Hopeful Self-loathing

It seems pretty selfish to me right now to rant and rave about the things bothering me right now knowing what Lisa just went though this past Tuesday.

Her surgeon fused four of her lumbar vertebrae as L2 was completely destroyed by the tumor as was half of L3. The tumor and her the second lumbar vertebrae were removed, with a cage-like implant to fill the space and two titanium rods to give support. Physical therapy has begun, which will be followed shortly by radiation therapy. We're all hopeful that things will be fine this time around, and Lisa is always strong and positive. Doesn't make it suck any less.

I start to think more and more about the brevity and frailty of life; it's a constant reminder to stop thinking and start doing. I understand that people live in fear of doing just that, and it's unfair of me to expect them to live as I do. Fear is still a poor excuse to not live everyday to the fullest.

Take that chance.

Say those words.

Love fearlessly.

Dream of Californication

Just the fact that people seem to be getting dumber and dumber. You know, I mean we have all this amazing technology and yet computers have turned into basically four figure wank machines. The internet was supposed to set us free, democratize us, but all it's really given us is Howard Dean's aborted candidacy and 24 hour a day access to kiddie porn. People... they don't write anymore, they blog. Instead of talking, they text, no punctuation, no grammar: LOL this and LMFAO that. You know, it just seems to me it's just a bunch of stupid people pseudo-communicating with a bunch of other stupid people at a proto-language that resembles more what cavemen used to speak than the King's English." - Hank Moody, Californication

This is something I've stood on my soapbox and stated more than once. Shortening language as a matter of convenience is one thing, integrating it into the everyday vernacular is another. At the risk of sounding snobby: use punctuation and grammar, people! My eye can only twitch so much out of frustration.

On a side note, I watched the first season of Californication this week (thanks to On Demand) and am now hooked on it's sex, drugs, and hopeful self-loathing. I can't speak for the drugs, but I can find a connection to the other two. The writing for the show is fantastic and now I wait with baited breath for the next season.

Temple of Flesh

DO and I actually made it to the Slinging Ink Expo at Freeman Colosseum yesterday after months of me teasing that he would never get one if we went and I contributed some cash as his Christmas present. It was most certainly a fest of flesh and ink, although some people would have done better to cover up more of their flesh and not let it all hang out. (A 'illustrated man' in the booth next to where we got our ink done was wearing ass-less shorts to better show up all his tats.)

DO did well and was entertained with his iPod and people watching while his calf was worked on. I, on the other hand, was getting work down in a sensitive area and was white-knuckling it for a bit. Even with all that, it was all we could do to not go crazy and get two or three tattoos, there's just something addictive about it. Life is way too short. Now, if I could only apply that theory to sky diving... :-|

Hitting the Fan

My pal, LM, was diagnosed two years ago with colon cancer. It still seems odd to me that a 35-year-old woman would have cancer of the colon. Surgery and chemo took care of it. Or so we thought. This past week, she went in for some tests because she wasn't feeling well. Four MRIs, three CT scans and more than 50 x-rays later, the diagnosis is cancer again. Only this time it's in her femurs and a vertebrate. There's other issues that need to be addressed with her health, but those are the big ones.

I know my outlook should remain positive, but I have a hard time being puppies and rainbows right now because I can't stop wondering where else the cells may attack. And while LM is in typical high spirits and smiles, I can't help but feel angry and scared because I worry that the cells may be somewhere else and just haven't made themselves known. Hopefully tomorrow will bring more information from the flock-of-doctors handling her case. In the meantime, I will see if I can't squeeze one puppy and start being positive.

Me & LM last Halloween.