There's this dog on our street

who very well might have been born the year Jason and I started dating. She might be older. We don't know her name, only that she's female. She lives in the house that lords above ours, high on the hill and has to hump down the driveway on thin legs and bony hips. Her eyes are black buttons and she's missing patches of fur--kids can honestly describe her as the color pink. Her blocky head is oversized and her neck doesn't hold it well, so she always looks guilty. She has large skin growths, the most notable one swings from her chest and is the size of a hand.

When contractors see her, they say, "My God!" They have all been dog-lovers and always whisper in stricken tones, "That dog is old."

The dog is a total pain in the ass.

Every day she makes her appearance to shit in our yard. Or our neighbor's yard. Or if she can't make it across the street, then it's directly on the street so that cars drive through it and kids swerve around it on their bikes. A couple days ago, Nigel slipped on it, creating a big brown smear. The dog is average-sized, but her production is impressive, perhaps from an ineffective digestive tract.

Whenever I see her, I have to wave my arms because she cannot hear. She's timid and doesn't trust strangers. If I'm successful, she moves her frail body onto the base of her driveway and relieves herself there before wending her way up to the safety of her home. It feels like a sheepish victory because the dog is old but I really don't like dealing with her craps.

Three days ago, Jason tried to squeeze one final trash bag into our garbage bin. He was unsuccessful and decided to lay it outside next to the bin. Among other things, the trash contained the remnants of a celebratory meal that we had mistakenly forgotten to compost and handfuls of tissues that I had used to blow my nose after my fourth infusion. The next day when I took out the recycling, I noticed the trash had been eaten through, garbage strewn about. And then I saw the telltale sign of our daily visitor.

"Oh no," I breathed.

The old dog's crap was everywhere. On top of the garbage, to the side of it and a trail leading out. To assist her digestion, she might have only been fed canned dog food for the past 10 years. But the evening before, she had had a buffet of spoiling crab and salmon, ketchup with horseradish, spicy broccoli, chocolate pudding and my filthy toxic tissues.

So to Jase, on what was supposed to be a quiet and uneventful night: happy 17th. Our wedding anniversary dinner might have just been the old dog's last.

My vagina can dissolve a penis.

Well, not exactly. And only for three days after an infusion. In fact, my entire body is toxic. For those three days I don't share utensils, drinking glasses, kiss anyone or even share a towel.

When I was in my mid-20's I lived with a set of roommates who--for whatever ridiculous fancy that strikes twenty-something minds--deemed that my vagina inspired corruption in others. If anyone as much as caught a glance of it, they would then engage in vice. Jason encouraged this idea (we had just begun dating). This might sound unusual but everything that's done in our 20's is unusual--especially those mid to late 20's when you have a little bit of income and a whole lot of freedom. Things can get downright strange.

But in middle-age, things aren't supposed to be strange. We're supposed to tend to our children, get involved in their schools, host dinners with friends, perhaps remodel a kitchen. We're supposed to coast. And, yes, divorce and cancer begin to appear as tragic and difficult as they are. But that's it. Nothing much out of the ordinary.

Unless you accidentally post a picture of your vagina on your cancer blog.

I was alerted to this fact by another school parent. A dad. And it's important to know that this dad is a self-proclaimed misanthrope. He has a hawkish gaze that bores through people. For six years, he's been an unsmiling fixture on the school playground during pick-up. We've volunteered together in classroom parties, pouring juice into cups and handing out cookies. We've scheduled playdates with our sons. I've told him several times that he scared the shit out of me when I first met him. And thankfully, he either pitied me in a moment of weakness or revealed his soft underbelly.

So what does a dad say to another school mom when he sees this sort of thing? How does a dad notify another man's wife that he's seen her vagina?

Like this:

re: photo #5 - do I need to send a dickpic in return, tit for twat as it were? cuz my phone doesn’t haz camera.

At first I didn't understand. It was an unusual email and I no longer behaved unusually. And then my stomach turned to ice. I quickly grabbed my laptop, flipped it open and reviewed the photos on my most recent blog post. And there was my vagina staring right back at me. It had been partying on the internet for 24 hours.

The picture wasn't entirely of my vagina. That would have been too obvious. My vagina was reflected in the right corner of the bathroom mirror. 

What can I say? I had recently had surgery with the robot. I wasn't wearing underwear because of my incisions. I might have been on drugs. Regardless, I didn't catch it. Jason is unfazed. 

"You secretly like this," he says. 

Um, no. But I'm coming out with it in case others had seen the photo on the internet, too. Besides, we've all seen a hamster burrow in it's nest. Now stick that hamster in-between a set of legs. There you go: you've seen my vagina and 20 million others. 

But apparently my vagina still has it going on. It can still make others engage in vice. For the misanthrope, not only did my vagina make him smile, it made him laugh and laugh.

Unbelievable.

And yet here I am again talking about a different kind of cancer.

My heart goes out to these families. And for them, this hauntingly beautiful song (ignore the weird David Lynch stuff).

This is getting ridiculous.


Officer Montrell Jackson, 32
Officer Matthew Gerald, 41
Sheriff's Deputy Brad Garafola, 45

When I was 10 years old,

I remember seeing a photo of a woman who was so striking, I gasped. It wasn't because she was
pretty--after all, she was the antithesis of my Barbies--but I was entranced.

Her boldness, her blackness, her androgyny.

Her absolute pride in who she was. 

I was spellbound.

I continued to seek new photos of this person, and each time I found another, I would stare. She was utterly captivating. She didn't batt her eyelashes, behave meekly or apologize. When I played with my Barbies, that's all they did.

I had heard part of the news last week but wasn't able to fully comprehend what had happened until I came out of my tunnel.

I had originally sent this song to the newly married husbands, but in addition to our LGBQ community, it needs to be dedicated to our African-Americans, people of color and police officers who serve with justice and keep us safe. Also, to Diamond Reynolds who showed the world something we needed to see.

When I first heard this song, I was in a club in Tokyo. I was with a group of Japanese, French, Italian, English, Swedish, Australian, Irish and American people. Some were gay, some were black, some were brown. We all went nuts, dancing and hugging each other's sweaty bodies--especially the French who sang along to the lyrics. At that moment, we all fell a little in love with this stunning woman.

Someone commented that she needs to be singing it from the mountaintops. I'll go one step further. She's on top of her mountain and stands 200 feet tall. She's God. And she's singing and crying to her children about love.

And she looks damn beautiful with barely any hair.

What is going on with our country???

Philando Castile, 32

Alton Sterling, 37

DPD Senior Cpl. Lorne Ahrens, 48
DPD Officer Michael Krol, 40,
DPD Sgt. Michael Smith, 55,
DART Officer Brent Thompson, 43
DPD Officer Patrick Zamarripa, 32

Infusion 3

It's Day 8 and I'm feeling great! Well, better. I'm officially out of the chemo tunnel but a bit beaten and nauseous. Always nauseous. Tolkien said it best: "I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."

This time around, I asked for different anti-nausea meds during my infusion. I received the same bag of Emend, three steroid tablets instead of the standard two, but the Zofran was replaced by something else. I didn't like the way Zofran made me feel, the constant headache and buzzy vibrations from deep within my gut. I was truly stuck inside Sylvia Plath's bell jar, looking at the world through curved glass, a hollow sound in my ears, disconnected from people. On Zofran, I would feel that way for four days.

And boy! Zofran's replacement definitely lifted that bell jar. The world glittered with clarity and edges were hard. Perhaps a bit too hard. For 36 hours I felt like total crap, couldn't stand up straight, and would zig zag to the toilet in the middle of the night (which means peeing four to six times). Wow. But my head was so much better. Even Jason noticed a difference. I'll do it again.

But it's Day 8!

This time around was also special because my playgroup mom and I were sitting in the chair on the same day (she at a different hospital, but nonetheless we were descending into the tunnel together). And this was her final chemo infusion--hooray! Since she has a different breast cancer from me, she will receive radiation, ongoing infusions of Herceptin (NOT chemo!) until March to treat the HER2-positive cancer and 10 years of Tamoxifen pills to suppress the estrogen-positive cancer. She will be forced into menopause.

I, however, got to dance upside-down with the robot. And since my breast cancer is Triple Negative, I get chemo, chemo and more chemo. Motherfucker. Lucky me. This is going to age me in so many ways.

But it's Day 8! And that's something to celebrate!

Some coincidences are eerie.

And others are a gift. 

When Nigel was a baby, I joined my first playgroup. The moms chatted and changed diapers. It was fun. When the playgroup disbanded, I joined a second one. It was during the summer and only lasted for those three glorious sunny months. The moms were busy, but we got along well. I'm still friends with some. 

But the third playgroup was special. During our first get-together at the Chinese Garden, we talked. And talked. We shared our vulnerabilities, our marriages and the difficulties of raising toddlers. We met on Wednesdays at 10, and drove a bit too quickly to to each other's homes. We continued to talk. There was always food: deviled eggs, homemade salsa with tortilla chips, freezer jam, mac-n-cheese, farm fresh berries and baked sweets. We always stayed too late, usually until two, sometimes two thirty, until one toddler would have a meltdown (Nigel) signaling naptime, and kids would be scooped up off the floor and latched back into their carseats. Through it all, we never stopped talking--or eating, for that matter. 

Kindergarten ended our weekly playgroup. But we found ways to get together. At least twice a year. At least that was the goal. The kids would pick up where they left off, and us four moms would either stand or sit--usually with food in our hands--and talk. Sometimes we cried, too.

And then one mom in our tribe of four told us that she had breast cancer. It was during spring break. And then I was diagnosed two months later. 

So this Fourth of July, we got our families together. The kids played. Of course there was food. And, naturally, we talked.

Nigel shaved my head

the day before my first infusion. My hair immediately started to grow back. And then it stopped, as if stunned by an early winter's frost. It had only grown for one week.

The morning after my second infusion, my hair began to fall out. I discovered this in the shower, but my head wasn't the first to notify me of the change. I was washing myself down there when my hand came up covered in my body's hair. Even though I knew this was going to happen, I wasn't prepared. Fascinated and unsettled, I slowly pulled clumps from all parts of my body: my womanhood, armpits, legs and head. I vigorously toweled off and saw bits of loose hair stuck everywhere to the towel.

I've always been okay with the prospect of going bald. I've worn super short Caesar haircuts and faux-hawks in the 90's and I'd always wanted to shave my head but never got around to doing it until my advanced age made the idea seem too young, that I would look less hip and more like, truthfully, a chemo patient. So here I am.

It took a week to lose the majority of my hair, but not all. The third infusion should do the trick. The roller brush was very helpful in collecting the bits of loose hair on my head. I just simply rolled it all over and it would come away coated in hair.

On another note, Nigel's double ear infection has almost completely healed. His left eardrum had ruptured and--whoa!--who needs a Yellowstone vacation when we had Nigel's bubbling, brothy ear? It was Old Faithful all over his bedding, pillowcase, t-shirt and neck. For days. At his doctors suggestion we put a cotton ball inside his ear and it would come out completely soaked by the yellowish brine. But he's turned a corner and is allowed to swim again. Hooray!

Let summer begin!