I think its my spleen...

Long time no nothing

2009-05-28T13:20:00.003-04:00

Let me summarize what's occurred since November 26th, 2007.

Got divorced
Got happy
Got engaged
Got married
Still pretty happy

Who'd a thunk it. Maybe more posts to come...

2 posts in 2 days, WTF!?!?!?!

2007-11-26T14:25:00.000-05:00

Yeah, that's right. Of course, I have nothing to say really. I almost thought of something this morning but then I didn't. How do I know I almost thought of something? Because I remember thinking "hey, that's something" but now I only remember thinking I had something, not the something.

Wouldn't that be an awesome power to pick and choose what you wanted to remember? For example do I want to remember?:

My phone number from my first house I lived in until I was 12? No.
My son's social security number? Yes.
My blood type? Yes.
The license plate my mom had on her 82 Corolla in 1987? No.

Unfortunately none of these are the case. Not to mention that I have a somewhat poor memory as it is. I recall distinctly as a child watching cartoons on Saturday morning, changing channels (to one of the other two) and forgetting what I was watching almost immediately and having to channel surf like mad to not miss the show I was previously on.

Alzheimer's at 7? Eeeeeh, its a possibility.

There, a whole post with no start no end and barely a middle. I'm back b!tches!!!!!!

One year later

2007-11-25T21:18:00.000-05:00

Most likely no one from the "good ole days" is still reading this. Its my fauly of course. I've been "cured" so to speak. No issues in quite some time. In fact, I had a Dr. appointment last week and turns out, I'm not dead...yet. However, that's not the reason for this post.

Today is the one year anniversary of the rest of my life. One year and one day ago I woke up and told my wife of 13 years that I was leaving. A lot has changed (and a lot hasn't) since then. We've begun the official proceedings of our divorce (mediation). Some things are going better than others. Some things are going much worse than I had hoped. But whenever you're dealing with humans you're bound to be surprised.

All in all I can say that I've never been happier. I'm still with the same woman I last wrote about. We've had a lot of trials and tribulations. Most we've resolved, some we've decided weren't worth arguing about and have decided to just not argue about.

Anyway, I thought I'd check in and see if any of the peeps were still around. I check the blogs listed here from time to time to see how ya'll are doing. I hope those of you with similar (or not) problems have been able to find the same kind of peace and happiness that I have in the past year.

A horse by any other color

2007-07-16T17:21:00.000-04:00

I meant to post this a while back but haven't gotten around to it. Once day I was having a discussion about whether a zebra was a black horse with white stripes or a white horse with black stripes. To most people there is no distinction. Its just a striped horse.

This brought about the existential question (you knew there had to be one), "am I a sane person feeling sick or a sick person feeling sane?" I've had some really good months since I left the house. I actually got bitten by two fire ants recently and, surprisingly, I didn't die. Of either the bites or panic. It wasn't the best few hours of my life, waiting for impending doom, but I got over it.

Things have been going well otherwise. Job is good, relationships are good, kid is good, its all good. Hope all of you are doing the same.

P.S. According to Wikipedia, zebras are black with white stripes. Who knew?

So there I was

2007-06-08T09:15:00.001-04:00

Where to start...  Lots has happened since I wrote last.  OK, somehow that last sentence doesn't seem grammatically correct.  Lots have happened?  A lot has happened since I written last?  I've written.  Lemme start over.

A lots has happened since I've wrotten last.  Where to begin...

The Doctor Visit:

So there I was...  Actually it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  I started stressing about it on Friday (the appointment was on Tuesday) but then quickly let it drop.  When I got there I was nervous but manageable.  When he started to take my BP of course I freaked out.  He says, "lets just sit here for a minute.  So I did.  When he took it again he said, "That's what I thought...".  So, of course, I say "um...what does that mean? What was it?".  To which he responds, "The first time I took it you looked like you'd seen a ghost."  To which I responded, "I did and the ghost is that thing you put on my arm".  He didn't find it funny.

My Butt Aneurysm:

This is a short one.  I'm on my way somewhere in my car and suddenly I realize that my butt (actually my butt-back connector, you might call it a "hip") was starting to go numb.  Not numb so much but almost like it was tingling.  I started to freak a little bit.  Then it started to feel more like a vibration.  It was my cell phone...

The Migraine:

This one's a little more serious.  My "friend" is a rather fit 33 year old woman.  She works out daily with a trainer and could outrun me with one leg tied behind her back.  But, after one of her workouts she made a comment that one of her ears was clogged up and she chocked it up to her "blood pressure being high from the workout".  This is of course junk science but, god bless her, she's trying.  How ever, the mere mention of the words blood pressure is enough to get me a little panicky.  Then she sends me an IM about 5 minutes later saying that she's seeing spots.  Like a large red pulsating blob in the middle of her vision in both eyes.

I'm starting to freak a bit more and, frankly, so is she.  Then it gets bad.  She starts to lose the ability to type and comprehend words.  Words like "may" and "work".  She forgets her ex-husbands name and where he works.  I start thinking about getting her to the ER but she tells me that this has happened once before and it was ruled a migraine after a trip to the ER and a complete workup by a neurologist.  At some point her fingers and toes begin to go numb and she starts slurring her words.

This is scary.  She insisted that this was a migraine and, it seems, all the 'literature' (spelled G-O-O-G-L-E) seemed to agree.  Then as quick as it came, it was gone.  Within an hour everything was back to normal except she was having a little trouble getting words out quickly.  Today, no effects whatsoever.  I made her get an appointment with her doctor and he decided to send her to a neurologist.  This, of course, has her somewhat upset with me because she doesn't want to go through all of this again.

Two things about this story stuck out to me.  The first is how ignorant people can be of their own health.  I've known for a long time that "healthy" people underestimate their risk for disease.  I also know that the definition of a healthy person is one who hasn't had a thorough medical workup.  What really got me was her lack of fear and panic about her situation.  The other thing that got me was my fear and panic about the situation.

I wasn't afraid for her, I was just afraid.  It was the same feelings and emotions I have when I'm having a "crisis" but it wasn't me and it wasn't about me.  It had me using my same old tricks.  Telling myself that I could just as easily get hit by a bus as get sick.  Meditating.  Do things to distract myself.  Using all the little tricks the therapist taught me.

But this wasn't about me.  It was about her.

I don't know what this means.  Maybe I was scared for her and it was just how I dealt with it.  Make it about me.  To some extent I think I scared her into going to the doctor and, frankly, that's unfair.  She wasn't scared until I scared her.  I'm afraid of putting her through the same things I put my wife through.  To a large extent I'm "better".  But "better" is not cured.  There is always the chance for a melt-down and I'm afraid to have that happen.

The Crash:

I wrecked my bike.  Again.  This time I don't even have a cool story.  I was alone in a parking lot on a perfectly sunny day with no cars or obstructions.  And I fell.  I am a dork.  Road rash sucks.  The wound itself doesn't suck but it makes your life suck.  Showers, clothes, sleeping, standing up, sitting down, everything hurts.  I'm healing well but it still hurts.

So there you have it.  The last few weeks of my life.  I'll check back in soon.  Thanks for the comments recently.  I really appreciate them.

I'm out

2007-05-22T12:23:00.001-04:00

As a recent commenter noted, it's been a while since I've written anything. Saying "recent commenter" makes it seem like I get so many of them I have to catalog chronologically. In reality I get a few heart felt posts from a few hard-core readers on a regular basis. And for that, I'm very grateful (and humbled).

Honestly I just haven't had anything to say. There's work, and life, and more work, and it seems like blogging has taken a back seat to my daily routine. Even now as I type I can't really think of anything to say other than things are "going".

I could bore you with the minutia of divorce proceedings or the daily diagnosis but it doesn't make for good reading (or writing). All this is to say that maybe I'll take a sabbatical. Just a short one. I have a doctor's appointment next week that I'll be sure to update you on (6-month checkup, no biggie). But otherwise I might be off line for a few weeks.

I hope you understand. Once things settle down I'll try to get back with the craziness.

The mathmatics of hypochondria

2007-05-04T15:45:00.001-04:00

My hypochondria has increased by approximately 100% in 2Q07. Last quarter I had approximately 0 episodes of being a spaz. This quarter I've had exactly 2 episodes. OK. Mathematically that's more than 100%. Its actually infinitely more. However, I can't find that key on my keyboard. You know, the one for the symbol that looks like an 8 tripped and fell down.

The second one occurred the other day. I got in my car after work and noticed something on my thumb nail that looked like a brownish stain. Like any normal human I immediately stuck my thumb in my mouth to clean it off (assuming it was chocolate). It tasted like blood. I thought "hmm, that's weird". I then began checking frantically for blood. Looking in the mirror I noticed that the gum (gums?) over one of my teeth was bleeding. Uh oh. I immediately go into differential diagnosis mode. For those of you unfamiliar with this process allow me to outline it:

Bleeding gums - spontaneous bleeding - immediate death

Now the "how I die" was irrelevant. Obviously since I had spontaneously bled I was having some sort of bleeding disorder caused by either cancer, high blood pressure, or the aspirin I took that morning (the baby aspirin I've taken for 4 years).

I freaked out for quite some time. It eventually stopped bleeding but I didn't stop thinking about it. Then it occurred to me. if it stopped bleeding its not a bleeding disorder. On closer inspection I can see where I had obviously used my thumb (remember the blood?) to pick something out of my teeth and caused it to bleed.

Of course, this means I have gingivitis. I'm sure if I looked this up it would lead straight to cancer.

Body damage

2007-05-01T16:06:00.001-04:00

As you may have read before, I take a martial arts class. Its not a particularly nasty one but it has its occasional knocks and bumps. Usually I do OK with these. A bruise here, a finger in the eye there, etc. I've had occasion in the past to have an 'injury' that scared the bejesus out of me. Bejesus, by the way has always made me giggle a little. I don't know why. Its a funny word. But, I digress.

During a test (not mine) last night I attempted to kick a guy. He's a nice guy. Didn't deserve it. But, alas, in martial arts, that's what you do during tests. you beat up on kind undeserving people. He, however, decided he would also kick me at the same time (what did I do to him!?!?!!). This resulted in a collision of shins. Shortly thereafter I had what could only be described as a small dog under my skin on the surface of my shin. It swole (that's a word) to about the size of a mouse. The kind of mouse you use on your computer. Go ahead and set your mouse on your shin. Now, imagine that was under your skin.

Needless to say, I started to freak out. At certain points I went back and forth between the following:

Ruptured artery
Compartment Syndrome
Broken shin bone (I'm sure there's a medical word for that)
Blood clot traveling to my (insert body part here)

I started icing it right away and the swelling went down. It doesn't really hurt, per se, but I 'notice' that its there regularly. I keep having all these funny feelings in my leg like its going numb (which it isn't) to it tightening (which it doesn't). This has resulted in a couple panic stricken moments but, all in all, I'm dealing.

As I look at it now its fairly flat except that its dented. Yes dented. I have actually dented my body. I wonder if Maaco can fix that?

Saunas and Showers and Vitamins Oh My!

2007-04-24T16:35:00.001-04:00

I've been taking this vitamin B called Niaspan now for about a year. You might recall I started taking this after my doctor got all nerdy on me with this cholesterol test. Apparently the stellar (my new favorite word) numbers I'd been putting up on my cholesterol test weren't good enough. It didn't matter that my total cholesterol was measured in decimals and my LDLs were now so low it was measured in molar units. You might also recall that this has some "interesting" side-effects. Namely wailing, the gnashing of teeth, and locust. But, I digress...

So last night I take my wonder drug, drink a glass of water and lay down. It feels like this pill (which is the size of a large frog) is stuck in my "stomach tube" about 3/4 of the way down. I assume at some point it will just go on. When I wake up in the morning I feel that its still there. This freaks me out on many levels. The primary one being that maybe I have stomach cancer and its a blockage. The second, what if this pill ate through my esophagus during the evening and I die of sepsis by lunch? Since I'm writing this, that didn't happen. I'll let you know about the cancer later.

After much ado about (supposedly) nothing I make my way to the gym and decide to sit in the sauna. The sauna has always freaked me out because of those warning signs about "Heart Conditions, Pregnancy, and High Blood Pressure" they always hang on the wall. Odds are I'm not pregnant but still...its frightening!

All of this leads to one shining moment in hypochondria. As I get in the sauna I start thinking that what if the pill just now went down and I have the hot flash. The hot flash causes my blood pressure to drop (as does the sauna) and I pass out in the sauna and die of heat stroke.

Ta daaaaa!!!!!! What can I say, it a gift.

But, I digress

2007-04-20T15:16:00.001-04:00

Nothing much to discuss therefore, no posts. I'm afraid of becoming one of those rambling bloggers that, in order to have "new content" consistently posts random thoughts. Hmm, maybe its too late.

I came, I competed, I crashed

2007-04-16T10:55:00.001-04:00

This weekend was 'interesting' to say the least. I had a weekend of bike races which I've been looking forward to for quite some time. I have new wheels and gears and whatnot and this was the first time I'd used them in an actual race. There were three events. Friday was a sprint, Saturday a "criterium" (which is like NASCAR on bikes), and Sunday a road race (think Tour de France). Here's how my weekend ended up.

Friday. I spent 2 hours warming up for a 51 second ride in which I came in last place.
Saturday. I ended up lining up at the back of the pack (my fault and a rookie mistake) and got dropped before the race even started. I spent the next 20 minutes trying to catch back up. I rode so hard I think my teeth were sweating. I finally gave up half way through to save up for the race on Sunday.
Sunday. I'm in a category for novice racers because, frankly, I'm a novice racer. However, there are apparently different categories of novice. I'm a decent rider. I hold my line, don't slam on my brakes without warning, and am generally courteous (in the confines of a race, that is). Turns out, the others weren't. I ended up wrecking 10 miles into the race. Not permanent damage and nothing broken. My bike suffered the brunt of the assault and those new wheels and whatnot? Not so good.

Throw on top of that an interesting little sort of panic attack that came out of nowhere, riding 10 miles by yourself on a busted up bike with blood streaming down various parts of your body, and you've got a great weekend.

My 'happy pills' just went generic and this is the first batch. Maybe that had something to do with it. I just didn't feel...right...all weekend. Who knows. I wouldn't call it a setback but then again, I wasn't "my best self".

Alanis would be proud

2007-04-16T10:41:00.001-04:00

I just had to post this here because I got such a chuckle. On my way in to the office this morning a 'gentleman' in an SUV was honking at an older guy in the car in front of him while he was trying to decide to go straight or right at a green light. The SUV the speeds around him on the right in a lane meant for parking cars, the dives back left and cuts the guy off only to be caught at the next light.

The best part is that there was a bumper sticker on his window that said:

God bless everyone.

No exceptions.

Oh, the irony...

Some of my best friends...

2007-04-12T13:53:00.001-04:00

I usually leave political commentary to the...political commentators. But I can't pass this one up. I realize that I'm running the risk of being 'labeled' by even saying anything so I will attempt to choose my words wisely. Hopefully, I won't be suspended and fired for saying what I think.

Of course, I'm talking about Don Imus. Let me first say that I've never actually heard Don Imus talk. My only impression of him is from that Howard Stern movie where he was a complete ass. Apparently that was an accurate impression, but that's neither here nor there.

Don Imus called the Rutgers women "nappy-headed ho's". I have no idea of the context. I'm assuming it wasn't something like "Those nappy-headed ho's should be placed in chains and forced to work in cotton fields." Most likely it was in the context of "those nappy-headed ho's could shoot free-throws if their ass was on fire and the bucket of water was in the hoop."

I myself have said the following things about various professional and amateur athletes of all races and genders:

"You suck"
"I hate you"
"You bastards"
"You're a moron"

And at least 19 expletives, derogatory, and sometimes sexual remarks about their mothers, fathers, sisters, wives, and dogs.

Do I actually want to perform these acts? No. Do I really think they're morons or illegitimate children? No. OK, so we've decided that my intent wasn't to perform lewd acts on the relatives of the players.

So lets assume for a moment that Imus' intent was not to make racially disparaging remarks about black women in general and the Rutgers players in particular. Lets assume that he was doing his job, being a shock jock. Was what he said inconsiderate? Yes. Was it over the top? No. Was it out of character for his show? No. Was it out of character for any other show like his (hosted by a black or white person)? No.

OK, so, I've postulated that his intent wasn't to denigrate all blacks, and that his comments, while inconsiderate, were not beyond out of the norm for him or others in his genre of radio. So what's my point?

My point is that what he said was stupid, sure. He apologized. He's been on every national show and issue more Mea Culpas than a whore in church (pardon the phrase). Let it go. Move on.

The problem here is the media, which in my mind includes the Today shows, Al Sharpton, BET, talk radio, et. al. have whipped this into a national frenzy and created news where there was none. Its a case of casting the first stone. A cursory Google search for 'racist remarks' returns a brazillion (that's a number) of hits many of which include some of our favorite 'civil rights leaders':

"If the Jews want to get it on," he said, "tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house." - Al Sharpton

'Hymies.' 'Hymietown.' -- Jesse Jackson's description of New York City while on the 1984 presidential campaign trail.

White folks were in caves while we were building empires.... We taught philosophy astrology, and mathematics before Socrates and those Greek homos.

So, there, I said it. Don Imus should not be fired. He should be embarrassed and humiliated (which he's said he is) and he should be reprimanded and sent home to think about what he did (and he has). And that should be that.

Saber-rattling aside this is a man being made an example. Maybe one needs to be made. But in either case that is all this is, a man being made an example by parties who feel then need to make an example of someone and have yet to find a candidate that will stick.

Don Imus is an old man at the twilight of his career. He's the weak one in the herd. He will suffer the same fate as Jimmy the Greek and Rush Limbaugh (in sports, that is). He will pay dearly for saying something, although stupid, in public that a certain, however small, portion of the public were offended by.

Sad thing is, that's what America's all about. Saying things people don't like. I'm all for it if the individuals themselves boycott the show and its advertisers. Kudos, then, to the American system of free will and capitalism. But what we're seeing is first rate Socialism. The idea that the few know what's best for the many and, if you don't believe them, just ask.

Whew. I said it. I will try not to do that again. For those of you who came here for the hypochondria stuff, my back was hurting last night and I spent 10 minutes ruling out an Aortic Aneurysm and Angina. So, enjoy!

Dave v1.1 Beta (Codename Psycho)

2007-04-10T08:44:00.001-04:00

I seem to be a new person. Here is a list of things that, heretofore, freaked me out:

Blood Pressure
The doctor's office
Airplanes
Ants
Being Alone
Dying of a heart attack while:
the shower
the toilet
my medication
Scary movies with creepy kids

Lately, with the exception of the last one which, I have to say, should be made illegal, I've been flaunting the rest of the rules with abandon. I haven't checked my blood pressure since I left the house. I worry about being bitten by ants but only when I see them. I like being alone and I rarely freak out thinking I'll pass out from the hot water in the shower (the sauna and jacuzzi still get me).

Traveling has been fun. And, amazingly, I've been pushing the boundaries of not taking my meds on what seems like a regular basis. This is truly something new.

I will say that last night while I was picking up a prescription at the drug store that I had a little freak out moment when I almost sat down at one of those BP machines. I had to walk to the other side of the store and read the porn...er...men's magazines until my prescription was ready...

That is why I titled this post Dave v1.1 Beta instead of v2.0... I'm not a full release better just a more advanced version. Maybe I'll have bugs...or features, if you will, that I'll have to work through. Who knows. Either way, its a step in the right direction.

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Eh....

2007-04-03T10:27:00.001-04:00

I haven't written anything in a while. Not certain why. I had an interesting conversation yesterday that had me doing some thinking. I was asked what I thought of marriage vows now. Here's my response:

"as a promise. one that might implicitly be broken forcing the other to 'explicitly' break it...i don't believe its some magical words that should never be undone no matter what. its not a magical incantation"

It seems like a cop-out when I read it again. Its like saying it was her fault I left. Its the 'devil made me do it' defense. I'm not a fan of that. That comment lead to this comment (I'm in blue):

I'm just wrestling with how easily people divorce these days...you know?

that's a misconception

it's like, why get married if there is even the option to divorce?

marriage is incredibly easy. buy a $10 license and find a JOP

divorce (at least here) takes at least a year, lawyers, crying, disappointment, arguments, disdain from friends and loved ones, and metric shit tons of guilt that will most likely last longer than the marriage has

Maybe for some people its easy to divorce. You see it all the time in the news. Somebody has a baby, gets married, then splits up 6 months later because...who knows why. I think for the common person divorce is extremely difficult and not a decision taken lightly. The only thing 'easy' about divorce, at least for me, is knowing that I made a choice to be happy.

Currently it seems like a zero-sum game, though. My happiness equals someone else's unhappiness.

I like to think that at some point that will change and we'll both be happy. I also like to think I'm 6'2" with blond hair and blue eyes...

Sorry for the incoherence of this post. Too much wine and not enough sleep will do that to you.

I suck

2007-03-24T20:14:00.000-04:00

I haven't had much to say lately. Actually, that's a good thing in a way. Its almost like I'm just not worried about anything any more. I have no idea if this is related to my leaving the house or not. Technically "correlation does not equal causation" but, then again "if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck..."

I'm not certain what that last one means. I've always thought geese looked like ducks and they...well, you get the point. Anywho... Things are good for me right now. I'm having fun. I hesitate to say that because it sounds so immature to be concerned with "fun". My wife and her friends think I'm going through some sort of mid-life crisis because I like to "hang out with my friends and ride my bike". Maybe so. However, I still hold down a full-time job and take care of my son so its a pretty responsible regression if you ask me.

OK. So it turns out I had something to say... So sue me. Better do it quick though before "she" gets it all...

Check one two

2007-03-21T13:59:00.001-04:00

I'm trying out a new publisher. Its an addon to Firefox called Performancing. We'll see if it works. I'll put up a real post in a bit.

I'm on vacation, bitches!

2007-03-17T10:21:00.000-04:00

OK, I was not refering to the female readership in the post title. I prefer the non-pejorative term "ho" in that respect. Anyway.

I'm in sunny Florida. I say sunny because it is. I do not, however, say warm or calm. Its 67 degrees and windy as a session of Congress. It is however, Florida. Its gorgeous. I took a nice 2 hour bike ride yesterday that included everything from sunny "oh my god its hot" to rainy and "I think I saw a flying monkey" windy. All the while, I was content. Its funny. I'm riding in 30mph winds, rain so hard that I can barely see, and on 1 inch wide tires going 25mph and I'm completely content. Yet, if I stub my toe I start to panic thinking it might have dislodged a blood clot (I wish I could make this stuff up).

Anywho. I've gotten some great comments over the last few days and I just wanted to achkowledge them and say "warm and fuzzy" it makes me feel to know random strangers with whom I've never met seem to care more about me than my supposed loved ones. You guys rock!

P.S. Lacy, I hope you're doing better. May the power of Tylenol with Codeine be with you!

I offend an entire religion and a people

2007-03-14T08:25:00.000-04:00

Commenter Angela says:

It felt like everything was in control at the time I made the choices so why does it feel so out of control now?

Preach it sister. I think its human nature to question major life decisions. Its like buyer's remorse. How many times have you bought that new super sweet 17" Apple MacBook Pro with the 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4G of RAM, 160G hard drive...uh where was I?

Oh yeah. How many times have you made a large purchase or decision and been impossibly excited about the whole situation only, some hours later, to feel like you just made the decision to not pay for your Grandma's operation? I'm big into buyers remorse. I get so much guilt after buying things, anything, that I should be Jewish. (That in know way was meant to be derogatory. Some of my best friends...you know the rest).

Anyway, after leaving the wife I had the same sort of problem. But I got over it. I'm still racked with guilt on occasion. I still see the hurt in my wife's eyes. See how she does everything she can to hurt me in repayment. See how my son knows something isn't right but doesn't have the words to express it or the comprehension to know it will all get better.

Life is a series of boring moments punctuated by life-altering earth-shattering moments. I guess that was the point of that previous post. We never know what our choices mean in the long run. We never know how things will really turn out.

Its a blessing and a curse. Imagine if we did know just how bad it was going to be. Nothing would ever get done. And, most likely, no one would ever be happy.

A sappy moment

2007-03-10T19:54:00.000-05:00

I just have to say, my son is the coolest person on the planet. Except maybe George Clooney. But, I doubt seriously he does nearly as good a rendition of "Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" as my son... Of course, I might be bias.

Ummm

2007-03-07T22:54:00.000-05:00

Nothing all that impressive happened today. At some point I had a really good idea for a post. But at some point between my third cup of decaf (yeah, I know, what's the point) and my third glass of wine, I forgot it.

Lets just pretend that this was that great idea.

Contracts 101

2007-03-06T16:24:00.000-05:00

Lacy brought up some good points in my post that I thought I should clarify. I think I've mentioned before that I've questioned when it was 'OK' to break a promise. The short answer is, never. The long answer is, depends on who broke their promise first, how long it was broken, and what they did to try and fix it.

I have to constantly remind myself that it takes two to mess up a marriage (unless there's a third party, then it takes...ummm....two). I left. I broke the "until death do us part" portion of the vow. But what about the stuff before that? What about love, honor, and cherish? What about in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer?

Why is so much credence given to the length of the 'contract' and not the quality. I find it a very interesting analogy that in business contracts the agreement can be terminated at any time if any of the tenets are broken. So who violated our marital contract? Was it me for leaving? Her for not cherishing? Me for not sticking around "for worse"? Her for not realizing we were actually in the "for better" portion?

This isn't an excuse, just a line of thought. I'm not saying I believe it. But then again, I left, so maybe I do.

John Cusack is my hero

2007-03-04T17:08:00.000-05:00

"Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for." Lawrence Block

Things sometimes work out differently than planned. This is an obvious statement, I know. But I don't think we realize sometimes how, for lack of a better word, serendipitous life is. Life seems to be a string of interrelated yet completely discrete events that somehow bring us to where we are. Let me give you an example.

- 20 years ago I started smoking
- 10 years ago I had my first anxiety attack which landed me in the E.R. based on the idea I had some form of cancer (from smoking).
- 7 Years ago I ended up in the E.R. again. This time, because I had thought I was having a heart attack. It turns out I had pneumonia.
- 6.99 Years ago I quit smoking.
- 5 yeears ago I decided to take up jogging to undo all the damage I had done smoking
- 3 years ago I gave up running for cycling.
- 2 years ago I go serious and started spending lots of time cycling. Apparently this was the straw that broke the camel's back in my relationship.
- 1 year ago my wife and I started "discussing" on a regular basis how I was neglecting her and my son to bike. Of course I disagree but that's off topic.
- 3 months ago I left my wife.
- Today I'm sitting on the back porch of my "friend's" house typing this.

So. Can I say that had I never smoked I'd have never met my 'friend'? I'd never have taken up cycling? Like I said. These are all discrete events. Thousands of which happen every day. I've never been a subscriber to pre-destination. I firmly believe in free will and the right to choose the ending to our own mysteries.

But somehow, I can't stop thinking that my whole life has been a series of choices that have led me to this point. If that's the case. How special of a moment is this that I'm right here, right now, at this very moment, typing on this keyboard?

I know. Its sappy. But in some way, I've always tried to live my life with the idea that every decision I make in some way changes my 'destiny'.

For all I know we're just an atom waiting to be smashed in some alien particle accelerator and our whole existence is meaningless. I like to think that's not the case. I like to think this is all going somewhere. Where, I have no clue. Maybe that will be the greatest serendipity of them all.

P.S. The title of this post is only slightly obscure but extremely random...

Divorce is a bitch

2007-03-03T07:23:00.000-05:00

How does a person you've known half your life turn into an evil monster? Let me tell you how. You ask them for a divorce. I really don't have anything else to say but that. I might think of something after I go take out some aggressions on unwitting bystanders.

I wonder if Google Maps has directions to the nearest bell tower?

OK, this one really doesn't count

2007-03-01T15:51:00.000-05:00

But that last one totally does because I thought it was funny. So I'm now one ahead. Woo Hooo!!!

This one doesn't count

2007-03-01T15:50:00.000-05:00

Unless I'm one short for the week and then it does... I swear, every time I finish a post I hear the Doogie Houser theme song and picture that damn computer he always typed on. I always wondered what he did with those entries. He never saved them. He never went back. There was no formatting, no fonts, nothing. Seems like a pretty unorganized way for a child genius to keep memoirs.

You'd think he'd have a traper keeper or something...

I'm early

2007-03-01T15:39:00.000-05:00

Figured I'd get in my post before I left for the day. I've joined a local gym so I can get Fergilicious. Or Davilicious. I don't know. I'm thinking I'd much prefer to look like Fergie than myself. Whoa. I think I just came out...

So this week I'm having to do evaluations for my employees. It sucks. I actually find it easier to tell people what they're doing wrong and how to fix it than I do to tell them what they're doing well and how to do it better. Maybe that's just male nature. We focus on the things that are broken and try to fix them. And if it ain't broke, hit it with a hammer until it is because it was going to fail on its own anyway. I think that's how the saying goes.

Anyway. Evaluations. My peeps are great. They do what I ask, when I ask, and put out great stuff. Can't ask for a better crew. So how do I improve it? And, since they're so great, how can I really go and comment on the, maybe, one negative thing about each of them. Is it really fair to give someone a 2 when everything else they do is a 4 (on a 1 to 5 scale)?

It also has me thinking that we should be reviewed in 'real life' from time to time. Those of us who are religious are expecting the 'big review in the sky' but that's not exactly what I'm thinking of. Nothing can humble a person more than to find out they're not so great at the things they think they are. And nothing can make a person's day more than finding out they're appreciated for something they were certain was being overlooked.

I could stand to do more of that in my relationships. I probably could have done that more in my marriage. I damn sure could have used a kind word now and again from "the Ex".

Its not midnight yet

2007-02-28T21:52:00.000-05:00

I made it. I thought about just posting like one word. But I couldn't think of that word. It would be something random...like me.

"Rosebud"...too pretentious.
"Phlebitus"...too...phlegmy.
"Rice Krispies"...two words but mmmmm, so good.
"Disappointment"...to close to home.

No, instead, I'll just say that today, like any other day, was a decent day. Not memorable for much. In fact, it will most likely go down in the annals (ew) of my history as "one of those Mondays I don't remember". Which, is sad because its Wednesday.

7 posts in 7 days

2007-02-27T17:09:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I said it. I said it. I stole your momma's credit... Well, actually, I stole her identity when she was shopping at the TJ Maxx for some of those knock-off UGG boots she saw on an episode of "Newlyweds" but didn't realize that that was from like 2003 and those were so far outa style they were almost back in...whew.

So, as I was saying. 7 posts in 7 days. I've been told I should post more. I'm sure I should but mostly I can't think of anything interesting. Here's something. My civil separation is turning into a nightmare. I'm not surprised at all by what my soon-to-be-ex has been doing. Its always been in her nature to be spiteful and somewhat self-centered. of course, I'm somewhat self-centered (but never spiteful)...(ok, almost never spiteful).

I expected that, as adults, we could be intelligent about the situation. I was also wrong. At least, I was wrong about her. I don't think she's doing these things out of conscious spite, but more out of lashing out in any way she can. It seems she thinks she can either hurt me or bring me back by making me miss my son and by being broke.

Its sad, really, because it shows the complete lack of understanding of what makes me tick that ultimately drove us apart. If she really knew me, she'd know that I only worked to make sure we never wanted for anything and to accomplish career goals. None of which were to make more money.

I obviously share some burden here. I left. I left quickly. This was all apparently a shock to her and she's still reeling from it. Maybe she'll realize how she's treating me and my son some day. Maybe she never will. Many of my friends have told me that I should play the same games. That I could take my son and just not return him one day. That I could empty a bank account and not pay her alimony to 'show her' what it was really like to be alone.

I'm not that guy. I can't be that guy. Every morning I have to look at myself in the mirror and think "damn, you are fine!". And then, once I flex both my biceps and kiss them, a la Randy Savage, I have to look into my own eyes and decide if I'm a positive or negative force in the world. I want to be positive.

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956) 'Prejudices: Fourth Series,' 1924

The Amazing Dave

2007-02-23T09:27:00.000-05:00

My "friend" and I seem to have a hard time understanding each other sometimes. Nothing major. Most of it I think is based on what we believe the other person is thinking or feeling, not what's actually being said.
For most of my marriage I spent all my time trying to stay out of trouble. I tried to bend over backwards to keep the peace so that I wouldn't have to catch any crap. This was based more on what I 'knew' she was thinking than what she said outwardly.

Eventually, this got tiresome. I no longer have the ability to deal with that sort of thing. I've found myself, on occasion, getting very frustrated with this 'friend' because it seems like I'm always having to defend my emotions. She's constantly asking if I'm OK, or if something's wrong, or if she's offended me in some way. In and of itself, that's not a bad thing. I think she's genuinely concerned about my well-being. That's nice.

But at some point I think we all want to be understood. To have someone just 'know' how you're feeling without having to ask. Its obvious that we've only been together a very short time so we'd have no way of reading each other's mind. In fact, I spent the last 15 years reading a mind and, today, I understand it less than I did when we started.

This time around I'm trying to be direct. I'm trying to make my feelings obvious. I'm tired of waiting for someone to read my mind. Even worse, I'm tired of someone reading my mind and being wrong.

Speaking of mind reading, I know you're all thinking "where the hell is this going". Unfortunately, the answer is "nowhere".

P.S. If you write to me and send a self-addressed stamped envelope, I will send you back the 2 minutes of your life it took to read the above post.

Empa...Impa...I know what you're feeling.

2007-02-19T17:51:00.000-05:00

I've had a somewhat interesting development today. I have this 'friend' (and no, its not me) who seems to have a litany of problems when she exercises. Her heart rate goes way up or sometimes she gets a headache. Today she felt light-headed and like "her blood sugar was low" and at some point had a nose-bleed.

I am freaking out.

I say this is 'interesting' because usually I'm OK with other people being sick. I feel bad for them but I'm not overly concerned. Her, though, I started 'diagnosing' and doing symptom-searches on Google. All the things I thought I had kicked for myself. I finally talked her into going to see her doctor.

Part of me was a little upset that she took her obviously impending doom so lightly. Why can't I be like that? Do I even want to be like that? I don't think so. Maybe it was just general concern for her well-being. We are 'friends' after all. We'll see how I do if it comes back that she 'has something'.

My new career

2007-02-18T17:06:00.000-05:00

I had something to post but I forgot what it was... Must be my Alzheimer's flaring up. In between my 'bouts' of cancer, my 'episodes' of aneurysms, and my 'run ins' with strokes, its hard to find time for such a long-term disease like Alzheimer's. I mean, its so slowly progressive that I almost forget that I 'have it'.

I need to write some sort of tracking program for Hypochondriacs. SickMaster? Hyp-o-matic? DiseaseTracker 2.0? That way we could document our various ailments, set reminders to make sure we check our pulse to see if we're alive, collect bookmarks for the best medical sites, create photo albums of the 'spots' we swear are cancer but are really just chocolate, etc.

I think I know a website I could market it on...

Nothing to see here

2007-02-13T17:19:00.000-05:00

I looked. Its all good. Crisis averted. As you were.

Hooooot

2007-02-13T17:17:00.000-05:00

One of my co-workers just walked by my desk and said "Why is your neck so red?". I'm not itching like crazy and fighting the urge to go look in the mirror...if only I could see the back of my neck. Man, owls are so lucky. They don't have to ask anyone to check that mole on their back or tell them if their butt looks big...

2007-02-07T10:04:00.000-05:00

I've had a cold lately, nothing life-threatening but, when you're a hypochondriac, everything is really life-threatening. I was staying with a friend last night and decided that in order to sleep I should take some drugs.

My friend, having two children, had quite an array of medicines. There were many different kinds of non-drowsy this, and cold&flu that and all manners of flavored drugs. The problem is that almost all of them had some sort of warning about 'consulting a doctor before use' if you had any one of a number of maladies. A short list being:

- Hypertension
- Heart Disease
- Glaucoma
- Malabsorbtion
- Halitosis
- A case of the willies
- "The Vapors"

Somehow in my mind these meant "If you take this drug you may or may not die. Good Luck!". I'm sure that wasn't what the writer intended but, that's what I got. After about 20 minutes of staring at them I got so tired I decided I could fall asleep and didn't need to take anything. I slept well all night...go figure.

Well duuuuuuh huuuuuuh!

2007-02-05T17:00:00.000-05:00

A. Nonymous (I assume that's not your real name) left this comment:

I just found a good article on hypochondria (well there are several articles on
this page, scroll down): http://www.anxietyandstress.com/healthanxiety.html Made me think and I wanted to share...

I've read this article a few times over the years. I'm not a fan of it. No Offense to A. (Al Nonymous? Arthur Nonymous? Ooo, maybe you're Latino; Arturo Nonymous?) but I think the author of this document has some misconecptions.

patients seen by primary-care physicians suffer from hypochondria, the
irrational fear of illness.

Irrational? Really? Studies have shown that hypochondriacs actually underestimate their risk of disease. We just do so to a lesser extent than the 'normal' population. Then, there's this gem:

Doctors often dislike their hypochondriac patients; they consume inordinate
amounts of time, and strain hospital resources with their interminable
complaints. In the United States, it is estimated, twenty billion dollars a year
is spent on patients whose psychological distress requires repeated tests and
procedures. Many doctors and nurses make fun of hypochondriacs, calling them
"crocks" and "turkeys." The favored epithet among interns and residents is
gomer, which stands for Get Out of My Emergency Room. Many doctors are relieved when a hypochondriac leaves them for another physician.

Anyone of us have dealt with this sort of reception in the doctor's office. I won't go into how it makes us feel or what we think about doing to them with a 12 volt battery, some jumper cables, K-Y Jelly, and that stethascope...ahem...but it hurts.

There are, however, some decent points to this article. There's this one:

It wasn't until the nineteenth century that hypochondria came to be
narrowly defined as an excessive fear of illness. Not coincidentally, the
disorder flowered at the same time that modern medicine began identifying one
rare disease after another. In his novel ''In Search of Lost Time,'' Proust
wrote, ''For each illness that doctors cure with medicine, they provoke ten in
healthy people by inoculating them with the virus that is a thousand times more
powerful than any microbe: the idea that one is ill.''

I've never been a Proust fan, I don't even have any of his singles, but this is profound. Many, if not most, of my 'episodes' have either preceded or....after-ceded....a regularly scheduled doctor's visit. The fear that I might be sick makes me sick...go medical science!

The article does go on to talk about cognitive-behavioral therapy and, especially interesting, the link between OCD and hypochondria. Just the definition of hypochondria should lead one to make the connection between an obsessive-compulsive disorder and a obsessive worry over one's health. But what do I know....I'm just a gomer.

Ooops, bam! Surprise!

2007-01-31T07:23:00.000-05:00

I've taken martial arts for quite some time now. Nothing spectacular. We don't flip around or where funny costumes. We do stand around in circles and attack the guy in the middle one-by-one like ninjas in movies, but that's a different story.

Over the course of my 'career' I've had occasion to be hurt. Hurt is a relative word. It ranges from "Hey, you're on my hair!" to "Is my foot is supposed to point backwards?" I've had the former type of injury many times, only had the latter once. OK, it was my toe that pointed the wrong way but it still hurt...

The other night a guy was testing and he threw me and as a defense I attempted to break his knee with my eye. This is a move which has a high degree of difficulty. You might think it's easy to hit someone's knee with your eye but, actually, it is not. The knee is quite low and the eye is quite a small target.

Suffice it to say, this hurt. I actually heard some squishing. I like to believe that it was his kneecap but I believe it was my eye. I have a nice shiner as a trophy and, most likely, macular degeneration when I'm 60.

This brings me to the point of the story. Once I got hurt, I started getting anxious. Immediately I started wondering if I had broken something. Once I was past that I started wondering if I had burst a sinus and was already well on my way to dying of septic shock. Or, maybe, a slow-growing aneurysm had been jarred just enough to start slowly leaking.

Regardless of what I thought it was, it freaked me out a bit. All night long I was worried. This goes along with my theory that when I feel that a dent has been made in my 'armor' it causes a flood of fears that I've been holding back. Any time I get a cold or the flu, a headache, or any sort of random pain, I start to think about my health and what might be wrong with me in the future.

Normally, when we walk around, we are oblivious to the millions of things that could go wrong. It's times that I'm reminded of my mortality. Not mortality in the existential sense, but in the "being sick sucks, dying sucks more" sense.

Ah haaaaaaaa!

2007-01-27T15:49:00.000-05:00

My mother is a hypochondriac. This is a new revelation to me. Maybe it shouldn't be. She's never had the classic 'symptoms' of one but, as it seems, its been there all along. Today we were sitting outside on the back deck talking and I got cold. I made a comment that after losing so much weight, I'm always cold.

For the next 10 minutes she tells me this story of how she went to see this doctor in a town 45 minutes away who did some sort of 'saliva test' and told her her adrenal glands were 'burnt out' and that she needed to take all these different kinds of vitamins and savs (I guess someone told her to put the balm on).

Its also interesting, though, that this doctor told her that when she was born that if her mother was under a lot of stress that she might have anxiety issues, too. This is exactly what my psychiatrist told me... I'm doomed. Generations of anxious people begatting other generations of anxious people.

Wonderful.

You think you know someone...

2007-01-24T09:03:00.000-05:00

I've learned a lot the last few days about how we see each other. Mostly, about how we misperceive each other based on what we "know" and what we think we know. This can be as simple as a friend that turns into something much more, a spouse that turns into something much less, or a friend that sees you in a much different way than you thought they did.

The funny thing about human nature is that just when we think we've pegged each other, we change. Its like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (except without all the math). The uncertainty principle basically states that you can't accurately test both the position and momentum (or speed, etc.) of a body without affecting one of them. In other words, the more know, the less you know...

Once you truly think you know a person, and you apply that knowledge, the person forever changes in a way that invalidates what you knew. At least, your perception of them does. The fact is, you never really knew them, just how they reacted to you in the situations you'd always been in.

I thought I knew my wife. It turns out I didn't. At least, I don't. Maybe I changed her, maybe she was never who I thought she was. Whatever the case, she's a stranger now. That hurts a bit. Obviously I brought about the change in 'state' by leaving, but she's chosen her direction.

From this point on, its uncharted territory. I have to make lots of choices and go through trials I never thought I'd had to. All based on the wants and needs of a person I no longer know. Scary.

Tag I'm it...OMG, I'm IT, I'm IT!!!!!!!

2007-01-22T15:50:00.000-05:00

Lacy has thrown down the gauntlet. I have sprayed it with Lysol and picked it up...with forceps.

3 essentials I'd find in your purse/bag or desk

1. My Treo
2. My Mac
3. My debit card

3 people who make you laugh

1. My 'friend'
2. My room mate
3. Myself

3 fears you have

1. Fire Ants
2. Flying
3. Fire ants on a Muth$%#$# Plane!

3 goals in the coming year

1. Lose weight
2. Win a bike race
3. Not freak out

3 things that move you to tears

1. Hurting someone
2. "Titanic" (yeah, I said it. And I'll fight anyone who laughs!)
3. Onions

3 foods you love

1. Clif Bars
2. Sushi
3. General Tso's Tofu...Damn that's'a one'a spicy tofu...

3 places you've been that were beautiful

1. Maui, Hawaii
2. Linville Gorge, NC
3. Any no-name road in the middle of nowhere 5 hours into a bike ride.

3 experiences that changed you forever

1. The birth of my son (yeah, easy answer)
2. My marriage
3. My separation

3 regrets you have

1. Not going to college
2. Not starting bike riding 'til I was old
3. Having regrets at all

3 things you have to have daily

1. Email
2. Instant Messenger
3. A problem that needs fixing

3 other blogs you read

1. Beauty for Ashes
2. The perfect Hypochondriac
3. Cult of Mac

On a happier note

2007-01-22T15:32:00.000-05:00

Thanks to everyone who commented on "My Top 10 (or bottom 10)". I had a blast going back through and re-reading (and in some cases, re-living) the last year. I appreciate all the cross-linking and commenting you do (and, to those who lurk) the commenting you don't do. I know I'm slack in posting lately, I'll try to do better...

State of the onion

2007-01-22T15:18:00.000-05:00

Not much to report. On the marital front, the only thing to report is that there appears to be a small custody battle brewing. I say small because, in my eyes, we are only disagreeing about one visit per week and one overnight stay. Everything else is in total agreement. Basically I want to be able to see him one extra night, even though I'd have him home for bed. And I'd like to keep him Sunday night so I can take him to school on Monday.

This is apparently out of the question. She has decided that she's the "primary caregiver" and that somehow I was an absentee father so it would be disruptive to his schedule for him to be "shuffled around" so much. I don't know... I think that's a weak argument. I've told her I won't accept that schedule and asked that she please be considerate of everyone.

She made a comment that both caught me off guard and seemed to sum up our whole relationship. She said that the "root of our problem was that she was unhappy when I wasn't around". Taken in context this means that I was never around so she was always unhappy which is what led to my being unhappy (if you follow that bit of circular logic). Taken in another context, she thinks the root of our problems is my perception of her unhappiness with me. Or, said another way, that I was unhappy she wanted me at home.

I was both surprised and 'comforted' by this. I was surprised because I thought I had laid out my case so clearly over the last few months of the myriad reasons I was unhappy and wanted out. Apparently it has boiled down to "I want to party with my friends and you won't let me". Its comforting because every time I see this kind of unwillingness to understand I'm reminded of why I left and that it was a good decision.

The problem here is that she will tell her lawyer who will tell a judge that I'm an absentee father. This, being the 'grand ole south' is dubious, to say the least, of giving joint custody. At best they grant 50% visitation. I've toyed with the idea of 'reminding' her that I have just as much right to my son, our house, and our 'stuff' as she does but that I've chosen, for their sake, to essentially live in poverty. I could just as easily file for full custody as she could.

Now I'm bitching... The reality is, I don't think it will get ugly but its not working out as I'd hoped. Maybe I gave her too much credit, maybe I gave myself too much credit. We are what we are and, at the core of things, we're two people who couldn't get along in marriage. Why did I expect to start now?

My Top 10 (or bottom 10)

2007-01-16T17:09:00.000-05:00

It never fails that a band, being ultimately way more in to themselves than their fans are, notice that they haven't had any decent material in years, they release a greatest hits. Yes, Pearl Jam, I'm talking about you. I mean, the new stuff is good but you haven't had a solid album (that didn't make my conservative ears bleed from all the political crap) in 6 years. But, I digress.

Here's my greatest (and worst) blog entries. I hope you find joy in my neurosis...I know I have.

10. Dammit Katie Kouric (sic)
9. This must be the first sign of the apocalypse
8. Sniffles = Aneurysm
7. MSN Oddities
6. Making Up
5. How to deal with a hypochondriac
4. I am not made for the mountains
3. Aleve me Alone
2. Dr. Google, MD.
1. Fire Ants on a Mutha#%$&# Bike!!!

Whew...that was hard. Apparently I'm a much larger fan of my writing than most... It was odd to go through 2 years of posts and see how much (and how little) things have changed. It looks like I'll have to have a greatest hits volume II, B-sides.

Carpe Diem

2007-01-12T14:48:00.000-05:00

Let me see if I can recap 2006:

Freaked out. Got a shrink. Began sitting in dark rooms "just being". Went to the Dr. Tried to kick the BP drug habit. Freaked out. Went back on the stuff. Went to the Dr. Took my BP a lot. Freaked out. Went to the Dr. Somehow got better. Got officially old. Freaked out. Got bitten by Ants. Went to the ER. Went to the Dr. Freaked out. Itched. Itched some more. Left my wife of 12 years. Became content.

There it is. 2006. Forever known as a pivotal year in my life. Much more happened (and is happening) than covered here. Even though I believe in honesty, even I can't be that honest all the time. I hope your year is as earthshattering as mine. Hopefully not for the same reasons.

I've always found it a shame that I've had almost 12000 days on this earth and I only remember a small handful. We spend our lives moving from one day we don't want to remember to another. Along the way we do things and meet people that carve out little slices of memories in our head but, by and large, our days are forgotten. Those days turn into years and those years turn in to complete lives.

The title of this post was also my quote under my senior picture in high school. Carpe Diem. Seize the day. In 1992 I had no diems to show for myself. In 2006 I carpe'd the hell out of the diem. I hope you can do the same.

Guilt: Part Deux

2007-01-07T22:03:00.000-05:00

My son is asleep in the other room. This makes me both happy and a little anxious. At first, I was just happy to see him and get to spend time on my terms without having to worry about getting him "home". But as the evening has worn on, I've started thinking about how he's got two homes now. Tonight is the first night of his being a child of two single parents.

Up to this point, I've been very practical about the whole thing. My mom was a single mother and I turned out 'fine'. Fine being a relative term here. But I do worry. My apartment is small, he doesnt' have his own room, I live in a second floor apartment, I have a room mate, etc. All of these are things that are different from his 'other home'. I only expect this situation temporarily. I suspect I'll find a house to rent or buy next year once I've figured out how everything works.

I think, as in my last post, I'm feeling guilty for uprooting him from his home. Maybe more on all this later. Right now I don't seem to want to blog.

Guilt

2007-01-05T16:33:00.000-05:00

I am racked with guilt. There's no other way to say it. The last conversation I had with my wife has taken a real toll on me and I'm struggling to deal with it. From my point of view, I'm all she's ever known. She's never had to be strong, never had to make tough decisions, never had to feel alone, never had to feel responsible for her well-being.

A couple months ago, these were character flaws. Now they causes for the extreme guilt I'm feeling. I think this might have been the root of my little 'episode' on Wednesday, and for being on the verge of an attack most of today. I keep seeing the look on her face. Seeing her try to come to grips with being alone "forever", which I'm sure is what it feels like. I've been reading a lot today on grieving and guilt in divorce and, in many ways, its helped, but its also hurt. Its hurt knowing that she's probably hurting even worse than I imagine she is.

She IM'd one of my friends today, one she never really talked to, to just basically ask for a prayer. I want to just make this better. I don't want to go back, but I want to be there for her. I just want to hug her and tell her we'll get through this. That we'll be friends again some day and that she'll find someone who loves her for her.

But that is my cross to bear. Because, I can't hug her. I can't console her. I can't talk to her in any way that might give her hope because if I do, I'll 'restart the clock' on her pain. Right now she's 1.5 weeks into me telling her to get a lawyer and that I want visitation. Even though I've been out of the house for 1.5 months, I think she was being led on by my constant presence at the house. I think she's just now really getting into the thick of it. In reality, talking to her would only make me feel better about myself.

The fact is, I caused the pain, and I have to accept that I will hurt, too. No one gets out of this alive... No one.

A peacful easy panic attack

2007-01-04T08:41:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I finally got to see my son again. We went out and had a good guys night. Target, bowling, chicken nuggets, french fries, you know guy stuff. When I took him home, the wife was there and we started talking. I asked, again, for him to stay over night with me. All I got was a "I'll let you know". Fair enough...

I asked her if there was anything she needed to say after I wrote her the letter. Anything she disagreed with. We got into this long conversation about God and what she thinks we need to do to save the marriage. Lately this has consisted of:

Praying together
Devotionals
Christian Counseling
Letting God do whatever it is that God does in these situations

Don't get me wrong. I'm a believer. I'm not the best Christian but, then again, who is? But like I told her last night, God in our marriage has been like God in 'Days of Our Lives'. They're going around screwing, murdering, and just generally being bad people until Marlena gets possesed. Then all of a sudden John's a priest and everyone gets religion.

This has been the recurring theme. I get so fed up I want to leave, we pray. She gets fed up, I need to change. Apparently, I'm the only one that needs God in our marriage. But, I digress.

So when I got home, I went through the normal routine of getting ready for bed and then...it hit me. I was laying there and I just started panicking. Not like the 'get me our or I'll die' but I definitely got that feeling like I had last year at the Christmas party. My heart was pounding, I got hot, felt like I was short of breath, my chest tightened up, I started thinking I was having a heart attack. All of it.

I started thinking "who will I call now to save my life?". I have a room-mate but that would be wierd. Do I just call an ambulance directly? Am I wearing clean underwear? OK, I didn't think that last one but my Mom would kill me if I didn't say it.

So I laid there, eyes closed, and just breathed. Its the first time since I've been meditating that that has happened to me. The first time I've actually been able to put it to practice in a crisis. Seemed to work well enough. I'm not sure what the trigger was but I'm guessing I'm stressed out and, generally speaking, that's all it takes to get me going.

Any way, things are pretty good this morning. We'll see how the day goes. I'm hoping this isn't the beginning of an 'episode' but, if it is, I'll just take it one day at a time.

Hey der, Hi der, Ho der...

2007-01-03T14:30:00.000-05:00

The title of this post should be read with your best mid-western accent.

Nothing much to report lately. Of course you know what that means....a really super-long rambling post filled with obscure references and fake disease names. Anywho...

I had my first episode of divorce drama. I'll spare you the gory details but suffice it to say access to my son has become an issue. I keep telling myself that I expected it. And, in some respects, I expected her not to want to see me which would make it difficult for me to see him. But I think she's trying to make me "miss them" by making it difficult to see him. This, of course, is ill conceived because I know that I have time on my side and, I think, a measure of good karma. The good karma being that I'm not pushing back. I won't use my son or do anything to hurt him as long as I am capable.

This has really tested my ability to stay unemotional when dealing with her. I'm doing what I can to keep "emotion out and intellect in" but, to say the least, its a challenge. I don't want to say or do anything that might foster (more) resentment or ill will from a court. Its a fine line. Trying to fight for what is fair (access to my son) against someone whose not fighting fair.

I really think she's just lashing out. One of those 5 stages of grief or something. If one of the stages is evil...

P.S. That last line was a joke.

I now have "people"

2006-12-28T15:50:00.000-05:00

I went to see a lawyer today. Interesting, to say the least. I couldn't get over how matter-of-fact they were about everyting. Its almost like they see divorcing people everyday. Then it ocurred to me...

As I sat there pouring my heart out to two complete (female) strangers, it struck me as odd how difficult it was to put in to terms why I left. I've been struggling with this off and on now for the last month. How do you tell someone you just don't like a person any more. It seems so petty and childish. Like I should say "nanny nanny boo boo" after it.

However, they seemed to get it (they being the paralegal and the attorney). I heard their respective stories about clients or their own personal divorce and they seemed like mine, just different. I guess in some ways its comforting to hear another's story, and, in some way, it makes me sad that I've become 'one of them'.

I never thought I be divorced. I mean, I dreamed up it for a long time but I never thought I'd actually leave. Let alone have a divorce lawyer.

Bring on the pain

2006-12-27T21:17:00.000-05:00

I have the week off so I took the opportunity to stay with my son today. I also took the opportunity to respond to a letter my wife had written me. It was essentially a list of things she had 'failed' to do in our marriage. She had gift wrapped it and given it to me on Christmas eve. All along (this past month) I've been operating under the guise that I could provide her some normalcy during the holidays by not making too many changes.

I've tried to insulate her from my comings and goings, moving into the apartment, address changes, etc. I would also show up every morning to take my son to school. The idea being her schedule wouldn't have to change and neither would his. However, I'm thinking all this was a mistake. I won't bother giving details as to why I think this but, obviously, I was giving mixed signals.

That ended today. When I responded I laid things out very clearly that I was moving forward with the separation, that we should both get lawyers, how I wanted to work the finances, my prefered schedule with my son, etc. This was all in the hopes that she would get the picture. I'm so afraid of being hurtful and ruining our ability to be 'friendly if not friends' in front of our son, that I may have gone too far the other way.

I have an appointment with a lawyer in the morning. I will be as honest about everything as I can in hopes that she will better represent me. I asked the wife that she consider the fact that she knows what I make, and what I'm able to give, and that she chooses a past which is least costly in both financial and emotional terms.

I hope she does...

I hesitate to write this but, I need to tell someone. It also appears that my doctor called the house and left a message that one of the dosages of my medication needs to be changed based on the recent visit. I have it on pretty good authority that she purposefully didn't give me this message in an effort to...teach me a lesson, I guess.

In a way its completely forgivable because she's hurting and we don't make clear decisions when we hurt. But, this isn't a car payment or a message from a friend. This is a medical issue. She doesn't know what I take or why I take it and, as far as she knows, this is something to control my blood pressure or who knows what. Not to mention the fact that of all my 'issues' my health is by far the largest concern I have. To use that against me, in any way, no matter how small, seems unforgivable.

On that point, and I hope you'll understand this, I'd rather not receive any comments. I'm fully aware of the gambit of responses that could be given and I don't want to assign malice where there is none. I just needed to get it out there.

Thanks for listening.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-24T22:14:00.001-05:00

That is all.

Mr. Clean tries to kill me

2006-12-23T17:27:00.000-05:00

I was in the process of taking a shower (and for anyone else with compulsive tendencies, you know what I mean by process). I had just gotten to step 8 in the process. This comes after rinsing my hair and before turning the water off. This is basically the step were I stand under the shower and just waste water. Yeah, I said it, waste water.

Anyway. All of a sudden I get this odd taste in my mouth. Its something between Mr. Clean and lemon-aide. This, to say the least, was quite 'disconcerting'. For those who are unfamiliar with the less common usage of this word, the Oxford dictionary defines it as:

disconcerting |ˌdiskənˈsərti ng | adjective causing one to feel unsettled

There is also a little known usage:

disconcerting |ˌdiskənˈsərti ng | adjective causing one to freak the f&^k out

Turns out, this is the one I used. I'm not quite sure what I was thinking the cause of this could be. OK, I know exactly what I was thinking. Stroke. How I came to this conclusion
is quite simple. In medical school (read: Google) we learned the following:

If its in your chest, its a heart attack
If its lumpy, its cancer
Anything else is a stroke

Its pretty basic stuff, really. So, when I had the odd taste I ran through the above checklist and, ta daaaa! Stroke. So, for at least 3 seconds I went through the standard checklist of things you can't possibly do when you have a stroke:

Smile
Move your fingers
Move your toes
Roll your eyes
Say your name

having passed all of these tests I went about my way drying off. Once I walked out of the bathroom I saw the bottle I had used on my bike ride this morning half-full of lemon-aide flavored... Hmmm, coincidence? Could be.

And the drama begins

2006-12-22T17:13:00.000-05:00

I've debated seriously for some time about posting this. Even as I type it I keep telling myself that I will most likely delete it before its posted. I really fear many of you will lose respect for me even though, personally, I am happier each day about the decision. So, here goes.

I've met someone.

Wow, that was a little scary to type. The someone is a friend of mine that was helpful in making decisions lately. She is pretty much the same age, same socioeconomic (yeah, check that word out!) status, and is divorced with two children who are roughly the same age as my son. I feel the need to go back and state this for my benefit and yours. We in no way, neither expressed nor implied, had anything other than a platonic friendship before I left my wife. I can't stress this enough.

I think the reason I can't stress this enough is because, in a way, I'm trying to convince myself that I didn't leave my wife for another woman. I've said it before, I know I left her for "somebody" but, even now, I'm content in knowing that I didn't leave for a specific person. However, I think I might have left her for someone like this.

Now, before you fire up your keyboards telling me about rebounds, about how soon it is, about how I don't really know what I want, let me say that I know. I know all of that. I'm aware that this has little chance of working out in the long run. But, in some way, I know that this, whatever it is, feels really right.

Besides the boost in ego that I might actually be capable of loving and being loved again, there's something to be said for not being lonely while your...well...lonely. All the advice I get says that I should 'take some time to figure out who I am' which sounds good, but, in reality I don't understand. I mean, I know who I am, it says so on my license. So lets assume they mean so I can figure out what I really want.

That's easy. To be happy. This person is making me very happy.

Maybe it is too soon. Maybe I'm putting myself in danger of a difficult divorce if the wife finds out. Maybe I will just end up hurting myself and this person. But, the whole reason I left was because I believed (and still believe) that taking a chance on finding someone new was worth leaving my life as I know it. I just didn't expect to meet someone so soon or that that person might be someone I already knew.

Life has a funny way of working out. Of course, it also has a funny way of crashing in fiery balls of death. This could get interesting...

How would I know when to panic?

2006-12-18T15:33:00.000-05:00

I just had to link this one

MONTREAL — A 65-year-old Quebec man who received a new long-term mechanical heart last month is being described as the only living Canadian without a pulse.

Touche, Lacy, touche

2006-12-18T09:23:00.000-05:00

I was schooled on the fact that I had been derelict in my duties as a reciprocal commenter on others' blogs. So, to your quid pro quo I say, "mea culpa". I immediately went comment crazy on some blogs and the karma kicked in yesterday. Anywho.

This weekend was a little rough. The parents came in and stayed at the house with the wife. This is awkward to say the least. My mom has been great but is obviously troubled by all this. She's never been a touchy feely person but all weekend she would put her hand on on me or squeeze a shoulder, rub my cheek, or something. On a somewhat related note, I had another conversation with the wife. Nothing new to report. After our talk I hugged her and she just cried for a while.

I say these are related because I noticed an odd thing with both of them. I felt cold. There was no emotion other than the empathy you have when you see someone hurting. And, in both cases, I wanted to run. I couldn't stand the contact from my mother and I kept waiting for the hug to end with the wife.

This is not like me. I'm an affectionate person, usually. I'm sure there's some root cause to this. Maybe I'm not dealing with some issue and the contact is bringing that up and I'm panicking. I'm more than a little worried that I'll come off as cold for saying these things in public but, in reality I feel cold. And I believe in calling a spade a spade.

Right now, I'm a spade.

Where ma peeps at?

2006-12-15T17:56:00.000-05:00

I'm lonely with so few comments lately. Not sure why considering I write this for myself but its nice to know people are out there. Of course, I see people looking at the site (I track it with Google Analytics)

Anyway, I had a bit of an episode the other day. I forgot to take my medication until very late two days in a row. That is extremely odd for me. The first day seemed like no big deal. I just took it at like 6PM (instead of my usualy 8AM) and went on about my business. The next day wasn't so easy. I remembered at 4PM and took it then. This got me. I immediately started feeling like my head was throbbing while walking up the stairs to my office. Not a good time.

I'm not sure what I was expecting to happen. Maybe I thought I was going to have a heart attack...or maybe
I was just walking up a flight of stairs. Either way, it scared me. Its the first time that's happened in a while. I've been so pre-occupied with everything else I haven't had time to worry about whether my wrist was throbbing too much or if that spot on my lip was cancer or some cereal from breakfast. Idle minds are the hypochondriacs workshop.

On the other front, things are going well. I've moved in to an apartment (the room mate moves in tomorrow) and got some furniture delivered. Its starting to feel like home. Of course, my car started to feel like home.

Maybe I have a distorted sense of home...

What is forever?

2006-12-13T15:17:00.000-05:00

By definition, 'forever' is a long time. The idea of staying with someone or "sticking something out" forever has come up a lot recently in various aspects of my life. Right now it seems like its a little hypocritical to say I could be with someone forever. Obviously, I made that promise to someone and I broke it. At least, in a semantic way if not in practice.

The question is, can you really be expected to love someone, unconditionally, to your own detriment if necessary, forever. The question here isn't weather you can stay married forever. Its obvious that people, quite happily, spend their lives together "forever".

The question I have is, in a situation, like mine, or many others, should you stay together. Is it healthy to change who you are completely for another person? I'm not talking about picking towels up off the floor, or chewing with your mouth closed, I mean changing the essence of your being in an effort to please another person.

Should you change religions, vote Democrat when you're a Republican, endorse capital punishment when you're a pacifist, have an abortion when you're pro-life, become a recluse when you're a social person, etc.? Maybe the changes we ask of each other aren't this grand. Maybe we're never even asked to make these changes so much as believing that this is what the other person needs to be happy with me.

Forever is a funny word. When we promise it we really only mean until we die. A short time, by all accounts, but all the time we have. Its a promise not to take lightly and one, right now, I'm not certain we fully comprehend when we chose to make it.

I'm officially living in a fully functional babe lair

2006-12-12T14:04:00.000-05:00

OK, so its not official, it definitely isn't fully functional, and the only babe will probably be my room mate's cat. But, I signed a lease on my apartment and bought a bed and will have it delivered tomorrow. This may not seem like much to most of you but I moved out of my parents' house and into the apartment with my wife. I've never lived on my own. Not really.

I'm excited and shit scared (that's a word here in the south) all at the same time. I saw the wife again today. The house is litteraly covered (OK, not litteraly...) in self-helo marriage books, little notes about how we can work it out, notes she's taken, print-outs from the Internet, all kinds of stuff. Most of it is strategically placed where I'll see it.

This was both of our M.O.'s. Passive aggression, or passive passiveness, was how we co-existed for so long. Instead of making overt gestures we relied on signs, Morse code, and semaphore to tell each other what we were thinking, feeling, or wanted. It didn't work then and, frankly, it pains me even more to see it now. This is how I know nothing has changed. The fact is if she wanted to change it would take lots of time, patience, and be organic. Not from a book about men being "spaghetti" and women being fruitcakes or something.

I admire her for trying so hard, I really do. And it warms my heart (after all these years) that she values me enough, now, to work this hard. But honestly, how long can this go on? How long until the post-its disappear, before the books get put on a shelf, before the nice comments stop coming...?

Is it worth going through this all over again? Is it worth living in fear of going through this all over again? So far, the answer is no.

Gee that's tiny

2006-12-07T20:13:00.000-05:00

I got an apartment today. That's a big step for me. I've never lived on my own. I'm getting a room mate but that's still different. This is a little nerve-racking. I think as much as I've felt that my wife isn't dealing with our separation, I've begun to realize that I haven't been either.

I'm many ways my life hasn't changed. I still go to work, class, out with friends, to see my son, etc. Even though I'm sleeping in a different place it just hasn't quite sunk in that I've really left. In some ways I've been thinking about doing this for years and now its finally happened. I think I'm almost as shocked at myself as she was.

Anyway. I'm about to get some vulture shock. Moving from a 3100 square foot house to a 1000 square foot apartment with a room mate is gonna be a big change. I still think I'm up to it but, we shall see.

I get the workup

2006-12-05T19:56:00.000-05:00

Today was my 6 month doctor's appointment. As you may have read previously I usually freak the f&^k out at least 1 week before this day. The pattern is something like this:

7 days out:

My calendar notifies me with Darth Vader's theme song. I panic a little but take solace in the fact that I could die before the appointment. Here's hoping!!!

6 Days out:

I get butterflies. And by butterflies I mean queasy. And by queasy I mean sick.

5 days out:

I start thinking of ways to cancel and still get my meds.

4 days out:

Oh my god oh my god oh my god

3 days out:

I get all my afairs in order

2 days out:

Praying, lots of praying. And alcohol. You'd think these would be mutually exclusive but desperate times call for desperate measures.

1 day out:

It can only be described as the sensation you might feel if confronted by a three headed dragon while standing naked in front of a crowd of strangers, giving a speech on nuclear physics.

But, today wasn't so bad. I got there early, got right in, checked the BP (130/60...weird but good I guess.) I also ended up getting the super-d-duper cholesterol test again and an EKG. Normally all of this would have given me a panic attack but it was OK. I'm assuming its because I have bigger fish to fry. We'll see if it lasts.

At some point I will get my test results back and then, look out!

Out, damn spot!

2006-12-04T21:13:00.000-05:00

It finally sunk in today. The people I'm staying with said I can only stay another week. This, in and of itself, is no problem. I completely understand that you don't want a guy living in your guest room for weeks on end. The hard part is that I have nowhere to go.

Not in the sense that I'll sleep on the street or can't afford an apartment, that's not the case at all. I have plenty of friends and enough money. No, I mean that at this point in my life, I have no home. This was expected, of course. I knew on some level i'd have to get my own place and move stuff and do all the things grown ups do when they make grown up decisions.

Its just that all at once I became fully aware of the gravity of the situation. I think somehow this past week has been like a slumber party. Just hanging out with friends, laughing, watching TV, eating, whatever. At some point though, I have to be alone with my thoughts, with my actions, and with the repercussions. That's a daunting thought.

I think I've lined up a room mate which will be helpful but in a way I think that's just a way to keep from having to be alone. Maybe I'll find my own place. Maybe it would be good to be alone for a while. I'm not even sure I know who I am at this point. Maybe I can find myself in a 1 bedroom efficiency overlooking a parking lot.

Ouch

2006-12-03T13:51:00.000-05:00

"The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves."
Sophocles (496 BC - 406 BC), Oedipus Rex

I just got back from my wife's house. That's sounds odd just saying it. Funny thing is, my mom was there. I may not have ever mentioned it but my parents live 3 hours away and my wife has never thought that was far enough. My parents have always been a source of contention in our relationship. I'm by no means a momma's boy. As a matter of fact, we can go months without even talking. Not because we don't like each other we just don't have anything to say. Growing up, it was just me and her and I think, on some level, we had enough of each other for a while. But I digress (regress?)

I had called my mom and left a message yesterday afternoon and asked that she call me on my cell phone. I'm not sure what transpired next but somehow she talked to the wife and was told that I had left. Apparently she was in the car not much later driving down.

Today it became real. Up to now the only people that "knew" were some close friends, my wife, and her mother. Now its "out". My mom was great about not butting in except to ask the questions she should be asking.

"When and how will you see your son?"

"How can you afford to live apart?"

"Have you thought about counseling?"

These were "easy" questions. The hard one was "why is this happening?" How do you explain years of inner struggle, feeling alone even when you're in the same room with someone, resentment for someone you love dearly, etc.? Of anyone she might now. She's divorced also. But, her husband (not my dad) hit her. For her (and this isn't common) leaving him was the easy choice.

I had gone to the house to spend time with my son and to tell the wife that I was going to get separation papers. This went exactly as I had expected. Its probably the hardest she's cried yet.

I felt cold. numb. guilty.

She apologized again, said we could try different things, that like when a person dies, you don't realize how valuable life is until its gone. And then she said exactly what I was thinking. That after a while, you forget to appreciate life again and you go back to the old routine.

This is the most apt anology I have come across yet. Our friendship has died and, even though we could get it back for a time, you can't raise the dead. And you can't go home again.

Warning. This post has no plot.

2006-12-01T15:47:00.000-05:00

I haven't sung in a long time. I'm really not that good of a singer but, in my car, I'm a god. I used to sing a lot. Maybe its a sign of happier days to come. Maybe its a sign of not wanting to sit in my car and think.

I used to be very into music. I play guitar and had aspirations to be in a band. Not that I could have, mind you, but I wanted to. Over the years I attempted it a few times but I rarely had any support to "follow my bliss" so to speak. I can't really blame her for that though. I know I made the decision to get married and support us with a good job. It'd be unfair to do otherwise.

But, even so, what would I have done otherwise? Honestly, I'm not that good. Maybe good enough to play rhythm in a good band or a studio player but I wasn't going to be Keith Richards (turns out I'm allergic to heroin and being dirty...who knew). In reality I was probably saved from years of struggling as a musician only to have my dreams crushed and spend the rest of my years jaded.

OK, so it didn't turn out all that different anyway... Just kidding. I don't expect I'll be a musician even now that things have changed (are changing). I think all the years I spent resenting not being able to play music were really just misdirected frustrations about my marital problems. I'm not a fan of the idea that all mental problems are a manifestation of some deep=seeded misery. Some people are just nuts.

I don't know that I can blame my hypochondria on her. I don't know that I should. I know that I feel better lately but, then again, I've been feeling well for quite some time. Maybe I'm just distracted. Hypochondria seems to thrive you you have nothing better to do.

And now I'm rambling.

Hey, I ain't never coming home.
Hey, I'll just wander my own road.
Hey-hey, I can't meet you here tomorrow - no, no.
Say goodbye don't follow -
Misery so hollow.

-Alice In Chains

Apparently I ate a pot brownie

2006-11-30T16:29:00.000-05:00

Oh, to not begin with anything.
Shaft of a light. A warm breath and a scream.
Tamper if you like between the doors.
Can't expect to go out, to go out with anything more.

-Pearl Jam

The only thing assured in life is death. To most, this is a call to follow your bliss. To a hypochondriac this is proof that we should be freaking out RIGHT NOW! But, if its true that life is a journey, not a destination, then why isn't the destination worthy of the journey?

I mean, who would walk through a rain forest to get to a scorched desert? Who would walk down a beautiful beach to find rain? You'd never make that destination if the journey was all that great.

Maybe the lesson is that because life is a destination, we should enjoy the journey. Its more like walking down the hall in school when you're sent to the principle's office. That is the slowest you will ever walk in your entire life. You'll stop to inspect every brick, read every poster, and drink from every fountain.

I don't know where I'm going here. Lately, I've decided that I've been so focused on the journey that I've missed the fact that I'm hurdling toward the destination faster than ever before. Maybe hypochondria is a blessing in disguise. We, of all people, are fully aware at all times what is at stake. In many ways, that makes us luckier than most.

Hope springs eternal, and sometimes a leak

2006-11-29T16:14:00.000-05:00

I belted out an entire record of Pearl Jam's today. Not the sort of tap your feet, hum along, whistely belt-out. We're talking full-on rock star, "Alright Cleveland, are you ready to rock!?" belting. It was cathartic.

Today felt better. Not good, better. Friday will be one week since I've left. One week of feeling guilty, of having conversations I didn't want to have, of not seeing my son every day, of not...having a purpose.

But today, I had a purpose. Things happened today, for whatever reason, that have reaffirmed my belief that I made the right choice for me, and for my family. On the surface that is a self-serving statement. One that makes me feel better about myself, about the choices I made, and the people I hurt. But I also believe its a truth. That, over time, my family will be happy, even if not living in the same house.

12 years ago I made a commitment to my wife. To love, honor, cherish, take out the trash, feed the dogs, and water the lawn. I think I can honor those commitments. Maybe not in a traditional way, but in a more sincere way. In a way that lets me be me. An Eddie Vedder in training.

Lives opened and trashed...
look ma, watch me crash...
No time to question...whyd nothing last...
Grasp and hold on...hold tight and fast...
Soon be over...and I will relent...

Let the ocean swell, dissolve way my past
Three days, and maybe longer, wont even know Ive left

Let the sun climb, oh, burn way my mask
Three days, and maybe longer, shed my skin at last...

-Pearl Jam

Its quiet, too quiet

2006-11-27T17:30:00.000-05:00

Surprisingly absent during this whole ordeal are any new "symptoms". I've always been under the impression that stressful events precipitate my problems. But not in this case.

Maybe its too early to tell but I don't feel differently, physically anyway, than I did on Thursday. And, to boot, I even felt good on Thursday. Considering the holidays last year were the worst two months of my life, that's saying a lot.

Maybe, though, the reason is that this is just a distraction. I've been so focused on marital issues that I haven't had time to look for cancers or listen to my eyes move (that's my favorite one).

So, we'll see how it goes. I'm still on the meds and trying to kep myself busy. At some point, though, I'll have a quiet moment and we'll see what my brain decides to do with the down time.

2006-11-27T12:51:00.000-05:00

Did a lot more talking yesterday. It felt...numb. Like I couldn't care enough to...care. I know that's not the case. At least, I hope its not. I still deeply care for her. In a way that I'll never be able to care for another person. But at some point I've had to detach myself.

Maybe its a defense mechanism, maybe its what happens when you get "cold", maybe its just who I am. I want so much to believe that we can work it out but the same part of me that turns on to prevent a panic attack or gets me out of thinking I have a swollen ear lobe has "clicked on".

I think meditation and just plain old soul searching has given me at least a small ability to be rational when I normally wouldn't be. But , I guess, the question is, "Is this really the time to be rational?".

Maybe in matters of the heart you should be purely emotional. Purely emotional Dave would be running through a field of daisies toward my wife with a sappy Rod Stewart (yes, Rod Stewart) song playing. Rational Dave is running the other way. Rational Dave is leaving his wife of 12 years. The woman he's known in some form or another for a full two thirds of his life.

Rational Dave may be an ass but right now he has control. We'll see where he takes us.

P.S. The entire last sentence was typed by Felicitous Dave. Rational Dave's hours are between 3PM and 9PM EST. Duplicitous Dave and Vivacious Dave may also be reached at this location.

The Day After

2006-11-25T21:17:00.000-05:00

I'm staying at a friend's house. They're being really good to me, as good friends always are. I went to the house today to check on the wife and child. We hung out, went and got McDonald's and went to the park.

That was all uneventful enough. When our son went down for a nap she wanted to talk some more. It seemed like she went through all the stages of grief in the span of an hour. There was denial when I got there. The house had been cleaned and she was trying to look happy. This hurts.

There was bargaining. "What if we just set a date for one month away and if it doesn't work then that's that" and various other compromises.

Anger. She was visibly angry. She says not at me but at herself for messing everything up. Of course I told her this wasn't the case and that we can't regret who we are.

I can't remember the other two stages. I can sum them up for you though. I feel like shit. This is the reaction I expected from her. It was obvious that I caught her by complete surprise. This, to me, only cements what I've believed to be true. That while we're deeply in love, we aren't friends and we don't "care" about each other.

Not the sort of caring where you worry if someone doesn't call or drop everything and rush to the hospital when one gets bitten by say...I don't know...fire ants. The sort of caring that makes you excited when the other person does well and sad when they don't. The kind of caring that lets you see what the other person needs and provide it without being asked.

Maybe this kind of caring doesn't exist. Maybe it does.

I think in the end she understands my point and sees that I'm not being difficult and that I'm not blaming her. I hope, in the future, that we can become friends. Maybe someday, more than friends. That's not to say I'm changing my mind, just to say that I believe in the ability of people to change once they truly see that they can.

Its done

2006-11-24T23:53:00.000-05:00

She took it better than expected.

It was much harder than I expected.

I'm with some friends right now, I'll keep everyone posted when I get some time.

Happy Thanksgiving

2006-11-23T16:46:00.000-05:00

I'm here at the in-laws for the day (yippie...). They aren't bad as in-laws go. They just aren't 'my kind of people' and, generaly speaking, I'm not there's either. But we get along.

I've spent the day mostly in silence. I'm trying to be as sociable as I can but that's not saying much. I've also been trying to treat this like 'the last thanksgiving' just to see what it feels like.

Funny, last time I was here I thought it was my last Christmas ever. Of course that's because I was 'dying' of a heart attack.

Anyway, considering my circumstances this is a pretty good Thanksgiving. I hope ya'll's (yes, that's a word) is a happy one, too.

Should I stay or should I go

2006-11-22T14:36:00.000-05:00

The question was posed, "Do I think leaving will make me happy?". The simple answer is, no. It will make me very sad in the short term.

But a very good friend has also clued me into the fact that I know I'm not happy now. If I stay in this situation I know the outcome. If I make a change, I don't know the outcome but at least its not 100% assured.

Its like being given a 10% chance. If you have a 100% chance of dying without a certain treatment and a 90% chance with, isn't that worth it?

Again, I really appreciate the comments. Between you, my online friends, and the one or two people "in the flesh" that I've talked to about this I'm having to answer a lot of questions I would have never asked.

That sort of transparency in a thought process is rarely available to me.

The art of saying nothing

2006-11-22T12:48:00.000-05:00

This is yet another non-hypochondria post. If I keep doing this I may have to start another blog or "re-purpose" this one. I had hoped this blog wouldn't turn into yet another way for me to be a narcissist but then, isn't that really what blogging is about? But I digress.

It is the day before Thanksgiving. I'm trying to help me and my family retain some semblance of a holiday season by not breaking my "news" until after the New Year.

Ostensibly (that's at least 3 $1 words so far) this is to prevent having any sort of negative impact on holidays to come. I'd rather not have Thanksgiving or Christmas be the "anniversary" of our separation (assuming it occurs).

The problem is, its obvious to anyone, especially my wife, that I'm depressed. Or, at least, not myself. So I find myself practically hiding out to prevent the inevitable question from occurring.

"Is everything OK?"

Over the years, due to my other issues, my wife has grown desensitized to my being in a funk. This is a good thing. For long periods throughout our marriage I would have the classic depression symptoms. Lack of appetite, lack of sex drive, desire to sleep all day, unwillingness to go places or see people, etc. (Like I said, my wife by no means the only one at fault in this marriage.)

She used to ask what was wrong all the time. I started out by answering with my most recent diagnosis. "I have Multiple Sclerosis". At which point she'd start crying. Then a week later "I have lung cancer". More crying.

At some point, she, rightly so, gave up on this. Only after weeks of being in a slump would she ask what was wrong. I learned that my answers should be measured and in vague terms as to prevent her worry and to keep from patronizing myself.

At this point, though, we can go days without even talking to one another before she seems to notice there's anything wrong. Its been days.

Now I'm worried that the question will come and wondering how I should answer. Part of me wants to lie to prevent spoiling Thanksgiving or Christmas. Part of me wants to "get it over with" for fear I'll weaken in the coming months and just live with it.

So today's rhetorical question is, "Am I really protecting her by waiting?"

Common sense says yes. It would be impossibly awkward to have to deal with holidays and relatives knowing we were splitting up and either trying to look happy or, worse, dealing with the knowing looks of our family who, 15 years ago, told us we were stupid to get married.

Why couldn't I have been born a Canadian Jew?

I'm still a hypochondriac and don't you forget it!

2006-11-21T10:09:00.000-05:00

I finally figured out a way to tie it all in. I had this thought last night. What if I do...change my situation...and I die before I'm happy? Like what if I have a heart attack from all the stress and never get to be happy? Or what if I choke on my Fruity Pebbles and there's no one to give me the Heim...Hyml..H... No one to tell me to raise my hands above my head and pat me on the back?

It will definitely go on my con list.

Wax On Wane Off

2006-11-21T09:53:00.000-05:00

Just like a normal bout of "hypochondria" (as if it was a cold) today I'm better. Not happy. Better. I'm not depressed but I'm not going to fool myself into thinking that it was just a "spell". I still spent the entire evening by myself watching TV having said only a few passing words to my wife.

I found myself spending extra time playing with my son, reading a book, taking him to breakfast, all on the precept that I won't have much time to spend with him. This is sad but, somehow, the decision seems to give me some peace.

Not that the decision is made but more that I'm "deciding to decide". Its like one person recommended that I try to live with each decision for a week and see how it feels.

Seems like good advice. Along with everything else everyone has said. Thanks.

My rhetorical questions for today

2006-11-20T13:02:00.000-05:00

Things that are going through my mind today:

What if I make the right decision for the wrong reason?

What if I make the wrong decision for the right reason?

How do I balance my list of 'pros' to another's list of 'cons'?

When is a promise too much to bear?

Is a zero-sum game fair?

Is it really even zero-sum; can it be a negative-sum?

I'm not looking for answers (but they're welcomed) just giving insight.

You guys rock

2006-11-20T12:59:00.000-05:00

I appreciate the support. Its interesting that the Internet is so often maligned and blamed for the decline of interpersonal relationships. It seems to me there's a whole support structure out there waiting to be tapped and, for the first time, isn't bound by distance.

I also appreciate you sharing your personal situations. It takes just as much to do that in a comment as it does to write a post. Again, thanks.

Fair warning, this ain't funny.

2006-11-19T22:01:00.000-05:00

I'll warn you now. This post has nothing to do with being a hypochondriac. And it probably won't be very funny. But, I need to write it somewhere and this blog has always been very helpful to me.

I've been married for 12 years. We met in 7th grade, started dating in high school, got married a year after high school. We have a nice house, one beautiful boy, two dogs, and a bunch of "stuff". And I'm considering a divorce.

That is a heavy statement. For anyone who's never had to write it, imagine writing something like "my father died" or "I have cancer". It's heavy. When you write it it hits the keyboard with a thump. It just hangs there. So much so that you have to check to make sure you wrote it.

Let me go back a bit and say that I've never been unfaithful. Not once. I've never even propositioned another woman, let alone touched one, in the 14 years I've been with my wife. And, to my knowledge, neither has she. I've never struck her, I never raise my voice and I'm never belligerent. And, on all those points, neither is she.

So why contemplate divorce? Well, because in short, I'm not happy. This is why I write this here and not some other random blog. I haven't been happy in years. I'll spare you the reasons why. Just know that they are varied and, seemingly to the outside observer, petty. But, like the protagonist in "The Cask of Amontillado" (surprised I've read?), "The thousands of injuries...I've bared as best I could..." have gotten to me.

So, back to the point. I'm not happy. But here's the real problem. I have problems with depression. I always have. So here's the question. "How do I know I'm not just depressed?" What's to say I'm not in a down turn and this is just another "what if"?

What if the cause of my depression is my marriage?

What if i leave her and I'm alone forever?

What will happen to my son?

What will happen to her? (I do still love her.)

What if this is a mid-life (or 1/3 life) crisis and I really just need to buy a Corvette?

What if I make a mistake and regret it forever?

What if I do nothing and regret it forever?

The what if engine doesn't only strike during periods of anxiety. Its always there. Maybe in this case its beneficial. This isn't something to be taken lightly.

I don't suspect I'll talk about this much. I hope that, like my other problems, I'll wake up one day and feel a little bit better. I know some of you are religious so, if you'd mention me to your favorite deity, I'd appreciate it.

Once interesting point. I actually took my blood pressure today just to take my mind off of this. It didn't work, blood pressure was great. Funny how that works. When you need anxiety, its just not there...

My hurts

2006-11-15T14:57:00.000-05:00

Apparently there aren't many sites on the Internet that deal in either spleen or uvula pain. This is evident by the number of hits I get daily requesting information on said maladies.

So for those of you who've come here looking for information on diseases of the Uvula, I'll direct you here:

Diseases of the Uvula

And for the spleenicly deficient:

Spleen Diseases

I love being able to use my google-powers for good.

Two words: "Make up your damn mind"

2006-11-15T14:11:00.000-05:00

OK, that's more than two words. Maybe I should have said "words evenly divisible by two"... Today, I read this:

November 14, 2006 -- Put this in your fry basket: The American Heart Association opposes Mayor Bloomberg's plan to ban trans fat in restaurants - breaking ranks with most health advocates.

"The American Heart Association is concerned that the ban of trans fat in restaurants in its current form may not be the best course of proposed action," the medical group said in written testimony obtained by The Post.

"We are concerned that there is the potential for unintended and adverse consequences, such as restaurants returning to the use of oils high in saturated or animal-based fat if healthier oils are in short supply," the association's Megan Lozito told the city Board of Health.

"These unhealthy substitutes also pose important health risks."

This is exactly what's wrong with the medical profession. OK, maybe not exactly, I mean, there's tongue depressors and digital rectal exams, but you know what I mean. Here we have an organization that says "Trans-fats are bad". Then someone goes out on a limb to ban them and they say "The alternative to trans-fats are bad".

Exactly what is being accomplished here? If I was Michael Bloomberg I would seriously consider flying to the headquarters of the AHA and pimp slapping the white coat off of the joker that gave this press release.

If trans-fats weren't the worst thing we could eat but not the best, then say that. But based on all the hoopla over the last year I am fully expecting to die of a coronary the next time I eat my toast with margarine.

White and nerdy

2006-11-14T17:08:00.000-05:00

Not much to report today. As my hero and moral mentor, Ice Cube, once said "Today was a good day". Of course I also think he said something about doing rather impolite things to a police officer...maybe I should pick another mentor.

The new look

2006-11-13T09:50:00.000-05:00

I've made changes. It became apparent that the color-scheme of the blog was depressing. Either that or I became depressing and decided to blame it on the color scheme. Either way, I changed it. I promise, the content will still be as depressing as before.

Ooops

2006-11-13T08:45:00.000-05:00

I realized last night about 5 minutes after I typed my last post that I hadn't taken my medication that day. If you've been with me for any period of time you'll know that this is usually a cause for great consternation. That's assuming I know what "consternation" really means. At first glance it looks like a group of stars that have trouble going to the bathroom... But, I digress.

I realized this as I was brushing my teeth. I think I hit all the stages of grief as I came to this realization:

Denial - "That can't be. I never forget my meds."

Anger - "I am such a dork!"

Bargaining - "Maybe I can just take it now and everything will be alright."

Depression - "Why am I freaking out about this? I thought I was 'better'... This is so sad. If I wasn't going to have a stroke from the high blood pressure, I'd shoot myself."

and finally:

Acceptance - "I'll just go to bed and die now. Lord, take me home."

Of course, I didn't die. At least, I hope not. 'Cause I didn't read anywhere in the Bible about blogging. I guess I survived. It was a restless night and there were a few phantom "chest pains" and "almost-heart attacks" but, I made it. This only proves that vigilance is the price you pay for "health".

Even for a second I let my guard down and something small crept in and made me question my health and, literally, my sanity.

You heard it here first!

2006-11-12T21:44:00.000-05:00

See! I told you!

David Batty and agencies
Friday November 10, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

Doctors in doubt about a patient's ailment could use Google to help them reach a diagnosis, researchers said today.

Two Australian doctors have found that entering the symptoms of a tricky case into the internet search engine often results in accurately diagnosing the illness.

They put Google to the test by entering the symptoms of 26 difficult cases recorded in the New England Journal of Medicine into the search engine to see how accurate an aid to diagnosis it was. And in 58% of cases using the search engine led to the correct diagnosis.

I don't know why I find this a positive thing. I really should be freaking out at the fact that google might be right half the time and I actually have hemochromomyoencephelocitis because my eyebrows twitch occasionally.

I can't imagine this will be beneficial the next time i go symptom surfing.

Today is another day

2006-11-07T01:11:00.000-05:00

Or maybe yesterday is another day...or something. Its 1:11AM at the time if this writing. I've just finished looking over my benefits for next year or, more to the point, deciding how much money I will give my doctor to tell me I will die...eventually.

Just a random blurb. I really appreciate the comments you guys (and gals) leave. I can't tell you enough how much it helps to know we're not alone (and we're not). I was thinking on the way home from my martial arts class about something the instructor said. He was giving me a sort of pat on the back and made mention to the class that I'm always relaxed under pressure.

Funny thing is that I'm usually a wreck of adrenaline and uncertainty in those classes. Much like during 'attacks'. To most people (maybe everyone except my wife) I seem normal. I usually get remarks about how 'even-keeled' I am (ahoy, shape the mizzenmast and hoist the main sail). But, I'm usually a flurry of what-ifs and my mind is racing 100 miles an hour.

Maybe normal people are the same way. Maybe what looks like calm and collected is really fear uncertainty and doubt. I sure hope so. It might be mean but it'd sure make me feel better to know I'm more normal than I think I am.

P.S. While spell-checking the above it pointed out that I typed "marital arts" instead of "martial arts"...Freud would be proud.

I spoke too soon

2006-11-06T10:20:00.000-05:00

After my little "I'm so healthy I'm sick" schpeel (i have no idea how to spell it) yesterday I knew I was in danger... I just didn't expect it so quickly. This morning as I was sitting in my fortress of solitude (spelled b-a-t-h-r-o-o-m) I "noticed" my heart beat felt "weird". For those of you like me those two words - 'noticed' and 'weird' - are the hallmarks of an ensuing freak-out.

The dictionary defines 'weird' as:

adjective
suggesting something supernatural; uncanny : the weird crying of a seal.
• informal very strange; bizarre : a weird coincidence | all sorts of weird and wonderful characters.
• archaic connected with fate.

I define 'weird' as:

noun
The state a vital organ or system enters precisely 5 minutes before death.

Examples of weird things might be heartbeats, eye twitches, feeling cold, feeling hot, feeling happy, sad, anxious, calm, or really, any feeling whatsoever that you happen to 'notice' at that moment.

Its really inconcequential what you're 'noticing'. Its much more important that it was noticed because, as we all know, any new sensation equals impending doom. Even, oddly enough, feelings of impending doom equal impending doom (a heart attack).

As quickly as I felt the heartbeat it was gone. I freaked a little bit and it all came in. I went from (alleged) odd heartbeat to who will raise my son in a matter of 5 minutes.

I was able to meditate this morning and that seemed to at least slow down the what-if stuff. We'll see how it goes from here on out.

Being healthy is making me...unhealthy

2006-11-05T20:41:00.000-05:00

I've always had a bit of a weight problem. At least as far back as I can remember I've been a little heavy. Not obese (at least, not grossly) but not skinny either. Of course, if you were to ask the government I'm somewhere between obese and morbidly obese. Of course, so is Arnold Schwarz...you know who I mean.

After my last episode which was about a year ago, I got down to probably the lightest weight I've ever been. This was mostly due to my inability to eat for fear of ingesting one-too-many grams of salt and dying of an aneurysm. And then, through the summer, I stayed at that weight through exercise and good clean livin...ok...through exercise.

Now that its the 'off season' I'm not riding near as much and I'm gaining it back. The wife and I were talking today about going off our meds to lose weight.

Its sad really. Its like we have to choose between mental health and physical health. I'll try and diet more and exercise more but the reality is, I'm just not worried enough about it to do anything.

Its one of those problems like too much money or too many women that just don't seem like problems to those without.

Oh chili, how I hate thee

2006-11-03T14:58:00.000-05:00

We had a chili cook-off today at work. Me being a vegetarian I didn't think I'd have an issue. Especially since I'd be eating only my own recipe. Turns out the problem wasn't the chili it was the cake, cookies, brownies, potato chips, cheese, corn bread, more brownies, some sort of key-lime concoction, more brownies and lord knows what else.

Ugh.

Chocolate = cancer

2006-11-01T22:26:00.000-05:00

I have a tendency to "notice" things. By noticing something I mean that all of a sudden I'm freaked out by things like, oh I don't know, looking at my own face in a mirror, or become aware that I'm breathing. You know, odd things.

For example, today I "noticed" that I had a brown spot between my eyes on the bridge of my nose. For a moment I panicked. Was this a liver spot, a spontaneous bruise, a sore, skin cancer?

I then licked my finger and rubbed it and it came off.

This is hypochondria at its finest. I am afraid of a chocolate mark on my forehead.

Events of my death are greatly under-reported

2006-10-31T10:16:00.000-05:00

So there I was...surrounded by ninjas...would you beleive, a group of angry girl scouts? OK, I'm just lazy. I try not to use this space as my "personal" blog. Meaning, I don't come on here and spill my guts about political issues, human injustice, the price of gasoline, how the Bolshevic Revolution was neith Bolshovic nor a revolution, etc.

So you can by my lack of posts that things are well. This is usually the part of the year where I have the most issues. I'm thinking, at this point, its the drugs. This is by far the longest I've ever taken anything. At the time of this writting (man that sounds professional) I've been "on the sauce" for 11 months give or take a panic attack and a couple missed doses. Heretofore (oh yeah, I said it) my longest stint was 6 months.

I'm not 100% certain why I quit taking it before. I think I saw it as a sign of weakness. As I mentioned in some of the last posts, I used to think medication was the domain of the weak. That for some reason if I was taking drugs it meant I wasn't truly better.

Well, to that, I say...duh! I'm not better. At least, not without the drugs. But, I am better with the drugs. I still have my moments. For example, this morning on the elliptical I got worried about what I swore was a "odd rhythm" in my heartbeat. Then I had a "breathing thing" that I couldn't explain if I wanted to. And believe me, I want to.

But, the key there was that it didn't freak me out for long. Miracles of modern medicine. If it wasn't for incorrectly amputated limbs and phen phen, I might think they were on to something.

Save me Elrond Hubbard, save me Tom Cruise!!!

2006-10-22T22:41:00.000-04:00

I usually think of about 13 things during the day that I want to blog about. unfortunately, I usually forget them within about 8 seconds. I'm sure if I thought about this long enough I'd convince myself that this was a early-onset Alzheimer's or some rare "brain cloud". Fortunately, I've just been too busy.

I did get to go back "home" this weekend with the wife and kid. This, as you may remember, was the site of my last complete melt down. This was Christmas morning this past year. I still think it had to do with a medication change but, I always fell extra anxious when I travel. Not sure what that's about.

Its also worth noting that my wife has anxiety problems. Hers mostly focus on new people or places. It got me thinking about two things. The first being the perception of what an "anxiety issue" is. It used to be called "nerves" or "the vapors" (please, note, "the vapors" is pronounced "tha vahpahhhs" in your best southern drawl). I remember as a child how I was considered "hyperactive". Of course, now that's ADD and I'd be drugged up for it.

That got me to thinking about "better living through chemistry". I'm not a big fan of taking drugs (the legal ones) without good cause. I've done my best to limit my need for drugs to the smallest dose for the shortest time. Obviously it doesn't work all the time (I take 3 drugs a day) but its a goal. I started thinking about how I and many others frown on the idea that everyone has to be happy.

This is the idea that people get depressed and you (we) should just deal with it. I used to believe this. I used to believe (much like Our Lord and Saviour Tom Cruise) that people who took drugs like Prozac were just weak. That people who took Lipitor and BP medication just weren't willing to commit to exercise and a better diet.

My the difference a few "heart attacks" and "strokes", or at least, imagined ones, makes. I've now started to realize the fault in that logic. The fault is that its actually the reverse. What is so wrong with being happier than we were made? If we could take a pill that made us happy all day everyday, even when things went bad, what's wrong with that? If I can take a pill that keeps me from dying of a massive heart attack at 40 (here's hoping) instead of having to eat right and exercise, what's wrong with that, too?

This of course ignores the financial implications of pharmaceuticals but that's a topic for a different post. The point here is that I've come to see nothing inherently wrong with taking 2 pills a day, every day, for the rest of my life. Especially if those pills provide a long and happy life.

It just occurred to me that I can rename my medication. I take one pill to have a long life, and another to make it happy. Seems like the two should be inseparable.

Stop trying to help!!!

2006-10-15T14:08:00.000-04:00

I rode (road? roaded? roden?) in my first two actual competitive bike races this weekend. The first day I didn't finish due to an unfortunate incident that occured in front of me (read pile-up). Today, I finished. I really felt great all day including after the finish (except for somehow wrecking into the hay bails AFTER the race was over).

Anywho, everything was great until I get back to where my wife and son were waiting. And my wife says "I think you're starting to get a nose bleed". OK. This is bad. Not uncommon necessarily. I've had nose bleeds since I was a child. My doctor said something about the blood vessels in my nose yada yada. I actually believe that one.

However, in my mind I think "excersize = high blood pressure = nose bleed". This is bad enough but, normally, I can shake this thought. Then here it comes. The wife says, "Did you take your blood pressure medicine?".

Ouch.

No, I didn't. This is not uncommon. I will usually wait until after my morning excercize before I take my pills. But this time, it struck a chord. All the standard sorts of what-if questions start running through my mind. I think I've mentioned them enough to not have to recount them here.

It was innocous enough statement from the wife. I'm sure she assumed her explanation would help me feel better. This is sort of like when you have a cough and the doctor says it could be pneumonia or cancer (gee what's that like).

I think I've managed to get by it at this point with minimal freakage, pulse checking, etc. Of course, the blood pressure machine at the grocery store was calling my name but that's not abnormal.

Well, another day, another crisis averted. Come back next time, same nut time, same nut channel.

Ouch

2006-10-08T18:46:00.000-04:00

I rode 100 miles today. 100.7, to be exact. it was sort of a personal goal. It took something like 5.5 hours to do it. There's something I've always noticed about riding. Its very much the same feeling I get when I'm meditating. I couldn't for the life of me tell you what I thought about, alone, for 5.5 hours. Believe it or not I only thought about fire ants and heart attacks maybe once in 5 hours.

This brings to mind the saying "Idle hands are the devil's workshop." Maybe idle minds are anxiety's workshop. It seems common sense that if you're busy doing something else, you don't have time to worry. Sounds simple enough. The problem is, you're not always doing "somthing". As a matter of fact, many times, I'm doing absolutely nothing. Therein lies a problem.

Its getting cold again. This is my season for "non-reason", of you will (yeah, I know, not one of my better turns of phrase). October is usually when I start the downward slide that, usually, ends sometime in the spring. I've theorized that it was lack of sun or lack of exercise or who knows what. In reality I guess I'm just bored.

This year I'll try to stay a little more busy. It will be hard. Sometimes the mind just needs to relax. Maybe meditation can fill the need there. I'll keep you posted.

I return to the scene of the crime (or, I came, I saw, I itched)

2006-10-04T21:18:00.000-04:00

Whn we last left our super psyco, he was litteraly afraid of itching. This, due in part to a vicious attack by a colony of rabid fire ants with frickin laser beams on their heads.

OK, maybe they didn't have laser beams. They were rabid though, I just know it. You might recall I had a near death experience. By near death, I mean I got hives and went to the hospital. That was the last time I went to this particular place and raced (on a bicycle).

I've told myself for the last month or two that I was just "changing my training schedule". I think on some level I was "scared shitless" and was avoiding this place. I decided I wanted to race there a coupel more times before the season was over so I went last night. Here's how it went.

- Find a parking spot with no grass (cause that's where the ants are)
- Stop the car and immediately open the door and look for ants
- Get out of the car
- Look for ants
- Stoop down even closer to look for ants
- Change clothes while periodically looking for ants
- Feel something crawl on my leg
- Dance like Yosemite Sam was shooting at my feet to shake the "ants"
- Get my bike
- Look for ants
- Get on the bike
- Start to itch and wonder if I was bitten by ants
- Ride around the track at some god-awful speed with 75 people who apparently don't know what "safety" means
- Ride up to my car and within four seconds I do the following:
- Look for ants
- throw my bike in the trunk
- run to the passenger side and jump in
- check for ants
- drive home hoping that that crawling feeling on my leg isn't an ant
- take a shower and remind myself that I'm washing the ants off
- Go to bed and thank God I escaped the ants
- Freak out cause I think I feel an ant

So, as you can see, I've adjusted fairly well... As the ants only occupied 50% of my total brain power I had at least 25% to spare for riding (the other 25% went to standard cancer, aneurism, and heart attack thoughts).

Did I mention there were ants?

I hear panic attacks

2006-09-26T16:01:00.000-04:00

This has to be the craziest thing that's happened in quite some time. Last night as I'm brushing my teeth I started hearing this humming noise. Sort of like a high pitched mechanical noise. Instead of thinking something like "gee, that's a high pitched mechanical noise" I immediately went to "gee, what sort of medical condition causes the hearing of high pitched mechanical noises".

The medical dictionary that is my brain could only come up with two things. Aneurysm and high blood pressure. As a matter of fact, I thing if you drew a decision tree of my medical knowledge it would look something like this:



Does your head hurt?
     |
     |
Do you have ringing
in your ears?
     |
Back pain
     
Frequent Urination
     |
     |
Swollen Uvula
     | 
Dark Eyelashes
     |
     |
You are having 
an aneurysm.  Please
make sure your affairs are
  in order.

Simple, concise, accurate. I really don't understand what the other 7 years, 364 days of medical school or for. Probably something about negotiating insurance contacts and when to use a sand wedge instead of a pitching wedge.

Anyway, turns out when I went in to a different room I couldn't hear it any more... Go figure. An aneurysm that only happens while I'm brushing my teeth.

The thrill of Victor and the agony of de feet

2006-09-24T20:07:00.000-04:00

Let me start by saying I have never been as proud of a post title as I am of this one. As you will see its pure genius. An interesting aside about my, we'll call it, "writing" style. I tend to write the title of the post and then everything comes from there.

This is anti-7th-grade-english where we were taught to outline the story and then outline the paragraph and then, once you woke up, fill in the blanks with actual sentences. I'm sure to many of you, this comes as no surprise. Anyway, back to the story.

I went on a bike ride yesterday. OK, "bike ride" is an understatement. This was something like a cross between "National Lampoon's European Vacation" and "Deliverence". We set out on a 80+ mile trek. There were five of us. Myself, who I consider to be an above averge but not spectacular rider, another who is just as strong (but 30lbs ligher, the bastard), a third who is almost there but could stand to train a little more, and two guys who like to ride but for one reason or another have issues keeping up. One of which is Victor.

Victor is a great guy. He's fun to work with, great to be around, and I can only describe him as Tony Robbins on crystal meth. He is a 100%, full-time, grade-A optimist. The kind of guy that can find the silver lining in nuclear war. Again, I digress.

I titled the ride "The first anual 'Oh my god, the horror, the agony' bike ride" in order to scare the less capable riders away. This did not work. This sounds like a snobbish statement. And, truth be told, it is. When going on a 6-hour bike ride to the middle of nowhere, you want to be careful who you choose. Its like the "who would you have on a deserted island?" question. No one ever picks Gilligan. You want The Professor.

After about 2 hours of riding Vic is tired. We haven't even gotten to the hard part yet. After 3 hours he's hurting. Then we start climbing. Let me say that I have a new disrespect for our civil engineers. We've sent men to the moon but we can't figure out how to get up and over a mountain without a series of switchbacks that look more like more like ladders than ramps. After 45 minutes of climbing straight up we reach the top. We meaning myself and the other strong rider. After about 10 minutes, the 3rd guy shows up. Another 10 minutes a fourth. No sign of Vic.

Here's where I have my first mini-panic. We're almost out of water and we have 3 more hours to go. The top of this mountain has what looks like a retirement villiage on it. I've somehow got it in my head that there might be "something" in the water. I do my best not to drink it for fear of some parasite or bacteria.

We head down the mountain and there is Vic on his cell phone. He's calling someone to come pick him up. We are at least 43 miles from East Egypt and he's giving up. Bad news. We convince hime to go to the next stop and then its all down hill.

Another hour of riding and we get to the next stop and there's no Vic. We wait. No Vic. We see three riders pass us and ask them if they passed another rider. No. We ride back and we hear someone yell at us from the side of the road. Vic is sitting on the porch of a U-Haul rental/taxidermy/country store with a guy who has, at most, 18 teeth. He can't go on. He won't go on. He's calling his wife to come get him. We tell him we'll go slow and that in another 11 miles its all down hill. he won't budge. Vic is broken.

Reluctantly we leave him with Bubba and as we ride away I swear I can hear banjo music and squealing pig noises... Here's where the wierd part kicks in. For the next hour I'm anxious. I'm worried about bee stings, fire ants, flat tires, how far we are from civilization, how long its taking to get home, my blood pressure, you name it, I'm freaking out about it. Vic started an anxiety storm.

For two hours we ride . All the while worried aboout Vic. He won't answer his phone (or can't) and hasn't called and left us a message to say he was picked up. Others are angry, I'm anxious. Not about Vic, but about me.

Its now Sunday night and I still haven't heard from Vic (I don't have his phone number so I sent him an email). I assume I'd get a call if he was missing. I'm still anxious.

We rode a total of 85 miles. Arriving back at our cars almost 7.5 hours after we left. This is a new personal best for me. My legs hurt, my feet hurt, I think my pancrease even hurts.

I'm not sure why being worried about Vic caused so much anxiety elsewhere. It does seem like there are triggers but its usually things like work or family that make me go off on a panic bender.

I'm sure I'll hear from Vic tomorrow and we'll all laugh. Or punch him. I haven't decided.

I haven't taken a bath in over a year

2006-09-24T19:59:00.000-04:00

OK, before you become repulsed and question whether you should disinfect your keyboard (and your eyeballs) let me say that I take (at least) one shower a day. I'm speaking specifically here about baths. As Kramer put it so succinctly, "stewing in a tepid pool of one's own filth".

I used to enjoy baths to some extent. Especially after a long workout or bike ride. I'd sit in the tub and read a book or a magazine and just waste time. Then I started worrying about my blood pressure. The what-if engine started revving and I worried about all kinds of things. Mostly about passing out and drowning. This has in some way prevented me each time from taking a bath. Yeah, crazy, I know.

I do enjoy my hot showers on a daily basis but even those, sometimes, scare the livin bejesus out of me. Especially if I'm having an 'episode' of low blood pressure. This, of course, is probably totally ficticious and is simply me being tired and/or freaking out. Which means my BP is probably actually up...

Anywho. Yesterday I had a particularly long and arduous (more on this later) bike ride yesterday and I caught myself worrying about taking a hot shower because I felt weak.

Yes, you read correctly. I'm now afraid of water droplets that fall from a brass fixture. If I could sell tickets to my mind, I'd be a millionaire.

Get up git git git down 9/11 scared the crap out of me

2006-09-18T22:15:00.000-04:00

Hypochondria is a disease of selfishness. Its all about me. How do I feel today? I'm sick. I need to see a doctor. Are my lymph nodes swolen? Is that mole on my back cancer? I've found it interesting that I manage to turn any event even remotely medically related into a personal strife.

I submit to you as exhibit A, how I handled 9/11 and the anthrax scare of 2001. You might ask "what could this possibly have to do with you, who lives at least 1000 miles away from said carnage?" To you I'd say "shush, I'm talking about me"

The day the planes hit the World Trade Center I was on my way to get blood work done (imagine that). This should have been the test that told me I needed cholesterol drugs. Instead, I couldn't find the lab so I went to work (I wasnt' able to avoid those pesky drugs, though). By the time I got there, the first plane had hit and the second was on its way. I panicked. I work on the 6th floor in the tallest building downtown (24 stories). In my mind, this meant I was next. I concoted some story about needing to go home and wait for relatives to call. I went home and watched CNN and Fox News for the next 6 months.

In the coming days I got increasingly worried that we'd be attacked. The slightest vibration would practically send me flying under my desk (somehow this seemed safer even though, technically, it'd be closer to the explosion). I'd find ways to come in late so that I wouldn't be there at "the best time" for the terrorists to attack. All U-haul, Ryder, Fed-Ex, UPS, ice cream, mail, and pickup trucks became suspicious. At times even girl scouts on bicycles looked ominous.

Then the Anthrax hit. Not anywhere near here, of course. But it might as well have infected my whole town. I went online and contemplated purchasing Cipro (or, it turns out, pills that say "Sip pro". I purchased these carbon masks that were basically surgical masks "guaranteed" to give you 5 minutes in a building that was under biological or chemical attack. I thought I had anthrax for 3 solid months. I even contemplated moving to Canada.

This is all embarassing looking back on it now. I never realised just how selfish I can be some times. It wasn't bad enough that 3000 people died and a dozen got anthrax. I had to make it about me.

I have no point to this. Only observations. Its like I'm working a 12-step program and this is my inventory. My name is Dave, and I'm a hypochondriac.

Opening a can of whoopass on the "what if" engine

2006-09-14T10:44:00.000-04:00

I haven't mentioned this sort of thing in a while. When I was in therapy we went over a "technique" I'm supposed to (and do) use when I get anxious. The technique is called mindfulness. Mindfulness is defined as:

[...]the paying of bare or direct attention to each moment of our lives[...]

The basics of this I outlined in a post many moons ago (almost a year...wow!) called Woooosaaaaaa. The goal is to call things what they are. If you're saying "what if" then you simply tell yourself "self, this is anxiety". It seems simple at first. But, the trick is knowing what's anxiety. We're so good at it that we can be anxious and not even know it. Mindfulness requires that you pay almost constant attention to the thoughts you're thinking while you think them. Realizing you were anxious an hour later is really of no use. In reality that will probably make you more anxious about being anxious which means, like me, you need drugs and a good stiff shot of whiskey to calm down.

I still practice this on a regular basis. Even during the periods I feel well (like now) I still catch myself "what if-ing" like in the last post. At that moment I stop the thought and remind myself that its anxiety, that just because I'm not near a hospital it doesn't mean I'll have a heart attack. I've yet to have one in the 31 years I've been near them, why do I expect to have one now.

This takes practice. We're our own worst enemy. At first I found it exceedingly difficult to believe myself. After a while though, I proved myself right. I didn't have a heart attack. Its the same positive reinforcement you use to train dogs and babies.

Anyway, try it sometime. Use it along with meditation and I promise you'll see a difference. Here's a rather lengthy article on mindfulness:

Mindfulness

I am not made for the mountains

2006-09-12T17:21:00.000-04:00

Allow me to make a list of all the things than ran through my head this weekend during my trip to the mountains. Lets remember, this is a house with running water, electricity, an electric gate (with remote control) satelite TV and cell service.

1. I wonder if there are fire ants (I actually started thinking this about a month ago)

2. What if I need an ambulance? it might take an hour to get here.
3. How would I call said ambulance if my cell phone doesn't work?
4. I wonder if I'm allergic to anything else up here?
5. What if it takes more than 2 epi-pens to stop whatever reaction I have should I be bitten by something from question 4?
6. Do any of the people I'm with know CPR?
7. How will I know if my blood pressure is high?
8. I'm dizzy maybe its low blood pressure (this was after a night of drinking then rising at 5AM to pee. I imagine this was actually caused by still being drunk)
9. Is that a fire ant?
10. Repeat thought 9.
11. Repeat thought 10.
12. Repeat thought 2 and 3 because of thoughts 9-11.

And there you have it. A "relaxing" weekend in the boonies hypochondria style.

Hypochondriacs Unite!!!

2006-09-05T20:25:00.000-04:00

Actually, the title of this post should be "Hypochondriacs Unite (But wash your hands first because I don't want to get sick). But, I think that might be a little long. Anywho.

I got a comment that really put this blog in perspective. The gist of the comment being that the commenter is starting to blog their (notice the smooth usage of impersonal and gender non-specific pronouns) hypochondria as a way to see just how irational she/he/they are being.

Maybe this is why I do it. I don't know. Of course I know I'm irrational. Even though the idea that I know I'm irrational is actually a rational thought (wow). I think most people who are so 'afflicted' know they're irrational. I don't know that I've ever met a hypochondriac that truly thought they were sick 24/7. Its just those short (a relative term) periods of time where the fear and anxiety is overwhelming. Those are the times when you need a release.

Its important to get them out. I've said before that I don't think you should burden the general population with your (our) delusions. At least not the specifics (my toe hurts, I have a basil cell carcinoma, you know, the regular stuff). First off it makes that person very uncomfortable and not want to be around you. Secondly, they can't possibly understand and will either worry needlessly because you've conviced them you're sick, or just laugh and call you a moron.

Only one psycho can truly understand another. Even though the blog is cathartic for me, I really hope others can see that we all think the same way, we just have different diseases...