I decided the next day that I should take her to the vet.  Once before she’d gotten the same way, and I’d attributed it to all the geranium leaves she’d munched on as just when I was going to call the vet, she was back to her old self.  As you recall from my earlier post, my Roman took ill in a similar fashion. Seeming to waste away and have no energy, though he vomited when he ate. He was at death’s door, and yet the medication – antibiotics and steroids – produced a full recovery. Or so it seemed. So, I wasn’t in a total panic. Concerned, yes. Sad even. But not hopeless. I didn’t plan to cancel my flight/weekend trip to visit my folks until after my appointment.

All that changed when I took her the Verse Emergency Vet Hospital. I’d given her an appetite stimulant that had been prescribed for Roman (I know, not smart), and when it had no effect, I gave her a little more. Well, that had an effect. She began convulsively vomiting and then shitting in an obvious attempt to rid herself of it. So with her panting and drooling, and shrieking in terror, I put her in her carrier and called a car service. 20 minutes later we arrived around 2AM.  My feelings about what transpired next can be split between those experienced in the moment, and those after the fact.

They asked me to stay in the waiting room while they checked her vitals. I was the only one in that room. I could hear here crying, and after 10-12 minutes (which felt like an hour), I asked couldn’t I be with her to comfort her? An impatient receptionist huffed and puffed and said fine, putting me in an exam room. Soon Gigi was brought in, hysterical, and I learned she’d not yet been looked at as there were “25 other patients” (this information shared in the same unfriendly tone as if I were being unreasonable). It occurred to me that all the other owners/caretakers must’ve asked the same thing since no one else had been in the waiting room. I calmed Gigi down as best I could but she was in a full-blown panic attack. She’s always been this way and its one of the reasons I loathe having to take her anywhere. Once, when my apartment was being sprayed for bed bugs, I’d taken her and Roman up to a neighbor’s apartment (who was not home, and had no pets), and while I expected her not to take well to it, I did not expect her to fly out the window, run down the fire escape, and into my apartment. Twice. The second time, burrowing herself into the farthest corner in her attempt to hide from me.

My feelings after the “visit” to VERG Veterinary Emergency and Referral Group? Pirates of the soul, that’s what they are, those places. Parasitically amenable to the capitalist system.

Eventually blood work was done, and the outcome was dire. Very high white blood cell counts, low red blood cells, “severe anemia”, all signs of lymphoma and/or lukemia. The young resident vet insisted I get out of my chair where I was holding Gigi who was again burrowed into the corner of the room (the only thing that would calm her) to go over it. She needed to be admitted for a blood transfusion, to stay for observation for 1-3 nites, to get an ultrasound, and the list went on. Gigi was hysterical again, shrieking and trying to burrow into another corner, and I could hardly focus on what he was saying. He seemed to not even know she was there.  How much I asked? He wouldn’t even provide a ballpark figure. Instead, he leaves and sends in the vet tech, a sweet young woman, who gives me the bill:  $3,500-$5,500. Mind you, I’d already paid $442. which they, OF COURSE, insisted on processing immediately. I told her I couldn’t afford this and needed to process it all (meaning, do my own research, and discuss with my regular vet).  She left and came back with a reduced bill – as if it was printed alongside the first as a matter of protocol. $2,500-$3,400. I still can’t afford that, I replied. There was NO WAY IN HELL I was going to leave her alone there overnight. PERIOD. Of course no one told me the blood transfusion, which takes 4 hours, only works for a couple of months, if it works at all. And the resident vet didn’t want to hear about her prior bout of illness, etc. So, I insisted they give her the subcutaneous liquids, and the anti-nasaeous injection since I’d paid for it, and took her home. Before I did, the vet tech very quietly concurred I should talk to my vet about how to care for her at home, non-invasively, and to ask him for steroids. Something the vet there hadn’t even offered, and could’ve – should’ve, I learned later – given her via injection.

Healers answer a calling, doctors pursue a career. This is why our health care system is fucked.  Granted, the latter doesn’t preclude true caring, I know, but it treats medicine (no pun intended) like all other professions, which is wrong. My vet has not called me back after the dire results of Gigi’s blood work and I have no idea how he can explain not having 5-10 minutes to give to what is obviously a very serious near life-death situation for a patient of his (she has been there before). Is it because I cancelled my appointment after going to the emergency hospital? It was a sound and practical decision. The blood work was done, her vitals were taken, she’s been examined. Let’s deal with the “severe anemia” likely due to lukemia/lymphoma, and discuss the way to treat her that’s no invasive. I’ve already done the research and know steroids and antibiotics are likely the way to go. If she’ll tolerate them. So odd again that its exactly what Roman was treated with. Maybe its just their old age, and the fact that those symptoms are common signs of illness, and infection a common cause? I don’t know but steroids do seem to help a variety of conditions. I do my research obsessively – like I learned from reading a cat-health related thread that the blood infusions only last a few months, which the hospital vet (a very young man, btw, no doubt doing his residency) didn’t care to mention. And that’s part of the problem. This doesn’t enter into the discussion because financially-driven protocols and text book diagnoses determine treatment. Not the particulars and peculiars of an individual. Sure they ask for some history but they really don’t hear it, the tests say it all.

UPDATE: My vet never received the fax from the hospital, and so after follow-up there, he put her on steroids and potassium supplements. The last few days have been a roller coaster ride of hope and then fear, sadness and joy, as she hangs on, with moments of her old self (she briefly kneaded my stomach the other nite, for example, and cleans herself still) punctuating what feels otherwise like a withdrawal and utter sense of fatigue on her part. I have cried and tried to prepare for her passing but as I watch her sit on the folded towel I put on the window sill facing my backyard, taking in the breeze that rustles through the still green leaves of the giant magnolia tree, I still hold onto hope….

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(Also, because I want to make some extra bank as one of my courses at SVA was cancelled this semester due to low enrollment. While I wasn’t thrilled, I must say its nice to get a break from lecturing six hours in a row, which has been my Thursdays for a long time now. Not a big deal, but being free at 3PM and in the city is rare for me and I’m enjoying it.)

Something so engaging and real about being on the sidewalk meeting and talking to all kinds of people, eye to eye…SO glad i did it:) And was so happy to have my neighbor-longtime friend hang with me all day, from beginning to end, helping me set up and take down! How fucking sweet is that?! AM SO GRATEFUL. Of course I kept trying to foist stuff on her, lol, in gratitude – and I had great stuff out there, from Gunne Sax to Leslie Fay to Ungaro, with lots of great 1960s-70s stuff, which she loves. But she only took a couple things. I also think she enjoyed it too, the human side of it reminding her of her retail/record store days in San Francisco in the early 1990s.

I was surprised how little people knew about what they were looking at. I thought with all the young blood in Greenpoint and the popularity of all things “vintage” there’d be more cultivated tastes out there. My biggest sale, who also has an Etsy shop, being an exception. Regardless, the fact that people just bought things because they liked them was also cool!

I do though wonder if I’ve just acquired more expertise than I realize (to justify my endless thrifting, no doubt), or if there’s no desire for expertise anymore as “vintage” simply means “second-hand” now. Ie, its just all “old”. I’ve always taken it quite seriously thanks to gay male friends who schooled me back in the day (some cliches are true), but that’s when very few did the vintage thing, and everyone had a niche.

Anyway, I’ll be uploading new stuff on romanlovesgigi (my Etsy shop again soon), and perhaps doing more street sales (next time with biz cards for my shop), so stay tuned!

(Btw, if you didn’t catch my show, From the Ruins…, it got great reviews, meaty thoughtful ones, in the New Yorker, artforum.com, Time Out New York, the Brooklyn Rail, PAPER, and observer.com so Google that shit! Pretty damn grateful for that still too!!! And I’m excited to be working on some other projects! this amazing Fall weather on the east coast, and look out for the giant red moon Sunday nite!!)

some super quick pics from the iphone…(I am laughing that I threw in curlers I never used and nail polish: classy, lol!)

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So $640. later, I leave with faith and antibiotics.  After a week of watching my beloved boy go from his mister happy, rambunctious self  – a cat who used to wolf his food down, and eat nearly anything – now barely manage a lick here and there, I need the hope. The anti-nausea shot and subcutaneous fluids seem to help, he eats a little, and drinks, and gets a little burst of his old energy. Sick with a summer cold, I go to sleep feeling a little less worried and sad only to wake and find all our effort vomited up in small glistening heaps strewn across the floor.  I start to wonder why he’s on antibiotics as the bacteria test supposedly came out clear according to the doctor’s follow-up call. And while I know that supposedly this type of antibiotic can reduce inflammation – the central issue here, as Roman’s general diagnosis is IBD, evidenced by chronic diarrhea – I still wonder if its benefit outweigh the negatives as antibiotics increase nausea and diarrhea. And the outcome of the fancy expensive test I did consent to was, as I went in there expecting, that steroids are the next step, according to that update as well.

I call the vet’s office, and as they did a few weeks back, when my Gigi got poisoned – or so it appeared – by eating some of my geranium plant, they immediately suggest going to an emergency vet. I don’t understand this new protocol, although given how little I use their services, maybe this has been standard practice for a while. But to what end? Avoiding malpractice concerns, or for those visits that will prove less lucrative/worthy of their time.  It set me off to hear it again. No, I declared. I want to talk to my vet who just treated my animal, discuss these questions, and get him in there again for another round of fluids and anti-nauseous shot. And pick up the cortisone/steroids. HE NEEDS TO EAT, and you should be doing the follow-up.  My nerves are frayed. We make an appointment for the next day. I spend another nite entreating him every 15-20 minutes to eat.  Returning to his little bed over and over again with a new, perhaps more enticing option of cat food to no avail.  Following him around when he does move, doing more of the same, creating a veritable buffet of bowls on the kitchen floor.

I take him in the next day, apologize to the receptionist for being a bitch, we have a laugh, and another vet, his wife, co-owner of the practice, skims Roman’s file says, misses a couple of things, calls him a she, and perfunctorily tells me I really ought to do the ultrasound – the insanely expensive test  to rule out the cancer. I say, you think so? Pretending to be sincere, yet also falling prey, as I tend to, to her guilt tactics. She has that “we’re just telling you what’s best for your pet’s health” tone that nearly all vets do, and it too is both false and yet sincere. She called him “bubula”, which was pretty sweet but I also heard her get nasty with an underling. Another $175.

The good news is, at the moment, he’s stabilized, and seeing that grin as he bounced on the bed to greet me, obviously feeling much closer to his old self than he had for a while, was a heart-bursting moment. But its band-aid therapy. And I’l take it, with deep gratitude, as long as he feels well. I will not watch him waste away though, so when this fails, I will have to face the music, and get that vet over to put him down at home.

Dealing with all of this has had me thinking a lot about how we deal with aging and illness in this culture as well as my ongoing distrust for doctors of any kind in the current system.  Also, after my dad suffered a major setback recently, a fall and concussion that involved over a week of Intensive Care, and the further impediment of his mobility. Which for a man of 83 who has had Multiple Sclerosis  for 40 years, is pretty serious. The difference between his living at home, as he’s done, under my mother’s care, or going into a home. These choices, or the lack thereof, just reveals the dysfunction relationship our culture has to life, death, community, and suffering.

As my 50th birthday creeps up on me, I keep thinking I need to think hard about how I’m going to experience being a caregiver, and eventually a patient. Weighing the agency I have in that against the fear of helplessness. I wrote about my vet experience in such tedious detail in part because I simply needed to share it, but also because we tend to avoid the details, not because they’re tedious but because therein lies so much of the isolation and pain.  Several times during the course of writing this post,  I’ve been interrupted by my Roman who is clearly feeling more energetic, and every time, I stop to engage him. My instinct is to do everything I possibly can to minimize his suffering and perk up his spirits. That’s the choice I’ve made for how I’m going to deal with his demise despite what the vets might say. But the doubt, the worry, the guilt and pressure are exhausting.  Shouldn’t “medical care” seek to accommodate and alleviate stress, rather than exacerbate it? All that said, my boy is back to his old self, a little more rickety, and my vet helped make that happen. Maybe compassion attracts compassion?

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So here’s a bunch I saved, there’ll be more. I guess all these Esty/Ebay pics I keep posting – spooky mannequins, 60s-70s knitwear patterns, and now those who vogue, haha – constitute an extension of my vernacular photography collection. In digital form. Enjoy!

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I’ve always avoided the sadistic pleasure of gang-ups because of natural compassion for anyone under attack, not  to mention the issue of context, which is essential. and easily missed, I might add, esp. on social media.

Lately, virtual bullying seems all the rage as schoolyard trolls go meta.  I’m thinking of the year-old case of Justine Sacco, the gift that keeps on giving. If you recall, she’s  the woman who tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” to her 120  followers, and in the 11-hour plane trip home during which she had no cell service, received 20,000 tweets shaming her for it. That someone in Cape Town, South Africa, would take up a Twitter challenge by a stranger thousands of miles away to go wait at the airport to meet and tweet Sacco’s shocked reaction when she learned of her infamy shows just how far people are willing to go. Sure, the tweet had become what her BFF called “the No. 1 worldwide trend on Twitter right now”, but still, really?!

If you don’t know what I talking about, I recommend reading  this excellent Times Magazine piece by Jon Ronson, a guy who acknowledges his own impulse to chastize in it. He shares how he began to control said impulse once he saw the wake of trauma it caused, having interviewed several victims of the virtual mob. Many, who like Sacco, were traumatized long after that elusive, all-important context came to light, and in some cases vindicated them. Ironically, one such case was a young woman from Michigan who dressed as a Boston marathon victim for Halloween, which I’ll admit was as tasteless as Sacco’s sick joke.  I’ll also admit that it made laugh out loud. Why I don’t know. Maybe the slapstick ghastliness of the costume seems perfect for Halloween?

I mean, OF COURSE its wroooooong, the idea of family members and loved ones enduring the joke makes it so. But as we all know, social media is all about getting attention, and such displays have become as pedestrian as bad tattoos and duckface selfies. That’s why its no surprise someone tried to up the Ante with a better costume – a kind of FUCK YOU to the morality police, I suppose, as well as  a way to capitalize on the reaction.

 All of this puts me in two minds on the issue. My unwavering commitment to defend free speech (always balanced by the equal conviction that people have a right to protest what they feel they must) undermined by a nagging “what did they expect would happen?” disbelief. The kind I typically reserve for the dangerously naive. Is that an invitation to jump on the Blame & Shame wagon (haters all aboooard, toot toot – I mean, tweet, tweet)? NO.  I’m just acknowledging the growing lack of responsibility/concern for one’s public behavior never mind the consequences of one’s actions when the stakes are so obviously high.

Clearly, social media exploits and encourages these outre outbursts. Twitter, which breeds sensationalism like Facebook on steroids, seems the worst. Another reason – in addition to just not having the time –  that I don’t tweet. The instant sharing of instant thoughts in a forum designed to make us want to be “liked”, “shared”, and “followed” has turned into a kind of virtual Russian roulette. I chose not to play. (And believe me, there’ve been many a social media scandal vis a vis the art world in which  I could’ve assumed a beef, or added my two cents, but abstained. Because I felt sorry for the person being attacked – the stuff of nightmares! – and/or was appalled by the hypocrisy of those joining the fray – their own bases ambitions for doing so being no better than those they sought to virtually lynch.) So where does that leave me? Disturbed.

APRIL 5, 2015/ UPDATE: This Atlanta piece offers a critical view on Jon Ronson’s new book, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, 2015, claiming it “vividly warns about the power of angry mobs online but ultimately misdiagnoses what drives the modern cycles of indignation.” This pretty much gives you the gist, in a way, reflecting my own perspective, which is strangely reassuring: Stone didn’t mean for the image of her disrespecting a national monument to be seen by many people, but is it any great surprise that what’s literally the most anti-patriotic symbolic gesture a person can make might get out onto the wider Internet once it’s on Facebook? Sacco tossed into the world a joke about racism that actually came off, to many, as racist; is the takeaway that people are too sensitive, or that it’s a good idea to carefully consider matters before sending out a joke about AIDS in Africa, of all topics?

We are living in very tricky times when it comes to what is “appropriate” behavior in the public sphere, and to the backlash against all things PC, which intrigues me.

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While teaching Surrealism these last two weeks, I found myself  repeating the phrase “1+1= 3” to explan what arises from juxtapositions of the unexpected and the unconscious. Of course for the Dadaists, it was all about the embrace of pure nonsense, but Wm Burroughs and Brion Gysin were my inspiration, their idea of the third mind via the cut-up, basically. I’ve also been enjoying the darker side of the random lately (big surprise, ha!) as employed by the Random Darknet Shopper,  the botnet project recently launched by the artist collective, !Mediengruppe Bitnik. It seems a ripe moment for such stealthy initiatives in art, and I love that it bought ten pills of ectasy, lol. Anyway, here’s my latest dump, er, I mean, image essay:) Get a cup of tea or a beer, its a loooong one, the longest yet, I think! And there’s weirdly a lot of art in it. ENJOY!

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Robert Melee, 2015 (channeling mommy-Rose)

And in that spirit of the post- apocalypse, I’m happy to announce I’m curating a group exhibition this Spring, “FROM THE RUINS…” that will feature the work of Abigail Deville, Wm. Eggleston, Christian Holstad, Luther Price, Jeff Wall, Jane & Louise Wilson, and others! VERY EXCITED! There will be a catalogue and related panel/talks, so I am SEEKING AN INTERN to help with this as well as my blog, janestown.net. 

Speaking of the latter, I’m launching an interactive series this year where I will invite people to peruse the vast archives of bookmarked links I’ve collected for YEARS – relating to the blog’s various sections ala“Karma Row”, “Culture Vulture”, New York, NY”, etc. – and select something to respond to. The idea is to create more dialogue and commentary that involves YOU!! And if you haven’t visited the blog in a while, don’t miss my post sharing – for the first time ever – selections from my vernacular photography collection (aka found pics), and a  new feature, “FROM THE VAULTS” where I revisit writing from the past like my artforum.com interview with Monica Bonvincini. 

I’m also soliciting video work by women on the theme of revenge, for another Grrls on gurls screening series, so if you have ideas, let me know via pm or FB (Jane Ursula Harris). I already have a few artists lined up, but still looking for a few more before! THANKS!!

FOR MORE RECENT WRITING, A FEW HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE YEAR:

** My review of LaToya Ruby Frazier’s amazing first monograph, The Notion of Family (Aperture) in the Paris Review:

“The Notion of Family gilds its often grim truths with the hope of resistance…Self– determination rarely figures in the social documentary tradition, and in many ways Frazier’s work seeks to redress this omission. That she defines her photography as a “conceptual documentary” practice speaks to her continued faith in the camera as a vehicle for both social change and aesthetic possibility: beauty, in her work, does not preclude protest any more than education presumes awareness.”

LaToya Ruby Frazier, Aunt Midgie and Grandma Ruby, 2007

** My Huffpo interview with Robert Melee on his infamous “Mommy” series:

“In satirizing the dark and complex relations that lurk beneath most pantomimes of familial bliss, Melee‘s home movies of Rose take on a deliberately tragicomic form…As with all of Melee‘s work, the exhibition‘s outre, baroque visions of mother and son love embody a Baudelairean lyricism, one that finds beauty in the grotesque and the obscene.”

Robert Melee, Facelift, 1997. Courtesy of Higher Pictures and Andrew Kreps Gallery

**My interview with legendary filmmaker, Bruce LaBruce in The Believer:

“In fact, many of his films satirize the totalitarian tendencies of the politically correct, exposing their hypocrisies with the same campy vigor reserved for the right wing ideologues (and gay assimilationists) … It’s a sly dance in the slipstream between revolutionary ideals and their compromised practice, and a slapstick study in “radical chic.”

Bruce LaBruce, Super 8 1/2, 1993

UPCOMING: look for my review of Ron Athey’s first monograph in Duke University Press’s Cultural Politics journal; an Art in America review of the stand-out show of 2014, Greer Lankton’s retrospective @ Participant Inc.; and a forthcoming interview with Simone Leigh!

RECENT TESTIMONIALS FOR MY ARTIST STATEMENT WORKSHOPS/ PRIVATE CONSULTATION WORK, PLS. CONTACT ME FOR RATES!

— I don’t think I ever told you but I probably wouldn’t have shown with Feature if it hadn’t been for your workshop. So grateful for that especially. Kylin O’Brien

— Jane Harris wrote about my work in an art magazine some years ago and it was a stroke of luck that I got to meet her. She is a scholarly and socially astute critic who fundamentally understands my work and what I do. Recently, Harris came to my rescue when I was trying to put words together for a complicated proposal that was difficult for me to articulate in writing. I saw her post offering a workshop on how to write an artist statement, for artists! I called her immediately. Funny that it feels like cheating to have a writer help write about what I know best. I love words and they are a part of my work, but I am not a writer. I needed my essay to express my sensibilities and the nuances of my vision in a succinct written format. Jane’s guidance lead me to submit a truthful, passionate and straightforward description of what I wanted to do. I write in my diary about my work but I don’t write for the public on a daily basis and it just makes sense to get a little help from those who translate art work into the written world. Thank You Jane Harris! xoxo E.V. Day

— A special shout out and big thanks to Jane Ursula Harris and her workshop, “Conquering the Artist Statement.” Any artist, school or gallery would be lucky to partake in her insight, wit and heart–a true contribution to writing and art. Thanks Jane, for keeping it real and kicking ass. Julie Paveglio, recent MFA

AND, if you haven’t seen my new Etsy shop, romanlovesgigi, where I sell everything vintage, please take a look! I am also seeking a part-time PAID assistant for this project, so let me know if you are interested!

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Someone on Facebook recently posted this image of the Hindu goddess Kalaratri, the fiercest version or aspect of Kali-Durga, consort of Shiva, I believe (Hindu mythology makes me dizzy), and I became very intrigued. According to asianart.org, “Durga appeared when the gods were unable to subdue a demon who was threatening the entire world. Individually, the gods were unable to defeat the demon. They summoned Durga and gave her all their weapons. The battle went on and on, prolonged by the fact that Mahisha [demons] continually changed shapes.” And of course, she triumphs. Durga apparently has eight other manifestations as well:

Kalaratri is typically represented by cascades of black hair lit by the stars, dark/blue skin, and four hands: two in the mudras of giving, the others clutching a cleaver and torch, respectively. She’s also usually on a horse. She’s celebrated on the seventh day of the festival Navaratri, as the image above relates, and sometimes bears Kali’s bloody tongue:

For me, she embodies the necessity of a mother-warrior archetype for which there are few western parallels. Some in Greco-Roman and Euro-pagan traditions, but none in the Judeo-Christian. The idea of a fearsome female deity who could be both destroyer and savior, capable of subduing evil while sustaining life, is obviously just too complicated and threatening for patriachs;).  Polytheistic belief systems are always more egalitarian that-a-ways as there’s room for variety and permutation built in.  Anyway, I’ve always found Durga inspiring, and this version of her, Kalaratri, was new for me, so I thought I’d share. BTW, I could find no other representation of her similar to the first one I posted, which a friend suggested may be part of a deck of cards (there is no information online).

For more info on Kalartri, go here. And if you have time, and want to explore more, I highly recommend checking out my friend Liz Insogna’s amazing project, Goddess, Speak; a series of invocations, writing, art and audio interviews.  Through cross-cultural studies of the goddess, she creates vivid and introspective portraits that are truly divine.

Liz Insogna,The Chinnamasta, ink on paper, 2014

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And sometimes two hours of Oz (my serial de jour, second round) is necessary, and that’s all the spare time one’s got. Especially after summer, that lush golden minx we New Yorkers got to frolic with for nearly four months, has gone and left us. Truly one of the most memorable seasons, weather-wise, I’ve had in my 21 years here in NYC).

School has started, there are seemingly endless shows, openings, events than one feels compelled to try, however feebly, to keep up with. And those you desperately don’t want to miss.  I find myself thinking about people who care more about the quality of their work than how much attention it gets, and how maybe they don’t fare so well in NYC anymore, and really have all moved somewhere else like everyone says:((

I don’t know. I guess its inevitable the hustle and grind will wear on a soul. Life can be so precarious, our long view so short, its hard to know what to do, anymore, or think. Is it all just a matter of how many “followers” you have, or who you’re “following”?

So that’s what’s on my mind at moment as I grade papers and check in here because its been a while. Hope everybody out there is doing ok! Here’s my latest desktop clutter for you, be warned its a scroll that goes on and on….but there’s a song in there, I promise – the random can be so revelatory.

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