Thurs., Feb. 25

Yaaa… My appointment today is at 9:45 PM. I’m working my way up the food chain, or rather, up the seniority list.

I decided to venture out and go to the grocery store. That’s not to say I haven’t gone before, it just says that I’ve not driven the car. I generally walk about 2 miles each way (uphill in snow) to go to the store. Today the grocery store, tomorrow my laundry.

Today I decided to go on a real journey…. driving to Redlands which is about 5 miles away. I knew about where I was going because of the position of the Sun. I didn’t enter anything into the car GPS because I wanted to do it ‘Old School.‘ I hate that, but it happened to be the proper phrase. What that means is driving in the general direction of where you think something is supposed to be and hope that they really built it there. Realistically, I was never technically lost. I was just severely disoriented for inordinately extended periods of time having no idea where I’m going, but more important no idea how to get back to my starting point all the while maintaining a calm demeanor while [Yes, I will come to the end of this sentence soon.] trying not to perspire too much.

I made kind of a small (very small)promise to myself to not buy a bunch of junk food while I’m down here. No, I really did. You know, eat good food like oatmeal, carrots, dried fruit, oranges, and stuff like that. When I was at the store I did buy a bag of potato chips though. I figured they were OK because they were called ‘Guilt Free Potato Chips.’ Really. They must be nutritionally good because there was a line of rather obviously experienced potato chip eating people trying to make off with the last few bags. I managed to snag the last bag when I brought to their attention that there was a really famous movie star right behind them. It worked, can you believe it?

I can’t wait to tell my grandkids about driving when I was a kid. “We had paper maps when I was a kid. Yep, real paper. We didn’t have a GPS or any of that other fancy stuff. We had to depend on our own initiative and natural direction finding abilities to get around. If things got really tough, meaning lost for more than 4 or 5 days, we’d actually use the map.”

Men do this for more than just macho bravado. They don't it for something as shallow thing as trying to impress a woman. If we did use the map it would expose another of our tender underbellies. It would show a major physiological deficiency that we do not like to admit to. Women can point out many genes that are missing and if we did this it would just give women another way to show our ineptitude. Men lack a map-folding gene. Once a man unfolds a map to consult it, he can never fold it back as it's supposed to be again. The only cure is to buy another map and keep it in a very secure place.

On a serious note: There are about 250-280 patients going through the Proton Treatment daily. The four gantries operate from 6 AM until 11 PM. Much like a 7-11 Mini Mart, but in this case all the customers have their clothes off and there’s definitely no chips and soda. We really don’t have much interchange with other patients because of how well it’s all scheduled, and really who wants to have a conversation with a bunch of other naked guys?

Generally the conversations go something like this; “Wow, you’ve had 37 treatments? So, you’re a senior, huh?” Or, “Oh, you’re a patient here too, huh? “How many treatments so far?” Six. “Hey, that’s the same as me. Oh, yeh, you were at the orientation meeting. I didn’t recognize you without any clothes on.”

It’s one place when they tell you to “relax” you have to concentrate really hard to relax. When they say “pucker up,” you can bet, you ain’t gonna get a kiss. (Actually, they don’t say that, I just made that part up.)