Why are we born if only to suffer and die?

I just got something today that others have probably understood for much of their lives. I'm on to something. The fact that I'm 46 and just got it is both sad and joyous. Sad that it took so long and joyous to finally have it. It's new so it's still fleeting and I just forgot what it is so hold on while I go look for it again. You see, spoiler alert!, I'm a seeker. I keep searching for that thing that helps make sense of this craziness called life. Some existential Rosetta Stone that when discovered will open my eyes and decypher the secrets of it all. That "AHA!" of deeper understanding that will finally end the lifelong search. The search for the Emerald City at the end of the yellow brick road...or more fittingly the clicking of the ruby red slippers and the AHA! of "There's no place like home". "If you can't find happiness right here in your own backyard then you sure as hell won't find it wandering through hell and back"...to paraphrase from one of the best movies ever made even though I'm not gay in any way. But seriously, can you imagine Judy Garland spending the rest of her life in a black-and-white-Kansas tilling the dust bowl soil, living out her days making Jell-O salad for the endless family reunions? Sadly, I can too! Yet the sadness of being totally stuck in the middle of nowhere, USA, with no vision of what is beyond the horizon is the opposite side of the coin of being grounded in this lifetime with a sense of place and purpose that I seem to be missing. (Although I am partial to a desperate Dorothy singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"looking for that mysterious rainbow's end than the smug and perky girl back from a life changing journey telling us there's no place like home.)
And that is what I'm talking about here...the thing I started to blog about in the first place. What I'm starting to understand more about myself is that I'm getting tired of always flip-flopping back and forth between opposite poles of an experience. Desire and fulfillment. Yearning and contentment. Hunger and satiety. Happy and sad. A penny is neither heads nor tails...it's a penny with both heads and tails. I'm realizing that there are not two opposite coins in my pocket...one of pure emptiness and one of pure fullness, but one coin with its opposite sides. One experience of being that can be seen from either side at the same time. When I'm truly happy where is my sadness. When I'm sad where did my happiness go? It's not like I can't see the deep horrors of the world when I'm sitting on top of it! The horrors are right there and I can even feel them on the other side of the coin in my happiest times if I try. I'm finally just owning up to the fact that all of my experiences and all of my searches are just the internal machinations of my hamster wheel of a brain running as fast as it can. Searching for some final answer to my questions is just a desire for the hamster to slow the hell down. I don't actually want to stop asking questions and searching but it would be nice not to expect an answer.
Otherwise put, I'm just getting the depth of bumper sticker philosophy 101: Wherever you go there you are. And I'm getting that there is both sadness and joy in that fact. How sad it is that I will never really escape this guy, James, and see the world with totally new eyes and thoughts and a freshness that layers of curmudgeonly crust seem to filter out. Oh, to see without the lifetime of cultural judgements and parental neuroses and educational blinders and fears and mistrusts developed over a lifetime of imagined monsters in dark places and real monsters in the light.
And yet, what a joy to be able to breathe this air and feel the snow or rain come down only as James can do it. A witness like no other on this planet who is his own distinct piece of God or Gaea or the Universal energy that drives the whole thing. I love Mike Meyers and even if his last movie was crap I like the message that we are all our own guru's...or...G.U.R.U (GEE, YOU ARE YOU). That is so damn stupid but I had to fit it into this blog somehow and I've managed to do it so HAH! Again, I'm only now just understanding the non-duality of experiencing the opposite sides of the same coin at the same time. Being stuck and unable to escape myself...and the freedom of being myself and experiencing it fully as only I can.
What the #*&%# am I talking about? I'm talking about a grown man who is finding deep meaning in cheesy platitudes. I get it! The journey in life is the destination! While I'm contented I am still looking for contentedness. The closer I get to finding IT the harder I'm going to have to search for it. There is no answer out there, yet I'm going to find a lot of joy in searching for it anyway. In this lifetime there will not be an "AHA! I have achieved total contentedness" moment. Yet in that knowledge I have a sense of contentment that has eluded me. It's not like a lost sock where you finally give up looking for it in the dryer for the 40th time and decide to just go out and buy another one. It's more like I'm gonna keep searching as it is the search that brings me joy. The ache of desire and the amazing discoveries that are all part of it. My cycle trip across SE Asia is a perfect metaphor...did it even really happen?! I rode and rode almost every day looking for "it" and never discovered "it". But my god the search was incredible. And new sights both inner and outer filled me with an aching joy. I was alive. Only now do I realize that I never came back from that trip to where I was before...and in a way I never left. I'm just James who looked then for the same things I've always looked for but in a much more exciting and aerobic way... the answers to the questions with no answers.

Man Down

"Aid 1, respond to man down. Unconscious, unresponsive."
I was sitting down with my father at the cafe in town overlooking the ferry landing on a beautiful late summer day when the pager went off. "This sounds like a bad call Dad, I gotta go on this one." He was disappointed but understood and I rode my bike to catch the ambulance before it left the aid station. Man down. Such a non specific complaint and I mentally ran down the list of all the possible reasons one could be unconscious; strokes, heart attacks, low blood sugar, overdose...the list is exhaustive. The one thought that didn't go through my head was a 3 day alcohol binge . It certainly occurred to me the second I opened the door to the tiny room this guy calls home. Squalor and sadness greeted us as did the smell of old stale air mixed with vomit and evaporating bottles of beer. The patient was coming to and was not unconscious nor unresponsive. Just very drunk and dehydrated and wishing he were unconscious. Dried bloody vomit was on his clothes and the stained yellow sheets as well. The room itself was disgusting and the landlord, no... slumlord, should be made to live in one of these rooms to atone for the sin of actually charging others to stay here. Brown paneled walls darkened the already dimly lit room. The brownish shag rug was filthy with old stains and some festering new ones. Our man was lying in a single bed that took up 2/3rds of the width of the room and more than half the length. A tiny dresser/desk cluttered with dirty laundry, encrusted food take out containers, empty bottles and other flotsam of a shipwrecked life was crammed against the wall at the foot of the bed. Above the dresser was a TV mounted to the wall and the History Channel was going on about some long forgotten WWII battle. Distant explosions echoing through time into this mans bombed out hell hole of a life.
Outside... the crisp, stunning, cloudless Indian Summer day was almost oppressive in its glory. And this room was its antithesis...the dank and foul air begged for an open window. What an appropriate metaphor I thought. This guy is surrounded by the beauty of San Juan Island and yet the internal squalor of his soul is causing so much ugliness. There is no judgement from me...no smug feeling of superiority as he is just a mirror of my own craziness. A cracked and dirty mirror to be sure, but one that shows me how all of my own sadness and anxiety and pain come from an internal source. The world around me doesn't change that much from day to day but my mood can, and in an instant. My pain doesn't come from external sources, I know that much. But I just choose to deal with it all in a different way. Not by binging it away in a desperate alcoholic stupor, but by whining about it on the internet. Hoping that by explaining it to people that I'll never meet there may be some understanding of our shared humanity. We're all just cracks in the massive mirror of this existence that reflects light back from above. And those cracks each refract light in unique ways that make up the kaleidoscope of this world. Maybe that's why we're here...to share our experiences and to shine back different ways of seeing this world and therefor understand more about ourselves and others in that sharing. If so then I thank my new teacher and hope he can teach me this lesson in a way that is a little less destructive to himself. Maybe this man down will lift us all up somehow. God I hope so.

Room 13

He met her in the "chow" line at the Mountain Glen retirement center a little over a year and a half ago. He was standing in front of her and at just about six feet tall blocked her view to the food service table. Eighty-three years had slowly sandpapered his spinal column down but he still stood tall and strong. He felt a tug on his jacket hem and looked down to see the 4 foot 11 Marilyn staring up at him. "Hey, what's your name? You're new here." None of the formalities or coyness of awaiting proper introductions. Those contrivances were for those who have the luxury of time. At 92 Marilyn didn't. Her spine was rounded and she walked as if she was looking for a penny she just dropped. But what she lacked in posture she gained in a beautifully wrinkled, old sweet face. He was new to the retirement community. He was new to the retirement community lifestyle. After his wife died 8 years ago he got accustomed to living alone but never really liked it much. After a bout with cancer and the following radiation treatments, his family convinced him that it was time he got some help. He told her his name was Ed and he was a bit flustered. It wasn't so much her brusque nature that got to him. It was her fiery red and tousled hair. That it had been too long since her last 'beauty parlor' visit went unseen and Ed was instantly taken with her. So he did what any ex Royal Canadian Air Force pilot who had seen a lot of action in WW2 would do in that situation. He turned around and fretted about this cutie in line behind him.
I met Ed yesterday in the ER when he came in complaining of nausea and vomiting for the past week. " Think it's my new medication... I just can't eat". He became nauseated just after taking a new prescription and he thought it would get better over time, but it hadn't and now he was here. "You seem a bit dehydrated, Ed" I said and told him he'd feel a lot better after a few liters of Normal Saline flowed through his veins.
He told me he went back into his room that evening at Mountain Glen and said to himself "Goddamn it, Ed, if you don't call up that girl then you don't deserve to live". He grabbed the phone list and a few minutes later he had a date for Saturday night. They hit it off right away both knowing the attraction was there, "but what really got her was when I asked if she danced. 'You dance?', she asked me, and her eyes got really bright. That's when I knew I had her!"
The vitals signs were all taken, the perfunctory exam, the IV stick and the blood draw along with an EKG were all done now. My drunk patient in the next room was sobbing and screaming about how life was so hard that she couldn't take it anymore. She had crashed her car into a tree and was blaming everyone including me for her pain and problems. I could hear the obscenities through the walls and was glad to be sitting with Ed and Marilyn. Glad too that old age had at least spared their ears from having to listen to their neighbor. "Do you think they'll keep him overnight?" Marilyn wanted to know. "No I think we'll top off his tank and you guys can go back home in a few hours if he starts feeling better". He was already looking better with his pale cheeks pinking up a little.
They danced that next week. Then they danced four nights a week and every chance they got. "Ballroom's Marilyn's favorite" Ed told me. They danced and they fell in love. Marilyn had lost a husband to cancer not 2 years ago and the pain of that was being washed away in the magic of a new love she could not have imagined at 92 years of age. They got married just over a year ago. They are still honeymooning even here in the ER, as they looked sweetly at each other and she stroked his forehead. I thought it was funny that couples learn to finish each others' sentences even after knowing each other for such a short time.
When I hung the 3rd liter of fluid they asked when they'd be going home. I told them that there were a few abnormalities in the blood work and that the doctor had ordered another test. "Not bad really, just that your liver enzymes are a little elevated". I got Marilyn a cup of coffee and for that received a big hug. Flashbacks of my grandmother seeped into my body as her bony frail body squeezed me. Her head coming just up to my chest...a rare feeling for a guy 5'7".

The results of the abdominal ultrasound crashed into the room like a drunk driver...killing joy and dreams and Big Band music remorselessly as it plowed first through Ed and then Marilyn. The liver cancer was advanced. The doctor explaining this was trying to be as optimistic as possible but you could see the color draining from Ed's face. Marilyn looked sweet and calm while holding Ed's hand. When she stepped out of the room Ed looked at me and whispered "I don't think Marilyn heard the doctor...I don't think she understands". We sat and talked about time and death. Ed wasn't ready to die yet. He had a lot of things to do still. A whole lot of dancing with Marilyn. I told him to take as much pain medicine as he could and dance till his legs dropped out from under him. I reached out to shake his hand and neither of us would let go. I suddenly loved him as much as my own grandfather to whom I never got to say goodbye. I never wanted to let go. But the ER was hopping now with a trauma code 5 minutes out. As I walked back to the nurses station, Marilyn grabbed me shaking and we hugged in the hallway for minutes until she asked me how long I thought he had to live. She knew alright, only too well the steps of this dance.


Note: Names have been changed of course. There is no room 13 in this ER or any I have worked in. I guess it's still considered unlucky if you're superstitious. Ed was in room 12. Right next door.

Nebraska

The plane smelled of cabbage and potatoes. I was still in Seattle, albeit rolling down the runway at SeaTac airport, and already I was feeling far from home. It was the smell...and the 300 pound mother that was way too comfortable sharing half my seat with me. I used to be really touchy-feely in my 20's; you know, walking hand in hand with friends down the street or hugging all the time. And, though I've lost some of that I wouldn't say I'm touch phobic or need tons of personal space. But having strangers rub up against me in an airplane, forearm on forearm, ass on thigh, really creeps me out. Of course if that stranger happened to be really hot and had dark intentions I might have a different take on the situation. Let's just say this stranger wasn't...and thank god, didn't. And again, there was the smell of boiled cabbage. I was flying to Omaha, Nebraska and already had more than a little apprehension about the trip. I was actually quite anxious about spending two weeks in a mid-sized, Midwestern city. I know this sounds silly as I have recently cycled thousands of miles through parts of Asia just over a year ago. But being born and raised on the West coast of America, I have more of an affinity for liberal cultures and exotic spicy foods than I do traditional family values and Jello salad. In other words, I'm a total snob. I know people are people everywhere you go, with the same issues and concerns and fears. But I know too that we're just better out here on the coast! So I was afraid. Afraid of the food I'd have to eat for two weeks. Afraid of being in a land of Folgers coffee and dead air. Air not blown-in, cold and fresh, cleansed by thousands of miles of Pacific ocean, but air thick with farm chemicals... pre-used and exhaled by the millions of people west of me. Afraid too, of the folks immortalized by the national media...the ones that have more of a liking to the NRA than Greenpeace. I was heading to red state country wondering where I'd find tofu and rice milk. Snob yes, and watching this mother next to me constantly chiding and "no-ing" and riding and "don't-ing" and nitpicking her little girl (for being a little girl no less) had me guessing that she hadn't received her last subscription of Montessori Now or Today's Parent. You know, those "helpful" magazines that try to prevent you from creating a totally neurotic and miserable person in your own image that furtively looks around while biting her nails down to bloody, painful stumps.
I've always like cabbage. I've even planted a few in my garden this year. But the smell on the plane had me thinking of German food gone bad. Bad from years of Midwestern tinkering. Tinkering like, oh, I don't know, removing all spices and exotic flavors and replacing them with extra boiling and salt. It was becoming oppressive and I was actually looking forward to the thick Omaha air. Not that I'd be out in it that much. I was here to take a two week crash course in learning the art of being a Paramedic. A year long class boiled down into two weeks for nurses who had critical care/ER experience and who also happened to be active EMT's. Both of us! The class itself was long and hard and demanding as we practiced intubations in the OR's of the areas hospitals before our 8 hour lectures, then practiced running ambulance calls out of the city's many fire stations afterwards. Long days for sure but somehow I began to gel into the rhythm of sleeplessness and stress. And unexpectedly I really started to like the town of Omaha. Obamaha it ISN'T. Blue state, not. And the food... I actually took a photo of my burrito at a local Mexican restaurant. A burrito! How can you screw up a burrito? Easy, by burying it in melted Velveeta cheese. Sadly I ate almost the whole damn thing and I wasn't even drunk. But the park along the river, the beautiful old Creighton University campus and the little downtown section that had the charm of an old frontier outpost now yuppified with "too cute" boutique shops and even a real cafe with espresso, was surprising and very sweet. It made me forget the segregation only a half mile away where I was instructed to never go and never park my car...better yet, never even think about that part of town. But go there I did.
Station twenty one. The knife and gun club was located on the edge of that crappy part of town and I stayed there one evening waiting for my first gunshot victim like a kid waiting for Christmas. Would it be a gunshot wound (GSW) to the head with airway complications?! Or maybe a GSW to the chest with a collapsed lung that I could insert a needle into and re-inflate! Or maybe a stab wound to the belly that would be bleeding badly. OK, I know it's sick but after sitting in a classroom all day and going over this stuff and how to deal with it, you kind of want to get your (gloved) hands dirty and use your knowledge. The trouble is that there is a known phenomenon called the student syndrome. If a student is standing by waiting for something bad to happen it never will. Hence, the only calls I got that night were abdominal pains NOT from guns or knives but from constipation. Without going into details I will just tell you that after being on the receiving end of these patient transfers in the ER, as a nurse, heart sinking while the medic tells me an enema is probably in my future, there was a certain glee in dumping off that same patient and getting back out on the open road!
Station forty three. Another sketchy part of town that had good trauma potential... except for the student syndrome that followed me around Omaha. After nights and nights of sitting around catching up on the golf channel (there is something odd about firefighters and tons of crappy TV) a potential winner of a call was finally paged out as an assault with injuries. Here it was at last. My trauma moment. Pulling up to the house in Crapville, there were multiple cruisers with lights flashing and the scene was determined to be safe. As we entered the house, (and why is it that almost every house I saw in Omaha was cluttered with piles of dirty dishes/magazines/ blankets/trash and smelled of old laundry, dirty pets, and cabbage?) a father and son had gone at each other and the son appeared to have won. It didn't help that the dad was in his late 60's! I guess if your drunk dad comes at you with a baseball bat, even if he is a sexagenarian you might break a pane of glass over his head too. But who am I to judge...OK it was really f%#@ed up and this was like Jerry Springer except live, in the back of an ambulance, and I was holding this old guy's carotid artery as he was saying "What do you mean I'm going to jail...He's the one who cut my throat!" Strains of the banjo music from Deliverance twanged through my head as we bounced toward the hospital.
Two weeks have never rushed by in my life so slowly. The airport was like a church for me on the last day in Nebraska. A safe haven to thank god for better things to come in my life. Like Seattle...in just a few short hours. Seattle and Washington and it's smell of freshly ground coffee, pine trees and cabbage free sea breezes.

Going On Another Bike Tour!

For about a month this summer Sheryl and Corwin (14) and Julian (13) and I will be going on a bicycle tour of the central California coast. Starting in San Francisco and ending up in Santa Barbara we will cover over 400 miles of beautiful coastline and epic countryside. When I tell people this, most of them look at me quizzically like I've just told them I suffer from pica. But far from being crazy or eating shards of metal or cotton balls, I'm really excited to share my love of cycle touring with my family. The thing is...I'm way more excited than they are. Sheryl's game, she's all about it. With her new Surly "Long Haul Trucker" named Buffy (all cold steel, NW winter gray frame accentuated with pink fenders and pink everything else) she can't wait. It's the boys I'm worried about. How do I motivate others to fall in love with my passion? Or if that is too tall an order, how do I at least get them to pedal 40+ miles per day without moaning too loudly? Because really, listening to them complain for hours at a time about their pains and anxieties sounds like...well, a lot like triage nursing. One thought I have is to ride just outside of earshot so if they do moan I won't hear it. Another idea is having as much fun with the whole process. So we named the bikes...gave them a little personality. I already mentioned Buffy, named after the vampire slayer who can kick butt and look all girly doing it. My Rodriguez is named Fidel. It's long story about Rodriguez being the surname of Cuba and my political leanings (viva la revolucion'). Corwin is on Cypher (sounds techie and cool)and Julian is riding Ronaldo after the soccer great. And because I want them to be ready physically for the rigors of daily touring, I have become the training nag. "If we don't get in a whole bunch of 40 mile days before we go we're all going to suffer!" Now, there is a really cool thing about being a kid/teenager...you get to live in the now. There is also a really uncool thing about being an adult...you get to nag about the future. So the boys don't get to see our bike outings up the hills and into the headwinds as muscle strengthening and stamina building. They get to see that James is taking them away from the comfort of the couch and the warm familiarity of surfing the internet. It must kind of suck to have me as a step-dad sometimes. It would be like living with your high school gym coach that motivates with speeches and anecdotes about the benefits of hard work and exercise when all you want to do is watch YouTube videos and hang out relaxing. So I'm left with this catch 22 feeling that I'm damned if I nag and push too hard about training, and damned if I don't because the trip, if not prepared for, will be a nightmare for all of us. I know this because some of the training rides have been as fun as listening to a Tony Robbins motivational speech. Or worse yet trying to BE Tony Robbins. The constant questions in the "How much further do we have to ride today" category are hard enough to deal with but the negative comments like "This hill sucks!" really tests Mr. Motivator, my inner coach.
Today however changed my attitude and erased most of my anxieties. Today we cycled onto the ferry for a ride on the mainland. It was new and exciting to be riding in a place we had never ridden. A 30 mile ride through some beautiful farmland and forests brought out the best in all of us and we rode with zero nagging and only a few complaints of sore thighs and fatigue. It was an awesome day and I think they got it...the cycle touring bug. No set schedule. Riding through beautiful places. Eating a healthy lunch on a public picnic table. Feeling physically drained/beat-up and yet triumphant at the end of the day all high-fives and smiles.
We'll see if it lasts as I'll be nagging them again for a midweek ride in a few days.

Spinning

I've been reduced to riding indoors. I've caved. I ride the spinning bikes at the gym and sadly I actually enjoy it. The machines are comfortable, I sweat like a pig and I feel like I've actually ridden a bicycle. Forgive me Jesus for I have spinned. I even looked on ebay the other day at dvd's that show a road slowly passing by at about 10 mph. Put your bike a foot away from your TV screen, push play and start pedaling on a trainer and suddenly you're riding up a Colorado mountain pass or down a quiet New England lane in the fall or along a stretch of California coastline. A fan can give you that headwind feeling and all that is missing is that little cafe up ahead waiting for you to pull in and have an iced coffee. Oh, there it is right behind me in the kitchen...the fridge.
OK, what I'm trying to say here is how many times or in how many different ways can I complain about the cold weather here in NW Washington state? I know riding indoors is lame and I know that I have the freedom to chose to live wherever I want. And since I actually do chose to live here, then why complain about it? My only answer (also lame) is that it helps. Misery loves company. And if I want to bitch about being cold all the time (and yes Margaret I do) then I have to come to the sad realization that life has been reduced to writing about the weather. It's now 45 degrees outside, overcast with a chance of showers later in the day. Highs expected to reach 49 with a low of 37. If your from anywhere else in the world multiply those numbers by 5/9 and add 32...or is it divide by 9/5 and subtract 32...oh how I miss those metric days of anywhere but here. It's hitting me hard today. I want to ride my bike. Not just spin in a health club and not just around the island on a nice warm day. I want to ride my bike around the world and eat weird food and meet amazing people and be uncomfortable and smelly and strong and breathe the warm humid air that is dirty from slash and burn and too many cars. I want to be with people that forgo working for living. People that have a retirement plan that includes Alpo for dinner instead of 401k's. I just met a guy in the ER that had chest pain. He was worried because his dad dropped dead from a heart attack at 69 years of age. One year after retiring. Life is short and fragile and wasting any of it seems like a crime... and if so, I am a serial criminal. Sheryl tacked up a scroll on our bathroom wall the other day that we found at the dump. "Every day, think as you wake up...Today I am fortunate to have woken up. I am alive, I have a precious human life. I am not going to waste it." It was written by the Dalai Lama and I love it. Of course it goes on to talk about helping and benefiting others and not getting angry at anyone (which may be why it was at the dump) and I kind of blow that off but hey, half of a great message is better than none. It's kind of how I approach the bible or any religion too. "OK, I kind of like that section here but, ooh, this part...not so great."
So, back to spinning. I guess the fact that I sit in a room and spin my wheels while going nowhere is a pretty good analogy for my life right now. Hurry up Spring, this is getting old!

8 freaking hours!

My friend and constant motivator for all these recent blog entries, Margaret, commented recently that I should "quit yer bitchin" about my latest random complaint. After doing a quick mental calculation I realized that fully 89.65% of my blog entries were bitch sessions. I got kind of sad realizing that all I do is sit in front of my laptop and come up with funny ways to complain about the events or people in my life. The sadness lasted for 2 maybe even 3 minutes until I realized how much money I was saving in psychotherapy bills. Airing my dirty laundry (bike shorts) and neurotic foibles in front of whoever is bothering to read this far is strangely satisfying. Plus I just re-read an entry from Thailand (where I was sitting next to some guy who was oozing his fat ass onto my lap) and actually laughed out loud. That was very cool...entertaining myself like that and sitting in a room all alone chuckling out loud like a nutter. So bitching I will continue to do while pondering new names for the blog like "the curmudgeonly cyclist" or "crusty bike man" or "nasty attitude on two wheels" or "my ass hurts and I want you to read about it"...you get the idea but that isn't what I wanted to write about today...at all. I want to complain some more.

Try this. I dare you. There is a door. And behind this door is a room of people that are all sick. Babies are crying next to people who have migraines next to people vomiting into ridiculous "emesis basins" designed to hold just slightly less vomit than your stomach can. Invariably there will be sitting nearby someone who has reached the end of his rope and can't take much more...suicidal or homicidal, it could go either way at the moment. Next to him, well not really next to but as far away on the other end of the couch as possible, are the two-fers...family members who, since they had to bother bringing in a loved one might as well get checked out too. All of these folks have been waiting for over an hour (OK, two or three) to get through that door to see a doctor. You hold the key to that door...You are the triage nurse of the Emergency Department. You are the gatekeeper. Opening that door you grab the next chart from the pile and all the expectant eyes in the room look up hopefully like you're Jesus. But you have no miracles. Instead of passing out fishes and loaves or even some great advice on how to live and not be so judgmental, you shout "Bob Smith"over the din. One man stands up and walks toward you...too sick or angry or resentful by now to even smile at his change of luck, as all the other eyes change from hope to disdain. That is the easy part. Now, sit in that room behind the door for 8 straight hours and listen to people explaining (often in graphic detail) about their physical problems. But you don't just listen to their ordeals... aches/pains/drainages/sores/bowel movements/urinary flow rates/oozing body piercings...oh I could go on (and will in the future believe me) you inquire about the details. If "tell me about your bowel movements" doesn't elicit the response needed (and if they're over 70 don't worry, it always does)you have to pry further. No one really likes to ask another fellow person if their poop is bloody, tarry, smelly, stringy, hard, soft, pellet like, mucous tinged, lighter, foamy or diarrheal. For me however, it's my mantra...my money maker.
There is a special room reserved for me when I get to hell. It is the triage room and I'll be the triage nurse. I really haven't lost my compassion for the suffering of others. I feel badly for all those poor people stuck out in the lobby, feeling like death, or maybe wishing for it, and waiting for the help they have come looking for. But to be surrounded by the constant pain and the constant crying babies and constant NEED effects me and I get resentful. The antidote is humor and it is in laughing at the absurdity of human existence. And of course, complaining about it all.

Bike On My Car or I'm a Deep Person

There's a bike on my car. Once again it sits on my car more than I sit on it. 1) I feel like I look really cool with an overpriced bike on my car...like people will say, "Whoa, that guy must be intense if he's riding in this stinky weather". 2) I live on a small island that is dependent on ferries for transportation to the mainland. This can be a major pain in the ass. The ride across the straight is beautiful but makes a trip to a bigger store or dentist an all day affair. Just the ferry unloading process can feel like a Costco check-out line. Car after car crawls off the boat turning your one hour and ten minute ride into a 90 minute test to not go postal. It's the sitting. The interminable sitting. In the summer you sit in the ferry line for up to 2 hours to get on the boat then up to another 1 1/2 hours on the boat as it goes from island to island dropping and picking up other people not going postal. The first few times it can be "quaint". That's what people think and it's why they buy WAY overpriced homes here (sorry Samantha you know it's true). The patina of quaint wears off eventually...somewhere after you're into year 3 or so of an astronomical mortgage. By the time I get to my car I'm really done sitting. So I fire up my car and, breathing someone elses exhaust, impatiently sit some more. And in a circuitous route I'm back to the subject of my bike on my car. Having a vehicle with a bike on it makes me too tall to get stuck over in the side lanes. It gets me into the center of the boat...the coveted middle lane. First group off the boat. So not only do I get the hell off the ferry sooner, I look intrepid doing it.

Bicycle Porn

So what does one (me) do when it's 30 degrees outside and there is ice and snow on the ground and one wants to go for a long bike ride? If I were a total rock star cyclist I'd put on my long fingered gloves and 14 layers of breathable yet windproof protective clothing and go for a ride. Sadly I'm not that guy. I just read in the Adventure Cyclist magazine that a guy rode across a stretch of Australian desert with his only water source being what he could carry and the rare well he would stumble across. He lost 30 pounds in that 40 day ride and probably whatever sanity he started with as well. People have come up to me since the SE Asian ride last year and said how intrepid or brave I was to have done that. I'm not sure how following my bliss and working a daily diet of great vegetarian food and cold Beer Lao after a hot day on my beautiful bike deems me studly but I'll take those empty compliments. Memory is a funny thing. It's so true how we forget the pain and remember the beauty and fun and joy of past experiences. Life can be crappy at times so it's a nice touch that god threw this wrinkle into the mix and let's us remember the past with longing and fondness. Now, as I look out the window and watch the snow fall and pile up in the streets, I don't remember the crotch rot or the loneliness or the long smelly bus rides or the misery of the humid mid-day sun. I think of friends and people I met and bonded with or of the beauty of the strange vertical mountains of Southern Thailand. I even think fondly of Khao San Road in Bangkok. That overly dreadlocked and body pierced orgy of alcohol and Euro-youth looking to get laid...or at least a tan while munching on a bag of fried crickets.
The snow here acts like a blanket of Versed causing event memory loss. For my non medical friends Versed is a drug given for short term medical procedures that hurt like hell. Things like setting a dislocated shoulder or cramming a three foot long camera up your ass (aka colonoscopy). It is a great drug to have before these procedures as it not only really helps you relax, it causes amnesia of the thing just performed. I always smile when a patient who just minutes before was screaming out in pain and misery awakens and asks when we're going to begin the procedure. It can be hard to convince someone that, yes, that tube really did go that far up their rectum when they have no memory of it at all. {That was a hideous tangent...I'm so sorry} So the snow removes the pain of the worst of last years ride and all I remember is being warm and enjoying it all. Craziness to be sure but I can't even get outside now without feeling the bite on my skin as the wind blows in from the north. So, to get back to the original question of the blog... what to do now? I'm stuck on the computer reading about other people adventures or looking at bike porn. Its a sickness I have to admit. Something I'm really not proud of...and something that can be very addictive. Bike porn. Looking at photo's of bikes and the gear just stripped from their sexy frames. Panniers pulled off like lingerie or racks just waiting to be mounted onto that frame. The pictures are endless and there are so many things to look at and desire that I almost feel dirty. Lighter pedals, stronger wheels, bigger bags, softer seats, beefier panniers, the list goes on and on. As does the ever present desire. When I can't look at any more pictures I'll spend time cleaning my bike. My bike is clean...really clean right now as I've rubbed my deraileur too many times. My chain shines right now. And chains should never really shine. But all this loving care has changed my relationship with my bike. The love affair is back and after taking her for granted for so long, I love my bike. She is strong and beautiful and black and with a little TLC she treats me like a king. If I could only get on and ride!! Yeah, my stepson Julian and I went for a ride a few days ago but the numb fingers and ears made it kind of painful and I couldn't conjure even a drop of sweat from my frozen body or my fading memory. So I come in from the cold and go back to the bike porn. I guess looking at a hot bike is better than sitting on a cold one...OK not really but all I'm trying to say is I'm missing Kauai and Thailand and Laos and.........

WORK

Be careful what you ask for. As for me, I've always been afraid of the 9-5 work week. It's not that I'm lazy and don't want to work (OK, it's not that I'm super lazy and never want to work) it's just that I've always thought that work was a means for getting some money together so I could enjoy my life. It seems like we have lost the idea that life is rich and multi-layered and fun and an exploration for learning and growing...like a field trip for the soul. "OK everyone, you've just been born so get your things together and get on the bus, and don't forget your lunch bags...we're all going to planet Earth this lifetime...should take about 70 years, so if you need to pee just go ahead as we all seem to have diapers strapped to our asses." I rather like that analogy. It beats the current paradigm of life as a shop-a-holic frantically rushing through a Wall-Mart on December 22nd. At the risk of sounding like a Chicken Soup for the Corporate Wage Slave book I'll shut up. I'm just saying that when I work day in and day out I get that glazed look of subdued panic in my eye and wonder ...isn't there more than this? DRIVEL!!!
It's pathetically awesome. I love sitting here at "work" listening to myself whine and moan about things most people have dealt with a long time ago. Or at least they buck up and do what they need to do to feed their family. I am so spoiled and so privileged to be able to "blog" about how much I don't like to work. As a kid I often heard how Bryner (my last name) rhymes with whiner. Hmmm, those kids were pretty astute.
So I have asked the universe/god (who in my head sounds like a British James Earl Jones) to NOT be a 9-5 wage slave but make money in a more creative way. So I'm proud to say that now I'm a slave to my credit card debt and oh, the freedom that I get from that is astounding. I chuckle at how I once worked 40 hours a week. I feel so much more free than my friends who say, "Oh, I'd love to go on a walk with you but I have to work." And I casually and in a sly knowing way say, "you mean it ISN'T the weekend?" What I am trying to say is that I'm an idiot. Freedom isn't free. I saw that on a bumper sticker between an NRA sticker and a support our troops sticker and always thought it was a comment on how we have to kill other people so we can continue to shop and drive unabated. Now I really know what it means. Freedom costs 9.9% (minus the air miles) and at the rate I'm going into debt about $150 a month in interest fees. 'Cause here's the part I forgot about. If you chose to work a whole lot less you actually have to spend a whole lot less. Dammit!! Math was never my forte'. You see, I'm not the sanctimonious snob I appear to be in this blog. I buy crap. I am a consumer and as much as I'd like to seem "evolved" both spiritually and ecologically, I'm a hypocrite. I am conscious of my actions and try to limit my impact on the earth but let's be real. Anyway...
I'm sitting here at "work" this morning looking out the bay window at the almost-full moon shaped like a dropped melon, shining on the oily black waters of the Puget Sound less than 30 meters away. Across the channel are the lights of Vancouver Island and Victoria. I can't hear a sound in this darkness and I'm rested from a full nights sleep. It's the end of my shift. Without any details, I get paid to be on standby. Thirteen hours of night shift and I can sleep when I want with a pager on. So NOT working the 9-5 gig means that I juggle. I juggle 4 jobs that have hours all over the map and yet it seems like I still have a lot of time off to spend getting deeper in debt. I'm also an EMT and even though it is technically a volunteer position it has its benefits...like all the Raisinettes/M&M's/Kit Kats (the perfect trifecta of chocolate treats) you can eat. I also am working at a spa in Friday Harbor as a massage therapist. I know, I know, and before you get all freaked out let me say there are no nail techs or eyebrow specialists anywhere to be seen. It's all about the healing environment and not so much the pampering of the rich and spoiled. There's nothing like a good massage to get you back into your physical body and out of your busy monkey-mind. And lastly I'm back in the ER working 12 hour hell shifts running non-stop to pay that credit card bill down a bit. An added bonus is that the ER will provide hours of blogable material (I thought I was messed up) when things get a bit dry around here (yes dry, like the second half of todays blog). The nice thing about the ER is that it is only on-call. There is something so powerful for me to be able to say, um, "NO" when the hospital calls and asks if I want to work today. It's funny but I often say yes...there is just a bit of breathing room there when I have the option to say no. In many ways I wish I could just be happy doing the 9-5 thing like so many others seem to be. The water cooler thing, the discussion of last nights episode of American Idol, the cubicle with pics of the kids etc. I'm getting an upset stomach just writing about it!
Sure, I know I'm crazy, absolutely nutters. Aren't you too?