No coffee, no music: Only the dulcet snores of the deerhounds to keep me company as I prepare to begin my 12 hour countdown. From tomorrow through March 3 the studio--and Glass Incarnate--will be dark as I have a well-earned Vacation. "Didn't you just have a vacation in November?", one might ask. The answer would be yes, and that was last year. This is this year. It makes all the difference. I want to wax eloquent about the circularity of time and how something that is really linear is manipulated by our brains into being perceived as something that repeats in circular measurements of years, months, weeks, days, and even 12 hours... but my creativity is subsumed under the weight of my stark panic at the list of what I must get done before 5:30 pm today.
There are so many things I won't get done today: I won't get the large panels packed and shipped to Chicago, I won't get a scheduled gallery order out, I won't get the business finances to the accountant so she can file the tax papers... I'm sure there are more things on that list, but those are the highlights. Today I MUST finish the edits on the book, write the Introduction, and review the captions for the pictures written by the copyeditor.
I did get the packing mostly done last night (though I don't have a swimsuit that fits or time to get one). And I had good news from the dermatologist: the smallish spot on my upper chest has a 50% chance of being a basal cell carcinoma. I'll know in a week when the results of the biopsy he did yesterday are back. How could that possibly be good news? Well it has a 0% chance of being melanoma, I don't have to cancel the vacation, and if you are going to get cancer, this is the one to get! Not much worse, really, than a cavity in a tooth.
Now I face the day already exhausted from a wretched night's sleep thanks to my own dogs, stressmares, and a neighbor's dog desperately barking until 3:00 am in protest at being left outside. 5:30 am. The clock is ticking down my final day on the book. To infinity, and beyond!
2 comments:
If you HAVE to have a cancer, basal cell carcinoma is the one to have; it doesn't metastasize, it only grows in place, and it is relatively easy to remove surgically, typically only under a local anesthetic.
Of course, it is suspected of being due to sun exposure...
I can guarantee you that--not living underground--I am exposed to the sun. Flippancy aside, I tend to burn below my neck on the top of my chest and that's where this spot is so I'm not surprised. I try to always use 35+ sunscreen there, but that wasn't always the case.
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