June - 2017

6/30

6/30

It’s amazing the things cancer has made me less afraid of: Bugs. Needles. Turning 40. I have a vivid memory of my Uncle Lenn turning 40. I remember the pictures of the black balloons and the coffin shaped birthday cake. It was a weird thing for an 11 year old to see. Like ok, turning 40 means you’re almost dead. Great. Got it. Let’s file that away for a therapist to deal with down the road. I was thinking about this because yesterday was June 29, which means I’m now less than

6/29

6/29

Chemo is boring. It’s like having to watch three French movies in a row. “I’ve sat here all day, nothing happened, and now I feel sick.” They don’t tell you that when you first start. They tell you about the nausea and the hair loss but they don’t tell you that you'll get so bored you’ll want to stab yourself in the eye with a pencil. That you’ll get way too excited when the snack cart comes around and you get some Sun Chips and a Kind bar to break up the monotony. They don’t

Nature vs. Picnic Tables

Nature vs. Picnic Tables

I spent a couple of hours at Kittridge Park yesterday. It’s a small park around the corner from my apartment, right across the street from Arby’s. It’s an ok park. Nothing to write home about. Don't get me wrong, I’m glad it’s there. A little respite in the middle of all the traffic. Plus, I can walk to it, and things you can walk to in Atlanta are worth their weight in gold. I just wouldn’t put it on your Atlanta travel schedule. Don’t have your trip be The Varsity, the Aqua

6/26- Dinner at IKEA

6/26- Dinner at IKEA

Sometimes a couch is just a couch. Other times, it is inspiration. One of the major themes of our time in Atlanta, besides cancer and traffic, has been IKEA. When we moved here last July we had no furniture. And I don’t mean “no furniture” like how Jaimie says she has “no clothes” even though she has enough to fill 12 closets. We had “no furniture” as in “I hope you don’t like sitting.” So on our very first day in the ATL, that’s where we went. Jaime was thrilled. She was lik

6/24- This Summer's Solstice

6/24- This Summer's Solstice

When I was in college I back packed across Europe. One day I was talking to someone from France and they said, “Americans hate Sunday because they have to go to work the next day, and we French love it because it’s the day we spend with our families.” He was using that as an example of how France was superior to the USA and I had to agree with him because I was smoking his hash. I thought about that conversation this week because it was the first day of summer, and historical

Field Notes from Grandma's Part 2

Field Notes from Grandma's Part 2

Even though it’s this first day of summer, my mind has been on winter. Coats specifically. See I used to play this game in New York when it first got cold called- What’s in Davey’s Pocket? Maybe some of you have your own version of this game? It’s where you stick your hand into the pocket of your winter coat after its summer hibernation and see what crazy things you find. Anyone? Just me? Moving on… I used to discover all sorts of things, buried in the holes of my pockets. I’

6/20

6/20

“Why is there a copy of The Asheville Times from March 10, 1957?” asked my mother. Those are the things you ponder when you are going through filing cabinets at your grandmother’s house. “What on earth was she keeping this for?” I picked up the weathered paper with the tips of my fingers like it was a priceless artifact. ‘An Uneasy Peace in the Middle East’ was the title of one of the articles. As well as an editorial on how President Dwight D. Eisenhower snubbed Jospeh McCar

6/19- Steroids and Two Acts of God

Jaimie and I got into a fight last week and she blamed it on the steroids. I was like sweet, does that get me out of trouble? Yes, it’s my steroids. That’s why I was on my cell phone when you were talking to me. The steroids. I had a dream last night that I was in auditorium and there was a surprise guest speaker and that surprise guest speaker was Ted Cruz. He was giving a speech on personal responsibility and my first thought was, haven't I suffered enough? I was excited to

6/16 Containment vs Cure

This morning Jaimie asked me to help her carry boxes of school supplies out to her car. I said, “What about my cancer?” She shook her head and handed me boxes. The doctor who first broke the news to us was my surgeon. It was ten days after I got out of the hospital. I went in to get my staples taken out and to get the results of the biopsy. She made small talk with my parents, Jaimie, and I, and as she finished with my staples we got down to brass tacks. Kind of. She said: Su

6/14- The Test Results...

6/14- The Test Results...

Waiting for test results is the worst. I’ve been able to distract myself for the past few days. There have been classes to teach and baseball to watch. My mom was coming into town so there was emergency cleaning we needed to do. I love that emergency “people are coming into town cleaning.” You’re there, scrubbing the floors like, “We can’t let them see how we really live!” Also by ‘we’ I mean ‘Jaimie.’ It’s not that I don't clean, it’s just that we have different definitions

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