After we dropped you two at Addison

 

We pulled out the Captain to see what was happnin’ and this is what we found. A bit of bag from Pride! ‘Member the storm? The buttons and pins and rain and that dude passed out, the one who really disturbed you? You know, the one I have a picture of? Anyway, we had too much fun with you. Beware: I’m posting more pictures in the near future!

Love,

B

Waiting to heal…and a pity party

Hey girl,

I just had to write. Sorry I’ve been out of commission lately. Company, work, laundry (and all the dryers are broken, by the way)…anyway, you know the drill.

Yeah, so the colon cleanse wasn’t so moving. I thought I’d be pooping out stuff from the late 90s–I was all excited, a little nervous. I thought I’d see alien-like beings and remnants of tater tot casserole, small villages and parasites. Whatever. We should get the Internet pills, because my kit didn’t cut it. Made Steph a little more hostile every time I let one go, but other than that, and one Oh-my-God-where’s-the-bathroom moment at the Field Museum, I’m not impressed. No flat belly, nothing.

I just had to tell you how hard it is lately. Lately, you ask? Yeah. After ten months of cancer treatment–Steph diagnosed with triple negative infiltrating ductal carcinoma on September fourth of last year, finding out she’s BRCA2 positive, then learning how aggressive the cancer is and how it doesn’t want her to live past 40. Sometimes I let myself listen to the numbers and sometimes I know God’s grace is sufficent for us. And sometimes I think of songs I’d play at her funeral. I can’t help it. Knowing what I’ve learned about breast cancer and its complications from treatment, I’m just worn down. I know if I have faith I can get through it and all that, but every day…and the little moments…that’s what’s hard. I think of how I knew her when I was 18 and she was 21. I’ve had a lot of flashes of our life when all we had to think about was affording gas station sun glasses and would she like a jalapeno Slim Jim.

It’s stupid, I know. Faith, right? I don’t have enough. She told me the other day that we should stop praying for no return of the cancer, but recognize that He has already written it. We’re done and over with. I’ve got to believe that, but you got a vision of what I’ve been living with. In January–during chemo. I feel like I was such a kid then. After being a chemo caretaker for for four months (and anyone who knows Chicago October through January can testify it’s bitch already), I was a nurse and wife for her bilateral mastectomy: draining bulbs stuck to her armpits of lymphatic fluid and measuring it to give the recording to Hansen. Meeting with a radiologist so I could watch her side turn to raw hamburger with yellow juice oozing out. I know. I sound stupid. I hate that our human selves need validation.

I’ve seen Steph through the moment she found the lump last June, and it gained heat and girth and mass, and I denied that it was growing and changing, and she went to the gyno who sent her on to a surgeon.

I’ve even seen you and me when we were kids. When we bought that bubble bath at Walgreens and it said “for adult use only,” and we strapped on our suits and tentavely stepped in the tub. We were scared of disappearing, like Lily Tomlin, right? You were so brave, or stupid, like I was. And I always made you go first, and you did.

So I guess that’s what we do–sign up for brave and stupid suff. Or don’t sign up for it, it just happens, and then people think you’re brave or call you brave, and it’s like, “Brave? BRAVE? Insane is more like it. Stark raving nuts. Wanna do a shot?” Honestly, though, I didn’t think I had it in me. I still don’t. I know I don’t. I saw a picture of Steph with no hair and no eyebrows and no lashes the other day and I forgot. I forgot that I came home to that every day. That bald head. It hurts to look back on it, like I almost think I didn’t do it. We didn’t do it. Not like Steph has breasts still, because everyday I see that she doesn’t. I don’t know. People stop asking, and I want them to ask, because I want to talk about it.

I guess I’m just having a funk period. Sorry about my pity party. Just sometimes I think I’m crazy and if anyone will give me validation it’s you. I know I’ve placed a heavy load on you in the few months, and you’ve had to listen more than talk. But I do thank you. I don’t want any other outlet than you and Steph, though. And she’s the one going through the shit, so it’s you to help me back to sanity. Sorry about that.

Anyway, I’m gonna go crazy on you when you and B get out here later this month. Please prepare yourself for listening (I know…not again, right?). You are the one who never judges me, always listens, and even when you think I’m nuts, you’ll tell in such a pretty way that I almost love being outta my head.

Better go. Thanks for always being there. Wish you lived on, like, the fourth floor. Or the fifth. Fourth floor reeks.

Love,

Britt 

A week late, but still heartfelt

I meant to post this last Sunday, but my phone line got crossed with someone else’s (yeah, creepy) and we couldn’t get online. The rest of the week went to work, and working out my new script.

 

My one and only Jessie,

So when we cracked open the little red envelope from Netflix the other day and popped in Juno, I was totally stoked. Not just the hype and Diablo Cody used to be a stripper and Ellen Page is the coolest (but isn’t she?). I wondered if watching it would hold answers about that time, when we didn’t talk all that much because I was in St. Joe for senior year and you were pregnant with Kiley.

Juno was like you, the you I knew in junior high and high school. Tough, and a cusser. Kind of butch and super cute; Vans and the occasional flannel scored for $1.80 from St. Theresa’s. I still can’t believe I never went to an appointment with you. I never saw an ultrasound or felt Kiley kick or helped you take out the trash. I’ll have you know, though, that I drove around Lincoln all day one time in early ‘94, Russell Stovers in hand (actually on the passenger seat of my dad’s Corolla), stopping at like three halfway houses looking for you. All I knew was that you had a baby and your dad kicked you out and you were living God-knows-where. I got nothing. And I ate the sad-ass turtles by myself. Or maybe I took them to Steph’s.

Were you scared? Were you mad? Did you think you could do it? Did you wonder about what life would be like with a baby? Did you consider abortion or adoption? What’d you think about Ki’s dad? Who was he? I wish I knew what he looked like. You were really young, with a big belly, and I bet you got some stares. I always thought, over the years, that you got your practice on Teal. Like, you were her third parent, and a caretaker from the time I knew you.

I remember one day, my Air Force leave, fall of ‘94. You’d gotten that apartment on 33^rd and Holdrege. I was impressed. You and this little blondie. And you liked her and made dinner for her, pulled her hair up in pigtails and made me watch stuff she did. She didn’t say much, but it sure was fun to watch her try and run. She had cheeks and fat legs and you dressed her in tiny jeans and t-shirts and white sneakers. I still have those pictures of Ki coming toward my disposable, the one where she has big shoulders like a linebacker. I didn’t learn that day that life as a mother–in your case, a single teenage mother–was about giving it all up for someone else, but I got a clue. I still only get little clues, dropped from heaven every now and then, when I hear you talk to her while we’re on the phone.

And now you have a beautiful, tempestuous, personality-laden teenager. She’s like we were, Jessie, she makes you want to beat her, drive her to school and work and practice. She demands food and liquid and parent-teacher conferences and doctor’s appointments and sign-offs for field trips.

Do me a solid. When you want to wring her skinny white neck, know that we want a sassy, opinionated thing of our own to wrangle with. And I hope we do as good a job as you’ve done. Here’s to you, Jessifer.

Happy Mother’s Day. I love you.

Love,

Britto

 

 

Little gnome…big gnome

Hi you,

Thought you’d like to see the progress I’ve made with Mr. Dib’s bro.

See? I make good progress with $1.99 fun treats! Send more weird stuff from Lincoln and I promise, I will find weird stuff to send you from the Chi. Not hard…gonna go outside now and scan the sidewalk.

Good talking with you today. Love you.

B

 

Sailor’s Lip can go to hell

Dear Soon-to-be-Wearing-Eco-Lips-Organic-Lip-Balm-with-SPF Jessifer,

I KNEW that weird pissed off white patch on my bottom lip was something! OMG, I’ve been wearing the same magnifying glass on my lips–my poor, thin-skinned, sun-absorbing lips–since I was, what, fourteen? Yeah, have you read this? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24190829/ Take my Sally Hansen, my Body Shop, my C.O. Bigelow!

How will I ever part ways with my little blue jar? Do you KNOW that two years ago I went as far as to write Blistex to ask if they would whip up a batch of Lip Medex with SPF, just for me? I can’t part with it, I can’t, and not for trying. I’ve got tubes and canisters occupying their own freakin’ Caboodle; past attempts and failures at trying to move on. Lip Medex has been my dream lip product (remember when we moved from Chamberlain and I cleaned under the bathroom sink and found fourteen empty blue containers of it? Oh, I never mentioned that? I was too busy packing and repacking. Last of the OCD days…), the only caveat being that it lacked sun block. Everything I’ve tried since then has produced scales, or doesn’t last long enough, or is gunky and stupid. The nice folks at Blistex informed me that no, there would be no SPF in Lip Medex anytime soon, despite the fact that I’m part owner by now, but would I try this new product and find it to my liking? No. Nooooooo. It had coverage, but like all the others, got tossed into the purple plastic.

My point, besides being an alarmist and adding another worry to your plate? I am sending off for Eco Lips! And you’re getting one. Chiggity check the website (http://www.ecolips.com/) and I think you’ll find that I’ve done well in trying to keep our lips supple and squamous free. After scouring the site, I scored us a FREE tube of organic lip balm…SPF 30!!!!! So no, my sister, you won’t suffer my fate, this wavy, white, irritated blob on your sweet little lips.

What’ll it be…mint, berry or sport? I will save your life. Because I love you like that.

B

 

and so does having your car broken into

That’s what we get for storing the bike in the car. Cheap lesson, I guess. Could’ve been the whole Xterra. Chicago…sweet Chicago.

For you, my dear

A sweet day, that’s what I wish for you, sugar.

B

3:30 p.m.

Fer,

So I’m standing in a certain part of a certain part of the place where I work, Tourist Attraction, right? And thank God I brought a pen, ‘cuz I scrawled the following interactions, and it kept me sane for twenty-five minutes…and giggling through the DOLPHIN SHOW.

Staff looks lonely yet helpful.

Guy: Sooo…are there shows here?

Me: Yes, sir, the next marine mammal presentation will be three-thirty.

Guy: What about the dolphin show?

Me: They are synonymous.

Girl, who’s obviously consulted other staff before stumbling upon me: What time’s the show? Three-thirty, right?

Me: Three-thirty.

Staff member watches guest mouth the words ‘three-thirty’ as she says them. Tries not to turn and walk away.

Random dude with a couple tots and a mate: When’s the next show?

Me: Three-thirty.

Dude: Three-thirty?

We’ve just met. Would I lie to you?

Me: Yes, sir. Three-thirty.

Of today. P.M. Like, soon.

Dude: What time zit now?

Me: I believe it’s around two-thirty.

Really smart dude: So, bout nower?

Last time I checked the distance between 2:30 and 3:30 equaled ’bout nower’ in the universe.

Me: Yes, sir.

Really Curious Guest: How much water’s in here?

Me: Two million gallons; a lot, huh? And it’s 31 feet deep!

RCG: Huh. Wow. Time’s the next show?

Woman with power stroller and one who walks and talks: I don’t know, honey, ask this young man.

Jesus, not again. Fuck my barber. At least she called me ‘young.’ 

Me: The next dolphin show is at 3:30, mister, so you’d better get your seat!

English woman with charming accent, who’s obviously read her map: Excuse me, but where are the dolphins fed?

Me, taken aback at her preparedness: Where? Dolphins? Wha?

EW: They’re fed at 3:30. I just wanted to know where.

Leave it to foreign visitors to actually translate the map. And hold it right-side-up and stuff.

Beautiful, wonderful guest: Dolphins?

Me: Yes, sir, they’re behind you. In the two-million gallon habitat.

You know, the sparkly pool your child keeps leaning over.

 BWG: They’re in there?

No, they’re up your butt five miles south. Stay for the show. If you would, please.

Me: Yes, sir, they are currently located in their habitat.

Since 1991, buddy.

Yucky man from Kansas or Iowa: Show?

Yes, sir, show you what? Is this what we’ve been reduced to? Confining whole sentences into one word while you chew your popcorn at me, and I don’t even know how you got that down here fyi. There’s no food or drink on the walkway, you know.

Me: The last dolphin show of the day is at three-thirty. Get ready!

Breezy young female on a date: Exxxcuuuuse me, miss?

Me: Three-thirty.

BYF: Wow, how’d you know what I was going to ask?!

Thanks for listening. I love you.

Britto

 

 

 

Four red cars

How often do you see that, huh? Seriously. I’m serious.

B

Fresh and gross, but it’s liquid sunshine!

Dear Jessie,

Whew. My ears are still ringing from the whir of my Juiceman. Those limes sure go down with a fight. I’m still on the life juice kick, as I call it. Steph calls it a catalyst for regurgitation. Anyway, three weeks now; the most consistency I’ve shown for anything in a long time, besides wine, insomnia and eye cream. I just turned this

 

into a gallon of bright green frothy liquid that I will dine on every morning for the next week. Depsite the first cracking of the pitcher and being greeted by whiffs of something akin to liquidized mowed lawn, I’ve grown to love my morning jolt of green. I feel like I’m doing something good for myself, for the world, for Steph, and it kind of gives me a buzz. Yeah, I know–it’s freaking juice.

I started this whole thing for Miss I-only-eat-corn-and-broccoli-and-you-better-cook-the-latter-down-into-a-pile-of-unrecognable-green-mush-covered-with-orange-cheese. Now she hides when I break it out, even though I pour it into shot glasses to make it fun like a party. I’m like, I’m gonna find you somewhere in these 800 square feet, and you’re gonna take it, and we’re gonna live forever with no wrinkles and very little sagging. Sadly it remains my jug of life juice, as Steph still prefers Kool-Aid and tater tot casserole to get her going in the morning. Thank God she has an appointment with a nutritionist next week who specializes in breast cancer patients. Sigh.

Dead cucumbers and kale guts,

Britt

 Cheers!