i stil smoke cigarettes

my scar is over a year old.
the best year of my life.

if i am staring off into space i am mostly praying.

a year to the hour after i was coming out of surgery
i was stopped by a funeral procession.
a long line of cars
not for me
still.

i coulda died but instead i didn't
you're still the best idea i ever had, Max

we all make the decisions we can't resist around here.
if you aren't home yet you are chicken

the FURY and the FURY or the Unbearable Hardness of Being

living in the moment and this one

really really really
really
sucks.


if i can't feel better i'd rather feel murderous. and i do.

party of one. nobody came because no one is invited.

come over and throw your firearms around me....

SAY WE CAN. SAY WE WILL.

i never worried about what could give me cancer.
i still don't.
you know what's cancerous?
me.
you know what's worse for you than smoking?
chemotherapy.
you know what's worse for you than chemotherapy?
worry.
my doctors are professionals.
but so am i.
i am a peerless hostess.
a considerate hedonist.
a great dancer.
Max's mom.
i fight like a brave, i never say die.
no doubt, not just another drop in the ocean.

EASY SKAN KING

slow food.

the Sucky Side of Life or Baby Teeth.

isolation is one of the chief complaints of new mothers. it's like growing into clipped wings. life is much bigger and much smaller when you are seeing it with a 15 pound brand new life-form struggling to speak with two new teeth in your arms. the spot between your shoulder blades develops a real deep ache.

i have a cavity. again. i really should have been denied teeth.

for almost a year now i have been a financial vacuum sucking thousands of dollars away from every single person i love. it's lucky i was raised to believe that money isn't that important if you have good relationships. and i am successful by me and my parents standards because i do have good relationships with almost everyone i've met.

because i am still too sick to work i have been trying to stay on top of housework and be as pleasant a roommate/sister/daughter/mother as i can. this is how i intend to earn my keep. i've always loved and nurtured my lazy streak and my love of a life of leisure because i have also maintained financial independence and what i thought was a solid work ethic. i'm sure i'm not the hardest worker but i am reliable and happy and usually funny too.

however...
housework is a full-time job if you look at it. there's no room for my life of leisure. because work doesn't stay at work if you've made home your work. and the isolation....

it's not that i'm lonely or bored. i'm great company and most of the time so is Max and we get lots of visitors. isolate means to set apart. i have felt set apart almost my whole life. i guess it is to be a theme.

i feel shitty whining when there's such a fierce storm outside. but my mom's garden is full of weeds and i know it's my fault.

happy xmas (war is over)

my last chemo was on august 26th.

i don't know the whole story. i don't even know half of it.

real real tired.

definitely an adult-sized dose.

Max has two teeth. i have too many no matter how many i pull out.

i know too much for polite conversation. i am too sick to be fine. too sad to be angry. too tough to die. too bored to cry.

i know enough to know this isn't over.

THRIFTINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS

...is my new blog.
it is not about cancer.

iamawomannow.blogspot.com

can I Graduate?

i been trying to fashion some sort of handle on this situation. it's okay. i'm flexible. inhale exhale. let go let go let go. i'm still me. i'm probably more myself than i was before? ? when i was reduced to skin and bones and fetus and blind optimism i had no choice but to survive and bring Max in this world with every fiber of my being. to be honest... it was easy. because it was all i had to do.

remission? i wanna be in you.

I'm a Pepper

how in the world do you lose everything only to end up on top with every dream come true? how do you keep your cool in this situation? how do you not get cancer? tell me it involves Dr. Pepper.

how will i ever top this past year?

oh right. by getting everything back in it's right place. duh.

also who do i date now? ha.

cancer patience

when i leave this fortress of solitude is when i will know what i've learned. i'm afraid i know too much to ever be casual again. but i can't wait to get out there because i don't think anyone can hear me from here. nothing will be the same no matter where i go. i read somewhere that all cancer patients have post-traumatic-stress-disorder.

how many fresh fruit smoothies do i have to eat before i'm healthy again?!

uncool is the new cool

what kind of Belushi does this guy think he is anyway?

i love just two things- everyone and television

the thing about getting better is that now i have to start accounting for what i do and say and get out of bed because i'm not sick i'm just depressed.

i never felt like i fit until i started being everyone's best friend. i crash coursed myself into the center of things without ever actually feeling comfortable and accepted and exhaling. if i had sat still i would have noticed that i still didn't match anyone. and i probably never will.

especially now that i add all these hyphenates to myself. girl-waitress-DJ-writer-singer-...cancer survivor... mother. and not just any mother, Max's mother. so just when i was almost convinced i was like anyone, that my fur might fit in with a pack,

... i realize i am luminous. sticking out like a sore thumb again.

Max's lullaby

you are my little guy
the brightest apple of my eye
i could bake you into a pie
but then i'd have to eat you

your ears stick out from your head
and you fart when you're in my bed
and you nearly made me dead
but i had to meet you

you'll always be by my side
because i'll seek you when you hide
you're my joy and you're my pride
that is why i need you
i had to meet you
and i'll never eat yoooooooou

just kids

being around Max all the time reminds me of my first baby boy... Jesse Lee my little brother. Sara is as much my partner in crime now as she was when we were spoiling baby Jesse just to glimpse his dimples.

i had forgotten how much fun it is being Big Sis.

i miss courtney love's old face

Max is about to start cutting teeth. so today we had a long talk about good drugs and bad drugs and life and celebrities but i disguised it all as a very funny song that made him giggle and drool. he actually just now laughed in his sleep at the TV. i love him because the Soup is really funny.

an adorable check out girl at the drug store said she read my AZ daily star story.

"it was really pretty."

that's my favorite thing lately. i could've kissed her right on the mouth.

Don't You Forget About Me No No No NO

don't get me wrong. i'm real thankful i'm getting better and blah blah blah. thank you for asking. however i wrote my heart out to sharon osbourne only to receive a weak ass stamped signature (but kinda cool) glossy of ozzy and a super weak promotional postcard for his new cd. like i was seeking an autograph and not sharing the hardest parts of my life. i think i felt better when i was ignored.

HARLEM have proved themselves a couple of bimbos for sure. i've tried to get in touch with my old pal curtis 5 times since max was born. they visited in december when everything was so scary. but i don't want to be remembered when it's scary because i'm sick. i wanna be remembered because we mixed tequila in our blood and cut our hair and wore white pants and slept around and loved music. and there's a new wolf cub in our hometown. i thought you might care.

i wanna be on front pages. i wanna be back on stages. but not because i'm pitiful and not even because i'm strong. because of what i create and say. not because of some weak ass cancer.

Tell me all the things that i wanna hear

...and then he kissed me. i almost missed it. just enough more than friendly to be sorta perfect. actually the first boyish kiss since the one that lead to Max (really almost a year ago)...

no big deal kiss. just kinda special to me...

never break the chain

the shortest distance between two people are the words "me too"

they are the first words shared by friends. whenever they are repeated it should be considered a renewal of vows.

Max is a livewire. a born drummer. Mowgli in the flesh. i think he knows when we take his pictures that he is communicating with people miles and miles away. he looks them in the eye, this extended spiderweb of family he has never met, as if introducing himself and saying excitedly Me too!

semi-charmed kind of life baby baby

you have changed every life you've collided with. but you have revolutionized mine.

a word that isn't sentence is proving to be more than a paragraph. more than a page. but only a chapter.

it really must be better this way right?

WAL*MART

i entered the express lane with a handful of Fathers' Day cards and a large case of Dr. Pepper and a bottle of black nail polish; Max in his stroller and me. us against the world pumping gas and cruising wal-mart. i had a card for my uncle, my granddad and Max's uncles and granddad. checker says

"how many dads do you have anyway?"

"none actually."

"how old is you baby?"

"8 weeks."

"you lost the weight fast!"

"i have cancer. will you help me lift this Dr.Pepper?"

if i don't need you , you leave

even when i'm okay i'm not. if i feel a fraction of how i've ever felt before it only reminds me how painfully painfully small my life has become. if i consider that eventually everything will start to fill up the widescreen of dreaming, my breath catches. i am afraid. i can never ignore my health again. i can't trust my youth. i can't trust my body. when i get better i get to look for cancer every year. i am really really afraid.

and sometimes i feel better. and then things that are supposed to happen can. and then they can't. and this has to continue for the rest of the summer that hasn't started yet.

i am counting the days til Christmas because i was confident i'd be well by then. but i will always, always be afraid.

god hates crybabies

no no no no no no. it's really staggering what you may never know you are capable of. and very quietly and very slowly a wound becomes a scab a scab becomes a scar and there is nowhere you are going without that scar. i will never remember how hard this is. i'll cross my fingers until i forget.

taste the ambivalence

i wish sick days were more like ferris buellers day off and less like claire danes having scarlet fever in little women.

i wish love were more like true romance and less like high fidelity.

225 days until christmas.

Max is over 9 pounds now and still hungry.

stay hungry.

precious cargo

Max punched himself in the eye. he has a little cut just under his left eye. he looks real tough.

he gets real angry. it's pretty pitiful. when something has really offended him he cries out and frowns real hard. i've really never felt clumsier. he hates to put on clothes. he hates getting naked. he hates having his head touched. he hates cold baths. he hates hot baths. he barely allows perfect baths. he hates going to sleep. he hates waking up. he hates digesting food. he hates dirty diapers. he hates putting on clean diapers. after any of these activities he won't look at me. but he allows me to feed him. all the while stubbornly avoiding eye contact.

he never says thank you.

he does something better.

he smiles. he coos. he makes this perfect baby Chewbacca sound.

you're welcome Max. thank you.

it's real weird to me that ashlee simpson and nicole richie and courtney love are all mothers.

motherhood and cancer are two clubs that i don't quite fit into and not just because of the other.

but no one is lonely in a one man band.

say Nothing

i hate the weekend.

last weekend my sister and her roommate went camping outside cell phone territory. so i was certain roommate had gone into a blind rage with loaded firearms and totally murdered my best friend.

last night C.J.'s light was on but he, Pig Dog and the car were all AWOL. so of course i was certain at least 5 drunk driving, text messaging, makeup applying douchebags had had convened on one poor defenseless SUV and totally man/dog slaughtered my best friend.

if you're not at work and you don't text me back or answer i will be forced to assume you're dead.

the weekend before last both my little brothers didn't come home. little sis still hadn't moved in. and mom and C.J. had normal adult lives to lead. so i locked every gate to keep Shar Pei thieves away from Luther and crossed my fingers nothing Luther couldn't destroy came after me and Little Man. unfortunately some sort of acid flashback kicked in and i was alone in the house with my son who had become some sort of disarmingly adorable, somewhat unsettling Muppet. mommies must make sure that evening glass of wine and afternoon painkiller don't overlap so much....

this weekend i'm on house arrest with no visitors allowed. chemo ate all my white blood cells and now the common cold could make my head fall off or something. hadn't really been getting out much at all lately but knowing i can't has created a prison of my home which already shelters the prison of my body. now i'm all caught up on that coloring i've been meaning to get to. still have a few mixtapes to craft but making a 45 adapter out of a paperclip is not something even NASA could remedy. but all of this is not enough to occupy my multitasking waitress brain. not even when i throw in diapering, feeding and dressing up baby man. i really need my life away from Max to not be limited to altercations with DES and chemotherapy.

and now cable has failed me again. Extreme Home Makeover cry-fest bullshit. this rerun features a single dad trying to rebuild his hurricane attacked home when he goes to the doctor and gets NON-HODGKIN'S lymphoma.

for 3 sweaty ICU days it really looked like my friendly little non-lethal Hodgkin's lymphoma was actually the mega-deadly other lymphoma. whew.

this single dad ends up back in the hospital while Ty Pennington and his vanilla band of designers build some ridiculously wonderful home for his family and the doctors aren't sure he'll make it to the weekend to see it. like i have anything to whine about. i get to get better. i get to stay well. i get to live. and i get Max.




Heath Ledger is still dead. nothing can change that.

my Mom is my Dad

i had to do this on my own. alone together with you Max. i can't live in a house where i'd have to call someone else Dad. you can have a father but if i can't have a Dad neither can you.

i was born a mother and you were born a Phenomena.

I feel Good I feel Great I feel Wonderful

sapphire martinis and sitting still for more than 15 minutes (and sitting up for more than 15 minutes). no baby weight or stretch marks but now i'm structurally different internally if not to the naked eye. if my bones got dug up they would identify me as mother and not maiden. and of course my soul has been uprooted entirely. and my whole hormonal system has basically shit it's pants and would like to know when things are getting back to normal. and my emotional landscape is soggy mostly.

my little man seems like a little bully. it's not fair how much stronger he is. too sensitive i think he wonders why i'm such a cry baby. everything's fine Mom. duh.

Pooping is hard.

it turns out that babies and cancer patients need the same 16 to 20 hours of sleep a day. however very few of those hours are simultaneous. Max closed his eyes, i bathed, i laundered, i took out the trash, i fed myself, i washed bottles, i filled bottles. Max slumbered on but i was too much in love and too nervous to sleep. he grumbles and snorts and huffs and coos and smiles in his sleep. pure gold. but what kills me is when he knits his baby brows together and whines in pain? fear? sorrow? concern?

it turns out that babies and cancer patients NEED to cry. need to sob angrily. need to shake with panic and confusion and turn bright red with indignation while they cry.

it's not called depression if you have something to cry about.

HOLY HOLY

i have around 30 tattoos. my knuckles say HOLY HOLY. i didn't realize it was my favorite word until i saw duly etched across my fingers. sometimes we learn by doing. i like that it sounds serious and elated. the sides of 4 of my fingers have secret bathroom initials poked with sewing needles and india ink. 520 is my area code, a tucson tattoo i made in portland. clay is my friend Clay's favorite word. my PAL is alix leigh perry. MK is for mary-kate olsen. seriously.

these hands change diapers now and clutch my tiny son wrapped in three blankets at once because April changed it's mind about spring.

on the inside of my left forearm is the image of St. Jude. the words "hey Jude" sit at his feet. the patron saint of not-any-time-soon and don't-hold-your-breath. drug dealers, border jumpers and kids with leukemia.

i have a rosary around my neck with the cross dangling 3 inches above my belly button. i hate misplacing lucky charms or sacred things. i like praying with my hands, my arms, my neck chest and stomach.

Thank you for being a Friend

i don't want to need you but i do. i need you and you and you and you. during the last nine months it got to the point where the only thing i could do for myself was hold my hair out of my puke. not keep hair on my head though. of course. i didn't knock i barged in. without luggage without manuals without contracts or even agreements. you let me in you let me in you let me in. you ran marathons. you brought home the bacon. you cut off my crusts. you drove me home. you drove me home. you drove me home. and now i'm budgeting 20 dollar bills left in my purse by my mom. pretending i earned them. buying you cigarettes. i owe you. i owe you. i owe you a million chicken nuggets a large Dr. Pepper and let's not even mention my massive Burger King debt. you boarded planes. you came over everyday. you didn't come over because your tank was empty. so was your wallet. but you asked if i needed anything, i said yes. i said yes a lot because i know what it's like to feel helpless so i asked for your help. i couldn't let you walk in empty handed.

in a few months i won't need you. which will be much better. obviously. right?

in a few months i won't need you. will i?

in a few months i won't need you. i hope.
and i'm terrified of when i won't need you.

Sharon, can you hear me?

this house gets real empty sometimes.

i wrote the following letter to Sharon Osbourne at 4 am after rearranging my hospital room.

Dear Mrs. Sharon Osbourne,

My name is Carlee Hill and I live in Tucson, Arizona. I’m 23 years old and today I am 23 weeks pregnant for the first time. These last couple of months I’ve been pretty lazy, feet up around the house compulsively watching your show “The Osbournes” on dvd. What a treat to shut off the censorship bleeping device!!

Your family often reminds me of my own. My mother (Sharon Hill!), sister and I found surprising comfort in the similarities between Ozzy’s charming befuddlement in the world with what we experienced with my dad. Also a musician through the 60’s and 70’s he indulged in much of the same lifestyle Ozzy barely remembers enjoying. When your show originally aired my dad was home with us on disability and watching it offered a lighter-hearted look at living with a dynamic, creative, loved one who was completely baffled by a remote. Well, Dad passed away at home of a heart attack at age 56 in 2003 and though our hearts still feel robbed sometimes, we are glad he is free of every burden.

So there is some history of you and yours unknowingly helping me and mine. Now I sit here in the Oncology wing at Northwest Medical Center having just received my first round of chemotherapy. I came in this time last week to have a large mass that sprung up on my neck overnight, surgically removed. Well that dirty fucker had weaseled his way around everything in my neck; nerves, windpipe, voice box, spine, etc. My surgeon and his team got it all out thus preserving my ability to breathe and eat but it turned out to be lymphoma, luckily highly treatable Hodgkin’s Disease. Thankfully and almost unbelievably the cocktail of chemo they use to treat that has been used safely in pregnant women for years! I truly have a genius team of doctors and my son Max swims safe and oblivious inside me, growing everyday and darting away from fetal heart monitors. They say he is a fighter, I say he’s not doing anything at all, the lazy bum.

But the reason I’m writing to you about all this is I had a season 2 marathon of “The Osbournes” with my sister to have a laugh while I waited to enter the hospital last week. Sharon, you really are one tough bitch. If chemo never got your wicked tongue, sharp wit or fierce heart than I’ll be okay. I’ve only just begun this cancer journey and motherhood itself is just on the horizon; knowing just how big a job they both are I’m so proud of you and I admire you. I’ve always thought of you as a true original, a most delightful merry prankster and a monstrously devoted wife and mother. Thank you for sharing a glimpse of your life with the world. You don’t know how you’ve helped me keep my chin up. To lighten a grim hospital room I’ll often think of something shocking maybe you would say to get the doctors and my beautiful mom to blush or laugh. It always works.

Thank you,


she has never written back. i really only wanted a Black Sabbath onesie.

my mom is at the ranch with my stepdad in willcox. Max will be running around with them someday learning how to ride and rope and whistle and play guitar and build campfires. real cowboys sit with their back to the fire so their eyes stay alert in the dark. this year i am learning how to pray ceaselessly. i saw my chest xrays yesterday. i looked real skinny! i still have cancer.

this scabby scar on my neck was born on december 4th. i was supposed to be playing a one-man band fest that night as the Tambourines. i've lost at least a third of my voice and can see on the xray that my windpipe is still shoved to the side by tumors in my chest. breathing gets easier all the time in lots of ways for lots of reasons but i still don't know when to schedule a reunion show.

i feel like an off-key one-armed go-go dancer. lila commented i have a raspy tamborine heart. it's stupid but i miss my mom. it's not stupid.

i can't remember how not to miss my dad. it's like praying ceaselessly.

Hi! I'm Glad you are here

Max is 2 weeks and 1 day old and is 7 lbs and 7 oz. today we took him to meet all the staff at the cancer place where i gets the chemotherapy. it's been a month now without chemo. i go back next week. i hope i didn't forget how to turn poison into miracles.

Max is a big flirt and a big fart. way better than dating so far. yesterday was really stressful because i never took a nap and neither did little man. he could tell that the doctor was gonna stick his heel to test his blood because he is very familiar with my heartbeat and can tell when i am nervous. so he started to panic and i started to cry because i feel like a failure when i let anything hurt him. but he is strong and kicked nurse real hard and got blood all over his tiger print blanket so it looks way more metal now.

Max is in my bed taking a nap under my tiger print blanket. i miss him. i am in the living room typing this. i should be napping. i should be sitz bathing my poor wounded nether regions. i should be doing the dishes. but i am a writer and it's 2010 so that makes me a blogger i guess.

i still can't believe we pulled this off, son. i'm Glad you are here.