90 Days, Rat Bastards, and an Alaska Cruise: Notes From the Edge of Good News // Blog Entry 58

Another filthy 90-day checkpoint has staggered into view like a drunken moose wandering across the highway at 2 a.m.—all wild eyes, bad intentions, and absolutely no respect for civilized traffic patterns. Against all odds, and much to my genuine delight, the results came back negative again. Not “pretty good.” Not “encouraging.” Negative. In the twisted arithmetic of modern medicine, they call that “good news,” but to hell with understatement—I consider it magnificent news. The kind of news that deserves loud music, bad decisions, and at least one stiff drink before noon.

The rat bastard charlie has once again declined to make an unwelcome appearance. No telegrams from the underworld. No smoke signals from the pathology lab. No grim-faced phone calls asking me if I’m “available to discuss the findings.” Just another quarter-turn around the sun with my internal organs still operating somewhere within factory specifications. 

 Like I said before, I’ve stopped letting this damned sword of Damocles swing over every waking minute of my life. There comes a point where you either laugh at the monster lurking in the basement or you spend your remaining years curled up in a recliner chewing antacids and reading survival statistics written by joyless cemetery clerks in lab coats. That road leads nowhere worth going. 

So now it’s merely another milestone. Two full 90-day increments stacked up like empty whiskey bottles on a motel dresser somewhere outside Reno. Ugly, maybe, but still evidence of survival. 

Of course, every increment cuts both ways. The longer this streak holds, the better the prognosis gets—and simultaneously the louder that dark little voice in the back of my skull starts whispering that the rat bastard could come crashing back through the wall at any moment wearing brass knuckles, mirrored sunglasses, and a fake grin. That’s the bargain nobody tells you about. You don’t really defeat the beast. You just convince it to wander off and terrorize somebody else for a while. 

In the meantime, life continues barreling forward with all the grace and stability of a carnival ride assembled by fugitives using duct tape, old bolts, and blind optimism. This month is especially packed because an Alaska cruise looms on the horizon—a floating monument to excess, elastic waistbands, and questionable liver management. Four days in Wasilla before the ship even leaves port, followed by seven glorious days of “all-you-can-drink,” which veteran cruise survivors know actually translates to “far more alcohol than any responsible mammal should attempt to process.” 

Still, cruise-ship civilization has its charms. There are no laws requiring a man to wake up early, wear structured pants, or delay cocktails until some morally acceptable hour. Breakfast simply begins whenever you decide the first Bloody Mary counts as a fruit serving. If a man wants bourbon at 9 a.m. while staring at glaciers the size of office buildings, who exactly is going to stop him? Certainly not the cruise staff. They’ve seen far worse. 

 I’m actually entering this expedition in reasonably good shape. The new goat fencing appears to be holding, which frankly feels like a greater engineering accomplishment than most NASA projects. Those four-legged anarchists have now spent an entire week incarcerated without successfully unleashing their usual campaign of destruction, sabotage, and psychological warfare. No overturned troughs. No shattered gates. No midnight escape attempts. No demonic screaming sessions at sunrise that sound like Satan himself getting electrocuted in a dumpster. 

 Frankly, the silence is unsettling. Goats do not surrender quietly. They plot. They organize. They stare at you through the fence with the calculating patience of prison inmates planning a riot. I fully expect they are engineering something catastrophic even now, but thankfully the dog sitter will not be tasked with trying to wrangle those devils in the evening or release them in the morning. That burden remains mine alone, as nature intended. 

By the time I return, I assume the grass will have reached baling height and the property will look like an abandoned roadside zoo after a minor flood. But that is tomorrow’s problem. Right now I’m honestly pumped for a solid week with my drinking buddies where the primary daily responsibility is simply managing to stumble back to the cabin each night without falling overboard or accidentally joining a Canadian fishing crew. 

 And who knows—I might even take a moment between cocktails and reckless storytelling to actually look at the scenery. Alaska has a nasty habit of humbling people. Somewhere between the glaciers, the mountains, and those endless black pine forests, a man can almost forget his medical charts, his deadlines, and the various beasts stalking him from the shadows. 

At least until the next filthy 90-day checkpoint rolls around again like a crooked carnival inspector demanding another ticket. Piss on it,

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

The Scab, the Sword, and the Whiskey: Notes from a Man Refusing to Be Ruled

 

Well, somewhere between the last nerve-frayed gasp of tax season and a questionable pour of bottom-shelf whiskey, I was struck—ambushed, really—by one of those rare and twitchy epiphanies. Not the usual roadside panic where a pair of headlights detonates your remaining retina and sends your pulse into a jackhammer frenzy. No sir. This one crept in quieter… like a lawyer with bad intentions or a tax auditor with a flashlight and a grudge. 

Just a realization. Cold. Clinical. Uninvited. 

It came on the heels of Tax Day—the annual ritual where otherwise sane citizens willingly march into psychological warfare with the federal beast. I stress, of course. Any man who claims he doesn’t is either lying or already sharing a bunk with a snoring, cabbage-scented behemoth named Bubba in the gray-bar hotel. And I have no intention of becoming anyone’s cellblock folklore. 

After the first battle with charlie, I had been enjoying a rare and exquisite freedom—loose, unstructured, borderline irresponsible. The kind of freedom that smells like cut grass, spilled bourbon, and mild disregard for consequences. But then… the thought. The why of it all. That ugly little parasite burrowed in and started chewing on the wiring.

Why indeed? 

Because looming over it all, like some cursed relic dangling by a frayed thread, is the ongoing war with that rat bastard charlie. A ridiculous, drawn-out saga that has no business occupying this much real estate in a man’s skull. Yet there it hangs—the Sword of Damocles, rusted and spiteful—interfering with life, liberty, and my god-given pursuit of something resembling happiness.

Well, to hell with that. 

I’ve made a decision—a bold, reckless pivot back toward sanity. Or at least a version of it I can tolerate. The filthy business with charlie is hereby shoved onto the back burner, where it can simmer, hiss, and occasionally belch smoke without ruining the whole kitchen. If warranted, I will post the occasional updates and comment on any absurdities. And why am I taking this new course of action? 

Because there are more pressing matters at hand. 

Grass that needs mowing. Trees that require trimming. Whiskey that absolutely refuses to drink itself. A life—ragged, imperfect, but still very much alive—waiting to be lived at full throttle. There’s a dog here who regards me as some kind of infallible war hero, and a small herd of goats who wouldn’t cross the street for me if I were on fire. A balanced ecosystem, really. 

Sure, the financial anxieties will still circle like buzzards. And the eternal struggle to keep Amazon from draining my bank account like a Vegas slot machine—that battle rages on. But I refuse to let it define the terrain. 

I’m returning to my natural state: footloose, half-feral, and operating on instinct like a former Marine with a chipped moral compass and a taste for chaos. Meet the challenges head-on, damn the fallout, and sort the wreckage later. That’s the code. Always has been. 

Now, let’s be clear—I am not surrendering the fight against that rat bastard charlie. Not by a long shot. The war continues. But I’m done letting it poison the air I breathe. The wound has scabbed over now—ugly, maybe, but functional. Insulated. No longer bleeding into every waking moment. 

Time will tell how it all shakes out. It always does. 

So we watch. We wait. We pour another drink. 

And if you’re out there reading this, do me a favor—raise a glass to the madness, the freedom, and the stubborn refusal to let the bastards grind you down. 

Cheers, you beautiful degenerates. We got a life to live. 

 

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

Fear and Filing in April

 

A brief, fragile respite in the great grinding machinery of existence… the kind of calm that feels suspicious, like the eye of a hurricane that’s merely pausing to take aim.

 Now don’t get me wrong—the relentless 90-day carousel of scans, tests, needles, and clinical jargon already weighs heavy on the conscious mind. It’s a slow, methodical siege. But that… that is a different breed of stress. Clinical. Measured. Almost polite in its brutality.

No… there is nothing—and I mean nothing—like the unholy, gut-churning panic that comes roaring in every April.

Yes. Him.

The tax man.

The Grim Reaper’s twitchy, underpaid little brother—armed not with a scythe, but with forms, codes, and a bloodthirsty affection for decimals. He doesn’t creep in quietly. No, he storms the gates like a deranged carnival barker hopped up on bad coffee and worse intentions, screaming about deadlines and penalties while juggling flaming 1099s.

One moment you’re enjoying life—blissfully ignorant—and the next it’s three days left. Three days to assemble an entire year’s worth of financial debris: crumpled receipts, half-legible statements, mysterious transactions that look suspiciously like crimes even when they aren’t.

And then begins the ritual.

Quantifying. Calculating. Justifying. A medieval sweatshop of the mind, straight out of Ebenezer Scrooge’s more sadistic years. Bent over the desk, eyes twitching, trying to decode instructions so arcane they may as well have been carved into stone tablets by a committee of malicious wizards.

The rules? Byzantine.

The regulations? Sadistic.

The law? A shifting, shape-shifting beast that punishes hesitation and devours the careless.

Make a mistake? Oh, they’ll let you know. Maybe it’s money—the hard-earned green stuff you cling to like oxygen. Or maybe, if you’ve truly offended the sacred order, they start throwing around words like penalties… audits… incarceration. Because nothing says “civil society” quite like the looming possibility of jail time over a misplaced decimal.

And here’s the kicker—the real punchline in this cosmic joke:

I find myself far more stressed by this annual bureaucratic bloodsport than by the ongoing medical trials… the scans, the uncertainty, the ongoing hunt for that rat bastard charlie lurking in the shadows of my biology.

That’s right. The tax man outpaces disease in sheer psychological terror.

But then—miracle of miracles—it ends.

I gathered the last tattered remnants of my financial life and shipped them off to the CPA like a desperate man tossing evidence overboard. A few loose ends dangled briefly—minor mysteries, quickly resolved—and then… silence.

Done.

Filed.

Over.

And in that moment, something extraordinary happened.

Peace.

Real, tangible peace settled over me like a heavy, reassuring blanket. My body unclenched. My mind stopped screaming. I slept—truly slept—for the first time in what felt like ages. Not the restless half-conscious drifting of a hunted man, but deep, restorative, almost holy sleep.

The sleep of the innocent.

The sleep of a taxpayer who beat the clock.

Now, I’ve got about 30 days before the next round of scans begins—the sequel in the ongoing saga: The Search for the Rat Bastard charlie, Part II. That storm is coming. It always is.

But the real monster? The loud, obnoxious, paper-shuffling demon of April?

He’s been pushed back.

Banished—for now.

Until April 2027… when that insufferable, number-obsessed brother-in-law of death comes pounding on the door again, grinning like he owns the place. Until then, I’ll take the victory of completing the task, that and some vodka . . .

 

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

After Action Report // SITREP 3-24 // Blog Entry #55

Well, of course it went exactly as expected—which is to say, with a faint whiff of bureaucratic dread and antiseptic doom hanging in the air like a bad omen you can’t quite shake.

I arrived at the dermatology outpost ahead of schedule—early, because the Marine Corps burned that particular paranoia into my bones: if you’re not early, you’re already dead or wrong, but definitely late.. No middle ground. No mercy. So there I was, planted in the waiting room like a suspicious package, marinating in fluorescent lighting and regret.

Thirty minutes passed. Or maybe it was thirty years. Time behaves strangely in those places—stretches, warps, crawls into your skull and sets up camp. I sat surrounded by a small convention of ancient war survivors and sunburnt philosophers—old geezers with skin like leather saddlebags and eyes that had clearly seen things the rest of us were lucky enough to avoid. A gallery of cautionary tales.

Finally, my name was called—dragged out of the void by a voice that had long since given up caring.

I surged forward like a man being summoned for judgment.

A short march followed: two right turns, one left—standard maze tactics, probably designed to disorient the patient and soften resistance. I was delivered to Room 8, which had all the charm of an interrogation chamber disguised as a medical facility.

Instructions were issued with clinical indifference: strip down to skivvies, don the ceremonial gown—the kind that leaves your backside flapping in the breeze like a surrender flag. A fine tradition. Keeps you humble. Keeps you compliant.

Then came the waiting. Again.

The first practitioner entered, gave me a once-over like I was a used vehicle with questionable mileage. And the gown? Useless. First order: ditch it. So there I stood—half-naked under the cold tyranny of overhead lights—while this stranger inspected my mortal coil.

She left. Of course she did. Had to fetch the real authority.

Moments later, that doctor arrived—trailing a med student like a junior reporter on assignment to witness the slow unraveling of a civilian. Now we’re up to three sets of eyes. A full panel. Apparently my skin required a committee review. After all, I am good looking.

They poked, prodded, examined. Whispered things in low tones like they were discussing crop yields or minor weather patterns.

Good news, they said: most of the dark spots are “normal.” Wisdom spots. That’s what they called them. Which is rich, considering the ongoing evidence that wisdom has yet to make a meaningful appearance in my decision-making process.

Still, I nodded like a man accepting praise he didn’t earn.

Then came the verdict: “You’re looking good… but we want to see you every 120 days.” Translation—you belong to us now.

And just to seal the deal—let’s freeze that little spot on the bridge of your nose.

Right there. Center mass. The bullseye of the human face.

No ceremony. No countdown. Just cold, clinical violence—zap—like a tiny arctic ambush. I could practically hear the skin surrender.

And just like that, it was done. Branded. Marked. Initiated into the dermatological herd.

Stamped and processed.

Another citizen processed through the great machine of preventative maintenance.

So I walked out into the daylight, nose tingling, dignity slightly dented, carrying the faint realization that the system has its hooks in me now.

And I suppose… there’s only one thing left to do.

Lean into it.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

Looking out for number one

 

 

Not another day, not another dollar—no, that clean little slogan has no jurisdiction here. In this corner of existence, we measure time in appointments, in waiting rooms that smell faintly of antiseptic and quiet dread. Calendars don’t flip—they accumulate. And this week, the tally stands at two. Two scheduled encounters with the modern priesthood of white coats and calibrated concern.

Today’s event: the freckle check.

A deceptively cheerful name for what is, in reality, a full-scale reconnaissance mission against the possibility that the infamous rat bastard charlie—the internal saboteur, the cellular anarchist—might be staging a quiet insurgency somewhere on the skin. And not just anywhere. We’re talking about skin—the largest organ, a sprawling frontier of flesh stretched out like contested territory. Acres of it. Too much real estate to patrol with any confidence.

And so we go in.

There is, I’ve found, nothing quite so efficient at dismantling the illusion of dignity as the clinical ritual of disrobing under fluorescent lights while a stranger conducts a slow, methodical inspection of your mortal casing. You stand there—naked, vulnerable, and suddenly very aware of gravity—as someone half your age and twice as composed circles you like a biologist studying a mildly interesting specimen.

And of course—of course—the practitioner this time is young. Alarmingly young. And female. The universe has a twisted sense of humor when it comes to these things. One of the great truths of medical trouble is this: dignity is the first casualty. It doesn’t fade—it vanishes. One minute you have it, the next you’re holding a paper gown together like a failed conspiracy.

Still, this is the price of vigilance.

With any luck, the verdict will come back clean—no suspicious outposts, no need for freezing, burning, slicing, or any of the medieval remedies dressed up in modern terminology. Best-case scenario: a nod, a polite smile, and a “see you next time.”

But I’m no fool. I expect the usual hedge. A few “areas of interest.” Some “nothing urgent, but let’s keep an eye on it” nonsense. A gentle reminder that the war is ongoing, and the enemy has a habit of hiding in plain sight.

And truth be told—I’m fine with that. My oncologist is a cautious man, and caution has kept me in the game this long. If he wants to sweep every inch of the perimeter for signs of trouble, I’ll stand there under the lights and let him.

So now we wait.

Six hours from now, I’ll have a verdict—clean bill or a fresh list of minor grievances to address in due time. Either way, the wheels keep turning.

In the meantime—pour something reckless, brace yourself, and as I like to say . . .

 

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler