This entry is brought to you by the letter "B"

B is for:

Brooklyn. This morning I woke up in Jenna and Hope's sweet new pad down the road from my sweet old pad. I woke up to an alarm which is an unpleasant change from waking up to my dog, but it was the first time in about three months I've even used the alarm on my phone, so.

Neither Hope nor Jenna was home, since they're gallantly riding down the road to I'm A Real Person, USA. (They both have new jobs.) So I made myself at home with a cup of coffee and a playlist on Hope's iTunes labeled "sssssssssssummer!" and got to work pretending I still lived in Brooklyn and just had the day off in the middle of the week like I used to. I feel so alive when I'm there. Not saying I don't have it pretty good at my parents'. (Pool? Check. Refrigerator consistently stocked with fresh cold cuts? Check. Gigantic bathtub? CHA-ECK.) I had the fleeting thought of packing it up and moving to the West coast when I'm done with all this bizz, but truth is, I'm far too attached to my family and friends (who with the exception of a few people who have yet to make the move--I'm looking at you, Jason Linguanti and Thea Carlson--have all settled in BK or Manhattan.) But last night, sitting on the sidewalk, eating fresh guac and people watching in Park Slope...I was just overcome with this rare sense of absolute contentment. Brooklyn's where I want to be, and Brooklyn is where I will go.

Bald: Just when I was starting to become fond of my GI Jane look, the teeny hairs started falling out, too. One day I was absentmindedly playing with the hair on the right side of my head only to find out that I had rubbed a nice little COMPLETELY bald spot in. So obviously my mind goes right to what shapes I can etch into my head before I go completely Mr. Clean. I suggested a heart to my mom and she kind of threw up her hands and told me to "STOP BEING SO WEIRD." (This was after she said she would "get out of my hair," to which I gleefully replied "But I don't HAVE any!"

Anyway, I have since become obsessed with my wig. It's blonde and all Jennifer Aniston-y. The first few trips out felt like I was in disguise. I used to play around with wigs in college occasionally, but wearing one and knowing you have hair underneath is different. But really, I kind of think blondes DO have more fun.

Badass: I ran into a friend at Marshall's yesterday that I hadn't seen in quite a while. She and I were co-captains of the volleyball team senior year, and though she is hands down one of the sweetest girls in the world and we were pretty close during HS, we haven't spoken in a while.

I was so happy to see her, and even happier when she asked if I had just gotten my hair done since I was wearing the wig.

"Nope, it's my wig!" I said, smiling. She looked confused. "I lost my hair," I said, to which she looked even more confused. I had just assumed she knew--St. James isn't that big of a town, plus Cody had told me he'd hung out with her little sister a few times recently. But she was really shocked when I told her I was going through chemo, and, like I said, as she is the sweetest girl, was really sympathetic.

This morning I woke up to an email from her. Since I've been writing this blog, I've gotten a lot of facebook messages and cards from friends who want to show their support, and I can't say how good each message makes me feel. But this email my friend wrote me truly takes the cake. She had been diagnosed with Crohn's disease, a disease that causes inflammation of the intestines and an array of other really awful-sounding gastro-intestinal symptoms. She lost tons of weight and had to undergo life-saving surgery, plus go through a lot more that I don't want to detail to protect her privacy. She told me how her parents stayed with her in the hospital every minute and how she got by on making jokes with her friends about her condition.

"Who would have thought when we were shaking our tail-feathers (a dance we used to do during practice) and toilet papering Coach Alamia’s car that all of this would happen?" she wrote, and I had a flashback to us at 18, going up to do the coin toss together to see which team would serve first, and a little pang of sad nostalgia hit me. But what REALLY got me was this:

"Sometimes I wish I could go back to a time before I was diagnosed with my Crohn’s, but now I realize that I have it for a reason; to help others who are going through it too. I’m starting my Masters at Stony Brook in the fall for Medical Humanities and Compassionate Care. It’s basically looking at illness and disease through the eyes of the patient."

If that's not the perfect example of an amazing person, I don't know what is. I feel so inspired by her story that it makes the Hodge seem completely doable. I mean, compared to what she went through, my situation seems like a walk in the park (on a cloudy day).

Her email also got the old cog's turning on this thought I've been toying with--going back to school. I wish I could say it was to become a nurse or something medical-related, but let's face it, guys--baby girl is SQUEAMISH. And honestly, I can't see myself doing anything other than something writing-related with myself for the rest of my life. The ballsy Kt is like, YEAH get your MFA in creative non-fiction writing, then write a book! But the big baby is like, go for your english teacher's certification because it's more likely to transfer into a job. Basically, what I'm committing to here is at the very least, doing some legitimate research on the matter and setting my eyes on something further than just getting better and getting back into the city.

Beach: I just like the beach. It's great.

Baby GaGa: This last one's kind of a cop out on the B theme, but I downloaded Lady GaGa's new album, and I've gotta say I'm impressed. Over the past year she's succeeded at making me sneer every time I saw her by being completely contrived in every manner, but she just might be making a turn around in my approval zone, which I THINK we can all agree, is really exclusive and important. (No it's not.) But it's funny, because her album is half pandering to 14 year olds (One lyric on a song called "Hair" is "Whenever I'm dressed cool my parents put up a fight." No, I'm not kidding.) and the other half is talking about like, getting wasted in a leather bar on the lower East side. My overall statement on the album, though, is that it makes me feel like I'm wearing a face full of makeup.

OH MY GOD I FORGOT TO WRITE ABOUT CODY. I am The Worst. Cody comes with me to my doctor appointments, and I forget to write about how he HAD HIS APPENDIX OUT on father's day. Seriously, he did. I picked him up from a grad party at 1 am ish Saturday night and he was fine, and four hours later, he's in the emergency room. What is that! But he got it taken out laparoscopically, which is fancy terms for "sucked out through your belly button," and was home the same night. He's recovering nicely, which is good news because we're having a big (er than my mom is expecting it to be) grad party for him on July 2nd, and he starts work (WAH!!!) July 13th in Midtown. I can't say how much I am going to miss him being around every day. If i had the funds I would pay him to put "My sister's companion" on his resume.

My mom was with him at the hospital during and after the surgery, then switched shifts with my dad. We had gotten four Mets tickets for that day, and Cody still wanted my dad to be able to get to the game, so I went with him and Mrs. Rapp. It was awesome. My dad loved it. I drank a beer. But anyway, my mom got home and sank down onto the couch with the kind of exhaustion that being in a hospital brings, so I went outside to call my friend Andrew and catch up on his weekend. He was mid an "I lost my phone in a bar" story when I screeched I had to call him back because a tiny, fat, feathery baby robin hopped out of a bush and was weebling around INCHES away from the side of my pool. "I HAVE TO CALL YOU BACK I NEED TO SAVE A BABY BIRD." I yelled, and as I pulled the phone away from my ear, I heard him saying, "This is the second time this month!" (I had also been on the phone with him when I noticed a tiny chipmunk clinging for life onto the side of the pool about two weeks ago.)

So in these situations with baby animals I just get kind of... useless and frantic, so I ran to the living room window and started waving my hands around in the air to get my mom's attention.

She ran outside.

"What? WHAT!" she yelled.

"There's a baby bird and he's gonna fall in the pool!" She ran to get the skimmer. "No!" I yelled. "If we touch it the mom will abandon it!" And that's when my mom lost it. I think the strain of the past few months and the fact that she had just come from the hospital with another kid with another medical condition got to her, understandably.

"That's it! I cannot deal with a freaking baby bird that's not even DROWNING. DEAL WITH IT." she said and went inside.

So I sat down and watched it to make sure it didn't go anywhere. And it didn't. For a while. Finally its mom came out and chirped and pecked it into the bushes, where I have to assume it is completely safe and nothing bad can happen to it, ever.

Third treatment tomorrow. I am determined to make this one go quick cause I gots some fourth of Julying on Fire Island and other fun things to do.