The Visible Woman...January 7, 2004

You adjust to bad news by bringing it up to the conscious level over and over, examining it and making it part of what you know.

I'm getting used to my friend's cancer which we found out about on the first and its not so wonderful prognosis. Yesterday he said his wife was undergoing treatment for breast cancer right now, too. Her prognosis is good, he said. Every once in a while I bring my friend up in my mind. I think about my friend who was across the hall from his room at Christopher House a little over a year ago when my mother was also there, down the hall.

My dad mentions his doctor has ordered a cat scan of his lung. I try not to worry about it but ever once in a while I think about it and about what could happen to my dad.

I get a call around 9:30. My niece says my sister has broken a bone near her hip and will have to have surgery to have it pinned tomorrow. I worry about her.

I fall asleep in my chair and awake occasionally, reviewing the people I'm worried about.

	enough to absorb You adjust to bad news by bringing it up to the conscious level over and over, examining it and making it part of what you know. I'm getting used to my friend's cancer which we found out about on the first and its not so wonderful prognosis. Yesterday he said his wife was undergoing treatment for breast cancer right now, too. Her prognosis is good, he said. Every once in a while I bring my friend up in my mind. I think about my friend who was across the hall from his room at Christopher House a little over a year ago when my mother was also there, down the hall. My dad mentions his doctor has ordered a cat scan of his lung. I try not to worry about it but ever once in a while I think about it and about what could happen to my dad. I get a call around 9:30. My niece says my sister has broken a bone near her hip and will have to have surgery to have it pinned tomorrow. I worry about her. I fall asleep in my chair and awake occasionally, reviewing the people I'm worried about.
detail of the memorial to the women in war
JUST TYPING Hold the facts in your head. Face them. Over and over. Until they lose some force.
		Food Diary. *breakfast* nothing *lunch* a couple of bowls of salad with broccoli and onions and such *snacks* clementine Large B&B on the rocks (not together, silly) dinner [El Chile] a Michelada (spiced beer) salad two Mole enchiladas with cheese and rice and beans Today I - wasn't thinking of my own mortality while eating poorly
Meta: I'm writing this only a little later than I'd usually do an entry (afternoon of the next day) but I still feel out of sorts and distant from myself and think I may have mixed up elements of the last two days.		Time flies.... I got off to the club in time to get home while FFP and the bookkeeper were having some take-out soup. [Even though I had to go to the inspection place for my car, noticing that the sticker expired last month.] Dad came by from the barber to leave a check. I made he and I salads from stuff I dug out of the fridge. Then it was just chase around the house doing what I don't know, writing e-mail, making phone calls until I finally got a shower. Things kept going wrong, weirdly. FFP had a toilet overflow upstairs and a circuit went off when he tried to start the dryer and we thought there was a relationship. The guys were texturing walls, making a mess and smell and using equipment but on another circuit. Then another circuit running computers went off and we all know what that entails...boots, disk checks, restore the network. We had two workmen come by to look at that problem. I finally showered at four o'clock. We went by to visit our friend at Christopher House again and didn't stay too long. Then we went to eat, relieved to eat out...a nice normal pleasant thing. At home, we tuned in some tube and I tried to work on the journal, finish my book, read some papers. I fell asleep hard in my chair and then finished up reading in bed, late.

		Reading. Dawn of D-Day: There Men Were There 6 June 1944 by David Howarth on the bike. Finished this one in bed tonight. Newspapers. A little catching up to do and I'm not doing it well.
		Still trying to catch up the journal.
		Exercise hour on the recumbent bike
	. .	Felt good today physically especially during the workout. Until the ominous news started piling up, spoiling my mood. There is also the matter of the January slipping away and me getting little, if anything, done.
	It's a Tangled Web we weave...these days of our lives.	One year ago "I consider keeping some things for white elephant gifts but I don't think I will. Somehow there are always plenty of candidates for that. I keep a lot of books I doubt I will refer to again. But you never know. Books are hard to toss." Two years ago "We briefly consider walking part of the way back to the hotel to stop at a drugstore but the wind-driven snow convinces us otherwise and we grab a cab and go back. "