Bonk

I didn't get nearly enough sleep last night, so I was a bit startled when I checked my running time this morning. I did 3.2 miles in a little more than 27 minutes, or an average of 8:32/mile. Which, for most of the world, is slightly faster than a trot, but for me, was blazing.

Got to the gym and read the New Yorker on the bicycle. Very good article on commuting in America. During my last tour in A Loathsome East Coast City, I generally drove about four miles to a train station. Because of traffic, the drive took me -- on a good day -- 20 minutes. Then I took a train to a subway stop. The train took about an hour and five minutes. Then I took the subway stop about three or four stops down, to a stop about three blocks from work. That took 10 minutes on a good day. Finally, I walked the three blocks (stopping at Starbucks for coffee and scone).

General commuting time? One hour, 45 minutes. One way.

After I swam a half-mile, I was changing in the locker room and got into a conversation with one of the local retirees. Turned out we'd both lived in Another Loathsome East Coast City. Agreed the commute is not something to be missed.

And it is indeed a good thing that I didn't have to commute today. After getting back from the gym, I figured I'd start working early and maybe finish early. Quite the concept? The "starting early" part of the plan went well. Around noon, I wandered downstairs and sat on the bed to take my shoes off.

Bad move.

The next thing I remember is waking up around 1:30 pm and saying oh, shit!

I'm guessing I'm not getting off 30 minutes early today. But working out of the house is strange like that. I'll work -- solidly -- 10 hours today and feel guilty about the hour and a half nap, even though an awful lot of folks would look at an hour and a half and think ... lunch.

I know. Rationalize, much?

The Doonesbury saga continues. There's a word for this person: Tourist.


I meant to post this yesterday:

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Lauren Terrazzano Life, With Cancer

Focusing on present matters the most

April 10, 2007
'Two to three months," the doctor said, almost reluctantly, when I finally posed the question. That's eight to twelve weeks. Sixty to 90 days. Or 2,160 hours, if you want to get right down to it.

I don't know what possessed me to ask the oncologist how long I have left. In the nearly three years I've been battling this disease, I've never asked for my prognosis. I hate that word. But my body has betrayed me lately, more than usual. I've had a rough couple of weeks, with news of my cancer spreading, new blood clots, and fluid buildup in my abdomen, which has made it difficult to breathe.

There seem to be no more weapons left in the arsenal. Chemo is no longer an option; nothing seems to work. I've had so much surgery I feel like the Bionic Woman: "We can rebuild her." But with each operation, it has been harder and harder, quite frankly, to rebuild me.

Whether the oncologist is right, no one knows. These white-coated mortals do their best and make their best guesses based on data and statistics and other cases. But death, like life, is not a precise science. Only fate knows. What I know for certain is that I am 39. I have seen people like my grandfather live simple but happy long lives. He died when he was 93. On the opposite end, in my job as a reporter, I have seen 3-year-olds die at the hands of abusive parents. Nothing really makes sense when it comes to death.

Still, I was hoping you wouldn't notice the recent absence of my column; I was wrong. Apparently there are more readers out there than my parents and my husband. I didn't want to tackle this subject in this space. I had more cerebral, complicated topics in mind. Like the most recent controversial study surrounding the benefits of early CT scan screening for lung cancer, or the recent, sickening push by one tobacco company to market its traditionally male-oriented brand of cigarette to young women. I hope to eventually get to those topics.

Eventually - what a luxurious word. For some reason, talking about my latest news seems so self-pitying and morose. But I've been pretty honest about the disease from the beginning, and it seemed dishonest not to write about this very real aspect of life. This life with cancer.

So if you are told you have two to three months, what do you do with your time?

There are avenues I've left unexplored, things that have gone unsaid to certain people that I will always regret. There's a hut in the Florida Keys or the South Pacific that my husband and I will probably never see. A trip to Italy with friends before my 40th birthday to re-create, at least a little bit, my junior year abroad.

No, I am not headed to Italy, and I am unsure of where to go from here. The key, I guess, to living at this moment, is just to keep things as normal as possible, for as long as possible. This means getting up in the morning, going for a walk, trying to work and trying to write.

If things end, and there is a heaven, I will have a drink with JFK Jr. and thwack him on the head for flying that night in the fog, the night his plane crashed.

If there is a hell and I happen to end up there, I hope to meet the man who invented the tape that keeps your IV in place. I will proceed to wrap him in it, like a mummy, and then peel it off. Slowly. I hope he is very hairy.

But that doesn't matter right now. What matters is the present moment. Not two to three months. Or two to three years. Or two to three hours. Just now.

Email: lauren.terrazzano@newsday.com

Anything I'd have to say after that would seem pretty trite.