I have no idea why I ordered six packages of fine egg noodles.

Hey. Good morning! It’s a few minutes past 8 a.m., Sam is in the study watching videos on YouTube, and I just finished one of my all-time favorite breakfasts … canned Hormel Beef Tamales with a side order of pitted Greek Kalamata olives in a teeny bowl. I suppose I should write my official product review now in case there are other senior citizens wondering what they should eat today.

China City had the gall to shut down on day one of the Coronavirus pandemic.

It’s a fresh, new day here at Howdygram headquarters. Today is Saturday, just a few minutes past “high noon,” Sam is asleep on the sofa, the weather outside is dark and depressing — no sunshine? what the fuck! — and I’m enjoying raspberry green tea and ordering tasty shit from Amazon. Because that’s what I do when I’m bored.

I’m having horrible diabetic neuropathy issues in my feet today.

Hello, guys. It’s the wee hours of Monday morning — 12:40 a.m., in case you’re interested — and I’m still trying to figure out what happened to Saturday and Sunday. Sam tells me that I slept through nearly all of it, with the exception of a 15-minute visit from my new hospice case manager (an R.N. named Nancy) around noon on Saturday. I don’t remember much about Nancy except she had good hair.

Oh my God, people … I’m so sick of Coronavirus news I want to SCREAM.

Oy, you’ll never believe what I just did. Never. Therefore I’ll begin tonight’s Howdygram post with one of my favorite topics!

There’s more to this story than pain.

I wanted to write a post several days ago but haven’t been awake long enough to string any meaningful sentences together. I do have lots to say, though, so I’ll try to take a stab at this. Get comfortable and pour yourself a glass of iced tea.

Sam thinks the key to my knee pain is the inclement weather we’re expecting.

Yo, everybody. Obviously it’s been a while since my last Howdygram post — almost six days! — and that’s because I’ve been so fucking MISERABLE. For instance, I’m struggling with: 1) such intense joint pain that I can barely move my arms, legs, knees, feet or ankles; 2) urinary tract spasms every time I pee, even without a catheter; 3) tremors in my hands, wrists and fingers and mouth that make it difficult to type or even talk; and 4) sleeping for eight to 14 hours at a time, multiple times every day. Believe it or not, I haven’t seen daylight for almost a whole week, because I’m typically awake all night and finally conk out before sun-up every morning. Last week I even slept through more than one C.N.A. visit (I get a bath every day) and my Friday appointment with a hospice R.N. named Rachel!

I really want to leave behind something of myself that’s profound and memorable.

To those of you who don’t know me very well, I’ve been writing for a long, long time. I started in grammar school with short stories and my own series of comic strips with crappy illustrations. (I was never very good at illustrations.) Later I moved on to poetry, longer stories, an autobiography titled Memoir of an Escaped Dental Patient (1999) and a cookbook called The Anorexic Gourmet (2002). I’ve also published countless screwy newsletters — anybody remember Popular Manure? — and the Howdygram made its debut when Sam and I moved to Texas in 2007.

Please hold a good thought for Sam. I think he’s getting sick.

Hi-de-ho, everybody. It’s 9:25 p.m. Wednesday night — the shank of evening! — but Sam is already in bed. How come? He doesn’t feel well! He was sniffling and coughing today and said he felt unusually tired, so about half an hour ago he decided to toddle off to bed for some uninterrupted sleep. I’m fine out here in the family room. I’ve got a big glass of pink lemonade and a burst of creative energy to work on the Howdygram. All’s well, but please hold a good thought for Sam. I don’t want my caregiver to get sick!

Nasal difficulties.

Hello, and happy Wednesday night to you and yours. I’ve had a rough day, so in case you’re interested I think I’ll begin with a comprehensive list of complaints.

It almost feels like we’re getting a whole new house. Woo-hoo!

Hi, people … I’m back! It’s been a whole week since my last post, and that’s due to: 1) a bunch of very shitty health issues; 2) requiring an inordinate amount of sleep; and 3) concentrating on a variety of creative projects in-between sleeping and vomiting. I’ll elucidate for you below. Thank you.

My life is certainly a whirlwind of fun and frivolity, isn’t it?

Sam and I had a rather blah Sunday. He’s been bored and cranky from the triple-digit heat — and the fact that you can’t go anywhere that involves parking your car in the sun — and I’m feeling achy and crappy even though we enjoyed a nice little bowl of chili for dinner (Sam and I always love a nice little bowl of chili) and watched one of our most cherished classic movies, Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen (1950), which we hadn’t seen for an awfully long time. Rather than delete The African Queen, though, I think I’ll save it in the “Keepers” folder on our DVR because I don’t want to wait another 10 years before I see it again.

I have a huge announcement: I just finished dinner.

I’m having a fidgety, uncomfortable and moderately miserable day today. At the moment my complaints include insane swings between burning hot feet and chills, body aches, crappy mentally ill skin (simultaneously fiery hot, ice cold, itchy and shitty … don’t ask!) all over my back, and — here’s the weird one — THE ROOF OF MY MOUTH IS ITCHY! According to WebMD that last one is probably from an allergy or a yeast infection. Since I already know I’ve got both, the cause is probably a toss-up. I’m a mess.

My new Mac OS is working out well, thank you. Except I don’t understand “the cloud.”

Good Thursday morning, y’all, and HAPPY BELATED WINTER SOLSTICE! Yesterday was an astronomical phenomenon with the shortest period of daylight hours and the longest night of the year, something that means almost nothing to me whatsoever as I’m a housebound old coot with mobility issues and have no fucks left to give about an extra 15 minutes of daylight. Last night I tried to weasel Sam into staying awake for an all-nighter with a few of the classic Christmas movies stored on our DVR, such as: Christmas in Connecticut (1945) starring Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan; The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) starring Bette Davis and Monty Woolley; Meet Me in St. Louis (1945) starring Judy Garland; and The Shop Around the Corner (1940) starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. (I hang onto these all year round in case I need a dose of ho-ho-ho. No kidding.) However, Sam didn’t take the bait so we wound up with The Lost World (1960) starring Claude Rains and Jill St. John. I love my life!

My summer activity schedule: Eat, watch a movie, fall asleep, repeat.

Happy Sunday to you and yours from Howdygram headquarters! With yoooge pride and delight I’d like to announce that I’M FINALLY ON A NORMAL SLEEP SCHEDULE, having officially conked out last night at 11:30 p.m. and waking this morning at 7. Even better, after a decent amount of really solid sleep I would also like to announce that my knees feel fine, I have no neuropathy pain whatsoever, and — best of all — I get to eat leftover Chinese for breakfast today! With a plastic fork!

Unless your grandfather was an actual farmer I don’t really understand the appeal of a barnyard wedding.

I wanted to write a Howdygram post yesterday but I was overwhelmed by many other things to do. These included: 1) designing two dozen very classsy coffee mugs for The Howdygram Store; 2) napping; 3) watching half of “Deadliest Catch” with Sam because we both fell asleep; and 4) I can’t think of anything else.

My left foot hurts when I walk, talk, pish and breathe. It even hurts when I eat.

This was one of the worst weekends EVER for me, pain-wise. I don’t usually start two back-to-back posts with the same section and graphic, but this time I had no other choice. Mostly I think I’m having a severe neuropathy attack — does something like this even exist? — which has made me FUCKING MISERABLE. It’s my left foot, primarily: 1) two screaming toes; 2) the arch of my foot; and 3) the entire heel, all to the extent that it hurts when I sit, it hurts when I stand, and it hurts when I walk, talk, pish and breathe. And holy shit, it even hurts when I eat!

Screaming toes are ruining my life.

It’s 7:45 Thursday morning, and I’m already having another nasty pain day today as evidenced by my official Shit-O-Meter readout (see below). The current problem is HEEL PAIN and SCREAMING TOES due to diabetic peripheral neuropathy in my left foot. If you already have miserable neuropathy pain sitting down, try to imagine what this shit feels like when you stand up and walk! I’m taking extra pain pills whenever nobody’s looking. (Kindly keep your mouth shut about this. Thank you.)

Hey ... did you miss me?

I apologize sincerely if you’ve been hanging out in cyberspace, depressed, despondent and desperately waiting for my next Howdygram post. The fact is, I got caught up in a variety of other activities that required my attention but didn’t involve typing, which I’ll list for you below in neat, subtitled paragraphs. (I have a fondness for neat, subtitled paragraphs.) Thank you.

I deserve a Chipotle burrito for dinner tonight.

Know what? I’m a nervous wreck and I’M SICK TO DEATH OF POLITICS. For the last 48 hours I’ve been unsubscribing from email lists and backing away from national news websites. I don’t want to read any more about Donald Trump’s asshole V.P. picks, his feuds, his idiotic conspiracy theories and his stupid fucking rampages on Twitter. No kidding, I’M DONE WITH THIS. And I don’t want any local news in the Howdygram, either, unless it’s some home-grown bullshit here in Texas involving a fight at the Waffle House or a couple of Einsteins trying to drive off with a Wells Fargo ATM machine.

I didn’t think I wanted to write a Howdygram post tonight, but I lied.

Okay, so here’s the thing. In an effort to take a brief break from politics I didn’t think I wanted to write a Howdygram post tonight but — surprise! surprise! — I just changed my mind at the very last minute. It’s 11:23 p.m. and I’ll just keep on typing until my brain runs out of bullshit. (Actually, that could take a while.)