A Sob Story (Ok, Fine, not really!)

     So, the world is pretty messed up right now. I get it. I feel horrible for the people in Harvey's path and awful for those who suffered in Charlottesville and everyone who suffers on a daily basis around the world due to racial discrimination, starvation or debilitating disease. But, you guys, I was in Hawaii and someone stole my watch!!

      Soooooo, we're in Hawaii (have to reiterate this point) and we're snorkeling. Awesome beach, cool rocks/coral/fish. Amazing time. I'm being a bit ginger with my foot as I just took the boot off (remember when I broke it? You can consult my last post if you like...) and the place was rocky AF. So I'm sloooooooow. I get out in the water, not many people on the beach, wife and kid are with me. We stay in for about an hour and a half. We get out. We get our stuff and oh shit. My watch is gone. My beautiful, greatest-gift-of-all-time-given-to-me-by-my-cousin-and-cousin-in-law-for-officiating-their-wedding, expensive Star Wars Millennium Falcon cockpit watch! So I scour the beach. I dig in the sand, I look through the car. I look high and low even though I know exactly where I put it. I always know where I put it because it really does mean so much to me. It's always with my wedding ring and my wallet. Never apart. All three things are my precious. I keep them safe at all costs. But I figured, maybe the zipper came open or something. Well as I said I look high, I look low, it is gone. And then it dawns on me to check something. I open my wallet and.......my cash is also gone. Some mutherfucker ROBBED ME! The good news is that my cards, wife's cards/cash, wedding rings, Phones, kid's tablet were all still there. Some asshole just casually strolled over to our backpack and in a flash stole my cash and a piece of my heart. In my haste to find a culprit, I actually approached a couple of transients and tried to guilt them into confessing but then I realized that they could barely walk so I knew it wasn't them and then they asked me for a couple of bucks and I thought, even transients couldn't be low enough to steal someones's shit and then ask the same victim of their crime for more! Could they? Nah! And then I almost confronted another dude but my wife made me stop and witness the amazing sunset that was happening in front of me instead. Which is probably better that she did because A) I had no proof on this guy and B) this guy may have eventually had a knife on me. 

     Anyway, while I was looking up past a palm tree and into the beautiful pink sky, I happen to notice, nailed to the tree is a laminated sign which reads: "WARNING! Do not leave valuables unattended on the beach. Lock all personal belongings in your car." So not only did he take my shit but somehow, I'M the asshole.

    Ok, it's a watch. Sentimental, yes, but just a time keeper. Earlier that day apparently we had just narrowly avoided being surrounded by jellyfish at one beach and we also were all lucky enough to avoid getting a sea urchin spine stuck in our skin, a fate that befell another little boy at the same beach. So, you know, again, this is not a disaster. It's WAY less annoying than breaking my foot.  

    So anyway, Hawaii was great. It's an island paradise. But even in paradise, dickheads grow next to the pineapples and coconuts. 

     I'll have you know that, all kidding aside, I cherished that watch. I had good solid year long run with it and  I can only hope that if it can't be safe with me, it gets to witness that red sunset every night, even if it has to be attached to that muctherfucker's wrist as he sharpens his mutherfucking knife, a knife perhaps he didn't even have until he bought it with the cash he stole from my wallet.

     I know some of you might be thinking I'm an asshole for posting something so trivial at times like these. And, while I agree with you...that's it. I actually have no argument. 

Broken

Well, it took 42 years, but I finally joined a club I had previously been proud to NOT be a part of. The Broken Bones club. And I picked a hell of a bone for my inauguration. It’s called the 5^th Metatarsal. And who knew that breaking this 5^th Metatarsal would keep the rest of my bones from doing the simplest of tasks. Breaking this one little 5^th Metatarsal is changing my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I can’t run, I can’t play basketball (because of the aforementioned inability to run), I can’t stand long enough to make a sandwich, I can’t take a shower, I can’t even do the dishes! I hate doing the dishes but right now, at this very moment, I’d kill someone to do the frigging dishes! It’s truly the worst thing to ever happen in the history of ever.  

Wait! No it’s not. It’s not even close. So far my diagnosis is fine. Spiral fracture, 6-8 weeks of healing. Or a month and a half to two months if you prefer to count in larger units, (which, why wouldn’t you? It’s why we have larger units of measure). OK, so I think that comes in at just about “Annoying” on the Official Life Adversities scale which, as I’m making it up now, runs on a spectrum from “Itchy” through “Debilitating” all the way up to “Life Ending.” So I’ll take “Annoying” any day of the week and twice on whatever day the cliché normally says.

I decided to write about this because a lot of you are asking what happened and I came to the conclusion that I needed to do right by this story and get it down on cyber-paper.

I was running to Jack’s school because I had heard about a grizzly bear that was loose in Burbank. I had been helping my neighbor retile the roof of his garage so it could better protect the 30 Syrian refugees he is harboring within and I was repelling back to the ground when I heard the bear sirens. Bear sirens?! On a Friday? Didn’t seem right. So I tore out of there, ran 8 blocks and made it to the school just as the bear started to paw at the gate. I distracted the bear long enough to allow the teachers to evacuate the entire student body to safety. My son, noticing my struggles with the bear, threw me a ruler and a pencil sharpener to give me an edge over the bear. Well, needless to say, those tools helped immensely and I was able to calm the bear down and tickle him until the animal control people got there. After an hour of accolades and a make-shift ceremony where the mayor gave me the key to the city, I noticed that my foot had swelled up. “That must have been from when you dropped kicked the bear in the face, dad,” said my son, beaming with pride.

“It sure is, son,” I replied. “I knew I had broken it but I didn’t even stop to feel the pain because it wasn’t about me. It was about defeating that lunatic bear. But it was worth it. Saving you and all of your friends and even other people we don’t even know, it was all worth it.”

“I love you dad.”

“I love you too, son. Now, help me limp to the hospital.”

That’s what happened. 

Ok, fine. Nothing. Nothing happened. I walked outside my back door, off of a step and onto a cracked brick that I’ve stepped on before, twice, twisting my ankle both times without any lasting effect. I just did it a little different this time. I just wanted to go and get laundry out of the dryer quickly before going to get my son at school. I stepped, ankle went out, heard a crack, went down, and I said “Oh fuck.” Actually, I said more fucks than that. I actually stood up (I could stand but I knew it was bad), walked over to the garage door and started banging on it; one “fuck” per bang.

Then hopped around for a while, drove myself to urgent care (really nice clean and empty), hopped in, wheelchair, x-rays, “broken,” splint, crutches, made it to a pre-planned poker game (determination), weekend on the couch, annoyance, depression, son and wife huge helps, visitors, bathing (one leg over side of tub) and here we are.

An orthopedist told me I don’t need surgery or even a cast, just a boot for 6 weeks or so and crutches for only a couple of those weeks.  The biggest blow is I can’t play basketball for 3 to 4 months. That’s a quarter to a third of a year. But it’s not forever. So, really, what the hell am even I complaining about?

So many people, SO MANY PEOPLE, are suffering through way worse things. WAY worse! Obviously anything can happen but as of right now, my prognosis is fine. So fuck my inconvenience. It could be so much worse. And, on the bright side, this injury is making me feel like James Caan in Misery so I should be able to get some writing done.  That’s what happens in that movie right?

Hell, I’ve already written my first true blog post since October. So THAT’S something!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go sit in a different spot in the house cause this wall is getting boring.

Step 2: Crippling Indecision

            I think I owe you an apology. It’s been about 11 weeks since I’ve posted anything and I feel like I broke a promise. An ultimitely not-real promise that I never promised to anyone else but myself but a promise none-the-less.

When I set out to start a blog, I figured it would be a nice way to give myself a weekly writing assignment with a casual deadline that would light enough of a fire under me to get myself to become a disciplined, focused and productive writer. Well instead, as it turns out, the reality is that it has just added one more thing to my plate that I’m failing to eat and it’s making me feel like a miserable failure! Great!

           

            What’s the problem, you may ask? Well, I’ll tell you! It’s trying to make a fucking decision about what to write about! That’s the problem! And I just said “about” twice in the same sentence!  So grammar is my problem too, apparently.

            Yes, I could have posted about the election. But did we, as a society need another article about the election? Way more in depth features were written by much more politically savvy people than I. Many more heartfelt and poignant rants were posted by much angrier people than I. And every professional comedian had an undeniably more unique and hilarious take on the situation than I.

I could have written about any myriad of Thanksgiving, Christmas or general holiday thoughts. I could’ve written about auditions and the life of an actor, how excited I am about Star Wars, how much my son is lamenting that he doesn’t have a Boston accent. I have so many things to say and yet I have no idea how to decide what to spend my time writing about!

As it turns out, I checked my birth records and at an early age I was diagnosed with the mutant power of crippling indecision. From coffee to dinner to socks to t-shirts, my days are filled with “which pair of underwear should I wear today” type decisions that ultimately mean nothing but take agonizing minutes out of my free time, in a way that leaves me with nothing to show for my efforts (except, of course, hopefully actually getting that pair of underwear on). I sometimes can’t even decide which TV show to watch which ultimately leads me down the road of not having watched anything.

What I’m trying to say to you is that I am keeping my blog (I probably will take it off of my email signature though), but my posts won’t be every week, like I said at first. And they may not even mean anything at all when they do come. But I needed to say all of this, not just for me, but for anyone else out there who is inflicted with this indecisive behavior and knows what it’s like to really not know if you’re in the mood for fucking Italian or Chinese food or pudding on a regular basis. I feel like just getting this message to you is something anyway and in this new Trump Era that is now upon us, every little thing can help.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go ahead and save this post and let it sit on my desktop until I make a decision on whether or not I should even post it.  [At the time of this posting, it had been sitting on said desktop for 5 weeks.]