Well, it's finally here. I've done the last radiation treatment, I got out of the dryer and am heading out as soon as I'm done writing this. It was a little sad--not that I'll miss this place, because there are still people going through it. But anyway...

Last night Anna and I were on the hunt for poet Stanley Kunitz's birthplace. Apparently he was born in Worcester in 1905 or thereabouts. It took a little map-consulting and turns down unfamiliar roads, but finally we reached the street we were looking for and drove up and down the street, looking for the sign posted. It was about 7:30 pm though, and darkness had already settled. According to the New Yorker, there was a small sign. Of course the New Yorker failed to get the number. Probably to protect the people living in the house now from people like us. Most of the houses were these wierd buildings that had huge apartments. It was as if three houses were stacke one on top of the other. I have only seen this kind of place in Massachusetts. The Kunitz family was wealthy, so we assumed they lived in a single family dwelling. Finally we found the house I'm convinced is it. It's this slightly overgrown house that looks like it belongs in the early 20th century. Very poetic. Anna is going to find out if she can discover the true house's number.

I think that lawyer man thinks that a sign of intelligence is regurgitating information. He's never really shared anything original that I can recall. So what would one call that? This morning I simply asked him the time of his appointment, and he launched into an explanation about why his time was later than us brain people because they had to "reconfigure the proton beam because we only got part of the proton beam and he had the whole thing...blah blah blah." It was like he thought we were in a pissing contest. Somehow he had to tell me this information to show me something I didn't know never mind I'd been here longer than he had been and he got the full blast blah blah blah.

I guess it's good for the blog that I have these nuts to write about. First cell phone man and now this.

(Kansas, I left the Coke in your fridge! Arghhh!)

I nearly cried this morning when I saw Josh, a ten year old, being pushed in a wheel chair and attatched to an IV. He's having radiation like I am. He got dehydrated yesterday afternoon and had to spend the night in the hospital. He looked so small. I hate that kids have to be in hospitals.

Lawyers suck.

Let me clarify: There is a fellow here who recently came to our house for prostate treatment. He is an lawyer. He is about as dense when it comes to human interaction as can be.

He cornered me the other day as I sat down to eat some cookies and drink a glass of water, and proceeded to ask me all sorts of questions about my treatment, disease, etc.

I just wanted to eat cookies.

I tried to be nicely obvious that I didn't want to talk about it. I yawned and said I was so tired. No notice whatsoever. I finished my cookies and made the mistake of taking two more. He continued to ask questions. I finished these cookies and my water and rolled the glass around without making eye contact. Still no reaction. At one point he asked me some kind of a technical question, and I said without thinking, "You know, I don't need to know all that shit. I know too much about it already."

This did not dissuade (sp) him. He said with reflection, "You know, I wonder what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. Do you think about that."

All I said was: "I'm 24. You're supposed to wonder what you're going to do with the rest of your life at my age. I don't let it worry me."

Silence.

Then he looked at his watch, mumbled something and left. Illhamdil'allah.

I just wanted cookies. That's all. Can one not eat cookies without spilling your guts to some man you don't know?

Apparently not.

I read in the paper--granted, it was the Boston Metro, like the NY Post or the Daily News--that Sharon's cronies said killing Arafat it a possibility to quell the violence in the West Bank and beyond.

Is this the epitome of stupidity? This is just another nudge to Hamas to go even further w/ their violence--thus making the great wall of Israel "justifiable."

Two years ago on this day my brain was cut open and a chunk of tumor fell from my skull.

Two years ago on this day a nerve to my left eye was sliced to remove the tumor--and it has yet to truly heal, if it ever will.

Two years ago on this day Bethany and Tom stood watch over my body as my mind wandered in that neurological quagmire of drugs and anesthesia. They tried to protect me from the insanity that was going on in New York and just outside my window at the Pentagon, but somehow I already knew when they finally told me.

Certain sorrows are felt keenly, by osmosis.

One year ago on this day I spent the morning on the steps of Washington Square United Methodist Church, listening to the names of the victims being read. I tried to separate my pain from the pain of the deaths of so many people.

It made me angry, when I realized I was unable to do it. Even though I'd spent the last twelve months of my life trying to get it back to where it was before the knife found my skin, I realized I couldn't do it.

It made me feel weak.

Today I sat in the belly of the Proton Therapy Center's waiting room. The machine had broken again, and there was nothing else to do. For awhile I sat on the lawn of MGH, feeling the sun on my sneakers and the damp grass under my seat that was composed of the New York Times' business and sports sections.

I haven't figured out exactly what I was thinking today. Something along the lines of the fact that my eye may be permanently damaged and that this tumor--along with every other tumor in my body--has and will dictate my life always. Something along the lines of I'm still unable to unmesh this sorrow from the thousands of sorrows that have been churning since that day.

The second nurse in two days asked me how my visit with Dr. Lee had been.

"Uh, okay," I said.

"Isn't he wonderful?" said nurse 1 "You're lucky to have gotten him. He's a busy man."

"Isn't he wonderful?" said nurse 2 "When he just touches me I feel healed."

I wonder: am I that horrible or are they talking about someone else?

This weekend, I got two good thrift store buys: a white shirt for 99 cents, and a pair of basically brand-new Sketchers for 6 bucks.

I keep saying, "you have a brain tumor. you are entitled." What will happen when the tumor dies is anybody's guess.

A note on my fuck you story. A sign stating one should only use the phone in the cancer resource center for fifteen minutes has appeared on the table. Interesting.

Doctors suck.

Let me clarify: today I went to see an orthopedic surgeon about my hand. The office was in this huge, glossy mansion of a building. When I figured what floor his office was on, I had to take this mirrored elevator. It totally creeped me out. Once in the office, I was presented with a sheaf of documents to fill out--the same ones I've filled out hundreds of times for the hundreds of doctors I have seen in my short life. I sat in the waiting room and began writing.

A tall man with strange glasses came and asked me to sit in a different room.

I complied.

He asked me if I was finished with the papers. I looked at him. I had been in the office for a total of five minutes.

"No," I said.

He asked me a couple of questions. Then he left, saying "It's important that you fill them out."

I returned to my assignment. A few minutes later he returned. "Are you done?"

"No," I said.

He left without a word. I scribbled furiously. Another fellow entered. He wore a white coat. His nametag said he was Dr. Samir Something. He asked me questions. Looked at the xrays. Looked at my hand.

"These are massive," he said.

"Yes," I said. I handed him the sheets of paper. He glanced over them and signed them. Then he left.

Finally, the illustious Dr. Lee, the man I'd come to see, swept into the room. His flunkys followed. He sat and looked over my hand. Made his learned pronouncements. I asked about prosthesis. He said it would be a cosmetic rather than a functional improvement. He used the word cosmetic at least five times. How uncosmetic my present hand was. As if I needed to be told that.

I told him my concerns about my typing. What would I do without my fingers?

He gave me a blank look. "Don't you only type with your three normal ones?"

"No," I said. "I've had this my entire life. I've adapted."

He seemed to disbelive me. From my brief observations of his actions, Dr. Lee is incapable of saying he doesn't know something. And if he doesn't, he somehow thinks you are lying. He truly thinks everything he says should be taken by his patients as if God or Allah or whomever has stated it.

I mentioned my brain tumor.

"You were just diagnosed?"

"No, I've had surgery and am doing radiation over at MGH. I'm dealing with that, so I don't know what to think about this right now."

"Oh. Well, there's no hurry."

He didn't ask anything further.

He left.

Dr. Samir remained. He returned my xrays. Asked if I had any questions.

"No," I said.

All this took about five minutes. I'd spent more time filling out those sheets of information out.

Well, I now have a new reason to be snobbish: I have been to The Mount.

Not only have I been to The Mount, I have worn classy New York black and a funky yellow necklace and picnicked on the lawn of The Mount.

For those who aren't literary enough to follow this logic, The Mount is Edith Wharton's estate in western Mass. She designed the house and grounds, done to her idea of a proper European dwelling.

This trip to The Mount has been in the works for two years.

I don't know when or where it was first discussed, but Bethany, Kansas and I have often talked about it, ever since Kansas and her husband, Nathaniel, moved to Boston. Bethany and KS have done most of the work in bringing it all about. I just rode on the tails of their dilligence.

After a Friday evening of eating fantastic Afghani food, drinking wine and beer and Bailey's, we (Kansas, Nathaniel, Bethany, Anna and I) set out on Saturday morning, armed with a picnic lunch, maps and a rental SUV. We had asked for a compact car, but this was all they had when Nathaniel went to the rental place. (It was embarrassingly comfortable and roomy. I still disapprove of them.) When we'd arrived and bought our tickets (16 for adults, 8 for students--my EMU ID still works), we found a spot to have our alfresco lunch.

Granted, it was within view of the stable, not the house, but it was a magnificent stable.

We consumed a repast of chilled sesame noodles, peaches, plums, a tomato-basil-mozzerella cheese dish and a baggette (sp?). Bugs invaded the spot towards the end. None of Wharton's alfresco lunches ever had bugs.

After lunch, we came and visited the house itself. It was a very beautiful and proud house. Much like Wharton herself. A proud, rather disdainful place that snubs you but leaves you feeling like it was a compliment that it even noticed you. We took the official tour. What sticks out in my mind the most is the fact that Henry James not only had a personal suite--his suite was larger than Wharton's or husband Teddy's. If you read Wharton's autobiography, it's not really an autobiobraphy but a biography of James. That and the fact that the house dining room had abstract art in it. The rennovation committee had a diifferent artist do the "recreation" and let them have artistic licence--a little too much. This one artist, named Bunny of all things, decided that the abstract art belonged in a dining room circa 1902. Not even art of that period.

That, and the Bunny woman put a stuffed dog in the room. Wharton loved dogs, and Bunny felt she had to put a stuffed dog--not even a very good one--in the dining room!

After the tour, we had coffee on the terrace. It was in paper cups, but it was coffee on Wharton's terrace nontheless.

On Sunday, we went out to Walden Pond. I sat on the shore and read snippets of Walden to those assembled. It was great.