Day 2 follow-up

I had to get out of the bed and breakfast around two because I was getting restless - I kept shifting my legs and cracking my left knee. I grabbed Infinite Jest, which I've been reading off and on for months, and a slim notebook and walked to a random park.

Slight paranoia kicked in as I walked around this unfamiliar area passing the occasional stranger. I got mad at myself for dropping my eyes when one of these strangers approaching on a bicycle stared at me. I looked back up and glared until he passed and then felt ashamed a few seconds later when it registered that he was just a 14 or 15-year-old kid trying to look hard.

I sat down on a bench and tried to read but kept thinking nervous thoughts...

When people passed, I wondered if I should make eye contact with them, how long I should make it for, where I should look, how I should make my face look when I looked, how my face may not look how I thought it looked, how the people passing might misinterpret the way my face looked, how I would interpret their misinterpretation, how much of my interpretation would be misinterpretation, and why a guy couldn't just sit on a random park bench and enjoy a good book.

To shut off this part of my mind is one of the reasons I drink.

I stuck this out for about half an hour, before getting up and starting the walk to my old neighborhood in Edgewater. An issue that I had with that neighborhood had come up on my date last night. There are these guys that hang out around the Thorndale stop and say shit to women as they pass by, probably because they have nothing to do. It's usually innocuous shit like "hey girl" or "I like your hair" or just a two-toned whistle. These guys usually hang out in groups of two to three, don't have much discretion, and say it to most women who pass. They've said that shit to my then-girlfriend (only once while I was there, and I didn't say anything back).

The girl I was on a date with had to go feed the parking meter for her car once while I stayed with the table. I went with her to feed it again (she was parked near the Thorndale stop), and she told me that some guys had said shit to her while she passed.

I asked what they had said to her (it turned out to be "hey, are you Haitian?" but she said it was the way they said it) and started peering down the street - I thought I saw some dudes who were probably the culprits slouching under the El tracks half a block away. I started walking a little down the sidewalk towards that way with my head up but not yet looking directly at them, because I was going through the whole, insane eye contact mantra that I've described for the bench setting above. I had this sinking, blackhole feeling in my stomach as I walked a few more steps that way.

The girl asked me where I was going, and I saw that she had already set the new ticket on the dashboard and was waiting expectantly for me further up the sidewalk. I turned around and joined her. Another guy that I hadn't seen outside of a closed shop gave a very faint two-tone whistle after we passed. I turned my head and he was already facing away, even though there didn't seem be anyone behind us on the sidewalk.

Ah, you pussy, you fucking coward, you little spineless shit - I thought this about myself to myself as we turned the corner. I kept fixating on this as we walked. I rationalized out loud that what they said was usually harmless. My date said she didn't mind it as much when she was on her own, but she thought it was more disrespectful when someone was with her, that it was disrespectful to me. Ah, you pussy, you fucking coward, you little spineless shit - I thought this must be what those guys were thinking every time I had passed and said nothing.

To shut off this other part of my mind is another reason that I drink.

And so I thought about this as I walked back to the neighborhood today. I started practicing gazing just past the left shoulder of every guy coming my way, keeping on my side of the sidewalk, and making what I thought was nonchalant eye contact for the two or so seconds before we passed each other. This would be my warm-up for when I got to the Thorndale stop; I would wait there near the hecklers and call them out for being disrespectful the next time a woman passed and they said anything. I didn't know what would happen, but they sure as hell were going to respect me.

I was thinking this as a taller guy about my age starting crossing over to my side of the sidewalk. Here it goes - I hunched my shoulders, clenched my fist, and sped up slightly. He cut across my path, gave me a distracted glance, and continued on to get into the driver's seat of a taxi - it was his taxi parked along the side of that street.

oh jeezus jeezus jeezus - I dropped my head and kept walking.

A block further down, a white truck with the words Anchor Steam emblazoned along it was parked outside of a convenience store. The driver was unloading cases of beer. I sped up.

I recognized a cafe that I'd been to once before, jogged across the intersection, and ordered an iced tea that I forget the name of - gulp gulp.

I sat there for nearly two hours and read and doodled in my notebook, the badly positioned sketch you see above. I'm not sure what else to say about it other than the sunshine-eye in the top left is the trapdoor-blackhole that I talked about this morning and it's my face turned away from it. Open to interpretation - but I felt a little more sorted out after making it.

How petty and pathetic and plain stupid for me to be on the warpath to look for "respect" from people whom I knew and cared nothing about, especially when I need to be whole, happy, and healthy to be there for the ones I love.

So how about I start respecting myself first and see where keeping sober takes me?

To help this part of my mind come more alive - the part that abandons moments of craziness for sober realizations - is a reason that I don't want to drink.

I've also realized that taxi drivers aren't my responsibility and that I've been taking more cab rides while pretending that all drivers embody the same concept as a twisted type of punishment lately.

I did end up taking a cab to get back to the bed and breakfast tonight, but I struck up a conversation with this driver instead of keeping silent and staring out the window without really seeing - we talked about moving apartments and traveling. He's moving his stuff into storage because he's finally ready to take a trip to Europe and Africa that he's been planning for 15 years. I listened to his travel plans and envied his organization.

I gave him the same 50% tip that I've been giving to the other drivers but for an entirely different reason.

"Live it up," I told him and tried not to overthink it.

Day 2 of getting my shit together

Well, there is tentative progress to my steps. I found a beautiful bed and breakfast that charges only $50 a night and is run by a sweet couple; I only booked the place until the 29th and don't know where the hell I'm going or staying after that, but I'm thankful for this brief respite.

I also have to fight this urge to keep sleeping and sleeping, since I know that can be no good. I wake up at 6 in the morning and stare at the ceiling for an hour or more before getting another few hours; this has been happening more lately. I had a dream this morning that my little brother and I were in middle school. All of these kids start chanting and teasing him as their freckled faces turned red. I tried to shout and stop them, but I was drowned out by their incessant jeering. Make of this what you will - my dreams also involved crashing a family picnic where little kids chain smoked and then learning about a pansexual samurai who could turn into a fat pigeon...

My web writing job assured me that I don't need to worry about hitting my quota this pay period; this is good since I'm no good for doing research and following SEO guidelines at the moment.

I didn't drink all yesterday, which I know is nothing in the long scheme of sobriety, but I'm starting to feel more sane and be able to focus on one thing at a time. In terms of seeking help, I've decided to start every morning off with writing as an attempt to reflect and make sense of the day before. I know that it won't always be enough, so I'm searching for support groups too.

Yesterday night, I had to rush to meet my date, although I felt like a nauseous zombie. I took a taxi to the bed and breakfast, and the taxi driver was too nice. He kept asking me if the temperature in the back was OK and if I minded if he took Lakeshore drive. I nodded and grunted and tipped him when my shaky hands could find the $20 bill in my wallet. I dropped off my bags, met the B and B family rather quickly, and called my Dad to see about the day. We both paused for a little bit when I told him that I was hailing another cab to take me to a restaurant to meet my date. It still seems that New Orleans events will be a day-by-day endeavor, so I don't know what I'll do yet. I tip the second driver %50 and all but jump from the car.

When I meet my date, she is more beautiful than I remember. At first I thought her eyes were blue, but they're actually green and stunning above her smooth, dark chocolate cheeks. She's young (20) and smart; her family is from Belize, and she tells me that she's had professional clown training in addition to switching her major six times - her latest wish is to be a broadcast journalist. I'm startled that she seems to like my rambling, almost hysterical conversation. The waitress comes by to take our drink orders. I try not to touch or even look at the drink menu - just water please - gulp gulp.

We try to find a coffee place after dinner, but none in my old neighborhood are open. I hold her hand but stop in embarrassment when I realize that my palm is super sweaty. She gives me a ride back to the B and B, and I kiss her cheek before kissing her lips. I want to enjoy the kiss more, but my heart's not in it, since I know that I have little to offer her at this point. We agree to try to get coffee some time, although I say I won't be in town for long.

This was yesterday; this morning I realized that a sick part of me (the same part that was disappointed when I found out that I no longer had cancer) wants things to get worse. I'd like to be a powerless victim and not have to make decisions. In my sleep-addled state, it seems like a trap door that covers a black hole in my mind. I'm doing my best to keep it closed on day two of getting my shit together.

Sober

So I made it to Chicago. I've gotten to see my wonderful ex, helped her move to an apartment with a remarkable view, and have stayed with her for the last few days, although I promised that I'd only need to stay for Saturday night.

I'm also beginning to understand grief, and I don't know if it suits me. “If it's not that, then it's always something else” is how my Dad put it. I got a text at 3:30 Sunday morning that said “Hey robert, if u havent heard what happened to tom, give me call asap.” There was a follow-up text that said “Sry if ur on the phone to family, but if not, give me a call. Your brothers in the hospital.” This was from my brother's best friend in New Orleans.

My little brother was in a car accident that involved his mid-sized SUV and a taxi cab. I can't say more than that for legal reasons.

I started drinking at Sunday brunch with bottomless mimosas and then helped my ex move (she has a lot of stuff, although she'll be the first to admit it). She bought me drinks that afternoon as a thank you for my help. I had Bulleit bourbon on the rocks, an Arrogant Bastard, a Lake Eerie beer that the cute waitress suggested, and then another shot of bourbon. I drank while she ate because I didn't feel like eating.

I ran along the lakefront that night, and my stride was perfect, rooster feet scraping at gravel as I fell forward and let that momentum carry me away . I understand now that my best running has always been a way to measure out a prolonged scream.

I got back and had three glasses of white wine and then drank a full bottle of red that my ex had made herself – it tasted like magical fruit juice. We went up to the roof patio of the building, and I disastrously described my drunken feelings and gave douchey advice about future relationships. I basically beat a dead horse when we should have been having a good time.

The source of my anger was easy to pin down, and it had nothing to do with her. My little brother, the one whom I visited in New Orleans, is injured because of an unnecessary but somehow unavoidable car accident. The top part of his femur, which inserts into his hip socket, is fractured. I wonder if he's going to end up a gimp.

Lying in bed the next morning, not sure if I'm still drunk or hungover, I decide to spend the day at the beach. I buy a 200ml bottle of Captain Morgan and some RC cola – the idea was to mix them and be able to take it along with me, but I end up drinking it in the bathroom in ten minutes. There is a bar called Montrose Beach along the lakefront; I have two summer shandys, a pint of Daisy cutter (which the owner buys me), and then a hard cider (one of which I end up buying for her). It's easier to talk to women when I'm drunk.

I meet my ex who has just gotten off of work – we go eat at a nice thai place, and I get us a bottle of white wine. She has about two glasses, so I finish the rest of the bottle. After dinner, she is going to a bar to talk with a bartender that she likes; I see how my presence could be awkward and decide to stick around the neighborhood and maybe go see a movie.

I end up flirting with the theater cashier and asking her for movie recommendations; we decide on Captain America. The show isn't for 25 minutes, so I decide to go to a bar and get a tall boy. I decide that I like the people at the bar (three of them are from Detroit and keep giving me travel recommendations), so I head back to the movie theater and get my ticket refunded. I also flirt more with the cashier and get her number so that we can eat at the thai place where I just had dinner on Wednesday. I go back and start drinking vodka cranberries – I can't remember how much I drink, and I start buying pitchers for the people from Detroit. I decide to leave and take the El train back around 1, when my ex calls me. I've forgotten that she needs to get up and go to work tomorrow.

While I'm waiting for the El, I decide to jump down on the tracks to recreate a magical moment that I had in New York City. I slip on one of the rails and smack my shin and skin my knee. I suppose it wasn't the third rail; I must have climbed back up. I remember this short CTA worker wearing a reflective vest; I kept hugging him and thanking him profusely.

I get home somehow and wake up the next day. I go to the same liquor store where I got the rum and flirt with the Polish lady there before buying some sunkist and Svedka vodka. I get back to the apartment and start drinking. I realized that this bottle is bigger than I thought, but I manage to finish it anyway.

I'm supposed to meet my best Chicago friend that afternoon. He calls, and I start blubbering.

I'm thinking about a taxi driver who lived in my building when I was working for the census in June 2010. I got to interview the driver, a tall man with calm, friendly eyes. His young wife kept chiming in from the other room as we went through the questionnaire. His four-year-old son played on the floor. I wonder if the taxi driver in New Orleans filled out a census, and if so, how many people he has listed on it.

My Chicago friend informs me that I'm an alcoholic. I protest, saying that I'm too young to be that. He asks me a few questions, and it becomes apparent I can't remember a specific day where I haven't had a drink – probably that last time was when I was in the hospital for five days after my February surgery.

I've been using the New Orleans accident as an excuse to shut down at a point when my family needs me most. I eat dinner with my friend and go downtown, but I can't stop vomiting or thinking about the taxi driver. I talk about probably drinking less, and my friend just stares at me.

I guess this means that I can't drink any more. I've forgotten what sobriety feels like, but it seems overwhelming. The day after this is trembling and I panic about my family, where I'm going to spend the night, my writing, my job, my travel plans, my date. I try to pray but start hyperventilating, so I make a list:

1. Find some place to stay (it's not appropriate to be inconveniencing your ex like this!!!)

2. E-mail job, since you're going to be short on hours

3. Eat, drink water, stretch, and breathe

4. Catch up with school and writing

5. Go on date; act normal

6. Be there for family; do not panic and do not shut down

7. Do not drink under any circumstances

8. Seek help

I've completed a few of these steps so far, although the last three will need to be time-tested. I'll let you know how that goes.

Itchy Feet

My feet itch even though the poison ivy from the tree hole fall has long gone. I hop on my newest Bike of the Apocalypse, a black cruiser complete with argyle wheel covers. The cruiser rides beautifully, although the single gear has a speed ceiling - I hit that ceiling while pedaling frantically down a hill. The seat springs creak, birds chirp, dogs bark, leaves rustle, and cars hum by along my Tennessee backroads - oh baby, the background craps out a song that I try not to ruin by whistling.

Combine all this with a bad sense of direction and finely tuned disorganization, and I'm ready to go where happiness awaits. It's so simple yet complicated: if you're not as happy as you want to be, then change something. But what if you're not changing according to plan; what if you have to change how you change; what if your very definition of happiness needs to change? A change that can be chased but never pinned down.

I've enjoyed my brief respite in Tennessee. I've invented a dog hybrid kickboard by teaching my Australian shepherd to swim with a kickboard in her mouth while I hold onto her haunches and tread water from behind. I've spent quality time with my parents these last two-and-a-half weeks; I can even fondly reminisce over their constant arguing. I've written, revised, and researched. I've started seeing that most people have the same basic wants and sense a power behind this, a route towards becoming more human. And, of course, I've gotten in a few bike rides, that lightness of being with the wind rushing through my hair.

And still my feet are itchy. It's time to go - Chicago, Detroit, possibly Canada, and then? Between now and mid-August, my only firm plans are helping my ex switch to a nearby apartment (while stowing away the last vestiges of my ever having lived in Chicago in a duffle bag), going to the Green Mill to drink Van Winkle and watch the poetry slam, and hanging out with one of my best writer friends. My one goal is to make it to Detroit before my 24th birthday. I don't know what will come, and I don't want to, because my feet keep itching, and that's just fine.

What Now!?

My hospital visit in Nashville got off to a shaky, administrative start; they had to call upstairs to reorder the CT scan, I think I was injected with contrast solution one too many times (you can tell because upon injection, a metallic taste begins from the back of your mouth), the chest X-Rays actually went smoothly [a nurse, one of those short, very cute girls that I desperately need to learn more about, kept adjusting my poison ivy-ridden shoulders (oh yeah, I also had horrible poison ivy from going on a random camping trip where I fell into a tree hole after drinking a bunch of whiskey and going for a pitch-black naked swim, and apparently, the tree hole was also lined with poison ivy - oh, and I may have gotten fleas from the trip too, but there were only two fleas that I knew of, and both are now stuck to a piece of tape which has been floating in my partially full bathroom sink for days {fleas are notoriously hard to crush between your fingertips, and the little bastards can jump})], a well-meaning-but-completely-wrong front desk lady told me my mom was waiting in the hospital lobby after the chest X-Rays, I walked around the hospital aimlessly for fifteen minutes while finding out at a back desk that my blood work hadn't been scheduled, I eventually found my mom, and we arrived for my Urologist appointment about an hour and a half late.

Other than just having written the longest sentence of my life, there wasn't too much else to this shuffling of feet, papers, and medical equipment. The rite of passage to any Urological office is peeing in a cup; I spaced out while doing this and came to when the rising, yellow tide was about two millimeters from the cup's top. And then, I waited in a back room and itched. I had managed to catch the black blade that had spun three times (there were a few trials where I caught the flat of the blade after two and a half spins but thankfully, never the tip, and I found out that the ceilings weren't high enough for me to catch the blade standing, so I had to catch the handle on the third spin in a kneeling position, but I still caught it so that meant - shit, I'm doing the unnecessarily long sentence thing again).

At some point, my Urologist came in with a different haircut but the same small, strong hands. He told me that both the CT scan and X-Rays looked excellent; he also said that there was a 1% chance of any spread appearing in the retroperitoneal area and a 7% chance of the cancer appearing in my chest area or blood vessels. He ordered bloodwork for me as a mere formality, and he checked the lump on the top of my SuperBall.

"Oh yeah, that's small," he said. I assumed that he was talking about the lump, and that word "small" made my months of worry and uncertainty sound dramatic. The fact that the lump wasn't directly attached to the testicle and felt fluid-filled probably meant that it was a spermatocele in the epididymis. I'm having an ultrasound done this afternoon as another mere formality.

Relief... but a sick, troubled part of me was disappointed. You mean that's it? Where's the climax? What the fuck happened to all of my foreshadowing? How much longer until I get my in-spite-of-not-because-of happiness?

What about me, Me, ME? Perhaps there has been a spread, undetectable by medical tests, a self-absorbed slavery. And, dammit, if I ever want to be a worthwhile writer, I'm going to have to learn how to look beyond myself more often:

The day after the medical tests, I traveled up to Columbia, Missouri with my parents to visit my Grandpa Don on my mother's side for his 90^th birthday.

Don's back is bent and his skin mottled, but his mind is still sharp behind twinkling blue eyes. He was a gunner in the Navy in the Pacific, and he always used to tell me the bullets were the size of bananas. He also fathered seven daughters, six of whom still survive.

My Grandma Eloise is shrinking by the year; she is closer to four-and-a-half feet than five now. She makes dolls; there is a kiln in the basement, and every corner of the house has clusters of well-made dolls, but their metropolis is located in the basement. There is a small guestroom down there, where I used to sleep, that had dozens of dolls in cribs and on pedestals along the walls. I used to joke about how it creeped me out, but it was actually comforting to wake up with so many lifeless bodies watching over me. In the two years since I've been there, the number of dolls in the basement has reached the hundreds. Unfired doll parts also wait patiently in cardboard boxes. There is no more room for grand kids, but that's not an issue, since most of us have grown up.

“Go get my gun. It's in that pink purse you brought in,” Eloise says. I'm no longer in the basement – I, my grandparents, my mom, and three aunts are visiting my aunt Donna in the middle of pleasant nowhere. Eloise had given me a purse to carry inside after we'd parked. I had taken the rattling inside of the purse to be pills, since old people usually have several bottles on them at all times in my limited experience, but the rattling came from a full metal jacket of .22 caliber bullets. The purse also contained a small pistol with a five round clip.

“OK, grandma.” I had known that the highlight of going to my aunt Donna's house would be shooting firearms off their newly designed porch at targets in the yard below; I just hadn't known that we were bringing some of the firearms with us.

FOX news plays in the living room, and aunt Donna's husband, Gary, has military pictures of himself as well as a framed case of medals from Vietnam on the wall. There's a Purple Heart among them, and I don't know him well enough to ask for the story behind that. Gary supervises the shooting on the porch; everyone shoots except my mom. Eloise has a soft bandage taped over one of her eyes because Gary has assured her that it'll allow her to control her dominant eye as she blasts away at the target below. She doesn't hit the target very many times with her small pistol, but she's unruffled after having emptied several clips into the yard.

Don gets to shoot an aunt's .380 Bersa pistol, a noticeably nicer gun. He hunches over the rail and takes aim.

Blam! Blam! “Don, pull that front finger off the barrel just a bit,” Gary says. Blam! “Hey Don, hold'er up and back your finger off.” Blam! Blam!

“Aw shit,” Don says as he put the safety back on. There's a black, bruise-like smudge on his forefinger, a powder burn. The last two bullets made a single groove along the porch railing and blackened the earth-brown wood. Despite this, he has still managed to hit the target twice. He claims that he pulled the gun down because there was too much recoil, and we either agree or say nothing.

Later that day, as aunt Sylvia, the second-youngest of the aunts, is driving me and my mom back to our hotel, she tells me about the day that aunt Mary, the youngest, was born.

Sylvia was five and riding on the back of Don's big lawnmower with several of her sisters. The lawnmower was also pulling a metal-bladed plow behind to further churn up the yard. Sylvia's dress caught in the lawnmower's back wheel, and it pulled her under. Don heard the little girls on the back of his lawnmower screaming in time to stop the mower before the trailing plow cut up his youngest daughter. However, the back wheel of the mower had run over and broken both of her legs.

Don rushed her to the hospital, where they didn't believe the story at first and tried to write him up on child abuse charges. He was at that hospital while Eloise gave birth that day to Mary at another hospital. Don had never been much of a drinker, but he may have gone to a bar for a drink or two later that night.

Sylvia says she doesn't remember much about the actual accident, but she remembers being really proud of these clunky, olive-green shoes that she got to wear after the accident. They weren't hand-me-downs and were weighted to help her readjust to walking normally, since the crushing wheel had also damaged some tendons. Once she was well enough to go back to school, the kids made fun of her shoes. She was mortified, until Terry, the oldest sister, convinced her that the teasing children were just jealous.

Terry, the oldest, the sister who taught all the other sisters how to put on make-up and all about whatever it is that girls talk about when guys aren't around, is the one of seven not around to laugh at Don and his bullet grooves. She died of ovarian cancer in 1988, and Sylvia tells me that she was the only one in the hospital room when it happened.

And that's when Eloise, who had possessed some interest in doll-making before, started churning out dolls by the dozens.

And perhaps that's why I visit the cramped basement one more time before we drive away on Sunday, to be reminded of the beauty of stories that tell me about myself without ever having involved me.

I'm getting ready to drive to a local hospital for my double-check ultrasound, another assurance that I no longer have a cancer card to carry. I'm also planning my route to Detroit before this month's close; I don't know anything about the city or anyone there, and perhaps that's why I'm drawn to it. My question “Now what!?” still verges on panic, but I don't think it'll be difficult to answer with so much out there that is not myself. And I'm still chewing over the word serendipity.

Knife Dance

I would say the dance began because SpeedStick was my deodorant of choice. I mean, if you think about the name, it was inevitable. As a last-minute morning effort, after having thrown on clothes and guzzled coffee, I would apply that green regular scent, but even in a hurry I still dawdled.

I attempted flashy, fast ways to apply the SpeedStick, perhaps flipping it once with my right hand and side-catching it with my left hand before spiraling towards my left armpit and trying to pluck off the cap without halting its passage. These endeavors would sometimes end in failure with the SpeedStick sprawled across the floor, its one massive internal green organ smushed into the carpet.

As the SpeedStick accumulated more elaborate throwing, spinning, and catching techniques, it ceased to be a mere instrument of hygiene. It was no longer resigned to morning applications, and it'd hurdle from hand to hand whenever my mind needed a jolt. All the same, it grew stale, the worst consequence of poor coordination was a deodorant-gummed carpet, so I started trying to do the same movements with a knife (minus applying the blade to my armpits of course).

I could do the single flips and side-catches with the sharper ones but stuck with butter knives to learn the one-and-a-half flips and side spins. Another new addition was accompanying music and footwork – not quite a dance, since I had to move my feet whenever an errant knife plunged blade down into the floor. Back/cross/sidesteps – movements that I performed in private. Any girl that I've danced with can testify that I'm a lousy dancer, immune to all but the most obvious of beats – but the spastic, weird movements of the knife dance felt natural.

It became a ritual, a way to throw myself toward the incoming day. I stuck with sharp blades and would sometimes only stop when I nicked myself slightly. As my feet moved, my hand movements evolved, little milestones of achievement. Two years ago, I bought a entirely black, well-balanced knife, which made it harder to distinguish between spinning handle and blade. I also learned how to do a reliable double-flip by timing alone. The early dozens of times where my hand didn't shy away and the handle somehow landed in my palm were exhilarating. I never saw this as destructive; rather, it was a way to accept small, obvious risks and focus my mind.

Tomorrow, I'll be going to my first check-up since my February surgery. Like last time, this will include blood work, a chest X-Ray, and a CT scan. I've also decided to ask my Urologist about the lump on top of my left testicle. By the end of that day, it's likely that I'll know whether or not my SuperBalldom will hold.

I'm left wondering what emotions/states of mind this knowledge of tomorrow should conjure. Should I be angry/defiant/scared/humbled/reluctant/sad/happy/energized/exhausted? Yes to all of those, since it's better than being asleep/disconnected/numb. Still, I want an overall theme, a framework for the dance that will take place tomorrow. I stumbled upon the poem Gravy by Raymond Carver:

No other word will do. For that's what it was. Gravy.

Gravy, these past ten years.

Alive, sober, working, loving and

being loved by a good woman. Eleven years

ago he was told he had six months to live

at the rate he was going. And he was going

nowhere but down. So he changed his ways

somehow. He quit drinking! And the rest?

After that it was all gravy, every minute

of it, up to and including when he was told about,

well, some things that were breaking down and

building up inside of his head. “Don't weep for me,”

he said to his friends. “I'm a lucky man.

I've had ten years longer than I or anyone

expected. Pure gravy. And don't forget it.”

The author, Raymond Carver, was a hardcore alcoholic who didn't expect to live past 40. However, he quit drinking and had been sober for about a decade when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. When he knew that it would kill him, he wrote the poem above.

I'm not trying to make a direct comparison. My cancer was only life-changing while his was life-ending. Also, I still drink too much too frequently, and I'm far from middle-aged. That part that shook me was the man writing that poem was thankful.

And when I think of how I was before, I have to thank a little lump for waking me up.

I'm thankful for catching it early, for having insurance and a Doctor Dad to pay for this whole mess, for not knowing where or with whom I'll end up, for reconnecting with old friends and making new ones, for writer correspondents and pen pals, for adventures and challenges yet to come, for being able to name and confront my fears, for regaining feeling.

I'm thankful that today is a good day of uncertainty.

I'm also thankful for the chance to rethink and add to my dance. At the very least, there's now a new addition to the knife dance. I throw the black blade up and don't watch it spin for what I hope is three times. My hand is waiting to catch it. And I know that it will – I'm just not sure how.

In-Betweens

You can't forget the in-betweens:

Chicago in early May – I've finished my first month-plus of traveling and have decided not to settle anywhere for at least a few more months, perhaps a year. I drove up to the city with my Dad, who was going to a conference, to get my boxes from my ex-girlfriend's apartment. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I didn't shave for three days because I knew that she liked me stubbly.

When I got there, the apartment felt like I'd never lived there, and I realized that it had felt that same way even while I was living there. It was Mother's day, and my ex was out with her family, so I had the place to myself for half an hour. I didn't walk into my former office, because I didn't want to violate the privacy of what was now her bedroom, although I think Grace the cat was hiding under the bed. The cat certainly didn't come out to greet me wherever she was. I looked in the hallway closet and was touched that my ex had folded all of my clothes left behind. I tried to keep them that way as I loaded them into trash bags.

She came in when I was about halfway through and although her dreadlocks were shorter, she was her usual incredible beautiful. We hugged for about two or three seconds, and it wasn't super awkward. I had brought a bottle of wine for her and some cat nip toys for Grace the cat, and I wondered if this whole affair was a little like how it felt to be a divorced Dad. We hadn't talked all throughout April except to be coldly polite and handle logistical stuff, like switching the name on our RCN service. I think I needed that distance, but if you read the closure post, we didn't part on the best of terms.

But in Chicago in early May with the last of my boxes nearly packed away we got to drink wine that day. I ordered take-out from our favorite Thai place. And I got to hug her for longer and say, “I'm sorry for blaming any of my unhappiness on you and for the times that I made you sad. I'm glad for the times that I made you happy, and I'm honored to know you.”

I held her while I said that and kissed her ear. She was wearing the pearl earrings that I'd bought her long ago at a Chicago park art fair. We cuddled on the white couch that I've always found to be uncomfortable and watched episodes of American Dad. And her body, which I had grown to know too well to the point of vastly underappreciating it, was new and marvelous once more. I ended up giving her a back rub and eventually focused on her adorable bubble butt like I always do. When I spread her legs apart, she was glistening. We didn't want to resist. I watched her make her silent O-face and came seconds after she did, collapsing on top of her.

Before I left later that night, we said we loved each other and were sure as hell glad that we weren't together anymore. I've been trying to classify that and avoid any potential jealousy along the way, since I think that emotion is typically ugly and a waste of time. And as time winds on, I've sometimes found my attempts at classification frustrating until realizing that I shouldn't classify what feels natural. We are both no longer a major factor in the other person's life, and that should be freeing. Yet I still feel this timeless love, which I think Bob Marley pretty much nailed here

And that's about all – when you've realized that you've been in a good place but still have to separate yourself from there to get better yourself. Knowing that has released a huge weight, this pressure that I didn't even know existed until it was gone.

New Orleans/Jackson (Late May/Early June)

Post-Rapture, I've set up a blood test to see if there are any viral consequences for my pre-Rapture night. I ride a bike whose seat is much too low, and I'm sweaty once I get there. Although the two blood tests cost $150, it takes the medical aide less than two minutes to fill up a few vials with my blood. There isn't immediate relief, since the results will be back in 2-5 days. Suspense!

Both tests come back negative, although I will do a double-check in a few months.

I also get to meet Mr. Bailey, an artist who lives next door to my little brother and watches out for him from time to time. He shows me the artwork in his backyard, and he's been following a daisy theme for some of the pieces. Mr. Bailey tells me how he was broke as a kid and would give his girlfriends free daisies instead of expensive roses - some girls got it, some didn't. I especially like one picture with a poser-stalker-demon daisy coiled around a real daisy while it sucks away its daisiness. Mr Bailey says, "that deadly daisy will make you feel beautiful for a day."

I get excited when he shows me this abstract swirl painting done on handle-less cupboard door because it looks an extremely detailed satellite photo of an alien planet stretched into a rectangular map. When I tell him this, he gives me the painting for free. I couldn't articulate it a the time, but it reminded me that there are whole worlds that I've been missing out on. The painting will be the centerpiece for wherever I finally decide to call home.

And The financial aftermath of my night out in New Orleans is $60.00 plus ATM fee, since my blue debit card was indeed stolen by someone at Dixie Diva's (probably Chanel). The card is to my local bank in Jackson, and I'm back, so I visit to see if I can recover any of the stolen funds. The woman helping me is a gracefully middle-aged Southern lady named Francie. I bring my card statements and we pore through the charges.

Several of the charges are two attempts for $280 at Dixie's Diva's, then an attempt at $200 at some other ATM, then $100 - $80 – and finally $60 is where the ATM finally yielded. As we go through the charges, I start overexplaining to Francie.

“Yeah, I met this person. And she seemed really nice. She even told me about her sister and trying to be a nurse and being from Memphis. And so we went and got some drinks, but this place was uh – dark, so I don't usually do this, but she seemed trustworthy, so I let her shine her phone while I was putting in my PIN. And once I realized that these weren't the people I though they were and uh – left, then it wasn't until the day after that I noticed my card was gone,” I say. The tips of my ears are burning.

Francie is polite, but I wonder what she thinks behind her fixed smile. In the end, I don't get the $60.00 back because fraud doesn't cover withdrawals when person in possession of the card had my PIN. I do manage to get about $12.00 back – most of that is from a swipe at McDonald's. Oh yeah – the charge at McDonald's was – I can't make this up – that charge was for $6.66.

Los Angeles (mid-June through today)

I've been out in SoCal since June 4^th, and now, I'm attending the residency for my low-rez MFA program in creative writing. We've rented a beach house, and I have a master bedroom to myself. My residency is progressing smoothly – I make more connections, finally bond with my class, and get my first choice of mentor. My beach house roommates notify me one day that I woke them up with sleep-yelling. At first, I don't believe them, since I woke up that morning feeling happy and refreshed. I also can't remember any of my dreams. All I know is that I had a renewed desire to visit Detroit that morning.

I skip to today, because Hollywood deserves a post of its own. I've waked and baked with a friend who takes me to the Airport. I decide to request a pat down rather than use the full body scan on my SuperBall – I'll be getting enough of that with my upcoming CT scan, but I dread the confrontation – add to this that someone calls a warning code that sounds like “B – Rom” over the intercom before I can ask to be touched; the security lines stop and the security line workers tell all passengers to take a step away from their bags. We hang there, alet prairie dogs scouting the terrain, waiting to issue our warning calls once we see the first violent flurry of motion. After a minute, the intercom blare issues a resume command. The TSA pat down guy is super-chill and doesn't ask any embarrassing questions. I'm realizing that interactions don't always have to be confrontations. And the plane is boarding, and right now I'm trying not to over-analyze this still-elusive happiness that's been making more appearances lately.