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I took a brief vacation from this enterprise, in part because I wanted to think of another approach to this stage of events. Last time, I said sayonara cancer but the bastard snuck back. I'm now tempted to say sayonara again - especially since I think the literal translation is something like, "if it be thus." Nicely ambiguous. None of the rest of the immediate candidates works - not good-bye, not farewell, not adios, and certainly not au revoir.

And hello... what. Again, lots of brave stuff last time, some of it now sounding hollow. Hello rest of my life, of course. But we all can (and probably should) say that every morning.

A few things have, in any event, changed.

• The music bands are disbanded. I am trying to work out my own style of piano, something St. Louis - a mix of New Orleans and ragtime, if I can. And if there is any way I can get the first phases of practicing the accordion behind me, it's theoretically perfect - a minstrel.
  
• I'm going to church, of all things, a relatively-high Episcopal place with the finest music you can imagine. A great place, I find, for my tribal connections. I went to an Episcopal church as I grew up, it was the place of my first paying job, and I went to an Episcopalian boarding school. I remember Mom and Dad so clearly while in the pew - ancestor worship, of a kind. So what if I'm an agnostic. If God makes any sense, God made me an agnostic. If God wants me to change, and if God makes any sense, God will. Inshallah, as we used to hear all the time in Saudi Arabia, with a shrug, an Arab version of whatever.
• And of course there's this new wardrobe. Only it's not really new. It's stuff I had in the basement, much from long ago. A double-breasted suit last night that I bought when we lived in London in 1985. Wait 'til I strap on my linen suit. Woo-woo.

So there's cause for celebration, and I look for ways. Today I'm thinking about splashing on some Obsession for Men, and going to the zoo.