Hot Tub Truth Machine.

This is my best friend. No offense to any and all of you that I'd pledged that title to previously, but he played a superior card. 

The Big C card.

I was in the middle of dominating a garage sale at my Mom's house when he called to tell me that he had cancer. Yeah, I know, what a dick.

Right as I was about to milk . 50 cents out of a sweeeeet octogenarian..  I could practically feel those five dimes in my sweaty palm!

You know how hard that is!?

It's like finding a four leaf clover growing out of a baby brontosaurus' head!

Anyways, yeah, so I borrowed money from my Mom and T and I flew out ASAP to see him.

It was of utmost importance.

Also, this was all back in July.

Anyways, y'all ever been to Portland, OR?

Cuz that's where we went, and it was great.

Or was it?

I can't really remember, the whole trip was clouded with emotions and tears and laughing and more tears and then more laughing that produced lots of tears and hugging and then all of a sudden there was a moment of clarity which was accurately captured in the above photo which happened to take place in the middle of the most intense communal bath either of us had ever been in together. 

Then, the next thing I know I am on a plane back to WI and all I have is my memories and thoughts to chew on, which is where I have been stuck at ever since.

Because life moves on.

That is what we talked about in Portland anyways.

I mean, basically you start to die the minute you are born.

That's how life works.

It's nothing personal.

It's perfectly summed up here:

Anyways, so now I am back in NY, he is stillin' PDX (abbreviation for Portland's Airport) and he calls me with news that there is significant shrinkage in his tumors and all the numbers are really low, which is a good thing, and I'm a mixed bag of emotion all of a sudden.

This is truly an emotional roller coaster that we seem to be on.

But I suppose that the same could be said about anything, or any of us.

I mean, nothing really makes us special.

I mean, we make ourselves special or forgettable, it is us that does that to us.

Right?

Like, if Jay-Z fell in a forest and no one was around to give a shit, would he make a sound or sell any merchandise?

So, in closing, I love my friend, and that is all I can do is love him and keep moving forward, laughin' huggin' and cryin'. We all keep growing and moving along and you call each other and visit each other and you think about each other and you just keep each other in each other's hearts.

You just keep hoping for shrinkage.

#SHRINKSTRONG

Tweet it to the heavens.

Arm Ends.

I was riding home with the family in tow, we were all on bikes, and I started to design a little wooden truck that I decided I would like to build. Sometimes it is just time to take matters into your own hands and do something with them. The matters I mean, also your hands. If you look over at your shoulders, and then look down the length of your arms, your hands are basically the end of your arms. That is, they are if you are moving down from your shoulders. So, a little wooden truck, that is what the universe wants me to make.

We were headed home from a Birthday party. You ever been to one of those? For little kids I mean? The only ones I remember from my own childhood Were ones that I was old enough to attend by myself. But it was nice because the Mom made enough cupcakes for everyone, and there was a lot of fruit salad that no one seemed to be eating, so I ate all of that and eavesdropped in the corner.

I am still getting used to talking with other parents in social situations like the one I was at this afternoon. I can't help it, but I don't really like talking about the children. I like talking to the parents as the adults that they are, and I want to know about them. But it seems like by default a lot of parents end up talking about their kids and it is at this point that I mentally check out of the situation. I try to maintain eye contact and listen for "buzzwords" that might signal to me that they have asked me a question, but for the most part I am not there. I am designing toys, or wondering how much something in the near vicinity might weigh, mentally re eating a particularly delicious sandwich I'd once eaten...
You know, stuff like that.

Later the party moved to a nearby playground where the kids got to run around and scream and the Birthday Mom told me about this 34 year old woman that she was in a band with that had shortness of breath, went to get it checked out and she had stage 4 cancer. Her lungs were full of tumors and she dies 4 months after the diagnosis. It was a sad thing to think about on such a happy, beautiful day. T said to me "THAT'S why you have to go get scheck ups regularly, so that if you have something they can catch it earlier." I said to T "THAT'S why you need to remember to be thankful for your life every single day you wake up."
Then we sort of just stared at each other and I think we telepathically agreed to meet somewhere in the middle.