I'm procrastinating. I really need to do some housework, and today is day five of a five-day holiday break, courtesy of the partnership at the firm where I work. I even told myself and other people (I find being accountable to other people is one of the more effective ways to make sure I get stuff done) that I'd do cleaning...um, well, that I'd do cleaning yesterday; yesterday was the day I was supposed to clean. Supposed to. As in, didn't do it. And then today, I set my alarm to wake up at such an hour that I could get it done today -- nothing major, just vacuum ONE ROOM and dust ONE WINDOWPANE.

*sigh*

I'm a lazy S.O.B.

Anyway, I'm getting restless to get something creative done. Maybe I'll quickly do that minor cleaning, and then my reward will be to work on a new song. I think that'll work out just fine!

Ooh, one more thing before I go: yesterday I used my Christmas bonus from work and bought myself a battery charger for my digital camera; a new battery for my laptop; a Sony PSP; and a game to go with the Sony PSP. Needless to say, the last two items were completely unnecessary and I'm experiencing buyer's remorse.

Damn.

'K., off to vacuum! Peace, babies.

My G,

Thank you for the e-mail about the postcard! When I saw that photo, I was immediately filled with the impulse to hop on a plane and jet away, picking you up en route to that little bit of paradise. Can you imagine? We could water ski and snorkel and swim with dolphins during the days, and then at night we could eat the freshest seafood and drink exotic fruity concoctions and make life lists without fear or hesitation 'cause we know, after all of these years, that we can trust each other with our most fervent hopes. And so I bought the postcard and sent it to you, my dear friend, my G-ski.

I don't know if I've told you about this yet, but a beloved friend of mine is dying of cancer. She's been battling it for 8 years (she was diagnosed when she was in her early 20's). It began as ovarian cancer. She went through chemotherapy, went into remission, but had a recurrence. It had mestastasized to her liver. More chemo, then good news, then bad news, then more chemo, then surgery, then good news followed by more good news followed by budding hope. Then things just "didn't feel right," to use her words, and these Not Right feelings were followed by dread and fear and then, finally, doctor appointments, followed by recurrence, only this time the cancer had metastasized to her brain.

The bad thing about the brain when there's cancer in it: you can't use chemo 'cause of the "blood barrier" surrounding the brain itself, so the only treatment options really are either (1) surgery or (2) radiation or (3) a combination of the two. Dannille had two tumors in her brain. One was inoperable, and after 8 years of treatment, two heart attacks, and a recent spate of seizures, her doctors did not recommend surgery; this meant her only remaining option was radiation. So they scheduled her for five treatments; she only could endure three. After the third (or maybe it was the second), she was so sick that she couldn't stop vomiting, which meant that she couldn't lie still for the radiation treatment, and she -- at long last -- decided that it was enough, already. She was done. She was given a year to live, had a conversation with her now 10-year old daughter, and called in all of us, her Army of Women, to help her go through her writings and thoughts and help organize them into a sort of memoir to leave for her family.

So, that's what I've been doing, my friend. I've been reading the stark and honest thoughts and feelings of this beautiful, intelligent, generous woman who is my family and is dying. She reserves the right to change her mind, to resume treatment, but I'm fairly certain this is it for her. It's been a long, hard journey, for her and her daughter, and she's tired. I do everything I can not to argue with her, but at the same time I try to do everything I can to motivate her to keep fighting. It's an odd and precarious balance to maintain all the time, and I often feel unequal to the task. It's a puzzle worth working, though.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I love you, I'm proud of you and what you're doing, and I wish you happy and well. Especially over the last couple of years, and even more so in recent months, you have been on my mind and I miss you. It is not looking good for me to come see you for your 40th birthday, but I still have hopes for 2010. In the meantime, peace, my friend.

it's christmas eve, and i'm in the middle of watching It's A Wonderful Life. it's strange for me, this holiday, made up of such rich and engrained rituals and traditions, because i am essentially alone. both of my roommates are out of town for the holidays (well, technically only one's out of town; the other one moved back home, and her replacement won't be moving in 'til after christmas). all of my friends are visiting family, or are on vacation somewhere exotic, or are housesitting somewhere and their husbands/boyfriends/girlfriends are keeping them company on this eve of christmas.

i sit in my living room and watch jimmy stewart.

i don't feel lonely, exactly. matter of fact, it's been a really nice thing, having my apartment to myself. (makes me realize how desperately i want my own place. someday...right now, i don't want to leave the ocean.) but i do feel like maybe i'm missing out on something. part of me still thinks maybe i'll try to hit midnight mass somewhere, just 'cause then i wouldn't be alone on this holiday. at the same time, i don't want to do it just for the sake of appearances, which is what it would essentially be. i don't have any real desire to leave the house, but i do wish i'd gotten a real tree instead of my ghetto-fabulous fiber optic table-top tree. (i love my table-top tree, but still...)

anyway, i was thinking about my friend, dannille. she's sick. well, that's an understatement, and an absurd one at that. the truth is she's dying. she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer on january 12, 2001; in a few weeks, it'll be the 8-year anniversary of that fateful, horrible day.

(by the way, as i write this, i'm simulateously watching the movie, and had this thought: you see george and mary bailey on their wedding night, having just given away all but $2 of their gift money in order to keep the ol' family s&l alive, and you have to wonder whether any love outside of 1940's hollywood could possibly be that generous or strong. it's nice to think so.)

dannille's cancer metastasized, first to her liver, then to her intestines, then -- and most decisively and inoperably -- to her brain. that's where she's at right now: living with at least two brain tumors, one of which is inoperable. i'll say it again: inoperable. what a bumbling word for such a definitive status. she initially tried to do radiation treatments. (chemotherapy wasn't an option; something about the "blood bag" surrounding the brain which prevents the chemicals from reaching the brain.) she was scheduled for five treatments, but only made it through three, 'cause the treatment made her so violently ill that she couldn't stop vomiting and shaking.

she decided enough was enough.

she ceased treatment.

the doctors said that early tests showed that the treatment she did manage to undergo appeared to have shrunk the tumors, so who knows? in the meantime, she reserves the right to change her mind about ceasing treatment; she may decide eventually to resume. she doesn't want to leave her newly-turned-ten-years-old daughter to the not-so-tender mercies of this world. (i don't blame her.) the strange thing is that for eight of those ten years, her daughter has been living with this vicious cycle of diagnosis/treatment/recovery/re-diagnosis. i wonder: what would it be like for that little girl to have her mother living the kind of life most of us complain about having.

anyway.

i've been going back and reading dannille's blog postings, anonymously, 'cause i'm too cowardly to tell her about this site you're reading right now where i spill my own selfish, self-important nonsense. her writing is so honest, and it's scary to read it all, 'cause she and i are good friends, and have known each other for years, but somehow i have managed to remain ignorant of the entirety of what she's been through.

truthfully, i think she's been trying to protect all of us from the stark reality; i think she doesn't want us to be sad, either for her or ourselves. and i think she doesn't want to come across as weak, or for anyone to feel sorry for her. which makes all of these writings she's been doing all the more remarkable.

anyway, i just lost steam in writing this post. sorry, kiddies. more another time. my brain is much too full.

I've been having a difficult time getting into the holiday spirit this year. Even now, as I'm listening to holiday music via Comcast's OnDemand "Sounds of the Seasons" radio station, I'm feeling financially desperate and a little hopeless.

Money's tight. Work's a nightmare. Life's lonely and difficult. I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. It's a strange sort of accounting that I'm taking right now of my world. I generally try to focus on all that is good and hopeful, but then there are times such as tonight where I have lost all sense of direction and feel supremely island-esque.

From what I understand, this is not an unusual sentiment for this time of year, so I experience it all in a well-seasoned fashion: with multiple colors and sizes of grains of salt.

I've been thinking a lot about Ex-Friend lately. I went to this gingerbread house construction party. EF's roommate (and life-long friend) was there and told me that EF had been saying that he misses me. Roommate had said this the last time we hung out, too, and for some reason I just didn't want to let the sentiment slide once again without rebuttal.

Here's sort of how the conversation went:

Roommate: "Yeah, whenever you name comes up, EF always says how much he misses you."

Me: "No, he doesn't."

RM: "Yeah...he does."

Me: "No, I'm sure he misses the friendship we had in the beginning, but not what it became in the end. I mean, he'd told me on more than one occasion that he's not even sure if he likes talking to me or being around me. So he doesn't really miss me."

RM: "All I know is that he says he misses you whenever we talk about you. The rest of it, I don't know, but that's what he says."

Me: [feeling like an asshole for having this conversation at all, much less at a holiday party] "It doesn't matter. It's all right. I'm gonna get another beer; you want one?"

RM: "Uh, no, I'm good."

Me: "O.K."

*sigh*

And, of course, I'm seeing all kinds of signs now, too. For instance, just as I began writing this post tonight, Neil Diamond came on the radio. Why is this significant, you may ask? Simple: Neil Diamond is EF's favorite childhood music artist. As a matter of fact, EF used to sing Neil Diamond songs to me all the time when it was just the two of us. (O.K., not all the time, but at least once, and he often talked about his love of Neil Diamond.)

I need to find a new job. I mean, I have another, say, eight or nine months left in my commitment to where I'm at right now, but I think it's never too late to start looking. I want to be consistently happy in some part of my life. I think work could be the place to start.

[Not to change the subject, or anything...]

I miss G-ski. For all of the moaning and groaning I've done over EF, G-ski was really the one man that I think could have been the great love of my life. (I just like to pine over EF 'cause he's so fucking gorgeous and complicated; it makes me feel superficially smart that I "get" him.)

G-ski lives in Australia -- Perth, to be exact. He's in love with this woman who's a single mother of a sweet and loving daughter, and if I understand G-ski correctly, they actually have been living together for a little while now.

That being said, he's actually "on the road" right now, just him and his BMW motorcycle. He read this book recently that made him take a serious look at what his life had become, and he felt lost (must be a theme). He told me he needed to find his head space, which I completely get. Knowing G-ski, this is not a strange thing at all, to suddenly want to up and leave those you love to go on a cross-country motorcycle trip, with no real idea of when you'll be back or what it is you're trying to find or figure out.

This is why I love him.

G-ski told me once that there was something about me and the way he feels about me that he doesn't quite understand. He said that there are so many things that I do or that I am that in other people just drive him crazy. But there's something about me that makes him not care about those things. He doesn't have to forgive them in me; he simply doesn't notice them.

Isn't that extraordinary?

And the physical chemistry between us is crazy. Although we've never made love or touched inappropriately or even so much as kissed on the lips, we have danced very, very closely, and he would often wrap his hands around my waist, making me feel enclosed and embraced without being trapped. Have you ever felt that way? It's simply delicious; it's subtly erotic and comforting all at once. Amazing.

God, I hope I feel that way with someone else some day.

Oh, and Universe? While I'm at it, could you throw Bryce my way again? And let him be as into me as I am into him? Or make me realize the next time I see him that he isn't so great? That'd be super; thanks!

O.K., late evening rambling completed. Suena con los angelitos, queridos.

I recently went back and re-read everything I've posted thus far on this blog. I was prompted to do so by the simple occurrence of something that I hadn't planned for: letting someone I know that I was the author of this site.

As clumsily put as that last sentence was -- and I assure you, there are plenty more even clumsier ones to follow -- the bottom line is that I told someone that I know in my "real" life about this blog, and that I was the one who wrote this blog, effectively eliminating any pretense of anonymity that I may have wished to retain. I did this 'cause my friend let me in on her own personal blog, and I figured that fair is fair.

I don't regret the decision, not altogether. I worry now that I won't be as open and honest 'cause someone I know may or may not read what I write here. Do I have to begin to be grammatically correct, or coherent? Must I have a clear train of thought when I write? Do I have to go back and edit and edit and edit?

*sigh*

So, here is my promise: I will do everything in my power to continue to write as though no one in the world knows who I am. I need that for myself, even if no one else is reading this. I have to believe somehow, in a odd and almost morbid fashion, that what I write and share here will move another human being, or at the very least amuse them.

That is my wish.

Anyway, I'm very, very hungry right now, and must eat immediately. More later, I hope.

It's been so long since I've written anything honest anywhere, much less here on this ... what shall I call this space? It seems to be more important -- to me, my friends, only to me -- than a "blog," yet not vulnerable or risky enough to be a journal. Ah, but it is self-indulgent, nonetheless!

But I digress.

The point is, time has passed. And I have managed to be uncourageous, for the most part.

Recently, I've been getting mixed signals from a man who is fairly new to my life. He's actually not someone that I would normally bother myself with, as he is existing in a world of which I know very little, and for which I have no real affinity. It's a very movers-n-shakers kind of place, altho' he personally came out of the proverbial rat race some time ago. Still, he lives in a world of gourmet this and designer that.

It makes me uncomfortable.

And then there are the moments such as yesterday, where he comes up behind me, slides his arms around my waist, leans into my back, and nuzzles the hollow where my clavicle meets my throat. Feeling him there, wrapped into me so perfectly, I find myself melding to the shape he is holding. And then he speaks clearly, intimately into my left ear: "You knew it was me. You just let it happen. You knew it was me. I love you for that."

And in that moment, I cannot say anything at all, because either it is all a lie, and I will disappoint this man who is experiencing a perfect moment, or it is all true, and I cannot fathom how something so easy and natural could be real.

I am at a loss.

I'm trying something new. One of these days I'll figure out what I wanna be when I grow up. One of these days I'll figure out that I'm grown up.