This is my follow-up book to the dreadfully unsuccessful “No Doorway Wide Enough”. It’s all new material in book form – not a scrap of recycled material or filler – except, perhaps, in the stock paper. I have no control over that. So leave me alone about it.
What we have here, gentle reader is a series of essays about some of the non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. This is not an educational book. This is not meant to teach you a damn thing about Parkinson’s disease. In fact, if you find yourself accidentally LEARNING something, I want you to march right back to the book counter and demand a refund… unless you got this online, which you probably did, in which case … if you used a debit card, you’re screwed. May as well read it anyway.
No, dear reader, this is just me living my life and telling you about the results. Where “No Doorway Wide Enough” was a telling of what I call my “Parkinson’s decade” – from diagnosis in 2000 to my volunteering for experimental brain surgery in 2007 to the decline of the last couple years – this book is intended to amuse and astound, to entertain and enchant, to show you that it doesn’t matter how big the challenge is, it can be overcome with a sense of humor. Or other such bullshit.
If you start “feeling sorry” for me… PUT THE BOOK DOWN! That’s not what it’s for. This book is about my life as a guy with Parkinson’s disease and the other stuff that annoys me. So not everything in here will have something to do with PD. There will be some politics of the liberal variety (and if you don’t like that, blame the Parkinson’s for making me crazy). There may be some complaining about the way people behave, or pushing and shoving in the stores. I may have a thing or two to say about how my dogs seem to think they RUN the damn place.
(Right now, for instance, my black border collie Raven heard something outside and barked. I pointed at her and said, “I’ll pound you!” She smiled and walked into the kitchen so I could scratch her butt. Such FEAR I inspire.)
So, as was the case with the woefully unsuccessful (but really very funny and you should still buy it if you like funny books about diseases – and who the hell doesn’t?) “No Doorway Wide Enough,” this book is about how to maintain a sense of humor when it seems like you are losing everything else.
There is no cure for Parkinson’s. But it can’t affect the human spirit – unless you allow it to.
Now, if you’re looking at one of those “preview panel” things on one of those darn online booksellers, quit farting around and buy the damn book.
“Having been some days in preparation, a splendid time is guaranteed for all!”
(Yes, yes, I know. That was a lyric from “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” from the Sgt. Pepper Album by the Beatles. Get off my back about it, or I swear, I’ll pull this car over right now and… well… you don’t want to know!)
