Coon Bones & Kate Bush

Last Sunday (the 16th), I had my neighbors over for dinner. I wanted some sort of closure with them, especially because, as a result of K.'s cancer diagnosis last Spring, we'd become closer; not necessarily intimate, although K. has shared intimate details of her cancer with me, but more involved--I cared for their cat whenever they left town to visit her doctor in Boston. I was happy to do it, because we're mostly just helpless onlookers in the face of a cancer diagnosis, and it was, at least, something.
The other something I could do was cook, and when K. hasn't just emerged from a barfy round of chemotherapy, she actually has an appetite and appreciates good food.
So I made a couple of spinach quiches and had them over, and K.'s boyfriend (the building's caretaker) somehow got himself on the topic of lucky mojos--charms or spells.
Specifically, raccoon penis bones.
Also known as a "coon bone" or a "pecker bone."

I don't know how the conversation navigated to this esoteric, somewhat voodoo-esque topic (I may've well been dining with the spirit of Marie Laveau), but he told me he'd ordered a number of them and passed them out to his friends, and he even wore his proudly on a lanyard around his neck at a friend's wedding.
For lucky heaps of marital sex, I supposed.
K. grimaced and said, "Eww, it's so disgusting. I hate touching it."
Apparently not having learned when to shut up, move on, or change the subject altogether, I thoughtfully chewed a forkful of balsamic vinegar-sprinkled baby greens and asked what a raccoon penis bone looked like.
"Well," he said, grinning broadly, "I'll show you!" and then ran down the hall and retrieved the thing for my viewing pleasure.
There, swinging at the end of a black silken cord was something that resembled a giant white fish hook. The first thing I thought was, wow. Lady raccoons get it good or get it bad, depending on your perspective.
He then put it on and we continued uneventfully with our dinner while K. and I emphatically ignored the curved baculum swinging on the lanyard around his neck.
The evening was, in spite of the interim pecker bone viewing, very pleasant, and I'm glad I had this time with them.
We ate the apple pie they'd brought, and then I sent them home with the second quiche.

On quite another topic, I curse the commercials for CSI that moodily play Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work" in the background. It wormed its way into my brain and I was finally compelled to download it.
Of course, being in the midst of transition and after a heavy week of teary goodbyes, it was probably the absolute wrong thing to do.
It's desperate, tremulous, scenes of slow-mo driving-into-the-sunset please-don't-leave-me vein-opening music.
Not that I'm planning to open a vein any time soon or anything, but I could easily conjure a painful moving day departure scene in my head, replete with soulful, long-held regretful hugs and final stumbling words of farewell and crumpled, tear-dampened Kleenexes pressed to reddened noses and rheumy eyes, which was all overwrought and dramatically self-indulgent and highly unnecessary.
Yes, time for BirdNerd's Mash-Ups. I need to happily rock this house, not bring it down.
But I still love that song.

A Good Year for Bad News, part II

I watched Hedwig and the Angry Inch last night, for a couple of reasons: because it had been reintroduced into my consciousness when my friend told me he was HIV-positive and showed me his Origins of Love-inspired tattoo on the inside of his arm, and because it was time, before I pack it in a box for the long schlep back to the west.



I seemed to enjoy it a lot more this time around, and found even more humor in it, which was nice. It was good to laugh.

And the kid who plays Tommy Gnosis didn't bug me this time. In the past, I really wasn't all that keen on that actor; he seemed doughy and uninteresting and kind of not real committed to the role.

This time around, I had a whole different take and really enjoyed his performance.

And I got misty during Midnight Radio, which is my second-favorite song on the soundtrack next to Origins of Love, and the message about becoming who you need to be and being set free (even if it WAS Hedwig who ultimately frees Yitzhak, although perhaps that doesn't need to be taken literally, since there's an element of fantasy about the whole story) really hits home with me.

But I have been contemplative since having received this news about my friend's positive diagnosis; I saw him at work the following day and he looked happy, his cheeks rosy, because he'd had a good check-up and I realize that this is how his life will go forward now: ups and downs based on the status of his health.

I thought about how I have known other people with HIV or full-blown AIDS who were already positive and living with it when I met them, but I have never known anyone pre-HIV who then transitioned into the status of being positive during the course of a friendship. This is something new for me, and I'm resentful that, as I get older, bits of innocence are being stripped from me.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't resentful about so much pertaining to this, in fact--that he's so young, that it's preventable, that it's a complex combination of personal responsibility and societal oppression that leads to risky behaviors (in many groups, not just among gays), that I feel like the Dominant Culture--of which I am a part--has won, once again. And it enrages me.



Which brings me to my next thought: I had this notion that the Midwest would be insulated, so much so, in fact, that I wouldn't be exposed to what I'd been exposed to on the west coast and maybe I'd get a bit of a break. And I see now how ridiculously naive that mindset had been. It all percolates here--Cancer, HIV/AIDS, child abuse, pet abuse, homelessness, alcoholism...it's just not as in-your-face as it is out west, and it all lies, radioactively toxic, beneath the surface of a benign celebration of "Family" as the only pursuit--hetero love, 2.5 kids, picket fences and corporate jobs. In spite of this culturally-ingrained Midwestern message, I feel as though coming here brought me face-to-face with my life in a way that living out west just never had. Which is weirdly ironic. If I wore rose-colored glasses when I moved here, I certainly lost them somewhere along the way for good.

But I also think I knew innately I needed to open myself to the world in the very ways that frightened me the most, because this was the only way I knew that would push me to grow. No, I have no control over what information is shared with me. I didn't know those words were going to spill from my friend's mouth when he said he had something to tell me. I don't purposely seek out bad news, and I can't un-know what I now know, but I don't hide from it anymore, either. And in a weird, profound way, maybe that was the best gift I could give myself, picking up and moving 1700 miles outside my comfort zone.

My friend's diagnosis was not my diagnosis; it's still his life to live, but now I am connected to him and his life in a way I had not anticipated. And, although this is not about me or my ego, it kind of is; it wasn't just his life that changed.

I get a sense that cosmically, more will be revealed to me, because I think I have finally learned that there are no accidents in life.

breathe feel love give free
know in your soul
like your blood knows the way
from your heart to your brain
knows that you're whole
and you're shining like the brightest star
a transmission on the midnight radio

A Good Year for Bad News

I don't think it's been a bad year, really, as far as years and accumulative experiences go. There've been trips home and new pugs and good, enlightening moments in recovery and a road trip that brought me and a friend and her dog to gaze upon the majesty that is Lake Superior, and last fall's Paul Simon concert and newly deepening friendships and a few cool purchases off of eBay and some really good meals. So overall, it's been a really good year, mostly, for which I am deeply grateful. All things considered.

It's the moments of bad news I could do without, but hearing it isn't as awful, ultimately, as being the one sharing it, because the one sharing it has to live with the bad news in a different way than I do as the mere listener.

I was on the receiving end of some of that bad news today.

A friend of mine at work--a kind, sweet, soft-spoken young man--came to my desk and asked if I had a few minutes to talk. I said yeah, and asked if this was something I might need Kleenex for, because of how quiet and serious he seemed.

He said no, but I'm not sure I believed him.

I chided him about the fact that he was a no-show at my going-away party as we walked down the hall in search of an empty conference room, even though he'd accepted the invitation and seemed enthusiastic and excited about attending. He just smiled and looked at the floor, but didn't say anything.

We found an empty room and sat across from one another. I folded my hands in front of me and asked what was up.

His voice was soft and nervous when he spoke. "Remember when I was out this summer and I told you I had Mono?"

I looked at him and nodded.

"Well...." he said carefully. "It wasn't Mono. It's...." His voice trailed, and I watched him watching my face, measuring my reaction through my expression. I felt my heart thump, because I knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"I'm Positive," he said. And I looked at him and said, No, no, because this is the first time I have been told but not the first time that I've seen this virus. It explained so much--the long absences, the huge weight loss, the sunken cheekbones and eyes, the new raspiness in his too-young voice.

I reflexively covered my face with my hands because I started crying and I could see that he was, too, that telling me was hard for him, and then I stood up and hugged him, and in that moment our somewhat casual friendship became much less casual and I knew something new and profound and awful that I didn't want to know but it was too late. And I remembered so many other men I'd seen, the blue-haired costume designer from Evergreen who died, and my mom's friend DeeDee pulling out clumps of hair, and the splotches of Kaposi's and the once-strapping, beautiful, vibrant men at church who whithered to such shocking thinness, too many to keep track of.

He knew the night it happened, and with whom. It wasn't a mystery. A one-night stand, he'd said. And we talked about his self-care and he said with as much frightened conviction as he could muster that he was going to fight it with everything he had or die trying.

And then I really, really wished I'd had a Kleenex because we'd hurtled straight into Major Kleenex Territory and I started crying all over again, a little harder, and he was put in the position of comforting me, which made me feel really ridiculous, but I pulled it together enough to thank him for trusting me enough to share such awful news with me. I told him how honored I was and how much I appreciated his vulnerability.

"Really?" He asked. And I reassured him. "Really," I said.

And we talked for an hour and he says he's taking it one day at a time and doing everything right, everything that he could possibly do, and he even got a new tattoo on the inside of his left forearm, a little split-in-two animated character from Hedwig, which I identified right away. And that surprised him.

"Well, I love Hedwig," I said, and told him about my poster and my video and my book and my CD. And then I apologized for razzing him for not coming to my party, cause I felt like a total ass, given the circumstances.

And then we tried to crack a few jokes even though a giant gray cloud of heaviness permeated the room and he told me he'd been keeping a little fan at his desk because he periodically broke into sweats, and I smiled and put my hand on his shoulder and said, "Welcome to my world."

A 41-year-old straight girl in perimenopause and a 30-something gay boy afflicted with HIV and we actually have something in common.

But I believe on some level that I have really always known that.

Beginning to End

And so it begins. The ending to my Midwestern Adventure.

Last night, right after work, was the Big Going-Away Party at the home of one of the managers from work, who offered his house just for this occasion (I really didn't want some random happy hour at a downtown bar. Boring.) He likes parties (he kept thanking ME for having a party last night, when he is the one who offered to throw it!) and has a Christmas party every year (albeit for select members of whatever team he's currently managing), and he always says he thinks his house was built for entertaining, and indeed it is a good house for that very purpose, with an airy floor plan, two levels and lots of gathering spots for various groups.

And a pool table, if you're in to that sort of thing.

He shares this house with his incredibly sweet and mostly-always-grinning partner, who bought me a big bunch of Mylar balloons (in rainbow Pride colors, no less!) with a top balloon that had cheery scrawl across it that read, "Good Luck!" The bunch is now slowly leaking helium in a corner of my kitchen, since they insisted I take them home with me afterward.



There were about 20 people there, a good combination from various aspects of my life--work, church, writing, etc. The food was great, and unbeknown to me and the host, my boss's husband and son showed up at the house mid-afternoon with a ton of catered Indian food--two enormous trays of samosas (vegetarian and lamb), tabouli, hummus, and enough gigantic middle eastern flatbread to feed a small nation. The manager who hosted the party had taken the day off from work to prepare (I feel honored by this alone) and had bought a ton of wine and other beverages, which is about all he had in the fridge (everything from bottled Seagram's Peach-flavored Fuzzy Navels, which are practically liquor-less and taste like liquid Jell-O shots, to decent white & red wines, waters, soft drinks, beer, Mike's Hard Lemonade, you name it...and of course, the top shelf assortment in the liquor cabinet).

He'd laid out shrimp and cocktail sauce on ice, crusty baguettes and some good cheeses downstairs; a friend of mine brought a magnificent chocolate cake--the same one she'd baked using Scharffenberger Chocolate for my birthday in December. I contributed my famous spinach-artichoke dip.

My boss' son arrived with his keyboard a bit later (a Sophomore at UC Santa Cruz) which he set up downstairs, lending a mellow, cocktail-y verisimilitude to the gathering (I joked that he needed a brandy snifter for a tip jar on his keyboard--he was really good!); there was a group card on the sideboard for signing, and many gifts. In fact, it felt like a shower, really, and as I unwrapped gifts with everyone watching, a friend bundled the discarded curly ribbons into a corsage and made me wear it on my wrist. The gifts and cards were lovely and heart-felt; a few favorites were a small, serene framed watercolor from my boss of a lake scene in winter (she said she wanted me to "remember the colors,") and a book from my brainy, hip church friends called "A Slice of Organic Life" with chickens on the cover, all about raising chickens, planting gardens, collecting rainwater...essentially, living with consciousness and lessening that Carbon Footprint.



I love that the people I've met here are people that reflect my own values and respect them and appreciate ME. I feel really good about that.

I got a few cards I read in private, because they were wordy and sentimental and made me cry, and I was touched by how deeply and sincerely some of my friends here feel about me and how they've shared that they will miss me. And I also feel touched that so, so many of them have said I'll make a good Life Coach. It's so affirming to hear that.

It used to be hard for me to hear that people would miss me; it made me feel bad, like I was doing something wrong by leaving. I'm healthier now, and I appreciate that they can and do express that to me, that I have had some meaning in their lives and have left some sort of imprint.

When the evening ended and everyone departed in a flurry of sentiments, well-wishes, and offers of moving day assistance, I was sent packing with a ton of leftovers, and drove home with a friend of mine and her boyfriend (who were given 2 grocery bags full of leftovers themselves) while the host and his partner stood in the driveway like a sweet married couple and waved us away.

I had a hard time sleeping for all the good, loving feelings this gathering elicited, and I woke up this morning feeling overwhelmed with emotion. For sure, I will miss these people here with whom I have bonded, but I am also leaving for good reasons--there is no pain involved in this decision, no resentment, no need to flee for negative reasons (except, perhaps, the weather). It's just time to take another step on my life's journey, and I'm excited to be back near the ocean and my oldest friends and my family.

And to start the Life Coach training.

Perhaps the nicest thing is knowing that I really did build a life for myself here, and that I can come back to it and visit on occasion. I did that; and I know now that I can do that again.

Two weeks to go at work, a few more lunches, the department-wide email announcement...then a week of packing, a few more goodbyes, and that stretch of highway 94--and a new chapter to my life--before me.

Laborin'

Good day for labor, it being Labor Day and all.

Hell, any sort of labor; I'm sure plenty of babies have been born on this very day.

And speaking of labor, every Monday leading up to the Big Move (since I don't work Mondays anyway), I've made it a point to pack some stuff. I usually scrawl a to-do list on a page in my little bitty pocket-sized Day Planner so I can see what my packing goals are--things like, "wrap/pack framed chicken prints in kitchen/bedroom" and "pack books" or "pack chicken tchatchkes" (yes, lots of chickens in various shapes/forms/sizes, etc.).

Today was a recycling/cleaning storage locker/packing photos & cards sort of day.

I've gotten a significant amount of stuff bubble wrapped & boxed up; in fact, thanks to the recycling room at the biggie corporation for whom I currently work, I've no doubt saved a bundle on all sizes of cardboard boxes and rolls & rolls of wrap. We regularly receive huge boxes with fixture samples, since we're in the business of building Big Box stores with a lot of "stuff" in them, all of which is prettily & helpfully presented to you (and me), the general consuming public, on various fixtures. And these samples are sent to us from their respective hopeful vendors, and all are wrapped like mad, just swathed in yards and yards of large & small bubble wrap.



As a kid, I loved popping the bubbles on the wrap between my thumb & forefinger. The big wrap is the most fun, for a louder pop; as an adult in the midst of a major move, I now see how wasteful (though thoroughly enjoyable) this popping pastime had been. But what do you know of Big Moves when you're a kid and most moves are done FOR you (basically, you're an accessory to be hauled along, like a lamp or a chair or the family dog, when all is said and done; seriously. I'm not being negative. It's just kind of matter-of-fact).

I also got my AAA Triptik made--this has got to be one of the coolest road trip accessories known to Motoring Man (and woman)! It supposedly takes them a week, but it was done in 2 business days; it's a little narrow vertical flip book, spiral-bound, broken down into 200 mile chunks with highlighted sections and cool fold-out pages for a larger frame of reference. It describes the scenery you'll see as you're motoring along--for example, as I pass through North Dakota, my route "...traverses gently rolling, semi-wooded farmland, once the land of the Sioux and Objibway tribes. Noted for water recreation, dairy and granite products."

I mean, I love this! If cat, friend and I must traverse nearly 1700 miles to get to my ultimate destination, it may as well be poetic!



So I'm feeling very good about my progress on this transition; my ducks are falling into a tidy little row and I can feel like I'm leaving as organized and prepared as I can possibly be. And this Friday is the "Bye-Bye Caitlin" party at the home of one of my managers, who offered to throw a party for me. Kind of an after-work cocktail thingie, good combo of straight/gay/single/married/co-workers/church folk/writer buddies, etc. Have a little closure here, then I'll have the "welcome back" party there. Which is, of course, one of the best and sweetest parts about going from one place to another.

On the road again
Just can't wait to get on the road again
The life I love is makin' music with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the road again.....

Not the best idea....

....in the midst of transition, when one is a bit more sensitive, open and sentimental, AND trying to pack, to listen to a resonant mix that includes Judy Collins ("Who Knows Where the time Goes"), John Lennon ("Oh, My Love") James Taylor ("You Can Close Your Eyes") and Cat Stevens ("The Wind").

Amazingly, I kept it together and got some more boxes packed, even though "Beautiful Boy" makes me want to crumple into a heap of depressed inertia and weep buckets.



Not to mention any version of "The Rainbow Connection."

And have I mentioned the late Israel Kamakawiwa'ole doing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow?"

Anything with a gentle, earnest vibrato and rousing acoustic guitar and I'm a total goner.

Thank God I'm generally bubbly and happy and don't have a propensity for fondling straight razors. Oy vey.

Yep, it's been a while....

...time to update ye olde blogge.

No real excuse, except perhaps indifference, a touch of pre-moving stress (a friend in Portland, Oregon, to where I will be moving at the tail end of September, said something to the effect that he thought this was probably the longest transition anyone has ever made moving from one place to another, and who knows, he may be right. I mean, I've known since January of this year that I was going to hightail it on outta the Midwest sometime during the summer or shortly thereafter. "Shortly thereafter" won out, cause I figured, why suffer through something like 8 months of winter just to ditch out on the summer? Even if it's humid? The days are bright and long and the sun is a blessing. And I love the Farmer's Market which stretches along a main street of downtown, right in front of my office, so I can buy a few things on Thursdays, like fresh green beans and bread and black plums), and a lot of time spent participating in an online Intuitive Eating (IE) support group, which I've really liked. It's how I want to encourage my future Life Coach clients--those who come to me seeking solutions/direction regarding their potentially unsatisfactory relationships to their bodies and food and the self-loathing, punitive and sometimes dangerous practice of "dieting"--to eat.

I know a lot of people--myself included, and primarily women--who have had very dysfunctional relationships to their bodies and food (most of whom have dieted unsuccessfully, only to regain their weight), and Intuitive Eating seeks to examine the root cause of unconscious eating, how food is used emotionally and as comfort, rather than as nutrition. The outcome is a healthy relationship to food, mindful eating, increased enjoyment in the process of eating, and, finally, a natural release of weight.
Not "thinness," because everyone's body is different and "thin" is an artificial construct perpetuated by crappy, bulimia-inducing pop-culture chick-mags like Cosmo and a bunch of bratty, wealthy, bored, narcissistic chickie-babes with too much time on their hands (think Paris or Nicole).
IE is an interesting process but one I deeply believe in--even when I was struggling with weird off-and-on diets all my life, I still read "Thin Within," "Diets Don't Work," "Eating Awareness Training" numerous of Geneen Roth's books, and most recently, "Intuitive Eating." All are excellent.
I do feel most women have some level of disordered eating, and I am convinced it's rooted in emotion. I had very disordered eating most of my life and only now, at 41, have really begun to let go of it, probably because I am already in recovery and this is one more "leftover" dysfunctional practice that doesn't serve me anymore.
A lovely outcome of IE is a renewed, positive relationship to one's body (and no more diets!). I no longer see mine as something imperfect and disgusting that needs reigning in or to be "controlled" or punished (the hallmark of diets). It's served me very well for my entire life and it needs love and nurturing. As Geneen Roth says, "Many people want to lose weight because they believe it will make them happy and stop their pain. So it's not so much the weight they want to lose, but the pain."
Examining that pain--the reasons we eat that have nothing to do with true body hunger--is the crux of IE.
Most people don't trust IE or its practices; I have a friend who has expressed discomfort with the idea of eating quietly, without distraction (in this case, the TV in the background); she said she didn't like to hear people chew, and I thought a lot about that in the ensuing days.

Anyway, the recent bridge collapse here in Minnesota (for a change, it wasn't something collapsing in California) served as a stark, tragic reminder that life is short and shittily random, and I'd hate for my last day's worth of meals to be some horrid, low-fat, low-carb, low-salt, low-suger, high-fiber, under-1200-calories misery. I mean, what IS that?
There is a saying that goes something like, Life is unpredictable so always eat dessert first.
I would rescind that to say, eat what makes you hum.
And, just quickly, back to the bridge: yes, we all hate paying taxes, but when they're earmarked in ways that positively support a society--good, accessible, affordable education and functional, well-stocked schools, say, and a sound, reliable infrastructure--then they're necessary.
Levees and bridges shouldn't collapse (this bridge was in need of repair but our moronic twice-elected current governor vetoed "upgrade funds" in favor of other pet projects like, oh, a new stadium...ahem)....
And human beings were not meant to diet.
And that's where I'll conclude this entry.

One Hot Mama, part deux

Okay.
So, back in March (ALREADY! Holy shit, but time hurtles ever onward; but that's another post.....) I'd written about the Saga of my Hair and how I was ready for a change and how that change involved a throwback hairstyle from my childhood and from Jane Fonda's Hanoi Jane/"Klute" period (namely, The Shag) and how my former hairdresser simply wasn't getting it around the look I wanted and so I quietly fired the dude and found a new hairstylist--a woman--who gave me exactly the shaggy 'do I'd been questing for. And it got long.
Long for me is to my shoulders and down--way down--past my ears.
But then we moved swiftly from Spring into Humid Summer, and the 'do would not behave.

I have cowlicks up the kazoo--on my crown, at my forehead, at the nape of my neck. And I have a bit of wave, especially around said cowlicks.
So, no, contrary to popular belief, my hair is actually NOT dead straight (it used to be more-or-less dead straight when I was wee. I am no longer wee, and let let me tell you, your hair texture does change as you get older).
I am also not the sort to flat-iron and do a lot of conking/manipulating in order to achieve a Look. I work for a big corporation that hires a lot of 20-something chickie-babes who tend to pretty much be knock-offs of one another. Lots of them are blond (this being the Midwest) and lots of them have long, flat-ironed swingy hair.
In my opinion, they are all interchangeable.
Hair, to me, needs to be sexy, but also fun, kicky, simple, relaxed and terribly easy to style, for men as well as women (it is advisable that you NOT resemble an uptight, self-loathing brain-dead refugee from the Republican National Committee). Personally, I like finger-styling my hair. I am not opposed to running some goop through my locks to add volume, hold and shine--in fact, these are attributes I rather appreciate in a head of hair--but beyond that, I need simplicity.
Especially when it's humid beyond belief and when, after much early-morning pre-work wrangling my hairstyle lasts all of 2.5 seconds and ends up wildly fluffy and weirdly wavy and completely unmanageable after a quick swim to the bus stop.
Which it has since, oh, May.
And so, observing all the chicly-shorn, cropped pixie cuts adorning the program-working heads of many of my fellow 12-steppers, I decided to return to a shorter 'do. A little different then my usual pixie, with more verve, choppiness, texturizing and kicky personality.


As she cut it, I felt the Real Caitlin emerging again.
And, yes, this latest hairstyle has indeed been subjected to bouts of horrid, cat-flattening humidity (my cat Abby becomes about 5 feet long and flat as a bear rug when it's hot out) and has held up a heckuva lot better. No whirls and whorls, no unholy, unruly flips and flops, no throwing up my hands in the women's restroom and shoving the fluffiness behind my ears.
Oh, and I have bangs again. Cute, fun, textured eye-enhancing bangs.
I have learned that living in the nation's midsection means necessarily submitting to the wild extremes of the weather, in many ways, and my hair is no match for this region's humidity. And just like my impending return to the west coast, getting my hair cut shorter is a return to what I know, to what works, to what is familiar and comfortable and ultimately very me.
So now I'm more of a Cute Mama.
And that suits me just fine.

When in doubt, increase your options

I'm terrible at making up my mind. I mean, I ultimately do, about many things and in many circumstances, but usually only after much hemming and hawing and weighing and measuring and speculating and waffling. According to the Meyers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, I am an INFJ; this stands for "Introvert/Intuitive/Feeling/Judging" and everything has a percentage.

I am 40% Judging. This not only means I tend to be opinionated (I am), it means I assess a given situation and often have a hard time coming to a decision.

This difficult aspect of my personality manifested itself this afternoon as I stood gazing into the freezer case at the grocery store. I wanted ice cream. It's been hot. And cool foods are good for hot days (see my earlier post on mayonnaise).



In fact, I headed to the store wanting a specific flavor of ice cream: Mocha Almond Fudge, to be exact. My favorite, just about, made by Dreyer's (or "Edy's" out here).

There I stood. But they did not have my flavor. They had many others, but not Mocha Almond Fudge, and I walked to the store in 90 degree heat specifically to get Mocha Almond Fudge.

Which meant, I had to decide on an approximation. And after picking up and putting down numerous half-gallons of ice cream of other brands and flavors, I finally settled on two pints of Ben & Jerry's--Coffee Heathbar Crunch and Mint Chocolate Cookie. Because a singular decision just wasn't being reached and I didn't want Buyer's Remorse, heading home with an entire half-gallon of something I'd get bored with. So I did the next best thing.



I decided I didn't need to limit my options, that I actually had choices about things in life (thank you, Al-Anon!), and instead of settling for one flavor I really liked, I'd settle for two. It felt indulgent and terrific and exactly like the right decision to have made. After all, variety is the spice of life, as they say.

I don't know who "they" is, but it works for me.

Yum.

Happy Feet

My dad, at the ripe ol' age of 75, is one hip (or "hip-ish") dude.

He wanted--and received--a pair of those foamy, plastic-y, trendy "Crocs" shoes for Father's Day, and he's been wearing 'em.

It's a respectable color, nothing outrageous (tho he did say he'd agree to wearing yellow, if they'd had 'em, as he has a penchant for most things either yellow in color or lemon in flavor, but the place they were ordered from had only more conservative colors in stock), and they seem to fit him fine.

But I don't think my sister's pug, Noelle, quite knows what to make of them.

Without further ado, I bring you my father's feet (and I think this is a hilarious picture, so this post was an excuse to use it):

Bring Out the Best

It's summer. Well, not quite; not officially, but soon. June 21st, to be exact.

Although, really, right around Memorial Day, and then just after the holiday itself, summer happens in earnest. It gets hot. Armpits and legs needs constant shaving (if you're a chick; hell, even if you're a guy and you're into it. This is a liberal, equal-opportunity, live-and-let-live kind of blog). The window air conditioner gets installed and my personal guilt rises about the hole in the ozone and just what sort of "carbon footprint" I'm making while the cat and I cool off.

But perhaps the most overt harbinger of the seasonal shift is gustatory. Plebeian and gustatory, but gustatory nonetheless.

I begin eating a LOT of mayonnaise.



Potato salad gets made. So does tuna salad. And in goes the mayo. And, admittedly, a bit of sour cream like the best Jewish Delis, but this blog entry is an ode to my mayonnaise-loving WASP side.

It's the kind of cool meal a body wants on a long, hot, bright day that wakes you up at 5:00 and doesn't end till around 9:30, when the sun finally decides to fade out of sight and leave the next 8 hours or so to the moon and the mosquitoes.

In fact, I made tuna salad for dinner yesterday, and had it for lunch today. I plan to have it for lunch tomorrow. I was inspired by a friend at work who had whipped up a batch for her husband and son. Just a few weeks ago, I made a batch of potato salad with redskin potatoes I'd bought at the farmer's market; they hold their shape well and don't just crumble into pasty mush when you mix 'em.

It hits the spot, when the mercury registers 90 and warnings are posted about air quality.

Sure, there are other warm-weather comfort foods that aren't mayonnaise-based. Deviled Eggs. Anything grilled. Fruit salad. Ice cream. And these are all good and delicious and very Betty-Crocker-in-the-50's, and they definitely all hold an esteemed spot in the pantheon of Classic American Cookery.



But to me, quite simply, it's just not summer 'til I get my mayonnaise.

Pack it in

Man, I am just itching to get the hell outta dodge, and I am so totally okay admitting that, here and anywhere else.

Just recently, one of my managers at work--conversationally, in passing--asked if I'd chosen an actual departure date for leaving Minnesota. At that time, I hadn't, really; all I knew was that I was leaving sometime in early October, and that was about all I'd established. So I went back to my desk and flipped through the calendar that hangs on the wall there and figured out a date to be done with work (September 21st, a Friday) and to be done with Minnesota (September 29, a Saturday).

Which should land me at my destination (Portland) sometime within that first week of October, and that was always the plan.


And not only can I not wait for salt air, mountain passes, the beach and fresh seafood, I can't wait to be back in a place where I am simply not esoteric (or if I am at all, no one gives a rat's ass either way), where I am, instead, pretty much the norm, or just some variation of the norm.

Here in the Midwest, I just always have this strange, overriding sense that, no matter how much I'm liked by people, how "down" with me my friends have been, I'm still a titch quaint in my perspectives and dealings with the world. I rant about things like global warming and eating less meat and gender roles and living car-less, and I most often receive kind, tight-lipped smiles and the verbal equivalent of a "there, there" pat on my head.

Okay, well. This might be a bit extreme. I admit, I am a bit crabby today because of a head cold I developed over the weekend, and now that I'm doing the actual work of preparing to leave--I've cleaned out my closet (3 huge bags of little-worn clothes) and 3 shelves of my living room built-in (lots of crap amassed there over the last 4.5 years since I've been living in this apartment)--I have my "eyes on the prize," so to speak (my destination) and I'm getting restless to be there. The ball is rolling, and my feet are itchy.

But time does go quickly, and it will soon enough be the date of my departure. In the meantime, I busy myself with adding tasks to my growing to-do list, such as getting my cat a new carrier/pet stroller thing for her comfort during the long drive and buying an American Automobile Association (AAA) membership, very practical for triptych plotting, as well as in the event of a van breakdown somewhere en route across the continent.



Stuff like that.

I'm transitioning already, slowly, and caring less about things here and more about things there. And I'm just excited to be closer to my family and to be spending October out west (I love that month) and to be able to buy a much cheaper plane ticket home for Christmas and to start the Life Coach training (ah, a career that doesn't involve outsourcing to partners in India!). And my friends have been very accommodating--one is accompanying me on the cross-country drive, one is letting me stash my crap in her "extra" room once I get there (there's a whole history here that I won't indulge, but let me just say, she is an utter doll for agreeing to this), and one that is letting me crash with him while I regain my footing there.

So I'm excited and growing more restless by the day, and I have the vague-yet-palpable sense that I am beginning to slowly, surely, identifiably pack it in and hang it up and call it quits. The summer will unfold and soon it'll be the first hints of fall and then the end of September and there I'll be in a van, cat, plants & friend, motoring across the miles.

As Gonzo sings in the Muppet Movie,"You can just visit/but I'm going to stay/I'm going to go back there someday."

No love lost

I hate the weather here.

Now, I know some of the people who peek at this blog are native Minnesotans, and they love this state with every cell in their bodies; they were born here, some of them got married here and had kids here and continue to happily, lovingly call it home. And that is okay with me. They are absolutely entitled; they can love it. And they can know that this is where we part ways, where we stop seeing eye-to-eye, that I simply do not share their fondness for this region. Perhaps I am not built for it, or I'm too wussy and soft, or I merely bitch way too much, or I am impatient or unrealistic or I give up too easily. Perhaps.



Whatever the case, I must vent. I am at the mercy of the weather here, and I hate it.

Hate it, hate it, hate it.

It's either somewhere below zero and the windows are frozen shut and it hurts to breathe or you're slogging through snow up to your kneecaps, or it's humid and your hair frizzes and your thighs rub and your chest feels clammy and the air begins buzzing with mosquitoes and then the skies open up with an amazing clap and rain dumps from the heavens at a breathtaking rate.



This is what happened this evening, just as (wouldn't you know) I left my apartment to catch the bus and get to where I needed to be by 6:30. Two blocks into it, my jeans were soaked to the knees and my Tevas were squishing water with each step. And so I said, fuck this, I'm going home. And so I turned on my squishy heel and went home and everything has been peeled off and is drying and my plans have fallen completely through and I'm pissed.

I don't have a car, which I mostly like, but sometimes, I admit, it can be very challenging. Sometimes. On days such as this, when I leave work early, rush around, clean the dishes, change and make my lunch for the next day, only to have my plans rudely aborted by the unpredictable Plains weather.



Bleh. I have never lived in rain this hard; yes, it rains on the west coast, but it tends to hang around and fill the air mistily or fall steadily, and one can (I feel) more easily cope; one doesn't come away after 2 traversed blocks soaked to the skin and looking like something the dog dragged in.

In many ways, this place has been very, very good to me, and good FOR me, perhaps more importantly. Indeed, there will be much to miss when I move, like my 12-step group, my church, my apartment, and the friends I've made.



But I can say with absolute certainty that never, not ever, not even once, not even briefly, will I miss the weather.

My Bad

Okay, so.

It appears I haven't posted anything since May 6th. And this is sort of a problem for me. Not because I'm into over-functioning; in fact, I enjoy a bit of leisurely foot-dragging from time to time and do truly appreciate the relaxing merits of the whole couch potato metaphor.

I just can't go that long without saying something about something.

I was out of town for a week, soaking in the delights of the Bay Area, where I was visiting my family and attending an Al-Anon 12-step retreat called "Let Go & Get a Grip" (more on the retreat later; it was an intense experience and worth the dedication of an entire post) so I wasn't in the mindset to ruminate and come up with anything.



I suppose I could've kept a sort of running commentary on the other day-to-day events with which I occupied my time in Berkeley--pedicure (I had one in Portland last summer with a friend which was WAYYY better; this particular place has gone way downhill, but you can't really tell that just by staring at my toes), great food (same Chinese restaurant 3 times, in fact, and may I just share the observation that prawns taste totally different 'out there' then here in the Midwest), a visit to A.R.F. (Tony LaRussa's Animal Rescue Foundation in Walnut Creek--I wanted to adopt about 10 cats and dogs), shopping (I splurged on a great outfit in my eye color at one of my favorite boutiques in North Berkeley called Bryn Walker), walking my sister's pug up the street, and basically just enjoying the company of my family, whom I have come to appreciate more and more as I (and they) get older, and since I have moved 1500 miles away.

Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

It was hard to leave (I cried--I ALWAYS cry when I leave the Bay Area, so I'm glad I decided to pay attention to that overt and repetitive emotional cue that I need to be back on the west coast, and I will be by October of this year; I'm so rooted there, to that whole west coast metaphor), but it was good to see my kitty again (who was a bit of a problem child in my absence, having been unflatteringly described as a "meth factory rat catcher" by my neighbor; I have since made amends with the offering of a home-made carrot cake with cream cheese frosting;

food cures all. Almost. And, for the record, tho a bit scratched, my neighbor is not at all ticked. It was all quite amusing, actually) and sort of get back into my day-to-day routines.

Like cooking. And walking.

And, yes, updating my blog.

No Words

I got up early--too early--Saturday to participate in the Humane Society pet Walk-a-Thon. I suspect it once started out solely as "Dog Walk-a-Thon," but many people bring other sorts of pets--lizards, cats (many of whom were being pushed in pet strollers or closely cuddled in kitty versions of human baby "Snuglis"), ferrets, even a rat in a tiny plastic cage with shavings in it, strapped to a Radio Flyer wagon as part of an ad-hoc circus train coterie of creatures, all of them apparently owned by one single family.



It's always a good-natured, whacked-out event; as I've mentioned in other posts, animal lovers can be quite eccentric. I count myself among that lot, though as I get older, my eccentricities and my mad love for my fat tabby are the least of my concerns.

I attended the walk with a friend, her mom and her Border Terrier (the "Benjie" dog), and had a fine time, even though we turned around about a quarter of the way through and left. All told, we spent about 3 hours there and patted the heads, sides and hindquarters of quite a canine assortment.

Lots of pugs. That's always good.

When I came back, my neighbors were chatting with a friend, and as their front door was wide open (and they are directly across the hall from me), they saw me approach and started chatting with me. She told me she'd had her first chemo treatment Thursday.
I wasn't sure how someone undergoing chemo should or would look. She looked....normal.
She was chatty and fairly animated and didn't look too tired. She showed me what others had done for her; there was a lovely hand-made quilt on her bed, a stack of carefully-knitted prayer shawls on her chest of drawers. A cluster of mylar balloons bobbed in the air.
And she had all her hair. For now.
"I get another round next week," she said. It would be a different, more potent combination of drugs. That, she said, is what would make her hair fall out.
"All of it?" I asked.
"Yep," she said. "Even my eyelashes."
Then she showed me the wig she'd picked out for herself. Close to her natural color and shorter, sort of wavy, but obviously a wig; there's a certain unnatural sort of doll-baby sheen specific to nylon hair.



She talked a little more, the cats alternately hissing and running back and forth between the open doors.
I asked her about her thoughts on buying a home, something she had mentioned only a few months earlier, prior to her diagnosis. I admit, it was my way of getting a sense of her future.
"It's not a plan any more," she said. "I have to let that go."
I stared at her. I wasn't sure what this meant, exactly, and I didn't really want to read too hard between the lines.

I am in recovery; I go to a weekly 12-step meeting for those of us that have issues with enmeshment and codependency. At those meetings, when I am listening and present, I often find I have something meaningful to share; it's kind of a goal, sharing something in a group setting from which others might benefit.
In this situation, watching my young neighbor begin her battle with a rare cancer, I felt utterly verbally inadequate.
I smiled weakly, and then said, "I really wish there was some combination of words, something pithy I could say to make you feel better......."
"What can you say," she replied. What can anyone say, is what she meant.

This morning, she knocked on my door to borrow my heavy-duty Acme juicer.
"There's a juice combination from my cancer cookbook," she said. "Kale & Pineapple."
I brought it over and set it up.



So no, maybe there aren't any words.
There are only hand-made quilts and prayer shawls and mylar balloons bearing simple sentiments. And there is juice.
Juice is good enough.
Juice will have to do.

Always Eat Dessert

I ran into my building’s caretaker on the steps a couple of days ago as I headed to the basement to retrieve the cold wash I’d just done; it’s his girlfriend—my across-the-hall neighbor—who has Leiomyosarcoma, the rare cancer that she’s just begun to battle. They went to Boston last weekend and met with an energetic and passionate doctor who spent 3 hours with them discussing options—“The difference between Midwestern Protestant and East-Coast Jewish,” as my neighbor said—and in about a week and a half, she’ll begin a course of chemotherapy.

It’s true, in an odd, guilt-producing sort of way, that someone else’s adversity (in this case, my neighbor’s discovery of her cancer) can help put one’s own life and neuroses into sharp perspective; I thought of this as I enjoyed a cookie in a meeting at work.



It's not (and I do feel it necessary to qualify this) that my neighbor's cancer is a grim-yet-convenient excuse for me to compare circumstances and how "lucky" I am to not be coping with it myself, but rather, a dire just-across-the-hall reminder of how much menial bitching I've done--and still do--about truly inconsequential things. I used to have neuroses about sweets, about eating too many of them and what they might do to me: diabetes, cellulite, rotten teeth, pimples. Sweets were “dangerous” and “powerful” and could affect my body negatively and the pleasure of indulging in them was always superseded by the weird, unhappy, nearly obsessive bout of negative self-talk that invariably ensued.

I’d left my neighbors some chunks of homemade gingerbread; I was caring for their cat while they were in Boston, and I like to cook (and bake), and I personally adore gingerbread. But I don’t need a whole pan, and I wanted to share it. The caretaker mentioned this as we spoke, in passing, how much they’d liked it. I thought it might be nice for them, after that, after the flight and the news and the anxiety, to come home to their kitty and the familiarity and comfort of a plate of home-baked sweets.



And I thought, yeah. I think I get it after 41 years of "Oh, I shouldn't eat that" neuroses.

It goes without saying that a preventative mindset is a good thing; it makes sound sense, therefore, to be conscious of where your food comes from and to make healthful choices and avoid trans-fats and eat your veggies and get plenty of fiber and don’t smoke and get plenty of sleep and pop a few vities and take your flaxseed oil and exercise regularly and drink in moderation and....yes, all of those things.

Of course, there are no guarantees.

And so, because of this, because there are no guarantees, the finest, most life-affirming, optimistic, glass-half-full thing you can do, without making excuses or offering apologies or attempting futile shows of "willpower" and absolutely without the merest smidgen of self-consciousness, is always eat dessert. Make room for it. Order it. Bake it yourself, and get drunk on the aroma. Lick the batter from the pan. Eat the cookie dough. Enjoy the hell out of it. Share it. Savor it.

Savor it.

Always. Because sweets are good. And life, I am learning, finally, is really, truly, laughably, ridiculously blink-and-you-miss-it short. And very unfair.

No guarantees. Even if you do everything right. But do everything right anyway, just in case. Cause it couldn't hurt.

And always eat dessert.

A Breed Unknown

Such is how my female pound-adopted pedigree-less tabby is described on Catster where, yes, she has her own page.

I feel that this latest turn of human-feline events is good to admit.

I also feel that it is quite possible I have now officially crossed that quaveringly delicate threshold from mere mellow cat owner to rapacious Kitty Stage Parent, vicariously living my life through and for my cat like a feline-owning Mama Rose ("Mew out, Abby!")

Is it possible that, sooner rather than later, I will, with no hint of shame or irony, start wearing sweatshirts bearing puffy cat appliques in public and join cat-chat groups and go to cat shows and collect pillows with playful embroidered cats on them and all manner of folksy, cutesy wood, ceramic & wind-chime-y cat-themed tchatchkes?

In my own weak defense, canine co-habitators can be just as whacked; all you need to do is go to a gathering of pugs & their owners where you will bear witness to some of the most frightening displays of gross and humiliating (for the pug) anthropomorphism known to man and beast alike. Pugs dressed like fairies and food and brides and Darth Vader and God-Knows-What-All...it's like something out of David Lynch, or maybe Fellini, though I've never actually seen a Fellini flick so I'm only assuming.



If Abby knew how to maintain her own site, I'd place that chore squarely in her paws. But not only does she not know how, she does not care. I'm sure of this.

Within 10 minutes of setting up her profile ("Pet-Peeves: nail clipping"), I had two requests from a gaggle of random cats asking if they could be added to her page as "friends." In a matter of hours, the cat had amassed quite an enviable social network. I found myself becoming quite a bit "J," as one of my friends might say, at the ease with which she made friends. I eagerly accepted them all, of course, on her behalf. My cat dwells indoors and needs a social life. Even a virtual one. Says me. Her semi-whacked mama.

I told her this. I told her her page was generating considerable buzz in the form of 4 legs and pointy ears and whiskers. I told her she was the feline equivalent of this year's "It" girl, that this was her 15 minutes of Warholian fame and suggested she get herself a publicist, a handler and possibly a lawyer to negotiate the contracts that would surely tumble forth for all those late-night talk show appearances.



I also told her that never, under any circumstances--no matter how her career might someday falter and nose-dive--should she flash her girl-parts accidentally-on-purpose in public; I said it was a cheap & desperate ploy utilized by Britney, Paris and Lindsay to stay sadly current, but that she had been raised better than that. She was a cat with class.

She just yawned and went back to bed.

She has a point. I mean, I AM only one of the gawking, plebeian, celebrity-obsessed public with no life of my own whatsoever. So, you know, thank God for Catster.



A star is born, indeed.

Randomness

I haven't posted for a while, and my blog-surfing public is getting restless.
Therefore, allow me to extract a vast array of random topics from the nether reaches of my brain and deposit them here for your schizophrenic reading pleasure.

I downloaded a Fergie song I really like--"Big Girls Don't Cry." Playing it on iTunes repeatedly, and the lyrics are bouncing around in my brain. I can relate to them:

I need some shelter of my own protection baby
To be with myself and center
Clarity, Peace, Serenity......

Those who know me, I believe, will understand.

I'm sick of 20-something women. I find them annoying and vacuous and just not very interesting. I'm surrounded by them at work. Moving on.

I have a bunion on my right foot and it's hereditary and I don't like it. Stuffing my feet into chic-yet-pointy shoes for work just exacerbates the issue; to that I say, screw this whole suffering-for-beauty thing. I don't want to have ugly feet.



My co-worker mentioned Foghat on Friday and I was like, shit, that totally dates you, but she just laughed. And then I realized I totally got her reference to them and thus dated myself, too. Sigh.

I'm taking care of the neighbor's cat this weekend while they're in Boston researching cancer treatment options. He seems a little wistful. Hopefully he'll come around. And speaking of cats, I'm weaning (well, cold turkey is more like it) my cat off of wet chow, a holdover from when she had her teeth extracted in August of 2006. Her gums have long since healed and she adores her kibble....so we're done. And she stared at me this morning expectantly but there was no more wet chow and so she gave up and put herself to bed.


I hate this, but then, she'd be a 50-pound freak monster kitty if I kept feeding her. Oy.

I was called "Ma'am" this week; it's not the first time this has happened, but this time, it sorta hit me that I just don't FEEL like a "Ma'am" and I was mildly (though privately) indignant; when did "Miss" give way to "Ma'am," which sounds far less dainty and decidedly post-menopausal? I mean, really.

The thing I think I'll miss the most when I move back out west is my apartment. It's adorable and wonderful and full of cozy character and full of my spirit. I will have to thank it and bless it when I leave. It's been a good, good space.

I know I complained copiously about the below-zero weather when we had it, but there ARE drawbacks to warmer weather, too. The windows are open and I've heard someone in the neighboring building LOUDLY hawking up a loogie. Over and over. ALL DAY LONG. Dude!
Not to mention, I've heard people hurling in the wee hours, or fighting, or blabbing on their cell phones, or sitting in their cars listening to bass-heavy dance music at 3 AM. Ah, the joys of urban living!

Well, time to send the neighbor's cat home and hop in the shower, so that's about it for my apropos-of-nothing mental download.

Oh, and strawberries are back in season. Sweet and full of anti-oxidants, although I could do without the maddening teeny seeds getting wedged into my dental work. But still.

This makes me very happy.

On Giving

My neighbor knocked on my door tonight. She was passing off the key so that I could pop in over the next few days and check on her cat.

Her mom and boyfriend stood in the hallway, overnight bags waiting at their feet; the three of them were getting ready to leave for Rochester, MN. Her black cat and my striped tabby eyeballed each other warily, alternately touching noses and hissing. It was the first time I'd seen her since I'd heard, last Sunday, about the recurrence of her cancer.

Leiomyosarcoma. Super, super rare.

She laughed, ironically. "I won the fuckin' lottery as far as cancer goes," she said.

We talked a little, and I asked her questions. It was in her lungs, and in her liver. And on her shoulder.

They were headed to the Mayo Clinic to discuss treatment options. They might seek second, third, maybe fourth opinions in California, Boston, New York. I would watch her cat. That, and baking, I said, are things I could offer.

I listened to her talk, and then I broke down and cried, a little, and reached forward and hugged her for a few moments. I told her I was horribly sorry, and that it was so unfair. And I was glad I could say that; I don't mind crying. It's as honest as I can get. She said she'd been angry, too, and I told her it was justified. In these moments, I do not feel that God has a sense of humor.

She gave me the key, and I followed her into her apartment so she could show me a few things; there were flowers everywhere.

She pointed to a vase of tulips on her table; take them, she said. Put them in your apartment.

You might as well enjoy them, she said, while I'm gone.

Cosmic Shittiness

I never wanted this blog to be The Blog of Pain; there are numerous such blogs all over the place--just total downer blogs full of total downer entries, one after the other, full of constant bitching and moaning and perpetual oh-woe-is-me-ness.

And I don't want this blog to be that; I want this blog, mostly, to be irreverent, a little quirky, and wildly incongruous--kind of the way my brain works.

But this time, tonight, this entry is going to be about Cosmic Shittiness. Because that's what I'm thinking about, right now, this moment.

I got a call from my neighbors asking for off-and-on cat-sitting, on no real identifiable schedule; we do this for one another, and it's convenient. Living here, in this 8-plex in South Minneapolis has sort of been like a more-functional Peyton Place or Tales of the City, with a Midwestern twist.

Anyway.

My neighbor, who owns said cat, is 28 or so; her boyfriend, also the building's caretaker, is my age, or a bit older. He knocked on my door tonight to follow up on the cat-sitting request, and to explain why it's off-and-on.

My neighbor, the 28 year old, has cancer. All over her body. Her shoulder blade and some other places, but I can't remember what he said.

She'd had it before last Spring, in her sinus, and was operated on, successfully. They took it out, she recovered, life went on. Recently, they went to Mexico, to Ixtapa, and I cat-sat then. They came back tan.

I'll cat-sit again, as often as they need.

The caretaker stood in my doorway, filling me in, explaining it all in scientific details, the options, the chemo. They'd be going to Mayo and some other places. They need to be aggressive, he said. They need to act fast. She's young. It's a rare kind of cancer, and sometimes, those are the worst. She can live with it, for a while. But as usual, no one knows for how long.

No one knows.

And I listened and then he had to get back to his cooking and I closed the door and stood over my sink of unfinished dishes and just said, over and over, to no one, to the universe, to the consistently-unfair cosmos, fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

She's smart and laughs loud and is a great, thoughtful neighbor and an all-around kind person. And I'm so angry, because it's so...unfair. But then, I don't really know what would make something like this fair. Maybe if she were 60 years older than she is now and had already done the things she told me she'd planned for herself, for this life of hers, like having children.

I have been given this news, the reason for the cat-sitting, and I don't want to have to know. But I can't "un-know" this. Too late.

Now it's a fact. My neighbor, a young woman, with cancer. Unknowable.

And I will watch her cat.