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I've always had a strong fondness for ceremony and tradition. From the ceremonies of the Boy Scouts, to the rituals of Kappa Alpha, to the observances of the Knights of Columbus, I've been involved in many services that have meaning to me. There is a communal beauty in these events that tie together humanity across eons. While I hold the ideology of individuality and personal beliefs as sacred, I also find importance in the commonality of all people; that which makes us human.

One of the hardest parts of dealing with my cancer is that it has taken from me what is most important; me. It has changed me. I struggle every day to maintain my own identity in the face of the overwhelming changes over which I have no control. I now have scars where there were none. I walk with a permanent limp. I will always be at risk. In a very real way, parts of me are missing. My surgeon has spent over twentyfour hours inside my body; we're very close. All of these changes are difficult, but I can overcome them in time. Frustration ensues however when in the midst of trying to regain myself, chemo continually throws walls in my path. Three steps forward, two steps back. Not only does chemo remind me on a regular basis that my life is not my own right now, it smacks me hard with additional challenges. I've described, in glowing detail, the debilitating effects of the drugs, but my descriptions don't truly do it justice. Chemo dips into an already depleted soul and steals what Billyness it can.

In an effort to regain any amount of myself that is possible, I turn to ceremony. When I'm finally able to eat again, I take up a small affectation; I drink from a rocks glass. A rocks glass is a small, squat glass used for "on the rocks" drinks or mixed drinks like an Old Fashioned. I usually start by drinking a lot of water or Gatorade. My taste buds are generally skewed at this point, and cold liquids actually feel strange in my mouth, but water rehydrates me, and eventually helps to clear the uneasy tastes from my palate. As my body recovers more, I like to drink club soda. The carbonation also seems to help realign my taste buds. The night before I'm ready to head back to my own home, I fill my rocks glass with a cold, refreshing beer.

While the liquids help get my body back in gear, there is something about that glass that helps Billy feel like Billy. The heft of the base, the fit of my hand around it, the look of the fluid swirling around the glass all ties me into some regularity of life. At Bethany the crew used to have cocktail parties; ceremonial throw backs to the days when Hemingway and Faulkner would whip them out for the tape measure. We still have them now, saucy little jaunts in Troy's basement. Dave, a master of tradition and ceremony can often be found swirling the brown stuff around clean cubes loaded into a rocks glass. One of my favorite soliloquies from The West Wing tells of the allure of the sound of an ice cube ritually dropped from the perfect height into the glass. The Roman Senate had it's steps, but American society has always grown, developed, and changed on the stools of our taverns. From working in bars in my twenties, to frequenting watering holes in my thirties, the long oak of a pub had always been my choice location for gathering with friends. When the fog of chemo starts to clear, and the drugs just start to loose their edge, I break out those glasses from my father's cupboard and push myself back to myself. One of the strangest parts of this whole scenario for me is that I don't usually drink hard liquor or mixed drinks that would be associated with a rocks glass; I prefer beer, usually from a bottle. It's simply another quirk that has popped up since I got sick. It's a small habit, a bit of silly ceremony, a seemingly insignificant mannerism, but at this point, every little bit helps.

While I have your attention, allow me to share with you one of the many ridiculous items of society that infuriate me. Today you don't need to actually do something to be famous. The masses of mouth breathers have thrust fame upon a certain young blond whose only achievement of note seems to be that she is genetically linked to people who actually used ambition and self determination to create a hotel empire. Now it seems to take even less!! In this month's edition of Playboy is a girl who looks like the aforementioned anomaly. Allow me to repeat that with clarity; she is famous for LOOKING LIKE someone who is famous for no reason at all.