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you're the exception to my every rule


a lot has been made and shown and written lately about the idea of "body shaming".

making fun of or judging some part or all of a person's character by the way they look or how much they weigh feels like an exercise in laziness, at best, and an exercise in bullying at worst. no matter how aware our current culture is, sitcoms and movies still find comfort in the all too common trope of the fat guy or girl being the life of the party or the big butt of a joke, mainly because their loudness or clumsiness can be laughed at and laughed off because of their abnormal, relative to their co-stars, size.

the most eloquent deconstruction of the concept came from none other than a fat dude, louie ck, on his show earlier this summer.

and i get it, man, you know? i get it, but, at the same time, i don't get it.

i'm conflicted.

because i judge people by their size all the time.

now rarely, maybe never, have i or will i make fun of someone to their face. no way, man. not a chance. that trigger in my brain never fires, and i totally feel better about myself because i can't consciously remember ever slipping. i know, in my head, it's not my place to look at someone and tell them what to eat, how to eat, how not to eat, how they should exercise more or whatever other ugly thoughts pop into my head.

but just because no one is in the forest to hear it, doesn't a tree still make a sound when it falls?

i'm a fat-phobe, man. tried and true. i'm not coming out of the closet as such today. not by any means. it's documented on this very site. many times. here. here. and every other time i resolved with a list.

and so, today, i don't come here to apologize for my inner-most thoughts as much as i do to write them down for the first time in almost a year.

if there is one type of fat that confuses me moreso than any other, it's the "fat guy, skinny wife" thing that it seems the whole world perpetuates. by "whole world", obviously, i am being dramatic, but, seriously, how do fat guys get away with carrying 25 to 50 to 75 extra pounds in their necks and bellies while the female significant other destroys herself, her self-image, and her ability to enjoy life to portray a more socially accepted figure? it blows my mind some days. and pisses me off on others.

on some level, i understand more if both parties in the couple are a little overweight. i think there is something to the idea of being "fat and happy", at least in the sense that there is no reason whatsoever to go to the gym five days a week unless you are working towards a goal or you've been sentenced to do so by a doctor who fears for your health. eat breakfast, man. lunch. dinner. some fucking ice cream if you want to before you go to bed. if you are doing it together, then fuck the world. if only you are doing it while your wife is out running stadiums and eating salad with no dressing for dinner, something is off.

i wonder and fear not for the husband's health if they wear all the fat in the family. i wonder for the woman. like, what is it that is pushing them so hard to fit into the same size shit they wore in high school? is it society? is it that they wore husky as a kid and swore at some point in their life "never again!"? the worst thought i have, though, is that their male counterpart is the one applying the pressure. projecting their own ugly self-image onto the next best thing. preaching more than they practice.

"you're really gonna eat all of that?"

"you sure you need dessert?"

i see fat guys with their skinny wives and automatically think the worst. about the guy. about the relationship. about what message it sends to their kids.

"mommy, why are you always exercising and dad never does?"

i would never say it out loud. of course not. i wouldn't want to body shame any one to their face. i don't know their world. i don't walk in their shoes. i don't eat all their chocolate cake.

but i do wonder.

and i imagine those thoughts, in their own way, make a sound.

"I'M ON MYYY WAY OUT."

this place is sick.

manufacturing an experience


"the truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. you've just got to find the ones worth suffering for." - bob marley


for as little as i find the time to write these days, i feel like silent bob, like everything that comes out of my mouth should be really fucking profound or, at the very least, really fucking pretentious. it's a lot of pressure until i realize that i've likely never said much of anything profound. that, and, to compensate, i am quite full of pretense, so we are just going to keep on keepin' on like this was my 12th post in the last 34 days.

this time last week i was coming off of 24 hours of not eating. this is not unusual for me on mondays into tuesdays. i've always had a tendency to eat lunch, go play softball, and call my water when i get home my dinner. it made me feel better about myself in terms of whatever filth i had ingested for lunch, and it made me feel like i could eat something equally gross awesome for lunch on tuesday. instead of finding something awesome to eat last tuesday, i found myself in a contemplative mood around noon-ish after i finished up my morning exercise routine. i thought to myself, "well, if i just wait 'til dinner to eat again, i'll have fasted for 30 hours. i'll have fasted for 30 hours and not even really struggled. i'll have fasted and not given it nearly the amount of thought and weight that i should have. what would happen if i did it for longer than 30 hours?"

and therein those couple of thoughts set into motion a chain of events that included, yes, making the decision to finish out the "30 hour famine", but also email a bunch of friends and try and recruit them to take a fasting challenge right along with me.

week one would be 30 hours.

week two would be 48.

week three would 60.

lastly, week four would be 72.

there would be no hard and fast rules. for me, i would and will just be drinking water. for others, who am i to set the terms to their sacrifice, you know? so, that's on them to decide. in the stead of eating, i would try to corral my feelings of hunger and direct them elsewhere, towards the places in this city and this country and this world that have hungry people. hungry people not by choice. not douche-bags like me. hungry people because they are fucking hungry. because they can't afford food. because they are homebound and cannot create their own meals. because they live in nasty, forgotten places where food is a luxury not to be shared with the least of these. i would think about these hungry people. maybe say a prayer for them. and i will see what i feel and see what comes out of my experience.

i've felt lost the last six or eight weeks in a lot of ways. i've felt aimless. directionless. a lack of motivation. a lack of drive. a sense of sour. a sense of anger. a sense of shame. a sense of power. a sense of hate. not all at once. not all the time. these feelings come and go and these feelings are fleeting, but i worry, more than anything else, is that i have lost something of myself.

during the chemo portion of my life, i felt everything. i couldn't take a step without being reminded of pain. i couldn't comfortably do much of anything. each day was a trial, to one degree or another, and i am certain, at this point today, that i became conditioned and connected to the trial. my pain and my trials delivered to me a goal. to get to the next day. to smile at the girls. to not be hateful because my perspective was constantly being reinvented and redesigned. i didn't love the pain. but i loved not allowing the pain and journey to defeat me. i was proud.

after the treatment ended and the medicine began to exit my body, normal came back in every sense of the word and my world. quickly the inconvenience of the chemo was replaced with more random issues, this time asthma type symptoms that have prevented me from renewing my running. it's all been quite the bother, but it's not cancer, and it's not chemo, so who the fuck cares?

i've been at a constant crossroads with the church and my church since the advent of this blog. today is no different. so, now what (again)?

i am now disconnected from many that were and had been constants in my life for a long, long time. i am trying to decide if the emotions regarding these disconnections are fearful or of relief. who do i just let go? who do i work to get back? what if i care more than they do? what if i just don't care? the feeling(s) is(are) probably mutual.

new opportunities are scheduled to begin in a few short weeks. am i excited or apathetic?

i'm not sure. probably both.

what a cop out.

i need to be shaken. i need to be stirred. but not all of those options include being in control.

and so, i made a choice to be in control.

to feel.

something.

i chose to be hungry.

what i am doing is not anything special. time will tell if what i am doing is actually anything spiritual. i don't need food for days anyway. neither do you. i just think i do. my body will tell me otherwise, and it'll be up to me to do something with that feeling. something positive. to make a minor difference.

i am proud of my friends for joining me during these hunger games, because they are likely doing it for much less selfish and much more righteous reasons than i. i will pray for them while we are hungry together, too.

i'm struggling to find a point in all of this melodrama.

yeah, me too. the point is this. there are many points.

feeling hungry isn't going to convince me there is or isn't a god or make me feel better that i will or won't have a good scan in november. feeling hungry won't likely open up my breathing passages nor will it hone my focus on the things outside of work and my family that seem so super-fucking cloudy at the moment.

but it will remind me that hunger is a god damn ridiculous problem that we continue to perpetuate through ignorance and our own over indulgence. we perpetuate the problem (just like most of our problems) by pointing the finger at the government or the president or someone that isn't us while we stuff our fatty fat faces with fatty fat cheeseburgers because america.

and as my ire rises, then what?

clarity? direction? purpose? intent? a hot dog?

we'll see.

the odds are always in our favor.

that escalated quickly

expectations are a false narrative, are they not? a bill of goods we sell to ourselves day after day after day after disappointing day. 

if there was one lesson moreso than any other during the year of chemo that i learned, it is that i was more of a danger to myself, every day of the week, than the chemo or the cancer ever was. reason being, every day, i would wake up with a different set of inappropriate expectations. 

"today is going to be better than yesterday."

"i will be able to walk without a limp. i just know it." 

"i won't see blood on the toilet paper." 

"chemo is just a word. if i tell myself i feel good, i'll feel good. i just have to want it." 

i was always wrong, to some degree. 

fuck. me. 

the same type of mindless behavior carries over into every day life, apply it to what you will. 

your favorite sports team. work. kids. relationships. the weather. any walk. every walk. it doesn't matter. 

we expect just above average, just above normal, just above what we've come to observe in the world, because we are conditioned to dream. to think big. to value what's beyond the status quo. to reach for the stars. 

and, sure, sometimes great things do happen. 

children are miraculously conceived, born, and live the first few years of their lives without their parents fucking up and dropping them off a balcony. 

you see a double-rainbow. 

a family member or friend values the context surrounding your world rather than rapid-fire judging you for the culmination of the context into an action. 

you fall asleep on interstate for that brief second because you've been up for way too many hours for way too many days and you don't kill yourself or a fellow human being. 

the big cats at the zoo aren't asleep. 

your favorite player doesn't do drugs. 

you don't get downsized. 

you get a second chance. 

the fries at mcdonald's aren't cold and end up being really fucking good. 

the water in the pool is a lot warmer than you prepared for it to be. 

the softball game isn't rained out. 

everyone shows up on time for your fantasy draft. 

you get a clean scan. 

your tail doesn't wag your dog. 

...

the facts are that these things set us up for bad days. they are good things. some are great things. some are exceptions to the rule. 

inevitably, we start to expect the exceptions rather than the rules.

and the rules are the rules because they are the rules. 

if i could just expect the rules, my life would be such a happier place. 

and so would yours. 

almost human


it's been two and a half months since the blog last breathed a live word. so much has happened. so little has actually happened.

the experience of attempting to document, in such a small way, my (hopefully) last (ever) cycle on chemo was draining. each of those days felt like a week. sitting down and trying to find enough light to make a joke about diarrhea or being chemo tired or aching all over or not tasting my food was cathartic in a way, but, at the same time, i wondered if i was making it too much fun, if that makes any sense.

had i been entirely truthful, i would and could have been much, much darker, but i suppose i made the editorial decision to not go that direction in the hopes that more of you and you and you would follow along. that more of you and you and you would, not necessarily sympathize with the plight, but gain a better understanding of what cancer can do to a person's body in general. i didn't want to be such a debbie downer that the experience of riding along with me would feel like a burden. and so, it was what it was.

my go to comment over the last month or so has been this. "i didn't know just how far away from normal i was until i actually felt normal again." and that's the god's honest truth. during the tail end of my breaks, i felt what i thought was close to normal. i could taste a little bit. i got a couple days worth of energy. i felt like being at work. i didn't hate everybody. i didn't hate myself. i wasn't wishing for a random bus to roll over my face. i felt almost human, and boy did i enjoy those days. i made sure to work out extra hard. to push my physical limits in as many ways as i could find, because i knew how difficult even getting up off the couch would be 10-14 days later.

nowadays, it's different. i have more energy during most of the day than i think it's fair for a normal person to have. not only can i taste, but i crave food. i want everything to be spicy. i look for reasons to walk around the store, to jump up and down. i sometimes go two full days without having to sit down on the toilet. and it is glorious.

i'm almost human again, which means many different things to many different people, including myself.

people don't ask me how i am anymore. i'm no longer on the prayer list. life has moved on. i'm old news. someone else you know has gotten sick. even worse, many people you and i have known have passed from this mortal place. the emphasis should be on them and the ones that will be affected next by tragedy, sickness, health, and other life shit.

it's still a weird feeling. not a lonely feeling. i was never very good nor did i feel comfortable with any attention my sickness brought. at the same time, i was bothered by others who i didn't feel like cared enough. it's fucked up, but it's how i felt.

i'm almost human now, as it relates to my health. in a random turn of events, i ended up with pneumonia for a couple weeks and now with an early diagnosis of adult-onset asthma. no biggie compared to cancer and chemo for sure, but both have delayed my motivation and ability to see if i am interested in running again. wheezing, being out of breath, not feeling like i can fully fill my lungs, people deal with that shit all the time, too. i'm not unique. it's still different for me.

it's time to get back in the blogging business, though.

there's so much to talk about.

#0


i remember this scene from my childhood. i was in 5th or 6th grade and over at my dad's for one of my weekends with him. one of my favorite things to do as a kid was ride my bike on his street, pinebrook lane. the street was just killer. the lion's share of the houses lie in this valley. you have to travel down a huge (for a kid) hill to get down into the neighborhood, proper, and the street dead ends into a cul de sac that's up another great-sized hill for a bike. both were steep enough that a kid like me felt like it was a legit accomplishment if you could pedal your bike all the way up without having to hop off and walk the rest of the way up. as i and the other kids on the street got older, we learned how to weave back and forth up the hill, maximizing our momentum to climb our everests. countless times, i would get up to the top of pinebrook lane and rest for a second, then take off down the hill, wind in my hair. it was just the best. occasionally, i'd take my hands off the handlebars and glide down the straight hill with no worries about ever crashing.

until i crashed.

it was the worst bike wreck i ever had. everything was normal until i got to the key's house and i must have hit a rock or a hole that wobbled my front tire. by the time i realized i was losing control, it was too late. i over-corrected and took a hard left into the curb in front of the dearman's (our next door neighbor) yard. my front wheel hit the curb and stopped the bike, cold turkey. i flipped over the handlebars and by complete accident somersaulted forward and landed flush-flat on my back. all the of the air was forced out of my body on impact. through sheer luck, i didn't land on my helmetless head. (who wore helmets in the 80's anyway?). the air was forced out of my body and for a brief moment, i worried about death and dying. i think that was the first time i ever questioned my mortality.

it took a long time before i was comfortable enough to go no-hands again. i wasn't afraid of being hurt. i was afraid of something much more permanent. and i couldn't risk it.

i've brought those fears and that anxiety into adulthood with me. and they have multiplied exponentially with each of my two cancer episodes. while i realize in my head that i will at some point pass from this earth, i am still not ready.

not yet.

i brought those fears and that anxiety with me to kirklin clinic this morning. after i received the news of my clean scan, i couldn't completely lose them. not for good. i did put them back in my pocket for a bit, and i hope it'll be several months from now before i give them any thought.

death and dying is such a romantic topic to some. for me, it's a bummer, my life's biggest obstacle to overcome. not to not die, but to be okay with it. to welcome it. to find comfort in what comes next.

is there comfort in what comes next?

today, tonight, i will not worry about that. i'll think about not being on chemo and what that's going to feel like in a few days. i'll think about how many people have shared these last 28 days with me on this blog and on facebook. i'll think and wonder about the care and concern of others and what i ever did to deserve such encouragement from so many people. i'll think about the summer to come. i'll think about what it means to celebrate the end of something that i never wanted to spend a year doing. i'll think about the daily show and inside amy schumer and other mindless things. i'll think about star trek and my new phone and the tattoo that i'll soon burn into my skin to mark this, the longest year of my life.

i am happy for life. i am happy for a third lease on it. i am happy for my family and my closest friends for whom i would gladly take chemo for the rest of my life if it guaranteed they would never have to share the experience.

chemo, after all, is a helluva drug.

it makes you hurt. it makes you tired. it makes you sick. it makes you mad. it makes you sad. it makes you feel alone. it makes you poop your pants.

i am through with chemo, hopefully for a long long time. maybe ever.

i don't have any cancer in my body and hopefully won't for a long, long time. maybe ever.

i'm gonna let the blog breathe for a bit the next few days. go back and read over my chronicles. laugh all over again. cry some more. and then put it somewhere in the back of my mind for a bit.

because i don't want it anymore.

because fuck this cancer shit.