I Win, Again

I've completed my second novel. Well, not really. I completed it to the standards of National Novel Writing Month, which means I wrote 50,368 words without proofing a single thing, moving toward that almighty goal of delivering 50k. Which I did for the second time in two years, hooray for me. To bad, like last time, I've got another 50,000 to write before the actual story is done.

It's kind of a let down this year compared to '05. I never really doubted my ability to do it since I'd done it once before. I guess it's like climbing Everest, or swimming the English Channel, or losing weight, or having kids, or sex... it's never as exciting as the first time.

Okay, maybe not the sex.

So, 50,000 more words to shoot for in the first draft of book 2. Then I can finally go back to re-writes on the book that this new book is a sequel to. It never ends. But its probably still the best hobby going.

Things I Am Thankful For, '06

I'm a day late, but we all know that Thanksgiving is about preparing and eating food. The thanks come second, but should not be forgotten.

Anyway, I am currently thankful for: 

1)     Having two vehicles that have yet to cost me an extra arm and a leg with unexpected breakdowns. I suppose actually servicing them on time helps....

2)     Having three dogs that give copious kisses. Dogs that don't kiss might as well be furniture.

3)     Regular paychecks.

4)     Having a realigned satellite dish so even when it rains I can still watch TV on the DirecTiVo.

5)     TiVo.

6)     Having a wife who can cook.

7)     The Wire  (Sunday nights on HBO. Sickeningly amazing program. Rent the first three seasons.)

8)     The heat run my brother put in my basement office a couple years ago.

9)     Thermal underpants.

10)                        That my soon to be new neighbor putting in a house next door isn't an asshat.

11)                        Winter beanie hats.

12)                        The doctors of Flagstaff Medical who killed my peptic ulcer on vacation dead. I wish I could fly there for all my medical maladies of the future.

13)                        The fact that I'm 85% done with Xmas shopping.

One Armed Tom

Everyone thought Tom was crazy when he cut off his own arm.

Tom knew different. He knew it was the only way. It was the only way to save his brother.

Aaron was a congenital amputee, born without an arm. Well, that wasn't quite right. Aaron came out with an arm, but it was already a grayish dead thing. The doctors cut it off just minutes later. Amniotic banding they said. Fiberous stuff in the womb wound round the limb like a tight rubber band before he was even born, killing it.

That wasn't why Tom cut his arm off. Not exactly.

The reason was the house. The house took Aaron. When they were kids, Aaron called the presence in his room The Hate. Capital T, Capital H. He'd beg their parents not to put him to bed there, to let him sleep with Tom, but they also let him cry it off, whimpering into the wee hours until there was silence. This happened every night for years.

Only once, when Aaron was about six, were there any screams.

When he was a teen, Aaron was a cutter. On his legs, not his stump. He used little tiny sharp scissors with the work "Fiskars" on them, Tom knew. Later it was drugs and booze that got Aaron through.

Tom fled town as soon as he was old enough. Aaron stayed, but he moved into Tom's room. Two years ago their parents died in a car accident. Aaron and Tom got the house, which Aaron lived in.

One year ago, Aaron stopped calling.

Tom gave up a job making good cash and a girl-friend with a mouth like Angelina Jolie's and a life in the city filled with promise and moved back home to find Aaron. On the first night, thinking it would make him closer to his disturbed brother, he slept in Aaron's old room. He dreamed that night of Aaron running naked in the house from something dark. When he woke, he remembered what Aaron called it. The Hate. Capital T, Capital H.

Tom knew what he had to do.

It is very, very hard to cut off your own arm.

He researched it. He knew he didn't have Apotemnophilia or Body Integrity Identity Disorder or whatever the hell doctors wanted to call it. Not at all. He didn't want to cut off his arm. He had to. Big difference.

But he couldn't. Hikers had amputated their own limbs when trapped under boulders, using nothing more than a Swiss Army Knife, but he had no access to the kind of pain killers that would require. There was the option of a tourniquet that would cut off the flow of blood until someone had to take the arm off for him. That was too slow and agonizing. Hiring someone to just chop it with an ax was feasible, but the one time he tried, a stoner college kid he hired couldn't go through with it. Tom paid him anyway.

It had to be an "accident." Something sudden. Pain couldn't be avoided. It had to be in a place where medical help could be called, he he couldn't risk bleeding to death. But it couldn't come soon enough to save the limb. Short of joining the military and going to war, he wasn't sure how. A bus accident maybe.

It was his job, which he needed to get enough money to pay the property taxes to keep the house, that provided the method. He worked the printing press at the local paper. He took the night shift and one month into the job, a piece of wood jammed in his teeth, he fed his right arm into the heavy rollers feeding the never-ending stream of newsprint.

He managed not to scream for five minutes. They had to call in people and dismantle the press around him. He passed out and woke up and passed out and heard someone say something about "saving the arm" and that woke him and he raved at them, "no, no, no!" while his arm turned blue-black under the blue-black ink.

That's why they locked him up. Without the arm -- now a stump just above the elbow, even less than Aaron had -- he waited months to be let out. He railed at them about the house, how he'd lose it if they didn't let him out, how he needed it to get to Aaron, to save him. Eventually Tom realized he had to shut up about it. He told them what they wanted to hear. How he'd been morose at the loss of his parents and his brother and, sure, he was a messed up and had issues and finally, finally they let him out.

That night he slept in Aaron's room.

And it came for him.

The Hate descended like a dark fog, enveloping him, pulling at his guts, filling his chest with searing pain and making him piss himself in Aaron's bed. Only as it yanked him across the border of worlds did it occur to Tom that this is exactly what it wanted. Someone without two strong hands. Someone who couldn't defend himself.

20 Minutes Into the Future...

There are few things I love more than listening to the NPR station out of Geneva NY when it gives the weather reports each hour via the "Virtual/Digital Weatherman " Tom Churchill. He does sound real when you're not used it, but this program with thousands of bits of sound ("our weather forecast" married up to "for the Finger Lakes" with "tonight" makes a sentence that is said with the same inflection every single time) is far from flawless and after a few years it becomes obvious he's more machine than man. My favorite bits are when something goes wrong with it. I'm not sure if its based on a PC program in the Auburn studios or something Internet based, I assume the latter, but either way, if something gets munged, ol' recorded Tom starts sputtering like M-M-M-Max Headroom.

Mr. Doom and Gloom's Good Advice

Last year I got an email out of the blue from some student at Ithaca College asking me some questions for a "featured alumni" section of the Web site. I detailed my answers here -- they were basically uniformly negative, underscoring my total bitterness toward life, the universe and everything on that day (and a few other days, of course).

My assumption was the girl read my reply, burst out in tears at what lay ahead for her, and then quite school to become a low-level paper pusher of some sort. Perhaps an accountant.

I was wrong. My wife accidentally found while surfing about last night that my comments were indeed put to use to mold the minds of future generations of IC grads. Even some of my overall bitterness made the grade! Who says you can't give good advice while depressed?

The Hills Are Still Alive

Get Fuzzy goes musical. It could be worse. It could be Harry Da Vinci's Rings.

Respect My Authori-TAY!

This is what I'd look like in a Colorado mountain town.

(that's not crumbs in the beard either. That grey.)

Mark's Second Funniest Line Ever

The second funnies thing my friend Mark Smith ever said, which I quote to this day, and did just this morning while listening to "Best of Broadway" on WICB, was said in the lunch line during 7th grade at the Hornell Middle School. He actually didn't say it, he sang it...

(Singing) "The hills are alliiiiive... and it's very frightening."

Why on earth were 12 year old boys (mis)quoting The Sound of Music? I'm glad to say, the memory with that reason has departed.

(Don't miss the funniest line ever.)

Don't Mess with a Griffith

Gol-LY! Andy Griffith sues Andy Griffith - CNN.com

The star of "The Andy Griffith Show," who portrayed the sheriff of the fictional town of Mayberry, has sued a Wisconsin man who unsuccessfully ran for the Grant County post after legally changing his name to Andrew Jackson Griffith.

The lawsuit, filed November 3 in U.S. District Court in Madison, alleges that William Harold Fenrick, 42, violated trademark and copyright laws, as well as the privacy of actor Andy Samuel Griffith, when he used his new name to promote his candidacy for sheriff in southwestern Wisconsin.

Stealer of Crap?

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert is my hero. Here's how he treated a woman who accused him of stealing something he obviously had nothing to do with (from The Dilbert Blog: Blame Room Service):

Looking back, I think I was a bit less flexible than I normally would have been. Even so, I could usually shake off being called a thief if the missing item was, for example, a diamond, and I had the motive and opportunity to take it. I would understand how someone might suspect me.

But this was no diamond. My mistake was in pointing that out. I believe my exact quote [to the author, on the phone] was "Why would I steal crap?"

Of course, she took it very well.

Pastafarians, Rejoice!

Our savior lives! RAmen!

Test of Blogmailr Another service with no "e" by the "r", but that's okay. It lets me post direct from Email. Which I can also do with Flickr, but this would be useful for when I'm not sending a photo, I suppose. Let's see if it works.

Published with BlogMailr

The Red Balloon

This is a link for Bill, Mark, Sean, and anyone else who was probably subject to watch a film about a boy and his latex friend in the gymnasiumss of Lincoln School or Bryant School in Hornell New York in the 1970s... It must have been Mr. Loree's favorite.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

You don't realize how bug-free a state Arizona is until a fly is buzzing your head in your own living room.

So, it's Monday night and the Griffiths have arrived back home. We woke at 4:45am and that was barely enough time for us to make a 7am plane at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport. The rest of the day's travel was uneventful except for a trip to the world's best bar-b-que place after landing, Dinosaur Barbecue in downtown Syracuse. Yum and yum, ulcer be damned. (Final meal in AZ? Italian at Carrabas. It's a chain, but by dog, does it ever kick serious ass.)

We finished out the last couple of days in AZ with some lazy shopping in Scottsdale -- truly the Beverly Hills of Arizona (as we heard it referred to). Near our hotel there may be no less than five malls, a couple in walking distance. Stores include Steinway Pianos. And that was just one of the piano stores. It must be quite a feat to afford living there, and if you can, you probably still can't afford to buy anything.

Oh, and we went to the dog show. It was the World Cynosport Games '06 which included disc dogs (Frisbee), flyball (which I can't explain easily, but it’s a riot to watch), Splashdogs (big air/dock jumping) and of course, agility.

I will never sit on a flat metal bleacher for three hours straight ever again. You may ask why I didn't just get up more often? Because we were packed like sardines on those cheap ass bleachers, and you had to walk on people just to get up and down. I kicked at least one lady in the ass on accident. Who makes bleachers that lack the little up/down path in the middle? Somehow, Cynosport found them.

Still, good fun to watch, even if I never ever ever got slobbered on by a single dog.

For that, I have to wait until tomorrow. A full day back at the grind on Tuesday will be followed by a trip out to my parents house, where my three Labradolts are slowly forgetting what I look and smell like. I'm sure the enthusiastic greeting I'll get isn't reserved for just me, and likely goes to any sucker who comes to my parent's house while the dogs are there, but I will pretend it's all about me and let them devour me with love. This house is so, so empty without them here to get hair on everything. By this time tomorrow, the world will have returned to spinning on its regular access.

Except it's dark at 5pm. What the--?

Ulcer boy

Rocks and Ruins Tour Days 9 & 10

Day 9, Thursday, was spent running about in the morning, trying to figure out how to get my prescriptions filled. Turns out my company insurance for getting drugs on the cheap changes on Oct. 31... and the new card got mailed to me after I left home. I had to call three people in HR (after my buddy Lauren hooked me up with the names via IM, god bless the Interwebbing) and I got what I needed filled at a Target Pharmacy (we also bought Jell-o Cups there. Yum.)

That afternoon: the Meteor Crater. Seriously cool. But you've seen the movie Starman, so you know that. Pictures tomorrow on Flickr.

Day 10, Friday, was mostly driving as we left Flagstaff to go to Scottsdale, our last place of lodging for the vaca. We checked out the botanical garden for a while and finally learned some details on the various plants and cacti that have been taking up mental storage space with questions (like, why are the saguaro cactus, those classic looking ones, only down near Phoenix? Because the Sanoro Desert only goes up that far, that's why, and that's where they live; oh, and century plants are not related to aloe plants, even though they look exactly alike. Crazy.)

We're checked into a sweet suite at Chapparal now, where we had a nice dinner and followed it up with something I almost never do, an in-room video rental. And what did the wife pick? Yes, she picked it, not me: Jackass Number Two! And it rocked. Convulsively funny, even when I had to look away. Think "testicles on ice" and that's when I have to look through fingers.

Since the flick ended around ten, I've been typing like a mad bastard and have finished the entire chapter one of Book 2 of my epic quadrilogy+ (four books easy, maybe more). It's much easier to write this stuff with an 18 page single space outline, let me tells you dat.

and now it is 2:41am AZ time on Day 11 and I must to bed. Tomorrow, we watch the doggies play. Not our doggies, but everyone elses, at the international agility competition here. I hope I get to pet some. I need canine affection to live.

Arizona Vacation Day 8 - The Diagnosis

Up for the sunrise on a cold patio off the motel room.

We drove back into Arizona and along the western part of the state to Canyon de Chelly National Monument (pronounced "de shay" even though it's not French), another amazing canyon in some ways grander than the Grand one. I admit to being a little tired of rocks and holes, but there was an excellent switch-back path down into the canyon to see the ruins called the White House which (again!) were abandoned in the 1400s.

On the walk down, we noticed something startling: blood. Lots of it, tracked for a long time. We finally deduced/decided that it had to come from a horse or mule walking down -- we found the spot were it could have slipped and cut its foot, which would bleed like hell.

The walk up was surprisingly easy. On our way, we ran into some people from Italy coming down, they were discussing the blood as well and trying to figure it out. They asked us and we gave them the hypothosis, having to explain what a mule was in the process. One of the men said, "I thought maybe it was from some monkey, no? A small monkey, you think?"

I should have said it was from a kangaroo.

From de Chelly we went south to Hubbell Trading Post Historic Site in Ganado. I expected a gift shop, as almost everything else calling itself a "trading post" in the Navajo Nation is just a big gift shop. But this was actually still set up like a turn of the century trading post. Albeit with a visitor center. And a dumb-ass dog that was asleep in the middle of the parking lot. The wife and I both assumed he was dead and crept closer, ever closer, until his breathing was obvious. Whew. Maybe he was deaf.

Bad enough later we saw a dead horse in a field. Lots of wild horses in the area. I'd rather hit a deer any day.

On to the south, and the plan originally was to visit the petrified forest on Interstate 40 then spend the night in a motel made up to look like Indian teepees . Plans changed however, after I took a single bite of a pizza Squanto bought and had a cramp in my tum-tum that felt like someone with a very pointy ass sitting on me. Enough was enough. Time to see a doc. We booked it across the western part of the state to the very middle, Flagstaff. Got our room at the Hampton Inn and figured out how to get to the ER.

At 6:30pm I registered and figured we'd sit for four or five hours before they saw us. Not this crack troop of medical practitioners. They had me checked in, put in a gown and ready for an abdominal ultrasound in less than half an hour. By 7:15, I'd already had the bluee goo smeared on my belly and poked by Mary the ultrasounder, who introduced herself and her job to me twice -- "I'll be performing your ultrasound" -- once before and once after wheeling me down the hall in a gurney. That was a first for me despite having parents and a brother that worked in a hospital. Where are the perks, I ask you?

Back in the curtain area #9, I got hooked to a saline IV to make up for the fact that I had not had anything to eat all day but a banana, granola bar, half an apple, some trail mix, and six bits out of a 1 oz. Ritz Snack Mix packet.

The doc came back and told me I had thankfully had surgical worries as I have no gall stones -- his initial thought based on my symptoms. He went with another diagnosis: peptic ulcer.

Hooray for me! Earlier in the week the Wife and I were joking about ulcers as the culprit, but she refused to accept that I would get one before her, considering the stresses of her job. I win!

What did I win exactly? Meds (through the IV and soon in easy to ingest pill form!) that will kill off all acid in my stomach for a few days, and other meds that will help "push" through what I do eat.

And what I will eat for at least the next 24 hours will be all clear liquid related. Apple Juice, Jell-o, and...uh... what else is there?

Oh, right. Water.

For the next two and a half hours the wife and I sat behind the curtain, me under a sheet and a Johnny robe and nothing else, waiting, waiting, waiting for the saline drip to finish. A watched IV never drips. Nor does it help when I bend my arm half the time, not knowing that prevented the drip, too.

We listened as EMTs brought in Oscar the frozen drunk, a bit from the battered women in the curtain next to us as a social worker discussed their options, another down the row from a girl (I think) who broke her nose and could expect black eyes for a couple of weeks.

When it was all done, we drove back to our hotel which is right next door to a Del Taco. And my saintly wife, who had been avoiding eating all day along with me, out of solidarity and because I wouldn't take her, ate two Big Chicken Tacos. Even as she wolfed down the goods like a Labrador at the trough, I wasn't remotely hungry. Well, a little. But the saline was apparently all I need. Yummy, yummy saline.

Tomorrow, as our vacation continues... more ruins? Perhaps a hike in another national park? And definitely: METEOR CRATER.

And Jell-o.