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.