The Electron Pencil

… Because thinking is one of the very few things I can do right now without causing myself pain, discomfort, or throat mayhem.

When I look at what’s left of my beard, I want to cry.

Hydrocodone is my friend.

So is prochlorperazine (generic for Compazine).

Dr. Wu started me on the steroid dexamethasone (generic for Decadron) last week. The first day I did it, it felt as if my eartips and feet were on fire.

All my dreams have to do with food now. I’m either eating at a restaurant with friends or downing a bag, bowl, or potful of something.

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Chemoradiation therapy is a shoot-the-moon proposition: The doctors are wagering the cancer would have killed me anyway so they’re slowly poisoning me to the brink of death in the hope that My Olive Pit™ and its little friends will die first.

The radiation has created a weird set of stiletto sideburn on me, sharp-edged in a way I and my trusty razor could never have achieved otherwise.

I’m watching the first three seasons of Arrested Development again. The damned thing’s more than a decade old and it’s still a scream.

The Loved One is a saint.

I’ve been playing dozens of hands of solitaire. Last evening, for the first time, I won. I was shocked by how much it meant to me.

I’ve also been playing countless games of chess on my computer. I’m the champion, I’ll modestly admit. Of course, I have the computer set pretty dumb. Nevertheless, it’s extremely gratifying to know even in my decrepit state I can beat the equivalent of a six-year-old child.

Will Murphy posted a picture of a jar of Skippy peanut butter on Facebook the other day. I gazed at it lovingly for long minutes until I started feeling…, well, uncomfortable about the whole thing.

Speaking of Facebook, I’ve spent precious few moments on it the last week and a half, mainly because the obsessive anti-Hillary people have driven me off it — and I’m by no means any kind of a big Hillary fan.

Speaking of politics, I’ve long wanted to believe the wingnuts of the Republican party are a temporal phenomenon. We do need conservative Republicans — after all, would you like to live in a land ruled solely by the likes of gals and guys who think like me? I mean, somebody’s gotta watch the bank balance and make sure life isn’t just a whirl of bread, circuses, legal marijuana, pizza every morning, noon and night, and long afternoon naps. Sadly, though, the party is now thoroughly owned by its wingnutty side and Donald Trump is the logical result. To all my smart, reasonable Republican friends — and don’t get me wrong, there are still a few — leave the party and start something new. Try reading Sheila Kennedy’s blog as a first step. An IUPUI law and public policy professor, she remains loyal to the old virtues of the Republican party. Although for the life of me, I can’t figure out how she can remain in any way affiliated with the likes of the Pan troglodytes who make up her gang now.

The real cancer profiteers are the people who make Kleenex.

My beloved Cubs start playing baseball games in earnest Monday, April 4th, in Anaheim. I’ve not been so pumped up by them since that fateful year of 1969 and I have no doubt they’ll fulfill my hopes and dreams this year.

The only problem is, what’ll be my raison d’être once they win their first World Series since 1908? I fear I’ll wake up the next morning still having to make a living and maintain this ricketty bag of bones and wonder why.

That, to borrow a signature phrase from the incomparable Sidney T. Feldman, is the eternal fucking question.

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