Stick to Pralines, Not Pity

On Tuesday, former Gucci designer Tom Ford made a guest appearance on the Martha Stewart Show and helped whip up a batch of pecan pralines.

Martha pointed out that the iconic designer is featured in the May 28 issue of New York Magazine. The article, Tom Ford After Sex, "explores who he is without all that libido to sell."

Martha pulled out a copy of the issue, but, much to her embarrassment, discovered that the cover was a group shot of 143 cancer survivors, ages four to 92. The dissonance between Gucci and cancer was too much for Martha to handle. She condescendingly patted the cover and sadly explained, "These poor people have cancer. I hope they get better soon."

I hope that Martha can take a break from decorating and dining long enough to read the cover story, Cancer: The Survivor Monologues, to gain some insight into the people she pities so much.

The riveting series of first person accounts highlights the "surreal emergencies, suppressed marital stresses, comforting superstitions, petty irritations, spontaneous epiphanies, and other moment-to-moment means by which cancer – the ultimate life-altering experience – goes about its business of altering lives.”

I think you'll find the piece more addictive than pecan pralines.

Let's Banter About . . . Cancer

After I first discovered I had cancer - mantle cell lymphoma to be exact - several of my writer friends asked, "Are you going to write about this?"

"Hell, no!" I responded. I figured that the subjects of cancer and "my cancer journey" had pretty much been played out in newspapers, magazines, after-school TV specials, tear-jerker movies and, most recently, in blogs. I didn't think the world needed another excruciating account of the highs and lows, friends and foes or delights and woes of battling cancer.

It's as though the blog was invented by and for cancer patients. Type in the words "cancer" and "blog," and you'll receive more than 32,000,000 hits. Try "mom" and "blog," and you'll receive less than 20,000,000 hits. That surprised me. I thought for sure there would be more moms writing about the agony and ecstasy of childbirth and child rearing than people kvetching about cancer. Enter "liberal democrat" (another group of which I'm a member) and "blog", and the number of hits shrinks to just over a million.

I guess it would be easier to make a case for a liberal democrat blog than for yet another cancer blog. But, unlike the freelance stories that I pitch, this blog isn't about "filling a need" in the market place. It's about filling my own need to share what's euphemistically called a "journey" and a "ride."