unproductive, lauren, fiona, cancer

I love unproductive vacations. Every time I get some time off, I give myself a long list of tasks to complete. This time, they ain’t getting done. I’m just kicking back, doing a lot of reading, watching too much History Channel, and taking many naps. (And doing Utah research for the Olympics. “Did you know Theodore Roosevelt once took a bath beneath the Rainbow Bridge?” asks the author of “Utah: A Guide to the State; Compiled by Workers of the Writer’s Program of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Utah,” 1940. No, I did not.)
Tonight continues the Parade of Ex-Girlfriends, as I go hang out with Lauren, who I dated for a few months in high school. (That parade concludes next weekend when I see college girlfriend Fiona in Boston, where I’m going for a conference. Fiona is, by the way, the latest reader of crabwalk.com. Hi, Fiona! Feel free to leave nasty comments below.)
Fiona and Lauren have never met, but together they define the most disturbing trend in my life, which is: date me and you get cancer. Not long after I went off to college and stopped seeing Lauren, the docs found cancer in her thyroid. (She’s fine now — who needs a thyroid, anyway?) And Fiona got diagnosed about a year and a half ago with malignant melanoma; she just finished up a successful year of treatment.
Honestly, what are the odds of two women I dated, at the time aged 18 and 24, getting cancer? I am seriously bad luck. To anyone out there who might consider dating me: stay away, for your own health! (Then again, both of them were fine when they were actually going out with me. Maybe it’s stopping going out with me that’s the culprit. Yeah, that’s it.)