I ran across a "Belief-O-Matic" quiz today and took it. I line up 100 percent with Unitarians and 94 percent with secular humanists. I'm 52 percent attuned with the tenets of Reform Judaism, neck-and-neck with Christian Science. I never thought I would even write about those two religions in the same sentence. My beliefs allegedly match Buddhism more than the most liberal branch of Judaism (at least the most liberal branch known to Belief-O-Matic; Reconstructionist and Renewal Judaism were not listed). But since so many Jews are Unitarians and Buddhists, the results are skewed. Therefore, to be Unitarian is to be Jewish; to be Buddhist is to be Jewish, to borrow a litany from Lenny Bruce. (Find his routine on this page.)
From Belief-O-Matic:
Your Results:
The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom,thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views areall shared by this faith, or vice versa. Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in orderof how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, themore closely it aligns with your thinking. How did the Belief-O-Matic do? Discuss your results on our message boards. [Which I didn't do; figured it was trying to sell something.]
1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Secular Humanism (94%)
3. Liberal Quakers (91%)
4. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (88%)
5. Theravada Buddhism (77%)
6. Neo-Pagan (70%)
7. Nontheist (67%)
8. New Age (64%)
9. Mahayana Buddhism (60%)
10. Taoism (60%)
11. Bahá'í Faith (55%)
12. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist)(52%)
13. Reform Judaism (52%)
That's all for today from Cancer Bitch, who noticed, by the way, that Whole Foods had its Jewish Food Items set out today, in anticipation for Some Wacky Judeo Holiday. There was matzah, gefilte fish, etc. What holiday is Whole Foods thinking of? St. Valentine's Day? Purim ain't till March 4, and Passover (aka The Festival of Matzah) isn't till April 3. Could it be that Whole Foods heard about Tu B'Shevat this past weekend and is trying to help us observe, belatedly?
Monday, February 5, 2007
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Control
Being a cancer patient and assuming that identity impacts your thinking in all ways. I'd always been somewhat of a control freak, and I suddenly realized my sense of being control was and always had been an illusion. All of my assumptions about my future had been based on the fact that I would indeed have a future. It seemed that had been a false assumption. My future was not something I controlled, as it turned out.
Immediately on assuming the cancer patient role, I gave control of my life to the cancer. My thoughts and activities were suddenly dictated by the disease. Cancer dictated that I would be in a doctor's office almost every week, cancer dictated that 4 hours of one day a week would be devoted to chemotherapy, cancer dictated that I would be at a hospital pre-registering for lab work (after the wait at preregistration) and having labs drawn (after the wait in the lab) almost weekly. Cancer made the rules, cancer made my schedule, cancer determined my options, cancer determined our budget and my choices, cancer often controlled my thoughts.
I started living one day at a time. I no longer put my faith in tomorrow or next week or next year. They say that is the way we should all live, but in reality,it is a difficult way to live. We live in a very future-oriented culture. I no longer had the ability to make an appoint for dental cleaning 6 months down the road. I could no longer comprehend planning for a future. I couldn't contemplate my kid's graduations, continuing my own education, furthering my career or planning for my retirement. I lived one day at a time, that was all I felt I could control.
Immediately on assuming the cancer patient role, I gave control of my life to the cancer. My thoughts and activities were suddenly dictated by the disease. Cancer dictated that I would be in a doctor's office almost every week, cancer dictated that 4 hours of one day a week would be devoted to chemotherapy, cancer dictated that I would be at a hospital pre-registering for lab work (after the wait at preregistration) and having labs drawn (after the wait in the lab) almost weekly. Cancer made the rules, cancer made my schedule, cancer determined my options, cancer determined our budget and my choices, cancer often controlled my thoughts.
I started living one day at a time. I no longer put my faith in tomorrow or next week or next year. They say that is the way we should all live, but in reality,it is a difficult way to live. We live in a very future-oriented culture. I no longer had the ability to make an appoint for dental cleaning 6 months down the road. I could no longer comprehend planning for a future. I couldn't contemplate my kid's graduations, continuing my own education, furthering my career or planning for my retirement. I lived one day at a time, that was all I felt I could control.
Jews and Jesus, Death and Taxes
I cried two-and-a-half times today, for about 20 seconds each time, and mostly because I was feeling irritable. It was embarrassing to cry, even in front of myself, because the cause was sentimental claptrap for one-and-a-half of the times. But the first was out of shock. My high school best friend J called me this morning; she'd had a mastectomy and reconstruction five years ago. I'd tried to reach her; I'd sent her e-mails but hadn't heard back. She says that her workplace is clamping down on Spam so maybe the "breast" in the subject line relegated the messages to the trash heap. She asked if Fancy Hospital had a good web site and I said the breast section is down for revitalization, or whatever it's called. She said M.D. Anderson has a very good site. I googled and found the breast-cancer page then clicked on the link for a guide for Jewish women about heredity and breast and ovarian cancer. All of a sudden on my screen was a picture of one of my mother's good friends. She'd had died of ovarian cancer several years ago. Apparently her family has set up a foundation at M.D. Anderson. The sight of her just caught me. I knew she'd died, and of ovarian cancer, but I'd forgotten. My mother has a picture of her on her dressing table shelves, along with family pictures. I know it had torn her up when her friend died. Why did the picture affect me so? I can't figure it out. I guess I'd expected to find generic information on the site, and here is someone from my personal past. The second picture was of the woman's daughter and granddaughter. I didn't recognize the daughter at first, though she used to be one of my sister's elementary-school friends and I remember the time she came on a picnic with us and got her tongue stuck on a popsicle. There was lots of information about genetic factors in breast and ovarian cancer and the higher incident of both among Ashkenazi Jews (such as myself and my friend J and my mother's friend and my cousin and aunt and Gilda Radner). I can say I was shocked because the cancer hit close to home, but how much closer to home can it hit than my own breast? The real answer may be that Death was hitting close to home. I was looking up my own diagnosis and there on the screen was the picture of my mother's dead friend. That doesn't seem to be all of it, but I will ponder it.
The second time I cried was in the car, coming home from buying the two cancer books mentioned in yesterday's post (below). I turned on the country music station and there was a song, sung in the voice of a father whose young daughter comes home from school reporting that she has a new friend named Alyssa, who lies. She lies when she's on the playground, she lies to the teacher--"as she tries to cover every bruise." That made me tear up some. On Monday the father knows what he has to do, but it's too late, he finds out: "Alyssa lies with Jesus/ because there's nothin' anyone would do." That's the only hint of regret. Why didn't he pick up the phone as soon as he heard and call the local child-abuse agency? Why doesn't he castigate himself for not doing anything, instead of passively accepting that she's with Jesus? The bigger question is why do I expect any sophistication from country music lyrics? Why do I listen? Just for something different, and because I like the narrativity of country music songs. I'm a writer who hardly writes with narrative, though I appreciate it in what I read and hear. Not always. I like it in folk and fairy tales. I don't need it in contemporary stories.
Why oh why do cheap sentimental lyrics get to me?
The third-ish time I cried was when a commercial came on about some little boy who was a "typical ten-year-old" except he almost didn't make it to his first birthday. But some hospital saved him. The commercial was full of cliches and sappy, but it hit me.
I don't know if this breast cancer has made me more weepy or if it's merely because I ran out of one ingredient in my anti-anxiety cocktail and did without a dose of it last night.
***
We went to a small Super Bowl gathering. There was a commercial for hair dye featuring Sheryl Crow, and I thought but didn't say, She had breast cancer. On CNN.com last year she said, "...for me to know that God had me in his hands, I never felt alone." Would she have said the same thing if she were *dying* of cancer? Or would she say that God had had her in his hands but had dropped her?
At the little party I talked to C., who'd had breast cancer about four years ago. It turns out she'd had a mastectomy, with reconstruction performed by the plastic surgeon I'd met with. She liked him and his work very much, and showed me her breast and scar. I said I thought her torso looked familiar from the scrapbook the doctor had shown me. During the game I repaired two sweaters and began reading "Bathsheba's Breast," with its gruesome descriptions of mastectomies. The author is a professor at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, TX, and reported that Sam Houston's wife had had breast pain and then had surgery at home without anesthesia. The doctor offered her whiskey, but because she was a teetotaler and had gotten her husband to give up the bottle, she didn't want to take a drop of alcohol, even for medicinal purposes. She bit into a silver coin during surgery instead. The author surmised that she probably had mastitis, a benign condition.
The author, James S. Olson, began the book after he was treated for cancer of the hand, at M.D. Anderson. Eventually his left hand and forearm were amputated. The hospital came about partly because Monroe Dunaway Anderson, a cotton king, set up a foundation so that his company wouldn't be ruined by estate taxes.
The second time I cried was in the car, coming home from buying the two cancer books mentioned in yesterday's post (below). I turned on the country music station and there was a song, sung in the voice of a father whose young daughter comes home from school reporting that she has a new friend named Alyssa, who lies. She lies when she's on the playground, she lies to the teacher--"as she tries to cover every bruise." That made me tear up some. On Monday the father knows what he has to do, but it's too late, he finds out: "Alyssa lies with Jesus/ because there's nothin' anyone would do." That's the only hint of regret. Why didn't he pick up the phone as soon as he heard and call the local child-abuse agency? Why doesn't he castigate himself for not doing anything, instead of passively accepting that she's with Jesus? The bigger question is why do I expect any sophistication from country music lyrics? Why do I listen? Just for something different, and because I like the narrativity of country music songs. I'm a writer who hardly writes with narrative, though I appreciate it in what I read and hear. Not always. I like it in folk and fairy tales. I don't need it in contemporary stories.
Why oh why do cheap sentimental lyrics get to me?
The third-ish time I cried was when a commercial came on about some little boy who was a "typical ten-year-old" except he almost didn't make it to his first birthday. But some hospital saved him. The commercial was full of cliches and sappy, but it hit me.
I don't know if this breast cancer has made me more weepy or if it's merely because I ran out of one ingredient in my anti-anxiety cocktail and did without a dose of it last night.
***
We went to a small Super Bowl gathering. There was a commercial for hair dye featuring Sheryl Crow, and I thought but didn't say, She had breast cancer. On CNN.com last year she said, "...for me to know that God had me in his hands, I never felt alone." Would she have said the same thing if she were *dying* of cancer? Or would she say that God had had her in his hands but had dropped her?
At the little party I talked to C., who'd had breast cancer about four years ago. It turns out she'd had a mastectomy, with reconstruction performed by the plastic surgeon I'd met with. She liked him and his work very much, and showed me her breast and scar. I said I thought her torso looked familiar from the scrapbook the doctor had shown me. During the game I repaired two sweaters and began reading "Bathsheba's Breast," with its gruesome descriptions of mastectomies. The author is a professor at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, TX, and reported that Sam Houston's wife had had breast pain and then had surgery at home without anesthesia. The doctor offered her whiskey, but because she was a teetotaler and had gotten her husband to give up the bottle, she didn't want to take a drop of alcohol, even for medicinal purposes. She bit into a silver coin during surgery instead. The author surmised that she probably had mastitis, a benign condition.
The author, James S. Olson, began the book after he was treated for cancer of the hand, at M.D. Anderson. Eventually his left hand and forearm were amputated. The hospital came about partly because Monroe Dunaway Anderson, a cotton king, set up a foundation so that his company wouldn't be ruined by estate taxes.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Pre-game (Superbowl)
Ready for some football hopefully we will have a good game on tomorrow. I am really looking forward to all the grease (buffalo wings) that I am going to be able to consume and all the Root beer I can handle.
Whodunnit
Whodunnit: two household mysteries
1. The plumber came to figure out why water leaked downstairs yesterday when I took a long shower. After running the water and going downstairs and back, he couldn’t figure it out, because of course it didn’t leak when he was here. It could be that the water had splashed on the tile and there was a hole in the grout.
2. I have breast cancer and no one knows where it came from. Pollution? What about all the other people who didn’t get it and live in the same environment? What is the history of breast cancer? The first patient described (as a young woman) in Freud and Breuer’s "Case Studies on Hysteria" lived into her seventies and died of breast cancer, in 1936. That’s as far as my knowledge of the history of breast cancer goes. There must be histories of it in ancient Egypt, Rome, etc. Nothing in the bible as far as I know. (Pause for Google search.) A short history
here. And: the recent book, "Bathsheba's Breast: Women, Cancer, and History," by James S. Olson. From the book description: “A horror known to every culture in every age, breast cancer has been responsible for the deaths of 25 million women throughout history. An Egyptian physician writing 3,500 years ago concluded that there was no treatment for the disease.” I will order it (from my local independent bookstore) and report on it here.
Regular doctors
I went to the podiatrist Friday, the one who L goes to and who fixed L’s painful heels by injecting dextrose into them. It was so nice to go into a modest office with a friendly feeling, where Serious Disease did not hang in the air. (Of course, people with serious diseases see podiatrists.) The doctors are three brothers so they’re each referred to as Dr. First Name. I had diagnosed myself last year with chilblains, and then Raynaud’s: in the cold my toes turned white, then red and stayed cold a long time. When they warmed up they’d be itchy. Apparently chilblains aren't mentioned much any more, gone the way of neurasthenia. My toes have been sore this winter so I figured I should get this taken care of before I was locked into Cancerland. Dr. First Name agreed with my diagnosis and gave me a shot of something and recommendations for vitamins: B-6 twice a day, E once a day. He also got me strapped up to measure my vascular something or other. It was like having my blood pressure taken in my arms and legs. I felt vindicated that my diagnosis was right. I’ve also diagnosed L with Raynaud’s in his fingers but he doesn’t believe me. He told his doctor about his symptons and the doctor brushed them away. I told him to tell his doctor that I’ve diagnosed him and that I have experience with several medical facilities.
Teapot/Societe Anonyme
Our third free meal was with our good friends E and H. They have Italian ceramic dinnerware, as we do, but in a different pattern. They have mostly Raffaellesco, with a yellow dragon in the middle, and we have a mix of Veccio Deruta and Arabesco. Last year a friend gave me a Raffaellesco teapot. At dinner when E and H were in the other room, I whispered to L that when I’m gone he should give them the teapot.
Do I really think I will die soon, before L, before E and H (who are about 15 years older than I am), meaning, that I will die from this? No one dies from breast cancer, as far as I can tell, you die from the spread of the cancer to other parts of your body. I’ve thought about death a lot, from early on, partly because I would imagine what would happen if the Nazis came here, and partly because of having asthma. Then I would put the two together and know that I would go like that (snap o fingers) if I were taken to a concentration camp, because I wouldn’t be able to breathe without my medicines. Though I think about death a lot, I still can’t fathom what life would be like without *me* in it, the way I couldn’t understand how the schoolday could go on as normal if I was home sick. “If I die,” people say, as if there’s a doubt it will happen. I wonder about people who go to live in nursing homes, and if life seems meaningless because they know it will end soon. I’ve always thought that people in nursing homes should be harnessed to write letters for Amnesty International. Others have pushed for combining old-age homes with daycare for kids, and that makes sense. I’ve always felt part of the stream of Jewish history, which makes me feel less alone in the world, as if there is a place for my memory to reside. Certain rabbis have been known by the titles of their books; the title becames the guy’s name, so that two, three hundred years later, when you say the guy’s common name, you’re saying the name of his most famous book. I would like that.
Which brings up the question of the anonymity or “anonymity” of this blog. I started out anonymous, but giving friends the URL. I don’t want to libel people in the medical profession, especially--as my friends have pointed out--when they’re about to hold a sharp instrument to my skin. L has always been in favor of anonymity here, so that I won’t self-censor. But I’m already self-censoring, not saying every absolute thought in my head, about the doctors or friends or even L. My friend T says that I deserve credit for my bons mots, and I do want credit for my bons mots. And I want everyone to read this blog and then to buy my books. Everyone. But as far as I can tell, this blog is under the Google radar, it’s not findable at random in a Google search. So is it just for friends? It’s for me, to eventually turn into a book.
When I was a college a guy N, a hippie wanna-be, asked me if it would be enough for me to live on a commune and write just for the people of the commune. And I thought, No, though it seemed egocentric and impure to say No. You move from that question to, Would it be enough if five people read you? Then four? Then two? Then no one? Even Emily Dickinson sent her poems out for other writers to read. But mostly she stayed upstairs. Kafka had his coterie and was known in the equivalent of our literary-magazine world. In his famous speech and essay "Poetry and Ambition" (search here), Donald Hall chastises poets for ambition—the ambition to be famous, to live the poet lifestyle, to churn out book after book. Instead, says Hall, you should aim “to be as good as Dante.” But if Dante hadn’t published, how would Hall be able to name him as a standard ?
Insult to Injury
I never wanted to write book reviews. When a new book editor came to our local daily, she told my friend D that she wanted people with distinctive voices, such as [Cancer Bitch’s]. At least that’s what D told me. So I called the editor and we met for lunch and I started writing reviews for her. After a few years I somehow fell out of favor. I wrote reviews for a couple of other publications. The last two reviews that I wrote for Our City’s Main and Shrinking Alternative Weekly were very critical, and of books by women, and I felt slightly guilty about that. I proposed a review of The Bastard of Istanbul to my editor at the weekly, and when I sent in the review last week, she had some comments. I rewrote it, and sent it to her Friday, though it still had some holes in it. I’d never sent anything so rough before to an editor. She wrote back later and said it wasn’t really a review, it was a plot summary, had no thesis. So she killed it. I have never had a book review killed before. I never thought of myself as a good book reviewer, and was amazed that I could pull it off. Whenever I have trouble writing something I ask myself what’s holding me back. Was something holding me back with this review? Maybe. The book was absorbing but disappointing because I wanted to learn about the people of Istanbul and I learned mostly about Westward-looking Turkish women and an Armenian-American girl and her American mother. I think the author was trying to prove something by writing this book in English, with a couple of American protagonists. It was as if she were trying to prove to Americans that she could write about America and Americans. But we have plenty of America-based fiction homegrown writers. Her English was pockmarked with the awkward phrases of someone who is holding a thesaurus too close because she learned English from reading books. But I felt I couldn’t criticize her focus because, as we still say, it’s a free country: she can write about whoever she wants. The book was translated by someone else into Turkish, and it was published in Turkey in March 2006, and here, early this year. I was disappointed that her Turkish characters seemed very Western-American, but that’s the fault of American cultural hegemony and not the author. Or it could be because she grew up abroad, daughter of a diplomat. If I were my own student, I would say to myself, Cancer Bitch, why didn’t you write all that instead of struggling so?
And so I will get a kill fee. I was bravely writing and rewriting the book review while reeling from the cancer diagnosis (that’s not true; I wasn’t really reeling, just going to a lot of appointments). They call it a kill fee because it kills you a little bit to get it.
1. The plumber came to figure out why water leaked downstairs yesterday when I took a long shower. After running the water and going downstairs and back, he couldn’t figure it out, because of course it didn’t leak when he was here. It could be that the water had splashed on the tile and there was a hole in the grout.
2. I have breast cancer and no one knows where it came from. Pollution? What about all the other people who didn’t get it and live in the same environment? What is the history of breast cancer? The first patient described (as a young woman) in Freud and Breuer’s "Case Studies on Hysteria" lived into her seventies and died of breast cancer, in 1936. That’s as far as my knowledge of the history of breast cancer goes. There must be histories of it in ancient Egypt, Rome, etc. Nothing in the bible as far as I know. (Pause for Google search.) A short history
here. And: the recent book, "Bathsheba's Breast: Women, Cancer, and History," by James S. Olson. From the book description: “A horror known to every culture in every age, breast cancer has been responsible for the deaths of 25 million women throughout history. An Egyptian physician writing 3,500 years ago concluded that there was no treatment for the disease.” I will order it (from my local independent bookstore) and report on it here.
Regular doctors
I went to the podiatrist Friday, the one who L goes to and who fixed L’s painful heels by injecting dextrose into them. It was so nice to go into a modest office with a friendly feeling, where Serious Disease did not hang in the air. (Of course, people with serious diseases see podiatrists.) The doctors are three brothers so they’re each referred to as Dr. First Name. I had diagnosed myself last year with chilblains, and then Raynaud’s: in the cold my toes turned white, then red and stayed cold a long time. When they warmed up they’d be itchy. Apparently chilblains aren't mentioned much any more, gone the way of neurasthenia. My toes have been sore this winter so I figured I should get this taken care of before I was locked into Cancerland. Dr. First Name agreed with my diagnosis and gave me a shot of something and recommendations for vitamins: B-6 twice a day, E once a day. He also got me strapped up to measure my vascular something or other. It was like having my blood pressure taken in my arms and legs. I felt vindicated that my diagnosis was right. I’ve also diagnosed L with Raynaud’s in his fingers but he doesn’t believe me. He told his doctor about his symptons and the doctor brushed them away. I told him to tell his doctor that I’ve diagnosed him and that I have experience with several medical facilities.
Teapot/Societe Anonyme
Our third free meal was with our good friends E and H. They have Italian ceramic dinnerware, as we do, but in a different pattern. They have mostly Raffaellesco, with a yellow dragon in the middle, and we have a mix of Veccio Deruta and Arabesco. Last year a friend gave me a Raffaellesco teapot. At dinner when E and H were in the other room, I whispered to L that when I’m gone he should give them the teapot.
Do I really think I will die soon, before L, before E and H (who are about 15 years older than I am), meaning, that I will die from this? No one dies from breast cancer, as far as I can tell, you die from the spread of the cancer to other parts of your body. I’ve thought about death a lot, from early on, partly because I would imagine what would happen if the Nazis came here, and partly because of having asthma. Then I would put the two together and know that I would go like that (snap o fingers) if I were taken to a concentration camp, because I wouldn’t be able to breathe without my medicines. Though I think about death a lot, I still can’t fathom what life would be like without *me* in it, the way I couldn’t understand how the schoolday could go on as normal if I was home sick. “If I die,” people say, as if there’s a doubt it will happen. I wonder about people who go to live in nursing homes, and if life seems meaningless because they know it will end soon. I’ve always thought that people in nursing homes should be harnessed to write letters for Amnesty International. Others have pushed for combining old-age homes with daycare for kids, and that makes sense. I’ve always felt part of the stream of Jewish history, which makes me feel less alone in the world, as if there is a place for my memory to reside. Certain rabbis have been known by the titles of their books; the title becames the guy’s name, so that two, three hundred years later, when you say the guy’s common name, you’re saying the name of his most famous book. I would like that.
Which brings up the question of the anonymity or “anonymity” of this blog. I started out anonymous, but giving friends the URL. I don’t want to libel people in the medical profession, especially--as my friends have pointed out--when they’re about to hold a sharp instrument to my skin. L has always been in favor of anonymity here, so that I won’t self-censor. But I’m already self-censoring, not saying every absolute thought in my head, about the doctors or friends or even L. My friend T says that I deserve credit for my bons mots, and I do want credit for my bons mots. And I want everyone to read this blog and then to buy my books. Everyone. But as far as I can tell, this blog is under the Google radar, it’s not findable at random in a Google search. So is it just for friends? It’s for me, to eventually turn into a book.
When I was a college a guy N, a hippie wanna-be, asked me if it would be enough for me to live on a commune and write just for the people of the commune. And I thought, No, though it seemed egocentric and impure to say No. You move from that question to, Would it be enough if five people read you? Then four? Then two? Then no one? Even Emily Dickinson sent her poems out for other writers to read. But mostly she stayed upstairs. Kafka had his coterie and was known in the equivalent of our literary-magazine world. In his famous speech and essay "Poetry and Ambition" (search here), Donald Hall chastises poets for ambition—the ambition to be famous, to live the poet lifestyle, to churn out book after book. Instead, says Hall, you should aim “to be as good as Dante.” But if Dante hadn’t published, how would Hall be able to name him as a standard ?
Insult to Injury
I never wanted to write book reviews. When a new book editor came to our local daily, she told my friend D that she wanted people with distinctive voices, such as [Cancer Bitch’s]. At least that’s what D told me. So I called the editor and we met for lunch and I started writing reviews for her. After a few years I somehow fell out of favor. I wrote reviews for a couple of other publications. The last two reviews that I wrote for Our City’s Main and Shrinking Alternative Weekly were very critical, and of books by women, and I felt slightly guilty about that. I proposed a review of The Bastard of Istanbul to my editor at the weekly, and when I sent in the review last week, she had some comments. I rewrote it, and sent it to her Friday, though it still had some holes in it. I’d never sent anything so rough before to an editor. She wrote back later and said it wasn’t really a review, it was a plot summary, had no thesis. So she killed it. I have never had a book review killed before. I never thought of myself as a good book reviewer, and was amazed that I could pull it off. Whenever I have trouble writing something I ask myself what’s holding me back. Was something holding me back with this review? Maybe. The book was absorbing but disappointing because I wanted to learn about the people of Istanbul and I learned mostly about Westward-looking Turkish women and an Armenian-American girl and her American mother. I think the author was trying to prove something by writing this book in English, with a couple of American protagonists. It was as if she were trying to prove to Americans that she could write about America and Americans. But we have plenty of America-based fiction homegrown writers. Her English was pockmarked with the awkward phrases of someone who is holding a thesaurus too close because she learned English from reading books. But I felt I couldn’t criticize her focus because, as we still say, it’s a free country: she can write about whoever she wants. The book was translated by someone else into Turkish, and it was published in Turkey in March 2006, and here, early this year. I was disappointed that her Turkish characters seemed very Western-American, but that’s the fault of American cultural hegemony and not the author. Or it could be because she grew up abroad, daughter of a diplomat. If I were my own student, I would say to myself, Cancer Bitch, why didn’t you write all that instead of struggling so?
And so I will get a kill fee. I was bravely writing and rewriting the book review while reeling from the cancer diagnosis (that’s not true; I wasn’t really reeling, just going to a lot of appointments). They call it a kill fee because it kills you a little bit to get it.
Friday, February 2, 2007
The Day after (one year)
One has come and gone without much pomp and circumstance. I spent most of yesterday 2/1/07 at the hospital getting bone density scans. The past few weeks my joints have really been bothering me (knees, ankles mostly). I was nervous hoping for the best but, expecting and prepared for the worst. In this case the worst would be that the cancer has metastasised to my bones.
Waiting....
Eating (Umm hospital cuisine Umm)
More Eating...
Waiting (Tic-Toc)...
Good news no bone metastasis I am just old and beat up. It appears that I have degenerative joint damage in both knees and my left shoulder. Looks like my new cologne will be ice hot or flex-all from time to time.
I think I will celebrate the good news, and my anniversary of beating the odds with 2 naps. There are so many statistics and myths that I am going to change and rewrite be for it is all said and done; the medical text book publishers should give me a contract.
Waiting....
Eating (Umm hospital cuisine Umm)
More Eating...
Waiting (Tic-Toc)...
Good news no bone metastasis I am just old and beat up. It appears that I have degenerative joint damage in both knees and my left shoulder. Looks like my new cologne will be ice hot or flex-all from time to time.
I think I will celebrate the good news, and my anniversary of beating the odds with 2 naps. There are so many statistics and myths that I am going to change and rewrite be for it is all said and done; the medical text book publishers should give me a contract.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Italian Folktales
I'd brought Italo Calvino's book of folktales to the MRI on Tuesday so that P could read them to me. (See Housewives of the 60s post--MRI too noisy for reading aloud). I'd found the book in an alley about 12 years ago. In my fair city, you can furnish your apartment and bookshelves from the alley, especially if you're looking in fall and spring when the leases are up. We have a coffee table, end table with black and white painted squares, two floor lamps and a handpainted bar stool from the alley. Correction: the end table was sitting out in someone's front yard. For the taking, I must add; I didn't steal it. My friend S picks up clothes in the alley. Anyway, I found the book in the alley. I'm looking for one particular story in it, but am stopped by the titles. They're great: The Sultan with the Itch, Misfortune, The Wife Who Lived on Wind, The King's Son in the Henhouse. Is that the story that Molly Ivins described as a "gang pluck"? much to the ire of New York Times higher-ups? (Click here for explanation.). The One-Handed Murderer. Is that the story I'm looking for? I think it is. A king keeps his daughter locked up in a garrett. One night she sees a man on her window ledge. She screams, he runs away, and in the morning nobody believes she saw anyone. Next night and morning, same thing. Third night, he comes by, she chops off his hand and keeps it. Now they believe her. Not much later a stranger with elegant gloves comes to court. That's the burglar, says the princess. Nonsense, says the father, and he allows the stranger to marry his daughter. The stranger is of course the titular one-handed murderer, but only the narrator and readers know him as a murderer. He takes the princess away and ties her up. She's rescued and eventually marries a king. The one-handed murderer arrives at court and drugs everyone so that they fall asleep. Only he and the girl (his legal wife still, one presumes, but no matter) are awake in the castle. He sharpens his knife, preparing to slit her throat. She shoots him with her husband's pistol. He dies. Everyone wakes up: "They found the murderer slain and the queen freed at last from her terror."
I loved it when I first read it. Because the girl *knows* he's the bad guy, and no one believes her. Then she provides proof and they believe her. She's right again, and no one believes her. Then she has proof. And after the burglar/murderer comes after her, after he's drugged the whole court, she recognizes him again and shoots straight into his heart.
***
I didn't see any doctors today. I talked on the phone to a woman who had a double mastectomy, with reconstruction performed by the plastic surgeon I talked to yesterday. She was diagnosed with DCIS, Stage Zero breast cancer, but decided instead of a lumpectomy to have both breasts cut off. I don't know if I would do that. I have my life, she kept saying. I didn't want to worry. I have my life. She's 31.
I loved it when I first read it. Because the girl *knows* he's the bad guy, and no one believes her. Then she provides proof and they believe her. She's right again, and no one believes her. Then she has proof. And after the burglar/murderer comes after her, after he's drugged the whole court, she recognizes him again and shoots straight into his heart.
***
I didn't see any doctors today. I talked on the phone to a woman who had a double mastectomy, with reconstruction performed by the plastic surgeon I talked to yesterday. She was diagnosed with DCIS, Stage Zero breast cancer, but decided instead of a lumpectomy to have both breasts cut off. I don't know if I would do that. I have my life, she kept saying. I didn't want to worry. I have my life. She's 31.
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