Diary of a Sane Man

To the left is a picture my friend Paul took before I went on a local morning television show two Halloweens ago. He recently sent the picture to me and wrote, "An eerie foretelling of future tragedy or just an oddly torn, smeary coincidence? You be the judge!"

He's a card, that one.

So.... Nov. 1 my health insurance kicked in. On Nov. 6 I attended my first rugby practice with the Gotham Knights. I was psyched. The guys were really nice and welcoming. And they said I could play with them that weekend in a rugby tournament.

On Saturday the 10th I showed up and helped set up the fields. They told me I'd be playing with their B side as wing. The first game was great. I was a bit rusty but I got to tackle. We mostly played defense because our scrums just weren't winning the ball.

After the first game, our coach said I'd be playing fly half. And then the team captain for the A side called out two names and said to run over to another field as soon as this game was over to play with the A side.

I turned to the guy standing next to me and said,  "Does he want that Ted (pointing to one of the forwards) or this Ted (pointing to me)" He laughed and told me it was me (I think the shock on my face was probably evident). That was a big deal for me. I'd only practiced twice and played in one game and they wanted me to help out their A side. It's like being drafted in the first round! It's like being called up to the majors! It's like being asked to the prom by the quarterback (oh wait, wrong analogy).

Once again we were losing our scrums. We would form up offensively but lose the scrum - so we'd have to run up quickly in a defensive position. During one of these times the ball started moving down the opposing team's line. I went in for a tackle and just got crushed. Someone's knee connected with my face.

I'd never experienced pain like that before. I found myself on the ground and saw blood pouring out of my mouth. I couldn't see out of my right eye and my jaw and face were just crushed. It was so excruciating the only thing I could do was kick my foot into the ground repeatedly.

They helped me off the field and I was evaluated by a medic. She told me I broke my nose and had a great black eye. I told her that it was more than just a broken nose. My jaw hurt so bad and I was in horrendous pain. She called the paramedics (they did have an ambulance there but they had taken someone else off to the hospital). But the ambulance got lost and it took them about an hour or more to find us.

They loaded me into an ambulance and one of the guys followed in his car. The coach is a surgeon so he called ahead to ensure i got good treatment at the hospital. As soon as I got to the hospital (about 90 - 120 minutes after the hit) they evaluated me and started me on drugs. They kept giving me more and more morphine. Although it made my body float - the pain in my jaw continued.

After CT scans, evals by various doctors, etc. they established that I broke my eye socket, broke my nose, had a fracture that ran across the entire length of my face above my lip and just below my nose, broke the bones in my cheek, broke my upper and lower jaw and some plate in my face got rotated and turned down and was pushing into my jaw.

My friends Shawn and Keith were both out of town. The only person I could think of to call was my friend Ross at work. So he came on over, joined the other Ted from the team and started making phone calls to my friends and family.

Opthalmology and maxillofacial both wanted to admit me and they couldn't figure out who was going to get first crack at me. Unfortunately there was a shift change (by now it was well into the evening). Instead of being worked on, they released me.

Ted insisted I stay at his place. Fortunately I was so pumped up with drugs I agreed (normally I would just say I could take care of myself and go home). The hospital gave me prescription for pain killers, antibiotics and said to call a doctor on Tuesday (it was Veteran's Day weekend). Ted and Ross hit the drug store at 2 in the morning and I sat in a daze.

My mom showed up the next day to check on me and we headed back to my apartment.

Surprisingly I felt ok. I mean, I was in a lot of pain but it wasn't something that was devastating. I just hurt and that was it.

To make a really long story short. My sister Sue, my dad and stepmother Kathie headed up the following weekend to help me prepare for surgery and to take care of me after.

My sister Michele and her husband also came up for the weekend and brought up a reclining chair (that is beyond comfortable) and a TV for my bedroom.

The doctor operated on me for 5 or 6 hours and inserted a bunch of titanium plates and screws into my face and wired my jaws shut. He did a great job. Aside from surgical scars, you can't really tell anything happened by looking at my face. The only problem I have right now is numbness in my face and my vision still is poor.

I just saw the doc again last week and he told me that I was REALLY lucky. He said I was extremely close to losing my eye or worse. He also said that I really need to consider playing rugby again. We'll discuss it later, but there's a chance I may never be able to play again. I'm trying not to think about that right now.

I have some funny stories that have happened (including my wonderful Thanksgiving dinner just two days after surgery) that I'll share in my next post. But I just wanted to give a quick update.

Here are some fun pix.

Bear with me. What follows isn't a complaint or a bitch fest. Just dumping some emotion so I can move on.

This past weekend I was a little down. Alright, a lotta down.

The Phoenix Storm played their first match of the season and I wasn't there. It sounds really stupid, but I had a hard time with it.

Friday night I had a hard time sleeping, like I normally do before games. On Saturday I kept looking at the clock thinking:

It's 8 there - the guys are getting up.

It's 9:30 they're at the pitch.

They're probably stretching now

etc.


Then I saw Jay posted on the player's site that the Storm was up 21 - 0, Anton had scored three times and there was 10 minutes left. I was so happy and so upset at the same time.

I should have been there. I should have been feeding him those passes. I should have been encouraging everyone to continue to push, no matter the score.

I wasn't.

Then the text messages came in. First Joe, then Phill. Then Jay e-mailed me a picture of the drinkup.

I couldn't take it. So I unsubscribed myself from all of the Storm Yahoo groups.

I simply let go.

And I felt so much better for it.

For 30 seconds.

I was on the verge of tears for the rest of the day. I tried to talk to Kevin and Shawn about it but had to stop because I was getting choked up and couldn't talk.

Later that night I was at a party and Greg from Nashville texted, then Alfonzo called. I couldn't take the call because it was too noisy. And honestly, I didn't want to hear what I was missing.

Don't get me wrong. I'm SOOOO happy we won. And I'm so proud of the backs and of Drew in his first game back with the Storm. But damnit, I worked really hard and I feel like I should have been sharing that success. I told Phill at Seattle that things were on the up and the backs were going to be phenomenal. And they were.

I just wasn't part of it.

Saturday night while walking home from the party I talked to Greg and listened to his recap and the drink up stories.

The next day I heard more from Alfonzo when I talked to him. It sounds like it was our wildest one ever.

I'm irritated because I worked really hard all summer to get into shape. I was lifting hard core and gained 15 pounds of muscle. I was working to improve myself so that I could lead effectively on the field. I was going to be a better fly half. I was going to be better at the game.

And now I've lost all of the gains I made over the past two months. I've had to spend too much time looking for a place and then getting it ready.

Last week my schedule cleared out for me to work out again. But I'm pissed because of what I lost - I'm skinny fat again.

Next week I'll start rugby here (my benefits kick in at the end of this week). But they've been practicing since July. I'm rusty and it's going to take months to get that back. I might not be able to go to Bingham. I don't know.

Things will be ok. And I'm happy here. Beyond happy. This was the right thing to do. And I'm going to change things in the world for the better.

But it was a rough weekend.

I've received several requests to post pictures of my house and to post something in my blog. I know it's been weeks, but I've been really busy.

That's not an exaggeration. Up until I found my apartment I would leave work, go to the apartment broker and look at apartments until 8 or 9 at night. After I found my apartment, I would go home, clean, put IKEA furniture together or paint. I usually did this until 10 or 11 and then crash.

Saturday was my last painting day. There are a few areas that need to be touched up (painters tape never works as advertised). And I need to hang some curtains and buy a sofa. But for the most part, the big stuff is done.

My apartment is perfect for me. I really really love it. It's a railroad style apartment. This means that all of the rooms are in a straight line and connected to one another. The only down side to this is the bathroom is in my bedroom. So when I have guests, they'll have to come into my room to take those midnight pee breaks.

The place is about 4 blocks to the Broadway stop in Queens. I either live in Long Island City or Astoria. It depends on the utility. According to Time Warner cable I live in Long Island City. The electric company isn't sure if it's Astoria or not. It's very strange.

The rooms aren't gigantic but they're larger than what you'll find in Manhattan. In fact, if I were to live in Manhattan I would get a place slightly larger (but not much) than my living room. The rooms are about 10 - 11 feet wide and 10 - 13 feet long, with 10' ceilings.

I really like the exposed brick walls in the kitchen and living room. The kitchen and bathrooms were renovated 4 years ago, so they have nice tile and new fixtures. The apartment is in really good shape. I've seen a lot of places over the past two months and am pretty lucky to be in this one. The building itself is very quiet. Most of the people that live here are older (40 and above) professionals. So I rarely, if ever, hear anything.

When I first moved into the place it was trashed. The previous tenant left a bunch of trash behind (a really nasty rice cooker and toaster oven, some clothes, food, etc.). She was also obsessed with hooks, nails and shelving units. So there were a billion holes in each wall. Plus there was a really tacky track lighting system that was affixed with some sort of peel off glue thing. The lighting went halfway down the wall and had this big honker of an electrical plug dangling.

After seeing this mess and hearing the words (this place is uninhabitable come from the lips of Shawn - as relayed by his boyfriend Mason) I called the landlord and complained the following Monday. I told him he needed to fix the holes and paint. Or he could pay me to do it. He was apologetic and explained the super told him the apt. was fine. He asked what I wanted to happen. I told him I wanted to paint so I could choose my own colors. He was fine with that and cut me a check and put it in the mail.

I spent a week, taping, painting and all that fun stuff. It sucked at times but the results are pretty decent. The only crappy part was having to buy paint supplies and gallons of paint, then walking a few blocks to the subway, getting on the subway and then walking a few blocks to my apartment! But I managed. :-)

The colors all turned out well. Shawn helped me choose the colors. The only hiccup was I asked for Newport Blue for my bedroom. When the guy gave me the paint can, the paint dot on the top of the can looked green. At the time I chalked it up to being wet paint.

However, when I painted my room it was obvious that this was Sea Foam Green and NOT Newport Blue. But I like the color anyway. It's pretty.

Now I have a lot more free time and I'll blog more often. I have a lot of funny stories to relate.

Here are the pix....

My friend Shawn has a blog that he never updates. But when he does, it's always a great read. Shawn has some bad luck. So he has these wonderfully amusing stories to share (wonderfully amusing to everyone but him).

I'm crashing on Shawn's couch this week until I'm able to move into my apartment this weekend. So... poor Shawn has to put up with me all week AND make IKEA and Costco runs with me this weekend.

Shawn has had to do a lot of crappy things with me. For example, last Saturday we laid on about 300 beds to find the one that was "just right." I think I found it though, so I'm excited to sleep in my own bed next Saturday.

Quick funny story... Shawn just walked out of the bathroom after taking a bath. He looked into his closet and said, "I hate when the only comfy shirt I have is dirty." Now there are at least 47 different shirts in his closet. So I asked him if he really only had one. He was adamant in his reply. So he puts on a "non-comfy" shirt and then sighs and says, "I put this on backwards."

He takes the shirt off and puts it on correctly and walks into the kitchen. The tag on the back was visible, so I laughed and said, "You're shirt is on inside out."

Anyway....

Shawn e-mailed me this morning. I told him that since he was too lazy to blog I was posting this on mine since it's so funny. (I didn't do any editing).

I'm exhausted! Between looking for a place to live and learning how to do my job, I'm really wiped.

The good news is, I really like NYC. I love it. I think it's incredibly beautiful, especially at night. My outlook might change when I'm freezing my ass off, but I really came at the perfect time of the year.

Finding a place to live in NY is really difficult. It's not like you just jump on apartments.com or rent.com and find an apartment complex. Most apartment buildings are run by management companies. And most management companies use brokers.

Some buildings and houses are privately owned, but for the most part they use brokers as well. The fee for using a broker in Manhattan is 15% of the first year's rent. So a studio in a semi-safe area that costs $1,500 is actually quite expensive. It costs almost $6K to move in (first month's rent, security deposit and broker fee).

Brokers in Brooklyn and Queens usually charge 10% or one month's rent. That's a lot more doable. In the Bronx they just give the apartments away.

Although I've only been actively looking for a place for four days, it's been a LONG four days. I've visited lots of brokers, filled out a shit load of paperwork and seen a bunch of places.

Fortunately, I've had Shawn to walk me through everything. He's been able to steer me away from crap and lead me to good.

Unfortunately, twice I've had deals pulled out at the last second. The first time it happened was Saturday. I wrote out a check for the deposit and started looking at furniture. A couple of hours later, the broker called to say that the super had promised the apartment to a friend.

Tonight I was supposed to meet with the landlord to sign the lease. As I was walking out the door, the broker called to say the landlord found someone who would pay more. (I wasn't going to go higher).

So.... tomorrow, it's more phone calls and I'll hopefully look at some more apartments. It's not only physically demanding (it's a lot of walking up and down the neighborhood), but it's emotionally draining as well. Each time you look at a place, you think it's "the one." And then you find out "it's gross."

Another challenge to finding a place is you have to act immediately. You can't think about a place too much. If you like it, you say, "I'll take it." But if you want to think about it for an hour or so, it will be gone. I think I read that there's only a 1% vacancy rate in NYC. Considering that there are 5+ million here all scrambling to find something affordable, the numbers are against you.

If I didn't have Shawn to help me through all of this, I don't think I'd be very positive. But I am! I know I will find a really great place that will be comfortable. And I have his couch as a safety net. But I think I'll get a place before the end of the month.

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I was walking home the other day and saw the funniest thing. A homeless man was pushing his grocery cart down the sidewalk. He had a boombox in it and it was blaring, "Pour Some Sugar on Me," by Def Lepard. I don't know why but it just cracked me up. Nobody else took notice. So you had some homeless guy blaring Def Lepard and some freak laughing his ass off.

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A guy at work looks like Chris Cornell from Soundgarden

This is a really great video and song. Read the lyrics here. It's particularly poignant for me during my search for the apt.
Nothing seems to kill me no matter how hard I try
Nothing is closing my eyes
Nothing can beat me down for your pain or delight
And nothing seems to break me
No matter how hard I fall nothing can break me at all
Not one for giving up though not invincible I know

Melodramatic? Yes, but I'm tired right now. :-P

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I had tickets to the Alice in Chains/Velvet Revolver concert in Phoenix tonight. I'm really really really bummed I couldn't see it. I love those bands so much. This video will not appeal to anyone who's not even remotely an AIC fan. But fast forward 5 minutes in to hear Jerry Cantrell's guitar and Layne Staley's voice (his voice is bigger and better than any pop diva).

The lyrics are beyond dark, but I love this song so much. Don't judge. :-P

Saturday Shawn and I took the train down to Coney Island to ride the Cyclone. This monster of a roller coaster opened in 1926. From the looks of it, that was the last time it was inspected.

It is rickety, creaky and a whole lot of fun. It was so much fun that Shawn and I had to get on again. It was well worth the money! For some fun facts and a quick history of this beast, read here.

Although the initial drop is a reported 60 degrees, I could have sworn it was closer to 110. We banged into each other during the turns. I hit Shawn so badly he claims to be bruised (he's a delicate flower so I believe him).

Coney Island has a large Russian community. I found it interesting that the local store sold Russian newspapers and that the instructions for the Cyclone were in English, Spanish and Russian!

After the Cyclone we headed down to Nathan's hot dogs. I wisely chose the cheese version, while Shawn got the normal dog. It was pretty good!

After eating we walked around a bit and ran into a sideshow. For only four bucks we were promised, Mr. Block Head, Madame Elektra, Chuy the wolf boy and more.

There were times when I couldn't look. For example, the first guy took a nail, put it in his nose and hammered it back. Then he took a power drill and drill up his nose. Then he licked the drill bit clean! Shawn thought he was cute.

There was a man who had a rare disease which caused him to have excessive facial hair. He also walked across a tightrope.

The fire eating lady was pretty cool. She did little tricks with various flaming batons set to music.

All in all it was a good waste of an hour.

After that we headed to the arcade where I spanked Shawn in Dance Dance Revolution - which is an outrageously fun game.

*Funny moment* An 8-year-old kid was on Dance Dance Revolution before us. He obviously had no clue what he was doing and just jumped around (you're supposed to step on the left, right, up or down arrow in sync with a visual cue). At the end of the game in big block letters appeared the words, "GAME OVER, YOU FAILED." The kid turned to his mom and yelled, "See, I told you. I'm a failure!" I don't know why, but it struck me as really funny. Probably cuz he was a bratty kid.

We were going to get on the Wonder Wheel but it was broken down. So I didn't trust it when they got it running again. The Wonder Wheel is no ordinary ferris wheel. The outside carriages are stationary and rock a bit. But the inside carriages roll a good five feet back and forth on tracks. It looks incredibly dangerous.
If you notice in the picture above, there is a sign that says Shoot the Freak. Curious about what it was, we walked closer.
Only to discover that it was a frightening attraction where you pay money to shoot at a real live person. Shawn noted, "They're only paintballs." I was a bit horrified about it all. The concept really disturbed me. I think my friend Andy S. would have spent his life savings and his whole day playing it.
One thing that cracked me up was an animatronic of a man with diarrhea vomiting (along with really loud sound effects) outside the House of Horrors. I had to take a pic for everyone to see (fun for the whole family!).
Although the Parachute Drop hasn't operated since the 1960s it remains standing because it's on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sadly, this may have been the last weekend of its existence. A developer bought Astroland (the section of Coney Island with the rides) and isn't saying whether everything will be torn down or not. I'm glad I was able to experience it all before it goes away. :-)

Last Saturday, Shawn and his boyfriend Mason met me to take me to the gym and clothes shopping. While walking around the city they held hands. We weren't in the gay section of town - Chelsea. We were in Midtown - outside of Macy's for crying out loud with throngs of people.

I kind of had my guard up in case anyone harassed us. Nobody did.

Then when we were standing in line at H&M, Shawn was talking about his sexual escapades. There were tons of people around and I was cringing inside - constantly looking around to see if anyone would care. Nobody did.

When I got home that night I told Stephen about my day. He laughed a little and said, "Yeah. You need to get over that. People here don't care." He then told me that when we were at the diner that morning I started to lower my voice when we talked about my work and "gay issues."

I never realized I did that, but I think I see it. I'm glad I don't have to worry too much about crap like that anymore - within reason, of course. It'll be fun and liberating to say the least.

I left Phoenix a week ago today. I spent a few days in Baltimore at my sister Karen's. I thought I'd just veg out on her couch and watch TV. Instead there was a never ending parade of parents, aunts, uncles, sisters, nieces and nephews. But I can't complain because it was really nice seeing everyone.

I took the train up to NYC on Saturday and spent the day fighting the crowds at Macy's and H&M. The first pair of pants I picked up (I liked the color) Shawn screamed out, "Put those back, you are NOT wearing PLEATED pants."

I didn't realize they were pleated. And even if I knew they were, I wouldn't have cared.

Later that afternoon, Joe texted Shawn with some shopping tips for me - he wrote, "Just makes sure he doesn't get pleated pants. The last time he bought pants they were in style."

The funny part is... Shawn thought I told Joe about our experience in Macy's. I hadn't. Joe just knew I wouldn't know any better. Then yesterday, my friend Keith came over and asked to see what I bought. I showed him my pants. The first thing out of his mouth (said in a slight Louisiana drawl), "Oh LAWWD Thank GOD you didn't buy pleated pants."

I think it's hysterical. Who knew there was such a stigma against pleated pants. Actually, I guess everyone in the world but me knew.

Sunday I went to the US Open. I met up with my tennis e-mail group - Ted McCarthy, Jeremiah and Keith - and headed out to Flushing Meadows. This was the first time we all met in person. But we talk just about every day via e-mail, so it's as if we've known each other for years.

We had an absolute blast. And we all got fried in the sun. McCarthy wouldn't stop complaining. Towards the end of the day, I was so tired and sunburned that I was actually laughing at the shit coming out of his mouth. We saw a bunch of matches and I think everyone really enjoyed the day.

Highlight of the day: Seeing McCarthy sprinting while pushing Jeremiah across the tennis grounds because Keith texted him that Andy Roddick was on the practice courts shirtless. I've never seen McCarthy move so fast.

There were other funny moments as well...

At one point during a match Ivan Ljubicic was complaining to the umpire that the balls were flat. The umpire wasn't doing anything and holding things up. Finally I screamed out that I'd give them five dollars to buy new balls. The umpire quickly gave them new balls.

After McCarthy told us that he would probably have to hit the crapper because he drank too much the night before Jeremiah related the story of Serena Williams screaming out,  "I can't hold this" while having stomach cramps at Wimbledon. For some reason that made us howl with laughter so we kept screaming it.

The beauty of sitting next to McCarthy is he talks so much that people move after a few minutes leaving us with an extra seat. The downside is listening to McCarthy.

I have a bunch of observations about the city but I'll relate them later. Just wanted to let everyone know I'm alive and well. :-)

I had a dream last night that I was the teaching assistant for a music class taught by Eddie Vedder. He would sing a song and then I would lead the class discussion. When I woke up I really thought it happened.



















One of my favorite comedies is Airplane! My favorite scene is the mock talk show Point/Counterpoint when the old man says, "Shayna. They bought their tickets. They knew what they were getting into. I say let 'em crash."
I love the fact that they got Mrs. Cleaver to speak Jive.
Johnny was my first gay icon. He's hysterical.
I laughed my ass off watching this scene this morning. The fighting girls reminds me of a typical Saturday morning in the Rybka house.