The rabbi was new to our congregation, and I hadn’t met him yet; we were talking by phone.  “Mourn twice?”

“Once for the mother you had, and once for the mother you didn’t have.”

I’d just told Rabbi Straus that my mom was under hospice care and was unlikely to last much longer.  And I’d provided him with a brief background:  Mom was not a nurturer; she was difficult, and had caused her children a lot of suffering.  With her death imminent, I’d felt some urgency about pre-empting any assumptions Rabbi Straus might make about Mom.  I couldn’t bear to hear anything resembling a mother’s love is unconditional.

When I level with someone about my mother, I’m always a little startled to be believed.  Somehow, I expect a lecture:  surely she meant well; shouldn’t I have moved on by now, forgiven her?

And because my three sisters and I are very close with one another and have been so devoted to Mom, the claim that Mom was destructive or disturbed is bound to confuse.  She can’t have been that bad—you all turned out so well! runs the cheery skepticism.

She was that bad.  But when do I make the case, and when do I let it go?  If I smile and let things roll off my back, I feel I’m in some way complicit in the abuse and rejection that my sisters and I survived.  If I try to set the record straight, I worry that I sound shrill or not credible.

Mom died on August 2^nd, and shortly afterward I spoke candidly with an elderly relative.  “Your parents treated you girls horribly,” she told me.  She also observed that Mom “lost interest” in us once we grew out of babyhood.  I was infinitely grateful for this validation, as I was when Mom’s physician reported that my mother had several previously undiagnosed psychiatric conditions as well as dementia.

I know this will sound odd, but lately I’ve been haunted by my own generosity toward Mom.  Why did my sisters and I move her back here nine years ago?  (Tellingly, she’d opted to relocate from Berkeley to New York just as my sister and I were starting families in the Bay Area.)  Why did we obsess over hiring only the most loving caregivers for her, include her in seders, bring her to the kids’ recitals?  Why the spontaneous Happy Birthday medley we sang at her bedside on her 89^th birthday, just eleven days before she died?

What is the world supposed to think of those acts, but that they were the natural outgrowth of a wonderful relationship?

What I’ve begun to realize since Mom died is how humiliated I’d always felt by the way she treated me—how deeply, if irrationally, ashamed.  By integrating Mom into our loving families, my sisters and I were rewriting our story, joining the community of adults concerned about aging parents.  We couldn’t have the real thing, but at least we’d fashion a soothing retrofit.  It was what we could do.

One painful aspect of losing Mom is the use of phrases like “your beloved mother” in some of the many well-meaning cards and e-mails I’ve received.  It’s been an important part of my mourning process to thank each person in writing—with honesty.

Mom was a difficult person, I explain, and the challenge for me now is to sort through some very complicated feelings.  I greatly appreciate the support of community at this painful time.

I know my rabbi is behind me on this.

Published in the Piedmont Post, September 7, 2011

Please visit www.lisabravermoss.com.  Thanks!

This is great news to those of us whose primary form of exercise is hunting and pecking, wrinkling our noses, rolling our eyes, and shaking our heads at how bad something looks on the page when it looked perfectly fine yesterday.  Writing is a lot of work, my friends, and it’s nice to have this officially recognized by sports and exercise researchers normally concerned only with silly matters like the cardiovascular benefits of cross-training for marathoners.

But—what if you can’t get to the gym, and you also can’t seem to get any writing done?  Are you simply out of luck, fitness-wise?

Suppose, just hypothetically, that your hip has finally given out.  You’re largely housebound, and you need to go in for a big surgery.  With your physical activity significantly curtailed, there’s nothing much you can do besides sitting around with your laptop—which would seem like the ideal opportunity to, say, start working on that other novel.  Yet you find yourself shockingly unproductive.

Not only can’t you go for a walk; you also can’t seem to manage the aerobics of hand-wringing as you confront a draft or, worse, a blank page.  How, oh how, are you to maintain your waistline?

This is where abject terror can be a lifesaver.

Turns out you don’t need to flutter your fingers as you try coming up with a nice metaphor for that one pesky paragraph.  You don’t need to mop your brow, rethinking that clunky sentence with the weak verb.  Instead, simply work yourself up into a frenzy of anxiety over impending events.  Tighten your stomach muscles into an obstinate tangle, and voila—abdominal fitness!

Also known as isometric exercise, this technique can be applied in many other parts of the body with equally silhouette-flattering results.  Sit in the wrong chair and get some lower back tension going.  Develop a case of temporo-mandibular joint disorder.  Clench your fists.  Clutch desperately at your chest.  Look, I’m not recommending rigor mortis, but rigor vitae happens to be great exercise.

Oh, and don’t forget about the lungs.  Say you’re headed for surgery kicking and screaming—but, having had to give up kicking lately, you’re increasingly reliant on the vocal component.  Isn’t it reassuring to know your physical fitness can be enhanced by a little, um, musical expression?

If you insist on considering the eardrums of others and still wish to exercise your lungs, hyperventilation is definitely worth a try.

“You’re nice and slim,” your surgeon tells you, explaining that this will make his job easier.

“I’m nice and slim while unconscious,” you correct him.  “When I’m awake, believe me, I’m a big fat pain in the neck.”

And you whip out your list of questions, and try not to be too obvious about pulsing in agitation.

Published in the Piedmont Post, June 1, 2011

Please visit www.lisabravermoss.com.  Thanks!

“Well—um, I’m kind of cleaning up my apartment, and—” her voice was tiny.  “I could use a hand.”

She was asking?  Forget the drink.  “I’ll be right over.”

For months, I’d been offering to help my sister, who’s not a born housekeeper.  But she’d been feeling too ashamed of her chaos to accept my offer—and too overwhelmed to tackle the job on her own.  That she was now extending an invitation to me was, in the language of sisters, something of an honor.

I know how thorny it can be to do spring cleaning, how myriad the opportunities for self-reproach:

I bought these pants, but who am I kidding?

What kind of person lets mail pile up like this?

Why didn’t I keep the moisture out of this now-unusable dishwasher soap?

How did I create such a monster out of plenty?

I headed over to Eri’s and walked into the kind of disorder only a trained eye would recognize as evidence of progress.  I began scrounging around for empty bags in which to put the castoffs.  We gained momentum, and in a few hours, we’d filled dozens of bags with giveaway, recycling and garbage.  “If you regret anything, you can always get it back on eBay or at the flea market,” I chanted, as much to myself as to her.

Eri seemed anxious that I was going to lose steam or, worse, start lecturing her.  But for me, the work wasn’t hard; I appreciated its concreteness, the discarded items piling up nicely in the hallway.  And I felt no urge to criticize my sister or tell her what to do.  I had my own pile of stuff I didn’t want to face: an e-mail inbox I hadn’t purged in a year and a half; that Advance Directive form I kept meaning to fill out; research on the various options for authors wishing to make their books available in electronic form.

I’ve been on the receiving end of sisterly hand-holding many, many times.  Home moves, babysitting, post-surgical care, fridge cleaning, remodeling decisions, party throwing, proofreading of galleys.  Until now, I hadn’t fully grasped the most important part of that generosity: countering any self-condemnation the other person may be feeling about not being able to manage everything herself.

How is it that we’re all convinced our mess is the worst, our shame the most legitimate?  While Eri waited for disapproval, I could only admire her for being brave enough to let me in.

Something must have shifted during my unplanned vacation, because when I returned to my own chaos, I found I was able to tackle it much better, as if my hand-holding of Eri were now magically extended inward.

And a few days later, Eri called to tell me she was re-organizing her kitchen cabinets.  By herself.

For more about Lisa, please visit www.lisabravermoss.com.

But clinical tests now show that verbal restraint can lead to significant health problems.  Indeed, unspoken zingers and lost chances to tell someone where to go were recently identified as primary causes of word deposits in the body.  Researchers believe these fatty deposits are directly correlated with Impacted Vowel Syndrome, a condition that in severe cases may also involve consonants.

I myself suffered from IVS, and had numerous doctors dismiss my symptoms as psychosomatic, before an astute diagnostician properly identified my condition.  Thankfully, I was able to reintroduce the pointed barb into my verbal repertoire before it was too late.

If only I’d been aware of my condition years ago!  Your book is about equality, yet it’s written in jargon for the elite, I would have said to a smug sociology professor.  And, to an attractive acquaintance:  Are you consciously trying to ruin your lovely features with that horrible hairstyle?

One time I was parked on College Avenue in Berkeley, just south of Ashby.  Evan and Reuben had run into Gordo’s Taqueria on our way to some lesson or other, and I was waiting in the car where I could keep an eye on them.

An officer of the law appeared.  “Ma’am, you’re in a bus zone,” he pointed out helpfully.

Yes, and do you notice that buses never, EVER pull over into their designated spots in this infuriating town?  That they leave their butts out in traffic and tie cars up for blocks behind?   Tell you what.  Just as soon as you cite bus drivers for NOT using this spot, you can cite me for using it!

Unaware of the therapeutic powers of such a response, I opted for “So sorry, officer.  But I haven’t left my car.”

“Doesn’t matter, Ma’am.  You’re parked illegally.”  Out came the citation pad.

“But—I have to keep an eye on my kids,” I whined, instead of If you were actually out there fighting crime, I wouldn’t have to obsess about keeping my children within eyesight. In retrospect, I swear I could feel the word deposits forming on my liver.

“Ma’am, you should’ve parked legally and accompanied them.”

“But I’m in my car!  And I’d move if a bus came,” I added halfheartedly.

He peered at me skeptically, then kept scribbling.

You’re right, I probably wouldn’t—because those traffic barricades force you to travel two miles out of your way to go around the block!  Head up Ashby, and next thing you know, you’re in Orinda!  I’m saving gas here!  I’m saving the planet!  Isn’t that considered correct behavior in Berkeley?

I held my tongue, and was sick for weeks afterward.  Since the ticket was nearly $400, I naturally attributed my symptoms to hemorrhage.

These days I’m better.  I even recently came clean with a cousin who always thought I shared her appreciation of the Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There” (it’s abominable).

With my IVS in remission, life is much more manageable.  For me, at least.  I can’t speak for those around me.

Published in the Piedmont Post, February 9, 2011

Please visit my web site, www.lisabravermoss.com.  Thanks!

My artificial hip makes it difficult for me to get enough weight-bearing exercise, and when I saw a few people using sticks around town, I realized this could be the perfect way for me to negotiate greater distances with less pain.

I didn’t consciously set out to neutralize the sticks’ prosthetic connotation.  It just happened:  colorful muffler and beret, whimsical shoes, stylish sunglasses, a little lipstick.  I delighted in my jaunty new vertical companions, which I’d gotten in red.  Every now and then, someone would stop me to ask about the sticks as if they were the latest fashion accessory.

But a man passing me the other day in a motorized wheelchair wasn’t fooled.  “There’s power in numbers,” he remarked with a grin, having immediately pegged me as a fellow mobility-challenged person.  Hmm.  So much for cool sunglasses.

So which is it?  Sporty—ski poles?  Or impaired—canes?  Which is my true self?

I know, I know, they both are.  Still, I find the question intriguing, and not just in terms of physical mobility.

As a writer, for example, I’m drawn to dark and squirmy topics.  I can’t seem to change that any more than I can help having undergone total hip arthroplasty.  Sure, I try to explore my subjects in an entertaining way, but I wouldn’t bother to write if I weren’t obsessed or haunted by something.  Writing is far too much trouble for that.

When I publish my work, I’m hoping that the thorny content and the fun I’ve had with it come across in equal measure.  But I never know.

“I really enjoyed that one about your dad,” one of my readers remarked—following a column in which I mentioned my father’s having been a batterer.  “You write about stuff that’s real,” the person went on.  “It’s easy to relate to.”

It was a high compliment.  I’d been seen and accepted, and had made this reader feel connected.

I’ve also had my share of excruciating kindness.  “These columns must be so therapeutic for you,” gushed one person recently.  Of course they’re therapeutic, but it’s humiliating to hear that from a reader.  I thought about taking to bed and eating chocolates for a month or two.

But how much can I disguise my inner self?  How much do I want to?  If a reader, or a man in a wheelchair, feels my pain, does that mean I should change something?  Or should I just keep at it, because the more “out” we are with our impairments and our differences, the more we can replace shame with connectedness?

I once heard this adage: what other people think of you, what they say about you behind your back, is none of your business.

I’ll never be that Zen, I thought.

Well, I’m still not that Zen, but I am traveling greater distances with less pain.

Published in the Piedmont Post, January 12, 2011

Please visit www.lisabravermoss.com

“So this reporter from the New York Times just phoned,” Nina said.  “He wants to interview you.”

“WHAT!?” I would have shrieked, but I was so stunned, I’d left my body.

“Tomorrow morning, 9:30.  Isn’t it awesome?”

“But—but—what do I say?” I blurted.

Nina laughed.  We strategized.  I scribbled down notes, my hand shaking.

I’ve been interviewed a number of times recently following the publication of my novel, The Measure of His Grief, and while I’ve been thrilled with the exposure, I’m always a little rattled by the process.  First of all, with subject matter as squirmy, emotionally charged, and complex as the circumcision controversy, it’s easy to misspeak or be misinterpreted.  There’s a lot of nuance to convey, and once I get started, I tend to want to elaborate—a good way to get tripped up in an interview.

Between the challenging topic and the obvious pressure of the Times name brand, how was I going to sound calm and articulate the next day?

It’s always been hard for me to speak my mind about something and then stop talking.  Especially in situations where I don’t get an immediate, readable response, I want to fill the empty space.  It’s as if the silence is an invitation to self-doubt, something to be countered.

Even if I’ve just expressed my opinion that tomatoes don’t belong in a green salad, a blank look will set me rolling. Because tomatoes make it too soggy, don’t you think?  And another thing—what’s with butter lettuce and arugula?  I mean, where’s the appeal in salad greens that aren’t crunchy?

I’d have to be different the next morning.  I’d have to trust my talking points, speak them, and then stop.

Think of the silences as time for meditation, I told myself.

Did someone say medication? I retorted.

I woke up early and spent several hours refining pithy statements that reflected my perspective, and when the reporter called, I was ready.  It went smoothly, and he even indicated that I was educating him on several points.

Not that it was easy.  I would say something, stop, and hear him wheezing or clicking his throat as he typed.  These wordless moments were long and loud the way a pundit’s pores are huge and distracting on HDTV.

I kept fighting the urge to add something spontaneous.  “My novel is really about a family in crisis,” I wanted to explain.  “It’s not just about the issue; it’s about the characters.”  But he was writing an article about the issue.  I stuck to the plan.  Breathe.

“You nailed it,” my husband, Mark, said afterward.  But a few days later, when the article appeared—I wasn’t even mentioned in it.

This time, I found myself fully able to shriek, “WHAT!?”

And a few other words of similar length.

Published in The Piedmont Post, December 15, 2010

A note to my readers: Thank you so very much for your patience while I’ve been promoting my novel.  I still plan to write columns, though perhaps not as frequently, as I figure out what’s next.

Please check out my web site, www.lisabravermoss.com, for news about The Measure of His Grief.  And let me know if you’d like for me to come talk to your reading group to discuss the book!

Feel free to contact me — lisa@lisabravermoss.com.  Thanks!

I’m all for thoughtful inquiry into how screen reading might affect our comprehension and analytical capabilities.  But I find Carr’s ideas silly.  What is “deep” reading?  Is it the one right way to read?  If I don’t read that way, am I automatically excluded from the Society of Profound Thinkers and Other Morally Superior People?

How would Carr recommend that I handle my inability to sit still and do only one thing for hours on end?  Clearly I’m committing a crime against literacy when I alternate among various reading and writing tasks so as not to feel overwhelmed by any one of them.

Case in point: as I’m tinkering with this essay, I’m also reading a 6/28/10 New York Times piece in which author John Tierney argues that mind-wandering has a kind of “incubation effect” on the imaginative process.  Apparently, people whose minds wander score higher on creativity tests than those with a longer attention span.  I like this guy already.

Tierney explains that people typically notice up to three episodes of mind-wandering per half-hour of reading a printed novel.  And when researchers interrupted readers to ask whether they were thinking about their book at a particular moment, subjects reported about ten percent of the time that their thoughts were elsewhere.

So much for Carr’s assertion that “a book provides a shield against distraction, allowing us to focus our entire attention on an author’s narrative or argument.”

Of course our reading patterns are changing as screen technologies evolve.  But preachy statements like “the original genius of the book, as a technology, was its profound lack of excitement” won’t stem the tide.  Nor does this hand-wringing seem entirely honest.  Does Carr really believe it’s a bad thing that we can now click on a link to background information while reading a newspaper article online?

Carr’s panic is not universally shared in the literary world.  The prestigious online magazine Narrative recently put out a call for submissions for a new genre that it created, the iPoem.  Encouraging “the poet’s awareness of how the new media affect, for instance, the line in poetry,” Narrative is actively seeking to publish poems that fit within no more than two screens on the iPhone.

As for good books, they’re still a thrill like no other—isn’t this the point?  Books still enable many people to share in a common experience, each coming away with his or her own unique set of responses—and something to discuss.

Books were not designed as a tool for legislating properly “deep” thinking.  They certainly shouldn’t be used to justify the smug condemnation of other ways of learning.

Published in The Piedmont Post, July 7, 2010

When others talk about how difficult it is to admit to being wrong, think to yourself, “Well, at least I’ve got that one covered!”

Begin to figure out that you do not have that one covered.

You’ve been doing your share of interfering, judging, interrupting, lecturing, resenting, gossiping, rolling your eyes, and generating negative energy in spite of all the apologetics.

Resolve to improve all around.  Find it amazingly hard to kick the apology-as-default habit.  Apologies have been helping you manage anxiety, and you haven’t found a good substitute.  Meanwhile, you have less of a clue how to be sorry for real than you’d like to admit.

Slowly get better at saying things like “you know, you might be right,” and meaning it.  Notice yourself becoming more curious, less agitated, about your missteps.  “My fault,” you are now able to say.  “I should have done x, and instead, I did y.  I’m going to try to do x next time.”  You concern yourself with learning all this rather than teaching it.

Notice something surprising: it’s become easier to apologize for your own misdeeds than to tell someone, graciously and effectively, that their behavior is bothering you.

Start to experiment.  Maybe someone you like has disappointed you, and you desperately want to avoid conflict by pretending everything is OK.  See what happens if instead, you say mildly, “I’m disappointed.  I’d made other plans and was late.”  Or:  “I felt a little judged when you said x just now.”

Or maybe you’ve spent some time with an acquaintance whose idea of conversation is to bombard you with grandiose rhetoric as if there’s no tomorrow.  You are itching to let off steam privately by complaining to someone else about this boorishness.  Instead, you tell the person directly that you feel talked down to.  You mention that you’d appreciate being asked about yourself occasionally.  You’re nice about it.

Notice that the person doesn’t attack you but, rather, agrees.  Notice that the behavior does not subsequently change.  Notice your sense of accomplishment anyway.

Slip back, sometimes, into pretending.  Slip back into sorry-hood.  But find yourself able to snap out of those states more quickly.  Notice that you’re not quite as anxious as you once were.

Of course, you’re still easily triggered by false apologies around you.  For example, you want to excoriate White House correspondent Helen Thomas for the shockingly ill-informed and ethnically tone-deaf comments she made recently about Israel and Jews—and for her then squandering a teachable moment on a Washington-politician-style statement of pseudo-regret.

In fact, you set out to write a column about Helen Thomas and her so-called apology, but wound up writing this instead.

Notice that you’re not sorry.

Published in The Piedmont Post, June 30, 2010

]]> http://lisabravermoss.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/how-to-be-sorry/feed/ 12 Lisa Braver Moss Soap Box Like the Moving Box, http://lisabravermoss.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/nothing-personal-some-thoughts-on-fathers-day/ http://lisabravermoss.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/nothing-personal-some-thoughts-on-fathers-day/#comments Thu, 17 Jun 2010 02:10:31 +0000 Lisa Braver Moss http://lisabravermoss.wordpress.com/?p=297 ]]>

My father was an eccentric who loved discussing topics that no one else seemed to know about.  Not a classroom learner, he dabbled at college but didn’t finish, apparently conceiving a philosophy out of it: academic achievement was the sign of a small mind.

The trouble was, I liked academic achievement.

As a child, I went about the business of school under the radar, probably hoping that if I quietly excelled, my parents would stop fighting.  But after their divorce when I was a young teen, I became more provocative toward my father.  In an attempt to get back at him for his relentless attention-seeking—and because I was starting to notice he wasn’t always as well-informed as he seemed—I began to ignore his intellectual meanderings.

Dad would retaliate by telling me I lacked imagination, or that I wasn’t a voracious enough reader.  Or he’d say I was “rigid” for wanting to cut short a visit so I could study for an upcoming exam.

I was sixteen when my father won custody.  It was October of my senior year at Berkeley High, and a few weeks after moving in with Dad, I began filling out the application to Cal.  I asked him to handle the financial aid forms.

Dad took one look at the paperwork and started hyperventilating.  “If you were a real intellectual, you wouldn’t need college,” he remarked.

I got my way, was awarded scholarships and grants, and took advantage of my college experience in spite of him.  But my inner landscape was another story.  When I did well in school, I worried I’d soon be exposed as a fraud.  And any subject or book I found difficult seemed to validate my father’s skepticism of my intellect.

Was Dad insecure?  Of course—deeply, exhaustingly.  Did he feel humiliated by my ability to succeed in college and get along without him financially?  Probably.  Was he hurt that I couldn’t bring myself even to feign interest when he’d pontificate?  No question.

But these are explanations.  And explanations don’t show you how to live.

I like getting older, because sometimes insights come my way for no reason other than that time has passed.  A couple of months ago, a lovely cousin of mine e-mailed me about some letters she’d found from Dad’s father.  She mentioned something I never knew:  that before my grandfather immigrated to New York and became a shopkeeper, he’d been admitted into the top yeshiva in his village in Ukraine, and that in a very scholarly family, he was considered the most brilliant brother.

I didn’t know Grandpa well and had no personal sense of his academic prowess.  But I suddenly felt a strong kinship with him, a fatherly presence one generation removed.

I also realized at a new level how ashamed of himself my father must have felt at the time I was applying to Cal.  Sure, he’d fought for custody and won, arguably a heroic act, but he’d also recently lost his retail store and livelihood and was barely making ends meet.  And he wasn’t as accomplished as his own father, who’d fallen short of the rabbinate only because of life circumstances, not because of a lack of ability or focus.

I wish I could say that as I come to understand my father more fully, his condemning voice naturally ebbs from my consciousness.  But it’s not so simple.  In one way or another, I do battle with that voice every time I sit down to read or write.

What I am starting to grasp is that really, it was nothing personal.

Published in The Piedmont Post, June 16, 2010

Oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, and on Facebook, there’s talk that the leak should be plugged with the works of Ayn Rand.  Frankly, the idea seems no worse than any other, though I might substitute Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

How to live, while preventable messes pile up all around us?

I read this week that 92 percent of canned foods, from generic to the fanciest brands, are contaminated with BPA, an estrogen-like chemical that’s absorbed into the food from the lining of the can.  As for me, I’m having way too much fun on the roller coaster known as The Matterhorn (pronounced “Matter-hormone” over here) to require additional endocrinological chaos at this time.  Whee!

So here’s what happens.  Eschewing supplies like tuna and crushed tomatoes, I bring home some dry black beans from the bins at the produce store, unaware that the contents of the green-twistie-tied plastic bag apparently bear an uncanny resemblance to chocolate chips.  Inevitably, there is that one scary moment when my husband puts his hand in to have a nibble, requiring me to explain, in between paralyzing yet therapeutic fits of hysterical laughter, that while quite healthful, these particular goodies are more easily ingested having first been soaked and cooked.

See?  One day off canned foods and I feel better already.

Oh, but there are plenty of other preventable messes with which to contend.  A certain form of Vitamin A found in 41 percent of sunscreens causes skin cancer, something the FDA has known about for ten years and apparently forgot to disclose to the public.

And commercial photocopy machines, whose hard drives permanently store all images, including those with personal information, are routinely being purchased second-hand by identity thieves.

Did I mention that babies are dying from ingesting lithium cell batteries, and there are toxins in both the liquid and the powder types of protein drinks?

But wait, there’s great news in the Dropped Phone Call department!  That’s right—in areas with crummy reception, your cell phone has to emit more radiation to get a signal, so you see, it’s a good thing when you get cut off.  Another fun fact: talking on a cell exposes you to more radiation than listening does.  Who knew you could practice conversational consideration and reduce your exposure at the same time?

True confession:  notwithstanding the hilarity of rescuing loved ones from rock-hard legumes, sometimes writing is the only thing that gives me a little relief.  And writing is probably no good for me, either.  At this very moment, the heat from the bottom of my laptop is no doubt interacting with the titanium rod in my femur and slowly cooking my left thigh.

Published in The Piedmont Post, June 9, 2010