13

HAPPY FRIDAY THE 13th!

My lucky day. 

It's also the full moon, which only happens on Friday the 13th about every 30 years or so...so my dark familiars are stir crazy. It's 11pm and the sun is just going down now, but I'm staying up to see the moon. I love the power of a full moon, I believe it stirs my creative juices and feels like a new beginning.

Watch out for them full moon Friday the 13th werewolves, oh and of course Jason.

-E.

Sandcastles

I'm going to get all Cancerella on you here. 

I like cancer blogs yes, but only ones that aren't' just a big pity party or sorry attempt at awareness, I like cancer blogs that have raw feelings put down with no filter for others sake. 

This guy was diagnosed with Leukemia at the age of 17 and survived to go to medical school. His latest entry took words that were in me but I haven't been able to even find these last 3 years, and everything that he says about stereotyping cancer patients is 100% true.

Well I am not going to rewrite what he wrote, I'll just post ya the link. It is worth reading till the end. 

http://nikhilthegrizzlybear.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/im-not-brave-or-strong-because-i-beat.html

Everyones experience with cancer is different, but a lot of things seem to be universal. 

"Everyone says I am so brave but I don't feel brave."

Now I suppose for me, I don't think I felt brave or weak, I was almost stoic instead for the majority of the time. Some kind of survival instinct kept me calm. I don't hear this from every cancer survivor I've spoken with but I do hear it from some. For a lot of people the worst of it hits later, after all the surgeries and treatment, keeping your chin up for the sake of others, because they wouldn't want to know how you really feel. Cancer patients lie all the time when they say they are "ok" or "good."

It's just for you, so you don't have to feel uncomfortable, or sad, or helpless, because in my experience I didn't like seeing people afraid for me. It felt like one more thing I didn't have energy to worry about.

So much about the experience of cancer can affect loved ones more than the patient even especially during the time where you are waiting for surgery and treatment. Once I was on treatment I slept most of the time so I didn't have much time to think about my mortality but those around you are, even if you say you are fine.

I know that even though we don't have to, patients put on a facade for loved ones and strangers alike. You smile even though it hurts your face because you don't even have the energy to do that let alone raise your glass of water to your mouth and people can tell you are ill but because you are smiling you are badass. 

Ok I would like to think I just am badass anyways and I would also like to think that slaying the cancer was all me, but the truth is I am just one of the lucky ones so far. I did my year of interferon. I had a team of great doctors. My body has fought off the cancer these last 3.5 years. That's it. I didn't kick cancers ass on my own.

There were plenty of badass, brave, strong, cancer slayers that are dead from their disease now.

One part about this entry I really relate to is feeling like others expect you to act grateful to have survived. When you look at the alternative, yes, you WILL feel lucky to be alive, thats a given, but inside I hate that I even had to have cancer at 27. I hate that I haven't gotten to live this part of my life like a normal young adult. I hate that I will always have that anxiety about every change in my body. Every lump and bump and every bad headache. The fear is living and real and if I had to choose the words on how I feel about this disease ripping my body and life to shreds for years I don't think the word "grateful" would be it.

"It's not easy being grateful for the worst thing that's ever happened to you..."

If you don't stand tall, smile, and proclaim you are grateful to be alive and that you're BRAVE, people look at you or will even say, "You should be more proud of yourself for that!"

It's not a personal achievement, it's the luck of the draw. Your string was not cut today, that is it.

You hope it won't be cut tomorrow either.

One thing that I've noticed is that life will never be the same, and the after effects of cancer are like rippling waves on sandcastles on the beach. You can build up, make progress to move away, get stronger, and then the tide comes in and dissolves your castle to nothing. 

I'll probably always live with some fear, I'll always have anxiety about my health, I will always see the world and everything in it differently than most around me because of my melanoma. The one thing I can do is transcend, I can keep building my sandcastles. That is my choice in the end and no one else in the world can do it for me. 

-E.

A Sunday rant

I feel a RANT coming on!

Maybe it's the Lockup marathon on MSNBC I've been watching but I'm feeling irate about the world and the shit people do and say. That's not new but I can't always channel all that anger into this blog or people would think I'm totally psycho. Also I don't always have time to write when there's a bee in my bonnet.

FIRST OF ALL and this one may be make some say WTF but this is my fucking blog and you are welcome to write your own WTF blog. 

If you know me, my bestest friend I've ever had in my whole life and the only one I know will be by my side no matter what is gay. Ok that's just him like saying, "my best friend is a heterosexual." Well he would most likely call me a breeder but that's really a joke between me and my bestie.

If the subject of sexuality comes up, and I'm talking about my best friend I will absolutely mention that he is gay. But I rarely just say "John's gay" I'm more likely to say "my best friend and his boyfriend" and let people figure it out on their own. 

What drives me crazy is people "bragging" about having gay friends. It's like they think they won the tolerance prize and almost wear that gay as an accessory. 

This weekend is pride and I'd love to be celebrating with my bromosexuals, but living an hour away and having to return a few hours later doesn't make it easy to show up at the parade and inevitably end up in the beer gardens. 

This time of year is when everyone wants to brag about having a gay friend. Suddenly a gay aquiantence becomes their "gay bestie" and you hear the word gay gay gay over and over again and Facebook is just an awkward place to be. 

He's your FRIEND not your GAY FRIEND.

That pisses me off. You know these people put the G word in front of the word friend want to:

1) look cooler because if a gay man will be seen with your ugly ass you must be beautiful. This just simply is not true.

2) Make you believe you are not a bigoted piece of shit. You could very well be full of hate but use one "normal gay guy" as your mask of tolerence. I hate hearing that word out of self named "fruit flies."

By the way the word is defined as:

tol·er·ate

ˈtäləˌrāt/

verb

1. allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference.

   "a regime unwilling to tolerate dissent"

   synonyms:

   allow, permit, condone, accept,swallow, countenance; More

   • accept or endure (someone or something unpleasant or disliked) with forbearance.

     "how was it that she could tolerate such noise?"

     synonyms:

     endure, put up with, bear, take,stand, support, stomach, deal with

Ok now of course there is the flip side where all you can sometimes hope for is "tolerance". I get it. But I have been working with, friends with and around gay men for a long time, and haven't seen one straight man outwardly discriminate against a gay man once. There has been the rare one who made cruel jokes about a gay man behind his back, but no more than women deemed sluts or fat or fat sluts or "weird" guys that look like they sit in front of a computer jacking off all day and wash their hair once a month... People will find a way to make jokes or discriminate about just about anyone. 

I think overall today's society is pretty blind to things like ones sexuality, but if you ask me "tolerence" is not the word I want to hear used. I don't know what I'd rather hear but "tolerating" isn't enough. 

We need to blend together without worrying about who likes to suck dick and who doesn't. It's really no ones motherfucking business anyways.

Ah that feels good. Seriously though now people, can we just relax and stop making people wear labels? It's bullshit.

I myself have been labeled by a few people here and there for my penchant for heavy metal music. It's almost like a stigma. Here's a list of the things people have said to me about my taste in music and my response to it:

1) How can you listen to that isn't it mostly just noise?

 

"I don't like noise, I like music."

Then they get a scared look on their faces and say:

2) But aren't all the lyrics about death, mutilation, murder and satan? I can't even understand what they are screaming!

"I thought you couldn't understand what they are saying?"

3) aren't  all the lyrics super negative and angry?

"Yeah I'm sure some of em are, but I'm not exactly there to read too deeply into the lyrics, I like virtuoso musicianship and some of today's best musicians play metal, and a band could have lyrics about baby killing but if the guitarist can shred ill probably buy their record."

This next one actually made me mad, and this is a real quote from an ignoramus who will remain nameless:

4) You are what you listen to and if you listen to "negative" music you are a negative person. 

"So if you listen to douchey music, or fake music with no real instruments, does that make you a fake douche?"

Infortunately in that persons case they really were the music they listened to.

What about people who listen to gangsta rap more than anything else? These people have no business saying shit all about metal lyrics. A lot of the music they listen to is about pimping, selling drugs, killing people and objectifying women, so what does that make them if their music defines who they are as a person?

Overall my taste in music doesn't affect most people's opinion about what kind of person I am, but some actually define me by my taste in music. Get over it. Some of my music you may really not like, but how in fuck is that my problem? There's no need to confront me on it. Its not I listen to metal to piss you off. I ask that you shut the fuck up and keep it to yourself what horrible negative music I listen to, and go troll somewhere useful, like the westboro baptist church of zealots or something. But you probably are a wannabe member of that cult if you hate my music that much.

 

Oh I dislike a lot of music myself, but never have written off an entire genre because of a few horrible representatives.  I don't love ALL metal ever written just as I don't love all classical music I've played on my violin. It is all completely subjective. I have songs from all kinds of genres. I have Leonard Cohens discography and know all his songs. I have some Dolly, some Mariah, some Yokam, even some Britney. All serve their purpose in my iTunes library.

One genre I believe has become totally bastardized and pretty much ruined is country music. It used to be about pure and stunning vocals and fun inventive fiddle, and deep guitar you can feel in your gut, something could affect your emotions and make you feel at home, but today's country is the worst shit on the planet I'm sorry. Some country singers are mixing rap and pop and then throwing a dash of "rock n roll" on top of it, and I shudder when I hear Toby Keith's voice. And when I see his face I shudder again.

I hate it, but you'll never hear me start a debate with all "new" country music fans about their choice in music. Just because you listen to music that is pretty much all about chevys, women in tight jeans and 

Red solo cups doesn't mean you are a redneck Toby Keith wannabe. Or does it?

Maybe those ignorant idiots want to be Toby Keith and sing like tools but that ain't my problem. 

I really don't give a shit enough to slap labels on people's foreheads. It takes time and zeal which I just do not have. I can think of better ways to spend my time. What matters to me is the quality of the person inside the T shirt of their favorite band, regardless of the genre. 

That's my moral message for the year. 

May you listen to whatever you want and have sex with whoever you want. Just no barnyard animals, children or dead people. There's no way I can "tolerate" that.

http://youtu.be/aC6CPwu0I44

-E. 

A hairy situation

So just a quick one with a few pictures, and blurb and maybe one link to a song. 

Melanoma took a lot from me, it changed me on so many levels. Once I was diagnosed stage 3 I was ready to fight hard and not give up, but I wasn't prepared for what treatment would do to my identity. After four months my hair started to come out in huge clumps in the shower, it got thinner and thinner and broke off on the ends, shortening it by a lot, until I broke and just cut it off.

To say I was devestated was an understatement. Slowly over the course of my treatment more and more hair disappeared and I started to feel ugly. I didn't recognize myself anymore; my identity was stripped away cruely. 

I dealt with it ok, in my way, by investing in lots of inserts of different colors, even had fun with the different colors and styles I could play with. Fake hair was probably the best investment I made in my well being while on a horrific and life-ruining treatment. After interferon I had a scary look of baby hairs growing in with straggly fly aways, brittle and straw like stressed tresses and it seemed like every day I looked in the mirror and hated what I saw. They say hair isn't everything but it can be to a 20 something cancer patient who loses 2/3 of that hair. 

Every once in a while I snap a pic of the progress to see how far I've come. I credit the increased growth as of late to no more bleach, no more dye, expensive salon product and limited use of heat styling tools. There's a hashtag on Instagram- #LongHairDontcare but mine is #longhairICare. 

I'm happy.

It'll grow back they said. Well, it finally did. And I couldn't be happier. I finally feel truly myself, and siscors: no thanks. 😃

Since there's no songs about hair that I like, I'll just post a quick hair metal band tune, one of the best of the hair metal tunes ever, and I know my friend Jess will be rocking out to this one.

http://youtu.be/i3MXiTeH_Pg

Thanks for reading my weirdos, stalkers and loves. Without you I would care less about most everything in this wild world.

-E.

May mishmash

Well it's been an interesting month so far!

First my boyfriend and I went to banff and ate and drank until I gained back 5 pounds I kinda didn't want, but oh well. It was delicious. We did some teepee creeping, which for those who don't know is basically a booze cruise, stopping at every establishment that is pouring beer and after 5 hours we went to dinner pretty much drunk, I was hiccuping bubbles like a cartoon character. 

A teepee creep is traditionally a freeloading booze cruise. You stop at one teepee and ask your buddy for booze and tobacco, and then when all the booze is gone and all the cheeba smoked you move on to the next teepee, sometimes extra buddies join the creep but then stay at the next teepee for various reasons- good booze and tobacco or just too drunk to keep creeping. Sometimes there's fights, drunken accusations of theft from buddies teepee, there might even be a teepee fire! But the unpredictability of the creep is what makes it a party. You creep the whole town and then when you're back at the home teepee you rest, but sometimes you might just have to rest at someone else's teepee. The point is to freeload everyone else's shit and make them think they partied with you, when really you just drank their hooch and smoked their cheeba.

Either way a good teepee creep should involve multiple teepees and end in a drunken pass out.

A few weeks back I noticed a bump in my underarm (Esthetican speak for the ugly word armpit) which grew into a lump under the skin. Alarm bells went off but I decided not to panic and give it a couple of weeks. Well a couple of weeks go by and it had grown, and hurting. Uh oh I said. What the fuck is that. 

So I call my oncologist and two seconds later they are booking me with my surgeon, aka Mr. Nicey Slicey, and I'm in full on panic mode. I actually had a job interview at the same time as the appointment they booked me so I asked if they could get me another date, but then they decided I should just go to my family doc. 

Ok whatever. 

Waited ten tense days to see my doc, who ordered an ultrasound STAT, which I did appreciate since this alien thing was growing it's own face and eyes and taking up space in my body at that point.

Here's the only benefit to being a cancer patient: you get results in under an hour sometimes. They do not fuck around. It's literally the only perk, if you can call it a perk.

It isn't malignant. It's a cyst.

Huge sigh of relief. I immediately started eating again. Stuffed a long john down my throat in one bite. Fuck.

The thing is about having cancer once is that whenever you feel something weird in your body your mind immediately goes to CANCER. Oh here it is, the lump that's gonna end it all. But it's just not always going to be cancer, and you have to try and stay calm till you know, not an easy thing to do. 

Basically the cyst would be more painful to remove than to just leave in there so that's what I'm gonna do. Leave it. Let the fucking thing enjoy it's stay in hotel Hex. Whatever. I've seen what they do- they cut you open and take out the pocket of stinky cheese clump, and then pack the wound with gauze! You have to clean and pack it yourself for a couple of weeks, and I am not sure if this is even a cure for it. So just leave it alone, no picking- hard for me- I love to pick and squeeze- and it ain't gonna kill ya.

Yuck, bodies make some gross shit.

Finally the 16th was my bunny Evie's 1st birthday, and it was the cutest! She had on a party dress and liked all her books and toys, and even had a cake all to herself which she picked up with both hands and put to her mouth, getting covered in icing while all of us laughed and took pictures. The cutest.

I wasn't really on it with the camera but here's a couple. Most of the cake ended up on her face dress and the floor. Love it.

-E.

Burn Booze and buddies

Country weird.

I had my first burn/booze and buddies night in my new setting and we had a real barn burner. Well more like a desk and plywood burner but still raging enough for a group of pyros.

As you can see above, John and I can't take a "normal" picture. 

Many more BBB parties to come.

METAL!!!!!!

-E.

There's a future ahead and it might be your last

A quick dose of simple wisdom.

Dallas Clayton rules. He's actually a children's book author but I love his poetry. He's totally the new Dr. Suess.

Night!

-E.