One night a dozen or so friends gathered to celebrate a birthday. We were at Jaguar Shoes for a few hours and this year there were no ice throwing incidents, and (as far as I know) no sketchy hookups – mostly because the ratio of North American to British was skewed toward people who have passports in this nation.

Though someone did confide that they’d once had sex in the toilet at one of my parties; c’mon, people! Toilet sex is nasty in a bad way!

Later my glamorous and gorgeous literary agent aka Susan turned up and informed me that she has given up chastising me about work. I laughed and apologized for not earning her more money, before pointing out that my stuff is destined to remain forever underground. Lucky she likes me as a person, eh? Other agents would drop my contrary self but she just sighs and strokes my hair.

The bar was a crush of Shoreditch hipsters packed in so tight we took up a defensive position against one wall, where I was extremely pleased to catch up with Xtina. She is one of the only people I know who can listen to me rattle on about creepy medical procedures without being at all fazed – a rare and immeasurably valuable trait. Plus she is hilarious, hugely talented, and has the best hair ever. What more could you ask for in a friend?

Most of the group vanished around midnight, when D’s smoking hot Not Girlfriend (the “not” qualifier before girlfriend is his preferred description, emphasized with waving arms) showed up. There is a whole rash of this going around in my social world lately, and I remain puzzled.

If you sleep with a person, spend all of your spare time with a person, and (in this case) live with a person, surely there is a word to describe the connection?

With the teenagers it makes sense, since their lives are so confusing: I’m sure they have no relative clue of what they are doing. With this guy, not so much, except maybe insofar as he doesn’t want me to tell whoever he is hitting on that he has a girlfriend. This is not especially well reasoned, since I will then refer to her as That Girl You Are Fucking.

Susan and I were highly amused to watch as the Not Girlfriend flirted with Byron, while the Not Boyfriend lurked about looking distressed.

The presence of the girl clearly inhibited D’s normal routine of trawling the crowd, but with her attention distracted by My Actual Husband, he had nothing better to do except once again attempt to talk to me about literature. This never goes well.

Later Byron claimed that he had not been flirting, and Susan and I shrieked with laughter. I replied At least you acted better than last year!

Byron asked What happened last year?

Susan replied You picked me up and rocked me and sang a lullaby!

Byron was astonished, but yes, it is true – yet another reason why other agents would steer clear of my company: I exert no control over the antics of the mad scientists. In fact, I find them amusing.

The evening mutated once again and I found myself dragged through the vomit-steaked streets of the city to one club after another, where, mysterious and surprising above all things, to go dancing.

Guess where I went yesterday? To a faraway riverside marina next to a pub founded hundreds of years before my country of birth, to pick up my boat! Oh, how I missed her!

The trip started at the confluence of the rivers Cam and Great Ouse and proceeded at an orderly five miles per hour back to the city:

Last week was marked out by a cascade of critical tasks like obtaining a boat safety certificate, mooring permit, and waterways license – all coagulating with the same deadline (as two agencies simultaneously required the original and only aforesaid certificate).

On top of all that it became urgently necessary to reduce all the storage I have not looked at since moving here – quite an enormous and humbling task for many reasons, not least the fact that cleaning is not within my repertoire. I can unpack, organize, and assemble, but am never inclined to throw anything away if it might someday prove useful.

That is why, opening boxes, I found (amongst other things) a yellow scarf purchased at a thrift store on South Tacoma Way in the late seventies and worn exactly once. And the shirt I wore the first time I pitched to VC. And boxes upon boxes of clothing discarded by various people – in many cases, not even people I know.

Purging was necessary but also entirely stressful. Finding my old journals just underscored the fact; Paris, Rome, Tallinn, Helsinki, Trento, Venice, Nice, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Granada, looping jaunts through the United States and United Kingdom, the occasional and always bizarre stay in Canada: my life over the last six years has been at best frenetic.

Remembering that fact is puzzling, and helpful. The sheer physical effort of shifting a life, however, is torture. By the end of the week this is what I looked like:

The morning after that photo I was shuffling around brushing my teeth when I looked in a mirror and dimly perceived something moving. I poked, assuming it was an optical illusion, but no – even without my glasses on I knew it was lice. I commenced hopping around shrieking in rage and horror. Byron told me to act my age.

But my advanced age does not, by default, involve bouts of head lice! Any parent who has been visited by the pestilence knows how hard it is to treat in this chemically saturated age. We’re essentially back to ye olden days of hopeless herbal remedies and tedious comb-outs.

Difficult in the best scenario, but remember, I have excessively long hair. And limited washing facilities. As I crouched dragging a metal comb through the knotty mess I cursed the laziness or whimsy that persuaded me to live without haircuts for decades. If there had been scissors within reach I would have hacked it all off right then.

But there was no time, because to round out the hideous week I had to rush off to the teaching hospital for one of my routine tests. This particular one involves a panoramic x-ray of my jaw to determine if there are tumors hidden away deep down inside. In the past these have been quite devastating, taking out large portions of bone. To date I have had perhaps six surgeries, with experts in several teaching hospitals dolefully informing me that I would need to be followed in specialized clinics the rest of my life.

These things do not upset me in principle – I am not worried about the results, fretful about the interaction with surgeons. For the most part I am laissez-faire to a fault about my health.

What I cannot stand, even now, after all these years, is the test itself. Forehead braced against a post, chin held in place with a plastic guide, teeth clenched on the bit, I am required to be still and hold my breath as the machine makes a steady perambulation of my head. It only lasts for twelve short seconds – nothing at all in the course of a life – but if you grew up in therapy culture or have post traumatic stress disorder you will probably recognize this as a trigger event.

I’m tough, I’m resilient, I can face down anything. But in those twelve seconds I relive fear, pain, loathing, humiliation, a surging wave of memories of blood, surgical dressings, vomit, infection.

The only thing that keeps my face in the grip of the machine is the knowledge that they will continue until they have a perfect image.

When the consultant called me into the examination room he pointed to the X-ray proof of devastation, still visible in shadowy traces where bone and teeth were pulverized by disease. I knew at a glance that the result was fine, no new tumors – these things are easy to read.

What was more surprising was the fact that the doctor looked from the image to my face and then said But you don’t look like someone with this syndrome. 

My eyebrows went up but I resisted rolling my eyes. What did he mean by the comment? That I lack a distinctive lantern jaw found in a minority of those diagnosed, and that my original surgeons sacrificed my joints to avoid slashing my face open. The point is however mostly rhetorical since this fellow, even if a world renowned expert, has probably only met three or four other people with the syndrome. If that.

I retorted I don’t have a bifid rib either and he looked even more startled.

He recited the test results; exactly as I already knew from a cursory glance, my jaw is clear. I started to gather my things and said nonchalantly Awesome, thanks!

This was clearly not expected because he replied Erm, what?

I epated Awesome! Thanks!

He shook his head and delivered a final announcement that made me sit back down abruptly: he informed me that I no longer need to be seen in clinic.

Twenty-four years after the definitive diagnosis, seventeen years after the most recent jaw surgery, against all known medical literature and the advice of any previous clinician, I am officially – not cured, never that, but free.

Not liberated from the disease itself, but instead from the experience of being a prized specimen, at least in regards to the function of the lower half of my face. This is only one test of several, and I’ll still need to do it, but in the future I can go to the bright shiny environs of a dental office.

My stateside surgeons would be appalled, since this advice contraindicates the literature, but I am thrilled beyond measure.

There are so many things to love about this country.

My scars are visible to anyone who looks, but the people who try claim they cannot see them; whether the traces of surgery and sorrow are hidden by artifice or attitude makes no difference.

I left the hospital and raced away to London, leaving behind mess and drama, turning a damaged and hopeful face resolutely to new adventures. Oh, and I decided not to cut my hair after all:

Whether you abide by the orthodoxies of a major world religion, prefer to recognize the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre, or think the whole thing is annoying, today is a moveable feast celebrating the turning of a season – my favorite sort of holiday! From snowy Cambridge to you, many felicitations of hope this spring.

I was rummaging around trying to figure out when I decided to move to the UK and stumbled across all sorts of interesting trivia.

For instance, according to my journal, I met Gordon in person exactly four years ago today. How fortuitous! He has proved to be an able tour guide and fast friend in this whole unraveling irksome journey toward becoming human.

While most people find my robotic, emotionally disconnected obliviousness exasperating at best, he has always answered my questions without condescension or annoyance. Or at least, without displaying those traits.

He even taught me how to talk on the phone! For this and just for the sheer genius of his existence, I extend a sincere thank you.

Today I went to an indie press / comics convention that was reminiscent of the Portland Zine Symposium… the first year.

I was completely shocked – London is an enormous city, famed for centuries of cultural revolutions! Where are the kids, where is the underground?

Iain is the expert on tap for such questions. His reply to my plaintive query? I think everyone fled to Germany or Bristol due to rents and the price of beer.

Fair enough.

While I have a romantic attachment to the idea, I guess that I don’t really need to move to London, eh?

In other local news, I just realized that nobody in my vicinity clamored to decorate eggs this year, for the first time in my entire adult life.

My offspring are tall, creative, outgoing people who launch their Easter holidays by going to conventions, and handing out fliers for their work, rather than dipping boiled eggs in cups of food coloring.

This is overwhelmingly sad, and completely amazing. I am honored beyond words to know them.

Some of my friends run this thing called Rock N Roll Camp for Girls and someone made a documentary about it. You should go check it out.

Every single time I think that I should call to check on my boat, the phone rings and the extremely energetic marina owner is on the line.

He keeps apologizing for the delay, which surprises me; he is certainly more solicitous of my feelings about the boat than anyone I hang out with – they all find the subject tedious.

Though I’m sure you, dear readers, are eager to know the news: she is out of drydock and all repairs are finished except one, waiting for a part on order.

This means I might get her back as early as next week – perfect timing for an Easter holiday cruise through the Fens!

Last weekend I went out with Jean and a recently arrived academic transplant, and what a treat he proved to be: a writer, art critic, media studies maven and, best of all, North American.

Oh, glorious good luck! A new friend is always great fun, but one with a similar vocabulary and set of interests is a rarity in this town. During the course of the conversation someone told him about my memoir, punctuating remarks about the quality and merits of the book with She has something like a thousand scars on her body!

I frowned and corrected No, just shy of four hundred.

My new companion looked disbelieving, and the others told him to take a look. I obliged by pulling my collar down and he proceeded to rummage around my torso, examining the traces of surgical interventions before kindly commenting that they are not frightening.

Maybe, now – because, without my informed consent (I was just a child) every single cancer scar was injected with cortisone. Over the years they leveled off and faded to silver, and since my immune system destroyed all the surrounding pigment, they are almost invisible.

Of course I didn’t show him my abdomen, hacked open and poorly mended on three memorable occasions, and striated with the evidence that I have birthed children. My belly is reserved for special occasions. Jean commented that it is odd I am such an exhibitionist but I just shrugged; I grew up on display for the benefit of doctors. Showing the scars, the proof of an unbelievable story, is simply routine.

Jean should know this; yet he persists in a series of quaint, sentimental, stereotyped ideas about women.

Today I raced all over the city in a state of panic, acquiring and copying important papers, plucking funds from what can only be described as thin air, figuring out how to pay bills if one does not have a bank account (answer: you can’t).

Welcome to my annual Mooring License Meltdown.

The whole process this year has been exacerbated by the fact that I had to have the boat inspected (out of the water) to obtain a new safety certificate and she is still five hours away in a marina, having her lady bits fixed up.

During the process I was shocked to hear that, against all common sense and economic theory, her value has not decreased: she is worth exactly the same amount as when first viewed three and a half years ago, although she should have lost a thousand quid per year.

I suppose this is another example of my genius for real estate investments – too bad I’m far too lazy and political to capitalize on such skills!

The worst part of the whole process was finding someone to witness my signature on the license contract. Jean, Josh, and all the usual suspects were mysteriously beyond reach. I was seriously considering asking the Wonderwall busker but then remembered a basic truth: the market square is the source of all that is good in this town.

We’ve talked nearly every day since I moved here, but I never knew his name until today, when I said Can I have a small hot chocolate? And I have a sort of funny favor ask…. 

My mate at the mobile coffee cart laughed and said it wasn’t the first time he’d been approached for the chore, then genially witnessed my signature on the document.

The cup musings sent my brain off on all sorts of bizarre tangents, one of which ended in the realization that I do not actually have any friends leftover from grad school. In fact, aside from Dawn Hitchens (daughter of a founding faculty and still beloved if misplaced), I can’t even remember their names.

This fact is in stark contrast to the startling point that I’ve managed to keep track of so many Green Vests. What is that, the uninitiated might ask? To be simplistic: the kids who staffed the computer center.

They bedeviled my life, but I can tell you exactly what happened to KTS, Byron, Leopoldo, Pat, Phan, Brian Ventura, and even Rob (the one who lived under the floorboards).

The computer center staff of my acquaintance practiced their art in an ancient and misty past, where many of us still used typewriters. Consequently, to be a Green Vest was quite an achievement, and a position of power.

Many of the brethren were kind and gentle, though a few were tyrants. Desperate grad students on limited budgets using dodgy software to print, say, a thesis might find themselves in crisis under this regime – and I speak from experience.

I’m still disturbed when I remember that each laser printed page required a red ticket, purchased in twenty-five cent increments from the bookstore. Fine – except the bookstore was only open during the day, and the computer center never closed. Leopoldo was the most dedicated enforcer, his presence on a deadline evening the equivalent of a broken kneecap.

In significant contrast: KTS, at the time a vociferous enemy, not only attempted to teach me how to use complicated software – when he recognized that I was not capable, he sighed, sat down, and finished my statistics homework. Yesterday he wrote to invite me to stay in his new apartment in Brooklyn; our friendship has been a marvelous and intricate mystery stretching across two decades.

Buffy is the only Green Vest who truly vanished – hardly surprising though eighteen years after we last spoke, I still miss her. Anyone out there who knows a striking, hilarious person of any stated gender going by the name Taylor (perhaps but not necessarily with an English accent) – do tell.

The point of this post has been mislaid like my lost cup, but the original idea was this: whatever seemed most important in the moment has faded over time, while the peripheral experiences have become hugely significant. How alarming – and entertaining.

During this adult lifetime I’ve moved more than fifteen times, and though I have a marked tendency to collect and hoard, much has been lost through the years.

When I lived in Portland I had a house filled to capacity with clothes, toys, art, and ephemera. When I moved to Seattle I shed half of the clutter. When I moved to England the remaining material possessions had to fit in a twenty foot container box. When that lot arrived in customs fully half of the items were damaged beyond repair: a liberating tragedy.

Of all that has been sold, discarded, or lost I can honestly say I do not miss much. The taxidermy and record collections live on in my old house, and I can visit whenever I like. There are a few dresses I remember fondly, but I would never wear them again even if they were hanging in my cupboard.

The single exception, the only object I miss, is a white plastic cup with a green lid, purchased during my first week of college and used every day all the way through graduate school. In the genre of travel mugs it would not rate very high as it was not insulated, but this was a feature I appreciated because the scorching hot coffee or tea kept my hands warm as I scrambled around campus. By the time it cooled completely it was time for a refill, a ritual repeated endlessly through the years – stretching far beyond just my education.

The cup went with me everywhere, and though the printed logo on the side vanished after a few vigorous scrubs, the cup was distinctive to a certain portion of the general public. In the Northwest hardly anyone commented, but in places as disparate as NYC or Tucson it was entirely ordinary to be standing around, cup in hand, and have a stranger pop out of a crowd to ask Did you go to Evergreen?

Oh, indeed. Wherever else? There are many valid criticisms of the school, and I was either miserable or furious throughout much of the experience, but there is literally no other campus where I could have survived – let alone thrived.

When asked for advice on college selection, I restrict myself to the observation that freaky kids should go to freaky schools. Though I do write letters of reference if people simply insist on Brown or Columbia, I tend to think that most of my friends and family members are well advised to choose an experiential, collaborative, interdisciplinary institution. Without grades or defined curriculum. Where you can fail or succeed on your own terms – without interference.

The reason is simple: we are all without exception the sort who confront the world with a You’re not the boss of me attitude.

Evergreen does not require that you select a mentor but having an advocate makes it easier to navigate the place. At first I had serious problems with professors and advising staff who told me to forfeit my scholarships, give up and go home. Tired of this attitude, I finally marched up to the director of the Native American Studies program and said I’m nineteen years old and the first person in my family to go to college. I have a four week old baby, a rare genetic disorder, two different kinds of cancer, and a possibly terminal auto-immune disease. I want to be here. What can you do to help?

He replied Anything you need. 

That was the start of a benevolent friendship I am still trying to understand years after his unexpected early death. He was a Blake scholar, a poet, a fan of baseball – and hugely controversial. His personal and professional life were rife with scandal that shocked even the most tolerant.

He also signed every single independent study contract I devised, letting me combine literature with health education, writing with stints teaching sex ed in juvenile prisons, and collaborations with James. I enjoyed perfect freedom and only talked to my professor once every quarter, when we decided how to assign credits given my goal of public policy graduate school.

This was, he advised, a mistake. He said that reading my fiction was like walking barefoot across broken glass. He said You are a writer – but I didn’t care. I was too busy.

I was one of the most vocal critics of institutional failings, but Evergreen has the perfect answer for internal complaints: internal governance. I didn’t just stomp around declaiming, I was appointed to a task force. I didn’t just agitate for my own benefit, I ran the union of students with disabilities. All of my work study paychecks were funneled through these activities. Eventually, I wrote the first ADA compliance policy ratified by the deans.

I was no fan of Olympia, was never involved in the culture of the town or school; although many of my current friends were around at the time, I did not socialize with them. I had a child, and a goal: to acquire practical credentials and a steady job with benefits. Parties, shows, band practices? Frivolity! I rushed through my undergrad in two and a half years, and chose to stay on for graduate school because I was offered high quality subsidized child care on campus. Someone else might remember – how much did we pay each month? One hundred dollars, maybe two?

Staff members in childcare center were kind, devoted, and best of all, state employees making a decent wage with full benefits. Several became friends; the director and one teacher remained in touch for a decade after I moved away.

Given that my rent was never more than a hundred dollars a month, this meant that I could scrounge by without taking out major loans. Living on a graduate assistantship is in fact difficult, but we had The Corner! Bless the hippies, for they shall provide cheap garlicky grub, and let you wash dishes to pay if need be. Just bring your own fork.

I was the youngest person ever admitted to the public administration graduate program and pursued my studies with a ferocity still remembered by the faculty. They did not know what to make of me; how do you seminar on organizational theory if you’ve never had a real job? They compensated by putting me on the faculty hiring committee.

My fellow students were all ten or twenty years older and they treated me like a pet, took me out for my first legal drink, elected me to run the student association – a thankless task but of course, exactly my sort of treat.

I’ve never been infatuated with a person, but in those years I had an intellectual love affair with the Grange movement. Research ruled my life, and I loved it. The passive neglect of my advisor was probably intended to force me out of the program, but I didn’t want supervision – I wanted to save the world. This translated to a job staffing a project through the Governor’s office (trivia: the one ousted for sexual harassment – and no, he never tried it on with me).

That in turn determined my thesis, one of the very few in the history of the program with a single author – we weren’t allowed, but when have I ever followed that kind of rule? It was predicted that I would fail but despite great personal chaos (cancer tests, clandestine dates, testifying in multi-million dollar lawsuits, a messy and protracted divorce, typing the final document through the night in the computer lab as my toddler slept under the desk, you know – the usual) I finished all course work and writing on time. Unlike two-thirds of my cohort group.

The director of the program strongly advised against my thesis: I used a participatory research methodology to analyze the implementation of a federal civil rights law at the state and local level. When I presented the final product she shook her head and laughed and said that it should be published.

Of course, that never happened. I resolutely went forward into the world, taking up a government job that seemed ideal, staffing disability policy advisory boards. Then I quit. Forever. Citing nothing more than the fact that I did not like wearing beige clothing. This outcome was probably obvious – how could a person too contrary for an alternative liberal arts college survive in government service?

I carried my Evergreen cup around for about ten years before it was mislaid, and every time I took a sip I was reminded of the lessons from that period of my life. I miss it. That cup kept my fingers warm.