A Friendly Musical Visit Every Day

When you spend many hours of your day on a hospital ward, you overhear a lot of conversations. The other week, I overheard one that made me feel not so alone, and I want to share it with you now. The patient in the next bed had the same cancer as my partner. His wife was sitting with him. After a lengthy conversation with the nurse, the husband/patient mentioned to his wife/caregiver that some friends of theirs were supposed to visit later in the week. The wife said, dejectedly, "Oh, we'll have to cancel that." The husband waited a long moment and then said, "I think it's okay if they still come." They were feeling each other out. The husband obviously wanted to see his friends. The wife did not have the energy for it.  I know this because she said so later in the conversation. But before she got to there, she said, "The house is such a mess." The husband said, "Yeah, we need to vacuum."  The wife said, "Yeah. WE need to vacuum.&quo

Yesterday my partner was talking to his sister-in-law, who is a retired nurse, and she kept asking him all these questions that implied we were living in normal times. It really drove the point home, for me, that people have no idea what life is like for us right now. Even someone who worked in healthcare didn't seem to understand that cancer has taken over our lives. Cancer is our whole life. In the past month, my partner (who has always been so active and athletic) has gone to medical appointments and slept. Aside from that, we have watched two movies on DVD. In an entire month. Yes, most days he is too tired to watch a movie, even though he spends most of his time on the very couch that is situated in front of the TV. That is the level of pain and exhaustion we've reached. This is not normal life. These are not normal times. I probably wouldn't understand, either, if I wasn't seeing it first-hand. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing y

My doctor started me on blood pressure medication, and the pharmacist was explaining that it works by slowing your heart rate or something (I didn't write it down, and I basically have no functioning memory anymore). So I took it for the first time as I was going to bed last night, and then I instantly started obsessing over my heartbeat. Had it changed? Had it slowed? Was it too slow? Would I die in my sleep? Last night there was a lot of loudness on my street (people screaming in the park, motorcycles, sirens, other tenants out on their balconies), so every time I started nodding off, something would wake me up and I'd start obsessing over my heart yet again. Then my partner started snoring in my ear, so I had to sleep on the couch. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour

 I went out last night to pick up a prescription. On my way home, I walked by a house with a couple outside on their porch. The woman sounded pretty drunk, and she kept saying the same thing over and over: "If I do and you tell me to be quiet, I'll just go dance somewhere else--I don't care!" I remain fascinated.  This is obviously an ongoing issue for the couple, but what is the ongoing issue?  What does this woman do (on the dance floor?) that inspires her boyfriend to tell her to be quiet? I love overhearing snippets of conversations. I have written entire novels based on snippets of conversations. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when y

People leave all sorts of things in the laundry room of my apartment building. If one tenant doesn't want or need something, they leave it there for other tenants to take. Today it was cat food. One time I found an entire watermelon down there. A couple weeks ago, it was DVDs. New DVDs of old movies. One of those movies was the 1944 film noir classic, "Laura." I love films of that era, but I'd never seen this particular one. Neither had my partner, so we watched it the other night. We both enjoyed it. Kept us guessing, since it's a murder mystery. Did its job. And it did its job in only an hour and twenty-eight minutes. I think that's one reason I like old movies. They tend to be shorter than the films of today. I've got menopause brain and pain brain. I do not have much of an attention span. My partner used to tell me I could probably build up my attention span, if I worked at it. Then he started cancer treatment. Now he understands the no attenti

We walk along College Street on our way to the hospital, and I have--on multiple occasions--passed by a guy wearing a T-shirt that says: More Cowbell. If you are the dude with the More Cowbell T-shirt, I like your top. It inspired me to finally look up the "More Cowbell" SNL skit, which I'd heard of, but I don't think I'd ever seen. The skit features Blue Oyster Cult, but "Don't Fear the Reaper" has already been our song of the day. (Can you believe we've listened to more than 900 songs of the day with accomanying anecdotes? Isn't that wild?) So we're listening to another song that features a cowbell. You just have to wait for it. Be patient. The cowbell is coming. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help

I actually can't stand this song, even though I loved Fame (the movie AND the TV show) back in the 80s. I attended a very Fame-like high school as a teenager, and we sang this as a choral number one year. I love singing, and I usually enjoyed any song we sang just because of the community feeling you get when you're singing with a hundred other people, but this number didn't do it for me. I still hate it. But I chose it as our song of the day because last week I published the 21st installment in my "Sexy Surprises" series of 6-story erotic anthologies. This book is called " Good Vibes, Sexy Surprises " and all the stories feature vibrators. And that made me think of this song. So there's your connection. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Pa

Yesterday I told you about the Dwayne Gretzky concert I saw at the CNE last Friday. Earlier in the afternoon, my mother and I happened to be walking by the bandshell while Dwayne Gretzky was performing their soundcheck. Well, this was one of the songs they went through. They performed it again in concert. The whole time, I was wondering, "What is this song?" Usually I recognize the songs they cover, but I don't remember ever hearing this one before yesterday. Not sure how I missed it.  I spent way too long asking Google what the song could possibly be, trying to describe the sound without remembering a single lyric. Google didn't come close to finding me an answer. ChatGPT got it right away. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help m

There's an annual fair in Toronto called the CNE, also known as the Ex, also known as the Canadian National Exhibition. Before the pandemic, I went to that fair every year for 40 years straight. The pandemic broke my record, because the CNE didn't run for... two years? And then last year I didn't go because I was out of town. This year, I really really really wanted to return. I worried I wouldn't get the opportunity because cancer care has completely taken over my ife. But my partner could see how important the CNE was to me, so he encouraged me to go with my family and have FUN. It turned out opening day of the CNE was the one day my whole family could make it, and it also turned out my favourite cover band, Dwayne Gretzky, was the opening act at the bandshell. My partner and I saw them in concert last year, and even he was singing along (he is not a singer).  Dwayne Gretzky puts on such a fun concert. If you ever get the opportunity to see them, treat yourself. You

When this song first came out, my cousin used to sing along with lyrics she made up, which she thought were hilarious. Instead of "I feel like the colour blue," she would sing "I feel like a chunk of poo." Sounds like something a six-year-old would say, so I assumed this song was around when we were small children. Except it wasn't. Turns out we were practically teenagers at the time. So, wow... pretty immature. Except I'm currently in my 40s and every time this song comes on, I sing "I feel like a chunk of poo" and I laugh my stupid little ass off. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy stuff by clicking thr

When we were talking about shooting stars the other day, this was actually the first song that popped into my head. I didn't make it our song of the day at the time because I don't exactly love it, but it did remind me of a TV show I used to watch in the 80s. I had to look it up just now, because I couldn't remember what it was called--or anything else about it, for that matter. Apparently the show I had in mind was called "Out of This World." Based on the opening credits, it looks like it was a sitcom about a teenager who is some kind of alien with superpowers? I love that I'm 100% sure I watched this show, and yet I don't remember anything about it aside from the theme song. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugel

A couple weeks ago, I told you that I've been watching old episodes of Cheers as a self-soothing mechanism. Well, I've never seen my partner watch a sitcom until now, but suddenly he's watching Big Bang Theory all the time. He scours the TV listings and watches it on this channel, then watches it on that other channel. Apparently it's always on, the way Friends was always on in syndication 20-odd years ago. I didn't feel like posting the theme song, so I chose another Barenaked Ladies track instead. There are a couple different places that live on only in my memory (and other people's, too) but they no longer exist in this world. One such place is the office I worked in 20 years ago. The landlord decided they'd make better money if they converted this office building into condos, and instead of relocating, the business I worked for just decided to close their Toronto location. So the building itself still stands, but it's now condos, not offices. I dr

My partner woke me up at 2:30 in the morning and whispered, "Do you want to see the stars?" He was referring to the Perseid meteor shower. The sky had been overcast when we'd gone to bed, but I dragged a couple deck chairs into the middle of his small backyard anyway. Just in case.  He had asked me, then, "If I get up to go to the bathroom and I can see shooting stars, should I wake you?" I said yes. Absolutely. So he did see a shooting star and he did wake me up, and we sat together in the backyard at 2:30 in the morning, and we stared up at the sky. We realized that last year around this time, we were on vacation, staying with friends for a few days at their remote, ramshackle cottage. In fact, it's so remote you can only get there by water.  The four of us laid on their deck, on chair cushions, and watched the meteor shower. We saw so many shooting stars I quickly lost count. Last night, I saw two. Not quite the same thing, but we shared that pleasant mem

Every time this song comes on the radio, I say to my partner, "This was the theme for Fashion Television, remember?"  He doesn't remember because he didn't spend the entire 80s watching CityTV (aside from Baby Blues, of course).  I never watched Fashion Television, myself (I am the least fashionable person you will ever meet), but it came on after something I did watch (I don't remember what), so I will always equate this song with that show. The other day, the DJ on my 70s/80s/90s radio station introduced this track by saying, "Taking you back to Fashion Television..." and I turned to my partner like: See? See? It's not just me! I didn't post the music video because the sound quality didn't seem amazing, but the video is honestly like the 80s threw up on itself. That decade, man--I'm still recovering from it. I met a couple of young people today, and I keep thinking they would look at any 80s music video and think it was all for sho

There's a gong in the radiation clinic at my partner's cancer centre. The gong has a sign on it saying that patients should bang it (gently) after their final treatment. A rite of passage, I suppose. That final treatment day cannot come soon enough. And I'll tell you this much: after a couple more weeks of cancer treatments, neither my partner nor I will have the energy for anything more than a gentle bang. We're flagging already, and we're nowhere near done. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy stuff by clicking through  my affiliate links . I also recommend subscribing to my newsletter. I generally e-mail subscribers with a w

This song has turned into the anthem I play in my head. It's an anthem of hope, for me, because "Day by day, I'm feeling stronger" is not where we're at, right now. We're headed in the opposite direction. Every day of cancer treatment makes my partner weaker and less capable of doing the things he used to do and enjoy. He used to exercise constantly. Now he can't. At all. We were reminded last week that radiation side effects will likely peak 5-10 days AFTER treatment ends. So even after this course of radiation is through, my partner's day-to-day condition will continue to deteriorate. Pain will increase. The doctors keep warning us, because we don't listen. The pain is bad already. It will only get worse. My partner keeps telling me he can only go one day at a time right now. He won't field questions about tomorrow or this weekend. He will only think about today. There's always a chance tomorrow will be considerably worse. But one d

Robbie Robertson died last week. You probably know that by now, but it hit my partner pretty hard. He loved The Band. He owns The Last Waltz, the concert recording from which this clip was taken, on DVD. We've watched the second half of the film Once Were Brothers twice on TV. Each time we tuned in late and missed the start. Just another excuse to watch it again, this time from the beginning. "Somewhere Down the Crazy River" is a Robbie Robertson song I love, but it has already been our song of the day. It reminds me of late nights at the cottage, playing board games with my family, and it comes on the radio and it tells you you're ready for sleep. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so h

The other day, as my partner was waiting for his radiation appointment, someone in the waiting room started proudly extolling the ideas of his favourite right-wing politician. This man said he was looking forward to attending a protest "against gender in schools." When my partner told me this story later on, my stomach dropped. Simultaneous to that--to being personally hurt by the sentiment, as a non-binary queer--I couldn't help thinking how incredibly stupid this bigot sounded.  Protesting against gender in schools? That doesn't even make any sense. Do you not want there to be gender in schools? Or do you just not want there to be certain genders in schools? Like mine, perhaps? I used to speak eloqently, before the menopausal brain fog set in. Pile the caregiver brain fog on top of that, and I'm lost in an endless fog. So I'm glad I wasn't there in that waiting room when this man was spewing his transphobia all over the cancer patients (he wasn't a

I'm lying on my bed as I write this post.  I woke up feeling ill, which is not unusual. I spend half my life barely able to crawl out of bed. My partner has four medical appointments today, but he insisted he doesn't need me there for any of them. He said he'd call if he needed anything.  We spent yesterday at the hospital, meeting with various oncology professionals. It was an exhausting day. So many waiting rooms. So much waiting.  And the day never ends when we get home. That's when I have to figure out what to make for dinner even though I just want to collapse in a heap. So I've been lying here for two hours, hoping for my own pain to subside, watching true crime shows on my laptop, and feeling guilty for not doing all the work I've got to do. And the laundry! The laundry has been building up for weeks, but my health and mobility have been so poor that I haven't had the strength to carry it down to the laundry room in my building. I wish somebody wo

Yesterday, I mentioned a bunch of dairy products. After having written "whole milk" I thought to myself, gee, I guess I've been reading a lot of American recipe blogs lately, because that's not what we call it here in Canada. We call it "homo milk"--short for homogenized. That's what we've always called it, for as long as I can remember. Maybe it's generational, though, because when we met with my partner's oncological dietitian (a person younger than we are), she asked us, "How do you feel about switching to 3.25% milk?" I laughed, because I'd never heard anyone call it that before. I never even knew what percentage milkfat homo milk contained. It's possible our dietitian doesn't feel comfortable asking cancer patients, "How do you feel about drinking homo milk?" If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are

Last week, I wrote you a post about spending 7+ hours at the hospital with my partner. Just a day in the life of Giselle. When we got home from the hospital, I wanted to crash. I was exhausted beyond exhaustion, but I had to make dinner. My partner's doctors keep emphasizing to us how important it is for him to keep eating, even though it hurts, even though he can't stand the sight of food sometimes. They want him to keep eating in order to keep his swallowing muscles in working order, and in order to keep his weight up. The oncological dietitian we met with explained how important it is to pack every bite with protein and fats. He's supposed to eat dairy with the highest fat content we can find. Put butter and gravy on everything. If in doubt, add ice cream. Sounds like a dream, except that my partner can no longer taste anything. Plus, it hurts. It hurts so much my partner's doctors have prescribed him all kind of pain meds to take prior to eating, plus a disgus

I will always associate this piece with the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which was one of my favourite movies of the 80s. It came out at the absolute perfect time, for me. I'm sure I've mentioned in the past that I wanted to be an animator when I was young. Part of that was because I loved drawing, and part of that was because I loved cartoons. Have I told you this story before? I can't remember. I've talked about it on Twitter, but I can't recall if I ever mentioned it here on the blog: when I was a kid, there was a lot of domestic violence in my household. I had a Smurfs blanket on my bed, and at night I would hide underneath it and pretend I was in Cartoon World, where I could play with the characters I loved from Saturday morning cartoons. When Roger Rabbit came out, it affirmed my escapist desires by presenting a world in which cartoons and humans coexisted. That's where I wanted to live. I haven't seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in... oh, 30 years,

Yesterday I mentioned I've been watching old episodes of Northern Exposure to escape into nostalgia. This song was featured in the same episode as yesterday's song. I never get tired of The Coasters. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy stuff by clicking through  my affiliate links . I also recommend subscribing to my newsletter. I generally e-mail subscribers with a weekly update, and I would LOVE to have you on the list.  Click here to sign up:  http://eepurl.com/R4b11 See you soon! Giselle

In an ongoing effort to escape the soul-sucking horribleness of my current circumstance, I've been re-watching Northern Exposure. This track was featured on an episode I just watched, and it brought me back to childhood. We used to do "folk dancing" in school (it was NOT optional) and Turkey in the Straw was one of the songs we danced to.  How did we dance to it? I have no idea. That memory cartridge is blank. But I still have great affection for this song. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy stuff by clicking through  my affiliate links . I also recommend subscribing to my newsletter. I generally e-mail subscribers with a weekly u

I was walking down the street where I live, on the way home from my local library, the summer sun blazing down on me, when a car stopped at a red light. It was blasting this song. Right at the chorus, too. This mundane occurence filled me with the feels, and I wasn't sure why. Then I looked down and realized I was wearing a dress I've owned since this song first came out. I've got the 90s all over me, baby--head to toe. Well, shoulders to toe. My dress didn't cover my head. And it occured to me that I feel like exactly the same person I was in 1994. Am I? Am I really? Will I always be the same little me? The more I change, the more I stay the same. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influence

As you've probably heard by now, Paul Reubens died last week. I loved Pee-Wee's Playhouse, as a kid. As an adult, I watched a documentary about the art director on the show, which I found illuminating at the time, but remember nothing about now because my brain no longer holds onto information. When I went to YouTube to grab this clip, I spotted a video saying that Cyndi Lauper sang this theme song. Wasn't sure if that was true, but the internet agrees. Apparently she copped to it in her autobiography. Makes perfect sense, actually. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy stuff by clicking through  my affiliate links . I also recommend s

Every hour at the hospital feels like five. By the time we got home from two radiation treatments yesterday (one first thing in the morning, one late in the afternoon), I felt like we'd been at my partner's cancer care centre for years. Between his two bouts of radiation, my partner had a check-in with his oncologist and some other healthcare professionals. They were concerned that his blood pressure was very low, and he was notably dehydrated. One of the many horrible side effects of the radiation he's receiving is that it causes extreme pain in his mouth and throat, making it difficult to eat and drink. He's doing his best, but he's also exhausted all the time. It's hard to drink your 8 glasses of water a day when you're always asleep. So, anyway, they put him on an IV drip, which made him cold despite the warm blanket the nurse had put on him. (The nurses at this hospital are amazing. The are so compassionate. I truly love them.) I had to run out to a

While we were checking out my partner's new house, back when he bought it in 2021, I found a closet that seemed like it would be good to hide in. When I said so to my partner, he replied that he doubted we would be playing hide-and-seek. I told him I just like hiding sometimes and he got sad. He remembers my story of finding my mother hiding from my father in a closet when I was a child. I joined her and we hid there together for an entire afternoon. It's the only thing I remember ever doing, just the two of us, throughout my entire childhood. It upsets my partner when I hide because he thinks I'm hiding from him. I'm not. He is not an abusive man. He is very kind and caring.  I hide sometimes because my PTSD is triggered, and he always thinks it's his fault somehow. It's not. The last time I hid, I'd been lying on the bed watching stuff on YouTube when I realized I was hungry and cold and I hadn't moved for a while. All those feelings in my body took me

 Before I had to put this blog on hiatus, I had been featuring trans opera singers. We're back with non-binary super-soprano Teiya Kasahara 笠原 貞野 and a balcony performance. Make sure to stay until the end--there's a cat at the end. Both my elderly cats died during the pandemic. My partner is very allergic, so adopting another one would be kind of a big "fuck you" in his face. I just gotta say... I miss cats. This is the first time in 20 years that I haven't had cats, and it's an adjustment.  I want cats. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy stuff by clicking through  my affiliate links . I also recommend subscribing to my n

I want to tell you about a wild experience I had inside my own mind. If you remember Laurie Brown from CBC's The Signal, you might be aware that she has a podcast called Pondercast. I only just found out that she's been creating these incredible guided meditations. These things are seriously next-level. They really do it for me. Today I listened to an episode that was called Waiting, I think. Sorry to be so vague--I'm just trying to get this out fast so I don't lose it. In this episode, she mentions a quote about catching sight of yourself in a shop window and realizing that you have the option to either see your own reflection or see what's beyond. At the end of the meditation, I had this visual experience (in my mind) of trying to see what was on the other side of the glass. I could only seem to see myself, but I wanted to know what was going on inside. When I was finally able to see through that window, what I saw inside was really adorable. There were all

A lot has changed since I first created this blog. Even more changes happened while the blog was on hiatus. Most notably, my partner was diagnosed with cancer. He is currently receiving treatments, the side effects of which make every day incredibly arduous. When you become a caregiver, everybody tells you that you have to take care of yourself first--the whole oxygen mask thing. Even my partner tells me I need to take care of myself first, particularly because I have chronic health conditions that make it almost impossible to function some days. It feels kind of ridiculous sometimes, the two of us trying to take care of each other when we're both sick. We need so much help, and right now we have nothing. All we've got is each other. Every time someone tells me to take care of myself first, I wonder how I'm supposed to do that when my partner's needs are so immediate and life-or-death. He is not a demanding person. Cancer is demanding. It takes over your entire life