A really Sh**ty poem I wrote

O do the stars in the heavens weary themselves over the young.
The ways of wood and stone weight heavy on fragile shell,
The fingers of salt and snow wash away velvety innocence.

Little birds grow together and beat their wings in song.
Some become sparrows while others the ravens of hell,
Both flights steal joy and sorrow and awaken sense.

The sparrows fly fast and true yet are caught in the spiders web.
The raven toil over the harvest of a desolate well,
And the dark threads of life tighten and tense.

O as the deep black night strangles it's jewels,
The sunlight breaks down it's black sorcerous spell.
The stars fade to dreams and leave naught but heat,
And two piles of bones, ordered and neat.

The Story: "How I Got My New Teeth"

Long Long Ago, in January of 2009, I was living happily with my newly wed wife and two stepchildren in a little condo off State Street. We were tight on cash because my job wasn't giving me any hours, but I'd just received a promotion and had been on a special Dell Minuteman team for a week when I got a terrible stomach flu. We All did actually, but I got it and good because the rest of my family wasn't stuck in the rest room the majority of three days straight.

I got better however, and returned to work. That morning my back was just killing me, hurting terribly but I said to myself "It's just because of the stomach flu, sitting on the porcelain throne for three days straight and not enough sleep." As the day moved on, my back started hurting more and more and the strangest weakness in my legs and arms started showing up, it felt like my legs were being sapped of strength. By lunch time I could barely stand and knew I needed to go home before I couldn't stand or drive. So I talked to my supervisor and left.

 

I spent the rest of the day at home and it went from bad to worse. Over the next 10 days, I lost most of my fine coordination motor skills, couldn't type, could barely talk, could barely walk and was extremely sensitive to tactile sensation, light, sound and my sense of smell was up there too. I went from a healthy, strong 30-something year old to a weakling and a gimp. My wife, parents and friends were all concerned, and I had to take a medical leave of absence from my work due to the issue. On February 10th, 2009 I went into the E.R., they did several MRI's and gave me 1 gram of solu-medrol (a steroid IV they use to treat MS attacks). They thought maybe I had M.S. or some other neurological disorder, and I was sent home, high on Steroids and with a follow-up with a neurologist. The Steroids improved but didn't cure my symptoms, and after a few visits with Dr. Foley, he determined it wasn't M.S..

 

I then started a long, pointless search through the neurologist Dr. Elena James (Whom I'll never recommend to anyone) whom after two visits had decided that all the symptoms I was suffering from were "normal" and that the problem must be psychological in nature (she didn't recommend this the first visit because she hadn't seen the psych history from my teenage years). I tried getting a second opinion but he performed the same examination my Primary care physician had performed and decided that it was all in my head. So I was trying Physical Therapy and later started seeing a LCSW to verify/discredit the psychological cause and my wife was saying "Well, it might be your teeth - they're terrible." So we went to a dentist and he agreed my teeth were junk and dentures would probably be in order. I had the first three teeth extracted by the dentist but due to the structure of nerves in my mouth, felt every single thing (which put me into bad shock) - and it perforated my sinus. Shortly after, we had a tragedy in the family and I ended up really messing up my mouth in the process.

 

Once it was all healed, in May I had the rest of the teeth knocked out of my head by an oral surgeon. Low and behold, four hours after my teeth were gone, so were the majority of my symptoms. Apparently, my teeth were the cause of all the high-end pain, weakness, etc that's been plaguing me for the last 2+ years. Sadly, none of those M.D.'s ever considered that my mouth could be the cause. 

 

So, I'm left with a ruined job history, our family is broke, we lost our condo, and I'm currently trying to get myself back to work. I've got pretty new whites which I'm still adjusting to, and a new lease on life. My wife probably saved my life with her suggestions, and the doctors were freaking useless. 

The End

This was all posted by request - Hope you enjoyed Katia, and anyone else who was wondering.

 

:)

 

-Andy-

Reminds me of grandma

Taken with vignette for android, used a velvia filter.

Best quote ever

I need the luck, I have a crucifix up there too.

Regarding world peace

World Peace.

What a concept, what a great thing to strive for.

Unfortunately, the reality of the world makes it easier to use as a goal, something to say proudly to your parents. Church members or teachers.

We all have one, some dynamic statement that we want to see happen, want to believe in. Some pick god, others politics, and many pick the concept of world peace.

At the core of my perception belief system, the way I've come to analyze and cope with the problems life offers humanity, is the conflict engine.

The conflict engine deftly explains why religion works, politics always fail, religions become corrupt, bad guys win and miracles and angels exist.

It explains more than any one limited imagination or logical mind can generate. But I was discussing world peace.

The conflict engine works like this. No matter how hard evil or good, the greedy or selfless try to change the world, opposition will always rise up and threaten the success of their ventures. Progress only is made in relation to the opposition, or conflict against the pursued goal.

The conflict engine speaks of balance through imbalance, evolution through decay, good through evil and war through peace.

This makes it sound like no real progress is ever achieved. This is not the case. Great accomplishments are made in life. For example, electricity has been essential in science, medicine and technology and industry. It has saved lives and changed the face of the world. It also made possible such things as nuclear weapons, genetic engineering and biochemical warfare. As humans we are exultant in our electrical world, but casually ignore the devastating results that were born from the same seed.

World Peace. Is it possible? Yes. Is it what we want? Maybe. What is the price we pay for it? Not the trail leading up to it, but the cost that comes because of its birth.

I personally don't think world peace is really what we want. Our species is another kind of animal, one just like any other. We will do whatever we can do to survive, no matter how cruel. Some believe that Love is the key, like some harry potter film. I am a believer in love, and like all other forms of progress and achievement, I see the conflict and hardships we face to find it, and hold onto it. I don't think love will bring about world peace because I don't think as a species we love ourselves enough to see ourselves truly for what and who we are. We look at the terrible Things others do, then pat ourselves on the back for being so different than the monsters in the news, in the dark places. The amusing thing is that those monsters and the rest of us share many similarities. For example. They were doing the same thing before you ever heard of them and shivered.

Love battles deceit, and hatred battles against honesty. We are neither sacred nor profane. We are all animals, beasts whose sense of survival has grown to include a great deal of blind pursuit, and an even larger talent for modifying the way we look at life to keep up the illusion that there is anything but an exchange of advantage and loss all our lives and all around us.

Hard to contemplate

I am finding it hard to not feel a gaping, hollow void in my heart when I think of the fact that it is Stevens Birthday. He was my younger brother, the guy who I was supposed to protect and watch out for. He was supposed to outlive me.

I know that I am whining and feeling down about it unnecessarily, it just really screws with ones heart to think "I'm not really the eldest son anymore, I am the only Son, the last son that my parents have left."

I feel terrible thinking of my parents and the emotional hammer they must be facing today. I want to be the strong and capable boy that they need. Fate or God or whomever has taken some of that away from me and my family but I at least still have some good things to offer them.

I hope that they live a very long time, because not only am I honestly saying I don't think I would make it through that in the near future but I also want to be there for them, repay the caretaker of my youth with like service.

Happy Birthday little brother, hope you're in a better place than this mire we call earth. You have earned it and Damn anyone who says othwewud