My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

I’m out of the hospital, sitting in a hotel, the Embassy Suites by LAX. I’m tired, beyond tired.

So, after thirty-five hours in the Cedars-Sinai emergency room, I’m officially in a real room. See, yesterday morning the little balloon inside my trache tube decided to burst, meaning that the air usually directed toward my lungs began coming out of my mouth. A few minutes later and I’m on a stretcher heading for an ambulance parked behind the Beverly Hilton. It was clearly the perfect way to start my day, and end my vacation, the perfect way to say good-bye to Sara. 

I get to the e.r. and the trache really needs to come out, but the ENT (trache doctor) is about two hours out, so e.r. doc decides to go for it old-school style. I get a little subcutaneous morphine, he yanks out the dead trache and jams in the new one, while I simply gurgle and gasp. At this point the doctor’s really crankin’ on my neck, he looks nervous. It’s exactly what you want to see dance across your doctor’s face as he fucks with your air-way. He’s nervous because he can’t secure the new trache, I’m bleeding and not looking particularly good. He decides to pull out trache number two and toss in a third. Fortunately, blood-loss and pain aside, the third time’s a charm.

However, I’m still here in the hospital because, as it turns out, I’ve been traveling with a faulty ventilator all week and after the trache trauma I couldn’t stand the shallow breathing. Apparently, the vent has a leak, which is why I’ve felt kind of funny since I left Tampa. I’m nervous a lot lately, so the tightness in my chest seemed like my usual dumb fucking idiocy. At least I’m an accurate dumb fucking idiot.

I’m sitting in the hospital, waiting for a replacement vent, trying to get new flights back to Tampa. My neck hurts, I’m exhausted. Everything good seems far away. Ira, the red-carpet, the parties, Sara, it all seems like it’s behind L.A. SMOG. I wish I could find my way out.

So, the Emmys were spectacular, walked the red carpet with my girlfriend, TAL won two awards. We danced at the Governor’s Ball, she was the most beautiful woman there. The TAL after-party was amazing, I hung with Ira Glass and his delightful lady. I got people dancing there too. I had always wanted to get a dance-floor jumping just as the party seemed about done. The TAL crew is totally awesome. Oh, and Ira’s an astonishingly sexy dancer. Honestly, it was an outstanding experience.

Right now, I’m in the hospital with trache and vent trouble. I may or may not get out tomorrow. I’m tired, uneasy. Lately I seem to face a thousand fucked up things. I’m tired, a little broken. Nothing makes sense. I want to sleep for a thousand years. Everything’s fucked. I’m spent, all poured out.

So, we’ve made some adjustments to my new vent and I’m breathing much better. I feel much better. Not being able to breathe properly for extended periods of time will fuck a fellow up like nobody’s business. It makes everything I want seem far away, or impossible. So, yes, I get down. Sometimes I don’t think people understand that feeling, even people who really know me.

I was pretty down last night, my trache kept making me cough which colors everything in a pretty bad way. It’s almost time for me to go and I do feel better. Not breathing right makes every other fear, doubt, frustration to be +12. The thing about the blog is, I don’t censor myself at all. I write exactly what’s in my head. Sometimes it’s dark, sometimes it’s not, but it’s always honest.

Actually, as I thought about what I wrote below, I realized it’s not quite right. I have done great things, just nothing consistent, lasting. I have done things that were so beyond important to me, but I’ve fucked them up. Sometimes I feel like Jack’s wasted life. Then, of course, sometimes I don’t. طريقة لعب القمار

So, tomorrow I’m leavin’ on a jet-plane, I don’t know when I’ll be back again… No, I’ll be back Tuesday. I’m going to L.A. for the technical Emmys. They film the whole affair, then they show clips of the winners during the big Emmys. The people from Showtime and This American Life are being spectacular and sending me to join in on the festivities. I’ve mentioned it, but the show’s up for five awards, four for an episode they did about me.

I feel weird about it. I loved the experience and I want them to win because they really did some amazing work, but personally I don’t feel like I deserve anything. Back 2007 I simply managed to choke on some pineapple juice and almost die. I’ve never done or ever do anything great, and maybe I never will. At least, none of it is great to me. I’ve consistently managed to fuck up everything that is important to me.

So, I was able to clearly write about almost dying and everything that happened from losing my voice to my girlfriend. I’m really great at writing about bad things that I experience. It could be the only thing that I do well. I don’t think I personally deserve anything for it. Still, I want the show to win because it did honestly capture the small portion of my life that I wasn’t screwing everything up.

Wake me up when September ends…

So, I’ve been really down for a good chunk of time, and it’s very easy to get lost in all that darkness. It happens though, you either deal with it in your way or you don’t. I’ve been doing a lot thinking about life and what I want out of it. I keep hearing, “life is in God’s hands,” and “everything happens for a reason,” and “you just have to leave things to fate,” and “if something is meant to be, it will be.” I thought a lot about those things, and I realized something really important. I don’t buy any of it.

God’s not going to help or hurt me, God’s just watching. God’s not going to make my life work, that is up to me. People make choices and our choices have consequences that create other choices and outcomes. Fate, God, whatever you want to call it, it doesn’t rule us. Leaving everything to someone or something else is just a form of inaction. When a person gives up their will to make choices, they’re just allowing other people’s choices to shape their life. A person’s own will is so powerful. Strong-willed people change the world. Choices and actions shape my life, not God or fate. I’m not leaving my life to anyone or anything, it’s all up to my choices and strength of will. Fuck it, I might fail at everything I want, but it won’t be because God or fate made it so. If my will is stronger than those that oppose me, I’ll be fine. I don’t think we should leave anything to God, because I think God leaves everything to us.

Sometimes I feel like Kurt Cobain, minus the talent, the money, the sexy hair, the cool way he smoked cigarettes, and the awesome sweaters.