Beginning from an End

It's amazing how four words can so abruptly change your life. I was sitting in the car, just about to leave for the casino, when I got the call. It was about 8:00 PM, on a Wednesday. I pick up my cell and answer it. It was mom.

"His kidneys have stopped."

The ride to the hospital is a blur. I remember that it was a clear night, but for some reason it was hard to see the road. I hopped out of the car before it had finished moving, and got to the fourth floor as fast as I could. When I finally got to see him, he was unconscious, but still in quite obvious pain. This is the point where I knew I'd never see him back to his old self. There was no recovering at this point.

I'm going to miss you, dad.

 He'd had a long history of health problems. Severe arthritis had kept him in constant pain since his early 20's, not to mention the only medication that worked for him also greatly reduced his immune systems strength. In March, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. June was the surgery, where he had just over thirty percent of his right lung removed. After living with a tube coming out his back for a month, his lung still hadn't healed. After a couple more tests and failed treatments in the hospital, he went under the knife again, for a procedure that I never learned the name of. I believe the technical term is '7 inch wide sucking chest wound so air can leave the lung'.

At least, that's the simplified version of it.

Migratory flesh eating disease. Staff infection. Loss of motor skills. Progressive dementia. All between August and October. Not to mention the inability to use the only medication he'd ever found that eased his arthritic pain. They never quite found the reason he kept deteriorating, but they are pretty sure it was his lung cancer moving to the brain. We had the service for him two days ago.

He was only 61.

He never showed weakness. He didn't want to trouble, or worry others. His constitution was incomprehensible. He was polite, intelligent, kind, and a gentleman of the highest caliber. He lived in the same area his entire life, and I've never met anyone that had a single negative word about him.

He was, in short, the greatest man I've ever met.

I have nothing but respect for the old guy, and if I can ever be half the man he was, I will consider my life successful. If I learned anything from this, it's that life is something to enjoy while you can. So I sat back for a while, and contemplated what i enjoy the most. It took a while before it dawned on me: improving myself. So over the next week, I'll be building myself a list, of everything I want to improve about myself. Everything I do, I want to do better. Everything I can't do, I want to learn how. For me, and for him.

I'll be seeing you eventually pops, but I've got a couple more things to do down here first.

Goodbye.

I don't want to update right now.

Apparently I can only do something when I don't really want to.

Not when I'm actively deciding against doing something, mind you. I'm able to not do those types of things just fine. It just seems that the more I want to do something, the less likely it is to happen. For instance, I wouldn't put "updating this sadly neglected section of the Internet" on the list of things I want to do at 4:19AM. There has been numerous occasions over the past five months where I have sat down, excited and ready to write, only to not have anything to actually write about. Any given day, I have about eight things I want to do, and yet I never end up doing many of them.

Right now, I just want to sleep.

I also want to learn to play a musical instrument. I own a bass guitar that has all but been abandoned for about five years. Many times over that period I had decided I would pick it back up and teach myself how to make pleasing sounds with it, and yet it hasn't been touched. I know I want to do it, and I know I'm not afraid of the work, it just never happens. And this carries over through most things in my life. It's like I can only do things by using them to procrastinate doing OTHER things. And I enjoy doing most of these things. It is a very odd phenomenon. Another thing I'd like to do: get in better shape. It's been on my to-do list for several years, and it's never quite happened. It isn't that I dislike working out, I actually enjoy it. And I certainly have the time. I think my main problem is that I just plan too much. The more I want to do something, the more I think about it, research it, and want to do it right the first time. Then I realise that I won't do it right the first time, and I figure I should spend more time thinking and researching, to the point where it becomes a downward spiral. Meanwhile, if I just happen to do something I wasn't planning on doing, I don't have the time to talk myself out of it.

Like this post for instance.

But this is all (hopefully) about to change. Things have finally all started to come together in my life, and I'm excited to see it all fall into place. One of the byproducts of this life culmination is that this blog will be updated much more often.  Hopefully, at least once a week. Maybe more, if I don't want to. There will be more posts about this at a later time though, probably when I choose to be not doing something else. Right now, I think I'll just go to bed.

Although, I don't really want to.

Someone should really update this place more often.

I've been thinking a lot.

Not that I don't normally think, just recently I've been thinking a lot. Sometimes I do that. I take a thought and think about it for far too long. Sometimes this is good, sometimes not so much. And some times it's just irrelevant.

Take for instance, something I noticed the other day: The term 'It's the least I could do' is dumb. If you're bragging about only doing the least you can do, you aren't a very nice person. And if you're doing something for someone else, and say that you could not in any way do less, you're just kind of a dick. I say we adopt a phrase more accurate to the situation. Something like "If I did any less, I'd be a dick". This way people know you could do less but choose not to.

Something else to think about: It's 5 o'clock somewhere.

That's what the clock on the wall says. in this room, there are several clocks all labeled with different places. One is labeled "somewhere" and it's stopped at five o'clock. I wonder if this is always accurate. Maybe it is only accurate 24 times a day.

Now how can i justify having a drink at 10:30 AM?

I was reading some eight month old advertisements the other day. It was fun to read what was being sold, and wonder where it currently is now. Did it get sold? Is it now in the trash? Maybe it went to someone I know, and I've seen it. One ad really caught my eye though. It was for a "Rare World War II treasure map." I believe they were asking for 1 million dollars. I found this funny as it was in the local paper of my small town.  I figure it must have been a joke. But what if it wasn't? I then started to wonder if it found a home. If someone bought the map, had they found the treasure?

Maybe I'll call the number and find out.

It's the least I can do.

Why are couches more comfy than beds?

I find a good sofa gives me a better sleep than most beds. Maybe I've only ever slept in sub-par beds, or maybe my friends just own really nice couches. I know that there are exceptions to the rule; I myself own a below average comfort sofa, it is not a place you want to spend the night.

The rest I just had on this couch was under four hours, and yet I'm more well rested than I have been in the last month. I do not know why this is. Maybe I need a couch shaped bed.

Or a bed shaped couch. I'll add both to the list of things I need to buy.

Something I can remove from my list of things to buy: A grappling hook. I was convinced it was a good purchase by the phase "Come on, it's a god-damned grappling hook!" How can one argue with that reasoning? So in the next few days, I'll be trusting my life to a humorously shaped piece of metal, and a length of rope.

It was eight dollars. This can only end well.

Now I just need something to grapple onto. I think I'll find a place that isn't very high up the first couple of trials, just on the off chance that an eight dollar grappling hook is not up to industry standards.

Who actually gets to choose industry standards for products like this? Is there a team of ninjas, pirates, vikings, or orcs that put it through a rigorous testing process? And what about beds? Do they have a team of orcs as well? Maybe I can get a job as a mattress tester. Or even better, a sofa tester.

Introductions and What-Not.

I am currently sitting in a cafe, watching the town wake up.

It's just shy of 8:30AM, and the town is still asleep. Not that the town ever fully wakes up, but it does stir a bit, sometimes it even rolls over before going back to the blissful dream world of a small town.

Small-ish, anyways.

So I sit here, and I type. I watch people come in and out of the cafe. I have a good view of the street from where I sit, so sometimes I watch that. I watch the keyboard when I type. Not much gets past this untrained eye. And if it did, well, how would I know?

The clouds outside have a look about them. A look that dares me to go out there, like they have rain just waiting for me. I feel like calling their bluff. Maybe I'll go for a walk down the street. I might even walk down a different street. There are only two streets worth walking on in this town.

Maybe it is small.

As I finish the dregs of my coffee, I convince myself to wait another half hour before I go for a walk. I might spend that time working on a side project. I have too many of those. Or I might just continue to watch the street get busier. As I decide, I get another cup of coffee.

It's time to wake up.