I have failed.
Miserably.
This blog has become my mistress who went a little crazy and I ignored her in favor of my regular life. The lure of her was too much to ignore and I was quite magnetically drawn to her, unable to avoid contact. And then one day, I realized it was work. And I had too much work in the realm of reality to truly give her the attention I wanted. So it became easier to ignore her in favor of things like trying to advance my career, working on a college education, and oh yeah, being unceremoniously evicted by the landlord's daughter (aka new landlord) and buying a house.
I know that's selfish, but that's the life of an only child. Looking out for number one and letting the rest fall to the wayside. And it's not like this blog has been my sugar mama, she didn't pay any bills for me, she didn't tell me it would all be okay. But, in the least, she's still here and willing to take me back. It makes me look bad to come crawling back, exposed to the world as a fraud, but I can't stay away.
I really intended to get back her sooner and soothe my blog's ego, but then it just became more fun to paint, walk the dog in a new neighborhood, install new pieces in the house, not get electricuted doing some of those installs and well, relax and drink a beer every once in while.
Plus, the time away really gave me time to think about what I want this writing to generally be about. The good news is that it really reaffirmed that this place is what I intended it to be, a shining light into my soul. An introspection into what I think and how I develop those thoughts. That's not to say there won't be stories about other topics, as I long suspect the best things I will ever write here have already been placed and are solely about Lisa.
But hey, if my homepage at Comcast.net can claim that a story about the fastest texters in the world are meeting to face off in competition is "newsworthy" (moreso than say, news out of Syria) then I guess anything I can cobble together should be deemed as extraordinarily important also. In fact, going forward, I may just start creating new words and assigning meaning, because hell, all the rules in journalism seem to be going to gloushpail (pronounced glau-shpale; noun; definition: the poop from the mythological Phoenix; used in a sentence: Hey! Dave just made up the word gloushpail and even created a backstory for it. I wonder if he thought about assigning a Latin or Greek root to it too? Gloushpail.)
So this is where I've ended up. Didn't want this to be too long; it is in fact kind of like going back to the gym after a few months off and the brain, like anything else is a muscle (mine being one that has atrophied from paint fumes).
The good news is that I have dozens upon dozens of partially started entries just waiting for me to finish them. It's like being provided the empty house and all I have to do now is go in, hang some artwork, not get electricuted and create a few new reetandas (words).
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
March 30th, 1997 - March 30th ad infinitum - Part III
Today is the day I complete Lisa's story. It doesn't mean that her story is over. Far from it. I can't tell you how excited I am though that I get to be the one along for the ride, to live with her, love with her, laugh with her, survive with her. I get to catalog life's events as they will happen with her.
It is also the day that Lisa will be delivering this story to her seniors at a rally. In fact, she is probably preparing in her mind the scope of the speech. See, she fashions the whole story around choice. You choose to drink and drive, or drink and not drive. It is all about responsibility and accountability to your decision making process. She is also quick to tell you she loathes the attachment of the word "accident" to DUI crashes. I had never given that a thought until I met her and heard her story.
By assigning the word accident to a DUI, it grammatically absolves the offender and slaps the victim right in the face. Think about it...I got blasted last night, decided I was only three blocks from home, hopped in the car, ran a curb, mowed down your son/daughter and the news reports it as...an accident?! Sure, I didn't mean to kill your kid, but I did make the choice to drive home and the one thing that could have prevented it would have been if I decided not to drive. This is usually where Lisa will add that DUI's are 100% preventable, yet they continue to happen at such a "fashionable" rate...but I digress.
Where we last left Lisa, she was relearning the use of her body. Battling through the recovery of a broken body, signs of nerve life began to again show up in her extremities. If you have had to do any kind of physical rehab work on your body, then you might be able to imagine having to do it with your entire body. A long and excruciating process.
At 22 years old, the collegiate, waitress and aspiring artist had a new full time job, physical therapy. On this road to recovery, it was something fairly ironic. As Lisa was finding her way literally back to her feet after six months in and out of hospitals, surgeries and therapy, her offender was finding his way out of prison for good behavior. He had been sentenced to nine months and had it commuted by three. To his credit, he did not know the extent of Lisa's injuries. See, Lisa never made it to the trial to have her moment in court, when she could stand before her offender and the judge and show them what he did to her, because the district attorney's office provided them the wrong address. By the time they arrived at the correct facility, the judgement had been levied and the only documentation on paper was that a couple had been injured in the crash, one concussion and one broken leg. Lisa's struggle to survive had been reduced to "female with one broken leg". That was the entirety of her representation in that court proceeding.
He did have a civil judgement levied against him, but to enforce that would require Lisa finding him and amazingly, he has fallen off the face of the planet. Go figure. It was up to Lisa to survive, because that's just what she does.
In the years after her initial nights in the hospital, Lisa has had a few more surgeries directly related to her injuries, even as late as about two years ago. It is expected that there are more to come and if asked, Lisa would probably just shrug, admit it sucks, but say that it has to be done. After 15 years of recovery time, Lisa still has physical issues which don't look to ever be alleviated.
-Nerve damage in both her legs has left her with severe drop foot on one side. This requires the shackles of a hard plastic leg brace to hold her foot at a 90 degree angle so she doesn't trip on herself.
-That same nerve damage has left both her legs in a state of "pins and needles". You know when your leg falls asleep and you start to get some sensation back? Yeah, that uncomfortable prickly feeling, picture living with that in both feet, 24/7. Yeah.
-Nerve damage in the legs and right arm have left muscles severely atrophied. Lisa won't be running, climbing or lifting anything heavy for the rest of her life. On one hand that's probably a cool thing, but on the other, imagine the level of dependence it creates when say, you can't even move a case of paper around your classroom and have to wait for a student to do it for you.
Doctors prepared her by saying who quite knows how her body might further break down in the future because of all the past trauma. In fact, at the age of 23, Lisa was being told that her physical body was probably more in tune with that of someone in their 30's. So now in her 30's, Lisa's body is already preparing to take on the likes of arthritis.
Yet she survives.
When she was out of the hospital and trying to find her own path again back in San Jose, Lisa had "earned" a disabled placard. The VIP parking pass that most of us joked would be so cool to have. She used it until someone got in her face, because she was "too young and didn't look like she needed it". It went in the garbage. Lisa went back to parking with the rest of us. To this day Lisa qualifies for a disabled placard, but refuses because of that instance.
And she survives.
And let me tell you something else about her that I've always found mesmorizing. She never holds a grudge against people who drink and drive. She doesn't get mad at people for drinking. Heck, she'll be the first to offer a toast and throw a beer back at a party. She can separate the person from the act and for someone who has endured so much physically, emotionally and even financially around this, I am still amazed that she can separate those aspects. Drinking and driving does not make the person bad, it means they made a bad decision. Hopefully it's one that helps them to realize the error without substantial loss, but still, if there was anyone who could just go ahead and be mad at the world and blame people for their mistakes, it would be her you would think, but no, she doesn't.
She continues to survive.
She focuses what could have been that white-hot anger, the embarressement of those who didn't think she was really disabled and uses it to hone her story. She hopes one teen in that audience today is going to hear it and use it to help themselves. Doesn't matter if they cry or not, doesn't matter if they come talk to her. It only matters that they get the message. Don't make life harder with a stupid decision. Why? Life is hard enough.
And that is the other fascinating thing about Lisa's story. There is no gauge to success. How many people have survived with Lisa because of her story? We don't know, there's no stat tracking lack of crashes. There's no way to know three years from now that a former student on his or her own 21st birthday, living in Chicago, takes the train home after celebrating because they remembered her story. There's no way to know if a family walking home from the Cubs game now survived with Lisa because that 21 year old left their car at the Cubs parking lot. There's just no way.
But as long as Lisa is here, she's here to tell her story and hope that everyone out there who hears it will survive.
So I ask:
Do you have the courage to stand in front of 3,000 high school students and try to persuade them that choosing not to drink is not only the right choice (at their age), but a life saving one also? Do you have the courage to stand in front of a room full of convicted youth, who have been hardened by their gangs, the streets and the society who tells them they are trash and try to convince them, that drugs and alcohol are not a path to success? Do you have the courage to keep an extra $20 in your purse or wallet so that if you decide the drinks are too good to pass up, you still can afford a ride home rather than choosing to "try and just make it home by focusing on the center line real hard"? Do you have the courage to not drink so that your friends, your family can let themselves off the hook for a night and know they can trust their lives to you to get them home safe?
Do you have the courage to save a life?
It is also the day that Lisa will be delivering this story to her seniors at a rally. In fact, she is probably preparing in her mind the scope of the speech. See, she fashions the whole story around choice. You choose to drink and drive, or drink and not drive. It is all about responsibility and accountability to your decision making process. She is also quick to tell you she loathes the attachment of the word "accident" to DUI crashes. I had never given that a thought until I met her and heard her story.
By assigning the word accident to a DUI, it grammatically absolves the offender and slaps the victim right in the face. Think about it...I got blasted last night, decided I was only three blocks from home, hopped in the car, ran a curb, mowed down your son/daughter and the news reports it as...an accident?! Sure, I didn't mean to kill your kid, but I did make the choice to drive home and the one thing that could have prevented it would have been if I decided not to drive. This is usually where Lisa will add that DUI's are 100% preventable, yet they continue to happen at such a "fashionable" rate...but I digress.
Where we last left Lisa, she was relearning the use of her body. Battling through the recovery of a broken body, signs of nerve life began to again show up in her extremities. If you have had to do any kind of physical rehab work on your body, then you might be able to imagine having to do it with your entire body. A long and excruciating process.
At 22 years old, the collegiate, waitress and aspiring artist had a new full time job, physical therapy. On this road to recovery, it was something fairly ironic. As Lisa was finding her way literally back to her feet after six months in and out of hospitals, surgeries and therapy, her offender was finding his way out of prison for good behavior. He had been sentenced to nine months and had it commuted by three. To his credit, he did not know the extent of Lisa's injuries. See, Lisa never made it to the trial to have her moment in court, when she could stand before her offender and the judge and show them what he did to her, because the district attorney's office provided them the wrong address. By the time they arrived at the correct facility, the judgement had been levied and the only documentation on paper was that a couple had been injured in the crash, one concussion and one broken leg. Lisa's struggle to survive had been reduced to "female with one broken leg". That was the entirety of her representation in that court proceeding.
He did have a civil judgement levied against him, but to enforce that would require Lisa finding him and amazingly, he has fallen off the face of the planet. Go figure. It was up to Lisa to survive, because that's just what she does.
In the years after her initial nights in the hospital, Lisa has had a few more surgeries directly related to her injuries, even as late as about two years ago. It is expected that there are more to come and if asked, Lisa would probably just shrug, admit it sucks, but say that it has to be done. After 15 years of recovery time, Lisa still has physical issues which don't look to ever be alleviated.
-Nerve damage in both her legs has left her with severe drop foot on one side. This requires the shackles of a hard plastic leg brace to hold her foot at a 90 degree angle so she doesn't trip on herself.
-That same nerve damage has left both her legs in a state of "pins and needles". You know when your leg falls asleep and you start to get some sensation back? Yeah, that uncomfortable prickly feeling, picture living with that in both feet, 24/7. Yeah.
-Nerve damage in the legs and right arm have left muscles severely atrophied. Lisa won't be running, climbing or lifting anything heavy for the rest of her life. On one hand that's probably a cool thing, but on the other, imagine the level of dependence it creates when say, you can't even move a case of paper around your classroom and have to wait for a student to do it for you.
Doctors prepared her by saying who quite knows how her body might further break down in the future because of all the past trauma. In fact, at the age of 23, Lisa was being told that her physical body was probably more in tune with that of someone in their 30's. So now in her 30's, Lisa's body is already preparing to take on the likes of arthritis.
Yet she survives.
When she was out of the hospital and trying to find her own path again back in San Jose, Lisa had "earned" a disabled placard. The VIP parking pass that most of us joked would be so cool to have. She used it until someone got in her face, because she was "too young and didn't look like she needed it". It went in the garbage. Lisa went back to parking with the rest of us. To this day Lisa qualifies for a disabled placard, but refuses because of that instance.
And she survives.
And let me tell you something else about her that I've always found mesmorizing. She never holds a grudge against people who drink and drive. She doesn't get mad at people for drinking. Heck, she'll be the first to offer a toast and throw a beer back at a party. She can separate the person from the act and for someone who has endured so much physically, emotionally and even financially around this, I am still amazed that she can separate those aspects. Drinking and driving does not make the person bad, it means they made a bad decision. Hopefully it's one that helps them to realize the error without substantial loss, but still, if there was anyone who could just go ahead and be mad at the world and blame people for their mistakes, it would be her you would think, but no, she doesn't.
She continues to survive.
She focuses what could have been that white-hot anger, the embarressement of those who didn't think she was really disabled and uses it to hone her story. She hopes one teen in that audience today is going to hear it and use it to help themselves. Doesn't matter if they cry or not, doesn't matter if they come talk to her. It only matters that they get the message. Don't make life harder with a stupid decision. Why? Life is hard enough.
And that is the other fascinating thing about Lisa's story. There is no gauge to success. How many people have survived with Lisa because of her story? We don't know, there's no stat tracking lack of crashes. There's no way to know three years from now that a former student on his or her own 21st birthday, living in Chicago, takes the train home after celebrating because they remembered her story. There's no way to know if a family walking home from the Cubs game now survived with Lisa because that 21 year old left their car at the Cubs parking lot. There's just no way.
But as long as Lisa is here, she's here to tell her story and hope that everyone out there who hears it will survive.
So I ask:
Do you have the courage to stand in front of 3,000 high school students and try to persuade them that choosing not to drink is not only the right choice (at their age), but a life saving one also? Do you have the courage to stand in front of a room full of convicted youth, who have been hardened by their gangs, the streets and the society who tells them they are trash and try to convince them, that drugs and alcohol are not a path to success? Do you have the courage to keep an extra $20 in your purse or wallet so that if you decide the drinks are too good to pass up, you still can afford a ride home rather than choosing to "try and just make it home by focusing on the center line real hard"? Do you have the courage to not drink so that your friends, your family can let themselves off the hook for a night and know they can trust their lives to you to get them home safe?
Do you have the courage to save a life?
Friday, April 6, 2012
March 30th, 1997 - March 30th ad infinitum - Part II
You might have thought a doctor massaging a heart back to life, the literary equivalent of a happy ending, might have brought about a more euphoric part two here, but no, life and it's sometimes cruel lessons does not always play by the rules. See, just because Lisa's heart was beating again, did not mean all was right in the universe. Because when a heart stops, everything stops, so when a heart starts again, everything in the body has to figure how first that it is working and then figure out how to get all those components working together again.
Think of it like this, you ever do a hard shutoff of your computer, maybe because it froze or was taking too long to load something? And then when you boot it back up, you get a little nasty gram saying you shouldn't have suddenly shut it off and there may be damage or data loss thanks to that? The body kind of works the same way.
Lisa was alive, but now her blood pressure was waaay out of whack. So much so that doctors needed to figure out how to regulate it, lest they simply lose this life all over again. The idea (and a truly lifesaving one) was to pump her full of saline solution. Adding that water weight and pressure would force the heart and blood stream to work harder to get blood from the brain to the toes and back. It added over 50 pounds of weight onto Lisa's otherwise svelte frame (notice the good husbandry duty of not listing the weight, while still giving the impact of how much pressure was put on her body). So just as one problem was solved, it actually created a series of new ones. Doctors knew she had a broken back, any movement could permanently paralyze her from the waist down (assuming she survived) and now with the water weight, Lisa's body was literally expanded and bloated, so you know that incision I told you about from sternum to waistline, doctors could no longer close that opening. It was like her skin was a jacket three sizes too small and they couldn't zip it up.
Well, obviously, with an open wound, they wouldn't be able to flip her over to perform the back surgery, so the only other option was to graft skin over the expanded opened wound. As Lisa so technically puts it, they used a "cheese slicer" to remove layers of her skin from her upper thigh to fuse them to her abdominal area to close the wound, to be able to turn her over, to be able to fuse her spine, to be able to hope that she would one day walk again.
The skin grafting took five tries to finally close her up and be able to get her turned over.
The back surgery installed hardware that in an x-ray looks like a small ladder. It extends about eight inches in vertical length and for all accounts and purposes, has actually made her lower back one of the strongest points in her body. It might be hard to convince her of that even today, when she twists a little too quickly and gets a twang of pain, or other days when there's a lingering aching just because that's the way it is. But besides the installed back brace, Lisa also (her words) had a titanium car antenna fused to that broken leg and some other nuts and bolts put into varying places to help stabilize joints. A regular bionic woman and up until about 2004 or 2005 a walk through a metal detector would reflect that. We even kept a note from her doctor verifying that she had metal implants in her body, so please don't strip search her.
From the one event, Lisa incurred 19 scars (a tally that has since grown over the years), an easily memorable number as it matches her favorite hockey player's, Steve Yzerman. At least she had that going for her, because otherwise, after three weeks of a drug induced coma, Lisa was finally waking to a world that was completely upside down. Although doctors felt more comfortable after getting her stabilized, there was still no guarantee that she would walk again, or that her mind for that matter, would serve her the same. But to Lisa, waking for the first time and wondering where she was, taking in her surroundings and trying to figure out why she was strapped into a bed by a bevy of tubes, hoses and other assorted lines, saw and recognized her most devastating injury...her right hand was balled up into a tight fist. In the scramble to save Lisa's life, things like nerve injuries (to her legs and her right arm) took a back seat to keeping her breathing. Doctors (and rightly so) prioritzied her injuries and damage caused by the seatbelt to her brachial plexus (the main nerve down the arm) was not viewed as life threatening, nor was it very treatable (at least in 1997), so it ended up "freezing" and shortening her tendons down her right arm, ending in a balled up fist, that not even the strongest orderly could undo.
Why is a balled fist worthy of Lisa breaking out in sobs? Oh, I didn't tell you did I? On that fateful trip back to the Bay Area, Lisa was returning to San Jose State where she was an art major. The kind that uses their hands to draw, to paint, to create life upon canvas, for Lisa specifically, a now-unusable-right-handed-artist. Not only was Lisa looking to this for livelihood, but she also had felt the lure of art for as long as she could remember. I personally like to think of her as the five year old who used crayons to draw all over the walls, but it was so good, her parents just couldn't bring themselves to chastise her for it. She was certain she was destined to be an artist and now all she saw in that bed, while everyone around her were crying out in tears of joy, Lisa saw the door to her future slammed shut.
Now awake and coping with the loss of a normal vibrant college life, Lisa was about to begin the real work. Soon, it would be time to rehabilitate this broken body, to test what in her body would work and what in this now fragile body, Lisa would just have to learn to live with. 22 years old and Lisa was about to begin the process to attempt to relearn everything you and I take for granted. Everything. Do you think about when you lift a soda or bottle of water to your mouth? Do you worry about missing your mouth, about dropping the bottle because your grip is so weak? Do you think about when you reach for a fork, lift it, stab it into some food and direct it to yourself? Do you plan your trip to a bathroom, knowing that it will take you 30-45 minutes to get there and it will still require assistance when you do reach the promised land?
Everything.
More to come...
Think of it like this, you ever do a hard shutoff of your computer, maybe because it froze or was taking too long to load something? And then when you boot it back up, you get a little nasty gram saying you shouldn't have suddenly shut it off and there may be damage or data loss thanks to that? The body kind of works the same way.
Lisa was alive, but now her blood pressure was waaay out of whack. So much so that doctors needed to figure out how to regulate it, lest they simply lose this life all over again. The idea (and a truly lifesaving one) was to pump her full of saline solution. Adding that water weight and pressure would force the heart and blood stream to work harder to get blood from the brain to the toes and back. It added over 50 pounds of weight onto Lisa's otherwise svelte frame (notice the good husbandry duty of not listing the weight, while still giving the impact of how much pressure was put on her body). So just as one problem was solved, it actually created a series of new ones. Doctors knew she had a broken back, any movement could permanently paralyze her from the waist down (assuming she survived) and now with the water weight, Lisa's body was literally expanded and bloated, so you know that incision I told you about from sternum to waistline, doctors could no longer close that opening. It was like her skin was a jacket three sizes too small and they couldn't zip it up.
Well, obviously, with an open wound, they wouldn't be able to flip her over to perform the back surgery, so the only other option was to graft skin over the expanded opened wound. As Lisa so technically puts it, they used a "cheese slicer" to remove layers of her skin from her upper thigh to fuse them to her abdominal area to close the wound, to be able to turn her over, to be able to fuse her spine, to be able to hope that she would one day walk again.
The skin grafting took five tries to finally close her up and be able to get her turned over.
The back surgery installed hardware that in an x-ray looks like a small ladder. It extends about eight inches in vertical length and for all accounts and purposes, has actually made her lower back one of the strongest points in her body. It might be hard to convince her of that even today, when she twists a little too quickly and gets a twang of pain, or other days when there's a lingering aching just because that's the way it is. But besides the installed back brace, Lisa also (her words) had a titanium car antenna fused to that broken leg and some other nuts and bolts put into varying places to help stabilize joints. A regular bionic woman and up until about 2004 or 2005 a walk through a metal detector would reflect that. We even kept a note from her doctor verifying that she had metal implants in her body, so please don't strip search her.
From the one event, Lisa incurred 19 scars (a tally that has since grown over the years), an easily memorable number as it matches her favorite hockey player's, Steve Yzerman. At least she had that going for her, because otherwise, after three weeks of a drug induced coma, Lisa was finally waking to a world that was completely upside down. Although doctors felt more comfortable after getting her stabilized, there was still no guarantee that she would walk again, or that her mind for that matter, would serve her the same. But to Lisa, waking for the first time and wondering where she was, taking in her surroundings and trying to figure out why she was strapped into a bed by a bevy of tubes, hoses and other assorted lines, saw and recognized her most devastating injury...her right hand was balled up into a tight fist. In the scramble to save Lisa's life, things like nerve injuries (to her legs and her right arm) took a back seat to keeping her breathing. Doctors (and rightly so) prioritzied her injuries and damage caused by the seatbelt to her brachial plexus (the main nerve down the arm) was not viewed as life threatening, nor was it very treatable (at least in 1997), so it ended up "freezing" and shortening her tendons down her right arm, ending in a balled up fist, that not even the strongest orderly could undo.
Why is a balled fist worthy of Lisa breaking out in sobs? Oh, I didn't tell you did I? On that fateful trip back to the Bay Area, Lisa was returning to San Jose State where she was an art major. The kind that uses their hands to draw, to paint, to create life upon canvas, for Lisa specifically, a now-unusable-right-handed-artist. Not only was Lisa looking to this for livelihood, but she also had felt the lure of art for as long as she could remember. I personally like to think of her as the five year old who used crayons to draw all over the walls, but it was so good, her parents just couldn't bring themselves to chastise her for it. She was certain she was destined to be an artist and now all she saw in that bed, while everyone around her were crying out in tears of joy, Lisa saw the door to her future slammed shut.
Now awake and coping with the loss of a normal vibrant college life, Lisa was about to begin the real work. Soon, it would be time to rehabilitate this broken body, to test what in her body would work and what in this now fragile body, Lisa would just have to learn to live with. 22 years old and Lisa was about to begin the process to attempt to relearn everything you and I take for granted. Everything. Do you think about when you lift a soda or bottle of water to your mouth? Do you worry about missing your mouth, about dropping the bottle because your grip is so weak? Do you think about when you reach for a fork, lift it, stab it into some food and direct it to yourself? Do you plan your trip to a bathroom, knowing that it will take you 30-45 minutes to get there and it will still require assistance when you do reach the promised land?
Everything.
More to come...
Monday, April 2, 2012
March 30th, 1997 - March 30th ad infinitum - Part I
"It's not what doesn't kill you makes you stronger...it's that you have to have the strength in you to face it and survive it." - Lisa Pimental
I've started, deleted, amended and restarted this entry about a dozen times and it was all in the hopes of posting it on March 30th, 2012. It didn't work out that way but I realized for me in this circumstance, the date is not nearly as important as the message. Now don't get me wrong, this date is infinitely important and so it shall be for the rest of my and Lisa's life, as well as the countless others who were both directly and indirectly involved with the events of that date back in 1997.
Lisa has told this story more times than I can ever know and I've told it both with and without her a number of times myself. By no means am I an expert on the story, but I like to think I now know enough about it to responsibly share it with all of you.
This might just be one of the most important entries I ever write whether in this blog or in anything else I do. I am not writing to shock you, upset you or preach that you are wrong or right in how you live life, I am simply telling the story of Lisa in the last 15 years. Maybe you'll see the same beacon of light that I do, maybe it will make you think about certain choices you've made in the past, maybe (and hopefully) for those of you with children (especially those entering prom season and soon thereafter, summertime, driving time, party time) you will share it with them.
I've learned so much from Lisa, what she has endured and also about how much strength she has. I am taking a leap of faith that I can write this, both because I feel like I know the story and since she has shared it enough times, I don't think she would feel I am betraying her trust by placing it here, for "public record" so to speak. Please, I ask of you, if you've ever read anything I've written here, this is the one that I am asking you absorb into your very being, the one I hope you take to heart and then decide to share with someone around you. The one you print and place on the fridge as a reminder, the one that like myself, always think about when you decide to drink.
This is the story of Lisa, the light of my life:
March 30, 1997 was a Sunday and it also happened to be Easter that year. Lisa, a college student, was travelling back from Southern California with her boyfriend at the time (no, not me, we didn't meet until 2001; that'll be another story for another time) via northbound I-5. Both of them were looking forward to getting home and back into the swing after having Spring Break off. One final stop was made for food to refuel their bodies and they were off again driving with a sunset to their west over the mountainside. At around 7pm as they were nearing the Hanford area of I-5, Lisa was nuzzled up in the passenger seat, utilizing the time to catch a catnap when she was awakened by two words sternly yelled out, "Oh shit!"
That would be the last coherent thought Lisa recalled on her own until she woke up nearly three weeks later in a hospital bed from a drug induced coma. What ensued, was told to Lisa and went like this...While driving in the slow lane, her boyfriend noticed headlights coming up from behind; the amount of reaction time he had was only enough to curse before their small Toyota pickup was flung vertically, end over end seven or eight times up the freeway.
They had been rear ended by a drunk driver who was travelling near twice the speed they were.
I am by no means a science major, but to pause on this impact for a moment, Lisa's vehicle was travelling 70 mph, the other driver, about 130 mph. That Mustang that rear ended them, created an impact with such force it accelerated Lisa's vehicle and actually flung it into the air. It was the equivilant of something standing still being hit by another object going 60 mph.
Both vehicles came to rest off the sides of the freeway. To this day, I've not heard anything about how traffic was impacted around them, but needless to say, on a four-lane highway, one can imagine the backup something like this would cause. Fortunately, for all parties, there was a group of fledgling paramedics travelling south who witnessed the impact and were able to get turned around and offer immediate assistance to those in the crash. It didn't take long for police and further paramedic assistance to arrive either. What they discovered was Lisa's vehicle had been struck so fiercely that the compression had caused both doors on the pickup to swing open leaving Lisa and her boyfriend exposed to the elements through their tumble. This left her boyfriend with a compound fracture of his left arm and Lisa with severe road rash of her right arm as it dragged on the ground with each tumble.
As bad as that may sound, those were probably the easiest of the injuries to deal with. But to diverge for a second, so as not to forget about the other car and its occupants, there were four men in that car, who were now out and wandering in the lanes of traffic, possibly slightly in shock, but mainly because they were so drunk, that they didn't realize they were walking in lanes of traffic on an interstate freeway. The driver of the vehicle was not the owner of the car, but out of their merry band, had decided he was the most sober and so would be responsible and drive his buddies home.
He blew a .28 alcohol reading into a breathalizer (that is over triple the amount of the legal limit in all 50 states). As just as a point of reference, the average person drinking alcohol will usually be blacking out or passed out by the time they reach .30 and is beginning to feel the effects of alcohol poisoning.
Back to Lisa and her boyfriend who were being tended for their wounds. The concern was initially with her boyfriend, who was showing signs of head trauma. He had bleeding in the eye sockets which typically indicates severe head trauma, whereas Lisa's only outward showing injuries were her arm and a compound fracture of the upper leg. Fortunately, for her boyfriend, the head trauma ended up being a fairly severe concussion and not something that would be any form of permanent brain damage.
---As a moment of levity to this story, (and as I said previously) Lisa doesn't remember this but has been told, that during her airlift out to a nearby hospital, she got into a fight with the paramedic who was cutting off her jeans to be able to treat her leg. Not that she thought she was being attacked, but she was mad that he was destroying her brand new, wonderful fitting, cute as hell, jeans! She tells me this is something that a boy would never truly appreciate, so ladies, I leave you that tidbit, so that you might further understand Lisa's pain of losing a pair of perfect jeans that evening. Her other disappointment is that she was able to get airlifted on one of those cool super fast helicopters, but can't remember the ride to save her life---
Hidden behind the outward showing injuries of Lisa was the more serious trauma doctors were going to discover once they got her into an operating room. See, she had been complaining of a stomach ache to the paramedics and had been vomitting intermittently all the way to the hospital. Now, with her at the facility, doctors took notice of a broken back, two of her lower vertebrae, the leg and the very real possibility that there was internal damage due to the restraint of the seatbelt while tumbling.
(Mind you, Lisa will tell you that she doesn't blame the seatbelt for her further injuries, without it, this story would have been about the fatality of Lisa, not the struggle to survive.)
It was decided that they needed to go inside and do an exploratory surgery through Lisa's abdomen and find out what exactly was causing the impulse to vomit. They cut a vertical opening from sternum down to below her belly button and pulled back the skin. What they were able to find was that the seat belt, while saving her life, had crushed a portion of her colon and it was causing a backed up clogging which would, with enough time, cause Lisa to go into toxic shock and die. There was no choice, with her opened there, broken leg, broken back and menagerie other injuries, they needed to remove 6-8" of her colon to ensure her survival. And as the decision was made and they worked to repair her body, they had to now save Lisa's life in a very real way; her heart stopped in the middle of that surgery.
I could be cruel and end today's portion of the story there, recharging my batteries and waiting until I have the strength and steady hand to continue, but I will give you this before I close, one of the more amazing aspects of this story...
Because Lisa was opened up from sternum to waistline, they couldn't do what you so often see on shows like House or Grey's Anatomy, they could not simply put the paddles to her chest and revive her. First, where would one place the paddles on an open body, second, the jolt could very well cause issues because her body is open, that body bounce could fling some stuff around that really shouldn't be moving. So instinctually, the lead surgeon reached into Lisa's chest cavity, took her heart into his hands and massaged until it began beating on it's own again.
More to come...
Friday, March 30, 2012
Advancement
I think I'm beginning to discover the flow of this blog. I've written them in the past, I've kept journals, notebooks and other things in between. Shoot, for that matter, I've burned entire notebooks...utilizing the idea of the Phoenix, when I find myself in a funk or stuck using the same type of lingo or hooks, I'll literally burn entire collections of my writing to free myself from them, rising anew, reborn with brand new ideas to spew forth. But no matter the topic, those writings all discussed something, a belief, some story that I might have percolating inside my mind. But here, I'm feeling like like this is the curtain pulled back, here you are getting to see the Great Oz when all the bells and whistles are removed.
In other words...here you get to understand that I've been sitting in the dark for five minutes in front of this computer screen thinking about what words are going to be strung together. Instead of a story, here you are learning about how the story comes about.
Here, you get to read me think about Trayvon and how a life was lost. But you also get to read me think that maybe he did start the fight, but you also get to follow these words and read me come back around to the fact that a life was lost and how do we as a society not hold someone accountable for that? Jeez, Michael Vick spent two years in prison for killing dogs that could have very well attacked him, right?
You get to read me envision me here, sitting in the dark still, arms wrapped around myself, wondering what the next story is. Trayvon will be done soon enough, because there is going to be something sexy, something gruesome, something international that is going to take the eye of the camera off of it. The news works like music and radio nowadays.
Tangent: I remember being a kid; 1984, I was in the fourth grade, jamming to Michael and the Thriller album. Yup, I was in my bedroom and between dunking on the Nerf hoop hanging on the back of my door, I was practicing those sweet Thriller moves and pretending to understand the true value of PYT and Billie Jean. Then came 1985, I still heard the Thriller album on the radio, still moonwalking in my room. One freaking year later and I was still on the same album and songs, loving them like they were brand new. The news was the same. Reagan was reelected, trickle-down economics was in full effect and the stories were all the same. Times were slower, we absorbed what life put in front of us and we used that knowledge to learn and proceed. It didn't always mean the news was good, but at least we could use it to move forward with purpose.
Now...we're lucky to get the same story from the 5pm news as we are on the 6pm news. What can really hold our attention any more?
So, now, with Trayvon, who do we blame? Hurry up and make a decision before the story goes away...facts be damned. Do we blame the shooter, the parents who didn't know to look for him in a morgue until three days later, a society that didn't bother to know their neighbors? You or me for writing and reading about all of this, trying to get some juicy bit of info no one else knows about yet?
And now, instead of reading about a grand thought, you have come full circle with me and together we are wondering how did we get here as a society? All the advancements, all the knowledge that we have at our fingertips...shit...the fact that anyone now can be a writer who can impact the world with a mesmerizing string of dialogue...but why are we not yet satisfied? Why do we always have to be looking to something else to capture our attention? Why not just settle in and dwell on something for a moment? Maybe then, we won't always be looking for the next child who will be killed, instead we can focus on the one who already was and try to solve the issue of not letting it happen again to be the next 5 o'clock special.
In other words...here you get to understand that I've been sitting in the dark for five minutes in front of this computer screen thinking about what words are going to be strung together. Instead of a story, here you are learning about how the story comes about.
Here, you get to read me think about Trayvon and how a life was lost. But you also get to read me think that maybe he did start the fight, but you also get to follow these words and read me come back around to the fact that a life was lost and how do we as a society not hold someone accountable for that? Jeez, Michael Vick spent two years in prison for killing dogs that could have very well attacked him, right?
You get to read me envision me here, sitting in the dark still, arms wrapped around myself, wondering what the next story is. Trayvon will be done soon enough, because there is going to be something sexy, something gruesome, something international that is going to take the eye of the camera off of it. The news works like music and radio nowadays.
Tangent: I remember being a kid; 1984, I was in the fourth grade, jamming to Michael and the Thriller album. Yup, I was in my bedroom and between dunking on the Nerf hoop hanging on the back of my door, I was practicing those sweet Thriller moves and pretending to understand the true value of PYT and Billie Jean. Then came 1985, I still heard the Thriller album on the radio, still moonwalking in my room. One freaking year later and I was still on the same album and songs, loving them like they were brand new. The news was the same. Reagan was reelected, trickle-down economics was in full effect and the stories were all the same. Times were slower, we absorbed what life put in front of us and we used that knowledge to learn and proceed. It didn't always mean the news was good, but at least we could use it to move forward with purpose.
Now...we're lucky to get the same story from the 5pm news as we are on the 6pm news. What can really hold our attention any more?
So, now, with Trayvon, who do we blame? Hurry up and make a decision before the story goes away...facts be damned. Do we blame the shooter, the parents who didn't know to look for him in a morgue until three days later, a society that didn't bother to know their neighbors? You or me for writing and reading about all of this, trying to get some juicy bit of info no one else knows about yet?
And now, instead of reading about a grand thought, you have come full circle with me and together we are wondering how did we get here as a society? All the advancements, all the knowledge that we have at our fingertips...shit...the fact that anyone now can be a writer who can impact the world with a mesmerizing string of dialogue...but why are we not yet satisfied? Why do we always have to be looking to something else to capture our attention? Why not just settle in and dwell on something for a moment? Maybe then, we won't always be looking for the next child who will be killed, instead we can focus on the one who already was and try to solve the issue of not letting it happen again to be the next 5 o'clock special.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Buying a House While Fighting the Bubonic Plague and Other Abstract Thoughts
I guess I made a promise at just about the wrong time in my life. It seemed like such a simple thing and the perfect time to do it. I am motivated to write, to lay bare my soul before you day after day. And it was pretty easy to get started, the words, commas, periods and general dashes of brilliance were all brimming within, waiting to spill out through my fingertips onto this digital canvas.
Of course, I realize it was made easy because I started this journey while entering into the realm of vacation; I had the luxury of waking up after the sun, having a cup of coffee that had been prepared for me and sitting in 70 degree warmth next to a swimming pool, while staring at a mountainside as I tried to organize all that punctuation in my nugget.
Now, I sit in a building made of cynder blocks with a heater blasting as I try to fight the lasting effects of a cough (that fortunately) gets a little bit drier each day. Instead of waking to the smell of coffee and a gentle prod from the sunlight, a merciless clock screams out in the darkness each morning. I think it has artificial intelligence and knows which day is Monday and knows to "WAHH-WAHH-WAHH" a little louder. The lasting effects of this sickness I adopted from Lisa is leaving me ever so slightly drained. Not enough to be debilitating, just enough to make mornings and life a little more annoying than usual. Certain things I lift are just a little bit heavier, my breath seems to leave me just a little quicker when I have to exert myself and 230 in the afternoon is definitely nap time...problem is, I'm still at work at that point.
Ah well, it's not all bad. This bubonic plague didn't kill me, although it didn't make me stronger, so I don't subscribe to that old addage. Lisa and I are finally working through the (hopefully) last phases of purchasing a house. Being first time buyers I don't think either one of us can truly realize how special this whole process has been. From what I understand, most people shop nearly 100 homes and usually have at least a couple of deals fall apart before they get something close to what they want. This is what I've been told, but hasn't been our experience so far. After looking at no more than a dozen houses we fell in love with the single one we put an offer in on. Then, from what I'm told, the truly unique happened. Our offer was accepted over that of a cash offer.
Hmm, okay, doesn't mean much to me, but as I've been thoroughly lectured about the subject, this just doesn't happen in this day and age. If someone has the chance to "take the money and run" that's what they are "supposed" to do. Well, things are at a point where we still have a few weeks before we close, but thanks to our superagent and the support of our family, we are well on our way to owning our first home and it is quite exciting and humbling all the same.
Anyway, enough gobbledy goop for a day. Off to tackle this day and try to pretend something mesmerizing will happen so that I can write about that tomorrow or something. If not, I'll just share the fascinating world of quadratic functions.
Of course, I realize it was made easy because I started this journey while entering into the realm of vacation; I had the luxury of waking up after the sun, having a cup of coffee that had been prepared for me and sitting in 70 degree warmth next to a swimming pool, while staring at a mountainside as I tried to organize all that punctuation in my nugget.
Now, I sit in a building made of cynder blocks with a heater blasting as I try to fight the lasting effects of a cough (that fortunately) gets a little bit drier each day. Instead of waking to the smell of coffee and a gentle prod from the sunlight, a merciless clock screams out in the darkness each morning. I think it has artificial intelligence and knows which day is Monday and knows to "WAHH-WAHH-WAHH" a little louder. The lasting effects of this sickness I adopted from Lisa is leaving me ever so slightly drained. Not enough to be debilitating, just enough to make mornings and life a little more annoying than usual. Certain things I lift are just a little bit heavier, my breath seems to leave me just a little quicker when I have to exert myself and 230 in the afternoon is definitely nap time...problem is, I'm still at work at that point.
Ah well, it's not all bad. This bubonic plague didn't kill me, although it didn't make me stronger, so I don't subscribe to that old addage. Lisa and I are finally working through the (hopefully) last phases of purchasing a house. Being first time buyers I don't think either one of us can truly realize how special this whole process has been. From what I understand, most people shop nearly 100 homes and usually have at least a couple of deals fall apart before they get something close to what they want. This is what I've been told, but hasn't been our experience so far. After looking at no more than a dozen houses we fell in love with the single one we put an offer in on. Then, from what I'm told, the truly unique happened. Our offer was accepted over that of a cash offer.
Hmm, okay, doesn't mean much to me, but as I've been thoroughly lectured about the subject, this just doesn't happen in this day and age. If someone has the chance to "take the money and run" that's what they are "supposed" to do. Well, things are at a point where we still have a few weeks before we close, but thanks to our superagent and the support of our family, we are well on our way to owning our first home and it is quite exciting and humbling all the same.
Anyway, enough gobbledy goop for a day. Off to tackle this day and try to pretend something mesmerizing will happen so that I can write about that tomorrow or something. If not, I'll just share the fascinating world of quadratic functions.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Loss
On my way out the door from work yesterday my boss mentioned a former colleague who had suddenly lost her husband. To be honest, when I worked with this woman, I was indifferent about her, sometimes annoyed by her, but overall she was a nice enough person.
But for some reason I began to think about it more as I drove home. I inquired my subconscious as to why I was feeling a welling of worry about this. Granted, we've got the stress of trying to buy a new home right now, things haven't been fantastic at work (but that's education in Cali anyway, right?) and I've got a math test tonight that deals with matrices to my surprise, the Matrix is not just a movie. (Big shout out to Cramer and his/her rule, btw). So, like I said in a previous post, I've been compartmentalizing, I know it wasn't life bothering me, it was this event specifically and it finally clicked. As we are human, we proclaim to serve our Lord, our community, our school, our job, our friends and family, but really, we are also born of human nature and serve the Id, or to put it more bluntly, we look out for ourselves and how things might affect us individually.
That's where this came back around for me, I wasn't so much grieving the loss of a man who I never met, but I was grieving the idea of what that might one day mean to me in my life. See, this woman who lost her husband lost everything. From what I understand he was the rock in her life, he was the financial supporter, the bill payer, the hand holder during a needle prick, the dog poop picker upper. His goal was to be the protector of all things for his wife and now suddenly he was wiped away in one swift stroke.
It would be easy to insert my own life and fears here, but that was not really what I thought about. Lisa and I have a nicely rooted 50/50 relationship. As disparaging as it is to think about losing her (or her me) I know that we would both be able to function through the pain and loss and I actually owe a lot of that to Lisa. But here, in this time, driving home, I was thinking about my parents and their path to mortality.
My mom has been battling low level health problems for a number of years, culminating in the reduction of her quality of breathing. There have been, over the years, tests and re-tests resulting in some thought of what might be ailing her. But just in recent weeks doctors have been comfortable to say that she is in the beginning stages of battling scleroderma. I won't go to extravagent lengths to describe what it is, but it is an immuno-deficiency disease that usually takes one of two forms; it either attacks you internally or externally. Externally, it tightens and hardens the skin, making things uncomfortable and sometime painful, but thankfully, it is a condition that one can live with for years upon years. Internally, it goes after the organs and most typically will manifest itself by producing collagen in organs like the lungs or kidneys. Obviously, this eventually leads to death as the organs will eventually fail.
And unfortunately, my mother seems to be afflicted with the internal form. But on the upside, much like HIV and AIDS, one can live for a number of years with special diet and careful consideration for how they live their life. But that scratching, worrying, building fear that was growing during that drive was for my father.
My mom has been that rock for my dad. A brief history on them reads like this: high school sweethearts that bought into the American dream, got a house, had a single child and started to live happily ever after. Where things get all Tales of Grimm-like is when my dad became addicted to alcohol and would change from the good Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. Years of verbal and borderline physical abuse lead to a break in our household. My mom filed for divorce and moved to Seattle. My dad finally hit rock bottom when he realized all that he lost.
He began a long road to recovery, one he still battles to this day. But I can happily report that my mom took him back in and I was asked by my father to be the best man at their second wedding; a (hopefully no more than) once in a lifetime opportunity. And this is exactly has me so apprehensive. What happens if my mom passes before my dad? She has been his life, his rock, his everything.
I worry that he won't be motivated to live for himself without her, but then I feel guilty wondering that because he has brought himself back from down such a deep hole, what's to say he wouldn't be able to draw upon that strength? So am I not giving him enough credit?
No matter the problem, whether storms are on the horizon or not, I do know with clarity, what it means to appreciate all that I have in my life right now and all I can do is honor myself and my loved ones by taking full of advantage of that life in this moment.
Is that living for the Id, or living for the loss?
But for some reason I began to think about it more as I drove home. I inquired my subconscious as to why I was feeling a welling of worry about this. Granted, we've got the stress of trying to buy a new home right now, things haven't been fantastic at work (but that's education in Cali anyway, right?) and I've got a math test tonight that deals with matrices to my surprise, the Matrix is not just a movie. (Big shout out to Cramer and his/her rule, btw). So, like I said in a previous post, I've been compartmentalizing, I know it wasn't life bothering me, it was this event specifically and it finally clicked. As we are human, we proclaim to serve our Lord, our community, our school, our job, our friends and family, but really, we are also born of human nature and serve the Id, or to put it more bluntly, we look out for ourselves and how things might affect us individually.
That's where this came back around for me, I wasn't so much grieving the loss of a man who I never met, but I was grieving the idea of what that might one day mean to me in my life. See, this woman who lost her husband lost everything. From what I understand he was the rock in her life, he was the financial supporter, the bill payer, the hand holder during a needle prick, the dog poop picker upper. His goal was to be the protector of all things for his wife and now suddenly he was wiped away in one swift stroke.
It would be easy to insert my own life and fears here, but that was not really what I thought about. Lisa and I have a nicely rooted 50/50 relationship. As disparaging as it is to think about losing her (or her me) I know that we would both be able to function through the pain and loss and I actually owe a lot of that to Lisa. But here, in this time, driving home, I was thinking about my parents and their path to mortality.
My mom has been battling low level health problems for a number of years, culminating in the reduction of her quality of breathing. There have been, over the years, tests and re-tests resulting in some thought of what might be ailing her. But just in recent weeks doctors have been comfortable to say that she is in the beginning stages of battling scleroderma. I won't go to extravagent lengths to describe what it is, but it is an immuno-deficiency disease that usually takes one of two forms; it either attacks you internally or externally. Externally, it tightens and hardens the skin, making things uncomfortable and sometime painful, but thankfully, it is a condition that one can live with for years upon years. Internally, it goes after the organs and most typically will manifest itself by producing collagen in organs like the lungs or kidneys. Obviously, this eventually leads to death as the organs will eventually fail.
And unfortunately, my mother seems to be afflicted with the internal form. But on the upside, much like HIV and AIDS, one can live for a number of years with special diet and careful consideration for how they live their life. But that scratching, worrying, building fear that was growing during that drive was for my father.
My mom has been that rock for my dad. A brief history on them reads like this: high school sweethearts that bought into the American dream, got a house, had a single child and started to live happily ever after. Where things get all Tales of Grimm-like is when my dad became addicted to alcohol and would change from the good Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. Years of verbal and borderline physical abuse lead to a break in our household. My mom filed for divorce and moved to Seattle. My dad finally hit rock bottom when he realized all that he lost.
He began a long road to recovery, one he still battles to this day. But I can happily report that my mom took him back in and I was asked by my father to be the best man at their second wedding; a (hopefully no more than) once in a lifetime opportunity. And this is exactly has me so apprehensive. What happens if my mom passes before my dad? She has been his life, his rock, his everything.
I worry that he won't be motivated to live for himself without her, but then I feel guilty wondering that because he has brought himself back from down such a deep hole, what's to say he wouldn't be able to draw upon that strength? So am I not giving him enough credit?
No matter the problem, whether storms are on the horizon or not, I do know with clarity, what it means to appreciate all that I have in my life right now and all I can do is honor myself and my loved ones by taking full of advantage of that life in this moment.
Is that living for the Id, or living for the loss?
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Potpourri
-If you can walk, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing...
Zimbabwean proverb
Everyone has the magic in them to create anything they want, or maybe in a less romantic sense, we all have the biology in us to create anything we want. Either way, my brain is firing on many different cylinders right now, not necessarily in unison either, so I thought it best to title this Potpourri. It's got a little bit of everything and also kind of smells good but stinks all at the same time.
Hold please...
Thanks for waiting, I know that doesn't really translate in reading, but I had to go get a beer. It's been one of those days, weeks, decades. It all comes to a head every now and again with a compatriot of mine at work; see he is a man of age only in a physical nature. In terms of mental and emotional age, he quite literally equals that of a 10 year old boy. I could deal with that if it meant I had the upside of dealing with a 10 year old boy. You know, things like conversations about baseball, or maybe that new car that looks really cool, or maybe about how Star Wars is now in theaters in 3-D. But unfortunately, I don't get the wide-eyed side of a 10 year old, I get the angry, it's never my fault, stubborn boy. Today's example: we had custodial products that needed to be out at the sites. He did a great job getting it out, what he didn't tell me is that he allocated product wrong and ended up bringing back and hiding an overage in the warehouse. Only after being prompted about it did he come clean and when I asked where those items were supposed to be delivered, he didn't know. His solution was to wait for people to call and complain about their shortages. But if I had done a better job about making clear what needed to happen, then he wouldn't have made mistakes.
Hmm, he had printed forms denoting which site was supposed to receive what quantities of each item. Site A gets: three cases toilet paper, four gallons of disinfectant, etc. Don't know if I could have made it much clearer. My bad.
This leads me to wisecracks that usually find their way to Facebook. Today's was a link of an old 70's song, "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" by Leo Sayer, with my tagline noting to change the word 'dancing' to 'drinking'. What I forgot is that this is the first post my newest friend has seen, my mom. She doesn't usually get to see my fully sarcastic side, so that means I'll be making a call to her after I wrap this post up to reassure her that I am not going to end up in a stinking stupor of drunkeness, risking life and limb passed out in the gutter in front of my house, partially naked.
But my frustration melts away into something of apprehensive joy (unless that is an oxymoron). Despite that upcoming eviction, Lisa and I have been pre-approved to buy a house and have begun actively hunting. There's some nice stuff out there, some we can potentially afford and others that are just nice to walk through and sample the cookies (literal cookies for you naughty thinkers). But I stop and wonder sometimes as we are stopped and wandering through these homes, do other people feel this exhilarating fear that we do? I mean, of course I know the answer, sure, of course they do. Lisa and I are not so unique to the rest of the world that we are the only ones freaking out about buying a house, but man, it's scary stuff. We obsess at the grocery store so as not to pick a can of corn that is dented, so what he hell do I do if I buy a house that has a leaky roof?!
Then again, that's the fun of it all isn't it? We don't really think about walking on the tight rope until we look down and see no net below us. That's when we get scared and that's when everything goes sideways. But realizing we are on the tightrope doesn't have to be a bad thing. It'll make my balance better and worst case scenario, I don't think there are rules for walking a tightrope, I'll slink across by any means necessary. And then that brings me back to my coworker, I can't be the only one who deals with a guy like that. Maybe we in this world are all a lot more alike than we sometimes realize. Blame the media, blame the neighbors, blame the dog, blame yourself, shoot, blame me (my coworker does). We see things, we disseminate the information of what we see and we either use it or discard it. I'm a big believer in events having meaning, so if nothing else, these days are lessons in patience and seeing the bigger picture I guess. Hopefully it'll result in a home that I can hang a picture while eating cookies and having a beer ; )
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Back to the Bay, Back to Inkies
Yeah, I know I was supposed to write everyday. Yeah, I know I have no way to prove to you that I have, but I have, I promise! That friend I told you about in the first post reminded me of the importance of some time off. And it makes sense, I don't want to burn out in this marathon after a mile and also, what good is my story telling if it's so diluted nobody (especially the author) even cares about what is posted.
Originally I took a day off when we were still down south because I wanted to wait and share the story of our dinner out at a fantastic wine bar. A Toys R Us for a wine enthusiast like myself, but I realized there wasn't much to tell. Nothing earth shattering for anyone since most know how much I love wine. And I realized I might just sound snooty expounding on the bouquets of this bottle and the tannins of that one. So, know this, I'll be going there again when Lisa and I venture back and if you're with us, I'll be more than happy to take you there.
But as for now, we're back home and do begins our new journey to find a home. First though, a scheduled session at our local tat shop with Matt Zopfi (I have no problem dropping his name because I want him to get any business he can, this guy truly cares about the art of the tattoo and he's got the talent to back it).
After Lisa and I each got our last piece from him, he scheduled the follow up appointment to make sure we and he were both satisfied with the work. And although we were, he still wanted to refine a few things (for free of course). Amazing guy and easy to sit for and talk to. The only way it could have been better is if he was a hot chick, but I digress.
I've already got another idea in mind, but don't want to share too much lest I jinx the translation and completion of it. That'll be one for down the road once Lisa and I make sure we're moved into a new place.
Originally I took a day off when we were still down south because I wanted to wait and share the story of our dinner out at a fantastic wine bar. A Toys R Us for a wine enthusiast like myself, but I realized there wasn't much to tell. Nothing earth shattering for anyone since most know how much I love wine. And I realized I might just sound snooty expounding on the bouquets of this bottle and the tannins of that one. So, know this, I'll be going there again when Lisa and I venture back and if you're with us, I'll be more than happy to take you there.
But as for now, we're back home and do begins our new journey to find a home. First though, a scheduled session at our local tat shop with Matt Zopfi (I have no problem dropping his name because I want him to get any business he can, this guy truly cares about the art of the tattoo and he's got the talent to back it).
After Lisa and I each got our last piece from him, he scheduled the follow up appointment to make sure we and he were both satisfied with the work. And although we were, he still wanted to refine a few things (for free of course). Amazing guy and easy to sit for and talk to. The only way it could have been better is if he was a hot chick, but I digress.
I've already got another idea in mind, but don't want to share too much lest I jinx the translation and completion of it. That'll be one for down the road once Lisa and I make sure we're moved into a new place.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Journey to Mecca
Today was a day after a party day. The in-laws hosted one of those classy house parties, you know the kind where people drink wine or vodka on the rocks in those real low-ball glasses that are made for that kind of stuff. And they stand around the fire pit and talk about work and retirement while munching on blue cheese filled, bacon wrapped dates (which are awesome btw).
So today was cleanup...my experience with house party cleanup is usually picking up half crushed aluminum beer cans or sweeping up some broken glass from a dropped bottle of some kind. Maybe finding some trinket that will sit in a corner until someone comes back to claim it, then again, maybe not This cleanup was different though. It was the full-on washing of chafing dishes, re-boxing of the cutlery that was only for the party, etc.
So upon completion, we all decided on a short road trip. It's been top down weather the whole time we've been here this week, but today was especially exquisite. With temps in the low 80's we rolled along the byways and side roads, following the shadow line of the desert valley's mountains. The roads took us out of Rancho Mirage, past Indio and then Coachella to Mecca. Didn't even know there was a Mecca in California.
There was plenty of time for quiet contemplation of the beauty that can be found even in tumbleweeds. I couldn't help but revisit some of the choices in life that allowed me to end up there right at that moment. Too many to share now, but undoubtedly these will trickle forth via my fingertips over time. Many of the stories most of my closest friends and family would know, but it felt good to know that through challenges, rough patches and even bad decisions I've made in life, I am like that desert. Despite the hardships that a barren valley might face, those plants still find water, survive and even thrive. They display their beauty to any who wander past and notice. I might be a desert flower or a tumbleweed, depending on how you look at me, but either way I am beautiful and thriving.
So today was cleanup...my experience with house party cleanup is usually picking up half crushed aluminum beer cans or sweeping up some broken glass from a dropped bottle of some kind. Maybe finding some trinket that will sit in a corner until someone comes back to claim it, then again, maybe not This cleanup was different though. It was the full-on washing of chafing dishes, re-boxing of the cutlery that was only for the party, etc.
So upon completion, we all decided on a short road trip. It's been top down weather the whole time we've been here this week, but today was especially exquisite. With temps in the low 80's we rolled along the byways and side roads, following the shadow line of the desert valley's mountains. The roads took us out of Rancho Mirage, past Indio and then Coachella to Mecca. Didn't even know there was a Mecca in California.
There was plenty of time for quiet contemplation of the beauty that can be found even in tumbleweeds. I couldn't help but revisit some of the choices in life that allowed me to end up there right at that moment. Too many to share now, but undoubtedly these will trickle forth via my fingertips over time. Many of the stories most of my closest friends and family would know, but it felt good to know that through challenges, rough patches and even bad decisions I've made in life, I am like that desert. Despite the hardships that a barren valley might face, those plants still find water, survive and even thrive. They display their beauty to any who wander past and notice. I might be a desert flower or a tumbleweed, depending on how you look at me, but either way I am beautiful and thriving.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Giving Back a Belt Loop? or How FB Keeps Me Motivated
I probably picked the worst time to promise myself that I would start writing again. I did it a day before leaving for vacation, while in the middle of working through an eviction (not the we-didn't-pay-our-bills type, it's the property-owner-died-daughter-is-now-moving-in type), which consequently has us trying to be first time home owners; oh yeah, while also trying to be a first time dad and a first time college graduate so that I might eventually be a teacher.
Whew! Maybe that's normal in your life, but mine, that requires some compartmentalizing so that I don't go batsh-t crazy. That brings me to my point (finally! you say) of exercise in my life. Any glance at my FB photos will chronologically catalog a growing mass of body and slowly a reduction of that same mass.
It was about three years ago and I saw a pic of myself and wondered just how I could look like that. I was a bloated mass of a man, literally double my wife's weight. I had found ways to rationalize things, a walk with the dog must have burned off the first hot dog at dinner, so it's okay for a second (not to mention heaps of Mac and Cheese, hold the veggies). I looked to Facebook and saw a very specific friend from high school who looked fantastic. I would love to name him and all my other friends who I continue to see working to better themselves, but as this is a public forum, I'll err on the side of privacy and thank them individually later. Anyway, by no means had he ever been fat or even out of shape, but here he now was even healthier than ever and I knew that I needed to change for me, for Lisa and for a chance at living after 40 without a heart attack (knock on wood).
I began with small steps and worked my way from 251 lbs (and morbidly obese by government health standards) down to 175 lbs (and simply overweight by those same standards). I've rebounded some as my college classes have interjected, or because we're now on a weekend hunt for an open home to wander, but my life-long goal is to now never let myself stand on a scale and weigh more than 200 lbs.
I can now stand after getting out of the shower, look down and see more than just a Buddha belly (TMI?, sorry!)...I mean my toes, sure! But I'm proud that I can use belt loops on a belt that wasn't getting too much use on that end just a couple of years ago.
It would be easy to rest on these laurels, but why slide all the way back? So this morning, in bright, 67 degree weather (at 8 am mind you) here in Rancho Mirage, I kept a commitment to that goal by jogging a couple of miles around the neighborhood where we are vacationing. And to be honest, I struggled part of it, since half of it is up a hill and of course that half is the path back home, but it feels good to sit here now and feel the fatigue in my legs and lay by the pool with a cup of iced coffee as my reward.
And I have many friends to thank. All those who are on FB, courageously posting their own goals and achievements as they work toward a healthier life. I have you to keep me motivated, I want to see you all at the 30 year reunion and we can share stories of our further achievements, not just about how we had a quadruple bypass.
Whew! Maybe that's normal in your life, but mine, that requires some compartmentalizing so that I don't go batsh-t crazy. That brings me to my point (finally! you say) of exercise in my life. Any glance at my FB photos will chronologically catalog a growing mass of body and slowly a reduction of that same mass.
It was about three years ago and I saw a pic of myself and wondered just how I could look like that. I was a bloated mass of a man, literally double my wife's weight. I had found ways to rationalize things, a walk with the dog must have burned off the first hot dog at dinner, so it's okay for a second (not to mention heaps of Mac and Cheese, hold the veggies). I looked to Facebook and saw a very specific friend from high school who looked fantastic. I would love to name him and all my other friends who I continue to see working to better themselves, but as this is a public forum, I'll err on the side of privacy and thank them individually later. Anyway, by no means had he ever been fat or even out of shape, but here he now was even healthier than ever and I knew that I needed to change for me, for Lisa and for a chance at living after 40 without a heart attack (knock on wood).
I began with small steps and worked my way from 251 lbs (and morbidly obese by government health standards) down to 175 lbs (and simply overweight by those same standards). I've rebounded some as my college classes have interjected, or because we're now on a weekend hunt for an open home to wander, but my life-long goal is to now never let myself stand on a scale and weigh more than 200 lbs.
I can now stand after getting out of the shower, look down and see more than just a Buddha belly (TMI?, sorry!)...I mean my toes, sure! But I'm proud that I can use belt loops on a belt that wasn't getting too much use on that end just a couple of years ago.
It would be easy to rest on these laurels, but why slide all the way back? So this morning, in bright, 67 degree weather (at 8 am mind you) here in Rancho Mirage, I kept a commitment to that goal by jogging a couple of miles around the neighborhood where we are vacationing. And to be honest, I struggled part of it, since half of it is up a hill and of course that half is the path back home, but it feels good to sit here now and feel the fatigue in my legs and lay by the pool with a cup of iced coffee as my reward.
And I have many friends to thank. All those who are on FB, courageously posting their own goals and achievements as they work toward a healthier life. I have you to keep me motivated, I want to see you all at the 30 year reunion and we can share stories of our further achievements, not just about how we had a quadruple bypass.
Monday, February 20, 2012
This Babe-a-luscious Place
Lisa and I have made it a practice to escape to our Eden at least once a year. Based in Rancho Mirage, the domicile we retreat to has been a haven for relaxation and rejuvenation. A proverbial "Fortress of Solitude" as the comic book geek in me would say.
One major component of our trips to this oasis is Babe's. Not quite the strip club or adult fetish store your instincts are pulling you towards, rather it's the local BBQ restaurant that just happens to be walking distance from our house.
Part smoked meat goodness, part delightfully sloppy sides and part (and most importantly) awesome ales on tap, this place is always guaranteed to add nearly 10 lbs to my svelte frame while we are here. And although we arrived yesterday afternoon, the smell of pulled pork is wafting up the hill (against the current of the breeze) calling to me, pulling at me like those cartoon tendrils that pick you up and float you right to your doom. I can't wait anymore, tonight Lisa and I eat, drink and laugh like royalty, stuffing our faces with shredded smoked meats and clanking out goblets together while bursting with guttural laughs as all our cares have been abandoned in the Bay Area.
Yeah, it's good to be on vacation. Screw you exercise, I'll schedule something with you next week.
One major component of our trips to this oasis is Babe's. Not quite the strip club or adult fetish store your instincts are pulling you towards, rather it's the local BBQ restaurant that just happens to be walking distance from our house.
Part smoked meat goodness, part delightfully sloppy sides and part (and most importantly) awesome ales on tap, this place is always guaranteed to add nearly 10 lbs to my svelte frame while we are here. And although we arrived yesterday afternoon, the smell of pulled pork is wafting up the hill (against the current of the breeze) calling to me, pulling at me like those cartoon tendrils that pick you up and float you right to your doom. I can't wait anymore, tonight Lisa and I eat, drink and laugh like royalty, stuffing our faces with shredded smoked meats and clanking out goblets together while bursting with guttural laughs as all our cares have been abandoned in the Bay Area.
Yeah, it's good to be on vacation. Screw you exercise, I'll schedule something with you next week.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Being Lazy v. Being Stupid
So I managed to write my most inspiring, stupendous post in this short lived blog and somehow found a way to delete it.
I am awesome, so let the vacation commence.
I am awesome, so let the vacation commence.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
The Beginning of Nothing
I learned many years ago about the importance of practicing writing. It was a craft to be worked at, refined, reworked and eventually accepted. A ball of clay that could be made into anything you like. It was important to continue working at it, lest you lose something in what you were weaving. In more recent times, I listened to a friend make a promise to himself that he was going to write something everyday. I found that very inspiring and it rekindled in me a desire to put pen to paper, or nowadays, keystroke to screen. It brought me back to those early days of writing, the ones in high school where poetry and prose, romance and ego were all I needed. I wrote everyday back then, mainly because I couldn't get enough words out in a fast enough manner to really express what I wanted or, for that matter who I was.
Back then my brain would cruelly move on to the next epiphany before my hand had a chance to scribe the brilliance. Poetry, that young man's game, I loved it. I wrote of so many things ranging from the weather to the political climate; from faith to the religious zeal of athletic fandom. There was nothing off limits, especially the likes and loves of my life.
That is why this space has been titled 'Camille is Dead'. Nothing quite so gruesome or shocking as you might expect. Rather, it is my attempt at an eloquent nod to my wife. In those days of young ego and white hot love, every girl I ever liked, loved, dated, infatuated over, dreamed about, was assigned a name. And while ever so deeply in love with Adia, Rose, Ivy or any of the others, there was always Camille.
She was the faceless picture of perfection that my heart, mind and soul yearned for. The one in who I put all my faith that I would one day find her; secretly tucked away in the corner of my heart while steadily pursuing all my feminine interests in reality. And as the days wore on, she was the only one who never disappointed me, never left me, never fed me any lies, never put her interests above mine.
Then, just over a decade ago, I met Lisa. And maybe I should have known it right off the bat. The hot pink hair, the confidence that oozed from her, the flippant way she engaged our conversation while really keeping one eye on the hockey behind my shoulder.
She was out of my league.
But in the end, the drunken stupor of male arrogance, mixed with some lust and a large portion of curiosity kept me pursuing her. Camille sat idly by, waiting for me to contact her. The days in which I wrote to her, about her, grew less and less. Then, there was a flight to Michigan to surprise Lisa. Orchestrated with the help of great friends, this was my chance at a movie moment. The romantic film that ends with marriage and happiness ever after. It was on that flight of five hours that Camille came out swinging. She could no longer contain herself as she realized she was slowly being erased by Lisa. She reminded me that in reality, girls like this actually file restraining orders, not embrace you when you show up out of the blue 2500 miles from home. She told me that this girl couldn't care about me, she was in Michigan after all with a trip already booked to Paris for three weeks. Camille told me Lisa was a world-travelling muse, a girl who could not be contained.
I didn't listen. I walked off the plane, met with Lisa and let her tour me around the areas she had grown up in. I wish I could tell you that it was the ending of the perfect romantic movie, but it wasn't. I could not figure out Lisa and that ultimately intrigued me more. Camille's last desperate attempts came at me in the late nights when I was alone, me, her, and the thoughts of failure. Camille knew I had my heart set on Lisa, because this is where Camille had always made her home. She knew if I committed to Lisa, it was an eviction notice for her. But Camille could not survive without me, it was only me that kept this idealized figment of the perfect woman alive.
September 9, 2006 I married Lisa. Camille did not attend. She had been gone for nearly five years already and I had not thought too much about her. I didn't miss her, I didn't wonder about her and obviously had not written about her.
February 18, 2012 I sit here battling with the final sentences of what is a renewed promise to myself to try and write something everyday. I had given a lot of thought to what my friend said about writing and that provoked my introspection in all the things that I had created. That was really the first time I had thought of Camille since the beginning days of meeting Lisa. And it was at that point that I realized Camille is dead. The idealized woman I created as a teenager was no longer needed because I have her now in my very real life. That is how the title of this blog is a tribute to Lisa.
And if you are reading this now, then you are a witness to my beginning, of nothing really. No agenda here, no motivation except to continue stringing words together, making magical pieces of thought jump into your head. If you are reading this, then you are the peer pressure that hopefully keeps me writing day after day, because as vulnerable as I now am placing all my thoughts here, it would be even more embarrassing to not fulfill my promise to write a little something everyday.
And if you're still reading and wondering about my naming system of the women in my life, well, it was all relative to what was happening or how my relationships had been going. I don't know, I can't really explain it because after all, sometimes nicknames just make themselves.
But Camille, I do have Prince to thank for that. Camille, that alter ego to Prince on my favorite album, "Sign O The Times". The duality, the yin and the yang, that was how I ended up with Camille; the idealized perfection that was to be my ultimate component, making me a better man. I always thought I would have Camille in my life, never did I dream I would ever write her eulogy, let alone find someone who would surpass my own fantasy in every way in this life. I love you Lisa.
Back then my brain would cruelly move on to the next epiphany before my hand had a chance to scribe the brilliance. Poetry, that young man's game, I loved it. I wrote of so many things ranging from the weather to the political climate; from faith to the religious zeal of athletic fandom. There was nothing off limits, especially the likes and loves of my life.
That is why this space has been titled 'Camille is Dead'. Nothing quite so gruesome or shocking as you might expect. Rather, it is my attempt at an eloquent nod to my wife. In those days of young ego and white hot love, every girl I ever liked, loved, dated, infatuated over, dreamed about, was assigned a name. And while ever so deeply in love with Adia, Rose, Ivy or any of the others, there was always Camille.
She was the faceless picture of perfection that my heart, mind and soul yearned for. The one in who I put all my faith that I would one day find her; secretly tucked away in the corner of my heart while steadily pursuing all my feminine interests in reality. And as the days wore on, she was the only one who never disappointed me, never left me, never fed me any lies, never put her interests above mine.
Then, just over a decade ago, I met Lisa. And maybe I should have known it right off the bat. The hot pink hair, the confidence that oozed from her, the flippant way she engaged our conversation while really keeping one eye on the hockey behind my shoulder.
She was out of my league.
But in the end, the drunken stupor of male arrogance, mixed with some lust and a large portion of curiosity kept me pursuing her. Camille sat idly by, waiting for me to contact her. The days in which I wrote to her, about her, grew less and less. Then, there was a flight to Michigan to surprise Lisa. Orchestrated with the help of great friends, this was my chance at a movie moment. The romantic film that ends with marriage and happiness ever after. It was on that flight of five hours that Camille came out swinging. She could no longer contain herself as she realized she was slowly being erased by Lisa. She reminded me that in reality, girls like this actually file restraining orders, not embrace you when you show up out of the blue 2500 miles from home. She told me that this girl couldn't care about me, she was in Michigan after all with a trip already booked to Paris for three weeks. Camille told me Lisa was a world-travelling muse, a girl who could not be contained.
I didn't listen. I walked off the plane, met with Lisa and let her tour me around the areas she had grown up in. I wish I could tell you that it was the ending of the perfect romantic movie, but it wasn't. I could not figure out Lisa and that ultimately intrigued me more. Camille's last desperate attempts came at me in the late nights when I was alone, me, her, and the thoughts of failure. Camille knew I had my heart set on Lisa, because this is where Camille had always made her home. She knew if I committed to Lisa, it was an eviction notice for her. But Camille could not survive without me, it was only me that kept this idealized figment of the perfect woman alive.
September 9, 2006 I married Lisa. Camille did not attend. She had been gone for nearly five years already and I had not thought too much about her. I didn't miss her, I didn't wonder about her and obviously had not written about her.
February 18, 2012 I sit here battling with the final sentences of what is a renewed promise to myself to try and write something everyday. I had given a lot of thought to what my friend said about writing and that provoked my introspection in all the things that I had created. That was really the first time I had thought of Camille since the beginning days of meeting Lisa. And it was at that point that I realized Camille is dead. The idealized woman I created as a teenager was no longer needed because I have her now in my very real life. That is how the title of this blog is a tribute to Lisa.
And if you are reading this now, then you are a witness to my beginning, of nothing really. No agenda here, no motivation except to continue stringing words together, making magical pieces of thought jump into your head. If you are reading this, then you are the peer pressure that hopefully keeps me writing day after day, because as vulnerable as I now am placing all my thoughts here, it would be even more embarrassing to not fulfill my promise to write a little something everyday.
And if you're still reading and wondering about my naming system of the women in my life, well, it was all relative to what was happening or how my relationships had been going. I don't know, I can't really explain it because after all, sometimes nicknames just make themselves.
But Camille, I do have Prince to thank for that. Camille, that alter ego to Prince on my favorite album, "Sign O The Times". The duality, the yin and the yang, that was how I ended up with Camille; the idealized perfection that was to be my ultimate component, making me a better man. I always thought I would have Camille in my life, never did I dream I would ever write her eulogy, let alone find someone who would surpass my own fantasy in every way in this life. I love you Lisa.
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