I am a survivor: breast cancer, surgery, chemo. Twelve years ago. Treatment is brutal. Finding the will to live is essential.

Cary's right ... one serious, unacknowledged side effect of treatment for cancer can be deep, dark, suicidal ideation and it may be drug induced.

In my case, I believe that black hole was deeper and blacker than it needed to be, an unfortunate result of an anti-depressant mixing it up with all the other drugs I was taking during treatment.

After the third round of chemo I was contemplating suicide-by-chemo. I was in a deep, black hole and couldn't get out, seriously considering letting the chemo take me down for good.

Fortunately, a little part of me wanted to live. I made a choice and I found help.

Today I see that moment as a turning point in my life.

Please don't give up.

Thanks, Patrick for a witty and well-written account of your misadventure. I really enjoy this column and look forward to whatever interesting or geeky information you dig up for us.

This story reminds me of a Christmas trip that took more than 20 hours to travel from Tulsa to Indianapolis via Chicago. We were moving most of the time, with the exception of a several frozen hours sitting on an unheated schoolbus and an unheated commuter plan on the tarmac at O'Hare.

That was the only time I ever remember going a little crazy on an airplane. I wanted OFF that plane and the flight attendant had to talk me down. We finally took off for Indy, only to return because the landing gear was frozen and wouldn't retract. At that point they put us back on the schoolbus and took us back to the terminal.

We finally arrived in Indianapolis in the midst of a blizzard at some gawd-awful hour of the morning on Amtrak, after having traveled on every conceivable mode of public and private transportation that could move through snow.

At the time there was a great deli at the Amtrak station where we found the first food we'd had all day. Every connection since we left home 12 hours earlier had been a mad-dash to get somewhere, only to be captured and held captive without food. So we grabbed some sandwiches, a 6 pack of beer and dashed again to catch the train, which ended up stuck in the station for another hour or so.

Everyone in that car seemed to be a refuge from O'Hare trying to get home for the holidays. At that point we were all punchy and the sound of us cracking open our beer was enough to start a party. Some guy brought out a huge sausage, someone else had cheese.

Since the bar car didn't open until the train left the station, we decided to share our six-pack. Once the bar car opened it seemed that we got 2 beers back for every one we gave away. By the time we got to Indy we were all looped, having had a great time traveling - very slowly - through small Indiana towns covered with fresh snow and holiday lights.

I used to love to travel. Not so much any more. Sad.

"That is the point. There is crazy stuff going on inside. But that is the deep structure speaking. And that deep structure is where we work. We try to create surfaces whose roots can be felt in that deep structure."

Cary, I truly appreciate your attempts to articulate this. From my perspective, you often succeed and this is one of those moments.

Recently I decided to follow the muse, cast fate to the wind and take more seriously my longing to express myself with color and paint. For as long as I can remember color and paint have thrilled me, but I haven't taken responsibility for my gifts.

A very wise person once told me that through my work I was taking very dense, primal energy and transmuting it into something lighter and more accessible to others. I think this is another way of describing our work with deep structure.

This is something we can do. Sometimes it feels like navel-gazing as I'm focused inwardly as others are fighting fires and birthing babies. But then I look at the great artists, writers, musicians through the ages and realize that I don't feel that way about their creations, so why should I feel that way about mine?

To the LW ... so you're 45 and in 10 years you'll be my age. How do you want to use those 10 years? Don't wait. Music and rhythm are the essence of life. Find a way to do it. The world needs you. Now.

Everyone listens to their iPods or plugs headphones into the personal TV monitors on the elipticals and treadmills.

I wouldn't go to a gym that piped in techno. UGH.

ding ding ... whoosh ... back in time, road trip, waking up in the back seat, hot and thirsty, peering out the window to see where we are, small town in Georgia, on a 2 lane road to Florida ..

Oh, my. Thanks for that. Nice answer to LW, too.

I agree with several other posters: the title of this article is extremely misleading. Over the line. Content does not match the innuendo.

This is something I would expect to be coming from the Republicans attack machine, not from a source I once considered one of my mainstays for a liberal perspective on the news.

I used to love Salon. Really. Paid subscription for years.

But Joan Walsh has become a shrill caricature of her former self and now this. I've had it with the venom.

I'll find other sources for my news.