I'm So Haaaaaaappyyyyyyy!

Well!

Marcel left this morning, and we had a fantastic time. I now know why a style of kissing was named after the French.

I mean - GOD. He is a fantastic kisser. Everything was as wonderful as I hoped it would be.

We had a lovely Friday night together when he finally arrived (complete with a hysterical comment in the elevator at Tampa International Airport that Marcel made to a little old man who asked if we were "going down").

Saturday - We went to Barnes & Noble for coffee, pastries, and a guidebook to Europe (for next summer), as well as a cribbage board. I showed Marcel my office and then we ate lunch at Boston Market. Then we did some grocery shopping, went home, fooled around, learned how to play cribbage (I lost 3-2), and then closed out the evening with pizza, merlot, and The Colbert Report.

Sunday - Marcel made me pancakes for breakfast, then we laid together on the couch and watched Meet the Press, some other show with Bob Schieffer, and Wolf Blitzer's show on CNN. Then headed out to the Pinellas Trail so Marcel could run 10 miles (he's participating in the Big Sur Marathon this Sunday). The park I had picked as the starting point was packed - there were no parking spaces because they were all filled by people using the boat slip - and it was then that we decided that HE should be in charge of planning next month's trip to Taos - I just need to show up.

We went down to Wall Springs Park so Marcel could start running from there, while I took photos (which I will post soon). Went to Jason's Deli to pick up lunch (asian wraps), came home, messed around, and then Marcel cooked dinner for me (mozzarella-stuffed chicken with pasta and garlic bread), we drank the second bottle of merlot, he fed me Phish Food ice cream right out of the carton, and then played drunk cribbage (I went up 2-0 before Marcel got serious and came back to tie things up ... and then he obliterated me in winning the deciding game).

Yes, we spent quality time playing cribbage. And maybe I'm really strange, but ... I loved it.

Monday - I wanted to take Marcel to this place called Lenny's for breakfast because I had heard it was very good - I heard wrong. It was merely average, plus it was goddamn hot in the restaurant. After that we went back home, hung out a bit, did some stuff that I can't specifically relate and/or cannot recall, then went to Macaroni Grill around 4 for a late lunch/early dinner. While there I knocked off an item on my 101 List by trying espresso. Which was icky.

After that we went to a wine store nearby and picked up a bottle of white wine to have that night, then we drove down to Indian Rocks Beach to watch the sunset. It wasn't the greatest of sunsets, but fortunately that wasn't the point. On the way down to the beach I took Alternate 19 along the water so Marcel could see really expensive houses, the world spiritual headquarters for Scientology, and where I received six months of chemo. Oh, and the houses of both Hulk Hogan and my mother.

We got home around 9, watched last week's episode of 24 - Marcel was immediately hooked, so then we watched the episode that the Tivo was busy recording. Drank the white wine, which was fantastic. I was feeling clingy because Marcel was leaving the next morning, so we just laid around talking and kissing and stuff until it was time to go to sleep.

Today - Out of my place by 9:15, stopped at Starbucks for coffee and breakfast, then went to the airport. We were pretty early so we spent about an hour sitting away from the crowds in a deserted section of the terminal, talking and kissing and stuff until it was time for him to go out to the airside.

I didn't cry when I had to say goodbye, though. Normally I do. I think I didn't because I know I'll be seeing him again in just a month, and then we already have plans to see each other in June and July (he's visiting me for a week both times), August (he'll be coming to FL for a friend's retirement ceremony) and September (hopefully going to see his family in RI around his birthday).

Marcel made good on his promise of merlot, but he did NOT follow through on his massage promise. So now he owes me two. Plus, we forgot to make our mutual 101 in 1001 List, so we'll do that next month.

Oh, and my cats loved him. Especially Caygeon.

Then and Now

Just a bit of consumer reporting off the top here. I am addicted to these new(ish) Snickers Marathon Energy bars:

These things are so freaking good. They don't really taste like Snickers, though. But they're chocolately and caramely and gooey and chewy and they've got lots of vitamins and minerals (fortified for women, they are), and they actually curb my hunger for a few hours. Walgreens just had them on sale for $1 so I bought a few. If by "few" I mean "15."

The Double Chocolate Nut flavor is the bestest. Honey Nut is merely OK, but still passable.

Also, this is the best sunless tanner I've ever used:

Hawaiian Tropic Island Glow. It's in that class of sunless tanners that are positioned as moisturizers with almost a hint of sunless tanning in them. Everyone's heard of that Jergens Natural Glow stuff, which I tried last year. It worked OK, but I only used it twice because, quite honestly, it smelled like hairballs. And I am intimately acquainted with hairballs, so I know of what I speak.

But this Hawaiian Tropic stuff smells, no kidding, like green tea. It smells REALLY good - I'd buy it just for the scent. It's clean smelling, but not overwhelming. I think even if you didn't really love green tea scents you'd still be OK with this. The point is that it doesn't smell like hot shiny chemical death, which is rare in sunless tanners.

It also works very well. I just applied it for the first time last night, and I could see a difference this morning (I used the shade for medium skin tones).

But now the main point of this post. I had planned on posting an ode to exercise today anyway, but right now I'm having a massive cramp/spasm in my right shoulder, just below the neck, which reminded me I wanted to do this.

I joined the Palm Harbor YMCA at the end of October last year. So it's been five solid months. When I first started my goal was to just go three times a week, and do 30 minutes of cardio. I really hate treadmills (zzzzzz), so I chose to focus on the elliptical machines because I had read they were the most effective. Fairly soon I decided I liked the Arc Trainer best, so I've stuck with that.

Even though it's only been five months, my whole attitude about it has changed. As have the kinds of workouts I'm doing. To wit:

What really got me thinking about this is the whole sweating thing. I used to hate cardio and avoid it like the plague because I really, REALLY hated sweating. I could never understand how people could ENJOY sweating, or actively, willingly pursue activities that would make them sweat. Well, other than sex.

But now, every time I finish a workout you can tell by looking at me that I've WORKED. I don't see the point, otherwise. When I'm done the back of my hair is all wet, my arms are glistening, and I've got the beginnings of sweat marks on my t-shirt (I don't get drenched or anything - I'm not a guy). I see some women in the gym who barely look winded during their workouts; they finish and every hair is still in place.

That used to be me, which is funny, because at this point - mentally - I'd never be able to do that. If I'm going to get up at the asscrack of dawn and get dressed and strap on my heart monitor and brush my teeth and grab my water bottle and leave my apartment and drive five miles and climb onto a machine and kick my own ass for 45 minutes ... I'd damn well better see some tangible evidence of all the energy I'm putting into it.

And thus, I love to sweat. I have become all the things I used to be suspicious of.

Pre-Occupation

Heh. I've been so distracted that I haven't posted here in over a week. I blame ... clowns.

But it's definitely been a pleasure.

Things I Want To Like, But Don't

I'm thinking this might be an ongoing list, but anyway...

This topic popped into my head the other day when I was talking to Roo. She mentioned avocado, as she is wont to do, and a little voice inside my head said Don't look back, you can never look back.

Actually, it said, "I wish I liked avocado. But I don't."

So then I started thinking about other things that I really, truly want to like, and feel that I should like, but for whatever reason I just don't. They are:

1. Avocado (first and last and always)
2. Newborn babies
3. Pumpkin pie
4. Going to the theater (not movies, but plays)
5. Beer
6. Camping
7. Sex and the City
8. Coffee
9. Painting my fingernails
10. Big fun parties

Condomania

That's CONDO-MANIA, not the other thing.

Here are some photos I took last Wednesday when I took possession of the new condo (i.e., when it was still empty and not filled with mountains of boxes). I'll have photos of what it looks like with everything in place and unpacked in about ... three weeks.

The big moving story will come tomorrow.

(Click the photos for bigger versions.)

You're a Living Doll

Some of the girls over on Looking Good were whipping up dolls of themselves, so I did one of meeeeeee:

Yes, I look exactly like that.

Movin' On Up

To a deeeeeeeeluxe apartment (well condo), but not in the sky (it's on the first floor).

(If you want, you can skip the back story and go right to the part about my fancy new home.)

SO, did I ever talk about my housing woes? In August my apartment complex was bought by a developer who is turning it into condos - gutting all of the units and fully remodeling them with swanky new stuff like stainless steel appliances and granite countertops.

By law, current residents have to be given the first chance of buying their own units. So two weeks after we got the notice about the condo conversion, we tenants received packages that detailed what the "as-is" price for our apartments would be.

I have the "deluxe" one bedroom/one bath (800 square feet) with a water view, on the first floor. It's a nice place, don't get me wrong. The only thing I don't like about it is that the screened patio constantly floods when there is heavy rainfall (i.e. every day during the summer) and I end up with mud and dirt left behind, which is a pain to clean up.

Other than that, I love where I live. So I opened the package fully intending on buying my unit.

Until I saw the price - they wanted $130,000 for it. It in no way, shape or form is worth that much to me. It might be to someone else, but not to me. And that was the as-is price; to get the upgrades (the aforementioned swanky stuff, plus a new a/c, water heater and carpeting), you had to add another $20,000.

Uh, no.

So I knew I'd have to move eventually. A few weeks ago I started informally looking at condos for rent in the area, just to see what was out there. I looked at one over near the East Lake YMCA (very convenient), and it was OK, but not exactly what I wanted (it was older and looked out over a parking lot).

Well on Friday I came home to a notice on my door from the apartment management company saying that they could not find my written request for a lease extention in my file, which I know I handed to them at that tenants' meeting back in August. But they could no longer find it, and my "unit has already been sold and we have a renovation of it scheduled for this month."

So why did you idiots cash my January rent check, HMM???

Anyway, the letter said that since I paid for January, I could stay until January 31, and then my ass had to be out. OK, it was a little more eloquent than that, but not by much. So I decided that I should probably call my realtor the next morning to see if that condo I had looked at was still available. It wasn't perfect, but it would do in a pinch (and I was being pinched).

I get the realtor on the phone at 10 the next morning and ask about the condo, which is when she tells me that five minutes before I called she rented it to someone else. JUST GREAT. But she had another condo I might be interested in that she wanted me to consider. It was $850/month, 2BR/2BA, 1000 square feet, first floor courtyard view unit in a gated community. Sounds good. I was familiar with the community - Fountains at Countryside - because it is the first condo conversion done by the developer who bought my current apartment. We were given the link to the Fountains' website so we could see what the upgrades would look like.

Even though the rent was more than I had budgeted for (I was planning on a maximum of $800), it includes water and trash. Those two items run me $45/month now, so really, it was a wash. I could afford this place if I wanted it. I reminded the realtor that I have a cat, and she said that she'd call the owner of the condo (he lives in New York) to see if a cat was OK.

She called me back 10 minutes later to say that the owner was OK with the cat ... but now the rent was $875. FINE. I HATE when people try to take advantage of you just because you have a pet.

So I was kind of miffed about that, but really, $875 isn't a bad price for a condo that size, with those amenities, in that location.

It was even less of an issue once I saw it. I love the floorplan; the master bedroom and bath are ensuite, which is very nice. The second bedroom is small, but I'll probably just end up using it as an office. It's a very neutral color scheme, so nothing I currently own will clash. It's bigger than I really need, but I think I'm going to grow to really love the extra space.

But dudes - check out the kitchen:

Stainless freakin' steel appliances. All of them. And the stove is the kind with the burners under glass. The countertop? It is GRANITE. The patio is screened and looks out over a very nicely landscaped courtyard. It's five miles from work, but I'll be driving against the traffic flow, so I should be able to get here in less than 10 minutes. Which means going home at lunch is eminently do-able.

The only real negative is that the washer/dryer is a stackable unit (there's no room for a side-by-side) and it is TEENY. The capacity is so small that I don't think I'll be able to even get a queen-size blanket into it. So it will be like college all over again, with me showing up at my mom's house carrying a basket full of laundry (and a smile).

I am very, very happy to have this settled. And I am very much looking forward to the day (probably tomorrow) when I go to my apartment's management office and tell them that I'll be out on February 4, not February 1, and I DARE them to try and do something about it.

Oh, and I should be able to keep my current phone number. Woo hoo!

OKStupid! Politics Test

I stole this from Teeeeeeeeeeem's site:

You are a Social Liberal (75% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (38% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

What you don't see up there is the "Famous People" graphic you can view after taking the test. On that graphic, I am squarely between Robert Redford and Bono.

I do wonder what your answers would have to be to score as either a FASCIST or an ANARCHIST.

Nine Years!

Wow, I can't believe I forgot about what Monday was. I can't decide if that's good or bad.

Anyway, on October 24 I marked nine years in remission from Hodgkin's disease! Not too bad, considering the way it might have gone. I'll have to do one of my "anniversary" posts in the next few days, when I've had some time to think about it.

TIFYL

So who else is reading the Rabbit Blog? Raise your hands. I think only RandomBen has something raised at this point, which is just really unfortunate. Because the rest of you are missing out.

It's linked over there on the right under Fun Stuff, so go there now.

Or more specifically, go to the entry called Women Who Don't Love Too Much, because it pretty much sums up how I feel about men.

Insight into my psyche! I know you're trembling in fear.

But let's backtrack for a second. The Rabbit Blog is written by Heather Havrilesky, who also happens to be the television critic for Salon. Her column is called "I Like To Watch" and it is the only consistently funny column I've ever read. I love her. Heather digs America's Next Top Model in an ironic way, which only serves to increase my ardor.

So, back on track. On the Rabbit Blog, Heather will answer questions from readers. It's an advice column written by someone who has a passion for the word "fuck" and all its derivatives. You have been warned.

I was talking to Ben last night and he mentioned a post on the Rabbit Blog, and since I hadn't read it in a few weeks I immediately checked it out. And lo and behold, it was a post that neatly summed up how I approach romantic relationships – an embrace of a concept called The Inner Fuck You Leave (TIFYL).

From the initial reader letter:

I don't even know how many times I've tried to explain this to men, whether they're men I'm involved with or just male friends. The majority of them just don't get it, but it goes a little like this:

You're in my life because I want you in my life. Not because I need you in my life.

Because I don't. Need you, that is. If you leave, I know I'll eventually be OK. No matter how much your leaving hurts in the short term, the time will come when I am Just Fine.

That's not to minimize the impact that these relationships have had on my life; the impact has been lasting, in most cases. And I often miss these people, so it's not like I'm implying that I will never think about them or that I'll forget them entirely when I return to being Just Fine.

It's just that, when you involve people in your life from a position of strength through choice (want) rather than from a position of weakness due to a lack of other alternatives (need), it's a lot easier to see that there is always going to be someone else. There isn't one person who can enrich your life; there are many.

Sure, it's tricky to find them sometimes. I've found that they often like to hide. But it's remarkably freeing and liberating to know - to really and truly know - that no matter what happens in a relationship, I will eventually be OK.

From Heather:

This is what I mean. If one man doesn't "get" me, that's fine because I know someone else will. I'm confident of that, so I really don't ever feel like I need to pretend to be someone I'm not.

Sure, this drives away all the men who are intimidated by a smart chick. I'm smart, and I can speak intelligently about my opinions, I think about things totally unrelated to myself and would expect the same from any guy I'm with. If those qualities make some random guy not want to know me, that's actually good because I don't want to waste time on someone who isn't going to love me - the Real Me, as I truly am, without any sort of hiding - anyway.

Because even though I think I have a lot of really attractive qualities – smart, witty, straightforward, honest, generous, more than a little wicked – there are quite a few less-than-desirable qualities that balance things out. I can become moody in an instant, over some random thing, and there are certain topics that I probably take too seriously (not telling).

You gotta love the whole package, though, or at least be willing to accept the bad with the good. I think a lot of people try to hide the negative things in an effort to hook someone using their shiny, happy qualities. But you know that never works for long. So I just try to be authentic right from the start - ultimately it saves a lot of time and heartache.

From Heather:

I need to print this out and carry it in my wallet. That Heather, reading my mind! I couldn't agree more with that whole statement, especially the last two sentences.

And one last one from Heather:

Abso-fricken-loutely. I want love and I know I'll find it. In fact, I'm going to enjoy the process of finding it and while I'm doing that I'm firmly committed to loving my life, and the people in it, and to being the very best me I can be.

Or hell, maybe I'll be even better.

The Inquisition

[This has been shamelessly stolen from Lissie's journal.]

PICK ONE OF YOUR SCARS OUT, NOW HOW DID YOU GET IT?
I have a slight horizontal scar across my forehead, which I got when I was literally clotheslined by a rusty metal wire while running after my brother and being chased by a screaming old lady who was angry that we had cut through her back yard. The wire clipped me midline on my forehead and I was thrown back like a slingshot, falling flat on my ass. Then I finished running home and told my mom. I still have a teeny tiny piece of metal in the scar (it looks like a very small mole).

WHAT IS ON THE WALLS IN YOUR ROOM?
The living room has a Dali print (Metamorphosis Of Narcissus), a framed triptych of archways in Italy, and a a signed, framed b/w print of a photo of a highway taken by Noah Grey, that Rappy gave me for Christmas a few years ago.

WOULD YOU RATHER PLAY FOOTBALL OR WATCH IT?
Watch

WHAT SPORT WOULD YOU SAY YOU ARE BEST AT?
Australian Rules Smirking

WHAT IS/WAS YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE?
Anything involving alligators being in close proximity to my person. Kind of like this.

HAVE YOU EVER WRITTEN POETRY?
Yes, mostly in high school for the literary magazine, but also in my early 20s. The two poems in that entry are probably two of the best things I've ever written, and one of the poems has, IMO, the best line I've ever put on paper.

DO YOU REMEMBER BIRTHDAYS?
Of family and close friends, yes.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME YOU WERE BORN?
11:56 a.m.

DO YOU HAVE A BIRTHMARK, WHERE?
No birthmark, but lots of small moles. Also lots of scars at this point.

WHAT IS THE WEIRDEST THING YOU HAVE EVER DONE?
I'm not sure I can pick just one thing. In middle school my friend Jenna and I used to have shaving cream and ketchup fights. That was kind of strange. Linda, Kathy and I also used to walk around the neighborhood with a boombox loudly singing Adam and the Ants songs. The COOLEST weird thing I ever did was when I went to Michigan, I was exploring a neighborhood and decided to climb up this steep embankment to see what was on the other side. This was on the other side, and it took my breath away.

WHAT WERE YOU DOING BEFORE YOU STARTED FILLING THIS IN?
"Working"

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE GUM?
Orbit Cinnamint, always

FAVOURITE CHOCOLATE?
I'm not hugely into chocolate, but I do like those Lindor truffles that Rappy brought me when she visited.

FAVOURITE CANDY (NON CHOCOLATE)?
Pixi-Stix

DO YOU OWN ANYTHING LEATHER?
A couple of handbags, I think.

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING RIGHT NOW?
That I really hope my lower back hurts less before I fly cross-country on Saturday morning.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DISNEY MOVIE OF ALL TIME?
Finding Nemo. Oh wait, that's Pixar. Then I'll go with Robin Hood. I loved the family of rabbits.

DO YOU OR HAVE YOU EVER SLEPT WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
I'm a girl, so of course I did.

WHO WAS YOUR FIRST CRUSH WHEN YOU WERE LITTLE?
Christopher Robin Taylor. I was 12 and he was one of my older brother's friends. I sobbed when he moved back to Chicago.

WHAT KIND OF HAIR DO YOU LIKE ON THE OPPOSITE SEX?
I'm not picky. It just can't be prettier than mine.

WHO OUT OF YOUR FRIENDS (SAME SEX) HAVE YOU KNOWN THE LONGEST?
Trina

NOW THE OPPOSITE?
Glen

WHAT IS THEIR BIRTHDAY AND MIDDLE NAME?
Trina Lynn was born March 16 (she'll always be THREE DAYS OLDER than me, ha ha!)
Glen Alexander was born March 12 (a full WEEK older than me ... forever!)

DO YOU SPEAK A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE?
Yes, but it's a dead language

WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE SINGER?
I can't answer questions like this. Pondering them makes my head explode.

WHAT KIND OF BOOKS DO YOU LIKE TO READ?
Comedy, some sci-fi, anything that is about a subject I don't know much about, but am interested in.

HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR COFFEE?
Coffee makes my heart skip, so I don't drink it.

DRAGONS OR DINOSAURS?
DragonSLAYER, baby!

WOULD YOU FALL IN LOVE KNOWING THAT THE PERSON IS LEAVING?
Leaving town? Leaving the country? Leaving for Mars? More specificity is needed, but I'll go with "I'd try not to, fall anyway, but get over it relatively quickly."

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO TELL SOMEONE HOW MUCH THEY MEAN TO YOU?
Just take a deep breath and say the words. You might not get another chance.

WHAT IS THE ONE NUMBER YOU CALL MOST OFTEN?
My mom's.

WHAT ANNOYS YOU MOST?
Willfull ignorance. And people who can't drive for shite.

My Life Is Again My Own

Tonight is the season finale of Big Brother 6, which means that tomorrow I will again be living my own life. I love HT, but it takes up a lot of my time during the summer. Thus my embarrassing lack of updates over here.

So I'll hopefully be back to making daily entries here soon. I've got my roadtrip to AZ coming up in less than two weeks (woo hoo!) so I'll be yammering endlessly about that I'm sure.

And there are changes afoot in my personal life as well.

I'm getting married!!!

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OK, not really. There's something, though. But I'll tell more about it when I get back from my road trip.

Oh, one last thing, since there seems to be some confusion on this point:

I am not Wentworth Miller. I do not know Wentworth Miller (sadly), and I have never met Wentworth Miller in person. I simply posted a little love note to him in my Celebrity Crush section; the hook in those posts is that I write from the celeb's viewpoint (e.g. in the first person).

Again, I am not Wentworth Miller. I do think he's just swell, though. And Prison Break is an excellent new show (except for Robin Tunney - ugh).

Finding Out True Love Is Blind

This weekend I was hanging out with my friend G., who is going through a divorce. We were jokingly trolling Match.com and Yahoo Personals, trying to find proper potential love interests for each other. I say "jokingly" because I'm pretty sure I'd never trust G. to pick someone suitable for me, and besides that, trolling for men online is an activity best done in solitude.

(Although the 6'5" bald guy who speaks Urdu was kind of interesting. I saved his profile for later, just in case.)

Before anyone wonders why G. and I just don't focus our sights on each other, let me just say that it's a case of "been there, done that." Plus, he's got Le Baggage.

G. has two kids, ages 10 and 8 (no, they're not the baggage I was referring to), and he was bemoaning the fact that he'd lost what he described as "a lot of good years" because he had resigned himself to staying married for the kids.

Only it didn't work out that way. For a long time, according to him, his marriage was "good enough" - in the sense that it wasn't bad, it wasn't great, it was just ... there. It was the devil he knew versus the (potentially worse) devil he didn't.

Somewhere along the line, despite his intentions, "good enough" was no longer "good" or, really, "enough." He got older. He stopped wanting to settle for something that was merely passable. He became less afraid of taking the steps he thought were necessary to fashion a life for himself where not only was he happy, but his kids were happy, too.

His best friend died suddenly. That was that suckerpunch that snapped his life into clarity.

So we were talking about divorce, and how I was the same age as his oldest child when my parents split up and yet I "managed to be OK" (you-know-who-you-are can stop snickering right now).

My mom had the same intentions that G. did - stay until the kids graduate from high school, even though I'm desperately unhappy in this marriage - but I am thankful every day that fate or life or something like it intervened, and she filed for divorce when I was 10.

So yes, I'm mostly OK despite being a product of a broken home. I had two parents who loved me, even though they weren't together any more, and I think ultimately that was much more important for me than having the traditional two-parent nuclear family household.

However, it's not as if that whole event didn't leave a lasting impression upon my frail pre-adolescent psyche. It did, just not in the way most people would think.

I'm not sorry my parents got divorced. I'm only sorry that they didn't get divorced SOONER. Because here's what I learned during that time, and this is the only thing about the divorce that has affected my adult romantic relationships:

No matter how good things might seem, they might actually be really, really bad without you even knowing it.

My parents never fought. They never really talked, either, and therein lay the problem. I grew up thinking that's just the way things went, and I thought my parents were happy until one day, out of the blue (a 10-year-old never realizes the weeks/months/years that lead up to these kinds of decisions), my mom announced that she and my dad were splitting up.

No warning. No flares shot up over the bow. Just ... an ending.

So there's a part of relationship-me, mostly subconscious, but also mostly silenced, that is simply waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for the piano to fall out of the window and crush me as I nonchalantly traipse down the great sidewalk of life.

Relationships come with their very own Acme anvil, and it's only a matter of time before Wile E. Coyote attempts to drop it - presumably from a very high cliff - onto my head.

(Meep, meep!)

I'm all too willing to get the hell out before things start going awry. That's bad, isn't it?

So then this morning I was reading articles on NYTimes.com, and happened upon one detailing a scientific study about how romantic love is a biological urge. To wit:

For those keeping score, Crazy Tom Cruise was not mentioned anywhere in the article. Yeah, I was surprised, too.

The article goes on to state that "falling in love is among the most irrational of human behaviors" (no kidding, really?), which makes me feel better about the fact that I've got this irrational fear of having the rug pulled out from under me at any moment EVEN THOUGH everything seems peachy keen and swell and stuff.

If the very nature of falling in love is based on a lack of reason, then there's nothing wrong with the fact that I throw more irrationality upon the newfound fires of passion.

Irrational is as irrational does.

And then I read this:

It's not your sense of humor or your turn of a phrase that make me want you, honey. It's what you do to my caudate nucleus, rrrrowrrrr.

So, apparently, there is a biological urge for finding passionate love that is taking up residence in the lizard part of my brain. It's some sort of global imperative, like having sex, or buying a TiVo. And once the relationship settles into the long-term committment phase, my poor little caudate nucleus will no longer be firing on all cylinders; only new love can do that.

Which means that, really, I should embrace the falling of the anvil, so I can experience the heady joys of new love over and over and over again.

My caudate nucleus will thank me.

Dee Harrell

This is a column I wrote for the Virginian-Pilot, a newspaper I used to work for. I've been cleaning out my office and happened to find a clipping of this hidden in the back of my filing cabinet.

For me, he will always be flying through the end zone, parallel to the ground, while time ticked away and the world around him stood in silence, ready to split apart at the seams.

The Catch will remain Deodus Harrell's most public legacy, a memory that is unlikely to fade from the minds of the 7,000 people who saw it, as well as the thousands of others who will claim they did.

It was, after all, the play that sent Deep Creek High School to the state football playoffs. It made Harrell a local hero, although one who credited almost everyone else – his linemen, his quarterback, his coaches – for his success.

Dee Harrell died last week. He was only 19. He had Hodgkin's disease, a rare form of cancer that afflicts only 8,000 people – about as many who were in the stadium that night in December – each year, many of them before their 30th birthday. It is considered a very treatable disease, with as high as a 90 percent five-year survival rate for those who are diagnosed early.

But it is still cancer.

Even though Hodgkin's disease is decreasing in morbidity faster than any other cancer, nothing in life is guaranteed. The people who loved Dee Harrell, and those who were simply fortunate enough to have known him, are aware of that now. Nothing – not being an athlete, or a good student, or a terrific parent – can protect you from life's ugliness.

I spent nearly two years in Chesapeake as sports editor of the Clipper. I live in Florida now, and I heard the news about Dee from Virginian-Pilot sports writer Paul White, who called me the day after Dee died.

It would have hurt no matter what the circumstances – I admired Harrell not for his athletic ability, but because he was a wonderful young man – but it stung even more because just two weeks before I had completed treatment for my own case of Hodgkin's disease.

I survived through six months of chemotherapy and three weeks of radiation. Dee Harrell did not. This doesn't make me feel special, or even particularly lucky – it just makes me feel sad.

I wish I knew why one of us did well and the other did not. Perhaps it is due to the amount of disease each of us had, the extent it had spread through our bodies, or our individual reactions to the toxic effects of treatment.

It hardly matters to me, really. I only know one thing – you're not supposed to die when you're 19. You're not supposed to die when you're a loved son, or someone's closest friend. You're not supposed to die when you're a hero to a whole school and your entire community.

I left Chesapeake weeks after that game. The following March, on the day before my 26th birthday, I got a diagnosis of cancer. To say that I was shocked at the news wouldn't begin to do my feelings justice. After all, young people just don't get cancer, right? All I had was a lump on my neck.

I'm sure it was even more of a surprise for Dee, who probably accepted the possibility of getting injured on the football field, or at the track, but never expected to be hit by a life-threatening disease.

Part of that is our fault. We expect athletes to be superhuman. We watch their exploits on the fields and courts, and stand in awe of their strength, their power, their ability to appear untouchable.

But they are, ultimately, just like we are, and subject to the same injustices that life often hands out.

I am thankful that I can say I am in remission. I hope to be able to say that every day for the rest of my life. Once you've had cancer, you cannot escape that it has forever changed how you see things. I will never be able to hear or read something about Hodgkin's disease, or cancer in general, and not have an uneasy sense of recognition.

There's an old song that says "Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you." If that is true, then Dee Harrell made the kind of impression that few people will ever be fortunate enough to make.

His life meant something, and not just to his family and friends. But if most people only remember him for one play, on one night, in one football game, that's fine.

Just as long as they remember.

Blow Out the Candles

It's mah birthday! Which started off "altered" and will probably end that way too, later tonight.

Today's schedule includes girly stuff, shopping, family, food, friends and frolicking. In that order. Rappy was first to wish me a Happy Birthday, yesterday, at midnight Israel time. I got home from work to find that she had sent me two books - The Kite Runner and What's the Matter With Kansas? - off my Amazon wish list. She's such a good egg.

I hope everyone has a splendid day. Because that's my plan as well.

Frankenstein

I think I have found the perfect man.

Guy #1: The base model
Reason he alone is not perfect: Sadly unattainable

Guy #2: Add his sarcasm, geekiness, height, background, most other aspects of his personality
Reason he alone is not perfect: Apparently willfully obtuse when it comes to my charms

Guy #3: Add his availability/eagerness
Reason he alone is not perfect: No real chemistry whatsoever

Guy #4: Add his geographical proximity, hair, voice
Reason he alone is not perfect: Wants to get super serious

Guy #5: Add his accent, ability to dance on pool tables wearing skintight red leather pants
Reason he alone is not perfect: Doesn't know I exist (damn you, Jonathan Rhys Meyers!)

I think I can pull this off. Because I am a .

Hee Hee Hee

Some of you know how much I love this little guy:

So much so, that I'm wearing this t-shirt at work today. I don't care how much it might make me look like a stoner - I love the Pillsbury Doughboy. Marry me, Poppin' Fresh!

Stiff Little Finger

My bones are self-healing monsters. This is what happens when you're a skim milk drinking freak, I'm proud to say.

I was subjected to a "bivalving" on Thursday, which is not nearly as fun as it sounds.

Bivalving is when a doctor - or more likely, a physician's assistant - takes a small circular hand saw and cuts into your cast. Hopefully they don't press the whirling blade in too far and mangle your flesh. The guy who did me was quite proficient at it. I only felt the warmth of the blade twice.

Me: "I don't even want to know what you've been practicing on to become so good at this."
PA: "Let's just say there are a lot of people named 'Stumpy' out there."

So he cut off the inner half of my cast, leaving me with the outer portion to use for support (held on with an ACE bandage wrapped around it). I'm supposed to wear this contraption whenever I leave the house and go out and about, since the public at large is clearly gunning for me and wants to run into my arm and cause me pain.

But around the house, I leave it off. Which is nice, because it means I can think about taking a shower and then five seconds later actually be in said shower - no longer do I have to go through the arduous process of wrapping a towel around my upper arm, rubber banding it in place, wrapping a garbage bag around my arm, rubber banding it in place, etc.

I'm also able to type with two hands again. This is a skill that I will never again take for granted.

According to the most recent x-ray, my elbow is "healing nicely, right on schedule." I'm able to move my arm in some very basic ways without any pain. I still cannot extend the elbow (i.e. bend it down), and I can't rotate my wrist very much without feeling white hot sheets of pain in my arm. So I don't do that. But I can do basic things, like dress myself, which is nice.

My pinky finger no longer hurts at all (unless I accidentally jam it into in my desk chair, which is exactly what I did roughly 2.5 seconds after arriving at work), but the little bugger is as stiff as a board. I think I left it taped to the index finger for too many days without moving it. So now I'm constantly doing finger-flexing exercises with that hand in an attempt to work out the tightness and regain proper range of motion (ROM to those in the orthopedic world). It's better than it was on Thursday, but still has a way to go.

Happily, I am now able to put on my beloved Body by Victoria bras. Sports bras are fine, and they have their purpose, but I was getting sick of the Uniboob look. So now we're all happier.

Yahoo has decided to let me have my e-mail again; all 250 pieces of it, dating back to 2/21. I'm wading through it slowly; some of them I've already received, some not. I don't know what happened with this, but I think it had something to do with the fact that Yahoo changed the way that attached images are displayed in e-mails.

Ezboards are currently being blocked at work, and I'm not sure why. I smell a conspiracy.

The Stairs of Doom

Because I want you to experience the heady thrill of my falling down stairs/full arm cast experience, I present the following images (click the thumbnails for larger versions):

Starting from the left, we have ...

The stairs that broke my arm (seen from the top down; the carpeted runner at the bottom is where my head first came to a rest)

My first attempts at cast art (a three-dimensional box and a bunny - YES, it is a BUNNY, it's just that its paw is a little too long, STOP thinking what you're thinking)

A view of the black scuff mark made by one of my shoes as I was tumbling head over heels town the stairs (for reference purposes, when I stand at the bottom of the stairs the mark is right at the top of my head, and I'm 5'8")

And here is an illustration of a chip fracture, the kind of fracture I have in my right pinky:

The Cast That Ate My Arm

ouch

i fell down the stairs at work today and ended up fracturing my left elbow and right pinky, and severely spraining my right wrist. i also have an enormous bruise/contusion on my left knee and i smacked the left side of my skull on the hardwood floor. but my right leg is just fine!

i'm in a soft cast right now, but on either friday or monday i'll be getting a full-arm cast, which i will be wearing for three months.

so i'm probably going to be a lot less prolific for quite awhile.

Play the Feud

Last night I also dreamt that I was on the Family Feud game show. The original version with Richard Dawson as the host, not that silly, suicidal Ray Combs (Richard Dawson also played Newkirk on the show Hogan's Heroes, which I have not yet incorporated into a dream - but plan to).

Anyway, I was playing the Feud, but the family I was with was not my own. I don't know who they were, but they were dumb. Dumb as hammers. So I'm up there with Richard Dawson at the box thing with the button that you slap to buzz in with the answer, and the question is "Name a type of egg."

I buzz in first and scream, "EISENHOWER!"

Richard Dawson: "Survey says?!?"

Ding!

And the board flips over the fourth response to show EISENHOWER - 5. Meaning five people answered the question "Name a type of egg" with "Eisenhower." I have my finger on the pulse of America, yo.

So the other person buzzes in with some inane answer and they don't have their finger on the pulse of America, so I've got control of the board for my "family." Only I don't let them answer; I don't even confer with them for possible answers. I just stand up there with Richard Dawson and guess at responses myself.

Richard Dawson: "Name a type of egg."
Me: "Track 3."
Richard Dawson: "Survey says?!?"

Ding!

And the board flips over the third response to show TRACK 3 - 15. How did I get so smrt?

Richard Dawson: "Name a type of egg, love."
Me: [long pause] "Poached?"
Richard Dawson: "Survey says?!?"

Ding!

And the board flips over the second response to show POACHED - 25. I do an Ashlee Simpson-esque, acid reflux sufferin' hoedown right there at the box.

Richard Dawson: "NAME a TYPE of EGG."
Me: [excitedly] "GOOD!"
Richard Dawson: [screaming] "Sur! Vey! SAYS!?!?!?"

Ding! Family Feud theme music starts blaring, and confetti falls from the sky

The top response on the board flips over and it's GOOD - 55. Notice that this means that even while in a dream state, my brain knows that 5 + 15 + 25 + 55 = 100.

Good egg! Good egg! Good egg! I say that all the time!

So then everyone is celebrating and I'm hoisted up on shoulders and paraded around the set and then there's a big party for my family because we just won Five! Thousand! Dollars! People are impressed that I knew all the answers, but I lean in to Richard Dawson and admit that I have no idea what those answers mean. He explains the significance of "Eisenhower" (which I forget now), but I remember that he told me that "Track 3" refers to the song "Gloria" by Laura Branigan.

Yeah, I don't know either.

Enlarging Your World

What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness

I can't stop thinking about those words. They alternately torment and enthrall me. I feel like I'm on the precipice of something really big, something very ... important. But only to me. Because as I get older and experience more of my life, I realize that I don't have any answers for anyone but myself.

So I'm not going to look for other people's answers, or other people's truths, anymore.

You're on your own.

Self-interest is the new black.

At the same time, I find myself caring less about my own desires and much, much more about my contribution to the world around me. What is my role? What is my purpose? There is no answer but this:

My life is my message.

What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness

Life is made up of grand, sweeping gestures. Big, weight-bearing moments.

But it's also made up of small, seemingly inconsequential actions. Quiet, anonymous moments. And neither is more important than the other.

I looked around last Wednesday night and I thought, "Is this it?" And that's exactly right – this is it, this is all there is, this one life, this one haphazard collection of moments big and small, a predetermined handful of time that slips achingly through our fingers when we can choose ... we can choose ... what we are going to make of it.

I'm not religious. I don't find solace or comfort in the idea of eternal life, or the concept of heaven. I'm not judging people who do; I just know that kind of faith and belief in a higher power doesn't speak to me in any meaningful way.

I think if we live forever, it's in the hearts and minds of the people whose lives we have touched. Derek Going has been dead for seven years, but as long as I draw breath he will live in me. Because he changed my life in a way I will never forget. One person in a sea of people, struggling to stay afloat.

How brightly do we shine?

Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

Derek was my darkness for a very long time. I spent Thanksgiving with my father, and after dinner we talked. About life, the world, other assorted banalities. I don't remember how Derek came up in the conversation; I don't think I'd ever mentioned him to my father before. So I told the story, and I explained, through my tears, how it had taken me years to get to the point where I wasn't blaming myself for failing Derek so profoundly.

Maybe my father was just trying to show benevolence towards his youngest child; maybe he was just trying to ease my pain, years old, yet freshly felt in the hot tears running down my cheeks. The old wound that never quite healed. He said, "You might have felt like you failed him, but he obviously didn't feel that way. He had his aunt call you when he died to tell you how much you had meant to him. Maybe he believed you did your best, even if you don't believe that yourself."

And like a grubby-fisted child holding onto a balloon, in that moment, I let it go. I let go of the one thing in my life that I had always regretted; the one thing I had used for years to bully and shame myself into being a better person. That weight that I'd carried around for so long came at a huge price, emotionally. Nothing was ever good enough. Nothing. There was always a way to be better. Couldn't fail someone again, not the way I failed Derek. Not me. Don't fail.

CAN'T fail.

Try harder.

But sometimes it doesn't matter how hard you try.

What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness

How brightly do we shine?

More often than not we are the instruments of our own destruction, and I refuse to be that anymore. Because this is all there is. My past is filled with the big moments that have changed me for the better; recently, it's been the small moments that have made the biggest impact. There are things that once mattered to me, very much, that no longer hold the same sway over my life, and how I see it. Over how I see myself.

So out with the old and in with the new, and I guess this is the proper time of the year for that. Herrick had it right – Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

I don't have any illusions about what I can and cannot do. What I am and am not willing to do. I think the big moments simply come to you, typically without warning, and you're measured by how you react to them. You use the small moments to prepare. They are your practice; the times when, fortunately, you get a seemingly unlimited number of do-overs.

That's the nice thing about life – there's always another chance. There's always another person, or another job, or another moment where you can choose who you want to be and declare it to the world. We can constantly reinvent ourselves, if we need or want to. What's to stop us? The way you were raised colors who you are, but it isn't who you are if you don't want it to be. The mistakes you made once upon a time don't have to follow you around the rest of your life, like ghosts, unless you want them to. The past has done just that – it has passed.

I know that now.

What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness

Be still.

Keep quiet.

Listen...

What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness

Sunshine After All

Eight years ago today, I was laying in a hospital bed, waiting to find out if my life was going to be mine again. I was having a lymph node in my chest removed and tested for residual Hodgkin's disease. A CT scan had shown that my lymph nodes were still swollen, which meant that they were either still filled with active cancer cells - despite six months of chemotherapy - or they were permanently enlarged due to scar tissue.

My oncologist told me he was 90% sure I still had active cancer, as he had never seen lymph nodes the size of mine that were just scar tissue. He told me that if the biopsy was positive for HD, that the surgeon would go ahead and implant an intraveneous line - which I would need for my last chance at health, a stem cell transplant - in my chest at the same time. It would take the place of the port that I already had implanted on the left side of my chest, that had been used for chemo.

I remember being in the pre-op room, tanked up on Versed, wondering if I was going to be able to handle a stem cell transplant. For one of the very few times during my treatment, I was scared. They wheeled me into the operating room, and my surgeon, Dr. Blumencrantz, went to work quickly. Before I realized it, I was out ...

... and then waking up again in the post-op area. Everything was a blur because I didn't have my contact lenses in, but I could make out people moving all around me. As soon as I shook off the anesthesia enough to have a rational thought, my right hand went up to the left side of my chest. I knew that if I felt a bandaged lump there, that the node was positive for cancer, Dr. Blumencrantz had implanted the IV line, and I was going to have a stem cell transplant.

My hand slowly moved to my chest and I felt ...

... nothing.

I pressed my hand against my chest, harder, and still didn't feel anything. I looked down, pulled out my hospital gown, and looked at my chest. The only thing I saw was the slight bulge of the port, and the familiar scar. No new incisions.

A female voice spoke gently in my ear - "You're going to be okay. It was just scar tissue."

Then, for the first time since I found out I had cancer, I cried. Because it was only then that I believed that I was, in fact, going to be okay. I was always aware of just how badly things could get, so I was intimately familiar with all of the unhappy statistics and bleak pictures that were often painted.

But I wanted to be okay. I did everything within my power to increase my chances of one day, maybe, being okay; beyond that, I just had to accept that despite my own hopes and wishes, things might not turn out that well for me.

I am extraordinarily lucky - I have been okay for eight years now. More than okay, really. Better than ever. If you gave me the chance to go back in time and not have cancer - in exchange for having a different life than the one I have now - I wouldn't take it.

I would not take it.

Every year, on October 24, I think about my life and how far I've come since this day in 1996. This is my day of reflection - not my birthday, not the holidays. Today. Because this is the day when I truly understood what it meant to Live. This is the day when I became very, very clear about what was and was not important to me.

Every year I have but one hope on this day - that, all things considered, I would choose the life I have today over the life I had one year ago. I've been thinking about it on and off all weekend, and I'm happy to say that yes, I would.

I've lost good friends this year, but I've gained new ones. I've acquired some bad habits (like excessive hummus consumption), but I've shed others that were far worse (like eating crappy food on a daily basis). I'm healthier, physically, in some ways, but less healthy in others. I've been through some very painful emotional experiences, but those have been offset by some truly wonderful ones (especially of late).

I still want to be who I am today.

My family and friends are all doing well. My cats are alive and in good health. I have a good job that pays well that lets me fund a happy personal life. My relationships with my family continue to be strong. My nephew is growing up to be a wonderful, thoughtful boy. I grow closer to my core group of friends every day. I've seen new places, and revisited old ones. I've walked, I've talked, I've seen shooting stars and wild animals and baby ducks grow into adults. I've laughed a lot, cried a lot, and most importantly, loved a lot.

But here's the best part - I have this feeling, unshakeable and inescapable, that the next 365 days are going to be even better.

ME ME ME

A couple of weeks ago Roo and I were talking, and somehow the conversation came around to the fact that I really admire one quality of hers in particular - that she seems to be able to get along with anyone. Even if she (maybe) doesn't like them all that much, she's at least able to be friendly and inclusive when she is required to interact with them.

I admire this quality because it's something I find very hard to do; if I don't like you, I don't make much of an effort to hide it. I will be cordial to you in person and in public, but that's as far as I will go.

It's not that I think this quality of mine is a particularly positive one; there are many times when I don't think it's good (and yet an equal number of times when I'm glad I'm like this). In general, though, I just accept that this is who I am. What was funny about the conversation with Roo was that she said that sometimes she wished she were more like me in this area (i.e. someone who doesn't shy away from confrontation).

I started thinking about this conversation again late last week, when my dad and I had a discussion about whether or not there is such a thing as a truly selfless act. Neither he nor I believe that there is; we both believe that every action a person performs has, at its root, a basis in one's own feelings of self-worth and self-interest.

For example, when I go out of my way to do something for friend, it's not fundamentally because I know it helps my friend for me to do so. It's because it makes me feel good about myself to do it. Or it's because it's something I believe I should do, and not to do it would cause cognitive dissonance (much like the anxiety I feel when I behave in ways that I don't think are "in tune" with the person I believe myself to be).

This spun off into a conversation about self-worth and how people achieve it, and from what sources. I suspect that people fall into one of two categories - those who are predominantly internally motivated, and those who are predominantly externally motivated. People who are internally motivated derive their self-esteem from how they feel about themselves; someone who is externally motivated would derive it from how others feel about them. Everyone is, certainly, a blend of the two, but I think almost everyone falls solidly on one side of the fence or the other.

Me? Very internally motivated. I stopped caring what strangers think about me when I was about 13, and began a four-year swing of shaving my head and wearing all black, all the time. Stares, I've had a few. But no regrets. I don't recall doing it for attention, though; I was never that kind of kid. I just liked dressing that way, and I didn't particularly care what anyone else thought about it (outside of my own friends).

Side note - I give full credit to my parents for raising me to have confidence in myself; it is, without a doubt, one of the most important traits they passed along to me.

That attitude - that I don't particularly care about what other people think of me - has continued throughout my adult life. Overall, I'm glad it has. I do recognize the ways it might have "negatively" impacted my life, though. I have a small circle of very good friends, rather than a wide array of acquaintances, which means that I don't have an unlimited number of social outlets at my disposal. If I don't respect you, your opinion of me means nothing, so I'm not at all likely to doubt myself or change myself in response; but that doesn't mean that you might not have a point.

It's sort of the same way I feel about rejection (both on a romantic and platonic level). Do I find every person I meet attractive? No. So why would I expect everyone who meets me to be attracted to me? I've crushed on guys and not had it returned, which is, technically, a form of rejection. I just don't take it all that personally, because I remember the times when I didn't return crushes that certain guys have had on me.

So by the same measure, if I don't like everyone I meet, why would I care if not everyone who meets me likes me, either? As far as I'm concerned, it all evens out, and the people that can like you will like you.

So I was giving it some thought the other day as I was driving to meet my mom for lunch at Jason's Deli - who, exactly, are the people whose opinions of me I care about? It's a pretty small group as far as family goes - my parents, my stepdad, and my brother. As far as friends go, there's only ... *counts on fingers* ... five people whose opinions of my character are meaningful to me on a significant level. After that, there's probably 7-8 people (both friends and family) that I hope like and respect me, because I like and respect them, but if they don't it's not a revelation that will keep me awake at night.

(Heh, even though I won't fake it when I don't like someone, I will avoid directly naming names in certain cases, to avoid people being upset because they thought they should have made one of those lists, and didn't.)

So yeah, dislike me all you want, think I'm horrible, what.ev.er. If I don't respect you, I won't care. It's only when I let myself down - when my image of myself is shaken - that I really have issues.

I have this idea of who I am, and who I want to be, and when I fall short of that - even in ways that are completely normal and natural - I have a difficult time dealing with it. I'm my own worst enemy, in that sense. I don't care at all about what most people think - you can say anything negative you want to me, and it just really doesn't make any impression on me at all. But when I do something that shakes my confidence and belief in myself, I end up kicking myself in the head for days, if not weeks (just ask my friends!). It is those times when I'm wracked with self-doubt.

I'm not sure which type of motivation is better. It probably depends on your personality as a whole. I don't mind not having a ton of friends to do things with, and that's probably one of the reasons that I am so internally motivated. If it was important for me to have everyone like me - or be seen as someone whom everyone likes - I'd be out of luck, because that's just not going to happen. At the same time, my feelings of self-worth probably aren't as malleable as someone who ties their own value, in large part, to the opinions of the people around them.

But I still come back to that admirable quality in Roo, and how I wish I could learn to incorporate that quality into my own life. Even if only to make my own life easier.

Because it's all about ME ME ME.

Object Impermanence

I keep having this recurring ... well, not a dream, really, more like a thought: I keep thinking that if I look up an old friend, I'll find out that they've died.

There are a handful of people - Jason C, Ryan, Lee, Jason P, Jeremy, Steve, Heather, Josh - that I'd be interested in reconnecting with, just to find out how they're doing. But as soon as I think about tracking them down, I start to worry that I'll be told that they're dead. I'll either run across something online that says they're dead (like a memorial of some sort), or I'll call the last phone number I have for them and the person answering will tell me they're dead. I don't want to know that they've died, so I don't make any effort to locate them.

It's very morbid, I know. But I can't shake the feeling, which is strange because it's never actually happened to me. So it's ultimately a whole wasted exercise that keeps me from taking the necessary steps for reconnecting with these people. Which is really dumb. But I guess the lesson for my friends is, if we ever grow apart, I won't be trying to look you up years later for fear that you've died during the intervening time.

So you should come find me.

Thousands of Words

Here are a bunch of photo galleries from my weekend trip to Michigan. Hold your mouse pointer over a photo thumbnail for a description.

ANIMAL HOUSE
Click the thumbnail to view a larger image

AROUND THE 'HOOD
Click the thumbnail to view a larger image

FIELD OF DREAMS
Click the thumbnail to view a larger image

THE GREATEST ADVENTURE
Click the thumbnail to view a larger image

OTHER COOL STUFF
Click the thumbnail to view a larger image

I Have Returned

I am back home after spending the weekend on a vision quest. Many photos to follow.

Let's Go To Bed

Ha!! I just really couldn't resist using that Cure song for the title of this entry, cheesy and lame though it may be.

HEY. I just admitted it was cheesy and lame - I don't need you to tell me, too.

So yes, I have finally, officially entered adulthood because I ... bought a new bed! Well, a mattress/boxspring combo. But here's the kicker - I upgraded from a full to a queen. So now I feel like I have a "big girl" bed. A bed fit for sleeping, and other adult activities! A bed with a cushy pillowtop, and a 20-year warranty! A bed that will be delivered to my happy home on October 17, which is a Sunday, and I plan on enjoying my new bed all that day, so don't expect any updates to this site on October 18.

IYKWIM, AITYD.

The only glitch is that I'm not sure that the queen size bed will fit on the wall where my current bed resides. So I'll either have to get rid of the cats' beloved sleeping chair, or buy a smaller nightstand table. I'm thinking it will be the latter, because the cats really like that chair.

I'm not looking forward to needing to buy all new sheets, though. Hey! I should go visit Teem again and make her take me to IKEA (again) so I can buy lots of inexpensive sheet sets ... and while I'm there, pick up a smaller nightstand table.

*packs bags*

Melting Clocks

I use a battery-powered alarm clock just in case the power goes out overnight. Wouldn't want to ever be late to work, you know. Unfortunately, batteries also go out eventually. Which this clock's did, last night at 11:45 p.m. So I got an extra hour of sleep this morning. I put it to good use.

Because I had the dream to end all dreams.

I remember two parts of it. The first was at my mom's house. I had a big bag of bird seed, and I was trying to pour some out of the bag into the plastic container I take outside with me when I'm feeding the birds and ducks. I was having trouble keeping the plastic container still and upright while pouring, and my mom was standing there watching but wouldn't help me.

I finally get the container filled and I go out into the back yard to feed the two ducks that are out there. I throw some seed on the concrete pool deck, and some underneath the grapefruit tree. The ducks run under the tree and start eating.

From the corner of the yard comes two penguins, waddling across the grass towards the pool deck. And I think, "How cute! The tuxedoed clown princes of the bird world!" So I throw out more seed in their direction.

Which is when the penguins attack.

First they were just trying to peck at my ankles. Then they started flinging themselves at me in an attempt to do major bodily harm. I think one of them might have even been foaming at the mouth, but I'm vague on that. Regardless, I was scared and freaked out, so I dropped to the ground and curled up in the fetal position (to protect my inner organs) with my hands wrapped around my head/neck (to prevent the little bastards from pecking the back of my neck and severing my spinal cord).

Someone threw a towel over me and I got wrapped up mummy-like within it, but the penguins were still trying to skewer me. I could feel their pointy little beaks stabbing at me through the towel. My screams for help went unanswered. I let one of the penguins bite onto my hand, then I slammed it into the jacuzzi, hoping it would drown. It didn't drown, but it did swim away. I repeated the trick with the other penguin and achieved the same result.

Success! The penguins swim off into the pool only to be menaced by ...

... the great white shark swimming within.

I think the shark appeared in my dream because yesterday I was looking at that news photo which showed this huge great white shark that was swimming around off the coast of Cape Cod. I've seen Jaws too many times not to be freaked out by great white sharks (or as Hooper would say, "Carcharodon carcharias!").

So I scramble into the house and look out at the pool and see the shark swimming around. It's about half the length of the pool. THEN I see the two ducks bobbing innocently in the water and start screaming at them to "MOVE!" But they don't, of course. And then the shark fin starts swimming towards them, of course. I shut my eyes, and when I open them the ducks are gone. I ask my stepfather if the shark got them, and he said, "yes, it did."

Then I grabbed a spear (it scares me that my subconscious thinks my mom would have spears laying around the house) and vowed revenge upon the shark. But before I could accomplish that, I switched to the second phase of my dream. I was back at my apartment, and my mom and stepdad were there. I was still freaked out about the shark and babbling that there was probably a shark swimming around in the lake behind my apartment.

So I'm looking out the window that is in my foyer, and my worst fears are confirmed because I see a blob moving along the edge of the lake. It's gotta be a shark, right? It lifts up out of the water a little more and I see that, no, it isn't a shark - it's an ALLIGATOR.

Now, if you know me at all, you know that I am irrationally afraid of alligators and there's really nothing that would scare me more than being menaced by one in person. I would probably have a massive coronary due to fright.

Obviously, the dream me is freaking out. It's not bad enough that a great white shark has eaten my ducks, NOW I have to deal with a big huge alligator terrorizing me outside my home. But then the alligator rose up out of the water ... and it had a very long neck. An alligator head on a long neck, with a big bulky body with tree stumpish legs, and a tail with spikes.

Me: "That's not an alligator."
Stepdad: "No, that's a Pteranodon."

The thing in my backyard? Not a shark. Not even an alligator. It's a DINOSAUR. An alligator-headed, bulky-bodied, tree stump-legged, spikey-tailed dinosaur. And it's trying to eat the ducks.

Then two more pteranodons popped up from beneath the water's surface and stood there on the edge of the lake, scoping out the flock of ducks that were nearby. They started moving in the ducks' direction. I start screaming bloody murder to try and get the ducks to fly away, but it won't work because I don't have normal ducks, I have DEAF DUCKS that are about to be FOOD FOR DINOSAURS, but I keep screaming and screaming and screaming ...

... and then I woke up to Dawsey meowing in my face, because I was an hour late with his breakfast.

I managed to get to work on time, though.

Relinquished

Yeah, I don't know. I just ... don't ... know. I guess it will either work out or it won't (I'm leaning towards the latter. Not because I'm a pessimist, but because everything seems so weeeeeeeeird now), but still, it just makes me sad.

What's that cliché/quote? Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.

*googles*

It's a quote from Saint Augustine. What a blowhard.

Wave Your Foam Finger

I feel really, just, wonderful this morning. Yay, me! Go, me! *waves giant HWG foam finger*

My hair looks good, this new shirt looks good (french blue button down), I'm wearing the pointy-toed kitten heels that everyone compliments, and my body is practically vibrating. Those interval workouts kick my ass, but they're doing something to me.

Now I, too, am magically delicious!

And I've listened to "Walkie Talkie Man" twice already this morning. Everything is right with the world.

So in acknowledgement of that, I think I'm going to post something super-ultra-positive and happy today. And I would like you to join me. Yes, even you, the lurker who just reads and never comments. This is going to seem incredibly cheesy and sappy and optimistic, but ...

What are five things you really like about yourself? I'll start:

1. I'm independent - I value the opinions of the people that I'm close to, but ultimately, I make my own decisions. And I have no problem doing social things (like going to movies, or a restaurant) by myself.

2. I'm a thinker - I like to ponder. I like to think about issues and discuss them with my friends ... especially if the friend has a different take on the issue than I do.

3. My eyes - I have really pretty dark brown eyes. Just like a baby seal. (I had to make at least one of the five things superficial.)

4. I love to learn - This is a quality that I'm so happy my parents instilled in me, because it keeps life interesting.

5. I feel things deeply - Sometimes too deeply, but I'd rather be like I am than the alternative (cold and detached). I really like that I can be moved, or affected, by seemingly simple and random things. Empathy is an underrated quality.

Hurricanes Are a Total Ugh

FORECASTED TRACK OF HURRICANE IVAN

• Saturday, September 11 - 11 a.m. - Happiness! Stupid Ivan's track is shifting ever westward into the Gulf. Good news for me; bad news for the Panhandle.
  
• Friday, September 10 - 11 p.m. - Not much different than the 5 p.m. track; maybe a little more to the west.
  
• Friday, September 10 - 5 p.m. - This is a little better, it's heading more west into the Gulf of Mexico. But only a little.
  
• Friday, September 10 - 11 a.m. - See the line that says "8 AM Tue"? That's pointing directly where I live.

I am so over this hurricane nonsense. The National Hurricane Center is now predicting that Ivan will make a direct hit on the Tampa Bay area - where I live, yo - as a strong Category 4 storm overnight on Monday. But you know what? That's exactly what they said about Charley, and it turned while I was taking a nap.

SO I'M NOT FALLING FOR THIS AGAIN!!

Actually, yes I am. People here are already going batshit crazy. There's long lines for gasoline - at the places that still have any gasoline - and the stores are being emptied of nonperishables as I type. I will be subsisting on tuna fish, crackers and water if things get bad.

I'm going to keep updating this entry with the forecast tracks as they're released by the NHC. I'll link them at the top of the entry and change the date.

Ten Words

Can you tell me ten words that you'd use to describe the world? – Idlewild, "Tell Me Ten Words"

I'm not going to describe the world (too general). But here are ten words that describe how I'm feeling today:

GIDDY
RELIEVED
RESOLUTE
HOPEFUL
STRONG
ELECTRIC
JUSTIFIED
LIMPID
INTOXICATED
ARDENT

*big, big grin*

Look Good ... Feel Better

I finally got a response from someone at the American Cancer Society's Look Good ... Feel Better program about my request to volunteer. I've been invited to the next training session on August 31, which is a weekday. I'll have to take time off from work, but hell, it will be worth it.

I attended this program when I started chemo and it was really, really helpful in dealing with appearance-related side effects. I'm really excited about getting the opportunity to "give back."

Plate Tectonics

A long December, and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last

The last 24 hours has been illuminating. I have learned so much about myself; much of it incredibly depressing. I never knew how efficient I could be at ruining the things that mean the most to me. But I guess my subconsciously self-destructive campaign has run its course. I think I've torn everything down, now. I'm Godzilla, and my life is Tokyo. So it doesn't even matter what happens today.

If you think that I can be forgiven ... I wish you would

I wonder if this is my lowest point?

Now it's just a matter of sifting through the rubble and figuring out what is left there to salvage, and how to put the pieces back together. Except that I'm so numb that I can't ask for what I need. I don't want to impose. Some people have already given enough, anyway.

The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls

I'm finally going to ask it - Why me? Why are all the things I've already lost not enough?

I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass

Everything ends. And if it doesn't end, it changes. I guess that's both the beauty and the misery of being alive.

Ending::Ascent

I was cleaning off my hard drive at work and getting rid of some documents when I ran across the liner notes I wrote up for the Soundtrack of Myself mix CD I created for a Looking Good CD swap earlier this year. This entry, for on song on disc two, stands out for me:

3. Shawn Colvin, "If I Were Brave" - When I got sick I lived in Greensboro, NC, but I moved back home to Florida for treatment. Beau's mom had died of lung cancer a few months before I was diagnosed. He was in grad school when I got sick, and we just decided it would be better for me to live with my mom during treatment, and he'd fly down every two weeks for visits.

Long story short - he didn't deal very well with my having cancer. Various lines in the song reminded me so much of what I was going through (the song came out after we broke up):

I can't even say we argued, really. He just sort of withdrew from me. I could sense that, and even though I was sick I was trying to also focus on keeping our relationship together. The "waiting for Godot" lines really reminded me of how I kind of tried to wait out this bump in our relationship until finally I just had to give up on it ("pick your sorry ass up off the street and go") because it wasn't going to get better.

And the last two lines I highlighted really resonated for me, because after I had broken up with him I could so clearly, embarrassingly, see how little I had cared for my own well-being - I had focused on fixing our relationship instead of fixing myself. And it was only when I was out from under the relationship that I could see how foolish that was. All I could do at that point was just hope that I hadn't compromised my health (and the ability to get into and stay in remission) by not giving everything I had to fighting the cancer, and instead causing myself so much stress over a relationship that had been doomed since the moment I found out I was sick.

Incidentally, I have no hard feelings about Beau. He did the best he could. It just wasn't what I needed from him.

Stumbling

We try and we try and we try, and yet we still fail. Is there some reward in the trying? Or some satisfaction?

We all falter ... does it matter?

Sometimes I'm acutely aware of what a tenuous grasp I have on this thing I call my life. Because the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Our response, at least at first, is to hold on tightly. But maybe there's some value in opening our clenched fists and letting the forces of nature take us where they want us to go.

I feel just like I'm sinking
And I claw for solid ground
I'm pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
And oh, darkness, I feel like letting go

How much choice do we really have in what becomes of us?

Bad

If you twist and turn away
If you tear yourself in two again
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would
Let it go
Surrender...
Dislocate...

I'm wide awake...
I'm wide awake...
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping

A Girl and Her Camera

I was just screwing around with my Canon A20 this afternoon and taking a few shots in order to run down the batteries completely. I never knew the lighting in my bathroom was so warm. Or that my bathroom mirror needed to be cleaned so badly (ewwwwww).

I'm not wearing any pants! *shocked face*

That Book Meme

I stole this list from Teem's website, because I'm a stealer like that. Be forewarned, the list inside is long (but interesting).

That Book Meme

*bold those you've read
*italicise started-but-never-finished
*underline those you own but haven't gotten to yet

*add three of your own
*post to your journal

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna S