Losing my calls

Another gray day at home -- feel like I haven't seen the sun in years. keep staying home and nesting, if that's what you want to call it. that would, however, imply that I'm doing all manner of things at home. I'm not. I'm watching taped TV and Netflicks. I'm not reading. I'm not keeping up with my online scrabble games. What am I doing?

Making a transition between what once was and what will eventually be. Stuck in limbo, somewhere. Can barely remember what once was -- did the year of lymphoma take that from me? I assume that if I had really liked what once was that I would remember, I would want to do it again. But if that means financial planning, forget it.

For a time, it was a lovely gig. Then the economy tanked, and I felt like nothing I could do in the way of financial planning would be of any value to anyone, so I retreated from it. And took a long breath -- happy not to need to keep up on every tax law change, the health insurance bill from hell that has fucked me six ways from Sunday, and god knows how it's affected anyone else.

My phone just announced a text message, but I'm at the machine, looking at the time more often than I'd like, simply because it is there. Does it mean anything? Not so much -- only that I need to keep track because I have shrink appointment. and it's going to be by phone.

The sidewalks and corners are treacherous, and I'm not going anywhere outdoors that I don't have to, at least not today.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to do an open house at Spanish school, then go to a party in the Village. One of The Three Sisters called yesterday -- it's going to be a fondue party for reasons I have yet to discover. Apparently it relates to the Chinese new year, though I don't possibly see how. Still, it's The Three Sisters, my oldest friends, and, assuming strangers don't come streaming in the way they did at Xmas, it will be a good place for me to go, to see people who just accept me as I am, whether it's as cancer vic or trust fund kid or brilliant writer who just won't or can't get around to putting words on paper.

Paper? So 20th century. What I can't stand is how my computer has turned into a communications toy, so much that I rarely use it for the real, basic stuff -- the reason I went cyber in the first place: I wrote papers, short stories, essays, a novel...and kept track of all my financial data -- basic spreadsheet 101. And those functions still exist; I do remember the keyboard shortcuts for WordStar, before there were mice, before there was DOS, much less Windows.

There's so much other crap on the machine now that I've succumbed to computer as toy, seduced by the lure of FB, an invention that will end whatever productivity exists in this country.

Yes, folks, I am alive and typing -- but what my mind is trying to say, I don't have a clue.

I may try an exercise, looking at photos of Haiti and seeing what evocative descriptions I can glean from them, what memories they bring up -- and just write it all down, no rereading, but social commentary is okay, since it's all that I didn't know as I sat on the beach at Kyona, all those years.

That whole period of my life -- from Lake Placid to Haiti: that world is gone, gone, gone. And, having failed to plan for middle age, I come to it baffled. I come to it searching for a world that has different values than the one I see around me.

Jobwise, it doesn't seem to matter if you are intelligent. To me, it matters more if you can use the technology and not have it use you in offices or at home or any place on this earth. I suspect one may have to do more than fog a mirror, but it's been 20 years since I've had an office, so I don't know what constitutes good behavior at work. Twenty years ago, I could get jobs based on my brain, without having to pass a piss test.

Then, the piss test bothered me from a privacy angle. Now, there's no privacy left, so as long as I stay away from weed, which has turned into a huge no-no, I could pass the test -- assuming I resisted the temptation to throw the container directly into the face of the person who had requested it.

While I'm on this rant, I've had it with technology: with me, it's strictly need-to-know. These days, I learn as little as possible. Why bother? Nothing sticks except what changes and hence becomes obsolete knowledge as soon as I've memorized any of it.

Plus, I'm still battling my not-so-new "smartphone." It outsmarts me, and there is not much more to be said about it, except that while it may retrieve info accurately, it's not so hot as its alleged primary use: as a telephone. So I may speak to people when I'm not home, however well we got along before we had this whiz-bang opportunity.

I'm losing all my calls these days -- Verizon has yet to fix either phone line, after many conversations and three or four visits from their tech support people, who seem unable to manage to troubleshoot calls dropping out or getting static-y from landlines. Not sure if Verizon is getting metaphorical or just completely inept.

Honestly, technology consists of boys and their toys. Otherwise, we'd have robo-chef by now, not to mention silent vacuums and dishwashers -- all the things you need to run a household of any size. Clearly cleanliness is not high on the tech-lovers list.

If I were Queen, I would make sure that all the phone lines worked and the cable company could manage more than a day without the need to reboot. And I'd have a driver -- granted, it might be weird to have a driver take me to Costco, but I'd be safe.

Right now I can't do large stores -- the Petco store where we bought cat food for The Consultant's cats struck me as a shop for children's clothes when we first walked in. How to outfit your schnauzer. I'm assuming the margins are bigger on animal clothes than they are on animal food. I don't understand why she just doesn't get stuff delivered: she says, well, my ex was supposed to place an order this week, then makes an excuse for why the ex hasn't done her quasi-wifely duties.

Haven't figured that relationship out -- I know The Consultant is actively hunting on line, and I'm on hiatus from trying to date new people. After The Artist and I went our separate ways, I ran out of emotional space. I wanted simplicity, and I got it. I'm know I'm not in the best mood to be bright and shiny and sexy the way I have to feel if I'm going out on a date.

Bigger question is, what do I want in the way of a relationship, and what kind of mixed signals am I getting from The Consultant, who has made it very clear, and I've agreed, that we're good in bed together and fine for dinner, but no angels are getting their wings.

Except perhaps last weekend, when I took her out for dinner and she deliberately picked a "romantic restaurant," and the whole time we were out, she held my hand, or my arm. This is moving into the PDA world, and I hadn't thought we were there. Still not sure: are we there yet? or are we going anywhere?

No longer a port in any storm

My porting days are over. Translation: I no longer have a chemo-needle-friendly "device" implanted in my chest. It's a far cry from where I was a year ago, at this time -- between rounds 1 and 2 of chemo, with 5 more to go

I've gone, done my time, and walked by the "infusion room" aka chemo lounge at my doctors' office, and finally, had a sigh of relief. No port, no entry. Here's to hoping no one ever wants to appoint me as a Superfund site again. Or make me a one-woman radioactive blip on the sidewalk. The only exception to the latter is, there will be more PET scans, more signs that I am, I hope, home free.

Home, of course, will never be the same again. This season I am snow-bound, but it's better than being the girl in a bubble. Hello, normal white cell count. Hello, immune system. So long, fare well bottles of Purell. Return to regularly scheduled interaction with the public. That is, once I find my snow boots.

I'm all set for sledding, apparel-wise: boots, snow pants, ski mittens, down coat with hood, extra cashmere cap for warmth, all requisite long underwear and thick socks. Only thing I'm missing is the sled, and the assurance of normal bone density. What would it say about me if I took a hill too fast, clipped into a tree, and broke my hip? Age-appropriate? Ha!

For public consumption and to speak the vernacular, I am a survivor. Not at all sure the word is appropriate to describe the experience, but that is what our language, in the world of cancer patients, has labeled appropriate. I have, for the record, survived worse: 40 years of depression vs. less than a year with a cancer diagnosis. By comparison, cancer was a walk in the park. Without snow gear. I'd hardly call it a trek, considering how I've felt in other circumstances.

With lymphoma, the odds were in my favor: 90% "cure" rate is what I'm told. "Cure," not "remission." After two solid years off chemo, "cured" is what they will call me. But what term will I use?

They say you can't go home again, and while that sentence applies to me literally -- my aunt and uncle's hotel in Lake Placid burned to the ground, and Haiti had, well prior to the earthquake, become a politically untenable place to go -- Wonderland, my hometown, looks different as well.

Tourists may like Toys R Us in Time Square, part of the Disneyfication a la Guiliani and Bloomberg; those of us with memories oddly enough prefer the old days, when that was a seedy part of town. We miss the fake ID joints, the peep shows, the 24/7 porn palaces and all the people who frequented them.

What price safety? Total loss of character and place? I'm sure the hookers made a better living than the minimum-wage folk now operating every chain restaurant in the land that's open to reassure tourists that Wonderland is "safe."

Sure, I no longer have to defend my city's crime rate -- in the old days, Detroit's and D.C.'s murder rates made ours look like amateur night -- but I have less of my city to defend. So much has succumbed to another strip of the global village with all of its big-box, made-in-China-but-sold-only-for-export chain stores bleeding our local shops dry that we're losing our personality.

I love New York? We used to lure visitors with a huge advertising campaign. Now busloads enter voluntarily. I would enjoy those who commute much more if they had to pay a percentage of the NY City tax dollars from which they benefit. New York is a city of first-responders, but no one counts how much it costs us and how our neighbors beyond the borough lines have benefited since we stopped collecting income tax from them.

We should have a cover charge for entry, even if it is "congestion pricing" for cars in midtown. We should have neighborhood stickers for cars, so the locals have their place in the street and let the out-of-towners resort to a garage. That is, we should also have temporary windshield-visible signs for residents to lend to those who park here explicitly to see us. That is, for those of us -- most of us, I suspect -- for whom owning a car would be more challenging that learning to speak a new language.

I fall into that category: never have I legally owned a car. As a teen and college kid, I had one that belonged to my parents, but never did I need learn any maintenance skills beyond filling the tank with gas and checking the oil under the hood.

These days I delegate even that little knowledge to those who drive me the most frequently: bus and subway drivers, plus taxi cabs and other car services. For me, maintaining a car simply means I have discount coupons on my refrigerator for whenever I need a ride to the airport.

If you need outdoor camping or related skills, don't call me. If you need urban camping tips, from conserving water to overriding electronic stove ignitions, call me. Inside I have battery-powered lamps, radio and fan; for the great outdoors? Snow boots. If you need a port for an indoor storm, I'll see what I can do. Outdoors? Baby, you're on your own.

Nearly bald soprano passes her PET scan

Atop my head is peach fuzz, getting longer by the day. Chemo is gone from my body and my datebook, as are almost daily visits to the doctor for blood counts. Best of all, the PET scan did not light up anywhere.

So, I'm officially on the road to recovery. It's a slow one, involving a great deal of sleep. Fortunately, sleep is my forte. You might even call it a vocation. Closer still, my true calling in life is as a sleeper. Twelve hours a day? No problem.

Oh, you wanted me awake and coherent? At what hour? Whatever the hour, you can never be sure of how cogent I'll be. I have been known to converse with people -- real, live ones standing next to my bed -- without regaining consciousness. Unconscious telephone calls? Been there, done that.

What are my plans, now that I've been blessed by the medical academy? My plan is not to plan, not now. I have just come through months when planning anything wasn't possible, and, given the strength of chemo fatigue, I don't think this state of affairs will change for a while.

It is interesting, to be in my fiftieth year and once again, have no clue what I am going to do with my life. Ideas float around, one or two in particular, but the execution of them in real life, well, that may take some doing.

I've got the time now, to think -- or not, depending on the day. And blogging? Not so much. Too much focus required, at least at the moment. Yet it's comforting to know, when I'm ready, my blog will be waiting.

Tie a colored ribbon...cut off your circulation

In case you were wondering what to get me while I'm sick, here's a list of links to things I do not want: No T-shirts, no mugs, no hats, no pins, no rubber bracelets. I don't need words on my chest to tell the world that cancer sucks. This is not exactly breaking news, folks.

Pick a ribbon, any ribbon, and choke on it. When my friend Dona was dying, the last thing she wanted to see was any item marketed in the pink ribbon factory. What she wanted to do was strangle the next person who showed up with one of those in-solidarity ribbons.

Meanwhile, the Web sites below have conflicting colors: is lymphoma lime green or is it red? Remember when red was AIDS awareness? Apart from Tony Orlando's song, that was the first ribbon, the one that wasn't commercialized -- and now, it isn't even listed as a disease.

http://www.choosehope.com/category/by-cancer-color-cancer-type

http://www.personalizedcause.com/shop/index.html

http://www.trinitylondon.com/awareness-ribbon-meanings.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awareness_ribbons

If there's an illness, or some other life-event trauma, the ribbon people have you covered. My personal favorite is the lace ribbon for osteoporosis. If only it came in a thinner size than the others, to show not only the lack of bone density but the decrease in diameter of the bones, it would be just perfect.

What I'm really waiting for is the walk for osteoporosis. That's about the only disease for which walking is recommended to keep bones in strong working order.

Walk for breast cancer, lymphoma, AIDS: how does that help any cancer research? Just send in the damn check and stay home. Do something fun while you can -- before you go Googling the Internet to see which ribbon has your name on it.

The marketing people have gone overboard on this theme. They started out on Prednisone, one of the components of my chemo, and moved up to the big stuff, the steroids that may not have made it to the house that [Babe] Ruth built -- Yankee Stadium, 1923 -- but are probably common in the bloodstream of ball players who compete in its replacement, opened last year.

Tomorrow is opening day for major league baseball. I don't know how I came upon this bit of useless information, but all it means to me is there's another place I can't go, in my immunocompromised state.

No stadiums for me, no matter who build them or who decided that naming the Met's new stadium "Citifield" was a good idea. Last week I read that the Feds not only own more than 25% of the bank stock, but it will be sold this at an what would be an $8 billion profit today.

That's TARP for you -- your tax dollars at work. Wonder if the U.S. government had a stake in how the Mets play?

I don't know what color ribbon goes with bank-in-distress, but if it's green, I'll bet there are a number of bank execs around whose neck that ribbon would fit perfectly. Perhaps former bank execs -- someone must have gotten fired when the bank tanked, even if for window dressing.

Still, if you're looking for a few necks around which to tie ribbons, the bodies are probably available by name in The Wall Street Journal. Or, wait: do those ribbons come in necktie form?

Which is worse in our society? A broken banking system or no cure for cancer? Judging from how readily the U.S. bailed out the banks vs. how difficult it is to get funding from the N.I.H., it doesn't look like public health has a fighting chance.

Hairless at home

No one signs up for chemotherapy with any kind of informed consent. Why? Info is given on a need-t0-know basis, while my 5 minutes on Google gave me the questions I needed to ask.

Sure, they tell you about losing your hair -- right on schedule, it came out in tufts. There was enough hair in my wastebasket to build a bird's nest. No one says, this process will take a week or more. You will shed. You will think you are molting. You will be surprised at what hairs remain and which ones detach with ease.

Then, you go to Wigville for the actual wig fitting. Explanations for taping wig to head prove more complicated than my brain can process. On my head, wig feels like an imposter's hair. Name for wig? Cousin It. No gender required. Cousin It's relative is "ittle," a band of hair that requires a cap over it so as not to expose the skull.

I'm told I have a lovely scalp. I'm told Cousin It looks real. Personally, I can't imagine that anyone could have any other response. Just as with new babies, all of them are cute, even the ugly ones. When you are hairless, compliments take on a different slant.

Nausea is commonly mentioned as a side effect, although the question is posed, "are you nauseous?" and proper English calls for, "are you nauseated?" P.S.: One day after chemo does not a clean couple of weeks create. You may not be nauseated the day of or during -- but there's a two-week interval to follow, when any day could be the bad day.

It is, basically, a crap shoot, how each person will react to toxic chemicals "infused" into her body. Your mileage, it seems, may vary. That covers a lot of reactions, but still, what you think when you start and what you conclude after four hours attached to a needle attached to tubing that glides the toxins into your body is unpredictable. Every day is a surprise: some are just days of slow movement; others are filled with queasy hours.

Things I researched; things no one would have otherwise mentioned: peripheral neuropathy, possible mouth sores and strange chemical tastes in mouth. Will chemo slow down the healing of the surgical scars? What foods may I and may I not consume? Do I need someone else to discern the temperature of my bathwater? How germ free do I need to make my house? Should I just shower in Purell and call it a day?

Do I need distilled water for ice cubes? How do I know good white cells from bad ones? In high school, we had to dissect a frog, twice. Why couldn't someone have taught me, say, some human anatomy? Something to do with how our bodies work? Surely we could have passed on the damn frog.

This is not the brave new world I envisioned. It is, however, very much in line with the title of poet M. Wyrebek's book: Be Properly Scared. I read the poems when they were published: the story of M's life from age 16 and her diagnosis onward. She was someone I admired -- talented, pretty, smart, funny -- and her life cut short as the bad cells multiplied and won the battle.

I guess I am lucky: the odds are in my favor. What the exact numbers are, I don't know. Another factoid hidden from the hairless. Chemo is not an adventure for those who need situations clearly delineated. Clues don't get spelled out; clues bite you on the ass, and assume you'll recognize them as answers.

But watch me when I do engage in commerce with clerks who are idiots: I have no time for them, not that I ever did have much patience. What I have now is an answer for, could you wait a few minutes? Not today, not this week. The toxins running through my veins have me in their grip. I am in thrall to what will one day be considered as suitable to cure cancer as mercury once was to cure syphilis.

I pull off my cotton cap, show my scalp, and say, "No. Don't have the time. And unless you have cancer, you won't, don't, can't understand me, so lay off the platitudes." It may seem cruel, but if there is one time in my life when it truly is all about me, this is it. Everyone I know who has been on this cruel dance floor has traced the same choreography.

Lymphoma focuses what is left of the mind in a position sharper than its ever been before. The rest of the brain cells are off on a sojourn somewhere I can't find them. I have to cling to the ones that remain.

Minus my thymus; au revoir Haiti

To recap: the thymus gland lies beneath the breastbone in the middle of one's chest. It is considered a lymph gland, not an endocrine one. Meaning, that, for a child and a teenager, this is the go-to spot for generating immune cells.

For the average adult, this gland is vestigial, about as useful as an appendix or tonsils. For me, however, the smoker's lung scan I had in Jan. 2007 -- which insurance/"medical benefits" didn't pay for -- gave a point of comparison with the CAT scan I had in September. Net result? Gland had doubled in size.

Getting to the CAT scan was easy: I went to Dr. Training Bra, aka Baby Doc, my 12-year-old insurance doctor ("in network") for a smoker's cough late last August. She took a chest X-ray and sent me for the CAT scan. And that was as far as she went.

Baby Doc, as you may have recently heard, since the Haiti I know and love was turned on its side last week, was a not-very-bright dictator who ruled that country during many of my years there. Like Training Bra, he was totally incompetent.

But Haiti was relatively calm, and open for business. Given the political structure, as long as you knew who to pay off, you were good to go. Since Baby Doc's forced (U.S. aided) departure in 1986, no one has known who is in charge for more than half a minute or so.

I'm afraid all the well-meaning aid in the world can't fix Haiti's problems. Rebuild? That would assume infrastructure that never existed in the first place.

Forget democracy: start with potable water, food, and shelter. I don't care who is running the show; I just care that the show runner is consistent. Although I'm hoping for a step up from Training Bra, whose consistent mien was inattentive, bordering on awful, and who demonstrated a less than active interest in me, the patient.

Kyona Beach, Haiti: the last place I saw my father alive, some 19 years and 14 days ago. Four days from now will mark 19 full years since my father died.

CAT scan results, September 8: lungs are clear, but thymus growth indicates I may have lymphoma. The word is on the table then, although no one allowed me to ask questions about it -- or, at least, no one would listen and answer me. What I picked up on is, the radiologists' report says, send her for a PET scan.

Thus Catch 22 begins: Insurance won't pay for PET scan unless I have a cancer diagnosis; PET scan is the test that shows the abnormal cell activity indicating cancer is present. Logic here? Not so much. And Training Bra did not, as I explicitly asked her to to, advocate for me to get the insurance company on board with the test.

So I exit the mismanaged nightmare system to return to The Good Doctor, the internist who won't take my insurance but who actually gives a shit about me and my health. TGD sends me to a pulmonologist.

Lung man compares the CAT scan film/disk with the previous smoker's scan. While he does think the gland has to be removed, lymphoma doesn't make it onto his list of concerns.

A few weeks later, I meet the surgeon. He's got the social skills of an 8th grade boy. I'm hoping that his handiwork is on a much higher level. His office, at least, gets the PET scan approved while I am waiting to schedule thymus removal surgery. Like the docs before him, he thinks this thymus thing will be nothing.

I wait seven weeks for the PET scan. December 2, Surgeon removes thymus -- not laparoscopically as advertised, but through a five-inch incision in the middle of my chest. It will be six to eight weeks before the bone knits back together. Meanwhile, I also have small slashes across the edge of one breast: the failed attempt at laparoscopy.

Surgeon thinks thymus will be nothing all the way until the pathology report comes back from the lab December 11. When I go for the post-op checkup, finally someone voices what amplifies the down-the-rabbit-hole feeling I've been experiencing for two-plus months.

Yes, it's lymphoma, Surgeon says, not in the least bit concerned as to what that will mean to me. Oh, and here's an oncologist in the next office. My work is done. Surgeon appears to have no emotion whatsoever about what the pathology tells us. He doesn't even say, I'm sorry.

Nor does he concede in the office that he thought the growth was benign, which is what he told my mom and one of The Three Sisters after finishing my surgery. Post-op, Surgeon doesn't seem the least bit empathic or sympathetic or to have any emotion whatsoever about what the pathology tells us. As my mom would say, "fuck him. Or rather, don't."

Surgeon has no answer for why the water in one of New York's better hospitals is not potable. Nor has he an answer for why the hospital was unable to supply one of my medications and I needed to bring it from home.

Nor does he check to see that the resident who let me go knew how to write a prescription: she wrote for ZERO pills. Were I not astute at proofreading, that would have been an ugly drugstore showdown.

Possibly the worse part of the do-it-yourself hospital experience was that if I hadn't learned to disconnect the monitor that measured the oxygen in my blood, I would have gotten even less sleep than I did. (The monitor, it seems, was not hooked up to the nursing station.)

In Haiti, I grew up brushing my teeth with an inch of bottled water in a glass. In what used to be called the Third World, that is par for the course. To find out that the hospital in upper Manhattan required the same course of action was a surprise. To me, if you can't drink the water, you damn well better have palm trees and a beach.

I return to TGD, diagnosis in hand. Within an hour she has found an oncologist who is well respected as a hematologist and he can see me the next day at 9:20 am. Not my time of day, she knows, but at this point, who cares.

Enter Dr. W., the recommended oncologist I like, in as much as I'm going to like one. I can't bear to go for another opinion; I have had doctors and tests filling my weeks since September.

So: I have non-Hodgkin's large diffuse B cell lymphoma. As cancers go, it is common as dirt, and it is one of the "good" cancers. Sure, like second place in the beauty contest in the yellow Community Chest cards.

What's good is, I'm at stage 2: very curable, with standard chemo protocol. I don't need the specialization of the cancer factory at Sloan Kettering. I can stay with Dr. W. and have my treatments in his office. I don't have to go to a hospital just to get the poisons that will save me "infused" into my body. Infused. One hell of a word choice, one of many in the new lexicon.

I feel like a Vietnamese town during the war: we must destroy the village in order to save it. Didn't make sense when I was 10; doesn't make any more sense now. But there's the metaphor and that is how it applies.

Thus far, I've had round one of chemo. So far, no major nausea or other side effects. However, the toxins have just started to work. I'm told by day 10 or 12, my hair will start to go. That hair I spent two years tending like the back 40.

Sure, it grows back: but still, the idea of lifting my hand to my head and hair just flying through my fingers is an experience I dread. And yes, I bought a wig -- from the store that refers to these items as "she" and "her."

Not having received the memo telling me that English has gendered nouns, I want to say, "IT. IT. IT. It is an object." But wigville is another stop I never anticipated. I am learning a new language every day, one that I hope you, any and all, will never need to learn.

It may help you to know that my mother, after hearing my diagnosis, brought over a box of chicken soup mix for me. She and kitchens are not on good terms, and the last time, probably the only time, she made chicken soup from scratch was the night my father had a fatal heart attack in 1991. Culinary expertise and my mom don't go hand in hand. For us, soup is black comedy, not cure-all.

Discussions in the chemo lounge are fragmented, scary: some tell their entire stories, from diagnosis into X number of rounds of treatment. Exact diagnoses are volunteered; it is rude to ask. Some in the room have no hair. Some may have wigs, though I am not yet expert at distinguishing them.

I know one thing: if you lose (not that misplaced is exactly the proper term here) your hair and get a wig, it must have bangs, because you no longer have a nature hairline. I have not had bangs since I was 6. Right now, I'm just hoping I won't look like a Hasidic woman who has shaved her hair for her husband.

My mom offered to shave her head in solidarity with me, and then to wear a wig. If she cannot go though treatments in my stead, she wants me to know how much she would if she could. I tear up every time I consider the offer, but I have pointed out, Mom, we're not those kind of Jews.

People say, at least you have your sense of humor. I wonder: without it, how would I survive? My illness is drenched in irony, and that is the costume in which I suspect I will navigate the next several months. It is the only one I know. Here's hoping it helps.

Hair story, part 2

Turns out I need the ponytail after all. My medical odyssey has just begun. I've fired the doc-in-a-box employed by mismanged nightmare, and found some M.D.s who are knowledgeable and care about patients. The prognosis is good, but I am tired. Right now, I'm going to take a nap, and this blog is going on hiatus. Wish me well.