I began a diary

When all this cancer stuff started, but I'm not good at them. Journals are just not my thing. First of all, I can't read my own writing. So going back to re-read my life story (or a segment of it) is impossible. Cause I can't read what I've written.

I've never been able to write legibly. (Or spell.) Ask my third-grade teachers. It's not out of spite or laziness. It's impatience. It just takes too dang long to form a legible letter. And stringing a bunch together is torture. Thank God for typewriters, then computers, then Palm keyboards. Lifesavers all for (former) journalists who can't write. (Well, form letters, cursive or otherwise.)

The point is: Will I keep this blog up because journaling is not my thing? Or is this type of diary-keeping different because it's typing. Stream of consciousness writing is just that. But with blogging, I can backspace and delete (and edit); I don't have to scratch out and re-write. Much easier. Anyway, I have some catching up to do.

I'll look at what I did write in my journal and see if any of it is worth posting. I recall writing a few post surgery dos and don'ts. Like "Do bring food; someone will eat it." But, "Don't stay too long and expect too much."

But a lot of what I stuck in the pages of my journal were e-mails from friends and colleagues wishing me well. One of the e-mails from friend and colleague Beth spurred the name of this blog. She sent me the Dale Evans quote because I am always professing to be a cowgirl, even though I've always lived in a city and only ridden a horse twice (the first time at age five or six, I fell off when the horse reared [and I was in full cowgirl regalia, very embarrassing], and the second was a horse trail ride at about age 35 that can hardly even count).

But when I learned you don't have to be a "real" cowgirl to have a cowgirl spirit, I almost hyperventilated with joy. So I am a Dale Evans cowgirl. Even though she was probably a Republican.