Under the wire

I’d better post quickly before October’s over. I’m not the most regular at the best of times, but I don’t like to see a month missing over in the archives. I’ve been contemplating Mrs. Kennedy’s NaBloPoMo challenge, modeled after NaNoWriMo, which I’ve also flirted with in the past, a long-distant past during which I actually believed myself capable of such a feat. Or, at least, believed momentarily: I didn’t ever try. But I’m not sure I want to set myself up to fail, on the heels of my recent larger, more profound failures. So we’ll see.

What’s been happening, you ask? Three steps forward, two steps back. I had a perverse pleasure running into an old friend as I was parking outside the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute. “Hey, Caroline,” he called out as he approached by bicycle, a small dog named Scooter running alongside. “What are you doing here? You got cancer?” “Yes,” I answered, though in truth I’m not sure this is entirely accurate anymore. We both burst out laughing, relishing the absurdity of the exchange. We arranged that he’d meet me back at the car after my appointment, and that he’d help haul some boxes upstairs to my studio. He was nowhere to be seen after, though admittedly, I was very late. Another friend suggested that my mistake was not providing a timeframe for my demise: that I may have gotten help if I’d suggested I had three days to live or something similarly dire. As I’m writing this, I’m wondering if this story is at all funny to anyone but me? Part of the problem with my current set of predicaments is how profoundly self-absorbing they are, and as such, I’m worried I’ve lost some of my critical faculties. Morbid humour has a very limited appeal, I know, and I haven’t had reason to engage in it much. I’m fine, really: so lucky to have had such a relatively minor brush. But I couldn’t help myself: the look on my friend’s face was worth at least some of the pain of the last few months. He and I will be laughing about it for years.