Bitches

1. Competing bitches
I'm starting to think more and more of this blog as a potential book. I just found out that
Da Capo Press is publishing "Cancer is a Bitch: Reflections on Midlife, Mortality, Motherhood and Marriage" by Gail Konop Baker in October 2008. Does that mean that I should axe my title, "The Cancer Bitch Diaries"? I thought of "Cancer Kvetch," but that lacks gravitas. Any ideas, reactions, comments?

2. Public bitch
This weekend Cancer Bitch made her first paid public appearance without hair. I spoke to an audience of strangers (seven students, a professor, and a fellow presenter) at a program on the business of writing at Intellectual University. Beforehand, in the hallway, I saw a number of people who I hadn't seen for a while. I intimated to some of them that chemo had dictated my new henna-head, but didn't tell everyone. Of course I would have answered directly if anyone asked me directly about my lack of hair. I managed to slip in the name of this blog into my presentation; I wanted people to figure out that cancer had led to my latest head-fashion, that this isn't my idea of the most attractive face I could put forward.

3. Peevish bitch
I'm fascinated by memoirs by Iranian women. I guess it's because Iran has been shrouded in mystery and Iranian women have been shrouded in chadors. I've read at least a half dozen of them. The first was Honeymoon in Purdah: An Iranian Journey, a travelogue by Alison Wearing, a Canadian. That doesn't count. The first real one was "Saffron Sky: A Life Between Iran and America" by Gelareh Asayesh, who was an intern at the Miami Herald when I was. I remember her as amazingly beautiful and uncomplaining about having to sit and listen to the police radio for crime news. I've read a number of memoirs since. I was immediately skeptical of Azar Nafisi's "Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books," because it paints American and British literature as be-alls and end-alls. The book seems to exist in order to make Americans feel good about our literature. (I admit I read aloud from the book when I taught The Great Gatsby.) There's a new book, "Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran" by Fatemeh Keshavarz, which criticizes Nafisi for stereotyping Iranian women. I'm planning to go to Keshavarz's reading May 30 at Women & Children First to see if she addresses my concerns. But that's not the peevish part. This is it: I'm reading a memoir by an Iranian woman, who will go unnamed. The book is supposed to be poetic. I'm feeling bad because here's someone writing a bestseller in her second or third language, and she's ten years younger that I am. Both treasonable offenses. And as I go along, I notice that she misuses words. She is not adept at English. Didn't anyone else notice? Apparently the reviewers didn't. So I am alone in my peevishness. And peevish about that.

4. Chemo bitch
My third chemo session is tomorrow. P is accompanying me. She will grade papers and I will read the above unsatisfying but still interesting Iranian memoir.

5. A confused bitch
The latest piece I like by an Iranian-American woman is the short "Iranian Women" by Mojdeh Marashi in "Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora," edited by Persis M. Karim. It consists of three very similar scenes of secular and religious women eyeing one another on the street. Cancer Bitch likes repetition. As in reggae. As in Philip Glass. As in drumming. Gregorian chants. And certain poetry, like the pantoum. And in Etel Adnan's "Paris, When It's Naked," which I discovered and bought at Small Press Distribution in Berkeley. I remember walking to SPD. It was both a warehouse and a store. From its website I can't tell whether you can still go into SPD and buy books. You'd think a person would be able to tell, but it such things can be difficult in the 21st century. You try it.

Hospitalized

Seems I couldn't get out of here without being hospitalized. I was admitted on yesterday with diabetic symptoms (probably brought on by all the medicine I take). I am hopping to be out of here today after more test (Jerrold going away party is tonight); also we are scheduled to fly back to TX Sunday morn Only time and more medication will tell.

Jerrold

The Holter (Not Halter)

We are falling apart. And L's employer is paying for it. L is taking a Holter monitor test. Not wearing a halter, as I thought. Holter is the guy who invented the monitor, attached to L's belt during the day and put in a shirt pocket at night, to record everything his heart is doing and not doing over 24 hours. The cardiologists want to rule out arrhythmia, which is not good for thrice-a-week basketball players, or anybody else for that matter. L is irritated because electrode wires are stuck to his chest and the adhesive is itchy. I offered him an Ambien for tonight but he says that only works for three hours. He had a margarita at El Jardin tonight and that relaxed him some. The restaurant is fairly quiet when the Cubs fans haven't taken it over. We shared an order of vegetarian tamales. I hope they are vegetarian. They are called that, and I hope that lard is not used to make the outer masa portion. When I was first a vegetarian I was vigilant, grilling waitstaffs but now that I eat fish and chicken, I don't always want to know.

L asks why this level of detail about him is necessary. Comments, anyone?

He is pressing tape against my scalp then pulling it off to see if loosely-held stubble will come out. This interests and amuses both of us. We are like monkeys checking one another for lice. At least he doesn't eat the hairs. That is what we call evolution.

Cigarette Tax

In Indiana legislation recently went into effect increasing the tax on cigarettes 44 cents per pack. I actually was part of a group that lobbied for the tax increase with the American Cancer Society, though we'd requested a $1 per pack increase. I actually went to my state capitol and spoke to my state legislators.

They say that cost is the biggest deterrent to kids acquiring the habit. I'm sure that's true. My teenage kids would have trouble parting with the $5 or more a pack in some states. I don't want my kids to ever smoke. They say now that 30% of all cancers are smoking related. Smoking is related to more than just lung cancer. More cancers get added to the list all of the time; pancreatic, colon, bladder, kidney... I don't want my kids to ever have a cancer diagnosis.

Maybe my own cancer was a result of my former smoking habit.

Yes, I smoked, for many years. I started smoking when I was 15. And for a long while I lived with the guilt of knowing that maybe I caused my own cancer. Maybe I was responsible for all of the grief (and expense) my diagnosis caused my husband, kids, friends and extended family. I quit almost 5 years ago, but remember, I'm a 6 year survivor. I smoked for a year after my diagnosis, and hated that I was so addicted that I couldn't quit even as I fought for my life. I'm ashamed to admit that here. I've read that only 50% of cancer patients who smoke give up the habit. Go figure.

Smoking truly is an addiction, nothing more. Nothing about smoking has the physical effect of relieving stress except for the slow deep breaths you take when you take a drag (and the relief from the withdrawal you feel when you aren't smoking). I was so addicted I even rationalized smoking...."chemo, barium and x-rays are carcinogenic, so I'm going to at least choose one of my carcinogens". How is that for twisted logic? I was terrified as I smoked, thinking I was making cancer cells grow, but I failed time after time when I tried to quit.

I did finally quit; cold turkey was the only way for me. I didn't succeed using patches or gum, though I tried them. I'm sure I tried to quit hundreds of times before I succeeded. In hindsight, smoking was much more stressful for me than not smoking. I love the freedom of not being an addict. Part of what helped me quit was the “Freedom From Smoking” online program sponsored buy the American Lung Association:

http://www.lungusa.org/site/apps/kb/home/login.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=38973

I'm grateful that my kids now abhor cigarettes and cigarette smoke. I'm glad in this day and age my teens don’t see smokers as “cool”, they see them as “losers”. I'm glad cigarettes are expensive. I'm glad there are more smoke-free places to protect my kids. My kids want all restaurants and public places to become smoke free- my eldest made me laugh when we went to a restaurant the other day- she said a smoking section in a restaurant was "like a peeing section in a pool". We had smoking rooms in the house and didn't smoke around our kids, but in hindsight, maybe we didn't protect them enough. They say if kids don't start smoking as teens, there is a good chance they will never smoke. We are almost there.

I just don't want my kids to ever have a cancer diagnosis.

Our Continent and Then Some

Tuesday I lay in bed in my nightgown until 7pm, resting and reading Saving the World by Julia Alvarez, which is an interesting but flawed novel. It is made of two stories--one about the life of a Julia Alvarez-type (her age, her background) writer, and the other about the adventures of a a 19th century Spanish orphanage director who helps spread smallpox vaccines in the New World. The writer, we're told, loves in different ways her husband (romantic) and an elderly neighbor (platonic), who is dying, but I didn't feel the love in either relationship. I did feel it in the historical story. And though the novel's shape is fine, you can see too easily the gears of the plot. Certain plot elements seemed to have been dropped in from above. I bought the book Monday night in my neighborhood used book store, Bookworks. I'd read mixed reviews, and I can see why. I'd wanted to read it, though, because I have worked for 16 years, off and on, part of the time in Berkeley, on a book about a performance artist who is researching a certain legend from the Holocaust. The book has taken on many forms, all of them unfinished, even though two sections of it were published. I never felt comfortable recreating scenes from the past, as Alvarez has done. I can't seem to inhabit it enough, or to be confident enough to be able to recreate all the interiors and carriages and streetscapes of the past. I wrote an essay in Berkely in 2005 that uses some of my research. It's going to be published soon. The trouble with using all the research to create fiction is that I want to keep my distance, or rather, I can't help keeping my distance. In the essay, I can swoop into the past, but briefly, and always aware of my swooping. Which is why my friend Miz P said to me, about seven years ago, You're a nonfiction writer. So I thought that was the answer. Then.

I got dressed Tuesday finally to go to dinner at B and S's house. Our friend L the II was visiting from Australia. He says typical Australian humor is poking fun at your mates. So I was more audacious than usual about insulting people who were there and at one point S and I laughed until I was teary-eyed. Later she touched up my fading henna. Besides the half-block excursion to dinner, I didn't leave the house all day. I didn't walk my three miles. I didn't go to the immigration rally downtown. I felt guilty but I didn't feel like going and I would only be going so that I could say I'd gone if anyone asked me. I made excuses to myself: my stomach has been upset for a few days, I need to rest, I HAVE CANCER. I don't know how effective it is to use the cancer card with yourself. I needed L to tell me that I should rest when I feel like it and he did. I want to be in favor of everything the rally was in favor of, but I don't honestly know where I stand on immigration. I suppose deep down I believe everyone should be able to live anywhere, but the earth would tilt because so many people would come to the US and Europe. I do believe the US has some responsibility for the economy of Mexico, but I don't believe, as I heard Rev. Slim Coleman say on Friday, that the US is responsible for the factors that pushed Elvira Arellano, the illegal immigrant who has found sanctuary in his church, to come here. The US, he said, devalued the peso and dumped cheap corn on Mexico's markets, driving down the price of corn in Mexico, which her family planted and sold. It can't all be the US's fault. But if I were to hear someone blaming everyone but the US, I would think the US was culpable. (Now that I read what Slim Coleman said, in my own words, it sounds reasonable.) I don't think it's right that Arellano is sending her eight-year-old son all around the country to make speeches. But maybe that's what he wants to do. Maybe he feels helpless otherwise and is proud to speak on behalf of his mother. As I said, I don't know where I stand in immigration--amnesty for more than 12 million, which would encourage millions more?--but I should stand somewhere.

At the Office of the County Assessor

Today I did something I'd been putting off for at least three years, to my own detriment. I went to the county assessor's office and signed forms that say that I deserve the homeowner's exemption on my property tax bill because I am the homeowner. I've been the owner of the condo since 1998 but because so much time has elapsed I could only recoup for 2002 onward. I can't get the rest back. The positive way to look at it is that at least I'm doing this now. I had sort of thought I'd gotten it fixed a few years ago. I never look at the tax bill because I pay taxes through the mortgage company. So let this be a lesson to all of you.

First I was surprised that I could walk into a public building without being stopped by a security guard. If I were a terrorist I would go after government buildings such as the City and County Building. I'm glad that no terrorist thinks like me. Second, I was surprised that I didn't have to wait. I imagined sitting for an hour or more. At the assessor's office upstairs there was a counter and chairs and numbers to take. I was number 99, and 96 was lit up, but a woman behind the counter took me to her desk right away. I was surprised to be at someone's desk. She was very personable, asking if I had a cold. I didn't, it's just that my nose runs whenever I'm outside. I think it's because the chemo has killed my nose hairs. My eyes tear, too, and I think that may be because I'm losing some eyelashes. She'd had a cold and was still coughing a little. She had very short hair and I wanted to ask her how she liked having such short hair but I didn't. She saw I had the proper papers to prove my ownership and she said, Someone must have talked to you already, someone must have talked to you already. Crooning almost. Her birthday is four days before mine. Both Sagittarians. She said, Do people think you're me? I thought she was being playful because our birthdays are so near one another. I said, Maybe. Then I realized she'd asked if people think I'm mean. She said people think she is, because she's honest, but they say she's rude, and she says, I just tell it like it is, I'm frank, and they say, Frank and Rude are cousins. She punched up my condo's PIN number on the computer and changed the name of the homeowner, and for each year from 2002 on up she said, are you ready to see the magic screen? And then it displayed my refund for that year. She went off to copy some papers and two desks over a clerk was oohing over a taxpayer's baby, who was about a year and a half and all dressed in white. The clerk was throwing her up in the air and the baby was laughing. My clerk told me that the woman had just adopted three children; this, after already raising children who are grown and living on their own. It was all very sweet and relaxed, with a few other workers crowded around the baby. The office seemed generally easy-going, with murmurs everywhere and no one rushing around. I thought it was quite lovely but on the other hand there were about five people waiting at the counter, stony-faced. It didn't help that the waiting people were all white and the clerks were all black. The group around the baby kept talking about the terrible twos and threes and how kids are so smart these days.

When my paperwork was done, my clerk gave me copies of forms and explained I would be getting refund checks within 30 days. I know I will have to ask my accountant how to square this with the IRS, since I deduct some of my property taxes and mortgage. It will be a mess of more forms. The clerk said, You can buy something for yourself. You can go on vacation. I'd told her how I'd thought I'd have to wait forever, and she said it's like going to the dentist and finding out you don' t have to get any work done. I had my blue hat on. Another clerk had told me she liked it. I kept it on the whole time. The clerk was so personable I was afraid of getting too close by explaining about cancer and chemo. For some reason, I don't mind telling distant people about it, like the bank worker the other day-- a man I don't quite approve of because he doesn't read books, and didn't know anything about socially-conscious investing--but my cancer seemed too personal to reveal to this woman, who was so warm and open. You'd think it would be the opposite but it wasn't.

Barking, Berkeley, Hyde Park

I haven't written for a while here. To quote from that great American philosopher, Snoopy, if you don't have something to say, there's no reason to bark.

I have a philosophy about barking, real barking. I think that dogs bark for the same reasons people honk their horns: to express anger, disapproval, excitement, fear and happiness, and to greet. When I was young, there were Jewish teen groups and each group was named for a Jewish leader, and each group had colors, mascot, song and a honk that the kids would blare out when they passed by another kid's house. I guess that's ritualized honking, comparable to canines' barking at the moon?

Saturday night I went to a potluck dinner for poets, mostly. Our hostess has a dog called Sir Barksalot, named, she explained apologetically, by her son when he was about eight. The dog looks like a short German shepherd with a round face and big puppy feet. In fact, he's a 12-year-old husky-spaniel. We told dog stories. I told a second-hand story about a dog I know in Berkeley. She is very spoiled and white and fluffy. Her name is Lulu, short for Lumiere. I nicknamed her Princess. She has several beds and bowls inside what I called the Big House. I rented the garden apartment/carriage house in back. It's one large room that used to be a gallery. This is the story: One day Lulu went with her mistress, R, to a birthday party. People were gathered in the living room and then someone went back in the kitchen and discovered that Lulu had reached up to the counter and was eating the chocolate cake. One guest ran in, very distraught. She was screaming because she was planning to bring a big piece of the cake to her husband. Later everyone found out that this woman was having an affair, even bringing the man home to meet her children. No wonder she was hysterical about the cake. Her plan to bring some to her husband was fueled by guilt. The poets thought I had been at the birthday party, and I don't blame them, because it is a rather detailed story to know second-hand. I heard it from R. The cake was chocolate but Lulu was not harmed by it. I had experienced Lulu's thievery first-hand already. I was sitting on the patio between the Big House and my little place and I saw Lulu run past with a brown frisbee in her mouth. It turned out to be a loaf of organic whole wheat that I had left on the counter, out of her reach, I'd thought. This was before I heard of the cake-snatching from the counter.

I spent part of the last two summers in Berkeley. I wrote in my little house and in the cafes along College Avenue. Last summer I walked a lot. I walked three and four miles, but often my destination was the Cheese Board in what's called the Gourmet Ghetto, so I didn't lose weight. Besides cheese, of course, the Cheese Board cooperative sells bread and rolls and muffins, and a different kind of pizza every day. You stand in line for your slice/s and then you sit there shifty-eyed at one of the metal-grille tables and listen to live jazz. You're shifty-eyed because there are homeless people everywhere, especially outside the Cheese Board, and you talk to them or not, or give them money or pizza or not. And whatever you do, you still feel ashamed to have looked up the pizza of the day on your computer before coming there; could there be anything more indulgent than that?

The key to understanding Berkeley is the concept of guilt co-existing with indulgence. There's a hip Jewish magazine called Guilt & Pleasure. That's not the same; pleasure is a word from our grandparents' generation: Such a pleasure, such nakhes fon di kinder, pleasure from the children. I studied for two other summers in Berkeley, in the 1990s, thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities. One evening I was very depressed so I went to a city council meeting. The topic at hand was giving out vouchers to homeless people. Did it take away from their freedom of choice and thus their humanness if you gave them a coupon for food from a local store instead of money that they could spend on anything they wanted, including booze and drugs? Since, this issue has surfaced in other communities--locally, in Hyde Park, home of the University of Chicago, which is a mecca of guilt and ... hard work? Not pleasure, not indulgence, but self-righteousness? Not that, either. In Hyde Park people live in lovely brick apartments with nice wooden floors and long hallways and they believe in truth and beauty and scholarship and they complain that there isn't a decent grocery store nearby and they are more likely to have been mugged than their friends on the North Side. In Hyde Park there's an old saying that there the middle class blacks and whites unite against the poor. Maybe Hyde Park is just a pool of guilt, period. And yet, flocks of parakeets have decided to live there, all year long, in the outdoors. Guilt and improbable spots of beauty?