Take a Bow

As a senior in high school, I was completely sure that I had an amazing future on the silver screen ahead of me. With a few local commercials under my belt and my name in bronze in my high school auditorium, a number of generous locals felt the same as well. But after two years of taking theater in college, I wanted out, and didn't want to look back. Theatre was not for me - at any given time, 1% of all actors on the planet HAVE work; and of those 1%, 1% are the ones you see on film and television. I do have a dream of someday being a devoted family man, and I can't buy braces or fund a college education on that, let alone even be home for family Scattergories night.

Beyond that, what I found in theatre was a culture of promiscuity, drugs, and drama that simply did not align with my morals and how I was raised. I felt the gravitational pull into the black hole of that aspect, but luckily hit the accelerator and launched myself away from that cosmic catastrophe. Don't get me wrong, I have MANY wonderfully delightful memories from my two years in theatre - but much like a rotten orange, you only need to peel away the bright surface to reveal that things have gone sour.

And on the final note, the type of acting we were taught was not "memorize your lines, move here, smile now, drink from the glass." I guess it's what you call method acting - where you actually BECOME your character. You spend literal days-worth of hours getting into the mind of your character - and where you may only have 30 lines to deliver, you investigate and imagine in your head an ENTIRE backstory to make your person real. You imagine what they eat for breakfast, are they a creature of habit, what was their favorite cartoon as a kid, what was their prom night like - all this stuff you imagine, to give your "fake" person a history, and make them real. Although this has given me a REALLY great ability to understand other people now, after I had become a nazi, mentally-disturbed doctor, soldier, abusive boyfriend, and countless others - I had spent enough time in dark-people's minds that I was done.

So after I transferred and changed majors, I only dabbled here and there. I played a wily old man in a murder mystery dinner theatre, and then played a small role in some artistic film student's piece about a bomb shelter. Mostly I sat in a corner wearing camouflage and cried under a swaying light. I generally imagined what it would be like if macaroni and cheese had never been invented - it brought the tears.

But after the trial of the marathon was over, and I survived the blistering hippie-heat of Burning Man, I for SOME reason, felt that I needed a new challenge. So, I decided to give theatre a try again. I kept it mostly secret that I was going to audition, but gained great support from those who I told.

Wouldn't you know it, I landed the first audition I went out for? Despite the audition being completely beyond what I had expected (I had to sing, and did not bring my own music - and I had to dance, and was wearing jeans and shoes NOT happy with dancing), I somehow landed a very nice part. It was a musical, and for the next three months I would rehearse in an abandoned car lot with a cast of characters of all ages and backgrounds.

My role did not actually have a lot of stage time, although a relatively important character. I actually spent more time on stage as "Mysterious Man #4" (as I came to call myself), than my primary role. You could distinguish the two by whether I wore my glasses or not. ;)

Most of the time at rehearsal, I either read or txtd on my phone with friends. Looking back, I can see this gave off an aura of disinterest and isolation; however, I was doing it simply to be able to concentrate and listen for my cues and director's notes, and to not talk and get in trouble for making noise. In addition, it kept me out of the drama forming backstage. For most of rehearsal, it was not there - however, come opening week of the show, lines had been drawn and gossip had begun to flood the backstage. Thankfully, I had remained in limbo in my digital hand-held, and thus my enemy list remained at zero.

There were a NUMBER of children in the show; and although I love kids, this made me really re-evaluate how much I like the little ones. Explosive balls of energy ages 8-16, the kids sprinted around backstage, fought, played video games with the sound on, left garbage all over the place, listened to ipods as they carried props on stage, and dropped, banged, crashed, and smashed more loud objects backstage during performances than Rodney Dangerfield at a cocktail party. It was a true test of patience.

I am not here to single any particular person out. I felt all the employees of the theatre (non-actors) were VERY professional, and very good at what they did. There were people in the cast who I truly enjoyed their company, and will stay in touch with after the show. There were people who, when I caught sight of, made a lump in my stomach. There were the familiarities I remember of college - loud, dramatic people who's lives are "all a mess", and are very gossipy and "sassy", if I may so. But there were a number of delightful people, who kept me laughing and smiling throughout the entire ordeal. Was the rush I felt from theatre six years ago gone? Yes, yes it was. I enjoyed putting on my final costume, and smiled inside when I was onstage and I knew someone in the audience. But the flash and excitement and energy of the old days are gone; and by the end, I felt as if I were just going through the motions.

It meant the world to me how many people came out to support me - my wonderful gf, my supportive father, awesome fellow employees, and best friends who road-tripped all the way from Indianapolis to see the show. They all mean everything to me. But as for the show, I simply missed my life. Working a 9-5 job five days a week, and then having four hours of stage work almost every night for three months took an exhaustive toll on me, and I missed out on so much quality time with my friends, family, and Allison. It made my mother so happy that I was acting again (she has always been my biggest fan), but was not able to come to the show due to family illnesses out east. So I will HAVE to act at least once more so she can see me on stage; but for now, I'm ready to get back to my people and to this city. There's much to be done - and it's not pretending on a stage.

I do not regret at all doing the show - I am truly glad to have given it a sample again and to see what acting outside of college was all about. I had many a great laugh and heartfelt moment, and a number of disappointing frustrations - and from them all, I can say that I've learned and grown that much more as a person. Patience for the young, patience for the old, the ability to avoid gossip and cruelty, and to show appreciation to those who reach out and make you smile - there are good things to be taken from the last three months.

I took a final bow yesterday, and it is time to be with those I love.

Please have a very very Merry Christmas! :)

Mix and Make

Every few decades, someone with a vision comes along, and takes that flurry of neurons spinning around in their noggin and turns it into something palpable. Something you can hold, see, taste, or sense. That decade my friends, is upon us.

One of my best friends from Illinois, Greg Zimmerman, has just released his first solo album. Having been the nucleaic catalyst for the Bahnann Brothers, his band later evolved into Certain Company, an ever-evolving band that's taking the Chicago bar scene tour.

Certain Company pulls its influences from a variety of sources, delving into 90's rock, sucking some long solos from 70's jam bands, and even taking a taste of ragtime and jass from the 20's and 30's. (Fun historical fact: "Jazz" was originally spelled "Jass", but when a Chicago promoter began putting signs up all over the city announcing brand new "Jass" players, youth would run around after him and scratch out the "J." Not wanting to taint the name of the cultural movement before it took off, he changed the spelling to "Jazz".) A heavy amount of original work inspired by love, sunsets, and 'shake' 'in it, Certain Company's music has really been taking audiences into long nights of singin' along, clappin', and dancin'.

In Folklore Troubadour, Zimmerman gets to experiment more with his own interests and talents. While brilliant, an artist's favorite pieces may not always be mainstream, and a solo project gives one the chance to play and challenge their own beliefs and convictions. Zimmerman's overarching themes seem to delve from dreams of a Utopian world, built on true love and striving for something better. Never satisfied and never settled, he begs for more passion, more fulfillment, and better days of back and looking forward.

Whether a folk ballad like the kick-off tune in "No Time to Lose", or a 90's catchy-tune rock like "Taught Me", his diverse talents reflect a youth and influence ranging from Sinatra to The Doors. An overdriven guitar, gentle plucking of an acoustic, mixing his own harmonic vocals, wicked drum breakdowns, and even lofty violin all originate from this artist's studio and create an album that will have you toe-tapping and already singing along by the second chorus.

Personal favorites of mine are "You Know What I Want", where Zimmerman lures his evening lover with bongos and sweet harmony; and "Spumento", a catchy 90's tune that has you bouncing your foot along to his guitar rhythm. "Dargento and the Legion of Death" simply has to bring a smile to your face, as every Lord of the Rings fan now has a rock ballad to go along with the film. "Backporch Blues" drips the essence of a slow jam from AC/DC, and you find B.B. King throwing his fingers onto the neck of Zimmerman's Stratocaster in the closing number of "Queen of Spades." Zimmerman loves the blues, and you can hear he's having a great time sharing it in the final piece.

It's a roller coaster of an album, but you can hear Zimmerman's smart smirk behind every lyric, and he's loving what he's doing. The music takes you down a positive road and through rolling tunnels of life crafted in the Midwest and aboard racing sailboats, and reminds you of your first love, your first political rally, or sipping some fresh-squeezed lemonade on a summer afternoon with friends. You finish imbibing this album and feel refreshed, energized, and right with the world. It's a musical high five.

So for a journey through music history and an enjoyable, toe-tapping, great back-porch-in-the-spring album, check out the music online: http://www.gregreedmusic.com/lyrics.

Rock on.

Waverly Hills Sanitorium

Halloween and Christmas are my favorite holidays, bar nun. Both holidays have the top activities, and provide the best decorations and movies, without argument. If you try and argue with me, you hate happiness, and probably sell puppies for drugs. Here's the breakdown:

Halloween

• Haunted Houses
• Scary movies
• Costumes
• Apple Orchards
• Pumpkin Patches
• Ghost Story Telling
• Candy
• Crazy decorations including crashed witches and spider webs
  

Christmas

• Skiing
• Snowboarding
• Ice-skating
• Festival of Lights
• Hot Chocolate
• Polar Express
• A Christmas Story
• Huge Sweaters and ridiculous socks
• Snowballs
• Giving presents
• Getting presents

Back in October, to help celebrate the fantastic month-long holiday of Halloween, Allison talked me and three of her best friends into visiting the Waverly Hills Sanatorium Haunted House in Louisville, KY. Thankfully, I'm with someone who's as obsessed with October as I am. We love haunted houses - I make sure to go to as many as I can every year, even if they're terrible. However, this was one of my first experiences into an actual haunted house.....

Brief history: in the 1920s, Waverly Hills Sanatorium was built to combat the tuberculosis outbreak in the United States, and was the most advanced hospital of its kind in the country at the time. Insert decades of thousands of people dying, mysterious employee deaths, and a creepy setting in the middle of the woods - and you've got yourself the perfect recipe for a haunted structure, having been closed in the 1970's for "malpractice." Yeah, goosebumps, I've got 'em too. If you want a more in-depth, gruesome history of the place, go here.

However, the fake haunted house is not the story here. I WILL say that I was extremely impressed with it though. They didn't focus on loud bangs and jumping out at you, but more on creating eerie, haunting images. My favorite of these involved us walking into a small cement room that only had one small spotlight cast in the corner. There was a hospital bed, and a large man sitting in a wheelchair next to it, staring over his hospital gown at his feet covered in blood and vomit. We had to walk right by him to get through the room; and although we anticipated him jumping at any second, he never even looked up. We passed through the room, and began to head down a long, pitch-black hallway - and then heard a rusted squeak behind us. Without us noticing, he had begun to follow us down the hallway in his wheel chair, staring at us up through his eyebrows, as if his neck were limp. He paused under a small, blue spotlight and just stared at us, then slowly rolled backwards and was sucked up by the darkness. Haunting.

At the end of the haunted house, we learned that you could actually take real, guided paranormal tours of the building in the off-season. Allison's eyes lit up like those of a 6-year-old in Toys R Us with $20, and wanted to find out when the tours were going on. So the next day I called into the Waverly Hills Office, and found out that only one tour remained available - the final tour at the end of November. Some secret coordination with two of Allison's best friends, a few flashlight purchases, a white lie here and there, and six weeks of secret-keeping later, and Allison's surprise ghost hunt was sprung on her.

Allison was under the impression that we were going to my father's retirement party; so when her "Friends"-like apartment-mate Andrew and her lifelong buddy Ashley knocked on her door at 5:45 p.m. and were ready to go last Friday, she was shocked. Hopping into my car (see previous blog about her car being incapacitated) with cameras and flashlights galore, we took off southward into the approaching darkness. Waverly was waiting.....

We parked in the shadow of the looming sanatorium, all lights out and every single window shattered to the ground. A traffic director (i.e. dude in a black hoodie and jeans) told us to wait by the one outside light of the building, which coincidentally illuminated a ferocious gargoyle that watched over the driveway. When nearly ten of us had assembled, the guide took us to a well-lit building off to the side of Waverly, flanked by a hearse.

Entering a door at the bottom of a set of concrete steps, I was shocked at what I saw: formal organization. Four rows of tables and chairs were lined up in a large room, all facing a large projector screen. Most of the seats were filled, totalling around 50 people in the room. A third of the space was taken up by Waverly merchandise - tote bags to hats - and about ten different Waverly employees, all in black, caroused around the cash register.

When everyone was seated and settled, they flipped off the lights, and began the movie. I thought to myself if I came all the way down here to watch a movie about a haunted place, SOMEONE is paying me back $40, or better jump out and scare me. But the movie was the perfect set-up. It began with an old black-and-white film actually FROM the time of the tuberculosis outbreak, which reviewed some of the prime facilities in the nation fighting the epidemic. Of course, Waverly Hills was the highlight, and the the hairs on the back of my neck began to rise as we watched real, live people walk through the rooms and halls we would soon be traversing. Well, ONCE alive.

The second video was from a '90's series called "Ghost Hunters", which I generally found eye-rolling and disappointing. It gave a general history of the building, and then followed ~six teenage girls as they attempted to spend a scream-fest night in night of self-inflicting terror in the building. Twenty minutes of watching make-upped, blonde Kentuckian teenagers scream and run around a dark building? Yep, bring on the Advil. The link doesn't seem to be working, but the website says you can watch the video here.

However the third video followed the newer TV show TAPS, a group of plumbers-turned-paranormal investigators as they spent a weekend investigating Waverly. Although the premise is ridiculous, this was a well-done piece that really highlighted some of the best parts of the building. My favorite clip from this episode is when they were doing a thermal scan of a hallway that is frequented by a young boy apparition, and you can CLEARLY see a pair of legs run across the hallway. No-joke. THAT got me excited to go into the building.

At the completion of the videos, we were split up into two groups, and each given a tour-guide, and our 90-minute paranormal investigation began. We. were. pumped.

The first stop was the "body chute"; which the website had claimed we were not allowed to enter, but our guide was being "the cool guide" and letting us go down. The skivvy: at the peak of tuberculosis at the facility, people were dying by the hour, and they felt that the constant flow of dead bodies past the patients would demoralize them (if having tuberculosis didn't suck enough). So they build a cement chute at the back of the building, which bodies could be discretely slid down inside to the bottom of the hill where the hearse was waiting - seemingly ~100 yards. However, sometimes there were just too many deaths and unclaimed bodies, so there is a mass-grave hidden somewhere nearby, which our guide would not reveal the location of. Bring on the eerie.

The chute was creepy, cold, and of course dark. I had no problem with walking down all the stairs (even on what I would find out later to be a sprained ankle), but was uncomfortable coming back up. Allison and I were the last to come out of the shoot, and I had the haunting feeling that we were being followed. We both refused to look back, and I snapped pictures over my head back down the tunnel as Allison shined her light behind us, as scary things stay away from light.

We then entered the building. I think what really made the tour worthwhile is we simply had a GREAT tour guide. He was patient in his story telling, believed his own stories, and had great set-ups. I can't tell you how many times he would shuffle us all into a pitch black room and say something like, "ok, now that you're all in here, let me tell you how many people died in this tiny room...."

Allison, Ashley, Andrew, and I (sorry, NOT an A-name) had created code-names for the night, as our paranormal investigator titles. Allison = The Lady in White, Me = Ecto 1, Ashley = Dr. Snakebite, and the last one escapes me. But our cutsiness ended quickly, as we had to remain silent for most of the trip, and our flashlights could only be turned on in the stairwells. Although cameras with flashes were permitted, we had to say "flash" every time before a picture, so everyone around us could close their eyes. Everyone hated me, I think......

The building was fantastically creepy, with Tim Burton painted all up and down the hallways. Abandoned hospital bedrooms, wind-whistling hallways with windows blown out, and never ending stairwells set a brilliant air of quiet haunting. We were taken down countless corridors and abandoned rooms, and told story after story of paranormal activities - from ghostly visions to playing catch with an unseen ghostly child. Stories of a homeless man and his dog found at the bottom of an elevator shaft in the abandoned sanatorium, and a hung nurse during its hey-day made the group grow quieter, and our friends grow closer. Two stories only really caught my unwavering (yup, that's a pun) attention.

1. Our guide was telling us stories of trespassing on the property, and how it used to be ~500 people a week would get inside, and now they have it down to around 20. He told us a story of one night they heard screams coming from inside Waverly, and knew that some trespassers had seen something that scared them, and were panicking. He and a couple of the staff went to the center of the building inside to hear where the screams were coming from, and located them on the (insert scariest floor in the building here). They went to the stairwell, and found three 16-17 year old boys pounding on the other side of an iron door. A small 1' x 1' window was slid open in the door, and the boys were screaming and crying, pleading to be let out. They kept yelling things like, "they won't let us out, they won't let us out!" Finally, the door fell open and the three boys fell to the floor in the stairwell, their pants covered in urine. One boy held a hatchet, which he had been hacking at the door with to break open. However, there are no locks on this door. Three late-teenage boys scared into urinating themselves, trapped behind an unlockable door, and trying to chop it down with a hatchet? They never said what they saw.

2. We then went through that door. I'll simply try and repeat the best I can what our guide said to us. "This is the most serious floor in the building. I know some of you have been wandering off and looking in other rooms, but not on this floor. On this floor, we stick together. If I catch you wandering off, your tour is over. This floor scares me. On this floor we have "Big Black." Big Black is one of the only physical apparitions in the building, and he is exactly what his name describes. One time I was giving this tour, and when I finished his story, Big Black hit me in the chest so hard that my breath was knocked out of me and I stumbled back (our guide was not a little guy). Another time, we heard a thud so loud that it sounded like a wall had fallen down on this floor. The tour group scanned the floor and found nothing. I came back the next day with the team, and we found no structural damage anywhere in the building. Anything that big and that strong that can shake a concrete floor, can hit hard. We stay together here."

Yeah, the crap was now officially scared out of me. Our group was divided into two, and we went down opposite ends of the hallways. Our new guides, who had been at the back of the group making sure we all got through the doorways, told us about "shadow people." Shadow people are the outlines of people that appear in darker parts of the building, and are most activated by a real body being nearby (I know, this KINDA sounds to me like just a "shadow" too, but I wanted to believe). So, with our group clustered around the end of the hallway, our guide asked for a volunteer to walk ~50 feet alone down the hallway with their arms out so we could watch the shadow people around them. Andrew, the other guy from our group, went first as he's "never been scared." He strolled down the hallway with a bit of a swagger, while some of the group members oo'ed and aw'ed at the shadow people running around him. I'm not going to lie, I saw diddly-nothing. So when they asked for a third volunteer, I thought to myself when am I ever coming back here, and I stepped forward.

I later found out Allison hated me for doing this, putting myself in apparitional danger. So as I strolled off down the hallway in the pitch black (and my sight's not that great in the dark), the guide said, "if you look out of you peripheral vision, you'll see some crazy things." Thanks guide, thanks. That's awesome. I followed her instruction, and just saw eerie abandoned hospital room after each other, until she forcefully said, "stop!" I had only made it about 1/2 of what the others had walked, and I could barely make out her mumbles and whispers to the group behind me. I was in complete darkness, and all I could hear was their whispers, and then Allison's gasp. "What!?" I exclaimed, and the guide responded by saying, "Um, you can come back now. Yup, just turn around and come back." I hauled it back to them, to where Allison gave me a big hug. A majority of the group looked at me wide eyed, and we were quickly escorted out of the hallway. "What happened?" I asked Allison. "When you got to the end of the hallway, a see-through-like mist, white, a little taller than you, appeared over your shoulder, then followed you back halfway," she replied. "Really?" I asked, "I didn't see a thing!" "Did you feel anything?" she asked, in seriousness. "Fear," I responded, in a half-mocking manner.

Did a ghost really follow me down the hallway of an abandoned sanatorium? I have no idea, and I have more doubts than the stock market has failures. But it was exciting, fun, and got my heart racing - exactly what I had been counting on. They offer group rates - 10 or more people, and you can stay the night in the building without any help from the paranormal team. When we found out this fact, Allison turned to me and said, "we are SO doing that for my birthday!" Never a dull moment my friends, never a dull moment.....

Thanksgiving with the Outlaws

They're not really in-laws, because there's no ring involved.....

Work gives out days-off about as about as often as Hitler gave out hugs, so one must use them carefully. This Thanksgiving, I opted to stay in Ohio instead of traveling to the family's homeland in the East (haha, that makes us sound like we're from Tibet or something), and dedicate most of my accumulated vacation-time to Christmas. With the aging and passing of a few relatives here and there, the clan doesn't prepare a meal anymore, and most of the afternoon is spent napping or watching football. Christmas is the big deal, especially with the dogs trained to open their own Christmas gifts, so that's the show not to miss....

Although Allison and I have only been together for a little over three months, I felt close enough to her and her immediate family to venture a holiday with them. The night before Thanksgiving, I joined her and her mother to get the break-down on who I was going to be meeting the next day. Over the course of more than an hour dinner, I received an overwhelming myriad of instructions regarding who would enjoy what topics to discuss, what topics to completely avoid, what food to expect (and who to complement extensively on it), and whose kids were whose. It was entirely helpful - until I walked in the door, and forgot every single detail they had explained. I remembered two names - Doug and Kathy. Beyond that, blank slate. THANK YOU selective memory.....

So around 3 p.m. we pulled up to the lovely little house with a few cars of various sizes parked outside, and shuffled up to the front door, slightly behind announced arrival schedule.

I can say that I truly had a wonderful time. Her father, a hot-rodder by trade with a hearty personality, quick on a joke, and very friendly, spent the evening feeding me Coors Light and teaching me how to get my butt kicked in Backgammon (when I asked him to teach me how to play, his brother had immediately responded "do you have any money?" Thankfully, I had left the wallet in the car). The house had two little girls in it; who, regaled in pink and full-fledged fans of Go Diego Go and Dora the Explorer, provided plenty of cute entertainment, toddling around the living room and activating every electronic Christmas-carol-singing object in the home.

Her mother and I, whenever she was out of ear shot, shared embarrassing stories about her and reviewed the family member information that I was SUPPOSED to have remembered. Phillip, the man of this household, was a woodcarver by hobby, and was kind enough to take me on a tour of his many, many sculptures he'd created. Sincerely, I thought it was very fascinating - that takes a lot of patience and skill to pull that off. Sadly, he doesn't make sculptures for anyone but himself - I think Ally wanted him to make her a wizard or something....

Phillip and his wife had just returned from a trip to Israel, and brought back a VERY nice olive-wood manger scene for the little girls and of course their parents (I'm not sure who it was really intended for - kids or parents). The Aunt was very proud and protective of it, as it was more something to "admire and look at." The little girls, being little girls, saw all the manger animals as a zoo to play with, and immediately the camels began going on epic adventures across sanded wastelands in the living room. Subsequently, within 20 minutes, a camel had slipped off a treacherous precipice and cracked his leg-off, a common injury back in biblical times. Aunt = heartbroken. Little girl = brought to tears. Camel = limping. Me = obvious.

A first fore me - there were other people there our age, or all right around our age, so we were able to hang out with "the kids." This was new to me, as for every Thanksgiving I've been the junior of about 12 years, so ideas of talking about recent college days and playing board games was a fresh take on Turkey Day. We did have our separate kids table in the library, where we spent most of the time admiring the diverse library that posted books like "Dinosaurs" right next to "His Life: The Story of Jesus Christ." The cousins were all hip and really entertaining, and were a real blast. Other relatives were big fans of theatre or were in to marketing, so I had plenty to connect with throughout the evening. A family homerun.

As always, we stuffed ourselves. I think there were three different types of macaroni casserole, but I was still able to go back for seconds and enjoy my favorites - potatoes and turkey. Allison and her mother are big apple crisp fans, but I had to wait a good two hours before any wine or apple crisp could be further consumed. But it was WELL worth the wait.

As the evening wore on, we leafed through old photo albums and laughed at how family members had changed, or how sharp they looked in their army uniforms. Eventually, the kids ended up in the basement, where I continued my reigning undefeated title in Scattergories (yes, I was THAT annoying visiting faux-relative), and we polished the night off with "Rain Man", everyone's favorite Thanksgiving movie (seriously though, it's a great movie - but it DID take us over an hour to pick one, the Uncle literally had a catalog of all the movies he owned). I spent most of the time trying to calm Ally down, as she really hated Tom Cruise's character for being so mean to Dustin Hoffman - and reassuring her they were just acting.

Work had me in the next day at noon, so we had to be the first kids up and out the door. With some warm apple crisp in my belly for breakfast, the drive wasn't going to take too long, and I'd be in and out of work in a flash. I was driving Allison's car; because although she is a fantastic road companion, she gets sick if I drive my car for too long. I SWEAR I'm a smooth manual driver, but for some reason, she's not buyin' it.

So we're on 71S only 30 miles from the 'Nati, when Allison's '99 Honda Civic makes a HUGE lurch, and I look out the rear-view-mirror because it feels like the bottom of the car just fell out. White smoke immediately begins to pour out of the hood of the car, and I pull the little guy over to the side of the road and shut her off.

I am unlucky, I've been inside many a break-down. I'd like that to stop sometime soon. With the car on the side of the road, Allison jumped on her cell phone to try and reach her parents who had the AAA number, while I popped the hood to take a look. Now, I am NOT very good with cars. I know the basics, and if you open the hood and point to some things in there, I could make a pretty good guess at what you were trying to identify. But if you asked me to FIX anything in there.....show me to the trunk, I'll just replace your tire. In this case though, there was so much smoke pouring out that I couldn't even see where it was coming from.

Within five minutes a state trooper had pulled up and took a look in the hood. Moments after, another highway patrolman came by, and each glared into the smokey mystery of the car. "Yup, looks like you ran out of oil!" exclaimed the local. We pulled the dip stick out, and for the first time in my life I saw a smoking dip stick that was dry as a bone. Irony = Allison's dad is the guru of cars. None of us know where the ball was dropped, and it never crossed our mind to need to check the oil before the trip. But there was no driving the car, she was shot.

Allison's family had decided to fully embrace the holiday and turn off every phone in the house. So we waited and waited as she tried every number she could. In the meantime, I reclined the driver's seat, and waited patiently for someone to turn their phone on. There was a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere not too far away, and Allison wanted to hop the barb-wire fence and go ask for help. However, I reminded her this is how movies like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" start, so I instead chose to relieve myself on their roadside bushes and quickly hustle back to the safety of the car, as four glasses of orange-juice had caught up to me on the burm.

Her family finally answered the phone, we received all the AAA info we needed, and her parents headed south to meet up with us. As triple A needed to know our exact location on the highway, I think my favorite part of the entire ordeal was watching Allison run down the side of the highway to go check the mile marker, which was beyond our view. She insisted on going, I swear. Picture this: you're driving down the highway, and you see a smoking Honda on the side of the road with a woman wearing a velvety pink sweater and long, bouncing black hair (bed head) running away from the car in the grass along the highway. Yeah, people are definitely going to stop and help us - we're the crazy people. I laughed 'til I cried.

The tow truck arrived, one of those large flat-bed types, and my hopes came entirely true. Out hopped an old, grizzled man from somewhere NOT downtown, who bathed in engine grease, hadn't combed his hair since 1974, and delighted in eating pebbles and rocks for dinner. There was a slight whistle through the trenches between his incisors when he spoke. He went to work immediately without acknowledging us, like Santa on a mission on Christmas Eve. It was cold outside, and the cars rushing by sent bitter blasts that caused Allison and I to try and become one by clutching to one another for warmth. For protection, I went to the cab of the truck and opened the passenger door to hop in, but was greeted with gnashing teeth and the barking of a ferocious canine. I immediately slammed the door, and Billy-Joe-Bob-Tom (named changed to protect the innocent) shouted "Eh! I'm not ready yet!" Allison and I clung for dear life, like we were sinking on the Titanic.

BJBT finished up his work, and we were permitted to enter the cab. Before I opened the door again, I turned to Ally and whispered, "Ok, I will sit in the middle, but you owe me SO big time." The door creaked open, and the "ferocious canine", a little Jack Russell Terrier, was restrained for our entry. Billy-Joe-Bob-Tom found the fact that we ran out of oil hysterical, and out-right unheard of. It had been a slow day for him, but he liked to chat, and we had a healthy 40 miles to go before we got to Allison's father's shop. Let's ride.

Missy, as the dog turned out to be called, was extremely affectionate. Wedged in between Billy Bob's hip and mine, she laid her head on my left thigh, and always seemed to uncomfortably stretch her nuzzle farther and farther over. If I took my hand from Missy's head, she became VERY upset, and would head to my mouth for a lick. Needless to say, my hand did not leave her head. She smelled of Burger King, and her paws left mysterious brown streaks on my jeans. Allison's version of help = giggling. I love you too sweetheart.

Two highlights of the ride: Billy Bob has five other dogs at home, all named with an "M" in the beginning, except for Spot; who ironically, is spotted. They are all Jack Russells, and after Moe, Mickey, Mischief, Missy, and Mini, Bob ran out of "M" names and had to go with Spot. Billy Bob also has something like six kids and 17 grandchildren, so Thanksgiving was a feast of epic proportions for him. Allison clung to my hang for faux safety the entire time. Billy Bob was never actually scary or intimidating, just a true, excellent, American-boy character. I couldn't have made him up better if I had tried.

We dropped off the car at her dad's shop; and Allison's parents, having high-tailed it down to Cincinnati, gave me a ride home. A diagnostic later revealed that the engine is completely shot, and something probably DID fall off the car on the highway. New car, here we come.

So let me get this straight:

• We've been canoeing through the massive hurricane winds
• We went to the ER together for peanut ingestion
• Near-hospital visit for crippling migraine
• Met each other's parents
• No heat in her apartment for weeks
• Met some ex's
• My car was broken into on her street
• and now we've been through her broken-down car.

....all in three months.....

You know she has to be absolutely worth it for me to still be here. And she is, 100%. A great family that made me feel very comfortable and respected, and a forgiving boss that didn't yell at me for being two hours late - it was a holiday I will never forget. If this keeps going the way it's going, I just need to buckle down and accept that my life will, from now on, be filled with unforeseen shenanigans. At least I'll always have something to write about....

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Blaze of Glory

I don't want to write this blog entry. I have been fighting doing this with every ounce of my being, and every alarm in my head says, "don't write it." I feel like I've finally come to that inevitable cross-road that every writer faces the piece you write could either go over very well, or could ruin you for changing your style and tone. But I write about what I know, and I know my life, and this event has been plaguing my mind now for two weeks, and I simply can't avoid it or push it out of my mind any longer. So, all I can say is....after Thanksgiving, I promise I will have plenty of material to write something funny. But for now, I have to get this out; and with getting it out, hopefully I can let it go.

On Saturday, November 1 2008, Fred Costa started to run the New York City Marathon. I had trained with Fred on TEAM in Training in the Spring for the Flying Pig Marathon, and had seen him every Wednesday and Saturday for our team runs, and for all the little socials in between. Fred was not a sprinter and did not appear to be a fanatic about running - but he was a solid, steady-paced locomotive that always got the job done. A little shy and usually only speaking when spoken to, the Fred I came to know during training was relatively quiet and introverted, and I never really got the opportunity to learn much about his life beyond the brutality the pavement dished out into our ankles. But he was always pleasant, kind, courteous, and was that face who was at every event.

So having known Fred for only five months, but for five of the most physically and emotionally exhausting months of my life, I know that Fred was more than prepared to take on another marathon. He had finished his 2008 Pig and was looking for seconds, and had completed a number of other marathons and mini-marathons. Fred knew what he was doing - I'm sure his body was in excellent condition, he was well-hydrated, had the right sugars and carbohydrates in his body for breaking down, and was limber and alert.

The problem is, Fred did not finish the New York City Marathon.

The last time I ever saw Fred was at the Hyde Park Reggae Run this fall, and I think I may have even accidentally introduced him as Frank (this has plagued my conscience ever since). He sent an email in late October inviting everyone to sign up for a run through Kentucky in the fall of 2009 called the Bourbon Chase, and sounded really excited about it. The next time I heard "Fred Costa", it came in a late night voicemail on November 3 with a shaken voice from an alumni of the winter team. All the message explained is that Fred had suffered a heart attack during the marathon, and was now in a hospital in New York. That was all.

I have fallen out of touch with most of the 2008 Flying Pig Team - I went one way, and the rest went another - as the Pig was merely an experiment for me, but a hobby for many. I assumed the team probably already knew about all this, and that I was simply out of the communication loop - so when I emailed the team listserv to get details on how to send a card and/or flowers, I was more than amazed at the overwhelming response that most people had not even heard about Fred's fall.

On November 4, I opened an email from my ex (which had me sweating a little bit to begin with), and she had found more information from one of the head officers at the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Fred collapsed at mile 22 of the NYC marathon, and had stopped the beating of his heart along with the breathe of his lungs. They used a defibrillator on him twice, and were rather sure it was due to a heart attack. He was now in an induced coma in the hospital. Those who had been training with him and had accompanied him to NYC had flown home, as his three sisters had flown in to take care of him.

That afternoon, one of our chief trainers from the season sent out an email noting the article in Runners World titled Grave Concerns, Are Marathons Dangerous? We were answered the next day with an email from one of Fred's sisters, who explained that, "Fred was unsedated for
part of the day and Susan thinks it's possible that he was sticking his tongue out at her on command." To lighten the mood, the sister reported that they were sharing the hospital room with Kevin Bacon, and had been receiving many nice cards and flowers.

One week after Fred's heart-attack, we received more information that set up a system for us to email words of encouragement that would be read to Fred, hoping his hearing was still active. In addition, we created the "Fred Fund", that collected money to send to Fred's sisters to help them with food and accommodations while they stayed in New York at Fred's side. A member of the team had flown out to visit with Fred, and delivered this report:

"Fred looked good throughout the race on Sunday. His sisters actually have pictures of his race per the race photographers, and they are going to forward those on soon. They said the pictures are great, good old Fred having a great day for cameras! Shortly after mile 22, Fred collapsed. The thinking is cardiac arrest (heart attack), however this is not confirmed. Two runners from London were near him, and actually EMTs, they started CPR immediately which was a definite positive. Fred was transported to the hospital where within 3 hours of his collapse, they did a procedure to take his body temperature down to reduce oxygen depletion damage to his brain. This was a positive, not many hospitals can complete this procedure, and the fact that Fred was able to have this procedure done within 3 hours of his collapse was good (normally suggestion is to start the procedure within 6 hours).

The week has been a tough one for Fred, as he has had many seizures, and right now the concern is more of the unknown than the known. The main concern is the state Fred will be in when he wakes up from the coma (he is in a drug induced coma until Monday), and if there has been damage to his brain due to oxygen depletion. From what I am aware, brain damage is the first concern (top priority), and heart issues are the second concern."

In the week following, members from Fleet Feet and TEAM in Training organized a run in Fred's honor in Blue Ash out of Fleet Feet for Saturday, November 15. The small 5k run/walk was to help offset the medical bills his family would incur. From that flyer, I feel the most important aspect is this:

"Fred is 41 years old and has been a dedicated runner for years. He has trained with Team in Training, given countless hours of his time to help others train, to raise funds for local charities and to volunteer at local events. Fred was the person that was always at everything, always willing to help and always ready to lend his support.
Fred's quiet, unassuming manner and generous heart have touched so many people. It is so very hard to imagine life without him."

On Wednesday, November 12 at 1:37 in the afternoon, the email went out that Fred's family had decided to remove him from life-support. Fred would pass away later that night, and have 17 of his top-condition organs donated so that others may live. Even in death, Fred fought for others.

With his passing, the running community erupted. That is something I will always attest to, something I have never seen in any fraternity, club, class, or even many families: the willingness to sacrifice, the ability to give heart and soul, to contribute SO much time and effort, for even just one person. It is a community like no other on this planet. Emails began to soar around with well wishes, prayers, lamentations, feelings of guilt (Fred often told people on the TEAM that he thought of them when he was tired on a long run, and that kept him going - those members felt a twinge of guilt as a motivator that kept Fred going on that day), and plans to make Fred's life everlasting.

Donation centers popped up all over Cincinnati (Fit4You in Loveland, as an example), and people rallied in every way possible to support the memory of Fred and his family. The running community decided not to run a 5k, but to run four miles - the distance Fred had left to complete before the finish line. They would finish the race for Fred - he would run his New York Marathon.

There were hundreds of runners who showed up on the drizzly, cold morning at Fleet Feet in Fred's honor. His picture was everywhere, and our purple TEAM jerseys were worn by every other person as a tribute to him. Beautifully kind speeches were said about him, and radio, news, and newspaper all were in-toe (I had used my own connection to get some vans there, and Fox19 asked me for a quote - which I was not only hesitant to do, since I didn't know Fred very well, but I didn't even know the camera was on!). I could not do the run myself, as I had been called into work that morning to handle media; but my friends and girlfriend, who had never met anyone from the team, all came at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday to run in the rain in his honor. Even my parents, who had never met Fred, gave money to his fund. The run will become an annual fundraising event in Fred's memory for the school where he was a physical education teacher.

The obituary appeared in the paper on November 19. Fred's visitation occurred later that afternoon in Mt. Lookout, and I would go alone. I couldn't get out of work (nor for the funeral the next day), and had rehearsal for a show that evening, so I would miss most of the TEAM arriving to pay their respects. Plain and simple - there is nothing positive about going to a funeral home alone: I knew no family members when I arrived, none of them knew me, and I certainly felt out of place - once again, only having been part of Fred's 60-person team for five months, and never actually knowing him. But ~five familiar faces from the TEAM were present, including the man who helped me cross the finish line back in May, and we were able to talk about Fred together. As I worked my way through the line to give my well-wishes to the unfamiliar family, one of his sisters stopped me to thank me for my kind words said in my television interview, that they would be quoted in Fred's Eulogy. I earnestly asked her not to, as I already felt uncomfortable being a limited connection to Fred - but she was insistent. So apparently, "Fred will finish this race with us today, just not in his shoes" was a resounding quote. His funeral was the following day. As an echo, TEAM members running in the Thanksgiving Day Race tomorrow morning will wear his image and their purple TEAM jerseys, and he will continue to live on.

I don't handle death well, I never have. But on the compromise, I highly doubt you can find many people that say, "I handle death excellently!" I find our ceremonies of honoring the dead awkward and off-putting, everyone dressed in their finest, the body on display, flowers and images all around - it's sad, and distant, and every time I see a body in the casket, my mind plays tricks on me that it should blink any second or just breathed. I never have any idea what to say, and always come off cliche, short, and painfully awkward. Fred has been a strange whirlwind of thought, as I didn't really know HIM, just knew him in the context of running for five months, and now he is gone. He's not a person I see every day, so nothing in my daily line-up has changed. We never spoke or emailed outside of training, so there are no conversations, or even a relationship really, that has been severed. But for some reason, my heart still sinks at the thought of what happened.

Should I have been more outgoing? Should I have tried to be his friend (despite he's double-my age), should should should. But it happened, and shoulds are as useful as a knife in an ice-cream factory. I had lunch with a TEAM friend yesterday, and mulled over the fact that I can never decide what's worse - to slowly fade away in constant pain after a long life, or to go out in a blaze of glory at a young age. I am still not reconciled on the fact, and may never be. What I do know is that Fred gave of himself consistently - he was a teacher, and he ran a number of races just to benefit others and charities. You can accomplish much in silence - you need not always be the loudest voice in the room.

Thanksgiving is a time to be with your loved ones, as we all know too well, and are told often. No matter how annoying your little brother is, no matter how dumb your sister's fiance is, or how oblivious and meek your grandmother may have become, express all the love you can. In a brightly starred sky, blazes of glory happen all the time.

Fred at mile 22 of the 2008 New York City Marathon, shortly before his collapse

Never Grow Up

J.M. Barrie had something when he wrote Pan's infamous line, "never grow up". There's a hidden message there, something about the rejuvenating factor of never losing your youth - what it can do for your soul to stay forever young, forever curious, and to always look at the world without straight edges - but more wobbly walls, like Seuss's houses.

To promote my second-favorite holiday (get ready Christmas....) of All Hallow's Eve, Chipotle offered free burritos to anyone who wore foil into any of their establishments. Being that my coworkers and I all work in non-for-profit, we still very-much-so have the college-kid mentality of "I don't care if it's been dragged through mud and is laying on the sidewalk - if it's free, I want it". So we organized an adventure and rolls of foil, and trekked off to Chipotle for our Halloween dinner.

Obviously, the line was out the door. Adorned with our various foil ties, hats, glasses, and nose-rings, we found ourselves surrounded by an ocean of starving high-school kids.....who apparently have an equal income as 20 & 30-something non-for-profit adults. Awesome. But, with our fantastic complexion and relatively short stature, we blended right in. And I'm sure all the kids oogled over what fantastic Oxy-pad we must all be using to cleanse away our acne....

The line moved relatively quickly; and just as the ad had announced, we were able to pick any item on the menu and get it for free. Just to augment the point that we were poor, most of us got water. However, I couldn't help but take Dr. Pepper once out of eye-shot of the cash register. Seriously? If I go to hell for stealing freaking pop in a tiny paper cup instead of water, then heaven is far too picky - and I will be partying with all the other carbonated culprits in my fiery coke-laden eternity.

We devoured our free burritos - free food tastes amazing, by the way. Did we remove our outfits to eat? No - we proudly wore our uniforms of costless culinary delights as babies and children looked on in shiny, ADHD wonder. We had to chuckle at some of the STARVING and growing high school boys around us, who talked of the "Chipotle Tour" they were doing around Cincinnati; or, for the more creative and with less gas money (which, for the record people, "creative" OFTEN equals "poor"), were combining their foil, rearranging it to create new foil costumes, and going BACK up to the register for a second burrito under a new guise. I don't know what's in High School lunches these days, but sloppy joes and tatter tots just aren't cutting it.

We strolled out of Chipotle with our bellies full of burritoey goodness, and with the majority of our costumes now crumpled up into balls (except for my bow-tie.....which now made me the chip-n-dale's dancer of Mexican food). When we got into my car and started to pull out of the lot, the strangest scene was going on at the far end of the lot near the exit. There were four high-school age kids all dressed in white from head to foot (part of some costume), just "hangin' out". Two guys were standing about 40 feet from each other tossing a football back and forth, while the third guy was leaned up against the back of his parents' hand-me-down car with his girlfriend straddling his leg in a "romantic" embrace.

We couldn't help but gawk, because it was just so strange. Who goes and "hangs out" in the Chiptole parking lot, let alone hang out and MAKE OUT?! I mean, seriously?

As we slowly cruised by (so the football tossers had time to get out of the way), the couple went in for a smooch, and all five of us just broke out in a big "ewwwwwwwww!" This, inevitably, led to fantastic laughter that made driving the car very difficult. The simple fact that all five of us (mid-20s to early 30s) all reacted in the same 6-year-old tone to a kiss was absolutely hysterical. As we slowly drove away, someone in the backseat, through fits of laughter, said "we should drive around and do it again with the windows down." Brilliant ideas have been had throughout time: Ghandi decided not to eat, Caesar moved northwest, Buddy Holly wore black-rimmed glasses; but at that moment, no idea in history even compared.

We circled the block and headed back towards to kids, who oddly were looking a lot like the Clockwork Orange team without their bowlers. As we approached, we slowly put the windows down, and as the kids watched us pass by, in a wonderful forte chorus, we all yelled "EEEEEWWWWWW" and drove off out of the Chiptole parking lot. The five of us laughed from the Buttermilk Pike exit all the way back to Covington, non-stop. And not just giggling and chuckling - tearful, stomach-aching laughter. Soul-healing laughter. The kind of laughter you had when your older brother pinned you as a child and tickled you, to the point where you had to scream "Stop it! Stop it! I can't breathe!" and your were redder than a radish. Yeah, it was that good. Cigarette-afterward good.

What I loved imagining was the story in the locker-room on Monday, when the kid getting his "mack" on would recount what happened in the Chipotle parking lot.

*Scene: Smith High School boys locker room. Boys are milling about in towels and football practice gear, chatting and telling jokes.

(please, I beg you, when you read these lines, use your best, low, football jock voice in your head)

Mike: "Yeah doods, so get this. I was in the Chipotle parking lot on Saturday hangin' out with Stevie and Ross."

Stevie & Ross: "Yeah doods, yeah, he totally was there."

Mike: "Yeah, right, I was totally there. And Sara was grindin' on my thigh, like usual. You guys know, dats like, what we do on Saturday. Everybody knows dat."

Stevie: "Yeah, and Ross and I like, throw the ball. Dats our thing man. We throw, he gets it on with Sara. Dammit we're cool"

Mike: "So freakin' cool."

Ross: "So cool."

Mike: "So she was grindin' my leg, and it was awesome. And then dis car drives by, with these like, old people in it wearing foil. And they all like, make this weird face like they smelled somethin' bad or somethin', and then they drove off."

Curious boy #1: "Dey just drove off? Dude, what'd they smell?"

Mike: "Dude! They didn't smell anything, they just made the face. Jesus, listen to my story!"

Ross & Steve: "Yeah dood, just listen to his story!"

Curious boy #1: "Sorry dood......dammit you're cool."

Mike: "I know. So anyway, Sara's on my leg and the freaks drive by. Ross and Stevie start rockin' the pig skin.........guys! We are SO gonna whoop Marty High next weekend, they freakin' have no idea how much we're gonna own them. Holy CRAP we're awesome."

Locker Room: "Boo yah! Smith High rocks!"

Mike: "Totally sweet. So Sara, thigh, driveby, got it? So, she goes back to ya know, doin her thing on my leg, and den this car comes back again, and I'm like 'Stevie, Ross, what's that car?'"

Stevie & Ross: "That's totally what he said."

Mike: "Right, that's what I said. And they didn't know. And this car pulls by us, and its those old people again, and they all yell "eeeeewwww" like some little baby freaks or somethin, and then drive off!"

Audience: "What? No way? What the crap? Crazy? Damn we're so cool....."

Curious Boy #1: "So then what happened?"

Mike: "So what happened? I mean, Sara was all in this funk and was like "this is so weird" and like, got off my thigh 'n' stuff. Dude, I didn't get ANY on Halloween night -Sara was all weirded out and embarrassed 'n' stuff. I mean like nothin', no up the shirt or anything! I was so pissed! Doods, I spent like, twenty dollars on that freakin' Mentos costume with her so she'd get all cool after the party 'n' whatever - but those foil freaks screwed everything up! Dood.......if we "just snuggle" one more time, I swear to god man, it's over."

Audience: "Yeah! Forget her! Snuggling's for losers! I like mentos......"

Mike: "Doods. I freakin' hate Halloween. We're so done with that holiday. I'll see you doods at Chipotle on Saturday....bring the football."

Sigh, or at least that's how it was in my head. Be ridiculous, be silly, and laugh til you cry. That's the only wisdom I have for you this week.

The Turkeyfoot Trot

Fall is the perfect time for running outside. It's not too hot, so your shirt doesn't mold into your skin with sweat; and it's not too cold, so you're not actually chasing the breath you see out in front of you. As Goldilocks would so eloquently put it, "it's just right."

Let's consider this even further. How many times when you run does a hot chocolate hit the spot right after you're done? Bingo. And when your crabby neighbor with the REALLY loud dog that seems to start barking at 7 a.m. and never stops - finally gets around to raking his front lawn - doesn't it feel just a LITTLE good to "accidentally" jog right through his intricately molded piles of leaves? Eat it Mr. Biggles, Sunday is now rake-day too!

So in this crisp, wonderful season, its great to find every possible race you can, get out, and enjoy this weather with all your fellow running cronies. In Cincinnati, we've got a few races that are widely publicized and are well known - The Reggae Run, The Mason Mini Marathon, Run Like Hell, etc...... but there are some smaller gems out there that might provide the same thrill and excitement, but without the hype and hoopla. For those of you into antiquing and yard-saling, you know that the best finds are often the most well-hidden.....

On November 15, Erlanger will kick-off its first annual Turkeyfoot Trot. If you have the ability to move forward, you will find a place in this event. There's a 5k run, there's a 5k walk, there's a one-mile run, a one-mile walk; and one of my classic favorites, the kid's fun run (which I always like to picture an ice cream truck just slowly pulling away in front of the kids. It makes it even funnier). I once ran a 5k where we all had to chase an ambulance, and you'd think we were a pack of EMTs who had just lost our watch inside the person we'd been working on.

There are those of you out there who, despite what you say so that you appear modest and respectable in the public, really love to win deep down in your heart. And that's normal, and that's ok (come on, you KNOW you've jumped up with fists pumping in the air when you're opponent said "aw crap, you sunk my battleship!") Well, this race has more divisions than your high-school SAT math section, and you have tons of opportunities to come home a winner. Beyond the age divisions, there are refreshments, door prizes, and the shirt you get is long-sleeved (thank you for catching on to the trend). Oh, and stick this in your corn-cob pipe and smoke it Uncle Joe: the first 100 people to show up get a pair of gloves. Boo-yah, name one other race where you get gloves. I've gotten a lot of swag in my days of 5ks - powdered Gatorade pouches, those little man-purses you keep coins in but never use, 8,000 flyers about stuff that I do not want and cry over the trees killed to make them; but NEVER, ever, have I gotten gloves. Rock on, glove-fairies.

My last bit of excitement for this 5k: it's only $20. If you do the fitness walk and don't snag a shirt, it's only $10. Can you name ANY other 5ks that are that cheap? No, you can't. Stop googling "cheap 5ks".....if you do, you'll only find the Turkeyfoot Trot.

Who does this?! What sort of group of people initiates a 5k that gives so much, and takes so little? Well, a group of passionate individuals who are out to help their community, that's who. People driven to try and make their neighborhood a better place. Not all about that? You probably hate kittens when they purr, too. But if you're NOT a kitten-hater, and support initiatives to strengthen our city, then please follow any one of the millions of links in this blog to their website, register, and go Trot your Turkeyfoot!

As a small side plug, if you're on Facebook, please join this group. It as well is for a worthwhile cause.

I Got Robbed

When I was in seventh grade, I went on a mission trip with my church's youth group to Michigan to help build houses. We slept in the community room of a local church in the town. The usual confusing whirlwind of puberty-fueled emotions that accompany the early teens made a young boy like myself feel like I was going to catch on fire and be rocketed straight to hell at any minute, sleeping in this room with the girls just feet away on the other side of the dividing wall. I remain unscortched, and I thank the relentless zipper on my sleeping bag for that.

These were all people I had known since kindergarten, and so I trusted them very much and knew them all quite well (Craig broke things, Rob made paper airplanes, Myrita flirted, etc....). One day when we headed to the site for a rousing afternoon of laying shingles, I left my wallet on my pillow in the church. My parents had given me a generous $70 to spent on food and entertainment for the week (which, at the time, felt like a giant bucket of gold. Looking at my job now, an extra $70 a week would be as equally exciting). But I felt the little leather fold would be safe - no one's at the church on a Wednesday, and it's IN A CHURCH. Sigh, naivety.......

When we returned from a hard-day's labor and my ADD distractions around the building were complete (bathroom, flirting, snacks, bugs outside the front door, flirting, shiny thing, flirting), I returned to my sleeping bag to find my wallet emptied. I was in utter shock, to think that my wallet had been ransacked on a MISSION trip while staying in a CHURCH. The very foundations of my concept of "trust" were shaken, and what it meant to be a part of the youth group.

We had a long meeting, all eight counselors and 30 youth; and when no one came forward as the thief after a two-hour talk, the counselors proposed we pack up and go home, cutting the trip three days short. After a REALLY long awkward silence, I spoke up and said we had come to Michigan in the name of something good, and we couldn't leave until we were finished. The group was relieved, but I was still pissed deep down inside that I had been robbed in such a setting. To this day, I'm 99% sure who took the $$ - and new kid, you know who you are too. Punk.

At any rate, this event caused me to be very cautious about getting robbed, and I was very nervous to trust people for a long time. More or less, what I did to recover was to stop being materialistic and "thing-focused", and so I have less things of value that could actually be stolen (except my Jurassic Park box set - don't freaking touch that).

So, where this is all leading is that on Tuesday night, the lovely lady and I had a wonderful evening of cooking dinner together and painting her bathroom (insert cheesy montage of paint fights and great late 80s music). It went swimmingly, and I feel that a good amount of paint ended up on each other, the floor, and even the cat, rather than the walls.

Waking up on what turned out to be a dark and drizzly morning, I walked to my car to go home and get ready for the day. Where I had parked my car many nights before, on a side street next to a home and an apartment complex in Hyde Park, I unlocked my driver-side door and leaned to sit down. What I noticed first was the shattered glass all over my driver's seat, and figured there had just been an accident the night before (I love how I always try to talk myself into the most innocent of scenarios).

But as I scanned the interior of the car, I realized the window was completely shattered, my glove compartment opened, my center console torn apart, and things all over the interior of the car. It was the first time my car had ever been broken in to.

Are you serious!? Hyde Park of all places!!! I've lived in Corryville, been through two different college campuses, high school, summer camps, and every sketchy alley I've parked in for a concert across this country. And I get robbed in HYDE PARK?! What the crap!?

They took Tom Tom. Jane (who's was my lovely British assistant, bless your sweet vocals, Jane), had guided me every turn of my drive for the last two years, but had finally lost her vocal cords two weeks ago. I'd taken her apart, and placed her in the glove compartment as her tomb. However, the suction cup marks on the window were still visible from the outside, and I guess that's what prompted the perp to shatter the glass. Punk.

I called 911, and went and woke Allison up as the rain drizzled down and we waited for the police. When the cruiser pulled up, Allison still groggy and in pajamas, but being caring and supportive with an arm wrapped around, the officer took in the damage. Thanks to the ingenious engineering of Mazda, fingerprints can't be taken off the bumpy interior off the car. Awesome-town. Allison and I sat in the back of the cruiser to get out of the rain while the officer took all my information. I joked that I wished it had been the first time I had sat back there, which threw Allison for a loop and the officer just chuckled (I was skateboarding in a park after dusk in my teens, and the cop who caught us was just trying to scare my friend and me. He really just needed a hug).

The drive home was cold, being that the clouds of fog were rolling into my window that morning. But alas, many numbers and miles later, the car is being fixed and I'm driving a sweet rental.

So, my schadenfreude moment is that Tom Tom is broken - so when the glass-happy perp goes to plug it in, he's got nothing but a sweet suction cup and a cable cord he can use to jump rope. A car is fixable, and they took nothing of actual value to me. So all in all, I feel fine about the situation. Yes, it's an inconvenience. Yes, it sucks to have to fork out some dough to the insurance company. Yes, the concept of getting my car broken into in Hyde Park during a rain storm on a Tuesday night is ridiculous. But I've still got 10 fingers and toes, and Jean-Luke (my car's name) stills runs just fine.

Items that amaze me that were NOT taken:

• Tons of coins in the change dish: I guess the perp had just done laundry, and quarters were not a priority.


• Parking key for U. of Illinois: That's like, three weeks of free parking in Illinois on that puppy!


• Sweet Burke Marketing Research fleece blanket: I guess the rain wasn't cold enough for him.


• Spirituality Textbook: My binder from a college course that contains all the answers to the mysteries of the world. The criminal is apparently all-knowing.


• Insurance forms and receipts: All my account codes had to be on there. Major data could've been snagged.


• Tissue-box: Thank God! With my allergies, that would've caused major problems.


• Epi-pen: The perp. is also immune to all things in this world. Even bee stings.


• Umbrella: It was RAINING. The perp. is too hardcore for convenience.

"How Did we End up Here?" or "Hope"

Eons ago, curious little Pandora opened up a deity-gifted box, and unleashed all the little horrors and miseries (including the DMV) onto the world. What tiny little imp that came out amongst the terror and strife was Hope, and it has been this Hope that has kept us going day after day.

18 years ago, I had hoped to be deep under the ocean surface with my scuba gear and waterproof pencil and pad, studying the migratory patterns of sea turtles: a local marine biologist bushwhacker.

16 years ago, I had hoped that I would some day be covered in sun and dust as I picked away at a fully articulated Allosaurus skeleton deep in the desert: an internationally recognized paleontologist.

9 years ago, I had hoped that I would one day have an impressive beard, bowler cap, and leather medicine pouch as I was the local pediatrician for a small western town.

8 years ago, I had hoped to see my name in credit after credit as I worked my way through Hollywood as an actor on primtetime television and film.

3 years ago, I had hoped to someday be hunched over with my cane as I strolled through the soccer field of my favorite camp, the owner of a chain of summer camps that took kids back to the old, traditional forms of summer camping.

And today, I find myself a PR guy for a non-for-profit arts venue.

What the crap happened?!

I don't think I'm alone here though. Of course, many of our childhood dreams never grew to fruition (SOME day though I'm determined to eat a bathtub of Oreos), but there may be aspects of our young ambitions that still manifest themselves in our day-to-day interests and personalities. I look at some of those closest to me, and it makes me wonder.....

Cat ended up in Portland, OR, working in a lab with mice at the Oregon Health Sciences University. When not at work, she race-sails on the weekend and will be horseback riding in the winter.

Greg is back in his hometown of Chicago, a broker who connects trucks to people who need to ship stuff, and guitarist for an up-and-coming band. Grad school is on the horizon.

Melissa is coming down the homestretch of Grad School for a Masters in Speech Language Pathology at Northwestern, training constantly for endurance events, and being active in the city life. Helping children with speech and language disorders is not far off.

"Pirate" Rob is in Annapolis, MD designing sailboats. When not living the dream job, he sails and rides his motorcycle.

Victor is an engineer for the Caterpillar Global Mining team in Peoria, IL and gets to travel all over the place. After getting back into running, Victor will be reassigned internationally before long.

Joe became an EMT, and is now a full time firefighter in the city of Elk Grove.

Ben worked in a study-abroad program in London, became a technician in a hospital pharmacy, and is now headed back to England to get his Masters in Production and Innovation Theory, and return to the football (soccer) field.

If you took any of us back to that meeting junior year of high school, where the guidance counselor asked us what we wanted to do with our lives, I doubt any of us would've hit this right on the head. But the twists and turns, opportunities, insights, and networks we've navigated our way through life have led us in surprising directions that somehow, when we stop sprinting and take a look around ourselves, would shock our 5-year-old shadows playing with K-NEX on the floor.

Hope is absolutely essential. Hope gives us a meaning to our lives, a way to define how we get up day after day and do what we do. We must set goals. To hope to achieve these goals validates our existence.

However, opportunities will knock and new doors will open in hallways we didn't even see before. We must be able to readjust, realign, and re-evaluate our goals - and drift down the stream as the current may take us (and that's your daily Taoism).

To place all our eggs in one basket (and that's your daily farmer insight), and to bank everything we have on those dozen dreams to come true, can result in disaster - because no matter how much we try, we cannot control everything.

To be flexible, to be open to change, and to accept possibility can lead us down new and strange roads, that may lead us even higher than we had dreamed of before.

To hope is absolutely wonderful; but if what you hoped for does not materialize, do not be afraid to hope for more.