Reconstruct This...

This is for Kate because she told me she still reads this blog and I want to make this worth her while, poor kid. So I've been perseverating on a topic. Here are the front runners: 1. The importance of a good vocabulary / writing skills in life 2. Books you must read now and why 3. The life-changing benefits of meditation 4. The life-changing magic of tidying up (thanks Marie Kondo) 5. Why the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone fixed the whole ecosystem of the region 6. The power of delayed gratification 7. How the Kardashians created the maddening vocal fry syndrome and made a whole generation of young women sound like raging, witless idiots I'm sure she's running for the hills, or a boba tea, about now. So, I'll ask her directly. What would you like to read about Birdy?

I haven't posted in five years, but I am still here!

I love my daughter. Last night we went to Cheesecake Factory in Palo Alto and sat at usual table by the window. We ordered our usual stuff and did our usual thing: which is to make each other laugh. Katie downloaded the "Fatbooth" App to my iPhone and took a picture of herself that she then "fatified." Then she texted it to my fiance, Kevin, who was down in Anaheim with his son. "Look who's excited to be at Cheesecake Factory!" she wrote underneath her morbidly obese photo. I laughed until I cried. I have always loved Katie. I loved her when she was little: From the second she opened her newborn blue eyes and excitedly took in the world around her, to watching her drive her Smurf car--naked--in a continual loop around the kitchen and family room, to pedaling her in a Burley at Sun River Oregon, to holding her in a backpack at Costco while she whacked my head, to watching her wrap her "abba" or blanket around her neck at Tahoe to stay warm. An...

"It is my o-pinion..." I heard those words hundreds of times in the 18 years I knew JoAnn Costello, my therapist. And I was always grateful to hear them, because they usually preceeded some general truth about life, some specific advice based on her own personal experience, or some intuition (which was always right). JoAnn died of cancer on Dec. 30, 2011. I will miss her spirit, her spunk, her smile, her intelligence, her humor, her turquoise eyes (as described by a friend at her memorial today), and her hip Italian shoes, but mostly I will miss JoAnn's influence in my life. When I first went to JoAnn in 1993, I felt paper-thin. I was sensitive, supremely self-conscious, and doubted my own thinking and abilities. Every nerve felt raw and exposed to the world. JoAnn heard my story and said, "Of course you feel that way. It makes total sense to me." As healing as those words were, JoAnn was not one to simply shine you on. She was not warm & fuzzy. But you knew...

My dog Sophie sat under the kitchen table for years, with great, unflagging optimism. I would marvel at her evergreen hopefulness, as she would lie belly-down on the hardwood floor, looking up with patient brown eyes at the underside of the table on which that night's dinner lay. Years of evidence to the contrary, she would wait perfectly still for that magical moment when the pork chops would levitate from the table, hang in the air for a few seconds, then drop to the floor with a juicy thud. Sophie's eyes said it all: "It could happen." Then one day, it did happen. My mom had come to San Francisco and wanted to go shopping at Union Square. She put a pot roast in the oven, turned the heat to low, and said it would be fine for a couple hours. Long story short, we spent more time than planned downtown. When we got back to my flat on Cesar Chavez street, I ran up the stairs to try on my new shoes while Mom ran up to check on her pot roast, which by now had been roasting...

Phone call with my friend Sharon last Friday at work: Sharon: "What are you doing this weekend?" Me: "Um. Let's see...Tonight I have a Christmas Party. My neighbor and her "original founder of Yahoo" boyfriend are throwing a big holiday event in Cupertino. I'm going to go home and shoehorn myself into my outlet center sparkly party dress that makes my ass look like a bag of hammers, drive down to Cupertino in my 2000 Toyota Sienna, then load up on baked brie en croute while making small talk with 48-year-old women who look like Victoria's Secret models. What are you doing? Sharon: "Nothing that fun..." While driving home from work, I prayed. "Help me to be less jealous. More grateful. Less fearful. More accepting. Less judgemental. More loving." I angsted about that party all week. Perseverated, really. I had vividly imagined two hours of feeling undereducated, underyoga-ed and underdressed in my On Fifth frock. Instead? I had a...

I'm sitting here in my cubicle, watching the cars drive by; watching our IT manager brave the rain in a noble attempt to get some winter exercise. And I marvel at the ordinariness of their driving and walking. I wonder how, knowing that Elizabeth Edwards died from breast cancer yesterday and that millions of women will die from the same disease, they can drive and walk with what seems like pure oblivion. I wondered the same thing, when as a mom who had just returned to full-time work two months prior, I listened on the phone at work to my radiologist gently tell me that my ultrasound/biopsy revealed the fact that I had 10 lumps in my right breast. "Infiltrating lobular cancer ," she said. Not, "Infiltrating lobular carcinoma ." I listened as I stood in the corner of the stairwell by the elevator. I listened as I watched someone drop a pat of butter on the carpeted floor as they walked back to their cubicle with their lunch. I listened as I watched the recepti...

One day while driving home from work, I called my friend Kyle in tears. "My daughter hates me." "If it makes you feel any better," she said, "I have two daughters. Double the hate. In fact, I made [honey] kosher chicken noodle soup last weekend and she gave me shit about it." "?" "We're Jewish, but [honey] is orthodox. She only eats kosher. And she has to have her kosher food made in separate pots and pans and served on separate dinnerware. I make [honey] kosher chicken noodle soup every Friday night to make sure she'll have something kosher to eat for the weekend." "Wow. That's really nice of you." "Except for the fact that I was chopping the carrots and celery with my bare hands, which made [honey] wretch and gag and proclaim me disgusting." "You asshole!" "I know! I feel horrible!" A couple of days later, I was telling my boyfriend about an incident with my daughter. "You know,...

I know. I take off an entire year, now I just can't stop writing. So much to document. The Walk. The Man. The Kids. Of course, people used to read this blog. Now, it's just me. No worries. I have reached that point in my life where I understand what's truly important. Who'd have ever thought that an angst-ridden, self-conscious chick like me would get to the point where other people's opinions don't matter? Or, truth be told, matter less? True story: My brother, his wife, me and my kids were in my brother's Honda Pilot last Christmas, going to Stanford to return Christmas presents. My brother and I share a love of Alison Krauss and Shawn Colvin. But lately, my brother's taste in music has devolved, as evidenced by the Glee soundtrack streaming from the Pilot's speakers that day. Mike: "Uncle Dennis, your music sucks ass." Uncle Dennis: "You know what's great about being middle-aged, Mike? You don't give a shit what other people...

When I was 10, shopping at Sears Roebuck with my mom, I would wander around the men's section and pretend I was a grown woman, shopping for her man. I would ruffle through the rugged red and black plaid shirts, looking for that rare extra extra large. My man was very big and outdoorsy. A guy's guy, but bighearted and true. I'd find jeans, socks, underwear and undershirts, and maybe a surprise: socket wrenches from the tool department. Later, while setting the table for dinner, I'd lift the lid on the big pot on the stove and stir, letting the steam from Mom's vegetable soup fill the kitchen. How homey I make my home, our home, for my man. I lay out the Parmesan cheese. Salt and pepper. Saltines. Big blue and white bowls. Big spoons. Glasses for milk. Cloth napkins. I ladle the soup into the bowls and anticipate my man's appreciation. Hi smiles at me and tells me he loves me. And my soup. It's been almost 11 months since I met Kevin. When he reads this, I...

You can get blisters between your toes. Bet you didn't know that... I didn't know that, but I found out last weekend when I did the Avon Two-Day Walk in San Francisco with my friend, Sophie. Highlights of the event: 1)Sophie. She had me laughing from Mile 1 to Mile 44 (I know they said it was 39 miles, but the GPS said otherwise). 2)Kevin. My last post was in September of 2009. On September 1, 2009, I met Kevin. Since then, I've been showered with love, acceptance, generosity and patience. Kevin got to Sausalito at 8:00, waiting for me and Sophie to walk by and cheer us on. We didn't get there until 10. He had a big smile for us and big kiss for me :) 3)San Jose Cops. They were our mountain bike escorts. Great guys. Ridiculous calves. 4)Rest Station Nurses. Saved my feet, actually. And, later, my knees. 5)Wellness Village dinner. Big, piping hot plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Rivals dinner in Rome, Italy, as my best meal, ever. 6)"Freelance" roadside well-w...

"Look, in my opinion the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what-have-you. The right person is still going to think the sun shines out of your ass. That's the kind of person that's worth sticking with."__Juno's dad, Mr. MacGuff

It's been a year since my last post. Lots of change. Ocho and I broke up last August. The breakup actually started the prior summer in 2007, a month after my first reconstruction. I was headed to the beach with the kids and called Ocho to see if he wanted to go surfing with us. He couldn't as his old girlfriend was coming over. They were hoping to find closure... It took me 12 more months to realize that his feelings for me had changed and that he didn't know how to end the relationship. We broke up in August 2008. I miss Ocho. He was there for me in a significant way during my cancer year, for which I'll always be grateful. It was actually a magnificent year. Life was magnified; rich with meaning and full of love. Ocho would tell me over eggs and toast on foggy Saturday mornings why he loved me. I had my second reconstruction in October 2008. The day after I got fired from my job. The reconstruction, done by a great surgeon in San Francisco, Loren Eskenazi, looks amazi...

Ocho's out surfing. I'm on his soft couch, my smelly dog by my side, looking at the fog. This is beginning to sound like a haiku. So, its July 4th, and I have the day off work. But instead of feeling a sense of freedom, I'm feeling a sense of ennui creep in. Like the heavy fog. Falling on wet leaves. Sitting there. Blankly. Christ. I need a change. Which was one of the topics of the political discussion I had last night with my brother and his wife, my Mom and my Dad: change. My Dad an I often disagree on political topics. But on this topic, we are united: Change for change's sake is meaningless unless you know what it is you want to change, why you want to change it, how you're going to change it, and if the change makes sense. So, for me to just say I need a change means nothing. What do I want to change, and why and how? I love my life, actually. I have great kids. I have a partner who loves. me. I have friends who make me laugh and think. I have challenging, me...

Enough said. Actually, if you have a minute, I have a short story (honest) about my hair. Ocho, I, my brother and his cute wife went to the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss concert at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley last night. We had to park far away, and the air was smoky (from all the NorCal fires) and foggy. So foggy, in fact, that it was misting. After about three minutes, you could see my hair curling. Like slow-motion photography of a tender little shoot pushing through the earth and growing into a plant. Only faster. And curlier. By the time we got to the Greek, I was Linc (see Totally Mod ). Fortunately, Ocho thought it was cute. Yet another reason to love him. The concert last night was stunningly beautiful. As I sat there in the dense fog, listening to the improbable but perfect duo of Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, feeling my hair curling and twisting, I felt a peace settle on me and sink into my soul. PS: To my big sis: Jannie, doesn't my hair like this remind you of when I w...

I recently was asked to be part of a new blog called Mothers with Cancer . These women know how to deal with adversity with that perfect blend of intelligence, compassion, spunk and bite that just wags my tail! Go read what these 17 women have to say, including the creator of the site, the brilliant Susan (really, she's a NASA scientist), who also blogs at Toddler Planet . Another of the 17 is Andrea of Punk Rock Mommy . This articulate, feisty mom of six was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer the day after she got her college degree. She's fighting the good fight, but she needs love and prayers now. Send yours her way, if you would. Also read Jenni Ballantyne of The Comfy Place . She's just gorgeous. Inside and out. Heck, take the rest of the day off and read them all. They're all truly amazing. Love to you.

Ocho and I drove to the City this afternoon, hoping to get into the Dale Chihuly exhibit at the De Young. It was sold out. So instead we ambled through Golden Gate Park and into the botanical garden cactus sale, where Ocho bought seven vibrant green succulents. The stress of selecting only seven of those luscious plants must have exhausted the guy, because it’s 9 o’clock on a Saturday night and Ocho’s in bed sleeping like a rugby player. No worries. That means I can stay up late and write about a topic that is difficult to write about—my changing body. I was extraordinarily proud of myself after going through chemo without gaining a pound. In fact, looking back, that was a sweet time. I was flat, and I was bald. But I was loved. And I knew I wasn’t always going to be flat and bald. Those were temporary experiences. Then I went through 28 sessions of radiation. I would arrive at the Dorothy B. Schneider Cancer Center at 8 a.m., have Tony or Wayne radiate me, apply anti-burn gel to my ra...

I’ve been gone. I took a break from my blog to tend to my kids, my job, my man, my house, my health, my spirit. I’ve also been tending to my sobriety. I quit drinking five months ago. Not a long time in recovery circles, but long enough to know that this has been a life-changing decision for me. On December 23, I came home from work. I opened a bottle of chardonnay and poured a glass while I cooked dinner. Such a civil way to end the day, to take the edge off. I stirred the spaghetti sauce and poured another glass. An hour later, I went out to the garage to put the empty green wine bottle in the recycling bin with the other empty green wine bottles. There have been times in my life when I took my recycling down to The Recyclery so that my empty green wine bottles wouldn’t be exposed out there in the bin on the curb, clearly visible to my neighbors. Fourteen wine bottles in the recycling bin looks like you had a party. Unless you have fourteen wine bottles in your recycling bin every tw...

Deena requested a photo of my hair these days. Here ya go, Deena! I am not hating it. In fact, after the hour and a half it takes to get it to look like this, I kinda like it :) More later xo

On my current to do list: 1. Figure out new job 2. Finish freelance project for old job 3. Get a chemistry tutor for Mike 4. Do my taxes 5. Lose final 12 pounds 6. Go to 6 a.m. strength training class 7. Walk dog 6. Update blog 7. Help Kate with essay 8. Help Mike get a summer job 9. Maintain yard 10. Pay bills 11. Teach Mike to drive 12. Get oil changed 13. Clean my house 14. Have a garage sale 15. Laundry 16. Get dog to vet 17. Summer camps for Kate 18. Fix home network 19. Laundry 20. Get healthier food in the house 21. Learn to meditate 22. Meditate on the laundry 23. Paint house 24. Figure out house drainage problem 25. Figure out how to pay for house drainage problem 26. Get out on my bike 27. Clean out garage 28. Go through attic 29. Go to Kate's softball games 30. Figure out second reconstructive surgery (who/where/when/how...I know what and why) 31. Doctor's appointments 32. Kids' doctors' appointments 33. Plan Mike's birthday 34. Organize files 35. Read wo...