This is looking back a bit now, but I wanted to comment on how mean-spirited and pragmatically pro-me many of you are. When we first sent out the email with the general announcement of my diagnosis, there was a response that, to be honest, shocked and moved me. I mean, c'mon, I'm a bit of an ass, I know that. Sure, I have probably moved you somewhere in your life with my truck, but it isn't like I'm remembering birthdays and showing up at Christenings with flowers and fudge.
But there are those of you out there who seem to have a fondness for me. And, more to my point here, to have less fondness for others.
I'll get to the point; a lot of you suggested that there were better candidates for cancer than me. Not just "too bad this happened to you" but more like "Why you? I can think of so many people I would rather hear got cancer than you. I am thinking of some of them now. I am picturing one of them, right now, bald. I am flatly angry that they do not have cancer and you, in fact, do. This pisses me off."
Mild-mannered people. Sometimes distant friends or relatives. Close friends. But a lot of you--and you should be proud, I think--clearly got an image in your minds of some poor schmuck you would have, if allowed by the Fates, hit with the cancer that was headed my way.
Past presidents--obviously. Wall Street--more general but still appreciated. Bosses. Exes. And just general numbers you did not reveal to me but--in your syntax and word choice--you made it clear you had firmly in mind as a better repository for these mutant cells.
So thank you. You warm my curmudgeonly cockles with your own hard-hearted preference of me. That's the kind of love I can really get around.
