Holiday Aftermath Metacarpals

I'm sick.

Really sick. Migraine. And my head feels four times it's normal size and weight and filled with liquid.

Also, I might have broke my toe Christmas day.

Yesterday, my car almost got it's read end shaved off by a driver. How can you miss a white beetle with racing stripes and a huge "53" on the hood and doors? How oblivious to the outdoors can you be? These are the kinds of people who smash into bus benches and clain the bench just "leaped out into the street". I've always said, it doesn't matter how good a driver is, you're only as good as you can be avoiding the idiots.

I tried to work out, and instead, my nose almost caught fire from just breathing rapidly on the treadmill. Nevermind my toe is swollen. Unfortunatly, you can't really put a cast on a toe for a hairline fracture.

About 1o years ago, I broke a toe before on the other foot. Besides cracking my head open when I was 2, this is the only bone I broke in my life. And because of that, I never knew it was broken for 1o years.

I was playing raquetball, and jeez, i'm damn good at it! I leap, I slide, I lunge, I spike the rebound, I play the game. I'll give the crowds a good show. The last sports I did was being a fullback in high school football. And my own team would sack me. Didn't so much like high school football.

A small explaination is in order though: I was dating the sister of the two star linebackers at the time. My first real girlfriend. Real huge guys with nose hair and fractured noses. The ball would snap, and they would crush me or send me flying.

My girlfriend at the time said that they actually liked me, or else they would have made a point to brake bones...which gets me back to the point, eh?

I was going for a shot for the point in raquetball, and ran towards the wall, knowing I could stop short and kick off the wall to get back into play. What I didn't suspect was stepping into a patch of slippery man sweat just before the wall. My foot slid west into the wall, but my toe continued north up it, with all my velocity. Game over for me that day.

I never have broken a limb before, thought it was a very bad sprain...that lasted a few months. I am such a guy. Stupid and ignorant of medical issues.

Over the years, i didn't even notice that my toe healed broken and fused the joints together. I even had a huge bone spurs of that broken fused digit. You'd think I get the hint when people said I had ugly feet (I thought well, it's better than having ugly other parts...). ten long years later, I had enough of the constant pain and slight limp on my left foot that I go to a doctor and do something about it...and find out that I did compound brake that big toe. Time for my first big operation! WooHoo! All I could think of was being alone, and the doctors made a mistake and removed a kidney...

The day of the operation, and i'm nervous enough as it is, the nurse comes in and marks "NO" on the right foot with a sharpie marker. Panic time, huh? When a doctor needs an aid to make sure they cut open the correct foot, you start to think perhaps the unmoving toe wasn't so bad...

To make matters worse, another nurse walks in, and starts to shave the foot for surgery...the wrong foot with "NO" on it. I think from her position, the "NO" looked like "ON", like operate "ON" this foot. One scream and a blood pressure spike later, we're on the same page on which foot again. I don't want to do this now and I looked like a deer in headlights.

Time for the knockout gas. And it went exactlly like this: count backwards from 100...99...98...97...........waking up in a room with a huge wraped up foot and a nurse trying to snap me out of it. I took inventory to see if the correct foot was done, and i wasn't missing any bits. I am so serious.

The best part was the next day: Kim was visting my room when a nurse came in to give me my first taste ever of mophine painkillers. All Kim said was, "you are gonna like this..."

In goes the shot and the nurse tells Kim, "watch this.", and they stare at me. And I thought, this sucks...I feel nothing...and that thought, was the funniest thing EVER!!!!! I was told I had the hugest smile I have ever had and all of a sudden I was flying about the room to sitar music and a monkey in a cowboy outfit was riding a bucking chicken. I even asked if we could do the other foot too.

And now I do brake the other toe. I hope this wasn't a latent morphine addiction reaction.

Does this change anything I said before about the holiday? Nope. This Christmas is still the best ever, for all the best reasons.

I just need steel toe slippers for next Christmas.

Christmas: I Finally Get It

"here I stand, head in hand. Turn my face to the wall" - John Lennon, You've got to hide your love away

I just got back from dropping off presents to my spiritual mistress, FaerieJean. And I guess by way of association, her life partner, FaerieJosh (although I think he probably would prefer a better nickname). Both are the most fabulous people one can ever know. I never know what I really want for Christmas, but I think I got it, just by knowing these two, and being inducted into their "tribal circle"

Coming from such a fractured family, that was the most special thing anyone could give me. And I won't even need a gift receipt.

(and no, I won't say what I gave them...They might read this...And that would make baby Easter Jesus and his son Santa Claus cry. er...Perhaps I got the hierarchy wrong. Only went to one Sunday school class when I was eight. All I recall was that one child screamed constantly that he wanted a hot dog for an hour. Might as well throw in Oscar Meyer with Santa and Easter Jesus. )

Even though I've known FaerieJean for such a short time (and mostly during work), I haven't felt so enriched in a friendship in a looooong time. The trust I give people is an all or none option only. Yeah, you can be burned really bad if you trust the wrong person, but the warmth of light from being right is so worth the chance. From what FJ surmised, my family wasn't a very loving structure, but somehow, despite the odds, I grew to know that I wanted that love and trust from people anyway. I know exactly what I want to feel, but was never given the teachings to get it.

What better present is there than someone you trust pointing you in the right direction with a warm scarf and a nice sack lunch for the journey? I mean besides a plasma screen.

I had also just heard that they have a friend Kim that was living with them, and I didn't want her to be the only one to not feel like she was special that day. Especially with what's going on with her life. What can you give someone to change a day? Can you package an emotion?

Yes, you can.

I don't many things from my childhood, and far fewer things that made me smile in life: except, I found a toy car I had when I was six. And it made me smile. I had no memories of why, nor why I kept that all my life when I really don't have anything from more than 8 years ago. This toy was my childlike innocence. And an important piece of me. So, I was going to give her my childhood, when problems and adult matters never exisisted. And somehow, I know she'd like that.

But, she'll be with family this Christmas! And that's a good thing, however it turns out. She'll have people and hugs and eggnogg and puppet shows and corn... And she wont need my bobble, today.

Then again, I've had some of the worst Christmas presents from my family when I was young: A plastic hot glue gun soldering kit that created toxic fumes. A red denim panstsuit. A box of sox. A green denim pantsuit. A one time worn sweater with a reindeer on it. hand me down clothes...from my sister. A coolass board game my mom would never let me play. Deodorant sticks. Candles (DON'T give guys candles!! We don't thing "beautiful", we think "in case of emergency"). A mail-order squirrel monkey that went ape-shit, bit my dad and escaped into the kitchen, terrifying us. A bag of unidentifiable foodstuff. Underwear.

But y'know, I had the best Christmas this month having friends to care about...It was all about giving.

It's not trees, or the Mighty JayCee, or Santa, or Weiners, or religion, or getting stuff, or gift cards to Starbucks, or even crazy from dehydration psycho monkeys jumping out at your face like a jack-in-the-box ready to tear your flesh.

It's about love in any and every form.

And I freely give that to all of you as well. Merry Christmas Everyone.

Michael Duke Avila
12/23/06

Pull the String!

Someone at my work reminded me of this story, and dammit, it would have been absolutly perfect to tell this tale on Halloween! It's weird. it's spoooky. It's true. And it's very much like a henwhey.

You see, I am cursed with extreme hypertension. Was born with it, and someday, it may shorten my life. I have the blood pressure of a nervous fruit bat, plumetting thousands of feet into a hedge trimmer. I see it as a balance of life. I've had so many wonderful experiences and i've met some truely special people. It's a good trade off. I mean as opposed to possibly be a retarded bat.

But one day, it's was almost time to pay the piper a bit early.

It was Sunday afternoon, and I was so glad to be home from an exhausting week at work. talking to my sister online, when I felt I had a runny nose. Being a "guy" I proceeded to wipe my nose with the back of my hand, and get on to the typing. But I felt warmer than normal. thats when I looked at my hand, and it was covered with blood. I looked in a mirrored surface on my drawing table. A bloodly smear was across my face. And my nose felt like it was plugged up like a cold just about to loosen.

When I tilted my head down, thats when I desended into my own personal hell. It was as if a faucet opened and a funnel of blood came out of my nose. Constant. And it didn't stop. I immedietly did the right thing...wiped away enough plasma from my keyboard and typed to my sister while trying to invent the nose turniquet, that I'm bleeding, what do I do?

She said to keep my head back. So I run start to run to the bathroom, or at least into the door frame while I'm choking. That wasn't the best idea. And I try for "bad idea" number two: I'll pinch my nose shut and just wait.

An hour later, I'm still an open spiggot, and the bathroom looks like a grisly murder scene and I failed in my attempt to hide the corpse.

Thirty minutes later, I'm at the hospital, with a shopping bag full of bloody tissues under my nose. Oh, and heres a hospital flash fact: If you don't want to sit in the purgatory that is the waiting room for what could be hours, carry a sack of bloody kleenex. It's like a "fastpass" to the front of the que.

Sitting in the examination room, I have a team of nurses try to comprehend my clotted nasil talk. And my guest star doctor, actually a PA, so it's not a real doctor, swings by every few minutes to poke his unshaven head in the room and say...I shit you not...

"You're gonna die, y'know! You're gonna die!"

I'm thinking he didn't show up for "bedside mannor" class. I guess that explains why he's a PA and not a doctor too. Maybe it was some sort of new tough love therapy. Maybe he was the local grim reaper from union 12? Perhaps he just broke up with his girlfriend, or he was hormonal? Either way, thank you for that professional opinion.

I've got tubes in me, glycerine in my veins, and finally a few professionals hovers about me. I could only guess is that if I did die here in this room, the press would be bad. All the while, Dr. Death is back telling me to order that pine box, and probably making plans for my body parts. It doesn't help that he read in my file that I worked at an office supply store, and now he's butting his noggin between the real docs to ask me stupid techinal support questions about his computer problems. I'm a deas man walking, I couldn't care less about his computer.

So what did the marvels of medical science do for me to get me over my affliction? the got this silver scoopy applicator and stabbed it into my sinus, then they forced, yes, forced, a rolled up cotton packing up there with a small cord hanging out to stop the flow.

Thats right, ladies. I got a tampon shoved up my nose. And they taped the string against my right cheek. I begged to have them kill me now, or at least get a week off of work so I could hide in a closet.

And let em tell you, whats worse that having that put in, was having that getting pulled out a week later but a doctor that never did that before.

His first question to me: "..so...er...I just, pull the string?"

Paying Someone to Kick My Ass

I'm now going to a gym, and I have a personal trainer. And he "motivates" me to push harder than I normally would. The importance of nutrition and keeping my caloric content between 1600 - 2400, how 15 reps the right way is more beneficial than 1000 done wrong. And he gets paid to torcher me.

I constantly see people with grit teeth and screaming with eyes bugged out and the look of someone passing a bottle brush...lengthwise...Trying to max out weights. All they're gonna do is tear muscle. And I see women on the treadmill, wearing a thong. Do you know how impractical that is?! I would think running in that would be like sliding down a barbed wire fence.

But this story, strangely enough, isn't about that. It's about what happened after the gym.

My "Herbie" wouldn't start. Worse than that, all the dash lights went haywire, the door locks and alarm wasn't activating, and the trunk unlatched. I was in a weeping panic! My car is too new for this to happen!!

Turns out I needed a new battery. It seems that my 2001 beetle had the same 5 year battery since it was forged. Well, that scare was like a 5 mile jog to my system! My heart was beating like a frightened bunny!

So, I took it to Les Schwab for a new battery, after I called them to confirm that not only do they have a battery for the VW new beetle, but that someone there knows how to install it. Ever see the inside of a NB engine? It's the most unique, compact, and difficult engine to work on. Like the inside of a watch.

I get a jump from Les, or a cousin of his, I dunno, and get Herbie to the Mechanic Schwabite. And Now I'm pacing by a window as I see my car a couple of rows down with it's hood up. I'm like a worried parent waiting for his child from surgery. I'm even hoping the mechanic washes his hands.

And What I see makes my jaw drop. He's yanking on the old battery to try to get it out of the car! Then he sits on the new battery to get it in! He's holding a piece of the engine in his hands, and he looks...befuddled!! Like he doesn't know where it fell off of, or where it goes! Now, I see him sticking one...no, two magnetic probes in the engine block to retrieve something! I'm plastered against the glass, going mad and I'm about to scream for someone the get that hack away from my car.

Two hours later, and another competent mechanic later, Herbie is good as new with greasy fingerprints on her hood, and a 84 month super-mega battery.

And that's what the title means: I paid someone to give me a complete coronary while I watched. I skipped the gym that day so I can recuperate.

My nerves are shot.

Bullseye Hung on Your Soul

I've had a mad day. And been exploring the nature of guilt.

No, not Guilty, like O.J. His kind of guilt is just a judgement from others. I don't see him suffering (and he should). It's when you feel guilty, even though you didn't do anything to be guilty about. Even though you know you shouldn't feel guilty, and logically, there is nothing to be guilty about. But, you still feel terrible. Like you're the most horrible person in the world.

Have you ever called in sick to work? You're really sick, you're not usuable at work, you're not lying...and when you call, work makes you feel guilty! Every moment at home surrounded by loads of used tissues, all you can think of is how you let them down at work...and you know you shouldn't feel that!!! Thats the guilt that tears and rips at you. The feeling you let someone down, even though your mind says theres no reason for that. Workers. Friends. Family. Children

The heart has a fragile soul and defines you.

And if you're reading this, and you don't have any idea what that feels like...you will never understand me, or anyone I am friends with.

In fact, I embrace the kind hearts of the people I surround myself with, those who are racked with guilt sometimes. Because, their heart is so big, so pure, it's such a big target for hurt. And, I've become such a protective soul as I grow older. An empathic paladin.

I will take the bullet. Or at least share the pain. No one should feel guilty alone, so either I am an aura of compassion, or a big puss like some people say.

This reminds me of a story: a loooong time ago, my sister Carol went to UCDavis, far from home, living on campus. She took my dog with her (my moms new boyfriend, later husband, didn't like dogs. Or perhaps didn't like my dog. either way, Carol had to take him). She walked the big shambling mound everyday, and one day, he got in a fight in park with another dog. Carol called home freaked out after this horrible encounter, crying. I talked to her first and empathically connected with her pain, trying to calm her, and fully understanding...

Then my mom went on the phone: She laughed at Carol.

I said, What are you doing?! Don't laugh at her durring this!! And my mom angrily covered the phone and said to me, "I'm trying to show her how rediculous she's being!! YOU just aren't sensitive!!"

ME?! I am, and have always been, so hypersensitive, It's sometimes overwhelming!! I truely believe I have my own cycles where I'm too emotional, get cramps, retain water, and my boobs hurt!! I'm like emotional flashpaper! I am SOOO un-dude-like!

I guess that doesn't make me fun at parties, huh?

But, I think i'm happier being the shield for others. And yes, when you spend too much time chasing other peoples clouds away, you sometimes end up in someone elses rainy day.

I' still would rather be the umbrella. I bet umbrellas feel good about themselves.