"Hate, Love, and Chicken"

On Hate

I had a nice day. I hope you did too.

I have something to say. If you are reading this and you have been shit-talking about how you want to eat at Chick-fil-A even more now that the place is so openly against treating homosexuals as equal human beings deserving of equal rights (via facebook, twitter, or your big flobbidy pie hole)... well, fuck you. I'm simply ashamed of you gay bashing Christians. Don't read my blog because I would not open myself up to you in person as I do here. Also, I don't think you deserve to bring up Jesus constantly if you can't show love and respect for all of your fellow human beings.

My awesome friend Allison has a better, and more diplomatic, response to this disgusting wave of hate and ignorance:

"I don't expect to change anyone's beliefs, and you can eat as many chicken sandwiches as you want, but it's disappointing to me that some still believe that certain groups should be discriminated against in any way. Free speech is not the issue, it's excluding an entire group of people or ostracizing them for their "preferences" (which I believe are not a choice). I think this will be a time in America's history that many of our children will look back on with embarrassment. And not necessarily because of a COO's comments, but because of the hateful conversation those comments have sparked."

I get too upset to express myself in the best manner, so I will end with some words of wisdom from a great man:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Best Medicine

I'm still feeling a bit mopey, without sufficient reason, but a good laugh always seems to help.

(Note: If you don't find the first video funny, there is decent chance you won't like the others either)

 

RIP Greg Giraldo

 

Ricky Gervais - Tips to avoid AIDS

Louis CK - Boys vs Girls

Sarah Silverman - Sell the Vatican, feed the world

Whitney Cummings - Construction workers

I haven't said much about myself at all in this post. I just don't feel like writing and there really isn't much to say. Just waiting. Waiting to find out if I'm in remission. Waiting to feel better and stronger. Waiting to find out if I will get to study abroad. Waiting to find out what I made on this test I took today for Intro to Computers. I'm an impatient person and all this waiting is giving me stress headaches.

Back to the comedians that make me feel better.

Are we there yet?

Today I was suppose to get my 8th and final treatment but my white blood cell count was too low. For now, my oncologist feels that getting this 8th treatment will do more harm than good. In 3 weeks, he will do a CT scan to see where I stand and if that looks good then no more chemo!!!! So cross your fingers for me!

SO DAMN CLOSE!

Chemo in the morning. 8:45 AM. If I can just make it through the next two weeks, everything will be ok. Then I'm practically done.

Also, if the kids outside would stop playing basketball so I can get some sleep, I might not lose my fucking mind.

I don't have the words to describe how I feel right now, which might be why I have a lot less readers lately. But I don't care about that. I just want this to be over with. The next two weeks will be the hardest yet and then I'll feel FREE.

Words don't even look the way they should now so I should probably go to sleep.

R is for Remission

Two days until my final treatment. I’m both excited to be done with chemo and dreading how awful I’m going to feel. Getting a bit depressed this last time scared me. Every time I’m down and out for even a day I worry that I will spiral out of control again. I keep reminding myself that I’m OK and that this will be over soon enough. It’s surprising how helpful it is for me to just say, “You’re OK” to myself. 

Soon I hope to hear Dr. Gore drop the R word: Remission. I suppose then I might need to change the name of this blog. I might consider not writing at all anymore since I don’t feel that I’m interesting here. I will have more going on in my life in the near future so I might have less time to dedicate to this blog. But I am planning something big though, which is the main reason I will probably continue posting! I have been trying to sort out the details of doing a semester abroad at Lund University in Lund, Sweden or at the Technical University of Dortmund in Dortmund, Germany during the spring or summer term of 2013! The school I choose (and whether I go at all) will depend on many different factors, including the financial aspect and getting everything prepared in time. I can only use the financial aid my university allocates to me if my university will accept the classes I choose to take abroad as transfer credits. 

These are the courses I was looking into for Lund U:

Religious Studies: Peace, for God's Sake. 

Violence, Gender and Culture - A Global Survey.

One World, One Morality.

Introduction to the Middle East.

I can’t plan so much for Dortmund because even though my university has an exchange agreements with them, I need to hear back from the coordinator of exchange programs at my university. Her father had heart surgery recently (but he is doing better) so I understand why I haven’t heard from her. I might just email the TU Dortmund myself to get some information. 

It’s nice to have something to get excited about and look forward to now that I’m coming to the end of this cancer chapter. I might be a restraining order to prevent future recurrences.

Maldita quimioterapia!

I hope you're smiling now!

This weekend was really successful in terms of cheering myself up. However it did put me behind in terms of classwork so I spend most of yesterday desperately trying to catch up, which was boring as hell and draining.  I’m going to beat cancer but microeconomics might be the death of me. 

Things I did to cheer myself up during the weekend:

-Watched the movie Oldboy. I thought it was a great movie but really gut-wrenching so maybe not the absolute best choice for lifting my spirits. 

-I had breakfast with my dad at The Cracker Barrel. He gave me a nice note a woman at the cancer center had told him was for me:

I have no idea who this person is or why she noticed me but the message was really sweet. Something so small can make a different in a stranger’s life (in this case I’m the stranger), especially if that person is going through a rough patch. 

-I took the time to do my makeup so I could feel attractive again (it’s been a struggle lately):

 

-My Swedish friend Daniel and I switched accounts on the dating site where we are both members. He is now in charge of my profile and I am in charge of his profile. This provided hours of entertainment, though that might sound silly. I found out it is difficult to be a male trying to communicate with women on a dating site. I wasn’t getting many replies to my messages. I read that, according to a study that may or may not be a reliable source, a male writing to woman on a dating site should write long, thoughtful messages if he hopes for a reply and a woman is better off keeping her messages short. In my experience, males will respond to just about anything. Sorry guys. I suppose I abused my new power a bit by messaging a female (as Daniel) and simply said, "OH MAN! LOOK AT THEM BIG OL' TITTIES!"

-I finished a rough sketch of a tattoo design my brother had commissioned me to create. My brother is a marine and the tattoo he wanted me create was a sheepdog protecting the sheep from the wolves. I’ve been stressed out about it because I don’t know how to design a tattoo, I’m not that great at drawing, and I didn’t think what I came up with would match what he had in his head. I won’t post it here because I don’t feel like I did a very good job at all. I got a semi-positive review from him though, which was reassuring. 

-I Skyped a bit with one of my German friends. I learned some interesting “Life in Germany” trivia that will be useful is my study abroad plans pan out. I’m waiting to hear back from the coordinator at my university about a time I can meet with her and the details. 

6 days until the last chemo and I’m dreading the extent of how awful I will feel so much that I’m ready to run away to Mexico. Necesito un compañero de viaje! Esta mierda va a terminar pronto.

And now on to “Businesses and the Costs of Production”…  :-(

Video Blogging

I thought I'd post a video for a change:

It took sooo long to upload that I'm not sure I will do this again. 

The Rules of Online Dating

I'm exhausted after stressing out over the two tests (one for microeconomics and one for intro to computers). So instead of even attempting to come up with a post of my own, I'll repost something I found particularly amusing/horrifying.

I'll preface the following by saying that I have been a member of the same dating site as this person for about 5 or 6 years, on and off. I've been on a few dates with members from this site but always follow the golden rules of online dating: use common sense, proceed with caution, meet in public, and trust your instincts. Though this blogger did not follow these rules, no real harm came to him and it made for an interesting story. Credit to the author: http://ericsmarshall.wordpress.com.

"As many of you may know, Faye and I broke up a little while ago. Obviously any breakup is difficult, and this was even more so because I still love her, and think of her as my best friend. Things have remained amicable, which I really appreciate. We still talk, mainly by instant message and text. Every so often we speak on the phone. I’m looking forward to being able to see her again when I go home.

Out of boredom and loneliness I signed up for the dating website (NAME OF SITE REMOVED FOR MY BENEFIT).com. This girl from Atlanta and I have been texting a little bit. Our matches were somewhat high, which in theory should mean that we have things in common. She’s cute, but a little chubbier then I tend to like. She also writes very poorly; abbreviated text type, misspellings, disregard for grammar and punctuation, etc. That should have been a red flag for me but I chose to ignore it. Probably out of loneliness / horniness. We’ll call her Sara. So Sara texts me last Saturday night and says she’s in Chattanooga. She’s really vague and I can’t tell why she’s in town, It sounds a bit like she’s moving back here. So I ask her if she wants to grab coffee at some point Sunday and she says sure.

I wake up a little late on Sunday, 10ish, and around 10:30 I’m surfing the internet and drinking coffee. She texts me and asks where I am, so I tell her I’m at my apartment. She then asks if her friend can drop her off until her sister can pick her up because she doesn’t have anywhere to go. I think about it for a second, and then agree, thinking that it might be a little weird, but I can get along with just about anyone for a couple of hours. So the worst case scenario is that it’s a little awkward, the best case scenario is that we hit it off and I might get some (I know, I’m terrible).

So she gets dropped off within about ten minutes with four bags, and her little three legged dog. She is definitely not as cute as she appears online, and is perhaps even chubbier. I apologize for still being in my pajamas, and for my place being a mess, but she seems genuinely not to mind. We sit out on my balcony where she proceeds to chain smoke and we start talking. The reason she’s in Chattanooga is because she got mugged in Atlanta and they stole her purse. So she needed to come and get an ID, a bank card, and her Adderall. But it’s Easter Sunday, she got her adderall the previous day and will have to wait until the next day to get her ID and bank card. Being back in Chattanooga she was also able to sign divorce papers with her estranged ex-husband. Apparently she got married when she was 16 years old. I told her I didn’t even know someone could get married at that age, but I guess with parental consent it’s A-OK. She also never graduated high school, which I deduced from her telling me she got a job with a forged GED. But she doesn’t work there anymore, now she’s a cocktail waitress at a strip club.

So I start to ask her when her sister will be around, and what she’s up to. Her sister is visiting her boyfriend, three hours away, in jail. But the visits are limited to only an hour, she says, so it won’t be too long. I find out what time the sister left in the morning, do some quick math, and realize that AT BEST, the sister will be here in four hours. That’s IF she goes straight to the jail, spends the hour there, and comes straight back without stopping for lunch or to rob a convenience store. The boyfriend is in jail for running over and killing a pedestrian while drunk. At eight in the morning. The sister is going to pick up Sara and bring her to their dad’s house so that Sara can borrow a tent and camp for a few days in Chattanooga to get her shit straight. Why not just stay with the dad, you might ask? Well he’s away on business and Sara and her step-mom HATE each other, and barely talk.

So fast forward four hours of kind of sitting around, talking, eating lunch, etc. It’s getting close to the time when the sister should be picking her up. They’re talking on the phone, and it’s apparent that the sister is not coming to get her. Sara is now sitting on my floor, crying, as she explains that her sister is too sick to come pick her up and drive her all the way to their father’s house. How far away is the father’s house? About twenty minutes. I’ll drive you, I tell her, and then drop you off at your sister’s. She says I don’t have to, it’s so far away, but I know it’s the easiest way to get rid of her. So we go to her father’s house. And no one is home. The doors are locked. Shiiit. Oh well, I say, I’ll bring you by your sister’s and she’ll have to bring you back to pick up the tent when someone is home.

So now we’re on our way to the sister’s, back in Chatt. We’re a couple of blocks away and Sara calls her. The sister tells her she can’t come over. I pull over in a church parking lot while they argue, a block from the sister’s house. She gets out of the car, and is standing behind it, still arguing. I choose not to listen and have the radio on. Meanwhile, I’m thinking about driving away. I mean she’s a block from her sister’s, it can’t be that bad, she can walk there. But she knows where I live. And her dog, and all of her worldly possessions are sitting in my car. I can’t do it, I just can’t. She gets back in the car and tells me that her sister lives with her boyfriend’s parents. Sara and the boyfriend one time got in a physical fight, and his parents (understandably) don’t like her and don’t want her in their house. So she says that all she wants to do is be back in Atlanta, she hates everyone in Chattanooga, doesn’t have anyone here, etc. Considering she just moved away at the end of last year, this doesn’t bode well for the type of person she is. So I ask her if she has somewhere to go in Atlanta, and she says yes. So I tell her I’ll drive her to Atlanta. She’s super appreciative, and we go back to my place to grab a bite of dinner first and so that I can feed my dog. In the meantime she asks if her sister can come over to say goodbye to her before she leaves town. I say sure, no problem. The sister seems nice enough, and they sit on my couch, smoke weed, and argue before we leave. I had to take my dog out for two walks while she was there, just because I couldn’t take the bickering. The drive back to Atlanta was fairly uneventful, and more relaxed because it finally seemed like things were settled. I helped her carry her bags into her friend’s apartment at about 10:00pm and then gave her a hug goodbye, glad to be by myself and back on my way to Chattanooga.

So hopefully I have stored up some karma, and learned a lesson. Hopefully I will not allow myself be held hostage by a potential suitor anytime in the future."

Countdown

I just got home from an exhausting 5 hours at the hospital. After a chest x-ray, some blood work, a talk with Dr. Gore, a CT scan, and an ultrasound... the diagnosis is whiny baby can't handle her chemo anymore. I guess I'm just at a point where I can't tell the different between the cumulative effects of chemo making me feel like shit and actually being sick. I am not accustomed to feeling this terrible (terrible just keeps getting worse). I'm dreading the way I will feel after the next treatment, though it will be my last and the feelings of euphoria that will follow might combat my feeling like death on a stick.

The trip to the hospital wasn't a complete waste of time though. Besides finding out that I am not sick and just need to get used to feeling like I have the flu and pneumonia all at once, I also found out that my stomach is not swollen because of the ascites (abdominal fluid build-up) again. The ultrasound technician informed me that I just have a lot of gas.... Lovely. But it is a good sign on the kicking cancer's ass front that she found very little fluid.

13 days left until my last treatment. I've been Xing out the days one by one. I'll go through the worst of it and then it will be over. Finally. Over half of this year has been devoted to fighting cancer and I'm ready to move on to something good.

My "m" key is starting not to want to work. If it gives out on me, I will either stop using words with "m" or use "$" as a replacement. Either option will be ridiculous.

And now I want nothing more than to take a big nap.

ill

Starting feeling beyond terrible. Chest pain. A bit of trouble breathing. A general awfulness that I don't know how to describe. Called cancer center. Will go in the morning or was told to the emergency room today if this gets worse.

Progress.

When you find your ex has updated his dating profile in a way that reflects the failed relationship: “Message me if you are a stable and happy human being.”

I dealt with varying levels of depression for so long that I didn’t grow. I was static. I couldn’t see beyond my own misery and felt I didn’t really exist beyond my extreme unhappiness. Through the years I allowed my depression to mold me into a very selfish person. I like to think that during this current period of genuine happiness and relative clarity of mind, I have evolved a bit; but I am not sure. 

If my exes reviewed my past relationships like films, I’m fairly certain I’d never get hired for another role. I want to defend myself though. I was so screwed up. I wasn’t really myself. I would never behave the way I did in my right mind. It’s difficult to make up for abused and neglected feelings though. While I might deserve credit for never cheating on a partner or physically hurting anyone, I think the damage done when your boyfriend has to interrupt your suicide attempt is arguably far worse. Hearing you cry and scream “Stay with me!” all the way to the hospital will haunt me forever. There is nothing I can do to make up for the damage I’ve caused except to just leave you alone. I wish I had done it a lot sooner. 

The people I dealt with in the hospital that night were cold and unforgiving. They might as well have been shouting their thoughts about me through megaphones, they were so easy to read. “Thoughtless, selfish girl!” “Attention whore!” “Idiot!” I did not care at all. Because as soon as I had swallowed all of those pills, I knew I wanted to live and it resulted in me finally feeling alive then and ever since that night.  

I don’t think any of this shit with cancer has been as scary or difficult as lying awake night after night simultaneously talking myself into and out of killing myself. Nothing is my life has been worse than losing control of my ability to reason. I might be physically weak now, but I feel emotionally strong.

A thought: people have come out of the woodwork to be supportive of me since I found out I have cancer. I wish it could have been like that with the depression. When a large amount of people don’t even feel that depression is a type of illness, it can be embarrassing to even admit to experiencing it. No one has told me if I just try to look at the bright side my cancer will disappear. I felt alone no matter where I was or who I was with. The situations are so different that my case doesn’t really make for some foolproof argument, but it would be nice if mental health wasn’t still such a taboo subject in so many circles.