12 of 12

"12 of 12" is a cool concept developed by Chad. On the 12th of every month you take 12 pictures to show how you spent your day. I've been meaning to do it for a couple of months now but always forget about it until the 13th. This month it just happened to be the day the family gathered to celebrate my Dad and Sister's birthdays so I already had a reason to snap some pics. (Their birthdays aren't the same day, we just consolidate and have a big gathering).

(Click pics to embiggen)


8:25am. Asheville, NC. My reminder to do "12 of 12" this month.


12:19pm. Black Mountain, NC. On I-40 East heading towards my parent's house for the birthday festivities.


1:11pm. Hickory, NC. Success! Arriving at their house.


1:12pm. Hickory, NC. I'm greeted by my niece, nephew, and mother at the front door.


1:14pm. Hickory, NC. Just in time for way too much mom-cooked food (it was all delicious, Ma).


3:11pm. Hickory, NC. My niece is going as "Belle" from Beauty and the Beast for Halloween this year and had to model the dress for me.


4:00pm. Hickory, NC. We spent most of the afternoon outside since it was a gorgeous Fall day. Here are the kids riding their bikes and big wheels.


5:24pm. Hickory, NC. It's become a family tradition to have balloons at every birthday gathering, and at some point before the day is over we go outside and release them into the sky and watch as they float away. I had the white one this time.


6:16pm. Hickory, NC. Mom's flowers are still looking pretty good. They probably only have a few more weeks before the cold weather gets them though.


6:23pm. Hickory, NC. Taken by my 4½ year old niece. She has a good eye for detail.


6:36pm. Hickory, NC. Sun's starting to set, almost time to go home.


7:17pm. Morganton, NC (or thereabouts). On I-40 West headed back home. Not a bad day at all.

Another Dream

I've been having this odd recurring dream for the last few weeks. I don't have it every night but it keeps popping up every few days. It happened again last night.

In it I'm walking along a dirt path about the width of a road, and there are puddles of water scattered around it. The puddles are pretty big but they're not very deep. I go from one to another and I kneel down and place my right hand in the water for a few minutes. The heat from my hand warms the water enough to purify it somehow. I usually only do one puddle per dream so it ends as I'm standing up and getting ready to move on to the next. It's a very cool dream and I always wake up feeling good after I have one.

Last night's was a tad different. I warmed a puddle and moved to the side of the path to do another, only this one's water was almost dried up and was a milky stagnant color. There was only enough water to get my fingers wet in it, and it wouldn't heat up. I'll have to try to remember it's a dream the next time it happens and see if I can look around a bit.

Max Patch

I went on a bit of an outing this morning. A friend and I drove up to Max Patch. It was my first time on a "bald" (grass-covered treeless peak) and also my first time setting foot on the Appalachian Trail, but it will not be my last.

The place is simply stunning. A complete 360° view from the top, and the morning was crystal clear and crisp and that made the view even better. It's been described as a "Sound of Music" type place and that fits it perfectly. A twirling Julie Andrews singing to the hills would not have been out of place at all.



The pics I took of the trip can be found here.

Anyone who is ever close to it should definitely take the time to stop and see it. The parking area is at the base of the bald and it's just a short walk to the top; not strenuous by any means. I can't wait to go back.

Trashy Neighbors

I seem to be attracting the worst neighbors. The younger girl who lives next to me is at it again. She's had trash piled up outside her front door for about a week now. There's so much of it this time that several bags have toppled down her steps. I haven't seen her car parked in the lot since she put it there. And the nice clean, empty dumpster is mere yards away.

At least the woman who moved in below me seems to be fairly normal and quiet. So far.

Pisgah

I went hiking up to the top of Mt. Pisgah early yesterday afternoon. The sign at the trailhead says it's "steep in spots" which, in my opinion, is a gross understatement. Most of the trail books I've seen list it as a "moderate" hike but the rockiness of the path, especially near the summit, makes it a bit tougher than average.

The almost 360° view from the top is well worth it though, and yesterday was a nice crisp day which made for some spectacular shots. There's a radio/tv tower that blocks part of the view and an observation platform at the top which ends up being a nice little social area for people to chit-chat after the climb.



The trees are starting to change a bit at that elevation, hopefully it'll be a nice leaf year.

Dreaming

I rarely remember my dreams, so I've started trying to record the ones that happen to still be in my memory when I wake up. One of those happened last night. It's not a particularly odd and/or disturbing one this time.

I was with a friend (I don’t know which one) in what felt like a courtroom type of setting. It wasn’t an actual courtroom, but there was a definite feel of my side vs. their side type of thing going on. I was on one side of the room with my friend (it feels like my sister?) and she was arguing about something with a woman and man on the “other side” of the room.

My sister (it’s definitely her, I can tell that now) has just said something about religion and marriage and the woman is responding to her. That’s when I chime in with my opinion. I don’t remember the specifics of everything that’s being said, but the woman says something about Jesus not renewing someone’s marriage, thus proving her point (don’t know what her point was or if the “renewing” thing is in the Bible anywhere). My response has something to do with “reality” and how it’s perceived differently by everyone, which silences the woman and proves her wrong somehow.

I wake up.

It's pretty easy to connect things to the waking world in this one:

I've recently been called for jury duty (I go the end of this month), so there's the courtroom, us vs. them thing.

I began reviewing our Policy Manual at work yesterday and found several inconsistencies concerning our equal opportunity and discrimination policies. And I have a history of pointing out religious overtones in the workplace with Human Resources. So the equal rights/keep religious opinion to yourself thing is fresh on my mind. It also reinforces the us vs. them image of the room I was in.

I also began re-reading a book on Toltec Wisdom last night, and the chapter I read concerned how we all live in our own reality and have others’ realities pushed onto us from the time we’re born. What we choose to accept and add to our own reality depends on us and no one else. I’ve started the book before but never finished it as it didn’t seem to do anything for me.

Pretty cool how the mind sorts everything out and puts it all into a nice little sketch for me to act out while I'm asleep.

Walkin

I did something today that I haven't done in over a year: I went walking in the woods. I scanned through my pics on Flickr and it looks like the last time I did that was back on July 13 of last year (I went down to Brevard with a friend and walked around looking at waterfalls and possible camping spots). I went camping almost a year ago today, but after that I pretty much stopped going outside completely.

I went to the Blue Ridge Parkway today and stopped at the French Broad River Bridge and walked north on the Mountains to Sea Trail. I ended up out there for about 35 minutes. It was nice to be in the woods again.

Labor Day Hermit

Labor Day Weekend 2008 has come and gone, and how did I spend it? I spent about 30 minutes on Saturday to at the grocery store and then did the same today, otherwise I went through the entire 3 days sealed away inside the apartment.

I didn't even set foot outside at all on Sunday.

I keep doing this; pulling farther and farther into myself and avoiding contact with everyone. Am I really that scared of everything?

Treefall

The remnants of Hurricane Fay have been rolling through here for the last 2 days and they've dumped a huge load of rainfall on us. We've been in bad drought conditions for a few years now so we need all the rain we can get, but this much this fast is starting to cause a few problems.

Last night around 9:00pm I heard a loud crash from outside and knew that another tree had fallen. Sure enough, the large tree that's been leaning badly for years now came crashing down. Luckily it didn't hit any of the apartment buildings, people, or cars but it has managed to block off the lower parking lot.



Some guys were here about 30 minutes ago with a chainsaw, but they left soon afterwards without doing anything noticeable. I think they may have underestimated the size of the tree and have hopefully gone to get something bigger than the single, small chainsaw they brought.

Update:
The guys finally got the tree "cleared" around noon. They had to call in some local guys with longer, more powerful chainsaws to cut through the trunk. They got it sliced up and rolled out of the driveway so we can get in and out. 'Course they didn't clear it away or anything, this is Candler after all. I predict it'll be here for at least another month before they do anything else.

The Mondays

Today was a bad day. Not because of anything that happened though, it was basically my attitude that made the day suck. I woke up this morning and did not want to be around anyone. I wanted to be left alone and not interact with people whatsoever. And I can't think of any particular reason for it either; it was just one of those days. I didn't want to speak to anyone; I didn't want to deal with anything; I wanted to sit at home and be pissy about everything and nothing.

But of course it was a Monday, and the weekly meeting I have to sit through at 9:00am ran longer than normal. Sitting in a hot, stuffy room listening to people drone on about things that have absolutely nothing to do with my job for 2 hours didn't really improve my mood much either. And it only got worse from there.

By the end of the day I had exhausted everything I could find to complain about and started getting mad at myself for being so pissy to begin with and ruining my day.

Of course now that the day's over I can see how silly it all was, and if I'd only made myself change my attitude first thing this morning I would have had a much nicer day. I'll try that next time, but every now and then it feels kind of good to have a pissy day. Gets it out of my system in one big burst.

A Week Ago

Well it’s been a week now since I lost the Shelbster, and I’m slowly adjusting to her not being there. I don’t think you truly realize how much a part of your life your pet is until they’re not there anymore. I find myself still talking to her like I used to do and I still expect to see her sitting in her favorite spots around the house when I turn around or enter a room. I haven’t collected up her stuff and packed it away yet (toys, bowls, leash, etc.) since I’m not quite ready to remove her completely from the place. Like everything else the time for that will come when it comes, and I’m not in a hurry for it to happen yet.

The biggest adjustment so far has been going to sleep at night. She always slept in the bed, so suddenly not having her there after 10 years has caused a bit of insomnia. Plus she always had to be touching me if she could, even if it was barely making contact at my feet. It comforted her and let her sleep better, and apparently it did the same for me too since I’ve found that I have problems going to sleep without it. I’ve co-opted a pillow from the couch to give me a physical “presence” in the bed, and it’s helped a lot, but I have a feeling it’s going to be a while before I really get used to an empty bed again.

My family and friends have been very supportive through it all since they know how big a part of me she was, and that’s helped quite a bit. I even got a nice card (hand-signed with well wishes) from the vet’s office early this week and it’s helped a lot as well.

This may sound odd as I’ve experienced the loss of loved ones before, but losing Shelbe has really made me realize how permanent death is and how quickly it happens. It’s not that I didn’t know that before now or that I’m saying her death was somehow more meaningful or important than anyone else’s. I think the difference for me now is that I’ve seen it happen. I held her head and watched as she was there one second, and the next she was gone forever. It wasn’t some big cosmic event with dramatic music playing or anything, it was simply a tiny instant in time when everything from her perspective and everything she was a part of simply ended. And that realization is having a rather profound effect on me.

Shelbe

“To own a dog is to know that one day, you will cry.” I read that quote once a long time ago and it describes perfectly the day I’ve just had. I don’t remember who said it, so I don’t know whom to give credit for it, but the truth in those few words hit me hard and often all day today.

For the last week or so Shelbe’s energy levels have been dropping and her appetite coming and going. Then on Sunday she stopped eating altogether and I noticed her breathing getting heavier. I took her to the vet on Monday and she spent the remainder of the week there. Her pancreas had basically shut down and her body was starting to get thrown out of whack because of it. The vet called me this morning and told me the situation, and I made The Decision. I scheduled the appointment later in the afternoon, and then went to be with her at the end.

After all she’s been through in the last two years I knew this time was coming, but that didn’t make any of it easier. But once they brought her into the room I knew The Decision was the right one. Her breathing was very labored and wheezing, and she barely had enough energy to hold up her head. I could tell she didn’t really know where she was or what was going on, but there was a glint of recognition in her eyes when she saw me, and I knew that she realized I was there with her. She laid her head in my hands and I scratched that special spot on her ear until she breathed out for the final time.



There have been a number of nicknames I’ve given Shelbe over the last decade (Shelbster, Shelbe-Dog, Baby Doll, Pretty Girl, Shelllbeee [said in a high-pitched droning voice], Shelbe-Lynn, Lil' Miss Shelbe-Dog, just to name a few), but the one I liked and used the most often was “Shelbe-Dog”. It rolled off the tongue easily and it always sent her tail into a wagging frenzy.

Thank you Shelbe-Dog, for the 10 years of life that you gracefully shared with me. Thank you for showing me the true meaning of unconditional love and happiness every day when I walked in the front door. Thank you for listening patiently to my rants, for making me laugh when I needed it, and for catching my tears without judgment when they fell.

Good night Shelbe-Dog. I’m going to miss you.
March 7, 1998 - August 14, 2008

An Anniversary, of Sorts

6 months ago today I was in the hospital. I was spending my 2nd evening there after being admitted hurriedly following a visit to the cardiologist for chest pains. I’d spent that day and the afternoon before speaking to numerous doctors, having all kinds of tests done, and eating some rather bland food (low salt, low fat). After all the doc conversations and tests, a diagnosis was reached and I was to be sent home the following day so we could start putting the plans to fix things into motion. Things like angioplasties & stents, MRIs & CAT scans, aneurysms & occluded arteries. And of course the possibility of more serious surgeries later in life when things get worse, which inevitably for me they will. And a lot of what was decided has already happened in the 6 months since then.

I’d like to say I lay there that night pondering deep meaningful things like life, health, and family. You know, the types of things you’re supposed to contemplate when a life-altering event happens and you come face-to-face with your own mortality. But I just don’t think like that, and don’t remember ever thinking that way. I spend my time disconnected from reality and everyone around me. It’s like I’m slightly out of phase with the rest of the world. Things happen to my body and in my life, but I’m not really there feeling any of it.

So instead of meditating on life and its meanings, I lay there with my mind a blank. I didn’t set new goals for myself and start myself down a path of renewed spirits, I was frustrated by the poor sound quality of the TV speakers in the room and pissed that there was nothing good to watch on a Friday night.

And here I sit half a year later on another Friday night. There’s still nothing good to watch on TV and I’m still floating around aimlessly as life happens to everyone else.

At least the sound quality’s a bit better though.

Wanna Feel Old?

Remember when this Nirvana album came out, way back in 1991?



Well here's that cute little baby now, age 17. And here's a link to a recent news article about him in case you want more info.




Where does the time go?

(pics courtesy of www.npr.org)

Screaming

Had an interesting morning today. I had the windows and patio door open enjoying the cool morning air when I heard this creepy, almost human screaming coming from outside. I've heard this sound before, but it's always been late at night when I'm out walking Shelbe and it's always been a lot further away. This time it sounded like it was right outside.

So I grabbed the camera and recorded a quick video of the sounds. You can't see anything in the video except the neighbor's back yard, but you can hear the sound quite clearly. It was echoing through the entire neighborhood so it was hard to ignore. It even had the local wildlife a bit upset; you can hear the sounds of the birds and several dogs going crazy in the background. Around the 0:10 and 0:58 sec marks you can hear The Shelbster grunt out a little bark too.

I checked around online a few weeks ago and I'm pretty sure it's the sound of a red fox screaming.

Shelbster

Figure it's time for an update on The Shelbster. Overall she still seems to be doing ok. Especially for a dog who was diagnosed with Cushing's Disease and diabetes almost 2 years ago. When I took her to the vet initially, he didn't think she'd survive the weekend since she had an extreme case of ketoacidosis from the unregulated diabetes. The worst case he'd ever seen, actually, and he had already given me the "talk" about making a hard decision that night. She pulled through it though and is still kicking. She's a tough little dog.

I have been noticing a few things with her lately however. Her appetite wavers occasionally, she'll have low blood-sugar from time to time (and all the fun symptoms that go with that), and she's started dragging her right hind-leg a bit when she walks. When I got home from work this afternoon she appeared to be having some problems with that leg and putting her full weight on it. After a few minutes of walking around it seemed to clear up though and appears to be fine now. Weakness in the hind-legs is a symptom of Cushing's though, so that combined with her arthritis may be what's causing her problems.

After discussing everything with the vet, loads of online research, and long hours of internal debating, I opted to leave the Cushing's untreated in her. And I don't regret that decision at all. Given her medical history and health at the time, that was the only choice I could make.

She has good days and not so good days, but the good ones far outnumber the bad and overall she seems to be doing as well as can be expected. And hopefully that'll continue for a long time.

[EDIT (12pm): All of the above is true, but I can't get the feeling out of my head that something's wrong. There haven't been any big warning signs, just little things like dragging her foot, so I shouldn't be concerned. Yet I am. I'm convinced she only has at most, days left. Why do I always look for the absolute worst possible outcome in everything?]

Books

I stopped by the bookstore after work today and picked two new ones...Ray Raphael's "Founding Myths", a book about the real stories behind some of our most famous tales from the Revolutionary War, and a book containing Thoreau's "Walden" and "Civil Disobedience", neither of which I've ever read. I can't believe it's taken me almost 40 years to get around to "Walden", and the "Founding Myths" book looks extremely interesting.

Big decisions to be made in the next few weeks. I'm hoping to get lost in these two books for a while to help me clear my head and make the right choices.

Catching Up

Yeah the updates have been spotty and I haven’t been here much. I’d like to say I’ve been busy outside enjoying the nice summer weather, but that’s not even remotely the case. The real reason is pure laziness. Maybe I’ll do better and keep things moving at a better pace.

MRI Results 1: My brain looks normal. Cool, I’m ok (but damn it, was hoping for a medical excuse for my lazy attitude and lack of goals). Diagnosis: get off my ass and stop looking for excuses.

MRI Results 2: I have an almost complete occlusion of my left subclavian artery with some retrograde flow, possibly from capillary feed and my left vertebral artery. Translation: the artery in my left arm is almost completely blocked off; there is some blood flow through other vessels, but not much. That’s why my left arm gets “tired” after 15-20mins of constant use and is weaker than my right. All of which I’ve known about since I was 12. Diagnosis: there isn’t much to be done unless it gets worse; then it will involve taking a piece of "extra" vein from my leg and using it in my shoulder to bypass the blockage.

The vascular surgeon was very cool and talked to me like a real, live person instead of an interesting case study. Plus, he’s a decent amateur photographer with some really cool shots of his hiking treks on his office walls.

It’s been chilly (in the 40s this morning, in June!) and raining a lot lately. I love it.

The annoyingly loud downstairs neighbors have finally moved out! Hopefully some sweet little old lady who doesn’t own a stereo capable of shaking the building at 7 o’clock on a Sunday morning will move in now.

I found out indirectly that my services will no longer be needed. Sucks that I wasn’t given the courtesy of being told directly, or even told why for that matter, but I had a feeling something was amiss from our interactions (or lack thereof). On the up side, large chunks of my free time are my own again and I don’t have to worry about holding my tongue about certain subjects anymore.

I finally saw “Iron Man” at the theatre. Holy shit, what a good movie. Much better than I ever expected it to be, especially since I don’ really care for Robert Downey Jr. By far the best movie I've seen at the theatre in a very long time.

Wonder if I'll find something to post tomorrow or if it'll be another week or so.

MRI

The MRIs I had originally scheduled on Friday of last week were postponed until yesterday. Apparently the machine I was supposed to be in would have messed with the stents (could have potentially moved them magnetically) so they had to put me in a different one. So it all went down yesterday instead.

I had two of them done, one to look at my brain and the other to look at the blood vessels in my neck. They wanted to check any kind of vessel narrowing and/or aneurysms that might be present. The whole procedure involved being inside the machine pictured below for 45 minutes to an hour. That looks like the exact model I was in, complete with the basket looking thing around my head to lock it in place. I'm very glad that I'm not claustrophobic because that little tube they slide you in is extremely cozy. I had a slight reaction to the contrast material they used (slight nausea and come chest tightness) but otherwise the procedure wasn't too bad.

I should hear from the doc in a day or two with the results. Hopefully it won't be too bad.

Doc Visit

Went to the doctor last week for a quick check-up. I was hoping to get some good stuff to take for the gout attack I’ve had for a week now, and wanted to talk to them about a few other things that have been happening. They gave me colchicine for the gout, which seems to have helped. I think it’s probably the most potent (legal) drug I’ve ever taken. The dosage instructions from the doc were: “Take 1 tablet every 1-2 hours until pain subsides or you get sick”. Colchicine not only helps alleviate gout but it’s also a pretty strong poison, so once you start showing signs of being ill (vomiting, nausea, the runs, etc.) you’d better stop taking it. The digoxin I took as a kid had some pretty dire effects if you took too much, but I think the colchicine is the first thing I’ve had with “death” in the list of possible overdose effects. It may have helped with the pain, but I think beaching myself on the couch and elevating the foot for 2 days helped out a bit too.

The other stuff I talked to them about had them a bit more worried though. I’ve been having more migraines lately, and they’ve started coming in clusters. I’ve typically had them one at a time and then they go away for a month or so. Lately though, they come back several days in a row. Also, I’ve had some numbness in my fingers first thing in the mornings and my left arm has been giving me some problems too. The fingers are a mystery to me, but the left arm isn’t. I’ve known since I was a kid that the main artery in my left arm is almost completely blocked (occluded, as the docs say). When I was younger, if I used the arm for 10-15mins it would start to weaken and get tired from the reduced blood flow. Over time my body adjusted though (increased capillary flow, higher blood pressure to carry blood through the occlusion, etc) and I haven’t had many problems with it in several years. Until recently.

The answer to all of it so far is, of course, more tests. I go in Friday afternoon for a series of MRIs on my brain, neck, and possibly my left arm. They want to check the blood flow and make sure there’s not some nasty occlusion or aneurysm lurking around in there somewhere causing everything. Should be a fun week.

Stuff

In the midst of a gout attack this morning and I'm taking the day off. This is the first real attack I've had in a while; the previous couple that I've had didn't involve a lot of pain and my foot didn't swell much. This one's excruciating and my left foot's swollen so much that I can't put a shoe on. Yesterday wasn't so bad, but it flared up big time last night and is bad this morning.

Anyway, I have the day off and finally updated some stuff. I went to my parents' house this past weekend for our Birthday Celebration. 5 of us all had birthdays in the last month (and 2 wedding anniversaries) so we got the family together and celebrated everything. Posted a few pics over on Flickr, but not many came out well. My camera's never taken good indoor photos, and lately they seem to be getting worse. Guess it's time for a new camera.

Entertain Me

I went to see The Strangers last night with a friend. Definitely not the best horror flick I've ever seen, but it was a fun movie to watch nonetheless. I knew going in that it wasn't going to be a heart-pounding kind of scary (for me anyway), but I went hoping the audience would at least be jumpy and entertain me. I wasn't disappointed...the theater was full of teenage girls so there was lots of screaming at all the scripted times (whenever there was a loud noise, when someone appeared in the background, etc.). The two girls directly in front of us were some of the worst screamers. They were annoyed at those of us who were laughing, but kept on screaming when cued. All in all a fun trip to the theater, but only because of the audience and not because of the movie.

I got back early in the evening and decided to begin watching what I predict to be my next addiction: Battlestar Galactica. You'd think that I'd have been all over this series from the second it aired, but for a host of unrelated reasons and bad timing I never was able to catch the beginning. It's been in my NetFlix line-up for a while but I hadn't got around to starting it until recently (was busy watching Deadwood, Weeds, Rescue Me, Queer as Folk, etc.). I made it through the mini-series last night am definitely hooked. I'll get started on the regular series today, and with my impressively sad TV watching ability, will probably be through all the shows in a few weeks. Hopefully I'll enjoy it as much as I think I will.

Fraternal Time

I had supper with my brother and sister-in-law last night. He's off on Wednesdays so they decided to drive up and visit the Biltmore House for the afternoon. They missed the prime blooming time for the spring gardens by a couple weeks, but there were still loads of flowers and plants blossoming so they still got to see oodles of nifty colors.

I met up with them at TGI Friday's since there's one nearby and we had a good time socializing. They have mentioned the possibility of moving to the Asheville area at some point in the near future so I think they were doing a bit of a scouting trip too. I think it would be cool to have them here, if they do eventually move up the mountain. I've never lived in the same city as a family member (not as an adult), so it would be kind of weird having a relative that close by. And I mean weird in a good way. It would be nice to be able to spend more time with them and my niece and nephew.

39

I've been 39 for a couple of days now and can't say I feel any changes from being 38. 'Course it doesn't usually sink in that I've had a birthday until the first time I have to answer the "How old are you?" question. And I've done this enough times to know that you don't magically feel differently just because a particular day of the year came and went.

At least not after you pass 25 or so. Younger than that and each birthday seems special somehow. I think it's because there are so many milestones when you're younger: starting school, hitting double digits, becoming a teenager, driving, high school, etc. After you hit 25 the only thing that's left is just endless years of aging; all the fun stuff's already happened. At least from the perspective of someone under 25, obviously.

I suppose I need to make this year memorable somehow though, as it's my final year in my 30's. I'll see what I can come up with.

Forgotten

We're having a staff meeting tomorrow at work, and they just sent around the notice for it a bit ago. It's one of those mandatory things that all employees have to attend, so you know it's going to be boring and probably be about something that's either going to be bureaucratic bullshit or some kind of policy change that is sure to upset someone. It's split up into 2 meetings to make the groups smaller, and is scheduled first thing in the morning.

I'm not listed on the schedule for either meeting. The lady who organized the meetings and sent out the memos about them said she forgot to put me on the list, but I'm free to attend either one I choose. Now normally I wouldn't really care about it; I'd make a joke or two about not having to go since my name wasn't on the schedule, and then forget about it. But this isn't the first time she's "forgotten" to include me in staff-related notices. It's not the 2nd time either. It's starting to become a pattern with her, and I'm beginning to worry about it. I'm probably overreacting about nothing, but I'm wondering if she has some kind of problem with me and is doing it on purpose.

I hate work drama.

Things I've done

I don't really have much going on right now and not a lot to talk about. So here's a list of stuff I saw on another blog.

In bold are things that I've done.
In italics are things I want to do.

1. Bought everyone in the pub/bar a drink
2. Climbed a mountain
3. Held a tarantula
4. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
5. Been in love
6. Broken someone's heart
7. Had my heart broken
8. Done a striptease
9. Bungee jumped
10. Watched a lightning storm at sea
11. Stayed up all night long, and watched the sun rise
12. Seen the Northern Lights
13. Gone to a huge sports game
14. Grown and eaten my own vegetables
15. Slept under the stars
16. Changed a baby's diaper
17. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
18. Watched a meteor shower
19. Gotten drunk on champagne
20. Given money to charity
21. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
22. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
23. Had a food fight
24. Bet on a winning horse
25. Taken a sick day when I wasn't ill
26. Had a snowball fight
27. Photocopied my butt or any other intimate body part
28. Held a lamb
29. Gone skinny dipping
30. Taken an ice cold shower
31. Seen a total eclipse
32. Ridden a roller coaster
33. Hit a home run
34. Been arrested
35. Visited all 50 states
36. Taken care of someone who was shit faced
37. Stolen a street/highway sign
38. Backpacked in Europe
39. Taken a road-trip
40. Taken a midnight walk on the beach
41. Gone sky diving
42. Milked a cow
43. Alphabetized my records/CDs
44. Sung karaoke
45. Lounged around in bed all day
46. Gone scuba diving
47. Danced in the rain
48. Gone to a drive-in theater
49. Started a business
50. Gotten married
51. Been in a movie
52. Crashed a party
53. Gotten divorced
54. Had sex at the office
55. Made cookies from scratch
56. Gotten a tattoo
57. Been on television
58. Had sex a public place
59. Got so drunk I don't remember anything
60. Recorded music
61. Had a one-night stand
62. Bought a house
63. Shaved or waxed off my pubic hair
64. Been on a cruise ship
65. Spoken more than one language fluently
66. Bounced a check
67. Called or written my Congressperson
68. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
69. Sung loudly by myself in the car
70. Written articles for a large publication
71. Piloted an airplane
72. Helped an animal give birth
73. Been fired or laid off from a job
74. Won money on a TV game show
75. Broken a bone
76. Ridden a motorcycle
77. Had a body part below the neck pierced
78. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
79. Ridden a horse
80. Had major surgery
81. Had sex on a moving train
82. Slept through an entire flight: takeoff, flight, and landing
83. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
84. Visited all 7 continents
85. Eaten sushi
86. Had my picture in the newspaper
87. Parasailed
88. Changed my name
89. Dyed my hair
90. Been a DJ

Blackberry Winter

The blackberries are starting to bloom again. And conveniently we're getting a nice little cold snap rolling through the area. It's dipping into the mid 40s this evening and low 40s tomorrow, which is a bit chilly for us this time of year. Especially since we've had a few weeks of temps in the 50s and 60s at night already.



This is what my granny always referred to as Blackberry Winter. Every year around the early part of May, the blackberry bushes start to bloom and we get a final bout of chilly weather before the temperatures begin to stay warmer at night. It usually happens after a few weeks of mild weather and the trees have started budding. She'd say it in that matter-of-fact tone that grandparents have when they're passing on ancient wisdom from generations before, and then give a little nod of her head. "It must be Blackberry Winter. It'll get warm and stay warm now."

It meant that the woods around my grandparents' house were soon to transform into a sea of white blossoms for the next few weeks. And then in a few months time, a gaggle of grandkids would be stomping through the trees towards Blackberry Kingdom and Blackberry Palace (our nicknames for the two huge patches of blackberry bushes near their house) to pick bowl after bowl of fresh berries for use in granny's homemade blackberry pies.

It's not foolproof weather prediction, obviously, and I never quite acquired a taste for blackberries or her blackberry pies (although everyone else in the family raved over them). But it did make me like this time of the year. The cold weather and long winter nights are finally over. Things will get warmer now.

Kids

This picture is from Chester, South Carolina and was taken in the year 1908. It's from one of my favorite sites in the web, Shorpy.com. The site has pics dating back into the early 1800s and the quality of most of them is simply amazing.

I look at pictures like this and get drawn into the people and their surroundings and try to imagine what their lives must have been like. And not just for the instant in time when the snapshot was taken. The children below have all more than likely lived out their entire lives and moved on to whatever comes next. They were probably approaching the ends of their lives when I was just starting mine. I find that incredibly interesting.

(Click to make bigger)

It makes me wonder what people are going to think in 2108 when they look back at some of the photos on sites like Flickr.

Nostalgia

Came across this clip on Youtube a couple weeks ago and I keep going back and watching it every few days. I spent every Saturday morning glued to the television beside my brother and sister watching cartoons, and this was my all-time favorite. Still is.



My brother got me a Superfriends t-shirt for the December Holidays, and I absolutely love it. I 'm afraid to wear it because I know I'll spill something on it within a few seconds of putting it on.

Anger Holes

I was just on the phone with a customer service rep. One of those people you call and have to rattle off a 10-digit account number, a phone number, address, cock size, and last 4 of your social to “for confirmation” that I am who I was claiming to be. The call didn’t go too well since I was complaining to them about my service, and instead of listening to what I was trying to say they were very good at parroting obscure lines from their EULA back to me. While I was right about what I was saying, the whole situation was completely my fault as I did something a few weeks ago that led to today’s problem.

The customer service and what happened to cause it isn’t really important though. The big problem here is that it made me angry. I was in a blind, seething rage. My face and upper body turned red from the blood pumping so hard (I was literally “seeing red”); my hands and voice were shaking with anger; I even started sweating and could feel the heat pouring off my face. All over a situation that wasn’t really important to begin with and in the end, was my fault and not the poor customer service person unlucky enough to answer my call.

I’ve always had a bad temper though; it runs in the family. My brother and sister have bad ones too, and both my parents’ tempers are legendary. One of the few images that I can clearly recall from growing up is of my father hurling a skateboard out a 2nd floor window because he was mad at us kids. It’s among the scariest (and saddest) memories of my childhood. Yet here I am 25 years later doing the same thing…losing my temper at the drop of a hat over piddling little things. I didn’t toss anything out the window, but I probably would have if I’d thought of it.

It’s not something I’m proud of and I know I’m as much to blame as any genetic inclination that may factor into the deal. I’ve never been good at dealing with my emotions. As a child I felt everything acutely. Emotions were physical presences for me, they came from my core and I could feel them pulsing inside as they bubbled to the surface. But as I got older and and my emotions started getting stronger, I ran from what I was feeling. Instead of dealing with it and allowing myself to grow through the pain and disillusionment, I locked my emotions away and began isolating myself from everyone and everything around me. I put up my shields and built my barriers, then quietly found a nice dark corner and settled in. I’ve been doing it for so long that there are times when I don’t know if I can feel anything anymore. Not much seems like it’s really happening; whole weeks go by with me on auto-pilot just going through the motions.

But every now and then that all-powerful rage comes blasting through my defenses. And while I know it’s not a good thing to have all that anger bottled up inside or have it explode out of me like it did earlier on the phone…maybe, just maybe, the hole it blew through my walls will stay open this time and some of my other emotions will come out. Perhaps I should tear down a few of them this time and move a little closer. It would be nice to feel something real again.

Still Here

Well, I survived the stent surgery. I'm still pretty sore so I'm taking another day off work to heal up a bit more before driving much and sitting upright in a chair for hours on end.

One of the balloons burst and partially deployed the stent during the procedure (which then got stuck in the blood vessel in the wrong spot) so they had to go into another artery in my left leg and pull it out from the opposite direction. Apparently this second incision was a bit more invasive than the one in my right leg so it's extremely sore and turning a nice purplish color as it bruises up. Because of that the procedure took about 3½ hours instead of the usual 1 hour or so. I'm on blood thinners to keep the stents from forming clots so later that evening when I was finally allowed to stand up, one of the incision spots started bleeding and I got to spend the night flat on my back trying not to move my legs much, and having vitals taken every 1-2 hours.

Other than that though, everything went well. I'm scheduled for a quick follow-up visit next week and then another in 2-3 weeks. Hopefully the stents will make as big a difference as they're thinking and I can lower some of the meds I'm taking. But even if that doesn't happen, my kidneys are at least getting normal blood flow again and I'm not in danger of going into kidney failure without warning. So all this fun has been worth it.

It's Showtime

It's time to get my renal stents and angioplasties done, so under the knife I go in the morning. It's a fairly routine procedure that they do all the time in hospitals across the world, so I'm not worried about it. Complications are extremely rare for renal stents, and death only occurs in less than 1% of patients. I don't anticipate anything bad happening at all and fully expect to be at work on Friday after the "recovery" period. I'm honestly not expecting anything out of the ordinary happening.

But just to show how my mind works: I've been singing Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" all night.

So just in case the universe decides to have a little fun and lets me be that one person who gets to be a statistic...it's almost been kinda fun with all you people. In the words of the immortal (literally) Bilbo Baggins: "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

Quitter

Today is the 2-year anniversary for me being cigarette free. As my brand of choice was Camel Ultra-Lights (hard pack), at a pack a day, that calculates out to:

14,600 cigarettes I didn’t smoke
$2,190 saved (conservative estimate using $3 per pack)
5,840 mg of nicotine not entering my lungs
73,000 mg of tar not entering my lungs
102,200 mg of carbon monoxide not entering my lungs

Lighting up has become a vague memory at this point and it’s not really something that I think about much anymore. It’s been on my mind more than normal recently as this date has been approaching. And of course all the doctors and nurses at each visit I’ve made ask if I smoke so that’s kept it in my mind a bit more as well.

All of the above being said, I still miss smoking quite a bit. Yes I’m healthier for quitting. Yes it’s a nasty habit and the leading cause of all kinds of statistics. But damn it all was it fantastic! Being able to light up and get a fix any time of the day? More of that please. Before pulling the plug, stick a cigarette in my mouth and fire it up. If that doesn’t bring me out of the coma then I’m a goner and you can safely disconnect the machines.

Smoke ‘em and enjoy ‘em today. Have an extra one for me.

I Want

I want to move to a big city and start a brand new life. I'll meet that special someone and be in a long-term, loving relationship. I'll work in a job that I enjoy and eventually buy an upscale condo in a decent neighborhood, and one day a nice house in the suburbs. Life will be full of happy gatherings and cookouts with our friends, neighbors, and family. We'll take vacations to odd places full of laughter and take oodles of goofy pictures with each other. Life would be fun and I'd be happy.
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I want to live on a farm and grow things in the dirt. I'll have livestock to raise and crops to harvest. I'll wake with the sun and spend the day outside surrounded by the plants and animals I care for. Perhaps I'll eventually find someone who shares my desire for this type of life and we'll spend our weekends at farmer's markets and pick-alongs. There would always be something that needs doing on a farm, but life wouldn't seem pointless, and I'd be happy.
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I want to abandon all sense of stability and modern living and walk the Appalachian Trail. To experience nature and life in a way very few people these days are able to imagine anymore. Spending each day with the only things I truly need packed on my back and with a singular goal in mind: to take one more step. To reach the end and not only feel a sense of great accomplishment, but perhaps to realize more about myself and grow along the way. Nothing about this would be easy, but I'd be happy.

§
I want to live a life where I'm not afraid of everything. I want to laugh, to love, and to cry without this suffocating fear of what you think of me constantly keeping me locked away inside myself. I want to find the courage to be the suburbanite, or the farmer, or the thru-hiker if I feel like it. Or even some combination of them all. To be whatever me I want to be.

Then I'll be happy.

Interesting

Came across this today and thought it was interesting. It's from the site National Priorities.org:

Taxpayers in Asheville, North Carolina have paid $101.2 million for the Iraq War thus far. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:

21,681 People with Health Care or
80,313 Homes with Renewable Electricity or
2,592 Public Safety Officers or
1,898 Music and Arts Teachers or
20,114 Scholarships for University Students or
8 New Elementary Schools or
958 Affordable Housing Units or
48,280 Children with Health Care or
13,738 Head Start Places for Children or
2,099 Elementary School Teachers or
1,549 Port Container Inspectors

Not that the money actually would have spent on anything as remotely beneficial as the list above, of course.

Lights Out

I think there's something weird in the electrical wiring of my apartment. Either that, or I have a poltergeist with a vendetta against light bulbs. In the four years I've lived there at least 8 table-type lamps have burned out and I've had to replace numerous appliance bulbs (refrigerator, stove light, etc.). Not a simple case of the bulb burning out with the lamps though, we're talking sparks flying, the flash of a short circuit, and that wonderful ozone smell kind of thing. When that happens I toss the lamp since I don't feel particularly safe using it again afterwards.

On Saturday I lost my 3rd pole-type lamp (the cheap ones with the halogen bulbs). I was sitting in the computer room and it started to get noticeably darker. I heard a slight sizzling sound and realized it was yet another lamp in its death throes. Then last night I went into the kitchen and the bulb over the table flashed three times and died. So now I'm down to 2 lamps in the house that work and I'm wary to spend any kind of money on new ones. Maybe I should look into some kind of battery powered lights. The little voice inside wants to take this as some kind of sign. There are too many ways to see this as a "darkness is coming", "my lights are dying out" kind of thing though so I'm purposefully avoiding placing that type of significance on it and going with the faulty wiring angle.

I've had some odd experiences with electricity in my life, so maybe it's me doing all this. Is there a way to have your magnetic field measured?

When my parents were building their house back in the early 80's I had a transformer blow up on me (burned a hole in my shirt and sent me flying backwards a few feet). A few years later a lamp in my bedroom had burned out (sound familiar?) and I was playing with the wiring from it. I spliced the ends, plugged it into the outlet, and like a scene from TV touched the ends of the bare wires together (DO NOT try this at home kids). The flash blinded me for a few seconds, fused the wires together, and kicked the breakers in the house off. Luckily the parents weren't home so I was able to hide the evidence, but it was probably the stupidest and most dangerous thing I've ever done.

New Toy

Behold the awesomeness that is iPod Touch:



It's like I've been awoken from some long boring dream and handed the most wonderful toy ever. My inner geek giggles with delight every time I push one of the virtual buttons. If it came with Star Trek-esque sounds and graphics I think I'd pass out from sheer pleasure.

Tuscan Chicken

This week’s cooking attempt was Tuscan Chicken. I roasted some baby potatoes and had a small salad with it also, and it turned out well. It would have been good over some pasta so I’m going to cook a bit of linguine for the leftovers. At any rate, here’s the recipe I used:

Potatoes: I just threw some stuff together, didn’t really follow a recipe.

1lb baby potatoes
Olive oil
Basil
Thyme
Oregano

Place the potatoes in a roasting pan. Mix the spices in the olive oil and pour over the potatoes. Bake at 350 for about an hour.

Tuscan Chicken: I took the majority of the recipe from a cookbook, but changed a few things to keep it low-sodium and according to what ingredients I had on-hand.

1 teaspoon olive oil
6 skinless chicken breasts, cut into small chunks
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 red bell peppers, seeded and sliced
1 garlic clove (I put in 3-4 cloves, I love garlic)
1 ½ cups tomato sauce (I used 1 can of diced tomatoes [no sodium added])
½ cup dry white wine
1 teaspoon oregano
14 oz can navy or white beans (I used pinto beans I froze from a previous Sunday Dinner)
3 tablespoons bread crumbs
salt and pepper to taste (I left out the salt)

Add the oil to a non-stick pan and fry the chicken until done. (It doesn’t have to be completely cooked, just get it most of the way there). Remove the chicken and set aside. Add the onion and peppers to the pan and cook until soft (don’t brown them).

Add the chicken back to the pan and put in the garlic, tomatoes, wine, oregano, salt & pepper and bring to a boil. Cover the pan and simmer for 30-35 minutes (until the chicken is tender and doesn’t run pink when punctured). Stir in the beans and simmer 5 more minutes.

Transfer to an oven safe dish, sprinkle with bread crumbs, and broil until golden brown. (I skipped this part and it turned out rather well despite the bread crumbs).

Chef T

I didn't really feel like doing something involved for my meal this week so I went with Honey and Orange Glazed Chicken, with baked potatoes and a Caesar Salad. I had everything for it already except for the orange and orange juice so it ended up being a pretty cheap meal too, which is always a good thing. No pics yet since it's still in the oven cooking, but making the glaze for it beforehand smelled awfully tasty so I'm hoping it turns out well.

Got an angel food cake for dessert (with strawberries). I've heard their pretty simple to make so I may try to bake one of those in the coming weeks.

Random

Yet another slow week. My emotional state has been happy at times and depressed with life at others (and pretty much everything in between too), so while dull the week's at least been kind of interesting from that perspective. To be happy and content with your life in the morning and then be depressed about how your life is a complete failure and happiness is an illusion by nightfall gets a bit tedious every day though. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
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Shelbster seems to be feeling better. Her appetite is way up but her water intake is back to normal. She feels like she's loosing weight though; I can feel her spine in a few places and the skin around her back legs looks a little loose. Her energy levels are good though and she acts happy, so I'm not too worried about her overall.
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Saw my first daffodil of the year yesterday as I was leaving work. It's in a junky little parking lot near the lot at work, but it's still a pretty sight to see. Especially since it's rainy and cold today.

Sunday Dinner

Making a huge meal for dinner (lunch) on Sundays was always a tradition in my family when I was growing up. Granny would start cooking early in the morning and by the time church was out there wasn't a spot on any counter top or table that didn't have some kind of food on it. And we're talking real food too, all of it made from scratch...fried chicken, corn bread, beans, biscuits, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, cakes, pies, and wonderfully over-sweetened iced tea (with saccharin!) to wash it all down.

And the people came. At least a dozen or more every Sunday. When you have as large a family as we had it's hard not to draw a crowd when everyone knew Granny was in the kitchen (dad has 4 sisters & 3 brothers, mom has 7 sisters). Imagine being 5-8 years old, having a half dozen or more cousins your age around every weekend, and all of you being hopped up on sugar and greasy food and then let loose in a yard surrounded by woods and pastures. It was heaven.

Of course things change, families grow up and drift apart, and those afternoons of running and playing for hours on end get filed away as fond memories. But there's always been something about having a big meal on Sundays that's stuck with me. I love to cook, but being single and living alone makes cooking a real meal for 1 person something of a bother at times. So odds are when I do cook something substantial it's usually going to happen on Sunday. That gives me leftovers for most of the work week, I have all day to cook it, and it lets me flashback to the days spent in Granny's kitchen eating all that wonderful food.

Last week was Chicken Tetrazzini from a recipe I found at the Food Network's site (here's a pic). This week I decided to get back to my roots and made a big pot of pinto beans, baked some corn bread (from scratch), and had some boiled cabbage. I found some uncured bacon that had no added nitrates or nitrites and about half the sodium of regular bacon, so I used that to season both the beans and the cabbage.

Very tasty.

Home?

I have now lived in Asheville longer than I've ever lived anywhere else in my life. I moved here at the end of February, 2000 so that puts me at 8 years now in the "Land of the Sky". Eight years seems like a long time to be in one place for me, but I know people who have lived in the same area their entire lives so like everything else, it's all relative.

Stevenson, Alabama: 6 years
Maumee, Ohio: 4 years
George Hildebran, North Carolina: 8 years
Raleigh, North Carolina: 7 years
Boone, North Carolina: 5 years
Asheville, North Carolina: 8 years and counting

I like it here and don't particularly want to go anywhere else but I've never stayed in one place longer than this and I'm feeling a bit trapped. My life so far has been one move after another; settling into a place for a while but eventually packing everything up and moving on to the next place.

Is it time for me to stop and try to build a life here, or do I do the gypsy thing and start over again somewhere else?

Run Away!

I've been thinking about my current medical stuff quite a bit, and there's a part of me that wants to run away from it all. I feel like buying a carton of cigarettes and lighting up again, living off the saltiest, fat-filled foods I can find, and washing everything down with remarkably obscene amounts of Mountain Dew & alcohol. Forget about taking meds and altering my diet and exercise habits to be healthy, I want to be young and stupid again.

I'm not going to do any of that of course. It's time to "be an adult", "eat responsibly", "take care of myself", etc. All the cliché bullshit you hear from everyone else who has been forced to grow up, get old, and eat food that's good for you.

Granted I'm only in week three of my old age, but it hasn't really been that bad so far. The low-sodium, low-fat, no caffeine diet isn't as flavorless and boring as I'd been anticipating. Plus when I do allow myself to eat something bad, it feels like even more of a treat now than it used to be.

$18,776

That's the amount of the bill I received in the mail on Friday for my 2-night stay in the hospital the week before. Almost $1,000 of that was for drugs alone. Thankfully everything was billed directly to insurance so the hospital isn't expecting a payment from me. Hopefully the insurance company will be polite and helpful about it and not dispute any of the charges. I was actually expecting the bill to be bigger, but then the tests they performed weren't itemized on the bill so I may be receiving the charges for those later.

I've been looking for a new career path; maybe I should consider something in health care. Apart from the money factor, it might make me feel good and give me a confidence boost by helping people. Something to mull over.

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Shelbster's blood test on Thursday came back and her glucose levels were closer to normal, so we're sticking at this new insulin dosage for a bit. Her increased water intake is most likely a result of the Cushing's making her think she's thirsty all the time. The vet compared it to having cotton-mouth or a dry throat almost constantly. She isn't dehydrated and doesn't need all the water she's drinking, her mind just thinks she does. So I'm cutting back on the amount of water I leave out for her when I'm not there. I hate the thought of her sitting there thinking she's thirsty all the time, but that's better for her than drinking and outputting almost 2 gallons of water a day and giving her a bladder infection.

Out of Character

I did some things completely out of character for myself today. Nothing big or anything, just a series of small things. They weren't anything that I planned to do either.

I started a conversation with someone at work that I hadn't really talked to before, completely at random. We kept the conversation alive for quite a while, and I was truly interested in it and the person. And I learned some cool things about them on a personal level that I otherwise wouldn't know.

Even though I did find myself getting a touch upset with the driving habits of some of the dumb ass mutha... friendly drivers around me at times, I calmed my anger immediately and kept it in check. I even listened to music instead of having the radio turned off like usual.

I used a cart at the grocery store and took my time, instead of rushing mindlessly through the store with a handheld basket. Then instead of the self-checkout line like usual (so I don't have to talk to anyone), I went through a normal line and chatted with the clerk while I bagged my own groceries so she wouldn't have to.

I also smiled a lot and was in a fairly good mood all day. I even talked to the neighbor's kid for a bit as I was bringing groceries inside. He looks to be around 12 or 13 and gave me a thoughtful look before going inside and said "You know, you're kinda cool." (I've received this reaction from my nephews as well and I think it's because I find it easy to talk to kids. I try to speak to them like adults instead of children and it takes them by surprise at times.)

Slow

Haven't really been doing much the last few days beyond working and lying around the house trying to take it easy. Everything's going fine, just dull and boring while I try to get through the week of healing after the cath thing. I can't lift more than a few pounds or be very domestic since I'm not supposed to bend or put undue stress on my hip, so no sweeping, vacuuming, taking out the trash, etc. Pity, that.

Shelbster's still drinking a lot more than she should be so the increase in insulin doesn't seem to be helping her much. I'm taking her to the vet tomorrow afternoon to check her glucose levels; maybe the doc will know more then and be able to get things as much under control as we're able at this point.

Hospital Time

As predicted, the cardiologist appointment on Thursday went a bit worse than the urologist visit. They noticed some irregularities in my EKG and blood flow sounds, and given my history with Takayasu's, they decided I needed some more in-depth testing. And boy howdy, do I mean in-depth. I was taken by ambulance (prone and strapped down on the gurney, with the oxygen thing in my nose and everything) directly from the cardiologist's office to the hospital. They didn't want to cause more stress on my heart by letting me drive.

They did a CAT scan later that afternoon and found out that my aorta was enlarged and calcified. In the words of the cardiac surgeon I "have the aorta of an 80-year old man", which is never something you really want to hear, unless of course you're 90 or older. They're worried about the aorta continuing to enlarge but think the calification may actually help in that it'll keep it from getting much bigger. It's a concern, but since there is still decent blood flow through it, it isn't something to worry about immediately. I'm scheduled for follow up visits so they can keep an eye on it and see if it gets any worse. If it does my only course of action would be to replace the vessel. Fun, fun.

But it doesn't end there. They also did a cardiac catheterization the following day to check the blood flow in the arteries feeding my heart. It involves inserting a catheter into an artery in the leg and feeding it up through the body until it gets to the heart, then injecting dye and watching how the blood flows. The good news is they didn't find anything wrong with them whatsoever, they termed them "pristine". The bad news is that blood flow to my left kidney is 90% blocked. They checked the kidneys on their way since I'd had problems with them as a child and the catheter went right by the renal arteries as they were feeding it up my body. They're not very concerned about it for the moment but I'll be following up with a renal specialist to discuss possible angioplasty and inserting a stent to open up the artery. Which can all be done on an outpatient basis somehow. Medicine's come a long way in the last 20 years.

I was finally able to leave the hospital on Saturday and come home. They've started me on some beta-blockers for my blood pressure and heart rate and I have several follow-up visits to schedule over the next few months.

Overall I feel pretty good about the situation, considering everything that happened and that will need to happen in the future. It was a bit scary being wheeled out on a stretcher in an ambulance, and then all the waiting for the tests to be done and results to come back was a little unnerving as well. But having my parents and sister come up to keep me company, and knowing that The Shelbster was safe and well cared for by Greg helped keep me from getting too stressed out about it all.

One Down

Well the urologist confirmed that it's "only" a hydrocele. As long as it's not causing any pain or isn't too uncomfortable then my best course of action is to do nothing and it will more than likely go away on its own. 'Course if it gets worse then surgery may be needed, but I choose not to dwell on that right now.

I have a feeling that the cardiologist appointment tomorrow won't go quite as smoothly. A blood pressure reading of 191/101 is usually a sign that something is amiss.

Medic!

A bit of history...I spent a large majority of my junior high school years (7th, 8th, and 9th grades) being shuffled between doctors and hospitals. I was eventually diagnosed with Takayasu's Arteritis (or Takayasu's Disease) and placed on several medications for it and the other problems that cropped up because of it. As the condition causes a narrowing of the arteries, the worst thing that happened was having to have two renal angioplasties performed on my kidneys. That's where they go into the blood vessel with a balloon and inflate the part that is narrower than it should be. I was fortunate enough to have the first of those performed by none other than Dr. Andreas Grüntzig, the doctor who originally invented the procedure (he died in a tragic plane crash a few years later in 1985). I have one of the classic symptoms of the condition in my left arm, termed “pulselessness” because the artery in that arm has narrowed to the point of virtual non-existence, causing me not to have a pulse in my left wrist. It's smaller & quite a bit weaker than my right arm, and tires easily because of the reduced blood flow.

When I started college 5-6 years later, the condition was under control and had gone into an “inactive” state. By this point I was extremely tired of taking drugs every day and dealing with their side effects. I had spent my entire teenage life taking medications & seeing doctors, watching my diet closely (low sodium diet from high blood pressure), and not being able to do anything remotely akin to the level of physical activity enjoyed by my peers ("no prolonged aerobic or anaerobic activity" was the official proclamation from my cardiologist...i.e. no running, playing, hiking, or sports of any kind for fear of a heart attack, stroke, or worse).

I was barely 20 years old but felt like I was an old man; taking a gamut of drugs every morning and having some long-term side effects starting to creep up, especially from the prednisone. So I took myself off medication and decided to let things play out however they would. If the condition came back and things started to get worse, then I'd be old and hopefully be ready to live a medicated, highly structured life by then. Above all I wanted to experience a life without all that worry and stress.

And for the last 20 years I've done it. I've lived the way I wanted to live: free from doctors and thoughts of thickening arteries, free from the routine of daily medications, free from as much responsibility as I could possibly muster. I've drank. I've smoked. I've lived with no regard to my health whatsoever. And it's been glorious. I got to be "normal" for a while and not worry about rare diseases and drug interactions.

But I'm afraid it may be about time to pay the piper. I've been having pretty steady chest pains for the last couple of weeks. It's not a stabbing type of pain but more like a squeezing or pressure in the left side of my chest. I've also developed what may or may not be a hydrocele. So for the first time in two decades, I went to see a doctor last week. Three ultrasounds later, I'm scheduled to see a urologist tomorrow to rule out testicular cancer and a cardiologist on Thursday for an echocardiogram and a more in-depth cardiovascular exam.

And I'm cool with everything. I knew this was coming and I'd have to face it again if I survived off meds long enough. I'm ready to be that "old man" that I thought I was becoming back then. And I wouldn't change the last 20 years for anything. I made the right decision for me then, and I'd do it again given the chance.

Cable

I didn't really think it was possible for me to get lazier, but this past week I've impressed myself with an almost supernatural burst of sloth. It all started last weekend when I called the cable company and added HBO/Cinemax/Starz to my TV lineup. I'd been debating doing it for a few weeks now and decided to finally take the plunge Saturday evening.

It was part of a 6-month "package deal" that gives me faster internet speeds and HBO/Cinemax/Starz for almost the exact same price I'm paying now for just cable and internet. I know it's a way for them to try to boost revenue...they're hoping I will either forget when the 6 months is over (when it reverts to normal pricing) or that I'll get hooked on the movies and be willing to pay the $60 or so extra a month by then. But by the time the offer ends in June/July, I'm hoping to be well on my way towards my next goal and won't need as much TV time in my life.

All that being said, giving myself movie channels right now is like dangling a cigarette in front of a smoker on his third day being "smoke free". I've had movie channels before, but I'd forgotten how nice it is to have large chunks of time-wasting potential like that at my fingertips 24 hours a day. I've managed to get a bit of reading in and taken care of the annoying, menial duties that have to be done (dishes, laundry, going to work, etc.), but otherwise I've been beached on the couch watching movie after movie. And if that's not bad enough, all the movies I've watched so far are ones that I've seen before (some of them twice, some thrice, and others I know well enough to follow the dialogue with the actors).

I'm not sure what I'll do if they show something I haven't seen before.

Review

Finished up "Merle's Door" last night. I didn't know anything about the book other than the cover pictures and from reading the jacket notes, so I wasn't really sure what kind of book to expect. I read this one differently than I usually do other books; instead of immersing myself completely and spending all of my time reading, I took my time with it. I read a chapter or two here and there, or in 15-20 minute blocks. I think doing it differently helped give me a different perspective on the book and it seemed to be the best way for me to absorb it.

I liked the book quite a bit, and I can safely say that this is the first Canine Biography I've ever read. I'm sure Shelbe being near the end of her time helped the story to resonate with me a bit more than it might for people who have never had a dog be a big part of their lives.

I've decided to put the Stephen Donaldson book ("The Runes of the Earth: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant") on hold for a bit. I've read the first 80 pages or so, and like it so far, but I don't think I'm ready to commit myself to reading it right now. When I read a book like this, I have to let myself fall into the book's world. In order to get what I want to from it, I try to experience everything from the perspective of an invisible observer inside the book's universe. I visualize myself as an unseen character that follows alongside the main characters so I can feel and try to understand what they're going through. And I'm not in the right place to do that right now. Maybe next week.

Propaganda

Are the elections over yet?

Have we finally decided to start making national and international decisions based on logic and reason instead of fear, greed, and religious doctrine?

I could almost become slightly political this year given my revulsion of the current administration's congregation, tactics, and policies. But I'm not really smitten with anyone on the other side either. It's starting to look like the last election for me. I didn't like any (either) of the options then, so I chose not to vote. I know you're supposed to do your "civic duty" and get your little gold-star sticker for your lapel saying you voted, but what if I don't like any of my choices? I'm not going to vote for someone I don't want in office. And since it's always either A or B there aren't many choices to pick from.

We need more options; the days of the two-party system need to come to an end.

Cold, Snowy Day

Thanks to my nifty new temperature gauge I got for Kwanzaa, I was able to tell that it was 22° F when I got up this morning (WLOS had a reading of 16). Today was supposed to be my first day back to work after all the holiday time off but I ended up not going in. It snowed last night and left a nice blanket over most of the area. I only had a couple inches but there was a thin sheet of ice on the parking lot underneath the snow so I didn't go in at the normal time. The sun popped through the clouds and started to melt it off a bit around 10:00 AM, and I'd planned on going in to work around lunch time. I sat down and took a few cat naps though and let time slip away until it was too late. Pity.

I was a little congested when I woke up and it's gotten progressively worse since then. I figure my body was trying to get me prepped for some nastiness by getting the extra sleep in. Always fun to start a new year by being sick. Hopefully it's just a little cold and not the funk my sister and her family had before the holidays.

New Year

Well, 2008 is finally here. Time to start a couple more balls rolling and let them build up the momentum they'll need to get things done.

Spent New Year's Eve by myself this year (by choice). Just wanted to be alone this year and not have to go anywhere or do anything or deal with anyone. Plus I don't think the Shelbster has a lot of time left so I don't want to put her under any more stress than I have to right now. I may be mistaken about that (and I hope I am) but there's no point putting her through the added hardship unless I have no other choice.

Today I thought a lot about another NYE that I spent alone. It was 16 years ago, 1991 was coming to an end, and I was getting ready to flounder through my final attempted semester at college before finally throwing in the towel. All of my friends at the time had either already graduated or would be graduating in a few short months and they had planned a night on the town of dancing, drinking, and partying to celebrate the coming of 1992 and their final semester of school. When I found out about the festivities, and that they didn't want me to go along with them, I was devastated. So instead of sitting at home alone and having to deal with my emotions I went to a midnight showing of the latest movie release: "Hook". Not the best movie in the world by far, but it gave my mind something else to focus on as the year rolled over and helped the night ease by. My relationships with them changed a lot after that and I started down a different path shortly afterwards. "Hook" still has a special meaning for me today because of that night though.

I'm not feeling the same things as I spend NYE by myself tonight, but I catch myself thinking of that particular night quite a bit this time of year and thought about it a lot today. Things have changed in 16 years and it's good to remember times like those from a different perspective. It was one of my low times from an emotional standpoint, but if it hadn't happened then I'd be a completely different person today. Besides, I have some big things in store for this coming year. 2008 could very well be a pretty good year for me; no need to dwell too much on the past when it's time to keep plowing ahead.

24th

Season's Greetings
Happy Saturnalia
Merry Midwinter
Habari Gani
‘Īd mubārak
Happy Hanukkah
Joyous Yule
Merry Christmas
Happy Solstice
Mele Kalikimaka
Happy Holidays

Dream TV

Odd dreams last night. I only remember flashes from one of them but feel like I had an entire night full of dreaming. I was watching a newscast and the reporter on the screen was a guy I knew growing up. I met him in the 6th grade and hung out with him on and off throughout school and a bit in college, but then we went separate ways and I haven't seen him in almost 20 years. But there he was on my dream television reporting the news. He was older and had a goatee, but there was no doubt who it was. I don't remember what he was reporting on, but the scene went black, I had a brief flash of how I remembered him looking two decades ago, then the dream ended. A few months back I had a similar dream with him in it. I don't remember the details but it was along the same lines as this one: a brief flash of a scene with him in it and then nothing. I wonder what my mind's trying to tell me.

I also woke up with an old song running through my head. I wish I'd written down the name of it because I can't even begin to recall what it is now. I know it was old, as in black & white TV era kind of old. Maybe a commercial jingle from the 50s or 60s? Apparently I was running a TV kind of theme to my dreams last night.

Deliberately

I finished up "Into the Wild" this weekend and enjoyed it quite a bit. I realized a few chapters into the book that when this happened in the early '90s, I was about the same age as he was. So while I was winding down my failed college career and starting down the path I'm on now this guy was living out his fantasy life on the road and in the wilds of Alaska.

Not that I would or could have done anything remotely as courageous as he did when I was that age. I've come to realize that I'm about a decade (or two) behind everyone else in my age range as far as experiences and mental attitude go. It used to bother me, but now I'm trying to roll with it and take things as they come. I have a lot of admiration and respect for this guy; he took his destiny into his own hands, lived life deliberately, and savored every minute of it. Yeah he made mistakes and should have done some things differently, but that's not the point. I'd rather live a short life of happiness and discovery than a long life of boredom and monotony.

I'm a few chapters into "Merle's Door" and liking it so far. It's a different book than I'm used to reading, but that's a good thing.

Bajada

I learned a new word today: bajada.

bajada: [buh-ha-duh]: a plain formed at the base of a mountain by the merging of several alluvial fans.

A whole bunch of rivers and streams fly down a mountain carrying all sorts of dirt, rock, and debris with them along the way, and all that crap gets dumped at the bottom when the rivers slow down. After a few thousand years or so, it all builds up into a pile so big that it becomes it's own landform spread out over miles at the mountain's base.

That's so cool.

Books!

I went to the bookstore after work today. I really wanted to goto Books-A-Million, but since they're located near the Asheville Mall I decided not to attempt the traffic and shopping nightmare and went somewhere else. I ended up at the Waldenbooks located in the Biltmore Square Mall. You'd think that any mall would be hell this time of year, but for some unexplained reason the BSM is never crowded.

I went searching for the book "Into the Wild", by Jon Krakauer. I read a cursory review of the movie that came out recently about this book on another blog and thought it would be a story I might like to read. A friend had loaned me another of Mr. Krakauer's books a while back, "Into Thin Air", and I enjoyed it quite a bit, so I'm hoping "Wild" turns out to be something I'll like too.

While I was there I perused the On-Sale tables and found a couple other books as well. I lucked across one of Stephen Donaldson's books in hardback for the outrageous price of $4.99, "The Runes of the Earth: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" (Book 1). I've read the other two series of books he's written on this and think I'll like this "last" set as well.

I also picked up Ted Kerasote's "Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog". I haven't heard anything about this book (I'm not really one to keep track of the Bestseller Lists) but the picture on the front and this excerpt of a review on the back was enough to make me give it a try:

"...an intense recipricoal relationship between a dog and his man, and how we and our dogs genuinely share feelings and emotions."

Now...time to lose myself in books for a few weeks.

Weekend Wallflower

Well I managed to spend the entire weekend at home. I haven't left the place since I parked the car Friday evening. And other than taking the Shelbster out for walks, I've spent the last 48 hours or so inside this apartment. Apparently I can do two days like this without much problem, but if I attempt to go a week like I did over Thanksgiving I'll finally get bored enough to want to leave. So somewhere between 48 and 168 hours is my limit for being cooped up inside the same place by myself. I guess it's a good thing to know; at least I'm only an amateur level hermit and haven't quite gone pro yet. Here's the scary part though: It feels like I just got here, and at the same time it feels like I've never left.

So I've been trying to think of what I'm going to buy myself this year for a Winter Solstice and/or Kwanzaa gift. I've bounced quite a few things around so far (an Xbox 360, a Wii, a PDA, an iPod Touch) and now I'm considering signing back up for Sirius satellite radio. The radio choices I have in Asheville are very limited (to put it nicely) and I've been missing the options that satellite offered. If I do sign back up though, I'll invest in a receiver that I can bring inside work with me since the reception in my office is even worse than the car. I'm not sure how good satellite reception will be inside but even if it won't work in the office I'll still be able to get some decent music back in the car.