This... Is... Unacceptable!

OK, look. I understand that being on a diet plan automatically means your food choices are limited... and often, less than appetizing. Like I said in my last post, so far I've been impressed with what NutriSystem has to offer, given that I wasn't expecting very much. Some of the meals are actually more than OK, in fact; I've even developed a taste for the "BBQ Soy Chips."

But not... let me repeat, NOT... the "Mashed Potatoes with Meat Loaf and Tomato Sauce."

I shoulda copped wise to what was about to happen the moment I read the box. For starters... since when are the mashed potatoes listed first for that particular combination... or whenever you're talking about a "meat and potatoes" dish? But, OK, this is diet food, and perhaps for some reason the mashed potatoes are supposed to be the main course. Whatever.

Then I opened the package. As you can see, the meat loaf was the larger portion. Good thing, too, since the "mashed potatoes" consisted of a grayish lump of... something, that resembled congealed petroleum.

Wait. "Gray" isn't even the right word. "Taupe" would be more appropriate, since there was a definite, uniform brownish tinge to the ostensibly edible pile of foodstuff before me. Photos don't do the freakish scene justice.

Adventurous (stupid) soul that I am, I nuked the dish per the instructions on the box... which sports a photo of regular-looking mashed potatoes, by the way. Even as I prayed microwave radiation would somehow restore normal coloring to the potatoes, I read the ingredients. Yes, those are supposed to be real mashed potatoes... well, potato flakes, but if those are good enough to serve your parents at Thanksgiving then surely they're OK here, too...

The microwave dinged. The potatoes were the same, of course, except now steam was coming off them. Great. A grayish-brown, steaming glob of God-knows-what. Yum.

Yeah, I tasted it. I was in this far, I had to go all the way. Incidentally, it was with similar logic I moved to California with a woman I barely knew 10 years ago. So, precedent would appear to indicate that logic is seldom a wise choice. But I tasted the damn "potatoes" anyway.

It was a small taste. About a tablespoon. For a split-second, I detected the faintest hint of potato-flavor... which was soon replaced by what I would imagine to be the taste of hot, wet, clammy, liquified cardboard.

Thirty seconds later, paper towel in hand, I was cleaning the remnants of that one, (thankfully) small bite off my kitchen floor. Soon after, I tossed the entire meal into the garbage -- maybe the meat loaf was OK, I'll never know -- along with another unopened box.

Good news -- I lived to tell the tale, so apparently the "potatoes" weren't poisonous.

More good news -- So far, that's the only item I haven't been able to tolerate.

And still more good news -- Ten days into the diet, I've lost seven pounds. That's a proportion I'm more than happy with.

I'm also happy to say I started actually exercising this week, and I've made a point of walking around the block for at least 45 minutes every day. So far, the sense of accomplishment has kept me going in this routine. I'm motivated. I have a goal, which I think is realistic -- drop 15 pounds before Sun 'N Fun, which is in late April (and one week before my next cancer check-up.) Even allowing for the inevitable slowdown in progress, that should still be attainable. More would be a welcome bonus.

But keep me the hell away from the "mashed potatoes." I'll take more soy chips.

The Road Ahead

Happy Belated New Year, everybody. I'll keep this brief, since I'm busy doing what I've been doing since December 31... writing End-Of-Year features for ANN, and struggling to accept the reality of a strict diet. I'm trying out NutriSystem... we'll see if it helps.

I have noticed a difference already, in less than a week. Hard to say if that's because of the food, or just eating (a lot) less in general. Speaking of the food... it isn't bad, but it's loaded with preservatives and rather salty -- the better to keep it edible without resorting to freezing (the Army calls this application of food technology "MREs" -- meals, ready-to-eat.) So, this will be a brief excursion, I think, but I'm curious to see the results.

One other thing on the diet -- like I said, the meals are decent, but they've got some odd ingredients. On the label of most of the "meat" dishes, at the very end, is this disclaimer: "CONTAINS FISH (Anchovy, Sardine, Tilapia)."

Ugh. This is for a good reason, this is for a good reason... And it is. I admit over the past two years I haven't been taking very good care of myself... and it's time to change that.
So, again, happy new year to all. I think 2008 will be a good one -- I really do

Fear, Itself

Two months had passed, all-too-quickly... and already it was time this week to once again confront the New Reality.

 

Tuesday 7:40 am -- I arrive early at UNM Cancer Center for requisite blood work, ahead of "just a follow-up" CT scan over at OSIS at 10. Surprisingly, the clinic gets me in and out in less than 20 minutes. I make small talk with the cute phlebotomist as she draws my samples.

 

8:00 am -- After slamming down the first of two barium "milkshakes" while sitting in the car -- a new experience, and not too pleasant (I usually drink them at home, from a glass, to fool myself into thinking it's a "treat") -- I find myself with about 90 minutes to kill... so I book down to the Sunport to watch planes. It's a slow morning at ABQ, though I do get to see the mass (14-plane!) departure of South Aero Cessna 402s and 414s, flying UPS freight to all corners of New Mexico, southern CO and western AZ.

9:15 am -- As per the instructions, I drink half of second "milkshake;" I must save the rest for immediately before the test. The car finds its way back to the Lomas and University area, and over to OSIS. Due to construction on what will ultimately be the new UNMCC, the clinic offers valet parking. This is the only place so far I've seen valet parking, a staple of Dallas life, in Albuquerque.

9:50 am -- They call me in for my CT. Force down the last of the oddly-flavored shake (imagine a chalky, metallic pina colada... and this is one of the better flavors) and get in the gown to lay back on the plastic moveable platform. Helpfully, the radiology tech describes every detail of this process: "okay, now I'm going to find a vein to hook up the IV for the contrast... are you allergic to shellfish? The contrast is iodine-based... We'll do just a quick set of scans, chest/abdomen/pelvis... You'll feel flush when the iodine begins, I can get you a washcloth for your forehead if you like..."

"I've done this before," I say, as lightheartedly as I can. "No worries, and the last time they went in through the wrist." Which is where the tech ultimately finds a vein. Good thing needles don't make me squeamish (while a needle in your wrist isn't exactly a pleasant sensation, at least it doesn't bruise.)

10:05 am, roughly -- Zap. More radiation than a person should ever be subjected to in one sitting courses through my body. This is my eighth CT since my January 2006 diagnosis. I still find the process horribly fascinating; in short, the machine images thousands of radial "slices" of your body, then presents them in an overlapping, single image for the radiologist to read. Tumors light up.

10:20 am -- Off the machine, out the door, and waiting in the cold for the valet to bring the Mazda around. I occupy my mind with the question "is it appropriate to tip a valet at a medical facility?" When the valet opens the car door, and I hear the radio playing -- I'd left it off -- I decide against giving him money.

Now, the waiting begins...

Wednesday -- A busy day. Too busy, I decide, to email Dr. Rabinowitz for the results of the scan. I'll do it tomorrow, I tell myself. Tomorrow morning.

Thursday -- Another busy day. I defer emailing Rabinowitz until I'm done for the day, ahead of schedule, at 3:30 pm. I send off the email just as I'm heading out the door: "Hi, Dr. Rabinowitz. I was wondering if you've had a chance to review the results from my CT scan Tuesday morning..?" This is by design. If I stay home, I'll be checking email nervously every 15 minutes. Instead I head back down to the Sunport.

5:30 pm -- Sunset, and the ABQ Airport Police chase me out of the viewing area. Wow, times have changed... You used to be able to go to the viewing area at all hours, back when it was off the approach end to runways 8 and 12. One of Eclipse's assembly buildings -- where they paint the aircraft -- is there now.

If he emails you, you know you're fine, I rationalize to myself. If he has bad news, he won't tell you in an email, he'll call you...

6:00 pm -- Arrive home. I head immediately to the computer. No email.

I check Caller ID.

A switchboard number for UNM Hospital is there, called at 5:31 pm. No message.

I begin shitting bricks.

6:15 pm -- I call my parents, who offer all the reassurance they can. "He'd leave a message, at least asking him to call you back," Dad says. No, he wouldn't, I reply, in frightened tears.

6:20 pm -- Try Dr. Rabinowitz's office number. It's the common line for his clinic. I try in vain to negotiate the phone tree. Everyone's gone home.

6:25 pm -- "There's something wrong, there's something wrong." I repeat this mantra for several minutes, frightened out of my mind. I've been through this before, last year, the month-and-a-half before a surgical biopsy determined actually, hey, the spot on your lung isn't cancer after all. All the nervousness and I fear I experienced then... and have since managed to more-or-less put out of my mind... have come back in full force, within a half-hour. I've gone past my breaking point.

6:45 pm -- With my heart racing and tears still coming from the corners of my eyes, I force myself to lay down on the couch and read the latest EAA "Sport Pilot" magazine. "The Office" plays on the TV in the background. 

7:25 pm -- No email. The phone hasn't rang since I've been home.

8:15 pm -- I turn off the TV, walk back into my office and sit blankly at the computer. I absentmindedly write up a quick update on the shuttle launch for ANN -- they're waiting until January 10th now, that'll really screw up NASA's schedule -- and then turn on Flight Simulator X. The "Janet" mission to Area 51 occupies the next 25 minutes of my life.

8:50 pm -- With the simulated Groom Lake employees safely at their simulated jobs for the simulated day, I close FSX and once again check email.

There's a message from Dr. Rabinowitz. I open it without any pause for nervousness.

"It looks good!........normal! Ian"

I cry for the next two minutes. To hell with anyone who would think less of me for that.

9:05 pm -- With the "you were right, thank God" call to the parents complete, I sit back in my desk chair, utterly drained. My eyes are still moist.

What cancer has done to my body isn't the worst part of it; in fact, that's been relatively minor in comparison to what this horrible scourge has done to my mind. The lack of news, lack of a definite prognosis. For most of the time between follow-up appointments, I manage to live my life -- and I've accomplished a great deal over the past two years.

 

But for three or four days surrounding my follow-ups... I die a little until the doctor tells me it's OK to resume living.

10:30 pm -- I lay back down on the couch, television turned to a "Seinfeld" repeat, and soon fall into a nervously-relieved sleep. The TV is still on when I wake up again, at 2:30 in the morning.

 

Still sleepy, I walk outside to unplug the Christmas lights on my balcony before heading to the bedroom... and pause.

 

It's snowing. It's a beautiful sight. I stand outside for several minutes, watching, oblivious to the cold.

Recovering The Satellites

So here I am at 9:55 on a Monday night, at my traditional spot in the parking lot of a nondescript office complex at the southeast corner of Sojourn & Midway...

Nearly three years have passed since I originally posted those words... and once again, I'm sitting in the dark near Addison Airport. Except this time I'm in a different location, off Airport Parkway, to watch as planes come in on runway 33. Different circumstances, different car, and a different address to call home.

A different Counting Crows song is playing on the radio, too.

Gonna get back to basics
Guess I'll start it up again
I'm fallin' from the ceiling
You're falling from the sky now and then

So here I am, at 8:55 on a Sunday night, having just come from a wonderful dinner with my friends Monk and Quinn. It's been over five months since we last had dinner at a favorite joint, De Tapas. I've missed their conversation, their insight, their humor. Just as I've missed those things from all my friends I left behind in Dallas, since I moved back to Albuquerque in July.

It's not a move I regret... but since I came back into town the Friday before, I've been struck by an odd melancholy. And now, as I watch a Citation jet land long on 33, I can't shake the repercussions of a comment I made over earlier this evening over our dinner of gambas, cheese croquetas, and wine.

Maybe you were shot down in pieces
Maybe I slipped in between
But we were gonna be the wildest people they ever hoped to see
Just you and me

It's a feeling not easily put into words. Dallas still feels too familiar for me to feel any sense of nostalgia; after all, it hasn't been very long since I left. From the moment I passed 35E, though, driving down highway 380 en route to my friends' house in McKinney, an odd calm came over me. It's a calm I haven't felt in my time back in New Mexico.

So why'd you come home to this sleepless town
It's a lifetime commitment
Recovering the satellites
All anybody really wants to know is...
When you gonna come down

Five months back home in Albuquerque, I'm still grasping with the waves of memories and emotions that still come back to haunt me at the most inopportune times.

The pleasant, but slightly acrid mix of smog and pinon smoke in the air on a cool evening -- combined with the orange glow of the security lighting in the parking lot at my apartment complex. The familiar scene hit my senses like a bullet recently, for example, and transported back almost 10 years ago. To another apartment complex -- if you can call a Warren pay-by-the-week building that -- getting out of my Saturn, to spend an evening at my then-girlfriend's place.

Albuquerque is full of these memories for me... and while I've had good times there, certainly, when I think of growing up in and around the city after my teen years it's the depressing memories that come to mind first. Memories of selling cars, and a string of other shaky jobs... failed relationships... struggling to make the car payment, and rent... and battling depression.

Albuquerque feels like failure to me. It's as simple as that. It's not the city's fault... and, as I sometimes have to be reminded, all-in-all it's been pretty good to me. I learned to fly here; the first steps towards the path I'm now on, career-wise, started while I worked at a courier service here. That can't be ignored.

Though try as I might, I can't think of anyone I know who's ever been truly successful there. I know those people are out there, but I don't know them. People make their fortunes elsewhere, then come back to NM. And while it's not a perception firmly grounded in reality, I also feel that for me to finally make something of myself, I had to leave, too.

Your mother recognizes all your desperate displays
And she watches as her baby drifts violently away
'Til he sees himself in telescopes
Do you see yourself in me?
Oh, and we're such crazy babies, little monkey
God, we're so fucked up, you and me

"Dallas feels like success," I told Monk and Quinn at dinner. "Sure it's hollow, it's superficial, and built on a sea of maxed-out credit. But when I used to drive down the DNT, or sit watching planes at Addison... I felt successful, too.

"It's all about perception, I know... but I can't shake the feeling when I'm in Albuquerque, the whole city is just waiting for me to fall on my ass."

So why'd you come home to this faithless town
Where we make a lifetime commitment
To recovering the satellites
And all anybody really wants to know is...
When are you gonna come down

I came back to Albuquerque for my health, and for my family. I don't regret the decision. I love being just 30 minutes away from my parents and Abby, and seeing the mountains outside my living room window. I do feel physically healthier in Albuquerque, too -- thinner and drier air, a lot less smog.

But all my friends -- my closest friends -- are in Dallas. I only have a handful in Albuquerque... and I've avoided seeing them. I know that's wrong. One, I haven't visited in the time since I came back; the other, I talk with often on the phone, but we haven't gotten together for a drink in months.

She sees shooting stars and comet tails
She's got heaven in her eyes
She says I don't need to be an angel
But I'm nothing if I'm not this high

But we only stay in orbit
For a moment of time
And then you're everybody's satellite
I wish that you were mine

And then there's Ana. I know at least some of my animosity towards Albuquerque, and New Mexico as a whole, has to come from there. But it's more than that... a symptom and not the actual illness. I remember asking myself when we were going out, and things started getting serious... Would I be happy living in New Mexico, in Las Cruces even, with her and her kids? Could I ever settle down here?

And I remember my answer, which came quickly and I kept to myself. No.

Which is probably why... although I do miss her, and not having her in my life still stings... I haven't felt truly sad about the relationship with Ana coming to an end. It would have, anyway, so it's probably best it was sooner instead of later. It probably also explains how and why I ended it. I don't feel good admitting that to myself, but there it is.

So why'd you come home to this angel town
It's a lifetime decision
Recovering the satellites
And all everybody really knows for sure...
Is that you're gonna come down
That you're gonna come down

As I write this now, I'm back in Albuquerque... one week after I started writing this missive in Dallas. There's a light brush of snow on the Sandias, and a definite chill in the air. We're supposed to get more snow this week, just in time for an appointment at Eclipse Monday morning and a follow-up CT scan Tuesday.

For the next year, at least, and likely one after that, I've decided to call Albuquerque my home. I made the decision myself, because with everything going on vis a vis the medical situation, it made sense to be home. And so far, it's proven to be a good decision.

But I can't shake the difference in feelings I experience, between here and Dallas. Maybe one day I'll make sense of that.

Doing The 'D'

If all goes to plan... and I'm able to wake up on time... by this time tomorrow evening, I'll be back in the city I called home for 35 months. Dallas.

In the next five days, I plan to enjoy being surrounded by a city of five million people... even if that means being stuck in traffic on the DNT. I plan to spend some time with my friends Lee, Diana, and their kids; hopefully enjoy dinner with Monk and Quinn, for the first time in five months; and park at the approach end to runway 15 at Addison Airport, looking up as bizjets and the occasional Amerijet DC-9 speed overhead at 50 feet.

Oh, and also to enjoy the main reason for the trip... to see Billy Joel at the AAC Tuesday night, a performer I've always wanted to see in person.

I hope to arrive in town early enough -- and awake enough, after a 10-hour drive -- to enjoy some drinks and camaraderie with some former coworkers and good friends from AG, at the only bar that will ever provoke an emotional response from me.

It's not that I don't like living in Albuquerque. I do, really; watching it snow last Friday... as the sun ever-so-briefly hit the Sandias, illuminating the peak in a dazzling pink... was all I needed to reaffirm to myself the "novelty" of being back home. The day before, I had my parents over to my place for Thanksgiving dinner... which I cooked. The following Sunday, I spent all day stringing up Christmas lights on my balcony. Home. Comforting. Familiar.

But Dallas will always hold a place in my heart reserved for no other. I grew up in this city, beginning at the age of 28. I came to Dallas nervously... with an over-inflated sense of self, a cubicle job I found boring -- but did well -- and a fat moving stipend burning a hole in my pocket.

I left Dallas far more humble, a lot poorer, and as a cancer survivor... who could successfully land an Evektor SportStar in a crosswind, and got to write about it for a living. Some would say that's not a bad tradeoff.

I plan to pay my respects to Dallas over the next five days... and give thanks for the person I became in my time there.

Smiles, Everybody!

OK, enough of the self-agonizing BS that seems to have populated this blog of late. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and I get to write about airplanes for a living, god damn it. Even if I am stressing because I'm still working seven days a week, and I'm starting to feel increasingly insulted by that fact.

Yeah, I may have broken up with the woman who two months ago I strongly suspected to be The One, but at least I filled up the 6 this week just before gas prices soared over $3.00 per gallon. So, there's that. And of course, I have my health... through December 11, anyway, the date for the next CT scan.

In other news, I've been on an eBay streak lately, buying up some old GI Joe toys (yes, planes) I used to have when I was a kid. In fact, looking over the auction list has been a trip down memory lane for me... since I pretty much had ALL the GI Joe toys available through early 1980s, thanks largely to my grandparents on both sides of the family.

Now I need to buy some cheap display shelves... and find a place to put them in the office.
I also splurged this week on a new MP3 player, a 4GB Sansa to replace what I have discovered over the past two years to be a really shitty Dell DJ Ditty (I did not mean for that to rhyme, really.) If it sounds like I'm burning through cash... let me just say it's amazing how much the pocketbook frees up when you're not buying flowers all the time, or driving 550 miles round trip every other weekend.

I'm also eagerly awaiting my first trip back to "The Big D" since I moved back. Lee bought tickets to the Billy Joel concert December 4 at the AAC, with the only condition "you're on your own for getting out here." At this moment, I have no clue how I'm getting out there -- car or plane -- or how long I'll be able to stay (see above, "working seven days a week)... but I am absolutely adamant that I WILL make the trip, and that I WILL have enough time to visit Lee and Diana, Monk and Quinn, Shoe, and the Addison Airport.

In the short term, I fully intend to enjoy this weekend as much as I can. I have a couple books at the ready, including a bio of Harry Chapin, and if the weather holds I may even FINALLY make the Jemez drive I've been wanting to make for the past five months.

Eep... has it already been that long?

Operators Standing By

Five times. Five times I've held the phone in my hand, over the past week, ready to type in a series of numbers preceded by the new "575" area code... and each time, I've set it down without dialing her number.

I've had the message -- I doubt she'd answer if she saw my number -- ready. Memorized. I've practiced variations, played with different turns of phrase. I've sounded out the dialogue, the cadence. The process looks to the untrained eye like I'm talking to myself, but they'd be wrong. I'm having a conversation with myself, playing each part. It's a trick I use when writing dialogue, and I don't think it makes me crazy.


Five times...


"Hi, it's me," the message would say. "I'm calling to say I'm sorry... well, not really sorry for what I said, but how I said it. I didn't mean to sound so rude, so upset... but the fact is, I was upset, and I still am, and I think I had a good reason to be..." This is why I haven't dialed her number. An apology should never turn into an "I told you so," even if you believe you're on pretty solid ground.


We hadn't seen each other in almost a month. It wasn't long before that we spent every night on the phone, often for at least an hour. Thank God for unlimited long distance. We always had something to talk about... and it wasn't just "I really wish you were here with me, when can you come down/up here?" Although that was often a conversation topic, too.


I don't think I've ever felt so... comfortable... in a relationship. "This is the first "adult" relationship I think I've ever been in," I told a friend shortly after her and I started going out. An unusual statement to make, at 32... but, hell, I've always been a late bloomer. Better late than never.


She relaxed me, gave me confidence. I'd look at the sky aimlessly and think of her, feeling strongly that she at the time was doing the same, and thinking of me. Often, the phone would ring soon thereafter.


"I just went on break, and I just wanted to call and see how your day was going, honey," she'd tell me.


We openly cherished the time we spent together, the way couples in budding relationships do. She spent Labor Day weekend with me in Albuquerque; I visited her several times in Las Cruces, often working on the laptop on her dining room table (because I never do have a true day "off," god damn it, but that's a lamentation for another time.) I got along well with her two sons.


I sent her flowers at work, on each of our "anniversaries." I'd often find a card from her waiting for me in the mail, with a short message. "I am so happy we found each other again," she wrote.


For my birthday, she made up a basket... with a stuffed teddy bear front-and-center, bearing the message "Together 4Ever." She texted me often when I was in Atlanta. "I wish you were here!!!!"


We were connected, even when we were apart. Both of us spoke -- cautiously, but still -- of a future together. And then it changed. For the life of me, I don't know why... or what I suspect is the entire reason why. I know she was upset about her youngest son, and problems he was having in school. I offered to help; I'd helped him before with his homework, and he seemed to enjoy it. I did, too.


She resisted my offers to help... saying that would send the wrong message to her sons. She had a point there, but I still believed there wasn't anything wrong with the occasional visit -- especially since both her boys seemed to understand how I slotted in with their lives, and seemed more or less OK with that.


She felt differently. I'd planned to visit earlier last month, but she told me a few days before it wasn't a good weekend to come down -- "I wouldn't be able to spend the time with you I'd want to," she told me.


The weekend before last, I was down in Cruces on business. She knew I was coming. She left for El Paso with her sister instead, without even a phone call. "How the hell was I supposed to feel about that?" I asked her, rhetorically, afterwards.


She said it she had to go visit family who were in El Paso; I replied my phone number is pretty easy to remember, and she could have told me.


What I said after that -- out of hurt, frustration, and a small degree of paranoia, although mostly the feeling of being treated like the appendix in the body of her life --  will echo in my head for some time to come.


"Good luck, and goodbye."


A mutual friend tells me she has no idea why I was "rude" to her, in saying that.


Five times I've picked up the phone since then, ready to say I was wrong, I was a jerk, and I'm sorry... conditionally. I don't think this makes me a jerk. I think I have the right to be treated better than I was... especially given how far our relationship had progressed.


I don't know how this will play out; no, wait, yes I do. It has likely played out already. I do know this will be the last blog post I write on the subject, unless something significant develops. I'm sick of sounding like a lovelorn teenager; 32-year-old Managing Editors need to practice some decorum.


But seriously... what happened? That's a question that may never be answered.