There are a lot of problems in my life right now.  I am, at present, unable to go to work, to my home, to be around the people who I truly care about.
     That last one, that’s the crux.

     I don’t want people to pray for me.  There are more important things in this life than me.  Besides, for my part, I have some support.

     For a while now, my Wildcat has been hurting.  Many years of hurt, from what I know.  I love this woman, and the family she has given me, more than anything in this world.  I’d love to hold her, pull her close, stroke her hair and tell her it’s all going to be okay — like I always do.  I would do anything in my power, give anything that I was able, to help her.
     But it’s beyond my help now.

     And I will keep wearing this ring.

     Now, it is time to leave it in God’s hands.

     I want everyone who reads this to pray her.

     Pray that she’s okay.

     Please.

     There are three things in my life more important to me than anything else in this world.  All three things are intertwined throughout each other.  Sometimes, it’s hard to admit how much some things can mean to you.  But I’m gonna try.

     First, there’s my Wildcat, the single, most important thing, and the most important person, in my life.  If I had no one else in the world, I’d need her.  If I had everything else in the world, I’d need her to share it with.
     It’s not enough to say that I Love this women with every fiber of my being.  In fact, I would kill and die for this woman.  Ultimately, she trumps everything else in this mortal coil.  It’s no small matter that If I’m down, she can cheer me up with a look.  Although, the flipside is also true: she crush me just as easily.
     But I need that.  And I need her.

     The kids are important to me.  They’re all three over eighteen, growing-but-not-grown (though they’d surely argue that).  They fall somewhere between the Wildcat and I to varying degrees, and at times, it’s scary how much we’re alike.  With the exception of the eldest who I’ve only met a few times, we’re all so similar that that they truly seem like they’re ours together.
     I wouldn’t have them if it weren’t for her.  They’ve proven to me what family really is.
     I need that.  I need them.

     The last important thing to me can be construed as selfish.

     I have a strong desire to know that something in my life matters, that something I do will matter.
     You see, I’ve done a lot in my life.  I realized a couple of years ago that I’ve had a tremendous life, in fact, having done everything I ever set out to do and having been everywhere I ever wanted to go.  It was never enough until I met my Wildcat, who showed me the true meaning of Love and what Family is all about.
     You see, it’s important to me to have a positive effect on these four people.  They are my life blood.  They mean more to me than anything else in this world.  They matter.  Their happiness matters.  Their stability matters.  They are the something in my life that matters.
     And I need that.  I need them.

     There are naysayers in my life who can’t understand that.  Perhaps their family relationships are so fragmented and sinuous that they can’t grasp the concept.  Perhaps they’re so disconnected from humanity that they’re incapable of caring about anyone else.  Or, perhaps they’ve never known what Love is.
     I can only hope that they might understand one day.

     The fact remains that there is nothing more important to me than this family.  They have to come first regardless of consequence.  They matter, and will always matter, above everything else. 

     They are my family.

     It is thoughts and prayers for them that get me through.

     For them, I can still be Superman.

     I hope…

     Ya know, I’ve gone through my life trying to be conscientous, going out of my way to do things for other people, and trying to do the right thing.  Sure, like everyone else, I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and really screwed some things up — but I always tried to avoid doing things out of malice and anger.  Sometimes it could not be helped, and I picked myself up and carried on, made amends where they were possible, and really made an effort when I couldn’t.
     When an altercation happens, I try not embarrass or demean people who I care about — or cared about — further by talking a whole bunch of bullshit to everyone and their brother that I’ll have to go back and apologize for later.  Feelings get hurt too easily, and you embarrass yourself in the process if you’ve misrepresented the situation and had to go back on it.

     It is for that reason, and that reason alone, that I tend to keep a lot of the “specifics” of situations to myself.  And sure, I’ve screwed that up a few times, but all in all, I live my life simply, and with a clear conscience.

     And when it so happens that someone knows me pretty well, they’re able to manipulate that part of my character in order to make others believe that I’m some sort of Monster.  It takes a truly sick mind to use that sort of thing to say, “Oh, look, he’s not denying it!  I told you it was true!”
     And it takes a special sort of stupid to believe it, to blindly follow a tale which makes absolutely no sense, and is such a departure from the truth that it wouldn’t even be believable in a made-for-Lifetime-TV movie.

     I am not a Monster.  I have never done anything but try and help certain people, and nearly every time, it has turned out badly.  Other times, I have simply done nothing, which for some people is the absolutely worst thing I could have possibly done.
     But when someone wants to bitch and argue and start a whole bunch of crap, I usually tend to retreat and wait for it to blow over.  And, apparently, this a bad thing, too.

     I am probably going to start blogging about this crap, because it’s been a pain in my ass my entire life, and I’ve absolutely had it with the whole lot.

     And let there be no confusion from any self-victimized ‘tards with delusions of grandeur that I’m “screwing” with them all the time when I’m not: I’m not talking about any bloggers, wives, girlfriends, friends, employees or anyone else except except one very specific specific group.  I don’t care about that drama, because as hard of some of that stuff was to go through at the time, it doesn’t matter, it’s not my drama and I have no emotional attachment to it.  When it’s over, I walk away, done.

     No … I’m talking about Family.

     Two extremely large families, actually, with a literal cast of thousands.

     The ones that I share DNA with.  Or don’t, considering some of the stories.  *rolls eyes*

     It’s time to set the record straight once and for all.

     What started this?

     For the last three weeks, several of them have called me asking for my help.  They need my help and advice, or my expertise.  Nevermind that I’ve helped them my entire life, and been nothing but shit on for it in the absolute worst ways.
     They re-use their vicious lies.  Things that everyone knew was a lie twenty years ago suddenly come back into play as evidence of the new improved lie.  As a nasty little mob, they absolutely villify the object of their hatred with the most vile and disgusting slanders imaginable, never asking my side of the story and having no absolutely no regard for the verifiable truth of the situation.

     And now, after a full year of giving me the silent treatment and stabbing me in the back with their vicious lies, they call me for my help, advice and expertise?  Without so much as an apology?

     Yeah, I’m pissed, and when I calm down, I might change my mind about blogging anything more specific.  But right now, I have five instances in Draft where they’ve done some heinous crap, and a sixth which ties all five together into the biggest, steaming pile of poo I can think of — the kind of absolute bullshit that can ruin a person’s life.

     And I’m going to excercise the self-control they never had and keep it to myself until I calm down.

     But at the same time … this stuff’s been eating away at me for far too long.  They’ve tried to instill their spiteful, vengeful, righteous hatred into me my entire life, and I’ve resisted.  It’s taken a serious toll on me, both physically and mentally.
     I wear my heart on my sleeve.  Everyone around me can see when I get stressed and preoccupied — “Mark, what’s wrong?” and I’ve replied with “Ahhh, nothing….” or blown some stupid pet peeve out of proportion — and I’m honestly beggining to think that I’m losing the battle.

     Maybe it’s time to really set it straight once and for all … 

     …. with names, with witnesses …

     With Verifiable Proof…

     And what will they do when that God they claim to follow won’t help them?  Why should He keep them out of the mess they’ve made?

     Or am I supposed to sit here and do the right thing again and ignore it until the next time, when it will undoubtedly be worse?

     Mmhmm … Decisions, decisions.

     Maybe I should flip a coin…

     Maybe twice …

     Best two outta three …

     Hrm …

     Yeah, this might take a friggin’ book…

     And the funny thing is — I’ll be calm in an hour.

     It’s been a crazy year since last Thanksgiving.  Certainly, an abnormal and unusual amount of “bad stuff” far beyond my control has transpired, as well as a ridiculous amount from my own poor choices.  If I were to sit and reflect on it all, I’d probably end up depressed.

     But…

     Defeats made me savor victories.  Losses made me appreciate what I gained.  Every tear made me laugh even harder.
     For that, I’m thankful.

     Nearly every time I was in need, someone else had it worse.  I did what I could when I could, and the favors were returned in kind.
     For those, I’m thankful.

     The short list of people I consider “family” has grown tremendously longer.  For every loss, three were gained.  Those who were there already have gotten a whole lot closer.  
     For them, I’m thankful.

     As I sit here this morning, anticipating a huge dinner with my Wildcat and her family, I can’t help but reflect that if even one thing had happened differently, I wouldn’t have ended up here.
     For us, I’m thankful.

(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTvDDEB5aQQ)

     Sometimes, things happen for a reason.  That’s why it’s important to count your blessings and be thankful for silver linings.

     To all my friends, to all my family, and all of my friends who are family, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

For those of you that don’t know, Ms. Pat (Big T’s mom) had a severe brain aneurysm on our wedding day. Then brain surgery 2 days later on October 1st. On October 5th, they called in the family with the grim news that they (the doctors and such) gave her less than a 50% chance of making it. She was placed on a ventilator and was being fed by tubes, basically surviving on life support. There wasn’t much in the way of response at all. The awesome thing is, nobody gave up hope.

Now, on with the good stuff…

The home team scored one this weekend when Tony’s mom got to come home both Saturday and Sunday on a “day-pass.”

It works like this… they don’t do any of the therapy sessions on the weekends, so they send her home to break her back in slowly to life with husband and puppy. They start the time clock around 10AM (I think) and she’s allowed to be at home all day! Yay!

Only catch is, the rules and regs state the she has to be back at Patricia Neal by 9:00 PM. No exceptions, no excuses. If she didn’t show back up by precisely 9PM, they send the dogs and lynch mob out to hunt her down and bring her back for multiple lashings with a wet noodle.

Anyway, me and Big T went up to see her while she was in her own surroundings, eating her own home cooked food. I don’t give a shit what they say, there is no place like home to make one snap back to theirself.

When we got there, Big T told him Mom the joke of the day. Which made her cackle like a hen.

So, the women folk were sitting around the kitchen table as women folk commonly do and the men folk were congregated in the livingroom around the t.v., farting, burping and scratching their balls as men frequently do.

The phone rang and Ms. Pat answered it. It was T’s neice Christine. Ms. Pat is back to her self. She decided to tell T’s joke.

“Christine, honey, don’t buy a Butterball Turkey this year. They’ve recalled ‘em. Yah, they’ve been recalled. They forgot to butter the turkey balls.”

In all seriousness, she’s come so far in the last six weeks that they are actually kicking her loose today.

So, here’s to Ms. Pat, getting out to enjoy the drama and stress of the holiday season!!! I honestly couldn’t think of anything that sums up the Thanksgiving holiday, like the near loss of a loved one turned upside-down by an obvious miracle.

Give thanks, Kids. You never realize how important your family is to you until an eye-opening asskicker happens.

Howdy kids. My daughter called me last night and told and asked me what she should do with Tyler, my lil angel of a grandson. She said he was spiking a bigtime temperature and he couldn’t catch his breath. Turns out he was taking 50+ breaths per minute, which is way too much for a 2 year old.

After spending the evening at the ER, they told us he has pneumonia. Apparently, a kid can go from slight sniffles sans snot and goo to pneumonia in no time flat. So, his right lung is kinda jacked up and he’s taking a shit-pot of munchkin strength anti-biotics and breathing treatments.

Of course, no pneumonia epidemic is gonna get him down. Absolutely not. He was still raisin’ all hell in the waiting room and wasn’t diggin that nurse trying to take his vitals during check-in. It was all over when Natalie tried to strip him down to get him in a sexy, midget sized hospital gown. It pissed him off even more that he was getting a draft on his ass.

Keep my lil angel in your prayers, please. Even though he’s still full of piss and vinegar, pneumonia is an ass-kicker.

It dawned on me over the weekend, and it saddens me greatly. Big T and I started talking about creating a clone shortly after we married (2 months ago).

This is great news and I couldn’t be any more tickled for real. Growing a mini-T in the oven. It’s beautiful.

So, what’s so sad about about it, you might be asking. Well, I’ll tell ya.

I decided with my advancing age (an astounding 37 years), that maybe I should go see Dr. Brad and get official clearance that my oven is still capable of baking without undercooking or burning the buns.

Now don’t you fret, kids. The news is nothing Earth shattering. Just a FAT reality check.

1st. I’m getting old. Dammit. If a body is in the 35+ age group and goes to the OB/GYN and tell them that you’re gonna have hot monkey sex and procreate… LORD HAVE MERCY. Red flags start flying up, sirens start sounding throughout the office, and a big fat sticker goes on your chart. Dayum.

In fact, simply because I’m post-35 (apparently well into middle age), I will have to go through the joys of doctor visits nearly double what I did with my last clone (16 years ago).

2nd. Dr. Brad looks at me all serious during the consultation after the exam (ewwww!)… and says, “We strongly suggest you drop 45-50 pounds before actively pursuing pregnancy.”

I sat there for a minute. Depressed already that I am old and I saw the sticker stating such on my chart….
before asking Dr. Brad, “So, why didn’t you just tell me I’m old and fat? Wouldn’t that be exactly what you’re saying? Besides, you aren’t telling me anything these crows feet around my eyes and the scale haven’t already disclosed.”

“Well, no. It’s just that with your age..” He started.

“Fine, I’ll go to the gym. But I think you should just start being honest with your patients. Old and fat, buddy.”

He smiled that doctor smile when he realized I wasn’t, in fact, pissed off and about to go hormonal on him and his entire staff.

My youngest clone is 16 years old.

She and her friends are so much more “grown up” than me and my friends were at her age.  All we really cared about was ditching school to go to the beach, sneaking a cigarette now and then, and other stupid crap.

These guys talk about saving the world, like the little tree huggers they are.

They talk about saving the rain forest.  They talk openly about so many things.

I guess I’m the type of mom who, for better or worse, never kept any secrets from my kids.  I’ve never pretended that smoking, drugs, alcohol, or sex don’t exist in their worlds.  I took the preemptive approach of actually telling my kids the pros/cons - good/evil of these things…. and from a young age.

All of these things were unthinkable and taboo in our house when I was growing up.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t encourage my kids to smoke it up, drink it down and knock boots.  Quite the contrary.  I encourage them not to do any of it, at least the youngest one and her friends (who still listen).

I just think it to their advantage if they know they can talk to me about anything and that I will be there for them and they won’t be treated as if they have the plaque and be banned from my sight for being human.

With that in mind… the youngest and her lil friend designed and baked me a penis for my bachelorette party.  Dear Lord.

Dr. Tony Lightens the Mood

I’m sure everybody knows that Tony’s mama got really, really, REALLY sick on the day we got married.  It is amazing, incredible even to see Ms. Pat now and how incredibly far she’s come along since that day. Had I known the day we got married, before I walked down the aisle, that she wasn’t there I’d have postponed the whole damn thing again (yah, yah Spanky, you’d have won the bet again).  But I didn’t know until I actually walked up to Tony and they played the first song in the ceremony that she was even sick.

By 4:30 that afternoon, Tony’s brother called and said that Tony needed to come to make Ms. Pat go to the hospital because she was “out of it” and really, really ill.  We made it to Methodist Medical Center, where they quickly found out she had suffered a life threatening aneurysm and needed to be transferred to Univeristy of Tennessee hospital immediately.  They did surgery and it honestly appeared that things weren’t going so well and the outlook was grim.

That was six weeks ago.  Today she is in EXCELLENT shape!  The first thing she got back was her since of humor.  When asked “Mom, how do you feel?”

She’d shoot back, “With my fingers.”

She is breathing and eating without any assistance from machines, which 6 weeks ago she could not have lived without..  Her right side is getting stronger and stronger by the day.  She has improved so much that she has been moved from UT to Patricia Neal Rehab Center where she’s walking with parallel bars and peddlin’ her ass off on the bikes.  GO MS. PAT!

So, we were there to visit her last night.  Tony keeps her laughin all the time, which is what she needs for sure.  Nobody needs to be sad and worried anymore!! She’s made it through the bad stuff already.

We walked into her room and Leacha is sitting on the end of the bed with her.  I took the real chair and Tony got to sit on the portable shitter.

“Damn, mom.” He says.  “If you’re not careful on this thing, you’ll shit on your shoes.”

It’s always so good to see her smile and laugh.

As it turns out, Ms. Pat had found out what all had happened to her in the last six weeks yesterday.  When we got there, Tony’s sis (Leacha) asked his mom to tell him what had happened. 

She looked at Leacha really sad, then over to him still really sad, like she was afraid she’d scare him if she told him.

“He already knows what happened, Mom.  He just wants to hear you tell him so he knows you know what happened.”  Leacha told her.

Ms. Pat looks over at Tony, still worried, “Well, they told me I had a brain aneurysm and that I was real sick.”

“Yah.  You were pretty serious, Mom.” Tony pets her arm.  “You know how that happened don’t you?”  He asked her all serious like.

“No.”  She tells him as we all sit and wait for his professional diagnosis.

“Well, it happens when people hold in their farts.” He explains.  “If ya don’t let it out, then it travels up and causes real problems.”

“That’s your son.”  Leacha tells her.

Ms. Pat laughed to hard to say anything back.

Thank God for Dr. Tony and his warped since of reality.

I was sitting in my office today when a friend of mine sent me a text message on my phone that had little hearts and said “I love you”.  At the bottom it instructed me to send it on to all of my friends.  So, I did.  I sent that bad boy to everybody, including my teenaged boy, who hates that kind of crap.

About 20 minutes later, my phone rang.

“Hola!”  I answered. I have caller ID so I knew it was my boy, Matt.

“Hey!  Guess what!!!!” He said, all giddy and excited like.

“Uh… what?”  I played along.

“My phone’s workin!!!” He exclaimed.

You see my boy has a really bad habit of tossing, flipping, pitching his phone..(along with other various forms of abuse).  About two weeks ago, the phone, in an act of ultimate retribution, just up and quit working.   He could still send and receive text messages, but not talky talky.

“No shit?!?!”  I get giddy with him.  “You mean the phone you called me from works?!?!?”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.”  he retorts. “But I wanted to let you know.”

“Well, very cool, baby. I’m glad its workin.”  I tell him.

And I am genuinely glad it’s working because he’s been on an “I want a new phone” kick for about 2 months now.  So right at this second, he’s thrilled to have one he can speak into and hear from.

Then it hits me that he’s calling from school, because I can hear all the chatter of teenaged boys in the background.  So I ask him,  “Why the hell are you in school?”

“Cuz we’re rednecks and apparently we don’t vote up here.”  He says as serious as can be.

“Did you get my text message?”  I ask him all lovey dovey.

“Yah. Yah.” He says trying to put me off like teenage boys do when they are confronted with the “L” word.

“Well?  Do you love me, dammit?”  I push out of sheer enjoyment knowing he was squirming in front of his buddies.

“Come on, Matthew.  You can say it.”  I prod.

“Oh, God.” He said.  “I gotta go.”

“Fine.  Love you.”  I tell him.  He knows I really do love him.

“Ya. Ya.  Bye.”  He said and hung up.  I’m pretty sure his eyes were rolling in back of his head too. 

I really do love the brat and I’m really super proud of him.  That’s ok. He has to come home sometime.