Kurt

He's tall, but he hopes to achieve more in life than just that.

SUNSHINE ON A RAINY DAY

by

I may occasionally write the crap, but rarely do I read it.

Poetry, that is.

And it is not because I don’t like poetry that I rarely read it, it’s because poetry, the really good stuff anyway, is so damn hard to read.

And it is so hard to read (And by “read” I mean really digging into the poem and fighting through the initial confusion and the complicated and often archaic words and trying to close the gap in time from when the poem was written to when the poem is being read by learning more about the poet and where and when and why and how he or she is from and lived and then coming to my own understanding of what I think the poem means and then trying to apply that meaning to my own life and where and when and why and how I live it. That’s what I mean by “read.”) because it takes more than a little bit of effort to read it.

I certainly don’t have time for all that nonsense.

Well, maybe I do have the time seeing that I am now diseased and disabled, broken down, reluctantly pushed over to the shoulder so I do not impede the healthy traffic flow, stranded, desperately waiting while my hazard lights blink on and off until, finally, my battery drains and dies.

I know, I know. I’m pathetic.

But yeah, I guess I do have the time, so I cannot blame my not reading much poetry on that.

Perhaps I don’t read that much poetry, then, because I just don’t have the stones for it.

Perhaps I am just not manly enough for it.

It’s funny how we, and by we I mostly mean men, especially men of the “Manly Men” variety, often regard poetry as being light and fluffy, and that if we read it too often it will make our wrists go limp so therefore it shall forever be shunned and looked down upon and laughed at by us.

Well, maybe not any longer, and maybe I never really was, but I like to think that at least there used to be a time, well before my disease(s), when I could have been considered as a “Manly Man,” even though I loved poetry. Consequently, while I now disavow most of the qualities “Manly Men” embody…at least publicly, anyway, I feel I speak with some authority on this “Manly Men” and all its rugged-individualism-FOLLOW-ME!-while-I-lead-you-helpless-followers-once-more-to-the-beach…er, I mean…once-more-into-the-breach-my-friends-just like-a-man-should thing.

Sure, there are many poems out there that are light and fluffy and that, strangely enough, tend to loosen up our wrists a bit when we read them. Nothing wrong with that at all since I consider some of that sort of poetry to be of the really good stuff.

But it seems that most of the poems that I regard to be of the really good stuff, are less of the light and fluffy sort and more of the dense and thickly tangled sort.

The really good stuff of poetry is dense (Profound) and thickly tangled (Complex), not just for Profundity’s and Complexity’s sake (Although, we all know that there are certainly many poems that are written just for the sake of trying to be profound and complex and nothing else—those poems, and poets who write them, are to be quickly forgotten and discarded. (Before you forget me, please remember me well.)), they are dense and thickly tangled because most of them are about the Essence of Life, and the essence of life is, of course—at least the aspects of life that seem to leave the biggest impact and impression on us—completely Profound and utterly Complex.

And when we do take the time and make the effort to read them and to come to our own understanding of them, we find that their profundity and complexity are so equally heavy and deep and full of impact that we are launched right into the Heart of the Void…

Ala (and this cliche of an illustration of being launched right into the Heart of the Void is used only to help you “Manly Men” best understand and relate) a Middle Linebacker barreling into an unsuspecting Wide Receiver who has bravely(?), no, innocently(?), well…, ignorantly(?), yes, ignorantly, at a minimum, strayed across the treacherously well-protected middle of the playing field.

KaPOW!

After releasing a collective Gasp!, a hush falls over the stadium as the unsuspecting Wide Receiver’s helmet rolls empty across the field.

And then it becomes even quieter as the crowd strains to see the unsuspecting Wide Receiver through the huddle of concerned footballers huddling around him as he lies limp on the field.

And then it becomes completely silent as everyone realizes that the unsuspecting Wide Receiver is no longer with them and that he has just been launched somewhere unknown to them, somewhere deep within the Heart of the Void, perhaps.

And, without having to say a word about it, the somber, quiet crowd would all agree in respectful silence, that the impact of the barreling Middle Linebacker on the unsuspecting Wide Receiver received was a little more than incidental contact.

Like football, poetry of the good stuff is a collision sport.

And to me, that makes it pretty Manly.

Heck, come to think of it, it makes it even more manly than just Manly.

In its complete Profundity and Complexity, poetry of the good stuff is so tough and hard hitting and so thoroughly encompasses and expresses the Beauty and Essence of Life that it seems even …Womanly.

Can’t get much more manly than that.

Maybe that is why some of us men try to make light of poetry and tend to ignore it.

Because we fear that which we cannot, or chose not to, understand.

Therefore, in fear, we shy clear of it, while scoffing at it to mask our fear.

So, knowing that the good stuff of poetry is so dense and tangled and difficult to understand and threatening to us, I offer you a poem of mine that is not of the good stuff and that is not difficult to understand and is of no threat to you whatsoever:

Sunshine on a rainy day

Sunshine on a rainy day
especially those without rainbows
(because rainbows have become so, well, Hollywood)
tends to turn my soul around
not in the melodramatic (Hollywood) sense
but in the universe-has-no-end sense
the sense that
I am not just another person moving and shifting within a plastic world
but instead a force among other forces that are equally important and
like the universe
without end

~~~~

More poetry that is not of the good stuff can be found in my poetry collection POEMS FROM THE RIVER

It’s FTW! Because We Love to Win! – part 1

by

First off, for all of you losers out there, it’s FTW!, not FSP!

And for all you dinosaurs out there who have no clue, FTW! is not a dyslexic acronym for WTF?, it stands for “For the Win!”

We winners tend to use it often.

And if you do not know what WTF? stands for my response to you is “W! T! F! Over!”

Come on man! or woman! Get with it. WTF? stands for What The…ah forget it. I’m not even gonna try. Heck, I’m not even gonna recommend that you try to “google it” or, in your out-of-date-case, that you try to “Ask Jeeves it” or try to “Dogpile it.” Because if you don’t know what WTF? stands for by now then you are such an outdated dinosaur that you had just better wait until one of the three people left working on your dismal local print newspaper gets around to writing a profile on it in the “What’s New!” section.

Then you’ll know for sure what it means.

But first you just hang on and around and wait for it.

Wow. Print newspapers.

Now there is a real winner of an industry.

It used to be, perhaps.

But not anymore.

Minus all you dinosaurs out there, when was the last time the rest of you read a print newspaper?

For more than a few of you, I’m sure, the answer is never.

Because as soon as this internet thing came along, which, in the grand scheme of things, really isn’t too long ago, the print newspaper industry began to fold like an origami crane.

I bet you thought I was gonna say fold like a newspaper, right?

You’re so predictable.

But back to winners.

I like the internet. It’s a winner.

And since the newspaper is no longer a winner, then I no longer like it and I will no longer associate myself with it.

Because I only like winners.

So what about FSP!, you ask.

Any guesses?

Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to know what that one stands for because as far as I know it is a Kurt original.

But hey, aren’t they all?

All of the good ones, at least.

I’ll blame all the bad ones on some loser.

FSP! is a good one, though, and it stands for “For Second Place!”

Told ya it was good.

So, if I were to unacronymize what I said in the first sentence of this article and write it all out it would be:

“First off, for all you losers out there, it’s For the Win!, not For Second Place!”

It’s FTW! and not FSP! because Americans only love winners, don’t they?

I mean, we!

Americans only love winners, don’t we?!

That’s what I meant to say.

Honest.

Too late. I am sure one or two of my three regular readers, one of whom is me, is saying right about now, “See! There he goes again! There. He. Goes., talking about America as if he isn’t proud of it and of Americans as if he, himself (I never really understood why we do all that “I, myself” and “you, yourself” and you, yourselves” and “he, himself” and “she, sheself” (huh?) and “we, ourselves” over pronoun-cification of stuff. Who else would this one or two of my three regular readers be redundantly referring to when she (For some reason, in my mind I imagine (Duh, where else would one imagine if not in his or her mind?) that this one or two of my three regular readers I am referring to is a she. You can imagine this one or two of my three regular readers I am referring to to be whomever you want him or her to be, but to me, I imagine this one or two of my three regular readers, one of whom is me let us not forget, who I am referring to to be a stereotypically white, coming-to-us-(at us?)-live-from-smack-dab-in-the-middle-Middle-America, more-or-less-than-middle-class, less-or-more-than-middle-aged, and significantly-more-than-average-(Since I am getting ready to say the word “weighted” next, and since the words “middle” and “average” mean about the same thing, at least in this instance anyway, I guess I could have used the word “middle” again instead of the word “average” so that I could have continued with the annoying parallelism that I had going on; but, to me, “middle-weighted” sounds a bit too forced, even for such a forced parallelism such as the one I had going on. “Average-weighted” just sounds a bit more natural, don’t you think? Do you think? Besides, if I had used “middle” instead of “average,” then I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to include this, yet another, annoying parenthetical expression that I intentionally, yet ever so smoothly, included for you to stumble over just so I can keep you confused and uncertain as to exactly what my stance on anything really is, because, let’s face it, it is much safer for me to straddle the proverbial fence than it is to actually declare forthright and for sure what I truly believe in. Accountability can be such a bitch. Oh, and I also do it, all these blasted parenthetical expressions, that is, so I can see exactly just how far I can go with this shtick of mine before you finally tell me once and for all to take this shtick and shtick it up my logistical shoot for shooting waste and other matters such as BS like this blog post. But that’s all it is, right? All this BS is nothing more than a shtick, which I am sure most of you are all ready aware. But, shtick or no shtick, I bet some of you out there, at least those of you who think of yourselves as Winners!, will, in your over-compulsive effort to Win!, probably read and re-read this section in an over-compulsive effort to find a forgotten or misplaced or out of character closing parentheses or dash (not hyphen, no no, not hyphen) or hyphen or missing comma or dangling participle or some other kind of point-keeping whatnot method so that you can say while pointing your finger like a jack hammer right at the spot on your monitor where you found the error(s) of my way(s), so to speak, that you are referring to, “Ha! Looky here, Brindley! Looky right exactly here at your mistake(s), you pompous dumbass!” and then proudly declare yourself a Winner! and properly declare me a Loser! (As implausible as it may sound, it is plausible, though highly unlikely, that there is at least one little bastard-of-an-error in here that even I may have overlooked. So all of you annoying pain in the ass nitpickers, do your thing and find it for me; and if you do find it, and I know you will, let me know, and I know you will. Because the Lord of lords and even you knows, and soon so will you if you don’t all ready, the only thing that I hate more than an annoying nitpicker constantly hounding for and finding and resolutely declaring over and over again the error(s) of my way(s), is knowing that my ways are errored and not knowing how to fix them.) Well, I’m pretty sure someone might do that. I know I would. Heck, I do that even when reading cereal boxes or pill prescriptions or condolence cards so why wouldn’t I do it when reading someone’s blog? And if you are one of those losers who are too nice to go around trying to nitpick other people’s writing mistakes, let alone their many other misfortunes besides their miserable writing, then let me tell you you really should try it because it feels sooo good whenever I do find someone else’s mistake, even if they only happen to be anonymous ones found on cereal boxes or pill prescriptions. But oh, if I were to find a mistake on something I can identify the mistakee with, like on a condolence card, say, then, without any doubt in my former military mind, whoever that mistaken mistakee is, he…sigh…or she…will surely hear from a surly me about it. The pure joy and bliss I feel when finding someone else’s mistake must certainly mean that my endless pursuit to help others less fortunate than me—i.e., (or is it e.g.?) losers—achieve perfection are ordained by God, Himself… Damn it! I did it again! Strike that useless and redundant goddamn Himself, regardless of how High and Mighty It might be, and just leave it at plain and simple God!) weighted—and I imagine (and by imagine, here, strangely enough, I don’t mean imagine at all but instead I mean “I believe,” even though all the while I am talking about a make believe, imaginary person (English is sooo confusing)) that America’s average weight must all ready start out much heavier than most countries’ above-average weights do, especially all those rice-eatin’ Asian ones that have not yet been attacked by us. And by us I mean McDonalds, which is, of course, the same thing as saying America. So, for all of my foreign readers, that means that even the average, or middle, take your pick, American weight is really frikkin unaveragely high by your standards, I imagine (And yes, by imagine I once again mean “I really believe it to be so.”).—she.) says “he?” Don’t we understand who the “he” is that she is referring to? Does she really also need to include the “himself?” Are we really that confused (to put it politely) as readers? It’s not as if there are an overwhelming amount of potential antecedents in this blather to choose from to begin with. By my count there is only YOU (and I sincerely do thank you for being here, BTW (Don’t you even dare ask what BTW means.)), an occasional WE, our one or two of three regular readers who I refer to as my IMAGINARY SHE (She, at least in my mind. Like I said, you have the freedom to chose any gender or trans-gender or sex or trans-sex (And just what the heck is the difference anyway between gender and sex?) or whatever or whomever you choose to use in your own imagination.), and ME, AKA KURT, AKA BRINDLEY, AKA KURT BRINDLEY. That’s it! …Sheesh! Keep it simple lady, will ya. Why make things more difficult than they have to be? Right?), isn’t one of them.”

Well…in my defense, I did all ready say that I do I only like winners, didn’t I?

And right now, the outlook for America is a little iffy, at best.

So, maybe deep down I do mean to say they instead of we.

And if I did mean to say it deep down, would you like to know why I meant to say it?

That’s right, you got it.

Because I am American and as an American, I love to win.

Nothing wrong with that.

Winning, that is.

But depending on how things turn out, there just may be end up being something wrong with America; specifically, that it is no longer a winner, or even considered a winner, which may make it hard for us winners to continue to align ourselves with it.

But as far as winning in general is concerned, I’m all for it.

If you ask me, and even if you don’t I’m gonna tell you anyway…

‘Cause I am certainly here to tell ya…

That second place blows!

To me, if you come in second place then you ain’t nothing but a First Place Loser!

You can take all of your Second Place Trophies, and your Silver Medals, and any other award that is not plated in anything but pure, honest to goodness—because being first and being a winner feels so good and honest—Gold and shove them all up your lame, loser-of-a-logistical-shoot-for-shooting-waste and keep them there!

And right along with them, you can also shove right up in your lame, loser-of-a-logistical-shoot-for-shooting-waste-and-other-matters-and-by-other-matters-I-mean-BS, all of the loser enablers who, because they are such losers themselves, want to convince everyone, especially our youth, that it’s okay to come in second place (and by coming in second place you now know I really mean losing), and that it’s okay that not everyone can be a winner so don’t worry if you aren’t one either, okay. Because everything is just A-OK!, okay?

Ugh!

No! It’s not okay!

It’s okay to want to win.

And it’s okay to know that everyone cannot win at everything.

Those are okay things to know.

But it is not okay to think it’s okay to accept losing just because everyone cannot possibly win at everything.

Okay?

You know what?

Show me a good loser and I’ll show you…

A LOSER!

So, while you are shoving all of that other loser stuff up your lame, loser-of-a-logistical-shoot-for-shooting-waste-and-other-matters-and-by-other-matters-I-mean-BS, make sure you especially shove up there, and shove them especially high and especially hard up there, all of those god damn demoralizing and anti-American “Thank you for Participating Even Though You Lost” trophies that are so ubiquitously and harmfully handed out to every kid, and his brother, and his sister, and uncle’s cousin to boot, who we parents who only want to see that little sparkle in our eye just have fun and just be happy no matter what just so we slap them with each and every over-sized sporting and scouting uniform there is to slap on that little sparkle in that blurry eye of ours.

Big sigh…

God I hate to lose.

And I especially hate it when my sports teams lose.

If you have read my blog’s About page, you may remember that, since I am from the Cleveland, Ohio area, being a sports fan has always been very, very frustrating for me all throughout my entire, and by entire I mean from the very second I was born until now. And we can keep repeating that “now” from now until the day that a professional Cleveland sports team finally, and I mean FINALLY, wins the title of champion, which is an even better way of saying winner, in their respective sport.

Yup. I’m a frustrated sports fan, that I am.

And, unfortunately for me and all of the other nutjobs like me who refuse to realign themselves with any professional sports teams (teams that more than likely have won at least one championship in my lifetime) other than a Cleveland professional sports team (You might just be surprised just how many of us nutjobs there are like that.), we will probably remain frustrated for a long while to come.

And it is all because of all the losing that I had to suffer through the other day (Both my professional baseball team AND the TEAM USA women’s soccer team lost yesterday. Usually I could really care less about either one of them because I am not all that much into baseball, but Cleveland happened to be playing Baltimore yesterday and ever since Baltimore stole the professional football (Unlike baseball, I really do like watching football, even if it is not post-season play.) team from Cleveland, I despise all things that relate to Baltimore as far as sports are concerned. In fact, I even refer to the fans who root for Baltimore teams, regardless of where they are from (Just ask my buddy not-from-Baltimore-but-one-of-the-biggest -Baltimorons-there-is-Bob.) as Baltimorons, that’s how much I despise Baltimore sports teams. So, that’s why I was especially interested in the outcome of yesterday’s baseball game. And that is why it hurt so much when I found out via tweet from another “friend,” who is from the loser Detroit area and who is a fan of loser Detroit teams but at least he hasn’t yet sold out on them to become a Baltimoron as far as I know but regardless of what team he is backing I am quite certain he enjoyed telling me, that Cleveland had lost to the Baltimorons. And as for women’s soccer, I apologize women, but, overall, I am a nominal men’s sports fan at best so you can probably imagine how I feel about any sport that has the classifier of women in front of it. Nope. Doesn’t have much of a chance with me. (Nothing against Title 9, but it just doesn’t quite do it for me like a sexy Title 10 or Title 50 does. And it’s not that Title 9 reminds of all those damn Participation Trophies, or anything like that. No, it’s not at all like it’s a let’s-Divide-and-Conquer-our-limited-and-dwindlingrightbeforeoureyes-tax-dollars-so-that-everyone-can-play-but-we-all-end-up-losing-instead kinda thing. No, it’s not like that one bit, either. Nope, nothing wrong with Title 9 by me, that’s for sure…but I may have overheard some other men complain about it once or twice at the local sports bar. Maybe.) Unless, of course, they are a women’s sport team that represents America and especially if they are a women’s sports team that is going for the ultimate win in the sport they are playing, ala the other day when TEAM USA women’s soccer team was competing again TEAM JAPAN (Their women’s team, as well, I suppose, but I cannot confirm but I didn’t even watch the game.) (And I apologize, Japan, if that is not how you refer to your team, but that’s how we Americans do it over here.) to become the World Cup Champions (Wow! Is there any better way to say winner than that?), then, and possibly only then, will I be really and truly interested in women’s sports. And of course, with all of my interest highly engaged in the hopes that both of my teams would win the other day, they both ultimately, and without a doubt, lost. Frikkin’ losers!) that brings us both here, bathing uncomfortably together in this overflowing rabid froth of a blog post of mine.

Big sigh…

In Defense of the American Way of Life

by

I spent twenty years and four days as an enlisted swine sailor in the navy. That’s twenty years and four days of living on the government dole. If you think about it, that’s exactly what happens after someone joins the United States military, they get to live on the dole.

To get on the dole, however, I did have to promise my government that I would give it my life for it to use of and/or dispose of as it required or so desired. But fortunately for me, a good chunk of my service was during the happy-go-lucky Clinton years so I never really had to worry much about that unwritten but very much binding “dying in defense of freedom” clause in my contract.

For most of that twenty years and four days I was just like every other American rat who had to get up every morning to compete against all the others in the race.

Except that I had to wear a goofy-looking racing uniform while doing so.

Seriously, ever see those horrific bell bottoms on the old dungaree uniforms that we sailors used to have to wear? And those cursed “Cracker Jack” sailor suits weren’t much better either, let me tell ya.

Sheesh…the fact that we were willing to die for our country was never so impressive to me as was the fact that so many of us were willing to wear those embarrassing uniforms while doing so.

But just like so many other unavoidable indignities one must suffer throughout one’s life, one learns to accept it, or at least try to numb oneself somehow from the sting of it, and move on.

It sure was hard for me to accept the indignity of those ridiculous uniforms though, that’s for sure.

You know what? I bet I can guess what some of you are thinking right now.

I bet some of you are thinking: “True Americans are fighting and dying in defense of our country right now and this bozo is making fun of the uniform they so proudly wear.”

Listen, if that’s what you are thinking, and I am pretty sure some of you are, and it hurts your feelings, I apologize.

It was not my intent to cause pain to your sensitivities.

However…

Aren’t those True Americans who are fighting and dying in defense of our country right now doing so so that I could do exactly just that?

Well, perhaps they are not fighting and dying specifically so that I can cause pain to your sensitivities, but I certainly believe they are doing so to provide me the protection and guarantee and freedom to say whatever it is I feel I need or want to say as I strive to live and abide by the American Way of Life, which, in my view, happens to encompass MY pursuit of Happiness.

I do sincerely believe that and I am sincerely very thankful for their sacrifice.

And I pray that there will always be those who will willingly and courageously volunteer to fight, and even perhaps, sadly, sacrifice their own life, just so I can continue on with my own selfish and never-ending-till-I-die pursuit of Happiness.

Writing and saying what’s on my mind makes me Happy, that’s why I pursue it the way I do.

But I suppose that what I write or say doesn’t always make you Happy.

Sometimes, like right now, maybe, I say things with a specific intent in mind, which is, regardless of what I say, for me to always end up sounding like I am funny and smart. But instead of me ending up sounding funny and/or smart, the actual impact of what I say usually ends up with me sounding like the misinformed dork that I really am.

And even worse than me just ending up harmlessly sounding like the misinformed dork that I really am, I suspect that far too often the impact of what I say ends up so far off the mark from my intent that I unintentionally end up sounding like some offensive and inappropriate jackass.

When that happens, what I say just might end up hurting someone.

I hope that what I have to say doesn’t unintentionally hurt too often.

But then again, sometimes that may just be my intention.

That is, in addition to always trying to make myself sound funny and smart, sometimes my intent also might be to intentionally sound like some offensive and inappropriate jackass.

That’s because sometimes it takes a real jackass with enough oomph in his hindquarters to kick hard enough to make a point truly stick.

And unfortunately, whenever we do get stuck with a point, it tends to hurt for a bit.

Just to be clear, though, I cannot ever imagine a scenario where my intent would be for me to end up sounding like the misinformed dork that I really am.

That happens far too often enough without it ever being my intention.

But, that’s not really my problem, is it?

I really have no way of determining how what I say ends up impacting you.

For that I assume no responsibility or blame.

I just write the crap.

How it ends up sounding in your head after your brain interprets it is all on you.

I hope the intent of my words always matches the impact they have on your brain.

But I cannot guarantee they will.

And when they don’t, and especially if it causes pain to your sensitivities and causes you to think what an offensive and inappropriate jackass I am, please remember one thing.

And I say this understanding that I may end up sounding both like an uninformed dork and some offensive and inappropriate jackass…

Please remember that this blog was created and is maintained by me primarily as a resource for MY Happiness, not necessarily yours.

And like “True Americans” will sometimes say in defense of their American Way of Life, I say in defense of my blog:

“If you don’t like it, you can leave it.”

But really, I hope you don’t leave if I become too offensive and inappropriate for you.

And I hope you don’t leave if you become too offensive and inappropriate for me.

I like having you here to talk to.

Having you here, regardless of where you are from, or what your “Way of Life” or “way of life” or “WAYS OF LIFE” might be, provides me with much of the Happiness I so fervently pursue.

Besides, if you think what I DO or WILL say is offensive and inappropriate, just imagine some of the things that go through this troubled mind of mine that I DON’T or WON’T say.

I shudder to think.

Thank god for the delete button that’s all I gotta say, because so many of those offensive and inappropriate bastards of thought that float around in my mind often get just this close (use your imagination here to visualize me holding my hand in front of your face and pinching my pointer finger and thumb together so tightly that my hand shakes from it as I illustrate exactly what I mean by “just this close”) to being shouted out loud at the top of my scarred and deteriorating lungs.

And by just this close to being shouted out loud at the top of my scarred and deteriorating lungs I mean that sometimes this irrational world that we are living in drives me so bonkers that I can barely refrain myself from publishing those offensive and inappropriate bastards of thought that are floating around in this troubled mind of mine here on my blog and then tweeting and bleating and blasting them out to the twitterverse and then linking and posting and liking them like a mad crazy fool to Facebook and then finding other ways—Ah hell yeah!…google+—to shove them into your self-righteously offended and offensive face but, just because those thoughts barely strayed over that very thin and swaying line in my mind which I consider to be the boundary for good taste, I refrain myself and say nothing about them at all.

You have absolutely no idea what you are missing out on.

But enough of all that patriotic nonsense.

Back to my “on the government dole” point.

It always struck me as completely ironic (and if I think about it too hard it verges on the sardonically so) how so many Americans join the military to defend the American “Way of Life,” and, as a reward for their patriotism and service, they are provided for by the American government and funded by the American tax payer with a “way of life” that is so completely different and diametrically opposed to the “Way of Life” they gave up to defend.

Once someone joins the military, their new “way of life” becomes part of one of the most successfully socialist ways of life that has ever existed on this irrational planet of ours.

Now, the way I see it, the American “Way of Life” encompasses much and means different things to different folks, but I think all Americans can agree that this “Way of Life” certainly encompasses that democratic republic mashup system of government that so many Americans do not understand yet so many righteously trumpet, as well as a pretty hardcore capitalistic economic system, that, again, so many Americans do not really understand, but most are certainly beholden to.

Nothing wrong with that at all.

I’m all for the American Way of Life.

Hope you are all for it too, especially if you consider yourself an American.

And if you consider yourself a “True American,” well…

Well…I prefer to not even consider what the “True Americans” are all for in this, or any, regard, to be honest with you.

Besides, they will certainly tell us what they are all for anyway without the least bit of consideration at all.

But sometimes, especially when I really think hard about it, it makes me SMH in amazement that those who will so willingly sacrifice their life in defense of the American “Way of Life” have to live their “way of life” in a such heavily, if not completely, subsidized, socialistic, anti-American “Way of Life” manner. (BTW, for all you dinosaurs out there, SMH = shake my head. You can figure out the BTW for yourself.)

These potential military heroes are provided for with a completely free and well-maintained “gated” community if they live on base. If they choose to or are required to live off base, then their housing costs are subsidized. Their medical costs are completely paid for if they are seen by an on-base medical facility and, again, these costs are heavily subsidized if they are seen by an off-base medical facility.

And similar to the way of life in most anti-American “Way of Life,” socialist societies, the “way of life” in the American military includes serious restrictions on its service members’ freedom of expression and speech, restrictions that Americans who have never served in the military could never understand or imagine as they Happily and freely enjoy their own unique, and, quite honestly, sometimes a little weird and occasionally even a little creepy, American Way of Life.

I have several more “Way of Life” versus “way of life” examples, but I think you get the point:

A socialist “way of life” for those who volunteer to defend the Democratic Republic and Hardcore Capitalistic American “Way of Life.”

Again, nothing wrong with that.

Just a little ironic, wouldn’t you agree?

Besides, I’m all for providing anyone who willingly and courageously volunteers to defend the American Way of Life, regardless of how one defines it, with a decent and honorable way of life, American, socialistic, or otherwise.

America better provide their courageous volunteers and potential heroes with at least that because it sure as hell pays them like crap.

Believe me, after spending twenty years and four days as an enlisted swine sailor, I know exactly how crappy American service members are paid.

*

As I think and I write about all of this BS, all of the this Way of Life BS and all of the that way of life BS, and all of the goofy-looking uniform BS, and all of my pretentious and pedantic intent versus impact BS, I am being completely overwhelmed and thoroughly embarrassed by the ridiculous politics and even more ridiculous politicians behind the budget crisis that seemingly has the potential to rip the American Way of Life, regardless of how one defines it, to shreds.

That, to me, is wholly indefensible.

About a Fanboy

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I am fortunate to have many interests and loves in my life.

One of them is Music.

I love music like it’s nobody’s business.

At least that’s what it says on my About page, anyway.

And it’s true. I love all kinds of music. I especially love Rock music—particularly of the Indie variety—and Bluegrass music—particularly of the Traditional variety—and Classical music—particularly of the Baroque variety—and Rap music—particularly of the Gangster variety. I prefer my music new as opposed to old and live as opposed to recorded. And I’m always a sucker for musical street performers—anyone who has the stones to put themselves out there in front of the unsuspecting and merciless public like that, regardless of what they are playing, regardless of how good or bad it sounds, will always get a grateful round of applause and a sympathetic buck or two out of me.

But when it comes down to it, I’m not really that picky at all about my music. In fact, I regard my relationship to music just as I do my relationship to food: It is absolutely critical for my survival and, if I am given the choice, I will always choose that which pleases my palate the most; however, when I don’t have the choice, I will thankfully eat whatever is on my plate and I will often ask for seconds.

In regards to music, my eyes are rarely, if ever, bigger than my stomach.

*

I have a decade or so worth of pleasant memories from my early youth of cheesy Top 40 Seventies music playing (streaming?) constantly on my family’s kitchen radio. The station on the dial back then was always on an AM station (the early Seventies was in the pre-FM era don’t forget) called CKLW, which was broadcast all the way out of Windsor Ontario, Canada.

That’s right, I said Canada. For those of you younguns who know nothing about the power of the AM signal and its history in shaping America’s musical soul, you might want to take the time to learn a little bit about it.

While an AM signal may be powerful, if you’re picking it up after it has skipped and reflected and refracted its way over long distances, like say from Canada across Lake Erie to Ashtabula Ohio, it sometimes—okay, it mostly—tunes in a little garbled sounding, a little shaky sounding, a little like these-crazy-Canadian-DJs-warble-like-they’re-aliens-from-outer-space sounding.

However, to me, that was part of its appeal.

It was pretty cool as a kid to listen to a radio station beaming in from a foreign country, crappy signal and all. It was as if I was the Repressed Underaged Dissident secretly tuning in to Radio Free Canada to listen for the songs with the secret instructive codes as I worked to fight and overthrow the Repressive Parental Establishment.

Okay…you’re right…as a kid I didn’t think about that kind of stuff at all.

That was just me as an adult projecting a somewhat skewed romantic idealism back on my very normal youth. It was more like that was the only station there was to listen to so that’s what we listened to. No romance there but when that’s all you got, then that’s all you know, and that’s all you expect, so I was perfectly content with the quality of the sound that I was listening to at the time.

I still can hear the station’s jingle as clear as ever (or as clear as an AM radio signal can be): “C-K-L-W, The Motor Cit-eeee…”

And let’s not forget those goofball schticky commercials they used to play: “…that Merollis what a great great guuuy!”

Good times.

But I guess you had to be there to understand.

*

Listening to crazy silly Top 40 Seventies music non-stop between the ages of five and thirteen (I was 13 in 1978 and, if I remember correctly, 1978 was about the time that FM radio and a station called K104 out of Erie PA entered my life) had to have done some kind of permanent brain damage, no?

Yes, I suspect it was those crazy silly Top 40 Seventies songs pouring non-stop out of that tin-can-sounding kitchen radio that set the foundation for my love of music.

And I also suspect it was my mother.

My mother was always singing songs of her generation—partial clips of songs from Bobby Vinton – “Roses are red my love, violets are blue…” or Frankie Valli – “Dawn, go away I’m no good for you…” or Neil Sedaka – “They say that breaking up is hard to do…” or many other singers of the Golden Oldies era whose songs are forever embedded in my brain.

And she liked to listen to the radio and sing along and dance and happily shuffle and scoot around the kitchen as she cooked and cleaned.

When she sang along with the contemporary songs on the radio, she always would get the lyrics wrong and it would always drive my sisters and me crazy.

But in a good way.

I have to laugh now because I am completely guilty of driving my kids crazy for the same kind of reasons.

What is it about parents that make us so embarrassing to our children?

Speaking of embarrassing your children, not only did my mother like to dance around the kitchen by herself, she also liked to far too frequently haul me out onto the living room dance floor to dance the jitterbug with her. In retrospect, I suppose I actually enjoyed it…at least up until I hit puberty and transformed into one of those unbearable passive aggressive teenage turds. But by that time, the damage had been done: I was well on my way to becoming a music junkie.

And speaking of dancing, ask my sisters about our Saturday Night Fever living room dance floor moves.

Awkward.

*

As a teenager, I was pretty agnostic about music. For the most part, whatever was on the radio was good enough for me. But I did collect a few albums that I pretty much wore out, which, I guess, is indicative of where my musical preferences were first defined, and from which they were developed.

The first album I can remember really latching on to was my parents’ eight-track tape of The Beach Boys’ Greatest Hits. That album was an epiphany to me. Little Deuce Coupe, 409, I Get Around, California Girls…pure musical bliss.

As for eight-track tapes—what an unfortunate but necessary period in the evolution of music, I suppose.

In vinyl, my favorites were Queen’s “The Game,” Alice Cooper’s “Billion Dollar Babies,” and Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” albums.

I had many cassette tapes, but my favorites were anything by ACDC with Bon Scott as the lead, especially their “Highway to Hell” album, Van Halen’s self-titled first album, The Cars’ self-titled first album, and Rush’s 2112 and “Moving Pictures” albums.

All very much in the mainstream, I admit; but hey, in my view it doesn’t matter what stream you’re fishin’ your music out of as long as the fishin’ is good.

*

As an adult, many singers have left an impression upon me over the years, but there are three who were able to leave more than just an impression—with their voices and artistry, they were able to weave themselves and their music into the very fabric of my soul. A dorky-clichey thing to say, I know, but true, nonetheless.

The three singers are:

  • Morrissey – the depressingly uplifting androgynous punk pop rock seething soul singer
  • Tom Waits – the harsh-voiced hobo of haunting harmony
  • and, of course, Kurt Cobain – the king of pain…excruciatingly painful and pleasurably addictive pain.

I could have almost just as easily listed Tupac and Beck and several singers who mean so much to me, but it is Morrisey, Waits, and Cobain who have made the biggest musical impact on my life and who most deserve my public recognition and admiration.

I am sure their publicists have called them all ready to let them know the unique and distinctive honor I have just bestowed upon them.

Well, perhaps Kurt has yet to receive the call.

You never know.

Okay, not a very original list, I concede. Probably a good chunk of folks from my generation would come up with the exact same three. However, I don’t so much see that as a knock on my originality as it is an affirmation of their power and influence on a critical, sometimes cynically so, and scarred generation that had to endure the unbelievably bizarre and oftentimes downright embarrassing pop music of both The Seventies (Bay City Rollers anyone?) and The Eighties (A Flock of Seagulls anyone?).

Back in the late eighties and early nineties when I first began listening to Morrissey, Waits, and Cobain, their individual styles were completely unique and their influence was at their greatest (Waits began his career began in the early Seventies as a jazzy cool piano crooner, but it wasn’t until the Eighties and his release of Swordfishtrombones when he began transforming his sound and really began hitting his stride; one could argue that Waits is still just as influential now, if not more, as he has ever been).

It was when I had just recently been promoted to adulthood status and was still learning the ropes of life when I became a devoted fan of each of the three singers. To me, back then, they were the most original mind twisting turning embarrassingly revealing artists I had ever heard.

Their indelible stain on my life is obvious and distinct.

*

My transformation from a passive listener of whatever pop crap corporate America shoved at me on format radio to an active seeker of new and visionary sounds began when I joined the navy in 1983:

– While attending my navy service school in Pensacola Florida, my first roommate, after a long, persuasive campaign, turned me on to such groups as Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, and Yes.

– A lifelong buddy who I met at my first duty station in Washington DC and who I am so thankful to have recently reconnected with online turned me on to the likes of Steely Dan and Supertramp and Led Zeppelin and insisted, and still does I am certain, on nothing but the highest artistic and technical standards in his music.

– But it was while assigned to my second duty station in Kami Seya Japan sometime in 1986 that my musical interests really began to, paradoxically, both broaden and refine. Again, it was another roommate who deserves much of the credit, and who also happened to be a “Cleveland kid” like myself (he understood all of my regional cultural references and even did a great impersonation of those ubiquitously annoying Rick Case commercials–“HI! THIS IS RICK CASE!”). I credit him for turning me on to two out of the three most influential musical acts in my life: The Smiths/Morrisey and Tom Waits. I never was able to be as demanding of my music or its sound as he was—I was and continue to be way too lazy for all that effort. Consequently, he once accused me of having a “barbaric ear” when I told him I couldn’t tell the difference in sound quality between his old stereo and his upgraded and very expensive, new stereo system (I assume I “developed” my barbaric ear by listening to and being content with that wonderfully crappy Canadian AM signal for so many of my formative years). Boy, was that a mistake. I don’t think I ever regained my credibility with him after that. But I definitely did learn to be more musically discerning from him, and for that, I thank him, as I thank all of you who have guided me and instructed me all throughout my musical evolution.

– It was during my last duty station in the navy that another enduring buddy of mine (surprisingly he endures even though he’s from Michigan—Aaaach! Spit!—sorry, had to get that nasty southern canadian taste out of my mouth after saying the “M” word) who, with his deadpan spot-on humor and hilarious outlook on life and (begrudgingly, and somewhat enviously, I admit) deep and broad and understated intellect, was always turning me on to some of that new and good stuff. Among other musical groups and singers, I give him credit and especially thanks for introducing me to a group called Cake (I also “blame” him for addicting me to a couple of my now can’t-live-without-authors, two of whom are David Sedaris and Tom Robbins…but we’ll save that discussion for another day and another overbearingly long and boring article about my literary reminiscences).

*

Since I don’t get around too much anymore and I do not have too many opportunities to make new friends who can expose me to new sounds, I am very fortunate to have such an intelligent and creative and gifted family. It is my wife and three children, each with their own unique tastes and deep love for exceptional music from whatever genre it may be found, who are now my constant goto sources for the new and the different and the good.

It is my wife who has instilled in me a love for all of the finer and refined things in life, and music is no exception. It is from her that I have become a classical music junkie. I can get lost for hours with the headphones on listening to Bach and Vivaldi and Mendelssohn and all of the other universal geniuses whose names I can never remember. And when I am not listening to them in isolation, it soothes me to hear my wife’s stereo, forever fixed on the local NPR Classical Music station, constantly floating out wonderfully timeless melodies into the atmosphere of our home.

And it is from my children’s influence and advice that I have grown to love and depend upon the likes of Bright Eyes and Modest Mouse and Blink 182 and Boxcar Racer and most recently Sun Kil Moon and Jose Gonzalez and I cannot wait to find out what they will turn me on to next.

And if I never discover any new music for the rest of my life, I will alway have my boys’ band The Northcoast to listen and groove to and to be thankful for.

*

Some say that rock is dead.

That is debatable.

But the possibility of discovering that next fresh new sound that will take my life in new directions is not debatable. That possibility will never die, at least not within me.

For it is those kinds of possibilities in life, musical and otherwise, that I live for.

Because I have so many interests and loves in life, life affords me so many possibilities.

Because I have so many possibilities, I have so much to live for.

And, since I have so much to live for, I am very aware of how fortunate I am.

Sure, I have had my share of ups and downs and I will continue to have them, but I have always been a fortunate man.

Just take one look at my beautiful family and my comfortable home and my supportive friends and my interesting work experience and and my enduring educational experiences and my distant travels and even my goofy dogs and so many other things that I call mine and that are priceless to me, and you will see my fortune and you will understand just how fortunate I am.

If you think I am talking about money, then you have yet to build your fortune.

I feel sorry that some people live such unfortunate lives.

If it didn’t make me feel so happy and lucky and, in all honesty, a little cocky, I could almost feel guilty for how fortunate I am and for how good life has always seemed to treat me.

But I feel no guilt because it takes hard work and commitment to build a fortune.

Yet I do feel thankful. Very thankful.

And I am especially thankful that Music is one of the many valuable shares within that vast and forever-inflating fortune called my life.

Yes, I am a fortunate man, indeed.

And yeah, I do love music like it’s nobody’s business…

My New Anthem for Life

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David Grohl
David Grohl

The Foo Fighter’s new song “Walk” friggin’ rocks and, like most inspirational works of art do, it motivates me into action, particularly because some of the lyrics really speak to how I feel about what I have been dealing with this past year and a half and will continue to have to deal with for the rest of my life.

“Learning to walk again…,” lyrics from the song’s chorus, speaks specifically to what I have gone through while dealing with my neuropathy, the side effect from all of the chemo I got juiced up with before and after my bone marrow transplant. Because of the nerve damage, I literally have been learning to walk again, this time with numb, unresponsive lower legs and feet. Not having complete mobility has definitely given me a new perspective on the basic physical dynamics of living and it has taught me to not take anything for granted.

And as I think about it, “Wasting Light,” the title of album that “Walk” is on, also speaks directly to me. To paraphrase what David Grohl, the lead singer of the Foo Fighters, says at the end of “Back and Forth,” the recently released documentary about the history of the band: Grohl wanted to name the album “Wasting Light” because the older he gets the more he appreciates how short our time on earth is and how important it is to live his life as fully as he can within the limited time he is given.

True, so very true.

Dayglo Eyes and a Uniform Surprise

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To celebrate the one-year anniversary of my bone marrow transplant yesterday, the wife and I partied down with my ophthalmologist for my quarterly eye exam. Okay, an eye exam is not much of a party, but since the results were good—my eyeballs are GVHD and infection free—I’ll take the eye exam over a party-hardy party any day.

While the results of the exam were good, it didn’t come without its hassles. The worst part about it, after the hour-and-a-half wait to see the doctor, that is (What is it about doctors that they think they can keep us waiting so long? Don’t they realize that—ah…don’t even get me started about doctor etiquette. We’ll save that rant for another day.), was having my pupils dilated so the doc could check for CMV and other infections and then having them numbed and stained yellow so she could perform a Glaucoma Test.

In addition to being blinded by all of the light my dilated pupils were sucking in, I had yellow fluorescent DayGlo-looking crap leaking out of my eyes all day long. I looked like some squinty, jaundiced-eyed mutant. In fact, couple my yellow fluorescent eyes with my big ol’ pumpkin head and I looked like I could have starred in one of Maurice Sendak’s books.

Speaking of DayGlo, I’m reminded of a time back in my navy days when I was deployed on some ship, I forget which one, and we were manning the rails getting ready to pull into some port, I forget where. Everyone was wearing their summer white uniforms for the occasion.

While everyone was wearing their summer white uniforms, not everyone was manning the rails. Many sailors were still responsible for making sure the ship functioned properly, to include the boatswain’s mates and other “deck apes,” as sailors responsible for the care and maintenance of the ship and other real navy stuff that I don’t really have a clue about are affectionately called.

While most of the crew stood around bored, doing nothing except standing and anxiously waiting to get to the pier so the liberty call fun could begin, the deck apes were preparing mooring lines and anchor chains and doing other dirty and greasy tasks that basically destroyed their lily-white uniforms. Too bad for them.

We have a saying in the navy: “Choose your rate, choose your fate.” They’re the ones who wanted to be a boatswain’s mate, ergo, they’re the ones who get the nasty jobs and uniforms that go with it.

It was an early morning port of call and, as there wasn’t much light to see by, some genius came up with the bright (pun intended) idea to have all the deck apes and other stuckies responsible for getting the ship tied safely to pier carry fluorescent yellow glow sticks in their shirt pockets so they could be seen more easily during the working party evolutions.

I think you can see where this is going.

By the time the ship finally got tied up and all those crazy deck apes got finished heaving and ho-ing and to-ing and fro-ing, most of the glow sticks that were being carried around in their pockets had broken and had leaked everywhere. By everywhere, I’m not just talking about all over the deck apes’ grease-and-dirt-covered summer white uniforms, I’m talking everywhere like all over the deck, all over the superstructure, all over the ropes that extended out to the pier, all over just about everything.

When that ship pulled alongside the pier, she glowed like a fluorescent yellow floating lantern. Too bad we all didn’t have some of the yellow glaucoma testing goop to put in our eyes. Just imagine how that would have looked to all the locals to see a fluorescent glowing warship pull in with the entire crew standing around with mad glowing eyes.

Fluorescent glowing warships and sailors with mad glowing eyes. How about that for a new national defense strategy?

Caffeine Therapy – Update #2

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Moon Face Kurt
I had been feeling pretty crappy the past week or so and my head had swelled up even more than usual. This is what I saw when looking in the mirror.

The tug of war between my leukemia oncologist and my Graft Versus Host Disease oncologist continues. As a reminder, when I met with my attending oncologist on March 24 he kind of got a little excited when he saw how high my liver counts were, since high liver counts are an indication that GVHD is flaring up in the liver. He immediately put a call in to my GVHD oncologist to see if he could get the specialist’s concurrence to either put me on an additional treatment or if he could raise the dosage of my current steroid treatment. The GVHD oncologist has the final say on all things GVHD as they relate to me and he wasn’t too concerned with the high counts, but he did want to see me in a week to see if the counts are trending up.

The wife and I met with the specialist on Friday, April 1, 2011, and I must say, it was one of the most informative consultations we have had during my entire cancer experience. A lot of information, both good and not so good, was passed.

First, the good news:

The best thing about the appointment was that we learned that my liver counts went back down.

From the beginning of my care with the GVHD specialist, which began the first week of November 2010, he has been consistent in focusing on the GVHD in my lungs and less so with the GVHD anywhere else. In fact, he said if it weren’t for the GVHD in my lungs, there would be no reason for me to even be seeing him. But he did say that had my liver counts continued to rise he would have taken pause to perhaps consider additional treatment for liver GVHD.

But, as it is, the counts went back down so all’s good for now. As a comparative, here are the results of my last two blood tests for my liver: (Read: Component, Low Range, High Range, Range Units, March 24 Lab Results, April 1 Lab Results):

DIRECT BILIRUBIN, 0.0, 0.4, mg/dl, 0.3, 0.3

ALKALINE PHOSPHATASE, 30, 120, U/L, 173, 164

ASPARTATE AMINO TRAN, 0, 37, U/L, 100, 70

ALANINE AMINO TRANS, 0, 40, U/L, 263, 184

The doc me that because of all the medication I am on and because my body will be fighting with my new marrow for the rest of my life, I can expect that I will always have some form of GVHD (in addition to my lung GVHD which is incurable and irreversible), be it skin GVHD, liver GVHD, eye GVHD, or others, and that my counts will always fluctuate up and down. According to the specialist, when it comes to reacting to blood counts, the key is looking for trends over time.

When the wife asked him why my attending oncologist wanted to immediately put me on additional treatment of either Cyclosporin or Tacrolimus because of the high liver counts and the GVHD flare ups in my eyes and on my skin, he scoffed and replied that is because my attending oncologist is a leukemia oncologist, implying that he, as both a leukemia oncologist and a GVHD specialist had a deeper understanding of how to manage my treatment. Of course, that is what one would hope from a specialist, but it is funny to see how competitive, and sometimes snarky and rude to each other, these Johns Hopkins doctors can be.

He went on to say that there was no way he would want to put me on either one of the drugs that my attending oncologist recommended because they are both so highly toxic that they would probably end up doing more damage to me than repair. He feels that I am already having to deal with enough toxicity from my current treatment plan.

Which brings us to more good news: We decided to lower my daily Prednisone dosage from 60 to 50 milligrams per day.

If you have never taken predinisone before, lowering the dosage by 10 mgs might not seem like so much; but in regards to this drug, 10 mgs is a lot. Lowering the dosage now is somewhat ironic seeing that a month ago, I was feeling so crappy that the wife and I were actually lobbying to raise the dosage in the hopes that it would get me back under control. Not much has changed in regards to how crappy I feel, but the specialist has made his point to me that this is just how my life is going to be from now on and it is better to get used to it now instead of potentially making things even worse down the road by adding even more toxic medicine into my treatment. I asked the specialist why not go ahead and drop me down to 40 mg, since he had always dropped me down 20 mg a pop until I got down to 60 mg. But he was concerned that dropping it by 20 mg would be too drastic and might send me back into the acute stage of my GVHD.

So, 50 mg it is.

I started with the 50 mg dosage of prednisone on Saturday, April 2, 2011. By Sunday afternoon, because I was experiencing achy joints and sore muscles, I began suspecting the onset of withdrawal symptoms from the lowered dosage. However, compared to the extreme withdrawals I went through after the first phase of my treatment back in February 2010 when the geniuses stopped me cold turkey after taking 180 mg of prednisone for two months, what I was experiencing this time was nothing. And as of now, noon Monday, April 4, I don’t notice any withdrawal symptoms at all.

My hope is that the lower dosage will have more of an effect of lessening the miserable side effects and less of an effect of increasing the symptoms that I’m taking it for. That is a confusing way of saying that I hope that the lesser dosage will improve my mental state, reduce the size of my big head, improve my vision, and lower my risks of diabetes, among all the other side effects, and, I hope that it doesn’t exacerbate, or worsen, my GVHD and my neuropathy.

Only time will tell.

The final piece of good news is: The specialist has no problems at all with me adding caffeine to my diet.

This is about the only area where both my attending oncologist and the specialist are in agreement. They both think that caffeinated coffee poses minimal risk to my liver and agree that if I feel that it is helping me mentally, then I should drink away. And believe me, I shall thank you very much.

I have noticed that, as predicted, it seems that my body has gotten used to the caffeine and I don’t seem to be responding as positively to it as I was when I first started drinking caffeinated coffee again. But regardless, whether or not it is helping to regulate the effects the prednisone has on my mental condition, I like drinking coffee so that in and of itself is enough for me.

Now, for some of the not quite as good news.

My days of flying on airplanes are pretty much over. The specialist didn’t say that I couldn’t fly, but he did say that flying, at a minimum, would be a stressful, uncomfortable endeavor and at a maximum, could be deadly.

Because of the condition of my lungs and of the unpredictable air pressure in airplanes, I will always need to bring a portable bottle of oxygen with me whenever I fly. He said long flights, like a fourteen-plus-hour flight to Japan for instance, would be very hard on me and I would really need to carefully consider the risks versus the rewards before attempting such a flight. I also need to consider where I am flying to, even on shorter flights. He said he could pretty much guarantee that I would end up in the hospital if I tried to flight to a high altitude place like Denver.

Plus, because I cannot get my vaccines as long as I am on prednisone, which will probably be for forever, I should not fly to any country where there is risk of exposure to polio or tuberculosis or any of the other diseases that we are vaccinated for.

More irony: My daughter just landed a sweet gig as a flight attendant for Virgin America Airlines. One of her perks is that her parents, c’est moi, can fly for free to just about anywhere in North America.

Ha ha ha isn’t that just so funny…

Yeah it is.

Another bummer thing I learned/was reminded of was that I need to continue to stay away from dirt. Again, because the prednisone degrades my immune system so much I really have to be careful about catching cooties. So, essentially, there will be no gardening or yard work for me…in theory anyway…or doing anything else where there is a risk I might breath in some fungal or other kind of infectious nastiness.

I guess the risk of infection continues to be my biggest immediate threat, and will continue to be so until the deterioration of my lungs gets to the point where lack of oxygen becomes critical. Who knows when that will happen.

All in all it was a very informative appointment, one that helped to clarify the direction that I’m heading. Not all of the information was what I wanted to hear, but at least it all was as definitive as any information that I have received since the beginning of all this cancer madness. I guess that is about all I can hope for: clarity and definitiveness of purpose.

Other than a follow up with my eye doctor on April 7, the next big event is my trip to the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The wife and I will be staying at a hotel for the week while I at poked and prodded and retested as part of my participation in a study to try out a new GVHD drug and a general study concerning GVHD in general. The wife and I are really looking forward to it. Hopefully the new drug will slow down my lung deterioration better than the prednisone is doing.

Fingers crossed.

Caffeine Therapy – Update #1

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So…I may have been talking tongue in cheek for much of my Caffeine Therapy article, but I was serious as a heart attack, and we all know how serious those Widow Makers are, when talking about the positive impact that caffeine has had on my mental state of mind. Before I started drinking coffee I never knew where I was going to be mood-wise. Some days I would wake up Dr. Jekyll, some days Mr. Hyde. It was very stressful. After I started drinking coffee again, or, more specifically, after I added caffeine to my diet again, life was much more normal, predictable, and pleasant for me…and the rest of the family. While I still get stressed out and tense relatively easily, even while caffeinated up, it isn’t nearly has bad as it would get while I was caffeine-free.

Consequently, when I visited the doctor for a checkup from the neck up…and down…this past Thursday, I was looking forward to finding out how adding caffeine to my diet has impacted my liver, since that is where it’s metabolized.

Well, the lab results showed that my liver component counts were pretty high. Here are the numbers (Read: Component, Low Range, High Range, Range Units, My Lab Results):

DIRECT BILIRUBIN, 0.0, 0.4, mg/dl, 0.3

ALKALINE PHOSPHATASE, 30, 120, U/L, 173

ASPARTATE AMINO TRAN, 0, 37, U/L, 100

ALANINE AMINO TRANS, 0, 40, U/L, 263

Now, I have no idea what all of these different components are, but I do know the docs look at them to determine how my liver is doing. I asked my oncologist if he thought I should stop drinking coffee because the counts are so high and he said no. He wasn’t worried about the impact of caffeine on the liver. In fact, he agreed with my assessment that it is probably the caffeine that is positively stimulating me mentally while suppressing the negative psychological impact of all the other drugs and stress from my inflictions.

He was, however, worried that the high counts indicated that Graft Versus Host Disease was flaring up in my liver. After examination, he also assessed that it was flaring up again in my skin and eyes. He wanted to take some “preemptive measures” (his words) by either raising my steroid dosage or by trying another drug called Cyclosporin. But the way things work with my care and treatment, it wasn’t his call. All decisions relating to my care that involve GVHD are made by a different oncologist, one who also is a nationally renowned GVHD specialist and he was not quite as concerned about the elevated numbers as the other oncologists on Team Kurt. In fact, the wife and I had lobbied the GVHD specialist to raise my steroid dosage the last time we saw him over a month ago. I could tell even then by the way that I had been feeling and how my skin had looked that the GVHD was flaring up. But the specialist’s primary concern is with the GVHD in my lungs and not so much with the GVHD anywhere else. According to him, the other areas are relatively minor concerns compared to the lungs and were no cause for alarm or any additional action. A month later he apparently still feels the same.

I’m guessing the GVHD doc wants me to focus on my upcoming week-long visit in April to the National Institute of Health where I will participate in a study to get FDA approval for a new Lung GVHD treatment.

Still, the other oncologist wants me and the wife back next Thursday so we all, to include the GVHD specialist, can get together and further discuss this GVHD flare up in the liver and elsewhere.

Until then.

The Bliss of Ignorance

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One nice thing about visiting or living in a foreign country: not understanding the language.

When visiting or living in a foreign country where I don’t understand the language, public chatter becomes white noise that I can very easily tune out whenever I want. The beauty of that is, unlike when living in the States or visiting other English-speaking countries, I don’t have to listen to all of the stupid, idiotic, moronic, and embarrassing BS that people think it is necessary to say in public.

Ignorance truly can be a blissfully beautiful thing, indeed.

And why does it seems that those who do feel it necessary to say such stupid, idiotic, moronic, and embarrassing BS in public also seem to feel it necessary to do so in such an excessively loud and abrasive way?

Denial

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Even now, nearly a year and a half later, it still seems that my whole experience with leukemia isn’t real, that it just could not have possibly have happened to me.

Something of this magnitude only happens to other people.

I know what I am experiencing is real, but it is just so hard to accept because the consequences are so big, so out of this world. My mind just cannot get itself all the way around it.

How I feel about it is how I imagine one would feel during an out-of-body experience.

And I feel the same way about my lung disease, perhaps even more so because the data is so sobering.

And I feel exactly the same way about the disaster in Japan.

If you have spent any time at all on this blog, you know that Japan is just as much a part of me as is my arm, or kneecap, or heart, or any other part of me.

Just as with the leukemia and the lung disease, or as it would if I were for some reason to lose an arm, my mind is just not accepting the fact that so much tragedy has fallen on Japan.

The horror that I am witnessing on the television and the internet cannot possibly be happening to the country I know so well and love so much.

Something of this magnitude only happens to other countries.