For a week or so I've been gestating my next post here; another typical epic treatment of ephemeral thoughts, striving for profundity, edging towards profanity. Taking in and swishing around Steven Johnson (who spoke here last week), his thoughts on the reluctance of people to return to the Freedom Tower, my parallel thoughts on the celebrated re-opening of the Superdome and how willing people are (against my early expectations) to return there, the workings of the mind, the way we learn and unlearn deeply ingrained habits and anxieties, the emerging possibility that we can take an active part in undoing and unlearning them somehow. Making our mind more clear of unnecessary and obsolete fears....making our minds more healthy...making our whole selves more healthy, perhaps, in the bargain.

Those thoughts will wait for another day. It's a little after 8 on a chilly, damp Friday night here; all I can really think about is that in less than two hours, Kiki's going to have her last treatment session. The last time she'll ever have to endure that poking and waiting and drugging and all the aftereffects of chemo that she so hardheadedly spares me. The one that finally sets her fully clear of leukemia forever (so hard for me to say the word sometimes; now I want to say it, take power of it, ball it up physically/mentally and throw it away, forever). But also the hardest of the sessions, so she tells me. She's done this all brilliantly; the last hurdle is a doozy, but she's gonna stretch and leap right over it. Still, it's only human to be anxious. And we both are.

I'm not there to sit there beside her tonight, and that really bothers me. If ever I should be there...it should be now.

I won't dwell. What can I do, here? I was listening to this song late (late!) last night. A song I love and that meant a lot to me, and I believe, to her, a couple years ago. For very my own little Top of the Pops....try to avoid your worst fear...the thought of me singing along with it....