Category Archives: Personal Updates

Well. OK then.

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I will get directly to the point if this post. Here is the cut and paste summary of what I have sent a few folks directly…

I have a cancerous tumor in my pancreas. It is, by all indications, highly treatable and was caught very early. In some cases the actual treatment for this kind is to do nothing and see what happens. I already have a relationship with an oncologist I really like and will be following up with him.

At this point I really do not have much additional data. I meet with my oncologist on Friday to figure out what kind of treatment, if any, I will need to undergo.

I am, as I am sure you can understand, a little tweaked out by the news, but I am very optimistic. I have excellent insurance, and a fantastic support network. I also have a partner who has been, and will be, by my side to help me get through this. I would have preferred to not deal with this, but I am grateful for all the positive things that are in place around it.

More as I learn it and as I have the mental fortitude to share, but I figured it made sense to share what I know for now.

As President Bartlett likes to say…”What’s next?”

I am NOT Iron Man

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TL;DR Opener to this post – I was recently diagnosed with Iron Deficiency Anemia. I am working with several doctors to determine the cause and to resolve the situation. At the current time we have no reason to believe that there is any major underlying cause for this situation, but I’ve been getting a lot of lab work and tests done to make sure of that. Fatigue and low energy are two of the symptoms Iron Deficiency Anemia, and the emotional weight/uncertainty adds to the mix, so if we’ve seemed flaky, distant, canceled plans, or otherwise seemed preoccupied lately it’s probably got more to do with this than anything else and I’m sorry.

OK, so…Disclaimer out of the way to (hopefully) avoid seeming overly dramatic…

I give blood as often as I can. So much so that people who I’ve made friends recently have commented on the number of blood donor shirts I have (which is especially amusing to me because I don’t keep most of the shirts I get and I generally only wear them when I’m working out. The latest campaign at OneBlood has been super hero themed, though, and some of the shirts have been really cool). A few years ago, I started having issues with my Iron Levels being too low when I went in to give blood. Nothing startling, and they are usually able to get me into the acceptable range by warming up my hands, but I’ve had a few occasions when they have had to turn me away. My Primary Care physician was aware of it, and we’ve been monitoring the situation along with my regular lab work (I was already seeing her three times a year with lab work because of my Type II Diabetes). I was also taking Iron supplements, mainly so that I could keep giving blood.

In June of last years my Iron levels were high. In March of this year, they were incredibly high. I also have had very low blood pressure for a while and some circulatory issues, so my doctor suggested I stop taking the Iron supplements follow up with a heart specialist and a hematologist to have some routine tests done and see if anything else was going on.

The heart stuff was fine. More than fine, really. The doctor said that most people would envy the blood pressure levels I have and suggested that I should eat more salty snacks. No problems there. My tests there revealed two small cysts/lesions that he wanted me to have looked at via ultrasound (one on my thyroid, and one on my liver), but both he and my PCP have assured me that those are very common and not generally a cause for concern. The tests are a “you have insurance and it’s better to be safe than sorry” situation.

Now, the hematologist? See, the first thing I found out when I made the appointment was that hematologists seem to almost exclusive practice out of cancer centers. So that was fun. Nothing quite like sitting in a waiting room with a bunch of folks who are being treated for cancer to get the blood flowing. My PCP had ordered an upper GI for me last year because I, like my father before me, have GERD and it’s been several decades since I’d had a scan to see if I’d developed any complications from it (I have not). She also had me take a mail-order colon cancer test (the second one I’ve had since the low iron issues started), which again came back fine, so I wasn’t overly concerned with the cancer thing. Still, it was unnerving.

In any case, lab work and subsequent appointments with that doctor determined that Iron Overload was not my issue, and that my Ferritin levels indicated I had what he characterized as a “severe” Iron Deficiency. He asked me not to give blood for six months, told me to start taking Iron supplements again with the goal of seeing if I could tolerate two pills a day, and suggested that I get another Upper GI and a Lower GI just to be absolutely sure there wasn’t some kind of severe underlying medical condition.

This is the point where, in Eugene Morris Jerome’s family, they would whisper “cancer” at the dinner table.

Now what he thinks is happening is that this is all a result of my regular blood donations. Other than the tests and getting back on Iron, there’s nothing else to really be done at the moment. If I go back and see him at the end of summer and my Ferritin levels are still too low he’s going to administer a series of IV’s to resolve the situation. If not, and nothing came of the other tests, he’ll work with me to figure out how often I can donate blood and what my Iron supplementation routine should be.

In the meantime, I’m tired. Really tired. I’ve got some other situations I’ve been dealing with as well, including severe leg cramps, chest pains, numbness and tingling, and other circulatory issues that I had just assumed were the result of my Blood Glucose levels being too high. Which, fun thing to find out, can be the result of…IRON DEFICIENCY ANEMIA. My BG numbers have been steadily increasing over the last few years despite the fact that my diet, for the most part, hasn’t really changed…so naturally I chalked all my symptoms up to that. Oh, and the fatigue thing? So a symptom of high BG levels is frequent urination, so on top of being constantly tired I also wake up regularly (pretty much every two hours to the minute) to use the restroom…which adds to my fatigue.

I haven’t spoken “publicly” about all this for a variety of reasons, one of the main ones being that despite the fact that I am absolutely one of those people who gets a comfort out of sharing details about my life online, I’m also a person who finds thinks a lot of people exaggerate or dramatize health/mental issues to garner likes/popularity/sympathy and I think that’s really gross. Social media is rife with people being performative and I’m just not interested in being part of that. But I also recognize that I’ve made vague references to my health concerns on a few occasions lately and that some of this has bled over into our social interactions, so I wanted to at least put this out there to explain why maybe we’ve just not been as accessible or otherwise socially apt lately.

This is all against the backdrop of major personal issues that, while not directly impacting us are going to have long-lasting impacts on my extended family. These issues have been taking up a considerable amount of what little mental stamina I have, and they really came to a head back in late November/early December of last year.

Generally speaking, though? I’m “fine.” I’m tired. I’m dealing with some health issues that have the potential to be Very Serious but are much more likely to be easily solvable through supplements, diet, and exercise. I’ve had to focus very much on keeping my head on straight for a while now, so my interest in or ability to deal with static in our lives that isn’t related to these situations is virtually non-existent. I recently read about “fork theory”, which is like “spoon theory” but different in a way that resonates very strongly with me. On any given day I can deal with a certain number of forks being stuck into me before I’m “done.” The number of forks I can tolerate these days is minimal at best.

No Pride In Being Straight

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Straight Ahead

I’m a cis-gendered, heterosexual, white male. I’m completely ok with all of these things, and I do not feel like any of them make me lesser or better than anyone else. They are just facts about me, no different than the fact that I have blue eyes and shave my head on a daily basis, and they are not things I am proud or ashamed of. They just are.

I’ve recently realized, however, that I have a major problem with being referred to as “straight.”

I grew up in the 80’s during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis. When I was in my early teens I was very much impacted by the culture of fear that was aimed towards the LGBTQ+ community at that time. My peers and I called things that we did not like “gay.” If a male did something even remotely effeminate, they were ridiculed for being a “homo.” I could quickly elevate my voice to a “girlish” pitch, loosen my wrist, and evoke peals and peals of laughter from my companions by pretending to be a “fag.” Along with the laundry list of N-word jokes I knew, I had an equal number of “gay” jokes in my arsenal that I could whip out at a moments notice to any unwitting audience that was willing to listen.

I started to change in high school. I attribute most of that to the fact that I was in an arts magnet program and was actually exposed to, and became friends with, LGBTG+ people as a result. One of the most influential teachers I had at the time, Jay Marley, died after developing AIDS during my sophomore year in the program, and his loss absolutely devastated me. Like many people of my generation, I also attribute becoming part of the Rocky Horror Picture Show crowd to have opened my eyes in many ways about lifestyles and people that were different from those I had been exposed to growing up. My Mother also got a job in a restaurant that was owned, operated by, and largely catered to an LGBTQ+ crowd, so I had additional exposure as a result of that. As all of this was happening, I did a lot of self-evaluation and did not like what I saw so I attempted to do something about it. One of the things I had to work the hardest on was not referring to things that I disliked as “gay.”

At that time, where I grew up, “gay” was a slur. Something that was “gay” was never, ever, good. Moreover, any time the word “straight” was used it was generally in terms meant to express superiority over being “gay.” You never heard someone describe themselves as being “straight” unless it was to directly disabuse someone else of the notion that you were “gay.” Even the “straight edge” movement that went through the punk scene was flavored with homophobia, with the proponents typically being racists and homophobes on top of being against the use of drugs and alcohol (a trend that continues in groups like the Proud Boys today).

The more my social circle expanded, the more I came to realize that the term “straight” had been co-opted by people whom, as a general rule, were not the kind of people I wanted to associate with. So much so that even using the term to give directions became something I jokingly asked people to do (“We go forward in this car. Never go straight. It will kill you.”)

Obviously, times have changed. Being labeled as “straight” is, more often than not, seen as the “bad” thing these days. “Straight” has become synonymous with boring, inflexible, close-minded, uptight, and/or some other word that basically describes lame. Whenever someone in my social circles use the term now, it’s not because they are describing something they consider to be a positive trait of the individual in question. I cannot recall a single time in recent memory when I have heard someone describe another person as “straight” without it being done so in a manner that implies the person is “less than”. At it’s most charitable, it comes across as being almost pitying. Like the poor souls can’t help the way they are because they are just so “straight.”

The result of all this is that when the term is used to describe me, I bristle. In a way that even I find surprising. It’s a visceral reaction I physically feel, and it immediately puts me on the defensive. Even as I write this, I realize my reaction isn’t logical and this is one more thing I should add to the list of issues to talk about with my therapist, but for now it is what it is. Part of it is also because of the fact that while I’ve become very accepting of the fact that I am, in almost every way, utterly and completely average (and I’m happy with myself in that state), I still haven’t quite gotten over the hurdle of being OK with other people denigrating me personally for being so. I have found great comfort in the fact that many aspects of my life are routine, predictable, and unexciting. I’m not so good with people looking down on me as a result of it.

Before I wrap this up, I want to make something perfectly clear. I ascribe no ill intent to anyone who has ever referred to me as straight or to people who use that term to describe others or themselves. The whole reason I wrote this post is because I knew that my reaction to the term was not something that was necessarily rational, but one I needed to figure out for myself so that I could clearly express it. I’m also not going to hold it against anyone who designates me as straight in the future, whether they have read this post or not (although I will reserve the right to ask that they not if it happens). This is really just a data point I needed to sus out for myself and one I thought might be interesting to share.  

Write about what makes you feel strong.

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It’s kind of amusing to me that I got this question today, because I was just thinking about this concept during my morning walk. I’m currently listening to The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker because I figured it was about time I went back to the beginning to learn more from the guy who pretty much kicked off most of the modern management/leadership philosophies that I practice and teach on a daily basis. One of the things that Drucker puts forward in the book is the notion that you should take time to figure out what you’re actually good at and do your best to structure your life around it (if I recall exactly the allusion he uses along that lines that an athlete who is really good at running track is probably not going to make the best defensive lineman on a football team). Unless I miss my guess, this notion is what gave birth to the Gallup “strengths” based movement.

So what are my strengths? What are the things that make me feel strong? Let’s make a bulleted list and find out!

  • I’m a great student. I can pick up new concepts quickly and use those concepts in a practical manner in fairly short order.
  • Along the same lines, I’m very adept and understanding abstract concepts, particularly around math. I’m not a mathematician, but I have a fundamental understanding of how numbers work.
  • I genuinely believe in the concept of constantly working to be a better person and devote a considerable amount of my time and energy doing so.
  • I am, for the most part, consistent and reliable. I’m also 100% ok with being Average in just about every way, and I’m also pretty content with the fact that being so means that I’m never going to be the first kid picked in gym class.
  • I’ve managed to have a decent career as a professional actor within the scope of my ability to do so while balancing those activities with my day job.
  • I’m a good father, and a good partner. Again, I’m not the best. I know I have shortcomings in both of those areas, but I try to fulfill my role in both instances to the best of my ability every day.
  • My Mom is proud of me. I’d like to think that if my Dad was still around he would be, too.

A Con of Dragons

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After I returned home from DragonCon in 2019 I decided that I needed to re-evaluate my relationship with the convention and whether I would ever go back. I had cut the trip short due to an impending hurricane and a general sense of misery and unease being there.

This was about a month before I quit drinking, when everything I did from a leisure standpoint basically revolved around alcohol. I started drinking when I got on the plane for Atlanta, and really did not stop (except for the morning hours and the times I was on duty…mostly). I was already at a point when even leaving our house was annoying because it just got in the way of being able to drink as much as I wanted, and when you factor in the cost of travel AND the expense of drinking hotel priced booze? Well, it just was not worth it.

This was, honestly, how many of my vacations looked before I stopped drinking. Just an excuse to drink even more than I did at home. I had a similar experience at Gen Con earlier that year. Skipped out on the final event in the tournament that Alexander and I pretty much went there for so we could stay at the AirBNB and drink.

The fact of the matter is, though, that when I first went to DragonCon I hardly drank at all. I could not afford it, for one thing, but more importantly drinking was not a big deal in my life. What thrilled me was the convention itself, and the things I loved doing there had nothing to do with getting my drink on.

I had already decided to take 2020 off so I could really sort out my feelings on the subject, but then the pandemic happened and I had another level of emotion to sort out. One of the reasons I loved going to conventions is because they made me feel connected to people who shared the same passions I did, or who were equally as passionate about things I was not but could at least relate to. Being cut off from that while also being cut off from pretty much the rest of the world made me miss attending the show even more than I would have had the pandemic not happened, so I went ahead and made a reservation for the 2021 show and committed to going.

Now it is just a few short months until DragonCon returns, and I am following through with what I told myself I was going to do and sorting out my relationship with DragonCon. A relationship that will not, for the first time in a very long time, revolve around (or even include) drinking. Why do I want to be there? What do I want to do?

Seems like the perfect occasion for a bulleted list…

  • I want to see and spend time with the friends I have made, and only see, during the convention.
  • I want to dance. Preferably while looking spooky.
  • I want to see and take pictures of cool cosplayers.
  • I want to have dinner at the restaurant owned by Kandi Burruss (Old Lady Gang Southern Eatery)
  • I want to play some games. This could possibly include running the 5th Edition D&D module “The Lost Tomb of the Bitchin’ Chimera”
  • I want to stare forlornly at the vacant spot where the GLC café used to be and dream of the falafel I will not be having. Ok, I do not WANT to do this, but I will.
  • I want to buy a new kilt that fits properly, get my kilt belt sized down, and purchase some new t-shirts.
  • I want to express my gratitude to as many artists whose work I have enjoyed in my life as I can fit in my schedule.
  • I want to sit in a room full of loud, exhausted volunteers eating food made from questionable ingredients while trying to hear whether I have won a raffle prize I will never be able to use.
  • I want to resist the urge to break my streak of walking four miles a day.
  • I want to play and possibly purchase at least one new game.
  • I want a cool new coffee mug.
  • I want to go to karaoke.
  • I want to discover new and interesting beverages to consume that are not alcoholic. Craft Sodas!

I could probably think of more, but if I were to accomplish everything on that list it would be a hell of a holiday weekend. Which is exactly what it used to be like back before having a drink in my hand the whole time was not my priority.

See you in Atlanta, Geeks.

AF AF

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I have been Alcohol Free for just over six months.

March 22nd, 2020

Ultimately that’s the upshot of this entire post. If you don’t have any interest in reading about why I decided to do so or what my experience has been like since then feel free to move on. The anniversary passed right as this whole Cronoavirus business kicked into full gear, and I kinda got to feeling like I did when everyone was talking about how 2016 was such a dumpster fire. I mean, it was, but there was some really cool stuff that happened that year in my life and overall I was really happy but I felt like I wasn’t allowed to be. I kinda feel that way about the whole Alcohol Free thing right now. Like, if I mention it I’m going to be seen as bragging or that if I talk about the fact that I’m happy with the results of my six month experiment people are going to be all “but the world is on fire and you’re judging me for drinking my beer so eat a bag of nails.”

So, yeah. Have I mentioned that I have a lot of rejection issues that I need to work out with my therapist?

Anyway, I made the decision to try seeing what my life was like without alcohol last September after I read This Naked Mind by Annie Grace. There was a lot of stuff in that book that really resonated with me. I don’t know if I’d say it was really eye-opening for the most part, but there were definitely some things I hadn’t considered about alcohol and my relationship with it. Really, the biggest takeaway I have from reading that book and the subsequent research that I’ve done is that the entire concept of alcoholism is, frankly, bullshit. There’s no definitive science behind any one individual being more susceptible to being addicted to alcohol than any other (if people tell you there’s an “alcoholic gene” they are wrong…full stop). There are definitely personality traits that make someone more susceptible to alcohol, but those same traits are positive in other aspects of life. Take me, for example. When I decide I want to devote my time to something I’m all in. I don’t do things by half-measures. Sometimes it takes a lot of convincing to get me there, but if I say to myself that “this thing is something I should do” I do it. For me, that has led to a lot of positive in my life. But it also meant that when I decided I liked scotch I drank it neat and I didn’t stop at just one because as long as I was being responsible about it why would I? The problem is that alcohol is, at the end of the day, a dangerous and addictive drug. Combine that fact with a person who has an “all in” personality like mine, and…well.

There isn’t one thing that really made me re-evaluate my relationship with alcohol. I didn’t have a “rock bottom” moment. I didn’t lose my job or get into a car accident or hurt anyone or really anything dramatic like that. I have a list of things that I wrote down that caused me concern, but for the most part I’m keeping that list to myself. Honestly, one of the biggest things that was pulling me up short was my own vanity. I have a skin condition called Rosacea which is horribly acerbated by drinking. At some point in the last few years I ran into someone who I had not seen in a while who asked if I had been doing another show like Night of the Living Dead because my face was so messed up. Another comment that came my way was from a co-worker who asked if I had been in a car accident and hit my head on the windshield.

Yep. I’m vain enough to say that caused me to start thinking about things. I’ve struggled enough with my appearance because of my weight. I wasn’t real keen with there being yet another thing that I needed to be self-conscious about.

After a friend of mine posted about This Naked Mind on Facebook I added it to my Audible wish list and it sat there for a while. He mentioned it again last year and I decided to give it a read. I don’t want to sound hyperbolic by saying that reading it was life-changing, but it’s six months later and my life is definitely changed. My face has cleared up (although I had to get some laser treatments to reverse some of the damage I had done), I’ve lost 20 pounds or so, I’m sleeping better, I’m more focused, I have more money, and I’ve been able to make much more progress in therapy than I had prior to stopping (helps when you’re not imbibing a substance that adds to your anxiety on a daily basis).

I think the thing that really resonated the most with me about the book, and what helped me to so easily go alcohol free at the time, was the notion of spontaneous sobriety. It’s basically the idea that once your brain decides that something has literally no benefits for you whatsoever it’s easy to walk away from it. That happened with my Father, who was a heavy drinker for most of his life. One day he had An Event that caused him to realize that alcohol wasn’t good for him and he pretty much stopped immediately (no big secret on what The Event was…it was work related. He realized that drinking was impacting his professional life. My Dad took a huge amount of pride in his work, and always drew a line between drinking and working. When he realized that line no longer existed he stopped drinking immediately and never, as far as I’m aware, went back to it). For me, it was the simple act of reading This Naked Mind. I finished the book and went “Ah, yes. I see it now.”

And that’s where I am today.

Those who know about my decision have asked me whether or not I’m going to drink again. Only a Sith deals in absolutes, my friends, and I’d be foolish to think that I will never want to have another drink in my life. What I can say with absolute certainty is that when I think I might want a drink I am immediately reminded that alcohol literally brought nothing positive to my life and, in fact, brought quite a bit of negative. And the desire passes. For now.

As it relates to what’s going on the world right now? I’m really glad that stopped drinking when I did because the amount of money I’d be spending on scotch because I was stuck at home and distracting myself with booze would be…a lot. It’s bad enough I’m eating my way though this, but I was also using Intermittent Fasting prior to Stay At Home Fest 2020 so I’ve at least been able to stave off any weight gain so far. I can’t even imagine what my anxiety levels would be like, because they are pretty much off the chain as it is without alcohol being a factor.

Broken Tiles

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It’s St. Patrick’s Day. Eight years ago today I met my wife for the first person at O’Keefe’s in Clearwater. It was one of the best days of my life.

A year ago today we were moving into our temporary home in a downtown St. Petersburg AirBNB while our floors were being done. It was less than two months after the suicide of my step-son, Christopher. They say that you shouldn’t make any major decisions in your life in the first year after losing someone to suicide, but I thought that since Christopher was my step-son I was immune from that. I was going to be able to be the strong one and keep the ship going while my wife grieved. I went into therapy myself a few months after we had the floors done, and I’ve realized in the months since how very wrong I was. I’ve always known that I was a “fixer,” but I didn’t realize how much that my desire to fix things had to do with me. The house I live in has always been a source of great comfort for me. If I can keep it clean, and neat, and organized, and well-maintained…well, the rest of the world could go to hell around me but I’d still have a place to seek comfort. Christopher’s suicide broke us. It broke our sense of peace. It broke our ability to take comfort in each other, and in our house. I realized this morning that my decision to get the floors fixed was an effort on my part to fix the psychological damage in our home. The broken tiles represented us. They were a constant reminder of the fact that we were not at all ok.

If I fixed them…maybe that would change.

It didn’t. The floors are beautiful, and I don’t regret our decision to get them, but our damage was still there when the workers had left and everything was cleaned up and put back into place. It’s still there now. We’re working on it. Both of us. As hard as we can. But it’s still there.

And then…

Today I’m physically in the office for what could be the last time in a very long time, with the world falling down around us as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to grow. Again, I find myself doing whatever I can to fix a situation that can’t be fixed. What can I buy to prepare ourselves? What can I do to prepare? How can I make what’s going on ok?

I can’t.

I’ve been putting on a brave face for all this, but it’s getting to me. I’m not OK. I’m not going to be OK if it gets a lot worse. I’m not cut out for this kind of thing.

This is the song stuck in my head today. It’s not a good angsty blog post without song lyrics, right?

Until I should die, until I should break
Not a god, not a devil my soul shall take
If I should lie to betray myself
Then I would damn myself, and my soul forsakeI don’t want fifteen minutes want a whole lot more
Don’t want to suffer the fools and the spoils of war
I don’t want fifteen minutes, or a reason why
I want a stainless steel road stretching off to the skyI don’t need sentiment, want, or hate on my mind
No crimes of passion or obsessions in kind
No walls, restraints, or momentary thrill
No blood on my hands, no time to killI want more body, I want more soul
Flip the switch to automatic, I want controlI want control
I want control
I want controlIf I should give in, if I should turn away
Not a god, not a devil my soul could save
I want more body, I want more soul
Flip the switch to automatic, I want controlI want control
I want control
I want controlI want control
I want control
(I want control) I want control

2019? Good Riddance.

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Oatmeal 2019 comic
Image courtesy of Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal) on Twitter – https://twitter.com/Oatmeal/status/1212232294364151808

I’ve been noodling around with this post in my head for a few days now. As much as I’ve neglected all of my blogs for years now, I generally seem to be able to churn out at least one “this is how the last 365 days went” posts around the New Year. When I think about what to put down for 2019 though, everything comes up as a blank. Or at the very least, one phrase comes up.

We survived.

I mean, that’s pretty much all I can give you at this point. When Christopher took his life last January, we immediately went into survival mode. Just doing what we could to get through every day, every minute. At times it was all could do just to hang on by our fingernails. Some times we couldn’t even manage that.

While managing my own grief, I’ve done my best to be there for Lisa when she needed me. I haven’t always been successful. In fact, I’d probably be willing to bet that I haven’t been able to help more often than not. If there is anything I’ve learned in the last year it’s that I cannot, no matter how much I try, imagine the grief she is experiencing – and I don’t want to. I won’t even put down in words what the circumstances would need to be in order for me to even start to relate, and it still wouldn’t be the same.

So I try to be there as much as I can. I try not to make it about me when I can’t be. Together we try to figure out what life is supposed to look like now, but we still haven’t really figured that out. I’m not entirely sure we ever will.

When you have to open an annual recap talking about suicide, where do you go from there? Do you talk about the mundane things? The improvements we’ve made to the house? The trips we’ve made to Chicago? Our cruises? Our careers? Health?

It all sounds so trite in comparison. I know it’s not – That what has happened in our lives in the time we now call “The After” matters. I know it won’t always feel this way. But right now? In this moment? When we are only a few days away from what would have been his 19th birthday and a few weeks away from the first horrible anniversary? It’s the only thing that seems to matter.

Time

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CW: Suicide, Death, Cancer

A few weeks ago I realized I was uncharacteristically sad. I couldn’t quite piece out why that was for a few hours, but it eventually hit me. It had been a few days since the 20th anniversary of my fathers death. In what was truly a random coincidence, I was listening to an audio book about the recording of the Johnny Cash album At Folsom, and I very much associate my father with Johnny Cash. One of the reasons why the Cash cover of Hurt hits me so hard is the connection between the music my Dad listened to and the music I listened to, not to mention the fact that the song, as Cash interpreted it, is about his lifelong struggle with addiction. Dad did as well, and it was one of the the major contributors to the cancer that took his life.

He types, as he takes a moment to sip from the glass of Irish Whiskey that sits on the desk in front of him.

1999 was a hell of a year. Dad died, I put a down payment on a house with my share of the inheritance that we got, and a few days after moving in I found out that my wife at the time was hot and heavy for my best friend.

The other day was also the six month anniversary of Christopher taking his life. The two incidents are not related, but I’m just a little preoccupied by milestones at the moment. Sometimes it feels like it happened years ago. Sometimes I can’t believe so much time has gone by. A few months ago I started seeing a therapist to help me sort out my issues as they relate to his death. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a therapist, and as I’ve been working with him I have discovered that there’s a lot of stuff in my past that I really haven’t taken the time to address.

Prime Example: I’ve never given a second thought to the fact that the earliest memory I have is of the night my Father left, and him screaming from the front yard that he would see my Mother and her “fucking kids” in court. Turns out that children who come from households where alcoholism is a thing tend to not remember much about growing up in them. Self-defense thing, I suppose. The more I’ve talked with my counselor about things that happened to me growing up, the more I realize that I had some fairly extraordinary, and traumatic, events that formed who I am today and I’ve never really given myself permission to be a little messed up over that fact. These conversations came up in sessions around the anniversary of Dads passing as well, so that was a factor.

My son, Alexander, is 23 now. He’s the same age I was when he was born. He’s also a few months older than I was when Dad died (I was still 22 back in July of ’99). He seems so young. Back then, I felt so old.

I feel so much older now.

I am, of course, responsible for much of that. I have not been taking care of myself properly, and it’s showing. The irony is that, from a weight perspective, I am and have consistently been at the lowest weight in my entire adult life for a very long time now. But I have not been managing my diabetes properly, and a few weeks ago I had my first major scare from that angle. I lost sensation in my left leg from the knee down. It’s gotten much better, but it still has not fully repaired itself. I worry that the damage may be permanent.

I have a good life. I have a damned good life. I love my wife and my son more than I can possibly express. I have a great job that very often makes me feel like I’m making a positive change in the lives of people around me. I’ve got good friends, and I have been able to satisfy my artistic side through acting professionally for 18 years. When I really stop to think about it I am downright gobsmacked by how good I’ve got it.

But there are occasions when Time just decides to rear its ugly head and rain on my parade.

A Look Back

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You know, it’s funny. I feel the need to preface every post I make on this blog with something along the lines of “sorry it has been so long since I posted, but [reasons],” which is a silly thing because at this point I’m fairly certain most people I know have even forgotten I had a blog. It’s also kind of amusing to me that the first post I’ve decided to write in 10 months is a “year in review” post, considering the fact that I have historically scoffed at those kind of posts. I also, however, tend to mock the practice of making resolutions in the new year, but in the last few weeks Lisa and I have not only set an ambitious budget for the year but she took the time to plan out an entire month of meals for us in January and I’m really going to try and get back to running with the Couch 2 5k program…soooo…I guess I’m just a big hypocrite.

I do have a strange compulsion to write these kind of things every year. This is most likely due to the fact that it’s a long-standing family tradition on my Mothers side to include a “year in review” letter in Christmas cards. My Grandmother did it every year, and for a long time both my Mother and Uncle Ed did so. I picked it up for several years once I was out on my own and had my own family, but these days the only person who is still carrying the annual Christmas letter torch is Uncle Ed. And I think that’s…OK. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about traditions, and about how we spend so much time and energy focused on things of the past and holding them up as some sort of sacred rituals that must never, ever be changed or altered or examined because doing so is an insult to our ancestors, and Christmas traditions are high on the list of “why do we do it this way” for me. I mean, as a Floridian, I’ve never, ever celebrated a “white Christmas.” I’ve never seen snow. I cannot recall the last time I celebrated Christmas without the air conditioner running. If you know me at all, you know there’s not a single religious motivation for me to celebrate Christmas (and, to be honest, the Christian reasons are flimsy at best). I guess I just feel like so much of what we do around Christmas is focused around obligation. If you want to see your family and friends, why do you have to wait until Christmas to do it? If you want to give someone a gift, why not just give it to them?

If you want to write a letter or blog post talking about the things going on in your life, why not just write it?

And thus, we come back to me pointing out my own hypocrisy. So it goes. I suppose the upside of the whole Christmas thing is that it kind of forces you to take a step back and do some of the things that you’ve just been “too busy” to do throughout the rest of the year.

So. 2018. I could, of course, talk about how much of a dumpster fire the year was. Because it was. It seems like the world is on fire and we live every day with some sort of low level tension wondering what new kind of atrocity we’re going to have to learn how to live with. I’m not going to focus on that here, though. Yeah, some things sucked. Some things sucked a lot. But there was a lot of good out there, too. At least, there was for me. Obviously I cannot speak for everyone, but in my personal life I’ve got a lot of positive to look back on.

Let’s start with the fact that in 2018 I commemorated five years of marriage with Lisa. I originally wrote “celebrated” there, but the fact is that I celebrate being married to her every day. I cannot emphasize enough how much of a positive impact she has made on my life, and how thankful I am that I have her love and companionship. Her support, her feedback, and her encouragement have pushed me to new highs professionally. Her willingness to spend the time and effort making sure that the majority of our meals are healthy and made with real ingredients has been a key factor in the fact that I’m back down to a weight that I have not seen since my initial success with Weight Watchers back in the 90’s. When I display behaviors that are problematic she checks me and helps me to unpack another layer of toxic mental baggage that I’m carrying around as part of my middle-aged white cis male identity. I believe that I compliment her in similar ways, and together we’ve just worked towards become better people and a better couple.

Ultimately, it’s just fun to be her husband.

In May of this year, I took the stage at the University of Maryland University College Adelphi campus to receive my last, and final, college degree. I’m really glad I decided to do so. The degree itself was conferred in December of last year, but I wanted to actually celebrate the occasion for a change (I did not walk for my Bachelors Degree or my first Masters Degree). Lisa, my Mother, and my son Alexander went with me to Maryland where we spent several days in a fantastic AirBNB, did some sightseeing, and went to the ceremony. It was truly one of the best vacations I have ever taken, and I am so thankful to have had them there with me and cheering me on.

After taking a break from acting to focus on finishing my MBA, I was back on stage in June with the Jobsite Theater in a production of Dancing at Lughnasa. It was a great way to get back in the game. Michael (my character in the show) was a delight to bring to life, and by the end of the run the whole cast and crew truly did feel like a family (not something that always happens by a long shot). The show was well reviewed, audiences were very appreciative, and just overall it was a wonderful experience. Jobsite celebrated 20 years of existence as a company this year, and I’ve been part of the ensemble for 19 of those years. I’ve watched the company grow, and go through the requisite growing pains. I’ve watched actors develop their skills and watched new companies spring up around the Tampa Bay area. I’m currently rehearsing a production of Othello with the company, and I have the privilege of working with a new crop of young actors who will be part of the next generation around here, and I’m thankful for the fact that I’ve been part of building a company that is getting closer and closer to being able to pay them a living wage so they can really focus on making great theater and not worry about how they are going to feed themselves in the process.

While it passed with little to no ceremony, I was promoted to Enterprise Agile Coach at my job earlier this year. The promotion came with no new real responsibilities, and I won’t see any significant financial benefit until early in 2020, but the promotion meant a lot to me regardless. It showed that the credit union valued what it is I’m bringing to the table every day, and that they have faith in the fact that I’m going to be able to help them achieve their long-term goals. It’s kind of daunting and, at times, exhausting work. But when I see the positive impact of what I’m doing it’s very, very rewarding. As of 2018 I have been with the organization for 15 years. I love what I do, I respect the people I work with, and I truly believe that as a large enterprise in a capitalistic society we truly focus on offering the best products and services we can to our members without operating in a manner that is financially irresponsible. Our company regularly places on lists of great places to work because, simply, it is. Needless to say, my job satisfaction is high.

While we continue to be quite hermetic in terms of socialization, we have made conscious efforts to spend more time with friends this year, having game nights, going to movies, or simply hanging out. We even took our first vacation (outside of group outings like Goth Cruise or Dragon Con) with one of the couples we hang out with in November of this year, and it was great. We got to go on their first cruise with them, and I’m fairly certain we were able to infect them with the cruising bug.

Speaking of cruising, we crossed the line into Diamond Crown and Anchor Society status with Royal Caribbean this year. This means we have spent 80 nights cruising together in the last 5 years. I mention this not to brag, but just as one other data point in things I am thankful for in my life. We have the ability to take actual vacations, and cruising is something that makes us both very happy. It’s the perfect way to just “get away” and not worry about scheduling, where we are going to eat, what we are going to do, or…really, anything. As I’ve said on multiple occasions, I know a lot of people scoff at the idea of cruising, but for us it simply works.

I suppose I would be remiss in writing a letter like this if I didn’t talk more about Alexander, but like my marriage to Lisa having him in my life is just something that brings me joy on a daily basis. We don’t talk every day, and that doesn’t bother me. I was speaking to a friend last night and I said that one of my primary goals in raising him was making sure he was able to be independent, and with that independence comes a certain level of distance at times. Still, he takes the time to occasionally send me a text just to say he loves me, and he makes an effort to try and see us as often as he can. He’s currently in school and working at a fairly high-end steak and sushi place, and he has plans to move back out on his own again within the next few months (he’s currently living with his mother). I’m just very proud of him and the adult he has matured in to.

Home ownership kind of sucked this year, but in the spirit of looking at the bright side I’m happy to report that we do not have a sinkhole in our back yard. After extensive testing from two different engineering companies the source of our erosion and accelerated settling was determined to be a broken sewer line. Unfortunately, that break was within our property line and, as a result, our financial responsibility. Between that and the need to upgrade our electrical system this year we spent a considerable amount of un-budgeted money on home repairs.

I’m going to go ahead and wrap this up now. I’ve got Hoppin’ John to make, a brisket to smoke, and other assorted prep to take care of before we spend the evening safe at home celebrating an arbitrary measurement of time that is ultimately meaningless (see how I brought it back to celebrating traditions???). I hope you’re able to look back on the last year with fondness as I can, and I hope your 2019 is even better.