Carcinomas and Vittles

Most of the time I write from home at the dining room table, my laptop in front of me and a few of my favorite possessions on either side. And there’s usually a dog or two sleeping nearby.  But sometimes, if I’m feeling stuck and need a change, I’ll go to a Starbucks to write. It’s a nice distraction- the fragrance of fresh, percolating coffee, the dynamic energy of busy, bustling executives hurrying in and out, the scream of a pissed off child denied a cake pop… it all adds up to sensory overload that can be motivating.

But there’s been a lot going on recently in my personal life (my aunt has not been well, my husband has recently finished radiation treatments for cancer and my boxer, Larry, had surgery on his leg a few weeks ago and it’s not healing) so I decided to ditch the coffee idea and instead head for In N Out Burger to write. Here’s the thing- I’m just not against eating my feelings right now. If something sounds good I’ll shove it in my face. I’m too old and too menopausal and too stressed out to say no to a donut if it’s silently calling out for me to eat it, and if said donut elbows his cinnamon roll neighbor and informs me that I should eat it also then YOU GET IN MY MOUTH TOO, CINNAMON DUDE.

I know that sounds terrible, and initially when Mark had his surgery and was not eating due to pain I wasn’t really eating either, but I quickly overcame that blip in the diet cosmos. Some people turn to drugs or alcohol or counseling or exercise for comfort during difficult times. I turn to bacon.

So the picture above is my notes on Rockford Village pushed aside while I prepared to dive head first into a mound of well-done fries and a double-double-no-onion burger. The drawback? It’s kind of hard to hold a pen when you have grease on your fingers. The advantage? For seven blissful  minutes all my problems disappeared in a haze of fatty deliciousness. And the final result? An overfull stomach causes Food Coma (duh!) and guess what: Food Coma = Writer’s Block. In N Out wasn’t one of my best ideas, but live and learn. In the future, it’s back to the coffee shop.

It had seemed like a good idea when I conceived it because, you see, this morning I had taken Larry in for a follow up from his surgery and I found out that Larry’s cancer has returned and he will need another operation on the 29^th to remove a few more bad cells from his leg. The doctor told me not to freak out. This is when I silently plotted my In N Out spree.

Dr H calmly told me, “Cancer is fairly normal in Larry’s case because 1- he is a boxer and 2- he is white.”

I quickly corrected him, “You mean caucasian.”

So apparently white boxers are prone to recurring cancers. Is the same true for white men?

I texted Mark when I got home and said, “YOU AND LARRY NEED TO STOP PASSING YOUR CAUCASIAN CANCERS BACK AND FORTH TO EACH OTHER.” And then I ate a Hershey bar.