For some reason over the past few weeks every time I have thought to write a new blog entry I just haven’t followed through. My thoughts haven’t been very focused; no theme has emerged and I haven’t felt urgency about sharing anything in particular.

Part of the reason is that until this past weekend we were on vacation for two weeks in Asia (Hong Kong followed by Phuket, Thailand) and the days were a blur of sight-seeing, beach-going and swimming with baby elephants. You know, the usual.

Plus, I was so friggin’ happy to be cleared to go on vacation after an infection landed me in the hospital a little over a week before we were scheduled to depart that I just let everything else fall away and tried to focus on packing… and then relaxing.

Once away, when we would return to our rooms every night after dinner, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in front of a screen and type. So I didn’t. I thought about doing it — every night — but I just let that, too, fall away.

Not, however, without some twinge of regret, for I believe I sort of left you hanging regarding the outcome of Marjorie’s infection. In a nutshell: just to be safe, I spent two nights in the hospital on intravenous antibiotics and then I brought home Augmentin tablets and took enough with me on vacation to take (prophylactically) to get me through the entire trip. I’ve had enough of the stuff in me to stop an army of infections and have now been off everything for about six days.

Time will tell whether it is really gone. I think it is. Let’s hope all remains quiet on the western front.

In addition to the gobs of antibiotics I hauled to Asia with us, I brought along anti-diarrheal medication, rehydration sachets, children’s allergy medication just in case someone got a reaction to something, Tylenol (paracetamol), aspirin, sun block, industrial-strength bug spray and gel with 50% DEET (possible carcinogen/God knows what else vs. malaria/Dengue — you pick), Cipro (just in case one of the adults got a terrible stomach bug)… I could go on. And I packed all of this crap neatly in the carry-on so that we would not be without it in case any of these ills I was prepared to prevent befell us. Unlikely, I know. Overly cautious, yes.

In preparation for our travels we also got several vaccinations, some of which we probably didn’t really need but I figured better safe than sorry.

In Thailand, I instructed the children to use bottled water to brush their teeth, just in case.

I slathered them with enough sunblock to prevent a burn — so much so that we barely got a hint of color.

Of course we didn’t need any of the medication I brought with us. The worst ailment was a case of swimmer’s ear that our six-year-old picked up about a day before we returned. So we called the doctor and she too was put on antibiotics so that the infection would begin to clear before our long-haul flight.

Yes we made it all the way to Hong Kong and then to Thailand and back to London and nobody was much the worse for wear. Safe and sound and home again.

And then Monday night my father emailed me that there had been “explosions” at the finish line of the Boston marathon. The Boston marathon, an event that my family and I enjoyed watching every year when we lived in Wellesley. We would stand out in front of the library on Patriot’s Day and cheer the runners, walkers (and those whizzing by in wheelchairs) on. Because the participants came right through our quiet suburb, we did not venture into Boston to stand at the finish line. But I don’t believe I would ever have feared taking my family to such an event.

Even after living through 9/11 in New York City.

It was just such a pleasant, low-key event. A Monday off work and school. A day to indulge in an ice cream cone and be with family and friends.

Monday night I felt very far away from home. Watching the loop of footage on the Internet and on TV didn’t do much to make me feel closer. When the email reassurances from friends and family trickled in I felt relieved but still far away, sickened and bewildered.

It’s disgusting. Like the Newtown massacre, it’s unthinkable. Yet both of these things happened. Recently. How can I explain this to my children? How can I understand these things myself?

I haven’t come up with much, other than this sad truth: evil exists in our world. It seems to be having a field day right now.

When I was a little girl I was afraid of strange things, such as the Boogey Man and falling into the wall into another world (thank you fourth grade teacher obsessed with Boogey Man stories and Ray Bradbury, who terrified us every Wednesday with a new tale of horror). I really was petrified by these things. I thought the creepy stuffed clown I had might come alive and strangle me in the night. I decided to put it up in the attic so that it wouldn’t be too close to me. I got a lock put on my closet door so that nothing up in that attic (to which my closet led) could slink down and get me in the night.

That all seems so quaint and charming now. My childhood fears. I almost long for them, even though they were the cause of a lot of anxiety at that time.

But they sure beat early cancer, senseless acts of unspeakable violence and terrorism.

I never feared those things. I don’t want my children to fear them either, but I cannot imagine that they won’t.

When we told the girls I had cancer the smaller one asked if she could catch it — like a cold. I was prepared for this question and offered her reassurance that she couldn’t. But I also didn’t go a step further and promise her that she would never get cancer, because that would just be a flat-out lie.

The morning after the horrific attacks in Boston, I decided to tell the girls that something had happened because I worried that people at school would be discussing it and I wanted them to hear something from me first.

The little one didn’t really get it. The older one asked me, later, why anyone would do such a thing. That’s a good question, isn’t it? How can such things even exist in our world?

How do you explain that level of hatred to a child? You can’t.

As you may have guessed, my point is that no matter how much we try to protect our children, our families, while still leaving the house every day and taking some risks, we just can’t protect them from everything. This is not a new concept, I know. But is it just me or do things keep getting a hell of a lot worse?

Yes, I dreaded the Boogeyman and my assortment of bizarre childhood demons. But damn, the days of the Boogeyman are looking pretty good right now. I’ll take the Boogeyman any day over the shit we live in fear of today.

Luckily, my children are not afraid of the dark and as of yet, to my knowledge, they have not experienced nighttime fears the way I did when I was little. Luckily, too, they are far too young to fear the things that we as parents fear. But one day they won’t be. One day they will see what we see. They may never understand it, because I don’t really understand it myself. But they will become aware that such evil exists. They will grow up in a different world.

I sure wish it weren’t thus.

You know how guys get a bad rap for shamelessly checking out women’s boobs (and asses) at the gym? Well it’s obvious why. I mean it’s only natural to check out the opposite sex — or the same sex for my gay readers — whatever floats your boat. Or nobody, I guess if you are asexual at which point I have really lost interest in you. Anyhow I digress…

So, we are at the gym. There is boob and ass checking out going on. I’d like to ask a guy in what order he checks a girl out. I would have to wager that face comes in at least third, after other body parts. I could be wrong but fellahs whaddya reckon? Be honest and let me know what you think.

I normally look at faces first. Then bodies. That’s me. I don’t know how it is for other chicks but I would imagine that many others have the same MO. You’ll have to let me know, ladies. Don’t be shy.

Well I am writing about all of this because I have taken to shamelessly (God I hate split infinitives but…) ogling boobs at the gym. Except that mostly they’re my own boobs. Sorry but I just can’t stop looking at them. I mean there are mirrors everywhere and they look so different from the gravity defying boulders I had in there only five weeks ago. It’s kind of hard not to stare as I go up and down during squats, stand in front of a mirror doing bicep curls, what have you. And they do provide a handy focal point when I am trying to use core strength and balance.

Once in a while I cop a feel too. Even before I check to see if someone is looking. Not a whole handful deal but sort of a side feel – so it’s kind of subtle. I just don’t give a fuck anymore what someone else thinks. And I am still getting used to these babies. They’re still settling in. I mean I have to feel them once in a while for quality control, to test out the texture and to see if they are indeed real (I use this term relatively, people, as in really part of my body now, rather than “real” breasts. Duh).

My gym is pretty relaxed so I don’t suppose anyone cares if I feel myself up in between lunges or yank the front of my cute sports top down a little to examine my new cleavage and see if the twins are napping.

And at the end of the day I really do feel sort of male about the whole thing. I do it because I can’t help myself.

I am sure the novelty will wear off after a while and I won’t do it as much. And that’s where I diverge from the male species unless someone has a good argument that men stop doing that because the novelty of boobs and other female body parts ever wears off. Please.

Oh well, we’ll see what the future brings. For now just call me one of the guys.

Howdy. If you think I am being cute and that I am about to refer to myself or my newbs as a main course get your mind out of the gutter. That said, I like the way you think…

Nope. Tonight I write about a real main course, as in what’s for dinner. I really wanted to write about cod tonight so I’m gonna. This is my blog and there are no rules, after all. Well, only my rules. And tonight the topic is cod.

It all started one dark and stormy night (not really) when I had a hankering for some concoction involving cod, chorizo and tomato so I poked around online and adapted the below from a recipe I found by Lizzie Kamenetzky from delicious magazine.

Here it is:

Tasty Cod & Chorizo Stew

This is an easy recipe requiring minimal prep work and clean-up. And my kids will eat it too. The only thing in here not good for you is the chorizo but you have to live a little so fuck it.

Serves about 4 adults (can easily increase for a crowd — amounts not too fussy here)

1 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
250 grams/About 1/2 lb raw chorizo links cut into coins
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
1 tspn paprika
Pinch of chilli flakes
About 1/2 cup white wine
800g/1 28-oz can whole peeled plum tomatoes, drained
1+ large red bell pepper, sliced into strips — thin but not julienned
About 200g/8 oz canned rinsed chickpeas (if you want firmer bean) or cannellini beans (softer)
800g/1.5 lbs skinless cod fillet (preferably fairly thick and uniform middle piece), rinsed, dried and cut into large chunks
Handful chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
Kosher salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 190c/375F

Heat olive oil in large (pref. cast iron) frying pan or casserole that can go in the oven to medium-high. Add chorizo coins and sauté until just starting to crisp. Remove with slotted spoon and set aside. Meanwhile scoop out some of grease/oil mixture in pan leaving about one tablespoon liquid behind. The original recipe didn’t say to do this but you do NOT need that much grease and it’s just naaaaasty. If you want to pretend to be even more healthy you can set the reserved chorizo on a paper towel to absorb even more grease but let’s not kid ourselves too much here.

Add onion to pan and sauté on low heat for about 8 minutes or until soft. Add paprika and chilli flakes and stir to incorporate then cook for another 2 minutes.

Add white wine, drained tomatoes (you can certainly leave in some puree but you don’t want lots of water) breaking them up with the side of a spoon into smaller pieces, red peppers and chickpeas or beans. Season with salt and pepper (go easy on salt you can always add more later and chorizo is salty), stir to incorporate all ingredients and bring mixture to a good simmer.

Sprinkle cod pieces with a little salt and pepper and add them to the pan/casserole along with the crisped chorizo. Spoon a little sauce over the cod to moisten the tops and then bake in preheated oven for about 6-8 minutes uncovered, then another 6-8 minutes covered, until cod is just cooked through (when it flakes).  This does not take very long to cook — don’t overdo it.  You can also just leave it on the burner on the top of the stove and cook it there but I prefer plopping the sucker in the oven where I know the heat is more uniform because I don’t have a gas cooktop at the moment.

Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve hot in shallow bowls, spooning some broth in. Great for dipping baguette in there. Can also serve with roasted potatoes or brown rice and green beans or a nice green salad, etc.

Bon appétit.

Oh BTW if you are going to print this out and use it be sure to delete the F-word above before you plop it on the counter and your six-year-old finds it. “Mommy, what’s ‘fuck?'” Just saying.

So enough about what’s for dinner back to my favourite main topic of late: my tits. Tomorrow is the big day and how fitting it is. My husband and I are going to trot over to the surgeon’s office and have our first viewing sans tape. Then we are going to go out to lunch to celebrate. Can you think of anything more romantic than brand new boobs for Valentine’s Day? Of course you can’t. Stop trying to.

I feel like tomorrow is going to be the first day of the rest of my life. It’s not just about the newbs, really. It just marks the end of a really weird year. A year in which I endured extreme emotions, physical challenges and learned a great deal about myself and others and life in general. In which those around me endured — well, me — and all the challenges that watching me or helping me or not being able to watch me or help me brought.

Hot damn I’m gonna buy me a nice new bra to celebrate and have a glass of rosé champagne. Bring on the cheesy Valentine’s Day cards, chocolates and all of that commercial, sappy, crap because I’m really feeling it this year.

Happy Valentine’s Day, people. xoxo

In the words of the eternal Britney: Oops, I did it again. It’s been a very long time since my last post. This time I have an even better excuse. I was in the eternal city. Roma. Con la famiglia.

Still, I do feel guilty for not having written in so long. Maybe I am suffering from Catholicism by osmosis. Forgive me reader, for I have sinned. It’s been over two weeks since my last post.

Ah, it’s no good. I cannot blame the traveling for my silence. It has been a difficult few weeks for me. I have not been myself. In fact, I have been so unlike myself that I have to ask why that is. I’ve been blaming my bad back for my mood but it has occurred to me that I may have it backwards, so to speak. Maybe the back got all seized up because I’ve been mental. I will never know.

It seems so cliché. The holidays being a difficult time of year for so many people and all. But damn, there is some truth to it. And they sort of kicked my ass this year. Some people have suggested that I may be struggling because it has been a year since all of my “shit” started. This is true. But I haven’t spent a great deal of time reliving that. Rather, I have been marvelling, although that is perhaps too positive a word, about where the old me has gone.

When I look back at pictures of myself that are only one year old it seems like I am looking at a former self that existed in another age. Or maybe in an alternate universe.

I feel sort of like Sean Young’s character in Blade Runner. Like I just discovered that I am in fact not human but a replicant and that my memories have been implanted to create a past that isn’t real. Sort of rocks a person’s world, to discover that you aren’t who you thought you were, or at least who you thought you would be. This may not make a whole hell of a lot of sense to you. It isn’t easy to explain. And if you aren’t into groovy Sci-Fi movies you are really lost now. But just roll with it.

I asked my husband what heavy shit has been on his mind lately and he put it very well. He said that this just isn’t where he thought we would be right now (meaning at this point in our lives). No kidding. I don’t know about you but I didn’t spend much time worrying about whether I would get a life-threatening illness in my thirties or whether my spouse would either. But the thing is, you don’t even have to suffer what we have just endured in order to experience the feeling that your life hasn’t turned out the way you thought it would. Isn’t that in some sense the quintessential human dilemma? I mean, how many of us can look at where we are and say, this is exactly where I thought I would be five, ten, twenty years ago. If you can and you are deliriously happy then bravo (and fuck you a little bit).

I think that the last year has just intensified what we would nonetheless be experiencing as a normal part of ageing. We are getting older. And that kind of sucks. Our children are growing up. And that is bittersweet. It happens so fast. And when you chuck cancer into the mix it kind of makes your head spin.

On the other hand, I do believe that the way we are feeling now — that consuming puzzlement at how we ended up where we are now — is temporary. It really hasn’t been that long since everything happened. I have another surgery ahead of me in a month’s time. My body and my mind are still reeling from the havoc wreaked on them. Oh, and I am having a really bad hair moment, even after a dye-job and cut. I need to be patient. Patience, this will come as no shock to you, is not my strong suit.

The past weeks have taught me humility. I’d been so busy congratulating myself for killing it, for being so strong, for “sailing through” chemo, for being bionic, for exceeding expectations, for looking forward. But this isn’t a Disney movie, people. This is real life. Or at least maybe this is a Sci-Fi movie based on a Philip Dick novel starring Harrison Ford and Sean Young (and Rutger Hauer and Daryl Hannah too, BTW). Yes, I will always have my humour.

A key story line in Blade Runner is that the replicants are wired with a limited lifespan (which is not very long) and they, naturally, want to live longer so they decide to visit their creator for some answers. Unfortunately, their designer explains, there is nothing to be done. The replicants will die. There is no fix.

Boy am I glad I’m not a replicant. But I know the feeling of wanting to increase my lifespan and of wanting answers from my designer. Of being — at times — outraged at how I was made, or at least how I ended up, since we may not discover anytime soon whether this defect was hard-wired, environmental or some other factor or combination of factors. Of experiencing how beautiful life is and being tortured by the thought of missing out. Of being willing to take extreme measures to make it last as long as possible. Would one call them extreme? I know people who have gone through much worse, more extreme measures. So I should say difficult. Difficult measures.

In any event, for much of last year I was so intent on discarding the hand I was dealt that I didn’t give much thought to the difficulty of emerging victorious.

It turns out killing it really knocks you for one.

So where am I now? Well, it may true that I am not where I thought I would be five years or even thirteen months ago. But like the Romans, I came, I saw and I kicked its ass. And the important thing is that I am here. I’ll figure out the rest as I go along.

Gee, think it’s been long enough since my last post? I sort of fell off the face of the earth for a while there. Unacceptable. I’ll try not to let that happen again. But I have a good excuse. Or I sort of do. You see, I’ve lost my mojo.

About a week ago I got a cold and at the same time my back started to cramp up. To give you a little background (so to speak), my dorso is a piece of crap, generally, and this is not the first time that it has acted up. In fact I think the trouble this time around started in October when we travelled to Gordes, France and I woke up with a crimp on one side after sleeping in the hotel bed. Maybe it hasn’t quite been the same since then and I’d managed to ignore it to the best of my abilities. Which is no longer possible.

So my back, in conjunction with a nagging, sinusy cold, has somewhat flattened me. It has been a humbling and frustrating experience. Because for the first time since I was on the juice this past spring I have felt limited. Add that to the common stresses of the holiday season (travel plans, Xmas shopping, yadda yadda) to which I feel I should be immune (now that I’ve had cancer and should have perspective on the important things in life and shit) and boil it up and it equals a big ball of spirit-crushing bah-humbugness.

Seriously, I feel like I sailed through chemo only to be levelled by a much lesser adversary, or rather adversaries. The common cold. A stiff back. Holiday woes. Pathetic. Absotively, posolutely, pathetic.

When I felt the funk coming on I tried my mantra (“come on, you pussy!”) but it fell on deaf ears. Now that I am not being treated I just don’t cut myself the same slack. And I feel like my body has once more become the enemy.

It is not lost on me that I am coming up on the one-year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. Last Christmas, you may have read in early posts, was spent in the Boston area undergoing a battery of scans and biopsies which unveiled the unthinkable. Could this milestone be affecting me? I honestly do not know. Maybe.

Last Friday I had my six-month check-up with my oncologist here in London. I can tell you that at my three-month check-up with the breast surgeon I pretty much sashayed into his office and didn’t give the thing much thought. But this time I decided to try a different tack and go completely mental.

I scheduled my blood test two hours prior to the appointment to make sure that the results were back prior to seeing the oncologist. (They do things fast at this place and one hour is usually enough. I know; it’s odd. Try to get a landline or a bank account in the UK and it takes eight weeks but you can get your tumour marker test at lightning speed…) Despite my brilliant plan I was fifteen minutes late to the appointment for the blood test. It was raining. After I arrived I sat in the waiting room for ONE HOUR before they finally called me in. At this point I had worked myself into a real lather. I tried to read the third Stieg Larsson Girl With… book on my iPhone while I secretly stressed about the blood tests and whether they would be done in time for the oncologist and God forbid before everything shut down for the weekend. This, even though I know perfectly well that such blood tests are not that reliable, and certainly not determinative of whether one’s cancer has come back (at least breast cancer — I don’t know about other kinds).

A tumour marker test can turn out negative yet you might have cancer and conversely it can be positive and lead to unpleasant investigations which then reveal that you are in fact cancer free. So I really think that I got myself worked up just because. It was symbolic. It was something to stress about.

When the nurse finally called me and did my bloods (they call it bloods here this is not a typo) and flushed my port for what I hope is the last or at least penultimate time before I have it removed next year, I allowed myself to calm down. Then I went to lunch and ate a shrimp and mango salad at Le Pain Quotidien on Marylebone High Street while I watched a woman with an infant and a toddler try to order lunch while her toddler lay on the floor and had a classic tantrum, beating his fists, shrieking and generally being a real pill. This didn’t bother me in the least because it was not my child and I was therefore impervious to his bull shit. I almost found it charming, since my children are now older.

Then I went back to the doctor’s office to wait, again, in the lobby. I met my husband there. While we waited I observed a woman get her “goody bag” of medication from the pharmacist who explained each drug, what it was for and what to expect in terms of side effects. The patient had a very short haircut and it looked like her hair had started to go from chemo or else she had hacked it off in anticipation. I felt very sorry for her. It almost made me want to cry, watching her. And as I observed her sitting there as I had done only months prior, I thought how terribly odd it is that I feel so very far away from where she is right now. Out the other side. Back ache, cold, holiday stress and all. Maybe that’s why I have been so pissed about being off my game. I am used to feeling GOOD now. And I have no patience for this crap.

Everything turned out just fine, of course. My check-up was dandy and that was that and we went on our merry way, parting company with those at different stages of this unpalatable and bizarre journey.

So I think I’ll give myself a little pass and try not to beat myself up too much. It’s been a hard year. I’ve been through the ringer and as much as I’d like to pretend that I am “normal” now I ain’t quite there yet. I might get sick more often. And I might take longer to recover from it when I am. My nails are still a terrible mess, many of them partially detached from the nail beds (yesterday a grain of rice got wedged right up under my right middle fingernail and I managed to get it out with tweezers — that was fun). And I’m starting to look weird with this bushy ashy hairdo that has begun to look a little less cute and chic and a little more “mom with bad haircut who desperately needs a dye job.”

I am human. I am fallible. But at the end of the day I am still the honey badger, damn it and I will get through times like this and come out smiling. I am Andy DuFresne, who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side. (If you haven’t seen Shawshank then please go watch it, for crying out loud).

To help me along on this path I plan to get my hair done and do physio for my back until it stops this nonsense. I also might have to visit Prada when we travel to Italy later this month. I know, that last bit was totally random. But I have to keep you on your toes.

Listen if you are a kid or if you are looking for Dr. Seuss stuff for your kid you have come to the wrong place. Leave now or you will forever be pissed off that you kept reading. There now consider yourself warned.

I know I promised to do a rendition of All I Want For Christmas à la Honey Badger. I may get to it. I may not. But before you are too disappointed in me I do have something to share. Here goes:

One tit

Two tits

Red tit

Blue tit

Black tit

Blue tit

Old tits

New tits

This one has a little star.

This one has a little car.

Say! What a lot of tits there are.

Okay I’ll stop. I just couldn’t help myself. This has been in my head for weeks and I just had to get it out. I bet you didn’t know about the blue tit, red-throated tit, black tit and all the other cute little tits out there in the world. Well now you do, thanks to yours truly. I hope you never look at tits the same way again. Ta ta. Or rather ta-tas. Tee-hee.

I like to refer to movies a lot in my blogs which is something you already know if you are a regular follower. If you aren’t a regular then what’s the matter with you? Unless of course you are new in which case you are forgiven.

Anyhoo, today’s selection is RoboCop. When I was an undergraduate at Georgetown University I had a hip English teacher for whose class we read Shelley’s Frankenstein and then watched the movie Robocop, because both stories were about “monsters” who were created, let’s say, unnaturally. In each case the monster is fearsome and powerful. If you have not seen RoboCop you should rent it unless violence upsets you because there are some rather unsavoury scenes, for instance when one of the bad guys falls into a vat of toxic waste and then is hit by a car and basically disintegrates. Yeah, I know. Cool. And so ’80s. And it is set in Detroit “in the near future,” which is overrun by crime and financial ruin. I know… it was a stretch.

Because many believe that the human police force is inadequate to stem the tide of crime in Detroit, the city enters into a deal with a corporation (Omni Consumer Products) to take over the police force. RoboCop is created after a police officer (Alex Murphy) is brutally murdered by a gang of vicious thugs (you have to use the words brutally and vicious in close proximity if you want to be really cliché) during a bust gone bad. Murphy is a hot mess when he arrives at the hospital — plus he is pronounced dead, which always sucks — but instead of planning the funeral, the corporate hoo-hahs from Omni decide to salvage some of his human body and make the rest of him machine. And so Murphy becomes their first cyborg cop. The result is, as Randall would say, really pretty badass. If you do not know who Randall is then you clearly need to get spend more time forwarding mindless email chains and watching YouTube.

So, back to the story: RoboCop (f/k/a Officer Murphy) is a force to be reckoned with, kind of like the “good” Terminator but with some real human bits. And what does he do? Of course he goes out and gets justice by killing the hell out of the gang and eventually the senior president of Omni. It’s okay though because the senior prezzy turns out to be up to his eyeballs in organised crime himself so he really needs to die at the end.

RoboCop is an exceptionally effective and lethal law enforcement officer yet his human parts prevent him from being an unthinking killing machine. Unfortunately, he is also a freak of nature and suffers from loneliness, confusion and displacement and all the things that poor Frankenstein’s monster confronts when he ventures out into the big bad world after being given life.

Where the fuckety-fuck is she going with all this? You might ask. Well, I am definitely more woman than machine at this point but I have been thinking about my upcoming bosom exchange and a number of things have come to mind.

Even though I walk amongst people all day long who do not know that I am part manmade I sometimes feel isolated and displaced by it. It’s odd, but I do. Today, for instance, I was at the gym jogging and I wondered if anyone noticed that my rack is not bouncing up and down like everyone else’s. It ain’t going nowhere, in fact. On the upside it makes for a mighty efficient jog and long gone are the days of shopping for the perfect supportive yet attractive jog bra that doesn’t cut off my circulation.

Being different and being a member of this club can feel lonely, too. I know that there are plenty of other bionic women out there but most women (especially women my age) are not like me and they just amble on down the street, boing boing boing. Sometimes it feels weird. And sometimes, looking at myself in the mirror, I do feel a little bit like a freak of nature.

Whatever. That’s really kind of a stretch as a comparison. I know. The main reason I wrote about RoboCop is that I just felt like it. So why not. My hidden agenda is that I like to imagine being sort of a Jaime Sommers “lite.” Just the tits are bionic. But they wield enormous power. A creative surgeon could team up with an engineer and equip me with a full arsenal. Just a flick of my right peck and I release a poison dart right into your neck. Or I could have retractable gun barrels that would fire bullets or release poisonous gas. Just think of the possibilities. Me and my tits could flit around large metropolises (that plural looks a bit dodgy I may have made up a word) fighting crime single-handedly, or rather, double-breastedly.

What’s that? I have gone off the deep end of silliness? Well that may be true. But what the hell good is this blog if I can’t have a little fun. And you need a good dose of the ridiculous because soon I plan to do a post on how to get yourself through chemotherapy while still (sort of) enjoying life. That ought to be a real knee-slapper.

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.

A few weeks ago I was at a neighbour’s house around lunch time. She has three daughters under four, bless her (the English like to throw that expression around a lot so I figure I’ll start too). My other neighbour and her two daughters (close in age to my girls) were there too. It was the usual domestic scene for anyone with gaggles of young kids. Broccoli soup, half-eaten lollypop (dipped in the broccoli soup — what? That adds a great health benefit you know…), that sort of thing.

The topic of my blog came up and we chatted about what it has been like going through this experience. The mother of three said something about how tough I have been and then offered up that maybe I should be a motivational coach.

My other neighbour, who knows me better, and I immediately started sniggering. Chances are you do not want me for your motivational coach, unless you respond well to abuse being hurled at you and impatient eye-rolling and things of that nature.

Do not misunderstand me. It isn’t that I lack empathy. It’s just that I have my own way of getting through a hard time. Stroking just ain’t my thing. Neither is whining or feeling vulnerable for any length of time. Just to clarify: whining isn’t the same as bitching and bitching is acceptable, to some extent. I have definitely done my fair share. I guess the difference is the tone. Whining = I am victim/woe is me. Bitching = This sucks/I’m angry. I prefer the latter. Oh and venting is okay too, in case you were wondering. Just choose your audience carefully.

I kind of feel like I had my very own cancer boot camp this year. And I even got to shave my head, which was an added bonus.

At the outset, I thought long and hard about a mantra that would make me feel strong and get me through the roughest bits (the English are always talking about bits where we Americans would use parts but at the end of the day it all sounds rather pornographic to me) of this experience. Something to chant at the gym when I was struggling even at half the wattage I was able to do prior to chemo. Something to say to myself when I was feeling particularly drag-ass and queasy after a dose of that wretched doxorubicin-cyclophosphamide cocktail. Something that would cause me to force myself out of bed and get outdoors for a brisk walk when my energy levels had bottomed out.

Actually, that is total bullshit. I didn’t think long and hard about any mantra. Because before I even started, my mantra was something like “come on, you pussy.”

That’s what I said to myself at the gym (still do) when I was having a hard time. That’s what I said to myself when I felt like I was starting to whine. When the last thing I wanted to do was drag my atrophied ass out of bed and go for a walk on a grey day with the taste of metal in my mouth. There was even one day when my resolve faltered and I texted my friend to ask her if I should go for a walk or just stay in bed. The response came back quick: “move your ass.” I got right up and out the door. Because she was spot on.

“Come on, you pussy” just seems to work for me. I do have a feeling, however, that it wouldn’t go over in the chemo treatment suite. Can’t you just see me standing over some poor bastard who was retching saying “come on, you pussy. Get some dignity!” Nope. I didn’t think so.

Gee, that’s pretty harsh, you might think. Maybe. But let me dispel some myths about my philosophy.

First, this does not mean that I think anyone who doesn’t operate like me is a pussy. I really do not. I have met quite a few people in the past year who have had to deal with far worse — and I mean FAR worse — than the crap I have endured and I can safely say that not one of them is a pussy. Bravery comes in many forms. And there are many ways of dealing.

Second, it’s okay to cry. I believe that crying is necessary and can even be cleansing. I do it sometimes myself. And then I wipe the tears away and get on with it. Refusing to get out of bed and crying all day, however, is not an option. If you do that you are doing harm to yourself and others around you. I am sympathetic to people suffering from depression and know that for many they cannot help feeling this way. I have been damn lucky that I don’t have that tendency.

Third, despite my desire to be tough all the time there are inevitable moments of, to me, loathsome, weakness and vulnerability. I forgive myself for those moments. As much as it pains me to admit it, I can’t be a machine one hundred percent of the time, even though I feel that way most of the time.

Fourth, that I am tough does not mean that I am unemotional. Au contraire, I would describe myself as a pretty emotional person. I am also a sensitive person. But simultaneously very logical and rational. Somehow this combination seems to carry me through.

Sometimes I wonder whether I would have the same modus operandi if things had been harder than they have been. Do I have a breaking point? I cannot answer that question. I have no idea.

What is the point of all of this? You might ask.

Do you know the movie The Shawshank Redemption? It is a film about a man (Andy Dufresne) who is wrongly convicted of shooting his wife and her lover in a jealous rage. He ends up being incarcerated in Shawshank State Prison in Maine, which is a miserable fucking place. It is one of my all-time favourite movies. Good ole Stephen King can really spin a tale. There is a line from that movie that I think about a lot. It is spoken by Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) to Red (Morgan Freeman) the day before the night Andy shocks the hell out of everyone at Shawshank by escaping and forever changing the course of his existence. He says it in response to Red telling him that Red doesn’t think he could make it on the outside because he has become institutionalised and wouldn’t know what to do. He tells him after Red pooh-poohs Andy’s dream of going to Mexico where he would open a small hotel and operate a fishing boat for his guests.

“I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.”

Here’s the scene if you want to watch it — it takes about three minutes.

Not long after Andy’s escape, Red, to his surprise, is released on parole. He finds himself in the same room at a halfway house that his former inmate Brooks had inhabited after his release. And in the same miserable grocery bagging job. Brooks had lived most of his life in Shawshank and was released as an old man. After trying to make it on the outside for a short while he gave up and hanged himself from a rafter in that room. There is a torturous moment when Red stands on the chair and looks at the rafter where Brooks etched his name “Brooks was here.” And you think he is going to hang himself. But then he just adds “So was Red.” And buys a bus ticket, gets outta dodge and sets off to find Andy in Mexico.

He made the right choice.

It doesn’t matter if you have cancer. It doesn’t matter if you don’t. This isn’t about that. It’s just about living your life. You’ve got to make the choice and write your own story. Get busy living or get busy dying. Own it.

I remind myself of that any time I think I am being a pussy. I’ve made my choice. I’m busy living. It’s the way I always hope to be. No matter what.

Let me take you back to a hot and sticky August night in Wellesley, Massachusetts. For those of you unfamiliar with Wellesley, it is a nice suburb located west of Boston. A fair amount of classy, civilised people live there, and those who aren’t think they are classy and civilised. The year was 1980.

It had been 100 degrees that day (obviously that’s in Farenheit — you Celsius people will have to convert cuz I ain’t doing it).

Due to the oppressive heat, my father-in-law lay on top of the bed sheets, “naked as a jay bird.” Now, I won’t delve into the expression “naked as a jay bird,” because I don’t really understand it given that jay birds are at least covered by feathers and thus somewhat less naked-looking than humans without their clothes on.

Anyhoo, moving right along. His bedroom and the three other bedrooms, each containing a child (aged six, four and two, or thereabouts) were on the second floor of the house, all off the same hallway. All the bedroom doors were open in order to promote maximum air circulation. As he drifted off to sleep, the air was heavy and still.

He awakened to a fluttering above his head. He thought, “what’s that?” And then there was another fluttering.

He thought, “it must be a bat!” He jostled his wife to wake her. “I think we have a bat,” he said. “You have to protect the children!” she barked. (Read: “kill it, you asshole!”) The wife had spoken, and now it was time for the man of the house to kick it into high gear and get all craaaaazy on that bat.

He carefully got out of bed (or I should say he got off the bed since he was lying on top of it and not really “in” it). He ducked into their small closet, closed the door and turned on the light. There, he selected and changed into a pair of Bermuda shorts, a polo shirt (do you think that he thought to put the collar up because it was 1980?) and a pair of white Hane’s men’s briefs, which he put on his head for extra protection. This is apparently standard bat-fighting procedure. Seriously, it’s right there on page three of the manual.

He emerged from the closet and went out into the hall. He did not see any bat and determined with relief that he would not have to venture any further.

When he reported this to the wife, her response was “no, you have got to get it!” (Read: “no, you asshole, I said to kill it!”) So he summoned some courage, stepped back into the hall and turned on the lights for both the first and second floor halls.

Immediately he saw the reflection of the bat flying around in the window on the stair landing. He therefore decided he would not go down the stairs to where the bat was, because, in his own words, “it was too scary.”

Instead, he returned to his bedroom. He was pleased to notice that his car keys, among which was a house key, lay on the bureau. So, rather than simply go down the stairs and confront the bat head-on, he devised an ingenious plan. Or maybe he got it from the bat-fighting manual — I am not sure.

From the second floor (and this would be the first floor in the UK or elsewhere in Europe so don’t be too too impressed), he would climb out the window onto the roof over the front porch. He would then swing his legs over the gutter and try to find the lattice work on the exterior of the house with his feet. He would then climb down the lattice to the ground below. Apparently it did not occur to him that climbing out a window from the second story of a large house with high ceilings, swinging over the gutter and climbing down the lattice in the dark was a might bit more dangerous than walking down a flight of carpeted stairs in the vicinity of a small flying rodent, especially with the extra protection afforded by the Hanes briefs on his head. But that’s really neither here nor there.

At this point, he inadvertently awakened my husband (the eldest child), who for the first part of this story shall be known, as he was, as “Billy.” Billy woke up and started screaming, crying and carrying on, as was apparently his nature.

So, with Billy shrieking in the background, and with a pair of men’s underwear on his head, my father-in-law climbed out the window, swung over the gutter and shinnied down that lattice work. Once he had reached the ground, he briefly considered running away. This may not have gone over well with the wife, so he thought better of it.

Instead, he stood his ground and looked through the windows into the house. There he witnessed the bat flying from room to room, baring its teeth* (*whether he actually was able to see the teeth is of no consequence because it makes the bat seem a lot scarier if the teeth were out so I’m going with it). He unlocked the front door with the house key that he had pocketed and opened it wide, and then opened the screen porch door wide. After this procedure, he did a mad dash from the front door to the fence separating the front yard from the street. He perched on the fence and waited. (May I remind you that he had a pair of men’s underwear on his head…)

He could see Billy and his wife upstairs, Billy still hysterical, and his wife attempting to calm the child down. But then, to his amazement he saw the bat fly right out the front door and away. He yelled “there he goes!”

Later that summer the family acquired tennis rackets, not because they wanted to play any tennis or anything, but just in case there was another bat. I really have no idea why they did that considering how well the plan worked the first time. But there you have it.

So last week we took a short vacation in the south of France in a beautiful village called Gordes. And by the way if you have never been to Gordes you should go there because it is truly Gordes-geous ha ha ha ha. We stayed at a lovely hotel set high in the hills with a killer view of the Luberon.

The hotel did not have adjoining rooms so we each took a child and settled in for the night in side-by-side rooms.

One night, my husband, f/k/a Billy, only slightly intoxicated after a meal in the hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant, and donning his dorsal night splints and mouthguard (see We’re Sexy and We Know It), was awakened by a “flapping-scratching-banging” commotion in the bathroom. His companion for the night was Charlotte, our five-year-old, who naturally slept through the entire incident I am about to relate to you, not being as high-strung as her father.

Bill had gone to bed with the bathroom window open and the bathroom door ajar, for air circulation, even though it was neither hot nor sticky in the room. In fact it was so pleasant outside that he wanted to get some fresh Luberon air, for which one can hardly blame him.

Anyway, there he stood, just outside the bathroom door. He was most certain that what he was hearing flapping around and banging into walls in there was a bat. We had seen a number of them flying erratically, as they do, while driving around the region. And now one had flown into the bathroom in his very own hotel room.

Now, at this point in the story, let us reflect on the damage inflicted on my husband by the bat incident in Wellesley, Massachusetts in the year 1980 and the effect this must have had on his mental state. All of this compounded by rich food and copious wine and maybe some port… And I can only imagine the terror he must have experienced when he realised that he did not own a pair of Hanes briefs or indeed any briefs to place upon his head. Nor had we brought tennis racquets despite the fact that the hotel boasted lovely tennis courts. Not to mention that climbing off the hotel balcony and leaving a sleeping five-year-old child in the room was out of the question. Anyway, there was no lattice work to speak of.

Bill considered his next move. He closed the bathroom door. The bathroom light was off, and he thought that maybe if he turned the light on, the bat would be offended (being nocturnal and all) and would fly out the window.

When he turned the light on he heard a flurry of activity and then silence. His hope was that the plan had worked, and bothered by the light, the bat had fled the premises. His fear was that, thinking it was suddenly daytime, the bat had decided to go to sleep until night-time and would hang upside down under the swimming trunks he had drying in the shower. The real problem of course was the not knowing. Naturally, if the bat were hanging under the swimming trunks, it would definitely come out and fly straight at Bill’s head the instant he opened the door in the middle of the night when he went into the bathroom to pee. Especially because he wasn’t wearing briefs on his head.

He decided to leave the bathroom door closed. He then turned off the light (thinking that if the bat had hung itself up under those trunks when it was tricked into thinking it was daytime then it would start flying around again if it then thought it was night-time… can’t you just see the thought process and the gears turning) and went back to bed.

Sure enough, several hours later he awakened for a midnight wee. He approached the bathroom door and listened. Nothing. He slowly opened the door and looked in. He craned his neck to peek around the corner and then finally entered the bathroom. Having determined that the bat was no longer in residence, he shut the bathroom window.

Only then did it occur to him that the lady who came in to do the nightly turndown service had been closing that bathroom window (which he had been leaving open) every night for a reason.

All I can say is that it is a good thing I’m around to deal with shit like this. When you have had cancer, killed it, looked death in the eye and told it to bugger off the occasional bat doesn’t phase you too much. Just in case I’m put to the test, and to put my money where my mouth is, I have purchased several pairs of white men’s briefs. Now I’m in the market for a used tennis racquet…