august 31

hey hey hey

I spent today at home waiting for calls from St. Mary's about my current stoofs. I also needed to be able to pee in this bottle which must remain in the fridge. I named it Alfred. Keep in mind I thought of much cooler names, but unfortunately these are also the names that many of you have. I couldn't stand the thought of offending you, so I called it Alfred. If it turns out I do know someone named Alfred who is reading this page, hey man, how's it going? I miss you a lot.





update: I'm only at 500ml for the day, I need to step things up.

in going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt the instrument you write with. but i would rather have it bent and dull and know i had to put it on the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused.
now it is necessary to get to the grindstone again. i would like to live long enough to write three more novels and twenty-five more stories. i know some pretty good ones.
-ernest hemingway
1938

so rather than charge into the murky waters without an azimuth or without a proper reflection on today's sun, i'll value now. now coming after yesterdays and laying awake, adroit before dawn. note how foggy and clear those dawns can be.

remember how to deal with loss. not that you ever dealt with it, or you maybe you still are. but live with it, and know it may never go away. and then you can fall asleep at night. it hurts, in the stomach and in the chest. it makes you curl up and fall apart in one. but to make it there, where the light glows again. that's where you want to be. and you won't see it then, just think that it's there. fool yourself into believing the truth.

if you're going through hell, keep going.
-winston churchill.

if you're trying to figure out what sort of darkness is present in my life that is coming out in my writing i'm sorry that you're mistaken. mistaken that my life is anything but kind right now. mistaken that i would regard darkness with scorn or temerity.

satisfied in the waiting for the news to come.

Enjoy

Everything went messy last night. Codes were jumbled, processes were bungled, and I was thoroughly humbled by timeouts and disconnects. Luckily no one was awake to see it. The prize and peril of working alone. Aparrently blizzard and smugmug had that kinda night/morning as well.

Elliot, I got your post thingy. So pick up your phone, bro.

It's foggy in Aptos, big surprise. So instead of the beach, you can enjoy your Tuesday with me in the house with my cat who is on her moons again. I just made this lovely gargonzola pasta and was walking back to my room with a steaming bowl, when I saw her in front of the bathroom coughing up some goodness-knows-what-disaster. Ian needs to start cleaning that up, so I walked right by her and shut the door.

Montana? Montaigne? How about Montage...


Sophomores can do the shapoopi.


Me working on the wildlife conservation merit badge. I forgot the name of that rare plant though, think it had ice or wolf in it. If you look closely you can see the necklace I made in handicraft! Who wears short shorts?


Philmont crew. We weren't the fastest hikers, and since we came from sea level we had a natural disadvantage with the altitude. But we were the most efficient and earliest risers so we beat all the other crews, while on the most difficult trek. Augie, Augie, Augie


Matt and the Washington Memorial.


This picture rocks, not so much because of Elliot, but man awesome photography, photographer. Good job.


And then there was new york.




Where did we all go?


See, I can play the piano.


I looked liked Darth Vader in my uniform, and no I was not a kicker.


And then there was my brother's birthday just before he shipped out.


That summer I was at Airborne school. Which one in this picture do you think is me?


Since we couldn't get untangled, why not come down together? You land left, I'll land right? No, no, no we both go right.


On the ground and soon to be celebrating. Alabama terrain never felt so good.


And back again. I've realized that at the start, playing baseball was not so much about my brother and I wanting to play, but rather my mom wanting to dress us up.

purine

The following foods have very high purine levels, and should be avoided completely:

Anchovies
Bouillon
Brains
Broth
Consommé
Dried legumes
Goose
Gravy
Heart
Herring
Kidneys
Liver
Mackerel
Meat extracts
Mincement
Mussels
Partridge
Roe
Sardines
Scallops
Shrimp
Sweetbreads
Yeast (baker’s and brewer’s)
Yeast extracts (e.g., Marmite, Vegemite)
These foods have high purine levels

Fish
Shellfish
Poultry
Meat (except those with very high purine content, noted above, or those with moderately high purine levels, noted below)
These foods have moderately high purine levels

Asparagus
Cauliflower
Legumes
Lentils
Mushrooms
Oatmeal
Peas (dried)
Soy
Spinach
Tripe
Best bets
Beverages (carbonated)
Butter
Cereals and cereal products
Cheese (all kinds)
Cocoa (however, caffeine is prohibited in Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome)
Corn
Cornbread
Eggs
Fruit juices
Fruits
Gelatin
Ice cream
Milk
Noodles
Nuts
Refined wheat flour
Tapioca
Vegetables (except those noted above)
White bread and crackers (but not whole wheat, which is moderately high in purines)
White rice

ikinagagalak ko kayong makilala

I got up a little bit earlier today to warm up my ankles. The time hack for my doctor's appointment was 1315. I'm all ready and stepping off from house at 1245. I know that the doctor will be at least 10-15 minutes behind schedule, so I'm on good time. I arrive at 1300 and curses I forgot to compensate for the fact that my mom thinks I'm lazy and gives me bogus early times to show up at appointments. That's okay, 50 minutes in a waiting is no problem, especially if you have good reading material.

A guy walked in with an ace bandage wrapped around his calf. He's mexican, and had hair down to his ears. I thought he might be someone I know, but not really. He had x-ray's under his arm. The receptionist lady was nice. I say lady, but she was only a few years older than me. I imagine if I made the same mistake I did countless times while in Kentucky and said, "ma'am" to her, she would have been pissed. But she was nice, and seemed comfortable at her desk. Except for not speaking spanish. It took a few exchanges for me to gauge that his english was about as good as my spanish. It was weird, because he didn't have a thick accent or anything, so it was hard to tell how much was nerves, and how much he just couldn't understand.

"Hey man, puedo ayudar un poco."
"Ahh thanks bro, no se que ella quiere."
"Creo que necessitas el seguro, tienes la tarjeta?"
"No, no la tengo."
"Can you tell him that it's going to cost 146 dollars if he's not covered by insurance.?"
"Uhm, I think he understands that number. Tienes dinero? (ahh man, I suck at numbers)cien cuarenta y seis?"
"Sh-, no tengo dinero."

At this point I wondered how many times this exchange was occuring in California today. He had x-rays, so I'm thinking he'd seen a doctor pretty recently. Problem is this was Sutter, and odds are he got those done at Dominican.

"Should I tell him to talk to the business office?"
"Yeah can you do that? They should be able to sort out whether or not we can see him, or if he needs to go to another provider."

She drew a map on a piece of a paper, and I did my best to explain the instructions. Totally reminded me of all those direction exercises from Spanish II...a la izquierda. Good luck, bro.

Dr. Blakeslee was pretty cool. He went to Cal, so we had the mandatory schmoozing about all the wackos there. That schmoozing comes after I tell him that I take ROTC there, to explain injuries. From there he assumes I go to Cal, but I dislike wackos cause I'm in the army. Okies, I'm familiar with this. Schmoozing goes fine.



After a brief history of my ankles covering the last 3 years, and a synapse on the myriad of things my mom thought the chronic swelling could be a symptom of, Blakeslee was ready to go to work. He wanted to tap my ankle joints in several spots to get a good idea of what was going on down there. Yipee.

First he freezes the spots to numb them before the needle. I decided to watch for the first one to see how far the needle was going in. Yeah, a good few inches. There's not any real pain at first since everything's numb, but you get that weird feeling knowing that much needle is in your ankle joint. We were doing a good job keeping my mind off things with conversation, but then it just went dead. He was having difficulty pulling a good amount at one spot so he had to push a little deeper. Oh great, now I'm thinking about the needle in my joint. Think about something else:pine trees, car freshners, dorm rooms, katyana in san diego, pan de sal, pan de sal, pan de sal.

Every few minutes he would look at me and tilt the bed back to make sure I wouldn't pass out. I would've said I was fine, but I didn't want to be one of those macho guys that says that right before they faint.

After that it was time to hobble over to the santa cruz medical clinic lab to get a blood panel. The medical assistant brought a fistful of vials over, and just had to pick the smallest vein. It took forever.

That was like $1,000 worth of tests. So don't worry guys, I'm sticking it to the insurance companies.

Tomorrow is ankle squeeze and track time.

finish what you started?

So my friend, who has played and loved soccer for 15+ years, is finally finishing his career. He's played everything from travel leagues to NCAA ball. Yet somewhere along his line, poor coaching and team mates letting him down took the fun out of the sport. He says that the decision to leave soccer is definitely a burden of stress off his shoulders.

Yet people give him crap like:
"Lace em up and hit the field pal. If you don't you will regret it for the rest of your life."
and
"No.... it's about finishing what you started."

What exactly did he start? I'm sure when he first began, it was because he enjoyed it. I doubt he signed a contract with himself that said he would play soccer for X amount of time, and only then would he be finished. While there's much that can be said about commitment and dedication, it's a game. When you play, you don't have to make a choice to assign your destiny to the whim of the sport. There's so much out there that could be better, and he's finally accepting that he may want something else. And people call him a quitter.