Lost

"Stand still. The trees ahead and the bush behind you are not lost." ~ Albert Einstein

It's not a good Monday morning, but it's not a bad one, either. I had an early morning appointment with my psychiatrist. I've lived in this town for 30 years now, but somehow I missed my first turn and spent the next 20 minutes searching for the way and trying to figure out how, in my phone call later, I was going to explain to her how I got hopelessly lost. She would have charged me $125, anyway. That amount wouldn't be covered by my insurance, of course.

I guess we could chalk it up to anxiety. (I'm chalking everything up to anxiety, these days.) Since I never experience myself as being anxious, I think it's well within the realm of possibility that's he reason.

By some fluke, I actually managed to find the stupid road. Let me just note here that I'm supposed to be (as assessed by various tests) spatially gifted. I have no idea what that means, since I just got lost in a city where I've lived for 30 years.

So psychiatrist and I think I'm better than the last time I saw her. We're actually phasing out a medication. You can not imagine how happy that makes me. This way, when I hear on television that Anna Nicole Smith was taking 9 drugs (which accounts for her death, according to the uninformed), I don't have to feel extra bad about taking more. Just so you know, 4 of the drugs are for allergies (I'm allergic to everything except dog & cat hair), 1 is to prevent a recurrence of breast cancer and one is a required antioxidant vitamin so I won't go blind.

On the other hand, when I got to work this morning, I immediately had to make a visit to the owner's office. His father-in-law died last week in the middle of a field and Owner of Company found him. There's nothing to say, of course. I just needed to let him know I care. He knew. He commented that everyone here benefits from my nurturing nature. What a lovely thing to say.

As for the father-in-law, I have some absolutely great stories to tell about him. He and his wife bring new meaning to the word, "eccentric." I'm very fond of people who choose to follow their own paths. It will be a kind of tribute and a good laugh that I hope, somewhere, he'll be sharing with me.

Opossum Love

I know. Three posts in one day. I couldn't help it. When I was in the bathroom a moment ago, I saw my favorite opossum zipping along (in an opossum kind of way) in the yard two houses away from us. (The office is at the edge of a residential neighborhood.) I'm getting kinda attached. Uh oh.

Quandary in Crazy Land

I have a corner office. This is not quite as impressive as it may seem on first blush. My company is across the street from the former airport, on the other corner, there's an empty Budget car rental office and one of those day-rate hotels where armed police sometimes show up to arrest people for god only knows what goes on there. And yes, I so earned this corner office with two windows and two entrances.

Which brings me to the subject at hand. When I was actively involved with supervising and running things and being made crazy and sick by my job, I left both doors open. People needed access to me and I was a hands-on kind of manager. I was also a really fun manager and people dropped by to share in the fun from time to time.

After about a decade of frenzy, I ceased to be the hub of activity. By that time, I had had a stress-related illness for at least a couple of years. My doctors had that really worried look that you hate to see and that make you a little worried, too. But more about yourself, less about the job. The nurse gave me a lecture every time she saw me about being underweight. I did not own any bathroom scales. Weight loss was definitely not on my mind. My daily schedule consisted of getting up, being completely overwhelmed at work, coming home, eating, lying down on the bed, getting up to work out, then going back to bed. The next day it started all over again.

I now keep those doors closed. I am not friendly to those who hazard walking into my office without knocking. Doors are closed for a reason. Sometimes, like in this case, they're closed for many reasons. It's sort of a metaphor for my relationship with this company or, more accurately, with the employees of this company. They are, individually and as a group, the most dysfunctional people with whom I've ever worked. And that's saying something.

Anyway. I digress. Crazy Employee (mentioned earlier this week) offices right next door to me. She is not allowed to have closed doors. She's not high enough on what passes for a corporate ladder here and her job involves lots of coming and going. Crazy Employee is not so crazy that she believes she can just saunter in to my office via the connecting door. She only recently started coming through that door at all. Naturally, she knocks before entering.

Here's my quandary. I take things to her from time to time and it feels stupid to not use the connecting door, but if I make her knock, shouldn't I allow it? I'm an egalitarian at heart and I loathe being rude without provocation. So now I'm a little paralyzed by indecision. Lately, I've been going through the other door to get to her office. Wouldn't you think I'd have better things to worry about? I do.

I actually used the connecting door a few minutes ago. I did not knock. She was at the reception desk in the foyer, so I didn't have to worry about courtesy. Having said all that, it dawns on me that the Crazy Employee title applies to me every bit as much as it does to everyone else here. It's just that I'm really nice while I'm being crazy.

Bad Wife, Bad Dog

It's a stormy day here and, as I gaze out the window at the canopy of trees, I'm surprised at the various shades of green. It's a visual feast. I thought I'd better write now, because the black mood may be arriving any minute now. So far, I'm just feeling what's come to be my regular level of dissociation. Tell me anything. I won't be moved. I'm watching you from a distance and all is comfortably numb.

Hubby is taking a pre-employment, pre-interview test today with a company that published one of his books. Can't remember which one, though. Does that make me a bad wife? We have no idea what it pays; that seems to be all the rage with companies. Surely you'd like to waste your time applying for a job that, after the first interview, you'll find out the salary sucks and you have absolutely no interest whatsoever in even finishing the interview.

He would be happier in this job than the current job, but that's not really high on my list of priorities. Not like, for instance, replacing my Barney Rubble car. I've been in a funk about my own job this week, so I'm simply not very sympathetic about his distaste for his current job. Life's a bitch, now get on with things.

Andy the Demon Dog continues to beat me up every night. I have bruises all the way up both of my arms and about ten on my left thigh. That's mysterious; I have no idea why it's only that thigh. I made an appointment with his vet for Monday, but they called me back to tell me the doctor won't be in on Monday. Good god, don't they realize that by Tuesday I could just be a carcass lying in my living room? There's no time to waste here.

I'm sure all that's needed is an obedience class for me, with Andy along, of course. The Humane Society has one, but it's a six week class that costs $100. For two of the weekends I'll be out of town dealing with breast cancer. Of course, those two classes will be the ones that focus on keeping your dog from gnawing one of your fingers off. I just don't see paying the cash for a couple of sessions while he's at my house, tearing up the sofa.

Aside from work, I've been spending most of my free time reading the Primo Levy biography. I'm about 3/4 of the way finished, so when my mind isn't otherwise occupied, I'm obsessing about what to read next. I have to obsess about something, you know. Better this than how much I weighed 15 minutes ago and whether I need to go weigh again. I've been trying to branch out into fiction more, but I just bought another non-fiction book, so who knows.

One more thing before I go. I ate two cookies last night and a baked potato. Oh wait. Had to reschedule Andy's appointment until next Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. Perfect way to end my day. If I make it that long. If you don't hear from me before then, I'm probably just missing two or three of my fingers and can't type. Must be time for more cookies.

Why I Should Never Own Bathroom Scales

"Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense. ~ Henry Miller

As I stepped on the bathroom scales this morning, I thought, "I should never be allowed to own one of these things." It makes me crazy. I need to gain weight, but every day I step up and note, with some satisfaction, that I haven't gained any more weight. (That means I get to have a cookie later on. Maybe two.)

I have absolutely no sense of perspective about weight. None. I've really tried hard to get comfortable with my body, no matter how much it weighs. I think of it as a political statement. Madison Avenue should not be allowed to make women feel inadequate. I don't think that was the cause of my weight obsession, but it probably exacerbated it.

Last year, I weighed more than I ever have in my life. I weighed 140 pounds. I'm 5'5 3/4" tall. (Oh my god, that was so brave to say that!) It was the steroids during chemo that caused it. Even knowing that, though, I was in a panic. As I started radiation treatment, all I could think of was that I had to get back to my target weight.

I actually got to my target weight a couple of weeks after I started radiation treatment. Having lost an additional 10 pounds, though, I'm entertaining the idea that maybe I could get down to 115. I weighed 115 forever, but it's been a decade since that forever ended. Why not be satisfied with where I am?

Because I'm just fucking crazy about the weight thing. I got the scales so I could make sure I didn't continue the weight loss trend. I know I shouldn't continue to lose weight. I guess the good news is that I haven't.

Somebody come over and take the damn scales away from me. As if anyone could. Or having taken them, as if I wouldn't just start to get even crazier.

Maybe I should go get a cookie now. Or two. It might not make me less compulsive, but I might feel a little better while I'm eating them. Mmmmm...chocolate.

The Weight of the Opossum World

I just saw an opossum (does anyone ever really use the "O"?) ambling along the top of our privacy fence that separates the office patio from the small, evangelical (somewhat hostile) church next door. At the end of the fence, a big gray and white tom cat watched and waited. I couldn't really tell if the cat had murder in mind or if he was just as surprised as I was to see the guy up and about at 9:30 in the morning.

By the time the opossum (I can't help it...I have to use the "O") made it another foot in Tom's direction, he smelled something amiss. He paused and sniffed the air. Then the O (I'll just call it that) turned around and headed back into the opposite direction. Tough Tom sauntered along after him, not looking particularly dangerous. O. reached a crepe myrtle tree and began his descent.

That's when I gave up watching. If something bloody was going to happen, I didn't want to spoil my morning by intervening. It's hard to have the weight of the opossum world on your shoulders.

Hogging the Pity Vote

"We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove. We have two opinions: one private, which we are afraid to express; and another one - the one we use - which we force ourselves to wear to please Mrs. Grundy, until habit makes us comfortable in it, and the custom of defending it presently makes us love it, adore it, and forget how pitifully we came by it. Look at it in politics." ~ Mark Twain

It's started already. My esteemed co-workers think Elizabeth Edwards' revelation about her cancer constitutes an attempt to get the pity vote. After I commented that I need to limit how much I think about the subject, they're off and running anyway.

Then they moved on to Tony Snow. I just had to tell them (more than once) that it was making me anxious and depressed to continue that conversation. Finally, I walked away. I came over to my side of the building where, for the moment, I don't have to offer up my opinion "as a cancer survivor" about any of this.

As if the anxiety and depression and fatigue weren't enough, I'm now having colon pain. Thanks, guys, for stressing me out just a little bit more. What the hell. It's important that you express your opinion to me. We all know I can take it, but it might just cause an eensy bit of pain in my stomach. What's the big deal, anyway? I'll stand here and listen to what you have to say, whether it's informed or relevant, whether it's less than generous or difficult to hear.

Apparently it hasn't occurred to anyone that I'm still struggling emotionally. Despite the number of hours I'm whiling away at the office and the fact that the girls are sporting a new bra, even though I regularly (though not always) expend the energy in the morning to actually put on make up. I'm still in free fall. On the inside, I'm still bruised, you assholes. Wake up!

Maybe I'm just being too demanding. Why should anyone get the hint when I tell them I don't want to talk about it anymore? Suddenly the words from an old folk song come to mind, "If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning..." right on the tops of your heads, you inconsiderate lumps of humanity with whom I have to spend my days. Jesus.

I guess I'm just trying to hog some of that pity vote.

What The Hell Is The Matter With Me?

What's the matter with me? At first I thought it was gray day, black mood. Now the sun's come out and I'm still stuck. I even tried a sure-fire remedy: cinnamon mints. Not any better.

Maybe it's just fatigue. I'm up to five hours at work this week, which doesn't seem like much, but it's kicking my ass in a big way. I did yoga last night for the first time in months. Gentle yoga. So gentle it didn't even feel like yoga.

It's hard to discern the difference. Is depression causing fatigue or is fatigue causing depression? I reel from my own vulnerability. I'm hardly ever vulnerable, so it's hard to tolerate, even if no one else can see it.

Furthermore, I'm vulnerable at work. I stopped being emotionally available here many years ago. After the reconstruction surgery, I had a brief bout with it. Now it's back.

Maybe it was the long conversations I've had today with various people regarding cancer. That's hardly ever a good topic. That's doubly true when we're talking about breast cancer.

The day is almost over for me. I don't even want to go home. If I could disappear for just a little while, I'm sure it would perk me right up.

Oh yeah. I forgot that feeling emotion is a good thing. It's like honoring the present moment. I need to work on that, but I'd rather not do it today.

What the hell is the matter with me?

Elizabeth Edwards, Again

"If you're going through hell, keep going," ~ Winston Churchill

Owner of Company is on a rampage. He most definitely does not approve of the Edwards' decision to continue the Presidential campaign. He's been calling me all morning on the intercom, reading his own satires of news stories about them, asking me for synonyms, wanting definitions. He just called me while I'm writing this to tell me that "satire" was, indeed, the word he was looking for, instead of "parody" or "lampoon" or whatever. When Owner of Company gets worked up about something, he can get obsessed. This is a quality we share. I'm just not obsessed about this one.

He thinks that it's really John Edwards' decision to continue the campaign, no matter what his wife wants. I don't know. I don't think that's necessarily the case. Sometimes it's helpful, when you're battling cancer, to just try to get on with daily things. For them, political campaigns are a regular part of their lives. You certainly don't need to be sitting around with nothing to do but think about your diagnosis or how the chemo is making you feel or any of the other wrenching sidetracks you mind creates. Maybe you just campaign, if that's what you do.

Owner of Company thinks John and Elizabeth Edwards should spend their time, however much that is, being with their small children. I have a stepson I first met when he was 7. I don't feel qualified to judge. Owner just told me that they plan to take their children out on the campaign trail with them. I've worked on several political campaigns and they are incredibly grueling, even if you're young and healthy. I'm not sure how much time they'll really have to spend with the kids.

These are very early decisions, though. Those decisions may change as treatment and illness progress. I didn't have stage 4 breast cancer that metastasized to the bone, but early on in treatment, I thought I could maintain my regular schedule. That vision of my future was incorrect. That may be so with Elizabeth Edwards. As I said before, you deal with it however you can.

Everyone has their own way of coping with cancer and with death, I think. I'm reluctant to seem judgmental or be judgmental. It's a tough journey to even get through treatment. I know that when I was first diagnosed, I didn't know where I would find all of the mental, physical and emotional resources I'd have to call upon to endure.

Throughout my own treatment, people felt comfortable suggesting how I might deal with it. Many friends pushed me to confront my feelings about everything that was happening to me. I wasn't hurt or irritated by those suggestions; I didn't have the physical or emotional luxury of being offended. I just plowed through, hanging on until it was over. I know everyone has to find their own way. The path isn't always easy to see.

Owner will be working on emails about this all day. He calls me up and asks me how I feel, as a cancer survivor, about what he has to say. I'm not really the person to ask. I have a predilection for dark humor. I can be very sardonic. What he's saying is fine with me.

But then I don't have Stage 4 breast cancer that's metastasized to my bones. He might need to check back with me should that come to pass. (I'm superstitious about this. I'm knocking on my fiberboard desk.)

Good News

I'm actually wearing a real bra today. Not my little velcro fastened-in-the-front breast vest thingy. Better yet, you can not tell the difference between the girls. That's right--we've moved on from "breast stump" to just one of the girls.

I'm not sure that this is necessarily good news, but I'm increasing my work schedule to five hours this week. I'll just have to see how close I am to crawling out to my BarneyRubblecar before I make a firm decision for all five days. Ultimately, the body's needs will take precedence over my need to get back to a regular schedule. Even if that means staying longer every day in Crazy Land.

I'm also going to try to start a very low-key yoga practice. I haven't done anything physical since my recent surgery. I think yoga will help me to learn how to stand up straight again. It also adds to my range of motion for my arm. Someday soon, I'll be back to cardio workouts and weight training. That will most certainly not be this month or next month. Soon, though.

Obligatory Elizabeth Edwards Post

On the Elizabeth Edwards front, I saw the Sixty Minutes interview and I'd be lying if I didn't say it made me uneasy. I don't like to think about metastasis or recurrence. Unfortunately, people tend to bring it up fairly regularly, so I don't get to completely put it out of my mind. Watching that interview was a gesture of solidarity; I thought it might be uplifting. It wasn't uplifting.

As for the continuation of the Presidential campaign, we all deal with this however we can. She can deal with it by campaigning and continuing on with her normal life as much as is possible. It seems likely to me that there will be some days (maybe many) when treatment will completely exhaust her ability to cope.

Would I do the same thing? Probably not, simply because I'm not strong enough to push myself forward while undergoing chemotherapy. I wasn't before and there's no reason to believe that I've changed in that regard.

I got an email on Friday from owner of Crazy Land railing against the decision. As for me, judging her or her husband is really none of my business. We deal with cancer (as with all life trauma) however we can, we get through treatment however we can. Sometimes you don't know how you'll cope, but eventually you just do it. Elizabeth Edwards is going to cope by getting on with life.

Speaking of Crazy Land, no need to bring a gun. I win. We have not discussed the database, neither with Crazy Employee nor Crazy Employee's Crazy Supervisors. We're not going to ever discuss it. Because I decided.

Somebody Shoot Me. Please.

Remember how I'm so good with relational databases? Remember how I work in Crazy Land?

One Crazy employee has asked me to go through the prehistoric employee database, cull specific information and print it out. Huge numbers of records. Ancient database software. Crazy employee's supervisor has no idea why Crazy employee needs that information. He wants to talk about it next week.

I don't want to talk about it. Yes or no. Very simple. Should I do it or not? I'm hoping for not, because I've tried twice to get the records to print (90% of which are most certainly completely irrelevant) and they just won't. Or they will, but not sorted in the order I specified.

I feel a migraine coming on. The muscles in my neck feel like they've been dipped in cement.

Oh god. Somebody get a gun and shoot me in the head. Before Monday, please.

The Brain That Would Not Shut Up

There's a song that's been running through my head the past couple of days.

"Rock 'n roll hoochie coo

(Rock 'n roll hoochie coo)

Lordy Mama, Wipe my shoes

As opposed to "Lordy Mama, Light my fuse."

I don't remember who recorded it, didn't much like it when it came out, know the correct lyrics (obviously), but it just keeps popping up in my head with the wrong lyrics. Someone please free me from The Brain That Would Not Shut Up. God I hate this.

Blindness Descends

The news story of the little boy who was killed by a convicted sex offender and his family reminded me of a day in my own life. Luckily, no one was murdered in my case. (My therapist would disagree with that conclusion.) I've mentioned before that my parents were sexually abusive, but the abuse was psychological, not physical. The events of that day fill me with such shame that I'm unable to even revisit it except in a fleeting, looking at the scary monster way. The shame has nothing to do with me other than that knowledge of my parents' amorality. Or at least my dad's amorality. I can't really speak to my mom's motivations.

I wrote a post several days ago in which I said that I always believe that people are doing the best they can. One of my friends commented,

"Nobody you know, nobody you don't know, in all the world, has ever done less than their very best, at any time? All around you is perfection and excellence?!"

The answer is that things have been so far from perfect and excellent in my life that hanging on to that belief is the only way to see around the dark center at the heart of my childhood. Do I believe my father was doing the best he could? I have no idea. Most people would say he wasn't. It just all gets very confusing to me, so I choose to believe that which is, in some ways, easiest.

What I do know is that I've been judged and found lacking based on people's inability to see what motivates me. That was one of the great things about Mrs. N. She understood that I was, as a human being (not a student), trying to do the best I could when there really hadn't been any model of moral and ethical conduct I could attempt to emulate. In fact, that's one of the things she gave me: a moral compass beyond that which a 15 year old could formulate in a vacuum.

My therapist and I have had many conversations about people doing the best they can. She's pointed out to me many times that my Inner Fascist was born, in part, out of that struggle to transcend my family's moral sickness. IF cracks the psychological whip much too hard so that I could ensure that I never even approached the road to moral decadence. Children who parent themselves invariably create their own Inner Fascists; it's a survival skill.

However, my therapist, like everyone else I've ever spoken to about it, strenuously disagrees with my theory of human behavior. I understand that position. For me, the things that motivate other people are mysterious and unfathomable. If a parent you love regularly engages in conduct that is terrifyingly abusive, a kind of blindness descends that prevents you from seeing their motivations. If the motivation is simply to enjoy hurting someone else, that blindness is kind.

I've had many sessions with therapists over the years trying to come to grips with my father's sadism. The longer away I am from his suicide, the harder it becomes to understand how I can continue to love him. Obviously, he's the only father I'll ever have. Equally obviously, the best he could ever do was destructive beyond measure.

I don't know. I do the best I can based on where I am at any given moment and I choose to believe that everyone else does, too. As in the case of the six-year old boy, though, sometimes what arises from that "best" is horrifying and maybe even inhuman. The darkness at the center of my life was built around that horror. I've spent the rest of my life trying to see around it.

Black Shirts and the Hydra Head

"In order for the wheel to turn, for life to be lived, impurities are needed, and the impurities of impurities in the soil, too, as is known, if it is to be fertile. Dissension, diversity, the grain of salt and mustard are deeded: Fascism does not want them, forbids them, and that's why you're not a Fascist; it wants everybody to be the same, and you are not. But immaculate virtue does not exist, either, or if it exists it is detestable." ~ Primo Levi

Last Friday, my therapist and I took a longer look back than I have in quite some time. Breast cancer severely limits the energy and interest one can summon to think about one's history. I've had a lot of trouble with my Inner Fascist lately and she became the focus of our delicate probing.

I've been pushing myself physically a bit because I don't wish my co-workers to think I'm a slacker. "Who has ever thought you were a slacker?" My therapist wanted to know. There are many heads to the Inner Fascist Hydra, notably my parents. By the time I was 13, I'd developed my own early version of her and she was already quite a taskmaster.

The only person who ever thought I wasn't working up to my level of capability was my college prep English teacher in my junior year of high school. She was more than that, though. Her name was Mrs. N. She was the first person who ever saw who I really was, not the product of a truly degenerate (I use that word advisedly) living situation, not a young person who was on her way to teen pregnancy and the streets. She saw how hard I tried, how much I kept hidden in order to gain approval from someone, anyone.

Though I placed out of lower division English classes in college and made A's in upper division classes, Mrs. N. never ever gave me an "A". She always told me that I wasn't working hard enough, that I was skating by on inherent smarts instead of applied focus. Oh. I had no idea what she even meant by "working hard." I actually thought I had been giving it my best.

Therein lies the development of one of the Hydra heads. Am I working hard or am I coasting? I can't ever tell. I never could. If I have to try too much, I have a tendency to get bored and move on. If I'm interested, there isn't enough time in the day for me to indulge my intellectual passion. I become obsessed. Some of those obsessions wax and wane repeatedly over the years.

"So what?" my therapist wanted to know. I didn't have much of an answer for that. I suppose the answer is that if I'm not living up to my capabilities, I'm unhappy with myself. I'm unhappy with myself a lot. The Inner Fascist would like to know whose business it is of hers, anyway. IF is perfectly capable of setting the agenda for me. And she looks fabulous in black. She has some mighty impressive boots, too.

Therapist suggests that the Inner Fascist take a hike and that I come to recognize there's no need to push so hard so much of the time. I've been trying to get the IF to take a less active role in my life, but she's pretty dedicated to getting me right. I suppose it's helpful to know how one of the Hydra heads developed, that love has always been the motivation for feeling myself somehow less than I might be.

I would have done anything to please Mrs. N. She saved my life, both figuratively and literally. She died when I was in my early 20's, so I have no way to measure my accomplishments by that touchstone. Would she be pleased? I don't know. I hope so. But the Inner Fascist doesn't think she'd be pleased at all.

Bushism of the day:

"And there is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I'm sorry it's the case, and I'll work hard to try to elevate it." ~ George W. Bush, interview on National Public Radio, Jan. 29, 2007

Verdict

Paul shanley was found guilty of all charges this afternoon and could receive a sentence of life in prison. he will be sentenced at a later date.

Happy Fucking Birthday

I feel like shit today. I've been tinkering with my breakfast menu to try to make it a little more heart-friendly (and fewer calories). I generally have half a bagel, an oatmeal bar and six prunes. Lots of antioxidants, good for macular degeneration and cholesterol. I decided recently to try to eliminate the bagel. I did that today and it was a huge mistake. I've felt so nauseated all morning. The nausea is gone but my stomach is still pretty unhappy with me. I take this handful of pills every morning and I guess the bagel (or something of equal bulk) is necessary to protect my stomach lining from the onslaught of medication. For a while I was thinking maybe I could move some of the pills to lunch time, but the medication I take the most of (antidepressants) has to be taken early. Damn damn damn.

We're getting ready to have an office birthday party. Big fun. Owner of the Crazy Land always ruins the birthday celebrations by talking about inappropriate topics. He has at least three favorites: the company is going out of business and we're all going to be unemployed; he's dying of a tumor and won't be around much longer; and something on the birthday cake looks like snot or a bug or something equally disgusting. He also makes us sing happy birthday, which all of us without exception really hate. That part about the tumor really drives me nuts. That's exactly the kind of thing my dad would do. It irritated me when my dad did it and I have absolutely no patience for it in anyone else. I've pointed out to my boss that he's been saying that to me for at least the past ten years and -- surprise! -- he's still here. He loves to say that shit when he's just done something he knows will piss me off. Of course, it just annoys me more, but god forbid that he should actually learn from experience. As a matter of fact, he has quite a few qualities which are similar to my dad's. Narcissitic. Obtuse. Whiny. Self-pitying. There's more, but I'm running out of time here. My therapist is periodically surprised that I can work in such a triggering environment.

Anyway, when he starts in on his birthday party patter, I'm the only person who will tell the man to shut up or change the subject. I've thought about sitting next to him so I can just elbow him when he starts. I really think someone else should be a big grown-up person and say something instead of waiting for me to do it. I've thought about instituting a fee for my services. I'm thinking ten dollars from every person every time I have to intervene. Seems fair to me. The person we're having a party for is a the Money Man. He's the guy who's getting his instructions directly from Jesus and his opinions from Rush Limbaugh. For such a pious person, there's very damn little of Jesus in his conversations. According to this guy, everyone is a moron or a moral derelict. He has contempt for people who dare to suggest that maybe if we all tried a little harder to get along, the world would be a slightly more pleasant place. Money Man is the guy who had a little pouty party because he thought I said something critical about the San Antonio Spurs basketball team. Jesus. Yes, you asshole, everything is about you.

Other than the anticipation of that fun-filled event, not much is going on today. The sun is finally out, so I'm feeling a little less down today. It's supposed to start raining again this weekend, though. hey, I'll take anything i can get.

here's the quote of the day:
"There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire; it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism. " ~ George Eliot

america held hostage day 1852
bushism of the day:
"They can get in line like those who have been here legally and have been working to become a citizenship in a legal manner."—Referring to immigrant workers, Washington, D.C., Dec. 20, 2004

website of the day: Gregorian Chants
http://www.christusrex.org/www2/cantgreg/

Paul Shanley Redux

as i mentioned earlier, i've been following paul shanley's trial all this week. the testimony finally wrapped up today with the one and only defense witness. her name is elizabeth loftis. elizabeth has made her living attempting to discredit people who recover memories of past abuse. even though (as far as i know) i have always known about all of the abuse inflicted upon me, i really loathe this woman.

as she was testifying today, she spoke about several studies she's conducted regarding memory. her studies involved things like showing someone photographs of a car accident or telling people they were lost in a grocery store when they were children when, in fact, those events never occurred. some of those people did believe they remembered those events. i don't think it's the same thing at all. i don't think they're even remotely similar to actual recovered memories from people who were abused in childhood. as a matter of fact, i find the comparison insulting.

i do know of at least one case where two teenagers were convinced they had been sexually abused by their father when no abuse (apparently) occurred. part of the reason i'm willing to entertain the idea that the girls were wrong is the circumstances in which the abused supposedly took place. the abuse involved sacrificing babies and a lot of other improbable events. i'm also aware that young children can indeed have things accidentallly implanted in their heads that they then believe to have actually happened. as a matter of fact, i read recently that children who believe but have not, in fact, been abused have exactly the same emotional difficulties as they would had they really been abused. however, i'm aware of many more instances in which people actually did recover memories of abuse years after the abuse occurred. my knee jerk reaction is that the people who would have us believe that recovered memories don't exist are the people who either abuse or shield abusers. that's a fairly extreme position to take, i know.

the jury is now deliberating. the main witness for the prosecution was a young man, now 27, who was one of four victims who reached settlements in their civil cases against the church. the witness was abused for many years, beginning around the age of 6. he believes that many of his problems in life were a result of that abuse. specificallly, he has problems with anger, problems with alcohol and steroids, problems with relationships. there may be more that i'm forgetting. i know that all of those problems could be caused by his sexual abuse. however, the jury may find it difficult to accept because he also had a very difficult childhood in other ways. he had a mom who wasn't there for him, who was into drugs and who physically abused him. his father physically abused him and neglected him.

one of the facts they were not given was that there had been other complaints about shanley as far back as the early 60's. given that fact and his history of being shuffled around from one parish to the next, my guess would be that the man is guilty. i tend to believe the victim unless i can see clear evidence that nothing happened. i would never be allowed to be seated in a child abuse case. it's just a matter of time before the verdict is reached. i'm sure i'll have something to say about it, one way or the other.

here's the quote of the day:
"Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander." ~ Holocaust Museum, Washington, D.C.

america held hostage day 1851
bushism of the day:
"It's a time of sorrow and sadness when we lose a loss of life."—Washington, D.C., Dec. 21, 2004website of the day: The Online Guide to Traditional Games
http://www.tradgames.org.uk/index.html

Cold and Gray Day

i have a crushing headache today and i can feel my level of depression rising for every day there is no sun. cold, gray weather always reminds me of my childhood. as a matter of fact, if i didn't know better, i'd swear every day i was growing up was cold and dark. of course, that just speaks to my psychological state at the time.

i've spent a fair amount of the day working on osha logs...never a particularly appealing task. on the up side, i spent some time reformatting data in a company database. that's more palatable for me somehow.

hubby had a job interview today for a writing job with the department of agriculture. he chose not to prepare for it other than to check out their website. he did get some valuable information there. my advice would have been to practice some interview questions, just to make sure you have a ready answer when they ask those predictable questions like "how do you handle multiple projects with the same deadlines." they also asked him what type of writing he prefers. he didn't have a particularly good answer for it. successful interviewing techniques require practice, unfortunately. they're going to select 10 candidates and start round two of the process. they're anticipating that should happen in about a week to ten days.

ruski seems to be improving. he's been eating more regularly. in addition to his special diet food, he had a couple of bags of moist dry dog food at lunch today, then an oatmeal biscuit, then a vegetable chew treat. i think that's the most he's eaten since he became ill. he even initiated play with sheba yesterday afternoon. the past couple of evenings, he gets on his bed in the living room about nine, lies down and starts flopping one foot at us periodically. it's kind of like a little wave at us...that means he's ready to receive pets. not only is he ready, he's a little fascist about it. hubby and i have a tag team approach so one of us isn't stuck petting him for a solid hour. hubby periodically has to go in the den, though, to make sure that The Princess of Woo isn't feeling neglected. i figure once she goes to her crate, she's just doing her greta garbo impression...she wants to be alone. i'm very cheered up by The Mighty Tusk's improvement. if only i could get the timing right for all of the things i need to do for him first thing in the morning. this morning i forgot to give him his liver pills until 6:45, which made me late for work.

my mom is feeling ill still. she sounds like she's very stuffed up and she's coughing, but she says she feels okay. when she's sick i start feeling like i need to be in control of the management of her illness. i guess that comes from having to deal with my dad for such a long time. when he would call me up and not be feeling well (a lot), i would leap into action intellectually and come up with a series of things i thought he should do to feel better. that didn't mean he'd do any of those things, of course, but sometimes he would. i guess the fact that he would cooperate sometimes ensured i'd continue to try to crisis manage for him. i don't generally think of myself as a controlling person, especially since my dad's suicide. that was the best lesson i've ever had in exactly how much contol one really has over other people. i recognize my need to control in this situation is really just a function of how much anxiety i'm experiencing.

that reminds me. last night i was watching some television program in which a husband and wife were having conflict. the husband arrived home late and hadn't called to let his wife know. the children ran to greet him, his wife made some comment clearly indicating her irritation and then left the room. it was surprisingly triggering. i remembered how frightening it was for me when my father came home late. even more frightening when there was even a hint of conflict. in my flashback, i noticed my need to try to assert some control over the situation. how much control could a little kid have? i would try to assess the immediate danger related to him being late. then i would try to distract my father in the hope that the situation wouldn't then become explosive. in retrospect, i'm not sure i was ever successful in completely defusing the situation. sometimes i was just able to get him to focus his anger on me. that's a cheery little tale to end with.

here's the quote of the day:
"Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad but sober; not to make us sorry but wise." ~ Henry Ward Beecher

america held hostage day 1850
bushism of the day:
"A surplus means there'll be money left over. Otherwise, it wouldn't be called a surplus." website of the day:
Economic Justice Now (Global Debt Relief)
http://www.economicjustice.org/resources/media/aslam042099.html

Loneliness

i've probably talked here about aloneness and loneliness. i'm not accustomed to feeling lonely and this weekend i remembered why that is. in high school and college i had some close friends with whom i spent a fair amount of time. i was closest with my college roommate, my former english teacher and a dear high school friend. i had boyfriends, some serious and some not so. my inability to open up to boyfriends is legendary, as a matter of fact.

even though i had dear friends and dear boyfriends, i was always aware of being alone. at the heart of all of my interactions with people was the knowledge that i would eventually be going home to my parents' house. i went there alone. i lived there alone. no matter how comforting my friendships were, no matter how much light-hearted fun i managed to have, the road always led back to my home. no one, least of all me, knew what awaited me there on a daily basis. i was certain of one thing, though. as long as i lived there, i was going to suffer. even if the suffering was only because there was no heat in the house. even if the suffering was because there was next to no furniture in the house. generally, i'd say it was an exceptional day when those things were the only sources of my suffering.

in many ways, i experienced my friendships (but especially my boyfriends) as diversions. not only could my friends not help me, but they would never truly understand my experience. i knew how my friends lived. i stayed in their houses, sometimes overnight and sometimes for extended periods of time. nothing in my friends' lives could provide them with even the slightest understanding of how i was forced to live. though my living circumstances have changed radically, even now no one knows what it felt like to live through the harshness of my life. no one knows what it feels like to live with the memories of my earlier life. no one knows how those experiences continue to infect my daily existence. in my mind's eye, i am still a solitary figure.when my therapist asks me if i'm lonely, it's a question i have some difficulty answering. i guess i would counter with, compared to what? compared to when i was 16, i'm definitely less lonely. compared to other people, though, i guess i'm profoundly lonely. my world view isn't one that's shared.

here's the quote of the day:
"The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved." ~ Mother Theresa

america held hostage day 1848
bushism of the day:
"They said this issue wouldn't resignate with the People. They've been proved wrong, it does resignate."
website of the day: Consortiumnews.com
http://www.consortiumnews.com/

Why Am I Afraid

i was talking with my mom on the phone last night about the shanley trial, which we've both been watching on courttv. we were both pretty angry at the defense attorney's badgering the victim on the stand for a full 9 hours. i commented that one of the things that made me the most angry was when the attorney asked the victim just how far the priest had inserted his finger into the boy's rectum. my mom was angry about it, too, but for different reasons than mine.

i was angry because the attorney was implying that just because the victim couldn't come up with the number, it must not have happened. i know from personal experience that that is exactly the kind of thing to which a victim will not have access. the actual abuse can be very fragmented in memory because the victim has generally gone somewhere else in his/her head to escape from the things that are being done to him or her. i remember staring at the ceiling. what magnificent concentration i maintained. i do not know specifically what was done to me, but i do know that it was unbearable.

my mom, of course, doesn't know these things. i found myself thinking about explaining to her, but then i stopped. i couldn't bring myself to talk about it with her. why. i'm not sure whether it's protection for me or for her. i think there's some belief hidden under the layers of consciousness that it's my fault. it's always been my fault...didn't my abuser tell me so? didn't i believe it? a similar thing happened when i was talking to my daughter in law this past week. i started to explain the concept of post traumatic stress disorder, but then it dawned on me that i'd probably have to explain how i came to have that problem. i couldn't bring myself to share any of the reasons. why. why. i don't know. it's so painful for me to even contemplate the reasons behind those decisions. the thought of sharing these memories--any part of them--fills me with anxiety. i can feel my hands go icy cold.

Paul Shanley

i've spent the majority of the day listening to the trial of the former roman catholic priest paul shanley's criminal sexual assulat trial. i've been working on a database on my computer, where the trial is being broadcast. i haven't watched much of the video, but whenever i do and see the former priest, sitting there as if he hadn't ruined people's lives, i just want to ask him if he really believes in god.

i'm not of the mindset that god punishes us for our sins. i'm not even completely sure that all of the bad things that happen to us in our lives aren't supposed to happen. i can't pretend to know what is in god's mind. however, i do know that sexually abusing little children causes enormous harm for the rest of their lives.

it's difficult to determine whether this man is really sorry in the slightest bit. i'm certain that he's sorry he got caught. i wonder, as he watches his victim testify, does he harden his heart against the victim? i know that most abusers blame the child. the child was too provacative. he couldn't help himself, the child was too flirtatious and took advantage of the adult. it's so much easier than having to admit that you have sentenced someone to live a life significantly devoid of trust in other human beings. if mr. shanley was abused himself, he must already know the consequences of abuse. how, then, could he harm another little child in that way?

last night i was watching an episode of law and order in which there was a murder related to a whole series of sexual assaults against several children. there was one scene where the father of a child was sitting on a sofa, the child on the floor beside him, playing with a toy. the father suggests to the boy that he sit on the sofa where he'll be more comfortable. at that moment, it was like being five again for me. i wanted to go get a knife, find my uncle, and rip him to shreds. i want him to suffer every single moment of every day of his life. i'd be surprised if he does.

i really believe that people who can hurt children that way don't have much empathy for anyone. they are, of course, pretty sorry for themselves. shortly after that program ended, there was a local newscast which has been doing a series of segments about depression. last night's topic was electroshock therapy. i was talking on the phone with my mom, but i managed to hear just a bit of it. that bit was about how tragic the lives are of people who are unable to escape depression any other way. it was one of those moments in which i was forced to look at the truth again. i wouldn't say my life has been tragic, but when i think about it in the context of how other people have grown up, i can't really find a word to describe my life. unhappy is an understatement. i'm reluctant to latch onto tragic, though. i guess that's too reminiscent of the mindset of all of my abusers. they all had tragic lives. that's why it was okay that they hurt other people. it was even okay to hurt defenseless children. i know that accepting the truth of severe abuse doesn't make me like them.

but now i can't think of anything else to say. i just had one of those dissociative moments when i cease to feel and can't really even maintain my train of thought. i guess i might as well find a quote.

quote of the day;
"The cosmos is neither moral or immoral; only people are. He who would move the world must first move himself." ~Edward Ericson

america held hostage day 1844
bushism of the day:
"It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it."

website of the day: Disgruntled Housewife
http://www.disgruntledhousewife.com/

Change Your Mind

i suffered through an allergy meltdown all weekend and lost a fair amount of sleep because of some creature gnawing away somewhere in or adjacent to my bedroom. this morning, as i pushed myself forward into the day, taking care of my responsibilities to huskies and hubby, i was aware of a low-level dissatisfaction. it's times like this that i remember that the reality we all share can be dramatically altered or restructured. we have only to change our minds.

what exactly is it that causes us to believe that we must get up every day and go to jobs which we may or may not find intellectually compelling or unsuitable for any number of reasons? because that's the way it's been done in recent history? because that's the way it's been done in our specific culture? all we have to do is change our minds. change our minds about what's valuable in life. change our minds about how we will treat one another. we can eliminate the staggering debt loads of "third-world" countries simply by deciding that the debt no longer exists. the debts of all nations could be eliminated by deciding it should be so. we could conceivably find far more meaningful ways than our current jobs to spend our brief time here. we just need to change our minds.

of course, once we get into the realm of religion, it gets very difficult to advocate changing one's mind. one of the primary jobs of religion is to provide us with some clearcut guidelines for individual behavior. having bought into those guidelines, we find it unbearably difficult to see things in a new way. many times, we're unable to recognize that which is holy in one another because the other isn't adhering to our specific (and sometimes nit-picky) guidelines. we could see it another way, if we wished. we could choose to search for commonality instead of focusing on our differences. just takes a change of heart and a change of mind.

here's the quote of the day:
"The universe is transformation; our life is what our thoughts make it."~Marcus Aurelius

america held hostage day 1841
bushism of the day:
"This administration is doing everything we can to end the stalemate in an efficient way. We're making the right decisions to bring the solution to an end."

website of the day:
The Butterfly Websitehttp://butterflywebsite.com/organicgardening.cfm

Black Thursday

today we officially enter into another four years with bush. it's a bleak prospect. he's already fucked up a number of things beyond repair--at least for the remainder of my life time. i loathe him even more than i once loathed dick nixon. he's arrogant, willfully and proudly ignorant, smug, self-righteous. i've basically given up even watching the news in order to spare my blood pressure. i'd rather not have a bush-related stroke.

today, in honor of of black thursday, i'll focus on bushisms.

america held hostage day 1837
"One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures."

"It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it."

"If you don't stand for anything, you don't stand for anything!"

"A surplus means there'll be money left over. Otherwise, it wouldn't be called a surplus."

god help us.

Friendship

i'm so glad this week is over. dealing with my sick dog has left me exhausted and stressed out. of course, the only thing that changes over the weekend is that i don't have to show up at the office. that makes me happy under any circumstances. he seems to be doing a little better today. i was able to get him to eat some of his special food, so maybe he has a little more fiber and vitamins in him today.

i can see a tiny, tiny little bird on the tree outside my window. i used to have binoculars here, but i took them home and haven't brought them back. it moves a lot like a woodpecker, but it's too small to be that. it's really nice to glance outside and see the little creatures that live in the tress outside my office window.

i have a new online friend. i met her through an online support group and we've been corresponding for a couple of weeks now. her early life was also deeply scarred by parental abuse. this is really pathetic, but i was so happy to see that i had an email from her his morning. i'm surrounded by people at work all day, but there's very little hope that anyone here could ever understand the life i've lived and the consequences that still reverberate through my life. there is one person here who believes she does, but that's because she doesn't know the full story.

i resist the idea that i might be lonely, although my therapist says that, if i weren't, there would be something wrong with me. i guess i've gotten so accustomed to living a solitary life that i don't even notice loneliness most of the time. i'm very introverted, but i'm also very low on trust these days. after the long saga of my friend, stephanie, i've been even more reluctant than ever to embark on any new relationships.

it seems that since i'm a very empathic person, i attract people who wish to lean on me emotionally. i'm open to providing emotional support to friends, but stephanie is a great example of why i'm not so interested in developing any new relationships. she used to call me every day (sometimes twice) and expected me to minister to her emotional needs. during a time when i was working far too much and was very ill with a work-related condition, i was planning a complex event for work and neglected to give her a call on her birthday. when i finally did call her, she told me not to call until she let me know she was ready to hear from me. she had absolutely no interest in why i might have missed the birthday call. i'm guessing she thought i would be devastated by her anger and rejection. wrong. at first, i was just very, very angry that she'd hung up on me. but then it was as if a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. i went to work on monday and found myself humming.

she finally contacted me shortly after my dad killed himself. i told her i was in no shape to be having any social discourse. she wrote me a letter telling me she was sorry and that she knew i'd be just fine. by that time, i had decided that my relationship with her was indeed over, no matter what.

since that time, my wariness about people has increased. every time i think of making new friends, i feel a great resistance.the great thing about an online friend is that she isn't going to be expecting me to talk on the phone with her for hours every day. she won't try to make me do things with her, like go to movies, etc. it is a little depressing, though, that i'm so happy to hear from her. i take great pride in my independence. the thought that i might actually need something from someone else is a little threatening. more fodder for therapy today.

here's the quote of the day:
"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You, too? Thought I was the only one." ~C.S. Lewis

america held hostage day 1831
bushism of the day;
"For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it."

The Vet Probably Thinks I'm Crazy

i just got back from the vet's office. Mr. T.'s glucose level was very high. we checked it in the morning a couple of times and it was much lower; the vet doesn't know why, but she suspects i'm not doing it right. i did drop the insulin a couple of nights ago, so maybe that's the problem. i don't know, but i do know that i seem alarmingly anxious-- even to me.

i hate that. it's just that it's been such a frustrating week and things seem to be going downhill. he won't eat any dogfood. none. nada. give me the hamburger, please, because that's all i'm going to eat. of course, on the up side, Sheba won't eat canned dogfood, either. nothing like picky pets. the vet suggested i give him the ground beef, but add some stuff to it to make it more nutriitous. my entire life right now is consumed by this husky. next week he's going to spend the day at the vet's so they can monitor his glucose level periodically and to get an ultrasound done. maybe we can figure out what's wrong with my guy so we can make him feel better.

i've been attempting to work on creating a database all day. fascinating stuff. i'm being ironic, of course.i don't know. i've been ratcheted up since last night. maybe it's just the cumulative stress over Mr. T. maybe it's menopause. what the fuck.

here's the quote of the day:
"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea." ~ Robert A. Heinlein

america held hostage day 1830
bushism of the day:
"I appreciate that question because I, in the state of Texas, had heard a lot of discussion about a faith-based initiative eroding the important bridge between church and state."website of the day; Anarchy and Game Theoryhttp://www.spunk.org/texts/misc/sp000161.txt

The Anasthesia of Everyday Life

driving back to work from lunch today, i drifted off into a reverie of the past. there was a time when everything was vivid, when every passing moment was intensely experienced. i think that's what everyone seeks in high school reunions or just reunions with old friends. it's what i seek when i recall the girl i once was. that girl had considerably more pain than i have to deal with on a daily basis. she wasn't sure she would make it to 50. she certainly wasn't sure whether she wished to.

these days, though i try to remain present in the moment, i frequently drift off into an anesthetized routine. i'm a little numb to it, so i try to reach back and rouse emotion or, at the very least, to break free momentarily from the drudgery of my life. every day it's the same. wake up, think about how sore i am from working out. try to summon some interest in what i'm going to wear to work. lately i just put on whatever's easiest. i shower, wake my husband up with coffee in bed and finish getting dressed. i take care of the dogs, then i drive the same streets to the same job i've had for at least 12 years now, but who's counting? i hang around work, go to lunch, come home at the end of the day. i have dinner with my husband, go home, work out and do a little reading. sometimes i meditate. then bedtime and i get up the next day to do it all over again. it's so unbearably tedious.

my therapist would probably say that one of the reasons i have such a numbed response to my life is because there are so many emotions i keep at bay. at the heart of it all is an attempt to hold at arm's length the recognition that i simply haven't been very important to anyone in life. in all of the relationships i've ever had, i immediately move to the bottom of the list of priorities. i don't understand why that's so. when parents can find so many other things to care about than their child, maybe one simply gets accustomed to this profound aloneness. i don't think i'm capable of confronting that black hole hidden at the very center of my being. whenever i catch glimpses of it, the pain is unbearable. it's so much easier to just go through the day like every other day. the sameness of my days may even be just a little heartening. i'm no longer living in a chaotic environment where unanticipated dangers loom behind every passing second. anesthesia is thus somehow comforting.

nonetheless, i miss the girl who was so vibrantly present even to that terror and pain. i think she just got very tired. maybe that's just what middle age feels like to everyone. monotony. comforting in its predictability, but ultimately, maybe deadly to all feeling. we are unimpressed, thank you very much. we've seen the blue sky and the sunset a thousand times before. we've met new people and found them to be, at best, predictable and, at worst, just the same old demands in new packages. we've married our heart's desires and found them to be surly and unshaven in the morning. romance is an old wive's tale. it's just all the same, every last second.

here's the quote of the day:
"There's no such thing as old age, there is only sorrow." ~ Edith Wharton

america held hostage day 1829
bushism of the day:
"They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program."wesite of the day: National Institute for Discovery Sciencehttp://www.nidsci.org/index2.htmlYou gotta love this shit.

Dogs and Suicide

hubby left this morning to visit my stepson and his wife. after taking him to pick up a rental car, i came back and got The Tusk ready for his appointment with the vet. he wouldn't eat much this morning, but enough to give him his insulin injection. he only weight 69 pounds this morning, which i'm assuming is related to his not eating breakfast. his glucose level was down to 316. i had a disagreement with his doctor about the amount of insulin he was supposed to be getting. we had raised him to 25 units, then 27 as of last week. his doctor didn't remember those numbers at all...she thought he was still at 22. i still believe i was correct. i don't just make this stuff up, particularly when it relates to my dogs. he had a couple of hot spots, one on his cheeck and one on his right elbow. we got some spray-on medication for that. we have to go back in on thursday to check the glucose level in the afternoon. next wednesday he'll be there all day so they can do several glucose tests to determine when the insulin level peaks. he'll also undergo an ultrasound in the hope that we can find out whether he has cancer.

i'm just not dealing with that right now. it's all i can do to make sure he's adequately fed and gets his injections. i don't really have enough mental energy to worry about it.as i was driving to work this morning, i saw an overweight guy walking towards the car on the opposite side of the road. it put me in mind of my father. suddenly there was the picture in my head of how he used to be. i spent a few seconds trying to figure out what was prompting those memories, but i managed to curtail that train of thought pretty quickly. there was some television program last night that had a couple of suicides in it. maybe that stuck in my head. to be truthful, though, he's always popping up in my head, sometimes as the person he was before he killed himself and sometimes as the person who inflicted so much pain on me and everyone else with whom he had relationships.

i guess that's just the nature of suicides. it's never really finished business for those left behind. i remember when i first started going to my survivors of suicide group, there was a lady there whose daughter had killed herself over 17 years previously. she showed up every week to offer support for those of us still in the unbearable immediate aftermath of our own losses. every week when i saw her, i wondered how she had managed to keep going for so long. she gave me hope that i would eventually be able to survive my father's death. at the time, i wasn't so sure i was ever going to be okay again. i'll always be grateful for her presence and the calm way she talked about her daughter's suicide. the story is burned into my memory.

i sometimes think about going back to the meetings just to provide hope for others just embarking on their own journeys. i never much liked the facilitator and, the minute she started to try to do therapy on me, i stopped going. that's pretty much my pattern. if people attempt to get to close, to see into my very well-barricaded heart, i will immediately and completely withdraw. i get to control when and how and with whom i share my emotions. i had already had some misgivings about her; i thought she responded to one person in a way that may have increased the victim's guilt. that's one thing that no survivor needs. there's enough guilt to drown in it. when she started doing therapy with me, i made the decision that i'd received enough support.enough exploration for the day.

here's the quote of the day:
"Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned." ~ Edna St. Vincent Millayamerica held hostage day 1827 bushism of the day:"We are ready for any unforeseen event which may or may not happen."website of the day: Frugal and Fashionable Living Magainehttp://www.frugalfun.com/frugal.html

I Can Survive Anything

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next." ~ Gilda Radner

I've been catching up with blog friends I haven't been able to read lately. I need to stop for a moment to talk about yesterday. It was a bad, bad day and it took me until late in the afternoon to realize it. Realization should have started when my mom told me a couple of times early in the day to stop beating up on myself.

On the way home, she was talking about the 4th of July and it immediately reminded me that July 6, 2006 was my last day of radiation. Then I recalled that March 28 was my last chemo day. But then I wasn't sure...was it March 26 or March 28? I became obsessed (oh yeah, I never do that ) with verifying the date. Around 7;00 p.m. last night, I finally managed to find some written evidence that the date was correct.

Then it suddenly hit me. A year. As someone on my breast cancer message board told me, I've been through a lot. It made for a sad and somber evening. It's okay...just a part of coming to terms with it all. I allowed myself to grieve for the relinquishment of wholeness. I remembered it all. The diagnosis--in three stages. The mastectomy. The chemo. The radiation. It was all unbearable, so I chose not to bear it.

I haven't only changed physically. I know now, with complete certainty, that I can get through anything. Maybe my father's suicide should have enlightened me on my transcendent abilities. Now I know. It seems to have created a greater reserve in myself, a distancing from the hard events of life. I am inviolable.

It seems I've permanently retreated into myself to shield myself against misfortune and pain. That doesn't mean I'm emotionally unreachable; as a matter of fact, I may be more open to love (in a general, nonspecific way) than ever before. I can survive love and loss. That knowledge liberates me, but it leaves me with an openness to love primarily on a non-specific basis. I have good will towards everyone. Close personal relationships seem even more unreachable. If you care about everyone equally, do you really care about no one? I don't think so. I hope not.

How have I changed? How have I changed? It's a question that's rather haunting and not fully answered still. There's a lot more grieving to be done, a lot more suffering to be worked through. I can survive it, though. I can survive anything.

"Maybe He's Going To Sue Us"

The Comptroller of our company and I just had a conversation about an out-of-state employee who is generally contentious and whether, despite the lack of grounds, he may decide to litigate. Nothing like litigious employees to screw up a Friday morning.

I used to believe (and maybe I still do, to some extent) that people are essentially good. They will, more often than not, do the right thing. The ethical thing. Make the morally positive choice. During the past 20 years, I've certainly seen quite a few people to whom that did not apply. At all. I stubbornly hang onto the belief that, given the opportunity, people will do whatever I perceive to be the correct alternative, nonetheless.

Some people don't care whether they do the wrong thing, even when it's abundantly clear that it's the wrong thing. Why is that? I'm 53, grew up in some very dubious circumstances and I still don't get it. I recognize that there's some seriously evil stuff going on in the world. (Well, actually the word "evil" gives me a problem. It's too Manichean for me; I'm morally neutral on the nature of the universe.) Clearly, choosing things that benefit the common good over things that benefit me personally to the detriment of the common good is one of those things that would keep me up at night.

Apparently it doesn't keep everyone up at night, though. On the other hand, I choose to believe that we are all doing the very best we can at all moments. If we could do something better, we would. There are, however, lots of reasons why we might make a less than desirable choice. The intersection of nature and nurture sometimes create moral blinders. I guess most people would say that idea is amoral or just plain stupid. Maybe that's so, but it just seems pragmatic to me. My therapist and I discuss this on a regular basis and she completely disagrees.

Maybe the employee is going to try to sue us, but if he does, it will be because he doesn't know how to do otherwise. I could argue the case some more, but it's time for...you guessed it: therapy. I guess I'll just have to take it up there.

There's Always An Up Side

Though it may be true that one of my co-workers (let's just call him Loathsome) has come into some unexpected good fortune, all is not lost. In fact, now the fun really begins. All manner of conflict is springing up everywhere. It may not add to my personal bottom line, but it's certainly a boon to the entertainment factor. Bad, bad ggirl.

Devil Dog

I have a one-year old adolescent husky mix dog. We're going through those teenage, rebellious years and it's wearing me down. They're not grown when they're a year old. They're not adults until they're at least 3 years old. I learned that this morning as I desperately searched the Internet for help in correcting behavior problems, specifically biting.

Andy (formerly known as "Wolf") gets overly excited, just like all males. When he's tired and needing to sleep, he goes absolutely crazy. He jumps on the sofa and shoves his head in between the cushions (which he knows is Bad Boy). While he's there, he bites me. A lot. Really hard. It's not so much an aggression thing as a crazy thing. He knows that's Bad Boy, too.

He just started this acting out about a week ago. My hands and arms are covered with cuts (where adolescent dog teeth dug into my flesh) and bruises. I look like an iv drug user or something. I've started to wear long sleeved shirts, even though the weather is decidedly warmer these days. So now I look really weird. I have to wear this vest-like bra which peeks out of virtually all of my shirts and now I can't even wear short sleeves.

This is ruining my reputation as friend to all creatures not human. My mom thinks I deserve it because that's exactly the way I was when I was a baby. I don't think I bit, but I'd do anything to stave off sleep. Of course, that's because my life was terrifying and that made it really hard to sleep, but that's neither here nor there. We don't take that into account. Furthermore, Andy's life is anything but terrifying.

I always thought one of the advantages to having dogs/cats vs. children was the fact that they never rebelled and got tattooed or pierced. As far as I know, Andy hasn't managed to get anyone to do either of those things. But it could happen. I also thought they were cheaper because you don't have to pay for college. I won't be paying for college, but I see some serious puppy-training classes in my future. They're not cheap, folks. Neither are bandages and antiseptic in massive quantities.

I'm re-thinking the whole animal paradigm. Not that it matters because I'm going to have to do whatever it takes to get Andy out of his Steve McQueen phase and into something a little more submissive.

Because He Looks So Good

I've been in the midst of my semi-annual will-i-have-a-job-at-the-end-of-the-month panic. Our primary client is making ridiculous cost-saving (theirs, certainly not ours) demands. Even if we could meet those demands, we'd cease to be a company in probably a matter of hours. I've also been working on my annual accident report for another client and spilling what's left of my Xanax prescription all over my office. Of course, that's another story. See ggirl crawl around on the floor, searching for every single pill.

I heard yesterday that we've managed to get a new contract with an equally large company that we did some work for several years ago. Given the fact that I have less than one month's salary in my savings account, you'd think I'd be happy. Oh no. You underestimate me.

The contract was secured by (maybe) my most hated co-worker, whom I will henceforth refer to as "Lothsome." So, mean-spirited bitch that I am, I'm a little unhappy about the whole thing. If nothing else, this proves there is no such thing as karma. Up until this latest employment insult, I've been fabulous. Little Mary Sunshine with breast cancer. Yes, I find all of you adorable, my noble co-workers. Let me feed the homeless kitties. Let me cheer up those who are sad for no reason. What do I get? Not a damned thing. A car that's quickly degenerating into one of those Barney Rubble foot-powered models, among other things.

And Loathsome? The reason I started hating him in the first place is his narcissistic refusal to acknowledge that other people in the office may have contributed to his dumb ass success. And I do not mean me. The man doesn't even understand that to have a complete sentence, there must be a noun and a verb. Only one will not do (unless we're in the stream of consciousness world of my blog). When he sends out intra-office memos or (worse) business correspondence to clients, he refuses to use the word "I." They all sound like communiques from a distressed Batman cartoon. "Must get folders. Have no idea what should be doing. Will massage enormous ego." Know what I'm saying?

So what does this idiot get? A contract. Damn damn damn. I don't know the budget, but I'd be willing to bet it's big. That's just how the universe likes to screw with me. It just loves to point out that I can be as vindictive as everyone else in my office. I don't care. I still can't stand the guy.

Why does he think he got the bid? Because he looks so good. I guess I should give him credit for not thinking it's his overwhelming brain power that gives him the winner's edge. He does think he's a really bright guy, though. I never let him get away with that. I've already forgotten more than he'll ever know. I challenge his assertions, I question his know-how, I mow him down with facts. He rarely engages in intellectual conversation with me now. Wonder why.

Did I say mean-spirited and vindictive? I believe I did.

Oh no. Computer seems to be going inexplicably slowly for some reason. Must go. Save self. Resume quiet seething.

Go Red

Two years ago, I lost my best friend of 30 years to a massive heart attack. The only good news was that she didn't suffer; death came very quickly. Please make sure that your family and friends don't lose you to heart disease.

Go Red For Women

Pain is Inevitable

"Deep unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state." ~ George Eliot

Except for the fact that the sun is shining through my office windows and there are lots of foraging birds and squirrels, it's another grim Monday. I'm not even sure at this point exactly what it is that makes me dread another week at work. Really, every day is pretty much like every other day. I've pushed myself physically in order to be here when no one expected me to show up. I don't even have to be here today. Or tomorrow, probably. Office became a haven from whatever form of breast cancer torture I was trying to get through for the past 18 months. Maybe my reluctance to be here is related to actually feeling better.

I lost another kitty this past week. Mom Kitty, the grandmother of all who came after, disappeared several days ago. She was looking shiny and a little tubby, so I thought it would be a while before I had to endure another loss. I have no idea what happened. It's possible that some other kitty in the colony made her leave. She's been having problems with Ring Tail Kitty for a while now. Mom Kitty used to be able to quell any big ideas by doing her incomparable hateful-kitty look. As she got older, hateful-kitty wasn't as effective. She may have been taken by a predator. The problem with being older and a little chubby is that you just can't move as quickly as you once did.

I'm hoping she's not living here anymore, but still dropping by for food after the rush hour when all the other cats are vying for food. Not that there's any food shortage, but the crowd can probably be a little intimidating.

If I've told myself once, I've told myself a million times that this is just how life is. "Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional." The Buddhist approach to life. I guess I'm opting for suffering these days. I still have my beloved Mr. Swagger, the cowardly Black and White Kitty and his improbable pal Ring Tail Kitty. I now have a large grey and white male who's been recuperating from a foot accident here in the relative safety of the patio. Crazy Cat Lady (aka me) made sure he had access to food nearby so he could stay off the foot as much as possible. I have Mom Kitty's Daughter, she of the beautiful blue eyes and the stand-offish attitude. They looked just alike except for Mom Kitty's white tipped tail. I have four baby kitties (that I need to catch and get fixed). I'm face to face with the inevitable lately. The inevitable never gets easier, no matter how many beings abandon me for death.

I finished up Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides yesterday. It took me forever to get through it. For some reason, reading about people almost dying on the side of mountains has seemed more compelling to me. Celebrating survival, I suppose. A week ago or so, I got really committed to finishing Middlesex. It was worth the struggle to concentrate.

Last night, I started reading a biography of Primo Levy. I became familiar with his work, The Periodic Table not too long after my dad died. For several years after that, I became obsessed with suicide. I read everything I could find. (Although that's just another manifestation of my obsessive-compulsive tendencies, to some extent.) I'm not sure how I became aware of Primo Levy, but he fascinated me. He survived Auschwitz, lived another couple of decades and then, inexplicably, threw himself down the stairwell of his apartment building. He did not survive the fall. How could it be that someone could summon the will to get through a concentration camp only to lose the will when life seemed to be on a even keel?

The answer is clear in some ways. Auschwitz doesn't end for survivors. It just keeps on playing in their heads. More than one therapist has told me that my early life was just as difficult to survive as a concentration camp. If that's true, then I know for a fact that it never ends. Even on my best days, when life seemed full of wonderful possibilities, the past nonetheless cast a deep shadow.

That's just my interpretation, though. It doesn't explain Levy's choice necessarily. It's another one of those enormous tomes that will take a while to wade through, but he was a fascinating man in more ways than that which he chose to end his life. Like every other life, there's plenty to celebrate in addition to the sadness.

Now what was it I'm grateful for today? Right. Just being present. The opportunities to love. Those two are enough to get me through a lot of suffering. Which, by the way, is optional.

Weighty Issues

"Keeping off a large weight loss is a phenomenon about as common in American medicine as an impoverished dermatologist." ~ Calvin Trillin

The ggirl you know now has a solid hold on personal style. People point out clothing in catalogs and say, "That's a ggirl dress." This was not always the case.

I always drop about ten pounds whenever I start a new job. It's not like I mean to, it's just a result of stress. I've worked for this company many, many years now and haven't dropped 20 pounds in at least the past ten.

During chemotherapy, I gained about ten pounds, making me the largest ggirl ever. I weighed about 140 pounds. It completely freaked me out, even though my oncologist kept telling me I'd lose the weight after the steroids went away. A couple of weeks into radiation, I had already gotten down to 135. I was trying to get back to my starting weight of 130. By the end, I'd hit my target weight.

After reconstruction surgery, I've lost another ten pounds. I've reverted to the ggirl I used to be. My personal style has taken a back seat to my inability to force myself to eat. During my first serious job, I had the first experience of dropping ten pounds. It was an extremely demanding job and I didn't really notice that I was losing weight.

It began to be apparent in the way my clothes didn't fit me anymore. I'd stand up from a desk and the back zipper of my dress would have migrated around to the side. I was always a little twisted and baggy. I had a co-worker who gave me grief about it constantly. I didn't make very much money, so it wasn't really possible to buy larger clothes. It made me angry, but I couldn't really refute what she was saying. I couldn't regain the weight, either.

I noticed yesterday that I've returned to the Ggirl of the Twisted and Baggy Clothes. (That's a title much like Miss Universe, but with no swimsuit competition.) I'm trying to stop losing weight, but the trend is not looking good. I was really fond of the number 125 and was hoping to hold onto it, but it slipped away sometime in the past week. I just got rid of all my size 6 clothing prior to surgery, thinking that I would never be that size again. Damn. Some of them were really cute clothes, too.

Now I'm worried that I'm going to return to a size 4, which is what I weighed about ten years ago when I was really ill for a couple of years. I tried to weigh more; I just couldn't.

I guess I'm going to go home a motor through the remainder of a large piece of German chocolate cake and see if there's anything else I can stand to eat. I'm just not fond of food right now. I know that's a condition lots of people would like to have, but I'd just like to get back to 125 and find a way to stay there.

In the meantime, I walk around all baggy and twisted like I did when I was 23. Maybe people will have the courtesy of not noticing or, if they do, keeping the jokes among themselves. I just hate being paranoid about where my zipper is located.

Clarity

Last week, one of my co-workers started having duplicate invoice numbers. We have one client that gets billed in several different company names. It's all legal, of course. It's just an added layer of complexity. K. told me about the duplications and so I decided to add an "07" to the front of every invoice number. It made sense to me and seemed to correct the problem.

Yesterday, I got an email from the controller telling me that his accounting software won't accept that many numbers. He says I should ignore K, because she doesn't know what she's doing. Today, first thing, I went in the files and removed all the "07's." Controller happy.

Then K. came in and was upset about the change because she said we're still having duplicating invoices. I opened all of the invoice files--Misc. 2006, Misc. 2007, OtherCompanyName2007--and I can't find any duplications. I pointed this out to K., who insisted that a change be made. I told her to go talk to the controller about it. She wouldn't. I'm not changing the invoices again. This is it. Everyone just has to find a way to make it work because this is getting on my last nerve.

Here's the thing. I just don't really give a shit. I enjoy working with databases and I've had a moderately good time creating all of them. It's the process itself that I enjoy. Yes, I would like it all to be easy to use and efficient. Yes, I would like for it to work well for everyone who uses it. It doesn't keep me up at night worrying about it, though, because ultimately I don't give a shit.

I quit caring what goes on in this company a long time ago. Want something? Ask me. Otherwise I'll just be in my office entertaining myself. Not only is there no incentive to do a good job, there is, in fact, plenty of rewards for doing a crappy job. I got it. I finally figured it out after about 10 years. I don't care, folks.

When other people get upset about how things don't work here, they never like the response they get from me. I nod my head, distractedly, and wander off into another office as soon as possible. I do not empathize. "Sometimes I frown slightly and comment, "Hmmm." Sometimes I ask them, "And where do you work?" That's guaranteed to piss people off. But you know. Get with reality, people.

I've just had one of those moments. No one wants to talk directly with anyone else to resolve the problem. Fine. But I'm cutting myself out of the process. I will not act as office translator. Or diplomat. Or liaison or any other stuck-in-the-middle-with-you jobs.

This is one of the great things about having breast cancer--clarity. I'm clear about where the system breaks down and I'm equally clear about what I'm going to do to address it. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I Have Breast Cancer; I'm Not Stupid

I used to care how I looked. I mean, really care. If the humidity was high, I devoted untold amounts of time to getting that very annoying little wave out of the top front of my head. It was very stupid looking, especially since the rest of my hair was fine and, though a little wavy, primarily straight. It would bother me all day long. Every time I glanced at myself in a mirror or reflection in a window, I would immediately set to bending my hair into submission. It never really worked.

When I found out that I was going to have to have chemotherapy, the very first thing I thought was, "no hair.' It was traumatic. Everyone kept reassuring me that it would grow back. That didn't exactly make me feel any better. Then there were sores inside my mouth that made it excruciating to eat anything, even frozen yogurt. There were hideous and painful sores on my hands. My personality virtually disappeared into the constant, all-over pain.

After my mastectomy, it was hard to feel good about my body. Harder still with sores, that classic moon face from the steroids, the extra 15 pounds I gained (also from the steroids), and losing absolutely all of the hair on my body. I started to look at myself only from the neck up. On most days, it was tough to even do that. That was okay, though. I needed all of the energy I could muster just to have the will to go on with the treatments.

By the time I got to radiation, I didn't care so much about the hair. I stopped wearing my wig, wore a ball cap for a while (a tasteful pink Phoenix Suns cap) and, after a while, just went bare-headed. I'd gotten some of my hair back by then and I consoled my co-workers (who were a little nervous about how to deal with mostly bald Ggirl) by telling them, "You'll get used to it. I did." I said it cheerfully.

I started to lose weight when I began radiation and got back to my old pre-steroid size. I got a breast prosthesis that didn't surreptitiously migrate up towards my neck when I wasn't looking. My eyebrows came back. My hair came back, darker and curly.

But I just don't care anymore. If my hair isn't looking good, I go with that. It is, after all, hair. It's completely unruly and I'm good with that. I don't wear makeup. Like after my dad's suicide, I just don't have the energy for it. I can come to work, barefaced, or I can stay home with makeup on. I don't care what I wear. I have this post-reconstruction vest-like bra that's impossible to wear with most of my clothes. My breasts aren't yet symmetrical. I don't care.

One of my co-workers came into my office today and told me she thought my hair is cute today, liked my (turquoise) necklace and heart-shaped earrings. I looked at her blankly. Can't you see I don't care anymore? I know people are trying to be nice when they compliment me. They tell me I look pretty. It's a pity compliment, though. I've got breast cancer, but it did not make me stupid. I say thanks, because that's what one is supposed to do when complimented.

I don't think I was a shallow person before. Caring about how I looked was just part of my whole gotta-be-perfect take on the world. I look at myself in the mirror now and wonder where my pre-breast cancer prettiness went. Then I remember that I just don't care.

Good to be Needed

I bought three new workout dvds this week. Two of them were Denise Austin videos and one was a yoga video. Oh how it makes me long to get back to working out. Sometimes I even start to believe that, after I leave work, I can go home and at least do some yoga. On my drive home, I always realize I'm not strong enough yet.

I'm still only working three hours a day, at most. I go home and have to lie down for about half an hour or so. That's a new development this week. Usually I just park my butt on the sofa and rest there, but this week has been taking a toll. I get that massive fatigue thing that makes my back, arms and legs ache.

I have been busier this week at work. I answered the phone for a couple of hours one day, since I was the only person here. I've also done some proofreading and updating the database I created. The big energy drain, though, was having to talk with co-workers. That takes enormous energy. I've already spent about an hour this morning, listening to a co-worker. He was funny, but I'm not sure it was humorous enough to justify the energy drain.

One of my colleagues just called to request a database revision. It's good to be needed.

Enough Already

No more Anna Nicole Smith coverage.

No more coverage of Oscar night fashion.

Ditto anything about Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears.

Did I mention Paris Hilton? Stop it.

It's Expensive Being Me

"Grief is depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance. It is tumbleweed distress that thrives on thin air, growing despite its detachment from the nourishing earth. It can be described only in metaphor and allegory...Grief is a humble angel who leaves you with strong, clear thoughts and a sense of your own depth. Depression is a demon who leaves you appalled." ~ Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

I saw my psychiatrist yesterday to check in with how I'm doing. I came away with a new antidepressant. Good news, bad news. I knew that something had to be done. I've been having significant symptoms of depression since my surgery, though I don't cry as much as I did the first five weeks. I've been unable to concentrate, not interested in food, sad, tired. I've lost about ten pounds since before the surgery. I'm still in some pain and I think that I tend to cry when I'm in that part of the day (after 11:00 a.m.).

On the other hand, my goal is to decrease the amount of medication that I'm on. I will probably never be able to completely stop taking antidepressants. The years and years of repeated, intense trauma have left an indelible mark. There's a genetic tendency for depression in my dad's family. Well, there's a genetic predisposition for just plain crazy in my dad's family.

I'm okay with that. I'd just like to not have a handful of pills to take every day. That won't be happening for a while yet. I just have to work on taking care of myself, physically and emotionally. I have to continue to eat, whether or not I feel like it.

I haven't felt like eating in a very long time. My doctor asked me if there was some way to make food more palatable. The answer is no. I may be hungry and I may be having something I generally like, but once it's in front of me, I completely lose interest. I can't continue to lose weight.

All of these drugs take a toll on my budget, too. To quote another Texas girl, "It's expensive being me." In so many ways.

The Path of Wildness

"We need the tonic of wildness, to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground." ~ Henry David Thoreau

The Good Boy is gone. I came by yesterday a couple of times and he was shockingly thin and lethargic. I petted him for a while and was grateful for the purrs. I had an appointment with my psychiatrist today, so I got up extra early so I could come check on him. I couldn't stand the thought that he might have needed food and wondered where I was. I checked again when I got back from my appointment.

He was strong and gentle. He was courageous and intelligent. His chose the path of wildness and he chose to allow me to help him. I was honored. He would disappear for a few months, a few days or even for a year and then turn up, hungry and vocal. He could have chosen to hang around and be fed. No need to hunt for his own food. He chose the path of wildness.

Since the time he was just a kitten, he would cross the busy street outside my office and head off into a field that surrounded the old airport. He could be a real cat there--hunting prey, beholden to no one. He must have had many adventures, but I know nothing about them. He chose the path of wildness.

After many years, he allowed me to pet him. His demonstration of trust and affection kept me going through some very tough chemo times. He was there for me and I tried to make sure he could always rely on me. We understood each other.

When he started looking really sick, I wished so much to do something for him. But he chose the path of wildness and that path can be hard and lonely. When death came, I'm sure he met it with dignity and courage.

He knew I loved him. I think he loved me. I'm deeply honored that he allowed me to be his friend.