tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73387012190598351982024-03-14T04:52:17.418-05:00Cancer BitchOne Feminist's Report on Her Breast Cancer, Beginning with Semi-diagnosis and Continuing Beyond Chemo, w/ a side of polycythemia thrown in **You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's rye bread,
and you don't have to have cancer to read Cancer Bitch *** Cancer Bitch comes to you from S.L. (Sandi) Wisenberg in Chicago Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comBlogger601125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-21683464630807822072021-09-24T16:53:00.003-05:002021-09-24T16:56:41.409-05:00Wayback Machine: a note about jagua<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicvM9H0NERLYETuLYJymijd_RRKO7-FyoMmUCU-FgJoy40sCDOLlF3dxzv6cYxIm4n718NUfEtZuqiL3f-uZDmkXLFBfW7ZN0snewc9_4d_sL7VzTu3YH_ntaBKBMBMEqDaTiv_MEPl6wS/s220/cancer+bitch+front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="165" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicvM9H0NERLYETuLYJymijd_RRKO7-FyoMmUCU-FgJoy40sCDOLlF3dxzv6cYxIm4n718NUfEtZuqiL3f-uZDmkXLFBfW7ZN0snewc9_4d_sL7VzTu3YH_ntaBKBMBMEqDaTiv_MEPl6wS/s0/cancer+bitch+front.jpg" width="165" /></a></div><br /> When I first lost my hair, I ordered a set of stencils and henna from the now-defunct Chemo Chicks. The henna looked great when it dried, almost like chocolate icing, but when the dried henna fell off (as it's supposed to) the marks weren't as dark as I wanted them to be. I discovered <a href="https://www.earthhenna.com/about/earth-jagua-faqs/">jagua</a> ink made from jagua, which is a fruit, and used it to make designs and slogans on my head. My team of designers included Jennifer Berman, Sharon Solwitz, and Garnett Kilberg-Cohen. Here are some of the head decorations:<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT8Pu-9cV6Rd2seYDYwFnksYyXFlW-HVW8RpIVhS_BHpuoZFT0wGTkCbTqslSTTrqCMmKggvKAtV2IkX4emG18LY7gORW5KsGKjM_VvOp3hekiN9eScjsIyqcSCjqvELMXa_hB0efm-M5U/s220/cancer+bitch+back.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="165" data-original-width="220" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT8Pu-9cV6Rd2seYDYwFnksYyXFlW-HVW8RpIVhS_BHpuoZFT0wGTkCbTqslSTTrqCMmKggvKAtV2IkX4emG18LY7gORW5KsGKjM_VvOp3hekiN9eScjsIyqcSCjqvELMXa_hB0efm-M5U/w286-h214/cancer+bitch+back.JPG" width="286" /></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicNvQcCeVXZGPd7yigL-6oPbpe9Rf4ObpjAgIOi3SCyrE3A9cobN8Mi4t0NjtP4LcvTSXXL3t1BoSSACZaV6cY4ov9E9YjD3e7aE8n_TIioGntQX3_1FccNGRX8ASPMAJnpHtFj47YDv1k/s220/cancer+bitch+front+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="165" data-original-width="220" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicNvQcCeVXZGPd7yigL-6oPbpe9Rf4ObpjAgIOi3SCyrE3A9cobN8Mi4t0NjtP4LcvTSXXL3t1BoSSACZaV6cY4ov9E9YjD3e7aE8n_TIioGntQX3_1FccNGRX8ASPMAJnpHtFj47YDv1k/w297-h223/cancer+bitch+front+2.jpg" width="297" /></a></div></div><br /><p></p><br />Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-53839584958162169732020-11-05T13:58:00.005-06:002020-11-05T14:00:51.848-06:00The one-breasted<p> Just found out about this <a href="https://theguideliverpool.com/the-posters-are-everywhere-but-who-are-liverpools-one-tit-wonders/" target="_blank">project</a>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0A5J219HXXTmJi7HUaYay0FTG7M6LcPtSQPlLaRhZdurIUCktnTA6vcEz1J1GNmcrzpo9C8feh7cfR3d1x2NN5pSwzrAfOsPN8kKKv9szz3Ymp6vBa5D9Sfygsrk6vXDw-lKiVxfDxz7C/s1152/single.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="768" height="587" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0A5J219HXXTmJi7HUaYay0FTG7M6LcPtSQPlLaRhZdurIUCktnTA6vcEz1J1GNmcrzpo9C8feh7cfR3d1x2NN5pSwzrAfOsPN8kKKv9szz3Ymp6vBa5D9Sfygsrk6vXDw-lKiVxfDxz7C/w391-h587/single.jpg" width="391" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-47540542118311451562020-10-13T14:46:00.006-05:002020-10-14T02:45:47.342-05:00Salada Tea<p> Note: I didn't watch Mad Men.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiZmdvUJ41dZwb1w_dVgcX8jYSZWN_SzVY9NJ2h7O3dj2XsizU7yyzKloPAjWSvhPjml2YX8L50hA4z9cNkvVKa-KaX499T1COiAWsqoiYjAHVclzFYd49PxAVut5lM7edvcLlJY5ogdha/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiZmdvUJ41dZwb1w_dVgcX8jYSZWN_SzVY9NJ2h7O3dj2XsizU7yyzKloPAjWSvhPjml2YX8L50hA4z9cNkvVKa-KaX499T1COiAWsqoiYjAHVclzFYd49PxAVut5lM7edvcLlJY5ogdha/w281-h281/image.png" width="281" /></a></div>I always knew I wanted to be a writer, but I wasn't sure what kind. I started out as a poet--and then in second grade, turned my sights on mystery. I won't elaborate (beagle detective) because I know from reading MFA applications that descriptions of a person's juvenalia are always too-cute, worse than boring. For a while I wanted to go into advertising, though I thought it was immoral, after reading T<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/books/review/Greif-t.html" target="_blank">he Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard</a>. Still, in the 1970s I was drawn to the personal, jocular voice of adverts in the teen magazines I read. Make that <i>absorbed</i>. I remember one ad about saving the pit when you eat an avocado and growing a friend, an avocado plant. It didn't make much sense, which is why I remember it. There was another for shoes or socks, having to do with women buying men's shoes or socks, and the advert talked about how women were buying men's shoes/socks, and now there was this product--shoes/socks--especially for women. The last line was, Now men with small feet can relax.<p></p><p>(Because women won't be buying all the men's shoes/socks. It was a simpler time.)</p><p>Last night L. and I were walking and when we had just passed through the DePaul campus, I remembered that N. told me that for her DePaul advertising class they were doing campaigns for the Green New Deal. I knew that would delight L., and it did. Then I thought of Salada Tea. I took a required advertising class in J school in the late 1970s. Our job was to conceive of a print ad for Salada Tea. I had never heard of Salada Tea (maybe that was why it was the subject of our assignment; could it be that the evil professor was going to use our ideas for his client?) There was no USP--unique selling point--about Salada Tea. I was angry about this. To emphasize my displeasure at the tea, I created an ad that had nothing to do with tea--I had a young couple underneath a blanket, which you could order from the tea. The professor wrote: What are they wearing beneath the blanket? because my picture implied that they weren't wearing anything. That was my point--you needed sex to sell the stupid tea.</p><p>As we were walking up Racine last night, I thought of the USP--Salada was cheap. Why not: Elegance for pennies. Elegance of deep, rich Ceylon [or whatever kind it was] tea without breaking the bank. With some copy and then the punch: With all the money you save, you can buy lots of crumpets. </p><p>I realize this notion is derivative, in reverse chronological order. There was a series of TV ads in the 1990s, I think, touting the elegance and sinfulness of flavored instant coffee, one commercial featuring an older woman and a younger man. Ah, but I see from reading a<a href="https://businesscasestudies.co.uk/the-power-of-love/#axzz2Jguq9nkm" target="_blank"> case study </a>that the coffee was already seen as upmarket before the serial commercials started. </p><p>Freshman (as it was called) year of college I tried to get internships in advertising agencies in Houston but I couldn't. I did get a paying internship at the Houston West Side Reporter--$100 a week. I was anxious, as always, and would decide each day whether to meet a friend for lunch or spend the time crying in my car. I went to a Chamber of Commerce meeting once and we went around the table and introduced ourselves. I was so nervous I forgot the name of the newspaper I worked for. The meeting was for figuring out how to respond to the immigration of Vietnamese refugees. I remember the C of C PR person asked me if I could sponsor a family, and I asked her the same. Neither of us could. She was single. I was 19 and during the year living in a dorm. That summer I wrote about a group studying the possibility of merging the city and county health departments. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-qxGUS4GAV-R5R9bzrvfXb9UETRMV6wG52TYwISZmrGzdU-z0jRqYAIrpzWphzW3WWB-TBXyq8CzXxAFOLiOS_gHwX4MJhw5_KJ2XEt_ceISPoPpn6MDz_jK0Tv6N0_OL6r0W6JjU8GvA/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1438" data-original-width="2048" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-qxGUS4GAV-R5R9bzrvfXb9UETRMV6wG52TYwISZmrGzdU-z0jRqYAIrpzWphzW3WWB-TBXyq8CzXxAFOLiOS_gHwX4MJhw5_KJ2XEt_ceISPoPpn6MDz_jK0Tv6N0_OL6r0W6JjU8GvA/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>I remember the members of the <i>blue-ribbon group </i>(a new term to me) studying a merger were emphatic that they weren't going to create a report that would just collect dust on a shelf. The next summer I had an unpaid internship in an un-air-conditioned building at the Mighty Ninety News and World Report, put out by the local Pacifica radio station. It was too hot for me and there was a cat roaming, besides. I quit and I tried to revive the city-county story as a freelancer. I didn't finish it and took my notes with me to Paris for my junior year abroad. At some point, with the help of some polyglot therapist there, I abandoned the project.</p><p>And that, children, is the moral of this story: Never bite off more than you can chew. Or pour more.... </p><p>And, you ask, are the Houston and Harris County health departments combined? What do you think? </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-80085480046203793892018-09-15T14:39:00.000-05:002018-09-15T14:56:55.400-05:00The Eyebrows/The Other Facebook<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzubwzLL556MakysFjKDvrpMSQY9bR8S5FPzHXTpzNP5MVk3wfFbD-2tRlGuq4pUh32zohIxE3JpMJ1OjyOJNbmDELWq1DsxyiDgzGk-LM-G3Tp0m9Qc7FKEKgCLVkL_1cFinl1rOoVTYw/s1600/me+astroworld+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="796" data-original-width="674" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzubwzLL556MakysFjKDvrpMSQY9bR8S5FPzHXTpzNP5MVk3wfFbD-2tRlGuq4pUh32zohIxE3JpMJ1OjyOJNbmDELWq1DsxyiDgzGk-LM-G3Tp0m9Qc7FKEKgCLVkL_1cFinl1rOoVTYw/s320/me+astroworld+%25282%2529.jpg" width="270" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me, a high school summer when I worked at Astroworld; I wish I still had that blouse.</td></tr>
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There was a booklet that I think was sent out to incoming freshman (as we were called) in Ye Olden Days. Or maybe we got it in our Orientation packets. Maybe it was called Facebook. It consisted of photos of the 1800 or so of us in the class, with home street addresses and names of high schools. I'd wondered briefly from time to time where it was. When I was home this week I came across it. I found that my first oncologist at Fancy Hospital was in my class, and I wondered what happened to the guy I had a crush on that first year in the dorm. We were friends. We ate breakfast together often, and I remember being disappointed when his parents came to visit and he didn't make sure that we met. I don't think I embarrassed myself with any overt overtures. Thank God. I'd thought about him from time to time but could never remember his last name. I remembered he was from a suburb of a big city, a suburb with a magical name I'd never heard before. It sounded like the name of a fairy tale.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6nyoM5xkn8H_ZO518iU3MTI3rDt2gLXUrtT34rZtHNierPVzhf7bZOMG4fHvdbzPPclbdSM38xAhm6nyPBIXGW0K2auqLofNlgc3AqzriVGd7aMM6_7MVDQCP5k2rSsEHOX2A6Lsi69VT/s1600/facebook+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="719" data-original-width="1080" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6nyoM5xkn8H_ZO518iU3MTI3rDt2gLXUrtT34rZtHNierPVzhf7bZOMG4fHvdbzPPclbdSM38xAhm6nyPBIXGW0K2auqLofNlgc3AqzriVGd7aMM6_7MVDQCP5k2rSsEHOX2A6Lsi69VT/s400/facebook+%25282%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Well, there he was in the Facebook booklet. I knew he'd been pre-med. He is an oncologist and surgeon in the suburbs of another large Eastern city. Patients have reviewed him favorably.. He saved the life of someone's father. One grumbly patient said he was ignored for hours and then the doc asked him what he was doing there, said there was no time for him, that he had been squeezed into the appointment book that day. We don't know, of course, if this patient was screaming at the time/totally off his rocker. That is the value of online, anonymous comments.<br />
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This doc was in a video advertising the hospital he's with. He says he enjoys getting to know patients in this small hospital, getting to know their families, about their travels, etc. He seems sincere. He had an thin though owly face in college; here his face is filled out. What I can't get over are his eyebrows. In the Facebook photo, they're pretty flat with just a slight curve. In the video they're almost a semi-circle.<br />
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Can eyebrows change that much? Has anyone studied this? Perhaps detectives who deal with missing persons have. I'm not going to look it up.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtEy5wGDt812FNiwY7JcxpSW-EUPA9S1IGH1gc5fLOef1Eqo2GwDh3qh9cG2deBAIMs31ZWB-hS6r-9EhubS194Eejg1Q8v-X-RLSX-ZPTllJYmHWqmEGLBAzaGhtf2rcbtZZ4u8j398s9/s1600/facebook+my+page+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="679" data-original-width="1080" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtEy5wGDt812FNiwY7JcxpSW-EUPA9S1IGH1gc5fLOef1Eqo2GwDh3qh9cG2deBAIMs31ZWB-hS6r-9EhubS194Eejg1Q8v-X-RLSX-ZPTllJYmHWqmEGLBAzaGhtf2rcbtZZ4u8j398s9/s400/facebook+my+page+%25282%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oops! Surely I didn't miss the deadline for sending in pics!</td></tr>
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My eyebrows are pretty much the same as they were in high school. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1d4iFtsJ74ecrXqaRUycjjYSKTR3Tl-ytywJAXbVR9lBPtcTgKRs-JV8YKe7lMO1yQ29HttI4zmHAS7MzTbrczZIJzzCJQThHnN0VYP3WVWzDZ21snIbmfnDxFvSnQBIYcnejIjhuxtRv/s1600/me+first+haircut+late+17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="780" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1d4iFtsJ74ecrXqaRUycjjYSKTR3Tl-ytywJAXbVR9lBPtcTgKRs-JV8YKe7lMO1yQ29HttI4zmHAS7MzTbrczZIJzzCJQThHnN0VYP3WVWzDZ21snIbmfnDxFvSnQBIYcnejIjhuxtRv/s320/me+first+haircut+late+17.jpg" width="260" /></a></div>
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Because they are fake. I lost much of my eyebrows during chemo and they didn't come all the way back. Plus we lose our eyebrows with time. They migrate to our chins. Anyway, I use a mascara-type makeup to fill in my eyebrows. Sometimes they're too thick and I find out, in the middle of the day when I'm looking in a mirror, that I've been Groucho-like all day.<br />
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I nosed around for the doc's CV, family, publications, etc. It seems that he's guarding his privacy. Afraid of being found by old wanna-be girlfriends? Or--maybe he's gay and wants to keep it close to his vest. That would explain how he could resist my charms at 18, when my face was still oval and my eyebrows thick enough to pluck.<br />
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When I worked at Astroworld we had a yearbook. I remember dressing as Groucho for a picture and I was so convincing that girls did a double-take when I went into the locker room to change back. I can't find that picture but here I am the summer before senior year of high school, in the 1890s store, where I worked with the silhouette artists.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOJ4U4RA09DmKr3bUdgB55pinR6wpb8J-dh6nzGft6ilBANBIWPaMhS_fDQqYiU5kgpEVMVu0Emjgwhg-rhhni6gFbTvx-7LY0Q4-NbrcSvwvgKfSIVXriS18N8rL7iFtrR9FKL-s1joK2/s1600/me+at+astroworld+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="726" data-original-width="810" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOJ4U4RA09DmKr3bUdgB55pinR6wpb8J-dh6nzGft6ilBANBIWPaMhS_fDQqYiU5kgpEVMVu0Emjgwhg-rhhni6gFbTvx-7LY0Q4-NbrcSvwvgKfSIVXriS18N8rL7iFtrR9FKL-s1joK2/s320/me+at+astroworld+%25282%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Distracting a silhouette subject</td></tr>
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<br />Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-12992249817169227372018-09-12T17:03:00.001-05:002018-09-15T14:55:16.665-05:00Leaving Facebook/the Person from Porlock<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7iqLjMDfcR1S2_oa94UrF308E1PIV747WI5FWmYJ7xdGinq3eQGUk6dEYZCnmmGTV5hTnMEhI51op5dKQvaV1MrYxwSNLvmWNjAsZefagu00zYVOo0cwLlLX61JrC0gI9FV5Scqxav1bk/s1600/saint+michael.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="355" data-original-width="343" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7iqLjMDfcR1S2_oa94UrF308E1PIV747WI5FWmYJ7xdGinq3eQGUk6dEYZCnmmGTV5hTnMEhI51op5dKQvaV1MrYxwSNLvmWNjAsZefagu00zYVOo0cwLlLX61JrC0gI9FV5Scqxav1bk/s640/saint+michael.jpg" width="617" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saint Michael and the dragon, Valencia, c. 1405; I don't know why I'm always drawn to images of him and the dragon; I have one in my office. I like the fact that in any depiction of him there's always the dragon, even if at the very very bottom of the picture. Here, of course, the dragon is shown larger than the would-be saint.</td></tr>
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1. The <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01h2l6n" target="_blank">Person from Porlock </a>was Coleridge's excuse for not finishing "Kubla Khan." The Person interrupted Coleridge from his poem and so it was published unfinished. How lovely it would be to publish all our work unfinished. The Person from Porlock is Oscar Wilde's <a href="http://www.yourdictionary.com/bunburying" target="_blank">Bunbury</a>--being one character's excuse (Ernest or the other one?) for having to travel to the country. Bunbury was always sick, and the character's aunt (sometimes played campily by a man in the play "The Importance of Being Earnest"), who makes unintentionally funny pronouncements, criticized Bunbury for not making up his mind whether he was going to die. He was less real than Cory Booker's <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/08/30/cory-booker-explains-t-bone-and-the-cynical-press-and-eva-longoria-and-terrorists/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d472ad39dd4e" target="_blank">T-Bone</a>, who turned out, it seems, to be a composite. Commentators have made much of the name Bunbury, pointing to its<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2001/jun/05/theatre.artsfeatures" target="_blank"> gay associations</a>. They've made much of the name Ernest, too, as having the same associations. Alas, in Stoppard's play about E.A. Housman, he asks the question whether Housman was the one more punished than Oscar, because Housman was thwarted in his romance with a straight college friend, and had no others, and Oscar lived and loved. He became himself. He was himself. If the flamboyance was himself. Or were the velvet and lilies and pronouncements, an act to cover up--what? Insecurity? A sense of inferiority from being Irish and gay? From being different? If I throw it in your face that I'm different that you can't throw it in mine. The pre-emptive strike. Which is all the rage these days. Ask North Korea.*<br />
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2. The Person from Porlock is the man's <a href="http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/thackeray/angel.html" target="_blank">Angel In the House</a>, as written by <a href="https://kimerskine.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/reflecting-on-virginia-woolfs-the-angel-in-the-house/" target="_blank">Virginia Woolf</a>. The perfect woman, the Angel, takes care of the house and everyone in it and so does not protect her own art. Does not value herself. Does not put herself first. Or second. There is the husband, the children, the house. Not sure of the order. In (Jewish) summer camp there was a sign in or outside the mess hall: 1. God 2. You 3. Me.<br />
That is not the priority of the artist. Unless God=the muse. Then all is in its place. L accuses me of protecting my time but not valuing his. Which is probably true.<br />
Woolf tells us that she had to kill the Angel. Which reminds me of the wrestling of Jacob and his Angel. He had to kill that Angel, too. It would be interesting to see a depiction of Woolf wrestling and killing her Angel.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jacob wrestling his Angel, Giulio Benso, 17th century</td></tr>
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3. I wanted to get off Facebook because I was thinking about it too much. It was my billboard, ready to take my least thought. And I mean least. And that is the problem. We think that each small notion must be trumpeted. I have been in Texas. I took a picture today at lunch of a wall of Local Option (restaurant owned by B, whose sister was my high school best friend), which showed the plat of the local area. There was <a href="https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Confederate-House-eatery-to-lose-name-memorabilia-2044181.php" target="_blank">Confederate House</a>. That's what I took a picture of. My mother remembered it. It was a restaurant, she said, with a big sign when you walked in that said they reserved the right to refuse service to anyone. The servers, she said, were black. The restaurant served Southern food.I wanted to put the picture on Facebook. So I sent it to my husband instead.</div>
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4. Exhibit B. Front page of the Houston Chronicle. The above-the-fold story was about taking "heroic" from the phrase "heroic defenders" of the Alamo in state textbooks. Below was a photo of two black men--and they were not criminals! One was a true hero--a firefighter who died in 9/11 and the other was a man who was holding the picture of the dead hero. I wanted to put that on Facebook but instead texted it to my husband.<br />
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5. Exhibit C. At services yesterday the family choir (mostly children) sang Adon Olam, one of the most-anticipated songs always because it is the last (my mother's most anticipated line is, You may be seated.), to a familiar tune. It was from "Hamilton" but I couldn't place it, couldn't place it, then did--Here's probably the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R__G1XqjN98" target="_blank">originator </a>of the juxto. I wanted to post that on Facebook. But instead sent a link to L and some others.<br />
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6. The urge to communicate. The urge to communicate small bits. I was writing in fragments in grad school, 1981-83. My natural pace. I was rarely conventionally linear.<br />
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7. The confession: I was reading the famous anonymous op-ed and interrupted myself to go into the other room. How long is it? Maybe 900 words. How could I be so distractable?<br />
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8. Coffee can make you concentrate and it can also make you more distractable. By you I mean me. Of course.<br />
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9. Still bitter that an editor told me to write something any way I wanted so I wrote it in numbered segments (as I had for a predecessor of his) and he took them out, then complained because I didn't have transitions.<br />
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10. Do I read books? I read whole plays. There are people, authors, who, as service to other authors, list the books they're reading in the signature lines of their emails. People ask me what I'm reading and are always disappointed because it's not the literary fictions that are just out. What I've been reading: the Stoppard plays "Arcadia" and "The Invention of Love" (about Housman) and "Indian Ink." I am slowly reading and savoring "The Torch in My Ear," the middle of a three-volume autobiography by Elias Canetti, winner of the Nobel Prize for "Crowds and Power," which I haven't read. I bought the book at the Neue Museum in New York because much of it is about Vienna. I'm toward the end now, about 1929, when he's working temporarily in Berlin and provides little word portraits of John Heartfield (see below) and his brother.<br />
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Heartfield (ne Herzfeld) anglicized his name during the Great War to protest German nationalism and anti-British sentiment. <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=george+grosz+images&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=Qg_nU7QDnM2MkM%253A%252CRBKC_E_EkwEbKM%252C_&usg=AFrqEzevZ9mc1z4uPjN1jRqgEIXcFToQag&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwidpoyFu7bdAhVG8IMKHcBEC4QQ9QEwCXoECAQQFg#imgrc=Qg_nU7QDnM2MkM:" target="_blank">George Grosz</a>, we read, introduced him to Dada. Canetti went to Berlin in order to meet Grosz, as I have yet to do; it will take place in the next few pages I read, I think.<br />
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I don't know why Heartfield's work is considered montage rather collage. It may have to do with the arrangement of images of whole objects instead of pieces or to do with photography. I will look it up. No, I will leave it to you to look up. Stopping to look things up (which is what I did when I was writing this blog daily) is the Person from Porlock. The Person from Porlock, instead of knocking on the writer's door, instead moves her hand to Google, like the spirit that moves the heart-shaped device of a Ouija Board.<br />
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11. But I am still going to post on Facebook as <a href="http://red%20fish%20studio%20writing%20workshop/" target="_blank">Red Fish Studio.</a> It is my marketing activity for my editing and coaching services. You should follow it. Really.<br />
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*<span style="font-size: x-small;">When I was an undergraduate, I wanted to ask my history professor about the practice of personifying countries: What did it mean when we said, "England didn't want to do ...." or "Germany declared war"? but I didn't know it was a smart question. Here I used "North Korea" so I wouldn't have to look up the spelling of the Great Leader's name.</span><br />
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<br />Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-40846366430425420022018-04-25T20:30:00.000-05:002018-04-25T22:14:58.987-05:00Once more to the RiverI can't tell you how anxious I was yesterday all day, and the night before, about the prospect of getting back on the water--starting rowing season. Was I afraid I would fall in? No. Was I afraid I would catch a crab, which is the term for getting your oar "stuck"? No. Was I afraid of causing the boat to turn over? No. I had walked off the dock a few years ago, backward, and fallen into the non-salt water equivalent of Davy Jones' locker. Truly, the Chicago River is as dirty and grimy as a seaman's locker could get. Toxic. A guy from the park district told me a couple of years ago they'd found a horse in the water. Which wouldn't be too bad. One horse in all that H2O--no big deal. It's the nastiness from the tanning industry and so <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-per-flashback-bubbly-0626-2-20110625-story.html" target="_blank">many other industries</a> that have dirtied water that was perfectly clear, we imagine, beforehand. Cow parts, pig parts, offal. ("Offal" conjures up puns that are too easy here.) No, it wasn't the water. It wasn't that I wouldn't have the strength to row. Especially because I expected we would do mostly drills and not heavy rowing.<br />
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<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOlm5zMbIW1cxAhSzTlJ5OpjijzFwMeW7j7uZo5x9HEKyUf3GBdVfk7hwnwS6lprarSaFrhQFgi6AC0YHpgmw6MhUQS11aXH2XKJoHHLXGqfJ5LIbF0D3ikGzgsEUmt9cHK6EG-vRPL5nd/s320/boat+crew.jpg" /><br />
This is the general idea--though these oars look <i style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">très </i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><i>très</i><b> </b></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">long.</span><br />
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It's a general sense that I don't belong. Belong to what? I'm not sure. Belong to our rowing group? (I know we're a team but it doesn't feel like a team. I've only competed in one regatta.) It's because I doubt my rowing. When I took piano so many years ago I never memorized the notes. I used the numbers on the staff, which referred to the fingers you would use to play the notes. I keep feeling, after almost nine years, that there's something deep and essential yet ordinary and fundamental that I've missed in rowing instruction. I feel it more with the indoor machines, which we call ergs. I know what it is, in fact. We're supposed to "connect" with our cores. I haven't quite figured out how to visualize that and how to do it and wonder how I've gotten this far (which apparently isn't very) without doing it. In the old days, the first two coaches called me "uncoachable" when they were talking between themselves. The other thing we're supposed to do is push with our feet. I swore, after about five years, that I'd never heard any mention of that. This was at our rowing camp intensive weekend about four years ago in Michigan. OK, so now that I was hearing about the feet for the first time, how did I do it? I couldn't coordinate myself to do it. It may have been because I hadn't discovered the optimal way to adjust the attached boat shoes in the scull (the boats we use). You can move the shoes along a slide to make them closer or further from the seat, which itself rolls back and forth. Moving of the shoes involves unscrewing wingnuts first of all. And it's hard to keep them from hiding after you've unscrewed them. The best thing is to keep them loose and not take them all the way off. Anyway, my arms are long in proportion to my legs and I assumed that was why I didn't know where to set the shoes. Or why when I set the shoes where I thought they should be (and there's a way to measure, depending on what angle you hold the oar, but there's never any time to figure that because you don't pick up the oar until you have your shoes set and anyway, I've forgotten what the angle is) I still couldn't gain enough control of my feet to push down on them against the hull of the boat. It is such a difficult thing. By "it" I mean everything connected to rowing. There are terms like "to be at the catch," which means to be sitting forward as in the photo above, with your knees up and the blade of the oar in the water, ready to sweep through it, and the opposite, "at the finish," when you're laying back with the oar against you. I've been doing this almost a decade and the only way I remember which is which is that the "I" in "finish" is a short "I," as in "rib"; seriously, that's how I remember that "finish" means the oar next to my ribs. When it takes you almost a decade to come up with that mnemonic, and what's more to need that mnemonic, it would be a wonder if I weren't anxious at the notion of getting back in a boat.Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-89590594580861571182018-01-22T13:12:00.004-06:002018-01-22T13:45:25.130-06:00Enough about meWhat do y'all think of this <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/20/cancer-elizabeth-wurtzel" target="_blank">fierce post</a> by Elizabeth Wurtzel?<br />
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<i>EXCERPT:</i></div>
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<i>I have always been the most impossible person ever.</i></div>
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<i>I am the woman who made you scream that it’s a good thing New York City has gun control. I’m the one who made you yell that there oughtta be a law – a law to stop me from being my wretched self. </i></div>
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<i>I am that person.</i></div>
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<i>And now I have advanced <a class="u-underline" data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/14/moment-that-changed-me-first-chemotherapy-session-cancer" style="background: transparent; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220); color: #ed6300; text-decoration-line: none !important; touch-action: manipulation; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">breast cancer</a>. Cue the sorries. </i></div>
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<i>Seriously?</i></div>
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<i>Sorry for what? </i></div>
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<i>I’m not sorry about anything. I was never sorry when I said I was. Apologies are a courtesy.</i></div>
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<i>I love to argue. I am in it for the headache.</i></div>
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<i>I don’t need you to be on my side – I’m on my side.</i></div>
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<br />Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-66203341485905713692017-10-31T22:04:00.001-05:002017-10-31T22:04:20.471-05:00Some good newsAnother doc at Famous Clinic reports: negative for myelofibrosis. This is a good thing.<a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/myelofibrosis/symptoms-causes/syc-20355057">https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/myelofibrosis/symptoms-causes/syc-20355057</a>Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-76063611704073415152017-10-17T14:36:00.002-05:002017-10-17T22:15:50.682-05:00Waiting, Testing & Waiting: a new law firm<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Death of Marat</i> by Munch</td></tr>
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<span id="goog_769904990"></span><span id="goog_769904991"></span>Waiting. So much of life is waiting. Unless you refuse to think or acknowledge that you are waiting, and instead you do something else to fill the time, to distract yourself, or something important in its own right. We are all waiting, right? Death's door and all that. I dreamed I was staying over at C's house and I had brought my own duvet and it was sprouting little plants. I didn't think it was a big deal, but she did. I mean, they weren't that tall. I also splashed too much water around in her bathroom.<br />
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But the waiting. Waiting for the doctor, waiting for the test, for the results. At the Famous Clinic Thursday the hematologist flung the results of years ago at me: How do I know I have polycythemia vera? From a routine CBC test in about 2006. High red blood cell counts. Was I still getting my periods then? he asked. Yes, I said, and I know that's relevant, it can play with the blood-count results. It's why I was diagnosed first with essential thrombocythemia, and then menopause ushered in polycythemia, or rather, unveiled pv. The hematologist went to school in Ethiopia and had an Italian last name. It dawned on me--the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, in 1935. Mussolini reaching out to kill and control more.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmjZZpG_QXFzyY3Q_815OPFq9aq_n8a2H4iSxX5h2PhiJg47TBbz-UWPv6DJOT7cAlEqMR9XhyphenhyphenqaTuh365nIu95nF0dRe_cv5cmQOrFePj0mLkRsshVbN51DtbiPoZNkyf9AaPWLnz-G1x/s1600/ethiopia-invasion-map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1509" data-original-width="1600" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmjZZpG_QXFzyY3Q_815OPFq9aq_n8a2H4iSxX5h2PhiJg47TBbz-UWPv6DJOT7cAlEqMR9XhyphenhyphenqaTuh365nIu95nF0dRe_cv5cmQOrFePj0mLkRsshVbN51DtbiPoZNkyf9AaPWLnz-G1x/s320/ethiopia-invasion-map.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
So I am waiting for the results of the bone-marrow biopsy. Supposed to be on my online chart today or tomorrow.<br />
<br />
In Chicago my hematologist is at Fancy Hospital. She is Serbian-American, and she was young and single at our first appointment. Now she has two little daughters, one of whom said to her, <i>You've ruined my life.</i> I was chagrined because I had been so precocious to have said that to someone when I was seven, and her daughter is four or five. In 2006 or so the single hematologist had asked if I felt itchy after a shower, and the light had dawned: I had wondered if I was allergic to my soap or shampoo, and then when I didn't use any, just to test, I still had been itchy. Confounding until then.<br />
Warmth. Heat. That breeds the itchiness.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/50/a5/82/50a582b09c6e8ae21bf5da0b69c0ac5b--janus-drown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Janus is the god of beginnings and transitions, thence also of gates, doors, doorways, endings and time. He is usually a two-faced god since he looks to the future and the past. The Romans dedicated the month of January to Janus." border="0" src="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/50/a5/82/50a582b09c6e8ae21bf5da0b69c0ac5b--janus-drown.jpg" /></a>But last week the Ethiopian-American specialist at Famous Clinic had taken my account of her question as a sign that she had planted the idea of itchiness in my head. I tried to describe to him all the years of terrible itchiness and pin-prick feeling, but both L and I could tell he wasn't taking the itching seriously. In the car on the way home through pouring rain L said that the itching had been the center of my emotional life, that I was always upset about the itching, or fearfully anticipating it, all before I got on Jakafi.<br />
<br />
I remember walking in and out of restaurants because the air was too warm and I was starting to itch.<br />
<br />
The drug Jakafi, said the male hematologist, is a bad drug.<br />
I didn't have a copy of my JAK2 mutation test, which points to polycythemia vera, so he repeated it. Then he called for a bone-marrow biopsy, which I had Friday and then we left Famous Clinic and drove home in the pouring rain.<br />
<br />
JAK2, said my Colombian-born dermatologist at Fancy Hospital, is named for the god Janus, who looks both to the future and past. I haven't looked into this in detail, to see if that relates to the shape or formation of the mutation. Does it look like two profiles, back to back?<br />
<br />
At the Intellectual University Hospital many years ago the hematologist had been the same as Famous Clinic's, challenging the diagnosis, also. I had chalked up to his university affiliation, the place of deep thinkers and Nobel economists. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had asked, <i>How do you know that we are here? How can you be sure that we're alive, that blood is red?</i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(My friend P, who has the same rare disease, that is, if I do indeed have polycythemia, was told at Intellectual U Hospital that it might not be pv. Then she went to Famous Clinic, where the hematologist strode in, took a look at her and told her unequivocably that she had it.)</span><br />
<br />
I think my Famous Clinician was being dramatic. I am so attached to my diagnosis of polycythemia vera because, simply, it fits. It fits the symptoms. What else could fit?<br />
<br />
The Famous Clinic's CBC showed that I have a high <a href="https://www.medicinenet.com/erythropoietin/article.htm" target="_blank">erythropoetin</a> level, and pv is characterized by a low level. It could mean a secondary polycythemia. Or a tumor. Or that my asthma was somehow affecting the level.<span style="font-family: inherit;"> The Clinic says:<i> P<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">olycythemia vera is unlikely when erythropoietin (EPO) levels are elevated and polycythemia vera is likely when EPO levels are suppressed....</span></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><i>EPO levels are also increased in patients with anemia of bone marrow failure, iron deficiency, or thalassemia.</i></span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've been anemic for more than a year, despite taking iron tablets. My hometown hematologist opined that anemia was the reason my lips turned blue and I was short of breath last year at the end of a fast rowing practice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Anemia can be a side effect of Jakafi. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh13vXPmJpM7ZVnJ1QGvFaQABi0y70eyxFDcitn43deTNZzt6z7gQm5aY-ITrGZyZnziCis4QOZk626o8AjxeJ1VF3pSFqhzz_7pm5wHnrH11j9sdvqUCPWQwaG6MrPUAzRUzk0U3QyIIwr/s1600/death+of+marat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="288" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh13vXPmJpM7ZVnJ1QGvFaQABi0y70eyxFDcitn43deTNZzt6z7gQm5aY-ITrGZyZnziCis4QOZk626o8AjxeJ1VF3pSFqhzz_7pm5wHnrH11j9sdvqUCPWQwaG6MrPUAzRUzk0U3QyIIwr/s400/death+of+marat.jpg" width="384" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So the abnormalities can be from the medicine. But I admit there is a drama-attraction gene in me: How exciting that my disease is getting worse, my disease that is already a cancer. I think this is why some teens kill themselves. The drama attracts. They want to be in the whirlwind. Of course this is irrational, this is the id talking. The rational part of the brain is remonstrating: <i>If you kill yourself, it's dramatic in the planning of it, it's dramatic in the doing of it, which lasts only minutes, but the rest of your life, you're dead. </i>And:<i> If your disease is worse, everything will be worse. You will feel worse, your time will be filled with treatments, you will be closer to death. Which is dramatic only in the end and mostly just to the observers. You won't be alive enough to appreciate the </i></span><i>chiaroscuro</i><i style="font-family: inherit;"> of it.</i><br />
<br />
(painting: <i>Death of Marat</i>, Jacques-Louis David; Marat was stabbed in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday. Marat had a terrible skin disease, perhaps eczema, and soaked to get comfort. His was a dramatic death.)<br />
<br />
<br />
Example of chiaroscuro:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZwqTEN2WLhNIbI820obGP9kuddY1JF_Z8VBAPxk8JR8f8uYRspZJfqCXizIP6P6voLCteTuiifZ5RGZ2Rkc5b8guWYcEdsMViqMRGzrLgtlhDnxGzBtWasOCbrYec8-4YkEtg0XViaDjD/s1600/the+deposition+of+christ%252C+caravaggio+example+of+chiaroscuro....jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="202" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZwqTEN2WLhNIbI820obGP9kuddY1JF_Z8VBAPxk8JR8f8uYRspZJfqCXizIP6P6voLCteTuiifZ5RGZ2Rkc5b8guWYcEdsMViqMRGzrLgtlhDnxGzBtWasOCbrYec8-4YkEtg0XViaDjD/s640/the+deposition+of+christ%252C+caravaggio+example+of+chiaroscuro....jpg" width="428" /></a></div>
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<i>The Deposition of Christ</i>, Caravaggio</div>
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Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-27209011876812919752017-10-16T21:54:00.002-05:002017-10-17T13:09:57.833-05:00Weepily we roll alongAch, how embarrassing. We didn't row outside tonight because the gasoline that fuels the coach's boats floated away in the rain and wind over the weekend. I had not been on an erg (rowing machine) since April, I think. I am getting over a cold, reacting to the high mold count in the world nearby, have been anemic for at least a year--pile on, pile on, the excuses, Sando. I'm being tested for a second blood cancer. What else? I am a wimp. In the past I thought that when I was <a href="https://cancerbitch.blogspot.com/2010/06/son-of-son-of-meltdowni-am-zapped.html" target="_blank">itching</a> a lot from exercising, and I felt weepy, that that was a signal to stop. But I don't know now. It was so very very hard to row hard and quick. Coach B came by a few times to see how I was doing--if I was overheating, getting itchy. I got up at one point and bit a hydroxyzine tablet in half, and swallowed the half. It was just so hard hard to pull and push with my legs, knowing always that I am the slowest person, the weakest person, in the whole group. I swear, once this large, out-of-shape-looking woman came to see what our team was, and she got on the ergs and rowed much faster and harder than I. Tonight it was so tiring so very tiring, it shouldn't be that tiring, should it? And yet how could I complain, when Coach J just did the marathon? Wasn't that hard? The thing is they do these hard things and I don't like to do them. Coach S used to push me push me to keep going and then I would have asthma for three days. But I survived. The whole problem with doing your all is that next time you'll have to do your all again and then some. Better numbers. At least when we're keeping score. Coach B said to stop if I needed to and I wanted to tell her about the anemia and bone-marrow biopsy but I didn't because what would that fix? They are excuses, perhaps reasons. But I know tonight I wasn't crying because I was overheated or itching. I was crying because it was so difficult, so unpleasant, and so tiring, and I felt so sorry for myself. When I finished Coach J said something encouraging. I feel I am the team's goat. Just the goat. I am the goat.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsl6dRorIAIExIrDoHSY0__2qjQwOuU_uA4qO1emlIABRd7WY280RdnCzNcUBd_UFZisBowgEbPLj7RObm1KgA2GjGJYcZv2aFIOKg0MaudkR5Tgpf4G_ZyQbTap0MhaHywykayxKuU-bT/s1600/goat+in+boat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsl6dRorIAIExIrDoHSY0__2qjQwOuU_uA4qO1emlIABRd7WY280RdnCzNcUBd_UFZisBowgEbPLj7RObm1KgA2GjGJYcZv2aFIOKg0MaudkR5Tgpf4G_ZyQbTap0MhaHywykayxKuU-bT/s1600/goat+in+boat.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The boat goat.<br />
<br />
S hadn't been able to row for a year and when she came back the other week, she said after practice: You must be getting better because the coaches didn't tell you to slow down your stroke. Personally, I think this is a left-handed compliment. But I am not the worst rower on the team. But close. I have rowed with the novices a couple of times, because I missed a rowing practice with my peers, the masters. We are the masters because of time. I think after a season on the water, one is a master, automatically. So Woody Allen's quip about most of all you need to show up, that's accurate here. You are rewarded for your longevity. For making it through a season. When I was rowing with the novices, I was amazed that so many of them were proficient--much more proficient than I was my first five years. And as proficient as I am now. How could that be? Perhaps they are coordinated. That is a possibility. The mystery, and I can't figure it out, is why I continued to come to practice for eight years, when it wasn't fun for most of that time. At Passover last year S and J asked me about rowing and I told them that I didn't do it to be with the other members of <a href="http://www.recoveryonwater.org/" target="_blank">ROW</a> (I like them but have a tendency to feel alienated in general, and I don't do much outside of practice with the team, like go to regattas and such), that I didn't particularly like rowing, and they laughed and asked me why I did it. Like that Jewish joke with this punchline: <i><a href="http://www.awordinyoureye.com/jokes163rdset.html" target="_blank"> It's only a hobby. </a></i><br />
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<i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPy_RNiL6solGcO1ZntGOIhLshBoE93jJwbSJ-52Ne8fyfEPrJ9qg4b9SIMmC4Xn8woGXJJgpBI2XH498JOFhxUpOb4PA7LrXxdOlQHQKXUP2DVJt5_nAIGUfkAQ27OC7vBm4-PdFPqGwg/s1600/rowing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="493" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPy_RNiL6solGcO1ZntGOIhLshBoE93jJwbSJ-52Ne8fyfEPrJ9qg4b9SIMmC4Xn8woGXJJgpBI2XH498JOFhxUpOb4PA7LrXxdOlQHQKXUP2DVJt5_nAIGUfkAQ27OC7vBm4-PdFPqGwg/s320/rowing.jpg" width="315" /></a></i></div>
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Posture is important while rowing.</div>
Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-12649590264856097182016-11-17T13:41:00.001-06:002016-11-23T12:55:43.365-06:00Giving Thanks <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: 0px !important;">
<a href="http://www.mesothelioma.com/blog/authors/warrior/why-cancer-patients-are-giving-thanks.htm" target="_blank">The mesothelioma folks </a>asked me what I'm grateful for. I told 'em:</div>
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I am most grateful for my Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance. I get it from my husband, who worked for a union as staff.</div>
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We went out for nine years before we got married, and I was diagnosed with breast cancer three years later, and with blood cancer (polycythemia vera) not much after. I had a mastectomy and chemo at a place in Chicago I call Fancy Hospital. My hematologist is also there, and I’m on a new pill for my polycythemia, called Jakafi. Retail value is more than $10,000 a month – I pay $20.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHD3vkU1CgR4UFP1MuT3-h9uKUt8UE4zxyvwnE7TViJHYSgwjiamQV26R_SA6XionUEhlC_-MVMz82JHKl3vRDnpznQQ-SlhvQ97-GTf9HbQaV-lK0YXPI0o91iUBvGpDgsOFIVY01Cv5d/s1600/salome+costume.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHD3vkU1CgR4UFP1MuT3-h9uKUt8UE4zxyvwnE7TViJHYSgwjiamQV26R_SA6XionUEhlC_-MVMz82JHKl3vRDnpznQQ-SlhvQ97-GTf9HbQaV-lK0YXPI0o91iUBvGpDgsOFIVY01Cv5d/s320/salome+costume.jpeg" width="235" /></a></div>
<br />Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-43876073996504939742016-11-03T01:45:00.004-05:002016-11-17T13:45:31.456-06:00<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8px;">Hi, blog readers. I've moved on to other things, but sometimes ya just gotta <a href="http://tinyurl.com/jp6tr2f" target="_blank">write about</a> being one-breasted. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8px;">Did you click on "write about"? That's what you're supposed to do. Or you can click underneath my photo.</span></span><br />
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<img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3zsHBFYATeQEk96iIYeB4ivT9mNcSg1_tXL8_l33NFsLak8uPsfJswgRvKGfM0Tg8g24NHPnHud9BZpfVNJnvHbvjPkyG7UkJSrB1eBE4end8XuHG0S6cBuWBiC6FSoOaj95Sz4aQoO7t/s320/me+paris+trib.jpg" width="320" /></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "verdana" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Underneath, or <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-breasts-removed-flat-chested-reconstruction-cancer-surgery-perspec-1103-jm-20161102-story.html" target="_blank"><i>au dessous</i></a>, as we say in the French, since this shows me <i>sans sein au bord du Seine.</i></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "verdana" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8px;">Love,</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8px;">Cancer Bitch</span></span>Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-50467699924665706722016-02-09T17:15:00.001-06:002016-02-09T17:15:23.366-06:00francaisSo proud of myself--I had a phone conversation in French today, with someone at l'Alliance Francais, about taking the de Gaulle course instead of the literature class. I'm more interested in de Gaulle, though that's C-level, and I'm B-level, as is the lit class.<br />
I listen fairly often to <a href="http://www.franceinter.fr/emission-la-marche-de-lhistoire" target="_blank">La marche de l'histoire</a> podcasts on my phone. I understand between 40 and 70 percent, depending on the subject and how fast the guests speak. I was thinking last month or so that La march is just too hard for me, and I was listening to a show about <a href="http://www.franceinter.fr/emission-la-marche-de-lhistoire-catherine-de-sienne-la-vierge-virile" target="_blank">Sainte Catherine de Sienne</a>, and she didn't eat, and I was thinking to myself, Sounds like Simone Weil, and two seconds later, the host said, Like <a href="http://americamagazine.org/issue/335/article/simone-weils-last-journey" target="_blank">Simone Weil.</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHLCVGuYhc1Qx1Z62tFX1PL9samfapcrjEN4d4SkAkHrFyEybPFSwR1l7fCtOm6Uc7pO5SM5CFGz_s8U16MZiCC-gVw1jf-k2uXRGGSlRWbN_9R283XAw1BgsIYzUQtxpjUHNqlO5S_859/s1600/st+catherine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHLCVGuYhc1Qx1Z62tFX1PL9samfapcrjEN4d4SkAkHrFyEybPFSwR1l7fCtOm6Uc7pO5SM5CFGz_s8U16MZiCC-gVw1jf-k2uXRGGSlRWbN_9R283XAw1BgsIYzUQtxpjUHNqlO5S_859/s320/st+catherine.jpg" width="269" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTgIrQ_8_fjAlSy1IYLwx1eqEkFHV4cMjLdRLLTx2VD3UvIA9K4zKHwTMYoiqNMBEsw_kAQuz3zV-kCB-ZJ59HSI6o4MupyfOwzxJFtBl6UQl2NbiFgqrffZgqYCgb6fQO7TdLCLheM2E7/s1600/simone+weil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTgIrQ_8_fjAlSy1IYLwx1eqEkFHV4cMjLdRLLTx2VD3UvIA9K4zKHwTMYoiqNMBEsw_kAQuz3zV-kCB-ZJ59HSI6o4MupyfOwzxJFtBl6UQl2NbiFgqrffZgqYCgb6fQO7TdLCLheM2E7/s1600/simone+weil.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
So.<br />
I guess I can follow, at least some.Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-62144295617078478842016-02-09T00:17:00.003-06:002016-02-09T00:17:29.762-06:00The Untimely Death of Stonewall Jackson<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-top: 12px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 15.75pt;">The Woman Who Could Not
Take It Any More felt very very very very sorry for herself. The Woman Who
Could Not Take It knows she is her own enemy, but not her own worst. That
distinction set aside for old bosses. It wasn't that she didn't blame herself
too. She imagines conversations with said bosses, none of which would end well,
with power on her side. But that is not what this is about. This is about the
$12,000 retail monthly medicine. And the dead friend who floats into her mind
and stays and then leaves. There were no regrets when she died. But now. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ttvIfSYdRggqQ-6sA2Nph16xP_xrqZ6Z0J6qWJMlgbYTah_Unmoa80AdlyGKS653CizpUQ0xgGD2e5dTOOVUZfxLTNYMchBhh7m2c1Ye789UYZ6yxLrgOY5RC8VR2kSCbK1AugC0xcgw/s1600/groundhog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ttvIfSYdRggqQ-6sA2Nph16xP_xrqZ6Z0J6qWJMlgbYTah_Unmoa80AdlyGKS653CizpUQ0xgGD2e5dTOOVUZfxLTNYMchBhh7m2c1Ye789UYZ6yxLrgOY5RC8VR2kSCbK1AugC0xcgw/s320/groundhog.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Woman Who Could Not
Take It Any More did not make sure that her hematologist approved the costly
drug for six more months. The Woman Who Could Not Take It Any More also did not
order her monthly <a href="http://www.jakafi.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Jakaf</span></a>i a week or so in advance. Because she did
not do these things she spends four hours on phones and in the Walgreens at
Fancy Hospital. The Woman has a few admirable traits. She can make the pharmacy
rep laugh over the phone. We were not expected to have such interesting lives,
her sister's junior high school friend writes to her on Facebook, probably 45
years after they have seen one another. There is sorrow throughout the land.
The poor groundhog, dead in New Jersey Feb. 1. Why was he named <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/02/02/groundhog-stonewall-jackson-dies-just-hours-before-his-big-day/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Stonewall Jackson</span></a>? The Woman
Who Could Not Take It Any More saves her cousin from committing libel on
Facebook. The Woman Who Cannot Take It Any More hangs up accidentally on the
pharmacy-insurance gatekeeper. She wants to play the <a href="http://cancerbitch.blogspot.com/2007/03/cancer-card.html" target="_blank">cancer card </a>though she
suspects that most people who call the Specialty Pharmacy are in the same boat,
that boat being smack in the middle of Shit Creek, the long crab claws reaching
in from the water, over the gunwales, even. She hates the quaver in her voice.
Knows that she is privileged. Cannot control the quaver in her voice, in spite.
It is the 21st century. She is alive in the 21st century. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">She is alive in it. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">She
is a slave to her emotions in it. Despite: Buspar (generic), Effexor (generic) and
Remeron (generic). She is one of those people who digs deep into her backpack
in public. Sometimes she calls it a knapsack, knowing that she is speaking from the wrong place and time. Rucksack. She has rescue medicine for her skin, her lungs, her brain--or wherever
the emotions are seated. Some said it was the <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/river_teeth/v008/8.2wisenberg.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">uterus,</span></a> of which</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 10.5pt;"> she
is still a proud owner</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 12pt;">. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How can she feel so young
so alone when she has <a href="http://cancerbitch.blogspot.com/2015/12/will-it-never-end.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">grown old</span></a>?</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The people who are worse
off are already dead.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-67533435080057788072015-12-08T00:57:00.001-06:002015-12-08T01:42:04.323-06:00Will it never end?There are so many things I do not know though I am growing old, <a href="http://www.poetry-archive.com/c/father_william.html" target="_blank">Father William</a>, but you would think such a person as I, so interested in my very self, would know something about that self in question. But I do not.<br />
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Tonight at rowing we did a circuit, I believe it's called, where we rowed as fast as possible for 500 meters on the rowing machine aka erg, then did some very silly things having to do with moving your legs like this and your arms like that and stretching like this and jumping your feet back and forth like that in a way that is very awkward and then going back to the erg to do it again, all the way through, and then back again. I say, If this does not fill you will the futility of life, then you're moving too fast. And I was moving that fast, though not as fast as anyone else in the room except a new recruit who looked older than I, and then I got overheated on the erg and felt like crying, and there was a time when I would keep going until I was weeping and would take a couple of hours to get over the weeping and feel that someone was clearly at fault, but not I, not I. Not me. Maybe two years ago I decided I would row until I felt like crying, and then stop, taking the crying as a sign that I had pushed myself too far, and so today I stopped and stood in front of the upright fan (crying a little) and then took my mat to the other end, over there, and did some sun salutations and Coach S complimented me on my downward-facing-dog (<i><a href="http://www.elle.fr/Minceur/Dossiers-minceur/20-postures-de-yoga-pour-un-corps-tonique/Posture-de-la-charrue" target="_blank">le chien tête en bas</a></i>, as we said in French yoga), and I admit, I do a nice downward dog. The secret is to keep pushing down with what my Taiwanese yoga teacher used to call <i>the back of the small, </i>which was such an enchanting word switch that no one wised her up.<br />
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So was I overheated, because of the <a href="http://cancerbitch.blogspot.com/2008/02/blut-und-boden.html" target="_blank">other other cancer</a>? I don't know now. Maybe not. Then why did I feel like crying? What was the fear? Or was it discomfort? Or was it my body warning itself that it was about to overheat (what is that, really?) and become uncontrollably itchy? But my itching has been under control lately because I'm taking a higher dose of <a href="http://www.jakafi.com/hcp/polycythemia-vera-pathophysiology.aspx" target="_blank">Jakafi</a> and the temp is colder. When I truly overheat I feel depleted and weak and sometimes light-headed (am I making that up?) and so--should I keep going? I say no. The young coaches used to tell us not to listen to our bodies, that our bodies would want to stop when we needed to keep going, but I thought it was not good advice for a 25-year-old athlete to be giving to 50-year-old cancer survivors. Then again I'm not like K, who at least once has rowed so hard that she threw up. I am not willing to go that far.<br />
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Then again, if I stop before I am awash in tears, then the chances are that I'll be more predisposed to come back to practice. The thing, of course, is to get yourself not to cry, but how is that done, I'd like to know. I was doing the yoga to calm myself down, to <i>take the tension out of the boat</i>, as the Michigan coach says, and there was a time about six years ago when rowing hq was at the place before this place, and I pushed and pushed myself and I was crying and felt depleted and this same Coach S (who thought with J that I was <i>uncoachable</i>) said something about it being good that I was learning my limits. Or something like that. And here am I, who not a week ago was talking to another J, who was telling us about all the emotionally spent college students she has who are crying with anxiety and fear about getting everything done, and I said that crying was just an expression of feelings. Hah, the diminishment has come home to roost, has it not?Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-48018898775517989952015-12-04T12:59:00.001-06:002015-12-04T13:10:11.185-06:00Black cohosh, welcome back!?Cancer Bitch was sorry to say goodbye to black cohosh pills, which she had been taking for hot flashes way back in pre-cancer days. She said goodbye to the substance because it was deemed an aider and abettor of estrogen-positive tumors.<br />
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But--(and now I change POV) I just was looking up something for a friend who has a 91-year-old mother with breast cancer (Google: older women, Susan Love) and found this on Dr. Susan Love's <a href="http://www.drsusanloveresearch.org/hot-flashes" target="_blank">site</a>:<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Black Cohosh</span></h2>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Black cohosh is an herb that has long been used by Native Americans to treat menstrual and menopausal symptoms, but its mechanism is not understood. More recently it has become popular in the United States as a suggested treatment for hot flashes. A study of Remifemin Menopause, made from an extract of black cohosh, found that 70% of the 150 peri-and postmenopausal women in the study who took 40mg of Remifemin for 12 weeks reported a decrease in menopausal symptoms, including hot flashes. The group taking the higher dose did not do better than the lower standard-dose group. There was no placebo group in this study to compare the response with.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Black cohosh may be a good option for some women. The advantage of it over other alternatives is that it doesn't have side effects, like clonidine and antidepressants. But it's also clear that more is not better, and that women who do decide to try it should stick to the standard dose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">The question for breast cancer survivors is whether it is estrogenic. On this front we actually have some data. First of all there is no known phytoestrogen in black cohosh. Second, there is no evidence that black cohosh binds to the estrogen receptor. Finally, in a petri dish, breast cancer cells were exposed to black cohosh in the absence of estrogen, in the presence of estrogen, and in the presence of tamoxifen. They found that the black cohosh given alone inhibited cell growth. When estrogen was added it blunted the growth usually seen and it enhanced the effects of tamoxifen. This effect has been replicated in four other studies on cell lines. Studies in women have confirmed this<b> lack of estrogenic effect.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>**</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So--Good news and bad news. Good news is, of course, that I can get back on cohosh, which helped in the past. I am in the running for the hot flash world record. The flashes started at least a dozen years ago, and have been exacerbated by: menopause, Tamoxifen, <a href="http://cancerbitch.blogspot.com/2008/02/blut-und-boden.html" target="_blank">polycythemia vera </a>(You must have seen the commercials: "Polycythemia vera, the other other cancer," a direct copy of "the other white meat" ads. Nonetheless, it remains a rare blood cancer, and has not been taken up by the masses). Bad news, of course, is that women who are in menopause are "older." Older than what? Red dirt? I have news for Dr. Susan Love: Menopause Women are young, young. Who's older? Mothers. Mothers of Menopause Women. And don't you forget it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">***</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But wait! <a href="https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs/black-cohosh" target="_blank">Sloan-Kettering</a> begs to differ, telling us ER+ Menopause Women not to take black cohosh if: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "gotham ssm a" , "gotham ssm b" , "helvetica neueu" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">You currently have, or have been treated for, an </span><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "gotham ssm a" , "gotham ssm b" , "helvetica neueu" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) cancer</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "gotham ssm a" , "gotham ssm b" , "helvetica neueu" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "gotham ssm a" , "gotham ssm b" , "helvetica neueu" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">(It is still unclear whether black cohosh acts in the same manner as estrogen, and might therefore stimulate growth of these tumors)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ugh!! I am writing to S-K for clarification and will report its reply.</span></span></div>
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Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-63844936311885501152015-12-01T23:13:00.003-06:002015-12-02T00:23:48.704-06:00Sharing the wealthGood news! The National Cancer Institute gave a ton of money to Chicago to cut down on disparities in cancer treatment between the haves and have-nots. Though Cancer Bitch, being Cancer Bitch, wonders what exactly the education and outreach will be. Cancer Bitch participated in a study several years ago about community support, and could not imagine how that particular study could provide useful info to people. But she got a gift certificate for her trouble. She thinks. Ask her chemo brain. If we had universal health care, many disparities would melt away. <span style="text-align: center;">And everything is so related. If the schools were better, kids would be prepared for jobs, and could get better housing and health care. (The is officially Old News, but Cancer Bitch just got word of it today.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21px;"> E. Madiba 20c South African woodcut; more info<a href="http://www.5thaveauctions.co.za/" target="_blank"> here.</a> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 21px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 21px; line-height: 21px;">This is the press release: </span></span></span><br />
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$17.4 Million Grant to Tackle Cancer in </h1>
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Chicago’s Lower-Income, Minority </h1>
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Neighborhoods</h1>
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<em style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Award from the NCI to support partnership between the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University University of Illinois at Chicago and Northeastern Illinois University</em></h2>
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A new $17.4 million grant from the <a href="http://www.cancer.gov/" style="color: black; font-weight: bold;">National Cancer Institute</a> (NCI) will help three Chicago universities work together with many of the city’s underserved communities to foster meaningful cancer research, education, training and outreach.</div>
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According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, Chicago communities that are low-income or predominantly African-American or Latino face cancer death rates up to double the national average.</div>
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The five-year grant will support the creation of the <strong>Chicago Cancer Health Equity Collaborative</strong> (ChicagoCHEC), led by researchers from the <strong>Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University</strong>, the <strong>University of Illinois at Chicago</strong> (UIC) and <strong>Northeastern Illinois University</strong>.</div>
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The collaborative held a joint community kick-off event Oct. 23 at the Arturo Velasquez Institute in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood to launch this initiative to help reduce the burden of cancer in low-income and racial and ethnic minority communities.</div>
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The effort is being led by community-oriented physician-scientists and researchers<a href="http://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/faculty-profiles/az/profile.html?xid=16856" style="color: black; font-weight: bold;"><strong>: </strong>Melissa Simon, MD,</a> the George H. Gardner, MD, Professor of Clinical Gynecology in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; Robert Winn, MD, Associate Vice President for Community-Based Practice at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences Systems, professor of Medicine, UIC College of Medicine and Director, University of Illinois Cancer Center; Christina Ciecierski, PhD, associate professor of economics at Northeastern Illinois University; and Moira Stuart, PhD, associate professor of health, physical education, recreation and athletics at Northeastern.</div>
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“Despite the existence of five academic medical centers and millions of dollars spent on cancer research and treatment of Chicago residents, we are still only in our infancy in responding to cancer health disparities,” Dr. Simon said. “We have been working on setting the groundwork and assembling this grant over the last five years as a way to move forward and foster the wonderful work of communities and organizations already working towards improving cancer equity.”</div>
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UIC and Northeastern are two institutions with well-known track records of enrolling and graduating students from minority and nontraditional backgrounds and that have longstanding partnerships with Chicago communities. A major goal for the collaborative is to build bridges between the Lurie Cancer Center and UIC and Northeastern.</div>
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“UIC plays a unique role in this partnership,” said Dr. Winn. “We have seven health sciences colleges that will contribute to achieving the objectives of the grant, as well as a network of federally qualified community clinics, our Mile Square Health Centers, that put us in direct contact with patient populations on the south and west sides of Chicago, which are disproportionately burdened by cancer. Additionally, the University of Illinois Cancer Center is integrated into our Mile Square Health Centers, so we are well-positioned to make a significant impact on reducing cancer disparities.”</div>
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Ciecierski of Northeastern, a native Chicagoan and first-generation American, said she is excited to be a part of such an important collaboration.</div>
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“The goal of our partnership is to connect with all Chicago communities,” said Ciecierski. “We will use the tools of education, research and advocacy to improve health among Chicagoans, especially those chronically underserved. As an educator, I know that training and community outreach will spread good health to all Chicago neighborhoods.”</div>
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In addition to community and institutional partnerships, one area of focus for the collaborative will be research to improve cancer prevention, early detection, treatment and survivorship.</div>
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“The efforts of this collaborative will enable us to develop programs that aim directly at the cause of disparities and empower those who are most severely impacted by cancer inequities,” said Stuart, who is also of Northeastern.</div>
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The collaborative is the first of its kind established in the Midwest and already includes more than 20 researchers and educators from diverse backgrounds and academic disciplines across 14 departments in seven schools from all three institutions.</div>
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The activities of the Chicago Cancer Health Equity Collaborative will be focused on:</div>
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<li style="background: url(http://cancer.northwestern.edu/images/arrow-bullet.png) 0% 0% no-repeat; margin: 3px 0px 8px -30px; padding-left: 17px;">Establishing multidisciplinary research programs in cancer disparities, including those that incorporate biomedical, socio-behavioral, basic and translational science.</li>
<li style="background: url(http://cancer.northwestern.edu/images/arrow-bullet.png) 0% 0% no-repeat; margin: 3px 0px 8px -30px; padding-left: 17px;">Mobilizing researchers, educators, community leaders, students, organizations and patients in innovative cancer education and outreach programs to improve health.</li>
<li style="background: url(http://cancer.northwestern.edu/images/arrow-bullet.png) 0% 0% no-repeat; margin: 3px 0px 8px -30px; padding-left: 17px;">Providing training, mentoring and learning opportunities to recruit and retain minority and underrepresented students in health and cancer research careers.</li>
<li style="background: url(http://cancer.northwestern.edu/images/arrow-bullet.png) 0% 0% no-repeat; margin: 3px 0px 8px -30px; padding-left: 17px;">Supporting the career development and advancement of minority and underrepresented faculty and scientists.</li>
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Leadership from the three universities share their support of this collaboration:</div>
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<strong><a href="http://cancer.northwestern.edu/home/index.cfm" style="color: black;">Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University</a></strong><strong> </strong><br />
“We are making exciting progress in the war against cancer. New approaches are emerging in cancer treatment, screening and risk reduction, but not everyone is benefitting equally from these advances. This award will support our efforts as an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center to community outreach and to reducing cancer health disparities in the communities that need it most.” — <a href="http://cancer.northwestern.edu/aboutus/leadership/platanias.cfm" style="color: black; font-weight: bold;">Leonidas Platanias, MD, PhD</a>, Director of the Lurie Cancer Center</div>
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<a href="https://www.uic.edu/" style="color: black; font-weight: bold;"><strong>University of Illinois at Chicago</strong></a><strong> </strong><br />
“We have a strong commitment to serve our community and the needs of our students. This partnership expands on opportunities to educate and train a pipeline of minority and underrepresented students who are interested in pursuing health-related careers and develops a diverse workforce to meet the nation’s biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs.” —Michael Amiridis, UIC Chancellor<br />
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<a href="file://fsmfiles.fsm.northwestern.edu/fsmhome/Melissa%20Simon-U54%20grant/northeastern%20illinois%20university" style="color: black; font-weight: bold;"><strong>Northeastern Illinois University</strong></a><strong> </strong><br />
“We are so pleased to be able to continue our partnership with the Lurie Cancer Center and to add UIC to the very important partnership that began five years ago. The focus on cancer health disparities in underserved communities fits well within the mission of Northeastern. The work that we’ve done together with Dr. Simon’s team for the past five years has resulted in foundational research and scholarship by faculty and students from both universities. This grant provides a unique opportunity to build on this work toward a more comprehensive approach to addressing the critical need for cancer equity.” — Dr. Maureen Gillette, Dean of Northeastern Illinois University's College of Education</div>
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Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-6085442997897183052015-11-11T13:15:00.003-06:002015-11-11T15:10:29.614-06:00Nicole Xylouri Osborne<div id="yiv5154576147yui_3_16_0_1_1447264241532_45093" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">
<span id="yiv5154576147yui_3_16_0_1_1447264241532_45132">Maybe a couple of you have met my former student Nicole, who came with us to the Recovery on Water fundraiser a couple of years ago. Nicole studied fiction writing at Northwestern and then left Chicago to get a master's in education at U Penn, then returned to work in administration at the Illinois Institute of Technology and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.</span></div>
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<span id="yiv5154576147yui_3_16_0_1_1447264241532_31380">She got in touch when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I decorated her head when she was bald the first time. My mother visited her when she came to M.D. Anderson in Houston. (Her own mother embarrassed her, she said, by accosting young doctors who weren't wearing wedding rings in the hospital elevator and introducing them to Nicole, who invariably was wearing a hospital gown, ) Recently Nicole was on the comedy circuit: </span><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/breast-cancer-patient-nicole-osborne-turns-illness-into-punchline/" id="yiv5154576147yui_3_16_0_1_1447264241532_31373" rel="nofollow" shape="rect" style="background: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">Breast cancer patient Nicole Osborne turns illness into punchline</a></div>
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Stand-up comedy helping Nicole Osborne cope with Stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis</div>
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A mutual friend just told me that Nicole died two days ago.</div>
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Now is the point where I should say something about lifting a pint and saying something or other. The best I can do: In her honor, tell a joke, a joke with a hard edge, one that acknowledges death peeking around the corner, but makes you laugh nevertheless. .<br />
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Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-77954474298641374342015-11-09T00:31:00.000-06:002015-11-09T00:31:39.633-06:00Another reason to think before you pinkFor some reason the very nice post I posted here has disappeared so I will recap it very very quickly. Gregory Karp of the Trib <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-charity-credit-cards-1108-biz-20151106-story.html" target="_blank">reported </a>that it's not worth it to get an affinity credit card with a pink ribbon or other charitable logo on it. It may make you feel good but the amount that is donated to the charity will not be much and it would be better to get a rewards card and make a (tax-deductible) donation from that. He got in touch with the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which keeps trying to make us aware of breast cancer and is unthinkingly right-wing in its politics. <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px;"><i>"The cards are free to the consumer, and give them an opportunity to show their support for the breast cancer movement and generate a donation to Komen at no cost to them," Komen spokeswoman Andrea Rader said.</i></span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 18px;">
<i>Those donations of 0.08 percent add up, generating more than $6 million since 2009 for investment in research and community outreach, she said.</i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 18px;">
Komen is better than it used to be--it does give money to research, but I remain skeptical of its community outreach. Especially because some of this outreach means to get cozy with <a href="http://www.bcaction.org/" target="_blank">fracking,</a> strange as it may seem. Or you might decide you'd rather donate to the Bad Girls of Cancer, <a href="http://www.bcaction.org/" target="_blank">Breast Cancer Action.</a></div>
Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-35058038856397064932015-11-09T00:13:00.001-06:002015-11-09T00:13:07.085-06:00The one line to keep on your typewriteror computer.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4lAcXP9F7jOk8uW-I4WaPyEajAPaJnGyrW-C06raHUgHk852JY3x4bllKcCJEPir6u16xvbCbqSFe7B8x_x1R3Yq580_UCPfGNqzJy71wUVEAeROuD4l9oMKf0LT0JxN8VgFDOjVaBoCo/s1600/black+soldiers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4lAcXP9F7jOk8uW-I4WaPyEajAPaJnGyrW-C06raHUgHk852JY3x4bllKcCJEPir6u16xvbCbqSFe7B8x_x1R3Yq580_UCPfGNqzJy71wUVEAeROuD4l9oMKf0LT0JxN8VgFDOjVaBoCo/s1600/black+soldiers.jpg" /></a></div>
I made L listen to me as I told him about the trouble I was having with my essay on Mixing. It's about:<br />
-the use of the term "mix" in describing the missing <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/slain-civil-rights-workers-found" target="_blank">Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney</a> 50+ years ago; they were a "mix trio," meaning they were anti-segregationists<br />
-a booklet that was published in 1864 on <a href="https://archive.org/details/miscegenationthe00crol" target="_blank">Miscegenation</a>, advocating it and at the same time inventing the eponymous term,<br />
-the nefariousness of the aforementioned booklet, which was written anonymously by two Democratic anti-Lincoln newspapermen who aimed to get Republican anti-slavery endorsements so that they could expose the Republicans as race mixers<br />
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<br />
-L's essay in high school about race, which advocated race mixing in order to extinguish racism, and the comment from his instructor: What if your daughter married one?<br />
-the marriage of the daughter and the son to African-Americans, and a cute but important dialogue in which our grandson says he is mixed with pie, which his father interpreted as a mis-hearing of the term "bi"<br />
-self-critical and raw statements by Toi Derricotte from "The Black Notebook"<br />
-the electrocution of Willie McGee in Laurel, MS, for raping a white woman; they probably had a consensual relationship<br />
-the charges against the white racists behind the triple murder, verdicts, and further verdicts<br />
-and overall my snarky superiority to the racists, which is pretty easy and probably unfair because their actions were 50 and 150 years ago & I'm not talking about now very much & they are such easy targets<br />
<br />
He asked me what the point of my book was and after some more talking I came up with this:<br />
..<i>.that slavery and the Civil War are part of everything in present-day US, whether we're aware of this or not</i><br />
<br />
So that is what your piece is about, he said, and again he recommended I read a book of his, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/us/08jordan.html?_r=0" target="_blank">White Over Black</a>, and this time I listened to him. It traces the beliefs about and prejudices of Englishmen toward Africans from the mid-16th century through early 19th. The germ of current racism is there and I'm reading it with interest, lamenting how unschooled I am in this.Asking myself if I should get/ should have gotten a PhD in history a dozen or so years ago, but knowing that I would have been impatient with having to do work assigned by others.<br />
<br />
My one line to remember/elevator pitch is not quite gainly or subtle but it captures broadly what I'm doing.Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-45429543766842976392015-10-29T13:45:00.003-05:002015-10-29T13:45:57.673-05:00The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie's LingoIn the few months I have been on Jakafi, I've had bronchitis twice, throat fungus once, and stomach flu, also once. The other night I said to L. I need to get back into the mode I was in when I was on chemo (for breast cancer)--sleep a lot, stay far away from people who are the least bit sick, and be super-vigilant about exposure to germs. Example from bc-chemo: I was at a cafe and ordered a sandwich at the counter, and saw the sandwich-ista was handling everything--no gloves or anything. (I already sound like a nut, right?) and I said, Excuse me, but I'm going through chemo, and I'm very susceptible, could you please--what did I ask her to do? She either had plastic gloves back there or not. Maybe that's not a good example. What I wanted to show was I had to overcome embarrassment in order to protect myself. I recalled that the plastic bag that the bottle of Jakafi comes in says CHEMOTHERAPY in scary zig-zag letters, or there is something lightning-boltish about the warning. So I legitimately am in chemo. Going through chemo. What is the correct verb? I arrived in Arizona yesterday for the Nonfictionow Conference, and I wanted to skip a group dinner, but I didn't. It was fun (though the food at the Dreary Inn is twice the price it should be and one fourth the quality) but I would have been better off sleeping. I slept late and ran into the conference organizers in the very cute Matador coffee shop across the street from the hotel, which is somehow encompassed by Northern Arizona University, or NAU ("gnaw"--the mascot is a beaver chewing on a log) and R asked if I had gone to a morning panel. I said, No, I had to sleep, I'm in chemo, but so that he wouldn't be alarmed, I said, but it's good chemo.<br />
Why do I need to keep people from being alarmed? I do have this fucking incurable and rare<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"> blood</span> cancer. It's not the hair-falling-out chemo but it is the suppress-your-immune-system chemo. Suddenly, if I convince myself that I am indeed going through chemo, then my world-view (<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Worldview_(Philosophy).aspx" style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Weltanschauung</a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px;">) and my prioritie</span></span>s shift: My goal becomes making sure that I don't get sick. I suddenly have the right to that goal. And everything else follows from that.Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-41254565650457205442015-10-27T23:05:00.000-05:002015-11-06T23:20:48.786-06:00Nonfiction Now: You Lived Through It; Do We Have To Read About It?If you'll be in Flagstaff, we invite you to come to our panel at 9 a.m. Saturday, Halloween Morn, in Doyle at the conference center. You are encouraged to wear your pajamas. Lost your schedule? Click <a href="http://www.nonfictionow.org/#!schedule/c278" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #493508; font-family: "enriqueta" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"><i>[Just roll right out of bed and come on down.]</i></span></h4>
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<span style="color: #493508; font-family: "enriqueta" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"><br /></span>Here's a description of the panel.<br />
Much has been written about the therapeutic benefits of writing
and art-making for survivors of traumas such as war, disasters,
slavery, disease, rape, incest. In other words, the writing is generally
agreed to be good for the mental health of the amateurs. What
about those of us who call ourselves writers? When does nonfiction
writing about trauma rise to the level of art? What makes some
artful, and others, self-serving and irrelevant? Of course the
answers are subjective, but we will explore the questions and
hazard some answers. Speaking as writers, readers, and editors,
we will examine successful and unsuccessful creative nonfictions
and tease out our reasons for making those judgments.<br />
<br />
These are the authors and works we are quoting in our presentations, as well as other recommended works. Also included are links to books we've written.<br />
<br />
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445791275986_7494" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<b><a href="http://www.janicegary.com/" target="_blank">Janice Gary</a>:</b> </div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445791275986_7497" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
Jane Hirschfield, Given Sugar, Given Salt<br />
Dani Shapiro, Still Writing<br />
Lucy Grealy, Autobiography of a Face<br />
Gregory Orr, The Blessing<br />
Richard Hoffman, Half the House<br />
Kathryn Harris, The Kiss<br />
<b>Janice Gary,</b> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Short-Leash-Memoir-Walking-Deliverance/dp/1611860725" target="_blank">Short Leash: a Memoir of Dog Walking and Deliverance</a></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445791275986_7497" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445791275986_7497" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<b><a href="http://slwisenberg.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Sandi aka Cancer Bitch</a></b></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445791275986_7497" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
Joan Didion, <a href="http://juliaallison.com/goodbye-to-all-that-by-joan-didion/" target="_blank">"Goodbye to All That"</a> in Slouching Towards Bethlethem</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445791275986_7497" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
Toni Morrison, <a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/media/rhodesuniversity/content/english/documents/Morrison_Site-of-Memory.pdf" target="_blank">"The Site of Memory</a>" in Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, ed. William Zinsser</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445791275986_7497" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
Frederick Douglass, <a href="http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=23" target="_blank">Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself</a><br />
(Note: There are various versions of his autobiography.)<br />
Judy Ruiz, <a href="http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4373&context=iowareview" target="_blank">"The Mother, the Daughter, and the Holy Horse: A Trilogy,"</a> Iowa Review vol. 23, no. 2</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445791275986_7497" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<b>S.L. Wisenberg,</b> <a href="http://www.uiowapress.org/books/2009-spring/wisenberg.htm" target="_blank">The Adventures of Cancer Bitch</a> book</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445791275986_7497" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
& <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/10/12/the_adventures_of_cancer_bitch_a_memoir_of_a_willful_survivor/" target="_blank">audiobook</a><br />
Holocaust Girls: History, Memory & Other Obsessions<br />
<br />
Recommended:<br />
Alfred Doeblin, Destiny's Journey<br />
Raymond Federer, SHHH: The Story of a Childhood<br />
Stanley Elkin, "Why I Live Where I Live" and title essay, Pieces of Soap<br />
Janet Burroway, Losing Tim: A Memoir<br />
Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals<br />
An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum<br />
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445791275986_7497" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;">
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><a href="http://www.thomaslarson.com/" target="_blank">Tom Larson</a></b>,</span></div>
<div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Sanctuary-Illness-Memoir-Disease/dp/0976881381" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Sanctuary of Illness: A Memoir of Heart Disease</span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><a href="http://elizabethkadetsky.com/" target="_blank">Elizabeth Kadestsky:</a> </b>Judith Herman: Trauma and Recovery</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Ben Yagoda: Memoir </span></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445978000599_34083">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Cathy Caruth (essays by Dori Laub and Cathy Caruth in) Trauma: Explorations in Memory</span></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445978000599_34085">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Joan Didion: The Year of Magical Thinking</span></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445978000599_34087">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Simone de Beauvoir: A Very Easy Death</span></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445978000599_34089">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">JoAnn Beard, The Boys of my Youth ("Fourth State of Matter")</span></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445978000599_34091">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Maggie Nelson, Bluets</span></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445978000599_34093">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Recommended:</span><br />
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445978000599_34093">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Carlo Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli</span></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445978000599_34095">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Sarah Manguso, The Guardians </span></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1445978000599_34097">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Sophie Calle, Exquisite Pain</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Elizabeth Kadetsky</b>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1936196433/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_0bdmwb0HQ9EPB" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1446003981539_2895" rel="nofollow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1446003981539_2894" style="font-family: sans-serif;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1446003981539_2893">The Poison that Purifies You</span></span></a> </span></div>
<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1446003981539_3347" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #196ad4; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1446003981539_3346" style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VNCGVLG/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_QcdmwbNCXH00K" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1446003981539_3348" rel="nofollow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">On the Island at the Center of the Center of the World </a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #196ad4; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: x-small; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316890960/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_8cdmwb3CYBG36" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1446003981539_3758" rel="nofollow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #196ad4; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1446003981539_3757" style="font-family: sans-serif;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1446003981539_3756">First There is a Mountain: A Yoga Romance</span></span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
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Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-47274619067165613342015-10-23T13:59:00.001-05:002015-10-23T14:03:58.922-05:00Die WeltenIt's interesting (to me at least) how we (I) try to find the logical roots of Symptom. A bad headache: not enough sleep. Caffeine withdrawal (though not enough time had passed without it to constitute withdrawal). Heredity: O this dizziness is what my mother goes through with her vertigo, dormant for ten years until late this summer. Power of suggestion: the nurse at the oncologist's on Wednesday went through my medications and symptoms. Dizziness and nausea? she asked and I said no. But then here they were, the very next day. And then when it becomes clear (<a href="http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/viral-gastroenteritis/basics/symptoms/con-20019350" target="_blank">Mayo Clinic</a> on the internet) that I have "stomach flu" or gastroenteritis, another hunt for etiology: the <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-chicago-river-bacteria-20150827-story.html" target="_blank">River</a> (but we rowed down a cleaner part of it on Wednesday night), lowered immune system because of the new drug <a href="http://www.rxlist.com/jakafi-side-effects-drug-center.htm" target="_blank">Jakafi</a>--which handily leads into my world view, my <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Worldview_(Philosophy).aspx" target="_blank">Weltanschauung</a>, which is <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/58230/how-tell-whether-youve-got-angst-ennui-or-weltschmerz" target="_blank">Weltschmerz</a>--from every good (new drug) flies a corresponding and ironic bad.<br />
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<i>(Cemetery, Basking Ridge, NJ, where we went for my cousin's wedding in late September. Tombstone standing in for the glass the groom stomps on: sadness and broken things in the midst of happiness and beginnings [let's ignore the obvious sexist connection to the breaking of the hymen])</i></div>
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Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-30657587779679515132015-09-17T16:30:00.002-05:002015-09-18T12:43:21.882-05:00Welcome, 5776Greetings, those of all religions and those of no religion. I guess I'm both, though I observe some holidays. Rosh Hashanah began Sunday night--so Sunday night was our new year's eve. We don't set off firework but we do eat. Of course. In our Ashkenazi (European) tradition, we eat apples and honey, because that's what you could get in early fall in Europe, from Russia to Great Britain. Those in the <a href="http://www.chabad.org/holidays/JewishNewYear/template_cdo/aid/905170/jewish/Rosh-Hashanah-Seder.htm" target="_blank">Sephardi</a>c tradition eat dates, beans, leeks, beets, pomegranates, as well as apples. They also hold up the head of a ram or fish and say, <i>May I be a head and not a tail.</i> Raise your hand if you do that. I would do it if I could borrow a ram, head still connected to its neck. But I don't think that's the point. Maybe vegetarians could hold up a head of lettuce. At least that's something positive that you could do with iceberg. It has no other function--contains a bit of crunch, is devoid of nutrients.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[What, me worry?]</span></div>
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But let us continue. An important aside: You will read that Ashkenzi Jews are those from Eastern Europe. This is usually wrong, and it matters when you're talking about diseases we Ashkenazim are more prone to because of all the inbreeding. The Sephardim are from Spain and Portugal, which outlawed Jews and Judaism just as Christopher Columbus (whom some claim was Jewish; why that first name? Trying too hard?) was sailing the ocean blue. (In 1492/ Isabella said, Get out, O Jew!) Those who did not leave either converted sincerely or insincerely. Just for good measure, the Crown and Church launched an Inquisition. In his photography book on Sarajevo, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=edward+serotta+sarajevo+image+keys&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&imgil=LktYL5RcFVX2bM%253A%253B20MRzqCtYmUJRM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.marinjcc.org%25252Fevents%25252F2013%25252F12%25252F10%25252Fjewish-life%25252Fsurvival-in-sarajevo-exhibition-film-guest-speaker-ed-serotta%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=LktYL5RcFVX2bM%253A%252C20MRzqCtYmUJRM%252C_&biw=1366&bih=623&usg=__Wb8kAW1HHwqeGr1k5r-vv-Bbje4%3D&ved=0CCcQyjdqFQoTCLa26rzd_8cCFYY3Pgod7ecMzQ&ei=45D7Vfa4O4bv-AHtz7PoDA#imgrc=LktYL5RcFVX2bM%3A&usg=__Wb8kAW1HHwqeGr1k5r-vv-Bbje4%3D" target="_blank">Edward Serotta</a> has a photo of Sarajevo Jews holding aloft their keys from Spain. They kept them in the family all these years. Which is a good thing, because now Spain says that if you can prove that your Jewish family was forced to leave, you can claim <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/spain-expects-200000-jews-apply-citizenship-343586" target="_blank">Spanish citizenship</a>. Which opens up the whole of Europe for you. Perhaps that's the best route to go for Syrian refugees.</div>
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Sephardic Jews speak or spoke <a href="http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ladino.htm" target="_blank">Ladino</a> as a lingua franca. Ladino is to Spanish as Yiddish is to German. (Memorize that, it will be on the GRE.) Both written with Hebrew letters. Some German Jews will tell you that they are not Ashkenazi, and if they can trace their roots to Spain, they're correct. But often they're just ignorant. They think that Ashkenazi means Eastern European, which in the 19th century especially meant poor, immigrant religious Jew who embarrassed the cultivated Goethe-spouting German Jew. If your family spoke Yiddish, no matter how many generations back, then Congratulations, you have breast cancer. Not definitely. But you have a greater chance of carrying the <a href="http://bcresourcedirectory.org/directory/05-ashkenazi_jewish.htm" target="_blank">BRCA</a> gene mutations. If you just clicked on BRCA, you will see that the Breast Cancer Resource Directory of North Carolina* refers to Ashkenazim as Eastern European in the title of the BRCA entry. It does clarify: mostly Jews from Germany, Poland, Russia. And the North Carolinians are correct in saying that 90 percent of US Jews are Ashkenazim. The rest are Sephardic, originally from Spain, France, Italy, North Africa, according to NC. I would add: Turkey, Greece (any who remained after Kurt Waldheim helped murder most of the Salonikan Jews), Holland, West Indies, Bulgaria (who saved its Jews, while throwing those from Macedonia and Thrace to the wolves), parts of the former Yugoslavia. Britain, friendly Britain, did not let us in for centuries. And then when Jewish war refugees started coming across the channel from Germany and Austria, the kindly Brits put them in camps alongside Nazis. <i>Ach, they all sound alike, no?</i> Perhaps the Brits should be forgiven, since so many German Jews identified with Germany over Judaism. Which gave rise to this joke: Two German Jews have escaped the Nazis and are in exile in Paris. It's early 1940 and they're watching the French army go through maneuvers. One says to the other: <i>Ach, our army is so much better. </i></div>
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Meaning the German army. </div>
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Get it?</div>
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But the point. The point is that I went to <a href="http://mitziut.weebly.com/" target="_blank">services</a> Monday and then to the lake for <a href="http://judaism.about.com/od/holidays/a/whatistashlich.htm" target="_blank">tashlich</a>, where we throw our sins into the water symbolically. </div>
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We used to look like this:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggtfd8kGCdRBpf78wMPwFDWFmm0ZasPbJglPLuFLcmj6JI6KMWSdyA2KqYROQcQyIOzpq22Ybz6I7EfvtiHjHAyZITZtf8OqOKw-5U5AoFsqVYn11syN838qr3eDkWv7ZlAGPmeeKfzeNv/s1600/tashlich+old.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggtfd8kGCdRBpf78wMPwFDWFmm0ZasPbJglPLuFLcmj6JI6KMWSdyA2KqYROQcQyIOzpq22Ybz6I7EfvtiHjHAyZITZtf8OqOKw-5U5AoFsqVYn11syN838qr3eDkWv7ZlAGPmeeKfzeNv/s320/tashlich+old.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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but now we look like this:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidE-le0fPL8spkRtwXBiAFWAqxP2LJe7dDsbMvnu2jDOScWkdnCORAu4gO_xu05OhHIiT2ryoX4rL23gj4zFaGYGj6JIaQrYh81gn1FWuSTrmuByqaBtbPEUB_PYOOMiwLK6XQShieV16h/s1600/tashlich+color.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidE-le0fPL8spkRtwXBiAFWAqxP2LJe7dDsbMvnu2jDOScWkdnCORAu4gO_xu05OhHIiT2ryoX4rL23gj4zFaGYGj6JIaQrYh81gn1FWuSTrmuByqaBtbPEUB_PYOOMiwLK6XQShieV16h/s1600/tashlich+color.jpg" /></a></div>
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People usually throw in crumbs or pocket lint (there was a discussion Monday of belly-button lint) I threw in weeds. I narrowed my sins to two: grasping and complaining. I chanted to myself that I was giving them up. No grasping, no complaining.</div>
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And so I could not complain, about people or situations. It has been very difficult. (I am stating a fact, not complaining.) I really really wanted to tell L. about a conversation I had with someone who is more neurotic than I am, and kept repeating himself, and worrying about a teeny tiny thing, and the point would be that deep down I'm saying, I'm not so bad, look at him, and there would be ever-so- slight contempt in my gut and face. But because I couldn't tell him, I didn't have that patronizing feeling. O, I had it for a moment, but it kept disintegrating. Which is a good thing. As for the grasping--that is more abstract, and I find that it is harder to avoid.</div>
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*Why pick on North Carolinians? Because their site came up when I googled the key words.</div>
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Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7338701219059835198.post-27923620211499752152015-08-11T16:25:00.005-05:002015-08-11T16:25:48.883-05:00For metastatic breast cancer survivorsThere are not that many perks that come with having metastatic breast cancer. This is one of them: You can learn to row and have a free lunch. If you like rowing, you can join <a href="http://www.recoveryonwater.org/programs/" target="_blank">Recovery on Water</a>, my rowing team in Chicago.<br />
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Metastatic Breast Cancer Learn to ROW @ LPBC</h2>
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Sunday, August 23, 10 am to noon, free lunch to follow<br /><br />A FREE learn to ROW event for Metastatic Breast Cancer thrivers hosted by the Lincoln Park Boat Club, 2341 N Cannon Dr, Chicago, IL 60614<br /><br />Metastatic breast cancer, also known as mbc, stage IV or Advanced Breast Cancer, is cancer that has spread beyond the breast and lymph nodes under the arm. The most common sites of metastases are the bones, lungs, liver and brain.<br /><br />Given that the metastatic breast cancer community is smaller than the larger and more general breast cancer community, this event is SPECIFICALLY for survivors, thrivers, patients, and fighters of metastatic breast cancer.<br /><br />We will teach you how to row at the Lincoln Park Lagoon from 10 am to noon, followed by a free lunch provided by Recovery on Water (ROW), a rowing team for those treated for any kind breast cancer.</div>
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Sign up <a href="https://recoveryonwater.wufoo.com/forms/wt5y9ii0hhu6b0/" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
<br />Cancer Bitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02493964569973156968noreply@blogger.com