I’m a cancer survivor. Did I ever tell you that? Well, now you know. And as GI Joe so wisely taught us...knowing is half the battle.

By way of background, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer approximately one month before my 23^rd birthday. A 3cm malignant tumor was subsequently removed along with my entire thyroid gland. 6 weeks later, I was admitted to Washington Hospital Center’s nuclear medicine department for intensive radiation therapy for 10 days (I was no shit radio active – in complete isolation and was a severe danger to pregnant women and could have killed small dogs). There is no family history and no one knows why this happened. Fun times.

The up side – thyroid cancer is extremely slow growing and very treatable. The down side - unlike most cancers that officially go into remission after 5 years, thyroid cancer can come back at any time – 20 years, 30…it doesn’t matter. Therefore, diligence is key and annual full body scans are prescribed.

Due to changing Dr.’s a number of times, insurance changes, my busy schedule…basically any excuse I could possibly think of …I haven’t had a scan since….2005.

I’m overdue. Well overdue.

Due to the relentless nagging of my parents….I made a call this afternoon to my Endocrinologist requesting she fit me in for a scan sometime soon.

I’m scared. So scared. Scared of going through the treatment, the tests, the side affects again. Cancer took a two year chunk out of my twenties – I didn’t look or feel right for two years. I don’t know whether I’m strong enough to go through that again – and so I’ve put it off. Stupid. I know. I KNOW its stupid, but that doesn’t make me any more eager to know whether or not there are cancer cells still swimming around inside of me.

I don’t look sick. I don’t feel sick and I’m not about to have my life disrupted again. That’s a great first date conversation starter – “so, I’d really love to see you again but if you put your dick inside me while I’m radioactive, it will probably fall off.”

I totally forgot how much guys dig a girl in a hospital bed.

Don’t worry – I’ll go, I’m sure everything will be fine, I’m worrying about nothing, blah blah blah. But that’s exactly what everyone said when my Dr. felt a lump in my neck…and when they did the biopsy…

I’m just so unenthusiastic about hearing the results – good or bad.

Frankly, just being in the hospital again makes me feel…damaged.

Well the ceiling situation hasn’t been completely resolved and I’m still sleeping in the middle of my living room but that’s neither here nor there.

I had a little home beauty budget disaster on Tuesday night. In preparation for spring and the two (count them) TWO dates I have this weekend, I decided to give myself some much needed highlights. Its been over a decade since I purchased one of these little chem. Labs in a box – and I remembered why. What happens when you try to lighten red hair?? It TURNS ORANGE!!!

So I just spend $300 to get the color stripped and then re-deposited into my hair. But the color that was re-deposited…is NOT my color red. It’s DARK. Like black cherry dark! It’s crazy! I have DARK hair. Every 3 minutes I’m debating between thinking ‘I look like a bad ass bitch with dark hair!’ and wanting to use non color friendly shampoo then lather, rinse and repeat like its my job.

We’ll see. I need to seek some outside opinions on the matter.

I look like a bad as bitch with dark hair!!

The Sunday morning sunlight streamed through my up tilted blinds penetrating my eyelids and casting halos of light over the characters in my dreams. I rolled over, trying to ignore the hopeful “mews” of my cats eagerly awaiting their breakfast, my arm landed on the left side of the bed.

Tragically this side is normally reserved for male-type company and thus has been empty and cold for quite some time. This morning however, the description was not merely metaphorical. Cold. It was cold!  And WET!

I sat up in shock to see that the moisture  was much larger than the spot on which I had plopped my outstreatched arm. The entire upper-left corner of my beautiful, queen sized bed was SOAKING wet. I shot up and looked around furiously for the offending feline. I was ready to shish kabob the kitty who I automatically assumed had decided to ‘mark their territory’ next to my head when a heavy, wet drop landed ‘kaploosh’ in the middle of my forehead.

I looked up and there it was – my ceiling. Sagging, drooping and dripping all over my bed!

Quickly jumping out of bed, I pulled off the sheets, pulled on a few items of clothing and proceeded to move my lovely, but heavy bed out of harms way. I then called building management to inform them of the minor rainstorm brewing in my apartment. 

A woman, who sounded less than thrilled to be working on a Sunday, answered the line and after I explained the situation promptly informed me that the absence of of functioning ceiling did not meet their ‘emergency’ criteria, a requirement for dispatching maintenance on a weekend. Apparently, as long as I still had running water and a toilet, I could wait until Monday.

I then pointed out to her that there was a snowstorm heading towards DC and unless they wanted to mop up the damage created after 6 inches of snow accumulation, they might want to think about redefining their 'emergency' standards. 

After being assured that help was, indeed, on its way, I spent the majority of the afternoon standing over my rather soggy mattress with an industrial strength hairdryer trying to stave off mold and general mattress funky-ness.

Help did indeed come. Long story short, they determined the best course of action would be to patch the leak with a piece of cardboard, secure it with duct tape for the time being and hope for the best.

Well kids, I’m not exactly Ms. Holly-Home-Repair, but I DO know that duct tape isn’t waterproof. I was skeptical that this 'quick fix' would really 'fix' anything. My suspicions were confirmed, at about 10:30 p.m. when the patch came crashing down bringing with it, a hefty chunk of my ceiling.

So lets review: my ceiling is leaking; a rather large chunk of it has fallen onto my floor; my mattress has been dried with a hair dryer; my large bed is in the middle of my apartment on the verge of landing in my kitchen; plastic tarps and drop catching buckets now adorn my once fabulous apartment and now maintenance is telling me that they can’t fix the roof until AFTER the snow melts!

This is the problem with Snow in the District – either outside or IN, we just don’t have the infrastructure to handle it!

Frankly,

I’m a mess – I admit it. I’m a creatively scatterbrained, disorganized mess! To illustrate my point, this is how I left my apartment on Saturday.

Yes, my friends – I walked all around Dupont Circle, Adams Morgan, Woodley Park and the gym enjoying the gorgeous weekend weather – WITH TWO DIFFERENT SHOES ON MY FEET!!! And no – it was NOT on purpose.

You can’t help but laugh.

Disturbingly enough, this kind of crazy brained behavior has spread into my love life, which I am trying to jump start. So a friend offered to set me up and I decided to dust off the jumper cables.

Friday afternoon, Mr. Lawyer and I traded several emails and we decided to meet today (Monday) for HH in Dupont. The plan was that he would call me on Sunday evening to confirm. Well, no call came on Sunday and so I shot off an email last night, very casually asking if we were still on for today. As of this morning I hadn’t heard back – and so was cursing the name of men everywhere trying to discern during what drug/alcohol induced haze I had the bright idea that dating would be a good plan.

As usual, I got myself  entirely more wound up than I needed to be.

Until I received a confirmation of our drink plans about 30 minutes ago. Any logical person would think - "good - all fears abated - dating STILL a good plan." However, we're taking about Scarlett - the hot mess.

NOW I’m dreading the whole thing – just knowing that I’m not going to like this guy. That he’ll be boring; or quiet or arrogant or unattractive or WORSE: that I’ll like him, which bring with it a whole DIFFERENT set of worries. What if I like him and he doesn’t like me; what if I picked the wrong shade of red to wear today; what if…..

UGH – see! Even my brain mirrors my mismatched footwear!!!!

Nevertheless, I will meet him this evening, jumper cables in hand and attempt to discover there is, if not a spark, at least a faint whisp of smoke.

Obviously I’m more inspired to write when things are going bad than when life is moving along swimmingly. So here is a happy-healthy-non-neurotic-anti-obsessive post, just for fun.

After a looong day, I took the bus home, yadda, yadda, yadda – had a lovely and nutritious dinner consisting of whole wheat pita, hummus, and the salad I had prepared for lunch the day before. I then braved the freezing cold and dropping temperatures and met a friend out at the Russia House for cocktails. We had a LOVELY time, great conversation, etc. etc. I ordered one (and ONLY one) very strong cocktail, which was enough. A string of colossally debilitating hangovers have made happy hour a little less “happy” – and so one was enough.

So I came home, checked my email (waiting for an email from Boss Man confessing his undying love…pathetic? Perhaps. More on those developments later) and when that materialized in nothing but a disappointed ‘sigh’, I turned on the TV to watch ‘American Idol: Hollywood Week’ – hot off the DVR!

Fantastically dramatic complete with the Flaming, yet cute boy CRYING, no SOBBING Hysterically over something that happened with his group. Quite amusing. But the event that truly warmed my heart to see, was ‘Bikini Girl’s’ unceremonious departure from the show. I was praying for Judge Kara to smack her back to season 1! Also, was she wearing yellow tights or was that self-tanner gone awry? Anyone??

Either way...ew. But seeing her miserable made me all sorts of warm and fuzzy inside.

So then, I climbed into bed and watched an episode of ‘HOUSE’. My new favorite drama. Despite the fact that the plot line revolved around a child dying of leukemia, I found myself truly Laughing Out Loud! The writing was so dry and hysterical - just up my alley. So I laughed and laughed out loud. Its something that hasn’t happened for awhile – it felt GREAT.

And the best surprise of all, my little black cat – (who is tres fabulous and struts her feline aloofness around the apartment) – not only came up to snuggle with me in bed (an event in itself, but burrowed UNDER the covers with me and curled up in the crook of my arm, quietly purring.

And as I reached that state right before sleep, with my cat purring by my side, that final awareness of your body before you drift off, I realized....I was smiling. Not, some huge, cheesy grin, but an involuntary, natural curve of my mouth. And I went to sleep comfortable…and happy.

Go figure.

I'm sorry for not writing - or more sorry for leaving up my last, rather depressing post.  So this is just a quick update so that I'll have posted SOMETHING this week and I'm tempted to leave it at that.

Today has been a day filled with annoyances. In an effort to stick with me 'super crazy, my body is going to look amazing this summer if its the last thing I do' diet, this morning not only found me hitting the snooze button a total of 2 times (as opposed to the usual 10) but in the gym not soon after. After making the elliptical trainer my bitch, I ran back to The Shoebox, took a shower, was running ahead of schedule...all was good. Prepared my super nutritious, high-on-fiber-low-on-taste lunch (which involved chopping and cutting and genuine preparation as opposed to the usual tossing of a frozen entree into my bag). Hell! I even COUNTED out an exact serving size of 16 fat-free crackers into a zip-lock baggie. All sounds a promising start to the day, no? Well....wait for it.

So, I feed the cats, leave the Shoebox, walk down the stairs and leave my building with Natasha Beddingfield's 'Freckles' streaming through my ipod. The snow's falling, air is crisp and I think "this is going to be a great day" as I walk to the bus stop. So I'm standing there in the cold, waiting for the bus for about 10 minutes and all of a sudden it hits me: I left my fabulously and meticulously prepared lunch on the kitchen table!!!! Oy!

By this time, the bus is already running late so I think there's no WAY I have time to run back and get it. So, I'm disappointed that I won't have my calorie perfect lunch, but I shake it off. And then I just started shaking in general - because I was FREEZING! It took 30 minutes - 30 MINUTES before not one but THREE BUSSES pulled up caravan style to the corner. The inefficiency of the Washington Metro System never ceases to astound me.

So I get on the bus, sit down in an empty row and attempt to de-thaw my frozen limbs. No sooner do I settle in (10 minute lateness to work now an inevitability) then someone tries to sit down beside me.

NOTE TO ALLLLL MASS TRANSIT TRAVELERS: If your ass is large enough to blanket THREE Seats, DO NOT ATTEMPT to squeeze into a seat next to someone else!!!!

UGH - so arrived at work - where I promptly spilled coffee on my freshly dry cleaned and pressed suit and if ONE MORE PERSON tells me "You look tired". I am going to SCREAM!

Do I have dark circles? I don't think so - but I may have to nip over to Sephora for some heavy duty treatment of some kind because this is driving me nuts. I got a good night sleep last night, have been working out, eating right, drinking more water than I ever thought was humanly possible and I look  TIRED??

I started out with good intentions but DAMN. Frankly I'm just glad this day is almost over!

I LOVE LONDON!!! I may never leave. The history, the beauty, the pubs and Camden Market - the coolest little shops...I would be totally broke from the shopping alone if I lived here!! Not to mention the cute accents! Even so so looking guys are instantly brought up to 'adorable' status just with the accents alone!! I'm slowly realizing that I live in the blandest city on the face of the earth! 

Off to drink and flirt some more!!

Cheers!!!