\Cliff Between the Lines/

Addicted to...self jabber?

2009-11-27T11:08:00.003-05:00

There's something about jabbering.

I get these thoughts in my head and I just have to spit them out somewhere. For a long time this was the venue, then for a while I tossed them all over Youtube. Then I went over to Facebook, and then Twitter which works only occasionally because I don't think in telegram.

Twitter is more like your Intenet answering machine. "Hi, I'm on the porch now. There's a bug. Beep."

You know, all in all, I still like it here.

It's peaceful here. There's no the cacophany of Facebook or the drama of MySpace. And somehow, over time, most of the mindless idiots have moved on, leaving only the serious thinkers and those trapped in time.

And this is a good clearing house, isn't it? A good place to accumulate all of one's thoughts. If anyone is REALLY serious, they can come here and read you, and know you, and feel you all they like. Years later, another person can do exactly the same thing, maybe stumbling in on a keyword.

(It was all I could do to resist typing a whole list of keywords here for fun so they would trigger in Google, like....oh, you get the picture :) )

Anyway, I thought I would gather some of the writing I have been doing elsewhere over the past year or so, and drop it here over the next few days. And then make sure I keep this spot updated. Think of it as my "General Practitioner" for web musings.

So there. Open wide. Ima jabber.

Kinda moving on, join me?

2009-09-20T16:47:00.003-04:00

Hey :) Been a while!

After a bit of a sojourn at YouTube, where I still may post videos but not videologs, I've decided to move my daily online presence to Facebook. If you search on Cliff Hursey you should find me. Friend me if you like, I usually say yes.

Unless your profile picture is a hot young girl in a bikini, then I'll refuse the request because I'll think you are a spammer.

Uh, waitaminute, maybe I'm doing this wrong...

Serpent's Egg - Prologue

2008-11-02T12:16:00.001-05:00

Serpent's Egg - A Science Fiction Mini-Miniseries in Seven Parts

Welcome to the world of Serpent's Egg, a Science Fiction fable set in today's time and your backyard. The Prologue picks up the story in progress as the Captain returns to Earth and attempts to activate a machine he has been told to assemble that will cure many of humanity's woes...but will it? And will he be able to do so? (All of the loose ends and backstory will be covered in the next six installments, so stay tuned!)

Soluble Words

2008-07-06T22:14:00.001-04:00

This one is a break from my normal, hope you like it. Soluble Words, by Ken Andrews, is a song about failed communication. The song talks about words falling to the ground, having no meaning, in other words dissolving like they never existed. I wanted to have a visual illustrating this, so it came to me, what better visual than that of people dissolving into each other? And the software was able to give it a nice watery fluid feel too.

Enjoy. Here's the lyrics:

Soluble Words
Ken Andrews
What did you say?
I heard soluble words
They flew out of your face
Then fell back to earth

Inaudible sounds
Get carried away
Can't you tell that I know your game
You've got nothing to say

Is there something you can tell me
That could make me hear the call
Everything I've heard you spill
Is sleepier than Seconal
How can i pretend to think
That what you say is meaningful
Every time I look inside
There's nothing but an empty hole

What did you say?
I heard questionable sounds
They dropped out of your mouth
Then fell to the ground

What are you fighting for?
What could it be?
I don't know, but I don't think you'll mind
All the extra money

Is there something you can tell me
That could make me hear the call
Everything I've heard you spill
Is sleepier than Seconal
How can i pretend to think
That what you say is meaningful
Every time I look inside
There's nothing but an empty hole

What did you say?
I heard questionable sounds
They flew out of your face
Then dropped to the ground

Is there something you can tell me
That could make me hear the call
Everything I've heard you spill
Is sleepier than Seconal
How can i pretend to think
That what you say is meaningful
Every time I look inside
There's nothing but an empty hole

Is there something you can tell me
That could make me hear the call
Everything I've heard you spill
Is sleepier than Seconal
How can i pretend to think
That what you say is meaningful
Every time I look inside
There's nothing but an empty hole

An empty hole

Can't afford to let you down
There's nothing here but broken sound
I'll leave the tape beside your door
On my way home

Can't afford to let you down
There's nothing here but broken sound
I'll leave the tape beside your door
On my way home

Can't afford to let you down
There's nothing here but broken sound
I'll leave the tape beside your door
On my way home

A Ghost Between Us

2008-06-24T14:44:00.001-04:00

I haven't uploaded a personal video in eight months. This not only reveals what happened to cause that, but it tells what I have learned along the way.

Jane Meyers One

2008-06-24T12:20:00.001-04:00

This is an excellent short video by Jane Meyers, a person I was introduced to by way of her wonderful book "The Magic Child." In the next few days I will be posting a review of that book, as it has changed my life for the better in some very significant ways. In the meantime, enjoy this small clip from Jane, and if you want more, visit YouTube where she has several more posted.

50 Things I've Done

2008-03-01T01:36:00.003-05:00

50 Things I've Done...

The Real One (Part 5) The Real Story of Santa Claus

2008-03-01T01:36:00.001-05:00

Miracles

The Real One (Part 4) The Real Story of Santa Claus

2008-03-01T01:35:00.001-05:00

Nicea and fisticuffs

The Real One (Part 3) The Real Story of Santa Claus

2007-12-16T20:33:00.001-05:00

The Famine

The Real One (Part 2) The Real Story of Santa Claus

2007-12-16T20:32:00.001-05:00

The Persecution

The Real One (Pt. 1) the Real Story of Santa Claus

2007-12-16T20:31:00.001-05:00

The Stocking

Smile by Charlie Chaplin, Performed by KokoKaina

2007-12-13T23:38:00.000-05:00

I love her version of this song. She writes:

"This is an absolutely lovely song. Written by Charlie Chaplin, recorded by Nat King Cole.

"I gave the video a 'silent movie feel'. I hope you enjoy my rendition of it. Not my best of it, i was tired but i suppose that's just an excuse eh?
Haha."

=)
----------------------------------

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
Though there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile through your fears and sorrows
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through for you

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

Open Up (Re: For the Record- Richard Gere)

2007-11-15T19:32:00.001-05:00

My response.

For the Record- Richard Gere

2007-11-15T19:31:00.001-05:00

Stress Management 2 - Fight or Flight/Panic Disorder

2007-11-12T22:54:00.001-05:00

A Familiar Tune. (Original Song)

2007-10-31T19:07:00.001-04:00

As you know I love bringing the new songwriters to light that I discover. This is a delightful tune by Koko Kaina. Guaranteed to cause a smile!

Human on the Inside

2007-10-26T22:11:00.001-04:00

A Pretender's song I montaged (Dunno if I already posted or not)

Thoughts on a Bobcat's Demise

2007-10-26T20:57:00.001-04:00

Thoughts on insanity, the bobcat I've spoken of before.

Up All Night (Montage)

2007-10-25T00:27:00.001-04:00

Up All Night by Charlotte Martin

A simple montage, a simple message.

Montage by me.

Charlotte Martin Never Say Never Tour Review

2007-10-08T02:06:00.001-04:00

CliffBetweentheLines
review of the Never Say Never Tour by:

Charlotte Martin
Ken Andrews
First Wave Hello

Links to concert vids:
Charlotte Martin - Angel 9/23/07 Tempe Az (I think she opens every venue
with this one, and she oughtta):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhIAaN...

Charlotte Martin performing 'Keep Me In Your Pocket' at the Knitting Factory
in NYC. 10/3/07 including the great jam I mentioned:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFAZCP... and, shorter incomplete clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvRMKP...

Charlotte performing Obstacles at the Knitting Factory on October 3, 2007:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nztIwL...

Charlotte Martin performs "I Am Stretched Out On Your Grave" on Sept. 26,
2007 in New Orleans, LA at The Parish. Fernando Sanchez on drums.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTxjyT...

Charlotte Martin-Haunted and I Am Stretched Out On Your Grave Sept.27 2007
Nashville (some phone overload on Haunted):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkuH_f...

Charlotte Martin - 'Lost and Found' (live Hotel Cafe 5/1/07 - from an
earlier tour. This song has since grown up, caught a bus, and headed out to
see the world on the Never Say Never tour. Washington DC was treated to the
East Coast premiere of the grown up "whole shebang" version, according to
Charlotte. OMG still shaking, it was awesome!!!!!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DevYGx...

Ken Andrews/First Wave Hello - Smith's Olde Bar, Atlanta, GA 3/19/07- The
Nurse Who Loved Me :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwljzY...

Behind the scenes look at Ken Andrews' new album, 'Secrets of the Lost
Satellite'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPCSkI...

Links to Websites
Main Charlotte Martin Site:

http://www.charlottemartin.com
(Access tour and tkt information here)

The very best Char Fan site, Darkest-Limits.com:

http://www.darkest-limits.com

Live Music Archive for Charlotte:

http://www.archive.org/audio/etreelis...

YouTube Channel for Charlotte:

http://www.youtube.com/charlottemarti...

Ken Andrews Main Site:

http://www.kenandrews.com

First Wave Hello's MySpace Page:

http://www.myspace.com/firstwavehello

Thank you to all who allowed me to use their vids and still photos!!!!
(more)

For My Blogside Readers

2007-09-11T15:14:00.000-04:00

Just a quick personal apology for my absence lately. As you can now see, I have been in a very dark place, and am now out the other side of it. I was reticent to drag others through it with me aside from only a very few. I even hid it from my immediate family until the very last.

But, from here, we're gonna have fun. Personally, I've earned it I think. Hop on for the ride.

Thanks for hanging on!

- Cliff

Vlog September 10, 2007 Update on Cliff & Stuff

2007-09-11T15:07:00.000-04:00

First personal vlog in a month and a half...updates on a lot of personal stuff including health issues and the Lizard Man.

Yeah, you read that right.

Oh, and dummy me, it's http://www.youtube.com/ShadowedAngel87

Fix You

2007-09-11T15:01:00.000-04:00

Fix You by Coldplay, Collage by CliffBetweentheLines

This one is special. It's not only the first one with an upbeat message I've done (save for Fran's) but it's a gift for a very special friend that has stuck with me through some very dark times, ShadowedAngel87. She gave me the song in the first place, and it fit her perfectly. Photos from Photobucket with lots of graphic manipulation to make all of this gel as a unit.

In the shadows of the night, there are angels aplenty...

Lyrics:

When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
COULD IT BE WORSE?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

And high up above or down below
When you're too in love to let it go
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Tears stream down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down your face
And I

Tears stream down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face
And I

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Hyperfriendship - Lasting Friendship & Reducing Drama Online

2007-09-11T14:55:00.000-04:00

Based on results of a study by the University of Toronto on online relations, I am proposing ten general guidelines for Friendship (the people kind.) This video is directed at the YouTube viewing community, but it applies anywhere online. It received the following honors:

#37 - Top Rated (Today) - Howto & DIY
#17 - Most Discussed (Today) - Howto & DIY
#13 - Top Favorites (Today) - Howto & DIY

Funny Cats

2007-08-20T02:39:00.001-04:00

A very, very good friend of mine from Australia, who is also heavily into the Goth culture, just put this video together for me. I thought it was hilarious. Have a gander! If you're at work, watch the speakers!

Update

2007-08-12T04:20:00.000-04:00

It's almost 4:30 in the morning. I can't remember the last time I was asleep this time of night. Technically, its Sunday. I'm still doing Saturday. Not that it was any different from any of the other days.

Monday has a ray of hope. I've gotten a therapist appointment. It's even with someone I already know. I intend to walk in with the mentality of a dump truck. Otherwise, how could she help. I'm going to tell her the things no one knows. Maybe the things I'm not even letting me know.

No packets from Australia yet.

I've started skipping meds. I don't mean to, I'm just so burned out. So loaded with chemicals. I look at the lunchbox full of pillboxes and I just can't always bring myself to eat them. I just can't. I'm not feeling worse. Which makes me wonder.

My days and nights are flipped. I arise in the evening, grab a meal, maybe. Then I'm up all night, me and the cats and the computer. No one really knows, I'm sequestered in here, I could be dead and it might be hours or days. And in my own house. I finally get sleepy when the sun rises, and at least now I have a cot instead of a sleeping bag.

Max, my cat, knows something is wrong. He won't leave my side for an instant. He constantly jumps in my lap to try to lick me, cat cure all for all ills. I wish it would help.

But this isn't life. This isn't living. I could not tell you how I ended up so trapped, futureless. All I know is that I am so, so broken, I don't have the energy to even fight this. It;s just sucking me deeper and deeper and deeper. Every night is worse than the one before it.

My friend tells me to go have a few beers and relax. But its not like that. This isn't a viewpoint problem.

I'm Humpty Dumpty, and I've fallen.

I have a broken head.

And I have a broken heart.

Watch the montages. It's in there. Messages for the void.

What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Tell Me Why (Montage)

2007-08-12T04:16:00.001-04:00

Photo montage to the song "Tell Me Why" by the group Echobelly. The visuals are sort of experimental. I was trying for a very minimalist bleak look, that's the mood I had.

Sorry, this is yet another not very cheery song. When a cheery time comes, I'll do cheery, promise.

Lyrics:

Do you ask yourself why
You run scared, with nowhere to go
Your heart full of sundays
The surface of saturday nights
You stare at the floor
The fistful of dreams that you crave
Got burned out on nicotine stains
When nobody called

Tell me why, you're alone my friend
Tell me why, do you fill yourself on empty
Tell me why, you're alone again

Do you ask yourself why
You don't care for no-one at all
You trip on the mainline
You're bound to the static that's there
All you've ever known

Tell me why, you're alone my friend
Tell me why, do you fill yourself on empty
Tell me why, you're alone again

Nowhere to go, nowhere to go
Nobody knows you're all alone
Nowhere to go, nowhere to go
Nobody knows the way to go

From Here

2007-08-05T23:45:00.000-04:00

Hi, my friends.

Over the last five years or so, I've invited you to journey along with me, first here on the Cliff Between the Lines blog, then more recently on the CliffBetweentheLines channel on the YouTube service, which is normally echoed in these pages as well. (Articles here are not echoed to the YouTube service, as they have no facility for print communication of this sort. )

Most recently, you have travelled with me down some of the harder roads I have walked. I have had close friends die. I have lost others suddenly and irreplaceably that have left giant and permanent holes in my heart.

I finally found the me that I laid aside so long ago, pieced me back together, and set out on a path to freedom. Well, it was so good at the time...

Since then, I have had my mind betray me in many ways and continue to do so in ever greater degrees. The ticket is ever a surprise, but the cost, which soars higher and higher each time, is ever mine to bear.

So here is the update that you deserve, as my friends.

I came to my house temporarily, not even intending to spend a night. Since then I have never left. I have been sleeping in my office on the floor until I could secure an apartment, then more for a short period as my wife asked for time to try to work things out which I agreed to. All this time the old tension has been there, simmering, but controlled because it was temporary. For much of this time tension was high, and rising.

For not only is my wife in the house, but my stepson and his family. He lost everything he owned in a bad venture in Florida, and we paid for him to move himself, his wife, his seventeen year old daughter, his eleven year old son, his two dogs, one of which is a pit bull, his several cats including two deformed ones that have leukemia, and a bird with a talent for singing at the top of her lungs at 4am, right into the house. That's why I am on the office floor for weeks, and now a cot. They are a family that lives quite loudly. QUITE loudly. Under the "Why should you yell when you could holler" philosophy. Combine this with the "He who shouts loudest wins" correllary, and you can see how things start shaking out pretty quickly.

Then a few weeks ago, the diagnosis you've seen on the memory and IQ situation. Too many unknowns. And simultaneously another situation that has left a lasting and probably permanent wound at a time when I could not handle another blow.

My mind, where I live, not only broken now, but pieces falling out, slipping. Now I am no longer me, but some part of me without all of me and maybe later only some of me. What,what ifs fill my mind.

What if I go grocery shopping and forget what car I have?

Or what if I forget the way home?

Or what home looks like (already done that once)?

What if I forget HOW to drive? And don't know it? Or what if I forget something like gasoline? Brakes? Steering?
What if I awaken and I have forgotten my pet?

What if I can't understand the directions on my food?

This could happen, unless we find something different out. My mind is no longer functioning normally. I can no longer trust it.

I cannot possibly live alone in an apartment.

I reel with that realization, because all of my direction rests on that one key, now gone. I can't leave. I can't leave. I can't leave.

My wife is trying as hard as she can to fix things, surprising me. Yet every day that passes, the tension inside me builds, the hopelessness, as I fail to find a solution to this. I've almost decided to just surrender to failure, and give up, but I don't and I awaken the next day more strung than the day before. Some nights I never even attempt to sleep at all.

The docs have me on massive amounts of medication. Massive. One med I am on a doseage that is half again bigger than the dose my body reacted to as toxic only four years ago, and I weighed 25% more then. Another I am taking twelve times my regular dose, and tomorrow morning I may have to go to sixteen times. I am in unexplored country, and my body is jerking and quaking and uncontrollably shivering to the point where sometimes I can't type, or put a CD in a player, or press buttons on a remote or a stereo. But with enough, with enough, with enough, the turmoil quietens enough to think, to live.

And in a couple of days, it overpowers the meds, and up we go yet again.

I have taken to doing the music montages because they calm me, and sometimes they even allow me to say things I can't easily say. They give me a touch of beauty, even if a sad melancholy beauty, it is still beauty.

I wanted so very badly to be able to balance everything, so that I could have my broken mind as a minor part of my life that I could work around and go on about my living. Beginning of June, I was thinking I might could hold a job.

Now I can barely hold a cup of coffee.

Is there any ghost of a normal life in this for me anymore? Right now there are actually three chances of that, squeezing every bit of optimism I can find.

1. The doctors might not have a clue what they are doing. This might be the case because they didn't seem to have a clue how to treat this. On the other hand, this one doesn't really get me any more well, does it?

2. There was one reference that this can in some ultra rare circumstances be caused by migraines. This is a very slim chance, but I'm pushing it.

3. My great friend Pearl in Australia has promised me that she is sending me something that will "change my life." I personally saw it do that to her virtually overnight, overcoming out a serious illness, measured and tested, which had been completely debilitating her. And you know? Right now, with my bucket of whatever, she has my undivided attention and I think my best chance of all. Hurry Mr. Postman. It isn't the first time for this Aussie Angel, nor will it be the last. She's one of these people that, if you get lost, she'll be standing there waiting for you with a map and compass.

So there it is. I don't wanna give bad news. Usually I'll duct tape a smile on and go for it.

But sometimes, like now, I think I should be straight up with you, not pull any punches. This is it, warts and all. Tears and fears and all the rest.

I'm not posting this on YouTube, only here on Blogger. I'll do a "tag" video to point to this, but that's all. If you are here from YouTube, you may use either comment system although you will find this one more convenient at this point. If you want to monitor the answers, there's a check box for that.

I am pleading for ideas. I am out. I am in treading water mode but you can only do that so long. So comment soon and often, please.

If I am here, I'll be acting as normal, probably making vids here and there, posting stuff, commenting. But now all of you know what only a few of you did a few minutes ago, that it is only a veneer, and a very thin one at that. And the veneer is cracking rapidly.

Cliff

The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so
long as we can see far enough.
Ralph Emerson, Nature: Addresses and Lectures

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Update: 8/7/2007

Saw the doc this afternoon. Almost decided to go inpatient, but holding out for now. He says what is getting me is accumulated over the last five years, and its basically battlefield fatigue, for lack of a better term. He left my meds as is because I'm pretty much maxed out now and can't handle any more, and I'm at label maximum on several.

I saw many friends this evening. I found myself running on autopilot, or otherwise being quiet and withdrawn. They are all aware and would do anything for me, but what? My dear friend J was there as well, she is one of the two that holds a promise that keeps me from ever hurting myself, so even now, I am perfectly safe even though six or eight months ago I would have been in very real danger in the state I am in right now. As it is now, it's not even on the radar.

We are going to try to find me a new therapist in the morning, assuming I can wake up before noon.

Cliff

The Exeter File

2007-08-05T08:18:00.001-04:00

Whose bandwagon are you on?

After All (I Won't Shut Us Down) Montage - Cory Sipper

2007-08-04T03:20:00.001-04:00

You are in for a treat.

This is a photo montage to one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite guitarist/singer/composers ever, Cory Sipper. To our great loss, Cory stopped performing live several years ago, but her stuff is still available at http://www.corysippermusic.com.

This song was released under the name "After All" by Cory and just released again under the name "Won't Shut Us Down" by Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac fame, who co-authored it (there are several recordings of his versions on YT, check 'em out, just look in my favorites.) Cory's version is very ethereal and delicate, as is most of her stuff.

This recording is from her Bedroom Tapes album, and like all songs from it, was recorded in someones bedroom!

Make sure you visit her website and check out some of the rest of her stuff. None of it is less than excellent.

Here's the lyrics:

After All
Cory Sipper

Oh you and I, sure do dream,
You and I surely see
But open arms one sweet night
I hold that we will touch in time

After all these crazy years
I can't even see you clear
I know that I was bending some truth
Defensive me, missing you

Oh, I won't shut us down,
No, I'll be around
As long as I can
As long as I can

After all these growing years
I recall all my fears
We built a wall between us two
But I still love the thought of you

I won't shut us down
No, I'll be around
As long as I can
As long as I can

Oh, I won't shut us down
No, I'll be around
As long as I can
As long as I can.

How to Save a Life (Montage)

2007-08-01T15:26:00.001-04:00

Got some new software, figured I'd try it out. This is a montage to the Fray's How to Save a Life.

Rest In Peace

2007-07-30T17:02:00.001-04:00

Another wonderful song by Aubree that I very much liked. This talented young composer has very little exposure so far, but I expect when she gets some better recording equipment and a larger audience, we'll be hearing from her from more than just a computer screen. She reminds me of myself at her age. But she's better :) And her voice certainly is!

Here's her comments and lyrics to this song:
-------------------------------------------
So... I'll be posting more songs, hence... This. So yeah, there ya go. I wrote a song.

I fall asleep
With you in my dreams
And every time I want to scream
But you hold my mouth closed
And say
Don't you worry babe
I'll hold you babe
Forever in my broken arms

Well I fall so fast
I can't break my speed
At all
No matter waht I do there'll alwasy be a consequence
And there's no excuse for these "accidents"

I'm searching for the right letters
To put into a sequence so you can see
You didn't have to be so cruel to me
I understand what you mean
But I can smell her perfume
From where you're sitting across the room
But you'll just say
Oh, it's yours babe
You're just confused babe
So what's there to say?

Well who are you now?
I don't know you anymore
At all
No matter what you say I know you love her more
And there's no fucking excuse for your absence anymore

And I guess I can't complain
Cos I'm just the same
I play the same game
As you play

Well my tears dry so fast
There's no difference between good or bad
At All
No matter what bullshit we pull we can't come clean
And there's always another thing we can blame

Tonight maybe I'll rest in peace
With you lying right next to me.

Hello. I'm Back. Who Are You?

2007-07-28T23:10:00.001-04:00

I've been gone for a while, this is one major reason why. If you are looking for happy, this isn't your vid.

I've had something major wrong with me since about a year ago, and I've only mentioned this to three people on YouTube. The docs have been trying to diagnose it for nine months. Now they have. I'm not happy, but I thought I would share it.

For No One (Everything)

2007-07-13T15:41:00.001-04:00

This is a live performance video of an original song by Aubrey, one of my friends on YouTube. She has the most amazing voice, it reminds me of a springtime drive through rolling green hills. Yeah, I know, too poetic. Well, you'll see. Anyway, the sound quality leaves some to be desired, but the video is exactly like she wanted it. Enjoy! Oh, her thoughtful musings on this video? "Yup...I wrote a song." Get ready to fall in love.

Pandora's Box

2007-07-05T22:27:00.001-04:00

A box with a secret, and a good chance it might hurt you...would YOU open it?

Double click on this one...there are some incredible comments and video responses on the YouTube side for you to enjoy!

The Youtube Staring Contest (pfft, you can't beat me)

2007-07-04T15:32:00.001-04:00

Here's a fun one for you. ItalianGuyFromNY and his Puppet Hanz are favorites of mine....watch Hanz in a staring match!

IMPROVING YOUR SELF-ESTEEM

2007-07-02T15:22:00.001-04:00

Let me introduce you to one of the most special people I have come across on the Internet lately, my friend FranFromBrazil. When Fran needed some help with her own self-esteem, she of course made a video to help everyone else with theirs! She has graciously agreed to let me show it to you here. This young lady has helped so many others, and it is my pleasure to present her to you. Here are her comments:

Fran: So I took a test to measure up my self esteem and out of 100 I got only 31. Which means that I really need to improve mine.
So I decided to read some material my therapist gave me a while ago and here I am sharing some interesting things that I found on those pages.
Let's all improve our self-esteem.

Eulogy for a Friend

2007-07-01T18:46:00.001-04:00

Goodbye to a dear friend

Musings (from Kalodaimon)

2007-07-01T13:55:00.001-04:00

You are in for a treat. My friend has given me permission to share this video with you. She did an absolutely incredible job, and I love what she says in it. Sit back, make yourself comfortable, and enjoy.
- Cliff

Bit of an update

2007-06-29T00:34:00.000-04:00

This is going to be a rather informal update, mainly because I intend to ramble, don't want to be bothered with the normal formatting, and I have no idea what I'm going to talk about. It'll be a surprise for both of us.

First, I hope everyone likes the new vlog format. I find that a lot of times I can do far more through that medium than I can in print. Sorry you have to look at my scary mug sometimes in the process, but that's the tradeoff :) It also allows me to kill two birds with one stone, as it were, because each of these videologs is posted at the same time on the flip side of Cliff Between the Lines, which lives on the YouTube service. If you double click on any of them, you will be taken to the YouTube page where there is a different comment system and sometimes video responses from other users to what you are watching.

Well, lets see...my wife and I are now officially separated. I hate seeing it come to this, but its really best for both of us (except perhaps financially.) This is amicable, there has not been a single argument or one shouted word. No one has been called a name or insulted. The decision was reached in a calm and reasoned manner. The dissolution of any marriage is a reason to grieve, and this one is no different.

Now, on the friendship front, there is where the water is flowing most rapidly lately.

My dear friend John, whom I've mentioned, was told he should go to John Hopkins for testing ans analysis. I immediately (really, like 1 second) offered to go with him, or meet him there and do anything I could. At this point, he hasn't made the trip yet, and he may not. If he doesn't, I will head south again soon.

As of nine days ago, and I counted them in amazement today because it seems like years, I welcomed a new friend into my life. Her name is Monica, and she is a devout Christian (extremely) and a professional spiritual advisor, the first I have ever met. The amazing thing is that it became obvious at the get go that we had WAY more in common than usual. It was as if every time I pulled something out of my pocket, she would hold out the same thing. And the more we got to know, the more it happened. It was almost frightening, but it was quite nice. The guy she's madly in love with doesn't do much for me (Well, I am a guy!)...but other than that... :) I'm very glad I met her, especially now when I need friends so badly.

On a sadder note, I had a friendship self destruct two weeks ago. It really didn't have to, but I couldn't stop it. There is nothing I hate worse than losing a friend, and I will do anything I can to stop it, but I am almost at a loss in this case. That really bothers me deeply, because I care about my friends, even the estranged ones.

Our 18 year old Maine Coon cat has maybe a day left in him. I really didn't think he would make it until now, but he is a heck of a fighter. Docs have been telling us he was soon to die since 1992. This time though, he is. Still he valiantly struggles. He isn't in any pain, he's just drifting off. He is sharing our kitchen with two cats that don't belong to us, a cat with backwards elbows and a cat who is a dwarf. Really. And you can continue that theme through my entire house.

I will be glad to leave it behind.

Time to begin again.

Next time,

Cliff

Spirit Journey - Epilogue

2007-06-23T21:49:00.001-04:00

Spirit Journey - Epilogue: Not upbeat. In a last ditch effort to see if things could be worked out, I almost come to great harm.

3 Wishes

2007-06-21T23:00:00.001-04:00

A beach. An old bottle. A free genie. Three wishes. Which ones? Choose quick! Save the world? Stuff your pockets? Tell me what you would do! Log onto the YouTube page at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58cDhqPfr2g and join the discussion, or leave a remark here!

Friendship

2007-06-18T22:57:00.001-04:00

Ruminations on the nature of friendship.

Spirit Journey Conclusion - Sincerely

2007-06-13T21:22:00.001-04:00

Spirit Journey Day 10-16 Growing Stronger

2007-06-13T15:35:00.001-04:00

Spirit Journey Day 9 - Again the Reaper

2007-06-12T00:02:00.001-04:00

Spirit Journey Day 8 Pieces of Me

2007-06-08T15:31:00.001-04:00

Spirit Journey Day 7 Journey Home Part 2

2007-06-07T22:41:00.001-04:00

Spirit Journey Day 7 Journey Home Part 1

2007-06-07T19:03:00.001-04:00

Spirit Journey Day 6 Unhanded & Stuck

2007-06-03T22:20:00.000-04:00

Spirit Journey Day 5 Night: Dreamtime

2007-06-03T18:54:00.001-04:00

Spirit Journey Day 4b Wisdom Talking: Death Lessons

2007-06-02T23:16:00.001-04:00

Spirit Journey Day 4 Captain David's Elegy

2007-06-02T13:33:00.001-04:00

Spirit Journey Day 3 Wisdom Talking

2007-06-02T13:26:00.001-04:00

Spirit Journey Day 2 Finally Forgiveness Pt 2

2007-05-31T13:50:00.001-04:00

West Virginia Day 2 Part 1
I am on a journey to find some serious answers and clear some major baggage in my life. This is baggage clearing day 1.

Although I will narrate them, I did not cam the more intense moments of this vid out of respect for privacy for the people concerned, including my own. Some things...are just mine. There will not be a day three Spirit Journey update, see you on Day 4 from Delaware. I think. (more)

Spirit Journey Day 2 Finally Forgiveness Pt 1

2007-05-31T13:34:00.001-04:00

West Virginia Day 2 Part 1
I am on a journey to find some serious answers and clear some major baggage in my life. This is baggage clearing day 1.

Spiritual Journey 1

2007-05-31T13:26:00.001-04:00

am taking a two week journey to clear wounds and make some big decisions. Night 1 - West Virginia Forest (Very lighthearted)

Why Does Bipolar Disorder Happen

2007-05-25T17:31:00.001-04:00

There was this guy and this girl...

2007-05-14T21:47:00.001-04:00

Random Chaos 05/10/2007

2007-05-14T21:46:00.001-04:00

Innocent in the Big City

2007-05-03T18:36:00.001-04:00

Innocent in the Big City, Part 1 (Already in this blog in text form, sort of)

Taking the Plunge

2007-05-03T01:07:00.001-04:00

Who Are You Again?

2007-03-22T22:56:00.000-04:00

mem-o-ry
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English memorie, from Anglo-French memoire, memorie, from Latin memoria, from memor mindful; akin to Old English gemimor well-known, Greek mermEra care, Sanskrit smarati he remembers
1 a : the power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms b : the store of things learned and retained from an organism's activity or experience as evidenced by modification of structure or behavior or by recall and recognition
2 : things that you can lose, suddenly, unexpectedly

Yeah, I know I've been kinda quiet for a few months. I've been alternating between breaking down in one way or another or allowing myself to slowly commit suicide without anyone having a clue.

Not a good idea, I see now. But at the time, through the haze of my illness it made tragic sense.

For a while now, I have been tired in my spirit, just worn to the bone with constant fighting against my illnesses. Every day is just like the one before with minor changes. Tomorrow will be too, and the next day, and the next day.

Back in December, I began having chest pains. Now, I already have a heart condition and six stents, the most recent five being those medicated ones that have been in the news lately. In my addled mind, I didn't think "Better get help." No, instead I thought "If I let this take its course, this whole bucketfull of drama will finally be over and done with."

So every day, I'd get chest pains. Sometimes they'd be pretty sharp. And all on the left side. And I would quietly bear it, not knowing if I was dying or not right then, but knowing I couldn't let anybody see. And days ran into weeks. Weeks into months. And the pains kept coming several times a day, sometimes crushing, sometimes pulling, sometimes stabbing, and each time they would leave as quickly as they came, and leave me shaken and intact.

After a while this dance with the Reaper, or so it had become in my head, began to take its toll on me.

In the meantime, another problem was developing. It started simply. A few places I had visited before looked very unfamiliar when I returned, as if I had never been there in the first place. There would be occasional people who I came across that I knew I should remember, and factually did remember, but the person themself was a stranger. Usually this was only an aquantance, so it didn't bother me.

Then came a day at the doctor's office when I went to see a nurse named Linda. She came to get me in the waiting room, and I didn't recognize her. I thought she was the doctor. (I have seen both of them many times before over a period of years.) We went through the weigh in and walked into Linda's office. I looked at her and said, "Where's Linda?"

She looked at me stunned. I covered it up blaming it on some med or another.

From that point forward, things got worse. One morning, all my zip codes just dropped out of my head. I had to look up my own zip code. Another day, I left the house to go somewhere, remembered I forgot something, and looped the block to return. When I pulled up, I didn't remember that this was my house.

I have forgotten buildings and locations. I have forgotten friend's names whom I have known for years and seen frequently. Sometimes I have people's images in my head that don't match up to anything that I know of.

This is, of course, rather disturbing.

Which brings me to about three weeks or so ago.

Chest pains that night had left me with a dull ache in my chest, a reminder of the unholy pact I was making with whatever it was. Incessant conversations were screaming around in my head, conversations I'd never had, wished I'd had, better never have. I wasn't afraid at all, but I was very stressed. The chest pains had become a sort of Chinese water torture, so far they hadn't hurt me, but I didn't know when the next one would come, or if it would be THE one.

I was a wreck. It was three months of sheer hell.

God places people in our lives sometimes to be catalysts, to be there to help us start a process that we don't have the courage to start alone. I have a friend like that. She lives thousands of miles away and I have never met her, but she is very, very special. I found the courage to confess to her, on line, as much as I could bear to. I told her I was doing something very stupid, that could hurt me very badly.

She immediately began praying for me, as I knew she would. I felt my own voice was so very small, especially right then, but God listens to her devoted heart.

The very next night, I found the strength to tell several friends, face to face, what was happening in detail. That was a turning point. It was the first moment I really seriously considered actually getting help, although I didn't make that decision then.

The next afternoon, I told another friend. I needed wisdom, I knew something in me was sideways, my values and decisions had ended up skewed but I couldn't bring myself to take the step to escape from it.

My friend had lost a close family member only days before. When I told her my mindset and what was happening, she was quiet for a few moments.

"You know what you just did, don't you?" she said. "You've just made me responsible if something happens to you."

That hadn't occured to me at all. But it was right. And who would be inhuman and selfish enough to make somebody live with that, especially after just losing someone close to them?

As soon as I got home I started calling doctors.

First up was the cardiologist. I went in for a stress test, fully expecting to have a heart attack on the treadmill. But I didn't. As a matter of fact, I've never had a better stress test! I had not one twinge of pain the whole time. I've had them since, but now I know they aren't going to kill me. So basically, I put myself through three months of total hell for no reason at all.

Next up will be the neurologists. They are already looking at my head every which way from Sunday. Memory is still slipping. They've narrrowed it to an area called "facial memory." Apparently what I am losing all comes from one spot in my head. But it's tricky, because it's not permanent, it comes and goes.

We got more poking and prodding left to go, and a long list of suspects.

So, if I forget who you are, just tell me to close my eyes. The image might not match, but you're in here somewhere..

We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.
Tom Stoppard (1937 - ), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Mental Hospital Redux

2006-11-13T16:41:00.000-05:00

mood
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English mOd; akin to Old High German muot mood
1 : a conscious state of mind or predominant emotion
2 : what, in me, is broken

Well, I'm back.

I didn't think I'd ever have to go back when I got out three and a half years ago, but sometimes these illnesses are bigger than we are. And sometimes the meds just quit working. When they do, you have to go in to get them right again.

I always meet people in there who are really special, even if they are in a lot of pain. Like the girl whose boyfriend had overdosed her on heroin, and she had almost died. She had resolved to completely change her life, go to rehab, and never see the boyfriend again. Good decision.

Then there was the girl who had tried to commit suicide when her boyfriend of four years had broken up with her. She was having a hard time dealing with it.

And another who was so clinically depressed that she could barely mutter a single word. My heart went out to her.

On the good side, several of the nurses from my first stay were still working on the unit, so there were familiar faces. These people are very dedicated; I couldn't imagine working with people that are manic or mildly delusional or depressed every day.

We had one guy that was always arguing with the nurses. Complaining that he wasn't feeling better. Complaining about the food. Complaining it was all "BS". But then one day uniformed policemen came in and led him out in handcuffs. He had been in the unit hiding from the police.

Two days later, I told a new patient about this. "Yeah, he's in jail for beating up my niece," he said. Small world.

So, after a week and a half of idly waiting for my new meds to work (which they have) I'm out. I'm not 100%, but I'm functional, and that's what counts.

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.
Rita Mae Brown

Cold Sidewalk

2006-10-27T18:53:00.000-04:00

in-stant
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Medieval Latin instant-, instans, from instant-, instans, adjective, instant, from Latin
1 : an infinitesimal space of time; especially : a point in time separating two states
2 : all the time it takes for a life to irrevocably change

I was setting my alarm for the morning when I heard the pop, and she screamed.

I live across the highway from a long time local motel, the Evergreen. I understand that back in the 60's it was a nice place to stay. Now it's not. They cater to travelers on a serious budget, Mexican workmen and the occasional drug dealer, etc. This is not the Hilton, no sir. The only saving grace is that it doesn't fit the rest of the neighborhood.

They stay over there, we stay over here. But not that night.

Yelling was something we've learned to tune out from over there. So if there was an argument, I can't tell you. I wouldn't have noticed it.

But I know the sound of a gunshot. Even standing in my bedroom in the dark.

Pop.

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" a woman's voice yelled. "OH MY GOOOODDD!!!!"

I ran to the window and looked out. I could see an SUV driving slow through the parking lot, then it picked up speed and took off down the highway. The lights weren't on.

At the same time, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I'M SHOT! I'M SHOOOOOOTTTT!"

Other guests stick their heads out of their doors and tell her to shut up.

She staggers, and falls on the cold sidewalk, in the dark. And things get quiet.

Horror is something that always affects me far after the fact. By this time I was already heading for the phone and 911. In only a moment, I could hear the sirens. Things like this never happen here, and they scrambled the entire police force on call.

Cars started whipping into the parking lot within a couple of minutes, policemen getting out. I could hear the girl screaming, which was good, I had thought her dead.

We watched for about ten minutes, then I noticed an SUV pulling into the parking lot behind the policemen. It appeared to be the same one from before. It slowly pulled up, sat there, slowly backed up and did a three point turn and left.

"Isn't that the same SUV?" I asked my wife. "If it is, they don't know it."

Again, I called 911, but the vehicle was long gone.

Soon, the ambulance pulled off, siren blaring. The hospital is only two blocks away.

When things quieten down, I walk across the highway and tell them about the SUV. They take my name and address, and express thanks and surprise that I would "get involved." I am baffled by the thought that someone wouldn't.

I meet a young man who was right there when it happened, right in front of his room. He didn't really know her, but he was very concerned about her. So was I. He said the bullet hit her in the right side of the chest. I am thinking that is a good thing.

By the time I get back to my house, there is a stakeout in progress at my door. The next morning, they've been replaced with another car. Later, yet another.

Early that evening, something happens. I only see the aftermath, being gone at the time, but the motel lot is full of police cars and policemen, including one walking around in SWAT gear with a riot shield. And a big gun.

I have a friend with me, he looks and says "Can I have your house keys?"

Like my frame house and glass windows will stop anything.

But it does look like they arrested someone for something, hopefully.

Ever since, though, something has been bothering me. It felt like I didn't do enough, like I missed an opportunity.

Could I have helped medically? No.

But for some period of time, even only a couple of minutes, the girl lay on a cold sidewalk, thinking she was dying, bleeding from a bullet wound, alone, while I watched through my window across the street and waited on police, knowing the bad guys were long gone.

Maybe I could have comforted her.

Maybe I could have just held her hand.

I could certainly have prayed with her.

But I missed all of these chances. I know better. Jesus would have done these things. But I failed, and I'm not sure why.

Fortunately, I found out today that she has so far survived her wound. I imagine she will recover.

Fortune helps the brave.
Terence, Phormio
Roman comic dramatist (185 BC - 159 BC)

Hmmm... Maybe Not.

2006-08-08T11:47:00.000-04:00

acu-men
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin acumin-, acumen, literally, point, from acuere
1 : keenness and depth of perception, discernment, or discrimination especially in practical matters
2 : what a vascular surgeon might have, and probably does

I don't mind saying that for the last couple of weeks I have felt like a time bomb hooked to an egg timer. I mean, even green bananas might not be a good investment, I'm thinking, if I could keel over at any minute.

But, it turns out, that may not be the case at all.

I spoke over the weekend to my cousin, who is a world reknown vascular surgeon. He's the guy that told me last year that my "throat" problem was really a heart problem, and probably saved my life. So I sent him the entire file from my recent hospital stay and TIA episodes.

"Cliff," he said, "this doesn't look like a stroke to me, even a mini stroke." Turns out that even the tiny ones leave some sort of trace, and there was no trace on my tests. Not one drop of blood where it wasn't supposed to be.

Hmmm. A clue.

"It may be med related, or a migraine type of thing," he said.

Whoa. You've never seen someone so glad to find out that they may have a migraine. I am so there!

There's still more docs to see before a final ruling, but I like the way this is shaping up. Green bananas here I come!

It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.
Sally Kempton

Turn Me Off

2006-08-03T01:08:00.000-04:00

ap-o-plexy
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English apoplexie, from Middle French & Late Latin; Middle French, from Late Latin apoplexia, from Greek apoplExia, from apoplEssein to cripple by a stroke, from apo- + plEssein to strike -- more at PLAINT
1 : STROKE
2 : my sudden unwelcome companion

Like I didn't have enough happening already.

This started a week and a half ago, I think. I've lost track. Sorry about that. Anyway, I woke up one day and my left side, my entire left side, was numb. It was like someone drew a line right down my middle and cut the power down on all the sensory organs on my left. My eyelid drooped slightly, my skin was numb from head to toe, and my sense of taste was all messed up.

Long story short, it was a pass to several days in the hospital, where I repeated the performance the next morning too, just for jollies.

Diagnosis: TIA strokes, because the effects go away after a while, which is a good thing. The bad thing is that there is no way to tell what exactly is causing this.

And aside from Plavix, a medication marginally better than the Aspirin I was already faithfully taking, there is not much in the way of treatment. Lovely.

I'm being nibbled to death yet again.

Since I've been out, I have had at least two more of them. They have been real small, no numbness, only the eyelid thing. They passed quickly. Doesn't make me comfortable with it though. I won't call the doc any more unless it is more of an "event" or lasts for more than a few minutes. They got enough money, and they'll get more of mine soon enough, I expect.

I never expected to get to the point in my life where my body was breaking down like this (stroke, heart, diabetes, thyroid, mental illness, etc. and etc.) at this young of an age. Inside I still feel eighteen.

Or does everyone always feel eighteen?

One day my body will perform the ultimate betrayal, and that will be that. Until then there is not much choice except to fight these battles, dodge these bullets until I am too tired to keep on doing it.

Tally ho, what?

Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.
Truman Capote
US author (1924 - 1984)

Creepy at the Hardware Store

2006-07-15T00:30:00.000-04:00

bond-age
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from bonde customary tenant, from Middle English
1 : sadomasochistic sexual practices involving the physical restraint of one partner
2 : not for families or young impressionable children

I was standing over by the fan pulls in our local hardware store when it started.

I was overhearing a conversation between a young man, maybe 15, 16 or so, his younger sister of about 12, and his real young sister of about 5 or 6.

"You remember playing 'Hostage?'" he said.

"Whats hostage?' the five year old said.

"That's when I tied up (12 year old's name here) in a chair and then we see if she can get out. It was fun, right?"

"Yeah," the 12 year old replied.

"I wanna play hostage! When we go home you can tie me up too!" the five year old excitedly joined in.

"Yeah, that'll be fun! But this time I want to try duct tape!" Both girls seemed excited.

Shortly after this, they left the store with their father, who was maybe ten feet from them during the entire conversation, well within earshot. He never said anything, and looked like a man who would rather ignore things and let them pass, and had developed the skill of selective listening.

Me, I was sick to my stomach. I'm still getting mental images of that very dangerous kid doing unspeakable things to his siblings, and eventually to others.

And what happens to his sisters? I will venture a guess that they don't even know they are wounded, and may never know why they act as they do. They will think they just have a penchant for choosing bad men.

They might not remember the duct tape. But broken is broken, and innocence broken is the worst of all.

It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes in The Copper Beeches
British mystery author & physician (1859 - 1930)

A Quick Recommendation

2006-07-03T22:28:00.000-04:00

I've stumbled across an Internet TV channel that I really can't seem to turn off. The music is so good (at least on average) that it just catches me whenever I crank it up.

Oh, and it's much better cranked up, lemme tell ya :)

The TV station is part of a site called Evolvingartist.com. You can tapectly into the feed at http://www.evolvingartist.com/eaTV.aspx which should load Media Player or something similar.

Oh, and be warned, they play ALL sorts of music, from acoustic to high energy.

Enjoy!

Echoes

2006-07-01T20:43:00.000-04:00

com-rade
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French camarade group sleeping in one room, roommate, companion, from Old Spanish camarada, from cámara room, from Late Latin camera, camara -- more at CHAMBER
1 a : an intimate friend or associate b : a fellow soldier
2 : as close as a brother, sometimes

I walked up onto the deck of the trailer, unsure as to whether I was in the right place or not. Until I saw it lying against the railing, then I knew I had it right.

I was in Murrell's Inlet, SC, a town about 20 miles south of Myrtle Beach and about 10 miles south of where I had spent almost all of the significant days of my youth. Murrell's Inlet used to be a quiet fishing village, but the sprawl of Myrtle Beach had even engulfed this out of the way place. I had arrived by way of a bypass that had not even been there the last time I was there, and the road was far from new.

Man, I hate having experiences like that.

The entire way in, not a single thing was familiar. And it should have been, but there in that place, things age overnight, and one thing gets replaced by another in a heartbeat.

There's been time for a lot of heartbeats.

I was trying to visit my best friend from so long ago, John. I had mentioned to him a week earlier that I would come by, but all morning I had been unable to reach him. I followed my trusty Mapquest page to his street, but then I was stymied.

There were two trailers on his side of the road. One didn't have a street number, the other was missing a digit. Which was the last and important one, of course.

John was always a salt of the earth kind of guy. He was friendly, easy going, easy to like and trust. I knew all he ever wanted out of life was a fishing boat, a reasonably pretty wife, and a trailer. In that order. That was exactly what he got, too.

A while back, John got really sick with hydroencephaly and almost died. He now has a shunt in his brain that keeps him alive. Sometimes it works better than others.

And sometimes, he doesn't have the memory he used to have.

So, I stroll up to the porch. It seems like I remember the trailer being a different color. But there was a boat in the yard.

Then again, almost every trailer there had a boat in the yard of some sort.

I looked for some other clue, and there it was. A surfboard.

It was beige with a purple trim, and in the center it read, I think, "Mystic Rider". I knew that board. That board and my own had shared so many waves decades ago. It was amazing that it was still here. Then again, I still have mine too.

Why two old guys like us are hanging onto surf boards, who knows. Let's not go there. Anyway, I knocked and no answer, so we decided to go get some lunch and try again in a few minutes.

My wife wanted to see the ocean and the beach, so I took her to Garden City, just north of Murrell's Inlet. As we turned in, I spotted the Village Surf Shop, the single one business that appeared to weather the decades. There it sat, its painted concrete walls defying time and economy, saying "You shall not pass" to the condos and hotels and junk shops. You go, guys.

We eventually got together with John, and had a great couple of hours shatting and catching up on old times. Gosh, I wish I could spend a few weeks or years there. It's the only place I've ever been truly happy, and I've been enough places to know that nothing else will ever be able to replace it.

Sure, it's a lot different than it was. Things have been torn down, replaced, bulldozed over, road were cut. But underneath it all, underneath it is still the place that I love and know and feel home in.

Turn up the lights--I don't want to go home in the dark.
O. Henry [William Sydney Porter], Last words, 5 June 1910

Psychedelic Trigger

2006-06-29T11:18:00.000-04:00

cap
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English cappe, from Old English cÃ¦ppe, from Late Latin cappa head covering, cloak
1 a : a head covering especially with a visor and no brim b : a distinctive head covering emblematic of a position or office
2 : a natural cover or top: as a : an overlying rock layer that is usually hard to penetrate
3 a : something that serves as a cover or protection
4 : What the Captain wears

(Two days ago)

I've been back from my wife's family reunion for days now, and this illness or drug induced malaise just won't leave me. The sun has been shining up untilearlierr today, it's hot as blazes outside, but to me the bright June days have been as gray as old asphalt.

But today, today the rain and clouds match my mood. It's just as gray outside as it is inside. It's still hot, and now it's muggy because of the rain. The semi trucks swish by my window in an endless parade of thrum thrum thrum SWISH or eeeeeYOW SWISH. The occasional human boombox cruises by with their muffled whump whump whump. In between, the regular cars, not big enough to really hear until they get pretty close, but big enough to make their own SWISH sound as they pass eight feet from my bedroom.

Afternoon.

It's still raining, and it isn't stopping anytime soon. This is one of those rains that settle in like a bad headache, refusing to go away until it's good and ready. And it isn't ready, not by a long shot.
I have some errands to run, then a meeting to attend. I grab my new Greek fisherman's cap and head out.

It's as good a time as any to talk about the Hat. Yes, I meant to capitalize that. When I was an entertainer, way back in the late 70's and early 80's, the Hat was part of my stage persona. I used the stage name "Captain Cliff" and had a big black beard, and always wore the hat.

And I mean always. I only took it off for three things. Showering, sleeping, and sometimes I would leave it on for the third thing.

For the first time in twenty five years, I put on the hat. And it felt good.

Pretty soon, I realize that I have changed the music on my car CD player to something that I wouldn't have listened to that morning. And I notice that things around me were brighter, more intense, than they have been in weeks.

And I am feeling good too. Energetic. Upbeat. Handsome.

Like it's 25 years ago.

I tilt the Hat just slightly, to get a bit more attitude out of it. I check the mirror. There.

The Captain is paying a visit, at least a little one. I take the Hat off. Gray again. Put it back on. Colors.

The Hat is a trigger, summoning at least a portion of my manic mood.

Dangerous, but I wear it anyway as I do my own SWISH through the rain. At least I won't fall asleep.

The good side is that it does make me feel better. It keeps the rain off my recently developing bald spot. And it just might have a bit of cockiness, which is never a bad thing.

Of course, there is a down side too. Along with the Captain, the Hat summons other ghosts. Old ghosts. Whatever happened to's and where are they now's, and what might have been's. Most poignant of all to me, the ghost of chestnut hair across a pillow in the moonlight, and a heart that never healed.

Music louder. Drown that out.

Watch my speed. I'll want to go too fast.

Set my cruise control.

I hate it when my mind wanders to that place. It's best left alone.

whump whump whump

eeeYOW SWISH

I wear the Hat all evening. It's become a sort of statement to me, a declaration. Maybe even a totem.

"I am still here. I can still wear the Hat. The Hat still fits."

Does it still fit? Yeah. My body is breaking down, but inside I am the same person who enjoyed moonlit walks on the beach and making an audience sit totally stunned silent for endless seconds after a song finished. I am the same person who enjoyed throwing himself absolutely into something or someone. That confidence and spontaneity still live here. They were just tucked far below for many years.

The Captain still lives here.

I'll take the hat back off when I get home. But until then, I have at least a hat full of a happier (and infinitely wilder) time.

A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.
Edward de Bono

Mirage

2006-06-05T01:07:00.000-04:00

de-mar-cate
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: back-formation from demarcation, from Spanish demarcaciÃ³n, from demarcar to delimit, from de- + marcar to mark, probably from Italian marcare, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German marha boundary -- more at MARK
1 : DELIMIT
2 : to set apart : SEPARATE
3 : an ability I am losing

I guess this sort of thing is the logical progression, considering what the road has been like to this point. But I sure did not see it coming.

Partly because it was slow, creeping up on me over months, maybe years. And now I am the frog, boiling unawares.

Madness can do that.

The heavy duty meds that some of us with my illness have to take affect each of us in so many different ways. But one of the common ways is to dull the emotions, corralling our moods into one relatively flat "baseline" state. Which sounds good. But in many ways it's more like living in hell, after seeing heaven.

I remember times when my spirit soared into the stratosphere, wide open armed face to the sun crying out with the joy of all creation. I remember looking at the ocean and knowing the waves and I shared a sort of kinship, longer lasting than all the sunrises and sunsets of all the beaches on earth. I remember feeling alive with every pore of me, every nerve lightening charged and soaking up life like a starving man eating chocolate.

I remember picking up my guitar and it was as much a piece of me as my hand or my feet or my head. I remember loving so hard it hurt like a dagger would, feeling passion like I was suffocating in it.

I didn't know, no one told me, that all these things were wrong, were ill, were not to be for "normal" human beings.

Of course, for every skyrocket ride, there were deep dark enveloping depressions, sucking cavities in the universe that would devour me, then inside would be another darker and deeper that would devour me again.

But these times, these times were the ones were I would sit quietly with my guitar and write song after song, pouring so much of myself out, catharting myself like a gushing wound. And there was beauty there.

Dangerous beauty. Evil, in its way.

So, after my 25 year too late diagnosis, I started eating pills for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We adjusted them, tweaked them every time I hit a bump in the road.

Now don't get me wrong, this is exactly the right way to do it. No other way will work. This illness is a killer, and cheating the reaper is not something you can do without constant attention, altering things as needed to stay one step ahead.

The result, as I said, is gray. For real life anyway.

On the other hand, the meds have some side effects. All the regular ones (weight gain, etc.) along with some weird ones, like seeing small animals from the corner of my eye. I've gotten used to that one and it doesn't bother me any more. The biggest side effect, though, is the dreams.

I'm not talking regular dreams. I'm talking about dreams that are more lifelike than life itself. Where you can smell, taste, feel wind and temperature on your skin, breathe, walk from place to place, have long realistic conversations.

And where you can feel.

Feel like somebody got a ice coldbucketfull of it and poured it over your head. That intense.

And this is where the problem is, the place where the madness lives, isn't it?

We know reality because we know it. We know we are awake because we know we are. We can pinch ourselves, things are chronological.

Now, I've discovered that this no longer works with me. My line between life and dream is blurred, smudged, shifting. I cannot trust my mind.

My dreams are often more real than my reality. When I awaken, I feel that somehow I've drifted off to sleep, and left my real emotions and things that are important behind.

Early this week I dreamed that something from my past had resolved itself, but it had resolved sadly, badly, heartbreakingly. I have been mourning it for days. Mourning something that does not exist. To me, however, it is as real as the keyboard under my fingers.

I've dreamed that I've had phone conversations that I never had, and yet I remember them and my real life actions are based on those false memories.

This has caused problems.

Are these the first steps of madness?

Will I eventually be relegated to an existence lived in the strange land between the real and the figment? How do I even know? Do I find the courage to, with my docs help, try to wean off of some of the meds? But they are just enough to keep me pinned to the tail of the donkey, and I am deeply afraid of juggling them.

I am trying so hard to recapture myself, and I am finding that I can't trust me. So I am going to be looking for anchors, mileposts, ways to tell what, who and where I am.

And as I type this, my mind pulls me to an imaginary building, in an imaginary place, where an imaginary thing has happened, and I can tell you the type of car I am driving, how many bricks are in the wall, how many people are there, their names, how many tiles are in the courtyard, what is on the TV, the temperature, the depth of the water in the wetland at the end of the parking lot, what time it is, what day it is, what month it is, how many cars are there, what I am wearing, and that my heart is breaking so intensely.

Madness is a terrible place, after all.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant

Much Ado

2006-05-12T21:00:00.000-04:00

pa-rade
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from Middle French, from parer to prepare -- more at PARE
1 : a pompous show : EXHIBITION
2 a : an informal procession b : a public procession c : a showy array or succession
3: what drove past me today

It was the van parked on the side of the road with "Vote for Elloitt" sprayed on the back that was the first sign that things were getting ready to get very wierd.

I was on my way to my daughter's shop in downtown Richmond to speak to her. But when I got onto Boulevard, one of the main streets here, the road was packed. I had no idea how packed it would be.

Within a block, the sidewalks were filled with people who seemed to be waiting in line. And a lot of them were holding "Vote for Elliott" signs.

Who the heck was Elliott, anyways?

I got close to the Diamond, the local ballpark, and by now the crowd was maybe 20 people deep, overflowing into the road. There seemed to be a great number of young teenage girls. Some were holding homemade "I love you Elliott" signs, and there were "Virginia is for Elliott Lovers" banners.

Boy, this was strange. I hate being this out of touch with something that was obviously a cultural experience.

But wait a minute...wasn't Elliott a contestant on "American Idol?" Seems like I had heard that on the radio. As I continued down the road, I noticed that the crowd had gathered all the way down, waving their signs.

There was even a man in a yellow chicken outfit advertising car washes.

When I arrived at my daughter's shop, I found out that it was indeed someone named Elliott from American Idol all this was referring to. There was going to be a parade and he would sing the national anthem and toss out the first pitch at the baseball game that evening. Hey, it was a parade, I figured I would watch.

You could tell right where the parade was ahead of time because there was a news helicopter hovering overhead, following the parade as it neared. I could hear sirens, and soon I saw them down the street.

The parade arrived.

First, there were four patrol cars. Occasionally they would let go with a siren or two.

Following them, there was a van from a local radio station, advertising "the most hip hop and r&b" and they had a DJ sticking out of the sunroof. I think he was one, he had a microphone. He didn't say anything, but he waved and did his best to look cool.

Then there was another vehicle from another radio station, pretty much the same as the first.

After them came a BMW convertible with three people sitting on the back. The one in the middle was grinning and waving. By the crowd's reaction, I could tell that was "Elliott."

That was it. The end. the whole shebang, so to say.

And I coulda had a V-8...

If you're holding out for universal popularity, I'm afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time.
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Sploosh

2006-05-11T01:24:00.000-04:00

bu-reau-cra-cy
Function: noun
Etymology: French bureaucratie, from bureau + -cratie -cracy
1 : a system of administration marked by officialism, red tape, and proliferation
2 : not a good model for geological decision making

(The following is based on a true story that happened recently not far from London.)

It was one of those places where nothing at all really ever happens. A place where the houses all look the same from year to year, and the villagers can all visit their great-great grandparent's gravesites. A place where people are, well, disturbed when out of the ordinary things happen.

It started simply, so simply that no one even noticed. In the field next to the road, about in the middle, the soil started getting more moist than usual. Of course, since no one actually ever went into the field, no one noticed this.

Soon, it was more than moist. It was more towards muddy. And still, no one paid any heed.

A puddle formed. Passersby might have glanced at it, subconsciously noting that it didn't used to be there, but no one was disturbed. Not yet.

Then the puddle overflowed.

It ran through the field towards the road, gurgled alongside of it, and then went right across. Cars and bikes and lorries went "Splat" as they passed. Pedestrians had to get their shoes wet. But it was no more than a passing irritation.

And then it got deeper. Now it was like a small brook. At this point, people noticed.

There was not supposed to be a brook here. Why was there a brook here, all of a sudden, when there was never a brook before? Brooks don't just happen, do they? This was a disturbing thought.

Like any good Briton with a disturbing thought, they called the water commission.

So, the water commission came to the site, with all of its testing gear and authority and general "we know water" attitude. They walked around and looked at the water saying "hmmm" quite a number of times. They sampled the water at the puddle, at the side of the road, and across. They even stood in the water. They poked into the bottom of the puddle with sticks and rods, and took samples of the mud.

Then they caravaned back to their mysterious laboratory and ran tests on the water and the mud, and then they ran more tests on the water and the mud.

They then pronounced the verdict. "The water is from an artesian spring."

This meant they could do nothing about it. Which is exactly what they did. But the water, not knowing any better, continued to flow.

And flow.

And flow.

Winter came. The brook crossing the street became a slick sheet of ice. Walkers slipped and fell. People had car accidents.

The number of disturbed people grew.

By the next spring, the village was in an uproar. "Do something about this!" they demanded.

So the Water Commission came and did the same as before, walking and poking and dipping and testing. "Artesian spring," they declared.

It took eight years before the villagers managed to get the public works people to construct a drainage system, at a cost of about £5,000 (that's about $8,000). And it didn't work.

Which brings us to this spring.

A local farmer was walking down the road, which he had walked down thousands of times before. He came to the part of the road where the mysterious brook was still making things messy and causing all sorts of trouble.

Since he had walked the road so many times, he was thinking about something else entirely than his walk, and his eyes were wandering.

He was interrupted from his reverie by something that he had not seen before. Out in the field, in the grass, was a stopcock. You know, like a faucet handle.

Being a local, and being used to nothing ever changing, it took him a minute to make his mind up to go have a closer look. Then a minute more to decide to turn it.

In only a couple of minutes, the flow of the brook stopped.

He watched, and over the next thirty minutes, the puddles dried up entirely.

Then he turned the stopcock again, and the puddles filled up, and the brook ran as before.

This was presented to the Water Commission, who promptly went to the site and tested it and poked it and prodded it, etc. Then they issued the following analysis.

For the first nine years, it had been an artesian spring. Coincidentally, this year, as the spring ran dry, a subterranean pipe in precisely the same location sprung a leak.

Honest, that's what they said.

At least now the village is back to normal. The leak is fixed and days are just like the days before. Except they might get a new water commissioner.

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

Sheesh, Lighten Up...

2006-04-19T22:05:00.000-04:00

I just realized that my last few posts have been pretty somber, and not only that but I've dealt with one potential and two successful suicides in the last four posts. One hopes not to pass through seasons like this, but sometimes it happens.

Anyways, I'll try to post some entries a little lighter in tone. Not everything is death and destruction here, ya know.

Casualty

2006-04-19T18:28:00.000-04:00

la·ment
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English lementen, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French lamenter, from Latin lamentari, from lamentum, n., lament
1 : to express sorrow, mourning, or regret for often demonstratively : MOURN
2 : what so many of us have done this week

For most of us who fight this illness, bipolar disorder, there are times in our lives when we sink into a depression that there is no word for. It isn't sadness. It isn't hopelessness. It isn't distress. It is so far beyond all of those things, that no word can contain the blackness of it.

I think the best way I can explain it is that it is like a craving, sort of. It's like when a smoker can't get a cigarette, or a heroin user can't get a fix. But in our case, we experience a vast sucking emptiness in our hearts, way past what we were ever designed to feel. Nothing, nothing can fill it.

It can even physically hurt, its so bad.

Why does this happen? It's because our illness messes with our brain chemicals. And although things that happen, things that we think, can sometimes trigger these changes, at the root of it we know it is completely biological and chemical. We are not in the dark room because we had a bad childhood or "have trouble coping." We are there because there simply isn't any seratonin or dopamine or pseudoepinephrine or whatever.

Our illness is cyclical, meaning that we go from "normal" to having too much chemical to too little chemical and back again, to put it quite simply. And some of us are sort of "stuck" in a portion of that cycle. People who are stuck in the "up" phase, or the "manic" phase, have high energy and production levels and need little sleep. At a bit higher level, people get grandiose and do risky things.

But the other end of the spectrum is those who are stuck in the down or depressed part of the cycle. For these people life is truly hell on Earth. Day after day, moment after moment, they struggle and fight just to perform the basic essentials of life. For them, something as simple as taking a shower is a monumental accomplishment and takes almost superhuman strength. Many times those around them don't realise this, and things are said and done that bring a lot of harm to a lot of people.

Being stuck in the depressive phase causes people to lose their jobs, their homes, their friends. And it feeds on itself, with each part of life lost contributing to the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness.

I know several people who spend horrible amounts of time in the depressive phase of this illness. One in particular, Kristine, was one of the most special to me.

I remember about two years ago, when Kristine got caught so solidly in the black room, as we called it when we spoke. Both of us had been there. I knew how terrible that place was, that airless infinitely lonely place in our minds that only people like us knows exists. And she fell into it like a face first train wreck.

At the time, she was a sign language interpreter. She loved what she did, and especially liked the fact that she was helping others. Kristine would always want to do that, to help others. But she found herself unable to work any longer because of her illness.

Her doctors tried drug after drug, meeting with only minimal and temporary successes. Sometimes she would cheer up, maybe even for weeks at a time, but inexhorably she was dragged back to that dark room, where the torture was.

Her life had fallen utterly apart.

Eventually, her doctors decided to use ECT on her. ECT, that's Electro Convulsive Therapy, or shock therapy. ECT is the last ditch stand for depression.

At first, it worked. She was tracking her moods on her calendar, using simple color codes - green, yellow, red - to gauge her state. First yellows, then greens happened.

But then the ECT began to wear off. They did it again, a total of over 20 times I think. Kristine ended up still uncured, but with a disturbing portion of her memory missing.

Yet, still she remained the wonderful caring person she was.

If you told Kristine about a slapstick scene in a movie, she would truly feel sorry for the person who slipped on the banana peel. It would never occur to her to laugh at someone.

Sometimes, when she was green, she would be impish. I'll never forget once when she looked at me with those too innocent eyes and said in her soft girlish voice to me, "You wanna see my tattoo?" After which she pulled her pants partially down (in public) to show me the tattoo on her buttock. And we weren't even talking about tattoos.

But most of all, I remember the times when one or the other of us were having problems or were stuck in the dark room, and we would call the other. It was her home I went to a few weeks ago, where I saw her artwork, where she invited me in when I was doing so badly that day.

It left a big hole when I found out that Kristine had killed herself last week. She had not told anyone, she just went out and did it, being as nice about it as she could. I won't go into the details.

She had struggled so, so hard. Superhuman. And nothing could help her.

She had gotten into a phase where all her days were spent in that black place, but this time, she wanted off the rollercoaster. She didn't want to dope up on pills that didn't work, she didn't want to be subjected to ECT again. And she didn't see any other hope.

All she had was unbearable pain, and she wanted to end it no matter how.

How I wish that she had sought help one more time. But I understand. She did what she did to stop the pain, pure and simple.

Kristine was not a Christian. The church had utterly failed her, and she wanted nothing to do with it. Yet her spirit was one of the most loving I have ever experienced. I like to think that in her case, God, who is just and fair above all, will know that this damaged young girl is really one of his own, and precious no matter how she reacted to the institutions of men.

I think justice would not be served otherwise. No, not at all.

1Jo 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

Cathartic

2006-02-11T01:13:00.000-05:00

trigger
Function: verb
1 a : to release or activate by means of a trigger; especially : to fire by pulling a mechanical trigger b : to cause the explosion of
2 : to initiate, actuate, or set off by a trigger
2 : what yesterday's events were, to me

After reading yesterday's post, you can imagine that I went to bed with a raging depression. This morning it was no better, and as a matter of fact, it was much worse.

I don't usually respond to triggers, but this time I was blindsided.

I started going through my list of people to speak with when these things happen. I made call after call. I don't take major mood swings lightly; they can kill. But, although the dangerous thoughts were there (they usually are during one of those swings) it was quite clear that I needed to ignore them as so much off balance brain chemistry. Which of course is exactly what they were.

Eventually, I found two friends who invited me over to a charming home that belonged to one of them. I had never seen it before, and I was very impressed with her artistic ability. So many of us are gifted that way. (For example, the collages I illustrate with on this blog are ones I make myself. And, naturally I say that when this particular post doesn't have a really good one!)

Long story short, eventually I left and was able to speak with a friend from out of town. She pointed out some things that I had not thought of. First, she explained to me why I opened that trunk of memories last night, and went straight as a laser to the most painful memories of my life.

When she said this, it made perfect sense to me. Some people, when they are in mental pain, engage in what is called "self injury." Maybe it's cutting. Maybe it's like a friend of mine does, where she holds a sharpened pen knife against her wrist; not to cut, but to focus.

And, well, you don't have to physically harm yourself to self injure. You can hurt yourself mentally and emotionally too. And that's what I had been doing.

The pain that had been triggered inside me was so intense that I was trying to ramp it up even further, to create that cathartic moment when I would just come out of the other side of the pain, and it would wash over me. Sort of like stamping "DONE" on the end of it.

Problem was, even though I hurt myself pretty bad, I didn't hurt myself enough to bring about the catharsis. So, there I was, stuck in an unresolved mess, not even recognizing my own damage. Plowing forward, negative thought feeding on negative mood.

But once I realized, once I saw what had happened, it was like a veil lifted. The man behind the curtain was exposed, and no longer had any power over me. The bulk of the depression fell from me like an old heavy wool cloak dropping to the floor.

My friend tells me that she only repeated back to me things I had said to her. Personally, I don't think so, but I think today I learned a deep lesson, one I will not soon forget.

It’s the friends you can call up at four a.m. that matter.
--Marlene Dietrich, German movie actress (1901 - 1992)

Dust and Dreams

2006-02-10T00:47:00.000-05:00

gone
Function: adjective
Etymology: from past participle of go
1 a : DEAD b : LOST, RUINED
2 : PAST
3 : The stuff in that trunk over there

I'm crying so hard inside right now. I don't know why I torture myself like this. But some things, well, you just have to cry. You just have to.

My aunt Leela killed herself last night.

Her husband died last week from diabetes. It had been nibbling him to death for years. Diabetes does that. Heart attacks are lightning bolts, diabetes takes you one careful small piece at a time until you are gone.

Every one remarked how well Leela was handling herself at the funeral. Well, of course she did. Leela was one of those people who are always perfect. Perfect hair, perfect figure, perfect clothes, perfect makeup. But I'm learning now that those are not things to envy, they are things to pity. She lived her entire life from one end to the other playing a role that never was her.

Yesterday evening, she took a bath, styled her hair, put on a nice outfit, did her makeup just right. This was her swansong and it wouldn't do to be messy about this. She gently lay on her bed, tied a plastic bag around her neck, and went about the business of dying.

And that's how they found her the next day.

The news stunned me, especially since I can so readily identify with her and what she felt. I've been in that dark room and faced the monsters. I've heard the hopelessness and felt the cold fear, tinged with the vacuous pain. I know, Leela. I know what you felt, and I am so, so sorry.

Leela and her husband were both such wonderful people. They have left, both of them, a better world than they one they came to. I hope that Leela is remembered for this, and not for those last tragic moments, all alone. I'll remember her for the light she lived every day, that's what I'll remember.

There's a trunk that has been sitting at the foot of my stairs for several weeks. It's been waiting on me to open it. It usually lives in the attic, but since we moved I wanted to go through it. It holds all my memories for the first 20 years of my life, so in that trunk is treasure.

And pain. There's pain there too. And I knew that, but tonight I opened it anyway.

In the trunk, packed tightly among all the other special things, was a small stationary box. If I have anything in my life that is indeed sacred to me, it would be that box. In that box lies my once and always broken heart. The sorcery of a wound that never healed. The beauty that nothing else has never really ever measured up to.

I open the box. There is a small plastic bag inside. In the bag I find letters, pictures, a lock of hair. A piece of her. Knowing better, yet helpless to do otherwise, I open a letter and read. The letter is in her handwriting, and I can't believe I'm really holding it. I read what she wrote, 29 years ago:

You know, I've really changed since meeting you. Since I've been home I could care less if I go out or not. That's unusual for me. All I ever think about is you...

...Oh, I love you so much. I can hardly wait for the day when we no longer have to be separated or have to wait for a holiday or vacation to be together. If we can hold on these next few years we're going to be two of the happiest people in the world.

All my love, forever,
Patty

There's pictures. I look at them, and bleed. Less than two months after that letter, she lost her grip, and couldn't hold on. We never had the chance to be those two happy people. That wound never healed, and still hasn't.

Dust and memories. Blood and tears. When it comes down to it, those are the only things we leave behind.

I find a black folio and open it up. Oh my goodness, it's filled with the songs I wrote when I was an entertainer. They are written on formal music paper, notebook paper, the back of hotel stationary, scrawled on the back of restaurant menus and laundry slips, whatever was near. I pick one up that is written on the back of a laundry slip from the Presidential Gardens Hotel in DC. I can't remember the tune at all, but the words are still clear:

Why must I say goodbye to you
One more song and then I'm through
As I vanish into the dark
A lonely knife is in my heart

Please wave goodbye to me
And pretend that you don't see
Tears rolling from my eyes
As we say our last goodbyes

Someone tell me how to leave
I can hardly move my feet
As I go
As I look back one more time
As I look into your eyes
This face is what I'll see
Every night
In every
Dream

I only played this song one time for anyone. I played it once for my best friend in college, and he told me it was absolutely the best thing I'd ever written. So, here it is now, twenty five years later, and to me it still holds the same pathos it did when I first penned it, sitting on a washing machine in a hotel basement waiting on my clothes to dry.

And I know that it may not seem that Leela's tragedy and my own heartbreak have anything to do with each other. But they do. They feel the same to me. There is the same sense of loss, the same sense that something divinely beautiful has passed from the world forever.

And it has.

Leela, I am so sorry. I am so sorry you came to that black room, that place that is more frightening than any other. Now you are at peace, you and your husband, my uncle, both are.

Me, I got a ways to go yet.

I am going to concentrate on what's important in life. I'm going to strive everyday to be a kind and generous and loving person. I'm going to keep death right here, so that anytime I even think about getting angry at you or anybody else, I'll see death and I'll remember.
--Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Do The Right Thing, 1992

Lifesavers

2006-02-09T01:28:00.000-05:00

de-liv-er-er
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old French delivrer, from Late Latin deliberare, from Latin de- + liberare to liberate
1 : one who sets free
2 : a hat I was handed yesterday

It was early in the morning, I imagine, but things had been leading to this day and this hour for three years.

Three years of unrelenting anguish.

She had watched her life crumble under the weight of the chaos surrounding her, and eventually, like the snow under an avalanch, she began to crumble right along with it. There was nothing she could do, you see. Her brain chemicals were mixed all wrong and she was helpless in the maelstrom.

She had lost her job, her marriage, and now her children. She had no friends, and no one would believe how bad it was for her, no one would take her seriously. So yesterday, she decided to end her life once and for all.

But first, she prayed.

On her knees, she pleaded with God for help. She said she was weak, and she could not stand any longer. She needed deliverance. But, the walls were silent. No sunlight poured through the windows.

She walked outside and got in her car, the only thing of value in the world she still owned. And she started driving.

Deciding.

Planning.

And then she knew what she would do. She would kill herself. And there was no one there to stop her.

I think it was almost exactly that time when I had a sudden urge to call her, which I did. She wasn't at home, so I left a message.

Somehow, she got it. She called me back. And she told me what was happening.

I had her meet me immediately at a little restaurant, and we sat for hours while we downed cup after cup of coffee and she told me her story. My heart broke for her. I've been where she is, I think.

And I can't let her out of my sight, I think.

So, for the rest of the day, I take her along with me. I make sure she goes to a peer support group that evening as well. When we return, I can see in her eyes that the immediate crisis is past, the demons have quieted to a dull roar.

This evening, we met again. We began working out a "Wellness Recovery Action Plan", otherwise known as a "WRAP" plan. Working through this will help her achieve control over the illness that has held her captive for thirty years. And the same for me, as I work out my own WRAP plan.

Yeah, take that, brain chemicals. You belong to US now.

Tonight, we had already progressed far enough into the plan that she had some real ammunition, some real steps she can take to get real results. She is focusing on her own recovery, something she has never had the chance to do. And she's gonna make it. Maybe not overnight, but she will win this battle, and that monster will never eat her again like it did yesterday.

Tonight she got in her car to leave, and I was getting into mine, and I said "My gosh, look at your face!" She did, and I pointed out how her facial muscles had relaxed so much already that she looked like a new person. But really, this was a peek at the person that has been inside all along.

I think that the moments in our lives when God uses us, when it is so clearly obvious that we have been specially honed to perform one specific task, when we can stand and say "God has equipped me with everything I need for this" and reach out and help... Those are the moments we are created for.

He said not 'Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased'; but he said, 'Thou shalt not be overcome.'
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
(1342 - 1416)

Scorpion's Tale

2006-01-28T21:11:00.000-05:00

trag-e-dy
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English tragedie, from Middle French, from Latin tragoedia, from Greek tragOidia, from tragos goat (akin to Greek trOgein to gnaw) + aeidein to sing -1 : a serious drama typically describing a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force (as destiny) and having a sorrowful or disastrous conclusion that excites pity or terror
2 : a disastrous event : CALAMITY
3 : Twenty years ago, today

I stood in the parking lot, crying, and I didn't care that I was wearing a suit and tie, and that people would see me.

Sometimes, things like that aren't important at all, you know.

It was hot, it was always hot in Ocala, Florida. Or at least it seemed like it was to me, since I had lived most of my life hundreds of miles north of there. Ocala was a place that was right on the line between temperate and tropical. They had maybe one or two frosts a year. Even so, a day in January could be pretty warm.

And it was crystal clear sunny too.

Which made things so much worse. And I'm not talking about the heat, either.

Only minutes before, I had walked into a print shop to have some copies made of something or other. I was working as a travel agent. The clerk took my job and started working on it, while I idly watched the television that they had on the sales counter. The place was pretty busy, but my copies would only take a couple of minutes.

I am sure my mind must have been filled with my everyday urgencies. Who had I sold airline tickets to that morning. Who was picking up cruise tickets that afternoon. Who did I need to call about boarding passes. What was for dinner.

So, at first the TV was just so much white noise. I was looking at it, but was a million miles away. They were launching the shuttle, something that in Florida felt like an everyday occurrence. So my mind stayed on autopilot, ignoring the very normal and routine images that were passing through it.

But then, but then...there was something very not normal, very not routine. The image looked wrong, it billowed out and two huge streamers raced out in front, and pieces seemed to be arcing down.

I had just...I had just seen the shuttle explode. When you are faced with moments like these, your mind takes a moment to fully grasp it. Well, at least mine does.

The print shop clerk walked by. "Hey, I think the shuttle just blew up," I said.

"Hmmph." He glanced at the screen and walked off, completely not interested in something so far beyond his experience. Somehow I felt angry, at the time, that a person could feel so cold about such a thing. Now I just pity those people.

I stayed glued to the little television until my job was ready, then headed out to watch it at home during lunch. There are some moments that burn themselves into your mind, and they will be there until the day you die, just as vivid as when you first lived them.

Unfortunately, some of those moments are unbearably tragic.

As I stood there at my car, tears running down my face, I knew this was one of them. Because up in the sky, right there, was that awful scorpion shaped explosion cloud that you are so familiar with.

To me, it was no picture. I was there.

Now, in reality I was probably 200 miles from the cloud. But it was very clear, and looked very close.

When I regained my composure I went home.

My daughter was in second grade. Because of the teacher aspect of this flight, almost every grade school student in the country was watching when it happened. At no moment were more young eyes trained on a spacecraft launch than that instant. Each and every one was wrenched a little bit more towards being an adult that day.

I remember when I was very small, maybe three (believe it or not) and another kid and I were looking at a bee in a clover patch at my feet. I had never seen a bee before, but here was a neat little buzzy fuzzy thing, and the other kid said I should pick it up. So of course I did.

In a small way, I think I experienced a bit of what those school children went through. That realization in your mind that this is not what you signed up for. That life is not supposed to work in this way.

So here we are, twenty years and yet another shuttle calamity later. And what is the real lesson of the Challenger?

Sure, there's bravery and honor and all the other stuff. That's a given. But I think there is a deeper lesson.

Once there was a frog, and it went to swim across a river. On the bank, there was a scorpion.

"Mr. Frog," said the scorpion. "Would you be so kind as to let me ride across the river on your back?"

"Gracious no!" said the frog. "You will sting me and I will die!"

"Why would I do such a thing?" said the scorpion. "If I did so, then I would also die!"

"Well," said the frog, reflecting on this a moment. "I guess you are right. So hop on and lets go."

The scorpion crawled onto the frog, and the frog struck out for the far side of the river. The river was flowing very fast, but the frog was a superb swimmer. The scorpion held on tightly.

And, just when they reached the very middle of the river, the scorpion raised its stinger, and plunged it down into the frog.

"Why have you done such a thing!" cried the frog as it drowned. "Now both of us will die!"

"Yes we will. But to do this is the nature of a scorpion."

The lesson, as I see it, is this. It is not always our destiny to make it across the river. Sometimes there will be a scorpion. And then, whether we deserve it or not, that scorpion will do what it is in his nature to do.

Our spirits cry out against such injustice, and this is right and true. But sometimes, the scorpion bites.

Why? Because it does, and that's the only reason we can see in this life.

So what is our response to be?

If we are the ones struggling, assuming we survive, our course is now to try even harder, to overcome, to reinvent, regenerate, heal stronger than before.

If we mourn others who the scorpion has claimed, our actions are to honor them, celebrate their victories, and enshrine their best qualities so that we can all learn from the light they will continue to shed on our world.
And today, twenty years later, that is what I am doing with those valiant astronauts.

Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Touching Base

2006-01-15T00:25:00.000-05:00

Just figured I should say...

The reason I haven't been posting regularly is that things are happening in a big way here, and so fast I'm amazed I've not lost my hat! The bad thing is that, even though these events are very, very good for Cliff (or look to be anyway) I can't actually SAY anything about them here yet.

Grrrr.

Grin.

More later, I promise.

Only in Hopewell

2005-12-09T22:29:00.000-05:00

I can just hear the conversation now.

"Hey Honey, didja put out the Chrissmas Decorashuns?"

"Yep."

"Didja put out the inflatable toy soldier?"

"Yep, right by the kitchen air conditioner."

"Didja put out the inflatable Snow Bear thing?"

"Yep, right outside the dining room so the company can see him."

"Didja put out the 12 foot inflatable Santa Claus?"

"Yep, and chained him to the tree by the street."

"Didja put that string of lights on the chair in the front yard?"

"Yep, plugged in and all lit up."

"Didja put out the Chrissmas motercycle?"

"Yep, all shiney and blue."

(Note: the motorcycle isn't just parked there, I really think it IS part of the display since it hasn't moved in two weeks.)

Checkin In...

2005-12-01T11:56:00.000-05:00

Not posting much since I'm putting almost all of my time into my budding eBay business, and the holiday season requires me to work sometimes 12 hours a day or more. Doesn't leave a lot of time for blogging.

I'll go back to a more frequent schedule after Christmas.

In the meantime, I'll post a few snippets as we go along, starting with today's sign that I think should be policy at all retail establishments:

Things I've Learned Since Moving to Hopewell

2005-11-12T21:31:00.000-05:00

vil-lage
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Old French, from ville farm, village, from Latin villa
1 a : a settlement usually larger than a hamlet and smaller than a town b : an incorporated minor municipality
2 : probably a good word to describe Hopewell, VA

Amazing, isn't it, how much you can learn from simple things? And here where I've moved to, the little town of Hopewell, VA, there's lots of simple things. Here's what I've learned so far:

If you are the only big grocery store for ten miles, you can hide behind a bunch of trees and people will eventually find you anyway.

If you are a locally grown butternut squash, if you want to you can grow in a complete circle the size of a Christmas wreath.

The guy and his extended family in lawn chairs selling produce and boiled peanuts every day will never, ever, ever be back once you stop and like his stuff.

The gas station with gas for $1.51 actually burned down months ago and nobody changed the sign.

The gas station down the street with the best price in town doesn't take plastic in any form, for anything, and the people who work there don't have a clue where an ATM machine is.

The old beat up pickup truck with a trailer full of banged up paint cans isn't really a hot rod, no matter how much the kid driving revs the engine.

The uniform company panel van isn't really a hot rod, no matter how much the kid driving revs the engine.

The 1982 Toyota with three colors of paint isn't really a hot rod, no matter how much the kid driving revs the engine.

They sell stick on hubcap spinners.

You'll find the fish food across the aisle from the fishing lures. The cat food is across the aisle from the catfish bait. The dog food is all by itself.

That window seat upstairs might, when you take the dry rotted cushioning off of it, be a top from a steamer trunk dating from the 1930's. (Yes, that's a picture of it above. Neat, huh?)

All the antique stores on a street can go out of business simultaneously.

If you already have a 3rd street and a 4th street and you need to build one in between them, you build 3½ street.

And most of all:

It's OK to spend 30 minutes giving wonderful customer service selling a customer a $10 watch, because by then his wife picked out $150 more stuff.

And just for the record, my health is wonderful, I've started my business back up and its going really nicely, and I'm busier than a tow truck driver with a police scanner.

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.
--Doris Lessing

Confessions

2005-10-25T23:05:00.000-04:00

se-cret
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin secretus, from past participle of secernere to separate, distinguish, from se- apart + cernere to sift -- more at SECEDE, CERTAIN
1 a : kept from knowledge or view : HIDDEN b : marked by the habit of discretion : CLOSEMOUTHED
2 : what came spilling forth at tonight's meeting

His hands shook. His hands usually shook when he spoke. They clasped in front of him on the table, subconsciously forming a wall he could hide behind.

The group is my "relapse prevention" group, which I attend twice a month. It may well be the single greatest force in my dealing with my illness. Well, except for the meds. I've come to know each member of the group intimately as they describe their lives two weeks at a time. My friend that was speaking is one of my very favorite people, and I've come to know quite a bit about him in the last year and a half. But I was about to learn something new.

"I took all of my pills," he said, speaking of a particularly dark time several years ago. "Twice. The first time I didn't take enough, so the second time I saved up and took a lot more."

He stared at his hands, then lifted them, bringing them closer, as if he was protecting himself from the horror of the memory.

"The first time, I was unconscious for a day and a half. The second time, I lay in my bed for two days before anyone found me."

My heart broke for him.

If you walked by this man in a store, you would assume that he had a very normal life, with very normal problems. Yet, at his heart, he is infinitely lonely.

Another member of our group spoke. "I had a bad result in a relationship this week, so I won't ever have another relationship with a girl again." Yes, my friend exagerates, but to himself he honestly believes this. It was only when he proceeded to name the girl in question that we all were shocked.

The girl had been a part of our group, and had recently dropped out. And would never have gone out with my friend, in any case. His "attentions" had probably caused her to leave, especially since he is oblivious to many of the details of social interaction, to put it bluntly.

So, when he confessed this, not one of us even took a breath. No, none of us would ever bring it up again.

And so there sat another infinitely lonely soul.

We are fashioned, I think, to be creatures that enjoy the presence of others, that grow through interaction with others like us. Living solitary lives, so many people miss out on this, and so much is wasted that these people can give to the world.

And at the same time, there are so many people that are frustrated because they can't find someone to feel special about them.

Well, let me tell you, in the grocery stores and the Walmarts and the book stores and the video stores of the country, there are millions who would gladly do just that.

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
--Robert Frost, US poet (1874 - 1963)

Bootstraps

2005-10-23T01:14:00.000-04:00

pas-sage
Function: noun
1 a : the action or process of passing from one place, condition, or stage to another b : a continuous movement or flow [the passage of time]>
2 : what my recent experiences have been for me

Today was the best day I've had in a very, very long time.

My body is finally knitting itself back together, and every day I can feel my strength coming back rapidly. Today I was able to do some physical activity for several hours without any discomfort or pain. It's been almost a year or more since I was able to do that.

It frightens me that my body went downhill so quickly. Only seven years ago, I had my first angioplasty and stent, narrowly missing a heart attack that time as well. The doc lectured me this time as if I had been living on fried chicken and candy bars, and yes I had eaten my share of them, but for the first several years of the period in between my "interventions" I lived quite healthy, walking daily and eating well. I even hiked part of the Appalachian Trail.

Well, OK, it was only a seven mile stretch, but I did do it.

Only in the last three years did I let things slip. I stopped walking, quit eating right. I was in Weight Watchers for about half of it, so I was eating reasonably healthy even then.

And in that three years, my heart almost self destructed.

So now, yeah, I'm "fixed." But how fixed? Will I have another "intervention" in a few years? Or will I miss it next time, and catch the bullet with my name on it?

My family history is horrible. Dad's had a heart attack, and Mom has had a bypass and a transplant, as well as several stents. So I've kind of expected that bullet for a long time. Wouldn't it be a kicker if I died of something completely unexpected?

Trish, one of my closest friends, called me yesterday. She had just been fired from her job, something that had never occurred to her before. She was a basket case. I know how she feels, I've been fired three times myself, and none for a good reason.

My wife feels threatened by Trish. There is no reason to feel that way, of course, but I can't get her to understand. Friends transcend gender, at least to me, and I never mix up friendship with anything else. Besides, I am a faithful husband, and always have been, and always will be.

That's 100% of the time too.

To me, not trusting me in this is almost an insult. Even when I experienced my final unmedicated mania (before I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder) and my libido was running ballistic, I was still 100% faithful. And believe me, when a person with untreated bipolar disorder has that happen, the emotion is a hundred times more intense than it is for the average person. So I've been tested in the fire, and come through unburned.

I need to figure this out, because many of my friends are female, and some of them are pretty too. I would hate to have to ignore half the population. They have so much to offer.

Heck, half of my friends are women.

Anyway, Trish lost her job, which was really causing her a lot of stress she didn't need. As a result, she no longer has enough income to stay here in Richmond, and will have to move home to Virginia Beach. She desperately wants to be a nurse, and that's where her family and the school is. She was planning to go in January, so this just sped things up. I told her it was a good move for her, and I think she thinks so too.

Getting fired is such a hit on your ego. It feels like you were put on stage and everybody pointed and laughed at you. But many times, as in her case, it is due to one person that had decision making capability over you that you didn't hit it off with.

I mean, people frown on butt kissers, but they do get to keep their jobs. The trick is to learn how to do it and keep your dignity. And yes, that can be done.

Everybody, and I mean everybody, has positive traits. If you learn to focus on those, the rest is easy.

There isn't much better in this life than finding a way to spend a few hours in conversation with people you respect and love. You have to carve this time out of your life because you aren't really living without it.
--Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher.com Weblog, August 27, 2003
Anonymous author of RealLivePreacher.com

Testing.....1...2....3...

2005-10-19T00:17:00.000-04:00

Thump Thump Thump

"Testing....Is this thing on? Hello?"

Cool, it's working. This was the longest period of time I have been off line since 1986, believe it or not. But now I'm back, at least according to Adelphia.

On the other hand, after the install I just finished, I'm scared to turn off my computer. Just in case, ya know.

I'm sitting in my new house in Hopewell, Virginia. The house is right on one of the main drags in town, and honest to God the "Welcome to Hopewell" sign is in my yard. So is the one that honors the local high school which has apparently won state champion in almost every major sport.

This town is so different from where I lived in Richmond. Things run slower here. People are nicer, on the whole. It's comfortable, like an old pair of jeans.

The town has a history stretching back to the early 1600's, and that history probably describes this town's unique character better than anything could.

By 1675, 200 people lived in this area, which was called "Charles City Point."

In 1776, American troops shelled ships commanded by Benedict Arnold from the bluffs overlooking the river here. They didn't hit anything. About 200 people lived here.

In 1860, roughly 200 people lived here.

However, as the area is a strategically located deepwater port, in 1865 Union General Grant made this his headquarters for the seige of Petersburg. Overnight, City Point, as it was then known, became the worlds largest port, servicing over 400 ships a day at one point. The Union army built a hospital, which treated 40,000 troops at once. The population zoomed to over 60,000 people.

By 1875, about 200 people lived here.

In the early 1900's, the village had grown to about 2,000 people. Dupont came in and opened a dynamite plant, and incorporated it under the name "Hopewell Farms." The town quickly grew to 40,000 people.

But then in a few years, the plant closed. The population dived again. Even though some other plants came in to employ the local workers, the population has hovered just above the 20,000 mark for some time.

City point is now a beautiful riverside park. I'll leave you with a story that happened to us this weekend.

We were sitting on a picnic table by the river, and about 20 yards from us on the shore was a HUGE thirty pound dead catfish. Two little girls came up. As little girls will do, they took sticks and started poking at the fish for a bit. Soon they grew tired of this, and the smallest girl took a paper cup and started heaping dirt on top of the fish.

"Look, they're burying it," I said to my wife.

Then the little girl's mother came up. "Are you burying the fish?" she asked.

The girls, who were now spreading the dirt all over the fish said "No Ma'am. We're breadin' it!"

So here I sit, in a town where the pretty girls spit on the sidewalk, and I'll bet I have a lot of good stories on the way.

Later!

Simplicity is the peak of civilization.
--Jessie Sampter

Back, But Not Back

2005-09-29T20:46:00.000-04:00

First of all, thanks to all of you who lifted me in prayer and sent your encouraging emails. Also thanks to Bonnie for posting the update.

As Bonnie indicated, there were no complications in the procedure. I'm home and mending as we speak, and already feel a great deal better.

Out of the three main heart arteries, I had two of them blocked. One was 99%, the other 85%. It took four stents to get me fixed, which gives me a total of five in me now.

Next time, maybe I can get them to nickel plate the whole darned thing and be done with it. (Joke!)

Over the next few days I will be offline as we move. More on that later. In the meantime, thanks again!

Broken Heart

2005-09-23T23:53:00.000-04:00

mor-tal-i-ty
Function: noun
1 : the quality or state of being mortal
2 : the wolf that I'm staring down, right now.

Some of you have been wondering where I've been. Well, I've been chasing a rabbit, trying to find out what this dang pain in my chest was, or at least how to treat it. We decided it was gastric, then the GI doc couldn't fix it. I kept chasing. The rabbit hole turned out to be a wolf den.

My cousin called me two weeks ago. This cousin is a world traveling vascular surgeon, and studied under Christian Bernard. "Cliff," he said, "You need to go see a cardiologist, just to make sure, since you're family history is so bad and you have already had a stent seven years ago."

My family history is bad, since my father had a heart attack and my mother had a transplant. He had a point there.

The next day I saw my endochrinologist (in real English, my diabetes doc.) "Cliff," she said, "You need to go see a cardiologist."

Enough is enough. I knew the problem wasn't my heart, but better safe than sorry. So day before yesterday I had a stress test.

And I really, really should have studied harder.

I found out the score in an early morning call yesterday. "Mr. Hursey, that pain isn't indigestion. It's your heart."

My heart. My great big heart that is so filled with love for so many people, that wants so badly to shine with Christ's image. 70% blockage on the left side, at least, maybe more.

So, Monday I'll go in for a cardiac cath and I'm sure (I hope) an angioplasty and a stent. Or two. Or more.

In the midst of this we have sold our house and are closing on the new one on Friday. I won't be packing any further, I'll have to leave that to my wife. As far as unpacking, I've had a good handful of friends insist on helping. God bless 'em every one.

If it's in the plan, I'll be posting again within the next two weeks. If I become permanently unavailable, I'll leave instructions so a friend can make an entry here.

I hate unfinished business.

However, my hope is to return quickly. I've yet to tell all my stories, I have whole lots left to say, and I want to tell 'em all and say it all before we put the period at the end.

I may not post again until all this is over, but I will try to read the messages.

Thanks for listening.

Cliff

We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.
--Sir Winston Churchill

Weeping Willow

2005-09-13T00:16:00.000-04:00

woe
Function: noun
1 : a condition of deep suffering from misfortune, affliction, or grief
2 : ruinous trouble : CALAMITY, AFFLICTION
3 : September 11th, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the South Asian Mega Tsunami Wave, Hurricane Katrina, etc. ...

Like all of us, I have been shocked and horrified by the images of what has happened to New Orleans. More than that though, I am stunned by what the reporters can't bring themselves to tell us.

I mean, I saw the video of a man at the Superdome, dead in his wheelchair, his dead fingers still grasping the last note he left for his next of kin, holding it fast against the breeze that seemed to want to tear it from his grasp. Let me have that, old man. I'll strip your identity, there will be nothing left of your life, not even your name.

I heard the reporters speak about trying to help a man who desparately needed insulin, and by the time they were able to attention of a rescue worker, the man was dead on the sidewalk.

I heard the nurses tell the story, in tears, of evacuating an old folks home. they called for help over and over and no help came. When it was almost too late, they tried to evacuate all of the patients themselves in their personal vehicles. But that meant they were forced to leave forty behind, and all forty drowned in their beds as the water rose around them.

So we hear these stories, and yet the reporters speak of horrors too awful to repeat, too full of unspeakable anguish to be told. I, for one, am glad they are not telling them.

My first experience of New Orleans was in the year 1966. My father had won a trip to the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, Alabama because he was such a darned good insurance agent, and he took the family along. Being from South Carolina, something like the Grand Hotel was normally beyond our experience. I mean, my home town at the time had one local TV channel and three AM radio stations, a few red lights, and plans for the new I-95 Interstate that had yet to be built.

And the Grand Hotel had, well, rooms as big at the whole town, it seemed. Not to mention a nanny service, which I am sure pleased my parents to no end.

When we left, we headed for the Big Easy.

Some moments stick in your memory. One of mine is the crossing of the bridge over Lake Pontchartran. It went on for miles and miles and miles, and from parts of it you couldn't really see land at all. I thought it was neat. Mom thought it was pretty scary.

We stayed at a hotel called the Place D'Arms, right in the French Quarter, the Vieux Carre. At the time, the area was home to not only jazz musicians but to a class of people we had only heard about in our town...hippies.

On one of the streets we walked down we came upon a commune. Dad, ever the adventurous type, asked one if he would let me have my picture taken with him. He readily agreed and got a couple of his friends to join us. So now I have a picture of a couple of early hippies with lots of colors and even more inches in their bellbottoms, and in the middle is this goofy kid with horn-rimmed glasses, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

So, on my first visit to New Orleans, it embraced me and captured my soul as no other American city ever has. It's friendly people, it's history soaked in mystery, it's music. Funerals on the street. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Brunch at the Court of Two Sisters, with waiters carrying flaming dishes from the kitchen...

When I was fifteen, I would pay quite another visit to New Orleans. I was one of the guitarists for a contemporary Christian music group called the "Reach Out Singers." We had been on the road for several days already, playing in towns I don't even remember, when we finally arrived in New Orleans. We performed in a large auditorium to what I think was a sell out crowd.

At least they told me it was. With the stage lighting, we could only see the front rows.

Afterwards, a lot of us headed to the Vieux Carre, with one of the local people as a guide. Being the youngest one there by a couple of years (and fifteen to seventeen is a big difference) I mostly remember just tagging along and trying not to be a bother. Once we got to the Quarter, we met up with another friend, one who would make a lasting impression on me, both for the city and for himself as a part of it.

This is what I remember. He had long, straight, healthy thick black hair, immaculately combed into a ponytail. He wore dark jeans, a white shirt with billowy loose sleeves, and an open black vest. And he had a great big wide brimmed hat cocked jauntily to one side.

Wow. That was cool.

This was way beyond where I grew up.

I remember that he had his arms crossed, looking down at me since he was really tall. And not only were his arms crossed, but he was leaning backwards, posed, in a studied attitude of cool confidence. When we were introduced, he didn't even uncross his arms, but simply unfolded the fingers of his hand closest to me and so we shook, and it felt sort of like being let in on a secret.

Again, New Orleans had welcomed me.

We spent the evening watching the boats and drinking wonderful coffee, the best in the world.

But now, the city that called so alluringly to my heart is wounded so deeply she may never recover. People, some of whom probably were among the crowd I played to that night, are dead or homeless. Many of the places I saw and loved are underwater.

In a post a while back I mentioned a dream/vision that a man named C. Alan Martin had years ago, describing the future presidential administrations of the United States. The Bush administration was represented by a weeping willow.

And under his presidency, we have seen both 9/11 and Katrina.

I hope there is not a third calamity in the wings.

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
--Anne Bradstreet, 'Meditations Divine and Moral,' 1655

History Lesson

2005-08-28T00:42:00.000-04:00

re-vise
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle French reviser, from Latin revisere to look at again, frequentative of revidEre to see again, from re- + vidEre to see -- more at WIT
1 : to make a new, amended, improved, or up-to-date version of
2 : what happens to history, sometimes

My order came to $4.00, but when I opened my wallet I only had $2.00 in cash. I hate those moments. Especially in a Dollar Store, of all places.

Of course, moments like this always happen when a store is crowded, like this one was, when the cashiers were understaffed, like these were, and when everyone was staring at me waiting on me to just finish and get the heck out of the way, like everyone was doing at that very moment.

Ah, wait... didn't I see a sign that they now accepted debit cards? Yes! Saved! I pulled my card out as if I had intended to use it from the beginning. "I think I'll be putting it on my debit card today."

She pointed at the small hand scribbled sign on the card reader: "Debit cards can only be accepted for orders of $7.00 and above."

"Oh," I said. I frantically began scanning the area to see what I could justify buying $3.00 worth of. Of course, the only things there were Neecos and candy pacifiers, neither of which I wanted. "Let me, uh, go ahead and pay you for seven things, then you hold these four and I'll go pick out three dollars more stuff." She agreed.

I figured that my best bet would be the food aisle, since anything I bought there could be consumed and used up, an advantage when I was getting ready to move. As I was looking at the shelves trying to decide between olive oil and Vienna Sausages (the sausages won, of course) a little black girl, maybe seven years old, came up holding an American Flag.

"Mister," she said, "Want to hear a real loud noise?"

"Sure," I said.

Yeah, I know, I'm the kinda guy mothers hate to have around, trouble just happens around me for some reason. It didn't occur to me until way later that this question was a really dumb one to answer that way. Especially on an aisle in a store when asked by a child holding an object attached to a stick.

WHOOSH. She waved the flag quickly from left to right. "Wanna hear it again?"

"Sure," I answered.

WHOOSH. WHOOSH WHOOSH. Luckily she managed not to hit anything, although for a moment I wondered if I would lose an eye or two.

She stood there, beaming at me. I beamed back.

And there we stood, just beaming back and forth.

I have no idea, really, how I managed to get from birth to eight years old. Whenever I am faced with a child between those ages, I am baffled as to how to communicate. So I usually just let them carry the conversation.

Problem is, of course, they have no idea yet how to do that. So my conversations tend to include a lot of the moments where everyone just stands around smiling waiting on something interesting to roll by so they will have something to talk about.

We beamed back and forth a bit more.

WHOOSH.

"Know what this is?" she asked me, with a determination only felt by those who NOW have something to talk about.

I lifted my eyebrows in a questioning look.

"Thisa American flag!" she beamed.

"Yep! It sure is!" I agreed.

"Know who made the very first one?" she asked me.

"Who did?" I asked, eager to let her show off her history knowledge.

She kinda curtsied from side to side. "Oh, you know..." she said.

"No, who was it," I asked.

She looked at me, chin held high with pride, flag waving, and said "March Luthaking!"

And with that she marched off down the aisle, leaving me feeling vaguely uneasy about our local school system.

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
--Will Durant, US historian (1885 - 1981)

Cramming It Down My...

2005-08-22T23:21:00.000-04:00

throat
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English throte, from Old English; akin to Old High German drozza throat
1 a (1) : the part of the neck in front of the spinal column (2) : the passage through the neck to the stomach and lungs
2 : one of the parts of you where you really don't want other people fiddling around when you are asleep.

Today was endoscopy day. Fa la la lala, lala, lala or something like that.

And, to be honest, in a big way I was looking forward to it. FINALLY they would find this thing that has been SO painful in my chest. FINALLY I would be able to pursue relief and join the rest of humanity in such activities as climbing stairs without pain and breathing hot summer air. Maybe even I could have COFFEE again.

Yeah, I know, it was asking a lot, but a guy's gotta dream, right?

Last night it was difficult to sleep. Not because of the looming endoscopy (the unknown!) but because of some traumatic things that happened yesterday completely unrelated to it. Should I say what they were? Perhaps later, the wounds are too fresh and still bleeding. Let's just say it kept me awake.

I was up bright and early and my wife and I were at the doc's in perfect time. After a short while, mostly consumed with filling out paperwork repeating identical information that I had already given the doc at least once but this time in a different order and format, they called me back.

I'm not sure what I expected, but things kicked into high gear right away as soon as I got back there. The nurse who was the "Endoscopy Assistant" was extremely nice and made things far more relaxed. I wish I could remember her name, but she had some REALLY good drugs, so I don't.

They laid me on my side (didn't even have to undress!) and started an IV. As soon as the doctor came in, there was a bit of chitchat and then they sprayed my throat with some foul tasting chemical and then...

...Well, really I'm not sure. I mean, I thought I remembered it, but its more like a vague dream memory that anything else. I knew there was something down my throat at some point, but that's about it.

I also remember his saying "Mr. Hursey, we're all done now," and (painfully) pulling the thing from my throat. Then he said "While we're here, let's stretch his esophagus out," and then an even larger thing went down my throat for a bit.

So, now my esophagus is stretched. Every single person I know that has had an endoscopy has had that done to them. I wonder why? I don't feel different. Is there some unwritten rule among GI doctors that humanity in general has too-small esophagi?

On the way home, my wife told me what the doctor had discovered. This is what I had been waiting on, the magic answer, what all of this has been leading up to, the culmunation of months of pain and the beginning of healing...

"Well, he said you're too fat."

I sat there a minute, stunned. "Too fat??!?" Yes, I weigh 230lbs which IS overweight, but there are millions and millions far more overweight than I am. "Too fat? Is that all?"

"And he said your esophagus was loose."

"What? Did he say 'sphincter' maybe?"

"Yeah, that was it. You're too fat and have a loose sphincter. Keep taking antacids and see him in six months"

So there we have it. Medical science at its most brilliant. I'm a human Mentadent. A walking and talking Pez toy. Squeeze me and I spurt acid up my throat.

To me this just doesn't sound right.

I told the doctor I broke my leg in two places. He told me to quit going to those places.
--Henny Youngman, US (English-born) comedian (1906 - 1998)

Masks

2005-08-21T00:23:00.000-04:00

dis-guise
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Middle English disgisen, from Middle French desguiser, from Old French, from des- dis- + guise guise
1 a : to change the customary dress or appearance of b : to furnish with a false appearance or an assumed identity
2 : to obscure the existence or true state or character of : CONCEAL
3 : something that most people with Bipolar Disorder live behind every day of their lives

Well, the doc called with the results of my liver cat scan.

Yes, my liver is enlarged.

No, he doesn't think it's much of a problem.

And no, for once he didn't find yet another thing wrong. I'm cool with that, believe me.

So Monday they will send in the camera crew and take a look at my throat down to my toes, or there-abouts, and lets hope they have a team of carpenters on call in case they find something that needs work.

Because, let's face it, if they don't find something, they can't fix this, and I'd hate to just have to live on Lidocaine from now on. That can't be good for ya.

We sold our house to our daughter, done deal. She is letting us live here until we can find a new one. We are now aggressively hunting for a new, cheaper home, and we keep returning to a beautiful one (read "handyman's special") that we found near downtown. Then again, every time we return, we seem to find something else wrong with it. Sheesh, I'm starting to identify with the poor thing.

The house is smaller than the one we are in now. That means that about half of the "stuff" we have has to go.

And darn it, you can sure get attached to "stuff."

Through all of this, my mood state keeps trying to go south with a vengeance. I can't let my wife know, her stress level is already red lined. So I've been leaning on my support network, and they've been there for me.

In the meantime, I feign normalcy.

But sometimes, behind the laughing joking mask...it just hurts. However, that is the way life is, and every single person out there with a mood disorder that reads this knows exactly what I'm talking about. We can't always let them know. These tears that randomly come from the chemical explosions in our brains, they are our private tears so much of the time.

So often we are actors on a stage, hiding behind our Harliquin masques, grinning with wild effort as we sob inside with velvet dispair.

This can be a serious and crippling situation. Let me show you how uncomfortable it can be by relating the following story about a mask to you.

A man is lying in bed in a Irish Catholic Hospital with an oxygen mask over his mouth. A young auxiliary nurse appears to sponge his face and hands. "Nurse," he mumbles from behind the mask, "Are my testicles black ?"

Embarrassed the young nurse replies, "I don't know Mr. I'm only here to wash your face and hands."

He struggles again to ask, "Nurse, are my testicles black?"

Again the nurse replies, "I can't tell. I'm only here to wash your face and hands."

The Ward Sister was passing and saw the man getting a little distraught so she marched over to inquire what was wrong. "Sister," he mumbled, "Are my testicles black ?"

Being a nurse longstanding, the sister was undaunted. She whipped back the bedclothes, pulled down his pajama trousers, had a right good look, pulled up the pajamas, replaced the bed clothes and announced, "Nothing wrong with them !!!"

Frustrated at this the man pulled off his oxygen mask and asked again:

"Are my test results back?!?"

I imagine it might feel odd to laugh at that, I mean, it's funny, but after my introduction to it you may have felt a bit like you shouldn't. Sort of uncomfortable, out of synch. Like the man in the bed.

Usually, a person in a normal mood state will find the joke funny. But a person with a mood state that is out of kilter might identify too strongly with the humiliated patient, and fail to see the humor, but if everyone else laughs, they will too.

It's a survival mechanism that most of us learn.

We have to.

The alternative is just unthinkable.

If a person were to try stripping the disguises from actors while they play a scene upon stage, showing to the audience their real looks and the faces they were born with, would not such a one spoil the whole play ? And would not the spectators think he deserved to be driven out of the theatre with brickbats, as a drunken disturber ?... Now what else is the whole life of mortals but a sort of comedy, in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each one his part, until the manager waves them off the stage ? Moreover, this manager frequently bids the same actor to go back in a different costume, so that he who has but lately played the king in scarlet now acts the flunkey in patched clothes. Thus all things are presented by shadows.
--Erasmus, The Praise of Folly

Surprise

2005-08-17T23:51:00.000-04:00

mis-for-tune
Function: noun
1 a : an event or conjunction of events that causes an unfortunate or distressing result : bad luck
2 : things that have been happening to me

She rubbed the goop all over me and played slip and slide up and down my recently oddly expanding belly.

Oh wait, that line comes later. First things first.

I mentioned the esophagus spasm problem I have been having. Well, there's more now.

If I was a horse, they would have shot me for glue and dog food long ago. But I'm not, so we get to keep throwing expensive pills and machines at me. Having your body decide to start breaking down is so much fun, believe me.

Anyway, I finally got to see a GI doc. For those of you who are medically challenged, that means "gastro-intestinal." In other words, a doc that specializes in all the swallowy and, well, poopy parts. All of my problems, so far, are centered in ther swallowy parts. Thank God.

He gave me a quick exam and said he wanted to do an endoscopy and an ultrasound. Ultrasound is nothing; essentially they they plop some goopy gel on your gut and tell you to hold your breath, breathe, etc. while they run a magical wand over you that sees the insides. Piece of cake.

Now, the endoscopy, that's gonna be a little more unpleasant. That's when they run a TV crew down your throat and have a look see. The earliest date for that was October, so I went ahead and scheduled it. Ultrasound I could get quicker, and I had it done last Wednesday.

She rubbed the goop all over me and played slip and slide up and down my recently oddly expanding belly. (Yeah, you have to admit that line makes a LOT more sense here!)

I told her if she could find a baby we'd both be filthy rich. Believe me, she looked.

Then she started concentrating on one area, a lot.

"What's in that spot?" I asked.

"Right there? That's your gall bladder. Does that hurt?"

I had to admit that it was, indeed, uncomfortable. She went over and over it.

"Is, um, does it not look right?" I asked.

"I'm not allowed to tell you," she said.

Now, you have probably noticed, as I have, that statements like that only happen when the answer is something like "it looks like a chunk of rotten Swiss cheese." When everything is OK they are usually fine with saying so.

She didn't tell me that everything was OK.

Last Friday, the GI doc calls me. Something is wrong on my ultrasound.

And it's not gall bladder.

Apparently, I have an enlarged liver. Now, this is a symptom, not a disease in itself. And none of the reasons for it are petty. Some of them, actually the majority of them, can be quite fatal.

So he sets me up for a cat scan. On Monday, the next business day, not months in the future. They also reschedule the endoscopy for next week instead of October. Nobody's playing now.

That night I made the mistake of looking up "enlarged liver" on the internet. Bad, bad move. I began to feel, well, afraid. And tired, more tired than you can imagine. How many "something else's" can there possibly be? I mean, how far until I reach the "everything is broken" point?

Tomorrow maybe I will get the results of the cat scan. What keeps bothering me is that the docs keep finding the "what" and not the "why" with me. If we could ever find the "why" then maybe we could fix me. If not...well, we won't go there. It's bad enough with just me on that train.

So here I sit. I have to take a slug from a bottle of Lidocaine and antispasm stuff every so often to keep my throat from making me feel like I'm having a major coronary. Bending over sets it off. Picking stuff up sets it off. Walking in the heat sets it off, and it's been in the upper 90's. Then when I take the med, it paralyzes my esophagus, which helps, but I can't lay down or everything in my stomach tries to explore the path it took to get in there in the first place.

Oh, and did I mention we had to sell the house? Yeah, seeing as how it's impossible for me to work at the moment, there wasn't enough money. Our daughter bought the house to use as a fixer-upper or a rental, so we can at least stay for a bit until we find another place.

My mood disorder isn't making things easier, of course.

The bright side is, we think we might have found a really good house that we can afford. More on that as it progresses.

My friends have been wonderful through this. So many have volunteered to help. I'm quite honored, and humbled. Until tomorrow, fingers crossed...

As long as you can savor the humorous aspect of misery and misfortune, you can overcome anything.
--John Candy, "Laughing on the Inside" (John Candy's Biography)

Not the Same

2005-07-30T01:12:00.000-04:00

(Note: I know I'm writing two posts in a row about the same thing, but I wanted to say it clearer, and a bit differently.)

de-pres-sion
Function: noun
1 : a state of feeling sad : DEJECTION
2 : a psychoneurotic or psychotic disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal tendencies
3 : what nondepressed people can seldom understand

I realised something the other day, after the incident in putting the pet to sleep that I wrote about a few days ago.

I've mentioned the long lasting depressive episode I am in. After that happened, I was not only in a depression, but grieving at the same time.

Surprisingly, they are as alike as, well, apples and zebras.

That may surprise you. If so, then you have never felt chemically induced depression. Thank your lucky stars and pray fervently that you never do. On the other hand, if you understand what I said, I'm very sorry.

The difference between grief and depression, I think, is event driven.

Grief is an event driven emotion. we are thrown into it full bore by a huge hole in our lives that was previously filled by a person, a pet, or something we loved very much. We grieve for the absence in our lives, and for the separation we feel. Gradually, like the slow fading of color in a newspaper left in the sun, it becomes less and less intense until we can go on with our daily lives without it triggering unless we allow it to.

Depression is not like that at all. In depression, it may come suddenly or it may creep up as slowly as thick syrup pouring from a bottle. The hole isn't inside, it's in the depression itself, and we are thrown into it. Then we are caught in the maelstrom, whirling out of control ever deeper and deeper into the blackness until we know beyond a doubt that there will be no escape, never, ever.

Hopelessness envelopes us, but not the hopelessness of grief's loss. No, this is a hopelessness that is permeated with a feeling of confusion and, somehow, injustice. We feel so bad, and we have no idea why.

And thus it continues until either a person cycles out of it or meds arrest its progress. Assuming, of course, that the depressed person survives the episode.

So the grief and depression were quite different.

The grief is almost gone now, even though those last hours are burned into my mind forever.

We've thrown a few different meds at the depression, and the last one seems to be having an effect. We'll see.

What this has taught me is that there may never be a way for "normals" to understand mentally ill people. They use the word depressed and mean really sad. I use the word, and it means being consumed by a dark hurricane.

How do you communicate over a gap like that?

In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant. My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known -- no wonder, then, that I return the love. --Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (1813 - 1855)

Hand

2005-07-27T01:39:00.000-04:00

Thought I'd drop a quick note for posterity, even though I really don't feel anything like writing.

I'm still struggling with the depressive episode I mentioned several weeks ago, but it's far worse.

It has enveloped my life like a piece of smothering heavy black velvet. Everything is seen through it's shadow. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is humorous.

Humor and wit are food and water to me, and I'm starving.

I told the doctor that my depression was so very different from the grief I had felt over the loss of the pet in my previous post (I am over the grief btw.) He asked me how it was different.

Well, I said, like apples and cash registers. Completely totally different feelings. The grief was tied to an event. The depression was more generalized.

He asked me if the depression was tied to anything, if there was anything in particular I thought about. I said yes.

What is it tied to, he asked.

The future, I said.

What do you see in your future, he asked.

"A place I don't want to go."

He made a note or two. "I know that sounded suicidal," I said. "But at the moment I'm safe. As a matter of fact, I have a friend waiting for me in the lobby."

Which, uh, as usual I jumped into the middle of the story first, so let me give you the Reader's Digest version of the beginning. A friend of mine named Trish spotted last Tuesday at a meeting that I was doing badly. That's hard to do since I really try to hide my mood states well. I can be cracking jokes and laughing and inside I am weeping.

Since then she has called or emailed me almost every day to check up on me. When I got to the doctor's office, she was waiting in the reception area for me. When it turned out that it was gpoing to be an hour until I could see the doc, she took me to a McDonalds for a Coke and cookies, then waited with me in the waiting room.

Afterwards, we dropped by her house to feed her cats and she showed me the most wonderful thing. She reached into a closet and pulled out an incredible sketch of a young girl she had done. I was awed by her talent, and I think she doesn't really let people know about it. She also told me she used to be a ballerina, which I thought was neat.

We got back in her car, and she called another friend and cancelled her plans for the evening. then we went to the library and had a seat in the back, and just talked for hours, until she had to go home to go to bed for work. By the time I got home, it wasn't too long until my wife got off work, so I wasn't sitting along in an empty dark house all night.

That could have had a very bad outcome, and Trish knew that.

Friends are, I think, the most valuable treasure on Earth.

It’s the friends you can call up at four a.m. that matter.
--Marlene Dietrich, German movie actress (1901 - 1992)

Tragedy

2005-07-23T00:31:00.000-04:00

hor-ror
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English horrour, from Middle French horror, from Latin, action of bristling, from horrEre to bristle, shiver; akin to Sanskrit harsate he is excited
1 : painful and intense fear, dread, or dismay
2 : where today went

It was the worst possible outcome, and I will always wish neither of us had been there to see it.

I've mentioned before the company that I worked for that may or may not be reopening if and when a potential buyer gets some grant money. It's been in that state of limbo for almost two years now, and for the last seven months the plant site has been closed for business.

We had a group of cats there that we had saved as kittens, and Mitsi and I had been going out there several times a week to take care of them. The oldest was Jupiter, almost three years old, then there was Max and Ginger, and finally Pepper. A bit over a month ago, Pepper got out through a screen she had knocked out. In the process of trying to catch her, Jupiter also escaped.

We caught Pepper, but Jupiter was nowhere to be found. Mitsi and I looked for hours. Finally Mitsi left, very upset, and I made one last drive around the site.

And there, under a semi trailer, was Jupiter, just lounging and watching me. When I got out of my car and tried to get him to come to me, he casually trotted off the other direction and out of sight. I would not be able to find him again.

Over the next week, we found homes for each of the remaining cats. Ginger went with Mitsi, Pepper with a former customer, and Max came home with me. We still went to the plant and left food, which would be all gone when we returned a couple of days later. Pretty soon though, it became obvious that it was racoons that seemed to be getting the food.

So we moved the dish to another place in the plant where we saw cat tracks, and started filling it there.

Each visit, we would walk around, calling Jupiter. Each time, there was no response. And yet we would be back in a couple of days, refilling the food dish and trying again.

Today would be different.

First, we filled the food dish, which appeared to have been visited by racoons again. We got in my car to make the circuit of the plant.

As I came up to the shredder shed, I saw a cat laying on its side.

It was not moving.

I parked so that Mitsi could not see it, and told her not to look, and I went to investigate.

As I came up to the cat, it became more and more clear it was probably Jupiter. There was no motion at all. I concluded that he was dead. I stared at him, and that's when I saw his eye flicker, just a bit.

I touched his foot, and he got up. But something was horribly wrong.

I motioned for Mitsi. She began crying as soon as she saw him.

He was only half the size he had been. There was a huge bare spot on his back. He could barely hold himself erect. He wasn't responding at all to us, and he kept walking into things. His head and neck were emaciated, but his body seemed still fat. He was walking strangely, low to the ground, head stuck out. Aimless.

Mitsi ran to get a box. We packed him up and headed for the vet.

Mitsi cried most of the way there. Jupiter just sat there in the box, not really moving.

They took Jupiter back immediately and began examining and testing him. This would take over two hours, and until then we had no information at all. Mitsi was understandly upset, and I did everything I could to keep her mind off of it, even though I am sure I felt the same inside.

When the techs wouldn't give me any information, and kept saying that the doctor wanted to speak with us, I knew things were bad.

Finally, we went into a room and met with the vet. Jupiter had, because of being fat then immediately anorexic, massive organ damage. His liver was enlarged to twice it's size. His heart was enlarged. His digestive system had shut down. He had severe dementia, He had a fever over 105. His entire digestive system had shut down. And he was blind.

There was really only one thing to do.

Mitsi sat and held Jupiter for almost two hours, hugging him, petting him, and crying. She was racked by those heartrending sobs that only come from the absolute bottom of your soul, the kind that happen only when things are dearly loved and hopeless and grief is overwhelming.

When the time came, she steeled herself and told me to get the doctor. I told her to wait outside, and I would stay with Jupiter in his final minutes.

Jupiter lay there, and it seemed he still had the smile on his face he had when Mitsi was petting him (although it had not been clear whether he had recognised her.) I placed my hand on him and spoke softly in his ear as the doctor administered the shot. He never twitched, and peacefully passed over.

A tragic end for a beloved pet.

I stayed with Mitsi until I was sure she was going to be OK to drive home. Then I got in my car and began to deal with my own grief, which will take time.

Real grief does, you know. It might not even hit you for days, then all of a sudden "kablaam." I have a kablaam in my future.

Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?
--Plato, Dialogues, Phaedo

33 Things To Do Before You're 10

2005-07-20T00:39:00.000-04:00

This list is from an article in Sky News. The list was compiled by "experts and a former model."

Which may, in fact, explain the rather odd last entry. Or not.

Anyway, even though there are some things mentioned that are rather "Brit-centric" I think you will enjoy it.

The 33 things to do by age 10:

1. Roll on your side down a grassy bank.
2. Make a mud pie
3. Make your own modelling dough mixture
4. Collect frogspawn
5. Make perfume from flower petals
6. Grow cress on a windowsill
7. Make a papier-mache mask
8. Build a sandcastle
9. Climb a tree
10. Make a den in the garden
11. Make a painting using your hand and feet
12. Organise your own teddy bears' picnic
13. Have your face painted
14. Bury a friend in the sand
15. Make some bread
16. Make snow angels
17. Create a clay sculpture
18. Take part in a scavenger hunt
19. Camp out in the garden
20. Bake a cake
21. Feed a farm animal
22. Pick some strawberries
23. Play Pooh sticks
24. Recognise five different bird species
25. Find some worms
26. Ride a bike through a muddy puddle
27. Make and fly a kite
28. Plant a tree
29. Build a nest out of grass and twigs
30. Find 10 different leaves in the park
31. Grow vegetables
32. Make breakfast in bed for your parents
33. Make a mini assault course in your garden

\__Cliff Between the Lines__/

Addicted to...self jabber?

Kinda moving on, join me?

Serpent's Egg - Prologue

Soluble Words

A Ghost Between Us

Jane Meyers One

50 Things I've Done

The Real One (Part 5) The Real Story of Santa Claus

The Real One (Part 4) The Real Story of Santa Claus

The Real One (Part 3) The Real Story of Santa Claus

The Real One (Part 2) The Real Story of Santa Claus

The Real One (Pt. 1) the Real Story of Santa Claus

Smile by Charlie Chaplin, Performed by KokoKaina

Open Up (Re: For the Record- Richard Gere)

For the Record- Richard Gere

Stress Management 2 - Fight or Flight/Panic Disorder

A Familiar Tune. (Original Song)

Human on the Inside

Thoughts on a Bobcat's Demise

Up All Night (Montage)

Charlotte Martin Never Say Never Tour Review

For My Blogside Readers

Vlog September 10, 2007 Update on Cliff & Stuff

Fix You

Hyperfriendship - Lasting Friendship & Reducing Drama Online

Funny Cats

Update

Tell Me Why (Montage)

From Here

The Exeter File

After All (I Won't Shut Us Down) Montage - Cory Sipper

How to Save a Life (Montage)

Rest In Peace

Hello. I'm Back. Who Are You?

For No One (Everything)

Pandora's Box

The Youtube Staring Contest (pfft, you can't beat me)

IMPROVING YOUR SELF-ESTEEM

Eulogy for a Friend

Musings (from Kalodaimon)

Bit of an update

Spirit Journey - Epilogue

3 Wishes

Friendship

Spirit Journey Conclusion - Sincerely

Spirit Journey Day 10-16 Growing Stronger

Spirit Journey Day 9 - Again the Reaper

Spirit Journey Day 8 Pieces of Me

Spirit Journey Day 7 Journey Home Part 2

Spirit Journey Day 7 Journey Home Part 1

Spirit Journey Day 6 Unhanded & Stuck

Spirit Journey Day 5 Night: Dreamtime

Spirit Journey Day 4b Wisdom Talking: Death Lessons

Spirit Journey Day 4 Captain David's Elegy

Spirit Journey Day 3 Wisdom Talking

Spirit Journey Day 2 Finally Forgiveness Pt 2

Spirit Journey Day 2 Finally Forgiveness Pt 1

Spiritual Journey 1

Why Does Bipolar Disorder Happen

There was this guy and this girl...

Random Chaos 05/10/2007

Innocent in the Big City

Taking the Plunge

Who Are You Again?

Mental Hospital Redux

Cold Sidewalk

Hmmm... Maybe Not.

Turn Me Off

Creepy at the Hardware Store

A Quick Recommendation

Echoes

Psychedelic Trigger

Mirage

Much Ado

Sploosh

Sheesh, Lighten Up...

Casualty

Cathartic

Dust and Dreams

\Cliff Between the Lines/