caveat emptor

Another Day is Done

Day is drawing to a sleepy close here at the coffee shop where I sit at this computer and work for hours every day, morning till night. My top and bottom eyelids are trying to snuggle and spoon, but I’m resisting them because they block my looky holes when they do that, and my other senses aren’t sharp enough to see the screen. I’m punctuating sentences and making a few last minute edits on a software specification document, the same one I’ve been working on for weeks. It’s a beast. I’m saving files and shutting windows. I’m packing up this morning’s goals carefully because, as it turns out, they’re still going to be tomorrow’s goals, so I cannot be too rough with them. I still need them. I’ve been using them for many days and they’re getting a little ragged around the edges, a little torn at the creases, a little soiled with coffee stains, grease and barbecue sauce. In a minute I’ll start disconnecting cords, shutting down peripherals and packing everything into the sixty pound bag of junk I carry around on my sore shoulder. One shoulder, my fingers, my eyes, my ears and my ass, these are the parts I use every day. Sometimes I use my talk hole, but I’ve been doing a lot of remote solitary work lately. When I go back to the office it’s going to take me a few days to remember how to look at people and listen to the word sounds they make. This is what I do lately. It’s work, you know. It pays the bills. (Actually, Susan pays the bills, but the job is where we get the money.) One day I’m going to change into a butterfly. People will come to my office and they’ll see a giant, empty cocoon and they’ll ask, “Where is Scott? I need him to sign this expense report,” but I’ll be gone. Not sure how I’ll get out of the building, though. I’ll have to wait for someone else to call the elevator and open the front door, I guess. Will anyone do it? I mean, a giant butterfly with a sixty pound laptop bag will probably scare them, right? I’ll just have to try and be cool and nonchalant. Most of them never look up from their smart phones anyway. That reminds me of how annoyed I was that SNL stole my idea about a car that sends you a text message when you’re about to crash into something. I wish those guys would leave me alone and quit stealing all my ideas. Have you noticed that they do that to me? I have. Aaaaaanypoop, I guess I’m going to pack up and go home. My iPod Shuffle, Señor Tinybop, is fully charged. I always charge him when I think about going back to the gym to get in shape. Who’s ever heard of a fat butterfly, after all?

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

An Update on My Father

My father has been retired and living in a tiny house in his hometown, Hamilton, Texas, for the past few months. He's lived a rough life, including a stint in prison for drug-related crimes, and he's saved nothing toward retirement. He's living on a meager social security monthly payout and nothing more. But, he's a simple, solitary man, and he doesn't require much. He's been clean and sober since being released from prison a few years ago. He worked for the past few years cutting giant steel beams in a mill there in town, but his Diabetes-related ailments and failing eyesight have made it impossible for him to continue in that, so he's retired.

Retirement on social security alone was pretty financially challenging, even for a Spartan like him. His rent on that tiny house, food, and his medication were just a bit more than he could afford. So, he's decided to try something new.

His sister, my Aunt Bobbie, helped my Dad get a small trailer and, with her husband, my Uncle Buttons, helped him move it, along with his few belongings, to a small Army Corps of Engineers park in Waco, Texas. There he can live in his trailer, hooked up to all necessary utilities at no charge, in exchange for twenty hours each week of volunteer work in the park as a caretaker. Trimming trees, clearing trails, picking up litter, and such. The park is closed until mid-spring, so it's an easy, quiet job. I think this will suit him well. I imagine he'll fish, camp, hike, do all the things he's always loved. Hopefully the activity will keep him healthy.

In another stroke of fortune, he's discovered that his short stint in the military in 1969, even though it ended in a Dishonorable Discharge for going AWOL, qualifies him for VA medical benefits, enough to cover most of the cost of his medicine.

And so, he should be able to survive a little longer in spite of his life of bad choices and his lack of preparedness for the future. I'm glad for him. I hope he can find joy in his life.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

How We Talk

Life and death have always seemed like epic issues to me, grand, sweeping themes to which only lofty literature can do justice. Life is not so lofty, however, when you live it day to day. Turns out, neither is death. My Susan and I talk about death all the time now, and sometimes it feels profane. These days it's just another subject, like the bills, visions for the back yard or plans for the kids' college. It's a logistical factor, and we don't know when it will happen but we general figure that things more than a few months away will be things I'll have to deal with. It worries all of us, the prospect that I'll have to deal with things. Susan and the kids worry about it, I can tell. I know I do. It will be like Lord of the Flies. There won't be any proper adults around to make sure the society of our household doesn't collapse into primitive chaos, like cave people or frat brothers. Why? For example: I've never paid a bill. That might be literally true. If not, it's close. I'm 40 years old and I've never paid a bill or looked at a bank statement. Susan is the grownup at our house. She always has been. The kids are getting close, so maybe they can teach me a thing or two.

You see? This might be morbid or maudlin, but it's how we think around our home these days. Talking about such practicalities is stark, and it was a little galling at first, but it's how we live together for the time we have. Susan needs to know that everything will be alright, that I can handle enough of the things she handles today. So, we talk about it. How do we pay the bills? How do we track the budget? What are the accounts we owe and where is our money? How do we help the kids through college? Don't get me wrong, though, we cannot talk about everything. We do not talk about the really sad things, like weddings and grandchildren and what it will be like in the morning when she's not…

Well, like I said, we don't talk about that. We discuss income tax and property tax. What will we do with her car? She'd like to pay off certain things with the life insurance. Here's what to do with her clothes. Make sure I update my will and the trusts. The caulk in the shower should be redone every few years. The carpet downstairs should be replaced. The important papers are here and here and here.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

The Big Day Approaches

Ghosts are getting excited for the big day, only days away now. Witches and goblins are dieting and grooming, wanting to look their best. Bog creatures are updating their curricula vitae. Zombies are trying to pull themselves together. Vampires are flossing. Mummies are wrapping up a few loose ends. It won't be long now. The thing under your bed, the slavering thing that has been building up the courage for years now to grab your foot and eat it when it hits the ground in the middle of the night, thinks this Halloween might finally be the day. Are you excited? I am.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Nonsequitur Crabbiness

They're marketing autumn at us now, all orange, yellow and brown. I don't know what it is about me, but I hate people marketing at me. I cannot see it as some kind of cooperative endeavor we're in together to keep our society functioning. As beautiful as these leaves, pumpkins and cornucopias are, I only feel resentment for them. Don't wield Halloween against me. I love Halloween. Don't attack me with autumn, my favorite season. Try to summer to me all you want – I hate summer – but don't take what's mine and market it back at me. I know autumn, and your product has nothing to do with it.

I'm sorry to be so crabby. I'm not sure why I do it. Maybe I have a chemical imbalance, or maybe I'm channeling the spirit of some dead jerk. I'm actually – if I stop to think about it – feeling pretty satisfied right now. Life is good, all things considered. Sure, some things could be better, but there's little I can do about that. I'm in relatively good health, considering all my maladies and my less than ideal lifestyle. My wife, sick though she is, still putters around the house and goes with the girls to buy dresses and meets me for lunch. My job is too busy a lot of the time, but at least I have a job. The pay is pretty good. The people are nice. I'm living, as we all do, in the wake of the practice of my habits, good and bad. So far, so so. Could be better, I suppose, but it could be worse. I could be a guy with no face and only one arm and three legs but two of them are broken. I could be a sea cucumber. I could be an ant washed down a shower drain. (I wonder what happens to them.) All in all, I'm fine, just a little crabby about marketing.

It's nearing October. You know what that means. In about twenty minutes they break out the Christmas marketing crap. Ugh. Don't get me started on the Christmas marketing crap.

Hello, friends. I hope you're coping effectively.

Later. Love.

A Metaphor in Which Life is a Road and Uncertainty is a Fog

Uncertainty is a dense fog that has settled over the road that is a metaphor for my life. I cannot see what is coming, not very far ahead. This is a simple metaphor to understand, of course. I can see this evening, tickets to a show with my Susan. I can see vague outlines of employment surrounding me, this occupation in which I find myself. I know birthdays and holidays are up ahead, the rhythm of regular things unchanged in spite of it all. I cannot see where this road leads, however. I cannot see the horizon, what lies between here and there. How long will we walk it together? When does it fork up ahead? I want to send out a scout, but that's where the metaphor breaks down. It's not a road, it's life. It's not a fog, it's uncertainty. Of course, we're all drifting in uncertainty, but I'm not even sure what the goal is anymore. Get healthy. Be financially stable. Be the source of help and support. And what else? Write? I've lost the words for now. Maybe they'll come back. Teach? I always thought I might, but I wonder if I have the energy to do something so new, to start over, to succeed again from the bottom up. It doesn't matter, I suppose. I've been able to eek out contentment at least wherever I've found myself in this life. I'll still have that talent when the time comes. Maybe all I need to know are the next few steps, the now, the day's work, this evening's show, a little sleep tonight. Maybe that's enough for a guy like me on a road like this, metaphorically speaking.

I'll try, I will, to write posts that sound less like sighs. I really want to. Bear with me, if you will.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Changes are afoot. Give them a hand.

They've redecorated my coffee shop. New paint. New tables. New chairs. New art. Gone the odd contraption on the ceiling above where my table used to be. It's a different table now, facing a different direction. I'm sitting across the room. The comfy chairs are newer, cleaner, a little smaller. The tabletops are square, not round. Same floor. Same ceiling. Same swirly, Seussian vent hood over the espresso machine. Same hanging light fixtures that never hang perfectly still, always stirring slightly at the whim of some ghost, the ghost of some whim, a movement of air or earth, the subtlest of sways that you have to watch closely to see. And I have. I've seen it and now I cannot but see it. Moving the least a moving thing can. Never still. Moving still. The people have all been painted and rearranged, except me. I do not change. I am timeless. (This is a recent development.) Outside the summer is slowly relenting, though not gone yet. In here it's a different place, made up of a lot of the same things and a few new ones. I wonder if they found my imagination or my soul while they were redecorating. I've mislaid them somewhere. This place is a good candidate. I've spent a goodly amount of time here. Maybe I'll glance in the dumpster on the way to my car, just in case. Do they have a lost and found here? You'd think I'd know, but so many things have changed. I like the new chairs better. Don't tell the old chairs, though. They've supported me through so much.

Hello, friends. I hope you're... well, I'm not sure. Happy, I suppose. Or at least content.

Later. Love.

Endless Possibilities Mostly Eschewed on a Regular Basis

You could, in this society, eat just about anything you want at any given time. You could go right now, were you so inclined, and find a triple decker hamburger of Elk, Ostrich and Buffalo. It's out there. You could have an octopus salad with cinnamon and sugar encrusted roasted walnuts and endive. You could have a flounder stuffed with a smaller flounder stuffed with crab salad. You could have the whole thing battered and deep fried with a side of jicama and mango onion rings. It's true. You could find it and put it in your mouth and say, "Mmmm. Tasty." or "Icky. No good. Blergh." We live in a society where you can eat almost everything. As for me, I'm having a cup of coffee and a small bowl of oatmeal with dried fruit and a nut medley. I eat this for breakfast almost every day. It seems like a sensible thing to eat, and also I like it. I'm not a health nut or anything, though I do try to consider my mortality when I eat… sometimes. I was awakened to the slackness of my health and fitness routine last night when I showed up, all dressed up to work out, at my local gym. I walked like a fitness veteran up to the counter and held out my membership card. The young man looked at me like I had tried to hand him a "Vote for Truman" pamphlet. "We haven't used those for about five months," he said. He instructed me to enter my phone number on the provided pin pad and scan my fingerprint on the provided biometric scanner. I put my antique barcode-encoded membership card back into my wallet and submitted to his new powerful sorcery, a primitive old man scared in this strange, foreign world of youth and magic. I began to doubt all my technology after that. I felt as if the iPhone with which I had planned to listen to music were a victrola or, at best, a portable 8-track cassette player. I was certain that, had I the confidence to look around at the younger, more beautiful people, they would all have some new space-age, robotic music devices pumping better music directly into their larger, superior brains. You can go and buy all this technology in our society. There's no limit to what you can consume. You could get a cerebral-interfaced YouTube jack implanted directly into your shades. You could get it all with a side of android French fries. I thought about all of this while I was sweating on the exercise bike and the treadmill, stopping occasionally to flip over the wax-pressed records on my antique music-box. And now I'm sitting here typing this out to you, sipping my coffee to the heavy, metallic pounding of the keys, bars and sorts of my typewriter, my empty oatmeal bowl encrusting with dried starch and oat dregs as the sun burns over the horizon in the window on my left. I could be anywhere eating, drinking and doing anything, but here I am, like every day. I've been here for years. Why stop now?

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Blog Post

It is morning again and I’m sitting here in what has been my usual coffee shop for a few years. My usual coffee shop has changed from time to time for various reasons. Shops have closed. Jobs and schedules have changed. Shops have become less bearable or more so. This current usual coffee shop is just a fairly plain, utilitarian Starbucks that is an easy stop off the freeway and an easy exist back on. There are seven tables, 13 wooden chairs and two pods of two comfy chairs each. The wireless Internet is reliable and, for the past few months, free. The coffee is hot and passable. The oatmeal isn’t bad with dried fruit and nuts. They’ll give you a ceramic cup and a stainless steel spoon so you don’t have to waste paper. You can pay with an iPhone app. A couple of times a month they send me a postcard good for a free coffee. It’s not a bad setup. Nothing romantic about, no bohemian aesthetic to soothe to soul or tantalize the imagination. Just a commercial coffee shop. No nonsense. It’s fine. It works for me. I’d love to find a place with more soul, though all the cool people therein would probably wonder why the programmer dude always comes there. Seems like he should go to Starbucks. Little judgmental hippie fuckers. I’m a cool guy, I’m just paid well to look like this. I don’t need your approval, though it would be nice. Anyway, here I sit, coffee and oatmeal and reliable Internet. It’s morning and I’m here. Typical.

I think a lot every day, and I open word processors and diagramming tools and programming tools and process definition tools and I try to capture as many of the various ideas and designs that are firing off in my brain. So often I feel an overwhelming frustration that the tool to capture what I’m trying to say in a way that people will be able to understand has not yet been invented, and that maybe I’ll have to create it myself. Sometimes I’ll even start at it, silly as that is, and then, after a few hours, I’ll think, “What the hell are you doing? You don’t have time to do this. Just use the tools you have. They’re fine. Everyone seems to use them without any problem. You overthink everything.” So then I close the project I was working on and open the word processors and diagramming tools and programming tools and process definition tools and pick up some abandoned false start or start some new false start and try to express the grand unified theory of everything. Then it’s time to go home and I’ve not expressed even the smallest part of my ambition, though what I have accomplished is pretty good. It will usually suffice. Can’t my ideas just serialize themselves to PDF or something? Please? My fingers are baffled and unable to keep up. I don’t know. These are my petty frustrations. I cannot express my ideas efficiently or effectively enough. Is this anyone else? I don’t know. It’s fine. It’s like this coffee shop. It will get the job done.

Hello, friends. I trust you’re well.

Later. Love.

Blog Post

Another snow day and I’m working from the drafty coffee shop to avoid five or six hours spent driving in slow traffic on icy back roads, freeways and overpasses surrounded by Texans in giants pickups and SUVs too many of whom are either terrified or overconfident in these weather conditions. Every time someone opens one door in this coffee shop the other door blows open with the sudden inrush of air and the wind whips through the place like an explosion of icy fire. It’s fairly awful, within a certain range of bearable awfulness that bounds the typical first world life, awfulness that is orders of magnitude less awful than the actual awfulness of truly awful things. Nevertheless, the temporary inconvenience of stabbing cold is unpleasant, but I’ve learned, as a veteran of many coffee shop expeditions, to dress for days like this: cotton workout pants under my jeans, white socks under my black socks, undershirt and long-sleeved T-shirt under my camp shirt. I’m fairly comfortable here in my retail arctic wilderness, and coffee refills are just a few steps away. Outside the wind pushes snow snakes across the parking lot and out onto the freeway, where they are obliterated by tractor trailers and commuters. Winter is embittered because the sun refuses to look her in the eye. And I sit building edifices out of words for other people to enter with their eyes and inhabit with their minds. Life continues for another day, and I am telling this story so people might know that it happened.

Hello, friends. I trust you’re well.

Later. Love.

Blog Post

There continues to be weather here every day. Last week was cold and icy. Today is sunny and cool, fading briefly to warm and then back again, falling into cold tonight. Snow tomorrow, they say. After last week, we wince a bit at the thought. Nevertheless, weather continues. It’s always there, so far.

As for me, I work. I hardly write this last month or so, which bothers me when I think about it. Coffee shop, car, office, car, coffee shop, car, bed, repeat. It won’t go on forever, this pace and pattern, and I’m glad for that.

I stare at the screen a lot these days, too many thoughts swirling in my tempest brain for me to grasp one do anything with it. I’ve made some progress on some things, but death still comes to us all. Nothing I work on is so serious as to change that. I’m sorry if this disappoints you. For me, it is a relief.

I’m so sick of the sound of my voice I hear in your ears, but I find not writing and not posting and not talking more unbearable that doing so. And so, even though I write always under this pall of déjà vu, I still write. I’m not amused by my own in and out, start and stop, but I cannot think about that. I am comforted by the knowledge that it doesn’t matter and no one really notices one way or another.

Meanwhile, serious events happen in the larger world. Revolution and counterrevolution, round and round and round. I am encouraged and discouraged every day. I try to be as uninformed as I can be, lest I engage with something real and become lost in something larger than myself, lest I get outside myself and cannot get back in. It comforts me that many of you are better in this than I am. I really appreciate it.

I’m turning forty in eight days. My hope is that I learn to enjoy a mid-crisis life of some sort. Toward that end, I’m doing all the same things I’ve always done. What have I learned in these forty years? Something, I think. I’ve learned a few things. When I sigh now, I feel like I know what it means. It’s best done softly, so as not to stir up the dust of your youthful confidence. I pause now in speaking, trying to convince myself that the next word is worth the effort, that communication is still the only way to really communicate, that it still works sometimes but only if you do it.

A month after I turn forty will be my twentieth wedding anniversary. A month after that I will have been married for more than half my life. Twenty years sounds like a long time, but it doesn’t feel like it. Twenty years we’ve been together, raised kids, sought medical treatment, paid bills, replaced broken things with new things, slept together, built equity, aged, grown more beautiful, and less so. Being together now is like our species. We are together. It’s who we are. There’s no such thing as us not together. The very idea is nonsensical.

I’m going to stop talking about myself now and bring this to a close. I’m not going to proof or check it, so pardon any omitted words or misspellings. If I go over it again, I won’t post it.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

On Falling Apart

You gotta help me, doc. All my teeth is backwards. My hair changes color every damn day. My fingers tingle if I drink cold coffee and the heater on the coffee pot is shot. My back complains about every damn thing. My eyes get all red and sore when I look at chicks. I can’t pronounce no hard words. Sometimes I hear voices askin’ me to pay the rent or stop starin’ or somethin’. My hands shake when I hold a crowbar. I can’t shoot straight with my eyes closed, and I can’t bear the guilt if I keep ‘em open. My throat gets wet when I drink and dry when I smoke. I can’t clap right with the song at the dance club. I think I might have dandruff, or maybe lupus. My uncle had shingles and all his shoes don’t fit. Maybe I got that. Maybe I got depression or I’m bi-Polish. I don’t know. You gotta help me, doc. I’m fallin’ apart over here.

As I get closer and closer to being infinity years old, my body is beginning to rebel against me. I don’t really blame it. I haven’t been very nice to my body for much of my life. My primary struggle now is with Type II Diabetes. My body produces insulin, but my cells have become resistant to it. When I eat and my blood glucose level rises, my pancreas generates insulin to trigger absorption of the glucose by my cells. My cells just ignore it, though, and the sugar floats around in my blood damaging things here and there. I can feel its effect in my eyes and in my numb, tingling hands. My kidneys fight to clean my blood, wearing themselves out. Because of the over-activity of my kidneys, I have to pee… hold on… I’ll be right back… pretty much all the time. This also means I’m always thirsty. Since I started measuring it in July, my blood sugar has been hanging out in the 300s. Sometimes it’s in the low 300s. Sometimes the high 300s. A couple of times it’s been in the 400s. A couple of times, the 200s. This is not good. I’ve changed my diet and started exercising again. (I’ve actually lost almost 50 pounds since July.) I started taking one diabetes medication. Then I started taking two. Nothing has budged the blood glucose level so far. I’m not sure what comes next. I see the doctor today. It sucks, but it’s okay. Hopefully we figure out some way to get this under control. Some have suggested that continued weight loss and exercise might bring it down, so I’m continuing along that path. We’ll see.

When I was a young man I could walk for years without tiring or missing appointments. I could climb mountains with bigger mountains strapped to my back. I could make women swoon with a smile or a wink. I could free dive to the depths of the ocean wrestle the giant squids or play chess with Poseidon. I could walk through the fire and sleep naked in the snow. These days I am not so powerful. I have trouble with basic daily tasks. I have trouble paying attention. I often remember things that never happened.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

This Body and a Tree

For no reason whatsoever, I’ve been neglecting my health lately. I just quit… trying? Paying attention? Something. A trip to the doctor last week showed me the damage done. Not pretty. I’m back on a medication I should never have stopped taking. (The prescription refills expired in January and I couldn’t even muster the resolve to stop by the doctor’s office and get a new prescription.) I’m going in for more scolding and mandates on Friday. I’m hopeful that getting some of these things back in line will help me escape this fog I’ve been in for a while now. In the back of my mind, I’ve known this problem was growing, but I just chose to ignore it. Why do we do things like this? Well, I guess I shouldn’t say, “we.” I’m sure it’s just me. You’re too smart to be this stupid.

I’ve taken to talking to the tree outside my office. He’s a large Taxodium distichum, a bald cypress. We’ve been discussing freedom and motion. He’s been explaining to me that my society, human society, does not afford me the freedom to stay in one place all the time. “You’d be run off by someone,” he says. “Why are you still here? Don’t you have somewhere else to be? Run along.” He has a point, I supposed. “Trees,” he suggests, “are free to remain right here, to put down roots, to truly inhabit a habitat.”

Yesterday he told me about the day he finally grew taller than our office building. “For years I wondered what was on the other side of this building,” he said. “I asked the birds almost everyday, but they never talk back to trees. I’m not sure they can hear us. They’re so weird." I’m learning to read the “facial expressions” of trees as I talk to them more and more. He was smiling as he remembered. “Then one day, finally, my top branch peeked over the edge of the building and saw the roof and the trees and buildings on the other side. It was like my world doubled in size. It was amazing.” Today he’s several yards taller than our office building and he can see the pond and the running trail and the little bridge. “When the wind blows just right I can see the ducks sleeping.”

This body is the one constant in my life, I suppose. Everywhere I go I lug it around with me. When I’m chased off from one place I take it to the next. I suppose I should take better care of it, put down roots in it, plan to stay here for a while.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re taking care of yourself.

Later. Love.

Bloggy Personal Post, With One Ridiculous Aside

Spent most of Saturday loading my new work computer, a monster notebook that they call a “Portable Workstation”: 12 GB RAM, 8 processor cores, 1 TB HDD, 17” 1920 X 1200 screen. It’s SO much faster than my old notebook. Me likey. Totally worth the back brace I have to wear to carry it around. The power supply is a brick too. Huge and heavy. Ugh. But, the performance is worth the pain.

Sunday we signed this contract for natural gas drilling on a section of land that includes our subdivision. Not much for our little lot, a few hundred dollars signing bonus and 25% royalties on our small percentage of the total acreage. Probably a few bucks a month. No big deal. I’m not quitting my job or anything. I can split a burger with my neighbor once a month or something.

My son, River, has a second job interview today. It will be his first job if he gets it. Retail. Best Buy. They’ll work with his college schedule. He’s got a line on another job if this one falls through. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the universe, the emperor of the Octopus People of Tentaclon IV sips seven glasses of Artellien whisky and taps his remaining limb on the table in front of him, trying to draw the waitress’s attention to his one empty glass. He’s been drinking a bit too much lately because elections are coming up soon and he’s not that popular with the masses. If he’s not elected emperor again then he’ll have to go back to work for his cousin, Larry, at the book-binders. Jerry—that’s the emperor’s name—really hates book binding. Being emperor is a much better gig. He gets into all the coolest bars, like this one, which is very trendy but it’s hard sometimes to get the waitress’s attention. “You’d think being emperor would be enough to get good service,” he thinks to himself. Usually it is, I suppose, but Emperor Jerry’s not very popular right now. People think he drinks too much.

Susan is going back to work today. It’s only part-time for now, but still she’s nervous. Wish her luck. I’m very proud of her.

Hello, friends. I trust you’re well. Are you?

Later. Love.

An Administrative Post. Please Read.

Hello, people. Remember me? I'm the guy who writes this blog. My name is Scott. Hello.

I've been staying behind the writing lately, not poking my head through much. Probably it's just a phase. Who cares, though. Anyway. I decided to address you directly today because I've been letting things go, letting them get out of hand I mean, and it's time to take a little break and get some things in order. If you'll pardon the break in blather, then, I'll address a few issues.

The thing is: The blog complex is a mess. I love you people. I love having you around. I wouldn't close this blog if you paid me a million dollars. And even though all my real friends tell me that you guys are a bunch of losers and I should run you all out of here with a shotgun, I'm fond of you people and all your weird little flaws, deformities and social awkwardnesses. So, I'm keeping the blog complex open to you, but I'm going to have to ask you to chip in and help me get some things around here back in order. Here goes:

• I don't know who made the beautiful ping pong paddle sculpture in the Ping Pong and Rock Climbing Room but, even though it's a lovely sculpture, now people cannot play ping pong. There are forty-five tables and no paddles. Please dismantle the sculpture or replace the paddles. Our ping pong paddle budget is tapped out for the year.


• If you drink the last cup of coffee in the pot, please don't throw the coffee maker away. Make another pot, or rinse out the pot and put it in the dishwasher. And when the dishwasher is full, don't throw it away. Just run it and then empty it. And when the trash is full, don't set the can on fire. Pull out the bag, take it to the dumpster, and then put a new bag in the can. What the hell is wrong with you people?


• The trauma counselors are for everyone. There are only twelve of them. Please don't blather on and on and on. We cannot afford any more trauma counselors this year.


• There are sixty-three hoodies in lost and found. Sixty-three. Please, for the love of god, take your hoodies home.


• The wombats in the wombat pantry are all crooked and out of order. If you're going to play with a wombat, please put it back exactly as you found it. They wombat butler is getting pissed, and he's the only wombat butler in the Western Hemisphere. If he quits, we'll have to burn all the wombats.


• I'm not sure who's been sleeping in the broom closet, but the broom master asks that you please wear pajamas.


• I'm tired of people complaining about the moray eels. The rules on the back of the door to the natatorium clearly indicate that the moray eels are released into the pool for 13 minutes at the 51st minute of every even numbered hour so they can exercise. Please keep track of the time and be out of the pool when the door to their tank opens. It's your responsibility, not mine.


• The observatory is only to be used for studies that support currently accepted norms in astronomical science. If you want to challenge the establishment, build your own observatory.


• Until they're legal, please stay out of the euthanasia pods. We could get in serious trouble, you guys.


• The suggestion box in the main foyer is meant to be ironic. Please keep your suggestions to yourself.

That's enough for today. Please comply. Be a sport, weirdo.

Hello, friends. I'm glad you are.

Later. Love.

I Am Cherry Alive - Delmore Schwartz

Today, a poem that I love.

I Am Cherry Alive - Delmore Schwartz

“I am cherry alive,” the little girl sang,
“Each morning I am something new:
I am apple, I am plum, I am just as excited
As the boys who made the Hallowe’en bang:
I am tree, I am cat, I am blossom too:
When I like, if I like, I can be someone new,
Someone very old, a witch in a zoo:
I can be someone else whenever I think who,
And I want to be everything sometimes too:
And the peach has a pit and I know that too,
And I put it in along with everything
To make the grown-ups laugh whenever I sing:
And I sing It is true; it is untrue;
I know, I know, the true is untrue,
The peach has a pit, and the pit has a peach:
And both may be wrong when I sing my song,
But I don’t tell the grown-ups: because it is sad,
And I want them to laugh just like I do
Because they grew up and forgot what they knew
And they are sure I will forget it some day too.
They are wrong. They are wrong. When I sang my song, I knew, I knew!
I am red, I am gold, I am green, I am blue,
I will always be me, I will always be new!”

Isn't it wonderful?

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Tweets Again [sigh]

Tweets copied and pasted from my twitter. That's all I have time for today. Pathetic, I know. Sorry.

• Air guitar is the only correct response to "More Than a Feeling" by Boston.


• I finally figured out why I don't like jazz singing: It insists upon itself.


• While it's true the Rockies may crumble and Gibraltar may tumble, it's NOT true that they're only made of clay. They're sedimentary rock.


• I've heard enough "That's what she said" jokes to make the following observation: I don't know who "she" is, but she sounds like a whore.


• I want to write a book of famous quotes made by notable women and call it, "That's What She Said".


• Dear Sir: To say that your breath smells bad would be an insult to things that smell bad.


• My grandfather was in the Sicilian orchestra. He carried around a violin in a machine gun case.


• I can't wear asshats. My head is too big. Or possibly I'm wearing them wrong.


• My family crest is the Waffle House sign in front of crossed swords.


• Neither does my family have a Mission Statement or any Doctrine and Covenants or even a Policy and Procedure Manual. Just this Manifesto.


• Yesterday I heard someone say, "Our family motto is, 'Pride and perseverance!'" My family doesn't even have a motto, as far as I know. You?


• In my bombs it's always the green wire. I try to let all my friends know this, just in case.


• TV shows are dumb.


• The Secrets of My Success: 1. Never share your secrets.


• I think Randy Newman might be the greatest musical genius of the last ten thousand years of human history. #notTrue


• Lived in a brownstone. Lived in a ghetto. I've lived all over this town.


• The days keep coming. Every night I go to bed thinking maybe I'm finished and it's all over. Then the morning comes. It's exhausting.


• To 10 Things I Start But Never Finish: 1. Lists,


• She said, "There's only one way to handle difficult life transitions." I think she might be overestimating.


• Does anyone know whether or not Gwen Stefani is a hollaback girl? I've always wondered.


• When I stand on the corner with a bullhorn and proclaim my hatred for juice and knickers, some people get really angry. Go figure.


• I don't think jellyfish should be allowed to ride on public buses with humans. There, I said it. If that makes me a racist, so be it.


• The government has been sending secret messages in SPAM email. Something big is about to happen. Something big thick and meaty.


• I memorized "And away they all flew like the down of a thistle" when I was a kid and didn't understand what it meant until years later.


• When companies follow me on Twitter because of some keyword I tweeted, I always start buying from their competitors. FYI.


• @hhoagie: Things written without caffeine fade slowly from the page, as though written with disappearing ink. This is literally true.


• #emptyTweet


• Remember when TV shows were just TV shows & not culture? Now there's almost as much reporting about what happens in TV world as in reality.


• My friend & I used to walk around the theme park with a map and ask people to show us where certain rides were. It was a map of the world.


• If you only had one day to live, what is your favorite color?


• I've decided to pretend that I'm opening a restaurant. I wonder what sort of flatware I should buy? Okay, I'm bored with this game. Done.


• Storm brewing. Feel comfortingly familiar. The world is a better place on the brink of a storm.


• It's not just his humor. His entire personality is self-deprecating.


• Bob Seger & Billy Joel both capture perfectly the ridiculous tendency of men to consider their own small lives & histories legendary & epic.


• Lyric that makes me smile: "Party down with vigor and candor"


• I love the song "Trou Macacq" by "Squirrel Nut Zippers." I thought you should know.


• Why do we have "news" about what happens on TV shows? It's still not real, right? TV shows aren't news.


• The revolution has not been canceled, only postponed. Don't lose faith.


• You don't have to drop that cover over the oil spout in the Gulf, guys. Just teach it about abstinence. Perhaps a clever skit is in order.


• At least the slick in the Gulf isn't foreign oil. At least there's that.


• If we were ever madly in love and I ever told you I'd never forget you, I apologize, because I have.


• The harmonic overtones produced when the wavelengths of our dysfunctions interfere with each other generate a calming purring noise.


• You know that animals in the gulf are thinking, "What the hell did those idiots do to us this time? Why do they DO these things?"


• Dude! United and Continental should, after the merger, totally change their name to "Contented Airlines."


• Stereotypes that Don't Exist: Those guys on the train with the berets who throw ninja stars at you while playing the accordion.


• "Before you go I want you to know: I never meant to hurt you." "You stabbed me five times!" she yelled. I could see she was still upset.


• She claimed she had unearthed repressed memories that I had beaten her as a child, but I disabused her of that notion.


• She walked up to me and said, "You're unapproachable."


• I don't recommend leaving your eyes open all the time. Some things are better unseen. Give yourself a break.


• "Homophobia" sounds like it should mean, "Fear of the same," but it doesn't.


• The lions lie and watch in the cooling evening as summer draws to a close. Fall comes before the pride.


• Quick! Someone say something that will change my life!


• The sky billows in blurry grey.


• Of all the things you could have called a "fly", why that little bug? Why not an eagle, or a heron?


• If there's one thing that I hate it's when I'm up in the club and I'm sippin' that bub' and someone is calling my telephone.


• If you catch fire for some reason, remember these three words: 1. Stop; 2. Collaborate; 3. Listen. Or something like that.


• Damn it feels good to be a gangsta.


• Dude. We should totally give Arizona back to Mexico. That would be hilarious.


• How many mechanical botanists does it take to screw in a tulip bulb?


• In the interest of full disclosure: I would never put a bumper sticker on my actual car. (I should get a bumper sticker that says that!)


• Bumper Sticker I Want: DON'T BE SUCH A DUMBASS!


• How many absurdists does it take to screw in a garlic bulb?


• How many Amish people does it take to screw in a light bulb?


• My efforts for good in the world are not tireless. They're tiredfull. I'm exhausted almost all the time. Plus I don't really make an effort.


• Think your life is rough? "Hamsters are hindgut fermenters and must eat their own feces in order to digest their food a second time." Wow.


• I've decided to implode. Seems more considerate than exploding.


• Tom Scholz spent 5 years composing and recording the song, "More Than a Feeling" and you can tell. The song is an anthem to perfectionism.


• A storm. That's what I need. A big, dark, violent storm. That would make me feel better. I need a storm.


• I have nothing to say. So, that's what's up. I'm not angry with you, I just have nothing to say. I thought you should know.


• My stomach is not happy today. I wish my stomach would leave me out of its petty affairs, but it looks like I'll be affected.


• The sun! She burns!


• I wish I could find an IQ test that "gets" me.


• Did you know that the inventor called it "Nair" as an abbreviation for "Nary a hair"? It's true. I mean, it might be. I just made it up.


• I've lost my passion for apathy. It just seemed so pointless in the end.


• I wonder how many white rappers use the pseudonym "MC White Chocolate"?


• Hogwarts is a disgusting name for a school, if you think about it.


• George W. Bush's new book "Decision Points" uses the latest pop-up book and scratch-and-sniff technologies for maximum playtime fun.


• George W. Bush called his new book "Decision Points" because it's one of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" pick-a-path books.


• George W. Bush's new book title, "Decision Points," is an anagram for "Poisons in iceD t." Coincidence?


• What the hell are "phone skills"?


• Bumper sticker idea: If Your Worldview Fits on a Sticker You're Probably an Idiot


• Bumper sticker idea: Think Positive but Test Negative


• "I just want someone to understand me," she said. "Then maybe they can explain me to me." I didn't get it.


• If I said to you, "I'll always be a word man," how would you respond?


• This morning I posit that music is essential to humanity. It's a part of who we are.


• Everything changes. It always has.


• In contrast to the military, the policy of the TV show Jeopardy is, "Ask, don't tell."


• How much time each week to you commit to watching "The NeverEnding Story"? How far have you gotten? Are you tired of it yet?


• Today there are massive ice storms on the tiny island of Volcanoland. (Turnabout is fair play, after all.)


• It's always sunny on the sun. No night. No seasons. No rain. Mostly sunny every day.


• Do Martians celebrate Earth Day?


• My shrink thinks I might be crazy. I, on the other hand, think I might be Thor, God of Thunder.


• Clouds come and go, like voices in your head. Clouds hardly ever yell you to kill though. Just once in a while.


• It's secretary day! Tell the old girl she looks good for her age.


• It's secretary day. Let your secretary order herself some flowers from petty cash. Next time she brings you coffee, tell her to do it.


• Sometimes I use the twhirl filter to filter out people that I don't want to unfriend but don't want to read. I'm sure it's not you, though.


• To wake him up you had to call him Edward. He never arose by any other name. #hiddenQuotes


• I call every reality show, "The Biggest Loser." It annoys people.


• I am sore from working out last night [brag]. Working out would be easier if I weren't so fat [brag].


• You're not doing enough to rid your life of stress. UNSTRESS, people! DO YOU _WANT_ TO _DIE_!!!!!!!!!


• There were a lot of teens parked up at Abstinence Point when I drove by last night. Must have been planning some charity work or something.


• "FOUR and TWENTY black birds? BAKED in a pie." Dude, that rhyme is totally about pot, dude.


• I think my habit of compulsive lying is more than compensated for by my supernatural ability to heal disease by humming.


• This Just In: Iceland renames Eyjafjallajökull "Bob the Volcano."


• True story: I just met a man whose last name was "Mexican". And he wasn't Hispanic. Funny, sorta.


• It's cool that Betty White's going to host SNL. With all the signs of age, the feebleness and whatnot, I just hope SNL survives until then.


• "Empurpled mud under a willow, Where white geese slept;" I love the imagery in May Thielgaard Watts's poem "Vision".


• Dear Amazon and iTunes: I refuse to buy the soundtrack to "Scooby Doo 2" just to get Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta". I'll just go without.


• The way a workaholic is about work? I'm that way about booze. I'm an alcoholoholic.


• Want to have a healthy diet? Find lots of friends who eat only healthy food. Eat one of these friends each day.


• I hate naps. Death is too close to nap. I'd stay awake forever if I could.


• Nobody understand me like Coolio do.


• I'm existentially tired. I want to go to sleep and not wake up until a couple of years ago.


• Heels over head would be a better description of a fall. Head over heels is normal. When you're standing, your head is over your heels.


• For Follow Friday I recommend: Saturday. (Have I made that joke before? I must have. Oh well. Since when has that stopped me?)


• I've listened to Talking Heads' "Life During Wartime" a lot lately. It always makes me happy.


• For Follow Friday I recommend following: "The Directions", "The Yellow Brick Road", "The Leader" and "Your Nose".


• I think I'd make a good monk, except for all that "believing in things" part.


• You can't just say, "Damn, you're beautiful" every time it pops into your head. It makes beautiful people uncomfortable.


• I don't relate to people who hang their shades here and there on their head or neck when not wearing them. Of course, I don't wear shades.


• Look on the bright side: We'll all be dead one day.


• Why do aliens all have the same head? Humans don't all have the same head. At least I don't.


• If any of my tweets have offended you today, I want you to know that I accept your apology.


• One Asian, Underdog, Individual, with Libertine and Just This for All.


• My Favorite Steven Wright joke: "This isn't one of mine. It's not even funny. Did you find this on the Internet?"


• On our programming department we've switched from Teams to Tribes. And our new motto is, "There is one I in Tribe!"


• Just heard about NerdCore Hip Hop & programmer rappers like MC Frontalot and MC++. Like with the Onion, most of the humor is in the titles.


• Y'all, I am SRSLY stressing out over which shoes to take to BlogHer! Also I need to remember tampons, in case I get my menses.


• He's writing filtering software for his wife's computer that makes every penis in any downloaded picture look smaller than his.


• Dear God: The fireball was cool, but you missed Westboro Baptist Church. Please try again.


• I'm not going to lie to you: Most of what I say is not true. (Just kidding.)


• Do you know how to use question marks. I don't?


• The Barenaked Ladies should cover REM's "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" (and also their nakedness)


• My blog is like poetry (in that no one reads it any more).


• Do Zen: A 12 Step Program


• She took the test and it said she's pregnant so then he took the test and it said he wasn't so she must be cheating on him.


• Dear Japan: I bet Sumo wrestlers taste a lot like whales. Just sayin'.


• Winston Churchill Quote of the Day: "I never said this. Stop attributing it to me."


• If evolution is true, why don't monkeys believe in it?


• If I ever become a famous TV chef, I'm changing my name to Al Dente.


• As Mark Twain once said, "I think Winston Churchill said this, actually."


• My days as a desk calendar are numbered.


• I use the same repeating banner for both Earth Day and Heart Day: ...RTHEARTHEARTHEARTHEARTHEARTHEARTHEARTHEARTHEARTHEA...


• I'm pretty sure that the moth on the outside of the window is actually government agent in disguise. I'm just going to pretend I don't know.


• I think I just accidentally set off a chain of events that will lead quickly to the destruction of the universe. My bad.


• I'm keeping Schrödinger's cat for the weekend. "Please remember to feed and bury it every hour," he said as he left.


• To work! There's nothing for it. I must needs go. You're all doing a great job (except one of you). See you soon. Love and such.


• Leonard Cohen composes music and lyrics so compelling that other artists think, "I should do a cover of this that actually sounds good."


• Did you know that the word gullible is not in the pledge of allegiance?


• This number beside my name in twitter keeps going down. I wonder if that's bad or good. This other one goes up, though. Maybe it evens out.


• Has anyone seen Mars lately? The planet? I haven't seen it for a while and I'm worried. I hope nothing happened to it.


• She'd been a reporter for as long as anyone could remember. She had to be ancient, but she still looked young. No wrinkles. Permanent press.


• Everyone else is more self-styled and unique than I am. I want to be like that.


• I really want you all to know that I'm the kind of person who doesn't care what you think of me.


• Sometimes I feel like everyone thinks I'm paranoid.


• Does this tweet make me seem insecure?


• If you could start at the date line and travel westward around the world fast enough, how long, at most, could you make a day last?


• You shouldn't burn analog clocks. Why? Second hand smoke.


• Main reason I don't think "traf" is a "cool" name for our traffic monitoring software: It's "fart" backwards. That's reason enough, right?


• We call animals something else when we eat them: poultry, beef, pork, venison. Is there a word like that for humans, I wonder?


• It's funny how some jokes don't make you laugh at all. Well, not funny, I guess. Just strange. Get it?


• Deciding our nuclear family was a sufficient deterrent, we arrived a non-proliferation agreement. We cut a deal, so to speak.


• I want to produce a popular documentary about colas and sodas, so popular that it becomes a pop reference.


• A hole is a visible absence, something you see because nothing is there.


• A donut hole is not a hole. Calling a donut hole a hole is like calling a pile of dirt a hole.


• It's been ten years since Y2K. Ten years. It feels like ten months or something. Something is wrong with time.


• Is this a party or a disco? Is this foolin' around? Just wondering.


• Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one with less horse shit on it. And that has made all the difference.


• If we really want to get some judgin' goin' on in Washington we should put Judge Judy on the Court! AM I RIGHT?!?!


• When I die throw me in a hole in the dirt and call the worms for dinner. Then pilfer all my things and slander my good name. I won't mind.


• How can "stay at home moms" have a gathering in public? Isn't that impossible?


• Is "dictator" slang for "penispotato"? If so, it's misspelled.


• I want to open up an upscale doughnut shop for hipsters and call it "Hole Foods".


• All of the 1980s were at least 20 years ago. This has just occurred to me. Some of the 1980s were 30 years ago. Damn.


• In hindsight, a portmanteau of "Tweet" and "Chat" wasn't such a clever name for my new twitter/chat client application.


• When a stranger sticks gum to the bottom of a table in a café, how long should you wait before walking over, removing it and chewing it?


• Just overheard: "For any 2-digit number, half that number is always the digits of that number reversed!" Uh, no. Is this EVER true?


• If I say the same word twice, is that two words?


• "A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs." Two or more. Hmmm...


• Does a word rhyme with itself?


• Shouldn't it be "One Size Fits Each"? I mean, we're not all going to wear that robe, right?


• I think The Clapper should have a switch on it so people with only one hand can still use it to turn on and off a lamp.


• I'm opening up the first radio station targeted at deaf people. Everything we broadcast will be in sign language.


• Why aren't there any braille billboards along the highway? Blind people are consumers too.


• My children are almost as old as I am now. One day they will be older than me. Then they can explain everything to me, help me grow up.


• I don't believe in science. They always find out they were wrong eventually. I'm just getting there first.


• I like to make up new science lies. SCIENCE!


• One thing that all successful people have in common is that they didn't go to a convention to learn from a lecturer how to be successful.


• I have this theory that the dinosaurs turned into clouds. I think this cloud theory holds water.


• A question, after all, is more reliable than an answer. A question is an absolute. An answer is always contingent and subjective.


• I am only certain about my doubts. I'm skeptical about everything else, though I question the wisdom of this.


• I know everything is best, just not for everyone at the same time.


• If things look familiar today, it's because Wednesday got lost in shipping and they're reusing last Thursday for today. Can you believe it?

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Just Tweets Today (From Twitter) (I Know. I Know.)

Didn't sleep well last night, and I have meetings this morning, so I'm not feeling inspired. Instead of the amazing things I usually post, therefore, I'm copping out and posting a bunch of my tweets from the last couple of weeks. If you follow me on Twitter, you've already seen them. Sorry.

• Susan lied & said she could have a taco. So I brought her a taco. Then her nurse got mad at me. Then I got mad. Susan, however, got a taco.


• I don't know what the Final Four is, but it sounds ominous, like the horsemen of the apocalypse or something.


• Are you scatter-brained? Do you ever sit at the table and look for your fork only to realize that it was on top of your head the whole time?


• Before I achieved enlightenment I was a total retard. Now I'm enlightened as hell. It rocks hard, y'all. You don't even know.


• Once you reach enlightenment you don't care about all this crap any more. You have more enlightened crap to think about. Deep shit.


• God was laid off last week. "God was a great employee, but god just worked in such mysterious ways," said his former manager, Kevin.


• He still uses the word queer when he finds something unusual. I find this strange, especially since he's gay, but I guess it makes him happy


• During autism awareness month we're supposed to be more aware of autistic people so that, one day, autistic people can return the favor.


• Did lady GaGa write that song that goes, "Scott Scott Bo Bot Banana Fana Fo Fot Fee Fi Fo Mot Scott"? It sounds kinda like one of hers.


• Lady GaGa doesn't want to be friends. Sorry.


• Salesmen are sitting at the table beside me. They're discussing accounts and products. I wish they were in pencil so I could erase them.


• I ran the Necronomicon through a Spell Checker and it underlined three misspelled words and one incantation that would destroy the world.


• It took a while, but here's a triple entendre: Jimmy Carter was too sane & timid for the job. He should have grown nuts.


• "Double entendre" only means "double meaning". It doesn't mean anything else.


• Okay, it's in the dictionary. That was a just a trick. Did you know, however, that the word "gullible" really isn't in the thesaurus?


• They made some sort of breakthrough at the Large Hardon Collider. High energy particle collisions give physicists a hadron.


• Scientists made it official: The brain is formally classified as vestigial. YES WE CAN!


• I never bought a dress and went to a dance with a boy. We were too poor for that. Plus I'm a dude.


• What they don't tell you in love stories is that people aren't numbers. You can't add one and one and get two. It's always just one and one


• If I can only accomplish two things today I want to learn to count.


• It's not serial killing when you kill them all at the same time.


• The Chinese have a lot of proverbs. Most of them are very hard to understand (unless you speak Chinese).


• There were no tables along the wall or window at my coffee shop this morning. I'm sitting out in the middle of the room. I feel naked.


• Acrostic composition relies on surreptitiously tenable initial characters.


• I look forward to an approaching time of life on which I can eventually look back with nostalgia.


• Dear Fiscal Conservatives: Money is imaginary. We only pretend it matters.


• If you value being an original thinker, it should follow that you aren't surprised or offended when people disagree.


• I went to a high school for comedians. Class clown was like Valedictorian. No one danced at our prom. We all just stood in the punch line.


• Last night I had a nightmare that I was a member of Lady Gaga's entourage. I looked completely ridiculous in all that leather.


• I've learned the seventeen secrets to being less-than-average. I will share them with you for a thousand dollars.


• They should call them Ulterior Motivational Speakers.


• We're more than 8 hours into this 24 hour day already. Carpe diem, people. Quit fucking around. It will be tomorrow in less than 16 hours.


• Corey Feldman calls up Canadian singer Corey Hart, asks if he wants to hang out.


• Dear Corey Haim: Don't ever invite addiction into your house, you silly boy. It renders you powerless.


• Corey Feldman feels great disturbance in the CoreyForce, as if millions of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.


• I think I'm going to start shopping where the non-consumers shop. I hear they have a great selection, though they're a little pricey.


• To avoid sexual harassment accusations, when women enter my office I always say, "I want you to know that I don't find you attractive."


• Full of the best intentions I rush into the fire, but I am made of wax, I am a candle. The soul is willing.


• Did you hear that Sting is releasing a cover of the N.W.A song "Fuck tha Police"? Yeah, neither did I.


• This trend of zombie-ifying famous books is getting out of hand:


• What to Expect When You're Expecting Zombies? Really?
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Zombies? Really?
• Microsoft Excel for Dumb Zombies? Really?
• I'm OK, You're a Zombie? Really?
• The Purpose Driven Zombie? Really?
• One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Zombie? Really?
• Being and Nothingness and Zombies? Really?
• Elements of Style and Zombies? Really?

Hello, friends. I trust you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

World and "Plastic Beach", with a Personal Postscript

The world changes slowly. Every morning it is almost completely the same world it was yesterday. Meanwhile we fluctuate wildly, tossed here and there by new information, new misinformation, new insight and new confusion. The world, however, doesn't change much from day to day. We put a bookmark in the world at night and it's there in the morning. We pick up where we left off, or not.

This new Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach, works for me. It's missing a lot of the more upbeat elements of their earlier albums, and I'm sure this will disappoint many, but I like it. Trippy and a little psychedelic, with hip hop mixed in at just the right ratio. I don't know if I'd recommend it, because I don't know if it has mass appeal. All I can tell you is that I like it.

Is it just me, or does something look fundamentally different about the world today? Did something happen in the night, something that changes everything? Did we cross some line? Has the future started? Maybe it's just me, my perception or misperception and whatnot. I think a bird winked at me from a telephone line. I wonder what's up.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

P.S. - If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, then you may have heard the good news. Susan's PET Scan on Wednesday showed no evidence of disease, no cancer. We are so happy about this, as you might imagine. She continues to beat the odds. They don't declare you cancer free until five years with no evidence of disease. This was her first scan since her surgery. Her next scan is in three months. Here's hoping the good new continues. Thanks for stopping by.

An Update on Susan, Since you Asked

Many people have asked many questions about Susan. Here are some answers.

• Can you describe the surgery? Susan had an esophagectomy and partial gastrectomy using the Ivor-Lewis approach (a long incision on the front of her abdomen from just below her sternum to just below her navel and an incision on her right side and back that runs under her shoulder blade). They removed some lymph nodes from near her left kidney and some lymph nodes from her chest. They removed the top 1/4 of her stomach and bottom 2/3 of her esophagus along with the junction (GEJ) between the two. They fashioned her remaining stomach into a tube, brought it up through her diaphragm and attached it to what is left of her esophagus, so her remaining stomach is in her chest, not in her abdomen. They also installed a small feeding tube (J-tube) from her small intestine through her lower abdomen on the left side of her navel. It's a couple of inches long outside her body and ends in a port to which a six-inch extension tube is attached for slack.


• How did the surgery go? The surgery went very well. The recovery has gone mostly well, but there have been a couple of complications:
  
  
  
  • Some fluid collected in her lung cavity and partially collapsed her left lung. They drained it and there has been no further problem with it.
  
  
  • She developed an infection in the incision on her abdomen. They had to reopen the incision. It was left open and is healing using a Wound V.A.C. (Vacuum Assisted Closure) for packing and closure. The healing of that wound with the V.A.C. has gone okay, though a small new bit of infection flared up yesterday. It is being monitored (by her physician and a home-health nurse that comes three times a week), medicated with antibiotics and treated with the V.A.C, so we're led to believe everything is still proceeding acceptably on that front.


• Can she eat? She can eat, but not much yet. We give her enteral nutrition through her J-tube until she can build up to consuming enough calories. She's starting carefully and avoiding foods that might be hard to digest or foods that might irritate her. So far we haven't had any major issues with her eating, but it's slow going. Her stomach is still a little traumatized from the surgery and a little paralyzed by the pain narcotics so it isn't emptying as fast as it should, but this is only temporary. Once she can eat enough (maybe a month or two), the J-tube will be removed.


• How does she take medication? She's had some trouble with nausea still, so we give her most of her medication through her J-tube. The liquid we inject with a syringe and the pills we crush, mix with water and inject with a syringe. Once she can swallow better and the nausea isn't such an issue, she'll take her medication orally and we won't need the J-tube.


• Any lasting effects from the surgery? Her stomach is much smaller, so she won't be able to eat very much at one sitting. She'll eat several small meals each day. Also, there is no sphincter/valve at the top of her stomach, so she has to be careful about lying flat or elevating her body above her head, lest the contents of her stomach come up her throat. This is mostly a problem for a couple of hours after eating, but it's a minor problem at all times. Our bed has to inclined to at least 30 degrees.


• What about the cancer? Before the surgery we had hope that the cancer was all gone. The last two PET scans in July and November showed no evidence of disease. When the tissue removed during the surgery (lymph nodes, esophagus and stomach) was examined, however, active cancer was found. This means she certainly had cancer at the time of the surgery and it would certainly have grown had we not gone ahead with the surgery. The question now is, "Did they get it all?" We hope so, but we know the statistics are strongly stacked against us. For now Susan needs to focus on recovering from the surgery. In February we get new scans to look for cancer. So, we wait and we hope.

Hello, friends. Thanks for your concern. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.