It's just a number

It just occurred to me that people who went to high school with me are turning 40 this year.

And Madonna is 47.

Random stray thought

I find myself at 1:48 a.m. suddenly needing to know the Danish word for "fortuitous."

The new "normal"

The Young Daughter came home from the hospital Friday afternoon, none the worse for wear. After a few hours to get re-oriented, she was back up to full speed. She was in rare form at dinner, making up for lost time by applying a week's worth of torture on her big brother. (He's an easy target.) In short, all is well.

What they didn't come home with Friday afternoon was answers. These "episodes" she has are not common with her malady. We've rung up a doctor back in Texas, who originally diagnosed the Young Daughter back in 2001. This doctor is now in possession of all the records and is presenting the case to her colleagues next week. We expect to have an answer then, and we expect the answer to be low-dose chemotherapy to attack a couple of small lesions on her cerebellum. In the process, hopefully, it might zap a couple of optic gliomas, too.

This is not at all the worst-case scenario. Chemotherapy is no walk in the park, but I'm assured it's not near as bad as it used to be. The problem here is, though, as I write this, nobody's sure it's going to work. It might be a situation where we're "trying" chemo, the same way you'd "try taking a Motrin" if you had a headache.

But sometimes, all you can do is try. We're trying now to take this one step at a time. Right now, everybody's home. The Wife is two hours away at a dog show, her first time out of the Young Daughter's sight in a week. This is a good thing, for all involved. At 10:16 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5, we're having a "normal" day. That's all that matters right now.

Hey you! The one with the black cloud over your head

I haven't been happy the last few days, and I'm perfectly justified. You don't like it? Screw you. My kid has been in the hospital all week tethered to some machine that's measuring her brain waves, testing for a condition nobody thinks she has. My wife is sleeping on a "bed" that a homeless person would turn down, with a blue light shining on her all night so they can film my daughter not having seizures. Neither of them signed up for that duty. And there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

So yeah. I've been a little testy.

Driving to work today, my grim countenance firmly installed, I find myself stopped at a light behind a little Toyota truck.

Its license plate: MO FAITH.

Deep breath. Awright. I'll give that a try.

Thanks for the message, whoever you are. And thanks for making me muster a smile.

When you learn that, can you teach me?

Direct quote:

"Well, if I want to do computer animation, which I do, I'm going to need to learn Flash. So I'm going to put the Adobe project on hold for a while and concetrate on Flash."

I did not hear this at the software company at which I work.

I heard it from the back seat of my car, from the Old Daughter. She's in sixth grade. She has a dual-processor Mac G4 (and is the only kid on the block who not only has a dual-processor G4, but knows she has a dual-processor G4 and thinks it's cool that she has a dual-processor G4.) She was teaching herself Illustrator and Photoshop, but apparently something else has grabbed her attention. It's nice to see some sign that she's actually 11.

That little woman fascinates me.

Pepto. Bismol.

It's early, early in the morning on Nov. 1, and somebody in my house is rushing to the commode after gorging on too much junk food.

Not the Old Daughter. Not The Boy. They have the advantage of having a parent around who tells them "no" to the second piece of candy.

Nope, the one chugging indigestion medicine in the pre-dawn hours of Nov. 1 was me. Junk food is not a cure for anxiety and depression, but it sure as hell is a good treatment, at least right until it wakes you up in the middle of the night.

In our next episode, all my teeth fall out and I can't find them because my gut obscures my view of the ground. Stay tuned.