I had been sitting in the park fronting the state Capitol building, on the low wall along Broadway. There were at least 50 people and their sleeping gear strung along Broadway and around the corner up 14th. Across 14th Street stands the new Ralph Carr Justice Center, proclaiming “Liberty and Justice for All.” State troopers patrolled, since this side is state property; Civic Center Park is city property. I chatted for a while with a friendly young man who said he spent a lot of time there. I didn’t know if he was an Occupier or not.

When I saw the march return, I crossed Broadway and made my way to the auditorium. A small group stood behind the mic where the emcee introduced the first speaker. I sat and listened for a while, but I was more interested in the signs. I’m always a sucker for spectacle.

The “99%” sign made its appearance and meandered over to the Statue of Liberty. 

Here is my favorite shot. I love the statue’s bug-eyed expression.

Eventually, the emcee brought up the teach-ins, the reason I was there in the first place. I was hoping to attend one in each of the two sessions. I headed toward the pink flag, passing the free food stand (where I got an orange) and getting a flyer from the Foreclosure Resistance Coalition.

University of Colorado philosophy professor Chad Kautzer spoke on the topic “Neoliberalism and Labor: The Struggle Today.” He contrasted neoliberalism, a politico-economic system in which the state supports but does not regulate capitalism, with the system in place after World War II, which he called “embedded capitalism.” Neoliberalism is a much less regulated form of capitalism, and since the 1970s, has become the dominant form of capitalism in the world, bringing us outsourcing and the resulting loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States, a weakened labor movement, and the financial crisis we experienced since 2008.

My favorite point? His assertion that debt is a tool used by the neoliberal state to keep citizens in line. People who have tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt are reluctant to fight too hard for their rights. If they lose their jobs, who will pay the bills? Kautzer’s suggestion: eliminate your debt. Then you have more freedom of political movement.

After the first teach-in, I returned to the auditorium, where I listened to Live Animal play folk songs for a small crowd. I was feeling tired and hot. Only two hours, and I was fading. As I left, I heard the speaker saying:

We’ll be back next year, and the year after that . . .

Occupy movements may be small outside New York and Oakland, but they are tough and persistent. In addition to the people who sleep on the sidewalks and in the parks, they have committees organizing events and educators teaching people. They are engaging with politicians. They are learning and growing. Occupy Denver is here to stay.

I don’t want to go, but I’m doing it anyway—because I don’t want to be a quitter. Because I don’t want to reproach myself later if the cancer comes back. Because I don’t have the courage right now to say, “Chemotherapy is a very messed-up way to deal with an illness. I choose a different approach.”

Sometimes I think half the things I do in life, I do to avoid reproaching myself later. And I don’t really trust my own intuition.

But, as I’m telling myself this week, I can trust myself after this last treatment.

And then we will PARTAAAY! Well, maybe in about three weeks to a month … before the surgery and radiation … or maybe afterward …

Throughout my life, I’ve been blessed with good health and strength. I never needed a doctor other than my gynecologist until I was in my thirties and developed a repetitive motion injury. Now I’m pushing fifty and will be going to see doctors about triple-negative breast cancer for many years, if not the rest of my life, and yet I still don’t really believe I have it. All the disease ever did to me was enlarge my right armpit. The “cure” has afflicted me much worse than the disease.

I grew up with a mother who had rheumatoid arthritis that later destroyed her aorta and carotid arteries (in my opinion) and a father who was raised Christian Scientist and then converted to Catholicism. He had nothing against doctors; in fact, he convinced his mother to see one, I think about the congestive heart failure that killed her. He had polio when he was nine months old and always walked with a limp. He couldn’t jog, but he did learn to water-ski, and he rode his bike around our neighborhood. Once he even did a hundred, riding into the wind on the way out on some south Kansas City highway.

My mother didn’t talk much about her auto-immune illness, and I didn’t ask her about the effects I couldn’t see. Each of us wanted to be strong in our own ways, though I would ask her now, if I could. December 21 is the twentieth anniversary of her death. You learn, after the death of someone you love deeply, that grief doesn’t fade so much as shrink. In time, your life grows up around it but never completely obscures it.

Last night I thought of calling my father to tell him I have almost finished chemotherapy. But I told my siblings I wouldn’t talk to him about it anymore because it upsets him. He has Alzheimer’s and can’t remember certain things. The last time I mentioned it, he said he had forgotten, and I knew he felt bad about it.

Perhaps the next time I visit him, I will tell him about all the strange places I went because of cancer last winter and this spring and summer. I could say that the knowledge of it rose like a cold current in my body but very seldom spilled over. I could describe my rages and crying jags and the long drives to the infusion room.

But what was most unusual and wonderful, this year, was my acceptance of all the help I received. I remember a man long ago saying to me, after I paid him the exact amount he had lent me, “You don’t want to be obligated to anyone, do you?”

Well, no. When I was sixteen, I told my parents I was “completely independent.” Somehow they managed to restrain themselves from pointing out the food they provided and their car that I drove (and wrecked) and their house where I lived.

I have never felt so cared for in my life as I do now. Thank you.

But it’s weird to feel so much gratitude and so much cognitive dissonance at the same time.

Since November, I have been wondering about the messages we’re given after our diagnosis:

• If you undergo these tests, we can tell you what’s wrong with you.
• You can beat this with the right regimen. Hey, chemo sucks! But it will heal you.
• You can beat this if you stay positive. Negativity and anger are toxic. Forgive!

Why is cancer so personal? Why is cancer all about what I do? What if I’m not a positive person? What if I’m a pessimist? All of us know pessimists. Clearly, not all of them have died.

The only solution, for me, is to be grateful for the health I’ve had and the help I received and to assist others by researching the politics of cancer treatment. There’s something creepy about Amgen paying for almost all the cost of my pricey Neulasta shot. There is also something creepy about pharmaceutical companies funding National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Why is so little attention paid to the causes of cancer, such as the toxins we absorb from conception on? Why work so hard to defeat something when it could be prevented?

Note: This post was inspired, in part, by Andi O’Conor’s tales of rebuilding her house, which burned down in the Four Mile Canyon Fire in 2010, especially “Life on the Edge.”

Then I remembered: It’s 4/20. The day to smoke pot in public places. “Won’t they get arrested?” I asked the woman sitting next to me. “No,” she said, “there are too many of them, and they might have permits. I have a permit.” Maybe my question marks me as a goody two-shoes—except I never was such a thing. I was just oblivious to anything trendy.

At this point the bus driver announced, “For those of you who care, it’s officially 4:20.”

I got out and circled the park toward the City and County Building, grousing to myself that it was OK for a bunch of teenage stoners to use Civic Center Park (and even get a row of port-a-potties), but not Occupy Denver. It’s OK to smoke pot in the park, but it’s not OK to camp.

I found my way to Traffic Court, announced in a funny nasal voice by a small, skinny man wearing a red tie. I entered Room 105A, at one end of a long, marble-lined hallway, and saw Todd sitting in the back row. He told me I had to wait outside, and just at that moment one of the court officials announced that children were not allowed in traffic court. I went outside and waited on the same bench as a tattooed man with his black hair pulled back into a ponytail and then braided. Like many other people waiting on the benches for their friends and family in the court, he eventually got up to get a drink of water and lost his seat.

I followed his lead after a while and waited out in the long hallway until Todd came out. Today was his (and 95 other people’s) arraignment. He pleaded not guilty, and his court date is June 20. I told him I was sorry it had turned out to be such a hassle. I hope it’s worth it.

After I kissed Todd goodbye, I passed the guards’ desk on my way to the exit. I could have sworn I heard one of them say, “What is that weird woman still doing here?” Or maybe he just said “woman.” I was tempted to go back and flash him my scalp. (You think this wig is weird, officer? Well, feel my head!) But no. I’m too polite. And I really wanted something to eat.

On my first visit to Sketch, in mid-January, the small restaurant was packed. We sat at the back by the only bathroom, where it was quieter. My friend Ruth Tobias was interviewing the man who was redoing the wine list, and we were well attended to. I had a refreshing Prosecco with pear, and she ordered a couple of the spicier red wines, a taste we share. We sampled two cheeses, one of which, the Gouda with nettles, had an intriguing herbal flavor. And then we had homemade pasta in a crimini mushroom sauce. The dish featured a light, flavorful mushroom sauce with slivers of zucchini and parmesan, and I was pleased that the chef gave me a small portion. I get tired of the huge amounts of pasta served at some restaurants.  

It was much quieter at Sketch the second time I ate there, on Tuesday. R2 and I would have sat on the patio, but the sun was too blinding at 5 pm, so we went inside to the bar. She tried to order a Roederer sparkling wine but was handed a glass of red wine. When it turned out that the bottle of wine she really wanted had gone flat and they didn’t have one on ice, she got the Segura Viudas Brut Rose Cava instead. I saw “blood orange soda” on the menu and ordered that, made by Rième, a French company that was new to me. I took home the bottle because (1) it was all curvy and (2) Sketch doesn’t recycle.

R2 ordered the pasta with mushrooms, and it looked pretty much the same as the one I had, although she got a larger serving and there were no long slivers of vegetables across the pasta.

The warm brussels sprouts salad was pleasing enough, and simple enough, that I thought I’d try to make it at home. Its base, mixed greens in balsamic vinaigrette, was softened by the addition of butternut squash cubes and figs and contrasted with the firmer brussels sprouts leaves. (You can find a few of them in the picture, around the edges. There weren’t as many as I expected.) The last three ingredients were sautéed with something spicy and tossed with the greens and caramelized onions and toasted hazelnuts. I liked the mixture of warm and cool, sweet and spicy and sour, crunchy and silky.

We paid up and walked down Broadway to Delite because one restaurant just wasn’t enough. By then the sun had gone behind the buildings on Broadway, so we could sit in the garage door–style window and watch passersby stare at us.  I ordered a rather dull Gruet sparkling wine to go with the mac and cheese, and R2 got spicy edamame and a glass of Clean Slate riesling. We sat by the DJ and listened to 1980s tunes. You’d think the salad from Sketch would have filled me up, especially after the stomach shrinkage caused by 4 chemo treatments, but the mac, served in a small cast iron pan, had a creamy truffle sauce that I couldn’t resist. I liked it much more than Sputnik’s version, which was rather dry.

When I saw the article I’m linking to today, I was tempted to send it to her and see if a second try would be successful. But then I felt childish. I knew that I really wanted her to say, “You’re right, Beth. Walmart is a terrible company, and I will never shop there again.” It wasn’t so much the desire to provide information as my pride that motivated me.

So I’m sharing it with you. The crux of the article is that Walmart has brought outsourcing back to America. In the process, it makes it nearly impossible for workers to unionize and it protects itself from allegations that it abuses its workers. Why? Because they’re not Walmart’s employees. They’re two times removed.

The New Blue Collar: Temporary Work, Lasting Poverty, and the American Warehouse, by David Jamieson

I couldn’t help but notice that this article was published by HuffPost. You know, the company that Ariana Huffington built by getting a lot of people to write for her for free? The one she sold for $300 million? Walmart isn’t the only one who knows how to make money by screwing other people.

What should we call this new phenomenon? In-sourcing? Back-sourcing?

And just for clarification, a “catkin” is a “slim, cylindrical flower cluster.”

During this cycle of chemo (the third), I was a little later getting to the rec center than last cycle. I took some walks and did some yoga and Pilates, but I didn’t get to the rec center until last Thursday and then Saturday. I did a workout at home in between, and by Saturday I was pretty tired.

I’ve been trying to maintain my strength throughout chemo, but today was the first day I managed to ride the recumbent bike for 30 minutes, and that was only on level 3. Now, I’ve never ridden the bike at a level higher than 5, but 3 seems pretty wimpy. After about 15 minutes, I went down to level 2 because my legs were tired. I tried to keep my heart rate around 140.

Afterward, I did some resistance training: sitting row, hip abduction and adduction, leg extension. I would have done 3 sets of dead lifts at 40 pounds (including the bar), but there were too many people in the weight room. Maybe I can do those next time. I think they’re good for my back.

After my workout, I stretched in the basketball gym while a man practiced 3-point shots. Then I walked closer to the murals at the back of the gym. According to the woman at the front desk, the athletes in the mural were modeled after various people from the community in 1979. I wonder if they were excited to see themselves immortalized that way. She said the mural had never been touched up, and it looks great (except for the football player who’s positioned so as to kick the boxer in the crotch).

There’s another mural in the pool area, which includes a couple of figures and various solar bodies. It’s a different style than the mural in the gym, but apparently two of the artists were the same.

Bending down to pick up the trash over and over took a little bit of effort, but it wasn’t too bad. I wasn’t as feverish or as tired as I was on Sunday.

In 6 blocks total, I filled my bag with trash. 

Next time I think I will wear gloves, and I will carry two bags so that I don’t have to sort through all the dirt to get to the recyclables.

Oh, and I won’t wear white pants.

***

This trash pickup was inspired by It Starts with Me.

First of all, I have to explain that it’s been very difficult for me to cry about this diagnosis. At times I would have liked to sob for a few hours, just to release some tension, but it doesn’t happen. Except, I guess, when I watch sad love stories.

And, of course, in Bright Star, John Keats is dying of tuberculosis, a loathsome disease. (That same disease has just been found in a school in Longmont, by the way.)

I started thinking about the disgusting nature of chemotherapy. How it follows this insidious path in my body. How the effects make me feel less than human and certainly not female anymore. Something more like a test case. I’m not sure why the weakness, the stomach upset, the hair loss, and the brain fog produce this reaction. It’s just that they all feel so wrong for a person who prided herself on her health and her ability to get by without medicine.

When I was a teenager, I did a few drugs. I smoked cigarettes, I drank a lot of coffee with milk and sugar, I smoked pot, and I did mushrooms once. In the 1980s, I did coke a few times. Finally, in my thirties, I realized what should have been obvious: I don’t like being drunk or stoned. I don’t like smoking. I don’t really like altering my body’s natural functioning at all.

And now I’m on these drugs, supposedly to save my life, that are trashing my body, far worse than the cancer has until this point. Setting aside the certainty of what cancer would have done in the long run, I want to talk about the perverse nature of chemotherapy. Why is it that the medical establishment chose this route to cure cancer instead of a more natural approach?

I think it happened because of the postwar mindset. Because we were high on creating new chemicals that could fix our world for us, solve all our conflicts with nature.

Have you ever noticed that since World War II, poisons have worked themselves into every corner of our lives, thanks to corporations? Some 80,000 new chemicals have been created since that time. They’re used in agriculture and industry and cosmetics. But are the pharmaceuticals in use today part of that group of 80,000 chemicals? After a very small amount of surfing, I would say that chemo drugs are in those ranks.

Here’s the quote I love best from the second link: “With advances in technology that improved the ability to detect and quantify these chemicals, we can now begin to identify what effects, if any, these chemicals have on human and environmental health.”

Yep, I am a guinea pig. And so are you and your kids. Because most of these new chemicals haven’t been tested. Why? Because it’s just not important to the US government to understand the health effects of all those chemicals. That might restrict corporations’ ability to sell them.

I’ve spent the last 15 years of my life trying to avoid chemicals. I cleaned my house without them. I managed without bleach (yes, chlorine is a poison). I ate organic food. And so on. My main lapse was to use Roundup on my yard, but even that involved using smaller amounts of chemicals than if I’d used Weed and Feed every season.

And still I got cancer. For all I know, it may have been caused by smoking in high school. Or by not having children. But the presence of 80,000 new chemicals in the world, mixing together in our bodies in ways we don’t understand, certainly does raise hard questions.

And now I’m using more chemicals to clean up the mess in my body.

It’s insidious, don’t you see?

So here’s my pledge: I am never doing this again. If my cancer recurs (and triple-negative breast cancer is more likely to recur than other subtypes), I won’t do chemo again. I hate it.

Last Friday I had my third infusion out of six. The needle hurt going in, and I’m beginning to suspect it has something to do with the nurse who installs it. Perhaps a little less vigor next time?

I ate lunch, as usual. Afterward we went to the Pearl Street Mall to visit the chocolate store opened by a former yoga teacher of ours.

One thing that surprised me about the second cycle was how quickly my sweet cravings came back. Every day for 12 days, I had donuts or ice cream or chocolate or something similar. It was a little eerie, watching it happen. Then on the Wednesday before chemo, I went to a potluck with members of Boulder Media Women, and Linda Spangle gave me 100 Days of Weight Loss: The Secret to Being Successful on Any Diet Plan. She said she takes a copy of one of her books to gatherings and always finds someone who needs it. And she was right—I do need a book like that. I’m planning to use it this cycle to avoid acting like such a sweets addict.

The very first daily motivator goes this way: “I used to be that way, but now I’m different!”

If I could just convince myself of that—convince myself that I don’t need to eat every sugary thang that crosses my path—it would do wonders for my health and self-esteem.

But, when I have a sour stomach, desserts do sound good. Although I should be grateful I have only a “sour stomach” instead of nausea and vomiting, I’m not. I just want it to go away.

In two or three days, it will subside. I know that, so I’m trying to distract myself by keeping busy.

During the second chemo cycle, a new symptom emerged—muscle twitches, coldness, and weakness—and it’s back, in my face and arms and legs. The nurse practitioner suggested I take L-glutamine and alpha-lipoic acid, which I haven’t yet bought, and a friend suggested acupuncture. So tomorrow Todd will take me to the walk-in acupuncture clinic in Boulder, and I’ll see if that does anything.

At times I rejoice that I’ve made it through 3 cycles, but then at other times the remaining 3 sound so endless.

The tumor in my right armpit is disappearing. It’s just a little nubbin now.

And there is the new book, which gives me hope that one day I won’t be a slave to sugar.

It’s warm and sunny outside. I think I’ll go for a walk before tomorrow’s cold descends.

This song, “I Swear,” is  a great introduction to their sound. I would say the style is rockabilly, but her voice is so piercing and interesting to me.

Here a link to all my Bumbershoot 2011 photos.

I’ve always loved it when the moon appears to be swinging from a star, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how to photograph the wintry trees in the Baker neighborhood.* So I stared at the sky for a while and then went inside and got my tripod and my camera. I don’t have a ball head on my tripod, which makes it difficult to take a vertical shot with the camera on a tripod. But I managed. This is a 10-second exposure, and it looks pretty sharp to me. I haven’t tried to print it to an 8 by 10 yet, but I think I will to see if the sharpness is good enough for that size print.

The original shot showed the cars parked on the street, but they were fairly bright, and I thought they diverted attention away from the sky.

*Given how early it was in the evening, the “star” was probably a planet.

My most recent post on this blog was written January 27, the last time he was seen alive by the door-people at his apartment in Kansas City. By February 3, Todd and I were in Kansas City, helping my siblings dispose of Matt’s belongings.

I learned a lot about my brother that week. First of all, I saw his apartment, and I took pictures of it, which I still need to edit and send to my family. My brother was an intensely private person—so much so that none of his family had ever seen his apartment before he died—so I won’t post those photos here. To do so, in my opinion, would violate his privacy. He would dislike the fact that I’m writing about him, but I justify it by telling myself that his death is part of my life, too.

Matt lived in a library. Every available bit of wall in his two-bedroom apartment had a bookshelf, filled to the brim with books and magazines containing articles on the same subject as the books. He had a large fiction section, including many mysteries; 4 shelves of art books; and many nonfiction titles. We estimated he had 7,000 books. I did a little figuring in my head, and decided if he started collecting these books 30 years ago, he would have had to read 1 book every 2 days for the past 30 years.

I couldn’t help but look for my own novel. It wasn’t there. I know I sent it to him in 1998, so I can only conclude it was culled to make room for other books.

The area on and around his large desk contained the research he had been doing for a book about Harry Truman’s early years in Kansas City, a subject on which I knew him to be an expert.

That was the second thing I learned about Matt: that he had written a book proposal and was getting ready to send it out. Matt saved his check-out slips from the library, and I found one from January 2012 with such titles as “How to Get a Literary Agent” and “Making the Perfect Pitch.”

It’s hard to express how sad that slip of paper made me feel. I have had my own struggles with publishing, but I know why I’ve written 3 books and published only 1: definitely a lack of follow-through, and partly a lack of desire. I might have turned the novel and short-story collection into publishable books if I had spent more time revising them. But I got tired, possibly because I had no critique group to nudge me. So to learn that Matt had been working on a book for 8 years, had been so close to finishing it, and then had died really hurt.  He spent most of his life as a lawyer when he should have been an academic. If he had gone back to school for his PhD when he wanted to, in the early 1990s, he might have already published this book.

I decided one of my jobs that week would be to box up all of Matt’s research and save it until I could figure out what to do with it. I thought 10 boxes might do it, but we filled about 20 boxes with his black binders full of microfilm printouts. He had 7 such binders on the police, with articles from Kansas City newspapers dating from around 1918 to the 1940s.

Todd and my brother Russ and my sisters helped so much.

I don’t know how to get this material to researchers. Even if all the copies were good copies (some are barely legible), I assume posting a bunch of old newspaper articles online may violate copyright. Maybe they’re all in the public domain. But then the question becomes, “Who is going to do all the work of scanning 20 boxes’ worth of newspaper articles?”

Me? Some graduate student in history?

Here is a short excerpt from my brother’s book proposal:

…the biographies and other works about Truman have the history of his time in Kansas City politics backwards. In fact, the history was actually put backwards in the 1930s–1940s. That was done by frustrated election opponents of Truman and other Democrats, by an equally frustrated and virulently Republican Kansas City Star, and by William Reddig, a Star editor and the author of Tom’s Town: Kansas City and the Pendergast Legend. Reddig’s book was a campaign attack-history aimed at helping prevent Truman’s reelection in 1948, by implicitly portraying him as a knowing and willing beneficiary of the corruption, crime, electoral fraud and violence which, according to Reddig, pervaded and sustained the local Democratic coalition. Spread widely by biographers, who mistook Tom’s Town for a true history of Truman’s part in Kansas City politics, Reddig’s stories have kept that history backwards for decades. My book will put that history back around to straight forward.

Pretty bold claim, isn’t it?

I am no historian. I can’t write my brother’s book for him, based on his research, even if I wanted to. The best I can do is put his book proposal and research on the Internet, where Truman historians could access it to support their own work. I’d love to see this book proposal cause some controversy among historians, make them rethink their research. I think that was what Matt wanted. But first I have to get it out there. Any ideas?

***

A third thing I learned about Matt: he had at least one close friend in a man who worked at his apartment complex. George told my sister that he knew Matt had a father but didn’t know he had any siblings. Unfortunately, George wasn’t at work when I dropped off the funeral notice, so he didn’t get to attend my brother’s service, though another staff member did attend.

If he had other friends, I didn’t find them when I took his obituary to the UMKC Law Library and the Plaza branch of the KC Public Library. People there said they recognized him, but as one woman at UMKC said, “He didn’t need a lot of help.” She meant he was self-sufficient. But I think Matt did need more support than he got in life. I just wish I could have figured out how to break through his reserve. I would have loved to discuss mysteries with him or hear his progress on his book, but I never asked the right questions.

My siblings have hired a company to auction Matt’s books and his 350-or-so model car kits and his furniture. It frightens me to see how easy it is to dismantle a life. I didn’t feel that way after my mother’s death because my father kept most of her possessions—in fact, her books and household goods are still in my father’s house, even though he doesn’t live there. But Matt didn’t have a spouse to keep his possessions after his death, and he didn’t make a will. Perhaps he couldn’t bear the thought of giving away all the things he collected, so instead he concentrated on his new obsession: the book he was writing.

Not that losing hair is new to me. My hair has been falling out for fifteen years (Thanks, Grandpa!), and I got a buzz cut last year just to see how I liked it. I have to say, it wasn’t my favorite ’do—I didn’t like the look of the top, which was longer than the rest—but I could live with it. Especially in places like Seattle or Portland, where I saw a lot of women walking around with extremely short hair.

Todd was nonplussed by my insistence on a barbershop. He didn’t understand my desire for a haircut involving hot towels and a straight razor. For a while, I considered going to Proper Barbershop in Denver, but then I decided that a cold PBR and vintage Playboys weren’t that important to me. Neither was gender integration of that particular haven for men. I left it to the boys this time.

Instead I chose Al’s Barbershop, which has a location on the Hill in Boulder convenient to my appointment with the oncologist late that afternoon. The first thing I noticed upon my entrance was that all the pictures of fabulous hair featured men. Judith, my certified barber (Al won’t let you use a straight razor on customers until you’re certified), decided she would use scissors and a comb to shorten my hair, instead of a trimmer. So she divided it into sections and got to work. 

She was amazingly quick. In no time at all, I was under half an inch all over my head. It was relaxing to have the comb scraped (gently) up and down my scalp. Then came the real treat: hot foam and a neck shave. 

Judith didn’t have any reason to use hot towels on me, but she did promise I could come back when my hair got patchy and have my head properly shaved. Then, she said, she would use hot towels and polish my scalp until it shone.

I’m still not sure if I want that.

I got there by crossing the Ballard Locks and moseying through the neighborhood. It was a long walk, but worth it. On the way to the center, I stopped at this sign, feeling torn. “Land’s End” always sounds so enticing. 

But I chose the detour instead. When I was done exploring the center, I entered the forest remnant nearby and had a green, peaceful hike back to the road. I love finding havens in cities that make you forget the city exists.

This pond was lush with reeds and ferns. The latter were a treat, since I have seldom visited places abounding in ferns.In September, it was still coated with green algae that made it resemble pavement.

Alas, all good illusions must end, as mine did when I found this extremely un-primeval landmark. 

Maybe Prednisone works that way, but the Dexamethasone didn’t do it for me. It’s prescribed primarily to stave off side effects, and I will say that I had very low levels of nausea over the weekend.

I went in Friday, January 13, met with my doctor, and had chemo for several hours. First the nurse stabbed me in the chest with a wicked-looking needle that has a slight curve. That hurt, but only when she stabbed me. (Having this port in my chest freaks me out.) After the anti-nausea drugs and more steroids, she pushed Adriamycin in over 10 minutes, and when she was done, she hooked me up to the Cytoxan, I think, and let it drip. The Taxotere came last. Or maybe it was the other way around.

When I unplugged my chemo dispenser and dragged it to the bathroom, I discovered the Adriamycin had turned my urine pink. That lasted for a couple of days.

Todd and I ran errands in Broomfield after we finished chemo and then headed back to Boulder, where we were staying with a friend. I had to get a Neulasta shot on Saturday morning to support my body’s production of neutrophils (a type of white blood cell), so it was best to spend the night in Boulder instead of driving back and forth to Denver on Saturday.

Todd and I had made plans to attend a banked-track roller derby bout in Colorado Springs. We had lunch first with friends, and then I fell asleep on the way to the venue—a sign of things to come. After we arrived, Todd ran around doing video things, and I edited photographs, but the brain fog and light sensitivity that had crept up the night before got worse. I slept through the second half of the bout and all the way home to Denver. Todd said I took 4 naps on Sunday. I don’t remember.

On Monday night, we went to watch a movie with some friends. I was feeling very uncomfortable in any position, and my jeans seemed to bind my knees. It occurred to me the next day that I was experiencing the achiness associated with Neulasta, and I should have taken Claritin the day of the shot and the next day. I made it through the movie Monday night, but it was a physical struggle.

As I said, I had very little nausea, probably because I took Compazine (Prochlorperazine) until Monday or so. But it made my head feel swollen. I kept wanting to massage my temples, and the drug seemed to thicken the fog that surrounded me. I tried to do productive things, but the most I could manage was to edit a few photographs.

On Tuesday, I felt much less tired, but I needed to figure out how to manage my heartburn. I didn’t want to take more Compazine, but when I got up in the morning, feeling hungry, and ate something, my stomach hurt. I took a nurse’s advice and tried Prilosec, but so far it hasn’t helped all that much.

My tendency to eat when my stomach bothers me didn’t help matters. I couldn’t resist a frozen dinner with Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes for lunch, but the first bite fell into my stomach like a rock. Saltines helped calm things down, but then I allowed Todd to persuade me to eat at Go Fish, where I avoided raw fish and ate gyoza and tempura vegetables. I began to feel my GI tract was a distant galaxy where stars were forming. I started taking a Senna laxative, but because I took only 1 at a time, at first I felt more discomfort.

Wednesday was the worst day for stomach problems, and something was waking me up at night, so I wasn’t getting much sleep. I walked to K-Mart to buy pajamas, and my stomach was tender. Once I got home, Saltines came to my rescue. I felt so good that I agreed to meet a friend for dinner, where we ate cheese and a light pasta dish and drank wine. It was great food—especially the Gouda with nettles—and great company, but my stomach winced at each new bite.

Lessons learned:

• Take Claritin before and after Neulasta, and take two Senna each night, starting the night of chemo.
• Stop taking Compazine as soon as possible and switch to Prilosec or something else that reduces stomach acid.
• Drink lots of broth and eat lots of bread. Tame the mouth monster that wants constant stimulation, and feed the body instead.
• Avoid social engagements until the fifth day after chemo (and the period will get longer as I get to the later treatments).
• Be aware that as my stomach begins to feel better, my white blood cell counts are dropping. Stay away from crowded places where I might pick up an infection.
• Save the restaurants for the 10-day mark or later.

Tonight I’m taking Ativan (Lorazepam) to help me sleep. Maybe it will soothe my stomach as well.

***

Slept like a baby, and woke up to spotting. I think chemo-induced menopause has begun.

When I was doing my third year at the University of Sussex, I got such a major crick in my neck that I walked around for at least a day with my head tilted to the side. One of my professors wanted to know why I was holding my head that way. I felt that way today, talking to a friend who stopped by to drop off baked ziti and salad and bread. (I think it’s about time for a second serving.)

It was a comedy of errors this morning at the Department of Interventional Radiology. When I was in the pre/post room, being attended to by three different nurses, a handsome young man with bed head approached me. I asked if he was the surgeon, and he replied, “I’m one of them.” (UCH is a teaching hospital, after all.) He said they were going to put the port on the right side.

“The same side as the tumor?” I asked. “Shouldn’t it be on the other side?” I knew there was a good reason for my question, though I was far too sleepy to think of it. He said they would discuss it in the OR, explained the procedure, and left.

Once in the OR, I was hooked up to various machines. There was a bank of 8 monitors, 6 of which had my name on them. I found that life-affirming, or at least ego-affirming.

The man with the goatee set up a tray for the surgery and then had to redo it because he hadn’t realized I was allergic to latex. (I’m not sure I really am allergic to latex, for that matter. After one dive trip, I got a rash that lasted for a few days. I attributed it to wearing my latex dive suit for 4 days straight, but who knows? It could have been anything.)

The next step was to help me get my right arm out of the gown so he could clean my shoulder. By this time, I had asked two or three people whether the port should be on the left side. He explained to me that it’s easier to put the port on the right because the vein into which the tube is inserted makes a little jog on the left side.

Then he swabbed my shoulder with an icy substance that left a blue residue and proceeded to cover me artistically with blue drapes. (Does anyone else think “Two by two, hands of blue” from Firefly/Serenity when they see those new hospital gloves? Creepy. Can’t get it out of my head.)

Just as I was almost tented in, a woman whose name/rank/serial number I never caught snuck under the drapes and informed me that, yes, the port should be on the left. If they put it on the right side, it would make post-surgery radiation more difficult. This was the “Time Out” that I had been told would happen, so they could make sure they got everything right.

Right arm back in the gown. Left shoulder out. Icy wash again. I hoped I didn’t flash the man with the goatee, but I didn’t really care either. Tenting on the other side, and all I could think was, “Are they going to recycle all that plastic? Reuse it?”

I asked the man with the goatee if he was doing all right. I thought he was frustrated because he had to keep redoing all his prep work. I hope it didn’t come across as snotty, because I didn’t really mean it that way. It might have been his fault that he didn’t catch my so-called allergy, but it certainly wasn’t his problem that the doctors hadn’t “done rounds” and didn’t know where my port should go. Especially since I had brought it up with one of them almost an hour before I went to the OR.

The last thing I remembered before surgery was the (fourth) nurse telling me she was giving me sedatives now. When I woke up, someone on the other side of the blue drape was tugging at my chest. I think it was one of the surgeons finishing the sutures.

For the rest of the day, all I did was get crabby with Todd about all the traffic on Colfax (which he controls because he has his own galaxy) and lie around and, finally, eat a real meal. Now I’m having blueberries for dessert.

How appropriate.

Sitting on her bedding at 8:30 in the morning, she packs her small troupe of possessions for the day.

Where does she go until the evening? Why does she choose this street busy with restaurants?

Mandalay is a small restaurant and seems to be popular, but we didn’t have to wait long for a table. The three of us squeezed around a table meant for two along one side of the restaurant.

Todd and I started with some frou-frou drinks: in his case, coconut juice sipped from a peeled coconut, and in my case, a refreshing nonalcoholic drink flavored with ginger and cilantro.

There were several dishes with tea leaves on the menu, including the Tea Leaf Salad. The three of us eventually settled on the Ginger Salad, which is similar. The pickled ginger is in the middle, surrounded by peanuts and jalapeños, soy nuts (the menu listed lentils), sesame seeds, fried garlic, and tomatoes. The server brought it to the table this way and mixed it for us. This dish doesn’t really match the American vision of a salad, but the ginger and peppers added a bit of garden freshness to the crunchiness of the other ingredients.At my cousin’s recommendation, we ordered the Mandalay Special Noodle with chicken, which you see here after it had been mixed (my apologies for the blurry BlackBerry photo). The chicken is hiding in the middle under the fried narrow noodles, surrounded by wide noodles, cilantro, onion, and yellow peas powder (at the bottom). It was delicious, but I tried not to hog it all for myself. Our final dish was the Smoked Tea Duck. I wanted to try at least one dish with tea leaves, since that seemed to be an important aspect of Burmese cuisine, and the duck was wonderfully tender and lightly smoked. But I have to admit I didn’t notice a distinct flavor of tea leaves. It was a little awkward to divide this entree among three people, but we managed.

I just got the results from the biopsy of the mass in my right breast. Now I officially have breast cancer. Not that there was much doubt after the biopsy of the lymph nodes in November, but, as one doctor said, “It’s always a little disappointing when it comes true.” I’ve chosen a surgeon in Denver and an oncologist in Boulder, from different groups. I sometimes ask myself, “Beth, why can’t you do things the easy way? Pick one group or another?” But I didn’t. I picked the doctors who talked to me in a way I could understand. And I picked the surgeon, especially, because she was the only one of three who mentioned that she tries to minimize the trauma under the arm, where the lymph nodes are removed.

But now the holidays have come down like a pack of Dementors, and it’s cold and everyone is trying to get away. (Can you tell I’ve been watching Harry Potter movies?)

I knew I should have taken that 700-page editing job! Then I would have something to keep me busy, something other than looking for a place to live, editing the thousands of photos I took in the last 6 months during 12 Cities, 1 Year, or starting a photography business.

The truth is, the only thing I want to be busy at right now is treatment. But it’s not happening yet.

Cancer has made me into a patient, but it will never make me patient.

Sentences like that one make people hate to learn English.

What an adventure I had planned to go on in 12 Cities, 1 Year. I wanted to have everything with me, everything we could possibly need. No matter that bringing along all this stuff contradicted the spirit of the digital nomad lifestyle. I was going to protect myself with balls of twine (I think there are two in there) and dried sweet onions and a glove for getting things out of the oven. No telling when I might have to pick up something hot.

Yet I always knew I would forget something essential on this trip. And I realized what it was on November 21, three days before Thanksgiving.

That evening I learned I had cancer. I was standing on a sidewalk in San Francisco outside Ramen Dojo, talking to my gynecologist about the results of a biopsy. “It’s not good news,” she said. And it wasn’t. In a way I pitied her. It can’t be fun to spend your evenings calling patients about breast cancer.

And if I could think about her, then I didn’t have to think about myself.

I went back inside the crowded restaurant and told my husband we would talk about it later. Then we ate our garlic ramen, wonderfully rich but a little too spicy. I couldn’t finish mine, but the diagnosis didn’t stop me. I was able to eat mochi for dessert, after all.

We turned down the sidewalk toward our car. I wanted to speak. I breathed carefully. I wanted to tell him, but we walked a block before the words came out of my mouth. “I have cancer,” I said. I often find it difficult to say what I have to say, but this time the words seemed to be pulling up so much fear with them.

That evening I remembered what I forgot to bring on our 12 Cities, 1 Year trip: my health. I was so accustomed to my health, so used to having it with me, that I didn’t think to bring any extra.

Doing things makes me feel better. So I went back to our hotel room in San Francisco, and wrote out an email to my friends and family. I’m not that fond of talking on the phone. I’m much more comfortable with email. And the kind, loving responses started rolling in: sorrow, comfort, recommendations for doctors, offers to help.

The first time I talked about my diagnosis to someone besides Todd, in person, I felt so cold and tight inside. I thought I might start shivering, right there at the Thanksgiving table, over chocolate cake and pumpkin pie. I worried that I might be giving the cancer more power by admitting to it, as if it were some kind of cellular Lord Voldemort.

Every time I talk about the cancer, or listen to a surgeon tell me which body parts I’ll lose, it both relieves and exhausts me. Having a clinical discussion about cancer is easier than crying about it, but both let that cold fear rise a little closer to the surface.

The other night, I watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which Professor Lupin compliments Harry on being more afraid of the Dementors than of Voldemort. It shows, Lupin said, that Harry was afraid of being afraid. Lupin thought that wise.

I hate being afraid. Thinking about this cancer is like looking over the edge of a pit. There’s a staircase twirling down into it, one of those black metal dealies that you can see through, all the way to the bottom. I dislike heights, and I know that I’ll be terrified walking all the way down that staircase, and all the way back up.

But I also hate waiting. If I stop looking and step down, at least I’ll be doing something.

Today I had lunch with a high school friend whom I haven’t seen in 30 years. She’s fighting the good fight as a civil rights attorney for the Department of Education. I’m impressed by what she’s accomplished, but I’m also glad I’m not supervising 10 people. I’m glad I work for myself. As I told her, I never really liked having a job.

One of the great gifts this year keeps giving me is introspection. With each new city, each new exploration, I get to find out more about myself and what I really want. Some days it seems I’m still living the old life, still exploring and blogging about it, still copyediting. Other days, life seems completely different than it did six months ago.

My last weekend in Portland, I could resist no longer. After I listened to Ursula K. Le Guin read her long poem “The Conference” at Wordstock 2011, I crossed the Steel Bridge and walked from NW Portland to downtown. I went into one French restaurant, only to be told they were serving brunch and nothing but that day. I kept going.

I found Occupy Portland and watched their decisionmaking process for a while, but when the group split and went off in two different directions, I headed for Brasserie Montmartre.

I wasn’t the only one to show less-than-perfect dedication. 

It was 2 pm on a Sunday, and Brasserie Montmartre was having happy hour. I had a Croque Madame and a green salad and left a generous tip, all for about $12. Although I was a woman dining alone (WDA), the service was excellent.

After I ordered the sandwich, the waiter warned me I wouldn’t be able to eat it with my hands. You can see why.

The innards? Pork belly and Gruyère on brioche. Outside, a fried egg and Mornay sauce on top. All soft and warm and creamy, and the bread was toasted and, I think, brushed with butter. Because there’s not enough dairy in this sandwich.

One of the themes of the 12 Cities, 1 Year tour is conquering fear: of not being settled, of living in all these different places, of not having a steady job. And, for me, minimizing my fear of heights. I don’t have any ambitions to conquer it; I’d rather go to the bottom of the ocean than the top of a mountain. But I do want to wrestle with the fear a little.

In Portland, Todd and I lived in the SE neighborhood, and if I wanted to get to the credit union, I had to cross the railroad. There were two bridges I could take; the one pictured below was definitely in need of renovation. It leaned to one side, and some of the boards were rotting. It wasn’t in any danger of falling down, but I wouldn’t want to jump up and down on it. As I crossed it, I was breathing hard, saying out loud, “You can do this.” Luckily for me, a train didn’t pass by underneath while I was crossing.

On the North Steel Bridge near Portland’s Rose Quarter, it was a different story. A much sturdier bridge than the one shown above, the Steel Bridge has lanes for walking and biking, driving cars and riding buses, and riding the light rail. From the Rose Quarter side, it looked intimidating to me. But once I got out over the water, I felt rather protected by all the concrete. Walking across didn’t bother me too much, at least not until I reached the middle section, made of metal. For some reason that unnerved me.The railroad ran underneath on its way to who-knows-where.North Steel Bridge had a different vibration depending on what was crossing it at any given time. But the view from it was spectacular, even on a cloudy day. That day I was thinking my fear of heights masks a desire to leap off the bridge and see how long it will take to hit the water and how it will feel. I always feel safer walking above water than walking above land. I guess my brain figures water is softer, but of course that depends on how far above it I am!The Broadway Bridge crosses the Willamette River to the north, and on the other side of the river from the Rose Quarter is this marina, serving some riverside development in NW Portland. I tried to get a picture of every kind of transport crossing the Steel Bridge, but I was most interested in the light rail. Here two trains, going in opposite directions, pass each other. The pedestrian/cyclist lane is wider than it looks here, but nevertheless I kept checking behind me to see that no cyclists were trying to get by.And here, at the NW end of the bridge, I saw the tail end of the Portland Marathon.

I don’t honestly know how much of an effect these experiments have on my fear of heights. It has definitely worsened with age, but I find that when I do confront it in some small way, I can “Keep Calm and Carry On” through the fear. Sometimes it isn’t so bad, sort of like a fizzing in my stomach, and sometimes I feel quite lightheaded.

In any case, I dislike being afraid, so I will go on challenging myself in these small ways. Don’t expect me to start climbing mountains or building high-rises, though.

What’s important is what I left out of the picture: the young man who came bounding into my camera frame, begging me to take a picture of him and “send it to my Mom.” I don’t know whether he was serious about that, but he did his best to charm me into photographing him. I wouldn’t relent, though. By God, I was going to take a photo of a landmark, and no random resident of Portland was going to get in the shot! Finally, he gave up and walked away.

Later I wished I had humored him. I regretted being so rigid. After all, didn’t I set out on the 12 Cities, 1 Year trip to meet new people and learn new ways of doing things?

I have to remind myself, sometimes, that it’s okay to change direction in mid-course. To plan things one way and have them turn out entirely different. Sometimes I am far too committed to consistency. But, then, what else would you expect of a copyeditor?

I’ve posted a lot of pictures from the 12 Cities tour on Flickr. Go check them out. I’d love to have your comments.

We ate a lot of good food in Seattle and didn’t even scratch the surface of Ballard in a month, let alone the entire city. Most restaurants we visited only once, and many of them didn’t seem to warrant a full review after so little experience, but there were memorable meals along the way.

Blackberry brambles were everywhere in Seattle. Sometimes I picked berries from the side of the road.

There must have been 10 coffee shops within easy walking distance of our apartment in Ballard. This vegan doughnut came from Café Mox, which is attached to a game store.

The Counter, located in Ballard Blocks, is definitely worth visiting. The build-your-own burger Todd ordered was fabulous. You could order a burger patty on a salad, so I tried that with a veggie burger topped with pineapple, but the idea was more interesting than the reality.

Hi-Life was located along NW Market Street and was always packed. We intended to go there some Sunday for the fried chicken but ended up at brunch with this obscenely thick French toast.

I had oysters several times in Seattle. Here: Penn Cove. The server at Emmet Watson's Oyster Bar in Pike Place Market (not where I got this one) explained that August and September may not be the best months to eat oysters because they're spawning and they may taste funny. After I left Seattle, I read about several people getting sick from Washington oysters. I was lucky.

Salted cod with ajilimojili sauce from La Isla, the Puerto Rican restaurant in Ballard. Lovely fried fish.

Todd had the pernil, a pork dish. This restaurant had tasty sauces; I believe the red sauce is mojito sauce. It also had a waiter who wasn't comfortable looking at me, for some reason, even though I was paying.

Portage Bay, a large cafe near Ballard Locks, offered a toppings bar with French toast and such. Here it is.

The great thing about Portage Bay's toppings bar was that you could order just the toppings for $6, so I did.

I began with berries and I’ve ended with berries. There are berry brambles fruiting in Portland right now, but they’re not ripe yet. I think it’s so cool to be able to pluck berries as I’m walking along. I’ve never before lived in a city where that was possible.

When I walked in, I saw a woman reading a magazine and told her I’d like to make an appointment. She said she could cut my hair right then and introduced herself as Gilly (with a hard G). I told her that my hair has been falling out for 15 years and my husband thinks I should just buzz it again but I’m still fond of running my fingers through my hair (all 3 to 4 inches of it). She thought I still had enough hair for a style, especially in the back, so after some negotiation about how to style the back, she got to work with a razor.

It was the longest I’ve been in a stylist’s chair for a haircut alone, probably more than an hour. She was meticulous about shaping the hairline over my ears and the layers in back. All the while, we chatted about southern Oregon and the differences between Portland and Seattle and our similar reactions to shaving our heads. She said she wished she had bought a house in the SE part of Portland before it got so hip and expensive.

Toward the end, I was feeling sleepy and thinking, “Are we there yet?” But when she showed me the neckline, I was very happy with it. My hair feels so short now but still has volume on top.

Gilly’s uses Organic Color Systems to color its clients’ hair. So if you’re sensitive to the chemicals in traditional hair dye or you are looking for less toxic hair products, this is the salon for you.

That kind of variety doesn’t come cheap. It costs a lot more than the $10 you might drop on a meal and a drink at El Taco de Mexico in Denver.

The name of Todd’s entree alone was worth it: Puerco en nuestro mas reciente mole. Among other things, the sauce was made with 4 chiles, almonds, sesame seeds, chocolate, and sweet spices. The pork cooks in the sauce for a long time, resulting in a darker, hotter flavor than the relatively mild sauce on my enchiladas filled with potatoes, corn, and carrots. Todd’s entree was flashy; mine was squishy but still good. When you walk into the restaurant, there’s a counter on the left and a dining room on the right that ends in a bar with the sign: “No Minors. No Firearms.” The room with the counter seemed blazingly hot both times we were there, so we sat in the other room and got served by the same no-nonsense waitress who reminded me of my friend Catherine. During our stay in Seattle from August 17 to September 17, there was an art exhibit in that room featuring a painting on a ironing board. It’s a funky little place.

The morning of our first visit, I ordered huevos ahogados, expecting tomato soup with a few poblanos and some cheese and 2 poached eggs. It wasn’t my usual breakfast fare, but that was, of course, the attraction.What I got was a smoky tomato broth absolutely loaded with chilies. I ate the eggs and drank as much of the broth with chilies as I could; the broth itself was lovely—salty and spicy—but the chilies defeated me. Todd ordered machacas con papas. I remember the beef being crispy; he doesn’t. In any case, it was a hearty meal.Writing this review from Portland has made me want to drive back to Seattle to have just one more dish. If you’re in Seattle, go up to Ballard and try Señor Moose. It’s open for breakfast and lunch until 3 and then from 5 to 9 or 10 for dinner.

First we stopped at the Loghouse Museum, a small museum about the arrival of the white settlers in 1851 run by the West Seattle Historical Society. Although the settlers soon moved up the coast to what is now downtown Seattle, Alki Beach was the place they first landed. It is called the “birthplace of Seattle.”

Alki is a word in Chinook Indian jargon that means “by and by.” I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as Chinook Indian jargon, which I believe was a language created to facilitate trade. The Chinook Indians recently achieved recognition by the federal government.

The Duwamish tribe, of which Chief Seattle was a member (he was also Suquamish), does not have federal status. They were recognized by the Clinton administration, but that decision was overturned by the Bush administration, probably in the early 2001 frenzy to overturn anything from the Clinton era. The Duwamish have, however, found the money to build a longhouse, which is located east of the West Seattle Golf Course on Marginal Way.

After we went through the museum, we walked down to Alki Beach and ate dinner. Then we joined the crowd around the replica of the Statue of Liberty on Alki Beach, where people brought flowers and offerings in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks. People put flowers and stones and writings around the base of the statue. The West Seattle Historical Society showed up with items salvaged from the original memorial, as well as candles, and people began lighting the candles and arranging them in front of the memorial. The mood was quiet but not really somber. Occasionally someone broke out in song.

There were lots of people taking pictures and video. Just down the beach, children played in the cold surf. As we walked back to our car, we noticed the moon was full.

I put my pictures of the Alki Beach 9/11 memorial on Flickr.

I was doing the dishes tonight, though, and realized that repacking all our kitchen gear will definitely not be a thrill. Our situation has improved since June: we’ve gotten better at packing quickly and leaving enough room to see out the back window of the Prius. But we still have a lot of crap we have to fit into a small space. Todd has mentioned sending the camping gear to his parents, and I can see why, though it’s possible we might want to camp in California or Arizona. So I’m torn.

All this is part of a process of pulling up stakes, going somewhere, and resettling. But we settle somewhere only long enough to become acquainted with the place. We’re not spending enough time anywhere to get sick of it. And even though I don’t like the fact that our current bed sits right on the floor—no frame—I can’t get worked up enough about it to care. It will be history in less than two weeks.

I’m surprised that I’m not more bothered by the variability of our living quarters. After 15 years of living in one house, I expected to mourn all the comforts I gave up. But so far, I’m not. Maybe it was good that our first rental was a house; maybe that was less shocking than moving straight to an apartment after not renting for so many years.

I hope it never bothers us very much. I hope we become more flexible and tolerant this year, not less.

Then I went to Ray’s Boathouse, located on Puget Sound on the top side of Salmon Bay. That is, in Ballard, the Seattle neighborhood Todd and I are staying in until mid-September. I saw it on a map one day, and when my birthday came around, I knew I wanted to go there for dinner.

I chose the Boathouse rather than the Cafe, although the Cafe is cheaper and offers outdoor seating (and blankets if necessary). The former was much pricier, but I wasn’t looking to economize. I don’t usually order a bottle of wine for just the two of us, but since the Boathouse had won lots of Wine Spectator awards, I decided to try one of the gruner veltliners on the menu (a dry blend with riesling), and Todd chose a drink made with cachaça (I can’t find it on the website, so I can’t tell you its name. I don’t think it was a capirinha). Each of us had a salad before the meal. Mine was the Boistfort Valley Farm salad, with locally grown peas, pecorino, mint, and an onion vinaigrette.Mostly, I remember that the cheese was nice. Todd ordered the Boathouse Salad, with butter lettuce, Point Reyes Farmstead blue cheese, almonds, and a raspberry theme vinaigrette. His salad is very colorful.Todd finished his drink and started helping me with the wine. Then our entrees arrived. Both our entrees were smoked with mesquite; his salmon on a bed of couscous was so tender it made me like grilled salmon again. I had sablefish, which I’ve never eaten before. It tasted lightly smoked and was lusciously fatty, like pork belly. They warned me there might be a few bones in the middle. The reasonable portion of risotto was crisp around the edges, and the apricot coulis was nice but hardly necessary. I took this picture with my BlackBerry, and the shallow puddle of coulis looks quite huge and solid here.

We decided against dessert, having already filled up on wine and fish and the sunset over Puget Sound.

And do I remember the name of the restaurant? No, but if you go west on Robson Street in Vancouver to the Blue Horizon Hotel and look across Robson, you will see a Mediterranean restaurant. And maybe the man who wraps falafels will be there.

All that time spent with my right arm up in the air, camera pressed to my greasy nose, mouth grimacing from looking through the viewfinder, was hard on my body. I consciously tried to pull back my shoulders, stand up straight, and not let my face twist into such strange expressions. Even so, my right shoulder, back, and legs were very tired after 10 hours of sports photography.

Todd was on his feet all day too, shooting the first team for his documentary. On Sunday he went to their practice arena, which is within walking distance of our apartment, and interviewed a couple of skaters. He had a good time and met a lot of people. I noticed that he was much more gregarious than I was. I felt shy asking people if I could take their picture (though I didn’t feel at all shy at the Ballard Farmers Market). I met a couple of photographers, mostly because they came up and talked to me. The first, Pete Eaton, usually photographs ballroom dancing. The second, Steve Messerer, loves to shoot roller derby.

Steve said he typically takes 1,000 photographs per bout and likes about 20 of them. That sounded like the right ratio to me.

At first I focused on the jammers (the people who can score), but before long I started trying to get good pictures of blocking. It’s harder than you might think. I took a lot of photos of action just before or after the block. I shot in high-speed drive mode, which is sometimes useful for getting such shots. Mostly, I ended up with 5 photos of the same 3 seconds.

Here’s an OK picture of 2 jammers (far left and right, with star “panties” on their helmets) trying to get through the pack. It was shot at ISO 2500, and I’ve done hardly any editing on it.I spent time at the bout taking pictures of the other photographers. Sometimes it’s very amusing to turn your camera on your own kind, as shown by this picture from the Celtic Festival in Missoula. These two men were shooting the Young Dubliners.Next time I shoot an event as long as this championship bout, I’ll be sure to take more breaks. I don’t know if I can take fewer photographs, though I’m sure I’ll learn to judge the action better as time goes on.

I will be spending my time in Seattle going through my photographs and finding some that are worth trying to sell. I’m looking forward to that.

I know one thing I want to change: the anxiety that besets me when I’m about to do anything new or meet anyone new. You must admit, that’s a disadvantage on this kind of trip.

I’m pretty sure it didn’t used to be this bad. Not that I was ever worry-free or a social butterfly, but I don’t remember worrying so much. I don’t remember constructing worst-case scenarios in my head (in the space of a few seconds) that would prepare me for whatever might go wrong.

That brings up two questions:

1. Why do I always have to be prepared?

2. Why do I always think things will go wrong, especially when they so seldom do?

As the Flaming Lips say in “Fight Test,” “’Cause I’m a man, not a boy / and there are things you can’t avoid / you have to face them when you’re not prepared to face them.”

It would be better for me as a person, I think, to stop trying to anticipate every possible outcome.

I really don’t remember when preparation became so important to me. I know that after my mother died in 1992, I felt vulnerable. When I was out and about, I began to fear random attacks more, to regard people with some suspicion. I guess her absence from the world left me feeling unprotected.

Only a few years after her death, I started freelancing. I sat at a desk in a room at home, by myself, and wrote fiction or copyedited books. I cleaned the house and worked in the garden. I talked to my neighbors and did some volunteer work, but mostly I spent the time alone in my office.

I’m pretty sure that’s what did it. Something about living that way fostered a low level of fear. My routine became my security blanket. Now I have no need for a routine, but I find myself trying to impose it, doing the same things I did when I lived in Broomfield.

The other day, I was at the Ballard Market in Seattle, and I saw milk in glass bottles. I thought, “I should have Todd get some of that milk in glass bottles after we run out of the milk we have.” Why? Because I had milk in glass bottles in Broomfield. There are other reasons, health and environmental reasons, but really it’s just a habit. If I could, I’d like to fit my old habits into my new life.

And I really, really don’t want to do that. I don’t want to carry my old life with me. I want to adjust myself to what’s around me, sort of like the Ousters in Dan Simmons’s Hyperion and Endymion novels, who chose to adapt to space in order to fill the galaxies with life. I want to be a chameleon, not a stick-in-the-mud.

Any of you travelers out there, do you know how long it takes to shed an old life?

I went out one night to photograph such a magical place and found myself captivated by fauna instead. The fauna, however, were captivated by flora.

Guess how many fawns there are in this picture.This shot was taken from about a block away. I kept approaching when the doe looked away. They moved away as I came closer.

All of a sudden, someone was yelling at me. I turned sharply to see an old man on a bike, admonishing me to “photograph the sunset!” I looked behind me. There was a little color in the sky, but nothing special. I shrugged and added him to my list of people who annoy me when I’m looking through a camera or binoculars.

He rode down the street a little and then stopped, saying, “Oh. Deer.”

I guess this picture explains why people go to such lengths to deer-proof their yards.

They walked around the side of the house to the backyard.All the attention was making them nervous, yet I was hungry for more photographs. I don’t have the lenses for wildlife photography, so I made the most of this opportunity.

The fawns began to get antsy, racing around. I remembered that this new camera had video capabilities. While I was fumbling with it, the fawns wore themselves out and slowed down a bit, but the flags were still flying. After a few more minutes and 1 very boring, shaky video, I realized we were approaching Higgins, a busy street in Missoula that goes by the university district. Then it occurred to me that the deer probably wanted to eat more succulent plants from the Garden City’s yards, not cross a thoroughfare. So I turned around and went home, having been delighted by a bit of ordinary magic.

And what a selection of batters there is: chocolate chip, chocolate chip caramel, buckwheat, five kinds of rolled pancakes (on the crepes side of pancakes), and many more. Not to mention waffles, regular egg breakfasts, burgers, and sandwiches. And two kinds of desserts: pie, and pie à la mode.

I always feel happy about a place that declares, “Breakfast served all day.” As I’ve said before, staying open from dawn until dusk seems to be a Missoula tradition.Or that talks about great-grandmother’s sourdough starter.

On my first trip, I had the rolled Swedish pancakes with lingonberry butter. No syrup required.I declined to have them stuffed with cream cheese. As it was, I ate only two, and these “pancakes” are thinner than the regular ones so that they can be rolled.

On our second visit, I ordered an egg breakfast, and it was OK. The eggs and the hash browns both seemed a little undercooked. The bacon was purple and greasy, and I had 4 pieces, so I gave one to Todd. Turns out his “Western” omelet was a little different: it was filled with bacon. The onions and peppers and ham and cheese were on the wrapping, made of eggs. Let’s just say he didn’t lack for bacon that day. His order also included a stack of pancakes and a half-plate of fruit that the waitress was kind enough to re-plate for him. It looked neater before we started eating it.I loved our waitress. She was beset by many tables but stayed calm. I flagged her down to get a cup of coffee, and then after I’d had two sips and she wanted to refill it, I said no. Her response: “Oh, sure, waving me down for coffee and now you don’t want any.” I didn’t say no after that.

The other thing I loved about Paul’s was the art on the walls, especially the sign for the mixer on the right below: “Why beat it by hand?” has become the motto of our age. Why do anything by hand when you can get a computer chip to do it for you?

If you go to Paul’s, take friends and order several different kinds of pancakes. Reviews on Urbanspoon suggested the burgers were also good.

Part of the problem is my reluctance to intrude. I’m a bit of a lurker at heart.

But to know a city, you have to meet at least a few of its people. I could, of course, just walk around, take pictures of neighborhoods and farmers markets and powwows and downtown buildings, and that would give you, my readers, a sense of the place. But it feels cowardly to me.

I could describe it for you, but it would be better if locals described it for you.

One local we met suggested we try to get an audience with the mayor. I’ve been thinking about sending an email but still haven’t done it. Honestly, I’d be impressed is a mayor would take the time to meet with us.

I can see that I will need to get out of my comfort zone a little.

We went back later that night and had most of the basin to ourselves. It was the best time of day to be there, mostly because we didn’t have to get up early!

Our last day in Yellowstone, we went to Old Faithful. On the way I snapped a picture of this bison bull, who looks like he’s starving.

The first, the Z-Bar Motel, graces Highway 16 in Buffalo, Wyoming, on the way to Yellowstone. Todd found it on the Internet, on Trip Advisor, I believe. Here’s the office, which faces the highway and is right across from the new criminal justice center. The center was still under construction, hence the orange cones in the first picture. I couldn’t decide whether having a criminal justice center across the street from a motel was a plus or a minus for the motel.

When we arrived, the office was closed; the landlady had put the key in an envelope and taped it to the door. Todd met her later, after she had returned from her errand, but I never did. Our “room” was a tiny, stand-alone cabin among other cabins arranged around a lawn. We were able to park between it and the next cabin. There was about a foot between the end of our bed and the bathroom, which had a nice shower. Here the door to the bathroom looks like the gateway to hell because of the limitations of my BlackBerry.We had a hard time finding room for our gargantuan suitcases in this room. At one point mine was blocking the door to the room, causing a fire hazard.

We discovered the second motel, the Riverside in Ennis, Montana, on our way from Yellowstone to Missoula. I had been looking for hotels in Butte, Montana, and both the reviews on Trip Advisor and the prices were scary. By the time we reached Ennis, on Highway 359 south of I-90, we were ready to quit driving for the night. We spotted two motels along the highway, and the Riverside looked significantly better than its competition.

We went into the riverside and met one of its proprietors, John (his wife is the other; they split their time between Montana and Florida). He gave us a deal on the fanciest room in the hotel, the one reserved for groups of anglers. It had a metal rocker out front and two queen beds and a kitchenette and a very nice bathroom. Just as soon as he had offered us a great price, another man drove up and wanted a room, but John told him he had just given it to us. That was nice of him, considering that, as he said, people in Ennis have “four months to make it or break it” for the year.

One reason the Riverside looked so good, we learned from John, is its recent paint job. Several foreign exchange students, all female, spent time at the Riverside this year, and he taught them to paint and had them help him put a new coat on the buildings. If you look carefully at this photo, you’ll notice the side of the triplex is white. John and the students weren’t able to finish all the buildings, but almost all the ones I saw had been repainted a light green.

At the beginning of this trip, Todd and I stayed at the Waconda Motel along Highway 24 in Kansas. Both these motels were quite a bit nicer, but they’re all the same kind of place: drive-in motels with smaller rooms than most people are used to these days. All three had WiFi, though, and two of the three had free breakfasts. The character of these motels makes up for the small rooms and occasional lack of amenities. They’re definitely worth seeking out.

Todd had the Busy Bee breakfast, which I can’t find on the menu I reached from the Facebook page for Busy Bee Cafe. (The entry page, for the Occidental Hotel next door, is quite annoying.) It was your basic egg breakfast, with meat and potatoes, but the large pieces of rye bread were notable.

What I loved most about the Busy Bee was the hospitality. Our waitress was a delight. At one point I realized I was blocking her way as I photographed this old stove that was serving as a coffee station. She waited patiently until I noticed.The cafe was full of so many cute details, it was hard not to photograph all of them.I was also amused by the number of women who kept emerging from the kitchen to get something from this bar/soda fountain. My last count was four, in addition to the waitress. I wondered how many could fit back there.

The Busy Bee is located right along a creek (there was a stack of sandbags along the path, but the water didn’t look that high in early July) and has a charming dining room for breakfast and lunch. If you’re in the mood for something small, a fountain drink or a pastry, you can sit at the bar.

There are all sorts of stories about how the tower formed. One says the vertical “lines” in the sides are the marks of a bear, clawing to get up the tower. And, of course, if the tower is truly devilish, it could call clouds.

If you search online for “Etta’s Place,” you’ll find a B&B in Fort Worth, Texas. On Urbanspoon, this restaurant is listed as the Longhorn Bar. In any case, if you’re in northeastern Wyoming, I suggest checking it out. Todd and I ate there on Tuesday, July 5, and really enjoyed the quiet, elegant atmosphere and the lunch.

The chairs caught my eye, for looks as well as comfort.

I thought this cold strawberry soup was made with yogurt, but the waitress insisted that chef Beverly Doll made it with cream and wine. It was a bit like eating a smoothie with a spoon, but less sweet, and the cinnamon was a nice touch.To go along with the soup, I had a salad, with flavorful beets, strawberries, cantaloupe, and red pepper and house-made blue cheese dressing.After days on the road through Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota and a surfeit of meat, I was very happy with my light, fresh meal, all the more so for it being so unexpected.

Even the bathrooms at Etta’s are worth recording. I especially liked the double rolls. “Just in case you’re going to be here for a while…”

Our next stop was Mount Rushmore National Monument, which impressed me more than I expected. To be honest, I don’t really approve of carving things into mountains; I’d rather we stopped blowing up mountains for coal or carving our likenesses into them and just leave them the way they are. But the entire setup was kinda cool. What I liked most at Mount Rushmore was the performance by Jasmine Pickner, Lakota, nationally ranked hoop dancer. She mentioned that hoop dance has traditionally been performed by men, but that the last world championships were dominated by the two female competitors (of which she was one). She also talked about how some people she knew were surprised that she would dance at Mount Rushmore; she turned it into an opportunity to talk about her tribe and its history. She danced with dozens of hoops that she made into several shapes; in the preceding pictures, she’s building a sweatlodge for the finale.

In the next three pictures, she gathered a group of children, whom she called the “super-duper hoopers.” She showed that when she finishes her schooling in elementary education, she’s going to be a great teacher. I didn’t ask her permission to take these photographs because she was giving a performance in a public space, but when Todd and I go to the Standing Arrow Powwow this weekend, neither of us will be taking pictures.

I wrote the powwow committee and asked them about the rules, and they said we would need to get permission from each dancer (and written permission if we wanted to sell the photos). In other words, they didn’t want us to take pictures unless we were dedicated enough professionals to go to the trouble of talking to each and every dancer on the floor. I understand the history behind the committee’s rules; they want to prevent whites from profiting from Indians without their knowledge or permission. But what if we want to photograph a group of dancers on the floor? It seems a little ridiculous to ask us to get permission from all the dancers, especially if only some of the dancers are recognizable.

Our last stop in South Dakota was Crazy Horse Memorial. Both Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse were complexes or campuses, with museums and stores and places to eat, but Crazy Horse is funded through a private foundation. The plans for Crazy Horse are quite extensive, including the American Indian University and Medical Training Center. I took many pictures of the monument from different angles, starting with my attempt to get as many models in one picture as possible.Next is the large outdoor model of the carving.If it rains, the model can be retracted into a covered area, and it was while we were there.There is a large deck from which to view the carving. Or you can take shelter in the equally large museum and check it out from there. If that’s not enough, you can take a bus down this road to get closer. We didn’t.

It was still great to see her, and the food was pretty good too, definitely better than Brio Tuscan Grille, the other chain Italian I’ve sampled in Kansas City (both, only once), but not as authentic as Il Posto in Denver. North is owned by Fox Restaurant Concepts, which also started the Bloom restaurant chain; I ate often at the location in Broomfield, Colorado. There is a North restaurant in Cherry Creek in Denver.

The waiter, who knew my friend from the many Wednesday nights she spent at the restaurant drinking half-price bottles of wine, brought us pretty butter whipped with red pepper. My friend ordered the zucca chips, which were a little soft (like the focus) but good.She then moved on to pizza, which apparently didn’t do anything to make her mouth feel better as she took most of it home. I ordered the scallops with corn risotto infused with white truffle oil. The scallops were perfectly moist and tender, with no grit, and the risotto was good. I was impressed by the number of scallops in the serving and by the fact that the dish was not too heavy.Thanks for meeting me for dinner, my friend. I hope you’re feeling better, and I’ll check out your new kitchen in November.

It was a hot day on Brooklyn, and the warehouses in the distance did nothing to reduce the heat.A steady stream of customers walked up to the clear partition, picked up a plastic plate, and leaned down to give their order. When I ordered burnt ends, a KC BBQ specialty, the guy behind the counter wanted to know if I was from here. “Grew up here,” I said, and that combined with the request for coleslaw got me a fist bump—plastic glove and all. I couldn’t resist ordering a red cream either.  The styrofoam cup has a little speech on it about how styrofoam cups weigh less than paper cups; the implication is that their lightness makes them better for the environment. (But what about the toxic manufacturing process? And the way styrofoam breaks down into tiny, little pieces that animals can mistake for food?) Despite the speech on the cup, we got real, albeit plastic, plates, and metal utensils.

The burnt ends were not pieces of beef, which is what I sometimes get served when I order burnt ends, but gooey strings with blackened edges, doused in a tomato-based sauce with bottom, rich, spicy, and sweet. (The next day, Todd and I ate at BB’s Lawnside BBQ on 85th near Troost. I had burnt ends soup there, which had a wonderful broth, but it was basically beef and vegetable soup.)I couldn’t eat more than half of my serving, though I did manage to sample Todd’s pork sandwich with fries. After lunch we waddled along the Missouri River path for a while. I found a shady spot from which to take pictures. The river was definitely high down at Riverfront Park, but it wasn’t flooding there as it was along I-29 in Nebraska and Iowa.Every time I come back to Kansas City and drive over the Missouri, I think, “Now that’s a river.” I know the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon and all, but the bits of it I’ve seen driving across Colorado and Utah don’t impress me as much as the big Midwestern rivers. It’s not fair, I suppose.

Our last stop downtown was Christopher Elbow chocolates. He has a store in San Francisco as well, though I don’t know where he got his start. He specializes in caramel infusions; I heard of his chocolate store because I went to Latte Land for a coffee one winter day in 2009 and saw “rosemary caramel latte” on the menu. He provides the infusion for that seasonal drink. So I had to order a rosemary caramel truffle.I also ordered the chicory truffle because it reminded me of a truffle made by William Poole of Wen Chocolates (formerly in Denver; now relocated to New Orleans). This shot shows the wonderful lighting along the counter. And here’s Todd emerging from the very cold store into downtown Kansas City summer weather. Talk about the heat island effect!

We went inside, printed what we needed, and went to look for the bathrooms. And then we found this unusual little alcove. While I was there, a mother came in with her two children, a boy and a younger girl, and they picked out pans.

I love discovering little secrets like these.

I hope the next year is full of them. Burlington was our first stop in our 12 Cities, 1 Year project (though the first official stop is actually Missoula).

Aside from two meals from the restaurant menu that sounded better than they tasted, Magnolia’s food is good. The bison is great, as is the mac and cheese.

The owners brought in someone from the Med in Boulder to help with running the restaurant. I’m looking forward to seeing some of his work.

The server started each of us off with a taste of prosecco. We paid for it later, but it’s a nice touch. I gazed longingly at the tagliere (cheeses and meats) on the neighboring table but didn’t order it this time. Instead, we got the burrata plate with its sweet, creamy cheese. After the crusty bread with an open crumb and Todd’s salad, our main dishes arrived.

Both of us felt slightly adventurous that night (but only just; wouldn’t want to go overboard, after all). Todd ordered the most expensive thing on the menu, the chewy guinea fowl with crispy skin. The asparagus was sliced lengthwise, a trick repeated with my fava beans. I want to know how that’s done.

I was dithering between the pappardelle with sausage and the tagliatelle with halibut belly. I chose the latter for the sake of adventure, and the meat itself was interesting: some of it had the consistency of a steak, and other bites were lusciously fatty. The tagliatelle itself was cooked al dente (ever so slightly crisp), but the other ingredients  (artichoke and fava beans) didn’t really add much. Overall, the meal was a bit bland, but both the pasta and the fish  stood out.

Il Posto is located on 17th Avenue near Thin Man and St. Mark’s Coffeehouse.

It reminds me of the Squeaky Bean in this way: you have to order a lot of food to get full, and the bill shows it.