This morning, I had a really refreshing 5 mile run down a paved path on Chandler Blvd. near my house. At about mile 3, I noticed a few straggling flutterbies butterflies race ahead of me, flapping their wings, carried by the cool breeze. Suddenly, I was overtaken by about 200 or so of them, a blanket teeming past me with effortless grace.

Sometimes, something that simple can make your day.

"Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death."

- George Orwell, 1984

My 1984 was only slightly more horrific than Orwell's visions for that year, mostly because I started my freshman year at Proviso West High School. It's nestled comfortably in the crook of the loving arm formed by a graveyard and train tracks, not quite a tin can's toss away from the Hillside garbage dump.

The ethnic makeup of my school was about 75% African American, 10% Hispanic, and the rest a smattering of Asians mixed in with the whities. Most of the kids were inner-city teens whose parents lied about their address so they wouldn't have to attend an inner-city public school and instead, turned our suburban school into an inner-city school. Crypts, Bloods, Latin Kings, that's just a sampling of the gangs, the grand total tally of the student body settling somewhere around 2,200 or so. There were TA's (truancy officers) who roamed the halls with walkie talkies and combed the parking lot in red Suburbans to assure no "funny stuff" was going on on school grounds (my words, not theirs). Of course, there was, but it was something you got used to being a part of, I s'pose.

At this time, I auditioned and was cast in a show at the Theater of Western Springs, a small group located about 15 minutes from my home in Western Springs, IL (duh.). For the next couple of years, I appeared in several productions with them and made some truly wonderful friends. This theater also holds a dear place in my heart as it was the first place I saw a real, live girl completely naked. Hey, theater folk are pretty liberated, and Carolyn West - a senior, thank you kindly - needed to make a costume change, so *woosh*! off came the whole kit as I walked around the corner. After the show in the dressing room, I apologized for walking in on her changing and *woosh*! off came the whole kit again as she laughed to prove that modesty doth ain't got no place in theater.

Hang on. I'm getting misty...

In case you haven't noticed, I changed the template of my blog a few days back. No longer is the brooding, black background. Welcome to you, oh faggy green pages!

I was holding off giving the yearly rundown until I could scan in pics from the corresponding years, but that probably won't happen until next week sometime, so I'll get this time machine started back up and revv us back to:

1983

Eighth grade at Westchester Middle School. My dorkiness nears it's completion this year as I began to get tormented by Eddie Schreier, a slight, bespectled genius kid, and one-time friend. That's right: I was being mocked by a nerd. It was mostly verbal barbs, but this year I believe is the year I scribbled in my yearbook beside his name, "is dead". Pathetic, I know, but I properly humiliated him later in the school year when I finally was fed up and challenged him to a fight, one rainy, after-school day on the bus. He panicked and stammered, "In the rain?" I responded, "What, are you made of sugar?"

FACE! (Imagine me making the "face" gesture by holding my hand up as if grabbing his face in mid-air).

This is the year of the production of Fiddler on the Roof when I was cast as Tevye. Originally, I was under the impression that Niehi Teodorescu (sp?) was to be cast. He had a mustache and his voice had already changed. Alas, he backed out, and I was handed the part of the peasant milk deliverer living in turn of the century Russia - an easily relatable chracter to a 13 year old living in the Chicago 'burbs. I began voice lessons with Inez Crofts, an incredible, eccentric woman living in Riverside. She taught me more about life in the following 4 years of singing lessons than I have yet to have learned.

Inez had this Prairie School style home near where Frank Lloyd Wright designed most of his Chicago houses, and it was ulta-neat0. Every Friday night, until the age of 17, I stood on the far end of her baby grand and drank up her every word, flexed my vocal chords and learned to fall in love with music. See, my folks (Mom especially) never really listened to music around the house, and Dad, while he loved music, used it as his escape and would sit in the basement in front of the record player listening to The Ventures and Jimi Hendrix to forget about the quagmire his life had become. So Inez was the first person to dip me head-first into understanding and the appreciation of music.

She also had this crazy poodle who, when she would strike the opening chords to "The Entertainer", would come barreling in to the music room and begin howling until the song was completed. Funny, I respond the same way to "Ain't No Mountain High Enough".

Walking back from the 7-11 around the corner from our production office, I was wont to reflect on the large circle of human beings also known as "my friends". Don't know if it was the joi de vivre over purchasing a 1.5L of Arrowhead water or the fumes wafting from the 405 Freeway, but a sense of well-being washed over me as I narrowly escaped death while crossing Sepulveda:

I have some of the best friends on the planet. Shit, I'd reckon on most planets. Except for Artiris. There are some pretty rockin' folks there. However, when it gets dark, they try to eat your brains, so, you know, half empty/half full.

I guess when the word spreads that you've been in the hospital is a major time when you realize the amazing people you've surrounded yourself with. Unfortunately, it seems to always take a tragedy to snap us into reality and see our lives as they exist. So many lovely people who genuinely give a crap about me took the time to call, write, send flowers, tell me that if I need anything at all, to just call them (which is always a weird one. What if I said, yeah, I could use some cat food, paper towels, and a 65 watt light bulb, please?). The gestures of humanity and kindness actually got a little overwhelming at times. I'm not exactly a person who ever asks for anything, including affection and love from pals, but in getting it, I realized that THAT is what the makeup of friendship truly is.

My friend Leamy called in a panic and talked with me for an hour the day I got home. Ann and I wrote (and continue to write) back and forth and compare stroke notes. Not a day goes by where someone doesn't ask me, "you feeling okay?", and as annoying as you'd think that would get, it's really quite a beautiful gesture.

I guess when it boils down, I need to try and feel that awe for my friends as often as I can, because I care for them that much, and I should be willing to accept that I deserve their feeling that way about me

Memories, pressed between the pages in my mind...memories, sweetened through the ages just like wine...

- Elvis Presley

My mom sent me a monster box stuffed with old photos and my high school yearbooks at the end of last week, and I've been burrowing through all of it over the past couple days. Soon I will triumph over my laziness and hook up our scanner so's I can chronicle my childhood year-by-year photographically as well. Yes, I will nearly DOUBLE my self-indulgence!

I love going through old pictures and the like, even if they aren't mine. When I was young, I used to go through my parents' baby pictures and marvel. I guess it's that one moment in time snapped, captured forever: the scene, the mood, that very second where nothing will ever change for eternity. I sometimes used to imagine what it would be like after my death, people unearthing my baby pictures, wondering who I was, what I grew up being, why I was dressed like an utter nerd most of the time.

And my yearbook signatures are another wonder. So many tributes scribbled in looping bubble writing that I can't decipher the meaning of. What the hell did Jen Nelson mean when she wrote in my senior yearbook, "I'll never forget; 'We're dead!'" Hm. *I* seem to have forgotten. Hopefully she still hasn't.

I think that would be my personal hell: Losing my memories. You could (but please don't) lay me in a bed incapacitated for the rest of my life, but to lose the very substance that makes me who I am...just kick the plug out of the wall, please.

I'll get back to year-by-year journaling as soon as I scan some of the correlating pictures to wow and amaze.

Not that each and every post from now on will be about my impending death possible mini-stroke, but an update:

I visited my doctor yesterday for a followup, and the first words from his mouth were, "Boy, hospitals SUCK, don't they?"

Need I mention that this guy rocks?

"Inconclusive". That's the word that describes the results of the myriad of tests run on me earlier in the week. He can't figure out what the hell happened, although he does know that something happened, so they drew some more blood (yes, I had a few drops left) and I go back in 2 weeks for yet another followup. My vitamin B12 count is really low, and he doesn't know why, so I'm a little mystery to him, which for someone with a science-based mind, must be an exciting thing.

He told me to live my life as I was prior to the hospitalization, which cracks me up. I asked, "No dietary changes? Can I exercise like I was before?" etc, etc, and he chuckled and said, "Of course! Exercise away. If you want to alter your diet, go ahead." I always second-guess what a doc would say. In my head driving over, I thought he fo' sho' would say, "Ease back on the exercise - don't push it. And here's a list of things to avoid ingesting." Nope. Don't they always do that though?

It's a beautiful cool, overcast, rainy L.A. day today. In a few minutes, I'm heading out to buy our composter at Griffith Park. Yes, we *heart* rotting food.

Hi. I just returned from a 2 day stint in the hospital. How are you?

Sunday morning, around 10A, my left index finger and part of the hand below it felt numb and tingly, like I'd slept on it wrong. But you know, your brain is a funny place to live. It knows shiat you don't, so it tapped me on my shoulder, and, after stopping freaking out because my brain was standing beside me, I hear her (yes, and she's hot) say: "Hm. Something else is going on here. Just thougt I'd let you know!" When I told Dara about my hand, she flippantly joked, "What's that heart attack thing: Is it a sharp pain in left your arm?"

I chuckled and said that this was numb, more like a nerve was fucked up, but being the obsessive that I am, I checked the intarweb and she (and, SHE'S hot too) spouted out a bunch of stories about folks who'd had strokes (rhyme intended) and the first signal being a "heavy" left hand; numb and tingly.

Dara and I made plans to eat lunch at a local place, go to Pier 1 and pick up a cushion for our big, comfy poppason chair, and then go for our respective runs. I was gonna go short, just 3, since I'd pounded the Topanga trails for 1 1/2 hours Saturday afternoon. While hunched at the counter, I told Dara that the internet thingy gal talked about stroke symptoms being stuff including a numb left hand, and mine wasn't getting better. So What do ya do in this situation, class? You are correct: Finish your eggs and coffee and head home.

Good thing we did. When we got home, I felt like a fucking king ASS and I uttered words I have never once spat out because I'm so fucking tought:

"Let's go to the ER."

I don't know if you've never had the pleasure of being the *sick one* in the ER, but it is night and day from being the good friend, spouse, or hanger-on that's kind enough to sit with said sicky. The room was packed and, inside my head, spinning. It took forever to even get my blood pressure and heart rate checked, but funny, afer they did, it only took 20 mns or so of waiting before I was whisked back. It turns out that my pressure was, hold yer hats, 197 over 102. In other words, FUUUUUUCK DUUUUDE. Thus began the adventure at 1:30pm.

A litany of docs asked me the same 2,055 questions and were stymied: No, I don't smoke. I've never smoked. No, I don't do drugs regularly, nor have I ever used steroids. Yes, I drink, oh do I, but I also run 100 + miles/month and don't eat too shittily.

I knew it was coming, and Dr. Frankenburger confirmed it at 8 pm: You are staying the night and getting a CT Scan, young mister. And no cookies before bed. Here, have a celery stick and get used to 'em.

I was driven over to the CT people, who were very accomodating and surprised as hell to see someone born in the past 55 years show up to their doorstep. 2 minutes later, I was waiting in the ER room for room to be readied.

Blammo, up to 1015 in the new wing of St. Joseph's in Burbank, and I gotta say, as far as hospital rooms go, this one was teh ROQ!!!!11!!one!! Firstly, it was a private room, no moaning roomies at 4 am. Secondly, it was swanky. Seriously: Pale green, hardwood floors, retro sofa and lazyboy chair. STYLIN'. My love, Dara, spent the night there with me, the sweetest thing in the world. I will never be able to make it up to her in this life.

So bla bla, the 1am pressure takings, the 4am pressure takings, the 6am - I meet the neurologist, a funny, heavyset Egyptian ( I think) who asks me a litany of questions from his own arsenal, and he's puzzled. He'll know more after my MRI he says. Now I know what an MRI is. I've seen the Incredible Hulk, and it doesn't look like someplace where you vacation with some hot piece of ass.

I'm carted off for 2 other tests, both ultra-sounds, one for my arteries in my neck (carotid and...somethin' on the other side) to look for buildup and then to cardio to see how strong my heart muscle is. Both people who ran the tests told me (off the record) that I looked totally fine. Good thing they didn't ask me to lift my gown (badoom - chee!)!

So back up to my room to wait for my MR - fucking- I and lunch. The wait was interminable: Long, boring, tension mounting, Dara was away, and all that was on TV was Full House and something actually less funny.

Dara came over (she again stayed the night, the wee saint), and almost as soon as she showed, it was MRI time. I was given a sedative ("Sedagive!!!?" - Young Frankenstein) which was warm and too awesome and down I went, to the depths of the hospital, all sorts of "Do Not Enter Area Without Metal Testicle-Cover On" signs posted all over. A very cool gentleman and pleasant woman put earplugs in my ears, laid me back on a table, and slid me in to a tube that looked similar to this. Yeah, you don't feel like a crazy person at ALL in there. "It's kind of like one of those drawers in the morgue, except that I'm alive enough to know the terror," is what I thought as I slid all the way in.

A series of 2, 3, 5, and 10 minute tests were performed, totalling somewheres around 1 hour and 10 mns. Then, wheeled back to my room was I, to my waiting wife, still doped outta this world. My pal Michael dropped in with my ukulele, which came in handy the following day as I awaited the tests results, which were...inconclusive. Of course they were. The neurologist said that everything looked perfectly fine, except that MRI's miss really, really, tiny strokes, so we'll never know for sure.

yay!

I follow up on Friday with my doctor to get the what's what, but I do know that I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol somehow.

*sigh*, but it is good to be home.

I've been on a couple of pitches this past week, one at ABC Family, the other yesterday at nickelodeon, so I've been kinda swamped prepping for those and doing the pitching, but catching y'all up: We aren't going to Ireland. I know - sniff - but financially, it's not the smartest move. Good news? We're getting leigh-ed! Yes, dear, bored, desperate web-surfers, Hawaii calls our names...literally. Just listen for a sec..................................hear it?.........wait.................there!...no.........

We're getting together a 6 day plan, but last night we were all "fuck it! Let's just lay on a beach somewhere!", and then we we're all, 'Yeah!" and Dara's like, Uh huhn!" and I'm, "Cha!". Then we slapped each other across the asses and went to bed at 9:30.

Man, ass-slapping is fun! Seriously. I think it's more entertaining as the guy, to be honest. Girls, you must unnerstand: Your asses plea with us daily to lay a nice, hard crack across 'em, and we don't know why. Some moreso than others. Me? I like a nice, round piece of real estate, call it a bubble ass if you'd like, to give me the resonating "Smmmmack!" that I seek.

Wow, I am caffeinated. I just spent 5 minutes espousing spankings.

Shit. My cup's empty. Bye -

Okee, ya wanna know somethin'? It's been stressful in our home. Peg it on Duncan's surgery or what have you, but both Dara and I are sunken. Poor gal: I was outta town when she had to take in the boy for his amputation, PLUS, it look like we ain't going to Ireland (since the surgery set us back - take a breath - 4 grand). We're both exhausted. Should I even mention that I'm working on a fucking bullriding show?

Don't get me wrong - the little guy had his stitches taken out today and is doing great!! Plus, my massage classes begin in a month or so at IPSB, so good happenings loom on the horizon. But we are TIIIIIIRED and need a break.

The 1/2 marathon won't happen in Ireland, but there is one in wine country April 10th. Hmmmmm........

The other night on my one hour fifteen minute drive home (thank you, L.A.), I spoke at great lengths with my old/only high school friend, Mike Kasper for the first time in a couple of years. I have to admit, one of the strangest things you can do is jettison yourself back to your high school years. I mean, we picked up right where we left off, and our patter segued straight back to 1988. No, we didn't talk about how much Sun-In we sprayed in our hair or how fucking AWESOME the new Wham! album is, but the old pattern and cycle came running back to our conversation within minutes. During our talk, I became hyper-aware of my journey in life thus far since high school, simply because Mike lives in Naperville, a stone's throw from where we grew up, and is engaged to a girl we went to school with. Not that I'm living La Vida Loca here, but it's hard for me to retrace the steps that got me to where I am at this moment. Don't worry. A puff or 2 of the ganje and I'll talk your ear off reminscing.

So in 1982, I'd entered 7th grade, fully aware of being a dork. I was. And still am. Not one of the nerdy, anti-social, glasses perched on the tip of the nose kinda dork (they were a little cooler than I), but man, this was the 1st year I really felt as though I didn't fit in: Not smart enough for the brainiacs, not dumb enough for the burnouts, none too athletic but not a lard-ass...aaaah, preteenage life! *mwah!* Que bella!

I recall this years being the first time I smelled like B.O. and needed to wash my hair regularly. No zits yet (oh, they're coming!), but the voice was crackin' but swell. I auditioned for The Wizard of Oz and Mrs. Guiterrez took me aside to inform me that she wanted to cast me as The Scarecrow (huzzah! I might yet become popular!), but she also needed to cast 8th graders in the lead roles, so she was giving me the part of Mayor Munchkin (helllllloooo Dorktown).

Mom and Dad were maybe not officially divorced yet, but defintely were seperated, and we had zilch cashola. nada. Mom took to selling the Auquarius computer by Mattel (a whopping 4K of memory!), and I believe this was the year we all survived on $8,000. Government cheese and powdered milk? - you betya! But Mom never made us feel like we were as bad off as we actually were, how, I have no idea.