WWKD

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?