Life's not fair and neither is death

A high school classmate died today. And at my age, that's an unusual thing. It's not that our Class of '88 has been immune to death. No, it's actually seen more than its fair share it would seem, at least in our first couple decades of life. I can list several whom we've lost before we were 25: Marcus, Theron, Art, Angie, Ron, Kevin, Wesley, Dane, Leslie. There were vehicular accidents, cystic fibrosis, suicide, and more I'm sure. What's unsettling about this one is that it's the first I know of since we've entered the Facebook era. When we were still in school or freshly graduated, we all had ties to the community where we grew up so we at usually got word rapidly in that small town way of news traveling fast. In the intervening years, many of us ended up further from home, fewer connections to the hometown and when someone passed, the ripples of that stone hitting the water didn't seem to travel as far. And so it has seemed relatively calm on the death front for several years. Enter the Facebook era. I certainly enjoy it because you can keep up with what's going on with your classmates whom you otherwise would only hear about at 10-year intervals if you were lucky. It also brings the sobering news of things like personal tragedies, illnesses and death. One classmate earlier this year I learned had undergone heart bypass surgery. That he was my age was unsettling in its own right. What was more shocking was that from photos I'd seen, there was no way he was less healthy than me. Sure, there was a classmate who had been battling cancer for about three years. But it was cervical cancer and she had survived the initial onset pretty successfully. So between my not having a cervix and her relative success to date, it did not affect me like the bypass did. It was disheartening to learn that Amy, the classmate fighting cancer, had experienced another wave of the cancer. She reported it matter-of-factly as she'd have to go for CT scans and all manner of testing. Her close friends, whom she'd known since grade school, had coined a phrase for her battle. It was Kick Cancer's Ass! KCA for short. And Amy did just that. She did everything she could. I had classes with Amy. We didn't run in the same circles. She was part of a big group of girls who had grown up in our town, played in the band, went to church and, bluntly, they never had any more time for me than I had for them. I was a guy who wanted to be everything heavy metal in life and they certainly did not. Amy and her friends were just normal, straight up people who went about their lives. We just were different kind of people with some similar circumstances as to where we lived and went to school. That said, I can't remember Amy being anything other than just a decent person. She carried herself the way I would hope anyone would want their daughter to live - with a smile and surrounded by friends. I know many of those friends and all of them just adored Amy. They would likely sign up and say give me the cancer if they knew it would mean she would be rid of it. That's how close they kept for decades. I have but one friend like that. In the years since I've been Facebook friends with Amy, I've noticed how non-plussed she always seems in her posts about her illness. She was always very positive, determined and simply treating the cancer as a phase that would one day pass. And it did today. She finally shed the body with cancer and went to a place where she'll never feel pain again. And that's a beautiful thing. I can only think of her husband and two daughters who will have to wait to see her again and the pain they must feel. What was most shocking for me was how abrupt the end came for Amy - at least to those of us who only got updates via Facebook. Only a couple weeks ago she was having a drainage tube removed from her lungs and in her own words said she felt like she had "finally turned a corner." The circumstances of her passing I'm neither privy to, nor do I need them. All I can say is that in some ways, it can be a blessing to not have a prolonged struggle that goes on for months or years. An uncle of mine who died of cancer told me shortly after he stopped the experimental treatment he had been getting that he would rather his children know the man they saw die than some shell of who he had been. Amy, as I knew here, lived her life as much as she could and showed her two daughters that fighting doesn't have to be pitiful. She was dutiful in how she took her treatments, dealt with the pain and other effects, and never lost her identity. I know her friends certainly held her up for prayer and that the love she received was never, ever taken for granted. I wasn't close to Amy and never would suggest we were - but I can tell you I prayed for her recovery and kept her in my thoughts frequently. Because I was so impressed with how she faced the challenge and because I knew there was absolutely no way she ever deserved it. No one really ever does. I wear a Livestrong bracelet every day because cancer has affected many people in my life, including Amy. It could have been me, my wife, my sister or my mother. But it wasn't. Yet that didn't let me simply think, that's so sad, and then go along with my life. I wrote to Amy and told her that I truly admired her. I still do. These kinds of things will probably begin to happen more frequently with my peers now that we're getting older and entering new phases in our lives. It will never be easy, nor will it be welcome. We can only face like Amy did - with grace and dignity.

Things work themselves out

What a difference a couple days make. Well, that and realizing not to eat before working out.

Completed my second workout tonight and the result was so much better than the first. On that regretable night, I had arrived at the gym to find a packed parking lot and the city's most popular radio station doing a live remote. Never mind, I thought, pulling back onto the street and heading home.

I decided I'd go back later when the post-work crowd had subsided. So I went home and enjoyed a nice dinner with the family of leftover chili. I only had one bowl.

That was enough.

I drove back into town and overcame the apprehension and walked myself into that Gold's Gym Express. I went into the locker room and removed my jacket, put on my iPod and walked decisively out into the large open room full of evvery kind of workout apparatus imaginable. I knew I needed to do some cardio. Yet the bikes were positioned in front of the treadmills which were in front of the ellipticals. So rather than become the evening's entertainment, I headed straight for the back row and clambered up onto an elliptical.

Now this wasn't my first muscle machine rodeo. I know what an elliptical is capable of doing to even people who are in shape, much less morbidly obese people like me. But I was going to take it easy.

I tried to turn it on using a Quick Start button but that didn't take. So I hit start and was then cross-examined with a series of questions that included weight, age, gender and probably middle name. One question it asked was how long I wanted to do it. Five minutes seemed pitifully short - so I typed it in. Finally it told me to start.

Immediately, there wasn't as much resistance as I expected. And I don't recall past ellipticals making you feel like you're moon walking. But this one did and eventually I got the rythym and started walking away. It had little poles on the sides like ski poles and a second place to hold on in the middle front. A couple minutes in, I went to grab the middle ones and the machine flashes an alert that I needed to hold the sensors for my heart rate to be measured. Of course there's no normative data, so it gives me a number that really is nothing more than a number to me. Seems kinda high, but isn't that what exercise is all about?

This thing eventually gets harder. But I try not to let up and look like some guy who hasn't been in a gym in over eight years or more. Then it really surprises me and scares the hell out of me. It says my heart rate is too high! That's not exactly the message a person who lives in fear of a heart attack wants to see the first time he tries getting some exercise. I slow down as much as I can.

The rate slowly falls and I try to keep it just under the warning threshold. I though five minutes would never get there.

When I got done, I worked my way around to some machines to work my upper body. I always preferred to do upper body any way. None of the machines was particularly hard - I just tried to get enough reps in to make it matter. But i was winded and continually looking for a drink of water. Hit the water fountain two or three times between machines. Just wasn't catching my stride. I eventually decided - OK, that's enough.

Went into the locker room and immediately sat on the bench to catch my breath and sort of cool off. I immediately became nauseous. It took everything I had to not throw up. Was hot, uncomfortable and almost dizzy. A stranger who came in noticed me looking odd and said, Hey man, you OK?

Told him I wasn't feeling well and just needed to take it easy for a little while. He said, "yeah, you've got to be careful. You're not going to lose it all on first night."

"Yeah," I replied, with what little courtest laughter I could muster, wishing he'd just leave. And he actually did fairly soon.

I must have sat there for 10 or 15 minutes and finally felt good enough to stand. I gathered my stuff and headed for my truck. Called the wife and told her I overdid it.

My second night was tonight. I didn't eat before I went. I did the bicycle instead of the elliptical. And I did even more upper body, and just a little lower body work. I left feeling pretty good. Reminded me of college when I lifted fairly regularly and enjoyed it.

Maybe this will work out after all. What have I got to lose but a hundred pounds or so?

An odd ode to a non-musician

It's one thing to be an odd person and another thing completely to be an odd person and realize it.

I fall in the latter category and cannot apologize. I can only state that I was just made this way.

This oddness manifests itself in many ways. My interest in music is one. And it's not the types of music that make me odd. I listen to '80s metal and rock, classic country and modern Texas/Americana music. Those are all popular enough. What's weird is how important music is to me.

I've not played an instrument since the flutaphone in the 4th grade. I remember being jealous of my classmates who got to participate in a program that I presume was like Suzuki strings and they got to learn to play the violin. The rest of us just plodded along on our white-and-red flutaphones playing "Hot Cross Buns" over and over.

That was my one and only experience playing music. Missed the window for band after switching schools. For the rest of my life, I've been a consumer of music. And what a consumer I have been.

Somewhere in the bowels of this blog is a list of concerts I can remember attending. And that didn't include in the last four years, when my number of Texas/Americana shows has skyrocketed. Granted, it's been a few different artists at a lot of shows (Bruce Robison, Kelly Willis, Slaid Cleaves, Lost Immigrants have all seen my face multiple times).

I have a lot of music (enough to fill a 60GB iPod) and don't mind buying it. I've actually bought music after getting it free online. I attend concerts and buy merch.

Two minor asides on these topics: 1) one of my friends is befuddled that I would go see someone more than once. He can't understand why after I've seen the artist live would I want to go see them again. For me, every show is unique. They typically play a different mix of songs, the sound is different, the musical arrangement's sometimes different, the venue is different. Can't fully explain it and so I won't. 2) Buying merch is part of the fun of going to a show, but when you're looking for ultra-fat-man sized T-shirts, you can pretty much write it off. There's nothing worse than convincing yourself that 2X will fit and getting home to find out it will fit a 2X teenaged girl.

Music in so many ways affects me. In high school, I used to know a lot of song lyrics. I could come up with a lyric for almost any situation. I once considered trying to find a way to turn that into a career (like choosing songs for specific scenes in movies) but I probably wisely let that dream fly away.

Still, there are songs that I can listen to over and over and over. And I still can't fully explain that. Other people seem less obsessed with music than me. Many simply don't even think about it. So why am I so odd?

Maybe it's because I have such an appreciation for what goes into a good song. Good writing is so important. Most people don't know this but as a writer, I cannot make myself read fiction any more. Somewhere along the line I stopped and haven't been able to go back. And I pretty much think to myself, well anyone can make up fiction. I *could* do it. I just don't. And so I stick to non-fiction. As a journalism major, I have a super-appreciation for the ability to tell the real story.

Yet it is obvious to me as it probably is to readers of this post that songs are typically fictional. And you know what? That doesn't bother me. I think because I see songwriting as another echelon. Whereas anyone can make up a story, a songwriter (usually) has to make it catchy and most importantly, set it to a melody. And then we're back to my lack of musical talent.

I have no musical talent and only the greatest envy of those who do have it. They can make it seem so easy. I'm one of those people who sings along and play air guitar and drums during the same song, shifting between guitar licks and drum paradiddles with no regard for continuity or accuracy.

In the meantime, I have been writing about music. I write feature stories about musicians for a non-profit music series that brings Texas singer-songwriters (and some who don't fit that mold from time to time) to a city I used to live in. And it's very rewarding for me in many ways. I feel like I can actually do what I do best within an industry I love but would never attempt to make money in. Because that's when it stops being fun.

This allows me to hold my own among creative people whom I admire and no one else tells me how to do it. It's pure freedom that I revel in.

And while no one else really gets that part of me aside from my wife, who shares at least a little of my fanaticism, that's OK. I'm just odd like that.

A non-story of too little too late

So maybe I do believe in writer's block. Or maybe it should be writer's too-lazy-to-go-to-the-trouble, which is kinda what mine's been like. Two years since I wrote here. But a friend's solicitation of blogs to read yielded mine in a private exchange and prompted me to think that I really ought to get back to writing in my blog.

In the last two years, there've been numerous times I've *almost* written something. If Facebook had tolerated longer posts or made its Notes more visible, I might have done it. But I didn't.

I tend to think about writing a lot. I would like to write about that, I often think to myself, usually at a time when I didn't have the time. Then, at times when I do have the time, none of that inspiration is within arm's reach.

One topic I considered today, while waiting for a callback from a utility company, was about how companies that send technicians to your home or even the onese who offer 'customer' service via telephone seldom really care about your time. The preface is that we simply should be available when they are available. My uncle John has some great stories on this topic related to his numerous encounters with the Cuddyback trail camera customer service department.

So I'll mark this spot as the day I got back to writing, and then cop out and not really do anything but freewrite on the subject of getting back to writing. Maybe tomorrow, maybe later tonight, or maybe in 2014....