I still fear unexplained links. PTSD from ita links.

Ha! I also never click on unexplained links.

This one’s bad y’all. Tastes like soap.

I was laughing about Wang Yibo and then I scrolled down to the sundae.

Matilda was hanging with her friends in the garden apartment last night, so I had my friend Jes over and we watched Sunset Blvd, had cocktails and ate pizza.

We both love Sunset Boulevard and have seen it so many times that we could both watch it, and comment on it at the same time which was very fun. Not the obvious scenes but subtle little ones like where Norma is buying clothes for Wm. Holden's Joe Gillis, and he's humiliated by the salesman to be exposed as a Kept Man.

Salesman to Joe: "If the lady's paying, why not get the Vicuna?"
Me: "Because you're obviously a little bitch slut."
Jes: "We've already established you're a whore, so why not get your money's worth."

Mind, we said this with great affection as we both confessed to having a secret wish to being the kept pet of a glamorous, past-their-prime movie star in their gothic mansion.

In less fun news, more info on the mother of Matilda's friend who has a cancer diagnosis. She's been sending her PET scans around to various friends for opinions and has gone into complete denial about her situation, convincing herself that she only has Lymphoma. When, in fact, she has Stage 4 Stomach Cancer which has spread all throughout her body, including the neck and spine and caused necrotic tissue in places.

It's really a much worse diagnosis than JZ's and she probably only has 5 months to live. And having gone through it recently I can vouch that she's not going to be skiiing in the alps for that last month either. So she really ought to be getting her affairs in order but she's still not begun to process it.

Which I don't intend as a critical comment. Who can begin to process that information when it's that abrupt and dire? It's just horrible and fucked up.

Matilda got up this morning and went off to hang with her friend, Liv. Tonight we'll both be going to a fancy shindig birthday party for Michelle (my friend, and mother of her friend, Cat) who is celebrating her 50th at a restaurant, with dancing after.

Denial may only be a stage for the friend which would be followed by other stages. Steve was in absolute denial until the end. He would not allow any of his family or friends to ever suggest that he would not beat his disease and live a full life. The only time I made any serious attempt to discuss the possibility with him he said that he would rather live every day of his life believing that he would recover and be wrong then to live every day as a person dying and be right. I decided it was his decision to make and I honored his wishes.

Early voting started today so I went to my county website to get a sample ballot and was advised that I was ineligible to vote - because there are no local items in my district, and no Democratic primary because no one ran against Joe. Silly, but I am bummed. I like to vote!

What is your impression of how (and how well) Matilda's friend is coping? What support will she need?

What is your impression of how (and how well) Matilda's friend is coping? What support will she need?

I think Isabella has only gotten the denial version of what's going on so far. Matilda hasn't been told yet and I can't really tell her anything until Isabella gets a better idea of what's really happening.

Isabella is graduating this year with plans to go to college next year and I'm not sure if she's going to take a gap year like Matilda. I think she should but it's all going to be piled up very quickly. Her mom, Lola, will probably be in end-stage about the time Isabella would typically be packing up to go to college.

The reality is that Lola hasn't even started chemo yet, so she might respond very positively to it.

But the reality is also that it's wide spread with significant masses in multiple places, so I don't think they have time for even an effective chemotherapy to beat it back when it's so far gone.

This is what she's dealing with: "Her PET revealed small mass in lung, large malignant masses in neck, stomach, pelvis, and malignancy in spine, along with necrosis in lower back and abdomen."

I think five months is probably a reach.

There's a chance they might just go to palliative care.

Yikes yeah that doesn’t sound good. Poor family.

I went to bed with a wicked migraine at like 9pm and woke up about an hour ago with awful cramps and unable to fall back asleep. Have somewhat given up by turning on the light and pulling out the phone but am still hoping maybe I can fall asleep from like 6-8am or something.