I'll Facebook you!

It's the best way to stay in touch, and to not stay in touch.

It makes you feel accountable, to stay visible, in a way.

It helps you say things that maybe would never get said otherwise.

It's something to stay away from if you are in a particularly snarky mood.

... like your block list really matters....

Your friends every move, immortalized, forever, for everyones commentary.

The narcissists dream platform for creative avatar photo cropping.

for My Lucy, who hides among the words there

For LuLu who blocks everyone, then crys that no one loves her

For Me, who is oh so careful, but still has to do damage control a bit too often

If I can laugh through all of this.......

As long as I can see, think, create, and bitch, I KNOW I am doing just fine!

Reality TV

For most of the last few years, I have been spending lots and lots of time alone in my apartment, after being diagnosed with Ovarian cancer, and enduring the years of various Chemo treatments, while working from home, and still not used to it. I live in a void of sorts.
I am still not happy about giving up my very cool and beautiful office in Union Square, (turns out to be a blessing in disguise after all) but it leaves me locked away in my apartment, sometimes not seeing anyone for days on end. So I watch Lots of TV, bored with the predictable, garden variety of drivel that populates Prime time, I got hooked on Reality TV!
I love the "aliveness" of it. Sometimes I watch Home Shopping too, just because the shows are aired live. I know there is some chick, in a sound stage somewhere, talking this talk, right now as I watch. Its a false sense of companionship, in a way.


There is a scene in "Bethany Getting Married", where Bethany and her new husband and child are sharing a tender moment in the back of a taxi on the way home from the hospital where she recently gave birth. They are confessing how happy they are, and suddenly realize that they are each in the exact spot within their current life situations with each other. They each have no siblings, or close friends that have kids, or anyone close in their circle to even share it with, (forgetting for the moment the woman has a reality show AND is sharing it with a world of strangers) Point being, there were no kids in their immediate realm — no siblings, or relations living close by (without taking a plane or losing a day to travel). They were alone within in these new complex emotions, and daily rituals of parent hood with no one in their immediate circle that could really relate to them now.


It resonated with me so keenly I started crying, knowing full well these tears have nothing to do with Bethany or babies.

The Mist

I was not designed to be alone!

so, do I manufacture cancer to do the job for me,

like some sick cosmic joke?

Manufacturing the thing I fear,

creating the environment for it to flourish?

The feelings are eating me from the inside out,

especially after a bunch of days with my head in a bucket

Not even water will serve to calm or sustain,

all is rejected.

Body pain so bad I can't stand up.

tick tock. Many days in a row,

There they go.

Watching this happy, hippy, U-tube chick

tout the values of being alone today.

I could not feel any more opposite.

I have never gone to the movies alone,

or to dinner,

or lunch.

Nor have I sat in a library,

or ate at a counter.

I would never go to the woods alone

for any reason

Alone is a penance to pay

I think

until you give up

and can be alone

and be ok about it

with your last breath

finally.

Onward

No matter what is happening in the background,
she keeps on keeping on.

one hand in my pocket, the other one is making a peace sign

I wear a shell.
It protects the soft jelly like substance that really lives in there.

Remission for three days

I was on pins and needles after the initial diagnosis.
Time starts to stand still.

After all of the doctor visits, and false diagnosis, Cat scans, Pet scans,
MRI's etc, the-waiting, and the stepping up, now I knew.

I took it all to task.
I had a job to do.
I needed to be strong.

I let others cry for me.

I never shed a tear.
I had a job to do.

I needed to find out as much as I could

about battling Ovarian Cancer
at such an advanced stage 4.

I had a job to do!
I am focused, strong, happy to be alive,

happy for the knowing.

Cancer!

it took so long to get that diagnosis.
It took two years and a volunteer surgery.

But now I know!
It is never easy to hear I guess!

Cancer!

I had two ports surgically implanted in my body,

chest, and belly.

Ahhhh, Modern technology.

They would spike me, with a thick long needle

to administer the drugs so my veins would not collapse.

A small thing to do for the benefits it will afford me,

a life?

or some resemblance of it.

Cancer!

It stops you in your tracks!

Cancer!


A horrible word, but 

I have a job to do !

I read. I studied. I learned to eat a different way.

I stepped up to my own plate.

I gathered strength.

I got to see who my real friends are.

I stood tall in the face of it.

Never wavering.
I had a job to do.

After I went thru the months and years of expected nausea, vomiting and the

constant feeling of being so tired, the tingle and numbness in my fingers and toes, the general dizziness of it all...

It was over for the time being.... a pause....

A quiet moment in the medical landscape that was my home for so long.

Who am I now? Who is this person staring back in the mirror?

At first I just didn't know who she was.

Bald, void of eyelashes and eye brows;

so pale, so scarred, so bruised.

Who the hell is this person?

I accepted that she is me.
I accept it all.
I had a job to do!

But now?
I was not prepared for this flood of emotion

as I finished my rounds Chemo.
My job is over now.

For the first time, I actually started to worry.
Just a bit at first. Something was happening.

I couldn't put my finger on it.

I start to look for survivor sites, some support for after.
Everything I read is horrifying.
There is no hope in those words.

Just dark fear written in various shades of black.

The seed of worry has crept into my brain.

The nagging little voice
that won't stop whispering to me now.

What if it comes back?

What if the next round of test show that it never went away?

What if you have to do this all over again?

What if you won't live after all?

What if?

It is a horrible state of unconsciousness.

To not be in the present moment

Slipping back into the ways of being,

before I become aware, present, still,

somewhat enlightened

in my own being.

I hear it,

I ignore it.

I hear it,

I ignore it.

I am not a person that lets worry ruin any of my days.

I am the person that is strong.
I step up to the plate.

I don't fall down.

I don't worry unnecessarily.

I need a new Job.

Then

the

Cancer

returned