There are always so many things to write about and so many things to draw one's attention away from writing.

Two of our very good friends welcomed their new son into the world tonight. Don and Sarah I am certain that you will be excellent parents.

On a separate note, two of my other very good friends have tonight returned to the Midwest after spending several years away. Melanie and Tim welcome back. I hope that your pregnancy goes as well as Don and Sarah's.

Tomorrow I go to consult with my plastic surgeon, Dr. E. He won't be Botoxing my forehead or fixing my nose. Instead on October 12, he will cut a tumor out of my left forearm. Not quite Nip/Tuck sexy, more Grey's Anatomy drama minus McDreamy and McSteamy.

The tumor will be sent to a hospital in Orange County, California, where someone other than The Real Housewives of Orange County will grow a cell line from it, eventually altering and mixing those cells with bio reactant immune boosting chemicals somehow resulting in a vaccine that will be injected back into me. At least that is how I understand it.

I am a little apprehensive about the surgery for two reasons. First of all, the tumor is not an easy little lump. Rather it is this flattened snaky thing in my forearm that feels to me like it has tendrils that intertwine with the muscles and tendons that control the fingers of my left hand. I am worried that there may be nerve damage or another complication that could leave my left hand with reduced functionality or sensation.

Secondly, the letter that Dr. E.'s office sent to me suggests that I will not be under general anesthetics when the procedure is done. The idea that I might see my own flesh opened up and flayed like a piece of fish is truly horrible to me.

I know that worrying is unproductive and creates unnecessary stress, so I have decided to try to let it go. On the positive side, I might have to take a break from the rapidly chilling Minnesota autumn weather and fly to sunny Newport Beach, California to meet with a doctor there who is the P.I. of this clinical trial.

Around the house, JSP and I have recently purchased several new things. First I purchased a big beautiful desk. I felt like I needed a place in the house to be productive. Up until we had the desk I had been doing most of my writing from (no joke) the bathroom floor.

Once we had the desk, JSP decided that he wanted a new computer, not just to bedeck the new desk, but also to take with him to some upcoming scientific conferences that he will be attending. The laptop does look swell on the new desk though.

After spending time on the new computer, at the new desk, being productive into the wee hours of the morning, I realized that although we have been living in the house for over three years now, we have never bothered to put curtains on several of the first floor windows, despite the fact that we like to walk around in our undershorts... or less. It seemed that the prudent thing to do was to go shopping for some window treatments that would spare the neighbors and other passer-byes the eyeful that they might get now that it is getting dark outside so much earlier.

Our foray into the world of JC Penny window dressing seemed overwhelming at first. We tried to tackle this unknown world years ago when we first moved in to the house, but pushed aside the task of finding curtains after the seemingly monumental task of finding furniture that we liked that did not cost 1/3 the price of our house. We returned to the task of window dressing three years later, that is, last week. Wandering around the fore-mentioned JC Penny curtain department, we got serious. We picked out rods, brackets, rings and eventually gold curtains with copper colored valences. Years ago I would have banished the thought of this activity, but here we were, men on a mission to save our neighbors from the horrors of watching our unclothed middle-aged (but still good looking) bodies walking in front of uncovered windows.

We made our purchase while listening to a conversation in Dutch that was happening at the next kiosk over. An old Dutch couple was conversing with a sales woman in Dutch! At JC Penny! In the Curtain Department! Somehow it was very exciting despite the fact that they were just talking about curtains and how much they cost and how frequently they wash their windows. After saying hello in our American accented Groninger Dutch and surprising the Dutch natives, we were rung up.

When we got home I had a bite to eat and then we began the difficult task of getting the curtain rods out of their plastic prisons from hell. Eventually we managed to hang the brackets and rods, the rings, curtains and valences and we stepped back to look at our work.

The first word that came to my mind while looking at the gold metallic curtains under copper valences against bold blue walls... was "shiny" the second word was "chintzy." It appeared that draq queens or Saudi Princes might step from behind those curtains at any moment. After all our work we both suffered from a feeling of defeat, as if we had just signed our home over to one of those "home decorating on a budget" shows where a team of ambitious college students turns a perfectly respectable home into something that looks like it is made of cardboard and glitter glue. Oh, and gold fabric, lots and lots of gold fabric.

We went to bed, certain that we would return the curtains to the store the following day. A funny thing happened though. The curtains looked better to us by daylight. Then the next evening, they looked better to us at night. The following night we moved most of our plants back in front of the windows, and the gold curtains looked oddly appropriate behind our regal assortment of houseplants. Suffice to say we are keeping the curtains. If drag queens do pop out from behind them someday, we will just sit back and enjoy the show.