What your Facebook Friends Would Tell You if They Only Had the Nerve

Dearest Facebook Friends,

        You deserve the truth, but I will never share that on my status updates, comments or on my wall. I’d rather be (INSERT) vague, coy, clever, superficial because you wouldn’t want to know the details of my real life because it’s too (INSERT) depressing, boring, weird, dysfunctional, kinky, spiritual, pathetic, illegal, perfect. Believe me, you wouldn’t be able to handle these details if I did share.

      So, in celebration of our friendship and connection, I am now offering honesty for all of us, who dare not speak— eh, I mean, type. Up until now I have been silent for fear I will offend you, or will be deleted from your friend list, which really scares me because, frankly, I need all the “friends” I can get at this point in my life. You see, it’s about feeling a part of the crowd, because as a kid I was (INSERT) obnoxious, shy, neglected, despised, admired, mean, vivacious, in rehab, nerdy, constipated and finally (sigh), I belong. Also, it is soooooo nice to have the illusion that 150 people really care about my life and what I do or say or think on any given day.

        But enough about me. This is about you, and our relationship.
      I value your place in my life (a little). So it doesn’t matter if I know you from the greasy spoon job I had 30 years ago for six months in my freshman year of high school when I had acne, braces and all my hair. You are still my friend, and we are connected. So I owe you at least this much.

        Please forgive me.
     Okay, this is brutal, but you really can stop sending me flowers, drinks, Farkle Chips, animals from Farmville and Mafia Wars requests. I don’t know how to play these games or return these gifts, and if I did, I would get sucked into the infinite internet vortex of wasted time and wouldn’t be able to feed and clothe my family. Ditto for prying notes and quizzes which border on the adolescent. In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t care which Jonas Brother I will marry, because, you see, I have children that age.

      I know you think it's harmless, but try to understand my embarrassment and annoyance over your probing of my relationship status. “It’s complicated” doesn’t mean you need to unravel the mysteries of my desperation on my Wall for all to see. I've been in therapy. Enough already.

      Stop making me feel badly about myself. Do I really need to see your (INSERT) Jaguar, Mercedes, summer home in Venice, beautiful body, white teeth, sexy husband/wife, nuclear family, while I eat a hot dog alone in my cubicle? You have no idea the pain you cause me.

        And your pictures. I must admit, I look at them. But keep the poses that are (INSERT) sexually suggestive, physically revolting (bikini wax, please!) or really really boring (the palm trees from your hotel room? the DisneyWorld sign? Really?) to yourself. Why waste precious bandwidth?

      These are just a few things I’ve shared to make our friendship stronger. There’s much more I could tell you, but I’ll do that some other time. It’s getting late and my eyes are bleary from stalking, um, I mean viewing, your other friends’ unrestricted profiles and their comments and photos.

      Always remember that I love you, Dear Facebook Friend, but not enough to give you my phone number. Hahahahaha. LOL. :)

One Phone Call Can Change Everything...

Ironic that I got the phone call on October 1st. October, the month of ghouls, ghosts, mischief and Breast Cancer Awareness.

I wasn’t expecting this call. I had forgotten that I had a mammogram a few days before. But here I was, four days later, thrust into a jarring mortality-realization moment that took the form of a cheerful female voice telling me that I needed to come back in for additional views and perhaps an ultrasound. There are dense areas that weren’t there last year or the year before, she said. The computer scan may have picked it up, she wasn’t sure. The radiologist felt I needed additional views. This was what the lady with the perky voice was telling me.

My heart stopped as I processed what this Messenger of Fear from my gynecologist’s office was saying, and not saying. There she was, telling me that the referral would be ready for me to pick up tomorrow. (Do I really need it that soon? What’s the rush? Translation: This must be bad.) She wasn’t saying I had cancer. She wasn’t saying they thought I had cancer. She wasn’t saying I didn’t have cancer. She was just saying that they couldn’t tell if there WAS cancer or something else in my right breast. WTF.

I sat dumbfounded. Suddenly the plans I had for the day were replaced by more pressing matters. What does “area of density” mean, anyway? What are “additional views” and why would it take one-to-three hours when my original appointment was less than 15 minutes? Internet searches ensued, leaving me more bewildered than before I started. Too much information can make a wild imagination run wilder. In a flash, I imagined losing my breasts, my hair, and my life. Who would come to my funeral? I snapped out of the mini-nightmare when the phone rang. Damn telemarketers.

Cancer would explain how I’d been feeling ­— a bit off, tired, not fully present – I thought to myself. No wonder I don’t want to do the laundry. It all made sense. Unexplained fatigue can be a signal that cancer is lurking. Even though there were other plausible reasons for my fatigue, such as having coffee at 7 p.m., going to bed at 3 a.m and getting up at 8 a.m., I feared the worst. I had read about fatigue and cancer, so it must be true, right?

Frankly, I read a lot of things. Calcifications, microcalcifications, carcinoma in situ, all these terms in a language that I never wanted to understand or even hear, for that matter. This language did not romance me. This language did not comfort me. This language scared the hell out of me and it made me more anxious and panicked. “Why the hell did I start reading this stuff?" I berated myself for not remaining more level-headed.

“I cannot do anything until I really know what is going on,” I chanted as mantra, trying to calm the inner turmoil that the Messenger of Fear had stirred.

In that moment, I decided not to waste my time supposing this or that when I don’t know what MY situation is. Of course, before I had made that decision, I already had read enough sad internet breast cancer stories to populate my imagination for a long time. Too long. So I stopped looking online for ‘what-ifs’ and started living as if I was fine. Trouble will find me soon enough, I reasoned. I can’t sit around and wait for the shoe to drop when the shoes are still on.

SO I WAIT.

With just four days until my repeat mammogram views and ultrasound, I have time to contemplate what I will do right if I have cancer (Get the best doctor/surgeon. Take better care of myself.) and what I will do right if I don’t have cancer. (Take better care of myself.)

Either way, I have given myself permission, for now, to worry, ponder and assess where I am right now in my life. If I think about it that way, the phone call can be a catalyst, with or without any disease.

I hope for the best.

Update 10/13/09……I am fine. Repeat tests were normal, although I am returning in six months, which is standard CYA protocol today. And yes, I am taking better care of myself. All because of one phone call.

What they don’t teach you in driving school...

Today, in New York City, a beautiful young woman flipped the bird at me as I backed into an empty space to make a u-turn. She was having a bad day, I assume, even though the sun was shining and she was comfortable in her shiny black BMW. She wasn’t foaming at the mouth or begging for money. She was well-coifed and stylishly dressed. Why she gave me the finger, I’ll never understand, but I do know that behind the wheel, people do things they would not do in polite company. So I’ll chalk it up to a lesson in behind-the-wheel psychology.

A dear friend of mine once said that people think they are invisible when they are in their cars. Like nameless, faceless creatures, they inhabit the cockpits of their vehicles and do the most disgusting, embarrassing, and otherwise uncivilized things whether traveling at high rates of speed or at a stoplight.

Take the large bald man who relentlessly picked his nose while sitting at a traffic signal. He wasn’t just picking his nose, he was mining it. I cannot imagine that he’d behave this way at a dinner party or at a board meeting, but there he was, dressed in a suit, probing for another nostril nugget. I tried not to look, but I found him offensive and intriguing at the same time. What the hell was he thinking? How can someone do this in plain sight of others? Does he have a brother? (just kidding)

Maybe it’s just that our cultural mores have shifted and we value our own reputations less and are less easily embarrassed in this era of reality TV. But. I’ve noticed that today's car seems to be a modern-day invisibility cloak, where anything goes, even with the windows rolled down. From the twenty-something couple shouting the F-bomb at each other while arguing in a parked car in a crowded lot, to the woman angrily swinging her crying toddler by the arms while tossing him into her mini-van, anonymity seems assured, even when the license plate is visible.

I’m not a prim and proper lady by any stretch, and I don’t get embarrassed when I see that a man has pulled off the roadside to relieve himself. But I do wish there were more self-awareness in modern day life and more consideration for others’ sensibilities. I wish we could sincerely smile at each other, apologize, and pass the Kleenex when someone needs it— even if they are two cars away.