In an amazing stroke of good fortune, Jared will be visiting this coming week! He has not one but two interviews for jobs that interest him, so he'll be coming up Monday and staying until Friday. :-) I'm so excited; I really hope these work out for him, because if they do, it means he will be back in town! You have no idea how eagerly I await that. This was a very spur of the moment trip, so I don't have a lot of time to plan fun things to do. At the very least, I hope you'll all come to BSCF this week because he'd love to see and spend time with everyone.
Just two more days until he comes!
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Finally telling people about this
Since this has been one of the heavier issues weighing on me for the last... God, has it been a year and a half?... and it rather harshly intruded on a public event of my life recently, I think it might be time to actually do a post on it.
To lay it straight out-- my mother has lung cancer. There is a tumor on her lung that has required three rounds of chemotheraphy to manage, and has drastically affected her life and health. And in turn, it has drastically affected mine. This is one of the most major authors of the intermittent depression of my recent life.
We are not people who talk in public about our personal problems. For a long time, desiring to avoid the "cancer patient" label and be constantly treated with pity, my mom didn't want anyone knowing about it. Additionally, being the kind of person who usually doesn't feel better talking about things, it was easier for me not to share it with anyone. But at this point my mom is okay with people knowing, and it has had enough of an effect on my life that it might be good to explain a few things.
My mother is one of those people you might call Practically Perfect. You know what I mean by that-- one of those nice, sweet, smart, pretty, good at everything, gosh-darn-likeable people that seems to be able to do it all and be an unusually wonderful human being. She's massively talented. Anything that requires creativity and artistic talent, she was incredibly good at-- drawing, painting, sculpture, metalworking, graphic design, interior design, sewing, cooking, costume design, set design, any visual art you can think of, she knows how to do and has done at some point well.
She's unbelievably strong. My dad always worked long hours and traveled a great deal, so she shouldered a lot of the burdens that come with that. For most of my life, she worked at an art teacher at my school, did most of the day-to-day taking care of us kids, and had a fantastic dinner on the table every night. She takes care of everyone and is totally selfless. When my grandmother developed Alzheimer's and a host of physical medical problems, Mom took on the enormous burden of taking care of her herself, and even through the worst of that time she shielded the family from the effects. Never in my memory has she ever let me down. She's so positive, so full of hope and faith-- I've always wish I were that way with that kind of vitality, I who have always been more inclined to shutdown and scorched earth.
And of course she's beautiful. (Being me, of course I have to mention this.) If you think I'm at all nice to look at, everything I've got I got from my mom, and I'm nothing compared to how pretty she was when she was my age. Golden blonde hair, jade green eyes, perfect figure, gorgeous face. And even as she got older, she always stayed beautiful-- for whatever life stage she was in she was always remarkably good-looking and never let herself go. With exercise and care, she managed to stay a size two even at the age of fifty-five. As a person who is mortally afraid of aging badly and/or ungracefully, I mention this out of fervent hope that I will resemble her in that respect as well.
My mother, in short, is amazing. As a person who struggles with being positive and kind and generous of spirit, I am in awe. I am unbelievably lucky to have her.
Practically Perfect though she may be, I know there are a couple of things about her that aren't. Like most people who pay perhaps an inordinate amount of attention to little things about presentation and impression, she is terrified of being judged. When I think about it, it is kind of mind-blowing to me. How can anyone like her, who is so good in pretty much every way, be so concerned that people will find her lacking in any way? That's her major one. Her other flaw, it turns out, was cigarettes.
I am in no way exaggerating when I say it was not until a year and a half ago that I had any idea that my mother was a smoker. Growing up, my brother and I saw zero evidence of it. No one saw any evidence of it. The only person who knew was my dad. She had always decried them as a disgusting, unhealthy habit that we were never to consider indulging in. She kept them secret because she was ashamed that she needed them.
It's hard being perfect, of course. It's hard to handle so many responsibilities and stay as pleasant, gorgeous, and positive as she always was. Strong as she is, the stress got to her. She didn't let that stress ever make her let anyone down, or change her in general very good disposition, but she used cigarettes to help her keep an even keel. To her it was a failing, something disgusting that she thought would make her seem like less to people. So, in a behavior that is eerily similar to my own inclinations when I'm ashamed of something, she hid it from everyone.
You know how I finally found out about this? She told me. She told me two New Years ago, because a few weeks before Christmas she'd started coughing blood, and her doctor diagnosed her with lung cancer. Fifty-five years old, healthy in every way but one, and she had cancer.
It's been hard. Chemo is a terrible thing, for those of you who haven't seen the effects of it. Between the two courses of chemo and the accompanying stereoids and medications, she has lost her hair, gained sixty pounds, and had to endure many weeks of nausea, sleepiness, weakness, and occasional bad reactions to the drugs. She has worked hard to keep her life as normal as possible, but she doesn't have the strength, energy, and fitness to keep doing things exactly as she used to. She just can't be as perfect anymore.
You might wonder why I bother to tell you how great and perfect my mom is. It seems to imply a question of deserts-- like, how can my mother get cancer, she's too good, she doesn't deserve it. Of course she doesn't deserve it, no one deserves cancer. But it's really tough to deal with the notion that the woman had practically one flaw, and for that one flaw she is punished so severely.
Her attitude is largely hopeful and positive, with naturally a handful of lapses here and there. She's afraid, as we all are. There's a very distinct chance that she will have to just keep going in and out of chemo fighting it off a little before it comes back again until it finally kills her. There's a chance that she will never be healthy and free of the treatments again until she dies. And of course, she could just die. The treatments could not work at all and the tumor could just kill her. It's terrifying. Terrifying for her that goes through it, and terrifying for me who might lose her. In addition, she struggles with her body now-- someone who has always been so beautiful she never before had to --torn between being very unhappy at the loss of her hair and figure and ashamed to care about it when more important things like life and health are at stake. But mostly she is dealing, keeping high spirits and not in the least bitter. All my life I never ceased marveling at how she never loses hope, but now more than ever.
I wonder if I might end up the same way. Her mother, my grandmother, had lung cancer too. Yes, they were both smokers, but my grandmother was in her late seventies when she got it; my mom is in her fifties. And apparently a quarter of lung cancer patients never smoked. Clearly there's at least some genetic predisposition in my family. I start thinking bad, crazy thoughts, like I should never get married, so nobody has to deal with my falling apart, and I should never have kids, so I don't condemn them to cancer either. I am terrified of becoming helpless from a sickness. And bad enough that the condition is life-threatening and at times debilitating-- it also taps into my very personal fear of age physically destroying you. Cancer harmed her body and stole her looks. If it can happen to a woman as beautiful as my mom, what would happen to me? She's so much better a person than I am, and therefore does not NEED that beauty as desperately as I do, but still, I can see the change making her sad. I think of losing my hair and gaining sixty pounds and I seize up inside. And as I said, I don't have Mom's hopeful, positive nature. Lacking that bright vitality that keeps you from despair, how would I ever maintain the will to live that you can't survive something like this without?
Things in my life have seemed to be piling up in a lot of ways, but this is pretty much the worst. It has been going on long enough that I have more or less found ways to live with it. But it wears on me, and if I have been sadder or angrier in recent history, a great deal of it has come from this.
To lay it straight out-- my mother has lung cancer. There is a tumor on her lung that has required three rounds of chemotheraphy to manage, and has drastically affected her life and health. And in turn, it has drastically affected mine. This is one of the most major authors of the intermittent depression of my recent life.
We are not people who talk in public about our personal problems. For a long time, desiring to avoid the "cancer patient" label and be constantly treated with pity, my mom didn't want anyone knowing about it. Additionally, being the kind of person who usually doesn't feel better talking about things, it was easier for me not to share it with anyone. But at this point my mom is okay with people knowing, and it has had enough of an effect on my life that it might be good to explain a few things.
My mother is one of those people you might call Practically Perfect. You know what I mean by that-- one of those nice, sweet, smart, pretty, good at everything, gosh-darn-likeable people that seems to be able to do it all and be an unusually wonderful human being. She's massively talented. Anything that requires creativity and artistic talent, she was incredibly good at-- drawing, painting, sculpture, metalworking, graphic design, interior design, sewing, cooking, costume design, set design, any visual art you can think of, she knows how to do and has done at some point well.
She's unbelievably strong. My dad always worked long hours and traveled a great deal, so she shouldered a lot of the burdens that come with that. For most of my life, she worked at an art teacher at my school, did most of the day-to-day taking care of us kids, and had a fantastic dinner on the table every night. She takes care of everyone and is totally selfless. When my grandmother developed Alzheimer's and a host of physical medical problems, Mom took on the enormous burden of taking care of her herself, and even through the worst of that time she shielded the family from the effects. Never in my memory has she ever let me down. She's so positive, so full of hope and faith-- I've always wish I were that way with that kind of vitality, I who have always been more inclined to shutdown and scorched earth.
And of course she's beautiful. (Being me, of course I have to mention this.) If you think I'm at all nice to look at, everything I've got I got from my mom, and I'm nothing compared to how pretty she was when she was my age. Golden blonde hair, jade green eyes, perfect figure, gorgeous face. And even as she got older, she always stayed beautiful-- for whatever life stage she was in she was always remarkably good-looking and never let herself go. With exercise and care, she managed to stay a size two even at the age of fifty-five. As a person who is mortally afraid of aging badly and/or ungracefully, I mention this out of fervent hope that I will resemble her in that respect as well.
My mother, in short, is amazing. As a person who struggles with being positive and kind and generous of spirit, I am in awe. I am unbelievably lucky to have her.
Practically Perfect though she may be, I know there are a couple of things about her that aren't. Like most people who pay perhaps an inordinate amount of attention to little things about presentation and impression, she is terrified of being judged. When I think about it, it is kind of mind-blowing to me. How can anyone like her, who is so good in pretty much every way, be so concerned that people will find her lacking in any way? That's her major one. Her other flaw, it turns out, was cigarettes.
I am in no way exaggerating when I say it was not until a year and a half ago that I had any idea that my mother was a smoker. Growing up, my brother and I saw zero evidence of it. No one saw any evidence of it. The only person who knew was my dad. She had always decried them as a disgusting, unhealthy habit that we were never to consider indulging in. She kept them secret because she was ashamed that she needed them.
It's hard being perfect, of course. It's hard to handle so many responsibilities and stay as pleasant, gorgeous, and positive as she always was. Strong as she is, the stress got to her. She didn't let that stress ever make her let anyone down, or change her in general very good disposition, but she used cigarettes to help her keep an even keel. To her it was a failing, something disgusting that she thought would make her seem like less to people. So, in a behavior that is eerily similar to my own inclinations when I'm ashamed of something, she hid it from everyone.
You know how I finally found out about this? She told me. She told me two New Years ago, because a few weeks before Christmas she'd started coughing blood, and her doctor diagnosed her with lung cancer. Fifty-five years old, healthy in every way but one, and she had cancer.
It's been hard. Chemo is a terrible thing, for those of you who haven't seen the effects of it. Between the two courses of chemo and the accompanying stereoids and medications, she has lost her hair, gained sixty pounds, and had to endure many weeks of nausea, sleepiness, weakness, and occasional bad reactions to the drugs. She has worked hard to keep her life as normal as possible, but she doesn't have the strength, energy, and fitness to keep doing things exactly as she used to. She just can't be as perfect anymore.
You might wonder why I bother to tell you how great and perfect my mom is. It seems to imply a question of deserts-- like, how can my mother get cancer, she's too good, she doesn't deserve it. Of course she doesn't deserve it, no one deserves cancer. But it's really tough to deal with the notion that the woman had practically one flaw, and for that one flaw she is punished so severely.
Her attitude is largely hopeful and positive, with naturally a handful of lapses here and there. She's afraid, as we all are. There's a very distinct chance that she will have to just keep going in and out of chemo fighting it off a little before it comes back again until it finally kills her. There's a chance that she will never be healthy and free of the treatments again until she dies. And of course, she could just die. The treatments could not work at all and the tumor could just kill her. It's terrifying. Terrifying for her that goes through it, and terrifying for me who might lose her. In addition, she struggles with her body now-- someone who has always been so beautiful she never before had to --torn between being very unhappy at the loss of her hair and figure and ashamed to care about it when more important things like life and health are at stake. But mostly she is dealing, keeping high spirits and not in the least bitter. All my life I never ceased marveling at how she never loses hope, but now more than ever.
I wonder if I might end up the same way. Her mother, my grandmother, had lung cancer too. Yes, they were both smokers, but my grandmother was in her late seventies when she got it; my mom is in her fifties. And apparently a quarter of lung cancer patients never smoked. Clearly there's at least some genetic predisposition in my family. I start thinking bad, crazy thoughts, like I should never get married, so nobody has to deal with my falling apart, and I should never have kids, so I don't condemn them to cancer either. I am terrified of becoming helpless from a sickness. And bad enough that the condition is life-threatening and at times debilitating-- it also taps into my very personal fear of age physically destroying you. Cancer harmed her body and stole her looks. If it can happen to a woman as beautiful as my mom, what would happen to me? She's so much better a person than I am, and therefore does not NEED that beauty as desperately as I do, but still, I can see the change making her sad. I think of losing my hair and gaining sixty pounds and I seize up inside. And as I said, I don't have Mom's hopeful, positive nature. Lacking that bright vitality that keeps you from despair, how would I ever maintain the will to live that you can't survive something like this without?
Things in my life have seemed to be piling up in a lot of ways, but this is pretty much the worst. It has been going on long enough that I have more or less found ways to live with it. But it wears on me, and if I have been sadder or angrier in recent history, a great deal of it has come from this.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Without getting into the thought process behind this...
Because I am self-absorbed and vain, and because blendedchaitea* is a kind, non-judgmental friend who is handy with a camera, an experiment:
Totally not inspired by an image from a Gap ad featuring Sarah Jessica Parker. Nope. Nu-huh. Nope.
I am also enjoying learning how to use Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0.
Totally not inspired by an image from a Gap ad featuring Sarah Jessica Parker. Nope. Nu-huh. Nope.
I am also enjoying learning how to use Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0.
So much fun I'm exhausted
Yowza, what a weekend. My play opened to satisfaction from director and cast alike. On Saturday before the show I had a lovely afternoon with bronzite*, including getting to meet his dad and take a nice leisurely walk around Medfield. There was a pretty heavy rainful during call time, so we elected to go into our rainspace, which at least had the benefit of no bugs and air conditioning. To my pleasure I saw that Bernie, laurion*, and Amanda were in attendance as well, and though we didn't get the impression the audience totally followed this somewhat dense and talky play, we the cast were pleased.
Sunday was the pre-show picnic. I must say, it was one of the best-planned picnics I've ever been to, and the company was great. I mentioned I've had bad experiences with potlucks in the past, so when I discovered that everyone had brought something not only delicious but often more elaborate than they'd initially offered, I was floored with delight. We had so many delicious dishes, and it was a good thing too, because I think we had fifteen-- electric_d_monk*, captainecchi*, natbudin*, Michael, Bernie, blendedchaitea*, readerofposts*, Emily, Marissa, Marissa's boyfriend Matt, morethings5*, in_water_writ*, John, Walter, am I forgetting anyone? --lovely people in attendance. It was a somewhat eclectic group, with friends from several different parts of my life, but I think even so everyone got along and had a good time. I unfortunately had to withdraw for a phone call related to a serious family issue (it may be time to finally make a post explaining what's going on there) but I thoroughly enjoyed what time I had with everyone. And the fact that my gang understood the show well enough to laugh at appropriate times made a huge improvement with the audience! Yay for my smart, Shakespeare-getting friends!
And yesterday I was fortunate enough to get to see youareverysmall, my dearest friend from back home, while she and her girlfriend were in the Boston area. I had them over for dinner-- they're vegetarian, so I busted out my cooking-for-veggies standby, the artichoke pie --and got to enjoy her company and meet her girlfriend Samantha, who I am pleased to say is cute, smart, stylish, and extremely well-spoken. I approve. ;-) They very politely listened to me talk about geeky things, and a lovely evening was certainly had.
Now I am weary. I look forward to spending the next several days doing nothing at all. I really need the downtime, after as crammed as schedule as I've had for the last two weeks. And Jared has an interview today. I have my fingers crossed, and anything else crossable on me, and I'm saying a little prayer for him.
Sunday was the pre-show picnic. I must say, it was one of the best-planned picnics I've ever been to, and the company was great. I mentioned I've had bad experiences with potlucks in the past, so when I discovered that everyone had brought something not only delicious but often more elaborate than they'd initially offered, I was floored with delight. We had so many delicious dishes, and it was a good thing too, because I think we had fifteen-- electric_d_monk*, captainecchi*, natbudin*, Michael, Bernie, blendedchaitea*, readerofposts*, Emily, Marissa, Marissa's boyfriend Matt, morethings5*, in_water_writ*, John, Walter, am I forgetting anyone? --lovely people in attendance. It was a somewhat eclectic group, with friends from several different parts of my life, but I think even so everyone got along and had a good time. I unfortunately had to withdraw for a phone call related to a serious family issue (it may be time to finally make a post explaining what's going on there) but I thoroughly enjoyed what time I had with everyone. And the fact that my gang understood the show well enough to laugh at appropriate times made a huge improvement with the audience! Yay for my smart, Shakespeare-getting friends!
And yesterday I was fortunate enough to get to see youareverysmall, my dearest friend from back home, while she and her girlfriend were in the Boston area. I had them over for dinner-- they're vegetarian, so I busted out my cooking-for-veggies standby, the artichoke pie --and got to enjoy her company and meet her girlfriend Samantha, who I am pleased to say is cute, smart, stylish, and extremely well-spoken. I approve. ;-) They very politely listened to me talk about geeky things, and a lovely evening was certainly had.
Now I am weary. I look forward to spending the next several days doing nothing at all. I really need the downtime, after as crammed as schedule as I've had for the last two weeks. And Jared has an interview today. I have my fingers crossed, and anything else crossable on me, and I'm saying a little prayer for him.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Girl friends
This comic is one of the few things that can make me wistful about the fact that I have so few close female friends:
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Busy keeps me going
Had a lovely dinner party last night in the charming company of natbudin, captainecchi, and electric_d_monk. I settled on making Italian crusted pork chops as the main dish. I breaded them according to my mom's recipe, using a mixture of panko, parmesan, and Italian herbs, then threw them in a saute pan to brown. To my dismay, all the breading came off in the pan, probably because I forgot to flour the chops before the dipped them in the egg mixture. So when I placed the chops in the baking dish to finish in the oven, I scraped the lost breading out of the pan and sprinkled it over the meat. I then made up a new panko-cheese-herb mixture and shook it over them to create a new crust. This I finished with a drizzle of melted butter, then baked. They came out with a nice golden crust that way, and the slightly more well-done bits that browned in the saute pan complexified the flavor. I would like to try this same recipe doing it the way I'm supposed to sometime, but I liked how it came out even with my mistake. Also, the company was lovely, and did a great deal to make me feel better after the stress of the last few weeks. Must be certain to feed them well on a regular basis, to encourage them to make the long drive out this way again!
Was very productive this morning. I put the chicken for the picnic tomorrow in bags of marinade in preparation for cooking, cleaned the whole kitchen including mopping the floor, and folded and put away a load of laundry. Shortly I will be leaving for Medfield to have lunch with bronzite before opening day of my show. He sadly cannot make the picnic, so we'll spend some time together today instead. I am looking forward to putting on our first real performance, though I am quite certain I will crash afterward. My plan is to pour all my energy into a good performance, then go home and chill, doing nothing more strenuous than chopping vegetables for potato salad for tomorrow. If I can make it through those things satisfactorily, it will have been a very good day.
Was very productive this morning. I put the chicken for the picnic tomorrow in bags of marinade in preparation for cooking, cleaned the whole kitchen including mopping the floor, and folded and put away a load of laundry. Shortly I will be leaving for Medfield to have lunch with bronzite before opening day of my show. He sadly cannot make the picnic, so we'll spend some time together today instead. I am looking forward to putting on our first real performance, though I am quite certain I will crash afterward. My plan is to pour all my energy into a good performance, then go home and chill, doing nothing more strenuous than chopping vegetables for potato salad for tomorrow. If I can make it through those things satisfactorily, it will have been a very good day.
Friday, July 23, 2010
My show postcard
One of the actors in our show is board member of the Gazebo Players, and has made up publicity postcards featuring all of us actors to send out to friends and family to get the word out. A pretty cool idea, I think. Here is mine:
A sneak preview of me as an indignant Longaville. I do in fact look like a boy there. A nerdy, scrawny little boy, but a boy nonetheless. Isn't the Navarre University shirt cool? Another girl in the show is one of the costumers, and she made it. Nice!
A sneak preview of me as an indignant Longaville. I do in fact look like a boy there. A nerdy, scrawny little boy, but a boy nonetheless. Isn't the Navarre University shirt cool? Another girl in the show is one of the costumers, and she made it. Nice!
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Too many run throughs
Wow, I'm suddenly really glad I got to see Shaken Up Shakespeare when I did. All the shows are sold out from on out! Congratulations to oakenguy* and all of his castmates-- I know I really enjoyed it, and was very impressed with the acting and production.
Love's Labor's Lost rehearsals have been very heavy over the past several days. We have blasted through the whole show four times already this week, and we're doing another run tonight. I think we're in pretty damn good shape by now, but the location for tonight is our rain space, so Shelby wants to make certain we're adapted to it in case we end up having to move there. I could honestly use a night without having to be on, but at least this is the last run through before we open on Saturday. Right now I'm just praying that it doesn't rain during the picnic on Sunday. I've put too much planning into it already.
Gah, brain mushy. I've spent most of today processing expense reports, and the work, she is meticulous and tedious. I look forward to when I can relax with my cookbooks and choose some dishes to make tomorrow night. It occurred to me actually after Jared's suggestion that this might be a good opportunity to make pork, since no one present is unable to eat it. That might be really nice. My goal is to have a shopping list written up by the end of the day, and to take care of supply-buying on my way home from work tomorrow. Then shall the cookening commence.
Love's Labor's Lost rehearsals have been very heavy over the past several days. We have blasted through the whole show four times already this week, and we're doing another run tonight. I think we're in pretty damn good shape by now, but the location for tonight is our rain space, so Shelby wants to make certain we're adapted to it in case we end up having to move there. I could honestly use a night without having to be on, but at least this is the last run through before we open on Saturday. Right now I'm just praying that it doesn't rain during the picnic on Sunday. I've put too much planning into it already.
Gah, brain mushy. I've spent most of today processing expense reports, and the work, she is meticulous and tedious. I look forward to when I can relax with my cookbooks and choose some dishes to make tomorrow night. It occurred to me actually after Jared's suggestion that this might be a good opportunity to make pork, since no one present is unable to eat it. That might be really nice. My goal is to have a shopping list written up by the end of the day, and to take care of supply-buying on my way home from work tomorrow. Then shall the cookening commence.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Wait, I know how to cook?
It occurs to me that I haven't done any cooking in weeks now. I hope I still remember how, because I've got quite a bit to do for this coming weekend. During the weekend of Labor Wars, natbudin* and I made a series of bets about what would happen during the game, with the understanding that the winner would make dinner for the loser. Nat won a fair number more of the bets than I did, so I have the happy task of hosting him this Friday evening. And, because I've been meaning to have them over for ages, I am having captainecchi* and electric_d_monk* over that night as well. I don't believe I've ever cooked for any of them before, so I am looking forward to taking this as an opportunity to show off. I haven't decided on the menu yet; I will do that today between work and rehearsal.
For the picnic on Sunday there doesn't really seem to be any kind of "main dish" being brought, so I think I'm going to step up and put one together. The guest list is around fifteen people at this point, so I need to figure out a dish I can make in large quantities that isn't excessively expensive. My first thought was chicken marbella, mostly because it is very delicious and requires nothing more complicated than marinating it in a bag the night before, laying it out in a pan, and baking it in the oven. Still, it requires some kind of fancy ingredients, which could push up the cost. Maybe if I can get someone to go in on it with me, it'll be a little bit more workable.
For the picnic on Sunday there doesn't really seem to be any kind of "main dish" being brought, so I think I'm going to step up and put one together. The guest list is around fifteen people at this point, so I need to figure out a dish I can make in large quantities that isn't excessively expensive. My first thought was chicken marbella, mostly because it is very delicious and requires nothing more complicated than marinating it in a bag the night before, laying it out in a pan, and baking it in the oven. Still, it requires some kind of fancy ingredients, which could push up the cost. Maybe if I can get someone to go in on it with me, it'll be a little bit more workable.
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