50 Tries

Inside Baseball

What the hell?

The following Web site links to my charity wristbands satire:

www.charitycharities.com/charitywristbands

It’s been amazing. I’ve gotten hundreds of hits off searches for charity wristbands, even more than from the searches for “teri hatcher plastic surgery”. There have also been a number of earnest e-mail messages about charity wristbands I can buy. No e-mail about Teri Hatcher, though.

Here are my new ideas for a “Lives” satire subject: getting TiVo, applying to a Manhattan pre-school, applying for a black AMEX card. Yes, they’re all trite! Maybe that’s a good thing? Maybe they fit in more with the middle-aged male mindset?

Problem: Is mocking the back page of the New York Times Magazine too “inside baseball,” as comedians like to say? Which I find funny, as I find the phrase “inside baseball” to be too inside baseball, and it’s also sort of ironic that it’s entered the language as a signifier for something known primarily to a particular subculture. But whatever.

22. Tripping the Kitchen Fantastic

It’s sad because it’s true.

We don’t own a Kosta Boda bowl. Otherwise, this essay is all fact.

Of course, it was my appointment with the physical therapist for lymphedema that’s making me feel desperate right now, not redecorating my kitchen.

To prevent further swelling in my left arm, now almost imperceptible, I’m going to have to wear a compression sleeve that stretches from my elbow to my wrist 24 hours per day. And to think I felt like Frankenstein’s monster before the cancer recurred, when I didn’t have to perpetually wear strange garments or have foreign objects implanted in my chest.

Big Cuddles and Whatever it Takes

I just put Kylie to bed, and I’ve got that feeling that I had when I was back on my own, in what I think of as the interregnum between the wars, of just being utterly drained emotionally and physically. It’s not fair to Adam, since by the time he gets home I haven’t got anything left. I don’t see a way around it though, and for all the exhaustion I do have a pleasant sense of being mistress of my own home.

Although right now I’ve also got the unpleasant sense of being the worst person in the world. Our friends just had a baby boy, more than two months prematurely. He’s doing great now, off all the IVs and breathing tubes, and I just spoke with the father, who said that they’ve probably got another month to go with him in the hospital. Then he told me how it was almost impossible for him to imagine going on for another month, and I suddenly wanted to slam down the phone. I just finished seven months of chemotherapy, with no end in sight, and he’s having a hard time with spending four more weeks in the hospital before bringing home a beautiful baby boy?

I’m not saying he did anything wrong or denying his pain or the agony of spending weeks on end fearing for the life of your child. But Kylie has a stuffed brown and black dog we call Cuddles, and while we were out today we found a BIG Cuddles, and brought it home, and at bedtime tonight she had me put big Cuddles on my right shoulder with a satin blanket under her head, and then climbed up on my lap with a satin blanket for her own head, leaned on my left shoulder, and then covered both of them up with her quilt. We rocked and I sang her a few songs, and when I told her it was time for bed she said “I just want to rock a little longer, Mommy,” and I had to swallow back the tears, because that’s all I want too, and I don’t think the biggest stuffed dog will be able to comfort her once I’m gone. So another two months of chemotherapy, another two years of chemotherapy, whatever it takes.

Examples of Bourgeois Entitlement Welcome

Okay, I’ve written something, about the deep, searing pain of kitchen remodeling. Now I’ve got to come up with a topic for a second “Lives” column, and probably a third. I like the idea of a trilogy. I’m just having trouble coming up with two more examples of bourgeois entitlement, which you wouldn’t think would be a stretch for me. Maybe I should look at the little box adds that line the text in the New Yorker. I just tried the Wall Street Journal and didn’t get very far. This may not be a concept that has much life in it. But I want to bat out another so that I can feel CAUGHT UP and take a deep breath.

My yoga instructor says I’m very good at breathing. She’s a very positive person.

I Know, It's a Myth That You'll Go Blind

Still haven’t done any work. However, I’ve settled on an idea: a Times Magazine “Lives” piece about the how hard it is to renovate one’s kitchen. I’ve also settled on a new strategy, which may or may not be a cop out: to do either two or three of these “Lives” satires, to see if maybe I can get one right. Recycling is good, isn’t it?

I’m feeling guilt about not writing. Most of my "work" energy today went into cancer treatment strategy discussions.

The salient point of these discussions is my strong, strong desire to leave Memorial Sloan-Kettering and receive treatment in an environment where the doctors actually care about my well-being. Unfortunately, both my GP and the renowned cancer expert he referred me to have counseled me to stay at MSK as long as the tumor is responding to treatment. I can’t ignore their advice. My GP has never steered me wrong, and the number I have for the renowned cancer expert is actually his cell phone, which he answers himself. He remembered our 15-minute consultation in October in detail. So my actual oncologist, who still has not spoken to me in the nine days since his hospital sent me to the emergency room, can bite my ass about how busy he is.

When I told the RCS of my desire to leave due to MSK's inattention, he advised me to send my oncologist a letter, thanking him for his excellent care, while pointing out that he couldn't spare five minutes for me when I was on site for four hours. If he doesn't improve after that, I’ll know I’ve done all I could. It seems like very sage advice, but I really believe that unless the words appeared under an attorney's letterhead, it wouldn’t merit his attention.

Who knows? Maybe he’s reading this blog right now and has pretty much had it with me. If so, hi there! Thanks for taking the time from your 300 academic e-mail messages per day to read my blog! I still think you can pretty much kiss my ass!

If I put his actual name in here, I’m sure he’d find it. These doctors must sit around Googling themselves all day until they practically go blind.

Anyway, the conversations this morning were all quite draining, and now I have to find a physical therapist for the lymphedema. Nevertheless, it still feels like an excuse for why I haven’t been working. So I’ve got to write two of these satires tomorrow. Maybe I’ll hit the Ritalin again, though it still isn’t doing a damn thing for me. I probably just need to top it off with some alcohol or caffeine or something.

Adam beaned Kylie in the face with a snowball this afternoon. She smiled and wiped the snow off with her red mitten and they made snow angels. I think it was one of the high points of my life.

Dreams & Not

Feeling unwell.

I believe that the weekend following the third treatment of the seventh cycle of chemotherapy counts as one of the lower circles of hell.

But I think I’ve said that all before.

I tried to work today, but I’m groggy and unfocused. I came up with an idea, a satire of the “Lives” section of the Times Magazine, but I can’t figure out who it should be from. Someone contemporary, or a fictional character? Probably the latter, but that’s harder.

I used to be able to write in my head at night, in bed, when I couldn’t sleep. I can’t do it anymore, though. Now I’m either fighting visions of my early demise, worrying about play dates and obligations, or trying to comfort myself with visions of giving readings or receiving awards. It used to be dreams of babies, what we’d name them, what they’d look like, how I’d decorate the nursery and Adam resting his hand on my belly all night to feel the baby kick, and how cute I’d look in maternity clothes, since I’d be starting out 25 pounds lighter.

So, anyway, dreams of fame and fortune instead—I would win awards and my book would be excerpted in Vogue and reviewed in the Times Book Review, and I’d give interviews and take Kylie with me on a book tour. Kylie, my curly-haired salvation.

It’s late and I should go up to bed. I’m just scared that I won't be able to shut out thoughts of doctors who can’t take five minutes to look at my arm after sending me to the emergency room, lymphedema, tumor progression, and the like.

21. Requesting the Honor of Your Presence

I submitted this yesterday, but wasn't able to post it until now. Who knows? When "Cats" closed a few years ago, I realized that sometimes dreams really do come true.

Certainly hard work, though. I’m tired of carefully crafted prose. I’ll revise these posts eight, nine, ten times, sometimes changing only one or two words. I’m sure that there are a lot of coal miners out there feeling sorry for me right now, but I sort of wish that I’d started (and succeeded with) this project when I didn’t have cancer, so that I could feel like I’ve left something behind, while simultaneously hiding underneath the blankets on my bed.

Useless complaints and the insipid works of Andrew Lloyd Weber aside, Kylie’s my real dream come true, and I think she might be turning out okay. We got in the car yesterday morning, and she said she wanted to listen to jazz—I’ve been playing her standards since she was an infant—specifically, to "the Man."

I didn't know who "the Man" was, so I put on Sinatra's “The Way You Look Tonight.”

Kylie confirmed that this was the Man to whom she referred. Maybe I'm seeing it through a mother's eyes, but I feel she not only has good taste in music, but also a sophisticated understanding of The Man and how he might be embodied by Frank Sinatra.

The sun is setting just as it's coming out from behind the rain clouds. The light coming through the trees is a golden rose I've never seen.

...and Introducing Susanna Jane Pelletier as a Successful Humorist

It’s a whole new me!

I've decided it's time to create another personality. Having spent Saturday studying the works of S. J. Perelman, fabled New Yorker humorist, I am now Susanna Jane Pelletier. And I have learned.

S. J. Perelman's writing is sublime, and I’ve tried to pay attention. The new me will now:

1. Try not to be topical at all;
2. Create characters, rather than lists;
3. Be funnier.

I may have trouble with #1—as well as #2 and #3, actually. But I’ve learned that you can’t just phone stuff in. Whether it’s writing or marriage or parenting or cancer-having or whatever, if something isn’t working, you’ve got to figure out what’s wrong and adapt to your circumstances.

Before I could really work yesterday, I batted out a 500-word screed on cancer as a dieting method. It was really raw and more angry than funny. It certainly isn’t something Susanna would write, but now that I have it as a backup, I might be able to relax a little about deadlines instead of panicking so much that I can’t meet them.

Ballet of the Working Mother

Ah, Valentine’s Day.

Let’s see. When did I lose hold of the Romance?

First, I forgot that “the kids” at Kylie’s preschool were giving each other Valentine cards this morning, and had to send my mother out at six o’clock last night to buy some, which I then wrote every child’s name on and signed with Kylie’s, while trying to avoid post-traumatic-stress-disorder style flashbacks to grade school Valentine’s Day massacres. Since none of the children can read, write, or purchase paper goods, it really seemed like an exercise in absurdity.

My babysitter called in sick this morning. She left early Friday afternoon, the house is filthy, and I had to reconfigure my entire schedule, which was particularly galling since I didn’t have enough time to work over the weekend, because pain in my left arm landed us in the White Plains emergency room for three and a half hours on Saturday morning, and then we had about ninety minutes of fighting about it afterwards.

How does a couple fight about a trip to the emergency room? That’s just one of the many joys of cancer!

The pain started on Friday, and when I noticed it as soon as I woke up on Saturday morning, I started to panic. The fellow on call at Sloan Kettering told me to go have an ultrasound to make sure it wasn’t a blood clot, so Adam and I went and sat and sat and sat in the emergency room while having a discussion about taxation policies (we’re like that) and how there has to be a better class of emergency room in Westchester (we’re like that, too). Then the doctors didn’t find anything wrong. That’s when the dispute occurred. Adam felt relieved that nothing was wrong. I felt anxious that they couldn’t identify what was wrong.

Hashing this out was both preposterous and more painful than my arm.

We then had a birthday party Sunday morning, which sucked up my outside-of-the-house energy for that day. My plan, then, was to go buy a few things for Adam at the mall on Monday morning, after dropping Kylie off for school, and then work and even shower in the afternoon. In spite of working for about three hours on Saturday evening, I had nothing to show for it and a deadline, at least in my head, today.

But no babysitter. So, I got Kylie off to school, called Adam to see if we could be Valentinish tomorrow, rescheduled my yoga instructor, and worked for two hours. The following three hours were consumed with picking Kylie up, bringing her home for lunch, manhandling her into a leotard, tights, pants, jacket, hat, etc., getting her back in the car while reprimanding her NOT to eat the disgusting late-winter snow on the ground, finding parking, carrying her through the sleet into the JCC, unwrapping her back down to leotard and tights in the dressing room, then waiting outside for the 45 minute ballet class to end, back into the snow gear, out past the reception desk where the acquaintance from previous classes asked pointedly after the exact stage of my disease, and then through the now freezing rain back to the car. Once I finally got Kylie changed out of her clothes AGAIN and up to her room for naptime, I felt like—well, I can’t think of a good metaphor for a working mother whose babysitting has fallen through, so I guess I felt like that, plus having had chemotherapy on Thursday.

I actually was able to focus and work once Kylie was up in her room, though I’m worried the piece will personally offend about half the people I know, and I didn’t eat lunch and now feel nauseous (that word recurs too often here, but that’s pretty much what you sign up for when you’re reading a cancer blog). I want to submit it now, but I have a firm policy against submitting anything that I haven't had the chance to re-read the next day.

So, dear reader, I apologize for the delay, and, dear husband, I apologize for the lack of Valentine Romance.

Or Something

Chemo this afternoon, and no one to go with me. Jen stopped by for an hour or so on her way to a court date, but by then I was groggy and talking was frustrating; we get so few chances to see each other that I didn’t want to give in to sleep. Now I’m nauseous, and Kylie is walking around the house screeching, overtired and looking for attention.

Right after chemo my nostrils develop this, like, crust or something.

I’m lonely. It hurt that no one could come with me today. I could have pitched a fit and made someone come—Adam offered—but everyone had legitimate reasons not to (like working, a job interview, being out of the country, and preventing an indigent woman from further battering), and Jen was there for as long as she could. C—, my favorite nurse, let me stay in the little private chemo room after the first blood draw, so I didn't have to look around the waiting room, evaluating who looks sicker than me and whether they're going to get better. I read a book that my father-in-law brought me the last time he was here, and I wasn’t unhappy. But I wanted something else, and I still feel alone.

It was raining on the way home and I was wearing my Red Sox cap, and a large, street-clad young man started screaming at me on the subway, that this was New York and not Boston, and why was I wearing that hat? He got off the car as I got on, but I couldn't find a seat, and I wanted it all to be different.