Life goes on

[gwyn]

Sis_r update: Her first chemo treatment is scheduled for next weekend, and even though a person in my writing group offered me his air miles, which I hate to take, it doesn't look like I can get down there because of holiday blackout dates. Which means I may have to wait and go down for her second treatment, but that's when they're talking about possibly doing that genetic test to see whether I have or will get this cancer anyway so maybe that's okay. I hate not being there, knowing how terribly sick she's going to be, and knowing that it will be easier for her to be sick with her sister than with her friends, but I also know I will cry and be sad and hopeless, and that annoys her. She said I can't cry because I have to be her rock, but I am about as un-rocklike as a person can be, especially in regard to chemo. I know these chemicals intimately, and though they will be using taxol, they'll also be using one that ravaged my mother, so I doubt I could escape caregiving without turning into a wreck. She often thinks I'm an idiot because I shut down and become stonefaced when I'm terrified or sad; I'm constantly watching and assessing, which she takes as inaction and stupidity or just being a depresso dolt. So I doubt we'll be able to get through it without conflict no matter how hard I try -- she wasn't around for mom's chemo treatments, and I was at every one, so even though she understands what happens, she doesn't know it as well as I do. Chemo seems like the most barbaric "therapy" in the universe, and I just hate knowing that this is the one accepted way for us to arrest cancer cells -- with all our knowledge, we still can't find a way to do it without destroying the rest of the human being along with it? Arg.

And unfortunately dad_r is into shut-down mode too, and he doesn't want to talk about it, except to talk about going down there which I am trying to discourage him from doing. Evil twin was always their favorite, really, until I got saddled with the job of Good Daughter after she moved away, and even then, it was always her as the golden girl of the two of us. My parents got her, but they didn't get me much, and it took a long time to come to grips with that. So anyway, she's home now and was pretty happy to take a shower; but she's got this creepy thing in her chest that they will be putting the chemicals into, kind of like a shunt, and it gives me the freaking willies just thinking about it.

The nice thing about feeling like I don't want to vid? I'm able to find more energy for writing, and am about two days' worth of work away from being finished writing the new chapter of Measure of a Man. It's another boring yak yak yak chapter, but I'm getting closer to the action set pieces. But the self-editing is the hard part. And I also have a kind of bystander POV Fast and the Furious thing that is percolating in my tiny brain (just for you, X!), and then a much longer, possibly novel or novella length F&F story, complete with reVENge (TM, Lezlie Conch). I've always wanted to do another good reVENge story, which I haven't really had a chance to since Careful What You Wish For in The Professionals.

Last night I had the most wonderful dinner I think possible: fresh mozzarella and tomatoes fresh from sherrold's garden chopped up and tossed with minced fresh basil. I know some people put vinaigrette or flavored olive oils or whatnot on this kind of salad, but why? The taste is sheer perfection without anything extra -- there's bright tomatoes, intense basil, and the creamy salty mozzarella, so what more could you need? Then for dessert some fresh figs (god, I love fresh fig season!) and a small piece of manchego cheese. The only way that could get better would be if I had a good wine, but I never drink wine at home (sorry, wolffire!) because they don't make good wine for single people who don't drink a lot in one sitting. Why is it only crap wines that come in spinster-sized bottles? There's an untapped market here, if you ask me.