Alex would not be described as an outdoorsman. He lands squarely in the home-body category and this includes even staying inside his home. This became a conversation point at a family dinner. We were telling Alex he needed to get out more. Get some exercise. Get some sun. When the sun topic came up, the following exchange took place.

MARTY
You should sit outside everyday for fifteen ...

marty told me of a new workout trend where you hire people to excercise for you.

yes. you are reading that right. you stay at home. they go to the gym in your name. then they report back to you what they did. and that is your workout for the day.

before you scoff too much, you should know that this approach is getting some traction. i get that at first blush it sounds a bit ridiculous, like SNL-skit ridiculous but as with many like things, there is some logic at work. the tactic, in this case, is you get to watch someone leading a healthier lifestyle than yourself AND see and hear what goes into it. as you watch your sponsor get more fit and attractive, you start wanting that for yourself and because of the daily reports, you have a sense for what it would take to make it happen for yourself. so on paper, it has some merit and is finding some success in practice too.

for me this falls into that oft-cited "if you worked as hard at the thing you're trying to avoid as you worked at avoiding it ..." bucket. but in ruminating on it further, it occurred to me that i have been doing this exact practice for more than ten years. the difference is i don't have a workout proxy. i have proxies for social media and the daily news cycle. i know loads of people hyper-engaged in all of those matters, and i just kick back and watch all their hand-wringing and angst and consternation from afar. and when i see what immersing yourself in those matters does to one's mental well-being and personal fulfillment, i see all i need to maintain a healthy and fulfilled mental state for myself. and this is precisely what the workout sponsor does for someone. so if it is half as effective for them as my system has been for me, then get yourself a gym proxy, like, today.

and all of these mental meanderings have given me an idea for a new company that is connected to (1) my current use of social media and news proxies and (2) my obsession with time management. if you are addicted to being connected and informed and love the way you feel after giving hours of your day to social media and the news cycle BUT want that feeling without giving up all the time to stay "plugged in", hire me, or my new company rather. what we will do is send someone to your house first thing in the morning. upon arriving, they will knock on your door, and when you open it, they will kick you square in the groin, girl and boy alike. they will then toss an invoice at your crumpled frame and as they turn to leave will call out, "see ya tomorrow." that way you can fit all that gut-punch level dread and mental turmoil into your day before your first coffee is even cold, leaving the rest of the day's hours for more fulfilling and meaningful pursuits.

there was a three-week span late last year when i thought i was about to die. like i was seriously fearful. suddenly i was in these kind of fugue states. some mornings they were so bad, when walking anthony to school i had these bouts of vertigo and started actually veering like i was about to fall. and through this, admittedly terrifying time, i did what most men do when confronted with scary hea...

over a three year period i lost 25 pounds. two things contributed to this. first my doctor said my blood pressure had been slowly increasing and had now reached a point where i had to start taking medication for it. i have a personal goal of never having to be dependent on any pills, like any and like ever, so my question to him was completely predictable:

TROY
ok, but when can i stop taking them?

DOCTOR
stop taking them? what do you mean?

TROY
i mean how long do i have to take the pills before i can stop?

DOCTOR
well, never. you will take them the rest of your life mr. dearmitt.

i explained i didn't want to take any pills. he said that was a fine notion but my heart was saying something different. i asked if there were any alternative solutions. he said i could stop drinking. i don't drink. i could stop smoking. i don't smoke. i could leave my high pressure job. i don't have a high pressure job. i could lose some weight. well, i'm not exactly obese but i could stand to lose a few pounds. so let's try that. i asked him to give me three months. he agreed but said if there was no change after three months i would have to go on the medicine.

i lost ten pounds in those three months and when i went back my blood pressure had returned to its normal range so no medicine for me. woo-hoo. but during my weight campaign i heard/read something that caught my attention. i can't remember if it was dr. oz or tim ferris but i think it was one of the two and they said that this notion that as we age we have to lose the battle with our weight and physique is a bunch of nonsense. that not only is there no reason you cannot retain your college age body but your college age body is representative of what you are supposed to look like.

when i heard that and after having the initial success in dropping weight, i drew a new line in the sand that i would re-claim my college body. the below chart shows my happiest day over a three year period. that was the day when my weight, after starting at better than 175 pounds first dropped under 150 pounds. this is probably the first time my weight was below 150 in more than twenty years.

at my last annual checkup, my doctor had a student shadowing him. after a few introductions and pleasantries, he asked me to remove my shirt and get onto the examining table. after doing so, my doctor looked at me over his clipboard, turned to the girl at his side and said, "i assure you mr. dearmitt is the healthiest patient we will see today."

i'm unable to quantify how much sweeter a sentence that is than "i am about to put you on a pill that you will take until the day you die". i don't think we've invented the math to compute the difference between those two emotions.


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a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. advice

another question my friend, the same from yesterday, asked me about in our last outing was why i worked so hard to lose weight and get in shape. his question, obvious as it was, took me a little off-guard and without much thought i told him, generically, so i could make sure i'm able to keep playing with my kids as i get older and don't have to be the dad that sits on the park bench reading the paper, shooing them back to play on their own when they call me in to share in their climbing and chasing games. later in the week, my sub-conscious, certainly un-enamored with my wanting response, pushed forth the real answer by replaying one of lester burnham's many great lines from american beauty. this particular exchange came when he caught up with the male couple from next door during one of their morning runs. if i were honest with my friend, and myself, this is the core reason i'm working as hard as i am. first and foremost i believe that if i achieve that goal, of looking good naked, many other pertinent and meaningful dominoes will fall, like looking good at the pool, having clothes fit me better, feeling energetic, avoiding doctors/hospitals (!!!), walking into speaking engagements with greater confidence, sleeping more soundly, biking a hundred miles with my daughter, getting out of a chair or off the floor without accompanying groans and moans, and yes, all that and being able to rawk the park with my youngins.

the biggest and most unanticipated benefit of getting my body back more like my college days was surprisingly not on my list: making my wife more interested in me. she had never discerningly reduced her affection for me over the decades as i added better than a pound a year to my frame but once the weight left my mid-section, there was a perceptible uptick in the attention i received from her. for instance, as i passed her in the hallway where before we'd politely skirt by one another without any antics, she might now hold a hand out as i passed and rake her fingers across my flat-ish stomach or she might come up behind me as i did dishes and send a slow hand down my side, leaving a tantalizing comment in my ear before peeling away. again, while this sorta stuff never fully went away, this sorta stuff wasn't happening with the same frequency when i was having to up-size my pants every other year. and even though this perk wasn't on my radar of benefits when i began the trek, i can whole-heartedly say it stands out (and up) as the best part of the view now that i've crested the hill.

a young friend of mine was recently diagnosed with cancer. it arrived with a suddeness and ferocity that is hard to comprehend, let alone understand. the manner in which this young man, sam, has shouldered this dark card in his deck is as hard to comprehend as the event itself. i have twenty years of life experience over this fellow and even had the privilege of once calling myself his teacher, and he has faced this moment with a maturity and courage i don't think i've ever witnessed first-hand, like ever. suffice it to say i often feel as though i'm the one in the auditorium looking up at him standing tall and confident at the lecturn. to give you a taste of this young man, i share his latest broadcast from his company web-site:
you can follow the adventure, and get plugged into their next game which my alex is feverishly awaiting, at their website butterscotch shenanigans.

the most important health lesson i've learned in my near decade long pursuit of a healthy body.

it is easy to wreck a strong exercise regimen with a bad diet.

and, it is impossible to wreck a good diet with a bad exercise regimen.

this bit of knowledge has been the difference between me running like mad and making no ground and me nearing my health goals while barely breaking a sweat.

i'm a recentish convert to flossing. since drinking the lemonade—not that i would ever admit to drinking such a sugar-rich beverage where my dentist could see—i've been a consistent four-five times a week flosser. then i read an article by dr. oz where he likened skipping flossing to only wearing deodorant under one armpit. this visual seems to have been the missing bit of tutelage necessary to upgrade me from a four-to-fiver to a six-to-sevener.

as for why i still sometimes only hit the mark six times a week, the nights i miss i'm surely sprawled across my bed in a parenting coma. in such moments, not flossing is the least of my problems as in the past i've crashed with the milk still on the counter, water running on the lawn, and once with our home's front door standing open, yes, like all night.

parenting coma's prove more severe than food or real comas, reason being, when you come out of a parenting coma in the morning, the kids are still there.

you remember how marty jacked up her toe some weeks back. well, now she jacked up her hand, gashing two fingers open while unloading a table from the van. when she called me at work to say she was headed to the emergency room, she described the cuts as "gaping".

as the doctor put the last of the five stitches in, marty joked that now her husband couldn't look at her nailless toe or stitched-up fingers.

in learning of this, i joked i should be allowed to bring in an interim wife i can actually stomach looking at, let alone doing anything else with, until marty is not so disfigured. i mean there's gotta be such a stipulation somewhere in all that marital fine print, no?

anyway, resumes, cv's and simple pleas for attention will be considered in the weeks ahead.

and if it helps, i've lost twenty pounds since august.

the brother of a girl i know was in a car accident. his injuries proved quite severe, namely below the waist damaging a hip and mangling one of his feet. after a few days observation his doctors presented his options in regard to his pulverized foot:

1. replace the heel and rebuild the foot as best as able. this would be followed by a year, and probably more, of intense therapy. in the end, the procedures and subsequent therapies might prove a failure.
2. or, amputate the foot and learn how to use a prosthetic device. end to end this would take less than a year and almost certainly have a more positive outcome.

what would you choose?

marty's toe continues to be a foul and wretched mess. that is i think it does as i'm still unable to look at it. i do want to still love her when this is all over in thirty six months after she's shed the busted toenail, has grown a new one and her toe returns to a proper shade of human color.

if you're wondering if i knew when my well of empathy ran dry, i did. it occurred the day after when we were eating dinner on the porch and she propped the throbbing nub up on the railing, sans sock, while she ate. i kept shifting in my chair looking for a position where the thrashed toe wasn't in my sight-line, but human peripheral vision rocks and you can kinda see everywhere that's not behind you and i'm not a big enough ass to, like, turn away completely. and like they say about car wrecks and our flawed human nature, my eye kept being drawn to her deformed digit. i tried not to say anything but without checking with my mature side, a runner got by the checkpoint and blurted out, "so, does it hurt to wear a sock?"

and that, for the record, is the moment my well of empathy ran dry.

and for any worrying about marty's delicate disposition, she's plenty numb to her husband's squeamish insensitivity which can be seen in her reply, "no, i don't need a sock. i'm good. but thanks."

p.s. x-ray's showed the toe thankfully wasn't broken.

p.s.s. the athletic director at marty's school drained the toe on the second day with some medieval sounding contraption that burned a hole in the nail so the blood (and stuff) could be released, taking the pressure off the nail. he told her if she'd come sooner, he might have been able to save the nail. her description of the procedure for-sure tested my thirty-plus year puke-free streak.

friday offered many firsts for me.

on friday i skied down a mountain slope with my entire family for the first time.

on friday i skied down an intermediate blue run with my boys for the first time.

on friday i visited the first aid center of a mountain resort for the first time.

on friday i was told i didn't dislocate my shoulder or break my collar-bone (and only experienced a blunt-force trauma to my shoulder) for the first time.

it turns out tuesday has a first or two in store for me as well. like, having to lift my hurt arm onto my desk with my good arm to type the sentence you are now reading.

and i reckon tuesday will also involve a concerned call with my mancation partner who i'm slated to ski with in two weeks.

in all the hubbub i never finished our topsy-turvey tale. i left off with me having knee surgery (see topsy turvey part 1 for the detail). so i had my surgery on a tuesday and everything went fine and well. prior to the procedure i asked what to expect recovery wise. i was told i would walk in and i would walk out. i took that to mean it would be like nothing at all had happened and that my life would resume as soon as the anesthesia wore off. with this understanding, i told my office i'd be be out tuesday and back on wednesday. the first sign this was not the case was the prescription for 60 vicodans they handed marty on our way out the door.

in addition to the prescription there was the direction to keep the knee perpetually iced and elevated for the next 72 hours. while the week was shot to three kinds of hell, on the good side of all this dour news, marty and i discovered downton abbey. while laid up and bored in bed, i trolled the netflix hallways looking for anything of interest. something took me towards downton abbey. i watched the first five minutes of it and hit pause. i called for marty and said she should plan on having lunch with me in bed as i had a show for us to watch. so we sat in bed, my knee wrapped in ice and atop four pillows, eating sandwiches and discovering a 1912 english village while our children were at school. possibly our most quaint and romantic workday afternoon since our college days (and certainly our most peaceful moment in recent weeks).

i gingerly returned to work on friday to begin the dig out. it went slow but steady. at three in the afternoon marty called. she said the principal from the high school she used to teach at called. a teacher had taken ill and they needed someone to fill in for three weeks ... (pause) ... starting monday. after another pregnant pause i noted that by her calling me at work and positing the question, she was expressing interest. yes. after a third pause in the conversation, i said i supported whatever she wished and said we could talk about it further that night.

before children, marty taught for nine years (at this same school that was calling now). marty then took off nine years. returning to teaching is something that has definitely been on her thoughts especially now that our youngest, anthony, is slated for full day kindergarten next year. but next year is the earliest we'd ever thought about her return and would have, in an ideal world, preferred two years to give marty one year to breathe and collect herself before returning to the fray.

marty was interested on several levels which i'm sure i'd botch if i tried to represent them so won't. suffice it to say marty's brain was above an idle with the notion of challenging her mind beyond innovating on what went in her kid's lunchbags or reading a new goosebumps book to her five year old. i get this need. fully. when i returned home that evening and saw how lively her eyes were, i made three points. i asked that she didn't start monday because the still-broken fridge was scheduled for repair on monday. i asked that she not let this sudden jump back into a professional routine, taint her notions of returning for real because she wasn't giving herself a chance to re-enter work life with a proper amount of time to plan and prepare, professionally or mentally. and i said, i could handle the kids in the morning but she had to find places for them, especially anthony, when they got out of school. within twelve hours she returned the call saying she would do it. fortunately, because of paperwork she couldn't start on monday anyway so the fridge got repaired (thank gawd!!! as post-knee surgery is not the time you want to be without a working ice-maker).

her first morning of work she left at 6:00 am. i woke up early to make her breakfast. as she ate i confessed this was only a "first day back to work after nine years off" treatment and she shouldn't expect it everyday. i also made her a lunch and stole a little note in there in case she was getting treated poorly by the day or the kids. then she left. after a short bit of quiet, i started prodding kids out of beds.

the kids knew my getting them ready was going to be different. marty is definitely far more accommodating that i am. she is known for making them pancakes, kraft macaroni and cheese, or even crazy time-consuming waffles. when they ask me for such things, i look at them as if i didn't understand the questions, which in some regards is true. in the early days, they'd repeat the question and i'd tell them to go get a muffin and yogurt. now they don't even repeat the question. they just look at my face and head to the muffin tin all on their own. progress! and, if i'm known for anything in the morning it is when i am ready and they are not i stand in the foyer and yell, "you're putting me behind schedule Dufresne. don't make me come up there and thump you." rabid fans of shawshank redemption might recognize this loose translation of one of my favorite lines from the film. my kids obviously have no idea what i'm talking about or who this Dufresne cat is, but they get the gist that i'm getting irritated and they best up the pace.

i wasn't too intimidated about getting the kids off to school. this is something i usually do on wednesdays so i have a sense for what is involved. but there was one variable i failed to consider. every time i've taken the kids to school on my wednesdays, marty was there, in the house and part of the morning. we'd really not gone through the drill without her. the problem stemmed from anthony's morning ritual, which goes like this. when anthony wakes up you will often here a stretch and a yawn. this gets followed by hearing the creaks of the slats in his upper bunk as he moves to the ladder. once down, you hear a quick patter of feet, and might see a flash in the hall, as he quick steps it to the bathroom. urination. more patters—this time to marty's side of the bed. then you hear one word in a very business like tone: cuddle. with this marty's arm raises the covers like batman might swoosh his cape and anthony lithely slides into the warmth of her space and the covers drop, engulfing him. this is followed by three to ten minutes of silence which is broken, always, by the same question: is it a computer morning. computer mornings are weekend mornings where the kids get a few hours of computer to start the day.

on the first day marty was away anthony woke, he went to the bathroom, then the empty bed, then came and found me.

ANTHONY
where's mom?

TROY
at work. remember she's going to be working for a few weeks.

ANTHONY
but what about my cuddle?

TROY
oh. i can do your cuddles while mom's away.

ANTHONY
but you don't know how.

TROY
i'm sure they won't be as good but maybe you can teach me.

ANTHONY
now i'm doing nuthin'! and i'm not going to school!

with this declaration anthony turned and ran back to his room, climbed his ladder and cried for the next ninety minutes. although to say he cried at the news is like saying i was merely disappointed when i re-injured my knee. what he really did was screamed for a full hour and a half that we wanted his mommy. bella, alex and i quietly ate breakfast to this upstairs tirade. as i told bella and alex to suit up to go, alex asked me what i was going to do about anthony. i answered honestly that i didn't know.

i climbed the stairs and entered his room. he repeated his missive that he wasn't going to school. i told him he had to. it was the only choice. no one was going to be home. he said he didn't care. i said i wished i could leave him but i just couldn't. it wasn't safe. he pleadingly said he'd lock the door and not answer it, no matter what. i told him i wished that was enough but it wasn't. he was just too young and he had to go to school. when he said no again i had to pull out the big gun, the one thing for which anthony seems to have no defense: 1-2-3. immediately after i said the single word "one" anthony yelled, "okay stupid head, i'm coming." and he did. he immediately came down the ladder descended the stairs, headed toward the kitchen but i stopped him saying he missed breakfast and now there was no time. without protest he sat down and i put his shoes on. he put his coat and backpack on and headed towards the car without breakfast and still in pajamas.

he sulked on the way to bella and alex's school. he sulked after their drop off and on the way to his school. when we pulled up he got out of the car still fully under protest and began a slow walk into the building. just as we started i saw anthony's best friend grady get out of his car. i called hello to him and when he saw us he yelled a gigantic, arms-in-the-air, ANTHONY!!! he then charged towards us and ripped his coat open showing a large scooby doo shirt. he said his mom let him get one just like the one he gave anthony for his birthday. astonished anthony unzipped his coat to show his scooby shirt and the boys happily marched into school arm-in-arm.

that proved to be the turning point for anthony and i had no more problems after that. in my second week i was heard to say things like "did you get your milk out of the freezer and put it in your lunchbag" and "don't put your shoes there because you won't remember them in the morning." which is really good news because after marty did her three week stint filling in, the school offered her the job, full-time, starting next year ... (pause) ... and, she accepted.

a relative recently experienced a cardiac event which resulted in a stint being installed near his heart and an honest talking to from a doctor about his lifestyle. at rehab, he asked about success rates for this particular procedure and recovery. the candid answer: over half the people who sat in his chair with his diagnosis were dead within a year. in the subsequent weeks he quit smoking, dramatically changed his diet (losing 25 pounds in less than two months), and exercised with a religious dedication. marty asked how hard it was to make so many lifestyle changes at once, he replied that it wasn't hard at all. in fact every decision proved quite simple, "if i eat pizza, i die. if i don't exercise, i die. if i do any of the things i did before, i die. so no it's not hard. it's not hard at all. it's most easy."

i have a spring cold. i caught this one from anthony. upon getting up in the morning and realizing i was fully sick, i said bye to the kids and then let my office know i'd be out for the day. i then fell back into bed and didn't wake until 2pm when marty and anthony came home. it was a beautiful day so i moved out to the porch to get some fresh air. in time, marty had to go get bella and alex from school. anthony didn't want to go so stayed with me. as soon as marty biked away anthony came up to me and asked if i would read to him. i said not today. he asked if i would play with him. i said no again. he asked why not. i told him it was because i wasn't feeling well and needed to rest. i said he'd have to go find something he could do by himself like play in the backyard or ride his bike. he proceeded to make a booby trap for robbers in front of our house with a ball of twine while i sat on the front porch with my eyes closed, occasionally coughing. after one of the rounds of coughing, anthony came up on the porch.

ANTHONY
i just heard you cough and then suck snot in your nose. that is what i do so do we have the same kind of sick?

TROY
yes. i think we do. i think i caught my cold from you.

ANTHONY
then i don't understand why we can't play together if we have the same kind of sick.

TROY
because i still don't feel well.

ANTHONY
but i'm still sick.
(here he makes a fake cough followed by a tiny snort of his nose)
see. and i'm playin'.

i have a couple of friends who give me nudges like this to coerce me into things i'm not up for. i'm far from thrilled to see my children (esp my five year old) prodding me similarly. i now don't know if the problem lies with me or them.

i'm sick. i'm convinced this and half of my illnesses ¹ can be tied back to a hand-shake i made with a person who i heard say, to someone else, moments later that they were finally coming over something. thanks.

while i love the cordial and storied tradition of the handshake, i think i've decided i'm done with them. as for how i'll dodge an outstretched hand i'll simply confess that one of my children is home sick and they don't want anything to do with the microbes that have pitched tents in my little humans. i figure that's like two slots below circling my office in a red CONTAGION tape.

oddly, i think hugs are still ok so don't by surprised if you suddenly find me all up in your business.

¹ the other half can surely be tied to surprise, wet, sloppy zerburts from kids with mucus plugs filling their nostrils or them taking pulls off my drink before i realize i'm sharing my cup with a plague victim.

to continue health week here at dearmitt dot com, i have another morsel to share. i'm always listening out for people who have personal experience and insights about prostate matters. this is a dark tunnel all men who live long enough will one day be ushered into, and there seems to be a bit of flux in the knowledge at hand.

after telling my new hair guy, jerry, about my pending knee work i asked if he ever had any surgeries. dismissively he said, "nah. i just had my prostate out a few years back." as the word 'prostate' got floated out there, the guy in my head responsible for watching for things i care about gave my brain a hard nudge and told it, sharply, to get off its ass. i was ravenous. how old was he when it started? how was it detected? how hard were the decisions? what was the aftermath? i'm most interested in that last question as i hear conflicting things about periods and levels of recovery.

many of jerry's (and yes, i've noted that my new hair guy's name is a rhymer (how anfer would say it) with the infamous and ever-missed larry) stories begin, "well, i have this customer who is a fill in the needed occupation so i asked him...". when his prostate journey began, one of his customers told him to go check out this new facility in the county. the customer described it as not much more than a prostate chop shop. it's all they did, and per jerry, they did a lot of it. from the crack of dawn to the dip of dusk, this well-oiled, or perhaps vaselined, operation worked until their buckets spilled over with the fouled or suspect organs. what was special about this place was they used these fancy new machines, called a da vinci machine, designed to do nothing but cull prostates from paying customers. the machine looks like a five legged spider, hovers over a sleeping patient and is controlled by a doc sitting twenty feet away. when people who have used this new system compare notes with people who used old-school methods, it is a hands down drubbing (in favor of the inventor's namesake).

the mechanized procedure is more officially termed a da vinci prostatectomy (more). when i told marty about it, she explained the reason it may do better than than conventional means is that when a human works on you, they have to make room for their hands to manuever so end up disrupting and thus damaging a lot more healthy tissue than the robotic arms which could burrow through the sensitive tissue, excise the organ and back out leaving nary a trace of its adventure. as my hair guy said, he had friends who were hospitalized for ten days and still ginger after six weeks from the traditional method, and he, my hair guy, was in and out in thirty six hours and back cutting hair in two weeks (albeit with the occasional break).

i asked jerry for any final advice he'd give to someone with this in their future. at this question he lowered his scissors, moved into my view, and with animated hand gestures told of another patient who asked the same question weeks before getting the procedure. jerry said, "i told him one thing ... get a bucket." he elaborated that after the procedure they catheterize you (serious bitch he adds) and give you this bag to carry around. he said he tried using the velco calf connectors and even wearing cargo-pocketed pants but in the end just ended up going into the basement and grabbing a bucket, throwing the always getting fuller bag in and just plodded around the house carrying his handled-bucket with him. unless he had to go out in public, which he wasn't in much mood for, he didn't mess with any of those ill-conceived antics. regarding what his buddy thought of his advice. since then any of his friends who say they're getting the prostate business, shortly before their procedure he appears before their door and gives them a gift: a shiny new bucket with a christmas bow on it.

i think my reason for talking so much about health the last few days (mon, tue) is i had knee surgery yesterday. same knee as before but a far less intense procedure. i tweaked it playing tennis about a month back. the swelling and discomfort were enough to send me back to my knee guy. after an exam, x-ray, and mri, they discovered a sizable loose-body of cartilage floating around. this whimsical shard was the source of much of my discomfort as it repeatedly parked itself in places the rest of my knee did not expect such a particle to be double-parked (inconsiderate ass that it, the floater, is).

during the pre-op prep and before they allowed marty back to wait with me, the nurse said, "i'm required by law to ask you this: do you have a safe place to go home to after you are discharged?" a crazed array of images—some of bella, some of anthony, some of marty, and NONE of aleo—ran through my head. this was the only answer i paused on. in fact i paused so long, the woman looked away from the computer screen to glance at me, mildly annoyed. i smiled and said, no i had a lovely and colorful home to return to.

later, after marty joined me, the anaesthesia guy explained the "cocktail" he had planned. one of the courses included what he called an "animal-grade amnesia" solution which would make me forget anything that happened after he administered it and before he knocked me out. after he left, marty and i debated if he really used the term animal-grade or if he said something else that just sounded like "animal-grade".

when they announced it was time, marty gave me a kiss, said she loved me and asked me not to die. as my bed made its wheeled journey towards the operating room, i had the following conversation with the anaesthesia guy who was pushing the bed and positioned just behind me, out of sight:

TROY
they knocked me out sooner last time and i didn't remember going down this hall.

ANAESTHESIA GUY
nah, it's the same. you will forget this little trip when you wake up.

TROY
i won't forget. i'm remembering it right now.

ANAESTHESIA GUY (jokingly)
it's smart to not believe the professional who does this everyday.

TROY
wait. earlier did you say you were going to give me an animal grade amnesiac?

ANAESTHESIA GUY
i did.

TROY
and that's why i won't remember?

ANAESTHESIA GUY
yes.

TROY
my wife didn't believe that's what you said.

ANAESTHESIA GUY
i seem to be batting a thousand in your house.

TROY
for the record, i believed you about the animal grade amnesia-juice.

ANAESTHESIA GUY
but not the memory stuff.

TROY
uhh. yeah.

ANAESTHESIA GUY
i'd recommend trusting the guy with his fingers on the plungers.

while i do want to believe him, i obviously remembered this exchange down the hallway as it is eight hours later and i'm typing it up for your enjoyment. although i will say the guy put me out moments after that exchange. now talk about your cherry job perks, being able to silence anyone you find irksome due to their disagreeing personalities.

as i write this, the jaggy bit of flotsam is no longer flitting about my knee joint. and after a bit of rest i'm back to rehab then off to be fitted for a fancy new-age leg brace meant to reduce friction-based injuries from impact or cut-based activities. you'll note, the super-doc nabbed the floater out but didn't do anything about the hole it had occupied. we're going to try the brace but are possibly in for something a touch more intense down the line (e.g. cartilage grafts or, get this, a fitted cadaver plug).

another detail for the record, leading up to my procedure three years ago, my biggest worry was dying during the procedure. as i hadn't been under full anaesthesia for twenty years, i feared i may prove allergic to what are surely new medications or possibly i would learn some part of my body (e.g. heart, lungs) was not what it once was and one of them might go sideways in some unexpected manner. obviously, none of the scenarios occurred. i didn't even suffer from the threat of post-operative puking which they warned us about (and as you would expect, i warned them that they were toying with a thirty year vomit-free run). this time, my largest anxiety before they put my down was peeing during the procedure ... or worse. while some folks look to replace disproven irrational/paranoid arguments with healthier notions, i view the irrational medium as something to be specialized in, surprising any still willing to listen with my unprecedented ability to swap paranoid and silly beliefs with even more confused and sad ones. call it a hobby of sorts.

i'd be remiss to not name the largest victim of this injury. and it is surprisingly not marty. while she obviously shoulders a tremendous uptick in work and hassle, the biggest loser this time is my ski mancation with bookguy. and the most scandalous part of it all is weeks before last year's outing, bookguy took a tumble on his bike (surely doing something ill-advised) and nixed our 2011 boondoogle. this means we're now in a two year funk due to our weekend-warrior mentalities. after this year's news broke, we made a gentleman's agreement to embargo ourselves from taxing physical endeavors in the months leading up to our ski date. because while age may not make for more resilient bodies, it should at least produce minds that are, if nothing else, significantly wiser. if we can't learn to pick that meat from the bone, aging is sure to be an arduous and unforgiving bitch.

( please note, this post was crafted under the influence of the miracle drug vicodan to which any spikes in mis-spellings, confusion or creativity may be attributed. )

in re-reading last week's deepak breakdown, i fear i may have not been entirely fair in my review. while it is true that he did not spoon-feed me answers to the questions he initially posed, his book still contained its share of pulpy goodness. my favorite mouthful (and i'm paraphrasing):


i've bumped into that very problem a great many times over the years. and here's one i didn't get from deepak but i've leaned on plenty over the last ten years:


i don't know who to credit for that one as i've read it, or some semblance of it, in many different places. i've even had marty remind me of the point a time or two as well.

yesterday i had a dental cleaning at 9am and my annual physical at 11am. i was for sure poked and prodded enough for two tuesday mornings.

for those wondering if the one-way sign staked by my rectum is still standing, it is. the streak survives, assuredly thanks to an uber-low psa count in my last blood work. although, my doc hinted that i should prepare myself because the sign's days are numbered. he even had the audacity to say the c-word ... colonoscopy ... which definitely makes a gloved pointer finger seem quite innocuous. and once you get into colonoscopy country i think the DO NOT ENTER sign gets replaced with a VISITORS WELCOME sign and tour bus parking lines painted around the entrance.

so ... rectal researchers (e.g. invaders, divers, sightseers, medical enthusiasts) of the world, i implore you to get your collective act together because it looks like you've got two, maybe three years to improve your diagnostic weapons to achieve my dream of you being able to tell me the state of my prostrate and rectal cavity (nice!) from the other side of the room ... and while i still have my pants on. as for the colonoscopy, well they use big drugs for that. they might just need to tackle me at work and start the drip there.

i'd be willing to pay extra for that.

marty's stay home from school policy is this:

if you can't produce blood or puke, you are going to school. if you just think you're going to puke, it doesn't count and you are going to school. if you puke while at school, then you can come home.

as for the blood, i'm pretty sure you only get to stay home while you're bleeding. once it is cauterized or the hemorrhaging relents, grab your backpack. you'll be met at the door.

i seem to recall the rule used to state that if there wasn't blood, puke, or poop (ed. like involuntary poop), you were going to school. i also recall bella looking a little too reflective about the poop option one day and that is how it got dropped from the rotation. hell, i know grown men who'd crap their pants for a day off work. and i got five bucks that says if bella did gravy her drawers to stay home, she'd be so excited, taking a shower wouldn't even be the first thing on her list of things to do with the free day.

i don't experience gradations of illness. meaning, i don't go from being healthy to not so well to under the weather to sick to deathly ill. i go from fine to not fine. those are my two settings. what? you expect me to be beautiful and hearty? that's a rare combination my friend.

this latest illness lasted almost exactly 48-hours. i know because i sat down at my desk sunday night at 9pm to check my mail for the day and felt fine. at 10pm when i rose, i should have gone to my bike to exercise but instead i fell into bed where marty was reading. i was fast asleep within five minutes (aided by a super-awesome marty back-scratch). in the morning i was wrecked. then tuesday night, i sat at my desk at 9pm feeling dismal. at 10pm instead of moving to my bed as i feared i would need to, i passed it up and went to my bike and had my 10pm spin. put me back in coach.

below i'm posting the picture i planned on posting sunday night. but it's better here because i can give you a larger version of the photo. this was from a few weekends back when the family went paddle-boating. this is one of the several neat city features that is within biking distance of our home. although this particular activity is slightly brutal given the fact that you bike a couple miles to the place, then you paddle a bunch of humans around a couple of miles around a network of ponds, then you're back on the bike peddling the couple of miles back home. on this particular day bella and alex were saying they wanted to get two boats instead of one. marty thought it was an ok idea. something told me i was going to get hosed in the deal. i told the kids we could get two boats but they each had to peddle their share and if they didn't, we were turning around. they agreed. as you can see by this photo, marty scored both of our peddle-abled children and i got stuck with the guy who shoves his mucus coated finger up my nose when i'm sleeping. you don't have to spend much time with three year olds to know they intentionally build them this adorable. none would survive otherwise.

that said, it turns out my troy-getting-hosed spidey sense is working just fine.

before having children i was a master of avoiding sick people. back then you most often had to skirt those who felt their role to their company was so vital that they had to come into the office even if grotesquely ill. the result was always the same. the self-important person pushed their unimportant widgets around the corporate warehouse infecting four people through their efforts. it was against these folks that i was masterful in avoiding the funk. first off i was known for casting a super-awesome scowl at bloodshot-eyed, blotchy-skinned, red-nosed people as they stumbled into my world looking like they should be in a housecoat and slippers and confined to quarters. one sneeze in my space and i would announce the meeting/visit/cube-call over.

there was incentive. at this company, every six months you went without missing a day of work, you earned a free vacation day. on the good side, this kept people from erroneously burning through their sick days. on the bad side, it encouraged people to come in sick so they wouldn't lose their free day. my fix to this minor problem would have been posting someone at the door who doesn't let any sick-looking people in. if it were my company, i'd also turn away dour looking people. this is a healthy and happy place. if you aren't those, you aren't welcome.

all of this is to say that all of the tricks and ploys and defenses i learned against adults are entirely useless against children who live with you. here you may wake up with a three year old on your chest. they're smiling. the have gelatinous plug of mucus blocking their nose and are pushing a slime covered finger into your own nose wondering why it is so clean and dry and beautiful unlike their own. little do they know that now it will soon be like theirs and when it is their funk has passed and they just want to play and read and rough-house making the reversal of fortunes all the more unjust.

the loss of a child's first tooth is a remarkable and special milestone to be celebrated. each and every tooth after that first one is a medieval and grotesque affair. alex went to school two days ago without a loose tooth in his head. he came home with one rattling around a tiny plastic treasure chest the school nurse gives to kids for lost teeth.

long ago, many years before marty and i had kids, she and i hosted a sleepover for some nieces and nephews. one of the girls complained of a loose tooth at the dinner table. i looked at it and told her i thought it looked fine. she kept saying it was terribly loose. i went as far as pushing on it with my own pointer finger and reported that the tooth was fine, solid and healthy. before dinner was over the girl, with great effort and conviction, had extracted this targeted tooth. she bled out of her mouth for better than an hour and we just kept stuffing replacement paper towels in there after she'd spit a blood soaked one into the kitchen garbage can. i was starting to fear that the girl was going to bleed to death in the night and i told her if it didn't stop hemorrhaging before we went to bed, i was making her father come pick her up. the gaping hole, with no new tooth anywhere in sight, somehow stopped bleeding on its own. the next day, for all i know i was sending the child home with an adult tooth in the linty front pocket of her blue jeans.

again, it's a medieval matter.