Day 38 - a happy idiot

I made a video to go with one of my songs, I quite like it:


I've noticed that I tend to make good art when I'm feeling somewhat shitty, which sucks, because it potentially means I might have to choose between being unproductive and living a happy life, or being unhappy and producing a lot of great art. Maybe if I'm really lucky I won't get to make that choice. Thats the kind of thing I'd rather someone else decide.
It's a false choice anyways.

Someone once asked my philosophy teacher, would she rather be brilliant but unhappy or be a happy idiot.
She replied, "Well if you want to be unhappy you're already an idiot."

True that.

Day 35 - Temporary

I'm taking a vacation from having a life. Instead of going out partying/drinking/clubing, I'm staying home, watching movies, playing games.

This is not as bad as it sounds. I want to be careful with my health, and in 4 weeks when this is all over, I'm simply going to go crazy and get drunk and smash things. So I don't feel too bad about my current arrangement. It's a temporary solution.

Oh funny story. At work there's this guy, we'll call him Gary. I'm cool with Gary. He likes to party and likes women a lot and I respect that. However, Gary has a really mean spirited sense of humor. He thinks as long as he's smiling like a jackass he can say whatever he wants. I don't get the feeling that he's trying to hurt people, but the way he says stuff... shit I don't know. Here's the first thing he said to me after not seeing me for a few weeks:
"Hey, going for the chemo patient look?"
Now if anyone else had said this, I would of probably just let it go, but you have to understand, the WAY he said this was soo annoying, I just didn't want to take it. I smiled, and leaned forward.
"UH YES actually."
He didn't believe me.
"No seriously, why would you want to cut your hair like an 80 year old man." Still smiling like a jack ass.

I was in kind of an amused disbelief. This wasn't hurtful to me, cause I actually like the new look, and I'm not planning on keeping it for too long. But you can't just go up to someone who's mysteriously changed their haircut and start making jokes about going through chemotherapy. What if they actually do have cancer? Like, in this case for instance?

I explained to him some more details, he still didn't believe me.
"If that were true, you would lose your eyebrows."
"No, you don't." I think I would know.
Finally he believes me, but doesn't stop smiling, he's just like, "oh."

I walk back to my desk feeling that its about time someone stuck it to Gary, and I also got to thinking, what if I had taken the easy way out and didn't tell him I have cancer, and he found out from someone else that I did? THAT would probably have been much worse than me confronting him.

Day 26 - symptoms and side effects

All I want to do is sleep. And I don't even want to do that.
My stomach feels funny. My room is cluttered with empty containers of water, ensure, poweraid. Piled with half eaten snacks, chips ahoy, pretzels, macadamian nuts.

I find if I can get the right amount of food in me, this feeling in my stomach goes away. Right now, for instance, I'm almost certain that crackers with half a block of monterey jack cheese would do the trick, but preparing a meal like that... It would require turning on the light. Getting out of bed. Taking my dirty plate off my radiator and scraping the crumbs into the sink. So we'll see about that.

Cycle 2 sucks so far. This week consisted of 4 hours of injections every day. I just want to sleep it off, but sleep is neither fun nor easy. I thought this would be a good time to catch up on lucid dreaming, but I can barely catch a normal dream much less work up some level of awareness. I think my hunger senses have been replaced by a dull queasiness in my abdomen, that tells me I need to shove another cookie down my throat. Most of the crumbs get in my bed sheets.

My phone has two voice mails. I haven't even listened to them. I'm not even thinking of going out tonight. My only goal is to get by. If I can just make the next 12 hours warp by... I don't know what happens then. But it seems like the right thing to wish for.

I do not look very healthy now. But I'm not sure if that's because I actually don't look healthy, or just because I don't feel healthy. Everyday after chemo I look in the mirror and my pupils float at the top of my eye sockets like dead fish in a bucket. I shaved my head yesterday, and discovered that there's a difference between actually losing your hair and just shaving it. I was hoping I'd be completely bald this time around, but only patches of hair on my head have died, leaving disgusting patterns just below the surface of my skin where I can't clip them.

The skin on my face looks blotchy and dry, and whats left of my facial hair stubble feels crusty and dead. I've lost most of my pubic hair, which is alright, I like the pornstar look, but my chest hair seems to be thinning out, which I think makes me look pale and sickly. I swear my nipples are turning gray.

I feel scatterbrained and unfocused most of the time. And I don't care. I don't care about work, I don't care about girls, I don't care about music, I don't care about movies. All I care about are symptoms and side effects. Chemotherapy has stopped being an excuse. Now its the only thing happening.

Day 22 - A Long Journey

My site name almost got changed to "70 days of chemotherapy" today. That would of been horrible, and not only because the number 63 is slightly more interesting than the stoic combination of seven and zero.

"Your white counts are down... I didn't expect that. We'll have to postpone treatment. A week."
I sat cringing in the doctors examination room trying to put a finger to what I had done wrong.
Could staying up all night diminish the ability of your white counts to rebound? Could stressing over women do the same? Damn't, I knew I should have handled that differently.

"Just a moment, I'm going to talk to someone to get advice on this. I'm half thinking of going along with treatment. One second."
I sat there, slight subdued from the small hint of hope I'd just been given. I began imagining what his voice will sound like if he came back and told me I really do have to wait a week.
Straightforward and confident, peaking at the beginning and stretching out matter-of-factly. "Yup, I figured. We're going to have to wait a week."
Okay okay. Don't get any ideas yet. You don't know what he's going to say. And he knows what he's doing. If I truely shouldn't be getting treatment, then I shouldn't WANT to get treatment. He knows whats best for me. I don't want to jeopardize my health here.

I looked around the office to keep distracted. A couple of stock art paintings were set up on the wall, a poor attempt to create the illusion of a personal environment, rather than a generic work space. Of course it was a facade. No one would select these bland and talentless artists to liven up their home. They probably bought a bunch of discount paintings in bulk and randomly tacked it up around the hospital.
The sink had two strange pedals under it that somehow allowed hand-less use of the sink. There were dozens of rolls of paper underneith the examination bed, in two different brands. I wondered if patients could tell the difference. I wondered if they complained when they got the poorer brand.

"Okay, so we can go ahead. We want to keep within that 99% cure rate."
I sigh, relieved. "Yeah sounds good to me."
I guess I'm going to have to pay a bit more attention to my physical health, and my psychological health.

Got my self stranded 45 minutes away from the city last night. It began innocently enough. My friend Mack gave me a call and told me about this party he knew about, with a lotta cool people and a lotta girls. I told him I'd have to call him back.

In terms of being active, I had not been on a good streak. Last week I had just got a new laptop, which I allegedly got so I could make more music, but also got the game adventure game "The Longest Journey" from a relative, and that required a lot of free time. Actually I can't think of any better excuse for my inactivity other than chemo, as I pointed out in an earlier post.

Anyways, as I was mulling over this, Mack had called me, and now I was faced with an immediate choice to make. Do I, stay in and do nothing? Or do I go out on an unplanned, unrehearsed, adventure to a place I've never been with no sure way of getting back? Yeah, it was a pretty easy decision.

Turns out, after all my weekends of bar and club hopping I'm still not completely comfortable at random house parties. I prefer the darkness of the bar, the anonymity. The constant rotating of key characters. I had a really hard time psyching myself up. There were about 70 people in the house, with a very good ratio of guys to girls. I started up a few conversations that might have led somewhere, but I let them trail off. I wasn't feeling it. I wasn't on my game. I felt a bit trapped, honestly. Like I was surrounded by people who were either ignoring me or telling me "no." We had arrived at 11 oclock, and I knew I could catch the train at 12:30 if I left with a friend I had run into at the party. However, he had mysteriously disappeared. It was not going to be easy to get home tonight.

[Thud] "Oh my god, are you okay?"
A very drunk girl takes a dive into the hard wood floor, somehow landing head first. She doesn't feel a thing, and immediately rises to her feet. She stumbles into a girl with a drink, and grabs her arm for balance. The drink plops to the floor, releasing its contents across the floor with much bravado. Everyone has noticed the spectacle, especially the blond girl who lives here.
"Get the FUCK out of my house!!" Whoa. That was a little unnecessary.

A dozen more people leave. Their absence has left an air of hostility. Suddenly, a big white guy comes from the kitchen and tells me to turn down the music. I comply, fully.
He begins a speech which at first seems to be intended to getting the party rolling again, but ends of turning into a rant about how people made a mess in the kitchen too, and FUCK I HAVE TO BE THE ONE TO CLEAN THAT UP. EVERYONE JUST BE FUCKING COOL.
Jesus. Between the blond snob and this prick we could set up a reality television show that would be canceled in its first season.
More nervous people edge to the door.

The cops come.
Again the blond girl takes command.
"TURN THE MUSIC OFF EVERYONE SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!"
People begin talking to each other. All of them are bored of this quickly down-spiraling mess of a party.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!" Blond girl is easily the loudest person in the room.
A guy nicknamed Harry Potter fucks with the volume.
"TURN THE MUSIC OFFF!!!!"
We sit in silence for 10 minutes, looking at each other with faces that say, "when the fuck are we going to get out of here?"

House parties are hit or miss. We pile into a car and drive to the next one. No, literally, we pile into a car. It's a two door sports car, and we managed to fit at least 7 people in the back. I'm sitting across the knees of two guys I don't even know. Its a good way to make friends.
Everyone is talking in Spanish and Portuguese and I'm the only white boy there, which is cool with me. I rather like the role of the minority.
The Latino guy in the seat in front of me, turns to me, joking around, and says "White people, can not party like we do."
I hesitate for a moment.
"Well we gotta get up in the morning. We have jobs."
He laughs. "Good one."

We get to the party which instantly becomes a Latin dance floor, which gives me a considerable disadvantage. Even if I had felt like dancing, I'd have a lot of serious competition on my hands. So I chill on acouch, nurse a beer and look for an exit.

It's 3 am, with no exit in sight.

Now it's 3:30, and me and Mack are standing out in front of the house trying to flag down a taxi. Problem is, there are no taxi's.
I've called up a few cab services, one guy laughed at me and gave me an outrageous estimate.
Suddenly a couple realizations hit me. We have no car. The trains are closed. A cab ride is 75 dollars. We are trapped in the middle of no where. We don't even know where we are. And I can't crash here; I'm not the least bit tired.

3:45: we manage to convince a friend of a friend to give us a ride back to where he lives in the city. Mack and I take a cab back to our apartments.

It is 5:03 am. I have made it home finally.
I think thats worth a slight reduction in white blood cells.

Day 20 - used

My philosophy on developing a healthy emotional life is to recognize that what we desire most are not the people we meet, but the emotion of attraction. We want to feel attracted to another person, and for them to feel attracted to us.
The person themselves is not so important. What I mean is, once you stop feeling attraction while around someone, you should recognize that, and not continue on pretending that person is somehow special, and building them up to be more than they are.

I think people get too hung up on people, when they should be aware of the emotions they are feeling instead.

I called Cindy up a week ago, and we hung out, and it was actually pretty cool. I felt more in control and more clear on her feelings towards me. She enjoyed being around me, and felt bad when I didn't call her. Cool, so I feel special.

Until tonight. She called me up cause she was bored and stressed out and needed someone to talk to. I figure why not, I'll hang out with her for an hour or so and then maybe invite her back to watch a movie with me. It was a good plan.

What ended up happening is she sat me down for 50 minutes and began a monologue about all her problems. Health, guys, family, etc. I'm trying to enjoy myself, but I'm feeling more and more like a therapist and less like a friend or potential boyfriend. She's talking about how her ex was really busy at work, and when I asked her what he did she said,
"He plays an instrument."
"What instrument."
"An instrument."
"You don't know?"
"Yes, but I don't want to tell you."

For the rest of the conversation I slowly distanced myself from the table, and my concentration wandered up and down the walls of the bar.
"Are you okay? You look like you're somewhere else."
"I feel like I'm a therapist..."
I convinced her that if she didn't let me ask questions, then I was essentially being a therapist rather than a friend. So, reluctantly, she told me.
"Violin"
What a trivial secret to hide. This is not the first time this has happened with Cindy, and all it shows to me is that she doesn't feel like opening herself to me. But she doesn't mind using me to air out her personal problems.

I know girls like to talk, and if we want to make any connection, us guys want to listen. But what if you don't want to make a connection any more? Then you stop listening.
"Hey,I have a story too!" I begin telling her about last night, how I ended up 45 minutes away from the city at 4 am with no way to get back.
She wasn't interested, her eyes ran to every corner of the room. We paid the check and headed out into the street.
I'm trying to develop my story but she doesn't care and starts walking away from me down the street, intending for me to follow her.
"Nah, I think I'm going to head home, watch a movie, as I said I had a long night yesterday. You wanna come?"
"No. I'm going home." Rejection. I dunno, maybe she thought I was being an asshole for not paying more attention to her and coming with her down the street. Maybe she felt rejected and had to throw it back at me.

"Pshhh."
"Bye."
I say bye, trying to keep civil. But I feel used, and I feel let down, and I feel pissed off. I walk away, thinking to myself, "bitch."

I don't know, maybe I am a bit of an asshole. That's certainly an asshole thing to think. Maybe if I had focused a little more on her needs, she'd be more willing to meet me half way. Maybe I should have paid more attention, and then she'd feel close enough to me to actually show some attraction.
But fuck it. I'm not attached to her. And I have too much self respect to let myself get trampled on and used up.
So that's it. On the plus side, it seems like my instincts are good. Somewhere in my head I knew I was being used. I'm easily accessible (somewhat). Maybe I'm one of her only friends she can talk to about this stuff. But there's something disingenuous lying underneath the surface.

It's interesting, in one way, she's done nothing to help me grow, but in a another way, I've grown so much through meeting her, dating her, and forgetting about her. It's no great loss. As I say, I was I looking for attraction, not just a person. And whatever attraction there was is not to be found there anymore.

I start my second cycle of chemo on Monday.

Day 18 - Accomplice

Chemotherapy is a great excuse.
It's an excuse to come into work late.
To leave early (too tired).
To lash out.
To be down.
To slack off.
To give up.
To not go out tonight.
To stay in and watch movies, play video games, sleep.
To not write, to not read, to not sing, to not create.
This and about a dozen other things can all be excused with such ease, and with such sincerity, I might say I wish chemotherapy would never end.
So I could always be a willing participant in the decay of my own life.