Slipping Away

It's really hard for me to be as honest about my life as I've been in the past few weeks. During this time I've come to discover that I have lead a quite conservative life in more areas than I realized. Sure, my values and politics tend to be liberally moderate with a green tint to them, but I've held many things close to my chest; personal choices, personal opinions; and things I've done in the past.

I'm bringing this up because I want everyone to know and everyone who cares, what's going on with me right now. My reasons for this stance are legion, but I felt they are necessary not just for me, but for anyone who knows me or loves me. Because when it comes right down to it, my perception of myself seems to be in contradiction with some of the ways in which everyone else, save my wife, views me. This is because recently a friend of mine used the word "aggressive" to describe me.

I wasn't offended in any way, but it surprised me, threw me for a loop actually. My personal image and description of myself would never have included that term, if anything it was more contradictory- completely opposite.

For the first time in my life I've entered counseling and I absolutely hate it and yet love it. It makes me angry, frustrated, uncomfortable, and sad but at the same time it challenges me to confront all my lingering fears, issues, and problems that have shaped me and effect me negatively to this day. Wounds that I thought were healed I've realized are not and I'm fighting to address them and the powerful emotions that they release. It is hard and at times overwhelming. Sometimes I don't think I can do it. [Continue and get better]

What does help me get through it is exposing myself to everyone and finding strength in this vulnerability. I need to do it this way to tell my thoughts and feelings, and even my actions so that everyone gets a better understanding of who I am.

Because it's been too long since I've last written, I wanted to share a few things with everyone here before I succumb to my sleeping pills for the night:

• Starting Friday I'll be medicating for Depression, for the last two weeks I've gotten worse each day
• She'll say different, but I've been an asshole to my wife, and she deserves much better than this.
• I cant sleep, and the meds are getting less affective.
• I feel lost, alone, and at times my future seems uncertain and impossible.
• I feel friendless despite great friends, yet I feel like asking "Where are they all?"
• Anyone who thinks I have ever just given them a "reality check" and didn't hold anything back, you need to know that I thought long and hard about I wanted to say, whether or not to say anything at all, or how to deliver my message, and in the end I held back my true thoughts and opinions for your benefit.
  
• Because of my hand, writing has come to a stand still and I feel incomplete, worthless, and empty.
• There are times through out every day when I think of the scars and injuries I've received from my family and they are so over whelming, that I want to lay down on the ground and cry.

It surprises me that I can share this much with you and I admit freely that it scares the living crap out of me to do this. But I think it's a healthy step for me. Anyone who reads this is also a part of this treatment for me, so any thoughts, responses, or even complaints are welcomed. Either leave me a comment or if you' like a more private forum email me here: Chuck's Email

Thanks for listening.

TV

It's very late at night and I'm still up, although I'm trying to cut down how long I sleep because my back had just been killing me. It's a combination of being out of shape, a chronic bad back, and a bad abed. I've noticed when I sleep less than 6 hours I'm ok, but any longer and I risk some major pain. It was so bad to today that I started the morning literally crawling around to where my pain meds were before I could actually stand on my own. Lot's of fun let me tell you.

As a result, I've been listening to the TV and I'm offended and not impressed at all. Some lowlights that caught my attention:

• Angelina Jolie had gun on her shoe at a European movie premier
• A Denver Broncos fan blows 6 car horns every time the Broncos score, and their neighbors aren't happy.
• A former contestant from "Dancing with the Stars" is having a nose job.
• Brittany ran a red light, texted in her car while driving, failed a drug test, and is going to move.
• Apparently the only people who watch TV this late at night need powered wheel-chairs. Presumably so they can change the channel.
• The Pope is coming to the US, as a non-Catholic and Deist, I could care less.
• Attorney Peter Francis Geraci , is the most powerful bankruptcy attorney in the world and he really cares, despite obvious scare tactics, partial truths and lies.
• A Group of Nuts, consisting of air pilots and a former Governor of Arizona gathered in Washington to demand that the Federal government to open a global investigation.

Man, with crap like that on, I can't wait to watch Sesame Street with my kids in a few hours! I really need to get off the grid!!

I'm Trying

What, you might ask, is it that i'm trying to do? I'm trying to find the time to write whenever I can, but my luck has been as consistent as usual and if you know me then ya know that ain't good!!

Oh yeah, did I mention I'm a decrepit old man lately? Normally I still feel like I'm in my early 20's, both mentally and physically, but lately the old body has been taken some nasty hits; I'm still down to just one good hand for about a month more, my ulcer has been flaring a bit lately and making eating a real unpleasant experience, I woke up this morning and needed to take some pain pills because my back went out on me, To top that off, Meva says I have what amounts to a swollen and an infected testicle that is possibly the most unpleasant of all the things that are bothering me. And then there is next week's root canal!!! At this point I'm just waiting for scurvy to set in!

I set up time today to get my cast changed, per the doctor's orders and after Meva busted her butt to get home from work early so I could get this done, I get to the doctor's office and the person who does the casts already left for the day!! Even though I talked to her 3 hours before hand and she assured me she'd be there. Just thinking about this REALLY gets me beyond angry! I will get a hold of this doctor on Monday and I'm going to politely give him an ear-full.

So then, I get back home and find out that I somehow infected my computer with a nasty malware program that was just insanely hitting me with pop-ups. None of my usual tricks worked and it took me almost 6 hours, but I think I may have finally got the little bastard deleted. Now it's gotten me a bit paranoid and I'm going to spend most of Sunday backing up files onto CD's.

But in other news, I had such a good morning today with the triplets. I think they must have taken cooperative pills because they played so nice together and were just laughing with me and I remember wishing the day wouldn't ever end. I'm looking forward to tomorrow because I'm going to be doing some leaf blowing and making giant piles of leaves for the kids to play in and see how well they take to it. I am so looking forward to this.

On another good note, I seemed to have gotten bitten by the holiday bug and I'm already trying to sort out my plans for Christmas. I've always gotten excited about Christmas, but I'm thinking this one could be the best one ever. I'm just about done putting together my lists of treats to bake this year as well as what I want to do with indoor and outdoor decorations, and then there is this year's special holiday photo's with the kids. It almost makes me a bit giddy when I think about it.

Well, I think this is enough time on here for me tonight, I need some sleep.

A Reason To Condescend

Living in one of the worlds largest metropolitan areas often means that we will look down on people who live in more rural areas as being less refined, less cultured, and overall just plain stupid. It's not right, and it's definitely not PC, but it's a bit ingrained in the fabric of the culture in this area. Taken with a grain of salt, I think it's humorous--especially when you realize how easy it is to turn the tables on us "city-folk" and poke fun at our reliance on technology and our ability to to live practically on top of each other and never talk to one another.

But then there are stories like the one below, stories so silly and stupid that you have to laugh. The fact that it happened to a hunter, in Iowa, just adds fuel to the fire for us to condescend. You can check out the direct link to the Google search to find out more if you'd like, but here is the snippet from the local paper:

Dog Steps On Gun, Shoots Man

TAMA, Iowa -- A Tama man was injured when hunting dogs stepped on his gun. Officials with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources said James Harris, 37, was pheasant hunting with a group about three miles north of Grinnell when the accident happened.

Officials said the group had shot a bird and when Harris went to retrieve it, he put his gun on the ground and crossed a fence. As he crossed the fence, hunting dogs stepped on his gun causing it to fire.

Harris was shot in the lower left leg.

He was treated at Grinnell Medical Center and later transferred by helicopter to University Hospitals in Iowa City. His condition has not been released.

The investigation is continuing.

That last line kills me----The investigation is continuing!! My only knowledge of police investigation techniques come from watching movies & TV, so I accept my ignorant limitations, but really!! What the hell else is there to investigate? Motive? Whether or not the dog acted alone? Perhaps one of the other hunters or dogs were in on it? Maybe the dog was framed by a pheasant? Hicks!, ya gotta love them.

Clearification

It has recently come to my attention that I may have been unclear to some people about a major development in my life, so I'd like to address that here in a bit more detail and focus solely on that for most of this post, which won't be long by any means. For the last two months, I've entered myself into a counseling program. The purpose of doing this is to help me come to terms with pent up anger that is tied to many unresolved events and issues from my past and present. If you're wondering, and weren't around when I was growing up during my childhood years, they were pretty bad, and downright disturbing at times. This is a trend that has continued into my adult life.

I've always been one to deal with stress and pressures on my own, with my most common tactic being to bottle up what annoys/angers/frustrates me and try to keep the peace. My success had aways been moderate, but enough to get by. In the last few years as stresses increased and family problems went on the rise, I began to lose the precious hold I'd had and my anger came out in large, mean, hurtful ways, each time while fighting with my wife

The first incident happened about 4 years ago now in which I beat down a door in two massive punches. I'm not talking about busting a door open either, since the door was locked into the frame, I took the entire door, frame and all, completely out of the wall; studs, molding, drywall---pretty much everything. The other occurred recently and it was the catalyst the tipped the scales and made me want to seek help. This one was a rather small scale fight between Meva and I that I completely escalated to extreme levels with some horrible comments and demands that I made while uncontrollably angry, but the worst part for me was that it happened in front of the kids. I vowed then and there to do whatever I needed to insure that never happened again. This is what brought in the counseling.

This has been a positive experience that has helped me to make better and healthier choices for myself. This in turn has had a direct effect in my dealings with others. At times it's been a validating experience, but it has also been challenging, frustrating, and exhausting. It's hard, but I intend to see this through.

In other news, my hand has settled down and the pain I feel is in direct relation to how active I must be in my daily life. I'll know more on Thursday (and have some disgusting Frankensteinesque pictures to share) about whether or not the infection has improved or gone away. It still hurts like crazy to type, which is why I have been silent on blogs and emails; at least compared to my norm. When I get the new cast on Thursday they're going try and shape it better so it interferes less with typing, so we'll see then.

No football talk around here for awhile------DAMN BEARS.

The triplets first semi-real Halloween is in two days, I totally can't wait! I am so stoked.

Word of the Day

I stayed away from the news today so that I could calm down a bit, and that's exactly what happened, I cooled down a bit.

If I could assign a one-word name to today, it would most certainly be pain, followed closely by stupidity! I've been bothered by an enormous amount of pain due to my depression---- which really amounts to aches and pains throughout my body. Beyond that my injured hand has been about an 8 (out of 10) today, my back has been sore, and my head was killing me all day from banging it real hard into a cast iron box which resulted in my chipping a tooth and opening it to a nerve.

Yes, that was all on Thursday. Yes, it caused a great deal of pain. But the worst part was that I was alone with my kids, plus little Finn, so I couldn't allow myself to take the pain meds that I have because they make me sleepy and I don't like to be on anything other than my "A" game when the babies are involved.

So, if you were expecting a call from me earlier or were the one I hung up on when you called today and I fumbled with the phone and then accidentally hung it up and erased all my caller IDs, you now know what was going on.

I'm looking for a much more comfortable day tomorrow though, so wish me luck.

Sullen & Eneverated

I really don't watch the news much any more, be it local or national due mostly to the lack of integrity these days and the awful blurring of news and promotion that attempt to slyly shill a commodity to me. I try to get my news from non-TV news sources like newspapers and Internet sites so I can at least stay somewhat in the loop.

Of late though I'm really getting pissed at a certain type of story that continues to make headlines with increasing frequency, and that's school shootings. Every time we show one on TV and go in depth with detailed accounts of victim suffering and the fear and chaos of the entire event all we serve to do is inspire the next one.

The media is preying on the public with these types of stories that identify the shooter and describe them in such detail that anyone watching who is in a remotely similar state or frame of mind can actually become much more encouraged to copy the actions they see because it will give them their chance to be heard, gain notoriety, and a measure of revenge against those people they feel have wronged them.

In essence, they are creating the news and as a society, we are too stupid, too self-absorbed, and too powerless to organize for the common good and denounce these yellow hucksters and ad revenue vampires for their own irresponsibility. There has to be a degree of accountability reserved for every editor, producer, program director, reporter, or news anchor who cover these stories.

It all just makes me sick.

To think that I would rather hear about the latest non-news story about the current celebrity slutlet over this really says something.

Sunday Sunday

I spent most of today taking care of babies. Sarah and Perrin have a stomach flu and they are very clingy and very pukey. Of course my hand hurt like crazy today, but the kids come first so I had to lay off the pain meds so I could focus on them and be attentive to their needs. I'm just glad I didn't have to do this alone, having Meva with me was amazing. Without her, I'm just trying to clap one-handed. (No Pun Intended)

The writing is still difficult with this cast. I thought it would get better after a few days with it, but that hasn't happened. The typing is a bit easier, but as of now it's causing more pain to actually do this. Hopefully I can get a more functional cast on Tuesday when I go for my first follow up visit to the doctor.

This blogs nature has taken a real somber mood of late and I want to fix that. I still feel the need to write about my counseling issues and feelings, but I don't want to do it all here, so I've created a separate blog for that aptly called Head Games. It's not for the faint hearted or easily offended, but you're welcome to check it out if you'd like. I'll add a permanent link to it on the sideboard tomorrow if I have time.

The Bears actually won today! It was an ugly win, but I'll take it because we definitely need it. I'm afraid of what the team will look like next year because I'm sensing a downward trend that will need some rebuilding soon. Is it too early to begin thinking about the draft?

Last night truly sucked. My brother Lou came up to watch the kids so Meva and I could go to a Halloween party. He was less than 20 minutes from the house (it's an almost 2 hour drive for him) when Sarah started vomiting and I called him to cancel. He came anyway and hung out, which was great, but I didn't feel like leaving him with a cranky, pukey, sick Sarah, so I stayed home and Meva went to the party solo. Sounds like it was a good time for all and I'm sorry I missed it, but Sarah wouldn't let me put her down without some major crying. Thanks again to Louie, Ashley, and Mike for coming down for all that and dealing with my loopy ass from all those pain meds.

Speaking of pain meds, all this typing is killing me, or rather it was killing me. It's all kicking in now so I'm going to sign-off here while I can.

Confluence

I think I've been open about how difficult the past week has been. To make things more difficult has been the pain in my hand and wrist and the cumbersome cast I've been forced to wear. Both of those items have severally inhibited my ability to get much, if any, writing done in any form. I'm trying really hard, but the pain medicine impairs my ability to think clearly, maintain focus, or even stay awake. Quite honestly, I hate this state I'm in and it makes me want to cry because my writing has come almost to a stand still.

The situation with my mother has been life changing in many ways for me and I feel like many areas of my past, present, and future are coming together and they are starting to shape me into a new person. Without a doubt this will anger some people, enlighten some other people, and in a few cases hopefully bring others closer to me. But more importantly I'm hoping for some evolving on my part.

I'm really not a big one on revelations, so forgive me the melodrama as this should be the first time you'll be hearing this, but I've been going to therapy on a weekly basis; trying to deal with issues I've had since I was a kid, and as an adult, and as a way to learn how to control and avoid my anger (If you've ever seen me completely lose it, you'll know why I want this). I've needed this help and I believe I am already using it to my advantage.

I will continue to use this blog as an outlet for my feelings, fears, and hopes. In conjuncture with my therapy, I'm looking for some healthy outcomes. I know that after the weekend I had dealing with the events surrounding my mother's health scare have caused me a great deal of pain and stress and I need to process these feelings and events. I'm seeing all of this as a confluence that needs sorting out so that I can move to the next stage of my life. It's the stage that makes me into the best father, husband, and man of character that I am meant to be.

Sick

I spent the day down and feeling sick. My throat is sore from being on the respirator while I was under sedation for the surgery and I've got a fever to boot! My wonderful friend Colleen came over to watch the kids for me while I just took it easy and pitched in where I could (which wasn't too many places with the awesome job she did). My hand still hurt and continued to swell, but I think it improving.

Meva and I have a real babysitter coming tomorrow to help out so I can take it easy and continue to rest and Heal. But, I'm still feeling like crap, so I'm off to sleep.

The Pain!, The Pain!, The Pain!!

It's been a long day here for me without a doubt. My hand surgery was this morning, and it seems to have been very successful, although we won't know for certain for a few months of observation and use. Right now though, I'm in a huge cast as you can see in the left photo and in some nasty pain. In addition to the regular trauma of the surgery, there is also a great deal of swelling at the moment. I have an appointment to see the doctor early next week to check on my progress and most likely out fit me with a new cast once the swelling has gone down.

The doctor ended up doing a completely different plan for fixing the hand. When he got inside he discovered that the arthritis was extremely severe, the damage was far greater than he had anticipated. As feared, there was no cartilage to cushion between the two bones, which resulted in grinding to the point that the grinding had smoothed the bone to the point of turning it into ivory. This is was a problem because he planned on fusing the two bones together, but they were now too smooth and it would not work as such. The solution then involved grinding both bones to a coarse surface and grafting a portion of another bone removed from my wrist so that the bones could be fused together. We went from fusing two bones to three. The bones are held together by a bunch of wires and screws. This is expected to take eight weeks to heal.

Previously, I was facing a definite loss of mobility in the hand as well as a decrease in strength, both would vary depending on the type of surgery that would be performed. Now that this new procedure was performed I have no idea what is going to go on. I hope to have more definitive answers after my appointment with him.

Today has been a very long and many times strange day. I am so completely not on my A game. I may not even be on my C game. That means there is a lot of slurring of words with long pauses between thoughts and statements and unsteadiness on my feet, which has only been exasperated through the pain medicine that I've had to take which is pretty darn strong, even for me. I think this weekend is going to be the litmus test for how I'm going to do throughout the whole thing.

The one real sad drawback has been my typing proficiency. Quite frankly it sucks butt. It took me an hour to type the first one and a half paragraphs of this, and then my wonderful wife, Mev, stepped in while I dictated. So if I'm slow in getting around to e-mails you know why. Wish me luck and I'll keep in touch.

Kinda Of In The Clear

I got back from the hospital on Monday and my mother was off life support and on her way to recovery. It was a very intense and emotional weekend that I hope I never have to go through again. I'm still emotionally exhausted and beaten from everything and with my surgery to reconstruct my hand tomorrow I will have had a ridiculous week. Writing on the Veil has come to a halt, but I think I might be able to get back on it by Thursday. I think I'll be able to finish it on time, but we'll see.

For now, I need to sleep, but I'd like to thank everyone who sent me some well wishes and kind words. I appreciated the support and at times I needed it. Thanks again to all!

Reflections

Getting straight to the point, my mother is still alive. She's in the ICU and she was given a breathing tube to assist her because she was doing so poorly. As of 1:15am she is in stable condition with acceptable vital signs and under sedation. So all things considered, she is holding her own at the moment.

For those of you that don't know, she has COPD, which basically means she has difficulty breathing. She's been diagnosed with this for a few years now, but unfortunately she hasn't been a good patient. She has ignored orders to stop smoking and she doesn't exercise or take care of herself. I'm not harping about that though, those were her choices, but they've led to her being where she is at what I feel is an early age of 58. She's always been well aware of all this, but continued to live that lifestyle. To say the least, she's stubborn!

My previous post early hinted that I might be mean or bitter and I thankfully wasn't, but I think I know myself enough to know that eventually you will be subject to a rant or more about this topic. Part of this stems from the relationship I've had with my mother. We've never broken off ties or lost touch with each other, but our relationship has been strained for many many years. We aggravate each other, and I'm often accused of being an arrogant ass and know-it-all, and those are some of the better days.

My current frustration with her though is very closely related to tonight's event. I've been politely after her for months now to switch her disability insurance from Arizona to Illinois because I didn't think she looked healthy and in my opinion she needed to have medical checkups while she was here. She fought me tooth and nail the entire time for reasons she'll probably never truthfully tell me, and now she's lying in a bed sedated and being forced to breathe.

To compound matters, she's previously stated she didn't want any types of resuscitation should her health fail, but she never had that put in writing and the medical staff at her hospital followed normal procedures. My sister Teri is flying in tomorrow from Arizona and together we're going to make the hard decisions depending on how she is holding up at that time. Tomorrow will be a tough day for sure.

While this drama was playing out we had some emergencies and problems of our own here at my house. Meva and I aren't too sure exactly what happened, but our dog Gus bit our daughter Sarah in the face and opened up a gash below her left eye that needed stitches! So here I was trying to coordinate and acquire information for everyone and make my way to see my mother in the ER, when Sarah needs to go for a visit herself. With it being a Friday evening, Meva and I figured it would be around a six hour visit as we wait for stitches, which because of my mother couldn't have come at a worse time.

Since Meva is a Physician Assistant, she could actually do this herself, except we're not in the habit of carrying sutures and sterile equipment around with us, even at home. So, Meva drove to her work and got everything we needed for this so that she could do the procedure herself here at home, thus saving us at least 4 hours. Once Meva got back, we put the boys to bed (it was already past their bedtimes anyways) and together we gave Sarah two stitches in her cheek right on our living room floor! Sarah is doing OK, she's a tough little monster. Our dog Gus however is on borrowed time. He's either going to live with Meva's parents or he's going back to the adoption agency we got him from (that was all a part of the adoption agreement).

But wait, there's more!!

Meva has a bad habit of not putting the cordless phones back on the chargers when she's done talking. Because it wasn't stressful enough to just deal with the above on its own merit, the phones were constantly dying and made the entire process more difficult than it needed to be.

Friday was also supposed to be the day Meva's mother came home from the hospital at the end of almost 6 months of treatment for cancer. It took us a few hours (and a Dr. Meva Medicine Woman episode) before we could even call, and then we had to limit the duration of the call to save the juice. It turns out she didn't get discharged yet. Hopefully that will happen this weekend--it sucks having both mothers in the hospital at the same time.

And to put a topper on the evening, as I was bringing Ryan to bed to tuck him in, I was holding him and giving him his normal extra hugs and kisses, he got sick and threw up all over me and himself while Meva was still on her way back with the stitches, leaving me alone to get puked on and deal with the clean up and the other two babies. Let me just tell you that I have been thrown up on quite a bit by the triplets since they all had reflux when they were born, but this was the absolute worst and most foul-smelling vomit yet. It was truly Exorcist quality stuff, so that required a nice unexpected shower for the two of us!!

But, that was my evening and that's how things currently stand with my mother. I 'll fill everyone in on more as I get the info and have the time to do it. Wish me luck!

Adventures In Being A Child

I'm going to probably sound angry, bitter, and mean. It's not my intention, but I am extremely frustrated, angry, and a bit scared. My mother was just taken to the emergency room for problems breathing. I'm currently trying to find out the extent of her condition from the hospital, but I am of course on hold. I'm scared because I've been given some conflicting information regarding how she's doing and I can't trust the accuracy of the reports. I'll keep everyone posted with information as I get it.

Something Funny

I'm still fighting the pain in my hand these days. I don't know if it's actually happening or if it's because I know relief will eventually be here after my surgery next week, but the pain seems to have increased of late. Just about anything I do with my left hand aggravates the joint and makes life difficult. If you know me personally, you know how much I hate taking pills, but I've been popping pills like Bret Favre at a vicodine buffet! It helps with the pain so I can do chores around the house and write, but it sure does make me an emotional dingbat at times.

I was tooling around the web and I came across a YouTube video that shows Will Ferrel actually being a comedic actor and not a personality. What makes it more funny to me was that he was impersonating the legendary Harry Caray. It started out a bit weird with his really good impersonation, but the longer you watch it the funnier it becomes, much better than Cowbell in my opinion. Jeff Goldblum is in the skit and you can see Ferrel totally dominate the scene and Goldblum is barely able to keep from laughing himself at certain points. Anyways, I thought I'd share it, so judge for yourself:

Anger

I've been really pissed off a lot of late. It seems like the last few days I've been spending all my energy and skill just to hold it together and not to blow up. Keeping up with my writing has been very daunting through all of this, and despite some posts that I wish I had back, I think it's still going well. My biggest obstacle there is to get my writing finished before my hand begins to hurt and I need to load up on pain killers. My goal is still to post every day until the end, and until I see otherwise, I believe I can do that.

As for my current state of anger, I am able to keep it at a simmering boil just under the surface, but I have been known to unleash it at times. I don't expect this to happen, but if I shit on anyone, please understand and give me a chance to apologize afterwards.

Well, the Bears pulled off what I would have called a miracle in their win of the hated Packers. I say would have because of what the Cowboys did to win their game last night. Truly unbelievable to score 9 points in 20 seconds. It's a shame that no matter how well the Cowboys play this year, they will still lose in the Superbowl to the AFC representative.

Well, that's it for now. I have a lawn to mow and some more writing to finish.

One Of The Best

Today was one of the absolutely best days I've ever had in my life. That's a simple, true statement that is totally without any hyperbole. We had our fundraiser for Perrin and the Chicago Hydrocephalus Association today at a very nice lake in Arlington Heights that I think was very successful. Out whole family came out to support our little Perrin, we called ourselves Team Fudd, and my Aunt Linda and my cousin Mary came out to support us and participate in the 2 mile walk around the paved lake. It's a tremendous and worthwhile cause.

But that wasn't it. While we were waiting for the event to get started, something finally happened that I've waited almost 40 minutes for; I went for a walk with my daughter Sarah leading the way in a nice playground and park setting. I was the daddy, walking alongside her, sometimes holding her hand, sometimes just letting her walk and run and just enjoying the sheer freedom of being able to move and go just about were ever she wanted to go.

I can't speak for other people, but as I was growing up and thinking about raising kids of my own, one of the images I had was walking in the park for the first time, watching my child walking and learning right beside me, laughing and giggling, running and failing, and loving me with all of her heart. The feelings were totally overwhelming and I don't know how I held back the tears, even now writing about it, it's hard.

I also got to operate a cotton candy machine by myself. God willing I'll never be a carnie, this was my chance to collect blown sugar on a spun piece of cardboard. It was fun and best of all it was free!!!

I also managed to take care of the blog template as I'm sure you've realized. It wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be and I owe it all to a blog I came across that spoke plainly and offered great examples of how to customize your layouts. The Hackosphere and I recommend it to anyone who isn't real good at html coding. The design isn't perfect, but Hackosphere taught me enough to feel confident to learn how to do more on my own, so thanks Ramani If you're bored with your blogs look, thins maybe the place to help you tweak it!

Well that's it. I took the day off of writing The Veil because my hand was hurting so bad I tore up on the pain meds for it I had finished today's post last night and I know what I'm doing next and I don't anticipate it giving me any problems. So, there you have it!

Changes Under Way

For some strange reason, I can't format the template of this template any more. I've obviously messed with something and for lack of a better term, it's broken. It's sad because I really happened to like this template and I absolutely hate setting up new ones. I'm hoping to have this completed over the weekend, but we'll see.

Yesterday my hand was absolutely killing me. It was probably the worst day I've had with it that I can remember. I really hit the pain meds as a result of that, which meant I was pretty sluggish and a bit of a lump for the most part. I didn't get yesterday's Veil post up and running until maybe a minute before midnight. I really cut it close there, but even with the pain meds it hurt like crazy to even type. Today's not too much better, but I have so much to do that I'm holding out on the pills as long as I can.

The Cubs dropped another game last night, so now they're down 0-2 in the best of 5 series. One more loss and the season is over. I'm pretty sure that's going to happen Saturday unless they pitch Zambrano. We'll see. Either way I don't see them having enough talent to make the World Series. They're close, but just not there. If they can pick up another quality starting pitcher next year and another power hitting outfielder, I think they'll be set. But, we'll have to wait and see especially with the team up for sale.

Back to The Veil, I put a tracker on the site so I can see how many hits I get each day. It's a great one too because it gives me all kinds of other useful and interesting information that I might never had otherwise. It can tell me where the people who are accessing the site are located, when and how long they stayed, how they came to the site, and where they went when they left. It's a sad little "spy" thing I can do. It's harmless, but fun.

The reason I bring that up is because of two rather strange visits I received. In the story I used a local radio news reporter by name, Jackie Swike from Newsradio 780am. It was totally random and meant to add some local color to the tale. Well twice now people have been directed to my site from google searches for her. The strange part is that they have come from New York and Seattle! It led me to google her name and my brand new blog came up as the 5th choice, which is really pretty cool!

Well, I have today's installment to finish and I'd like to knock out as much of the weekend's installments as I can. At some point I'm really going to need to get ahead so I can compensate for my surgery here in the next two weeks.

The Veil

It's been a few days now, but I managed to get my writing project, The Veil, up and running on time. For those of you not in the know, The Veil is a story that is a supernatural thriller set in modern times with a touch of horror. The structure is close to how they do the Fox TV show 24, in that each chapter I write takes place within an increment of one hour, although this will cover more than a 24 hour period.

The story is supposed to take place around Halloween of this year, so starting on October 1st I am making a post each day that chronicles one hour out of the story, from start to finish. I could say more about it, but I think it's easier to just visit and read it.

Meva, the kids, and myself are going to be participating in a 2 mile fund raiser walk this Saturday on October 6th to benefit the Hydrocephalus Association of Chicago. Perrin has his own team and his own website if you'd like to donate and help out. His website is located here. The Walk takes place at 1PM at Lake Arlington Park in Arlington Heights. I'm guessing the event will last about 4 hours or so. We've set a team goal of $500 to try and raise, so if anyone is interested in helping out, no matter how much, that would be great!

Let's see, sports wise this is probably not a good time to be rooting for Chicago teams. The Cubs are already down a game in their best of five series with Arizona and the embarrassment that is my Chicago Bears are playing this Sunday night on national TV against the Packers. I think that's going to be an ugly game, so I'll probably start the weekend off in a grumptastical mood!

For the moment though everything is going well and I don't have any complaints. My little buddy that I watch on Tuesdays and Thursdays is teething and a bit miserable at times, but today he had some real positive experiences of playing with toys and with my kids, and that is so wonderful to see. To be sure, he still cries an awful lot, but if I was in his shoes, so would I.

Early to Bed

Yeah, that's something that absolutely hasn't happened yet for me today. Sleeping has been a real issue for me of late, and I think it's getting into a critical area. Over the last 4 days I think I've gotten about 12 hours sleep. Even when I take some meds to help me relax, my body just seems to fight it off and I still end up awake until the wee hours of the morning---just like now. Pretty soon, the migraines will start up again.

Well, the Bears lost and by all accounts they looked horrible! I was lucky enough to have to work today during the debacle, but I have it recorded so I can hurt myself later and see exactly what happened. I mean, 34 fricken points in the 4th quarter?? Taking away the 14 that weren't scored by the offense, that still means our defense let 20 roll onto the board. I don't care how many starters were injured and not playing, when something like that happens it's time to admit you aren't a top defense any more and you need to reassess your planning and personnel. And then there is the QB position. We benched Rex for throwing too many INT's the previous week (3) and guess how many Greise threw? I know the WR's suck, but this is ridiculous. How much longer until Kyle Orton gets his chance again? I am ready for him right now!

It doesn't look like it got any easier for me in fantasy football. I spent most of my week focused elsewhere and not paying attention to my teams, and I'm paying for it now. In every single league I'm in, I have either been thoroughly beaten up, or I'm about to be. I guess this just needs to be chalked up as one of those weeks and I'm best for moving on.

I'm still not in much of a mood to talk politics or current events, so I'll skip that in favor of what I've watched on TV this past week now that the new TV season has begun.

Old Favorites--- I watched My Name Is Earl and The Office on Thursday and they were both really good starts to the season. They both had some great moments and a few slow spots, but it was a great start for each of them. I thought Earl was a bit better, but The Office had me talking a bit more. ER was a bit of a let down. I still liked it, but I think it missed it's mark as to what it was hoping to achieve, but the show was still good. Heroes was the class of the season to date as far as I have seen. It's just plugging along pulling great plot threads and weaving in some great new characters and developments that I really enjoyed.

New Shows-- I watched Bionic Women and it was borderline bad. The dialogue was weak and the did a poor job of defining many of the characters. The show has some promise, so I'm not ready to write it off yet. Journeyman was a pleasant surprise. I really liked it and the characters were interesting, despite there being a very strong "Quantum Leap" feel to the show. But it did most every thing correctly, so I am looking forward to watching it again later tonight. Same thing goes with Chuck. It was put together well and I think it combined some different genres well to make it stand out from all of the other new shows. The show that really shocked me was Reaper on the CW. I thought it was going to be really bad, and it still might, but I had fun watching it and I think they did a great portrayal of the Devil--he was scary, evil, and vindictive, but he was also entertaining. Moonlight on the other hand was pure torture. It was a great idea, but it was just so poorly written and executed that I don't think this will last long at all.

Anyways, that's it for now. I have a chance to maybe grab 3-4 hours of sleep before the babies get up, so I'm going to go and give it a show. Wish me luck!

OUCH

I had a really mixed day today. It started off great, playing with the three most beautiful children in the world. Afterwards I had a pile of chores that needed mu attention and that included doing a lot of work with my arthritic hand. From that point on the hand got worse and we all packed up for an evening at my aunt's house for dinner and a little bit socializing with my aunt and my mother. It went really well, but at some point I really pulled something in my back. And I mean I really hurt something.

At this point I'm not sure what and how much med I took (although I wrote it out somewhere) and I'm a bit tipsy. I'm still in pain and I'll probably take one or two more. I tried sleeping and it just wasn't working.

I have a new writing project coming up called The Veil It starts October 1st, so you definitely don't want to miss this. You can even head over now and see just a few things if you'd like!

And before I forget, you should check out my MySpace Profile. I just got it redone and I think it's freaking awesome!!

Time for my pain pills, wish me luck.

Seasons Change

Now that Autumn is here, I think I may be the only one on my block that's still running his air conditioner regularly. In my defense it's been pretty muggy and I hate it when I get to feeling sticky and the air is thick. I just may run that thing until November.

The arthritis in my hand has been continuing to bother me to the point that I face every day with the option of limiting how much I do versus getting doped up on pain meds to combat this. I really hate having to take meds, so this is a situation that I absolutely hate. So I finally broke down and I called my surgeon to set up my operation for the hand. I won't know for a few more days, but the surgery will be either Oct 15th or Oct 17th. I imagine the recovery is going to hurt like nothing else has in a while, but if it can get me back to a more quasi=normal life, then I'd rather get it over and done with now.

I've had a rough couple of days counseling someone about homosexuality. I won't name names, but someone I know has pretty much come out to this friend of mine and it's a very tough situation for that person. I was pretty shocked at some of the opinions and positions that the person has about this because I thought the person was more liberal about this, but when push came to shove and the issue became a part of this person's life, their true feelings and thoughts came out. The encouraging thing is that the person really wants to do the right thing and to understand. I think that's the most important thing to do and I'm really proud of that person for taking those steps. It's very brave and it would be so easy to go the other way and act close-minded. I'm sure I will get frustrated to no end at times over this, but I think in the end things will really work out.

On a lighter note, thank God the Bears have decided to bench Rex Grossman after 3 games and turn the offense over to Brian Greise. He's nothing spectacular, but he has got to be better than the crap we've seen from Rex. With the Defense seeming to fall apart more and more each week with injury, something needs to be done to stabilize the offense and find a way to score!

Well, the pain in my hand that woke me up has been defeated by the meds I took, so it's back to sleep for me.

Haunted

It's just after 3:30am and for some ridiculous reason I am still awake! I can hear the engine of my idiot hillbilly neighbor's car as he leaves for work, yet I can't get myself into a relaxed enough state to sleep. If I were 10 years younger I'd just stay up and trudge onward. LOL, too bad I'm not 10 years younger though.

Thursdays are becoming really tough for me mentally. I think I've said before that I'm now watching my friend's son during the day, and while it's a complete blast, having 4 babies around the age of 1 can be quite a ride! This cute little guy, Finnegan, is still getting used to be away from Mommy and watching 3 other giant babies crawl and walk all over the place (and over him if he's in the way) and I spend much time comforting him and protecting him from my three. It's such a drastic change for him to come from a house where it's just him with Mommy and Daddy to cater to him then to come to my house and he's the smallest and slowest of this new "pack" that he's slowly getting integrated into. He's a trooper and a good sport, so I think he'll get better and better each day he spends with us. But right now I give him lots of extra attention and love so that he's OK and as a result I have less to give to my three. Lucky thing for Finn he's damn cute and worth it all!

Let's see, my sister-in-law Missy is coming out for the weekend to visit a bit and attend a seminar for work. It's going to be nice to see her and spend some quality time with her. When we go to Ohio there is always so much going on and so many people around that I don't feel we get a chance to visit the way we'd like to. I'm looking forward to that and I think the kids are also.

I briefly met up with a guy I went to high school with the other day. I had some old computers and various parts to give away and he just happened to answer my ad that I posted on freecycle. I caught up with him a bit and unfortunately he just broke up with his girlfriend of a year and it has hit him pretty hard. I sure hope he gets through this alright. It makes me realize how lucky I am to have Meva!

Perrin is still doing well after his surgery. He has to get an antibacterial ointment put in his eyes twice a day at the moment and he is none too happy about it. Like all things I do, there is almost a Spartan efficiency in my method of tenderly restraining him and administering this that really pisses him off. All things considered he does well.

Big football game this weekend between my beloved Bears and the sanctimonious Dallas Criminals, I mean Cowboys. If our offense can at least be proficient on a college level, we should be able to handle Dallas. They're good, but our defense is really unbelievable and I think more than a match for them. Sorry carry, but your Cowboys are going down hard!

Well, it's time for me to put down whatever it is that's haunting my sleep so that I can get at least a few hours rest before I have to get the kids up. Wish me luck or it's going to be a murderously long day tomorrow/this morning.

Context and the Grid

I remember being a little boy and wondering why the adults all sounded angry when they talked about the world. I couldn't understand why anyone would be mad in a world that had cartoons on all morning on Saturdays, chocolate chip cookies, and a creek I could play in all the time. Of course now that I'm an adult I know that the cartoons are now just glorified commercials, the cookies are going to clog my brains and give me a heart attack, and the creek was filled with harmful chemicals!

The thing that makes me think about this is all the stupidity about that guy who was tasered at a John Kerry function at the University of Florida. Events like are what I usually consider nonsense, and I pay the briefest attention to them when I see them, but I was instantly skeptical about the entire incident. Then I started getting these ridiculous emails and bulletins about how we live in a police state and the infringements of our 1st Amendment rights.

That is the shit that makes me want to just pull out my hair!! So, slightly enraged I watched this video and all I saw was that someone resisted being removed from a room and was tasered for failure to calm himself. The video doesn't start from the beginning as it's obvious there was more that had happened prior to the start of the video. Faced with just this alone, you can't make an accurate judgment of whether what we see is uncalled for or extreme.

All it took was some simple, and I mean very simple, research to find out that more did indeed happen, that this knucklehead has a history of staging stunts, and that he acted aggressively and erratically while in the presence of an elected Federal Official and easily looked like a dangerous person who needed to be removed. When he refused, and make no mistake the video shows he refused to comply, he was taken into custody. I wish I was there, I would have tasered him myself given the chance!

Having the right to free speech doesn't mean we can say anything and jump around and cut off other people while we verbally harass a US Senator at a public institution. We are less than a year from an incident where a college student goes on a shooting spree on a major campus. I think every officer involved acted prudently and gave the guy ample opportunity to avoid his outcome.

The problem is the average citizen in this country. We have become a stupid, thoughtless, and arrogantly ignorant society that allows itself to be pulled around with our eyes open and our minds closed.

And then there is the entire over exposure by the media of the latest OJ Simpson soap opera!!

Thank God we can now look away from Lindsey for awhile!

Seriously, this isn't only not the world I want to live in, it's also not the world I want my children brought up in. I'd miss many things, but more and more the thought of living off the grid becomes more and more appealing.

That's why I haven't posted here in a bit--- it just hurts sometimes to talk about what's going on.

Week 2

The second week of the NFL season has hit and it looks like there were some fantastic games that took place. Scoring, defense, and incredible stories that kept you in your seat and glued to the screen. It's what makes the game such an incredible spectator sport, and when you add in fantasy sports to the mix, it creates a holiday atmosphere.

But I had to work! I missed the Bears unimpressive win over the sad Chiefs, the incredible 96 point game between the Browns and Bengals, and few surprising upsets. The worst part is that I sat at work kicking ass and ringing up big sales. I can't wait until I'm done with this job and I can have my weekends back.

My son will be having eye surgery tomorrow. He has strabismus, which is the crossing of his eyes. I had it myself when I was a boy and I had a similar surgery to correct it. With all the advances in medicine within the 35 years since I had my procedure, this should be cake for him. But still, he's been through a lot in his young life and I hate that he has to go through anything else, even one that is relatively safe.

I'm not int the mood to get too political or critical of society at the moment.......there's so much wrong and I can only write for a bit tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

20 years, where have you gone?

Tonight I blew off my 20 year high school reunion in a manner that truly has marked me as a crotchety old man. It wasn't because I felt too poor, too ugly, or too unsuccessful. The reason I didn't go was that I felt it didn't come close to meeting my standards. My chief complaint being that it was cost $81 per person, for a buffet dinner. I don't know why it was this much or how they came up with $81 as opposed to $80? It's just a ridiculous idea for me to pay $162 for my wife and I to eat fried chicken, pasta, and roast beef sandwiches. We could go to a five-star restaurant in Chicago for that price. Had they just offered me a choice of under-cooked chicken, rubbery London broil, or limp & tasteless vegetables---I would have went. But paying 5-star money for a cafeteria meal? It's just not happening.

The sad thing is that I really had a good time at the previous reunion and I know that even as I write this, I would have enjoyed meeting up with people and catching up. But no matter how bad I think I might miss it, I have to remember that I really wasn't that social in high school and as such I don't have too much in the way of memories to reminisce about. I'm not really upset about that, but when I remember that I would be put into a banquet hall with people that for the most part, my only connection is shared school assignments, the perspective is finally gained.

In other news our house is now officially off the market and we're staying until at least the spring. I'm too tired to be disappointed about this turn of events and I'd much rather put my energies towards what may be the first memorable holidays for my children. As it is, I'm really already getting excited about Christmas!

It's late and I have to work, so this one is going to be short. I'll write more later.

Theivery & Vicodine

Lately depression has been kicking my ass and I'd have to say it's got to be either something chemical or some deep-rooted issues from way back. I haven't been able to pin-point it, but overall things have been pretty good for me lately. And then I left to go to work this morning.

Sometime during the night someone entered our yard and tore apart the inside of my wife's car. I was on the verge of running late for work to begin with when I got to the car and saw that the thieves had went through the glove box and all the storage areas of the car searching for drugs as it turned out. They left all the change and our cell phone, but the emergency bottles of pain medicine that we keep in the car for when we travel was taken.

In no way am I naive about the area I live in or the times, but it sure does take the luster off of the neighborhood I live in since it was most likely one of my neighbors. Vigilance will be the new keyword around here.

Our house is still on the market, but for one more week only. We entered a real dead zone for awhile, but once we notified our agent that we weren't going to renew our deal to sell, all of a sudden we've had a spike in showings, with a high percentage of them being agents from the same office. Talk about a bunch of BS. If these are people that are honestly interested in our type of house, that's ok (but where have they all been?) but if they're just buyers that our office is trying to force our house upon now that they sense the end is near, that doesn't say a lot about them. It would make me wonder how well we were really being served. Anyways, I would be surprised if someone came through this week with an offer, so for all practical purposes this is over for now and it's time to focus on the family and the coming autumn/winter.

The NFL starts it's season this week, and my beloved Bears have to face a very tough San Diego Charger team tomorrow. I don't think the Bears are going to walk away with a win, the Chargers are that good and that explosive. I hope I'm wrong, but we'll have to see how things shake out tomorrow. Fantasy football wise, this looks like a real fun year. Counting all types of leagues, I am in about 8 different leagues and I'm loving it all. There are few times of the year that are as much fun as football season for sure.

Oh yeah. For those of you who know me, you'll know what this means and how big of a deal it is, but it's pumpkin spice coffee time!!!

Doing Well

Meva and Perrin came home about an hour ago. The results from his CT scan were positive and didn't show anything to make us believe that his shunt isn't working!


WHEW!

Crisis

I'm at a point right now where I am totally alone. I mean this literally, Sarah and Ryan are both down for bed and already asleep and Meva and Perrin are at the Emergency Room. Earlier today Perrin had an episode of vomiting that was unrelated to feeding, as it happened after a three hour nap and hadn't eaten in four hours or so. That's a serious sign that his shunt has malfunctioned and he needs brain surgery again.

Meva came home from work and took him in to have a CT scan and possibly more to check and see how things are going. It's been almost 4 hours and I haven't heard anything from her. The longer I go without some word, the harder this is to bare. For reasons that seem completely silly right now, we don't have a cell phone, so Meva probably doesn't have any way to get in touch with me and let me know how things are going. This has happened before, but it will not happen again I assure you.

So I'm sitting her alone, patiently waiting for some word and I'm not embarrassed to say I am a bit scared. As I know more, I will update things here.

Deportation Blues

Last year Chicago was put in the national spot light when an illegal immigrant by the name of Elvira Arellano sought shelter in a church to avoid deportation back to Mexico. Even though they legally could have gone into the church and taken her by force, authorities decided to wait it out.

Mrs Arellano's complaint was that she wanted to stay in this country until her son was an adult. Her son is a US citizen, and he's 18. She repeatedly called for the government and the nation to have compassion for her.

Well, her story came to an end when she was dumb enough to leave the church and travel to LA for an immigration rally. Guess what? She was captured and back in Mexico in less than 24 hours!

I am so absolutely glad that she was deported. She broke out laws by illegally entering the country, and then falsified documents (such as illegally using someone else's social security number) to stay in the country. So we're all supposed to just ignore her disrespect of our laws and traditions just for her, when the money that she has cost this country in her deceptions and then deportation could have been used to feed or house an impoverished family, or fund an educational program, pay for college for a deserving student without the means to go on their own, or even pay for medical care for the elderly? Were was her compassion when she stole these opportunities from US citizens?

I am sensitive and compassionate about her quality of life in her home country, but we have rules and procedures for entering this country, she just chose to ignore them and break the law. I wonder how long it's going to be before we put up a brick wall? In my opinion, it's not soon enough!

Cloistered

I've been feeling really squeezed for time lately and I feel myself pulled in too many directions. The sole focus of this situation is my part-time job that I work on the weekends. The job itself is really fine; its a job like many others out there that promises you more money than you actually get and is frustrating and beneath you, but the money is good enough to keep you there. Specifically what is bothering me is the opportunity cost I have to pay to continue that job.

If you're unfamiliar with the term "opportunity cost" it's an economic term that basically means you have to pay something for every action. It doesn't have to be money, it could be labor or time, but you sacrifice one of those three commodities for just about every action or decision you make. I'm not going to get into a huge, boring discussion about that, if you want to learn more about it, you can go here. What I find myself using as currency more and more is time.

This became more clear this weekend when I had to bow out of helping do some yard work around my step-parent's house. In the scheme of things it wasn't a big deal, it was just fixing and putting up a fence, even though I spent Friday evening helping out as best I could. My brothers took care of everything the next morning, but I was hurt that I couldn't be there with them.

For those of you that don't know, my step-parents are in their 60's and 70's and my step dad, Big Lou, is not in good health any more. Physical activities are really too much for him these days, so maintaining the upkeep and repairs of a house is really too much for him. This was evident when I got to their house on Friday and it was being overrun with weeds, many of which had become small trees. I immediately felt bad about not having come down there more often and taken care of these things.

Between them, my own mother, Meva's mother, and my wife and kids, I am paying an awful lot to keep that job on the weekends. It makes me feel cut off from everyone and quite useless if I can be honest.

Nerdvana

Recently it was one of the more, pardon the term, Holy , weeks for me. It marked this years Chicago Comic Con! I always try to get friends or family to go with me, but no one is ever interested enough to join me, so I end up going it alone. This year was different though because I met up with one of my friends from the Internet for the first time! I've been talking with Cary for almost two years now, connected initially over our love of comic books, and since that time we've really hit it off and often share ideas and collaborate on each other's projects.

Cary is from Texas, so it was a real vacation for him and his best friend Mike to come up here for a few days and just wallow with me in comic book bliss. Without boring those of you who aren't comic fans I'll say that we had a great time meeting a lot of people, finding some good deals, and we ate pretty well. We went to Gibsons, the Cheesecake Factory, and Superdawg as well as going out to see the Bourne Ultimatum, which was a blast I might add.

The sale of our house is quickly grinding to a halt I fear. The buying season is quickly closing with the beginning of the school year and the number of showings and interest in our house seems to have decreased significantly within the past two weeks. Our current plan calls for us to leave the house on the market until October and if we don't have an offer by then, we're going to take it off the market until next spring. It's not what we wanted, but it many ways this works out for us too---just not as well as if we sold the place.

One thing this does do is force me to look at the upkeep of the house as though it isn't going to sell and begin preparing the house for the winter and autumn. That means being more aggressive with the landscaping and polishing up the driveway and other areas so that come spring we'll be ready to roll as soon as the season opens again.

Through sheer luck we're actually managing to make some headway into our debt and I think we're possibly better off now than we were in the spring, hopefully Meva and I can keep that momentum going and build on this!

I Can't See

Earlier this week my wife and I started some pretty serious diets. Without going into great detail we get to eat one lean and green meal a day and 5 small packaged meals. The goal being to limit ourselves to around 1000 calories a day. It's pretty tough. And did I mention the food tastes like crap for the most part? Well it does. It's almost entirely powders mixed with what to make things like puddings, soups, oatmeals, and chili. I like the oatmeal and chili--the rest is brutal.

Well, the first day I was on this I got half way through the day and went into a hypoglycemic shock and had to stop. I ate regular foods in normal amounts the rest of the day and was better, then I started back up the next day and I've been going strong ever since. It's been just 5 days, but I can feel and see the difference already, so I'm psyched about that.

Here's the bad news. After 5 days, eating like a rabbit finally caught up to me and I had a horrible ocular migraine today while I was at work. The stupid thing gave me blinding prisms, nausea, and a headache that made me want to cry. I've taken more pain medication tonight than since I had my gallbladder removed. It's actually added to my stomach ache. So, I feel like absolute death, just thought I'd share that with everyone.

Now, the last and largest batch of pain meds are kicking in, so it's time to go. Wish me luck and I hope none of you out there ever experience this or something even remotely close.

Preparations And Mad Creation

I'm sure to everyone else around me it seems like business as usual, which to a normal person would require medication, caffeine, and counseling, but I've been incredible preoccupied. In less than two weeks I'll be attending the Wizard World Chicago Comic Convention. All fan boy stuff aside, this is a big convention for me because I'm going to do things that I am normally uncomfortable with; selling myself!

I'm talking about making pitches to editors and comic book publishers for some of the series I have ideas about and have actually gotten into working pieces, or pieces that can be worked. At this time it only amounts to two stories, but that's two more than most other people have.

Let me rephrase that, I hope to have two stories. I think I'm pretty set on Atonement. I've got that worked out and I have my small script, so I am doing very well there. All it needs is some polishing and if I have the time I'll be creating a more user friendly bible for it, something that someone besides myself could read and understand. The other story I have is Toy Chest, and I feel confident that I'll have that ready.

So, to have them both ready, at least to the point I will feel comfortable with, I'll need to have a "bible" for each, scripts (at least 1 each), and a written pitch. I'd love to have had some artwork to couple with it, but I just didn't get around to finding an artist, but that brings me to my next feat while I'm there: Finding artists!

If you've never been to a convention, there are artists showing their work and portfolios and selling sketches and previous work. It's a great place to meet cool people and network with someone who you think would work well with your story ideas. This also requires that I be very sociable and engaging, which as I get older seems to be harder for me for some reason.

So, lately all I've been thinking about is getting everything set so that I can look prepared, professional, and ready to create comics. I know I'll hear many polite refusals and rejections, which is fine because my stories aren't for everyone, but if I don't try I'll never get a yes. No one is just coming to my door and asking me to write for them, so this is how I'm going to do it.

So, if I'm less responsive than normal, understand this is why. Working and pursuing your dreams can take you away from other areas, and that's what's going to be happening as I enter this crunch time! Wish me luck!

Ashamed

In my previous post I was quick to use a photo to correspond with the story about MySpace purging sex offenders from their membership. I've since had a chance to research more information about the person who's photo I used and I think I was horribly out of line and insensitive for doing so. I have since taken the photo down and edited out my crude comments.
Hindsight has led me to see they were out of line and I am ashamed I did that.

To anyone that might have been offended or uncomfortable, I apologize.

I won't speak about this any more on here, but if you're really curious I will be very open about it if you ask.

I Feel Slimey

Any time my life has a connection to sex offenders that goes beyond my species or address, it makes me feel a bit sick. What am I talking about? The news that MySpace just canceled the accounts of 29000 registered sex offenders from their member list! Granted, there are over 180 million people on the site and 29k is a lower percentage, but it's still a connection that I don't care for. It's guys like the one in the picture to the left that really make this a sick and twisted society.

One of the saddest and funniest stories I've heard lately is what is calling the Furry Grim Reaper. There's a cat in a nursing home in Rhode Island that "predicts" a terminally old person will die in a few hours. The article talks about how this brings closure to the families that are notified that their loved one has been visited. Or maybe we should be saying "Marked." Maybe it's just me, but my first thought would be, "Is that animal contagious?" or "What is that thing getting into that might be causing frail old people to be pushed over the edge?" But no, this nursing home puts up a plaque on the wall to "commemorate" the cats' contribution!! Unbelievable! Doesn't anyone in Rhode Island have a bologna detection kit? Seriously though, these are OLD PEOPLE who are hooked up to life support machines, and when their extremities turn blue and their breathing becomes labored, there are just a few possible outcomes that we'll see.

My brother Cecil and his buddy Tom have put up another episode of their podcast, Everyone's A Critic. You can either use the link on the right or you can do a search for it on iTunes.

The NFL training camp season is upon us and I can't think of many more times throughout the year that I look more forward to. Of course it helps that the Bears are still strong favorites to return to the Superbowl (although the odds and history are against them) and for some reason my Cubbies have decided to make this an interesting season and are competing for the MLB playoffs. That doesn't happen that often ladies and gentlemen, and considering a subpar Cardinals team won last year, anything is possible.

And I'm just a few weeks away from the Chicago Comic-Con!!

Life's a Buffet

Lately it seems that I just can't get caught up on rest or sleep. It's cliche, but I spend most of my time feeling like a zombie. I just seem to walk around in a perpetual fog, tired and having a hard time focusing.

I made a minor change to the blog here; on the left hand side I created a list of what I am currently doing, so to speak, in so much as what I'm reading or watching on TV/DVD/Movies. Given our current lifestyle, don't expect me to tell you what movies I've gone out and seen......I don't get out much at the moment.

I've been getting frequent updates and information about my 20 yr high school reunion which will be taking place this September. Even though I didn't have many friends in high school or wasn't very popular, I enjoyed going to the last reunion if for nothing else than to see what's happened to the beautiful people. I ended up having a blast and drinking a little bit more than I should have, but I don't think I made an ass of myself, so it was a good experience.

I'm not sure I want to go to this one. Getting out of the house is a chore, so that alone has been causing me to waffle a bit as to whether or not I should attend. Today I get what I guess would be called a registration form and it says that the dinner will cost $81 a person! That's pretty steep, but it's not a price I haven't paid before for dinner. The kicker is that it's for a BUFFET DINNER????? They want $162 for my wife and I to have beef sandwiches, fried chicken, and mashed potatoes? Come on. I just can't justify that at all. We could go to some top shelf restaurants in Chicago for less than that and have a fabulous night, instead of getting dressed up for Boston Market. This doesn't look good at all.

We had a scare here at home with my son Perrin. He some how found his way into a bottle of infant ibuprofen and drank an unknown quantity of it. How he got the child safety cap off, I don't know, but it happened. We induced vomiting and I left work early and bought some syrup of ipecac and we monitored him the rest of the day and evening. Luckily nothing happened, but it sure worried me and scared the living shit out of Meva. So, there are new policies in place to ensure that doesn't happen again. Man, those kids are into everything!!

Insomnia

The last week or so has been horrible for my sleep. I guess I'm back in that same old grind of either staying awake into the wee hours with my mind wandering and worrying about things it really shouldn't be that concerned with at that time of the night, or I'm up late trying to bludgeon my mind into slumber with mind-numbing activities, or I take some pretty strong anti-anxiety meds and completely crash like a log. Since I absolutely hate taking meds, especially ones that knock me out, I've been spending the time awake instead of when I should be sleeping.

The worst part to me is that whenever I try to write, I just simply get flustered and what I put out isn't anything I'm happy with. So the quest for clarity is on once again.

We went looking at houses tonight with the kids. They were incredibly well behaved for what we put them through, which is their norm. We've been blessed that way. Instead of looking at real homes tonight, we thought we'd cover all our bases and check out some double-wide manufactured homes. No matter how nice they are, and don't get me wrong there were some nice ones, they're still trailers to me. Unfortunately the pricing is attractive, so there are a few we may end up considering.

We received our first official offer on our house tonight while we were out. My agent says it's a lowball offer though, so I'm not too happy about that. With selling this home I've noticed there are some people out there who think that since the market is sluggish, that they can just make ridiculous offers and get away with it. I sure hope that's not the case with this, because I might just dig in my heals and become a real beast.

There's not too much else happening at the moment. My wife went and saw the Harry Potter movie by herself while I watched the kids. I'm supposed to take a turn here soon, but for the life of me I don't know when that's going to happen. I might just wait for it to come to DVD and catch the Simpson's movie instead. The trailer they keep showing with Homer walking a pig on his ceiling and singing "Spiderpig" just kills me. I enjoy the Simpsons, but wasn't sure if I wanted to see the movie.........that one clip pushed me over the edge. We'll see.

Fun Weekend of Sorts

This was the first time I had worked in almost a month and I really didn't enjoy myself one bit. We can definitely use the money, but I would much rather just spend time with my family instead of putting up with idiots who think they know something about shopping for furniture. I think I am getting beyond burnt out at this point because I can't seem to sell shit. I know that inside, I am getting less and less patient with people. I am becoming such an old man!!

My brother Cecil had a birthday party on Saturday. Meva and the kids and I all showed up and spent about 3 hours hanging out and talking with friends, some of whom I haven't seen in years. We had a good time and I got to play some unique games like bola toss and zombie pinata smashing. My first shot at the zombie pinata, I hit it's body clean off of its head---of course everyone knows you have to take out the head, so I didn't do to well there in that regard. It was a blast though and I look forward to doing stuff like that again.

Our realtor called us and said she expects to get an offer on our house within the next few days. That's good too because we're really ready to get this move over and done with. We are planning on looking at some new houses here on Tuesday, and some of them look promising, so hopefully we'll find something we like. I don't think we're going to go with the house we put a bid on previously. It's a nice house, but there's something about the town that isn't sitting right with us, and we think it would just be better to choose elsewhere. I'll keep everyone posted here as developments warrant it.

That's about it folks, I've been pretty busy this weekend, so I haven't had a chance to really pay attention to the news, so I don't have anything to comment on. But NFL training camps will be opening up this week and next, so that's always a good sign.

Who Turned Out The Light

Well, I'm struggling with my dark thoughts again the past couple of nights. Sleep has been for shit and I'm just barely dragging myself through the rest of the day this week. I don't know how other people handle this, but fighting depression is extremely exhausting for me. I hope this spell passes quickly.

On a more positive note, I had a chance to spend a few hours with many of my close friends and family over the weekend for what was the final edition of the triplets first birthday party. It was a real treat getting to see everyone that stopped over. The only real sad part is that I feel as though I hardly had enough time to talk to everyone. I guess when someone leaves and you're still wishing you could spend more time with them, that it's a good sign.

After almost two months on the market, we have the strongest nibble on the house yet. I call it a nibble because there hasn't been an official offer yet, but I feel more optimistic about this one than I have about any other one to date. It's an older couple who are renting a house elsewhere and their landlord is selling the house, so they need to find a place of their own. That's definitely in our favor, as is the fact that their daughter lives two doors down from me. They told our agent they'd let us know if they were interested by the end of the week. I sure hope I get a call with an acceptable offer.

I've been having some digestive problems lately that have been quite painful at times and completely inconvenient. Lots of vomiting. I've had problems in the past with an ulcer and it's caused irritation and swelling right where my stomach and my esophagus meet, causing me to gag and choke on ridiculously small pieces of food at times. This Thursday I am having a procedure to dilate my stoma (I think that's what that area is called) to help things move along. It involves an endoscopy, which is a fancy way of saying they're going to shove a camera tube down my throat, gotta love that. I have an exceptionally strong bite and gag reflex, which came into play when I had may gallbladder removed and this procedure was given to me the first time because I bit the bite guard almost in half and came close to crushing the scope!

After years of curiosity I finally got around to seeing Citizen Kane. I keep trying to look at it from the perspective of someone from that generation who may have saw it when it premiered, but it's not working for me. It was mildly interesting, but in the end I just wasn't satisfied or that impressed with the story. Say what you will about it or me, but that's how I felt.

I don't have anything else to add today, but I have a feeling I will be on a bit of a rant tomorrow.

Things Are Happening

It's been a pretty busy week around here. The entire family spent 5 days in Ohio visiting my In-laws and having the first of my kids birthday party celebrations, We came home on the 4th late at night and then the kids had a doctor's appointment the following morning. In between then and now we've had 5 showing scheduled for the house, of which I've had 2 blow us off and not even show. So for the better part of the last 8 days or so, I've been completely out of the loop.

Regardless, I did get the absolute bullshit news that Scooter Libby was pardoned. Say what you want to about Bush, Republicans, or even politics in general, but I really have a problem with the ease and lack of accountability that goes into this type of blatant "Fuck You" that the American people and our legal system are given. Any time someone is tried and found guilty in the country, I feel nervous when one single person can pardon that person based on a whim or person bias. That my friends is a very very broken part of our system of government. The fact that Bush does this should come as no surprise to anyone.

Focusing back on the personal, it's going to be hot and muggy this weekend. We have another birthday party for the kids on Sunday, so I fear we all may just melt! At some point I have to mow the lawn and fix some dead patches with seeding and laying some new soil. Ya gotta love doing that in 95+ heat.

I finished my comic script for a story I've been working on called Atonement. I'm still excited about it and I've received some feedback that has been incredible and insightful. I can't wait to get back into the story and rework it based on what I've gotten back. It just brings me one step closer to getting to my goal of being a paid writer.

That's it for now, I'm beat!