The J-Man is doing much better, healing quickly as children do, and is going to take the advice of his therapist (God, I hate actually voicing the fact that my twelve-year-old has a therapist) and write letters to the deceased cat. If I were to write a letter to said cat, it would go a little something like this:

Dear Lucky,

What’s up? If Saint Francis of Assisi has anything to do with it, I imagine you’re in heaven, even though I am most definitely not Catholic. Still, I feel I can adopt a saint or two if it suits my purposes. So, cat heaven.

You were a really good cat, definitely the best behaved out of all my cats, which one would imagine isn’t saying much; but seriously, you were calm and friendly and nice to hold and pet.

You puked a lot, which was a source of much consternation for me, the designated puke-cleaner, and I am sorry that I was sometimes rather psychotic in my efforts to chase you off of the carpet and onto the tile while during your barf-a-thons, but I meant you no harm.

The J-Man misses you and your near-silent meows. It was cute to watch you wait by the door when he arrived home from school, and it’s sort of sad that no one is there to greet him now but his boring mom.

Anyway, here’s hoping you get all the Temptations treats your little heart desires and that someone gives you a nice warm lap.

Sincerely,

The Lady Who Scratched Your Ears

We are having the cat cremated and her ashes returned to us, a process that takes an astonishing two months. I didn’t realize that there was such a backlog of deceased pets, but apparently there is. This makes me sad.

In other news, I have bypassed the crotch doctor for two whole years, which is just plain slovenly and irresponsible of me. I have neither had a Pap smear nor a breast exam, and I feel intense shame about this. I try to do self breast exams, but every time I wind up in a state of extreme panic. Is that a lump? What the fuck IS that? Why does that hurt?? Does that feel tender??? GAH!

I am no good at remaining calm. My mother has had cancer three times, including breast cancer, and it is one of my greatest fears. Plus I apparently have “fibrous breasts” (Breasts! Now with fiber!) and it’s hard to tell whether they’re lumpy or not, so I wind up having a mammogram almost every year.

I hate mammograms with a passion normally reserved for having heavy-duty seizures in which my head slams into a concrete floor. I don’t so much hate the test, which is really not so bad, but the wait afterward absolutely kills me. At the facility near my home, they stick you in a tiny room plastered with breast cancer statistics, alone, and make you wait for half an hour while the test results are deciphered. I find this terrifying.

This time I will more than likely bring my mother, since I have been having some random pain in my left boob that is both worrisome and weird.

I’m quite sure it’s nothing and is probably just the result of falling during a seizure or something, but still, I could use the moral support.

An online buddy of mine had breast cancer this year, and she attacked it head on with unbelievable courage and unfailing wit and smarts and she researched and did everything right. I don’t know whether I would have the chops, man.

I guess at some point in my life I expect to get cancer. I’m a filthy smoker, right? Even if I quit, I’ve been a filthy smoker for twenty years, and there are bound to be an assload of carcinogens in my system. I probably deserve it, spreading my cancer-causing carcinogens around like wildfire.

You non-smokers have thought this. Admit it.

The smart thing would be to quit and to adopt a macrobiotic lifestyle and to start doing yoga three times per day and to go totally organic and to ride a bike instead of riding in a car.

Sure. I’m going to do all of that. Get back to me next week.

I’ve cut down drastically on my smoking. I went from three packs (Gah) of hardcore Newports per day to a half-pack of ultralight Grandma cigarettes per day, if that. I’m very pleased with that progress.

I eat reasonably healthy. I exercise daily. I don’t know whether that’s enough, but it’s going to have to work for now.

I don’t know whether it’s going to keep me cancer-free, but here’s hoping.

I am going to a 40th birthday party tomorrow night that has a children’s theme, because said dude is still a kid at heart, ha ha ha. Seriously, it should be fun. It’s at a large Chuck E. Cheese-type place, and as long as they have skee-ball and beer I will be all good. Hell, as long as they have skee-ball I will be all good.

That’s all the news that’s fit to spit.

Happy Thursday, and may your boobs contain all the fiber of a stalk of broccoli.

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