Blogfoul

I'm the last person to chastise someone over their abuse of our humble language. Considering that our language is rife with foreign words, malapropisms and spoonerisms that become de rigeur, and other little twiddles and vittles, it seems wholly inappropriate to even rebel this trend. Given the pseudo-shibboleth I spout from time to time, my propensity for dialect-laden, profanity-laced diatribes, and my general ignorance towards proper grammar, this may seem all the more arrogant. But people, it has to stop.

Today, I was reading a rebuttal in an ongoing debate about UN efficacy and their various policy-making offices. This debate has been heated at times (with one decorated author claiming his counterpart must have performed a "selective lombotomy" on his writing), and has spilled over into a weekly "Crossfire" style podcast. The dialogue this week was interesting and had me quite engaged, until this came along:

"Our diavlog will be posted on Sunday."

Why does this enrage me so? Because not only did I completely understand the word, not only did I not need to re-read it, but that now we must have words which identify not only what we will be doing (having a "dialog"), but also which medium ("video"), and which distribution mechanism ("vblog", or "video blog").

I will now go back to my Excel spreadsheets and Word documents soaked in red ink.

Nobody has posted in a while...

Hope everybody is doing okay!

As per Jeremy's request...

I cannot say I understand...

We're here today because each of us loves you. We are here because we cannot sit idly and watch you destroy yourself. We are here because we want you to be the Dad of our memories, the man who took me to Boy Scouts, the man who took us fishing, the man who is our Father. Our Father, though, is in some cases only a memory, one that we catch fleeting glimpses of when he is not poisoned by the bottle.

Your legs are in ill health; your slow shuffle indicates that even you, with your exceptional tolerance for pain, are suffering with every step. Your balance is affected, your thinking slowed, and your attitude deteriorating. With these conditions, we cannot be here to watch you drink your life away. We cannot have another holiday where you lash out and verbally abuse those around you, where you become maudlin and decompensate into a bourbon-addled ramble about your life and those around you. We cannot continue to participate in the life of a person who is choosing his addiction over his health. We cannot participate in your life, and we cannot enable your addiction.

I cannot say that I understand what you feel, how you feel it, or why you drink; I can only understand the visible effects from your drinking, and those effects are enough for me to be here today. Dad, I have watched, from a young age, the effects of alcohol on your life. You've hurt yourself, watched your body slowly crumble out from under you, alienated your family, and become less our father and more a walking caricature of the typical alcoholic. You are an addict, stumbling through life attached to a bottle of bourbon and poisoning your mind, body, and soul with its ill vapors.

However, there is an option. The choice, your choice, to leave your addiction behind, to get treatment for your legs, and live a clean, sober life supported by medical care for your health challenges. Leaving your addiction of over 25 years behind is not a simple task, but we are here to support you. We are here to help you through this time, if you make the choice. With that choice comes the joys of our lives, our weddings, our births, our joys and dreams. We have done a great deal of research and have the resources you need to help you through this choice. But, you need to make it. We are not here to decide for you, or to tell you what to do: we are here to give you the choice of your family and addiction-free living, or your addiction and family-free living.

I want the Father who smiled and hugged me when I crossed the bridge and received my Webelos badge. I want the man who sat in the driveway for days, painting gold stones for the Blue & Gold. I want the Father who was my Cubmaster, who made model rockets with me, who took me to Maine, who gave me the gift of appreciating the simple, dramatic beauty of the ocean. I want my Father back. Please, make the right choice, and crawl out from the bottle and into our lives.

I Hate My New Life

That is just a little sentence I came up with accidentally about 2 months ago to describe the situation I am in right now. First, Elisabeth and Penny are fantastic. Penny is having some poop issues, things all little ones go through, but it is cool. Things between my wife and I, considering the situation, are really good. My problem is with the lay-off and what has come after. If you want to hear an introspective Rick, read on, if not, we will soon return you to your regularly scheduled Drover and Savvy update.

Quick update: I was laid off Jan 6, collected my severance until Feb 24, and have been on unemployment the whole time. I thought to myself that freelancing in NY was the answer, since pickings are slim in Philly, so I pursued that avenue. "The View" was an experience to say the least, but the 3:30 - 5AM drive didn't help, and the beyatch that was training me, and the nasty mood I was in dictated that it wouldn't last long. Next option: school. Lucky for me, Bucks County Comm. Coll. was giving free classes to laid-off county residents. I am currently enrolled in an accounting course that I actually like. The one bright spot in all of this. Also, I agreed to do work at my mothers house for pay, but that is turning into a black hole. Don't get me wrong, I like working on houses and stuff, but working for my mother who can't decide on shit has got me so frustrated. I want to be done that job yesterday, and it's been like 6 weeks so far. She has paid me for the materials so far, but not the labor. I don't even know how or what to charge her for labor. Like I said, I hate me new life.

The worst part in all of this is I am missing the people I used to work with. We were extremely close, and some people I haven't talked to in a month. My best friend whom I worked with, who lives 5 minutes from me by car, has a god awful TV job in NY at 4 AM and can never hang out. And I am 30 years old and still don't know what to do when I grow up. I want to be done with my mother's so I can go to work part time, but I know as soon as that happens I will wish I was back at my mother's. Like Stewie said, "Life is complicated when you grow up, isn't it Brian?" I guess I just want to get a PT job, so I can continue with free classes and unemployment, so I can get an accounting cert., so I can get an accounting job. Easier said than done. Well, if you got this far, god bless you. I just needed to vent a little and hopefully get some words of encouragement. Hope ya'll are doing fantastic.

"Brian had sex/ with a really dumb girl/ and now he taking his friend Stewie/ to get some ice cream/ in his car." - sung to the tune "Cars" by Gary Numan

Also, here's a jerk I saw loitering in Peddeler's Village in Lashaska, PA not two weeks ago:

G18

My perception of life slows at times, unconsciously at first, until some part of my brain realizes "Hey? What's going on here? Why aren't we doing something?"

Last night, gazing forlornly towards the red Hilton sign which presides over the F and G ramps with a fastidious red light and classic 1975 styling, my brain realized that I was, indeed, slowing to a thought halt. BlackBerry off, laptop stowed, work papers in my briefcase, American Way magazine read and re-read over the past month, I have no other option but to stare out my window into the snowy night.

It's comforting to know that I can do it. My brain always seems to be pondering something; a weighing a decision, examining a past interaction, or reliving a life experience in the cinema of my memories.

Alas, something will come along soon, some thought, a memory, and my brain will snap back to functional duty. Until then, I'm going to enjoy the blissful nothingness, shrouded in a fog of Type I deicing fluid and blowing snow, of staring into a world filled with everything and anything.

We're Just Gonna Rule That Out

Well, the blog hasn't had a post in awhile, so i'll use it to share my latest story.

As you know, i had my catheter ablation in mid-Jan, and it was a huge success. Stupid electrical pathway ablated, random racing heart a thing of the past.

Since then, i've noticed that specific things that used to be no problem were leaving me more out of breath than was necessary -- going up the stairs at work, or taking my turn in agility class. So i went in a week or 2 ago and talked to a nurse practitioner about it and he made me get a whole bunch of tests, including a heart monitor that i wore for 7 days. (I was supposed to have jury duty but did not have to report -- wish i had as that monitor woulda gotten me outta there in a flash!)

Yesterday was my scheduled follow-up appointment with my cardiologist. 9:15am, on my way to work. Or so i thought.

Once i got there the Dr said it could be 2 things -- blood clots in your lungs, which i'm sure it's not but we'll just do a cat scan to rule it out, and something else that you'll need to take medication for for a few months, here's a prescription now since i'm sure that's what it is. Yeah. As soon as he said "rule it out" i KNEW that was gonna be it. So i popped down the hall from his office into the hospital for a cat scan (gee this appointment is getting longer, i guess i'll call work and tell them i'll be a tad late), which -- no surprise to anyone except everyone but me -- showed loads of blood clots in my lungs. Also called pulmonary embolism, which sounds WAY scarier. Well, it turns out that once the hospital knows you have PE, you ain't gettin' out of that hospital, no matter how much you point out that you've had it for a month before they knew about it and have been largely just fine. (Yes, i know it can cause sudden death, but i'm not into spontaneous hospital stays, okay?) Into the ER and admitted to the hospital before i could dig my heels in, and on the phone in hysterics to my parents (who dropped everything and immediately drove 4 hours south to stay with my dogs) and my boss (who doesn't know what to make of me because i'm sometimes freakishly cool about impending heart surgery and sometimes randomly in tears). And then a fun overnight in the hospital where all the nurses were TOO nice (STOP ASKING ME IF I CAN WALK 5' TO THE BATHROOM, I'M FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!!!!!!), the Dr was super bummed out about me having a complication (i heart him), i received the horrifying news that i must immediately stop and switch contraceptives (i super mega gigunto hearted my pill), and all the VERY old and VERY unhealthy people in beds around me got on my VERY last shallow and cold-hearted nerve.

For those still following, i am fine. I am home, and am going to give myself injections of a fast-acting blood thinner for several days, followed by probably at least 6 months of coumadin (aka warfarin/rat poison/blood thinner) via pill, including lots of blood tests to get my blood exactly thin enough. Now that i'm on blood thinners i'm not going to drop dead from the blood clots. I have no restrictions (other than to watch my intake of leafy greens). I'd like to see a lot less of hospitals and labs after this year. And the next doctor who says we're going to rule something out is gonna get a right hook to the jaw.

Hope you all are doing GREAT!