Ally Malinenko's Blog, page 10

Character Assassination, or Why I Don’t Like Strong Female Characters

By some magic spring has finally arrived in Brooklyn. Normally, with the exception of my upcoming birthday I don’t “love” spring only because it inevitably leads to summer, which is my least favorite season. I don’t like the heat. Not even a little.

That said, after this incredibly long winter, seeing the cherry blossoms made me swoony. Bring on the warmth!

So before we talk about characters, I’ve got a few thank yous and shout outs to share.

First off, This Is Sarah got a little love this week. She wound up on a Best of 2014 list and then there was this great review that, I kid you not, references John Green. Hear that sound? That’s me, squealing and then dying.

And my little book went to her first ever book fair. Sniff, sniff….Colin and Claire are all grown up now.

Finally the very awesome Mark Lindberg invited me over to his blog so I can ruin the end of Franny and Zooey for people, whine about people taking pictures in the MoMA and give some love to some favorite poets including John Grochalski, Scott Silsbe, Kris Collins and Don Wentworth. Goggle them. You can thank me later.

Now, let’s talk about this whole hating strong female characters thing.

I complained on some social media not too long ago about how tired I am of the “Strong Female Character.” I realize that sounds a little odd but I mean it. Because the depiction is almost ALWAYS physical strength. Not mental strength. Not being clever. Not being the smartest one in the room.

And you never ever hear about people talking about strong male characters.

One of the responses that I thought really hit the point home was from a friend of mine, Greg, who said:

The character Sansa from Game of Thrones gets a lot of heat for being “weak” in comparison to all the ass kicking female characters in the books/show. But the way she endures shows a strength that in many ways is greater than any of the other characters, male or female. But our culture has a strong bias towards masculine strength even in when it comes to women.

That was followed up by Jessica who said this:

Why don’t we celebrate women’s strengths (endurance, lateral community-building, multithreaded intelligence that supports many perspectives, branching creativity) as valuable? O right, singular masculinity is defined as powerful vs the ‘weak’ female.

The conversation then turned towards the Lean In movement.

So I couldn’t help but think about this again the other day when I read the interview with Tatiana Maslany in the New York Times. Tatiana Maslany is THE actress in Orphan Black, an amazing show on BBC that everyone should be watching. Seriously, cue up the first two season on Netflix now. And when I say she is THE actress, I mean she is it. She plays all the characters because the whole show is about clones.

From left to right we have Tatiana Maslany as Rachel, Allison, Sarah, Cosima, Helena

So while I was reading that interview and lamenting the fact that I don’t have BBC and have to wait till Season 3 is on DVD (note to self: remove all orphan black fan pages from social media to avoid spoilers) I came across this:

An unapologetic feminist, Maslany is frequently hailed as a purveyor of Strong Female Characters. Though appreciative, Maslany finds this a reductive formulation. “That’s so boring!” she said, and went on to condemn the way female strength gets shoehorned into the confines of male-dominated narratives. “What about the strength of this uncharted territory we’ve never explored on camera? We haven’t seen them yet, they’re not archetypes yet, because they’re all related to male expression.”

Sophia McDougal wrote a great piece on this entitled I hate Strong Female Characters in the New Statesman. The whole thing is worth a read, but here’s a choice snippet:

What do I want instead of a Strong Female Character? I want a male:female character ratio of 1:1 instead of 3:1 on our screens. I want a wealth of complex female protagonists who can be either strong or weak or both or neither, because they are more than strength or weakness. Badass gunslingers and martial artists sure, but also interesting women who are shy and quiet and do, sometimes, put up with others’ shit because in real life there’s often no practical alternative. And besides heroines, I want to see women in as many and varied secondary and character roles as men: female sidekicks, mentors, comic relief, rivals, villains. I want not to be asked, when I try to sell a book about two girls, two boys and a genderless robot, if we couldn’t change one of those girls to a boy.

I had a discussion with one of my beta readers about my main character in my current WIP, Palimpsest. My character, Kate, finds herself thrust into a world she knew nothing about and forced to navigate its complexities. I needed a way to make Kate in control of her situation even if she had less knowledge about it than anyone else. During the conversation Jessica offered up this:

There is value in you story because it provides a role model for the kind of problem-solving girls are taught to abandon. I like that Kate’s journey deals with the reality of her own intelligence. The thing about many YA story lines for girls – even Gaiman’s – well, for instance Neverwhere has Door as birthright-talent and destroyed family; Coraline is one family’s drama as if she’s learning one opponent; Mirror Mask is a deeply situational doppleganger quest … The Hunger Games novels are all about sport and competition in its basest form, where a girl’s social intelligence and ability to play hide & seek with weapons is rewarded.

Here the story rests on a girl’s intellectual journey in a way that many other stories don’t.

I want a smart girl. Not a kick-ass girl. Not a punch you in the face and then kiss you girl. A girl that uses her brain.

That’s the character I want to read. Hell, it’s the one I’m still trying to write.

Oscar Varona

I spend way too much time on this blog talking about me. Time to change that.

Instead, today, I’m going to talk about Oscar Varona.

Oscar Varona is a writer and artist from Madrid. Influenced by transgressive narrative styles and little conventional, he’s the author of the short story collection, Tremolo (2003.) Publications include: The New Yinzer, (USA, 2009), Mondo Kronheca Literature (Argentina, 2009), Metazen, (Canada, 2010), Ascent Aspirations, (USA, 2014), and the numbers six, eight and nine literary magazine Groenlandia (Spain, 2009 and 2010). Oscar is also the coordinator and editor of the cultural journal “Delirio”,(2009­-2012).

Though he’s been writing for longer, Oscar only started to seriously work on collages within the last few years. Personally I find the juxtaposition between the sexualized/commercialized body image/beauty standard and the organ/blood/guts/death/decay element in Oscar’s work incredibly compelling.

But I don’t know how to talk about art so I’m going to let the art talk about itself. Enjoy.

And my favorite….

Each of them a perfect visual poem.

Click here for an interview and more of his work.

Or you can follow him on Twitter

Peace, Love and Starbursts,

Ally

Hodgepodge (with gifs)

Hi.

Let’s just jump right in shall we?

First off, I’m very thankful to have three poems up at Drunk in a Midnight Choir. They’re new to me and it’s always exciting to find such a cool new poetry blog.

I’ve been toying around with the idea of doing some non-fiction (run for your lives) about the whole cancer thing. I’m not sure what yet – an article? A memoir?

All the same, I put this together and posted it on Forked Road. Feedback is always welcome.

In other amazing science news, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider are probably going to find a parallel world.

Mir Faizal, one of the three-strong team of physicists behind the experiment, said: “Just as many parallel sheets of paper, which are two-dimensional objects [breadth and length] can exist in a third dimension [height], parallel universes can also exist in higher dimensions.

“We predict that gravity can leak into extra dimensions, and if it does, then miniature black holes can be produced at the LHC.

“Normally, when people think of the multiverse, they think of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, where every possibility is actualised.

“This cannot be tested and so it is philosophy and not science.

“This is not what we mean by parallel universes. What we mean is real universes in extra dimensions.

This is amazing to me because the multiverse and the many-words interpretation of quantam mechanics is a huge part of my sci-fi book, Palimpsest. Basically I now assume that my bad guy is…..you know what…..nevermind.

Speaking (or not) of Palimpsest….you know the scifi book that has tortured me for years and years and years and so many words and plot issues and WHAT’S HAPPENING WHAT IS LIFE ANYWAY…..well, I finished. Like really truly finished. 114,714 written and re-written and re-written words later the book is finished.

And after I pulled my face up off the floor I put a call out on facebook to see if anyone would be interested in being a beta reader. And the response was wonderful and right now 8 real live people are reading or planning to read this book.

So that’s totally exciting. And not at all making me anxious.

Not even a little bit.

And while I calmly and not at all nervously wait on their responses, I’ve been putting together the How To Be An American manuscript. I have no idea what I’m doing in terms of order so I thought that if I listed them by subject it might help.

Subjects include: sexism, racism, police, Ugly Americans traveling, holidays, family, death, American exceptionalism, suburbia, homophobia and xenophobia.

Guess I’ll never be running for president.

After that’s done…I don’t know what’s next. Probably the Waterfall book. Though I have been toying with the idea of expanding Vital – the short story set in space that I wrote for my friends Eirik and Monica –  into a full story. Really stark. Isolating. Sparse kind of thing.

But before all of that, I get to go spend two weeks in Germany and Prague. I can’t freaking wait. I think one of the worst parts of this cancer diagnosis is that I haven’t traveled anywhere in over a year. Not counting trips to family upstate, I’ve been stuck in new york city for a lot longer than I like. And the thing is, traveling is what I DO. The way other people parent or teach or knit or whatever. I travel. I need to travel as much as I need to write. So this trip, will finally feel like a return to the life I used to have before it was ransacked.

That will be nice. New normal.

Peace, Love and Starbursts,

Ally

Mid-Month Round Up

How is it already the middle of March? What just happened? Where am I?

Okay so mid-month round-up, here we go:

1. Many thanks to Camel Saloon for publishing Humiliation Heap as a part of the International Women’s Day issue. There are tons and tons of good writers in here so please, take a minute to have your mind blown. Unlike some other poems this one is VERBATIM from a conversation I had during radiation. #FuckCancer

2. And many many many thanks to Clockwise Cat for putting together this MASSIVE incredible FemmeWise. Femmewise is the feminist rag to end all feminist rags. The fine kittens at Clockwise not only took a few How To Be An American poems, but they also accepted a little ranty thing I wrote about why Beat Women are largely cut out of modern day interpretations. I thought we were past the lobotomizing, kids (I’m looking at you, Hollywood).

I never get non-fiction published so I’m especially psyched about that.

3. Finally many, many, many, many thanks to Red Fez for accepting Purple Socks and Sonogram. You guys rock.

In other news, my sad little book, This Is Sarah got a shout-out from The Honest Book Club:

That hipster coffee shop: Give a book by an indie author a shoutout

Natalie: Not sure if this is indie, but more people should read it, and that’s ‘Lies We Tell Ourselves‘ by Robin Talley. I recommend that you try this book, it’s wonderfully written and has such a gripping story and heartbreaking moments that really happened in history.

Lexie: So, this isn’t strictly speaking an indie author, because the book was published through a traditional (albeit quite indie) publisher – BookFish Books – but it is nevertheless one that hasn’t gotten enough attention and deserves a shout-out. It is This Is Sarah by Ally Malinenko.

Thanks so much guys! Working with BookFish has been incredible, but man, with so many great books out there it’s hard to get a reader’s attention sometimes. Especially with Sarah being a quiet sad book and not a part of a trilogy or a massive sci-fi space opera/dystopic fantasy series. You know, the stuff they make all the movies out of.

Whenever I talk about it I try to be all casual like oh I’ve got this book and….

But it FEELS like I’m all:

So when people give shout-outs like that, well it just melts me wee little writer heart.

That’s about it.

Other than the novel revision that hasn’t finished yet.

I wonder how many times I’ve written that sentence.

Never mind, I don’t want to know.

Peace, Love, and Starbursts,

Ally

“Do you know what the problem with living in a fishbowl is? Everyone can see you.”

“Nothing in life will call upon us to be more courageous than facing the fact that it ends. But on the other side of heartbreak is wisdom.”

I watched Wish I Was Here this weekend, the movie that Zach Braff kickstarted (to much kerfuffle). Much like Garden State it’s overly sentimental with far too many slow-mo montages and a very precious indie rock soundtrack. It’s also funny, charming, unbelievable well cast and heartbreakingly sad.

And it’s very much about cancer.

I can already hear the “Ally, so are lots of things.” Yes, this is true. Cancer is pretty damn pervasive. Since I was diagnosed I’ve read about 4 different novels all of which at some point deal with cancer. And this was certainly not something I was seeking out. It just happened. It’s just there. I get that. Basically if you live long enough, you’re either going to be directly affected or someone you love will.

So this makes cancer a bit different from most other disease. Because if it’s something we can easily connect to on a personal experience level then we are bound to have strong feelings about it.

Let me back up a bit – so I was watching Wish I Was Here this weekend and I had a small panic attack. There was the proverbial death scene and while I wasn’t completely emotional saturated, I felt the walls unhinge and sort of creep up on me. I felt my chest get tight. I felt the panic setting in.

My husband noticed and offered to shut it off, but that felt silly. I can’t censor myself from every cancer/death scene in the world. I’ll never read or watch anything again, right?

This isn’t the first time this happened. The first time was during an episode of Orphan Black. My favorite character Cosima got sick. (No spoilers!)

I was watching this during a time that my parents were staying with me for my mother’s chemotherapy. The big issue was that they didn’t know about my cancer. I kept it a secret for six months because my mother was scheduled to have a stem cell procedure and I was afraid if she knew about me, she wouldn’t go through with it. (I was right.) So aside from dealing with my own diagnosis and my mother’s illness I was also carrying around this boulder-sized secret. Needless to say when the character Cosima was sick, it was bad for me.

I’ve made an effort to figure out how to keep these things at a distance. How not to feel immediately dismantled by a character’s death in a book or a movie or a television show.

But it’s hard.

And part of why it’s hard is because people have a really significant connection to cancer. Significant connections lead to strong feelings.

Strong feelings, unfortunately can lead to judgement.

This article was published by the New York Times yesterday. It’s about a treatment called cold capping. Cold capping is essentially an option for chemotherapy patients that prevents hair loss by slowing down the metabolic rate in hair follicles reducing the effects of chemotherapy on the scalp. Basically, chemo kills quickly dividing cells, like cancer cells, (good) but also hair follicles and nails (bad).

This treatment is expensive, not covered by insurance, and completely optional. What it does is provide some people with a degree of privacy should they want it. And also a degree of normalcy. You would think that something like this would only be met with appreciation. It’s there for people who want to use it.

That is not the case.

I’m going to post here some of the facebook comments that accompanied the article. To preserve people’s privacy I removed everything but the text which is unchanged.

“My hair was the last thing I was concerned about.”

“Main concern was saving my life!! I’ve met other patients whose value system was as superficial. Could not relate at all.”

“This is like us soldiers liberating internment camps and giving the women in rags makeup.”

“Honestly, saving hair should be the last things on your mind. So what if your bald for a little while? You’re beautiful no matter what!”

“I passed on this. My health was more important than my hair.”

“It’s just hair, and thankfully should you become a survivor, it will grow back.”

“It’s just HAIR already! I survived and now have tons of hair, more importantly – lots more LIFE ahead of me!”

“Be a free spirit and don’t give a f#%k”

“Vanity in the face of death. Only in America.”

“I was more concerned with living.”

“Having cancer doesn’t excuse vanity.”

“Vanity knows no bounds”

If you’re surprised by the judgement then you haven’t spent much time in Cancerland.

Angelina Jolie had a preventative mastectomy when she was diagnosed with the BRAC gene. Those who have it (approximately 10% of the population) have an 80% chance of getting breast cancer. Preemptively removing healthy breasts is a terrifying and difficult decision.

These people are collectively referred to as previvors because they are survivors of predispositional cancer.

This too, even in the cancer community, was met with a snort of disgust. On a forum I came across the following quote: “having a predisposition and getting the disease should not be compared.”

Really? Because they both sound pretty damn scary to me. Cancer sucks. Mastectomy sucks. Fearing cancer sucks. Family history sucks. Let ‘em in the pink tent. Unfortunately, there’s plenty of room.

Which brings me back to Wish I Was Here. There’s a great line in that movie about being brave. Zach Braff’s character is admonishing his brother for being cowardly in the face of his father’s impending death and he says:

“Do you know what the problem with living in a fishbowl is? Everyone can see you.”

The internet is a fishbowl. Cancer is a fishbowl. Privacy, control, and vanity are not the same thing. You don’t get a special reward for being “only” Stage 1. Trust me. And on the flip-side invasive cancer is not a platform from which you can stand on high and look down on people who don’t want to become a statistic.

Be nice to each other. Life is short. For some, it’s even shorter.

Peace, Love and Starbursts,

Ally

Greetings from Niflheim!*

Me: Winter, I'm sorry this isn't working out.
Winter: *4 degree wind blows*
Me: *face freezes off*
Me: For the record it's you, not me.

— Ally Ally Oxenfree (@AllyMalinenko) February 19, 2015

That about sums up my opinion on winter these days. We used to be buddies. Not so much anymore.

I can’t remember the last time I looked forward to a spring as much as I am looking forward to this one.

So in other news, I’m still alive and well and managing and all that fun stuff post-everything. And I’m still hearing from people who have either read the cancer blog or something stupid I said on twitter and who contacted me about it. I think that’s really great because the whole point of writing what I did, and you know, LIFE is to make connections with other people. To say: this looks like that. I feel like you. You’re like me.

Connections.

I’ve been writing a lot lately. Still working on Palimpsest, the scifi novel that might kill me first, and that’s going well. I almost want to say really well but I don’t want to jinx it so mums the word on P——–t.

Mums, I tell you.

I have also been working on poems which has been good cause the part of my brain that writes fiction and the part of my brain that writes poetry are not the same part. My poetry part has been snoring like a log for the last few months. It’s good to see it still works (after large quantities of tea, begging and bribery, that is).

Some people go to support groups or talk to psychologists. I write poems and share them with strangers on the internet. Po-tae-to, Po-tah-to. Connection is a powerful coping tool.

Here’s a few that were lucky enough to find a home in this world. I am eternally grateful to all the editors who took these poems and helped share them. (See above about that whole connections thing.)

After Diagnosis, Chemo and Dog-Eared are all here at The Blue Hour.

Exam Table Paper is here at The Commonline Journal

Ten Years Later, Allyson Stop It and And Yet are here at Dead Snakes.

It feels good to get these guys out there. Like I’m folding up the fear and anxiety into little origami sailboats and setting them adrift into the world. I feel better without them. Lighter. I was writing in my journal the other day about February feeling like the first “normal-ish” month I’ve had since diagnosis. Not like normal-normal, because I still don’t get through a day without thinking about it but normal enough, I guess. Cancer isn’t my first though out of bed and it isn’t my last at the end of the day. It usually shows up somewhere in the middle. And I’ve had more good days than bad (by a lot). More good days than sad days. More good days then I Hate The Universe Why Is This My Life What Did I Ever Do To You days. And I’m working hard on not kicking myself when I do throw little tiny pity parties. It happens. *Toots Party Horn*

And finally, I have a trip coming up.

It will involve lots of these:

That’s all I’m saying.**

But before I go I just wanted to mention Zoe Keating. I’ve mentioned Zoe on here before telling you how you should really go buy her album for six little dollars on her website. It’s worth about ten times that in my opinion. Last May, Zoe’s husband was diagnosed with cancer. Pretty much everywhere – brain, lungs, bones, liver. After a brave fight, he passed away at home on February 19th.

Zoe is a working artist that I have the utmost respect for. I’ve never met her. I just think she puts something beautiful into the world. And right now, she’s lost the most beautiful thing she had. As a stranger on the internet I can’t really do much except for share her music and encourage you, my friends, to listen.

This is Escape Artist. I would consider it a feat of incredible emotional strength if you could listen all the way through and not be moved. Also, that means you’re probably a robot. Good luck with that.

You can download her album here. $6.00 for beautiful art.

In the meantime, make something beautiful for yourself. And be nice to each other

Peace, Love and Starbursts,

Ally

*For those of you curious, Niflheim is a cold mythological place in Nordic stories. It’s also called New York City.

**No lectures allowed on alcohol and recurrence rates. Trust me I read all the literature. Life requires a little risk. It’s called LIVING.

I run, therefore I am

I started running.

Three times a week. Three miles. Thirty minutes.

It’s been about a month and while I’ve definitely hit a wall (figuratively though literally wouldn’t be a shock either) I’m still out there for a half hour in the freezing cold for three (long sometimes very long) miles.

I’ve managed to slip on the ice at least 4 times, possibly causing this nagging shoulder pain I’ve had. I’m tripped on the sidewalk at least twice. I’ve been sprayed with salt from a street salting truck and I’ve been honked at by at least one bus for taking too long to get up the hill by the bus stop.

But I’m still running.

Regular exercise and a healthy body weight will reduce my chance of a cancer recurrence. So yes, this is doctor ordered but behind that it’s something that I used to do that I miss doing.

I used to run with my dad when I was a kid and into my teenage years. He taught me to push harder going uphill, to relax and lengthen your stride going down. He taught me how to pay attention to my breathing so I don’t get a stitch. We would go after I was done with school and he was home from work. We’d go on weekends. We didn’t talk much. We just ran together. Even when we got to the driveway, breathless, we would just exchange a look and he’d say “You okay?” and I would nod, leaning over to stretch and catch my breath. That was the bulk of the talking.

You okay?

Yes.

And it was more than enough. In fact, whether it was around the neighborhood or a 5K, running with my dad is one of my favorite memories of growing up.

That was when exercising was fun. It was something we did together.

Now? Well, it’s a lot harder as an adult. But I still follow his rules. Long strides down the hill. Watch your breath. No quitting going uphill.

But I never joined a gym because I was self-conscious. Even at my thinnest I never felt thin enough. Ever.

I think that sucks. And I know I’m not the only one.

So imagine my delight when I saw this video, made by SportEngland a UK government agency as part of its This Girl Can campaign. I think it hits the spot.

Now they just need to make one for all the guys out there that need a little boost, too.

The First Night

I was proactive.

I needed a doctor.

That was all that mattered to me.

I had cancer now and I needed a doctor.

It was all simple and logical

and I looked up my insurance online

and researched doctors

and called back my gynecologist

who hours ago

told me with his sad

patient voice

that it was cancer

that he was so sorry

and that I needed to find a surgeon.

On the train ride home

my husband and I

talked business.

We got pizza.

I did not feel distressed.

I had a problem.

My problem was cancer.

I needed a solution

My solution was a doctor.

When you have cancer you need a doctor.

It was simple and clean and clear.

That night, later

I swallowed down scotch

Because I was 37 and I had cancer

and climbed into bed

determined to have a doctor

by the next day.

Instead I woke

with a thing on my chest

a terror I have never known

like a bird that circled

all night

and waited till I was sleeping

to hook it’s claws

into the meat of me.

And I tried to sit up

shallow panicked breaths

gulping for air

like a dying thing

like a bloody shot

dying thing

begging the universe

asking

Why me?

Why me?

Why me?

Fucking christ

Why me?

and the universe

said

with all the cold

beauty

of a million

burning stars

and a vast blanket

of nothingness,

the universe said

Why not?

And Yet….

Over the last seven months I’ve written a lot of poems about cancer and all that sad sack stuff. I’m not going to post them all here. I plan on sending them out and/or hopefully putting together a new poetry book.

But this one is for Jay. Because everyone should be as lucky to have a love like this.

And Yet

there are still moments like this

where I am utterly still

and I can feel my hands moving in sync

with my mind

the way they were supposed to move.

Together.

Not like lighting followed by thunder.

Not separate.

Not like double vision,

a drunk missing the keyhole

the way I feel like my body

is no longer mine

but instead

the enemy

but not today

as I lift

the ice cream cone

you bought me

to my lips

and all of Manhattan

raises in one voice to

sing your praise, my love.

Welcome to Cancerland

Love takes care of Love. Hate just burns you.

-Ryan Adams.

Hi kids

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything here and it’s with good reason. I’m not going to apologize because I hate when people do that on blogs. As if everyone was just sitting around wondering where the next post was. What happened? Where did she go?

Please. You all have lives, thank god.

Anyway…..now that I’m out of the proverbial closet I can share with you what’s been happening. I won’t go into detail about why I was in the closet because that is the nature of the closet, n’cest pas?

There’s pretty much no easy way to break this so I’m just going to say it.

On June 10th 2014, two days before my 10th wedding anniversary I was diagnosed with invasive lobular carcinoma or what the rest of us call breast cancer.

Without getting into too much detail, it was caught early and I’m gonna live. Between then and now I had three surgeries and 7 weeks of radiation. Going forward, I’m on hormone medication and injections.

I didn’t have chemo. For awhile it looked like I would and that sucked.

I know that millions of people go through chemo every year and they’re all really brave and amazing – hell both my parents have done it – but I still was dreading it. And I was dreading it because I knew deep down inside that it wasn’t going to help me because of the type of breast cancer. I’m a librarian. If you think I didn’t read everything I could on lobular carncinoma on all the medical databases we have you’re insane. Did I understand it all? No.

But I understood enough to learn that for me chemotherapy wouldn’t really make much of a difference. I went to a few doctors, managed to get my pathology in front of a tumor board (I know, FANCY!) and majority ruled for no chemo. So all that time I spent trying to practice my Amanda Palmer eyebrows for when chemo made them fall out was wasted.

This was the eyebrow plan

which is probably good cause mine looked more like this:

This was the eyebrow reality

The no chemo thing in itself was sort of weird and a little scary. I have cancer and I’m not getting chemo. Inside there is this little knee jerk reaction that says only a crazy person gets cancer and doesn’t get chemo. But when I pushed aside the fear, which I had to do, I found the answer: Chemo will do more harm for me than good. So I skipped right to radiation and hormone therapy.

Radiation went from October 1st to November 19th.

For those of you who were curious, especially you Jennifer Carlini who asked, radiation was what i was talking about on facebook with the “Week 1/2/3/4/5/6/ of 7 done #SuperheroTraining” comments.

I got zapped five days a week for seven weeks. I figure I’m officially She-Hulk. (ALLY SMASH!!!) And since it’s been an absolute crap time I am proud to say that during that I still got up and wrote every morning at 5 am and I still walked 5 miles to the hospital for treatment. Ain’t nothing gonna break my stride.

After that I started hormone therapy. Those are drugs and injections that I’ll be taking, oh….. for like 10 years. Bring on the menopause at 37. I have basically no estrogen in my body. I didn’t think I would notice it being gone.

I was wrong.

Hot flashes, thy name is Ally. (Sexy, I know.)

*************************************************************************************************************

So that’s where we’re at.

Which begs the next question why am I putting this on a blog, on the internet for the world to see?

Easy. I’m doing this for a few people.

The first person if for Me. I’m doing this because I have to. Because as a writer, I have to. Because I can’t shut this part of my life off. Because I also can’t let this part of my life become everything. And if I write about it, I win. I tame the beast.

And because writing is the lens through which I understand my existence. Without it it’s all just dark and scary and opaque. This allows for focus. Even if I’m talking about something that scares the shit out of me.

And the second person I’m writing to are My Friends.

All of you. And to you, I say this:

To all my girlfriends out there – get your mammos.

To all my guy-friends – make sure your ladies get their mammos.

Okay?

Are we clear?

I know this whole early detection thing is a hot button issue. There are people how go on television and tell you that as long as you catch it early you’re guaranteed to be fine. Let me tell you, that ain’t true. 40,000 people will die of breast cancer this year. I know there is no guarantee. Early detection doesn’t ALWAYS save lives. But sometimes it does. Lobular cancer doesn’t form lumps. It spreads out all spiderweb-y. I didn’t feel anything. Neither did my surgeon by the time I got to her. The only reason I found anything was because my really really great gynecologist told me that due to all the cancer in my family that I should start getting mammos early. So I did. And it came back unclear. Too dense, they said. So they did a ultrasound.

And there it was. That little spot. Swirling inside me like the hurricane on Jupiter.

That mammo made all the difference. Most lobular isn’t caught at stage 1. Mine was. So while early detection might not be a cure-all, it is what we have and we have to take advantage of that. So we get screened.

And if we find something our treatment options are Cut, Burn and Poison. Not the best sounding options but it’s what we’ve got. And until we stop letting politicians and money and religious institutions dictate if it’s okay to try to save lives with new methods, cut burn and poison is what we do.

But what we don’t do is lose our sense of humor.

Or our hope.

And that brings us to the third person – YOU

I’m writing this for YOU.

Yes, YOU. You, that person reading this who doesn’t know me (or maybe does) and was just diagnosed. I’m talking to you, now. No one else. Just you.

Listen up.

One of the first things I did when my doctor called and said, it’s cancer, was go searching for other people in their 30’s who were standing where I was. That might sound messed up but I mean it. It’s different to be young and diagnosed. It just is. Anyway I found them, over and over again. They made me feel less alone and scared. I’m paying it back to the next person who joins the club no one ever wanted to be a part of.

And to, YOU,  person who was just diagnosed and reading this, I say this:

You’re going to be okay. You’re going to get used to this. You will develop a new normal and once you get your bearings, it will be okay. I’m six months in. That’s not very long in normal people time. But in cancer time (yes that’s a real thing) I feel like it was ages ago that I was diagnosed. Or maybe minutes. It’s very shifty. Six months in, I’m still not always sure where my new normal is. Sometimes I see it, like a light you have to look away from to actually view. Something peripheral. Cancer is a thing I carry. And with anything you carry you need to shift it around until you find a place where you don’t notice it as much. A place where the load isn’t burdensome. That’s the new normal that you’ll read about. It takes time.

Some days I have it. Some days I don’t. I try not to be too hard on myself on the days that I don’t and on the days that I do, I’m proud. Here I am, living my life just like everyone else! Go me!

You’ll do it too.

Also, you have to work to not lose perspective. I’m going to share with you the words of my friend Don, who is far wiser than I could ever hope to be. They gave me a lot of comfort. Maybe they’ll do the same for you:

“Funny thing, one thing nobody ever said to me – in this time when you will be so inward looking,  so concerned with self, make sure you look about you as you go for regular treatments.

The  staff, the fellow patients – there is so much there to take in, so much about who we are as  humans, how we handle things. How we share, especially casually, in greeting, even silently,  in the nod of a head or a smile. 

Fuck the world, fuck opinions, fuck all the bullshit – we’re simply people and we do what we
do, each and every day, world or no, opinions or no, despite the bullshit.

People are capable of a bigger, different kind of sharing, a different kind of love. I’ve believed
something like that, in a number of different ways, throughout my life. But this experience
brought it all home for me again in unexpected ways. Yeah, with lots of sadness, but something
like joy, too….. the only way is day-to-day, trying within that frame to keep your head from going too far up your ass and, when it does, shake it all off and get back up the next day and get right back in there.”

He’s very bright, isn’t he? And he’s right. This experience happens to millions of people. You are not alone even when you feel that way. Try not to get too lost inside your own shit that you can’t see how NOT alone you are. And it’s not easy. It’s easy to feel isolated. But isolation is a cage. You HAVE to bend the bars.

This world is beautiful as fuck all. I will always believe that. Even when I’m scared. I still know that the chance that I exist AT ALL is so incredible slim. How goddamn lucky we all are. I mean, my god, look around. It’s just so beautiful. You can’t get mired down in fear. Especially now.

And finally, YOU who just got diagnosed,  I want you to know that I love you. I truly do. And I’m here if you need me. My email is in the About page. Don’t hesitate to reach out.

Prior to this, I quasi-confessed on rock star’s blog about having cancer and then I panicked and took it back. But before I took it back, someone on the other side of the world heard me.

Her name was Karan. And this is what she said:

I hear you. I am on the other side of the globe, and I hear you.

I have recently read a book about near death experiences, and one of the most important things those who were resuscitated had to say, is:

We are not alone. Never.

We may not feel it always while being embodied on this material plane. Maybe it is our task here to learn it. To learn to believe it. To learn to trust each other.

And you have just taken a big leap of faith, a leap of trust. Courage is not the absence of fear, but acting in spite of it.

You have every reason to be proud of your courage, your strength, and also of finally being willing to share your weakness, too. We all have both weaknesses and strength. And we are not forced to carry our burdens all alone.

You are the one to bear the physical aspects of your cancer, but the mental and emotional burdens can be shared. You have just taken the first steps towards this, and I applaud you for it!

May you find healing, for body and soul, and people who are at your side, both online and offline (over a cup of tea or so). Wish I could make you one! But what I can do is to send you my heartfelt best wishes and thoughts of encouragement!

I read that and put my head down on my desk and had myself a nice hearty cry. I have never loved a stranger as much as I did at this moment. She heard me. All the way on the other side of the globe, she heard me.

That is power and love and compassion and empathy all tied into one big human knot.

I was so thankful to Karan for being there in my terrified little moment. So I’m paying it forward.

To YOU, know that I hear you. Okay? I hear you.

Again, email’s in the About page.

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A lot of people consider cancer, especially breast cancer, to be a journey. This is a really popular notion. I don’t know if it applies to all cancers or not but breast cancer especially is often thought of as a Journey. (I’ve got LOADS more to say about this but this post is too long as it is so that’s for another time.)

I don’t feel this way. This is not a Journey. This is not a rite of passage.

This is a disease. A disease that I will work to obliterate and destroy but a disease none the less.

A journey will be the backpacking trip I’ll take through Peru when this is all said and done. That is a journey.

Very different things. But there is so much for me to learn now. About myself. About my marriage. About my family. My friends. This world. The universe.

Speaking of the universe – The morning after the doctor called I woke up the morning and had a full-fledged panic attack. My husband held me while I cried in bed, asking the universe “Why me?”

Turns out the universe had and answer to that question.

The universe said, “Why not?”

In the beginning I was angry.

Anger can be good. Anger can sharpen your focus to a needle-point. Anger gives you energy – gets you to pay attention and take notes, gets you to fight with insurance companies when they refuse approvals. That is the benefit of anger.

Anger = Action

But anger has to be temporary. Otherwise it becomes a poison. It becomes fear.

Cancer is me. It’s my body attacking itself which is a horrible notion. That first morning, all I wanted was to claw my way out of this body – out of his sick shell that I felt trapped in, like I was drowning in myself.

That was fear overtaking me. Fear is anger’s kissing cousin.

And if anger doesn’t become fear – it becomes rage. And rage is dangerous.

Rage will eat you up.

Hope, on the other hand, does the opposite. Hope can feed you. Hope can save you.

Hope has a kissing cousin too.

It’s called laughter.

This guy makes me laugh.

So this is where I am. This is what’s happening.  And as time goes on, and I learn how to carry this so I don’t even feel it (and I WILL learn to do that), I’m going to be a different person. I’m looking forward to meeting that Ally. I wish I could now. I wish she could come here right now, from five years in the future, and tell me it’s going to be okay. That it’s all going to work out in the end. I want very badly for that to happen but it won’t.

In the mean time, life goes on. We all go on.

It is a brand new year. And in this new year I have a wish for all of us: May we all learn to carry our things a little more comfortably.

I love you all. Take care of each other.

Hugs and Kisses and Love and Laughter and a million starbursts,

Ally