I had this dream that Ray came over to my house to see me. I kept trying to tell him about my surgeries because I wanted him to feel sorry for me and therefore love me. I showed him my scars and he, all jovial and jolly, grinned and told me I wasn't very pretty anymore and he was so very glad he didn't have to deal with all my shit. I wanted him to see the crooked rivers stitched on my arm and leg, the purpling frown on one breast and the crooked smile under the nipple of the other. I thought that once he saw how I had been hurting he would be moved. I thought I could make him love me with my pain, but he just laughed and said I wasn't very pretty anymore and that was the end of the story as far as he was concerned. I had this dream a couple of times.

The joke's on you evil dream Ray. I've been using this moisturizer that makes my pores less porous and my cheeks are so smooth and soft you'd think I ripped them off a baby. Also, I am a real person whereas you, evil dream Ray, are merely the product of an over-worked and extremely anxious subconscious. I was just thinking about it in the shower and I wanted to make sure I wrote all this down. Because all the cancer in the world wouldn't make him, or anyone, love me the way I want them to.

On the plus side, I don't have any cancer anymore. I'm pretty stoked on that but also terrified of it coming back. I'm worried that no matter how much I step up my sun protection, the damage may have already been done. I'm worried about how I'm going to get health insurance after I graduate. I'm good for the next year, but shit, having melanoma pop up in two different spots at the same time indicates that I am at an increased risk for reoccurance. I can has skin check?

A couple weeks ago, the day after my skinectomy as a matter of fact, I had a really good talk with my dad. I was all hopped up on vicoden rambling to him about how I think maybe I made myself so sick by being so hard on myself all the time. I am starting to believe more in the connection between mental health and physical health and I think these tumors and these renegade cells are my body eating itself up the way I always take things out on myself. He said something like, we are always comparing our insides to other people's outsides and it's not fair to anyone and it's not constructive. I am used to seeing my dad as kind of curmudgeonly, a fuddy duddy and a goofball, the guy who borrows my little brother's car to smoke cigars in it, but when he said that to me, it reminded me that he is also very wise. Also, that I love him very much.