Squirt is clearly only tolerating my annoying urge to take pictures together.
Tomorrow I’m getting out of the city and into the country and fresh air for three beautiful days. I’m ecstatic. I’m still unemployed, and all of the stress surrounding the whole situation has been making me yearn to just get out. As long as Noni still feels up to it after her chemo today, we’re leaving for the lake tomorrow morning, joining up with Aunt Wendy, going to Aunt Wendy’s graduation tomorrow night, and then coming home sometime Friday. I get three days all alone with my grandmother and aunt — something that will probably never happen again.
I haven’t yet decided whether I’m bringing my laptop to do some writing, but I’m bringing two of the books on my summer reading list. I really want to leave my laptop behind, but I haven’t done any writing in a few days, so I might bring it and my Sade On the Wall first draft and notes. I don’t know. There’s something appealing about getting away from my laptop for three days… and there’s also something appealing about using those three days to get started on that editing I’ve been meaning to do (and procrastinating).
So yeah, as long as Noni still feels up to it in the morning, we’re heading off! Her chemo went well today, though. They started her on a different chemo, since she was reacting badly to the other one. The first time she had her treatment, she fainted and got pretty banged up. She also had a lot of joint pain. The second time, she had joint pain again, I think, so her oncologist decided to try a different medication. This one was a shot instead of an IV drip like the other one, and she did well on it today. All of her blood work came back perfect, too, and she and the oncologist even think the tumor might be shrinking.
I do feel kind of bad that I’m leaving Mike for three days, because not only is he getting a root canal on Thursday, but he has never spent that much time with my family without me around. I hope it won’t be too awkward for him. I mean, I know he’s known them all for about five years and has been living here for almost a year, but I’m sure it’ll be a little different, at least. It would be for me. Then again, the only thing he’s said about the whole thing is that he wishes I was going to be around after he gets the root canal, for comfort purposes. He’ll be fine, of course, but I wouldn’t be me if a small part of me didn’t worry a little.
She didn't think this was funny.
Aside from going away and being unable to find a job even though I’ve applied to several places, I started taking 25mg of Tramadol every day on 06/02 — almost two weeks ago — and since then, my pain has decreased to only a small twinge here or there. Most days, I’ve had no pain at all. It’s hard to tell whether this is the medication, or just a period of remission. Either way, I’m enjoying it. If, by the time I see my rheumatologist again in July, I’m still not having that much pain, I’m going to just assume it’s the medication. And then I’ll have to celebrate, because holy shit! This low dose of Tramadol doesn’t make me feel like I just smoked a bunch of pot! Of course, it’s not treating that annoying fatigue that hits me like an eighteen wheeler sometimes, but I can deal with that if I’m not also in pain.
She hates me.
I’ve also been doing a lot of stuff for Freaking Bookworm, partially to keep busy but mostly because I love it. I created a book review bloggers directory inspired by the book review vloggers directory that my book blogging buddy Liz created. I also wrote an article on why it’s a good thing that teens read YA, which got quite a few tweets and Facebook shares. (When I say “quite a few,” I mean it’s quite a few for my little book review blog. 
) I also read and reviewed Witch Doctor #0 and Beat, and created a summer reading list. And, even though I am not ready to share this over on Freaking Bookworm, I landed my first interview with an author, and got accepted to write book reviews for Blog Critics, the sister site to Technorati (which is like Google to the blogosphere). I have a lot more reviews coming, but this is what I’ve been working on lately. So, even though I lost my Amazon store, things are still going really well, and I’m having a lot of fun with this. It would be the best job in the world if I could find a way to make a living off of it. I will, someday.
"Oh stupid human, are you done yet?"
In unrelated news, I’m thinking about giving up personal blogging and focusing completely on book blogging. (I also have plans for another focused blog, as soon as I get back on my feet and can afford to spend the usually inexpensive $8.95 for a domain name. In the meantime, I’m setting up a WordPress.com blog to make sure I’m committed to the topic.) As much as I enjoy blogging, I just don’t see the point in publicly sharing my personal life and problems anymore. It used to be a way for me to vent, but I’m just starting to think of it as immature; I look back on many of my old posts and think, Why did I need to share that? I don’t see anything wrong with personal blogging in general, but I think I’m growing out of it. Don’t worry, though — you’ll never see me stop blogging! (Unless I die. But we’re not going to think about that. I like being alive.)
What’s new with you? I just caught up on blogs, but I still wanna know. Leave me a comment and catch me up!