We call her “Shiny Jules”. For some, it’s just “Shiny”. With big, blue eyes and bright as a summer sky in June, Shiny Jules is like a human Alka-Seltzer tablet, fizzy and effervescent, a burst of bubbles inside the oftentimes stagnant glass that one calls ‘life’.

After having taken Saturday off [from life] to sleep the entire day, watch every episode of Modern Family on Hulu available, and go to sleep at 10 PM, I wasn’t exactly a pot boiling over with excitement to be social on Sunday; however, I had missed Julie all weekend, so I planned to pick her up at 2PM anyway. I was a little daunted when I received her text “be forewarned of the people in medieval gear at the apt”. I had no idea what she was talking about, and I supposed that perhaps she meant that for someone else, but despite my apprehensions, I went to the apartment to pick her up anyway. The door man let me up and I rang the doorbell of 11k. Someone in a Gladiator uniform answered the door.

“Wowww..” I blurted out.

“Come on in!” He gestured, and as I entered the room, my mouth dropped open.

The apartment was abuzz with people getting dressed in warrior regalia. Some were wrapped in bedsheets, others in Viking garb, one strapping young man donned what appeared to be a kilt with a blonde Jessica Simpson wig. “That is awesome.” I nodded to him, reassuringly.

“So, what exactly is going on here?” I commented aloud in the room full of people confused as to why I was wearing a hoodie.

“We’re going to Medieval Times!”, a girl who looked like a character from Lord of the Rings exclaimed, adjusting the green velvet cape on her shoulders.
“Wait- in New Jersey?” I asked.
“Yep. We’re talking a car. We do it every St. Patricks Day.”
“That’s amazing.” I responded, impressed, albeit slightly bewildered by the time warp / movie set I had just entered.

My friend Julie appeared from behind a screen partition, also in a hoodie, which was immediately comforting. She ran up and hugged me. I could feel her warmth radiating through the layers of cotton.

“See, I told you Medieval gear..” she laughed.

“Umm.. you weren’t kidding..” I replied, suddenly out of breath, as if the discovery had suddenly caught up with me. One of the guests walked by with an open pin asking someone to help secure his toga. I peeked behind the curtain- a girl sat with her eyes closed on a stool while someone else applied mascara.

“They go every year.” Julie declared, grabbing a photo from off the shelf and showing me the album from the year prior, in which Adrien Grenier happened to be doing something goofy off to the side.

I pointed to it, as if I had found Waldo.

“Yea— they’re all friends.” She said, placing the photo back on the shelf. “Don’t ask..” She added in a playful manner that meant “far too long to explain”.

I didn’t pursue the issue.

—

Julie and I bid adieu to the warriors, left the apartment and stepped out onto the West Village cobblestone streets. We meandered around the area, window-shopping brunch menus before settling on the one restaurant we found that offered non-poached egg options, which I suppose is ironic when we both ordered Eggs Benedict.

At lunch, I sat across the table from Julie, and in the unique way as with everyone she meets, she serenaded me with her magnetic, high-energy charm. She brought to life the impassioned escapades from this weekend, jumping from story to story like monkey bars, in between life updates, as I tried to swing behind her, dog-earing every half-addressed topic along the way.

She divulged of all the new people she met in the past two days, including the taxi driver who enjoyed her so much he invited her to dinner with his wife (who he insisted would clean while they ate dinner), and proceeded to only charge her only $40 from Newark airport. She talked about her run-in with Michael Lohan Jr at a bar, but only disclosed that he may have been interested in her when I prodded further. And when a she was thrown into an all-male day-event Saturday afternoon with strangers- a situation to certainly make anyone else uncomfortable- it somehow ended in everyone getting pedicures.

She so unassumingly spoke of her incredible New York adventures as if that’s what was supposed to be happen every day. What else would one do on a New York weekend? Down time? Who would have down time?  It just made sense. For that hour and a half, everything just harmoniously synced. She wasn’t even mad at me for not seeing her earlier in the weekend, or for being hungover on Saturday, just happy that I had made it today. It was like she silently communicated “This is life- there’s no time for anger or regret.” without ever uttering a word. Sitting at that table blissfully chatting under the cold but bright New York winter sun, I realized: life occurs every second of every day without stopping- it’s up to you for how you want to handle it. And for her, there was no down time, no pause. She spoke of her extraordinary experiences so casually, hopscotching her way through her New York weekend contiguously, it never even occurred to me to ask, “So, aren’t you tired?”

Shiny Jules has brain cancer.

She had surgery a few years ago, and the tumors returned. It might have affected her short term memory, but she doesn’t mention it unless she thinks she forgot something you said.
“You know- I forget things sometimes.” She’ll say in a way that’s not dissimilar to an elderly woman, non-apologetic, but rather sincerely wishing she could remember everything you said.
As she spoke emphatically, I noticed the wire embedded in her chest occasionally when she gestured, but only because she told me it was there. Otherwise she looked like a perfectly normal girl, a girl who takes 60 pills a day and flies to California for a costly oxygen treatment once a month for which she works by-day designing websites to support. Moreover, she spends an hour-and-a-half a day inside a hyperbaric chamber as part of her fight for remission. “It’s so boring in there,” she laughed, taking a sip of a Bloody Mary. “I’m ‘bubble girl’ for an hour-and-a-half- I can’t read enough books.”

One would almost think it doesn’t bother her because she speaks about the cancer so casually, subtly tossing in comments like, “the second one is growing only slightly,” like it’s a mole than will be removed, a blip on the radar. She almost had me.
But she says “I don’t want to talk about cancer- I’ve been talking about cancer all week.” So it’s my job to do the opposite- to not talk about cancer, to not tell her to eat right or have a Bloody Mary, but rather, to talk about sex, drugs, the Lohans, debauchery, life goals, and the whatever else falls under that shiny sun of opportunity.

I actually wasn’t going to do this, but I just had the urge to see if the link was even still up: http://www.shinyjulesfund.com. It is.

But that, my friends, is strength. And that is life. It’s actually a gift to be able to experience such a situation. So easy to just go through life with blinders on. I complain enough.
Shiny is going to be fine- she’s doing everything right, and things are going to be okay, but there is no such precious existence than when you see a stopwatch above your head.  Especially when it’s broken and skipping numbers. There’s no time to waste, especially not being angry, remorseful or sad. Just to carry on as a light in a dark room. As a sparkler of a human being. A shining sun. Even if just for yourself.

And just because I never saw my own stop-watch before doesn’t mean I shouldn’t live my life like I haven’t discovered its existence. I don’t even know what number it’s on. Some people live entire full lives never discovering the sublime beauty within life. I don’t want to be one of those people, no matter how long it may pan out to be. But I’ve realized: no one is going to make life worth living for you. That’s for you to decide, stopwatch or no stopwatch, cancer or no cancer.

So when we left brunch, I walked Shiny back to the apartment, and I went to go for a run in the cold while she packed her bags for her flight home. I returned several hours later to a new text. “Okay love you. You are amazing. I am proud to run 10 minutes. See you very soon.”

No, Shiny, you are amazing.

And you better keep your word.

I will do my best to update as much as possible! Thanks again for all of the love and support.

Love you all-

Shiny Jules <3

We wanted to make sure everyone knows about the other ways to donate. There is an amazing online auction happening on Facebook!  https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003849245513 This includes art, cheese for a year, handbags, a week stay in New York or Puerto Rico and much more. It is another great way to donate, and you will get something wonderful in return!