50 Tries

26. My Shih-Tzu's Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun

Okay, so this isn't actually the poem I submitted. The poem I submitted is called "Now" and it is too personal and raw and dreadfully earnest for me to publish here. I am certain, in fact, that "My Shih-Tzu's Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun" is the better of the two.

No chemo this week, so I should be able to do better. Adam said he liked "To Have & To Hold," but he's contractually obligated.

Plum-flavored Jelly Belly jelly beans taste like Pez.

I Just Don't Know What to Call This

I clearly have a lot of Feelings today.

Very curious about my nose. I mentioned the nasal crust before. I've now confirmed a pattern whereby I go in for chemo, and sometime the next day breathing becomes a little more difficult. Boulders then seem to form in my nostrils. Dry, nasty little things,  that can actually change the shape of my nose in the mirror. Once blown out or knocked free, I suddenly find that I can breathe normally again.

This has resulted in more nostril exploration than I've performed since kindergarten.

It's horrifying and fascinating at the same time. Tonight, this chunk of something came out of the left nostril, and then my nose began to bleed—is, in fact, still bleeding—from the right nostril. This is what I've become?

Miss Maine's Philosophy

I honestly don't know how, but I just ended up paging through profiles of the contestants for Miss USA. Some of these women are 25 or 26 years old, and at least one was an attorney. Virtually all of the blondes are wearing false eyelashes.

I understand entering a beauty pageant when you're 18 or 19 and want the money and prizes and modeling contracts, and you haven't really done anything with your life yet. But how does a practicing attorney end up in the Miss USA pageant? Do you find a way to bill your clients for your eyebrow waxes? Why on Earth would a grown woman want to be there? I'm so confused.

Miss Maine's site reads, in part:

“A dream that you dare not dream is a dream that will never come true.”

This is Erica Commeau’s stated "philosophy in life."

Well, sweetheart, if you haven't dreamt it, it's not a dream, now, is it? She named her cat Lexus, and she might be the only redhead, in a sea of brunettes and brown-eyed blondes.

So far, I'm rooting for Miss Florida.

I wrote three poems prior to examining the state of American womanhood. If this pageant does somehow the state of American womanhood, I find it dispiriting, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised since Donald Trump is involved.

One poem is sad, two are ridiculous. Maybe that's the right ratio in life.

Back to New Zealand

I just had to break up with the carpet salesman.

We’ve been trying to find a wool carpet for the basement—sustainable material, no poisonous fumes and all that, and not quite twice the cost of anything else. But not only are these carpets more expensive, you have to wait for them to arrive from New Zealand, whereupon they may be found to be inferior and sent back and thus it can take a long time. Why they don’t examine the wool IN NEW ZEALAND is beyond me, so maybe that’s just a story they like to tell in the carpet business so that you don’t yell at them when they make you wait six weeks for the carpet you want.

I once had a landlord tell me he couldn’t replace the windows in our apartment because the window factory was closed in July. I bought this without a word, but I was 24, and that was when I was young and unafraid.

ANYWAY, we went with a carpet from another vendor, but (let’s just call him) Stan has been calling Adam’s cell phone daily. When are you coming over? I’ve been expecting your call. What time are you going to be here?

I just tried to let him down easy, but when I told him we’d decided to go another way, he actually asked me why, and I was tempted to say, “it’s not you, it’s me” but I don’t think he would have gotten the joke.

Still haven’t written anything. I’ve felt so physically and thus emotionally lousy this week that I think it’s time for another poem, but the scary sad truth is that I like my John McPhee poem. There. I just read it again, and I still think it’s not half bad. The poems were supposed to be my nonsense, don't-have-to-work-hard fall backs, but I actually spent a lot of time on that. I don't want to follow it up with something inferior.

So now what?

I want to mock the Journal’s “Tastings” column, but that’s pretty much a parody unto itself.

Tulips and Daffodils!

So miserable today. Just wretched. Hot flashes, dry throat, nausea, though the neuropathy seems to be waning.

Of course I have nothing written again. Someone from the Times Op-Ed department wrote and told me that they passed on the kitchen piece, but they’ve got a Westchester section, and I should “let them know” if there’s an op-ed I’d like to write that is geared toward my “town or region.”

I mean, yeah. I’d love to. If they want to give me a topic, I’d be more than happy to have an opinion about it. I have all sorts of opinions about Michael Bloomberg and the West side stadium and the subways falling apart. It's just that I don’t feel like I live in Westchester, even though it’s been 2 ½ years; it still feels temporary and foreign. I was much more comfortable in Manhattan, where I knew the names of all the dogs in the neighborhood, and a soap star lived across the street, and the restaurant around the corner was better than 95% of what's out here, and none of the restaurants had acoustical tiles on the ceiling.

What am I doing here? I feel like everything went wrong the day we packed our things and drove over the Henry Hudson bridge. I didn’t have cancer in the city. I was my baby’s mother. Are we being punished for wanting two floors and a back yard? Our apartment was big enough for the three of us. It’s just that I was planning to fill up a house with children. I didn’t know that moving to the suburbs was an act of hubris.

Kylie’s school is out tomorrow (what the hell is Easter Monday?), so she’s got a playdate in the morning with a beautiful little blond girl. I don’t know whether her mother knows about my illness. And I don’t know whether I can pull off a playdate after the way I felt today.

So, an op-ed “geared toward” Westchester: the daffodils and tulips are lovely in the spring, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here. That’s all I’ve got.

Half Way

Well, yellowwristbands.com is linking to me.

I’m half way there, I guess. 25 submissions down, 25 to go.

This is the worst I’ve felt in eight months. I was dying eggs with Kylie today and after about 45 minutes literally couldn’t sit up any longer and had to go lie back down on the couch.

Eight months of chemotherapy, six months of writing, and the results are all completely intangible. I seem to be better, but I seemed to be cured before and it all came back. And I'm going to complete this project--I'll publish the book myself if I have to--but I'd much rather have someone just accept one of the essays so that I could stop chemo and the project at the same time, in one nice, neat narrative package.

Of course, then I'd be off chemo and 600 words a week probably wouldn't seem like such a Herculean task, but whatever, I refuse to see any bright side. I might not stop chemo next month, anyway. Probably won't. There, it's dark again.

 

Half Empty. I'm Not Going to Say it Again.

My good friend Jennifer Woods just e-mailed me a link to Despair, Inc., which rocks. I think I'm going to order the pessimist's mug, and put it in a place of honor on my mantle, with a spotlight.

Ooh, better, I could hit people with it.

Huh?

This is what my daughter says I look like. I asked why, and she said it was because the doll wore lipstick, and I wear lipstick. That’s just a head shot at the top of the blog, but trust me when I say that Kylie’s vision is not what I look like. At least the doll accessorizes well.

If Kylie had to choose one of the Bratz for me to look like, the red-haired one is closer. But I really don’t know why I’m putting this much time into this.

25. Vows: To Have and to Hold

I sent the submission this afternoon but I don’t think I’m going to be able to get it up on the site tonight, as I’m behind with the posting and now it’s late and I was just on the phone with Paul about the kitchen, who said to tell one of his subcontractors that I am “not a pain in the ass," which means that he thinks I’m not a pain in the ass, which is very validating.

This “working” thing is really quite time consuming.

Waiting for Above Freezing

I have a draft. No rain or sleet. Actually, the sun just came out. I can’t wait to get out into the garden and muck around, which I will as soon as the low temperatures are consistently above freezing. Or when I’m off chemo.

I’m fatigued.

Seems impossible to submit to Times Magazine's “Lives” section, which I wanted to do as a stunt, so I sent the kitchen piece to the Op Ed page. Like I said, the damn thing is true, anyway.