My Essays

Thank you, GOP, for all you are not doing in this administration. It is a real lesson to watch who you have put in charge of the government and how they work. There's so much to learn and I have been taking notes.

Revised February 6, 2025

I lived in Los Angeles for 21 years, starting in 1985 when I attended UCLA. After graduation, I lived in Studio City, Santa Monica, Venice, and Mar Vista. I worked in Studio City, Hollywood, and El Segundo. I went from a naïve 19 year-old to a naïve 39 year-old. I had a lot of fun and formed many friendships that I consider some of the most influential in my life. LA is an important city to me and it is heartbreaking to hear of it being destroyed.

I arrived at this hospital on November 15, 2022, so I have been here exactly two years and six weeks. Let's round that off to two years and review what I have learned and how I'm doing so far.

* This is an updated version of the original. *

It is too soon for me to fully understand Humphrey’s significance in my life, but I can see some major ways he has affected me. It was so wonderful to have someone completely devoted to me while I was moving islands and navigating the long-term care facility the first year or so. I could absolutely depend on his unwavering support through everything.

Right off the bat, let me clarify this is not an essay about saying things that are untrue. This is an essay talking about the particularities of how I lay in my bed. Oh, Ellen, come on!, you say. I know you like to be clever with your titles, but this is ridiculous— you're going to write an entire essay about how you lie in bed? What is there to say? You get in bed and lie down. End of story.

I have been thinking about my current living situation for a while now and it brings to mind the little I know about Buddhism and what it says about attachment. Life is a series of attachments and pain or anguish happens when those attachments are broken. That makes a lot of sense.

Now that I am older, I definitely see the advantage of having children. Since it has turned out that I am living my twilight years with significant disability, it would have been really handy to have a spare human around to help me manage daily living. Someone I could scream at, er, vent to, boss around, and have as a general companion.

I am of the opinion that denial is not necessarily a bad thing. It can give you the time you need to process whatever overwhelming piece of information you need to digest. Take when I was diagnosed with MS. It took me at least a year to wrap my head around what was happening. I have been thinking about another unfathomable topic lately and in avoiding thinking about it, I have come up with a succinct analogy. See what you think.

When I first started using a manual wheelchair in 2005, I was really not happy about it. I told myself this is just for now. I can't wait until I am walking again and I can tell the tale about I how I overcame this setback. I patiently waited for improvement. It never came, but the deterioration was so gradual I didn't notice. Meanwhile, I was also not ready to call myself disabled. I was 'temporarily not walking'. I could stand for a minute or two at a time if I was holding on to something. I could transfer from my bed to the wheelchair to the toilet or the shower bench. I could use my toaster oven or my hot plate safely. I could live independently just fine, thank you very much.

Expectations are a curious animal. You may think you know exactly what is going to happen. You may lull yourself into a false sense of security. You've done this same procedure dozens of times and it's always been the same until all of a sudden-boom! Something new happens and everything is thrown out of kilter. Or not. Maybe it does go exactly the way you think it will.