friday five-ish

[fox]

1. Today I ate breakfast and my temporary crown stayed in place, which is newsworthy only because this is the first time in three days I've been able to say that.

2. Wednesday evening my dad said he'd recently realized it's been a long time since he's thought of himself as a terminal patient. Lately he's been thinking of himself as having a chronic condition. Nobody's giving any of the medical types a chance to talk him out of thinking this way; right now it doesn't really matter if he's right or wrong, because what matters is that's how he feels, and wow. WOW. (I spent a little while the other day looking back at journal entries from November onwards, and while I can remember how awful everything was at that time, the memory is more intellectual than visceral. It was a couple of months there where I cried every day. Now I'm going back to a regular five-eights work schedule and pulling a curtain, at least for now, over the scariest period. Of course this mists me up as well, but differently.)

2a. A friendly acquaintance in my chorus was out for most of the year fighting a different type of cancer, and was well enough to do our last concert and in fact had his last chemo the week of the performance. Everyone went bananas to see him at the first rehearsal, of course, and when I told him I was glad he was back I just wept. He was a little mystified, I think.

2b. But our director of security here at work (the sweetest, least security-guard-type man) just died last week from the same type of cancer the guy in my chorus had; and mrshamill just lost her mom; and another friend who was so extremely helpful and encouraging to me back when my dad first got sick, telling me how well his own dad was doing, just lost his own dad last month. My uncle is a long-term survivor but my aunt lived less than three weeks after her diagnosis. FUCK THIS FUCKING DISEASE, you know?

3. The level of woo-woo in my yoga class is fairly low; too high for those who are allergic to any level of woo-woo at all (ellen_fremedon), but not insurmountable for those of us who can adapt relatively easily. I don't get anything out of "om" myself, but whatever. I can hear them say "open to grace" and know it means "shoulders back" and go about my business. No problem. But I tell you what, my teacher ends each class with a valediction thanking her teachers and her teachers' teachers and her students who are her greatest teachers, which, okay, but every time she gets to the bit about what an honor and a privilege it is to take the seat before us, I am genuinely touched, and you know?, it makes me think of (Reb) kass, so when the teacher says she blesses whatever power put us on this path together (I'm less clear about the wording of this bit), I say a little shehecheyanu.

4. Gentleman Caller's mother is making blintzes this weekend for Shavuot; the details of what this has to do with me are not important right now, except that Shavuot means the book of Ruth, and the thing about Ruth is what a solid relationship she had with her mother-in-law. I'm just saying.

5. ♥, since we're on the subject.

6. Oh, let's be fangirls for a minute: Men in Black III, fun or a total disaster? I think I'm going to go, but the height of my hopes is sort of medium.

Comments

[thalia]

I'm really glad your father is doing so well. That's excellent news.

And I've heard MiB III is the best of the bunch, but we'll see. I never got around to seeing II.

[kass]

♥ indeed.

:-)

[twistedchick]

I am so glad your dad and your friend are doing well. And yes, fuck this fucking disease. In one form or another, it has directly affected everyone in my father's side of the family (as well as my mother, who had it three times) and killed all but three (two heart problems and a suicide, and the heart problem patients also had cancer). It took away my most cherished aunts and uncles, my grandmother and grandfather, one a year, every year, for nearly two decades.