Hey, it’s me, LB, trying to get a firmer grasp on a lesson I may have learned too late:
Nah, it’s okay. Because it’s never too late.
LYMI, LB
Tag: “Happy as Larry” Brody
Why Think When You Can Feel?
…And the above is how I’m feeling right now. Not only for Gwen the Beautiful (and of course Layla the Very Determined Ninja Lab), but about everyone who’s taken the time to ask how I’m doing or wish me well.
LYMI, LB
“How’re you feeling, LB? Everything all right?”
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about my health and activities lately, and last Monday I made what turned out to be a feeble attempt to answer them.
By which I mean I added a note to the bottom of my post of part three of Look, Ma!,”Gravity City” Interviews Larry Brody, failing to consider that some friends, family, and other caring people might not have as much interest in the interview as I do.
Turns out the stats for that particular post indicate that a whole lot of people didn’t have much interest, so for those of you who’ve been concerned – and believe you me, I appreciate all the concern to the point of being overwhelmed by it, here’s a slightly edited version of what the note had to say:
A few things in my life have changed over the past several months, and since we’re all buds here, I figure it’s time to risk the dread TMI and fill everyone in.
As many of you have noticed, I’ve had to take TVWriter™ offline and drop all my teaching/mentoring/consulting for health reasons, specifically the return of my prostate cancer (last heard from and regarded by the doctors as gone three years ago) and the accompanying further treatment and surgery.
Cryosurgery, to be exact. An interesting technique involving freezing the cancer cells and thereby sending them to their doom. I went under the medical ice cream scoop (well, I can’t exactly call it a knife), the last week in October, and as of this writing the prognosis is very good, with all the cancer cells previously identified by a new combo PET/CT scan technique not merely gone, but gone, gone, gone, glory hallelujah.
As I write this, I’m feeling pretty damn fine, even though the surgical recovery process is still ongoing. My good spirits for the most part are due to the fact that after 5 weeks of being annoyingly – and sometimes quite painfully – ensconced in the place that catheters traditionally inhabit in situations like mine, my catheter has at last been removed and I can now do exciting things like shower and touch myself and live pretty lead a normal day.
Except for the exercise and dog walking that have defined my normal days for most of my adult life. They’re more limited now but are returning slowly but surely to the excitingly obsessive excess that has characterized pretty much everything I do.
Posting this info (and the interview it originally accompanied) has been a fun way of celebrating my new situation, and know what? It’s even better than all the chocolate birthday cake with pink frosting I’ve been eating for the past few days.
Well, almost better. You know how it is.
Thanks for caring!
LYMI
LB
Happy as Larry!
Received a get well card earlier this week from a friend who surprised me by saying:
Get well soon! We need our Larry to be as happy as Larry again!
I thought that was a weird phrase so of course I asked everyone’s good buddy Google about it. Turns out that once upon a time this was a common phrase in the UK. Here’s just a part of what LiteraryDevices.Com had to say:
The phrase “as happy as Larry” means a very happy person. The phrase is most suitable for the person who always remains happy, laughs a lot even when the things are not in their favor. Also, the phrase is used as a simile to compare a person’s happiness.
Phrases.Org.UK goes into more detail, explaining that the first literary use of “as happy as Larry” “is from the New Zealand writer G. L. Meredith, dating from 1875 or so: ‘We would be as happy as Larry if it were not for the rats’.”
I’m grateful to both sources for informing me that the phrase probably originated in Australia and was based on one (or, perhaps, both) of the following:
- An Australian boxer named Larry Foley (1847-1917), who, depending on the storyteller, was happy because he never lost a fight, or because he won a purse of £1,000 in his last bout
- The Cornish/Australian/New Zealand word “larrikin,” used as slang for someone who enjoyed “larking about”
As someone who has indeed enjoyed larking about, I’m partial to the second explanation. But I also feel honored by the comparison to such a fine figure of a man as the historical Larry Foley, who clearly was my kind of guy, as shown in my brand new signature icon here:
LYMI, LB