Ping Pong Brain

Good news exists. I got the results of my latest MRIs yesterday—NO change. None of my myriad tumors have grown. Yea me or, rather, yea chemo. I don’t have to dance the MRI Merengue again until late October/early November. That’s a six month check-in now instead of four. Yea!

Other good news—I’ve lost a wee bit more weight since they put me on the scale last month. It’s not much BUT I’m making progress. Yea me!

Other stuff:

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The usual definition of family:

a kinship unit consisting of a group of individuals united by blood or by marital, adoptive, or other intimate ties. (source)

And the way it’s usually thought to be:

...family helps us get through the most disastrous times and the best times. Family is important because they can offer support and security coupled with unconditional love; they will always look to see and bring out the best in you even if you cannot see it for yourself. (source)

This is the idealized version. Reality, if your definition of family is limited to blood relations, is often something else entirely. The majority of people who’ve helped me get through my own private hells, have not been traditional family members. My supportive, wonderful angels are family though.

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
~ Flannery O’Connor

Cherophobia is the fear of joy, happiness. Sometimes I wonder if this is me. That is, do I look for things to be sad, angry and/or anxious about? Am I afraid to just sit and enjoy life? Emmm, no. I do not have cherophobia. I do however sometimes fall into troughs where I stare too long into humanity’s hellscaped abyss. In order to lower my blood pressure (which is, again, way too high), I need to cut that shit right out OR develop a cavalier attitude. Somehow, I doubt cavalier is possible for me.

What will help? More exercise (Doc Plotkin wants me to start working with weights), regular meditation and the odd gummy.

Meantime, I want to time travel so that I can go back and fix the vast collection of calamities that never should have been—both personal and global. How could I possibly head off all the horrors committed by humans, the most violent and assholian species?

First, I’d prescribe gummies. Two per pay—one on waking, the other at bedtime. Second, I’d find everyone a good therapist. With luck, everyone will be too busy gazing deeply into their own navels to give a shit about anyone else's.