resolutions

(2013)

2012 was the first time in a long time that i didn’t post new year’s resolutions. i usually get to them toward then end of january anyway, and the end of january, 2012 was when we all know i got reintroduced to the cancer thing. not only did it throw off the resolutions on the blog, but it threw off the blog, on the whole, for about 10 months. only when we got to the end of the year did i get back to writing with any consistency, and, even then, it was shrouded with cancer this and chemo that. all relevant to my life-living, for sure, but you can only say so many times how shitty you feel before even you stop being interested in hearing about it, yourself. i’m starting to get tired of hearing about it.

so, it’s time to get back on the wagon, and it’s time to “get busy living” with at least as much moxy as i spent the lion’s share of the last year “get(ting) busy dying”.  ten resolutions. ten goals. ten ways to make 2013 a better place than 2012.

1) don’t die – i  always start with this. and, in a haunting way, i know that the one year that i fail will be my last, but, here’s the deal. i don’t want to die. not this year. maybe not ever. i don’t know that i’ll ever be ready to die. for 33 years, i took life for granted. i would live ‘til i was 85-95. i’d struggle getting around, and then i’d pass in my sleep. so naïve. every year up until 2009, i didn’t actively have to fight for my life. and then i did. cancer grew. we cut it out. 2010 and ’11 were a little more stable and had more psychological conflict than physical. 2012, i got back in the ring. cancer grew. again. we cut it out. again. and then the chemotherapy started. and it’s been an active fight not to die ever since. the first five months of 2013 are going to be hard, but if they help me “don’t die”, fuck it. i’ll take it.

2) be more positive…about everything – how often am i critical versus how often do i offer praise? if this blog can be considered a sample, the proof is right here on this site. now, i am not alone. as humans, we want people to know what grinds our gears in a way that we don’t when it comes to what makes us happy. i don’t really get it, but it’s just the way it happens. being happy takes work. saying you’re happy takes work. finding new ways to be happy takes work. telling other people positive things takes work. in the end, is the work worth it? data suggests it is. i am sitting in the louisville airport right now waiting on a flight out and away from the pet supplies plus yearly summit. our motivational speaker spent a lot of his time and energy on the power of positive reinforcement. he suggested that to make the same emotional impact on a person as just one criticism, you must give five praises. ridiculous. that sounds so hard. but the more thought i give to it, it sounds worth it. i hardly ever go out of my way to say nice things to my family or my friends or my employees. on the other hand, i yell and scream and bitch at all of them like it’s going out of style. granted, my temper is shorter than usual, but the fuse being short shouldn’t dictate the amount of anger that tends to pour out of me at the drop of a hat. i need to change this. hannah and caroline are both old enough to log my tantrums into their long-term memory banks. and that’s fine. every parent gets mad. every parent will yell. what i’ve got to do is find a way to balance out all that negativity. ideally, not only could i balance it out, but what if, at the end of the year, my kids and friends and employees could tell you that they felt more appreciated this year than they did last? it would make their world better. and it would make my world better. all around. i don’t know how i’ll quantify the results of this one at the end of the year to grade myself as pass or fail, but i’ve got to be better at this. for everyone around me.

3) run the vulcan 10k – this one includes a lot of work, but the essence is this. i felt better about myself when i was running. i was healthier and in a better mood. i loved being lean and as in shape at 35 as i ever in my life had been. i won’t be able to run, more than likely, ‘til the end of may. but that should give me plenty of time to get back to 10k strength, and that will be a great achievement for me.

4) help get humc a proper vision statement – this one should happen soon, but it’s no less an important goal for me. our long range planning committee has been working on and off for almost two years now on this project, trying to answer the question, “who is huffman united methodist church?” we think we have done our due diligence as a committee and we think we are fairly representative of the church, in general. this sunday, we take our recommendations to the portion of the church who have genuine interest in the future of our congregation and we’ll see if they agree or disagree. if they agree, we'll move forward with a quickness. If not, well, we’ll cross that bridge if it happens.

5) don’t get fat – those that have followed my resolutions for years should be proud of me that this isn’t number two per usual. my vanity has taken quite the hit over the last few years, but it’s not gone completely. fat and i just don’t get along. not exercising the way i’ve wanted to and i don’t get along. not eating as much as i damn well please and i don’t get along. either way, i’ve learned to use a phrase these last five months that i used to make fun of. “portion control”. instead of eating two or three servings of whatever at dinner because i had already burned 750 calories earlier in the day, i now may not finish everything on my plate, because i am already at my arbitrary calorie limit for the day. sad, but true. dammit, i am not getting fat.

6) do something other than bitch about guns – this one is going to take some work, but i don’t know what else to do. facebook, twitter, this blog and the like are great outlets for my whining, but it’s not going to change anything other than a very few minds. i don’t want to take your guns. or your rights. or your hunting privileges. but the backlash against the idea of gun control makes me want to fucking vomit. i get stat-ripped bullshit about hammers and bats and drunk driving. it’s not that i don’t want people not to die from hammers, it’s just that stat-ripping me about hammers makes you sound like a moron that is more in love with your gun than being a part of a solution to save one precious and fragile life from being blown away. i don’t have tons of disposable time, but i’d like to find a local and impactful way to get on the front line of a solution, not just offering my opinions from afar.

7) get limbo out of room 217 – firstly, this isn’t all on me, i get that. i think limbo has grown up and away from being kevin’s little baby, so maybe i should amend the wording. help get limbo out of room 217 at the church. we love our sunday morning time. we love our christmas parties. we love whenever we see each other, but we need to do more. from the jump, we’ve wanted to find ways to affect our world around us in relevant ways. my health and, well, just life have impacted that progress, but i think we’re ready to make it happen again. the conversation started anew without me last week. i can’t wait to get back and enter the fray next sunday and see what we can accomplish this year.

8) blog more – i mean, why not, right? this should be a gimme considering how low the number of posts were last year, but i am not putting this on the list for it to be a gimme. i am putting it on the list because i love to write. some posts, i am on. some posts, i am not. but i need to get back to it. because i like it. and because i want to get better. write. write to make sense. write to make sense to others. and write to give my girls what they deserve. a better understanding of who their daddy was when they weren’t aware that he did anything other than work, spend time with them, and go to falcons games.

9) for the love of sweet baby jesus, go see lebron games play in person – i think i’ve failed on this one two or three times by now, and that is ridiculous. he plays one or two games in atlanta every flipping year. i don’t want to see lebron when he’s a shell of his former self playing pick up games at the civic center in birmingham. i need to see him now, while he’s flash fucking gordon.

10) keep fuck(ing) this cancer shit – cancer will always be a part of me now, even if it’s not in me at the moment (i hope). but “fuck this cancer shit” isn’t just about the now. it’s not just about getting through the chemo phase of the program. it’s not just about praying for and hoping for another clean scan come may. the whole #ftcs thing, for me, has become a lifestyle. it’s become a coming out party of sorts. life is too short, man, to not make a difference. to not ruffle some feathers. to not call people out on their irrational obama bullshit or how cracked people get about tarnishing the legacy of the sweet baby jesus. for me, “fuck this cancer shit” doesn’t spit in people’s faces. it doesn’t mean to be disrespectful. it just may mean that your worldview doesn’t match up to mine and we need to figure out how to work that shit out. not for me. not for you. but for the betterment of us. and our world. and our future. it’s way past time to redefine what is unusual. to redefine appropriate. to redefine taboo. what the fuck matters in this world other than actively loving others and actively loving the ones we care about the most the best we possibly can? to me, “fuck this cancer shit” will mean being the best that i can possibly be, in every situation i can control, and coming out at the end of 2013 with a feeling of accomplishment that i haven’t had in years.

happy january, and make a resolution. challenge me on mine. go get yours.         

#ftcs

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.

i'll probably grade myself on a curve
(hannah and caroline and me)
((part forty-four))


we had a pretty interesting conversation sunday in limbo about the idea and execution of new year's resolutions. the consensus in the room seemed to be that january 1 was a fairly arbitrary start date, but everyone was pretty keen with the notion of goal-setting, which was comforting, especially given that when i asked our collected group how many were planning on making resolutions this year, only three (myself included) out of eleven raised their hands. our hour together nailed down the fact, though, that we all wanted to find ways to better our lives and the lives of those around us even if we didn't agree on the concept of the calendar telling us when to do so.

me, i am a calendar guy. for as long as i've been setting goals on the blog and writing follow-ups like today's, my simple mind wraps itself quite easily around starting at the beginning of the year and evaluating at the end. and so, i continue that schedule today as i take my final official look-back into the year that was kevin o'kelley's 2010.

here is the refresher.

now, let's review...

1) don't die - ... maybe sliding this one up to number one last year after my scare in the summer of 2009 played a significant role in my still being here in january of 2011 to write this post. maybe it just wasn't in the cards for me to meet my maker last year. either way, i am glad that i am still here. i can't say that i didn't think A LOT about the idea of dying. every day, i am not shitting you, every day i have a deathdream. i am able to shake them off and away a lot quicker than i did in the final few months of 2009, but i am obviously still not at ease with what comes next. maybe i never will be. maybe this is one of my curses. it seems unfair to me and everyone around me that i can't get my head out of today and look ahead some to "tomorrow". i am glad i didn't die in 2010. i am. now, if i could just stop thinking about it so much. score: +1

2) get "operation limbo" off the ground, up and running - ... well, well, well. my first real success story of 2010. early last year, i asked jacob sutton and joseph florence to help me with a sketch that we would perform at the beginning of worship to pimp the idea, this idea in my head that was limbo at the time. jacob and joseph, in spite of the morning's technical difficulties, were really funny like they always are. the sketch had to do with the gap that had developed at our church in the last several years where there was no real group or place for students and young adults to plug into after high school. we had a couple of fledgling young-ish adult sunday school classes, but i wasn't real confident either would speak to the group that i had in mind for limbo. so, jacob and joseph riffed on the idea that now they were in their twenties, they were just hanging out in the sanctuary with no real purpose in the proverbial life of the church and joseph asked jacob what they were supposed to do about it. jacob's response? "we wait...................until we're 30." it was hilarious. and pointed. and true. and so, limbo was born. and now, at our church, you don't have to wait if you are looking for something after you've crossed that barrier into adulthood and come to the realization that you still have no idea what the hell is going on in the world. nowadays, i don't think of limbo as an "age-group" thing (we span from early twenties to mid-thirties) as much as i do a "this doesn't make sense to me. let's make sense of it together." group. and it seems to be working. part of our evolution in 2011 will be to become more effective and affective at getting our word and work out to the masses. looking back one more time, though, we've now had 37 unique and special people come to room 218 at some point in the last 45 weeks, and we gather every sunday morning with between 10-15. numbers are a pretty weak measure when it comes to spiritual impact, but they do suggest there was a need in our church (even if we are still dangling on the outer edge of the church corporate) and limbo is trying to help fill it. score: +1

 3) be a more than serviceable lay leader - ... hmm, this one is probably not the easiest for me to judge myself on. i could take a straw poll within the church and if the standard was "serviceable", well, i might get a pass. if it's "more than serviceable", i don't know. what has happened that is good in the life of the church over the last 12 months? consensus within the congregation is that we are in better "health". that meaning, there is less overall drama. members and visitors, alike, seem to be harris fans. our finances are currently well within order. long range planning has been meeting and visioning for over six months. natural church development is starting back up and the church, right now, seems committed to that process. our connectional giving has improved drastically with the church meeting it's "target" in 2010 (for the first time in a very, very long time). leadership in the church is getting younger, in no small part to the weeds and limbo. along those lines, we made efforts to streamline the administrative board of the church in the hopes that 2011 will be more efficient. missions are still happening and giving members opportunities to serve. the halloween carnival succeeded again. the children's place daycare is a lighthouse and symbol of hope in our immediate community. i am probably forgetting many others. but, this all begs the question, what credit can i take for any of it? what blame rests at my feet if i were to list the cons of 2010, too. it's a good question, and we'll address it again soon. "serviceable" in the church is relative, thus "more than serviceable" probably is as well. i am going to give myself a point here. if you disagree, please feel free to comment and tell me why. score: +1

4) prepare for the inevitable - ... ugh. i called this one, right? not that it took a rocket scientist to predict that any college football team would eventually lose a game, and lose a game(s) alabama did. in spite of their talent and potential that was on full display for 20 minutes of the iron bowl and 60 of the capital one bowl, alabama finished a disappointing 10-3 and probably 10 spots lower than their preseason number one ranking. the first loss to south carolina was easier than i thought it would be to swallow, mainly because they were down the whole game. the idea of predicting the future of next year's team with the likely departures of 3-5 underclassmen seems discouraging currently. we'll wait til after the a-day game for that. and we'll also give myself credit for being a realist with this particular resolution a year ago. score: +1

5) don't forget about my deceitfully evil gang of weeds - ... maybe my first miss of 2010. i remember vividly the conversation that i had with the weeds on a sunday morning early on in 2010, that i was thinking of using my positive, free and clear scan in january as a springboard to get my head back in the game of making a difference in the church again. what that meant to them was that i wouldn't be available on sunday mornings anymore. my doing limbo, kathy and deb doing kids sunday school, the goldens having their hands full with noah, kim getting elected to city council, among other things pulled our sunday school class in many different directions, and it's been hard to feel like a cohesive whole all year. i don't know that blaming any one person or event or circumstance would do justice to all the mitigating factors. i didn't "forget" the weeds, but actions spoke louder than words. score: -1

6) say no to drugs... and by drugs, i mean lexapro - ... an interesting result with this one. i told myself that if i got a clean bill of health again in july, i would start to wean myself off of the anti-depressant. even though there was a little scare with a "motion artifact" in my lung that turned out to be nothing, the clean bill of health came a few days after i had my scan on july 9. after that, i took a half-dose of the lexapro through my and sarah's trip to gatlinburg later that month and then put the pill bottle in the pantry for good. since then, it's been an up and down ride. i have found my good moods hard to sustain, especially the last couple of months, what with the anticipation of the next scan this month ramping up my awareness of every little thing in my body that's not 100 percent anymore. the bottle of lexapro sits right next to my bottle of multi-vitamins in the pantry, and the last two or three weeks i've wondered if starting them again wouldn't be better for me and my family. maybe all the doctor would order is another clean scan and some peace of mind to go along with the apple a day. we'll see soon enough. this one is a technical notch in the "win" column, with mixed results as to the quality of my life since i realized the resolution. score: +1

7) find brian again - ...hmm. does seeing him on one road trip, three visits in three days count as a "win"? maybe, but probably not. i am going to give myself a half-point here, because we did have to drive six hours to see him and it probably ended up being one of the more fulfilling three days of my year, but seeing them once per year doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you are talking about someone that i care so deeply about. score:  +.5

8) find dad again - my second full-fledged fail. for me, the spirit of this one is more important than the letter number of times we saw each other, which was actually several thanks to a lunch or two, a handful of hannah's socccer games and a christmas get together. no one did anything "wrong" this year. i just don't know if i feel like we are any closer to being closer. i hope so. for 2010, though? score: -1

9) take ken to a braves game - ... another technical win, even if it didn't flesh itself out to us seeing each other as much as i would have liked to. we went to an incredible phillies game the second week of the season that included a jason heyward homer and a walk-off by nate mcclouth. ken even returned the favor by picking up the tab for the bullet through the forehead that ended up being game three of the division series with the giants. much like brian, i think if we were a little closer, ken and i would be, too. the distance and just life, i guess, has been a riddle we have not been able to solve the last few years. bottom line for the grade, though, is i did, in fact, take ken to a braves game. score: +1

10) keep loving my girls - ... the one big "gimme" of last year. i did keep loving sarah, hannah and caroline. it's hard, at times, to keep that loving from becoming conditional. i'll love you like you deserve just so long as you don't piss me off, okay? that kind of sentiment. hannah is really hard right now, and it's a combination of a lot of things i know. hanging out with older kids at daycare. observing and mimicking older girls that she sees on television and at church. having to deal with a little sister that always wants to do what she does. i know it's tough. now that she's her own little person, she wants more than anything to figure out who she is and she wants it to happen fast. she needs her way all the time. she is hardheaded. just like me. she has a quick temper. just like me. once the heat of any moment has passed, she wants to over-manipulate the rest of the day/night to make sure everything is okay. just like me. she is infuriating. i am sure...just like me. caroline, on the other hand, is three. she's a silly three and is really only a handful when our agenda takes the onus away from her being the center of the universe. no problem with four people in the house, right? ugh. she's adorable most of the time, though, and she's grown to love her daddy in 2010 much like i feel hannah always has. it's been nice. i hope that sarah and i can keep our collective heads in 2011 when it comes to the girls. our daughters really are too special to not appreciate them being in our lives every waking second. score: +1

wrapping up, let's see, it looks like i went 7.5 for 10!!! not too bad if i say so myself, which i just did. 

i read several status updates on new year's eve that spoke very poorly of 2010, and i hate that it was a tough year for so many people, including some dear friends. at the same time, i am happy that last year was much less volatile for the o'kelley family. if you removed me being constantly worried about things i have no control over from the equation, who knows what kind of banner year it may have been. that thought will be a nice springboard into my resolutions for 2011, which i'll try and have posted shortly after my january scan. 

one final thanks for everyone that stopped by hannah and caroline and me in 2010. whether you love me, hate me or are somewhere in between, whether you agree with me or disagree with me and my potty mouth, whether you came here through your own free will or were forcefully handed a copy of a post or emailed a link, thank you for sharing in this experience with me. this is an open place. an honest place. a place that makes me strive to be a better person for you and for "you".

if you would begrudge me or me in this forum, shame on you, and get a fucking life. you have more important things to worry about. go invite someone to church for god's sake instead of waiting on someone to save the church for you. 

a happy 2011 for those of you that love HACAM for what it is. comment more in 2011! if you write, write more! about anything!!! 

2010.

the end.    

i resolve...
(2010)
((the year we face our fears))


new year's resolutions are like boxes of chocolate. you never know what you're gonna get. some ridiculously overrated movie character said something like that once.

speaking of...

tell me to name my top five movies of all time. do it!

i can't. narrowing the list down to five would just be too hard.

do it!!!

ok. ok. jeebus. shawshank, pulp fiction, cool hand luke, la confidential, fight club. there. there's a rough draft. satisfied???

two of my favorite movies of ALL TIME were released the same year as "runnn, forrest, runnn", and both were deemed not as deserving for that year's greatest prize. and it's a damn shame. one changed the way movies were made and one, in my opinion, is the single greatest movie and story about hope that ever was. gump was a fine movie. i will give it that. i enjoyed it. would enjoy it again if i sat down and watched it right now. it just wasn't "change the world" good, just like every box of chocolates i've ever had.

give me shawshank or give me death. i'll probably just re-gift your box of candy.

i digress.

to the resolutions.

i am a couple weeks late, but no one will remember that come the end of december. man, i hope i make it to the end of december, which brings us to number one. are you surprised???

1) don't die - no shocker here. karma bit me on the ass last year when i let this one slip to number two. her cruel joke was to take one kidney from me, put the fear of death into my brain so that i would not be able to shake it and see how i reacted. well, i see your joke, karma, and i hear you loud and clear. to be serious for a moment, i didn't realize it at the time, but i do now. the moment i first peed blood, i was being given a second chance. at least, that is how i am choosing to look at it. a second chance to be all i can be for my family, for my friends and for my church. which brings us to number two...

2) get "operation limbo" off the ground, up and running - my first year as lay leader was a relatively quiet one, right??? unless you partly blame me and my deceitfully evil gang of weeds for running off dcd. if that is the case, invite me to your fantasy world, won't you? i would love a cup of special tea too, but i hope you'll come back and join us at 711 gene reed road soon. things will be changing this year for the better. for the first time in a long time. gone, for now, is the discord that has defined us for too many years. here, for now, is a peace and quiet that might allow good people to do good things and reap good rewards along the way. "operation limbo" will be my first honest attempt at stirring the juices of our fair starship humc since 2005. don't know what i am talking about yet? you will. soon. stay tuned.

3) be a more than serviceable lay leader - for those of you that pay attention, this one will serve to be the next logical step towards my new year's resolutions in 2014 when number two that year will be "be the greatest motherscratching lay leader god ever put on this earth". last year, i laid in wait for the most part, serving my church in quiet and subtle ways. voicing opinions that i found important. reading some scripture. kicking some ass in vbs. you know...the usual. this year, my guess is that you'll see my ugly mug and my crooked teeth a little more often. i hope this isn't too much of a turnoff for those that walk our halls that still have trouble making eye contact with me. just know that i love you. and i am trying to be more than serviceable.

4) prepare for the inevitable - how weak-ass weak is it that the college football season is over? alabama basketball sucks. the falcons suck. and spring training hasn't arrived, so i can't hate the braves yet. what is a floundering fan to attach his irrational emotional investment to? i don't know either. so, i'll just pine for alabama football and hope that august gets here sooner rather than later. the inevitable i resolve to prepare for is this. bama has not lost a regular season game in TWO FREAKING years. next season, they host penn st., florida and an improving auburn team. they have to go back to baton rouge. the law of averages is bound to catch up with this team at some point, right? i mean, they can't completely retool and reload their defense and go undefeated again next year, right? they can't just outscore every opponent with their entire offense coming back and control the sec like it was the late 70's again, right? jesus. i hope so. but i'll mentally prepare for a loss anyway, just to be safe. number four is pretty high for something as trivial as college sports, but the trivial crimson tide helped me heal from cancer. that's worth bumping them up a couple slots in my book. roll tide.

5) don't forget about my deceitfully evil gang of weeds - i announced "operation limbo" to my SS class this past sunday, and pledged to them that i wouldn't be leaving them for good when limbo gets started. concerning healing from cancer, this group was just as important, not only as a support system but as a carrot on a stick to get back to them, to look forward to hanging out with them on wednesday nights. there is no other group in the church that has given love a bad name like we have. and i couldn't be any more proud of anything than i am of that fact. all that being said, and sarah can attest to this, when i threw my head into "big things" at the church in the early 2000's, it was easy for me to get very single-minded and forge ahead with blinders on to the rest of the world. limbo is going to be extremely important, to me and to our church and to our community. my weeds must remain every bit as important.

6) say no to drugs - and by drugs, i mean lexapro. i would like to believe that, by the end of this year, i can fight off my demons naturally without the assistance of a tiny pill altering the chemical balances in my brain. we'll see.

7) find brian again - i failed at this last year, but i can't give up the ghost. whether it's driving to savannah or convincing him to come back home, i gotta get closer to my brother. and it can't be because i can't get out of my hospital bed without him.

8) find dad again - oh shit. what's going on here? i've tried to move on. i have. it's just not working out for me. there are about five people in this world that i could not see for months and then, out of the blue, go to dreamland with and pick up like we just saw each other last weekend. in my opinion, if you have those people in your life, you should probably spend more time with them, not less. dad is one of those. so, yeah. that's what's going on here.

9) take ken to a braves game - continuing number eight's theme. i have another brother. his name is ken. he lives in atlanta. he has a baby boy. i am his uncle. i've never met him. how fucking ridiculous am i? exactly. very fucking ridiculous. differences this. hurt feelings that. blah, blah, blah. excuses. i am the fucking vincent van gogh of excuses. only one other person i've met can carry the same loving disdain for the braves as i can. that's ken. i resolve to take him to a game this year and have seats close enough for melky cabrera to hear every single one of our taunts.

10) keep loving my girls - if you've read these lists before, you know i always offer myself a gimme. this one is easy, but ever-evolving. hannah's becoming a trainwreck. she is finding herself, testing boundaries, talking back. more often than not, i want to destroy all of her toys in front of her so that she can understand how painful she is making it for me to like her. and then she sucks on her "meow". she trances out and is the most Godly thing, in every sense of the word, i will ever lay eyes on. she understands her wrongdoings and starts to say "yessir" and "yes ma'am" in that sweet voice of hers. she plays with her sister. incites laughter that will make my heart fill with joy. she becomes, again, the reason i waste my time maintaining this site. she is my everything. and caroline, sweeeeet caroline (bah, bah, baaahhh). i have a hard time remembering hannah at this age. i was away a lot, in body and mind. caroline can be her own trainwreck, but it a weirdly different way. obstinate at times to the point of confusion. cute and cuddly and adorable in others. talkative. sitting on the potty. dancing to the black eyed peas. spitting out her food that she just chewed up. she's my everything too. keep loving my girls. this one should be easy.

good luck to all my fellow list makers. may you all have years that you can be proud of.

all the world is a symptom


so, why has HACAM become so hit and miss again after getting back into the swing of things last month?

well, the embarrassing and easy answer is because i can't work myself up to write much these days. it's not that i don't want to. i really do. but the last few weeks have been tough, and i am mired in something that i don't know how to get out of just yet.

i want to write to "you" about my new glasses.

what is that feeling in my back?

i want to write more about football.

wait a second. i've never seen that mole before.

i want to sing the praises of the braves that have won, like, 25 games in a row since i wrote them off and still are playing relevant games during the last week of the season.

why am i dizzy?

i want to write about my girls. when's the last time i churned out a "hannah and caroline and me" post?

has that lump always been there?

i saw inglourious basterds and loved it. you wouldn't know it from visiting this site, though.

are those floaters that i am seeing?

i just bought brand new's daisy. after several listens, it's rivaling "the end of the world" for my album of the year (not so difficult this year since i've purchased less than ten records in 2009. pathetic.).

jesus christ. am i dizzy again?

fringe and the office are back. and yet, there's only a tiny part of me that gives a flip.

(types webmd.com again...clicks on "symptom checker") yep. brain tumor. that's the other shoe.

sarah asked me the other afternoon how much time during my day i wasn't thinking about the random things going on in my body. i told her less than five percent. that's probably being generous. i am constantly thinking about it. and by "constantly", i mean always. and by "always", i mean every waking second. i am not thinking about my girls. or my friends. or the halloween carnival. or playing softball. or alabama football. or the braves. or anything else. ever. because i am scared. to death. of something.

is it death? maybe. separation from my family and friends...or god? probably. something else entirely? just anxiety that's going to seem like a big joke six months or a year from now? damn...i hope so.

it is killing me right now. eating away at my soul. and i can't say it out loud. not as much as i feel it, because when people ask me (knowing what i went through during the summer) "how are you feeling?", they don't have the wont or the time to hear the real answer. that i feel like i am going crazy. that i feel like i've never felt before, and i want to get out. that if i was honest with the inquiring mind, i would probably start crying. it's not fair to those folks that have been thinking about me and praying for me. i've been a burden on them for too long already. i am thankful you don't live in the same house with me and see me during my lowest points. sarah and the girls spent the night away last night. i was a basketcase. i dozed for two hours (maybe), tops. and that was on accident. i woke up to the same sensations that i laid down with. i should be stronger than this, right?

this i know. i could go to my doctor and tell him all this (again). i could convince him to scan my head or my body and give me the visible evidence the pathology report suggested. i could make them show me they didn't "miss something" or that something hasn't been growing someplace they didn't look back in july even though the report says that what i had didn't go anywhere. i could do that. and i may, still, have to to escape having to admit myself into a psychiatric unit. but how long would that last? how long would i give that information its right credit? when would it's worth expire? a couple months? six? a year? do i really want to be "that guy" that has to pay out of pocket for co-pays and scans for the rest of his life for peace of mind, or can i just trust my doctor and those that love me and are privy to the same medical information i am and know that i should be and am ok. i want to be the latter. i do.

but i am a mess right now.

and i don't know what to do with it all.

on the surface, i look fine (other than this terrible-ass excuse for a beard). my scars have healed. i've got most of my weight back. i'm working. exercising. playing. faking a smile.

below the surface, something wicked this way will come. maybe in a few minutes at church. maybe later. but, it'll come. in the form of a dizzy feeling or tweak in my back or a sensation in my leg. and i am going to freak out about it.

i am sorry. this post is much more self-serving than most. i don't need you to feel sorry for me. i just need you to know. so, i don't have to tell you out loud and waste any more of your time.

this is homework. this is for me to read later today and tomorrow. this is me looking in the mirror and trying to move forward.

this is getting old.