My summer plans

I keep having people ask what I'm doing this summer. As in, "Do you have any big plans this summer?"

You can hardly blame them. 'Tis the season and all.

This afternoon, I answered my hygienist honestly. I said, "I do, in fact, have big plans this summer. I'm going home for the 4th of July. I'm NOT having surgery, AND I'm not going to have to learn to walk again. For the first time since 2009, on all counts."

This summer's gonna be epic, in an I-have-absolutely-nothing-planned-but-that's-alright-because-I-don't-have-to-have-surgery-this-summer sort of way. Wahoo!

Would you look at that...

This is a screenshot of last week's views.

Lebanon?

Really?

Kids, I have one known tie to Lebanon. (And that's a pretty loose tie . As in, I'm-twisting-a-fantasy-into-a-tie, tie. But whatever.)

Man alive, I do love statistical data. Numbers bring me serious joy. (As do page views from countries where I have no known friends or relations. Netherlands, Indonesia, South Korea and France, I'm talking to you!) True story.

365 Days

That's right, it's been one whole year since I had cancer growing inside my body.

Happy Anniversary to me!

Three years ago, tomorrow, I had my first cancer-related surgery. One year ago, today, I had (what I am hoping and praying was) my last cancer-related surgery.

6-22-10, Tumor #1
3-22-11, Tumor #2
6-21-12, Tumors #3 and #4

Call me OCD (go ahead, I promise you won't be the first), but I love to see patterns in numbers. It's (and I know this is going to sound a little weird, but it really is) comforting to me when I see patterns like this in my life. (Sidebar: my birthday is 10/21 and I had oral surgery to remove my wisdom teeth on 10/22/12. Again, with the 21st and 22nd. Awesome, right?!)

Here is what I know: the Lord loves me, and He knows me. He knows that, for someone who is truly TERRIBLE at math, I sure do have an appreciation for numbers lining up.

For me, the funny little coincidence of surgery dates (dates scheduled by staff in several different facilities, mind you) falling so closely together is not so much a coincidence, as it is a sign that there is a higher power out there.

To me, the dates are significant.

So many details of so many experiences have been significant, in their exact match to what I had asked for. (And I'm not just talking about that single, age-appropriate oncologist that I wheeled and dealed for with the Lord when I found out about #3.)

So many words that have been said, gifts that have been given, prayers that have been offered have been EXACTLY what I needed. So many friends have called, written or stopped in to visit over the last three years. So many nurses, so many doctors (and way too many anesthesiologists), have been exactly where I needed them to be, when I needed them to be there.

I haven't always gotten what I wanted (see above multiple surgery dates - I would have been fine, sticking to the first surgery in 2010 and never going back for more), but I have always had what I needed.

And you, my dear readers, have been a part of that. Thank you for having been invested in my life. Thank you for having shared the journey with me. Thank you for having given me what I needed, on so many levels, in so many ways. Over and over again, you have taught me so much about love and kindness and hope. I will be eternally grateful for the life lessons you have taught me by showing so much love. Thank you.

One cancer-free year down. ... Here's to 40 or so more!

Because I have absolutely NO shame...

I'm going to tell you another story about how mornings are not my favorite time of the whole day.

It's a pretty well-known fact that I don't function well in the AM. I mean, it's so bad that I have to plan what I'm going to wear the night before, otherwise I stand in my closet for 20 minutes staring at rows of clothes, thinking that I have nothing to wear, and I end up being late to work. I'm adorable.

For most of the day, I can think on my feet. Believe it or not, I'm actually pretty rational. ... Most of the time. (I know that I don't come across as a rational being when all you know of me is this goofy little blog, but I promise that I do actually have a brain in my head.) But in the morning, all bets are off.

The following is a true story from my actual life:

I was getting ready for work and thought to myself that I wanted to wear my brown wooden earrings. So, I went to my handy-dandy jewelry bowl to get them. (I know. I'm sooooo organized.)
Problem:

There was only one wooden earring in the bowl.

Weird.

So I proceeded to look through the other two bowls. ... I even fished through the Christmas jewelry bowl, and nothing.

And that's when it hit me:

"Oh my gosh. I only have one earring. ... A serial killer broke into my apartment and took the mate as a trophy!"

True story.

This was my actual thought, followed closely by:

"Oh, wait. A killer would only need a trophy if he'd killed me, and I'm still alive."

Not, "A serial killer? Really? That's the most ludicrous thing you've ever thought, Evans!"

Oh, no. My thoughts were very much along the lines of, "Calm down. You're not dead."

(In retrospect, it was very reminiscent of the time that I had to tell myself "Evans. Calm down. The Joker doesn't know Batman is your boyfriend. He won't hurt you." in order to fall back asleep in the middle after the night after having Dark Knight flashbacks.)

Good heavens. Sometimes I scare even myself.

My girls and me

Hilly, Hazy and me

How cute are these little darlings?

I know.

SO cute!

We had a family party/BBQ last night, and the girls would hardly stay out of my lap. I love them! They're the sweetest little things. E-ver.

Happy Father's Day!

My dad is....

Kind, generous, loving, giving, hard-working, funny (and punny), compassionate, strong, devoted, silly, awesome.

My dad loves...

My mom, his kids/grandkids, round pieces of pie, Blue Bell (and all other manner of ice cream, but esp BB), Jurassic Park, high-tech gadgets, children of all ages, fishing, almond M&M's.

My dad taught me...

How to read, to pick my hair up off the floor so it doesn't jam the vacuum, that it's alright to get weepy over sentimental, patriotic and/or spiritual things, how to make ice cream, carmel popcorn and hot fudge sauce, how a man should treat a woman, to never settle for anything that is beneath me, that it's okay to do/say/be what I want to.

I love my dad. I am grateful, all the time. that he is one of the two awesome people who raised me. He's taught me so much, on so many levels, in so many ways.

Happy Father's Day, Daddio. You're the very best dad I've ever known, and I'm glad you're mine. I love you!

The Results

Because it's late (and I'm super tired - see multiple blog posts over the last couple weeks, detailing my inability to get a solid, decent night's sleep), this won't be long...

But for those of you who aren't on the immediate family phone tree, texting aficionados, or FB friends to have seen the news....

THE SCAN WAS CLEAN!

Wa-freakin-hoo!

I'm one week short of being a full year cancer-free, but I'm still counting it as a year.

I've been cancer-free for a year. ... That is all that I've wanted since, oh... about 2 seconds after I found out about my second tumor in February 2011. (Effective immediately: All I want is to be cancer-free for 18 months. Oh, and maybe some peanut butter/chocolate ice cream.)

When Dr. H gave me the news, he told me that I needed to shout it from the rooftops, so...

I AM CANCER-FREE!

Tomorrow, or maybe Sunday or Monday (once I've had some time to catch up on some sleep), I'll do more of an official update. (By which I mean: a full report of the conversation had between doctor and patient this afternoon. It was a doozy. Be looking forward to that.)

For now, this short little post with all manner of all-capped and fragmented sentences will have to convey my joy at the results of this scan, my gratitude towards doctors who tried a different approach - and saved my life - and the awesome people out there (the original 13 and beyond) who've cared enough to keep tabs on me.

I love my life. ... I always have. ... But knowing that my pants don't fit anymore because I've been eating too much cake? Oh, man... That's, like, a whole new level of loving my life!

Today has been a great day.

I am happy.

I am humbled.

I am grateful. So, so, grateful...

I am cancer-free.

Three pounds

I may have mentioned this, but... My pants don't fit.

At all.

I mean... I can no longer fasten them. (This is a new development, as of this week.) It's okay. I'm not going naked, I promise. I have, like, 30 dresses in my closet and I truly prefer dresses to pants in the summertime, anyway.

So it's all good that my pants don't fit.

My concern is that they weighed me when I went in for my scan on Tuesday, and I only weigh 3 lbs more than I did at my last scan. (In my head, I was figuring it'd be more like 15-20 lbs difference, because I know how much weight I generally have to gain/lose to move a size.)

I know that there are several explanations for why my body has changed so much, and my actual weight hasn't ... uh ... changed so much.

Weight shifts. Bodies change. Stuff happens. ... To name just a few. (Super technical with that "stuff happens", I know. Maybe I should be a doctor.)

But what I know about my body changing and my weight not fluctuating with the changes makes me a little nervous.

To comfort myself, I will choose to focus on my double chin. Surely, since I have jowls again, these extra 3 pounds are nothing more than S'more Dip and Hershey's Kisses gone awry, having settled directly into the line of my zipper - and nothing more.

Surely... That's the explanation. (Darn S'more dip!)

One more day. (Well, one and a half, if we're gonna get technical. But still, one more day and I'll know.)

Breathe, Evans.

Breathe, and pinch your chubby little cheeks, and you'll be okay. (How do you like that mantra? I came up with it myself. I know, I'm such an inspiration.)

I am pleased to report...

That my PET scan yesterday went off without a hitch.

For the first time in my life, I didn't have any scan-related stressors in my life on scan day. (To name a few stressors of the past: canceled appointment, broken machine and I had to walk - in socks and sans bra - to the other building on site that had a working machine, scar tissue in my good arm - in the one spot to put a needle - blocking the IV).

It was a glorious day.

I walked in. I exchanged pleasantries with Stella. I forked over 10% of the cost of said scan. The nurse came to get me, and told me I could leave my own clothes on. (Well... I had to take my bra off. Darn underwires. But other than that, I got to stay dressed as Laurie and didn't have to change into a gown and scrub pants. Hooray!) Dave the PET Guy was able to get the tracer in me with only one poke. (Very much unlike the 45 minute long torture-and-tear-fest that was prepping for my last scan.) Dave then left me with two warm blankets and a pillow and I slept for an hour in solitary while the tracer went to work. I got to pee in the "hot" bathroom (makes me laugh every time), and then made my way to the PET chamber. I got settled in, arms over head, and as Dave was wrapping my arms with yet another warm blanket, I fell asleep. And didn't wake up until it was all said and done.

True story.

One poke and the tracer was in. Slept for an hour whilst radioactive material raced through my veins. Slept for another 30+ minutes in a tube while the PET scan was measuring the affects of said radioactive material.

I guess maybe I should always get less than 6 hours of sleep the night before a scan, and then double Ativan myself before I go in to get poked. That was cake!

Super sleepy Laurie + drugs = easy peasy scan day! Who knew?!

Happy National Donut Day!

Behold, the Key Lime Donut:

Dunkin' Donuts, I'll love you 'til the day I die.

Ya'll go out and get yourselves a donut (or 12) today, you hear?

The five (and/or seven) finger countdown

So, I got up bright and early this morning. Didn't eat any breakfast. Brushed my teeth, threw on some clothes, grabbed a bottle of water and high-tailed it across town for my blood work and scan.

I'm pleased to report that the phlebotomist who pulled my name this morning got five vials of blood out of me with just one stick. I sort of love her. I would hire her to be my personal blood sucker and have her follow me from appointment to appointment, she was so good at her job! Seriously. Loved. That. Woman.

Blood work over and done with, I moseyed upstairs to get in line for my PET. ... In retrospect, I should have taken it as a sign when the elevator doors wouldn't stay closed. (They would almost close and then fly back open. And then gradually come back to a close, and then inch apart again. It was pretty funny.)

When I got up to the registration desk to sign in, my girl Stella (yup, I know the staff by name, I go there that often) couldn't find me in the computer.

And then she did find me.

Well, sort of.

She found my canceled appointment.

Adorable.

It seems that my appointment was canceled through a combination of miscommunication and internal errors. I had multiple people give me different stories, but the general gist of it is that the initial scan was ordered as a full body PET. Once the error was discovered, the fully body PET was canceled - but my standard skull-to-thighs scan wasn't scheduled in its place. Add to that the issue that, until 4:00 yesterday afternoon, my insurance hadn't approved the PET, and it was a full-blown comedy of errors. By the time the approval came in and my scheduler realized that she COULD get me in this morning, another scheduler had slid one of their patients into my slot.

My sole consolation is that whoever got my early morning PET scan is another patient who's needing to know if their cancer is still gone, if it's back, if it's better, or if it's worse.

I can't be too upset when I know that my scan went to someone who needed it every bit as much as I need it.

The soonest they could get me in - first thing in the morning, because I am an anxiety-riddled crazy person who does not need to wait longer than she has to, esp when she's fasting - is next Tuesday.

Blech.

I'll go in Tuesday at 7:00 for my PET, and then go back to work for the rest of the day. My follow up with Dr. H will be Friday afternoon.

So much for having a definitive answer tomorrow to the question of whether my pants don't fit due (and due only) to over consumption of Hershey's Kisses. I'll have to wait 'til next week for that intel. ... In the meanwhile, I'll keep watching Numb3rs every night until I fall asleep on the couch.

As my sweet cousin Rachel would say, "Adventures!"

Kindred Spirits

As many of you know, I am a lover of the written word. I mean, Lover with a capital L. ... One might even go so far as to say, LOVER in all-caps.

I heart words.

I love to write. I love to read. (I've been known to read the dictionary. ... Not kidding. Literally, pick up the dictionary and read a page, just to learn new words. Dictionary.com is one of my favorite sites, because they give sample sentences and etymology for everything.)

I'll read just about anything, but my very favorite genre is (are?) memoirs.

I enjoy both fiction and non-fiction alike. A well-told story is a thing a beauty to me. ... But a memoir? Oh, be still my beating heart! There is NOTHING that I love like the way I love hearing a person's story as told in their own words.

Right now, I am reading - and loving - My Life in France, by Julia Child (with Alex Prud'homme).

I feel it important to note that this book was gifted to me by the lovely Kathy U, the only woman I know who might love food more than I do. That she would send me Julia Child's memoir is so fitting, I have no words. I love Kathy. I love Julia. I love butter - and so do they.

From page 136:

"We experimented with recipes, tools, and ingredients, and made several useful discoveries. In working on piecrusts, for instance, we had tested French versus American ingredients. To our horror, we discovered that French flour has more body than its U.S counterpart, and that the French needed a third less fat to make a nice crumbly crust. Why was this? I wanted to know. We supposed that, in order for U.S. flour to last forever on supermarket shelves, it must have been subjected to chemical processes that removes its fats. The French flour, in contrast, was left is its natural state, although it would go "off" more quickly and become maggoty. In order to make our French recipe work for an American audience, we tested different proportions of flour-to-butter, flour-to-margarine (a substance I abhorred and referred to as "that other spread") and flour-to-Crisco; then we tasted the crusts hot and cold. Based on our experiments, we adjusted our ratios. It was labor-intensive, but a thoroughly satisfying learning process."

Ahhhh... Julia did science experiments with food and abhorred margarine. We're basically twin souls.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this book. Julia Child had an incredible memory for detail, and tells a lovely, lilting story of her life with Paul.

I feel compelled now, more than ever, to buy The Book (her name for the cookbook). ... But first, I must get back to reading. I'm about 50 pages from the end, and I have a good half hour to kill before I must leave the house and be about my daily business.

Bon Appetit!

The four finger countdown

It's scan week.

Read: I'm exhausted, but I can't sleep, because I can't shut my brain off.

I hate that I get crazy when I have a scan coming up, but at the same time... I do get crazy, and I've learned that there's nothing I can do about it, so I've come to expect and - on most levels - accept the crazy. The good news is that I haven't been crazy the whole six weeks that I've known that I had this appointment coming up.

That's right. I've had this scheduled for six weeks. MD Anderson called me the second week IN APRIL to schedule this round of appointments. ... As much as I do appreciate them planning things far enough in advance that I am guaranteed the first slot in the radioactive chamber, it's difficult for me to know that far in advance when D Day is going to be.

For the last several weeks, I've had fleeting moments of panic attacks. When the first one hit, five weeks ago, I was lying in bed, when all of a sudden, I could feel blood pumping in my temples and my chest tightened up. I lied there in bed, wondering what was wrong. As I rolled to my side, I heard the words in my mind, "In five weeks, I will know". Aha. That is what was wrong. Awesome.

The panic hasn't been constant, and it's not nearly as crippling as it used to be. But it's still there.

One thing that I hate (I mean, H-A-T-E, in all-caps) is that cancer has taken my hope. ... That sounds extreme. I do not mean that I have no hope whatsoever. I do have hope. I have a whole heck of a lot of hope - that this scan will be clean, that my life will normalize, that it'll never come back. But too many scans have come back dirty, for lack of a better word, for me to go into this with blind optimism. Growing four tumors in less than two years has taken away any trust that I had in my body to not do something stupid. Sometimes I miss the days when I could believe that Darth Vader was just a one-time fluke... I know better now, and that's why I can't sleep.

I lie in bed, and this is what makes me panicky:

- I've had some weird pains in places that I have nerve damage. Call me crazy, but I have to think that feeling stabbing pain where I'm not supposed to feel anything can't be good.

- When I lie flat on my back, my stomach is bigger on the left side than it is on the right. I'm pretty sure that's my liver having crossed over to what used to be an empty cavity. But still... it makes me nervous.

- My back's hurting again in the area where I used to have a kidney. I've started walking again in the last couple weeks, and I'm pretty sure that the pain is related to irritated scar tissue. But in the middle of the night... that's hard to remember.

So, this is what I tell myself to talk me off the emotional ledge:

- Listen, Evans. You knew better than to lift the commercial files. Dollars to donuts, that's why you are feeling pain in your belly-button. Don't do it anymore. Also, the pain in your hip is reminiscent of how it felt last summer, when your body was deep in a healing phase. Maybe this new burning sensation is related to nerves moving onto another level of healing. (Just call me Pollyanna.)

- You don't have any firm lumps/bumps in your body, and you know darn good and well that you had organs migrating when your last scan was done. That could totally explain why your body feels uneven from the outside. ... Yeah, let's go with that. (Note to self: Google livers. How big are they, anyway?)

- Maybe you should take advantage of that new-found ability to roll over and go back to sleep...

Sometimes I can talk myself down. Sometimes I can't. Sometimes I give up, give in, and go get an Ativan. Sometimes, even after I'm drugged, I have to get up and watch another episode of Numb3rs to sidetrack my brain and then I fall asleep on the couch, only to wake up and roll myself back into bed at 2:00 AM.

Four more days. Three more nights. ... In 72 hours, the scan (and the blood work that I love so much) will be done, and I can look forward to seeing my beloved Dr. H.

Maybe if I focus on my dreamy doc, I'll be able to fall asleep. (He beats the heck out of counting sheep!) ... It's worth a shot. Wish me luck!

National Cancer Survivor Day

I think the labels for this post pretty well sum it up: I hate the cancer, and I love my life.

Those labels are two ends of the same stick. I do hate the cancer. I do love my life.

I have always loved my life (seriously - always... I've had some fairly dark chapters in my life, but I honestly can't think of one single, solitary year/phase where I hated being me). And I have always hated the cancer.

What I never, ever could have seen coming was how much my having cancer would make me love life - my own life, and all life in the world around me - more than I ever could have before the disease.

Having had to go through multiple diagnoses, surgeries and treatments has changed me. It has changed my body. It has made me slower, and more tired. It has changed the way my body processes food, and the way clothes fit my body. It has given me a different outlook, and a perspective that I didn't have prior to June 2010.

I have some pretty heinous scars - both physical and emotional - that remind me of where I have been. The flip side of those scars is, knowing where I have been - and what I have survived - tells me that I am strong enough to go wherever it is that I am headed.

Today is the 26th annual National Cancer Survivor Day.

To quote the article linked above:

National Cancer Survivors Day is a cherished annual worldwide celebration of life. It is the one day each year that we pause to honor everyone who is living with a history of cancer – including America’s nearly 14 million cancer survivors. “A ‘survivor’ is anyone living with a history of cancer – from the moment of diagnosis through the remainder of life,” according to the National Cancer Survivors Day Foundation.

“When most people hear the word ‘cancer,’ they automatically think the worst,” says Foundation spokesperson, Laura Shipp. “But the truth is that more people are living longer and better quality lives after cancer than ever before. National Cancer Survivors Day is an opportunity for these cancer survivors to come together and celebrate this new reality in cancer survivorship. There is life after cancer. And that’s something to celebrate.”

NCSD started in the United States in 1987 and is now celebrated worldwide in countries including Canada, Australia, India, South Africa, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Italy, and Malaysia, according to Shipp.

The nonprofit National Cancer Survivors Day Foundation provides free guidance, education, and networking support to hundreds of hospitals, support groups, and other cancer-related organizations that host National Cancer Survivors Day events in their communities. The Foundation’s primary mission is to bring awareness to the issues of cancer survivorship in order to better the quality of life for cancer survivors.

Cancer survivors may face physical, emotional, social, and financial challenges as a result of their cancer diagnosis and treatment. Many are confronted with limited access to specialists, a lack of information about promising new treatments, inadequate or no insurance, difficulty finding employment, and psychosocial struggles.

“To say that cancer is challenging is an understatement,” says Shipp. “But it is a challenge that millions of people – 14 million in the U.S. alone – are overcoming. Though life may not look the same after a cancer diagnosis, these survivors are showing us that life after cancer can be rewarding, exciting, and filled with joy.”

It's true. Life does not look the same after a cancer diagnosis. (Trust me when I say that my body certainly does not look the same!) The good news is that, in a lot of ways, it looks better. (Life. Not so much my body.)

I testify that life after cancer - life during cancer, even - can be rewarding, exciting and filled with joy.

While I don't know that I'll ever be able to say that I am glad that cancer happened to me, I am inexplicably grateful for the life lessons that the experience taught me.

Happy National Cancer Survivor Day to all of those in my realm - to those who have fought, those who are currently fighting, and to those of you who have loved us through our battles.

If ever there was a sign...

I'm pretty sure that I've been watching too much television this week. (Month/Year/For my entire life....)

This is what just happened in my real life. But first... a little back story.

So, last night, I fell asleep on my couch during an episode of Numb3rs. (Sad but true. It happens all the time. I'm so old!) I woke up at about 3:00, turned the TV off and went back and rolled myself into bed.

I woke up this morning at 7:00, and my first thought was, "I wonder if they caught those stinkin' jewel thieves?".

(Also, sad but true. Someone may identify a bit much with whatever she was watching when she fell asleep. ... Let me tell you right now, that when I was binge-watching Smash, I would wake up with not only music running through my brain, but I also had erratic, emotional - upon waking - thoughts regarding both Michael Swift and our pal Derek. I had a serious love/hate relationship with both of them.)

I came out to the living room, intent to finish the episode I half-slept through last night. (In my defense, I did make myself act like a grownup and empty the dishwasher before I was allowed to crash on the couch and watch TV.)

The dishes and my breakfast were both done (yes, I made food - impressive, no?) at about the same point in the episode that I'd crashed last night, so I sat down to enjoy the rest of the show.

Now, so you can picture in your minds exactly HOW ridiculous this was... please allow me to paint a bit of a back story to the episode.

(This is season 5, episode 1, for any of you who want to play along.)

Episode opens with a mountain climber being shot. (We have no idea why, or who shot him.) Dead mountain climber has, like, a 56 carat diamond on his body when he is found. FBI investigates the mysterious death. Finds out there's also a dead diamond dealer. (Not the dude who shot the climber, so don't worry about that.) FBI questions other climbers who knew said dead dude, to see if they knew where dead dude could have found the diamond. One team of climbers makes it their mission to backtrack their dead friend's route, to see if they can find the area the diamond could have come from. Meanwhile, the FBI realizes that a plane went down in the area. (FBI + Charlie, et al, reason that the plane was probably carrying the diamonds, that the climbers came upon the wreckage and pulled the bag full of diamonds out and was walking them back to civilization, when the diamond thieves realized the plane had crashed, someone had taken their raw diamond stash, and that the thieves had then found/killed the climbers.)

I know, I know... if I stopped writing right now, you'd probably be tortured, wondering what happens next. (Welcome to my world. This is where I fell asleep last night!)

Enter what happened this morning:

Whilst the geniuses (by which I mean: Charlie, et al) were back in Pasadena, mapping out the grid to determine exactly where the plane had gone down, Don was hiking through the mountains and came across three big, bad dudes (with guns - big ones) who were holding two climbers hostage. (The team of climbers who had made it their mission to back track their dead friend's route.) The bad dudes thought the new climbers were in cahoots with the dead climbers, and were threatening to kill one of them - to make the survivor spill it. ... Well, of course the climbers didn't know anything about the diamonds. LUCKY FOR THEM, Don was in the bushes with his pistol. He was able to lure out the two with semi-automatic weapons with a tape recorder, and then he knocked out the dumb, big guy and made off with the two hikers. Too bad the dude hiker/climber twisted his ankle and couldn't keep up with Don and the chick, so dude decided to sacrifice himself so he wouldn't slow and Don and the girlie down, saying "They think I know where the diamonds are; they won't kill me."

At the commercial break, it showed the bad dudes beating/torturing the climber dude. I was, understandably, shaken. (I hate blood. I hate it a lot.)

In an effort to calm myself the heck down, I said (yeah, I said this - to myself), "Evans, chill. You don't even know this guy!"

Hello.

That was an excellent reality check. ... I don't actually KNOW any of these people. They aren't even REAL people!

Like I said... if ever there was a sign that maybe I watch too much television, this would be it.

I'm leaving the house today, making sure that I interact with real people. ... Right after I finish this episode of Numb3rs, that is.