Ever gotten a new scar right smack-dab on top of an old one?

That's called luck.

Ever been calm before, during, and after a storm?

That's called persistence.

Ever felt excitement over your own definitions?

That's called happiness.

Well, surgery went well - the recovery was more unpleasant that I expected but still worlds better than my last one. I suppose that I'm still recovering with no heavy lifting and such. Trying to regather my momentum and such as such as such. This blog and other writings have begun to stagnate, and that's where I'm at. I need to create something new - it's been months. So that's just what I'm going to do.

pre-Op

I finally found it: it's not a fear, it's easy to live with, and it's the worst thing that you could ever do to yourself. It's never having lived your life in the first place. It's worrying about how you should be and never getting to know yourself. It's diverted dreams, thwarted passions, and lost time. It's not for me.

My SuperBall travel began in April, and I thought it would be about conquering all of my fears: snipers, sexual confusion, rejection, social anxiety, heights, dancing, everyday confrontations, automatic cowardice, being ball-less, feeling sorry for myself, etc... Instead, I've come to cherish and respect those fears, how they can bring my surroundings into sudden focus and force me to move against that paralysis of petrified indecision. I'm reminded of this as my third surgery in less than a year is days away.

It's a minor surgery to correct a growing incisional hernia from my February operation, and it's bringing back that same pure fear of being unconscious under the sharp, probing tools of highly-trained strangers.

The first emergency surgery was, well, on the same day that I found out about the tumor, so I had about four hours to mull that over before being put under. Instead of taking the time to process that, I orchestrated a long overdue break up with my girlfriend two days after the surgery. I focused on that and my redesigned anatomy rather than contemplate that powerlessness I felt on December 28^th.

I got to decide whether or not I'd go with the second, more intense surgery, which involved being opened up from my waist to just below my sternum by surgeons who needed to rearrange my organs to cut out my abdominal lymph nodes. I chose that over the uncertainty that would come with cancer surveillance, basically intensive check-ups every couple months over the course of five years. I was proud of that decision and started fantasizing about traveling afterward, but despite all the acceptance of potential side effects, I didn't make my peace with that second round of powerlessness on February 8^th

I'm getting a third opportunity to address that with this next surgery. Another distraction that has come up is this gut feeling that my luck has run out, that this next silly operation will go awry, that I don't get another chance. When I think like that, it immobilizes me, like my other fears before I named and embraced them. This continues until I realize that there is nothing I can do about that; I have to accept that powerlessness and focus on the parts of my life that I can control. And then something strange happens: I feel happy, I feel free, I feel like I can finally LIVE. I've got a book to finish and a marathon to run. I can't wait; I've already started.

Throw some $$$ at the beast

I had a cheerful check-up on the 14th, which involved a simple, no-nonsense blood test. My Oncologist grinned at me after he'd cupped my SuperBall. He said that I looked great; I suppose that I did compared to when he saw me back in January. The blood test results came back negative - enough said.

More importantly, I had a crisis of conscience over the upcoming November NY Marathon. At home, as the restlessness of small town suburbia set in, I recalled saying that I'd run it with a fellow Mudder during my April visit; we had sealed it with a pinky promise. I'd never done a marathon before, so I was horrified when I went to the NY Marathon site and saw that registration had ended in April. No matter - I'd get a guaranteed entry by running for a cancer charity, since I'd planned to do that anyway.

Yeah, even the registration for many of the charities were closed. I looked at the American Cancer Society. I could run for them if I raised $3500 before the end of November. Otherwise, I would be charged the remainder. Still, I put my name on the waiting list of several charities.

And so I saw myself going to Kinko's and printing out flyers in addition to starting a multimedia campaign. I'd put them in mail boxes. I'd contact my local newspaper. I'd solicit donations from nearby businesses. I speak to family, friends, and strangers. I'd raise that $3500 - why not make $5000? I'd do all of this and train for a marathon in less than 50 days. I would do this and be reminded of how awesome I am. Everyone who heard my story would know of my awesomeness as well.

When I talked to those who knew me best, they said I should wait. Hey, that was OK. I'd show them, but I'd be charitable after I proved them wrong. The thought of sacrifices and struggles corresponding to success filled me with such hope and purpose. And if I failed, then I would do so beautifully.

On the Monday after my check-up, I received my promising blood test results, and I also got an email from one the charity wait lists. I now had a spot, which held the same $3500 time-sensitive requirement. Plus, some facebook friends (who happen to be actual friends as well) told me that I should go for it. Yes, the Universe was telling me that I should go for it.

Yeah, yeah, it'd be like one of those motivational sports movies where a group of misfits and their down-and-out coach make it to the championship (and learn some important lessons along the way), except I'd be the entire team. And it'd be about me. Me. ME.

What a load of Bullshit - using a cancer charity and a silly race to stroke my sickly ego. This was supposed to be about raising money for cancer research and support. It was supposed to be about cherishing my health and improving. It couldn't be about trying to fill a hole - it had to be about digging deeper.

I need more time if I want to do this right. So I plan on heading to NY in November, but I'll be watching this race from the sidelines.

Instead, I registered with the LiveStrong charity for the Austin Marathon in February. My goal is to raise at least $2000 by then.

Not sure if anyone still reads this, but check out my donation page here - yes this is a link that you should click on

Thanks.

wait for it

AUGH - I've been learning about patience in so many ways recently. Here's to learning more.

Not the bridge post

Well, sorry to leave anyone who may be reading hanging, but this is not the post about sleeping under a bridge. I've decided that this journal has really become two blogs: personal, sedentary reflections and a travel blog of sorts.

So this blog is going to stay pretty much the same, but I'll be taking out the travel posts to put in a new flashy blog with pictures and whatnot and go public (probably in a few weeks). This will now be the realm of brain farts and mind murmurs.

My check-up is today in about two hours. I'm not sure how I feel about this other than calm, since there's not a cloud in the sky.

I should be web writing, but I'm gonna save that for later and give some of my better doodles a long-awaited coloring.

Homebound

Well, I suppose one fear that traveling can't help me with is the fear of staying put, being stuck with myself.

It's time to go home and deal with that. Yes, this means living at home with my parents for a few months as I finish up school... but I only have this one life, and I'm squandering parts of it.

I understand the warrior at the end of the trail idea a little better now. I'm a mess, and I'm going to bring that mess with me wherever I go. It's time to abandon what I think I know and follow a different path... this scares the shit out of me.

But peace isn't connected to any emotion - these emotions are clouds passing through a clear blue sky. I can't discard them, so I have to see them for what they are as they pass and focus on the blue beyond.

What prompted this?

Well waking up piss-drunk and lost in a field in Austin, Texas without my glasses after having traveled the Greyhound for 5o+ hours and then spending the night under a bridge, of course.

More on that one later, dear reader.

15 days and counting compressed into a single post with little to no chronological order

I remember now why I started travelling; I need to be fear less.

I rented a bike in San Diego for two days running from a dude who's an Ocean Beach legend and a pickup artist (more on him later - he may even get his own post. He told me that I seemed lost as we smoked a couple of bowls, and it was painful to know that he was right).

Anyway, I rode this cruiser bike everywhere. I locked it up outside a place that was called "Cocktails: Home of the Semi-Live" as I went in for water, directions, and Long Islands (my new favorite drink; I've been drinking again, but I've been trying to be good... but not too good). I asked the grandfatherly bartender, who had many of his bottom teeth missing and a nicotine-stained moustache, what the "Semi-Live" meant. He gestured absentmindedly at me and the others seated at the bar. I choked on my water as the laughter came. Semi-Live is a huge improvement.

I got back on my bike (not a bike-of-the-apocalypse but still a decent cruiser that only struggled up hills) and headed for downtown. I started wobbling on the side of the road and dropped the bike in the gutter - the wobbling wasn't from the Long Islands, since I'd only had two. No, it was because of a sign - the sign said Cancer Survivors Park. I started crying, just bawling complete with gasps and runny nose. Luckily, there was no one else at the park. I must've spent 10 minutes in the park, but I can't remember any of the signs except for a blank or defaced sign that had "LIVE FREE" scrawled across it in black sharpie. The rest of that day along the harbor progressed in shockingly sweet slow-motion.

This round of travel has been different from the last. First off, I didn't start it alone. I buddied up with the Brazilian girl whom I'd met in NY. She wasn't the same person I remembered (although I had only known her for a day in NY), but she pushed me in a lot of good ways. All the same, we were sick of each other after three days and stopped hooking up by unspoken agreement. She had me take so many repeat, touristy pictures of her that I was silently grateful when my camera fell from my shirt pocket into the receding Venice beach tide as I attempted to play with burrowing sand crabs. There was nothing wrong with either one of us, but let me just say that travel is a very quick way to find out whether or not you're compatible with someone.

That last part about travel and compatibility I got from speaking for over an hour with a middle-aged Hawaiian lady named Deborah, whom I met on the Amtrak to San Diego. She was going to a conference and had traveled around when she was my age, living in different countries before settling on the Big Island - she said that she'd finally found the perfect place. She also told me about a brain injury that she is still recovering from. She was in a bad accident where a semi-truck turned and took her car with it. For two years, she had difficulty with sensations, slight touches on her arm would cause her pain; background sounds could not be filtered out from everyday conversation; any bright light would give her intense migraines. She used to be deadly organized, but now she must write everything down and take it slow. She tells me that her accident was a blessing - I believe her, since she also has this secret, relaxed smile that doesn't stop at her eyes and that I've come to associate with happiness.

I've conquered my slight fear of heights at the Stratosphere in Vegas and various cliffs in the Grand Canyon south rim. Vegas brought back mostly good memories of my ex - what a cool lady. We'd gone to Vegas for her birthday and had visited to the Stratosphere but didn't got to the top. My Brazilian buddy and I went there for the free saltwater pool (it turns out that all casino pools are free as long as you look like you're meeting someone and ignore the desk person asking you for your room key). Anyway, I convinced her to go to the top with me. There are three rides on top - my favorite was a spinning swing set that dangled riders over the edge, above the night-time Vegas Strip. At the Grand Canyon, I jumped over rocks thousands of feet above the valley floor (after she stopped shouting, the Brazilian girl took a good picture of me leaning over one, which I'll post if I ever get my waterlogged camera working again).

We drove to the Grand Canyon with a wonderful pair of travelers from Paris. We managed to find a free unregistered campground outside of the park that a couchsurfer in Vegas had told us about. The Frenchman and I spoke of the sunrise versus the sunset. We agreed that sunrise is better than sunset because it's like a beautiful woman exposing herself for the day rather than clothing herself and turning off all of the lights. I quickly found that I had a crush on the French girl (the accent didn't hurt), but it was more than that. She was much more than "Semi-Live" and is in love with this world.

The french girl told me that when she sees a shooting star, she holds her breath and makes as many wishes as possible before she lets her breath out. I asked her if this was French tradition, but she said that it was her tradition. Later that night, as the Frenchman (a traveling musician) sang and played guitar, I looked at three stars in a row that reminded me of me and my two brothers as I peed on a pine tree that the French girl had described a giant night cat warrior (she also argues that clouds are alive and can be blue) ... and I saw my shooting star. I gasped, trying to muster all of my wishes in one breath. The ones that weren't important left my mind, and I ended up with only two wishes. I think of them and what they mean when I need to calm myself.

In terms of calming myself, I have mild social anxiety (doesn't everyone?). I dread social interactions but want to meet people all the same. This anxiety becomes severe when I let it remain and don't do anything except think about it. I've taken to talking to people at every opportunity, like asking five different people for directions when I'm not lost, sometimes stopping to look at them and waiting for them to say something.

I realized that one repeating uncertainty in my life has been eating away at the new confidence and courage that I've been trying to build. For the last few years, I've been wondering if I'm sexually attracted to men but have done nothing about it but worry. The logical part of me realizes that it's an incredibly silly part of my life to be torturing myself with. I've taken to wearing a grey fedora and putting a different flower in it each day. One day, I had this marvelous purple flower (with 34 petals, a number in the Fibonacci sequence) in my hat and someone at a bar yelled "Gay Pride!" as I walked past. I felt like a stupid closet faggot, but I still wear the grey fedora.

Finally, after years of pointless indecision, I decided to go to a gay bar called The Hole last. I asked many different people for directions, and some asked me what kind of place it was. It felt empowering to say that it was a gay bar. I eventually found it, and it turned out that it was the night of their wet underwear contest. The contestants had very nice bodies, but it just wasn't my cup of tea.

But he drink specials were amazing (your own mini-pitcher for $4) and everyone was friendly and accepting... and gay (I mean the never-used sense of being happy). I talked to a guy with nice blue eyes and realized that he was very cute, yet I wasn't attracted to him. He chided me for getting distracted by a passing girl's ass as we were talking. We kissed each other on the cheeks before I left, and it felt like hugging a brother.

I know that one night of going to a gay bar doesn't solve years of worry, but I also know that I'm straight or mostly straight for now. I shared a cab with a guy who tried to french kiss me; it was unpleasant but funny (I suppose douches come in all different flavors). I also think that, considering some of the other stuff I've gone through these past few months, it was laughable how I had to screw up my courage for days to go to a gay bar. I see more of these bars in my future (probably in Austin, TX) - if only for the cool crowd and drink specials. Whatever I find, I absolutely refuse to worry about it or be ashamed. I deserve better than that... but for now I want find a girl and fuck the shit out of her.

I had this feeling as I explored San Diego's Sunset Cliffs for their fabled caves. I finally found a big cave on a deserted stretch of beach. The cave had several shelves for sitting or fucking - one of the shelves was lined with unlit candles. My new fantasy is to have a girl in that cave. I want to go down on her, not knowing if the salt I taste is hers or from the waves in the background - and kiss, suck, and lick her until she is sopping wet and quivering and then thrust inside her roughly. I'll pump faster and faster until I fill her up - no condoms allowed (in my fantasy at least). *Wow deep breath as I writing this post in my hostel hall filled with various Europeans and trying to fight my surging hard-on.

Anyway, before I made it to that cave, I found a sun-bleached carcass on the cliffs (I don't think that it belonged to a human... maybe a dog?). I yanked a rib bone from it, which I will carve into some instrument or other once I find the inspiration. I clutched this bone as I wondered, dehydrated, for a few more miles along the cliffs, looking for some place to climb up. I finally found some rubble that terminated into a broken barbed-wire fence. I stumbled past it and found myself in a unmanned robotic vehicle testing area - I saw no men but did see a few ominously motionless Humvees. I threw the rib bone over several intact barbed-wire fences, since that meant that I would have to climb over and follow. I made it past protected Government property and rattlesnake warning signs before entering a Christian campus on what must have been orientation day (college seems like so long ago to me now). The people I asked for directions were too polite to mention the smelly bone dangling from sweaty, dirty, cut-up fingers.

All I will say about Los Angeles for now is that I keep getting drawn back to one neighborhood (this is the third time now in the last several months). Perhaps this is a sign, but I'm still far from finishing my travels.

In Vegas, a withered cocktail waitress mistook me and the Brazilian girl for a couple and gave us gaming advice. Apparently, you have to know when to take your money and run, but you also have to know when to put more money down and stick it out. She was sweet, but I didn't follow this inane advice, instead stretching out a $1 on the gaming machines and getting free drinks (a 3 drink maximum for me to hopefully avoid past drinking problems). The cigarette smoke, flashing lights, clanging noises, and rush of people all blur together there after about a day. It's stupid but oddly endearing how easily we throw away our money. Perhaps it has something to do with learning how to lose gracefully.

I've been timid in countless ways throughout my life and haven't dealt with these insecurities before. The one idea that I call to mind during these moments of doubt and darkness is that life is too short; we're all a few misguided heartbeats or shuddering breaths away from the Big Zero. We can spend this time however we wish. We can waste it, wallow in fear and curse ourselves for being cowards, or we can relax, take risks, and be happy. I still feel like shaking those passing people with shining eyes and relaxed smiles - "Hey - hey! How did you get to be like this? Can you let me borrow some, please?" But no one can give it to me but me. There shouldn't be pressure to have fun or be happy, since it's such a simple fact.

I've been picking up talismans from all the places I visit. In the Grand Canyon, I was drawn to this tile with a painting on it - it turned out to be the Warrior at the End of the Trail picture (the outline at the top of this post). Anyway, this guy with the spear has been traveling this one path for so long. He's exhausted and asleep on his horse, so he doesn't know that the trail ends in a cliff. But the horse knows (you can see its rear legs arching back) - so the horse stops, and it's the only thing holding that warrior up. The horse stops and it waits for its rider to awake and find a new path.

A Great Big Fib

While writing a letter to a pen pal who's not a fan of math, I started talking about the Fibonacci sequence, where the next number is arrived at by adding the previous two:

0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,.. and so on.

I was trying to tell her why I liked it so much, how it appears in nature and is connected t0 the golden ratio.

And then I started thinking about those first two seeds, the zero and 1 in the sequence. If we add zeroes to the beginning of the sequence, then we have:

...0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,2,3,5,8,... and so on.

Every part of the sequence is logical until we come across the first 1 in the sequence (namely, 0+0 = 0 so the zeroes are following the rule of the previous two terms adding up to create the next term).

But that first 1 comes from literally nothing (namely, how the fuck does 0+0 = 1?).

This makes me think of life. We can imagine those endless streams of zeroes before there was any type of life. We've also made progress in interpreting the building blocks (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, amino acids, proteins, DNA) and how they can combine to form life.

But life itself, that discontinuity between 0 and 1 - it's irrational, illogical, inconceivable! Consider that jump from non-life to life, how, once there is a singe life seed, it builds on itself and nothing to form strange, new patterns that keep growing with no end in sight.

I'll never be a mathematician, but this is beauty.

And it makes me wonder at how we can take parts of our life for granted (friends, family, love, a working mind... and so on) when we can't even decipher how we've come by those parts.

I just thought that was neat, but now it's time to start packing.

Rejoining the Human Race

Today is probably the first day that I haven't felt compelled to blog. This could a sign of healing or just a today phenomenon (as well as a sign that I need to focus more on my fiction). Perhaps with travel on the horizon (I'm flying to Vegas on Monday), I'm just looking forward to adventures that need to be recorded.

Before, I've had this suspicion that I've been missing out - now, it's a certainty but a hopeful one. The gerbil wheels in my head don't spin so frantically during the day as I try to place more trust in gut feelings. And when I do let those wheels run, it's at night as I'm drifting off to sleep, and there are far fewer squeaks and less of an impression of traveling in futile circles. I had forgotten that closure that can come with the end of each day. These drowsy but lucid thoughts take flight and soar along the updrafts of my dreams.

I had a dream a few days ago involving the St. Louis silver arch, except we weren't in St. Louis -the arch was much taller than in real life, and it also had this crosspiece, about sidewalk-width with a supporting wall on one side but open-air except for a thin banister on the other side. There were dozens if not hundreds of people all around my age at various points along the crosspiece. Some were hunched against the back wall, others were somewhat in the middle of the walkway, and still others were closer to the edge. I had my legs stretched out so that just my heels dangled over the edge. We were at least 100 stories up and I could see a broad avenue below and a bay beyond. Falling off the crosspiece meant game-over; you might have time for a scream and one, maybe two, final thoughts before splatting on the wider walkway below. Even if you somehow got a running start and made it to the bay beyond, the impact on the water would surely kill you.

Anyway, some of the other people near the ledge let their entire legs dangle carelessly over. I knew that if I were to summon the nerve to move closer to the ledge that I would find still more people hanging from it by their fingertips. And I if I joined them, then I would see still more people scaling down either leg of the arch, somehow finding handholds. And if I were to join these people climbing down the legs, then eventually, I'd see all the people down below walking. And if I were somehow able to make it all the way down, then I could squint over the bay and see still more people sailing across the waters to God knows where.

So perhaps all our lives are about rejoining the human race.

I know that I've been missing out, but before, I may have been looking in the wrong places, still huddled against the back wall of a silver arch's crosspiece, only looking at shadows and not at the impossible heights and expanse behind me. And the vertigo summoned by memories of this dream may just be the first thin layer of endless promise.

Two Doors (with plenty of lists and colons!)

In yesterday's post, I ended with the mention of a riddle. I think of it as the two door dilemma - I've adapted/personified it to involve an addicted gambler, named Dire Jim or DJ. This gambling man has taken out too many loans from unscrupulous characters. These loan sharks put DJ on the two doors list, which is a list of persons who'll never be able to pay back their advances. Instead of breaking DJ's fingers or knees or smacking him with a phonebook, the loans sharks have entered DJ into a two doors contest.

The two doors contest is a form of underworld gambling that involves high-rollers betting on someone's life. This contest is carried out in a luxurious cellar with two doors on the far wall from the cushioned steps. In front of one door is a man known only as McForgey, a stout, bald man with an iron-grey, handlebar moustache. In front of the other door is a tall, stick-thin lady with pale green eyes, who is named Willa. Unlike the two guardians, the two doors are identical. Behind one door, is a cramped corridor that leads into an alleyway. If DJ chooses this door, he can leave the cellar with all of his debts forgiven. Behind the other door is a closet space occupied by the Assassin holding a piece of piano wire. If DJ chooses this door, then he pays for his sizable debts with his life.

Allow me to lay down some details to help you suspend your disbelief:

1) Although the two doors dilemma is a common enough riddle, the loan sharks organizing this event have mild-mannered employees who function as plants and approach potential contestants with this riddle. In Dire Jim's case, a mature but still attractive woman had approached him at a bar and engaged him in a seemingly innocent conversation while slipping in the two doors question. After ascertaining that DJ didn't know the answer, she left the bar. DJ was bundled off to the cellar by two thugs 15 minutes later to decrease the probability that he'd have time to ask any other bar patron about the two doors riddle.

2) At first, it doesn't seem logical from a financial standpoint that the loan sharks would be willing to give DJ a 50-50 chance of leaving this contest alive and debt-free. In fact, whichever door DJ chooses, the loan sharks won't get a cent from him, since dead men are essentially creditless. But don't forget the group of high-rollers involved in this cellar event (they sit in the cellar now, against the back wall in leather chairs with seventeen massage settings and drink holders). The buy-in to take part in a game that involves someone's life is extravagant - extravagant to the point that DJ's sizable debts are at least an order of magnitude lower than the minimum bet. Thus, the loan sharks, who organize this event, are coming out well-ahead and can afford to be relatively generous with DJ's chances of survival.

3) The Assassin behind one of the doors isn't using a piano wire to be overly dramatic. Past events invloved a modified .22 caliber target pistol. The small caliber was to ensure that the bullet would not pass through a contestant's skull and maim or kill any of the high-roller patrons seated behind. However, there have been splatter issues in the past that've been bad for business. It was actually the Assassin's idea to switch to piano wire, since it's a relatively inexpensive, cleaner way to dispose of failed contestants. The Assassin also wears a hooded executioner's mask to preserve his identity - OK, maybe he's a tad bit dramatic, but he does his job well. Hell - masks for everybody! The high-rollers cover their faces in superbly-sculpted masks to avoid recognition and avoid connections to spheres of politics, religion, and entertainment.

The only unmasked persons in the room are DJ, with his hands tied behind his back to make for easy throttling should he choose the Assassin's door, and, for reasons unknown, the two guardians, Willa and McForgey.

The guardians don't speak as someone in the high-roller's seated area explains the rules of the game to DJ, who is to terrified to turn around and look at the speaker. The rules of the game are this:

1) DJ must choose a door (the speaker also tells him about the possible consequences of his choice)

2) Before choosing a door, DJ can ask only one of the guardians a single question.

3) Oh yeah, one of the guardians tells only truth, and the other tells only lies. DJ is not to know which one is the truthteller and which one is the liar.

Think one the nature of the guardians, on the idea of lies and truths. One guardian may as well be fiction and the other reality - but which one!?

[If you watched the Labyrinth clip in the last post where the girl has to choose between two doors, then let me dispel any potential confusion. The girl in that clip actually chose the right door; there is a popular misconception that she chose wrongly. No, she chose the right door - I did some quick IMDB research, and the reason she falls through the trap door after choosing the correct door is she says "it's a piece of cake" (you aren't supposed to say this in the Labyrinth because things will go badly).]

So without further ado, there are two ways that DJ can ask a single question to get out of the cellar clusterfuck:

1) He can ask one of the guardians "What door would the other guardian tell me to pick for my survival."

a) If he asks this question to the liar, then he is asking the liar what the truthteller will say. The liar knows the truthteller would give the correct door, so the liar will lie and tell DJ that the truthteller would give him the other door (that one that leads to death).

b) If he asks the truthteller, then he is asking the truthteller what the liar will say. The truthteller knows the liar will lie, so the truthteller will be truthful and tell DJ that the liar would give him the other door.

2) Or DJ can ask "What door would the other guardian tell me hides the Assassin?"

a) If the question is asked to the liar about the truthteller, then the liar will lie and give DJ the door that leads to safety.

b) If the question is asked to the truthteller, then the truthteller will faithfully tell him that the liar would give him the door that leads to safety.

In the first scenario, DJ would pick the opposite door as the guardian's answer. In the second scenario, he'd pick the same door as the guardian's answer - make sense?

Notice that for each scenario, it doesn't matter which guardian he asks, since each guardian will answer with the same door:

Truth exposes lies, and lying becomes a form of truth.

I was reminded of this two doors riddle when I woke up from my first surgery, the one that I got to remove my right testicle on the same day that I learned my lump was a tumor. It was evening when I awoke, still cheerful and dopey from the drugs, I told my Mom this riddle.

I've been trying to make sense of why I woke up with that riddle on my mind. Perhaps it was random, or maybe I felt that my life was at a turning point for better or for worse. This is what I believe so far:

Reality shapes fiction, and fiction twists reality. We can't replace reality with fiction and not suffer from delusions. We also can't abandon fiction for reality and still make sense of our existence. The two are not oppositely-driven entities; just as in the two doors dilemma, we must use them in conjunction to ask the right questions. It does not matter whether we state these questions in fiction or in reality. All that matters is having asked.

One a side note, it's been over two weeks since I've had a drink (minus the few drops of communion wine at church). I've been trying to be responsible, which I suppose is somewhat responsible - when the hell did that come about!? If all goes well, I'll be in Vegas on Monday. I've decided to try drinking responsibly there. If nothing else, it's a hell of a city to test myself in (only second to New Orleans in libation temptation, I'd say). Perhaps this is another turning point, for better or for worse - I'd ask you to wish my luck, but I've already been given enough of that.

Play

This is the first day where I'm drawing a blank. Do not be alarmed, dear friends, for there is so much out there not ourselves. Logically following, I will not be being myself today to fill in a blank. But what to be, what to be?

Yesterday I had the main character from one of my stories start writing me a letter in which I hope he reveals his unreachable dream and what he'd give up to realize it. So far, I've found out that he's extremely detail-oriented; he once panicked over a spelling test in 2nd grade - not because he wasn't a good speller but because his 2nd grade teacher, Ms. Phyllis, would always give them a list of 30 words to study and only use 10 of those words on the actual test. Gerald, this character, started freaking out in his quiet fashion when he realized that he had no surefire prediction for which 10 words Ms. Phyllis would choose. After his Mom asked him if worrying about what words would be on the test would change what words would be on the test, Gerald had a 2nd grade epiphany:

"Details come and go, and I notice more of them than most, I've noticed. But you can't force these details to fall into place - they're already in place, and worrying disrupts this game, obscures the details' true placement."

Gerald figured out Ms. Phyllis' spelling test method soon after letting go (She would always choose the 10 longest words, and if there were more than 10 words of equal length, then she'd invariably choose the ones with more vowels. Personally, I think that was a crappy trick to be playing on 2nd graders, but Gerald is more forgiving). Let's stop being Gerald for now and surf through some other details whose placement isn't isolated to his personal experience.

Such details may be found in the game of truth and dare, which Gerald had sadly never played. Think about the progression of this game from double-dog dares with a dash of truth on the playground to drinking games that let us choose among a question, a dare, or a beer that needed finishing should the first two prove too daunting. These games were all really just about truth: what would be said and what would be left unsaid - what we could bring ourselves to do in the presence of others.

And behind these truths were always stories of what may have been done before, what we thought of what was done before, and what these dealings said about us before, now, and after.

Now the blank of who I once was earlier this morning hasn't yet been filled, so let's expand these details from one game to all play. Why do we play? How is our play any different from dolphins blowing air rings or members of a wolf pack wrestling each other into submission? Research done on these species and many other mammals implies that play may be a low-risk way to try out new behaviors and explore possible social connections.

As humans, we have the ability to pretend play - a banana becomes a pistol in the game cops and robbers, empty tea cups are filled and dolls become flesh and blood in the game of house. Perhaps we have such a wide range of possible behaviors and social connections that our play has to take place on imaginary levels.

We never stop playing, and we are compulsive storytellers - stories can also be a type of play. We can be what we are not while remaining who we are. We can weave lies that reveal truth, with the best-told lies functioning like sonar, bouncing off terribly strange and beautiful shapes previously hidden.

As I fill in the last of my blank for the day, I'm reminded of Gerald and his details already in place. Forcing these details to form a picture hasn't worked for me in the past, but luring these details in with a story - well it reminds me of a riddle that involves two doors where one leads to Hell and one leads to Heaven. You can ask only one question for safe passage and these doors are guarded by fiction and reality - how will you choose? I'll offer a possible answer tomorrow. Play wisely, and be yourself today if that's whom you choose to be.

Shut Up, Crime!

(Quick update to yesterday's post - I called the hospital and told them that this communication delay was unacceptable and that I deserved a straightforward call today; I was able to convey without yelling that I was pissed. I didn't get a call back from the doctor himself, but a nurse called me within the next few hours to go over the ultrasound results. The SuperBall lump is indeed a varicocele; it's unlikely that I'll need surgery or not be able to have kids, and it's one more item on the list that we'll be monitoring over the next few years of check-ups. Thank you, that's all I needed to hear. Who would've thought that communicating your true feelings to someone can lead to better communication overall?

This reminds me of the meeting of minds that takes places on multiple levels when we experience a story. Again, I'll say more on that one later - I somehow managed to finalize a 40-page critical paper dealing with this topic and more in the first week of recovery after my February surgery - I was able to keep this vow of never missing a deadline under any circumstances during my previous, cancerous project period, which I'm very proud to have done. Anyway, I'm going to draw on this paper for my December residency lecture called "Do the Twist: How Storytelling Shapes the Unbroken Surface of Fiction and Reality." I'll probably be hashing out ideas in future posts; I promise that they're not all bullshit.)

As for my thoughts today - I'm still not sure who or what I want to be when I grow up (crap, have I grown up already - nah, I have about 5-20 years left to reach my prime). I can't remember wanting to be an astronaut or a firefighter or a transformer or whatever when I was a kid. The most suitable memory I have here is not my own; my Dad told me that when I was 5 or so, I was swinging this stick around frantically in our Maryland backyard by myself. When I saw him watching, I asked him if he'd get me a real sword. My Dad asked what I would do with a real sword, and I shrieked that I would fight evil.

And what have I done since? I'm still schooling and have worked a half dozen or so part-time jobs, but how has this helped anyone but myself? In recent, now-daily posts, I've portrayed myself as a young traveler who drank too much and decided to come home for a few weeks to help out with a family emergency. How noble... but really a huge motivating force behind that was not having my shit together, being miserable, and needing to regroup for a few weeks. I wonder if I'd made the same decision if I'd been having the time of my life and had made promising plans. My presence at home seems to be helping, but will it matter in the long-term? Family and friends come first, but what about this world and the evil that resides within it?

So this whole fighting evil agenda perplexes me. Being able to point out injustice doesn't necessarily lead to justice. We all want some less righteous noun to shake our heads at, whether it be a faceless corporation, a distant country, an ethnicity, a religious group, a sexual orientation, a political organization, a band, a television show, or, in the more advanced stages of this disease, everyone who is not us. Does this sometimes not-so-subtle method of finding ways to feel superior to others bring any more good into this world, or does it serve as a distraction to following through on definite deeds?

Either way, I think it's unavoidable. I find myself doing it with privileged people who don't know that they're privileged (says the kid with a doctor Dad, a big house to stay in rent-free, and no student debts to speak of). Hell, I even did it in yesterday's post when I said that "I've also had it with aquiescing to people who aren't as smart, talented, or thoughtful as me." I still mean it, but it's also another way to feel superior without taking action.

"All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing" (Edmund Burke, although I know nothing about him beyond this quote). To add to that, I believe that doing nothing when you come across an event that twists your gut with how wrong it is can be another form of evil.

I also question how you know when you're doing good or evil, since there's so much in-between. I saw a disturbing, endearing, and funny movie called Super that started me thinking. Perhaps I should don a costume and beat evildoers with a wrench too? This whole issue of "what is good?" and "what is evil?" can lead to esoteric arguments about how morality is a tool devised by society to keep us from thinking for ourselves - in other words, another form of inaction. Add to this that good has many definitions, some of which can be evil indeed. Perhaps Hitler truly believed he was a savior appointed by God to rid this world of lesser, evil races for the greater good.

I also watched parts of a documentary last night called Superheroes, which featured costumed citizens with limited martial arts skills who patrol city streets by night. At one point, a guy talks about the day in the life of a superhero (it went something like "you get up, eat breakfast, say bye to your girlfriend, go to work, say hi to your work friends, come home, eat dinner, and finally break the monotony by getting out here and looking for bad guys.") At this point, someone behind the camera asks the speaker if he has a girlfriend; the costumed man says that he was speaking of a girlfriend "metaphorically", although I think he meant to say "hypothetically."

The point of the documentary wasn't to make fun of tortured nerds; while they never get footage of costumed crusaders engaging in physical confrontations with "bad guys," there is plenty of footage showing these people handing out food, water, and bathroom supplies to homeless people and holding candlelight vigils for victims of violent crimes that occurred in crowded areas where no one had stepped forward to help.

I still don't know who or what I want to be, but I want to be good. And for that to happen I can't do nothing. I'm not sure where to start - I suspect that if "good" deeds start leading to a false sense of superiority, then it's time to take a step back and follow a different path. I'm scoffing at how easily I've been throwing around the words good and evil, but I believe that there are truly evil and undeniably good parts to this world. I want to find both, and I know there are people out there who'll help me do just that:

Oh, a sleeping drunkard

Up in Central Park,

And a lion-hunter

In the jungle dark,

And a Chinese dentist,

And a British queen -

All fit together

In the same machine.

Nice, nice, very nice;

Nice, nice, very nice;

Nice, nice, very nice;

So many different people

In the same device (Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut)

Had It

"Doctor doctor, give me the news, I got a bad case of -" not hearing back from you in a timely fashion.

Back in July, I wrote about getting ready for my first major check-up since February. I decided to tell my urologist about the lump on my SuperBall, and he told me to schedule an ultrasound. The lump is attached to the vein and not the testicle itself, which is a good sign. I got the ultrasound over three weeks ago at a hospital closer to home. I got a call from the other hospital on Monday July 27th as I was drunkenly cruising the Chicago lakefront. The caller told me that the other hospital hadn't faxed the results yet.

Long story short - I got the other hospital to fax the results on July 28th, and I've called the receiving hospital about ten times since. I did get a call back from a physician's assistant who said that everything was fine and negative - yeah, she was talking about my CT scan that I've already gone over with my urologist and not the more recent ultrasound - this somehow made the whole affair more frustrating. I've also been told repeatedly that after the faxing of results, there is a scanning process that can take up to a week to make it to the urologist, so that he can glance at it. Really? I worked in office supplies for a few months right next to a copy and print section, and although I didn't undergo rigorous training, it seems that you put a piece of paper on this machine that hums for a few seconds - boom, scanned! I know that the doctor is busy, but how can it take a week (actually over a week at this point) to get those scanned results to him?

I haven't been left completely in the dark - again, it's one of those repeated instances where I'm insanely grateful that my Dad is also a doctor. He was able to look up the ultrasound results, since it was done at his hospital. The results stated that my SuperBall lump was probably a varicocele, which is basically a varicose vein in my nut. This happens to approximately 1 in 7 young guys, mostly during puberty as there is increased blood flow to the testicles. In my case, this is probably due the recent trauma and compensation that my sac has undergone. All I got from my Dad was "varicocele" (understandable, since this isn't his area of expertise), and I've researched the rest on my own.

And this is what has been driving me crazy, the fact that I've had to give myself my own consultation. I'd like to hear from someone with more expertise. How certain is it that this lump is a varicocele? What are the chances (since there are some) of this leading to infertility? Will I need to get another surgery to remove this lump that seems to keep growing? Every time I call, I ask if there's something that I can do to "help expedite this process" (i.e. do you need me to drive down there and copy the results by hand if your scanner is broken and then run it up to the doctor?).

My Mom, who also works in healthcare, has told me that this non-communication is probably a good sign, that they'd be contacting me right away if there was potential trouble. Fine, but it still doesn't feel official until I hear back from someone. This remnant of uncertainty is starting to come back to the point that I've caught myself fiddling with the lump throughout the day; I don't need this uncertainty, since it's led to destructive decisions in the past.

And it comes back down to whether or not I respect myself enough to believe that I deserve an answer in a timely fashion. I've been cautious about demanding respect in the past, since I don't want to walk around with a chip on my shoulder. I don't want to be one of those pugnacious grown men who throws a tantrum every time something doesn't go his way, and who could probably really benefit from a royal ass kicking. No for basic respect, I'm thinking more along the lines of Stuart Smalley's daily affirmation.

People will take advantage of and walk all over you if you don't think you're good enough. This has been my expanding realization these past eight months. The realization is that I have fucking had it.

I've had it with devoting substantial time and energy to bullshit that I don't even care about. I've had it with being dependent on others for my happiness. I've had it with using drinking and drugs as an excuse to feel. I've had it with being willing to politely die in a corner so as not to cause any undue convenience.

I've also had it with acquiescing to people who aren't as smart, talented, and thoughtful as me. Yeah, I said it. I'm sick of being accommodating and understanding, especially when people haven't done shit to deserve it. I don't need permission to be upset. Actually, I'm pissed - time to make another call. That's my cheerful post for the day.

Religion of One

There are two cases of beer and at least one bottle of tequila in the garage fridge with the Aunts' arrival. Gulp - I kid, I kid. The gulps have gone away. I still think about drinking but not in terms of debating over one drink that becomes another and so on. Nah, I think about chugging, inhaling while the desire passes. I heard about a study that mentioned how thinking about eating more, mentally gorging yourself could lead to eating less when presented with actual food. I haven't looked into the statistical significance of this study but still mind-binge and find that it helps. Anyway, I had my first new taste of alcohol yesterday at perhaps 6:15 PM.

I've been raised Catholic and usually go to the less crowded Saturday mass when I'm back in Tennessee. My parents are somewhat active and either serve as ushers or liturgical ministers (the people who hold communion wafers and blessed wine). My Mom was scheduled to be an usher yesterday, but she had just made dinner and was eating dinner with her sisters - this meant that I'd be filling in as usher, although I'd never done it before.

My Dad was also serving as an usher, so I copied his movements. The first task was to hand out the collection baskets after the sermon (all I can remember about the sermon was it had to do with Jesus walking across water - I really have trouble paying attention to sermons). This was easily done, just starting at the front row and following the basket back - I rarely had to touch it since the parishioners had it down. My only other expected duty was to do the same row walking as people got up for communion.

However, in between these two duties, something unexpected happened (I leave it to you to believe what was real and what was imagined). When I brought the collection basket back and the other ushers convened with their offerings, we dumped it into the bigger, collective collection basket. Another usher, a short man with glasses and a nice black moustache, thanked me repeatedly. I think this was because I was the only usher under 40 (in fact, Saturday masses have a dismal showing of young people - it's usually senior citizens and families with small children - it's not a good place to meet women...). Anyway, I was set to go back to my pew when the moustachioed man handed me the golden platter filled with wafers... shit.

I'd forgotten that, after the collection of donations/indulgences/offerings/just-becauses, three ushers walk up to the waiting priest with the wine, wafers, and wealth to be blessed. We three (me, moustachioed man, and plump black lady) marched up in lockstep. I heard pews groan, dentures grind, farts murmur, joints creak, and hymnal pages rasp together - a cadence to our march (think STOMP). It crescendoed as we handed the offering to the priest and flanking acolytes, and then dropped into silence as we three and the three on the altar bowed to one another in unison.

I was last to get communion, since again I had to serve as an unnecessary pew marker for the parishioners getting up first. I had a wad of nicotine gum wedged in my cheek when I placed the wafer on top of my tongue (yes, I've started chewing the gum again although no tobacco products - more on that one later as well). That's how communion goes - wafer first and then wine, body and blood. I debated whether or not I'd be compromising recent changes by drinking from that golden chalice. I looked up beyond the altar at the massive crucifix.

Jesus with his head to the side seemed to shrug. What the hell, this was as good a place as any. Since I was the last, the guy holding the cup told me to finish it off. There were a few drops of red, less than a thimbleful, which I let sit on top of the dissolving wafer in my mouth.

I wouldn't call it a spiritual experience, but it made me think of my need for spiritual experiences. I don't understand either blind devotion or absolute cynicism when it comes to organized religions. You can't unburden or blame everything on them, but they do provide reference points, framework for finding your own beliefs. This also reminded me of a story I wrote four years ago and dug up from my facebook notes, where a retired sniper muses over his religion of one. It was one of three stories that I wrote to deal with an unexpectedly bad experience I had in the mountains during sophomore year of undergrad. Oddly enough, one of the details in this story parallels something that happened to me on an island in Miami. I'm not sure what to make of this, since coincidences shouldn't be confused with connections. I am sure that all my answers won't be found in a church, although I'll probably go next Saturday. I'm also sure that reality without fiction can be a rather brutal place.

Government Scramble

I woke up with morning wood, the solid type of boner that won't leave for a good half hour. This is a nice way to wake up - my best Chicago friend has a poem with the wonderful line "every morning, I wake up with hope and an erection." As I began to ponder what dreams may have lead to my hard-on, it started to fade. This is a classic example of the three centers of thought (head, groin, stomach) - think the three branches of government , a system of checks and balances.

And so I wake this morning fumbling with my legislative branch, which lays down the law baby! My head or judiciary branch interprets and reviews these laws. And my stomach, which is supposed to be the executive branch enforcing and carrying out these laws, wants coffee and a bagel. Like most forms of government, I am not always efficient or necessary. Hell, until recently, I thought my head executive and my stomach judicial. Imagine a government that plays musical chairs - there are always enough seats but you have to move your ass. If you're a senator, then one week you may be passing a law, the next you'll be putting it into action, and the next you'll be judging its effects - same goes for the president and judges. It would be a scramble, but maybe shit would actually get done if you could decide, act, and review your consequences rather than stagnating in one role.

This is why I reserve the right to revise the roles of my three centers of thought at any time. In the past, I've been locked inside my head, reviewing laws that haven't been passed or enforced. And this morning, as I ponder my dick that has risen with the sun and think it to flaccid forgetfulness, I'm convinced that I need to further explore my sexuality. I suspect that I'm wired to stick with women, but what kind of woman and what combination of acts? Who knows - maybe in 20 years, I'll find myself living in a cabin overlooking Niagra falls with my life partners Jacqueline and Jacques raising 3 biological children and 3 adopted Chinese babies (although we treat them all the same) as we teach them to hang-glide and make their own decisions. I don't know, but I'll have to see as my thought processes change - more on this as it unfolds.

Before I have confused these possibilities with problems - if you'd like to have better dream recall, then try lying in bed for 15-30 minutes after waking without falling back asleep and half-remembered dreams may begin to come back. My remembered dream this morning involved multiple shades of blue enshrouding holographic tentacles gently using extradimensional needles to scratch a glistening grooved shiny black oval surface that rotated on its own accord. This was/is occurring at a unknown time and place in the cosmos to produce a beautiful otherworldly song that awakens senses previously unheard of as stars explode through the blue. What else will I find in dreams and this waking life?

My stomach, in the executive role for now, reminded me about the coffee and bagel. I went downstairs and came across five faeries scrubbing every surface of the kitchen with towels - The Aunts have arrived.

Ideal Reader

I fell asleep last night before eleven again as I was waiting to steam with my little brother and Dad. The steam room is a plastic storage shed fitted with water-resistant insulation pads - it sits in the back yard connected to a steam unit that is connected to a hose. My little brother and Dad set it up together years back and it works surprisingly well, getting so hot that I usually have to leave at least once for ice water in the first 15 minutes.

Anyway, the dim steam room is analogous to the interior of my Mom's car - it's where the talking happens. I'm sure my little brother has realized this, since the last few times he's been in there have involved my Dad lecturing him and me giving brotherly advice. The more I think about it, these places of talking have a real or imagined degree of captivity - it's not reasonable to jump from a speeding car when conversations get uncomfortable, and we pretend that it's unreasonable to leave the steam room ("don't open the door; you'll let all the steam out." "OK, we can open the door a crack and wait for the steam unit to shut off.").

My little brother asked last night if we were going to steam with our Dad, meaning that he probably didn't want to have to withstand a conversation on his own. I said sure, and he hobbled into the backyard and turned on the hose and steam unit, setting the steam room conference into motion. When he came back up to tell me that they were ready to get in, I pretended to be asleep, which wasn't hard to do, being already half-asleep. I hope that he and my Dad had a good one-on-one uncomfortable conversation.

I was woken up early this morning by my Mom, who said that her five sisters had decided to visit this week after all, even though she'd told them that she might have to leave for New Orleans with my little brother any day now. This means that I will be dealing with a cumulative 250 years and 650 pounds of estrogen for the next week (averaging each aunt's age to 50 and weight to 130).

She was frantic when she woke me up - we had to clean the upstairs!!! It's a bit beyond me how it's supportive to come down somewhat unexpectedly and get my Mom frazzled (she only knew they were coming for sure when Eloise, my grandma with .22 pistol in a pink purse, called her this morning). I don't really understand either side of my extended family - I'm only beginning to understand my own family in bits and pieces by writing about them. I also don't understand cleaning, but I can move and hide shit, so that is what I've been doing most of this morning.

It's occurred to me on multiple occasions that this blog may be growing stale - that I'm talking about being sober, killing wasps, and now cleaning instead of wading to islands to confer with improbable snipers, clinging to fire escapes while trying to break into a vacant apartment, or waiting to get punched in the face.

I had one of those handy gadgets that counts the number of visitors to this site. I started paying too much attention to those numbers each time I'd sign in to put up a new post ("over 1200, alright people care and find me interesting and entertaining!"). Blogging daily has given an unhealthy boost to this habit ("Only 2 people visited the past few days - what the fucking shit am I doing wrong!? Pay attention to me!") I also got depressed when I realized the counter treated me as a visitor each time I signed in to put up a new post. I considered putting in the Google Analytics code for this site, so I could check the true number (along with knowing what part of the country or world they had viewed the blog from as well as how long they had stayed on my page).

Instead, I removed the basic counter gadget, because this is NOT a way to write. It's also not a way to live, seeking people's approval and admiration at every turn.

Supposedly, many writers have an ideal reader whom they write for. I thought that I hadn't met mine yet until I remembered that I've known myself all of my life. When other aspiring writers told me that they wrote for themselves, I had thought them to be self-indulgent and isolationist. I mean, what the hell is the point of writing anything if there's no one to read what you've done?What's the point of making love to a beautiful woman if you can't brag about it afterwards to friends? Where's the sense in performing a good deed if there are no bystanders to applaud?

I've met people who get me - people whom I love and respect, and the thought of them reading a single sentence that I've written is intoxicating. But I still haven't met my ideal reader, so I'm going to fill in for her for the time being (I'm not sure why, but I always imagine my future ideal reader as this elegant lady). I'm saying that writing for myself is the way to go - I can be a very confused guy, and this is one of the few reactions to that confusion that offers some clarity. I also care very much that you read and thank you for it. Alas, I can't write for you any longer!

I'm also beginning to doubt that I'm an insatiable alcoholic; I did/do have a drinking problem, and I'm still not drinking until the sober me figures out why and works on it. Part of it had to do with feeling fucking worthless every once in a while. Now, I have to ask worthless by whose standards? If I can set my own ever-increasing standards and continue live up to them, then no one has the right to call me worthless. I talked earlier about needing to compete - I think that I've been competing against myself in the past. I'd like to start competing with myself from now own - there is a difference, the same difference between sabotage and growth. That is why I have to write for myself first. I believe this means plenty of boring posts, but I also have a premonition that the results of this new freedom may get fucking weird.

Wasp War

Quick one for now, since I need to bike and run before the 100+ degree weather hits for the day - Drove my Mom to work this morning again, although I didn't particularly need the car; she likes someone to drop her off and pick her up from work, and I like to feel useful - so win-win. I'll have to find a similar way to spend time with my Dad before I get to start my trip in Las Vegas (fingers crossed for the trip). The difficulty is waking up early enough to take my Mom to work, yet staying up late enough (usually past midnight) to see my Dad make it home. I succumbed to early morning-risings last night and passed out like a baby at eleven, so maybe I'll have to do staggered sleep times (2-6AM and 8-10PM); I like the prospect of having two, miniature days squashed into one.

There was more news about the accident investigation when my little brother received a call last night. Again - can't mention details with the whole legal yada-yada, but I wouldn't call the news bad nor would I call it good, but it may be less worse - very specific, I know. It's not appropriate to celebrate, but I'd been saving the last of my p-day ice cream cake and cut a slice each for my little brother, my Mom, and me before scarfing mine down and jumping in the pool.

Within the next half hour, they'd joined me. I was backstroking near the lip of our fountain (at a haphazard angle but it still flows) when I felt my upper bicep get punctured and black shapes spiraling overhead. There turned out to be a nest of 10 or so wasps under the fountain lip. I dove underwater and two of those sleek black warriors were on the water's surface, unable to fly but apparently swimming.

War had been declared - me, my Mom, my brother (and the dog who likes to be included in everything I suppose) versus the pool wasps. The spray can of insect poison was depleted, so we were armed with a broom handle with no broom, a hose that wouldn't reach all the way to the nest, two nets disconnected from their poles, and a tiny kickboard.

I suppose that I took the war to the next level by handing out the items (the dog chewed on already mangled scuba fin and watched). I wondered if it was right to demolish the wasps for a single sting - perhaps we could've just let them be and avoided swimming in that area. However, my arm was starting to swell from the sting, and I had spared a housefly a little earlier (the fly had spiraled down when I got my cake out and crash landed in a bit of whipped cream separate from the remaining cake. I grabbed the squirming pest between my thumb and forefinger and considered popping it like a pimple before hesitating and throwing it outside). Plus, the wasps were armed warriors, not mere pests - after smacking one of the advance forces (the two wasps swimming on the pool's surface) with a kickboard, it's mangled body left the pool and lay on the asphalt. The only part of this wasp still moving was its stinger repeatedly popping in and out its black abdomen, a rapidly moving brown thorn that seemed to shout kill Kill KILL!

If you are a small child (why are you reading this blog!?) or the owner of small children, keep in mind that wasps are not like honeybees, natures' suicide bombers. Wasps do not die after stabbing you once - these warriors can sting you dozens of times in a matter of minutes if you don't have the sense to back away.

Anyway, our plan of attack was this: my Mom would stand back in the water and spray any helicopter wasps with the hose to keep them from dive bombing, my brother would be waiting with the flatter net to smack any low-flying ones into the water, I would dislodge the wasp nest into the water with the broom stick, and the dog would bark.

I aimed the stick like a pool cue and jabbed, but it only grazed the nest and agitated the wasps. We dove underwater and regrouped. I tried again with the stick with pretty much the same result. My little brother said it was his turn (I know - we're both in our 20's, but sometimes brothers still need to take turns). He had a better approach that involved angling the stick up and punctured the nest until it split and fell in the water.

Three wasps went down with their ship, but these canny creatures quickly climbed aboard the floating nest. Luckily I was there with the kickboard and screamed like a man as I smacked the life raft. We decided to gather our kills in the bigger net and put it at the bottom of the shallow end in case any warriors were still alive, possibly surviving off air bubbles in intact parts of the nest.

The rest of the war relied more on strategy, since the wasps had dispersed and came back to the original nesting area in ones or twos. The better approach here was for me to get out of the pool and watch the avenue between the fountain and the fence while the dog came and nuzzled me for moral support. My little brother and sometimes my Mom (who had started losing interest for some reason) would work as spotters. I would wait until returning warriors had found a perch and then try to smack them with my little yellow kickboard back into the water. If they hit the water, then my brother would guide them over to the net with the broom pole. This worked about a 1/3 of the time - the other 2/3 required jumping back into the pool for cover. My little brother and I took turns at this too of course (the Orthopedist said it was OK for him to put weight on his leg as long as there wasn't too much pain).

The sun was kissing the horizon when no more wasps returned. In the big net, I counted 8 fallen warriors - there is at least one vengeful wasp still out there somewhere, so watch your back. But that day, as a family, we were victorious. We had won.

one week

It's been one week sober, and I'd like to say that it's gone by quickly - eh, at least I know that it hasn't been long enough yet, since there are still multiple, daily incidences - not quite starting off as conscious thoughts but visceral impulses with thoughts trailing in their wakes - that get me thirsty.

Click - my Mom and I were in sync this morning with our seatbelts; I rode with her to work again so that I can have the car to drive my little brother in the next hour to an Orthopedist for a double check on his femur. My Mom and I talked about the accident of course - these morning rides are becoming little mobile therapy sessions. She thinks that they will be called back to New Orleans next week and kept talking about jail. I told her that we can't treat anything as inevitable at this point, but my voice sounded whiny.

I drove home, tired since I've been getting up at 6:30 the past few days but haven't really changed my 1-2AM bedtime. I thought that I was just tired until I adjusted the rear view mirror (my Mom is five feet tall so the mirror points at a sliver of the back windshield before I remember to move it) - anyway, I adjust the mirror and there's this pickup truck, a big blue job that usually appears in commercials with dusty landscapes and leather and a hoarse manly announcer voice that wouldn't be caught dead giggling - and this driver, a weathered white guy with a buzz cut is on my ass. I slow down to 35 even though the speed limit is 40 - this guy in his tool truck doesn't pass me, he just drives closer. We do this for about a mile, and I've slowed down to 30 before taking an entrance ramp to the bypass, the straightest shot home. Halfway up the ramp, I hit the gas and don't look at the speedometer. There is a yield sign that I don't stop at - both lanes of the interstate have rushing traffic. I ride the shoulder and speed up until I find a sizable space to merge between two cars. The blue pickup truck is still stopped at the yield sign a quarter mile back - and that is how you drive aggressively, fuckhead - have a good one now.

A few miles down the road, I slow down and start using turn signals again. It occurs to me that the blue pickup driver may have just been driving distractedly, that he couldn't give two shits about who is the more aggressive driver. I'm not sure what else to say about that other than I'd rather drive like a granny and not be goaded into these pointless, possibly imaginary pissing contests.

Still, I want to compete, once I find out where to take that energy - something to keep in sober mind. I think I need to listen to my stomach on that one. I overthink - my Mom mentioned that, even as a young kid, I'd sit back a little and maybe draw while I watched kids play and consider if and how I'd join in.

But yeah, I need to "think" more with my stomach. Some people call it listening to your heart, but I hate that shit. If you listen to your heart, the all you're going to hear is lub-dub; it's a beautifully designed organ that circulates blood so leave it at that. But the stomach, that is your link to the outside world, the waiting room for when you've ingested your surroundings to see how they'll pass through you.

I believe that there are three main centers of thought in your body: head, groin, and stomach. I won't go into the other two at the moment, but there is now a soft spot above my stomach from where the surgeons cut through skin and muscle to get to my lymphnodes. I would liken it to the soft part of a newborn baby's skull that better allows her or him to exit from the womb. I don't know if this new softness will help me out of a tight spot, but it does bulge out like a second stomach when I lean way back (I've been told that this is probably a hernia).

After one week, I'm starting to see that this could be good news. Perhaps this will allow me to better listen to those gut feelings, since that's from where those multiple, daily incidences mentioned earlier originate. Perhaps today I will not let those trailing thoughts make it to my already overburdened head. Perhaps I'll just act and see where those take me. Perhaps this is the start of adventures to be remembered.

Double D's

I drove my Mom to work this morning so that I could have the car to take my little brother to Cowboys & Aliens (I'm starting to get suspicious of the title though - why the "&" and not a "versus"? - more violence on the screen, please). During the ride, I realized that we've gone from talking about the details of the accident to giving voice to the possible consequences. These were somehow easier to talk about - I'd rather not think about why this is at the moment, but I do understand now that I'm here to talk and listen - that could be useless in the long run, but that's what I got.

I also bought a ticket to Las Vegas last night for August 15th. The plan is to go ahead and keep my travel plans with the Brazilian girl. I had told her about the family emergency and the possibility of not getting to go; she was understanding and wasn't pushy, although she said that she couldn't do the trip on her own. There are doubts about this endeavor of course, but I went ahead and bought the ticket before prices skyrocketed. I hope that being home for two weeks will be enough, that I won't be leaving at a crucial time when I could be here to talk and listen, talk and listen and repeat.

My writing mentor returned my work this month with feedback - I need to raise the stakes in my stories because my characters need more to lose. I have to make their desires clear and see what difficult decisions arise (the double D's of the 3-D theory, where the third D is drama) - by working on this, I aim to make my characters more vulnerable, more human to invite the reader in.

Storytelling is a Mobius strip. Take a flat strip of paper - on one side you have fiction and on the other side you got reality. There is no way to get from one side to the other without crossing an edge of that paper. A Mobius strip twists this paper into a ring so that you can travel along both sides without ever crossing an edge. Storytelling accomplishes this twist... are you following?

What I'm saying is that maybe I can I teach my characters about loss so that they can have more to lose. I'm sick of being limited to reality when contemplating cancer, the accident, and not drinking. And my characters - maybe they can teach me about making difficult decisions. And when I unfurl that Mobius strip of storytelling, I'll already have crossed plenty of edges.

That's all for now because there's only so much time to talk and listen, to read and write, to do that twist. Plus, I get to take my little brother to a movie today, and that's just fine.

Big Deal

I'm starting to lose a sense of purpose on my third day home - not a depressive aimlessness but more of a comfortable nonchalance. Everything seems fine; my family is in one piece, I get to eat good food, and I have a nice place to sleep. I don't know how many of the world's billions can't claim one or all of these blessings. I'm starting to forget the anxiety and grief that first caused me to shut down and then drove me. I've had this happen earlier as I gained more reassurance that my cancer had just been limited to one early-stage mixed germ cell tumor on my right testicle. I went through those same stages of anxiety and grief (with a lot of anger and feelings of inadequacy to boot) before it dampened into fuzzy remembrance that can be summed up by "what was the big deal again?"

It's like a series of repeated races - say 800 meter races (my favorite) - where there's a burst of adrenaline and fear that crest with the shot - a staggered start where you stay in your own lane until the break-in point, and you're surrounded by flailing arms and torsos and track spikes that can cut - two minutes of insane drive and burning breath until you can't be sure whether the gasping that seems to brush against your eardrums belongs to you or to tailing runners. And then it's over; you fall across the finish line with hopefully a sense of accomplishment, and while you may remember the race, you can never recreate it until it begins again.

So what am I to do in between now and the next stage of crisis? Usually the answer would involve drinking to reward myself for coming through relatively unscathed. Now that I can't do that, I'm reminded of the preparation that takes place between each race - the stretching, the hydration, the plotting of next steps.

I was talking about not drinking and someone mentioned how they used to vomit blood nearly every morning before they quit and that we weren't in the same boat. I've met people, sometimes young like myself, who have had more debilitating, life-threatening types of cancer. It's a good reminder that it's not all about me and that it could be much worse, but it also makes me feel like a fraud at times. I didn't have real cancer (the type that has a high chance of killing you), and I don't have a real drinking problem (the type that makes you vomit blood or go into detox seizures or whatever)... so what was the big deal again?

That thought leads to contemplating a nice night(morning?)cap, maybe some Woodford's Reserve on ice, so I can shake my head at how easily I was overwhelmed and overreacted... until the shot sounds for the next panic-ridden race. What was the big deal again?

The big Goddamn deal was how my drinking was getting in the way of relationships, work, and writing - how it started replacing substantial interactions. Losing my right nut to cancer didn't ultimately change this for Christ's sake. Yeah, it propelled me to travel and drink at bars with people instead of alone in my apartment, but it eventually became the same substitute for killing time before the next big race, the next motivational disaster.

And today I'm thinking about what it means to be a man. It could be how you deal with that quiet time, that in-between state when no person and no event is pushing you. A man generates his own drive. With that I'm off to get some school work, web writing, and travel planning done to the best of my abilities. It's not a big deal, and I don't need it to be.

Boring

P-day went off without a hitch - it took about five minutes for me to cut the first piece of cake because it was five inches of crunchy caramel and fudge layered vanilla ice cream over an inch of yellow cake, the golden ratio.

My little brother is getting around alright on crutches and probably won't need surgery for his femur, but I can't see inside his head and know what the grey matter thinks about the upcoming accident investigation. I introduced him to the show Misfits, and he watched it all yesterday - I understand that getting lost in a story, and I hope the return will be a pleasant one.

My mom has already started repeating herself with respect to the accident and what may come. I can't get annoyed, although I was able to keep track of the details the first time through. I can remember these details and how they match up to the details in news articles, but I've never been good at telling stories out loud.

The out loud storyteller of jokes and sketch comedy has always been my older brother. He's beginning his acting career in L.A. and waiting to hear back about a movie part. I got a birthday call from him last night. And I got to see my Dad - he hasn't shut down and keeps working his grueling Doctor hours throughout this all - a little after I'd drifted off - he'd come home from on-call and asked if I was asleep. I told him no, that I was only dreaming about a pigeon-faced sprinting man that was racing a train before he became the train (I've been dreaming about pigeons lately because one of my early-stage stories starts off with a tap dancing pigeon that needs help). Anyway, I got to hug my Dad and thus completed the p-day family circle.

I did have one difficulty last night during p-day dinner. There was a wine glass filled with fruit and clearish liquid. I assumed that it was some chardonnay and that my Mom had set it out as an invitation. I didn't say anything and kept passing it as a I repeatedly got up to fill my water glass from the fridge - gulp-refill-gulp-refill-gulp.

At one point, I stopped to smell it when no one was looking. I went to the bathroom, and when I returned, the cup was sitting on the table. I finally asked what it was and found out that it was apple juice... I'm not sure what this means - perhaps many of our fears reside solely in our heads, often not in agreement with reality but waiting there nonetheless to test what we are made of and what we will become.

Some others in my head: I'm worried that I'm shrinking. Now that we've all finished growing, I can see that I'm the smallest of three brothers. Will this trend continue? Sometimes when I look at my hands - they seem fat and short, designed to fit into kiddie mittens and get lost in stronger handshakes - other times they seem long and slender, made to move and awe and direct. I've decided not to look at my hands today.

Another fear is that I will grow disturbingly boring without drinking or substances. "My, this lemonade is good - not too sweet and just the right amount of pulp. Did you know that lemons were carried aboard during long ship voyages to combat scurvy? No, I didn't say you were curvy - scurvy - I think it makes your gums bleed. That would be funny if curvy people had bleeding gum problems... fine, forget it, but I'm saying that this is good lemonade and you should drink it also so your gums don't erupt like miniature volcanoes and spit blood and teeth all over the table - because you're curvy! We're not going on another date, are we?"

habby p-day

Killing time in Chicago before catching my MegaBus wasn't as hard as I thought. I spent a few hours at Stella's cafe and ordered my own pot of tea; if I let the tea steep for the right amount of time, then it achieves a bourbon hue (I foresee many cafes in my future). The cook at CJ's grill in my old neighborhood recognized me and remembered that I liked the chicken philly sandwich. These were my checkpoints as I made my way downtown to Millennium Park's lawn crowded with lovers, friends, and families for a free symphony performance, where my duffle bag and all-purpose towel turned into the world's most comfortable recliner.

There were beginnings of beauty returning as I stared at the skyline while the clouds formed a shape that briefly watched over us mortals scattered on the lawn. This beauty has come in fits and starts on my earlier travels, so powerful yet so easily drowned or washed away.

I asked three people for directions to Union Station. I wasn't that lost, but asking for directions has become one of my favorite interactions. I have a convenient request, the person can give me a simple answer, and we move along without a second thought. I wish that it could be like this with alcohol.

My throat is dry, so I go to the Union Station food court, but all the restaurants are closed, encased in steel grids. I see that there's a bar open, one of those nice, half-crescent, dark wood set-ups. I could sit there and order a rum and coke and tell the bartender to hold the rum - and if the bartender didn't hear that last part of my order, then it plainly wouldn't be my fault... there is also a convenience shop about to close. I walk in and buy a blue Powerade, which I've found to be immensely refreshing ever since that small-town sheriff bought me one on my sixteenth birthday. The bottle is halfway finished by the time I pay for it - gulp gulp gulp.

I make it to Memphis, and my Mom picks me up. My little brother is resting at home, so we talk about every little detail of the accident. We both wear sunglasses and pause periodically. When she asks me what kind of cake I'd like for my birthday, I hit one of those throat-catching pauses and pretend that I'm considering my options intensely.

I don't want today to be my birthday. Whenever I wish someone a happy birthday on facebook, I say habby p-day. I think this started because I was drunk and thought it was funny that the b's and p's were upside down. When people asked me what the p stood for, I said it could stand for whatever they wanted, since it was their day.

Well, if I'm to stay true to my word, then I want my p-day to stand for promise.

I promise that I won't cry in front of my little brother.

I promise that I'll say thanks whenever someone says haaaaapy birthday.

I promise that I won't waste any wishes until I figure out what I need.

I promise that a birthday shot is out of the question on p-day.

And I promise that there's no place that I'd rather be today than here with my family.

#3 Acceptance/Denial

I'm off to a late start on day 3, since I was out until 4AM getting riproaring drunk. No, I'm just fucking with you; I was in bed reading and reading until I realized that the sun would be rising soon. I haven't had a night like that in a long time, a night of quiet contemplation and getting wonderfully lost in words.

I ended up buying a MegaBus ticket last night from Chicago to Memphis. The bus leaves around 10PM and travels through the night to reach Memphis at 8AM, where I'll meet my Mom, drive the hour back home, and get to see the damage for myself.

My hope is to do all I can while I'm there and then be able to be a sober traveling companion for the Brazilian girl from New York, who needs someone to come along with here for a two-week stretch of vacation starting in mid-August. I'll have to see whether or not I can do this without leaving my family hanging - the next few days will tell.

Cutting my travels short for now hasn't been as hard as I imagined it would be - being in Chicago right now makes me sad - noticing each new, neat part of the city reminds me of my time here as a reclusive closet drunk, how many people, places, and activities I've cheated myself out of experiencing. I thought it was just a matter of getting out more and conquering a few, surface-level fears, but there are deeper problems that I still have to uncover. I can't blame this all on alcohol, but drinking never helped me solve these problems and has become a dangerous distraction.

I'm not in denial about needing not to drink indefinitely, but I am unsure of whether I'll ever be able to drink again.

I drank my first beer at 14, or first four beers more exactly. I'd sneak out of the house in the dead of night wearing a long sleeved shirt over a tee shirt. The long sleeved shirt was for the Coors Light, which never failed to be sitting in a cooler in the back of this one pickup truck that I knew of. I would take off my long sleeved shirt and wrap up the brews, my little bundle of midnight mischief.

I wasn't a big fan of the taste, and the fourth beer almost always made me puke at first. I would go maybe once, sometimes twice a week. I learned how to let out the extra air in my stomach with well-timed burps to not feel queasy and began to enjoy the progression of my buzz. One night, I found a half-full pint of liquor in the cooler; this was very exciting, since I'd never had liquor before. I took the bottle back to my house and sat up in the attic drinking it until empty. When I tried to climb from the attic, my legs wouldn't work. I stumbled, wobbled, and passed out. I woke up with the morning light on the carpet below the pull-down attic door with a little puddle of vomit next to my mouth - my guess is that I crawled onto the door, and it swung open to deposit my drunk adolescent ass on the carpet.

In Chicago, while I worked part-time jobs and had long windows of time that could have been used for writing and exploring, I chose to buy a six pack of Special Export pints nearly every day. I'd hide many of the cans in the bottom of the trash before my ex got home. I sometimes made multiple trips in a day or bought a bottle of wine too for chugging, since the beer really did take too long to react with my stomach. I started getting red spots on the inside of my legs after doing this for several months.

I blamed the red spots on the beer and starting buying fifths of vodka or rum to make mixed drinks. This made me feel classier, as if I had solved a problem in a refined manner. I would also sometimes take little breaks from drinking - sometimes even a week or so - and pat myself on the back for my show of self-restraint. I was still doing all this before my second surgery to halt any possible cancer spread.

Looking back this morning on this and all the massive amounts of college drinking that came in between, I think "holy shit, that was me." I'm also startled and touched that my ex put up with me for so long. And I'm surprised and scared that I put up with myself for so long.

So hell no, I'm not in denial about not needing to not touch a drop for a very long time... but for the rest of my life. Will I ever be able to enjoy just a single glass of wine with dinner or go out with a long-time friend for a few drinks (2 or less)? Past studies point to NO.

Even a week ago, I was fantasizing about how I'd have dead drunk Detroit adventures. I'm turning 24 very soon and realize that I've never had any solid notions of who I wanted to be or where I wanted to go, other than vague notions of being a mysterious, traveling writer-drunk. This makes me very sad.

I'm leaving the bed and breakfast in the next hour and thinking of ways to spend the next 8 hours toting around my baggage in downtown Chicago before having to make my bus. There are no more bars for me to waste time at, so I feel clueless. That's it for now.