Holding On for a Better Year

About three months ago, my wife Carole was diagnosed with breast cancer. It’s the kind of unpleasant surprise you naturally assume happens only to other people … until suddenly that’s no longer the case.

The weeks since have been a steady stream of lengthy visits to the clinic, side effects at home, bills in the mail, days of no energy and others when we could run an errand or visit friends, and a run (thankfully only the one) to the emergency room.

The first time you hear the word “cancer,” it is beyond belief. It floats in the air like a dandelion seed: weightless … yet menacing. There’s a brief period when you think about some of the worst possible outcomes, but you don’t spend more than a minute or two trying to imagine how you’d manage. At least I didn’t. That goes away permanently.

One surprise is how swiftly you adjust. What seemed impossibly difficult and frightening somehow manages to transform into the new normal: This is what we do now. A pair of painful biopsies and an MRI established that there was a tumor in Carole’s left breast, and an apparently infected node under her arm. The oncologist recommended chemotherapy first to try to shrink them -- a series of eight rounds, one every two weeks -- and then surgery to remove the tumors.

More Adventures of a Portland Streetcar customer service rep

I have now worked two and a half years for Portland Streetcar as a customer service representative. The job brings me into steady contact with all kinds of people, from retirees who are comfortably well off or just getting by, to young urban professionals living and/or working in the Pearl, and of course homeless folks . . . some of whom actually show me valid fare.

My experiences and observations amid this constant parade of humanity are wonderful fodder for storytelling on my Facebook page. Last April, I collected up and shared the best tales from 2015. More of course are coming from this year, but I went back and copied the memorable ones from my first six months on the job, from June through December 2014. This was back when streetcar fare was just one dollar for two hours of riding.

Enjoy!

July 23: Encountered a retired couple from Baltimore on the streetcar. They said they had saved “the best for last” on their West Coast swing (second time here). He said, “You know how in New York you say, ‘nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live here’? Well, Portland’s a nice place to visit, and you WOULD want to live here.”

I love this town.

July 25: Tall young dude digging in his tight jeans pocket for his streetcar fare ticket: “It’s in there somewhere.”

Me: “Well, I’m not going in after it.”

Him: (Laughs) “I appreciate that.”

The Best Book I Read This Year

In an essay published recently in the Oregonian, I mentioned that I read between 110 and 140 books every year.

Naturally, people ask me what’s good -- in other words, what I’ve read that I’d recommend. I’m usually at a loss, partly because I read so many books that it’s hard to recall most of them offhand -- I even forget the titles of some of the ones I liked -- and partly because I don’t know enough about the other person’s taste to be able to predict what he or she would enjoy.

But I can unequivocally state the best book I’ve read this year, possibly in several years, is Secondhand Time: the Last of the Soviets, by Svetlana Alexievich. It conveys the utter poetry and beauty, as well as the absolute horror, of ordinary lives caught up by extraordinary circumstances. You could pull the scripts for a dozen great plays and films out of the true stories it contains, if people could believe them.

SOME OF THE OTHERS

Don’t get me wrong; this has been a great year for reading, otherwise. I’ve read novels that were magical, including Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, and two by Anthony Marr, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena and The Tsar of Love and Techno -- any of which would be an excellent choice for a book discussion group.

Clubs is Trump

Tomorrow, the 2016 Presidential election officially ends. Despite weeks of folderol about a potential elector revolt, I expect Donald Trump will be certified as our next Chief Executive.

A friend of mine is acquainted with people who have had business dealings with the incoming President. According to them, he says, the President-to-be was unfailingly polite and professional.

I think the first time my friend told me this story, it gave me a little comfort. It appeared the GOP nominee was a form of performance artist: He tells people what they want to hear … or pushes their fear and insecurity buttons for leverage. In other words, he tailors his “show” to the setting and the audience, without necessarily letting anyone know what he really thinks, or where he stands.

RADIO SILENCE

I purposely did not write about Trump over the course of the campaign, at least not since last spring: not here on my blog, and not even on Facebook. I didn’t post or “like” any of the mocking memes about him -- at least no more than the fingers of one hand. I treated Clinton the same: I limited my firefights on Facebook to defending and advocating for the candidate who got my vote in the primaries, Bernie Sanders, and mostly on other people’s pages.