Yes, I stink. 2 weeks of vacation over a 3 week period knocked out any semblance of a routine I might have been building up.

And, yes, it’s my fault. But it’s tough to pull yourself away from the beach, drinking and family to post anything meaningful. And it appears you did ok in my absence.

Even though today is Thursday, it’s going to be an absurd week. Work is going to be a dozy and R leaves again on Sunday.

Let the good times roll.

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I turn the light red kidney beans over in the colander with my fingers as the water rinses them clean. Most are firm and ready. I shut the tap and wait a moment for the water to finish draining through the traffic jam of legumes ’til it reaches the open highway of the sink. I will stir these beans in with the chili beans, meat, tomato sauce, chili pepper, paste, salsa and cumin that make my chili.

As the pot simmers on the stove, I finish the task of going through the baby clothes Amy is packing up. Onesies. Sleepers. Adorably small hoodies. I remember Reed, small and inquisitive, in one of the light blue sleepers, joyful despite terribly chapped little cheeks.

I feel a little pang inside, knowing that in all likelihood, I will not again in this lifetime have a child that small, that open to all the world. It is equal parts sad and relieved. I put a little shirt to my nose and breath it in, and feel low and mean for wanting to keep it when it could have use elsewhere. I fold the clothes back up and place them in the box for another baby to use.

I return to the kitchen to stir the pot once more. A lick of a finger, it is warm and sweet enough for the kids, spicy enough for the grown ups. It’s my recipe. It’s predictable.

Like me.

I kept the sleeper.

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I do remember regretting all the times I didn’t just give up on you.

The heavy static of going off the air. Trying to drown myself in some new sound, or dizzy myself to distraction. I never quite managed to forget the knit of your brow or the heavy hollow of your voice. Those snake charmer eyes of yours, enticing in emptiness and impermeability.

And your pace. I could never launch into your quick orbit, and was always haunted by the weighty matter of a missed rotation. So, in some frustrated Gift of the Magi, I sped up, you slowed down, and we never managed to meet.

Meanwhile, for the third time in as many years, someone is found on splayed on the sidewalk across the street from my office. Did he fall? Plummet? Leap? Tip? This is always, it seems, lost in the details, held in the dense grey of the unknown. In cartoons, ghosts take the shape of some poorly-projected body, a colorless and smoky memorial. His is different: a traffic cone, a bouquet of drugstore carnations, and a cardboard sign with a name in felt tip, and the phrase “passed away” added in ballpoint. An afterthought. Ungodly bright, a reminder of obligation, and a quiet catalyst.

Do you like me; will you go with me; can I stay. Check one: yes, no, maybe.

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The headline is:
IAAF isn’t sure South African runner is female

IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said the “extremely complex, difficult” test has been started but that the results were not expected for weeks.

via Olympic Sports- nbcsports.msnbc.com.

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I have had a fantastic day. It’s been the kind of day you want to save as a memory and go back to for the rest of your life. Sweet kids at sunrise, good fellowship with friends, lunch date with my wonderful wife, ice cream for lunch (!), a ride on a super-fast bike, one of my favorite meals for dinner, cupcakes with candles, my family singing to me, a little stapled-together book Reed made for me, and then getting to laugh at some really bad reality TV, plus. I just want to laminate today and put it in my pocket so I can come back here whenever I want.

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Today my oncologist told me my blood work looks good and that he’ll see me in another six months.

It’s hard to know how to feel when I go in for these check ups. Following the last visit back in February, I sat in the car and cried in the parking lot for my father-in-law, who’d passed from pancreatic cancer a few months earlier. Many times, I feel relieved and thankful. Others, I feel guilty, knowing what a truly horrendous fight is faced by so many countless others. And then there are the people I can count.

Because, as cancers go, I got lucky.

I remember the voice of the nurse on the phone in July, 2005. She called back after telling me briefly the results of my biopsy: malignant melanoma. Sounds a whole lot scarier than ‘wonky mole that may or may not metastasize.’ Perhaps I sounded a little shell shocked when I hung up, because she called back to tell me this was “the best malignant cancer you can have.” In my messed-up head, I always imagined that line on the side of a cereal box, or some bad movie poster:

“The BEST malignant cancer you can HAVE!” Tah dah.

But she was right.

I keep seeing cancer gobble people up.

And I feel guilty. I feel guilty for not knowing exactly how to feel about a 1×1x4 inch diamond of meat being taken out of my leg, taken from me, tested and then incinerated. A pound of cure. A price I know so many would gladly pay. I would, too, again. But at the same time, I don’t feel free of it, as if it has its finger on me, saying just wait.

In those first months after feeling the doctor tug the sides of my leg back together for stitching, I didn’t know how to feel. Elated, okay with it, guilty. I do know that back then I was pretty sure I’d have it all figured out by now, that time heals all. I don’t and it doesn’t. Now, I’m just able to think about it less.

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New examiner article. Probably the last one. Get it while it’s hot.

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