Cancer Sucks

My niece called early this morning to complain about the cancer life. Actually, it's not the cancer or the chemo that's getting to her; it's the lack of independence. She's almost 32 and trying to enjoy a week out of the hospital with her two sons before the second round of chemotherapy. However, it's jarring to lose one's job, one's apartment, access to any belongings that might harbor excessive germs, and even the simple pleasures of taking the children for summer outings or going to buy one's own groceries.

I can listen, but that is most of what I can do today. I can promise a little vacation (if her platelets and white blood cells cooperate) later in the summer, and I can send money, and I can visit, but that's about all. It's a helpless feeling, knowing that I can't rescue her from any of this. Cancer is so damned personal.

NTD

now what?

It's the morning after the final graduation - well, at least until Anna gets through college or Sarah goes for another degree. I still wake up involuntarily to make sure that Anna gets to school on time. However, I trust my intrinsic ability to sleep too much, which should be kicking back in within the next few days.

My shop is open from 11 - 7, which seems so darned civilized compared to other people's schedules. I don't mind the occasional six a.m. alarm when it is warranted - but I prefer my lazy, leisurely schedule which requires no alarm clocks at all.

I hope that Anna's somewhat amorphous summer plans include no early bird scheduling, since she will still be home most of the season.

NTD

another day, another graduation

It's amazing how girls can fret about wearing the "right dress" - with strict guidelines spelled out in the high school handout - just to cover their entire bodies with a cap and gown in order to march into Hanner Fieldhouse with the other graduates.

10:00 a.m. graduation... so early for those of us trying to abstain from coffee for a few days.

NTD

six word memoir

My life: music, southern cooking, kissing.

Just one of those dorky computer challenges. Most of the time I head directly for the "delete" button, but this time the one-minute answer seemed about right.

NTD

Congratulations Sarah!!!

It's a three exclamation point post - my eldest daughter Sarah graduated from UGA with degrees in Latin American Studies and Romance Languages. And in a few more days, my daughter Anna will be an honor graduate of Statesboro High School!!! Three exclamation points for her too!!!

Some days it feels wonderful to be a mother.

NTD

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for. - Tom Bodett

The martinis at Christopher's are amazing. Overpriced and luscious. I have determined that they put fresh basil in everything, which this morning suddenly doesn't seem worth the extra five bucks as my head is pounding and my wallet is feeling considerably lighter. In fact, the revelation that my two drinking buddies last night confessed that McCain was their man in November is unsettling, although here in south Georgia such statements are not so uncommon among the white middle-class. I laughed it off and suggested that neither read my column this week which is titled "McC*Ain't". I didn't ask either of them why they object to the Democratic candidates, because I was buzzed and hopeful that someone might want to pick up my tab. In some circles, this might make me a martini whore. However, here in the Deep South it's also a matter of manners. Arguing politics with kind people who only want to relax after work would be rude. What's more, I seriously doubt that I can change anyone's mind in the midst of a cocktail conversation. I learned this back when I was a Christian teenager. All of those gospel tracts I earnestly handed out were quite a waste of good southern pine trees.

In any case, I paid for my own drinks. And, when My Lai somehow came up in the conversation, I assured them that I would never ever buy a piece of jewelry from former Lt. Calley over in Columbus, GA. I don't care how misguided a soul anyone tries to portray the man.

NTD, the diehard liberal hand who tries to wear the (sometimes tight) velvet glove of kindness

I own such a collection of old magazines that I rarely need to buy a new one. There are boxes of seventies-era Rolling Stones I have not yet gotten to. Eighties Utne Readers which are worth a second look. The first hundred issues of Mother Earth News, collected long after their publication in the seventies and eighties, bought piecemeal from flea markets and yard sales back when I aspired to own a working homestead. An Ode edition or two, a stray New Yorker on my bedside table, a vintage Whole Earth Review with yellowing newsprint pages on my bookshelf.

Thanks to my love/hate relationship to the internet, I only occasionally experience a book or a magazine cover to cover anymore. This disturbs me. Instead of the expansive cultural treasure chest that I imagined my DSL connection would open for me, I find the world getting smaller and smaller than back when I depended on my page-turning ability to see other realities. As a wise writer said recently in salon.com, we have neglected "choosing heartfelt, courageous paths" and instead spent years monitoring Nicole Richie's eating disorders and Britney's breakdowns. Tmz.com and even huffingtonpost.com have become my morning crack which keeps the adrenaline pumping between answering e-mails and researching more serious concerns for my newspaper column.

I gave up television long ago, but now I realize that I have replaced it with another screen. I don't believe that computers are inherently evil. However, I am feeling an almost moral imperative to further limit my time online. This is not to say that I would disable my blog, or quit selling books on amazon.com, or stop e-mailing my friends, or composing my newspaper essays. It's just that all of the other crap - the pseudonews, the gossip, the endless wikipedia inquiries - need to be restricted to a true "need to know" basis.

Meanwhile, I plan to don my reading glasses regularly and start reading those books and magazines on my shelves. I love the surprise of opening a book or magazine, the unexpected subjects and viewpoints which challenge my own view of the world a little more than staring at message boards full of bile and stupidity and misinformation. I don't want to be a snob, but I also don't want the opinions of bitter lonely people to fill my thoughts. There's enough of that in retail, which after all is my business.

Who knows, perhaps I'll catch up and start buying new magazines and books again.

NTD

confessions of a poptart addict

I started keeping a food diary last week. No worries, I have no plans to bore the public with the sad confessions of a poptart addict - well, let's just say that I won't post my eating failures here. Counting calories is almost as much fun as filling out an income tax return.

I never pictured myself as turning into a middle-aged gym rat who pays attention to the nutritional value of goji berries and white tea. And I am not nearly there yet. But all of this hospital time spent with relatives who are diabetic, heavily prescription drugged, and otherwise malady-laden has made me reconsider my leisurely life of body neglect. In other words, I'm overweight. Some days I eat like a teenager. Some evenings I can drink like a fish.

I don't want high cholesterol and I don't want to take prescription drugs. At 47, I have to admit that health does not come as easily as it did when I was 27, or even 37.

There you have it - the boring part of my daily life as it is now. But we went to a Lou Reed concert last week and I stood fairly easily the entire evening. I felt fine the next morning. And there's a whole lot of shows I would be happy to dance at all night, as long as my body continues to hold up.

Plus, Lou Reed is 66 and, judging from his biceps, lifted a few weights himself before this tour.

If ex-junkie hipsters can do it, so can I.

NTD

The Coffee Fast Ends

I ignored coffee for four days out of the past seven. I assured myself that attachment is suffering and felt free in my headachey under-caffeined state to move through the world with a hazy confidence. Green tea is enough, I repeated daily.

But today is Friday and I am not getting sh** done. So there's a potful of emergency Folgers(!) in all of its schwaggy glory awaiting me.

NTD