Sliding into November....but first, an October blog.

I can't name the number of blogs I have read that have this exact sentence as a beginning:

"I know I haven't been blogging lately, but I'm going to do better now". And then...nothing.

I think that might be me.

I'm sure it IS me because I am only blogging today because it is October 31. And no, it's not a Halloween thing, although I could probably write something about that, and no, it's not a fall thing, although it actually did get cold in Texas this week...it's a pride thing. I really, really, really, want my archives to have no missed months in the almost five years that I have been blogging. Ok, I've already blown that here and there, but I am determined to NOT miss a month again from here on out.

That's fair, right? I mean, surely I can get a blog out once a month.

Honestly, Facebook has been the culprit in my non-blogging over the last several months. Why write an entire blog to possibly NO ONE, when you can write quippy little status updates to your 116 friends and get SOMEONE to comment almost every time? It's addicting. It's scary addicting when you find yourself stalking people on their Facebook pages just to see if they still look good at age 50. At some point, it's just better to blog and hope the Chinese robots who read the blog are enjoying it and maybe even linking to it. After all, there are 6 billion Chinese robots, right? And they make very affordable everything, as long as you are ok with a little lead and cadmium in your dinnerware and children's blocks/books/jammies and Thomas the Tank Engines (written bitterly by a mother who bought ten thousand dollars worth of little wooden trains with faces that now can't even go safely in the local landfill).

I asked DH what I should blog about as we sat here on our very non-Halloween evening. He suggested my diet, my crown, and my latest skin cancers, but not his small muscles. So I'll honor that request. That is a little private joke...actually, he is quite buff, but the problem is my diet. As I lose (and I have lost more than 40 pounds now, go me), he loses too. More than I do. And he never needed to lose in the first place. So, he is.....well, sort of skinny. Men hate to be skinny, whereas it is absolutely women's favorite word. Skinny jeans, skinny swimsuit and of course, Skinny Cows.

(He just pointed out that he didn't lose 40 pounds. My POINT is that I did, and he lost well, five or ten, but he did not need to lose 40 ounces and I still need to lose 20 more pounds. It's beyond annoying). Hence, "small muscles". But they are big. Just, well, skinny....

Speaking of my latest skin cancers....I wonder if the cancer is making me lose the weight? Well, I keep waiting for someone, anyone to consider that, but in fact...not that many people have even noticed the loss. I am a SIZE 10 in jeans at Old Navy now. Ok, yes, Old Navy size 10 is probably a size 16 in any reasonable store, but I felt about 20 when I bought them last week. I have worn them EVERY DAY. Yet, no comments on my wasting away. I guess it's not the cancer, I guess it's really the blasted counting of the blasted calories followed by the blasted three mile trek on a treadmill at the Y while watching "real" housewives yell at each other for an hour every day. Yeah, it's not easy, but someone has to do it.

I actually had this experience with my skin cancer sitch. I decided to go to a "10 best" doctor in San Antonio and really get the low-down on what is going on with my skin. He was supposed to be (well, I read it on the internet and the internet never lies) compassionate, caring and thorough. He was, um, bored, distracted and uninterested. He also told me within five minutes of looking at my back that "you have a basal cell carcinoma RIGHT THERE" and he poked me in the general vicinity of my left shoulder blade. "You need to schedule surgery. There will be stitches, good-bye". Hmmmm. I (obedient patient that I am), did stop to schedule surgery with his receptionist and at that point it hit me, "How does he KNOW it's cancer if it hasn't been biopsied?". I asked the 12-year-old gum-chewing girl who was looking at his calendar that question, and she said, "Duh, that might have been a good question to ask the doctor".

I soooo canceled that surgery the next day.

However, I did go back to my regular dermatologist, with whom I have a 10-year relationship not unlike a bad marriage. We are both regularly annoyed with each other, but no one wants to break it up. Anyhoo, I casually mentioned that maybe there might be something on my back that she should look at, because I had just had a "physical" (implying, yes, I know, that my primary care doctor found the skin cancer...not really lying, right?) I couldn't bear to tell her that I had seen Dr. top ten, which was even more awkward when I realized they used to be partners....but I digress. She couldn't find a thing wrong with my back, but I insisted SOMETHING must be there, and by peering closely, she did see a little "spot" on my shoulder. She said, "Well, I see something, but really, I can't see how your primary doctor could have spotted this...it's something only another dermatologist would ever think about cutting out."

I hope she didn't feel me tense up at that.

The upshot is that SHE actually did biopsy it and it was cancer. Dr. top ten is good at spotting them, I guess. SHE cut it out, sans stitches. During the procedure, I mentioned another spot (still not sure exactly where he poked me and now I had faith in his basal spotting abilities), and she also biopsied THAT and it ALSO is another basal. That comes out next week.

So, skin cancer. At least it's blog fodder. I just hope the two of them (Dr. top ten and my regular derm) don't get together at a dinner party and discuss paranoid, chubby, middle-aged women who have tiny melanomas and whine about basal cells.....they might realize I'm a cheater.

And yet, no mention of the weight loss either from current derm,--which is interesting considering six months ago, at my fattest, I did talk to her about the need to lose weight. She assured me I would then get wrinkled.

The phrase "you just can't win for losing" was never so appropriate.

Ok, I have blogged on Oct. 31, thereby getting my little fixation with months in a row on my archive taken care of. I never did finish my Disney stories...they might get me blogging in November. Of course, November has Thanksgiving, and where there is a turkey dinner, there is a blog.....