Most nights around 9PM,

if I'm not working and Fred doesn't have a meeting, we find each other on the couch and settle in. Fred has his laptop open and catches up on work but we also watch TV together and he gives me a foot massage and we catch up with each other.

After a summer of watching a lot of shit (I mean like the Japanese game show thing and hours of Larry King on Michael Jackson) we were very psyched for "The Office" coming back last night and it delivered. We had started watching "Parks and Recreation" last spring, almost gave up on it after two episodes, decided to stay with it and now are very into that, too. So yeah, in the wild wacky trendsetting bi-coastal cosmopolitan lives that we lead, I have to humbly admit that Thursday night tv is something we look do forward to.

Fred always goes up to bed after those shows and I stay up and watch "Grey's Anatomy" that we've tivoed. I was kind of sleepy last night and though about going up to bed, too but then felt excited to see "Grey's" on our list and turned it on without thinking.

There was Izzy, almost dead from her (advanced) cancer, scarf covering her bald head. I was okay with all of that, with her almost dying but coming back. I was fine with her baldness. I remember even writing in my blog last spring a line like "Izzy's story is not my story" because there I was, in the midst of cancer treatment and what resonated was just the experience of being a young woman and your life stopping dead--pun okay--in its tracks.

And how what I saw last night made me feel like in fact Izzy's story felt a little too close to my story in that

I wanted to punch Christina, with her glib attitude, sucking her cancer popsicle while Izzy waited for treatment, I wanted to stand up for Izzy and tell Christina to get the hell out of there if she can't deal and to shove her sarcastic remarks up her ass. You don't need her, Iz. (I found out quickly who the people were that I could count on 100% who were there whatever my emotion was and who didn't project their fears onto me or put up defenses like smart-ass remarks and the "friends" who weren't there quickly became not a part of my cancer experience). (or my life anymore).

and then Korev...come on. That just shredded my heart, I mean, his avoiding Izzy, him withholding sex, him not embracing her vulnerability (admitedly complicated with her experiencing the loss of former lover George). I wanted to really punch him, to smack him hard.

I know real women who have lived that; my friend Ariel divorced less than a year after her breast cancer diagnosis. The cancer experience made clear to her what was missing in her marriage; her husband was not one of the people who was 100% there for her, no matter what.

A lot of people have felt and expressed that I have been strong and courageous through this process. Maybe I have been, I feel like I did what I had to do more or less. But man, I knew, there was never any doubt, that Fred had my back the whole time, the entire time.

I haven't once felt ugly or self-consious or strange or unsexual or most of all, unloved. Not for a minute.

And Izzy did not deserve that from Korev and I hope he can turn it around because I like him and I get that he's scared shitless. But these moments call us to rise up. These are the real moments. And even if your partner gets cancer and you are scared shitless, you have to be there for them 100%.

And that devastated me seeing that not happen for Izzy or maybe I just hadn't had the time yet to fully process what I've had and how grateful I am for Fred

and our funny little dates at 9PM on the couch

when there is no where in the world I would rather be, than sitting with him on the couch

watching bad tv.