Surprise! I'm Home!

So, remember that crazy goat rodeo?

Well. The Rockstar Neurosurgeon is still a freakin' Rockstar. Seriously, he is amazing at brain-cutting.

So, he did a really good job, and I've been properly drugged up for the last couple of days, and I've had very little in the way of physical or neurological deficits. So, the thing is, hospitals are great and all, but with it being flu season and apparently coronavirus is officially in the US, it is really much safer to recover at home, at this point.

Now, here's the thing, I am home, but I'm not allowed to take visitors for at least a few more days while I'm healing my brains. I'll keep you updated on how recovery is going. If you want to help, I won't say no to donations at GoFundMe, CashApp, Venmo, or my Amazon wish list.

This being my third brain surgery, I just want to remind you of something. It takes a lot of rest to recover from brain surgery. I am exhausted just writing this.

You can text or email, comment here or on my fb, but bear in mind, replies will probably be slooooooow.

Whooo, hooo, I'm home!

Surprise! Surgery!

Well, I hate to surprise you like this, but this goat rodeo got dropped on us with very little notice.

So, as you read this, I am having my THIRD surgery in 8 months. Surprise!

I've had multiple scans, both MRI and CT, in the last couple of months, and what appeared to be a spot may actually be tumor. My Rockstar Neurosurgeon is cutting the thing out. Due to a series of unexpected scheduling obstacles, we did not have much notice about this surgery.

So, as of right now, all I know is that I'll be in recovery for a few days before I'm released from the hospital. I will update as much as I can, but please be patient. It will be a loooong day, and I will post an update as soon as I am able to. In the meantime, please be mindful that The Husband has to go through the stress of waiting for me to get put back together like Humpty Dumpty, so he will not be able to personally update every person who calls or texts.

Also, as it is still flu season, it is unlikely that I will take visitors. This includes in the hospital and once I am home, at least until the surgical wound is healed.

The Husband will be taking care of me, like he always does, because he is awesome.

I know that many of you will ask what you can do to help. Right now, because we haven't met our out of pocket max, this surgery will cost a few grand, I'm guessing. To put it bluntly, if you want to help, you can donate through my GoFundMe, CashApp, or a good old-fashioned check in the mail. I hate to put it like that, but we are still working on paying down the last three hospital stays.

Well, I've never been to a goat rodeo. This will be awesome. Right?

New and very important boundary

This is an important message to all of my close friends and family, especially those who know when my birthday is.

I am not going to say when it is, because I've made an important decision. As an adult, I've never liked making a big deal about my birthday, again, because most of my decisions are based on receiving the least amount of attention. It's the reason I had a not-so-traditional wedding. It's the reason I've not celebrated my birthday in public in years, and it's the reason I have a fake birthday set on FB that remains private, only visible to me, so that FB doesn't remind people about a day that I don't wish to be reminded about.

I say all of this because the anniversary of the day of my birth is coming up at some point in the next 2-9 months. If you know when my birthday is, and if you value our relationship at all, you will not share it, and you will not wish me felicidades. You will keep that date a secret.

This is a hard line for me. I have too much on my mind and in my brain to deal with birthday wishes. My mental health depends on those of you who know this secret to keep it secret.

Something I've learned as a cancer patient is that boundaries are important, but even more important are consequences.

There are those of you who will long to celebrate my birthday by announcing something on social media, unattached to this blog.

Do not do this.

There are those who might try to subtly and secretly let my "special day" be known for their friends, the family of those friends, and the friends of that family.

Do not do this.

Some of you will want to do something special for me, because in some deep morbid corner of your mind, you might be worried that it will be my last birthday.

Do not do this.

Anyone who wishes me a happy birthday, knowing that I am dealing with brain cancer, brain cancer treatments, possible surgeries, and the mental health costs that come with brain cancer will be blocked without prejudice. This includes my best friend from college, my sisters, the one co-worker who knows the day, The Husband, even my mother.

Y'all. I am not playing with this one.

Please, I beg of you, especially my beloved family and friends who know when my birthday is: Pretend you don't. My mental health depends on it.

Fave Quote of the Movie: The Shape of Water directed by Guillermo del Toro

Now, I acknowledge that I am deviating from the original plan, which was to highlight my favorite quote of the book. But because I'm the boss of this blog, and because I just watched this awesome movie again recently, I decided I'm going to modify the plan. Instead of fave quote of the book, it will be fave quote of the whatever I just consumed: book, movie, poem, etc.

Without further ado, let's talk about The Shape of Water, directed by Guillermo del Toro.

IMDB link:

At a top secret research facility in the 1960s, a lonely janitor forms a unique relationship with an amphibious creature that is being held in captivity.

First, a warning: This movie is rated R; it contains both graphic sexuality and violence. If you choose to watch with your children (or parents, or any other family members) the sex scenes might make you feel extremely awkward. It also contains exactly the amount of racism, misogyny, and homophobia which you might expect from a movie taking place in the 1960s.

Even with all of that being said, this movie is visually stunning. There is so much to unpack about this story, but before I get into all of that, I want to tell you my favorite quote from this movie:

"Unable to perceive the shape of you,

I find you all around me.

Your presence fills my eyes with your love.

It humbles my heart,

for you are everywhere."

I had to look up this poem; I needed to know more about it. At first, it was possibly attributed to 13th century Sufi poet Rumi, but additional research found that "a translation by Priya Hemenway on page 41 of The Book of Everything (first line: “Unable to discern the form of You, / I see your Your presence all around.”) is actually much closer in wording to the text of the poem at the end of the movie" (Armenti).

This sourcing seems to take this poem not necessarily as a poem of romantic love and loss, but one of faith. It is talking about God, about Allah. I acknowledge that even taking this direction may be off-putting for some, but I hope that we can all agree, regardless of whom or what we believe in, there is a nearly universal understanding that we should be kind, we should be loving, we should, as much as we can, avoid being jerks.

So, then, what is the shape of water? It is life-giving, ever-changing, so powerful. It is everywhere. It can flow and it can crash.  The shape of water is a paradox. Quenching our thirst, filling our eyes and our lungs.  How can we rightfully describe something whose form cannot be discerned? Is that faith? Is it love? Does it truly surround us? Are there answers to these questions?

This sci-fi/fantasy movie is lovely. It washes over me like ocean waves. I feel compassion and disgust, I feel comfort and imbalance. I feel water all around me.


Remember Bruce Lee: Be water, my friends.

Fave Quote of the Book: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Amazon link:

In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. At once a scathing satire, an ominous warning, and a tour de force of narrative suspense, The Handmaid’s Tale is a modern classic.

I've taught this novel in the classroom. The experience of teaching this novel was made even more interesting because this book is easily in my top 10 favorite books of all time. Point of interest: I collect signed books. I've always wanted a signed copy of this book, and interestingly, when I mentioned this in class in the fall of 2017, I failed to be entirely clear with my intent. At the end of that semester, I received a gift from three students: a signed copy of the book.

Let me clarify. This book is not signed by Margaret Atwood. Instead, it was signed by those three students.

"Mrs. Blank,
Coming into college, the impression we all were under was that all college professors sucked and we would be miserable, especially in English. Over the past semester, you have not only been one of the coolest teachers we've had in high school and in college, but you've been one of the best. You've taught us so much but at the same time, we've had a lot of fun. I know myself, Student B, and Student C have been a handful and we appreciate you dealing with all our crap. You said you wanted a signed copy of this book so we went out and got you one. See you around campus, Student A, Student B, and Student C"

The class these boys were in was one that affected me deeply. It was my third year teaching, and this was one of the first classes in my short experience where I discovered that the dynamics of a classroom can make it feel like only a classroom, or the dynamics can make it feel like a real community. This was a class of very smart students with very bright futures, and we laughed, but we also had some very serious conversations. I won't say that this specific group of students was my favorite class I've ever taught, but they sure came close. It was because of these students that I realized that teaching did not have to be painful. I learned as much from those students as I hope they learned from me.

Without further ado, my favorite quote from this book, when the protagonist is speaking privately and illicitly with her Commander in his office: He tells her that the Republic of Gilead is better than what they lived with before. "Better?" The protagonist asks. "How can he think this is better?":

"Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some" (Atwood 211).

This is something that I hadn't thought much about, in general, or specific to this story; nonetheless, when I first read this, I underlined it as something to contemplate. Is this always true? It feels like it is a universal truth, but I am not sure. Is this what life is about: a zero-sum game where some win and some lose?

Those special students of mine expected to be miserable in my class. (Why do so many people hate English class?).

I was able to show them that my class could be better than what they expected, but I am sure, over the years, that there have been enough students whom I was unable to reach.

Even in a book that I have read easily a dozen times, I am still able to share those glimpses of magic, those moments when the world between the pages grabs at you and refuses to let go.

Fave Quote of the Book: Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

Amazon link:

When a young photographer living in New York learns that her estranged father, a well-respected rabbi, has died, she can no longer run away from the truth, and soon sets out for the Orthodox Jewish community in London where she grew up.

Back for the first time in years, Ronit can feel the disapproving eyes of the community. Especially those of her beloved cousin, Dovid, her father’s favorite student and now an admired rabbi himself, and Esti, who was once her only ally in youthful rebelliousness. Now Esti is married to Dovid, and Ronit is shocked by how different they both seem, and how much greater the gulf between them is.

But when old flames reignite and the shocking truth about Ronit and Esti’s relationship is revealed, the past and present converge in this award-winning and critically acclaimed novel about the universality of love and faith, and the strength and sacrifice it takes to fight for what you believe in—even when it means disobedience.

I read this book in one sitting two Christmases ago, before all of this happened. The Husband and I were locked away in a cabin in the middle of the woods with no cell phone signal, no television, and barely enough internet for it to be worth it.

It was wonderful. We spent four days off the grid. I read five or six books in that time. We sat by the fireplace and listened to Frank Sinatra and other jazzy favorites of ours. I really couldn't ask for a better Christmas.

So, without further ado, my favorite quote from this book:

"All things, when measured in spans of years, seem simple. But human lives do not occur in years but slowly, day by day. A year may be easy, but its days are hard indeed" (Alderman 222).

Just a little over a year ago, I put a bookmark* on this page because even then I knew I would want to revisit these sentences. How could I have known how viscerally that quote would hit me today? The true gut punch here is that 2019 was arguably one of the most difficult years of my entire life for a variety of reasons. So many of my days in 2019 involved physical, emotional, spiritual suffering, and I did not know how to get through it. There is a quote attributed to Winston Churchill which some quick Googling tells me is probably misattributed to him, but the quote is still quite relevant: "If you are going through hell, keep going."

Those who know me well know that my stubbornness and spite have gotten me through some truly difficult experiences. For that, I blame inertia. A *me* in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by some outside force. I may not be the fastest in the race, or the smartest in the class, but my stubbornness has carried me along with good strong inertia.

Each day that was oh so difficult last year, regardless of the reason why, was punctuated by a semicolon; this may be a pause in the sentence, but tomorrow I will start again, spiting and stubborning my way through the day. And before I know it, 2019 is over, and we are into a new year (and new deductible, if you feel inclined to donate). I have a feeling that this year will be difficult, but you know what? I've made it through lots of difficult days, which add up to lots of difficult years. Day by day, we carry on.

So it goes.

*A random scrap of paper; bookmarks are for quitters.