"The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." – Sylvia Plath

I’ve been attending a writers’ workshop. We meet on Monday nights in our neighborhood’s residents’ center. The first week more than 20 people attended; last week, for our lesson on blogging, we had around 10. Maybe people nowadays know all there is to know about blogs, but judging from the questions asked during the session, I’d say the people who did attend knew nothing about the internet.

The workshop has focused mostly on fiction; for me, that’s like attending a swimsuit workshop where we’re all required to wear Speedos – I don’t “do” fiction. I’d much rather curl up with a good biography or nonfiction tome about history or politics. The only time I find fiction acceptable is when I’m stuck in a car for more than eight hours, and the fiction is in audiobook form. And even then it’s more mindless noise to help pass the hours ... and I can always count on at least one line that makes me laugh out loud, especially when the author probably didn’t intend it to be funny.

Case in point: “She didn’t know whether to shit her pants or have an orgasm.”

(helpful note: Don’t google that phrase, hoping to find the author. You won’t find it, and you’ll be shocked at what you do find.)

“The wastebasket is a writer's best friend.”  – Isaac Bashevis Singer

So far, my problem has been this: I come up with an idea, and then I delete it because it’s stupid.
Are the ideas really stupid? Hard to say. I tend to have so much doubt about my ideas and my ability to execute them that everything is born and dies in the shower, which is where I get most of my “this will work!” ideas.

Why is this? I’ve been tortured by this lack of confidence for my entire life, regardless of what I’ve been doing – reporting, editing, IT work, training, photography ... you name it and I’ve doubted if I’m any good at it. My wife always laughs at me when we talk about careers, which is the white whale to my Captain Ahab, because I’ll talk about something and then, with all earnestness, say “You know, I think I’d be pretty good at that.”

It’s almost as if I’m talking myself into it – believing that I could do something competently isn’t a problem, but that I could do it spectacularly? That’s a stretch. The only thing I’m good at is denying that I’m good at anything.

If I could monetize that, I’d be hating myself on my own private island in the Caribbean right now.

“Writing comes more easily if you have something to say.”  – Sholem Asch

And isn’t that the problem? Finding things to say?

For now, instead of forcing the issue, I’m going to write some stories about things I know – people, events, etc. Let’s see if that gets the juices flowing. It’s not exactly fiction, but some of the things that have happened to me don’t seem real anyway.

Everything's tied to everything.

This is a test:

Can (1) MacJournal upload a post to (2) my Blogspot blog and then (3) automagically tweet it to the world?

We shall see.

So ...

I’m testing this new “journaling” application called MacJournal, and my first post was to have been a picture of Fletcher that I took a few days ago. But the photo didn’t make it, and I’m trying again.



And by the way, WTF is “journaling” software anyway? Isn’t WORD a journaling app? Or TextEdit? Or the back of a cocktail napkin? This does not explain why I bought it ...

This is a test. Also, a cat.

Sleeping (1 of 2)

Sleeping (1 of 2), originally uploaded by pr9000.

A friend asked me to tell the story of why I'm so frustrated with my job today. I obliged ... it's long, but it came out so quickly that I feel changing a word would be a sin.

It's a story about documentation. The old IT director didn't write a thing down. I've spent countless (billable) hours fixing mistakes I made because I've had to make changes to systems about which I know very few specifics.

Latest example: our backup software needed to be patched. So I ran the installer, rebooted and my server suddenly lost all its config files, and said I didn't have a valid license.

Of course, the serial info isn't filed away anywhere. Oh, and the software is written by a company in Germany. It's 3 p.m. CST when this happens.

Long story short: the old IT guy did a very unconventional install – installing the Unix guts of the app on a second partition –and didn't document it, or do the symlinks correctly, because the patcher had NO IDEA the guts of the app were on a second partition.

(Stupid Facebook character limitations ...)

So the patch did what it was told to do and installed a new copy of the app in the proper location. I backed up before I patched, and now I'm trying to restore the config from the backup.

WRITE THIS STUFF DOWN, PEOPLE!

Also, the 80 GB boot drive of this PPC Xserve was partitioned into "Boot" and "Scratch." Guess which partition had the critical data? If you guessed "The one named after a notepad" you'd be right. Maybe it's some voodoo server naming convention about which I'm unaware, but in the graphic arts field –did I mention this is a video house? – a scratch disc is one that can be deleted without worry, because its contents are just temp files that can be recreated.

Also also, why partition ONE SINGLE DRIVE? The tech note said some installs could be done on separate volumes to keep the DB from filling the drive. Makes sense, and might explain the decision. But two partitions != two drives!

I am forever amazed at the crap sandwich I've inherited. There is no excuse not to document your installs – none whatsoever.

There might be an excuse to choose a vendor LOCATED ON ANOTHER CONTINENT in a country KNOWN FOR INVADING ITS NEIGHBORS EVERY SO OFTEN. There might be an excuse to say "Sun won't support our tape library" if you haven't, you know, CALLED SUN TO SEE IF THEY STILL WRITE CONTRACTS ON IT. There might be an excuse to keep some Adobe app install jewel cases, but not all, and then NOT KEEP THE INSTALL DISC, thus FORCING ME TO GO GRAB A TORRENT OFF THE INTERWEBS and break the law because Adobe won't send me an installer disc for old software.

I'm sorry, I've lost my train of thought.

Anyway, there's your story. Sorry to rant, but really, his head's probably stuck in his armpit because I doubt he could find his ass in the first place.

And here it is in Facebook:

don't forget

trotter II

trotter II, originally uploaded by pr9000.

This blog has been asleep lately. It'll wake up soon. Until then, it's enjoying the afternoon sun streaming into a dark, warm living room.

word to madison's mother

the generosity of our neighbors

, originally uploaded by pr9000.

The Beatles - Abbey Road

The Beatles - Abbey Road, originally uploaded by dag.

My head just exploded. What a great set of outtakes.

that's the goal

that's the goal, originally uploaded by pr9000.

As I type this, I'm sitting in a recliner that will double as my bed this evening, on the fifth floor of St. Thomas Medical Center in Belle Meade, watching my lovely and courageous wife, Amina, go in and out of sleep. The tick-click of the IV machine helps drown the background noise of nurses shuttling to and fro, doing the work of the angels as they keep Amina and the rest of the A wing as comfortable as possible, given the planned trauma their bodies suffered earlier in the day.

(Sorry for the scenery chewing, but I'm feeling a bit melodramatic this evening. It's been a long day.)

We stayed at The Inn at St. Thomas, a wing of the hospital that's been converted to motel rooms where patients can stay the night before surgery, to avoid the 5:30 a.m. arrival that admissions requires.

We thought that 5:30 is 5:30, so we were ready at that ungodly hour. But if you're at the Inn, you've got at least an extra 90 minutes until they actually pick you up. And we got up an hour earlier than we needed to – 3:30 a.m. – out of excitement and nervousness. So by the time Amina was taken out of the room, we'd been up for almost four hours. A tense four hours.

I tried to keep my day as normal as possible, visiting clients and generally pretending that Amina was at a customer site and wouldn't be home until after dinner. The physician assistant called at 11 a.m. to say the first incision was made around 10:15 a.m., and that they were looking at every bit of six hours before they'd be done.

Consider that for a second – a six hour surgery. For a knee, when most ACL repair is done outpatient. I don't think any of us realized how drastic the injury was in the first few days after it happened.

Anyway.

I got to the family waiting room around 3 p.m. and the PA called immediately to say all was going well, but that they'd need at least another hour before Dr. Anderson would be finished. And she was pretty much correct – I got the call at 4:15 p.m. that Dr. Anderson was ready to see me and give me the news.

I pretended not to be nervous. Causally I gathered my laptop and charger (free wifi kicks ass when you've got nothing but time on your hands) and was escored to the little waiting room. I sat down, the door was shut and boom! No cell coverage. I suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, had a lot of time to think and worry. I prayed as best I could, but I think God will forgive me for being a bit scatterbrained, as I went from "Everything is going to be fine" to "She'll probably have lost her leg due to the arterial damage" to "Why the hell can't I get on Twitter? It's baseball trading deadline!"

Dr. Anderson almost bounced into the room. He had a hint of a smile that grew larger as he told me everything went as well as he'd hoped. The damage was bad – we were hoping he'd get in there and find less destruction than expected – and he showed me one gross photo of her knee as it was opened, and another kind of cool photo that showed the extent of the damage Amina had done.

To the untrained eye, it's hard to decipher, but let me try:

First, imagine that you don't have kneecap anymore. Then take a deck of cards, and imagine sliding it into the space where your kneecap was, kind of perpendicular to your leg. That's what I saw – her knee looked like a hollow little cave. There was no "there" there.

And now, miraculously, there is. The LCL and one of her middle ligaments were taken from her body, and the other middle ligament was cadaver tissue. Thus she only has half a zombie knee, which should be cool around Halloween. We can scare the kids and the insurance company at the same time.

I can't say enough about how incredible Dr. Anderson has been for us. It was the right choice, and I'm so incredibly glad we got to him when we did – we'd all but made our decision to go with another doctor, but he called us at home, on his day off, to say that he'd seen Amina's charts and would get us in the very next afternoon. He came recommended to us by Dr. Jeff Cook at the Franklin Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, who was recommended to us by very good friends in our neighborhood. It's like a Kevin Bacon story.

Amina resting comfortably, though the pain medication seems to wear out every three hours. I've got my phone alarm clock set to go off every 2:45, so that I can make sure I get the nurse's attention. I don't think that's going to be hard – so far I've been blown away by the care we've received. Our first nurse just happened to live in our neighborhood, which is kind of mind-blowing when you've already been up for 14 hours and you're living on caffeine and Doritos. Our overnight nurse is a free spirit, kind of spunky and not afraid to swear if the conversation demands it.

And, of course, the free wifi.

God bless you all for the help you've given us, the love you've shown us, and the prayers you've made made for us. It's amazing to me that I find myself praising God, and my friends and family, even in the midst of what should be a pretty crappy day.

the older i get, the more this rings true ...

master guide power steering™

master guide power steering™, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Given Amina's current condition, traveling anywhere by car can be a chore. First we have to get her down the stairs in the garage, which isn't that hard – it's more worrisome, because it involves hopping on the good foot (James Brown!) while she supports her weight on me. Once we're on the ground level, we walker over to the car, and then she contorts herself into the front seat, always being careful not to bump her foot on the door or the dash. It's almost like watching a gymnast navigate the beam, or one of those tall cranes swinging parts of a skyscraper around.

The problem is that, because the knee does not bend whatsoever, the car door must provide a lot of clearance – it's got to open wide. Our little SUV-type vehicle is a four-door, and the doors don't open very wide. But the convertible almost opens 90 degrees, so that's the vehicle of choice when we need to go somewhere.

After I get her into the front seat safely, I put a blanket over what passes for our back seat, and then gently lift the wheelchair into the back ... the trunk, you see, is too small for the chair. And once it's in the back seat, the top must stay down, because, again, the chair is too tall.

It's probably a pretty absurd sight – a luxury convertible with a folded wheelchair, gently surrounded by a hospital blanket, sticking up from behind the occupants. Not exactly a commercial, but it gets the job done, which is a testament to the vehicle itself.

I say all this to relate that, after getting home from yet another doctor's appointment Thursday, I left the keys in the ignition in my scramble to help Amina back into the house. By the time I realized it – late Saturday evening – the battery was dead. So dead, in fact, that this model car does not allow the ignition to turn.

My first thought: let's jump the car! My second thought: Where in the hell is the battery? Is it in the trunk? Let's check ... oh, wait: yet another feature of a dead battery – trunk is locked. And can only be opened by the key fob or a button on the driver's side door, both of which aren't operating because the battery's dead.

But come on, I think. This is a car! They're all the same! Until I realized that it's made in Germany, which means it's going to be (1) ruthlessly efficient and (2) more complex than necessary. I could poke around under the hood, but I'd rather know the exact details before I send volts of electricity surging through what might be the air conditioner or radiator or spare tire.

Mistakes cost money.

So I called the dealer, and was lucky to get them right before they closed. Service, though, had left two hours ago so they patched me to the Roadside Assistance center. After getting a few details and hearing my lamentations, they sent someone out to give me a jump.

This goes against every Man Law imaginable. I have jumper cables. I have another vehicle. I have testicles. I can do this. But no, the friendly woman on the other end of the phone purred, they'd have to send someone out.

And they did. Not some dude from the local garage, but a certified service expert. Matt was very nice, very helpful and he jump-started the car for me. It was exactly as I thought it would be -- red to positive, black to some large chunk of metal – and, really, it was a dream. I can call any time of day or night and they'll send someone to help change a flat, fill an empty gas tank, jump-start the car ... and it's nothing I have to pay for. I get it simply because I'm privileged to own this fine automobile.

Not good for the manly ego, but I'll take what help I can get.

sunflower (2 of 3)

sunflower (2 of 3), originally uploaded by pr9000.

Trivial thoughts after a day in the maw of the healthcare system:

• I had a doctor use the "Can I still play the piano?" joke on us – instantly won my respect and admiration. All I need now is "Oh, nurse!" and "Doctor, it hurts when I do this" to complete the trifecta.

• The second most famous patient of the guy who set Amina's splint: Joeclyn Thibault. Happened, he says, at a Habs-Bruins game, which gives me the excuse to show this gem of a commercial.

• The most famous, of course, is Amina.

• It's amazing how many times we've had to repeat the story – at least five times in the ER, once to each nurse who saw Amina in the hospital, and now to two doctors today as well. I need to go to Cafepress and make up a t-shirt with the story on it.

• I'm proud of how well she's holding up through all this. It's exhausting – and tomorrow, with three separate doctor's visits in three separate parts of town, will be a marathon. I don't think she'll get out of bed on Wednesday.

our streets

our street, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Well, actually, that's "our streets" two houses ago ... in lovely University City, Missouri. We lived on Stanford; Vanderbilt was the intersection.

Much of the next few weeks will have Vanderbilt – or maybe another hospital – at the intersection of life before the knee separation, and life after the knee surgery.

If you're the praying type, and you've not been adding us to your list before now ... shame on you. :)

Sleeping (1 of 2)

Sleeping (1 of 2), originally uploaded by pr9000.

Feelin' kind of poopy today.

Walter Cronkite announces death of JFK

Walter Cronkite announces JFK assassination

that's pretty thick-headed ...

candelabra IV, or "The Knee Affair"

candelabra IV, originally uploaded by pr9000.

As some of you may already know, Amina took a tumble on her bike this weekend and ended up dislocating her knee. Take that literally – you couldn't find her knee if I spotted you two legs and a map. Where used to be the ligaments and other ... knee thingees ... there is now a whole lot of nothing.

Her injury is incredibly rare; usually knees pop to the side, but hers ... well, it's best described thusly: make two fists and bring them together, looking at the top of the interlocking knuckles. That's your knee. Now, take your right fist and move it on top of your left wrist. That's what happened to hers. All the ligaments are gone, but the docs can't tell if it'll be a reconstruction or a replacement until the swelling goes down enough to do more MRIs.

She has that leg in a temporary cast from her toes to her hips, and she can't do a thing by herself.

It's just shocking, how it happens in an instant – at 5:30 I was getting ready to make a great dinner, and at 5:45 I was strapped into the passenger's seat for my first-ever ambulance ride.

I was watching her scream in pain -- nobody seemed to realize she had dislocated her knee. The EMTs and ER docs all thought it was a compound fracture, so they gave drugs that should compound that kind of pain. Once the attending saw her x-rays he told the drug nurse "give her whatever she needs to be comfortable" ... and it was Dilaudid all the way (which, I've since learned, it's four times more powerful than heroin).

But before the groovy drugs, she was pretty much feeling the full effects of a dislocated knee, complete and pure without the diversion of narcotics. I went with her to X-Ray – notice my hip, in-the-know lingo there – and heard her cry out in pain that quite literally sent a chill down my spine. I know that's a cliche, but honestly, I could feel the hairs stand up from neck to heel and I charged out of the restroom, looking to kill the miserable bastard who was hurting my wife. I recall making eye contact with the rad techs. If I were the sort to have a shorter fuse, there probably would have been a police officer slapping cuffs on me.

Oh, there were a lot of cops in the ER. I bet that's pretty typical.

Once the ER docs popped her knee back in place – she was consciously sedated, which sounds like the first draft of a Pink Floyd song – they found us a room in the oldest wing of the hospital, which in reality was pretty cool. It looked like an unused Federation starship design from "Star Trek" ... of course, it could have been that it was 2 a.m. and I was exhausted from the day, but check it for yourself and tell me Commander Pike couldn't have taken that thing to the fourth planet in the Talos system.

As the lovely wife of my good friend John said on Facebook ... "LOL warp factor nerd." Takes one to know one, sister.

Some impressions of the 26 hours at Vanderbilt:

Even through the stress of the ER visit, I was chuckling to myself after visiting with one of Amina's nurses. "Hello, nurse!" (in my best Wakko voice) was in my head all night. If I ever need a catheter without benefit of anaesthesia, she can do it anytime.

They wheeled us over to the Round Wing about 1 a.m. or so, and the trip was almost like a Kubrick film – long, sleek, abandoned underground corridors, extreme white-blue florescent lighting, and the only sounds were the whirring of the air conditioning, the wiggle/rattle of the gurney wheels, and our footsteps. Very unnerving.

Vandy has a great cafeteria.

To top off the experience, Nashville experienced the second Biblical rainstorm just as we were leaving last night. Seemed to sum up the experience perfectly.

There is a long road ahead of us; surgery is unavoidable, and the task will be to find the best doctor with the best plan to get Amina back on her feet. Knowing my wife the way I do, I have no doubts we'll get there, and sooner than expected.