The Best Laid Plans

I stayed in bed until 1p.m. today, it’s Saturday. I’d say I slept until one, but Public Works started digging on the street right outside my window at 8a.m. and the phone rang shortly after, and then the doorbell with my “husband” picking up some things that Jonah needed for the day. When the bell rang again it was the tree service here to spray my sickly elm tree and I finally got up. It’s warm, I love getting up when it’s warm and just throwing on a loose cotton t-shirt dress.

Last night I went to a friends annual summer solstice party. J could only stay until 8, when I needed to drop him at his dad’s and I was sorry for the rest of the night that he couldn’t run around in the dark and the dirt making mischief with the other little wild things. But I stayed, I stayed until two a.m. and I drank to my hearts content having just had my monthly bloodwork, knowing I’d have time to recover before getting tested again and well, every now and then you just gotta let loose. I had fun, I drank, I ate, I talked to people I’d never met before which is something that is hard for me, but I’m determined to get better at, and I played ping pong for the first time in two years and just wasn’t worried about embarrassing myself. And fuck yeah, I won a game against a guy with a killer serve. I came back from a 10 point deficit, and damned if it didn’t feel great. I didn’t care that my feet hurt and I was out of breath, I hung in there. I’m hoping to start going to the Y three times a week instead of two. My free Livestrong membership ends soon, but I feel myself making progress, I accept that my feet won’t get better, but I can certainly improve my stamina, strength, flexibility and range of motion. I was aware that I was pretty much the only one there that wasn't part of a couple, but that's just the way it is, that's just the way it goes, the way it went.

I didn’t go to the studio at all this week, I took a hiatus. I never do that, I’m used to a maddening pace, an almost 18 year long streak of thinking I have to work all the time while being a full time parent. When Griffin was born, I was a stay-at-home mom also billing 30-50 hours a week of graphic design work. That’s insane. It was mindless, catalogue production work usually, so I could do it half asleep, but it helped pay the bills and I got used to working nights and weekends and when he was sleeping and I never really gave up that mentality. I’ve forgotten what leisure is. Since I’m self employed, I couldn’t collect disability while I was sick, so while I didn’t work a lot, it was always on my mind and any spare minute I could get up, I was going to the studio, or doing billing and trying to keep up, keep the business alive and worrying, worrying about the bills.

Usually when the shop closes, I kick into doing shows on the road most weekends, or going to the studio to fill wholesale orders or stock up my consignment accounts. But the last couple of weekends where I didn’t have the kids, I took a break, I kicked back or focused on projects at home, and it felt great. Makes me aware of how distorted my perspective has been on How To Live Life 101. Less worrying, more living is surely a good goal. So last night I went out and didn’t care that I’d be useless today. While eating breakfast I listened to the beginning of the Moth Radio Hour, a {true} storytelling show I love, but rarely get to hear. I was sorry when I was done eating because I wanted to listen to the rest of it, but figured I should go start the laundry and get to my next chair painting project, or back to detoxifying the tall one’s room, and then it occurred to me, I could, in fact, just plain old sit there for 45 more minutes drinking my tea and listening to the radio and so I did. It’s crazy that this is something I just don’t do, don’t allow myself, feel guilty about.

Maybe there was a little divine guidance going on in the background because one of the stories was about a man’s experience with having children, and his life changing devastation and guilt after his second child was stillborn at nine months. He described the silence all around them at the hospital, how nurses wouldn’t look at them, how it had never occurred to him that such a thing could happen and his guilt that it was his fault because, he in fact, had not wanted the child and he surmised that had killed her. Too, too familiar {although I wanted my child, very, very much}, but there is solace and revelation in hearing similar accounts from others. I was taken with how this loss guided his life, was preeminent and was something that was openly talked about among family, and with his older daughter only one year old at the time. How they all referred to the baby by her name, Lauren, how he went to her grave, how she existed in their lives, even though she had died, the consensus was, that she was real. The consensus of the people in my life seems to be that my baby was not real which tangles my emotions further. In the story the older child asked questions about her sister for years which he couldn’t bear to answer and finally when she was about five, she told her father that she had a dream about Lauren and that she said to tell him that “it’s o.k.” and that ended his torment, and he could finally really honor her and move forward in his life.

This affects me so, because my daughter’s birthday is coming around the bend and I feel guilty if I even refer to her by name. I feel like I’m being a drama queen, a burden and that's reinforced by the blank, uncomfortable stares I receive, or the silence on the other end of the phone. She has always seemed real only to me, I suppose because I’m the only one who knew her, I knew her as she gestated, her rhythms, her behaviors and I gave birth to her and held her, and I had so many dreams for her, for us, but in my dysfunctional family it's been frowned upon to mention. I wasn’t allowed to talk about her with her father, he would walk away uncomfortably, or just not respond, he wouldn’t acknowledge her birthday accept to maybe say, I know this is a hard day for you... But what about him? was it a hard day for him? I don’t know, he doesn’t talk about things like that, I was the only one who cried. I just know that when I mention her people get very uncomfortable and then I feel guilty for being self indulgent. It annoys my mother to no end if I mention her, she says “omg aren’t you over that yet, it was a lifetime ago.” And I only mention her near her birthday, because I start to unravel around that time and it took me years to figure out why. I literally didn’t realize that dates and anniversaries are powerful even if they're just another day, that on an unconscious level, it's just not another day. You can try not to think about something, you can pretend to not think about something, but you’re thinking about it without even knowing it. It’s a powerful thing to grow a baby. It’s a terrible thing to hold a dead one in your arms. In the Moth story, the speaker expounded on how is dead daughter was the spitting image of her sister, it was the same with mine. I don’t know why I feel so guilty and selfish acknowledging something that is just plain true. I had a daughter, her name was Claudia Hope Clark, she was born and died on July 3, 1999, she was healthy, fully formed and perfect in every way, except for the fact that her heart had stopped beating sometime during labor, as I slept. Her older brother loved her and just didn’t, couldn’t understand why he never got to see her, he measured my belly and talked to her and came to the doctor with me, just like they say to do, when you’re preparing someone to be a big brother. He begged and cried to go to the hospital and see her, sure that they must have made a mistake. She would be 14 years old in a couple of weeks and she’d be starting high school in the fall. So she and her brother would be in the same school next year and he would look out for her. Everyone would know, don’t mess with Claudia Clark, Griffin is her older brother! Yeah, I think about her every day and I always will. G and I have both always had a special fondness for the girl next door who was a few months old when Claudia died. G has no tolerance for his much younger brother, he had always wanted to be a "big brother" but the window of opportunity slammed shut for him, but he’s always thought of Katie like a little sister, she’s starting high school next year, would have been Claudia’s classmate and no doubt friend, and G and I laughed the other day about how no one better mess with her “damn straight he said, you tell her to come to me.”

I’m not destroyed, I don’t cry myself to sleep, I don’t feel sorry for myself, I’m not the only one who has experienced loss or sadness, but I am really fucked up and freaky in my belief that I’m not allowed to acknowledge her, that I have to pretend she wasn’t real because no one else met her and because no one else remembers her and I don’t want to burden people, but in doing so, I harbor so much guilt for not honoring her. I wasn’t planning on talking or writing about her, but then I heard that story today and how can I not? She existed, yes, she was a real, unique, human being who due to freak circumstances, didn’t get to live out her life, she was loved, she had a stockpile of pink clothing waiting for her in her room. And yeah, this time of year is hard for me, so anyone with an issue with me, should squelch it between mid June and July 5 or so because this warrior, turns fragile glass. I gut it out every 4th of July because I remember what it was like to come home from the hospital, lactating and with empty arms, having just given birth with everyone around me pretending that I hadn’t just given birth and with fireworks and the sounds of celebrating in the background, I remember it like it was yesterday. Every year it’s one giant agony and my heart is just melting as people start asking, innocuously what are you doing for the 4th? I have kids, I can’t hide, I have to take them to a BBQ or celebration of some sort and pretend I’m having a good time, that everything’s normal, it’s just another day, while focusing my whole body and soul on not bursting into tears. There are details that would make you sob, that would stun you, that I can still hardly believe, unspeakable details because the devil is in the details and people are capable of great love and great callousness, but I keep those to myself. And I finally learned that we all have different limitations, some things are too painful for people to be around, or just paralyzing and we don’t know what to do. Sorry, but all bets are off right now, in the hope that it helps me in some way, I had a daughter, her name was Claudia Hope {seriously, Hope, her name was already picked out} she was beautiful, she looked just like her older brother, but with my dark hair, the happiest day of my life was when I found out I was having a girl. I’m sad we can’t go dress shopping for the prom, or someday her wedding, or do mother/daughter things. While I am overjoyed at watching other people do those things, it comes with great pain as well, it’s not jealousy, or envy, it just is what it is. I wouldn’t trade my boys for all the tea in china, but oh, how I wanted to transcend my relationship with my mother by having a daughter of my own, I think we would have had great fun together. I also know that if she’d lived, there would likely be no Jonah Clark and that would be it’s own travesty. So don’t feel sorry for me, loss makes you appreciate what you have so, so much more, and I got my happy ending, but just so you know, I had a daughter, her name was Claudia, I can think about her without crying except for this one time of year. I had three children, not two, three. I had three pregnancies and three births and not a minute of a day goes by that I don’t think of all three. She was real, I sat in a chapel with her body in a wood box until she was returned to me a bag of ashes. Some are in the ground and some are in a box I never take out in the back of my closet. I had a daughter, her name was Claudia, she is much loved and much remembered even if only by one, because if one person loves you quite that much, it’s enough.

People tell me I'm brave because of how I've dealt with cancer and well, that's a lot of bullshit, I'm not any braver than the next person, I've just heard worse news. "Your baby is dead", is a galaxy worse than "you have cancer." Once you've survived the first, you know you can survive anything. They told me I have cancer, and then I did what I was told to do. I showed up for my appointments, I sucked it up and dealt with it cause I had kids at home to worry about. There is no time for self indulgence or feeling sorry for yourself, when you've got them as your priority. I cried when I first heard the "cancer" word, even though deep down, I already knew, but only that one time, and then I just did what I had to do, I have children to raise, end of story, and it really paled in comparison to the other thing which was a pain so deep, so searing and unrelenting I really do not have the words to describe it. I remember those words like I heard them yesterday, the cancer thing is just a blur, just a utilitarian thing. I used to refer to Claudia dying as "the bad thing" I couldn't even say it and then I thought I wasn't allowed to say it. Well, my sweet baby girl died and cancer can just go fuck itself, I'm a little fed up with bad shit. Just hoping not to hear "you're cancer's back and of course the T word... terminal." That's a bridge I'm hoping not to cross. Hiatus, yes, I need a hiatus from bad shit. I've been writing this for so long it's almost 5:00, I'm a little stunned by that. Not even gonna reread it... hitting "publish"now and then I'm back on hiatus.

Clarity

I had an epiphany at Stop & Shop today. A true epiphany, the kind you only have a handful of times in your life, unless you’re particularly epiphany-prone, or lack them all together. In a single moment my pernicious combination of anger and fear turned into steely resolve. I have clarity. I am unfraid. I realized that I’ve been living in fear of so many things, and in doing so, if anything, have been selling myself short. My fear of things changing for the worse has prevented me from seeing that they can and should change for the better and if they don’t, so be it, but it’s time to find out, time to take a risk, time to stop trying to control what I can’t control, time to throw the dice. Time to let go of the status quo.

I took a respite from my speed shopping to go down the “beauty” isle to hold my bare nails {oh the horror} up to different bottles of color. I didn’t, ultimately buy any, but it was a purely peaceful moment, an indulgence, a flicker of time without anxiety. Yes, I was definitely due an epiphany, can’t remember the last one, it’s been a good long while.

Lovely afternoon with my boys. Trauma free homework completion, but as there’s never a dull moment I got one of those special freeze-in-time phone calls from the tall one’s baseball coach telling me he’d been hit in the head with a ball. He’s fine, it turned out not to be a pitch, but a freak fielding throw that hit him in the ear. He has a big ear now, I called him Dumbo when he came home and after eating I lent him my car to go to you-know-who’s house. He’s fine, I’m fine, we’re fine.

Blind Side

I got blindsided this week, kicked in the teeth. I felt someone treated me unfairly and with a profound lack of empathy. I got upset, I got a fiery stress ball in my stomach, my heart started racing and my muscles clenched. I felt like someone had snapped the rope I teeter on like a rubber band, increasing the tenuousness of my grip, my balance. I ranted to a few close friends, made a possibly ill-advised facebook post, paced back and forth, mind spinning, and then realized that this is not how to live. Realized that I was letting someone else affect the quality of my precious day and so I’ve decided to employ the power-rant as a life rule. When something really, really upsets me, I will rant with reckless abandon for no more than 48 hours and then it ceases completely and I will step back into my happy pod and move on.

I have to deal with the situation of course, and I’ll be lawyer shopping over the next few weeks which was not my plan for the next few weeks, but I’ve considered how to make this situation most bearable for me and that’s what I’m going to do. I’m not going to wrestle endlessly with what to do, or if this is fair or that is fair, or what has the best chances for success, I’m simply going to do what I think will cause me the least ongoing stress. I’m gonna let go and roll the dice and accept there are things I can’t control. What will be, will be, no point worrying about the future. If I have a future, that’s a win right there and I'll worry about how to survive then. Stress is canciferous, fireballs in stomach are canciferous, clenched muscles are canciferous and I need to be an inconducive environment for cancer and I mustn't waste precious days and precious energy.

So after brief derailment, I’m back in my pod, although sweating terribly which is bearable only because the weather report predicts quick end to heat. I drove the tall one to a baseball game today and just seeing his thick, polyester baseball pants made me suffer, I don’t know how they play in the blazing sun on days like this. The whole ride down to the field, we both agreed that the car smelled like urine. We smelled each other, and both passed the sniff test. G thought it might be his t-shirt, same one he wore in bio when they were dissecting pregnant pigs. Thought it might be remnants of the pig preserving chemicals involved. I can’t stop thinking about the pregnant pigs... where do they come from, and I can’t even pretend they died naturally in childbirth. Are pregnant pigs harvested for high school science classes? Where? How? What is the name of the business? What on earth would you name that business? Who starts a business like that? Is it really necessary to dissect a pregnant pig in class? High school multiplied by each town, each state, that’s a lot of pigs. Poor little pigs, says this hypocritical bacon eater.

When he got out, the car still smelled, I don’t get it, I need Click and Clack. I thought my adventures with unexpected bodily secretions was confined to the barf-a-day club, one of my cats has forced me to join. It’s so exciting -- where will the cat barf be today? Will I step in it barefoot when I’m getting out of bed? Will it be among the folds of a skirt I left on the floor? Oh so many places it could be, and rarely the same place twice, maybe I should appreciate that feat, my cat’s unwillingness to be redundant in barfing locales, but I don’t, I just don’t.

I bought non-toxic nail polish today, but it smells almost as bad as the toxic stuff I’ve been using. Nail polish is rated by how many toxic chemicals they chose to leave out. There’s regular, which I guess everyone admits is just plain poison. 3-free, which is sans the three most toxic chemicals and 5-free, sans the five most toxic. I’ve been using 3-free which stinks to high heaven and seems as toxic as anything can be even through the mask I wear. Can’t help it though, it comes in the clear blue sky color I love which for some bizarre reason is called Teeny Weeny Bikini, I assure you, there is not one of those in my possession to match so you may go to the beach without fear. Today, I’m painting lego pieces with white nail polish for a movie the young one is plotting. He needs a white lego body, and some white accessories. I pondered white tape cut meticulously to size and then white spray paint and then it hit me, white nail polish, genius. It’s working great so far and I successfully used my fine work for leverage. Sorry, I’m not doing any more until you take a shower. Boy is clean and I’m back to work.

I’m doing an outdoor show in Worcester tomorrow. Last minute decision, to mooch half a tent space from a friend. It’s quite uncool to do this, but I’ve done this show before, it’s huge, it’s not really juried and I know they like my work. In fact, years past when I check in, the woman with the clipboard is wearing a pair of my double-drop atomica earrings, so I figured on the outside chance we get caught they’ll be cool. The organizers of this show, really are great. Needed some quick cash and we’ve arranged to be next to another friend, the weather is going to be nice and I think it will be a lot of fun. The bad part is, my favorite jeweler is going to be there, I don’t often run into her which is good, because there’s so much temptation. My 48 hours are up, so there will be no bitching and moaning from me, and hopefully no jewelry buying, but that I can’t guarantee.

Star Trek!

Oh Iron Man, poor, poor Iron Man. I thought you were the perfect summer movie, but then I went to Star Trek. A tad iron fisted with the sentimentality, originally so subtle and beautiful between Kirk and Spock, but no less meaningful, maybe more so for the subtlety, and this new Uhura is irritating, they should have kept it at flirtation between her and Spock, but despite these criticisms, Star Trek is still getting a perfect 10. What else can you give a movie that makes you repeatedly laugh out loud, spontaneously start clapping, and gasp out loud over and over. I was a grinning idiot through the whole movie. I sat on the edge of my seat with an idiot grin on my face almost from start to finish. My few other complaints I’m flushing down the toilet, I’m still giving it a ten because Griffin loved it too and we just plain had a great time and if previously mentioned ticket prices weren’t so damned high, I’d go see it again and again.

Such a great long weekend, I feel like I’ve been on vacation. Yeah, I should’ve worked on my taxes and attended to myriad other things, but I slept late, I relaxed, I watched movies, I could use another few days, but at least I feel more prepared for the waiting chaos of the week.

Data

When a great big bag of money falls from the sky and drops in my lap I’m going to go to Wildflour Café every day to have a shot of wheatgrass juice, a cup of my favorite IRIE english breakfast tea {probably a baked good} and then get a green smoothie to go. I’ve got to learn the art of the green smoothie, because while healthful, mine look and smell like sludge. The one’s at Wildflour or that my friend and smoothie-mentor J makes are so fresh and delicious. It’s my overzealousness, I figure if I’ve got the blender out, just throw in as much as possible and more, evidently isn’t always better, I just can't seem to stop myself.

This is the first unscheduled weekend I’ve had since last October. My store is closed for the season, so I don’t have to work on Saturday’s until reopening and the boys are at their dad’s for the long weekend, having left yesterday at noon. I had such a peaceful day yesterday, lingered at Wildflour with a friend which is why it’s on my mind, came home and got some work done at a nice leisurely clip, got to return email and make a phone call or two, such a luxury. Then I went to see Iron Man because it was the perfect moment for some good, mindless, entertainment and I’m giving it 4.75 stars out of five which is a very good score, an excellent score. It lost points because I wanted the last line of the movie to have one word exchanged for another, and it’s a big swap, so I can’t let it go, but am not offering spoilers because I don’t want to get yelled at. I love a spoiler, but I’ve not ever, ever, met anyone else that does, so I'm zipping it. This is the perfect date movie to go to with your kids if you have them, unfortunately, my little dude didn’t want to see it “sorry mom, just not my thing.” I’m seeing Star Trek tomorrow with the tall one, so I went to Iron Man on my own, figure he’ll want to see it with friends. Iron Man, has top notch explosions and sound effects, plenty of pithy Tony Stark moments, and does what it’s supposed to do, lives within it’s genre quite well. Quality, mindless entertainment is fairly elusive, so I really enjoy it when I see it, The Avengers made me want to cry... too loud, too frenetic, didn’t make sense, poor writing, I just hated it, hated it. I’d go see Iron Man again, and yeah, I’ll say it, Robert Downey Jr. is just adorable, I’d like one of those to go, please. Every time I go to the movies, I feel like the old lady who carries on about how a loaf of bread used to be a nickel. Movies were well under $5 for so long, I never got over the trauma and outrage of them breaking the five dollar mark and now the price goes up every ten minutes. $12 for a movie used to be what a big stadium concert cost, but as they’re now hundreds of dollars I guess it’s proportional, except then why hasn’t the minimum wage quadrupled as well? It really is hard to keep up, something’s gotta give, something’s gonna give, just not sure what or when.

Today I’m moving slowly, not running around like a lunatic, breathing, breathing, I need this weekend, I’m grateful for it. In other topical news, my nails are looking good, but my hair is going afro and I’m not comfortable with that... it needs to start thinking vertical growth, not horizontal or spherical, this curly hair business is just foreign to me. I should be doing my taxes right now... yep, still haven’t done my taxes. That’s misleading, I don’t even do them, it’s too complicated when you’re self-employed, I just have to prepare my stuff for the accountant and I’m way overdue, but as you can see, they're not getting done.

Instead, I'm pondering of the genius of my local utility as I've been doing all week. No one I’ve talked to, the neighbors I've accosted, are as impressed by this as I am. The utility company is sending out graphs and numbers telling you how much energy your household is using compared to 100 of your neighbors with similar sized homes that also use natural gas for heat. Although come to think of it, I’m assuming they’re also including electrical usage in that number as it’s the same utility. Anyway, I’m #36 out of 100 in usage which isn’t really that good, when you consider that only three people live here and I’m competitive, a lot of people are competitive, so they’re finally appealing to our basic instincts to get us to conserve, making us want to win. And damn it, it’s working for me, I want to improve my number. I am well aware of conservation and trying to use less energy, but when I see that number in black and white, it makes me want to do better. It’s a fine, brilliant, simple strategy that I would think would be a wakeup call to anyone near the bottom of the list. I would feel awful if compared to 100 neighbors I was #100, using the most energy. At the same time, I'm relieved, because my house isn't insulated and I always worry I'm using an outrageous amount of energy to keep warm, and I was genuinely surprised to not be inhabiting the bottom of the list. You know, I don’t really see a lot of truly smart advertising or public awareness campaigns, this one really surprised me with it’s brilliant simplicity, awesome use of data, I love data.

Wouldn't it be great to get all sorts of data mailed to you like this? Compared to 100 similar families, how do I rank parentally? Care and feeding? Nurturing? Request further categories. As a friend, how do I rank in terms of consideration, supportive, fun to be with? I'd get killed on the remembers birthdays category, but I'd do well with spontaneous gift giving and last minute planning. Draining and burdensome? How about a partner rating or first date rating, so you could know how you're doing, feel proud of your accomplishments or know what to work on. Oh, I'd feel so much better to know I was in say the top 50% of the care and feeding category, but I think the feeding of the tall one might do me in, statistically speaking anyway. Data, yes, life would be simpler with defined parameters and useful data. Oh wait a minute... I guess that would only be fun if we got to define the parameters, oh mercy, what if the tea party was setting the yardstick, o.k., maybe this isn't such a good idea after all, although I'm still giving three cheers to National Grid.

Out of Alignment

It finally seems to be spring, I’m so happy to be warm, but thus far my spring has been a tiny bit more fraught than I’d expected. I’ve been so focused on cancer and healthy eating, myriad medical appointments, and all that, I forgot that I have a bad back. That three years ago, I had to be hauled, hallucinating in pain, out of my own bed by a throng of paramedics with dirty shoes, having torn two discs in my back innocuously lifting a printer. Apparently, it’s best not to lift anything heavy in the morning, seriously, I forget technically why, but it’s true. I was amazed how quickly I healed, going from crippled to just fine in 6-8 weeks with proper rehab. I’ve had a few minor reinjuries since then, because I forget about it and lift something too heavy or do so improperly, forgetting to stay aligned, but it’s not been a big deal. My back is the last thing on my mind, so as I was grilling dinner a couple of weeks ago, I was weed diving, wrestling with bittersweet root and those pesky weed maple’s, and I was definitely not aligned. Didn’t need the paramedics, but am back at the spine center twice a week and being very careful to heal and not reinjure, so I’m watching the weeds grow taller than my flowers while I stand by helplessly. I don’t like being helpless and it’s amazing how a back injury affects morale, it just makes me feel so breakable and frail, so stiff and unbendable. I like to feel bendable.

I am obsessed with decluttering and purging my perennially cluttered house, I can feel the mess in the basement and hovering over me in the attic. Despite countless bags of trash leaving the premises, even more bags going to Big Sisters, 6 packed shopping bags of books going to a fine place that redistributes them, the house is as cluttered as ever. You’d think I like clutter or don’t notice it, but I do notice it and I don’t like it, I just seem powerless over it. I’ve been purging the boys drawers and closets and have reached my own. Yesterday I filled a bag with some of my favorite, tried and true summer dresses, they all have pleats up top, breast pleats that upon trying on, hung sadly, empty, lonely, and as strapping on a false pair seems way too alien I packed them up for goodwill, no need to leave them, pretending they'll fit again. It’s not like believing you’ll lose the weight and those jeans will fit, no delusion possible. I was going to give some to friends I thought would like them, but then I realized they’d be no ordinary hand-me-downs and maybe we’d all be best served by them going anonymously to Big Sisters. There is a shop/gallery in my neighborhood that’s been taunting me with the perfect dress, right smack in the window. It’s made from a fabric I love, it’s a 1950ish atomic-type pattern with a wide collar {my favorite and hard to find}, big shiny buttons down the front and fits me perfectly, except for the damned darts. I love t his dress so much I asked them to contact the maker in N.Y. to see if they’d make one for me sans darts, but alas, no, they couldn’t. Every day I see that dress and it breaks my heart each and every time. In truth, I can’t really afford it and don’t particularly have anywhere special to wear it, but it’s just so perfect and beautiful and me in every way, or the way I was which I forget is not the way I am, in age, as well.

I know it’s really important to stay at an optimal body weight and not gain after treatment and yet I’ve gained 15 lbs. since then, and in between green smoothies and gulping handfuls of supplements, I’m mindlessly eating junk food, sugar, sugar, my life-long nemesis. I resolve to stop now, there I’ve said it and that will make it so. No more malted milk balls, brownie sundaes despite how happy my kids are when I make them or chocolate cake, I’ll have to find another pick-me-up. Do you hear that self?... it stops now.

Life’s been hectic, I’ve gotten myself in over my head with a fundraising effort for tall one’s football team. Not getting the promised help, and participation expected when I was asked to do this and for weeks have turned into the crazy lady selling raffle tickets on street corners, while my son is out and about, or bailing on me because his allergies are acting up. I’m tired of toting around raffle tickets and going to fundraising meetings on my only free evening. Last night the boy asked me if I can pick him up from a 3-day, not inexpensive, football scouting camp at Boston College, in June {ill-advised, as school is still in session}, drive him back to Providence for the Senior graduation ceremony and then straight back to Boston College. I couldn’t even respond, my brain started spinning and feeling incoherent, I just laid my head on the table whimpering and then said “no, no I really, really can’t... spend eight hours driving back and forth to Boston in one day because you want to keep your perfect streak of never missing out on anything you want to do. It’s my own fault, saying no hasn't been my specialty. Then we had to discuss the next week after that, when I’ll have to pick him up from Camp Counselor Training Week to take him back to school for his last final and then back to camp again, add the two together and my eyeballs were rolling around in their sockets unable to focus. What’s wrong with this picture? Modern life, and I consider ours fairly unscheduled... is insane. And yes, I partially blame you Providence Public School System for not doing a better job scheduling... too many days off and so we end way too late.

Little Boy’s been home sick all week, that strange, kinda sick, then not sick, then kind of. Can’t ignore the coming and going low grade fever and intermittent cough, but then he seems fine, and then not, and each day I think he’ll go back to school, but then not and I’m cancelling one appointment after the next in this, that was to be my catch-up-on-everything week.

I just had to break the news to him that his dad was picking him up today and as it does of late, it made him angry, made him collapse in a heap. I don’t know what’s going on with those two and I don’t know how to fix it. Then I realize it’s not mine to fix although this is my child, and so I am inherently involved. It is my problem, but not my problem, boundaries are difficult. I know that it is in his best interest to have a good relationship with his father, and I know his father loves him and means well, but those two just don’t get each other on some level that seems to be escalating. Or maybe it’s his delayed reaction to the cancer, doesn’t want to be apart from me. He used to be fine going to his dad’s as long as it wasn’t too much, our schedule is wed. nights and every other weekend which starts late morning saturday, so doable, right? He was fine with this, he left willingly and cheerfully, but the past couple of months he reacts worse and worse to news of the “schedule”. Now he’s taking it out on me, he gets angry, my chipper little love bug says I don’t care about him and hides under a blanket wailing “everything is terrible” which breaks my heart. Yeah, I know, he’s manipulating me, but it still hurts, hurts me to the core, it makes me nauseous, but I don’t give in, I can’t, a deal is a deal and his father should have time with him, and, uh, I need to get out of the freaking house every once in a while and it really is only once in a while.

So it’s spring, but thus far not feeling very springy. Things will flip on a dime, I know it. I think I’m as burnt out on the school year, the sports year, as the kids are. Well tall one’s not burnt out on the sports, he’s planning for playoffs, I’m planning for over. Ready for summer, ready for a new routine. Ready to stop having thoughts like -- stop wasting your time being stressed, this could be your last spring, you never know... back to cancer, so insidious, it’s always there, I really feel like my body is free of cancer, but it’s there like a ghost, haunting every thought. I want to go back to the beach, I want to go back on vacation.

Treacherous Toes

People keep asking me what I think about Angelina Jolie. At first I didn’t know what they meant, but after being referred to her New York Time’s Editorial, I suppose I should have an opinion, but I’m drawing a blank, I don’t really think much of anything about it at all. I’m sick of our celebrity culture, I guess that’s what I think. The BRCA1 gene mutation sucks, and it’s becoming more and more common for women who carry it, and who’s female family members have been decimated by it, to have preventative mastectomies. I think Angelina made a smart decision, an agonizing choice that some unlucky women are faced with, but heroic? Nothing heroic about wanting to save your own life. Nothing heroic about wanting to avoid cancer and it’s aftermath. Heroic I suppose, would be getting a double mastectomy so someone else wouldn't get sick or donating a kidney, or running into a burning building to save a stranger. Self preservation isn't heroic, it's instinct.

I’m glad Angelina was back to life as normal in only a few days, but I suppose that’s easier when that normal life includes drivers, cooks, nanny’s and housekeepers, not to mention a devoted partner holding her hand without needing to request time off from work, paid or otherwise.

Nice to afford the type of concierge medical treatment she can afford. The BRCA test costs well over $3,000 and women who suspect they have the gene often can’t afford it and the reason it’s so expensive is that the gene is patented and controlled by a single company, as is all of the information regarding it. So if you want to go for a second opinion about the interpretation of your results, too bad, it’s profit-based information which is kind of mind-blowing. I think there should be an editorial about that. I think we should all get to write editorials for the New York Time's whenever we feel like it and have them unquestioningly published.

I looked at the website of the clinic Angelina was treated at which she was allowed to mention and advertise in her editorial, and under the “Nutritional” heading it states “Up to one third of all breast cancer is the result of poor dietary and lifestyle choices. Overweight or obese women, for instance, have twice the breast cancer recurrence and death risk.” This is just not true and I’m stunned that a reputable medical facility would preach such damaging misinformation, especially one getting free publicity from Angelina Jolie. Poor dietary and lifestyle choices can, in fact, increase one’s chances of developing cancer, but I’ve read or heard nothing, nothing, like the statistic of one third of breast cancer being a result of lifestyle choices and many lifestyles are not choices, organic food is expensive and geographically inaccessible to many people, but hey, let's blame the victim. I’m sure the environment plays a large part in growing cancer cases, but that’s not a lifestyle choice, we can’t choose the air we breathe or know what's going on in our groundwater. We knowingly build elementary schools on sites of former toxic waste dumps, who knows what we don’t know. I have to quote Dick Cheney here, something I never {ever} thought I'd do, there are knowns and there are unknowns and then there are the unknown, unknowns. Everyone mocked Dick for this, and god knows he's mockable, actually, Dick Cheney is not funny, he's just too scary to be funny, but this was actually a good quote, I love this quote. Back on point, while I have read that maintaining a healthy body weight and/or not gaining weight after treatment {argh, which I'm not doing} is slightly correlated with a better outcome, it’s barely mentioned by most western doctors, also inexplicable. Being overweight does not double one’s chance of survival, that’s just preposterous, oh that it were so simple. So I guess that’s all I have to say on that. Except that having surgery preventatively, gave her the option of “nipple sparing” surgery, so she’ll wind up with breasts looking very much like other Hollywood breasts, the breasts she would have likely ended up with regardless. I think Angelina will be just fine, in fact, I think Angelina will be more than fine.

Back here in the real world, I’ve been busy with getting the kids down the end of school year homestretch and we’re all pretty burnt out and I'm never, ever volunteering to do fundraising again. Since my first mani/pedi, I’ve become obsessed with nail polish. 49 years of bare nails and now I feel naked without nail polish, explain that. My glorious blue sky blue enamel, slowly chipped away and I aimed to choose a springy tangerine as it’s replacement, but wound up with traffic cone orange instead, which by the end of the day, I loathed enough to make a 9p.m. trip to CVS for nail supplies. I removed the nail polish and went back to my blue which is delights me still and again, but damn, doing your own nails is hard, what a mess, I had to try three times and that stuff stinks, can’t be healthy. So the toes, I just covered with a layer of what I thought was deep pink, but is the deepest scarlet. They don’t suit me, they look like scheming, untrustworthy toes. I explained this to Jonah and he said “you know... I’m inclined to agree.” What other twelve year old boy would understand that, my boy is right, we are two peas in a pod, we just get each other. Since I’m busy and tired, I’m stuck with treacherous toes for a while. Clearly, the girly nails are compensating for the loss of other girlie parts, I think instead of forcing everyone needing a mastectomy to consult with a plastic surgeon, pushing the sacks of saline, they should just recommend a manicure. Hey, there's another item that should be in the cancer goody-bag, coupons for free mani/pedi's {for life}, that would go a long way and really save the insurance companies a fortune. My shop closed for the season, abruptly ending my cash flow, so unlike Angelina, I can’t keep going for mani/pedi’s even on discount Wednesday. So for now, I'll dwell in the minutia of nail color and cleaning off my porch and feeding my children. Sometimes the minutia is better than the big picture.