"you're not wanted...on this island!"


an open letter to mr. bobby petrino:


dear mr. petrino, 

first off, how's the neck, man? and the road rash that was all over your face? i've dreamed of having a motorcycle for several years, now, but the picture of your neck in that brace and that road rash, man, it gives me pause. road rash seems like a pretty gnarly injury, like an indian sunburn times a million. it seems like it would be really terrible to skid across the pavement. on your face. just sayin'. 

i digress. 

you don't know me. my name is kevin o'kelley. i used to be a fan of yours. for a hot minute back in 2007, you took the reins of my atlanta falcons. your offensive mind seemed like a good fit to turn one of my favorite football players of all time, mike vick, into a complete quarterback. unfortunately for you, before you were even able to play with your new toy, news emerged that starship was all about fightin' some dogs back home, and so began what falcons fans now refer to as "the lost season". you were forced to start joey harrington at quarterback. joey harrington was terrible at playing quarterback. you lost a lot of games and mid-december, you bolted us for a more stable gig at the university of arkansas. i don't really blame you. i didn't pay any attention to the falcons while joey harrington was the quarterback either. then again, i wasn't on the payroll. then again, you let your players know of your decision by leaving laminated notes in their lockers. that was kind of a douche move, man. but you know all this. 

moving on, congrats on all your success at arkansas. you never really recruited defense or bothered coaching defense, but your offense was spectacular. so spectacular, in fact, that you won many more games than you lost even though you didn't really recruit defense or coach defense. you were set to have a really special season in 2012, but then that whole motorcycle thing happened. again, i'm really sorry about that road rash. that whole motorcycle thing brought to light that you had been having an affair and hired your mistress on at the university and may have expensed a $20,000 gift to her and all sorts of other soap opera-y stuff. because you misled your employers, they let you go, man. but you know all of this. 

fast forward to now and there are openings all over the sec that your name's been attached to. one of those openings is auburn, a school near and dear to me in that they are the most hated rival of my favorite professional college football team, the alabama crimson tide. 

i'm worried for you, man. in the last few days since auburn relieved noted awesome guy, gene chizik, from his duties as the football overlord in auburn, your name is being dragged through the mud like nobody's business. people in alabama talk a lot about the lord and the bible and sweet baby jesus' eternal gift of salvation, but we are not a forgiving bunch. even if we say that we forgive, we don't really forget. we hold grudges like motherfuckers, even if they aren't our grudges to hold. i'm telling you, man. to be so all about the bible as we say we are and quote all the time, we're a scary bunch. 

the prevailing sentiment amongst our god fearing state is that you are a scumbag. you have a lot of "baggage". you like "women" too much. you "lie". you are much more of a "problem" than you are worth. 

word on the street is that you are going to interview for the auburn job. 

i say turn away, man. i repeat, "you're not wanted...on this island." 

i know what you are thinking, bobby. i know it. 

you are thinking that you've learned your lesson. you realize the mistakes you've made are heinous, disrespectful towards your wife, your loved ones, and the university of arkansas. all you are thinking is that you would love one more last chance. to prove your naysayers wrong. to prove that a bad decision (or eight)  does not a bad man make. and i get it, bobby. i do. i'm a scumbag, too. sweet baby jesus knows how many times i've fucked up, and no one important has banned me from their life yet. 

i want you to have another chance bobby. i think you deserve it. i think everyone does. but alabama isn't everybody, man. just between you and me, it scares me here sometimes. the bible tells this really incredible story of a god that unconditionally loves all of his creation. in this state, there is no such thing as unconditional love. there are always conditions. 

you may be thinking that, in spite of my worries for you, you're the man for this auburn job. honestly, i don't disagree with you. but be warned, bobby. lots and lots of people, even auburn people, already really don't like you. they think you're damaged goods, man. they are okay if you work again. they just don't want you to work here. 

...

i know, bobby. i know. you've never had any problems with the ncaa. that seems important, especially when the previous football overlord at auburn had to provide semi-permanent office space for folks that were looking into all sorts of shenanigans with his program. it doesn't matter, bobby. you lied, man. you cheated on your wife. that's all that matters. 

...

i know, bobby. i know. you think you could beat alabama within three years and have auburn back on the national map sooner than the majority in this state could correctly spell "adultery". i don't think it matters, man. they don't want you. you're scum to them, man. you'll always be that joker of a guy in a neck brace with road rash all over his face. 

i'm rooting for you, though. i want you to to compete for this job. i want you to get it. i want you to win at auburn and win big, because alabama beating a competitive auburn is more much satisfying than beating down a shell of what auburn used to be football team.

if you are offered this job, bobby, again, don't say i didn't warn you. 

"you're not wanted...on this island."  

sincerely, 

kevin

please don't go shopping at 3:00 am friday


the above picture has been making the rounds on facebook this week. it's dramatic, sure, but it's on point, right?

my girls have crafted their christmas lists for the most part already. most of their wants are gadget-y, relatively expensive stuff. hannah wants an ipod touch. caroline wants a meep, something akin to a tablet for children i think. don't tell 'em before the big day, but they are going to get what they want, at least those two big prizes, because, why not? they want them. as parents, we can afford them. they are good kids. they deserve awesome christmases. right?

well, sure they do.

but therein lies the crux.

the kids on the left hand side of the pointed picture above, they deserve to have awesome christmases, too. and they ain't gonna get it.

so, i close my eyes.

click my heels.

"there's no place like home." "there's no place like home." "there's no place like home."

bam.

i'm back. thank god.

back in kansas the united states of commercialism capitalism.

6 BILLION dollars. that was the rounded off figure that's been widely reported as being spent by the two parties competing for the office of president.

define necessity.

the american research group predicts the average american will spend about $854 dollars for gifts this year. in 2010, shoppertrak estimates over 10 BILLION dollars was spent on black friday alone. according to comscore, inc., christmas shopping in 2011 reached upwards and over the 35 BILLION dollar mark, up 15 percent from the previous year.

define necessity.

hello, my name is kevin. i'm a consumer.

i'm part of the problem. sarah is. my friends are. we all are.

our grandparents' sentiment of wanting their children to have a better life and better chances than they did has evolved and mutated into an ugly keeping up with the jones' approach to life.

we have felt this since moving to trussville.

hannah began her primary education at chalkville. the classes were more diverse, and by diverse i mean that hannah was in the minority. the degree of affluence was lower. kids didn't bring techno-shit to school for the most part.

that's not the case at paine. and make no mistake, we love paine. both the intermediate and primary schools have been amazing for hannah and caroline, but i worry we are tipping them to an expectation level that is skewing their view of the world in which we live. every classroom is computer-literate. the classrooms are all fitted with up to date technology and those benefits are worked into the child's education. it's a different beast. i don't know, necessarily, that it's better, but i already feel like the girls will be farther ahead in a lot of ways than if they were somewhere with shallower pockets.

define necessity.

is it being able to bring a kindle to class so you can read your textbooks online? is it being jealous as an eight year old when your contemporaries are carrying around kiddie vera bradley purses. is it neither? is it both?

all this bullshit talk about our economy, man.

all this bullshit talk about obama turning us into socialists.

all this bullshit talk about conditional giving. "i don't mind helping people, just so long as they can't help themselves."

ugh.

it makes me sick, man. sick.

maybe it's just me, but each time i hear something like that, what i really hear is, "i am fine right now. don't bother me with all your fancy stats about poverty and whatnot. if you'll excuse me, i am going to go down the hall to the starbucks... in the middle of my church.

define necessity.

we are good at luxury. and by we i mean i. i don't want to give up my falcons football games. i want fancy ipads and clever t-shirts and other things that i don't have that i don't really need. i want a phablet because the one in lebron's commercial looks awesome.

my name is kevin, and i am sick. i'm a consumer. i need your help.

please don't go shopping at 300 in the morning on friday. stay home. with your family. visit a friend. go play outside. do something real. something that'll stick to your spiritual bones. something...simple.

hang on to some of that cash. give it to a charity. send it oversees to a child you'll never see.

help me.

help you.

you go talk to your friends, talk to my friends, talk to me.

define necessity.

define a good christmas. give your loved ones something fun or nice or some thing they would never get for themselves. then stop.

go see a movie together.

just please don't go shopping at 300 in the morning on friday.

help you.

help me.

jesus is coming, y'all

"he's climbing in yo windows. he's snatchin' yo people up, tryin' to rape 'em. so, y'all need to hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide yo husband 'cause they rapin' err'body out here."


in case you were busy hiding under a rock or praying for our country, you missed the biggest meltdown i've seen on facebook since cam newton ripped alabama's heart out two seasons ago.

on tuesday, in spite of obvious evidence that our country probably needs more than two parties to choose from when electing our commander-in-chief, we had an election, verily, between two men. the entire country was aware of the two possible outcomes. either the incumbent would win and control the world for another four years, or his opponent would win and take his shot in the box to win the world over and save humanity in less time than it takes a toddler to figure out how to write their name. no pressure.

you would imagine, with only two possible outcomes, rational people would have prepared themselves for both outcomes. happy if their guy won. disappointed if their guy lost, get up, go to work the next morning, all the same.

but you would be wrong.

gloriously wrong.

like, mind-blowingly, orgasm-ly wrong.

on social media and the cable news networks at about 1130 pm eastern standard time, shit got real.

obama was declared the winner.

the loser?

america?

the real winner?

me. and you. and every other human that likes to mix it up on facebook.

(names removed to protect the innocent)

"WELCOME TO THE SOCIALIST STATES OF AMERICA."

"FUCK THIS SHIT. I'M GOING TO GET MY FOOD STAMPS. WHO'S WITH ME?"

"PLEASE, LOVING, HOLY CHRISTIANS REPUBLICANS OF THE WORLD. PRAY FOR OUR FUTURE."

"I AM SCARED. NO, REALLY. I AM LITERALLY PEEING MY PANTS RIGHT NOW. I DON'T KNOW WHY, BUT I KNOW OBAMA IS TO BLAME."

"SWEET BABY JESUS. COME TAKE ME NOW. I AM READY TO SEE YOU (and my hamster, cocoa, that passed away last year)!!!"

"LEVITICUS THIS!"

"PAUL THAT!"

"wait, colorado passed what?"

"HAVE FUN KILLING ALL THOSE BABIES, OBAMA."

"ALL HOMOSEXUALS ARE COMING TO SEX ON YOU. RIGHT. NOW. ALL OF THEM."

and so on. and so forth. and so on. and so forth.

behind seeing the birth of my three children, had i been off on wednesday, it may have been the greatest day of my life.

people shit on facebook all the time, but if it is not a glorious human experiment, i don't know what is.

facebook and twitter and tumblr and reddit and name that social media outlet give humans the liquid courage to, if nothing more, speak their mind in an honest way that they often wouldn't in face to face interactions.

sarah and others have asked themselves why they read comment boards after an interesting article. if you make a habit of it, you often feel like you have to shower the smog of humanity off of you before heading out for the rest of your day. but there is goodness in facebook. and on those boards. because you get one of two types of people. trolls, there just to stir the shit, worthwhile in their own minute way, and honest people.

in general, most of our face to face encounters are short and sweet, with very little depth. we are all too busy to talk to all 367 facebook friends several times a year and look through picture-books of their kids and family, find out where they are working, find out what they like and don't like, find out what grinds their gears. spend a few hours online, though, and you can find out a lot about a person. at the very least, you find out what they want you to know, which, in and of itself, is telling.

wednesday, man. you found out a LOT about a lot of people. through what they posted. through their comments. through their passive aggressive retweets and "likes". if there was a footprint of a person anywhere on wednesday, you knew if they were for your team or not.

my team won the election, but, wow, did the other side win the next term in the land of dramatic overreaction-ville.

not only were the above all caps quotes (or some sentiment thereof) shouted from the mountaintops, but some folks were so forlorn they swore off social media altogether. their spirits were so broken down by what they thought would happen or should happen, it was just too much.

there have been continuations of that theme as the week has tip-toed forward, but nothing as grandiose as the chicken little act that hit the fan wednesday.

if it all wasn't so incredibly awesome, one might be ashamed. i am not ashamed. i am only disappointed i couldn't micro-blog the entire experience from my couch.

i suppose cooler heads will prevail. maybe we'll all learn to get along and not be so surprised at the result of an event that fivethirtyeight.com has had pegged for weeks and weeks and weeks, because, you know, he does math. but nate silver isn't asked to make the rounds at fox news. fox news bases most of their forecasting on the obese gut feelings of dick morris and karl rove.

while those guys finish wiping the shards of their remains off the fox news floor, i'll be anxiously awaiting republican jesus and hope he doesn't throw poop on me while he judges me to be left behind.

until then, seriously, chill the fuck out, people.

my bullshit is going to miss your bullshit


for weeks, i've been keeping a "hit list" in my head. i'm not usually prone to violence, so the term doesn't properly apply, but the idea has been fairly straightforward. keep a fluid list in my head of the folks and "friends" on my social networks that make the least amount of sense or make the most idiotic comments regarding today's election. when i head to the polls today, i will think of that list, i will reflect on it one last time, and will take immense joy in casting my vote for barack obama and knowing that i've canceled out some very special vocal supporter of the other guy. i'll leave the voting booth happy and accomplished, and i'll head home to watch the returns come in and hopefully celebrate another four years with a president that seems genuinely interested in improving the lives of the poor, in making the environment and the future of the planet more livable, in creating a country where legal equality applies to all persons and all genders, no matter your sexual preference, and a president interested in making sure everyone in the country has access to health insurance.

you can come here or to my facebook timeline and debate me on my above four qualifiers (in fact, i wish you would), but that is why i am voting again for our current president, and that is why i've been keeping my hit list.

let's take a look at my four main (not only) reasons to vote obama, and i want to document here some of the bullshit i've digested so the girls will at some point know and understand how their daddy may have come to his decision.

warning: there will be no scripture ripping in the following four bullet points.

poor people - listen, man. i guess i kind of get it. we are only voting our experience. and some of us have never lived in trailer parks or gone without or had kids throw rocks at you when you got off the school bus because you were wearing shoes from wal-mart. i have. and all three of those things sucked. being a poor kid, living in a fucking small apartment and a fucking trailer sucked. but here's the thing, man. i didn't have shit to do with it. and that's the point that all of these assholes that are telling people to "get back to work, you lazy slut!" are missing. my mom worked fucking hard. so hard, in fact, it drove her into depression. she worked hard, kept terrible dudes around that contributed to the household income, made sure we had food to eat and clothes to wear and some cool shit to play with, but it didn't matter. she didn't do anything wrong. and i and my brother certainly didn't do anything to end up with divorced parents or to live in a trailer with a single to remarried to single to remarried (etc.) mom. it just fucking happens that way. to kids for sure, but to adults, alike. shit happens. life happens. jobs are lost. pay goes down. shit happens again. life happens. death happens. and people find themselves in the bottom of some barrel with no ladder to get out. and it happened to us. you know what, though? who the fuck gives a shit? it made me who i am today, which is a lot tougher than these spineless assholes that are "sick and tired of giving their money to people that don't deserve it" or think bullshitted ideas like "if you are poor enough to be on food stamps, you shouldn't have an iphone."

man, fuck you and fuck you.

cause here's the fucking rub. as "bad" as i had it growing it, i didn't even know what bad fucking was until i grew up and made the intentional decision to work in roebuck. man, people in roebuck and east lake and center point, some of these folks have it fucking bad. the economy and the businesses in the community have run off and left them. it's all they can do to find money for some fast food or some shitty ass dog food for that one thing on this planet, their pet, that they can fool themselves into believing gives a shit about them. and yeah, man, some of them live in government housing. and yeah, man, some of them have food stamps.

but you know who has it worse? the fucking children in those families that didn't have shit to do with their parents' situation. and they need those food stamps. they need that ps3 if they can get it so they aren't constantly reminded how shit-tastic their life is. and they need the rest of the country to wake the fuck up and figure out a solution more fucking detail-oriented than "we are going to put this country back to work."

the other guy, in so many words, said behind closed doors that 47% of the country are slackers. he didn't address that 47 percent's kids. and the fact of the matter is, even though i technically belong to the 53% of the country that he worries about, the 47% is where i come from, and it's who i'll always care about the most.

environment - "president obama promised to stop the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. (dramatic pause, hold eat shit look, wait for laughter and applause from the base)"

holy. god. damn.

a joke at the expense of the president and the planet.

listen, i am no climate scientist. i am not going to claim to be one here, but there are such people, and they seem to be worried the fuck out about the direction the planet is heading. that kind of freaks me out. i've read that around TEN PERCENT of the world's population live at elevations of less than 10 meters above sea level.

the impact of frankenstorm last week along the east coast put a quick halt to this type of rhetorical jokey-joke, but the issue was brought to light again. i am not going to go so far as to say that the other guy hates the planet. i don't think that's the case.

but the president and his policies have shown intentional support towards healing this planet. i hope some of my money is trickling into that effort, too, even if there are still assholes out there that don't believe it's a concern.

equality - pay equality for women. same sex marriage equality. excuse me once again while i allow my tongue to spit hot fire. WHY THE MISERABLE FUCK ARE WE STILL HAVING TO TALK ABOUT THIS SHIT???

"but the bible says this..."
"...and the bible says that..."
"don't forget that one other time when the bible said women suck more than men..."

oh. my. fucking. god.

i promised no scripture ripping, but i will add the following comment that has been made hundreds of times but keeps going in some people's ear and out the other. jesus doesn't mention homosexuality. he talks a whole lot about a whole lot of stuff. not this. stop backing up your bigotry with misinformation.

gay marriage is not going to ruin your marriage.

you are going to ruin your marriage. because you and me??? we are assholes. selfish assholes ruin marriages, not sexual preference. or god.

universal health care - raise your hand if you know an asshole that doesn't think this is what every human should be afforded, let alone every american.

(raises hand)

"i don't want the dadgum government telling me i have to have insurance. i'll smoke and kill myself if i goddam well please." 
"it'll kill small businesses" 
"i don't like black people."
"i like my insurance the way it is now."

mind you, these are examples of some of the more intelligent discourse i've observed over the last many weeks when people are trashing the affordable care act.

it's one of the many things about the election cycle that i am happy to say i will never understand. you may not agree with every single thing contained in the bill (but let's be fucking honest, all you know about it is that it happened because of obama and you hate black people him.), but if you stand in opposition of the idea, itself, and think you have health coverage because you've done something mighty and different than the folks that cannot currently afford it, well, in my opinion, you should be ashamed.

alabama is going to vote "yes" on amendment six today, because there are a lot of ignorant, self-righteous assholes in alabama. i'm an ignorant asshole, but i'll be voting no.

in about twelve hours, we'll know the results. we'll either continue forward or we'll begin bracing for a new direction...again.

we talked in limbo sunday and the opinion was shared and agreed on that many of us are "ready for this to be over", all the talk, the debate, the back and forth, the arguing, the name calling. and, honestly, i don't disagree. something is seriously off-putting about a twelve month (or longer) election cycle. i want our president to be able to work and not have to defend his turf for weeks and weeks and weeks, regardless of their political affiliation. and you want to talk about being fucked up? we talk about the poor and how much need there is in this country, and we just spent over 6 BILLION dollars in campaign funds working up to this day. that's a whole lot of food stamps. that's a whole lot of waste.

for me, though? i am going to miss the bullshit. i am going to miss picking facebook fights with people that don't share my opinions. i love asking hard questions and having to defend where it is i stand on certain issues and certain moral standards. i am going to miss thinking that even one person might be enlightened by one of my crude comments. and i am going to miss being unfriended because of something i feel passionate about.

no matter, i suppose. i'll find other reasons to be unfriended. but i guaran-goddamn-tee you this. when i do call you an asshole or an idiot or something else that i'll later regret, it's going to be for one simple reason.

you are standing up for an idea instead a person.

that is why we fail.

that is why we will continue to fail.

if you are mad because you think people should "go to work" and don't deserve your tax money, that's a you problem.

if you are mad because you don't think gay people should have the right to marry or that women shouldn't get equal pay for equal work, that's a you problem.

if you don't believe in climate change and that we should be worried about it, holy shit, read a science book. and that's a you problem.

if you don't think humans should care for other humans' health and americans shouldn't pay for all americans' health care, that's a you problem. following that line of logic tells me that if i were not in a fortunate enough situation to have health coverage in 2009 and could not have have my cancerous kidney removed or if i were not still in a fortunate enough situation to have health coverage this year and be able to afford yet another surgery and the 2,000 dollars a month to pay for chemo, well, that line of logic tells me that you would be okay if i died. is that true? would you be okay if i died because i didn't have insurance and could not afford treatment? if so, fuck you. and that's a you problem.

i am going to be fine, as will you, if the other guy wins today. i'll make the best of it, and i hope you will, too.

i am going to miss the bullshit, though. it's where i grew up. it's where i came from. i can spot it a mile away.

stop putting words in jesus' mouth, y'all. if you are a christian, follow the words of christ. contextualize and understand the rest of the bible, but emphasize JESUS' message. love. love the poor. love your enemy. love.

don't stand up for ideas. ideas are a waste of fucking time, man.

stand up for people.

love.

people.

#obama2012

a blog for june


two months removed from my last post is ridiculous.

i am going to have to consider some social media maneuvering to make more time for HACAJAM soon. under twenty posts for the year isn't going to cut it, cancer or no cancer.

june, man.

our baby, baby, baby girl turned one on thursday of last week. as is customary, we got all the usual "we can't believe she's so big!" comments, all the "wow, she shouldn't be one already!" or "oh, how time flies." stuff. and i get it. if you don't spend every day with someone, time does seem to fly by. if you've only seen her on facebook or in person three or four times in the last twelve months, she probably looks like a mighty midget contrasted to that sweet, dark haired little newborn of last october.

but a year it absolutely has been, even longer than that if you are counting in cancer months.

you see, cancer months or, maybe more specifically, chemo months don't move in the same way normal months do. they move hella slow, so slow sometimes that each day feels like two or three, since i don't really sleep the same while i'm on the medicine either.

i have drifted in and out of reality in the last six months or so. some days i feel bad. some days i feel worse. i don't look much worse for the wear on the outside unless i am limping like an old person, so it feels pretty stupid to tell someone that asks how shitty the last few days have been. what's the point? it's not going to change the way i feel, and the person doing the asking isn't going to ask again if i waste more than 30 seconds of their time. most people have just stopped asking at this point. i don't blame them. i don't like remembering that i am on chemo. i am sure other folks around me would like to forget, too. it's a drag. and it's easier to just handle it by myself anyway. i've always been better at feeling sorry for kevin o'kelley versus others feeling sorry for me.

what would make the last six months even worse is if we had a terrible, no good, crying all the time baby in the house. the big girls have been a handful, each terrible and no good in their own perfect ways. most of time, we are fairly certain hannah and caroline hate each other. they just fight so much. maybe once a day, we'll get a glimpse into their care for each other. they'll share a toy or sit down and watch a show together and quietly be around each other. mostly, though, they just pick and scrap and and tease and tattle and make the other's life miserable. as any other parent(s) can attest, this back and forth and back and forth makes you hate your children at times. they become burdensome, and people look at you weird when you're fed up with them in public. i hate that, because i'm always fed up with them, but, really, they (the girls) don't know what real pain is. they don't know what chemo is doing to me. they don't care, so i can't guilt them into being nice to each other as much as i can just cry in front of them. that's the only thing that makes them pause. really, i should just pick them up from after school care crying and see if our afternoons were better that way.

yes, what would make the last six months even worse is if we had a terrible, no good, crying all the time baby in the house.

but, we don't.

we have june.

named after one of the sweetest and most patient people this universe has ever known, june has repaid us for the compliment.

june.

the sweetest baby we've ever had.

the sweet baby that smiles all the time.

that needs to be the center of everyone's attention, but, really, totally should because you are missing out on something fantastically cute if you aren't paying attention all the time.

the sweet baby with the best baby nod.

the sweet baby that just sleeps, sleeps, sleeps through the night, only to wake up, coo, and talk a little every once and again and then falls right back asleep.

the sweet baby that is always told how beautiful she is.

the sweet baby that is, of course, beautiful.

the sweet baby that never really fusses unless she's super hungry or super tired.

that june "twist"s.

that moves her arm up and down and around to the sound of music like she's moshing at a straight edge concert.

the sweet baby that loves her ice cream.

the sweet baby that is about to walk.

the sweet baby that is playful and bashful and and corny and hilarious all within a five minute burst of june.

let her smile at you and try not to have your heart melt.

the most perfect baby for maybe the most trying time of her parents' lives.

it's not that we think she's going to stay perfect. her older sisters will ruin her of that potential sooner rather than later, we are sure.

it's more that, when we couldn't afford to have another catastrophe in our house, june made sure that she wasn't going to pile on.

it's truly been one of the most perfect blessings of my life, in a year when i've had so much to complain about, that a newborn wasn't one of those things.

in a year when i've had so much to complain about, that newborn may have been the one of the few things that helped me hold it together. to not backslide into late 2009. to not lash out at every goof on the street that said or did something stupid. to not be mean all of the time.

june, named after one of the sweetest and most patient people the universe has ever known, june has absolutely repaid the compliment in full, making our lives an even more beautiful place, making it worth being "in the fight", just being june.

i love you, sweet baby june. i am sorry daddy hasn't made you a bigger presence here. i'll do my best to work on that.

thanks for a good first year.

"have the day you'll have"
(caroline and me)


the above is a great quote from the very sweet movie, "the odd life of timothy green".

amongst its many relevant themes, the one that jumped out and stuck with me is just how fucking difficult it is to be a parent.

the movie begins with an idea that is all too depressing, in and of itself, that being when a committed set of adults decide they are ready to be parents but nature doesn't allow it to happen. there are many, many stories of parents that aren't physically capable of making a child.  no matter how many marvels of modern medicine hoops they jump through, it just doesn't happen. sarah has a graduate school friend who went through countless mechanical and unromantic measures and years of disappointments and miscarriages before finally having a child. it's one of life's little quirks that isn't quite fair and, yet, happens anyway.

so the movie begins with a couple stating their case to an unidentified adoption agency on why they are fit to be adoptive parents. they tell the story of timothy green, the titular little boy the universe gives the couple for a very short period of time who, in a very disney way, changes their lives forever.

some of the funnier parts of the film are the parents coming to terms with the fact that they have no idea what they are doing. as with most comedy, the funny is found in the truth of the matter.

we took caroline to see "...timothy green" on her 5th birthday. throughout the hour and a half, i found myself nodding and laughing several times when the movie reminded me of an equivalent parenting situation that i completely botched.

when it comes right down to it, i suppose i botch more than i get right.

society, culture and the like is such a funny and fickle headache when it comes to defining how parents should behave in and around their children. the books, television shows, and movies articulate to us an understood list of unwritten rules that can and should be followed.

don't be mean to your children.

don't spank your children.

don't fight in front of your children.

always encourage your children.

if your child is upset, give that child some ice cream.

if you are out of ice cream, find a fucking cookie. stat.

take your children out to eat with you. nothing will ever go wrong.

if your child won't sit in their seat for the hour you are trying to enjoy mexican, don't yell at them. just ask them nicely to sit back in their seat. 

if they then throw beans at your face, make a happy face and kiss them on the forehead. then, and only then, will they know they are loved.

if your child doesn't want to do something, let them not do it, especially in public. better to let them get away with that shit and not cause a scene than for the parent to look like an asshole.

and so on. and so on. what sucks is the parent isn't given a copy of the rulebook. we have to figure it out as we go along.

what doubly sucks is that the child seems to have the unwritten rulebook hardwired into their mother-scratching brains at birth so they know every button to push at just the right time to drive their parents batshit crazy.

seriously, if i had a nickel for every time i gritted my teeth in public only to unleash holy hell on the girls once i got back in the privacy of my car, i'd have enough money to bail my ass out of jail if a police officer ever caught me in that very act.

a couple weeks ago, i was trying and failing to call a buddy on the phone when the girls started attacking each other as we were leaving the church. i did everything i could to shoot lasers out of my eyes (targeting their throats), unleashed a few "motherfucks" and finally caught my breath long enough to see that my buddy had likely been on the phone the whole time. son. of. a bitch. my secret was out. i am a terrible dad. a father knows shit. my buddy was going to out me at church, on facebook and i'd never be the same again. he comforted me by saying, "it's okay, dude. one of mine just ran over my toe with a wheelbarrow. i was lucky enough to miss when i tried to kick her."

deep breath.

how does all of this relate to caroline?

well, in a way, it doesn't, and. in a way, it all does. hannah, caroline, and someday june have the unwritten rules and i don't.

not a day goes by that i don't have to govern my rage and remind myself that i love them unconditionally.

but not a day goes by that i don't understand how i couldn't live without them.

caroline, man. that girl is my girl. she doesn't want to talk to anybody she doesn't have to. she barely makes eye contact with most people, because, like her daddy, it drains her energy at double-speed to put on a social show.

when we took her to the movie, as she is wont to do, she fell asleep with about twenty minutes left to go (thankfully, missing the sad part of the show) and got all pissed at us when she woke up that we "let" her fall asleep.

she started kindergarten last week and today is her first day that she'll stay to 3 o'clock like all the other big kids she now joins. every day last week she came home wasted, and last week she got out at 12. i can only imagine what a little demon she'll be this afternoon.

she's a daddy's girl, though. hannah has her daddy moments, but i'd like to think that caroline would save me first from the figurative burning building. (no offense, sarah. hannah would save you and you'd be carrying june.)

over the past weekend, when i was suffering pretty badly from my chemo feet, hannah played the role of mom, constantly bringing me my crutches or soft shoes, asking me if she could do anything to help (she's my girl, too).

caroline wasn't having any of that shit. she had better things to worry about. her new american girl doll. her party that was happening sunday. hers was a "you don't have to go home, daddy, but you gotta get the hell out of here" attitude. i barely saw her all weekend as i was propping up my feet or sleeping off the chemo hangover.

it's a different kind of motivation, but one that i need just as much as hannah's loving soul. together, they know the unwritten rules, and they know how to piss me off, but they, both, are pushing me to keep on keeping on. seeing there's gain to the pain. seeing the end through the means.

it would be lazy to say that caroline "shouldn't" be five. shouldn't be going to kindergarten. shouldn't be so big. the sentiment would imply that time was going by too fast, and, as i've said before, my time doesn't go fast anymore.

caroline should be five. she should be big. and she is going to motor through kindergarten and the bus and the lunch lines and new friends and all of it just as easily as her big sister.

she'll keep attacking hannah (and eventually june), she'll keep rolling her eyes at us. she'll keep yelling and pitching her caroline fits.  she'll keep getting out of her seat and shaking her naked booty and not getting in the shower and hating to brush her teeth.

she'll do it all because, i think, deep down, she can see it in our eyes that we are okay with it. and i think she can feel that we love her. and we'll keep her safe. even if we don't own a gun.

sure, we'll yell some. and tough love some. and not always have ice cream (or a cookie) on hand to ease her pain. we may not even always be her best friend (even though it breaks my heart to think that), but we'll always have her back.

happy birthday, caroline lilla. please don't kick hannah again.

i'm a blogger in the same way i'm a runner...


...which is to say, i am not much of either.

i wonder, once the girls come to this place and start to take it all in, if the massive lapses in posts in 2012 will be every bit or more haunting than anything they read before.

after the move and after starting therapy, it's been hard to motivate myself to do much of anything other than swim, enjoy the house, enjoy the family, enjoy a few of my friends, and put whatever is left into my job.

starting cycle three this week, this much is clear. chemo sucks, man. no other way to slice it.

i've tried to use and emphasize perspective during my whiny moments, but it doesn't help a whole lot outside of those brief periods. "it could be worse". sure, man. it could. i have a friend at church that has it worse. his cancer is worse. his treatment is worse. i get it. and i hate it, more than anything, for him.

but he's not me. and i'm not him.

i get it, but i can't actually get it, and i so i have to come back to me.

my fucking feet are peeling, man. what the fuck is up with that? i put pictures of them up on facebook over the weekend, and my brother in law texted me and told me that i looked like i had run a marathon barefooted.

he also told me to keep my feet off camera, which i thought was funny. i've gotten a lot of "i've never seen feet on facebook" feedback. my thought has been, yeah, well, i have never had cancer that led to treatment that led to this kind of pain that led to my foot skin ripping away from the rest of my body. it's a selfish thought. it was a selfish act. i told someone the other day that i put them up in a dark moment. i wanted folks to see what cancer and treatment was doing to me. people tell me all the time that they are thinking about me and praying for me, and i know those comments are genuine. in my dark moments, though, i think, "no you aren't. it sounds good to say, but you don't know even know what you're praying for." i put the pictures up so people could see and know what they were praying for, so people could see what cancer and treatment was doing to me, so they could understand that when i see them and smile at church and at work and on the street, it's an act. that i am hurting. and tired. and angry. and sad. that i am selfish and wish that it was 2008 again, when none of this shit had happened yet, experiencing the blissful ignorance away from what was to come.

it's hard line to balance. i haven't figured out how to do it yet. i can't go around being miserable all the time. every time someone asks me "how are you doing?", i can't say, "shitty. you?" even if that's how i feel. i want to. i want to tell the whole world to stop asking. i want to accuse them of not really caring. of never calling. of never emailing. even if they do all of those things.

it's one of the reasons i haven't come here much this year. as much as no one else wants to hear me whine, i don't want to actively hear it either. i'd rather take the "if someone is on chemo and never complains about it, are they really on chemo?" approach. if i don't talk about it. if i don't write about it, it doesn't feel so bad. i can pretend my way through the day, and i can get to the next one.

it's ridiculous and disheartening that june has been barely mentioned on this, the girls' blog. there hasn't been the first "june and me" post and i haven't talked about the other girls in months.

i can't get away from myself, and i can't get away from chemo as much as i want to.

and so, i guess i have to keep wanting to and hope the want eventually outweighs the excuses. the want to talk about what a beautiful and perfect little baby june has been. the want to think about and process both of my older girls riding the same bus to the (relatively) same school. the want to longform-ish talk about stupid chick-fil-a and stupid guns and stupid politics and stupid "my" obama is going to destroy "your" romney in november and stupid football.

i'll keep wanting.

summer with my shirt off


i've loved swimming for as long as i can remember.

not just being in a pool, wading in the shallow end, or floating on top of the water sunbathing. i love to swim, man. on top of the water pretending like i'm freestyling next to matt biondi (because i'm old, you see) or underwater pretending like i'm aquaman, "when i've got the music (water), i've got a place to go."

the problem, if that's the right word, has been that over the last ten years or so, i haven't really done a whole lot of swimming. outside of the yearly trip to gulf shores plantation we made when i was on staff at huffman or the once every three years or so trip to the beach i've made with my family in the last ten years, we just don't do it much. we don't belong to the y. haven't really had close friends with pools. it's not like we've been deprived. it's just not something, swimming that is, that we've put on our radar.

until now.

and now, we are spoiled. magnificently spoiled.

if my count is right, some combination of our family has been in our new pool in our backyard of our new house that we moved into the first of may 15 out of the last 18 days.

how we ever lived without having a pool in our backyard, i'll never know. i do hope that we won't have to worry about going back to living without one for a long, long time.

in the almost a full month since i posted about my chemo side effects, i've had my first two week break. the first week or so, i didn't experience a whole lot of relief. the second week was absolutely glorious, though! i got my normal taste back. the sores on my hands and feet calmed down and healed to the point where it wasn't painful to walk, run, or exercise. the sores on my gums healed and i could chew on the right side of my mouth again. i got my energy back. i felt like myself for, like, four or five full days.

then, of course, i set myself up to be disappointed. i told myself that, since it took about 10 days for me to feel the effects of the chemo during my first cycle, i could predict the same timetable during the second cycle. i didn't take into account that i would still have low levels of the medicine in my system when the second cycle started, and it only took a couple days for the effects to flare up inside of me after the restart.

today, almost two weeks in, my gums are bleeding again. my taste buds are fucked again. i'm out of energy by late lunch every day again. what's worse, at least today, is the sores are coming back. on my hands, my dumbbells are re-aggravating the places that were hurting a month ago. my feet are worse than last month already. a spot from the first go-round is coming back on my right foot. yesterday morning, i woke up and i couldn't put any weight on my left foot because, of all places, hell has taken up residence in the tip of my second toe.

i can't even think about running. like i told some limbo folks this morning, it takes me ten or more steps just to walk off a limp.

complain, complain, complain. bitch, bitch, bitch. oh, poor kevin. shut the fuck up, you little whiner.

but i've got my pool. our pool.

our new house feels like a beach condo for as much as we are in our swimsuits, dripping everywhere, being beach hungry all the time. i've had my shirt off more than i've had it on over the last month, and it is absolutely fantastic.

a fantastic distraction from the hell in my toe, a distraction from every hole (like, every hole...it's disgusting, and infuriating, and embarrassing) on my body drying up, bleeding, and scabbing over and from the fact that i am taking medicine that arrives in the mail and is adorned with a biohazard label.

we didn't go looking for our new house. in a way, it kind of came and found us.

if i believed in such things, i could argue that we were meant to be here. for the pool. for the distraction. for the fun.

if i believed...

treatment changes lives


now two months removed from my last post, maybe i wasn't as ready to hop back on the blogging train as i thought i was in april.

maybe i had other things going on.

maybe.

"treatment changes lives."

those were the words of the oncologist i consulted with after my two surgeries. the surgeries and succeeding scans had determined that, as last confirmed on april 30, i was without active cancer in my body.

and so, we were left with two options. to treat, or not to treat? that was the question.

on one hand, there was the chance that my most recent resection had "cured" me. as these things go, it was the same school of thought that led my urologist to encourage me to "celebrate" after the removal of my right kidney in july of 2009. because the entire tumor was removed and contained inside the now gone kidney, the odds were in my favor of the cancer never returning.

what are odds, really? in my case, the "odds" were mainly a catalyst for mismanaged expectations, making the news of my cancer returning even that much harder to swallow. i digress.

i was told that, had i been 65 instead of 35, the recommended follow-up would be to just keep an eye on things and react if something else popped up.

alas, i am, in fact, 35, which complicated matters. we now had evidence that my cancer was willing to come back. given that information, two oncologists recommended treatment, just as my urologist suggested would be the plan of action way back in february. in our minds, if things fell in my favor, we were planning on treatment. it was never really a question. when things ended up falling in my favor, we were ready to roll.

so, what did that mean? what comes next?

two ideas and one medicine were proposed considering my history. one oncologist suggested a six month treatment plan. the doctor at uab, who i will be doing my follow-up with from this point forward, recommended a full year. i would take a chemo pill each night for four weeks, then break for two weeks, for a total of nine cycles. yikes.

"treatment changes lives."

so, has treatment changed our lives? i don't know. not substantially. not yet.

monday night, i took my 28th (of 252) pill and finished my first cycle. my experienced side effects are as follows, in order of appearance:

"morning sickness" - this is the closest equivalent that i've heard to describe the overall nausea i feel every day. my medicine isn't making me actively sick. in waves, though, it makes me feel like i want to be sick. every day. kind of shitty.

general fatigue - this one hit pretty early on as well. i'm used to leaving work and being eager to start my afternoon/evening routines, including running, my rocky training montage or just hanging out with the girls. now, after i've made it through my day, if i sit down on the couch, i don't want to get up. on certain days, i have felt like i can't. this, too, is kind of shitty.

change in taste - i've been eating for 35 years now. over that time, my brain understands and recognizes what certain foods should taste like. pizza, hamburgers, ranch dressing. now, imagine, all those things, pizza, hamburgers, ranch dressing, etc. tasting like a watered down, metallic version of themselves, kind of like a wet spoon. this phenomenon, to continue a theme, has been pretty shitty.

sore/general sensitivity on my hands - i've rubbed places on my hands before during my exercise routines, but those places heal or callous and haven't been long-standing problems. in the last two weeks, those places have become super-fucking sensitive, to the point where it hurts to even pull my pants up. not, shitty, shitty, but frustrating.

gum pain - i've wondered if i didn't poke myself with a chip or something a couple weeks back and the medicine just isn't letting my body heal in the way i am used to it healing. it's not like i'm wolverine or anything, but i've cut myself up with chips before and it hasn't altered how i've had to chew my food or, at worst, made me not want to eat anything harder than jello. tag team this development with the change in taste thing, and now i hate the idea of eating. fairly shitty.

sensitivity on the bottom of my feet - no sores, no obvious bruising. just places that have started to hurt bad enough that i am overcompensating and limping around. no biggy. still shitty.

misc. - some lower back pain, some knee pain, the corners of my lips cracking open, the inside of my right nostril being one big scab because it's just that dry. attractive, right?

that's the list. taken one at a time, nothing here is life-changing, per se. pile all of this shitty on top on each other, though, i have felt inconvenienced.

here's the rub. i get it, man. i know things could be worse. my cancer could have spread. i could still have it. i could be hooked up to an iv getting pounded with a toxic drug that had little chance of working.

i am an expert only of my own experience, though. and, to this point, i hadn't experienced much of the above, and the above has kind of sucked.

i am hopeful that the next two weeks will provide some relief. beyond that, i am hopeful that the medicine and what it's doing to my body will be worth it in the long run. that, if there are silly little cells in my body that would like, one day, to mutate into cancer, they are re-educated or just fried to hell. either way i am good with.

here's to writing about something other than cancer soon, like there being a pool in the backyard of our new house or something.

"the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist"


i was having a conversation with my step-brother several weeks ago, and we were waxing spiritual.

i was awaiting my first surgical procedure, the mediastinoscopy. as you may recall, the purpose of that procedure was two-fold. a) to go in and remove, if possible, the spots in my high lung area that glowed on my p.e.t. scan of january 31st. b) once removed, test those spots to see if they were related to what we would ultimately learn to be a recurrence in the area where my right kidney once was found.

my first piece of good news, post jan. 31, was discovering those spots in my chest were benign.

at the time of my lunch with ken, though, i had no way of knowing that. i was still processing the idea of, not only my cancer being back, but this time it having spread to a different part of my body.

what did that mean for me?

could i beat it?

was it beatable?

how long would i have 'til i died?

what does it mean if i do?

do i believe in god?

surely, i do, right?

if i do, is he gonna come and get me after the cancer takes me away?

surely, he will, right?

so, ken was in town and we got together for lunch. before we met, i told him i'd been wishing to talk with people smarter than me, people who believed in god like i want to think i believe in god and ask them how i find a comfortable place after being faced again with my mortality.

so, we talked. it was a good conversation and, in it, he shared some of his feelings on faith that i had never really heard him articulate before. it was nice.

listen, man. i get it. i get i am never going to be 100 percent comfortable with the idea of what comes next. i do wish i could be closer than i am right now. at this very moment. at this moment moving forward.

which brings us to the next series of discussions i'll be facilitating for six weeks or so at the church.

something ken said to me the day of our lunch has stuck in my craw. we got on the subject of pastors and he shared an observation on them that i couldn't agree with any more. in general, he opined, "pastors have it pretty great. they are glorified salespersons that don't have to deliver on their pitch in this lifetime."

now, to some of us, the remark could be taken as an unfair criticism, which let me be quick to say is not how it was intended. most pastors take their calling seriously. my current pastor speaks of the responsibility he feels towards his congregation often.

to me, though, the comment strikes me as a completely valid talking point. and, as such, i feel like we do pastors and their sermons a disservice if we don't find avenues to talk about them amongst our friends and and our family and others who shared the experience with us. if we do not, if we choose not to invest in the message outside of sunday morning worship, they are no different than a sham-wow commercial, a distraction during our respective weeks that marks and passes time. no more. no less.

beginning this sunday evening, april 15th, humc will again offer an opportunity to (over-) analyze what we hear from the pulpit earlier that morning.

during that time, we'll talk about what we've heard, why we've heard it and, why, if at all, we should apply the context of the message to our week to follow. hopefully, we'll come away with not only a greater appreciation of the work that was put in to deliver it, but also a better understanding of how a very invisible god may or may not be working in our lives.

having had cancer would surely be a lot easier if i could convince myself that my eternity was secure. up until now, i haven't been able to make it to that point, and, really, it scares the ever-living shit out of me.

i hope, though, that opportunities like limbo and like the sermon post-mortems and like the every now and again conversations at lunchtime at o'charley's can provide some security. for me. and for those around me during those happenstances.

i hope that you might be interested in joining us over the next several sunday nights at 6:30.

if not, we'll miss you and we'll wish you were there, because, really, why wouldn't you be?

i hate cancer and what it continues to do to me. for real.

but i do love god.

surely, i do, right?

a picture of health


the blog's never been dark for two months.

then again, i've never had recurrent cancer, so, really, whatareyougonnado?

i am almost ashamed of my last post, having celebrated a preliminary "clean bill of health", only to have been notified several days later than something inside of me was actually not clean at all.

having given it some serious thought over the last couple of months, i tend to agree with a friend's assessment of the situation when she said to me, "wow. i would want to give that radiologist a hug." her sentiment struck me as odd the first time i heard it, but she was right. to my doctor's trained eye, he didn't see anything upon immediate review of my scan that showed cause for concern. when he passed the images along, though, to the people in his office that are paid to find things he may have missed, they didn't miss. they saw "a change". they saw something was different.

the idea of what might have happened had another year passed and we had not addressed the situation now is haunting. haunting in the same manner that it is now haunting to read my post from january 24th. on january 24th, i thought things were just fine. they just weren't.

since january 24th, i've now had two more surgeries.

the first was a procedure called a mediastinoscopy. you see, it wasn't just that i found out i had recurrent cancer. it was that i found out that, this time around, it may have moved away from the original tumor. fuck. me. i will forever wear a scar (not pictured above) at the bottom of my neck at which point the cardio-thoracic surgeon entered into my body to pull stuff out of my lung area to check and see if it was, in fact, cancer. thankfully, it was not.

the second procedure happened a week ago thursday. this surgery was called a hand-assisted, partial nephrectomy. the idea? one, to remove a mass that my doctor had been monitoring attached to my lone, remaining left kidney. two, to remove the recurrent mass in the renal area left void after my right kidney was removed in 2009.

the battle scars from that surgery are pictured above. it looks like i lost a gun fight but still lived to tell about it. in reality, i hope time allows these scars to tell a story of a fight that i ended up winning, one that began again in earnest around the 1st of february.

as i've told many of my friends, the most difficult part of the last two months is feeling like i've had to press the reset button on my race to health. i am no longer two and a half years removed from having cancer in my body. i am now only less than two weeks out. the follow-up scans will come sooner and more frequently again.

the scab has again been removed from my "complexities of paralyzing anxiety" wound.

i am now faced with a follow up program of some form of chemotherapy (loyal readers will remember that i always felt like i got off light the first go-round by not having to perform this step...not this time.).

normal, again, for me, has changed.

that being said, i still need normal to include this place. i've missed it. so many other things have happened that deserve to be remembered and commented on here. i've just been scared to come back.

what if i say something else that will prove to be premature or naive or laughable given the context of the present catching up with what i thought was the past and what little i know of the future?

in the end, i suppose it doesn't matter. if this gift to my girls is to be, in any way, authentic, they have to live with me through the bad times as well as the good. we had a nice couple years stretch worth of good.

good news has followed the surgeries of the last two months.

hopefully, more will be to come.

on january 24th, i had convinced myself that i was the picture of health. running 25 miles a week. doing my rocky training montage at home on the days i didn't run. healthier than ever (for me) eating habits. perfect bmi.

cancer, it seemed, had other ideas.

now, the picture i see in the mirror is a little more scary and tells an altogether different story.

but the fact remains that the final chapter is not written. my prayer is it won't be, still, for a long, long time.

i've missed you. and you. and you. and "you".

welcome back.

mixed emotions

i've had lou reed's "perfect day" stuck in my head all day...

...more specifically, the scene in trainspotting that it plays over. the scene sees our hero, mark renton, looking for "one fucking hit" and finding it in the desolate apartment of his dealer. the hit, predictably, brings more bad than good and mark's catatonic, eventual trip to the emergency room is soundtracked to the soothing sounds of the monotone reed. as the audience easily soaks in the irony of the lyrics, we are left to wonder if reed's alleged ode to heroin is meant to frame the druggie's experience as a baby step toward enlightenment and away from his addiction or quite verily what our protagonist was searching for. 

the angle of today's post has shifted a little in the wake of yesterday's storms. while not nearly as extensive or widespread and the fatalities far fewer, the tornado that ripped through tarrant/center point/clay/trussville hit closer to my literal and proverbial home than did the tragic and horrifying storms of last april. the sheer number of fatalities from 8 months ago is still terrifying, but the fact of my matter was that i knew very few, if any, of those that were directly impacted by the storm. the same could not be said yesterday morning. the vast majority of my friends either had some degree of damage on their property or were less than a stone's throw from where the tornado touched down. facebook, over 36 hours later, is still haunting to pull up. what new picture or video will bring us in closer touch with how quickly things and life can be taken away and crumbled into perspective and life lessons?

in turn, my family and i were one of the many "lucky ones", having only lost power for half an hour and cable for half a day, far smaller inconveniences compared to those whose houses are now shells of their former selves if they are even standing at all. i imagine the damage sustained by fellow church members, alone, could keep our congregation busy for weeks. stretch that out to include immediate families and friends, it could be months. 

before yesterday morning, i thought of today's post being one loathsome in self-pity. for months now, i've kept most of my fears to myself, because, surely, every one around me has got to be sick of my baby-ass whining about having had cancer. but the fears remained. after my scan last january, i let myself not worry about peeing blood for two or three months. around the beginning of summer, i started again talking myself into the idea of something growing inside me. by fall, i was sure of it. by today, you couldn't have convinced me otherwise. 

i said all the right things. 

"i don't have any reason to think anything is wrong." 

"i don't believe they'll find anything new or problematic." 

"why would they? they always told me mine was the best kind of cancer if you had to have it." (really, how ridiculous does that sound, even it turns out to be statistically accurate???)

"i am going to be just fine. of course i am." 

i said all the right things even if i didn't believe any of it. 

and so i've been imagining myself in my own version of the trainspotting overdose scene. was mark renton kevin o'kelley looking for that one last hit yet another scan (really, i've wished i could have one every day for the last six months) as a baby step towards my own personal enlightenment or was i secretly hoping that something would turn up so i could prove everyone that offered me comfort wrong or so all of my worrying wouldn't have been for naught. 

honestly, i don't know. 

i'd like to tell you without a shadow of a doubt that my worries were the manifestation of the figurative devil on one shoulder whispering nightmarish somethings into my ear easily shoo-ed away by the angel on the other side constantly reminding me how wonderful my life is. 

some days it was that simple. some days, it's not. 

and then the tornado ripped through my community, ripping me away from myself and my fears long enough to make my own self-pity look self-pathetic. 

i didn't write before my scan, because writing about me seemed pointless. 

i chose to write after, because good news is easier to digest than the complexities of paralyzing anxiety. 

i write today because today is a huge day for me, my unofficial new year's day. 

i am pained today because 2012 is already a year to forget for many that will be picking up the literal pieces of their homes for days, weeks, and months. 

cancer and her collateral damage is, was, and will always be a motherfucker. 

so, too, is life itself. here one minute, gone the next. a collection of things that can surely be swept away while we are sleeping.

i saw inside my body today. i saw a healthy kidney and other organs. i saw that i don't have to worry about peeing blood tonight, tomorrow, or the next many days. that's a nice thing. 

i saw the heart of my community yesterday and today, too. humans, untouched by the storm, caring for humans punched by it. 

tomorrow i move on with my body and my home intact and ready to roll. 

i pray for the motivation to help those that aren't so sure tonight because tornadoes are, were, and will always be motherfuckers. 

the final scene of trainspotting sees mark renton stealing from his friends one final time, walking towards the cameras with a wickedly narcissistic grin breaking across his face like a sunrise...

"...the truth is that i am bad person. but that's gonna change - i'm going to change....now i am cleaning up and i'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. i'm looking forward to it already. i'm gonna be just like you. the job, the family, the fucking big television. the washing machine, the car, the compact disc, the electric tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisure wear, luggage, three piece suit, diy, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing gutters, getting by, looking ahead, the day you die."

i've got a lot of mark renton in me. fatalist. masochist. narcissist. every man. no man. 

i hope i've got a lot of kevin o'kelley in me, too, whatever that ends up meaning to my girls, my community, and the world around me. 

perspective is, was, and always will be a motherfucker. 

i've had a proper dose of it the last couple of days. 

i've also realized reasons to celebrate random catchings of breaks. 

happy new year. 

this is the sound of settling


so, i am two weeks into 2012, one week out from having my yearly scan, and i am nowhere near adjusted to what it means or doesn't mean to not be lay leader at the church anymore. as i wrote a couple weeks ago in my resolutions look-back, there was a great deal of fluidity, with regards to my effort that is, that came with the position anyway. after we get past the scan, we'll evaluate my view of that experience more fully.

there are a couple things happening right now at the church, though, that i am pretty excited about.

wait. what?

first things first.

i didn't have a great opportunity or the right amount of time to analyze here at HACAJAM the cancellation of wednesday night dinners this spring. to reopen that can of worms, given where we arrived as of tomorrow, would be counterproductive, but a short visit back will offer some context. according to our budget, wednesday nights had been bleeding money for a few years. our food costs were through the roof. our attendance, both for the dinner itself and the programming that followed, was in decline. knowing that our cook, ms. ellen, was retiring from the church in may of 2011, the church used the opportunity to effort in taking a qualitative look at what our congregation thought of the current wednesday night structure.

do you come?

why do you come?

do you like it when you come?

why don't you come?

would you come again?

what can we change to entice you to come?

how much would we have to pay you?

these and other questions were asked and the response was fairly tepid. the consensus seemed to be that there was a small minority that were going to be agitated if wednesday nights as we knew them went away. out of "financial concerns", there would be an even smaller minority that were going to be agitated if they didn't. and the majority of the church didn't seem to care all that much.

and so, programming decided we would move towards a discussion group model. dinners within those groups choosing to meet on wednesday would be handled by the groups, themselves. otherwise. no dinner. no corporate fellowship opportunity. the church would do that for 6-12 weeks. we'd see how it went.

from everything i heard (i did not participate in the first wave of options), those that participated in the discussion groups enjoyed their experience.

but, still, something seemed to be missing.

a facebook thread happened that may or may not have played any role in the eventual return of wednesday night dinners. other conversations happened. a (paid) volunteer emerged. an idea was pitched. accepted. more discussion groups were planned and arranged outside and around the renewal of something our church had done for a long time.

yada, yada, yada. wednesday night dinner, version "we take reservations now and only prepare for a specific number", begins tomorrow night.

for me, i am extremely excited. i hope i am not excited merely because i am comfortable with something "that we've always done", and i am not sure what led to the setting of the time at 5:00, making it super difficult for any working members of the church to get there. i am not sure if i want to know. right now, i just don't care. given the time obstacle, the fact that 59 reservations were made anyway announces loud and clear that there is a need being filled by the mid-week dinner at church opportunity. there being several different discussion group options after dinner is a plus, too. here's hoping the facilitators in those groups will be open to new folks showing up a week late if there are, indeed, folks looking for an after dinner conversation. and here's hoping that tomorrow night is the beginning of something new and fun and exciting that our church can build from and not feel obligated to.

that's possible, you know? we just have to think about it.

to the second thing at humc that i am loving right now.

wait? "loving"???

the best kept secret at our church is happening on sunday nights at 6:30. do you know what it is? chances are you don't, since there were only 8 of us there last week.

for the first time that i can remember, we have a sermon post-mortem discussion group!

oh, how i have longed for something to excite me about worship.

don't get me wrong. it's not worship. not yet (although we are still trying to work on that issue).

what is the primary take-away from your sunday morning worship experience? sure, you may have really enjoyed the communion service one week. or you may have really enjoyed the choir's anthem or the hymn selection on another. or maybe some crazy person wowed you with justin bieber and popcorn during children's moment and you couldn't help but be happy for the rest of the afternoon. chances are, though, that the thing you look forward to and remember the most is the morning's message. at humc, for what feels like hundreds of years now, the message is what has fueled the service. two liturgical readings bookend the choir's weekly showpiece, the pastor gets up, and goes to feeding his "sheep". either you take away something from the sermon or you don't, but the sermon is the show. everything else is pregame.

for years, as is the case with you i am sure, many of my sunday after-church lunches will involve my family and friends' take on the sermon. did it move me? annoy me? did he/she sweat too much? read too much? use his/her serious voice too much? tell too many jokes? try to be too cute too much? knock it out of the park? did i even pay attention? something else?

as far as i can remember, we've never had a discussion group built around exploring what was said versus how it was said versus what we heard versus what does it all mean? and now that we have it, i have zero idea why we haven't had ten of these groups happening for years! the group that gathered sunday was a wonderful cross-section of what our church currently offers. several different age groups and social groups and life-experiences were represented, all bringing their own unique take-away from how they received the morning's message to the table.

the beautiful part for me was that it removed most of what has come to annoy me with our worship service in general, the execution, and asked me to place more emphasis on what i process and look forward to talking about later on in the day with a group that i am certain will have different takes than me.

for one sunday night, i had fun at church, and it had nothing to do with limbo or the weeds, which, to be honest, i wasn't sure was going to happen again.

for one night, i looked forward to coming back the next week to see if the experience was a fluke or something that i could actively begin recruiting people towards.

for one night, not only did i leave with a figurative smile on my face, but i also left looking forward to coming back on wednesday, to have dinner with friends and family and my church and to go to yet another discussion group worth my time.  

what is going on around here?

i don't know, man. but i like it. i like being excited about something huffman is offering. something that isn't a once a year, stand-alone event. i like being super-pissed when i hear about people visiting and choosing to join other churches because i know that we could and should offer something every bit as relevant as they can.

if. we. so. choose.

so, why don't we choose?

for one night, i did.

to many more.

the only national championship preview that matters
(to me)


this is the day.

44 days following the beat-down of their outclassed, out-talented, and out-coached bitter rivals, the university of alabama plays for its second national title in three years.

i am ready.

i could bore you with a data/stats/analytics driven breakdown of what happened on november 5th versus what i think will happen tonight, but every name-that-sports-website has paid someone(s) to do that already. what's funny about that is you won't find a much bigger fan of data/stats/analytics than me. but, in this case, in how i feel things are going to shake down and shake out tonight, i don't really think it matters.

why?

it's all psychological. nick saban, in a recent interview, called out espn's tom rinaldi on the shaky notion that it's more difficult to beat a team twice in one season. in college football, there isn't enough quantifiable data to show any sort of realistic trends that would support the idea. think about it for a second. how many college football rematches in years past can you think of right now? one? two? three at the most? how did those turn out? do you think it matters how those rematches played out versus who is going to win the game tonight in even the teensiest, weensiest little bit? i don't.

the idea that it's more difficult to defeat another football team twice in one season is ridiculous, because the idea, in and of itself, is a media driven narrative. now, i will honor the thought that college athletes watch television. i will also honor and respect the thought that college-aged anyones can and are swayed by what they see on television, what people say about them, and what they hear they can and can't do. but, do i believe that even if the college athlete at lsu totally buys into the narrative and is totally anxious at his team's chances of beating alabama means any one thing once the game kicks off? i do not.

in football, there are three factors that i believe play the most realizable determinants in a football game. talent. coaching. execution.

who has the most talent? 

it's all in the eye of the beholder. if you are judging talent based on how many football players playing in tonight's game will play at the next level next year, espn's todd mcshay gives alabama the slight edge at 12-10. i think that's a fair assessment, and considering how the close the prediction is, i am willing to cede talent level in tonight's game as a push.

who has the better coaching?

again, which statistic would you like to rip to prove your case? nick saban has 2 national titles to les miles' one. les miles has beaten nick saban coached teams 3 times to two losses. neither group of coaches could defeat the other in regulation as recently as two months ago. although alabama fans would never admit it out loud, i am willing to say to you, today, that les miles has method to his mad hatted-ness and knows what he is doing, coaching-wise. if he does not, he has surrounded himself with a staff and coordinators that do. i am calling this a push, too.

who will execute more efficiently?

the question that will solve the riddle of this game. each team has a plan, their plan. each team, i suppose, firmly believes that if they execute their plan more effectively than their opponent, they will emerge the victor. those beliefs can be founded and supported by the respective successes of each team over the course of the 2011-12 college football season. they cannot, however, be supported by the outcome on november 5th, which, in my humble opinion, is where things get interesting.

i said as much in this post written on dec. 6.  to my eyes, alabama won the run of play on november 5th. what do i mean by run of play? it's something that i've talked about a lot, but something that i think still gets lost in translation because the majority in this country irrationally hates and does not watch soccer. their reasons being that the game is "boring".  ignorance is as ignorance does. winning you over on soccer can be another post for another day. while run of play is a fairly subjective term, the feeling of which team in any given contest is better is the most personal and objective of feelings. if i am the judge and the jury, which team does my gut tell me is the better team whilst watching any athletic competition? most often, the teams that win the run of play win also on the scoreboard. their style, technique, efficiency and execution supports their bid for goals/points/run in a more honest way than their opponent. the end result, the majority of the time, will fall in line with your gut telling you, "yep. they were the better team."

but not all the time.

november 5th in tuscaloosa was one of those rare exceptions to the rule. alabama ran the ball more effectively. alabama passed the ball more effectively. alabama defended the run more effectively. alabama defended the pass more effectively. for 53-57 minutes of the game, lsu, this team that is on the precipice of being crowned as one of the top five teams in the history of college football, was beaten. soundly. and i think they knew it. the most damning piece of evidence being the frustration of their heisman trophy finalist that led to the clothesline of dre kirkpatrick. teams winning the run of play do not react in frustration. teams that can feel they are not the better team do.

what i believe we will see play out tonight is more of the same. i believe alabama will have the best player on the football field in trent richardson. i believe alabama's defense, given 44 days to prepare for an offense they completely stifled two months ago, will contain lsu more effectively than lsu will contain trent richardson. i believe the want for revenge is a stronger motivator than is the want for recognition. and i believe that alabama's achilles heel in the first match-up, their quarterback, will be less terrible tonight than he was on november 5th. and make no mistake, aj was far less than average.

what i hope to see is alabama win by two touchdowns and turning the story the media is writing of this greatest team ever into a punchline. whether or not will happen remains to be seen.

if alabama wins, i do not care if it plays out the way i have seen it here.

if alabama loses, i will come back in a few days and try and analyze how wrong i was.

either way, i will entertain myself.

roll tide.

death and taxes


i can't remember how i old i was when i became aware that death was, you know, a thing. that happened. like, to everybody. like, whether we liked it or not.

i can't remember how old i was when i became aware that death was a thing, but i know for a fact that it wasn't when i was eight years-old. in the past six months, hannah has been dealt developmentally inappropriate emotional blows as she has now lost both of great grandfathers on her mommy's side.

now, whether this means she is worried about it happening to her or not, it scares me for her. she's an anxious, anxious, little girl anyway. if you are a follower of this blog or have been in the last couple of years, you know that she gets her anxiety quite honestly. not just from her daddy that worries constantly about everything, but her mommy is pretty good at worrying, too. she's just better at not crying at the end of wall-e and letting everyone in the house, children included, that in that moment at the end of wall-e she's he's scared of dying.

hannah worries and worries and worries about everything. the henson's house was broken into last year. now she worries about our house being broken into constantly.

"why didn't you lock the door, daddy."

"do robbers come at night?"

"do robbers come when you're at home?"

"do robbers come when you're in your car?"

she worries about being blown away in tornadoes. part of our nightly routine, every night, includes her asking me, "is it supposed to storm tonight?"

we constantly see her staring into space contemplating what we can only assume is the meaning of the universe. she'll snap out of the zone and ask a pointed question.

"do you believe in hell, daddy?"

no, baby, i don't.

"do you believe in seton?"

who's seton, baby?

"seton, you know."

do you mean satan?

"yeah, satan."

now, whether the god/heaven/hell questions have anything to do with her great grandfathers, i don't really know.

what i do know is her asking about heaven and hell freaks me out. the only thing existential i gave any thought to in second grade, from what i remember, was how my existence would be a whole lot less fun if i didn't play with my g.i. joe's some more.

in third grade, i memorized the books of the bible.

in fourth grade, shit, i don't remember anything from the fourth grade. can anyone tell me who my fourth grade teacher was at going? there is a reward in it for you if you can.

in fifth grade, i thought about girls. a fucking lot. girls and dodgeball. and football. and baseball. and more girls. and that girl i kissed behind the dumpster at our apartments. and g.i. joes. and nerf basketball.

not death.

we were at chili's last night talking about the arrangements for sarah's grandfather. hannah was working on her coloring page, and i think sarah and i, both, were operating under the delusion that hannah wasn't paying attention to us. of course, she was.

"did granddaddy die."

fuck.

i pulled her close to me and told her that we were waiting for a good time to tell her. she laid her head on the table and got sad, her little brain processing the news at the same time she was being annoyed at us that we had been holding something from her.

i made sure to tell her that she could ask us anything that she wanted. the worst thing she could do, i told her, was hold it all in.

for the next fifteen or twenty minutes, we talked about the events that led to lamar's passing. she took it all in.  she didn't get terribly upset. after we told her that she could certainly attend the viewing and funeral if she wanted to, we changed the subject.

she and sarah are in georgia tonight. sarah told me that she didn't avoid the presented body. what goes through and eight year-old's mind when she sees an empty vehicle that was very much alive just three short weeks ago and now lays frozen in time forever in front of her.

god only knows.

there is a part of me that hopes this is a memory that doesn't stick in her craw. something that five or ten years from now she recalls as clearly as i do fourth grade.

being aware that death is, you know, a thing doesn't seem fair for her to worry about.

not yet.

if this is added to her list of nightmares, i beg that i am more patient with this one than i am with the robbers or the storms or the things that go bump in the night ones. with those, i am now impatient. i forcefully implore her to recognize how ridiculous the notion of me not taking care of her truly is, and i tell her to go back to sleep...or else. this method is every bit as effective, of course, as it is someone telling me that "everything is going to be alright." when i am violently shaking in fear in the floor of my bathroom in the middle of one of my deathdreams.

what will i do if and when she wakes me up in the middle of the night and her question has nothing to do with the weather but is something along the lines of, "am i going to die, daddy?"

i have no clue. maybe i'll just offer her some ice cream at 2 a.m. and hope it induces nightmares i feel more qualified to speak on.

jesus.

you're a brave girl, hannah. i love you.

"moving forward and letting go"


that was going to be the theme for 2011. at least, so i said way back in january. i am not really sure how that all worked out, but, maybe by the end of this post, i'll have a better idea.

was i everything i wanted to be this year? was i the best father i could be? was i the best lay leader? was i the best boss? probably "no" on all counts, but maybe i'll give myself an "a" for effort. maybe you won't.

let the grading of the resolutions begin. for full context and an all expenses paid trip back to HACAJAM, circa january, click here.

1) don't die - done, unless something really crazy happens in the next three hours. happenstances in and around our family have me less interested in joking about death tonight, so i won't. i am thankful that i am alive. i am thankful that i have my family and friends around me. i am sad for my wife and her family that is dealing with something incredibly hard and painful and fucking horrible right now. lamar wade, a gentle soul that was never anything but nice to me. we talked about church, religion, his children, his children's children and my children over many thanksgiving and easter lunches. my life is more wise and more grounded for the very few opportunities i had to be around him. godspeed into what is waiting for you, lamar. we'll see you soon.

...

don't die? check. thank god. i am still not ready to leave this place. not for a long time i hope.

2) see fewer doctors - check. "moving forward and letting go". every time i go to the bathroom, i still wonder if i'll pee blood again. every time something on the left side of my back tweaks or twinges, i wonder if it's alerting me to something dreadfully wrong. this year, though, in contrast to 2010, i didn't go see a specialist every time something scared me. i swallowed the fear, looked at myself in the figurative mirror, and told kevin michael o'kelley to get busy living. some days, it worked better than others. some days, it didn't really work. but i did see fewer doctors. i saw my urologist once way back in january. i saw my primary care doctor twice. dermatologist once. that's it. well, that's it unless you count my two very recent visits to my new chiropractor. that has less to do with fear than it does with my hope to be able to continue running for a long, long time. two for two.

3) don't get fat - back in february at the first visit with my pcp, i weighed in at either 188 or 191. i couldn't really tell, but it didn't really matter. either number would be the heaviest i had ever been and that number accompanied with the doctor's nurse saying, "it looks like you had some extra cake over the holidays", was all it took. i got in the car, called sarah and told her that the nurse called me fat, and i vowed things would change. my running had started. i then decided that i would no longer eat, too. well, i ate, but i drastically changed my habits. i swore off of fast food. i ate one to two very small meals a day. and i ran. and ran. and ran. and ran. the weight dropped off. i saw results, so i kept not eating. and running. by the time i went back to the doctor, i had dropped thirty pounds and was as lean and in shape as i had ever been in my life. it wasn't the healthiest diet or way to go i don't guess, but i've found a good place now. aside from the aches and pains associated with the running, i feel great. i raised my good cholesterol and lowered my bad. don't get fat? i guess i was kind of fat at the beginning of 2011. tonight? not so much.

4) run - yeah, i did that. what started in the dead of winter as a random ass idea grew into something quite serious. i couldn't run a mile without stopping for the first month. now, i can run six miles and have something left in the tank. what a crazy, crazy transformation. i am very proud of myself with this one, maybe more proud than most resolutions i've documented on this blog. a lot of people claim to run. not many people are runners. i am runner now. son. of a. bitch.

5) find kiker and andy again - hmm...mixed results on this one. i got to see both this year. kiker and i will play softball i would guess until our bodies no longer let us do that together. i was able to help andy out through a tough spot and we worked together for a couple months. there was more to this resolution when i made it than those things, though. what i missed in january and what i miss now is feeling close and connected to my two closest guy friends in ways that don't only involve softball or facebook. when we get together, the chemistry that we've always had makes it easier to feel like it hasn't been months since we last saw each other. but still, months continue to pass without us seeing each other, and i haven't been able to fix it. i still want to, but this is my first miss. here's to better results next year.

6) buy some freaking music - fail. fail. FAIL. i bought some music, but when i made this resolution, i meant buy music like i used to buy music. one or two records a month. find new artists. turn andy or amy onto those new artists. rinse. repeat. i just didn't. i bought several that i really liked. kanye and jay-z. the wonder years. childish gambino. but i don't think i bought more than ten all year. and that's just sad. it's also a miss.

7) see julio play in a football game - wrought out of the pain of losing julio to the pros, in january, most mock drafts had julio headed to st. louis, cleveland, or cincinatti. all i wanted was to think that once we knew what team he'd play for, we could schedule one road trip to tennessee or atlanta if he came through one of those cities and see him play pro ball during his rookie season. the rest, of course, is already documented. draft night came. the falcons traded up. they picked julio. we got season tickets that night. julio missed two games we attended and parts of two others due to injury, but this one, we covered. see julio play in a football game? after tomorrow, we'll have seen six.

8) help move limbo into its next phase - "the goal is for limbo to stay fresh and exciting and kinetic in a way that will motivate our established base to include even more of our friends and family as we move towards a productive calendar year." 

i don't know if i am the best judge for this one. then again, of course i am. it's hard because i don't know if this one was a success. if we measured our success on the attendance of our christmas party, then limbo is healthy and relevant and vital to more people this year than it was last year. i am worried that our routine on sundays and throughout the rest of the year may be becoming stale. stale is probably the wrong word. predictable, maybe? not exciting? i don't know. i still very much look forward to limbo every week. i get more, spiritually, out of those conversations than i do with any other part of my week. i just would like to think limbo would move along fine without me, even if i don't really want to move along without it. i am not sure if we are there yet. but i do think we are close. i am rating this one a push. 

9) don't be a lame duck lay leader - fail. fail. FAIL. i knew entering 2011 that i would have no interest in continuing in the role of lay leader past my third year. what i didn't see until it was too late was that i didn't have a whole lot of interest in continuing in the role. period. at least, not every part of the role. i enjoyed being a voice in the room of conversations that looked ahead into the future of humc. i didn't enjoy feeling hamstrung by the same cycle of reluctance to change that we faced in the beginning of 2009. by the time the second half of this year rolled around, i didn't think i was the right person for the job. i didn't hear anyone tell me otherwise, and so, i am moving on. early on during next month, i'll take a closer look at the job we did in the last three years, but if my goal was to not be a lame duck lay leader in 2011, it was a goal i did not achieve. i truly appreciate the opportunity that was given to me by 19 voters in the fall of 2008. i will continue to be a voice for change and rethinking church here and around the campus. i will be honored to continue to serve on sprc. third miss of the year. 

10) get a dog - funny that i ended this year's list with "get a dog". i think this one had more to do with the hope that we moved into a bigger house. and that was before we added a third baby girl to our already crowded abode. i did like the thought of having a man's best friend again. now? not so much. not that i don't like the idea of our girls having a dog to pal around with in our future back yard. first, though, we've got to get that new back yard. fourth miss. 

so, the final tally? five for. four against. one undecided. not bad. not great. all in all, i'll take it. 

2011 will go down, ultimately, as the year we found june. and that is a wonderful thing. 

"moving forward and letting go". 

i am not sure that any one thing is more complimentary of that idea than introducing a new human being to this world. the operative word feels to be "moving". i am not past my fears. and i am not complacent enough to be one of those people that says life moves by too fast. i am somewhere in between. learning to be a father of three. a better husband. a better friend. a better boss. 

moving forward. letting go. 

just keep swimming.