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why have you forsaken this blog? why?

Today, I feel like drinking all the absinthe out of Toulouse-Lautrec’s private reserve and then staring into space until the barman asks me to leave because I’m making the other patrons uncomfortable.

I don’t like Mondays.

To cheer myself, I decided to revisit with some old friends.

The brilliance of this recital video is hard to describe. The genius of the uploader who decided to share it with the world is unmatched. Our emcee/commandant Reva Unsicker is amazing in her hard-driving demand that American-Idol-in-the-making John Daker sing, and sing with gusto despite the fact that he may or may not be operating with full thrusters. (His name…is John. Daker.)

When he inveitably stumbles, (and we knew he would), she can spare no time to ease him back into the song. The piano soldiers on whether John does or not. Whep! And what about that opening act? The More We Get Together? That’s some Raffi shit, not vocal student recital material.

And then, this remix elevates the whole thing to the level of mega-genius. Holy freaking cats.

Still want more? It’s hard to explain the Trololo guy. It has something to do with cowboy songs and a Russian ban on lyrics with questionable ideology and incredibly trippy lip-synching and choreography that makes Twyla Tharp look like Paula Abdul. What I’m trying to say is, I love this song, so so much. Try not to love it, too.

Thinking of my Biscuit Pal. He left this earth four years ago today but he has never left my heart.

It’s hard to believe that both of my guys are gone. I hope they’re chasing rattly mice and eating mush in a cat utopia somewhere.

It was heaven having them here.

Since finally kick-assing my way to my BA two years ago, I’ve had some more book learning in mind. But with my immense student loans staring me in the face and the lean couple of years we’ve had, taking on more educational debt has not seemed like the best idea.

And then I got a job at DePaul, which cracked the door on those ambitions a little.

And I got a full-time job at DePaul which kicked the door wide open.

I started browsing the graduate programs and fell smack in love. Check it:

The Master of Arts degree in Media and Cinema Studies at DePaul University provides students with the critical skills, historical grounding, and research methodologies for understanding the cultural and social impact of film, television and digital media in our globalized world.

Um. Yes.

So, I applied to the program a couple of months ago, and as of June 4, 2010, I am officially in.

Oh. My. GOD, kids! OH MY GOD.

For the bulk of the last 15 years, I never thought I’d have a college degree, period, and I never thought I’d have an advanced degree. And then, I changed my life. Holy crap. Here I am, going to graduate school. I start in September.

LulaB is so excited, she did a little dance:

When Lanty was diagnosed with that darned Lymphona last summer, I felt, momentarily anyway, the solidity of life drop right out from under me. There was very little that could make it seem right again.  Lanty was the third leg of our little three-legged family.  For last, oh, ten years or so, whenever would get that pesky inquiry, “when are you going to start a family?” we’d always say, at least to each other, “we ARE a family. You, me, and Lant.” Our family, defined.  Now, our family was going to change. And the ground on which I stood turned to mud, mushy and slippery. Would I fall in it? Would my shoes get ruined?

One of the first things we did to cope with the terrible news, the exact same news we’d received in April 2006 but that time it was Biscuit’s x-rays that betrayed it, was slap a big, blank page on the wall and start writing the things we knew we’d need to remember.  One of the first things we wrote: we are not cursed. Melodramatic? Maybe.  But we felt deeply unlucky.  Deeply betrayed by misfortune. First, Biscuit. Then Wyn. Then my ovaries gave up. Then this. Family peeling away until…what?

Those terribly unhelpful thoughts were piling up, threatening to consume us with a murky depression until we had no perspective and no ability to see where the future would lead us. In short order, we had little more to look forward to than the next feeding, the next administration of compounded meds into the e-tube, the next chemo appointment, the next glut of bad news. It was a dim time. We could have succumbed. We wanted to, once in a while.  But not really.  We pledged in our wedding promises that we weren’t getting married because it is an easy path, but precisely because it’s hard.

We slapped up another huge piece of paper and started listing what we were grateful for each day. Sunshine. Lanty’s purr. FrankenBerry. Getting to work on time. Snowflakes. A morning in bed together. Feeling pretty. New shoes. Lanty. Lanty. Lanty.

Little by little, the dimness lightened. We could begin to see the sky.  A feeding with Lanty could be a pleasure, even as his appetite began to leave him. A mouthful was a miracle. A night out at the movies was pure joy. A tasty meal was a gift.

And when the time came for Lanty to go, we were so much more prepared than we expected. My heart was ripped out, yes. It still hurts in there, and I’ll miss him, oh I’ll miss him like meat misses salt. But acceptance came to us so gracefully when the wanting was so acute. Gratitude helped us embrace all that he gave us while he was here, and reminded us to draw strength from all that we did for him.  We did everything we could to keep him with us, and the last thing we can do for him now is to keep on living joyfully, even in the face of losing our family as we knew it.

We’ve decided to become more adventurous. To jump.

Exhibit one: Lula Buttercup. She’s a handful of thwarted expectations and completely satisfying silliness. She’s a lot of work to groom and keep clean and she has submissive issues and she’s scared of every man she sees. She’s too barky and wants to eat every thing in sight. She’s a lot of the things I would have disdained in a client’s dog when I was a walker. But she’s got biscuit-colored ears and a face that radiates happiness. She pulls us out of ourselves when we’re just too darn mopey. She reminds me of a mix of beloved Biscuit and darling Doodle, a client’s dog I couldn’t keep and wanted to save. She’s perfect and perfectly difficult sometimes. She’s what the doctor (Dr. Lanty) ordered.

D sent me a text recently, that I’ve saved:

There’s so much in the world we could be afraid of.  And yet we keep choosing to try not to be. Not to be action heroes, but to just LIVE!

Life keeps on.

Our story.
A eulogy.

We’re exhausted and so very sad. But. We have the peace of knowing we did everything we could. We have Lanty’s love, forever.

Bad news today. Feeling sort of horrible and exhausted and uncomprehending. The last being ridiculous because it’s not like we didn’t know this was coming. Especially after the recurrence of the cancer in January.

But, oh, that does not make it one bit easier. Not one bit.

*Thanks to a touch of tuesday weld for the link. Laura, I love your stuff.

Life is sort of like that.

We are dealing with the recurrence of Lanty’s lymphoma, just when we’d settled into a new “normal” of remission and every-other week chemo.  He’s okay for today.  We’re all okay for the moment.  But life can change in a blink, so for now, we’re just trying to keep the nachos down.

But look at how precious Lanty is:

We keep holding on to that.