And another fine yuletide has passed

Christmas suckage continues unabated. We visited my wife's parents. Her dad is so sick he can't get from one room to another on his own, and we doubt he will last much longer. Her mom is too weak to take care of him. Both are too stubborn (that's not the word I want to use) to see that by leaving things as they are, they are:
A. putting my wife's father in even graver (is that a word?) danger than he's already in, and
B. putting an incredible strain on the remainder of the family, who are juggling resources they don't have to attempt to accommodate a situation that allows no accommodation.

My birthday, you ask? Why thanks for asking. We spent it on the road, driving our way into the morass mentioned above.

Merry blah blah blah, peace on blah blah, goodwill to...oh, sod off. I can't even fake it.

Sick

I had severe stomach cramps this weekend. I ended up going to a McClinic, where the diagnosis was...undefined.

They ended up giving me medicine for the symptoms (fairly standard medical practice) and want me to get an MRI to rule out gall bladder issues. The medicine has me loopy, killing the many plans I had for the weekend - though the stomach cramps effectively did that anyway.

Heck, maybe I'll be this year's holiday casualty.

And what do the holidays mean to *you*?

My best friend from high school died a few days before New Years Day a few years ago.

One of my parents died in November, the other in December a year later.

Warren Zevon died in September of 2003 (close enough).

My grandmother died in early January.

What are the holidays to me? A death watch. Whose turn is it this time?

Merry freakin' Christmas.

augeries, with a small "a"

I don't particularly believe in soothsaying, which isn't to say I don't find it useful.* That doesn't mean I don't have my own little divinatory quirks. I place more import than I should on coincidental incidents in my life. (I really struggled on how to word that last sentence. I'm still not satisfied.)

Let me give an example. I've been pulling away from magic lately, debating whether to give it up. I'd sort of done so anyway, but not made a firm decision. Well, recently I accidentally left my color-changing knife in my pocket when I threw it in the laundry hamper. Oddly enough, Mogar color-changing knives are ruined if you run them through a washing machine.

What does the second paragraph have to do with the first? The color-changing knives is one of the (few) effects I do with any sort of panache. I m taking that as a sign that I really do need to give this whole mess up. I've already given away a number of my books, and now one of the few effects I do with even a modicum of skill is kaput. So, a sign. Augery by washing machine. I think I'll be finding a new hobby. Maybe I'll be good at the next one.

___________________________________

*Here is how soothsaying (astrology, palmistry, phrenology, even furtune cookies) can be useful: if the content of the message is sufficiently vague as to allow for interpretation, it allows you to gain insight into what and how you think. If you're not sure how you feel about a subject or a situation, consult the I-Ching. Read the results and interpret them how you will. Now you know a bit more about how you feel. Oh, and you don't have to throw coins or cast yarrow sticks or whatever. Just open your favorite version of the I-Ching to a random page, or have a random number generator (such as from random.org) give a number from 1 to 64 - although that leaves out the "changing hexagram." Oh well. Win some, lose some.

Over the hills and far away

My wife and I are going to visit her parents next weekend (21 April). Her father has lasted a lot longer than expected with his Acute Myelogeous Leukemia, but the treatments to get him this far have really taken it out of him.

Hard to know what to do.

A little less wise

I'd been feeling slightly out of sorts lately. And that's bad - I need all the sorts I can get. Until yesterday it had been sort of an indeterminate out of sorts. Yesterday it crystallized. I had teeth problems. Or, more specifically, I was pretty sure I had a tooth problem. Wisdom, that is.

I've never had a cavity. Not one. Zip. Nada. Zero. So in general dentist visits don't bother me. However, specifically I hate pain. So that was Problem One. Problem Two was that I figured out that this was a tooth issue on Friday. Late. And by then I was in fairly significant pain. My regular dentist isn't open at all on Friday, and not too many are open after 6 pm. So my wife and I did the reasonable thing: we started calling random dentists from the phone book.

Wonder of wonders, we found one who performed emergency services. They mentioned they don't take checks, only cash or credit cards. And they weren't on any insurance plans. However, we were pretty desperate at that point (did I mention the hating pain thing?) so we set up an appointment for 7:45.

When we got there they had me fill out the requisite forms, I handed them my medication list, which I had the foresight to print out (it reads like a short novel, what with the medical mess I am), then they took an x-ray. Impacted Wisdom tooth. "Surrounded by a bony mass." Hmmmm.

They used a local anesthetic, and said they could do it with or without nitrous oxide. You guess which route the coward took. (Did I mention the pain, and the hating?) Originally the doc said this would be a quick and easy procedure. However, our good friend Mr. Bony Mass proved to be quite the obstacle. 90 minutes and many implements later (I'll have nightmares about some of those...) it finally came out - in pieces. I'll admit the procedure didn't hurt at the time, even though they pried my jaws open wider than anything I've seen since a National Geographic special where a python swallowed a rabbit, and used tools that, I'm sure, were developed to extract information from enemy agents rather than teeth.

Once the anesthetic wore off things got interesting, and not in a good way (you know, the pain, and the hate?). Even the hydrocodone they prescibed didn't dent it much.

Things are much better today. They stitched most of the hole closed, so there is little chance of a dry socket. The pain is significantly diminished, and I still have my good friend hydrocodone, along with some steroidal anti-inflammatories, to help.

Now I just need to find the rest of my sorts.

That's why I had a question mark at the end of "Hope"

An update on my father-in-law: He had gone to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to see if he was eligible for a drug trial for his acute myelogous leukemia (aml). He didn't fit the criteria for the trial he originally had gone down for, but they found another for which he did qualify.

That's the good news.

The bad news? Several weeks on the regimen shows not only no improvement in his condition, but a deterioration. He and his doctors have decided that it is pointless to leave him in the study.

He and his wife currently live alone in a house in Arkansas. They are considering moving to a house closer to one of his children, probably in Texas.

As Warren Zevon said on the title track to one of his last CDs, Life'll Kill Ya.

It's my birthday

Happy birthday to me

Stressed?! ME?!

We had the inspection done on the new house yesterday. There were several little things wrong, and one or two medium-sized things, but no deal-breakers, provided they get fixed.

Our new car came in today. It should be ready for pick-up this afternoon.

We're driving to see my wife's parents tomorrow (Saturday), driving back on Sunday, then driving back again on Wednesday, and driving back Thursday (Thanksgiving).

THINGS ARE FINE, THANKS. WHY DO YOU ASK?!

Sticks and stones

I just got through a bout of kidney stones and their associated removal. Not anything I'd wish on my worst enemy.

I'm still feeling a little out of sorts but I'm a whole lot better than I was when the stone was still there.

Getting older sucks

but I guess it beats the alternative

Carry On, Wayward Son

Ah, but can life ever return to normal? And what is "normal"? And why do I post way past my bedtime so you have to read this unintelligible drivel?

I've found it hard to settle back into any sort of rhythm lately, and to get excited about magic. I mean, who cares? Card tricks. Bleh. In the grand scheme, it's nothing. That's the thing about performance art anyway -- by it's very nature it's ephemeral. Writers can create things that last at least hundreds of years. Ditto painters and sculptors. But once a dancer or an actor or a magician is done, his or her creation is gone, less than a puff of smoke, no more impression than a shadow.

Great performance artists at least can leave memories. Magicians are still talking about Hofzinser (but, to prove my point, ask 1000 members of the general public who he was...), Lionel Barrymore's name still comes up in acting circles, jugglers still talk about Enrico Rastelli and singers still mention Jenny Lind. But who am I kiddin'? I never was a great performance artist. I'd have to work hard to scratch my way up to mediocre. I'm not even good in my circle of performance acquaintances. So why care? Why keep it up? Why get excited?

Maybe it's just the circumstances -- all that's happened recently, and the fact that I'm posting this way past my bedtime in a quiet apartment after a tough day at work. Or maybe it really doesn't matter any more and I need to find something to do with the shelves full of magic books and the decks of cards and the half dollars that nobody else but magic nerds carry. There's always eBay.

Peace.

ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on

I haven't post much or done much magic recently, even though I have some new (and old) goodies I haven't really touched. My brother's death has affected me more than I want to admit. But life goes on for the rest of us and I don't want to get caught in a spiral of gloom and doom.

(Side note: Hi, Kigali!)

Old and new items I'll be working on and/or reviewing in the near future include Barrie Richardson's Act Two, Daniel Garcia's Torn DVD, and a couple of tricks: "Sideswiped" by Simon Aronson and Ton Onosaka's "Bicycle Built For Five."

If you have any words of wisdom to help me through these tough times either email me or leave them as comments.

Peace.

A waste

One of my younger brothers died yesterday. He took his own life. Apparently he hooked a hose to the tailpipe of his cab, ran it through the driver's side window and met oblivion. If he arranged it like he did the rest of his life there were probably drugs involved.

I don't believe in God, Jesus, life after death or that Jonathan Edward is anything other than a slimeball scam artist who takes advantage of people at their most vulnerable, so I don't think he's in "a better place." I think he's dead. Gone. Finis. Kaput.

People tell me I'm smart. He had an IQ that was off scale. Drugs took care of that, not by decreasing his intelligence per se but by killing his motivation. He stopped breathing yesterday but he effectively died a long time ago.

Anyone who says marijuana is harmless is going to get a fierce argument from me. In fact, who I'd really like the argument to be with is my brother. I'll take whoever says that and put them in the coffin with his decomposing corpse. They can tell him how harmless it is.