2/2/96:

Hello, friends.

It's been brought to my attention (!) that I haven't said much, and have unjustly caused worry, but there really hasn't been much to say. I sleep really a lot, and I see doctors really a lot, and that's the absolute sum total of my life.

I DID have one outing in the last many weeks, I was invited to lunch by young Kevin and his most excellent parents. I had fun minding him, while Mommy was out and Daddy whirled in paroxysms of type-A behaviour. (Something about "scoring" -- I thought he'd outgrown that!) We had our Food Fun, and I introduced him to the complexities of combining foods, the whole thus becoming more than the sum of its parts. Then I had to sing, and we s-canned the "Old MacDonald's" stuff and I tried him out on the Pointer Sisters, and some James Brown. He lit up like the GG Bridge at "I Feel Good!" so we did that one for quite a while. Seems he's a primitive like me, so we had a good time. Then I taught him about percussion, and how the neatest thing about it is that it's so PORTABLE -- we banged spoons on mugs, whacked stacks of audio cassettes, and then I showed him how when you have nothing at all, you can still clap hands and stomp feet. We were quite jolly by the time we left for lunch.

It was a treat to watch people watching him in the Fish Trap restaurant. In any case there will be people who beam at babies, but Kevin always brings down the WHOLE house -- EVERY eye was on him. He's now taking his first steps (quite concerned with being perfect, too -- where's he get THAT from?!?) and after each successful maneuver, he claps his hands in glee, and we must all do likewise. (What is wrong with this culture, that we're taught it's wrong to applaud ourselves -- what a shame to lose such innocent appreciation of achievement.) Such a natural star he is, not in the sense of a movie star, but in the sense of a brightly shining celestial entity.

At this point, anyone not interested in medical details is sincerely invited to press the delete key....

Friday, a typical day: 6:30, get up for my radiation. At the hospital, I pour me some decaff, change into my costume (defiantly retaining my granny sweaters), and settle down to my jigsaw puzzle. I tisk and mutter, repairing the damage done by the last person Thursday night, until my nurses call me. They're a joy, one lissome Swedish model-type and a greatly beloved tiny leprechauness from Ireland. Most of the time is spent poking, squishing, and shoehorning me in my torso mold into the exact right position. The treatments will little by little fry a set percentage of my lungs, so this positioning is to try to minimize that. They utter cryptic numbers at one another, shift me around in the ruby laser crossbeams, scribble on my chest, while the Varian Monster shifts about ominously. I try to get into my latest entertainment-fantasy, that I'm The Ultimate Woman, and this whole process is to clone me for distribution all over the galaxy. I imagine some child on Aldebaran with a plastic version of me, playing in the sand, and annoying her parents with demands for expensive and unsuitable clothes for me.

The Varian Monster looks exactly like the killer Worm from Dune, arching over me with a black maw with glowing teeth, rearing, circling, rising, crouching. When the rituals are complete, a red light starts flashing, silently shrieking, "Run! Run! Something awful is going on in here that will destroy you!" and the nurses scurry out of the room to safety. And I stay. I look up at the ceiling where there's a big hook on a long sliding track, and always struggle to think of something unghastly it might be used for, but haven't succeeded.

This is repeated at a different angle, and that's that, unless it's Monday, in which case they also take films to insure that I'm not metamorphing into some new shape. Sometimes I have to see the doctor due to burns and burn-rashes, etc. (not bad, so far). After that, I have about one hour to get home, before I fall on my face. I learned the hard way on the 3rd day not to risk being on the road when the collapse strikes. I fall asleep as soon as I'm home (between 10 & 11), and don't wake till between 2 and 6 in the evening, and then back to sleep by 8 or 9. So there's only a tiny pocket of the day for feeding cats, watering plants, and taking care of business.

I caught a ferocious flu for a week, today is the first day I felt better rather than worse. But it was oddly reassuring, and I realized it's because it's the first ailment I've had in a year that wasn't caused by my doctors. Like normal people. As if I were normal. It wasn't a crisis this time, because my blood counts are above minimum so far.

My state of mind isn't as good as it was, but with flu, rain, and isolation, I think that's probably okay, especially since all of those things are temporary and will be remedied. I'm going to see if I have enough hair to do anything with and, if so, that might give me a boost. I'm getting very restless about work, the merger is like the sound of distant but approaching artillery to an old war horse. The time will come, I keep reminding myself.

I really do miss everyone.