I think...

...that Robert Pattinson may be my new hair idol, for no other reason than because my hair is growing that way. Ahem:

I can't wait until I get to this stage:

Xeni Jardin

Last week a Boing Boing blogger named Xeni Jardin went to get a mammogram after two of her friends had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She live tweeted the appointment to bring awareness to the need for mammograms, but also to ease her own nerves, or in her own words, "to make the unknown and new feel less so." By the end of her appointment, she found out she had breast cancer.

I thought about her all day after I read that. I told Cody and Dad about it at dinner after we moved my stuff in, and we all just kind of shook our heads, lost for words, at the awfulness of it.

I imagine, even though she's a professional blogger, that it must've taken guts to reveal her diagnosis on Twitter, almost in real time. And then she wrote a really beautifully articulated piece on Boing Boing where she describes the outer body experience perfectly via an extended metaphor about space:

"I do not know all of what's ahead. I know a little. I know that there is a new kind of life on the other side of this thing. A changed mind and body. A new appreciation of time, and breath, and health, and life, and loved ones.

The gravity in this place is different. I've spoken to others who've traveled out here, too, and returned home safely. When you become one of them, you learn quickly that you share a language others can't understand."

It comforts me to know she seems to be looking forward to the positive ways in which her life will change. Mrs. Rapp always talked to me about "the other side" when I was diagnosed, and I can now say that it is definitely a Real Thing. There are moments when the thoughts whirring around in my head just halt to a stop and I think, "Wow, here I am. On the other side." I don't know if those moments--the ones where I stop to just appreciate the sensation of sucking air up through my nostrils--even existed for me before the Hodge. I don't think they did. But they do now, and I really hope they do for Xeni someday, too.

Some advice on sutures...

If you're showering a few weeks after you've had your port removed, and most of the weird glue bandage has dissolved, and you notice something that looks like the end of a string hanging out of one end of the wound, you should proooobably contact your surgeon after the full body chills of disgust subside. Because that ain't supposed to be there. (I'm not even going to write "don't pull it" because I hardly think that needs to be said/I can't stomach the thought.)

The good news is that once your doctor confirms that it is indeed a suture that your body is desperately trying to expel from itself, it's easy for him to remove it. A few yank yanks here and a snip snip there, and you're done.

Just in case anyone was wondering.

Mission: Redecorate=Accomplished

It took getting cancer to realize I'm happiest when I'm writing. It took getting cancer to make me a more patient person. And it took getting cancer for me to redecorate my apartment.

I'm not even kidding that much with that one. When I was sick, I promised myself that when I moved back to Brooklyn, I'd make my living space a positive, happy place with the end goal of living a positive, happy life. I can also be a huge homebody (or to use a term Jenna coined, "house cat") so I need my place to be extremely cozy.

Living at my parents' for the past 8 months has shown me how an abode ought to be treated and maintained (translation: my mom has made me a clean freak), so this past week while I was house sitting, I did a huge scrub down and prepped my room for a face lift. And after a trip to Ikea with Andrew, we finally took our living room from this:

September 2010 (the day we signed our lease)

To this:

Well, I mean, that didn't happen in a day. But it's a huge step up from THIS:

which was last December. (Hi, Hope.)

Yesterday my dad came in and spent all day helping me hang shelves, pot racks and sconces, as well as with painting my room an extremely lovely shade of lilac, so a lot of my progress is owed to him. (Recurring theme of my life? My parents being the best and most supportive, helpful people in the universe? Yep.)

Even though there's nothing in my room besides a bed, a bag of clothes and a chair with a lamp on it, it already has good juju. And I caught some great, solid zzz's in it last night (despite having no idea where I was when I woke up for a few seconds.) Knowing this is taken care of has lessened the load of anxieties I had about moving back in. Now to get a job...I'd be floating.