Writing and a flashback

The new year's going great! New office, new projects and even a partial erection! Well ..... better than where I was. Is everyone aware of Pandora. I know. My "discovery" of things is often after everyone else has moved on to something even better. But this is a pretty cool website where I get to listen to music I like streamed in to my computer so I can listen in the office. (Another good thing for me this year!)

One thing I've learned to do is not try to force out a disgusting fart. Seems that the prostate must help that superhighway disperse the forces into the right areas. After many failed tries, I can tell you that a small urine patch is very visible in worn out jeans - and not very impressive. Oh yeah, and if you're hanging with five (now almost six) year olds, they call you on it very loudly wherever you are...Sorry about that Shoprite lady....

Interesting getting back in the gym at work. I mention work specifically because if I work out at the gym near home, I wait until I go home to shower. At work at 7:00 when I shower, there are a few other guys around and the look a six inch bright red scar going from my navel to my penis is a little unique. People get a little flustered when I notice and then just explain I had my prostate out to eliminate the cancer I had the joy of confronting a few month ago. There is another reason not to be looking at other guys in the shower....

Not much else going on. I volunteered to help other folks with cancer reach the catharsis of expressing themselves through a pretty cool program at MSKCC. The program's called Visible Ink, and encourages folks to use writing as a way of sorting through a pretty difficult situation. I've been doing that for years! Shit, when I was 16 I remember sitting at a dark black formica-covered bar in my parents' basement with mice running around in the ceiling and Fleetwood Mac on the turntable in the humungo Capehart home entertainment center and filling half my black marble notebook with a single expletive aimed squarely at my parents.

I wrote, because venting my frustration aloud, would have meant a quick trip to either the hospital or dentist cause my father would have beaten my lily white ass. He never was much one for self-control. The wood-filler in the middle of my sister's bedroom door, from when he chased her the 15 feet from the kitchen to her room and meeting the door my sister had wisely closed and locked, put his fist through the door. I don't remember what he told guests when they inquired as to the origin of the hole. But we knew. Lucky it was the door and not one of us...

But I digress..

For me, those notebooks I filled were like having a free analyst. Eventually, thoughts became less monosylabic and my writing improved. I guess since I eventually secured a job as a technical writer and won a few awards even before I had an undergraduate degree. A job which, by the way, helped me gain school credit for accomplishments and saved me three classes - about a semester when you are also working full time.

I hope that helping others to express themselves gives them some of the same perspective it gave me then and still provides...