I'm angry at Hamlet. Ophelia loved him, and he was all aloof and on-again, off-again. Then she was dead, and he finally got a clue and decided to love her back. And Ashley Wilkes. Ooh, don't even get me started on Ashley Wilkes.

I graduated high school with 29 other people. In 8th grade, Nicole died of cancer. Barbie moved away but had a malignant brain tumor senior year. Lane died of cancer at 24. I had my Thing at 23.

That's an awfully high percentage.

But of those who had the catastrophic crap (and crap it is, let me tell you. Crap, junk, fiascos, what have you), we have a 50% survival rate.

There is room for everyone on the Nice List.

Hoo, boy. A little homesick tonight. I have mastered not being homesick for Washburn for like, ever. I missed San Antonio once, but never the icy, hilly streets of Washburn.

Might be all the Thanksgiving on television. Might be, too, that my husband will not partake in pumpkin pie, so there is none of that around this house. Aw, who am I kidding, if my Dad were around, nobody else would get any pumpkin pie anyway.

I'm also having a sad day because I have a friend who is not going to fight her newly diagnosed cancer. I have lost many a loved one to cancer, but not without a fight.

My mom said to me tonight, you just never know if the last time you saw somebody is the last time you'll see them. Life is so precious. Hug somebody.

My favorite bus driver from my high school died today. Maybe "favorite bus driver" isn't the best way to describe Sandy. "My friend Ryan's mom," or "the most cheerful person to run into in the post office in Washburn, ND." Maybe that would be better.

Someday, when I've died, if someone wants to describe me as "most cheerful," that would be fine.

Yowza. My hand/wrist/arm is really swollen. Perhaps it's broken, maybe just strained. But Scott Peterson was convicted, so that makes it better. I had some pretty active world-rescuing dreams last night, so I'm thinking I cracked my hand against the headboard, and maybe it's broken. I don't think we should allow our Constitution to be wrestled with in order to make Arnold President.

Demolition Man was the movie.

Lenina Huxley : I have, in fact, perused some newsreels in the Schwartzenegger Library.

John Spartan : Hold it. The Schwartzenegger Library?

Lenina Huxley : Yes. The Schwartzenegger Presidential Library. Wasn't he an actor when you...

John Spartan : But how? He was President?

Lenina Huxley : Yes! Even though he wasn't born in this country, his popularity at the time caused the 61st Amendment which states...

John Spartan : I don' wanna know. President.

Tommy: He makes you happy?
Andera: Yeah. I look for that in a man you know. The ones that make me miserable don't seem to last.
Tommy: Right.
Andera: You know there are four words I need to hear before I go to sleep. Four little words. "Good night, sweet girl." That's all it takes. I'm easy, I know, but a guy who can muster up those four words is a guy I want to stay with.

Like pea soup. The summer I was babysitting Mandy I'd pick up her mom's car at the bank and drive it across the river on those mornings, when the fog was so thick and so close around the compartment of the car, that I couldn't see anything. I don't remember how fast I drove. I only remember praying I'd get to the other side of the Missouri River without hurting anybody. And without hurting me.

In eighth grade, my friend Barbie got sick. She had to have a shunt put in her brain, and had a really tough year. She started having pretty severe ambulation problems after that and a lot of the kids in our school were not too cool about it.

Barbie and I were the only Methodists in our class, which was really rare in our teensy Lutheran/Catholic town, so we had Confirmation Class together every Wednesday, when we got to leave school early! After two years worth of Wednesdays, grilling Pastor Phil as to why guys always inherit the land, we were confirmed in the spring, and that I day I fell off of the trunk of Jerame Pearson's moving car, downhill. My mother is so proud.

Shortly thereafter, Barbie moved to Fargo with her family. We lost touch after a while. And not many people knew she had a brain tumor three years later.

One day during my senior year at NDSU, pulling a shift at Y-94, movement on the street below caught my eye from the wall of glass above (we were in a cool studio then). Barbie was crossing the street, hair long again, walking fine. She was there visiting her mother, who worked in the office beneath my radio station (Heh. Like I owned it).

Yadda, yadda to a few years later, and we email once in a while. Yesterday's phone call was such a gift, and an inspiration. Not only has Barb fully recovered from her MALIGNANT brain tumor, praise God, but January 9, she will RUN in the PHOENIX MARATHON.

I am so thrilled. And I recommitted to my own full physical recovery. I was so excited, in fact, that I promptly went upstairs to clean up Erik's office around my bike, and had a seizure. Today I am fully given over to headache suppression maintenance.

I. Just. Can't. Stop. Myself. My coffee goes cold on Saturday mornings while I, mouth agape at the edge of the couch, watch In A Fix/While You Were Out/Trading Spaces and scheme over which room in this house I can dismantle. I must paint lime green and mustard stripes on the walls, while gluing mirrors to the ceiling. I will then light some candles and call it a "reflective space" or "retreat."

Thank God Christmas is coming. I need a project. And Christmas is my thing. I am really good at Christmas.

Oh my goodness. How absolutely deranged and SICK AND WRONG do you have to be to take this kind of advantage of people?

It makes my heart ache. "Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere." And you thought that kind of stuff only happened in sub-par, Iraqi prisons.

"You will be happily surprised by a long-time friend," quoth the little white strip of paper I've now taped to my desk. Hee hee. I love the fortune cookies at the end of a Chinese dinner.

In college, when we'd travel to speech tournaments, and go out to eat, we would cermoniously go around the whole table, and when each of fifteen-or-so people would read their fortune, the whole table would add, "IN BED!"

So I am excited. Well, not about the "in bed" part, but last night I happily surprised a long-time friend. Who wants next? I can't wait to be surprised!!

When she was young, she looked like a movie star, she was so beautiful. She looked like a movie star when her Greek immigrant father was killed building the railroad two days after her high school graduation. Later, she became the stunning mother of four, and a farmwife in the North Dakota Outback, which is no easy life. And she upheld her marriage vows through some pretty hard years, when other people would have shaken.

These days, her vision is weakened, her hearing impaired. After so many years of smoking and "the sugar," she cannot taste or smell much. Widowed for ten years, she can't see to read the paper for herself or hear Days of Our Lives on the television, or listen to the radio. This will happen to most of us. We will be left alone when our other half dies.

Together, loss of all these senses adds up to a low quality of life. These are physical things, and remind me of how easily damaged are our bodies. But the human body is only an Earth vehicle. These observations likely won't comfort her tonight, when tomorrow the doctor may take her leg.

I began thinking, "What else can this woman possibly lose?"

But though eighty-one, and the movie star face has faded, she has a beautiful heart. And I earnestly pray that gorgeous soul will survive tomorrow, and the days that follow. I told her tonight as she was packing for the hospital to not forget her Bible. She told me she can't read it anyway, and I told her she needs to have it nearby, in case someone wants to read to her. Furthermore, my mom tells me I inherited my tough survivor instincts, my survivorocity, from this amazing woman. So I needed her to be brave and I will be praying for her.

When I look into your eyes
I can see a love restrained
But darlin' when I hold you
Don't you know I feel the same

If we could take the time
to lay it on the line
I could rest my head
Just knowin' that you were mine
All mine
So if you want to love me
then darlin' don't refrain
Or I'll just end up walkin'
In the cold November rain