Hypomania/Excedrin/Sudafed vs. Sinus Infection/Bronchitis

So, I'm back from Florida.

I got sick on day one. A sinus infection which, as is my tendency, travelled to my chest... which started to hurt in the same spot it always does. It got worse over several days, and I finally called my doctor to see if he would call in some antibiotics. I knew it was bacterial. You know how. And if you don't, I'm not gonna gross you out and tell you.

Reasonably, the doctor said no, and asked me to come in tomorrow.

So I've been on this crazy Excedrine/Sudafed regimen which has kept me going until now. And I even had a fun time in Floriday! Now, though, I'm going to CRRRRRASH.

Gay gorilla!

So, apparently if you search Google for "Gay Gorilla," this site comes up in the top 10. What does this say about me, exactly?

Well, as you've probably guessed: I'm pro-gay. What this means is: I think the whole "gay issue" is one of right and wrong. Unlike nearly every other issue I can think of, I absolutely cannot see the other side's point of view. If you think being gay is wrong, bad, evil, etc... then you are on the "wrong" side of the issue. If you believe that being gay gives you as much of a chance of being a wonderful person, a jackass, a doctor, a criminal, as any other person on the planet, well... you're on the "right" side of the issue. Being gay is just being a person. Period. Finito. No discussion.

There is no in between.

Oh: I also own and sometimes wear a really cool gorilla suit. Thus, the "gay gorilla" search results. Although now I'm probably going to index at number one.

And no: I'm not a closeted gay dude. If I WAS gay, I'd be out there, baby! Safely, of course.

38 pictures, 1 American Mutt.

I took 38 pictures of Carter today. We were outside, roaming the yard. It's so strange to think he's got three or four weeks left. Shit, shit, shit.

Life, you fickle bastard.

The vet called me an hour ago, which was very nice of him since it was his day off. I asked him the questions I needed to ask about Carter, and after I promised that I would not hold him to any of his predictions, he gave me some straight answers. He things Carter will be pretty good for the week we are away. But he thinks he'll only have two or three weeks after that. It could, however, be as long as five or six.

I feel terrible about leaving. I mean, Carter LOVES staying with Holly, and our other dog will be with him... and the vet said it would be absolutely fine. And, of course, my father-in-law has been planning this trip for months and months and months... but I just feel terrible. Everyone on the trip knows that if Carter decompensates at all, I'll be flying back immediately.

So I'm sad. And that's pretty much all I can be. He's a wonderful, emotional, dog. The vet is making an execption with Carter: when the time comes to put Carter down, he'll come to our house to do it.

I will not let him suffer out of selfishness.

I really hope that there’s a doggy heaven.

I just found out that my dog has liver cancer. I’m really saddened by it. He’s a good dog. A friendly dog. And one that I’ve had for twelve years. I found him one day, when I went to buy fish food. There was an adopt-a-day thing happening, and since I like dogs so much, I sat down and pet a few of them. I even took this one other dog, a wheaton terrier, for a walk.

Then, well, there he was.

Jet black, undernourished and somewhat sullen (but not for long!), this dog (temporarily named “Zane”) called to me. He was all black except for a little part on his chest, and one of his toes, which were white. I said at his cage for a while, and he looked at me, and put his paw on my hand.

I took him for a little walk. Then I took him home.

I was scared of him when I bathed him… would he bite me? But no. He let me wash him off, and when he emerged, he was gorgeous. GORGEOUS.

When Maggie came home (she was my girlfriend, then), she was, um, shocked. After all, we were planning on moving to Brooklyn, and how would we find an apartment that allowed large mutts on premises.

We named him Carter.

The first morning he woke up in our bedroom, he was ecstatic. Clearly, he expected to be waking up in a cage somewhere, and instead he was home.

Twelve years passed. Children were born. We got cats. Another dog. We moved from the apartment in Brooklyn to a house in Brooklyn to a house in Westchester.

Without question, this dog has been my truest and loyal friend. He’s been with me through so much. And I’m so terribly, terribly sad at the prospect of his passing.

It could be a week, more likely a month. We’re supposed to go to Florida next week. I have told Maggie that I will be flying home if he seems sicker. I want to be with him when he goes. And if anyone has to put him down, it’s going to be me.

Damn, I love you Carter. You big, garbage-dumping pain in the ass.

Addendum

Let me change what I said about my new hire and other employee. For our needs RIGHT NOW, the new person is a much better fit than my current person. Although I think she (the current person) is incredibly nice and wonderful and a great asset.

It’s just that, in terms of generating what we need to generate, the new person is much more immediately and broadly skilled.

Poop.

What's a boss to do?

The person I hired last week is so much better than the person I currently have that I'm not sure if I need both of them.

Oh, lord.

More on pro-life, catholics, and birth control.

I want to posit this: people who are anti-birth control are inherently pro-abortion. And I don't mean pro-choice. Regardless of what they SAY, people who are against birth control are doing their utmost to promote increased abortions in this country.

Sad, but true.

Your very own Nine Inch Nails song!

How cool is THIS?

Trent Reznor, who's songs drove no small part of my brief foray into clubs in the early 90's, has released a song in Garageband format. This allows folks to remix the song as they see fit. I think this is totally cool. Windows users: you have to buy a Mac to do this.

But hey, a Mac Mini is just $499.

I'm not saying the dude is a Nazi.

Please don't get me wrong. I don't know enough about Cardinal Ratzinger to say he's anything other than an enforcer of the anti-choice, anti-gay doctrine I've come to expect. But I think that, regardless of outcome, and regardless of whether Ratzinger was "forced into" the Hitler youth and did indeed desert the German army out of protest, electing a former Hitler Youth and WWW II German soldier to be Pope would be a disaster. What would that do to the Jewish folks (being a convert therefrom myself...), or to the Islamic world?

Catholics and birth control. This German Cardinal.

Oh, god. OH, GOD.

If they elect this German Cardinal as Pope... the guy who was "forced into being a Hitler Youth..." and who went AWOL from the German army in 1945... (That's at the END OF THE WAR) well... I'm going to go crazy. I just don't know what I'm going to do. Seriously. I've already converted from Judasim to Catholicism. Am I going to have to go Episcopalian?

I mean, I'm down with the Holy Spirit, baby... but MAN. I am NOT going to even pretend to follow the teachings of some hyperconservative Nazi soldier... no matter WHAT kind of epiphany he's had. If he's had one. Someone clue me in. I'm jetting off some nervous energy from reading about this dude in the paper.

Birth control. BIRTH CONTROL. I've said it before: If you're going to be Pro Life/Anti-Choice, then you sure as hell better be Really Really Reallly Pro Birth Control. If you're not, just shut the fuck up because you're a dangerous fucking hypocrite. And probably a classist, as well.

I'm awash in many little fears about the next Pope. And I don't even believe in the whole Direct Messenger of God thing.

Accidentally met with the bigwigs.

So, I had a meeting at an Ad Agency in midtown today. I thought it was with an upper-middle manager of creative. I had been talking with her for a long time, ever since she responded to a direct marketing piece that involved me, a PowerBook, and a Gorilla suit. Quite successful.

It turns out she was a Senior Partner, and the Director of Creative Management for the whole company. And this is a BIG company. AND, bless her amazing self, she invited her newly hired colleague to join us. Well, once I realized that I was meeting with some really high-end folks, I just cut loose and had fun. Professionally, of course. But I had a true blast meeting with these people. It's one of the most storied advertising agencies in history, so I wanted them to be our client.

They're giving us a shot in two weeks. ROCK.

Hold your tongue...

Well, my oldest is being super-cranky this morning. My wife is of the "let him have his moods" school, while I am of the "let him have his moods, but don't do him any favors unless he is being respectful" school. Grrr.

2 Returned PowerBooks.

Man.

So, this is the second time I've had to return a PowerBook to Apple, because the trackpad is so messed up. This is a real drag. On the one hand, the Mac OS is SO much better, but on the other, the hardware tends to blow chunks. At least this time around.

Bleah.

There be mosquitos here!

Well, it's finally spring. DAMN. That took a long time.

I threw my back out yesterday. Halfway. Normally, I'm on a cane for a week when I do this. It seems that, this time, I'm much better off. I'm trying to take it easy, take (short term), and not do myself fully in. And what did it this time? Another half-marathon? Weights?

Shit, no. I handed my daughter a whistle lanyard and said "Look, honey, it's the color of your uniform!"

Wrench, crack. Real trouble.

The hilarious thing is: this is SO obviously stress-related. I turned down a job, hired someone new, agreed to move my office, started a second company (with a partner, which is scary)... it's almost embarrassing how transparent this all is.

Anyway: I still think these are good things, all. Just stressful.

Phases of Fatherhood.

I just posted on this dude's blog. Seems like a nice guy... he was writing about having his first kid, and how he felt that there were phases of fatherhood.

I left a comment... and thought: Heck, why not post it on my own site? Although I edited it for, like, the gazillion typos I did on his site. Apologies, Mr.

----------
Three phases? :-)

I think there are dozens. My oldest is 8, and I'm hitting about a Fatherhood Phase every few months.

I was talking to a childless friend of mine today... a mutual friend of ours experienced a setback with one of his kids... a condition that's somewhat serious. This guy (the one without kids) said: "Man, that's another reason to skip out on having kids."

I said: "Dude. I think the craziest and most wonderful thing about having kids is how it utterly broadens the depth and breath of human experience. The highs are SO much higher, the lows are SO much lower. SO much joy. SO much worry. It's like the bookshelf of potential just gets SO much wider."

It made sense to me, at least.

People are AMAZING.

Someone redid the ending of Se7en with PUPPETS.

People are just AWESOME.

Uptime.

I noticed that some changes I had made in my computer accounts hadn't taken effect... and THEN I realized that I hadn't restarted my computer in a couple weeks. That NEVER happens with Windows XP. OS 9 was just as bad as Windows, but I don't even use Classic anymore

Oops. I did it again.

Sick! I'm sick!

Stress has been keeping me from falling asleep, and an unusual combination of kids sickness and spousal nightmares have been keeping me sleeping all night. My wife woke me up at 4ish this morning yelling "RIIIICH!" She had a nightmare, and needed me to rescue her from it, she said. It occurred to her in her dream that she need to call to me so I could wake her up. Pretty amazing.

Suffice it to say, I'm now scratchy-throated and wobbly. But that's okay. I'll go to sleep early tonight, and try to be ready to rock tomorrow.

A pivotal day in my business life.

So I turned down a $120,000/year job today. Then I hired someone new. Then I signed up to move my company to bigger space. Then I started full-throttle towards opening a news, secondary business that I feel could be MUCH larger than my first. Very interesting.

So here we go again. My damn entrepreneurial spirit has me launching headfirst down an uncertain road that could lead to rags, riches, or a little of both.

Yeehah.

Declined. Oh, boy.

So, I've run the numbers, and I'm turning down the 6-figure gig. I realized that I probably make MORE doing a mediocre job for my own company, than I would doing a FABULOUS job for their company. And I will not do a mediocre job.

More later.

Fatherhood: The computer cycle is broken.

Normally, I sell my Big Computer on eBay sometime before the next generation of Big Computers come out. In this case, I was going to sell my Dual 2-Ghz G5 before the new G5s came out in a week or two. However, I gave my wife the money for kids to use for camp.

I am officially a grownup. It feels pretty neat.

Fatherhood: The third is the charm.

I think I got the balance right with my second child. It could be that she's my daughter, and I'm madly in love with her... but:

With the first child, it took me a while to get into the swing of things.
With the second, I was over the shock of being a parent, and was fairly ready to rock.
With the third, I was sort of swept up in the "group."

What I mean is, it's really important to focus on my youngest INDIVIDUALLY. It's so easy to simply include him, praise him along with the others, etc... but what I've got to do is give him more focused attention. Him-time. Only.

Battle of the options, or: six-figure conundrum.

I was just offered a six-figure position at a competitor. The thing is, in the end, I'm not sure I could make much more doing a fabulous job at their place than I could doing a good job at mine. It comes down to the math. I'm going to spend a lot of time with spreadsheets today, and figure this whole thing out.

This DEFINES a "luxury problem," though. You know?

Hypomania?

It’s been suggested that I’ve got the least common, and least-harmful variant of bipolar disorder, which is called (I think) hypomania. I get the ups, but my downs are pretty mild.

If that’s a disease, baby: I’ll TAKE it.