Fire Diamonds

The last time I was in San Diego, I went with my mom and my brother to the jewelry store next to our local soon-to-be-closed Circuit City. The jeweler, who seemed to already know my brother well, showed us several different styles of rings, describing various models as "classic" or "stylish" or "elegant". I thought they all looked the same, but I've never been one to care much about rings (except for the mythic and magical kinds, of course). When my brother had finally settled on a design, my mother pulled a small, grey pouch out of her handbag and handed it to the jeweler. He carefully emptied the contents into his hand. "These are excellent diamonds," he said. "They'll make for a beautiful engagement ring".

These diamonds were pretty much the only thing to survive the fire that destroyed my mother's house two years ago. A congregation from one of the local churches showed up and helped my parents sift through the rubble on the charred lot where the house used to stand. At the end of the day, the Christians left my parents with the diamonds, a slab of melted silver, and a brand new bible with golden-edged pages. For a few days, it was the only book they owned.

My brother's girlfriend—it still feels strange to say fiancée—had been there with us when we were dealing with all of that, too. She was also there with my brother and me when we decorated our parents' new house for Christmas while they were away on vacation. She came over with a bag full of knickknacks from the home decor store where her mother works, and later she brought us a holiday cake and a plate of cookies. I like her a lot.

It still weirds me out a little that my brother is now (as of this past weekend) engaged. I'm opposed to people getting married before thirty, if for no other reason than it's totally fucking creepy. I also find it weird, not to mention totally medieval, that my brother asked her father's permission before proposing marriage. It's not like he owns her. This is one of the many aspects of marriage that sours the whole institution for me. Maybe I'm just jealous that my brother has found love even though he's younger than I am. Or maybe it's because I know I'll never have a storybook romance, white wedding, or archaic ritual of my own.

There was a bowl of candy on the counter at the jewelry store. I asked the jeweler if chocolates came bundled with every gemstone purchase. He hurriedly assured me that they were free for the taking, and then he joked that I would probably be needing his services someday soon. "That depends on whether or not the good people of California decide to let me," I said. "Ah, politics," he replied nervously, before finding something with which to busy himself behind the counter.

My mom took us to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen afterward. "I know you probably won't ever need an engagement ring," she told me while we were waiting for our food. "So I hope you don't mind that your brother got the diamonds". I actually hadn't given it much thought, but when she mentioned this, I started to realize that I had been assigned a destiny somewhere outside the myth of our American family. "It's important that I be fair," my mother continued. "So just remember that I owe you something big—like a down payment on a house."

This sounded like a pretty sweet deal to me. After all, a house seems way more appealing than some shiny rocks that I would have to give away to someone else. Nonetheless, I can't help but be swayed by the romantic idea of these fire diamonds that now adorn my soon-to-be sister-in-law's finger. I don't mean romantic in the cheesy Valentine's Day way, but in the sense of the high Romance that constitutes the saga of our lives—the mythic quest from womb to tomb. My brother's journey seems resolute because he has familiar guideposts to help him on his way, but my path appears much less certain. I suppose my Romance is that of the Stranger who wanders in the dark, stumbling upon hidden treasures and writing his own unique story. My promethean soul wants to reaffirm that this is the better life, but I'm not without my doubts. I feel the temptation of a world in which the key moments have all been charted out in advance. But I know that this fantasy is deceptive, for no fire diamonds exist to guide me on my path.

I'm standing on the edge of a pool that stretches out into a dense fog. The water is thick and velvety, and I can't see the bottom. The air grows colder. The fog thickens. I dive into the darkness.

Under the Knife

I went back to San Diego last weekend. I had a dentist appointment, and it worked out that I could see my brother right before his birthday and also hopefully get some filming done for the documentary project I have(n't) been working on.

Incidentally, I was also there a few days after my mom underwent a sudden and unexpected knee surgery. This is the third or fourth time she's had it worked on, and she actually seems pretty chipper about it for once. She swears that it's kept her from having knee replacement surgery, and she's looking forward to getting back on her feet so she can swim and play golf again.

I saw her a few days after her surgery, but she was already barely even using her crutches. Half the time she put them down and made a big show out of how she could walk without a visible limp. She's eager to show this off, as her surgeon has told her it's a sign that she's recovering well. She puts a lot of faith in this doctor, and she proudly tells people about how he's the top rated surgeon in all of San Diego.

She told me the same thing when I was in high school and was having mysterious shoulder problems, and I took her advice and let him operate on me. The surgery didn't do much about my pain, except that most of it was now concentrated more severely in my back and neck instead of just in my shoulder. The surgeon said he had cleaned out some scar tissue, but even then I knew this was general medical bullshit meaning that he hadn't been able to find anything wrong with me. I was left with three bulbous, itchy scars that didn't fade or diminish with time, and my back and shoulder pain just became worse and worse. I was in a sling all fall and couldn't even get in the pool to play water polo, and I tried my best to swim in the spring, but I had to quit halfway through the season.

I saw a bunch of different specialists, but none of them were able to help me get over my pain, so I eventually gave up. It still hurts a lot, and I feel it almost every day, but I've learned to ignore it the best I can. My bad experience has left me fairly mistrustful of the medical industry, seeing as it sucked thousands of dollars out me and my parents while I got worse and worse. It's just the opposite for my mom, though. Every time she finds a new doctor or top rated specialist, she seems so aglow with the promise of doing new things with her life. I don't know if she's a little nuts for being so optimistic about these expensive cures, or if I'm the crazy one for giving the health care industry the cold (and wounded) shoulder.

Sometimes I think about giving it another shot. I'm often tempted to imagine life without the constant stiffness and pain, but I'm more than a little afraid I'll just get jerked around again. I'm not sure what's worse: suffering in silence or wasting my time and money to end up feeling used and humiliated.

The last time I saw my mom before I left, she already had the bandages off her knee. She was powering along on the stationary bike in her exercise room. She says the bike is safe because it doesn't force the knee to bear any weight, though she admitted that her surgeon has chastised her for trying to do too much too soon. She asked me about my plans to find a new job, and she advised me to try to find a consulting job. She forwarded me a list of the top rated firms in the industry, and she told me I should work for one of them. They're the best, she said. I smiled and shrugged, not knowing what else to say.

Maria

I crawled out of bed this morning to find my father's golden retriever lying next to a puddle of his own vomit. It was mostly brown goo, but there were a few chunks in there as well. At first I yelled at the dog, but I think this just confused him. It's not like I was going to be able to shame him into not throwing up all over the floor in the future. The thing already has enough trouble with "sit" and "stay"- I'm doubtful that it could learn "don't vom", or even, "stop rolling around in that," or "don't eat your own puke". I took him outside, hoping he might realize that it would be a far better place for him to wretch up anything left in his stomach, but he just sat there and stared at me.

Back inside, I grabbed a wad of paper towels and started mopping up the mess on the floor while the dog raced to eat as much vom as possible before I had wiped it all away. Afterwards, I splashed some Pinesol on the floor, and I was immediately hit by that pungent smell that always filled our house after Maria made her bi-weekly visits. It was a little surprising for me to realize that I had never before identified what produced the "Maria smell" that indicated that the house was at least temporarily sanitized for the 24 hours that the smell lingered above the tile floors.

Maria was a strange figure during my childhood. I rarely ever saw her, but her presence was noticeable in so many ways that she became an almost supernatural figure, like the wind or the sun or a bolt of lightning that cleaned the house every week (she had come more frequently when my mother still lived with my father). Maria was the reason why a toy or a magazine would suddenly go missing, only to appear in a completely foreign drawer or cabinet. She was the reason why the water in the toilet became blue and bubbly and lightly fragrant. She was the reason why I had to pick up all my toys once each week and the reason why the stuffed animals on top of my bunkbed needed to be rearranged so that they could return to their proper positions. She made my sheets change colors, produced arcing patterns in all the carpets, and left that sickly sweet Maria smell to let me know she had visited.

Once when I was very young, my mother told me that Maria had promised to give back all the money that she made cleaning houses after she became a millionaire. I can't remember if my mother also told me how Maria was planning to make it big, but I often think of this story and it always makes me a little sad. I think it's one of the reasons I try to avoid Maria whenever she's cleaning my father's house. A few years ago, she approached me while I was eating breakfast in my father's kitchen and asked me to say hello to my mother for her. I eventually passed along the message, but my mom just rolled her eyes and said that Maria must have been looking for work. At first I was angry at my mother for being so callous, but I've come to realize that she was probably right. And now it's become another reason why I get a little sad whenever I smell Pinesol.