hair update

My hair is now 1/16 of an inch long (approximation) (ok, I made it up.) And I have 2, possibly three eyelashes. Nothing yet on those other parts i would have to shave or wax off anyway. Starting to wear wigs again to get used to having hair on head. Kind of a pain in the ass. PS Someone from Singapore read this blog. Maybe they can tell me exactly where Tibet is.

sleep, perchance to dream...not.

Ok, so now I sleep all the time. Or i would if I didn't have to work, or have friends who come over and drag me out of bed at eleven AM. I should list sleep as my occupation and nursing as my hobby the next time I have to list such things. SO they have a fatigue clinic and they give you ritalin, which I had previously forced my oncology shrink to give me for add-chemo brain. Wakes you up and helps you be less ADD. Well,it worked halfway. I still sleep, but I really concentrated on my dreams. And if they are a window into your subconcious, I am really fucked.

I always have this recurring dream that somehow I forgot to graduate from college, and have to go back but of course: I forget what all my classes are, I can't find the buildings because all the colleges i attend in my sleep are like on estattes with castles on them and such. Last night i accidentally wandered into a drama class where everyone in the class was going to be in a play. There were like a thousand people in the class, and everyone got a part except me. Come on, villager in the background with no speaking parts? Not even that? Of course always in this dream, I hadn't registered and/or paid for my classes on time, which really did paralell my actual college-nursing school-law school career. But I usually fixed it before actually being thrown out of class or not being allowed in the class play. Whch never existed, thank god.

But I never have that naked dream anymore. i think probably because of all this cancer stuff, my naked body has been seen, poked and prodded by the best of the Boston medical community. Whereas, before the cancer it had just been poked and prodded by random people who were not generally the best of any community. So if there is one thing cancer has done for me, it has been that it has taken away the naked dreams. Apparently now, not being allowed to be in the school play is more humiliating than being naked. I don't really see an upside to this, however. In fact, it probably means when i am really old and my brain goes, i had better have the grandchildren (which don't exist yet, apparently my fault, another story) start looking for a nursing home on a nudist resort. hey, not a bad idea for all you investors out there. Quite often, I have had to work hard to keep an elderly and sometimes less than elderly psych patient clothed. Eliminate one of the problems right there by opening geri-psych nudist units. It is only at times like these, when I have my brilliant ideas, that I wish Donald Trump read my blog. I am pretty sure he doesn't anyway, although he clearly should. I would watch his show if he read my blog. Well, I would watch it if i were awake, which I doubt that i would be at least after the first 10 minutes....

little-known medical fact

Beer cures neuropathy. Or maybe it just washed out all the leftover chemo in me. And, light beer just has fewer calories, not less alcohol. Clearly with all this wisdom, Harvard Medical School should award me an honorary degree. And a few prescription pads.

THE House

Maybe all that power-napping has caught up with me because I couldn't sleep more than 3-4 hours last night. Oh, could have been the Large Iced Coffee I forced a colleague to get for me at about eight o'clock last night. At least I never got into those energy drinks. Well shit, of course i never would, it would interfere with my napping and now that I think of it I am kind of pissed about the ice coffee.

But that is neither here nor there. I was lying in bed- awake for once- thinking about how it will not be long before I am rid of this house. It is funny (not ha-ha funny but odd or i guess ironic) how many of my recent patients have been undergoing a lot of different stressors causing them to need to check in briefly, and a good percentage of them have as a major stressor the fact that they are afraid of or are actually dealing with having their house foreclosed on.

I am actually one step ahead of the foreclosure people, but only because they are so busy foreclosing on my patients and making them crazy. I am selling my house as a "short sale" which means people can offer less than I owe the bank, and if the bank goes along with it (and i am told they seem to do this most of the time) I don't have to make up for the difference. Now where was this whole concept when I was on the buying end of a house? Oh, you are asking $500,000.00? I'll offer 279,000. Honestly that sort of thing is possible as long as the market stays bad. So I advise any of you thinking about buying a house to go out immediately and make an extremely low offer on a house that is being offered as a short sale. Of course when i heard about this it crossed my mind to have a friend or relative to offer an incredibly low figure and we would all make out, but probably someone would have found out and it probably would not have been entirely ethical, although it is a know fact that people with cancer don't need to be as ethical as those without because we have to put up with so much else. That is true, not just a raving of mine, I read it in a Real Cancer Book.

Obviously, I just lied through my teeth, which is also encouraged for people with cancer so that people won't start to think that we are just these sweet, strong people suffering bravely through our trials that life has given us. Actually, some people with cancer can be real assholes. I know I can.

So the house. I finally finished the paperwork with The Realtor. I do not think he is on this blog, at least I hope not but I will be a little kind. The Realtor drives me crazy. It is not him, it is me. I would not be as avoidant of a hot young stud realtor in a nice car with a personality, but my poor old guy has none of the above. Actually, I have gone so far as to not answer the doorbell when he has come by. This makes no sense when he is hee to help me unload this house, but really, I have stopped worrying about whether or nor what i do makes sense. Sometimes it does, more often it does not, but I have all these chemicals running through my body making me tired, or wired, or hot or cold, sometimes both simultaneously, my hands are numb and yes simetimes I am driven to the brink of insanity- and then right back to normal and then i go to work and pretend to be the one who is not crazy when I talk to my patients. I have to say, i can put up a pretty good front. Probably because all my venting and complaining is done to a few select friends and family and now this bloggerino.

Oh, yeah, the house, tha was what I was talking about. I am not the least bit sad that I won't make money on it. I made a bunch of money on the house I sold before I bought this one, and only put some of it into the house. The rest I spent on the best summer (so far) of my life- renting a cottage for 3 months and taking Laura, Cindy and Emily on a two week road trip in Europe. Probably the only vacation I did not come home from totally broke- and probably the last one, too. Being irresponsible with the money really worked out. I was sort of the mind set of living in the moment as who knows what's going to happen in the future. And didn't two of us end up getting cancer, Emily's much worse than mine, but i will always remember celebrating her 16th birthday in Paris with mimosas and chocolate croissants.

And i am not sentimental about this house. This is not where I raised my kids. In fact, i don't even like this town. Most of my neighbors are mean. I like a few things about the house or I wouldn't have lived here seven years. I like the kitchen. it looks pretty although I never use it and I really like the pool. However, I realized that about 75% of my friends have pools and they are all excited to be entertaining me this summer. And if they're not, they will pretend they are because they can't be mean to me because I havefucking cancer!

Plus this house has not been a house where good things happened. I movved here when meghan was already out of the house in college. First my brother's kids lived with me. The youngest was a pretty good kid, at least had some personality and helped me keep my hand in criminal law. The other one, forget it. I had to do an intervention and throw him out on the street- but I think he still won, it was a while ago. Once laura went to college and I decided to rent out rooms to poor souls who needed a break- well can I pick them or can I pick them? Actually one kid was nice, paid her rent and committed no felonies;of course she left after a month or so. Everyone else thought that I was just kidding about charging them rent and decided instead to occasionally give me $20.00. Those were the good tenants. I actually had three holes punched in my walls (one on each floor) by three separate disastrous roommates. I would have done better just hanging around outside a jail and when guys got out, offered them a room. I do have to say that our friends, who were related to the last batch of felons, did fix everything, so that is not part of why my house is going to a short sale. Mainly, I think it's the economy. Oh and maybe the fact that I remortgaged it a couple of times for important things like more trips to Europe and shoes.

But I will be glad to get out of this house. Good things did not happen here. My father fell and hit his head and had a stroke here. We lived here when Emily got diagnosed with leukemia. My neighbors-well, I think they hated me anyway for no reason, but then when my dog escaped and allegedly bit some psycho's adult daughter- I maintain, I saw no teeth marks, I think he just scratched her- they went crazy complaining about the dog. Now I notice that now that I am dog-free, they all have very loud dogs who I am sure bite people all the time. People in this town are mean. And loud- not that I ever noticed until my condition required frequent naps. Plus i got cancer living here and the basement flooded the last time it rained torrentially. More bad karma- two of the people I had hired to do some pretty good work on the house are now in jail. Not because i didn't pay them enough and they had to resort to crime. One is innocent and the other, well is probably not. Which is a shame, because he was supposed to finish the upstairs bathroom, which is a big reason for the short sale.

This will be a good house for a nice family who knows how to fix bathrooms. That is who I think is buying it. This is no longer a good house for me. I basically live alone, although Laura is here part time during summer break- but i do not need 4 bedrooms and a den? family room? sunroom? attic with I am sure sqirrells and maybe bigger animals? No way. i am moving into my friend Cindy's apartment for as long as she can stand me (I have 2 back ups if I drive her crazy but i hope I won't.) It is a big place, high ceilings and all that, and i will live in one bedroom with a walk-in closet. And i will have someone to talk to. And I can afford it. And she has one of those big flat screen TV's which is really funny because she is the least technological person I know. And the apartment complex has a gym, so i can go out and buy a few outfits to wear down there while I look around and don't exercise. And Cindy is fairly neat so i plan to get rid of 80% of my possessions and clothes but not shoes before I move in. Downsizing. I am becoming a minimalist. Unless that means something other than what i think it means. Yeah, bald, giving away my possessions, probably start meditating soon. I know it is not a mountain top in Tibet, but I think it is on the third floor. I am practically the dali lama. Yeah, I knew how to spell it before chemo.

HAH!

Remembered the code which I have again forgotten but was able to see that in fact one person in the United Kingdom read my blog. Or I guess someone could fake it. BUT Who would? Hope they were not insulted by the Monty Python reference. I would not be. I think they are very funny. Remember No one expects the Spanish Inquisition?

I have given up trying to make my bloggings (Certainly a new word I made up.) sound better so I get less offensive commercials. First, i clicked on the commercial thing because it said if people click on things, I make money and I imagined myself making 6 figures from my creative writing, and to this end, I click on every ad, no matter how stupid and have instructed my friends to do so. So far I have made $4.00 and change which they have not sent me. Apparently blogging will not support me in my old age. Plus now I must say I am getting stupid ads that even I would not click on, despite the fact that it earns me, I believe, approximately two cents. And then of course, i feel like I have compromised my art by commercializing it. HAH!!!! It is very sad if this is my art. And at this point, I would commercialize pretty much anything and i believe i have mentioned before that I am a little sad that I missed out on the prostitute thing. Maybe i could become one in rest homes- after my boob gets replaced, of course.

Maybe now I will get ads for escort services on my blog. Some people would click on them. Probably more than would click on the mormon geneology link. Also there are still bereavement web sites. Well, I certainly hope that they consider the vast diversity of my blog which is read not only in great Britain, but also Tennessee and Honolulu. Mormons? Not that I have anything aginst them and i approve of having several spouses at once. (I say that like I have even had a date in the past six months....) But where do they get Mormon from my blog? Clearly the people that work for the ad company smoke too much weed. So it is good that they have so many links to drug abuse rehab places.

Of course, none of them are in England..........

More things about forgetting and being tired.

I forgot the password to the thing that counts how many people view the blog and what countries they are in. Probably ok, because Australia only read it once. Guess i am not funny enough for that country. I am surprised that no one in England read it. I think that they would like it. Of course, i think all British people are like Monty Python. I think most people have still heard of Monty Python. They are not that old, nor am I.

I am trying to get this blog more about cancer so that I will stop getting ads about drug and alcohol rehab places and grief couselors. That is probably because of my new line, I have cancer and could die at any moment. Well it is true, although the cancer part is sort of irrelevant but I could walk out of my house and get hit on the head by a falling tree. Speaking of that, procrastination and cancer-induced laziness has proven to be an effective strategy is at least one part of my life. My yard was starting to look like a graveyard or worse, well I think even grave yards mow their lawns (people mow graveyards, whatever, you know what I mean.) and the cut down trees and brush from months ago were still sitting out there waiting for my ADD friend with a truck to take them to the dump. To be honest, the dump in this town is very confusing. it is only open like one hour on three days a week and I have shown up at least twice with truckfuls of would-be dumpage, only to find it closed for some stupid reason like the guy that works there had to go to the dentist. Ah, dentists, do not let me get started on that. Anyway, I just ignored the front yard. I think my regular yard guy started to blow me off because he reads this blog and thinks that I could die at any moment. So back to ignoring my yard. Eventually, a strange man and I do mean strange, rang the doorbell which I actually answered as I was not running around naked as I usually am, and offered to haul the stuff off to the dump and mow my lawn for a very reasonable price. So that just proves that if you ignore something long enough it fixes itself. I have no doubt that another stranger will ring my bell and offer to clean my house and do the laundry (because no, I did not fix the dryer and I am embarassed about my traiiler park clothes line so I just drop off the necessities to be laundered for me so there are a few pieces of not so necessary dirty laundry out and about in my house. Also, walking around naked is helpful in reducing laundry as well. But I feel bad for the lawn guy because he just has an old fashioned mower and it takes forever to mow the lawn unlike the guy who dumped me whohad this really cool thing that even i would use if I had one, although I would never have one, where you just stand on this thing and it cuts the grass and puts it somewhere. I think it runs on magic.

So now that there are secondary gains to my laziness, when will it end? Sometimes i think it is OK, that if I am tired, I should rest, I had a lot of chemo and sort of blasted through all of that and maybe my doctors are right that you have to wait a while after chemo before things are back to normal (Back to normal for them means it is then OK for them to cut me open- in only a very small area this time and then let me wait til I am back to normal so they can radiate me. I see a lot of cancer-induced laziness in my future.) Then sometimes I think that I would use any excuse to lie on the couch and watch old movies or law and order reruns, napping frequently and that cancer is quite a good excuse. Even my kids go along with that. However, i have noticed that I have missed a few parties lately and this is not like my old self. Perhaps I will have to cut down on working in order to party more. By partying, of course, I mean ice cream and cake, lest the people who determine what ads go on my blog start getting out the substance abuse counseling ones.

posthumous degrees

Well lately I have been reading a lot about people getting graduate degrees awarded to them after they died. Well,maybe once I read one article and it might have been in People Magazine in a doctor's office. Anyway, WHY? The main point of getting a graduate degree is to brag about it. "Hey, loser, I have a PhD from Harvard.....oh wait a minute, I am dead, never mind." So, in the afterlife, you say you have a doctorate degree, and they are not going to be able to tell that you didn't get it while you were alive? Maybe there are different cliques in heaven, or hell, or whatever there is out there and they wear T shirts to differentiate each other, "I got my college degree when I was still alive, not like these other losers."

This made me think of a good idea. " Dear Harvard Medical School, I am aware of your practice of randomly awarding degrees to dead people. i have cancer and could die at any minute. It would be more helpful to me if you awarded my my posthumous degree while i am still alive. A medical degree would be very useful to me right now as there are a number of prescriptions I need to write out for myself and my close friends and i really don't want to bother my real doctors, who recieved thier degrees while alive. Thank you for your anticipated cooperation."

Just to be on the safe side, i am going to start requesting post-humous MBA's because I may have to start my own company on the off chance that existing ones don't hire people with posthumous degrees that they earned while actually alive.