Arrhythmia ’n Bluz

I can’t say that there weren’t indicators that my ticker was becoming troublesome. I first noticed when I was playing hockey, back in the mid-90s. Some days, when I’d take a shift, I’d be completely gassed within 30 seconds. One trip up the ice and back, and I’d have to come off. I felt fine, except I couldn’t breathe.

One of the doctors on our team gave me some great advice. He said, “You know what the most common warning sign of a heart problem is? A sudden, fatal heart attack. Get that thing checked out.”

That scared the shit out of me, so I did. But the problem was that I was moving out of state in a matter of weeks. Plus, my insurance was not very good. I went to the doctor, but owing to the sporadic nature of my problems, he couldn’t pick it up. He sent me home with a monitor I was supposed to use when I had the problem. Naturally, the one time I thought it was happening, the recorder didn’t show any irregularities. Then I moved to Baltimore.

Life went on pretty much uneventfully. I wasn’t really hampered in anything I tried to do. But after the first couple of years, I wasn’t exercising all that much either, so I didn’t have too many opportunities to notice being out of breath. Well, except for walking up all the steps coming out of the subway. I noticed that it was getting harder, and I was puffing more than I used to. I chalked it up to getting older and being out of shape.

So, when I finally saw a doctor for the hive problem I wrote about in the last post, the doctor listened to my heartbeat for about five seconds and said, “Did you know you have an irregular heartbeat?”

I was like, “Um, OK.”

Next thing you know, he’s setting me up to see a heart specialist and putting me on Warfarin. I was like, “Yeah, that’s all well and good, but what about my fuckin’ hands?”

He gave me an Rx for some Zyrtec, plus a handful of samples, and with that, I stepped onto the never-ending carousel of cardiac care. This was the end of February 2002.

What I had was atrial fibrillation. That means instead of the atrium giving a strong squeeze to send blood to the ventricle, it just kind of fluttered along. The problem with that is that blood can collect in the atrium and clot. That’s bad. That’s a stroke waiting to happen. That’s why they give you blood thinners like Warfarin, to keep you from clotting.

Right off the bat, the doctor scheduled a “cardioversion” for me, a month later. That’s where they shock you with a couple of paddles to jolt your heart back into rhythm, the way you used to see them do it on “ER.” You know… “Clear… Zzzzzzzap! Now crank it up to 300… Clear… Zzzzzzzzzap!  He’s OK, now do me…Zzzzzzzzzap!”

So here I am on the day I was going to get zapped… took the day off work, had my brother bring me to the hospital, I’m all ready for zappage. I’m gowned and have an IV in my wrist. The parents are back in Wisconsin, worried sick. The doctor comes in, looks at my chart, and says, “I can’t do this now… your INR is off.” (The INR is the degree of blood ‘thinness’.)

What I know now and didn’t know then is that it takes a while to get your INR to the proper level and keep it there. There’s a lot of trial and error, and it requires an endless number of blood tests. The original doctor didn’t set up any of that; he just sent me in for the Frankenstein treatment. They explained that they could still do it, but I’d run the risk of a clot breaking free and giving me a stroke. It took me about .75 seconds to decide that maybe we should wait, so after all the worry, that day ended up as a false start. 

It took another three months before we could stabilize my INR for the required interval, so I got very used to having blood drawn. I tell you, I knew who the good blood technicians were. With some, they were in and out “like buttah.” Others… yow. I’m fortunate that I have large visible veins. A blind nurse could hit my veins with a lawn dart from across the room.

So ultimately, I had the cardioversion done, and it was more or less uneventful. It didn’t take long at all.  I wasn’t “under” for more than 15 minutes.

Ever the archivist, here is a copy of my chart when they did my first cardioversion.

You can see where the line flutters before the charge, and takes a solid dip before the big beat, after the charge.

The only problem was that within a month, I started going in and out of rhythm again. When I went in for a follow-up in July with another specialist, he recommended doing a “catheter ablation,” which we scheduled for October.

A catheter ablation is where they snake a wire up from a blood vessel in the groin and into the heart.  There, they burn out the electrical packets that cause the heart to misfire. 

Before that, though, they have to do a Trans Esophageal Echocardiogram (TEE). That’s where they put a tube down your throat that takes scans of your heart, from the inside. This is done to look for clots before surgery. They keep you awake but sedated for that, so it was kind of weird. I don’t remember too much from it, other than it being awkward. I liked nitrous oxide much better. And I hated that I had to keep having my brother take me to and from these operations. But they won’t let you go after you’ve been sedated, without someone else to pick you up. Bastards…

Two weeks after the TEE, it was time for the Big Show, the catheter ablation. They had me in there at the crack of 6 AM. The first order of business… shave the patient. This was absolutely mortifying. I had this squat little nurse who had to do the ‘honors.’ I tried my best to keep it light and she said she appreciated that. But it was so unnerving when she’d have to keep adjusting my personal private parts so that she could get into all the corners. She’d work on one side, then move things around so she could do the other side. My things. She shaved me from my knees to my navel. Everything in between looked as bare and hairless as a hot new boy band.

My work wife “Sunshine” questioned me intensely about that once I was back to work. She was like, “Did you get… excited?” I was like, “Hell no!  I’m surprised it didn’t retreat completely up into my chest cavity.” There was nothing exciting about that process. 

I was just lucky that we were past the end of bathing suit season. All the different electrode patches I’d had stuck on my chest had left me looking like I’d been attacked by an octopus. In fact, I thank my lucky stars for that because, between my thighs and my chest, I looked like a patchwork quilt. The things we endure to become heart healthy…

They wheeled me into the OR and I could see about eight people standing around. I was thinking, “Aall this for ME??” I hate being the center of attention, but I suppose it was, in this case, unavoidable. I was too tall for the operating table, so they pulled out this unpadded, shelf-like extension for my feet to go on.

The surgery was supposed to go between two and six hours. I ended up on the table for eight. The worst part about it was that my bare feet were resting on that shelf for all that time. Remember the Delayed Pressure Urticaria? My right heel was swollen and painful for days afterward. That alone left me hobbling the rest of the week.

I remember waking up in the recovery room feeling very cold. My sinuses felt all congested, so I asked to blow my nose. You don’t even want to know what came out of there.  Bleah… But at least I could breathe, afterward. But I was so cold. In fact, I’ve never felt so cold in my life and I’ve been to playoff football in Pittsburgh in late January. This was worse. They piled 6 inches worth of blankets and a hot water bottle on me and still, I shook like a leaf. It took about 30 minutes for me to start to feel warm again. They said that was a common side effect of long surgeries. 

The next order of business was to remove the catheter inserts from me. Because they were having trouble locating and getting at the trouble spots in my heart, they went in on both sides of my groin and also up under my left collarbone. The upper one came out easily. The other two… OMG. It felt like they were trying to pull my balls out through the ¼ inch incision. And then they have the nerve to tell me to relax! It was excruciating. 

“I’ll be happy to relax once I can stop screaming!”

And then as an added bonus, they had to remove the catheter from my urethra. That one didn’t take as long… the nurse yanked that one out like she was rip-starting a lawn mower.

It was weird how the entire day had vanished. I guess being unconscious for eight hours will do that.  My brother was still there (he had come in with me and went to work during the surgery) and he came in to see me. It was good to see a familiar face.

My nurse was terrific. She took such good care of me and saw to my every need. She fetched more and more blankets when I was cold and got me glass after glass of water when I was thirsty right after the operation. When it was time for her to go for the day, I pulled her over and thanked her for taking such good care of me. She must not get that very often because she gave me a big hug.

That night was pretty uncomfortable. All I wanted to do was sleep, but that was impossible. Between all the other people around, the constant beeping, and the automated blood pressure cuff that takes the BP every 15 minutes, it was one long-ass night. Plus, it seemed like everyone on the floor found it necessary to come in and “check the wound.” 

Great… more people that need to examine my wang. Over these two days, more people saw my dick than throughout my entire life. By the end of the night, I wanted to stand up on my bed, pull up my gown and yell, “Is there anyone on the floor that hasn’t seen my dick? Hey you over there, want a look? Come one, come all, step right up and have a look at my junk. Then please leave me the hell alone!”

Mothers always say that when you have a baby, there are so many people all up in your stuff, you lose your sense of modesty. After this experience, I feel I can relate as well as any man can. 

“Hey, is there anyone down here who hasn't seen my willy?”

Peeing in the bedpan was another adventure. One thing I learned is that it’s not a quiet process. I swear the sound acted as a beacon because the second I’d start, someone would appear at my bed, ready to whisk it away. 

“Here you go, how about some nice warm pee?”

I thought it would be funny to have the pan in place and then wait for someone to come in, engage in conversation and then go “Wait a second…(eyes roll back in head)…  ahhhhhh. Um, what were you saying?” 

My recovery was uneventful.  The wounds healed up quickly, once everyone in the cardiac ward quit rooting around in there. The worst part was that I had to give myself injections of a blood thinner called Lovenox. They said I had to inject it right into my belly.

I was like, “Yow! In the belly? Really?”

The nurse said, “Well, it can really go into any area where there are fat deposits, like the belly or the bottom of your arms.”

I said, “Fat?  In these guns? (Throwing a Hulk Hogan pose…) Ain’t no fat up in here… The belly, it is.”

It’s really unnerving, though, giving yourself a shot. The nurse showed me how to do it, but it proved to be much easier seen than done. I couldn’t do it without leaving a big bruise. Of course, the bruises proved to be useful because you weren’t supposed to use the same place twice. The marks were like my footprints. But again, I was glad it was no longer bathing suit season. Between my patchwork chest, bare thighs and hairy shins, and a belt of bruises around my midriff, I looked like a genetic experiment gone wrong.

Anyway, following the procedure, my heart beat regularly right up until it went back out of rhythm 17 months later.  Gah!

And back on the Cardiac Carousel, I went…

Hive Mentality

I went to my first physical therapy appointment last night.  It wasn’t actually much on therapy as it was getting a grip on my balky shoulder.  My therapist, Tami, put me through a number of poses, to measure how far I could move in various directions.  She also took measurements from my other shoulder, for comparison purposes.

It’s funny when you know that the entire basis of measurement stems from your own subjective judgment on when it hurts too much to move any further.  I’m sitting there wondering, “Am I being too much of a wuss?  A real man would bend his arm until it breaks off, before telling a cute little physical therapist that he has an owie.”

Sometimes you really wonder ‘how much is too much?”  Then other times she moves you and every muscle in your body contracts from the jolt of pain.

“Oops…  I hope I didn’t stain the bed here…”

Through her systematic torture motion-range measurements, she was able to confirm what the doctor (and the MRI) had indicated.  She also better explained the course of action they wanted to take.  While it’s true that PT won’t heal the labrum or rotator cuff tears, there can be a build-up of scar tissue, which can reduce the likelihood of further tearing.  In the meantime, directed exercises can build up the surrounding muscles to better stabilize everything.

Hey, anything that can be done to avoid the surgery is OK with me.  So we’ll see.  I’ll have 3 appointments a week for 4 weeks, and then I’ll reconvene with my doctor to see where we stand.

The best part of the evening was at the end, where they gave me this electrical treatment.  First, they put 4 adhesive patches around my shoulder and hooked in the electrodes.  (If you’ve ever had and EKG, it was like that, only the adhesive pads were larger.)  Then they put this kind of ‘cuff’ over my shoulder.  This would fill up with cold water and compress like a blood pressure cuff.  I was to get 15 minutes of this treatment.

It was kind of cool when the electrodes fired up… It was this tingly, buzzy sensation; it felt like a vibrator being held to my shoulder.  It also made me think, if they could ever do the same thing only with warm water and make the cuff schlong-sized, they’d sell a million of these contraptions.

After having seen the finale of the Amazing Race on Sunday, where two very hairy dudes were required to submit to 15 minutes of Brazilian waxing on their chests, I was a bit concerned about having the adhesive removed, but Tami was an expert and they came off smoothly, leaving all shoulder-hair intact.  

The only problem I had at all didn’t crop up until this morning.  I woke up with sore, swollen spots on my shoulder, where Tami was poking around.  This is because of this other medical problem I have, “Delayed Pressure Urticaria.”

Basically, that means I get hives that come the day after pressure on my body from any hard surface.  Weird, right?  I mean, where do they come up with stuff like this?

Right around the time I turned 40, I started getting these pains in my hands… I had no idea why.  But I’d wake up at night and it would be like my hands were on fire.  I’d get these angry red welts on my hands… it wasn’t a surface thing, it was deeper under the skin.  They’d itch like crazy and if I scratched them, it would hurt like a bitch.  It took me months to figure out what was causing them.  They look like this:

This shot is from a couple months ago.

I’d wake up in the morning and have to put my hand on an ice bag while I read my morning paper.  At night, I’d ice my hands while watching TV, hoping that they’d stay numb until I could fall asleep.

Then one day at work, I put my hand in its usual place at my keyboard and noticed that one of the sores lined up right with the corner of the metal tray that held the wrist pad.  That’s when I figured out that it was extended contact with hard surfaces that caused the welts. 

I basically went about padding my entire living space, but still, the welts are unavoidable.  Later, I started getting them on other parts of my body.  But they weren’t quite the same… I’d get big swollen lumps rather than the deep red welts.  They'd look like the Coyote's head after a bag of Acme hammers landed on it.

Wooden armrests put welts on my forearms.  Hard wooden chairs or barstools put welts on the backs of my thighs or directly under my lower pelvis… Ass-welts, as I call them.  Feels like I’m sitting on a couple of beanbags.  If I lean up against the corner of a wall, I get lumps on my shoulder.  If I hang my feet up on the rungs of my chair support, or even if I just stand in one place too long, I get welts on my feet the same way I get them on my hands.  They itch like crazy, and just walking is an adventure, especially if my heel is affected.   The way I end up walking makes me look like my ass is made of cake and I'm afraid to crack the icing.

There’s almost an endless list of things that put the welts on my hands: cutting food with a knife, scraping frost off the car, grasping anything like a fishing rod, racquet or paintbrush for too long, catching a non-Nerf football, accepting too vigorous a high-five at a Steelers game, or God-forbid, clapping… the list goes on.

This one was probably from cutting food.  The end of my steak knife would go right were that welt is.

So after suffering from this ailment for several months (and generally acting like a bear with a thorn in his paw), my friends and family finally insisted that I see a doctor.  He could tell me it was a case of hives, but couldn’t really nail it down.  He suggested I see an allergist or dermatologist for further review.  In the meantime, he prescribed an antihistamine for me, Zyrtec. 

The Zyrtec didn’t prevent the hives from happening, but it made them hurt an awful lot less.  Finally, I was able to sleep through the night again.  I’d still ice my hands or feet once in a while if I developed a particularly bad one, but for the most part, it made the condition livable.

First, I saw an allergist, and she was able to put a name on my condition.  To me, that was huge; just knowing that I wasn’t the only one in the world with this goofy-ass condition.  Enough other people were afflicted with it that it had a name.  But she couldn’t tell me what was causing it.  She said even with a battery of tests, they still might not be able to narrow it down.  I asked if knowing the cause would affect the treatment and she said that it wouldn’t.  So I decided to bag the battery of tests and just roll with it.

But it turned out that she couldn’t really find anything that would prevent the hives from occurring.  We tried a number of other antihistamines, even combining them with other drugs, but ultimately nothing worked any better than the Zyrtec.

Lastly, I went to a dermatologist, to see if they could offer some insight.  They couldn’t.  But they would continue to write me prescriptions for the Zyrtec.  Each year, I’d go in and ask if there were any developments in hive treatments, but there never were.  I stopped going once Zyrtec went to Over the Counter status.

And on the bright side, I haven’t had allergy symptoms in 10 years. 

I suppose I was destined to have something like this… my sister gets hives from stress.  My brother used to get them from scratches, but his symptoms just stopped after 10 years.  I’m hoping mine will go away as well.  This fall, it will be 10 years since I noticed the problem.

It’s funny… I spent my first 40 years being relatively indestructible.  No major illnesses, no broken bones, no sprains.  Rattled my shoulder a few times, but shook it off without doctor visits.  Hadn’t seen a doctor for an injury since 3^rd grade.  (I fell, learning how to ride a bike, and my knee landed squarely on a pebble, on the sidewalk.  That one hurt like a sonofabitch, but I was too young to describe it as such.  I couldn’t even walk for the rest of the day.)

Now it’s like “Happy 40^th birthday” and BANG, it’s one ailment after another.  And I have to pad my surroundings like I’m the fucking Bubble Boy.  I’m not used to being fragile.

Oh yeah, and there was this other problem that first doctor found when I went to see him about my hands… atrial fibrillation. 

“Dude, you need to see a cardiologist…”

“Yeah, sure.  But what about my hands?”

***

Update: March 2015

When I wrote this post, almost 5 years ago, I had no idea it would be the most frequently visited page I’d ever do.  I had no idea there were so many people looking for information on helping them find a cure for the pain in their hands, feet and whatnot.  Oddly, it made me feel better, knowing that I wasn’t the only one with this weird affliction.

The reason I’m posting this update is to try to provide some closure and a bit of hope for anyone so afflicted.  You won’t have this problem forever... it gets better.

I began noticing that the frequency of getting the welts was decreasing throughout 2013.  They only seemed to pop up during the hottest summer months, and even then, they weren’t as bad.  By the end of 2014, I was basically over them, unless I did something particularly egregious, like kneeling on linoleum, or turning a stubborn screw with a screwdriver.

And now?  Gone.

Last month, I had to do that very thing… turn a stuck screw, with the end of the screwdriver jammed into the base of my palm.  In the past, that would be the recipe for a wicked welt that would hang around for days.  This time?  Practically nothing.  I noticed a small twinge overnight, but by morning, no problem.

All in all, my DPU lasted about 12-13 years before it ran its course, which was about 3-4 years longer than the average case. 

I know that’s not much comfort to you if you’ve just started dealing with these hives, but at least you know there IS an end.

In the meantime, here’s how I survived:

Zyrtec

Steroid creams

Dr. Scholls shoe inserts

Pad everything… wrist rests in front of your keyboard and mouse, hard arm rests, memory-foam mattress topper

Weightlifters or bicycle gloves

Limit elastic in cuffs, waistband

Good luck!

The Shoulder

Two weeks ago, I mentioned in a post that I had to go to the doctor’s and have him look at my shoulder, which has been giving me problems for almost a year now.  He took an X-Ray that was inconclusive, and then sent me off for an MRI.

I had the MRI done on 4/26; it was my first.  I’ve had CT scans done before, where they slide you through this giant donut that takes the scan.  In my case, it was to map my blood vessels, so they had to shoot me with “contrast”, which would then show up on the scans.  (The funny thing about that is that it all seemed to collect in my groin.  As soon as they shot it in, my balls got all hot.  Weird…)

Anyway, the MRI is another story.  This is the one where they slide you into a tight little tube for a HALF A GODDAMNED HOUR!  I can see how people might freak out about the cramped quarters and how you’re supposed to stay perfectly still.  For the most part, it didn’t bother me because I knew I was in a nice office building and I could see sunlight from the window behind me.  But if I were in the same physical circumstances, say, 1000 feet underground, they would probably find me dead on account of bashing myself against the top of the tube in a full-on blind panic.

In this case, I figured I’d just close my eyes and relax; maybe even have a sleep.  With your eyes closed, it doesn’t matter where the walls are.  The only problem with my course of action was the unbelievably loud noise.  They gave me earplugs before I went in, but whenever they turned on the machine it hummed and banged like an industrial machine shop.  It was kind of like going to a Nine Inch Nails concert.  I spent the time trying to pick a song from my memory banks that synched up with the rhythm of the banging.

They broke it up into segments, so it wasn’t like it was one big 30-minute chunk.  They’d say, “This part will be 4 minutes”, or “this part will be 5 minutes…” I escaped the tube none the worse for wear.  I left with a big sleeve of films to bring back to my Ortho doctor for evaluation, last Monday.

One of my actual MRI sheets… an real “inside look” at Bluz Shoulder

The doctor looked at the MRI and determined that I had 2 separate issues:

* A partial tear of the rotator cuff.

* A superior labral tear (SLAP tear), where the biceps tendon pulls the labrum (cartilage covering the end of the bone in the socket) away from the bone.

The first prescribed course of action he gave me was a round of physical therapy, 3 times a week for four weeks.  (And they have a PT unit in the same office, which is very convenient for me, as the office is about a mile from my apartment.)  He also gave me a cortisone shot, which was surprisingly painless… no more painful than having blood drawn.  I’d heard that it was sometimes very painful, but the doctor said if varied by where you were getting the shot.  The hands and feet were much worse.

I soon learned that things would be nearly as convenient as I thought, because the in-house PT unit didn’t take my insurance, so I was on my own to find another one.  Luckily, Pinky had already done some legwork on that, so I had the number of another PT center nearby that did take my insurance.  (I had no idea Aetna would be so hard to use… I thought they were one of the “big ones.”)

Tomorrow I go in for my initial consultation, so I’ll see how it goes from there.  I was glad that the doctor wasn’t all about surgery as a first option, but still, I’m worried.  Physical therapy is not going to heal torn tissues.  It can strengthen the surrounding musculature, but it can’t mend cartilage and tendons.

The doctor described it as being like a piece of paper… You can pull on the ends of a piece of paper and it is very strong.  But if you put just a small tear in it, pulling on it is likely to make it tear more.  So my long-term diagnosis is basically dependent on how much pain and restrictions on movement I care to endure, for the rest of my life.

So much for a second career in javelin throwing.

So just in case that didn’t panic me enough, I asked about the recovery time for a prospective surgery that would go in and fix it.  He said I would be in a sling for four weeks, with a recovery period of 3-6 months.

I am so screwed. 

All week I’ve been thinking about what it would be like to have one arm out of commission for a month.  This is my right shoulder and not only am I right-handed, I’m uber-right-handed.  My left is basically a little T-Rex arm that does nothing but act as a counterbalance for the right, so I don’t tilt.  Hence, I’ve come up with a whole list of things to worry about…

How am I going to brush my teeth or wash my hair?  How does one cut food with one hand?  Or put on socks?  How will I put in my contact lenses without my clumsy left-hand fingers poking my eye out?  Driving would be out of the question, I suppose, at least at first.  If it were wintertime, clearing the car of snow or scraping frost would be a major chore.

On the bright side, I could still type, because my arm would be down and relatively stationary.  Might have to move the mouse to the other side.  But I’d be able to telecommute and dial in to work from home.  That would solve the inability to dress and groom myself.  And for meals, I could just eat things that don’t need cutting, like, say, BACON!  They come in nice little individual pieces.  When eating, I’ll have to be careful of using any sharp utensils in my left hand.  Otherwise I’ll be down at the emergency room getting the fork removed from the side of my face.

“And that was the start of my eating problem…”

Also, I wouldn’t look forward to walking around the streets of Baltimore with a sling.  That would be like being an antelope with a limp out on the Serengeti.  The hyenas would be all over my ass.  Normally I don’t worry too much because troublemakers like easy targets.  As I stand right now, they don’t know I’m not a former Green Beret gone to seed.  But in a sling, I’d look like prey.

Anyway, I have a lot to think about.  I’ll just have to see how the PT goes.  I’d hate to think I’d never be able to toss a ball or throw a Frisbee with my nephews again.  Not even 50 yet and already it’s like I’m in mothballs. 

Not a happy thought for a Mother’s Day.

And speaking of, let me first wish a happy Mother’s Day to all my blogging friends who are mommies or are about to be.  I hope you receive the love and adoration you deserve.  I’m perpetually amazed by the things I read about you doing for your families.  You are truly heroes to this nation.

Secondly, let me wish a happy Mother’s Day to my own “Lil Mother,” without whose influence, this blog would have never been.  My mother instilled in me from my earliest days, the joy found in writing and storytelling.  Everything I do here is a direct result of her influence.  Except maybe the dick jokes.  I was going to say “fart jokes,” but remembered that she was the one that taught me my first fart jokes, back in 3^rd grade, complete with elaborate gestures.

Cleveland, 1989… a big chip off a tiny little block.

Abbottabad To The Bone

There was some kind of big news story this week, right?  Oh yeah… the last 15 minutes of Celebrity Apprentice got pre-empted by the President.

President Obama: Fire this, Trump!  Booyah!

Right… we got bin Laden, but unless you’ve been in a coma all week, you already knew that.  The news coverage of every conceivable angle has been unending.

I’ll admit that I was pretty happy with the way things played out.  Sunday night, I was all,

AMERICA…

Live from Durkadurkastan

It’s nice when one of our military operations goes that smoothly, even considering the loss of one of our helicopters, and accomplishes exactly what it was supposed to.  It took a while, but our boys found that rat bastard, snuck in, took him out, and took him with them.

Naturally, there is a cacophony of controversy, as there with pretty much anything that happens any more.  Here’s what people are fussing about…

Osama was unarmed and killed in cold blood. 

I don’t have a problem with this.  Everyone on those planes and in the twin towers were unarmed too and killed in cold blood. 

Good riddance.  His death saves us the trouble of deciding what to do with him.  Remember the other guy, Khalid “You want fries with that?” Sheikh Mohammed?  The guy that actually thought up the 9/11 plan and had it carried out?  Osama merely gave his approval; KSM was the guy that got it done and we have had him in custody for years.  First they were going to try him in New York, but they did an about-face and redecided on a military tribunal.  No matter which way you go with this guy, there are problems.

There are no such problems with bin Laden.

I also don’t have a problem with the quick burial at sea.  Makes sense to me not to leave a future shrine for our enemies to rally around.  And the hell with whether all the proper Muslim rites were done.  Again, there were almost 3000 people that weren’t interred at all, let alone with any rites.

The Pakistanis are pissed because of the unauthorized mission in their country. 

Tough shit.  If they were anything resembling competent as allies, we wouldn’t have had to go in ourselves.  They want to prevent more unilateral attacks on terrorists, start doing a better job of finding them themselves.  If I’m the Prez, I tell them they’re on the clock right now.  Start handing over al-Qaeda terrorists or we’ll use some of that intel they took out of Osama’s compound and go get a couple more.

Conspiracy theories about whether he’s really dead, because there will not be any pictures released. 

At first, I was sure some pictures would leak out or be released and I thought it was a good idea, as so to prove it was Osama.  But the more I thought about it, I realized it would prove nothing.  If the Birthers have shown anything it’s that nothing can “prove” that a crazy idea is crazy to the crazy person.  The conspiracy nuts would claim it’s a fake, just like they’re doing with the long-form birth certificate they’d been clamoring for. 

And after all that, the picture itself would be used to incite the radical Muslims who are already looking for reasons to blow shit up.  We release the pictures and we lose on both ends.  People still think there’s a conspiracy, and we have an even larger wave of people vowing vengeance upon us.  So keep it under wraps.  Who in their right mind would assert that the President, the Defense Department, the Joint Chiefs, Congressional committees and the CIA would stage an elaborate hoax like this?

Rush Limbaugh asserts that bin Laden has been dead for some time. 

Never mind about the end of that previous paragraph.  After stating this week that he thought bin Laden was actually killed at Tora Bora, he later backpedaled on that claim.  He did was he usually does… he makes some outlandish claim that gets picked up and repeated everywhere, but then says, “Oh, I was just kidding…” Meanwhile, his quote is being dittoed by his dittoheads all over the country.

But this does put the Republicans in a spot.  They have to choose between their knee-jerk reaction to criticize whatever Obama does, or try to claim credit for it.  Right now I’m seeing more of the credit-stealing.  The sad thing is that it will no doubt work on the people that want to believe it.  But it shouldn’t. 

I’ll grant that the military apparatus is essentially the same, between the 2 Presidents.  Neither one re-invented Special Ops.  However, there are some differences.

Bush had 7 years to find Osama and didn’t.  OK, they may have “found” him at Tora Bora, but they were not properly equipped to capture him, what with Rumsfeld’s “light footprint” army.  Obama had him found and taken out in 2 and a half.

Bush took the focus off Osama and Afghanistan to go to war with Iraq.  Bin Laden was nothing but an afterthought for the last half of the Bush presidency.  Obama refocused resources specifically to find and kill al-Qaeda leadership, including bin Laden.  The CIA pays attention to what the White House tells it to pay attention to.  They’ve pounded the crap out of terrorist hiding places in Pakistan with drone bombers, and when the Pakistanis objected, he basically told them to go pound sand, which they seem to have in abundance.

Remember all the rhetoric the Republicans used against Obama, both before the election and after?  He dithers… can’t make the hard decisions… he makes America weaker… he keeps America from leading… he relies too much on other nations… he’s too close to the Muslims…

I think the President answered his detractors this week:

Fuck yeah.

Odd Bits - The Back to Real Life Edition

I had another fun email string today, with blogging/real life work-friend Goldey.  Our financial services company is for sale and we were talking about the changes we’d like to make once we’re free of our parent company.

Also, I should preface this by saying that we both have an appreciation for the Chuck Norris jokes that have run amok across the Internet over the last 5 or 6 years.  For the uninitiated, they tend to glorify his martial arts and other abilities to the point of the absurd, especially the prowess and sheer volume of his roundhouse kicks to the face. 

Examples: Chuck Norris doesn’t raise himself up when he does pushups; he pushes the earth down.  There is no global warming; Chuck Norris was cold so he turned the sun up.  Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch… HE decides what time it is.  Chuck Norris once shot down a German fighter plane by pointing his finger at it and yelling “Bang.”  Chuck Norris shot the Sheriff, but he roundhouse kicked the Deputy.  Chuck Norris doesn’t dance; he roundhouse kicks to the beat. 

This is not to say that either of us support the man himself, who is really nothing but an aging born-again Christian/Ultra-Conservative; we just like the jokes. 

 I often paste this pic onto my emails to her.

Goldey: I hope the changes involve a lot of streamlining.  Seems like we have a lot of duplication now.

Maybe we could get Chuck Norris to buy us.

Bluz: I would love to see those negotiation sessions:

“We think this is a quality organization and we will not undersell our perceived valu…”

<Roundhouse kick to the face>

“Offer accepted.”

Goldey: We’d have to undergo roundhouse kick training!  And think of the benefits!  Total Gyms for everyone!

Bluz: Gathering in the lobby every morning to roundhouse kick in unison.  (ie. Dancing!)

Goldey: Best.  Company.  Ever.

Bluz: We’d scare the crap out of all the other financial companies in town.  They’d be totally expecting a hostile takeover… if not their companies, then all the downtown food courts.  A Flashmob of roundhouse kicking!

Goldey: We’d end up a monopoly – other banks would be scared to pay us off.  They’d be subordinating all of their accounts to us in fear.

Bluz: Just think how efficient our loan collections would become.  No calls, no letters, just show up at the door and they’ll hand us money.  Heck, we wouldn’t even have to get out of the car… we just paint up some vans with Chuck’s picture on them.  They see the Chuckmobile roll up, they run out the door with cash in hand.

Goldey: Everyone would be paid ahead.

Bluz: Just the rumor of the Chuckmobile circling the area would be enough to get those electronic payments started.

“Oh my God Honey… the neighbor says the Chuckmobile is at 4^th and Main.  Get off Astrology.com, I gotta make a payment.”

Goldey: People would be signing up for Auto-Pay in fear.  Optional insurance would no longer be optional.  “Hell yes you can secure my loan with my car… You want my neighbor’s car too?  How about my first born?

Bluz: For initial recon: The Chuckblimp.  People looking in the sky and running in fear, as if from Godzilla.

You know I’m totally using this stuff tonight, don’t you?

Goldey: But of course.

OH NO!  IT’S GODZIRRA!  NO! IT’S NOT GODZIRRA!  IT’S CHUCKBLIMP!  MUST MAKE PAYMENTS.  HE ROUNDHOUSE KICK MY HOUSE!

Bluz: A Chuck housecall: “When I want your payments, I’ll beat them out of you.”

Goldey: Think of the money we’d save on foreclosing.

Bluz: Waiting for the day we need to collect from Jean-Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal.  Epic.  Collection.  Day.

The Fleeting Brush of Fame

While Pittsburgh has been a hotspot of filmmaking lately, what with the announcement that the next Batman installment will be filmed there, Baltimore is also making a splash.  After playing host to NBC’s Homicide, and HBO’s The Wire, Charm City is also hosting a new HBO series starring Julia Louis-Dreyfuss as a US Senator turned VP.  HBO has also just started filming a new movie called Game Change, based on the McCain/Palin presidential campaign of 2008.

I know this because they were set up for filming right beside my building this morning.

Well, they weren’t exactly filming… it was more like they were set up for breakfast.

As I walked up to my building from the subway stop, I could see the giant service trucks lining the block.  That’s a dead giveaway that a film crew is in town.  There’s a big courtyard along the way, in front of a Quality Inn, and I could see a breakfast buffet set up there.  Stationed alongside the buffet was an armed policeman.  I wasn’t sure if he was there to fire at pigeons, or keep the homeless away.

Then right as I approached the big hotel beside my building I could swear that the actor Peter MacNicol walked past me.  I wasn’t sure until he was past me, but I was like, “It’s The Little Biscuit!”  (The character he played on Ally McBeal.)

It was kind of weird because you’re never quite sure if it’s a star, or just someone that kind of looks like him.  But given all the movie trucks around, I was sure it was him.  He was just kind of wandering down the sidewalk, probably heading for the buffet.  Or not.  I doubt they feed the cast out on the street, like pigeons.

Later, I did some Google research and confirmed that he was indeed cast in Game Change and filming in Baltimore had begun.  The film will also star Julianne Moore, Ed Harris, Jamie Sheridan and Woody Harrelson, among others.  So at lunch, I took my camera with me to document the scene.  Unfortunately, the buffet was all cleared away.  I was bummed because I was hoping to poach some bacon.

This is one of the many equipment trucks lining the block.  This one apparently contains lighting apparatus.

Here’s my Smoking Gun, indicating that my research was correct… Professionally labeled, big-time HBO Movie assisting hand trucks.

This bus kinda stuck out, right in the middle of a line of big equipment trucks.  With the unicorns and rainbows, I'm thinking that’s gotta be Woody Harrelson’s accommodations.

This morning’s buffet was set up on the other side of the fountain.  It’s funny that while in the background, you see all this expensive entertainment equipment and stuff, and in the foreground, one of our local homeless men is sitting on the edge of the fountain, with his own unprofessionally-labeled hand truck carrying all his worldly possessions.

On the way back from lunch, I saw several signs tacked up that said, “SET”, with an arrow pointing the way.  The arrows ended up pointing to the entrance to the big hotel.  I figure they’re probably using one of the ballrooms, or maybe a high-rise suite.

I’ll keep a look out and my camera handy for the next month, in case they continue filming so close by.  Maybe I can get close enough to proposition meet Julianne Moore. 

Although I would hate to cheat on Tina Fey like that.

Whatsername Part 3

I started the story of Whatsername with the last two posts.  If you haven’t read Part 1 and Part 2, this one won’t make much sense. The two posts immediately precede this one.

I almost keeled over when I saw that name come up in my inbox for that Facebook friend request. I didn’t recognize the last name, but I only ever knew one person with that first name. Her. (And no, the friend request didn’t actually say “Whatsername.”)

Seriously… this was right out of the blue. It had been more than 20 years since we’d last spoken. I’d always intended to tell our story here someday, (it was even on my blog idea list), but just seeing that one email prompted me to write the last two posts, which I did before I even decided what I was going to do with her request.

(Director’s DVD Commentary: Actually, I wrote them as a single post that grew entirely too long to drop on you all at once.)

(Further commentary: I’ve decided to add a new feature here, called the Director’s DVD Commentary, based on the bonus extras found on the movies we rent and buy.  I intend to use it to tell the stories behind writing the stories. You may see them within the posts, or they may pop up in the Comments section.  I’ll see what works.  Or if anyone cares. Now back to our feature.)

Her friend request started out, “Hello old friend.”  I thought that was a strange choice of words, given the story from the last two posts.  But no matter. I had to decide what to do. 

The thing is; I’m not really that mad about it anymore. I haven’t been for quite some time.  One of the revelations I had back in those dark, lonely, late-80s days is that it takes a lot of hard work to stay angry.  It’s tiring and it’s completely unproductive. So once I accepted that, the dark feelings began to slowly seep away.  Granted, I still wasn’t thrilled about everything, but I was able to move on with my life.  Whatsername took up less and less space in my head and heart. And eventually, I achieved that “indifference” that I had long sought.

I don’t think I told you this before, but I also heard from my ex-wife a couple months ago. You remember her, right? The one I wrote about getting stuck upside-down behind the dryer and later caught by our neighbors, naked in the backyard?  The one that fought with her son so incessantly that they both needed therapy? The one that had another guy’s stuff in our house the very month after I moved out?

Anyway, she also sent me a Facebook friend request. I hadn’t had any contact with her in probably 5 or 6 years.  I sent her a message directly, to see what was up. Turns out, she had an old Steeler jersey of my Dad’s that she wanted to send back. We emailed back and forth a few times and it was good to catch up. And I told her then that I hadn’t been upset about what happened to our marriage for quite some time. Life goes on and I am happy with what my life is right now. I can’t say that would be true if we were still married.

It’s the same thing now. While I fully admit that on the rare occasions when I’d refer to her, I’d only been calling her “Whatsername” out of habit rather than because of a still-burning grudge. Or I’d call her “She Whose Name I No Longer Speak,” if I was trying to clarify for someone who didn’t know the backstory. Essentially, I’m over it. 

Over. It.

So after chewing on my options for a day or so, I accepted her Facebook request and included a hesitant message of surprise, asking what was on her mind.

The following afternoon, she emailed me back.  She said that she was in a place where she was taking stock of her life and thought of me. She hoped that I was doing well and she asked me if I could forgive her for the way she’d treated me. She remembered the pet name I had for her.

I sent her a considerable response. If you think some of my posts are long, you should have seen this email.  Granted, I had a lot of ground to cover. 

Of course I said I forgave her. I related the sentiment that I expressed above, about the pointlessness of holding grudges.  I also apologized for reacting with such a lack of class about the whole affair.  But I told her the main reason I responded was that I needed to know “why.”

Why did she keep calling me back, only to push me away again?  Why did she keep going back to a guy that treated her so poorly?  Why couldn’t she have just chosen me?  Why?

OK, so I’m only “kind of” Over It. 

No, really, what I was hoping for was that with a cool, unclouded eye, she could look back with the clarity of retrospect and tell me what was really going on... just for that last degree of closure.

While the forgiveness is there, the truth is that the experience affected so many of my future relationships.  I mean, if it wasn’t for her, would I have otherwise asked the ex-wife to marry me a mere 3 months after we met?  I had done the same thing with a girl I met right after Whatsername, too.  Something in my subconscious was telling me to seal the deal before the girl could get away.

Of course, they all got away anyway, and that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

We exchanged a couple more emails over the week and caught up a bit, not only on where we’ve been since we split up, but what really happened all those years ago.

In a nutshell, she was confused (which she used to say a lot) and she was under a lot of pressure from her mother, who liked The Slob.  Mother apparently had her own issues with valium, and had an unhealthy codependent relationship with her daughter. So combine being a young, single mother with job stress, an overbearing mother, a recently deceased father, and a love triangle?

It’s no wonder she wasn’t making the best decisions. To me, at the time, it was never that complicated.  My parents never interfered in my life. They brought me up to be independent and then sent me out into the world to sink or swim. They would have provided a safety net had I needed it, but I never did.  I left home determined to make do on my own and pretty much have.

I can’t say how I would have reacted in her shoes. If I had had her upbringing, I’d have turned out differently.  The thing I keep dwelling on is that we were both very young… in our mid-20s.  And frankly, I know I was an idiot. I was trying to be a grownup by emulating what I saw others do in real life and on TV, but I was winging it. I was like a boy putting on his dad’s suit and hat. You can’t rush experience; I guess… you just have to wait for it.

I’d hate to be judged now on shit I did in my 20s.  It’s not fair because I’m not that person anymore and haven’t been for some time. So it follows that it would be unfair to judge anyone else that way either. 

And therein lies the peace. I have answers that I can live with.

She said she’d thought of me many times throughout the years, wondering what had become of me and what our lives might have been like if she’d chosen differently. Her marriage to The Slob only lasted a couple of years.  She went through several other disastrous relationships and had a couple of daughters.  The last guy, she followed to another state and settled there. Now they’re divorced, he’s gone and she’s still there, with one girl in college and another living with her father, out of state.  Her oldest son, the one that was there when I was still around, is 29, married, and about to make his mother a grandmother.

She’s had a really rough road but she’s finally in a spot where motherhood is not her primary mission and is able for the first time, to concentrate on her own life. And one of those things she wanted to do was to make amends with me. That was something I was glad to be able to help.

Hey… since she’s speaking freely now, you could say I’m her First Amendment!  Hah!

Some people might have reveled in the suffering of someone who did them wrong.  And there’s a part of me, deep down, that might have too… especially in years past.  

I also got to do what I do best… give unsolicited advice!  I told her that I always wished she would stand up for herself and pay less attention to the cloud of people who always seemed to be telling her what to do.  Make your own way! Do what makes you happy!  And don’t take any more shit from guys!  I said if some new guy doesn’t treat you right, straight off the bat, get the hell out, because his nature is unlikely to change. Never settle… life’s too short.

When I got up on Monday, I had no idea that this week would end with one of my biggest life mysteries uncovered. It took a little introspection, some soul-searching, and a smattering of blind panic, but now, here on the other side, I’m glad I took the chance and made the journey.

And I hope my old friend lives well, which as you know, is the best revenge.