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To my niece Nicole -- have fun at your Junior Prom. I'd give advice to you about handling your gentleman friend, but I'm guessing you don't need any. God help him.
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To you American Idol fans: This is spooky. But doesn't Idol cutie Jason Castro look just like John Travolta in Battlefield Earth?
(I got that comparison from another blog. Wish I could take credit.)
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To those of you who love cancer humor as much as I do, I got this from CancerIsNotFunny.com, and ironically titled cancer humor site.
Top Ten Worst Ways to Break Your cancer Diagnosis News to Your Family
#10: Wear an "I've Got Cancer" t-shirt around the house.
#9: Using overly intricate (and thoroughly confusing) means:
Spouse: Honey, you don't look so well. Are you feeling alright?
Response: Well, if by 'are' you mean 'do', and if by 'feeling' you mean 'have' and if by 'alright' you mean 'cancer', then the answer is yes, I most certainly do.
#8: Vanity license plates: [2MR GUY], [KEMO GAL], [CNCR SUX],[CNCR FITR]
#7: Via text message. ( omg! ive gt cancer. not kewl. )
#6: Make your family play connect the dots with your twisted logic: "Ya know, I was thinking about what a horrible disease that cancer is and how Fate must really hate someone to inflict such a horrible curse on them. Well, apparently Fate hates me."
#5: The Relativity Approach: "Well honey, I got fired from my job for messing around with the cleaning lady, who apparently gave me HIV. You should get yourself checked out ASAP. Ha ha, just kidding about that...by the way, I have cancer.
#4: "Alright everybody, raise your hand if you DON'T have cancer." (Raising your hand at first, then slowly dropping it as everyone watches)
#3: On the Jumbotron at a sporting event.
#2: Through clever subtleties:
Spouse: Do you have Billy's basketball schedule for next week?
Response: I'll tell ya what I don't have...the ability to properly regulate cell growth and proliferation anymore.
And the #1 worst way to break cancer diagnosis news to your family:
"Knock-knock" ... "who's there?" ... "I have cancer."
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Finally, to all of you:
There was a study out a couple of months ago, published in the medical journal The Oncologist, called "Expressive Writing Appears To Change Thoughts And Feelings About Cancer." The title about says it all: some cancer patients were asked to keep journals about their feelings about being cancer patients, and they found that many of them had a change in attitude, but also a change in how they fely physically, after just three weeks. it's called "writing therapy," and writing those of us who teach writing knew about it long before the medical establishment did.
Now, I've never been a journal or diary keeper. I'm too pragmatic -- what's the point if no one sees it but me?
But my blog is my journal. I don't necessarily "express my deepest thoughts and feelings," as the people in the writing therapy study had done. Too many of you would be disturbed by my deepest thoughts and feelings. (Take that any way you want.)
But this blog does give me an opportunity to vent a little, to make light, and to connect with others. So I want to thank you for reading, and for commenting, and for e-mailing, and for telling em that you're reading. It hasn't turned out (yet, anyway) to be what I expected it to be (which was an updating about my treatment), and I hope it won't be for a long time. But I hope you'll keep reading anyway, even if it's become more about Mr. T than about CHOP-R chemotherapy side effects.
Have a good weekend, everyone.
5 comments:
You have a good weekend too and thanks for your crazy humor, it helps more than you know :)
xxooChristine
"Too many of you would be disturbed by my deepest thoughts and feelings."
Ok Bob, how about an example? Please, just one disturbing morsel?
It will be therapeutic - meaning it might make the rest of us feel a little saner.
Tom
Tom,
I'm mostly afraid of disturbing my mom and the kids' teachers, so I really don't want to get into details about my deepest thoughts and feelings. Let's just say, since you want an example, that one of my deepest thoughts involves locally-grown produce froma co-op, an old Apple IIe computer, and the drummer "Animal" from the Muppets band.
Bob,
It's very interesting to me that many of your inner thoughts involve cartoon characters and puppets.
Very interesting indeed,
Mary S-B
Mary
Perhaps you forgot that my brother based his doctoral thesis on bugs bunny cartoons. Then he proceeded to milk it for about 5 years by delivering it at various "academic" conferences.
As for his inner thoughts - he's not revealing them because they would probably be a big let down. Since I've known him his whole life, I can tell you he's not as much of a deep thinker as he's led most to believe.
His inner thought track usually plays the following thoughts in a continuous loop -
Jim Rice, Sunday NY Times, Jim Rice, Three Stooges, Jim Rice, Eggplant, Jim Rice,Jim Rice, Jim Rice, Jim Rice, Jim Rice, Eggplant.......and so it goes.
Was I close Bob?
by the way - Rice will never make the HOF. You know it. Time to face up to it.
Mike
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