Today, it’s a year since my lung biopsy, an ordeal that predated this blog. I won’t go into the details just now, even though I still remember every painful detail.

The circumstances surrounding the lung biopsy (and the resulting lung collapse the next day) are the subject of an essay – a funny one -I’ve been thinking about for ages, which I’ve gone through a couple drafts of, and which I made the good/bad decision to show to an editor friend. Good, because she liked it and was encouraging and gave me great feedback on it. Bad, she’s asked me about it a couple times since. Now I’m in the position where I should make it known that I am not just an ideas person – I am A Completer. A Closer. A Finisher. But she doesn’t know I’ve never particularly been strong in any of those roles.

I am really, REALLY good at brainstorming. Always have been. I’d be great during the ideas phase of whatever project you might need me to think about. But after that point, when people are supposed to go back to their desks and Do The Work? You’d probably want to hustle me out of the building at that point. I’m basically no good at that point. If anyone has any ideas as to what line of work this skill set sounds well-suited to, I’d love to hear about it. (Don’t just say, “consulting.”)

Anyhoo, tomorrow is my brain MRI, and today I’m spending going food shopping and cooking dinner for some friends in a jam (and for us), and then oh yeah, at night I may have a drink with a friend who’s turning 50 and giving a reading. So, today is not a good day for sealing the deal with this essay.

Tomorrow, though. I like tomorrow. There’s this gorgeous garden between the MRI place and the neurosurgeon’s office, which I noticed last time I was in that vicinity. Maybe I’ll take my laptop there between appointments.

It all sounds a little ideal, doesn’t it? When have I ever taken my laptop somewhere outdoors and not wound up staring off into space?

All of which is to say, I know you’re waiting to see the finished product, K. And the three or four other things I want to write after I finish that one. I’m trying to emerge from multiple fogs right now – summer’s residue, the anti-seizure drug I want to quit, and the idea that life needs to continue apace, whether or not I am assured a long lease.

But I’m also sick of making these excuses.