by

Bananafish

As I say in the Ragtag Daily Prompt yesterday, I go for a float on the New River near Floyd, Virginia, with my cousin Steve and his wife Dyane. Steve says, “Let’s go for a float on Saturday.” I am picturing myself in an inner tube with a beer, very very relaxed.

On the day of the float, Steve says, “Do you want to fish?”

“Sure”,” I say. He is a pro fishing guide and I was not trying to angle a guided fishing trip. Also, I have not fished for years and have only attempted a fly rod once. And I was informed that I was terrible at it.

On the way to the New River, with Steve driving like a banshee and the boat trailer howling behind us, Steve says, “You have to get a fishing license. Go on line.”

Why do I need a fishing license? I won’t catch anything. I don’t know what I am doing. I struggle with my phone as the truck whips down the two lane roads and I get a three day fishing license for the State of Virginia.

We go to the New River and unload the boat. “This is the second oldest river in the world. The oldest is the Nile. They both flow North.” I am wondering how you “age” a river, but we are unloading the boat and fly fishing gear. No beer, sigh. I can’t drink it anyhow unless it is gluten free.

Steve’s son ferries the truck and trailer to the take out, and we are off in the boat. It’s a beautiful little boat, with a fishing seat in the front and a seat in the back and Steve is in the middle, rowing just enough to keep us 30 feet from the bank. Exactly.

“You remember how to cast, right.” says Steve, handing me a fishing pole. A fly fishing pole. The fly is about three inches long, has deadly looking hooks, and bubbles when you reel it in. “It drives the fish insane, so they hit it,” says Steve.

“Well, um. I pull on the line, right, and there is something you flip to let it loose?”

“Didn’t grandpa teach you to cast?”

“No, never.” My father and paternal grandfather did not get along and we didn’t visit much. I thought that Grandpa just was not interested in teaching girls to fish, but my aunt says, no, he was afraid of my father. They never made up.

Steve gives me a minute of instruction and I start casting. I am in the back of the boat, thank goodness. I am more worried about catching myself or my cousins or the boat or a tree, and can’t imagine catching a fish. The lure is a Whopper Plopper which bubbles pleasantly as I reel it in. I am quite terrible but don’t hook myself. Steve and Dyane take turns rowing and they are really really good. Steve is using a cork bug, a handmade and painted “popper”. He lands it on the water as light as a bit of dandelion fluff.

I am instructed to pull if I get a hit. Much to my surprise I get a hit and I pull, mostly because it startles and scares me. That fish gets off. The second fish hits Dyane’s line and she reels it in. I want a picture of a fish. Steve holds up the little smallmouth bass. Might not want that photograph for advertising, cuz. Back into the water it goes. Dyane catches another. I catch a fairly good sized one and here is the picture. I am just as surprised as I look, surprised that I caught a fish.

Now Dyane rows for a while. Steve fishes off the front, waving his pole and dropping the fly one foot from the bank. He is telling Dyane, “Watch the current and the wind, you want to anticipate so the boat is neither too close nor too far from shore.” I had asked if there were any rapids. No, says Steve. I have my big camera, because we are not going to tip over.

Storm clouds are building up. There is some thunder. It isn’t raining yet.

No fish for a bit. We come to a small side stream. Steve is rowing. He says, “Hey, this is where someone caught a Muskie last time we were out. I’m just going to drop a line in.” I have stopped fishing for the moment because I am tired and getting clumsy and I want to snack and take photographs. Steve picks up the pole with the Whopper Plopper and drops the lure in to the mouth of the stream and WHAM, a fish hits immediately. It is BIG.

“Row into the stream where it’s cooler, Dyane!” yells Steve. I grab the net. “No,” says Steve, “That net is too small.” I put it down and plop back on my seat, Steve is fighting the fish and Dyane climbs into the rowing seat and moves us towards the stream.

The fish is calmer in the cold, I guess. Or tired. Steve climbs out of the boat, picks up the Muskie and gently takes the hooks out. It looks like an alligator without legs. The head is all mouth and teeth and the whole fish is a yard long. (There is more lightning and thunder and closer. I am thinking the F word.) Steve puts it back in the water as soon as I snap pictures. “Gotta make sure it’s ok,” says Steve, watching the legless alligator sit on the stream bed. It looks grumpy. There are two more in the water by the boat.

BLAM! LIGHTNING HITS THE FIELD BEHIND STEVE SIMULTANEOUS WITH THUNDER AND HE JUMPS. “OH!” he says, “I FELT that. I just got hit by lightning!”

“Are you ok?” then I look in the water. “Are the fish floating belly up?” No, they are not. Steve is not burned, just a shock traveling through the earth and the water. “CAN WE GO NOW?” I say, “ROW!” There is now a shit ton of lightning all around us with thunder at the same time and the rain starts. I’ve got my camera in plastic right away, but I am eyeing the metal in the boat. “Is that conductive?” I say, as Steve starts rowing with the current.

“Hell, yeah,” says Steve. I am trying not to touch any of the metal in the boat, holy crap, ROW, get me OUT of here. Shore is no safer and now it’s pouring. Warm, but the LIGHTNING.

Steve is still pretty amazed, “I was hit by lightning!” Dyane and I just mutter “row”. The lightning moves further away with the edge of the storm and now it’s just raining a soaker rain.

The rain starts to let up a little. “Anyone wanna fish again?” says Steve.

“NO! There might be lightning at the back edge of the storm. ROW, please.”

Steve gets a phone call about the guiding the next day. I reach forward and try to keep rowing with one oar (I am DONE with this float) and he gets off the phone reasonably soon and rows again.

We arrive at the take out, with the tail edge of the storm passing over us (the back?) and one of his partner guides is loading their boat back onto the trailer. “Hey!” says Steve, “I got hit by lightning!” He tells them about it and then gets the truck and trailer. We pull the gear out of the boat. BAM! There is another big lightning strike right across the river, but none of us are in the water. Phew. I get in the truck. I’m not cold but very wet. I do have a change of clothes and a towel. We had planned to swim, but the lightning dissuaded Dyane and me.

We drove the truck back to the house and both Dyane and I had a small glass of wine. A friend has been motorcycling around the country and he told me about five different people killed by lightening in a thunderstorm up around Chicago. He had gotten off the bike and gone for shelter. Good decision!

Next morning we are all up making coffee and discussing breakfast, when Steve looks at Dyane. “It was the BANANAS!” he says.

“What?” I say.

“BANANAS!” says Steve.

“Oh!” says Dyane. “I forgot1”

“What?” I say again.

Steve explains. “Bananas are bad luck on boats. It’s a really old superstition. Dyane packed two bananas and you ate one and she ate one. You can’t take bananas on fishing boats.” I look it up. Here: https://www.aquamarinepower.com/bananas-on-a-boat/ . It dates to the 1700s. No bananas on fishing boats.

And that is my bananafish story.

________________

The photograph is my cousin Steve as he casts right before the Muskie hits, with Dyane and with the storm clouds piling up down river.

Here is his fly fishing site: https://newriverflyfish.com/

A day late, but for the Ragtag Daily Prompt: fishing. You will see the Muskie on the RDP site from yesterday. But today’s post also fits today’s prompt: cloudy!

by

Autoimmune disease

Autoimmune Diseases Statistics in US 2026 | Key Facts

After Lou Carreras commented on my write up on autoimmune disease, I thought I would do more research. The article above https://theworlddata.com/autoimmune-diseases-statistics-in-us/ shows an enormous increase in autoimmune disorders in the last twenty years. Also, I can’t tell if they include fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, long covid and the encephalopathies. The first three can be ANA and ESR negative. To me that means that we have not found a good inflammatory marker for these disorders. It is certainly not that they do not exist.

The data is a bit overwhelming and horrifying. I know too many people with connective tissue disorders and those were very very rare when I was in medical school (1989-1993). Not nearly as rare now and all the people I know are young.

I stand by what I wrote and this reinforces it: as a culture and world we have to back off from the high sympathetic nervous system fight or flight.

And today, Formula One racers are driving around the mall and Washington, DC. So what do I think of that? Imbecilic, toxic, dangerous. Which egotist set that up?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: egotist:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/

by

Level up 

I just leveled up

Level pro

level pro in poetry
or in writing
or in emotional maturity
or maybe

or maybe connection to the Beloved
or my dead sister
or forgiveness

I don't know

all I know
is

I leveled up

______________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: egotist.

Written August 21, 2026.

Terry took the photograph. I had to dance very carefully so as not to trip Tom.

by

Rong again 


Oogenesis: When do eggs form in humans?
https://www.britannica.com/science/oogenesis

Spermatogenesis: When do sperm form in humans
https://www.verywellhealth.com/how-long-does-sperm-live-8735193


Rong again


The sperm form all through a man's life
and die after what, ten weeks?
if they do not fertilize the egg

The egg

now that is a different story
the egg contains nutrition
to tide the new being over
until the placenta is implanted

and it has
the mitochondria
"the power house of the cell"

the sperm 
have no mitochondria

the mitochondria 
are maternal only

when do the eggs form?

the eggs form 
in the fetal girl
eight to twenty weeks after fertilization
by the time she is born
she has all the eggs 
that she will have

some will mature
some will not
most will die

the most common abortions
are "spontaneous" abortions
performed by God

we grieve anyway

except when we don't
and when we are relieved

So when did I form?

not when the sperm 
met the egg
sometime in June 
1960

my mother
is born in May
1938

she is forming me
as she develops 
in my grandmother's womb

I am started sometime
in 1937

do not tell me
that life starts 
in humans
when the sperm meets the egg

because that is wrong
rong again

that is the male view
isn't it? 
years ago 
they think that the man
contributs the entire homunculus
to the womb of the woman
and she is
merely
the vessel

also rong

and if 
each baby girl
holds eggs
and lives
that are already started

you would think

that we would treat women better

it isn't penis envy that kills
women

rong again

I think that it is envy
of the women
and the mitochondria

maybe if we understand
the eggs
the mitochondria
that women carry 
from before birth

maybe

we will treat women 
and girls 
better

___________________

I can't credit the photographer because I am the little girl in the canoe. The photographer is family, no doubt, and dead. Except for their genes, and some of them live on.

by

Longing 

When I am little
I long to be old

I adore my grandmother
she is wise

when I come to her 
at four months

I am angry 
and turn my head from the spoon

my mother tells the story
I do not remember

my grandmother studies me
and says, "Yes,

you may feed yourself."
My mother laughs and tells

"You lived on cheerios
and chunks of banana

and would not let anyone
put anything in your mouth."

There might be a darkness there
that I don't want to think about.

And the finger thumb skill
does not appear

until nine months.
Before that it is a sweep of the hand

to pick things up.
Difficult with cheerios.

I held the bottle too. 
I am returned to my parents

at nine months
the grandmother gone

1000 miles away.
I do not like my mother

or my father
nor do I trust them

at first. But one must live
and I do

At two I play falldown
tackling my father

like the people on the television
and he falls down

and I laugh
It is only later that I realize

that only men play falldown.
I think to myself

nothing will stop me
if I want to do something

being a girl
will not stop me

if I want to play falldown
or anything anything else.

My grandmother gives me 
the gift of anger

the gift of independence
permission to refuse 

the spoon. Permission
to feed myself

and feel my feelings.
And I never ever stop.

I learn to hide some feelings
from my parents

because they cannot allow them.
Sorrow, fear and humiliation

three monsters that I must hide
or refuse to feel.

On a boat my father says
to my young daughter

"Don't be scared
or go below."

I say, "No.
What are you scared of?"

"I am scared that we are stuck
aground

we can't get to shore."
I say, "Look.

We are very close to shore. 
I can swim there.

We could wait for the tide
to come back in 

and float us free.
But we have two strong mothers

who are trying to winch
us off to float free."

My daughter is satisfied.
Soon another sailor sends a rowboat

taking the four children 
to play on shore

while my friend and I 
continue to use all our muscle

to winch the boat off 
the stubborn earth.

I think it is the tide
coming in 

that finally frees us
and we are too tired to sail

by then 
and return to the slip.

We have entertained 
every live aboard

and they tease us
mercilessly

and we do not care.
But my father's words

"Don't be scared
or go below."

resonate. I chose
to go below 

as a child
to hold my feelings sacred

and refuse to entirely 
stuff them.

As an adult
a friend says

"You feel things too strongly."
I clam up

immediately.
I feel things too strongly

for HER
but not for me.

My feelings are 
MINE and sacred.

My feelings are
prayers to the Beloved.

Your feelings are 
prayers to the Beloved.

My best work 
as a physician

is when I open the door
to someone's feelings

and they let them out
terrifying 

to them.
But not to me.

And when they are done
I say

"It seems to me
your feelings

are perfectly reasonable.
I would feel that way too."

Sometimes I ask
would they still want

the antidepressant?
A counselor?

A follow up visit?
They look surprised.

A weight lifted
for now.

"No.
I will see how I am doing.

I will call if I need 
to come in."

"That's fine."
I say.

Somehow I don't
think the AI

can really do this
as I do.

I may be wrong.

When I am very small
I want to be old

and wise 
as my grandmother

who saves my heart
and lets me feel.

Now I am middle aged.
I don't want to be old

and wise
for a while yet

but it isn't my choice now,
is it?

Bring it on
Beloved.

Bring it on.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: partner.

I think the Beloved is my partner in joy, in sorrow, in wicked humor. Thank you, Beloved.

by

Predicting medicine again: autoimmune disease

Once again here I go out on a limb. Here is my prediction for the next Really Big Thing in medicine, which is already happening. It is slowly rising from the murky swampy depths of our unconscious.

Here are clues: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/autoimmune-encephalitis

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/autoimmune-encephalitis/symptoms-causes/syc-20576380

Autoimmune encephalitis? Or encephalopathy? What a mouthful. And what the hell?

Well, we have always said that we do not know the causes of depression, mania, schizophrenia, psychosis and all the other psychiatric diagnoses.

And now I think we know, though we don’t have them all sorted yet.

The cause is the immune system. And what’s more, it’s adaptive.

“NO!” (you run screaming from the room). “Not MY immune system! NO!”

Yes, I say, your immune system, my immune system, everybody’s immune system.

WHY? Well, my version shuts me down. I get tachycardia (a fast heart rate), short of breath, accusations that I am manic, my fast twitch muscles don’t work and I get pneumonia. And it lasts longer each time. Two months. Two months. Six months. A year and a half on oxygen and then off but really it took four years before my muscles started working right again. It shuts down my fast twitch muscles but not my slow twitch muscles.

So how is shutting me down adaptive?

Think. If there is a pandemic, or huge danger, or someone is trying to harm me, it isolates me. People think I am very very weird when it is happening. So I isolate, to protect myself. Isolate and voila — protection from pandemic. If I have resources, and luckily I do have resources, I can hole up. Food, drink and a broadband connection.

The book Brain on Fire and movie are about an encephalopathy: antibodies to NMDR that made the author psychotic until it was recognized and treated. I went to a virtual continuing medical education on encephalopathy in 2022, I think. In the US alone, there were already 555 patients identified with NMDR antibodies.

Now there is a whole list of antibody encephalopathies, many associated with cancers. Not all.

Here: https://autoimmune-encephalitis.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/PNK-The-Known-types-and-categories-of-AE-as-of-2022.pdf

I like the addendum “as of 2022”.

and here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41572-025-00650-1

A physician friend calls me a few years ago. “Have you heard of NMDR antibody disorder?”

“Yes,” I say

“I have a patient with it,” she says. We are a county of 32,000 people. Rural. She is looking it up. I tell her what I know.

In January I see a patient who turns out to have Anti-Caspr2. I have to look it up. Now I see the list of encephalopathies that is rapidly becoming longer and longer.

I think that chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia and long Covid fall into immune system disorders too. Just because we haven’t figured out the mechanism: well, we may. If we don’t destroy the planet first.

I also have reservations about treatment. We are using more and more immune suppressants. I read about one that stops B cells from working. Specifically, the B cells that produce antibodies. Well, that would work for my disorder, except, I already get pneumonia really easily. And destroying the B cells lowers immunity and increases the risk of infection.

I see a patient in clinic who has a skin infection and a fever and an autoimmune disease. They are on an immunosurpressant that I don’t know much about. “Have you called your rheumatologist?”

“No, why?”

“I think you are supposed to stop the immunosupressant. Please call them today. And let me know what they say. Please!” I start antibiotics.

The patient sends a MyChart message. Yes, stop the immunosupressant while on antibiotics. In the future they will call the rheumatology office as well as seeing the clinic for any infection.

I am not saying we shouldn’t use immunosupressants. Sometimes we have to. Rheumatoid arthritis. Hypothyroidism, the most common autoimmune disease, yes, we should and do give outside thyroid hormone. But there is something else we need to do.

The clues for this lie with chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. What triggers them? One in ten severe infections, severe stress, or a combination.

So we need to learn as a culture, as a world, as humanity, to lower stress. We can’t be high sympathetic nervous system fight or flight high achieving high spending higher faster crazier all the time.

Here is to the parasympathetic state. That is where we need to go. Go down, slow down, be kind to each other and ourselves, be gentle, laugh, fail, lie in a hammock, watch silly cat videos and fat bear week. Then the immune system might calm down and not attack us to save us. I think the immune system is pretty smart, really. Even as it pisses me off and limits me.

Go down, slow down.

Blessings and peace you.

by

Unload 

I write Watching my sister die
a poem
14 years in the making

as usual
the poem goes off
in a direction I don't anticipate

I never know where my poems
will go

I just sit down
with something nagging at me

write me write me write me
NOW

and I've gotten up at 3 am
because the damn poem
won't let me sleep

that one was about
my future ex
a horse of course

Idaho Gigolo

my sister poem
takes me back
and deep 
until I cry

but the ending
is reconciliation
forgiveness
unexpected

that is why I cry

I don't expect reconciliation
from a damn poem
the poems do what they want
I never know 
what they will do

maybe they ARE alive

like a child
waiting for a fetus
waiting for the egg and sperm
to join

waiting to be born

wait

this poem is doing it too
damn it

but after the sister poem
I unload a huge burden
anger
and grief

and then to the facilities

and I unload there
too

so there

__________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: waddle.

Do you think the seal rock is poopy? Do seals and sea lions waddle or is there another word?

by

Watching my sister die 

I wrote this today thinking about my sister's write up "Watching my mother die" here: https://everything2.com/title/Watching+my+mother+die
Her write up is the fourth one down.

______________________________

Watching my sister die


I know before she does
but maybe not
maybe she knew
that last year

brave front
while soliciting money
on the internet
as the cancer progresses

she describes new treatments
I forget
how many rounds of chemo
she endured

eight years
from diagnosis 
to death

I stop visiting
for a year
after she bullies 30K more
from our father

and he calls me crying

I give myself permission
to change
to be a physician
more than a sister

because as a sister
my sister is 
cruel

she destroys my reputation
with my mother's family

or maybe they already
don't like me
because I think the family rules
are ludicrous and stupid

and I won't follow them

I suppose each generation
has someone who says
wait
these rules make no sense

why are we following these?

I think she will die
by February 2011
but there is another death
unexpected

the death of my hope
for a sister who loves me
for a sister who treats me well

for a sister who loves me

and I let that hope die
and I rise from the ashes
and I choose not to visit

and she uses this
tells people I won't visit
though I don't say I won't

people sent me checks

I sent them back
with thanks
saying

it is too soon 
to leave my nascent business

my sister
stays in touch 
this year

at last 
in February 2012
she calls me

my oncologist 
referred me to hospice
but I am not going

yes, I know
you are refusing to go

I don't saybut the cancer 
is progressing
and like it or not

you will go

my sister 
applies for a clinical trial
miles away

and at last
her enthralled circle 
refuses

they say
we are so tired
we cannot drive you there

daily

I fly down 
for a long weekend
and the hospice interview

I am excluded
but ask to step in
at the end

I ask the nurse
is this like where I live
that if there is a stroke

or a blood clot
or bleeding 
or whatever horror

hospice will keep 
her comfortable 

but will not treat it?

yes 

says the nurse

my sister stands
pushing away from the table
NO she says

I AM NOT READY

yes, I knew that

you are not going

I don't say
but you will go
willing or no

I fly down a second time
and as I leave
she cries

I am surprised

we have not talked
really

there are so many people
in and out
and I've been portrayed 
as a villian

there is still time

I fly down a third time

she is angry, angry
now in hospice
angry that she is dying

I start to sing a lullaby
and she says NO

I study her
I sing Samuel Hall

To the gallows I must go
I must go 
I must go

To the gallows I must go
with my friends all down below
saying Sam I told you so

damn their eyes
damn their eyes

saying Sam I told you so
damn their eyes

she smiles
a vicious secret smile

she is in renal failure
strange
says 

I have to take a trip

I say yes
you do

I don't know how

You will figure it out

How will I find you?

I am surprised again
the connection is still there
buried deep

You said I can take the dragon home
the one I made in college 
and gave you

You are born in the year of the dragon
you will have wings
find the dragon 

and you will find me

oh, good
she says 
relieved

she speaks of a bad pig

I say maybe it isn't bad
maybe it's done some bad things

she shakes her head

I say shall I take the 
bad pig away?

she still is not satisfied

I guess: do you want me
to keep the bad pig
from hurting anyone else

yes
she smiles
yes

again we are alone

I am Bad she says

You are not bad
I say
You have done some bad things

Very bad

She is crying

I say I love you anyway

and she blooms
like a rose
soft in a dark orange blanket
with matching lip gloss

forgiven
and reconciled

flying home
I name the dragon
Bad Pig

and gird myself
for death

three days later
she dies

and then the fallout
and the aftermath
begins

_____________________

I will attach this to the Ragtag Daily Prompt "escapade", though I think of escapades as fun.
The escapade is the photograph. She and I were dancing before my wedding, in 2007. 
I am the short one and clearly I was teasing her about something. 

Sorrow never dies, quite.

Neither does love.


by

Old woman 

In middle age
I acquire a new skill
along with invisibility
middle age women
are ignored 
by almost everyone

and I am gifted with power
to be invisible 
and to curse

I could already curse
aloud
but this is something more

a hand gesture
and a rhyme

fingle fangle
what a tangle
dingle dangle
it won't work

for all the Epstein players
and other men
who use 
mistreat
rape
abuse
imprison 
women

Viagra
has nothing
on me

and all the other
invisible 

middle aged

women

_____________________

The photograph is my grandmother, Katherine White Burling. I took this in 1979.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: cone. Just add an r in the word.
by

Old man 

Old man
yes, we hear you
every niggling detail
it used to be about X
but now it's about Y
yells
about X 
and he doesn't like
the internet
where it has gone
at
the moment
in his car
it used to be
food, shelter
and a broadband connection
but now that doesn't 
seem to satisfy
as the tortured veins
repurposed as arteries
moved from the leg
to the heart
slowly close back down

the internet
is not the place
of glory and kindness and free exchange
of ideas
old man asks
hates to ask
for money
and in spite of evil internet
has a wishlist on Amazon
where he directs those
who do not care to donate
through apple pay
he is no longer allowed on
Go Fund Me

soon there will just be

cloud

________________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: magnitude. 

The magnitude of trivia on the internet.