"Mind you, they took a pint of puss out of that lovely young body of hers."

 me:  what happened? you ok?

 Tim: the dr cut me open

         with a scalpel and numbing spray, but it didnt do too much

         then he started squeezing out the pus

         it took almost 10 mintues to drain it all

         towards the bottom of it, there was a lot of pain

         it even forced me to scream and sweat

         then he said there were cysts

         he said that i may want to consider surgery to get them out

         but, he thought he could get them. however, it would be very painful

         so, he squeezed and worked a lot of the cyst out

 Tim: it was basically the same as a surgery, but he didnt put me under and there were no drugs.

 me:  holy shit

         that's insane

         seriously,

         how did that thing even get there?????????

         I could never have gone through that.

         how much puss came out?

 Tim: i dont know but they took a specimen to find out exactly what it was. they said they
          should know by monday when i have to go back and see how everything is going

          there was way more pus then you would even think bc it was hidden deep in there too

          when it shrunk, none of the pus left me, so it was probably enough to fill the big lump i had

 me:  whoa

         is it still a lump?

 Tim:i was screaming and sweating when he was doing it. im sure everyone there was freaked
         out there's nothing there really, except for a three inch incision that needs to be covered
         for a little while

 me:  whoa

         that's madness

         serious madness

 Tim:  it was a horrible pain. the scene probably looked pretty 19th century

           the only tools were a box of gauze, a scalpel, and the dr pulling shit out of my body

 me:  oh my God.

 Tim:  i feel better now though

 me:  was the doctor surprised about how big it had gotten?

 Tim:  yeah, he was shocked. the same nurse was there and she was horrified by the whole scene

         the dr said it was far from their daily routine
 me:  was the doctor freaked out

 Tim:  no, he kind of liked it

           i pointed that out and we both laughed about it

           then i told him "well, if you didnt think that was fun you wouldnt be a doctor"

           he admitted that that was true

 me:  this reminds me of Salinger in Zooey

         when Buddy is taking the plane to Florida to get Seymour's body, and he is behind a veil, 
         crying hysterically on the airplane.

         as the plane was about to land, he overhears this well-to-do woman, in this upper class
         Boston accent,
         "Mind you, they took a pint of puss out of that lovely young body of hers."

         And Buddy got off the plane smiling when he met Seymour's awful wife, Muriel, and she
         was dressed like the Bereaved Widow, and he was wearing the Wrong Expression.

         But he was the one that was really mourning, even though it was all wrong.

 Tim:  that sounds very similar

 me:  I don't think there is any other way to extract so much puss without being archaic.

 Tim:  i dont think so either. the most painful part was the cyst

           i got myself a cookie afterwards as a reward

 me:  what kind of cookie?

 Tim: oatmeal raisin from circle k. i also got you an orange vitamin water bc they had them in
          stock

 me:  man, you're sweet.

 Tim:  not as sweet as you

on humanness and symbols.

this has been one insanely tough week. aside from everything else that's keeping me busy, i'm really worried about Tim. a few weeks, ago, Tim noticed a tightness in his arm pit and then a lump started to develop. I tried and tried to get him to go to a doctor, but he wouldn't. he was in such excruciating pain, that finally, at 1a on Wednesday, he said he would go to the doctor. he saw two doctors, and neither would touch the lump or tell him anything, so they sent him to the hospital and told him that he may have to stay there. that made me scared, so I cancelled my classes, made Tim a bag lunch, and went there too. he had a sonogram, and they ruled out a blood clot / anurism, but they discovered that it is his lymph nodes. he took a blood test, and we left, but then they called him an hour later and had him take two more blood test in the cancer unit. we are still waiting for the results. all we know is that hopefully it's an infection, but he has a lot of white blood cells in his blood stream, which scares me because he has all of the signs of lymphoma. he's not eating, he's itchy, he has headaches, and his lymph nodes are the size of a gold ball. hopefully, it's just an infection and it will go away with antibiotics, but we still don't know. all these signs are the signs of cat scratch feveer too, but without knowing anything, I can't make a plan, so I feel vulnerable, and I can't deal with that.

this whole time, he tells me he's okay; he smiles and pretends to be okay, but his eyes are heavy and he's dizzy, and it makes me cry because I am so worried. ever since we got married, I wake up in the morning sometimes and think I dreamed Tim. and I'm scared; that feeling terrifies me now. he's not himself, and I don't know what to do to make it better. I don't know what to do at all. Tim says it is the pain killers and the antibiotic that he is on, but I always think the worst, and I know it is something I have to stop doing. Tim says I do it because I've never felt protected, not even when I was small. even if this is the worst thing ever, Tim just sees it as something to overcome. nothing defeats him. he laughs and says that if he ever felt defeated, then he would have never have gone after me. and that makes me cry because I can't imagine that. and he makes me feel better.

when Tim and I first started dating, I would have panic attacks. I've never let myself be attached to someone before, and I knew Tim was that someone it would happen with, and it scared me. I didn't want to lose myself, but what actually happened it that I was able to grow as a person, become more centered and more versatile, which led me back to writing. never once have I ever thought about losing Tim. he's been that larger than life figure for me, until this moment. and now I look at him, and I know he's human. knowing that he's human is putting me into a tailspin.  I know that sounds nuts, but think about it. we meet people we fall madly in love with, and even in that suspended state, even if that state is for years and years, we never think about the other's humanness. we think about our own; we think about our appearance, our appeal, our health, our dreams; we consider the other's desires, needs, body, mind, heart, but we never think about being human. right now, when I look at Tim and I talk to him and touch him, I think about him being human and me being human. I think about the things I've lost before and didn't love so much and how bad those things hurt, then I start to memorize things about Tim, things I already know by heart; I catch myself memorizing things as not to forget, like they won't happen again, and I have to go to my closet for a minute and breathe and find my center and remember my perception is not the truth. but still.  

when I came home from work today, a baby turtle left the big lake behind my apartment and was going to the parking lot, and when he hit the curb, he flipped on his back, and he couldn't flip back over. so when I came home and parked, I screamed because I thought he was dead because he was being eaten by a million fire ants. be he was being eaten alive. his little legs were flailing everywhere, so I flipped him over and he ran, and I ran upstairs to get a pitcher of water to get the ants off of him. I went back, in no more than 25 seconds, and looked for him. I looked for him for 15 minutes and couldn't find him anywhere. I went back inside. it's been thundering and lightening for an hour, but there is still no rain. that poor turtle is doing something, but there is no water. I drowned the ants that we left after he ran, but there was nothing else I could do. and it's still not raining. I told Tim I think this is a symbol. he says everything is a symbol, especially if you're looking for them.