Sound and fury

Has it been two weeks already? My, how time flies. I was thinking that I'd better do the hemoglobin update, but I don't know why it would be important. It's not as though anyone is sitting on the edge of their seat, breathlessly awaiting the results of my labs. No one even reads this blog. I could write suicide notes every week and no one would notice.

That makes me sound bitter and unhappy, but I'm not, truly. I was laughing while I wrote it. My hemoglobin is back up to an acceptable level, which has helped my mood considerably. I'm still anemic, and will be until the end of the treatment, but it's not so bad that I'm dragging myself around and gasping for breath. I'm just sick of the whole damned thing and I want it to be over. I want to turn off all the alarms on my phone. I want to be able to skip breakfast if I feel like it. I want my memory back. I want to be able to read a whole book without having to go back and reread bits of it because I've forgotten the plot. I'm sick of this blog, too. The only reason I keep it up is that I told myself I would stick it out until the end of the treatment. It's become something of a symbol of the treatment, actually. It's something distasteful I feel obliged to take care of on a regular basis.

Maybe I shouldn't have started writing tonight. I can't seem to keep the bitter tone out of my voice. It's strange, but I can feel the Interferon meddling with my moods. I can feel the difference between drug-induced depression and genuine depression, and my irritability feels artificial somehow, even though it gets me into real trouble. More and more often lately I can't control my temper. I've yelled at people in the supermarket and the laundromat. I've screamed at total strangers, with very little provocation. It's at its worst in the car -- I'm the one with her head out the window, yelling, "Get the fuck out of the way!" I wasn't exactly Gandhi before, but at least I was able to keep my mouth shut. Now I spend half my life apologizing for this or that explosion of temper.

Eleven weeks. I'll make it a day at time. I've been working on staying present and doing my best to enjoy whatever it is I happen to be doing at any given moment. I've found that my impatience just makes everything worse. I don't like my job, but if I spend all day hating it, not only am I exhausted at the end of the day but it makes each day seem eternal. It makes each task seem eternal. So, although what I do is not enjoyable, I'm sucking whatever enjoyment I can out of it. It's the only way I'll make it through the next eleven weeks. Once the treatment is over I can get another job.

So, my life is not terribly interesting at the moment, obviously. I invested in a really nice pair of computer speakers and have been exploring Lala, finding all sorts of music and spending much of my free time listening to it. At the moment I'm listening to Fishtank Ensemble, who are coming to Santa Barbara next month to play at Soho. I'll be there. And Langhorne Slim is also coming soon. He'll be playing at Muddy Waters, which is a tiny coffeehouse and a lovely, intimate place to see a show. I just hope it doesn't sell out before I get a ticket. On Friday I have a date with my friend Ariel to drive to LA to see a band called Movits!, a bunch of Swedes who play infectious swing and big band style stuff with a hip hop influence. I can't understand any of the lyrics, not being versed in Swedish, but it doesn't matter. Lyrics just aren't very important to me anymore. Lately I've been obsessed with Sigur Rós, whose lyrics aren't intelligible to anyone, and it doesn't matter. Their music is hypnotic and soothing to me, and I find that if I listen to it in the car I don't lose my temper as often. I've made a whole collection of the musical equivalent of dope to listen to in the car.

I think I've run out of things to say. Maybe my next post will be more interesting and hopeful. Let us keep our fingers crossed. Both of us.