The time has come to sign up for our online book club discussion of the book, I’m Just A Person by Tig Notaro!  You can check out what discussion has already happened here.

It has been such a wonderful time over the last several months reading this book together.  The last event up our sleeves for this round is an online book club discussion!  We’ll spend some time talking about the book and probably move on to anything else people want to talk about.  Whether you are completely finished with the book or just kept up with our weekly chapter discussions, RSVP for the online book club discussion below (this is now closed as the date for the discussion has passed)!  We’ll be meeting via video chat on Tuesday, July 25th @ 5:30 pm PT / 7:30 pm CT / 8:30 pm ET and will meet for about an hour.

Welcome to the comments and discussion of Chapter 12: Stage IV of the book, I’m Just A Person by Tig Notaro! Catch up on Chapter 1: Over My Mother’s Dead Body, Chapter 2: Are You My Mother, Chapter 3: The Downfall, Chapter 4: Saying Good-Bye, Chapter 5: Letting Go, Chapter 6: Diagnosis, Chapter 7: Largo, Chapter 8: Looking Down, Chapter 9: God Never Gives You More Than You Can Handle, Chapter 10: R2, Where Are You?, and Chapter 11: Pat.

Let’s get started!  Chapter 12!

Mallory:

So, I figured for this last chapter, I’d do this a little differently.  I marked several of my favorite passages in this chapter but I’m really interested in hearing from you.  This chapter had so much in it…relationships, fear of recurrence, fear of stage IV, marriage, reconciling our vision of ourselves, and much more.  What resonated with you?  What would your survivorship chapter include?

And we’re done!  I’d love to hear what you thought of this book in general.  Please share your comments below and start getting excited for our video chat book club discussion!  When the date and time are announced, and the sign up available, we’ll let you know!

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Thanks for joining us for Chapter 12: Stage IV of I’m Just A Person!  And that’s it!  Stay tuned for the sign up for our online, video book club discussion!

If you’re just joining us, here are some logistics:

We will talk about a chapter each Monday until the book is done.  Then, we’ll use one more Monday to talk about general feelings from the book and anything else you’d like to discuss.  Join in, in the comments every week!  At the end, we’ll have a book club discussion via video chat!  Also, there will probably be spoilers.  Read along with us!

How are you enjoying our young adult cancer book club?

Welcome to the comments and discussion of Chapter 11: Pat of the book, I’m Just A Person by Tig Notaro! Catch up on Chapter 1: Over My Mother’s Dead Body, Chapter 2: Are You My Mother, Chapter 3: The Downfall, Chapter 4: Saying Good-Bye, Chapter 5: Letting Go, Chapter 6: Diagnosis, Chapter 7: Largo, Chapter 8: Looking Down, Chapter 9: God Never Gives You More Than You Can Handle, and Chapter 10: R2, Where Are You?.

Let’s get started!  Chapter 11!

Mallory:

As we’ve been reading this book, I’ve given a lot of thought to the order of events that Tig shares with us and the events that she chooses to share.  An entire chapter on Pat, for instance, struck me as slightly odd at first.  Here was a man, who Tig barely knew, taking up an entire chapter in a book that is otherwise deep and raw and very self-aware.  This chapter is like a scratch on the surface encounter compared to the rest.  Then it hit me…cancer does this.  Cancer dredges everything to the surface whether you’re diagnosed or whether someone else around you is.  Cancer makes us yearn for the things that we haven’t had or haven’t taken enough advantage of.  It makes us grateful for the love and generosity we’ve been soaked with in our lives.  Cancer makes us miss people who have been absent even when we’ve done alright without them.

Cancer illuminates the shoulds and the coulds of our lives, shedding light into the corners of every possibility.

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Thanks for joining us for Chapter 11: Pat of I’m Just A Person!  Join in next Monday for Chapter 12: Stage IV.

If you’re just joining us, here are some logistics:

We will talk about a chapter each Monday until the book is done.  Then, we’ll use one more Monday to talk about general feelings from the book and anything else you’d like to discuss.  Join in, in the comments every week!  At the end, we’ll have a book club discussion via video chat!  Also, there will probably be spoilers.  Read along with us!

How are you enjoying our young adult cancer book club?

Welcome to the comments and discussion of Chapter 10: R2, Where Are You? of the book, I’m Just A Person by Tig Notaro! Catch up on Chapter 1: Over My Mother’s Dead Body, Chapter 2: Are You My Mother, Chapter 3: The Downfall, Chapter 4: Saying Good-Bye, Chapter 5: Letting Go, Chapter 6: Diagnosis, Chapter 7: Largo, Chapter 8: Looking Down, and Chapter 9: God Never Gives You More Than You Can Handle.

Let’s get started!  Chapter 10!

Mallory:

There’s a lot in this chapter to hold (speaking of our chapter 9 revelations…).  When a close loved one dies, a hole inevitably opens up.  Everyone’s role in the family moves around a little to accommodate the hole.  Sometimes these role changes work well for us, individually, and sometimes they don’t.  Sometimes someone clings to rules or traditions or anything else, in an effort to maintain some degree of control over the world around them, and in doing so, alienates those they desire to become closer to.

When my mother died, I also knew that “parents” now meant something very different.  Before she died, I hadn’t realized how quiet my dad was.  I would call and talk to him for a few minutes and then I’d be passed to my mom for the longer conversation.  Or my dad would be on the line while my mom and I chatted but he’d remain fairly quiet.  We’d always been two peas in a pod, me and my dad.  I’d helped in the basement or the garage or in home-repair projects growing up.  We’d biked together and hiked together.  It wasn’t until my dad and I were having entire conversations without my mother that I realized how much my dad can talk about things that I don’t care much about…cars for instance.  (I have to add that it is entirely possible that I talk at length about stuff that doesn’t interest my dad much too!)  Now, as an engineer, I love engines and the mechanics of things, but watching a television show about cars…for fun…not really my cup of tea.  Now, all of a sudden, we were watching entire series of television shows about cars and youtube videos about cars.  Blugh!  🙂  It felt like I was being misunderstood by someone who should have known me…but that wasn’t a fair way of looking at it.  My dad was just starting to navigate a brand new world without my mom, just like I was, and we each had a little give and take to offer the situation.  Years later, my dad and I are much better now at compromising over television shows, and many other life situations.

Can you relate to this idea of family dynamics changing after the death of a loved one?  Or, even without someone dying, cancer brings about monumental shifts in relationships, does it not?

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Thanks for joining us for Chapter 10: R2, Where Are You? of I’m Just A Person!  Join in next Monday for Chapter 11: Pat.

If you’re just joining us, here are some logistics:

We will talk about a chapter each Monday until the book is done.  Then, we’ll use one more Monday to talk about general feelings from the book and anything else you’d like to discuss.  Join in, in the comments every week!  At the end, we’ll have a book club discussion via video chat!  Also, there will probably be spoilers.  Read along with us!

How are you enjoying our young adult cancer book club?

Welcome to the comments and discussion of Chapter 9: God Never Gives You More Than You Can Handle of the book, I’m Just A Person by Tig Notaro! Catch up on Chapter 1: Over My Mother’s Dead Body, Chapter 2: Are You My Mother, Chapter 3: The Downfall, Chapter 4: Saying Good-Bye, Chapter 5: Letting Go, Chapter 6: Diagnosis, Chapter 7: Largo, and Chapter 8: Looking Down.

Let’s get started!  Chapter 9!

Mallory:

OMG, this chapter.  Short and sweet!  I LOVED the stand that Tig took.  The “I can assure you that C-Diff, the death of my mother, and breast cancer were each, individually, more than I could handle” approach.  I cannot tell you how many times people tried to sugar coat shit…and when I say shit I mean my mom dying and then cancer.  A good friend of mine lost her mother about two months before I lost mine and we recently had a conversation where she told me that people explain that her mother is always with her and we agreed that when we each hear things like that, we both roll our eyes and think, “yea, but having my mother physically here would be much much better….duh.”

Tig writes, “When I heard, ‘Wow, that sounds really hard,’ or even an awkward, ‘I don’t know what to say…’ it was tremendously comforting.  I felt as thought someone was really talking to me and considering what was actually going on, and, most importantly, was willing to succumb to the moment instead of covering it up with a one-size-fits-all platitude.”  It takes a lot of courage to actually sink into a situation someone describes to you of their heartache or heartbreak.  It takes vulnerability to hold it for a moment and actually think what it would mean to your own life.  Not everybody can do this.  They look at an awful situation and immediately want to paint it with flowers instead of letting it sit and stink.

What did you think of this chapter?

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Thanks for joining us for Chapter 9: God Never Gives You More Than You Can Handle of I’m Just A Person!  Join in next Monday for Chapter 10: R2, Where Are You?.

If you’re just joining us, here are some logistics:

We will talk about a chapter each Monday until the book is done.  Then, we’ll use one more Monday to talk about general feelings from the book and anything else you’d like to discuss.  Join in, in the comments every week!  At the end, we’ll have a book club discussion via video chat!  Also, there will probably be spoilers.  Read along with us!

How are you enjoying our young adult cancer book club?

Welcome to the comments and discussion of Chapter 8: Looking Down of the book, I’m Just A Person by Tig Notaro! Catch up on Chapter 1: Over My Mother’s Dead Body, Chapter 2: Are You My Mother, Chapter 3: The Downfall, Chapter 4: Saying Good-Bye, Chapter 5: Letting Go, Chapter 6: Diagnosis, and Chapter 7: Largo.

Let’s get started!  Chapter 8!

Mallory:

Two quotations really stood out to me this week:

“Every choice I made — what to eat, where to go, who to be around — was tied directly to my health and what I had been through.”

“It was the scene before the crime.  The picture before the crash.  I was staring at my naivete, my assumption that life would continue to go on right where it had left off.”

I connected so wholeheartedly to these ideas…the rearrangement of priorities and the complete loss of innocence that cancer bring.  Even 5 years later I still tie many of the choices that I make to my health and what I’ve been through.  And 5 years later, I can still look at my own “picture[s] before the crash” and wonder, how in the hell did we get here?  And I haven’t even mentioned yet, how powerfully Tig discusses body issues.  Such a great chapter.

What about you?  Were there specific passages that resonated with you this week?

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Thanks for joining us for Chapter 8: Looking Down of I’m Just A Person!  Join in next Monday for Chapter 9: God Never Gives You More Than You Can Handle.

If you’re just joining us, here are some logistics:

We will talk about a chapter each Monday until the book is done.  Then, we’ll use one more Monday to talk about general feelings from the book and anything else you’d like to discuss.  Join in, in the comments every week!  At the end, we’ll have a book club discussion via video chat!  Also, there will probably be spoilers.  Read along with us!

How are you enjoying our young adult cancer book club?

Welcome to the comments and discussion of Chapter 7: Largo of the book, I’m Just A Person by Tig Notaro! Catch up on Chapter 1: Over My Mother’s Dead Body, Chapter 2: Are You My Mother, Chapter 3: The Downfall, Chapter 4: Saying Good-Bye, Chapter 5: Letting Go, and Chapter 6: Diagnosis.

Let’s get started!  Chapter 7!

Mallory:

“My biggest problem with being called brave was that I felt undeserving.  I didn’t choose to get cancer or to handle it in any particular way.  It seemed that what people were calling courageous was simply the fact that I happened to still be breathing.”

Oh.M.G.  Yes.

I know Tig seems surprised by her cancer-dominated, comedic routine’s success, but I’m not.  Good comedy is one thing.  Comedy that embraces hurt and pain, yet is still accessible and funny, now that is an entirely different thing altogether.  Real vulnerability is rare, even in our era of reality television.  She tackled something huge in that routine…the boundaries of health and illness, challenging what we consider “sick” to “look like.”  Powerful stuff.

Have you heard her Live album?

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Thanks for joining us for Chapter 7: Largo of I’m Just A Person!  Join in next Monday for Chapter 8: Looking Down.

If you’re just joining us, here are some logistics:

We will talk about a chapter each Monday until the book is done.  Then, we’ll use one more Monday to talk about general feelings from the book and anything else you’d like to discuss.  Join in, in the comments every week!  At the end, we’ll have a book club discussion via video chat!  Also, there will probably be spoilers.  Read along with us!

How are you enjoying our young adult cancer book club?

Welcome to the comments and discussion of Chapter 6: Diagnosis of the book, I’m Just A Person by Tig Notaro! Catch up on Chapter 1: Over My Mother’s Dead Body, Chapter 2: Are You My Mother, Chapter 3: The Downfall, Chapter 4: Saying Good-Bye, and Chapter 5: Letting Go.

Let’s get started!  Chapter 6!

Mallory:

There was so much of this chapter that spoke directly to my own story.  While I didn’t face a life-threatening illness before cancer, my mother also died just months before my own diagnosis.  It felt like there was just too much happening all at once…like I was cursed.

“Needing my mother to comfort me about her death was an insatiable, unresolvable problem.  And now, having cancer without a mother brought on a similar, and similarly insurmountable, problem:  I needed to go home, but I would forever be unable to.”

Yes, times a million.  You can feel such raw emotion in Tig’s writing.  So much hurt and longing for reality to be different, to be better, to be less complicated.

“I have cancer.  I have cancer.  I have cancer.  I have cancer.  I have cancer.  I have cancer.”

Yes, yes, yes.

The descriptions of Tig and her friend trying to piece together the doctors’ notes and recommendations with internet searches and research felt all too familiar as well.  My husband pulled out our undergrad probability and statistics notes to work out a physician’s fertility procedure claims.  There is a wealth of knowledge to learn and it almost always feels like you don’t understand enough, quite yet, to make the very best decision.

Anyone else out there really understanding Tig’s emotions at this point in her story?

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Thanks for joining us for Chapter 6: Diagnosis of I’m Just A Person!  Join in next Monday for Chapter 7: Largo.

If you’re just joining us, here are some logistics:

We will talk about a chapter each Monday until the book is done.  Then, we’ll use one more Monday to talk about general feelings from the book and anything else you’d like to discuss.  Join in, in the comments every week!  At the end, we’ll have a book club discussion via video chat!  Also, there will probably be spoilers.  Read along with us!

How are you enjoying our young adult cancer book club?

Welcome to the comments and discussion of Chapter 5: Letting Go of the book, I’m Just A Person by Tig Notaro! Catch up on Chapter 1: Over My Mother’s Dead Body, Chapter 2: Are You My Mother, Chapter 3: The Downfall, and Chapter 4: Saying Good-Bye.

Let’s get started!  Chapter 5!

Mallory:

I connected so completely to Tig’s writing in this chapter.  My mother died two months before my own cancer diagnosis.  I remember feeling very close to her as I encountered my own, life-threatening illness yet also feeling very angry that she wasn’t there to continue mothering me.  I often searched for her in her things…wanting to connect to her in all of the belongings she left behind.  I still do this from time to time.  Before my dad moved out of my childhood home, I would stand in their closet, staring at my mother’s things, wondering if there was something that I might have overlooked the last time that might bring me closer to her while she seemed so far away.  I still often wear her pajama pants to bed even if I was a good, 5 inches shorter than my mother.

What do you think?  How are you finding Tig’s storytelling?

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Thanks for joining us for Chapter 5: Letting Go of I’m Just A Person!  Join in next Monday for Chapter 6: Diagnosis.

If you’re just joining us, here are some logistics:

We will talk about a chapter each Monday until the book is done.  Then, we’ll use one more Monday to talk about general feelings from the book and anything else you’d like to discuss.  Join in, in the comments every week!  At the end, we’ll have a book club discussion via video chat!  Also, there will probably be spoilers.  Read along with us!

How are you enjoying our young adult cancer book club?