Fake Boobs, Lipstick, and Stretching Myself

I'm about to work on the next video and realized I haven't shared with you this last one. Inching toward present time.... More of my videos here.

Things are happening!

Gifts for my Spark*Letter subscribers.
More on this (coming soon)
at LifeCraft (my art/design blog).

Between the books I'm writing, graphic design work for clients, the garden, the dog, and my over-the-top need to spend long hours on a bicycle (Jim and I rode 114 miles together yesterday—7.5 hours in the saddle—plus I went out for another 35 this morning) I'm busy, to say the least. I also started my Spark*Letter newsletter, the first issue of which was far more enthusiastically received than I dared imagine, which makes me eager to write the next one. Which is awesome. I'm inspired to inspire. What could be better?

Perhaps the biggest news is that I have a new job in the fall, teaching graphic design at a nearby university. I'm sure my feelings will change once I get into preparing my syllabus (I plan to start this week) but at the moment, I'll admit it—I'm scared! What if my students hate me? What if I'm dreadfully boring and can't get them to engage? What if I say something mean by mistake? It's not that I haven't taught before and done just fine. But in the past, I wasn't scared like this. Then again, I want to connect with and inspire and serve my students in a way I haven't before. It's going to be a stretch.

I'm convinced this is a good kind of scared, jumping off the high-dive kind of scared, expanding the parameters of who I am kind of scared.

I'm also planning to wear my prosthetic when I teach.

This was a difficult decision, still subject to change.

It's coming up on four years since my mastectomy. I didn't even consider reconstructive surgery (though the surgeon who did my mastectomy worried I'd regret the decision and made me promise to at least talk to the plastic surgeon—I never got around to it). In all this time, I haven't felt the slightest regret. I've worn my prosthetic breast in public for exactly one hour.

I like being my authentic self in the world. I've never been the can't-leave-the-house-without-lipstick kind of girl. In fact, I've never been able to leave the house with lipstick. I feel increasingly ridiculous in makeup, haven't worn any in years. I rarely shave. I feel so privileged to see how, to the people who know and care about me, my hairy legs and lopsided chest matter not in the least. And I'm constantly surprised and touched by strangers who are not repelled by my body. I wish all women had the opportunity to see that their true selves are just fine. We're all so tortured by the beautification industry exploiting and aggravating our insecurities to the point that we're convinced we're intolerably unattractive.

If we're ashamed of our bodies, no wonder we struggle to show our minds!

Don't get me wrong. I'm not immune to this conditioning. I notice people's reactions to my asymmetry. I'm vigilant around strangers. I hate when I'm caught off-guard, talking to someone who is unable to pay attention to my words, they're so busy frowning in confusion as they stare at my chest, trying to comprehend the enigma of my torso. (Come to think of it, this feels less bad than when I'd catch someone staring at my chest back in the day when I had two breasts. It's just that this new kind of staring happens more often.)

I don't want to deal with that while I'm standing in front of a classroom. I don't want to distract my students from the work at hand. I don't want to distract myself wondering if my body is a distraction. It's probably no big deal either way, but I'm ready to try a change of pace.

Just don't expect me to put on lipstick.

Taming the Beast

Earlier this summer. More of my videos here.

From yesterday's walk.

Back in May, when I started writing what I hope will someday be a book, the memoir of my Babies or Not journey, I thrilled at the mounting page count like an excited child tallying her age in quarter-year increments. But now, as the total creeps up toward four hundred pages on a first draft manuscript I thought would be finished a hundred pages ago, I'm facing demons bigger than the number of candles on my middle-aged birthday cake.

The bottom line is, I feel like I'm blathering on and on, and the story isn't over yet.

Believe it or not, I've never been good at telling my story from start to finish without worrying that my audience, real or imagined, isn't getting bored and fed up.

No wonder I have files full of half-finished books.

But I'm pushing forward with this one and I'll keep at it until I find the tail of this beast.

And then I'll tame it.

Or maybe I'll ride it, wild, into the sunset.

Or maybe I'll simply edit out all the silly metaphors.

In the meantime, I'm way behind on the videos, and even more behind posting them to the blog. There's another after this on the youtube channel. I'll post it here soon...er or later.

Beach Report

Medical drama and family fun in this one. More videos here.

Last Friday, on a whim, I packed up and took myself for a day at the Rhode Island shore. It was just what I needed, both a reminder that my beloved ocean isn't so terribly far from home, and an affirmation that there is pleasure in my own company (how nice to not have to hurry from the car to the beach, for instance, because taking my time gathering my things was holding someone up).

I'm a bit behind on posting videos, but cranking along with writing. My manuscript is now over three hundred pages. I feel the weight of all those words. It's harder to write lately, perhaps because I'm just coming to the crux of the story.

It is my hope that I'll be able to get to the end of this draft by the end of the first week of September. And then I'll return to the beach for a couple of days, this time with Jim. Because I like his company too.

Spoiler Alert

(From this spring. Uploaded the sequel to this one today. More of my videos here.)

I'm closing in on page three hundred of the first draft of what I hope one day will be the Babies or Not book. Once I'm finished—I figure I've got fifty or so more pages to write—I'll print the whole thing out and sit with it some place comfortable. In the warm sun I hope, maybe in a meadow or perhaps on a beach if I can finagle that, or else on the couch or sitting up in bed. In any case, I'll have a good red pen and some snacks and a notepad at my side.

I imagine I'll have some new writing to incorporate into the second draft, and a lot of older writing to strip away or wrangle into something more tightly honed. Eventually, I'll have a completed manuscript, the story of my journey through the reproductive years, which turned out very differently than I ever expected it would.

Early on in writing this, I began to imagine pitching the book to an agent or an editor, saying, "It's the story of an infertile abortion counselor's urgent but ambivalent desire to have children."

This imaginary conversation spawned a worry. What would I say if the editor or agent asks, "How does it end?" At first I drew a blank. So I asked myself, How does it end?

The answer came without a moment's hesitation. It's not exactly a fairy tale, but it's close enough for me:

"She gets cancer and lives happily ever after."

I hope the world wants this book, but if not, I'll be okay. I'll live my way into the next story.

Bombshell

I received an email yesterday inviting me to participate in a discussion on HuffPost Live with Suzanne Somers regarding her new book, Bombshell. I was eager to accept, but unfortunately, didn't receive the email in time and missed my chance.

In case you don't know about her, Somers' books live on the controversial fringe of medicine. She touts a mixture of medical truths and dangerous myths, suggesting that if we just eat right, take the right supplements, and use the right cleaning products in our homes, cancer, and indeed aging itself, can be overcome or better yet, completely avoided. 

When I was diagnosed with cancer, friends confessed to me that they were scared not only because they cared for and worried about me, but also because they regarded me as a model of healthy living. Nobody wants to think that you could do everything "right" and still get cancer. It is by far more preferable, indeed downright seductive, to believe that we have some control when it comes to avoiding the spectre of disease. 

Rationally, it does make sense to treat our bodies well. It puts us in the best possible position to bounce back if disaster strikes. But the flip side of the reassurance of the illusion of control is the cruelty of blame. The truth is, disaster can strike anyone, at any time. Even if you're very very good. And sometimes bouncing back is not possible.  Even if you fight very hard.

I'm suspicious of pills. I cure my headaches with a good cry, or a big glass of water and a nap. And if that fails, I suffer and complain and annoy everyone around me unti the pain subsides. As I'm sure you can imagine, chemotherapy terrified me. I regarded cancer drugs as crude poisons, a carpet bombing approach with my body as a battlefield. I wanted to nurture my body's natural immunities. I wanted a friendlier, more nuanced approach, and I plowed into research. I was excited by what I read about the power of every day foods and spices. Green tea. Curcumin. Black pepper. Mustard greens. I found Somers' message to be very hopeful and attractive. But the deeper I dug the more disappointed I became.

There may be something in green tea and black pepper and curcumin that can cure cancer, but the research simply isn't there. Nor is it there for many of the "designer supplements" Suzanne Somers espouses, let alone the miracle cures you'll happen upon on Googling alternative therapies. I read one about melting tumors in a single day by alternating seven-minute hot and cold showers directed on the tumor site) and crazy diets (one that sticks in my memory involved a lot of cottage cheese). It isn't to say that all that is "alternative" is bad, or that the science is always absent. It's just that rigorous study is expensive, and drug companies don't put money into something that can't one day turn a profit. You can't patent "eat more vegetables." And besides all that, you can't ethically withhold a drug that has proven results in favor of experimentally trying something that does not.

Here's where it gets dangerous. Somers had breast cancer. She had a lumpectomy and radiation but refused chemotherapy, and she claims that chemotherapy "rarely works." Perhaps that is true for her particular cancer. For many women with cancer confined to the breast, chemotherapy isn't even recommended in the first place, the benefit is marginal at best. I don't know the details of her diagnosis but I do know that mine was more advanced. It was in my lymph nodes. It was all over my right breast. It was the most aggressive of its type. Chemotherapy was emphatically recommended. But even so, if a hundred women with my same profile and exact diagnosis refused chemo, a few would have survived without recurrence. Why? I'm sure every one of them would have an answer. Prayer. Meditation. Broccoli. Luck. And every one of them would be convinced of their cure. But it would be dangerous to evangelize to others about their approach. Without peer-reviewed, double-blind, rigorous study, it's downright irresponsible.

Pushing for research, and a health care system not driven by profit, however, is another story entirely. 

You are Unrepeatable

Small Pong, Mummy Leg, and High Tens with Millie. Now that's living! More of my videos here.

Recently I came across a recorded book at my local library called Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth. I'd never heard of her, but apparently she's quite famous for her teachings on stopping compulsive eating and quitting dieting. All I knew was that compelling title, and my desire to have something to listen to in the car.

Excellent book, entertaining and smart and laced with love. Her bottom line idea, if I may be so bold as to attempt to sum it up, is to slow down and pay attention, to love ourselves, with food and otherwise. It sounds so simple, and yet it can feel so impossible. But Roth gently peels away all the layers of confusion and distraction that get in the way of doing just that, and she does it with humor. If you need a little inspiration to take better care of yourself - whether you're female or male, whether or not you're overweight or think of yourself as someone with "issues" with food, I highly recommend this read.

"We are unrepeatable beings," she says. And, "The promise of a diet is not only that you'll have a different body, is that in having a different body, you'll have a different life. If you hate yourself enough, you'll love yourself. If you torture yourself enough, you will become a peaceful, relaxed human being. Only kindness makes sense. Anything else is excruciating."

 Check her out:

More of my videos here.

Chemo #7

Today:

- up at 6:15, drove J~ to the bus

- off to the gym: 4000 yards in the pool. Feeling surprisingly great. Wished I had time for another 1000. And I never, not even pre-cancer, swim more than 4000.

- Home and food

- Dog walk in the woods (short one, running out of time)

- Pack a lunch, off to Hartford to pick up J~, next stop: cancer center

- stuck with needles 5 times (once for blood tests, four tries for chemo - apparently I shouldn't swim so much before chemo, or at least I need to hydrate a lot more).

- Home again, on the couch all evening.

- On the agenda now: this blog post, start movie files rendering so that I can edit tomorrow (it will take all night) , brush my teeth, kiss my husband, maybe read a little Lance Armstrong Every Second Counts, sleep.

J~ just asked me, "Do you think the Benadryl is wearing off and the steroids are kicking in now?"

Judge for yourself from these pictures, taken since I've been home, presented to you in reverse chronological order.

Baby Steps

More of my videos here.

I have been aware for some time now that the links I offered on this blog were woefully out of date. Not a one pertained to breast cancer and worst of all, some led to an embarrassing dead end, "Error 404: Page Not Found."

A month or so ago I deleted the worst offenders. Since then, I've struggled to envision a way to organize information better. I want to offer links that pertain not only to the specific topics I cover on this blog, which, if you haven't noticed, are numerous and far-ranging, but also I wanted to include links to topics I am yet to even broach. For instance: Things that make me laugh. It seemed an unwieldy list.

I suppose I made too big of a project of it in my mind, circling the pond, dipping in a tentative toe here and there, fretting over the best place to dive in.

The hell with it. It's time. Today I dove from where I stood.

The result? A brand new Resources page. It's dreadfully incomplete and not very inspired, but I plan to add to it over time and I welcome your suggestions.

In the meantime, I ask you, what projects are you not working on? What baby step can you take in the direction of getting it done?

Sometimes we need to bite off a smaller chunk of the task, sometimes we need to release the expectation of perfection right out of the gate, and sometimes the key is simply to roll up your sleeves, strap yourself in, and just do it.

P.S.

Since my previous post, several excellent suggestions have emerged for additional reading:

I haven't read this one, but my husband has and we've had some interesting conversations as a result. Cancer has a long history. This book lays it all out.

This title has been recommended to me several times, an inspiring account of taking charge of one's healing by bolstering the spirit with hopefulness, humor, and the healing power of the mind.

This one is my own suggestion, inspired by some insightful comments on the last post. It's a beautifully written exploration of environment and disease and the scientific and political challenges to tracking the connection between the two. I read it many years ago, and I'm pleased to see there's a second edition.

Cleaning Up

Cancer or not, are you looking for inspiration to healthy-up your life? Here's my recommended reading list, click the book images for more info:


Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman, M.D.
I read this years ago and never quite forgot it (though for a while there, I forgot the title and couldn't find the book again, much to my dismay). Dr. Fuhrman is plain-spoken, inspiring, and undeniable. His orientation is primarily toward weight loss, and his plan makes it easy. But it's not just about how you look. Dr Fuhrman cites so much compelling evidence that this is the healthiest way to live. Like I said, it's inspiring. It's his book that got me started reading the books that follow. I highly recommend this as a good place to start.



The China Study by T. Colin Campbell.
I learned about this book from the previous author, and couldn't put it down. Not only does this book lay out the findings of major worldwide studies on the connection between diet and disease, but it also details the not always stellar politics of governmental health organizations where the author held advisory positions. If you pick no other book from this list, I recommend this one.



Anticancer, A New Way of Life, New Editionby David Servan-Schreiber.
This book picks up where T. Colin Campbell leaves off. Written by a doctor and cancer survivor, this book goes deep into the most recent evidence for the connection between diet, lifestyle and disease and how our bodies specifically benefit from what we normally identify intuitively as simple, healthy choices.



Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It!by Kris Carr.
Yup, I'm recommending it. This is the book that takes you by the hand and leads you down the scary path of letting go of the bad habits and introducing the good. My copy just arrived a few days ago. I'm happy that I bought it.

Do you know about Kris Carr? Perhaps you've picked up on a little of the complicated feelings I have about the "Crazy Sexy Life" movement she spearheaded beginning with her 2003 documentary, "Crazy Sexy Cancer." The healthy and active life choices she promotes, including a largely raw foods, vegan, sugarless diet, were exactly the choices I was passionately embracing when I received my cancer diagnosis. It's not the lifestyle that bothers me.

Nor is it the philosophy. Life is crazy, in all the positive and the negative connotations of the word. And at its innermost vibrant core, the energy of life is also sexy. Life begets life. For our species anyway, sex is how it's done.

And yes, I think it's good to recognize that people with cancer are still fully human. We don't want to be relegated to pedestals of tragic passive ethereal delicacy. We don't want to be regarded as saints or heroes. We don't want our struggle to be glossed over or glamorized. We just want to live.

So where's the problem? It's not Kris Carr herself. Though she is accused of it by those who don't read beneath the surface of her titles, I do not believe she glamorizes cancer. Although I'm jealous of the fact, it's not that, for her, a "wait and watch" regimen of healthy living bolstered by daily wheat grass shots and regular colonics (aka "high enemas") were a reasonable, oncologist-sanctioned treatment plan. (Just to clarify, my jealousy does not extend to the colonics. I have never had a colonic and the idea of one most definitely freaks me out.)

The thing that gets me is, it worked. Her tumors shrank.

Which means I can't bring myself to walk away from the ideas. Which makes me notice that lately, I kind of want to.

There is so much in the media right now about how to prevent cancer with diet and exercise that it makes having cancer feel like a giant humiliation of bad lifestyle choices. I know it's not so simple. I know it's not my fault. But I hate feeling like the world might see it that way. I understand the temptation. I've been on the other side of this scary fence hoping to stay there, wanting to believe it was under my control. Even today I was lectured about what kind of cleaning products I should be using from a well-meaning loved one theorizing about the sources of breast cancer. Never mind that all I use is vinegar and water. Never mind the sexist implications of this theory. Never mind that the lecturer was a smoker.

We as a society have so little attention for addiction. I feel for folks with lung cancer. Do they receive the compassion they deserve?

But I digress...

It's very easy to get caught up in thinking that every non-impeccable choice I'm making, dietary and otherwise, is paving the way to my own demise. It doesn't help that chemo has rendered my mouth hypersensitive to texture and desensitized to flavor. Therefore, meat, fat, starch, and sweets have become much more appealing. Salad, previously a twice-daily pleasure, has become a challenge.

But here it is, the bottom line: I'm done whining about it. I'm done wallowing in self-pity and frozen treats. Temptations will always be there, cancer or not. I can refuse to blame myself for my disease without denying that my choices impact my health. I'll be gentle with myself of course. But I'm done holding back from my most vibrant life.

Day After Chemo #4 and Still Kicking

I am feeling rather well, considering that I just had chemo yesterday. However, I felt rather well last time at about this point in the cycle. If things go as they have, tomorrow will begin a slide downhill that will last late into the week.

And yes, if you're wondering, I did the 100% chemo dose. My gut tells me 80% would have been enough. My gut also tells me I can recover from 100%. And so, like the raised-christian doubters who baptize their kids "just in case," I went through with the entire prescribed ritual.



Hopefully I don't live to regret it. No, that's not what I mean to say. Hopefully I live to regret many many things. And then live on with the fortitude to make all the necessary reparations.

This quote doesn't exactly line up, but close enough: Like Jill Conner Browne says in her sweet and hilarious book, American Thighs: The Sweet Potato Queens' Guide to Preserving Your Assets: "Live like you've got all day tomorrow to apologize."

Welcome to Cancerville

Got the call from Dr. Z last night to tell me that yes, the new lump is cancer too, in the armpit it's also cancer, and the original site is indeed Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, all of it grade 3, which means the most aggressive type. Other tests that get more into its genetic and hormonal personality (so to speak) are pending. PET scan is on the horizon, and maybe CT and bone scans as well, if the insurance companies insist on these being done before the PET scan will be approved.

Poor J~ looks distraught. I think he had his hopes up for better news. I, on the other hand, expected nothing less, though I had conveniently forgotten the grade 3 business, which was already on the table with the first biopsy.

We don't have all the information to formally "stage" the cancer, but according to Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book , by a measure of tumor size and count of involved lymph nodes alone, assuming things are just slightly worse than we've gathered so far, my chances of being alive five years might not be a whole lot better than a flip of the coin.

I'm not freaked out by this.

Okay, I'll admit it, I am a little freaked out by this. I didn't sleep much last night. But I know statistics only paint the broadest picture. I am my own individual case and that's all there is to it. Even so, the words going through my mind today are these: My life is on the line.

So yes, it sucks, and yes, it's stressful, and boy do I hate what it's putting my loved ones through. But dammit —I know this will sound strange — it's also kind of exciting. It's an adventure like none other and I embrace that aspect completely. I have never been so thoroughly conscious of the preciousness of my life, my relationships, and my strength. I'm not letting any of it go to waste.

Around the Bend

Mastectomy. Though I won't know for sure until November 1st's biopsy results come in, that's what I'm expecting I'll have to face two weeks later. Have I told you that surgery is scheduled for November 15th? What kind of surgery is yet to be determined, but this is what I expect. A call from Dr. Z yesterday confirms this; she wanted to prepare me for the possibility, told me to think about what questions I might have.

I read about mastectomy in Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book last night after J~ fell asleep, and cried silently over the details. There will be pain, there will be rehabilitation issues for my arm, and a long, slow recovery — my doctor tells her patients to expect to be out of work for six weeks. There will be permanent numbness where the breast once was. Something akin to phantom limb, which I'll call phantom boob, occasionally happens. Some people have nerve damage that leaves them with permanent pain. A huge swath of flesh will be taken, tunneling up to the collarbone and into the armpit. I've got little more than two weeks to wrap my mind around this.

Then there's the question of reconstructive surgery. Though I'll hear out a plastic surgeon, I expect I'll decide that this is not for me. I don't dye my hair, I almost never shave my legs. With the exception of my wedding ring, I don't wear makeup or jewelry except on the most special of occasions. Of course it's a very very individual decision and I would never fault those who choose it, but the extra surgeries and the possible complications and the very idea of a prosthetic that I can't remove at the end of the day does not appeal to me in the least.

I've already Googled clothing for women who've had mastectomies and so far I've not come across what I want - bras and bathing suits that will support my remaining breast (assuming I have a remaining breast) without gaping on the other side, or filling in the asymmetry with ruffles or padding. I want fitted tops that don't disguise the truth. I think of Aimee Mullins running on her high-tech carbon fiber cheetah legs, and wonder - can't I be powerfully, bravely asymmetrical? Can't I have extra racing stripes from neck to armpit and leave it at that? (If anyone knows any resources for this kind of thing, please send them my way.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm dreading the stares and the discomfort I cause for others. I know this is not going to be easy. I've had a hard enough time in the locker room already, feeling shame and inhibition over the bruising from my first biopsy.

I also worry about balance and the health of my back. My breasts are not small, the weight differential will not be insignificant.

There are a group of women I swim with regularly. I think I will ask them to come to my house and be with me and my new appearance before I go public with it. I'm sure they will be wonderful, and I'll probably weep. I'd want to also give them a chance to talk and think about how it feels to them to see me this way. We all fear breast cancer, and by "we" I mean all of us women. And now I'm going to be a living reminder of that fear. I want to be okay with that. And I'll need that human moment before venturing back into the world of strangers with all the pretense that will surround their feelings.

I'll get a lightweight prosthetic and special bras with a pocket to hold it in place, and once once the surgery wound is fully healed, I'll get a silicone prosthetic too, the kind that adheres tightly to the skin. I'll wear that whenever I want to simply fit in. And I'll keep in mind what my sister-in-law said: I'm allowed to change my mind.

Moving Forward

I've been a negligent blogger. Ever since I put the last miscarriage behind me, I've been moving – biking, running, swimming. J~ is training for the Hartford Marathon in October, his first ever, and his excitement is contagious. I've never run more than six miles in a row myself, but now I'm considering it. I'm maybe just maybe going to do the half marathon. That's enough for me, I think. Thirteen miles? We'll see how it goes.

I've been reading three books on miscarriage, and I want to recommend all three, particularly the idea of reading all o them at the same time. They cover some of the same scientific bases but from different points of view, which makes it possible to get a nuanced understanding of the state of this mysterious medical field. I recommend these books especially if you, like me, have had multiple miscarriages and don't have a lock on why. So without further ado, here are the books. Click on them for more info:

          

Since I last wrote. J~ and I visited a new fertility clinic. This was not an easy thing for me to do. In fact, I told J~ I wanted to cancel because I hadn't secured all my medical records in time. He asked for the real reason, and I had to admit my fear of being judged, my discouragement, my desire not to give over any more of my life to what seems to be a losing battle. All of this made me cry to admit, and the tears cleared the air. I didn't cancel the appointment.

The doctor was friendly, respectful, and patient as I recounted my history and ran him through the gauntlet of my ten million questions (I came with a list). He recommended a battery of blood tests (for hormone levels, clotting and immunology issues, thyroid function, insulin, and of course genetics testing for both of us.) He also recommended a Sonohystogram (SHG), a procedure in which saline solution is injected through the cervix in order to better view the uterus via ultrasound.

I've said many times that I'm not up for anything invasive. Loyal readers, you've heard me say it. My rule of thumb: Nothing ever again goes in through my cervix except sperm. The doctor did not pressure me, or at least it didn't seem like he was pressuring. But many of my questions led back to this test. For instance, though I know it's a long shot, I've always been haunted by the question, What if I have scarring from the abortion? Could that cause an early miscarriage? The doctor said, "The SHG would show if there is scarring."

I reconsidered. Could J~ be there with me? I asked. "Of course!" boomed the doc. And suddenly I was in tears. I had not been even close to crying recounting my history, or hearing that even if they find a problem and fix it, at my age, I may very well miscarry again. None of this was new information. The new thing was the realization, on some deep primal level, that the abortion is over. That I am not a frightened teenager all alone. That no one is judging me for what I'm going through, there is no shame in it. There will be no gruff, anonymous doctor treating me like just another vagina on a gruesome assembly line. I won't have to pretend, later in the day, that nothing happened.

(For the record, by the way, while working in an abortion clinic, I have seen with my own eyes that not all abortion docs are like that. I wouldn't go so far as to say they are usually personable and compassionate, but once in a while they are very much so.)

As things stand today, the blood tests are behind me. (I've never seen so many little glass vials lined up for my blood!)

As instructed, I will call to schedule my SHG when my next period arrives. (That is, if it arrives. J~ and I have been supremely uncareful this month. Then again, I'd be shocked if I'm pregnant again already. It's the first cycle after a miscarriage. I'm forty years old. And if you don't count #6, which, let's face it, maybe never really happened, this last pregnancy took almost two and a half years to achieve.)

I'm not optimistic that I'll ever get pregnant again, less optimistic that I'll find any answers. But right now, I feel good about going forward with these tests. Even if I never have a child to show for it, at least I'll eliminate some of the unknowns.

Overwhelming

Sometimes the harvest just keeps on coming:

A successful solo art show in the gallery.

A request to make an appearance on a popular radio show - tomorrow morning (details here).

Finally opened my Etsy shop.

Just landed a design account three times bigger than any I've ever had.

In today's mail - a book with my writing in it: Who's Your Mama?: The Unsung Voices of Women and Mothers

I had better go to bed before I think of anything else!

The Big Read

If you missed my This I Believe radio rebroadcast, yes, you can listen to it online. Just keep in mind, this was written several years ago now. My story has evolved since then - still no Hollywood ending, unfortunately.
As I write this, the link isn't posted yet, but I'm sure it'll be up soon. (Look for August 27, 2008)

J~and I watched a good movie yesterday, about a comic book writer and file clerk and the quirky reality of his life. The movie is very creatively put together, funny, touching, and a true story. I recommend it: American Splendor.

While I'm thoroughly off the subject of this blog, I also came across this - The National Endowment for the Arts' Big Read. Apparently we're supposed to go through this list of great books, noting everything we've read (bold), everything we really really loved (bold and underlined), and everything we plan to read in the near future (italics).

Here's my list. I'd love to see yours.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Feministeria

Oh what a terrible word I just made up for the title of this post, considering it conflates "hysteria" - a word that already mushes together female and craziness (Think "hysterectomy." Same root.) – with "feminism", a topic much on my mind as I follow the race for the United States presidency. No, no, no, I won't go into political analysis here, nor will I make any arguments for my personal candidate of choice, but I will say this: Not a white male in sight, at least as far as Democrats are concerned, and I'm loving it. Nothing against white males, I love and admire quite a few of them, but: Take that, racism and sexism! It's about time.

I've been reading a fascinating book called They Used to Call Me Snow White...but I Drifted: Women's Strategic Use of Humor. Case in point: Nellie McKay's must-hear song, Mother of Pearl. The best version for free online, in my opinion, is on the NPR program Fresh Air Give it a listen, she sings it live at the very top of the interview.

Grief and Loss, in General

I wrote a post yesterday which seems to have gotten lost into that infamous computer-freeze abyss. In it, I opened with a quote I heard in an interview with Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, from her book, Kitchen Table Wisdom:

"The way we deal with loss shapes our capacity to be present to life more than anything else. The way we protect ourselves from loss may be the way in which we distance ourselves from life. We burn out, not because we don't care, but because we don't grieve. We burn out because we've allowed our hearts to become so filled with loss that we have no room left to care"

Remen specializes in teaching medical students and other doctors about the emotional and psychological aspect of their chosen profession, about the difference between curing an illness and healing a person. Her lessons, and her writings, don't just apply to doctors. They apply to teachers and counselors and others in helping professions, to parents, to chronic miscarriers and infertiles and anyone who ever lost a loved one. Everyone, in fact, who has ever experienced a loss. And who hasn't?

Talented Brilliant Women

This is a follow-up post, in which I complete my selections of five great women bloggers to whom I pass the torch of the Rockin' Girl Blogger award.


The problem is, the more I look, the more I find that the web is full of you talented brilliant women! I feel like I'm stumbling into one small party and picking five to declare the most amazing of all, while ignoring the fact that there are millions of others at millions of other parties equally stunningly worthy.

One redeeming fact: my five picks now get to tag five picks of their own. So it's not all up to me.

Without further ado, and, again, in no particular order:

3. It's not just one person writing this blog, so maybe it's not fair to make this pick. But since the theme is female empowerment, I think I can get away with it. Though I'm sure they'd prefer not to be referred to as "girls" rather than "women", it's undeniable that they are rockin'. And they do the rest of us rockin' females an important service, providing regular, all-important reminders that sexism is alive and well in our world, lest we lose sight of how we are affected and subtly (and sometimes not-so-subtly) limited by it every day. Feministing, edited by Jessica Valenti, Vanessa Valenti, Samhita Mukhopadhyay, and Ann Friedman, takes to this challenge with great spirit and humor.

4. I hesitate to even dip my foot into the world of cooking blogs, because there are so many treasures in this department, but I can't skip over Heidi Swanson, author of two great and inspiring cookbooks: Cook 1.0: A Fresh Approach to the Vegetarian Kitchen and Super Natural Cooking: Five Ways To Incorporate Whole and Natural Ingredients into Your Cooking. Heidi's blog, 101 Cookbooks, is jam-packed with great recipes, cooking tips, and mouth-watering images. Heidi does much of her own photography and graphic design, not to mention writing, cooking, tasting, musing. She's a powerhouse, and she lights a fuse under my butt to do all the projects piled in my filing cabinet and all over my desk. Heidi, you can cook for me (or better yet, with me) any time.

5. Kt (Kate Andrews) of The Department takes stunning photographs and peppers her blog with them, along with her concise and colorful writing. Her haikus, brief journal entries, platitudes with a twist, and sparky little self-helpish quips and quotations are often worthy of meditation.

I'm forcing myself to stop, though in my mind there is great clamoring: But what about all the infertile and mom-blogs? What about the artist blogs? That one I love by the mom-lawyer, the other by the mom-doctor? That one by the book editor? I'll have to compile them all properly, get them into my sidebar links, give them their much-deserved props.

In the meantime, I'll mention one other site, a resource for all of you female bloggers out there (or wannabe bloggers). Check out BlogHer. It's for you.

It's a Start

MC at MissedConceptions recently bestowed upon me a "Rockin' Girl Blogger" award, and I am delighted to receive it.

Actually, it was a few weeks ago.

More accurately, I should admit, more than a few weeks.

Okay, so it was August.

But here it is, and I post it proudly:


I'm only just getting around to acknowledging the honor, in part, because of the expectation that I now select five Rockin Girl Bloggers to honor in kind. Not an easy task, if you take it seriously – which I do – when there are so so many supremely worthy Rockin' Girls out there. But I'm going to attempt a selection, finally, belatedly. A little at a time.

Here I go with my first two picks. In no particular order:

1. I'll begin with Aliza Sherman Risdahl, who is the author of six books, including The Everything Blogging Book: Publish Your Ideas, Get Feedback, And Create Your Own Worldwide Network. I first came across her through her Babyfruit: The Miscarriage Blog and Motherhood Diaries, which played a part in inspiring me to begin my own blog, and got me hooked on her story. (At that time, motherhood was still in the future for Aliza.) I've since been wowed by all her many creative efforts, including several other blogs, writing projects, and independent filmmaking. She inspires me to put myself out there in like kind.

2. Penelope Trunk authors the blog Brazen Careerist: Advice at the intersection of life and work and penned the similarly titled book, Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success. I just discovered her and I'm excited by her thoughtfulness, great writing, and wide-open unselfconsciousness. I give her credit for getting me moving on this long-avoided chore. Speaking of which, check out her lovely post on procrastination.

More soon.