I have been silent for awhile. Now I’m back, and am bringing with me a whole new blog. If you ever found anything I’ve written in the past even mildly interesting, then I would be happy to have you follow me to the new blog:
www.dolenteringenium.wordpress.com
I hope you make the trip.
If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.
- Ray Bradbury
Just got home from church. I go every Sunday morning, evening, and Wednesday night. It’s a denomination that considers itself nondenominational, and calls itself a ‘Church of Christ.’ Though I try to be a regular attender, my heart isn’t always with the services. Sometimes, it’s because Ihad a bad day, and am only going to church to help take my mind off things. Other times, it is a result of what is being discussed in the sermon or bible lesson.
Last Sunday, for example, the entire service was centered on a glorified slide show of the pastor’s recent trip to Colombia. He had gone down there on a mission trip, but the sermon last week had nothing to do with the spread of Christ’s message. It was a little over an hour of this guy talking about his friends down there, and outlining his itinerary for the four week long visit. If you have ever had a family get-together where your mind-numbingly boring Aunt Gertrude insisted on torturing everyone in the room with a 3,000 image slide show of her trip to Sheboygin, then you understand.
I didn’t know what to think. I kept sighing to myself, and straining my disbelieving brain cells to find the iota of spiritual purpose to this travel agent’s speech. My fiance was with me, and she would put her hand on my arm and gently squeeze, knowing that I was growing more frustrated with every inane word from the man behind the pulpit. She was channeling her infinite patience into me through that supportive and calming grasp.
A little back-story, if you don’t mind: I am a very bad man. I have done horrible things in my life to many people young and old. What’s worse is that I don’t have a single flash of guilt over anything I have ever done. The only thing I feel remorse for is the fact that I feel no remorse for anything. I have even done bad things to people in my church, and don’t give a damn about it. I don’t want to be like this, though. I don’t want to be the dark thing that swirls inside my head and heart.
For a few years now, I have been struggling valiantly to change my behavior. I know I can’t grow a conscience, but I also recognize that I have total control over how I act and what I do. So, even if I don’t care about right and wrong, I can at least do the right things simply because I know they’re right. This is much more difficult than most everyone cares to think. It takes incredible acts of internal strength and willpower for me to follow the straight and narrow when all I ever want to do is sprint off the path into the shadowy underbrush and set fire to the whole forest. I go to church to keep my mind on the task at hand – the eternal battle between good and me.
When I sit down at the start of a service or bible study, I am listening for God’s will. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe for a second that any organized religion has a fucking clue what God really thinks or wants from his little meatpuppets, but I find that by consistently attending these meetings, I have more ability to keep my balance on the moral balance beam of life. So, I really need to hear what any given preacher has to say about what God has to say about anything. If all I get is a recounting of how the refried beans were good in this city, but not in that one, I tend to get angry because I am being denied the very thing which is the preacher’s sole responsibility to give. It’s like a cab driver, instead of driving you to your specified destination, sits there and forces you to play Parcheesi – it’s pointless and a dramatic waste of time that could have dire consequences for all involved.
Today, the sermon was at least on spiritual matters, but again the preacher made me angry. The topic was hope, which in and of itself is not something that would piss me off. As the speech continued, he started to talk about how people who do absolutely horrible things to others must have no hope in anything. He kept reiterating this point and saying that someone who does bad things doesn’t want to go to heaven, or have a life after their physical death. people who do these awful things must do them because they want to die and rot because there is nothing after death.
I was primarily upset at this because there is no way in heaven or hell that this man has ever spent any honest time getting to know someone who he would consider to be one of these ‘evil people.’ As one, I have all sorts of hope, and don’t think that this is it for existence. I don’t like the things I do, and don’t want to be the person I am. I want t live on forever with my loved ones, and experience a perfect body. I know I’m not the only bad guy who feels that way. To say that anyone bad doesn’t have any hope, and doesn’t care about their soul is plain wrong and irresponsible.
That wasn’t it, though. After this ridiculous series of statements, he went on to say that people who have had tremendously hard childhoods always have major trouble having hope as adults. I wonder if he thinks people with tough childhoods are by default, evil. This isn’t my point, though, just a side wondering. My main point of irritation is because, to illustrate how tough times as a kid make hope difficult, this bozo went on to tell us about a really distressing and forever scarring event in his troubled life.
His family is very close, they have alot of money, but have never let it make them shallow or cold toward each other. They are a rich Beaver Cleaver family. His awful and traumatizing, hope killing event happened when he was ten. The family traditionally went to an uncle’s country house twice a winter to ice skate on the frozen river in the backyard. It was always the greatest thing to do in his young life. The fun that dreams are made of. But the fun couldn’t last forever, and was shattered into a million little pieces of bullshit one day.
He had mouthed off to his mom or dad, and in a raging flash of unjustified retribution, his parents grounded him from a visit to the dreamland of ice sating.
This banishment from one day of joyous skating was crushing, and served to strip the poor boy of all hope for years. In time, he grew to understand the horrible decision his parents had made, and one day forgave them the injury they smote him with. his hope gradually returned, and he once again saw that life was worth living. Poor boy.
I fucking want this man dead. He has no fucking clue what a tough childhood is. he has no idea what a real emotional scar is. He has no concept of the effort it takes to cling to hope in the face of black and foreboding young trauma.
I seethed. I stewed in the juices of bitter disbelief that a human being could be this dillusionally self-absorbed and short sighted. I was ashamed at myself for expecting any different from this man, and ashamed at my congregation because they were the ones who chose him a few years ago. I was the only vote against the man. Since his hiring, there have been countless ridiculous sermon topics, and comments of forehead slapping stupidity. I just don’t get how no on sees the uselessness of this guy.
In a sense, he’s right. Us evil people who have had traumatic childhoods have no hope. In my case, i have no hope that he will ever get his head out of his ass.
I’ve been asked to write a bit about my views of our two presidential candidates – Barak Obama and John McCain. Let me preface this whole post by saying that I am a very conservative person (rare on the internet) but I am a free thinker who doesn’t follow any herd completely. I believe that any honest and even elementarily intelligent person will not totally buy into 100% of what their favorite political party believes. If someone says they are in complete agreement with every single point of ideology their part holds, they are lying, or aren’t actually thinking about anything – and simply nodding their empty little heads.
Every human being needs to think for themselves!
This post is an answer to a question about what I think, and it is not intended to stand as fact but simple opinion. It is also not directed toward the person who asked the question, but stands alone, and is directed to all who follow politics and like to learn about other people’s views.
Anyway, when it comes to our present choices for Commander-in-Chief, I have to honestly say that I see things of merit in both men. I also see various items of concern in each man’s character, ideology, or leadership style. If I had my way, there would be a completely different person in the running, but if I had my way completely – I would be Emperor of the United States of ME.
As it is for now, though, we have two men of vastly different backgrounds, cultures, and moral fortitude. On the one hand we have Barak Obama, a 47 year old black man who has been serving in The United States Senate for less than four years. He has a powerfully hypnotizing speaking style that lulls his audiences into a communal state of excitement, but doesn’t always have the substance behind his words to make people cement their belief in him. He’s a brilliant man, and has phenomenal people skills, but I feel that this only speaks to his ability to inspire emotion, and not actual conviction. His associations have been more than dubious, though, and range from a dramatically racist and disrespectful pastor to a criminal real estate developer to the leader of a violent underground terrorist group that is responsible for the deaths of many American citizens.
On the other hand, we have John McCain. He is 72 years old, and served in the US Navy from 1954 to 1981, a total of 27 years – five and a half years of this were spent as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. In 1977, McCain served as a Congressional liaison for the Navy, and thus marked his first step into the world of politics. He is a national hero, and a man who has always stood in the face of tyranny from protecting bullied cadets at the Naval Academy to refusing release by his captors until other men were released first. One fault of his has been the dishonoring of his first wife and marriage. It does speak better of him, though, that he always accepted complete responsibility for the failure of his marriage. He has since been remarried, and remains faithful. Starting in 1982, McCain was a congressman and a senator over the following two decades. His views fall in line more or less with those of legendary President Ronald Reagan, but he is known far and wide for his lack of any hesitation to stand against even his own party if he believes they’re wrong.
The two men are diametrically opposed. One is a flashy rock star type, who is riding a gargantuan wave of youthful and racial popularity. He is idealistic to an almost niave sense, but I feel he truly believes the things he says he wants to do. The other has a rock solid foundation of experience and legitimate service to this country on all levels. He is bolstered by the large base of afluent white conservative voters, but doesn’t get a big boost from the extremely right thinking people who see him as too loose a cannon
I will vote for McCain. I believe that he is one of the last true heroes in American government. I will also vote for him as a vote against Obama, simply because I find him patently dishonest, opportunistic, and hollow. I admit that all politicians are less than integrous by their very nature, but Obama goes above and beyond the call of dishonor. I don’t like the idea of voting for a man who has been unfaithful to a wife, but I have more of a problem with a vote for a man who has been and will continue to be unfaithful to the entire country.
I have a thing against blue blood rich people like McCain’s wife and her family, but I have an even bigger thing against rich patronizing people who try to portray themselves as blue collar. Ask someone who gets the most financial benefit out of the whole Fannie Mae Fiasco – after the head of the company, who happens to be an Obama adviser, there is, standing in second place… Obama himself. But hey, he’s all about change and helping the working class Joe’s like himself, right? Right? Anybody?.
I could go on and on, further justifying and showing how a vote for McCain is the best choice off of the present menu, but it’s a personal decision – and no matter how right I am, I know that I can’t change anyone’s mind unless they are truly thinking for themselves and examining the facts. If you’re a person doing that, then I don’t need to convince you, because you already agree.
I now that this post is probably going to anger many, many, many people – and all I can say is give me a break. This is my journal, and it is my post, and it is my opinion. You are also entitled to yours, and I won’t bitch and moan when I think you’re being a blind sheep. So, please don’t give me shit just because you don’t see things the way I do.
God Bless America.
On Sunday, I posted about how as time goes by, I think about the things I believe, and sometimes reaffirm my own ideals, other times I adapt and evolve. I asked if there was any subject that I should write about, that any of you readers would like to get my take on. I usually crosspost my entry link to my old LiveJorunal account, and it was there that I received a reply from an LJ user named “weirdauntie.”
She wanted to know: “…what’s the purpose of it all? Is there one? What do you think?”
I am thirty years old. My life has been, well, not the average one. This has always dramatically altered my view of the purpose of life. I think everyone’s idea of this is personal, and fluctuates and undulates like a sea. One day, you’ll hear someone spit out bitterly that there is no purpose and all of existence is the piss puddle of a cruel and sadistic God. Other days, you’ll hear the very same person cry out in a sing-song tone that life is wonderful, and it’s all just sunshine and lollipops. It is in that seesawing light that I preface this answer with the statement that what I say now, isn’t what I said yesterday, nor what I will say tomorrow.
So…
I have always had faith. This is not a faith in God, necessarily. Nor is it a faith in myself, or mankind, or the flying spaghetti monster. It is simply faith in hope. If you knew much about my life, you’d probably be shocked to hear (read) me saying this. Even my fiance is constantly bewildered at my undying belief that there is always hope. Many days, in fact, I don’t even understand why I believe that.
To put it more clearly, I think that all of existence is an equation. I see it as a mathematical idea that requires balance, reason, and has an answer. I wish I knew that answer, but just because I don’t, doesn’t mean there isn’t one. So, with this equation, there is also rules. These rules lay out the way things should be, and the way they will inevitably become. I know, I know – you’re already shaking your head and wondering what the fuck I’m talking about.
Honestly, I don’t even know sometimes.
Anyway, I guess I’m trying to say that I think life is ordered, balanced and defined by some incomprehensible rules. I figure that for every life like mine, there must be a life that is unjustifiably blessed. Balance. I also figure that this is the way it has to be. That doesn’t sound very hopeful, but it is. I hope that by enduring the life I do, I am sparing someone else that life. On the other side, I know for a fact that there is balance because I have seen many of my friends with absolutely horrible relationships. Mine is a shining light on a dark and hungry sea that devours even the swarthiest of sailors. My love life balances other people’s, and my love life balances my own regular life.
I have faith in the balance, and the plan. I am not a person who thinks there is a manipulating string-pulling God, who drags his people around like marionettes. I do believe, however, that there is some sort of fate, or destiny. If all of matter is held constant, as well as energy, by unbending rules – why not the very nature of existence. With rules, also comes a set outcome.
In sports, you follow the rules, and there is a winner and a loser, and within the rules, this is determined by each player’s nature. Take away the rules, and there is no winner, no loser, not even a starting whistle. It all unravels. Reinsert the rules, and the freeflowing mess that was dribbling off the field coagulates once again into an ordered, and determined occurrence.
I’m rambling, but you ask a tough question, and you get… me verbally flying all over the map trying to connect the dots of an abstract thought, and failing to make even the slightest bit of sense.
In short, I believe in a purpose, and a meaning to it all. I haven’t the foggiest idea what it is, but I cling tightly to the hope that my life is this way for a reason. I also firmly believe that everyone else’s lives have reasons. Sometimes, though, I think those reasons are simply to serve me, entertain me, or just piss me off. I’m a little self-absorbed that way. 
If anyone else has any other questions, or topics they would like to get my take on, feel free to ask. I will post my answers by Sunday.
One of my roommates is currently tryinics, religion, social morality, g to justify the fact that he screams at the top of his lungs at the television. He does this in the midst of sporting events, recaps of sporting events, and even commercials. His justification is: “I’ve been doing this for years! Get over it!”
We just shake our heads in disbelief and resignation. He’s right, though. He has done this ever since I’ve known him – which is a very loud and earsplitting 20 years. When he met his current signif.o. it wasn’t any different. It is a large wonder in my mind how on earth she possibly tolerated it from the very beginning, let alone five years later… when he hasn’t gotten any better, but a lot worse. This is just one of the MANY irritants within his rather abundant personality. We’re friends and all, and will always be, but damn, dude, you get over it – whatever it is.
His blurtations aren’t just at the inanimate animations on the TV, but also to all his roommates, his pets, and sometimes to himself. This is the type of thing that would be slightly amusing if it didn’t happen all the fucking time. The thing it rears its ugly head the most is in debate. Any time a topic of mild difference arises between this goofball and anyone else, a catastrophic, storm of the century of words erupts out of thin air. Like every other part of him, this is not a new trait.
As annoying as it is, this has always forced me to analyse my true beliefs and opinions on every subject from politics, to religion, to what is tastier between Coke or Pepsi. Even as an adult, I still find myself reexamining the way I feel about different things that pop up on the discussion horizon. I am a very conservative and old fashioned guy, but I also recognize how the real world doesn’t always mesh well with moral values, so I am constantly cementing some beliefs while adapting others.
I want to put my views about all sorts of social topics into a concrete expression of my belief. You can help. Comment here or on my LJ and tell me what topic you would like to read my views on. I admit freely that the way I look at the world is very skewed and at some times dramatically scary, but hopefully you’ll remember that it is simply how I feel, and I am not telling anyone else how to live.
Anyways, give me some topics, I’ll articulate my thoughts and feelings, and we can learn more about each other because you’re welcome to post your views or discuss what I’ve written. I will commit to posting on Sundays and Wednesdays, so comment where and when you want, then look back to see which topic I pick for that day, and what I think about it – if you really give a damn. 
Ah, the ambulance ride… that was a real trip – so to speak. One of the EMY’s was this stereotypical redneck type woman, but with one major twist, her right arm was all fucked up. It wasn’t fucked up the way mine is, but it is fucked up the same in that it looked naturally deformed. She was the type of person who constantly relates everything to herself, even in emergencies. She was also the type who tried to keep having a conversation with me – as I was in the middle of a mild heart attack.
Actually, it turned out to not be a true heart attack. What they think is going on when I have this intensified pain and discomfort is that my lungs get so overwhelmed with fluids that they actually cause pressure on the heart itself. Who really knows, though. My anatomy and the functions of my system are an increasing mystery to even the most intelligent of doctors.
So, once they got me reasonably stable, the ambulance roared off again to the hospital. I spent 4 days there, taking IV Lasix and getting many blood draws. In the end, even the diagnosis of congestive heart failure was partially dismissed. I was given ac test where i had to walk on a treadmill, and all the while there was a large series of electrodes and sensors stuck to my furry body. Luckily, by this time I had been shaved in many spots so there would be less agony when the sensors were removed. I absolutely hate them. My hair seems to be extremely sensitive on my chest, and many nurses get off on pulling strands out with the damn heart monitor sensors.
After the test, any serious problems caused by the heart were ruled out. There was still heart symptoms, but we crossed it off as the true cause of all this shit. So, now I’m left with a pair of lungs that keep filling with fluid daily, and a heart that is really stressed when the fluid gets too much. All this is on top of the neuro-opthalmological problems I have had for the past three years.
Soon after I was released from the hospital, we moved back to my home state of Indiana, and into the second bedroom of my best friend. I’ve gotten a family doctor here, and the first thing he did was to change my medicine from Lasix to a much stronger diuretic specifically designed for congestive heart failure, so go figure. It seems to be doing its job, as i am pissing so often I actually lose weight each time. The second thing he did was acknowledge that what has been happening to my body over the past few years is likely related to the condition i was born with – somehow. So, he referred me to a genetics specialist and a pediatric pulmonology specialist. I was confused by the pediatric choice, but he explained that they have alot of experience with internal defects.
So now I’m waiting. At the end of the month, I will actually get the honor of seeing these doctors. Meanwhile, I am constantly dealing with pressure in my chest, a ton of weakness and fatigue, and a whole host of other issues. God, this has been a really shitty summer, but whatever, it isn’t anything new. At least I have my girl, and she makes it all better.
There now you’re all caught up with my summer. Now I can get back to my normal entries, and I will try to post more often, I promise
So, there we are, back in the ER a second time. This time there is some major concern, since my GP actually told us to go there immediately, but didn’t say why. Time passed, more blood tests were drawn, another chest x-ray, and then an echo cardiogram was done.
This is where they squirt this disgusting and ice cold goo onto your body, then squish it around with something that sort of looks like a hand vac. My heart is naturally enlarged, and the muscle mass of it all is at least two and a half times a normal adult heart. I was born like this, but it had never caused any serious problems before. While the test continued, I started to get worried that this was it – the time I was warned about as a boy when my heart would start to wear out from being overly muscular and pumping so much harder than a heart should.
As a child, doctors said to me that a day would come when my heart would become too tired to work properly anymore. They said it was a certainty considering the fact that my natural blood pressure was 150 over 90, and living like that from birth makes the heart work too hard. This time that would come, however, was said to be in my fifties. So, as the goo dribbled down the side of my chest, I started to fear the worst.
When I got back to my little room in the ER, trays were being set up, and utensils were being carried into the room. It seems that one of the radiologists who looked at the chest x-ray my GP took, saw something called a pneumothorax. This is when there is air in the chest cavity, and is very serious because it could cause the lung(s) to collapse. To fix it, a hole must be made in your chest, and a tube shoved in to help the air escape. Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled about having my chest opened.
The ER doctor, a man with no bedside manner other than a weary and distracted scowl, said we would start the procedure, but he wanted to get a CT scan of my chest first. Off I went to sit in a tube for twenty minutes, while my fiance got to sit back in the room staring at the surgical equipment and worrying. I was worried, too.
I got back after the scan, and following fifteen minutes of sweating fear, nurses came in and started opening the utensil packages. Soon after, the doc came in and told them to stop. The scans showed no pneumo-thorax, and he couldn’t understand how the radiologist could’ve thought that. So, I dodged a huge bullet, but that still meant the radiologist was a complete boob, and I was still undiagnosed.
The doc gave me IV Lasix because I had alot of fluid in my lungs, and then he told me that from what he saw, I didn’t have pneumonia, or a pneumothorax, but actually congestive heart failure. Yes, I can hear the suspenseful “DUM Dum dum…” too.
I was admitted for four days, so they could drain all the fluid out of my lungs, and do some tests to figure out why a thirty year old, relatively in shape, extremely active man would have CHF. After all the blood draws, and EKGs, there weren’t many answers, so as soon as the lungs were more clear and the tightness in my chest subsided, I was sent back to our little room at camp to play more video games and endure the torture of the sound of children’s laughter. I had an appointment to see a cardiologist in another far off city the following week, so I just had to wait.
Halfway through that week, I started to feel a little relief, and we started to take short slow walks, go to a mall in a remote town, and I started to take out the garbage and do household chores again. About a week after being released from the hospital the second time, I was feeling well enough for us to go spend the morning at a mall in New York. We walked around, held hands, chatted about what was going on at camp (the Girl worked in the office so was privy to all sorts of sordid gossip) and took turns going into stores that interested us.
To top it all off, we went and had lunch at a franchised ice cream/classic American cuisine restaurant – Friendly’s. We go there, and every time we say we’re gonna get some really yummy treat off the dessert menu, but after eating all the really tasty entrees, we’re always too damn full to partake in the very thing that Friendly’s is famous for. This visit was no different. As the last few bites were chewed, I started to feel a tightness in my chest, and a very heavy feeling in what I could only assume was my lungs. Somehow, over the span of a meal, my lungs had filled with fluid again, and my heart was going ape shit. So was I.
We drove back to camp, because i thought I could just wait out the discomfort and avoid a trip to the hospital. When we got back, it was extremely bad, though, and I went straight to the camp doctor – who was out. So, the nurses went into panic mode, put me on oxygen, and called 911. After waiting a half hour (the camp is so remote that ambulances are never timely) paramedics arrived and prepped me for the trip to the hospital. My heart was behaving rather erratically, so they gave me nitro pills more than once to try to regulate the beat.
Hlafway there, the ambulance pulled over and a second paramedic jumped in. had no clue how that person got there, but was in too bad a shape to care at the moment. They did another echo cardiogram right there on the side of the road, gave me more nitro, and started to look very worried. I also noticed an aching in my left shoulder and the side of my jaw. I was terrified that I was having a heart attack.
We left off with me going to the hospital because my chest felt like an elephant had parked its ass on top of it. I couldn’t breathe much at all, my heart was fluttering, and I kept coughing. So, after the whole ordeal of that first ER visit, we left with a diagnosis of pneumonia, a prescription for antibiotics, and the orders to stay in bed until better 0 which could be weeks or months according to the doctor.
So, I spent the next week coughing, gasping, not being able to move very well because I was strangely weak and fatigued. By the end of that first week after the ER visit, I was feeling a little bit of relief, but was going absolutely crazy being unable to work. I could hear the kids and staff having a blast outsie the building where my Girl and I had a room. I had alraedy seen how crappy the camp was, but I was missing the little bit of it that was enjoyable. Being a man, and thus a stupid dork – I went back to work.
Very bad idea.
By the end of my first day back to work, I was in absolutely horrible shape. I was coughing, fighting for every bit of air, and vomitting profusely. So much for going back to work. I spent another week in our room. Granted, I love playing video games, watching movies, and talking to my guinea pigs for hours, but after two weeks of it, you lose your fucking mind!
Other than going stir crazy as I finished my second week being sick, in the room, surrounded by people having a blast, I also was getting worse. I’d finished the antibiotics a few days prior, and just kept feeling more and more weight in my chest. I finally got an appointment with a general care doctor on the Monday of the following week.
She listeened to ym breathing, had some blood tests, and got a cest x-ray. Same stuff as I had done at the hospital two weeks ago. Oh well, they’re being thorough, I guess.
The very next day, as I was shooting monsters and saving the world on te PS3, my Girl burst into uor room and sad the doctor had just called her. I had to go to the hospital right away – or my lungs could collapse. I felt pretty shitty, but I hadn’t thought it was that serious before. S, I threw on some clothes, tried to hide my greasy and uncombed hair, and off we went for another hour long trip to the hospital.
When I decided to change our plans for the summer (a third time) and go with the job offer from Pennsylvania, I somehow thought that being ready to move across the country in less than two weeks would be no big deal. I am a man, and gendered thus, I am not blessed with a very effective brain sometimes. Somehow, despite the incredible stress of it all, we got everything we own shipped, or packed into our two-door Honda Civic. This included our extremely unamused guinea pigs.
It took us four days, 2,500 miles, and many pee pee stops to make it from the West Coast to Scranton, PA. We stayed in a hotel that night, and drove the last two hours to the camp the next morning. Upon first glance, Camp Lohikan is a tremendously well equipped and expansive area of rolling hills and a beautiful private lake. After a few months there, I am confident that most people don’t even notice the gorgeous srurroundings.
I started working there in the middle of May, partaking in what is called Pre-Camp. This is when you are worked literally like a slave. Though there were no cracking whips, the patheticly exhausting 6 day work week, and pittance of pay made the dismally disgusting meals even more unappetizing. It didn’t help that the “provided” meals didn’t appear until the third week of this torture. It was obvious right away that I had made yet another bad decision in a lifetime of bad ones. My fiance, who had to endure all this with me, is the only brilliant decision I ever made, and she probably sees it in reverse. Can you blame her?
Anyway, the programs I was in charge of – riflery, archery, martial arts, survival camp, weightlifting, fitness, and overnights – required a tremendous amount of time and work to get prepared for the onslaught of 800 campers that was due to arrive at the end of June. Did I get time to set them up? If you didn’t answer that correctly, I’ll come over and shoot you with a rusty and half broken rifle, a splintering and bent bow and arrow, beat you with a mateless 5 lb dumbbell, and some paper thin gym mats… if I had any.
When the other 230 staff arrived toward the later half of June, it became sadly noticable that the money that should have gone into supplies and equipment did not get spent on staff. The vast majority of people hired were under, and sometimes flatout un, qualified to teach the things they were in charge of. Most of them were poster children for abortion, or at least state sanctioned sterilization of the rich and retarded.
I am used to working in highly professional and well-trained circles, so it was a doubly painful time being surrounded with such incompetence. The one redeeming thing at that point was the knowledge that the kids would be arriving any day now.
So it began. The kids arrived, the parents showed us all why rich children really get screwed from the very start, and I started to realize this weird tightness in my chest – which started a week or two before – hadn’t gone away. I sometimes get some discomfort in my chest because of some abnormalities in my heart, but it usually doesn’t last long. So, I paid no attention, and threw myself into a summer that was a mixture of sharp disappointment at the way this company squandered vast resources, and light excitement at finally getting started at the task of teaching children about how the world of the outdoors is wonderful.
The first night of camp, I got to do what I do best – build a mighty campfire around which all the children and adults could commune and bond. Now, I am used to being charged with the task of creating massive and glorious conflagrations that emblazon the faces of all around with the glow of community and togetherness. When I wastold the fire shouldn’t go any higher than two to three feet, the flicker of excitement in my eyes was extinguished. It didn’t help that I had to douse the miniature fire soon after starting it, when a thunderstorm drove the entire camp inside.
Oh well, I still had a little fun with that. I absolutely love the way all people are drawn to campfires like moths to the literal flame.
The first couple days went by without too big a hitch. I mean, this place had so many huge problems that I would never send my kids there, but the sections I was in charge of seemed to be running smoothly at the start. I could write you a collection of volumes on the insanity that went on at this camp, but I will save that for later, and possibly post it if you all want to know.
Anyway, by the fourth day my chest was extremely uncomfortable, so I was taken to the ER. The closest hospital was an hour away, though, s no one at the camp should ever have an extreme emergency. After several hours of waiting in a bed, gasping and coughing between blood tests, chest x-rays, and brief encounters with teh world’s most uninterested doctor, I was told that I had pneumonia.
What a summer this was turning out to be.
