Dancing Around the Four Sides

SO. I've been away for a bit, and here's why ...

( Female medical stuff follows, so skip if that's a squick for you ...  )

In addition to all this, I am reading David Sedaris' Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977 - 2002 and loving it. :-)

Oh my god so sleepy. I am really hoping the chronic insomnia eases up this summer, when I should be able to quit taking the anastrozole. :-P

But! It was beautiful today -- relatively warm with a clear blue sky. And I got Elizabeth Strout's new book My Name Is Lucy Barton in the mail! AND. I got another one of these wonderful fleece pullovers! They're fleecier and heavier than the women's line, and these winter days I'm always cold (honestly, I think my internal thermostat got reset five years ago). So anyway, I'm happy about those things. :D

More than anything else I want my dog; yet she is the one thing in this world that I cannot have.

This is very hard.

Ugh, ugh, ugh, have been having some MIGHTY FINE hot flashes today. All part of the cycle of anastrozole -- they'll ease off next month, but it really brings home why fully 54% of women quit taking their aromatase inhibitors after 25 months (source from a 2011 study). Sigh.

Warm and windy, with the possibility of storms tonight and/or tomorrow. What else?

1) Finished Robert Hilburn's biography of Johnny Cash and really liked it. Solid recommendation.

2) Read Jennifer Clements' Prayers for the Stolen in about two days (it's super-short). It's about the life of women in villages in Guerrero State, Mexico (outside Acapulco), the cartels, the murders, the lives of the rich and poor. I enjoyed it (not really the right word) but it left me wanting more, a deeper story. Also this book is by an American who lives in Mexico City -- which doesn't make it bad or wrong, but I'd like to hear this story from another voice. But I don't know one yet, so I'll have to look.

3) Currently reading Keith Houston's study of punctuation, symbols, and typography, which is both fascinating and funny, thanks to Houston's playful sense of humor. Very much liking this -- also it is a beautifully-designed book, as the special characters are printed in red.

4) Blackmare and I did a little sketching out of the Riververse fic that should come after the next Riververse fic (which is in draft). :D

5) The Early Girl tomatoes are getting bigger but no red yet. A few tiny baby tomatoes have appeared on the Black Prince and Lemon Boy. And we have two serranos. *g*

What else? I don't even. :D

Warm and humid after more rain yesterday. Very blah, blah, and blah because I haven't been sleeping well at all. I'm fairly sure it's the anastrozole, so ... at least there's that?

Finished Kate Atkinson's Life After Life and really liked it, although it left me a little sad. It's a book I'd love to see filmed -- if they could do Cloud Atlas then anything is possible.

Started Tan Twan Eng's The Garden of Evening Mists last night -- it is a slow start but otherwise good.

Had to put up tomato fencing and stakes for the tomato plants. Some of them are four feet tall. O_o

Ugh, slept v. badly last night. The one-a-day drug I take (anastrozole) can have a side effect of hot flashes, and they seem to come and go in cycles. One month I will have almost none; the next month they come in waves. Also, I think that perhaps Chango is becoming afraid of the dark, because when I turn out my light to go to sleep, she comes to my side of the bed, anxious and wanting comfort. She is nine years old, so I guess this is to be expected to some degree. Last night I got up and found an old nightlight we have and plugged it in -- that seemed to help, so it'll be interesting to see what happens tonight. (She's fine during the day, btw.)

May put down the Steinbeck for a while -- it's a decent read, but the biological collection methods of 1940 were horrific, to say the least. As just one example, they caught a sea turtle, ( cut for graphic description ...  )

Anyway. Watched the Tony Awards last night and was happy to see Nina Arianda win for lead actress in Venus in Fur. She was in Born Yesterday last year with RSL, and was nominated for that role also. So that's a good thing. :-D

First haircut in seven months.

:D

Got out, went to Sam's Club, the post office, and grocery store. Warm and very windy all day -- the useless Bradford pears are in full bloom, as are the redbuds, forsythia, and plums.

Sam's Club is a warehouse store. We go there because you can buy three liters of decent olive oil for around $16 (among other things -- today I was also looking at blueberry bushes and pecan trees and books). Anyway, I happened to walk past a display of Lucky Brand blue jeans and t-shirts, and one of the shirts had a Lucky design on it with a motto across the top -- "Too tough to die," it said. Oh, I thought. That's my shirt.

So I bought it. :-D

Today was so much better than yesterday. Things that made me happy today:

Saw my GP this morning for the first time since All the Fun began. He came into the exam room and the first thing he did was give me a big hug. Even better is the fact that he looks vaguely like Joseph Gordon-Levitt. *g*

Before that, though, there was a guy in the waiting room who was ninety-four years old. NINETY-FOUR, YOU GUYS. I know this because he was there with his granddaughter (?), who was filling out a form for him, and he loudly announced that his birthday was OCTOBER 9TH, 1917. I smiled and gave him a thumbs-up, and he said "I get up every morning ready to see what's new!" I said that was an excellent philosophy. Ninety-four, chiclets. I want to be him when I grow up.

I went out without a headwrap for the first time in at least four months today. I did wear a baseball cap -- my black one from the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, that has a GLOWY T-REX SKELETON on the front. :-D

Something else that made me happy? Planned Parenthood fundraising spiked yesterday, raising $400,000 in 24 hours. I made an online contribution, you bet. More background on this shameful episode is available from the Dallas Observer and the Washington Post.

( cut for rads blather ...  )

Stopped by the grocery store on the way home and was rewarded by overhearing a toddler ask one of the meat-counter butchers if she was a doctor. The white coat, y'see. I LOL'd, for real, as did the toddler's mom.

Beautiful weather today, 72 degrees (22.2 degrees Celsius). Supposed to be even warmer tomorrow.