Blog indecision
I can not decide what I want my blog address to be. I now have 5 blogs (not counting the “social networking” site blogs), only one of which has any actual posts in it.
skwarepeg.wordpress
midnightramble.wordpress
midnightrambling.wordpress
minddust.wordpress (the title being, “Midnight Rambles and Other Irrelevancies”)
logorrhea101.blogspot
I created the last one many months ago when I was enamored with the word “logorrhea” because I felt I had finally hit upon my true diagnosis, and because it is one of those words that so clearly SEEMS to mean what it does, in fact, mean. Sadly, plain ol’ “logorrhea” was already taken.
Indecision dogs my every step. 
Hey! Perhaps “logorrhea” or one of its variants is available on wordpress. And hey, you-know-who –> you know exactly what I mean when I say there are far too many decisions here.
*****
UPDATE: Haha!! I just created the perfect one, I think: http://thelogorrheic.wordpress.com/
UPDATE2 because I’m a dork: Then there’s myblahg.wordpress.com. 
Now it may be that *that’s* my favorite.
Internet limitations
DISCLAIMER: I’m capable of better, but uninterested in edits and/or revision (or deletions) tonight.
In July 2006, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent surgery, followed by radiation treatment (during which she went to work every single day). Her prognosis was excellent and the likelihood of a recurrence seemed slim. Today she called to tell me she is having a third (third? Why a third??) mammogram on Friday for a lump in her breast, the status of which seems certainly to be a tumor.
It is more than an understatement to say that I love the Internet. Despite all the misinformation (and disinformation) out there, it is a most staggering resource. Unfortunately, there are times when I can’t find just what I want to find, and I find it inordinately frustrating. I’m spoiled by the fact that most often I can find out what I want to know in 30 seconds.
I just spent a good thirty minutes trying to find some very specific information about breast cancer. I want to attribute my failure to the limits of the Internet, but it’s more accurate to blame it on the limits of the human ability to know the future. :/ The truth is that what I want to know is simply not knowable right now.
You can probably guess all the nuances of what I wanted to know and the analyses of which scenarios, so I won’t go into those, but here are some of the Google searches I did:
- Breast cancer recurrence
- Breast cancer recurrence in other breast
- Breast cancer local vs. regional recurrence significance
- what does it mean to have a new tumor after breast cancer treatment
After clicking and reading several links, I finally stopped there. Clearly, the search I actually meant would not yield the pertinent and exact information I wanted:
Does my mom have breast cancer again, is it treatable, what will happen with her job, finances, etc., and after all the bullshit surgery (mastectomy this time) radiation and chemo, is my mom going to die from breast cancer after all? And how will I ever convey to my daughter the amazing Manya she had for such a brief time?
It actually makes me laugh when I read it that way, but it still scares the fuck out of me.
Cancer was quite the party crasher in my family in 2006. In January, my sister-in-law was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and an estimated 6 months to live. During the same week in July, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and Terry, my biological mother, was diagnosed with lung cancer and liver cancer. Without going into the long stories of each case, I can summarize the experiences in this way: Cancer sucks (which you already knew), and the toughest aspects of dealing with it – at least as a family member and not its direct victim – are the waiting and the uncertainty. Everything is based on statistics and generalities. There are assurances and well-reasoned predictions; there are, however, no guarantees.
I suppose this is no surprise to anyone, not even to me. But there was little I wanted more than a definitive timeline – a promise. Even when it came to the terminal diagnoses (of Terry and Patsy, my SIL), an advance certified date of death seemed it might be better than the limbo.
I suppose the good news is that my searches and blog tonight are simply an indulgence for the wee panicked part of me, rather than unreserved and whole-hearted surrender to the unthinking and panic. The greater part of me knows, “Let’s just wait and see what happens. You don’t have control anyway.” And control, of course, is what I’m truly seeking in information and in the guaranteed and the concrete.
I told my mother today, “It’s OK. It’s probably nothing. Really. We’ll just do one foot in front of the other, and then find out that it’s just benign, just like most of them are.” Even as I repeated myself to her, a part of me was wondering who I was trying to reassure. It was just so obvious.
But it’s probably nothing. Really.
P.S. Boy, I’m a wordy girl. J
One of my earliest novels
One of my earlier novels
Before I knew how to tell time, my mother gave me a timer. When she wanted me to come home by a specific time, she would turn its dial to whatever amount of time she was allowing me. It was about the size of a half-dollar, and she had somehow attached it to a shoestring. I would either put it in my pocket, or wear it around my neck. (Yes. A timer on a shoestring around my neck. My dorkdom is born…). When my time was up, it made a loud buzzing sound as it turned back to 0. Mostly what I remember about it is that I worried that I would lose it and not know when to go home.
In an attempt to manage my anxiety around the Timer Issue, I did what any other square-peggish child would do: I wrote about it. Thus begat one of my earliest novels (though not the first).
I think it’s both funny and odd that I had this compulsion, or whatever it is, to make sense of things through writing for as long as I can remember. I still do this in my spiral-bound notebooks, and invariably I find clarity in the writing process itself. I write other “types” of things, too, but they come from different places and give me different flavors of satisfaction.
I’m also not sure what it *really* did for me at the time. Clearly, well-crafted as the plot was, the tension-ridden climax could never play out in real life quite that way. Perhaps what was beneficial was just the creative process in action, and my own anxiety provided inspiration, as it would for any writer.
My early love for books is also revealed, I think, because I made separate pages and stapled them together into a book, rather than just writing this gripping story on a single page. I should mention that this followed my first novel, The Little Boy Who Had an Elbow in His Ear (the inspiration for which I suspect was largely plagiarized) and the philosophical non-fiction work, All About People.
Age 5-ish (Easy now! My mom saved it!)
Mind Dust and Junk in the Attic
No, not THAT junk.
In “real life,” I say “mind dust” to refer to the irrelevant (to anything) thoughts that accumulate in my mind. I’ve always said that I have a lot of words in me, and a lot of thoughts. Not necessarily interesting words or important thoughts. Just . . . thoughts, images, ideas. “Things” I need to say…. Connections between ideas or images or thoughts or symbols…. Words that I really want to get out of me and possibly even into someone else.
I like to think, which is a good thing, because I do it a lot; more than once I’ve been told it’s “too much.” Again, not necessarily productive thinking, but aimless wondering and curiosity and desire. Seventy-four thoughts at once. I don’t know if writing here is about seeking validation or acknowledgement? Connection or commiseration? Perhaps it’s just run-of-the-mill narcissism, or even exhibitionism.
The value of my terminology is best illustrated as such: “mind dust” is two words, while my explanation of it contained 109. Or so. You know. If you were going to obsessively or perfectionistic-ish-ic-esque-ally count them.
TRYING to stay on track here…. *sigh* My mind also has an attic, which is where the mind dust tends to settle. In there, I toss all of those unrelated yet interesting tidbits I encounter, on which much of the mind dust collects. I want to keep all of it – the artifacts and the dust alike – but there really isn’t room for everything. This is partly why I write. OK, well – truth. Sometimes I write. It’s most certainly not because I enjoy it. It’s more that I am compelled to do it. But that’s a story for another day, kids.
So I suppose this blog (which I’ve considered doing for, oh, say three years??) is another way for me to do my spring cleaning, to cheese up the metaphor right good. Sure, I can continue to fill my spiral-bound notebooks with my ramblings. Yet . . . here I am.
Sadly, I can continue in this way for some time, so I will just pull the plug while I still can.
Stay tuned for more inanity as the reasons for my screen name make themselves apparent…
And yeah. I over-use and abuse the helpful and considerate ellipsis.
