Lucy means Light - and one day, in 1996, a bright yellow star found its way to me.

It was a hot June day, and Birmingham was holding one of it's remarkable festivals - remarkable because despite the heat, these events take place - Doo Dah Day - a day when all the healthy animals at the shelter are brought out and cleaned up and fostered out for a couple of days - then they are put on parade.

in 1995, my then partner sbuxor had brought me a kitten - a fierce grey ball of cute and attitude - this had participated a move out of my charming but small apartment, and into a home i was renting from a friend. I had moved to a house, and that cute house with the fenced yard was perfect for a dog. Hence we were at Doo Dah Day to look at puppies. We were, as was our wont, late. The puppies were largely gone, and even the few kittens left were wilting in the heat.

We left the festivities and were making our way to our friend Lucy's (of Lucy's Coffee and Tea) we cut across a park and found ourselves at a pen full of bouncing dogs. These were the 'middle aged' dogs - between 6 months and a year - there were perhaps 5 dogs in the pen - a lab, a dalmatian, a yellow spitz, and others. The yellow dog took one look at me and barked. she climbed the fence and licked my hands. she dashed off, grabbed a stick in her mouth, and returned to me, barking and wagging and bouncing. I was touched, and a bit scared. This was a knot of pure energy with intelligent brown eyes, a muscular body and a quivering need to play.

I was ambivalent - and so we made to leave, but as we headed away, the handlers were letting another dog out - the yellow dog leap over the dog in her way and ran directly to me - leaping into my arms as I bent down to meet her. Three face licks and a giggle and it was a done deal. Suddenly i was a dog owner. More likely to say, i'd been selected.

I was told that she was a spitz basenji mix - perhaps some chow  - her stiff outer coat and softer undercoat, her mobile ears and her demure tongue with black spots all seemed to say these things. She had a propensity to stand on her hind legs like a meerkat, and to yodel with delight when happy to see someone or when she spotted a treat - in those pre google days, i took this as truth.

So began my life with Lucy - named for our friend who ran the coffee house - and for her bright and irrepressible spirit.

She was a handful - so energetic and headstrong - she loved the yard - she loved chasing critters and barking and barking. She was so wired that she intimidated me - and it was only after a stern talking to from a neighbor that I started obedience classes. This proved to be crucial - establishing me as boss. Daily walks and romps in the dog park brought the energy level down, and after her spay we built a strong relationship.

She was my little yellow star who lit the world for me.

She got me out of the house and into life - through her i met my future husband Tim. At the dog park, i met my neighbors and built really important friendships, like my friend John who became a great mentor to me. Through weekends with John and his dog Monty and Lucy, I rediscovered my love of the outdoors - the fall on Ruffner mountain, the wonder of a thunderstorm in Crestwood. Monty was a Doberman - and I swore for years that she was convinced she was a big strong dog - and not a little scrapper pup.

We tried agility classes, but it was a bit too much - Lucy was very dominant towards other dogs, especially females - mounting and humping them - to both amusement and chagrin. she did master all the basic commands, and managed a few tricks of her own - in her youth, she was a terrific frisbee dog - often outracing and snatching discs from unsuspecting aussie shepherds.

I see now that Lucy was most likely a Shiba Inu - an old and venerable dog breed from Japan. She was a compact, strong dog - and when I moved to Maryland in 2000, I discovered she loved cold weather. Indeed she loved nothing more than romping in the snow - she'd race around the yard for hours in the flakes, then curl up on the snow for a quick nap - perfectly happy.

Lucy got me out of the house in Rockville - warnings from the vet that she was fat, and warnings from my doc that I was fat led to walks, then jogs, then actual running - much of my first marathon mileage was because Lucy loved a nice run with Dad. Later, she would run with Doug.

Lucy was fiercely loyal, and protective - people yelling or jumping around me would get barked at, or even nipped. Even as her eyesight faded and her alertness dropped, she would growl and bark at suspicious persons. There's a worn line of Lucy path in our back yard as she would follow the postman from side to side of the house.

She would do anything for me - rarely complaining, only occasionally moping - For Santa Lucia Day, we dressed her up in a labcoat and candle crown. She had endless nicknames - Fluffer nutter, Luciavitch, loopahgenia, farfenoogle, She was not, on balance, a cuddly dog - but if my mood were less than bright, she'd rub against me, snuggle and kiss, and then sit nearby where she could see me. She always wanted to know where i was. let her in from outside, she'd patrol the house until she found me. She would work a party until she'd begged all she could (or all I would let her) and then she'd sit on the edge, watching the crowd.

She enjoyed outside most of all - walking free with me and the rest of her family - rock creek park, lake needwood, the anacostia watershed behind our neighborhood - all these places were treasures to her - she'd gallop down the trail to start a visit, and would stand at the entrance loathe to leave.

Lucy was a robust dog - healthy and hale - which made her decline shocking and distressing - even at 14 years she'd race around the house, dragging her tribble toy over for a tussle. When she had trouble walking and began wetting the floor and not eating - I knew something was really wrong. I count it as a small blessing that her decline was swift - and I could not let her linger in such a state. She rallied twice after the nights in the hospital - but last weekend when she just lay in her bed, refusing food and water, I knew she was done.

Her soft eyes and ever so slight tremble seemed to be asking me to return her to the light.

And so i held her one last time, her soft ears brushing my neck as she relaxed into a final sleep,
her body suddenly tiny and breathtakingly beautiful.




And so my child,
My Lucy,
My Light,
I bid you au revoir.

You chose me that day, and I struggled to be worthy of such a great spirit.
You changed me.
You changed my life.
You brought me light, and love and laughter.

Thank you for trusting me
Thank you for the days outside
Thank you for the quiet times
Thank you for the gentle nudges and happy growls

I have met Presidents and Astronauts,
I have known Nobel Laureates and great thinkers,
I have known humans wise and foolish
Judges, doctors, teachers and students

Few creatures on earth have touched me so deeply or completely as you
Thank you for sharing your light with me
You will always be my beloved Lucy

Weekend before last, just after I returned from Paris, my beloved Lucy had a health crisis. She had stopped eating just before my return - she was dehydrated and wan - thin and weak. I took her to the vet for an exam, and got meds for a possible ulcer from the NSAIDs she's been taking for years. Sunday she started vomiting and stumbling around. I took her to the Veterinary ER.

Her kidneys had failed - she  was in renal crisis. She was anemic and had blood in her GI tract - so we put her on fluids, gave her a transfusion, and gradually brought her back to life. She's not the same, but she's not gone either. She recovered in fits and starts - and there have been many ups and downs - she was perky and happy when we brought her home, but within 48 hrs, as the last of the NSAIDs were metabolized, she stiffened up and became, as if all at once, an elderly and sickly dog.

I googled and read online, i emailed veterinary friends and swapped endless messages with the vet. I talked on the phone with the ER doc frequently. She nearly died - and while she's alive, her long term prognosis is poor - she has a protein losing nephropathy - or degenerative disease of the kidney. She will gradually lose the ability to make urine and the toxins will build up in her bloodstream.

we are treating her with nearly everything possible - thyroid to stimulate metabolism and kidney filtration, remeron to stimulate her apetitie, meds to keep her tummy happy, pain pills for her creaky joints - fish oil to ease her kidney burden, glucosamine and MSM to soothe her joints (the last two have no clinical proof behind them, but i'll try almost anything to make her feel better.) I'm injecting saline beneath her skin twice a day to flush her kidneys.

she's not going to get better - she's never going to be back to the way she was

I took her in mid week for bloodwork, acupuncture and some palliative injections for her joints - for no clear reason, she completely fell apart when we got home, she was trembling, twitching and threw up her food. I talked her into eating at 2 am Friday morning, and though she was a quivering, terrified mess Friday morning, she rallied Friday evening, ate a meal and even went on a walk.

Friday day, midst tears and phone calls and long period of contemplation, i had resolved to end her life today - yet she woke me up to go outside, and sits nearby watching me and grunts with happy and licks my face when i snuggle her.

I don't know what happens next.

I'm going to blather about Mass Effect 2 - and i'm going to discuss gameplay elements and plot points, as well as strategery, so SPOILER WARNING- if you haven't played Mass Effect, or Mass Effect 2 and don't want to be spoiled - turn back here.

Mass Effect is a paradigm shift in video games - no, not video games - in interactive story telling. I say Mass Effect because it is now a two chapter Science Fiction Saga, with a looming third chapter that has incredible potential.

Mass Effect was a fairly by-the-numbers RPG, with a handful of shooter elements tossed in - you had to aim, you had to react (not turn based) - and most importantly, but not most apparently in chapter 1, you made choices - do i save this guy? do i pull the gun? do i keep those aliens alive? Who do I put on the council? Mass Effect had a nice fly, drive, fight rhythm, though the driving elements largely SUCKED - the environments were repetitive and the graphics fell down on occasion. Like most RPGs, it had a Shoot, Loot and Scoot system - and you spent a lot of time futzing with armor and gear and skills.

Mass Effect 2 did away with virtually all of that - gone is the Mako (YAY!), gone is inventory management (hmmm), gone is looting (boo!) - skill trees are flattened (but reprogrammable even late in the game). The lauded conversation wheel is preserved, and a tasty 'interrupt' feature is stuck in, allowing you to interrupt and redirect cut-scenes. This makes the game feel much faster - you spend a lot more time doing stuff than dinking around with stuff. Of my 70 hr dragon age playthrough, probably at least 1/3 was managing gear, people and loadouts.

This streamlined RPG is more shooter than before - MUCH more - and it is much better - and the 'normal' mode is far easier (indeed it might be a bit too easy) Instead of finding gear, you upgrade what you have. This is done by either collecting minerals from planet scans and probe drops, or by finding random boxes of precious metals (like you do, you know, randomly in the street or whatever...) Here's where consequences start to matter - upgrading your armor, weapons and ship are CRUCIAL to success - your team upgrades with you...along with other key elements.

So - to the story - you proceed along an elegant path - to 'reboot' the game you start the adventure by dying. your ship disintegrates around you and your beloved comrades flee - you die. Good times. This scene is spectacular, cinematic and aurally amazing.

Then you are resurrected - and here you have the option to start the game with the look and attributes of your previous Mass Effect 1 save, or you can reshuffle - and you can keep or discard features from your previous save. All of this matters - if you pitch your save, you follow a generic plot - if you import, the dead stay dead, the survivors might email you, and the entire story is altered in myriad of ways.

As is the way of the universe, some big nasty is threatening all of creation, and of course only you can stop it. Indeed, a squillion credits were spent to bring you back and give you a big shiny new ship - and she's a beaut - now with your own quarters, and other fun features missing from the Normandy rev 1 - like bathrooms. She comes with a sardonic AI named EDI, voiced by tricia helfer, who banters with joker (voiced by seth green) - indeed she's annoying and hilarious - default converations about the purpose of sections of the ship linger late in the game - yet if you fly to the Sol System and try to launch a probe to Uranus, she will ask "really commander?" and if you insist she will sadly state "probing...your...(pause) anus..."

your mission is to find the bad guys and the tech to stop them, recruit a team (cue a-team theme) of misfits and geniuses, and save the universe. Two years have passed and your squad from Mass Effect 1 has scattered, and two can be recruited, some have been turned to new lives - again consequences.

This is all done with serious intent and high caliber voice acting - but the game is full of clever and geek and funny - shout outs to scientists and sci fi - big voices in tiny roles - Michael Dorn, Claudia Black, Adam Baldwin - starships named Hugo Gernsback, planets named Watson or Crick. Delicious.

Each squad member you recruit has a personal mission - which, if completed to THEIR satisfaction, triggers 'loyalty' and new abilities - which is crucial at the end of the game. This is where the meat of the game lies - Jacob's father, Miranda's genetic Twin, Jack's torturers - and many more - all these personal daemons need service before you confront the big bad. This takes you out and about the galaxy, and you see old friends and loves, buy stuff - shoot the heck outta the endless bad guys - you can dance, get drunk, hook up or even start a romance with a new crewmember. But, with the regular contact from people from the first game, it all feels a bit different - like what are the consequences of what you do?

Big things come in small conversations, confrontations spill over into the demeanor of your team, and you begin to wonder does every decision matter? I daresay...pretty much yes. Did you upgrade your ship? If not, in the final battle, you'll get spanked and crewmembers will die. Did you complete the loyalty mission? Did it end well for the crewmember? If no or if not they might get distracted and take a bullet, or get fried hacking a computer. You get a sense of the team - and some of them are, well, overconfident - follow the advice of your capable but less experienced new team member - and people will die. They'll dissolve in a biosludge mess, or take a steel beam through the torso as your ship is ripped apart.

My first trip through the Omega 5 relay to the final battle was both delayed and hasty - I wasn't fully equipped - the shocking attrition on my team led me to move back to a much earlier save and fix all that - I couldn't take it when Mordin took a bullet for me or when Tali was vaporized and Thane was impaled.

Now I wonder - i think about the game, the unfurling of the plot - was I right to reintegrate the geth? will the rachnai really help me? Is Liara lost to me forever? Should i have...

This is great storytelling - interesting interactive fiction of the first order. Is it perfect? No. The combat environments, while far more varied than Mass Effect 1, are too similar - broad fields of waste high boxes, with balconies and stairs are a little to repetitive. The hacking and rewiring minigames are rudimentary - the planet scanning is relaxing at first, then kinda dull. it's easy to fall into a cycle - load map, scan planets, do mission, talk to each crew member, feed fish (damn fish kept dying) - rinse, repeat. The squad balance is odd - it was difficult to get an ideal team - though having ten options and a few hints about missions made things a bit more straight forward than say Dragon Age where it's possible to waltz into the final throwdown with the wrong team, wrong gear.

my boys at eat-sleep-game.com did a spectacular recap show - and gob smacked me - the first thirty minutes of their deconstruction focused on something that I completely missed - they first and foremost wondered why there were no gay relationships possible - and only one lesbian one. Dang. With all the attention and drama the seXbox controversy of mass effect 1 caused, maybe EA and Msoft decided to play it safe - yet Dragon Age, their new and terrific IP, has sex a plenty - LGB characters, sex workers of a startling variety. Points lost by BioWare for leaving this very relevant part of the story out - and props to RebelFM for calling them out - who knew a bunch of straight (i assume) gaming journalists had such a strong sense of equality and fair play.

it seems a strange omission, given the presence of a variety of romances possible in games like Jade Empire and Dragon age - to be honest, i may not of noticed because i've tended to 'play' as my character - making choices as if i were in the environment - and i game a bit differently than i live my actual life. I wonder that it didn't come up in the game storyboarding...there are for sure some gay folks involved - if only for a Gilbert and Sullivan shout out in the post-battle conversations


If you made it this far, i'll tell you i loved this game - Dragon Age and Star Trek: Online have really captured me, but nothing could keep me off the Normandy. I can't wait for chapter three.

I haven't seen Avatar, nor do I wish to, really. I'm not a Cameron hater - indeed I think his best film is The Abyss, despite it's relative market failure and tainted production story. What really turned me off was the push for 3D - just today Samsung, inc, on facebook, asked me to become a fan of their 3D televisions. 3D, i'm told, is the next plasma, the next flatscreen-600Mhz-truefilm-ultrablack-megapixel-thingymaduber.

Sadly, I can't currently see in three dimensions, and at 42, I expect my brain is too trained. So I passed on the big blue alien movie - though Sam Worthington is pretty and so is Zoe Saladana.

Oscar talk is big at work these days - along with LOST. So I repeated my claim that District 9 is one of the finest science fiction films of the last decade. No, i don't have an exhaustive list and no, i haven't seen every science fiction film made in the last ten years. Star Trek was terrific, Danny Boyle's Sunshine was a by the numbers drive down spaceship wonder/space terror lane - Children of Men is right up there IMHO.

I was asked rather heatedly why - and this is kinda, three days later and with more thought, my reply - no one at work reads my blog or is on my facebook list.

3District 9 is fantastic because it does what good scifi does - it takes one idea and pushes it right through your expectations and your comfort zone.

Aliens land - and are, well - alien. We don't know how, or why - we don't see or hear much in the way of physiology lessons (male? Female?) - or technobabble about shiny guns and zoomy ships - instead of falling into explanatory traps and comfy humanizations of alien culture (which itself is probably a human conceit) - District 9 simply says "how do humans usually act towards different minorities?" The answer is an ugly, sprawling slum - violence and images disturbingly close to plain 'ol human on human interaction.

So, just to make this even clearer, you toss Wikus (mr everyman) into the mess - an incomprehensible mess - and he is utterly, and literally transformed. Along the way, the aliens seem kinda more like us, but not enough to let us be comfortable with them - and the superevilcorporation guys seem both totally human in their acquisitiveness and alien in their disregard for other humans.

These are admirable ideas to ponder, and not especially new ones - what is remarkable about District 9 is that it doesn't answer ANY questions - just as Children of Men doesn't skewer itself on how or why are people not fertile - District 9 doesn't discuss why the aliens came, where they came from, what they want - it leaves us only with our reaction to their frankly unhuman actions.

District nine does have a lot of action - and is very 'splodey - but rather than just another episode of Orange Fireball Theater, this movie leaves you with more than burned retinas and ringing ears - it leaves you wondering - which is what the best science fiction does.

So, this is another muse on video games - feel free to pass if you don't dig it.

I'm an achievement whore - i love them - it gets me away from my foolish customary assumption that people tell the truth. As i kid,. recitations of high scores and claims to have finished games made me feel inferior and sucky. Now, I know who has done what - which is cool and yet also feeds my competitive side.

There's no rational system for xbox live achievements - you get 50 g for just booting the game 'Chime' - now of course the game is a charity product to raise money for One Big Game (and the game itself is lovely and fun). Some games are parsimonious with achievements, doling them out only at the end or for obscure accomplishments (100g, you killed the sniper with a banana!). Other games are buggy - Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Burning Earth (yes, double colon name) gives you 1000g in like five minutes if you stand in one place and mast 'b' - and yes, i did it.




I picked up 'Peter Jackson's King Kong' for like $5 - and had heard it was an easy and fun 1000g - what i didn't expect was that it is a terrific game. It is one of the first titles on the xbox360, so now a few years on it is a little long in the tooth, but it holds up. Its an action adventure game - but it was clearly made by a film maker - it has a cinematic sense, great lighting and setting - fantastic sound, and terrific action. People may have raved about 'Dead Space' having no HUD or other graphical distractions on the screen - but this game didn't either. In a fun twist, the game is segmented into linear adventures, and about 1/3 of the game has you playing as Kong, which is supar fun and satisfying.



I wish i could say that the last edition of Tomb Raider had been as good - it just wasn't.  Tomb Raider: Underworld, started off well - a new graphics and physics engine breathed life into what can be rather dull dungeons and climbing trials - and the leaves and trees and bugs and birds and panthers all were great fun - but in the end the control scheme lets the player down - what should be fun effortless driving a motorcycle becomes tedious - bad savepoints mean you fight the same odd and strange enemies. Ultimately, the game feels rushed - there's a key level where you've gotten the McGuffin (Thor's Hammer) and are on your way to the final confrontation - and it blows by in about three minutes - which leaves you untrained and a bit unfocused for a long, technical final battle. Not difficult, but just long and tedious. Unlike Tomb Raider: Legend, which was fun, this game turned into a grind fighting the controls.

What happened there? Not sure - EIDOS, the publisher, seems to have only occasional lightning in a bottle - 'cause the next title they released was spectacular - Batman: Arkham Asylum was out and out awesome - smooth and natural feeling movement, gradual training curves left you feeling powerful and yet challenged - revisiting environments to gather more cool stuff was interesting and fun - even the final punchout of the Joker's mutated giant face felt rewarding. I don't know for sure, but it seems as if these games were running on the same engine - sadly they didn't share QA/QC or story - the UK based Batman was a triumph - Lara, not so much.

Batman also included (SPOILER) a very effective 'snap' out of genre - adding in a platforming element and an abrupt break in the game that felt as astonishing as a 'fourth wall' break in live theatre - i really did, for a minute or so, think my console was broken, and the moments of confusion that followed were delicious and surprising.

Where does this all go? I dunno - i would enjoy more games like batman - mixing thoughtful elements into semi-generic adventure structure - and trying to tell a story, albiet thinly veiled linear stories wear after awhile. Seriously, build a structure, with rules and expectations - but smack me a little now and then, surprise me. Lara finding her long lost mom in Avalon should have been revelatory - it wasn't. Batman reliving his parent's murder and then wandering in a WTF daze - frakking amazing. Oh, and peter jackson should make more videogames.

So, over the last few years, i've moved steadily from 'casual' gamer to largely focused on video games as entertainment in my life. I rewarded myself after a promotion with a big tv and xbox back in 2001...halo drove that...but now i have all three current gen consoles, a media cave and library of games promising everything from 8-bit bleeps and bloops to esoteric medlies on choice and fate. You can race cars, shoot aliens,  golf, wonder at the antics of virtual microbes... on and on it goes.

Games, at essence are about 'what if' - you set up a set of rules, add in humans and see what happens. It has long been so - from card games and chess to basketball and flip-cup - maybe even beer pong. You simply don't know when you add in the human element. To me, early video games were really more like training sims - go here, fight that, shoot these, bleep bloop - electronic trills rewarding the finishing of a level. who is better? Faster? who sees teh pattern, who doesn't? Arthur Geis of Team Xbox often talks about 'rain man moments' when you find that shooter, puzzler or sports game where you just boot the game an dominate - this can be incredibly satisfying. Even if you know that the master chief will save the earth, that mario will rescue the princess, figuring out how to get to that end can be thrilling - admittedly, you're walking a path mapped out for you and it's fairly linear, it is FUN. Unless you suck. Which, for most of my youth, i think i did - i never had a pocket full of quarters for the arcade, so atari 2600 and me were friends, with frustration as a theme - 'cause i often wondered "why are the space people invading?" Where did the ghosts come from in pac-man?

On the other side from the sims were text based adventure games, playing out like line driven choose-your-own-adventure games - with branches and plots and endings. these grew into RPGs - complex D&D like sims that i all but ignored - wisely perhaps i figured grad school, experiments and my ocd nature wouldn't gel. Sommewhere along the line, in the last few years (for me at least) the elements converged something really interesting happened - I feel less like i'm running a maze and more like i'm playing a story.

Risable as it might be, and plainly derivative at root, I loved Halo, liked Halo2, and alternately loved and hated halo3 - but the endings were never in doubt. The stories were interesting, the characters entertaining. But we never interacted. Then along came Commander Sheppard and his big shiny spaceship, The Normandy. Mass Effect, with its branching dialog trees, characters whose behavior changed based on choices you made, and a character creator which gave you different approaches ot combat - all mixed in to hook me totally. None of that was that new - Bioware and Bethesda and many others have been making RPGs for years - but somehow the space opera RPG was just enough to get me and keep me.

As I played out Halo 3: ODST, I wanted to talk to my team - I wanted to ask questions. I loved the story, and tread and retread the demolished streets of New Mombassa to find all the audiologs - honestly, the story of Sadie, her father and Vergil was more compelling to me than Mal and the crew of Serenity - I mean, the other ODST troopers...

Lara Croft had great adventrues, but all that figuring out seemed to have so little to do with anything...

Then along came Dragon Age - by happenstance, i put it on my wish list for xmas, and Bug got it for me - a substitute until Mass Effect 2 came out. Also by BioWare, Dragon Age: Origins blew me away - while inferior in graphical presentation (on Xbox360) - the game has the broades foundation of any i've played - a fully fleshed fictional world with myth and history (yes, yes, it is filled with fantasty tropes, but they are GOOD tropes) - and more dialog that seems possible. The characters have personality, attitude (which changes) - they banter with each other - so much so that I found myself stopping and listening to them fuss over misplaced socks and jibes about noses and odd conversations about licking lamp posts. I've been admonished by a non-player character that my gay romance is distracting from my purpose - not because it's gay, but because I've got to save the world.

when at last Mass Effect 2 arrived - I was struck by a number of things - which both simplified and diversified the game - choices perpetuate - meaning they carry forward - people you saved/killed, things you did (good and bad) are here - and in small ways, impact the story. I expect that to continue into Mass Effect 3, indeed three big choices made in the end hours of the game may have large effects (sic) on the plot. This isn't new at all - you could kill off major characters - even entire communities in games like Fallout 3.

Suffice to say, I think as Bioware through the reimagined Mass Effect, reshapes the possibilities of RPGs, as Dragon Age changes the way you might interact with non player characters - there are amazing opportunites to tell stories - stories with dynamic tension between 'following a plot' and making choices .

It is all, you know, a conceit - because all these worlds and stories are made by people for people - little of the vast randomness of life is present in games - a comfort because a game as complex and changeable as life might not be as fun - but what if?

beingk konstantin sent this link to me - 7 reasons why the 21rst century is making you miserable and I loved it.

Now, i realize that posting a two year old link is like serving curdled milk, but  i think what this article says is very true. We are, for the most part, now wrapped in individual cocoons - we see, hear, speak and interact only that which we choose. But this world, described by Samuel Deleany as a Heterotopia - is not a permissive world, but a contentious one. Part of it, i think, is that we have so few common experiences any more - TV, movies and music are it - there is, effectively, no 'news' any longer - we have no shared exposure to information - and the internet is a totally customized infobarf. No wonder the key topics of conversation are LOST, Idol and...oh, i forgot the third thing...

My mother, a diehard hippie, committed feminist and uber liberal now watches fox news - i cringe as she calls to ask about DHS plots to implant chips in citizens, inquires about why i didn't mention the 2 million tea partiers in DC in the fall, and various other random ideas that when cooked long enough, become news features. The lack of common experience means there is no longer shared truth - a single question asked enough times online becomes its own reality. Tin foil hats, space aliens, the president's birth certificate, missiles striking the pentagon. And the world is filled with commentators - professional talkers who add zero content, but can opine at length about virtually any topic.  In the world of science, we often say that a panel of experts that reaches agreement is no panel of experts. Expertise, in the larger world, has no value - with wikipedia and google, everyone feels expert, and therefore ventures an opinion on everything.

There are, of course, exceptions - Seeing a beautiful film like "A Single Man" and talking about it to a variety of people encourages me, that maybe, we can share stories and relate common experiences. I talked about it with a coworker who said she wept through it, remembering her lost father - a far flung old friend in Colorado recommneded another friend, a young gay man in South Carolina, take the time to see it on the big screen.

here's hoping that I unwrap the cocoon a bit and step out of my infozone - seems like i've got thoughts to share.

dang...i seem to have swapped facebook and foresquare for actual writing. oh, yeah, and my job got busy.

Anyway, i'm going to try and write some stuff here and there, now and then, about this and that.

i have a long list of things I've been meaning to comment on so, here goes...

Spinal surgery sucks.

the really painful stuff isn't the acute pain - you forget most of that in a vicodin haze - the painful stuff is the regular realization of things you can't do anymore. And the sharp fear/pain that you might not ever again do those things.

mai_neh has been quite supportive, and beingk have kept my spirits up. But I must say, enforced convalescence and physical pain have constrained me - enough so that I feel sometimes like my 'go get 'em' personality has faded a bit - i'm a bit more quiet, slow and thoughtful. That might be a good thing - but it sure takes some getting used to.

I want to be back in my canoe, on my bike, at my gym - but often i simply can't - i'm in pain, i tire easily - and when i really push, i end up literally disabled and spending hours in pain and in bed.

so, i emerge tentatively from my little shell of recovery - where i used to blaze the trail, today i'm apt to follow.

I had surgery on 18 November 2009 - surgeons at GW hospital removed two discs from my cervical spine (neck) and replaced them with spacers of metal and bone fragments to encourage the three vertebrae to grow together. The discs were crushed and distorted - they were causing me numbness in my fingers of both hands, and strange reflex changes in my legs.

I posted about this surgery, and the response was remarkable - I am grateful to Phil Cash for a great list of things to do and think about in discussions about surgery. I'm grateful to John Main, My strength coach at CrossfitMPH for 'straight talk' about things and helping me phrase questions for my surgeon. John Harpold didn't hesitate to offer to help when I told him about the procedure. My boss, supervisor and coworkers were very supportive. I got a lot of emails and cards - I thank each of you. Sanj Grewal gave me great last minute reassurance.

The day of surgery was crazy - we arrived on time at the hospital, but in a dizzy tizzy, i left my wallet and id at home. That wasn't a problem - I don't suppose anyone would try to sneak in for this type of operation. GW was clean, efficient and had dozens of people checking and rechecking every detail.

before long, i was drugged and wheeled to surgery...

I awoke a few hours later in recovery - in great pain. Repeated Fentanyl injections did nothing, so i got a dose of morphine and that helped. They wheeled me to my room - blessedly quiet and private. Doug arrived a short while later - i was grumpy and disoriented. I had a big bandage on my neck and a big foam collar. More morphine - doug fed me dinner - clear liquids. I suffered two serious bouts of naseau - the first passed after medication, and the second seemed to be managed by sucking on ice chips, thought i was dubious. Doug went home around 10 pm.

The night passed fitfully - the surgery bruised my trachea, so I had trouble swallowing. I had sudden onset post-nasal drip, so I frequently awoke feeling like I was choking. I downed juice and ginger ale and water until I felt bloated - i was determined to urinate. A few years back, i'd been unable to pass urine after surgery and had to be catheterized - not something you want to have done unsedated. So i tried and tried and tried. I made a little water - then some more.

Nurses were in and out all night. Around 5:30 in the morning, a young medical student came in and checked on me - and came back several times because he forgot to do things. Then the interns from the surgeon came in - then a few hours later the surgeon himself. I had a clear liquid breakfast, and inbetween nurse and med student visits, tried to make more water...finally i did. I declined morphine, and stuck to vicodin, though it made me itch.

Doug arrived around 9 am on a spectacularly wet and gross day. I was more with it - and after a visit from the lead resident, i was instructed to stand up and walk - which I did and it went well. Mid morning, John Harpold stopped by, and we had a nice conversation - it was good to see friendly faces. Time passed oddly - and before long, we realized we'd been cleared for me to head home after a few walks up and down the hall - since I could walk, was off IV pain killers, and was using the bathroom. It took hours, however, for us to get that cleared via the nursing desk - it was as if, once deemed safe after the surgery, I became lowest priority. Eventually, we made it out.

Of course, we then had a comedy of errors trip home - construction, traffic, weather - made the drive awful. We stopped at Giant for food and vicodin - i was in a daze, and had a slight meltdown at the pharmacy - but the pharmacist knows me and worked through some paperwork for me. Then i was home - perhaps it was relief or left over anesthesia, but I felt great - we made food and had a pleasant evening. I made a mound of pillows so I could sleep upright, and went to bed.

Friday i awoke feeling OK - I took a shower - unwrapping and looking at my incision was traumatic. I was bruised and had chafe marks all over my torso - the incision was a livid pink and purple slash across my collarbone. I bathed and felt much better - finding bruises and injection sites all over my body. ugh. I'm a stocky, muscular guy - so they'd had to twist me around and strap me in an odd position to access my spine - this was actually the majority of my discomfort for the first few days. That, and the whopper of a head cold I contracted. I got doug to go to CVS and mix a cockail of vicodin, mucinex and sudafed - that got me feeling OK.

Doug's sister-in-law, Holly came over that day and made five entrees for us - it was good to have a visitor, though I spent most of the day in the basement playing xbox - the digital escape was to be the hallmark of my recovery. I faded quickly in the evening, thought I was up and about during the day. Fears about needing a cane or a walker evaporated - I even started walking the dog.

Saturday was a lovely day - John came over with Richie Shehan, and later on Don Hogan joined us - it was lovely to sit around and visit. It also let doug nap for a couple of hours. I faded fast, however, and started experiencing more pain. Doug got me a special wedge pillow allowing me to sleep in a more sitting up position - this reduced swelling in my neck and chest, and helped with the runny nose issue.

By Monday, I was ready to be home alone - i walked the doug, napped, watched TV and played xbox - this became my routine. Randal Mason visited for lunch - so nice!

This became my next two weeks - i gradually increased my walking distance - now i'm up to 3 miles a day. I started leaving the collar off for longer and longer. now I only wear it for riding in the car or on the train. The slowest thing to improve has been my throat - i still have a little trouble swallowing - and that has kept my appetite low.

It is difficult to go from being a healthy active person to voluntarily sick and somewhat disabled - and harder still to let symptoms like pains and aches pass as they do - each one triggers a little worry, a little fear. I still need vicodin at night sometimes. New activities really wind me down - the first day back at work went great, but today (the second day back) is difficult and i'm really tired.

I perservere. I'm unable to thank Doug sufficiently for his stalwart support of me - I was at times difficult - and he was a champ. Konstantin too, from far away espana has called and emailed and chatted. Rich Levy and Brian Kane and Roger Eckert also get thanks for visiting!

So, well, long time no blog...

been busy

went to canada in august, on the job I worked hard, did some cool stuff and got an award. Went to Spain for 9 days, had a great time. I came home to some difficult medical news.

Back in 2005 or so, during long marathon training runs, i had this strange phenomena, where my hands would fall asleep - my thumbs would go numb. I thought it was some kind of muscle tension thing. Well, it didn't go away and started to happen more often. Like when driving a long distance, or playing video games, my thumb and index finger, and sometimes my ring finger will go to sleep.

I also can't lay on my side for any length of time without my arms/hands falling asleep.  So, at my last doc visit for HIV testing, i mentioned it - he grew concerned and ordered an MRI. I had that done in mid September. Right before I went to Spain, my doc called with a referral to a neurosurgeon.

um. ok. So, i set up the appointment with the neurosurgeon after my trip - so last week I saw him. I got an exam from a capable internist, then sat down and met with the surgeon. The news was not good.

It appears I have two disturbed discs in my cervical spine - or neck - and the inflammation and changes occurring because of these disc changes is pinching nerves leading to my arms. I have 'diminished' arm reflexes and reduced strength in my arms - and oddly, my leg reflexes are 'jumpy' or too responsive. This, he said, indicates some pressure on my spinal cord.

The treatment is immediate surgery - removal of the discs, fusion of the three vertebrae involved, with implant of a metal plate to support the spine while the bones knit. Emphasis on the immediate. He said I have a few weeks or a month to get things settled, but that i needed this done before any permanent damage to my nerves or spine occurs.

So, the week of nov 16, I’ll go in for surgery. Then I'll spend two or three weeks at home recuperating, wearing a soft support collar. Then there will be PT for posture and arms - and then OT for resuming my life.

Not the winter I had planned, but one of necessity. I'm a little scared.