In which there will be slapping

Cancer is many things. How’s that for a sentence with zero meaning? Yeah, great. Anyway, what I mean is, cancer is not just a disease. It is primarily that, but it is also a club you can join, wearing a pink ribbon or a yellow rubber bracelet. It can take over an identity. It is a monster. It can act as a teacher. What it is not, is a diet plan.

I’ve lost a fair amount of weight since I started chemo back in November of 2010. It’s fine. I don’t miss it.

Every now and again, I run into a guy I haven’t seen in a while. Most recently, this happened at a memorial service — not a traditional pick-up site. At least, it shouldn’t be. “Whoa!” said the man I was greeting, “I almost didn’t recognize you. You been going to the gym?”

“I have cancer,” I said.

“Oh, yeah. I had cancer…” (launches into story I don’t care about.)

I’ve run into other guys who feel that they have the right to check out my new, lighter frame, give me the once-over, and tell me in an inappropriate tone that I’m “looking good…” It is so offensive to me to be viewed as a sexual being, as if I lost weight through cancer simply to look better. I loathe them for seeing only opportunity, for overlooking my entire situation. I really do not require long expressions of sympathy from every person I meet, in fact I prefer not to have that at all. But for guys who know my situation, I would really hope that they wouldn’t turn lascivious. It is not flattering.

I don’t go anywhere anymore, so this happens infrequently, but I got a voicemail from a certain idiot who won’t take a hint or a direct rejection. He didn’t ask about my health at all. Obviously, I’m not dating right now, if I were, I wouldn’t date him, and I’m not calling him back.

I did not get cancer so my skinny jeans would fit better. Side note: my mother is also fixated on my weight. I came out dressed in some straight jeans, and she said, “Wow… Are those a 4?” “Eight,” I said. “You look so skinny,” she said. It’s so great! It took only 37 years and a life-threatening illness to win her approval!

It’s crazy! It’s sexy! It’s cancer!!!

I can’t tell you how repulsed I am by guys who suddenly find me attractive. Next time I encounter one, the slapping will begin. Get it together, idiots. Not everything is about your stupid penis. (oh no! I’m a lesbian feminazi!) Well, whatever. My disease, my body, my rules.

In which there is sugar shock

My zebrella arrived today and is more glorious than my dreams. I wish it would rain oh how I wish that it would raaaaaaaain…

Looks exactly like this.

It’s huge.

My cat is on his blanket, making “happy bread,” which is opposed to the fiercer, more determined kneading he does to show dominion, which I call “angry bread.” Today is a happy bread day.

I hope you’re having a happy bread day, too.

I tried to send several things from etsy and online shops. I usually fuck this up, but today was worse, owing to drugs, so I apologize in advance.

Thank you,

Violet Veronica White

In which there is scenery-chewing

I confronted my mother on the moving issue, maybe I already explained it here, and she was all ” I never said I hated your apartment!” and on for fifteen minutes, and then a day of silence, then a different tack: crushing guilt.

A voicemail message saying, in Sarah Bernhardt tones, how Worried she was about me — no reason given. Just dripping with pathos.

I called this morning. I’m feeling horrible. She answered like I was her lifeline on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and proceeded to cite two bogus reasons for her drama. (One being that I did not answer her bathetic call the other night.)

I’m going back to bed.

In which there is Drama!

Sooooooooo… Because my brain, unattended, wanders down convoluted paths, I decided to text my mother so I did. And I went off/drew some boundaries about a couple of things, of which being that I like my apartment, I am not moving from my apartment, and I will scream until the police come of anyone tries to evict me. Scream!!!

Oh, the phone call I got. “All lies! I would never say that!!!” oh, the drama. There was an attempt at ferreting out my source, but I was steel.

There was a brief review of the “Shut up the cat/God wants you to have a new apartment.” incident, which she attributed to a lack of knowledge of how one might go about this impossible task, despite having lived with multiple cats for, oh, 28 or more years.

Anyway, I refused to give up my source, which no doubt just made my mother more wiley, but I made myself clear. I am not moving.

I’m sure she is pissed, but there’s nothing I can do. It does seem plausible that she told people she hates my apartment. Oh, well. It’s my weird little apartment. I like it.

TV on for company.

In which there’s more crazy-making

So… I told my mother that I didn’t want her getting an apartment down here. I told her that there was no reason for it. I told her I would prefer if she just visits now and again.

Well, naturally, she ignored my request. I got an email — sent to the whole family down here, like we’re going to be overjoyed — “I found a place to stay!” Fucking great. It’s one of her typical harebrained schemes. She’s going to be rooming with (and supposedly helping) some 300-year-old mother of a high school classmate, who remembers my grandparents, but not anyone from a younger generation.

I’m really not sure how this will work. Well, to be clear, it obviously won’t work. I’m so angry at her for going against what I asked her to do.

I also have a lot of anxiety regarding her stay here, because she’s been telling people she hates my apartment and wants me to move. Yeah. I can barely walk to the kitchen. I will not be moving. I pray, anyway. I guess that explains her asshole response to me asking her to quiet down the cat.

I just got back from LA, where I discussed the horrifying and invasive options available. I literally do not know what to do.

Right now, I’m going to take a Xanax, try to chill the fuck out, and take a nap.

A final note: for those of you who know my mom, I ask you please not to say anything to her. I am working on a strategy to manage her boundary-smashing behavior. Thank you.

A corner of my apartment, which I happen to like.

In which I couldn’t sleep at all last night

The rain is coming down, making a lovely pattering sound on the leaves of the liquid amber tree just outside my window. It’s a good day to curl up and watch Sunset Blvd., if you have a copy.

I owe a lot of phone calls and emails. I just can’t bring myself to do anything about it. I don’t want to answer questions. I don’t want to hear all about my mother’s widows’ grief group, or her widows’ lunch group. She has really embraced her status as widow. She likes to have an identity.

I’m tired today because I didn’t sleep at all last night. I could sleep now, naturally, but that’ll just lead to no sleep again tonight. And Monday, bright and early, I going to to LA for some meeting with an interventional radiologist. And I have no idea why. I forgot to ask.

Oops.

Amen, you know?

In which there’s a little dread

One reason I feel ambiguous about my mom’s next visit is the memory of her helping me last year. My cat was yowling in the stairwell, and I asked her to please, please go mollify the cat so that he wouldn’t bother my neighbors. I didn’t want them to complain about me, my ultimate fear being eviction.

My mother’s response: “Well, maybe it’s God’s will that you get a new apartment.”

In which every man is an island

On Monday morning, an elderly man put on his windbreaker, got into his car, and drove around the perimeter of the harbor and its many marinas. When he got to the last parking lot by the beach, he pulled his car into a spot. I wasn’t there, but I’m guessing he took a minute to watch the waves crashing over the breakwater. Maybe he was thinking about his own boat, which he’d just sold for a pittance. I don’t know what he was thinking, but it spurred him to pull out a gun and put a bullet through his brain.

He was my dock neighbor for years, and although I did not know him well, we bonded over the fact that he grew up in the same tiny town in Rhode Island where my grandmother was reared. Cap’t. Ron. That’s what we called him. He was a Vietnam vet, I believe a fighter pilot. And now, he is gone. In the wink of sunlight on the sea, a shot can ring out and rob someone of his life. There is no reason to it.

The news came while I had some out-of-town friends here, dear friends who understood my inability to get out of bed, and busied themselves like bees, and then settled in to gab with me. My love for these people is boundless, and I wish we lived closer.

In other news, I had a PET/CT scan today, which I slept through. Results in a couple of days. It will help me make a decision about what to do next.

Some people are saying, “What if this is the chemo that finally does the trick?” and oh, isn’t that a nasty little game to play. I think I’m going to need some pretty damn good odds before I jump into anything else that promises a lot of nausea, hair loss and other horrible side effects that I would, of course, get. I got pretty much every side effect possible, no matter the medicine. My hair has come back, but the texture is hard and frizzy. It’s unruly. It doesn’t matter what products I use — my hair screams “witch.” And anyway, it doesn’t really matter. I’m not photographed a lot, I never go anywhere, and I’m not dating.
The hair could look like anything. It might as well all fall out. If the odds are any good, I’ll try the chemo. I don’t know. We shall see. Right now, I’m going to lie in my cloud bed and doze until this cold goes away.

I hope today holds at least one moment of magic for you.

Also, today’s my brother’s birthday. (I have not shared this blog with him, and prefer not to.) He’s a great support to me, and a great person. I don’t know what I’d do without him.

In which I’m losing it

My mother is coming to help me clean. She can’t come right now cos she’s at the gym, but she will be here.

“You don’t sound well,” she said when I answered the phone. “Did you get your brother’s cold?” No, as it turns out, it’s just this pesky cancer! Can’t seem to shake it!

I had a transition dream last night. I’ve had them my whole life. They involve driving over a high and improbably angled bridge, always with no guard rail. Last night, my best friend Sue B was driving, and the bridge was so high, it felt like we were going to fall off it backwards. We just kept going. There was a toll booth. And then another, higher bridge. No one else was on these roads, and we just kept driving.

It seems to me that we had to get to Sacramento, which I guess is symbolic enough, and that there were many roads to get there.

I don’t remember how the dream ended.

I’m feeling today like I don’t want another round of vomit-inducing, hair-removing chemo. Largely because I can’t imagine feeling worse than I do right now. Plus: the other chemos I tried did absolutely nothing. Nothing! That is baffling to me. Me, who has no medical training.

I’m not up to it, but here is what I’d rather do:

Go to Paris
Go to Disneyland.
Go to a day spa for a week.
Listen to A Christmas Carol on audiobooks
Visit the Museum of Jurassic Technology
Have a good steak with a butter-and-wine sauce
Take a calm, leisurely sail on a little sailboat, and nap in the sun.

I guess I can actually listen to a Christmas Carol.

Here’s one last worry: my aunt said she’d take care of my funeral and I gave her very specific instructions. But now I’m having my doubts that it will happen. No, I won’t ever know, probably, but I really want something specific. Not some fucking PowerPoint slide show of shitty ’80s pictures and a hastily prepared montage board of more shitty pictures, standing next to the guest book and the disarrayed stack of programs featuring yet another shitty photo of me.

That reminds me, I have to work on my will today.

I am really trying to keep the fury at bay today, but my liver is expanding, which is both bad and hurts, and I am seriously thinking about saying Fuck it to the chemo. I cannot in good conscience allow myself to feel exponentially worse than I do now, without some reasonable odds of living more than a few months. This decision gets easier to make every day. Thank you, supporters who encourage me to kick ass and keep fighting, but I no longer have faith that there is a cure.

Maybe this’ll work.

In which I am no longer a burden

In my in box this morning was an invitation from Crazy Sexy Cancer Guru Kris Carr telling me I could win a chance to party with her! Woo! I’m surprised she didn’t somehow work in her friendship with Donna Karan or her appearance on Oprah, but all in good time. In case you haven’t guessed, the very perky Ms Carr irritates the shit out of me, cemented by her “confession” that sometimes (to be decadent) she might “dip [her] vegan cupcake into a glass of Champagne.” She’s just crazy like that. Yeah, I’ll party with you, Kris Carr.

Anyway. As I’ve mentioned, I turned over all my insurance info to my very kind uncle, who has been brilliant at handling it. “you should not be worrying about this,” he said. “I don’t want you to worry about whether your rent is paid, your phone bill, your cable… You should not be worrying about that.” I thanked him, and said, you know, when I get my money straightened out with work, I hope to have enough to be independent. He just repeated his statement, which is that I am taken care of, and not to worry. I thanked him. “You’re a priority,” he said.

It was hard to absorb, this generosity, for someone accustomed to being told by their mother that if I need money, I should probably sell my jewelry. (Because I am Elizabeth Taylor — please come to the auction at Sotheby’s.)

So, I talked to the nice Benefits lady at work, who was able to figure a way to get a lump sum roll-out of my pension. This is not a tremendous amount of money, especially after taxes and penalties, but it creates enough of a buffer that my budget, which has been thrown out of whack of late, is not quite as down-to-the-wire as I had feared. I was relieved, figuring that I could work out a new budget, and on the off-chance that I needed help, it had been offered freely. It was a big weight off my shoulders.

Which is why I was blindsided by a phone call I got yesterday from a relative who woke me up and started pummeling me with questions about some form I’m supposed to send in to the insurance company. It was urgent that I send this form in, urgent! I told her I had no form, and that I’d turned everything over to my uncle. Ask him. Jesus. Wtf??

She then started babying me into a happy mood by saying, “Aren’t you so happy that you’re getting this money? Isn’t it just so great? Now you don’t have to worry–you can pay for everything on your own!” I was taken aback. First, I don’t like being coddled into feeling a certain way, like I’m a distractible four-year-old. Yeah, I’m glad I’m getting the money, but it’s not like I just won the lottery. This capital, with my new health insurance costs of $600 a month, is going to disappear quickly. I mean, my salary just got cut to 60%. I am not suddenly the world’s newest billionaire.

The more and more she went on about how “happy” I must be to be able to use my life insurance to pay my health insurance, the more she stressed, in almost giddy terms, that I could pay for everything myself now, the more resentful I became, because it started to sound like she was the giddy one that I wouldn’t be a financial burden on the family.

And anyway, at the beginning of this mess, she told me she didn’t want me to be embarrassed or worry about money. About six months later, I gritted my teeth and asked her for $250. “Oh, well, I don’t have $250, but I can go to the grocery store for you!” she said, as if I was way out of bounds.

And anyway, the financial support my uncle offered me is not connected to her in any way. She just doesn’t want my uncle to pay for me. She is weirdly proprietary about his money, even though they are in no way connected financially.

“Aren’t you so happy?” she kept asking me. “You don’t have to worry anymore! Isn’t that great??” I was so baffled. It felt like being shoved out on an ice floe, no foolin. I started feeling defensive…Hadn’t I always paid for everything I possibly could have? Yes, I asked for money once, but it had been offered to me, and then was denied me anyway. I’m not giddy with happiness because we really are not talking about a lot of money. I’m hoping the money does the trick and pays for my health insurance until I die. I am totally freaked out about being perceived as a burden, which I think is an unfair characterization.

I’m getting that feeling that spurred me through young adulthood and beyond: you resent helping me? Fuck you, I don’t need you. It took me a long time to lay down that particular axe and be able to have healthy friends who didn’t resent being called upon, and who could call upon me in turn. But seriously, the implication that it’s balloons-and-cake time that I’m not going to be a burden can make me pick it back up.

It’s tiresome to help me? It’s tiresome to be dying of cancer. I don’t want to hear about how taxing it is to help me. I don’t want that help. I will not be your burden. Aren’t you sooooooo happy about that?

I have several changes to make to my will. It’s really the only payback I have, impotent as it may be.