50 Tries

Slush

I'm scared.

We see my oncologist on Thursday. What if my tumor-marker levels are going up? I've just started to feel better, and I sort of don't want to be happy about it, because it might be instantly taken away.

This essay is number 34—which means there are 17 more to go, which is exactly half as many as I've written so far. Which seems manageable, until I think about writing them taking ANOTHER FOUR MONTHS. I'd better start pushing the agent search, because this just isn't going to happen through the slush pile.

33. Scarsdale Nursery School News

This piece is adequate but suffers from the disadvantages of not being aimed at the target audience and perhaps offending a lot of people I see every day. I hope these people won't take it seriously, if they're still reading this blog, which I sort of hope they aren't, as I still want to be able to maintain the polite fiction that everything is just fine. As to the target audience—I racked my brain trying to come up with something appropriate, and I guess that's the main area where I need improvement.

The Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle have stories today regarding the effects—the significant effects—of exercise on breast cancer. A study being released shows that walking three to five hours a week reduces the risk of death  from breast cancer recurrence by 50%. So why do the "marginally statistically significant" results of a study on low-fat diets and breast cancer make the front page of the New York Times, but this doesn't?

God in heaven, the top health story on Google News today regards a new drug designed to stop premature ejaculation. The page doesn't even mention the breast cancer study. I guess I'll stop complaining about the Times.

Rainy Day

On rainy days like this, the pain in my joints normally gets bad only when I walk or try to grip something or do Kylie's hair. Today it woke me out of a sound sleep. Every joint in my hands is glowing red-purple beneath the skin. Not doing much for my state of mind, since rain is predicted for five days straight, and every suspicious ache makes me think it's the tumor come back. I tell myself that's crazy, it's too soon, but it took hold in a matter of weeks the last time.

I hate this essay, even though when I re-read it, it doesn't seem so bad. It's just not the right subject matter, but I was practically banging my head against the desk until I came up with something. My lack of creativity is driving me to think about sincerity again, maybe something about Cancer for the Modern Love column. No matter how hard I work on satiric essays, though, rejection of my genuine feelings would be much much worse. Maybe I could find a middle ground and finally find a venue for Cancer: The Musical!

I am going to go eat chocolate chip ice cream until I feel better and/or the babysitter shows up.

Congestion

I am soooo sick, though it's interesting being conventionally sick; makes for a nice change. Can't leave my desk until I get to 600 words, but I keep getting distracted by trying to get my ears to crack.

Viagra vs. Claritin

Wow—this week's Shouts & Murmurs column is about Viagra-related priapism. It doesn't get more middle-aged guy than that.

I don't even have a document yet. Nothing but a few scratches in a notebook. And I'm just sitting here with a cold, breathing through my mouth, waiting for the Claritin to kick in.

Ladies Rescue

Kylie came down from her nap today and asked, "Mommy, do ladies rescue people?"

I told her that of course they do; Mommy rescued Daddy from a lifetime of sadness.

"No they don't," she said. "Ladies don't rescue people."

Adam said that this had started upstairs, and he had also told her that ladies rescued people.

"Why don't ladies rescue people?" I asked.

"Because ladies—they don't…I don't know, ladies don't rescue people."

So much for three years of conscious parenting and severely limited media exposure. Someone must have told her that women don't rescue people, but she won't tell us who.

A little while later I asked if she remembered Auntie Lynda, whose house we had gone to for Thanksgiving.

She stared at me.

"With the little dog, Coco," I said. "And the acquarium."

"Oh," she said. "Oh. Oh, yes. Yes."

We talked about how Lynda was a big lady whom Kylie knew, and how she had been on a television show about ladies rescuing people. I asked if she wanted to watch the DVD, and she said no, she wanted to go draw pictures of Goofy. I told her that was fine, but Mommy wanted to watch it, and had Adam put it on.

She was entranced. Any time Lynda was offscreen, she asked, "Where's Wumner Woman? I want to see the woman."

Of course, I'd forgotten about the babydoll negligees worn on Paradise Island, and the curious theme song ("In your satin tights/fighting for our rights/and the old red, white, and blue"), and the part at the end when the general explains that they'll keep Steve Trevor out of trouble by hiring him a plain secretary.

All the same, Wonder Woman rescued Steve Trevor repeatedly. I'm not sure why the US government wanted him back so badly, since he was either injured or kidnapped by one glaringly obvious Nazi after another, but it doesn't matter. When I was only a little older than Kylie, Wonder Woman and Jaime Sommers were my heroes, and I remember how they saved the men around them over and over again.

I think the show made an impression. Now she might think that only stunningly gorgeous ladies can rescue people, but one step at a time.

Additional notes: I also miss a time when it was considered patriotic to fight for our rights in a time of war; I've always wanted to find out whether Buffy Summers was named for Jaime Sommers; and is it a coincidence that the men in both Wonder Woman and the Bionic Woman's lives were named Steve?

Dignity: or, Bukies, Part II

Kylie had a cold Monday through Wednesday, so I picked it up Thursday, when she got better. Friday morning, I threw up, twice, in the downstairs bathroom, but that was actually a good thing, because afterward I was able to take her to school.

However, Kylie found my behavior strange, and asked why I had "bukies"—from "puking;" (archaic; Middle English, to vomit). I told her that Mommy was sick. She wasn't satisfied by that explanation, but we had to go to school.

So I was lying on the couch in the living room last night, and Adam, Seth, and my mother were in the kitchen with Kylie when I heard her ask, "What does Mommy do that's silly?"

They asked her what.

"She puts bukies in the potty!"

She didn't mention where I should have put them instead.

32. Highlights From the Gardening Column

One question-and-answer gardening column about murderous gardeners.

As seemingly ridiculous as this once-a-week schedule has been, I am actually learning things. Even something that is "just" supposed to be funny is much, much better if it has a plot.

I keep learning that writing is all about structure. It's part of what I like about journalism, because everyone admits it's all about structure, rather than citing bullshit Hemingway quotes and pretending that good writing is about feelings and life experience and all that.

Just What I Needed

Today's New York Times features a front-page story headlined "Study of Breast Cancer Patients Finds Benefit in Low-Fat Diets". What they don't mention until the second paragraph is that the report cites a difference of 2.6% between the rates of recurrence for women on the low-fat diet (9.8%) and women who maintained their regular diet (12.4%). The study involved only 2,437 women, and they didn't control for weight, body fat, or weight change post-cancer. It's not until the sixth paragraph that they quote the study's principal investigator and "other experts" as saying the study's findings "were only marginally statistically significant."

Marginally significant results merit the front page? Moreover, this headline is technically accurate but still misleading. I wish the press would report medical stories with a little less breathless enthusiasm. To my mind, these results aren't even real news, as there have been theories about links between fat and cancer for some time.

Here, of course, is my real issue: this story, particularly the headline, scared me and made me think I could be somewhat responsible for my cancer's recurrence. If a low-fat diet could be proven to prevent a recurrence 90% of the time, or 75% or even 50% of the time, I would never eat ice cream again. As it is, I can control my weight, but cutting all the fat out of my diet would mean a huge quality of life difference, as I would probably starve to death. But no matter how much I dismiss these findings, this is going to be on my mind every time I try to eat.

Maybe Kryptonite Would Help, Which Is Sort of Like Chemo, if You Think About It

My sense of smell is way too defined. It's like a reverse superpower for unpleasant things: I'm acutely aware of the smell of my hands (curiously like feet, despite dedicated washing), the body odor of someone who has previously been in a room, my dogs.

They say that dogs' sense of smell is like our vision, that it's the primary way they interpret the world, and that's why they sniff everything. I guess  I wouldn't enjoy being a dog.