Category Archives: bad luck

Status Update (or, What the WHAT?)

Around here, it’s all “Death, death, death, death, death, death, death — lunch — death, death, death — afternoon tea — death, death, death — quick shower ….”

The latest, and I am not making this up, is that my uncle has cancer. And it’s bad. When is cancer not bad? Sometimes! When it strikes other families, or Lance Armstrong, apparently. When it strikes my family, it is like, Pow! Kablammo! And other noises as well.

It is esophageal cancer, and it has spread.

As one sympathetic co-worker put it when I told them the latest news, “When it rains, it pours.” That was better than the *other* co-worker who said, “Bad stuff always comes in threes, doesn’t it?” Because JEBUS CRISP, you mean I need to expect more?

I am totally going to write a story about a character named Jebus Crisp, just as soon as I get my groove back.

With that goal in mind, on Thursday, I got a dramatic haircut, and on Friday, I dragged my friends out to a burlesque show emceed by Murray Hill. He even Twittered the show! Sort of. Not the part where he called my friends and me polyamorous lesbians — in his neologism, “Pollies” — and assumed that we passed Mr. Ben around for sport. Or, for that matter, the part where one of the dancers cavorted in Mr. Ben’s lap while I spontaneously combusted under the table.

So, as you can tell, considering everything, I am functioning. Occasionally, I waste time hating myself, or I cry on the treadmill because I find Terms of Endearment on TV and I can’t change the channel; and I haven’t yet managed to write anything since my dad died (see, “getting my groove back,” above). Still: burlesque; haircut; socializing … I’d give myself a B+.

a little ball of ester

A chronicle of death foretold:

WEDNESDAY
Having gotten tired of sitting passive waiting for the phone to ring, I called the school. An automated message reported that it was very sorry, but the admissions staff hadn’t shown up for work.

THURSDAY
The admissions staff showed up! But they could tell me nothing. Could they transfer me to the English department? Certainly. But the English department knew nothing. Who would know something? The MFA people — and they don’t come in Thursdays and Fridays.

MONDAY 9:00
The MFA people don’t get in til 12:30. (Wow, it must be nice to be an MFA person.)

MONDAY 12:30
Yes, we can tell you over the phone if you like. We’re going to stutter and sound apologetic. No, you have not been accepted.

Now I am sad and would like to curl up in a corner. Unfortunately I am at work where corners are wanting and anyway are in full view of everyone; everyone would be rather curious. Being as it is St. Patrick’s day, I should go off to a corner in a bar and get drunk. I will not, though. I will go home and, as I promised myself I would a few weeks ago, when I realized I wasn’t going to get to rub shoulders with Michael Cunningham and Myla Goldberg after all, I will do some writing.