A McDonald’s cheeseburger was the first solid food I’d eaten in eight days. (Oy.)

Hi-de-ho, dear readers, and welcome to the Howdygram.

I’m not feeling well at all right now. Not at all.

Hey. It’s 9 p.m. Saturday night, I just woke up from a nine-hour nap, and I have to tell you what’s been going on around here. Howdygram headquarters has been a regular “hotbed” of activity!

I keep myself entertained with composition and high-speed typing.

Happy Saturday afternoon from Howdygram headquarters. Sam is taking a nap, so this is a great opportunity to work on my favorite hobby — the Howdygram! — and keep myself entertained with composition and high-speed typing. Welcome!

Fevers can be fatal for diabetic senior citizens.

I’m not posting very often any more. This time it’s been a combination of physical ills and emotional drain. I guess I’m just not too happy, and this is affecting damn near everything.

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!

There’s no end to the entertainment possibilities around here.

In case you haven’t noticed, I made a few changes to the Howdygram’s banner! They are: 1) the logo is smaller; 2) the black outline is heavier; and 3) I’m using a different font for the tagline (“Made in Texas,” etc.) and a slightly larger point size.

Please keep an eye out for 2,000 pounds of contaminated ground beef.

This has been a very confusing day … completely upside-down. Here are the issues I’ve been dealing with, in case you give a crap.

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.

If you want to remember the Alamo, please feel free to do so … as often as possible.

Hey, boys and girls … it’s a few minutes before 5 a.m. on Friday morning, Sam is in bed, and I thought it might be fun to launch a fresh Howdygram post at this screwy hour because I just ran out of ideas for greeting cards and there really isn’t anything else to do. I’d also like to throw in some free fonts.

I’ve got a long list of physical complaints and life-threatening hoo-hahs.

Hello. It’s a quiet January afternoon, I just finished a bath and hygiene session with my hospice C.N.A., and I’m feeling fresh and peaceful even though most of the time my life is fraught with health-related chaos.

Achy, Poopy, Droopy, Drippy, Crappy, Pishy and Blecch. Meet the new Seven Dwarfs!

I’m unwell. That’s a perfect word to describe the overall condition of my health! It’s early Saturday afternoon, and I’ve been unwell all day today. After a 14-hour nap: 1) I’m freezing cold and shivering; 2) my muscles and joints are killing me; 3) my arms are so stiff I can barely move them; 4) I can’t stop peeing; 5) I ache; 6) I’ve got a recurring case of indigestion and zero appetite; 7) my hair, head and neck are soaking wet from the aftermath of an apparently substantial fever; and 8) I can’t think of anything else, and I don’t want to. (My head hurts.)

Please remember Harry and Meghan in your thoughts and prayers.

Holy mother of crap … ANOTHER LOST DAY. It seems that I fell asleep this morning, shortly after a very early breakfast, and woke up at 8:45 p.m., barely an hour ago … feeling limp, lethargic and LOUSY.

“Klatu birata nikto, dude!”

MONDAY, 1/6/2020, 9:42 P.M. Hello, hello, hello. (Hello!) It’s 9:42 p.m. on Monday night, Sam is napping on the sofa, and we’ve been watching a favorite science fiction classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) starring Patricia Neal, Michael Rennie and Gort.

Everybody knows it’s against the law to eat Greek olives without bread.

Mind if I whine for a few minutes? During the last couple of weeks I’ve had far too many diabetic hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) episodes. I know my symptoms well: 1) I get sweaty and clammy; 2) I’m hot; 3) my skin feels like I’m burning up with fever; 4) I feel dizzy and lightheaded; 5) my blood pressure gets very high; 6) I think I’m going to faint; 7) I have the “shakes”; and 8) I crave sugar. (Symptoms #2, #3 and #5 are new to the list.)

I think Wal-Mart and Costco were ransacked over the holidays.

So. It’s late Thursday night, Sam is napping, and I’m lying here like a slug trying to decide what I want to eat whenever Sam wakes up because I’m really, really hungry. (Correction: I’m really, really STARVING.) Tonight my bedtime snack possibilities include: 1) a can of baked beans; 2) Jif peanut butter and a plastic spoon; 3) two sugar-free almond cookies with milk; and 4) Great Value chicken noodle soup with a bag of Miracle Rice. This afternoon I received a six-pack of Miracle Rice — a zero-carb, 10-calorie rice replacement — that I ordered from Amazon a couple of days ago. I love this shit!