twits:
So Chris tells his sister she should get a webcam since his parents now have one and we can all Skype. Chris’ friend who lives in south Austin bought a webcam and drove the 45 minutes north to Chris’ parents house to install it and show them how to use it yesterday.
Instead of saying to Chris “wow that was super nice of your friend and nowwe can all benefit from it and I can get a camera and my daughter can Skype with them and with you guys!” her response is to bitch that she’s been asking his parents to do it for years, but now because he has cancer they do it for him.
UGH! She doesn’t even have a webcam herself!!! And Chris explained that his friend bought and installed it – his parents didn’t do anything but use it. Fucking shit she gets on my damn nerves.
oddities:
So I’m reading this book “Apologize, Apologize!” by Elizabeth Kelly. Here’s a synopsis I stole from Publishers Weekly:
“Collie Flanagan’s life is part Grey Gardens and part The Royal Tenenbaums in this beautifully written if unwieldy dramedy debut. Raised on Martha’s Vineyard, Collie is the dull link in his flamboyant family: his adulterous, alcoholic father and cruelly pugnacious mother maintain a miserable relationship that overshadows even the overblown personalities of his pigeon-racing uncle and his prep-school failure brother. As storms of irresponsibility rage, Collie lives in quiet, stable success until a one-two punch of family tragedy leaves him reeling. Collie’s relationship with his media magnate grandfather becomes contentious as Collie spins out of control and tries wildly different ways to make restitution and become a man. Kelly is a gifted writer (Collie’s mother attacks with a verbal pitchfork. Before the night was over, just about everyone in the place had sprung leaks, blood and champagne spurting from all those glamorous human fountains), but her chops as a novelist aren’t as refined: Collie is as pallid as the other characters are unbelievable, and though the crazed drama keeps the story moving, it’s often incredible. Though hampered by these weaknesses, Collie’s quest is worth reading for the elegant prose alone.”
Ok so I’m near the end of the book, oh and this next stuff might kinda be a spoiler but it’s nothing super dramatic, and it skips forward to when the main character, Collie, is now a practicing pediatric oncologist. He’s talking about a 17 year old patient named Gary who has leukemia. While I’m reading this passage Chris is skyping with his best friend Gary. Gary, the character in the book, is about to get 3 different chemo drugs in his spine, the exact same ones Chris gets. There’s a mix up and Collie accidentally injects Vincristine into his spine. Chris gets Vincristine via IV on days 11 of his odd numbered cycles. Vincristine injected into the spine is fatal and the kid dies in the book.
I had to laugh while reading it, life is so damn odd sometimes. I’m not superstitious at all so I’m not reading silly stuff into this coincidence like “oh no Chris is going to get it accidentally injected into his spine!!”. I’m more amused by the shear strangeness of me reading this book at this moment in our lives, and then Chris skyping with his friend Gary at that exact moment.
ad astra per aspera 