Campfyre Stories

About 10 years ago, I sprained my left ankle for the first time.  I was in an air cast for about 5 weeks and on crutches for 2 of those weeks.  As soon as the air cast came off, I sprained my right ankle mildly.

Since then I have mildly sprained my ankle some 4 times. 

I know what to do for sprains.  Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.  However, recently, my ankle hurts almost all the time.  I bought a brace and wear it more often than not.  The ankle joint has started making a weird popping from time to time.  So when I went to the doctor for a checkup, I mentioned it and asked for a referral to an ortho.  He gave me the name and number of a guy who specializes in ankles.

It’s my hope that this guy can help me rehabilitate my ankle once and for all.

This winter I’ve been BAD about walking.  I’m not walking as often as I should.  It’s less an issue of the cold as it is that I’ve injured myself a couple of times and the pain in my ankle makes it difficult to push myself through the 2 miles I used to walk every day.

My weight is maintaining, with little fluctuation and no significant, lasting gains.  I think that if I can get back into my regular regimen that the pounds will start to drop.  My doctor agrees, since I can pinpoint the times when it goes up to the times when I’m less active, and the times when it goes back down to the times when I’m more active.

This infernal ankle is what’s holding me back.

I had a nice conversation with my doctor about my coworker dying unexpectedly.  Basically, I was looking for some reassurance that I’m doing what I need to do, which he gave me.  I’m managing my health issues and looking into fixing the things that I know are wrong with me. 

We’re trying to get from "remarkably healthy for a fat smoker" to "remarkably healthy for a smoker" to just "remarkably healthy", in that order.

So I’ll call on Monday to set a time to talk about how we fix my ankle.  I’m still looking for a dentist in the area, but am astounded that NONE of my friends even see a dentist, let alone a good one to recommend to me.  I’ve gotten my eye exam and new glasses, and am starting to consider lasik in the near future, since my eyesight has stopped degrading.

My goal for this year is to get as much of it done as I can (Lasik can wait) and to end the year healthy, or at least healthier than I’ve been.  I think it’s achievable.

I don’t want to talk about politics here because it won’t really be ABOUT politics.  It will be about other people talking about politics and what pisses me off about them.  It would be about the people who make thinly-veiled racists comments and then say "who?  me?  I would never…"  It’s all over the place and, frankly, I don’t want to get into it.

It seems that everything going on at the moment is exceptionally minor.  Not that I’m complaining, but there’s not a whole lot interesting in telling the world (or some small part of it) that I went from 11 channels of digital broadcast to several hundred, and only to get DVR so I could record Lost.

There’s not really a *story* in the fact that my toilet seat split, so I fixed it with duct tape only to have it split again.  I’m not buying this toilet seat, even though Spawn thinks it’s just about the coolest thing ever.  I think that $40 is too much for ANY toilet seat, even a tacky one with flames on.

There’s nothing to tell about a *VERY* good friend of mine getting me into a pre-closed beta test for a feature I am VASTLY looking forward to playing with.  Part of that is because I’m not actually in it yet, so haven’t done it, but I also don’t know if I’m going to need to agree to an NDA.  Better safe than sorry.  I’ll tell you about it when it’s not a secret anymore.

I could mention that I signed up for the Jeopardy online screening, but until I take the test, I have no way of knowing what, if anything, that will lead to.  If I do well, I should be going out to Boston (or possibly NYC, but I’d prefer Boston) for the in person tryouts.  But, again, first I have to do well on the online thing, and that’s still a week away.

Things are very quiet for me right now, and I’m really enjoying that.  I have little stress, a good relationship with Spawn and my friends and all the drama is keeping away from my environs.

I always feel that if crazy things are going to happen, I might as well get a good story out of the experience.  In this case, I’m ok with not having the experiences for a short while, even if it means I don’t have any real stories.  It’s like a vacation.

In the meantime, if you want the boring minutiae and the sentence-sized blurbs here and there, I don’t Twitter, but I do Plurk.

In three days it will be the 2nd anniversary of my father’s death.  It makes me somewhat melancholy, but I’m moving on.

This morning I got news that a co-worker of mine, who I didn’t know well, but had worked with and became fond of in DC passed away.  He wasn’t all that much older than me – I’m pretty sure he wasn’t even 40.  He was a thin, active, seemingly healthy person, but he had a massive heart attack over the weekend while engaged in some kind of physical activity.

When the phone call came in, it literally took my breath away.  I have never gasped as hard as I did in that moment.  The shock of someone so close to my age who seemed to take good care of himself being gone was just astounding.  He left three children behind and a wife who is a stay-at-home mother.

My heart breaks for them.

My heart breaks because I know how it feels to lose your father, how to lose him quickly, although at least for me, for us, we had a month to say goodbye and come to terms with it.  My heart breaks because his girls won’t have him around to approve or disprove of the boys they come to day, because his son won’t have him to teach him what it means to be a man and a father and a husband.

We, at least, got those things, since we were adults or, in my little brother’s case, nearly adults, when my dad passed.

What little time I spent getting to know this man was spent listening to him talk about how much he loved his wife and children.  They were his life, they were his everything.  I hope they know that much.

But life does go on.  We mourn and we keep going.  But I don’t think it ever stops hurting entirely.  And for myself, I can put aside the resurgence of my own grief while my heart breaks for those who lost as much as I did, much earlier in life.

Rest in peace.

Now I’m not saying it *wasn’t* a happy new year, I just think I’m reserving judgment.  Last year, all told, was pretty good for me.  The last couple of months went a bit awry, but overall, I had a number of good things happen.

I feel very wait and see about 2009.

Spawn’s girlfriend came up from Westchester for about a week and I saw very little of him/them.  I guess I probably saw more of them than most other adults, but I know what the long-distance relationship thing is like (boy do I ever), and I wanted to let them have their space and time together.  They were chaperoned to the least degree of supervision… 

Apparently I am the coolest/most permissive parent of the 21st century.

All of Spawn’s friends are amazed at how much freedom I give him.  For example, on New Year’s Day he and his girlfriend went with her uncle to a town about an hour away.  He called me to tell me that this was happening and that he’d be home late.  They were having dinner out there, so I didn’t worry at all.  He called me around 8:30 to tell me that they were still there and he’d be home when they were done.  The call was prompted by the uncle, who didn’t want me to worry.

The next night the three of them went to a party together.  The uncle asked me when I wanted Spawn home.  I answered with a shrug.  He asked "So, 3am is ok?" with a glint in his eye.  I told him that 3 was fine, 11 would be fine, the next morning would be fine.  I knew where he was going and who he was with and all three of them have my phone number.  I see nothing at all about this to worry about.

When I was Spawn’s age, my parents trusted me.  I didn’t have a curfew, but my parents wanted to know where I was going and who I’d be with.  If I was at a party and there was alcohol, I was not to get in a car with anyone who had been drinking.  I could call my parents to pick me up at any time and they would not yell at me until the next morning.  I never had to take them up on that, but it was always good to know it was available.

So Spawn is 15.  He’s been a latchkey kid for a long time and has proven himself to be (mostly) a responsible person.  He’s allowed to have friends over, but I expect them to respect me and my space even when I’m not at home.  They all do.  I like his friends and, though I may intimidate them some, they seem to like me too and to appreciate that I respect them as people and care about them.  One of Spawn’s friends will joke with me and is kind of a pain in the ass, but when there’s inclement weather and he’s taking the bus across town, he knows that I’ll worry, so he calls when he gets home to tell me he’s safe.

These kids aren’t stupid by any stretch of the imagination.  They’re teenagers and there’s a certain measure of doing stupid things that comes with that age no matter who you are, but these are responsible kids who are well on their way to becoming productive members of society.  I see no reason to restrict and limit my son when he should be spending his teenage years learning about the world around him and how to make his way in this world.  Apparently, I’m unusual in that.

So my resolution is to write more on the blog.  This probably will mean telling older stories when I don’t have specific inspiration on current personal events.  It’s something I’ve been intending to do for a while, but just haven’t gotten around to it.

I do not intend to set myself a schedule, because that feels like setting myself up for failure, but I have a lot of stories that haven’t been told because they took place before the internet was really a thing, or at least before I started spending significant time, or maybe just before I started blogging.  No matter what, they are stories worth telling.