I feel like I can level with you people. Some of you I have known for over ten years. This is why I think I can come clean and let you know that I have been having major league ass problems. It got to the point where I was dreading every time I had to go number two because it was like pooping shards of hot glass, and that's no picnic - let me tell you. Pretty soon it started hurting when I was sitting down. I remember a long conference I had to sit through where I opted to stand up for the majority of it. Many probably speculated I was having back or knee issues. Nope. Try Major. League. Ass. Problems. Then other nights it would hurt when I was lying on my back trying to sleep. That is when I knew this thing was serious and wasn't going away.

Turns out I had what is called an anal fissure, or a small tear in the lining of the anus. You can read all about it this particularly nasty affliction with the link provided if you want, but I think I can best sum it up this way: You don't want it. I got a friend to watch Baby Noisewater while I went to the doctor because at 1 and a half years old, he is getting a little too old to be in the same room seeing a man peering into and probing around his daddy's butthole. I would hate later in his life for someone to ask what his first memory was and that to be his answer.

I like my butt doctor. I figure you have to be a guy with a good sense of humor, and someone who can  easily put someone at ease because patients coming in there, if they're anything like me, are scared and miserable. He asked me to get in one of those robes and he would be right back. I asked if I could clean house a little back there before he was going to be taking a look, and he said, "Honestly, it's an occupational hazard at this point. You wouldn't clean the trash cans before the garbage man came, would you?" I really do like this fella. If you need a butt guy, I know the guy.

So the procedure he recommended is injecting botox into my anus. That's right, friends. I had botox done. I asked if they could use any remaining botox and squirt a little into my forehead, with a different needle of course. You never go ass to forehead. They couldn't do that for me. But, I will say that when everything starts to get old and wrinkly on me, my anus will remain pulled tight and smooth all around like the highest quality imported, Italian leather.

Believe it or not, one has to be put under for this procedure. I remember being wheeled into the surgery room, and one lady saying,

"Whoah! Almost forgot (insert major important term I've forgotten here). Jeez. Hello! Haha."

And then,

"Okay, Mr. Noisewater. Now count down from 10 . . ."

I remember thinking:

"No! Wait! I don't think this gal is functioning at her Sunday best today if she is forgetting things. And she thinks it's funny? This is my ass we're talking about here! Can I get someone else up in here. I'm so sleepy . . ."

Is this problem I have been dealing with any excuse for taking a month off of blogging? No. Not at all. I could have typed standing up just fine. I'll get back in the game more regularly because this was helpful getting this off my chest and sharing this embarrASSing situation with you fine folks. Gotta run. I'm on a vacation from work, spending time with Baby Noisewater all week, and we have a music class in a minute. I keep him very active and engaged, so I'm grateful to have this rear end issue all straightened out. Take care of your butts, my friends.

the cast period

this post and a a bunch to follow will be in all lower case with minimum characters (shift buttons are not easy for me these days) and with a lot of typos because this cast on my hand is messing up my blog functioning.  it's cool though because this will be known as the 'cast period' when i'm studied in blogging courses at universities some day, or more likely in case profiling for nut-jobs. 

i think i mentioned in a previous post that this is a kickball injury.  yes, the game we played in recess as a kid.  yes, the ball is big and mushy, so there is no logical answer for how i could manage to hurt myself other than i'm a fragile wuss of a man.

knowing that i would have to get surgery on the finger monday morning, screwing up most physical activity for just about the whole summer, i decided to soak up as much beach volleyball time as possible sunday afternoon by lake michigan in chicago.  volleyball on sundays in the summertime for me is like church to people who go to that sort of thing - people with beliefs and a moral compass.  volleyball is one of the first things i think about when i think of chicago summers, and my whole week is out of whack if i don't get out there.  that being said, i was geeked to get onto the beach, and only an hour or so in, a giant storm comes out of nowhere.  it got suddenly dark with insane winds, all the seagulls were getting the f' out of there in a hurry, and a voice comes over the p.a. telling us to do the same.

oats and i sought refuge by his place for a while and put on the cubs home game to watch for when they pulled the tarp to play ball as a means of gauging when the storm was going to blow over, which it eventually did in a couple of hours.  so i'm hauling balls on my bike back to the beach on the lakeshore drive bike path, and when i'm almost to our courts, this middle aged man i'm about to pass suddenly decides that he needs to do a u-turn right into oncoming traffic without looking.  i actually reasoned in my head that i had zero time to avoid this and just braced for impact, t-boning him, knocking us both off our bikes.  he kept asking if i was okay, and i told him i was - but only to get away from him without swearing at him.  then he asked if my bike was all right, and i saw the chain hanging off and the front tire knocked flat.  still, i said i was fine and locked the thing up to get a few games in before fixing it at the boathouse up the road.

because the back tire still had air, i just flipped it upright and literally ran to the bike shop barefoot.  on my way i heard a squak and felt a shot to the back of my head and immediately knew it was that asshole bird who dive-bombs the back of people's heads.  i wrote a post about him years ago, but i'm too lazy to provide you with a link.  the point is that this was just not a good day for me.  then the bike guy tells me that the wheel is all screwed up and it cost me around 70 bucks.  guess i should have taken the idiot who hit me straight to the shop instead of jumping right into a few rounds of v-ball, but i was sort of in shock and very pissed.

when i got into the shower that night i found some very gnarly bruises and then found a few more scrubbing up before surgery this morning.  i had to tell the doctors where all t he damage was so no one could think or claim that  some whacky stuff went down during the operation. 

this stupid injury is very annoying to me because i'm an extremely active person, and there are very few types of exercise i can do.  also, at my summer job i need to handle things quickly and efficiently (like dealing with each customer for around 12 seconds), which i love, but it's going to be a pisser with this thing on me.  however, the way i see it, there are people in the world with afflictions far worse than this, and many of them had much more critical surgeries down the hall from me this very morning.  as for work, i remember a girl i worked with years ago doing the same job with very little use of one hand, and that was permanent.

it has just been a bad couple of days so i wanted to get it down onto the page, even if i have it more in perspective now.  thanks for listening if you have made it this far into this whopper-long post.  and here's a pic of edward .44 magnum hand, and yeah, i have eyes.  that's just my trademark here at the the gancer:

have gun, will travel - and write corny captions.

Ball Lift

I was talking with my special lady-friend (LSD), and we were wondering if there is a cosmetic surgery for old guys with old, saggy balls. I mean, you could lift and tuck just about anything else, so why not an unsightly, wrinkly scrotal sack?

Does such a thing exist? To the internet! . . .

Well, I found some of the grossest pictures of all time. If they're really trying to sell these surgeries, couldn't they find some better looking penises? Holy crap fart! If you want to get a look, and you don't, here's a link. One surgery is to correct penoscrotal webbing, or turkeynecking. Yuck!

I'm having a hard time finding this, and I can't stand to read any more things about knives in and around male genitals. I know it has to exist because you figure dudes like Hugh Hefner have corrected their grandpa nuts, right?

Hey, Seven Readers, sorry about this post. I'll try to have something less gross when I post again tomorrow or the next day . . .