A Harsh Reminder

I got pulled off my new temp job this morning and was asked to help out in the Mail Room. The regular Mail Girl had complained of chest and back pains and was taken to hospital. After a few hours of sorting and stamping , we got a call that the doctors had found a blood clot and were admitting the poor girl for emergency surgery. If she hadn't gone to the ER she would have died within a few hours...Mail Girl is, I believe, in her early to mid 20's and she seemed fine yesterday- today she barely escaped death, she had to be talked into going to hospital, apparently she didn't want to go, which is understandable.

We were reallly busy earlier, but during lunch I had some quiet time to reflect on my own near-death experience and how I had to convince myself to go to the ER. If I hadn't done that, this post wouldn't be here, as I'd be dead. I don't know who talked Mail Girl into going, but I'm glad they managed to do it- otherwise she'd be dead and she's much too young to die. My heart goes out to her.

I am fully aware that any day may be the last...for any one of us. It's tempting to give into that fear and shut down, wall-off and deny, deny, deny...no, actually, it's not tempting at all.

I'll tell you what is tempting: I'm tempted to shed the last tattered bandage of fear and doubt and take a long, honest look at my own wounds and afflictions. Until very recently, I was unaware that I suffer from a common but rarely mentioned disorder: I have an Ingrown Heart.

I have done as much work on myself as I can but it's a serious condition and I can't fix it without help and help is not something that is easy for me to ask for. Fortunately, I didn't have to ask, it was freely offered.
Last year, I celebrated Independence Day by hitting a deer and wrecking my car on the way to visit my dying grandmother...shortly after I got back from that 'vacation', I was given the Pink Slip at work and life sort of went downhill from there, so I find it ironic that I have Open Heart Surgery scheduled for the July 4th weekend this year.
Don't fear, it's not medical surgery and I won't be in a hospital for it, but it needs to be done and so it shall.

What is a life worth? It's worth living, is what. I suggest you take advantage of it while you can.

That is all.

Unpredictable

I just received a phone call from my Twin in Chicago.

"Killed...killed...bodies...killed...."

Whoa. Slow down. Who got killed? Are you OK?

He is OK. Physically.

The Twin was, as he is almost every evening, standing at the Cermak bus stop after work.
Unlike most days, today a runaway tractor trailer plowed into the station.
He felt the air move as the truck passed.
It was very close.

There was a deafening , exploding sound - louder than a hundred earthquakes- and suddenly bodies were flying through the air, people were screaming, blood was everywhere.
The Twin actually saw the truck coming in, but those who didn't thought it was a bomb or a derailed train.

After the shock, my brother and other bystanders tried to lift a piece of metal ( from his description, I think it may be the 'L' shaped beam directly in front of the truck's front tire) off of a pair of women who were pinned underneath. They were in a pool of spreading blood.
The women were not moving.

The rescue was not successful.

Two women died at the scene and nearly a dozen other persons are in critical care.

I'm not sure if the dead women were the ones he was trying to help or not; in any case it was a horrible scene and the Twin was very shaken, on the edge of tears...to make matters worse, someone stole the Twin's backpack, which he had dropped when he ran to help. It had his wallet, credit card, checkbook, cell phone...the works.

With any luck, the authorities picked it up while they were clearing the scene...maybe they thought it was a potential bomb and they took it somewhere and blew it up, it'll ruin your Blackberry but your ID will be safe.
I suck at comforting.

The Twin was still in a state of mild shock. He was afraid to watch the news...he didn't want to know how many people died. He started down the what if path:
-What if I hadn't stopped to tie my shoe?
-What if I hadn't seen the truck coming?

Don't think about that, I said.
Just don't take anything for granted, ever.
I don't.


There are degrees of near-death experiences. His was brief, unforeseeable and left him unharmed- dodging the proverbial bullet, as it were.

My own experience was a bit different. I didn't have a brush with Death, I had a long disagreement that went on for six days...I remember the doctor coming into my room and telling me that they had "lost me" a couple of times while I was on the operating table.

What operating table? I had surgery?

Yep. I went into alcoholic withdrawal while they were trying to repair my innards...I had a grande mal seizure while I had an endoscopic tube inside me. Everyone present was amazed that I survived. I used up four units of blood. This seemed like a pretty impressive statistic to the doc, he repeated it several times for effect.

Jesus. I'm glad I don't remember that. Doc, how long will I be in the hospital?

Not long, he said.

That's good news.

No, it's not. We expect you to die.

Die? When?

Today. Perhaps tomorrow.

That sucks. I don't feel like dying.

The doctors didn't believe me. Over and over again, I was asked the same questions in different forms...did I ever have suicidal thoughts? ...did I plan on drinking again?
I felt like screaming : of course I NEVER have any suicidal thoughts! I drank myself into a bloody pulp in a joyous, life-affirming manner!
I mean, nothing celebrates life like a 1.75 liter bottle of Bowman's Virginia Vodka... I sure could use a drink...but I didn't say that.

I lied and said : "No and no."

It's a good thing that I did.
I have since learned that if I had admitted to having "suicide ideation", I probably would have been placed into psychiatric care, which would have driven me insane...instead, I was left alone with Death, who can be a real asshole.

The smug, undying bastard was convinced that I was going to drink again.
"C'mon in, man", he said with a wink and a scythe, "the water's fine. One drink and you can swim here forever, you'll never feel any pain again."

"But", I protested, "that means I'll never feel anything good either."

"Dude", he said, using a condescending tone that only immortals can truly pull off, "your life sucks. You are a fat, used-up drunk with no job, no future and no friends. No one even knows that you are here...they won't miss you when you are gone. Loveless , hopeless, forgotten...that's you."

No. That's not me. Don't say that. No.

The Reaper grinned. "Why not? You say it every day. I'm just agreeing with you."

I had to admit that he was right.
I also had to admit that I was wrong.
Death was using my own words as a weapon against me.
That pissed me off.

It was then that I decided that I was never going to drink again.
I've been sober ever since.

Poor company, Death was, but I'm richer for having met him.

Sometimes persons, on hearing my story, will comment that I must possess remarkable strength.
Or courage.
Or willpower.
Or faith...or any number of other things that I don't have.

Those aren't the things that keep me sober.

The secret to my sobriety isn't a secret at all.
I don't want to die.

That's it.

*********************************

In 1996 I wrote a comic book mini-series titled "Destiny Angel". This is the opening page from issue #1:

In which my protagonist is asked the question:





Eerie, eh?


I thought so.

Trying etc.

For years I was what is known as a 'maintenance drunk' and one of the things I was able to maintain was a body weight of 198 lbs., which made it impossible for me to fit
into the suit I'm wearing in the pic to the left.

Once, back in 2001, I drank eleven Natural Ice beers in the two hour period preceding a job interview for assistant manager at a large retail shoe store.At the interview I was drunker than a lovesick astronaut, but I somehow still got the job...on 9/11, 2001, I was promoted to store manager.


In hindsight, getting promoted on 9/11 was a bad sign.

By January 2002, the store's ownership and myself had reached an agreement: I would withdraw my unemployment claim and they would convince our regional manager not to file assault charges against me for throwing a Nine West boot at his head . He's lucky that my arm was in a sling at the time...seriously.

I am a very adaptive and capable person, but there are some jobs that I am wholly unsuited for; selling shoes, thank Godzilla, is one of them.

One thing that I know I'm really good at is putting books on a shelf. CDs too.

So I donned my suit and went to a job interview at the Public Library. The meet went really well, I thought. I was able to answer all of the questions easily and kept my two-person interview team smiling throughout- the atmosphere at the library was a lot more relaxed than I'd come to expect from my old job, which was in a truly uptight law firm.

The position I was seeking involves shelving books and little else.
After our session, I was told that I'm considerably overqualified for shelving books and that the position is only part-time. Would I still be interested?

Hmmm....

I asked about advancement from within. Mrs. J, the older woman who was interviewing me, told me she had started working PT in 1974 and was retiring soon...well, OK, then.
I'm officially interested!

I hope to hear back next week- in any case, it felt good to have an honest-to-gosh job interview. It has been a long time since I'd been to one, a real one anyway. Phone and web stuff...not so good.

It's also been a long time since I've been on a real date.
I have a date tomorrow night.
Dinner and conversation with someone I've known and liked for a long time. We met shortly before I quit drinking, so she's already seen me at my worst...tomorrow I hope to be at my best. My friend has seen me pull off some pretty amazing accomplishments( if I do say so) but to me the most amazing thing of all would be if she were to like me as much as I like her, which is to say considerably.

That's all I'm sayin'.

On Medals

Olympic ex-champion Marion Jones recently confessed to using banned substances during the 2000 Summer Games and was subsequently stripped of her awards.
In total, she had to return five medals. The medals were retroactively awarded to the athletes who placed immediately behind Ms. Jones.

MOSCOW, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Former Olympic champion Irina Privalova has said she would not be happy to receive the Sydney Games 4x400 metres relay silver medal the Russians will get after American Marion Jones confessed to using steroids.

"No, I'm not happy at all to get that silver instead of the bronze," Privalova, who retired after Sydney, was quoted as saying by the All Sport news agency.

"I'm not happy because Marion's admission to drug use is a real tragedy for our sport."

WASHINGTON, Dec 31 (CBF)- Newly appointed President Al Gore today said that he isn't "exactly thrilled" over the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn their own ruling on Gore v. Bush and retroactively award the Presidency to Mr. Gore in last week's landmark decision, Reality v. Bush, which received a unanimous 8-0 ruling in favor of Reality.
Judge Clarence Thomas, claiming 'exhaustion' from the rigors of his recent book tour, declined to vote.

"Of course, I wanted to be President", said an exasperated Gore at a morning conference, " but to be awarded the Office in such a way just points out how desperate and dysfunctional our political system has become. Plus, I think it would be easier to save Polar bears with napalm fireballs than it will be to fix Bush's mess in Iraq. I'm not looking forward to that."

When asked what his first course of action as President would be, Gore responded: "Fire Lieberman."