Instead of doing something that makes sense for a person of a writerly persuasion and, oh, writing a bunch of things about the massive changes in my life over the last four months, I’m gonna catch you up to right now (because, oh trust me, right now is a Pretty Big Fucking Deal overall) with a timeline done in an annoying ‘100 things about me’ style.
Here we go!
1) My estranged father called me from Nashville in mid-July telling me he’d be there the next day.
2) I spent the whole of that day Losing My Shit before deciding, all zen-like, that I’m happy with who I am and screw anybody who didn’t think I was enough, even if they were the lender of half my genetic material.
3) That visit went well. Remarkably well.
4) In August, through twisty-turny strangeness, my job came to an end.
5) Both my boss and I cried, admitted we didn’t understand why this was happening, but that it was supposed to happen.
6) He made the transition from paycheck every week to no paycheck every week pretty comfortable for me, all in all.
7) That first day I was out of work, Maxim texted me one word: “FREEDOM!!!”
8 ) I began to set my sights on writing and making art as a means to, you know, feed the people that live in my house.
9) I just so happened to win a full pass to the Summit of Awesome put on yearly by Hello Craft.
10) It was held in Baltimore.
11) I had about twenty-five bucks in my checking account when I won the pass.
12) My father was diagnosed with an aggressive, inoperable lung cancer.
13) I knew the whole ‘reunited comfortably’ thing would have a catch.
14) Oh Universe, you’re sofa king cute.
15) Through a timely combination of some small miracles and some people’s generosity, I got to go to Maryland.
16) I got to sit down with a couple of really savvy, really influential people and pick their brains.
15) I came back motivated as fuck.
16) So far, so good, but I’m not where I need to be by a long shot.
17) I’m getting my ducks in a row and hanging out my ‘official’ shingle soon.
18) Until then, I’d like to announce that I am your girl if you need a writer or editor. Plus some other things. I’m good at lots of things, I swear. Just ask me.
19) OH MY GOD, HIRE ME.
20) My father decided that chemo was a no-go for him and that he’d like to try the homeopathic/naturopathic route toward ridding himself of cancer.
21) His oncologist pissed him off by pushing-pushing-pushing him to start chemo yesterday.
22) He told his oncologist to never contact him again.
23) My sisters immediately called me to shriek and to rally me toward Bossing my father.
24) I opted to tell them to mind their own business and to support the man’s right to live OR die how he saw fit.
25) I’m not The Boss of that man. Nobody is, really.
26) Everyone decided to make nice and let our father go about this cancer business in his own way.
27) Fancypants herbs and complex teas, it is!
28) Life rocked on for a minute or two.
29) I worked on BlogWorld Expo’s Virtual Ticket in the fall. It was a cool gig.
30) In case you do indeed want to HIRE ME, HIRE ME NOW, I have swell references from that whole deal.
31) My Etsy businesses, Pretty Gritty Things and 256 Eclectica, started gaining steam.
32) Commission work! Steady sales! I may not have to panic about money after all, right?
33) My father came down and brought a trailer full of tools and materials.
34) We collected even MORE materials, salvaged from various sources.
35) We went down to Butch Anthony’s farm on Poorhouse Road to build a shack for the 2012 Doo-Nanny.
36) It’s most of the way finished. I still have to put some siding boards on, but I can’t wait for you to see it.
37) I have an art shack at the Doo! It’s gonna be called Story House. I have some ideas on how to finish it out.
38) Scout had her gall bladder out. Goodbye, carefully-saved Christmas funds. Hello, Scout’s comfort.
39) Life is never dull. NEVER dull.
40) There was some peace. There was a little bit of quiet.
41) My father wanted all us girls to go to Missouri for Thanksgiving.
42) Most of us did.
43) I spent the first Thanksgiving ever since we were married away from Maxim.
44) I did not like it, but it was a necessary evil.
45) He got all sorts of cool stuff done around the house in my and the children’s absences.
46) Hmmmm, I may have to consider this leaving-on-Thanksgiving thing again.
47) The visit was AMAZING.
48) I learned that I have two cousins that are published authors and one great-grandaddy who was a bootlegger.
49) (I fucking well KNEW we had one of those in the family somewhere!)
50) Missouri roads are swoopy and well-maintained and just basically fun to drive.
51) I got a ticket on the way home.
52) I won a scratch-off for one-quarter of the ticket’s value on a bathroom stop shortly thereafter, so there’s that.
53) I unpacked, slept a couple of nights and then re-packed.
54) I went with three really amazing writerly people to my Delta homeland.
55) As I predicted to myself, there were ghosts waiting for me there.
56) ….but there were stirrings, too.
57) And laughter. Holy Ghost and the Father also, what laughter.
58) My soul got shook. I won’t speak for anyone else’s.
59) (but theirs did too, der)
60) My brain was set to ‘fog’ for a week upon my return….but not in a necessarily bad way, see?
61) I decorated the Christmas tree.
62) My father called.
63) He talked of going out west for a few weeks.
64) Two weeks prior he’d said firmly, “No more road trips for me. I smoke more and I don’t stay as rigidly to my program when I’m away from home.”
65) I understood.
66) ….so when he talked of going to Nevada for a month or so, something started to not feel right.
67) Other things he said also tripped wires on my insides.
68) I asked pointed questions back to back.
69) He had no time to dance around them nor wriggle out from under them.
70) “Do what you want,” I said, “but I’m going to respectfully insist that you get the second scan you promised us girls before you get on the road.”
71) He was going to drive out there, you see; never mind his waning health or the potential for things to take a turn for the sudden worse.
72) He got the scan.
73) I saw it.
74) It is the sort of thing that makes you go, ‘Fuuuuuuuhhhhhhck.’
75) Impressive yet terrifying, I guess is the apt decscriptor?
76) He told me not to come.
77) “Not time,” he said, promising to tell me when it was indeed ‘time’.
78) Psh. Yeah, right.
79) Likewise, he told my sisters not to come.
80) Fuck what that fool says: I’m grown and I do what I want.
81) My whole family came in for Christmas.
82) It was a grand time, what with my parents and all the kids there.
83) For the first time in twenty-five years, I didn’t bake a single Christmas cookie.
84) My heart was seized.
85) I tried and tried and tried to bootstrap some Christmas spirit.
86) Didn’t happen.
87) No, you don’t understand the profundity of this: I am an ay-number-one Christmas dork.
88) Christmas Day was beautiful and peaceful and rich.
89) My aunt called, Don’t wait to come. Come now.
90) I met my baby sister in St. Louis a week ago.
91) We went out and got shitfaced.
92) Dear Tony the Hotel Shuttle Driver, Thanks so much for your patience and understanding and also stopping at Schnuck’s so that two drunk girls could shop for breakfasty foodstuffs. Love, Jett
93) The next day my Uncle Ron fetched us from the big city.
94) My father cried upon seeing us.
95) That was only the third time I’ve ever seen him cry in my whole life.
96) He patted me for the first half-hour we were here.
97) He started chemo.
98) We are caring for him in whatever manner we can, in any which way he will allow .
99) He’s starting to feel terrible physically.
100) We are in this Cancer Bubble, my father, my sister, and me.
And that’s the last four months in as brief a fashion as I know how to convey them. Now you’re up to speed. Now I can start writing here about all these things. Lord knows I’ve been writing everydamnwhere else about them.