Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles y otros Natural Disasters

XVI. Unos Cuantos Piquetitos Crónica

XVI Unos Cuantos Piquetitos Crónica 103 8 January 2008 Somewhere en el Evil, oops, Inland Imperio de Califas For Laura “Lauris” Gutiérrez, Elaine S. Brooks, Raphael Kadushin y Florence “la Flor” Moorhead-Rosenberg, Tauruses all, con amor y sangre For Frida Kahlo, in memoriam Well, mi colega y amigo el José C-2 accompanied me to the hospie yesterday for a biopsy. It was extremely unpleasant, to say the least, and, as could be predicted, my BP was off the radar, que digamos Richter (more el upper que el lower numerito, pero I forget which way is more dire, lo cual me hace stress out even more, OB-vio . . .) en los momentos just before the “procedure.” I am trying not to be too alarmed about that, since the arribas and abajos of my BP are intimately related to my emo state, and I’ve been faithfully using my new RESPeRATE machine, que te hace una especie de biofeedback pa’ aletargarte la breathing. Plus, he seguido con el estúpido sécate-toditita diuretic, los health walks, y bla bla (ay, todo tan boring). Anygüey, I won’t go into detalle about el procedimiento mismo: it was unnerving, demoralizing, and mega-estresante, even bajo los efectos del Xanax and local lidocane (the installation of which was maybe even casi casi lo PEOR). Por suerte, the pathologist who performed the stereotactic NEEDLE biopsy era un puertorriqueño who appreciated the bizarre humor I was somehow able to muster cuando, mientras yacía, boca abajo, en ese heartlessly cold metal table (images of la parrisha— como le decían al torture table que usaban durante la dictadura en Argentina—kept popping into my admittedly paranoid and hyperbolic imaginación), le pregunté, apropos of a teensy titanium CLIP (?) they inserted into my buhto—AND LEFT THERE—supuestamente at the precise site of the microcalcificaciones, if I was now officially some sort of sci-fi alien. El tipo, cool as a pepino, hasta me hizo un little quip patrás: “Why, are you an unofficial alien now?” Actually, it is the thought of having that tiny “clip” inside me, in such an intimate locus of my geografía interior, that I find most unsettling and yet (bueno, you know how genuinely strange I am) . . . also somehow hechizante. En la X-ray que me mostró el médico, it looks a bit like a tiny (we’re talking about the size of a pen point) antenna, or a blue ribbon (as the Chicana nurse, Melissa, cheerfully prompted me to appreciate). To me, it looks most like the glyph for the astrological sign Taurus, el signo de varios de mis máximos carnales. And so, I will hold on to the idea of this astro-semaphore. Me reconforta, de alguna manera, la idea de llevarlos a Uds. tan close to my too-excitable heart, entangled con mis entrañas . . . and in imminent danger (aunque el pat ólogo assured me this would not happen!) of setting off los metal detectors en los aeropuertos. Can you imagine? First my twenty-four South African bracelets—que eventualmente tuve que dejar de llevar, por el tema del beefed-up security en los aeropuertos, post 9/11, después de más de veinte años, so much clink clink and weight on that left side; I even gave birth in them, 104 There Was Blood Diptych 105 Unos Cuantos Piquetitos Crónica¡coño!—and now un Taurean titanium clip, marking off the site of former microcalcificaciones busteriles. Mientras me hacían la jodida biopsia, the nurse had to call in una überenfermera , porque aparentemente, there was a blood vessel too close to the site of the little chips de calcio, and they had to do this most uncomfy busto-manipulating operación to get it (la vesícula) out of the way. Bueno, al regresar a casa entré al cobalt blue–painted guest bath, abajo. I took in the fantastic, little-girl-lost Camille Rose García prints, the beautiful caldera-colored, glass-mosaic-tiled counter, the gorgeously Goth, black, drippy-looking wrought iron light fixture, worthy of The Addams Family, installed by Pierre en las últimas refacciones del 2006. I took off my ancient (according to fashion’s ever-fickle seasons) black Prada ski jacket (second-hand regalo de mi hermana Laura, aka la Wiggue, before I went to Buenos Aires for the...