Year: 2007

Birthday Report:

There were bike lights and books, chocolate and assorted other special treats. My main gift was a a Walkman phone. I’ve never owned a mobile worth stealing before; this will be interesting.

Since it is my very own I will be able to download a specialized misery mix tape to take along on journeys instead of making do with a borrowed iPod!

Amy Joy called to sing a birthday song in Dutch. Gordon called from SF. There were text and email messages from all over the world. Byron prompted a few of my friends to get in touch, but most remembered on their own, for the first time ever.

There was even a card from my father – who has never previously known the day or year of my birth! Some messages straggled in late, but almost everyone I care about got in touch.

We went to a restaurant for sushi and I made a cake:

Later in the evening the children were both busy with and waved vaguely when I headed to the pub to see friends.

Several lovely people turned up to wish me well in this strange new age. Talk around the table inevitably turned toward the relative merits of Cambridge, and a persistent desire (felt by everyone in the group, perhaps most acutely by yours truly) to move to London.

Jean asserted that Cambridge can grow on a person if you give it four, five, six years…. Hmm.

Grow like moss? Dry rot? Living in this town is a lot like spending your whole life in a doctors waiting room.

I have lots of friends and like the place, but I still yearn for city life. I grew up in a small town and I’ve been looking for anonymity ever since. I told him he was promoting revisionist history, particularly since he has keys to a flat in London.

Byron and Jean decided to be frat boys and practiced for a good long time:

I told many of my favorite stories to friends who had never heard them before (and in the case of Coffey or Nikolai, perhaps did not anticipate the extent of the potential chaos when agreeing to have drinks in a pub).

Sally decided to cause trouble and there weren’t many opportunities on offer so she convinced the boys playing music in the front of the pub to drag me up on their makeshift stage for birthday wishes.

She said I know you might stop talking to me-

I interrupted to say Oh no, I’ll do something worse!

But it still happened over my protests.

I stood with my arms crossed as the band sang Rocky Raccoon and my friends clustered in front, laughing uproariously. I wondered if the song was a good omen or poor, given my history. One of the musicians took a photo on his mobile phone and shouted at the crowd Who has Bee’s number?

Of course, nobody in the crowd did; my anti-telephone habit is still deeply entrenched even if I have been practicing.

Jean drawled That is a novel way to get a girl’s number!

The next day my mother arrived to celebrate my birth and spend time with her grandchildren; we had a lovely dinner and then I had to dash off to London to do interviews. I went out for another birthday dinner with Iain, Xtina, and Susan.

Then of course drinks with David, who knew me at age thirteen and continues to amuse and amaze. I showed him one of the UK book jackets (there will be more than one – that is another story altogether) featuring a photo of me as a troubled youth, complete with slashed eyelid – though everyone who looks at it now insists they can’t see the scar.

The whole table cooed over the image but I said Would you want a photograph of yourself at seventeen staring out from store shelves?

David laughed and agreed with me. Though I do agree that it is a good cover.

Dinner with the East London Massive was predictably hilarious. One of the crew hit on the waitress, who invented a boyfriend on the spot. We took bets on her accent and nobody guessed correctly: Baltimore! I put my hands on my cheeks and said Lots of my favorite people live there. I love your Christmas lights!

The youngsters kept ordering alcohol in sets of three – wine, beer, and cocktails. I am too wise for such antics but somehow they managed to get me to drink two glasses of something orange, on the pretext of toasting….. whatever we’re celebrating this week.

At four in the morning I crawled into a hotel bed, knowing that I would have to be in a taxi dashing to the airport at six – and that I had not yet packed.

Now I’m in the south of France with no plans to do anything at all for an entire week. Holidays have never suited me but I have high hopes that I can learn.

This birthday was the twenty-fourth anniversary of my terminal cancer diagnosis.

I am so incredibly lucky.

One evening my grown-up child said in passing I don’t know why you get all the cool friends. You don’t even try and they flock to you!

I facetiously asserted that it might be my charm and social graces but she knows that I have only vestigial skills and just rolled her eyes. I asked her to expound on the subject.

You just want me to say more inflammatory things so you can write it down. It isn’t hard to get in that notebook if I’m being rude!

True. But I coaxed her for an explanation of how I manage to know so many people. She continued:

You are a good planner – a pillar of hope. You are a hot mama and lots of people want to sleep with you. You are very self-confident and people are drawn to that. You are loud and talkative with people you know, and quiet and mysterious with everyone else. You are the kind of person people want to get close to.

I argued that I am in fact prickly and difficult and she replied If you were a teacher at my school all the kids would love you. Even if you were mean!

She is the only person who was honest enough to admit that the most recent cancer scar aged my face by five years. I suppose that her points might be valid – even though they do not reflect the version of myself playing in my own head. I’ll have to ponder her comments.

Then we were bored and wandered into the city centre to take photographs of British food we find puzzling:

Last night I met David at Quaglinos for drinks. We told many scathing stories of the Green Hell (as Mash always called the area of the county where we grew up). He can’t really pronounce the name of his own hometown after something like thirteen years in the UK; nowadays it sounds like Ooh-la-la on his tongue.

The other people at the table laughed in wonderment, asserting more than once that the tales could not possibly be true. But they are.

At some point I spread my arms and said We weren’t raised for this – meaning not only the fancy bar, or swanky hotels, or travels through Europe. Not just the material security, fantastic jobs, wild adventures.

David said We weren’t raised to have aspirations.

This is true; we were not even told there was something elsewhere to desire.

Later in the midst of one of my more cracked anecdotes I tossed off the aside That was before I decided to be friendly, charming, and have feelings and one of my companions stopped me.

That, he said, should be the title of your next book!

This week I have the first UK interviews for the book, leading to a predictable fashion emergency. My agent said that I should wear my lucky dress (even for phone interviews). Iain seconded the vote for that dress, or anything with cleavage:

I was still dithering but Mark Mitchell said Wear a dress you silly lady. They are your trademark.

Since he has mighty style powers I followed his advice, pulling out the green dress Sheila chose for me last summer:

Why I need a committee to organize an outfit is a mystery, and also a new phenomenon. I’ve never allowed anyone to influence my costume choices, let alone shop with me, fuss over me in a dressing room, or select my wardrobe. My mother reports I never even let her choose my clothes as an infant.

The other night Byron asked Did you expect to live this long?

I replied Of course not. Did you think I would?

Byron: No.

Me: Really?

Byron: Nope.

The phone rang at the stroke of midnight and birthday wishes continue to arrive from near and far.

I’m now officially thirty-six, a number with a square root!

A package from Ana just arrived! I think that it was meant for Christmas but nobody ever remembers my birthday so I’ll save the presents to open on Sunday.

The note inside read in part This paltry present is my attempt to thank you for all that you have done for me — the recommendation letter, Seattle, etc…. Did I tell you the title of my next novella is Triple XXXmas?

Our hunt for bad boys and lumberjacks was hilarious; I would not have predicted that so many interesting friendships and projects would be derived from that strange week.

Recently one of my motorist friends realized that I have assorted bad habits related to bicycling and extracted a promise that I would rectify my wicked ways. I put off any changes until this weekend as I predict that my birthday presents will all be cycling related.

But the pledge did haunt me, and I noticed various things: I cycle fast on slippery surfaces, cycle when fog and rain mist my glasses and obscure the landscape, cycle at night dressed all in black without lights (or a bell).

My pragmatic brain evaluated the risk and realized that an accident was imminent. Though I was also extremely impressed that I have evolved from fearful to fearless. I am now my father’s daughter, reckless beyond reason.

This afternoon I was waiting to meet my kid and pondering the whole issue of bike safety. When the boy arrived I greeted him and turned to wheel away, not noticing that my left leg was next to a short wooden boundary post.

The spikes on my pedal caught the back of my leg, the post the front, and the velocity of the bicycle moving started a precipitous tumble face first into the road.

My mind raced through potential injuries and definite humiliation and I threw my body backwards, hyper-extending my knee and gouging the lower leg between metal and wood.

At least I didn’t fall.

The fact that I very calmly continued the journey indicated that the injury was serious. I never react to physical pain.

I couldn’t tell for a few hours if the bone was broken, but decided that if it bore weight there was no reason to go to the hospital. My uneducated self-diagnosis is that I ripped some muscles and probably sprained my ankle.

My knee is making this very interesting grinding sound whenever I move. I didn’t quite know what to do but then remembered the advice of various people over the years, and started popping Arnica.

It is difficult to scramble up and down a steep riverbank when one leg is not cooperating.

Funny that my inevitable cycling accident happened in daylight, while walking down a sidewalk.

Today I had a highly amusing telephone conversation with Byron, who is attempting to sort out a travel schedule that is growing ever more complex.

I am only responsible for my kid fifty percent of the time, and all of the spring has been strictly blocked off for my work. Byron has to somehow figure out childcare so he can go to Paris, Zurich, and Seattle. Not to mention hosting all of the visiting researchers.

I predict it will be quite difficult for him to pull this one off.

Mark Mitchell has been trying to tempt me back to the states but I really do need to be here for the book launch and various interesting literary events.

Though I just bought tickets to go to the French Riviera in an attempt to escape this terrible dark month, because that will be my last opportunity to leave the country until NYC in April. Knowing that I am stuck here for a long stretch of time makes me feel claustrophobic.

I’m just a working class kid from a sketchy small town. I really do not know how all of this happened.

Walking through the city centre we encountered a friend who did not come to Thanksgiving because he was felled by seasonal depression. He reported that he feels much better now; his run of bad luck is in the early winter, when it is darker around here.

Byron pointed to me and merrily said She is just starting – sometimes it gets so bad she is suicidal!

It is true: I am grief-stricken this time of the year. I’ve done everything possible to fix the problem, and I am substantially less moody than past years, but winter is not my season.

There is a physical element, as cold weather is literally intolerable. My body shuts down at a certain temperature and I can’t recover unless I take very hot baths, which isn’t possible on the boat. I can’t fly away to a hot climate because of course sunlight is forbidden (summer is also a treacherous season, but at least I can go out at night).

However: I don’t really mind the crushing sadness, as I often figure out something important when forced to slow down. Reflecting on my life is not a daily indulgence in the spring or fall.

In the past this has taken the form of digging around in my experiences growing up with cancer. For some reason this winter is all about relationships, and the various ways that I have failed to understand commonplace reality.

Another change this year is that various friends have written to check on me, and a few have even called – and I have been talking about my feelings. This is a new phenomenon as I have never been surrounded by people who tried to take care of me, or if anyone tried I flatly rejected the overture.

Instead I always chose confidants who expected and reinforced my toughness. One example: Byron, while rock solid in all matters medical and practical, simply does not care to listen. He takes the position that I should get over it.

Today I prompted him to ask how I am feeling and he replied No. You are an adult. Deal.

Of course this made me laugh.

Other than sleeping too much the main side-effect of my depression is a tendency to wallow in popular culture, which is anathema to my normal routine. Yesterday while wandering around I bought a Neil Diamond cd – and that is the least embarrassing music on constant repeat on the laptop.

I’ve also gone out to the movies or rented videos every night, which is definitely outside the normal routine. When I bought a ticket to see Casino Royale it was clear I had officially exhausted the available cinema options in this small town.

There are probably many critiques to be offered about the movie but I’ve never seen another Bond film. The only substantial thing I took away from the viewing was a hunch that the killers I’ve loved are more charismatic and attractive than the current 007.

I reviewed mental files and a few photographs and decided that my hunch was accurate. I thought too bad they chose a different career path.

Then I noticed that I had evaluated someone based on physical appearance. That has never happened before. How peculiar.

The evening started at eight when Rachel texted Call me!

I picked up the phone and dialed. She was startled almost speechless and then scrambled out a bunch of information about where and when to meet. That was immediately, in the town centre, and I was still in my pajamas so had to rush to make it in time to have drinks with Jean and Peter.

We ate some sushi, then walked over to Rosie’s house where we proceeded to drink far too much champagne over jolly conversations with academics and the occasional visiting sibling.

When it was time to depart for the next party the whole house followed us to Sidney Sussex, where I had an invitation to a party – though not necessarily accompanied by twelve party crashers. Nikolai was surprised but gracious and I wandered around, chatted with Magnus, brokered an arranged marriage, had a highly entertaining conversation with a town planner, and drank too much red wine.

The youngsters were extremely well-behaved, presumably because there were actual grown-ups present (in the form of professors and department chairs), which was interesting to observe.

My behavior does not change based on whether or not a figure of authority is present, no matter how critical that person might be to my career. In fact, historically I have misbehaved in those situations.

The pub down below has closed so there was no repeat of the police drama of last year. Sitting on the window sill with Rachel, the word modernity was casually used by someone or other and Anil said Isn’t that a tautology?

I replied I refuse to debate vocabulary with computer scientists!

But he requested a definition of postmodernism and Rachel delivered a swift and concise lecture, cigarette in one hand and glass of wine in the other, teetering precariously next to an open second story window.

Conversations about love and treachery caused a person who knows the country to say Life is like a road in Afghanistan. There are many twisting turns and you never know what will be around the next corner.

A Russian woman explained that in her country the custom is not to make resolutions, but rather to make a secret wish, that you must not talk about even if it comes true. I told her that I did in fact get my wish for 2006, and refrained from commenting that the cliche be careful what you wish for proved painfully true.

The party emptied out in the wee morning hours and we followed Rachel to a borrowed flat one floor up, where we met Jean and Peter, who had been drinking absinthe all night.

There was much hilarious drunken chatter and then it was time to cycle toward the river at dawn. 2007 started auspiciously, laughing with friends.

I did not make a secret wish.

Happy New Year!