A Mental Beacon!

I just read a quotation of a now famous politico who is gadding about all the television programs these days. She is stunningly popular around here. Since my chemo I notice that my conversations are nearly identical in structure and clarity to hers.>

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"My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

Never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”

'

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As Dick Cavett wisely observed, "It’s admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any. "

Or, was Ms. Politico merely demonstrating her mastery of the long-winded haiku? Is she a Pretend Philistine who is deftly shielding her artistry and intelligence from the rabble?

I think so!!

I sense a kindred mind there on high. When my full vigor returns a new career in public office awaits me? Or, at minimum. a wild and exciting ride on the late night circuit and breakfast chit-chat forums?

Let me try my hand at verse as well... My conversational style was perfected long ago.

open graham cracker boxes:

the babies dance hokey pokey

a swarm of gnats rise

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Damn good, eh for a first effort?

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Move over Washington, Hollywood, ZaZen...MizFlounce is on the prowl!

Dreaming of a Fabulous Future,

Puffed Up and Proud!!

Judy (via jeff)

PS feeling a tad better this morning. My sleep could euphemistically be described as "broken" last night. Am I on an uptick? Or is it just Big Biscuits? I hope I will not emotionally fall over the cliff edge come mid-afternoon.

Rosy Fingered Dawn

Facing down my Fears with the help of Paul "Big Biscuit's" Jones

Judy's 14 Nov 2008 3 PM CRASH

kindly refrain from noting I have NO hair

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Dear Adoring Public,

I will release you from the bondage of your concern.

Yesterday I gazed with steely resolve into the Vortex of Despair with my Beloved, Paul Edmund Jones embracing me.

I have emerged with renewed sparkle in those same peering eyes. Yes, today I am once again humming and chirping happily. I even slept fairly well.

I know it is this Guru, PEJ and his Big Biscuits, that saved me.

Next best might be the Xanax I took?

On a High!
Judy (via jeff)

3 pm.... well, the high has worn off. Now I feel what the French would have called the mal de siecle [ - a sense of loss, disillusion, and doubt, typified by melancholy and lassitude]. Of course, it's the beginning of a Millennium and not the end of the 19th Century. Never no mind. I am a solid lump of ennui. Now that I have the chemical crowbar of Xanax coursing through my veins I experience not one iota of anxiety. All that's left is depression.

We shall overcome!

In the dumps, Judy

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Taking the Air

MizFlounce: Taking the Air

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Penultimate chemotherapy behind me....one to go.

I must say this round has not been easy. During the treatment itself I felt uncomfortable and sick. Normally I have such a potent cocktail of happy drugs percolating through me I wouldn't notice if I was tazered.

Dr. Muldoon suggests I take alprazolam (tradename Xanax) in low dose for my existential angst. I'll give it a try. My concern is that I already forget why I am looking right or left when I am upright and conscious. A drug that diminishes memory and concentration while increasing weariness would definitely be a mixed blessing. Perhaps taking it only at bedtime? It is a wonder I sleep at all at night since I sleep all day....

Definitely I have a gallery of Edvard Munch paintings hanging in my nearly empty head right now. I feel as if I've been converted into Kafka's "infernal vermin"!!

Meditation, thought blocking, that sort of non-chemical approach may be an avenue to explore if I can figure out how or get the energy to make a start. Any leads? These techniques might help arrest pesky intrusive, alarming thoughts that seem to be triggering my anxiety. Obvious to me is the fact that my life has radically changed. I have no "added value" work to do for others so I am filled with shadows and demons and petty self-absorption. Nature abhors a vacuum!

I hope the day comes soon when I can march out and be engaged and useful rather than dependent and ill.

I am living that saw "idle hands are the Devil's Playground". His playground, unfortunately, is in my mind!

"Shall we make a start" as Tom Courtenay would say to Albert Finney in that wonderful film, The Dresser. I will now try to exercise my minimal memory stores and block my absorption with myself. Will MizFlounce succeed, you query? Probably I am doing all this sleep-writing.

The comments all of you made yesterday in my blog were especially meaningful to me. I felt so dreadful but when I read them I had a sense of lightness. When you've been sidelined like I have it is reassuring to know that someone still experiences me (even in past tense) as useful and valued! Thank you so for much for your kindness.

Susan, my stellar niece, also wrote. She has been having some health concerns that trouble her and like so much of the world today she feels the storm clouds of financial disarray looming on the horizon. She and I can join hands in a spiritual and real way to know that we will see a better day. Cannot make too much of the moment, Susan! I love and value you and will kick butt with the Powers that Be on your behalf.

For myself I shall just send a simpering, whimpering plea or two heavenward on an updraft ...

Meandering in the Miasma,
Judy (via jeff)

PS Here is another good overview of ovarian cancer just out in US News and World Report http://usnews.healthline.com/usnewschannel/ovariancancer

PPS: Chip, my son-in-law got his biopsy results back and there seems to be no metastasis of his colon cancer. Hooray for Chip!!

PPPS: The Dresser http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9806EFDE1F39F935A35751C1A965948260&scp=1&sq=%22the%20dresser%22%20finney&st=cse&pagewanted=print

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The World! The World!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqVBGv2hpQ4

So I be written in the Book of Love

I do not care about that Book above.

Erase my name or write it as you will,

So I be written in the book of Love

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Today I go in for another chemotherapy treatment...nearly the last. I actually enjoy going there since Dr. Muldoon is a joy and the staff at the Genesis Center in Hot Springs make me feel like I walk on water. Who says that medicine today is cold and unfeeling? I am convinced these folks at the Center are Angels made flesh. At the very least they are a deep and wonderful blessing!

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Wish they did not insist on shooting me up with poison nearly every time I go there!

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Usually I give you an upbeat assessment of my situation. But today I will not do so. I have been assailed by strange fears and anxieties. Not about my health. More recent lab reports indicate that all continues to go well in that realm. I am also not one to be overly disturbed by the Fate that awaits us all.

Rather it is a more nebulous feeling of tension and dread that often descends upon me at night and disturbs my sleep. I have been told that this may be yet another artifact of the therapy I am receiving and will resolve in the days following the completion of my chemotherapy in December.

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Perhaps.

I trust this is so. For whatever the miasma that has descended upon me I find it very distressing.

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I suspect I am about to develop a new and deeper appreciation of the writings of Kafka ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis )and Edvard Munch!

A slightly different topic here. I am not very political generally and especially not this year since I was not able to vote and often am asleep! But, this comment I saw really struck home with me and I wanted to share it. (see below)

Even with the anxiety now visiting me I am aware of the more general fear and anxiety that underpins the rage and righteousness, the need to exclude and judge that pervades the lives of many people. I wonder why it is so much with us these days?

Judy

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PS: the complete final words from the Scopes trial:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/leoploeb/LEO_SDSO.HTM

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PPS: Jeff told me of a wonderful restaurant just south of Yosemite. He often stays in the historic Wawona Hotel in the southern portion of the park which I love myself. I hope I get to return someday. Anyway, the restaurant is called Crab Cakes in Oakhurst ( http://www.crabcakes-sweetdreams.com/ ) owned by Laura and Roman Zubicki. He said the food was wonderful...the best you can get in the area. I will have to go. I must! I also learned that Laura and Roman lost their 16 yo son, Danny to a rare cancer (rhabdomyosarcoma) just last month. My heart goes out to you and your other son, Andrzej! I wish you all the best in this world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jeca3isOoW4