For the past 8 months my dad has been battling liver cancer-a struggle that I do not wish upon any person or family in the world. 

Today we found out that after this last procedure he had done in January they are prepared to say that the cancer is gone.

Because the type of cancer he had will eventually come back, and because his liver is pretty eaten with cirrhosis, he will still need a liver transplant as soon as there is a liver for him…but the stress that this news takes off of us is overwhelming.  He was at a point where if the cancer spread outside of the liver they couldn’t do the transplant at all, and if they couldn’t do the transplant it was pretty much ball game. As of this morning they thought this might be the case. 

Now we don’t have to worry about that at all.

The transplant is nothing that any of us are looking forward to, but for right now, for tonight, we have good news and we’re happy.

In the spirit of my day:

I have absolutely no idea what I want from men.

I have never celebrated Valentines day with a boyfriend.

That’s right.  Ever. 

I’m not that girl, as it turns out.  I’m the girl they sleep with the day before Valentine’s Day, so they can spend the actual holiday with the girl they *care* about (or, at least, pretend too).  I’m the girl they give sex toys to.  Not flowers.

And so it goes.

Growing up I was a best friend whore.  Because we moved so much, of course, I ended up with a new one all the time.  In my life there have been …*pause for finger counting* 18 people that I have considered my BFFs.  And since I am not the double teaming kinda whore, that’s one at a time. 

That’s right.

Thank God I finally found my friend soulmate.  That was exhausting.

I’m am completely TV ignorant.   In the last 5 years of living alone I have never had cable.  Because 99.9% of it is just crap.  And I don’t want to waste my time on crap.  If there are shows I want to watch, I wait for them to come out on DVD.  And none of those shows, none of them, are “reality” based, or any show where a contestant of some-sort stands in front of a panel of judges.   So, when people have TV-related conversations, I’m usually completely in the dark.

For instance, I don’t know what Jersey Shore is.  I know that its a big thing right now because I see things come across my dashboards whenever its on, but really, I have no idea.  I don’t know if its reality or scripted or what.  I’ve read that it is on MTV, which is enough to insure that I don’t give a shit as to the answers of those questions.  I haven’t watched a show on MTV in 10 years.

Also, when it comes to TV “celebrities,”  I am pretty retarded.  People who’s names I know and yet could not pick out of a line-up..of two..include:  Lauren Conrad, the Kardashians and Heidi whatever and Spencer whatever. Seriously.  Not a clue.  Even better, and I’ve been told this on several occasions, but it never sticks, I have no idea what they are famous for.  As in, I couldn’t name the shows they are on to save. my. life.

But don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to know those things.  I am a-ok in the dark.  I’ll save that brain space for something that matters. There are a few things that make me feel instantly superior to others, and I assure you, this is one of them. 

The earliest dream I remember having of “what I wanted to be when I grew up” happened at about 6, when I decided that I wanted to be Ms. America.   It may or may not have been because I really wanted needed a reason to showcase how I had perfected “the wave.”

In Jr. High that dream somehow parlayed itself.  Just a bit though.  And, rather than Ms. America, I fell in love with the idea of being a Journalist…a position I dreamed would take me to far off lands and put in the middle of wars and hurricanes, and any and everything exciting…

Which stuck until my Senior year of High School, when I a. realized that I really wasn’t that into wars and hurricanes and anything exciting, and b. I took Government in school, and immediately knew that I was born to be a politician.

When my lack of ambition didn’t lead me on quite the straight-and-narrow that chosen avenue would have required I honed in on my next dream-one that had festered my whole life.  Being the cliche that I am, it was now my only goal to write the ”next Great American Novel” (insert you rolling your eyes here, I know).

I don’t even know what happened to that one.  Reality, I suppose.  Dirty bitch that she is.

And yet, this entire time, and through all of that, there have been two dreams that have remained constant.

The first, was to star on Broadway.  Though, I can’t say that this dream hasn’t changed shapes a bit-I mean, after all,  when I was younger, the dream was to play Eponine in Les Miserables.  Now, of course, it is to play Elphaba in Wicked.  I mean, we all grow.  Let’s be real.   I am hindered on reaching this lofty goal only by the small fact that I can not sing a lick, and, as it turns out, that is fairly important to those so called *casting agents.*   Eh, c’est la vie.

The second, and here’s where it gets good, folks, is to own my own used bookstore/vinyl records/all things retro shop.   I am working on a plan to make this one a reality in the next 3 years.  

It is not my grandest dream, not the biggest money maker.  It is quiet and simplistic in its appeal.  I dream of having regulars.  I dream of people *knowing* me.  I, who have never lived in one town for more than 5 years, dream of being a part of my community.  Established.  Solid. 

So I am okay watching the dreams of my youth (and..er..the Broadway thing) fly by me.  When it comes down to it, I don’t think I was as made for a “larger-than-life” type of existance as I thought.  It no longer suits me, and I am thankful about that.  This is going to be so. much. better.

About myself:

I refuse to read dream sequences in books.  For that matter, if I am able  to I will also fast forward through them in movies  (“Beauty School Dropout” included).  I don’t care how pertinent they are, or what hidden knowledge the reader may find in them.  I am as interested in them as I am in when anyone in real life tells me about their dreams.  Which is to say, not at all

It has been 17 years since I spent a holiday with both of my brothers at once. 

This year, albeit 10 days late, we will be having a Christmas together.

When I was a kid we lived in Colorado, and I loved the snow.  I would play in it wearing only shorts, make snow angels, snowmen, would revel in snow days off of school.  When I was a kid, it was magical and special.

When I was a kid, I was an idiot.

I fell out of love as I grew older. Began to hate the wet, cold mornings and having to try to get from point A to point B  safe and sound, all while immobile because of 13 layers of clothing and worried that loved ones were as lucky.

Luckily,  we moved away from Colorado, and I thought that I had put all of that behind me.  But the snow, knowing that my young and feeble mind had enjoyed it so, came with me.

Shortly after our arrival in Kentucky, they had the “Great Snow Storm of ‘94.”  The entire town of Louisville shut down for a week.  The area, ill prepared for the kind of dumping that came in, was declared a federal disaster area. 

Next,  we moved to Tucson. Tucson, Arizona. Which, if geography wasn’t your strong suit, is in the desert.   I have pictures to prove that on Easter morning in 1999 we awoke to white covered cacti.  It had not happened, well, ever before that I know of, but there it was.  Mind you, it snowed in Tucson again this last year.  Once I bring it, it never goes away.

And now this morning it is snowing in Sacramento, CA.  It doesn’t do that.  Sacramento, to be clear, is located below sea level.  And I am listening to all of the morons who have never had to live in it talk about how magical and special it is. 

And I want to scream.

I want the curse to be broken.

Second only to the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.   Mainly that is because it includes what is my favorite moment of each year: waking up at my parent’s house to the smell of the Thanksgiving dinner they have always begun long before I drag myself out of bed.  The idea of a full day with nothing to do but hang with my family, cook, watch football and gourd myself on the best meal in the world is pretty enticing.  Even as a vegetarian it is just..happy.

In three days I am leaving for Maui.  I have never been to Hawaii before.  I am so excited, I want to cry a little bit.

The tattoo that you can see in my Halloween pictures on my upper thigh was my first tattoo, which I got when I was 18.  My mom drew it, and incorporated part of one of her own tattoos in its design. 

It is an Apple Blossom, the state flower of Arkansas, where I was born.  Except, Apple Blossoms are pink.  My tattoo is blue.   Why?  Shocking as this may be to everyone who knows me now, I hated the color pink at 18 years old, and considered blue my signature color. 

I learned to read at 3 years old by reading over the lyrics in my dad’s guitar books. 

By four, I knew every word to Stairway to Heaven.

My family is cooler than yours.

About myself:

I have an insanely large collection of Alex Rodriguez baseball cards, because as a teenager (*ahem* and..uh..20-something-er) I had the biggest crush on him since Fatal Attraction.  It started at a spring training game in Tucson right before his first full year, when no one outside of the crazy baseball die-hards knew who he was, and he was all but ignored by all the fans waiting outside to get a glimpse of his teammate, Ken Griffey Jr.  When I talked about him people would scrunch their eyebrows in confusion.  “Who?”

Yes, it is true…I loved A-rod before loving A-rod (or, more often than not, hating A-Rod) was cool.  Before the ridiculous contracts, the cheating, the banging celebrity chicks, the steroid scandals.  

Don’t get me wrong, I am still a fan, and I have watched his career in the last 13 years or so closer than just about anyone, but something was definitely lost along the way.

That being said, now that I no longer possess a desire to mother his children, what I am left with is sheer admiration for his game.  Because say what you want…and you will..he is amazing.  I have watched it all, in Seattle, in Texas, in New York.  I have watched him become a part of the 40/40 club, have seen him bat the cycle, seen him master both short stop and third, seen all of the record breaking years.  

It is time for a ring.

Go get ‘em, Yanks.

About myself:

I am 1/8 Cherokee and 1/8 Choctaw, and I had more than one relative on the Trail of Tears.  I am also related to both George Washington and Robert E Lee.  It’s a complex heritage.