Life on Queen Street

Would dare buy me a copy of TWILIGHT.

FOUR Hussies would autograph it, then dare me to read it and write a review.

So my 34th birthday was Tuesday.

And I didn't mention it to anyone on LJ because I am terribly bad at keeping up with flist birthdays (and not just because the "upcoming birthdays" alert has somehow disappeared from my LJ) and because I figured that this year, I'd just let it pass. Letting things pass on LJ has become a bit of habit over the last year, starting with my father being diagnosed with throat cancer and ending with my birthday.

But Dad's been certified cancer-free ("until next time" - his words, not mine. Very celtic of him - get good news and he'll tell you what's wrong with it) and breast surgery 2.0 seems to have gone well. The bandage came off Tuesday and all the bits were still attached. The pathology reports were all negative - no cancer, no weird growths, no nuthin', so I'm hopeful that I can put a period on the Affair of the Wonky Boob and get the hell on with my life. Meanwhile, I'm behind in the writing but grad school applications proceed apace. Academic recommendation down, professional still to go. Now, if only my breast would Stop. Itching. life would be perfect (or a reasonable facsimile thereof).

It's been a hard year for a lot of my friends, too. I seem to have hit that age where cancer and other diseases beging to rear their ugly heads among the parental populations of my friends and relatives with greater and greater frequency and it's achingly painful to watch someone else struggle with the disease in their family and know all you can do is lend a sympathetic ear if needed. And even then, cancer, the big ugly C-word of it, can be too big to talk about, like the boogeyman in the closet and the monster under the bed, naming it gives it power.

So over the last year, I tried to keep the big angsty, scary, mournful emotions close to my chest - they'd leak out all over the place onto other things and other people, of course (including one shamemaking incident where I disappeared for a few hours and didn't answer my phone, frightening a friend into thinking I'd topped myself) - setting a habit that led to deciding to just let this birthday slide by in e-land.

Unfortunately, that's the sort of decision that you probably shouldn't make without telling your friends, ironically. Or, if you do, you have to stick with it for ever and ever, Amen. As, having let the day pass by, I teased thassalia for having missed it, which made her feel terrible and The. Guilt. is crushing.

Well, not really, but you know what I mean. Sorry, hon.

Anyway, here I am, K— H—, 34 years, two days old. Happy Un-Birthday to me.

Meanwhile, today, is, in fact, rubberneck's birthday. And all my best wishes for a happy and successful year go out to her today. Fortunately, I posted a card to her yesterday. Unfortunately, it wasn't a birthday card because I thought her birthday was April 28th. Don't ask me how I came to that conclusion, I don't know. But all my love and regard to her on this, her birthleday!