pantoum's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WELL WITH HER SOUL Yesterday was a long hard day and I was so, so tempted to stop at the store and buy cigarettes and beer on the way home from work. Instead I came home and fried some pork chops, did some paperwork, tried to gauge just how bad things are in South Carolina, worked on a freelance project, and turned a photograph of Computergrrl's grandmother into a pixillated watercolor using Photoshop. My friend and former publishing colleague Fontgrrl, an incredibly kind, seemingly healthy and intensely driven woman, was diagnosed with nonHodkins lymphoma eleven months ago and has been in treatment ever since. Well, now her treatment has ended and she just had tests to check its effectiveness. Fontgrrl grew up in the mountains with a hard father and we talk about that sometimes. She says, when people ask you how you wound up so functional (well . . .), tell them you had a kind grandmother. See, her theory is that, even if you have a traumatic childhood, you will ultimately be okay if you had one good person in your life who loved you unconditionally. Many Christians make me break out in hives but not Fontgrrl, who really does try to emulate Jesus in the best possible ways and whose beaming face I remember so vividly from my wedding. Fontgrrl sent the following message on Tuesday, the same day that I was at the hospital with Shakespeare—a woman who matters enough to me to make this ambitious woman quit job and work freelance so that I could be there for her when she lived here and received treatment for late-stage breast cancer. read Fontgrrl's letter, thought about how hard her treatment was and how hard Shakespeare's treatment was, how much they both just want to live and be healthy, and felt like the most vacuous person on the planet for being suicidal when I'm alive and healthy and able to see a blooming, vibrant, growing world every day: Dear Family,And, after eleven challenging months, her news is good. Fontgrrl has no growths, good blood work, and good scans, so there's no indication that she'll have a recurrence any time soon. Now it's time to grow her some hair so I can teach her how to spike it with product! Fontgrrl (a typesetter and bookmaker who works with most of the academic presses), Designergrrl (a designer who worked with the biggest local trade press and then at several local university presses), Textgrrl (a managing editor for the same local trade press), Stylegrrl (an excellent graphics expert who worked with Fontgrrl), and I (production guru who became composition and electronic publishing manager) formed a full-service book production company several years back. We worked with nearly all the big academic presses and several trade presses as well, won some very nice awards, and became lasting friends. We wound up selling the business and going our separate ways, but still get together on a regular basis. • In other news, my sister has asked me to be her daughter's guardian and I am trying to figure out what in the fuck to do. CeeCee is in first grade and has mostly never been disciplined—or at least not consistently disciplined. She is an adorable head-strong little hellion who looks an awful lot like me as a child. My sister Glittergrrl says this would just be for the summer, but I don't buy that. I processed about a million things last night instead of sleeping and woke up early, still processing—namely, can I get CeeCee into the university's summer camp program for employees' kids or is it too late? What does child care cost? Could I add her to my insurance policy? Can I even afford to consider this? Glittergrrl says she can provide the $400/month child-care check she receives from her ex-husband. Would that cover day-care expenses/camp fees and be enough for me to avoid getting a roommate, which is certainly out of the question if I assume guardianship and turn one of the two spare bedrooms into a kid's room? Could I even be a decent parent? I mean my brother Lad says I was a wonderful caregiver, but I haven't been around kids in any significant way in probably twenty years and we are talking about one headstrong, rebellious little girl here (which is payback, actually, since my mother says I used to sit on the floor and beat my forehead into it screaming when she told me no). Do I have enough patience to do this? I mean, I am not a patient person in the best of circumstances and CeeCee is a difficult child. I am a pretty strict disciplinarian with kids though and could introduce consistency in her life. But, eep, my job is so unpredictable and I would have to be disciplined enough to get her bathed and in bed by, what, eight or nine every —not to mention out the door on time when she's having a hissy-fit because she wants to wear, O, a purple striped T-shirt with her checked lime shorts and I won't let her? I have seen her hissy fits and heard those blood-curdling screams. What would I do if she had one in, say, a grocery store, or at work? How can I control her instead of her controlling me when she's lived in a place for six years where she's just run wild? This would probably mean no Adirondacks trip this year too and probably no dates and I told Filmgrrl that I would definitely go to the mountains with her. I can't imagine she would want me to have CeeCee in tow. I guess I could ask her though. And it would be really fun to take a kid to the outdoor movies at the museum this summer (something I love to do).
Jezzzzzzzuslawd, am I up to this challenge? Could I possibly do this? 7:59 a.m. - 2005-04-14 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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