Ten Tonne Tess

Well the weight continues to pile on - I've gained 10lbs since ending round 3 of chemo. Doctors, nurses, friends and family all seem delighted, I'm not so sure. I hate the feeling of my thights rubbing together or the sight of abs disappearing under a layer of fat.

But I will not diet. It has the word 'die' in it for god's sake. Instead I shall be more organically veggie, drag the dog for yet longer walks and generally live the life of a native of Portland (minus the hiking - even I have limits and they're drawn at walking that requires specialist equipment)

Managed to catch the UEFA Cup Semi final in which Middlesbrough set them selves up for Cup Final Heartache - by coming from behind to score the 4 goals they needed to make it to Eindhoven and the final. They will of course lose the final narrowly and tragically whilst fat men in replica shirts that they couldn't afford even before blowing the rent on travel weep - not at the fact that they've spent money that could have fed and housed their children on a childish folly; but at the fact that reflected glory was denied them.

There's something very wrong with a town that NEEDS its teams to be successful. Where all pride is caught up in their success. I think that's why there's less fervent support for clubs here in the US. Sure people are passionate about their teams but the teams don't represent their every once of hope. In the land of opportunity there's always hope - so when the Packers lose you go back to the project that will make you a billionaire. When Boro lose it's back to the single room you rent in somebody else's house, with only enough money to buy more temporary hope in the shape of a scratchcard (or a bet on the horses) in your pocket.

Anyway enough of this tragedy. I'm off to Bodies today (see how the body works by looking at skinned, diced and dissected real ones) and then for a quick drink (oh how I wish it was alcoholic) with a friend having a birthday celebration.

Hope it's a big room - these thighs need space

Rest Day

So I'm not going in to work today - the throat was sufficiently sore and the glands sufficiently swollen for me to think "screw it'

Of course sufficient is a moveable feast but in truth the commute and the atmosphere of dread panic is more than I can bear today - and we're seeing no work until tomorrow anyway.

My cat is acting as a poster kitten for the benefits of diet food - since we switched her she's been playful, inquisitive and noticeably less rotund. You'd think we'd plied her with 'kitty speed' given the way that she's bouncing about.

I love those diet pill TV ads here - 'not only will you lose weight, you'll gain energy" - well of course will Mrs Pudding, they're filling you with cheap speed.

Not a great deal happening in my world - wanting everything at Yokod.com - three great blazers in the new collection and cashmere T-Shirts. The store is just down the road, but oh the expense. The stuff is gorgeous though, I'll go and join the throngs looking longingly through the window at it at some point today.

And with that I'll disappear, breakfast does not buy itself and I need a French Stick to get me up of a morning these days.

Sick enough for sick leave?

Today I have a new mantra. It’s one that I will be repeating to myself and I fear to others over the coming weeks

“I will not let work get in the way of my recovery”

A subtle mix of workplace tension, looming deadlines and a body filled with steroids has made me the stroppiest of madams and it’s starting to have adverse implications for my health.

I need to stop worrying about what’s going on in the office and start worrying about getting well.

So that’s what I’m going to do.

Will talk to HR today about signing off for the 6 weeks of sick leave that I’m allowed to take before they slash my salary – after which I intend to come home, eat healthily, walk the dog and rest up with nothing but pictures of healthy cells in my head.

Best for all? Maybe. Best for me? Absolutely,

what the hell?

Spent last night in fear of the door being smashed in and my being taken away to a place where the uniforms are orange and the international laws on holding people without a trial lax.

Just as I started reading the Rolling Stone 'Worst President ini History?" article the sky filled with choppers, the air with the noise of sirens and the streets with emergency vehicles.

I can't see that anything major was happening outside but I have to say there were 5 minutes when I was wracking my brain for details of how I could have been the cause of so well orchestrated a manhunt.

Sadly I could think of nothing. It's never great to realize that you're not subversive or edgy or dangerous - but that you're a middle aged cancer patient livning a quiet life of domesticity.

But for the first time ever it wasn't a wrist slashing thought either.

Oh dear - I should go and buy 'dinner party music' now, shouldn't I?

At work

and at a loose end - so more blog stuff for you.

Had a blood test this morning, which was fine. I'm starting to get to know everyone at the hospital so preferential treatment is mine - 'come straight through'

Of course the rain this morning was bad enough to wash out the downtown subway and to ensure that every cab was filled with a smugly dry bastard - so I walked the 30 blocks to work, stopping to look at a bulldog puppy and getting into several 'brolly bashes' with fur coated harridans.

Feeling so much better today than last week - and sun forecast for the weekend. Hurrah.

So endeth this entry, short and pointless really... ne'er mind

Gas at $3 a gallon

Gas went through $3 here yesterday. All of the car mags are showing 'small' cars and asking "Is this the way forward?"

As I walked the dog I saw this... obviously America has a long way to go before it breaks its 'addiction to oil'

Still knackered

For some strange reason I continue to be knackered this week. Perhaps I did too much on Monday and Tuesday. Went into work yesterday but had to leave early and by 3pm was asleep on the sofa despite the best efforts of Penn and Teller to entertain me.

My High Potentials Graduation Gift (HP_GG) arrived. It's a badly made perspex box that contains some heavy, but useless miniature versions of our Creative Council Score Cards (CCSC). I'm not entire sure what I'm supposed to do with a faux slate mini card engraved with the legend '01 Wasteful' but I guess that's now my problem rather than theirs.

Was invited to a Yankees game yesterday - but alas couldn't make it. Jude was still in Washington talking to politicians about the US's role in the lighting industry and I was asleep on the sofa. A metaphor for our lives at the moment? You betcha.

Finally Madonna tickets sold out again, so we won't be seeing her Madge-esty this year. Shame. I was online at 9.00am, but there had been an 'exclusive' pre-sale so by the time I got to the bookings page all had already gone. Will treat myself to a photo printer by way of recompense.

And that's it for now. Coughing the cough of the knackered, far from my best, further from my worst.

New blogs?

I’ve been contemplating two new blogs today.

Fabulously Thin is getting close to having run its course – with chemo 6 weeks away and no real ‘needs to be shared’ news beyond that. Of course there will be a flurry of activity as I do more scans, get back results, decide on more treatment (or not) and get to hear whether on not I’ll make the age of 40. Then of course there will be the second flurry when Dakota Fanning’s people get hold of the story (don’t worry it will be much ‘juiced’) – but ultimately I reckon there’s about 2 months of this left.

My other ideas are both much more self serving than this. Actually they’re both designed to show that I’m the cleverest man in all of advertising – and both seek to do so by giving away ideas that companies would usually have to pay for. How’s that for the cleverest business model ever? Hey I said I was clever, not savvy.

Blog one will be called “Hey Genius....”

Watching big brands struggle to nail what they’re about frustrates the hell out of me. Take Coke. Everybody knows that what Coke promises is ‘Unity’. It’s what the world has in common. One of the few things that brings us all together. Always has been. The best ads have been exactly about that (‘I’d like to buy the world a coke’!). It’s also the reason that Coke sponsorships of other events that bring the world together (like the World Cup) always seem to bring out the best in Coke communication. But Coke keep missing it.

So that’s Blog one. A big brand per day. An idea per day. A couple examples of what that might practically mean per day. And a fervent hope that they find the post and do something with it… (Nike I’m going to start with you and ‘Participation’)

Second one is just mischief really. I’ll call it ‘Pitch Perfect’ and post a strategy for every advertising pitch that’s ‘live’ out there. The real reason for this one is to piss off the ‘pitch planners’ who charge a fortune to quote the fucking obvious at length and with the use of too many adverbs. My site will say the same stuff, more clearly and for free. Put that in your pipes and smoke it.

As I said – self serving – but isn’t that what blogging is about?

Where's Steve

I don't think that I can manage work today - and I feel more guilty about it you than you can imagine. It's a big week at work yet since Monday I've been sitting, close to my couch, feeling as though someone has filled my ankles with mercury (or something else heavy and poisonous). If only I had a symptom more violent or volatile. This one is so passive and yet... it seems to be enough to stop me managing to do very much. Every burst of energy is followed by the feeling that I've just completed a marathon, in costume, carrying a small woman on my back.

This, of course, is a symptom of the drugs rather than the disease but it's driving me to distraction. Ultimatelty I hate letting people down - and being here rather than at work where people need me IS letting somebody down. No amount of phone, e-mail or BlackBerry content can change that.

Mind it's such a big week that a million big people have stepped in to fill my shoes. We have company Presidents and Country Planning directors all being able in my absence so maybe I should just follow my Sydney incantation and 'let go and trust' - after all I wrote the brief, I decided on what should accompany the brief, I helped sell the brief - it's just that I won't be there to physically deliver the brief.

'Let go and trust'

Soppy Sod

So Judith’s brother just packed up his enormous bag and left New York for London – almost exactly a year after he arrived. He left on a beautiful spring day – filled with glorious sunshine and easy company and it’s made me enormously sad.

Of course he’s leaving for all of the right reasons, he has the right mix of people & opportunities to be really happy in London – and it’s a brave man who pays his way out of a contract and ‘follows his bliss’. I know he’ll find it there.

But it’s not his leaving that makes me sad. It’s remembering him arriving – on a gloriously sunny spring day filled with easy company. It’s amazing to think how hard the year between then and now has been – and how we had no idea that it was going to be so tough. Had someone shown us that day the year that we had in store I’m not sure any of us could have imagined living through it.

There’s been the illness and death of Jude’s dad, her mom’s relocation, her brother’s company dissolving into tiny fragments leaving him looking for a role in a strange city, my sickness, delayed diagnosis and treatment.

It’ s been a year of reconsideration, relocation and lots and lots of deep breaths.

And each of us has had to handle pieces of it alone. There’s been so much going on that we haven’t wanted to add another burden to the other’s and so sometimes we’ve struggled in silence when we should have asked for help. Or pulled away when we should have allowed ourselves to be hugged. Or iced over at an unexpected display of warmth.

But I hope that through it all we’ve never forgotten that we cared. Never stopped hoping for the other’s happiness. Never stopped wishing that the other does a little better today than yesterday.

I’m glad I had today, in the sunshine with people that I care about. Because it was a day when none of us felt the need to protect the others, a day when we could just ‘be’ rather than one where we had to ‘be aware’

I hope that the coming year is filled with more and more days like this. That we each find the easy going happiness that we deserve.

And that we look back on 12 months as something that we all went through knowing that when the it really came to it – somebody would be there – and that that will be the case going forward.

Paris Hilton Sex Tape

Apparently you can get lots of hits on your blog if blogger search finds phrases like 'Kylie wrestling in jelly' or 'Dido done with Dodi's dildo' hidden within the text.

I of course would find such trolling for an audience beneath me.

Yup, I'm feeling much better - and the retention problem (I gained 13lbs over the weekend) seems to be resolving itself nicely

As tired as Tarby's act

Absolutely knackered today.

Just back in from traipsing around the park in the wake of the dog whilst feeling every step vibrating somewhere deep and weary making in my bones.

The reason? A chemo session this morning followed by an afternoon at work attempting to run a spine through what might otherwise have become the world’s sexiest jellyfish. And sure whilst being the world’s sexiest jellyfish is an accolade - don’t expect the world to go to bed moist and eager each night, thoughts of jellyfish in their heads and of tentacles replacing their probing fingers. So it now has a spine. And a chance to walk on land. And I’m happier. But SO tired. Glad I made that so clear.

Interesting to do a conference call from a hospital recliner too. I’m better when I pace and it’s hard to pace when one of the wheels on your drip is wonky.

Wanted to do the motor show this evening but not sure I can make it as far as the sofa – let alone the Jocovits (?) centre.

Anyway jellyfish now suitably backboned, dog happily trotted, dinner still to be digested.

Then a very, very early night for me.

Easy like Sunday morning (the faith no more version)

So it's early Sunday morning and I'm surrounded by animals, animal hair and tiny amounts of our new, rather bad, cat litter - which seems to spread around the house independent of the cats. My weather widget is telling me that the temperature outside has dropped from yesterday's 27C to a less balmy 11C - which probably means I should feed and walk the dog before the heat starts rising and people start to tell me 'hey man, I think your dog is really warm'

Still it makes a difference from the universal cry of 'Shaggy Dog, shaggy dog' we've been getting since that damned Tim Allen movie.

I seem tobe replacing food with a mad spending spree. Expensive brunch yesterday, tickets for The Importance Of Being Earnest, ready to bid on Madonna tickets as soon as the extra show is released (I refused to enter the previous auction - floor level seats were up to $3500) and of course the seats for the US tennis open go on sale pretty soon too. Oh and I have tickets for the New York Auto Show too - a bargain at $14.

Off to see 'The miracle of life the birth of Sean Preston Spears' later today. It's a sculpture of Britney giving birth, on all fours, on a bearskin rug - and it's on display just down the road, so I have to really, don't I?

Not a great deal else going on - eating well, feeling well, one chemo to go

PS - what a weird picture

Trying a post from widget...

Okay, here's a post from the blogger widgit - how high tech of me.

The first day after Chemo V and I seem to be doing a lot better... nurse was in such a hurry to get the drugs into me (and me out of the chair) that she pushed at three times the normal speed... continuing even as I vomitted noisily into a bucket.

Still managed to hold down the one chip I nicked last night (but only just) and to have a good brunch today (mind it cost a fortune... green salad, poached salmon in champagne saucy thing, strawberry ice-cream, OJ, coffee - tres Parisian)

Will spend the evening wih my feet up in front of Capote. Marvellous.

Spring - said Zebadee

So Chemo V tomorrow (let’s hope it’s better than Rocky V) and I’ve decided that it will be the chemo of better eating. I’ve felt great during Chemo IV but have rammed anything even resembling a sticky bun so far down my greedy gullet that I choked on my fingers - gaining 8lbs in 3 weeks as a result.

Nurses, doctors etc. all think that this is a great thing – they reckon without my new wardrobe (I can’t bring myself to say ‘closet’) of 29” waisted trousers.

So what pre-treatment news from me? Well I went out to get a manicure today. When the place was closed I tried to buy a photo printer instead (try making that link). When that didn’t work out I went and spent a minor fortune on hemp based trousers and visited a Polish store with the intent of buying a multi-system LCD TV so big you'd think it was related to Mandissa's knickers. I do believe that I’m morphing into a bored Connecticut housewife. All I need now is to have my tits lifted, the more they resemble earrings the better the Martha's and Clarissa's of this world like 'em.

Anyway Chemo V – lots of fresh fruit and veggies, no Easter Eggs (chomping down on the last this afternoon), no giagantic cookies from Sette Pani, no Chocolate Croissants from the new French bakery (even if they are half the size of American breakfast items) and no sneaky visits to the chip shop for a ‘small’ cod and chips.

Sounds miserable dunnit?

Still the sun is out (it’s 25C outside), my camera is back in action (there’s nothing like the sun to bring out Williamsburg’s weirdest) and everyone I know is pregnant – so I have the perfect excuse to hit Sam and Sebastian any buy baby Che T-Shirts.

Life, as they say, is beautiful.

Dr Mazda

So got to the hospital at 9.45

Was stuck for blood
Then ushered into suite 3A where I met with Nurse Maureen
Then told Dr would be right in

Time : 10.05

He showed up at 11.10.

Shook my hand, told me that he was pleased, that decisions on radiotherapy etc could wait, that my results are as close to perfect as you could hope and was gone in a cloud of expensive cologne.

Zoom-zoom-ZOOM

Time : 11.12
Cost : $1400

I make that a possible $40,000 an hour.

Still the news was good

Quick post

As I have a ten o'clock with my oncologist.

I know that the news is good, I've been told that repeatedly and have the results with the 'Excellent response to treatment' written on them and yet I'm still approaching this meeting with some trepidation. I wonder why that is?

More later - when I'm back

What a gay day

Had brunch at the cafe pictured here today, sunshine, crisp clean air, my wife and an old friend from Sydney...

... then spent HOURS looking for a bar, eventually ending up in the garden of Williamsburg's least cool spot - a place so unhip that I'm expecting the BillyBurg police to arrive and revoke my provisional hipster license at any moment.

Luckily Chemo Chic is a very B'Burg look so I might just blag my way to an extension - unless they call during America's Funniest Home Videos (the epitome of Suburban sensibility and one of my personal favorites) in which case I'll be forced to eat meat outside of a vegan restaurant and stoned to death with mouldy tofu.

boring, boring cancer patient

Chemo V rapidly approaching… I just hope that it goes as well as Chemo IV; which seemed to fly by after a rather dodgy first evening. I’ve felt good throughout this round and am hoping to carry that through to the next one.

I see my oncologist on Tuesday when I’ll find out more about results to date, treatment regime post chemo and long term prognosis. I know that radiotherapy is very likely to be a part of my immediate future, but how much and for how long remains a mystery.

Saw our friend Elisa play at the Knitting Factory last night and kinda wish that we’d hung out after but am risking nothing at the moment and so headed for home and was in bed by midnight as a good cancer patient should be. She was really good yesterday, I wish I was in a position to help her in some way because it’s music that deserves a wider audience.

Anyway that’s about it, nothing particularly exciting to say or report but another ‘not dead yet’ missive fired into cyberspace (do people still use that term?)

Quick thought

I think I know what caused the euphoria...

Somebody hit this site having Google'd

"john inman widow twanky"

Made my decade