I felt pretty upset yesterday morning when my doctor's office said that the TURP procedure to relieve my miserable BPH symptoms was not scheduled until November 1. Almost 3 weeks! Three more weeks of walking around with, being annoyed by, this Lousy Device I've got to wear so that urine won't stay inside my body, screw up my bladder and kidneys and make life incredibly uncomfortable.
The worst part is that I can't do anything the least bit physical. No running, of course, but also no weight lifting, no aerobic machines, no swimming, no push ups, no...well, you get the idea. And these are among the things that I love, the things that make me feel so good, so strong, so in shape, so, well, so not my age!
In fact, at my lowest, this makes me feel kind of old and decrepit. Cautious, careful and like my life is now spent walking up hill.
Oddly, however, aside from these limitations, it's not been as physically uncomfortable as seemed possible. I'm walking okay, going up and down subway stairs okay, carrying what I need to carry and getting on with my life as usual. Just not the working out stuff that I crave.
Life is all up hill, stairs have been okay and I can't run or work out. How can this all be put together?
I've decided to walk my building's staircase. Six stories. Slowly. Using the handrail. But to the top I'm going to go, then down on the elevator an back up again. A bunch of times. Just now, 3 trips. 18 floors of up stairs walking. Nicely parallels my life.
So far, no apparent ill affects. I'm going to try it again later. 4 trips. If I've got to wait till November 1, I won't wait laying down. If I can help it.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Friday, October 5, 2012
BAD PARTS OF AGING
There are lots of good, quite young, parts of me. My hair, for example. It's really dark. No grey at all. True, I pluck out the occasional old looking strand, but I don't think that counts. Pretty good hair. And my lungs. Youthful, too. Efficiently takes in so much oxygen with each gulp that a test says it's like a 29 year old's. So I can run around and race around and sprint around with a lot of folks who claim to be much younger. My knees, my quads, pretty much the same thing.
But not my prostate. Oh, it functions alright, as far as I know. But it acts in a really old manner. Like in many men as we age it keeps getting bigger. Big enough to hug my urethra and impinge on the urine flow from the bladder. And sometimes to totally stop it. BAD crisis of aging!
That happened for the first time 5 months ago so I began to take medication. That made it okay till last Monday. Then, sitting in my office, listening to a patient, wondering if it could be really happening again, my hand, holding the pad I use to take notes, began to shake violently. This can't be! But it was. No more pee and the awful growing discomfort that comes with it. As quick as I could, I raced uptown to my urologist.
"Have a seat," said the receptionist, but I couldn't sit down. Fortunately my doctor had me into his office quickly and hooked me up with the dreaded catheter. Immediate relief! When I handed over the $50 copay a bit later he joked: "I wonder how much this would've been worth to you before I fixed you up!"
The plan was to leave the catheter in place till the following Wednesday....9 days...to allow things to cool down and regain function. Then we'd decide what to do next.
Nine days! Nine days of no running, no athletics, no working out. Nine days of walking around EVER so gingerly. Nine days of difficulty sleeping, general discomfort and more than a bit of depression. Yes, these are some of the bad things about aging.
Still, there's another, more important bad thing....
I couldn't see how 9 days could pass, but, of course, they did. One of the things that sustained me through this time was my love of the election and excitement about how well Obama was doing. I plunged into reading the analysis, the polls, the predicitions. I became a BIG fan of the wonderful 538 Blog. And I grew confident that Obama was on the verge of victory.
As important as I think that is for the nation, it paled, of course, to its personal meaning: It cheered me up.
All this, of course, made me keenly aware of the import of the upcoming Presidential Debate. And that was scheduled for Wednesday evening, just hours after my doctor's appointment. Great big day!
The day finally arrived and the doctor removed the catheter. I could pee! Okay, good start. Then he outlined my options. We could add a second medication to the one I was currently taking. It would shrink the prostate, but not for many weeks. It also had some pretty awful potential side effects and it's been linked to agressive prostate cancer though my doctor didn't believe that was necessarily true. The second alternative was a surgical procedure called TURP that would use a laser to evaporate the places where the prostate had become too close to the urethra.
My doctor said he didn't have an opinion on which option was best. I had no medical issue to make it critical to choose the agressive surgical solution. I faced merely quality of life issues...putting up with possible side effects of the medication or the occassional time when I might again require the Dreaded Catheter.
Me? I had to decide? Based on what fountain of knowledge that I posess was I to decide? I didn't want any of those options. I wanted my prostate to be young and small again. At worst I wanted to remain on the single medication and maybe drink less water and hope for the best much harder. I didn't want a new medication with scary side effects. I certainly didn't want surgery and the recovery it entails.
And this, my friends, is pretty much the worst part of aging. Sometimes just you has got to decide when all you want is for some all knowing authority to tell you the right thing, the happy ever after thing, to do.
"The surgery," I said, then instantly regretted it. Maybe I didn't need something so irrevocable. Maybe the new medication wouldn't treat me unkindly. Maybe I should continue as is and wait and see. "The surgery," I concluded.
I went to my office and, later, home, to watch the debate. All was flowing well. I was not drinking very much. Maybe that WAS the key! The urologist had once told me that could be important. Maybe I should hold off on this procedure after all.
The debate came on and it was awful. I hoped I was wrong but, when MSNBC commentator's Rachel Madow's first post debate words were "I don't know who won," I knew who had won. Comments by others, including David Gergen who I really respect, and a CNN Snap Poll all supported the original diagnosis. It was a miserable night.
But at least I could pee.
Until a few hours later when I awoke to find that I couldn't. By 2:30 AM I got to the Emergency Room at Roosevelt Hospital. They took good, quick care of me. Again, as the Dreaded Device went on, great relief! They had me lay there for awhile to make sure nothing else was wrong which there wasn't.
One thing I knew for sure. I'd made the right choice regarding the TURP decision. It will, by the way, happen in the next 2 to 3 weeks. Nice to feel certain. Tough way to achieve that certainty.
Another bad part of aging.
But not my prostate. Oh, it functions alright, as far as I know. But it acts in a really old manner. Like in many men as we age it keeps getting bigger. Big enough to hug my urethra and impinge on the urine flow from the bladder. And sometimes to totally stop it. BAD crisis of aging!
That happened for the first time 5 months ago so I began to take medication. That made it okay till last Monday. Then, sitting in my office, listening to a patient, wondering if it could be really happening again, my hand, holding the pad I use to take notes, began to shake violently. This can't be! But it was. No more pee and the awful growing discomfort that comes with it. As quick as I could, I raced uptown to my urologist.
"Have a seat," said the receptionist, but I couldn't sit down. Fortunately my doctor had me into his office quickly and hooked me up with the dreaded catheter. Immediate relief! When I handed over the $50 copay a bit later he joked: "I wonder how much this would've been worth to you before I fixed you up!"
The plan was to leave the catheter in place till the following Wednesday....9 days...to allow things to cool down and regain function. Then we'd decide what to do next.
Nine days! Nine days of no running, no athletics, no working out. Nine days of walking around EVER so gingerly. Nine days of difficulty sleeping, general discomfort and more than a bit of depression. Yes, these are some of the bad things about aging.
Still, there's another, more important bad thing....
I couldn't see how 9 days could pass, but, of course, they did. One of the things that sustained me through this time was my love of the election and excitement about how well Obama was doing. I plunged into reading the analysis, the polls, the predicitions. I became a BIG fan of the wonderful 538 Blog. And I grew confident that Obama was on the verge of victory.
As important as I think that is for the nation, it paled, of course, to its personal meaning: It cheered me up.
All this, of course, made me keenly aware of the import of the upcoming Presidential Debate. And that was scheduled for Wednesday evening, just hours after my doctor's appointment. Great big day!
The day finally arrived and the doctor removed the catheter. I could pee! Okay, good start. Then he outlined my options. We could add a second medication to the one I was currently taking. It would shrink the prostate, but not for many weeks. It also had some pretty awful potential side effects and it's been linked to agressive prostate cancer though my doctor didn't believe that was necessarily true. The second alternative was a surgical procedure called TURP that would use a laser to evaporate the places where the prostate had become too close to the urethra.
My doctor said he didn't have an opinion on which option was best. I had no medical issue to make it critical to choose the agressive surgical solution. I faced merely quality of life issues...putting up with possible side effects of the medication or the occassional time when I might again require the Dreaded Catheter.
Me? I had to decide? Based on what fountain of knowledge that I posess was I to decide? I didn't want any of those options. I wanted my prostate to be young and small again. At worst I wanted to remain on the single medication and maybe drink less water and hope for the best much harder. I didn't want a new medication with scary side effects. I certainly didn't want surgery and the recovery it entails.
And this, my friends, is pretty much the worst part of aging. Sometimes just you has got to decide when all you want is for some all knowing authority to tell you the right thing, the happy ever after thing, to do.
"The surgery," I said, then instantly regretted it. Maybe I didn't need something so irrevocable. Maybe the new medication wouldn't treat me unkindly. Maybe I should continue as is and wait and see. "The surgery," I concluded.
I went to my office and, later, home, to watch the debate. All was flowing well. I was not drinking very much. Maybe that WAS the key! The urologist had once told me that could be important. Maybe I should hold off on this procedure after all.
The debate came on and it was awful. I hoped I was wrong but, when MSNBC commentator's Rachel Madow's first post debate words were "I don't know who won," I knew who had won. Comments by others, including David Gergen who I really respect, and a CNN Snap Poll all supported the original diagnosis. It was a miserable night.
But at least I could pee.
Until a few hours later when I awoke to find that I couldn't. By 2:30 AM I got to the Emergency Room at Roosevelt Hospital. They took good, quick care of me. Again, as the Dreaded Device went on, great relief! They had me lay there for awhile to make sure nothing else was wrong which there wasn't.
One thing I knew for sure. I'd made the right choice regarding the TURP decision. It will, by the way, happen in the next 2 to 3 weeks. Nice to feel certain. Tough way to achieve that certainty.
Another bad part of aging.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
THE LADY WITH THE SCARY ARMS
The boys outside the house on Sumac Street seemed just a little out of control. One rode a bike, darting in between parked cars and dangerously close to the strollers on the block. The smaller one kept pointing his gun...obviously a toy one...at those same strollers. No one really seemed to notice but me.
I walked towards the house and the boy on the bike asked what I was doing. "Talking to people about President Obama," I answered. "You know, the election. Are you going to vote for him?"
"I'm not old enough," he said. "But my mom is. Come in the house and talk to her." He rushed ahead of me and opened the screen door and went inside, motioning for me to follow. I came to the door and figured I really ought to wait there for his mom. The people of Philadelphia had been plenty friendly to me, but maybe not so friendly that I could enter a home without an adult's invitation. The smaller boy came over and pointed his gun at me. "Are you going to shoot me?" He laughed, changed his aim, pulled the trigger and shot a plastic ball through the open door.
Their mom picked up the ball, tossed it outside and came to the door. She looked a little out of sorts, a little disheveled, like her son had just awakened her. She also had tatoos running up and down both arms and across the top part of her chest. I got a bad feeling. I didn't think my usual charm would go over well with her. I was not expecting this to be a very good discussion. I anticipated that this would be a brief one. I had the thought that, like her oldest, she was probably a biker.
I figured I'd be taking one for the team. But at least I'd be able to mark her off the list of the 120 doors I was supposed to knock on.
I introduced myself and asked if she had a couple of minutes to chat about the Presidential election. I didn't think that she'd be particularly interested. I was wrong. She was an Obama supporter. I asked what issues particularly interested her. "Obamacare and education," she replied. "I'm raising 2 special needs boys."
Oh. She talked. Her oldest had a mild form of autism. Her youngest had been born with congenital heart defects that had required several surgeries. He also had a learning disability. Medical bills had put her family $30,000 in debt. She was working in a bar at night and in a nursing home by day to pay the pills and start cutting into what she owed. She couldn't get health insurance but expected she'd be able to under Obamacare. "He needs to get reelected so I'll have it."
She railed at the local Republicans who, she said, were hurting the school system and making it more difficult for her son with the learning disability. "The Mayor of Philladelphia is a Republican," I asked, demonstrating my ignorance. She looked crossly at me. "The governor. Too much funding for charter schools." Oh.
The day was getting warmer and I was starting to sweat as I had uncharacteristically worn long pants on a Saturday to avoid looking too casual. She brought me a glass of water as she detailed the various programs she was using in kind of a scatter shot effort to take care of her kids' manyl needs and pay her bills.
It was the best talk of the day. I knew pretty early in it that I'd badly misjudged her. My misperception was based, frankly, on her appearance, the behavior of her kids and her tatooes which, I must admit, kind of scared me. I felt silly. But I took some solace in knowing that sometimes I'm an idiot and this won't be the last time.
I also thought that this woman fits all of Romney's stereotypes as well. There's a good chance she pays no federal income taxes. She takes advantage of every government program that can help her. She unabashedly wants more and will use all of Obamacare once it's fully implemented, after we get him reelected.
To think for a second, however, that this is a person who doesn't take responsibility, who doesn't try as hard as she can, who has a victim mentality is GROSS. A gross distortion. A complete charicature. It shows what an idiot Romney can be. Unlike me, however, he seems blissfully unaware of it.
How we see this woman, how we regard her, how we help her, and, indeed, how we get to know her...beyond the irrelevancies of the tattoos on her arms and what she doesn't pay in federal income tax, is what, I think, discribes the differences between these 2 campaigns and why I keep walking down the streets of Philladelphia.
I walked towards the house and the boy on the bike asked what I was doing. "Talking to people about President Obama," I answered. "You know, the election. Are you going to vote for him?"
"I'm not old enough," he said. "But my mom is. Come in the house and talk to her." He rushed ahead of me and opened the screen door and went inside, motioning for me to follow. I came to the door and figured I really ought to wait there for his mom. The people of Philadelphia had been plenty friendly to me, but maybe not so friendly that I could enter a home without an adult's invitation. The smaller boy came over and pointed his gun at me. "Are you going to shoot me?" He laughed, changed his aim, pulled the trigger and shot a plastic ball through the open door.
Their mom picked up the ball, tossed it outside and came to the door. She looked a little out of sorts, a little disheveled, like her son had just awakened her. She also had tatoos running up and down both arms and across the top part of her chest. I got a bad feeling. I didn't think my usual charm would go over well with her. I was not expecting this to be a very good discussion. I anticipated that this would be a brief one. I had the thought that, like her oldest, she was probably a biker.
I figured I'd be taking one for the team. But at least I'd be able to mark her off the list of the 120 doors I was supposed to knock on.
I introduced myself and asked if she had a couple of minutes to chat about the Presidential election. I didn't think that she'd be particularly interested. I was wrong. She was an Obama supporter. I asked what issues particularly interested her. "Obamacare and education," she replied. "I'm raising 2 special needs boys."
Oh. She talked. Her oldest had a mild form of autism. Her youngest had been born with congenital heart defects that had required several surgeries. He also had a learning disability. Medical bills had put her family $30,000 in debt. She was working in a bar at night and in a nursing home by day to pay the pills and start cutting into what she owed. She couldn't get health insurance but expected she'd be able to under Obamacare. "He needs to get reelected so I'll have it."
She railed at the local Republicans who, she said, were hurting the school system and making it more difficult for her son with the learning disability. "The Mayor of Philladelphia is a Republican," I asked, demonstrating my ignorance. She looked crossly at me. "The governor. Too much funding for charter schools." Oh.
The day was getting warmer and I was starting to sweat as I had uncharacteristically worn long pants on a Saturday to avoid looking too casual. She brought me a glass of water as she detailed the various programs she was using in kind of a scatter shot effort to take care of her kids' manyl needs and pay her bills.
It was the best talk of the day. I knew pretty early in it that I'd badly misjudged her. My misperception was based, frankly, on her appearance, the behavior of her kids and her tatooes which, I must admit, kind of scared me. I felt silly. But I took some solace in knowing that sometimes I'm an idiot and this won't be the last time.
I also thought that this woman fits all of Romney's stereotypes as well. There's a good chance she pays no federal income taxes. She takes advantage of every government program that can help her. She unabashedly wants more and will use all of Obamacare once it's fully implemented, after we get him reelected.
To think for a second, however, that this is a person who doesn't take responsibility, who doesn't try as hard as she can, who has a victim mentality is GROSS. A gross distortion. A complete charicature. It shows what an idiot Romney can be. Unlike me, however, he seems blissfully unaware of it.
How we see this woman, how we regard her, how we help her, and, indeed, how we get to know her...beyond the irrelevancies of the tattoos on her arms and what she doesn't pay in federal income tax, is what, I think, discribes the differences between these 2 campaigns and why I keep walking down the streets of Philladelphia.
Friday, September 21, 2012
THE DAY I ELECTED RICHARD NIXON
I didn't mean to do it. Voting for Richard Nixon, I mean. Three times. All in the same election. But I did.
Similarly, I never expected to be living in Kentucky. Northern Kentucky, right across the Ohio River from Cincinnatti. But I was.
All of this happened because I hated the Vietnam War.
It was 1971 and times were exciting. The Mets, the Jets, the Knicks, my teams, were all recent champions. I was a new college graduate, just passed my 21 birthday. And I was having a fight with my draft board.
They kept trying to draft me. And I kept telling them that I was a Consciencious Objector who refused to serve in the armed forces and would certainly never go to Vietnam. They didn't believe me and I demanded a hearing. There they asked me questions, laughed at my answers and probably concluded that it wasn't worth the effort. They granted me CO status and ordered me to do civilian work in the national interest.
So I joined VISTA...Volunteers In Service To America, a federal program that was the domestic equivalent of the Peace Corps. And that's what brought me to my 2 room apartment on Boone Street, Newport, Kentucky. There I set up a (surprise!) basketball league and a recreation program for kids in public housing. And a program to help people train for their high school equivalency diploma.
And in my spare time I joined the McGovern for President campaign. Shh, don't tell anybody. I wasn't supposed to.
I loved Senator McGovern. Unlike his oppenents, the soft spoken Senator Muskie, the compromised former Vice President Humphry or the hawkish Senator Jackson, McGovern's opposition to the horrible Vietnam War was deep and passionate. Like mine. Much to my surprise he did well in the primaries and I joined his campaign.
The first thing we did was voter registration. To my surprise we registered far more democrats than republicans. After he won the nomination we started to canvass and found a good bit of McGovern support. I was made leader in 5 districts which we thought would go our way. Things looked good!
Then things turned bad. The Democratic convention was so crazy that McGovern didn't give his acceptance speech till 2 in the morning...long after even I had fallen asleep. His VP pick had to resign after word leaked that he'd received electrical shock therapy for depression. Neither Senator Kennedy or several other big name Democrats would accept McGovern's pleas for them to become his new running mate, leaving my guy hanging and looking silly. He also felt he had to withdraw his signature domestic proposal...a negative income tax...because almost no one could understand it. I recall a part of that speech: "A leader who won't change isn't a leader, he's a disaster."
Sadly the campaign had become a disaster. No Democratic leader or candidate in Kentucky would say McGovern's name. At a fundraiser for our Senatorial candidate, the nominee ended his remarks by saying: "Let's support our ticket from the top to the bottom." "Top of the Ticket." That was as close as they'd come to naming the man at the top of our ticket.
Still I worked with all my heart. And we did well. The only disaster WE had was when I called a potential voter named Alex Pigg. I couldn't help it. I asked to speak to Mr. Pigg and couldn't stop laughing! On the plus side I hadn't yet identified myself as a rep from the McGovern campaign.
Talk at campaign headquarters focused on Harry Truman. He had completely fooled the polls so who's to say we couldn't too. If that was our best shot I was not encouraged.
On Election Day I still held on to hope but knew it would take a near miracle. I walked out onto Boone Street very early that morning; I was the Democratic Challenger at one of the polling places as we were on guard against Republican shenanigans. I noticed a light rain fell. RAIN? I became excited. Maybe it was raining all over the country! Maybe the rain would get very hard! And maybe only the most commited of voters...McGovern supporters, of course...would come out! We could win a low turnout election! Oh my gosh!
I got to the poll on, I think, Monmouth Street. The rain had stopped.
There were no Republican shenanigans at the poll. Perhaps I'd scared them off. Still I had work to do. A person came in not knowing how to vote. The election officials there sent me into the booth to help him.
Now I imagine you realize that they shouldn't have done that. You don't send a representative from 1 political party into a voting booth to help an uncertain voter. But that is what they did. So in I went. And asked who he wanted to vote for. To my horror he said: "Nixon." I moved my finger towards the clip next to Nixon's name. I paused. My finger began shaking. I lowered my hand and now my finger was next to the name McGovern. The shaking became a lot worse as I contemplated going against the voter's instructions. I couldn't get myself to do it. But how could I cast a vote for Nixon? I don't know. But I did. His vote (the idiot!) went the way he intended.
It happened two more times that day. Two voters who needed help. Help to vote for Nixon. Each time it was easier to cast the asked for ballot.
At the end of the day, the voting officials had me view the actual vote count. This was important because this was one of our Priority districts. We needed a big win here. And we did win...by 3 votes. My heart fell. A 3 vote win in our priority district where we had focused so much effort. I knew that we had lost.
A while later, at campaign headquarters, I watched on TV as the news anchor announced the first state projected for Nixon...Kentucky, of course. And based in part on my 3 votes!
I've just got to do better for Obama!
Similarly, I never expected to be living in Kentucky. Northern Kentucky, right across the Ohio River from Cincinnatti. But I was.
All of this happened because I hated the Vietnam War.
It was 1971 and times were exciting. The Mets, the Jets, the Knicks, my teams, were all recent champions. I was a new college graduate, just passed my 21 birthday. And I was having a fight with my draft board.
They kept trying to draft me. And I kept telling them that I was a Consciencious Objector who refused to serve in the armed forces and would certainly never go to Vietnam. They didn't believe me and I demanded a hearing. There they asked me questions, laughed at my answers and probably concluded that it wasn't worth the effort. They granted me CO status and ordered me to do civilian work in the national interest.
So I joined VISTA...Volunteers In Service To America, a federal program that was the domestic equivalent of the Peace Corps. And that's what brought me to my 2 room apartment on Boone Street, Newport, Kentucky. There I set up a (surprise!) basketball league and a recreation program for kids in public housing. And a program to help people train for their high school equivalency diploma.
And in my spare time I joined the McGovern for President campaign. Shh, don't tell anybody. I wasn't supposed to.
I loved Senator McGovern. Unlike his oppenents, the soft spoken Senator Muskie, the compromised former Vice President Humphry or the hawkish Senator Jackson, McGovern's opposition to the horrible Vietnam War was deep and passionate. Like mine. Much to my surprise he did well in the primaries and I joined his campaign.
The first thing we did was voter registration. To my surprise we registered far more democrats than republicans. After he won the nomination we started to canvass and found a good bit of McGovern support. I was made leader in 5 districts which we thought would go our way. Things looked good!
Then things turned bad. The Democratic convention was so crazy that McGovern didn't give his acceptance speech till 2 in the morning...long after even I had fallen asleep. His VP pick had to resign after word leaked that he'd received electrical shock therapy for depression. Neither Senator Kennedy or several other big name Democrats would accept McGovern's pleas for them to become his new running mate, leaving my guy hanging and looking silly. He also felt he had to withdraw his signature domestic proposal...a negative income tax...because almost no one could understand it. I recall a part of that speech: "A leader who won't change isn't a leader, he's a disaster."
Sadly the campaign had become a disaster. No Democratic leader or candidate in Kentucky would say McGovern's name. At a fundraiser for our Senatorial candidate, the nominee ended his remarks by saying: "Let's support our ticket from the top to the bottom." "Top of the Ticket." That was as close as they'd come to naming the man at the top of our ticket.
Still I worked with all my heart. And we did well. The only disaster WE had was when I called a potential voter named Alex Pigg. I couldn't help it. I asked to speak to Mr. Pigg and couldn't stop laughing! On the plus side I hadn't yet identified myself as a rep from the McGovern campaign.
Talk at campaign headquarters focused on Harry Truman. He had completely fooled the polls so who's to say we couldn't too. If that was our best shot I was not encouraged.
On Election Day I still held on to hope but knew it would take a near miracle. I walked out onto Boone Street very early that morning; I was the Democratic Challenger at one of the polling places as we were on guard against Republican shenanigans. I noticed a light rain fell. RAIN? I became excited. Maybe it was raining all over the country! Maybe the rain would get very hard! And maybe only the most commited of voters...McGovern supporters, of course...would come out! We could win a low turnout election! Oh my gosh!
I got to the poll on, I think, Monmouth Street. The rain had stopped.
There were no Republican shenanigans at the poll. Perhaps I'd scared them off. Still I had work to do. A person came in not knowing how to vote. The election officials there sent me into the booth to help him.
Now I imagine you realize that they shouldn't have done that. You don't send a representative from 1 political party into a voting booth to help an uncertain voter. But that is what they did. So in I went. And asked who he wanted to vote for. To my horror he said: "Nixon." I moved my finger towards the clip next to Nixon's name. I paused. My finger began shaking. I lowered my hand and now my finger was next to the name McGovern. The shaking became a lot worse as I contemplated going against the voter's instructions. I couldn't get myself to do it. But how could I cast a vote for Nixon? I don't know. But I did. His vote (the idiot!) went the way he intended.
It happened two more times that day. Two voters who needed help. Help to vote for Nixon. Each time it was easier to cast the asked for ballot.
At the end of the day, the voting officials had me view the actual vote count. This was important because this was one of our Priority districts. We needed a big win here. And we did win...by 3 votes. My heart fell. A 3 vote win in our priority district where we had focused so much effort. I knew that we had lost.
A while later, at campaign headquarters, I watched on TV as the news anchor announced the first state projected for Nixon...Kentucky, of course. And based in part on my 3 votes!
I've just got to do better for Obama!
Monday, September 3, 2012
RACING IN A STATE OF CONFUSION
I like to think while I run. Problem solving thoughts, happy thoughts, heroic thoughts, why I'm right and pretty much everyone else is wrong thoughts. Inside my mind, at least during runs, is generally a very pleasant place.
But not when I race. Racing is stressful. I'm trying to find the fastest possible pace that I can maintain for the distance we're going. And that means making really intense demands on my legs, my muscles and my heart's ability to get oxygen and fuel circulated to every part of me that's getting increasingly desperate for it.
And that, as you can imagine, causes me to feel VERY uncomfortable. And that discomfort is not conducive to my usual happy thinking. It's really not conducive to thinking at all. Except, of course, thinking about how I'm doing. Now THAT I can focus on!
But, sadly, not at today's Roosevelt Island 5K. The race was very unfair to me. It wouldn't let me figure out if I was doing good until I was convinced that I was doing very, very bad.
Last week you may recall I raced a very tough 5K course in Harlem and averaged 8 minutes and 1 second per mile. So I figured that "doing good" on this easier, much flatter course would be at least a sub 8 minute pace. Of course, beating that pace by just a second or two really wouldn't feel so great. I hoped to get it down around 7:45. That seemed achievable.
At the starting line, this is what I thought: "Go out agressive but not too agressive. Be fast but not at an exhausting pace. Try to hit about 7:40 at the 1 mile marker and hope to not feel so weakened that the remaining 2.1 miles will seem like torture." Not happy thoughts. Strategic, however.
The race began and a very fast lead pack went off into the distance. I was at the head of the second pack and no one was passing me. We headed north on the Queens side of the Island, ran under the 59th Street Bridge to the Island's boundary, turned right, then right again and headed back the other way with Manhattan now on our left. At the 1 mile marker I read my watch: 7:52. This was not wonderful...though not terrible...news. Good to be under 8 but I'd have to speed up to reach my 7:45 goal and already I was feeling uncomfortable and fatigued.
Not pleasant to consider.
Suddenly I had other thoughts. I was passing other runners. How was this possible? Took me a moment but then I realized it was because there was also a 10K race going on at the exact same time as ours. Their course had begun just ahead of ours and now I was catching up to their back of the pack runners. Damn, I enjoyed that! For the entire second mile...even as my discomfort was getting to mild pain...I had some fun with going by someone on his left, then someone on her right, then in between 2 of them!
Here came the 2 mile marker...7:27. 7:27!!!! Oh my gosh I ran mile 2 in 7:27? That's so much better than I thought I could possibly do! Now I didn't even have to do a very hard mile 3! I was well ahead of expectations. All I had to do was hang in there! But that was now more and more difficult to do because the discomfort that had turned to mild pain was now definitely, unquestionably true pain. I wanted to slow but I didn't want to slow because it looked like a really good time was in reach.
I pushed ahead and finally, up ahead, I saw it, the 3 mile marker. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was just getting to 7 minutes! I'd probably hit 3 miles in a bit over 7:30 and then there'd be just a tenth of a mile to go. Sweet!
And then I really saw it. As I got close to the mile marker I saw it and it was terrible! This: 10K. It was the 3 mile marker for the 10K race, not my 5K race! Where was the 5k marker? I kept running and looked at my watch. 7:45, no marker. 8:00 no marker. 8:30, nothing. Finally, there it was. I reached it...8:54! I'd run an 8:54 mile 3! How could that be? I hadn't walked, had barely slowed. Were the other mile markers wrong? Didn't matter. I'd run this course before and, as I crossed the finish line 41 seconds later I felt pretty confident that it was 5K that I'd just run. A fair mile 1, a good mile 2 and a HORRIBLE mile 3!
Walking now I was able to calculate pretty clearly. This all added up to a pace well OVER 8 minutes for the mile. On easier, flat Roosevelt Island I'd run substantially slower than I had on the hilly, nasty Harlem course. How could that be? What was wrong?
I approached the race director and told him something seemed amiss with the mile markers cause my mile 3 had been much slower than mile 2. He asked if perhaps I'd misread the mile 2 marker...maybe that was for the 10K? Yeah, well, right. I'd done it for mile 3. Maybe I'd done it on mile 2 as well.
"Otherwise," the director asked, "how did you like the race?" "Yeah, well, it was fine, except for my total fuck up," I didn't say but did think to myself. See, no more happy thoughts.
After awhile I decided to take in the totality of the bad news. I looked at my watch. It read 23:54 for the entire race. Wait a minute. That's not so bad. That's definitely under 8 minute pace. In fact well under it. Was it? Maybe I was mistaken now. No, definitely under 8. How could that be?
So I looked at the splits for each mile. Remember, at mile 1, my watch said I'd run it in a mediocre 7:52? Well, that's what I saw, but that wasn't what was there. It had read 6:52. But since 7:52 was possible and 6:52 (at least for now) isn't, my mind interpreted it as the reasonable time for the first mile. And so I had an incredibly fast time for mile 1, an equally unbelievable 3 mile split and together, along with my quite good...and perhaps actually accurate...mile 2 averaged out to a 7:43 race.
About what I thought I could do from the beginning. Too bad my addled running mind couldn't see it coming!
But not when I race. Racing is stressful. I'm trying to find the fastest possible pace that I can maintain for the distance we're going. And that means making really intense demands on my legs, my muscles and my heart's ability to get oxygen and fuel circulated to every part of me that's getting increasingly desperate for it.
And that, as you can imagine, causes me to feel VERY uncomfortable. And that discomfort is not conducive to my usual happy thinking. It's really not conducive to thinking at all. Except, of course, thinking about how I'm doing. Now THAT I can focus on!
But, sadly, not at today's Roosevelt Island 5K. The race was very unfair to me. It wouldn't let me figure out if I was doing good until I was convinced that I was doing very, very bad.
Last week you may recall I raced a very tough 5K course in Harlem and averaged 8 minutes and 1 second per mile. So I figured that "doing good" on this easier, much flatter course would be at least a sub 8 minute pace. Of course, beating that pace by just a second or two really wouldn't feel so great. I hoped to get it down around 7:45. That seemed achievable.
At the starting line, this is what I thought: "Go out agressive but not too agressive. Be fast but not at an exhausting pace. Try to hit about 7:40 at the 1 mile marker and hope to not feel so weakened that the remaining 2.1 miles will seem like torture." Not happy thoughts. Strategic, however.
The race began and a very fast lead pack went off into the distance. I was at the head of the second pack and no one was passing me. We headed north on the Queens side of the Island, ran under the 59th Street Bridge to the Island's boundary, turned right, then right again and headed back the other way with Manhattan now on our left. At the 1 mile marker I read my watch: 7:52. This was not wonderful...though not terrible...news. Good to be under 8 but I'd have to speed up to reach my 7:45 goal and already I was feeling uncomfortable and fatigued.
Not pleasant to consider.
Suddenly I had other thoughts. I was passing other runners. How was this possible? Took me a moment but then I realized it was because there was also a 10K race going on at the exact same time as ours. Their course had begun just ahead of ours and now I was catching up to their back of the pack runners. Damn, I enjoyed that! For the entire second mile...even as my discomfort was getting to mild pain...I had some fun with going by someone on his left, then someone on her right, then in between 2 of them!
Here came the 2 mile marker...7:27. 7:27!!!! Oh my gosh I ran mile 2 in 7:27? That's so much better than I thought I could possibly do! Now I didn't even have to do a very hard mile 3! I was well ahead of expectations. All I had to do was hang in there! But that was now more and more difficult to do because the discomfort that had turned to mild pain was now definitely, unquestionably true pain. I wanted to slow but I didn't want to slow because it looked like a really good time was in reach.
I pushed ahead and finally, up ahead, I saw it, the 3 mile marker. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was just getting to 7 minutes! I'd probably hit 3 miles in a bit over 7:30 and then there'd be just a tenth of a mile to go. Sweet!
And then I really saw it. As I got close to the mile marker I saw it and it was terrible! This: 10K. It was the 3 mile marker for the 10K race, not my 5K race! Where was the 5k marker? I kept running and looked at my watch. 7:45, no marker. 8:00 no marker. 8:30, nothing. Finally, there it was. I reached it...8:54! I'd run an 8:54 mile 3! How could that be? I hadn't walked, had barely slowed. Were the other mile markers wrong? Didn't matter. I'd run this course before and, as I crossed the finish line 41 seconds later I felt pretty confident that it was 5K that I'd just run. A fair mile 1, a good mile 2 and a HORRIBLE mile 3!
Walking now I was able to calculate pretty clearly. This all added up to a pace well OVER 8 minutes for the mile. On easier, flat Roosevelt Island I'd run substantially slower than I had on the hilly, nasty Harlem course. How could that be? What was wrong?
I approached the race director and told him something seemed amiss with the mile markers cause my mile 3 had been much slower than mile 2. He asked if perhaps I'd misread the mile 2 marker...maybe that was for the 10K? Yeah, well, right. I'd done it for mile 3. Maybe I'd done it on mile 2 as well.
"Otherwise," the director asked, "how did you like the race?" "Yeah, well, it was fine, except for my total fuck up," I didn't say but did think to myself. See, no more happy thoughts.
After awhile I decided to take in the totality of the bad news. I looked at my watch. It read 23:54 for the entire race. Wait a minute. That's not so bad. That's definitely under 8 minute pace. In fact well under it. Was it? Maybe I was mistaken now. No, definitely under 8. How could that be?
So I looked at the splits for each mile. Remember, at mile 1, my watch said I'd run it in a mediocre 7:52? Well, that's what I saw, but that wasn't what was there. It had read 6:52. But since 7:52 was possible and 6:52 (at least for now) isn't, my mind interpreted it as the reasonable time for the first mile. And so I had an incredibly fast time for mile 1, an equally unbelievable 3 mile split and together, along with my quite good...and perhaps actually accurate...mile 2 averaged out to a 7:43 race.
About what I thought I could do from the beginning. Too bad my addled running mind couldn't see it coming!
Monday, August 20, 2012
THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
The Reds needed just 1 more win to take the championship. We lead our best 2 of 3 series with the Wackers, 1 game to none, as the result of our stunning win the week before when we played them dramatically short handed. No way they could bounce back, especially now that we had our full team and they were the ones short handed, although not by nearly as much as we had been.
Happily the game started off just as I planned it...well, at least hoped it would go. In our very first at bat, Max singled, Adam did the same and Jeff, one of our returning players, slammed a home run to center field. In the second inning the onslaught continued. Anthony, also returning to us, singled and Caruso slammed one to right that looked sure to be a big extra base hit but their right fielder had other plans. Still, we were POUNDING that pitcher. Dennis singled and Chris, welcome back, walked. The bases were loaded and heavy damage about to be done. Tony stepped up and slammed the ball! Great contact but poor aim. It zoomed along the ground right to their shortstop who started a double play.
But we were pounding the ball, no problem...except our pounding stopped there. We, amazingly, did not get another hit till 2 were out in the 7th inning. Nothing at all in the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th and even our paltry 7th inning single did not lead to a run. So we had a 3-0 lead and we couldn't add to it. Was it enough?
Nope. Wackers tied us up. And they threatened to do worse. They put runners on base and looked absolutely set to take the lead, maybe a big lead. Except for 1 thing. Everytime they had a chance to score, they hit the ball to Anthony. Big mistake. He's our third baseman. He doesn't like to be challenged. Or maybe he does. Handles them pretty well, I'd say.
Runner on first, line drive to Anthony's left. He lunges and graps it. Runners on second and third, 2 outs, a sharp 1 hopper, again to his left. Fielded cleanly and tossed to first. Second and third and 1 out, a slow roller this time that nets them nothing as Anthony fields it, holds the runner and makes that toss. Next batter? Pretty much the same thing and same result. Inning over.
So we went to extra innings and, in the eighth, Warner lined a hit to right. Anthony did the same and Warner raced to third base. Caruso came to the plate.
Remember my post last week where I mentioned a player who annoyed both teams by switching sides, first from the Reds to the Wackers and then from the Wackers back to us? Didn't mention his name. It was Caruso. And so, in this crucial situation the question was, which team would he again annoy and upset?
The Wackers. He bounced a chopper, just beyond the reach of the pitcher and Warner charged home. The Wacker third baseman was so upset that he muttered under his breath how we had all the luck! Playing against us 6 men down wasn't enough luck for him? I had no sympathy!!
The Wackers trailed now by a run but they had 1 more chance. They got a runner to first but we got 2 outs. Their final batter hit a soft line drive towards first. Initially it seemed like it might go over Max's head, but the ball soon lost altitude. But it also seemed to lose all sense of speed because it took forever to reach our first baseman. Eventually, however, it found it's final resting place in Max's big glove.
Game over! Series over! For the first time since 2008 the Reds are champs! I think there are more championships in our immediate future!
Happily the game started off just as I planned it...well, at least hoped it would go. In our very first at bat, Max singled, Adam did the same and Jeff, one of our returning players, slammed a home run to center field. In the second inning the onslaught continued. Anthony, also returning to us, singled and Caruso slammed one to right that looked sure to be a big extra base hit but their right fielder had other plans. Still, we were POUNDING that pitcher. Dennis singled and Chris, welcome back, walked. The bases were loaded and heavy damage about to be done. Tony stepped up and slammed the ball! Great contact but poor aim. It zoomed along the ground right to their shortstop who started a double play.
But we were pounding the ball, no problem...except our pounding stopped there. We, amazingly, did not get another hit till 2 were out in the 7th inning. Nothing at all in the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th and even our paltry 7th inning single did not lead to a run. So we had a 3-0 lead and we couldn't add to it. Was it enough?
Nope. Wackers tied us up. And they threatened to do worse. They put runners on base and looked absolutely set to take the lead, maybe a big lead. Except for 1 thing. Everytime they had a chance to score, they hit the ball to Anthony. Big mistake. He's our third baseman. He doesn't like to be challenged. Or maybe he does. Handles them pretty well, I'd say.
Runner on first, line drive to Anthony's left. He lunges and graps it. Runners on second and third, 2 outs, a sharp 1 hopper, again to his left. Fielded cleanly and tossed to first. Second and third and 1 out, a slow roller this time that nets them nothing as Anthony fields it, holds the runner and makes that toss. Next batter? Pretty much the same thing and same result. Inning over.
So we went to extra innings and, in the eighth, Warner lined a hit to right. Anthony did the same and Warner raced to third base. Caruso came to the plate.
Remember my post last week where I mentioned a player who annoyed both teams by switching sides, first from the Reds to the Wackers and then from the Wackers back to us? Didn't mention his name. It was Caruso. And so, in this crucial situation the question was, which team would he again annoy and upset?
The Wackers. He bounced a chopper, just beyond the reach of the pitcher and Warner charged home. The Wacker third baseman was so upset that he muttered under his breath how we had all the luck! Playing against us 6 men down wasn't enough luck for him? I had no sympathy!!
The Wackers trailed now by a run but they had 1 more chance. They got a runner to first but we got 2 outs. Their final batter hit a soft line drive towards first. Initially it seemed like it might go over Max's head, but the ball soon lost altitude. But it also seemed to lose all sense of speed because it took forever to reach our first baseman. Eventually, however, it found it's final resting place in Max's big glove.
Game over! Series over! For the first time since 2008 the Reds are champs! I think there are more championships in our immediate future!
THE GAME WE WERE SUPPOSED TO LOSE
The team gathered round me as we prepared to begin the series that would determine the 2012 championship of our Sunday morning softball league. It was 3 years since the Reds last made it to the finals and 4 years since we'd won it all. So this was a long time in coming, a very big deal to climax a season where we'd had to fight till the very last week of the regular season simply to make it into the playoffs.
But we had made it and then swept to victory, 2 games to none, in the opening round. Now here we were with a chance to be the champs. And so I addressed the team: "Don't worry about today. I really don't think we can win. Let's just do our best, come back next week and try to beat them then.
Not inspiring I know, but true. We were missing half our team. Until 2 guys showed up at the very last minute I feared we wouldn't have a player to cover every defensive spot. Turns out we did but only by utilyzing people in positions they were totally unfamiliar with. One of our pitchers was in the outfield. So was an injured infielder. Our catcher had shown up to only a few games and had told me midseason that his shoulder hurt so badly he should really wait till next year.
Our opponents, on the other hand, had everybody. Their bench was absolutely filled with all their regular players, a bunch of substitutes, family members and fans. It looked like such a fun, happy place as they yelled and cheered and just exuded a sense of confidence.
Damn they pissed me off!
And just to make matters worse, there's a history between us and our opponents, the Wackers. We've met in the finals before with mixed results but a buildup of bad feelings. I suspect they once illegally used a "courtesy runner" to get a speedy guy on base in a crucial situation. In fact he scored the ultimate winning run. Some players have jumped from one team to the other...well, actually one, but he went from us to them and then back to us, annoying, at various times, everyone! Plus I'd tried to get the Wackers to postpone the game for the following week but they, knowing they had the advantage, refused. I don't blame them. I'd have done the same. Still that added to the hard attitude towards each other.
So I expected to lose, the Wackers expected to win and that's exactly what happened...at first. In fact, in the very first inning, a Wacker lofted a fly ball to our pitcher turned outfielder who misplayed it into a 2 run homer. See what I mean? No chance. They added runs in the second and third, we answered back with nothing and trailed, 4-0.
We were down and they should have beaten up on us from there but we wouldn't let them. We had our pride and good pitching and a few of our guys made some good defensive plays, like our injured infielder in the outfield. The Wackers couldn't score anything more and we scratched out a run. It was 4-1 going to the sixth. The Wackers threatened but we turned a double play and raced off the field. Our turn but time was running out.
But time was not working entirely in our opponents favor. Their pitcher was getting tired. He showed it by walking Adam on a 3-2 pitch. Warner singled to right. Dennis walked on 4 pitches. Bases loaded! Diaz singled in a run. Now we were within 2. Was it possible?
Didn't seem so. Our pitcher playing the outfield popped up. Our injured catcher lofted a fly to left center for the second out. But daringly maybe crazily our runner at third was tagging up, trying to score! The Wacker outfielder, taken a bit by surprise, hesitated then unleashed a throw high over the catcher's head. Warner was safe at home with our 3rd run and Dennis rushed from second base to third.
Tieing run just 60 feet away and to the plate came me. I'd already had a hit in the game but this one would be huge. We would tie up the game. I noticed the shortstop playing me too close to second base, leaving a very inviting opening between him and the third baseman. The pitch came in and that's where I hit it, solidly into left field. The game was tied.
Tied? The game was tied with 1 inning to go? Is this possible?
It was. We got the Wackers out in their half of the 7th inning, but only just barely on a close and disputed play at first, leaving 2 disappointed runners on base.
Now it was our turn. With 1 out Max and Adam both singled. Two on for Warner and he wasted no time, driving a hard ground ball past the desperately lunging first baseman. Max flew around third base as the Wacker right fielder rushed in for the ball, picking it up and hurling it towards home as Max headed there. The throw was a little weak and faded to the catcher's right side. Max dove to the plate on the catcher's left side. The catcher reached forlornly for the ball as Max slammed his left hand squarely in the middle of the plate.
Safe! We'd won! I did not see that one coming. Now we need just 1 more victory and we'll be champs.
I don't believe in jinxes or bad luck or the wrath of the Baseball Gods, well, or God for that matter. Now we are SUPPOSED TO WIN!!
But we had made it and then swept to victory, 2 games to none, in the opening round. Now here we were with a chance to be the champs. And so I addressed the team: "Don't worry about today. I really don't think we can win. Let's just do our best, come back next week and try to beat them then.
Not inspiring I know, but true. We were missing half our team. Until 2 guys showed up at the very last minute I feared we wouldn't have a player to cover every defensive spot. Turns out we did but only by utilyzing people in positions they were totally unfamiliar with. One of our pitchers was in the outfield. So was an injured infielder. Our catcher had shown up to only a few games and had told me midseason that his shoulder hurt so badly he should really wait till next year.
Our opponents, on the other hand, had everybody. Their bench was absolutely filled with all their regular players, a bunch of substitutes, family members and fans. It looked like such a fun, happy place as they yelled and cheered and just exuded a sense of confidence.
Damn they pissed me off!
And just to make matters worse, there's a history between us and our opponents, the Wackers. We've met in the finals before with mixed results but a buildup of bad feelings. I suspect they once illegally used a "courtesy runner" to get a speedy guy on base in a crucial situation. In fact he scored the ultimate winning run. Some players have jumped from one team to the other...well, actually one, but he went from us to them and then back to us, annoying, at various times, everyone! Plus I'd tried to get the Wackers to postpone the game for the following week but they, knowing they had the advantage, refused. I don't blame them. I'd have done the same. Still that added to the hard attitude towards each other.
So I expected to lose, the Wackers expected to win and that's exactly what happened...at first. In fact, in the very first inning, a Wacker lofted a fly ball to our pitcher turned outfielder who misplayed it into a 2 run homer. See what I mean? No chance. They added runs in the second and third, we answered back with nothing and trailed, 4-0.
We were down and they should have beaten up on us from there but we wouldn't let them. We had our pride and good pitching and a few of our guys made some good defensive plays, like our injured infielder in the outfield. The Wackers couldn't score anything more and we scratched out a run. It was 4-1 going to the sixth. The Wackers threatened but we turned a double play and raced off the field. Our turn but time was running out.
But time was not working entirely in our opponents favor. Their pitcher was getting tired. He showed it by walking Adam on a 3-2 pitch. Warner singled to right. Dennis walked on 4 pitches. Bases loaded! Diaz singled in a run. Now we were within 2. Was it possible?
Didn't seem so. Our pitcher playing the outfield popped up. Our injured catcher lofted a fly to left center for the second out. But daringly maybe crazily our runner at third was tagging up, trying to score! The Wacker outfielder, taken a bit by surprise, hesitated then unleashed a throw high over the catcher's head. Warner was safe at home with our 3rd run and Dennis rushed from second base to third.
Tieing run just 60 feet away and to the plate came me. I'd already had a hit in the game but this one would be huge. We would tie up the game. I noticed the shortstop playing me too close to second base, leaving a very inviting opening between him and the third baseman. The pitch came in and that's where I hit it, solidly into left field. The game was tied.
Tied? The game was tied with 1 inning to go? Is this possible?
It was. We got the Wackers out in their half of the 7th inning, but only just barely on a close and disputed play at first, leaving 2 disappointed runners on base.
Now it was our turn. With 1 out Max and Adam both singled. Two on for Warner and he wasted no time, driving a hard ground ball past the desperately lunging first baseman. Max flew around third base as the Wacker right fielder rushed in for the ball, picking it up and hurling it towards home as Max headed there. The throw was a little weak and faded to the catcher's right side. Max dove to the plate on the catcher's left side. The catcher reached forlornly for the ball as Max slammed his left hand squarely in the middle of the plate.
Safe! We'd won! I did not see that one coming. Now we need just 1 more victory and we'll be champs.
I don't believe in jinxes or bad luck or the wrath of the Baseball Gods, well, or God for that matter. Now we are SUPPOSED TO WIN!!
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