A novel in 30 days?

Seems impossible, but I participated in the annual NaNoWriMo.org writing frenzy in November and actually crossed the 50,000-word finish line. It's not the best thing I ever wrote, but it's actually finished. Below, a sample of Guayabera, which is set in my fantasy of 1957 NYC: ----------------------------

Nadia sat back on her stool, satisfied, her broad face with their hard eyes now trained on him. “So you come with me, eh?”

This is what Ray had feared. She was a streetwalker, a little old and hard and stocky, but it took all kinds. He chuckled a little and waved his hand. “Oh, no. No, I’m sorry.”

Nadia never took her eyes from his face. “Yes, yes, you come. What have you got to do?” Her eyes moved over his uniform, correctly assessing his status as a sailor on leave. “You come and see, you’ll have a good time. Come, Billy Reyes.” She was sliding off the stool, and her sharp patent leather shoes hit the floor with a clunk. She was now pulling at his arm. Ray was surprised by her strength and was bound to resist. His long arms were always being pulled on by others, convinced of how easy he was to lead. And often they had been right.

Rivas approached just in time. “Say, what do you have going on here already?” he winked. “You going to introduce me to your friend?”

Relieved, Ray intoned, “This is Nadia. She insists that I come with her, but I believe we have other plans, eh Rivas?” He tried to catch the smaller man’s eye.

But Rivas’ bespectacled peepers were filled with the overabundance of Nadia’s figure. Ray could see the fibers in the Filipino’s very masculine being impacted pleasurably by the prospect of so much rippling female flesh in close proximity. “Oh no, no, we have no immediate plans,” Rivas chirped. “We have accommodations for the night, but that’s much later. Why it’s still early, isn’t it, Miss Nadia? I am Manuel Rivas. Where would we be going? A little feminine companionship for two old sailors?”

Nadia turned to confront Rivas’ leering, gap-toothed countenance and her mouth twisted. “You got the wrong idea,” she said. “Nothing dirty. Just the dancing. And the show. It’s down the street, you come. Come.”

Curiosity compelled them down 48th Street toward Eighth Avenue, following the surprisingly fast-moving Nadia down a steep flight of stairs from the street to a basement-level bar and ballroom that reeked of whisky, beer, and cheap perfume. The band was reassembling on a tiny bandstand in the far left corner, and a number of gentlemen of various ages and backgrounds were lined up at the bar, nursing drinks. With a friendly wave that urged Ray and Rivas to take their seats in a flimsy booth, Nadia left them and took her place, again surprisingly, at the piano.

There was a rusty rimshot from the portly drummer who was squeezed behind a bare bones drum kit, and the people in the room turned their attention to the dance floor. With a downbeat lunge that seemed to strain the piano stool, Nadia launched into a jazzy vamp that made Ray think momentarily of the Latin orchestras he’d seen in some San Juan casino lounges. A weak spotlight clanked on, and a middle-aged man in a bad toupee took the mike. Ray lost what he said amid the music and the arrival of a barmaid at their booth, who took down Rivas’ lusty order of beers with whisky shots.

The man had apparently been introducing a parade of young ladies, dressed in theatrical yet scanty costumes. A group of about 12, in bra tops, tap pants, and fishnet hose, with spangles in their hair and professional smiles affixed to their faces, broke into a dance routine that to Ray’s eyes seemed less than artistic. The men at the bar and at scattered booths around the back of the place erupted into whoops and applause. Even Rivas seemed impressed.

“Carajo!” he cried. “It’s the middle of the day in New York City, and we get to feast our eyes and whet our whistles! This is something, eh?”

Ray threw back his whisky shot and picked up his beer glass. He tried to smile. He didn’t want to be here. He was always going along to get along, always trying to do what people expected. He had always gone along with the program and tried to be as pleasant and unobtrusive as possible. His life had followed a simple trajectory of schooling, then the marine service, marriage—it was what a young man of breeding was supposed to do. Long, tall, studious, and quiet, Ray had never caused a ruckus, never been any trouble to anyone, never robbed or cheated, never fought or harassed anyone. He had never been arrested, cited, accused, or complained against. And yet people found ways to use and abuse him, to inveigle him into their schemes, to set him up as a prop in their real-life theatricals. And he went along, like a stooge.

For in hindsight it now seemed to him that Annalisa might have plotted her escape from him even from the moment that they said their vows. There was no way to know for sure, but he certainly hadn’t seen it coming. He hadn’t foreseen that her treachery would leave him just another poor lonely old fellow with limited means, without the carefully saved and nurtured nest egg that he’d hoped would see him into a comfortable retirement. It wasn’t in his initial plan to sign back on to the merchant marine service and spend another two years at back-breaking work designed for a man 15 years his junior just so he could get enough scratch to maintain himself. And now as he was taking his first steps into a new life here in New York, he had allowed himself to be shanghaied by this chatty little man and into this cheap big city dive where the cheap chippies now hoofing it onstage would later be hustling the customers for tips and drinks. All of this was beneath him. All Ray had ever wanted was to be left alone to go his own way in peace. A peaceful life, an uneventful life, a righteous life—por Dios, why couldn’t he attain it?

He was actually angry.

Anger had long been an emotion that Ray avoided if he could. He had prided himself for most of his regimented life on maintaining his composure. He had seen the destructive effects of anger and rage among the men he’d grown up with in the slums outside Wllemstad, in the alleyways and bars of San Juan and the shacks of Loiza Aldea, among his comrades in the bowels of the ship. They shouted hurtful words, brandished knives or their bare knuckles, spilled blood onto the ground. Or they devised dangerous, intricate and hate-filled schemes to ensnare others in massive misfortunes, or plotted for the fatal downfall of their fellows in the name of revenge. Up to now, Ray could not see how anger proved a useful social function. It seemed to hurt the one who was angry as much, if not more, than the ones they directed their anger toward.

But now as he looked around this dimly lit booze hall, full of out of work bums, sailors, office workers on a downward slide, and these sad little girls tricked out in satin and sequins, Ray felt full-fledged anger well up inside him, right at the spot underneath his breastbone where earlier he had felt a pang of empty confusion.

He gulped down his beer and pushed his lean frame up to his feet, shouting over the music, “Basta! I’ve had enough. I’m leaving.” He threw down some American greenbacks onto the table to cover the cost of their drinks.

Rivas, already showing signs of inebriation, slid out of the booth to stop his friend. “Oh no, Alarcon, the show has just begun! Come now, have another drink. And later we’ll go up to the boardinghouse…”

“Oh no,” said Ray curtly. “You go on. I’m sorry, but I have changed my mind about it. Good luck to you.” But as Ray turned to cross the barroom floor, Rivas was upon him, his hand on Ray’s arm.

“Oh, ho, you cannot leave me alone in this place! That’s not very friendly,” Rivas wheedled. “We’ll have another drink and then we’ll find someplace that meets your high standards…”

“Sit down!” hollered an angry voice further back in the hall.

“Yeah, down in front!” shouted another distinctly New York-sounding voice.

One of the girls in the show flickered a pair of concerned hazel eyes in their direction as she performed her pedestrian brush ball shuffle in the pool of light beyond the two merchant marines.

Ray had no wish to make a scene. He just wanted to go. Sweat had broken out on his forehead. “Rivas, you stay. Enjoy yourself. But I have to go. I have to go,” he tried to mollify the Filipino. As he took another two strides toward the illuminated exit sign, Rivas again pounced.

“OK! OK! So angry!” Rivas giggled a little desperately as he clung to Ray’s arm. “So we’ll go. There are other places.”

Ray took a deep breath. “Rivas, I am done with drinking, I am done with talking, I am done with your uptown boarding house, I am done with this stinking place. Amigo, forgive me for saying so, but I am done with you. I am sorry,” he couldn’t help apologizing, after all, “but I have to go now. Release me, please.”

“Sit down, you yokels!” came shouts from around them. “Say fellas, get out the way!”

“So now you insult me!” Rivas, offended, still hung onto Ray’s arm.

Ray was amazed at the man’s tenaciousness. He was like a bulldog. In his frustration to be free of the whole ridiculous situation, and to loosen Rivas’ grip, Ray gave the smaller man a shove to the shoulder. To the amazement of both men, Rivas stumbled backward, lost his footing and fell, his broad rear hitting the floor. Some of the patrons around them applauded.

Ray instantly regretted that he had put Rivas down amid the cigarette butts, dirty cocktail napkins, and spilled drinks but there was nothing for it. Again, he was determined to reach the stairs that would bring him back up to 48th street, a breath of fresh air, and a few moments of sanity, away from Rivas forever. But then he heard a kind of guttural cry over the music, which hadn’t stopped its bluesy flow, and now Rivas leaped onto his back and began boxing his ears. “Ungrateful black bastard!” Rivas screamed in Spanish. “Stupid mute lout! Dickless moocher!”

Ray whirled, reaching behind him wildly to snatch at anything to get the drunken Filipino off his back. His ears rang, and with each turning step he felt the whisky coursing through his bloodstream, dizzying his head and muddling up his balance. The nerve of this fellow to call him black, when he himself was darker than a coconut husk. True, the mother of Ray’s mother had been an African slave, but he himself was not black—he was Venezuelan! To call him black in front of these people was the lowest of the low. He came up with a handful of the Filipino’s uniform shirt while his other hand closed on the smaller man’s forearm. With an awkward yet swift bend at the waist, a move he had learned in secondary school wrestling matches, Ray managed to flip Manuel Rivas over his head and back onto the floor.

“Stop!” Ray cautioned as he saw that instead of being beaten, Rivas was now scrambling on his hands and knees to grab at Ray’s leg.

“Pansy! Dimwit! Simpleton!” screamed Rivas, wildly. “You’re an idiot without an original idea in your monster head! A moron! You bored everyone on the ship to death with your bullshit! No wonder your wife left you!”

Ray’s brain sizzled with the insults heaped upon him. He was tired of this, again and again. So many time he had succumbed to others’ whims, tolerated and humored their flaws and foibles, only to be ridiculed and insulted by their intolerance of his own humanity. But furthermore, he would not stomach talk of Annalisa. He now wished he had never shared any single word of a personal nature with this insensitive prig.

“Don’t you dare to mention my wife again, ever,” said Ray. In a fury now, and without thinking about the consequences, he lifted his foot with its size 13 marine-issued boot and delivered a mighty kick that caught Rivas right in the chin. The man’s lip split, blood spurted, his glasses flew sideways, and Rivas himself slid backwards, seemingly senseless, across the littered barroom floor, coming to a stop with his head slightly propped against the leg of an empty table.

For a quick instant Ray caught his breath in fear that he had killed the man. After all, Rivas had really done nothing heinous to him, only tried his patience to the breaking point and called him foul names, and he had repaid him with violence. Ray shook his head. Violence was never the answer, Ray admonished himself. In the dim light, Ray was able to see Rivas stir slowly and put a hand to his jaw. So he was alive. And now Ray would leave.

He heard screams from the chorines behind him and the heavily accented tones of Nadia’s husky voice from the bandstand as the music stopped, but there was nothing he could do for Rivas now.

Willem Rafael Alarcon Reyes turned back toward the exit sign of the Dandy Drop In Bar & Lounge and caught a right hook to his left cheekbone. As he whirled in pain that seemed only a justifiable answer for the pain he’d just inflicted, with lightning flashes exploding behind his closed and tear-filled eyes, he felt the presence of other men around him, grunting and jostling. The men in this awful place had only been looking for an excuse to vent their familiar frustrations and daily rage in a fight, and he wondered at the fact that something as simple as a disagreement between two men could infect others with such bloodlust so quickly.

As he put out a hand to steady himself, someone else delivered a punch to his stomach. When he raised himself again after doubling from absorbing the blow, he opened his eyes. There was an angry white face in front of him, and Ray could sense rather than see another balled up fist headed his way. So he jabbed the man in his Adam’s apple and watched him double over. And then another man took his place before him with a beer bottle in his hand and now Ray ducked and knocked the man’s knees out from under him, causing him to fall forward with an ugly grunt. But Ray was drunk and tired and 41 years old and his knees crackled and his head throbbed and his stomach burned and he had never been in a brawl in his life. He didn’t think he could take another blow until one abruptly came, knuckles connecting with his ribs and knocking him sideways against one of the fake leather booths. All the air in his lungs came out of him in a whoosh, and he gasped for oxygen. Then he heard more shouts and scuffling, a kind of keening moan that could only belong to Rivas, squeals from the women, and the sound of wooden furniture being broken. Then there was the shrill sound of a whistle being blown, the harsh bright overhead lights came on, and then things seemed to calm down.

The whistle trilled again, loudly. “Get out, all of you, before the police come,” shouted one of the bartenders. “Get out.”

Feet clattered across the wooden planked flooring as both the innocent and the guilty headed for the exit in varying degrees of haste. Ray righted himself and ran a hand through his thick dark hair before moving with the crowd toward the stairs. It was a struggle to climb, as parts of his body throbbed with pain and creaked with middle age and his head swam with two whiskeys and two Rheingolds. His shirt was torn at the elbow, there was dirt on his knees, and when he dabbed at his face with his handkerchief it came away streaked with blood.

He ascended slowly and painfully to the street with some of the other patrons, who made a berth for him on the pavement as he limped by. The sun had sunk low in the sky, it was well after 5 p.m. and once again the streets were filled with busy commuters heading home after a day’s work. Ray leaned on the hood of a parked Ford for a few moments to gather his thoughts.

Yes it was true that violence only bred more violence. Yes it was true that anger, the righteous emotion he’d just allowed himself to indulge in, had only rebounded on him bringing him more pain. And further, the loss of Annalisa was still reverberating painfully through his life, through his mind and heart, as fresh and anguishably sharp as if the event had just occurred this very day. Ray plunged his scraped hand into the pocket of his gabardines to check for the locker key and bus schedules he’d collected from Port Authority that morning. He paused to pore over the brochure marked Atlantic City.

Yes, Rivas was right. He was a dimwitted fool. He had trusted the wrong people, he had chosen the wrong wife, he had relied on things never changing. No matter what transpired in his life, no matter how he had tried to wise up, somehow he always ended up in the dark. Now it was two years later and he was still tied to the dream that Annalisa represented to him. He needed to see her again, to find out what had happened, to find out, moreover, if she was well and happy. If she was indeed satisfied in life, then he would worry no more about her. After all, he had truly loved her, and her happiness was what mattered. Perhaps that was foolish, after all, she had committed a crime against him. Further, he was taking a chance on a two-year-old postcard, and that was foolish. But again, he admitted to being a fool. If nothing else, they could formalize their break with a legal divorce. That had to be something that she would want too.

“Alarcon! Alarcon! Forgive me! Please!” came the voice of Manuel Rivas from the entryway to the Dandy Drop In several feet away from where Ray stood. “Alarcon, help me, I’m bleeding. Help me. We can get a taxi to La Mercedes on 113th Street, La Mercedes…”

Ray saw his fellow merchant marine staggering onto the pavement, blood across his mouth and on his shirtfront, glasses clutched in one hand, his tie askew. Pedestrians shrank back from the man in dismay and horror.

With every ounce of strength left in his body, Ray turned and walked as rapidly as he could back down 48th Street towards the anonymity of Times Square, weaving his way with miserable speed through the throngs crowding the streets of New York City.

Chaka Khan, Wanna Love U, Wanna Love U, Chaka Khan...

Chaka Khan is back. Not that she ever left. Like many of the artists that I grew up on, she had her youthful heyday with a seminal band, Rufus, and hit another level of greatness as a mature woman and solo artist. But as time marched on and the music industry changed in the '90s, producers and songwriters seemed not to know what to do with her. And I'm sure that Chaka didn't know what to do with herself for long stretches, musically, when she gave a lot of concerts and seemed ready to turn into a bad parody of herself. Now she's on a creative roll, and it's all about her glorious instrument, her voice.

In late 2005 she released ClassiKhan, a collection of her favorite pop tunes recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra. That album has not been much discussed in the press, but it's a personal favorite of mine. Chaka poured her heart into reinterpretations of two Shirley Bassey hits, "Diamonds Are Forever" and "Goldfinger," as well as Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is" and the classic "I'm In The Mood For Love," among other tunes. That album shows off her instinctive jazz phrasings and considerable interpretive skills, as well as her sheer vocal power. It also gave a window into her personality, oddly enough, through the choice of songs and her delivery. That album made me fall in love with her all over again, though her talents have never been far from my heart.

In the meantime, since that set was released, Chaka had more personal drama. Her son was charged with the shooting death of a friend at her house. It was a heartbreaking situation, particularly as the shooting was an accident. A foolish accident, but an accident nonetheless, a fact to which she tearfully testified in court last year. Thankfully, her son was acquitted.

With that situation behind her, perhaps Chaka is happier, freer, renewed. On the recently released We All Love Ella, she sings a fun duet of "Mr. Paganini" with Natalie Cole, and then soars through a fantastic "Lullaby Of Birdland." Now she has a new album coming in September called Funk This. I don't know that the title really reflects the album's contents, but it doesn't matter. It's wonderful. Perhaps made more wonderful by the fact that she has teamed with Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, whose musical brilliance I have always admired. (I have to fess up that I did spend the better part of a year working for them, but we had little contact and I was already enamored of their work.)

They are geniuses at encapsulating the spirit of the artist they work with, at writing tunes that are like testimony straight from the artist's lips. Back in the '80s when Jam & Lewis and L.A. & Face were competing studio talents, I used to say that LA & Face's songs were like gorgeous, ready-made tract houses that they invited the artist to move into, while Jam & Lewis's songs were custom-built houses to each artist's specifications. In fact, maybe I learned my professional bio writing talents from Jam & Lewis in this way. I talk to the artist, learn their language, what makes them tick and what's important to them, then I design the document around that. But back to Jam & Lewis--they really can produce the hell out of a thing. For Chaka, they also had help from Big Jim, the Avila Brothers, and Jesse Johnson here and there. The recording sounds deep, layered, and yes, funky in a profoundly old school way. In fact, they have infused Funk This with the flavor, the timbre, the orchestration elements of some of Chaka's best Rufus and solo recordings--no easy feat.

Anyway, on Funk This Chaka proves that she truly can sing anything. She tackles rock, funk, pop, jazz, and of course R&B. She goes all Jimi Hendrix on "Castles Made Of Sand," she hollers her own backstory on the funky "Back In The Day" (which reminded me of how she sang Stevie's similarly remember-when tune "I Was Made To Love Him" on her 1979 debut Chaka), she gets old school bluesy on a version of Dee Dee Warwick's "Foolish Fool," and I have to say, I ADORE how she does it.

In a nod to Prince, whose cover of "I Feel For You" helped cement her solo stardom, she does a pounding, pointed version of "Sign O' The Times," tacking on the modulating "whoa whoa whoa" strains of her own "I'm Every Woman" toward the end. She reunites with Rufus guitarist Tony Maiden on the medley of their hits "Pack'd My Bags/You Got The Love" which is deeper the second time around. She charms on her own ballad composition "Angel," and soars on the uplifting "Super Life."

There are a couple of missteps, like a tune called "Disrespect," an ill-advised duet with Mary J. Blige that sounds like a screeching catfight at a NAMM percussion showcase(uh, NAMM stands for the National Assn. Of Music Merchandisers, which stages a giant annual trade show for musical equipment). And she drags out Michael McDonald for a reprise of "You Belong To Me." Michael already did fabulously with the tune, he doesn't need to do it again, and while she's trying to pay tribute to him (she's already said, "I needed some Doobie in my funk,") anybody who tries to duet with Yvette Marie Stevens is fighting an uphill battle. (Except the aforementioned Cole on the Ella track.)

Another minor complaint: Over the years Chaka seems to have developed a new quirk among what Patti Austin has termed "vocal affectations": Where other funk singers growl, yelp, or use "ow" or "uh!," Chaka now employs a rather nasty guttural bray that I guess she feels is digging deep for the funk. It can be a little ... off-putting. But no matter. She can still effortlessly lasso a high note out of the stratosphere like no other. I'd rather listen to a donkey-calling Chaka tune than a chart-topper from any one of these little pop tarts out here.

Really, I'm just splitting hairs. There is much that is wonderful, reaffirming, interesting, and soulful in Chaka's new disk. It's a great listen, and Chaka really challenges herself, just as she did on ClassiKhan, and it's great to hear. Funk This is one of those albums that restores my faith -- however briefly -- in the music industry. I never lost faith in Chaka.

Funk This is out on 9/25. www.chakakhan.com.

The Eyes Have It, Part II

[I had just been informed by doctors at the Jules Stein Eye Clinic that I needed emergency surgery immediately. ]

As Chic put it so eloquently in 1978: Freak Out!

It was now 7 at night. I had left my work half done at the office. I hadn't eaten. There was no one to come pick me up or get my car out of the hospital parking lot. My company had just switched medical insurance carriers and I didn't even have an ID card yet. I didn't know if it would cover something like this. I had been expecting the clinic to simply dole out a future appointment with a laser and a prescription for eye drops. But there was a possibility I could be BLIND, at least in one eye, where if a retinal detachment involves the central macula, eyesight in that eye is irretrievable.

I was shocked by what they were proposing. The operation involved knocking me out, extracting my eyeball, clamping it into a plastic belt called a scleral buckle that would keep my raggedy eye tissue together, then reinserting the eye over a gas bubble at the back of the socket that would further tamp down the retinal tissue. It sounded frightening and more than a little sick-making.

As the doctors kept trying to convince me-- taking turns running out to make all the surgical arrangements and sending me to their hospital intake office-- I alternated between being a rational adult and blubbering like a cranky toddler. I made a kazillion phone calls, mostly to my boss and to our insurance consultant on the East Coast, where it was way after business hours, and to many of my very busy, geographically dispersed friends in the hope they could fetch me post-surgery. I wept, I wailed, I ranted and railed. I was embarrassingly unhinged. I blame the freakout on fatigue, the unpleasant prospect of being a further burden on my overburdened friends, and the fact that I'd have to bail last minute on numerous projects I needed to make good on. Things weren't looking good.

Finally I reached a breaking point where good sense reasserted itself. I felt railroaded and needlessly frightened by the hospital staff. I suddenly turned off the waterworks, gathered up my stuff, and calmly informed the medical team that I was leaving. With four hours' worth of dilating drops still in my eyes, I stumbled down to the parking lot with one of the doctors literally trotting across the plaza after me, begging me not to go. "I'm not saying you could go blind overnight, but it's a possibility," he warned. "You shouldn't go."

I kept stepping. My rationale was this: I had gone weeks with the symptoms. Another day wasn't going to make a major difference. And I wasn't going to succumb to surgery with no way home, my car racking up charges in their parking lot, my work going begging, and a $10,000-plus surgery bill that I didn't know would be covered or not.

The next day I confirmed my insurance status, left my car at the job, and hied it over to the Jules Stein Eye Center. But in my hospital gown, cap and booties, with nurses pulling me onto a gurney, I was still phoning around desperately to find someone to pick me up and then drive me out to where I was staying. I left messages for several folks and finally connected with a guy friend who owns a 2-seater convertible just before they jabbed me with the anesthesia IV.

Silly me--I'd been thinking that the operation would be like a laser procedure--the eye would be the only thing affected. I hadn't banked on the impact of anesthesia and a major surgery (the hint was that I had to chuck all my clothes for a hospital gown, duh). When I woke up, I felt as though I had been hit by a truck. My left eye was bandaged (they'd do laser work on the right eye later), and I could barely hold my head up as they wheeled me in a chair out to recovery.

"Your friend is here to pick you up," chirped the nurse. "She's right outside."

"SHE?" I repeated.

I had been expecting my male buddy and his Miata. For some reason I'd told him I would meet him outside afterward. I was in no condition to get up and meet someone outside!

Thank God for my girlfriend L, who got my desperate messages, dropped everything, drove to the hospital and located me. I ended up phoning Miata Man, who was indeed at the curb, and sending him home. It was to the better. L, who had dealt with the needs of her ill mother for a long time, was well-versed in hospital routine. She also had an SUV, a smoother ride for a post-surgical patient. While my head lolled and I fought nausea, she drove us to a pharmacy, went in and paid for my prescriptions, then drove me to my friends' place. I could not have stood on my feet long enough to get the scrips myself. My teeth chattered and I shivered uncontrollably thanks to the anesthesia.

Thus began my slow recovery. Two weeks of continuously lying on my left side in one position so the gas bubble in my eye could sit in the proper position and do its work. I could barely eat, I developed kinks in my neck from the position, and I had a lot of time to think about my past and future. Through the next four weeks I went from seeping bandage to metal eye guard to sexy black eye patch, all the while unable to drive or read.

During that time I received many solicitous, concerned phone calls. Which was great. But also scary, because I heard from friends and relatives I had not heard from in years. Was my mother telling people I was dying? Did my friends fear I'd be stricken blind? Was I now eternally housebound and frail? Was I soon to be relegated to the cane-and-dog set? Or was this eye operation so much more serious than I still failed to recognize?

It was strange. I'd had other more serious surgeries in the last five years, but this eye thing really got people fascinated, horrified, and engaged. The idea of not being able to see, however briefly, or of having the eyes handled in any way just geeks people out. There's a squeamishness there. Perfectly rational people who asked me to explain my surgery would turn ashen, gag, and stop me the minute I got to the details of the scleral buckle procedure. I admit that when I first heard what the doctors planned for me, I was freaked, but now that I've been through it I'm unaffected.

Anyway, it's four months since the surgery. I had to go back to the clinic a few times for laser work to repair retinal tears in my right eye, and that was easy (if you call the feeling of stinging, burning ants attacking the inside of your eye easy) compared with the severity of the surgical episode.

I'm up on my feet. I can drive. I'm back to work. Miracle of miracles, I found an apartment and moved in. I'm not blind. My abysmal failure at moving cross-country seems a blip on the screen.

I'm grateful for everything in my life right now. Because I can see it all.

2007: The Eyes Have It, Part 1

If I told you all that happened to me since January, you wouldn't believe it. OK, maybe you would -- it was ME having trouble believing, since I still have problems adapting to any sort of glitches in the life program.

I had spent most of January in New York, riding the subway and working out of the main office. It was .... not horrible, but definitely less comfortable than my LA routine. So I returned to the West Coast. My life is just easier to manage on the West Coast, despite it being far from my kith and kin, offering a shallow wading pool for dating, and growing ever more expensive.

So there I was in February, still living with friends in Cali after four months with most of my belongings in storage, trying to adjust to the stunning revelation that no, I was not going to be moving in glory and triumph to the East Coast after announcing this intention to all and sundry. I was looking desperately for a new LA apartment to get out of my friends' hair and re-establish my life here. Seems landlords these days are much more greedy about what they charge for rents, and much more discriminating about who they rent to. They can be, because every piece of decent property in the county is being bought up for condos, and rental units are scarce. If you choose to rent anywhere near the city center you pay through the nose, and not before doing a major ass-kissing dance beforehand. Despite all my credentials, the fact that I paid Macy's late three times in 2004 became a black spot on my credit report that potential landlords used to screen me out. Applications were rejected, doors slammed in my face, one old bee-yotch gave me a lecture about my spending habits and I wanted to kick her in her 80-year-old racist shins. Freakin' unbelievable!

On top of that, I had taken on a staggering amount of freelance work in order to further finance my move East, and now had editors and others burning up my phone lines, inquiring as to when they would receive their due. Yours truly was scampering about, burning the midnight oil, going without food or sleep in an attempt to complete projects, all the while juggling the full-time gig and the apartment hunt. By March--with no apartment in sight and pressure from all sides-- I was both desperate and despondent, convinced my relationship with my current hosts was ruined forever and that I'd never be independent again. February segued into March. Much hand-wringing, hyperventilation, and weight loss ensued. In hindsight, it's easy to see how a major breakdown was already in the pipeline.

After a late-February trip to celebrate the anniversary of the only black-owned hotel and casino in Las Vegas (it's Fitzgerald's, by the way), I noticed problems with my eyes. I've always been horribly nearsighted, and ten years ago postponed the inevitable decline with lasik surgery. My vision was improved by the procedure, though not perfected. I still wear glasses, just not the Coke-bottle kind. And if I take them off, I can still find my way around without assistance. But I do experience the halos and bad night vision side effects that come with the operation.

In mid March, I was in Pasadena to cover an awards show. I spent a miserable day constantly polishing my glasses, complaining that they were dirty. It soon occurred to me that it wasn't my glasses--it was my EYES that were cloudy. As I mentioned, problems with my eyes have always been a constant. But now I was developing lightning flashes at night, dark shadows during the day, squiggly floaters obscuring my vision round the clock--amazingly, stuff I ignored. Then I woke up with hundreds of tiny black dots floating around in my left eye. While I was surprised, this development still didn't alarm me. I figured I needed some eyewash and some sleep. I didn't have time to deal with it--I had deadlines.

A friend convinced me this was serious. I consulted the Internet and learned that these symptoms signaled a dire condition that required me to seek medical assistance immediately. I bolted from my desk at the office just after lunch and headed to nearby UCLA, where they have a highly regarded eye clinic. I was seen by no less than four specialists, who damn near popped my eyeballs out of my head and blinded me with ridiculously bright halogen torches through a series of lengthy examinations. They announced that I had detached the retinas in both eyes-- the left eye being worse than the right. "You need surgery immediately -- TONIGHT," intoned the retinal specialist. "Not tonight, I'll come back," I said. "No, TONIGHT," they said.

I freaked out. Majorly.

More in Part 2...

Midlife Moving Madness

I wanted to make big changes. For six months, for a year, I've been talking about it. The the opportunity actually came to make the leap from one coast to another, and do it lightning quick. I wanted to close the book on one portion of my life and start a brand new book in a different locale. I had come from the East, after all, how hard would it be to return?

Waaaay harder than I ever anticipated, as it turns out. Too much time has gone by.

I had a good plan, to move back East, and it all seemed very noble and right and progressive. But I just can't make myself do it. I WANT to be there, I want to be with my sisters and my parents and spend warm and fuzzy time with my peeps and everybody, but I just spent six weeks on the East Coast, and every moment there just felt like a trial. I kept telling myself to get with it, get with the swim, try to enjoy, and I was compromising. Maybe it was about being in the cold, which I never could stand, but I think it was more about my being in the city itself. I no longer fit in there, I have lost my "Bronx skills" as a friend put it. I no longer have love for New York City, the love you have to have to survive happily in it, to be thrilled and attracted to it.

I used to have that feeling, that absolute heady romantic adoration for New York's gritty crumbly realness and crass commercial newness. Growing up there I swooned over its movie theaters, parks, and museums, I slavered over its China-Criollo restaurants and wine bars, the bodegas and Jewish delis, its funky music and dance clubs and upscale bistros, I thrilled to its old architecture, its history, its sprawl, and I strove with everyone else to be "in" with the in-crowd and the folks another friend calls "the N----rati." It was always expensive, but somehow in my youth and my excitement at being smack in the heart of the most exciting city in the world, I felt honored, even privileged to hand over big bucks for everything from cocktails to cab rides to club admission. The dearly departed (and currently in syndication) Sex & The City captured what was romantic and sweet about New York, the sheer fantasy of what kept me in love with it. But no longer. The things I used to enjoy about it seem ridiculous, overrated, and unfulfilling. That's age for ya.

Not bashing the old Apple. It has its charms. But I have become one of those West Coast hippy dippy slackers I used to joke about: Too used to palm trees, sunshine, valet parking, a certain glossiness and sheen. I love my backless mules, my yoga classes, my sushi hangouts, my Whole Foods and Trader Joes excursions, and even--God help me--The Grove, that monument to consumerism over in the Miracle Mile. They say Los Angeles has no culture, and that's not entirely true. It seems to lack a true center, but hey -- that's what the automobile is for.

Anyway, I haven't completely given up on moving closer to my peeps. I think perhaps now is not the time--I'm not quite ready. The prospect of making big changes is wonderful and filled with hope and possibility, but one must be prepared. I'm not. Not yet.