Dreaming of blog posts . . . and leg hair

Before falling into sleep I sometimes compose blog posts in my head. Last night I was thinking to myself about leg hair, and how I should write about it here. My post idea was basically this:

“This winter I shaved my legs once. Zsolt is the only man I’ve ever encountered (intimately) who is cool with hair on my legs – heck, I go out in the summer with week-long unshaven legs ever since finding this blessing of a man. I suspect it’s because he’s from Europe . . .or that he just a guy who doesn’t care.

He was also one of the first guys I’d met who would throw down the dance gauntlet before anyone else had hit the dance floor. This wasn’t even contingent on pre-drinking. It was only contingent on there being cheesy eighties pop music playing. The first time we ever went dancing was in Nice, France. That time he definitely wasn’t sober. Zsolt had this signature dance move he does that involves him pointing at you with both hands stretch out, then letting that “point” circle around the room. It was noticeable and hilarious. Now I pull that point-finger move far more often than he does, but it will always remind of me of when we first met.

I have this memory of being about 13 years old and attending a pool party. My legs had stubble. And being a typical teenage girl, I of course chased boys around the pool all night threatening to scratch them with my semi-hairy legs.

“Touch my leg!” I’d say.

And they’d run.

This is a case of being high on hormones. That’s also how I met my husband. Hormone high = mighty courage.

My next scan/x-ray/whatever is scheduled for May, and I’m thinking of pushing it two months back. Part of me fears everything, and is scared the cancer will gets frustrated with being ignored if I push it back. A larger part of me doesn’t want to allow cancer to once again ruin an important time of the year. From May till the second week of July we have important stuff happening.

Last year our birthdays were heartbreaking occasions.

So this year, I’d like to wait on whatever news – good, bad, or unchanged – may be coming. I just want to wait. That means I need to call the oncologist. Dr Canada seems to get that I want to live well. But still, asking for anything other than protocol is scary business for me. Maybe I’ll grow my leg hair for courage, and hit up some hummus & olives for a temporary hormone high.”

And that is the post I was thinking of writing. Not actually word-for-word, but something along those lines. Surprisingly this isn’t the stuff that keeps me awake at night. What keeps me awake is the building bunch of projects I have going on – including my book launch!

Now, here we are at the end of this rambling post.

Good morning!

Running Nowhere Fast

Have you ever had that dream where the bad guy is chasing you, so you want to run away – but you’re getting absolutely nowhere? That’s how I feel sometimes. Mostly when I have a hot flash, but sometimes it simply happens without any hot flashes at all.

Like today. Today I feel like I’m trying to run somewhere and not actually moving. Admittedly, in the literal world you’d never catch me running. I’m allergic to running . . . well, if a person could be allergic to exercise, I’d be allergic to running and baseball. But in the metaphorical sense I want to run as in move forward with life. I love those moments of success and celebration, I also love those moments of rest and reflection, and give me a bit of time to write to make it all totally lovely – but to get to those moment, I apparently require these moments of taking the metaphorical lego pieces and building a life one tiny block after another tiny block, and my face is so close to the construction that I can’t even see what I’m building.

Oops. I jumped metaphors.

Running really hard but going absolutely nowhere.

Today that is how I feel.

Tomorrow may be different.

Probably I just need more chocolate. I will now test that hypothesis and go make myself some low-sugar cookies. Cause a girl needs her cookies .

This is what happens at 2:00 AM

It’s about two am.

I just read an article online that says that “if you can’t fall asleep in 15-20 minutes, get out of bed and stay up until you feel sleepy. Not just tired, but sleepy.”

So, I got out of bed around 12:45 thinking maybe it was the morning, because the neighbour upstairs is always getting up so early and making noise. But no. It was just past midnight. It’s Saturday night, so I can’t hold it against the neighbor for making a little bit of noise. Besides, this has been happening for the past week.

Is it the time change? Is it the rolling hot flashes? Is it the Arimidex? I don’t know. It’s probably the lack of cookies.

I went on twitter and tweeted quite randomly. Realized a local artist/blogger is this fellow I had met years ago while working at Old Navy. I remember working at Old Navy when it first launched in our town, and this fellow was there. . . then one day he says to us (teenagers and uni kids) “I’m actually undercover here, researching for a cartoon show about animals who work in a mall” . . . or something like that. And then he said, “I’ve got what I need, so I’m quitting.”

Of course you don’t believe a crazy story like that – not when this is your second job ever and this guy seemed younger than you, and he was quitting without one spec of remorse. (Now that was a new concept for me – the ever-trying eager beaver.) So, no one believed him till he whipped out his driver’s license and proved that he was many, many years older than us. *Back then, I thought any age differences meant older. Now that stuff is all just stupid. But at the time, it was mind blowing how much “older” he was. So apparently, when you cannot sleep and it is 1:45 in the morning, you make weird connections based on people’s twitter profiles, and have strange flashbacks to days long gone.

I didn’t like that job. The floor was made from concrete and my shins shot through with pain at the end of every shift. Plus, I was mostly invisible there – and after feeling invisible through high school (okay, I felt more translucent than invisible, and far more opaque toward the end), you get to have enough of it.

Writing is a really good help for not being able to sleep. Just talking through the words and letting these thoughts unravel. I’ll put this on my blog, and possibly regret it later. But the mystery of my sleeplessness must be resolved. I would prefer to resume normal sleeping patterns.

Spring forward. Hot flash. Work anxiety. New drugs. Old drugs. Zoladex. Radiators. Upstairs Neighbors (he’s also new). What is it? I just do not know. I would like to eat a bunch of cookies, except there aren’t any. So, I’ll settle for this bag of frozen pecans.

Okay. Bedtime part two.

Goodnight.

🙂