Jackass had a series of grand mal seizures, from August to mid-November, and after 3 months of tests was diagnosed with a fistula in his brain.  It has a real name, which I don’t want to write down, lest a google search should lead someone back here.  Like I said, this writing is for me, and I need it to stay that way.

Anyway, the fistula caused irritation in the brain, which set off the seizures, which inevitably left him with some damage.  Speech issues, cognitive issues, memory lapses.  Physically, he’s the same.  The fistula was embolized – twice.  And the doctors think that within three months the swelling will be reduced and the  problems he is having will right themselves.  I am less certain.

He has good days and bad.  Today, not so good.  He woke up belligerent and frustrated, and has argued with me over everything.  How much water to put in the coffee pot, whether or not to put the Christmas tree lights on…just stupid stuff because that is the focus of his days.  Gone is the intelligent, driven professional, and in his place is this man who is withdrawn, depressed and probably terrified.  He is not alone.

I’ve been on family leave since December 1st, but that ends in a week and a half.  Going back to work full-time on January 9 and I’m not sure how we will manage.  But I have to go back at some point, and I don’t see things changing dramatically from one week to the next.

So that’s that.  The whole story needs telling, but I’m not there yet.  But I feel better already having written that much of it down.

So I was there to witness when his feet went out from under him, and he landed on his back on the driveway.  Then, the man-screaming began.  I’ve spoken about the man-screaming before, but I don’t know where, and I’m not looking for it.  It was a similar situation though.  Jackass had been pulled by the dog in a downpour and lost his footing.  He tore a rotator cuff that time.

This time, 2 broken ribs.  He broke those ribs once before – on the morning we were leaving to have the aforementioned rotator cuff surgically repaired.  I guess they’re kinda flimsy now that they’ve been previously abused.

Long story short (heh, as if), he’s been sitting on his ass in his barkolounger for a week, popping percocet like cough drops and being waited on hand and foot.

In a drug-induced haze, last night he decided he felt well enough to return to work.  What is it about men who don’t realize that when you’re stoned on painkillers, your ability to make decisions is altered?  Jackasses.

No amount of belittling could talk him out of his decision, so off he went this morning at 6:15 (in the semi-dark and in a small snow storm).  He called me at 8:01.  And said only four words before hanging up.  Oh but they were such sweet words.

“This was a mistake.”

I was asleep in 5 minutes.  I guess.  All I remember is being asleep when I realized my phone was vibrating.  At 12:22.  It was Ingrid.

I haven’t given many updates on Ingrid, but for those of you who’ve been around, you know she has always been a challenge for me.  But things have been better since she’s been away at college.  She’s a junior now, and she is actually having moments of sanity and maturity, albeit they are quickly washed away in the onslaught of a broken hair straightener, or the fact that I ran out of milk.  But things are better.

She is still calling me daily.  And texting.  A lot.  But it’s ok, it’s the rhythm we’ve fallen into and when I don’t hear from her, I actually wonder why and if she’s ok.  I don’t call her, however.  I ain’t no chopper mom.

So when the phone rang at 12:22 I sighed and silently damned her for waking me, and answered the phone.  And was hit with the full breadth of her hysterical crying, and could not understand a word she was saying.  It took her a full five minutes to calm down enough to say these words:  ”Mom, David died!”

Now I have to tell you who David is.  Sometime in the beginning of this year, she was “introduced” to a guy, via her roommate’s brother.  I use the word introduce in quotes because she never actually met him.  Not in the flesh.  But, for the last nine months they have spoken daily, sometimes more than once a day, and have been having an online relationship that has been both confidence-building for my daughter who has always struggled with self-esteem issues, and debilitating as he wasn’t always that kind or that reliable. I secretly hoped many times he would just go away and leave her alone.  But I didn’t count on it happening this way.

The story goes:  She spoke to him sometime Monday.  He was wasted.  They might have fought, but then they did that a lot.  Tuesday came and went and she didn’t hear from him and he wasn’t answering his phone.  At midnight, she went on Facebook before going to bed, went to his page to leave him a message, and saw dozens of “Rest in Peace, David” comments.  She lost her mind, called me, and sobbed for half an hour.

She didn’t know anyone in his life, not really, and had no way to find out what had happened.  All she knew was he was gone.

By 2AM she was calling me again, this time having gotten in touch with someone who knew what had happened.  A seizure.  When he was alone in the house.  And that’s all we know.

The people in our lives all react somewhat dubiously to the power of an online/phone only relationship, but you and I know it’s real.  All of you have come into contact with people here or elsewhere on the web who have touched you, and whose loss would affect you.  Deeply and truly.

I am very worried about my girl.  How does a 20 year old bounce back from losing someone…someone who she was making plans with, to see, to touch, to kiss.  And now none of that will happen.

Rest in peace, David.

But that’s not why I’m here.  In fact, I don’t know why I’m here.  But I’ve noticed something, and I feel inclined to comment on it.

Here it is.  NO ONE IS BLOGGING!

I have something like 150 blogs in my reader, and I swear, every day I check it, and there’s 40-something unread posts, and 38 of them are LOL-Cats.  Cats are cute and all but really…what happened to blogging?  I guess I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who gave it up for lent!

There are a few people who post all the time.   You know who you are.  But seriously, the “daily” crowd has dwindled to bi-monthly, and the bi-monthly crowd (me) has dropped off the face of the earth.

So I’m here.  Blogging.

I was blogging before it was fashionable.  No one read it, but I liked doing it. And then the revolution happened and EVERYONE had a blog, and I had a few readers, and the newness drifted away and I was just one more woman with a blog.

Not that it appears to be unfashionable again, I think my interest has been re-piqued.  I hate being a lemming.

We’re flying into Miami on 8/23, hopping on a ship, and then heading to Key West and Cozumel, Mexico.  I can’t tell you how excited we are.  Well ok Jackass and I are excited, but Ingrid and Morris are a little concerned about the no cell phone policy I will have to institute, and wondering what exactly there will be for them to do.

I’m just looking forward to walking away from an unmade bed for the first time and not having be unmade when I get back in it at night.

In New Jersey, we don’t go to the beach.  We go “down the shore”.  It doesn’t matter that a lot of territory that isn’t the beach also isn’t north of it.  If you live in Camden, you pretty much just drive straight across the state…still, you’re going down the shore.

I made my first trip down the shore when I was about six.  My parents took me, because, like I said, it’s a prerequisite.  If you can picture in your head the palest, most ill-equipped people to sit on a beach, you have my parents.  I’m pretty sure my father was wearing black socks.  We only went the one time, but I remember it like it was yesterday.  It was a “day trip”, we probably only spent a few hours on the beach, but Dad and I collected sea shells, which back in the 60s were in prominence on the beach, but now are incredibly rare.  I was afraid of the water (still can’t swim) but the smells and the sounds were amazing.  And once a Jersey kid experiences it, they have to refill the cup on a regular basis.  There are rules about these things.

When I was a teenager but too young to drive, I went to Seaside Heights all the time with my friend Becky because her parents were big into day trips.  We used to wear the precursor to the tankini, which was basically a little bikini bottom and what was almost a mini dress over the top.  We thought we looked awesome.

Enter the first boyfriend, he with the 1978 Firebird Formula – fire engine red, with black leather interior and the T-roof.  No air conditioning though.  Jerry regretted that a long time.  We would drive down to Belmar after he was done with work on Friday nights and we’d spend 3 hours just cruising up and down the boardwalk, winning stuffed animals and stuffing our faces with funnel cake.  The boardwalk at night was magic.  The lights, the voices, the smell of Coppertone.  Magic.

This weekend is Memorial Day, and thus the cycle begins again.  New Jersey will once again be heading down the shore.  It will be Springsteen and Southside Johnny on the iPod for as long as the kids in the back seat will allow it.  It will be the mad calculations about when to leave and how to miss the traffic and what detours to take when you get near what used to be the Garden State Arts Center but is now called the PNC something-or-other.  Because the other thing that Memorial Day brings is traffic.  Mounds and mounds of traffic.  Basically, if you have to go south in Jersey, you don’t do it on a Friday night, and if you need to come north for work on Monday, you leave 3 hours before work starts and drive straight there.  Otherwise, you’ll spend 5 hours in bumper to bumper traffic with two screaming kids in the back seat and a husband who curses at everything that moves faster than he does.

It’s a big time in Jersey.  I can’t remember a summer I didn’t spend down the shore in some fashion or another.  A day.  A weeekend…sometimes two weeks in a row if we were fortunate.  And that first smell of dead clams as you cross the causeway is worth the 5 hours it took you to make a 2 hour drive.  Trust me.  It is.

Yesterday, I went to a urologist, who I shall call Dr. Luv.  First of all that’s part of his name, but my adoration goes oh so much deeper than that.

He was about 42, funny, cute and playful.  LOVE that about a doctor.  I almost don’t care if they can cure me if they’re willing to flirt with me a little.

Anyway, he looked things over (yes…all “things”) and decided this has been one long infection that hasn’t been treated well and not 3 individual recurrences.  He switched me from antibiotics to an antiseptic, which I’ve never taken orally (I’ve put it on the occasional burn but I’m guessing it’s not the same thing in cream form) and which has turned my pee a lovely shade of azure blue.  Really, you haven’t lived until you get up from the pot and glance behind to find the Caribbean Sea in your toilet.

I’ve had 2 of these pills and I feel 100% better.  The blue piss is just a plus.

He’s sending me for an ultrasound to check on the parts, because I said I hated cat-scans.  He agreed and said an ultrasound was fine.  Like I said, love the Dr. Luv.  Gave me samples of the drugs so I don’t have to buy them.  And on the way out…wait for it…told me I could drink on these pills!  WINE, come to my baby!

I’ve been dry for 3 weeks now.  I’m cranky.  My first drink will be in honor of Dr. Luv.

I’ve been on 3 rounds of antibiotics, and if you know anything about me at all, it’s that I don’t do well on antibiotics.  Amazingly, all these have done is make me throw up a lot.  Hell, I’ve even lost a few pounds!  But at least I haven’t stopped breathing for any significant amount of time, so there’s that.

Basically, I stop the antibiotics and a week later it’s back.  The second time this happened, I was in so much pain and had spike a fever so high and so fast that I decided a trip to the ER was the only thing that was going to help.

And today, I am going to see a urologist.  Can I just tell you how much I am dreading this?  The official name of the practice is “Prostate Cancer and Urology Center”.  Prostate…I’m pretty sure I don’t have one of those.  So I imagining sitting in a waiting room full of squirmy men, all wondering what the hell I’m doing there.

I really don’t want to go, but I know I must.  I even decided this morning I was feeling miraculously better and maybe I wouldn’t bother.  And then I beat myself about the head and shoulders and came to my senses.  But still…don’t want to goooo!

So yeah, this whole thing is making me a little testes…er…testy.

I’ve had the urge lately.  Not that there’s anything more interesting going on than a bladder infection and a 19 year old daughter home for the summer, but…I dunno…I think it’s interesting.  Mayhap others will too??

So I’m just going to go with the urge like I posted yesterday.  Catch up, if you can.  (Also, I believe in posting like someone is going to read it even though probably no one is!  It’s the optimist in me.)

I’m sitting at my desk today, and my boss is out.  I have like 2 things to do.  Two Things!  And they’ve been sitting here since Monday morning because, I dunno about you, but if I’m not so busy I can’t take time to wipe my butt, then I can’t get anything done.  I just keep pushing these Two Things from one side of my desk to another.  Occasionally I send someone an email about them.  And then I shuffle them again.  It’s a system.

I am in desperate need of a couple of days off.  Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for Memorial Day – a holiday I understand, but frankly never have plans for and thus always feel left out of something on Monday morning.  But it will be a much needed respite.  I was transferred a month ago to our main office because my boss needed to learn how to use email and the commute was an hour and fifteen minutes one way on a good day.  I really only had about 5 good days in the month I was there, though.  One night, it took me four hours to get home.  Why, yes, I did stop at a friend’s house mid-commute for a glass of wine, but you would have done the same.  Don’t judge me.

I have lots more to talk about, but you know how it goes.  This white page stares at me and sucks all my cogent thoughts out of my fingertips.  I hate when that happens.

I have discovered Barnes & Noble’s eReader.

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not a Kindle, and I know the iPhone screen is a little on the small side, but DUDES!  FREE!!??  And the books for it are less than you’d pay for a paperback at a bookstore!  I’m in love.

Last week, I sat here at my desk, during a very slow time for us, and read an entire book on my iPhone.  No one knew, and I looked relatively busy since I had papers spread out all over the place.  You have to know how to work it.  I’m just sayin’.

So last night I downloaded Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane.  It’s the new book that the new Scorcese/Decaprio movie is based on.  I’m very excited to get started.

Now this in no way diminishes my need for an iPad.  My LUST for an iPad.  It’s not happening any time soon, but ooooh baby baby.  I needs me one of those.

On the iPod:  No Regrets, Robbie Williams