What do I got to do to get a break around here?

After 13+ years together, me and my lipoma separated this past weekend.  At first, I didn't know what it was called.  It was merely a bump on my back that continually grew and grew.  It has been with me through many events in my life like: college graduation from pharmacy school, an experiment with acupuncture, learning rock climbing, learning yoga, hiking in parts of the grand canyon, hiking in Flagstaff, meeting & marrying my wife, trips to Hawaii, a trip to Brazil, purchasing my first home, and owning multiple bicycles and automobiles.

It's not that I miss the thing though.  It grew to become way too demanding.  At first it merely an anomaly that I didn't really pay any attention to.  Then on one of our Havasupai trips I realized it was growing.  I eventually had it checked out at the hospital I worked at and was given a name.  Apparently lipomas are pretty common and the surgeon whom I consulted about the thing ended up showing me that he had some as well.  The advice I got from two physicians was to leave it alone unless it interfered with my lifestyle.

Ignore it?  Heck I can do that!  So I went on my merry way for a few years until I realized it was starting to give me some pain as it kept growing.  Then it started to bother me when I drove for long distances or on taught suspension because it would be pressed into my back as I sat in a car.  Still, I ignored it and drove my MINI anyway.

Then I begun to realize that it started to affect my sleeping habits.  I usually sleep on my back and I was now forced to sleep on my side.  For me, this was the last straw.  I got another consult and scheduled a visit to have it removed.

It was very strange to be on the other side of the hospital experience.  Usually I am one of the health care providers so when I became the patient, it seemed a world of difference.  Thankfully, everything went very well although I did not get to take it home in a bottle filled with formaldehyde (you know, as a bilobular squishy souvenir).

So as part of my recovery, I stayed home for a few days.  This is rare because I've always gotten bored easily and taking a break from work is a big deal due to the horrible schedule we are currently pulling.  My mother will attest to the many times I whined to her, "Mom, I'm bored".  

On day one, I slept quite a bit because I felt behind on my rest.  On day two I tried to take it easy but ended up helping my wife clean the house because we were expecting company.  On day three,  boredom really started to set in along with a quite sense of desperation.  Would I be able to survive all of my days off without going mad with cabin fever?  On day four I watched a couple of strange movies and took a hacksaw to our bar stools because they were just too tall.  I am now in day five and I've driven 1 and 1/2 hours away in order to visit the supermarket and have lunch at a sandwich shop just because it would get me out of the house.  

Now I have one more day to go at home and then it's back to the daily grind for a couple of days.  Of course, I'm already wondering when I can get back on the climbing walls.  Now that I have a few less ounces to care up the routes, perhaps I will improve.  Yeah, one could always hope.

August 16th 2008

What do Hugh Jackman, Maya Angelou, and Clint Eastwood have in common?  They were all at our wedding.  Friends and family, some with famous names or similarities to famous faces, attended a small ceremony in Flagstaff to watch us wed.  It was an exhausting, multi-cultural, exhilarating, complicated to organize, surprisingly easy to perform, whirlwind of an experience where we were so glad that we could have family and friends together.  It was such a full day that we are still trying to figure out what entirely happened.  While a few things didn't go as planned,  the purpose of the entire day was accomplished because we said "I will" and our guests got to eat. Everything else was icing on the cake or in our case, carabiners and water bottles.  The pictures are done but we must work at choosing among the many, many pictures for a book.  Meanwhile, people keep asking us how married life is.  We have not miraculously morphed into something else and have seen no extreme differences in our relationship so we really don't know how to answer except by saying...it's good.

Got Sugarhigh?

The monsters are coming!  We are considered the "rich folks" in our small town because we work at the hospital so people from all around bring their kids up to the compound to do some trick-or-treating.  I guess status is all a matter of perspective.  The first few years of this holiday I would turn off all my lights, lock all the doors, and cower in candlelight waiting for the madness to subside.  The draw is so great that hospital security had to get involved and direct traffic in order to avoid mass chaos and avoid costumed little ones competing with automobiles for space.  As we are all health care workers in the neighborhood, some people try to give out other things besides candy but most succumb to the overwhelming demand for candy.  I've seen pencils, tooth brushes, little toys, and play dough given but the sheer number of items required to survive the night makes giving candy the path of least resistance.  When my wife arrived on the scene, she altered the course of my all-hollows-eve experience by organizing candy pools every year.  This brought people together to carve pumpkins and give out candy in one large pool in order to have enough sweet sacrifices for the onslaught of children that line up at the door for hours.  Indeed the demand is so large that some years a candy pool is inadequate to quench the thirst for candy.  One year when we ran out of candy, we were reduced to handing out artificial sweetener packets, individual potato chips, and anything else we would think of.  We even debated giving out canned goods.  Sometimes kids don't even have a costume and they run around the housing trying to get as much sugar as they can.  In this fever pitch, they seem to not notice at all the chill in the air and the possible dusting of snow.  I'm not sure who invented this holiday but it sure helps out candy manufacturers, costume designers, dentists, and the tooth fairy.  Considering the high level of obesity in the country and the high incidence of diabetes in this area, I would like to say that I will be giving out something healthy but that wouldn't exactly be accurate.  The truth is that I need to stop writing and go stock up on some candy.  Why?  Well, didn't I explain...the monsters are coming!

Still

Somedays I imagine that I am something else.  A writer?  A poet?  A professional mountain biker or volleyball player or basketball player or some other sport in which I am physically challenged.  Perhaps a free lance photographer able to travel to distant lands eating exotic foods, bringing back award winning photos, and somehow not becoming jaded or overweight.  Perhaps a TV show would follow on satellite TV.  Perhaps someone would pay me to give my opinion about nothing at all.

Somedays I can't believe I am who I am.  Sometimes I reflect on the amount of hard work and sheer luck that has allowed me to be where I am now.  The ladder is not easy to climb.  There are those days when you feel like you really help someone.  Those days when you see people in their most scared and darkest times and reassure them that things will get better.  Once in a great while you hear a sincere "Thank You" and it all comes back to me.  I remember the early days when I felt like I learned something everyday and taught someone something every day.  Somedays I wonder what happened to that naive energy I used to carry with me to work.

Somedays I see myself in others.  In the fresh faces just out of school trying to take on the world.  Those amazed at the clumsy system in which we participate on a daily basis.  The well meaning goal that gets bogged down in red tape, the government kind that needs 3 copies of everything but still manages to lose all of them year after year.  You begin to recognize the faces of those that have worked with the system for awhile.  You share with them the stories and learn to pick your battles. 

Somedays dare to dream about how the operation could run so much smoother if we had more staff, more space, more automation, updated technology, and the means to maintain it all.  Usually, I am brought back to earth by the daily grind.  The survival mode we are currently in that turns that bright-eyed energy into a quiet, desperate wish to just make it through the day.  Survival becomes your mantra.  You rearrange your outlook on life once in awhile but the core remains the same: defining the lines between yourself and work to keep your sanity.

Still, I am here.

Still, I don't know where else I would be.

Still, this place has become part of my identity

Still, I believe in what we are doing.

Still, our world keeps turning and I roll up my sleeves to play my part.

Happy CC Day

I tried to listen to them all day at work but was annoyingly interrupted with people who wanted drugs all day.

Don't these people know that I've all been waiting years for this? Counting Crows releases their new double album today.

Unfortunately, I'm 2 1/2 hours away from the music store and I'm on call so I can't really go anywhere until Friday.  I guess I could download it through the internet but I'm still pretty old school because I still like to physically buy the CD and enjoy unwrapping the cellophane in delicious anticipation while I walk to my car.

I still have to wait for a few days.  Patience, patience... it's a dumb virtue.

Paper-thin

Some days, my skin is paper-thin
And what people say affects me.
Some days, I want to say what I think
But my tact prevents me.
By the grace of an unknown strength
I get through those days
When I feel like I could explode
Leaving burnt bridges in my wake.

Other days, I brush off the world,
Freeing my shoulders with ease.
Other days, the waiting demands
Are easier to please.
I recall that my hard times
Are another’s best days.
Sometimes, my perspective
Is all that gets in the way.

10-10-10

“10 years, 10 months, 10 days”, that’s how long my electronic file says I’ve worked here. Sometimes I wonder how I’ve survived the madness. Some days it seems like forever, like the addition of the many, many rings on a Sequoia tree. Some days it all seems like a blink of an eye. It seems like it was yesterday that I was the newbie here. Today, things seem to go extra slow as I ponder the intersection of time and events. Eleven years will mark how long it took for me to buy property. I have a home inspection tomorrow and if everything goes well, I will have property in Flagstaff in a month. Six months will mark how long I’ve been the Acting Pharmacy Chief. We have an interview next week for the position so, hopefully, I will be relinquishing those duties soon. Within the last 4 years our pharmacy has seen less people come than go and the next few months don’t look any better. Some people want to retire, some people want to go back to school, and some people just want to go somewhere else. Still, after 10 years, 10 months, and 10 days, I should have learned that no matter what the staffing situation is, the pharmacy wheel somehow keeps on turning.

Oysters

People keep telling me

that the world could be my oyster.

I keep telling people

that I don't care for oysters.

Besides,

what do you do if you're allergic?

What if you like shrimp?

Maybe I just haven't made up my mind.

she likes

she likes baseball and I don't watch sports

she orders the steak while I have the salad

she lifts weights while I do yoga

she plans parties while I'm the recluse

but it all works out

she sleeps in while I get up early

she likes angry white boy music while I listen to the blues

she would give the shirt off her back while I trust very few

she washes dishes while I cook

but it all works out

she likes to watch cartoons while I go for a run

she uses brute strength while I try finesse

she likes McDonalds and I like Wendys

she goes for hikes while I like my bikes

but it all works out

she spends money while I like to save it

she likes to worry while I don't care to

she likes to believe and I like to to question

she likes Pooh bears and I like guitars

but it all works out

and my world is a better place

because of what she likes

Pigs, the blues, and unicorns

hey, I put some new shoes on and suddenly everything's right

I said hey, I put some new shoes on and everybody's smiling, it's so inviting

oh, short on money but long on time

slowly strolling in the sweet sunshine

and I'm running late and I don't need an excuse

'cause I'm wearing my brand new shoes

Paolo Nutini

Maybe if I got some new climbing shoes, the world would be a better place.  Maybe I'd fly up those 5.11s instead of muddling and sweating through, taking a break with every move.  Maybe my feet would be feather light and my soul would be fancy free of gravity, free of the restraints of physics, free of the constraints of the mind.  Maybe I could fly!

Maybe....and maybe pigs will grow wings and fly.  Maybe unicorns will come into my back yard, maybe I will learn to play guitar like Stevie Ray Vaughn and I'll start touring with Buddy Guy, maybe the world will pay me to have me take their picture, maybe I'll invent the next iCoke, and maybe I'll win a million dollars and promptly give it away because it's just chump change.

Regardless of the truth....I may still dream a little dream and get the shoes.