And yesterday

[smokingboot]

The radiotherapy planning session wasn't really a planning session at all.

It was a CT scan. The idea was to work out exact positioning for the beams that will undoubtedly give me superpowers. Because of the needle thing they didn't use tattoo guns, but drew all over me and covered me with stickers instead.

As I sat waiting, a woman opposite me said 'You're looking very pleased with yourself.'

She was with her partner, and from my limited judgement, appeared to be a chemo patient. When I looked at her I couldn't work out if she was being friendly or not, there was something odd about her expression. I wasn't sure she was best pleased with me. Jokes and absurdities turn up in my head and make me laugh but they're often hard to explain beyond the boundaries of my brain. I hope she didn't think I was laughing at her.

I just smiled back, wondering if I have resting smirk face.

Russ couldn't take me to the hospital because he is still quite ill. But I could do it, and while still coughing and tired out by going there and back again, not so incredibly tired as I have been.

That's a hopeful sign.

Comments

[flemmings]

Resting smirk face is a superpower. For one thing, no one tells you to smile.

[smokingboot]

Now there's an unexpected benefit :-D

[asakiyume]

I remember one time in a laundromat, someone said something caustically sarcastic to me, something like, "Sure, just come on by me to the machines way in the back!!" (which was what I was doing). In the moment, I absolutely missed it. I felt unsettled by what seemed to me to be strange enthusiasm for my ordinary action. But a few beats later, I realized the sarcasm (and of course felt even more unsettled). They were apparently frustrated that I hadn't contented myself with using one of the machines nearer to the entrance--why was I pushing past them? And honestly, I don't suppose there was a reason... but on the other hand, it didn't seem self evident to me that I shouldn't, and the random sarcasm/anger seemed uncalled for.

--Not that that's what was going on with the woman in the waiting room. ... Just reflecting on how disorienting it can be to try to understand strange remarks.

[smokingboot]

Strange isn't it, we understand each other but all we have really are these blank canvases. Whereas waiting room woman and I, laundry person and you, shared the whole physical world of verbal and non-verbal communication and still couldn't quite get past that oddness.

My instinct suggests it was because there was genuine but context free ambivalence in those situations.

[asakiyume]

And maybe also because both situations are potentially stressful in and of themselves (especially medical waiting rooms! but laundromats can have a kind of desperation about them--though they don't need to), and we're thrown together without knowing each other at all, no guarantee of common language. Here online, we choose who we interact with.

[smokingboot]

That's true.