While You Were Out...

So, it's been three years since my last entry. I was never particularly good at journaling, either. Years ago, I received several blank journals as a gift. Just fifty more pages, and I'll be fifty-five pages into the first one. Some changes have taken place that will undoubtedly appear in future posts, provided I remember my account information and that I'm actually blogging again. I've lost about forty-five pounds, which will eventually prompt a new profile picture. I'm rather pleased with my appearance, even if I do say so myself. I've received many compliments, and several friends have asked my secret, but it's not an easy method: chronic illness. About eighteen months ago, I was diagnosed with diabetes. The onset was relatively fast, and I may have caught it sooner myself if not for complete ignorance about the symptoms. After all, I'd been walking back and forth to work for months and thought the weight loss meant that it was all starting to pay off. I also thought all the walking was why I was so thirsty all the time, and that all the drinking was why I had to urinate every fifteen minutes around the clock. Literally. I ended up spending a week in the hospital and began insulting and oral medication. While hospitalized, an MRI and ultrasound revealed some kidney stones. Not too many--only about 150. The real surprise was having stones at all, since I hadn't felt anything for five years. Apparently, I'd been making them all along. Thus began a six month course of lithotripsy, living with long-term stents, frequent recouperations, and missed time at work. Roughly four months into this process, I visited the emergency room after not being able to move my left arm for two days. The doctors shoved a hypodermic into my inflamed elbow and drew out fluid heavily laden with uric acid: gout. The immediate diagnosis was renal insufficiency, which my family doctor upgraded to moderate chronic kidney disease. It's stage three of a five stage illness. I've been seeing a nephrologist ever since, watching my condition progress, and taking more medications than I care to mention or can easily afford. Adjusting to my altered state of health has been challenging. As painful as the first gout flare was, it was nothing compared to future flares which attacked multiple joints simultaneously. There are days when my blood glucose soars and I'm caught in the grips of confusion, disorientation, and rage. There are days when it plummets, and I feel dizzy and weak. All too often I feel nauseous with no direct reason, and these spells can strike with startling speed. My circulation has deteriorated to the point where I need a sweater in 70-degree weather. At the same time, however, I have been able to strengthen my resolve and keep working when so often it would be easier and feel so much better to collapse and vomit. I participated in the local walk for the National Kidney Foundation this past summer to put a foot down and gain a hold. This may be a long fight and a hard one, but at least I can make it a fight and not a surrender. The hardest parts may yet be on their way, and that will be a future topic, but there's work to be done, raves to rant, monologues to expound, and pomp to presume. See you soon. Stick around.

Ghosts of Careers Past

My daughter had her sixth-grade band concert tonight. I always find these a little difficult. My various joint issues make sitting through the thirty minute segments incredibly uncomfortable, and tonight's unadvertised twenty-minute awards presentation during the second half made the evening downright excruciating. Although my daughter's band wins top awards in the competitions in which they participate, I have tremendous difficulty getting my wife to understand that my East Coast high school band was truly world class, far away and above, beyond the talents of the haggard music programs of the Midwest. Add to that my formal education and years of training as a professional musician, and I cannot adapt to finding the sounds of a middle school band 'good,' regardless of their abilities juxtaposed against their collective age.

Every time I attend one of these concerts, the shadows of that career past waft forward and torment me. I wish I could say they were good memories, although they're far from bad. I wish I could look back in nostalgic bliss, but I'm always overwhelmed by guilt and regret. I had a monastic dedication to my music. I began playing when I was eight, making a small degree of yearly earnings by playing in professional orchestras by the time I was twelve. I continued my training, earning a ranking of number one on my instrument in my home state by the time I was a senior in high school. I earned a Bachelor of Music in Theory and Composition with High Honor from Michigan State University, as well as a Master of Music in Applied Music from the same institution. I was invited to partake a Fulbright Scholarship to do primary graduate research in Europe. I had a solid, notable reputation across the state. My skills were formidable and phenomenal, if I do say so myself. And then it all went away.

There was no one simple reason, no grand tragedy, no nefarious conspiracy that led to the end of my career. I performed in C-level orchestras throughout the state, and virtually all of them were financially troubled. One orchestra in particular, by the time I had come to resign, was taking three to five months to pay us for concert cycles (i.e., I was paid for the Christmas concert cycle around Easter). One of my orchestras felt that my fledgling family (back in the day when I had one child) was a hindrance and nuisance to my participation. But, perhaps the biggest cause of the end of my career was sheer boredom, or laziness as the perception may fall. My formal education was superb in that I was exposed to all the major repertoire before I began my graduate studies, and therein lay the poison; I was tired of playing the things I would be playing ad infinitum for the rest of my career. There were some opportunities that sported growth from my orchestras, such as a church choir directorship, and the possibility of entering into the labor relations field through an attempt to unionize one of the more financially beleaguered organizations, but pride and arrogance blinded me to these chances to remain in the field.

I don't miss the rehearsals, the temperamental conductors, the in-fighting and politics. I miss the respect, authority, and power I once held. I miss that, once upon a time, I was a professional with which to be reckoned. Snippets of opportunities creep forward now and then, such as the offer to compose a piece for an East Coast girls' choir to commemorate their anniversary, but it's hard to shift gears so drastically, and there is something tainted about wielding one's art to another's fancy. I've been trying to schedule a discussion with a past composition professor, thus far to no avail. However, with the school year just recently ended, perhaps I can finally ply his ear.

Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

The tide's come in and gone out, the storms rolled, fists thrown and rebounded, and still we remain.

The reinforcing struts my wife and I added to bolster our marriage were recently threatened, much by my own carelessness, much by the escalated behavior of my oldest son.

Just this past weekend, his emotional issues and stubbornness crested, resulting in an altercation with the White Trash Witch's son (much exaggerated by that whining brat), further damage to his siblings' property and our home (a broken screen door added to the recently kicked-out front window), and increased insults thrown at my wife and myself. After he stormed into the house, having re-exited several times on his sister's bike, or in order to kick it from the front porch down to the sidewalk, I asked my wife what she wanted done with him. She unleashed her words and imagination in one torrent, causing him to take flight again. He eventually returned, refusing to go to his room. He grabbed an empty plastic bottle and hurled it at my head; I reflexively kicked the chair in front of my towards his legs, briefly pinning him against the wall. I again ordered him to his room, and he again refused. It should be noted at this point that, in over a year of family therapy caused by and geared towards my oldest son's disciplinary issues and disobedience, no therapist, official, or authority has been able to offer any advice or guidance as to how to handle the recurring situation of his abject refusal to comply with the wishes and directives of his mother and myself. Having witnessed first-hand the fierce non involvement of the police when he shattered the front window, I had no confidence in either their judgement or competence were they to be summoned if I laid a finger on him. Nonetheless, at my wits end and with no other alternatives, I firmly gripped his shoulders to move him upstairs to his room.

He took his first swing and barely glanced my shoulder, the blow intended for my face. I lost my composure, my clarity, my control. I was on autopilot, and fixated on attacking the foe at hand, my oldest son. My swing made its target, landing square on his face just to the left of his nose. He swung again, hitting my left upper arm. I took his head down in a choke hold with my left arm, thrusting uppercuts into the crook of my elbow with my right. As my wife and her friend tried to separate us, my wife taking a few hits to the arm from one or the other of us, he twisted his face around, planting his teeth against the crook of my elbow, preparing to bite. All I felt was the light graze of his teeth against my skin, and reflex took over again; I pummeled the back of his head three times, then smacked him square in the face three times. The fight ended with his bellowed wish for my death, accentuated by his plans as to how to achieve it.

My wife wants me to get anger management therapy, and I've agreed, but things are rarely as simple as that. Therapy for me does not address my son's very real issues. In the past year, any time I've 'let up' on my son, he's leaped forward to cover that gap with aggression. He seems to be convinced of his own superiority despite the complete nonexistence of any shred of fact or fancy to make such superiority even conceivable. He wants to be a robotics engineer, yet refuses to work on his math or science skills in school. He insists on help with every homework assignment without attempting it on his own first. Beyond his issues, are the issues that have cropped up between my wife and I, some being revisited. She promised me equal time with her friends, yet has let our involvement dwindle and her exploits with them maximize. She will go through several consecutive days off from work without washing a single dish, while I can go for three or more days on overnights and have to wash a week's worth of dishes at the end of it. I'm willing to do my part to improve situations, but solving 'me' will not correct 'all.'

My wife and I have new wedding bands on layaway. We had been making progress with our date nights. I still love my son, but I will not let him tear asunder everything that I and we have been working to build and repair. There are new bright suns on the horizon, in the form of a training program and attached job in computer programming with Jackson National Life Insurance that pays in excess of 200% of what I'm making in the retail/convenience store industry. I have been through too much and struggled for too hard and too long to throw that all away. The entire family could benefit so much from this opportunity, but we all benefit only if we all stay together.

I have my own concerns about anger management therapy. I investigated it in the past, when a misunderstanding with an aging customer service representative at a previous job led to an employer mandate to seek therapy. I can't sit for a glorified meditation program; my temple offers that twice a week for free. As well, I will not drug myself to make his misbehavior acceptable. There is much to sort out, and it all must be equitable.

Taking the Bad with the Good

Reconciliation has been achieved; the wife and I are functional again! I don't have any magic formulas or breakthroughs to share, though; our reconciliation is the result of a lot more selflessness, a lot more relaxing of stances, and a lot more of each of us listening to the other. We're working through our mutual difficulties rather than assigning blame, rediscovering what we want out of the relationship, and opening up to the other more so than to friends and confidants.

Just this past Sunday we hosted several of her friends at our place until rather early Monday morning for an impromptu tattoo party, something of an icebreaker for me to be introduced to her Detroit friends and a kickoff to my vacation from work. We're having a few people over again tomorrow for a little more of the same, but beginning a little earlier in the afternoon.

Probably the best indicator of the improved status of our relationship is the fact that we've put new wedding bands on layaway. She agreed a few days ago to our beginning to wear them again, but discovered within minutes of returning hers to her hand that she's developed a gold allergy, causing small sores to break out on her ring finger wherever the gold made contact. Thus, she's placed a clearance silver engagement band and I a titanium band on layaway, mainly only to wait out the resizing of her ring. Despite the differing materials, they make quite a good match.

The vacation was simply to prevent my 'going postal' at work, and it couldn't have come too soon. Just before it began, a shift manager who has some unknown personal beef against me performed a store walk-through that essentially trashed and discredited any work I had done on the overnight shift. I refused to stay longer than ten minutes to help correct what I know damn well did not need correcting, shoving past her at the time clock to end my shift and leave without a word. I know she made a formal complaint of her walk-through, and I made it adequately well-known before my vacation began that I was not backing down from my position; I've left worse shifts for other shift managers, and inherited worse shifts without complaint--my function is not to ensure that the management that follows me does not have anything to do but take numerous smoking breaks and drink coffee. I return to work in three days, though it is with even less commitment than I've had before. During my break, I've applied to several positions in companies outside the retail industry; it's definitely time to make my break and end this extended temporary transition, although I am still going to try to transfer to the main office in an administrative capacity.

The biggest family hurdle at present is my oldest son's behaviour, or rather the lack of such. Two days ago he achieved his fourth suspension of the current school year, this one for ten days for fighting, which will consume the majority of time left for this school year. He celebrating by picking a fighting with his sister and I after he got off the bus, realized he bit off more than he could chew, and kicked out the largest window in our living room. He ran from the house as I called the police, who were extra helpful as they stood there impotent, explaining that, since this is his residence and it's like he's only destroying his own property, they wouldn't even fill out an incident report on this call. My wife and I are discussing sending him to her mother in Kentucky for an extremely extended respite. Thus far he thinks it's for summer vacation; he's in for quite a shock when he realizes that, not only is he there for the better part of a year or more, Kentucky observes year-round school, in which he'll be enrolled rather quickly. It may be the only thing that enables him to pass the seventh grade, given his disregard and sloth.

We are making progress, despite his lack of same. Much as it may be regrettable that we must consider shipping him off, I have not only my own well being, but that of my wife and two other children to consider. If he doesn't wish to be part of this family, so much the better his removal.

Always Look On The Bright Side

The answer was in front of me all along. Or, at least, part of the answer. Less is more. The key was not to pour on the pressure, but to back off, to ease up, and let things happen.

Several days ago, prior to her most recent road trip to Detroit, as well as during, via text message, I told her flat out why it bothered me so much that she frequented the clubs and made these overnight visits, completely barring me from participation.

Several years ago, she made similar visits to various bars and clubs with her cousins. Now, her family never fully approved of me, and in turn, I can't really approve of them. My wife told me how she was the family lackey, how her mother had physically, emotionally, and psychologically abused her, how her older brother bullied her. Her family had some ill-conceived, laughable notion that their history of alcoholism, Neanderthal brutishness, physical competitiveness, and commonplace incest (no, not joking or exaggerating in the least) made them objects of nobility, demanding a 'kiss my ring' sort of admiration and fealty from anyone connected to the family. That was, until I came along. I made it clear to them, through word and deed, that they were not gaining a son, that I was liberating their daughter. I told her mother bluntly that the next time she rose her hand to her child, she'd end up staring at the bloody stump at the end of her arm. I let them know in no uncertain terms that they were living roof of Darwin's theories. Summarily, it became the mission of her cousins to split us up, by any means necessary.

They tried seducing me. The thought still brings on waves of nausea. Call me discriminating, call me aloof, call me an elitist, but I just get motivate myself to get turned on by stretch marks, flesh-pocking cellulite, and chronic STD's virulent enough to render the usual orifice for sexual congress a biohazzard posted by a detour sign to the 'back door.' That failing, miserably, they frequently invited my wife out to clubs, and every time, they had a would-be affair waiting for her, fully intending and even encouraging her to cheat. I'm grateful that she resisted, and thankful that she received no harm greater than a wandering grope, though even that is unforgivable. However, the effect on me, which I have only just begun to realize with her current clubbing, was to grow to distrust anyone with whom she had social interactions outside my view. While I am making efforts to be more trusting, it comes with great difficulty. I trust her; I'm confident enough of where I am now that I can declare that to myself without the air of trying to convince myself. Those with whom she socializes, however, I do not trust. So many so close to her have disrespected and ignored our marriage vow that the probability of anyone else doing so is to prevalent. It doesn't help that she's hanging out with men, albeit gay men. She continually tells me that they're not interested in her, or any woman for that matter. I argue back that, so long as they still have penises, there is that remote chance that they'll want to experience how the other half lives.

And though it was a far more difficult discussion, we did talk about my concern that she might want to see how the other half lives. At first, predictably, she was offended, but I held my ground and explained to her that my suspicions were not the result of anything unrequited or of mere spite, but the result of months of her hiding plans and behaviour from me. She said she couldn't believe I had asked her that, and I told her that I couldn't believe that she had gone to such great efforts to keep everything from me that I was forced to wonder and worry.

These discussions, these confessions were the small incidents that began the turning of the tide.

A few days ago, just as I was ending my shift, I sent her a love-letter I had composed on my cell-phone in a series of saved text messages. When I got home, without provocation or a single word, she sat closely next to me on the loveseat. It may seem so insignificant an act to so many, something trivial and not worth remark, but after months during which she strove to avoid any discernible physical contact with me, that position she took next to me spoke volumes. My pulse quickened, my chest became tight, and for once it wasn't some middle-aged health crisis; it felt good and right. I gently rubbed the curve of her hip, and she didn't flinch away.

Two days later, following an overnight shift and a morning pre-surgical radiological scan, we walked our youngest to school together. Half way back, on a whim, I grazed her fingers with mine; we held hands the remainder of the way back. We then sat on the loveseat again, talking for an hour and a half before I had to turn in and sleep for my next overnight.

Late last night, as we moved during sleep, the covers slipped off both of us. I awoke to find her lying naked next to me, still half-covered by the blankets. I caressed her bare back; she didn't flinch. I kissed her, from the nape of her neck to the small of her back; gentle shifting, but no flinch. We made love, fully, arduously, with passion and avarice. We held each other throughout the rest of the night.

As ecstatic as I am that we have progressed this far, I am no fool. A night of fantastic passion, no matter how wonderful, no matter how mutually approached, does not heal the rifts that have led to the past several months of hurt and accusation. We still plan on scheduling marriage therapy, once schedules and finances can be appropriately coordinated. To assume this was our solution, our fix, would put us back on the same road again, but months and months further back. We're in this for good, forever, not just the satisfaction of the here and now.

I'm unaccustomed to having things to which to look forward, to anticipate. Hope is fleeting, but it's here, available for the taking. I'm going to take my fill, hold it close, and work towards a better and healthier marriage, for both our sakes.

A Trip To My Own Personal Asylum

Things become curiouser and curiouser.

Things are progressing with my hyperparathyroidism. I've had my first appointment with my endocrinologist, a charming Englishman with whom its a genuine delight to work. I've done the blood work and the 24-hour urine collection, and am now waiting on the radiology department of the local hospital to contact me for my appointment. The lab results are far more difficult for me to interpret, so I may be forced to wait until my follow-up appointment in roughly two weeks to see what they really mean.

Unfortunately, another aspect of my conditions that advances is the mental distress. A common accompanying diagnosis for parathyroid and thyroid conditions is chronic depression, which, in my case, is most certainly complicated by my continuing marital difficulties. I find myself running a greater gamut of potential neuroses as time progresses; in the past week, I've tracked my wife on Facebook, convinced she was having an affair one day, manically overjoyed with how well we're doing the next, in the grips of anxiety and anger on another, and so on and so forth. I do not doubt for a moment that I need help, and that speaking to a professional therapist would help, but I remain concerned about starting any deeply invasive psychiatric procedures if the source of my mental issues are solely physiological. Even the best and most respected of psychotherapists would agree that if my depression and other issues stems from my hyperparathyroidism, a sort of neuro-metabolic issue, antidepressants and other psychotropic medication would have no effect, its best intentions being metabolized away by my condition before any benefit could be realized. It is also fair to surmise, along the lines of my endocrinologist's suspicions, that if my hyperparathyroidism is primary, then it is also congenital and began taking effect on me some seventeen years ago, predating my earliest diagnosis of depression. Granted, most of my concern and fear generates from ethnic sources; the Pennsylvania Dutch trust psychiatrists and psychologists even less than they do physicians. However, I still feel my concerns are legitimate and not the mere musings of hypochondria.

In an effort to apply a practical solution, I've arranged for myself a sort of pre-emptive convalescence; I've submitted a vacation request at work and have already had it approved. I've taken off the week beginning with Mother's Day, following through to the following Saturday. I may even have the option of having off the Thursday through Saturday preceding and the Sunday through Tuesday following, if I appease the boss enough and display just enough carefully-crafted and politically correct mental hardship need. My vacation destination? My easy chair and the coffee-table/ottoman in front of it. This isn't a 'get real excited and go out and do things' type of vacation; this is a 'Christ I need some time to myself before I go postal and kill everyone around me' type of vacation. I might contact my temple and see if they're sponsoring or even permitting retreats at this time of year, maybe head to the lobby of the local library for an entire day to just read and have a tech-free day. At the very least, I hope to have a successful date or two with my wife, perhaps overcome her sexual barrier. No definite plans yet.

I realize that of late, these entries have become far too diary-like, and should anyone actually be reading these 'pages,' I apologize. I write primarily for myself as release, but any writer compelled to set word to page or screen secretly or publicly desires and audience. There is no falsehood intended by the description of the blog; there are rants and conundrums and diatribes and opinion-editorials a-plenty to be had. I just need to unpack the personal effects first. Patience, door reader. I will strive to make it worth your while.

Customer Service, NOT Servitude!

What's happened to the very concept of customer service? Doesn't anyone take pride in providing excellent service while selling their products anymore? It's an old weary complaint those of us in customer service here on a tediously regular basis, and on occasion, make ourselves of those who have the nerve to either pretend to be of our calling or to ignore that component of their own trade. We are an under-appreciated horde of professionals, often overrun with the uncaring, unskilled, and under-intelligent, treated like human offal be the even less caring, far more unskilled, and those of sub-mammalian intelligence. Yet, the high and mighty would be crippled and fallow were they to locate products and secure services for themselves in the many of our venues into which they strut, paper tigers that they are.

It is, perhaps, ironic, or tempting fate, to be writing online while a make the following assessment, yet I firmly believe it was the dubious advent of this technological age which rendered my profession so disrespected and moot. To paraphrase "Devil's Advocate," once the entire world was fiber-optically connected, every minuscule neuron coddled, coaxed, and teased to climax, every minute synapse treated as some magnum opus, the proverbial fifteen minutes of fame were insufficient, and every being barely capable of uttering cohesive syllables aspired to titanic fame and power. Add to that the more recent phenomenon of the rebirth of the rebel popularity of the criminal, specifically the 'gangsta,' which glorifies great wealth had by little labor and in defiance of anything legal and acceptable by traditional social standards, and the result is a disdain for those who serve others without avarice and in legal capacities.

Of late, we are expected by our cerebrally-challenged clientele to be able to read their minds based on semi-Neanderthal grunts or less. God knows how difficult it is to look up at the gasoline pump at which one has parked and decipher that peculiar symbol known in professional circles as an Arabic numeral, much less relay it to the person behind the counter in less than a simian utterance. I'm certain it is now commonplace and perfectly acceptable among the physically mobile, hearing, and sighted, to step no more than two paces into any store regardless of size, clarity of aisle labelling and clearance of passage, turn to the nearest associate, and bark out the name of a product or substance in thick colloquialism, expecting us to clearly interpret that as a call for help, not because the customer cannot find the product, but because it has come beneath them to do their own shopping. One of my recent customers who was absolutely incapable of communicating at which pump he had parked was my oldest son's middle school guidance counselor; what hope have we for the future when the supposedly stable past, propped up before our children as role models, behave as ignorami.

I need to escape this profession. As dire as the effect on my colleagues would be, we need to become a completely self-service society. I observe my oldest son, recognize the insurmountable sloth I see in him, that I despise in him, and realize that it isn't only current popular culture that promotes his indulgent laziness, it's my very profession. So long as there are individuals whose function it is to provide and retrieve, there isn't any motivation for the lazy and self-important to get off their asses and do a thing for themselves. It's time to return to the Darwinian ideal, to let those that cannot provide for themselves dwindle and die, absorbing themselves for sustenance until they're no more than empty husks. Without the proletarian, there is no bourgeois or patrician. Without the patrician and bourgeois, the proletarian survives.