Sidequest Sally

It’s unbelievable how much time I spend on side quests. I wake up with a plan for the day. Intentions. Then I’ll have a thought. About anything, really. Sidequest Sally steps in with a whole other exciting, totally unexpected idea of what to do. Off we go researching, imagining, planning. We go deep.

Curled in my chair, I go on all kinds of mental adventures with Max, my fourteen-year-old blind puppy asleep on my lap. Oblivious to everything.

I got Max three years ago. Our other dog, Abby, who we got as a puppy, is great and all, but she absolutely did not understand the assignment. I think she came down the wrong chute. She was destined for the cat chute, got confused, and ended up a dog. She walks the back of the couch like a cat. Perches in whatever chair I’m not in and just watches us. Happy to know we’re nearby, but with absolutely no interest in meeting us where we are.

Max was found in a ditch in California’s Central Valley. One hundred and eight-degree heat. Half alive. Covered in flies. A good man found him and brought him to the Milo Foundation, where he was fostered back to health.

My birthday was coming up. My best friend Steph and I were talking about what to do. She said, “You need a cuddly dog. Abby’s great and all...but you need a real dog.”

So Wren and I set out, Sidequest Sally style, to find one. I told her, “If it says ‘trainable,’ no. If it says ‘loves long walks,’ no. ‘Ball of energy.’ Absolutely not. ‘Experienced dog owners only.’ Hard pass.” “We’re looking for ‘lazy.’ ‘Couch potato.’ ‘Good with dogs, cats, kids.’ ‘Co-dependent’ works too.”

A few days later she texted me, “Mom, I think I found our dog.” “Honey...he looks sweet, but he’s eleven. And blind.” “But mom, read his story!” There was a picture of him lying in the ditch where the man found him. His foster mom called him the best dog she’d ever fostered. She wrote about how he followed her everywhere and was happiest simply being near whatever was going on.

We have a lively house full of people and animals. If nothing else, we could give him a few good years and send him off to puppy heaven happy and loved.

The shelter told us he was chipped. When they first found him, they called the family he was registered to. They said they’d surrendered him years earlier. Then the shelter called the rescue where he’d supposedly been dropped off, trying to piece together what had happened. Turns out that shelter had closed during Covid.

Whatever side quests he went on during those years, I’ll never know. But those side quests kept him alive, even though they almost killed him.

But it was in that ditch someone reached down, found him worthy, and saved him.

Know what else is a side quest?

Cancer.

You’re just going about your ordinary life—plans, dreams, intentions—and suddenly Sidequest Sally roars up on her motorcycle with cancer in the sidecar. Your whole life is now a side quest. Thanks a lot, Sally. To survive, you start fighting back with your own little side quests to the side quest.

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A little while ago I started thinking about getting a typewriter.

When I was in high school, my best friend’s dad said something I’ve never forgotten. “You know what I’ve learned about you? The first thing you say is always a lie. The second gets closer. But the third thing—that’s your truth.”

It’s not that I’m a liar.

It’s all true the first, second and the third. There are just layers to truth. It takes me a while to make it down into the basement, where it’s cool and quiet, where I can sort through all the spinning thoughts and shiny distractions and find the right words.

I can type and think at top speed on my trusty little MacBook Pro. My fingers fly across the keyboard. I edit as I go. I zip along, dictating. A typewriter is different. You have to hit every key with intention. Type too fast and the arms jam. You stop, untangle them, remember to slow down.

Then, a few weeks ago, driving down University Avenue in Berkeley, Billy and I passed a store I’m sure I’ve driven past hundreds of times. The awning said: TYPEWRITERS.

“Pull over!” I yelled. “I’ve been thinking about getting a typewriter.”

We were definitely on our way somewhere, but Billy’s always up for a good side quest. The shop was closed. Through the windows I could see stacks and stacks of typewriters, all cattywampus on shelves stretching to the back of the store. A few for sale in the window. One had a chokehold on me.

Three days later we went back.

I spent nearly two hours typing on every machine for sale before bringing home the portable ABC from the 1950s—the very one I’d fallen for through the window. It was designed by Bauhaus designer Wilhelm Wagenfeld, who believed beautiful things should also be useful.

Turns out Tom Hanks, who has a collection of more than 300 vintage typewriters, buys and gets his typewriters there. The owner told us Tom had spent a few hours in the shop just the week before. SF Gate even ran an article about his visit with photos of him trying out typewriters. In one of them, just behind Tom on the table, you can see a few he was testing. One of the ones he was testing was my little green ABC, which you can see to the right of his shoulder.

Basically, Tom Hanks and I share a typewriter.

I’m basically famous.

I spent a long time talking with the owner. Just before we left he said, “Hang on. I want to show you something.” From the back room he carried out a red portable Royal from the 1920s. He pointed to a little scribble on the body. “See that? That’s Tom’s signature. This is his typewriter. He gave it to us.”

“Are you selling it?” I asked. He said he wasn’t sure what they would do with it. “Sometimes he wants them back once we fix them.” “If you do decide to sell it, can I have first dibs?” I half begged.

He handed me a scrap of paper for my name and number. You better believe I added to my info something along the lines of, “I have stage four cancer and could really use a win.”

My toxic trait is believing they’ll call Tom and say, “Hey, there’s this woman with stage four cancer who really wants your typewriter.” He’ll be so moved he’ll show up when I come to pick it up, give me a hug, we’ll get to talking, become lifelong friends, and he’ll come over for Sunday Suppers.
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Typing on a typewriter is not a thought experiment, it’s an experience. You have to hit every key with enough force to leave a mark. You have to type slow enough that the arms don’t tangle. You wait for the ding, throw the carriage back, feed in another sheet of paper. You can’t type at the speed you think. You have to think at the speed you type. Your brain can’t outrun your fingers. A different truth has time to emerge.

I am learning to write from the basement.

Living from the basement is harder.

Staying in that calm, cool place where all the shiny distractions can drift past without needing to chase every one of them. Waiting for the right words. The right moments. It’s not answering the door every time Sidequest Sally comes knocking.

I was working on that.

Then, three weeks ago, Sidequest Sally roared up on her motorcycle. “Hop on, kid.” Unfortunately, this time she dropped me off at the emergency room with a 102-degree fever and a spectacularly bad reaction to my oral chemo medication.

“Good luck!” she yelled as she sped away. God, I hate it when she does that.

They gave me fluids and started antibiotics. “We’d like to keep you overnight,” they said. “Just for observation.”

I stayed two weeks.

The first week I could barely stay awake. I was grateful for IV nutrition. It meant I didn’t have to muster the energy to reach for the phone and think about what to eat, only to have it immediately evacuate one way or another.

Twice Billy couldn’t find the barf bag fast enough and I threw up on him.

Twice.

In sickness and in health.

Check.

For better or worse.

Check.

Test after test. Maybe the chemo? Maybe a virus? Maybe something rare causing infection? Maybe infectious? They kept in an isolated room just in case.

Once again, I was part of the one percent of people who have a reaction like this.

One night, on my twentieth trip to the bathroom, I fainted. I woke up on the cold tile floor. I’d hit my head hard and I was trying to figure out what happened. I had to lie there a while before I had enough strength to crawl across the bathroom floor to the emergency pull cord.

Lying there in the ditch, out loud I literally said, “Uncle.” “I give up.” “Whatever I have left...just take it, I don’t even care anymore.”

And all I can tell you is that, in the dark ditch, what showed up for me was whatever the opposite of cancer is.
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Mostly, when I’m in the hospital, I do nothing. Bracket came to visit. “Have you been writing?” he asked. “Nah, man. I’m just trying to stay awake long enough to have this conversation.”

But I do listen to music.

One day I put on Brandi Carlile’s The Story station on Spotify, which somehow led me to Jacob Collier who was singing with her on “Little Blue.” Or maybe she was singing with him. I was enchanted by his voice.

Naturally, Sidequest Sally and I spent the next few hours floating down a beautiful Jacob Collier rabbit hole. Turns out he’s playing the Castro in October. Sold out, of course.

The best I can tell you is that what showed up for me that night on the bathroom floor is whatever Jacob Collier’s Heaven (Butterflies) is made of.

(If you don’t know Jacob Collier, this is where I’d like to introduce you. Take a moment, listen to Heaven (Butterflies).” Then come back.)

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Speaking of side quests...

Back in May, before I started thinking about getting a typewriter, I decided to get the tattoo I’ve been thinking about since the start of all this. You’re not supposed to get tattoos during active cancer treatment, but cancer is a spectacularly controlling bossy bossinova, and I don’t respond well to being micromanaged.

I wanted, in an old typewriter font, on the inside of my left forearm:

Came for the plot...

and on the other:

Stayed for the twist.

Billy found a typed letter from 1920 and recreated each letter of the tattoo using the original typeface.

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This afternoon, at my blood draw, my favorite phlebotomist saw it.

She looked at my left arm and read aloud, “Came for the plot...”

Then she looked at the other arm.

“Stayed for the twist.”

She laughed.

“Girl...if that ain’t the truth.”

Life’s just one big tangle of keys. Shiny distractions. Side quests. Sooner or later, every one of us finds ourselves half dead in the ditch.

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From the basement, I find these words.

You are worthy.