I love September

The weather is glorious here today! It is just a teeny bit more fall than summer - that kind of weather that feels like leaves turning and freshly sharpened pencils and a warm sweater. Cozy weather. I feel guilty for being on the computer on such a day... we get so few like this in the year. September means change and learning, football and good trail running.

I went to the library because that seemed like the appropriate thing to do, and got a few books including a trashy romance novel called "When he was Wicked" by Julia Quinn (because that also seemed like the thing to do...)

I'm debating right now how to spend the rest of the day. I could (should) go for a walk. I could watch a movie. I could take a nap. I could finish my errands.

I am sitting here in my living room with the balcony door wide open, watching the square of sun light on the carpet grow smaller as the evening comes. Is this a waste of time? I don't care.

Kris Carr in DC

Adam was kind enough to join me to see Kris Carr speak about her cancer experience on her book tour stop in DC. She actually blogged about it! It was weird to be in a room full of cancer survivors. I saw a couple other ladies with smile-scars on their necks - thyroid cancer sisters. There were plenty of bald and short-haired women too. Thank god I did not have to go through chemo. I have a pic in my phone of me with the teeny tiny Kris but I have to wait for it to show up in my email inbox.

The World As it Should Be

My aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer on Friday. It sounds good - small tumor and they caught it early. Still. I don't think I need to say how much this grips me. After watching Crazy Sexy Cancer on Wednesday and reliving all the emotions and memories, now this brings it back even stronger because it's personal. My heart goes out to her so much. Even though there is not a doubt in my mind that she will be "cured" (...no one really uses the C word in reference to cancer because, well, you're never *really* cured, it's always lurking there the possibility of recurrence or metastasis), I know what she is going through. I know how completely overwhelming and impossible it seems that this is happening, that this is your life, that you will make it through this, that you will feel joyful or relaxed or carefree again. Ever. (You do, eventually. Eventually you get lost in work again, cuss at drivers who cut you off, feel frustration about the size of your ass, and stop seeing unfolded laundry as a sign that living itself is just too impossible. This too shall pass. It really shall. As unlikely as it seems.) I remember feeling the intense need to DO SOMETHING. ANYTHING. NOW. Oh my god, just fix it. And at the same time, the feeling of total helplessness, because there's nothing to do but wait. Wait and see. For me, the waiting and wondering was almost harder than going through the treatment... almost. Because you don't know what will happen. Yeah, they say it's a small tumor and they caught it early, but what if they cut you open and the cancer is EVERYWHERE? What if you have complications? What if you don't wake up? What if you DO? Then what? Then there's a gaping wound in your neck and you feel like if you lean your head back it might fall right off, or if you sneeze all your insides will come exploding out, and eventually there will be a huge scar on your neck and that will never go away, and now you don't have a thyroid and maybe the cancer will come back anyway maybe it will come in the night and steal you away and in spite of all your best efforts and all the vegetables you have eaten and all the healing you have done and all the moments you have lived as though you are not a sick person you are a sick person... ? Yes, eventually WHATIF? stops becoming your All Consuming Entire Existence and you stop living with the clarity of a Mortal Person because, quite simply, it is too exhausting. Sometimes you have to just sit on the couch and eat candy bars from the vending machine and watch bad re-runs on TV, even if it might be your last day on earth, because you just can't live on the precipice of life all the time. But even once you do move on, there will always be the Reliving of it. Talking with my aunt, I experience all the fear and emotion and pain again, just as powerfully as the first time, it seems.

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Just to show that life does move on and you do eventually get to do things you love again and not be a Sick Person, I will tell you that Adam and I went to Harper's Ferry on the border of WVA and MD yesterday to walk around and go hiking. I wanted to hike farther, but the foot was pissed, so we hiked to the overlook and back and called it good. The hike goes over an old bridge across the river and up the hill on the other side to a rock outcropping where you can look down on the town of Harper's Ferry and get a good view of MD/VA in the distance.

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Adam is leaving next weekend to spend 10 days in Kansas with his family. That's TEN of the mere THIRTY he has left here in DC before he moves to Hawaii. Ten days to test out being alone. Because come October? He will be gone. I didn't think I cared. Truthfully, I thought, ok, he's going. Probably we are not meant to be together (if we were, wouldn't we [I] *know* it by now?) and maybe his leaving will be good for me, maybe it will be a catalyst for new and exciting things to come into my life. Maybe it will be like the End of an Era and I will be able to move on to a healthier, happier, more fulfilled chapter in my life.

But.

The closer it gets to that time, the more I realize that I do care. I care a lot. In fact...

I'm dying inside.

I feel a little catch in my throat when I ask him how many kids he wants to have and he makes his arms into a big circle and says, I think I can get my arms around maybe 4 or 5 of them... or he washes my dishes while I'm in the shower, not because he should, and not even to do something nice for me, but just because that's the way he is... or when he tells me that walking beside me through cancer, especially holding my hand in the hospital after surgery, he felt like his soul was fused to mine... and when I ask him if he still likes me even though I'm not as skinny as I used to be and he says, you don't even know what you're talking about... but do you still love me? and I already know the answer is he would love me still no matter what.

My Person is leaving me. What does this mean?

I don't know. I don't know.

And I'm eating my heart out.

I roll the window down
And then begin to breathe in
The darkest country road
And the strong scent of evergreen
From the passenger seat as you are driving me home

Then looking upwards
I strain my eyes
And try to tell the difference
Between shooting stars and satellites
From the passenger seat as you are driving me home

"Do they collide?"
I ask and you smile
With my feet on the dash
The world doesn't matter

(Death Cab for Cutie)

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That's all I have for now. I want to tie this post up in a neat little insightful ribbon, but I can't. This post is messy and complicated, just like life, and sometimes you can't figure it out and you can't make it better and it's not ok. You just have to breathe and put one foot in front of the other and hit the publish button and trust that everything is as it should be.

"Do they collide?"
I ask and you smile
With my feet on the dash
The world doesn't matter

Crazy Sexy Cancer

Kris Carr of the TLC documentary Crazy Sexy Cancer is blogging!

Also check out I'm Too Young For This for cancer resources for young adults and other blogging babes with cancer!

She's going on tour to promote the book and she'll be in DC next Tuesday at Tyson's Corner Barnes & Noble - I'm there!

Iraq

My parents were in town this week to attend a funeral for an old family friend who was killed in Iraq. He retired from the military and got a contracting job and decided to go for a year to make bank. He was only there for a month or so before getting exploded in a convoy. It's unbelievable that we are at war right now on two continents. I know it's not WW2 or anything, but probably close to 95% (give or take) of this country's population is virtually oblivious to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - they wouldn't even know we are fighting if it weren't for occasional headlines in the papers about another surge or more violence.

Working with a bunch of FSO's (foreign service officers) on the passport task force these last few weeks has sparked my wanderlust. I've had a tiny thought in the back of my mind for years now that I want to go to Iraq. There are lots of reasons - to help, serve, make a difference, see what's really going on out there, be a part of it. Every time I think about going to any overseas post I get gripped by "cancer-fear".

I'm trying to think of how to describe that - I guess basically I just feel so vulnerable. I think this feeling will eventually go away. I still have another hypo-hell and first year scans looming in January, and the fear that there will still be masses or new mets on the scans, and the possibility of retreatment. And the months of feeling ill and drained. After I get a "clean" scan, I can go two and then five years between scans with only monitoring of bloodwork, but it's still a lifetime of it, repeated ad nauseum. I try to put it in a box. Like here's my life and in this small box is my cancer. It's more like a black hole in the space of my life than a box. A box is contained, you can shut it and put it on the top shelf of the closet and forget it's there. Black holes are spots in space that are so dense they suck in anything that gets close.

Still, I want to go to Iraq. Probably it would not happen for a year or more if I could. Maybe the violence will be less at that point? Unlikely, but it's possible.

"They"

Everyone jokes about who "They" are - you know, "they say such and so," for example. Who are "They"? Depending on the context, They are the Man, the Machine, the Government, the Experts, etc. - in general, The Establishment.

I was just reading over on Kyra's blog that "They" finally sent her passport back and that "They" stapled her new picture in her old passport so the two pics are side by side. LOL!

I have become the establishment.

People, I am They.

For some reason this amuses me immensely.

Fitness Links!

Craig Ballantyne has some great new fitness content on his blog. Check it out!

Ballantyne's Hotel Room Wokout

Barbell Squat Exercise Form Demonstration

Six Minute Circuit Workout Free Sample - from GrrlAthlete - includes exercise descriptions (Mom! :P)

good stuff!

Battery Recharge

This week has been soooo nice. I've gotten a MUCH needed break from the daily grind. I have not had to ride METRO ONCE (praise and rejoice). And can I tell you I have not looked at the papers once either! (Don't tell my boss...) I have absolutely NO IDEA what either North Korea or Iran is up to, whether the UN has done anything new, whether the Norks have tested another nuke, whether Al Qaeda is finally gone from Iraq, whether another Katrina or tsunami has suddenly hit some poor unsuspecting coastal city... Germany could be communist again and I would be oblivious! It is totally unlike me to not care about these things, but the relief from concern about the problems of the world and the burdensome feeling of duty to do SOMETHING anything to fix them is unbelievable. I don't feel one shred of guilt for turning a blind eye -- unravel world! fall apart into chaos and mayhem, do it quickly while I'm not on watch!

Perhaps I will reconsider my living arrangement, as I think I have identified one of my most HATED aspects of this rat race - the METRO. I could stay in Arlington a bit farther from a metro stop for less rent and spend the offset on parking downtown... hmmm....

Otherwise, I have also only worked about 15 hours total this week. Aside from the minor nervousness before my final test yesterday, it was pretty stress free. I deeply hope that this entire 8 week void will be similarly undemanding and I can return to work full of gusto in October (despite having to work Saturdays). All told, since the cancer experience, I have not slowed down once. I have not had a vacation, save for sick days taken to recover from surgery and in isolation while I was radioactive and could not be around humans. It's like tension on a rope - it only takes so much before the fibers slowly start to unravel one by one till you're hanging by a thread.

I have today off from work and although it's been ghastly hot here, I'm planning to bask by the pool, work out, get a pedicure and browse around the mall at Tyson's.

Day One of Resocialization... um, I mean Passport Training

I survived my first day of passport adjudication training. It was actually kind of nice to be in receiving mode instead of output mode. Class today lasted a total of about 4 hours they let us out at 3:00. Yippee!!! I love passport training. !! passport processing itself may be another story... it takes an average of 2 minutes to process a passport application... that's ... 30 an hour x 8 x 6... ugh, I don't do math, but that's a LOT of freaking passports.

Just so you all know how seriously the government is (now) taking this problem (after the fact), my girlfriend is up at the National Passport Center in New Hampshire (where they sent most of the unfortunate PMF's to do their duty while living out of a hotel for two months) and she is processing passports IN THE GYM. I am not kidding you, her workstation is right next to the fly machine. LOL.

I have learned that my workstation will be in the hall.

Sweet.

Train under simulated race conditions... er... and other youtube hilarity

This is pretty funny -- just saw it over on IronSunshine. Had to share! I've never done a triathlon (hm... new fitness goal perhaps???) but I've seen the race start and it doesn't look fun... lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3S0wu4Zbfk

Also, while we're on the topic of entertaining videos... please stop what you are doing and surf over to Paul's blog right now and click on the "Magical Link". Seriously, go now!! Hahaha.....

everything happens for a reason...

i have to grumble about my foot... i have metatarsalgia, kinda like plantar fascitis except in the ball of your foot, where the middle toe rubs around on the fat pad, mine is inflamed somehow and it makes walking/running painful. it is going away slowly though, feeling better every day. now i just have to not be an a$$ about it and go out and run 5 miles like i want to. i have no idea really how this happened to me - in April i ran a 10 mile race with no problem and suddenly i get foot injury with no real cause evident.

i am feeling super emotional today it is my last day at my real job before passport duty and i must leave my work (that i am passionate about) behind for the next 8 weeks... AND work saturdays for the rest of the summer
AND the last article in Oprah mag that I read this morning was all about one of her golden retrievers dying i was almost bawling but it was about how she realized that her dog's death was a gift just like her life and she learned from it...

i need to think on that one as i have to ask god what i am meant to learn from having cancer so young and the other experiences in my life, they seem to be piling up things not really going how i would like them to and i need to ask god, what are you trying to show me right now?

- cancer and all that nonsense
- craziness with having to change bc pills, then stopping them
- my foot injury which seems to take away many things i love (running, walking)
- my work is getting taken away, even though temporarily, and i have to sacrifice my saturdays to do repetitive boring monotonous work (this is not what i studied my ass off in grad school to do!)
- my bf is moving to hawaii in early october, that is coming up fast

it really seems too much for one person in just 8 months to handle, but i know there is a reason these things are coming into my life and i just don't know what yet - am i supposed to do something? do something different? just wait it out, ride the storm and then suddenly i will break through the curtain?? i do not ask god why why me. not even for a minute. because why not me? i feel so lucky that these are my vanilla sufferings and i am not living in a war zone or starving or or or... but this is not the life i imagined at the moment. i nkow it will pass, as all things, this too shall pass (my mom always says), but can't help wondering if it's some karmic thing that needs me to do something that i wish i knew what it was.......

tgif, y'all, that's all i got to say!

Nostalgia

I regularly get really powerful nostalgia. Not sure why I'm sharing this, but it's been on my mind. I think it means I'm not in the right place somehow... something is off in my chi. If I was living fully and passionately, completely absorbed in the present, I would not be overcome by random waves of intense nostalgia. Sometimes small things set it off. Cooking my eggs. The way the light looks at the sunrise. A memory. Or nothing at all in particular. There's not really a specific time I get nostalgic for... sometimes it's moments in my childhood, certain memories... sometimes college or other more recent times. There are times I decidedly do NOT get nostalgic for. Alabama is one of those. I never ever wish I could relive that place. Not for a minute. Nostalgia is it's own sensation. It's not remembering, not even fond remembering, although that is part of it. It's not missing, either... It's a mix of memory, longing, joy, sadness, missing, emptyness... all at once. Lately I have the odd, unsettled feeling like I'm missing out on something... or just missing something. Like life is passing me by... I feel inordinately sad about the simple passing of time.

Crazy is as crazy does...

Ballston Metro is a wacky place. For such a high rent area, there are lots of weirdos and shady characters that hang out there... the drug dealer with the marijuana baseball cap who sits on the stairwell by the little cafe (and his friends), the little Asian man playing that funny instrument, couple homeless guys, posse's of high-schoolers looking for trouble... and lately I have been seeing this lady who looks rather normal, except that she has a bag of birdseed and is FEEDING THE GAWDAM PIGEONS. Who, I implore you, dear readers, WHO? Feeds pigeons? PIGEONS? This is why I must assume that, although she looks like a regular 9-5'er, she's got a screw loose, if you know what I mean... They aren't real "birds" in my opinion, they are PESTS. Like rodents. Or cockroaches. In the category of "Things We Try to Exterminate." They are prolific enough on their own, they certainly don't need to be FED. Shit. Every time I walk by her and she is doling out seed to the crowd of pigeons, I want to shake her.

Ok, oK! I'll post already!

My one and only fan (Chris) is getting restless that I haven't updated my poor neglected blog! Before I forget, my orchid is dying! the leaves are turning yellow and frying off... what do I do??
Seriously, no one reads this blog. My mom and sister check up, Adam clicks on every once in a while to see if the stories I tell about him are true, and Chris... and Paul wanders over every once in a while. Oh, and a shout out to Maxine in Miami, my cancer sister - hey Maxine! And that's it!

I've been blogging over on a fitness forum where I can obsess about my macronutrient ratios and how to perfect my squat form in the gym and it's normal and people actually read what I write!! I suspect it's the cancer flavor of this blog, it probably scares off anyone who wanders in to see what it's about. That and I need a new, better title probably. But the cancer bit, for sure... I don't think I would have dwelled on a cancer blog in my days BC (before cancer) because, you know, if you don't acknowledge it and focus on it, then it's not real. But getting to know someone with cancer, even just through the blogosphere, brings it home - it happens to normal people, just like me, going about their business.

What else can I say?

I've made some recent forays onto USAJobs looking for alternative work situations (i.e.: not in DC) because I'm reaching the breaking point with this city. There are many times during my days when I just think to myself, I can't do this anymore! Like today for instance, I'm riding the metro home and of course the AC doesn't work in the car I happen into and of course it's humid and soggy and crowded as hell in there. The woman behind me has her bulbous bosoms and large belly pressed up against me and I feel violated by these three masses poking into my back and rear end... the guy in front of me is leaning his sweaty back against my arm and someone has b.o. A woman sneezes several times without covering her face. This is my life.

If I didn't have the goshdarn coolest job in the world (IMHO), I would up and quit this place in a heartbeat. My real dream job is, of course, leading rafting tours down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, but I don't think those jobs come with stellar health plans and, well, the cancer thing kinda threw a wrench in any plans I might've dreamed up for flitting around nomad-style again. At least in the near term.

I don't mean to sound negative, but I did just get off the metro and these are the things that wear on me... next time I'll try to post from my happy place!

Adam caught a Fish!!

Reeled in a big one... he almost had to put his beer down.

Canoing on the Potomac

I know I've been MIA... not that more than four souls on the internet even know about this little blog! But just since you've waited so long and so patiently, I have decided to reward you with some pics!!

Last Saturday was gorgeous and we took a canoe out on the river.... which means I sat in the canoe while Adam paddled us around :) :) :)

The good old days are now, now, now. What I think about is now. This is the moment I have waited for. This is it. These are the good old days.

Aging Well With a Fitness Icon
92-year-old muscle man Jack LaLanne shares his wisdom about aging gracefully.
(You can see LaLanne in action in a short video here.)

Check out this article, photos and video of Jack LaLanne, who won a Lifetime Achievement Award in May. To celebrate his 65th birthday, he swam pulling 65 boats filled with 6,500 pounds of wood pulp in Lake Ashi, near Tokyo. For his 70th birthday, he towed 70 boats with 70 people 1.5 miles against the current in the Long Beach, Calif. harbor. For his 95th birthday, he'd like to swim from the coast of California to Santa Catalina Island, more than 20 miles offshore. But Elaine says, somewhat in jest, that she'll divorce him if he tries.

What the World Eats

This is really interesting. Look how many packaged foods the US families eat. And all the beer and cold cuts in the Germans!

http://www.time.com/time/photogaller...626519,00.html

I always try to hold my breath in a cloud of someone's smoke...

WHO urges smoking ban in public places

May 29, 2007 02:19:28 PM PST

The U.N. health agency on Tuesday issued its strongest policy recommendations yet for controlling tobacco use, urging all countries to ban smoking at indoor workplaces and in public buildings.

"The evidence is clear. There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke," said Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization.

Tobacco use is the world's leading cause of preventable death, accounting for 10 percent of adult fatalities, according to WHO. It is responsible for 5.4 million deaths each year, a figure that is expected to rise to 8.3 million by 2030, the agency says.

Increasing numbers of nonsmokers will also die unless governments take action, WHO said in its 50-page report. It said governments of both rich and poor countries should declare all public indoor places smoke-free, by passing laws and actively enforcing measures to ensure that "everyone has a right to breathe clean air, free from tobacco smoke."

At least 200,000 workers die each year because of exposure to smoke at their offices and factories, according to the U.N. labor agency. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that about 3,000 deaths from lung cancer each year occur among nonsmoking Americans.

"This is not about shaming the smoker. This is not even about banning smoking," said Dr. Armando Peruga, who heads WHO's anti-tobacco campaign. "This is about society taking decisions about where to smoke and where not to smoke."

He cited Ireland and Uruguay as governments that have successfully tackled smoking by creating and enforcing smoke-free environments. Legislation of the kind has proved popular among both smokers and nonsmokers, according to WHO, whose policy recommendations set broad goals for its 193 member states but are not legally binding.

Almost half the world's children — some 700 million — are exposed to air polluted by tobacco smoke, particularly at home, WHO says. The agency made its recommendations on the basis of new reports by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the U.S. surgeon general and the California Environmental Protection Agency.

WHO said in 2005 that it had stopped hiring smokers, as part of what it termed its "public lead" in the fight against tobacco.

Valerie Waugman - inspiration

Check out Valerie Waugman's workout in this video.

Where'd I leave my lifting gloves? I've got a date with some iron!

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/valerie10.htm

Some day my arms will look like hers.!!!!