A long time ago I learned a simple exercise to help put a bad day into perspective. Having just had a pretty awful day I thought I give it a try.
It was a balmy 70 degrees this afternoon, so I opened the windows when I got home. Each window has sprouted a very happy cat.
I have enough leftovers from the last round of “I’m-feeling-good-so-lets-cook” a couple of weekends ago, so I’m eating good food tonight.
…
Hmm
Given that I am still deep into depression over Michele’s death and that I am now anticipating a call from Decatur to tell my of my mom’s death (any time between now and, oh, say six months? eight months? three months?) I am stretched extremely thin right now. Having a sudden escalation in my work responsibilities could not come at a worse time. But come they have.
The overall project is on the hook for delivering the complete design for a major release in just nine more working days. In order to meet that deadline six members of the next major release were pulled and reassigned. As one of the few people left on the next major release I picked up management responsibilities for the entire release. Aren’t I the lucky one. Second prize was management duties for both releases.
Today the added pressure on top of my already shaking grasp on “normal” behavior made for a very ugly and tense afternoon. I came unhinged and was ready to quit and just walk out. I wanted to charge up to my immediate project manager and ask him point blank, “Do you not get that I am struggling just to make it to work everyday? Do you not get that I don’t really give a flying fuck at a rolling donut whether this project succeeds or fails right now? Could you possibly assign this responsibility to someone else?” However, given that two vendor employees (not sub-contractors) were walked out of the building just two weeks ago, I managed to contain myself. It adds more pressure still, but I don’t feel safe trying to pass this buck right now.
I know that the root cause of my meltdown today was feeling out of control. I discovered my new duties in a public meeting where I was told, at the same time as everyone else, that I was now in charge of the team. Hard to turn it down in front a room full of your peers. I felt extremely blind-sided by the manner this announcement was handled. One of the first extra tasks was calculating a level of effort (LOE) for all the outstanding change requests (CR) tagged for our application. As soon as possible. After spending a day and a half struggling to get a handle on the 27 open CR I learned that only THREE were not already in the plan. Gee, could you have told me that TWO DAYS AGO!? All of which only added to my feeling of being out of control.
35 minutes until I can go home and hide under the bed.
Behind Enemy Lines is an excellent action movie, that it is loosely based on the truth only adds to its verisimilitude.
Rating: Worth owning
Ever since getting the news that my mother’s cancer is back, and will likely kill her this time, I have been searching for a path that will lead me through her death. I’ve been aware for several years now that both of my parents were getting older and that their health was becoming an increasing factor in their lives. When Michele and I moved to Vancouver one of the big issues for me was realizing that I was limiting the number of times I would see my parents again simply by living so far away.
Living 450 miles away is a good distance for a lot of reasons for me. I am close enough to get home should the need arise, but far enough away to feel like I am out of their sphere of influence. Planning my next visits, and preparing to talk to her is proving to be as difficult as you would imagine. The possibility that a given visit could well be the last one adds tremendous emotional spin. Especially when you factor in the determination my parents have towards living as emotionless a life as possible.
In two weeks I am headed over for her birthday and that of my niece Riley. And two weeks after that I’ll pass through town on my way to a friend’s wedding in Chicago. I am hoping that in these two visits I can determine for myself what I think her life expectancy is; three months, six, and year. My gut feeling today is that she will likely not see her next birthday. I don’t know yet what, if anything, I need to say to her before she dies. As an adult I can see her as an adult and accept who she is and how she conducts her life. As her child I can’t begin to imagine a world without her. And I don’t want to see her, especially if I know it is for the last time.
One of the semi-destructive behaviors I have started to exhibit as a result of my depression is spending money. Buying something new gives me a short high, a feeling of goodness and lightness. Unfortunately the feeling never lasts long, and I frequently regret having made the purchase in the first place. Several items I’ve recently purchases haven’t worked the way I wanted, or for some other reason didn’t satisfy, and have been taken back.
In no particular order, here is a partial list of things I’ve nearly bought recently. Items marked with a (*) were bought only to be returned later.
The Jackal is a remake of the classic 1973 version. The earlier version is altogether better. This Bruce Willis version is fairly well done, and the addition of Sidney Poitier brings the movie up a full notch. Still, it has none of the elan of the first movie.
Rating: If you watch this version you must watch the original
There is nothing about The Specialist that stands out. The acting is ordinary, even sub-par, the plot is highly predictable, and the action is watery at best.
Rating: No socially redeeming value
For most of my working career I’ve worn glasses. And since 2003 those glasses have been bifocals. The eye doctor describes my prescription as “interesting.” I’m farsighted and I have astigmatisms in each eye.
Being farsighted, it turns out, has nothing to do with the distance between you and the objects you are viewing, it has to do with where the focal point of the lens in your eyes lands. Farsighted means the focal point (the place of optimum focus) is behind the retina. Basically you can’t see anything, up close or far away.
Astigmatism means the curvature of the eye is not spherical. The best example is that it is football shaped and not basketball shaped. A football has one radius side to side and a different radius end to end. Astigmatic eyes are oddly shaped.
My prescription number is only 20/40 but the combination of farsightedness and a different astigmatism in each eye means my brain has a hard time figuring out what is in focus and what isn’t. The glasses cancel out the worst of the opposing astigma (is that a word?) and I can see. More or less. The problem with bifocals is that what I need to see is usually in the other half of the lens so I am constantly having to move my head to see clearly. This problem is most evident at work where I work on a huge 21" monitor and am unable to see all of the screen at once through the bifocal lens.
A couple of weeks ago I set out to get contact lens thinking that would eliminate the constant bobbing of my head at work just to see the whole screen. I talked to everyone I knew who wore contacts to get their experience. More than once I heard that astigmatism was difficult to correct with contacts. And one friend suggested I look into LASIK eye surgery. Today I had my LASIK evaluation and it turns out I am an excellent candidate for that type of corrective procedure. The doctor was very patient and answered all of my questions, and explained to me what they would do to correct my vision.
He confirmed what I had already heard about contacts and astigmatism; due to the “ridge” in my eye the lens would tend to skate around rather than seating properly and would never really work. He also said that due to my need for excellent up close vision that they would follow the “mono eye” process. Basically my dominate eye (the left one) will be corrected to 20/20 vision eliminating the farsightedness once and for all. And they will correct the dual curvature caused by the astigmatism as well. The right eye will have the astigmatism removed and will be made slightly nearsighted, providing me with the up close vision I desire. Apparently my brain will figure out which eye to use in a given situation and switch as needed.
I’ve known at least one person who had mono contact lens that worked on the same principle: one lens for close and one for far. The doctor assured me that 90-95 percent of all mono patients quickly adapt to the re-tasking of their eyes. And that, if I didn’t adjust or wasn’t happy with the result, he could reshape the right eye to be 20/20 like the left one. At no additional charge. All of this seems very science fiction-ish to me, but given that hundreds of thousands of people have had this procedure performed, and that he himself has done nearly 10,000 operations, I think it’ll all work out perfectly. Due to some scheduling constraints I won’t be able to have the procedure done until the third week in March, but I am already looking forward to taking my glasses off for the last time.
As a boy my haircuts were done by my father. Being the mid-sixties his task was fairly easy, a “burr” haircut doesn’t require a lot of talent. And at that age I really wasn’t overly concerned about the appearance of my hair to others. Of course there are pictures of oddly thatched hair and cowlicks as he tried to leave my hair longer so it could be combed. By the time I reached junior high I was getting my hair done at the barber shop. It was a vastly different experience.
The barber shop my father used was a male place from top to bottom. Not a unisex salon like you find today, but a four-seat “high and tight” kind of establishment. The magazine selection for waiting customers included Playboy and Penthouse. As an adolescent just discovering the wide world of adulthood the open display of those magazines was both embarrassing and enticing. The receptionist/hair wash girl was an exercise in tight fitting clothes and overt sexuality as well. I began to see my father in a new light as a result of my introduction to a men’s barbershop. The haircuts were good too.
Throughout college I largely ignored my hair. I got it cut maybe two or three times a year. My bangs reached my chin and in the back it was shoulder length. However as I got ready to start interviewing for jobs I had it cut short once again. Mostly I visited those $6 or $7 haircut places and took potluck on the stylist. While these maybe great training grounds for the freshly minted hair stylist, you can’t depend on getting a good hair cut. Eventually I landed at a good salon, and found a stylist who had done men’s hair and my haircuts improved as a result.
In each of the cities we lived in, Michele and I always managed to find a salon where we could both get our hair cut. She was expert at finding the best local shop and I enjoyed good haircuts as a result. Most recently I’ve been getting my haircut by a gifted barber who uses a variety of razors to cut my hair. They are some of the best haircuts I’ve ever had. Last week when I called for a new appointment I discovered he has quit the business, and taken my haircut with him.
You see, in each instance I’ve described and all the ones I haven’t, the haircut I get isn’t really mine. Sure, the hair is mine, and the look is mine, but I can’t recreate it without the stylist or barber. Any time I’ve moved or changed barbers I’ve lost my haircut in the process. Not a big deal to be sure, but something I am aware of nonetheless. With the loss of my latest haircut I am very tempted to return to my haircut roots (so to speak) and cut it myself using a set of clippers and a #3 comb. In an odd sort of way that would be the first haircut in my life that was truly mine.
Of course it may look pretty odd too.
This evening, right after I arrived home, my father called to fill me in on my mother’s condition. Almost 14 months after the initial tumor was discovered in her lung, and after it responded so quickly to the chemotherapy and radiation treatments, her breathing was short and labored again. In short the cancer has returned. One lung has collapsed and they aspirated a quart of fluid from that lung and the surrounding chest area. Her medical oncologist indicated that no amount of treatment is going to stop this cancer, all he can provide is some relief. Left untreated he felt she would live for perhaps two months. With once a week treatments no one knows what her life expectancy will be.
My mother is dying.
I was already planning to travel to Illinois for her birthday in mid-March, and I may make other trips as time, and her condition, allows. I am still reeling in many ways from Michele’s death, and now I have to prepare myself for mom’s death. In the case of my wife we always talked about everything, and told each other time and again how we felt. I have no regrets about things left unsaid. I cannot say the same for my mother. Like all adult children, my relationship with my parents is complex. Sorting through the maze of feelings and thoughts I have about mom over the coming weeks and articulating the ones I need in order to care for myself will not be an easy task. My fear is that there are some hard things to say, hard things to hear, that I need to find closure on before she dies.
On the one hand I feel like I shouldn’t burden her with any of my stuff between now and her death. On the other hand, if I don’t make peace with her now, I’ll never get the chance again. Recently I saw a quote about “managers want to do it the right way, leaders want to do the right thing,” or words to that effect. This is the juncture I find myself at tonight. Do I do this the “right” way in the eyes of society? Or do I do the “right” thing for me?
As one of Michele’s quotes says, not only is life a bitch, she has puppies.