Sassistas! Our dish on the social soup.

The Emperor

Over the weekend, Flannista finally finished The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee.  It took five months.  Normally it doesn't take me so long to complete a book, but it is a detailed, complicated and ultimately eloquent story of a disease that humans have lived with -- and died from -- for more than five thousand years.  Although the first sentence of the book is: "This book is a history of cancer," the author writes in the same paragraph, that it is a biography of cancer in:

 . . . an attempt to enter the mind of this immortal illness, to understand its personality, to demystify its behavior. But my ultimate aim is to raise a question beyond biography: Is cancer's end conceivable in the future.  Is it possible to eradicate this disease from our bodies and societies forever?

Apparently not.  That is the book's stunning and sobering conclusion.  Here is the last sentence: "The question then will not be if we will encounter this immortal illness in our lives, but when."

There are many reasons for this, of course.  First, we are living longer and mutations in cancer genes accumulate with aging.  Two, many of us are lazy (or in denial or afraid of doctors) and do not have annual physicals, mammograms, pap smears or a colonoscopy beginning at age 50, etc.  Screenings such as these are key to catching cancer when it is most treatable.  Third, many of us do not eat properly and/or exercise regularly which keeps cancer at bay more than I realized.  Last, many of us are unaware of the harmful chemicals that humans continue to produce that can cause cancer, and/or we completely ignore the harm of smoking products which are unquestionably the number one cause of many cancers. (I write "smoking" rather than "tobacco" because thanks to the more sophisticated chemicals now lacing marijuana, its "smoke may be as harmful, or perhaps even more toxic, than tobacco smoke. Smoking two marijuana cigarettes causes as much airway damage as smoking 10 cigarettes.")  Needless to say, I won't be lighting up my annual birthday cigar this year.

Most striking about the book is the compassion Dr. Mukherjee has for his cancer patients and their fight to survive:

Cancer is not a concentration camp, but it shares the quality of annihilation: it negates the possibility of life outside itself and beyond itself; it subsumes all living. The daily life of a patient becomes so intensely preoccupied with his or her illness that the world fades away.  Every last morsel of energy is spent tending the disease . . . . The poet Jason Shinder wrote, "Cancer is a tremendous opportunity to have your face pressed right up against the glass of your mortality." But what patients see through the glass is not a world outside cancer, but a world taken over by it -- cancer reflected endlessly around them like a hall of mirrors.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, The Emperor of All Maladies is a riveting and urgent book. It did indeed help to demystify cancer for me, but it also reinforced that cancer seems inexorable, and once it catches someone, she or he will dodge "one blow only to be caught by another."  

Will this emperor ever be disrobed?  

Taking a Stand

All that I serve will die, all my delights,

the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field,

the silent lilies standing in the woods,

the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all

will burn in man's evil, or dwindle

in it own age.  Let the world bring on me

the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know

my little light taken from me into the seed

of the beginning and the end, so I may bow

to mystery, and take my stand on the earth

like a tree in a field, passing without haste

or regret toward what will be, my life

a patient willing descent into the grass.

-- "The Wish to be Generous" by Wendell Berry

May 2011 Open Mic

 

The sassosphere microphone is open, sistas and mistas.

Please step up and dish whatever you like.  We're listening.

The Sassistas! sponsor Open Mic the last Friday of every month.

 

Will it Ever Really End?

Flannista watched Oprah's Farewell Show yesterday.  Took notes and everything.  Even teared up at the end, undoubtedly for other reasons.  But she watched because the media had been telling everyone that it would be a major world event.

It was one final Oprah sermon, a review of Oprah lessons and Oprah-isms over the past 25 years.

A couple of times Oprah referred to her show as a "classroom" that had taught both her and her viewers a lot. She also called her show "my love letter to you" and "the great love of my life."  She then beseeched her viewers to remember:

• We are all called to something.  A calling lights you up.
• Live from the heart of yourself.
• What sparks the light in you can illuminate the world.
• The common connection is our human experience.
• Nobody but you is responsible for your life.
• You alone are enough.

Although she talked in more detail about "the energy" each of us brings to ourselves, each other and the world, she unmistakably reinforced her belief in a G-O-D (spelling it out) and referred to Jesus.  The last thing she said on stage before exiting was, "To God be the glory," though it was difficult not to think she was referring to herself, given the dramatic lighting and all.

Watching Oprah was never a habit for the Sassistas! (though Flannista subscribes to "O" magazine).  We have mixed feelings about her.  We're certain you do, too.

Why?

 

 

Sad News

Yesterday around noon, Flannista and PEACEsista received the following email from Gwendolyn:

Just got off the phone with my doc, and she had bad news for me. The tumors are progressing despite the new chemo. She feels that palliation is the ony treatment and gives me 6 months or less to live. Judging by what she said was on the CT, my bet is less.

I am going to try to finish editing my book, and finish getting my affairs in order. I want to thank you for your support and love, because in the end, love is all that matters.

We are heartbroken.

Sassy Sally

 

The Sassistas! would like to acknowledge and thank Justista for dishing today's sass.

The Public Interest Law Students held a charity auction in March. They auctioned off luncheons with professors, designer purses and two-night stays at a spa. The first item up for auction was a picture of a neon sign that reads, "Sassy." I saw it and bid way too much money for it because the sassosphere had to have it. Flannista has it now (pictured above, leaning against Flann's piano).

Sassy Sally's is one of the original downtown casinos, a little worse for wear but very proud. Sassy Sally herself is a neon girl who sits above the "Girls of Glitter Gulch" across from "Vegas Vic."  (See photos left.)  Sassy Sally unfortunately was renamed Vegas Vicky when downtown was remodeled. I still think of her as Sassy Sally, though. Even though she is ancient and some of her bulbs are burnt out she kicks her leg up there with attitude.

That's my girl.

EDITOR'S NOTE:  The Sassistas! love this objet d'art and thank Justista not only for buying it to raise money for charity, but also for sending it to SassistaLand East. Now all we need to do is open our own casino/bar.  

Speaking of which, what are some your favorite bars and why?

Leaping

When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap. -- Cynthia Heimel

Today, Flannista is taking a leap.

She is traveling to Amish country in Pennsylvania where tomorrow afternoon she will lead a team-building story-telling session at the annual conference of Hope International, an organization that provides micro-lending and basic business training to entrepreneurs in poverty-stricken areas of the world.  The conference is being held at a Mennonite center with modest accommodations (think bunk beds and community restrooms).  Pictured above are my session tools.

This is a leap for me for several reasons:

• I am afraid to drive, but I am driving alone three hours to get there (and three hours to get back).
• I know only one person; the development director who attended the Orlando story-telling workshop I conducted in March and with whom I've talked for a total of less than 15 minutes.
• I am donating my time and expertise.

As some of you know, in January, I got word that my TRM contract would likely not be renewed in January 2012. In response, I sent out a letter to a dozen beloveds who have known me for a very long time and/or whose professional expertise and personal advice I respected.  I didn't ask them for answers -- only for questions.  In the aggregate, these beloveds suggested that I ask myself what my passion was and focus on it first and foremost.  In all responses, money was a secondary consideration, if it was mentioned at all. 

Storytelling and teaching others how to tell their story have always been my passion. So today I drive . . . and leap . . . adjusting my wings as I learn to fly in a new way.

As I take off, I would love to hear about the leaps of whatever each of you has made in your own life. Thank you and deep bow.

Only Kindness

 

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. 
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

-- "Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye, from Words Under the Words

Rapturecalifragilistic

 

CAPTION, PLEASE (if you are still around).

 

The End is Near

As most of you know, today may be the last full day on earth for some of us (more of us will die over the next five months) because The Rapture is scheduled to begin tomorrow at 6 p.m. (the Sassistas! are assuming this is Eastern Standard Time).

Harold Camping, 89, an American evangelical broadcaster, "biblical scholar" and former civil engineer based in California has proclaimed that the world will face "Judgment Day" on May 21, 2011.  He has convinced thousands of followers that a "worldwide earthquake" will occur on this day, beginning a hellish period that will culminate with God Himself [sic] destroying the planet five months later.  Mr. Camping claims that these ideas are all found in the Bible.  According to his website:

On May 21, 2011 two events will occur. These events could not be more opposite in nature, the one more wonderful than can be imagined; the other more horrific than can be imagined.

A great earthquake will occur . . . This earthquake will be so powerful it will throw open all graves. The remains of all the believers . . . will be . . . glorified . . . the bodies of all unsaved people will be thrown out upon the ground to be shamed.

The inhabitants who survive this terrible earthquake will exist in a world of horror and chaos beyond description. Each day people will die until October 21, 2011 when God will completely destroy this earth and its surviving inhabitants.

Bummer.

Mr. Camping says he expects to stay close to a TV or radio to monitor the unfolding apocalypse.  Let's hope he has satellite TV.

What about you?  Earlier this week, Flannista contacted half-a-sista for some advice on how to cope with the pending doom. In an email, half-a responded:  "If you think there's a chance you may go to Heaven during the Rapture, avoid trees, overhangs, and being inside buildings tomorrow.  Stay in the open and away from power lines."

The Sassistas! spent some time talking about what we ought to do today, bein' that it's our last day and all. For example, what shall we prepare for our last meal, knowing that it will be the last one we will ever eat?

What would you do and/or eat if this was your last day on Earth?