Happy April! In the past couple of weeks, I’ve had some time off from work to rest and breathe, and it was so good. I should do that more often. Noted.
Here are some things I’ve enjoyed in the last few weeks.
On a Facebook post my friend and bandmate Jesse described the music they played during his head CT. I especially loved this quote at the end: “Overall it was a magical concert albeit brief, but this is a simple reminder that the beauty of music and art is fleeting, ephemeral. The only reason I didn’t give it a 5/5 was because the light show left something to be desired, and there was no encore,” and the link he provided to D Magazine’s article about listening to the symphony in space.
I’ve been anxious and insomnia-ed lately and super steroid-zoomie lately, and somatic yoga has helped.
I loooove Ollie Schminkey’s poem. And the delivery? Wonderful. I love the enthusiasm, the frustration, the insight, the passion. I especially love the parts that the audience clearly loves, too, particularly “I am not trapped in my body; I am trapped in other people’s perceptions of my body.” Worth a watch (and a re-watch), especially for those who find themselves in a place of “I just don’t understand.” This might help.
“And Yet the Books” – a treasure to read for National Poetry Month from Czeslaw Milosz via Susan Cain.
I’ll probably also read some May Sarton. Probably some Louise Glück. And because the libro.fm reading challenge prompt, “Listen to at least ten minutes of an audiobook every day for a month” will make me listen to just a little bit of poetry every day, Poetry Unbound, curated by Pádraig Ó Tuama.
One of my in-person book clubs is participating in a choose-your-own-adventure poetry night, where we share our favorites of the poems we read this month with each other. The library book club is discussing our favorite young adult selections. The other two are reading:
Other than my book club selections and the heightened focus on poetry, though, I am taking the rest of my reading time this month to read the things from January-March’s TBRs that I haven’t finished yet. Or at least make a dent in them. My focus and reading speed have been way down recently, but given everything else that’s going on, I suppose that makes sense. Taking a month to acknowledge that and regroup.
My good friends Maggie and Michelle are coming into town today and spending my birthday weekend with me, and I’m so excited!! We are going to eat cupcakes, binge-watch comfort TV, and just bask in each other’s presence all weekend.
Up until very recently (i.e., a couple of days ago), I have been operating under the assumption that I will have the energy to do everything I really want to do. I mean, I knew in my head that this was not probable. But I cling to the idea that I’m extraordinary. Well, I am. Extraordinarily sensitive to treatment in that I have had almost every one of the milder side effects of chemo so far. Apparently, that means it’s working, so I’ll take it. But still.
Could it also mean that maybe I don’t stretch myself to the very end of my energy every single day? I think so. I think that would be a good thing to stop doing. Every week, I find more and more that I usually love to do that I just don’t have the energy for, and that’s going to have to be ok for now. The things I love will still be there when I’m well.
In the meantime, here are some things I love that take relatively little bandwidth.
Oh, gosh. Ruth Reichl, Laurie Ochoa, and Nancy Silverton have a podcast together. It’s called Three Ingredients and I am obsessed (with a PODCAST?! I know, right?!).
Five ways to trick yourself into decluttering. The timer works really well for me. I can do anything for five minutes, and I can get a surprising amount of things done in that time.
Dorie Greenspan has a new book coming out, and it’s about simple cakes. I feel like I need to pre-order it, because simple cakes are my favorites. Give me anything I can throw in a bundt pan and maybe not even ice, and I’m happy.
My writing is hitting a slump, so I’m going to refresh a little next week with the Healing Through Writing Festival. It’s all online, and most of the sessions are free. You can upgrade for a pretty reasonable price to get All Access, but per my energy level, I may just need to stick to the other sessions. But if you are a creative and need a boost, too, you may want to check it out. The presenters I recognize are top-notch, so I’m excited to learn what everyone else has to say.
Finally, a very helpful product that my friend Steph introduced me to. My skin has been so sensitive – to heat, allergens, etc. More than usual, I mean. It is a mess. Enter Active Skin Repair Hydrogel. I can put it on cuts, burns, allergy rashes…anything. And it soothes and heals. It has been a godsend and if this product were a person I would marry it. Highly recommend if you are similarly afflicted.
Feeling a little puny this week, but otherwise, it’s been a pretty good one. I have a slow weekend ahead, and I’m looking forward to that. I actually get to sleep in tomorrow morning!
Next week is the students’ spring break, but I’m also taking off a couple of days and then a few days the week after that to make a long birthday weekend. Shaping up to be a good rest for the next couple of weeks!
“In another life, I’m a booktuber.” Susannah Conway is one of my favorite people on the internet, and I love this short piece. I like my life and my choices in general. But I’ve been a bit blue this week and musing on the lives I could have had is a little bit of a breather.
In niche news, I’ve been into villanelles lately (e.g., “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”). I find their rhythm both inspiring and soothing. Might try doing something with that. Stay tuned.
A little inspiration for getting my garden started this weekend. That’s the one big task I have planned for home for this weekend. I have my soil and seeds and here’s hoping another big freeze doesn’t come through before Texas spring really springs.
I love this piece on embodiment and approaching living as an art form, taking into account possibilities as well as limits – The Art of Living (The Convivial Society)
Read a book by an author with an upcoming event (virtual or in person) and then attend the event (Book Riot)
Additional/Ongoing Reads
Sarah and I are tackling Proust together this year, so I’ve just started Swann’s Way. I’m also still working through Sacred Self-Care for Lent, and reading several books about health.
This week has been a mix of ups and downs, but it has felt like the most normal week I’ve had so far this year. I got to see some friends and had enough energy to put in almost a full week of work. I’m about to hunker down with a book and a cup of tea for the evening, but I thought I’d share a few things with you first.
One of the main things on my mind this week is the wildfires in the Texas Panhandle. My parents live a few hours south of where most of the blazes happened. So much loss, and here is how you can help.
The title “Warm House on a Quiet Day” stuck out as a cozy invitation in my inbox, but when I clicked to read it, it was so much more. Laura Grace Weldon’s words read like my constant internal monologue.
I’ve been trying to find a small, portable snack and ran across this little gem – savory oatmeal cookies. I made the rosemary/parmesan ones. This weekend, I may experiment with subbing thyme, adding dried cherries, and leaving out all the dairy for the next batch. I feel like the possibilities are endless, and I am committed to exploring them with reckless abandon.
This piece by Lisa Bartelt is beautiful. My church is coming through for me in lovely, astounding ways these days, and it’s been a good reminder of why I picked them and why I choose to keep coming back. But even during more normal seasons, the rituals and the community I have there work wonders in my soul.
And finally, I got to go to a vigil for Nex Benedict last night, and it was lovely. Following up a bit from last week, here is a list of resources from OUTreach Denton that can help you learn about how to get more involved in advocating for LGBTQ+ folk, particularly youth. Most of these are based in the DFW area, but I encourage you to look for resources around where you live if you’re not local to me.
I hope you’ve had a good week, and I hope you have an even better weekend!
Edited: At the community vigil in Owasso, Nex’s friends confirmed that he used he/him/his pronouns with friends and they/them at home. I have updated this post to reflect how Nex is known among his friends.
It’s been a hard week personally. Long saga, but the gist is the chemo port was successfully placed but they did not put me under during the procedure so I’ve been dealing with the fallout of that trauma (it took a full day and a half of “I’m fine everything’s fine it’s ok” to finally call it trauma, just in time to have a meltdown about it when I had labs done on Wednesday so maybe we journal more consistently and maybe make an actual appointment with the nice therapist soon). But some good news – no spread to the uterus, so that was a huge relief.
And after the excellent care – physical, emotional, and mental – from the awesome team at Texas Oncology and some much-needed social support from friends over the course of the week, yesterday was much better. But I’m still exhausted.
This is, of course, added to the heartbreak of the ongoing updates on the death of Nex Benedict, the trans student who was murdered by bullies in Oklahoma this month (full disclosure – I have no energy left for diplomacy and I don’t see that changing this year while I’m undergoing cancer treatment, so buckle up – we’re going to be blunt and call things what they are around here for the foreseeable future…and maybe longer if I discover I like it as much as I suspect I will).
If you are similarly heartbroken, make sure you are taking care of yourself extra this week. If you are trans or nonbinary, I want to tell you what I can never say often enough – your life and your right to just fucking exist in peace are important to me. If you are not heartbroken, do some soul-searching and examine why (I’ve put a few resources below if information will help). I say this especially to people who share my faith, because the God you follow is heartbroken about the horrific treatment and negligence that led to his death, so either return to said God and repent your hard-heartedness or start being honest about what spirit you are actually following, because it’s not a holy one. Also note that sometimes repentance starts with donations (see below).
Not just a problem here (which absolutely does not negate in any way that it is a problem here, so take any what-abouts you may be tempted to entertain and throw them in the garbage where they belong – that it’s also awful elsewhere obviously means there’s more work to do, not less) – JAMA Network
The VAWnet project from the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence
Btw, these sources were found by a Google search of “statistics on trans nonbinary risks” and, when that pulled up mostly .org sites (i.e., usually solid, accurate studies but also often called out for being slanted, as every organization inherently has an agenda simply because it exists to further a certain cause, which naysayers like to point out, forgetting that their own pet organizations also have agendas because that’s what organizations do /rant), I spent a little extra time vetting before adding them to the list. Then I added a second search of “statistics on trans nonbinary risks site:edu” (i.e., typically the most heavily scrutinized studies) to supplement. All of this took ten minutes, so take heart that it’s pretty quick and easy to find more good info if you are looking for it.
Search “trans and nonbinary blogs” and you will find a treasure trove of people who are putting their own stories and experiences out there to help people better understand (usually free of charge, which is incredibly generous, given how much emotional labor this level of public vulnerability requires. That being said, it would be appropriate to donate if they have a button or widget installed to do so.). The stats can give you general facts, but these personal sources are the ones that have had the greatest impact on my own empathy and understanding by seeing how navigating the world affects specific people.
If you are reading and you have sources you want to add, please do so in the comments (especially if you want to share your own blog and stories). Sources that sympathize with aggressors or pose arguments that trans/nonbinary or LGBTQIA+ in general are not real identities will be deleted. Those are not valid viewpoints on this issue, and I am not making room in my online space to pretend that they are. No exceptions.
I am angry, but I am not angry with you (unless you happen to be a Texas or Oklahoma lawmaker or school board member. In that case, every single one of you is on my list. Do better. Tell your little work friends to do better. Do it now.). Okay, fine. Here’s a little diplomacy. Enjoy.
I adore Modern Mrs. Darcy. Anne Bogel and her whole team have created a bookish community that is fun and organized and about eleventy-four other kinds of wonderful. About midway through each month, she posts Quick Lit, a list of the books that she has been reading and enjoying lately, and she invites others to post their favorite recent reads or links to reviews in the comments.
So I’m going to join in! These are the books I’ve read this year so far (or since the last time I posted about one in a Friday Five), and I’ll include a “recommended for” note with each one.
Recommended for very beginning cooks. This would be a great gift for a young adult getting their first apartment.
My favorite thing about the book is that it talks about things that recipes don’t typically cover (e.g., does your oven run hot, or cold, or true to temp? How can you tell?) but that really make a difference in whether a dish comes together or not. It also gives recipes with each new skill that help the reader learn and practice that particular technique.
The only thing I would change is for the author to lean even further into boldness and experimentation in the kitchen than it does. Some of my favorite dishes I still make today were born of happy accidents that never would have happened had I resisted the temptation to stray or been afraid to mess up and just bypassed a recipe that seemed too intimidating on the surface, and I want others to have the same delightful learning experiences.
Recommended for science fiction fans with a strong sense of justice (or would like to develop/sharpen one) who love character-driven fiction.
I read the first book in this series a while ago and fell in love with the characters. The second one was even better. I appreciated the backstory of one of the main characters alternating with the current storyline (one of my favorite storytelling techniques). One of my favorite things about the way Chambers writes is how well she layers the strengths and struggles of the characters to show each one’s unique way of solving problems and understanding the world around them. It makes the characters memorable and engaging.
Recommended for will-they-won’t-they romance fans who are not turned off by a lot of really obvious signals being missed (I enjoy these stories – I find it comforting to think others are as clueless as I am).
I enjoyed this story overall. It dragged a little in certain spots, and there wasn’t a lot of high-stakes conflict for me. It was a light romance, whereas I like a little more character depth/struggle. But the writing is decent, and if you need something just fun for long waits in lines or doctor’s offices, you may enjoy this.
Recommended for people who like linear time travel (i.e., time travel light – not quantum or, in the words of Dr. Who, wibbly-wobbly time travel) stories that are really more about the relationships between the characters than the time travel aspect.
There were parts of this book that were really hard for me, but it was very good. Content warning: parent/loved one illness. I read it quickly because I was immediately invested in the main character. It’s definitely one of my favorite reads of the year so far.
Recommended for people who like a little romance sprinkled in their historical fiction.
The book I wanted to read was the story of the women who piloted planes during WWII, despite the misogyny and other barriers they were up against. The story I got was mostly that, but there was also a strong undercurrent of the romantic entanglement of the main character. If the story were to focus on interpersonal aspects, the more interesting relationships in the book (the friendships she forged with the other female pilots) would have been my preference. They were part of the story, but they seemed like a backdrop. The book was decent overall; just not what I was expecting.
This was adorable. It was a dinner party that included main characters from a variety of Austen novels and, as indicated by the title, involved the death of everyone’s least favorite villain, Mr. Wickham, who crashed the party. So the story was which of the upstanding guests committed the crime. Witty writing that made me want to re-read all the novels it referenced – a fun, well-executed idea.
Recommended for everyone. Favorite book I’ve read so far this year.
This collection of related short stories is beautifully told. Each character has a distinct voice, and the stories draw you in almost immediately as they buck up against systems that were designed to keep them in boxes. I listened to it on audio, and the reader was great. It’s a short book, and I wasn’t ready for it to end.
Recommended for everyone who is or will go through menopause. Actually, recommend for everyone. Everyone can benefit from knowing these things.
This is the most readable, informative, and comprehensive book I have read about menopause. I follow Dr. Gunter on Instagram so I was familiar with her teaching style from there. She not only gives evidence-based information but also debunks a lot of the fear-mongering that often circulates around this topic, which I appreciated. I need my own copy because it is a great reference for understanding symptoms, especially when to be super concerned vs. when to put it on the list to talk to your doctor the next time you see them. I thought I already knew a lot about menopause, but this book blew me away. Very good resource.
What’s the best book you’ve read in the last few months?
Happy Friday! I’ve mostly been reading about chemotherapy this week, so not a lot from the web to share. But I still have some exciting things and updates.
This Friday is a special one. One of my very best friends turns 40 today! Happy birthday, Michelle! I require you to live at least another 40. More, if possible. But just go ahead and plan on at least another 40. You make the world better and brighter and more badass and I love you so much.
I had my first treatment yesterday and other than being a little tired (probably more from the steroid keeping me awake most of the night than the actual chemo), I am mostly good. My skin is BIG mad so I’m being extra nice to it today.
I’m super excited about seeing The Taste of Things. I’m not really doing large public things like going to movie theaters these days, so I will wait until it streams to see it. But ever since Chocolat, Juliette Binoche is my foodie movie fave, and the trailer looks amazing.
Our team at work is reading The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fableby Patrick Lencioni, to discuss in a few weeks, so I’m probably going to start reading that today. In related news, I may need to stock up on popcorn and tea for the entertaining show that this discussion is likely to be.
Finally, I’m going to do book reviews a little differently this year. I’m going to be participating in Modern Mrs. Darcy’s monthly Quick Lit, so I’ll have a separate post somewhere around the ides of each month to catch up. I think it will be easier to do it all in one post a month, and I’m all about making every single thing I can easier these days. But the MMD community always has great suggestions, so if you’re looking for something to read over the weekend, you can get recommendations galore at that link!
There’s only so much rant a journal can take before it has to leak onto the internet. So here we go.
Before my cancer diagnosis, I hadn’t had any major medical issues, at least in a couple of decades. I’ve been very lucky. I went through some gastro issues that landed me in the ER a few times in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but I don’t remember the billing process being this draconian. Maybe I’ve repressed what happened then, or maybe this is unique to the type of insurance I have now, but I absolutely hate the way the way some of my billing is being done. There’s got to be a better way (in fact, I have a few really obvious suggestions, and only one of them involves my middle finger).
For most of my office visits, I can pay the copay ahead of time, and that’s great. Sign me up. The less I have to deal with when I’m actually physically present in the doctor’s office (and thus more anxious), the better. And the more I can deal with any financial thing without having to talk to someone about it at all in any way, the better. Send me an email or text that you have billed my account, and that’s all the interaction about money I really need. Ever. I will log in and pay the bill in a timely manner.
But this bullshit of sending me emails saying, “Your estimate is this and you need to pay it before your procedure” is not okay.
First, I am not comfortable forking over any amount of money for what they guess the bill might be. Especially since, in the short time (i.e., a little over a month and a half) I’ve been dealing with this particular issue, they’ve already been wrong twice and had to refund me. Which took weeks. WEEKS. I can’t help but notice that it certainly didn’t take weeks for it to come out of my bank account, so I’m curious as to why it took that long to get it back in there. I should have chargedtheminterest.
The estimate should be presented to me purely as information to give me more notice of planning how to pay what will likely be my future bill. That’s it. That is the only function the estimate should ever serve.
I am incredibly fortunate in that my dad is taking care of most of the larger bills, and I’m also looking for grants and loans to minimize what he pays, because it’s so, soooo much, even with “good” insurance. But if I had to handle this on my own, making these payments would not be a possibility. And I don’t know many people who just have extra thousands lying around. What do they do? I mean, I know hospitals write off a lot, but how much pressure do they first put on patients who are already scared they might die before they do that? Like…maybe people who are terrified about their lives don’t need the reminder that they are also only a couple of missed paychecks or huge bills away from being homeless.
It’s all just so horribly heartless.
What should be happening is this – I should only be paying the actual bill. That is, I should only be asked to pay AFTER the procedure and AFTER they have already filed with insurance and have put every single thing they’re charging on that claim because it definitely won’t get covered if they don’t even ask. I shouldn’t even hear a peep out of them until they can tell me for certain what I actually owe.
[Aside…as long as we’re talking shoulds…it all should work like it looks like my chemo treatments are going to work (i.e., insurance is covering 100% – I was so relieved I cried and hugged the financial advisor right there in the lobby). I shouldn’t be paying out of pocket for necessary, life-saving care at all and wouldn’t be if healthcare in this ridiculous country wasn’t a fucking for-profit industry but instead was recognized as the basic human right that it is (as it is in every country in the world that is actually as free and civilized as we brag about being), but that conversation is a whole dissertation and beyond the scope of this post.]
But all other things being equal, if I must have out-of-pocket costs, the bare minimum I should be able to expect is that the bill be accurate. And the only way to ensure that happens is to bill once all is said and done.
Also, I want an itemized bill to be standard practice. I should never have to request it. That I have to ask them to detail what the large amounts of money I’m shelling out are paying for is unacceptable.
Also not okay – having a credit card machine on the desk in front of me as I’m getting information about what is about to be done to me. A monument, if you will, to putting a literal price tag on my life. Or, in the horrifying incident when I went to the ER for my concussion in November, having the credit card machine wheeled in via a cart to the bed where I was already hooked up to the machine monitoring my vitals so that they could get their money before they took me in for the head CT they had just told me I needed. The implication that payment was more important to them than actually getting the answers they needed to treat/advise me (or perhaps even save my life) was more stressful to me than the possibility of having a brain bleed.
I know I’m extra sensitive about financial things, but I imagine a lot of other people slugging through this capitalist hellscape we live in are, too, and for good reason. Why – WHY – would so-called care providers of any kind and at any level think it’s a good idea to make the process more stressful than it has to be?
They need a communication consultant to help them fix this problem. And by a communication consultant, I do mean me. Pay me to identify and fix all these issues that, while obvious and shocking to me as an outsider/patient/customer, are probably so commonplace to those working there that they don’t even notice it happening anymore.
And pay me A LOT. Because I have a crap ton of medical bills to cover.
M. Suzanne Terry 