Friday, June 20, 2003
THE BRAIN TUMOR, Sex and Lies continued... Tuesday, June 03, 2003
It had only been a few months since the abortion. I wasn't feeling well. I ignored the symptoms,there was too much going on. I was fighting jealousy problems, internally fighting them, over Pete's relationship with the kids. They were sweet kids. Good kids. A little confused, like everyone else trying to figure out where they were in the hierarchy - our new family order. Pete was oblivious to any negative feelings. He either was genetically predisposed not to recognize them or he held me on a pedastal and always saw me as the perfect one, or he managed to maintain a certain level of alcohol induced numbness.
My painting had been going well. B.U. still let me use my studio, even though I'd graduated. When I met Pete I got sucked into the world of sport, formerly alien to me. All those great looking bodies. Pete was the kind of coach who brought his work home. Since he coached track at M.I.T. these kids were all smart. I enjoyed their company. They were my age. Pete used to tell me that all his married colleagues were jealous because his wife never complained about him bringing the team home for dinner. I also did not complain about his weekends fishing or hunting with "the guys". I never cared when he got home, never grilled him about his whereabouts. I was in my studio painting every spare minute I got. This new world of sport inspired me. The hockey guys with those incredible masks, so primitive, like a long-lost tribe. The sexuality and sensuality of baseball players. How they would touch each other and touch themselves on the field for all to see captivated me. These became my themes for art. Pete was also Sports Information Director and he had an "in" with all the local sports writers. We were often in the press-box at Celtics, Bruins and Red Sox home games. I got to meet Bobby Orr.
My appetite had disappeared. I was loosing weight with no explanation. I ignored the symptoms. My period stopped. One day I was out shopping in Filene's. I had bags of clothes and I was stuffed in an elevator with a jillion people. I blacked out. When I came to a man was standing over me. I didn't recognize him. He was just some kind soul who had pulled me from the elevator. I was flat on my back on the ground and dazed. "Do you do drugs?" he asked me. "No" "I'm a married woman" I replied a bit indignant. I was weak, I was scared. I asked the man if he would call my husband. I gave him Pete's work number. The medics showed up with a stretcher and told the man what hospital they were taking me to. I was panicked. What the fuck is wrong with me. By the time we get to the hospital I'm feeling better. Pete is already there in emergency waiting for me. By now I can walk under my own steam. I want to go home. The doctors won't let me go. They ask about my recent symptoms. Pete is by my side and corroborates everything. The doctor fears I may have a brain tumor. He actually says the words "brain tumor" to my face. I have never been so scared in my life. Pete goes ashen. Doctor orders a brain scan immediately. Pete and I are locked, side by side. Neither of us can move or look at each other. The fear is mesmerizing. First, before we do the scan, the doctor says he will do a complete physical. I'm showed to an examining room and asked to get undressed. I'm naked on the exam table, knees in stirrups, Doctor is poking around and starts to laugh. I think this guy must be a sick-o. He says nothing to me, orders me to get dressed and to meet him in his office with my husband. I think the world has gone nuts. I get dressed. Pete and I, again together, sitting across this big desk from El Doctoro. The doctor was like the giant head in the Wizard Of Oz. "You're PREGNANT" he says, "three months pregnant to be specific". I'm in shock. How can you be delivered from a death sentence, be ecstatic, and disbelieving at the same time. Pete is overjoyed. I look at him and see a man blinded by joy. I want to kill myself, but I know that is dumb. I accept my fate. I guess I'll be a mother whether I like it or not.
DRINKING WHILE DRIVING, Sex and Lies continued...
Sometimes Pete would pop a beer first thing in the morning. Usually this would be after a night of heavy partying. I can't even tie my shoes without a caffeine fix. I try to lure him to the world of the totally awake but he refused to go there.
Pete became the family favorite. Everybody loved him. Dad used his connections with auto dealers in NJ and got us an incredible deal on a brand new Mustang. That car was hot. Electric blue. It had these vents on the side like a shark.
Pete never seemed to be working. I don't mean that he didn't work. He always had a job. But he always managed to enjoy himself. Even when he was training for the Olympics, he said he didn't really put much effort into it. It was one of the few things in his life I think he regreted. He did make the Olympic team. That was in 1960, 7 years before we met. He drank beer even in training. He told me himself. I didn't think that was allowed, but it didn't seem to inhibit his performance. He went to Rome that year. He didn't medal, he'd gotten some intestinal bug the day before the race. But he ran the mile (1600 meter)anyway and came in fifth. He had made friends with some guys on the American basketball team. Some names that became stars in professional basketball (several played for the Celtics) that I can't remember at the moment.
A gigantic Olympic flag flew high on a pole in the middle of Olympic Village where all the athletes stayed. One night Pete got his basketball buddies together and snuck out to the pole where the flag flew. Pete climbed on their shoulders and managed to unhook this flag. He was the fastest so when the guards realized the flag was down and the alarms went off Pete had disappeared. The cops never found the flag. We used it now as a bedspread. Pete's Connecticut hometown newspaper ran the story of the big flag heist every year before the Turkey Day Race, when Pete would go back home to run. After the Olympics he toured Africa with the American track team. I have photos of him dressed like Lawrence of Arabia sitting on a camel in Egypt. Other photos, jumping over a huge turtle that had crawled out of the jungle on to a makeshift track, somewhere in Africa.
Pete was modest. He was a man's man, but the modesty made him well liked by both men and women. He was a master at tennis and squash. I used to watch him at the squash courts at MIT and was amazed that a human could move so fast. One Sunday morning, after a night of very hard partying, Pete got up early to drive down to the Cape to go fishing with some friends. I stayed home in bed to sober-up. I didn't expect him back till late that evening. That afternoon, Pete shows up, barefoot, in his tennis shorts, he's a mess. He never made it all the way to the Cape. He'd taken a few beers with him for the ride down. Somewhere, just over the Bourne Bridge, he's in an accident. The Mustang is totaled. He had no way to get back to Boston. The cops on the scene took pity on him. Some of them knew him from his sports connections. The cops formed a kind of relay team (cops are not allowed to drive over the city/county lines of their jurisdiction) and drove him from town line to town line where he would get dropped off by one and picked up by another. That's how he made it home. No charges were pressed. He'd hit a telephone pole. It was just an accident. It was a miracle he wasn't hurt.
It had only been a few months since the abortion. I wasn't feeling well. I ignored the symptoms,there was too much going on. I was fighting jealousy problems, internally fighting them, over Pete's relationship with the kids. They were sweet kids. Good kids. A little confused, like everyone else trying to figure out where they were in the hierarchy - our new family order. Pete was oblivious to any negative feelings. He either was genetically predisposed not to recognize them or he held me on a pedastal and always saw me as the perfect one, or he managed to maintain a certain level of alcohol induced numbness.
My painting had been going well. B.U. still let me use my studio, even though I'd graduated. When I met Pete I got sucked into the world of sport, formerly alien to me. All those great looking bodies. Pete was the kind of coach who brought his work home. Since he coached track at M.I.T. these kids were all smart. I enjoyed their company. They were my age. Pete used to tell me that all his married colleagues were jealous because his wife never complained about him bringing the team home for dinner. I also did not complain about his weekends fishing or hunting with "the guys". I never cared when he got home, never grilled him about his whereabouts. I was in my studio painting every spare minute I got. This new world of sport inspired me. The hockey guys with those incredible masks, so primitive, like a long-lost tribe. The sexuality and sensuality of baseball players. How they would touch each other and touch themselves on the field for all to see captivated me. These became my themes for art. Pete was also Sports Information Director and he had an "in" with all the local sports writers. We were often in the press-box at Celtics, Bruins and Red Sox home games. I got to meet Bobby Orr.
My appetite had disappeared. I was loosing weight with no explanation. I ignored the symptoms. My period stopped. One day I was out shopping in Filene's. I had bags of clothes and I was stuffed in an elevator with a jillion people. I blacked out. When I came to a man was standing over me. I didn't recognize him. He was just some kind soul who had pulled me from the elevator. I was flat on my back on the ground and dazed. "Do you do drugs?" he asked me. "No" "I'm a married woman" I replied a bit indignant. I was weak, I was scared. I asked the man if he would call my husband. I gave him Pete's work number. The medics showed up with a stretcher and told the man what hospital they were taking me to. I was panicked. What the fuck is wrong with me. By the time we get to the hospital I'm feeling better. Pete is already there in emergency waiting for me. By now I can walk under my own steam. I want to go home. The doctors won't let me go. They ask about my recent symptoms. Pete is by my side and corroborates everything. The doctor fears I may have a brain tumor. He actually says the words "brain tumor" to my face. I have never been so scared in my life. Pete goes ashen. Doctor orders a brain scan immediately. Pete and I are locked, side by side. Neither of us can move or look at each other. The fear is mesmerizing. First, before we do the scan, the doctor says he will do a complete physical. I'm showed to an examining room and asked to get undressed. I'm naked on the exam table, knees in stirrups, Doctor is poking around and starts to laugh. I think this guy must be a sick-o. He says nothing to me, orders me to get dressed and to meet him in his office with my husband. I think the world has gone nuts. I get dressed. Pete and I, again together, sitting across this big desk from El Doctoro. The doctor was like the giant head in the Wizard Of Oz. "You're PREGNANT" he says, "three months pregnant to be specific". I'm in shock. How can you be delivered from a death sentence, be ecstatic, and disbelieving at the same time. Pete is overjoyed. I look at him and see a man blinded by joy. I want to kill myself, but I know that is dumb. I accept my fate. I guess I'll be a mother whether I like it or not.
DRINKING WHILE DRIVING, Sex and Lies continued...
Sometimes Pete would pop a beer first thing in the morning. Usually this would be after a night of heavy partying. I can't even tie my shoes without a caffeine fix. I try to lure him to the world of the totally awake but he refused to go there.
Pete became the family favorite. Everybody loved him. Dad used his connections with auto dealers in NJ and got us an incredible deal on a brand new Mustang. That car was hot. Electric blue. It had these vents on the side like a shark.
Pete never seemed to be working. I don't mean that he didn't work. He always had a job. But he always managed to enjoy himself. Even when he was training for the Olympics, he said he didn't really put much effort into it. It was one of the few things in his life I think he regreted. He did make the Olympic team. That was in 1960, 7 years before we met. He drank beer even in training. He told me himself. I didn't think that was allowed, but it didn't seem to inhibit his performance. He went to Rome that year. He didn't medal, he'd gotten some intestinal bug the day before the race. But he ran the mile (1600 meter)anyway and came in fifth. He had made friends with some guys on the American basketball team. Some names that became stars in professional basketball (several played for the Celtics) that I can't remember at the moment.
A gigantic Olympic flag flew high on a pole in the middle of Olympic Village where all the athletes stayed. One night Pete got his basketball buddies together and snuck out to the pole where the flag flew. Pete climbed on their shoulders and managed to unhook this flag. He was the fastest so when the guards realized the flag was down and the alarms went off Pete had disappeared. The cops never found the flag. We used it now as a bedspread. Pete's Connecticut hometown newspaper ran the story of the big flag heist every year before the Turkey Day Race, when Pete would go back home to run. After the Olympics he toured Africa with the American track team. I have photos of him dressed like Lawrence of Arabia sitting on a camel in Egypt. Other photos, jumping over a huge turtle that had crawled out of the jungle on to a makeshift track, somewhere in Africa.
Pete was modest. He was a man's man, but the modesty made him well liked by both men and women. He was a master at tennis and squash. I used to watch him at the squash courts at MIT and was amazed that a human could move so fast. One Sunday morning, after a night of very hard partying, Pete got up early to drive down to the Cape to go fishing with some friends. I stayed home in bed to sober-up. I didn't expect him back till late that evening. That afternoon, Pete shows up, barefoot, in his tennis shorts, he's a mess. He never made it all the way to the Cape. He'd taken a few beers with him for the ride down. Somewhere, just over the Bourne Bridge, he's in an accident. The Mustang is totaled. He had no way to get back to Boston. The cops on the scene took pity on him. Some of them knew him from his sports connections. The cops formed a kind of relay team (cops are not allowed to drive over the city/county lines of their jurisdiction) and drove him from town line to town line where he would get dropped off by one and picked up by another. That's how he made it home. No charges were pressed. He'd hit a telephone pole. It was just an accident. It was a miracle he wasn't hurt.
