Paging Mr. Smith....

Well, my future ex-girlfriend Random Girl has sweetly asked for me to begin a series.  I think she would rather have me IN a hotel, rather than write about them.  But I digress......

Not all touring is wonderful and full of awesomeness.  There are long, long drives through the middle of the night to get to the next show, or ‘gig’ as us professionals refer to the events where we make our pittance. Once, we drove from Boston, Mass to New Orleans.  That’s 32 hours of driving in a van full of gear.  We did it with 3 people, each of us switching off, so the others could get a cat nap before their next shift behind the wheel.  32 hours. In a van.  Smoking Marlboros, guzzling Mountain Dew, and choking down a handful of Sour Cream and Chive Pringles.  Pringles, by the way, are the perfect road snack.  They come in a resealable tube.  Your snack stays fresh and unsmashed.  You can also pour them into your mouth.  I kept them in the front cupholders, next to the Dew.

I'd use a fake name if I dressed like that, too

I’m way off track here.  Back on topic, which is how your mind wanders while driving. That's when the devious little games unfold..... 

We were midway through our New England run, which was about 2 weeks of college and small theater dates.  We were pulling into town to do a show at a little college.  If you’ve traveled to New England, you may have noticed that many people, are, how should I say, ‘uptight’?  They are conservative, and many (outside of Boston) seem to be lacking a great personality.  We piled out of the van, and headed for the lobby of our hotel.  We had been joking around (as usual) on our 5 hour drive, and when we got to the lobby, everyone just drops their bags on the floor and fills the burgundy floral easy chairs and Early American couches.  It’s actually a tactic taught to me by a very wise tour manager.  The front desk will do ANYTHING to get you out of their lobby as fast as they can when you’ve just set up an duffel obstacle course.  I put my metal briefcase up on the counter and wait for the young girl behind the desk to hang up the phone.  It seems she’s setting up her evening plans with her friends.  She smiles, gives me the “just a sec” one finger in the air thing, and I open my briefcase and unload a pile of paperwork onto the counter, looking for my reservation notes. (no, this was before we ALL had fully loaded smart phones.  Back in the stone ages, I guess.)  She hangs up, and asks, “Hello, sir, do you have reservations?”  

“No....Yes, of course we have reservations....”  

She looks confused, like she’s not sure if I meant Yes or No.  “The name?”  

“Smith. The reservation is under Smith.” 

She shuffles through the reservation cards that she’s pulled out on her counter. “Um, Sir, I’m not seeing a reservation here for Smith.” 

 I look over the counter and look over the strewn cards as she shifts them around on the counter.  “Oh, silly, there it is, right there.” 

“Which one?!?”  

“Yes, that’s the one.” 

“Sir, the name on that reservation is White, not Smith.”

“Well yes, it’s spelled White, but it’s pronounced Smith.  It’s a family pronunciation.”  I said completely deadpan. 

She’s stunned. Her mouth agape, but nary a word can be heard.  She blankly stares at me. I stare, with great conviction, right back at her.  “Um, okay, Mr. …. Smith.... 5 rooms, yes?”  

“Yes, we have 5 rooms.” 

 I then proceed to sign the reservation card as Mr. Smith, and hand her the corporate credit card that belongs to the band.  It has the lead singer’s name on it, and now she’s completely lost.  Mr. White signs in as Mr. Smith, and hands her what appears to be a bogus credit card.  The band is getting fidgety.  After all, we’ve been in the lobby a whole 8 minutes. The bass player and the drummer are doing human beat box and rapping Straight Outta Compton over by the snack machines. 

 “Okay, whutever, here’s your room keys.”  

“Thank you very kindly, Miss.” 

And off to our rooms we went.  It’s not uncommon for musicians and people of a certain level of popularity to use a fake name when checking in to hotels and for dinner reservations.  We of course, didn’t have to worry about anyone finding us.  In fact, just the opposite!  We wanted people to find our hotel and bring us beer and pizza after the shows!!  Now of course my last name is White.  We just wanted to mess with her conservative little mind just a wee bit.  The corporate card was perfectly legal, and it’s commonplace for a band member to have one.  We paid, we rocked, we slept til noon, and as we checked out, our Little Miss was back at the counter.  I winked at her. “Goodbye, Mr. Smith, uh, White, um Smith.”  We laughed all the way to the next town.  The sun was shining as we left that little slice of New England behind us.  On to the next spot on the map and a new adventure. 

The Switch Is On

The Glamorous Life

Oh, this writing prompt is too good to pass on.  I could do a SERIES on Hotel stories, trust me.  I’ll throw this little gem out there for you and the rest of the minions over at Studio 30+.  Read it and weep (laughing) peons!

The freaks come out on Halloween, and so do the merry pranksters.

I traveled the country in a van full of musicians and tour members hauling a small trailer full of band gear, t-shirts and duffel bags of partially washed clothes.  We were a band, and we rocked North America nightly together for over 4 years.

We finished a particularly raucous Halloween show.  We have said our parting words, and “Thank You Good Night!”, has been yelled as we walk out the backstage door. With the band loaded(literally) and the gear in the trailer, we head back to one of our regular hotels.  We’ve been to this city numerous times, and we’ve always found this hotel to be a little nicer than some of our regular stops.  It’s a lovely Victorian building with only a few rooms and 4 post beds.  Wonderful menu in the dining room, too.  We treated ourselves to this hotel every tour.

The guitar player informs me that he’s expecting a “special friend”.  A Special Friend is someone a band member actually is looking forward to seeing again.  Typically he knows both her first AND last name, and probably has her phone number. She’s driving 6 hours to meet us, and to ‘travel’ with us for the next couple of dates over the weekend.  It just so happens that I’m acquainted with the girl in question. She’s from my hometown, and I actually introduced the two. For the record, if a girl travels with us, it’s the responsibility of the particular band member to foot the bill, and share HIS personal space, without inconveniencing the others on board.  You may imagine hearing, “Stop it you’re touching me stop touching me you’re on my seat stop touching me.”  You would be right.  We are childish, sophomoric boys gone wild.  Fart jokes hourly. Fireworks were lit off INSIDE the van once.  Okay, more than once.

This little hotel is charmingly behind the times. Real brass keys with the little plastic key fobs.  Folded down linens upon your arrival.  The desk clerk knew all of our names as we would depart for sound check, and as we returned later to change into our shiny show shirts.

I called the front desk, posing as the guitar player. I informed the front desk that I, the guitar player, was switching rooms with my sound engineer, (really me) so he could be next door to the singer, because they were working on new material together. The kind desk clerk made a note of the room change, altered the ledger to reflect who was in which room, and would change the wake up calls accordingly.  I just successfully made it SEEM that the guitar player was residing in MY room, and I in his!  The switch is on.

Now, like I said before, we had a pretty rocking good time at the big show.  Halloween, vodka, beer, cute girls adoring each of us, and dudes telling the band how much they totally were blown away.  We staggered in around 1AM and flopped in our respective rooms.

About 4AM, my room phone rings.  It’s Lily.  Remember, it’s the guitar player’s room, right?  She asks for him, and I tell her that I don’t know what room he’s in, as he switched with someone and it’s really really late.  She’s exhausted from her drive, and ready to collapse.  I tell her to come upstairs, take half the bed, and just crash, and we’ll find your guitar slinging hero in the morning. I had no intention of taking advantage of the situation. Lily agrees that I should let her in, and she’s asleep in ten minutes. All curled up under the covers like a little spikey-haired rock kitten.

Some hours later, my phone rings.  It’s 930AM, and there’s a groggy guitar player on the phone.  He asks if I had heard from Lily, because she was supposed to hook up with him last night, and she never called.  He didn’t even sound worried, he sounded bummed because he didn’t get a happy ending.  I said, “Lily?  Oh yeah, she’s right here.  Wanna talk to her?”  He gulped and yelled, “WHAAAATT!!?!?!”  “Yeah, she’s right here, slept here last night, said she couldn’t find your room.” (I’m howling with laughter inside right now, I just totally hosed this guy! Fist pumping my supreme practical joke skills)  “You can’t be serious...”  “Yeah, she’s right here.  I’ll send her down.  Hey...  Happy Halloween, dude.”  He pauses, realizing he had just been owned. “Fuck you, man.”

I sent my friend Lily down the hall, about 4 doors.  I heard the door slam.  I think he started speaking to me about 5 days later.  Trick or treat?  I’ll take trick.

Bow to the master, little guitar playing man.  Bow. To. The. Master.

It's Okay, I'm Methodist

Eternal HELLFIRE!!

I was baptised, confirmed and raised Methodist.  I went to church and bible camp, and youth group.  Because I had to.  It was required by my parents that we be rudely awakened at the crack of dawn on a Sunday morning to go to youth group at church.  8AM service.  As a teenager, it was nearly impossible to actually be awake at 8AM, let alone be an active participant in anything.  One particular Sunday, I recall a conversation that occurred in youth group about forgiveness.

First of all, being Methodist was easy peazey lemon squeezy.  Lent? Yeah, you should probably give up something.  There’s no kneeling during service, so you can sleep sitting up during the entire droning service.  Shoot, sometimes we didn’t even SING.  And, best of all, we will be forgiven and absolved of ALL sins at the gates of heaven by Almighty God.

We were speaking about forgiveness in youth group.  Todd and I were snapping each other on the arms with rubber bands.  Mike looked completely stoned from a hard night.  Ann Marie was playing with her hair.  We half listened to our youth pastor as he explained to us that God would forgive us of all our sins, and we must try our best to live by the word of the good book.  Of course I had questions....

“So if I poke my sister in the eye, I’ll be forgiven?”

“No, you shouldn’t poke your sister in the eye, that’s just bad!”

“But if I do, I’ll be forgiven, right?”

“I don’t think you understand how this works...”

“Pastor, you JUST SAID I will be forgiven of ALL my sins by God upon entering the gates of Heaven.  Is God gonna get all picky about which things I’ve done?”

“No, I don’t think so. But when you stand in judgement before God...”

“So he’s gonna get all judgemental on me?!?  What about ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged.’  Kinda hypocritical, isn’t it?”

“Son, only God can pass judgement on any of his children.  He will judge you more harshly if you do bad things.”

“But I’m STILL gonna be forgiven, so I’m feeling pretty good about my choices right about now.”

I wink across the room at Ann Marie- she smiles that little crooked grin right back at me.  Todd is cringing while poking me in the ribs because he thinks Pastor is gonna hit me with a candlestick at this point.  Which, according to him, he’ll be forgiven for.

(heavy sigh) “Son, I don’t know where you came up with this idea, but you’re just flat wrong.”

“Yeah, but I’ll be having fun.  Which apparently isn’t wrong, because I’ll be forgiven for it.”

Ann Marie laughs out loud, followed by a little snort.  She’s been holding it in too long.  Todd leans backward on the rear legs of his chair and falls right on his ass.  Now everyone is laughing.  I stand up and give Todd a hand up.  “Todd, I forgive you for disrupting youth group.”

The Pastor sighs, storms out of the room and right out the side hallway door and lights up a cigarette.

Later that spring I got to second base with Ann Marie at a youth group sleep over.  Ann Marie?  she was the pastor’s daughter.

I’ll see you all soon. In the mean time, I’ll be surfing a wave of fire, listening to the Rolling Stones.  I also have a seat saved at my table for you.  In Hell.

Fallout

So, the big thing that happens to you when you spend the good portion of a year either laid up or recovering is, you become a huge gelatinous mass.  Yep, muscle atrophy, unsightly weight gain, and absolutely no stamina.  It doesn’t help that my current job requires much less physical labor than my last.  I used to climb ladders, carry heavy stuff, load heavy stuff into big trucks, and hang off of ladders and scissor lifts while installing the big heavy stuff we loaded into the trucks.

I used to be very active by day.  Now.... Not so much.  Is it a big surprise that I’ve put on weight?  No.  But I did have some help from my Year Of Unfortunate Events.

Let’s throw osteoarthritis into the mix.  I was diagnosed nearly a decade ago.  It’s so much fun, too!  Lemme see if I can describe how that makes you feel..... If you’ve had that all over body ache associated with a really nasty case of the flu, then you’re right on par with what many people suffer through EVERY DAY.  ALL DAY.  It’s like your joints are in slow motion, like they’re very stiff ALL THE TIME.  Sitting, lying down, standing, the pain is always there to varying degrees.  Now if you listen to what your body is telling you, you have a hard time justifying exercising your poor joints, as you KNOW it will be even MORE painful when your through.  (this is not always the case, but it is a very REAL thought that passes through your mind.)  I played soccer all through my youth.  Running is something I truly miss.  Try hitting your knee with a mallet every time your foot comes down on the pavement as you run.  That’s kinda what my knees feel like in a full on sprint.  There is definitely evidence of bone on bone in my knee.  The x-rays showed it.

Now I’ve had every blood test known to man done over the last year.  My last battery of tests showed my doctor some very unusual stuff, in my opinion.....  My sodium level is low.  My heart is very strong, and I run an athlete’s heartbeat. (slightly lower than normal, but not dangerously so)  Yes, my cholesterol needs some work, but I’m not going to die in ten seconds.  My kidney and liver functions are perfectly normal.  Figure that one out.  I worked in the music industry for 20 years, and my liver and kidneys are fine?  Wha??  Okay, I’ll take it.  See?  Kind of a bizarre life I’ve lived, I don’t know how I made it through those years and am still ALIVE, let alone fairly healthy.  Weird.

I got back into a work out regimen on Monday.  A very short exercise session of stretches and some squats.  Walking was a problem after the leg injury, so if I can get back to walking well, then I can do much more activities.  Standing up for an hour at a club watching a live band?  Forget about it.  Tuesday I woke up feeling like I just finished a marathon.  Aches and pains everywhere.  But now, the message is, “Dude, don’t be a wuss, get back after it.  YOU CAN DO IT!”  Since I’ve been cleared by my doctors to do whatever I want, I’m gonna get after this fatigue issue pronto.  It’s just gotta go away.

Oh, and thank you Holy Mama.  I appreciate your kind words.  Many people I know could benefit from having people in their corner like you.  Thank you.

Flashback 3

*This post was lost in the Blogger server crash... Along with any comments... Meh.

I’m having surgery.  Again.  Had my knee worked on after the accident to remove asphalt and road debris, now a hernia operation.  I think I’d like a do-over for the last 12 months, if I can get one... ANYONE??  Come on, throw me a bone here.

When you have umbillical hernia surgery, they open you up at your belly button, and also do a couple of other incisions to stick hoses in your abdomen under the muscle tissue.  One is to actually INFLATE you with CO2, so they can get the little nylon mesh between your organs and your muscle structure.  It prevents the hernia from pushing back through the muscle structure.  (That’s what was preventing my vertical muscles from engaging properly.)  They inflate you to the size of a mini cooper, then stick in a cover from a McDonalds breakfast meal, or something.  I begged them to use helium, because I thought it would be awesome to float out of the recovery room to the car.  The nurse could just hold my hand and guide me through the automatic doors.  No need for a wheel chair!

You are on your back for a solid week.  Yes, after a few days you can get up and move around, albeit gently, but the first couple of days I just slept.  This surgery disrupts your entire abdominal area.  This was a much different kind of pain than my knee injury.  It was an all over pain.  It seemed that my entire torso ached.

Went back to work ten days after surgery.  That’s the longest consecutive period I’ve missed work in my life, I think, including vacations.  At about the two week mark, my belly button started to get a little enflamed.  It got worse for a couple of days, so I called the Doc to schedule an appointment.  We played phone tag for 3 days.  By now, my belly has a pie pan sized red area, and is so sensitive to the touch that when my shirt rubs against it, it’s painful.

My doctor sends me for a CAT scan, and asks me to stay until the results are in.  He admits me immediately.  I’ve got an infection that requires IV antibiotics.  Apparently, if I had delayed another day or two, they would have been admitting me into ICU.  Thanks for the phone tag, Doctor’s office!  I remain in the hospital over the weekend.  My first full weekend off in over 3 months, and the first sunshiney weekend we’ve had so far this year.  SUPER.  Yeah, I’ll just make my motorcycle a museum piece, I don’t really want to ride it or anything.  My Doctor releases me and hands off some antibiotics pills for one more week of meds.  I will finish them off today.

Next will be the fallout that occurred while I spent a good portion of the last year recovering from various incidents.

Funny thing..... I’m not complaining about this crap.  Sure, it’s been a tough year, but I’m still here.  That little phrase has become somewhat significant to me over the last few years.  

I’M STILL HERE.

Flashback 2.5 (server crash special edition!)

*Since the Blogger servers went south for a couple of days, I thought I'd stick this one in, as it's now in order of occurrence.*

(self)Hey dumbass, you forgot a huge portion of your story, shit for brains.

What are you talking about, self?

(self)The STAIRS.  How did you forget about the stair incident?!?

Ohhhh, shit, I DID forget a huge chunk, didn’t I?

(self)You are such a dumbass.  You’re brain is fried, isn’t it?

Um, that means YOU’RE fried, genius.

(self)No way, dude, I’m on top of my game, I REMEMBERED the story.  You didn’t.

Whatever, dude...

Yeah, so in October, I was leaving a friend’s place.  She lives on the second floor of this house, and her steps are like fire escape steps.  Metal everything, all outside the building.  I always thought they seemed a little steeper than a normal set of steps.

We had been out on a weekend evening, and I was leaving her place to head home for the night.  I turned to say goodbye about 6 steps down the stairs.  As I turned back, I reached for the handrail.  I’m still nursing a small limp with my right leg from the bike accident, and my right boot heel caught on the tread of the step.  It’s dark, and I just plain missed the rail with my left hand.  If you miss a handrail in the dark, as your dropping down to the next step, you just might lose your balance.  I certainly did, and caught the metal handrail under my left arm on my ribs.  Down I went, and HARD.   Little bit of a scrape on my left knee, knocked the back of my head pretty good, too.  But my ribs were KILLING ME.  It was a biting pain as I breathed.  Yep, you guessed it, broke a couple of ribs.  Limp, sore knee, lump on the head, broken ribs.  What the hell.

If you’ve had a broken rib before, you know that there is no way to cast them.  You can wrap them with ACE bandage, and try to bind them, and keep them from moving around.  Reaching the top shelf in the kitchen?  Don’t even try it.  Pushing yourself up from your desk chair?  One arm only for a couple of months. Ribs heal very slowly, as they are constantly moving.  That whole breathing thing keeps them flexible.  Second time in my life I’ve broken ribs.  Never a fun time.

So more time spent trying to just sit still and not be in pain.  Note: Do NOT try and sleep on your side.  Bad idea.

Motorcycle accident, falling down the fire escape, hernia surgery.  I would like a do over for last year.

Flashback 2

The harsh reality of the motorcycle accident set in a few days after the fact.  I remembered that I saw the driver do a ‘fake’ left turn, and that I had slowed down because he looked like he was turning. I was first in a line of traffic on this two lane road.  He balked, stopped, and I twisted downward on the throttle, because he clearly saw me.  Just as I pulled down, he pulled out!  I hit him with throttle wide open, barely attacking my brake handle, clutch handle, and right foot crushing the rear brake pedal. Hit him behind the rear wheel, just before the bumper, and the bike went sideways, my left side facing oncoming traffic, and my right side taking full impact with the pavement.

I’m laying in bed at home as this all appears in my  mind.  Full leg immobilzing brace.  My knee literally the size of a cantalope.  Pain meds help some, but not enough.  My right arm lost skin down to the dermal level near my elbow.  It’s wrapped up fully from wrist to shoulder.  Not exactly how I had envisioned my Summer Of Freedom.

Doc says I will be in physical therapy after my wounds heal for 9 weeks.  Three times a week for 3 full months.  Super awesome!!  No physical activity for about 4 total months.  I’ll let that sink in for a minute.... Think of all the things you can’t do when you can’t stand, kneel, or drive. For 4 months. (Barreness, for some reason YOU came to mind when I wrote that.  ;-)  ) Yeah, so not a lot you can do during those warm summer nights.... Maybe sit at the local cantina and enjoy a cold drink, but hobbling back to the car just seems so... Humiliating in a way.

During my physical therapy, my wonderfully cool therapist observes that my stomach muscles aren’t working in their proper manner.  It doesn’t appear to be from my accident, as I didn’t suffer any abdominal injuries.  She suspects that I may have suffered a hernia, and I should see my regular doctor about it.  Annnnnnd, she was right.  Umbilical hernia it is!  What the eff??

I wasn’t able to get to my Doctor for two months.  His work schedule (he’s a sports med doctor, and works for a team) and mine prevented me from being seen right away.  Doc says it’s an old injury, and he’s surprised that I didn’t notice it earlier.  Well, I’m a guy, we don’t all stand in front of the mirror admiring ourselves and showin’ off the gun show and loving the washboard every morning. So no heavy lifting until we can get you in for surgery.

Two months after THAT, I get my surgery.  So that gets all you little freaks just about up to date.... The next post will take you through the wonderful world of internal medicine, and what I’ve learned about surgery over the last 3 months.  Stay tuned.

Hey, YOU wondered where I’ve been, you’re finding out, so lay off.  At least I wrote something....

Flashback 1

In order to get you up to date, I need to go backward a bit. A flashback, of sorts. So, to shed some light on this .endtransmission. character that a few of you have come to enjoy, allow me some latitude to put this together in a way I feel will be right and true. Truth, for a change.

What follows is a true story. (Linda, I've added a bit here for the minions so they can understand all of it.) It was first written last year to my dear childhood friend Linda. (She visits here and is an amazing writer, as well as a lovely human being both inside and out. I cherish her friendship. So here goes.....

I got divorced in June of 2010. Bad idea to get married in the first place, but 3 wonderful teenagers needed a good role model, so I felt I could be 'that guy'. It's not necessary to go into this further, it's old history, and factors not into this story. So 2010 was my "Summer Of Freedom". You know the stuff, free living, wanton lusting after girls who's name you forget the next hour, walking around your place in your underwear because YOU CAN, eating fast food for every meal, and most importantly, riding my vintage motorcycle that I rebuilt with my own two hands ANYWHERE I WANT.



While riding to work one Thursday morning, a young man who felt he needed to text his fiance' while turning left in front of me changed my summer plans..... I broadsided him doing 45 mph. The bike went down on the right side, and as it went down, I realized I didn't need to hold onto it anymore. My black beauty went skidding off like a rocket, and somehow I remembered that I needed to relax my muscles, and rolled like a rag doll. 20 or so yards later, I came to rest in the oncoming travel lane. I rolled off into the grass, pulled off my full face helmet, (thank God I'm not an idiot) and cussed like a sailor who'd just shot himself in the foot with a flare gun. I lifted my head to see my vintage ride lying on it's right side, steam and dust rising from her engine, spilling fuel. She was some 30 yards down the road from me.

My right arm was bleeding from wrist to nearly my shoulder. I couldn't really feel my right knee or foot. I bent my ankle and figured it was still attached, and then as I rolled onto my back I found that my right knee would move enough that most of it wasn't still lying on the blacktop somewhere. My hands hurt, too, but thankfully leather gloves did their job. They were shredded enough that I could see skin through the double insulated palms. Somehow, I never lost consciousness.

"You just had an accident.", a voice said from behind my head. I looked up to see a woman in purple nursing scrubs looking down on me. Knowing that I never lost consciousness, I was puzzled as to why there was a nurse looking over me in the moist freshly cut grass. She went on to say, "I almost stopped you yesterday for riding too fast through traffic." Um, not for nothing Nursie, but if I was passing YOU, I doubt you were stopping me. By the way, I was probably trying to GET AWAY FROM YOU AND YOUR BAD DRIVING.  I looked up at her, from my bloody resting place in the roads' shoulder, and said, "You can go now".

The medics arrived minutes after my accident. They were nice, professional, and attentive. They also understood that I was in a rather jovial mood, because I was still alive. We joked all the way to the ER. They made me feel comfortable and calm, and truthfully, kept me from bawling like a little kid. I was in severe pain, as my right knee had impacted the car and the pavement, then the bike landed on it. My right arm was one big raspberry from forearm to shoulder. It felt like someone took a cheese grater to my arm. Bloody, but still intact.  The toe of my right boot was severely dented, and I ended up with just deep bruising on the outer side of my right foot.  I had my clothing cut off of me, down to my Hanes His Ways, and collared and boarded, before being put on the the gurney.  My helmet had scuffing on two places on the front chin area, one on the forehead, and a nice scrape on the rear.  I did not have a concussion.  So yeah, I’m hard headed.

I left the hospital later that day. My wounds wrapped, my Mother in tears, and my head spinning, trying to grasp exactly how I was going to enjoy my summer. I was walking with a full leg brace and a set of crutches. I guessed that I wasn't going to be hittin' the clubs and riding to bike nights any time soon. The big shame was, I had just got my old vintage bike finally running the way it was meant to run. Loud and proud I took those corners on that big steel monster. Dragging your foot pegs through corners can be exciting. Dragging pegs have a whole new meaning when you do it because of someone Else's negligence.

The nurses asked me how I hit a car at 45 mph and didn't break a single bone..... I told them I was Wolverine.  Must have been the morphine drip.  I guess I’m just really lucky. I personally thanked my helmet, gloves and boots at a later time. But for now, I'll just dwell on the fact that I'm a really lucky person. Next summer will be here soon enough. (Written Winter, 2010)

Thanks for sticking around.

Letting The Paint Dry

I’m trying to make sense of the different words swirling around in my Percocet fog... That’s what the doctors gave me for my pain.  There are some old stories that need to be written, in order to bring clarity to the newer works.  I believe I’ve found my voice again, and am hoping it sticks around for a while this time.  Writing has become a challenge over the last few months.  This week is no exception.  I’m buried in work; hardships both personal and family related, but I will try.... I will try to eek out a couple of pieces to get things back on track.