I Slept with Robert DeNiro...but about my cancer

Memorial for Trish

2009-02-07T14:51:00.000-08:00

Well... in spite of the fact that Trish claimed she didn't want to have a "big deal" made on her account ... we're planning a "little deal" in a BIG space.
There will be a memorial celebration for Trish on:

Sunday, February 22, at 11:00 a.m.

Yes, that IS Acadamy Awards day... and since Trish loved to watch the Awards we thought it was an appropriate day... and at a time that would let people get back to their "place of choice" in time for the red carpet interviews.
(For the past many years Trish got together with a group of "like-minded" women to watch the awards. I always wanted to go, and even suggested I could disguise myself as a woman ... but it was not to be. In remains a mysterious event in my mind. I don't know what they get up to there, but I know it has to be funny).

ANYWAY.... that's Sunday, February 22, at 11:00 a.m.
AT:
Park Century School
3939 Landmark Street
Culver City, CA 90232

The school is located on Landmark Street, just south of Washington Blvd. and one block west of National. (This is very near the intersection of Venice Blvd. and Robertson to give you a general location). There are two small parking lots for the school, but ample street parking in the neighborhood on a Sunday morning.

Park Century was the school that Trish taught at for the Virginia Avenue Project ... they just moved last year to this beautiful new building, which they kindly offered for the celebration. I think it's an appropriate and meaningful venue.

The "official" part of the program is still be locked in, but mostly it will be a day to see old friends, meet new ones, and laugh together remembering one of the best and funniest people we knew.

The news we never wanted ...

2009-01-13T18:04:00.000-08:00

Andy Parks here again, with the news we all never wanted to hear. Trish Soodik died on Thursday, January 8, 2009, shortly before noon.
The cancer she had fought against so bravely had become overwhelming. However, she was her beautiful, spirited, and positive self to the very end.
She passed away with relatively little discomfort, surrounded by family and friends, with her loving son Will always at her side.
The family will gather for a private ceremony, and many of us want to have a memorial celebration of her life sometime in the future. Trish often expressed she didn't want a big fuss made over her ... but I don't think she'd mind if we did a little something in her honor.
And if you out there want to honor Trish, go forward, joyously, with your life. See it's delights. Laugh at it's ironies. Listen. Don't get bogged down in self-pity. And most of all, be a good and loving friend.

There will be more to say in the coming days, so the blog will be kept open for a while. In the meantime .... run out and find something to take delight in.

I Hear A Frog

2008-12-12T17:27:00.000-08:00

Okay, I don't even know where to begin. Hmmmm, I think I'll begin...right...

HERE. I have finished my radiation and I believe I glow in the dark now just in time for the holidays. It was not bad except for the fatigue that follows and then I got this lump on my neck which appears to be a lymph node and the possibly good news IF THERE IS SUCH A THING, is that it seems to have gone down quite a bit since it first appeared and it may have been the reason my right arm wasn't working and the reason for it's appearance may be the horribly unattractive entrance to my feeding tube. As you may recall, the tube caught on a chair a few months ago and popped out and ever since then it has just been a pain in the tube and is always red and yucky but no one wanted to do anything until I finished the CLINICAL TRIAL (THUMBS DOWN ON THAT ONE) and immediately after that I went into the hospital and then onto radiation so they couldn't mess with the tube until RADIATION was complete. So now it's done and Monday morning my tube is going to be adjusted either by surgery or just sticking another tube into the hole and yuck and you have no idea how tired I am talking about tubes and holes and not in any form of sexual reference. Ah, I remember the good ole days of happy tubes and holes. Not painful tubes and holes.

So I am recouping from radiation and I learned from my friend Carol that my very handsome and charming radiologist, Dr. Song, is married to a famous journalist who used to be on The View and I think her name might be Lisa Ling and she and Dr. Song were on the View last week and Carol saw them and confirmed that I was NOT light headed and yes, Dr. Song, IS a very handsome man. I want to kiss him. I think I will in my dreams. Tubes and holes.

Speaking of kisses...There is a very loud frog outside my window and I have started to think that maybe he is that prince and he's just waiting for me to let him in so I can give him that big slimey kiss that transforms him into Prince Freddy or someone with a good sense of humor and a Prius. But if I open the screen to let him in at night then it also gives a signal to the mice and I do not want to kiss any of those guys even though they are awfully cute but they poop just about everywhere when allowed in and I don't know much about frog poop but if I kiss Mr. Toad right away maybe I could catch him as a prince and I have never heard about any Princely pooping problems.

Oh my God, do you think I am loosing my mind? Is it the season? Deck the halls and all that. Kiss the frog. Kiss Dr. Song. I did have a full body scan this morning and was injected with more radioactive stuff and some of it must have gone to my brain so I take no responsibility for what I am saying. Or thinking.

I have to buy some presents. I'm late. For a very important date. Did I ever mention that I was cast once as the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland because I fit into the costume? Actually, it was Alice in UNDERLAND and it was a Seven-Up commercial, THE UNCOLA, and I went up for the part of Alice (I had long blonde hair, after all) but I happened to fit into the rabbit suit and oh they were so happy to have an actress who even fit into the damn rabbit feet shoes. I was so humiliated wearing that giant rabbit head that I wouldn't take it off all day, even for lunch. They would fork sloppy joes into my big rabbit mouth. And no one ever knew what I really looked like. I just sat in that costume all day, crying, wondering why I wasn't Alice. My entire childhood flashed before me as I watched through the rabbit hole eyes the entire crew flirt with Alice and I sat on the sidelines, legs crossed and sloppy joe dripping down my whiskers.

Good residuals, though.

So Monday they fix my tube.

And maybe that frog will be there.

I am so ready.

Where Have I Been?

2008-11-29T16:32:00.000-08:00

Well, the answer to that question is...No where. Actually, that's not completely true. Thursday night I went to my friend's Dennis and Dierdre's house for Thanksgiving. And I ate. Oh boy oh boy oh boy did I eat. Yes, hold on to your chairs. I, the one with almost no stomach and only part of an esophagus was able to eat ONE BITE of carrot and ONE BITE of mashed potato! Ta da! How is that for a feast? Oh, and one tiny bite of apple pie. Oooooh, it was heavenly. Just that tiny bite. And I was thankful for so many wonderful things in my life.........................

That is so not true. What the hell do I have to be thankful for? I wanted to eat that whole damn pie. And the pumpkin one, too. And I wanted turkey and gravy and CRANBERRIES! And sweet potatoes and I didn't want anyone else to have anything. Just lots of food for me. ME ME ME! Dammit. Thankful? This has been one lousy shitty yucky year and to top it off I can't move my right arm. Yes. I am sitting here in pain writing this blog because one week ago I slept in some funny position on my right side and Joyce massaged it and that helped but I still can't lift it up and right now it is hurting as I write and all I want to do is eat something with sugar but I can't do that so I blog with a pain that has nothing to do with cancer just some new inconvenience while I wait for what's next in my seemingly endless series of woes. OH WOE IS ME!!!!!!!!!

Okay, that's out of my system now. All I really wanted was a piece of pie. So I had to complain. Just a bit. Come on. Everyone has to complain every once in a while. Right? And I am thankful. So very, very thankful...For...

My left arm. Yeah, that's it. My left arm works. I am thankful for my left arm. But I have to get off early today because my right arm is killing me and I think I need a popcycle or maybe a bicycle and don't you just love the holidays. Don't they just fill you with joy and hope and happiness?

And pie? Next year, fuck it. I am eating pie on Thanksgiving. With my right hand. A la mode. And if I pass out in a pie filled coma it will be with a smile on my face and a little belly full of sweet apples and I will give thanks for everything and maybe we'll be out of Iraq and I will stop feeling sorry for myself in anyway because truthfully I have everything a person could want and I am one of the lucky ones even without the use of my arm...Which is only temporary. Right?

RIGHT?

Okay, already. I am thankful and I love you all and peace on earth and all that jazz.

RIGHT?

Long Story Short

2008-11-12T17:23:00.000-08:00

Well, obviously nothing seems as important or as exciting as last Tuesday night. Amazing and it happened in our life time. How lucky are we. He's smart! He's handsome. She's smart! She's beautiful. And they have to much shit to deal with I cannot even imagine. But for some reason I think they can actually handle it. Finally someone is representing me that I am proud of in so many ways. Will brought me home from the hospital just in time for the returns. Yes, I was in the hospital for a week. Okay, now I'm going to talk about my silly personal stuff that seems so meaningless compared to the shift that occurred last week in the unsteady plates of the USA.

In a nutshell, here's what happened...Suddenly, I couldn't eat anything. Not yogurt, not peanut butter, not Popsicles, not water...NOTHING. Hmmmm. Not a good sign. So I got very dehydrated and finally checked myself into the hospital where they started pumping fluids into me and some pain medication and anti nausea to try and help me stop tossing my cookies. (Oh, for a cookie. Warm and dripping chocolate chips. Even a snickerdoodle would do) So it was determined that the clinical trial I was trying was not working and my days as a guinea pig were over. I failed. I asked the doctor in charge of the trial if that meant I won something just for donating my body to science for five weeks. You know, like a trip to Paris, business class or Sarah Palin's old wardrobe, perhaps, even though it's not my style but I might like her blue moose sweatshirt but no, I get nothing except a pat on the back and a thanks a lot and please bring back the pills you didn't finish. Hmmm, wonder what XL88L is worth on the street. Probably a punch in the nose. So now I am onto the next treatment, good ole radiation. They have tattooed a mark on my heart and a couple marks on my sides and five days a week I go into a Star Trekkie room where I machine rotates around and radiates my tumor that is preventing me from eating or drinking. The tumor that just seems to be growing and not taking orders from anyone. One good thing about this little tumor, it seems to be on it's own, not bothering any other organs. Just does it's own thing and that's a good thing. Thank goodness! Something in the positive column for once. So for three weeks I get radiated and then............WHATEVER COMES NEXT!

Robert DeNiro. Remember him? I sort of do.

The most exciting moment of my radiation thus far...There are technicians who put you in the right place on the silver table so the radiation beam can hit you in the exact spot that it should. These technicians have all been women...Until today. Gordo. Gordo was there taking off my blouse and lying me on the table completely topless. It had been so long since a man had taken off my blouse that I wanted to throw my arms around Gordo and pull him down to the silver table where the beam would go threw his back to my chest and we would be some kind of bonded. But I resisted and he covered me with a towel and beep beep I was radiated alone. Just me and my tumor and Gordo in the outside "safe" room. Maybe I'll ask if I could stand in the safe room with Gordo while he zaps someone else. Maybe we'll just be really good friends. Maybe I need a vacation

The mice are still here. Rats? I'm beginning to like them. I think they like me, too. I mean, they always leave me presents. And Christmas is coming. Nice to have something around that wants to give you presents, right?

WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING? Am I getting better? Or do I just keep trying out different possible methods that may or may not work? I was told today that the trial in Japan I was so interested in only seems to work on Japanese people! What the hell does that mean? Anything out there that just works on Jews? Must be something, right? Like a matzo ball chemo where they inject you twice a week with matzo meal and you complain every waking moment until the tumor has no choice but to shrink and get the hell out of there. I'm telling you, I am going to think of something so I can get back to some semblance of a normal life if it's the last thing I'm going to do.

Ah, but we've got a new President. Things have changed. There is Hope. Yes, there is. Even if everything went down hill from here a good thing happened. A change was allowed to occur. And we have one person in particular to thank for that change. George W. Bush. Even if things were just so/so I'm not sure such a radical change would have happened. I think things had to sink to very very far down that people of all persuasions felt that something drastic had to happen. I never thought I would say this but, thank you George W for doing such a spectacularly awful job that even people on your own side saw that there was really only one choice to get us out of this swamp. Thanks for bringing us Mr. Barack Obama. As that radiation radiates through my bones I get sort of a heavenly feeling that maybe love is in the air again.

Or maybe it's Gordo................................

Sleeping Booty

2008-10-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

A PLAY IN TWO THIRDS OF AN ACT

ALEX: Psssssst. Hey Isadore. I think we'd better bust this joint.

ISADORE: Shhhhhh. I'm busy here.

ALEX: No, listen to me. We are not long for this world if we stay here. I got a bad feeling about this house.

ISADORE: Oh man. Can't you just relax for one hour, 'fraidy rat? Me and Allison here are watchin' Jon Stewart and Colbert, for God's sake? Best things on the tube since Beevis and Butthead went off the air.

ALEX: You ever see Rachael Maddow? Now that broad is hot.

ISADORE: Hey, She's a lesbo, man.

ALEX: Cannot be.

ISADORE: She is. And she's out. Says it all over the papers. The New York Times, no less.

ALEX: Told you not to read the New York Times. It's trash. Left wing balderdash.

ISADORE: What the hell does that mean?

ALEX: How many times have I told you that maybe you should occasionally pick up a dictionary, bonehead?

ISADORE: Are you crazy? I can't even drag one of those refrigerators off the shelf. They weigh a ton. And they call that a book? And will you please just shut your trap 'cause I'm watchin' some high class entertainment here.

ALEX: Nope. Not Rachael Maddow. Not a hot one like that. Just cannot be.

ALLISON: Hey, Izzy, Alex, could the two of you possibly shut your pie holes up for once? Is that like possible?

ALEX: Oh, now there's some nice lady like talk. I think Allison here has just outed herself.

ISADORE: Come to think of it, when was the last time you were on a date, Ms. Allison with the biggest hooters on the planet.

ALLISON: Very funny, Mr. Isadore, with the smallest...

ISADORE: SHUT UP MS. DEBBIE DOES DALLAS. JUST SHUT IT UP NOW, YOU HEAR?

ALEX: Shhhhhh. You Dumbos are gonna wake Trish and that is just what we do not need right now.

ISADORE: You kiddin'? Those pills she takes can knock her out for a week. You ever see how many pills that chick can take? She's got a virtual pharmacy in her bathroom.

ALEX: Could you guys listen to me for one second here, please? This gal is onto to us. Hear that? ON TO US! By election day we are all dead rats, thrown into the garbage with all the rest of the phony ballots, trust me.

ISADORE: Nah. Impossible. This here is a peace and love chick. Haven't you seen the peace signs all over her house? Everywhere. They are everywhere, man. Like it's 1965 or something. Sickening. Like she's Janis Joplin only with no hair. Plus she's for Obama and Biden plus she's got Buddhas all over the front yard and the back and I'm tellin' you this gal is not killin' a creature on this planet. Not even an ant. One of those kind.

ALEX: Oh yeah? Well what and who did I see whilst you two were sleeping all cozy in her cookie drawer last week? Huh? Huh?!

ALEX: Oh wow, we sure left a lot of droppins' in that drawer, didn't we Allison?

ALLISON: Thousands, huh Isadore?

ISADORE: More like millions! Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

ALLISON: Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

ALEX: Okay, so you guys laugh while Rome is burning, which I have no idea what that means but let me show you something.

ISADORE: Before Colbert is over?

ALEX: Yes, before Colbert is over if you know what's good for you. Follow me.

ALLISON AND ISADORE FOLLOW ALEX INTO THE KITCHEN.

ALEX: You two ever been in THIS drawer before?

ISADORE: I was goin' in tomorrow.

ALEX: Well, I suggest you take a look right now or there may not be a tomorrow!

ALLISON: You are so dramatic, Alex. So dramatic.

ALEX OPENS THE DRAWER AND ALLISON AND ISADORE ENTER. AFTER A MOMENT.....

(FROM INSIDE THE DRAWER.) "Yikes! Traps!

THEY BOTH RUN OUT AND SLAM THE DRAWER BEHIND THEM. ALLISON SLINKS SLOWLY DOWN TO THE LINOLEUM WITH TEARS STREAMING DOWN HER CHEEKS.

ALLISON: I can't believe it. Why would she do this to us? She loves peace and she loves love. Plus I like her house soooooo much. Did you see her moisturizers? And serums? They are heaven in a bottle. She has everything a girl could want. And she can't share? Why would she do this to innocent little..."

ALEX: Rats. We're rats Allison. Look at us. You'd need an ocean of moisturizer to look presentable to the human race.

ALLISON: Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I knew it. They hate me. The entire human race hates me. Because I'm ugly. And rough. Once, just once couldn't somebody, anybody...exfoliate me? Oh, the life of a rat is such a sad and lonely road, isn't it Isadore?

ISADORE: Can I please just finish watching Colbert?"

ALEX: Gather your things and let's get out before dawn."

ALLISON: We have no things.

ISADORE: Maybe this Trish gal will come back as a rat and then she'll see how tough life can really be.

ALLISON: I'm ugly, aren't I? Just plain ugly. Viggo Mortenson would never give me a second look. Never.

ALEX: Aw Allison. You are the most beautiful rat I ever encountered.

ALLISON: Really?

LONG PAUSE.

ALEX AND ISADORE: Sure. Absolutely. Rat extraordinaire.

ALEX: Look at that long completely creepy tail. Gotta love it.

THE THREE OF THEM HEAD OUT THROUGH A SCREEN THEN TURN BACK TO LOOK AT THE HOUSE ONE MORE TIME.

ALLISON: Bitch.

ISADORE: With a great TV.

ALEX: Hey, you know where we're never been? Mar Vista.

ISADORE: I hear they got big houses there. And it's right near Costco. Where they get those gigantic sacks of food. And I'm talkin' gigantic.

ALEX: And they got triple sized jars of lotion, Allison.

ALLISON: Really? Loads and loads of lotion? Well then, it's On to Mar Vista for me!

ALLISON, ALEX AND ISADORE: Weeeeeee're off to see Mar Vista
The prettiest city on earth.
Because, because, because, because...................................

AND FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE...

TRISH: Did I just hear singing? Oh my God, these pills are driving me crazy.

SHE PICKS UP HER PHONE AND DIALS.

TRISH: Hi, it's me...Hey, could you please give me a ride to Costco tomorrow? I don't know, just had a feeling I'd like to go. Get some giant bags of something................................

Asleep At The Squeal

2008-10-13T15:38:00.000-07:00

I think it was twenty, no maybe thirty mice that came into my bedroom after I had taken my critical trial pills that knock me out completely and these little critters carried me out to the backyard like a Mrs. Gulliver or possibly a Mrs. Travels and they left me there...LEFT ME THERE...to sleep it off, meaning the pills... And I woke up as the sun rose on my face and slowly I opened my eyes and it took me a moment to realize just where I was but it took longer than that to understand how I had gotten there. Gracie, the dog, was licking my toes and looking up at me as if to say, "Girl, you are a mess. You have got to start taking care of yourself." This from my stinky but lovely little dog and I walked into the house then into my bedroom and was shocked to find the entire bed covered with mouse droppings and little chewed corners and I put two and two together and realized that everything that's gone on in my life in the last week has been rodent related. And you wonder why I haven't been blogging. Who can blog with creatures running from one end of the room to another while you're trying to write? IS THIS ANYWAY TO LIVE? Well, I guess it's one way. Not a way that I would have chosen. No sirree. What I would have chosen would have been to be signing my new novel in Barnes and Nobel in New York City and having actual food, maybe some fish and asparagus and potatoes at some nice restaurant with my book agent and a few friends and maybe stopping for a hot dog at a little stand in the village on my way to see some underground jazz because I can eat anything I want and I do and at the jazz club I'm going to have at least two margaritas and a whole lot of chips and...........

But actually I am plagued by mice AND these pills I am taking are sucking the daylight out of me. Meaning, I can't seem to stay awake. However, I had a thought that if I took the pills at night maybe I would sleep at night like a normal person and then could be awake in the daytime LIKE A NORMAL PERSON! So I ran this by my doctor and he said fine but he'd have to run it by the company. THE COMPANY? Oh, that's right. I am a guinea pig. I always forget that. And I am ruled by the company. If the company wants me to hop on one foot, I will hop on one foot. I am but a number. In fact my pills are called XL880. Not Little Buddy or Rachael La Mode but XL880. Sound like science fiction to you? Am I living on The Enterprise or what? Where am I? Mice carrying me around the house. Pills making me sleep. And this is going to cure me? I don't even know who The Company consist of. What if Dick Cheney owns The Company? THEN WHAT? Because where has that guy been for the last year? And then will Sarah Palin own it? OHMYGOD. I would have to take orders from Sarah Palin? All right, this is way too much. I really think it's getting close that time when I rip off all the damn pain patches, throw out all the pain pills, pack up a little suitcase and get myself to some peaceful place, maybe Carpinteria and just run around until I drop. To hell with The Company. they don't care about ME. It's for the greater good. So I sleep for eight weeks and get woken up by a rodent kissing me on the lips. Not the Disney movie I grew up with. But, hey, it's all interesting.

OH HELL, IT SUCKS. THIS WHOLE MOUSE PILL THING SUCKS THERE IS NO WAY AROUND IT. Oh sure, tell me my hair is coming in so quickly and looks so full even though it's only a quarter inch from my scalp. Come on, tell me how good I look with no meat on my bones. Hey, you know what I really want you to tell me..........THAT IT ALL SUCKS and I got dealt a pretty bad hand.

But first I'd like you to teach me how to play poker. So I can know what a bad hand really means. Always wondered that. Dealt a bad hand. Oh, I'm just rambling. Because, honestly, with the son that I have, I know I was dealt the best of hands. Come rodents come, eat me alive. Drop your droppings everywhere. You can't hurt me. I have something that means more to me than any stupid pillow case or missing potato chips.

Ah. I feel better now. Sometimes you have to run around in a little crazy circle like a dog before you can land in that "just right" spot. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

Of Mice and Me

2008-10-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

What the hell happened to my sweet little life? Okay, I have cancer, I can't eat or drink almost anything. I CAN'T DRINK! (I just had to repeat that one.) Can't swim. Can't go out at night unless I carry my IV with me. WHAT KIND OF LIFE IS THAT? And now...NOW...Now I have either one tiny mouse or a family of tiny mice moving in and taking over my house. Right now, right at this moment, one of these mice, (if there is more than one) is fast asleep between my screen and my window right above my pillow. He's tucked in the corner and I was staring at him and he woke up just long enough to yawn and give me what looked to be a WINK. Kid you not. And I have to admit...He was pretty damn cute.

HOWEVER...The other day I opened the linen closet and out came a huge pile of mouse poop and a completely chewed up pillow case. Must have been very cozy in there. Now here's the thing...If it's only one mouse why should I wreck his life? Why not let him live and poop where he wants and chew up a few things and get cozy. He's not really hurting anyone and those cute little ears...But somehow it seems wrong and a little scary if there is a whole family of mice taking over my household because then the poop possibilities seem a bit frightening and the mouse brigade could chew my entire house up until everything in it is in tatters and some things, like my yard, already look a crazy old lady with a million cats lives here because I haven't been very good at taking care of things this past year. Someone said maybe the mice will make me a beautiful ball gown like Cinderella or one of those Disney princesses but even in my weakened state I knew that was not going to happen. Especially since all that these mice seem to do is sleep and chew and poop. Not the dress making type. Just my luck. So now I have to make the decision...To kill or not to kill. Honestly, I don't think I can do it...Kill those cute little things. It's like shooting a moose from a helicopter. Hmmmm, who is it that does that? Just read about her somewhere. Oh right, the next possible Vice President of the United States who can't even name a newspaper she reads. Now how did i get onto that topic. Oh right, to me shooting a moose from a helicopter seems like such an unfair disadvantage to the poor moose. Doesn't stand a chance. If you're going to kill an animal it does seem like you should at least give it a chance to save themselves like run away or fly away, depending on what type of creature it is. Just like with mice. They don't have much of a chance. Who can resist cheese? If someone put a giant piece of gouda in my yard I wouldn't even notice the big silver pipe holding it down and I'd walk over and take a big bite of that gouda without even going to get a cracker and in a moment...SQUASH...I'd be a goner.

Okay. I've decided. The mice/mouse shall live...For the time being. However, if I wake up one morning covered in creatures I'm going to give this decision some more thought. My decisions used to be much more simple...And fun. Like, what should we have for dinner? That was a fun decision. Had nothing to do with death. Except possibly for the dead fish I might have cooked that night. Didn't put a lot of thought into that. Probably should have.

Now I'm thinking about that moose again. Must be the debate tonight. Maybe the mouse would like to watch it with me. Maybe we could be a little makeshift family. Me and my mice. We could all get cozy. Chew on my blankets.

Hmmmm. I wonder if they're Republicans? And no, that would not make a difference whether I kill them or not. You have to trust me on that.

All this talk of killing has exhausted me. Peace and love.

Unless, of course, there is just way too much poop. Then to hell with it.

One Pill Makes You Larger...

2008-09-25T14:55:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am again after a fun filled week in Rio. I would like to thank Andy for completely lying about my computer being down. I just wanted to keep up the lame story that I was sick and lost my hair and had to feed through a tube. I just knew it would be so much more interesting to write about a serious illness than to write about my real life which is traveling around the world with Brad and Angeline and buying shoes in Italy and going to fashion shows in Paris and....................

Oh please. Who am I kidding. Last week when my computer was down was just one big sucky week. Andy was telling the truth because he cannot tell a lie. Sort of a George Washington type. In fact, Andy should be president. Anyone, actually except............Okay, no politics right now. Sort of makes me even sicker than I am already. So here's what happened. Saturday might I was feeling really good and I was strutting across the living room, tra le tra la and my feeding tube which comes out from my intestine (hope you're not eating dinner) caught on a chair and CAME OUT! So I had a nice bloody hole in my stomach and luckily Michael was here and we rushed to the ER where the doctor took one look at it and said, "I have no idea what to do." So he thought and he thought and finally decided he would put in a temporary. He went to look for something, anything, and came back with a tube all right. But it was a slightly thicker tube than the one that had been in there since March. Put in, by the way, by a surgeon. Dr. Kuchenbecker, remember him? Anyway, WITHOUT ANESTHETIC, he pushed and pushed this thicker tube into my stomach until he thought it was in the right place then sent me for X-Rays to make sure it was okay. Then he sent me home. It seemed to work but boy was it sore.
Then Monday morning I was talking to my friend Carol in Carpinteria and I looked down and saw that the temporary tube HAD FALLEN OUT. So, with Karen driving it was back to the ER where I stayed all day, with no food mind you, and finally at around six a Dr. Deutch put in an almost permanant tube. A really permanant tube would have to be put in by surgery but this one seems to work just fine. But I got weighed this morning and I lost two pounds and I thought HOW COME I COULDN'T LOSE WEIGHT THAT FAST WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL! If I wanted to get into a pair of jeans that were a little tight I would have to start months before to lose just one pound. Maybe it was thousand island dressing, I don't know. But just one day in the ER without food and I was two pounds down.
So that's what I was doing while my computer was down and out. And I was taking my clinical trial pills and yelling at my tumor to get the hell out of my body so maybe between the two of us we can shrink this thing down to nothingness.
Ah, what a life. Can't really say that it isn't interesting and it certainly is not what I expected but it is what it is. Tubes, pills. And the best part...Friends.

Here's one thing I'm looking forward to...Obama debating himself. Ms. Palin had a preacher rid her of witchcraft. I kid you not. It's on video. Maybe that's what we need to heal the economy and end the war. A little witchcraft. I think it might be smarter to have a dialogue but what do I know. I'm just a pill popping sick person trying to get better.

Go Ask Alice. I Think She'll Know.....................................

It's nice to see Andy's back .... especially after seeing his front...

2008-09-23T18:37:00.000-07:00

Hi, Soodik-fans. Andy Parks here again. Don't Panic! Trish is okay ... but either her computer or her ISP ("internet service provider" for the anagrammatically challenged) isn't working as it should, making it impossible for her to blog. So she's asked me to post a message letting everyone know that she'll be right back after this brief interruption. In the meantime....
Many years ago Trish was working on a crossword puzzle, and she was absolutely stumped by a word... phonetically, the word was "thoosly".... "Thoosly", she thought, "What the hell is 'thoosly'?". The word, of course, was "thusly".... but her brain had given the "u" the long vowel sound... as in "confusion". She found this very amusing (there's that long "u" again), and later was to name a dog (from a litter provided by the Parks' family's Louise) Thusly... spelled with a line over the "u" to indicate the long vowel sound. Thusly was a fine dog, with a broken tail, who once caught a fish... unassisted by rod or reel.
That's all for now.

The Year of the Pig

2008-09-18T15:26:00.000-07:00

All right. I have done it. Thanks to the driving expertise of Karen and Gretchen, I have been to UCLA twice today and I have taken...DRUMROLL PLEASE...The Experimental Pills! And that is pills with an S because I have to take four a day. I threw up after I swallowed them this morning because I believe I ingested them too quickly. But I did it. And just like that, I felt good, really good and just like that the cancer was gone and I ran to the great UCLA pool and I swam a mile and when I got out of the pool my hair was down to my shoulders and it was this groovy stripey kind of color with blondes and browns all mixed together and out of nowhere this very intelligent and sweet looking man walked over to me with an oversized towel and dried me off and led me to the locker room where I changed into just the cutest sized 4 dress with a really darling sweater to match and we walked over to the Village for lunch because I was starving and he told me that he had just been made leader of the Rangers in Yosemite where he was going to work during the summers and the rest of the year he would live in New York City where he worked with needy children and he wanted to know If I would like to live half the year in the mountains and the other half in New York where I could write my novel or my play or whatever and if I'd like I could help out with the kids and it took me two tenths of a second to say yes so we ran over to Dr. Wainberg's office where he gave me a quick scan and said yes, the cancer was all gone and he wished me luck and we hopped into Abe's darling hybird (that's his name, Abe. Abraham, really.) and we drove back to my house where a moving van was gathering up all the stuff I wanted to keep and sending the rest to a storage unit owned by someone I used to know and we drove to Carpinteria where I jumped into the ocean and ran on the sand while Abe drew the sunset in pen and ink and we went back to my house and Abe grilled us some dinner and I ate every bite and then we decided to drive straight to Yosemite so we could stare at the stars. And that we did. And the air was crisp and clean and I slept like a baby and when I woke up near dawn I called Will and told him the good news and he was thrilled and we hung up and Abe brought me some tea and I watched the sunrise and thought of the year I had been through and how lucky I was to be just where I was at that moment and how funny life is where you can be down one moment and up the next...If you're one of the lucky ones.

And I am breathing now. Deep breaths. And it feels good. And Abe is here. Somewhere. And I am so excited to drive around for the next eight weeks because I'm not sure where I'm going but I have no fear and Abe is with me and sometimes you ARE in the right place at the right time. Like when I gave birth. Perfect place. Perfect time. I think I'm in the right place again. It feels good. Maybe tomorrow I'll make a big sandwich. Maybe these pills are magic pills. Maybe I'm not a guinea pig after all. Or if I am, maybe I'm the Queen of the guinea pigs. Look, the sun is coming up while the moon is going down. My kind of day.

Comfortable Chairs

2008-09-16T17:23:00.000-07:00

Ah, the land of the sick. I am sitting in one of those barcaloungers they seem to provide for you in every room where they have IVs. I'm at UCLA (this was written yesterday) and they are drawing blood (yuck, my least favorite procedure) and they are going to give me an injection that's supposed to make my heart beat very fast and then one hour later they draw more blood.

Sound like fun to you? Isn't this how you'd really like to spend your Monday afternoon?

I brought a book. Philip Roth. Everyman. It's about mortality. Sounds appropriate, don't you think?

And speaking of mortality...

Trying to put that positive spin on this completely unbelievable situation, I decided to come up with reasons why it might not be so bad to leave the planet a little earlier than planned. Hey, I'm just trying to come up with some comforting thoughts that might help me through all of this...just in case. So here goes...

Traffic - I would never have to be stuck on the 405 again. (Oh my gosh, is that really the first reason I can come up with that makes death worth while? That is pathetic. Traffic is no reason to die. Please don't mention that to anyone or they might just shoot me for being a pointless, useless human being.)

People. Yes, I love most people but there are some whom I would have to classify as annoying. Go through my blog and you'll notice a few of them. Or there are the kind who look at you like you're dead already or are going to be any minute now. I hate that. Or they talk to you on the phone like you're deaf because they figure that you're sick so that means all of your bodily functions are falling apart and that must include your hearing.

Waiting Rooms. In the last year I have sat in way too many waiting rooms with way too many old people. Rarely is there someone younger than I am. And thank goodness for that, on one level. But that makes me feel like I am definitely in the wrong room because a/ I'm not old yet and b/ I cannot be sick like these people. I'm a healthy gal. Everyone always used to comment on how healthy I was because I ate pounds of broccoli and no red meat and no crap at all and I exercised and are you kidding me I end up in rooms full of very sick old people? This cannot be. And I want out of these rooms because sometimes these rooms just bum me out. Especially after all this time. Remember, I thought 2008 was going to be a banner year? Well, what the hell happened? I seem to be back to where I started from only more so. About to start an experimental drug. You realize that an experiment means they have run out of tested drugs that worked on thousands of people but obviously not on me so I became a little guinea pig running around the little (really gigantic) UCLA cage while they take my blood over and over and do other odd things to me that make me feel woozy and a whole bunch of faceless doctors and drug companies are looking down into my little cage to see if I'm going to fall over after I take their experimental pills or if I'm going to run around and put another ball into a hole so I can get another piece of cheese. For this I should go on living?

Yes. Yes, I suppose I should. I'm lucky I live in an age when they have clinical trials. And I guess if you are thinking about people's lives and how they turn out and if they're interesting, there is something interesting about becoming a guinea pig in your middle years. Now how many people can say that is what they decided to do after their career dried up due to ageism. They didn't go live in Europe, they didn't travel to exotic countries, they didn't teach, they decided to become...A GUINEA PIG. Interesting choice. Probably a really stupid choice. Come on, I'd much rather be in an exotic country. Guinea pig...Exotic country...Exotic country...Guinea pig...Who knows, maybe I'll still end up in Japan. A guinea pig in an exotic country. Not a bad way to end up.

Well, I guess my list of reasons to leave the earth leaves something to be desired. Traffic and annoying people. Not enough. So I'm screwed. There really are no good reasons to leave. Except you have to. You have no choice. Oh wait, there is the election. If it goes a certain way that may be the perfect time to get out of here. Some people talk about moving to Canada. Why not go where no man has gone before? After this election, if it goes the way of the beauty queen, that might not be such a bad idea.

But I am certainly hanging around long enough to vote. And then we shall see. Hey, maybe this experiment will work. Now wouldn't that be totally fab. That's where my mind is going. Yes, I am going to get that piece of cheese. Why not? I'm due for some good news.

Thursday I take my first pill. Should be interesting...........................................

Jealously, Envy and Wrinkles

2008-09-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

"Hi. How are you? Yeah, I know. I miss you, too. Oh please, you don't want to hear about me. Too boring. Tell me about you. What's going on in your life? How are the boys?"

I listen. I listen. I can tell that my face is turning red.

"You're kidding? He loves college, has a great roommate, great classes, the perfect girlfriend and he's just...Completely great. How fantastic!! And what about the other one?"

I listen. I listen. But I have curled my toes so tightly in my sneakers that they are cramping up and I can't seem to straighten them out. AND THEY HURT.

But I keep listening.

"He's never been happier? Oh, that's wonderful. Loves his new job. Working with terrific people over seas. He just loves everything about it. He made exactly the right choice. Isn't that a relief for you? And how's your teaching? I know how hard that can be."

I listen. I listen. I feel like I'm going to throw up so I pull over one of those pink buckets I have lying all around me. But I don't really have to throw up. I WANT to throw up. For the first time I actually want to because maybe that will make sense to me.

"Aha. So teaching is fabulous this year. All and all it's just one hell of a great year. Cool. That is very cool. You deserve it."

I look over at the pink bucket before I ask my next question. I just know vomiting would make everything clearer to me. But it's not happening.

"So tell me about your husband. PERFECT. He's having a perfect year! Oh that is so fantastic. Me? Oh, I'm fine. Really fine. But, oh look, it's getting late. I'd better go. Bye."

I'd better go because otherwise I'm going to beat myself over the head with my pink bucket. No vomit. No throwing up. Just me sitting here with my bucket realizing that I am now defining myself by my sickness and if everything feels even slightly normal than suddenly am I not only NOT a sick person at the moment, I am a nothing person because what have I been doing for the past year except being sick? I can't do my work which is teaching and running this great tutoring program but I can write but what I'm writing essentially is my diary, my blog. Not a play. Not a novel. Not a short story. I'm scribbling. I'm writing nonsense. And people around me are having lives and enjoying them and going to the movies and finishing great works of art and beginning great works of art and I have just been BEING SICK which is boring and nothingness. Not even BEING and nothingness. A lump. I have turned into a lump on a couch. A lump on a couch who is so full of envy for anyone who is having a happy productive life I could scream.

I'm not even going to write about the wrinkles printed out in the title. They are forming as I write this so you can imagine...

But I've got to get over this. It's a waste of time and time is truly of the essense here. My first thought for getting rid of this envy and jealousy is to stop talking or writing to everyone I know. That I way I will never hear good news because good news seems to set off this undesireable emotion. I could move to some city where nobody knows me and I wouldn't know them and I would never ask them about themselves so I'd be safe from envy. Maybe some city where nobody really does anything except go to the 7-11 or the laundremat. Hmmm, this is beginning to sound very comforting.

But wait. Come on. Who am I kidding? I'm bigger than that. I have not lived this long to turn out petty and pathetic and worried that other people's happiness has anything to do with mine. COME ON. I have had plenty of happiness in my life.

Did I say HAD? Had happpiness? That's not good. That assumes that from now on there will be no more happiness. That I have had it already. Why should I assume that? Where is it written?

Now I have to throw up. Excuse me........................................

Ahhhhh. I feel better already. Yes. That is who I am right now. That is what I'm doing. And a damn good job I do in this vomiting business, if I do say so myself. To hell with the O Henry prize for short fiction. Look at what I am doing and how quickly I recover and watch the long brisk walks I take even when my eyes are all blurry and...

Dammitt! How come your life is going well and mine isn't? Huh? Huh? Anyone have an answer to that one? Oh I know. BECAUSE IT JUST IS.

And that is just about the best answer I'm going to get because bad luck and good luck cannot be explained. It just is. But the other answer is JUST DO. A lump is not the way to go. A lump is not who I am. Whatever it is I'm complaining about I can deal with. JUST DO. Do it. What am I waiting for?

Okay, here goes. No more lollygagging around. I'm going to DO it...Yes I am............................ Just as soon as I can uncurl my toes.

My Mother Thanks You, My Father Thanks You and I...

2008-09-06T14:47:00.000-07:00

Those, by the way, are the words of George M. Cohan or James Cagney, however you want to imagine it. But I would like thank all you kind people out there who took time to search around for some sort of Japanese connection in case my only choice was the clinical trial in Japan. I have my fingers crossed and any other good luck motion I can think of that the UCLA trial works, even just a teeny weeny bit and I won't have to use all the Japanese information you have sent me but I know it's there if I need it and that is comforting and also so cool that you would do that for me. Thank you.

I think the actual taking of the pill starts in two weeks. There are a bunch of possible side effects, most of which do not happen. But the two that seem to occur over and over are high blood pressure and serious fatigue. Why can't side effects ever be good? Or fun. Like you have bursts of energy and you can jog for miles and you're ecstatically happy all day and incredibly creative. They can't come up with a pill that does that? Why does the pill always have to ruin your liver or blur your vision? Or make your blood pressure go up so you have to take ANOTHER pill to bring it down. I am a living pharmacy here with all the pills I have in my bathroom. And all I used to take were vitamins to help me live forever. Oh, the irony of it all.

I was thinking about the term, "fighting for your life". I think that's what I'm supposed to be doing. But I don't feel like I'm fighting enough. In fact, I don't feel like I'm fighting at all. I guess you could say that just getting up in the morning is a little fight since most mornings I feel so gloomy and slightly afraid to face the day but then I do it...I get out of bed and I get dressed and get my exercise and I carry on as if...As if all is well and is going to be well. But I don't know. I don't know what is going to happen. And there are those of you that are thinking that no one knows what's going to happen, you could have been in the twin towers in 2001 and you certainly would not have seen that coming. I think the problem with my situation is that I am face to face with a fifty/fifty situation and it is impossible to ignore that one half of the outcome is REALLY HORRIBLE. I mean, we all know what's coming at the end of this life but it's somehow different when you're just going along. Like you go along naturally and you get older and then you're sixty and then seventy and you keep going and you know it won't last forever but somewhere in your mind you sort of feel maybe it WILL last forever because you feel good and your doctor checkups are all positive so why shouldn't you just go on like this ad infinitum? (Did I just say what I meant to say? Sounds good anyway.) So I have decided that I have to actually FIGHT for my life and I'm not sure what that entails but I'm going to figure it out and put on my gloves and my thinking cap and do everything I can think of to keep the enemy at bay.

But what if I get fatigued? See, that's where they've got you. They can get you tired so you can't fight. That's one of their clever weapons. Except maybe with your mind. Yeah. Who says we're talking about actually throwing punches. Maybe it IS just mind over matter. I have been told by many that that works. Hey, at this point I am open to everything. Dream it away, that's what I'll do. Or just dream happy and not let it's nasty little negativity penetrate my soul. Like it does now...Sometimes.

Okay, it's a battle between me and him. (Can't possibly be a her. Of course watching the Republican nominee for vice president maybe a her is not so far fetched. And I apologize to all my Republican friends but I've got to tell you that your gun toting hockey mom vice president is pretty darn scary.)

So I'm going to rest now and I'm going to fight. It's a Ghandi sort of thing. Passive resistence. A moment of silence for the enemy.

And just watch him disappear...................................

The Trial of the Century

2008-09-02T13:24:00.000-07:00

Well, actually I'm exaggerting. This is not the trial of the century. It is certainly not the OJ trial. It's my little clinical trial that I have just signed on to. Yes, I signed the papers even before I read them because he said I could change my mind after I read them so I might as well sign while I'm there in the office. That's what Dr. Wainberg suggested and being just an airhead follower...I signed. Then I came home and read what was about to happen. Eeegad. Is there no way out of here that's pretty? Does it always have to have words in it like rash or kidney damage or difficulty performing tasks? And then to add insult to you know what it adds that it cannot be guaranteed that any of these symtoms will go away...Ever.

HOWEVER...something good might happen like the tumor might respond to the untested drug and shrink a bit or not grow anymore so there you have your choice. A choice between bad things might happen or something good might happen and also the ever popular NOTHING will happen.

Hey, I'm excited about this trial, what do you think? I do thing that doing something is better than doing nothing. Which is always an option. But here is one of the scary things that was in the papers he gave me...I am doing this trial and am a good candidate for it because all of the other treatments I have done were unsuccessful. How's that for a reason to be accepted? And here's something interesting...There are only about eight people doing this at UCLA. There are other people around the country but only about eight are here. Maybe we could be friends. Trial friends. Like twelve not angry friends locked in a room together trying to decide the outcome of our lives. "I'm going to live. No, I'm going to live. Yes, you're going to live." And on and on.

And here's the thing...I am going to live. I'm going to fight this thing to the bitter yet calm and peaceful end. Dr. Wainberg had a nice smile. He didn't look like he was running the Last Stop Saloon. Made me feel comfortable. He's a young man. Already a good bedside manner even though I wasn't lying on a bed I was sitting in a chair. A good chair side manner. Positive. That's what I've got to be. Positive. It is, as far as I can tell, the only way to get through this. But it is not easy when you know there are really only two options.

I'm opting for the first one. Maybe you could opt with me...................................

Must run out now. But I've got more to say.................Believe me............................

And He Speaks

2008-08-28T14:37:00.000-07:00

It's hard to tell when you're watching these conventions whether people are making unbelievably brilliant speeches or if you are such a party supporter that anything they say is going to sound like magic to your ears because you already agree with them. I'm having fun watching Hillary and Michelle and Joe and even Bill but you know if I watch John and his crowd it's going to make me angry and cringe and boo and hiss at the screen but I really should listen with an open mind, as I would hope all the Republicans would do when they watch what's going on this week. But you know they are booing and hissing and saying what a crock the whole thing is and what are their platforms anyway and that is not a bad question. For me, one of the main things that gets me excited about the Democratic possibilities is the fact that our country is in real trouble on a number of key issues and I think there is a way out through possible diplomacy that we most likely will not see from the other side. The idea of actually speaking with the Iranians as if some of them were just regular old human beings who possibly feel the same way we do about nucleur war and weapons and such does not seem to occur to most Republicans, as far as I can tell by the reading that I've done. I could be wrong. There are moderate Conservatives. I don't think Mr. McCain is one at this point. Seems like he's gone over to the other side. But Iran is only part of the problem we are dealing with. I don't know, Obama could turn out to be just like all the rest but isn't it worth a try to see if a guy from a very different backround than most politicians might have some new thoughts and new ways of approaching problems. I do think it was a shame that in one year we had a woman and an African American running at the same time because in both cases that would be such a big change to have either of those truly qualified people in the White House. Will Hillary run again? I hope so. She certainly seems to have the energy to do it. So tonight Obama speaks and I hope it's one of those rip roaring speeches that gives you goose bumps and makes you feel that there are possibilities out there that we haven't even tought of yet. I hope he changes some minds. And I hope people aren't scared of newness and can get interested in the thought of a room full of not just white men running our government. Come on, you've got to be sick of all those white guys in suits by now all looking alike all sounding alike.
There's so much more I want to write but, of course, the cable men have just arrived to fix my cable because I'm not a satellite gal and I'm having some problems and right now I just want to watch Mr. Obama tonight bring the house down. These cable guys look very confident with all their little gadgets. I'm thinking maybe they should speak tonight. I'll bet they'd have some interesting things to say. I'd like to ask them who they're for but it seems too nosey. I wonder what they think of me sitting on the couch attached to my IV. Do I look like a sick person? And old student. Do they know I'm bald, although I must say my hair is growing back and now seems to have that Joan of Arc look or that woman in the play Wit. Oh, I hate it when I look like her. She looks so....Cancerish. KD Lange. I guess that's the look I'm going for. Actually, when I think about it, my hair looks a bit like Obama's. And that's perfect for tonight.

Terms Of A Deer in the Headlights

2008-08-23T16:12:00.000-07:00

Onward, I suppose. On Monday I am to call Dr. Zev Wainberg at UCLA who is in charge of a clinical trial that has been going on for about a year with good results. Sounds promising, eh? Of course, one, meaning me, has to qualify to be a part of this trial and I think from what Dr. Shaum tells me that I AM qualified. This would mean I would not do the trial in Japan although I think I should keep all of my options open since the one in Japan sounds even more promising, from what friends have read. I went online once to check out some things dealing with what I've got and that was a very BAAAAD idea. Because if you go on you will find out all kind of good things and then a whole bunch of very bad and scary things and it seems like you should not fill your brain, which is already messed up, with nasty scary things. Like you have twenty eight seconds to live. Then your whole world just becomes like a Twilight Zone episode. But actually, now that I think if my life as that it somehow seems a lot more fun and then I get to write the ending and maybe it could be, if it's Twilight Zone, that I turn out to be the only healthy person living on earth and in my body is the cure for everyone else's problems so I become the person in the world that everyone needs to see so my house is never empty because people are always coming over for the antidote and the need to talk to me........................

Alright, that was becoming too insane. What was I talking about? The other difficult part with the brain anxiety I'm having is the inability to focus for very long on one thought. That might be because I don't want to focus on one thought. Maybe it's too scary. So I've got to let my brain travel all over the place until it lands somewhere that seems safe for a moment. Like the Twilight Zone. Ahhhhh. I feel safe already. Thank you Mr. Serling.

And I'm glancing up and watching the Olympics as I write this and I'm wondering how so many gorgeous women end up playing volleyball? They are not all tall so it's not that. But these are knockout women. Brazilian and American. Beauties, all of them. I liked volleyball in high school and at camp but I was never very good at it. I think I needed glasses long before I got them which was pretty late in my life. But I always had a hard time with games with balls. I could never see the damn ball until it was just about hitting my nose. And I wasn't a bad athlete in things like swimming so I have to believe I needed glasses. Of course, longer legs would have helped with volleyball, too. Longer legs would have helped with a lot of things. I actually thought that when I was around ten that I might end up being tall because for a moment I was one of the tallest girls in my class. That was, I must repeat...FOR A MOMENT. No longer. Maybe like thirty seconds. Plus I should have just looked at my mother and grandmother who stood, oh, around four feet eleven...With heels. And I would have known my fate. Luckily I was able to fight the extremely round gene that made one look like a walking refrigerator. And now with just half a stomach I never have to think about the refrigerator look again. So there are many things to be thankful for. However, would I trade health for a forty four inch waste? Your damn right I would. I would look like a dark grey Hummer with awful hair if I could have my health back.

Now wait a minute, Trish, think carefully. You're wearing a size two right now. Wouldn't most women just die to be like that even for a moment. Aha, the key word is die. Would they die to be thin? Nope. Although think about Kanye West's mom. She did die to look thinner. I'm sure she would rather have her life back now and forget about her notion of no waist and boobs. Oh, the choices we have...Sometimes.

I hope I have some choices. I'm going to start doing more mind/body work. Deep down I think that maybe, just maybe I can make some choices that might seem impossible to make just by thinking hard enough. But I've really got to concentrate. Find a quiet spot and go to it everyday and just work that mind. Some people really believe in this and I will no longer poo poo any methods as long as one person says..."You know...This works." Who am I to judge?

Onward. Forward. Another day. I saw the ocean. It was beautiful. I bought some honeydew. I'm breathing.

And I'm going to get tomorrow. Those are all good things. Here is what I am going to make my mind do...................That Fat Lady is never...EVER...going to sing in my presence. No sirrreee.

More Later

2008-08-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

Just a short note to Vicki from the comments. Please put your e-mail address on the comments and I'll get back to you about the oncologist. And to everyone else putting feelers out there, thank you and I love you all.

The drug, by the way, is called S1. (And that's a one.)

Are You Sitting Down?

2008-08-20T16:50:00.000-07:00

Okay all you people out there...Friends, people I don't know, people who really just want to know about Robert DeNiro, people I knew when I was a wee one, people I have kissed, people whom I ran away from...

All you people...Listen up.

I finally saw Dr. Shaum today and one of the possibilities of getting out of this mess is something called a Clinical Trial. They do these things all over the world. Try things out on us patient guinea pigs and three quarters of the time these things actually work and voila you are once again healthy for long periods of time and then they do another trial and you continue on that healthy path and you continue on until finally it might actually be your time to scoot on out of here but you got to live for a while and maybe swim and do the things that you once loved.

Well, one of these trials uses a drug called S1. It's a wonderful drug for just what I have. Only one little glitch with S1...It's illegal in America and can only be obtained in Japan. Aha. Why this is so I have no idea but there you have it. So yes, I could maybe get on a plane and spend my time in Japan which might be interesting but could be a bit lonely since I'll still have my IV with the me and I won't really be able to go out at night so the next best thing would be to find someone somewhere who had some sort of connection in Japan and maybe knew a doctor there who could send me the drug and doesn't this sound like a very exciting short story with a possible happy ending.

Now, don't feel badly if you don't have a Japanese connection because there are other trials that are more local like UCLA for instance. But just in case you know someone in Japan just put it on the comments and I shall follow through.

Dr. Shaum said she would make a whole bunch of calls in the next couple of days and we should be able to move on by next week. That sounds good to me. And she told me that often chemo affects your brain waves which it certainly has mine because they are not the waves of the old Trish, that is for sure. So we're working on that so maybe by Thanksgiving I can feel like myself, whomever she may be.

I'm exhausted. This was a long day. Just go to sleep and think "Japan" tonight and if anything pops up let me know. S1.

I'm going to try and swim soon. I'll tell you how. Can it be that things are looking up? Is that possible? Here's a good thing. I gained five pounds. And that is a very good thing. Must rest know. I'm not used to good news, no matter how small it might be.

I'll be waiting your reply................................Sayonara..........................

Through The Muddle

2008-08-18T13:03:00.000-07:00

Friends. Friends are dragging me through my muddle. Through the mess that used to be my brain. This weekend Keith picked me up and dragged me and my IV into his car and drove me to Carpinteria and Karen dragged me back home a couple days later. I'm feeling like there is a Zombie quality about me these days as friends do their best to act like I'm their normal friend, Trish, who used to laugh and swim and lick Foster's Freeze and plan fun things to do on the weekend. Maybe it's just me feeling funny from the inside and no one can really tell that the Trish of old is falling off her skateboard these days and can't seem to find her usual center balance. I tried to act normal in Carpinteria. Even ate a couple bites of bok choy. That seemed pretty normal. Took a couple of walks on the beach. Actually talked while I walked. Not an easy feat for someone losing their balance. Someone not sure just whom exactly they are right at this moment.

But this could be a big week.

This morning I went to see Dr. Sandler. He's a psychiatrist who deals in medications. I could not believe that I actually drove to Century city at 8:30 in the morning but I did it, blurry eyes and all. I told him my story. He agreed that it did seem like the medication I am on is affecting my power to think clearly. And he really thinks I should be swimming. I loved him for saying that. Jumping into a pool sounds so right to me but I'm not doing that now because of the patches. I see Dr. Shaum on Wednesday and I must talk to her about the patches and do I still need as many as I'm taking and what about the pool? And then she will tell me what treatment we're going to try next. Radiation? Some pill. Anything is fine with me as long as we're treating. I'm falling apart here and since I haven't been able to move forward since she left on her vacation I seem to have fallen deeper and deeper into this dark hole I'm in at the moment.

"YES, IT'S VERY DARK DOWN HERE............."

A wonderful man died the other day. Leon. Myrna's father. His time had come. I really liked Leon. A lot. He made me soup. We talked. We joked. He was a really good person and I, along with many others, will miss him dearly. I won't be able to go to Leon's service because it is at the same time as my appointment with Dr. Shaum and I can't seem to change it to a better time but I will be there in spirit. And as I have found out since my dad died four years ago, these guys are with you forever, popping up at strange times, sometimes just to say hello, sometimes just to make you laugh or think about an interesting moment you had together. Eaating soup. Borscht. My favorite. Life is cool that way. It all stays alive in your brain.

And speaking of my brain...I want it back! And I am aiming in that direction as I try to wein myself from these evil patches. Walking around impersonating someone else is exhausting. It was much easier just being me. Even if things weren't going so well I at least knew I was me and my brain and my body could figure out how to deal with things together and it wasn't that difficult. Like someone leaves you after 24 years of marriage so you figure out what to do with that information. You write, you swim, you talk to your friends...You deal. but when your brain isn't part of your body you have no idea what to do so you wake up in a state of complete anxiety and fear and you wake up very slowly and you try and figure out how to get dressed and if you should get dressed at all and you realize you can't swallow vitamins anymore or take Sam-E which always helped with the tiny bits of anxiety one might get on a tough day and worst of all you can't exercise and you lay in bed not knowing who you are and what is going to get you up and out and into the world where you're supposed to be. With all the other people getting on with their day.

I guess it was good I finally went to Carpinteria. It wasn't what I thought it would be because I'm not who I am...Yet. I will be her...Trish. I will be her again, won't I? She's in here, I just know that.

I caught a glimpse of the beach that I love. A glimpse. I know there's more. I'm going to go back when I can feel it all...The air, the sand, the people.................Me. Go back when I can feel me again. If you find me before I find me...............Would you let me know where I've gone.

I must get by with a little help from my friends.

Right?

Do Not Look At Me That Way

2008-08-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

There are some people who have that look of "bad things are happening" on their faces and they don't know they're looking at you like that because they can't help it. They just walk into the room and with their face they're shouting, "OY, YOU LOOK SO LOUSY AND YOU MUST FEEL EVEN WORSE AND MAYBE THIS IS THE LAST TIME I'M GOING TO SEE YOU BECAUSE YOU LOOK LIKE SHIT, YOUNG LADY. OH, YOU POOR THING!

And, of course, I want to chase these people out of my house immediately and tell them to lighten up and everything is going to be okay or at least it is for this moment so let me enjoy it, you asshole with the bummer face. I am trying to think positively, YOU KNOW?! That's how you get through these times. I'm not going to the dark place. What good does that do? And I just read all about my type of cancer and you know what? I don't have any of the side effects they talk about. Plus, I can eat. I'm eating peanut butter for goodness sake and it's going down like...buttah. I can swallow. And from the stuff on the internet I've been reading I'm not supposed to be able to swallow. I eat pasta. Little bits, mind you. But I eat it. A bit of fish. Some no sugar ice cream. It all goes down. Isn't that a good sign? Shouldn't I be happy about that? Yes! I should be happy and I am trying to be happy and I even jumped up and down to show off my happiness and I'm not throwing up and I feel like I'm getting better in some way.

So when a person with the face of wo or whoa or however you spell it walks in and lays down that look I just don't pay attention to it. Because I just ain't going to that place, thank you very much. Here's where I'm going......................To Carpinteria...............Tomorrow my friends are picking me up and taking me there for a couple of nights just to feel some different air and see the ocean and maybe put some new thoughts into my head because these old thoughts are getting mighty stale and boring and I want to have at least two days in a row where I laugh and feel like the Trish who used to laugh and didn't worry about tomorrow and didn't have people looking at Trish in such a way that it made her want to slit her wrists.

Oh no, that's an awful way to go. I do not want to slit my wrists or slit anything really. The thing is I don't want to go AT ALL, right now anyway. there are things to do, people to see. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration but no.............There are things I want to do and I feel up to doing them and dammit please leave me alone you stinkin' tumor and just shrink up and get out of here so I don't have to think about you anymore or deal with you. But actually, I do have to deal with it and that's why I'm waiting to talk to Dr. Shaum on Wednesday because she's the one who is going to tell me how to deal. What we do next. And, of course, I'm scared about that. What IS next? Radiation? Some kind of pill. I just know there is something out there. I know it. But I have to wait until Wednesday to find out the answer.

AND YOU WONDER WHY I'M ANXIOUS!

You know what I'm going to do right now. I'm going to put on a record and I'm going to dance. James Taylor maybe. As usual. I am going to dance. It's time I danced. Here I go. And don't you dare look at me with that devil in your eye face because I am dancing now and it feels good and I am going to dance all the way to the park and you can't stop me.

I feel good. Thank you James. Sweet Baby James. Yes. Thank you.................................................

Oh, Those Spiritual Dudes

2008-08-12T13:29:00.000-07:00

I am still dealing with anxiety and fear on the highest level. I do believe so much has to do with my medication. I have to believe that because I have never felt this way before in my life except maybe when the man formerly known as my husband left me. But I don't think death entered into the picture then. Just the fear of being left alone in my middle and old age. That didn't sound like much fun to me. But compared to this fear I'm dealing with of not knowing what is next in my race to cure my disease, being alone does not sound all that bad. There are ways of dealing with being alone...Like inviting a friend over to watch the Olympics or even calling a friend on the phone to gossip. Dealing with the disease is a whole different ball game. And here's one way I've been trying to keep my mind from going crazy...I've been talking to a couple people who have some connection to a higher power. I certainly don't. Haven't been to Temple since I was in high school. My son had a Zen Bar Mitzvah that was held in a Mexican Restaurant in Santa Monica and it was the perfect off beat ritual for him. After all, he's only half Jewish and I'm such a lapsed Jew it didn't seem right to put him through years of Hebrew School so I found this wonderful Zen Rabbi named Rabbi Don Singer and he was just the perfect guy to take Will through the paces. It was fun, it was interesting, it was all and all a great day.

So last week out of the blue Rabbi Singer called me. He knew what was up with me...Heard it through the grapevine and he only lives three doors from my house so he came over and we talked for about an hour and a half. He is the most calming person. Just sitting still and breathing with him made me feel better. And he wants to read a book with me by someone named Rabbi Judah Lowe of Prague who lived in the 1600's. Sounds good to me. And just the fact that he called when I am going through this dreadful time seemed so right to me. Somebody out there likes me. I was beginning to think that somebody out there hates me because nothing good has happened for quite a while and when a good thing happens it always seems that a bad thing is lurking right around the corner just waiting to bite me once again.

The next spiritual person I saw was a wonderful woman named Rev. Judith Meyer. I caught her right in the middle of her retiring from running the Universalist Unitarian Church in Santa Monica. My Friend Gretchen and her husband are members there. I like that church. I've gone there for Christmas Eve a few times because it's very friendly and peaceful and seems to respect all religions. I went there when 9/11 happened. It was very comforting. So I talked to Judith and she told me that she had suffered from panic as a child so she understood my anxiety. I liked talking with her. It was calming. Just like Rabbi Singer but in a different way.

And why, you might ask, am I going to these people now? Is it because I'm afraid to die? Is that's what is happening? You know, I'm not really sure. I'm just sort of looking for answers and help. Help to get me out of this state. I am not used to waking up in fear. My life is so different than it was just two short years ago. Sometimes I think that people used to live short lives compared to what they live now. Now dying in your nineties is not unusual. But only a few short decades ago living to fifty was pretty good. Well, I'm beyond fifty now and I've had a pretty good life so shouldn't I just accept that and enjoy each day as it happens?

OF COURSE I SHOULD DO THAT BUT IT IS SO DAMN HARD! I want to be one of those people who get to live into their nineties. And maybe I will be. But I am at a standstill right now. Not sure what is happening and it's frightening me so much all I want to do is lie down and have someone hold me tight enough that they make me almost explode. No one has said anything to me about death, by the way. It's all in my mind right now. The last thing they told me was that everything looked pretty damn good except for this one little tumor. So they can't shrink this little thing, for God's sake? Come on. It's 2008. There must be something they can do. I'm ready for it. In fact, I'm looking forward to it.

In the meantime, I'm going to breath deeply and I'm going to talk to people closer a higher power than I am and maybe they can relax me and find me a peaceful place in my soul where I can rest for a few minutes. I need a rest. I need to know what my new life is all about. I don't like limboland very much. Too much uncertainty.

I think it's time for a Graham Cracker. See how much better I'm feeling now. Couldn't eat a Graham Cracker last week. Things are looking up. Graham Crackers and ativan. I believe that might be the perfect combination...........................

Here's The Thing

2008-08-10T14:36:00.000-07:00

So I am waiting here for my doctor to return to let me know what is the next step in this ongoing treatment that seems endless. How frustrating is that? I feel like I am healing from the chemo (it's been a couple of weeks since I've had any) but the last thing I heard before Dr. Shaum said "I'm going on summer vacation. See you in three weeks..." was..."A tiny tumor at the bottom of your esophagus is not responding to the chemo so we've got to do some radiation or some pills or some...Whoops, got to go catch my plane..." And there I was like totally anxious and left in limbo and I'm still like that. So I'm dealing with my anxiety and it seems to be better and I'm eating peanut butter which is yummy and good for me and I'm walking and talking and writing and here's the thing about writing...

Of course, I try and think of ways to take my blog and turn it into something else like a novel or a TV show or just another silly blog book that only the actual author thinks is interesting or important. And then I started to realize, who the hell wants another book or play about someone with cancer?! Or AIDS? I mean maybe if it has a really happy ending and not only does our hero get better and live to be one hundred but she meets the most wonderful person, probably a man but it's 2008 so who knows and he or she adores our hero and he/she has a million dollars and he/she gives most of it to charity because he/she is a perfect person. Well, then maybe we have an Oprah book but truthfully it's actually a bullshit book because perfect things like this never happen (do they?) so I feel that I've got to keep whatever I write...REAL. Gotta keep it real. Keepin' it real, as they say. So I was thinking that I would not write a word about what has been going on for the last year because the real truth is such a downer unless I turn it into, say, science fiction. Yea, that's the ticket. Science fiction will cure everything. Like lalala I'm going along and out of the blue a little gal in upper Slobovia comes up with THE CURE for cancer...every cancer that one can ever imagine and poof...everyone is better, including me! Oh I love it already. And I'm going to give this gal from Slobovia a very interesting life like she started out being an opera singer and one night her highest note broke a glass that lodged in her throat and formed a mirror that reflected back from her bathroom mirror and just completely removed her cancer.

Okay, that was an insane idea. You can tell I've got a bit of writer's block going on here. But we'll pull out...Me and my block. And I'll get the story. Until then I've got to sit here and eat my peanut butter and wait to hear about my next treatment. Tuesday I have my vitamin C drip and I'm looking forward to that. Meantime, I'm thinking of getting another tattoo. Maybe a few. Anything to pass the time until someone can tell me what the hell I'm going to do next.

Hey, maybe if I stick to science fiction I can come up with a new religion like Mr. Hubbard did. Wow, when I think about it there are so many possibilities when one really sits down to think about it. Start a religion, that's a good one. Worship furniture, maybe. Or peanut butter. Oh, the possibilities.

Do you think I'm been spending too much time alone. I'm a social gal. I need a network of people. I need my virginia Avenue kids.

What I need is help.

My son and my nephew were here this week. It was heaven. Life is good. I've just got to keep reminding myself of that. Story or no story. It's the real thing that's heaven. And that happens everyday if you just open your eyes.

The Reluctant Addict

2008-08-05T17:01:00.000-07:00

Dr. Wong, my acupuncturist, told me that the pain patches I am wearing are ten times stronger than morphine. Okay, I knew they were strong but I never quite equated them with morphine even though I knew they were in the same catagory and it really struck me when he told me this and I thought NO WONDER I am emotional a lot of the time. I'm an addict! I not only wear these patches, I take pills to up the usefullness of the patches and we're talking about a person who hadn't even taken aspirin in thirty years, for pete's sake. So I now have the mind of an addict and that's why when I sit down to write these blogs I am writing from a different part of my brain. Not the light hearted funny part that always looked at the world with wit and irony but the person who looks at the world like The Man with the Golden Arm. (That's a book and movie about an addict, by the way. I believe it starred Frank Sinatra.) Remember that guy, I think his name was James Frey...Or something like that...Anyway, Oprah picked his book about addiction as her Oprah pick and when she found out he made the whole thing up she humiliated him on national television by saying he was a liar and a fraud. Well, I'M MORE OF AN ADDICT THAN HE WAS so maybe I should write something that Oprah will pick as her book of the month because I am an addict. A real one. And I could write about anything as long as I talk about being an addict. How about the housewife addict. The woman with cancer addict. The middle aged ex actress who slept with Robert DeNiro. (Remember him?)

I seem to be getting carried away but you kow, I want to NOT be an addict. I would really like to know what I'm feeling when I'm not using. Would I feel as weird as I feel right now? I think these patches are why I wake up feeling a bit unsteady. After all, I have 175 milligrams of morphine shooting into my system all day long. Isn't that a lot? There must be some kind of natural pain reliever with no side affects that I could take. Got to look into that.

Which reminds me that tomorrow I am going to a new kind of doctor recommended to me by the oncologist who took care of me last week in the hospital. This doctor believes in the miracle of vitamin C. And other supplements. And the oncologist told me I would feel so much better after going to see this new guy. As you know, I was already taking vitamin drips from another doctor but what the hell, I'll try this new one and compare and see what I feel. I remember at the vitamin drip place I used to go to there was a woman there who swore by the drips and were sure they were why she was still alive and had been for quite a long time. Now this woman took very long drips. Like four hours longs. Hey I'd take a drip for twenty four hours if I knew it was going to keep me alive for a few years.

And here's where I should mention that I DO think they are going to get this little bugger of a tumor. It's not that everything suddenly came to a crashing halt. It was just me and my addled brain that went to that place when the tumor reared it's ugly head. I think I mentioned that nothing has spread anywhere else and my liver is perfectly clean and my vital signs are perfect and I am a strong girl so there is no reason to think that they can't keep this tumor at bay. Magic Johnson has been living for years because they keep coming up with new treatments. So I want what he has even though he has AIDS and I don't but there must be some equivilant and I'm going to find it.

Oy, am I tired of talking about my problems. I used to have this life. It was interesting. I worked with these wonderful kids. I laughed a lot. Oh haha.

Actually, I am laughing now but not for a great reason. I happen to be wearing my Florence Henderson wig. That's why I'm laughing. It's the cheap one. The Brady Bunch wig. Will sort of named it for me. It does this little flip on the ends. Doesn't look like who I really am at all but I sort of like it. It's silly and ridiculous and makes me want to make pancakes and tuna casserole but you feel like you're going to live forever if you're Florence Henderson and so will the entire Brady Bunch. They never got cancer. They got chicken pox and miss the prom and I like those problems a lot better than my problems. Mr. Brady would never leave Mrs. Brady for another woman. There's just too much to do at home. There's the garage to clean up and the front door latch to tighten. Who has time for an affair. The kids are always having some kind of mini crisis.

So I'm just going to stay Mrs. Brady for a while. It's very comforting. Unless, of course, Mrs. Brady is really an addict. Maybe that's why she's so calm. Well, I'm just going to wear her hair and cook up some hash browns and I think everything is just going to be A OK.

Another Life

2008-08-04T16:10:00.000-07:00

My brother in law...Or I suppose I should refer to him as my EX brother in law...Although maybe I should just call him my brother because he does feel like a brother to me and Ex and all that sounds just too formal...
So...My bro said something to me that I have thought about for the last couple of days and that is that I no longer think of myself as the Trish whom I used to be...The healthy Trish. The one people said would live forever because I took such good care of myself and swam and ate well and ran around with boundless energy and a smile on my face and really enjoyed my life, although I did complain but what's life without a little whining. I am not that Trish anymore. I'm loaded with poison and I'm trying to heal from that onslaught and sadly, I realized just today that I can't swim. You know why? The damn stupid pain patch I'm wearing. I can't get the thing wet or it won't work. Now I'm trying to work out some plan where the day I change the patch I take off the old one and take a forty minute swim then shower and put another patch on immediately. That might work. It would only be every three days because that's when I change the patch, but it would be something. But it wasn't just the notion that I could dive into a pool or the ocean at any time and have myself one of the joys of my life...a swim. When I realized this I could not let it get me down because why add something else to the negative side of the column. So I just accepted it and started working on how to make it happen even every once in a while.

So I am this new Trish with health issues that are not going away as easily as I thought they would and I am a new Trish who wakes up with a bit of anxiety everyday that scares me because I used to wake up all ready to face the day with positive joy and I'd pack up my gym bag and when I came back from that swim or that yoga I would feel like a new person and my arms were strong and I'd hug the dog and talk to my family and life was sweet and the way I thought it should be.

But it is such a different life now that I hardly recognize it.

Now here's the thing...We all know we are going to die but most of the time it seems very surreal because in your minds it is very far away, this death thing, so why even bother dwelling on it. But when you are face to face with it, it gives you a bit of an anxiety rush that starts in your throat and makes your hands sort of shake and keeps your mind on high alert so you can't just go through the day enjoying the good parts. In fact, sometimes you can't even find the good parts because you're so shaken up by the anxiety.

But maybe this new Trish will have new stuff to bring into the world and maybe the old Trish was getting sort of complacent and honestly boring. Because how boring is a happy life. Let's say, as a writer, isn't it more interesting to write a bit about the dark side? Otherwise you are writing a Jackie Collins novel or an Elizabeth Berg novel, although you can't fault her too much because she does have quite a large output and she never runs out of things to say and sometimes they are a bit, and I do say a bit, profound. In a tiny way. But with my new life with the dark side eclipsing the lighter side, won't that be a more interesting way of looking at things?

Can you write an entire novel on complete high anxiety? With your hands shaking and the world collapsing around you as you write and you are not quite sure what the ending is going to be even though you want it to turn out happy though your beating heart sort of holds you back from truly believing that is possible?

No, dammit, you can write you own ending. You can sit here at your computer and write whatever it is you want to write. And there it will be on paper. Just as you want it. You know, I feel better already. Because I am in charge. Tomorrow morning I will not wake up with anxiety. Because that is what I am going to choose to write. I am going to wake up raring to go. A good day. That's what I'm going to have. A calm good day. With a happy ending. Because I made it that way. That's the way the new Trish thinks. I think I like her. She's tough. She knows what she wants. She accepts what was handed to her. A big fat bummer, that what was handed to her. But hey, BRING IT ON! New Trish can take it.

I am sitting under the fan right now. The breeze is cooling me off. I can turn it down or I can turn it up. I'm in charge. It's just about a couple of buttons. I'm staring at my choices. And here is what is cool about that.

I actually have a choice. Ahhhhhh. How comforting.

Hey............................

Pleasant dreams..................................

She's Alive...ALIVE!!

2008-08-02T21:07:00.000-07:00

Greetings from my home after just an oh so wonderful vacation in HELL. Sorry you couldn't join me but I believe it's a very popular spot and tickets and accommodations are hard to come by. Want to hear about my trip? Okay, check this out...

I was going along just so happy to get to my last chemo and go on to healing because it's been a looooong year since I started doing chemo and I am telling you I was so ready to move on because I was so sick and just getting sicker. Well, two weeks before the end Dr. Shaum tells me in her very calm voice that Houston, we are having a problem. Seems like a tumor marker was elevated way beyond what it should be. Let's say it was at a six last week, well, this week it was around thirty five. And that is no exaggeration! So she checked it again and it had gone up even a bit more so the decision was to stop the chemo before the end because it was not working on this one particular tumor. The same one that started this whole thing. Meanwhile, I was so sick from the chemo that I was taking pain pills all day long and got to such a painful place that all I could do was sleep. At one point I slept for five days in a row. Could not get up. I don't know how I did it but somehow, with a little help from those friends of mine I got to Dr. Shaum's office and she checked me into the hospital where I slept for another day until the pain meds kicked in and I finally started to feel like a human again. And everything seemed to be on track except I started thinking about this tumor that would not let go and for the first time during this whole ordeal I started to have a panic attack. In the hospital. And I can tell you how it started. A doctor whom I love and trust and looked at me in such a frightening way that I read her face as saying..."Oh, poor Trish, poor, poor Trish. This could be it. The end. It's over. She's a goner."

Now mind you, she never said this. She actually told me that the cat scan they did the day before looked pretty damn good because all the vital organs were clean and untouched and only that damn little tumor was the problem. But I read her face as nothing but grim and negative and I was a goner. My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking and next thing I knew they were putting ativan through an IV into my veins and in a minute I was relaxed. So Dr. Shaum had to immediately go off on her three week summer vacation and said we would decide what treatment to try when she returned, all suntan and RELAXED and happy and of course I hated her for a few seconds because how come I wasn't on a vacation with my family and getting tan and swimming and why did I have to have anxiety for three weeks and worry about my future and WHY IS THIS STILL HAPPENING TO ME and of course there is not answer to this question...It just IS. That's the way things go.

I forgot to mention that before the hospital stay the other thing I was doing aside from sleeping was throwing up. Six or seven times a day. It was endless. It was awful. It was exhausting. I was so unhappy. And dare I say, lonely. There are a lot of things you can do with friends but throwing up is not one of them. You throw up alone.

But I'm happy to say that that seems to be over now. I have stopped chemo and I am feeling so much better. No more throwing up. My energy seems to be coming back. So nah nah nah while Dr. Shaum is away in Hawaii or Mexico or anywhere I will be healing just here in my neighborhood and maybe it's not so glamourous but I won't be vomiting and I might even, dare I say it, swim.

Now here's the thing. I still have some panic. I'm a little scared. But I am not going to let this thing get me. It's 2008. They come up with new stuff everyday and I am willing to try any new experiment they might throw at me plus I'm going to do those vitamin drips and I'm going to do my acupuncture and I am going to zap this little sucker from all sides because I want to be here to watch my son grow old and older and I want to be here to move to my own house and I want to be here to have dinner with friends. Hey, Dennis made me a martini tonight!! A MARTINI. Small, yes. But it was vodka,, which I haven't had for a year and it went down nice and smooth and I relaxed and I laughed and damn is that not what we're supposed to do if we're lucky, which I feel that I am? We're supposed to have dinner and drinks with our friends. I repeat, if we're lucky. I am not unaware of how lucky I am, believe me. On my worst days I know I have more than most people in the world.

So that's where I've been. Not sure where I'm going but it's going to be another adventure and I'm ready to fight and I'm going to win dammit and I am not going to vacation in Hell again because it was not a good deal and the accommodations sucked.

And you know what else...My hair is going to grow back. Won't that be a trip.

You know how it is with vacations...You've got to lie down to recover from so much fun. That's what I'm going to do right now. Nice to see you. Hey, maybe we could take a cruise sometime. Think they take IV's on board? I promise I won't throw up. Good night.

Nothing............

2008-07-18T14:23:00.000-07:00

Usually when I sit down to write I have some idea in my head of what I am going to write about. Today, there seems to be nothing in my head. But I decided that I hadn't written anything in a while and I know when I don't write some people think I'm slipping into unconsciousness or maybe dying so I thought I at least write about what I actually am doing during the days of silence. Hmmmm. So maybe there was actually something going on in my mind to write about. Maybe it wasn't just a big blank nothing of the brain.

You know what would be nice...If when I didn't write people thought that maybe I was on a wild vacation to the rain forest or maybe I'd met someone and was spending so much time with him I didn't have a moment to sit and write, of all things. Actually, I've been thinking about that quite a bit lately. THAT being going out with someone. Since I haven't been with anyone except one man in the last twenty five years it feels almost impossible for me to hang out with someone new. It's kind of scary. When I last met someone and fell in love I was a young woman in her mid thirties. Now I'm a middle aged woman...Bald woman at that but with a great wig...And I've had cancer and I'm way beyond the age of pregnancy and family so a new relationship would be an entirely different kind of relationship. Sex would be different. And , oh my gosh, I just remembered that I eat mostly with a tube. How sexy is that? NOT! I haven't even been in a restaurant in months. I can't drink right now. Maybe a sip. I would be a horrible date. Who on earth would want to go out with someone who eats through a tube?! What was I thinking? Of course, maybe there's a man out there who also eats through a tube. Oh, that is just so NOT romantic. I think I'd better drop this entire fantasy until I've healed up a bit and don't take pain pills anymore and can go out and have a little shrimp cocktail in a proper restaurant. On the other hand there is a woman that I truly admire whose husband died when she was in her mid fifties and she's now almost ninety and she was never with another man for more than a few dates and she's had a pretty damn good life without a steady man and now that I'm thinking I know plenty of women who do just fine with friends and family and after all I did have a marriage and a family and it was fun and some people don't even get that so what am I whining about? I'm whining because, let's face it, I am a whiner. Awwwwww. Poor me. Poor wittle me. (and yes the w is on purpose.) Here is one thing I try not to do...Look at other people I think are happy and resent them. Hate them, really. How come they have a good life and get to be happy and blahblahblah? Because sometimes I get so pissed off that all of this happened to me later in life instead of early in life so I have to rush to figure out how to make things work out so I don't end my life in misery. Even if I didn't have cancer to deal with I wouldn't have that much time left to get to the really happy place again but with this asshole cancer thing it makes time seem even more pressing. I'VE GOT TO BE HAPPY AND SOON DAMMIT. I've got to figure out what makes me happy and just do that and the damn thing was that I WAS happy and then poof the big cloud came down and covered my world and then, of course, I started taking these mind altering pills and they really screwed with my happiness levels but at least I am aware of them.
Dr. Wong is my acupuncturist. He works with Dr. Mao and one of his specialties is cancer and chemo. He assures me he can get me back to happiness. I haven't been good about drinking my chinese tea and that is really stupid because if I had been drinking it this whole time I probably would have felt much better. But now I'm going to be consistent and drink the damn tea and get my acupuncture every week and after the last two chemos I'm going back to the vitamin drip and you know, I feel better just thinking about doing that. AND maybe I'll swim and do yoga. Can you imagine? Maybe I can actually get a semblance of my life back. Fuck men, except for Cedric. Oh, and maybe a couple others. I'm not a man hater. My son is a great guy and he's a man. But what I'm saying, and it's something I knew long ago, is that I don't a need a man to make me happy. I didn't actually meet THE man until I was in my mid thirties and I was happy before I met him so I shall be happy again. Myths. It's all myths and stories, this thing about romance. And yes, it can be wonderful but we all know it can be shitty, too. How many times have you been with a couple who say just awful things to each other. They are together because it's comfortable and a habit but they are so mean to each other and their relationship seems to be built on being mean. "'Oh, Alvin can be so stupid sometime." Substitute Alvin for a hundred names.

But there are nice relationships. I know that. But I think I'll choose to think of the bad relationships because it makes me feel better. Nothing wrong with that, is there? Nothing wrong with trying to feel better. So I'll just imagine that everyone is miserable except me who has this wonderful life with her feeding tube and aren't I lucky to be so thin and bald. I mean, how many women can say that. Thin and bald. Provocative?

Right now I am watching two flies mate. Romance...Right on my coffee table. Actually looks like they're arguing. I think I'm going to imagine that's what is happening. I feel better already.

Greetings Ladies and Germs

2008-07-10T13:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, if I'm lucky I've got two chemos to go. Had one yesterday and you know what?...I don't feel TOO BADLY today. So let us stand up and twirl around in a little circle and scream a hip hip hooray for at least one moment of lightness on my feet.

HIP HIP HOORAY!!

Wow. I don't know how one person can take these feelings that go up and down and in and out but I'll take the good ones when they come. I woke up this morning wanting to do the laundry and clean the living room and write and maybe all these pills are making me a bit bi-polar but that means that I am going to have GOOD days as well as bad and for a while I thought those good days were not coming back. But here I am all washed up and wearing purple. A nurse told me yesterday that it takes about six weeks after the last chemo for your hair to start coming back in. It comes in all soft and fuzzy first, not my best look, but then that breaks off and the real hair comes in and it will most likely be quite grey or white and I'll have to figure out how I want to deal with that. Am I ready to go there. But that seems like a fun problem. Something that is easily dealt with.

Yesterday at chemo I watched this old woman wheel this old man to his chemo chair. They had obviously been married for decades and now he was sick and cranky as hell. He had the IV in his arm and wouldn't stop moving that arm up to scratch his head and every time he would move it the IV would BEEP LOUDLY and he was doing it just to drive his wife and the nurse crazy. He had a devilish look on his face and not the cute kind of devilish look. The evil devilish kind. And the wife tried to keep her voice down as she scolded him. "Earnest, keep your arm down. Don't you see how it wrecks the flow everytime you bring it up to you face." And then two minutes later he would do it again and she would slap his arm down and he just waited for her to slap him and on and on this went and I was so glad that I lived alone and might be saved this little annoyance. There are some good things about living alone, I keep telling myself. I mean, let's be honest, people, even people you love, drive you crazy sometimes. It ain't all sexy and pretty roses.

And speaking of sexy...I got a catalogue that has a whole section on what they call "personal luxuries . Vibrators. My favorite is a unisex model called "Deep Blue bliss." It has five pre programmed pleasure modes and is virtually silent. I would like to learn the five pleasure modes. I know maybe...Three. Should I order this Deep Blue Bliss? Will I then be on a strange list and get unwanted e-mails and packages wrapped in brown paper with no return address on the back? On the other hand, what the hell.

Hmmmm. Guess I seem to be feeling better today. Especially if I'm thinking of vibrating with my warn out body. But truthfully how much reading can you do or TV can you watch. I need a new outlet. Oh, I just looked back at the catalogue and this contraption comes with a silk carrying case. I think I'm sold. I'll let you know. Of course, this all changes if my bi polarness switches back to the dark side tomorrow. Hope it doesn't. Hope I stay up here in the happiness area.

Two chemos left. Is that really possible? Do I really get my life back after that? Maybe I'll even take a vacation with my Deep Blue Bliss. Oh, the fun we could have. On the road with my bliss. And he's only $49.95. What a guy...................................

With A Little Help From......................

2008-07-08T11:59:00.001-07:00

I can hear people talking behind my back. Gossiping. And that...drives me crazy. Here's what I'm feeling...

I tell someone, maybe one person, that I don't feel so well. I think it's the pills but I'm not sure because it could be anything. I tell myself it's not cancer because that makes me feel safe and anyway I felt good a few weeks ago when I WASN'T doing chemo so I know I CAN feel well and then I started feeling crummy when the chemo began again and I started to have pain again so I had to take the dreaded pain pills which make me want to kill myself. And that is not an exaggeration. So I tell one person how I'm feeling because I live alone now and I have to reach out every once in a while and within a few minutes I get phone calls from people I haven't spoken to about my feelings and all of these people have their idea about what I should do and an attitude about me like "Awwwwww." or "Gosh, poor Trish. She's been through so much. She looks so tired. I'm worried about her." And I can feel their phone calls. I can feel the gossip. And I am the center of it and it makes me nuts. I want my life to be private. But,, come on, let's get real. I'm writing a blog, for God's sake. If I wanted to be private would I write a blog that anyone can read? Even people I don't know read it. And that's good. I like that. And this is when I go to a place that I should be far away from by now. And that place is thinking about the man formerly known as my husband because if he had not left me I would have gone through this turmoil JUST with him. I wouldn't have to put it out there for the world to read and to help me through. And maybe it would have been more relaxing and someone would have stroked my little bald head in the middle of the night. I told him early on that he COULD come and help me IF he didn't have his girlfriend and which would make me feel that he was there for me NOT for himself, to make himself feel better. But he couldn't let go of his girlfriend so I opted for doing this alone... With a little help from my friends. And I love my friends. So what am I rambling on about?

Maybe I'm weak. Weaker than I thought I was. I am, yes, freaking out under the weight of all of these drugs. Dr. Shaum, being an oncologist, thinks it's the circumstances that are making me feel sad and suicidal. I don't think so. Am I crazy to think she might be wrong about this? She's a doctor for goodness sake. She must be smarter than I am. But maybe she's just smarter when it comes to chemo and cancer and maybe I know myself better in a certain way that she couldn't possibly know. Does she know that I haven't actually been to see a doctor for most of my life. That I never even had a cold or the flu in last thirty years. That I only get dramatic things like cancer when I get sick. Maybe that makes me special and I should let myself feel special for a little while.

And here's where I hook around and wonder that if people are gossiping about me does that make me special? Would I feel worse if people weren't talking about me at all?

Are these the drugs talking?

Tomorrow is chemo again. I feel a bit better today than I did yesterday. Oh, if only I could feel better tomorrow but I'm going to be poisoned again so for about a week I'll feel crummy and go through the old pill popping routine, trying to figure out how much to take just to feel normal and not to take too many because that hurts almost more than the pain. And what the hell is this pain? Still haven't figured out that one.

You know what I want to do? I want to laugh. I want to look at life and laugh. Because that's how I usually look at things. From a funny point of view. That's why I know the pills are affecting me. Because things don't seem so funny right now. Oh, I guess my hair or the absense thereof is funny. But not THAT funny. And how long can I laugh at my hair before it just becomes an insane person laughing at themselves in the mirror. It's hard to look in the mirror these days. Not that I spent much time doing that before. I told you I have these laughing Buddhas all over the place. Little statues. And they're all laughing. What the hell are they laughing at?

That's what I'm going to do during chemo tomorrow. I'm going to try and figure out what they're laughing at. My guess right now is...Themselves. They are laughing at themselves. Hmmmm. Excuse me for a moment. I'm going to go into the bathroom and check out my mirror.

Oh...I see....Of course...Hahahahahahahahahaha..........................................

Sister Sister

2008-07-03T12:17:00.000-07:00

So I had chemo yesterday. Three to go, so they tell me. It seems to get harder as they go along. I get sicker and out of sorts more easily. Sadder. I keep telling myself that it's the drugs that are making me sad. Reminding myself that it is only that and I shouldn't jump out of my one story window just yet. That I will get through this and come out in one piece with a new figure and some new clothes and life will be fun and fine and I'll be busy doing what I love to do which is teach and write and swim and talk to Will and EAT and drink and be merry, whomever she is. But I'm shaky right now and wish there was at least one pill I was taking that was a feel good pill but I think all I am taking are downers or become downers the more you take them. Tomorrow is the forth of July and I usually love that holiday because I'm in Carpinteria and I swim and watch the ocean and then at night go to Montecito and sit on the shore and watch the Santa Barbara fireworks. But tomorrow I will be at home trying not to feel sorry for myself and I will watch fireworks on TV and take a walk and that's not so bad.

Yesterday at chemo I was sitting across from two older women wearing very plain clothes and very plain black shoes that tied up. One of the women had very tiny feet. The nurses called her sister. She was on her last chemo for the moment. They were both reading very dusty books that looked like they came from the library. And they were wearing wedding rings. And I realized they were married to God and that they were nuns. And they seemed very happy. Is it too late to become a Jewish nun? Or start a Jewish nun sect where we can all wear plain black shoes and be happy and not think about moisturizer. See, these nuns were very wrinkled. I wanted to suggest some Oil of Olay but it seemed inappropriate and besides, they were happy, wrinkles and all. They did not care about aging because the older you get the closer you get to God for them and that must be so comforting. Cancer just brings you closer to God. If you're a nun. I'm glad I got to watch them.

I sure did not think this is where I'd be on July 3rd 2008. Sitting on my couch feeling slightly sorry for myself but I'm going to try and concentrate on July 3rd 2009. That should be a good year. Maybe I'll have hair by then. And a life. And hot dogs galore.

Maybe I'll have little black shoes and wrinkles and it will all make sense. It's beautiful out. Maybe I'll just step outside and enjoy............................................

The View From Down Under

2008-06-30T16:14:00.000-07:00

Where have I been, you might ask. Well, it's a short story as opposed to a long story. I have been to the hospital and back. And that's it. That's the short story. But where have I been mentally, that's a much longer story.

First, I checked myself into the hospital last week with the help of Dr. Shaum because the pain came back. The phantom pain. I assume it comes from chemo but it got so bad again that I couldn't manage it myself so they checked me in and did some tests and everything seems the way it should seem for someone with cancer so I didn't get any pain answers. While I was there they gave me a lot of pain medication. The kind you can push a button and give yourself throughout the day. I was very aware of this button and tried my hardest NOT to push it because I am not a druggie sort of person which is one of the problems with my pain because I SHOULD be taking pain pills and sort of hate them but they help so I don't do them when I should and then whamo I am in pain. So now I have to write down when to take them and force myself to swallow the suckers on a four hour basis so I'll feel okay. But I felt really badly when I checked into St. Johns so I pushed that button and when I finally got and came back home last Friday I was hooked. Didn't take long. And for the next three days I was crying beyond depressed and I knew somewhere in my being that it was withdrawal from the pain medication but while you're going through it you can't really go there so feeling the way I did I just wanted to take out all the pills I had in my bathroom and swallow all of them at once because I was so sad and all I could think of were sad things and everything that had happened to me in the last three years and it was one hell of a weekend. But the fire broke yesterday and I could see more clearly and you know I wear pain patches on my body and take these other pills daily and the thought of getting off of all this medication one day is a little frightening. How am I going to do it? Should someone lock me in a room and come in and hug me every once in a while? It is tough, man, I am telling you, it is incidious and it is tough. I feel so sorry for junkies and people who are hooked and don't know it. In some teeny tiny way I know how they feel. And that is awful. No reason to go on except to get some more junk to raise those seratonin levels enough to at least feel almost normal. So the pain is gone but I cannot say it was easy getting ride of it.

And while I was in the hospital there was one uneasy moment with a nurse named Reggie. It was the middle of the night and Reggie came in to give me a shot. Usually they give this particular shot very slowly so it won't hurt. Well, Mr. Reggie had too much caffeine or something because he threw that shot into my IV and pushed the syringe as hard as he could and the medicine raced through my body and HURT LIKE HELL. It was shocking. and then I got all paranoid and started thinking that Reggie didn't really work at St. Johns. That he had just come in off the street and was giving shots to middle aged women and old people and I was going to die or something really weird was going to happen to me like I'd swell up and then my ankles DID swell up and I started to freak out and decided that I had to leave the hospital immediately. But it was the middle of the night so I had to wait until morning and I told Dr. Shaum that I was all better and I wanted to go home. I hadn't finished one of the tests but she sent me home anyway and my ankles stayed swollen for a couple of days and I continued to wonder if Reggie was to blame and what was that painful shot anyway.

Here's what I think is happening...I have been doing chemo for a year now. I think the poison is getting to my brain now and if we don't stop soon I will surely lose my mind, if I haven't lost it already. I believe I have four chemos left. I can handle that. I hope. Then we do a scan and then we see what's shakin'. I hope it's not cancer. I hope they tell me that it's over. That I can move on with my life. My life was good, wasn't it? Will you please remind me. Or am I thinking of someone else's life? That was me who used to swim, right? I liked that. That was me who worked with a tutoring program, right? I loved that. I didn't throw up, did I? That was nice. I wore a size six. I had an ass. That was mine, right?

Can it all come back? Including my hair? Is that possible? I think I'm going to pull out my old datebooks and see what I used to do. I hope they're my datebooks. Hmmmm. I wonder whose house I'm living in.................................

Shuffle Step.......

2008-06-20T13:33:00.000-07:00

So I had chemo on Monday and then yesterday I went in for a two hour drip of anti nausea stuff. PLUS I'm wearing this watch type of bracelet that is for people who get seasick or carsick and it puts out little electrical pulses on this acupressure spot that is supposed to keep the vomits away. I think it's working. I don't seem to throw up when I have it on. It's a little disconcerting being shocked every few seconds. Some sort of small torture device. But I don't throw up and that's a good thing. I went to purchase it at a travel store with my friend Katey who told me that I did not look like the Crypt Keeper with my hat on and my hair sticking out, I looked like Dana Carvey in Wayne's World. I'm not sure which is worse. It's amazing I still have hair at all. Seems to be gone at the top and it just sticks out the bottom. But the wig is just fine.

Anyway, whilst getting this anti nausea drip I talked to a very nice lady from Connecticutt. She was doing her chemo out here to hang with her daughter. She lived in what seemed to be an assisted living village type of place in Danbury, Conn. Sounded like fun. How frightening is that?!! She was rushing to get her chemo done so she could get back to Danbury for the big tap dance extravaganza she was involved in. Her big number was Pretty Woman...All tap dance all the time. They were doing a play, too...Look Back in Anger. All of this was at the assisted living place. Look Back in Anger? Not the play I would have chosen for a bunch of seventy and eighty year olds but hey, maybe they're all angry. Maybe this is how they can talk to their children and let them know how they really feel about raising them. And this woman who tap danced, she couldn't have been more than three feet tall and she was telling me about her costume and her makeup and I'll be damned if it didn't sound like fun. Wish I was about to tap to Pretty Woman. All dressed in feathers and eyelashes.

And I guess I was realizing that I actually haven't started putting my life back together from what it was before. This cancer thing sort of came up about six months after the man formerly known as my husband left me and months after my son went off to college and my dad died and the dog died and all that stuff that seemed to have happened so long ago. And now I have about four more chemos to go...so they say...And once again I can start all over figuring out just who I am and where I belong in the scheme of things and just what it was I was thinking of doing after my own personal Katrina took place.

Kind of exciting. Love the idea of a new house. A new me. Who is she? What does she do? What does she look like? How long is her hair? Will she tap dance? Who will assist in her living? When will she have a hot dog? All thrilling things to think about sitting under my ceiling fan typing on my oh so cool wireless computer.

Ah, life is good. Oh oh, it's that brain thing, isn't it? The one that allows me to like The Notebook. Don't pay any attention to me for a while. Until I heal. I'm speaking in some type of language that is way to happy to really be me. Where's the edge? Can't be a good writer without an edge. Think I'll watch Wiseguys tonight. That's what I'll do. Watch Wiseguys, throw up a few times. I'm taking off this damn watch thing. That's it. The happy pulse. Not good for me.

Fuck you.

Okay, I feel better now.

Hope I didn't hurt your feelings.

Must be the watch.

Or maybe I just have to figure out who I am......Right now........After the deluge.........................

Losing My Mind

2008-06-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

I think my brain is getting smaller. I think some of the chemo poison is affecting my brain. Missing my last little cancer cells and attacking what is left of my mind. Last night I watched a really corny movie and I liked it. A lot. It's called The Notebook. Now I know that some of you are throwing up just thinking about that movie. It's just a corny old fashioned pull out your hankie love story with overwrought performances. But I was totally into it. And while I was watching it I kept thinking how lucky I was. What a great life I've had. Lucky because I've been in and out of love a few times, I've done stuff I've really enjoyed doing, I have this great son, I live in a nice house even though I'm going to move soon but probably to another nice house and lalala this movie made me feel just so happy about my life and life in general. And that is just SICKENING! I mean my teeth hurt thinking about how sweet it all is and I should be feeling awful right now because I have been through some pretty rotten times as of late. But I didn't feel that way watching that cornball film. So that is why I believe my brain has been affected by all of this poison going into my system.

And tomorrow I get more of this poison. Not happy about that because I'm still sort of reeling from the last treatment. Throwing up and I'm too tired as of late. I don't like feeling tired. In fact I think I drove to the farmers market today with my eyes closed. Or maybe I was having a dream at about mid morning while I was in the car. But I don't actually remember starting the car or picking up my yogurt from the Greek woman at the market but there it is in my fridge so I got there somehow but I don't remember driving or paying anyone. I certainly hope I paid her.

I keep thinking people are staring at my wig when I wear it out into the world. Like today at the market. Do they know I hardly have any hair underneath the hair hat I am wearing? It seemed to me like everyone from the soup lady to the lady picking out an avocado next to me was staring at my head. "Does she think we can't tell she's wearing a wig? It's so phony. Hey, check out that woman with the fake hair. Who is she kidding?" Maybe I won't leave the house until my hair grows back. Seems drastic but I do have a little vanity left. Oh hell, that's ridiculous. Who cares what other people think you?

I DO.

I think my brain has become lifeless and paranoid and no longer has the portion that separates good taste from bad taste. Of course, I did always like the movie On Golden Pond so that probably proves that I never had taste in the first place. And that makes me feel better.

I miss the beach. I haven't sat on the shore in a long time. Couldn't do it last summer because I started all of this chemo mess exactly one year ago. So I couldn't get to the beach at all. And remember when I thought this year was going to be SOOOO much better than last year? What happened to that thought? Could I even imagine that NEXT year is going to be a good year? I suppose just the fact that I'm alive next year could be counted as being a good year because I'm waking up in the mornings.

The Notebook. One year from now I'm going to watch that movie again and see what I think. My brain should be stable by then. Maybe I could have some popcorn one year from now. That would be exciting. And a hot dog. And...anything! Remember this date. June 15th. One year from now. Maybe I'll have my own hair. Maybemaybemaybe.......................................

One Down...

2008-06-10T14:46:00.000-07:00

...And five to go. It was strange going back to chemo after three weeks off because I was feeling almost like a normal person for a moment there. Except when I took off my hat or my wig because this head thing is very odd. Some of that is my reluctance to just shave off the whole thing. I have these tufts or wisps of hair coming out of my bare scalp and it's a bit frightening but not too bad and I like these tufts sticking out of the bottom of my cap...So I will keep them until it all comes tumbling down which could be any day now. But the wig is good. You just have to make sure it doesn't creep down below your hairline because then you sort of look like a badly made puppet. Actually, come to think of it, without the wig I look like a badly made puppet.

But I feel pretty good today. Threw up a couple of times. (Is that how you spell threw? Throooo. Hmmmm.) Went to acupuncture today and that was good. Drove myself there and didn't hit anyone so that was good, too.

Someone sent me six little mini laughing Buddhas. What, I wonder, are they laughing at? They're cute but they look a little scarey to me. They are sort of laughing hysterically. You know, they just seem to be a little too happy. Is anyone that happy? Maybe I haven't laughed enough lately and I've forgotten about hysterical laughter. You know, the kind of laughing where milk comes out of your nose because you laugh so hard. Maybe that kind of laughter just happens in high school and then real life hits and it's not so funny anymore. But I like the little Buddhas. And I'm going to try and make sure I laugh everyday at least once.

I just laughed. For no reason. Maybe I'm insane. I haven't had a drink in months. Maybe I need alcohol.

I miss my hot dogs.

I do chemo in this big room with lots of other people doing the same thing. Sometimes we talk, compare diseases or talk about books or just sit quietly and read. But yesterday there was a woman there who talked LOUDLY on her cell phone for at least an hour, I kid you not. And when she was through with a call her cell phone would ring and her ring tone played New York New York and it rang WAY TOO LOUD and then she would talk to Carol or to Connie and she would talk about what's for dinner and how does your hair look and she wants to buy a new purse but they're all so small and blah blah blah and it was so annoying and the rest of us were giving her looks but she obviously didn't give a shit and we were too polite to say anything and we sort of just hoped she would die but she actually might have BEEN dying so it wasn't nice on our part to think that. I hope she's not there next week. I don't mean I hope she's not there because she died. Nonono. I just hopes she comes on a Tuesday. Honestly. That's what I meant.

I miss my hot dogs. Did I say that already? Maybe I just miss Cedric. I miss my old life. But I'll have a new life. With hot dogs and cheese and that sounds somehow very exciting.

Mo

2008-06-04T16:44:00.000-07:00

Six mo to be exact. Or six MORE if you want to use proper English. Yes, I have six more chemos to do starting Monday. But this is a good thing even though the thought of being sick again and the thought of losing ALL of my hair and the thought of going through what I've just gone through all over again is just so yucky I cannot even think of a smart word to describe it because at the end of those six chemos I will almost be cancer free. And I say almost because I don't think they actually give you that diagnosis until about five years after the cancer is actually considered slightly gone. Dr. Shaum said she would like it if I were no longer a patient, just a person who comes in for checkups every few months.

So starting this Monday I shall begin the process all over again. But with a smile on my face and a lighter heart (and one pair of jeans that fit) knowing that by the end of summer I will be jumping into the ocean in my size 2 bathing suit and swimming out to the Carpinteria float...Just me and my body with no cancer and a friend named Devon who always swims out to the float with me.

Now here are some slightly weird things...First of all, the gastro doctor who did the test on Monday...Dr. Hertz...did not see any gastritis. So I guess that's gone. Strange. No one can tell me why it's gone or where it might have come from if I actually had it. Hmmmmmm.

I have to interject something. Oh, don't you just love interjecting? Here's what it is I am interjecting...Sometimes, I can't spell. Now I know you know that because you read this thing and I know every once in a while you say, "Hey, this chick can't spell." Well, I KNOW THAT. So give me a break. I reread a couple of blogs and it was just awful. I even do spellcheck. So fuck you spellcheck for not knowing everything you're supposed to know...Like gastritis. I completely mispelled that last time. And that is why I never entered a spelling bee.

Okay, next strange thing...I was really, really sick the last few weeks. I mean wanting to die sick. And then Monday, Will arrived, I had this little endoscopy...and all the sickness went away. AND...and this is a big AND..........................AND I COULD EAT! After all these months, suddenly I ate an entire container of yogurt and some egg whites and an apple and a sugar free cookie and so on and I told the doctor and she had no idea why I could suddenly eat nor did she ever figure out what was making me that sick in the first place. Pain in my heart sick. Throwing up all the time sick. I even stopped taking those pain pills. Haven't had them all week. Call it a miracle? Oh come on, there is no such thing as a miracle and why on earth would it happen to me of all people, a miracle? And did the Red Sea really part? I guess that would be considered a miracle. Mary on a tortilla...That's a miracle. But whatever it is, the pain is gone.

For the moment.

I'll be curious to see just how sick the chemo makes me this time. Does the pain have something to do with the chemo? I have learned during this process that you can ask and answer a million questions that actually have no answer so it's either a waste of time to ask the questions or it's just plain fun but it's all a guessing game although I hope the doctors actually have some real answers to the questions and they're not all just guessing.

Although I think sometimes they are. They're only human...Unfortunately.

So tomorrow I get my wig which I'm going to need although I love my caps but with no hair sticking out the bottom of the cap it is not going to be as fun and you suddenly look like a person going through chemo which is not a bad thing. It just draws attention to yourself in a slightly pitiful way. Don't like that.

What day is it? Where am I? Hmmmmm. I'm hungry. How about some yogurt? Some yogurt and a wig. That is what my life has come down to at this point. Ah, the simple things.

And maybe a small miracle...........................................Although that's what it's really all about, don't you think? This whole life thing really is just a small miracle.

Or maybe not.

Just another one of those questions with no answer. Maybe I should call a doctor.........................

She Said Wha??!!$%&&+!!

2008-06-02T13:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, if you smoke, go get a cigarette. If you like Martinellis Sparkling Apple Cider, get yourself a glass of that. And just make sure you're sitting down when you read this, although who actually stands up to read on their computer? Do they even make a computer stand?

But I ramble from the main point.

As you know, the last few weeks have been rather brutal. And that is not an exaggeration. I was in pain. Major Pain. (Which was an awful movie with Damon Wayans I believe, but I didn't see it so what do I know?) Anyway, I was trying to manage the pain because I just felt like shit and horrible shit at that. Can't even describe it. In my chestal area I would say, or Woody Allen would say also in some movie. And, of course, I'd been doing tough chemo which didn't help. So last Wednesday I had a scan, a couple of scans actually. A PET scan (and no I did not bring my dog with me) and a CT scan. Well, Dr. Shaum called last night and left me a message. And for a doctor who deals with these things everday, I must say she sounded slightly breathless. Seems like my scan was somewhat miraculous. Yes, I'm a bit over the top but why not. Although even the radiologist could not believe that I had not had radiation or another operation because the mass, the tumor, was pretty much gone, invisible, as was the second mass. And the two scans plus blood work confirmed this...One after the other. Only a small amount of cancer still existed in a lymph node but the chemo had worked so well that I imagine a couple more zaps and we can get rid of that little bugger. I am assuming that I had a pretty good sized MASS in a tough area and that is why they were so pleased and amazed that it was gone in a relatively short amount of chemo time. (Now remember, I did chemo before and the cancer grew back so even though I am jumping for joy in my skin I hold a little hop in reserve just in case.)

And as for the pain, it seems I have something called gastritius in the lining of my stomach. That can cause infection and vomiting and, of course, pain. I had an endosocopy today where they put a tube down your throat with a camera on the end and check you out from the outside in so I'll get the results of what she saw later in the week. But the bottom line is (love that phrase...bottom line...and by the way remind me to tell you something about my bottom.)...the bottom line is the pain is not from cancer. Gastritious or something like that but NOT CANCER.

Okay, take a puff or a drink and let's all breath for a second..............................

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

So now I wait for results and what to do next and how many more chemos and must get my wig and here...Here is the most amazing thing of all. I may live the rest of my life, ..................I may live the rest of my life as a size FOUR!

And they called me chubby when I was twelve!

After my test today, when I was still on the slight bit of anesthesia that stays with you after a test, I went with Karen to the bank. And there was a shop next door that sold jeans and since I don't have any that fit me anymore I said we should stop in. So we did and I tried on a pair and since I have no bottom right now I actually fit into a size........Are you ready for this........A size TWO. I never even knew there WAS such a size. So I bought them. The Nurse had told me not to make any important decisions today since I was still on the drug all day but I thought buying a size two was not that important of a decision. Now I'm hoping that within the next year I can beef up to a size four because I liked my bottom and I would like to look like a woman and not a twelve year old...From the back...I do not kid myself about looking like a twelve year old from the front....

So that's my news. Must lie down...In my jeans...

This is not the end. Actually, this may be the beginning.....................................

Ms. Van Winkle

2008-05-31T13:28:00.000-07:00

I don't know what you've been up to for the last ten days or so but if there is such a thing as a "beauty sleep" then I should be nominated for top super model of the year right now. With as much sleep as I've had in the last couple of weeks I should be gorgeous. Unfortunately, not happening. But this pain I have been having which I have not been able to get rid of until just about yesterday has been so unbearable that all I could do for quite some time was sleep. A dreamless sleep. Just a heavy zonked out "get this horrific pain to go away or I'm going to jump out my bedroom window even though it's at ground level and all that would happen is that I would scrape my knee or get an ugly gash over my eye which would look just so lovely with this fucking CryptKeeper hairdo that I seem to have" type of sleep. Which reminds me that my wig friend called and said my wig is ready and he says it's beautiful but I have been feeling so badly that I haven't been able to get over there. Maybe this week. But I like wearing my Cubs cap..

So I had a scan on Wednesday and that told me that something is very inflamed, like my esophagus and on Monday they'll put me to sleep and stick a camera down my throat and then they'll be able to tell me more about my pain which actually I do not think is cancer pain. I think it's throwing up pain, lack of stomach pain. Still haven't eaten since February. But I'm thinking about it more and that's a good thing. Guess what I want? A hot dog.

Some days to pass the time I look through catalogues and dog ear the pages of things I would order if I had endless amounts of funny money...Although no one should have endless amounts of "funny" money because it's not funny when some people don't have any money and others can buy useless items with their extra thousands just because they're bored. Shouldn't there be a catalogue with the addresses of people who could use some money and the ones with the catalogues could send THEM the money instead of sending money to Eddie Bauer or Victoria and her not so secret Secret?

Anyway, I dog ear all of these pages and throw the catalogues into the garbage, wasting paper as well as time. But a couple of weeks ago I actually ordered something. My alarm clock has been broken for sometime now and there was this pretty yellow old fashioned Sunbeam alarm clock with glow in the dark hands that looked so cute and was very cheap and I thought it was just the clock I'd been waiting for. It arrived today. Guess I didn't read the fine print. But this clock was only twenty dollars so how big could it be? Right? A nice little yellow alarm clock to put on your night table. Well, THIS CLOCK IS HUGE. A veritable Big Ben. I'm not kidding. You could put this thing on top of a ten story building and you'd still be able to read the glow in the dark hands. The thing is like an entire mantle piece. I have no idea what to do with it. And the alarm. I would not die from cancer with this alarm, I would die from a heart attack when that GONG went off. Like a guy next to your head holding a mallet about to hit one of those gongs like at the end of an old English movie.

So now I have to wrap it all up and mail it back to where it came from and when they ask me why I'm returning the item I am going to say, "Because this clock could kill me." I might pull the cancer card because I want my twenty dollars back and when I get it I'm going to go straight down to the Promenade and give that twenty to the first homeless person I see and then I'm going to come back home and toss every dog earred catalogue I have and cancel the rest and try and be useful in these long hours of healing, which is what I should have been doing in the first place.

Anyway, I'm fine. Thanks for asking. And you?...............................................

To The Max

2008-05-21T13:02:00.001-07:00

Well, I lost it yesterday. Lost my blog. Wrote a long one and then poof it was gone. And you can't rewrite these things because they are, to put it pretentiously, stream of consciousness. But it was about chemo. How Monday was the sixth but not the last and it was about other people in the room, who were mostly women and about how we trusted these doctors who were putting poison into our veins and sort of guessing that this was the right thing to do. And it was about trusting just about everything we do everyday like drive on the 405 or on Lake Shore Drive or whatever the big road is where you live and trusting that some nut is not going to crash into you and it was about being on a plane trusting that the guys in the control tower are paying attention...Like..."Hey, do those two planes seem like they're too close together to you, Bob?...Bob?...Yeah, give me one of those chips. Yeah, the salsa good. You made it, huh? Hothouse tomatoes, huh? It's smokin'. So, what do you think about those two planes?"

And then maybe your life is over because Bob made some good salsa.

So I guess that's what I was thinking about yesterday. Oh, and the title. Max. Every morning when I get up, the first thing I want to put down my throat is Pepsi Max. DIET Pepsi Max. It's got caffeine and ginseng in it. It is full of crap and I love it. Before I was sick I ate nothing but healthy. Broccoli, zuchini. Now I can't eat sugar, thus the diet MaX and I can't even look at a vegetable. And you know what, who cares? At this point, who cares. Will eating a bean really make me better? I don't think so. It think it's going to be poison and some luck.

That's what I was thinking yesterday. Today, my mind is blank. But I did wash the bathroom floor and did my laundry. That's a good thing. Normal life. Getting back to a normal life. Is that possible? Does that include broccoli? Does normal have a different meaning now?

I think it does. And that is going to be a very interesting thing to discover. The new normal.

Hmmm, I'm in the mood for something cheesy and greasy. Definitely a new normal.

Wait A Minute...Could You Please Repeat That

2008-05-13T16:05:00.000-07:00

"You don't actually have one more chemo treatment. You have five more...Altogether. You see, a "treatment" is TWO chemos, then a week off. So after next Monday you will have had THREE treatments, which included six chemo sessions. I'm sorry I didn't explain it more clearly."

Oh, she explained it just fine and it was ME and my tiny brain that didn't really want to understand that two meant one and I was never good at math anyway. But it might not be as bad as all that because after next weeks chemo I am getting a scan and then she'll be able to see if maybe I just need a couple more or maybe just one more go around. But I must say that at the time I was finding this out I wanted to cry or tear my hair out but that would have been pointless so I shed a tiny tear and took a deep breath and punched myself in the head then I felt better. And we're dealing with the pain and I'm going in next week to find out what that's all about, which is good. I'm running out of spaces to put these pain patches though a pain patch blouse might be the thing. Maybe Stella McCartney could come up with a cool style. And did you see that Heather McCartney is getting something like fifty million dollars and she was only married to him for two years. Seems a bit much but maybe he was a jerk. This goes under the heading of information that should not be in my brain AT ALL.

And yes, the Lakers lost on Sunday and then I really didn't feel well so I'm hoping they win tomorrow night but Kobe has a bad back and can you imagine playing basketball with a bad back? You have to be young and have a great doctor in order to do that.

This is going to be short today because it is post chemo and I'm a bit tired and relaxed from my acupuncture so I can't actually think right now but my computer was right here and I picked it up and I just started writing without anything to say. I know there was something I was thinking of....................Tell you what, I'll get back to...tomorrow. Good thing I'm not driving.

Sweaty Bodies, Cool Shoes and Mothers Day

2008-05-11T12:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, let's pretend I'm not in pain. Let's pretend I don't have chemo tomorrow. Let's pretend I can eat and drink anything I want to because I am very thirsty right now and I want to gulp down an entire bottle of pomegranate juice but then I would go into some kind of horrible coma like state so I just have to take tiny sips of water and pretend that it has some sweet wonderful tart taste so today seems to be a great day to play pretend. I am putting all the sort of "bummer" things aside and I'm just focusing and what is actually good about today.

My son was just here for a visit, had to go back for work but it was a great visit and just sitting with him and hanging is a million times more satisfying than pomegranate juice or any juice for that matter and now it is Sunday and foggy and I love fog and I am writing on my fab gear computer and watching the Laker game and looking at all of those incredibly handsome young man run up and down the court, at the top of their game, making what is impossible seem effortless and I'm a little worried about the Lakers right now because I think the Jazz may be a bit hungrier at this little juncture but Kobe did win the MVP award this week and maybe he can get his guys in gear. But it is not going to be easy. And they are playing Utah! In Utah. Look at those people. They're all so white and happy and of course I think they're all Mormons, which is fine, but I had a strange run in with Mormon's once. A long time ago, I took a train with my friend Nora. We were on our way to Colorado. We had a morning stop in Salt Lake so we put on our running shoes so we could get a little exercise and we were told we couldn't run around the Mormon Temple! It was illegal. So we debated whether it was cool to get a ticket for running illegally, sort of like Arlo Guthrie getting a ticket for littering, or if we should just walk around the Temple. We chose walking. The chicken way out. Anyway, that was my experience with Utah and Mormons.

And I must say...Talk about handsome...Kobe just gets cuter and cuter as he matures and I think he's actually a better guy, not quite as self absorbed as he used to be and oh my goodness his daughters are soooooo cute.........................

So I'm going to sit here and watch basketball and sweaty bodies and for moment, for very long moments I will not feel any pain and that is such a relief because I cannot seem to get what I think is my esophagus to stop hurting. Every time I eat something or even have that sip of water my chest hurts. Dr. Shaum is going to help me figure this out. I keep reminding myself that I used to eat...before the cancer came back...and I ate in February so I should be able to eat again...Without pain. And I won't have to wear these pain patches or take pills that make me feel off center and drive like a maniac. Which, by the way, I am going to do today so you might think about staying off the street between 2 and 3.

Until then I am going to watch Kobe and Derek and try to remain calm although until they are at least ten points ahead I will probably not be able to do that.

But I won't be thinking about MY pain. Just handsome guys with sweaty bodies wearing cool shoes running back and forth, back and forth. Life is good.

Ohm

2008-05-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

I decided not to mention this yesterday in the middle of all the wireless excitement but there I was on the couch tip tap typing away and feeling oh so good about where I was and what I was doing and I went back and read what I had written which is something I don't always do and I saw that AN ENTIRE PARAGRAPH had been erased! My little lap top is much more sensitive than the desk top I've been using forever and I must have just touched something very gently and poof, the paragraph was gone. And it was a good one, too. At least I imagined that it was and probably the best thing I had ever written...EVER. And it was all about me driving around on pain pills and pulling out of the driveway and I knew I was either going to have to start all over (ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!) or try and recreate it. And oh my gosh as I've said before (like yesterday) that it's always something (actually Gilda Radner said that and of course I loved her but SHE DIED so I try not think that I am the Gilda who DIDN'T make it.) Anyway, I wrote a bunch of stuff all over again. Actually, first I went into the bathroom and put this oil that's supposed to help with hair regrowth all over my head. I still have some hair though it's much thinner than it used to be and maybe I'm kidding myself and I actually look like the Crypt Keeper with just these pathetic strands shooting out in various places but when I came out of the bathroom I was covered with oil I had to go into the kitchen and try and get it off of my hands or it was going to cover my brand new sweet comuter so I did that and came back to the couch with this oily head and dry hands and wrote something. Because I knew that was the thing I was supposed to do and that's what all this wirelessness was about.

But I try, believe me I try, to not sweat the small stuff as someone said and I don't think it was Gilda but might have been. Although, that's what it's all about really, isn't it? The small stuff. I mean, a baby is big stuff because it's a LIFE for goodness sake and a puppy is big stuff and any animals and then I guess you would say plants and I suppose pencils and here's the thing...

I'm hungry. When I start talking about pencils it means something is not right and at this moment it is because I am hungry that I'm talking about pencils. I did a little too much today because my friend Candace came over and we walked and then went to the market and before you know it, it was after three and I hadn't been plugged in since this morning and that's a long time for me to be without nutrition. But I'm plugged in now as I write this and I'm a bit light headed from no food. Although, maybe it's actually because I have NO HAIR. Honestly, ever since I conjured up that image of the Crypt Keeper, I am realizing that when I look in the mirror, that's who I see. Oh my god, I'm a female Crypt Keeper with no ass and a tube coming out of my abdomen. If only it was closer to Halloween. I always have such a hard time finding a costume and right now I'm all set with no where to go. My timing has always been for shit.

So I'm trying to keep calm. And I'm thinking that not looking in the mirror is a good place to start. I never really liked doing that anyway. Was not a big mirror looker. Who looks good in a mirror? They can try and trick you in some of those upscale stores with their soft pink lighting and I did fall for those tricks as witnessed by some of the clothes in my closet. "Oh, that looks so great on you. Makes you look years younger." And then I'm home and I try it on and I look like Bette Davis on The Dick Cavett Show when SHE had matured into the Crypt Keeper.

I remember I used to be Eloise. Thought I was sort of like Eloise or Pippi Longstocking. And if you check out an Eloise book you can sort of see how she could morph into the Crypt Keeper if she could get older. So actually, if I died at a younger age than people think you are supposed to die, it might not be such a bad thing. John Kennedy will always be young and handsome. Hard to imagine him as an old man. Kurt Cobain. John Lennon.

But you know what? It's fun watching Bob Dylan grow old. It's cool. Nice if Gilda had gotten to be an old funny lady. Nice for her if she had been able to be a mom. So, once again, maybe living is the thing to go for.

I'm not going to read this again. If something sounds like it's missing...It probably is. I'll get the hang of this yet.

Or I'll just go back to using a pencil.............................................

Oh Yeah

2008-05-07T16:24:00.000-07:00

Yes, ladies and germs I am wireless! Thanks to my handsome and rugged friend Keith Stevenson, whom, if only I were years younger, would be attacked and captured and dragged to my house and fed turkey meatloaf and potato chips but because of my present circumstances all I could do last night was watch him work on my computer while I put together a Chinese chicken salad and tried not to throw up...But he did it and now I am sitting on the couch in the living room, just as I had imagined and I have my Spring Green computer on my lap and we're bonding and it's so warm on my thighs and that is one thing I had never imagined and I'm so excited I could scream...

I just did.

And last night after he finally got it going I actually did get so excited that I had to excuse myself and vomit and I think that was out of pure excitement. I guess little kids do that. Vomit and poop when they get excited. Not so cute when you're my age but at least I excused myself. So who knew? Well now, everyone.

But, of course, it's always something. It's afternoon now and I have spent all day freaked out because I no longer have any excuse as to why I'm not writing. I woke up thinking, oh shit, I can sit on the couch and write now and I can't say to anyone oh dear I am waaaaay too tired to go into my study and yadayada and I am sick as a dog...Although when I am I sick which will be the next couple of weeks because I didn't have chemo this week and I'm finally feeling a bit better...But when I am sick THAT IS an excuse so there! I have been feeling really badly the past few days and I talked to Dr. Shaum and told her that my chest hurt, right where the cancer is/was and she thought I should add another pain patch so I am now wearing three patches and taking less of the pain pills. Which is good. The pills make me feel very strange and I don't like to drive on the pills and I shouldn't drive but I have to take them and sometimes I do have to go out. It's a kind of strange that's hard to describe but it's sort of like I get into the car and wonder what in the world a car is................And someone is talking and it takes a while to realize it's the radio and it's Rachel Maddow who is a radio commentator and she's also on MSNBC and she's a beautiful and smart lesbian that a bunch of straight women I know are in love with but she's taken and I love her too, especially on pain pills so she's talking and I start driving and sort of feel like I'm in a Disney Flubber car and I'm not even sure what that is but I feel like I'm bouncing all over the road and I realize I have no idea where I'm going or why I'm going and then I see a Ralphs so I decide that I must be going there so I do. And I pull the car into one of those parking space thingies and listen to Rachel for way too long and I'm not even sure what she's talking about but it has something to do with Michigan and Florida and I have been to both states and if I get to go to Michigan again I will be a very happy woman but if I have to go to Florida again I don't think I even want to get out of this car...

But I do get out and walk into Ralphs (which is a SUPERmarket for those who don't live in Ralphsville.) and Ralphs looks SO BIG that I sort of freak out and just leave and..................

Anyway, you can see why I don't like taking the pain pills. Makes the world just a little woo woo for me to drive around in. I guess the world is all woo woo to a baby. Maybe I'm becoming a baby again. Poop vomit woo woo. Oh my gosh, what if I had to wear a diaper AND move to Florida. Well, that would just be it, wouldn't it? What would be the point of going on?

But I ramble. I'm wireless. Dog food. That's what I needed at Ralphs.

Wow. Cool. Thank you, Keith. Thank you, Will. Thank you, Ralph. Woo woo...............

Just The Facts, Ma'am.......

2008-04-28T10:52:00.002-07:00

I haven't eaten since February. February! Oh sure, I've had a strawberry and a piece of apple and a tiny piece of cheese but that's not eating. And no, I'm not hungry because I ingest these cans of nutrition and they keep me from losing weight and they help me stand upright and take walks but this is getting to be very abnormal. They keep assuring me that when the tumor shrinks I'll be able to swallow and therefore have a piece of fish or something soft and yummy and maybe I'm torturing myself by watching cooking shows and seeing people like this very plump, happy, Southern woman named Paula Deen bake things like peanut butter cakes and eat them all up and just be so damn happy about the whole thing...Maybe I should watch the History Channel instead where people cross the Atlantic and starve their way to America. I don't know. Maybe I should just read anything beside The Joy of Cooking.

Today is chemo. I am still so sick from last weeks drip that I cannot imagine how I'm going to feel tomorrow but here I go. There is some good news to report...My blood work is very strong. My tumor, according to the work, has shrunk quite a bit. Couldn't tell by me but that's what Dr. Shaum said and I don't think she'd lie just to make me feel good. So that's the happy news. Oh happy happy joy joy. I am dancing across the room, doing my first dance to a joyous Spring.

Now here's a word whose meaning has become quite clear to me in recent days...Clumps...My hair is now falling out in...Clumps...I just have to run my fingers through it and small dyed blond birds nests appear. In fact I'm leaving it all in the yard in case a bird might be looking for some house building material. Maybe I should leave a sign...Like the signs that say FREE DIRT. How about a sign that says FREE HAIR. But then, of course, as I lie in bed I imagine that some birds have taken my hair and they come looking for more and fly into my room and start pecking at my bald head to see if there's just a tiny bit left for maybe a family room...Or a second bedroom...

I think I've watched just a few too many Hitchcock movies.

There is a bird on a tree right outside of my study. He has a very mean look on his face. Maybe he hates blonds. Maybe he wanted a brunette nest. Maybe I should take another pain pill.

I'm off to chemo. Does one's mind come out with their hair?

Stay tuned...............................

No I Am Not Dead

2008-04-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's the thing...Until I become wireless I won't be able to blog as often as I'd like to and it has to do with my set up and my IV and blah blah blah but my wonderful fabulous son was here this past week and spent hours online ordering my laptop and figuring out what I needed, which isn't much, so hopefully by the end of next week I'll be able to sit in the living room or in a coffee shop with all those people who think they are writing a script that someone will actually buy (oh, I shouldn't be so cynical...Or should I?) but anyway I am pretty sure that wirelessness will allow me to write more often. There will always be a lag of two or three days when I do chemo but I only have four more to go, so they say, and then it will be three and so on..........

But anyway, I did not have chemo this week and I've had some good days and a couple bummer days but my hair is still on my head and I'm afraid to touch it thinking the whole thing might just come off in my hand but as of today it's still here. More chemo on Monday so we shall see what that brings beside the nausea which has been a little too intense and the fatigue. But I walk and I talk and I think and I read and I wait for the day when we finally have a candidate because I can't stand the suspense anymore and it's so cool that it's a Black man and a woman although I think these two are going to kill each other before it's all over and then we'll be back to White men again and we know where that gets us.....................And is it just me or does hearing the Pope speak in a large stadium with his very strong German accent make some of you want to keep a packed duffel bag by the door "just in case"?..............................

This is going to be short today but I wanted to make sure that I wrote down something that I have realized this week...Two very important reasons why I should continue living...

One...My Son...Enough said.

Two...When my son was here I sent him to get...

A HOT DOG!!

Cedric! I haven't been getting my vitamin drip because you can't mix vitamins with chemo so they tell me and I haven't seen Cedric in quite a while so I sent Will to get a dog and told him to say hi from me, thinking Cedric might not remember me because I am one of so many hot dog eaters and Cedric admirers but HE KNEW ME and said he was wondering about me and where I'd been and he asked for my e-mail and I was so flattered that I almost fainted, which I do these days anyway, but I realized that Cedric is my second most important reason to live.

What a world..............................

I'll Have A Chemopolitan...With A Twist

2008-04-06T11:31:00.000-07:00

THIS SUCKS! Big time. For the last week I have been living in a wave of nausea that will not go away and before I even have time to recover from last Monday's chemo here comes Monday again tomorrow with another damn dose and last Friday I had to go in to get an anti-nausea drip for three hours that didn't really work for more than a moment and there were two bald women who were so sick of doing chemo that they were about to play hooky for a few months and go on some exotic trip around the world. They were not sure it was all worth it because in both cases the cancer had come back and they had to endure the whole thing all over again. And I'm sitting there thinking is it worth it at all just to get a few extra months (if that's you get) because during those months you just feel sick and you can't jump in the ocean so what is the point?

And I lay there on the couch and start freaking out about one of those memorials that I DO NOT WANT TO HAVE because these days I can feel people trying to peek into my window to see what kind of shape I'm in. "I hear she looks awful. She can't eat" "She looks like death." "How long does she have?" I know people who have died and they have had these memorials where people talk about you and some people who talk you may not even like and even though you're dead it is just so embarrassing.

And on top of everything the dishwasher broke and leaked all over the kitchen floor and that opened up my anger control switch about the man formerly known as my husband who lives in his nice clean bachelor apartment with a landlord who will take care of his damn dishwasher whenever it goes kerplooey and then I realized how much I want to move out of this house into one that is my very, very own painted in MY colors with only MY stuff in it and my son's stuff and...

By the way, my son was a Prince, as usual, at my last chemo. Sat there with me, held my hand, watched me vomit, stroked my hair, made me laugh and that is not easy.

There have been times when I was in the middle of throwing up that I just wanted to have a heart attack and fall on the bathroom floor and get this over with. Enough. Enough already. And then I'd brush my teeth and get back on the couch and pick up a book and I'd read something, like a great sentence, so I'd read on because I was pretty sure that I was going to find another great sentence if I kept on reading and I suppose that's a reason to carry on. But I miss my other self and what we used to do, like swim and eat turkey burgers and I know some
things will never be the same and that just completely bums me out. (Now that, by the way, was a lousy sentence. If I had read that after brushing my teeth I surely would have ended things right there and then.)

I think I'm very close to being divorced. I say "I think" because I have these papers on my desk that "I think" I'm supposed to sign or at least peruse (did I spell that correctly?) and they came the day I did my last chemo and you know what I'm realizing as I write this...That I CANNOT fall onto the bathroom floor until I get completely divorced. There we go. That is a much more important reason to hang in there...Way more important than reading a good sentence.

"I get the willies behind closed doors." Phooey on that. "Please, sign on the bottom line and your marriage will be dissolved." Yahoo. I can breath. I'm finally free.

You know, I feel better already. Ready for my chemo, Mr. DeMille.............................

I Am The Wig Man (Koo Koo Ka Choo)

2008-03-29T11:25:00.000-07:00

First of all, I am still working on becoming wireless (and of course tubeless but that's a separate issue) and I haven't written as much lately as I'd wanted to because I've been sort of brain dead at times and honestly sometimes I couldn't quite make it into my study. You see my day consists of getting up, which takes much longer than it used to although I have to say that after a couple of weeks of nourishing up with these cans of "food" I feel like I have more energy than say, a month ago. But anyway, I get up, walk around a bit and feed Gracie the dog and then I take a walk with a friend and maybe go to the market, just to feel like a normal person, and I buy paper products as I've told you before and then I come home and feed on the couch and read the paper and a book and the day goes by, the day goes by, my my how the day goes by. And then suddenly it's night time and I watch In Treatment, which has now finished it's run and for those who were hooked, were you not pleased as punch that he had a panic attack that knocked him on his ass!! And then it's bed time where I sleep like a log until the day starts all over again.

However...Monday things will change. It will be my first day of second round chemo. Am I a bit freaked out? YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING! I already throw up and I am already tired and we know chemo just makes all of that worse so YES, THIS IS GOING TO BE A MAJOR BUMMER and I was so looking forward to this year and it never really got off the ground now did it? If you read back I've had two good days so far this year. TWO. Oh yes, I am grateful for those days. Oh yes, I am doing a dance of gratitude right now. BUT COULD SOMEONE PLEASE GIVE ME A BREAK HERE!

Hmmmm. Someone. And just who might that someone be, can you tell me that? And, of course, the answer is...NO ONE. There is no one who can help me because it's all random and it's all good luck and bad luck and happy days and sad days and just plain old days and to stop myself from spewing I will now tell you about something good that is probably going to happen soon...

I was told that after a couple of chemos, I should be able to eat. Not much. But something. Little bits. A tiny piece of cheese. Some apple. Food. I will be able to eat food. I am very excited about that. Very excited. My apple and Havarti are waiting for me in the other room. Oh happy day.

My friend took me to the wig man that other day. Wasn't sure I would make it because I hadn't been unhooked from my food machine for more than two hours but we did it. And it was worth every minute without sustainance. It was great. His "salon" was in a little old California bungalow type place on Westwood Blvd. You walk in and there is a tiny room with a television playing on the floor and a lovely Asian woman watching it and working on some hair thing. I believe she was his wife. The whole place was covered in hair and wigs and pictures on the wall of old fashioned beauty salons and ladies with very big hair and it was pretty much a mess. A beautiful mess. I loved it. And the guy comes out and he's a little guy with grey hair wearing a grey sweatshirt also covered with hair and he leads me into his backroom which has a salon chair set up in front of a small mirror and he tells me that when he was nineteen he was in a rock and roll band and he worked as a hairdresser to make money and the rock and roll died but he continued doing hair only now it's only wigs. And he sort of liked me and we laughed about the sixties and he measured my head and I have to say it was sort of fun in a freaky sort of way since I was there because I am about to go BALD and that is rather horrifying but I like that this guy is making me a wig and you know, I think he's going to do a really good job. And I don't know if I mentioned this but I have a "perscription" for my wig so insurance can cover some of it and on the perscription it says...cranial prosthetic.......................Of course with that description I picture having leg on my head but whatever.....................

Actually, life is pretty good even when it's bad. Please, I'm looking out at trees and I'm not worried about insurance and I am a lucky human being on so many levels.

BUT I AM PISSED OFF and I can't wait to feel normal again and wait, I think I hear my Havarti calling. Or maybe that's a squirrel.

On to Round Two.......................................

ROUND TWO

2008-03-25T16:36:00.000-07:00

Finally, some good news. Some news I can relate to, some news that makes me feel that everything is going to be just fine...

I drove myself to the market a couple of days ago and that was a trip onto itself because I'm on these pain pills and in the house they're just fine but out in the world they really make you feel a bit paranoid and I think I must have looked very odd because everyone was staring at me or probably that was just the paranoid part but anyway...I was in Pavillions getting things that were made out of paper since I can't eat right now and I glanced down at the magazines and there was the good old Weekly World News with the headline...WORLD TO END 5-15-08...And I felt so relieved that I wouldn't have to do chemo after that...That thank goodness there was going to be an end to all of this and the end was actually in sight! Oh happy day. So I drove back home and took out my purchase of paper towels and toilet paper and I felt pretty damn good about my future.

Except...I saw Arlen Spector on Jon Stewart and I realized that in a month or so I would look just like him. When he had cancer and lost his hair and all that. That was rather depressing. Although he's a guy who looks extremely frightening even when he HAS hair so I'm thinking that maybe I'll look more like Natalie Portman or maybe Natalie Portman's mother. Natalie shaved her head for a silly movie but when you've got a face like that and you're young I think being bald is not as intimidating as when you spend half your time trying to hide your fine lines and wrinkles under your bangs.

You know that show In Treatment that I mentioned a while back...Well, according to the ratings not many people are watching it and according to MY ratings I think I KNOW everyone who's watching it. Like, all of my friends. You people. I'm telling you, watching people with problems that are not your own is such a comfort. That's not your therapist, that's not your husband, that's not your daughter and thank goodness for that. And you've got to love the fact that the therapist is a complete mess because don't you think that's always true? Well, not always but my room mate for one semester in college was a young woman whose parent's were both therapists and boy was she fucked up. I met them once. The therapist couple. They actually introduced me to Bob Dylan. The records, not the man. They were like really depressing beatnik type people. Wore black all the time. Listened to Dylan all the time. Had pictures of Freud all over their house. They were very pale and their house was very pale and their daughter was very pale and she left college after a semester. I think it was the acid that did her in. I remember she took acid and couldn't stop talking about her father and it completely freaked her out so she left school to deal with that. I heard years later that SHE TOO became a therapist. Are we surprised? I just hope she didn't have any kids.

So I believe I'm starting chemo on Friday. I'll find out for sure today or tomorrow. I am not going into this as healthy as I was last time and that's a little scary but I am looking forward to shrinking this stuff so I can eat a little. Haven't had even cheesecake in a very long time. Luckily, I am not hungry because of the tube food. I'm thinking that I'm going to wear a yellow sweater to brighten things up a bit but as far as the pants go, forget it. Nothing hangs right anymore because of the ass absence. I am hoping to have a wireless laptop soon I can write more often, even when I'm hooked up to the IV.

Maybe I won't actually be bald when the world ends. That would be nice. Hmmm, I forgot to read HOW the world was going to end. I did see a picture of a gigantic dinosaur type monster next to the headline but that must have been part of another article because that would be way too silly so I know it will be something much more plausible that finishes off mankind. Like being attacked by aliens or maybe the sun is getting too close. Yea, that's probably it. I think I'm feeling a bit warm already...............................

The Resurrection of Who?

2008-03-20T12:55:00.000-07:00

I wrote a blog yesterday and I pushed a button and poof...The blog disappeared into cyberspace, never to be seen again. I think that blog sucked anyway. I was having kind of a strange day. People seemed very edgy to me yesterday and the day before. Kind of like they wanted to yell and scream and choke me to death. And I bring my IV into my study now while I write so I can keep getting food and yesterday the IV suddenly looked like an alien to me and I felt like she was watching me write so I had to turn her around to face the wall and I think she got insulted and do you think I'm taking too many pain pills and I'm losing my mind? Actually, I'm taking less pills since I have this patch but I don't know. Poof. It was all gone and I thought I heard my IV chuckling so I just let the blog go and the two of us went into the living room and watched an episode of In Treatment. Ever seen that show? It's about upper middle class people in therapy who are very fucked up and you just want to slap them and say, "Get over yourself!" but the acting is terrific and Gabriel Bryne is very handsome and the best part about is...Those aren't MY problems. Thanks goodness for that.

One thing I remember writing about yesterday was Mr. Obama's speech. If you haven't heard or read it...Google it. It's pretty damn brilliant and so forward thinking and not stuck in a world that no longer exists. That's why I think that he's probably the right person for the job...Because he's a person of the future. He sees things very differently than people from an older generation. I don't know if he can get past his fiery, angry preacher but I think Mr. Obama would be very exciting to have as a President. How many times do we have to have those Middle East Peace Talks until we finally realize..."Hmmmm. This isn't working, is it?" Maybe we need a new approach to things. And I'm not sure but I don't think that approach should be blowing up the Middle East and starting all over again.

So I'm talking to a friend this morning and I asked if we could do something on Sunday and she said that there was this Resurrection she had to celebrate and I said like a moron..."Who's resurrection?" Okay, I admit that lately my life has been a pretty selfish one. Me me me. It's been all about me. I do forget other people's birthdays and I apologize. But to forget who's (or is that whose?) resurrection it is means I have to get out of myself and remember that there is a world going on outside of my house and that world does not concern me except for the fact that I am this little meat body walking around this small piece of planet trying to figure out what it's all about.

I am thinking that when I go bald I might have people sign my head...Like a cast. Or maybe I'll have an artist friend draw on some hair. Or maybe I'll glue some licorice twirls up there that look like bright red and black dreadlocks and then I'll always have something to munch on even when I'm stuck in traffic.

Or maybe I'll just wear a hat.

I miss human beings!! Right now, this part of the journey is just sitting in my house pumping food into my system so I no longer get my vitamin drip and I don't get to see Cedric and the crazy vitamin gang and I don't have to go to the grocery store because I can't eat by mouth right now so it's just me and this alien IV and my computer. And my dog, of course. But we all get along. Don't we gang? Don't we?

Wish me luck. I'm going to try and print out what I've written so I am now clicking on the button and here goes................................

A Walk Down Mammary Lane

2008-03-17T15:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, now I have noticed that both my ass AND my boobs are almost entirely gone. And next my hair!! So what the hell am I, then? A hairless, boobless, assless woman? Does that sound attractive to you? I actually think the man formerly known as my husband left just in the nick of time. And while I was obsessing on my loss of feminine body parts I started wondering...What if I was with a man right now, what would he have to lose to make me leave HIM? His penis? If he lost his penis would I leave? And beyond that, what actually makes him a man? Not hair. Bald men are very masculine and handsome. Boobs? Well, I suppose if he developed man boobs that might be a problem. His deep voice? What if he had throat cancer and suddenly talked like Marilyn Monroe? Would that be a turnoff? Or would that be just thrilling? And am I losing my mind in some insidious way and should I have my computer taken away from me before I write something that I might regret someday soon?

On my good days, in my good moments, I actually get a bit excited about tomorrow. Tomorrow meaning the future. This feeling could, of course, be brought on by my pain patch but I will take whatever excitement I can feel at this point. In fact, I have a whole case of pain patches and I wonder what I would feel like if I stuck all of them on my arm...Just for one night...I mean, that might be just too much happiness. More than I could stand. But would that be a bad thing? Too much happiness? Can you even imagine that? And here's where my mind always goes when I think of too much happiness....To heaven. That's where it goes. And what that's all about anyway because I have these conversations ever so often with my friends about heaven and everyone has a strong feeling about what is going to happen to all of us after we die. Oh, you want to ruin a party? Just tell them you don't believe in an afterlife. Puts a stop to any fun someone might be having almost immediately.

"More martinis please and can someone get this crazy heathen woman away from me right now!"

But just the fact that I can imagine a day when I can teach again and write something and possibly sell something puts me at such an advantage and I realize how lucky I am compared to most people that there is no way I can sit in my living room feeling sorry for myself just because I have cancer and some mini emotional earquakes hit me last year and yet I can contemplate a future with light in it and jokes and smiles and maybe a new pair of pants so how the hell lucky am I?

That's all I'm thinking about today. And also about turkey meatloaf. I can't seem to eat by mouth these days but I think about the things I might be eating if I could. An orange. A grapefruit. Maybe I'll check out the food channel. Is it me or does Rachel Ray look a lot like SpongeBob Squarepants?

Must go and plug myself in now. Maybe there is some really cool outfit I can come up with for a hairless, boobless, assless woman. A floor length hoodie, perhaps? A tent? Maybe just a ticket to somewhere else. Like Siberia.

But tomorrow is going to be exciting. I can feel it. And that's why I'm lucky.

Death by Kenny G

2008-03-15T18:51:00.000-07:00

LIVE, FROM ST. JOHNS..IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT!

Actually, I'm not in St. Johns. I'm at home. All cozy and nestled by my computer. (Nestled? Is that a word? Weren't they nestled all snug in their beds? Have YOU ever been nestled?)

So?...........What's shakin' bacon? How the hell have you been? I'm so worried about you. Haven't heard from you in a week or so. Are you alive? Have you moved to the South of France? Do you not want to talk to me anymore? What's going on?

Welllllllllllllllllll, it's me and my BF, the feeding tube, here to tell you that we've just returned from almost a week in the hospital getting some hydration and nutrition. I think by the time my feeding friend was reattached I was already so depleted that there was no way I could give myself enough food and water anymore no matter how much I tried to sink into the tube. So I had myself checked in last weekend and I'm feeling a bit stronger and I actually gained two pounds and I'm hoping to gain at least eight more before I start the balding chemo. And I now have a pain patch plus I'm taking pain pills and I'm feeling a bit like Richard Pryor must have felt most of the time although my pain is great enough to make me feel actually almost normal instead of the high one gets when they take the pills and don't really have any pain.

Things I Learned in the Hospital................

If you are going to be near a nurse's station, make sure they don't play soft rock on the radio ALL DAY LONG because that kind of music sort of makes you want to swallow the entire bottle of pills because it doesn't quite put you to sleep it just sort of lulls you into thinking everything is just so relaxed and fine and no one should ever have an individual thought and we should just smile and give up on everything and just lie in our beds and eat jello. Anyway, that's sort of how Kenny G makes me feel.

A hospital chaplain came into my room. She was a nun. The Sisters of Leavenworth. (I kid you not.) She was very prim and friendly and wanted to know my spiritual path until I told her I was a Jew and she became very frazzled and nervously looked me up on her sheet of patients and said I had listed myself as non denominational. I think I smiled demonically because she looked scared when I said that I was born a Jew and will be one until I die but I liked to think of myself as being part of all religions in the world. And until we all thought of ourselves as ONE we would continue to have the same problems over and over.

She left quickly and said she would refer me to the hospital Rabbi. He came just as I was checking out and he too seemed to have a demonic look. He'd probably just run into the Chaplain.

Another reason to take the entire bottle of pills...Daytime television.

Another reason...Nighttime television. Okay, Anderson Cooper is supposed to be news, right? Well, not really but he hit a new low when after the Spitzer reveal he had on for at least twenty minutes a man dubbed The King of All Pimps. Oh my God, this guy was so self confident and self important and he had spent two years in prison for running a prostitution ring and he talked as the expert he was about prostitutes and "You get what you pay for..." and he was proud to announce that he now had a dating service for high class New Yorkers!! You know the Spitzer story is over when the only person you can find to interview is a Jewish pimp who thinks Jeremy Pivan would be the perfect actor to play him in a movie.

Actually, Jeremy Pivan is a great idea.

I realized that the reason Geraldine Ferraro could run for Vice President is because she's actually a man. How different it would be if Geraldine and Hillary had really long rock and roll hair and it hung in their faces when they gave speeches and it was all tossled and full of product when they walked to the helicopters and imagine if Bill ran his fingers through Hillary's long hair when they were at a state dinner. I mean, what is with this hair like a man thing? And, conversely, what if Bill had a cut like Bon Jovi? Probably not a good look for him as I watch his nose get longer and longer. Must be the Pinnochio curse.

And what about our President dancing on the White House porch? The pills, please...........

Must party down now. After all, it is Saturday night. Maybe I'll switch on The Wave and have myself a shot of Kefir. Gee gosh golly, life is sometimes just a little too exciting, don't you think?

The Bitch Is Back

2008-03-05T14:24:00.000-08:00

Okay, you know when The Roadrunner or Bugs Bunny are being chased and they run and they run until they get to the end of a very high cliff and they keep running until they find themselves with nothing beneath them because suddenly there is no more cliff but they continue running, treading nothing but air...And they hold up a sign that says something like "Goodbye Cruel World" and then they wave bye bye and drop thousands of miles back down to earth? You know that scene? And we laugh and we laugh because we know what's going to happen and the anticipation is so damn funny. Well, I am treading air right now and I can tell you, it is not so funny and it's completely exhausting. I can feel that guy in the black robe from The Seventh Seal following me and I am determined to lead him in a direction other than the end of the cliff but sometimes you get so tired running in circles that you just want to lie down and let the guy in the robe pick you up and get it over with. Because we all know he wins in the end. Embraces every one of us.

But let's look on the bright side, shall we? Maybe the guy in the robe will get distracted and bother someone else for a while. I am sick of it, you hear me? Sicksicksick of feeling sick. Just spent two days in the hospital getting my best friend reinserted and here she is and we just had about two ounces of Gatorade because that is supposed to be good for me...What?!!...But now I have two pains going on at the same time. Not just one...Two. My cancer AND the tube.

But the bright side, the bright side. Must keep aiming towards the bright side. The recovery nurse, a very nice fellow named David, told me all about nursing poor Anna Nichole Smith. I'm trying to come out of the anesthesia and I hear this guy telling me all about Anna Nichole and I think, gee, I died and landed in the tabloid death area? How did that happen? And then I thought maybe they read my blog and saw the Robert DeNiro stuff and temporarily put me there but soon they'll find out it's not much fodder for anything and they'll dump me in the "just plain regular people" area. But then I woke up as I was being wheeled down the hall into the new wing of St. Johns Hospital. Very pretty. One wall in my room was lavender. I like that. And then there was the Cross. The pretty and tasteful Cross of Jesus. Hello Jesus. My name's Trish. I'm a Jew just like you. And I wondered if he had been to the tabloid section of Heaven? Does he know Anna Nichole? And I probably should let the man in the robe take me now if my only shallow thought upon coming out of anesthesia is about a tabloid superstar. I WANT MY LIFE BACK!!

So I'm lying in the hospital bed and the doctor says I can have some clear liquids so a sweet but not so bright man brings me a tray and puts it on one of those tables that can just slide across your bed because one side is open and the other side is a curved bar that goes down to the floor and is attached to the wheels. (Take a moment to picture that...) Sweet not so bright man pushes the side with the curved bar into the bed, and of course it won't budge. Over and over he pushes and it just keeps hitting the bed. I smile and try to tell him to turn the table around to the open side and he smiles back at me and keeps shoving the bar into the bed. SLAMSLAMSLAM. He keeps trying and he thinks the table is broken and my stitches are hurting a bit from all this shoving and I'm wondering...Do these things only happen to me? And if so, why? And if not, who are these other people and when can I meet them and I hope not just in the heaven for people who have peculiar things happen to them on a daily basis. So this guy finally gave up and got another table that worked.

And now I am home and it's a minute to minute battle between me and my pain but please people. Do not freak out. It's just pain. I have pills and I have warm clothes and the sun is out and I'm thinking of pouring whiskey down my tube because if I can have Gatorade then why the hell not whiskey. And tomorrow is another day and you've got to know that that gives me absolutely NO HOPE because remember I was counting on 2008 to be a much better year?

A bird just flew by my window and his tweet sounded like a cell phone.

I need to lie down. Somewhere where I can't see the edge of that cliff. Yabba Dabba Doo.............

Eating Crow

2008-02-28T13:11:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention the absolutely stupid assholic day that I went to the..."nutritionist"! I got the name of this ridiculous woman through the Wellness Community which is a sort of sweet place populated by bald women wearing cute hats. So I was looking forward to having an "expert" point me in a direction I may not have noticed so I could get some needed nutrition advise since today I have only had two sips of soup and a piece of honeydew and a piece of eggplant. And that's on a good day. But I do not think that is enough to sustain life on planet earth but maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, this very busy nutritionist gave me an appointment and apologized ahead of time for her office which was being remodeled. The office was in Beverly Hills. How can a nutritionist afford an office in Bev Hills, you ask? Aha. Mistake number one on my part. Should have known she would charge an arm and a waiting room couch.

So I get there and yes, the office is a complete mess. One old chair in the "waiting room" and open fixtures on the ceiling. That's fine. But then she ushers me very quickly into her office where she has a little messy desk in a corner and she weighs me and I'm looking at all of the diamonds she has on her wrist and her fingers and I'm looking at her and she appears to be in her thirties and just oh so busy and she asks me about my problems and she sort of gasps at my situation, which was mistake number two on my part. Should have left after the gasps. Then she starts scribbling things down on the back of what looks to be a letter from the gas company. Things like...Don't eat sugar...Which is something I had just told her I couldn't do. I would say..."I love avocados." And she would write down...Eat avocados...And I would say..."I love cheese."...And she would write...Eat cheese. And this went on for about half an hour. The appointment was scheduled for fifty minutes. But, voila, we were done.

"That's it?"
"Yes."
"Should I call you? Are you going to check up on me?"
"Ah, yeah. Sure. Sounds goood."

Her fancy cell phone rang. More than once. She was picking out wallpaper for the office and someone had mistakenly delivered way too rich a beige. She wanted more of an eggshell color and she was going to stop at nothing until she got it.

I shall not mention her name (rachel beller) but DO NOT go to a nutritionist. Unless you have no idea that broccoli is good for you and fast food is not. Waste of time. Waste of money. I want that half an hour back. I want to take her diamonds and stuff them in her ears and I want to pour flax seed oil down her gullet and into her purse. And then I want to rub my own body with flax seed oil for being such a stupid sucker.

When you are sick, all of your friends want to help you, which is wonderful. But I find myself in an uncomfortable position some of the time because not all friends can help you at all times and you might ask someone to drive you somewhere and then another friend gets jealous because he wanted to drive you somewhere and then you start getting very anxious as to which friend you should pick to drive you somewhere and the anxiety makes you throw up and you end up driving yourself because you don't want to upset anyone. I believe that is one thing you don't have to deal with when you have a partner. Your partner drives you everywhere. End of story. But when you live alone you have to choose someone to help and it becomes this OTHER drama about who is a closer friend.

And then there is the feeling that everyone is talking about you behind your back. "She's got cancer again. She doesn't look so good. Oh my gosh, what 's going to happen to her?"

Hmmmmm. Do you think I might be just a little paranoid? Maybe you're not talking about me at all. Maybe nobody wants to drive me anywhere. Maybe I'm just delusional and self important.

Maybe I'm hungry.

But here's what I was thinking about yesterday...If I die, in a matter of years I will be forgotten. However, Hitler will be remembered forever.

Yes, I am hungry. Now what would that nutritionist recommend? Eggshell perhaps?...............

Shampoo - Rinse - Apply Conditioner

2008-02-26T17:52:00.000-08:00

When I am sitting in a waiting room, which I seem to do quite frequently these days, I always thumb through the magazines that I would never buy. Oprah, Health and Fitness, Family Circle...And what the hell does Family Circle mean anyway? What family sits in a circle? I think of American Indians sitting outside of their tee pees in front of a fire but that can't be what they mean, can it? But the point I am trying to make is that the two advertisements that catch my eye these days and that are all over magazines and TV and radio are ads for losing weight and ads for shampoo. Since I am thin now and about to be bald I find these ads very offensive. How dare they show me some gorgeous girl with glorious red hair flowing down her back? How insensitive is that? Does it ever occur to them that there are bald women out there who are quite hurt by these ads? And losing weight. What about us thin people?! Us people who are having a hard time eating? Money money money it's just all about money and there are more fat people out there than there are thin people or at least people who think they are fat, of which I was once one of those people. Looked in the mirror and saw little love handles and thought yuck, what the hell are these and how did they get there? But, of course, I would do anything to have those handles because there is not much to hold onto now. And my pinhead!! What am I going to do about that when the hair falls out? I'm just going to have to go out and get a fathead hat or a fathead wig. I'm calling the wig guy tomorrow. My only decision is should I go red? Brown? Curly? Cornrows!! Oh yeah, the kind with a million beads going up and down the rows. That would be an interesting look. I could run like Bo Derek along the beach and let my beads swoosh back and forth and with my luck these days probably knock me in the eye and rip my cornea out.

Hey, but I'm not taking any of this bad luck personally. Like God has it out for me, Trish.

"Yes, I am God and I'm looking down at the earth and the one thing that comes into focus for me is that obnoxious Trish Soodik. What a mistake bringing her onto the earth. Think I'll smite her a bit. And then, what the hell, I'll smite her a bit more. She could use some smiting. Who does she think she is anyway being sort of nice like that. Eating all that broccoli and exercising. I'll show her................."

No, I don't think like that.

WHY ME DAMMIT?! WHYWHYWHY!

So the date is set to get my feeding tube reattached to my intestine. Oh yummy. All those yummy chemicals to put directly into my body. But the good news is water. I will be able to absorb lots of water. Should be good for my skin. My head. My shiny head. And yes, I am a bit obsessed by this hair loss thing. Freaks me out really. I think I'm going to get a Chicago Bears hat to wear. One of those knit caps.

Oh, what am I saying? It such a gigantic bummer. I'm trying to laugh about it hahaha but it is so not funny. A tube coming out of my middle and a bald head. WHAT KIND OF A LIFE IS THAT? Maybe I could be a Doonesberry strip. But a person. A woman? Maybe I could get a job on Star Trek, the weird generation. Maybe I could just sit in my living room and watch movies and election news until my hair grows back.

Maybe I'll get a poodle wig. Or a hat with rabbit ears. Wow, that gives me a whole new way to look at this. Hmmmmm, rabbit ears. No one would bother me if I had rabbit ears. I could probably walk down a dark alley naked with my tube hanging out and my rabbit ears pointing skyward and I'll bet you every guy walking down that dark alley would leave me alone. Yeah, that's the ticket. Rabbit ears to maintain my dignity. Maybe this won't be so bad after all..........................

Oh The Humanity

2008-02-25T15:57:00.000-08:00

Yes, I do feel at times like I'm on the Hindenburg or the Titanic or some spectacular vessel that is about to go down. But I will try not to panic just yet and I still have a bit of hope that I'll be able to spot the iceberg before it slams me in the guts...

BUT

The cancer is back. No, I can't fucking believe it either. Back just where it was before. And here is the news that no girl with any dignity likes to hear...I'm going to be BALD! Going to lose my hair this time. And how's this for irony...I had a hair appointment for tomorrow for some highlights. Guess I'll be cancelling that one. Unless we can think of a creative way to highlight my scalp.

I think the thing to do it to think positively and to try and make some sense out of all of this. Look on the bright side. Because there is always a bright side somewhere, don't you think?

NO FUCKING WAY! THIS JUST PLAIN SUCKS. How come Diablo Cody gets to have a great life? How come assholes all over the world are laughing and having a wonderful time and swimming and buying new shoes and eating delicious meals and having martinis and making love and spooning and watching plays and

HOWCOMEHOWCOMEHOWCOME?

Just because, that's why. Nothing makes sense. It's all random. Oh, I could read that Buddhist Nun's books where you breath and you accept and you commune with nature and find something deep inside of yourself that centers you and makes you feel a part of the whole but

I AM PISSED OFF BEYOND BELIEF and I don't think this is fair and I hate certain people and I'm not sure about god right now and what the hell that means. But here's the thing...I am not afraid to die. I just hate the pain one has to go through to deal with all of this stuff. And if I didn't have a fabulous son I might run down to the beach right now and take off all of my clothes and jump into the water and swim out until I was eaten by a shark. (Eeewwww, what a horrible way to go.) But anyway, there is a reason to be here so I'm going to do the damn chemo again and lose my hair and look like a pinhead and oh, by the way, I'm going to get that feeding tube put back in again. Bald with a feeding tube. Oh, I can just imagine the guy I'm going to meet with that look. Maybe a blind guy.

So that's my cheery news of the day. And how are you?

The Absence of My Ass

2008-02-17T19:55:00.000-08:00

I am not sure if I've ever written a blog on a Sunday night around eight o'clock. But I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to write at all this week and I thought I would check in and let you know where things stand at this moment in time.

THEY STAND ON NOTHING.

I don't know the results of my cat scan/mri yet and I can't eat and I feel just awful and I slept for a few hours today and I have no idea what's happening.

But I do know this...I have lost about 28 pounds. I've said 30 pounds before but to be specific it's about 28. And some people really can't tell where I've lost that weight. They say I look pretty much the same. I believe that's because of two reasons. One is that luckily my face does not get that thin and wan look. In other words, I think I have a fat face. That's good thing. The second reason is because I believe most of the weight I have lost is my ass weight. I think my ass actually must have weighed around 25 pounds! I am not kidding you. I look in the mirror now and see one of those horse back riding asses. You know...Ladies who ride horses have very flat asses. Well I used to have some booty back there. I liked it. It was fine. Now....There is nothing. It's gone. My ass is gone. I honestly think I lost all of my weight in my behind. Which I guess is a good thing because who can tell except my desk chair? However, if I don't start to eat soon I'm afraid my fat face will thin out and be all wrinkly and ancient looking and I'll have to buy all sorts of expensive creams and lotions so I am hoping that my trip to the nutritionist on Tuesday will reveal some eating tricks to me that I don't already know.

And here's what is confusing...Wouldn't you think that your appetite voices would come from your mind? "Eat Trish. Come on, you know you're hungry." So why don't I have an appetite? They didn't operate on my mind. They operated on my stomach. But I have no appetite and certain food just makes me gag. Like eggs, for instance. I used to love eggs. Can't even look at them now. You know what I ate today?...Sour Cream...I completely craved sour cream. Is that disgusting or what?

Remember when I said that 2008 was going to be a good year. Big changes and all that. Well, what the hell happened? This year seems to be just an extension of last year...

EXCEPT

I actually got the storage people to come and take away half of the man formerly known as my husband's stuff!! I couldn't believe that I actually did that. I could barely get off the couch but I had called the boxingupthestuff mover guys and they came on Saturday and they took about forty boxes of stuff out of this house. It was heavenly. I stared at the empty shelf in the living room for a couple of hours before I started putting MY STUFF on the shelf. My buddha with the candle, my Eloise doll, another candle that I liked. And some books. I could not believe how good that made me feel. I toasted myself with a slow drink of water and then I threw up. It was perfect.

I am reading The Road. Compared to my life I actually find it quite cheery. Next maybe I'll reread A Death in the Family. Makes me smile just thinking about it.

The Audacity of Bob Hope

2008-02-13T16:54:00.000-08:00

I still feel crappy. I can't seem to eat but maybe tomorrow's mri will tell me something I don't know.

However, life goes on in it's increasingly strange ways. Which is probably due to the fact that I am weaker now than I have ever been in my entire life and occasionally things are a bit blurry. Like, yesterday, for instance. I was getting my drip and a completely insane man was sitting two chairs away from me. And he would not stop talking. And here's what he talked about...

SHOW BIZ.

This guy dropped every name that was printed on every star on Hollywood Boulevard. He started by saying that he was Bob Hope's son but he wasn't sure if Bob Hope's wife, Delores, his supposed mother, was dead or alive.

Nuts enough for you?

He said he was Henry Winkler's roommate at Harvard. For some useless reason I happen to know that Henry Winkler went to Yale. This guy was best friends with Donald Trump ("A great human being.") and very close with Shirley Maclaine ("In what life?" I didn't ask.) and he accompaigned Magic Johnson to Mexico for AIDS treatments.

Aha.

And he was a Jewish Buddhist Catholic and he didn't believe in Western Medicine and that's when we got into a big argument. I usually just sit there and let people ramble on if they are the rambling type. But this guy, Mr. Hopeupyourass, asks me why I'm there and I tell him about my cancer and my sugery and he says, "You should never have done that. Had that surgery. Doctors here in the States will kill you." And everyone in the room told him to shut up but he just kept talking and...

I have to change the subject for just a moment. One of the people in the room was this very nice man that had been smiling at me for a couple of weeks. And I've been smiling back. Not really my type but there was something about him. Anyway, yesterday he sits next to me and we're talking about books and luckily I was reading Cormac McCarthy so I appeared as if I was sort of educated and we were having a grand old time and I was thinking, gee, he would be a nice person to have dinner with sometime.........WHEN I WON'T THROW UP ON HIS PLATE!........And then somewhere in mid-conversation he tells me that he's a MONK! He lives at the Self Realization Church and rings the gong in the mornings. Oh, just what I'm looking for. A gong ringer. But I'm thinking that so far the two men I've met who are the most interesting are a monk and a guy who sells hot dogs. I should never have left Chicago...................

So Mr. Hopethebiggestjerkintheworld won't stop saying that I will probably die because of my surgery and I looked right at him, after being silent for a while and said, "Henry Winkler went to Yale."

Well, that stopped him dead for about one second. His reply..."Believe what you want to believe."

One woman was so disgusted by this guy that she left her drip early. "Life is too short." she said. And so was this guy. When he stood up I could see why he was so angry. He was under five feet tall. And he wore stupid sweatpants and very large glasses. The woman with ELB (extremely large breasts) peeked into the room for a moment. The little guy's glasses fell to the floor. I imagined that his eyes popped out and knocked them off of his head.

Is this my life?!!!!! I used to work on Mad About You. With sane people.

Well, that's a lie. But we were making a living in "show biz". We weren't sitting there with IVs in our arms praying for health, sipping soup, going to doctors once or twice a week. What the hell happened? Is this it? Do I go from this to OLD in five minutes. And I was having so much fun.

Tomorrow I will know an answer. Or I won't. But it will be another day on earth in this very strange world that I find myself living in..................

The Killer Nectarine

2008-02-07T15:13:00.000-08:00

I feel like shit and it all started yesterday when I ate half of a nectarine for breakfast. I almost immediately went into some sort of nectarine coma and I couldn't see straight and I felt light headed and sick and oh my gosh that fruit tasted SO GOOD and I was hoping it would go down well but it almost killed me. I am trying to figure out what the hell is happening to me. So I went to the oncologist yesterday. Dr. Shaum. I haven't seen her since October, which is normal. Here's the good news, my fainting and vomiting is not because of cancer. Here's the bad news.................No one seems to know what the hell it's from. Except post surgery changes in my most basic system. Dr. Shaum was not happy with my weight loss. Here's the totally neurotic crazy thing...I have lost almost thirty pounds and I still feel that I have to take off my shoes when I get weighed. Are we all like insanely anorexic? So I told her that I can't eat, I have no appetite and I throw up once or twice a day. "Hmmmmm." She said. "I don't like that."

Neither do I.

So she scheduled an MRI for me for next week. The kind where you drink a bottle of stuff that glows as you go through the machine. This way she'll be able to tell if there is a blockage that is keeping me from eating properly. Now first of all, I don't know how I'm going to drink that "bottle" of stuff because I can barely swallow a spoonful of soup. And secondly, my MRI is on Valentines Day. Not that I think that day is anything but a great boon for Hallmark cards but...You know. I'll be going through that machine trying not to throw up and thinking about when I used to be able to go out for dinner on Valentines Day. Eat a great turkey burger at Hals. And a martini or a Cosmo. I can't even imagine that now. Yesterday I ate a teaspoonful of peanut butter and an apple slice for dinner. Alcohol? Forget it. Maybe I'm supposed to be a nun. Mother Teresa was very thin and I'll bet she didn't have any Cosmos. No Manalo Blahniks. Actually, I hate those shoes. Those pointy things. Are they supposed to be sexy? Yes, to sadistic and sleazy men. Maybe if Hillary is elected she will put an end to overly pointy shoes. Yes, that's what's missing from her platform. (Hey, no more platform shoes!) I'm an Obama supporter but if she comes out for no pointy shoes I just may have to rethink my vote.

But I digress. I feel really badly these days and it's all because of not being able to eat or hold anything down. It is a royal, major bummer. If ever there was a time to use the word bummer, it is now. I used to say, "Man, we missed the movie. What a bummer." No... Missing a movie is not a bummer. Not being able to stand up for more than five minutes...THAT is a bummer.

I'm going to see a nutritionist. What I'd really like to do is to ask the nutritionist to move in with me for a month and cook me little tiny meals all day and rub my back and walk with me but I think she's only going to suggest a menu. I used to know how to eat. I was...hahaha...very healthy. And then they cut out my insides and now I am all screwed up and I'm telling you there is not a day that goes by that I don't wonder if I made the right decision to have that surgery. I don't think I can live the rest of my life feeling like I do now. Sometimes I think I'm going to have to have that feeding tube reinserted so I can get nutrition through that during the night. How's that for an insane thought? Put back the thing they took out that caused that infection and now they have to open me up again and..............None of it is directly related to cancer! Could I have not lived with that tumor until I just plotzed dead right there on Santa Monica Boulevard? I felt fine then. I could swim and do yoga and lie on my stomach. This is a bummer of a challenge and you know what?...........I DON'T LIKE IT!!

I got into my car the other day with a friend and she asked me where the rattle was coming from. So I asked her..."What rattle?" And she pointed out this little noise that was coming from my CD player. I had never noticed it before. But it drove her crazy. She spent most of the ride trying to fix it. SHE actually drove me much crazier than the rattle. Those things, little car things, don't bother me. So it rattles. It's a car. If I made a rattling sound, now THAT would be annoying.

Actually, I do make a rattling sound. I need someone to look under my hood and fix my carburator. Oh, if only it was that easy.

Obama and Yo Mama

2008-02-05T16:45:00.000-08:00

Doncha just love to vote? I do. There is always something so exciting about going into that little booth and punching that card and worrying that you've punched the wrong hole and going back and checking on it and feeling like, wow, my teeny tiny vote actually can mean something. And today I got tears in my eyes while I voted (which could really just have meant that I was hungry) because there was a woman and an African American on the ballot and they were truly viable candidates. Now I shouldn't say this but I'm going to say it because Cedric does not read my blog. He voted for Obama. We had a nice talk at the hot dog stand today as he was late because he had to vote and he wanted to read up on all the candidates this morning so he would know exactly what he was voting for. And this guy was a medic (Is that how you spell it? It stands for something, right?) in the Navy during the Gulf War and even HE knew we should not have gone into Iraq.

The hot dog was superb.

I was telling someone that my parents died three years ago about six months apart. And they had the usual response which is..."Awww, that is so sweet. They must have really loved each other."

Ahhhhh. No.

Actually, my parents hated each other. And the reason that they lived so long was because they were waiting for the other one to die so they could stand at their grave and shout..."Ha! I outlived you, you asshole!" That didn't happen, of course, but my mother went first and that was a very good thing for my father. He got a few months of peace before he left town. But when someone says..."They must have really loved each other.", I just let them think that because I have told people that my parents hated each other and all they do is laugh and think it's a joke. Oh haha. Not a joke when you grow up with screaming yelling insane people. My mother was once so angry at my dad that she told me he was gay! Of course, I had no idea what she was talking about because I was around six at the time and my only gay awareness was knowing these really nice guys named Andy and Brad who were interior decorators and they had a kid at my school and I could tell they were not an ordinary couple but it never bothered me nor did I think twice about it but years later when I thought about what my mother had said I decided she was just yammering and she could have said that he was a Republican or a whale...She had just picked a word out of the air and attached her signature anger to it. Always very effective.

A woman came into the drip room today...Breasts first...OhmyGod...These breasts were so enormous they made it impossible not to stare. Luckily...or sadly...There were no men in the room. So she sits down with these enormous things and looks very glum and says that she used to be an exotic dancer (oh what a surprise) but now she is suffering from traumatic stress syndrome. (Could the stress be having to carry those things around all day?) And she had this teeny tiny voice and she was taking vitamin c for her stress and then she said she'd had a head injury and all I could picture was her getting out of the bathtub and tripping and getting hit on the head with one of her boobs. I'm telling you, they were lethal. But that's all she said. Never did completely explain the trauma. They gave her the IV and she was out like a light. I hope she doesn't live in a three story walkup. (What the hell does that mean!)

Yes, the Super Bowl was great. First time I ever rooted for a team beause of the quarterbacks name. Go Eli Go Eli Go Eli..........Oh, it was such a pleasure to yell and scream about a football game and not some horrible thing happening in my life.

Today was a good day. If I go to sleep right now it will end that way. But it's only five thirty. You know, dammit, I'm going stay up until midnight and make this entire day a truly Super Tuesday.

But just in case...Where are my pajamas?

A Whole "Nother"...

2008-01-31T15:06:00.000-08:00

Well, as I suspected...I went to see the surgeon today to have him reveal my newest scar to me by removing my surgery dressing and checking to see how that scar was progressing. And...Voila! It's a cute little thing about an inch long on the left side of my major scar. It's still a bit swollen and not completely healed but the interesting thing to learn was that, yes, there was actually a piece of the tube still inside of me which was why I had that horrible infection for those couple of months. Of course, he'd already told me this when I was coming out of the anesthesia but what is the point of talking to someone when they are completely knocked out? I remember him saying, "Trish...Trish...Blahblahblahblah..." But that's about all I remember. I'm thinking now that I should get some great fabulous stomach tattoo to bring together all of my operations. I also have an appendix scar and a cesearian scar and I can only imagine what a master tattoo artist could create with those beginnings. I don't know, The Empire State...a forest scene maybe...Air Force One...

I think I must have said that last one because I watched part of the Republican debate from the Reagan library. Here's what I want to know... Was Reagan ever actually IN a library? I don't know why but I don't picture Reagan glancing through a Thackery or a Faulkner, for that matter. Let's be honest, I haven't glanced through a Thackery. In fact, who the hell is Thackery? I certainly do not want to be thought of as elitist. And have you noticed that these days? That if you are curious and you read and you want to get educated you are thought of as an elitist...Or full of yourself or greater than thou... It's crazy. What is wrong with reading and learning and trying to help the environment. I've heard people on the radio say horrible things about people who drive Hybrid cars. Hello...Is that a bad thing? It might be trendy in a certain way but it is certainly not a bad thing.

Although sometimes when I'm putting in those wacky lightbulbs that give off that kind of sickly neon light...And I fill up my Prius which doesn't take much gas and only needs to be filled every two or three weeks...Sometimes I wonder if I am actually doing anything to save the planet. What about the big corporations that are spewing gunk into lakes and into the air? Are THEY doing anything to help? Is my changing a light bulb or two actually going to save Antarctica? Is Ed Begley Jr. really doing anything except becoming a very eccentric older man? Riding a stationary bike to generate electricity. Is he insane or is he actually changing the planet? I don't know. I just don't know.

But here is one thing that I know for sure is insane...Primaries...Rudy Guiliani spent FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS in Florida. Just Florida! Fifty Million. And we don't have money to save our schools or pay our police? What is wrong with that picture? Let them do their debates which don't seem to be debates at all, at least not the kind that I saw kids do in high school...Anyway, let them do them and then send them on to the convention and let people raise their hands and vote here here or hear hear or nay nay and that will be that. Poof, we've got a candidate and then all that primary money can be saved for important things like fixing levees. Or buying tiaras. Hey honey, if you've got the money and want to buy a tiara...THEN BY ALL MEANS BUY ONE. So a little kid goes hungry for a few days. It is not your problem. Your problem is that you've got this charity ball to attend and you've got to look spectacular and Town and Country Magazine said that tiaras were in and it's not easy finding the perfect tiara and thank goodness they are not having the primaries this year so you don't have to give your money to Rudy who is a loser anyway and you can spend it on something important like looking fabulous....

I have nothing against rich people.

Nother. Is nother a word? And if it isn't, shouldn't it be? I have heard people on the radio say many times something like..."And we've got a whole nother problem." Nother. I rather like the sound of it. "Today a whole nother scar was revealed to me for the first time." Maybe I'll ask the tattoo guy to design me a "nother". A big, bright nother all over my abdoman. The Empire State Nother.

I actually think I need to write a whole nother blog entry...........................

Yo, Adrian

2008-01-28T15:05:00.000-08:00

Okay, raise your hands if you ran out and saw Rambo 25 this past weekend...Aha. Not even a breeze of hands moving skyward. Could they not have taken that money and fixed all the schools all across America? Or how about using it to pay the real soldiers who are still in Iraq doing that thankless job. You don't hear the media talking about Iraq anymore because the economy is sexier right now and because soldiers and civilians are not dying in double digits. Hey, what's one soldier...Or two. I'll tell you what it is...It's someones daughter or son or spouse. That's what it is. You lose your house, that is sad and difficult. You lose your son, you will live with that horrible pain until the day you die.

Gee, I'm actually in a pretty good mood today. Don't know why my mind went there. Must have been Stallone and his human growth hormone face. And have you seen Julie Christie's picture in Los Angeles Magazine? She looked great in that movie, a little older, a little wrinkled, but still beautiful. But in the magazine they air brushed her so much that she actually ended up looking dead. She was like an older woman with no wrinkles or character or any indication that she had actually lived for over sixty years. And another thing about that magazine...The last twenty pages are all ads and pictures of lawyers! Twenty pages. What is that about? Does everyone in this city need a lawyer? Are they all suing somebody? It's really a horrible magazine but I saw Philip Seymour Hoffman on the cover and thought it might be interesting but with twenty pages of lawyers I really felt like I got ripped off. Hmmmm...Maybe I've got a case here.

Two friends of mine, who shall remain nameless...Gretchen and Mimi...(Did I tell you that I can't keep a secret?) Anyway, these nameless friends got a hot dog from Cedric. And they, too, were charmed and apparently talked his ear off and he told them to come back on Valentines Day. And I am sure he was charmed by them as they are very beautiful women. I had a hot dog somewhere else this past weekend, I think it may be the salt that's attracting me, and I got sick. Even from a very few bites. Though I must admit that I have been getting sick much more than I would like these last couple of weeks. I get sick then I feel fine. Maybe that's just the routine of my life from now on and I have to get used to it.

My computer is telling me that there is going to be an "outage" at four o'clock. It's now three thirty six. That guy who came and "fixed" my computer should be shot. At dawn. With his own guns. And I waited all morning for this "expert" to come and check out the damage done for free and they call and tell me he had a flood in his house and he's out of commission for a while and would I take the other guy back? No, I said, because what I would really like to do is beat him over the head with my keyboard or this broadband router that he told me to buy and I have no idea what to do with that thing and my computer is going to shut down in twenty minutes FOR NO REASON and between the computer guy and Officer Rubbish my life is just pure hell these days.

Oh, that is such a lie. My life is fine. I know someone who was killed in an avalanche on Friday. One second he was alive, the next second he was dead. And I feel so lucky that though I've had cancer I now have life and I can hug my son and cook him soup and laugh with my friends and though I know I will die one day sooner or later, I am alive and aware of the precariousness of it all and I know that Chris, who died, was having a wonderful time until he was swept away and I hope we can all have a wonderful time before we're swept away because we just don't know about anything , do we? It is all a complete mystery.

Like this outage that's supposed to happen in fifteen minutes. Now that is a mystery. Not a profound one but enough of one to make me sign off before I finish my thoughts and oh I had something very exciting to tell you.

I have the honor of going to

I Have A Dream

2008-01-21T13:09:00.000-08:00

Actually, I don't have a dream because I haven't been able to remember my dreams since high school but since it is Martin Luther King day I've been thinking about his speech and how you can hear it a million times and it never fails to send chills through your body and bring tears to your eyes. And even though the people in Louisiana and all the areas of poverty in our country are still getting screwed by an uncaring government, I think Mr. King would be thrilled to know that a Black Man AND a woman are running for President of the United States and one of them might actually win. Just how cool is that?

I did remember one dream I had just a few weeks ago. It was about an owl. I wonder what Jung would say about dreaming about owls.........Probably, "Who, who, who am I?"

The policeman who gave me the speeding ticket was not named Officer McCarthy. I just made that up but I looked up his name on the ticket and it's even better than McCarthy. It is Officer Rubbish!! No kidding. Can you imagine growing up with the name Rubbish? You'd have to carry a gun if your name was Rubbish. "Little Billy Rubbish, get back to your seat right now!" No wonder he didn't care if I was throwing up. The guys been tortured by his name his entire life and now he's getting back at the whole world by gleefully writing tickets. "I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Rubbish." No wonder he looked so angry. "Friends, family, today we say goodbye to Mr. Rubbish and turn him back into the soil from whence this Rubbish came..."

Oh, I could go on and on but in the end...I still have to pay the damn ticket.

A guy came and worked on my computer for three hours on Saturday. And it's acting up again today. He told me that computers aren't made to last more than five years or so. That can't be right, can it? I had the same typewriter for my whole writing life before computers. Pounded on that thing day and night and all I ever had to do was change the ribbon. (Do I sound a hundred years old now? Yes. That's because I'm closer to a hundred than I am to nineteen and I can see now why people my age have always said things like..."In my day we walked ten miles to blah blah blah...I cannot believe I am one of those people now but I guess it's better than NOT being one of those people...Or is it?) Anyway, I'm pissed that the computer guy was a nice guy and I don't want to report him to his company because he just got this job and just graduated from DeVry University and was in a car accident and was a marine and is married and has guns in his house that his wife is not happy about and has a knife the size of a hari kari sword and eats hamburgers a lot and...........See, this guy was here for a looooong time and something is still very wrong with my computer and I spent three hours feeding him potato chips and I have this perfectly good lap top that he tells me is almost obsolete. Hey, I wanted to say, I'M almost obsolete. So they took out my tummy to get some more mileage out of me and they said I'd be fine 'til I dropped and they can't do that with a computer?!! No, he said, I need a new model. A more updated model. And, of course I started thinking about that man who was formerly known as my husband and his updated model. Maybe she's only good for five years. Hey, I was good for twenty five. Can't snub a thumb at that.

Snub a thumb? Can you tell I'm missing an hour of sleep.

Hey, how about those Giants? I'm a Bear fan, of course, and I was sort of rooting for Green Bay but my father's name was Eli and I love that name so any team that has a quarterback named Eli I can't ignore.

I do not believe I will be able to write for the rest of the week. But maybe I will but I don't think I will so don't count on it or worry that I'm sick because I always sort of am...Sick, that is...But maybe I'll get better. Sort of better. Someday. Maybe a week from Tuesday. Now that would be a dream come true.................

Everyday Life

2008-01-17T16:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, Everyday Life is a play by Rilke but it is such an apt phrase for things one sees on a daily basis that I am stealing it from Rilke who stole it from God know who else.

So today I am driving along to my drip and I seem to be keeping up with the other traffic and a policeman pulls me over for going 45 in a 35 zone. Oh, come on, I'm thinking. Everyone was driving at the same speed and I'd had a bad 2007 and you are not going to make me go to one of those places where I have to listen to bad comedians tell bad jokes about cars and traffic and COME ON. But he is all business and I'm starting to get upset so I did what everyone should do when they get pulled over...I got out of the car and I threw up. Right there on the curb. I guess I AM sensitive these days and after all I did have an operation three days ago. And you should have seen his face. This is one thing he did not learn in policeman school. How to deal with a woman who is so upset that she throws up on his boots. (Well, I didn't actually throw up on his boots but I saw them there on the ground and I thought about it for a very short moment and decided against it.) Anyway, this cop just went about his business and presented me with the ticket and did not say a word about my sudden illness. And I looked at him for a long time thinking he might ask how I was feeling but he had no intention of doing that and he just handed me the ticket and told me how to go about it and that was that. I drove away, sucking on a lifesaver, and thought that we are all in very good hands if we are being protected by seriously focused guys like Officer McCarthy. Or else they are truly a bunch of sadists and you'd better make sure you go 35 in that 35 mph zone.

Okay, so today's guy in the vitamin drip room is my favorite so far. He walks in wearing three coats, a hat, carries a plastic grocery bag filled with letters, carries a huge camera case, the old fashioned kind and pulls a small suitcase on wheels. He starts talking as soon as he takes off the first coat. And he says...

"I just got back from nineteen days in Odessa."

The other woman and I exchanged a look and he went on about his trip to Odessa...IN DETAIL...Starting with every minute he spent on the airplane and that he went by himself and left his wife of two months at home to pursue her career. His wife is Russian. She makes him wear his wedding ring on his right hand. As he continued to talk I realized that this woman had married him to stay in the country and she did not want to be married to him and convinced him that in her religion everyone wears their rings on their right hand. I asked what religion she was and he said something like..."Balmudian." Ah, I don't think so. Anyway, she had sent him to Odessa to find her MOTHER...Oh, this story gets better...But of course her mother was not there so he just roams around Odessa looking for the best pizza parlors!! And then he goes on and on about pizza and pulls out a picture of his Russian wife who is "pleasantly plump" to put it nicely and he says she's a great singer and wants to be the next Britney Spears.

And this was all before he took off his second coat. All I know is that he seems to be going next to Prague to find her Uncle who is in the music business...In Prague. In the music business. To help her be the next Britney. In America. With a Russian accent.

I am telling you...Everyday life.

And then I saw...Cedric. I couldn't finish the whole dog but he didn't see that, thank goodness. I think I'm still a little tweaky from the operation. But once again he said one of his profound little pearls. I finally told him I'd had cancer. He was, not surprisingly, very concerned and I told him I was in remission (which I think I am) and he was pleased to hear that. Then he told me that he, too, was in remission. "I am in remission from something that is actually worse than cancer. I am in remission from poverty."

Wow, huh? He is from Louisiana and he said that Katrina revealed only a tiny view of what is really going on down there. And that's what he comes from. And if this is becoming just a bit too Travels with Maury, or whatever the hell that corny book was called...I can't help it. There he is. This guy with his truck and his hot dogs and his pearls and he's like one of the best people I've ever met.

Everyday heroes.

By the way, my spellcheck told me that there was no such word as Balmudian. Someone should tell that to Mr. Odessa when he finally removes his hat.......................

The Remarkable Pain

2008-01-16T12:19:00.000-08:00

Well, today I am not sore anymore, my belly feels okay, but I am a bit woozy. Light headed. Could be the antibiotic. Could be that I haven't eaten enough in the last couple of days. Could be that my head is light. Meaning I don't have a fat head which I think is a good thing.

My friend Tone who stayed with me last weekend told me that I have to put more DeNiro stories into my blog to keep it interesting because how booooorrring is a blog about antibiotics?! So he reminded me of this one and yes, Tone was with me as a witness so you don't think I was just making all of this up.

My play, "Thighs" was playing off Broadway. Way off Broadway. Sheridan Square. And the marquee read, "Opening Tonight...Trish Soodik's Thighs" I always thought I should have taken a picture of that. Anyway, I was in New York and Tone, who was the stage manager, and I were walking down something like 42nd Street and a limo pulls up in front of us and out steps DeNiro, whom I had already spent many hours with, and he took one look at me and with just his eyes said, "Do not say a word. Pretend that you don't me. Just keep walking." And his girlfriend got out of the car and they walked away with him turning around just once to nod. True story. I am not making it up. Just ask Tone.

I was talking with a friend this morning and I described the feeling of the man formerly known as my husband leaving me as "one remarkable pain." She thought using the word remarkable was interesting. But I could not really think of another word that would best describe how I felt at that time. It was remarkable in that I had never felt a spiritual pain so deeply. A wound in my soul that, at the time, felt like it would actually kill me. And I thought I would never, ever be able to get rid of that pain. And then I got cancer in the same place I had my soul wound and you just have to wonder, don't you? Is there any correlation? How can there not be? And now both wounds are healing and with one wound I am left with a bit of vomiting and no sugar and with the other I am left with a bit of scar tissue that is slowly being covered up by the healthy tissue until I can almost not feel it anymore. It's funny how quickly one adapts. So I don't eat garlic. Chocolate. So I sleep alone. Cook meals for one. It is not so bad. I can rub my own feet. I can change a light bulb. I have the love of my son. Of my friends. I think it was that feeling of being safe, of finally finding a home that could swallow me whole and let me swim around and make mistakes and learn as I dog paddled in circles, trying to figure out this thing called love......................And when that home was split in two and the water spilled out onto the carpet with me as a beached dolphin not sure whether to try and get to the shore or try and swim out to sea by myself, I just lay there for a few months in that remarkable pain.

But I chose to swim again and though I'm sometimes not sure where I'm going and certainly unsure where the waves are taking me, I am trying to enjoy the journey and leave the remarkable pain behind to be swallowed up by seaweed and hopefully sunk with the heavy weight that it carries to the very bottom of the ocean...............

The Golden Glubs

2008-01-15T13:42:00.000-08:00

"And this year's winner for Best Actress in an overwrought autobiographical drama..."

Me?!! Are you kidding? Me?!! But where's the red carpet? Where are all the photographers? The media? I just have to accept this honor all by myself in my very own living room?

Yes, Trish, you do. Take another pain pill and stop complaining.

Okay, I am not complaining. My surgery went well. Today I am feeling the pain of stitches in my belly. But I do feel that the infection is gone and when I finish the antibiotics I think I am going to feel like a new woman. Oh God do I want to feel like a new woman. Or maybe just ANOTHER woman. Someone else. Like...oh, I don't know, Julia Roberts maybe. She seems awfully happy. Last night post surgery I watched La Vie En Rose. The Edith Piaf movie. (The actress is amazing.) But Edith had just an awfully rough life and I'm watching her age and she's all bent over and taking pills and I stood up to go to the bathroom and I was all bent over and about to take a handful of pain pills and I realized that La Vie En Rose is a great movie to watch when you're feeling sorry for yourself. You think your life is bad? Oh no. Check out Edith's life.
Or Judy Garland's. Talented, tragic women. And they seemed to end up with the same eyebrows. None. Pencil brows. I guess the lesson is that if you find yourself drawing in your eyebrows with a pencil then you know it's curtains. You are dead meat.

But here's the thing. I think I'm on the road to recovery...Again. Feel a little shitty today but it's already almost two o'clock and in Antarctica I would already be asleep so I'm thinking that tomorrow will be much better. And who knows about the day after that.

There is a movie out now called "Teeth". It's about a young woman who has teeth on her vagina. Don't we all?

Vagina. Why is that word so hard to say? Aren't you embarrassed just reading that word. Penis is not so bad. Vagina is hard. Penis is easy. Didn't Laurence Olivier say that? Or was he talking about comedy? And can you tell I'm on pain pills? One, actually. I am not one of those writers who can write stoned or drunk or on anything except vitamins so this is a first. And why am I talking about vagina? Maybe I took a viagra by mistake.

Change the subject, Trish.

Right. Have you seen the poster for that Terminator TV show? It's a girl with only the top half of her body. Wires are coming out where her...bottom half would be and her top half is naked and her breasts are covered with her long hair. Sickly erotic, I suppose. And it's on BIG posters. Golly gosh in my day young men would sneak a Playboy and check out the breasts but the girls had bottoms, although demurely covered. Now they don't even have bottoms. Just wires. Who needs a bottom anyway, I guess.

Oh my goodness, I seem to be on the same subject, sort of. I wonder what he removed during surgery? True story, they did wheel me into the wrong operating room at first and I almost spent the rest of my life without a kidney.

Aha, well I see I do not become a Faulkner when I write while I'm a bit high. Or a Fitzgerald. I just become stupid. Maybe tomorrow I'll mix my pain pills with a little scotch. Or is that a guy thing? Maybe I should cut my hair off and wear frumpy skirts like Gertrude Stein. Now she had a bottom.

Sorry. I will come back tomorrow when my mind is out of the gutter. La Vie En Rose is La Vie En Rose is La Vie En Rose....................

Uganda and Beyond

2008-01-11T15:11:00.000-08:00

I met a young woman today who had just come back from Uganda and was putting together her photography exhibit and it was quite obvious that life had been treating her well and it was exciting and hopeful and I am so draggy because of this open wound that I didn't even have the energy to shout out, "FOR GOD'S SAKE, CALM DOWN! HORRIBLE THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU SOMEDAY. I CAN GUARANTEE THAT BECAUSE THEY HAPPEN TO EVERYONE! AND ESPECIALLY ME. CAN'T YOU SEE THAT I DON'T FEEL WELL? HOW CAN YOU BE SO HAPPY."

And then I realized that I was feeling just a little too sorry for myself. That my inner voice had gotten out of hand. To want someone who is having a good time to NOT have a good time is so wrong and petty. Oh, I am such a small human being. And getting smaller.

Actually, I AM getting smaller. Today for lunch I ate one shrimp. Without sauce. One. A shrimp. One shrimp. And then I started thinking...What if I become really small? Pocket sized. Like Tom Thumb? Or Stuart Little? And I'd have to have a little mouse door to get in and out and I'd be chased by cats and terrorized by rats and I'd have to vie for little crumbs on the floor with my dog and my shoes would be way too big and what if my hair stayed the same size that it is now and didn't shrink with me and I was just a bunch of hair running around the living room and the sound of the vacuum cleaner made me screech with horror but nobody would hear me....................................................

Okay, that was insane. I really need to get rid of this infection. It is sucking the life out of me. And the brains. So Monday I go in and they operate and they take out...Something. Maybe they'll take out my pettiness. Hey, maybe they could replace that with William Faulkner's work ethic. Certainly no harm in asking.

So I sign off for a few days. Don't worry. Be happy.

Just not TOO happy.

Was It Something I Said?

2008-01-09T16:07:00.000-08:00

I went to an Al-Anon meeting last night because a friend of mine is working on his sobriety and I wanted to be supportive. I walked in to find it was a Men's meeting. I was told this by two slightly strange gentlemen who quickly walked up to me as I entered the cozy room to warn me that there might be questionable language used but that this happened every once in a while that a woman showed up by mistake and they allow you, as a member of the opposite sex, to attend the meeting just one time. One of the men left and I continued talking to the other man and after about two minutes he reached over and grabbed, I kid you not, A GAS MASK!! which he proceeded to put on the bottom half of his face and without missing a beat he continued talking to me about Al-Alon and life and this meeting and I was standing there thinking My God, this guy really does hate women.............

And finally he took a breath and told me he was allergic to perfume even though I don't usually wear perfume except for very special occasions which I didn't consider this to be one of those occasions so whatever I smelled like was me but I guess this poor guy just couldn't take it. I felt like I was talking to a creature from Pluto which is actually no longer a planet but I must say I enjoyed our somewhat muffled conversation.

Anyway, these meetings are very private and you're not allowed to talk about what went on inside of the meeting and I will respect their wishes only to say that for one night a week I do wish I could be a man.

I am blue these days. I don't want to wear it on my sleeve and I hate to kvetch and I'm pretty sure it's the infection but I just feel slightly shitty most of my waking hours. Can you tell?

I was asked by a reader to reveal a bit more of the DeNiro part of the story. Because, truthfully, who really wants to read about someone being blue or turning blue or throwing up and wounds and IVs and it's obvious that the title of this blog is ROBERT DENIRO in big letters and of course I did that on purpose because who the hell would really care about ME but if you put DeNiro in front of my name now that's interesting. I have gone to a few Hollywood parties and I went to one where I felt like the Wallflower from the Poconos and I ended up just sitting on a couch nursing a glass of champagne (ah, those were the days) when a couple of people sat down next to me and we chatted and they were so very bored with me and I can't remember exactly how it happened but I blurted out, "I slept with Robert DeNiro." And suddenly I was interesting. Oh, it's such a great ice breaker.

But right now, feeling the way I do, it's hard to imagine that I ever experienced that exciting bit of life. Not just sleeping with someone who became famous but running around the earth with no care in the world, no thought that one day there would be big bummers thrown at me to keep me from smiling and keep me from eating an orange or a clove of garlic.

"Trish, stop it right now! Stop feeling sorry for yourself. At least you ATE an orange once. And plenty of garlic. Just SNAP OUT OF IT, dammit!"

Okay, you're right. I have soooooo much to be thankful for. Cheesecake and chopped liver, for one. Or two. Who knew that my grandparents who always encouraged me to, "Eat! Eat!" would be the one's with the recipes for recovery.

Maybe I need a gas mask. Yeah. It was one of those masks that crazy people on bicycles wear. You know, where you breath out of both sides of it like Darth Vader. A gas mask. Hey, maybe that's what I'll wear to my next operation. A gas mask. And a pair of red shoes. I'll tell the anesthesiologist I slept with Robert DeNiro. She'll think I'm important. She'll take good care of me.

Or she'll think I'm completely nuts. Or possibly very BLUE.....................

What Is With Her Ears!

2008-01-08T14:23:00.000-08:00

First of all on a happy note in an otherwise slightly dark day...Cedric the hot dog man (and boy is he more than that) gave me a big hug and a kiss today upon seeing me. Oh my gosh he is such a tower of positive energy he practically glows. So he asked me where I was going and I told him I was going home to try and write a......................novel...................( I am barely able to say that word because it seems so wrong or like I'm kidding myself or something highly neurotic.) Anyway, Cedric said in his inimitable style..."Nothing to it but to do it."

"NOTHING TO IT BUT TO DO IT!!!"

Why can't I think like that? Simple and straight to the point. Why must I jump up and down and feel sorry for myself and look things up on the internet that are meaningless like traveling to somewhere I don't really want to go to and all just to keep myself from writing that.......... novel................I have got to harness some of Cedric's secret powers of living. I am way too cynical to read a self help book but if Cedric published one, I would be the first in line to have my copy signed.

And by the way, Andy, my blog takeover pal, actually found Cedric and ordered some very spicey dog and called me while he was chewing and gave it a full thumbs up although next time he said he would not order the extreme spicey dog. I, personally, would order a simple dog with the works. Just for starters. And give yourself a few minutes to sit at one of Cedric's chairs and chat. You will not be disappointed.

Today I had my pre-op exam and the drawing of the blood was grueling but I got through it and I was lucky to have about twenty minutes with Dr. Miyakawa to talk about life and death. And I realized as I left that I was much more comfortable with death than I am with life. I need help. And I'm not even kidding about that. I am all set to die, have no problem with death. It's living I'm having a hard time with. I do think that part of that is my infected wound. I cannot wait to see how I feel when that thing is gone and over with. And I have got to get out of this house and I don't know if I mentioned this before but the man formerly known as my husband only took his clothes and LEFT ALL OF HIS STUFF HERE. I probably mentioned that but it's been almost a year and a half and I am sick of looking at it and feeling like a storage unit. Why, you ask? Why didn't I do something about that sooner? Well, I should have but I did have cancer so I got a bit way layed. (Or wailaid or how the hell do you spell that and what the hell does it mean?)

So I'm sort of in a dark Sylvia Plath mood and I think it's the wound at least I hope it is but I did observe something interesting today. A couple came into the vitamin drip room. Around seventy I would say. He with a bad hair dye job and she with a face lift that did some serious Dumbo damage to ears. Her face was all fucked up and it made her ears look enormous! I cannot imagine that she had them fixed to look like that. Unless a Circus Vet did her face lift. Anyway, thank goodness they were a couple. They had come all the way from Orange County for her drip. They sort of hated Orange County but all they could afford was Leisure World which he refered to as Seizure World. But the one thing they did like was taking Fox Trot lessons. They went on and on about it and he suddenly got up in the middle of the drip room and showed us the proper posture and moves for the fox trot. And one woman was trying to read and one guy was sticking his fingers in and out of the holes in his sweater and this dancing guy kept dancing and it was sort of amazing to not even think that there might be people in the room who wanted to relax and spend their drip time in some type of meditation. But I liked his dancing. He had very good posture. The fact that he tripped a few dozens times could happen to anyone just learning the steps. The fact that the Dumbo ears seemed to get red with some sort of sickening erotic anticipation made me a little sick to my stomach but I'm sick most of the time anyway so why connect it with her ears?

Anyway, I'm already hoping that 2009 is a better year. Do you think that's being much too much of a pessimist?

I just don't know. I just don't know......................

I have to have another what?................

2008-01-07T11:43:00.000-08:00

Oh sure, there you are with your positive outlook and encouraging comments telling me how fabulous this year is going to be and that there is such a thing as karma and I am so overdue and you just know that everything is going to be coming up roses and you will not believe what I have to do next Monday..............

But first...

I want to talk about forgiveness. So I was reading the paper yesterday and there was an article about a woman who was in the death camps when she was ten and she was there with her twin sister and Dr. Mengele loved experimenting on twins, which he was doing with this poor woman and this woman received a letter maybe twenty years ago from an SS guy asking for her forgiveness and she gave it to him and said it felt like a weight was lifted from her shoulders. And I, being the selfish self centered person that I am, started thinking immediately about the man formerly known as my husband and if I could ever forgive him. Nazis... my husband... my husband... Nazis. Come on, I thought, if this woman could forgive people who did not give a shit about her as a human being and a CHILD then certainly I could forgive someone who let go of a family and left me for another at a very vulnerable time in my life. There is no comparison. Be reasonable, Trish. The man formerly known is not, after all, Mengele. Surely I could forgive.

Ah..............Nope. Can't go there yet. And of course I realized that that woman was so much more of an enlightened human being than I could ever be. I love to hold on to my petty little anger. Don't you? Oooooo, it just makes you feel so good to have someone you don't like, someone you can celebrate when they're going through a rough patch. Someone whose life might occasionally be WORSE THAN YOURS. That is how petty and unformed I am. I don't know, I try to be enlightened. Forgive. Try to love my enemy. But my little nine year old nasty girl self keeps whispering in my ear, "I hate you Susie Collins because you're pretty and you're perfect and you're really good at volley ball and you hurt my feelings because you won't invite me over to your apartment and I hope something horrible happens to you."

And then Susie just goes on with her lalala lovely life and you're holding on to all of those bad feelings that just eat you up inside and turn your eyebrows grey and I am so impressed with that woman who forgave the Nazis. I'm going to save that article.

Okay, remember the feeding tube? The supposed cauterization? WELL I HAVE TO HAVE ANOTHER STUPID LITTLE FUCKING OPERATION NEXT MONDAY. Because the wound has been infected for over two months and there might be a small part of the tube wrapped around (get ready for this) my intestine! And it's only the seventh day of the new year. Why on earth did I let myself believe that things would be a breeze after the first!! Maybe it's my attitude. But no, that would mean that the world has something to do with ME and I know I am but a speck of dust in the universe so I guess it's just a bit of bad luck that has surrounded me for the PAST THREE YEARS. Like that kid in Charlie Brown who walks around surrounded by dirt.

But it's not like the bad luck that poor woman had during the Holocaust. Or the people in Darfur are having. Or in Kenya. I know that. I am so lucky in so many ways. I just have to look at a picture of my son that sits on my desk and I know how lucky I am. I think it's just this......I'm Jewish...I complain. I whine and I complain. I am not complete without a complaint. Now that I think about it, I realize that's why Jews stick together. Who else would listen to such whining for four thousand years? Oy, I hate my nose. Oy, I'm way too fat. Oy, I need some land. Oyoyoy.

Thank goodness there are some that break the cycle and learn how to forgive. So I'm having another operation. So I'm getting more stitches in my belly. Surely, I can handle this with a smile on my face. Surely, I can do this without complaining.

Yes, I am going to break the four thousand year old cycle of Jewish girls complaining. Yes! That is what I am going to do.

But first...What the hell should I wear to this next operation? There is like absolutely nothing in my closet............................

A Very Special Episode

2008-01-04T13:48:00.000-08:00

This is my one hundredth blog. When a TV show does it's one hundredth episode they always call it..."A Very Special Episode". Or if some main character is going to die on the show or get married or have a baby...They call that A Very Special..............................Of course, nine times out of ten when a show has been on the air for a long time and the lead couple has a baby it either means the show is on it's way out or it certainly will have "jumped the shark" when the baby is born because babies are not funny and no one knows what to do them on a TV show. You'll notice that Raymond and his wife were barely with their kids because how could they bicker and argue and have problems in bed if the kids were around. And anyway, TV kids tend to be way too precious. You just want to smack them. They are these little kids who talk like Letterman because the writers usually write them to sound like adults. "Hey mom, I've got a top ten list. The top ten reasons why I don't want to go to school today. Ten, because Billy Franklin is going to be there and if he shows me his wiener one more time I'm going to throw up..."

I have no idea why I wrote about TV kids because I was thinking of what "Very Special" thing was going to happen for me because I am writing the one hundredth blog. And the answer is...Oh joy of joys...I'm going to get my wound cauterized today. Now isn't that special? Remember, many moons ago when I had cancer and I had this feeding tube and then they took it out? Well, that resulting damn wound has been bothering me ever since. And oh I just can't wait to get that Novocain shot in my stomach again before he pours some science fiction type stuff on the wound to YUCK, get ready for this............CLOSE IT UP. Yes, I have had a hole in my mid section for the last two or three months and to say it's not pretty is an understatement. Not that anyone is looking at my belly these days except the people I swim with and they have been very kind not to remark on it except for a little girl in the summer whose eye level was just about at my belly while we took a shower and she was mortified. There is that Frankenstein aspect and it was very hard for me not to walk, with that little girl staring at me, like Boris Karloff and grunt and lurch back to my clothes. Instead, I covered my wounds with my towel and tried to act like a normal person. But when I left I smiled at her and she ran to her mother in horror. I don't know. Kids usually like me. But I guess I usually have my shirt on when I meet them.

Oh do I wish that there was some sort of alternative something or other that could cauterize the wounds to one's heart. People always say things heal with time and I always wish that time meant five minutes or maybe eight. But it means YEARS and when you get to be my age you want every minute to count and you don't want to feel the bad stuff anymore because it's too damn tiring. And if you only have a finite amount of time left why would you want to feel the bad stuff at all...If you had the choice.

AND I CAN'T EVEN DRINK!!

Here's a tip.....Do NOT buy a French cheesecake. It looked good to me when I walked into the French Bakery and pointed out La Cheesecake and paid quite a few francs for it but then I got it home and almost the entire cake was made of whipped cream. Oh, that is so French. And maybe I'm just a fat eating Jew because I really love those deli cheesecakes that are mostly made of cream cheese. (Or is it, creamed cheese? Or is that creamed corn?)

.................I think I'm nervous about that novocain shot. That's why I'm rambling. I don't know what I'm saying anymore. And this is my one hundredth blog and it should be special. So I will leave you with this..

Did you know that in 1913 Henry Ford poineered the assembly line, Thomas Mann published Death in Venice, the first Charlie Chaplin movie was screened and Richard Nixon was born?

Now if that isn't special I don't know what is................

Just As I Thought.............

2008-01-03T13:27:00.000-08:00

I hate to say this. I don't want to bring anyone down. But day three of 2008 just sucks.

BUT

Hey, I got two good days out of it and that ain't bad. Here's the thing...How many of you go to a therapist? Raise your hands...Aha...Well, I just got screwed by a therapist (not literally) and I took some advice to heart and it was the wrong advice and I KNEW it was wrong when he gave me this advice but I was vulnerable and I listened and boy do I feel like a fool. And it's not even MY THERAPIST. I don't actually go to a therapist though I think I probably need one because it's only day three and already I feel like I'm falling off of the earth.

I don't think I ever mentioned that I had a nervous breakdown when I was about twenty one. I sat in a bathtub in New York City and let hot water in and cold water out everytime I'd feel chilly. And this lasted for THREE DAYS. Hot water, cold water, hot water, cold water. And then my dad came and got me and we rented a car and drove to Beaver Falls Pennsylvania to see my sweet Russian grandparents and my grandma took one look at me and said, "Vat's da maddah? You don't look so good, shveetheart." (Actually, she didn't sound like Humphrey Bogart but I'm not sure how to spell what she sounded like.) And then we drove to Wisconsin where I went to therapy five days a week and worked for headstart and tried to figure out what the hell was happening. And it took about nine months but finally it dawned on me...MY MOTHER! That was the problem.

And then I was all better and I was in Madison Wisconsin and I went into the Commons and there was an LA Free Press, a very groovy sixties newspaper and I saw some friends in the paper who were in a play and they were starting a theater group so I found a guy I didn't even know who was traveling South and I went with him as far as I could go, then I got on a train and went as far as that could go before the tracks got flooded so then I got on a bus that went to downtown LA and then I got on a city bus which dropped me off on Robertson Boulevard where my friends were starting the theater and I walked in with my little suitcase and that was that.

So I guess I had a therapist years ago who got me to the great "My Mother" epiphany and I truly believe therapy can be a great help but they, like doctors or teachers, are all just human and they are not always right and you just pray that your surgeon does not make one of those human errors while he's got you cut open on a table. And a therapist has your head cut open sometimes when you are really a mess and they can accidentally put your brains back in all scrambled up and you walk around thinking, hmmmmm, I'm doing everything just like I always did but I don't feel quite right and you may or may not realize that this person you trusted has actually made a huge mistake and you are paying for it with your life. Oh, it's a long story and you know I want to tell you but just know this.............I didn't listen to my heart...My intuition. Stupid. And though I know the year of the shit (in small letters, you will notice) is over on paper, I have to make sure that my head is convinced that it's actually really, really over. And I think I was actually convinced of this until someone (a therapist) whispered in my ear..."I think you're going in the wrong direction to find happiness" so I changed direction and found myself, to my surprise, back where I had started months ago. AND IT WAS AWFUL.

But I am turned around now and I'm once again on the right road. And I think January one and two will repeat themselves in some way as the months appear and sometimes January three will rear it's ugly head but I know I will not be getting into that bathtub again and I am waiting for that new epiphany to strike so I can get on another bus and be driven to life's next great adventure, whatever that may be.......................

So?

2008-01-02T14:56:00.000-08:00

Okay, I don't want to run out the front door and scream for joy just yet because I am sure that it would immediately start to rain with much thunder and lightening and a branch would pop off a tree and fall directly onto my head and I would be skewered instantly...

BUT

I did wake up yesterday morning feeling pretty damn.........GOOD. Yes...G...O...O...D. And positive and almost, dare I say it, euphoric. Now I know that is actually a very bad sign because how good can one actually feel on the first day of a new year when we all know that that day is really just like the day before and the day before that but in our heads we hold that day up as a new beginning and we make resolutions (which I have never done for new years because it seems that I make resolutions every day like "I promise to wash my face every night even if I'm tired" and we know that is never going to happen and I am going to go to bed with a dirty face almost every night of the week) but still it's THE NEW YEAR and we tell ourselves that everything is going to be just fine (if things were bad in the first place which, if you've read this blog, you know THEY WERE!) but then I wake up on January first and by golly (always wanted to say that) I FELT GOOD. I felt like maybe I was going to get a break...For a few days. So I'm going with the good for right now and I am not going to name this year because I've got to feel it out first but I do know this...

THE YEAR OF THE SHIT IS OVER. Hoorahhoorah! And I am hoping, oh Lord am I hoping, that this will not turn out to be The Year of the Crap because I am not sure I would make it to Spring nor would I want to. So good it shall be for as long as it lasts.

And the best...The very bestest thing happened today, on the second of January. While I was having my vitamin drip I talked to a beautiful girl named Natalie who was born in Mexico and is of Middle Eastern decent and lives in France and sings and is just here for the vitamins drips because she's not feeling very well and is weak and the time flew and we dripped and then I walked out the door and there was...

CEDRIC THE HOT DOG MAN. I was so excited I practically skipped to his cart and his back was to me and I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around and gave me a huge smile and said he was so glad to see me. AND...He told me he liked my outfit!! Oh my gosh, it isn't even an outfit it's a sweater and jeans and it's only the second day of January and I got a compliment from Cedric my idol. I am sure I am going to be hit by a car at any moment now because life should not be this good. A compliment! I am not an animal! (A reference, by the way, for those too young to have seen it, to a great David Lynch film, Elephant Man.) Anyway, learned more about Cedric...He was in the Navy and this truly handsome guy is 42 which is much closer to my age than I had imagined but still too young for me but the best part is he is going to try and have regular hours. So, those of you who live in LA listen up. Cedric and his truck will be there Tuesdays through Saturday from around 11 to 4. He will be in front of Best Buy on Olympic and Corinth in West LA just east of Santa Monica. He told me he went to a Veterans New Years Eve party and it sounded like he went alone so for all you thirty/forty something year old gals out there I would say RACE over to get that dog.

So, I am not crossing my fingers, I am not going to stop looking for lightening bolts or waiting for earthquakes but I am going to remember the first two days of 2008 with great fondness and I am going to try and hold on to that feeling and find it whenever I need it and I am also never ever going to change my "outfit" for the rest of the year.

The Count Down

2007-12-26T15:52:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to write and say that I will see you next year. Which is less than a week away. And I am a nervous wreck. And I woke up this morning and felt very strongly that I could no longer spell. But I think it's just my nerves revving up for great disappointment as the new year arrives next week. And I am going to sit on my porch in Carpinteria and wait for the clock to strike midnight and really try and see if anything has changed.

I think it's gonna I think it's gonna.

Because God knows why but I have this positive feeling that maybe just maybe the bad stuff might be over if only for a short while and I might be one of the humans going through a good patch instead of a bad patch and I might actually be able to wake up in the morning and not be afraid to come out from under the covers.

So I'm starting to count down now and I will see you next year and maybe I won't recognize you because you will look so different and maybe you will look like your very best self and we can swim together or have a glass of wine and maybe we can do our goodly deeds together and maybe the Palestinians and the Israelis can break bread and we'll leave Iraq and the first female president of Iraq will be elected and women will remove their veils and we as a country will ask their forgiveness and no one anywhere will be hungry and everyone everywhere will have shelter and disease will be cured and there will be jobs and families and peace and love I will never feel pain again nor will you......................

Happy New Year.........Hallelujah.

Very Funny

2007-12-21T16:27:00.001-08:00

This...

Is going to be short and sweet.

I woke up this morning with a black eye! A...BLACK...EYE!!...My left eye. The bottom half. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or poke my right eye until it matched my left eye. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING. IS THIS SOME KIND OF A JOKE! And if so, who is laughing and where are you and is this just one more way of telling me that 2007 is such a bust that for the next ten days, until the year ends, I am going have one hideous thing happen to me after another until I am down on my knees begging for surrender?! Well, guess what...I have gotten this far and yes, I am limping towards the finish line, and yes, a good friend of mine died yesterday, and yes I'm a neurotic mess about finding peace and happiness again in my lifetime but I am telling you that I am not going to let a left black eye stop me from making it to January first so I can see what's on the other side of the horizon. So whoever you are who is doing this to me...

What? I'm not supposed to take these things personally? You are telling me this is not all about ME? That all of these things that happened were just.............RANDOM!! That I am but a cog in the wheel of life? A COG? I'm a cog. A cog with a black eye. Here is what I've decided. If I wake up January first and I still have the black eye, I am going to do something drastic like...

Cry.

But no. That would be a terrible way to start the new year. I want to laugh. I want to laugh and see peace in the middle east and I want someone to whisk me away and rub my back and tell me that everything is going to be okay and that I don't have to be afraid anymore and the worst is over and I'm safe and we're all safe and............

I'm realizing that the one thing that will never happen in my lifetime is peace in the middle east. And that's a lot worse than having a black eye. So maybe it isn't about me after all. Maybe being a cog is not so bad because without it I suppose that the wheel would fall apart. And maybe that's what they need in the middle east...More cogs. More conscious cogs.

I'm tired. Of 2007. Of disappointment. And as Mr. Ferlinghetti said..."I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder..."

Ch...Ch...Ch...Changes

2007-12-19T13:27:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, whilst getting my vitamin drip, a woman in the room who seemed slightly sophisticated and was possibly an agent since she was on her phone during her entire drip and seemed to be talking to clients who were out of work...Anyway, this woman asked me if I was in the FASHION INDUSTRY! Me! The woman who frets about what to wear to her own funeral. And that very morning, as it was raining out, I was in a complete dizzy tizzy about wear to wear on my feet and I ended up wearing these old army kind of boots and a pair of brown corduroys and a green sweater. A stretched out old funky green sweater. And this woman thought I was in fashion. I don't know, maybe she was very ill and couldn't see well. But I had to laugh. Hahaha. And there was a man there with a frightening wig on that seemed to be crooked or maybe it was the style but either way it was not a good fit and then I thought the poor guy had probably lost his hair to chemo and I shouldn't make fun of him but boy did he make the wrong choice in hair styles.

I am trying to get into the holiday mood. But I must admit that the shopping part is fucked. My son wanted to buy a couple of presents so we went...ON A SATURDAY! Were we out of our minds?!...To an outlet land. I am not kidding. This place was miles long and two Saturdays before Christmas it was so crowded that once we pulled into the parking lot, we could not even think of getting out. We were whisked into shopping madness and I thought never to be seen again. I actually think I saw a family trying to find their car and then they seemed to disappear into a mountain that was right behind the lot. I'll bet people die there and are not found for months. So it took us at least a half an hour to find an illegal space. I admit it, I was bad. I was so desperate I pulled into a handicapped space and put a sign on my car that said I had cancer and couldn't walk very far. So parking was bad enough but then we had to shop. And all that Bing Crosby Christmas music just made me want to tear my hair out. And we all know that Bing Crosby was a horrible father and at least one kid committed suicide and there he is singing Silent Night and What Child is This and I wanted to shout, "Bing was an asshole! He wasn't even nice to his own child!" but I don't think anyone would have noticed. Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, The Gap, Levis, Occicontine or whatever the name of that soap store is...They were all there. And so were all the people with their packages knocking you this way and that. Will finally got a present and we rushed to find our car and that, of course, is the real nightmare but we did leave a trail so we wouldn't have to wait until everyone else left to find the Prius but then...

We couldn't get out. I think I drove in the same circle seventeen times. And I couldn't find the exit. But the good news was we were NOT listening to Bing and we had snacks in the car and no one was hitting us with the corner of a large box. You have to look for the good things in a situation like this.

You know, I can barely breathe just thinking about that outlet land. Not going there again.

I have made the most exciting discovery of my life. (Okay, I exagerate. But then again, this may be the most exciting discovery. And is that good or is that pathetic? You be the judge...) Yes, I have discovered...CHEESECAKE! I can eat cheesecake. Four bites a night and I am in orgasmic heaven. Not too much sugar. And it's cheese. My new best friend, cheese. I think I am going to die of high cholesterol but that's got to better than dying of cancer. Certainly more satisfying. And I get to eat cheesecake. I get these mini cheesecakes and I carry them around with me for support.

You know what I just did? Of course you don't. I just went into the kitchen and had one bite of my cheesecake. So I have three bites left for the day. Is that too anal? I think that happens when you get sick. The anal thing. You say to yourself, "If I do this then later I can do that." Sort of a reward, sort of a mental illness anal thing. Oh oh...

Now I want more cheesecake. The holidays are making me a bit neurotic. Well, maybe it's not the holidays. I am anxious about the New Year. All the pressure to be fabulous, you know? That change that's coming exactly on January first. But maybe the change has already happened. Maybe the change is cheesecake. I could live with that...............

Ike

2007-12-13T14:19:00.000-08:00

How is this for a last testament to a life...The headline for Ike Turner's obit reads...(In big letters, mind you...) ROCK PIONEER WAS KNOWN FOR ABUSING WIFE TINA TURNER. Shoulda controlled yourself, Ike, because you were one talented guy.

I used to go to this funny little place right next to the Los Angeles airport to see The Ike and Tina Turner Review. It said that on the tiny marquees outside. You went into this little nothing place and the lights would go down and come up on a ball of energy and rock and roll and legs and Ikettes and it was amazing. Tina running all over the stage, followed by those girls and Ike on his base and little did I know that Tina wished she could run right off that stage and away from the tall skinny guy in the back who discovered her. I think that club is a strip club now.

I was reading a magazine in a doctor's office and I came upon an add for Louis Vuitton luggage. And I kept looking at the guy in the ad and I knew he looked familiar but I couldn't quite place him. So I looked at the small print at the bottom and it told me that this man was Mikhail Gorbachev! In a Louis Vuitton ad! What? This is what's it's all about, right? You save your country from what Communism had turned into and instead of just speaking around the world and helping other countries out of their messes you sign on to look like a successful gentleman using expensive luggage. Well, I might as well just die right now because that seems insane to me. However, if it makes Gorby happy, more power to him. Or less power, actually.

And speaking of insane...I ran into someone I hadn't seen in quite a while. A year, maybe. And she asked how I was and I hesitated as I usually do then finally told her about cancer. And this woman, who is not a dummy, asked me what type of cancer and I told her and she said, "Isn't that what Steven had?" And she went on and on about Steven and how he had seemed so much better and then he took a turn for the worse and couldn't eat and then, of course, Steven DIED and she talked about his death and how slow and painful and awful it was and wasn't it the same type of cancer that I had? And she didn't even let me answer before she was talking about Steven's funeral and his memorial and I'm just standing there wanting to throw up ON HER and I'm thinking, "Can someone actually be this rude? Does she have any idea what's she's saying to me?" And she just kept talking..."And he looked good, just like you do, and then a minute later he was in the hospital unable to breath or talk..." And I wanted to punch this woman's pretty face but I let her finish and I told her that I did not think I was going to die soon and then....AND THEN... without missing a beat or hearing anything I was saying, she had the nerve to ask me...

"What are you using on your skin?"

What? My skin! (This is me thinking now.) If you think I am going to tell you anything else about me, you are nuts and I am especially not going to tell you any of my beauty secrets because I hope you age instantly and your eyebrows fall out...In a restaurant!

Oh my God. I don't expect people to make me the center of attention when I tell them that I have cancer but can they think for a moment about what one says when one announces that they have cancer or polio or whatever. You say something like, "Oh, I'm so sorry. How are you feeling?" Not..."Oh, wow, you're going to die soon, aren't you? Bummer city. But you look great." From now on I'm just going to tell people I'm fine. "How are you?" "I'm fine. Had a great year. Nothing went wrong. It was perfect. And you?"

I will not be blogging until next Monday or Tuesday. Don't be frightened. I'll be back. Is it Christmas yet? And then there's the New Year when everything wonderful will happen and the world will be completely different. Right?...RIGHT?

Why is there always silence when I raise this question? I'm telling you, I am going to wake up January first and everything bad will seem like a dream. Sort of like the Newhart show. It was all just a bad dream. And I can once again eat chocolate. And have a martini.

Right?...RIGHT?

"I'm fine. Had a great year. And you?"

You Got Da White Mattah and Da Grey Mattah

2007-12-11T14:55:00.001-08:00

So I'm doing my walk yesterday in the park and there was this nice looking man in his seventies talking to a nice looking lady in her seventies and they were talking about the brain and he says, "You got da white mattah and da grey mattah. And at our age da white mattah doesn't mattah anymore." And they talked and talked and from what I heard their white mattah was working just fine.

They advertise stars for sale on the radio. You can have a star in the sky named after somebody you love for just fifty nine ninety nine. Then they will be able to look up in the sky and see their very own star named after them for eternity! Imagine, we all look up and see...Delores. Hey, that's Delores. Yup. I named that star after her for just fifty nine bucks and change. If anyone reading this has purchased one of these stars I think you might consider getting your white mattah examined.

I have seen three movies in the last couple of weeks that I liked a lot and all of them had very interesting women in them. Nice looking women, natural looking woman, not the glamour girls that usually fill the screen and make all the rest of us feel less than lovely. And these female characters were fleshed out to the point of actually having back stories and lives beyond the cute thing on the guy's arm. And I realized that all of these movies were written by women and one was also directed by the same. Juno, The Savages and Lars and The Real Girl. Oh, those uppity women. Not only did they write movies that actuall got made, they were bold enough to write female characters that were fully realized which is something one does not always find at the AMC. And the actresses playing these characters were really good actresses, not models who think crying on screen will get people to take them seriously. Not one of them wore a low cut dress or too much make-up or woke up with perfect hair. Oh my God, was that a relief. Do you know how hard it is to watch a movie or a tv show and see women wake up, sometimes with a cold or the flu or something terminal and yet they look like they just got their hair and makeup done by Wally Westheimer...(Okay, I know there was a make-up artist who had a name sort of like that. Maybe I just like the name Wally.)

Anyway, I, of course, hope this woman thing is a trend. I'm slightly hopeful but I've seen it almost happen before. I thought Thelma and Louise would make a huge difference but it apparently didn't make as much money as Die Hard. And that's "the bottom line." I sold a script once that was a pretty big sale...Big enough to make the front page of Variety. And, oh, producers and agents were so happy and I foolishly thought this is it! I am on my way to the big time. And I had Goldie Hawn attached and I had Bette Midler attached and then when it came time to actually get it made, I was told by the powers that be...Little men in big towers...That honestly..."Who would want to watch a movie with a forty year old woman in the lead?"

"You need stronger male characters."
"But this movie is all about a woman and the journey that she takes. Remember, you laughed, you cried. The men are perfunctury."
"They're what?
"They're objects, really. Sort of like most women are in the movies, only in reverse."
"Maybe you could change the lead to a male and have the women be perfun...You know, what you said."
"Didn't you buy my script as it was written for a lot of money?"
"Well, maybe we didn't read it thoroughly enough."

At least I cashed my check. Wonder if they'd like a heartwarming story about a middle aged woman who gets cancer and can only eat cheese and she meets a guy who is allergic to dairy. Hmmm...Maybe if I changed the lead to man...

A Parallel Universe

2007-12-07T12:30:00.001-08:00

I tried to get onto my blog this morning and it told me that my cookies were disabled. Okay, I am completely computer challenged and I had no idea what the thing was trying to tell me. My cookies? I didn't even know I had cookies. But it's working now so I am assuming that my cookies are in working order again.

Some people think that if I don't write on my blog it means... I'm dead. Or dying or something awful is happening. Now, that may be true at some time during this process but for now the reason I don't always write is that I'm not here or I'm writing something else or nothing really happened on that particular day although I have found that something always seems to happen no matter how insignificant it might appear at the time.

For instance...I took a yoga class this morning and I got there a few minutes early so I sat down and checked out one of those free yoga magazines. I love the ads. There is someone who describes herself as a "Conscious Bookkeeper." What does that mean, exactly? Who would hire a bookkeeper who wasn't conscious? Wouldn't you want her to be paying attention at all times? These are your books we're talking about. And then there was my favorite...A Psychic Realtor. I kid you not. How the hell d0es that work? Does she show you a house and say, "Oh no. Uh uh. You get out of here as fast as you can. This is so not the house for you." Or do you go to her office and she closes her eyes and tells you how many bedrooms you want and if you want Tudor or Country English? And are these services only for people who live in LA? I somehow cannot imagine a psychic realtor in Davenport Iowa. But maybe these people are for real. And if everyone had a psychic realtor maybe we wouldn't be having all these forclosure problems. And then, in these magazines, there are all these pictures of people who can wrap their ankle behind their neck. Is that really necessary? What, exactly, is the purpose of that? It's just another one of those crazy things that humans do to occupy themselves while they're alive. I actually could spend the rest of my days trying to get my ankle behind my neck. What's the difference between that and writing a novel? Except, maybe, a living.

Okay, so I hate the young woman who wrote Juno. First of all, she's 29. Hate her. She made it pretty quickly. Hate her. She's talented. Hate her. But here's what really got me. She apparently started with a blog. I read this in a couple of newspapers. And one of the things they always point out is that her blog is very honest and "refreshing" and she even talks about things like the BREAKUP OF HER MARRIAGE!

Hello!!

These kind of magical things only happen to certain people. She writes a blog and someone reads it and then she sells a book and then she sells a movie. AND SHE'S 29! And her movie is really good. BUT, can she put her ankle behind her neck? See, if I could do that I wouldn't be filled with so much jealousy that I could explode because I would have this thing that I could do that only certain insane people can do. But everyone can write. Everyone and their mother can write. And there are those who make it...Big Time. And yes, I'm glad she's a woman and yes, I'm glad she's talented because she deserves to make it. But I am older and the clock is tick tick ticking and what if the right person does not read my blog. And she has her whole life ahead of her...

BUT

Bad things can happen. She might run out of ideas. Her next movie might be a bomb.

But I hope that doesn't happen. She actually seems very cool. She probably doesn't have any problem with her cookies. Maybe that's just an age thing.

Cedric the Sort of Entertainer

2007-12-05T13:40:00.000-08:00

Okay, I think I'm going to do it. I know it seems crazy, extremely futuristic for someone like me who doesn't even know how an IPod works and has never had one...But I really don't watch television anymore except for football or basketball and I've never watched American Idol or Dancing with People Who Were Never Stars To Begin With and I haven't really watched a series since my son and I watched X-Files...(Although I did watch the last two years of The Sopranos just to have pasta with friends)...So I am going to do it. I am going to get Netflix. (Don't you hate when they purposely spell things wrong. Like, it should be NetFLICKS. And it should be chicken AND biscuits, not chicken 'N' biscuits. And how, actually, do you spell biscuits? And I wonder if I could eat one of those?)

So as soon as I figure out how you can get this Netflix thing, I'm going to do that. Not that I mind sitting on the couch at night and reading, which I will do anyway, but one thing I have learned this past year is that reading is very silent. It's sort of fun to have someone in the room while you're reading at night. I guess that's why people go to the library to read. I went to the library to play footsie under the table with a guy named Nathan. Maybe THAT is why people go to the library.

Footsie...There was a guy named John in my sixth grade class and I had such a crush on him and everyday after recess he would walk in and hand me his hat...The hunting kind with flaps on the ears...And I would put it in my desk and touch it all afternoon until the bell rang. Oh my God, that was the most orgasmic thing that had ever happened to me...Up to that point...And then John got kind of big and ugly as school went on and the thought of touching his hat or his sleeve or any part of him for that matter was like totally yuck. He probably thought the same thing of me. But I never saw Nathan of the foot after a certain grade and it was probably a good thing for both of us.

The hot dog man's name is Cedric. He is a handsome African American man somewhere in his late twenties, I would guess. He remembered me. I don't know why but I lied to him when he asked me what I did around there. I told him I worked in a nearby building. It just seemed too much to go into me taking vitamin drips in the area because I had cancer and blahblahblah and it's all so boring so I took the easy way out and I lied. I said I worked at a chiropracters office! I lied so easily it scared me. He told me there were a lot of chiropracters in the area and we had a long conversation about that before I changed the subject to hot dogs and his truck. He owned his truck. Ced's hot dogs. He was very proud of the fact that he had never worked for anyone else, only himself. I stupidly asked him what he really wanted to do. Acting, music, screenwriting...All the things most waiters and waitresses in Hollywood really want to do. And he looked at me rather blankly and said he always wanted to sell hot dogs. And I was so jealous. First of all, he had never worked for anyone else and I had worked on tv shows for some of the biggest assholes in the universe. Wasted years of my life sitting there and listening to these guys go on about themselves. (And yes, in my case they were always guys.) And secondly, he was a young man and already doing exactly what he wanted to do. And here I am, a person who could be his mother (and if I really want to go there, his grandmother!) and I still don't seem to be doing what I want to do. What is up with that? Why do I always feel that there is something I'm not doing that I should be doing? Why didn't I just want to sell hot dogs? Okay, I did have a child and that was and still is the greatest and that was something I really wanted to do. But creatively, just me alone, I'm still trying to figure out my career. My hair would be gray if I let it, I would be dead if I was living a hundred years ago, but here I still am trying to figure out who I am and what is that big thing that I am supposed to be doing. And Cedric is as happy as a clam, talking to his customers and steaming his weiners and setting up his chairs for the people to sit. I love Cedric. I want to be Cedric. And I hate Cedric because he's doing it. He's doing the life. I told him I had a nineteen year old son. He gave me a piece of advice. I should tell my son to pick one thing and focus. Focus on "that thing" and it will happen. But make sure it's only one thing.

And Cedric's right. I'm all over the place. One thing? But aren't I supposed to be completely neurotic and do twelve things at once?

Maybe Cedric could be my therapist. He'd probably race away in his truck after the first session.

Maybe I shouldn't get Netflix. Just another distraction. I wonder if Cedric has Netflix. I think I'll make an appointment with him for next week.

And Yet, Another Dilemma

2007-12-03T13:58:00.000-08:00

Okay, now I'm obsessing on what to wear to my divorce. This may be actually harder to decide than what to wear to chemo. I mean, you want to look good, right? You want the guy to say to himself, "What was I thinking? Look at her. She's a knockout."

Well, a knockout is a bit of an exaggeration. A knockout is Greta Garbo or Carol Lombard. And then I'm thinking, maybe I should try and look sickly and go for the sympathy card. "Oh, what was I thinking? Look at her. She looks so pale and wan. I just can't leave her now."

I actually don't think I've ever looked wan. I don't think wan is a Jewish girl look. But the right outfit is key. I don't wear skirts even though it seems like a very black tight skirt kind of situation. You know, you cross your legs provocatively and you're wearing black heels with ankle straps and maybe not any underwear and what is he going to think then, huh?! You can bet he's going to think twice. If only I still had heels. I do not think Ugh boots or Doc Martins are correct for this occasion.

Low cut. That's the ticket. Something very low cut. With the right bra. And this may be a bit personal but what the hell at this point...I'm not sure what my right bra is anymore. Something has changed since my operation. Oh, they're still there. But I think because I haven't been swimming regularly yet my back size has changed. (Oh, sure Trish. Blame it on your back.) Anyway, that is way off the point but I think the holidays are making me think faster than I can write. Did I buy this one a present? Do I have to buy that one a present? Do we really like this time of year?

No Country For Old Men. It's good. The scariest thing in it is Javier Bardem's haircut.

Some days I wish someone would just whisk me away. Tell me they have something just wonderful to show me in a very special place that only a few people know about. And they will take care of everything. They'll pick out my clothes, pack for me, give me a bath, make sure Gracie the dog is taken care of while we're gone. They'll make sure everything is taken care of and I don't have to worry about a thing. They'll make sure I eat when I'm supposed to and have delicious healthy little foods ready and waiting for me when I'm hungry. They'll rub my back, hold my hair when I throw up. Be there in the middle of the night when I sit up and wonder what has happened. And we'll walk and we'll run and we'll laugh. Laugh a lot. And listen to James Taylor even though all I do is cry through every CD. But I love to cry because it feels good and I love to laugh and I wish I knew what to wear. That's really what this is all about. Someone to help me with my wardrobe. How do I look in this? Am I fetching? Was I ever fetching?

I think I was whisked away but it was into the cancer world. Definitely not the special place one dreams about.

But it's my clothes. It's all about my clothes. I know if I had the right clothes everything would turn out just right. Happily ever after. Like Enchanted. You just need the right blouse, that's all.

Nuts

2007-11-29T14:18:00.000-08:00

I saw the movie Enchanted. It was enchanting. Lovely. Very Disney. It's the kind of movie that makes me want to jump from a very tall building. Or go out in a row boat on a day when there are "small craft warnings". And this is all because everyone in the movie lives happily ever after. Except the wicked witch, of course. Susan Sarandon played that role with her head held high so the "neck" thing wouldn't happen. She was good. And her neck looked great.

I remember when I was a girl and would go see Cinderella or Snow White or any of those girly movies with the singing birds and friendly squirrels and I wondered even then if that actually happened anywhere in the universe. Where things just turned out oh so wonderful. I could not imagine that. Didn't really like those girly pictures. And right now, at the end of The Year of The Shit, I sort of know by experience that happily ever after land only happens for about one percent of the population. There are no singing birds, no friendly squirrels. Although there is one in my yard that comes by everyday but I think if I gave him a nut he would bite off my finger. But maybe I'm just paranoid. And maybe I'm just being negative. Maybe women are singing and sewing and having a grand old time scrubbing their floors and donning taffeta dresses for dinner and the men are bringing flowers home every night and lovelovelove every meal that is cooked for them and just think she is prettiest thing he's ever seen even though she's getting older and she sweats a lot and can't sleep at night and he spends half the night peeing. But it's happilyeverafterville for them and whistle while you work and life is just one big celebration everyday.

Maybe that is happening somewhere. On Main Street in Springfield. And maybe I just have to look at a map to find out where that is. Maybe I took a wrong turn somewhere. Got off on the wrong offramp. Maybe I will give that squirrel a nut.

Next week I begin the final separation. The prequel to The Big Divorce. I keep thinking about those Siamese Twins they separate. They have to decide who gets the heart, who gets the liver and worst of all, who gets the possibility of a long life. Sometimes they have to decide that. The weaker one usually goes first. I hope I am not the weaker one. I am armed with requests. I know what I want. And in a funny way I'm looking forward to this. I feel like I have one more tube hanging from my body and it has to be cut off right now and that tube is my marriage. The marriage tube. The one that sucked the life right out of me. But I hooked myself up to an IV of "I am not going to let him do this to me" and in a few months I was back to normal, full of the life that was taken away from me with the added bonus of seeing the world through single covered glasses. And I like it. So what could go wrong next week? I've already lost most of my stomach and I can't eat oranges and he hasn't lost anything yet so I feel like I'm ahead of this game. Maybe I'll have it put in writing that he can't eat oranges either. Or garlic. Yeah, that should get him. You're supposed to "get him" when you get divorced, right? You're supposed to rip out his heart and his wallet. Oh, I've got to grow fangs over this weekend. Read books about ruthless women. Buy some high heeled boots.

A crow is laughing at me outside the window. All the crows in the Disney films were always evil. Hmmmm. Maybe it is time to get some taffeta and a ribbon for my hair. Where is that little happy squirrel when I need him?

Assisted Leaving

2007-11-26T14:51:00.000-08:00

Someone told me that the man formerly known as my husband met the parents of his girlfriend. He's sixty. So are they. And I started thinking that this poor girl is going have to put both her parents and her boyfriend into assisted living at the same time. Will they share a room? Will they like the same TV shows? I hope they don't get their blood pressure pills mixed up. And then I started wondering, which one will need a hearing aid first? Hmmmm. Thick glasses. Which one will be more cranky than the others? Oh, I hope I live long enough to see this. I have always wanted to die laughing.

And speaking of death...I was talking about the D word and afterlife with a friend the other day. She has a strong belief in an afterlife. And I think that's great. But here is what confuses me...There are so many different religions and each one is convinced that they know what is going to happen after we die. Some feel that if you don't accept Jesus you don't have a chance in hell for a happy afterlife. Well, I guess you have a chance in hell. However there are others who believe in heaven for the good and hell for the bad and some think they will be reincarnated and there are, of course, those 72 virgins that await those that kill themselves and the infidel at the same time. So, are one of those religions right? And does that mean that everyone else is wrong? Makes me think that one should believe in EVERYTHING, just in case. Maybe I should accept Jesus, whom I'm sure was a great guy so why not? And how is everyone so sure they are right? Have they talked to someone who has already been there and back? Ah...I don't think so. It's just all in their heads. At this point, at this moment in my life I believe in this point and this moment. How could I not? It's too fantastic. But I may change, you never know. If I get a chance to be aware that I am going to die at any moment I may just look to the skies and proclaim that I want to come back as a whale. Can you do that with reincarnation? Choose your next self? I just don't have a strong feeling about those 72 virgins.

Cate Blanchett...Oh my God does she knock that Bob Dylan thing out of the ballpark. That was so cool. I loved that movie but I don't think it's for everyone. You really have to know way too much about Bob Dylan, which unfortunately I do, but I just thought I'm Not There was full of passion and energy and not a studio person saying, "Oh, but it should be more upbeat, have a really happy ending and do you really think this movie makes any sense?"

There are some people who think that a year from now I will be all back to normal. Be able to eat a normal meal and feel like a normal person and not almost faint after I eat breakfast. Not going to happen. I will not get any better than I am now but I'm getting used to it. Can't eat oranges or tomatoes ever again, nothing spicy, no pepper or garlic. No fruit juice. But the one thing I will be able to do more is swim and do yoga again. Can't wait. It doesn't really bother me. The other day I bought a hand lotion that smelled like oranges because I used to love oranges and I miss them. But hey, I'm here and I had a great weekend eating my tiny piece of turkey without cranberry sauce and I was sitting next to my son who is the apple of my eye (what the hell does that mean?) so what more could I ask for.

How did they come up with SEVENTY TWO virgins? Why not fifty four? Or ten. Wouldn't ten be enough? Well, maybe not enough to blow yourself up. Maybe you actually need 72 as an inncentive.

Dick Cheney has an irregular heart beat. Are we surprised? I'm just surprised he has a heart at all.

James

2007-11-21T15:02:00.000-08:00

I was going to devote this blog to giving thanks but first I have to rant about Gay Talese. For those who do not know him, he is a writer. So I'm reading a magazine while getting my vitamins (which are working, by the way, Mr. Insurance Company genius who does not believe in vitamins!) and I came upon an article about the recently departed Norman Mailer. And Mr. Talese said, (something like), "Norman, like many great men, had his dark side. Men like Picasso, Hemingway and Sinatra. But Norman was a great man and loved to talk to regular people." And by "dark side" Mr. Talese was referring to the fact that he was abusive to women. HELLO............He STABBED his second wife! The second of six wives. And he had something like nine children and I'll bet he was as close to them as Rudy Guilliani is to his kids. Norman Mailer was an asshole, Mr. Talese. If he had murdered someone would you say he had a "dark side but he liked to talk to cab drivers"? He abused women and he stabbed one. And you're okay with that? Oh my gosh, I almost popped my IV.

And while we're talking about women, I was watching 3:10 To Yuma and there are all these guys with very interesting character faces and TWO BEAUTIFUL WOMEN with perfect makeup even though they are in the Wild West and it's dusty and all the guys are dirty. Where are the interesting dusty dirty girls? I am so sick of the beautiful quirky gal. But hey, it's a man's world which really makes me want to vote for Hilary even though I'm not crazy about her but say anything you want...She is not a man...Sort of...

But I love men and I am here to give thanks. First, I would like to thank Spike Lee for giving us really good movies. I think that guy is terrific.

Does that seem superficial? I mean I'm alive, I've had cancer...And Spike Lee is the most I can be thankful for?

No, James Taylor. He was playing when my son was born. He was playing when I met the man formerly known as my husband and he was playing when that same man left me for another woman. So I guess James Taylor is the soundtrack of my life. Shower With People. How profound is that?

Still too shallow?

Hey, I love trees and the ocean and my dog and I am so pissed off about what happened to me in the last year and I am putting way to much pressure on January first 2008 and I have absolutely no hope that anything good will ever happen to me again or that there will ever be peace on Earth and I am severely parched from the drought and I am sick of IVs and doctors and this was the lousy year to end all lousy years and I can't believe I can't eat cranberry sauce, which I love, because it has too much sugar in it and I ate another hot dog today because the guy's cart is right across from where I get my vitamin drip and I dislike a lot more people than I thought I did and I miss my stomach even though we always had a troubled relationship and getting back to the hot dog, it stayed with me this time.

So, in conclusion, I am very thankful for the hot dog man.

And life goes on and people perform their rituals like Thanksgiving and we truly are the lucky ones.

God bless Bangladesh.

No Idea Who I Am

2007-11-19T16:04:00.000-08:00

So I'm driving down Pico Boulevard today and I suddenly make a screeching stop outside of a BestBuy store. For those of you who don't live in LA, BestBuy is one of those stores where you can buy a refrigerator or a CD or a pen. But I did not want to go inside of BestBuy. What stopped me was a hot dog cart. A regular old New York hot dog cart. And I'm thinking, I can't eat a hot dog. It's going to make me unbelievably ill. What, am I crazy?

"Can I please have a hot dog? Not too spicy."
"What do you want on it?"
"The works."

Maybe I just wanted to say, "the works", but I ordered the little wiener with everything on it and I got back into my car and I ate the sucker. Oh man, it was soooo good. I could only eat half of it, of course, but it was fantastic. I can't even remember the last time I had a hot dog on the street. So I finished and I wiped off my hands and I sat in the car until the moment when I knew I was going to throw up. And there I was at BestBuy with wonderfully clean rest rooms and I ran in and did the job and when I finished I was so happy that I had eaten that hot dog. The surgeon told me that this would happen. That I would eat things even though I knew they would make me sick but I wouldn't care because for two minutes it would feel great and that's what really mattered. That's why a lot of people get pregnant. Probably, I could have done without the relish.

I drove into an underground garage and I pulled to the side to let someone pull out of their slot and a woman in the world's most gigantic car (I think bigger than that Hummer) pulled around me and took the damn slot! Her car was something called a Cayenne and it seems to be a Porsche SUV. It's the kind of car that says, "Fuck you I'm rich and I can do anything I want and I'm going to take this space BECAUSE I CAN and I don't give a shit about you and your stupidass politically correct Prius!"

So I gave her the space with no argument because it did not seem worth losing another hot dog over a parking space. But then later I'm coming out of the underground lot and I stop to make sure no cars are coming around the corner and a man in a really beat up unrecognizable older car comes barreling through a stop sign and his misses me by a minute. And his car was the kind that said, "Fuck you I'm poor and I can do anything I want because I was given a raw deal in life and I'm going to drive however I want to BECAUSE I CAN and you are driving some kind of fancy Hybrid thingie you asshole you and you have insurance so why should I care what you think?"

The other night I watched a movie with Julie Christie and a really good male actor whose name I can't remember and I can't remember the name of the movie either. In it Julie Christie has alzheimers. I'm certainly glad I can remember HER name. It was the world's saddest movie. If you had a choice between watching that movie and sticking pencils in your eyes, I would go for the pencils. No, it was good. Maybe it's too close to what could be my home but I'm watching and wondering, "Why am I watching this? I should be laughing. I should be thinking about happy things. Little polar bears and puppies and stuff. Not, oh my god Julie Christie is old but thank goodness she didn't have any surgery and if she did it's not working anymore but she's still pretty and so what if she can't remember anything, she's pretty and her hair looks cool."

My infection is still here. Better, but still here. I have chosen to ignore it until after Thanksgiving. Ah, turkey, stuffing. What a great holiday where you eat until you explode. I explode when I eat half a hot dog so I can't wait to see what happens when I eat stuffing. And this is going to be the really hard part...I cannot lie down after dinner...After any meal. I have to sit up due to my new plumbing. Lie down and it's just an invitation to disaster. But two bites of turkey and I'm out like a light. Maybe they could tie me to my chair and I could fall asleep sitting up.

And you think I'm kidding.

Speaking of chairs, I've been meaning to put in a little holiday DeNiro story...The first time I was with him in the Biblical sense...(I never quite know what that means. The Biblical sense. Seems like it should be the opposite of what it means. Maybe it doesn't mean what I think it means. But you know what I mean, right?)

Anyway, the first time that I was with him it involved a chair in the middle of the room..................

What? You think I was going to give you more details? Children read this blog. Use your imagination.

I did.

Twenty Five Sides of Beef and Fifty Hasidic Jews

2007-11-13T15:44:00.000-08:00

Some people say there are two sides to every story. I say there are two sides to every story and one side is bullshit.

I went to a triple A baseball game once in Arizona. They were giving away a side of beef to the first twenty five people who arrived. People were sitting in their seats with, I swear, sides of beef as big as small horses. Thank goodness it was a night game.

I went for my second vitamin drip today. Interesting crowd. Not everyone is there for vitamins. Some get something called chelation therapy and I think that is for people who have had heart problems. All new fangled stuff and I personally am willing to believe in almost anything. There was a very handsome fellow there in a wheelchair. Very handsome. He was 51 years old. I know that because he told me that 33 years ago when he was 18 he dove into a pool on Martha's Vineyard and broke his back. His hands were all curved and he was sort of stooped over in his chair but there he was with a big handsome smile on his face taking some sort of IV drip. I hope I see him again.

Then there was a young girl, couldn't have been more than 26. If I had to label her I would say she was a goth. Dyed black hair. Very, very pale skin. And no eyebrows. And I realized that this young girl had had cancer and lost her eyebrows. And her paleness was from much chemo. She was so beautiful. So cool. So was used to getting IVs put into her body. It is an amazing thing being in the "sick" world. I see so many people who take it so casually. Do not make a big deal out of it. It's what is happening and there you have it. This girl ate pistachios and drank water and listened to her IPod and I think she said she was going to be there for four hours and she did this two times a week. Wow. I just thought, wow. And this handsome guy in the wheelchair who was probably amazingly handsome at 18 and there he was smiling and dealing with the biggest bummer I can think of and I sit here half the time thinking poor me and what a raw deal I was given but I can walk and I have friends and I'm not 26 with cancer and I'm not in Pakistan right now and I should be shot every time I complain. Or tweaked or something.

And here is the best news of the day. I HAVE AN INFECTION! I am so excited because I was feeling like shit and I thought, okay, this is it, the big casino, I'm outta here but I went to my surgeon who took out the feeding tube and I showed him the "hole" (pardon my language) where it had been and he said that my hole was infected. ( I am so sorry but there is no delicate way to put that.) The hole in my stomach, you know. And I thought, hallelujah, I'm not going to die I just have to take antibiotics.

When I woke up this morning the fingernails on my left hand were blue and because I wasn't feeling so well I thought this must be the first body part to decay as you take the long walk to the end of the tunnel but then I realized that I had bought a pair of pajama bottoms at Target and I didn't wash them and the dye had come off on my fingernails in the middle of the night. You should have seen my legs. And the bottoms, of course, were made in China. So I jumped immediately into the shower to wash off the poison and it took FOREVER to get rid of it. Oh God, after all this I'll probably die from a pair of poison pajama bottoms.

But you gotta laugh. It's all so ridiculous that you gotta laugh. And the people who got those sides of beef also got an extra seat...For their beef...I got on an airplane once going from New York to LA and it was full of Hasidic Jews. And when I got to my seat I could not sit down because it was taken up by a Torah. I asked the nice Jew if he would please move his Torah. He wouldn't. I asked him again nicely if he'd please put it in the overhead compartment. No. "But it's my seat!" No, it was his Torah's seat so I had to call the stewardess who got into a big fight with the little man and she finally picked up the Torah and carried it up to the cockpit with the little man following her all the way up front and yelling something in Hebrew. So the Torah spent the flight in the cockpit and I had to sit next to a very angry man with strange hair. Surprise, he ordered a kosher meal that looked exactly like my meal but I didn't say anything except, "How's your food?" To him I was invisible. I was in his Torah's seat. At one point during the flight I looked up and fifty Hasidic Jews were starring daggers at me.

I don't know why I thought of that. Guess the antibiotic is working.

The Drip at The Drip

2007-11-08T13:54:00.000-08:00

A long time ago I was hit by a car. I was riding my bicycle on Santa Monica Blvd. and Doheny and a man took a wrong turn and knocked me unconscious. The man was a guy named Clifford Irving. Richard Gere played him in a move last year called Hoax. Never saw it. Mr. Irving pretended to know Howard Hughes and wrote a fake book about him. Anyway, I had four fractures in my pelvis and a bunch of torn ligaments in my knee and I was walking around the hospital trying out my new cast that went from my hip to my ankle and I limped right into Groucho Marx who was also walking around the corridors only he was smoking a cigar which I'm sure was not allowed but who was going to stop Groucho? Without missing a beat he took one look at me and said, "What's a nice "goil" like you doing in a place like this?" I told him what had happened to me and told him I was in a theater company and he tipped his beret and said, "Ah, the theater." and then continued down the hall and into his room. I could hear a very loud nurse demanding that he snuff out his cigar. I could hear him singing her a song. He was cute. It was Groucho. And for a few days after that I actually thought it was very cool to live in LA.

The Vitamin Drip. I loved it. The doctor told me it would probably absorb right into my body and I wouldn't feel the effects of the drip until I went in a few times. But for a couple hours after the drip I felt like a normal person and that was heaven. So, I am at once addicted. However, as Gilda said, it's always something, isn't it? So there I am in the drip room. Sort of like the chemo room with barcaloungers set up in a circle and little tables next to them with bells on them to ring for the nurse if something goes wrong. Kathleen the nurse got me all set up and I must say did a great job of finding my vein which is not an easy task and I settled in to read my book for the hour and half drip time and then HE walked in. A guy named David. He was there for some other kind of drip and he started talking to Kathleen before he even sat down and did not stop FOREVER and OhmyGod I learned waaaaay too much about David. He's the brother of a guy on NPR whom I won't mention in case you know him and he sells pianos and he was in a band (which he swears is the best band EVER even though no one has ever heard of them) and he liked my shoes which I'd gotten at Shoe Pavilion and I swear when she put in his IV he talked even faster and I wondered what he was taking and what he had and maybe he was there because he had some kind of wierd talking disease. And, of course, I couldn't read my book because he was TOO LOUD and I tried to close my eyes and imagine I was somewhere else but he had one of those booming voices and I could only imagine myself trapped in an elevator with a very loud man and that didn't seem like a calm place to go so I decided to join in the conversation. "Tall me about your pianos." And that answer took about forty minutes and ended up being about the middle East (What is he talking about!!) and then finally this sweet lady came in for her drip and Kathleen had to tend to her and I swear, the MINUTE, and I mean the minute she stepped away from his chair he FELL ASLEEP! He was out cold in a matter of seconds.

And as I sat there for the last ten minutes of my drip I started wondering if everyone in the universe was ANNOYING or was I just a magnet for annoying people. Or was I an intolerant asshole. And then I thought that maybe I should live in some remote part of the world where there wouldn't be people to get in the way of your drip. But I doubted there actually were drips in Greenland or Iceland but on the other hand maybe I would be able to meditate and clear my mind in Greenland and just feel the moment and who would need a vitamin drip? Oh my God I hate recovery. It's really so much better when you're preparing for the operation and thinking optimistic thoughts because in recovery you see how things really are and sometimes they are just not so much fun. Now I can't blame David for everything but maybe I will because you have to blame someone. I have my next drip on Tuesday and already I'm anxious. Do you think possibly that this is how I got cancer in the first place? I should have relaxed when I had the chance.

And The Secret Word is..............."Breathe".

Gouda Things are Happening

2007-11-07T09:51:00.000-08:00

I lied. I fibbed. I embellished the situation to enhance the story. I said that the hunchbacked woman in the respiratory doctor's office had a purse full of strong cheese.

Wrong. That would be me. She did have something in her bag that had a vile smell but I have to admit that I am the one that now carries cheese in her purse. In case I get hungry. It is not, however, what I would call stinky cheese. It's Havarti or Swiss and sometimes Muenster. I would say it only gets stinky if I forget that I put it there and I don't remember until a couple days later and I pull out my ATM card and it smells like a mild Gouda. And here's the odd thing. Before my operation, I never ate cheese. I don't know, maybe I have a stomach the size of a mouse. But I wake up and all I want is cheese. And then sometimes I get all caught up on what kind I should have. I stand there with the fridge door wide open and stare at the cheese bin for way too long and realize that my life has taken a very peculiar turn. I used to have a fridge full of food that I would fix for my family's dinner. I told you that I didn't really learn how to cook until I was around forty and I got some things down pat. Salmon, pasta, turkey meatloaf. The basics. And I would light candles every night and we would eat at the kitchen table and I think dinner was pretty good because everyone ate it and now my fridge is pretty much just full of cheese. How did this happen?

But you know what...I'm feeling a bit better and I'm thinking I should kind of move beyond cheese. I am taking that as a good sign. That maybe, just maybe, I'm moving on to THE NEXT STAGE!

I'm very excited about something I'm going to do today and I think I'm actually a little too excited but, hey, it's at least something new and it has the POSSIBILITY of making me feel real good. And that would be a change. Something to actually make me feel good. I can almost not imagine. But here it is...Today's feel good possibility...I am going to get a two hour IV drip of...

VITAMINS! Doesn't that sound just fab/gear? But I'm thinking maybe it will give me that boost I need. And even though it involves a needle, I am so excited!

Oh, this is pathetic, isn't it? I used to get excited if I got a part in a TV show or if I got a job writing for something and I'd get excited if my son had a great day at school and now I'm excited about vitamins. I'm really trying to explore my inner self and just appreciate what my little lump of flesh is all about but there is this part in the back of my brain that keeps wanting, above all else, for Oprah to choose my book that isn't even written. Would that make me as excited as taking vitamins?

I went to a meditation group Sunday night. To try and calm down and get to that "inner self". See, this healing process is not an easy thing for someone who is used to running around and doing things and having every minute planned. So I tend to drive myself crazy and I really felt that evening that I needed to calm down in some way so I went to this group. Really sweet people. No bullshit. No guru leader who followers are in love with. Just a nice quiet room and people meditating. I actually sat for forty five minutes, with about five minutes of walking meditation. My eyes were closed, and I sat in a comfortable position and nothing moved except MY BRAIN. My brain was going crazy..."What should I eat for dinner? I've got to work on my novel. I think my foot's asleep. I hate him. He's an asshole. I've got to work on my novel. Wonder what Will is doing. Should I get my hair colored before Thanksgiving? Do I have anymore of that cheese dip at home? Got to work on that novel. Dare I eat a potato chip? I've got to change my sheets..."

And on and on my thoughts went so by the end of the meditation I was exhausted. Everyone else was calm and their eyes were sort of glazed over and I was a nervous wreck. I felt worse than when I got there. I think I'm doing something wrong. Oh my God, I think my entire life is just one big mistake.

But these vitamins are going to change everything. Right? Where am I? Who am I? What the hell happened? Gouda. I need some Gouda. Yes. That is what I need. Gouda will fix everything.

See, I am getting better. You'd tell me the truth, right? I don't seem...strange to you in anyway, do I? If you could just hand me my purse.........................

Wallflower at the Emmys

2007-11-05T12:27:00.000-08:00

One of my legs is shorter than the other. I can never remember which one it is until I put on my pants and one hem is longer than the other. It's not by much. Just a sixteenth of an inch or so. I once knew a man named Lou Korn and one of his legs was six inches shorter than the other one and he wore a special shoe with a six inch sole. And he still limped. Every once in a while I have a nightmare about Lou Korn. I don't think he was a bad man but when you're a little girl a man with a big shoe can be very scarey.

As of today I am on strike. Oh, what a difference that is going to make in my life. NOT. All that is going to happen for me is that I'm just going to get older during the writer's strike so they'll have even more reason not to hire me when the strike is over. But I'm going to picket. Nice way to get some fresh air. Meet the people who are taking my jobs. But, you know, maybe they're right, those young, brilliant show runners. Maybe a middle aged female comedy writer cannot possibly exist. Because how on earth could a middle aged woman actually be funny? Yuck. Just the thought of a middle aged woman trying to write a joke is just such a turn off. Your mother saying something funny? Come on, we all know dads are much funnier. And the sitcoms on TV right now? Aren't you just on the floor laughing your brains out? And don't you just know that when Tina Fey turns forty she is instantly going to be so UNFUNNY. Just like that. Must be some kind of chemical thing. Like menopause. Funnypause. Happens in an instant to women.

Thirteen years ago I was left alone at the Emmy Awards after party for two hours. This was when the man formerly known as my husband was having an affair with a TV executive. (I know there's a joke about having an affair with a TV executive but I can't think of what it is right now.) The people at our table were the people who worked on a show called I'll Fly Away. They were nominated for some awards but didn't win any. David Chase ran the show. He kept asking me where my husband was and I kept saying he was in the bathroom. At half an hour away I said he must not feel well. At an hour away I thought maybe he had food poisoning. But at two hours away I realized he was in a bathroom somewhere shtooping this TV executive. At the time this executive was in her late twenties. The formerly man was in his late forties. Now I think I could go out with someone twenty years younger than I am but whenever I'm with someone twenty years younger I always feel like a mom, like I should tell them to button their sweater or eat their vegetables. There are certain differences between men and women and they become clearer with conversation.

Like...I was talking to a man whom I'd had a tiny crush on. This conversation happened about two weeks after the formerly man left me for the younger version.

"I did not leave you for her."
"No?"
"No, I left you because I was very unhappy. With you."
"But you spent most of last year telling me how much you were falling love with her and you told me all about HER unhappy marriage and you were leaving poems you wrote to her and about her on the dining room table."
"So?"
"And the minute you left you were calling her and making plans."
"So?"
"And you took her to Paris a few months later."
"So?"

Anyway, so I was talking to this guy two weeks after the SHOCK and his first question was...
"How many people have you slept with?"

I'd only been separated for two weeks. And I'd been married for twenty three years.

"So?"

Why is it that these guys always think "So?" is the perfect response? Sooooooooo, I certainly am not about to hop into bed with just anyone. And truthfully, I could not imagine hopping into bed at all right now. How could I even think about sex when I was devastated and lost and trying to figure out what happened.

"That's the perfect time to think about sex. What else is there to think about? I mean, come on, I can maybe go one week without it but two weeks? Don't do this to yourself."

And this guy was sixty seven years old. And he'd split up with his wife the year before and from what he told me he had slept with, like, dozens of women. Like dozens.

So when he left that night I was feeling like a total loser, a eunuch, and I went online and found the most horrible pornographic sight I could find and tried to see if I still alive...Down there...And I was, sort of...But it didn't seem right and I called my friend and he said...

"Good. This is good."
"Why is this good?"
"I'm going to find you someone to sleep with."
"But I don't want to sleep with anyone. I'm just getting over my failed marriage. I couldn't get into it."
"What are you talking about. What's to get into. You just do it."

And see, there's the difference. Men...You just do it. Women...Gotta have a reason to just do it. For instance, I think this guy's funny.

So it's a year later and I'm sure my friend has now slept with another 240 women and I won't tell you what I have done but let's just say I haven't met that many funny guys yet.

However, now with the writer's strike I certainly know where to look.

The Last Big Icky

2007-10-31T09:25:00.000-07:00

What was I thinking? That the doctor would just take out the tube and it would be so quick and so easy with no pain at all...Come on, this is, after all, The Year of The Shit and it is not quite over with yet and the crap just keeps on coming. So yesterday I go in to get the tube removed and it took THREE shots IN MY STOMACH to numb my insides enough for him to slowly, VEEEERRRRYYYY slowly cut out the tube. And once the shots wore off IT HURT. Like really hurt. There is a hole in my stomach that I haven't had the nerve to check out but it feels pretty weird but strangely...I miss that little fellow. My last tube friend. Keep feeling around for him. Wonder if he misses me? We were very close for those two months. I can remember the exact day I met him. August 27th. Around three in the afternoon. It was hot outside. We bonded immediately. I had another tube in my nose but we really never hit it off. He left after a week. But two months is a long time to be that close. There's a hole where he used to be. But I am determined that he will be my last big icky.

Last night while trying to find a comfortable position on the couch I watched the movie "Help!" on the Sundance channel. It is such a good movie. So much energy, so much creativity. You almost never see that in the movies anymore. Or in the theater for that matter.

"It's not the Beatle with the ring, he."

I have seen really good plays in the theater, terrific acting, great set, but mind blowing? Something to remember for the rest of your life? That doesn't seem to happen much. Now maybe because I was young when I first saw that movie it made an everlasting impression on me. I don't think I'd seen Help! for thirty five years but I knew every scene, every line. And maybe a twenty year old now would remember every line from...Saw IV...No, I know there are good movies. Once...The Wind That Shakes The Barley...I guess The Beatles WERE amazing. And, of course, you can't help but think about life. That George and John are dead and Paul is being taken to the cleaners (Awwwwww) and Ringo has had his share of depression and alcohol but at that moment when they danced around on a beach in the Bahamas they owned the world and John WAS more famous than Jesus and that must have been awesome to have it all but even so someone shoots you in the prime of your life and if you weren't aware of how lucky you were, than you missed the moment. Like I am waiting to completely heal but I should just "Be Here Now" hole in my stomach and all because you just don't know what's going to happen at two o'clock in the afternoon. There could be a crazy guy reading Salinger just waiting for you with Catcher in one hand and a gun in the other. And then, POOF, it's all over. But who knows what John was thinking at that last moment. Maybe he thought, "Wow, I was a Beatle." And then he could die with a smile in his heart.

Anyway, it is a really good movie.

Tomorrow is November. Only two months of this less than stellar year. I hope this is not all in my head, that January first will roll around and everything will be different. That's what I'm thinking. That I will wake up on the first day of 2008 and all the icky will be gone and I will be full of energy and eating cake and all the wars will be over and CEO's everywhere will be sharing all of their money with their workers and Detroit will again be the number one city for automobile manufacturing. It's all going to happen when the clock strikes twelve, right?

Right?

WWKD

2007-10-29T15:09:00.000-07:00

First of all there are times (like today) when I feel like driving around in a little machine (my car) is very unnatural. I looked around at all these other people surrounded by metal, talking on their phones or looking pensive or oddly dissatisfied and they all appeared so strange like they were in some futuristic movie from the fifties, some Roger Corman flick and I realized I was one of those people and I wanted to open my window and tell everyone that, "We must consume mass quantities of food or we will shrivel away to nothing and we must do it now!" but, of course, I didn't, I just putt putted along with my own oddly dissatisfied look on my face. I think I need to live somewhere with public transportation. I could take the metro here but I'd have to drive to the Valley first which would mean it would take me an entire day to get to Chinatown. That cannot be right.

Today I had to go to a respiratory specialist because I had that near death reaction to chemo. (I exaggerate...I did not almost die but the story becomes so much more exciting when you say "near death".) Anyway, you DO NOT want to go to a respiratory guy. Oh, he was nice enough, a good guy, but when you walk into his office there are a dozen people sitting there COUGHING! Spewing and spitting and I thought I would die just sitting in the waiting room. I didn't dare touch a magazine and anyway the only one they had was a magazine about allergies. And then a woman walked in with her twenty something son. She was a hunchback. She sat down next to me. And I got very upset because she was wearing a wedding ring. Since the man formerly known as my husband left me for a younger version, I notice these things. And I thought, selfishly, even a hunchback stays married!

Okay, that was awful, but she and her son were not particularly nice people. There were a lot of people in that waiting room and there were signs all over that said NO CELL PHONES but the son had to talk to his buddy, Carl, and everyone was looking at him and shaking their fingers and pointing to the sign but he just gave everyone THE finger. And his mother didn't know what was happening because she had the tiniest IPod thing plugged into her ear and it had a one inch screen and she was watching CSI Miami. David Caruso's head was like one millimeter high and they just totally disrupted everything with their entrance. But her wedding ring really upset me. I actually think it was my lunch that upset me but she really was quite annoying. And she had a huge purse filled with some kind of very strong cheese. Not a good day at the doctor's office.

But he told me that my lungs were clearer than anyone's in his office and I think I knew that because everyone else was dying out there. So it looks like I am allergic to the chemo I was given and I have my fingers crossed that I will never have to take it again.

So the wedding ring was upsetting enough but then I went to the liquor store that I always go to only now I don't get liquor, I get lifesavers, and across the street there was a bridal shop and they were having a sale. And I thought...Hmmmm, maybe nobody's getting married anymore. Or, at least, not enough people and yippee and goodie there will be all sorts of lonely gals out there to hang with. Gals without rings. Gals who get pizza for one. Oh, what a great time we'll have. Just us and Katherine...Hepburn...Some people always ask what would Jesus do...I ask what would Katherine do? She wouldn't even look at a bridal shop sale. Wouldn't care. She would just jump into her pond every morning and shake out her hair and get on with the day. Forget the hunchback with a wedding ring.

My New Yorker desk 2008 diary just arrived. That means The Year Of Shit is almost over. My son says I should call it The Year of THE Shit, like the year of the Ram, and I think he's right. The Year of The Shit is almost over. I think I should celebrate.

What would Katherine do?

As I Lay Kvetching

2007-10-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

Here is the one major bummer with being a writer...THERE'S NO ONE HERE BUT ME! I can see why all those Faulkner/Fitzgerald guys drank. It's fucking lonely here and yet oddly exhilarating. See, you've got all these characters that you are excited to write about and they have lived with you for a day or maybe much longer and you kind of feel like the characters are alive and that they are your friends and then you sit down and you write about them and you turn to someone to say, "Hey, Lulu is such a kook, isn't she?" but you realize you are only talking to yourself. Because there is no one else in the room with you. And you write for an hour or two or maybe three and it feels great and it's pouring out and you're sweating and you want to celebrate and..."Hello? Anyone there?" No. So you go to the cupboard and you get yourself a Scotch. I so get that. Although right now I can't drink so I go to the cupboard...Actually, I don't think I really have a cupboard. I have a cabinet. Anyway, I reach in and pull out...Oatmeal. Not the same as a scotch but I won't be falling down any stairs eating a bowl of oatmeal.

I think all of this means that I'm getting better and I've got to get out of my room.

There are two things that people say to me lately that frighten the hell out of me. They say, "'Wow, your skin looks translucent." and "You do look thinner." Now this is why that drives me crazy...Normally, I would be thrilled that people would say I looked thin. But when you've had cancer, translucent and thin really mean DEAD. You look like you're dead. And I'm very torn up about this because I would love to be thin under normal circumstances and translucent skin...Gotta love it. But I remember a woman I knew years ago who had that look and yes, she was dying. But she looked great. Everything was perfect just as she had wanted her whole life. And then, BLAM, she was gone. But, of course, who wants people to tell you that you look lousy? So you accept that translucent skin compliment and you just hope you live through the night.

I actually don't think I'm going to die just yet. Oh, I have so many things to do!!

Who am I kidding? What the hell am I going to do? Wash the tub? For that I have to live twenty more years? Go to France? Everyone says, go to France, and I just don't get it. You've got to get on a plane, which I hate, and you've got to pack and you never pack the right clothes and you've got to speak another language and you can't go to the movies because it's in another language and you can't watch Jon Stewart and there's too much cream sauce so what's the point? Maybe I'll take a train ride to Seattle. They speak English there, don't they? And you know those paintings in all the museums in France? I can see them online! In my pajamas! Do you think this is laziness or insanity?

See, I'm trying to figure out what exactly to do next. Can't do exactly what I did before. I keep trying to get to that place where you get so excited about "your new lease on life." But, I don't know, it all seems pretty much the same to me. What I realize most strongly is that if I died tomorrow, nothing would change in this world. It goes on, which is a good thing. The sun comes up, it goes down. Comes up in Paris, goes down in Seattle.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

Oh dear. I think I heard a response. Gosh, maybe that means I'm a real writer! I can have the dts without even drinking! You know what? I think I'm going to have me TWO big bowls of oatmeal. That should do the trick.

Hell in Paradise

2007-10-22T13:16:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't live in LA I probably don't have to tell you that it seems to be burning down. Not where I live exactly but I can see the smoke and my car is covered with a bit of ash. Actually, this has happened before. LA burns down every few years. And here's one thing that occurred to me...They keep interviewing people from Malibu, probably because everyone has heard of Malibu as the playground of the rich and famous and it seems like a lot of people are very interested in those famous people even though we who live among them know that a large majority of them are just plain assholes. But hey, there are assholes in Oklahoma, too. (I just had to sing the song "Oklahoma" in order to spell that state!) Anyway, I'm listening to these people talk, who have had their house burned down or are close to it, and they are pretty damned relaxed about the whole thing.

"Well, we're staying in a hotel right now because we can't go back just yet. And I took our things and, you know, if we have to, we'll rebuild."

And tra la la and what a bummer. A lady actually lost her, kid you not, CASTLE, and she was calm as a cucumber and she said she took her phone books!! and Elvis's fatigues which she bought at auction last year. Guess it's no biggie to rebuild your castle.

And then I started thinking about those people in New Orleans. How long has it been? Rebuild? Hotel? Oh my God, how screwed up is this country that some people have soooo much money that rebuilding their house is not such a big deal and some people can't even get those rich people to give them enough money to at least build them a teeny tiny home. Now I know some of those rich people give away a lot of their money. But you know, it's not enough! Who needs more than a million dollars. I'll bet those Malibu people could get together and rebuild all of New Orleans in a year. I remember when Suzanne Summers lost her house she was so calm and just went out and bought a bunch of new clothes and jewelry...And I have nothing against her. But isn't something wrong here?

I don't know, it just seems like some people are a little too calm about losing everything and there those people who sit down there in New Orleans with nothing and no way to get anything back.

I have not thrown up today. Whoopteedoo! This was not an easy week but I have a theory! And this is came to me, mind you, without going to med school! Okay, so at the beginning of my chemo my oncologist, whom I trust and respect, told me that chemo has a way of targeting the cancer. It heads straight for the tumor and any other areas that are affected. Like lymph nodes. So now I no longer have a tumor and supposedly everything looks pretty damn clean so what is the chemo targeting? ME. My pathetic little body. So it just poisoned the hell out of me. Now I don't know if my theory is correct but hand me a scalpel and I'll bet I can figure out some other scientific questions.

A couple of days ago I was driving down a street in Mar Vista and there was a sign that said, "Palm Reading - Five Dollars". I love palm readings. I've done them all over the states. I've taken my nieces and nephews to palm readings. Sometimes the readers are spot on. Sometimes they're not...

And you have to know going in that five dollars is going to become at least ten dollars but, hey, palm readers have to make a living. So I walk into this woman's kitchen and she's watching Ellen cry about a dog. At the time I had no idea what was going on but the woman said she had to watch the end of this but I should sit and would I like a cracker. Since I was nauseated that day I declined and I think I was about to vomit from her air freshener but she finally had enough of Ellen and sat down with me.

"So sad about her dog."
"Huh?"
"Let me see your palm."

I put my palm out and she looked at it a moment then took my chin in her hand and studied my face.

"I see you having many children."

Okay, right there I wanted both my money and my time back. Are you looking at MY face, lady? More children? I can't have more children. Can't you see I'm going to be one hundred and ten years old next year?

She studied my palm again.

"I see a very dark time in your life."

Okay, now we're talking.

"Very, very dark. A very, very dark, dark time."

"And?........"

"That's it. For five dollars, that's it."

See, that's where they get you. I'm going to have a lot of children and horrible things are going to happen. What does she know? She's just making all of this up. She watches Ellen, for pete's sake.....................I gave her another five.

"But after the dark time I see rainbows, I see money, success. You are married, no?"
"No."
"Oh. Well, I see that, too."

And that was it. She was not one of the good ones. As I left I saw her switch her TV back on. What a great way to make a living. You sit in your house, your cook, you watch TV and you wait for a sucker to come in and give you money.

I'm going to make a sign. Palm Reading - Four Hundred and Fifty Dollars. Of course I'm going to set it up in Malibu...When the flames die down.