a dear friend of mine from college has cheered me up a bit. (i transferred midway.) lemme tell you about her: her predilection for Kaboom cereal, for ironing everything in her wardrobe and then some, and her peppy, perky warm heart keeps us friends years later.

she has helped me put a good new spin on my current health woes. and i quote (and i hope you don't mind me posting this – i just think you are soooo on target!):

“Of course, you realize that doctors are big chickens and would rather not have to worry about things even when we are 99.99999% sure it's nothing.”

you are so right, my dear. doctors are chickens. i will make that my mantra for the next few days. actually, i think i will shorten it:

mantra: buck, buck, buck. 🙂

anyone who knows me well and for a long time would know that i generally write when i am in pain. when i was in high school, i wrote daily in a journal which, i imagine, i will one day pep up and use as fodder for a book. (high school chums: Live in Fear! LOL. yeah, right.) it really helped me, though, as i struggled watching my mom battle breast cancer when i was 15 and again when i was 18. a good friend of mine (at the time, anyway, but that's a whole other unfortunate story entirely) lost his mother to cancer around the time we were 16, and all of that rolled together made me very conscious of cancer, vigilance, and bravery.

now i have a lump.

i went to the gynecologist today to check on a lump i have. i have been watching it for awhile now, but i figured i should get it looked at. i expected to get a pat on the head, i suppose, one of those “oh, it's nothing” kind of visits. BC went with me, and i am glad she did. she kept my mind off of everything — when you have a child, it is hard to focus on yourself, even when everything seems pretty awful. “look,” she said to my dr., “we have sparkly sunscreen on!” indeed, i was going to save the stuff for our beach vacation, but what the hell — live dangerously — and put the kiddie sparkly sunscreen on. i had it on, too, and it was fun to be little again, even for a split second.

anyway, back to reality. the dr. was able to find the lump without my having to tell her where it was. that is not a good sign, in my book. on those rare times i have found a lump in the past, i have had to tell the doctor where it is after she has had a concerted amount of time fingering about. not this time. she found it and the mass next to it without any guess work. (let's tell her what prize she's won, johnny!) she said she could not really tell me what she thought it was and that i should see a specialist. for all she knows, it could be nothing, or they might need to biopsy it. yippee.

so now, i get to visit a surgeon up in friendship heights next week, armed with my mammograms.

i've noticed that when i am feeling wretched, i listen to an awful lot of joni mitchell. maybe i need to switch to something more cheery, like, uh, i dunno. like the buzz cocks.

i nearly did. i have been having pain in two teeth, and two weeks ago, the bloke told me to brush with this Prevident stuff to try and make them less sensitive. they are slightly less sensitive, but i swear i still have pain when i chew. he does not see any reason for a root canal, though, so we are just keeping an eye on things.

the dude didn't charge me. two weeks ago or today.

i love that guy. i brought him homemade brownies today. i am not making this up. (too bad the hershey kisses i put on them melted in the 113 degree heat of my car. yep, my volvo recorded its highest internal temp to date. amazing i didn't grill along inside it.)

meanwhile, i wanna lynch my dentist. i always had perfect teeth – well, nearly perfect, anyway – until the dude convinced me that i needed to replace my silver fillings with folgers coffee… or something like that. ever since i had my fillings replaced, my teeth have been completely fecked up.

::sigh:: how did i get to be this age?

quiz created by glitterevil

Which Cure single are you?

what a busy couple of days i have had. wednesday was my usual mommy-and-me day; thursday was BC's school picnic, which was a blast but which ate up most of the day; friday, my parents arrived for a whirlwind tour since BS was in school and i could do with the company; saturday, my parents and BC and i ran about to the LL Bean Store and to lunch before my parents set out for home. sunday, BC, BS, and i went to see the bowie baysox play the reading phillies (the latter, btw, won) with dear friend of ours including one of the cutest little kids to walk the earth, anya.

not to mention i had a work deadline in the midst of this, a minor medical crisis which i decline to write about at the moment, and angst. plus three close friends have birthdays this week. much to remember. think, think, think. and the roof leaking into my living room.

in short, i am exhausted. if i have forgotten anyone in the midst of all of this, apologies. i should resume normal programming schedules soon.

i failed to mention that the other day, my BS taught BC two songs off the old Presidents of the United States of America CD: “peaches” and “kitty.” i don't know which was funnier, BC singing “movin' to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches,” or simply “meow, meow, meowmeowmeow meow!”

juxtapose that with the fact that she now is singing – randomly, i would add – a line from an old flower-power Donovan tune, at the top of her lungs in the middle of Target:

“oh juanita, oh juanita, oh juanita, i call your name.”

words that really have nothing to do with the reallydeep lyrics of the rest of the song:

“first, there is a mountain, then there is no mountain. then, there is.”

i can hardly wait to explain to BC what LSD is and why people on acid should reconsider writing lyrics until their collective heads return from the ether.

yesterday, i broke out abbey road and put it on the car CD. after discussing music, particularly the beatles, the other day with BC, she noted how “funny it was that that band liked to sing all her kiddie favorites: “yellow submarine,” “all together now,” and “strawberry fields forever.” how to explain to her that these songs were originated by the beatles and not necessarily as kiddie songs…

anyway, so i put on abbey road. i have not been playing as many beatle albums as i used to, probably because subconsciously, i don't want her to rebel and hate them when she grows up, which, of course, she may well do anyway. so “here comes the sun” comes on, and i tell BC how much i have always loved this song. (i spared her the part where i mention how, when you listen to the middle part: “sun, sun, sun, here it comes” on headphones, it nearly puts me in religious ecstasy.)

so you know what she said about “here comes the sun”? “mommy, i would rather hear “pink moon,” please. she is picking nick drake over george harrison.

i have to think about this.

yep, there i go again, mentally meandering around my neighborhood, thinking about terror again. i guess it is hard at times to divorce yourself from fear – it isn't every day a plane goes down 5 minutes from your house into the center of your nation's defense group. i think only new yorkers can understand — maybe even better than we DC metro folks — how you always have this creeping sense of dread in the pit of your stomach. i live in the flight path of National (i refuse to call it REAGAN Nat'l, so don't even make me) Airport, and every time i hear a plane, i twinge for a hot second, thinking of a split-second mini-prayer that the damn thing stays in the air until it is good and ready to come down of its own volition.

anyway, the pentagon. i am shocked and stunned that the building is fixed ahead of schedule. in my short but eventful career as a nearly-civil servant, i have never, ever, EVER heard of something being done on-time and under-budget. anyway, i was thinking about this as i took a mini-stroll down memory lane. i just relived my impressions of the first time i went past the pentagon after a plane was dropped into it.

here they are. from 10/7/01.

Yesterday, my husband and daughter and I were running errands – nothing unusual about that, of course. What was unusual was the fact that the entrance to Rte 395 was open from the GW Parkway. Now, big deal, I guess you might say. But this entrance has been closed for a while to us locals, thanks to that hijacked plane crash-landing in the Pentagon on September 11. Like everyone else around the world, I have seen many pictures of that crash site on TV and in the paper; I have consumed the statistics. I have even gasped upon reading obituaries in the Washington Post of people found (or not found) in the wreckage. But in truth, there has been such immense loss and destruction up in New York, and thus so much intense focus there, though, that I could barely contemplate what had happened here. The media coverage concentrates on New York, and understandably so — thousands upon thousands of people, just gone. Buildings that defined a skyline — that I have thrilled to see for most of my life — obliterated. Maybe it is just easier for me to focus on New York — that way, I did not have to think about what is happening here in my home, Arlington.

So I suppose I was not prepared for actually seeing the Pentagon with my own two eyes.

As we merged onto Rte 110, we were suddenly confronted by an immense, black, gaping hole in the side of the building. You've all seen it, I am sure, but to see it right there, right in front of me… I wept. The realization that I was so close a place where evil visited was simply overwhelming. The fear of that horrible day returned to me in an instant — all the rumors of planes still in the air over Washington. The terror of wondering where my husband was. The seemingly-impossible task of keeping my family safe. (People merging there with us in traffic must have had the same “kicked-in-the-stomach” reaction – I was uncertain for a split second whether other cars would collide with ours.) Anyway, back to the building. Astonishingly, the inner ring of the building looks incredibly intact. Chalk one up for the defense contractor who built that puppy. I am sure “withstands a direct hit from a suicidal terrorist air attack” was not in the requirements for that contract.

As we returned from our errands, we missed our usual turn and ended up going on the Pentagon entrance that dumps you onto Columbia Pike. (Many locals always giggle at tourists who get lost here — somehow, if you are unsure of yourself in that neck of Arlington, you inevitably end up in the Pentagon parking lot. In recent days, that would not be possible, as many Pentagon exits were closed. Period.) As we drove up the Pike towards the Navy Annex, we saw something amazing. Cars parked on medians. People in droves, on the street, on the medians. Just looking. Just staring at that building's gaping wound. To say it is surreal would be the understatement of the year. A makeshift memorial is up near the hill, and all sorts of tokens of love and sorrow are scattered there. Here we were, October 6, and people were still simply stunned. It happened. Here. Here, in the self-proclaimed epicenter of the free world.

Our Arlington firefighters. Our cops. Our EMTs. People who live here in the metro area. The military planes overhead. The hospital where my daughter was born was the same place where many of the victims were taken. I imagine that the Dulles terrorists also must have been here before the attack as well, and it sickens me. Try as I might to distance myself emotionally from this entire experience, I cannot any longer. In the past, residents here often would joke about a situation like this. I know I have joked — hell, we live in the flight path of Washington (AKA Reagan) National Airport and are five minutes from the Pentagon. When danger happens, we are toast, I used to laugh. I am not laughing anymore.

But people here, like their brethren in NYC, are pretty darn steely. On September 12, Washington, DC was open for business. As the Nation's Capitol, Washington is required to brush itself off and carry on. While we surely did not suffer the physical manifestations of the attack to the astonishing level suffered by New York, we definitely share the psychological ones. But life must go on. And freedom will prevail. It is our job in the days ahead to make it so, I guess.

“no sleep! no sleep. no slEEEEEEEP!”

you heard what the girl said. now do it.

i accepted a freelance gig writing bits and bobs about local events, sports, restaurants, and other fun things to do in our neck of the woods. my “test” assignment this week: five different venues/events. i was able to complete 4 of them today; and some of the venues kindly offered me press passes to events (keep yer hair on – they are shows for kids, which i am psyched about because i know BC will enjoy tagging along on these gigs. no, i didn't get free tix to Ozzfest…)

so far, so good.

but one event i am supposed to write about involves polo that is played every sunday a.m. in west potomac park. (not far from the lincoln memorial, for those of you keeping score.) apparently, there are wacky people who get up and play horse hockey not far from the pros who play bull shit just up the road a piece. i called up the national park service, as west potomac park is in their jurisdication. no, they said, you need to call the DC Parks and Rec office – they schedule the playing. DC Parks and Rec then sent me to their Adult Rec office. Adult Rec sent me to the National Capitol Regional Office-East, who subsequently sent me to National Capitol Regional Office-
Central. They, in turn, wanted to send me to the National Park Service.

AAAIIIEEE!!!!!

knowing that you can't throw a cat in this town without a permit, i called up and found the office that issued the permit for the field on sundays. (don't even THINK about asking me how i figured that one out or i might have to hurt you.) i got a phone number for a gent in Maryland. i left a message on his answering machine, which had all sorts of info for polo players, so let's keep our fingers crossed.

gosh, this is a shitload of work for the pittance i am paid. i do it for fame and glory and love, you know 😉

right.