...and Now, Here's the Rest of the Story on Day 46 of 101 (I Missed Posting the Previous Entry By Minutes...Decided to Slam in a Little Serialization)

Don't mistake my desire to be less pressured with a desire to be more sinful.

I didn't want to get arrested or get in fights or hurt anybody or ruin my life, but I wanted to do what I wanted to do instead of always doing what everybody expected me to do. I didn't want to keep working toward a degree because I had no idea what I wanted a degree in. I didn't want to keep working toward a future in a field just because that's what was expected. Call me crazy, but I really wanted to be happy in whatever my chosen field was to be.
My whole life, all the way up to and through graduation from Magnet, when anyone asked me what I wanted to do, my answer was the same from the first grade when I was first asked all the way up until real life hit me over the head: I want to graduate from high school, move to New York, get a job in a bookstore. And, of course, I wanted to write.
When Cory and I got back to Lafayette, I skipped my classes that Monday. I had a little weed buried in one of my drawers, but I wasn't great at rolling joints. So, I called two people who ended up becoming two of my closest friends ever, Rene and David (the same two I alluded to befriending earlier when I mentioned the changes in friends and associates). I told them that I'd get high with them (probably saying, "I'll smoke you guys out...") if they'd come over and teach me to roll a joint. They came and laughed and made me leave my weed put away because they liked getting high with me, and they taught me to roll a joint with some of the stuff they'd brought. I told them about the experience that I'd had, the fact that I'd had all these new and interesting and inspiring people come into my life, that I'd just seen the movie American Beauty (a film I saw four times in the theatre, a film that totally changed my perspective on everything that was anything and laid the foundation for the decision I was on the verge of making), and that I wanted to give the writing thing a real shot, that if I didn't do it right then, I'd probably never do it, and I'd never be happy (despite the fact that we've never had an extremely close relationship, I'd always looked up to my older brother, and he was an example of why I wanted to do something different as soon as possible; he'd graduated high school at seventeen, gone straight into the Army and served the full four years, gotten out and gone to work for the Caddo Parish School Board in the English-as-a-Second-Language department, gotten his degree in accounting in four years of night school, went to work for one of the most prestigious accounting firms in the world, and then realized that he might really like to go back to school to study the culinary arts).
The only obstacle I foresaw in the possibility of having my life take this new trajectory was my father. My dad was an immensely pragmatic man. He believed in me and my talent (mostly because of the awards I'd won and the stuff I produced on CMTV in high school), but he always told me that I had to have something to fall back on. Dad always reminded me to be realistic and to acknowledge the possibility (read: probability) that I'd never be successful as a novelist. So, I enrolled in school at LSUS (in lieu of the New York, work as a book store sales clerk, and try to get published plan) because that's what he wanted me to do.
I don't think I hit him up with the idea right away, but when I decided to bring it up, I went all out with it all at once. When I called him, I explained that I wanted to try something I'd never thought about really being able to try before, and he was quiet. He didn't argue and he didn't judge. He just let out a long sigh, paused, and then asked if I really thought I had a book in me. I told him that I had no doubt that I did. And then he said something I'll never forget: "One year."

"You got one year to try this out, and then you have to swear to me that, no matter what," - unless I signed some multi-million dollar deal and was set for the rest of my life - I had to promise I'd return to school and get my bachelors, even if it was only in English (a degree plan that my father -rightfully so-considered about as useful as a class in bagging groceries at Brookshire's). Well, I never dropped my classes (which, in hindsight, ended up okay.. or would have been okay had my life not taken the trajectory it did; later that semester, when I finally got around to dropping the courses, I had the ultimate reason for having everything excused).
I called another close friend, a free spirit named Alyson, with whom I waited tables. She'd become like an older sister to me, the voice of reason, and she loved the fact that I loved to write. She took me to a new age-y type store where I got copies of Annie Lamont's Bird By Bird, Julia Cameron's The Artists' Way and the accompanying workbook and journal, some incense, candles, and a copy of this little booklet called "It Works," which is about forty pages that tell you exactly what you have to do in order to succeed at anything in life. The truth is, if I really were to have applied that book and its contents to my life, it would have worked. In fact, it would still work today.
But I digress...
In addition to the spending spree, which was also my first chance to expose myself to the wonderful world of credit, Alyson and I grabbed grilled chicken Caesar salads and shared a bottle of Shiraz-Cabernet. Then I went to a Drug Emporium, got some stuff for a facial and other stuff to treat myself a little (a little self-invoked spa treatment can do the soul a world of good). I also bought a pack of pencils and a medium-sized royal blue three subject notebook, and I had a couple nights off from the restaurant. I put all my school stuff in a corner, downloaded some music from Napster, then wrote the first chapter (appropriately titled "Grilled Chicken Caesar Salads") in a book I subsequently came to call Oak Haven. The next day, I went to Barnes & Noble and got copies of the Literary media guides for agents and publishing (Writers' Market and the Novel and Short Story Writers' Market), came home and began learning everything I needed to know about the business end of the craft. With my father's permission, time to do it, and the mindset that I was gonna get it all out on paper, I was set.

I wrote like I'd never written before. In high school, I'd developed this way of writing in which I took real people in my life, used the first letters of their first and last names to rename them in stories, and developed my fictional characters around the realistic details I noted. I used mostly their physical characteristics and their mental/spiritual/moral aspects as composites to create characters, and put them in the stories I wrote, which were... totally different from what my classmates were writing at the time.
I used the same principal in the creation of Oak Haven, a picture perfect small town in Louisiana that resembled a combination of Shreveport and Lafayette (although both Shreveport and Lafayette appeared as locations in the course of the story I was writing). Oak Haven took place over the course of one unseasonably warm weekend in February in a series of intertwining vignettes. There were four main characters, one of which was a twenty-one-year-old blond guy with blue eyes who loved to write and who served as the glue at the center of the other characters (I know, kinda cliche, but I really wanted to adopt the practice of writing what I knew, and the practice requires that one put some aspects of himself somewhere in his work if he really wants to get it right). The events were all based on things I was really seeing, hearing about, and experiencing myself, but it was all smashed into one action-packed, fateful weekend of drunken debauchery with the young men and women depicted all testing their wings on the winds of life while chasing designer drugs with overpriced alcohol, weaving in and out of classes and lunches and bedrooms and hospital rooms and night clubs and after hours' parties, etc. In other words, it was very much what my life was soon to become.

While I was writing, I was also reading. It was during this time that I was introduced to Bret Easton Ellis and and the Literary Brat Pack of Bennington College graduates that included Jay McInerney and Donna Tartt. Ellis was recommended by several friends, and I remember reading all the books with a pencil nearby, filling the margins up with notes and insights. In addition to reading, I started really watching movies for the first time, also introduced to the critique of and appreciation for cinema as a fine art. I fell in love with Boogie Nights and Magnolia, Blue Velvet and Goodfellas, Martin Scorcese and David Lynch. Simultaneously, I discovered Sex and the City and I was really coming into my own, identifying with these women who trusted each other so much that they could tell each other everything. It was a new slant on a new movement called "post modernism," and I totally drank its Kool-Aid.
My twenty-first birthday, the day that led to me make all these sudden, drastic, and very positive changes was February 13th.

Starting then, I wrote every day, all day, and in whatever spare time I had to make in which to do more. I still went out a bit, partied some, but I was really writing (and using my late night excursions as possible write-offs as they were clearly research-oriented, and therefore, work-related; after all, Millicent and Julia and Tristan and Bryan and the others were all based very much on people I knew, and they were experiencing things I had as well or heard about from someone).

I came home briefly in March, just under a month from the moment my father had granted his permission for me to take a year off from school to write. My entire family was amazed that Dad gave me permission to do what I was doing, but everyone was obviously excited because they'd seen me win the awards and get the recognition in high school, and they wanted to see what I was gonna do, what stories I would create, and whether or not I would really be successful in my endeavor. Following my visit, I went back to Lafayette, continued to write. I was finding myself, hitting my stride, and I was developing my voice in the combination of personal journals, short stories, poetry, and the novel I was creating.

On the morning of April the 12th (or was it the 10th? I think it was a Wednesday) of 2000, just shy of two months into this blissful endeavor, my phone rang at about five o'clock in the morning. My brother was on the other end of the line. I still remember that I couldn't tell whether or not I was dreaming because it was five am and he was calling me. I remember that I was very confused. Had I overslept and it was the next night? I hadn't done anything the night before that would elicit such behavior? Shaun? Wait - am I talking to my brother? Is he in Lafayette? What the...?

He asked me how long I'd been in bed. He asked me if I'd gone out the night before. He wanted to know how much sleep I'd gotten. Slowly, reality was closing in as I was slowly waking up and slowly realizing that I was on the phone with my brother, that he had called me, and that something was not right about this, but I couldn't quite figure out what right away. It took some time to register what he was getting at and why: Dad was in the hospital, Shaun said. They didn't know what was going on, but I needed to come home immediately.
In a sudden frenzy, I told him I'd be right there, and he made me promise not to leave until I was fully awake. I called a friend to come watch my apartment (to prove how little sense my thoughts make when I first wake up, let me write that this "apartment" was a single room with a refrigerator in the room and an adjoining bathroom about half the size of the rest of the space. In fact, it looked just like a hotel room with a fridge and a hot plate...and here I was, calling my friend Abby to come over and watch it while I was gone; interesting as I had no animals or plants or anything that anyone would really even want to steal), threw some stuff into a bag, and hit I49 before seven o'clock. I remember listening to the radio on the way and the guys on one of the morning talk radio programs were discussing Whitney Houston and Dionne Warwick and their respective, secret drug problems. One of the two celebrities had gotten busted on a plane with some weed (one of the reasons I remember that is because it was the first time I'd made the connection that the two singers are related), and although I remember that, I don't remember much else about the drive other than knowing somewhere down in my stomach that Dad was going to die. Very strange considering I didn't even know what had happened. Shaun hadn't even told me a single symptom, but for some reason, I knew.

Another aspect of my trip home that I remember is the fact that the last conversation I'd had with Dad really stood out in my head. He had called two days before, and he was just wanting to shoot the breeze, to see how I was doing and how my writing was coming. I remember being frustrated because I wasn't in the mood to really talk. I think I was in a hurry to get out the door to go get a drink or smoke a joint or go hook up with someone I barely knew, but Dad was understanding. He knew I had other things I'd rather be doing, but he still managed to put in a few things that seem oddly prescient looking back. He made me, once again, promise that I wouldn't allow my social life and "fun life" get in the way of my future. He made me promise that I would go back to school next spring, and the last thing he said was that "ya might think I'm full of shit, but one of these days, you're gonna find out that the old man was right about a few things." That phone call was the last time I ever heard my father's voice.

I remember getting to Shreveport and the sky was overcast, like it'd been raining for a couple days and more storms were probably on their way. When I got to the house, nobody was there, but a neighbor had seen me pull up and she came outside to meet me and tell me that an ambulance had taken my dad to WK Pierremont, so i went. When I got there, I took a wrong turn at some point, and I remember that I walked in through the back/employee/hospital side of the ICU. In other words, I came in from behind instead of through a waiting area, and I remember I had on a black polo and a pair of jeans that i later lost somewhere along the lines. I remember that my shirt was tucked in, and I had a thick black belt to match the pair of black mules from Banana Republic, and I had my backpack on because I'd developed the habit of having my notebook, a dictionary, pencils, magazines, some CD's, cigarettes, and whatever books I was reading on me at all times.

One of the nurses saw me and I told him that I thought my dad was there, but I wasn't sure. I told him that I'd just arrived from Lafayette, and he recognized my name, and he brought me to a small room, just large enough for the bed and equipment.

And my dad. My dad, this big wall of heavy duty hard core intellect and pragmatism. The giant behemoth of knowledge, the man with all the answers. Here he was with tubes everywhere. They were going in. They were coming out. They were breathing for him, monitoring his heart's beats, his blood pressure, the oxygen saturation. There were bags hanging above his head and multiple IVs in his hands and arms and wrists. I don't know how long I stood just outside the room looking in, but I know that I suddenly became aware of the nurse, still standing beside me when I quietly, hopefully just-more-than-whispered, "Dad?"

The nurse told me that my father was unresponsive, that he'd had an aneurysm in his brain stem, which controls everything: self regulating body temp, heart rate, respiration, etc. Dad never woke up.

I'd started my journey on February 13th and my brother called the morning of April 10 (or was it the 12th) and my dad died ten days after he was admitted to the hospital. I held his hand when they turned everything off. Nobody else did. I guess we all figured it would happen quickly, but you don't die right when they turn things off. You keep breathing on your own because it's all automatic, even if not self regulated. In fact, you stay alive for quite a while, and the nurses just give you massive amounts of liquid morphine to help you drift away from things slowly. Very slowly.

My dad's death changed everything. Every dynamic in my family was completely and totally altered, and we -as a family- have (and will never) recovered from the loss; however, the point of including so many wild and divergent and personal details from my past is that the first days of April, 2000 is the last time I remember doing anything that I wanted to do, the last time I followed my dream instead of working to achieve the goals that others suggest: nursing, health care, doing anything that's not creative, anything that's not writing, everything that's not honing my personal wants and needs and desires... I did have a pretty good run for those two short months, and I know that I really created some stuff that would have made my father proud to read.

So, to better answer the question from Stacy, when I write that I want to seek redemption, I often treat the topic in such a way as that I'm trying to redeem myself in others' eyes, but that is a total fallacy, completely dishonest. The truth is that I want to redeem myself for myself in my own eyes, and I want to do what i can to get back to where i was from February 13th to the second week of April in 2000.

Finally... after 46 days of intermittent activity and unproductive uncertainty and no plan and very little follow-through ...after a debilitating surgery and near constant pain that I'm now being told may be both chronic and permanent ....after shaving the point of keeping a blog in the first place, I'm doing it. Eleven years after the fact, I'm back on the road to redemption. At least, that's how I see myself because that's how I feel. And when it really comes down to it - in the end - the way I feel and the way I feel about myself and the way I see myself are the only things that truly matter.

Rationale for Redemtion: Expounding on My Reasons for this Series 45/101

The following is a rather lengthy excerpt from a conversation that Double S and I had Sunday night. Several weeks ago, she asked me -regarding my blog- what exactly it was that I was wanting to redeem myself for, and in whose eyes. I pondered that, and the idea for this post has been going through my head since she texted me that question. I realize that most of the time, we seek redemption so that we can atone for some sin of our past, in order to make up for something we've done for which we are experiencing some degree of debilitating guilt. When Stacy mentioned that I have already more than made up for the wreckage I inflicted on friends, family, co-workers, and other supporters, I realized that she was correct. I also realized that I would have to come around to having most posts on topic with this phase of my life (a phase that I am really starting to iron out as a full-on prologue or preview or forward or overture to what I'm hoping will be a great dawning of the Aquarian age). Although I've hinted and suggested and had a few posts that were somewhat dazed from the thick honey drippings of stream-of-consciousness self-flaggelation.

Everything that's going on in my life currently reminds me so much of February, 2000. Everything that once was is suddenly coming back with a vengeance, and the urges and needs are stronger than ever. This is the reason why...

"I suppose that I need to take the time to post this on my blog for a little further clarification, but here's the story now...

...the story: There is only one time in my life when I can actually remember doing something that I really wanted to do, really following through on my dreams. When I turned twenty-one, some buddies of mine took me down to New Orleans. It was a Sunday night, and I had classes that I knew I needed to get home and study for, and I really just wanted to have a good time. I'd lived my entire life as the good kid. I barely drank, never got into drugs (other than the normal experimentation that we all did at the point where adolescence is making its shifty and stumbling juxtaposition toward adult-like behavior), never got into trouble. The way I look at my subconscious reasoning for being such a don't-drink-don't-smoke-what-do-ya-do-Goody-Two-Shoes is that my brother and sister had put my parents through so much hell that I never even really considered the possibility of stepping out of the box and testing my wings. In retrospect, I find that it's always better to test one's wings seed-by-seed rather than scarfing down an entire bag of wild oats all at once; however, hindsight is ALWAYS 20/20 (unless you're a dumb ass, and I meet plenty of people with retrospective myopia).

"I'd moved down to Lafayette in December of 1998, met a dude, fell in love (the first great love of my life, the first time I ever knew what that helpless, wreckless, petrified-excited mindset of contradictory and electrically charged emotion can feel like), and made straight A's through the spring of 1999. I'd turned twenty, dated Seth through the early part of the summer, had a really bad break-up in Florida (the fight actually started before we left, in the dressing room of some store in the mall where Seth was picking out my bathing suit for me; also, this was the last time I'd been to the beach before going back to almost the same spot [in fact, unless all beach communities in the area look exactly identical, the great Gulf Shores Experience of 2011 may have been in the same town - on nearly the same beach at that - as the previous adventure of twelve years before] where I experienced my first break-up and had to drive back to Lafayette in a silently screaming car before jumping into my car and hauling ass another three hours to get home to cry at my parents' house for a few days), then came back and went through a mediocre fall semester where I started drifting with how I felt about everything related to academics and my future.

That spring, I'd also met some new people, some really carefree folks who introduced me to Parker Posey and The House of Yes and the Tales of the City books, and gratuitous marijuana inhalation, and that subsidiary group became a stalwart for my personal associations. They were pleased when Seth and I were done as they were a rather hippie-like gay male/lesbian group who fought me to not endure a relationship at the very back of a closet behind the winter stuff and dry cleaning bags. They introduced me to others, more people who were like-minded, and 1999 ebbed and flowed to its natural conclusion.
The Christmas of 1999 was phenomenal.

I had three weeks free from classes during which I came home to spend time with my family, and I finally got to hang out with everybody as an adult for the first time. As an added bonus, I was treated as an adult for the first time. It was a real Christmas, ya know? The first I'd ever had with the whole sha-bang: family in from out of town, my sister took time off from work and we spent days at her place watching old miniseries from their Golden Age circa 1970 - 1989 and British comedy on BBC America, making cookies with her and christmas ornaments with my niece from paper and glitter and glue... it was great. I was on the verge of becoming an adult, had just changed my major from Psych to English (I started as Public Relations at LSUS in 1997, switched to Psych with my move to Lafayette in December of 1998, then finally moved to the spot which was right where I wanted to be), and went back to Lafayette for the spring semester during which I met up with the first group of male gay friends I've ever known. And I was suddenly exposed to a life that i never really knew existed. And, to be honest, had I known about it in advance, I may never have pursued the events that came next. I never really got to know any of them personally.

I was still at a stage in my life where I wanted to be with other guys who liked making out with other guys, but I never really liked having any of my actions or thoughts displayed or seen by exterior performers in my life. It was a life that I sort of poked at with a stick, then recoiled when a tendril of it reached out to take my hand and welcome me in. I was intermittently scared and excited, and suddenly February rolled around and they wanted to take me to New Orleans, using my upcoming birthday as an excuse to go -not that anyone down South needs a reason to hit that city or to just have a spontaneous party or festival. Despite the fact that I didn't know any of these guys very well, I did know that they were a lot of fun, so I decided to go with them.
While we were out in the city, I realized that they all pretty much lived their lives as they wanted. They could party without repercussion, live life by the day, and got to hang out in gay bars till all hours of the night. They weren't in school, had service-type jobs and though they probably lived way beyond their means, when you're twenty-one, you look at people who live like the larger-than-life characters we grew up watching on tv, and you're intrigued by all the pleather and body glitter and conspicuous eye liner and people who are obsessed and surrounded by everything that's anything and everyone who's anyone: all that is new, hot, young, and of-the-present-moment.

When we were on our way back, I ended up back with the same dude who'd driven me down. I think his name was Cory. We were never in touch much after this trip. Occassionally, I'd see him out and we'd hug and our eyes would twinkle at each other, but we never really got to know well enough to know whether or not we'd be missing anything. He was my age, very cute, and I think I only met him when he picked me up to drive me down there. It seems like I'd been invited by a guy who was a DJ in a gay bar in downtown Lafayette. I think he had an after party, and I went with two friends I knew better than the DJ and his group. I must've mentioned something about only having been down to New Orleans on a sort of middle school field trip, and that pretty much settled it. From that point on, they took it upon themselves to take me. That's what people are like down there generally, but it's far more apparant with those who were in our late teens and early twenties. You could just hear that someone had never been to another city and an instant decsion could be made that everyone present would be taking a trip there in the next few hours... and, of course, we'll worry about the transportation situation tomorrow (probably five minutes before we were scheduled to leave), which is likely how I ended up in Cory's truck, despite the fact that I think I'd only met him the night before or the day before.

Most importantly, he smoked and he let me smoke in his truck, and we got a lot of talking in on our way down, a lot of basic getting-to-know-you bullshit (in the truck, the young boys come and go, talking of Caravaggio); however, an important note is that Cory had this really possessive, really dramatic boyfriend that kinda freaked me out. He was a short, overly "pretty" (and pretty fake) Spanish guy named Miquel (or "Mike," depending on who he was with, I guess), dull, and dangerous dolt that had been unable to come along, but pushed Cory to have me ride with him because I was the trustworthy and innocent member of the group who didn't partake in many of the activities to which the others were prone. I didn't get high like they did (at least, not openly, and -at that time- weed didn't really count). I had a good job, and I was a full time student. I was the one that people called to help them out with things, and I did it without asking for anything in return.
I don't remember exactly why, but it was suddenly VERY late in New Orleans. We'd downed a ton of overpriced designer drinks and the group had gotten separated then came back together (well, Cory found me and refused to let me out of his sight again because he felt some kind of responsibility toward me and when he couldn't find me for half an hour, he went into a panic until he saw me) then Cory and I got separated from everyone else. Cory and I walked around the quarter for a while looking for the rest of our posse, and when he realized that I'd never been in New Orleans to really get the full experience, he grabbed my hand and told me that he had so much to show me in a very short period. I seem to remember Cory saying something like, "we gotta lotta shit to see before the sun comes up." The line sticks out in my brain because I also remember hearing the Concrete Blonde song "Bloodletting" drifting loudly out of one of the overcrowded bars or strip joints or whatever type of establishment it was ("I got the ways and means; to New Orleans; I'm goin' down by the river where it's warm and green; I'm gonna have a drink; and walk around. I got a lot to think about - oh, yeah" [the song reminded me of Anne Rice and both the stories of the Mayfair family and the stories from the vampire books]).

Cory quickly achieved the status of awesome. When he grabbed my hand, I felt a little spontaneous and unexpected smidge of romance. He took me to the river and the aquarium and to Cafe du Monde and past all the famous restaurants and cemetaries and night clubs. He showed me where to buy Hand Grenades and Hurricanes, the best club for a lapdance, the perfect place to get twink action, fratboy action, straight boy action, black-on-white action, the best handjobs, the best blowjobs, the best and roughest anonymous sex, and a club that was so dirty, he would only point from the outside and refused to let me go in by myself. For most of the trip around the area, we were on foot, keeping an incredibly swift pace despite what must have been extremely high blood alcohol levels. When we stopped just inside an alley where he asked me to keep a watch for cops while he peed, he zipped up and  decided we needed to get to his truck, so then we made the rounds to see more sights in the comfortable confines of his pickup. When we started heading back to I-10, we only had maybe another hour or so of moonlight remaining. Soon, dawn was to start making her purple-red-orange appearance in the sky and the magic of the past several hours would be lost when the full-on sunlight revealed to each other what we really looked like.

About ten minutes into the drive, he mentioned that he really needed to pee and he was really tired and he asked me if I could drive a standard. I told him that I could, but not very well, and then he started throwing out the idea of a hotel. And he debated this verbally, but without any input from me, for a while. To the point that we stopped at a motel that advertised rooms available. But when he came back out to the truck, he got in and sat back for a minute in silence. I did the same because I could almost hear his brain ticking in though. Finally, he said that he was very attracted to me and that he'd been "assigned" to me because everybody trusted me, and they knew I wouldn't hit on him, but he didn't trust himself if we got the hotel room. He told me that he knew that, if we checked in, he was going to fuck me and that we wouldn't sleep anyway (the loose reason we had preliminarily and unspoken-ly established as a reason for getting a room) and that we'd have a big secret to keep for the rest of our lives (like I said, his boyfriend was CRAZY, and I have to respect Cory for thinking his way through the situation the way he did).

I told him that I was attracted to him as well, but I really felt like I could contain myself. And I meant that. He looked at me and said that he trusted me as well, but that there was no way, and that if we got the room, we were going to have sex. I paused for a minute. Turned my head to look out the passenger window at the first suggestions of sunlight. Finally, I told him just to drive back.

And it was on that trip back, as the sun was coming up and I was rubbing the New Orleans night funk out of my eyes and intermittently making eye contact and smiling at Cory that I realized I was sick of being the trustworthy, responsible one.

To Be Continued...

43 and 44 out of 101 - For Stacy

Yes, Virginia, there is a Chupacabra...

Stacy texted to ask (/remind me) whether or not I wrote yesterday or today. Yesterday, yes; however, today's been a little hectic (I made a solo venture out to the library and the tobacco store), and I haven't written yet.

I have a few minor projects that I'm trying to complete between now and dinner, and I'm going to complete those, but I am planning to sit (yes, I am able to do that now, but only for very brief periods) down at my desk (I'm back from the makeshift hospital suite in the den, and ready to plant myself in my bedroom) to work on a blog post that I have privately saved for further editing. It's an answer to a question that the Great One posed for me to ponder a few weeks ago, really a revamp of a conversational response that I gave her on Sunday night. Additionally, I'm working on a post regarding my surgical experience and subsequent recovery, one on the two of the short stories I'm feverishly (albeit at intermittently fevered intervals) creating, one that expounds on the last full post I made (and actually received a guilt-laden, accusatory series of messages regarding - from someone it was never meant to describe besides), and one on where I am emotionally, physically, and spiritually at present.

While I'm not adding anything substantial at the moment, I'm hoping that this will, at least, temporarily suffice.

40, 41, & 42/101 - Ain't That a Shame?! Three Days in a Row!

Sitting (YES! I am actually sitting upright and relatively pain-free for the moment) on the couch, watching The Winds of War Part I: The Winds Rise, and waiting for Mom to get here so that I can take a shower and get ready to watch a movie with a friend. Of course, I don't think that he really knows what exactly he's getting into as far as care and assistance go with having a gimp like me around. I can't sit very long, I'm especially leery of a ride in a car, and I'm not entirely sure that I'm going to be great company, but I am so incredibly psyched to have someone take the time out to help me get out for a while. Other than a handful of tremendously close and very good friends and family, I am trying to not feel exceptionally down due to the large number of those I assumed I'd be able to count on only to discover otherwise. Oh, well. You take what you can get, I suppose. And for the moment, I'll take the lesson learned in discovering who I can really count on when the chips are down and I need a little assistance.

My plan is to sit here later to post a more extensive and detailed history of the events of this week just before and immediately following this surgery. I even have a few photos to more appropriately satisfy painting the picture I'll otherwise merely be using words to describe.

39/101

I keep thinking that I'll be able to get into some sort of reclined position to post more than what I'm about to, but I have yet to find what that position may be just yet.

Maybe tomorrow?

I Missed Day 37 Because the Meds Made Me Miss It - Today is Day 38 of 101

Sitting up for long is impossible at the moment, but I REFUSE to allow more time pass without at least letting my blog know that I'm still alive. I'm photographing my recovery to the best of my ability, keeping my camera close by my side - closer than my cell phone, actually. I'm eager to see what the pictures look like when I get ready to tell my story of the past three days.

Right now, I'm constipated, and I hurt, stuck in a vicious, horrendous cycle of having to take pain killers to release the strict hold that surgical healing has on my nerves, but the pills just keep me unable to go for my regular, morning constitutional. I'm hoping that tomorrow will be different. I can't turn off my brain to keep me from worrying about all the million things I SHOULD be doing. Plus, I can't seem to drill into my psyche that what I really should be doing, more than anything else, is concentrating on getting well, on allowing myself to recover.

My vow is to try to have more tomorrow. I just had to get something out.

Video From Day 34 Posted on the Morning of Day 36...the Day of My Surgery

A video from Saturday on the beach. I stuffed my chair down into the soft sand in the surf, buried my feet in the sand, and turned the camera on. I don't think that there's much more on the planet that is more relaxing than listening to the steady, rhythmic waves crashing toward the sand and watching the beautiful, eternal waves of the sea. To think that this is something that has always been and always will be is truly magical. Amazing. Absolutely breathtaking. I don't think that there's a better spot on Earth. We get stuck in our own personal ruts, stuck on making money and making waves of our own. Stuck on getting from Point A to Point B and stuck on everything that's immediately important and pressing, and to think that something like this exists simply to exist and ebbs and flows and remains this wonderful, majestic constant... Sometimes, even I can't come up with the words to describe the feeling. To write that the view is awe-inspiring doesn't seem to do it justice. I hope you enjoy the video as much as I enjoyed capturing it. Pay attention to the people that were caught on film. These are some of the best people I've ever met in my life. If you ever think about taking a trip, I strongly urge you to find one of them to book a room with you. They can help you to forget about the realities of time and urgency, help you to forget about everything that prevents you from living life, and help you to really look inward - at every one of your very best assets - and to believe in the power of yourself.

It's early in the morning. Monday, the twentieth of June, 2011. In less than six hours, I'll be on my way to the corner of Line Avenue and Jordon to have this interminable and ever-enraging conundrum that is my debilitated back corrected. I hope. I just want to be done with this phase of my life and move on. I'm tired of letting pain define my days and nights and tired of planning my schedules and my RSVP's around my ability to deal. Here's to hoping that all turns out as the best case scenario. If not, no worries. We'll just rest, regroup, rethink, and find a new way to attack it and beat it.

Vacation Pics from Days 34 and 35 of 101

These were snapped beginning Friday morning. The first were captured before I realized that the camera lens fogged up as I walked out to the beach.

Another foggy photo.

This was Stacy lounging with her Kindle.

Heather working that phone and reading a People magazine. She found a ton of photos of the most beautiful men alive in People magazine's annual issue. Good times.

Danny reading his Sagan book. I'd be eager to read the same volume to try to understand a little more about the way this guy's brain works. Not Sagan's, I mean Danny's.

Rhonda's always smiles and good humor.

Stephen. I told him to poke his head through the towels because I'd already gotten a head shot from everybody else.

This beach was brilliant. Absolutely magnificent.

There was something about the people plopped on the area beside us.

The girls were all wearing skirts. Not short skirts or beach skirts or the kinds of skirts that one may wear for a summer party. These were knee-length Pentecostal skirts. They even wore them in the pool. I just thought it was odd.

Beach foam.

Sitting in the surf.

More beach foam.

And more...

I think this is one I snapped when I sat in the surf and caught a daylight version of my nighttime video. I'll post the vid later.

This was Heather hiding in the towel to examine her camera. The glare was so fierce that it was impossible to see what we'd snapped as photos.

This is the storm that moved in.

Being on the beach and looking out into the horizon, literally seeing the curvature of the Earth spilling out before us, we could see the brewing clouds before the storm made its way to our spot on the beach.

A better perspective on the coming rain.

Despite its ominous appearance, it was only five minutes of drizzle followed by hours of uninterrupted sun.

After the rain. Still Friday afternoon.

More from the surf splashing toward us on the beach.

I think that this is Heather and Stephen and Danny out playing with the floaties after we got them.

Post Friday beach fest. Back in the condo.

Nobody was as burned as we thought we'd be... None of us except, of course, moi.

Danny finding something for us on his iPad.

No, the burn wasn't on my face.

Both legs were severely burned, making the remainder of my time in the sun less than enjoyable.

Burn.

Splotchy burn.

Friday evening. Back in the condo.

This was Stacy ready to teach me to make Truffles. I now have the recipe.

I believe this was me forcing Danny to watch Deep Red.

Ultimate relaxation. Heather dozing before supper.

More moon shots. From Friday night.

Friday night's moon on the beach.

Reflections on the beach.

More on the beachfront by moon.

Amazing.

Spectacular.

My final moon snap from Friday night.

Danny's donut holes.

These were Sunday morning's breakfast.

Approaching the tunnel in Mobile. On our way home.

Through the tunnel.

More through the tunnel.

Just before we saw the light on the other side.

The sight of sulight on the eastern side of Mobile meant that the trip was complete.

I was happy to be on my journey back, but very sad to leave the beach.

And the trip nears its conclusion...

...as the tunnel disappears from view.

Final shot of a cloud as we left the tunnel...and freedom.

Quite interesting architecture. I pivoted around to catch a shot of these buildings as Mississippi and Louisiana fell before us.