Post-Francis Progress: FAIR TO GOOD.

I awoke this morning to my usual sight: My feet hanging out of the covers, one sock missing due to an ostensible removal sometime during the night, my cat J.J. sleeping within a dangerous zone of my butt, my cat Lucky sleeping on the edge of my bed, and a little ray of light that told me it was around 7:30am.

I’ve never been a morning person, but after Francis and a variety of colorful little pills I must take each day, I’m sleeping a lot less. I’m also weighing a lot less, although I’m slowly creeping back up to my high school weight. (Wonder if I can wear those old snake-skin pants I had in high school?)

I got up, took my pills, downed a glass of water, took some more pills, headed to the bathroom for the morning waterfall, put eye drops in my eyes, did my daily voice exercises, took one more pill, then did something I had not intended to do until later this month or next year.

I called my old school and volunteered to substitute.

I had to tell the office lady Judy who I was after she called me "sir."

"Sir?! This is Susan Gault, Judy!" I said.

"Oh! Gosh, Susan, you sounded like a man! Actually, you sound like my aunt Clara whose been smoking for the last twenty years," she said.

So I’m starting back to substitute teaching tomorrow. I feel pretty good, haven’t puked in a while, my hair is starting to resemble a semi-normal woman’s hairdo instead of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, and my scar is easily obscured with the right collar. I think I’m ready to work again.

Another Post-Francis milestone: Going back to work, and getting called "Sir" for the first time in my life.

Post-substitute teaching progress: SLEEP-DEPRIVED AND HOMICIDAL.

I am now a survivor of cancer and of four straight days of substitute teaching. As my dad would say, I’m tired as a one-legged man in an ass-kickin’ contest.

Teaching in Japan was such a breeze. If any kid ever got out of hand (i.e. Yuuki, the devil’s minion who tried to stab me with a colored pencil every chance he got) we just called the staff in to take care of it and then didn’t worry about it until the next week when we had the kid in class for forty-minutes.

But this, ladies and gentlemen, is America.

We have the same kids all day long. Every week day. There is no other staff to call in. We’re it. And if we should happen to lose it and accidentally stab a kid back with the colored pencil, resulting in the kid being utterly terrified of you until you leave the country (not that that’s happened to me), you’d better believe the kid’s parents will be in your face like a Jehovah’s Witness.

I really miss teaching in Japan sometimes.

I’ve been recovering all day, just sitting here reading and writing some on my book (now up to chapter five) and basically feeling like crap. Chip says I’m obviously not feeling well enough to go back to work, my brother says I must’ve eaten the bad chili in the fridge, and Hot Neighbor says I’m just faking because I don’t want to hang out with him tonight.

I think I’ll invite Hot Neighbor over for a big bowl of chili, just to test theory #2.

Today’s top stories:

1. The chili wasn’t bad after all. Hot Neighbor had a big bowl of it on Saturday and Sunday, then was allowed to stay at my house for a while and watch Saturday Night Live, thus disproving theories #2 and #3.
2. Yesterday was my parents’ 50^th wedding anniversary. They went to the beach for a few days, thus leaving my brother and me to our own devices concerning Thanksgiving festivities. Mom says we are old enough now to take the foil off our own TV turkey dinners.
3. Theory #1 must’ve been the correct one. I must not have been ready to go back to work full-time. I called in sick for the three days we were in school this week. I just couldn’t manage getting up and trudging through three straight days of teaching in the state I’m in, which is hacking up a lung and barfing up something that looks like my brother’s chili.

However, I was feeling well enough to call my Japan buddies, Byron and Jeremy, and talk for the amount of time it cost my parents to run the heat for the winter, and then go see the new Bridget Jones movie. It was awesome. I threw up in the theater, though.

Back to teaching full-time. I didn’t mean to teach so much, but my school is practically begging me and I don’t want to let my fellow teaching comrades down. My voice is getting better thanks to the vocal exercises I’ve been doing (mainly singing along to Kiss CD’s in my car, but also legitimate ones recommended by the voice coach) and no one is calling me "Sir" anymore. I haven’t puked in a few days and my scar is even shaping up.

Current projects: Doctor’s appointment with Endocrinology tomorrow, Family doctor on Friday, and planning a surprise anniversary party/surprise birthday party for my brother on Friday evening.

I really hope I can continue this stroke of good stomach until then. I bought them a really big chocolate cake, and I would hate to see what that looks like coming back up.

Post-Francis progress: I AM NEVER DRINKING AGAIN.

So the party went well. Several of my parents’ church friends were there, combined with a few of my brother’s and my friends (a strange collision of worlds: Kinda like that episode of Seinfeld, when Elaine’s been palling around with some guys who look like Jerry, Kramer, and George, only they’re not, and when they meet on the street, it’s as if Bizarro World has pulled them all through some crazy portal).

As many of you know, I have devised several different elaborate schemes targeted at my parents in the form of practical jokes. I am not at liberty to discuss any of them here, as my dad may be reading this and actually retaining it, but suffice to say that Friday evening I pulled a small prank –just a minor one, a mere 1.0 on the Richter Scale of practical jokes- against my dad. He was sitting next to me facing the opposite side of the table engrossed in a conversation with one of his church friends about hearing aids or suspenders or something, and I kept switching our wine glasses. He was milking his the whole evening while I was upturning mine with every visit of the waitress. I would quietly and inconspicuously trade them out, gently sliding his in my direction while pushing mine towards his plate. He would occasionally grab his glass, look at its waning contents, then remark to no one in particular, "Have I really drunk that much? I need to slow down!"

This Switching-of-the-Goblets happened several times. My friend and Extreme Racquetball partner Ashley, sitting on the other side of me, finally remarked, "Susan, when are you going to tell him what you’ve been doing?"

"Not until he notices. He’s bound to notice soon," I said.

I blame the medicine. I did not know what I was doing. I was under the influence of some mind-altering thyroid hormone drug which made me keep switching wine glasses all evening. I was finally busted by my Uncle Hubert, sitting across from me, and it’s a good thing, too… if he hadn’t’ve piped up when he did, there’s no telling how long dad would’ve gone on thinking he was getting sloshed in front of his church buddies.

Lessons learned: 1) Post-Francis hangovers are a bitch, 2) Must remember to tell dad when his head is on fire, because he will never notice on his own.

Footnote: One day I will write about all the jokes I’ve played on my parents. It will make a hilarious segment on my site. For now, however, mom and dad are clueless, and I’d really like to keep it that way, even at the expense of journalism.

I recently got a phone call from a lady who writes for our local paper. Seems a friend of hers told her about my site, and after reading it and subsequently laughing her ass off and telling her friends it was the greatest site in the world and nominating me for an unprecedented website-based Pulitzer, she thought she’d ask me to write a piece on being so young and living with cancer.

Okay, so that other stuff was an exaggeration. But she really did ask me to write something and submit it to her editor. "I’ve never seen anyone who can write so comically about such a dark subject," she said.

"Thanks," I said. "That’s me. Comical. Dark."

"I mean, I had an aunt who always laughed about her illness, but she was mentally ill, of course," she said.

"Um, yeah. Thanks," I said.

"So it’s just so nice to see someone so young, teetering on the edge of death, with her whole life in front of her, possibly about to be taken away by a terrifying disease, writing such funny stuff about it."

"Uh, thanks."

"My aunt does that sometimes. She makes up funny jokes about her disease, but doesn’t want to forget them so she types them on her old-timey typewriter, but then she’ll rip the pages out and eat them, and then laugh about it. Like you do," she said.

"I don’t eat paper," I said.

"But then she’ll just do the same thing again the next day, and keep laughing about it, like you do, and then she’ll run around the yard naked," she said.

"Is this a prank call?"

"So I find it really interesting when other sick people can laugh like that and phrase it so eloquently, and continue with their daily lives like my aunt," she said.

"Uh huh," I said.

I finally agreed to do the article, but not after talking to her for half and hour about her damn aunt. (I think mental illness must run in that chick’s family.)

Today was the last day of school. No more substitute teaching until after the holidays. I don’t think I’ve ever been more relieved. I teach at the "Special School," the school for students with mental and/or emotional disabilities, and usually they stick me in that region of the school designated for children with incurable demon possession. It is like having a class full of Yuukis all day long, little devil’s minions who are waiting to stab me with a colored pencil as soon as I turn my back. (Only this is America, where the kids don’t stab with colored pencils. They stab with actual knives.)

My buddy Chip and I decided to celebrate our temporary reprieve with a trip to the NuWay, or little drinking hole where the beer is cheap and there is usually a fight of some sort to entertain us.

And now I am home, celebrating further with a giant margarita my brother made, plus my entourage of eighteen pills. I am celebrating not only the end of school, but also the fact that I have not puked in almost two weeks. Baby steps.

Post-Francis progress: ANOTHER SETBACK.

So I was supposed to be leaving this coming Sunday for Germany and England with my Extreme Racquetball partner Ashley. We were going to Germany for a few days, then head on over to London so I could see my old pal Mike from Amagasaki, Japan, and possibly hang out with Rory, my old boss from Amagasaki. I was getting all excited, and even bought a new two-week pill organizer just for the trip.

Then I felt it.

The swollen lymph node under my jaw.

For ordinary folk, this would be no problem, probably a sign that you bit your cheek or had a rotten tooth somewhere. But for us folk living in the wake of Francis, this is not good news.

Long story short: My trip got cancelled. I now have to go back to the doctor the Monday after Christmas, where they will probably poke and prod me like the human pin cushion I once was before my surgery, or at least pinch the hell out of that node in an attempt to discover just how much further I need to wait before I can qualify as having a double chin.

Oh well, I didn’t really have the money to go anyway.

I swear, sometimes I think I’d just rather have a rotten tooth.

Part III of… Tales from the Doctor’s Office!

I thought over Christmas holidays that perhaps Francis had returned, or maybe it was just his ghostly residue haunting my lymph node. Today my doc poked and prodded, as was expected, and now I have two really gross pinpricks under the right side of my jaw. They kinda look like zits, although after watching Total Recall again I could swear they look more like little beady red eyes. The jury is still out on why it is swollen. The good news was that all the nurses, who know my name without looking at my chart, told me I don’t sound like a man anymore. Hurrah!

On a lighter note, mom asked me before Christmas if there was anything special I wanted this year. She said the ladies from her church group were planning to do "something special" for me. I told her I wanted a new flask but deep down I knew the church ladies would never go for that.

I told her I really just wanted money for my plane ticket back to Japan next year (assuming Francis will not interfere with my return), the new Harry Potter movie on DVD, some more liquor to replenish my waning supply, and maybe a new scarf to cover my scar. Oh, and a new flask.

Result: I am now the proud owner of eight new scarves, all hand-knitted by the ladies of the church. Hurrah!

Akemashite omedetou gozaimas! (That’s Happy New Year for the lay-person.)

Got the word yesterday that my swollen lymph node was probably just a random aftershock of this whole Francis business and did not contain any cancerous cells. Doc said, "It doesn’t look like anything you need to come back in for, although you might want to check with your dentist in case you have a tooth rotting." I’ve never heard such good news!

I celebrated the coming of the New Year with my good pal Alice, whom I’ve known for seventeen years, and whom I usually refer to as "Mal." (Short for Malice.) We sipped two bottles of five dollar champagne with our pinkies out all evening and talked of fond memories past, then told dirty jokes with her dad and had a burp-and-fart contest all evening. It was the best way to kick off a new year.

Resolutions: 1) I resolve to take my pills everyday with water instead of alcohol.

2) I resolve to finish my book this year. 3) I resolve to stop bitching about my thin hair and my crazy weight loss. 4) I resolve to stop playing so many pranks on my aging parents, who still have not noticed the "Party Naked" sticker I stuck on their van over a year ago.

And finally…