What i'm reading

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Okay, people have been raving about this book for some time. I'm was wary of reading it because of something I like to call the Amelie Effect. When that movie came out, everyone and their mother was over the moon about it. "So clever," "So inventive," "You should see it!" So I did. Snooze.

So I've been wary of this kind of hype ever since. The Pulitzer Prize piqued my interest, so I gave it a go.

The book follows a family of Dominicans living in both Santo Domingo and New York. The book is full of Spanish phrases, science fiction references, and Dominican history. This book is like music. I felt like some of it just went gliding through my brain. I can't remember being so charmed by a book that was so sad. I'm still thinking about what the mongoose means. I highly recommend it.

Week 8 Football

8-5 last week. I'm not getting any better at this.

Texans over Bills

Ravens over Broncos

Bears over Browns

Cowboys over Seahawks

Rams over Lions

Colts over 49ers

Jets over Miami

Giants over Eagles (westbrook is going to be missed this week, I think)

Chargers over Raiders

Titans over Jags

Packers over Vikings

Cardinals over Panthers

Saints over Falcons

Let's see if I can crack the 8-5 record.

On blessings

I ended a previous post about the stress of the past few days with a statement about how we are blessed. Let me elaborate.

My favorite high school teacher (who would NOT appreciate my potty mouth on this blog) was once run over by a bus. He was in a great deal of pain, he drifted in and out of consciousness, and at one point he came too and told his wife he was hungry. She offered him the apple from her purse, the only food she had in the midst of the emergency room anxiety. He told me that eating that apple was the most enjoyable feeling of his life, and that nothing that he's ever eaten has tasted as good as that apple on the edge of his life.

I think that story is beautiful, but until now, I've never understood it (which was a blessing, may you never 'understand' it either). In the midst of the most painful situation of our lives, I've seen such kindness from every facet of our lives, I don't have words. My hubby's coworkers donated six weeks of leave to help him through chemo, friends have shown up with food and done grocery shopping and research and even loaned us a vacation house so we could hang out before all the madness started. Our church has been a constant source of support (one our ministers calls John about once a week. For a congregation our size, I think that's amazing.) I've cried on many shoulders, held many hands (including the feisty grandma of the bride last weekend) and have found myself propped up by dozens of hands (and not in a creepy Labyrinth way). For every sharp pain to my guy that cancer has delivered, I've had a basket of apples to choose from. That basket seems to be bottomless.

That's why I say we're blessed.

What I don't talk about when you ask me how I am

I don't know if this dance is the same for every cancer spouse (I don't know if cancer spouse is even the right phrase. I think I made it up. If I stole it, I apologize to whoever), so I'm really only speaking for me. It goes like this:

Person X: How are you? Really?
Me: (Insert random platitude here)
Person X: I'm here for you if you need me. Please know that.
Me: Thank you so much. That means a lot to me.
Person X: (Insert cancer anecdote here)
Me: (Insert new platitude)
Person X: (Tell a story about how I need to take care of myself in order to better take care of hubby)
Me: (nod sagely)
Person X: (give me a story about why hubby means so much to him or her. No bullshit here, he's deeply and profoundly loved, and quite worthy of it all.)
Me: (Insert new bullshit platitude)
(hugging)

Here's what I think when all of this is going on:
How are you, they say, and my mind just buzzes and buzzes and buzzes about money, and how I have to work, and how I wish I could walk the dog normally, and how could one take-home medication be 5k, and how could insurance refuse it, and why the fuck can't I get a swine flu shot, and jesus where is my testing kit for my diabetes because I can't remember if I've taken a fucking pill this week and I can't fuck up my blood sugar on top of everything else and fuck fuck fuck?

I'm here for you, they say, and I think, take this bullshit cliche, don't make me talk about how I feel, about the death of the life I knew, about what babymaking means for us now, about what anything means for us now... take my cliche, swallow it like I mean it. I can't start and not stop. You can't volunteer and not take me over for a lifetime. I'm stuck. I need to talk about this forever or not at all. I need both. I need you to hear me all day everyday or never again. take the cliche. It's your unsticking. Don't be stuck with me. I can't get you out, and it's not fair to keep you here, even though I need you. I need you desperately, because I'm a bundle of need. Run. Run. Run away. Don't run. Save me. Nevermind. Run. I'm going to stop listening now, because you're about to make me cry, and when I start, I can't stop...

That's about how it goes.

The last 8 days

The post is bleak, so here's a puppy picture to brighten it up.

So hubby started chemo last Tuesday. There was a four-day hospital stay, two spinal taps, some (possibly excessive) steroid injections, a wedding, and some serious crabbiness. The first bout was rough... and it's slowly getting rougher. He's already lost 20lbs (He's a big guy, so it's not so bad) and his eyebrows are falling out. This is all going so fast...

Here are some fun (or odd) facts about chemo:
1. your can sweat it out of your pores for up to 48 hours
2. during chemo, you should courtesy flush (it's not just the pores!)
3. when they inject chemo into your spinal fluid, you get nasty migraines that only go away when you lie flat....for 12 hours at a time.
4. If you're still sweating out the chemo, caregivers should wear gloves when changing your bed linens

I remember the part of my life where none of this would have occurred to me.... it was a nice part.

I went to football practice tonight! It was so nice to see the ladies, and one of my fellow blocking backs told me about her kid's chemo (he was 2 at the time, and it was 14 months...) and offered me all the help and support I needed. I watched them run plays for awhile, played with their kids, and all had a good night.

I feel like crap. I feel exhausted. We're so unlucky.

But we're really, really blessed.

Week 7 Football

So I missed my picks last week. (The wedding was worth it, so I’m not complaining.) That’s probably for the best, as we’re entering the wild part of the season, and I can’t really figure out what each team really brings to the table. For instance: Is Denver really that good? I wouldn’t have said so before last weekend. How vulnerable is the Giants D? I know Brees can pack a wollop, but they did next to nothing out there against him. What is this Bengals team? How did the Titans go from zero to suck in one season? And, seriously Eagles? What the fuck?

I think so far this season there are a few reliable teams:

1. My Colts, reliably awesome
2. The Pats, but there’s some defensive issues that will come into play the next time they have a real opponent
3. Atlanta. How about that young QB?
4. The Chargers, reliably mediocre, and soon to be overhyped
5. Brown, reliably sucky
6. The Bills, also sucky
7. Ditto the Rams (see more about the Rams below)
8. Looks like the Bucs are going on this list too. I confess I don’t know much about them (I have an NFC blindside, I confess)
9. Oakland. That QB sucks. I’m sorry; they need to back to the drawing board. Poor guy has all the necessary components, but he can’t put them together to save his damn life.

Before I get to my picks for the coming week, I want to say something about the hubbub around Rush Limbaugh as a possible minority owner for the crappy, crappy, Rams. Let me preface this statement by saying that I find the man’s viewpoints deplorable, and I thought that his statements about McNabb were both appalling, and completely within my expectations for him. All that aside:

1. Journalists have an obligation to thoroughly research their information. WIKIPEDIA doesn’t cut it as a primary source. Of all the hideous things the man has said, why must you go the fiction route, CNN? That reporter should be fired.
2. With all due respect to Jim Irsay (a fine man who represents a fine football team) and Roger Goodell, this is still America. Being a race-baiting bigot doesn’t preclude you from being an entrepreneur. Racism is not illegal. It’s wrong. Those are two different issues with two different consequences. There are certainly players that wouldn’t want to play for Rush. I don’t blame them. That would be a problem. I think he would have been a bit of a liability for the Rams brand, but probably not more so than their record. That would be a problem. However, this could have been a teaching moment for Limbaugh. I don’t see anything so scary about black people (being one of them) that we can’t put Limbaugh in their proximity and push some real change. Certainly not the conservative black millionaires that the NFL kicks out. At this point, we’ve made Limbaugh and underdog, which unfortunately means that his microphone is, for the moment a megaphone. Bad move fellow liberals.

My picks:
Chargers over Chiefs, though I couldn’t tell you why

Packers over Browns

49ers over Texans…in a squeaker

Colts over Rams (Go Horse!)
Steelers over Vikings, because I finally found someone I hate more than Ben Roethlisberger

Pats over Bucs

Jets over Raiders

Panthers over Bills. The Bills give me indigestion

Bears over Bengals in a shocking game

I’m gonna say Falcons over Cowboys… I may regret it but I think so.

Saints annihilate the Dolphins

Giants, playing angry, kill the Cards

If the Eagles don’t beat the ‘skins, then they aren’t the team I thought they were.


OOH! I'm going to visit my team at practice tonight! I can't wait. More about that later.

What I'm Reading

You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore

Christopher Moore is best known for the book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. I haven’t read that yet, so I don’t have much to say about it (I think I’m reading that after my next book) other than this: the topic doesn’t strike me as a stretch for this author, and I’m betting it’s pretty good.

This book is a sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends, and follows the adventures of vampires set loose on San Francisco. I loved Fiends, it really captured the best of Moore’s skills, creating lovingly-created wacky subcultures that find themselves interconnected through loneliness and necessity (the book contains one of the funniest marriage proposals I’ve ever read).

That being said, there’s a passage in the book about how sleeping vampires don’t wake up during the day, and how a mortal considers dressing his vampire girlfriend up in a cheerleader outfit and sexually assaulting her. The book doesn’t treat the idea as assault (though that’s what it is), and our meek little beta male seems to think better of it.

And then, it pops up in You Suck. Except now, it’s actually happened, and the two characters discuss this egregious breach of trust as if it were a social faux pas. So now I hate the book. There were some interesting elements, it overlaps with another Moore book I enjoy, and I finished (because I rarely put a book down forever), but rape is not okay. It’s not something that happens because an awkward young man that’s new to relationships doesn’t know the score. It’s something that happens because of fucking rapists. I don’t understand why that’s so fucking confusing for people, and I’m fresh out of understanding on the topic. So, thumbs down, and a break from Christopher Moore for the moment.

Other favorites by this author: Bloodsucking Fiends

What I’m reading next: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I want to see what all the fuss is about.