Hello, Dolly!

[ivyblossom]

So, just to recap: I got cancer, I had the surgery and the radiation treatment. It was a little rough for a while there, I learned a lot about being, as my doctor says, "in a compromised body", but I'm doing really well now. And while my first test (a whole body scan) came back showing more remaining tissue than anticipated (they did the test while I was still processing the radiation), my blood test shows that there's none left anymore, which as good as someone actually doing what I'd been wishing someone would do: look me in the face and say, "Ivy, you don't have cancer anymore." I'm doing pretty well these days, and I'm trying to get back to a normal life.

I've been playing around in Second Life a lot, ever since I got my attention span back. I've gotten pretty addicted to building things in there. If you have an SL av, let me know, it would be cool to hang out.

I got married in March; Mr. Blossom is living with me at present, though he's moving to Virginia in a few weeks for a job. (He's an itinerant professor at the moment.) We still need to sort out where we're going to live in the end. Just kind of taking it as it comes for the moment. He's currently in the kitchen making a raspberry cheesecake. He's an excellent chef. I wash the dishes, that's the trade off.

While the vet suspected it, I recently learned that my dearly-beloved 11 year old orange tabby cat (Horatio) does not have FIV. Yay!

I got permanent status (tenure) while I was off recovering. Each year I have this job the harder it is to think about leaving it. Let's hope Mr. Blossom can find a job in the area.

I'm waiting with baited breath to hear more about the Lexicon trial; did I miss something? Any news?

I did some clean up on the flist, and I'm trying to add a whackload of people, but LJ won't let me. Something about trying to add too many people at once. So more during the week, I expect. I'd like to get my friendslist balanced and add back everyone who's added me.

So what's new with you?

Comments

[anandangel.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad to hear you're feeling better. Yay for you! (And Horatio too!)

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I went to ikea and bought Horatio a cat bed that's shaped like a flower with foam petals, but he's not into it. It's so cute though!

[likeawoman.livejournal.com]

glad to hear you're doing well and are happy and have a healthy kitty and everything!

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm in that "life is great" phase. :)

[applekid.livejournal.com]

AWESOME.

i've been wondering when you'd be ready to update! it's so amazing to hear you so cheerful.

i am jealous of your raspberry cheesecake, and i really hope mr. blossom finds a job up by you. i can't imagine you not living in canada! D:

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

It's great to be cheerful again too! And yeah, I don't know what we're going to do about his job situation. The one he has now is pretty good, but it's just a contract and he still needs to finish his damn dissertation. Once that's done I think he'll probably be able to pick and choose where he wants to go, so then it opens up a whole new thing: where in the world do you want to live? New Zealand? Scotland? Canada is good for me personally and professionally (librarians make a lot more here than in the US), but there are just so many more schools in the US for him to apply to. :/ I guess we'll see. He really loves Virginia Tech, though. We'll see.

At least in Virginia we could get the house of my dreams. :)

[anemonerose.livejournal.com]

Yay, glad to hear things are going well! Good luck on the job search for Mr. Blossom!

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

When is he moving? I want to check my calendar, see when I can plan a trip. I have vacation to use and what better way than to spend 2-3 days in Toronto!

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

He leaves July 26th. You're welcome at any time! I'm signed up to take a day off every week all summer. Oh but I'm going to Virginia August 14-18.

[pieslut.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on everything! I am so glad things are going better for you again. I've been reading your LJ for several years now (your HP stuff got me hooked) and it is really nice to see someone's life going well. Especially after such a traumatic year.
Also, I hear you on the tenure thing. I will hopefully get mine next year, and I don't know if I could give that up, even though I don't really like living in SoCal.
I have one very nosy question that I've been dying to ask you, and so I'm just going to do it. It concerns your marriage. See, I was under the impression that you were gay. As in "Michael Rosenbaum stole my gay." Or do I just have you totally confused with someone else?

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

No, you're right. I can't really explain it. I've known this guy for years online as a friend, and when we met in real life...I just knew. It was him or nobody. Not because he's male, certainly not, just because he's him. I guess partly I was getting a bit tired of the whole gay thing (well, I mean, the politics and the identity issues and all that) and the whole dating/relationship thing. I decided to stay single, so I wondered how best to identify myself. And I started thinking that I've never really been attracted to anyone's gender, and I'm not very visual, it has always been just about people. But I think I held myself back a bit as part of my identity, not acknowledging any feelings for the "wrong" people (though I can't really definitively state that I had any, it's just a suspicion). So I thought, okay, let it go, just don't pin yourself on any identities and see what happens. I was cool being single, I bought a condo, I was doing really well, so I didn't need anyone. And then I met up with Mr. Blossom, and it all just made sense.

But I don't think very much about me has actually changed, but this works. What can I say. :)

[cindysilver.livejournal.com]

If you like online roleplaying games, I recommend World of Warcraft :) I am glad to hear you're doing better, I look forward to reading your blog once more!

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Haha! I'm not much good as a role player, sadly. I'm more of a builder of things. But I'm not un-tempted to check it out.

[silveraspen]

Good to hear from you, and especially to hear that things are going well!

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

I'm in that "wow the world is great" kind of headspace. I hear that's typical once treatment is over, so maybe I can just chalk it up to that. :)

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Yay! I knew most of that, but yay for updates! I am a little tempted by SL but probably do not have time for anything new.

So what's new with you?

Have student visa, plane ticket, and residence deposit paid, so I'm moving to Wales in September. :)

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Ooo nice! Cardiff?

[max-ambiguity.livejournal.com]

Yay, tenure! I'm just slowly drowning in work over here.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

And birds!

[saffronlie.livejournal.com]

Yay! It's great to hear that you're doing better, mentally and physically. Congrats on tenure and all. :D

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[perpetua54.livejournal.com]

Happy to see you back!

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Why thank you, it's good to be back!

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

It's good to read that Important Life Things are going well for you -- especially since they have not always been easy. Best wishes for married life -- and sympathies for the geographic challenges of academic marriage. (I'm the sometimes trailing, sometimes absent academic in my marriage, and it's not easy. At all.)

I'm among those who have recently friended because I've finally given up on ever really returning to my original journal (conversant, where I've had you on the flist for years). At one time it seemed important to keep the two flists from transparently overlapping... now not so much. (At one time I thought I'd flit back and forth between two journals, keeping fannishness separate from references to real life... now I realize that I'm just not that much of a blogger.)

I'm hoping that someone comments on an update on the Lexicon trial. I've lost track of its progress, too, and am too lazy to poke around for the most recent reports.

*returns to lurking*

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

It's still not letting me add anyone. So annoying, I have no idea how long it will make me wait. Maybe 24 hours? I hope not longer.

And I know what you mean about the overlap problem. I have a blog in my real name that I've had for longer than I've had this one, and since so much real life have flitered into this one, I'm sure it's not too hard to put two and two together anymore. But the tenure thing makes me much more at peace about letting them merge a bit more.

Actually my experiences in fandom have been invaluable to my real life work, and I'm thinking about writing a paper in my real name about some dynamics of fandom. Funny how we relax about that sort of thing after a while.

[laurenmitchell.livejournal.com]

Yay Ivy! I'm so glad things are going so well for you and Mr. Blossom and Horatio!

New with me: I'm starting a new job in just over three hours. I will get up and get dressed eventually, I promise.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Ooo new job! Do tell! I hope you got lots of sleep. First days are really tiring. Go to bed early tonight!

[sinisteral.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to hear that your health is better as well as everything else. I'd kill for a husband who could cook a meal for me and cook it well :)!

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Haha yes, but he's not a very neat cook. I have my work cut out for me after most of these fantastic meals. ;)

[stungunbilly.livejournal.com]

Congratulations, on all of those wonderful things; new marriage, tenure, freedom from the health dangers!
That is all wonderful news.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

I guess all lives have their ups and downs. It's definitely nice being up the upswing again. :)

[aldiara.livejournal.com]

Yaaay, glad to hear you're doing well. I may have just awwwed a lot at the "Mr Blossom" moniker. Heh.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

I might need to start calling him that in real life.

[pyoor_excuse]

That is *excellent* news, congratulations on both fronts. I'm really glad to hear that you're clear, and that things are going well with your chap. :)

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Thank you!!

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you're doing so well and that Horatio is FIV negative!

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Me too! Now we can merge our cat families...Mr. Blossom has a little tiny girl cat named Sheila who's currently holed up with his mother. It would have been terrible not being able to have them live together (though...they might not enjoy each other's company too much...I guess we'll see!)

[moia.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're doing better! I hope you and MR. Blossom manage to solve your geographical problems and find somewhere where you can be happy together. :)

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Thank you! We'll work on it. :)

[so-lily-briscoe.livejournal.com]

Congrats on wellness!

You are the zillionth person I know to receive tenure from a sickbed. Weird. Congrats on that, too!

And congrats on the you-cook-I-clean arrangment - one I have working nicely for myself at the moment, too. Don't you love that? You get raspberry cheesecake (or, in my case, any number of pies) for eff's sake, and all you have to do is get a little soapy? Brilliant.

Glad all's as well as can be with you.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Who can turn down cancergirl for tenure? I'm sure I could have gotten it on the sympathy vote alone. :)

[maruchina.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you're doing better! And yay for Horatio! I hope Mr. Blossom finds a job in your area soon. I can't imagine it'll be easy living so far apart?

What's new with me? I've finally gotten my life back together, am working on my BA thesis and hopefully graduating in September, so I can start my MA in American Studies in September as well. :) I've finally gotten rid of my ex of doom and have been ignoring his attempts to contact me. Will be re-doing my living room completely this month, including a complete set of new furniture. So yes, these are all things that make me happy.

Maybe there's just something positive in the water. :)

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Ooo that sounds fun! I guess I don't have to remind you to post pictures. You *are* my favourite photographer and all. :)

[starlitshore.livejournal.com]

Wow! Congratulations for getting better and for your marriage and for your tenure and for everything else! It sounds like things have finally taken a really good turn for you. I'm so pleased for you and am glad to see you back!

I'm currently working away the summer after my third year of undergrad, and counting down the days until I go back. I was hired on as a residence don this year, so I have to go back early for training. I'm sort of scared about having to be a real grown-up after this year, and am really terrified of having to apply and wait for an acceptance/rejection to teacher's college. Alas, I have no boy in my life, but I've got great friends and a super family and a lot of plans for the new school year. And that's me in a nutshell!

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Ooo that's a fun job. You'll love it!

Where do you want to go to teacher's college?

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

P.S. Will he share the raspberry cheesecake recipe? Because I have recently come into a windfall of raspberries :D

[tropes.livejournal.com]

I got promoted last week! That's about it. :)

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Yay! That's great!