2003-08-21 4:00 p.m.
her empty eyes, searching

I'm a bit of an awful person.

Bubbe had a stroke 18 months ago (the day before my cousin Karen had her baby), and this past weekend was the first time I've seen her since.

I've been in town, thought about it quite a lot, but never had the nerve to go see her...partially because she has this propensity to hate those relatives who don't pay attention to her often, partially because I knew just how out of it and unable to communicate she was going to be. D and our dad painted a vivid and stomach-turning picture.

We made our way down there on a beautiful, if overcast, Monday afternoon. The nursing home is a few blocks from the Jewish Community Center where I went to summer camp, where I met Niles and Jodie, my first girlfriend, where I learned about They Might Be Giants, sexual innuendo, and stealing kisses in the dark in big rooms made of cinder blocks while counselors did some of the world's worst covers of Jewish folk songs.

Jodie...13, skater, puppy love, always kept trying to sneak money into my pockets when I'd pay for everything on dates. (So chivalrous at such a young age.)

All this came washing over me as we drove through the neighborhood. We were in the nursing home more than a few minutes when we were being waved at old people, their eyes desperate with the possibility that we were someone who cared about them, a grandchild they'd never seen or a cousin's children passing through town.

I didn't recognize Bubbe when we first came off the elevator: she looked like she'd been, I don't know, reduced, probably 50+ pounds lighter, the malice gone from her eyes, hair gone all grey, and damn near stapled into her wheelchair.

I almost kept walking before I realized that D was about talk to this woman. She looked a little prettier, her features and skin softened by the lack of cigarettes, her face more relaxed than I'd ever seen it.

She couldn't speak more than a few words of English at a time...most of what came out of her mouth was gibberish, some of it in Yiddish, and the very rare English question, as translated by her roommate, like, "when did I hurt you?"

We were there much longer than I was comfortable doing � only a few hours, I think � but every look of glazed-over non-comprehension, the careful attention we paid to choosing small, common words to explain ourselves...I was exhausted by the ene of the visit, dying for an emotional Red Bull, something to buoy myself up with.

Most of all, what hurt the most wasn't the lack of communication, but the fact that she pushed my hand away when I tried to take hers in mine.

I didn't mean to be patronizing if I was; I just thought she might want the contact. Or at least the comfort.

Promotional efforts are now underway for the comic, so if you've gotten one, dug the hell out of it, and would love to see me do more, PLEASE let your local comic shop know you want them to carry it, especially in October, when it'll be listed in Previews. The more shops that give it a first look, the more shops that might actually order some. (And if your shop wants a preview copy (i.e. more than they can see on the buy page, have 'em e-mail me.

Apparently, I'm DAMN boring to journal reviewers. *shrug* Guess I've got more to do in this life than beg for the adulation of teenagers.

P'raps I've been saving my best stuff for the comics and stage work. Or maybe I need more of a life.

Or maybe I need to live near beaches again. Floating in the ocean last weekend was better than a full-body massage. (Anyone who uses the phrase "better than sex" had best be talking about heroin, or they've obviously not had any.)