In the Middle of the Night

I go blogging in my sleep.

That was a joke that approximately 12 percent of the audience will get as it was a reference to a top ten single from Billy Joel from the mid 90's called "River of Dreams"

I wish I had written more this week except that I didn't have anything I was incredibly interested in to blog about and I wasn't feeling that great.

Between life anxiety and medical anxiety, I was just full of anxiety this week.

And anxiety never makes for a good blog and I've already decided to leave out the gory details of how my "stuff" (stuff is how i will refer to the apparatus's that are around my stomach region) is doing until I write my best selling book called "What to do when Stomach Surgery threatens your whole way of Life" or I could call it "Don't Panic but your stomach looks like a Meat Locker and the Doctor is coming over with a worried look on his Face"

I bet that would sell.

Probably the highlight of the week was this morning when I took my rat and my niece to the back porch to commune with nature. After about 10 minutes of communing I was getting hungry and asked my mom to watch them for me. Next thing I know, mayonnaise is about to be mixed with my tuna fish when I look over and see my mom on her hands and knees and my niece jumping up and down.

I ran outside and. Oh wait I can't run right now.

I briskly race walked to the back porch and found that ****** (name deleted for privacy concerns) had scared my poor rat Buckley under the stairs where he could not be easily grabbed and he thought we were just playing a game of hide and seek.

Like a fool I tried to lure him out with a piece of roast beef, and he ducked his head out and grabbed it out of my hand.

With frustration mounting I motioned my blood relations inside the house while I maintained the vigil over the stairs where I would be ready to grab him and love on him should he ever appear.

I was not losing this rat.

I lost track of time over how long i was there before I caught him. An hour?

It doesn't matter because it's Saturday and I never have anything to do right?

Wrong!

I was planning on going out but being on my hands and knees and looking under stairs in pre-stoma disaster mode quickly tired me out and i fell asleep for nearly 2 hours while watching a King of the Hill episode on Netflix instant streaming on my Dynex 32 inch LCD TV screen that I use for a monitor that I got from Best Buy 2 years ago for 400 dollars because the TV that Super Christian owned had a giant portion of the screen that was all green shaded and I couldn't stand it.

Now it has significant scratch marks all over the bottom of the screen and some discoloration appears at parts of the top depending on what is on the screen at the moment.

I really like my monitor.

Oh yeah, something potentially big did happen this week. I got the opportunity to do what appears to be SAG background work in DC the next 2 weekends. This is significant because in 5 years in NY I only got to do SAG background work once and you need to do it 3 times to join SAG which is pretty much out of the question at the moment because it costs like 3 grand.

And then I had an evening out at a musical planned and that fell through. It was not as easy as it sounds to find a play around here on a random Friday evening.

So what I did before that was go to my friend's house with the purpose of watching Duke play Hampton in the NCAA 64's! or whatever you call the tournament as I know that March Madness is not it's official name and I hope they don't sue me for using it without permission in this blog post.

Unfortunately my friend's parents in law were over and he did not tell me that. So, while I was trying to watch young athletes dunk all over some hapless flunkies I was being grilled on my health and what Chrohns disease was and how I planned to treat it and why I don't just eat cheeseburgers all the time if I'm trying to gain weight.

Then the conversation moved to the topic of my various unfinished books and they pretty much thought all of my book titles were either stupid or too negative and probably not sale-able. I had to explain to them about how there was a big market out there for dumb comedy books right now like "How to Beat Up Anybody" or the various zombie classic literature mashups out there.

Anyway Duke won in a snoozefest of a layup drill and I'm definitely going to find out wherever I go if old people are going to be sprung on me out of nowhere.

When you Wish upon a Star

No, wishing won't just create a new blog, only writing a new one will.

And I hate to report it but im feeling awful again today. I had a rash of days in a row where I felt on top of the world and just thought "well this is it." but today im back to feeling a little miserable.

And guys this has to be said

I'm getting tired of feeling this way. I just want these bandages to fall off and my wound to be healed and for my ostomy bag to go away and get me back to normal where I will have no idea what I'm doing.

That's right If I don't go back to New York which doesn't seem to be in the immediate cards then I really don't know quite what I'm doing.

Fortunately I still have a while to figure that out.

I know, I know. I should have written a real blog on tuesday or monday when i was feeling great.

Just not feeling it sorry.

If i had more feedback maybe I would write more.

Oh thats terrible why would i say that?

Well, time to get back to eating ice cream and watching King of the Hill on Netflix instant streaming.

I'm trying to watch every episode in a row and the show lasted like 14 years and im on season 3.

So I have a lot of tv to catch up on.

Apple Bashing

As an avid follower of technology and news, and a proud Verizon Iphone owner with way too much time on his hands, I have read a great number of stories about recent tech products since my near demise.

Many of them fall under the same basic premise, to wit: you do or don't need said product, and you should or shouldn't wait until the next iteration of said product.

Usually its an apple product being bandied about; the verizon iphone, ipad 2, and Iphone 5 (universal gsm?) have been making the rounds in these discussions.

But, and this really should be said more often in articles, if you need or really want a piece of technology and it won't destroy your finances to get it, why shouldn't you get it? For the love of God, I thought that was the American way.

Tonight I just read, probably without exaggeration, the 30th piece of this type in the last 2 months and I just got all kinds of fed up. Here is a link to the article should you wish to waste your time on this drivel, and below is the email that I sent off to the writer in question, Jonathan Blum, about his tremendous article entitled "You Don't Need the Ipad 2"

I'm pretty sure he won't respond, but if he does, I will definitely let you know

My Letter:

I don't need the Ipad 2? There is an increasing number of anti-apple stories run, which this story falls under, which seem to be lazy attempts to fill space. Why would you bother running a commentary like that?

Did you also write an article advising people to wait for the Iphone 5?

And not for nothing, but isn't it good for Apple, an American company, to make money hand over fist?

Also your vampire and garlic analogy seemed frighteningly out of place.

Guess what? There's very little technology that you actually "need" on a basic level, but if it increasingly makes life easy for us, then whats the problem with that?

Also, thanks for telling me that there are other tablet devices out there. If not for the Ipad, these devices would not exist at all.

Does the Street pay for articles like this? I would be interested in being a total hack writer for profit

The Adventures of Super Christian #1

I keep having these 2 nagging dreams. In one of them, I've lost the keys to my dad's car, and in the other one my old roommate Super Christian has turned into some sort of zombie like creature.

This was the beginning to the blog yesterday when I tried to write it and was interrupted by what could have been 10 thousand different things but I'm pretty sure it was my dad who wanted to yell at me a few times in the car so we could go to the grocery store.

So, I definitely can't do that opener anymore. I can't remember that nagging dream, and I'm pretty sure I made up that dream about Super Christian even though he basically was a zombie for the Lord.

I used to be on the couch with chunks missing out of it in Astoria trying to sit down to enjoy a game of Super Mario Galaxy and he would walk past me with that same look of resignment on his face wearing slippers on his feet and rubber gloves on his hands which he put out in front of him when he walked kind of like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons. Then he would prepare the exact same meal every day just like he did as far as I could tell for about 12 years in the same apartment before I got there.

He made an omelette for dinner every day out of an omelette maker which he left on the counter overnight and every night filled with water in the belief that this would ward off cockroaches. When the omelette was ready on the pan he would slide it onto the plate in literally the exact same way every day. It was eery. Actor on the couch used to claim that he was a lizard creature in disguise which I honestly had a hard time disputing.

Then he would pour enough hotsauce on the omelette to make my eyes water and sting from 10 feet away. I used to ask him why he put so much hotsauce on his eggs and he said, "Because I really like hotsauce."

Well said my friend. Well said.

Of course he also gave the exact same line of reasoning for why he poured hotsauce on all variety of foods like pizza and rice. He used to stress, "I like my food very hot." And then he would eat it very very slowly and if the tv was on he would stare intently at it like it contained the mysteries of the universe.

Actor on the couch used to try to break him out of his revelry and ask him questions while he was eating and watching tv. This was always a bad idea because Super Christian could not eat his omelette, watch tv, and then listen to you or your question if the world depended on it. Then they would argue for at least 15 or 20 minutes and I would go in my room and quietly try to pretend that none of this was happening and remind myself that this was what I moved to New York for.

Then for the rest of the night Super Christian would play worship music in his room very loudly until he would stop to work on his screenplay which he would only consider submitting to Steven Spielburg.

And now dinner is calling or rather my dad is calling me to dinner. I hope I enjoy it as much as you enjoy Trailor Park Life #3!

oh wait I almost forgot this part

Panel #1: Woof

Panel #2: I love my new dog

Panel #3: ...Who just peed on the floor

Panel #4: Hm.....

Panel #5 Looks like its time to move the couch

Comedy Gold!

Buried Treasure 2: More Treasure

Today is what I in the Ostomy care/ Wound Sufferers community like to call "not one of my better days".

I would describe why but I have a feeling the specifics of anything about my daily life problems are a turn off to my readership.

Perhaps I should link you to pen and ink drawings offsite?

I think I'll elucidate a little bit and say that things have really been flowing today.

Too Vague?

Should I have said that I'm really in the stream of things?

No?

I also want to stress that I'm sure this is in no way related to the extremely authentic Mexican restaurant me and my Dad went to for lunch today because of their advertised 3.99 lunch special which included an out of service toilet, Telemundo and a poor Hispanic family with 3 kids and an overweight mother.

PS. I'm now the mayor of this place on Foursquare.

Well regardless Ive been in mild pain and discomfort for most of the day and it has also made me a bit tired, so tired in fact that I haven't even been able to work up any enthusiasm for todays blog post which mainly consists of me ranting vaguely and is a thinly veiled excuse to put up Trailor Park Life #2

So without any further ado I'd like to present Trailor Park Life #2

....

Oh Wait.

It's right at the top of the blog isn't it?

Ok I didn't really forget, I was just short on jokes today.

I can't even read this cartoon while I'm writing it so I'm sure you wont be able to without this handy guide

Panel #1 - This Place is kind of dull

Panel #2 - I think I'll redecorate

Panel #3 - arrows pointing to bottom of trailor indicating that cement blocks have been replaced with wheels

Panel #4 - Sigh (to indicate boredom)

Panel #5 - What time does Matlock come on?

Whooo greatest cartoon ever.

See you tomorrow!

Finding Buried Treasure.

Ever since my accident (and yes it was an accident, it wasn't a happening, or an instance, or a happenstance, or an unfortunate circumstance, or even a series of unfortunate events) people are always asking me

"So Like How are you Doing?"

And I try not to be glib and say something like "Well you know pretty good, I'm standing here and talking to you right, how bad could I be?

No one would know how to handle it if I was glib or semi-serious about dealing with my near death circumstances even though that's how I usually am about everything. In other words, if I seem to be joking or only half serious to you, then I am probably doing fine.

It reminds me of an old Seinfeld routine where he was explaining how men think to women, he was like "Go Ahead. Guess what I'm thinking about right now."

"Nothing"

To wit, what am I worried about right now? Nothing

I do kinda feel like I'm in purgatory right now though.

At this moment, I really couldn't tell you what day it is, although I'm convinced it's either Tuesday or Wednesday but I am not sure which. I'm leaning towards Wednesday.

But If you really wanna know what I am doing before I started writing this blog, then I'll tell you. I'm cleaning the thrown together mess called my room wherein all my stuff from New York was stacked and piled everywhere.

In doing so, I found some old comic strips I used to make. It's called Trailor Park Life. Yes, there are 5 episodes and yes I will be posting them on my blog, and yes they will go up on facebook the day after my blog is updated.

If you're having trouble reading it I'm providing a translation:

First Panel: Hey, the Pizza Came in.

Second Panel: Oops it fell on the floor.

Third Panel: Is that a cockroach?

Fourth Panel: C-R-U-N-C-H-

Fifth Panel - Yum!

Thus concludes Trailor Park Life #1 I hope you have enjoyed it, because there are four more installments coming.

The Weekender

Guys I just feel like its getting too heavy out there and I'm not just saying that because of that superhero behind me. It's the way Im feeling and I wanted to tell you guys that.

Ive been encouraged all day and all week and I wanted to express that adequately in my blog but all of a sudden my left arm is getting sore and my back is complaining to me and im growing tired and i need to change my bandages.

Ouch!

PS the picture above is me and a charismatic young man nicknamed "C-Lite"

Im telling you guys. I so want to rip into the truth right now and let it flow out of my fingers but I just cant do it yet.

I still can't focus like I want to and really get on it and write something to move people, to change them, to inspire them like I feel right now.

I feel like every day I'm alive is a gift and looking at life's little challenges as anything but compared to certain death creates quite the confusing sentence and illustrates the jumble that is my physical body.

Anyway guys, I'm still healing, my wound is still there, but eventually it'll heal up. I sure hope it's soon.

In the meantime I'm just enjoying fellowshipping with other people and trying to make the most of every moment.

It really helps to be with friends and to just get out of the house and to feel alive.

I honestly came home and wanted to write something great and to me this just isn't it.

I'm going to beat this thing guys and every day isn't great yet. I still have some bad days and I wake up several times a night to drink more water or empty my ostomy bag.

And its gonna be like 3 months probably before im as healed as im gonna be but I'm just not worried at all about what's to come.

There's bigger things than me to worry about. Look at Egypt, Libya, Yemen. People are crying out all over for freedom. And me? I just want to get my life back together.

Don't take things so hard people. Love one another is what I'm saying. It's just not worth it otherwise.

Wish I could do something great like this, but I'm a little constrained right now, so look out when I get it together again...literally.