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.

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.

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.