It has been a hard week. I'm down to the last supper before my surgery at 5am. Today the doctors laid out all the different things they are going to cut and splice and paste out, onto, and into me. I still feel eminently lucky to be here at this amazing hospital and am thankful for the dedication and ability of  these people, but I am a little scared as I get closer to the reality of the thing. 

I have learned a lot about dining out in Houston this week- Houston has become a much better food town in the past few years and we have had some truly memorable meals here in preparation for a month of taking food in through a little plastic tube that will run into my nose and down to my stomach. 

Today a nurse wrote on my skin "this side" so they would cut me on the correct side of my neck. I was reminded of thirty years ago when I had big red squares on each side of my jaw to aim the radiation machines at, and when Stevie Ray Vaughn and Bobby Earl Smith saw me, they went upstairs at the Rome Inn and got red markers and drew big red boxes on their faces in solidarity with me after some asshole at the bar made fun of me.  I loved Stevie, he had a large, sweet heart. 

And, as Paul Bumgartner would always say, "And so we go..."

See you on the other side!

Peace and Love,

Joe Gracey, Jr.