Not so fantastic voyage.

"The best part of cancer is not having it."

"Well, that's an asshole thing to say."

"Yes, yes it is. But it's true and you know it."

No one wants cancer...of any kind. (Thank you, Mr. Obvious!) No pre-teen girl lays in her bed at night fantasizing about what she'd name her cancers or what song she'd want played once the minister pronounces her and her cancer "husband and wife."

Yet, there are small children who don't know any other life than the one where they spend weeks at a time getting sick from chemo or hooked up to machines and tubes that provide medicine. There are children who can't play rough on the football field or climb trees or run relay races to feed their need for exertion. On the one hand, this is all they know-being different, but that doesn't take away the envy of the healthy kids on the playground.

A woman in her fifties survives breast cancer and her world is, at the very least, altered. She views life in a whole new way. Everything around her, time, kids, husband, work, neighbors, all become valuable treasures to her. She will never take anything for granted ever again.

A thirty year old man-kid at heart-is diagnosed with cancer. He thinks, "Oh, this is gonna suck. But let's get this over with so i can move on with my life." A rare, incontrovertible and commendable outlook. This guy, Mike, could make light of any situation and this one was no different. But as time passed by, it became different. The cancer in his back went straight to his central nervous system which destroyed the sensation and use of his legs. With no insurance, his only treatments were experimental and in the end, unsuccessful. In the fall of 2005, Mike returned his borrowed energy to the earth. His parents, his friends, myself and the little boy that he spent a few years raising as his own, are only left with memories. Good ones. Real, real good ones.

It doesn't matter if you know someone or knew someone. It doesn't matter if there is no history of it in your family. It doesn't matter if you think you're invincible. This malignant neoplastic nightmare is invasive, it doesn't discriminate and every one that is affected by it needs help.

If you know someone with cancer or someone supporting a cancer patient, there's a new website launching today that could be of great assistance to them. This service is for the patients, the supporters, the survivors and for their care teams. This site is all about navigating the logistics of the cancer journey in even the littlest of ways. http://www.navigatingcancer.com/

I touched my pee today.

At work, for the past seven years, i've been religiously using these G-2 pens. I use four different colors for various coding in my line of work. I use fine point and buy refills for them because i try to be green when i order the office supplies because it's not my money.

(There you go Pilot; There's your endorsement. Please feel free to send me a box of G-2 pens in black because i refuse to personally spend $14 of my own money.)

These pens go with me all over the office. I keep a supply of them in my bottom drawer that only my boss and i seem to know about. If i leave my desk, i shove a pen in my pocket or above my ear (when it stays there) so i don't have to touch someone else's virus-covered pen. If someone comes to my desk needing a pen, i cringe. When they leave, i scrub the pen with a Clorox wipe.*

After addressing a few envelopes at the postage machine not one hour ago, i shoved my blue G-2 in my back pocket and ran down to our hardware store. I ran a few transactions, used my pen again and shoved it back into my back pocket before shuffling back up to the office to go pee. (You see where this is going yet?)

After finishing my business, as i began to pull up my pants, i hear a *tink*...i turn and look into the toilet and there floating atop the soaked toilet paper in a pond of pale-yellow, was my blue G-2. I froze. It felt like a panicked for a few minutes, but really my mind raced for a few nano-seconds before i dove in, with my pants just above my knees and retrieved the pen with the tips of my fingers and tossed it in the trash, freaked out, turned to the sink and scrubbed the shit out of my hands. As i finished putting myself together, i walked to the trash can and stood over my trusty blue G-2. I was a bit saddened that i had to let him go, but there was no way i was going to be able to touch him again. I couldn't ever look at him the same. He had to be humiliated, having been soaked in my urine. The other pens would taunt him, "PEE PEN! PEE PEN! YELLOW AND BLUE MAKE GREEN!" There was no other choice. I covered him with my used paper towels and walked out.

Back at my desk, i opened my bottom drawer and retreived a brand new G-2 and placed him next to the red and black ones and promised them all that i would never put them into my back pocket. Ever.

*After having swine flu, all i can think about are people's hands and where they've been. They've coughed into them, rubbed their eyes or picked at their nose.

A host of contradictions.

That's me. I'm full of them. It comes out in me daily. And i remember clearly when this was pointed out to me because i knew there was no denying it.

For instance, when i had short-spikey or "dikey" hair, i met this chic and we started hanging out because we thought each other interesting and fun. So there i am with my dikey hair, my tattooed arms, blaring Tool and sporting band tshirts when i invited her over to hang out at my apartment. She walks in and she's quite surprised to see my warm, neutral colors and my semi-tasteful floral-patterned bedspread that matches my shower curtain, the ivy strung out over here and my stand of plants over there.

"What were you expecting?" I ask.

"I don't know. Blood on the walls?"

She later discovered that this tattooed, seemingly badass chic still called her parents "mommy" and "daddy" and visited them every Sunday. All of this was tampering with my image. But i really didn't care.

Another example-and this is my favorite-is when i dated IdentityCrisis. We dated for maybe six months before i broke up with him. Some time after that, it was revealed to me that he was bothered by the fact that we hadn't moved in together yet and he hated that we didn't even talk about it. I remember thinking, "Are you fucking kidding me? We only dated for six months! That's preposterous! Who does that?"

And then, Gangsta moves in to be my roommate. And within a few weeks, we were an "item." And now we're "together" or whatever. Despite the cirumstances that brought us together, it doesn't matter.

In the words of Larry David, "Whatever Works."

Good Morning, Day Number Two of the New Decade!

Hi! I don't know what you have in store for me in my thirties, but i'm anxious to get the ball rollin'. After all, thirty is the new twenty.

I hear a lot of people referring to 2009 negatively and how they can't wait to start the new year, expecting it will be better than the last. I can't say that i agree with them about 2009 sucking. 2009, for me personally, was excellent. Which is really to say that a lot of the things that went on in the world, hardly affected me on a personal level. I still have a job, thank goodness. And even though i took a huge ding in my 401k, i still have a 401k and an employer who contributes to it.

The best part of the last year was the development and fitting of my relationship with Gangsta. It's like i've spent years trying to put together a one-thousand-piece puzzle that has a blue-sky background and it is the last and hardest part of the puzzle. You take your time and try as many of the blue pieces as you can until viola! you find one that fits so that you can move forward to finishing the puzzle. It's always motivating, exciting and a nice relief when you find a piece that unquestionably and perfectly fits.

My puzzle piece and i spent the past year setting goals that we started tackling. A few were already accomplished before the year's end. And while our other goals will take over a year to finish, we'll be spending this new year working hard on them. (The guy wants to buy me a Lexus. Who am i to tell him no?)

So! Even though the past year was pretty high on my meter of good years, i must agree with everyone else that this new year will probably out-perform the last. Now, if you'll excuse me, there's still a half a bottle of Cabo Wabo on my counter and it looks lonely.

Final post of the decade.

Last post of the year.

I have a feeling that 2010 is going to be a year of many firsts for me. In fact i know it is. I will not disclose any of these firsts until (if/when) they occur. I'd hate to jinx myself of the upcoming vicissitudes.

I'm just sitting here at my desk awaiting for the return of my boss, relieving me of my duties for the rest of the year. When i do leave here, i'm assigned just a few errands to run before i can sit, relax and imbibe until my liver gives me the icksnay on the iquorlay.

I think most of us expect to ring in the new year feeling like they've been run over by a Waste Management truck. If you are one of these people, no driving. Please?