Clareified

“It’s probably nothing,” she says washing her hands. I close the flimsy paper gown and involuntarily begin to swing my legs against the exam table.
“At your age, many women develop these kinds of lumps in their breasts and the vast percentage of the time, it’s nothing. Don’t worry.”
Of course, the problem with the phrase “it’s nothing,” is the it, right?
Nothing is nothing.
Nothing’s not an it and nothing is certainly not a thumb sized breast lump.
Furthermore, the problem with her telling me not to worry is that the last time she patted me on the back and said “wow, you’re in the best shape I’ve ever seen you,” I ended up doubled over in pain at an emergency room in Harlem, spiking a 102 degree fever while I waited for someone to suck my gall bladder out through my belly button.
Credibility? Shot!
Truth is, I probably should have come in weeks ago, closer to when I discovered the nothing. But I figured if it was nothing, it’d go away and actually be nothing.
I would live my life! Lump be damned!
And then my poker skills, such as they were, distintegrated to disasterous financial results. The associate position that everyone thought I’d be perfect for fell through because the Hiring Partner really wanted someone with strong writing skills! “Me fail, English? That’s unpossible.”
Then the car, the laptop, the earring and now we’re all caught up.
The universe and my mother’s incessant yelling would most definitely NOT let me get on with the business of living. So, here we are at that first step towards the business of dying.
Honestly, I never thought I’d live past 33. I was a teenage Catholic evangelist, like super serious two masses a week, bible studying, teaching cathecism to the youth and attending international Catholic youth gatherings teenage Catholic evangelist. An only child, with an absent father, born to a woman who was by all accounts infertile? I didn’t have a martyr complex; I had THE martyr complex.
When they wouldn’t let me on the altar the Easter Sunday that the Bishop was visiting our church, because I was a girl, oh, the struggle not to shout “this is my father’s house!”
You have issues, you have issues.
So, when I got super sick at 32, I wasn’t at all surprised.
I knew it!
I got better, but I still tread carefully. One more year.
And then bam, Carlos the ticking time bomb! But they caught it…I was…um…fine.
2009.
The year I did ordinary things and lived an ordinary life. The year I planned things and splurged on stuff. The year nothing was cut out of me! Ah, 2009, if you hadn’t taken Michael Jackson, we could’ve had something real special.
But in my wildest dreams I never imagined I’d go out like this. Not that I wanted any fatal condition, but couldn’t it be something more manly? Like roid rage or a presidential affliction? Like GSW to the head? Heck, even cruxifiction is an oldie, but a goodie. I watch football, and play poker, I smoke cigars and drink whiskey for breakfast!
Breast cancer? The damn hell ass pink ribbon disease!
PINK!
And not even awesome neon Liberace sneakers pink, POWDER.
POW. DER.
Never mind the weeks ahead of lady doctors talking about lady parts and lady issues. Waiting rooms filled with other women (okay, and that really hella unlucky dude that represents the 1% of male breast cancer victims.) talking about their lumps and tumors and reproductive options.
I may survive the cancer or whatever it is, but I’m pretty sure the blood loss from ripping my own ears off might get me.
Ah, a noble Van Gogh death.
I smile. The doctor hands me precriptions for various “gram” tests.
She hands me referrals to two breast doctors and says I should check what their hours are.
Breast doctor? That just sounds made up. Like a pickup line in a horrible Vince Vaughn comedy.
I decide against voicing this opinion aloud.
She says that the nothing will likely have to be removed, but they’d wait to find out the full extent of what we’re dealing with before scheduling any surgery, so everything can be handled at once.
Hmm. From nothing to everything… that was quick.
Eh, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. It doesn’t have to be cancer. Could just be lumpy boobs, which aside from possibly being the worst poker nickname ever, might not be so bad.
A few corrective surgeries and I could have a whole new set! Not for nothing, but if it gets me the career she’s had, I’m getting the ones Jennifer Love Hewitt got!
Or maybe Britney’s.
Ooh, could I get fitted with semi automatic weapons like the Austin Powers’ bots?
I wonder if there’s a catalogue.
The doctor is staring at me now.
Uh oh, she probably asked me something really important and I’m mentally picking out boobs.
“Well, Dawn? Do you have any questions? What are you thinking?”
Me?
Nothing. Definitely, nothing.

Great story about two lowly special teams guys who changed the momentum in the biggest football game of the year.
I have a much longer, weirder post about Superbowl 44 kicking around my brain, but for now I will confess two things: 1. I didn’t really care. I almost skipped the game to watch Michael Jackson’s This is It. But Pi promised me a February barbecue at her house AND picked me up and dropped me off, so… 2. When I started to care, I was pulling for the Colts in spite of myself. Peyton Manning was the picture of perfection through almost two quarters. It was thrilling to watch. The Saints just looked scared and chokey.
No bueno.
But then when it all went haywire and Manning actually got intercepted twenty or so yards from the game tying play, I knew that my brain had done what it needed to do to channel my innate cooler powers away from the Saints. Cause hot damn if I wasn’t jumping up and down once the Saints had put the game out of the reach of the dang dirty Colts and their stupid long faced gross quarterback. I was a little worried that Brees might break my boy’s record 32 completions in a Superbowl…but, whew.
All in all, glad I watched, glad about the outcome. And the story this article relays, reminds me why:

It went 10 yards. It went off Hank Baskett, the fifth wideout on the Colts. The ball bounced toward Reis, plowing single-mindedly toward the spot he knew the kick was going to settle, 10 to 12 yards downfield. At the 42-yard-line of the Saints, Reis dove for the ball, and the scrum began. (Officially, linebacker Jonathan Casillas was credited with the recovery, but Casillas and other Saints said it was Reis who came away with the ball.)

The ball at first lay underneath Reis’ legs as bodies flew in trying to get it. “I was able to get the ball into my hands and just cradle it here,” Reis demonstrated for me later in the locker room, with his hands cradled around his stomach, slightly bent over. “So I just pulled it tight to my body and held on.”

“White ball!” Reis heard one official yell in the mayhem. The Saints were wearing white. Good.

“Blue ball! Blue ball!” he heard another official yell. The Colts were blue. Bad.

“So I just figured I better hang onto it for dear life,” he said. “The Colts were punching at it and grabbing for it, trying to get it out. But I didn’t care if they broke all my fingers. There was absolutely no way in the world I was going to let go of that ball. That was our ball.”

The gift that keeps on reminding us why we should never accept gifts from Illinois. Shut up. He’s from Hawaii. Or Kenya, I aint never seen no birth certificate.

Sick. Fucking sick. If at least three people aren’t sent to prison over this, I will…I dunno…but I will do something!

Aunt Jemima will tell you that you can make coffee cake from a box using her special “no-mess baking bag.” This is a damn hell ass lie. And there will be a mess.

Dog shoots man!

via Michael

I hate when other people describe me when they’re describing themselves because I’m UNIQUE dammit:

On the downside, I’m not very mature or organized and don’t understand how relationships work and how to see others and not just myself. I don’t really trust anyone and I trust everyone more than myself, feeling guilty for making judgments even if I know in my gut they’re right.

via Michael

I’ll be smashing mirrors, cross racing black cats under ladders and spilling salt to try and turn it all around. Peace and chicken grease.

Yes, yes I’ve become melodramatic doomsday girl.
But seriously, three weeks after I get suckered into a $200 cleaning job on my car (which I picked up during a major snowstorm, so it was all for naught anyway) a metal spike in the road explodes, not one, BUT TWO tires on my car! And THEN my laptop explodes three days later.
Cereal, if you don’t think 2010 is out to get me, you’re not paying attention.
I still don’t have a computer yet, though the Operating System has been replaced. I physically still feel like that stuff that crap becomes after it’s been scraped off a shoe and tossed aside, but I power through because I am made of sterner stuff.
Or stern stuff.
Or because I have bills to pay.
Something.
I know it’s bad because I find myself wondering which is worse: the misery itself or pretending I’m not miserable so my mother can take me off her suicide watch and children on the train can stop asking their parents why the lady is crying.
I’m kidding.
No I’m not.
Anyhoo, I ran across this article which actually made me smile yesterday. And yes, it violated my “Bill Simmons is dead to me” pledge, after he not only predicted the mediocre 10-6 Patriots season, but also foretold our loss to the Ravens. Fucking asshole. (His dad’s words, not mine. But I co-sign.)
Ok, but then today THIS ARTICLE just made me actually laugh out loud! For A WHILE! Oh, the pain. THE PAIN.
I especially thought of F-train and Vinnay.
Enjoy, sports fans. Tae…um…would you like some red wine?
Aw man, the seltzer water I JUST opened is flat. ARRRGHHH.

I walk as quickly as I can through the alley-wide street between the New York City subway and the New Jersey Path train. The one takes me from my apartment in Brooklyn, the other dumps me off at my office building. The escalators from street level to the train snake at least five stories underground. But you can hear the bell on the train signal closing doors, before your foot lands on the platform floor. And so, guided by the sound, you quicken your steps.
Nimbly jump down stairs.
Run.
Your heart races.
Then you spy the silver arch pulling off into the distant tunnel. Your pace slows. You exhale.
There.
That moment.
All hope is gone. Like the left earring I lost yesterday.
:/