I sit here by myself and you know I love it.

That's the first lyric of this song...It's missing here but since I couldn't find a video with the same sound quality, you'll have to just roll with it. For further listening instructions, read on.

So, last weekend, Dan told me that he was going to go away this weekend with his brother and nephew to upstate New York for a baseball tournament that his nephew is playing in.

Feeling that letting out a giant, "Hidy, hidy, hid, ho" might hurt his feelings, I was all, "That would be nice for you."

He wasn't fooled. "You're totally doing a happy dance inside right now aren't y---"

"Hell yeah, I am. I mean, that would be nice...hidy, hidy, hidy, ho."

The thought of having two and a half days to myself alone in New Hampshire (including Friday night when he was to leave) almost gave me the chills. It's not that I don't love the guy, but my gawd, what I would accomplish. I started having fantasies of all that I would do: unpack the suitcase that's been packed since going to Chatham (yes, at the start of this month), return every e-mail that I haven't gotten to, call someone other than the electric company, and the biggest dream, the Latin Lover equivalent of order-restoration fantasies: I was going to play music---really, really loudly---and clean my entire apartment---floors, closets, and all. I know this sounds sad. I don't care.

But it didn't happen. I ended up shooting down to Rhody for what was to be a day-visit and staying put. Whatta ya gonna do? I had good talks with GiG and there's no Latin Lover equivalent of that. (That sentence neither made sense nor made me particularly comfortable.)

Anyway, this was one of the songs I was planning to blast and bandanna up for. The video is terribly dubbed (though terribly fun) and it's really distracting, so for your first listen, just close your eyes and blast it. (Then desert your families and really enjoy it.) It makes me so happy. "Me, Myself, I"...did this blog just get even more narcissistic? God, I just outdid me. (And there I go again!)

Read This Post! (Even though it's a tad long.)

Tuesday night, Dan and I went to a book discussion and signing of rising author Stephen Markley’s first published work, a memoir, titled Publish This Book The Unbelievable True Story of How I Wrote, Sold, and Published This Very Book. (Yeah, a book discussion; we’re pretty cultured. I even ordered a decaf skim latte when we went out afterwards and if you can order a coffee using three words that aren’t actually coffee, you’re probably smarter than most people you know.)

I describe Markley, 26, as rising because, though this is the first book he's published and it’s not exactly flying off shelves, I’ve no doubt that everyone will know this guy’s name within the next five years or so. But, while I have no doubt about this, sitting where I am in my naivete-stuffed easy chair regarding the icky world of publishing and book-selling, Markley does have doubts, having gotten some of that ick on his face along the way. In fact, Markley seemed so discouraged by the process that, had I not stayed up Tuesday night after the signing getting utterly inspired by the first 50 pages of his book, I might have lit my desk on fire the next morning.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Or behind. Time can feel a bit convoluted when talking about Publish This Book, a story which recounts Markley’s experience trying to get the very book he is writing about trying to get it published, published. You follow? From what I can tell from Markley’s explanation at the reading and the first 50 pages, this quest serves as the spine of the near 500-page memoir which explores where the writer’s burn comes from to be a “real” writer and in a broader sense speaks to the nebulous nature of the period in life when you are no longer a college student but not quite a “real” adult. (Also, there’s whatever is in the other 450 pages.)

While I obviously haven’t yet formed an opinion on the whole work, I can tell you that I’ve been laughing my ass off and totally blown away by Markley’s writing. (For you detail sticklers, my ass was off before the rest of me went flying.) The funny is so funny. And smart, too (though the dick jokes are ample. The guy writes dirtier than me...I’m quite smitten.). The following is an excerpt of the excerpt Markley read Tuesday night:

Let me stop this scintillating narrative right here to explain that I don’t like taking notes or recording the people I interview or really even listening to what any of my idiot friends have to say, so just consider all dialogue in this book to be an approximate representation of what was actually stated---the gist---and I apologize profusely if I slander anyone by wildly misrepresenting what he or she said. For instance, if my friend Kdoe actually said to me, “Steve, I think your book idea is intriguing but a bit unwieldy,” yet I quote him as saying, “Steve, I hate Chinese people,” I would certainly say I’m sorry, but that’s the way the kitten bathes and shaves, so sue me (actually, I’m told by my lawyers that a lawsuit is a strong possibility, and by “lawyers” I mean, “this guy Phil, who’s planning on going to law school”).

I mean, right? Funny shit. This is actually one of the footnotes from the memoir as Markley is an avid footnoter (footernote?), employing them throughout the book for hilarious jokes and digressions. (Others utilize and perhaps overuse the parenthetical aside.) (Way too much.) (And overusing something way too much is redundant.) (And screws with the flow of things.) (Which is why Markley said he uses footnotes, in fact.)

When he started off the reading by asking the book store manager if it was okay that he use profanity, I had a sense that I’d like the guy. And then when he read a passage where, in an instance in which he admits to not “quoting as faithfully as I should” he recalls a conversation in which his ex-girlfriend says, “why don’t you just relax and let me strip you naked, so I can shove your enormous, throbbing manlove inside me...” I knew I was going home with the book. Actually, as my laugh was the only one to pierce the silence at this particular part, I felt like I was watching the Ghost of Book Tour Future as I’m fairly certain (unless I change my sinful ways) that my future will in some capacity have me making cock jokes to a near-silent nine-person audience.

Despite the laughs, however, Markley’s description of his experience so far as a published author did, at times, make me want to vomit quietly into my purse. Now that he has done it, that is, gotten his first book published and embarked on a book tour, he admits to being slightly discouraged that he’s not the rich and famous guy he expected to immediately become upon achieving such a feat. It’s a reality he’s come to accept and he laughs at the current state of things. Having quit his job writing for Cars.com (though he still works as a freelance columnist for RedEye, a Chicago commuter paper), he is currently unemployed and has everything he owns in the backseat of his car which he has been driving from city to city (Tuesday Portsmouth, Wednesday Boston and NYC today). This isn’t the part that stressed me out. (I’ve heard many of my favorite authors recount similar disappointments regarding the misguided belief that getting your work published will solve all your struggles with money, validation, hookers, etc. (This is why I keep an index card with the following quote, pulled from Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird: Some Instruction on Writing and Life---and I think she was quoting 1993 Oscar darling Cool Runnings when she said it---, taped above my desk: “If you’re not enough before the gold medal, you won’t be enough with it.”) Nope, all Markley’s talk about the hard work and rejection involved with, what he calls, “the existential dilemma of struggling to publish” didn’t phase me.

It was the process of selling his book that so unnerved me. He likened it to hawking a toaster. His memoir, two years of his life, his love and mind and time poured into it; a toaster. He said that he’s found that about sixty percent of the process since having his memoir published has been trying to sell it. Ugh. At one point he described a conversation he had with an author whose latest work has brought him much popularity and the monetary perks that come with it. (Totally forgot who the writer was...my bad.) When Markley asked him how this latest book was different than others the writer had previously published, which hadn’t been nearly as successful, the writer said that not only was he going all out with his publicity tour for this latest work but he has also been sticking to the canned answers he and his publicist had come up with and literally saying the same thing at every book discussion or interview he attends. And the book is selling. That story was a depressing head-shaker for me.

It was, in fact, Markley’s off-the-cuff reflections and candidness that made this book discussion unlike any I had attended and also what ultimately got me to buy the book. (Plus, the dick jokes.) Because there were so few of us there (and three of the nine were writers), it allowed for a really intimate and open conversation about the frustrations and heartbreaks that come with, as Markley put it, trying to make money from creativity. “How many writers have gotten 700 rejection letters and then just quit and died?” he joked, expressing his irritation at the less-than-reassuring sentiment commonly offered the young writer that John Grisham, Stephen King, or any other famous author had a stack of rejection letters before their work caught on. And when the mother of a teenager who attended the reading with her parents, asked on her daughter's behalf for advice for young writers, he responded, “Develop a very manageable drinking problem.” He was actually speaking here to the importance of networking (as he’s had many enlightening conversations over cocktails even after some of these very readings) and not to the importance of finding a suitable numbing agent, but I’m sure in 20 years that teen won’t remember it quite that way.

For all his jokes and demeanor as a sports-loving everyman, Markley is not the the frat boy one might initially take him to be. His real love is fiction and after meeting upon rejection for his first novel which he wrote during college, he took the next year to drive around the country and pen a memoir of that experience. The guy is clearly intelligent and clearly passionate about writing. (This, combined with the fact that he’s attractive, had us figuring that the aforementioned teenager probably wanted to kill herself when her parents were asking for pointers for her fantasy fiction writing career.) And it’s obvious (and also mentioned in his book) that he was seen as something of a writing prodigy, particularly in his college years. So to balance out his vast talent (according to Markley, even his publisher expected that he would be “the next big thing” or the next Dave Eggers), apparently God is making him sweat it out.

And while he acknowledges that this is just the way it goes, he’s honest about his yen for the kind of validation that comes with having his work received on a massive scale and the compensation that comes with it. (Am I making him sound like a douche? Because I’m pretty sure he’s not. He’s just honest about his ambition and doesn’t seem to do the false modesty thing, which I respect.) He even said during the discussion that he doesn’t dig self-publishing because the point, for him, is to get that validation from others. I completely understand this position and would be lying if I said I don’t want that for my work (and by “my work” I’m copping out on saying “myself”) but I simply can’t live a life of stalking that kind of validation without prescription drugs, so I had to evaluate and broaden my goals a long time ago. This isn’t to say that I don’t want to achieve what Markley refers to as the literary trifecta: New York Times Best-Seller, movie adaptation, and, of course, Oprah. (But then we all know that I would develop a weight problem, amass giant debt and leave Dan for a woman---The Oprah trifecta?---if it meant face time with my O.)

Still, Markley’s drive is something to be admired. I feel glad to have gotten the chance to have such an easy question and answer period with the guy. Apparently, he also enjoyed it because the status on his Publish This Book Facebook page after the reading was, “Had one of my favorite discussion/signings yet at Riverrun Bookstore in Portsmouth tonight... None of them wanted to drink afterward, though, so hotel room and eating chicken ceaser pita off my stomach it is!”

Markley had mentioned during the reading that if anyone wanted to grab a drink after he’d be into it and I felt a pang of regret about not heading out for a beer with him as I’m sure it would have been a fun, interesting time. Weird though. It might have been weird. I’m a little hazy on the rules of etiquette in that scenario. (Do I bring up the threesome or is that really more Dan’s role?)

Drinks or no, it was a cool experience and, as a memoir lover, I’m psyched to dig further into one of the freshest, funniest books I’ve come across in a while. (I needed a break from all the poverty and incest anyway.) Indeed, I feel like I’ve come across a writer who is likely to become a favorite. (This, after one tenth...hopefully the other 450 pages don’t suck.) At the start of the book signing, with so few people in attendance, I felt the sort of panicked edginess that comes over me when I want something to go well for someone and am worried that it won’t. (Codependent much?) But by the discussion’s end I understood that Stephen Markley doesn’t need me worrying about him and, with the writing career that I'm betting he'll have, he's got nothing to worry about either. (Except for maybe the creepy fandom of a horny married lady.)

IT HAS HAPPENED!

I have infiltrated.

I am twenty minutes post-coffee with my next door neighbor...the next door neighbor whom I've been plotting to become friends with (to no avail) for months.

I'm in too deep, people. Too deep.

I was at my desk this morning writing away when I heard a knock on my door. Now a midday door knock (and this was mid-morning at 9:30am) is usually a little off-putting for me because I'm not usually in a state to receive people. Today was no exception as my teeth were still unbrushed after a late breakfast and I was braless in a fitted t-shirt that, well, requires a bra if I'd like to keep at least two secrets in this lifetime. (Seriously though, why be a writer who sits home alone all day if not to ditch your bra?) When I opened the door, she was standing there. Apparently her fire detectors went off twice in the night and she wanted to know if I heard them or have had any problems with my own fire detectors. (Or she was just looking for an excuse to talk to me. You'll remember from my last post that she's kind of into me. Who's the stalker now?)

First of all, I did not hear them go off (if they actually did go off) which concerns me as I know from experience that the smoke detectors in this place are of the screaming cartoon version variety. And since our apartment is small and we have like four of them in such a tiny space, if one goes off they all go off and we suddenly feel like we're in the midst of a prison riot. Her apartment (and detectors) are laid out similarly she said, yet I did not hear hers through our thin shared wall. Hmm.

We got to chatting about how sensitive these detectors are (I don't saute anything without the windows open and the fan on) and theorizing about what had happened since she obviously wasn't cooking anything in the middle of the night and more than one alarm went off, ruling out a short or electrical glitch. (Right?) Because I was raised by and among crazies, my first thought was, of course, ghosts. Despite the fact that I try to avoid conversations about the supernatural and probably because of this, in fact, such discussions follow me and are apparently now even cropping up with relative strangers because she also just assumed it was ghosts. Naturally. (Katie and Cherie---sisters who love all things poltergeist-y---you'll be happy to hear that she DVRs all the same ghost shows you do.) She thought it to be a peeving ghost versus a haunting one and because I grew up in a house where such a discussion would have been commonplace (and not the heaping pile of Casper bullshit that it probably seems here) I followed this line of logic. (But just so we're clear, this whole conversation will probably keep me up tonight.)

We chatted for a few minutes in my doorway and she was drinking a cup of coffee which I noted smelled delicious because, really, it smelled friggin' delicious. It was some coconut concoction. Well, as soon as I said it she offered me a cup and there I was following her into her kitchen---the lair!---to get a cup. I won't go into detail about her apartment except to say that A) there were no pictures of me and B) I've just finished redoing my own apartment to match her decor. (That way when we take down our adjoining wall, the feng shui will be maintained.) I stayed for about 20 minutes while we had our coffee and talked. Though my previous inclination would have been to recount (in fine, fine detail) all that I learned (between our actual talking and by way of my Law and Order trained eye into the psyche of a person by way of interior decoration), it's all feeling a little weird now. (Though I learned soooo much.)

How would you feel if someone was in your kitchen having a cup of coffee and then documenting it detail by detail on her blog without your knowledge? (How does it feel, husband and family?) It was one thing when she was a complete stranger and we were simply hi/byers. Now I've seen her kitchen sink and drunk out of her mug. (Why does that sound dirty?) (GC---drunk?) Also, while some day (probably when I'm her maid-of-honor and it's her wedding day) I may be able to explain away the previous posts by saying that I didn't really know her at all when I was writing this stuff, it's a different thing to continue on after I've been in her home. (Isn't it?) It's a little like in a romantic comedy when someone comes up with a lie in order to meet someone and then has to maintain the lie despite and because of the growing intimacy of the relationship. The lying gets worse the more they know each other. And while I'm not lying necessarily, my blogging about her as we become friends will get exponentially creepier. (And even I know that's really saying something...especially since we had one cup of coffee and I'm likening us to a couple in a John Cusack movie.)

It's a bit of a conundrum. I was really enjoying my little stalking segment on this blog but I found myself trying to avoid her in the days following these posts because I felt a little like a serial killer. Even now I want to be outside typing this up on my stoop but I'm afraid she'll return home while I'm out there and it's just too fucking weird to put down my computer for a second and take a break from writing about her to talk to her.

Why did we have to bridge the gap? Why must I be so damn likable?

As we were talking she told me about how she's thinking of going to art school and showed me some of her work which was really pretty incredible. She's an artist, guys. An artist. (I was waiting for her to go to the bathroom so that I could get naked and stretch across her couch to be painted but the opportunity never presented itself.) Such common ground though, led to my copping to be a writer.

"What do you write?" she asked.

"Um, non-fiction..."

Oy.

Really, at what point in a friendship can you admit that you've been pretending to be someone's stalker? Is that before or after the cell phone number exchange? Honesty is a questionable policy in this scenario. There is no way to explain things without seeming desperate or psycho and neither are particularly strong traits for attracting friendship.

The lines of art and life have been blurred. I've really screwed myself here and in some ways the best I can think to handle this is to break things off totally by acting all cold towards her so that she no longer wants a piece of this. I don't want to hurt the poor thing... (In the romantic comedy, we would be shaking our heads at John Cusack's bonehead logic, knowing as we do that they will get together in the end and he's just making things harder by not simply being honest. But I'm not John Cusack and I would probably never forgive a new friend such a foible. I'd think, "You're fucking weird. I can't be taking on any new crazies...and stop playing "In Your Eyes" outside my window.")

I'm really going to have to figure out how to proceed with this. I suppose the first thing to do is get in there and fix those smoke detectors...they weren't supposed to go off until Dan was away.

Shouldn't I really be too ashamed to post this picture?

Those girls. We're on a table, if you can't tell. Notice how hardcore I am with my "I love you" sign language. (Holla atcha, Steph.)

Okay, the weekend. (That was not this past weekend though the baby shower took place at this same spot, hence the flashbacks.)

Saturday: Lots of driving on a day when lots of other people were also driving. I was so irritated about the heavy traffic on the way down that I may have gone a little Mel Gibson alone there in my car. (Say what you will about him, I am forever indebted to Mr. Gibson for making me feel so very stable.) I had a really nice time at the shower though. Of all my friends in attendance, there wasn't one in the bunch that I haven't known since about fifth grade. It's neat to still have friendships with the same people with whom, at age 13, I was making guesses regarding who would lose her virginity first. (I think we all got that one right, eh?) The conversations these days have shifted of course from tales of drunken woe to jobs and babies. I had a nice chat with a friend who, like me, has had her fair share of complications in this arena and we clanked our beers and toasted to our vacant uteruses. (Uteri? Both work apparently, but while I was looking it up, to my delight, I found this.) The expectant mama-to-be whom we were celebrating looked happy and beautiful, as did the two new moms among this little group who both welcomed little girls into their lives in the last year. Babies, babies, everywhere.

Sunday:

Red Sox. In a stroke of good fortune, Dan landed tickets from a sales rep with whom he has an office supply account at work. Think Dunder Mifflin except Dan described the rep to me as "a little hottie" which was, perhaps, more detail than I needed. If he ends up having an affair with her it will be worth it because they were luxury box tickets. Without such luxury, I could have never attended such an event. Even in a shaded seat outside the air-conditioned suite, I was trying to stretch my legs to keep my knee sweat from puddling. How people sat under the direct sun in such heat, thigh to thigh with that guy is absolutely beyond my comprehension.

(That guy is a Danism. He has a flawless ability to pick out, even before any drinks are poured, which guy in the crowd will be the obnoxious drunk yelling obscenities at a rival fan or, in a bar setting, which guy will start the fight. We'll be sitting at one of these places only a short time before Dan nods his head in some relatively innocuous dude's direction and says simply, "That guy." Later on, after the guy has spilled his drink on a group of women or is getting escorted out by the manager, I'll nod to Dan, marveling at yet another right-on that guy pick. That girl is the one who will be puking in the public bathroom sink at the end of the night...or dancing on a table.)

So, the luxury box. It really felt all Jerry Maguire VIP in there. It's really as fabulous as you'd think. It was air-conditioned, of course, and there was a big leather couch from which you could watch the game on a big-screen TV in case you wanted to cool down (though you could also just watch it out the big windows that look down on the field.) There was a refrigerator full of beer and water, chilled white wine, red on the counter and plenty of food; fresh out of the oven pizzas, and of course the requisite Fenway Franks and 10-inch sausages served with onions and peppers. (The sausage is my Fenway fave...enjoyed it this time with a little white wine.) Dan threw down some sliders and Legal Seafood chowder with a cold beer and there were chips and guacamole and desserts all over. Midway through the game a tiny soft-shelled Red Sox cooler was passed around filled with Vanilla and Almond Haagen-Dazs ice cream bars. I've never been so relaxed at a baseball game. As I sat there, my feet up on the rail and plenty of space in my padded seat, looking out on the field and the sunny day, I thought, "I'm going to have to own one of these."

I am not much of a capitalist. Matters of money and of business in particular don't interest me. In fact, if I can get through this life with minimal business savvy or even contact, I will be grateful. That said, I am fascinated by the business of sports. The politics of sports. The underbelly of sports. I like to look around at the owner's box and the press areas and the cameramen shooting the game for ESPN or whichever TV network got the contract for the season and imagine all the deals and hand-shaking that goes on for things to run as they do. I've told Dan before that if I ever came into big money---like really big money---I would want to own a sports team. It's a bizarre yen of mine and I don't even like sports that much. (At the last game I went to, I wondered aloud why everyone was booing Kevin Youkilis before my friend explained the "Youk, Youk, Youk" that fans chant when he gets up to bat.) But the business of sports fascinates me, even as it maddens me how little team loyalty there is. The Johnny Damon becoming a Yankee thing really threw me. How does a team, a city, embrace a guy whom they were rooting so heartily against only months before? It's not a Yankees/Red Sox thing---I like the rivalry more than either team---it's that I just don't understand how people can get behind any player who was the enemy before papers changed hands. Though, I totally loved the whole Lebron James story and I had no idea who Lebron James was even a month ago. I like sports news. I like the stories behind the sports. So, while I'm up there in the fancy box, or in any seat for that matter, more than the game, I am taking in as much as I can about how the thing is running.

Yesterday, I was taking this in:





It was a great vantage point for the game. I've had kind of ridiculous luck in terms of seats at Fenway. I sat in a luxury box the first time I ever went there. My second time, Dan and I went to see Jimmie Buffet when he played Fenway and our seats were on the field. My third time, Dan's former boss offered us his tickets after something came up last-minute and he couldn't attend. Those were pretty good seats too.

We even sat behind this guy, who I guess is a pretty big fan.

And also very, very pretty. Ladies, I was always Team Damon but, my goodness, it is not makeup...he is wicked hot (just not so much in this picture).



She was there too:





We were four rows back from the field and it was against the Yankees. Ridiculous luck. (We were also right near the Sox dugout. Ben chatted casually with Francona and the players during the game. You know I was watching that interaction the entire time.) After that game, Dan said to me, "This isn't what Fenway is like. Most people don't have this experience."

While I have been there a handful of times since (saw the Rolling Stones there too!), my crazy-good-seat luck had run out...until now. This time around, during one of the muggiest days of the season, when New England fans were at their least fresh, I had this experience:





That could be my favorite part. The rest of the bathroom was clean and lovely. It was a fantasmo experience even if the Red Sox lost...who were they playing again?

After the game, Dan and I struggled to decide whether we should go home and veg out for the night or head to a movie. I knew that stepping inside my apartment would fill me with the anxiety of jobs undone so we opted for the movie on our quest for a full funday Sunday.

Inception. Holy shit. We were pushed over the edge to see it by a reviewer who said it was like "mental calisthenics."

"I like mental calisthenics," I said, and we went.

Indeed, my brain is sore today. My review: Another solid, entertaining movie. (This was also my review for Leonardo DiCaprio's last summer movie, Shutter Island, but this one was way better.) I was fidgeting and tense from suspense right up to the end. I even asked myself at one point whether the cortisol surge I was sure I was experiencing was healthy. The movie was about two and half hours long and the fact that my bladder and my attention span didn't notice (Dan pointed it out), is a testament to how captivating the movie is. It's not going to change your world view, you're not going to feel particularly inspired walking out of there---it's not that kind of movie---but it's good in the way you sometimes need a movie to be; again, just solid entertainment.

When we got home I put on my blinders to all the laundry laying around and went to bed. Same went for this morning when I saddled up to my desk rather than tending to a thing. And now it's 8:30 at night. I've been sitting at this desk since 9am and the crazies are settling in. That means it's time to end this post because I think I've already crossed the rambly threshold. Dan called to see if I wanted to meet him at the batting cages after work and though it would have been fun (probably really fun...I've never been to the batting cages) I wanted to try to be one of those people instead; you know, an accomplisher of things.

The sky is black right now as a big thunderstorm is headed our way. Bring it! Nothing better than a thunderstorm on a summer night. Baseball games, cold movie theaters, thunderstorms...Hell, maybe I do like summer.

So you think you can lounge?

This guy.

Okay, first of all, you guys won.

I was just debating between going on a walk in 90-degree weather or scraping some Spew together and here we are.

I don't even care, I'll say it---I want fall. Even winter.

I know, I know...this sort of blasphemy should never be uttered. But this sort of chafing should never be suffered either, so there it is.

No to 90-degree days. Just no.

I was reading a brief snippet in EW and there was a segment titled "Why We Hate Summer" in which five comedians/actors (comedic actors?) gave brief explanations on why it is they hate this season that everyone else seems to love so much. Immediately I thought, these are my people.

It's not like I hate summer...I'm just usually over it before the Fourth of July even hits. Other than guilt-free Snickers ice cream bars (one must keep cool) and the fresh fruit, I'm not sure I see the appeal.

Actor Adam Scott (pictured above) who is currently featured on Parks and Recreation---which is such a good show--- though I first got to know him on HBO's short-lived softcore porn, er, drama "Tell Me You Love Me," which was also very good, though I think I'm the only person who ever watched it, and which also starred Sonya Walger a.k.a. Penny from Lost whom I love even more and who, it must be said, has the most beautiful rack---it was featured prominently on the show---in TV history as far as I'm concerned, was quoted as saying the following (breath):

"I enjoy being indoors. I enjoy laying on couches, snacking, and reading (watching TV). Summer sucks because it is the only season when, if I want to do this in the middle of a gorgeous day, people (my children) look at me like I'm a disgusting person. Well, guess what? It's 90 degrees out there, it's 68 degrees in here, and this episode of The Bachelor isn't going to watch itself."

Oh, Adam, thank you for finally saying it! (Even if you did incorrectly say 'laying' instead of lying...right? Right? Grammar Club? P.S. The run-on sentence about Adam was on purpose.) It was truly an epiphany for me to realize that I am not alone in what had always been my secret desire for summer slothdom. (Though, The Bachelor? I really think So You Think You Can Dance is far better summer fare.)

Okay, I like the occasional outdoor meal (that is if the mosquitoes aren't biting), and I've gained a new appreciation for the beach (if you are able to avoid getting sand anywhere on your body, it's not a bad way to cool down) but in general, the season is just hooooot. It's so fucking hot. (To clarify, "hooooot" was to be ready as a whiny "hot" and not as an owl's "hoot.")

These days summer just seems like the time of year when I have to shave my legs more often and I'm over it. OVER IT.

Also, I might be using the oppressive heat as rationalization for the day I had which included:

1) Reading the latest O Magazine from cover to cover. (Never caught up with the others and had to just embrace going out of order...which hurts in my OCD places, as you can well imagine.)

2) Getting a lethargic heat-induced nap in.

3) Taking a bath.

I realize that number three is not a technique that most people employ to cool down on a hot day. I actually did this before my apartment became an oven and it was more about de-stressing than de-boiling. I finally got back to NH at about 9:30 last night and I woke up this morning in a state I call, just-short-of-a-panic-attack.

I'm telling you, it's bizarre...I have a delayed reaction to intense situations. I was in a car accident once and immediately after being hit I had this instant sense of pure calm. Even an odd euphoria. Immediately after I pulled to the side of the road, I was out of my car checking to see if everyone involved was okay, including my then pregnant sister who was my passenger. (A teenager slid through a stop sign in the snow onto a main road and while my car---Dan's car-- was hit only at its end, just missing my sister's door, another car as well as the teenager's were totaled.) I just had immediate perspective about how lucky we all were that the only things hurt---in what could have been a tragic situation mere days before Christmas--- were machines. About an hour later, after all accident reports were filled out and insurance companies called, I had to pull over into a parking lot because all of a sudden I was shaken---my hands actually shaking, in fact---by the whole ordeal.

Such was the scenario this morning. I woke up today extremely tense, heart racing and close to tears, even though here we are in the calm after the storm that was this past week. I suppose it's a coping mechanism and I even see how it's helpful but shit, I felt like a crazy person.

I tried making lists of everything that needed doing---and having not been home for nine days nor most of the summer really, every thing is on that list---but I was too anxious to collect myself enough to compose even an e-mail. I struggled to calm down until I finally resigned myself to my Oprah and my bath.

And, gawd, do I feel good now. Just had to ride it out, I guess.

Plus, first thing tomorrow morning I have to get ready to jump in the car again to head back to RI for a friend's baby shower (and then right back to NH afterwards) so I really think the break was required.

And one O Magazine is the equivalent of four years of college these days so, really, I was bettering myself. In fact, it's what got me off the couch in the end, Oprah wanting me to live my best life and all.

Now it's Friday at 6:30pm and Dan and I are debating sticking to our plan of dinner and a movie or really wallowing in the muggy laziness (mine, not his...though nobody's arm is getting twisted) and ordering dinner in; normally a winter tradition, we call this Fajita Friday.

Decisions, Decisions...

What Would Oprah Do?

I think she'd want me to walk my hairy legs over to the couch for some So You Think You Can Dance.

GiG is home

At her kitchen table upon arriving home. (Phone pic.) Ain't she purty? (Every time someone tells her she looks good---particularly for having metastatic cancer---she says, "I'll look good in the coffin, too..." And a sense of humor!)

I'm going to bed, but I thought you ought to know.

I will give you the skinny when my head doesn't hurt with tiredness. (Last night's 7:30 curfew? Not so much...) but I wanted to at least let you all know that she is in her bed, in her home and it's about time, too!

Thanks for all the lovin', hopin' and prayin'.

If I'm not in bed by 7:30, no TV for a week

When I was a kid, I though this was what God looked like...addicted since the womb. (How wonderfully 70's is this picture? This exact jar sits on my desk at home.)

It's 7 o'clock now and I find myself thinking, "Man, it's getting late..."

I expect to be in bed shortly with a cup of tea and my book. I promised myself this tonight and I don't want to bail on me again.

I have the evening off as my dad is on night-duty at the hospital with my mom. I was beat and apparently visibly so because my mom told me I should head out at about 5pm.

Last night I stayed at the hospital until 11:30, GiG and I watching Sally Field's Oscar-winning performance in "Places In The Heart" through Netflix on my laptop. Kim, the evening nurse came in and offered us dessert for our slumber party, later delivering a Hoodsie-type cup of vanilla ice cream and another of orange sherbet. (Really, no second "R" there?) We scooped half out of each and mixed 'em up for the orange Creamsicle effect, a favorite taste of my mom's. It was nice watching movies together and it made me laugh when she had me call her upon leaving the hospital both when I got into my car in the parking lot ("after you lock the doors") and again when I was inside my parents' house. I've walked through many dark parking lots without her knowledge in my day I almost argued, but just went with it instead. I'm glad to have her here to worry. I'm glad to let her be my mom.

Every spring I walk the little river that runs through my town in New Hampshire and watch as the little families of ducklings start to appear trailing behind their mom on the river's edge. I see throughout the season as they turn from little yellow fluffballs, to an adolescent-looking version, and onward. Lately when I've seen them, still traveling in their bunch as they do---for they are still quite young---, I find myself struggling to discern which one the mother is as they've all gotten so big. For a while I could just tell, her brood being slightly smaller than she, but now I can't at all. Sometimes I think I can just by observing a certain stillness in one versus the others, but I'm never completely sure. No, there's not much visible difference there and I can't help but note it. She's not even leading anymore it seems, though who knows what subtle, undetectable direction she is still providing.

We're hoping my mom will be out of the hospital tomorrow. We expected her to come home today but there are still some x-rays that need doing and so on. Now that she has her appetite, and more important her taste buds, back she is looking forward to having a cup of coffee on her back deck like it's a trip to Italy. My God, if ever I needed a reminder of the smallest of life's joys... Talk about taking things for granted. I have cursed my appetite too many times to count, but never have I felt gratitude for my taste buds.

So I'll pay special attention tonight to my little cup of tea.

In fact, off I go. Can't keep my 7:30 appointment waiting...

Last week on the Mellowsky Spew...

When I last posted, Dan and I were vacationing for a few days with my siblings on the Cape. Our time there was fabu. We lazed on the beach,



did some grilling at night,



and engaged in other fun recreational activities. (My niece made and hung this sign before we got there and for me it represents everything I love about a family vacation.)



I expected to write more



but there was so much to see.



And see.



And see.



And hear about.



Dan and I took our time on our way home, stopping to have lunch on the porch of a quaint little inn. (I threw this pic in 'cuz I thought it was so Dansome.)



Even though we were in Sandwich, MA we had some chowda.



We were so very sorry to have to go (I've settled on Chatham for my beachfront home) but it was one of those vacations we'll be talking about for years. Thanks to The Breslins (and Molly Moo) for sharing your vacation with us.



We were only home a few days before the phone rang. (I was determined to work the ringing phone image into this post.) My mom was again being admitted to the hospital (and has now been there since Wednesday). She went in with a high fever, elevated pulse and general weakness.



In short, the treatment is as bad as the illness. For the past six weeks (since her last hospital admittance) my mom has been undergoing a radiation/chemo combination for the purpose of shrinking the tumor in her lung that was disrupting her breathing. We don't yet know the extent of its effective (even though she's just ended the treatment, the radiation is still "sizzling"---a term my family uses to explain it---the tumor) but we do know the radiation kicked the shit out of her. In addition to it burning right through her body such that she has visible burn marks on her back, it also caused inflammation of her lung tissue, a condition called pneumonitis. This, in addition to a slight pneumonia, caused the fever, chest pain, difficulty breathing, and just a general feeling of terribleness. The chemo maintained its role as appetite suppressor and nausea inducer so her inability to eat or keep down that which she was able to stomach, intensified the fatigue and weakness to such a point that it was difficult for her to even walk.

I repeat:





They've had my mom on IV antibiotics, steroids and fluids as well as regular breathing treatments and she seems to be doing better. The steroids even have her eating again which is a huge relief to all of us.



Though, we've been trying to supplement the hospital fare.



Lots of family and friends have been in to visit.



And we've made our fun where we could.



My dad and I have been trying to do our best to make sure my mom is never in the hospital alone for very long. We leave each other notes with our comings and goings. He left me this note this morning. (Lois = yet another nickname)



He also left me this note the other day which is simply a moment to be recorded.

It's been a worrisome week, of course. My dad said he thinks this may be what it will be like from now on; hospitalizations marked by periods of relative health. It's not a life I'd want for anyone and I hate watching my mom endure it. While we know she has at least a month "break" from all "treatment" per her oncologist, the fact is that she's pondering whether she will continue treatment at all. (We're all pondering this but will ultimately back whatever decision she makes.) Life is absurd right now. Sometimes unrecognizable. Sometimes incredibly rich. Sometimes unbearably frightening. Sometimes just unbearable.

So that's where I've been. Bet you're feeling bad about calling me a negligent blogger, aren't you? No, it's fine...I understand your expectation that I consistently update...it's not like my mom has cancer or anything. (By the way, "But My Mom Has Cancer" is a fun new game that I play with Dan whenever he says no to me. Sick, I know, but oodles of fun.)

We're hoping GiG will be out tomorrow or Wednesday once she's through with this round of antibiotics and her pulse goes down. I'm still figuring out whether or not I'm going to be spending any length of time back home in NH in the coming days. Sometimes it's hard to know where to be. Right now, it feels like the hospital is the place.

Off I go.

P.S. Amidst this last week of crap, some good news has also come our way.

My sister Cherie and brother-in-law Pete found out they are having a baby girl.



I'm sure she will bring them much happiness when she comes.



And in all the days ahead.

I will be out of the office...

This hasn't happened since 1986. (Missing from photo: Sister number three, Katie, who hates the beach anyway...but was certainly missed.)

Dan and I packed our lives into his VW Bug this morning and made our way to Chatham, MA (at the elbow of the Cape) to crash Bec and Jeff's family vacation per their invitation. We arrived at about 5:30 and reported promptly to the beach, walking up on my sisters Tara, Bec and Cherie who were still sitting in their beach chairs chatting, just one of two families left on the beach. We joined them right there for a glass of cold white wine and a platter of cheeses in the early evening sun. Seals swam by in front of us as we looked out at the long stretch of sand and ocean. It's strange to wake up in the morning in the normalcy of life and then find yourself in such divinity mere hours later. As I write this I am feeling a gentle ocean breeze through the open windows of this beautiful beach house where we're staying. A more perfect spot on the planet for me right now I could not imagine, as a break of this nature was so totally what the doctor ordered. (Our gratitude towards Bec and Jeff for providing such an escape cannot be overstated.)

The first one up in the morning will run out for coffees for the household and then we'll make our way back to the beach which is only a short walk away. Tomorrow's fare will include spinach dip hot from the oven, guacamole and chips, fresh fruit, margaritas and whatever else our hearts desire---all delivered to the beach. Yes, please. I plan to lie under an umbrella all day and make my way through the six editions of O Magazine that have been sitting on my bedside table since the start of the year.

While we will only be down here a few days, Dan is off through Tuesday so we are treating this time as a mini-vacation even though we'll spending the latter portion of the time at home. I stated my intentions to Dan very clearly: After I'm through with my Oprahs, I will then move onto and finish the three books I have been half-reading for the last month. There may be exercise but there will most certainly be sloth.

And there may be writing...but likely it won't be until we get back from the beach. I can't have it interfering with my napping.

I friggin' love that it's only Wednesday.

On the shoe front:

Thank you for responding! I appreciate the energy and advice you all offered up. Right now I'm leaning towards the "pay it forward" technique a la Rob, although Abe certainly had me thinking otherwise. Dan has provided the best rationalisation for my decision thus far: "You've already given them $40 in advertising."

I got a note from the website today saying the shoes were just shipped. What do you bet they get stolen from my doorstep while we're away?