Good one

I watch these regularly, and when he got started, put LSN onto Michael Voris. When he started showing up in Rome, I introduced him around to the gang. As you might guess, I think Michael's a blast, and whenever he's here, he's always up for some fun. He and his faithful cameraman, Charlie, came to my birthday party last year, and we had a blast. (I taught Charlie that there is nothing to fear from grappa...that'll teach him to trust a woman!)

Michael's style suits me to a T, and I'm not offended by his hyper-American, game-show-host style mannerisms. I think people who are, are just plain being snobs. And boring, anti-American snobs at that. Michael gives me a laugh, regularly, and that's something I really appreciate.

There are some who don't like him, but is it possible to "not like" someone whom you've never met? This is one of the big problems with the media in general, and the New Media in particular. The latter is a lot more "interactive" but even with this backing and forthing, I think there isn't a lot of real communication. There have been plenty of people I've only "known" online whom I haven't liked < cough>Shea< /cough>, but because I admit that even in the worst cases, I've only ever known the small portion of what these people think from what they've produced on their websites or blogs.

In my better moments, I have to admit that I don't hate certain people... can't hate them because I've never met them. I may hate everything they write, everything they think that has been made public, and everything they believe, but I've come to see that there is a vast difference between even these important and intimate things and the person himself.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for making snap judgments about people, particularly based on things like their obnoxious style, annoying mannerisms, weird clothes, or even bad hair (for Pete sake, Michael, get a fricken grown-up haircut!) so naturally I've got absolutely nothing against judging people according to the stupid and/or evil things they believe. But honestly, I've found it possible to like and appreciate people whose ideas I radically disagree with. And given what I do for a living, and the fact that I fundamentally disagree with nearly every person on earth, that's a pretty good thing.

People are the thing that makes the world interesting to live in. I used to think I was actually a misanthrope. But I think now that I was just trying to put a respectable name on being just plain grouchy.




~

Woe woe!

Not really, actually.

I'm happy to report that the First Stage is finished. I went to the Gemelli yesterday and spent the day getting into and out of my clothes, getting injected with radioactive substances and emitting photons and gamma rays. Had only one tiny little meltdownish moment that only Highly Trained Professionals saw. I've completed what one of the oncologists called the "mosaic" of information gathering. Now it is up to them to put all the information together and decide which bits of me they're going to chop out and which bits they're going to irradiate, and which they're going to poison with chemo. Test results will be available next week.

So, I've got a week to fret and obsess and imagine that the cancer has spread to every part of my body and that I'm going to die a horrible death twisting in agony get back to work.

In the meantime, I've learned a few unexpected things about getting cancer.

1. Cancer involves a lot more social obligations than one would have thought.

I've spent years and years honing my anti-sociability, bringing it to a fine point, insulting people on my blog, refusing dinner party invitations, ducking out of Mass at the postcommunion to avoid getting roped into the post-Mass lunch... This behaviour has helped me whittle down my social interaction to the people who really, actually, demonstrably like me enough to overlook/put up with it all. It's a self-correcting system that has worked well for me for many years.

One of the reasons I've developed this handy system is that I've always assumed that other people were, well, bad. Not necessarily that they mean to be bad, that they're wicked in their intentions, but - again this is probably a having-been-raised-by-hippies thing - that they're insincere, self-centred, indifferent and generally addicted to their personal fantasies.

Don't get me wrong, I do know this is actually true. But I think I'm learning that they are also, often, other much nicer things as well. All of a sudden, I've had all these people being unexpectedly nice to me all day long. Even going out of their way to do things to make my life easier and make all this medical stuff happen.

And, strangely, they seem to mean it. If I were a clever math-person I would come up with some kind of algorithm to work out how to explain it, but I'm stuck with making generalised observations: people are probably not so bad.

Naturally, I'm aware that this places an obligation on me to learn to be nice to them back, and I'd like to assure readers that I'm thinking about it. (This doesn't mean, I hasten to add, that the commbox rules are changing.) Fortunately, one of the people whom I haven't driven away, someone who has actual social skills, is teaching me. I'm learning to send thank you notes, to not treat people who smile at me with suspicion and, get this, to call people on. the. telephone.

2. Cancer (and possibly by extension other really important life-altering encounters with The Real) doesn't make you more annoyed with/alienated from God. I don't entirely have an explanation for this, but I do know that it is not completely dependent on the behaviour of other people I mentioned above.

One might have thought that a diagnosis like this would generate some amount of generalised resentment, but it seems to have had exactly the opposite effect. Maybe I'm just weird. All I know is that some kind of gulf I had previously been aware of but helpless to cross has been closed.

More later.

~

Update:

Just got the call. Going in for the consultation on Thursday. Am suddenly gripped by gut-wrenching, vertigo-inducing fear.

~

Update update:

3. I've discovered a few new things about myself. One of which is that I'm really not terribly brave when it comes to certain medical procedures. Specifically, that I can shrug with complete and unfeigned indifference at needles, IVs, blood tests and injections. I don't even get that old twinge of nerves at the sight of them. But even breathe the word 'catheter' and I have a full blown panic attack. Cry like a girl.

Sorry, sharing too much?

Get used to it.



~

Sometimes

not often, mind you, the hippies get something right.







Hands up everyone who always wanted to live in Bag End.



~

Only one possible answer to this:

Another one for my rapidly growing "I have the nicest readers in the world" file:

Dear Hilary

I have now finished Prof Scruton's Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged. Would you like me to send it to you?

In Domino,

P_____

In case there is any doubt, the answer to such questions will always be the same:

Gosh, yes. Thanks!

you can send it to my office address:
____,
____,
___,

Roma, Italia.


I rarely get anyone saying anything so welcome. I remember coming home one night after work, and one of my roommates said, "Hey Hilary, want some chicken?"

That was pretty good too.

~

US Truckers take up new hobbies

Since last year, when the economy left drivers with fewer hauls, Mr. White, a 6-foot-2, 240-pound ex-Air Force mechanic with a bushy mustache, has hunkered down inside his truck in his many off hours, making quilts from patterns with names like "Meet Me In Paris." When he's not sewing, he's daydreaming about it, he said as he ran a square of yellow cotton with little violets through his machine. "Oh, there's many a time you're just going down the road at O-dark-thirty in the morning and you just start thinking about a particular pattern."

...

Though evidence is anecdotal, industry groups and trucking-company owners say the increase in spare time has spawned more hobbies. "We've got guys who are into opera, photography, skydiving," said Norita Taylor, spokeswoman for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers' Association, a truckers' group.

Mr. White's employer, Iowa-based Don Hummer Trucking Corp., last year started a loosely organized "sewing club," and encourages drivers who are nimble with a needle to show off their handiwork at headquarters. "We want them to pass the time to make themselves happy, rather than get frustrated waiting," said Dena Boelter, Hummer's human-resources manager, an avid sewer who calls the hobby a great stress reliever that can be done almost anywhere.

Kevin Abraham-Banks, a 37-year-old trucker with a shaved head and dragon tattoos, passes time at truck stops with his cocoa and knitting.

It just reminds me of this, that I like a lot



Thanks Chris for introducing me to more country music.

Tenby

and Caldey Island pics will have to wait.


To my great annoyance, I have lost the doohickey that takes the pictures off my camera and puts them into my computer. It's a kind of a plastic thingy with a little plug-in thing on the end...

you know.

Anyway, gotta go buy a new one.

But Tenby !

Gosh!

Here are some other people's pics:

Time for some happy

I've exchanged a couple of emails with Matt, and he's a standup bloke.

If you're looking for a good place to waste some time in the internet, I'd suggest reading his travel diaries. They're incredibly interesting and surprisingly well written for someone who is under 40 and went to public schools.

The man knows how to use an apostrophe.

I love the world

event the giant squids.

The alternative is so much worse.