Category: The Black List

• Order!
• Have some housekeeping this morning.
• Corrections, more like.
• First, it was a ’70-and-a-half Camaro, not a ’71.
• Second, I left out a ’69 Impala, “The Whale.”
• Ahem.
• We’re here today because I ended up making a list in my journal with an ink pen this morning while I drank my coffee.
• Unintended. Unavoidable.
• I’ve been writing Thank You cards this week.
• You people have blown my mind.
• Joyce, thank you for the quilt.
• I’m going to keep dropping in minor Brain updates.
• You’ll get tired of it.
• But here’s the thing.
• The crazy surgery with the crazy scar?
• It was a biopsy.
• Yeah, they removed some of the mass, but there’s still a lot in there.
• It’s wrapped around my optical nerve, my jugular vein.
• It’s in my sinus cavity.
• They can’t just go in and scoop it all out.
• They have it narrowed down to two things, and it’s a chicken-and-egg situation.
• There’s a pathogen in there that infects a cell and then coats it in slow growing fibrous tissue.
• Then there’s the immune system response, which includes massive inflammation, which is where all the pain has come from.
• They have to tackle both of these things.
• The crazy antibiotics I’m on (two, btw) attack the pathogen.
• There’s an immune-suppressant treatment coming for the other, which I assume is infusions.
• We have done all these Mayo trips to get to the treatment part, to rule out cancer.
• To have a path.
• We’re on the path.
• Imma keep on with life because … Do Not Go Gentle.
• And I’ll get back to not talking about it.
• Hardwired.
• But when it pops up, well, the War is ongoing.
• Right now, I’m sitting on the couch with Kaia, Return of the Jedi playing on the TV because I’m waiting on Steph to watch Andor and did not want to waste cycles thinking about what to put on.
• Kaia’s informed me tomorrow is “Donut Day.”
• Who am I to argue with that?
• It does mean I have to get my ass up and drive to the donut store at 7 a.m. or we’ll miss out on the good stuff.
• Her order: donut holes and … whatever.
• Used to be glazed and chocolate.
• Now there’s a maple bar thrown in there.
• Maybe a “pink” one.
• The other day, she was craving a cinnamon roll … in the afternoon.
• You can’t just go get a good cinnamon roll any old time.
• And really, there are just two places in Tulsa to get them:
• 1) Blue Moon
• 2) The Savoy
• We keep trying them other places, but …
• Blue Moon, man.
• That’s still my favorite breakfast place in town.
• Not even close.
• Been craving it for months at this point.
• (Awkward segue)
• Cory, what ink pens are you talking about?
• Well, guys, I’m talking about the Everyman Grafton Pen.
• I traipsed around the edge of that whole “everyday carry” man movement.
• Knives, pens, bags … I dunno, it’s weird, but there are multiple subreddits dedicated to it.
• I settled on one knife, and this one pen.
• Because I can refill the pen with a Pilot G-2.
• The Graftons are heavy, but they feel right in my hand.
• You people still write by hand, right?
• Also, you can do the Jason Bourne stuff with the Grafton.
• The year before the Pandemic, we started journaling as a family.
• I realized if I wanted to reread anything I needed to change my handwriting.
• I bailed on cursive in seventh grade and always wrote with this weird hybrid print/cursive thing ever after.
• It sucked.
• So I switched to something closer to architect writing you’d see on a blueprint.
• It’s not that clean, but it’s a helluva lot better than it was.
• I’m weird, man.
• What you want?
• Back in Vollertsen’s creative writing class, he had us get a subscription to Harper’s, and my favorite part of it was the Harper’s Index at the back.
• Which was … an entire List of facts.
• The seeds of my current nonsense were planted in the ‘90s.
• God, the Ewoks suck.
• George got tricked by business.
• Catering to the children.
• Cut all that Ewok shit out of Jedi and you might have something closer to Empire.
• Even as a kid, I did not need militant teddy bears added to my space wizardry.
• In those years, it was all about the ships, the blasters, the lightsabers, and the gd Jedi mindtricks.
• The Force.
• Standing in my bedroom trying to move one of my two action figures with my mind.
• …
• You know you did it.
• Next week, we’re getting into G.I. Joe and Snake Eyes.
• I’ve said this before, but that first season of Stranger Things … that was my junior high crew.
• We could be the Goonies.
• I have enough stories to fill a book.
• I don’t write them because my memory is not the same as everyone else’s, and those are not stories I want to defile.
• My memory is for shit is what I’m saying.
• Still.
• Nostalgia’s trying to inhibit my brain function.
• Or it’s my current coping mechanism.
• Whichever.
• This has gone on long enough.
• It’s one of the last three or four beautiful non-scorching days until Fall.
• Get out there.
• Get off the couch.
• All I’m cleared to do currently is walk, so … I guess I’ll go for a walk in the pockets full of sunshine.
• With a hat.
• So I don’t scare the neighborhood kids.

I got that Ewok pic from a Google Search. Looks like someone’s dog was photoshopped/AI’d into an ewok costume. I do not claim credit for the pic, nor am I making any money from using it. I didn’t want to look that hard for a photo, and that was the path of least resistance. Though I did have to change the file name to jpg. Freaking internet.