The Absurd Epistolary Adventures of The Astonishing FartMan

Stand Clear and Cover Your Eyes

2012-02-02T18:12:00.008-06:00

From: W____
To: B___ and N____
Sent: Groundhog's Day
Re: Happy Birthday to J_____!

Happy Birthday to J___ E_____J______!

We wish we could be there, and we will be there soon to celebrate her birthday all over again. Meanwhile, give her a hug and a kiss from Uncle W_____ and Aunt S____. And give E___ a hug and a kiss for us, too.

I'm feeling great--thanks for asking. I was just saying to S____ how silly it seems for me to be laying around in this hospital bed with a tube sticking out of my pee pee hole when I feel so dern good.

T. A. is having a blast, flirting with the nurses, telling them a minimum of seven bad jokes a minute, and thumbing the "bonus button" on the pain pump the second the ready light comes on. I'm getting zero sleep, while he nods off constantly and leaves me to worry about keeping the epi line, and the IV line, and the pulse/respi monitor line from getting all tangled up. I've tried explaining to the doctors and nurses that I'm the Alter Ego and he's the Cape & Tights Super Hero, and that's why they're seeing these wild swings in our behavior, not to mention the wild swings in our blood pressure. We usually try to avoid showing up at the same place at the same time, but maintaining that separation is not easy to do when you're stuck in what they call "the hospital setting." The staff pyschiatrist suggests they cut back the dilaudid in the pain pump.

The holdup on getting discharged (and you'll love this): One of the criteria for discharge is that the patient must pass gas to demonstrate that the Number Two plumbing line is open for business. But, at this moment of truth, T. A. FartMan, whose ethereal emanations have heretofore stampeded elephants and summoned great whales, cannot, or will not, produce even one silent little odorless fart.

Oh, when it does happen, all I can say is . . . .

STAND CLEAR
AND
COVER YOUR EYES!

My Love to the Kiddies,
Uncle W____

!!!!UPDATE!!!!

From: W____
To: Big List
Sent: February 3, 2012, 7:45 PM
Re: Getting Outa Here!

Hey Everybody,

We're right now in the process of being discharged and will sleep in our own bed tonight! Everything went better than expected. I feel better than I have in a long time. Probably start chemo in a month or so, but I can do that in my sleep. (In fact, that's how I usually do it.)

Thanks for the prayers. I guess they worked!

Love,
W_____

A Deep Draught of the Eternal

2012-01-08T03:50:00.002-06:00

From: W_____
Sent: Jan. 8, 2012 3:50 AM
To: T. A. FartMan
Subject: A Syllogism

It's almost two in the morning.

My darling is in bed, sleeping fitfully. I rubbed her feet a little and that helped calm her some. She's worried about me.

I was having trouble sleeping, too. There's too much to think about, too much I can't help thinking about. When I toss and turn, it keeps her awake. So I've gotten up.

Not so long ago, if my tossing and turning were keeping her awake, she would have taken her favorite pillow downstairs to spend the night in the guest room. But lately she's been sticking it out. I think she stays the night with me because she senses that I need her there beside me . . . or maybe she senses a sad truth that we might not have that many more nights in our bed together.

So I'm up, writing this . . . because it might give her a chance to drift off, and then I can slip back into bed after she's fallen asleep. And it's a good time for me to put down a few thoughts that have been aching to come out:

Lately I think often about my father, what he was like when I was a very young child, my first memories of him. He is the gentlest father with the most tender heart. He loves us children so much and would do anything to spare us from suffering. My illness crushes him with sadness. Since I've been ill, he's worried about my soul, because he thinks I'm not a Christian. Don't worry, Dad. I'll be alright. One of my first memories of my father was when I was barely old enough to sleep outside a crib. I was having a nightmare. I cried in terror. My father came. I told him I was scared. He laid down with me, and held me, and I felt safe. That's my idea of what God is like, our Heavenly Father.

So I don't know if I'm a Christian. Most Christians probably wouldn't think so, but who knows? Judge not.

Here's what I do believe, which I suppose is not incompatible with being Christian:

The human spirit is immortal.

Some people might ask, "What evidence do you have for that miraculous idea?"

I have several ways to answer, but right now the one I would give is that the very existence of the human soul is itself an incredible miracle, and we each have ample evidence of the existence of our own miraculous soul precisely in our own consciousness of our own existence. That I can write this sentence and that you can have some comprehension of it is just a very small piece of all the evidence of the miraculousness of human consciousness. So beginning from the obvious miracle of the existence of the human soul--that glorious thinking, feeling, speaking, writing, singing, loving, beautiful, beauty-making thing--it's no addition to incredibility to suppose, to believe, that such a miraculous thing will not be destroyed.

Some people might say, "Just because the soul itself is a beautiful miracle does not make it eternal. We see things destroyed every day. Beautiful things. Beautiful flowers fade and die. People fade and die."

Yes, we see that all physical things come into existence, change, and pass out of existence. Physical things are destroyed every moment. But we have never seen the destruction of a soul. So why should we not believe that such a miraculous thing as the soul should have the additional and compatible characteristic of being eternal? Why should we believe that a miracle is not eternal? It makes rather good sense that a miracle, if such a thing exists, would be eternal. So why should we not believe that something we know already to be miraculous, the glorious soul, is eternal?

Here's my syllogism for the logicians to take apart if they want to: All miracles are eternal. The soul is a miracle. Therefore, the soul is eternal.

Two things that might make you laugh, but which to me are more proof of the eternal miracle of the human soul:

I love the way my wife smells. I don't mean her smell when she's wearing perfume, although that, too, is lovely. No, I mean the way she smells when she wakes up in the morning, before she brushes her teeth, when there's still crust in her eyes, when she smells a little "rustic," or the way she smells after she's been exercising, or when she hasn't bathed for a day or two. When she's in my arms, I will sometimes close my eyes and surreptitiously take in a deep draught of her smell. That smell makes me feel safe and happy and blessed. Yes, my darling wife's body will fade and die, but that odor which gives me such peace and joy is eternal. Don't laugh too much, because I am not kidding about that.

The other thing that might make you laugh is that these thoughts about the immortal human soul and the miracle of my wife's smell, thoughts which I've thought over many times, re-entered my mind most recently while I was sitting on the pot, and it was then, while sitting on the pot, that I determined to try to write these things down. Isn't that hilarious? Now some people might think that coincidence detracts from the dignity or beauty of the ideas I'm trying to get across. Well, okay, I'm sorry if you think that. You must never forget that I am the alter ego of The Astonishing FartMan. But seriously, I'm telling nothing but the truth, and perhaps there's a lesson in there somewhere about how we should think about our physical existence.

So here's the thing. My last CEA was 9.7. My last two scans show a spot growing on my liver. And, apart from the sorts of tests doctors can do, I feel, physically, like my insides are quite messed up, tangled up, sore, and getting worse. Eating causes distress, as do most other ordinary physical activities. I soldier on, ignoring as much as possible of the physical distress, yet it is inevitable for a person like me that I cannot help but think about my possibly impending demise, what that might mean for me and for my wife.

It is difficult to have and to face such thoughts, especially when there's a good bit of physical distress to cope with at the same time. Most people, I believe, try to avoid such thoughts. Most people, I believe, would advise me to avoid such thoughts, too. Very few people would want to have a chat with me about them. They would think it would be rude of them to discuss such things in my presence. Instead they'd say, "Don't think like that! You're going to be fine." This is what is called "encouragement." And for some people in my situation, I suppose such words are encouraging. But sometimes that kind of encouragement can leave one feeling as if one is left all alone to deal with inevitable thoughts by oneself because nobody else wants to talk or even think about such a difficult subject. I understand.

Yet maybe for others who might be in a situation like mine, they might find some help and solace in what I've written. I understand how their emotions are so very intense and so very close to the surface every moment. I understand how they wish, as I do, more than anything to receive and to express love, to see and to hear and to smell beauty, to create beauty, to feel peace. I understand how the physical reality of illness complicates the fulfillment of that wish, yet we do fulfill it. I understand that the wish itself is the fulfillment of the wish, that the wish fulfills itself . . . in eternal love.

Presto Pesto!

2011-11-30T08:19:00.021-06:00

A comment lately posted on MichelleOnLongIsland's cancer blog:

The Astonishing FartMan said...

What a tough time you're going through. In my mind, my hand is smoothing your brow. Is it working? How I hope so!

And how sad it seems that sometimes we fragile and puny humans must resort to hopes and prayers. Well, I say hopes and prayers and love and good will are still the most powerful things. So I'm saying a prayer of thanksgiving that you have such a good husband.

I know what you mean about the knife fantasy--your fantasy that some mugger would do you the unintentional favor of stabbing you to cut out the tumor on your spine. I sometimes have a fantasy that I could take a hollow stick and poke it into my "hepatic subcapsular fluid collection" (AKA Cappy) and drain it away. When I poke in the stick, bilious green sauce squirts everywhere, and it totally blows everybody's mind, so they all think I'm possessed, and they want to call in a priest to do an exorcism. The priest comes, and he's Italian, so he says, "He's not possessed, but this green biloma sauce makes a very nice pesto."

I hope that makes you laugh!

I also know what you mean about doing "normal" stuff. I take great pleasure in my Wednesday evening routine of gathering up the trash from all the household cans and putting them out for collection in the morning. It's one of my silly "manly" chores, and I wonder who will do them when I'm gone. Of course, my wife can take out the trash, but can she change the A/C filters, negotiate with the auto mechanic, fix the the computer or TV when something gets out of whack? I suppose life will take care of itself just fine when I'm gone. But I do worry about my dear sweet wife. And I hope that when I'm gone she finds a good, gentle (and preferably, younger!) man to help her with the "manly" chores, but mostly to keep her company when she's an old lady.

(Yes, I know I'm not suposed to think about such things, but am supposed to accept the assurance, so often pressed upon me, that I'm cured. And, of course, that would be nice. But just in case I'm not cured, on the off chance, the very small chance, the infinitesimal possibility, that all the weird stuff going on inside my guts lately--and the undeniably high 5.4 of my last CEA--is the recurrence that everyone tells me will not happen, well I just don't want the shock of a surprise, so I gotta think about it now.)

How beautiful that you're so weak and so strong at the same time!

The Seven-Thousand-Six-Hundred-and-Forty-Second Woman.

2011-11-02T10:00:00.019-05:00

From: W_____
Sent: Nov. 2, 2011 10:00 AM
To: T. A. FartMan <astonishing@att.net>
Subject: All the News That's Fit to Spit

Hey T.A.,

Didja see this one?

September 5, 2017, WASHINGTON -- A seven-thousand-six-hundred-and-forty-second woman has now alleged that President Herman Cain made her "feel uncomfortable" when he was president of the National Restaurant Association in the mid-1990s. Although the woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, concedes that her allegations are "not exactly of a sexual or sexual harassment nature," she said she believes she "has a duty as a citizen and as a federal employee" to speak up so the American people will know that Herman Cain is not as nice in person as he seems to be on TV.

In a written statement her lawyer read to reporters, the woman said, "It's just not right that Herman Cain has made me and seven-thousand-six-hundred-and-forty-one other women feel uncomfortable, yet everybody still seems to think he's such a good guy. Well, I'm here to set the record straight." The woman's lawyer, who also wishes to remain anonymous, suggested that Cain's discomfiting behavior might have involved hand-gestures, insensitive remarks about female height and weight, hotel rooms, and "lots of other kinds of things you'd expect to hear about Herman Cain."

The lawyer for the seven-thousand-six-hundred-and-forty-second woman said his client had made a good faith effort to resolve the dispute privately to avoid publicity, but had not received a reply to any of the dozens of anonymous emails she had sent to President Cain. Many experts with experience investigating such claims say it is not unusual for a person guilty of sexual harassment to refuse to respond to an accuser's emails. According to Emily Knickerwad, an independent workplace claims investigator for the Women Victims Action Network, "It's all part of the abuser's sick power trip, to ignore his victims' pleas for help after he's emotionally injured them."

When asked if his client's allegations would feature canned soda pop or curly unattached body hair, the lawyer for the seven-thousand-six-hundred-and-forty-second woman said, "The answer to that question will have to wait until the facts we intend to allege have a chance to come out in dribs and drabs. Herman Cain's victims should not be expected to give away the details of their claims all at once, when he won't even answer their emails."

I figured you'd enjoy reading my little spoof, seeing as how you, and me, and Herman Cain share so much in common, the three of us having been through Stage IV Colon Cancer with Liver Mets, and the three of us having made several women feel uncomfortable at some point during the last fifty years. (But please don't tell anyone I wrote this "story" 'cause I'd like to hang on to my day job. People will forgive me a certain quantity of political incorrectness, me with the semi-terminal CC and all, but there is a limit.)

BTW: When I was chatting with Mr. Cain at the Clear Lake TEA Party rally last week , he asked me to tell you how disappointed everyone was that you weren't able to make it back to Houston in time to perform a ceremonial flyover for the opening festivities. Don't worry. I covered for ya and told him you were busy handling crowd control ops for CIA in Libya. (That is where you've been, right?)

Sorry to have been so incommunicado lately. Been going through a kinda rough patch--the daily battle with Cappy (who just won't stay dead) and a year of CIPN have worn me down. Meanwhile my CEA has been creeping up, to just barely above normal. But I'm still here, dammit. After having been onc-less since Dr. Brain-Must fired me at the end of June, I finally got an appointment with a new onc in a couple of weeks. Prolly not great to have been onc-less for four months right after finishing chemo. On the other hand if I'm gonna have a quick recurrence, it might as well be real quick and be done with it. Hey, it could be worse--we could be sleeping on a cardboard sign in Zuccotti Park.

In case you're wondering, all is forgiven. It always is.

And I remain . . . .

Your Loyal Alter Ego,

W_____

If You Have to Explain It, How Funny Can It Be?

2011-09-19T04:03:00.062-05:00

From: T. A. FartMan
Sent: September 19, 2011 4:03 AM
To: W_____
Subject: Of Coyotes and Road Runners

Dear W_____,

When I read this piece by Christopher Hitchens, I thought of you and me and S____.

It seems that humor is a formidably serious subject, so much so that Hitchens must write 1500 words to explain an old joke, the oldest, cruelest, stalest, most unfunny joke ever, which is the eternal battle of the sexes.

It is often said that anger interferes with the ability to think. To the contrary, anger concentrates thinking intensely . . . toward revenge! It's laughter that hinders thinking. Laughter disarms precisely because one cannot remain angry while laughing, but more precisely because one cannot think (about revenge!) while laughing.

Wit is always cruel. A joke, unlike you white people, always has a butt. Hobbes, not wrongly, defined laughter as the involuntary expression of a feeling of "sudden glory" upon the observation of someone else's misery, humiliation, or deformity. Even supposedly self-deprecating humor is cruel, the cruelest, because the table-turning martyr tricks his audience into playing the role of a laughing sadist. The cruelest thing, and the funniest, is to make someone else appear haplessly cruel. Thus, the philosopher's irony, the highest form of humor, is the form of humor most cruel toward one's fellow human beings--a substitute for the physical injury the philosopher is too lazy, too cowardly, or too uncaring to inflict. (Every law student, if they weren't all such 5FUing idiots, would identify the professor's purportedly ironic purportedly Socratic method neither as a teaching tool, nor as a rhetorical strategy, but as revenge extracted in advance.)

Because humor both disarms and wounds, nothing can be more frustratingly infuriating than to be made the butt of a joke. We all know this truth--learned from the playground mob--although the wiser among us pretend otherwise. With ears on fire, we laugh along, so that we might plot revenge without exciting suspicion. Nothing infuriates more than to see oneself made the butt of a joke, unless it is one's own joke, i.e., a joke about a martyred saint or a philosopher, in which cases one pretends to be the victim.

Humor is always duplicitous: deceptive, even deceitful, yet revelatory. It makes unspeakable truth speakable, civilizing the cruelty of truth within the dubious poetry and perfume of the absurd: the sound of cannon and the whiff of powder and a loud, smelly, perfectly synchronized fart. Humor absolutely requires a confusion of the cruel and the ridiculous. To sense the confusion is to "get" the joke. Of those who can't quickly sort out that confusion, we say they don't get the joke.

The best humor is that of which the ones laughing think they have sorted out the confusion, but have not, while the ones not laughing think there's nothing worth sorting out. The best humor inspires no false laughter. Either they get the joke, or they think they get the joke, or they don't get the joke and don't care, or they don't think there's a joke to be got, but no one pretends to get it. No one chuckles politely, and no one chuckles nervously from feeling left out. No one feels indignant, unless that's what's wanted. The best humor is that of which only a very sad few can get the joke.

The best humor commonly arouses indignation or boredom, because one or the other of two necessary elements, either truth or ridiculousness, although present, appears to be absent: indignation, if truth appears to have been neglected, because false ridicule seems malicious to good people, especially when aimed at themselves; boredom, if ridicule appears to have been left out, because truth unadorned with ridicule seems tiresome to most people, especially when aimed at themselves.

(Even truth adorned with beauty seems tiresome to almost everyone. Of course, most of us deny this accusation as to ourselves, as I do. We deny the accusation because we don't realize that what we perceive as beautiful is not beautiful but ridiculous, if not in itself, then in our perception of it. Unfortunately, even the absurdity of our perception of beauty will not always be sufficient to prevent our frequently becoming bored by it, probably because there is so much of it around. That we are not all of us permanently irredeemably bored by beauty is the Astonishing thing . . . one of the great mysterious unaccountable blessings. So worry not! There are many, many, many failings much, much, much worse than having no sense of beauty, so long as you have a sense of humor about it . . . and so long as you keep up a longing for it, even if you haven't the faintest idea what it is you're longing for.)

The very best humor is that of which only the jokester himself gets the joke, the cut so sharp that the wound is painless or seems insignificant, and heals instantly, but leaves its victim unsettled and forever altered in ways he will not easily perceive, similar to the experience of having been abducted by aliens. The very best humor manifests the philosopher's irony as his highest practical virtue, which is his utter uselessness.

The very best humor is at least doubly duplicitous . . . just like we are, you and me, W___ and The Astonishing One, the Loyal Long-Suffering Alter Ego and his One and Only Cape & Tights Super Hero, you and me.

And I remain . . .

Your Melodious and Malodorous,
T.A. FartMan

PS. Along the same lines, here's a "beautiful piece of heartache," to encourge a "healthy apathy":

Latter Days *

What a beautiful piece of heartache this has all turned out to be.
Lord knows we've learned the hard way all about healthy apathy.
And I use these words pretty loosely.
There's so much more to life than words.

There is a me you would not recognize, dear. Call it the shadow of myself.
And if the music starts before I get there dance without me. You dance so gracefully.
I really think I'll be o.k. They've taken their toll these latter days.

Nothin' like sleepin' on a bed of nails. Nothin' much here but our broken dreams.
Ah, but baby if all else fails, nothin' is ever quite what it seems.
And I'm dyin' inside to leave you with more than just cliches.

But tell them it's real. Tell them it's really real.
I just don't have much left to say.
They've taken their toll these latter days.
They've taken their toll these latter days.

* Lyrics by Linford Detweiler from Over the Rhine's song "Latter Days" on the album Good Dog Bad Dog. You should buy it, either the original 1996 release or the live 2010 version.

Delayed Report from Comic-Con

2011-08-02T23:25:00.033-05:00

From: T. A. FartMan
Sent: Aug 2, 2011 11:25 PM
To: W_____
Subject: Maybe or Maybe Not

Dear W_____,

Seeing the other Cape & Tights Super Heroes strutting around in their best underwear at Comic-Con last week got me thinking:

Maybe my last email was a little offhand and dismissive, maybe on purpose, mabye because offhand and dismissive seemed better than fiery and furious--how I felt reading your email giving me grief about the haboob. I've been catching enough flack lately from everybody else, so it didn't help for you, my Very Own Alter Ego, to join in the potshots.

Doncha think I was listening when our Very Own Wife said to you the other day, "My Very Own Husband, sometimes I think I don't even know you at all any more"? She called it "the FartMan Nonsense." She asked you, "Why, of all the online personae you could have come up with, why FartMan? Why the FartMan Nonsense?"

You didn't answer, you didn't stick up for me, you only shrugged . . . .

You don't seem to understand: Just like you didn't ask for colon cancer, they didn't let me pick and choose my super powers either. It's not my fault mine happen to be what they are. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's a perfectly normal human function . . . intensified to an Astonishing degree, a provenance that gives my super powers a heckuvalot more credibility than the mutant, beastly, or alien powers certain other Cape & Tights Super Heroes claim to possess.

So doncha think ordinary folks, if they weren't all such 5FUing idiots, would be able to identify more close and intimate with an everyday Super Hero like me, whose every super power derives from that basic necessary bodily function cosmically and comically symbolic of an essential quality of our shared humanity, viz, that we are . . .

. . . for now . . . at least . . . in part . . . stuck . . .

. . . in that portion of reality where everything, ourselves included, is always coming into existence and passing out of existence, while we yearn for something more permanent and, awaiting something more permanent, yearn in this life to be understood well by at least one somebody? (I suppose it's the yearning that makes us human. And I suppose that same universal yearning is also kinda selfish, with its willingness to sacrifice almost anything, including itself, for its own satisfaction.) So we say, "Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust," which is merely a yearningly poetic way of saying, sighing, "Manure is a fundamental building block of life on earth, and our bodies are as ephemeral as a tiny little silent fart." Don't blame me. I didn't design things that way. If it were left up to me, maybe we'd all live forever, and maybe no one would ever get constipated. Maybe. Or maybe not.

So a lot of people say, "FartMan is such an egoist, calling himself Astonishing and trumpeting his superiority all over town." Well, let me ask you, if I'm so arrogant, how many other people have the humility to acknowledge their own FartManHood? That's not bragging, because I don't claim any special ability that everybody else doesn't have, just that mine has been extended (some would say "dragged out") to its furthest human limits, with an unexpected twist or punch at the end.

Unlike the SuperMan and SpiderMan types, who purport themselves to exercise powers that would belong more properly to a god or to an animal than to a fellow human being, I'm really just a very regular guy. (No pun intended.) Take flying for example. Didncha ever wonder how it is that SuperMan can fly? He has no discernable means of propulsion! His aerial locomotion violates the laws of physics! What? Like some god, he wills himself along through the air? But when I, The Astonishing One, take flight, the way I get where I'm going is as obvious as the nose on your face. (Again, no pun intended.)

When I chatted with SuperMan at Comic-Con, he wasn't hovering or levitating or floating in mid-air. He wasn't even suspended in a basket a few feet off the ground. Nope. He was walking around on his own two feet like the rest of us. And his outfit needed dry-cleaning. So that's all I'm going to say about it, except that, if you were wanting an apology, this will have to do.

I remain . . .

Your Melodious and Malodorous Super Hero,
T.A. FartMan

P.S. Some news you're not going to like, even though it's not entirely unexpected: Cappy has reappeared, back from the dead, so it seems. He was there at Comic-Con, lurking off to the side the way he always does. He's still looking sickly and greenish, and still trying to pass himself off as a seroma, when I'm betting he's of a deadlier species. He pretends to be innocuous, but then when you let your guard down, he puts a shiv through your kidney. We're working on finding a way to get rid of him permanently . . . again.

All the Perfect Drugs and Super Heroes

2011-07-18T10:03:00.006-05:00

From: T. A. FartMan
Sent: July 18, 2011 10:03 AM
To: W_____
Subject: Our Theme Song

Hey W___,

Sorry 'bout the dustup over Phoenix the other day. I've explained to Bowel Boy that he can't just let loose like that near a populated area.

Even though the AZ Haboob wasn't exactly my fault, I wanna make amends with you. So here's a little goodwill gesture. If you haven't heard of Aimee Mann, then introducing you to her music is one of the best favors I could do for you, or for anybody.

Click here to listen to a clip from the Official T. A. FartMan Theme Song, Humpty Dumpty, from Aimee Mann's album Lost in Space.

An excerpt of the first lines of lyrics:

Say you were split, you were split in fragments
And none of the pieces would talk to you,
Wouldn't you want to be who you had been?
Well baby I want that too.

So better take the keys
And drive forever.
Staying won't put these
Futures back together.
All the perfect drugs
And Super Heroes
Wouldn't be enough
To bring me up to zero.

Baby, you're great. You've been more than patient,
Saying it's not a catastrophe.
But I'm not the boy you once put your faith in,
Just someone who looks like me.

Fits you and me just about perfect, doncha think?

Now you owe me one!

Later,
T. A. FartMan

P.S. Here's a link to a fun video of Aimee performing the song live, with a little help from the audience: Fans Help on Humpty Dumpty.

"Haboob" Does Not Mean "Oops" in Arabic

2011-07-09T11:05:00.010-05:00

From: W_____
Sent: July 9, 2011 11:05 AM
To: T. A. FartMan
Subject: You and BB Flying Out of the Haboob

Dammit all, FartMan, this time you might have finally blown it.

Have you seen the photos they got of you and your new sidekick, Bowel Boy, flying side-by-side out of that haboob over Phoenix last week? (Here's a link to the news story with the pictures.)

Yes, I know, just like always you'll come up with some half-ass excuse to avoid responsibility. You'll say you were just taking Bowel Boy out over the desert for his first training flight. You'll say nobody could have anticipated how powerful the little fella's poots would turn out to be.

Well, don't try to blame this dust up on BB. I've been around you long enough to know exactly what happened: You had to start showing off for your new sidekick. You just couldn't help yourself, could you? So it all started innocently enough, with you demonstrating the Astonishing Subtlety and Variety of your poots and bragging about how many thousands of feet high you can soar on a single blast.

Two and half beers later, whoooosh!!!!!, there's a 100-mile wide fart storm engulfing half the population of Arizona.

That's pretty much how it went down, right? That's the way it always goes with you. It always starts with you talkin' smack, and it always ends with some kind of previously unheard of unnatural disaster.

And now you act like it's no big deal, like "haboob" just means "Oops, excuse me, I farted," in Arabic.

(I don't wanna know, so please don't tell me, if you've already been teaching Bowel Boy the "flatulentio ignitio." How could we live with ourselves if your carelessness set off all those wildfires out west last month!?!?)

Lucky for you, the authorities at Roswell and Area 51 are so fixated on the aliens that they haven't been able to pinpoint you and The Cutest Little Thing as the obvious culprits. Good thing your haboob wasn't a very smelly one, or the feds would already be knocking on our door. The lawsuits would have put TAF Enterprises out of business, and you'd personally be looking at jail time for reckless endangerment, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, unathorized emission of a noxious substance, and who knows what all else.

Don't get me wrong. I'm So Happy You Ditched Cappy as your sidekick that I could write a song about it. Yes, I had warned you that hiring Cappy was huge mistake in the first place, but that's all done and over, so there's no point rehashing. I'm also thrilled you chose Bowel Boy to replace Cappy. BB is such a big step up for you. All the other Cape & Tights Super Heroes keep telling me how they can't help loving the little fella, 'cause he's just so dern cute and sweet. But could you please try to be more careful the next time you take him out farting around?

One last thing. Forgive me if I'm stepping over the line by saying this: I think it would do us both good if you would sleep more and drink less, as I remain . . . .

Your Loyal Alter Ego,

W______

Introducing: "The Cutest Little Thing"

2011-07-07T13:59:00.001-05:00

TAF Enterprises, Inc.

in conjunction with

Bubbles Toy Company

introduces

T. A. FartMan's
All New Sidekick

BOWEL BOY

(AKA "The Cutest Little Thing")

Pricing: $25,000 ea. (volume discounts available)

Wholesale inquiries only, to:

TAF Enterprises, Inc.
One FartMan Plaza
10001 Main St.
Houston, TX 77002

The Astonishing FartMan Action Figure

2011-07-03T19:04:00.002-05:00

TAF Enterprises, Inc.

in conjunction with

Bubbles Toy Company

introduces

The Astonishing FartMan
Action Figure

Pricing: $25,000 ea. (volume discounts available)

Wholesale inquiries only, to:

TAF Enterprises, Inc.
One FartMan Plaza
10001 Main St.
Houston, TX 77002

Cappy Was Bilious! And Other Shocking News!

2011-07-02T19:59:00.004-05:00

From: T. A. FartMan
Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2011 7:59 PM
To: Benedict A. Brain-Must
Cc: M______
Subject: Cappy Was Bilious!

Dear Dr. Brain-Must,

A couple (2) of things:

One (1):
My “hepatic subcapsular fluid collection,” also known as "Cappy," was successfully aspirated by Dr. K_____ at the L____ S____ Interventional Radiology Department on Thursday. You might remember that when we talked on the phone a couple (2) of weeks ago, I had asked what that fluid might be. You said you were pretty sure the fluid was lymph fluid. When I had asked if it might be bile you insisted, "no way it’s bile."

Turns out, the goop they sucked outta my liver capsule was indeed a fascinating grass green color. Nothing official yet as to whether that grass green fluid actually was bile, but based on the color, that seems like a pretty good guess.

Yup, sloshing around inside my liver capsule were two hundred and ninety (290) cc of grass green slush, about a coke can’s worth, which for the last several months had felt like a piece of stiff leather luggage poking me under the edge of my ribs and making me mix my metaphors every time I moved my upper body or tried to sit upright for more than a few minutes. I don’t know whether it’s necessarily a bad thing to have the surface of the liver marinated in a digestive fluid like bile juice for several months on end, but can tell you that in addition to the pain going away immediately after Cappy was drained, for the last two (2) days I’ve felt about a thousand (1,000) percent better than I have in the last four (4) or five (5) months. The everyday fatigue that I’d been telling you about for so long now seems to be gone. I feel so much more energetic with that yucky green stuff outta my liver capsule.

Hopefully, Cappy the "subcapsular fluid collection" will not come back, although it seems possible, if not likely, that some bile duct plumbing might still be leaking. It would probably be a good idea to have a follow-up ultrasound or some such diagnostic procedure done in two (2) or three (3) weeks to see whether there is something still leaking in there and whether the fluid collection is reappearing. I’ll be in touch with Dr. J_____’s office about that, but thought you might want to know these details since you are still officially my onc (but not my uncle). They are going to do cytology and infection tests on the fluid, so I’ll let you know if anything interesting comes from those tests. Even though you won’t be my onc much longer (and never were my uncle, thank heavens!), perhaps all this info might be useful for you to know and have in mind when caring for other patients who might have symptoms like mine.

And I do need very much to get my port flushed in the next couple (2) weeks, so I hope that can still be taken care of there at the MBC Clinic.

Two (2):
Regarding the letter you sent informing me you would be terminating our doctor-patient relationship, it’s way beyond hilarious that, here I am the one (1) who’s s'posed to be the fussy attorney, but it’s you who’s sent out the certifried letter, return receipt requested, full of inane lawyer talk. Probably MBC's lawyers composed the letter for you, because only someone (some1) as silly as a lawyer could believe it to be a necessary redundancy to put a number in parentheses after spelling out the whole word, the way your letter does, like this: “Effective thirty (30) days from the receipt of this letter . . . , ” as if, without the number 30 in parentheses, a reader might get confused about what the word “thirty” actually means. How embarrassing for you, a physician, to be made to put your signature on such lawyer nonsense!

And the line in your eloquent form letter expressing your sincere “concern” about my “continued good health” was a hoot, too, since no emotionally sentient human being would speak to someone (some1) who was ten (10) months into fighting Stage IV (4) cancer as being in a state of “continued good health.” Again, only a dense lawyer at a big overpriced law firm (speaking of redundancies) would have the training to remain oblivious to the ridiculousness of that phrase applied to my circumstances. When I have been in indisputably bad health for the last ten (10) months, for you to be so inattentive as to express concern for my continued good health would suggest that you don't give a spit about my continued health, whether it be good, bad, or indifferent. However, since one (1) knows that the disingenuous language was penned by some anonymous lawyer (at great expense to MBC, no doubt), you are not to be blamed for it.

Yes, your certifried letter, return receipt requested, was good for several big belly laughs and numberless (∞) chuckles--comic relief for which one (1) is always thankful.

But really, Dr. Brain-Must, a certifried lawyer letter officially announcing the end of our doctor-patient relationship was quite unnecessary. I promise once again that, although I’m a Certifried Half-Wild (1/2-Wild) Native American Injun Lawyer, y’all can stop circling your wagons because I would never sue you or anyone (any1) else on my own behalf. That’s not my style or my morals. (However, you could expect, deservedly, to be teased about your latest screw-up for an appropriate period of time, or until you gathered the nerve to ‘fess up to it.)

Rather than wasting your limited attention span sending out legalese letters, if you had been as carefully attentive to the important medical details of my care, maybe you would not have forgotten about the reduced dexamethasone dose we had settled on that time, would not have forgotten that other time to change your written orders when we had agreed to discontinue the Avastin after I developed a blood clot, and most recently would have given prompt and proper attention to the fluid collection reported on my CT scan result, instead of overlooking what that report said about Cappy and telling me just to make an appointment to see you in August. (If these are facts you dispute, I invite you to contest them in any suitable non-legal forum, perhaps before some sort of medical review board there at MBC Clinic.)

So, yes, you are right that a certain lack of trust has developed in our relationship, but that lack of trust, at least on my side, concerns the “human” aspect of your doctoring more than it does your purely medical errors. If you had expressed the least slight regret about initially overlooking my fluid collection problem, I would have accepted any half-hearted (1/2-hearted) apology and been thrilled to have you continue as my doctor.

But because you reacted to my complaint by treating me shabbily, you are certainly right that you cannot be my doctor for long: Sometimes a doctor needs to be able look his patient in the eye.

I’ll let your assistant, M______, know as soon as I find a new oncologist.

T. A. FartMan

P.S. I have just this very moment learned from my deep sources that you, Dr. Brain-Must, were serving as Cappy's secret alter ego identity right up until his recent demise.

What a shocker! Dr. Brain-Must, my very own oncologist, was Cappy's alter ego all this time!

Lord knows, I hated having to appoint Cappy as my Super Hero Sidekick, but had no real choice in the matter, since he was right there kicking me in my side. So one can hardly imagine the confused self-loathing that must have tormented your surreptitious life as the alter ego of a bilious subcapsular fluid collection like Cappy. It almost makes me feel sorry for you. Nonetheless, your intimate personal, financial, and professional relationship with Cappy clearly constituted a conflict of interest, which you should have disclosed the moment you learned that Cappy's pernicious influence had somehow leaked into my life. Your undisclosed conflict of interest does explain why you were so hesitant to acknowledge Cappy's existence in the first place and then refused to help me find a particular person competent to get rid of him.

TAF Enterprises, Inc., Names S.C. "Cappy" Fluid as Special Lateral Assistant to CEO T. A. FartMan

2011-06-16T08:43:00.060-05:00

From: T. A. FartMan
Sent: 6/16/2011 08:43:00 AM
To: W____
Subject: Press Release Announcing Cappy Is Joining the Team

Dear W_____,

Reproduced below my signature line is a copy of the press release we just sent out this morning.

I realize you're having some trouble adjusting to having Cappy always hanging around, but eventually you'll start to get used to him. He keeps telling me how much he admires how you do what you do and insists he's always going to be on your side. So if he's gonna be here anyway, you might as well try to get along with him.

Yes, I know that's all just "nicey-nice talk," but, honestly, with an ambitious young thing like Cappy, it wouldn't be surprising if he decided to ditch us two worn out old fart-makers, to move on to bigger and better things before too long. So instead of getting all freaked out about Cappy being named as my new sidekick, just try to go with the flow for a while and see how things develop.

How many times do I have to tell you? Don't worry about Cappy pushing you aside. Your job as my alter ego is safe. You and I got into this thing together, and unless you decide you've had enough and want to get rid of me, we will always be together. You'll always be my One and Only Alter Ego Secret Identity. I'll forever be your One and Only Cape & Tights Super Ego Hero.

Off the record, about this Alter Id, the Sidekick, this Cappy guy, the Interloper, remember what they say: Keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer. We gotta handle this with circumspection. I'm hearing through my sources that Cappy's alter ego's father is a major big shot with BCM Parking, and we've got contracts for a crapload of boring but lucrative security work at their garages. That's easy money we would probably have to kiss goodbye if Cappy, or whoever happens to be his flimsy twit of an alter ego, ever ran pouting to their daddy about us. So let's just try to be patient. Cappy might go away on his own. If he doesn't, I know someone who--for a reasonable and proper professional services fee--will drain the piss juice right outa him, and do it so quietly, so discreetly, so permanently, that people will hardly remember Cappy ever even existed, much less the circumstances of his disappearance. But let me, The Astonishing One, work out all that stuff. You don't wanna to know the details. Just chill and play along, okay?

So what do you say about you and me, just us two, getting together at Lucio's (my treat!) to see if any of those '04 brunelli we've been hoarding is ready for drinking? You pick the date, you pick the bottle, I'll clear my calendar.

Your old buddy,
T.A.

TAF Enterprises, Inc., Names S.C. "Cappy" Fluid
as Special Lateral Assistant to CEO T. A. FartMan

HOUSTON, TX -- (MarketwireBS - Jun 16, 2011) TAF Enterprises, Inc., (NASDEQ: TFRT) announced today that the company has retained S.C. "Cappy" Fluid as Special Lateral Assistant to TAF Founder and CEO T. A. FartMan.

"Cappy Fluid has been functioning as my Special Lateral Assistant in an unofficial capacity for several months," Mr. FartMan said, "and during that time has amply demonstrated the persistence essential to that role. Therefore, we are pleased to announce that Cappy has officially joined the TAF Team and now will be publicly recognized for his contributions. Having Cappy at my side enhances TAF Enterprises' industry-leading capacity for reliable, timely, precision delivery of methane/hydrogen-sulfide gas services for our growing client base."

According to Mr. FartMan, the function of his Special Lateral Assistant (known in the Super Hero sector as a "sidekick,") will be a "fluid and dynamic one, which we do not want to define rigidly." He said that in addition to pursuing a sidekick's traditional career path as an emerging top-level manager "without portfolio," Cappy Fluid will direct the company's anthropologically-derived hydrogen sulfide and methane gas delivery services in the medical setting, a workspace in which Mr. Fluid has substantial experience, having previously specialized in Post-Surgical Hepatic Collections. His responsibilities as Special Assistant will also include activities in the Company's educational/entertainment services for children and community relations in the U.S. and Canada. T. A. FartMan will continue personally to direct the growing Crowd Control and Humane Mass Dispersal segment of TAF's business as well as the company's successful Elite Transportation Services.

(More information about the background of Mr. S. C. "Cappy" Fluid is available by clicking here.)

About TAF Enterprises, Inc. ( NASDEQ: TFRT)
TAF specializes in producing complex highly-concentrated anthropologically-derived methane and hydrogen-sulfide enriched compounds for use in a variety of contexts, including humane sub-lethal mass dispersal, crowd control, military, personal self-defense, education, and entertainment applications. TAF also operates the highly successfully Elite Transportation Services, providing worldwide transport to departing heads of state; rock, pop, rap, and hip-hop stars; executives of major international corporations; A-list celebrities; heiresses and/or sluts famous mostly for being famous, and other clients, who may require individualized, discreet, immediate, supersonic mobility.

For more information, contact 1-808-FartMan (1-808-327-8626) or visit

http://theastonishingfartman.blogspot.com/

Forward-Looking Information
This press release contains certain statements that should be construed as "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation, which statements may, but do not necessarily, contain words such as "estimate," "might," "may," "would," "could," "will," "intend," "plan," "anticipate," "believe," "expect," "growing," "emerging," "successful," and similar expressions. This forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, information regarding the anticipated growth of TAF's Crowd Control and Humane Mass Dispersal business.

Bathing in Tears

2011-06-09T21:10:00.037-05:00

From: W____
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2011 9:10 PM
To: Gl____
Subject: Re: Xeloda/Clinical Trials

Dear Gl_____,

(This turned out to be an awfully long email, so don’t feel obliged to read it all at once, or to hurry to reply.)

I hope you and G____ are coping okay. I know this time is so very hard for you two—harder than anything anyone should have to suffer through.

Somehow it seems we find just enough strength to do what we have to do.

Looking backwards on what we’ve been through, we say, “How did we ever make it through that?”

And looking ahead to what’s coming at us, we say, “How will we ever get though this?”

We hang on to each other for dear life, and then do what we have to do, which usually means putting up with things that we have not much choice but to put up with . . . and trying to make the best of things, even though “the best we can make of it” is not all that great sometimes.

I could not imagine going through this without my wife. Sometime we just cling to each other and cry silently for a good long while, and then try to kiss away each other’s tears. Her tears are a salve for my soul. I do love the way they taste. Is it selfish to want her to cry over me so I can bathe my spirit in her tears? Well, if she is going to cry over me, she should do it while I’m around to enjoy it, rather wasting her tears after I'm gone. Whenever that happens, she should quickly finish crying and get on with living a happy life.

Yes, I will try to remember to email you my new blog posts. However, after having been pretty idle at work for the last few months, this week I’ve started on a big new project, and it might keep me too busy to be able to write new entries very often. Also, after I post a new blog entry, for a few days I’ll continue to fiddle and fool with it until it seems like something close to acceptable, so I might not email a new post to you until it's been worked into good shape. For me, writing is an ongoing never-ending process of revision. How silly of me to take this blogging so seriously!

Gl___, I happened to run across something on the internet that might be helpful to you if you haven’t seen it already. There’s a series of videos that a woman at John Hopkins recorded to help caregivers cope with taking care of a sick family member. It’s called “Walking on Eggshells” and you can view the videos here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/JohnsHopkinsKimmel#g/c/22EC27BDF57C677F

I’ve watched a few of the videos, and some of what’s in them is so obvious that it doesn’t hardly need to be said, but even though it’s mostly just common sense, it still might be helpful and reassuring to hear. Although the videos were intended for family caregivers, as the “caregivee,” I found the videos reassuring. Perhaps they might be helpful for you as you attend to G___'s needs.

To turn on a dime with a change of subject: How interesting that politically you are to the left of Obama!

Even though I’ve been sick almost for the whole last year, I still do care about and pay attention to politics. I’ve always been a politics junkie. But I guess I’ve always practiced my politics in an abstracted way, which means that, if someone is a good person, for friendship’s sake I don’t care a whit what his politics might be. There are good people with a variety of different political views. And you can conclude that you live in a decent political system if people don’t have to worry about politics in their personal relationships. In a good system, political power keeps its nose out of things that are best left to be decided among individuals, friends, families, churches, customers, businessmen, etc. In a bad system, politics demands to be involved in everything. Of course, tyrannical governments' excuse for intervening in every facet of life is that those being tyrannized just aren't healthy enough, wealthy enough, smart enough, or powerful enough, to look out for themselves without the regular daily assistance of a caring big daddy government

But I'm surprised you consider Obama a DINO. To me, he's the perfect example of a contemporary Washington Democrat:

--overeducated, but underworked (shall we golf or shoot hoops today?);

--ungrateful for the wealth and other good things that our good free-market system has delivered into his grubbing hands (his wife "coincidentally" got her paper-pushing salary at the UofC Hospital substantially increased when hubby entered the Senate, yet she considers this a "downright mean" country; you have to wonder how many babies might have been helped at that hospital with the money that was thrown away on her--$317K in 2005; cruelly slashed to barely over $100k when she cut back to part-time! If you think her job important enough to be worth the hundreds of thousands she was paid each year, consider the fact that when she left to go to Washington, her old job was eliminated);

--contemptuous of those unwashed masses who can't speak "Austrian" or some other foreign language (although Obama himself is perfectly monolingual, while I speak fluent Australian, mate);

--too arrogant about his own brilliance to take a even a little time to learn the simplest basic details about the subjects on which he expostulates with such rhetorical ease (e.g., the "profits/earnings ratio"?!?!);

--condescending in his prevailing assumption that so very few of us plebes can get along without his and his lib friends' help.

So you see, you must forgive me that I’m probably just as far to the right as you are to the left.

But in this circular political universe, I’ve travelled far enough to the right to start bumping into people on the left.

You could call me an Constitutional Conservative, which means I want:

a central government that is limited and restrained;

individual freedom and responsibility;

free markets (with appropriate but limited government regulation);

vibrant strong local government with lots of citizen involvement at the local level;

respect for private property, which is an absolutely necessary condition of freedom (How valuable is your freedom of speech, for example, if you aren't allowed to own your own pencil and paper, but must ask the government if you "qualify" to receive some? And who exaxtly decides who qualifies?)

Just a quick thought about my insistence on respect for private property as a necessary condition of freedom: The true definition of a slave is "a competent adult person who is not allowed to receive, keep, and dispose of the fruit of his own labor." The fruit of each of our own labor which we each produce and amass is what is called our individual private property. Thus, the right to keep and manage one's own private property is the right not to be enslaved. Yes, in theory (communist theory) a government that takes away the fruit of our labor can take very good care of us, using the fruit of our own labor and the fruit of our neighbor’s labor. But if the government takes the fruit of our labor and uses it to take care of us, we are still slaves--well-kept slaves perhaps, but slaves nonetheless.

Freedom-loving men and women prefer the dignity and independence of taking care of themselves using the fruit of their own labor, rather than having to depend on the uncertain beneficence of government to return to them what they themselves earned. Does any reasonably competent person really think that a government ruling over 300 million others will attend to his very particular wishes and needs more closely than he can attend to them for himself?

People who think it is a good idea to put a big centralized government in charge of all sorts of things need to remember that it is just as likely that a George W. Bush will be running that government as it is that a Barack Obama or a Bernie Sanders will be in charge. They might love a Bernie Sanders, but when was he ever running the show? More likely a Dubya will be in charge, and do they really want to risk putting their lives and fortunes into the hands of a Dubya? Isn't it better and safer and freer not to give government all that power in the first place?

“Power to the People,” is what I say. But “Power to the People” is contrary to a system in which a few hundred political elites in Washington oversee the details of the lives of the other 300 million people. It is important to have a diversity of political environments in this big land, so that the lefties can have places like Berkeley CA (and California generally), where they can go to live and run things and try out their pet theories, and the righties can have places like Tomball TX (and Texas in general), where they can live and be happy and test out their favorite political theories. Personally, I would not be happy living long in either Berkeley or Tomball, but I’m glad they both exist. Imagine how bad things would become if every place were run like Berkeley or every place were run like Tomball. Without the Berkeleyites to keep them in line, the Tomballers would quickly become tyrannical, and vice versa. (But I can't resist pointing out that while California, with all its natural advantages but with its bloated public sector, sinks down the tubes, Texas is hanging in there quite nicely, with 37% of all new jobs now being created in our great state.)

Political diversity is a great virtue. Our founders understood that to create political diversity you have to allow lots of power at the local level so all different kinds of communities can develop, where different views can grow and flourish, as opposed to having a totally uniform system run from the top down by a handful of arrogant elites in an over-spending self-seeking federal government. (If I weren’t so opposed to federal mandates, I might say that every citezen should be required to purchase and to read the Federalist Papers as a precondition to receiving the franchise.)

Aristotle wrote that to be a true citizen, and to be truly free, a person must both “rule and be ruled, in turn.” This means we must all take turns being in charge and letting others be in charge. To know how to rule, we have to know how to be ruled, and to know how to be ruled, we also have to know how to rule. But if most power is concentrated into the federal government, very few of us will get to participate in the ruling, and instead the vast vast majority of us would simply be ruled by those 600 elites in Washington DC.

To give everyone a fair opportunity to participate in a meaningful way in ruling and being ruled, it is necessary as a matter of numbers that the political system allow most power to be exercised at the local level where there are more offices to be filled. And this local power must not merely be that of administrative functionaires of a federal system; for the local power to be meaningful, it must be decision-making power. That is just one more of the many reasons why the federal government should involve itself to decide only those things that cannot be addressed locally. That's what the Framers wanted, a federal government limited to exercising only the necessary national powers expressly granted to it in the Constitution.

It's never been revealed publicly before, but The Astonishing FartMan is actually my True Indian Name. As a Certifried Class A Minority (viz. rare and indigenous), a Native American, whose people have been devastated, first by federal violence, and then even more by federal do-gooderism, I want to tell all the limo liberals out there that perhaps the best thing they can do now for poor dumbass Injuns like me is not to assume that we is too stupid and pathetic to take care of ourselves, but just to leave us alone to make our own way, as they will find we are capable of doing, just as we did for numberless hundreds of years before their arrival on our shores--if they will not tax us into poverty or destroy our dignity and self-respect by teaching us to depend on government handouts generation after generation after generation. Yes, it makes rich liberals feel all warm and fuzzy to think that they are helping us poor dumb barefoot outhouse redskins, but please, they can help me more by just leaving me alone.

A satirical website, titled "Stuff White People Like," is the second funniest website on the internet (the one you're now reading being the first funniest), but its list of Stuff White People Like is missing an one obvious entry:

Indigenous Peoples

Yes, white people do seem to love us indigenous peoples, us noble savages, who they seem to think have, or damn well oughta have, some kind of mystical connection with the earth, nature, the land, streams, plants, animals (especially wolves and bears), birds (especially hawks and eagles), rocks, crystals, whatever. (If you'll meet me at McDonalds and treat me to a cup of coffee and a sausage biscuit with egg, we can chat about my Ingenious Indigenous Powers until your heart is content, or until the coffee makes me have to go sit on the john, whichever occurs first.) I do wish white people loved indigenous people a little less, because they have almost loved all of us to death.

I try to tell my Injun brothers, "the White Man and the Black Man ain't ever gonna give you enough to let you live as well as they do; they're gonna give you only enough to keep you right where you are--so why don't you let the White Man and the Black Man keep their money, and instead go out and earn some of your own!" Forgive me if you think it's racist to say it, but we dumb Injuns is the smartist and most cleverist race of human beans the Great Spirit ever set down on His earth (myself being an excellent example), if we can just keep ourselves sober and off the dole long enough to realize it.

Yes, liberality is a beautiful private virtue, practiced using one's own money, but it is a dangerous political virtue, which, praticed using the money of others, ends up hurting even its putative beneficiaries, as Nicollo Machiavelli presciently pointed out hundreds of years before the actual invention of the limousine: It's just too easy for them limo liberals like the Obamas to be liberal with other people's money and then to take credit for being so concerned and caring for the less fortunate. So when Barry and Michelle, in what would be a fine display of the private virtue of liberality, have given away so much of their own millions and so much of their own property that they are reduced to living on money and property equal to mine, then we can talk about whether my taxes need to be raised. Until then, they should either put up or shut up. The least the Big O could do would be to toss a few bucks his brother's way. The limo liberals will not be happy until they have transformed most of us into "less fortunates" from whose dependence they derive the smug, condescending, superior, self-satisfaction of their political liberality.

So you see, I am a political junkie with some strong opinions.

Tomorrow I’m scheduled to talk with a local school board member, Anna Eastman, who is wanting me to support her—again—in her upcoming election. You might have noticed that I'm no fan of Obama, but this Anna Eastman, whom I supported in the last local election cycle, was an Obama precinct chair in 2008. Even though she was, and probably still is, an Obama-momma, I was very happy to support her in her first run for the school board because she understood that parental involvement in a child’s education is the key to educational success, and her platform emphasized encouraging parental involvement. Some Astonishing Family Facts: My grandfather, a swampland Indian, ploughed his boggy fields behind a mule all his life and signed his name with an X; my grandmother probably never spent one day in a school room, but somehow learned to read and write, just barely; her son, my father, graduated college; I graduated from a law school around the corner, as did two of my sibs; my own daughter, who went to Yale, is rumored to have been a Bonesman there, as were John Kerry, both the Bush presidents, and whothehellknowswhoelse. Although all us Astonishing Ones have deep down roots in the dumbass interbred swamp Injun tree, we all paid attention to our kids' educations.

How can anyone not love such a country?!?!? And, yes, I am bragging.

(It is one my favorite theories that, in a properly functioning American polity, locally run schools are the best “school” for the grown up citizens to learn how to involve themselves fruitfully in local politics.)

Well, Gl____, forgive me for the long political digression. Perhaps it might have served at least as a little distraction from the “you know what” that is running roughshod through our lives.

On another subject you mentioned: With what you and G___ are going through right now, I can definitely understand why ZoomberGirl makes you angry. Nonetheless, I do still think she's a good kid. (Am I allowed to call a woman in her late twenties a kid? She’s ten years younger than my own child!) But I think ZoomberGirl is in danger of trapping herself, her real self, alone behind an emotional wall if she feels that she has to keep up the cold fakery of the Rah Rah Cancer Fighting Cheerleader persona. Her recent post titled “Keeping Positive,” for all its rah-rah-rah, fight-fight-fight “positivity” seems to this grumpy old fart to be just terribly sad, especially at the end, when she writes, “I am fighting my cancer battle with the unshakeable certainty that everything is going to work out exactly how I want it to.” Dear Child, When and where on this earth in this life did anything ever work out exactly as anyone wanted it to?

Yes, it is right to see the good in life, to have hope, and to try to stay strong for the struggle. It is good not to mope around too much and make everybody else feel miserable all the time. But ZoomberGirl takes it too far with her noble wish to please everyone else by wearing a Smiley Face mask all the time. It’s a perfectly fine mask to present to certain healthy people who really don’t want to be bummed out by another sad cancer story "thrown up in their face." But someone among those who love ZoomberGirl, and there are obviously many who do love her, should try to let her know gently that it’s okay to admit, and to let those who love her see, her normal healthy human weaknesses, fears, and vulnerabilities.

Really, I can’t image that many people with cancer, especially those with a crappy prognosis or those who know they are reaching the end of the their days here on earth, would find inspiration or solace in what ZoomberGirl writes. What exactly does ZoomberGirl have to say to the 70+% of Stage IV colon cancer patients who will die of their disease within five years of their diagnosis? "Too bad for you; unlike modest little ol' ZoomberGirl, I guess you just weren't positive enough, and that's your own silly fault." But notwithstanding the brutality of her implicit message, ZoomberGirl is a good person, a very noble soul, a person who wants to please the whole world, even if that requires persistent self-negating self-denial. I do think that eventually she’ll find her way to a more self-acknowledging, true-to-herself way of going about things. Poor ZoomberGirl. I think she’s spent her whole life pleasing others and ignoring her own true self. (Caveat: This armchair internet psychologizing and philosophizing about self-denial and being true-to-oneself comes from an inveterately grumpy guy who has recently contrived himself an alter ego super hero whom he calls The Astonishing FartMan.)

Please give G____ a good long hug for me.

Sending love, hope, and prayers,

W_____

Hepatic Sub-Capsular Fluid Collection (AKA "Cappy")

2011-06-08T07:58:00.036-05:00

From: T. A. FartMan
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2011 7:58 AM
To: D______
Subject: Re: Advice About Large Format Printout

D_____,

Thanks for the info on companies that do large format printing. I’ll check out A&E Graphics, and the other printing places you've recommended.

I’m doing okay—not great, but definitely okay. (Thanks for asking!) The fluid that our post-chemo CT Scan showed around our liver is officially known as a “hepatic sub-capsular fluid collection,” and inhabits the space inside the “capsule” that encases the liver. Such fluid build-ups are not uncommon after surgery, so we're told, but one would have expected it to have reabsorbed by now since we’re almost 5 months post-surgery.

Anyway, since this softball-sized water balloon seems to plan to stick around, I've given it a name, “Cappy,” (short for “sub-capsular”). And now there’s a "rumor" going around that somebody named Cappy will soon be joining our Cancer Super Hero Team in the role of my sidekick (a la Batman’s Robin).

Just between you and me, the rumor is true.

Although the details are still being finalized, it seemed both a logical and a poetical imperative to invite Cappy to serve as my "sidekick," since Cappy does feel a lot like a "kick in the side." (Actually, more like a swift kick in the diaphragm, but that’s close enough for government work.)

In a blog post linked here and excerpted below, my alter ego, W____ (who is sometimes mistaken for me), gets a little pissy that I am going behind his back to hire a sidekick. Well, I plead guilty. Although "behind his back" is territory no sane person voluntarily would choose to enter, in this instance I could not avoid it because W___ has jealously squelched all my previous efforts to expand our operational capacity. It's inefficient, not to mention embarrassing, that I, the Founder, CEO, and Public Face of TAF Enterprises, should have to attend to minute details, such as hiring a graphics outfit to do up our convention posters.

Anyway, here's the excerpt from W____'s latest whine-fest, which you might find entertaining:

Speaking of twisted nonsense, there had been a worrisome rumor floating around that TAF Enterprises has been in negotiations with someone to come on board as The Astonishing FartMan's sidekick.

When I confronted FartMan about the rumor, he said that since Batman's got Robin, he thinks he probably needs a sidekick, too. He says that I shouldn't worry about being replaced because a new sidekick position and my alter ego position would be two entirely different functions. He says that having a sidekick around might take some pressure off me. (But I wanna know, if the alter ego function and the sidekick function would be entirely different, how will a sidekick take pressure off me, other than by taking over part or all of my job?!?!?)

It sounds to me like it's practically a done deal already. (For the record: Neither have I approved, nor have I been consulted about the pending arrangement.)

I'm wondering, even if this sidekick isn't actually replacing me, won't the sidekick want to have his own alter ego secret identity, too? So now we're gonna have two alter egos around here competing for face time?

Fine, except I hope T.A. doesn't expect his new sidekick to live with me. Yes, I know the various different cute boys who pulled time as Robin usually lived with Batman's alter ego, Bruce Wayne. But Bruce Wayne was what used to be called an "old bachelor" (a genteel euphemism that served the purpose just fine before some Einstein came up with "gay," an early modernism already, and none-too-soon, destined for the historical ashbin along with "colored," "crippled," "retarded," "pro-choice," etc.). Unlike Wayne, who seemed to enjoy having a sidekick mincing around his house in skimpy green briefs and “to-die-for” matching slippers, I'm a married man and there's no 5FUing way my wife's gonna put up with some half-civilized adolescent male of unsettled and dubious predilections stinking up our guest room.

Rumor is the sidekick will be known as "Cappy." I checked, and sure enough, TAF Enterprises has filed the name "Cappy" with the Super Hero Registry. What the 5FU kind of a Super Hero name is Cappy? Maybe it was a typo, and the sidekick's name is supposed to be "Crappy." That would make a lot more sense, doncha think?

W_____

Pretty pathetic stuff, huh?

So anyway, thanks, D____, for your help with finding a good printer. And, if I could ask one more big favor: You've known W____ a lot longer than I have, so if you would help chill him out about the Cappy deal, I would be eternally grateful.

Take him to dinner at Lucio's (my treat!), get him buzzed on one of those wet-doggy-smelling Rhone wines he loves so much, and then reassure him that I told you that he is and always will be a key component of the winning TAF Enterprises business model. That should do the trick!

Meanwhile I remain . . .

Your Friend and Loyal Super Hero,
T.A. FartMan

It Just Kinda Happens

2011-06-03T19:22:00.039-05:00

From: W_______
Sent: Friday, June 03, 2011 7:22 PM
To: V_______
Subject: A Child at Play

Dear V_______,

As I had begun to suppose might happen, I did rework my last email to you into a new blog post.

The blog version, pressed into the service of fiction, is quite a bit different from what I sent you this morning. It’s titled “A Child Lost in Play: Ubiquitous Ridiculousness Amidst Priceless Inapposite Beauty.” Yes, the title is long, and pompously ponderous, or ponderously pompous (whichever you prefer), but I like to use titles to "connect the dots." The big takeaway is,

"If you're laughing, you're living."

Anyway, you can read it by clicking here.

I hope you know that I never write an email with a predetermined intention to work it up into a blog post. It just kinda happens. You should also know that what I send you is heartfelt truth, but what ends up on the blog is twisted fictional nonsense, meant to serve purely as entertainment to distract from or ameliorate the cancer crap you and me and some other people are going through.

Speaking of twisted nonsense, there had been a worrisome rumor floating around that TAF Enterprises has been in negotiations with someone to come on board as The Astonishing FartMan's sidekick.

When I confronted FartMan about the rumor, he said that since Batman's got Robin, he thinks he probably needs a sidekick, too. He says that I shouldn't worry about being replaced because a new sidekick position and my alter ego position would be two entirely different functions. He says that having a sidekick around might take some pressure off me. (But I wanna know, if the alter ego function and the sidekick function would be entirely different, how will a sidekick take pressure off me, other than by taking over part or all of my job?!?!?)

It sounds to me like it's practically a done deal already. (For the record: Neither have I approved, nor have I been consulted about the pending arrangement.)

I'm wondering, even if this sidekick isn't actually replacing me, won't the sidekick want to have his own alter ego secret identity, too? So now we're gonna have two alter egos around here competing for face time?

Fine, except I hope T.A. doesn't expect his new sidekick to live with me. Yes, I know the various different cute boys who pulled time as Robin usually lived with Batman's alter ego, Bruce Wayne. But Bruce Wayne was what used to be called an "old bachelor" (a genteel euphemism that served the purpose just fine before some Einstein came up with "gay," an early modernism already, and none-too-soon, destined for the historical ashbin along with "colored," "crippled," "retarded," "pro-choice," etc.). Unlike Wayne, who seemed to enjoy having a sidekick mincing around his house in skimpy green briefs and "to-die-for" matching slippers, I'm a married man, and there's no 5FUing way my wife's gonna put up with a half-civilized adolescent male of unsettled predilections stinking up our guest room.

Rumor is the sidekick will be known as "Cappy." I checked, and sure enough, TAF Enterprises has filed the name "Cappy" with the Super Hero Registry. What the 5FU kind of a Super Hero name is Cappy? Maybe it was a typo, and the sidekick's name is supposed to be "Crappy." That would make a lot more sense, doncha think?

Sending love, hope, and prayers,
W_______

A Child Lost in Play:Ubiquitous RidiculousnessAmidst Priceless Inapposite Beauty

2011-06-03T09:14:00.048-05:00

Dear Readers,

Here's another maudlin schmaltzy pseudo-philosophical email W___ wrote, presumably to another one of his bald ladies.

The guy is incorrigible, but I guess the ladies, especially the bald ones, go all fluttery for this gooey stuff. If I could say his lines with a straight face, I could change my name to The Astonishing ShagMan.

Read it and weep!

T. A. FartMan

From: W________
Sent: Friday, June 03, 2011 9:14 AM
To: V_______
Subject: Re: CEA testing

Dear V_____,

It is so very good to hear from you. But you shouldn’t ever be sorry about not writing. I know how much energy it can take sometimes, psychological energy, just to write an email. Sometimes, we’re just not up to it. So write only whenever you feel like it. And when you do write, if you write only the words, “Don’t feel like writing much right now,” that will always be sufficient.

You poor thing! You deserve to throw yourself a pity party, but you have to remember to invite me, too. You have been through so much, have suffered so much, it breaks my heart! Sometimes a pity party is what’s needed. Speaking of pity, and the lack thereof, one thing that bothers me most is when healthy people try to paint a happy face on me while I’m in the middle of suffering my butt off, and when, because of that suffering, I cannot forget for more than a few minutes that my situation is pretty bleak and seems like it will probably just get worse.

The only thing is, don’t let yourself go too deep down into the pity pool. Don’t jump into the deep end of the pity pool unless you know you are a good swimmer or are wearing some kind of floatation device. I have some cute blow-up floatation devices I make use of to keep myself from sinking to the bottom of the pity pool. Maybe you should get some for yourself. Let me know, and I will tell you all about mine.

Yes, it is kinda strange being off chemo. With all its “routines,” chemo felt almost like having a steady albeit crappy job, especially since my work has been so slow this year. And I’ve met some “regulars” there at the infusion clinic with whom I have become friends. So last Monday, one of the "every other Mondays" when I would have gotten dosed if I were still on chemo, I took a sort of busman’s holiday and went up to the clinic to see some of my new pals. (Now that is sick, doncha think, me going up to the infusion clinic just for "fun"?!?!) So, yes, I know what you mean about feeling a little lost without the biweekly poisoning routine.

As much fun as it is to hang out with all my new buds at the confusion center, ooops, I mean the infusion center, on balance I do prefer NOT getting the chemo.

Honestly, besides not missing chemo, I don’t particularly miss working either. Without the work routine, my life has become a lot less structured, and it will probably be difficult for me to readjust when work heats back up. But, you know, I am finding that I can get along perfectly well without the structure of regular work. I piddle around the house, piddle in my garden, go for bike rides when I have the energy, spend more time with friends, read this, that, and the other thing, and pretty much do whatever I want whenever I want.

I like it.

Even when I’m not working, on days when I’m feeling well I am as productive as I’ve ever been, but just in different ways. So I’m starting to think that, unless you do work that you love or love the social interaction with the people you work with, the benefits of the normalcy of regular work are way overblown, at least for someone like me, who feels content and productive with a good book in hand.

I do understand that, because we all do define ourselves at least partly by our work (and I'm not saying that's wrong), going to work regularly can help us feel more secure in our sense of who we are. And the social interactions at work are valuable, especially since in this modern world, non-work social interactions are sometimes not frequent enough to satisfy the human need for the annoying company of our fellow human beings.

On the other hand, we are who we are, whether we are "currently working" or not working. And not working, being a man or woman of leisure for a while, gives us time and frees us to learn more about ourselves and the world. One of the things I admire most about the ancient Greeks--unlike life in this modern democratized egalitarian world that teaches us to despise the idle rich--is that the Greeks were not ashamed not to work. They considered themselves perfectly respectable, and also well-blessed, if they had enough wealth to permit themselves not to work, and instead were free to spend their time doing "other good things," which would include leisurely socializing with friends, contemplating life's beauties, and pursuing knowledge of the themselves and their world.

So maybe you are pushing yourself too much in trying to keep working. You are right to think about what you would be giving up and what you would be gaining if you stop work and went on LTD for a while. Maybe it's time for you to taste some of the sweet life of the happily unemployed. Maybe not.

Speaking of being happily unemployed, my dear wife is getting nervous about the household finances since I’ve not been working much lately. Myself, I’m not worried. We’ve got a cash stash to get by a long time without me having an income, and work will heat back up soon enough. If S____ is that nervous about it, instead of sleeping until 10:30 every day, and sitting in her PJs drinking latte until noon, she can always go out and get herself a real job. (That’s what I would tell her, if I weren’t such a big wussy.) You see, my wife is a “teaching artist” for one of our local museums, and works only about five or ten hours a week doing art workshops with little kids and similar things. Yes, S___ is such a princess, of noble French extraction; I definitely married above myself, being extracted from outhouse-poor, shoeless-dumb, inbred-stubby Indians whose progenitors for the last hundreds of years lived as isolated, uncivilized, plumbingless beasts in the swamps of North Carolina.

I do love my wife more than my own life, but I’ve spoiled her too much in some ways, and I do worry how she’ll get along if I’m not around. That worry is probably only a manifestation of my distorted and egotistical sense of self-importance: Once I’m gone, she’ll probably live comfortably on the life-insurance; marry Studley (the pool maintenance guy who never wears closed shoes and owns no shirts with sleeves); move to Tuscany; acquire a retinue of young Italian lovers; make them all crazy jealous of each other; and finally, uncaptured, escape this world peacefully in her sleep at 95.

As long as the annuity check arrives on time, S____ probably won’t miss my sorry self all that much or all that often. And something like that is exactly as it should be, exactly as I would want it to be.

To change the subject a little to respond to your remark that, unlike me, you like it when people tell you that you look good: I don’t really hate people telling me I look good, because I, too, am a little vain about my looks. (Not that I’m good-looking, but being ugly as a hairy wart never stopped anyone from being vain.) I was just extracting the comic potential from the "you really look good" phenomenon, trying to get some "sick" humor out of it by making healthy people feel uncomfortable about their all-too-predictable conversation, the discomfiting of which is one of my favorite forms of entertainment these days.

Yet sometimes I do think some people tell me I look good, not so much to make me feel better, but so they can avoid thinking about how totally messed up I am with this cancer. And that’s okay, they can fake it all they want, as long as they don’t expect me to join them in faking it. For me, the bad stuff in life, whatever it is, is easier to deal with once I acknowledge the reality. So I do resist when people try to patronize me into joining them for a quick ride in the HappyMobile to HappyLand Amusement Park, a facility that never existed and closed down permanently right about the time I got cancer.

I am so very, very thrilled that you enjoyed my Lucinda story. (If you're interested, T. A. and I have posted some entries, such as this one, relating how went our mini-reunion to see her in Austin a few weeks ago. It was a blast!) Not just anyone can tolerate, or even make it through, this convoluted, blown up, runaway prose, which is another indication that I do seem to enjoy making things difficult for people. I’ve developed an attitude that says, “Hey, I’m something special, good, and unusual, so if you want to learn to enjoy just how special I am, you are going to have to be willing to make an effort to discover the real me, bat crap crazy bastard that I am, because I am not an easy lay.”

Of course, that’s the kind of off-putting attitude that could end up with me being all alone in some bleak, ammonia-addled, crap-slathered convalescent home in a crumbling, treeless, red-lined neighborhood. But even if that happens, I’ve got the internal resources to deal with that, too, ‘cause I am one tough bastard. Lots of good people end up alone. Lots of assholes end up with many "friends." Some major assholes go through life with an entourage of butt-sucking admirers. In a world where sweet darling innocent three-year old babies get cancer, like the ones my wife works with at Texas Children's Hospital, I can’t expect life to be fair to me about such things. But I won’t let that fact stop me from loving myself, loving life, and loving others.

It is so very heartening to have you tell me I should start a blog, especially since I actually have started a blog. It’s a fictional blog, based very loosely on my reality, with the appropriately (for me) off-putting title, “The Absurd Epistolary Adventures of The Astonishing FartMan.” The blog chronicles the adventures of the Super Hero, The Astonishing FartMan, and me, his alter ego, W___, (cf. Superman and Clark Kent) as we deal with having colon cancer. (You'll notice that FartMan and W___ don’t always get along with each other.)

As both good and bad writers have done since time immemorial, I steal freely from life itself.

Thus, my epistolary blog consists mostly of old emails that I have reworked and posted here as back-dated entries. This blog was started only a few days ago, but has back-dated entries as early as August, 2010, when An Ambulance Came to My House and my cancer saga began. (What a lazy man's way to fill up a blog!) I post only my own reworked emails, and very rarely use emails received from others, and then strictly for documentary purposes, because it really would be stealing if emails from others were appropriated for any intrinsic literary value. So if you want me to reproduce one of your emails on this blog, you'll have to send me a message passably stupid, that also conveys nothing mistakable as genuine human feeling. Of such communications, important emails from doctors are perhaps the only reliable examples.

And because the blog, although a fictionalization, is based loosely on my reality, I’m writing it anonymously. All real names are changed or obscured to protect the purely innocent, the purely guilty, and the purely human. For example, the woman who blogs at the W____Girl Blog, appears in my blog as “ZoomberGirl.” In my comments on her blog, (about which more to follow in my next paragraph), I used to call her “V_____Gal,” so the name “W____Girl” I changed to “V_____Gal,” and then to “ZoomberGirl.”

While we're on the subject, a further digression about ZoomberGirl:
Before I started my own blog, I used to post--or rather I should say more accurately, my alter ego, T. A. FartMan, used to post--long ridiculous obnoxious satirical comments on ZoomberGirl's blog. He was what might be called a blog-squatter on her blog. But one day ZoomberGirl deleted our best comments because she said they were “distracting.” Fair enough. The truth is, if she were paying attention, I don’t think ZoomberGirl would immediately appreciate the treatment she gets in my blog, such as at the end of this post, in which I had gently remonstrated about her relentless, fakey, real-life-avoiding, rah, rah, “positivity.”

Although ZoomberGirl knows the T. A. FartMan blog exists, I don’t think she will ever read it carefully enough to feel insulted. The truth is, our reason for posting comments on her blog was to try, gently and with silly humor, to show her the possibility that, even as tough as cancer is to deal with, living in reality instead of living in rah-rah land can open up possibilities for deeper and more meaningful relationships with those we love.

By bitching endlessly, but humorously, in comments on her blog, our hope was to show ZoomberGirl that she doesn't always have to maintain that facade of the Happy Cancer Warrior, to show ZoomberGirl that sometimes moaning and crying hot tears inconsolably in your momma's arms (if you are lucky enough still to have a momma) is a perfectly good and reasonable alternative to the cool hardness of keeping a stiff upper lip. People don't usually like to kiss stiff upper lips; they usually prefer the softer ones. So keeping a stiff upper lip can sometimes be a strategy to avoid risking getting slathered with all the messy tear-snot that comes with letting your emotional guard down. You don't have to be a Cancer Super Hero. Instead you can let the super egos and alter ids like T. A. FartMan play that absurdly costumed role, while you get to sit back and just be human.

Of course, living in reality, whatever the heck that is, can also be a risky messy screwed up business, so I suppose me and FartMan's do-gooder efforts were blamably presumptuous. What the hell do T. A. and I know about ZoomberGirl's reality anyway? What the hell do I know about my own reality, living as I do as the alter ego of a comic book character who wears a cape and tights, calls himself The Astonishing FartMan, and passes gas everywhere he goes? You know, when it comes to coping emotionally with cancer, I've painted myself into the corner labeled "whatever works has to be fine with me, 'cause I'm already bat crap crazier than you are." So if ZoomberGirl does happen to read this, which seems unlikely, I hope she will forgive me and FartMan's clumsy officiousness as well-meant.

Enough about my alter id, FartMan. Enough about ZoomberGirl! Let's talk about you and me.

As do many of my friends, you yourself make some appearances in my blog, with your name disguised as V______, as in for example this post and this post. (But there is also at least one other person identified as V____, so don’t get them confused.) I’m a little nervous about telling some of my friends and acquaintances about the blog, because they might not appreciate how "their character” comes across. I would explain to them that the blog is fictional, with snippets of real life cut out, cut apart, rearranged, and reassembled so that they can’t assume something I write about a character who looks like them is actually about them. I don’t think you have anything to worry about in that regard.

But one thing that does worry me a little about you and me is that, if you read my blog, you might pick up the obvious clues that I am, in actual real life, what most people on the left side of the political spectrum would call "a right wing kook,” and you might decide on that basis to dismiss me as an uncaring evil Repuglican. (Isn't that what some liberals like to call us these days?) Funny thing is, most of my friends are lefties (I hang out in artsy fartsy social circles), and although me and my lefty friends have gotten into a few rousing political arguments over the years, the friendship trumps all, even my right-wing obnoxiousness, and the politics falls by the wayside.

But why am I presuming you might be a lefty politically? Again more presumptuousness? Demographics, I guess: NY,NY, single working woman with a “witz” in her name. If I were you, with your demographic, I’d probably be a lefty, too. So if you aren’t well to the left of Obama, I’ll eat my shorts. (Good thing I don’t wear any!) But, in this circular political universe, I’m so far to the right that I almost end up coming back around to the liberal position on a lot of issues (illegal immigration, government spying, police brutality, individual rights, etc., being easy examples of issues on which I tend to disagree with my right wing brethren).

Enough with politics. Yes,The Absurd Epistolary Adventures has a satirical tone running through most posts, but at bottom (and I do have a large bottom), I hope the blog is funny in a way that takes some of the sting out of life with cancer, maybe distracts us from the crap we’re going through, or at least helps us laugh at the parts of this whacked out existence that are funny.

I say, “If you're laughing, you're living!”

Heaven knows there is plenty that deserves to be laughed at, not least of which is my own silly self. And speaking of Heaven, I do believe that God is The Divine Humorist, Who loves to laugh at the ubiquitous ridiculousness which He Himself has created amidst all His priceless but inapposite beauty. So living in the middle of all that priceless but inapposite beauty, it is our duty to play our comic roles with the kind of dedication that is usually observable only in the play of children. There is no one so serious as a little child happily lost in his play. Children at play take their playing and pretending so very seriously, and, learning from them, so should we, the so-called grown-ups.

Regarding the upcoming Colon Cancer Alliance Convention, much as I would love to attend, I don’t think I will be able make it to Denver for the get-together. Our only daughter, J____, is moving back here to Houston from R____ at the end of June, so I will be expected, nay, required, to be around to help with all that stuff in whatever way either of my two tyrants shall dictate. If I can sneak away to Colorado for a day or two, I would definitely like to attend the CCA confab, and will let you know if that possibility presents itself.

V______, I feel blessed, so very well-blessed, to have met you in our online group. You are an inspiration to me, and I don’t mean that in a backhanded “ZoomberGirl” way.

I should warn you that, because this email turned out so long, there’s a good chance that either T. A. FartMan or I, his alter ego, W____, will want to post it, in a revised and edited form, as an entry on the blog.

Sending Love, Hope, and Prayers,
W____

Crowd Control Never Goes Out of Style

2011-06-01T21:46:00.034-05:00

From: T.A. FartMan
Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2011 9:46 PM
To: St__________
Subject: W____ and I

Dear St_____,

As you warned me, I did run into W_____ at D____'s big Memorial Day Bar-B-Que.

And as you advised, I did take advantage of the opportunity to have a long talk with him about his role and our relationship.

Notwithstanding all his grousing about my management style and my PR strategy, the bottom line is, (surprise, surprise), W____ wants more compensation, and he wants more "recognition" of his efforts.

I do try to sympathize, but finally had to tell him straight out, "That's not the way this deal works."

As to his compensation, W____ knew from the start that his good efforts to help get this operation going would constitute his fair share of capital investment in TAF Enterprises. If this thing pays off, he'll be well taken care of. He made sure to get my promise about that, in writing. (Isn't mutual trust a beautiful thing!?!?!)

But right now, W____ needs to stop whining to me about his compensation, because times are tough all around. This hanging-by-a-thread startup pays me squat and barely covers my expenses. As an alter ego, W____ is able to keep a regular day job, but as a Board Certified Super Hero, can I be expected to schlep my Cape & Tights around StarBucks making half-caf capos for all those Birkenstocked white people? Most of my longterm projects might as well be pro bono, because eventually everybody seems to forget that I don't work for free. People just aren't paying.

If not for the occasional paid-up-front contract job, I couldn't afford to keep my skivvies and longjohns patched and dry-cleaned. Speaking of which, things were so slow last month that I had to accept a one-off gig as the "costumed entertainment" at a stupid little rich kid's ninth birthday party. You can't imagine how 5FUing humiliating it is for a Board Certified Super Hero to have to stoop to doing "pull my finger" routines for a bunch of spoiled brats.

But I do it, gladly, because I've got my eye on the big picture.

And speaking of big, we have come close to hitting it big several times. Just one example:

Last February I had a deal all lined up with Mubarak to clear Tahir Square. The buzz on The Street was that if we closed the Tahir Square deal and could turn in a halfway decent performance on that job, we could build on that success to compete for the hundreds of crowd control and mob dispersal contracts expected to be put out for bid for the upcoming Arab Spring. I had rounded up three dozen ambulatory homeless people and got them to sign releases wherein they "volunteered to be humanely dispersed" from Market Square Park. So we were all set to nail down the deal with a convincing live demo of our "airborne sub-lethal mass dispersion" solution.

Unfortunately, before we could run the demo, mealy-mouthed Hillary got the idea that it would be politically incorrect to grant any U.S.-based operators the permits and clearances they would need to render any substantial assistance to the Mubarak regime. The idiots at Foggy Bottom don't mind appeasing the mullahs; but heaven forbid letting an independent entrepreneur help out a longtime US buddy like Hosni. So before long Egypt will have Moo Slim Bros, Inc., running things, and that ain't no 5FUing Fat Free Yogurt Company! (Big mistake, HRC!)

I had told Hosni, if he would just chill for a sec, I could talk Hillary back onto the bus. But Hosni decided to try to solve his problem the old-fashioned way. I warned him that, even though the old open and direct method (batons, bullets, and blood) will do the trick in places like Syria and Iran or really any country that's not a US ally, what would still work in Tiananmen Square won't work in Tahir Square. But Hosni was too panicked to pay attention, and we all know how that turned out. (Big mistake, Hosni!)

When the Tahir Square deal collapsed, I did pick up a little side money by personally and discreetly transporting Hosni down to S-el-S. During the flight, while he was sitting on my back with his legs squeezing the crap out of my solar plexus, I was sorely tempted to "blow him off" (if you know what I mean) right there over the desert, but instead I just told him he should change his name to Hose-me Mubarak, because his impatience, nay, his untimely lack of confidence in our crowd control capabilities, had left me bent over, nailed to the Wailing Wall, with my tights tangled up around my ankles.

(To put the cherry on top of this three-turd-sundae, the Houston mayor called me again today demanding I do something about the 36 unkempt fellows still homesteading in Market Square Park. I promised her that, now that I'm off chemo, I would try to fly over there tomorrow and drop a couple of my F-bombs to clear the place out. More unpaid pro bono!)

But even though "Operation Square Deal" fell through in Egypt, I'm still confident that we've got a winning business model. We've maintained our position as the only player in our segment that can absolutely guarantee to disperse any mob, of any size and any disposition, promptly, discreetly, and totally without bloodshed. That's big. And we have demonstrated the expertise not only to manage events in the crowd control workspace, but also to coordinate messaging about those events. When we clear out a crowd of political protesters, we simultaneously gin up the memes that the regime has "heard the legitimate demands of the people and is committed to democratic liberalization," and that "the people, having brought their plight to the fair leader's attention, now are returned satisfied to their happpy hearths and homes." (It will never cease to astonish me, The Astonishing One Himself, how well that BS still works.)

The main performance issue for me, and this is something I've got to work on, has been to calibrate my emissions so that the stupid protesters can run clear of my poots before they pass out. We can't have media images of people laying around unconscious, because that creates a misperception of WMD use, which undermines our careful positioning of our crowd control solution as "humane, sub-lethal, organic, biodegradable, and 100% gluten-free." (We are also the only provider certified compliant with ISO 13.040 Air Quality standards.)

Anyway, I think we are in the right business, at the right time, with the right product, because as my dear momma explained to me so many years ago:

"Even when times are tough, crowd control never goes out of style."

I went over all this with W____, and he seemed to realize that, as far as compensation is concerned, we all need to show some grown up adult patience.

However, it has not been so easy to dispose of W_____'s complaint that he doesn't get proper recognition for his efforts. He can't seem to accept the fact that the whole point of having an alter ego is to avoid recognition. (Well, duh!) It's like he wants us to book time on a digital billboard on Broadway flashing:

NOW PLAYING:

W___, reprising his Tony-nominated role,

The Astonishing FartMan

"The Absurd Epistolary Adventures"

I reminded him about the confidentiality agreement he signed, and carefully explained that a Super Hero must have some chill time when he can just blend in and act like a normal person. That's all I'm asking W____ to do, for him to cover for me a few days a week so I can have a little downtime relaxation and, while he's at it, maybe for him to scout us out a stray hottie every once in a while. (Strange as it seems, a lot of perfectly doable babes prefer W____'s sensitive prissy guy shtick to my manly Board Certified Super Hero wooing. I don't know what it is about me that bothers them . . . maybe it's the farts. But having spent a lot of time in D.C. lately with WJC lobbying for an export exception for our advanced gas technology, I can tell you that the females who work in the federal government don't mind my smell or WJC's, and he is one very stinky dude. It seems Washington women are used to it, and are actually attracted to men who emit gaseous BS all the time, because I guess they figure those guys are the ones most likely to float to the top of the capital toilet bowl.)

Forgive me for my parenthetical digressions, but since you are a longtime friend of ours and also TAF Enterprises' biggest investor, it's vitally important that you be fully informed about the subtleties in my key man relationship with W___, especially since I will have to be making the rounds with the VCs again soon and am counting on you to set the example for our other investors.

I'm also hoping that you might try to talk some sense into W____ about the "recognition" thing. Gently remind him that, if he goes to the media with his complaints, my lawyers will make him eat every page of our twenty-seven page confidentiality agreement, one page at a time, in front of a jury that won't be able to stop itself from falling in love with . . . .

Your Do-Gooder Super Hero,
The Astonishing FartMan

And Who's Gonna Stop Me?

2011-05-28T07:02:00.013-05:00

From: The Astonishing FartMan
To: W______
Date: May 28, 2011 7:05 AM
Subject: Re: The Quality, Composition, and Tone of Your Blog Posts

Dear W______,

Before you get all cocky and sanctimonious with your prissy-boy threats to ban me from posting here, please pause and scroll up for a moment to remind yourself what is the title of this 5FU'd blog, a title which, for your everlasting convenience and irritation, always appears in extra-large bold type at the top of each and every single page.

Please nota bene that this blog ain't called "The Boring Smaltzy Sentimentalized Adventures of The Sissy-Prissy W____Man."

Nope. It's called "The Absurd Epistolary Adventures of The Astonishing FartMan," for a very good and obvious reason, which is that Yours Truly, The Astonishing One, is the marquee star of this two-bit operation. So I plan to keep things absurd and vague, vaporous and gaseous, just the way I likes it.

If you've got a problem with the present arrangement, then you'll just have to find yourself some other Super Hero who's desperate to hook up with a sissy-prissy alter ego like you. Word is that The Amazing SpiderMan has been having personnel problems lately, and might have an alter ego position opening up on his bloated staff, if you can put up with that gayish, wrist-twisted pose he always strikes when he's shooting off his spider-web stuff.

But you bettter hurry, because from what I'm hearing from the folks at the clinic, you don't have much time left to be farting around. (Yes, that's another stupid joke. So sue me.)

And, seriously, before I sign off, let me just say, "5FU to you, too."

Notwithstanding your efforts to ruin me, I remain . . . .

The One and Only,
Melodious and Malodorous,
Super Pooper Hero,
T. A. FartMan

This Has Gotta Stop

2011-05-28T05:43:00.008-05:00

From: W_____
To: T. A. FartMan
Date: May 28, 2011 6:20 AM
Subject: The Quality, Composition, and Tone of Your Blog Posts

Dear FartMan,

People are starting to complain.

This stuff has got to stop. Nobody is going to read past your first ten lines, and even if they tried to read further, your prose is just too over-inflated, pompous, and confusing for any halfway normal person to make heads or tails out of it.

Your "humor," such as it is, has already gotten us banned from posting comments on several other cancer blogs, including ZoomberGirl's. And now our own readers have begun complaining to me that your off-the-wall posts are "distracting" the focus away from me and the good vibe I'm trying to create. I think the absurd length of your posts is part of the problem. Yes, I know you've had an issue with flatulence because of the bowel surgery and the chemo side-effects, but do all your posts have to be so long-winded, too?

To put things in a suitable and pithy metaphor that an excessively literary guy like you should appreciate: Your writing is really stinking things up around here.

I would also appreciate it if you would cool it with the snide postings, like this one and this one, ranting about the health care we're receiving. The folks caring for us are doing their best under difficult circumstances, and now some people at the Infusion Center are starting to take your stupid jokes personally. Speaking of which, please stop calling the Infusion Center the Confusion Center. I might have used that line once or twice myself, but you are wearing it out.

Please understand, FartMan, I don't want to kick you off this blog, because I know there's probably no place else left for you to go, but really, my patience does have limits. So please think hard about what I'm telling you, before you ruin this blog just like you've ruined practically everything else in our life.

W_______

A Boatload!

2011-05-27T16:05:00.006-05:00

From: W_____
Sent: Friday, May 27, 2011 4:05 PM
To: T___ and S_____
Subject: Vino

Hi T____ and S____,

No, I didn’t lose (permanently) the wine suggestion T___ gave me. It was on the same piece of paper as his email address so I found them both at the same time. And I’ve lost and found that same piece of paper at least three times! The chemo definitely affects the brain!

Right now that piece of paper is secure in my left hand, and I am looking at the image T___ printed for the Braida Il Baciale (Super Barbera) blend of 60% barbera, 20% pinot noir (pinot nero in Italian), 10% merlot, and 10% cabernet sauvignon. The inclusion of pinot noir, a variety that is not that commonly grown in Piedmont and even more rarely blended with other grapes, makes that a very unusual bottling. Indeed, I don’t believe I’ve ever tasted a wine that blends barbera and pinot noir, so I’m looking forward to getting a bottle next time we are at Specs.

I’m so sorry that S_____ has been having such a tough time with the chemo. My heart goes out to her. I hope things have improved, but the reality is, the dern bad effects of the chemo accumulate, so the last cycles are always the worst.

I've had a little taste of what S___ is going through, but I know hers is a much tougher regimen than mine. I do know fristhand about the risk of passing out, and am also personally familiar with a chemo patient’s little trick of grabbing onto furniture to steady oneself while walking around the house. The fatigue can be unbelievable; until I had a few rounds of chemo, I had no idea just how dog-tired a body can feel.

Sometimes I’m so wiped out that I actually fall half-asleep while walking. No kidding! My wife has to tell me, “Keep your eyes open while you’re walking,” but sometimes I am so tired that I just can’t keep my eyes open, and then I walk around in a sort of a dreamy daze, half asleep, with my eyes closed, navigating through the house by memory, feeling my way from one piece of furniture to the next. I've almost fallen down several times.

One time I dozed off while sitting on the commode and almost tumbled off my throne!

Well, as you know, I am done with chemo (at least for now). This morning was actually the first time that I have begun to feel halfway normal since my last email to you (and that is one reason why you are only now receiving this reply). Other good news: my post-chemo CT scan did not show anything clearly identifiable as cancer. (But of course we all know the stats say some cancer cells could be, and probably are, still lurking in there somewhere).

The CT also showed I have a softball sized “subcapsular fluid collection” between my liver and the “capsular” tissue encasing the liver.

So I have a water balloon in my gut.

Maybe the operating room team left it in there after they had one of their intramural water balloon fights. But it actually feels less like a water balloon and more like a small piece of hard-sided American Tourister Luggage. Or maybe a lady’s small handbag. (I begin to wonder whether I could get the dern thing through TSA airport security’s fancy new whole-body scanners.) It’s been four months since the surgery that removed the mets from my liver, along with 3/4 of the liver itself, so any fluid pockets (which aren’t that unusual after surgery) probably should have been reabsorbed by now. I’ll be meeting with my onc (who is not my uncle) and my liver surgeon soon to see if anything needs to be done about that water balloon.

And although the water balloon causes me some “discomfort,” (the medical profession’s favorite euphemism to describe any pain that falls short of inducing a throbbing burning screaming misery), my inclination is to leave the dern thing alone for a little while longer to wait and see if it will start to reabsorb on its own now that I’m off chemo. I know it’s easy to get fluid accumulations if you lay around all the time, and—because of the chemo fatigue—laying around most of the time is what I’ve been doing for the last month. I’m hoping they won’t want to poke another hole in me to drain the dern thing, as I believe I have had just about enough cutting and hole-poking for a while, thank you very much!

Well, that’s enough fussing and fuming, and whizzing and moaning from me, doncha think!?!?!

A cruise with you guys sounds great to me, but to tell you the truth, it’s probably impossible to talk my wife into setting foot on a cruise ship. She's pretty much terrified of the water, and although we both know her fear is not entirely rational, that doesn’t make her any less scared. She also doesn’t like flying, but a valium is usually sufficient to get her through a domestic flight. To maintain her sanity for a full ocean cruise, you can probably guess how much valium she would require:

A boatload!

However, dinner together, when S___ is done with chemo and recovered a little, would be absolutely great. I would love for you two to meet my wife, S______. Please let us know when your S____ feels like a dinner date.

Is S____ getting chemo this Monday, the 30th? My reason for asking is that I was thinking of stopping by the confusion clinic, ooops, I mean the infusion clinic, one day soon to deliver a little thank you present for my infusion nurse (M______, who is absolutely terrific), and I thought if you guys were going to be there at the clinic Monday, it might be a good time to drop by to say hi.

I think of you guys a lot, and am . . .

Sending Love, Hope, and Prayers,

W_____

Pass the Body Around and Have a Party!

2011-05-25T08:05:00.011-05:00

From: The Astonishing FartMan
Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 8:05 AM
To: R____________
Subject: Re: Pass the Body Around and Have a Party

Hey R_____,

Thanks for your amusing email. "Pass the Body Around and Have a Party!" You sure got that right. The Med Biz exactly!

And boy, do I know what that’s like, from the supine perspective of The Body Being Passed Around. It turns out that the supposedly sublime experience of gazing into the eternal abyss ends up these days being nothing more poetic than a rolling view of the water-stained ceiling of a hospital hallway. Or has it always been thus?

Good luck finding any purdy and ennobling death poetry in the halls of a modern hospital.

And even if there were any poetry in those sick-smelling stale sterile corridors, nobody would have time to find it because we'd rather occupy ourselves filling out and collecting those endlessly banal forms that nobody else will ever read. Maybe there is some poetry there somewhere, but good luck finding it.

How well we wear our cynicism on our sleeves this day!

Will they stop passing me around when I croak? Or will they ding my health insurance for an autopsy and a thorough postpartum disembowelment, before handing me off to the mortician to arrange the final deposit?

Yes, R____, you are getting to be an ornery, and cynical, old 5FUer, and you might as well get used to it, ‘cause it’s all downhill from here.

The trick seems to be to arrange for the Body and the Mind to poop out at approximately the same rate, so that a bliss of mental decline closely accompanies and ameliorates the misery of creeping physical decrepitude.

From what I’ve seen, it looks like it’s usually no fun for The Body to outlast The Brain, although I’ve seen some interesting exceptions in a few friends and former bosses.

And it might be even less fun for The Brain to outlast The Body, a circumstance which, unless mets grow in my head, I will probably get to find out about first hand before too long.

Morbid as it is, since you are in the hospice biz, maybe sometime we can talk more seriously about this topic so that I can pick your expert brain about the way to do such things properly.

And once we get a good buzz going, maybe we could have a little philosophical chat about how the breadth of meaning in the word "hospice" has in modernity lost its religious connotations almost entirely to the medical. That tells something: Probably a big historical mistake for religion to involve itself so deeply in medicine. The nurses are all mostly Catholic, the doctors are all mostly Jewish, all of which is fine by me. But the ostensibly Baptist Hospitals, Catholic Hospitals, Methodist Hospitals, Presbyterian Hospitals, and probably also the Pentacostal Hospitals if there are any, well nowadays they are all mostly atheist. And the sadder fact is, the Jewish docs and the Catholic nurses mostly think that is just fine. I think these days you gotta decide whether you want to specialize in messing around with the body or messing around with the soul, 'cause it's hard to handle both at the same time.

Good thing they haven't figured out a way to pass my soul around, too!

Hope to see you and V____ sometime soon.

Meanwhile, I remain . . . ,
Your Friend,
The One and Only
Melodious and Malodorous Super Hero,
The Astonishing FartMan

Persistent Postoperative Changes? What the 5FU Does That Mean?

2011-05-24T21:07:00.041-05:00

From: The Astonishing FartMan
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 9:07 PM
To: ZoomberGirl
Subject: Re: I Started a Blog

Hey ZoomberGirl,

You are such a good sport for so graciously and for so long tolerating the all the nonsense I had posted in the comments section of your blog. I guess I needed an outlet, but me and my alter ego doing our own blog probably makes more sense (or more nonsense), doncha think?

I will hoist a large glass when they disconnect you permanently from that port-o-pump.

I’m doing okay (thanks for asking) and hope you are, too. Got myself CT Scanned Friday, and this morning my onc (who is not my uncle) sent me a vague email describing the results. Man, I thought we lawyers were the ones who were supposed to be purposefully vague, but when it comes to conjuring up a dark cloud of disconcerting obscurity, my onc’s email surpassed anything I could ever achieve. In case you don’t believe me, here’s the reply, verbatim, he emailed me when I asked him what was in my CT scan report:

From: Dr. B___________
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 8:08 AM
To: The Astonishing FartMan
Cc: M__________

The CT looks pretty good. There are some (what looks like) persistent postoperative changes around the liver and some tiny, stable, indeterminate lung nodules. Nothing else to do to evaluate these. We should check another CEA and CT in 3 months. Please call [my assistant] M____ to schedule these.

M____: can you please order a CBC, CMP, CEA, and CT C/A/P for Mr. W____ to be done at the end of August, with an appt with me the Monday after these tests?

Dr. B_________

Pretty good???? Persistent postoperative changes???? Indeterminate lung nodules???? What the 5FU am I supposed to make of that?!?!?!

So I spent several hours this morning frantically googling “persistent post-operative changes” and “stable, indeterminate lung nodules.” Finally, I gave up and emailed my onc (who is not my uncle) a list of stupid layman questions, the first of which was: “Based on what’s in the CT scan, does it look like there is 'probably' or 'certainly' cancer still in me? Or does it look like there is 'probably not' or 'certainly not' cancer still in me?”

Three email exchanges later, the good Dr. B______ finally got around to writing, in a rather offhand manner, there is “no evidence of cancer by CT” scan. Geez, doc, couldn’t you please have just told me that three heart attacks ago!?!?!

If you are curious, my first reply to my onc's email is reproduced below my signature. As you might surmise from the slightly snarky tone of that reply, I’m sometimes a difficult patient, but at least I keep it interesting, which is good, I guess, because, as you well know, cancer can be awfully boring . . . unless you happen to have it yourself.

BTW: You had mentioned on your blog something about getting your port-o-cath removed once you are done with chemo. My onc (who is not my uncle) told me today that he wants me and my alter ego to leave ours in for at least a year, in case we have a recurrence. The thing is, now that I’m off chemo, I’d like to feel normal for at least a little while, but can’t feel normal with that dern port bulging under my collarbone. I might have them take it out anyway, ‘cause I don’t want no more chemo!

To avoid closing on a sour note, let me tell you that I’m really enjoying your blog. I think you are cutting deeper and deeper every day, and I know how that can hurt . . . but it’s worth it.

And to close on a humorous, obnoxious, and inapposite note, here’s a picture of a binfull of Teddy Bears, which my alter ego shot with his phone cam when he and his wife and daughter and I were at a super kitschy souvenir shop in Las Vegas last summer. (Please note the silly, clever, obnoxious, and perfect title I’ve given it.)

From the smiles on all their faces, it sure looks like they’re having a good time. (I am soooooo bad!)

You Go ZoomberGirl!

Yours truly,
The Astonishing FartMan

P.S. Here's my email replying to my onc's vague report about my CT Scan. Doncha like the snarky tone?

From: The Astonishing FartMan
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 12:17 PM
To: Dr. B______
Cc: M_____
Subject: Re: What Is the Plan for W_____ Going Forward?

Dear Dr. B______,

Could you ask M___ to please post the CT Scan report in my online records so I can read it for myself?

As a lawyer (fond of equivocating parentheticals), I appreciate the vagueness of the words “(what looks like) persistent post-operative changes” and “some tiny, stable, inderterminate lung nodules.”

But as an ordinary human being, I’m stymied.

And I would rather not wait until the end of August to understand all this better.

While I can accept uncertainties so far as they really are uncertain, and can understand that no further evaluation is possible right now, can’t someone explain better what is meant by “persistent post-operative changes around the liver” and “indeterminate lung nodules?” (I hope you know that I want to know the boundaries of the uncertainties as well as all the facts.)

Some questions, ranked in order of stupidity, with my stupidest question first:

1. Based on what’s in the scan, does it look like there is “probably” or" “certainly” cancer still in me? Or does it look like there is “probably not” or “certainly not” cancer still in me? (I know this is a stupid question, but if I could get you on the witness stand under oath, I would not let you go until you answered “probably,” “certainly,” “probably not,” or “certainly not.”)

2. What kind of “persistent post-operative changes?” My smarty-pants wife is wondering aloud whether you might be leaving open even the possibility that a tiny fairyland giraffe has grown up and established its permanent residence around my liver? When we say “persistent post-operative changes,” are we talking about cancer, or something else? I can telll you that, four months after the liver surgery and two weeks after my last-scheduled chemo, the area around the liver still hurts most of the time, and I still tire very, very easily. Are those symptoms, perhaps, probably, or certainly, the result of “persistent postoperative changes,” such that I will have to learn to live with persistent pain and the fatigue? Should I be doing something (diet, exercise?) to ameliorate the “persistent postoperative changes,” whatever the heck they are?

3. What about the lung nodules? Were they discernable in previous scans or are they something new in this scan? If the nodules were apparent in previous scans (as seems to be the case from what is reported in those older scan reports), why had you not mentioned them before, or is there something different now that makes you mention them now?

4. Is it reasonable for me to get my port removed now? If not, why not?

5. Should we explore taking me off the blood-pressure meds (Amlodipine 5 mg) now that I’m not on the Avastin?

Thanks, Dr. B____, for taking such good care of me these many months. I think you are a very fine doctor, and otherwise a very good man. Sorry for being such a PitA, and sorry for the stupid questions, but those are the only kind I know how to ask.

Yours truly,
The Astonishing FartMan

So, do you think my onc (who is not my uncle) is gonna wanna ditch me?

Later,
T.A. FartMan

Our Favorite Household Appliance

2011-05-16T18:48:00.108-05:00

A comment The Astonishing FartMan recently posted to ZoomberGirl's cancer blog:

TheAstonishingFartman wrote:

Hey ZoomberGirl,

I hope you are doing okay, and have not gotten yourself into a fistfight with Mickey or Goofy during your visit to Disneyland, as I recollect in some earlier post you said something about regretting never having had the experience of being in a good fistfight. Well, I can tell you, in my misspent youth I participated in a few good fistfights, even one that took place in the street outside a bar and another one that, until the police showed up, required fervent tussling in the dirt with an ex-wife's naked boyfriend for possession of a serrated kitchen knife. Athough the physical interaction can be invigorating, I think such entertainment is best left to the youngsters, who are more likely to recover from the effects of stray bullets.

Apropos of nothing particular, but perhaps useful to give your blog readers some further insight into the tres chic chemo lifestyle, reproduced below is another typically maudlin schmaltzy email my alter ego, W___, sent today to his chemo clinic "next door neighbor," one of those nice bald ladies who, with her husband T____ at her side, sits in a LAY-Z-BOY next to him in the "Confusion Center":

Hi S___ and T____,

Well, FINALLY I found that piece of paper with y'alls' email address on it!

Every time I went through all the mass of disorganized papers in my man-purse, my chemo brain couldn’t spot the one with y’alls’ email address, and I was afraid to throw away anything before finding the one with your address.

I sure hope S____ had a “good” week. Of course, for someone getting dosed weekly with chemo cocktails as brutal as hers, “good” is a relative term and usually means “not as bad as it could be” or “not as bad as last time.” I don’t think there are any really “good” weeks on chemo. My regimen is a walk in the park compared to hers, so I think that S____ is one tough cookie, tougher than me, to put up with that stuff she gets every week for 18 straight weeks.

I also hope today was a tolerable day at the clinic for S____. It has been a real pleasure for me having you two as my infusion center “next door neighbors” these last few weeks. It made my time in the confusion center, oops, I mean the infusion center fly by. I hope all my yakking and goofing around wasn’t too annoying. We could blame it on the dexamethasone, but the truth is, I probably talk too much even when not being poisoned!

Speaking of the effects of being carefully poisoned, my week was a little rougher than normal. I guess after 12 cycles the cumulative effects of the chemo have finally caught up with me a little, because fatigue has been a problem lately. Even today, on Day 8 of my last cycle, I’ve slept away most of the day, propped up in my “nest” of pillows on the love seat. Yes, the fatigue and the constant, worsening peripheral neuropathy are no fun, as S____ can surely testify, but I’m not going to complain too much because lots of people are going through things a whole lot worse.

And, lucky me, I’m done with chemo for now, and if I’m really, really, really, really, really lucky, maybe I’m done with chemo forever. (Of course, the “odds” say I’ve got something like an 80 percent chance of recurrence, so I’m not going to get too cocky.) I declined the infusion center ceremony to “ring the bell” signifying my “last” dose, because it might not really be my last dose, and I don’t want to tempt fate or to risk that noisy bell awakening some evil spirit that might have had it in for me! (You know, I'm Native American, so perhaps that's why I'm a little nervous about thumbing my nose at any evil spirit that might have had a grudge against me.) Instead of ringing the bell, I just gave our infusion nurse, M_______, a big hug and slipped out that side door as quietly and humbly as possible. I gotta tell you though, it was pretty emotional. I had to give M______ an extra-long hug to gain time to choke back some tears before anyone could see a tough guy like me getting all mushy.

I just googled T___, found your family web page, and looked at some of the pictures and videos of your family and your celebrations and travel adventures. What a good and happy family, especially those sweet grand kiddies! (If you google me, you won’t find much, and I will have to deny all knowledge of and responsibility for anything that might be associated with my name!) Just so you’ll know what my dear sweet wife looks like, I'm sending this picture of us taken just last New Year’s Eve.

You’ll note that we are posing in front of our favorite household appliance—the refrigerator—as is appropriate. But please resist the temptation to make any clever, funny, rude observations about what my left hand might be doing. (I think the smile on my wife's face tells all!)

Even with this dern cancer, we are happy and feel blessed. I can’t hardly imagine how happy we’d be if we didn’t have this stupid cancer messing with our lives! But I do worry about how we’ll deal with the more difficult times that might be headed our way before long. I suppose, when it comes to coping with cancer, we all do what we have to do—mostly because we don’t have that much choice about it.

When you have the time, please keep me posted on how things are going with you two.

Sending love, hope, and prayers!
W_____

Just between you and me, ZoomberGirl , I think my alter ego, W____, is spending way too much time hanging out with the bald ladies, and I would welcome your suggestions for finding him a more stylish social circle. Please let me know what you think. Meanwhile, I remain . . .

Your Loyal and Still Astonishing FartMan

A Dubious, Shifty, and Complicated Provenance

2011-05-14T09:45:00.055-05:00

A comment T.A. FartMan recently posted to ZoomberGirl's cancer blog:

Hey ZoomberGirl,

Okay, I admit it.

I lie.

A lot.

But sometimes, halfway by accident, I happen to tell the truth. The trick is to figure out which is which. But don't fret too much about it, 'cause it's all in good fun.

So anyway, ZoomberGirl, you should be informed that your cancer blog posts have often been the initial inspiration for philosophical musings shared with my dearest friends.

For example, reproduced below is an email, lately sent to some of those dear friends (the ones too simple-minded to figure out how to set their email to block my messages), thanking them in my strange way for indulging me so kindly during our mini-reunion to see Lucinda Williams perform in Austin last weekend, and forwarding, in the middle thereof, a comment, much revised to the point of being ersatz, that I had posted in its original form to your blog around that same time.

(The dubious, shifty, and complicated provenance of the writing below seems especially fitting, since this whole stupid cancer business is dubious, shifty, and complicated.)

From: TheAstonishingFartMan

Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2011

To: Undisclosed Recipients

Subject: What a Great Attitude You Have, Grandma!

Hey fellas and fellows,

For your continuing edification, entertainment, irritation, or ignorement (whichever you please), reproduced and forwarded below is a comment (now heavily edited and revised) I wrote yesterday in response to an unsuspecting cancer blogger's post about her chemo experience.

My comment was posted to ZoomberGirl's blog under my most pompous Stage IV colon cancer chemo week pseudonym ever, The Astonishing FartMan (“able to leap tall buildings with a single poot”), written in a style emulating the ethereal effusions of that one and only Melodious and Malodorous Super Hero, and stunk up with past-participle passive voice. (Passive-aggressive that is: So you don’t wanna slog through this impenetrable prose? Well, too bad for you, ‘cause I can guilt-smack you into reading it.)

And it doesn’t really matter whether you’ve read half this shtick eleven times already. My shtick is just like chemo. You gotta sit through it again and again and again and again, week after week after week after week, to absorb fully its salutary effects.

So it seems that ZoomberGirl, the cancer blogger, and I, the blog-squatter/commenter known as The Astonishing FartMan, are getting the same colon cancer chemo regimen every other Monday, the very same Mondays. But I'm one cycle ahead of ZoomberGirl in that sublimely educational process. (She's on cycle 11 of 12, and I'm on cycle 12 of 12.) Our common travail seemed to authorize me to report to her my own chemo clinic adventures. Thus, my comment below, posted to ZoomberGirl's inspiring blog, begins modestly enough, with esoteric details of our très chic alternative chemo lifestyle, and then crescendoes into a cosmic comic dialectical masterwork.

So, dear friends, suck it up and read it through, but you don't have to read it all at once, 'cause I know how hard it is for you healthy people to cope with cancer.

On 5/9/2011 at 3:39 PM [or thereabouts], TheAstonishingFartMan wrote [approximately]:

You go, ZoomberGirl!

But you can't catch up to me because I'm one cycle ahead of you and right at the finish line. Yes, I'm ahead of you by one whole go-round, getting my last-scheduled infusion (cycle 12 of 12) right this very minute.

Through my port-a-cath (a medical device, surgically implanted below my left collar bone, and connecting my circulatory system to the outside world via my superior vena cava), I've already gotten today’s dose of the helper drug levoleucovorin. And I've also already gotten my dose of the steroid, dexamethasone, AKA decadron, which will help prevent some bad allergic reactions, but, like bad speed, will also keep me pumped up for a couple of days and stop me from sleeping much at all today—thus this tome. But then the decadron will crash me down hard into the pavement Wednesday or Thursday. I used to get 12 mg of the decadron, but it wired me up too much, so I talked to my onc (who is NOT my uncle) about cutting the dex dose to 6 mg, which doesn't launch me so high and, therefore, doesn’t end in such a brutal crash landing when it wears off. Right at this moment I'm getting infused with my palonosetron, the "pre-drug" to control nausea. But no oxaliplatin or Avastin for me this round because the peripheral neuropathy and those two drugs’ other side effects had gotten too bad to justify continued use.

So now all that remains to complete today's in-clinic devil juice cocktail is my “bolus” of the strong stuff, the 5FU (technically called fluorouracil, but medically abbreviated as 5FU, presumably to indicate the number of times it can F-U-up during a typical treatment cycle). Even as we speak, my infusion nurse, the charming and beautiful M____, has begun shooting me up with my bolus of 5FU (pardonnez moi le francais).

After shooting me up in clinic with that bolus of 5FU (pardonnez moi le francais encore), the charming and beautiful M____ will hook me up to a stylish "ass-bag," oops, I mean "butt-bag," ooops, I mean "fanny-pack," oooooops, I mean "personal portable chemotherapy pump transportation device” (insurance code number 584938-954394-938434) full of another dose of 5FU (pardonnez moi le francais encore), with its accompanying semi-silent portable pump. ("Grish, grish, grish" is the eerie spooky sound that pump makes every few minutes.) Then the charming and beautiful M____ will send me home to enjoy privately my next 46 hours of "continuous infusion."

(Note to self: Have a chat soon with psychotherapist about this weird nurse-torture-mistress fetish I seem lately to be acquiring. Might be fun, but the outfits could get expensive and probably aren't covered by health plan.)

Grish . . . grish . . . grish . . . grish . . . grish . . . grish . . . grish . . . grish . . . grish . . . grish.

Every five minutes.

For 46 hours.

And people wonder why I act bat crap crazy?

But then when the pump runs out of devil juice, it starts beeping and blinking non-stop, like a kitschy terrorist bomb in some over-budget Bruce Willis flick. A few cycles ago, when my empty pump went to bleep, bleep, bleeping, blinking in a crowded elevator, I felt a mighty temptation to yell a few "Allahu Akbars" to see if any poor fools would gang-tackle the sweaty pudgy brown-skinned guy strapped to the bleeping, blinking, beeping butt-bag with tubes poking out. (I'm still here, so you can probably assume I was able to repress my natural inclinations just that one time.)

So it’s 12 of 12, and after I come back to the clinic on Wednesday to get untethered from the port-o-pump, I will be done, done, done, done, done, 5FU done with chemo, at least for a while, and with lots of luck, maybe FOREVER!

But for now I'm still sitting here in the "Infusion Center," which I call the "Confusion Center," trying to keep everybody laughing, and not letting anyone get any rest.

Funny as I am--and I am painfully funny--the nice bald lady sprawled in the high-tech LAY-Z-BOY next to mine has me beat hands down today when it comes to black humor. She and I were laughing together a little while ago about how silly it is that healthy people can almost unfailingly be counted upon to say the following two things, the first thing being what they almost always say the moment they encounter us, and the second thing being what they almost always say when they are trying desperately to extricate themselves from our discomfiting company:

First: "You really look good."

Second: "You have a really great attitude."

The nice bald lady and I laughingly agreed that, even when these two statements are demonstrably false, healthy people can still be relied upon confidently to assert them, presumably as their attempt to contribute a much-needed variety to our cancer-filled day. And, honestly, in my case, both statements always are demonstrably false, because:

First off, I have never looked good a single day in my entire life. Until I got cancer, NOBODY had EVER told me I look good—EXCEPT my wife just that one time several light years ago when she was pass-out-horny-drunk and the pool guy was on vacation. (And I somehow doubt that the cancer or the chemo has improved my appearance.)

Second off, I have always tried to fulfill my constitutional duty to preserve, protect, and defend my obnoxious attitude, extant by nature, perfected by training, and allowing no wobbly exception for this stupid cancer thing.

Me and the nice bald lady at the chemo clinic further commiserated that the second cliché is the more ticklesome, as it suggests that a spiffy attitude is going to cure our cancer, and inversely suggests that, if we do die of cancer, it must needs will have been because we didn't have a good enough attitude. (Please note with admiration the new verb tense invented in that last sentence. I shall call it the future conditional obligative tense, a very intense tense, and one with which I hope to addle your brain throughout the remainder of this comment.) By that implied logic, if I croak out from cancer, it's gonna be my silly fault because I didn't think positive enough????? To quote the immortal dialectical philosopher, Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha the Third:

"E dun thin so, Lucy."

Nope. I ain't worried about dying of a bad attitude, because if a bad attitude were ever fatal, I wouda been outahere a long time ago. But I will confess to being a leetle teeny tiny itsy bitsy eentsy teensy itty bitty smidgen worried about dying of cancer.

To be fully honest about it, the whole attitude-enforcement phenomenon pisses me off, and not only with regard to a cancer patient’s mens rea mental state, but also about all sorts of unrelated subject matters, the specifics of which I will leave you to guess for yourself. (Suffice it to say that I think the implicit requirement that a cancer patient must maintain a “positive” mental attitude should qualify as a Federal Hate Crime.)

So anyway, like I said, the very nice bald lady—the one who sits in the LAY-Z-BOY next to mine in the Confusion Center, oops, I mean the Infusion Center, the lady who has a damn aggressive ovarian cancer that has spread to her omentum, and spread here and there and elsewhere all around her peritoneum, and is inoperable—she has me topped when it comes to fine upper class gallows humor.

With a happy mischievous-innocent grin on her face and a beautiful light in her eyes, she explained to me that, when healthy people say to her, as they all apparently must do, "You have such a great attitude," she replies, monotone, deadpan, "Yeah, I'm what they call an incurable optimist."

Now that IS funny. AND sadly true.

Funny, sad, and true.

So me and the bald lady, we laughed our little donkeys off. Then we smudged the tears from our respective cheeky cheeks, and blew some big holy globs of bloody snot right out of our respective noses. (Yes, our chemo regimens do make the snot bloody.)

After all that, the nice bald lady and I sadly conceded that, over the heads of our intended victims, our deadliest discharges of flat black humor fly unobserved, mostly harmless, and certainly without leaving any lasting detrimental impression. Healthy people just can’t snap to a good cancer joke, unless we esplangs it to ‘em, Lucy. And even the ones who might sorta “get it” usually won't have the balls to laugh. Bet you didn’t realize that, metaphorically speaking, one needs large balls to laugh at this stuff. Well, mine, the metaphorical ones, are HUGE, especially when the decadron swells them up to twice their normal volume.

Laughing balls. Giggling balls! How they jiggle!

Even healthy people, lucky fools that they are, would have to admit that the thought of laughing balls is pretty dern funny.

So tell me, ZoomberGirl, doncha think people who don't have cancer can be soooooooooo boooor-rrrrriiiiing and predictable?

In some such way, so ended my comment today on the site of the inspiring yet unsuspecting cancer-blogger whom I call ZoomberGirl.

And to complete this nonsense, the next time any of you, my dear friends, happens to see me (if I live that long!), you are instructed to greet me with a wet sloppy bolus-kiss of oral adulation: "Man, you look really great!" And you are further instructed to win your extrication with a continuous infusion of portable flattery: "You sure do have a great attitude! Man, I just wanna tell you what a great attitude you have. With your great attitude, you are sure to beat this stuff!"

Maybe so, maybe no. But I will deal with either, come what may, and that’s no joke.

Meanwhile, I remain . . .

Your Melodious, Malodorous, Ever Faithful Super Hero,
The Astonishing FartMan

P.S. to M___y and L____, D____, C___ and M____, K____, et al: All kidding aside, but not to get too mushy about it, the Austin Lucinda get-together thingy, with all its associated imbibementations, gustamentations, visitations, peripatetications, boogiefications, and dialecticalations, kinda made my day, or week, or year. (Okay, either I lost my thesaurus, or I need to lose my thesaurus, or I love to show off my fat-assed vocabulary, or maybe I’m just totally full of it, or maybe the decadron is majorly messing with my head. Whichever it is, thank you, dear friends, for indulging me so well and kindly last weekend, today, and always!)

P.P.S. especially to C____ and M____: Sorry you two had to leave the Lucinda Williams concert early to meet those bothersome in-laws. You probably missed the amusing sideshow of me being unceremoniously bounced and booted from the special reserved handi-crapped section, on the pretext of my purportedly over-emphatic dancing, but probably to free up space for some straw-sucking wheelchair guy. What?!?!? After bowel surgery, liver surgery for mets, and 11 rounds of chemo, all in the last eight months, we cancer-disabled people aren’t allowed to dance our butts off? Anybody who has made it through that gauntlet oughta be dancing his butt off. And we’ll see all about that, ‘cause I’ve got my ADA lawsuit drawn up and ready to file against the nightclub, as soon as I can figure out which ones of you guys to sue as co-defendants.

So, ZoomberGirl, that's how it went, more or less.

Rooting for you, ZoomberGirl, I remain . . .

Your Loyal Melodious and Malodorous Super Hero,
The Astonishing FartMan

Some Crazy People

2011-05-08T22:54:00.007-05:00

From: The Astonishing FartMan
To: B______
Subject: Crazy People at Lucinda Concert
Date: Sun, 8 May 2011 10:54 PM

Hey B_______,

To start with, here’s a picture of some crazy people at a Lucinda concert. In the background, above M____y’s left ear, you can see a very, very small image of Lucinda, performing. In the foreground, below M____y’s right ear, you can see a very, very large image of a tongue, performing:

S____ and I just got back from Austin a couple of hours ago and have only just now received your email.

The weekend was a blast! We’re exhausted, but happy.

I think everyone had a good time, but it would have been way better if you had been there with us.

D_____ and M___y and C____ and K____ are all still crazy. M____y’s good wife, L____, was the only halfway sane person in the group.

Lucinda was good. She played a long set and two encores, mostly older stuff (even sang “Sylvia” and “I Lost It”). She did a few acoustic songs, and then rocked everything out for the rest of the night. (I danced for the first time since my big liver surgery! And it felt good!)

We were too busy having fun to take many pics, but I think we have just a couple more and will try to get them to you with a later email.

S____ sends love, and so do I.

The Astonishing FartMan