concerning janjis and the yodeler

*** 10/ 29/ 13

As I do about 4 out of 5 weekdays, I'm lying abed watching The Price is Right. What "work" I do is typically wrapped-up by 10:00 AM CT.  Without fail, I am amused by the commercials wedged between Plinkos, come-on-downs, and those perennial jackanapes who bid one dollar over another person's bid. (A person with family and feelings and fiscal needs just like you, jackanape, so how about a fifty dollar cushion?)

The commercials are of roughly three types for roughly the same demographic:  Affordable life-insurance for retirees costing as little as a cup of coffee a day,  pharmaceuticals for the chronically infirm whose current regimen does not deliver the desired results, and for un-glorified go-carts for handi-enabling the butt-bound that they may clog grocery aisles.  

And I'm prone to pity this hapless lot of blue haired biddies and cavernously wrinkled old farts; yet I often think, man, can I get a Do the Dew spot or a Hunger Games trailer? Who are these pitiable armchair price-guesstimators? This feeble ilk that giddily but earnestly apply their unique telepathy to the boon of distant contestants as to when, for instance, they'd be advised to stop the mountain-climbing yodeler before he steps over the perilous precipice and plummets.

Who are they? Likely lying abed, likely done with work for the day, likely amused by commercials aimed surely not at themselves.  It's sad when you get to thinking about it.  As I suppose I now will about, say, 4 out of 5 weekdays.

***11/ 5/ 13

On the flip side of my dull regrets, glisten the countless blessings of a smiling life.

***11/ 9/ 13

Changing to this is my Janji is here please quote this is a test me

Please find above: the transcript of a "voice to type" program which I downloaded intending to dictate lengthier portions of these entries to.  In the case of "Janji" (I guess a mythical shape-shifter come to challenge me to a recitation-bee), I was going to begin this entry with an excerpt from a Willa Cather story that I've been musing over. 

Please find below, the topic: 

It has come to my attention, well . . . it's been brought to my attention by a certain wife of mine, that I have an objectionable tendency to speak of my death as if the hour is already appointed--unknown yet definitely chiseled in stone somewhere, probably in a dark, dripping dwarven mine, guarded, we may be sure, by a coven of Janjiis.      

One of the most objectionable aspects of this tendency, I imagine, is how glibly I broach the topic.  I talk lightly about the time when I won't be another mouth to feed, another mouth to speak for (she has to talk on the phone in my stead-- my voice is weak, my words are given to garble-- which she has to do often, due to my nearly constant pharmaceutical needs and clinic appointment rescheduling),  etc.

Whether it's out of a presumed need to present things as rosier than they are or as uglier, I'm not sure; probably, though, it's a confusing mixture of both and done at least as much for my sake as for my audience.

A ploy of the guilt-laden preacher and the modern poet.

*** 11/ 12/ 13

Mostly because I'd be remiss if I didn't somehow leave my mark on this peculiar date.

But also to report in the least jocund manner as I can manage a decline in my condition--or maybe better put as a ratcheting toward it's expected consequences--marked by increasing wobbliness, blurry vision, left-side numbness. These are familiar symptoms and so not particularly frightening but foreboding nonetheless.  

I went to see my neuro-oncologist yesterday (as scheduled not necessitated) and the upshot was an increase in my steroid dosage in case the immediate trouble is swelling and an agreement to wait until my MRI in a month to see if it's the tumors walking-off the radiation like a runner might a mere belly-cramp. (Sorry, friends of mine, who insist on a bipedal ambulation speed greater than that required to fetch the mail in summer drizzle but I stand by the word “mere”. I rarely do but here I play my cerebral œdema card complete with fancy “oe” ligature; but if “mere’ seems a slight to your sweaty achievements, jog it off, hands over head.)

Also . . . I wonder if humanity would be better off if there was a 10/ 11/ 12/ 13 or if there was an 11/ 12/ 13/ 14?  Time-to-get-right-wise or time-to-screw-it-up-less-wise?

I even go so far as to wondœr.