2002-07-10

4:34 p.m.

27 today. Not a very exciting birthday. I won two dollars on the scratch-off tickets �Moneybags� my grandma sent me. I tried to get wild and used up a bunch of daytime minutes on my cell talking to K and my brother. They must not have sensed my nervous breakdown or I would have a ticket to Rome in my hands right now.

I thought I would get crafty and attend the much talked about �colored pencil workshop� at the GC nearby. I took the day off work and I do have a BFA so I figured being amongst crafty cancer people would be a good way to soak up my afternoon. But I stayed at the workshop for two minutes. No one said anything to me as I wandered around the table of really old, unfashionable people. They were duplicating real photos and magazine pictures on larger pieces of paper with colored pencils. One attendee was recreating one of those family photos with the blue marbely background. It was frankly, damn creepy. I hadn�t brought a photo and it didn�t look like a party anyway so I left.

I went shopping for a present for my dad�s upcoming birthday. I bought myself a crappy fashion magazine with Lara Flynn Boyle on the cover. I don�t know why. The magazine always pisses me off. Their book reviewer one time wrote off Andrea Dworkin�s memoir since it was �too victimy�.

This month their super hilarious hipper-than-your-average-fashion-mag-off-beat-quirky horoscope section that asks �No time for the stars?� told us Cancers: �Your sign is named for a terminal cell-destroying disease. So your life will always suck.�

Cancer does suck. However, it is not a cell-destroying disease. Chemo destroys cells. Cancer is actually cell-multiplying. I wonder if I should alert the editor? It probably isn�t much of a risk to offend the .03% of the young adult readership that might be a Cancer and actually have cancer.

Plus, upon closer inspection of the construction of several articles, I am sure journalistic integrity and clarity are low priority. Isn�t LFB almost a B-list celeb now anyway? I should ask the desk clerk at the cancer center � she seemed to be engrossed in her People Magazine the other day.

My birthday still has a few more hours to turn around. I�ll get some new reading material in the meantime.

2002-07-09

2:19 p.m.

What a wild "devil may care" attitude I have adopted since confronting my mortality at the tender age of 26!

I just walked over two miles in flimsy flip-flops in a city more known for it's broken glass than tourist attractions.

I am feeling a bit reckless since this is my last day being 26 years old. I would give anything to get as excited about birthdays as I did when I was a wee one. Too many of my friends are out of state for a bash and my family has decided to have their own life and go camping so I am finding comfort only in the fact that I don't have to have chemo and I don't have to have it for a whole 'nother week and a half.

I plan on spending my last evening as a 26 year-old tooling around with my exclusive bicycle gang "The Schwinn Sugarbushes" learning how to pop wheelies or ride with no hands like my fellow gang member, D can.

2002-07-08

5:31 p.m.

Today, before I went to my appointment I stopped by the hospital�s cancer resource center. I had perused the reading material and information in the center several times before waiting for appointments. It�s a large open space with several bookshelves and racks for info pamphlets. There is a circular desk in the middle that is manned by a woman who I think gives off an aura that is contradictory to what one would expect from a cancer resource center. Not particularly warm. Definitely preoccupied.

Whether or not it was my preconceived ideas about this prim lady in a cream cardigan that led to my annoying encounter I have yet to decide.

I explained to her that I was being treated across the hall and told her a bit about my intentions to make a self-published instructional �book� for family and friends of cancer patients. I showed her the hand-out calling for submissions for the collaborative and totally low-budget zine project. She was surprisingly skeptical.

�I will have to ask my supervisor� she looked up at me from her People Magazine �They have to approve it, otherwise everyone will want to do the same thing�

�Have a creative and productive outlet for going through cancer treatment?� I asked her.

She smirked, �well, no. I mean� they have to approve it� so everyone doesn�t put their stuff out here�

I glanced at the �Knitting is the New Yoga� newspaper article copies stacked on a round table nearby.

So she essentially gave me the same answer. The same answer a fifteen year old gets asking for some odd special permission to eat lunch away from school grounds or something. I imagined scores of cancer patients flooding the center with pleas for book submissions and god forbid handouts telling their story. I could see what kind of a problem that situation might be. Miss Cardigan needs to protect her National Cancer Institute pre-approved information packets and American Cancer Society Wig Lists.

I felt a bit shriveled but glad I actually said what I did out loud. I gave her a copy of the flyer for her to send to the immutable and rigorous Cancer Center Xerox and Handout Approval Team. I�ll go back when I get my blood drawn on Thursday and ask her again. Maybe this time I will assume she is a helpful angel and the situation will magically turn around.

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