Amazing.

Those of you who know me well know my distaste for the rampant overuse of the word “amazing.”

“Oh my god these fucking cupcakes are AMAZING!”

Shut up, no they’re not.  Unless they were baked with strains of wheat re-engineered from samples of 20,000 year old pre-Mesopotamian DNA– then they might be amazing.  Or, if they magically appeared in your hands in a giant poof of glittery chocolatey smoke right at the instant you thought to yourself that you kinda wanted a cupcake– those cupcakes would be literally amazing.

Somebody asked me recently if a piece of pizza or something I had in my mouth was amazing, and I dickishly responded “Sorry, I have really high standards for ‘amazing.’  The Grand Canyon?  That’s amazing.  Still being alive after three years with brain cancer– THAT is amazing.  The pizza?  It’s delicious.  It’s not amazing.”

I actually said that.  What a dick.

So when I realized a few minutes ago that three years ago — exactly three years ago today — I was in Hong Kong and I had just survived brain surgery and I posted my first entry on this blog, I made note of this on Facebook (because Facebook was the one who’d reminded me.  [And this is the last kind thing you’ll hear me say about Facebook this year]).

And what was the first response I got?  The very first response, within seconds?

“Amazing.”

Amazing!

When I saw this comment appear, I actually laughed out loud.  I don’t know if Nick wrote this on purpose because he knows about my dickish Take-It-Easy-On-Amazing crusade, but either way, he’s right.  (He’s literally correct.)

Three years with brain cancer is amazing.

Three years!  With brain cancer!

Time really flies when you’re being alive.