Did you think I was dead? Nope. And yes that is too funny. Lighten up, for Christ’s sake. I know it has been a long long time since my last blog. But I have an excuse. My dog ate my laptop. No, but actually my internet was down. As a matter of fact, it still is and I am coming to you tonight due solely to the generosity of my neighbour who has let me filch off her wireless network. Thank goodness. I was about to go mental being back in the Dark Ages. I mean what girl doesn’t need to email, blog, shop on Net-a-Porter and read the latest about the Petraeus scandal all at once every night? By the way did you see that photoshopped book cover that the Denver ABC affiliate aired “by mistake” the other day? Made me laugh out loud. Check it out: http://www.uproxx.com/tv/2012/11/abc-denver-mistakenly-aired-a-hilarious-photoshopped-cover-of-paula-broadwells-book/

Anyway, here we are November 17 and Thanksgiving is already next week. Never mind that; Christmas is right around the corner. Where the hell does the time go? In America this happens every year — bam bam bam. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. And it never fails to be a frenzied combination of costumes, decorating, cooking, planning, spending, shopping, traveling and last but not least, stressing. Sometimes I wish those holidays were spread out a little more to make things a little less harried at the end of the year.

Things are a bit different this holiday season because we have a change of venue, being in London and all. However, the bam bam bam is still happening. We survived Halloween with a red devil and a grey elephant and no hoochie mama costumes either requested (phew) or purchased (as if). And I only saw a couple of little girls at school who looked like they were in the “mini-me” version of a French maid outfit. It took me a good ten minutes to find a red devil that didn’t feature a micro mini skirt or a sequined, cropped halter top “for ages 3 to 5.” I have trouble imagining the conversation between the kid who asked for the hoochie mama outfit and the mom who bought it for her. “Mommy, could I be a junior ho for Halloween this year?” “Sure, dear.” I mean WTF.

Really, folks, don’t let your eight-year-old wear that shit. It just ain’t right. You are totally setting her up to appear on Girls Gone Wild, as my friend Gary used to put it, “getting drunk, getting naked and doing things she wouldn’t do at home.”

I, for one, am hoping that Christmas this year shall prove to be a little more relaxing and a little less eventful, thank you very much. Last year at precisely this time I found that lump in my breast while showering and Christmas “vacation” morphed into a tornado of scans, biopsies, fretting, crying and ill-advised internet research on the topic of breast cancer. I managed to have a decent time when I wasn’t freaking out or getting chunks of my boob taken out and analysed. But still, it left a little to be desired.

This year we are having Christmas in London with real English folks. We want the authentic experience so I am hoping that people will call each other “love” a lot and that there will be loads of mince pies and Christmas crackers and things of that nature. And carolling. Our hosts are probably reading this now and swearing that they have to go out and buy Christmas crackers and shit. Sorry guys. I can bring some if you want. :oP

It is strange to look back with some perspective but not nearly enough to digest fully what has happened to me and my family in the past year. In fact I am frequently dumbfounded, these days, by the amount of change that we have endured in this really very short period of time. It’s just fucking weird.

One year ago I found this mildly worrisome pea-sized lump and a few weeks later was coming to grips with the likelihood that I, at age thirty-nine, had cancer. A perfectly healthy, normal woman. I consider myself to be better educated than the average idiot about things medical. But honestly before this happened to me I didn’t know a damn thing about breast cancer except that it seemed to happen a lot and be in the news a lot. Pink ribbons galore and all that.

But suddenly I had a real need to know about it. That’s how life is, I suppose. You go through it and there are whole pockets of information and experience that you never touch until and unless they become applicable to you or someone close to you. And when you enter one of those pockets, it changes you forever. Bonds you to others with similar experiences, alienates you from those whom you, for whatever reason, find toxic and thus undesirable.

Cancer serves as an apt metaphor for a lot of things. Clutter. I have a lot of it. I need to purge. If I think of it as cancer it makes me ruthless (for short periods of time until I get bored and start to let it pile up again — it’s my New Year’s resolution to treat clutter the kind way I treated my disease. If I succeed it won’t have a chance in hell). People who waste my time. Cancer. Lose the losers.

I’m full of digressions tonight. Largely due to the fact that I haven’t been able to write anything in days so my mind is going in all directions. But anyhow, as Christmas beckons, I’m looking back at the past year. And at the same time I am considering the future. There is so much uncertainty in life. It is uncontrollable and unavoidable. Past is done. Future is uncertain. But where am I now?

Well, I’d say I am a great deal stronger than I was a year ago. Literally and figuratively. It helps to be single-minded about the enemy. And I had a very clear enemy. My primary task was to kill the enemy and manage not to allow the rest of my life and my family to fall apart in the process. And it is absolutely delightful to approach Thanksgiving and Christmas with that task accomplished. This year when I ask what I have to be thankful for before plunging into the oyster casserole I won’t really have to stretch, now, will I?

I feel good. It’s been only three and one-half months since my last treatment and that isn’t very long. But I am more physically fit than I was a year ago. More so than I would be if this hadn’t happened, for certain. Soon I’ll need a haircut. My first since my very memorable GI Jane moment in March. And this winter I’ll get my new bazongas (this is a word my older daughter thinks she invented but I am pretty sure I have heard and possibly even used before).

Before that, however, I need to do at least one more international flight with my bionic tits. We’re taking them to Rome after Christmas and because it is Italy I am positive they will set off the metal detector at the airport forcing me to declare to some swarthy Italian security dude that I have a metal rack. Ah well. As my father always says, it’s mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.

A parting thought: When I was a little girl in elementary school (is that redundant?) some bozo in my class who thought he was hilarious came up to me while I was walking to school one morning and said: “Go roam around in Rome, Rome.” Then he grinned and walked off. It’s actually kind of funny, don’t you think? And good advice. I think I will.