I’m a little sickened by the latest American war coverage. I’m sickened because I, too, want to believe that the Iraquis are celebrating our arrival in Bagdad. But here’s the thing: I don’t believe it. Not for a second. If you look at CNN or the NY Times, most of the pictures show Iraquis waving their shirts and giving flowers to soldiers. And the pictures that they show of the injured Iraquis are placed and phrased in a way to make the reader think, “oh, look, how sad that that boy doesn’t have a mother, father, brother OR legs anymore, but I’m sure he thinks it’s alright cuz here’s the Americans!” And our troops are also doing nothing to stop the armed raids of hospitals and stores happening all over the city. I just don’t buy it. I’m sure there are some people somewhere who are happy that Saddam will no longer be gassing them, but at the same time, they are also probably terrified of what my government might do to their country. I’m just sickened by all of it. I feel powerless and ridiculous. I was in yoga class last night and all I could think was half a world away people are blowing each other up. And I’m sitting with my eyes closed, chanting, in a small pink room with twelve other women. I just can’t figure all of this out.

The Roid Report? I am convinced that I am willing it away. It’s not so bad today, which is really wonderful. The Zooey report? Well, he doesn’t have much control over actually making it to the litter box, but no change since yesterday. Tomorrow I will call and get the results back from the lab. Tomorrow I also have an audition for a national tour of The Sound of Music. I really, truly hope I don’t suck.

The last few days have been one of my work blurs, when nothing else seems to happen other than that in the tiny cosmos of my restaurant. This morning, after the first terrible insomnia I’ve had in weeks, I had to get up at 7 to get to the Park Slope Food Coop at 8. I spent a full five hours there, since I missed my slot last month and had to make it up, and saw about a hundred cute babies. One was in line with his mom, and she was handing him everything out of her cart so he could toss them onto the register belt. He did so, with glee, and with some distance and arc, until he handed her a big bag of corn chips. “CHIPS!” he screamed. “CHIPS CHIPS CHIPS CHIPS CHIPS” on and on and on until they paid and were out the door. She even let him hold on to them and he stared at the bag as big as he and hollered “CHIPS CHIPS CHIPS”.

And then I carried what felt like three hundred pounds of groceries home. And from home, to the vet. My cat Zooey has been ill lately, but not violently so until a couple of days ago. He seemed like he lost some weight over the last year, and that he was getting a little lethargic, but then a couple of days ago I picked him up and was shocked at how light he was. Zooey has always been an incredibly fat cat- one of those little-headed giant-bellied monsters- but part of what made him look even fatter than he was (if this is even possible) is his fur. Long, curly on his belly, with a proper lion’s mane. It was his fur that hid his shrinking body. And then, two days ago, he had some intestinal problems, and I mean to say, he had them all over my apartment. Chairs, rugs, bed, floors, etc. Problems everywhere. So even though I hate going to vet, only because it always costs $300 and they say, “Well, I’m not sure what’s wrong. We’ll give him some fluids and call if it gets bad again”. Literally every time I’ve had a sick cat, this is what they say.

So I took Zooey to this little place on 6th Ave here in Brooklyn that I heard was great. The vet, who seemed very competent, and who was very nice, was shocked by his weight loss- over half of his body weight- and confirmed that something is very wrong So… $300 of tests later, we are waiting to find out what his blood tells us. And he was so good during the whole exam. Zooey is the kind of cat that purrs if someone is in the room with him. He is the most adaptable, the most affable, the funniest cat in the world. He’s like a dog that doesn’t need to be walked. If I have a party, he wants to hang out with everyone. He responds to his name, and nothing scares him. Last time he was sick, five years ago, he purred through the entire vet visit, including when she was trying to get a heart rate. She kept nicking him on the nose, trying to get him to stop purring, and he only purred harder.

This time was no different. He purred even as he mewed softly through her physical examination, which was so thorough it would’ve made me cry out. She said his bladder was tiny, his intestines too hard, his breathing a little labored. She also felt something funny in his stomach. At the end, she said it could be one of three things: diabetes, a thyroid problem, or cancer. If it’s diabetes, he’ll need insulin every day to get better. If it’s thyroid, he’ll need to take a bunch of medicine. If it’s cancer… well. None of the three are good. The blood tests will tell us all we need to know, but not untill Friday. She said if the blood tests show nothing wrong, it’s cancer, because she felt little grainy things that could be little specks of cancer in his stomach.

They had to take two big vials of blood from him, and he was so good. He was purring even then, and when the vials were almost full he would cry out, wail at the top of his lungs, but still purr. He breaks my heart.

I’m thinking about renaming my blog “The ‘Roid Report”. I think it’s catchy. And really, everyone is terribly interested in the goings on of my bum, right? Well, here’s today’s forecast: bigger, more tender, and more painful than ever!!! Thanks very much!!!! Actually, that’s not the forecast, that’s the hindcast. The present-cast of midnight Sunday. I’m thinking about going back to my primary doctor to see if she has any brilliant advice. I refuse to miss my bike, my yoga, and my lyfe in genrul for another minute. There must be something I can do.

Need I mention the “heavy snow” predicted for tomorrow? Hmm? April is such a tease. Although I just got a really ridiculous image of running out into the snow, dropping my pants, and cooling my bum in the flurry whiteness. Perhaps some thoughts I should keep to myself.

Working the bar today, I met a French woman who owns an antique shop on 10th Street. She spends five weeks here, then five weeks back in Paris. We talked about why my restaurant is slow: bad economy, bad war, bad weather. I hesitated to ask her about the war, since I wondered if she has already been harassed, when my co-worker Stephen asked her flat-out if she had suffered since the war started. Yes, was her answer. No one is buying anything from her, and the day before, she was ordered out of a taxi. “What is your accent?” the driver asked. When she replied “French”, he pulled over and made her get out.

This makes me furious. Everyone else, my other co-workers, listening in, were sad and consoled her but I was beside myself. I don’t think that the kind of people who read this blog are the kind that would EVER do ANYTHING like that, but just in case: I say to you, taxi driver, french-wine boycotter: grow up. Grow up. Think for yourselves. Think just one original thought. Or go live in a cave. If you are going to boycott French products, do two things. First of all, pick up a paper or do all of five minute’s research online and figure out every other country who did not support this war. Boycott all of them. Except, first, find out how many Americans are employed by those companies. For just one instance, Michelin tires. Guess what? Huge plant in the south! Tens of thousands of Americans employed! Oh, and Perrier, and all those French wines? Imported by local American buyers, who make their living off of those liquids! Seriously. I mean, I know the knee-jerk reaction to do SOMETHING, however small, to feel like you are part of something, but rather than be reactionary, be informed.

I bought the French woman dessert (Meyer Lemon Icebox Cake) and gave her my card and told her whenever she wanted a table, give me a call. And I reminded her that not all Americans are alike. “I know zat, ” she said. “I love ze Americans. Zey are just being foolish. And I know zat many are smart and educated and beootiful like you.” This woman was seventy going on, quite literally forty-five if a day, and I knew for sure that she could take care of herself. Oh, god, another thing she said: “Ve (meaning New York) vere ze ones who vere attacked. But zis war? Bush cares not vat ve tink. Ve get attacked, ve say ve don’t want zis war, Bush invents connection to 9/11, he goes to var. Who cares vat New York thinks. Stupid. But I still love zis country.”

I’m off to bath and zen to bed.

In the middle of the busy Saturday lunch shift, my friend Heather came up to me and said, “What’s up with table 12?” We refer to people by their table number, and the man on table 12 was alone, immersed in the menu, and had his cell phone to his ear since he sat down. Heather and I were at the computer, which is not in sight of table 12. I asked her what she meant, and she said, “He’s touching his duffle bag and praying. What’s in that huge bag?” I crossed over to take a look, and realized that he looked Arabic. Oh, boy, I thought. What to do? I did not want to judge him on his appearance, I did not want to jump to conclusions, but I have to admit that from that moment until the time he left I was a little terrified. I kept an eye on him, on the door, on his bag. He was sitting in the very front of the restaurant, and his enormous bag was just under him. In the end, he left without a fuss (and after leaving a mediocre tip) and I think I was more relieved that my ugly fears were totally misguided than relieved that he didn’t blow the place up. The thoughts crossing my mind- what would I do? If I am the only one here, will I throw myself in harm’s way to save all of these people? Would this wall, just around the table, hold if a bomb goes off? Would we be safe jumping behind the bar? All of these questions raced through my mind. It reminded me of the terrible vision I had at the end of yoga class a couple of weeks ago- in it, my mom and I were at my restaurant and someone came in with a bomb. I dragged her first behind the bar, and then through the kitchen and up the stairs to another exit… and I don’t really remember what happened at the end. My fear, with her here, is only that I can run faster.

I tell you what, though. I didn’t think about my butt for at least fifteen minutes.

On that note, I’m off for a bath.

I wrote an entry at the hospital, on my trusty Palm Pilot, but the experience was so over the top that I thought I’d put it more simply. I was given terrible information on pretty much every side of my little medical issue. First of all, when I got to the hospital, they had no record of me. They finally figured out where I was supposed to go, but said my appointment wasn’t for an hour. So then I get down to the pre-surgery clinic, where I find out that I am NOT there for surgery, but for a check-up to (for the fourth time) schedule surgery. So I waited another lifetime before seeing first one, then two, then three doctors, all of whom made me drop my pants. I won’t go into graphic detail, in order to spare you squeamish ones, but I got a FULL exam. Ladies, like what they do to us once a year? Yep, but from the other direction. Hoo, boy, yeah, yuck. So the first two doctors are telling me that the surgery I need is excessively painful, that they would have to use general anesthesia rather than local, that my recovery time would be long. I told them that my little problem in not responding to my prescribed therapy, that I had to get back to work, that I had to get back on my bike. I did not like nor trust the male doctor- he seemed to not care so much. After his very very thorough exam, he and the woman doctor left the room and I could hear them talking in the hall. They brought in a third doctor, who introduced himself as a fellow cyclist, and said that a money-happy surgeon would tell me to go under the knife, but that he said that would be a bad idea. He said that only if it was chronic, if I got them over and over and they were debilitating, would surgery be a good idea. He said it was a last resort, and that I would be off my bike for a lot longer if I went that route. Basically, I am to live with the pain, and use all sorts of treatments, including laxatives, baths, other icky stuff, and hope that it goes away.

Talk about a pain in the ass.

But he did say it would get better, and I choose to believe him. I asked how long I had to be off my bike, and he said that was common sense. He said I couldn’t make it much worse, but that it was a matter of pain. These last few days haven’t been bad, but I’ve not been physical at all, and that more than anything is driving me crazy. When I worked earlier in the week, it really didn’t hurt too much, beyond a steady annoying pain, until the last few hours of my shifts. And then I felt it all the time. So I am fully determined to get better. I am going to try to give up my night shifts, since they are longer, and work mostly days. I’m going to take a bath every night, and religiously take all the goofy stuff to make my bodily functions more bum-friendly. And I’m going to wait a few days before going on even a short ride, and see how I feel. What I need most is to get back to yoga… maybe in the middle of next week.

Strange how much I’ve shrugged off the war the last few days. I still think about it just as much, but suddenly my thoughts are so conflicted that I don’t have any clear feelings anymore. Reading about what Saddam Hussein has done to his people makes me think that maybe something good can come from this war, even if Bush’s reasons are entirely different than my own. I feel like there is little to do now, other than hope. I still think Bush is, well, fill in expletive here, but maybe despite him, despite the hatred created around the world because of this war, maybe… I don’t know. Maybe.

By the by, slowly but slowly, the weather is back to sucksville. In the 30’s, windy, wet, no fun of any kind. In my mind I’m going to Carolina, where my brother and Tessa roam the streets in tank tops.

I have to add, though, that my life is still amazing. My mom gave up a day of work to spend it with me. She sat in the hospital, took me to lunch, came over and watched four movies with me as I lay on my futon. My dad was the first message on my cell phone when I got out of the hospital, wanting me to come stay in California for a week so I could get better. Ian and Tessa were willing to drive me to an upstate hospital at midnight last Friday if I couldn’t get in to see anyone locally. And Sean and Jordana- well- there is simply nothing they wouldn’t do to help, regardless if I was hemrrhoidal (yeah, I know that’s not a word) or well. Beyond that, the miracle of health insurance. Yes, it is by no means a perfect system, but each visit to my doctor cost all of $10, and each trip to the ER cost all of $35. All I’m out is a week of work. I cannot begin to imagine what this would have cost… I can’t even think about it. But you know what- even then- no one in my family will ever let me go hungry, and better yet, not one of them, in my extended family reaching from here to California, would let me do it alone. I feel so blessed, and so embarassed sometimes that I’ve complained about all of this. Because, really, I don’t feel sorry for myself. This could have been cancer, I could have no family. Enough said.

It’s the night before my wee surgery. Am I nervous? Not really, although maybe I should be. I’m going to eat some Annie’s Mac and Cheese, watch the extended version of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and go to bed early.

I love my city. I love my neighborhood. I have no idea what it means to be proud to be an American., but I know exactly what it means to be proud to be a New Yorker.

My cat Zooey ate some styrofoam and then puked it up all over my new rug. I mean, it couldn’t have tasted good in the first place. I think he liked how it crunched.

All I really want, on the home front, is to feel good, and ride my bike. And I want to know when this war will end, and I want to know, to that end, what I can do. I feel great things are in store for this summer- I feel great change, great events… something. Something is just around the bend. It may not be good, but it will be different. I am looking for it.

My doctor was pretty cool- it was my first break in this whole business. And my surgery is tomorrow morning. Strange, how I’ve been out of work and taking it easy since Monday, and then this morning I wake up with a terrible cold. This always happens. The minute I slow down, the minute a show ends, a semester is over, a stretch of hard work is finished, my body decideds, “Great! Now we can get sick!” And that is exactly what happened. My throat is closed, my body is aching. Oh, yeah, and my butt is hurting even more. Super!

I’m not good with this kind of inactivity. I think I’m not feeling well because I haven’t been to yoga.

On that note, I think I’ll go back to bed.

It’s April Fools day. I HATE April Fools Day, as I tend to believe anything anyone tells me.

I slept nine full hours last night. Strangely, I haven’t had any trouble sleeping all week. Nine hours, without waking up? It’s a miracle. I dreamt about riding, about flying around the city on my bikes, and at one point, I couldn’t get out of the toe clips on my hybrid, but somehow, I wasn’t scared. Then my cat Fezzik, in the waking world, started washing my face, which is what finally woke me up.

I’m off to the doctor.