My father has cancer.  Colon cancer.  He's 73.  It's been hard watching him go through this.  Hardest thing ever.  He went from about 190 lbs, down to 159.  He had a bunch of his colon taken out 3 months ago, just started recovering from that and is now taking chemo.  He's got to do this for 6 months.  His feet hurt. One of the side effects of the chemo.  Just typing this, my chest hurts.  He's a trooper, strong... but this is making him physically weak.  It's hard to articulate how this feels to me.  He's been the one constant man in my life.  He may not have always been there for me, but he was certainly ALWAYS there for my mother.  How do we transcend human suffering and pain.  How do we make sense of things that make no sense at all?  How do we take the moments we have and infuse them with joy that is tangible, that we can feel, even in the midst of the moments that are profoundly painful?  Can pain and joy co-exist?

I decided to start a new blog.  I was sitting here trying to be witty and come up with some Title and URL that was .. I don't know, creative.  I was looking through a Vogue magazine sitting here and saw the word Viva.  Live.  That's a good word.  Then there was a layout in the Film Noir type ..type.  And I looked up Noir, and it means dark, depressing.  I find it sort of funny that my blog title Viva Noir sort of hints at 'live darkly'.  That isn't what I meant, but I liked it.  It's sort of like the anti-depressant blog.  Ha.  I guess that means that Viva Noir is sort of meant to be ironic.  I also find it interesting that spell check keeps telling me that Noir is spelled wrong.  It doesn't recognize the word.