Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede by Bradley Denton

Posted in Barb, Brad, Daily Life, Dammit!, Health and Safety, Steve 5 Comments Oliver Vale Rides AgainĪt middayÂ on Friday, June 19 th, 1987, while en route to a convention in Minnesota, Barb and I stopped in Clear Lake, Iowa. Lesson Learned:Â Â Make one mistake, and you pay for it the rest of your life. True Fact:Â Â Throughout 2009, the first picture that popped up in a Google Images search for “Bradley Denton” was a photo of me kissing Steve Gould. True Fact:Â Â My friends arenâ€™t half-bad, either. True Fact:Â I have an amazing spouse who always has my back despite the fact that Iâ€™m a foul-tempered old crank whoâ€™s addicted to cookies.

Â Or November.Â Or December.Â This seems to indicate that Hollywood is a merry prankster as well. True Facts:Â The movie did not begin filming in October. Lesson Learned:Â Not really a big fan of merry pranksters, here. True Fact:Â Â On the same day that a doctor first said the word “lymphoma” to me, I received an email telling me that the movie version of my second novel would begin filming in October.Â This coincidence seems to indicate that God is a merry prankster.

Lessons Learned:Â Â Drugs are good.Â But so are cookies. Â Afterward, however, I was given a snack. True Facts:Â Â During both my endoscopy and colonoscopy, I was given a wonderful “twilight” anesthesia that made me forget the most uncomfortable and unpleasant parts of the procedures.Â But I was given no “twilight” during my bone-marrow biopsy, so I remember every undignified second of it. Lessons Learned:Â Â As I already suspected from my own personal habits, “indolent” is not a bad thing.Â Barring meteor strikes or other accidents, then, Iâ€™ll probably live more-or-less normally for many more years.Â Iâ€™ll just have to regard my body as if it were a suspiciously unattended package at the airport. True Facts:Â Â In June, I was diagnosed with small lymphocytic lymphoma / chronic lymphocytic leukemia.Â SLL/CLL progresses slowly and is considered indolent.Â So rather than start treatment, Iâ€™m engaged in “watchful waiting.” Â Here, then, are a few 2009 True Facts and the lessons Iâ€™ve taken from them:

Nevertheless, I think I learned a few things in 2009 that may serve me well in 2010, especially if I retain the backup option of hiding under the covers. 2009 was a banner year here at Casa Ramrod, assuming that the banner said “Mission Accomplished” in a font called “Clueless Irony.”Â (Yes, I know.

Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede by Bradley Denton