ask her to wear the Princess Leia costume this time. (No, that’s not her.)

It’s my good fortune to have an all-around great pal who is obligated to cover the Con. I asked my Comics Reporter pal Tom to keep an eye out when Jaime was doing his signing/drawing sale sessions. A few days after the Con, I received a UPS package that looked like it was mauled by the company’s new cadre of package-sorting grizzly bears.

Tom, expecting this sort of abuse, did a fantastic job with the internal packaging, so I’m now the proud owner of three Jaime drawings of Rand Race, Doyle, and the beaten-down Ray Dominguez! Time to trim (slightly) and frame ’em!

I’ve posted all six of my Jaime scans to flickr, so just click through Penny Century for the whole set!

What it is: 4/14/08

What I’m reading: Locas, by Jaime Hernandez. Just feeling sentimental for Maggie & Hopey, I guess.

What I’m listening to: She and Him, Vol. 1, but not getting into it.

What I’m watching: A marathon of The Deadliest Catch, in preparation for the premier of the new season.

What I’m drinking: Guinness Extra Stout (bottled)

What I’m happy about: That Starbucks’ new Pike Place roast isn’t anywhere near as offensive as its old coffee. I mean, I still wouldn’t choose to stand on line behind a bunch of people ordering orange mocha frappuccinos, but at least I know that if I DO have to go to a Starbucks, at least I’ll be able to get a decent black coffee. Oh, and here’s an article on their retro mermaid logo. This is not a mermaid.

What I’m sad about: That DirecTV’s installer messed up the installation of my new dish, so a bunch of my HD channels are badly digitizing/artifacting. Now I gotta work at home today so they can get someone out here to realign it. But it’ll be pretty sweet to have all those extra HD channels.

What I’m pondering: Why LeBron James is getting so much MVP consideration, given that his team is barely over .500 in a terrible conference.