"It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was." ~ Anne Sexton

My therapist told me that I wasn't really a psychobitch and that, in fact, I wasn't even mean to him.  Hmm....what a surprise.  She pointed out that I'm always so reasonable that Hubby never has to take responsibility for the things he doesn't do for me.

Being jealous and acting on that jealousy reminds me too much of my father.  He was constantly sure that whichever woman he happened to be fucking was or wanted to be fucking someone else.  That was always a wonderful opportunity to indulge his need for violence.  Of course, I'm not jealous of everyone; just this one person.  I'm never violent.  So why is this so problemmatic?  Because I've spent my life trying desperately to eradicate any similarity between my father and me.  I've even jettisoned good qualities in my relentless quest to differentiate myself from him.

My therapist constantly reminds me that I'm not like my father.  Why doesn't this make me feel any better?

America held hostage day 1547

Bushism of the day:

"Listen, I want to thank leaders of the - in the faith - faith-based and community-based community for being here."
— (The White House, "President Meets with Representatives from National Voluntary Organizations," Sept. 6, 2005.)

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Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be. ~ Thomas a Kempis

Never let it be said that I'm unwilling to admit character flaws or fuckups or any other negative behavior I've been engaged in.  This past weekend I had a rare psychobitch meltdown.  First of all, let me just say that the aforementioned PBM is a symptom of chemo brain.  (Not that I'm making excuses, mind you.)

It all started 20 years ago.  Hubby was participating in a theatre event that went on for literally months.  At the time I'd just quit my abusive, exhausting job and was settling into a major depression.  (Hubby and I weren't married at the time, but we'd been together for about 10 years.)  I walk into the backstage area after the play and I find Hubby with Blonde Bitch.  They're standing on different sides of a table, but there are definitely vibes.  He introduces me to her and I give her one of my psychobitch smiles (the mouth is smiling, but the eyes are cold as a snake's).  That smile generally sends a chill down everyone's spine.

I start complaining about Blonde Bitch.  Hubby ignores me.  I start keeping track of the number of times this pisses me off and why.  Somewhere along the way, Hubby is off at rehearsal (or something) and I had the first psychobitch meltdown.  I start punching the wall with my fist.  Yes, it hurt, but when you're in the midst of PBM, it doesn't matter so much.

Cut to three years later.  Hubby is out of town.  Lo and behold, he gets a letter from the Blonde Bitch, who was living somewhere in Vermont or one of those northern states.  She has sent him an acorn.  How precious.  I flew into a rage and, if Hubby hadn't been out of town, it might have caused me to break my long-standing rule of not arguing in front of my parents, who were visiting for the weekend.  By the time Hubby got back and the parents were gone, I'd come to my senses enough to be embarrased that I opened his mail.  I apologized.  However, that did not mean that I was feeling any friendlier towards Blonde Bitch or any more reasonable about his contact with her generally.

So she's in and out of my life over the course of the next 17 years.  This past weekend, we went to the premiere of a play she had something to do with.  First let me say that going to the play with Hubby was a huge deal for me.  My fatigue level is crushing, but since we haven't done anything together in a while, I was willing to ignore the fatigue and go anyway.  We get in our seats and who comes rushing up but the Blonde Bitch herself.  She gushes and hugs Hubby...too long.  I'm sitting there staring at her as she does this.  It does not faze her.  She's not only a Blonde Bitch, she's a brazen blonde bitch.  She then grabs my hand and tells me my hair looks good.  I tell her it's not my hair.  "I know," she said.  Bitch.

All of this catapults me into a serious rage.  The sane side of my brain is frantically telling the crazy side to just calm down and get a grip.  The crazy side completelly ignores that advice.  At intermission, I go outside to calm down while Hubby visits the restroom.  When I go back in, there he is hovering over her while she fills her fat yap with food.  (Uh oh.  Psychobitch alert.)  Rage absolutely clogs every centimeter of my body.  I tell Hubby that I'm feeling tired and I need to go sit down.  He's fine with this, but didn't feel impelled to follow me.  Better that he stay there with the fat, yap-filling, brazen blonde bitch.  Need I say more?  I was enraged again.  When Hubby finally comes in to sit down, I lean over and say, "I came tonight because I wanted to do something with you because we rarely do that.  It turns out that we're still not doing anyting together."

As we're leaving, she rushes over to hug Hubby again.  I keep walking.  He catches up to me outside and I just can't contain my rage anymore.  I graby him by the arm and say, in a lowered tone of voice," No time to spend with me.   You've got to go hang out with Precious Cindy." (Note:  the name has been changed to protect the blonde bitch.) I continued, "You can just go sit your ass down in the chair by yourself while I hang out with 'She's a bitch but I like her" Cindy."  Hubby does not respond and that does not help his case at all.

We get in the car and I'm unstoppable.  "You don't love me.  You'd rather spend your time with Precious Cindy." 

"I'm sorry I spent five minutes with my firends, " he says in his passive aggressive way. 

"Fuck you, Hubby.  Fuck you." I respond. Reason hit the road a long time ago and I'm completely riding the huge wave or rage.  "You just go ahead and sit down in there by yourself, ggirl.  I've got more important things to do than pay attention to you.  I'm busy her with Cindy.  She's a bitch, you know, but I just can't help myself from thinking she's fabulous."

I harangued for about 45 minutes before I came to my senses--at least enough to get rid of that poisonous tone of voice I'd been using.  

"I'm sorry," I finally say, "But the hug was too long."

He does not respond.

"The hug was too long and it doesn't matter how I look on the outside, you can count on the fact that anytime you come in contact with her, I'm going to be really pissed off.  Fair warning."

"You're my best friend, ggirl.  Even beyond the romantic and sexual aspects of our relationship, I value your friendship," he says.

"You're my best friend, too.  But the hug was too long."

On Monday, I was out of town for a meeting with my radiation oncologist. Then it dawns on me that I have been a total asshole, I recognize that I've had a psychobitch meltdown and I'm completely mortified.  When I got back on Tuesday, I wrote Hubby and email, telling him how embarassed I am by my egregious behavior.  "Thanks," he said.

Chemo brain or just plain flat out crazy.  That is the question.  I really like the first alternative, but I'm not sure that isn't just self-serving.  So here it is, world.  I have been a very bad person.  My relationship with anger is not an easy one, but I don't have the time to elaborate.  Maybe tomorrow.

America held hostage day 1541

Bushism of the day:

"I think that freedom is a powerful incentive. And I am—I believe that someday freedom will prevail everywhere, because freedom is a powerful drive for people to—and it's the beginnings of people expressing themselves toward a free Iran, which I think is positive."
—Bush, on recent protests in Iran
Source: The White House, "President Believes Peace in Middle East is Achievable: Remarks by the President to the Travel Pool," June 15, 2003

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I had a meeting with a radiation oncologist on Monday to discuss the next phase of cancer treatment.  I've managed to get through cancer treatment thus far by using denial.  "Oh, they're just going to do a lumpectomy--no big deal."  "They're just going to cut off one of my breasts, but once they do that all will be well.  No big deal."  "Okay.  They're just going to be pumping poison into my body for six months, but once I get through with that, I'll be fine.  No big deal."  My meeting with the radiation oncologist just eliminated all of the denial.  As I look at those things that ran through my head, I can't believe that I thought I could just get through with treatment and never look back.  There will be lots of looking back.  Every three months for five years.

 I'm not sure exactly what got my attention.  She talked about where the radiation beams would be directed, how many treatments I would have to undergo, and some of the side effects.  I don't suppose it really matters how or why I've moved beyond denial, but I really liked it a lot more than I like facing reality.  That's pretty much always the case, though, I guess.

 So the past couple of days I've been depressed.  Somehow it seems like it might have been better to just be depressed the whole time I was undergoing treatment.  It might not have been so much like falling into a black well.  I have a low tolerance for depression.  I always wish to find something to cheer myself up with or, at the very least, to distract myself.

I've been hanging on to W.'s ever-declining poll numbers and, of course, the brouhaha over Donald Rumsfeld, but even those things haven't been effective in dispelling the oh-my-god-i-have-breast-c ancer blues.  I have absolutely no ability to concentrate, so that doesn't bode well for being able to read as a distraction.  What's a girl to do? 

I'm not sure what the answer is to that question, but the thing I'm supposed to be doing is finding a radiation oncologist in my home town and/or someone who is willing and able to remove my port.  I decided not to even try yesterday, because I knew it would be a waste of time.  Sometimes mood trumps necessity.  I also have other health care issues to deal with and I've double-booked myself on May 11.  I'll just go from one doctor directly to the next one.  I don't have the energy to try to correct that problem.  Maybe tomorrow.

America held hostage day 1540

Bushism of the day:

"I had the opportunity to go out to Goree Island and talk about what slavery meant to America. It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America, because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America. America is what it is today because of what went on in the past."
—Bush, commenting on the significance of slavery in America's past
Source: White House, "Remarks by the President to Embassy Personnel, Leopold Sedar Senghor International Airport, Dakar, Senegal," July 8, 2003

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As if having ghastly looking fingernails weren't enough, one of them is now infected. My first clue was the odor of something decaying seemed to have attached itself to me somewhere on my body. It took a couple of days to figure out the offensive odor was coming from my middle finger. How appropriate. I alsmost expect a parade of carrion following me, waiting for me to stand still for a while.

The mouth sores are back, along with a generally sensitive mouth. I live in Texas. You're required to have Mexican food weekly at the very least. I thought bean a cheese tostado compuestos would be a viable choice. It was--right up until the second tostado.

I'm emotionally very edgy. The mere fact that Hubby is breathing annoys me. I know he has to breathe. I just wish he wouldn't do it in my space. Meanwhile, Hubby is in a slightly hypomanic period, which is making him a tad testy. I'm sure he wishes I'd stop breathing, too. We're just a laugh a minute at my house these days.

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Battleground Analysis

Congratulations!

You have been awarded the TPM service medal! This is our third highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.

The fact that you have progressed through this activity without suffering many hits and biting only one bullet suggests that whilst there are inconsistencies in your beliefs about God, on the whole they are well thought-out.

The direct hits you suffered occurred because some of your answers implied logical contradictions. The bitten bullet occurred because you responded in a way that required that you held a view that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. At the bottom of this page, we have reproduced the analyses of your direct hits and bitten bullet.

The fact that you did not suffer many hits and only bit one bullet means that you qualify for our third highest award. Well done!

Click here if you want to review the criteria by which hits and bullets are determined.

How did you do compared to other people?

• 316904 people have completed this activity to date.
• You suffered 2 direct hits and bit 1 bullet.
• This compares with the average player of this activity to date who takes 1.39 hits and bites 1.11 bullets.
• 38.37% of the people who have completed this activity have, like you, been awarded the TPM Service Medal.
• 7.68% of the people who have completed this activity emerged unscathed with the TPM Medal of Honour.
• 45.81% of the people who have completed this activity took very little damage and were awarded the TPM Medal of Distinction.

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Having finished chemotherapy, the crazy part of my brain insists that it’s time to resume my rigorous workout schedule, wax the living room floors, start working on the mosaic for the front yard and get started on six months of pent-up project planning. The sane half reminds me that I’m still sleeping around 12 hours a day, which doesn’t leave much time for any of the aforementioned activities. There’s also a small problem with nausea and the usual mouth sores. So here I sit, with laptop.

At some point in the not too distant future, I will begin six weeks of radiation. Treatments are given five days a week. I’m not going to be able to receive radiation at the out of town hospital; it’s too far away to go there every day for the ten minutes it will take to deliver the treatment. However, I will have a consultation with one of the hospital radiation people who are supposed to be able to help me find someone here who’s trustworthy.

I think now might be a good time to update everything else that’s been going on in my life. Hubby is working on another radio program for NPR. This one is about cowboy songs. It turns out that “Streets of Laredo” has been around for at least a couple of hundred years. Who knew? I guess I thought Marty Robbins was the songwriter. Or somebody Marty knew, anyway. There’s a fair amount of debate as to when it was composed, but it’s been traced back to an Irish folk song. This is one of the great things about Hubby. He manages to provide me with lots of interesting information. I don’t even have to do any research.

Baby Hughey is now a California resident. Those folks who were kind enough to take him in and let him live with them for a while have been paying rent for about a year on a storage facility. They even flew out to California to make sure his new residence (another homeless shelter) is acceptable. Hughey took a midnight bus to our town Saturday. Hubby picked him up and delivered him to the airport.

My mother broke her arm a couple of weeks ago. We were coming out of one of the buildings where I work (we were feeding my beloved feral cats) and she didn’t notice a small curb—about 3 inches tall. She fell on the concrete driveway. The break was so nasty that she had to have surgery last week. She seems to be improving rapidly, which isn’t unusual for her. Her bones knit together very quickly.

That’s about it for the time being. I’m going to try to resume my regular posting schedule. That will be much easier than resuming the rigorous workout schedule. Speaking of which, I think I’ll preview my new Brazilian dance dvd.

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"The pain of the mind is worse than the pain of the body." ~ Publiliius Syrus

Note: This post was written on February 6, 2006.

I am not

my breasts

my hair

my face

my brain function

Cancer is teaching me this lesson. I don’t have much interest in learning it. These are hard times, when the sum of all of the suffering I’ve endured in my life thrusts itself into my consciousness. I believe that all things happen for a reason. I believe that what is is meant to be, moment by moment. In some respects, those beliefs shield me a bit from the need to find reason or meaning in my own suffering.

Lately, I have accepted fully the fact that not all people share the same burden of suffering. I just never believed it could be true that some people manage to have happy lives. It was not a welcome revelation.

Some people have happy childhoods. I mean seriously happy childhoods. It’s completely unimaginable.

The current suffering includes fatigue and volatile emotions. Two of my most favorite things. Fatigue just doesn't generally apply to me. In more normal times, I'm the queen of high energy.  It's like death--we all recognize the inevitability, we just don't think it applies to us. ("normal times."  How do those two words ever apply to my life?)

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"In the country of pain we are each alone. "~ May Sarton

Note: This post was written on January 25, 2006. I can't figure out how to integrate it into the rest of the January posts.

What hurts? Everything.

I decided to share with my therapist a journal entry from one of my previous chemo treatments. I was puzzled by my immersion in pain; I couldn’t remember how the bigness and smallness of my pain permeated my consciousness. I remember now.

I received my latest chemo treatment on Tuesday. I’ve now entered phase two of my treatment. I don’t recall anyone telling me about Phase Two. I’m not sure whether that’s a blessing or something I should be very angry about. I am very angry,

The new regimen is a series of drugs infused one at a time, which ends up taking about two and a half hours. I get an emetic so that the inevitable nausea won’t be so bad. Then a steroid. Then some other chemo drug, a bright red color, that seeps out through urine. It may also cause mouth sores, so I’m drinking what feels like gallons of water which just increases nausea. That’s one of my favorite things about cancer treatment. At some point, it just starts to seem funny.

I was expecting nausea, because they sent me home with an armload of anti-nausea drugs. I just forgot about the pain. I can’t really identify any place on my body that doesn’t hold some small bit of pain. It’s difficult to think of anything else. It’s difficult to accurately describe. If it were sharp or excruciating pain, it might well be easily dismissed. I have amazing abilities to put pain out of my consciousness. I have a high threshold for pain. My theory is that children who are physically and sexually abused numb their pain in order to endure. This nagging general achiness is just more annoying that difficult. I’d like to dismiss it, believe I should bed able to dismiss it, but I can’t.

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"Who knows for what we live, struggle and die?. . . Wise men write many books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom." ~Alan Paton

Note:  I originally wrote the following entry on January 17.  Since I can't figure out how to fit it in to that timeframe, I decided to post it here, anyway.

There’s been way too much child abuse in my life today.  After work, I came home to watch Cody Posey, a young man who killed his father, stepmother and stepsister.  The death of the 7 year old in New York was still gathering speed and it’s difficult to escape the news coverage.  So I’m reduced to watching “The First 48,” which reminds me that there are places in every city where the streets, even though they’re paved with the same material used everywhere else in the city, might as well  be unpaved.  When you look at them under the streetlights at night, the roads look like sandpits.  In those neighborhoods, there’s just a fine coat of dirt swaddling everything.  They are not the streets where the middle class sets up housekeeping.  Aspirants to that level of status pass through these neighborhoods on their way to suburbia.  Everyone else has settled into the life they’ve been given to endure.  I’m familiar with these places.  The immersion in child abuse always calls me back to those places.  

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