Ya know what?

It's about time I wrote some truth.

All my life I felt invincible. I wasn't afraid of anything. This notion was always backed up by my antics. I skydived from 14,000 feet several times. I bungie jumped Spiderman Style over a rock laden Illinois River shore. I cliff jumped 46 feet into a small pond on a hillside in Oahu. I rafted the Royal Gorge. I took my three young children far, far down the Current River without help. The fact that I didn't hesitate to subject my kids to my foolishness speaks reams for my character.

I believe that all changed on March 15, 2011. I was convinced I had met my Kryptonite. For the first year I tanked. By the time I celebrated the first anniversary of my diagnosis I was three months bound to a wheelchair. Ever since I have been digging in my heels as ALS drags me down the hardscrabble hill.

I've come to realize this :

I'm afraid of not seeing Rachel get married, have kids. Ditto Nick. I'm afraid of Asa not remembering me. I'm afraid of those I love dying before me.

I'm afraid of ending up in a Hoyer sack suspended from a ceiling track system and being mistaken for a pinata. I'm afraid of a feeding tube. I'm afraid of wearing out my wife.

I fear falling, the cold, the heat, a stuffy nose, drowning, choking, mosquito's, bees, wasps, hornets, dogs, the sun, exhaustion, aspirating, beer, not being able to eat, itches, not being able to breathe....

I miss : my mom, Peggy, Nana, Grandpa, Polly, Big Mama, a host of other relatives and friends who have gone....

I long to : roughhouse with my grand kids, drink a hot coffee, climb a ladder, cook on Wednesday nights, make love the old fashioned way, walk on my hands, hug, wash my own ass, walk on my feet, wipe my own tears, use the remote, drive, ride a bike, dance poorly, talk shit, laugh properly, chew my fingernails, teach Taekwondo, build a house, change a diaper, pay some bills, sit in a regular theater seat, feed Amy for once, order pizza, do a pull-up, tackle Mason, play a video game, coach basketball like I did at Fr Sweeney, kiss like the French, chop veggies, argue with my family, use a bathroom alone.......

Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful for what I have!

There are, ya know, two sides to every coin. (unless, of course, you count the edge, where, incidentally, you will find me).

Sometimes it's tough to reflect.

Figure this out

I propose my own incarnation of the new zeitgeist of the future, consisting exclusively of the verbal architecture that comes from within my certainly addled mind. This proposition is dependent upon my ability to sustain a palatable cultural identity lying parallel with a confluence of the multitudes of varied cognition of reasoning adhering to foreign brain matter. The single deprecation to my proposal lies in the unfortunate inability for society to comprehend the workings of my grand design of cultural nirvana imbued with phantasmagorical physical and psychological ideologies previously aired only in my subterranean subconscious.

The prospect of an altered existence lies dormant throughout our universe, only. Exploration beyond our limited reality is the single path to discovery of the truth. Salvation can be found without the restrictions of time or matter. Energy is everything and has no name, no identity.

This post has nothing to do with ALS. Or does it?

Think, Tracy, think, you idiot!

What on earth keeps me writing this blog? I read back, and for the life of me I can't figure out the sense in continuing the thread. I find a patchwork quilt of uninspired ramblings that don't come close to identifying my situation as it is. I make shit up off the cuff because I find it easy, occasionally blundering into some claptrap that actually makes sense. This only proves that if you dig through enough poop you're bound to find some coin.

I'm now committed to more forethought and consideration before I vomit words and phrases from my brain to my eyes to the pages of this blog.

I say, good luck with that, Tracy. Good luck changing your modus operendi. Good luck trying to be smart instead of clever. Good luck trying to be attractive rather than an attraction. Good luck trying to be anything better than smarmy. Good luck trying to be sincerely devoid of sarcasm.

If I succeed in transforming myself into that which I am not, I will have made my own rebirth a reality. Even though I can't remember my first excursion through the birth canal, I'm fairly certain of two things : It wasn't pleasant and I don't care to take the journey again. As a result of this sentiment, I'll not be changing myself after all, thus making this post even less relevant than most of the others. If you want me in my right mind, go back a couple years in the archives. Otherwise, tolerate what is left. (play on words)

Picture this

This is a picture of me in ___________. Oh, this is funny! ___________ of Asa. Look at this -  ___________! And this - ___________! And this? When was ___________ taken? Who does this ___________ remind you of? I need a copy of ___________. ___________ is adorable? What on earth is ___________? Is that ___________ legal? What a big ___________. Who took this ___________? Why would anybody pose like that for a ___________? Those ___________ s could be in Playboy.


Knock yourself out, Rachel.

Pictures or no? I lobby you

Rachel is instrumental in the process of distributing my blog posts. She constantly finds time within her busy life to finish the process of getting my words out there. That alone is too much for me to ask.

As to whether I'm sensitive enough to stop here? I'm too self indulged to not push my luck.

Rachel is a world class photographer, having extensive experience in medical, forensic, portrait, nature, sports and wedding photography, yet there are no pictures on my blog posts.

If this changes, you will know I got my way. If not, powers beyond my control have prevailed.

This was originally intended for Amy.

I'm going to tell you exactly what I think. While you read about everybody else, I read about myself. I may appear to disconnect by watching television or play on my computer, when in fact I find that my separation from introspection not only helps put things into proper perspective but allows me to relax my mind. With this method I can function without the blinders of obsession.

Every day I speak to my self. Every day I attempt to believe that ALS is nothing more than an arbitrary collection of symptoms brought on by a combination of events in my life that manifested as a collective destroyer of my body. Whether I cracked my head too often or my childhood was less than perfect or my adult life was fraught with stress has contributed as cause, the bare fact remains that this disease is PHYSICAL in nature. In my experience, no amount of quality nutrition or supplemental elixir is going to grow my muscles back when the motor neurons that caused them to function are dead. No amount of bio magnetic treatments have, despite a doctor's claim of otherwise, produced a single observable muscular improvement, despite over a year of dedication to the process. It does feel good, though.

Instead of determining whether a cup is half empty or half full, I focus on the question of why do we even consider the statement at all. We should ask ourselves why the glass is at half capacity in the first place. It's like being stabbed and debating whether the blade is half in or half out. The argument doesn't address the issue at hand. Consider this: while I do what I can to address my disease, the monster remains in the room, the knife remains inserted and my glass is missing fluid. Any assessment beyond that is irrelevant.

I'm aware that this is nothing more than a rehash of some previous post. I'm just stuck on the subject of this never ending gobstopper blog.

To be accurate, I've learned how to cope with my ever present monster. Without my support group I would never have known today. Or yesterday. Or this year. I'm still looking to kill the monster, but peripheral wounds just seem to piss it off. I've yet to find the heart of the beast. I'm not going to say "trying" because someone told me if I merely "try", my subconscious would wait until I "did"it to identify with the statement. So I won't try. Stupid? Yup. Anyway, I'll try it, which completes the circular reasoning that seems to be consuming my life.