It’s a grim subject, but one that’s been on my mind since the baby arrived: Dealing with your digital legacy. Lifehacker has a great writeup on how to organize your life so that heirs and executors can access your digital life, like bank accounts, social media, and digital assets. The first step is a will (check) and the second is a password manager (check).
The latest word is that the baby hasn’t gotten any larger. Monday’s CT scan shows nothing new, which means I’m cleared for chemotherapy as well as radiology starting next Monday. Beyond a little that I’ve read I have no idea what to expect in the coming month, but I’m going to do my best to stay strong and motivated.
That’s a lot easier said than done. I think I’m suffering from a low-grade depression right now. I’m afraid to start any projects because who knows if I’m going to be able to finish anything while I’m dealing with this. I don’t want to read too much about the coming treatment because the internet excels at scaring the shit out of anyone researching anything; I think it’s already taken about 10 years off of Jen’s life. I’m not that interested in mass media as a diversionary tool; I find myself flipping through my internet bookmarks in search of little hits of dopamine, wasting time. Work is OK and everyone is understanding and supportive and awesome but I have moments where I’m listening to people talk and wondering why the fuck any of this matters. I’m struggling to keep from withdrawing into myself, which is an easy but selfish way to deal with this situation; I look at Jen and Finn and know that I have to be present and focused for them.
I got some news out of the blue on Tuesday that sent my mood further south. It doesn’t have anything to do with my medical condition; it’s a voice from the past that started shouting again, and for reasons I won’t get into here, I’m keeping it on the down-low. It’s been a shit couple of weeks, really.
My list of daily links has gotten pretty stale over the last couple of years. I’m outgrowing some of the standard destinations that used to get me through the day; some aggregators have dried up, been bought, or gone out of business. The original inspiration for this website were the other weblogs I saw written by live humans who found things interesting and wrote about them; most of those people have jumped to Twitter and let their weblogs go dark.
I used a site called moreofit to search for websites similar to those I still frequent, and I’d say that about 10% of the suggestions are still updated regularly. Many of the suggestions are ones I followed back in the day, and a fair number of them trailed off between 2010-2012 as their authors moved on to different things (went corporate, left web design, bought a farm, or just disappeared). I did find, in that 10%, a couple of old favorites and some new suggestions. But it isn’t the same, and that’s sad. The commoditization of the internet is pretty much complete, and the do-it-yourself ideology, the idealistic, electric feeling of having one’s own place to post pictures or write about feels or show off code is gone. There’s Twitter, Facebook, or an app for that.
I think it would be interesting to try and organize a meetup of people who still have weblogs and talk to them about why they still write on their own site, if they write as much on social media, how they view their weblog now vs. when they first started it, and if they ever see themselves giving it up.
(1. Because social media is depressing. 2. Instagram only. 3. I view it almost the same now as I did then; I will admit that it’s harder to post every day but it’s still something I look forward to. 4. Doubtful; it’s served as my mobile memory since 2001 and I can’t imagine giving up the habit now.)
I did find, through clicking, a new theme for WordPress which could be the base for a modernization of idiotking here, too.
I threw up only once, but like any good hangover, it helped a lot. That was after I was on my feet and getting dressed in the recovery room. My anesthesiologist, a lovely woman named Bonnie, brought me a cup of coffee, which I sipped gingerly, but that, a can of ginger ale, and about half of the IV bag came up into the wastebasket right after I put my socks on. The anesthesia they gave me was enough to keep me awake but not moving, until I tried to scratch my nose a couple of times during the procedure–where they had me in the middle of a CAT donut with a needle in my stomach. Bonnie had to up my dose a bit. I blame that and the raging caffeine migraine I was suffering through for my fluttery stomach. The procedure itself went well, and apparently they’ll be able to tell us something within 3-4 days. Jen drove me back home, and I crawled into bed and slept for about two hours before dinner. Jen and Finn brought Pho home and I devoured a bowl and a half of that before heading back upstairs.
I put the phone down after a brief call with my doctor, and waited for the reality to hit me. You have a large mass in your pelvis. I didn’t really know how to feel, other than thinking, Fuck, I’m supposed to have another ten years or so before this shit starts happening.
I’ve been noticing my pants getting tighter around the waist since January. At first, I figured some of them had shrunk in the wash. By March it was happening with all of them, and I’d gained a couple of pounds. This is weird because I’ve been the same weight since 1989. I chalked it up to the fact that I’ve crested the middle of my 40’s and I’m probably due for additional padding. When I pulled my shorts out of storage in May, there were only a few that I could wear comfortably–shorts I’ve worn for 10 years. I’d been in for a physical with bloodwork in February, and there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary to report there. It took a closer look by Jen and then some insistent prodding to get me back in to the GP for a follow-up. He listened carefully and palpated my stomach. After some questions, he ordered a CT scan and I made an appointment to ride the donut.
It was the result of this scan, and that call, that got the circus underway. I made an appointment to get a MRI and another with an oncological surgeon. Jen and my brother in law got me another appointment with a different doctor across town a full week earlier. I did the MRI (fell asleep inside the tube), then went to meet the doctor two days later. She was an excellent source of information, and after telling us everything she could, found a surgeon within her practice who could talk to us later that afternoon. We went out and got some lunch and tried to remain calm. On the way back for the consult, the contrast from the MRI started burbling in my stomach and decided it was time to GET OFF THE BUS. We made it back to the hospital with seconds to spare. Can I just say that relieving oneself of iodine contrast is like shitting fire?
The surgeon, a pleasant, reserved fellow, showed us the MRI results: a self-contained mass within my stomach cavity, 8 inches long. Basically, I’m four months pregnant. They asked me if I was having any symptoms–problems with my bottom system, gas, pain, heart issues, breathing–and I answered honestly: nope. The honest truth is that I feel fine. My new bloodwork was all normal. This mystified all of them. He filled me in on his course of action: go in, get it out, and then do a biopsy. He warned us that there could be complications: severed nerves, bleeding, loss of continence, motor function, or worse, depending on what it’s hooked up to. He was kind, but fair and honest. That was last week. Strong drinks followed that news.
On Wednesday, we saw the second doctor at Mercy, where Finn was born. We got a great vibe from the people in his practice, and then the man himself. His take on things was that it’s most likely benign based on the symptoms, labs and the images. He took the time to show us the MRI, and talked us through what we were seeing. He seemed confident it would come out relatively easily, but he wanted to start with a biopsy and move to surgery after he knows what we’re dealing with. I liked his conservative but confident approach and we both got a good feeling from him. Then we hustled over to Hopkins for a third opinion.
The third guy was a referral through a friend. He is an orthopedic surgeon in the oncological practice within Hopkins–so, not a soft tissue guy. He looked at the charts and images outside and without much preamble told us it’s most likely malignant, recommending a biopsy, surgery, radiation, and ongoing treatment. That was a punch in the dick. He talked everything through with us and we nodded our heads and then ate a tasteless, quiet, shocked lunch in the cafeteria. Then we headed home to pick up Finley at our sister’s house where we started pouring strong vodka tonics.
From what they all can tell it’s not growing out of any organs or bone. My white blood cell count is normal. All of them say that our vacation is important for the family, there’s not much they can do in the next two weeks with scheduling anyway, and that the baby will be fine until we get back, so fuck it, we’re going. I am going to sit my ass down on the beach, drink some cold beer, watch the kids play in the surf, and try not to think about things. Obviously it’s coming out; we have to decide who and where.
That, among a succession of shit luck and bad news suffered by friends and loved ones, has put a bit of a damper on vacation. I’m having a hard time focusing on preparing for the beach while also trying to be supportive, stay positive, wrap up and reschedule work plans, and generally just deal with a fucking parasite in my stomach. Jen has been a wonder this week, shuttling me across town and back, scheduling care for Finn, running pre-vacation errands, getting me to and from work, and being a rock beside me while I wait for informed opinions. I couldn’t have made it this far without her. She’s going to need this vacation as much as I will, because when we get back our lives are going to be chaotic.
I love you blondie, and I’m sorry I completely forgot your birthday.
I’ve been coming to terms, slowly, with the fact that I’m middle-aged. My knees don’t bend as fast as they did. My hair is thinning, but I’m still hanging on to my widow’s peak. I have to pull my glasses off when I need to look at something really close. I’ve actually gained 6 pounds in the last 6 months–mainly around my midsection. The last time I weighed this much I was in college and had a job wrestling drums of oil paint onto and off of a stakebody truck as a summer job. Now I sit behind a desk and the best exercise I get is running up the escalator to my train.
It’s cliché, but my brain still believes I’m 28. I’ll have beers with friends and have to stop myself from drinking at a post-college pace to avoid a crushing hangover the next day. I used to think nothing of having a cup of coffee at 4PM, but now it keeps me up at night. That and having to get up and pee–I didn’t have that problem 10 years ago, either.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to keep up with other major changes. I’ve gone from a job where I was the sole designer to being one of two who did the work, then one of three who did some work, and now I’m hardly doing any design at all. My day is caught up in a mixture of meetings, design direction, phone calls, and strategy (roughly in that order). The skillset I’m using now is completely different than that of four years ago; on one hand this is a blessing, because I was completely burned out when I changed jobs. The mere thought of designing a website holds absolutely no interest to me anymore. On the other hand, I sit and talk to a lot of people all day when I’d like to actually be making something, and my brain is pretty crispy by the end of each workday.
I miss the thrill and pleasant grind of designing from scratch, from start to finish. I’ve worked on some new projects that have kick-started my creativity and learned new skills I’m only beginning to tap into. While my job is that of a manager who makes decisions at a reasonably high level, I’m trying to find a balance between the things I want to do and the things they need me to do. Part of this is addressed by teaching and photography, and part of this will hopefully be addressed by a project I’m waiting on the funding for.
At no time should this ever sound like I’m complaining. I’m grateful for every moment of the opportunity I’ve been given, the three years I’ve been there have flown by, and I hope to have three more exciting, productive, and challenging years ahead. I just need to rebalance the father, husband, manager, and creative to keep my soul nourished and my heart happy.
I don’t know what else I can write about 2016 that hasn’t been covered elsewhere; from my humble perspective everything in the world that I know seems to have gone completely sideways. We elected a narcissistic clown for president, we lost Prince, Bowie, Gene Wilder, Alan Rickman, George Michael, Carrie Fisher, and Abe motherfucking Vigoda. Closer to home, the plumbing crapped out, the boiler blew a gasket, we had to trade two trees in our backyard for a summer vacation, and on that vacation we had to deal with head lice.
On the positive side, the Lockardugans did what we could to make progress in 2016. Finley entered the Second Grade and tested in the 90th percentile for both math and english. She learned how to snowboard and ride a bike. We had fun at the beach and in Philadelphia for our vacation. I was lucky enough to travel to Mexico and London and work in some sightseeing time. We refinanced our house and set the wheels in motion to start working on it again.
Miles of copy has already been written about the possibilities and perils of the next four years. Personally, I’m terrified; I didn’t predict the election results, but I tried to get us as prepared financially as I could–we already know that interest rates are going up, and I’m betting that our new president’s inability to censor himself will cause gigantic ripples in the economy that he won’t feel. Beyond that, he’s surrounded himself with a bunch of supply-side economists, big business apologists, and frightening throwbacks to Jim Crow America. They will start making decisions that will have lasting effects on my family’s well-being for decades. Our balance on the knife edge of the Middle Class has never felt more precarious.
And yet, I’m still hanging on to optimism. I work for an organization that is gearing itself up to fight for sustainable environmental policies. My family is healthy, and my daughter is thriving. We will teach her to fight for the truth, think independently, make smart decisions for herself, and to be a compassionate and socially conscious woman. Because I think those qualities in that gender are exactly what this country needs.
Saturday morning broke warm and sunny, and we all got up eager to get outside. At least, I did. After prodding the neighbor to come and split wood (he was working) I lit a fire and got busy splitting the last of the small stuff, and actually split a 30″ round by hand. I’m definitely at the point where I can’t do anything else without hydraulic assistance so I’m at his mercy in terms of scheduling. I cleaned up the area, adjusted the tarps on the cribs, collected a wheelbarrow full of dry chips for kindling, and a bunch of other small yard tasks before the sky turned dark. In the space of about five minutes it went from sunny and 70˚ to gray and 50˚, and the wind howled in like the aftershock of a nuclear blast. I came inside and changed the cartridge on our water filter, which has needed doing for a while now, only to find that the outgoing valve (the one that keeps water on the house side from pouring back down onto the floor) is leaking uncontrollably, because it is made of plastic and is shit. The plumbers will be here Monday morning to look that situation over, and meanwhile we have a 5-gallon bucket keeping the floor dry.
That was OK though because Mama and I had a reservation at Parts & Labor, a butcher/restaurant in Remington, and it was time to get ready. After setting the babysitter up with the technology we drove into the city and found a spot across the street. Remington has changed dramatically since the last time we were up there; there’s a huge condo/workspace around the corner from the Paper Moon diner that looks like it landed from Mars.
Parts & Labor is a lovely restaurant with killer cocktails and a very courteous staff. Our meals were delicious (Jen won this time with the lambchetta) and we enjoyed every minute of our stay. Strangely, we were done in an hour and a half–usually we shut restaurants down when we’ve got a sitter–so we moseyed up to Golden West and joined the hipsters at the bar for more cocktails. There we enjoyed a couple hours of uninterrupted conversation before the CR-V turned into a pumpkin.
I’ll say that even though I was a little rocky this morning I’m gaining an appreciation for both a well-mixed Manhattan and an Old Fashioned. I don’t drink bourbon or rye as a rule (brown alcohol and I don’t mix) but these two were delicious. Jen and I discussed laying in some good bourbon, bitters, and vermouth and trying to perfect our own recipe over the winter.
Sunday was 40˚ and windy, with gusts of 20mph or more (definitely more) and my neighbor was working again, so there was no splitting for us at all. I went down to pick up the CSA, then came back to clean the yard for winter. This included re-fastening the plastic on the far side of the greenhouse, which had come completely loose, and organizing the contents so that the rest of the chairs and hoses would fit inside. Other than that, it was a relaxed Sunday.
August 7
We’ve had a clutch of five baby bunnies living in our driveway for over two weeks now. Their mother apparently had no idea how to select a safe, protected nest for her children, so she abandoned them out in the open, where any crow, fox, cat, dog, or Finley could find them. Jen sprung into action and dug them out a proper nest, added paper bedding, and found a plastic organizer to put over them. Since then they’ve sprouted hair, opened their eyes, grown three times their original size, and are now venturing out of the nest. Mom seems to come and feed them at dusk, and they seem to be healthy; Jen has a dedicated following on Instagram demanding daily updates.
August 18