Dude, You're Out There!

Sorry about the lack of health updates as of late, but here's the situation in a nutshell: when I feel great, as I have for much of the past week, I don't feel much like writing about it, as instead I tend to get a bit giddy and spend all of my time up and about trying to get my legs back under me. And when I have really bad days, as I have for the past two, I really don't feel like writing about it, as then I become that guy that pisses and moans about his medical plight on the interwebs. I finally meet with my surgeon this Friday, and I'll know much more about how my progress is coming at that point. So that's that.

Apropos of absolutely nothing, I watch an awful lot of The Simpsons. Which, by definition, means I watch an awful lot of the Fox Network.

Now, twenty years ago, The Simpsons was just about all Fox had to offer, causing the network to implement a programming strategy that can best be described as "let's throw a bunch of sh*t at the wall and see what sticks." Thus was born truly atrocious television like Get a Life, starring Chris Elliot as a 30-year old paperboy, and of course Herman's Head, starring, well, who knows. (Don't ever let anyone lump Parker Lewis Can't Lose into this category. That show was groundbreaking.)

But now Fox has some legitimate hits; House, Family Guy, the whole American Idol phenomenon...you would assume that the network was beyond train wreck television.

You would be very, very wrong. This week, while flipping through the channels, I stumbled upon the network's latest gameshow/abomination/sign of the apocalypse "Moment of Truth," in which morons prostitute themselves by answering increasingly personal and incriminating questions in exchange for 15 minutes of "fame" and a chance to earn moderate amounts of cash.

Maybe you've already seen it, but if not below is a brief sampling.





Now she's not hate-able at all, is she? I'm assuming these are actors, as nobody could possibly be willing to destroy many lives, including their own, just to make an appearance on TV. But if not, these people are worse than Hitler. *

What infuriates me the most, however, isn't even the smug manner in which the woman answers the questions, it's that the entire concept was blatantly plagiarized from a HI-larious Mr. Show skit. If you're gonna' do the lie detector bit, at least do it right.




*Not actually worse than Hitler

Monday Update

Stupid modern technology. I've got this fantastic video of my biggest accomplishment of the week -- teaching Maci to launch into my sister's pool while catching a bounced tennis ball at its apex -- and I can't upload it using the weak wireless Internet I'm currently pirating from my parents' neighbor.

/angrily shakes fist at house next door

Luckily, we thought to shoot some stills, so my little time spent outside the house this week wasn't completely for naught.

Maci, readying for take-off.


In mid-flight, ball snagged at its highest point.

Lauren with a great head-on shot. Click if you care to enlarge.

I don't want to jinx myself, but I'm currently in the midst of a fantastic three-day stretch of feeling stronger and stronger. I've started to work from home a bit each day, and even took a two block walk down the beach this weekend completely solo. It doesn't sound like much, but its a long way from my first few weeks out of surgery.

With my lovely wife attending the wedding of one of her college roommates this weekend, I took a ride down to LBI with the folks so I could briefly attend the college graduation party for one of my best -- if unlikeliest -- of friends.

Meet "Scuba" Steve Welc: recent Summa Cum Laude graduate from UNC-Wilmington, defending island champion in the 1,000 foot singles row, my hand-picked apprentice in useless Simpson's trivia, and three-time winner of the LBI Clam Chowder Cook-Off. *

We met my first year back on the stand, in 2003, when Steve was a scrawny high-school kid, I was a 28-year old graduate student, and he was the one with the direction in life. Lauren and I both took a liking to him immediately, and he won a place in our hearts at the end of that first summer when he bought Lauren a thoughtful going away gift: a giant novelty sombrero. I mean, who doesn't need one of those?

Ever since then, Lauren and I have grown to look at Steve as a younger brother. Of course, that would make Lauren and I brother and sister, which is kind of, you know, gross.

*Last accomplishment may not be true

Decisions, Decisions

If I've learned anything during my two years in Aspen, it's that sometimes it's a long, long road...

to get where you want to be.

Four weeks in today. I'm feeling much better but each day, at some point, I get a reminder of just how far I still have to go.

It also just dawned on me that with how quickly everything moved the week of the surgery, many people I spoke to in the initial days after my diagnosis are probably confused as to how I ended up with a craniotomy.

Not to get all Grey's Anatomy on you, but there are essentially three options one has when diagnosed with an aneurysm: do nothing and monitor, have the aneurysm "coiled," or have it surgically clipped shut.

The first option is rather self-explanatory, and was simply out of the question. The two weeks or so we lived with the knowledge that the aneurysm was there were the longest of my life. While the aneurysm has likely been in my brain for the majority of my life, things undeniably change once you're told that it's there; there's this omnipresent awareness of one's mortality. Even though the odds are in your favor that it won't rupture, you're also painfully aware that if it does, your odds of survival are less than 25%. That's no way to live.

Now the coiling is where things get interesting. This is a remarkably non-invasive procedure that involves going in through the femoral artery in the groin, running a small catheter all the way through the body, to the brain, and to the aneurysm, than running a small wire coil through the catheter up to the aneurysm. At this point, the aneurysm is filled with the wire coil, the coil is cut off once the aneurysm is filled, and all is well. The patient walks out of the hospital a day or two later with nothing more than a band-aid on the groin and a headache. While there are small percentage risks of stroke, seizure, and death with the procedure, the recovery time is relatively short since the skull is untouched.

As Lauren and I did our post-diagnosis research, we just assumed coiling would be my answer. Why open up your skull when you didn't have to?

Well, as we continued to dig, we found out some interesting things.

First, because the coiling is such a new technology, the long-term results are still unknown. Would the coils, if properly placed, last 30 years for an active person? There had been studies that revealed that nearly 30% of patients needed to be re-coiled, as the coils had compressed, allowing more blood to enter the aneurysm. Even worse, in some cases the metal coils had actually slipped free and entered the artery itself, causing a stroke.

In addition, the up-keep for coiling is a major pain in the ass. Angiograms (similar to coiling, they go through the groin and administer dye to the brain so they can see the vessels and arteries) are required at the 6-month mark and annually after that. Now, angiograms are an all-day affair, and they carry a small chance of stroke and death with each procedure as well.

So as I waited for the results of my diagnostic angiogram on Thursday, May 8th, I found myself surprisingly scared. Scared that the surgeon would push coiling and that it wasn't necessarily what I wanted.

As the surgeon sat down with Lauren, my parents and I, he explained his findings. Most importantly, my aneurysm had developed a secondary weak spot; a bubble on top of a bubble if you will. This meant that whatever we did, it had to be done in a hurry.

The surgeon then went on to say that based on everything he saw -- size, shape, location of the aneurysm, as well as my age and good health -- he recommended going in surgically and taking care of this thing once and for all. The disadvantage of the surgical clipping as compared to the coiling is the increased risks of surgery and the prolonged recovery from the invasive nature of the procedure. After all, a clipping involves making a large incision in the head, cutting away part of the skull, and placing a small titanium clip over the bulging aneurysm, effectively curtailing any blood flow into the aneurysm and further growth. The advantages? Once you've made it through the surgery and recovered, the aneurysm is, for all intents and purposes, gone forever. You are completely healed, the up-keep is minimal and the threat of recurrence is no different for you than anyone else on the planet. You can return to your normal life -- whatever your normal may be -- free from restrictions.

I was rather surprised to hear one of the few surgeons in the world trained to do both procedures recommend the more invasive of the two, but I understood what he was getting at. If you want to live the rest of your life -- really live the rest of your life -- would you sacrifice three months of recovery time to do it? To just be done and move on and not spend the rest of your days wondering if the quick fix is holding? I think you would.

And so would I.

What has Two Thumbs, Just Celebrated His 33rd Birthday, and Recently Underwent Brain Surgery???

THIS GUY!!!


That's an old picture of Cathedral Lake, and I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that the peaks right behind that lake are providing some epic skiing right about now. But, of course, there will be other years for that...

This was a big week for several reasons.


First and foremost, on Tuesday I was able to get off my ass long enough to stop by work and say hello to everyone. These are people I only get to see a handful of times each year, so in a perfect world our meeting would have been under better circumstances, but it was still awesome to see everyone and thank them for their genorosity. There's been a steady stream of cards and get-well gifts coming to the house from co-workers, and while all of them are tremendously meaningful, I have to give credit where credit is due: one of my firm's partners did one hell of a job nailing Maci's likeness with her card...

To be fair, Tuesday through Thursday were rather rough days for me. I don't know whether I was paying the price for being on my feet too much last weekend, or if I was going through a new stage in the healing process, but the head pain and swelling seemed to get decidedly worse over those three days. Just as my frustration was peaking, I woke up Friday feeling fantastic, and had far and away my best day post-op. I have a strong feeling it's going to be two steps forward, one step back until I'm fully recovered.

Lastly, Friday night my family came over to my parent's house for my birthday dinner. It's been a tough month for everyone, so it was rather meaningful to be able to sit down and celebrate what we've been through. What many people don't realize is for someone like me, the leading cause of a brain aneurysm is hereditary in nature, so each of my siblings has to undergo an MRA to make sure they're clear. So far we're one for one clean results (my sister), but awaiting the results for my two brothers certainly adds stress to the situation.

Having everyone over (and having the Phillies pound their way into first place) is a perfect way to take your mind off of the otherwise monotonous recovery process. While it's not quite the way I celebrated my birthday last year, again, there will be plenty of time for that.

Story Time

Who's up for a little story time?

First off, I apologize for this post in advance because while in my mind it is completely necessary, it is also undeniably self-serving. It's something I promised myself I'd do the night before my surgery, and I've finally got the energy to see this thing through.

You see, in the hours before my operation, the late-shift nurse was looking to make some casual conversation when she asked me what she probably thought was an innocuous question:

"How did you meet your wife?"

As I answered, it dawned on me that when faced with my mortality for the first time, one of my bigger regrets in life was that I hadn’t told more people the story of how Lauren and I came to be. Not that it's in any way necessary for people to know, nor is there any intrinsic benefit to anyone who hears it, it's just far and away the most illogical, amazing thing that's ever happened to me, and I fear I'd be doing myself a disservice by not getting it down on paper.

So if that sort of thing doesn't interest you, by all means, STOP READING. But if you continue, know that this story is written without a hint of hyperbole; it is 100% true. (And long…)

December 2002 was much like each month before it; stretching back a solid four years. Residing in Denver, Colorado, I lived a life of complete self-absorption. Each day was the same: wake up, train for triathlon, survive a day of work at PwC, train some more, fall asleep, repeat. My job was of secondary concern; all that truly mattered to me was athletic performance.

As a result, I wasn’t a particularly fun person to be around. Not for my friends, who missed their old drinking buddy, not for my co-workers, who knew my head wasn’t really in my work, and certainly not for any women that found their way into my life, who quickly learned that I didn’t have enough energy left over after swimming, cycling, running, and working to commit to any type of relationship.

And sadly, I was just fine with that. For a number of reasons, all rather pathetic in retrospect, I committed that period of my life to racing. I had become bitter and jaded by my corporate existence, and I found a lot of the instant gratification missing in my work life in my athletic pursuits.

That same cynicism carried over into my dating life, and to be frank, I simply stopped believing in the storybook concept of “love.” I had spent time with a number of women over the previous few years, but I never had any delusions that I was supposed to spend my life with any of them. I knew them for what they were: good people who were fun to be around, but never serious candidates to be a lifelong companion. I grew to look at the women in my life the same way I looked at my career: I pegged myself as entirely too complicated to find a job that made me happy in all respects; why should a woman be any different? There’s a reason that the divorce rate in this country is inching over 50%, and I wrote it off to the increasing complexities of the average person and the resulting unlikelihood that there was someone else out there that could manage, cope, and learn to appreciate said complexities.

As a result, I was in no hurry to find love. I was content living my selfish existence, and I dealt with any loneliness by increasing my commitment to my bike, to the trail, to the pool.

As tradition dictated, I headed home to NJ for the 2002 holidays on December 18th. Soon after, I got a call from my best friend Dean, inviting me to a Christmas party at my buddy Les’ house. I can clearly remember wavering, as Christmas parties in your late twenties are dominated by close-knit groups of friends, and what did I have to add living 2,000 miles away?

I decided to go, however, as Dean and Les are fantastic guys, and I figured if nothing else I’d spend the night catching up with them. So I drove the twenty minutes or so over to Les’ house, grabbed a beer, and sat down with Dean. That’s when everything changed.

Lauren walked in, and absolutely floored me. She was, without question, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. She was…perfect. It wasn’t enough that she was as beautiful as she was; it’s that unlike most beautiful women, she seemed to have no idea just how beautiful she was. She lit up any room she walked into, yet it didn’t appear to matter to her that anyone even knew she was there. I was fascinated, and I had to know more.

Before I’d even said hello to Lauren, I leaned in to Dean and asked, “Who is that?” Dean gave me a confused look, and answered, “You know Lauren Fares, don’t you?”

I didn’t, but as Dean explained why I should, I couldn’t believe it. The opportunities to meet had been more than plentiful; in fact, the shock was that we were strangers. We grew up in the same small town, but Lauren went to Catholic schools while I spent my formative years as a public school punk. My brother knew her sister; my sister knew her brother. Stranger still, our parents owned homes one block apart on Long Beach Island. And if that weren’t enough, her college roommate at St. Joes was my senior year high-school girlfriend. How could we have not met?

Well, one way or another we hadn’t, but that was about to change. I said hello, and spent the rest of the night making small talk with Lauren and her friends. She never showed any particular interest in me, but truthfully, I didn’t care. She was amazing to listen to; so smart, so sweet, so absolutely lacking in pretension. I was falling in love by the second, and by the time I left that party I was convinced of something, something I would share with anyone that would listen: I had just met the girl I was going to marry.

Now, as I mentioned before, this wasn’t supposed to happen to me. I wasn’t looking for love, particularly not love 2,000 miles away in a state I had no plans to return to. But I couldn’t deny what I felt, which is the simple truth that I was supposed to find her, love her, marry her, and take care of her for the rest of my life.

The next day, I was standing in the kitchen with my mother, who asked me how my night went. I had to tell her. “Mom, you’re not going to believe this, but I met the girl I’m going to marry last night.” She heard me out, and then raised the question I hadn’t yet considered, “What’s your next step?”

Hmmm. Good point. I had nothing: no phone number, no further meeting set up, nothing. As certain as I was that she was the one, I hadn’t really thought this whole thing out. What I did have, however, was an invitation from some of Lauren’s friends to join them that night as they swung by Lauren’s family Christmas party. I knew I had to see her again, so I picked up the phone and called one of her friends and set up a time to meet that night so we could head over to the party. And maybe, just maybe, if things played out right, I’d get a chance to tell Lauren how I felt.

Arriving at the party, I quickly met the entire Fares clan: Mom, Dad, brother, cousins, aunts, Lauren’s boyfriend, wait...what? Boyfriend? I didn’t remember any boyfriend being mentioned last night?

You’d think that would have done me in, but it didn’t. I simply sat and watched her flawlessly handle the complicated family/friends/boyfriend dynamic, and as she sang Christmas Carols with the 30+ party members, I was more convinced than ever: she was perfect, and whatever happened to me in life and wherever I ended up, I would love this girl in some capacity for the rest of my days. Even if she never knew it.

As I prepared to leave the party, I noticed her father standing alone in the family room. I can remember it as clearly as if it happened yesterday. I thought to myself, "You might want to go over and say hello; it may come in handy some day.” So I did, and we spent several minutes talking about life in Colorado, the potential for law school, etc… Eventually, someone else came over to speak to him, so I said my goodbyes, left the party, and left Lauren, presumably forever.

December 26th, I was on plane from New Jersey to Portland, Oregon, where I would spend my New Years Eve at a client site. Six hours is an awfully long time to spend on a plane, particularly when you’ve just had your heart pulled out of your chest.

As I crossed the country, something dawned on me. From the moment Lauren walked into Les’ party, I was certain of one thing: in 27 years of existence, nobody, and I mean nobody, had ever affected me the way she did. How do you not share that with the person? What did I have to lose? I was 2,000 miles away, she had a boyfriend; in all likelihood, I would never see her again.

But thinking of all the times I, like most people, questioned my self worth, or hated what looked back in the mirror, why should she be any different? And if she did have the same doubts, did have moments of weakness where she wondered what she had to offer, why wouldn’t she want to hear that someone, somewhere, thought she was as beautiful and wonderful as it comes.

So I made up my mind: I would call her, and I would tell her. I’d skip the whole “I’m going to marry you,” bit because it was nonsensical. I was in Denver, she was teaching special education in New Jersey, she had a boyfriend, I was a headcase, why bother? If I was right about that part, fate would take care of the rest. At that moment, that part wasn’t important; what was, however, was that she learn just how amazing she was.

Two days into my stay in Portland, I started the “find Lauren’s phone number” quest. I called my buddy Fish from Jersey, and asked if he had it. When he asked why, I explained what had happened, and he encouraged me that I was doing the right thing. He gave me the number to her family house, which eventually led to Lauren’s apartment number. It took days to muster the courage, but on New Years Day 2003, I dialed her number. Answering machine…

I left a relatively short, certainly rambling, “It’s Tony Nitti from last week…can you give me a call when you get chance?”

The next afternoon, I was walking through the mall attached to my client’s office after grabbing a late lunch. My phone rang, and my heart stopped. It was her….

I answered, but I was in no position to say what I had to say, so I asked her if I could call her right back.

Walking back to the office, I ran through everything in my mind that I wanted to say. I had one chance to let this girl know how I felt, and I needed to get it right.

Returning to the office, I grabbed a conference room, locked the door, drew a deep breath, and dialed the number. When she answered, I made a couple of seconds of small talk, and then launched into instant embarrassment. I told her everything…That she was the most beautiful, most amazing person I’d ever met, and I couldn’t live the rest of my life without her knowing. I knew she had a boyfriend, I knew I would likely never see her again, but how could I not tell her? I explained to her that there may come a time in her life when she wasn’t happy with who she was, and in that moment, it may help her to know that someone thought she was the most beautiful person on the planet. If I could accomplish just that, than humiliating myself on this call was worth it.

Lauren, to her credit, simply listened. She took it all in, probably struggled with the standard female response of “what is he after” when a guy lays a string of compliments on you, before realizing that I was clear across the country, and I wasn’t asking for a date, or for her to feel the same way about me, or for, well, anything. I just wanted her to know how wonderful she was, and she was gracious enough to allow me to do just that.

When we hung up, I felt at peace. I knew that things had likely gone as far as they would, but again, that wasn’t the point. The point was to be able to move on in my life without regret, and I could now do so. If I was going to end up with this girl, I had done my part. The rest was seemingly out of my hands. So life went on…

As winter continued on, other areas of my life were reaching a crossroads. At work, I had been promoted to tax manager, and I was now spending two weeks a month traveling around the country, dealing with huge clients on the west coast. I was also attending graduate school part time at the University of Denver’s Graduate Tax Program. I hated my job, but loved the class time. That told me something.

What it told me was that my career was progressing faster than my brain. I was getting promoted and handed more responsibility, but I hadn’t actually learned shit. I was getting dumber by the day, delving into the world of client hand-holding and large project management, things that neither made me happy nor appealed to my desire for intellectual stimulation.

The classroom, as you might imagine, was the exact opposite. It was pure information; tax law stripped down to its purest form. Each night I left class, I was significantly brighter than when I had arrived, and that appealed to me in a big, big way.

I plugged along, unsure of what options I really had. I needed money, so walking away from the job didn’t seem like an option, particularly when the full-time graduate tax program was 29K. With my firm paying for my part-time classes, I was getting free education; quit the job, lose the tuition.

February came around, and as Valentine’s Day approached, a certain girl popped into my mind. Against my better judgment, I asked my old high-school girlfriend for Lauren’s email, and then in a gesture of unbridled stupidity, sent Lauren a song on February 14th. This song here…

Lauren responded, keeping things generic: “I loved the song. It was a great one. Take care of yourself.” Again, it didn’t upset me. After all, I knew she had a boyfriend, what was I expecting? But when you listen to the words of that song, man….it was just too perfect to not send.

April arrived, and I was stuck in Portland as the Final Four approached. It had been a tradition of mine to sneak back to New Jersey and surprise my Dad whenever I could for the final weekend of the NCAA tournament, and this year was no different. I made the plans two weeks in advance, cleared it with my clients and my firm, and hopped on a plane the Friday prior to the Final Four for the six hour ride back to NJ.

Arriving in New Jersey, my brother Mike picked me up from the airport so I could surprise my Dad at the restaurant at which my family was having dinner. Before we could hit the restaurant, however, I had to stop by the house to address the dozen emails I had received on my phone from my Portland client. There was nothing I could do: they knew I was going home, knew I was surprising my father, but they just didn’t care. They wanted answers, and they wanted it now. So as I logged onto my laptop and started responding to request after request, my brother Mike, in a sentence I will never forget, said to me, "Dude, you’re 27. How important can you be?”

And it hit me like a bolt of lighting…he’s absolutely freaking right. This work isn’t that important. And I’m certainly not that important. They’re doing this to me because nobody cares anymore. There is no delineation between work time and personal time; your attention is expected whenever the client needs it, regardless of personal pursuits.

And just like that I was done. I knew I wanted out of that life, that pressure. I just needed a way, and school was the answer. In March, I had finished my third class at DU, and the professor for all three classes had been the director of the program, the guy that called all of the shots. I cared immensely about school, diving into it with everything I had, and was fortunate to land the top grade in each of the three classes. Apparently, this didn’t go unnoticed by the director, a brilliant and kind man by the name of Mark Vogel.

Professor Vogel called me at work one day in March, and extended the following invitation. Should I ever wish to attend the program full-time, he would “help” me with tuition. I had no idea what that meant, but I was about to find out.

I called Professor Vogel and told him my plan. I was going to leave my job at PwC, and head to DU full time. But...not until the fall. Until then, I was going to spend the summer getting my life back together, lifeguarding on Long Beach Island in New Jersey and essentially spending two months forgetting I’m an adult.

To this Professor Vogel simply responded, “Come see me in the fall, a couple of days before class starts.” Wait….don’t I need to fill out some forms, apply for a scholarship, something? “Come see me before school,” he answered. Not exactly the safest way to walk away from a secure job, but what did I have to lose?

So I placed one more call, to Mark Dileo, captain of the Surf City Beach Patrol. At this point, a Nitti had been on the squad for nearly two decades, and Mark had developed a soft spot in his heart for the three Nitti brothers. He guaranteed me a spot, and my mind was made up. I’d quit my job in late May, spend the summer on the beach, return to DU in September, finish the program the following June, and figure out the rest of life from there.

Now, what I haven’t mentioned in any of these plans is what they referred to in Good Will Hunting as “finding out about a girl.” As late May neared, I had no reason to believe that anything would change with Lauren. For all I knew, she still had a boyfriend…hell, they could even be engaged.

But I had her phone number, I had her email address…why not just tell her I was coming home and see where she stands? I spent a lot of time debating this as my departure date grew closer, and I made a choice, one that may strike you as strange.

From the beginning, everything about this girl has been different. Everything. She made me believe in concepts -- fate and love -- that I had spent my entire life mocking. As I packed up my car, I believed then, as I had six months prior, that I would spend the rest of my life with her. Now I was heading back to her state, and I truly believed that if I was right about everything, the rest would take care of itself. A huge leap, I agree, but this part of my life was about huge leaps.

There are few things as universally disparate from life as a CPA than lifeguarding on the ocean. No thinking involved, no confining cubicle, just sun, sand, and enough 19 year-old co-workers to make you forget all about 401(k) balances and mortgage rates.

I cherished my time on the stand, not so much because I wasn’t in an office, but because for the first time in five years, I felt alive. It was such a pure life: sit the stand, workout; sit the stand, workout. Over and over and over again. Take the boat out for a row, the board out for a paddle, go for a swim in the ocean, and get paid for it. Life was good.

As a new guard, I could have been stationed on any of Surf City’s 24 streets. But Mark, kind man that he is, squeezed me in on 4th Street, meaning I was one block from my house, but more importantly, I was stationed at the end of the street a certain girl lived on.

As July rolled around, I still hadn’t seen Lauren. For all I knew, she could have moved in with her boyfriend, and the beach wasn’t in her plans for the summer. Even worse, I had come down with a wicked case of bronchitis, and had been obscenely sick for almost a week.

My first day back on the stand, still running a high fever but embarrassed to miss freaking lifeguarding of all things for sick time, I ran home during one of my breaks for a quick lunch. As I rode my bike back up 4th Street to return to the stand, I saw someone I thought I recognized. It took me a couple of seconds to place, but I did: it was Lauren’s father! I immediately thought back to that Christmas party, and the choice I made and I thought to myself, “fate.”

A quick shout over, and her father and I caught up as we walked onto the beach together. As we neared the top of the dune, he mentioned, “Come say hi to Lauren. She’s down on the beach!”

And that, my friends, is the very definition of fate. I said hello, offered her a Starburst, and she suggested we grab some ice cream that night. For three hours we talked and talked, and I did my best to hide the fact that I still had a 101 degree fever and bad chills. At the end of the night, I walked her home, and we spent a quiet couple of minutes in front of her house. I thought of everything I had wanted to say to her for the past seven months, and this is what came out:

“Lauren, I have had seven months to remember only the best parts of you. It would have been entirely too easy to build you up in my mind to an unattainable reality. But after spending tonight with you, the only thing I’m sure of is that the way I’ve remembered you didn’t even begin to do you justice.”

We’ve been together ever since. There was never any struggle, never any break up/make up, just… us, from Day 1.

When September came around, I had to go back to Denver and finish grad school. Luckily, Professor Vogel came through with a full scholarship, so when I graduated the following May, I had a small amount of savings left over.

As I packed up my life in Denver to move back to New Jersey and start my life with Lauren, I knew exactly what to do with that money. I searched and searched and searched, and when the right jeweler pulled out the right ring, I knew it right away. I took the last of my savings, and on June 26th, 2004 we were engaged.

Looking back at it now, it is completely illogical that I had to move 2,000 miles away to meet and marry a girl from my hometown, and we would end up living in Aspen, Colorado together. When I think about the string of events that had to occur for that first meeting to not have turned into a lifetime of “What ifs,” it’s truly remarkable to me that we ended up together.

For 33 years, the one thing I’ve been certain of is that I don’t know anything about anything. But it turns out I got one thing right.

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

No driving. No working. Nothing more strenuous than the occasional walk. How exactly does one pass the time when they're faced with a 12-week sentence of inactivity? For me, it's been a combination of the below...

1. Bad, Bad TV

God bless my parents, who pay for every movie channel available on Comcast while at the same time being blissfully unaware that their TV goes beyond channel 25. Since I pretty much spent 18 hours per day for the first two weeks of my post-op time lying on their couch, remote in hand, I grew rather intimate with some of the more recent offerings emanating from the laptops of lazy Hollywood hacks. A quick review:


Fantastic 4, Rise of the Silver Surfer: Freaking terrible. There is absolutely no way more than two hours, including a break for lunch, were spent writing the script for this abomination. I know comic book movies aren't traditionally rife with intriguing dialogue, but for God's sake, this was an embarassment. And that kind of professional apathy doesn't go unnoticed by the talent. If you pay close enough attention, you can actually pinpoint the exact moment 18 minutes in when the actors stopped trying. And as for plot points, the inaccuracies from the classic comic book story lines are too egregious to let slide. First of all, the Silver Surfer is NOT dependant on his board as a power source. Basic fact of character history. But much more importantly, how in the hell does the Surfer, after going through a thirty second moral crisis, take on and defeat Galactus? Galactus eats freaking planets, and he can't handle a guy on a surfboard? It's maddening I tell you.

DaVinci Code: Meh. Sparking religious controversy may sell 8 trillion books, but it doesn't guarantee a good motion picture. The whole thing felt a bit labored; trying to stay true to the book while cutting out the majority of the scathing anti-Christianity rhetoric to save the pious demographic. One guys opinion? This will rank somewhere between The 'Burbs and Joe Versus the Volcano in the ol' Tom Hanks Lifetime Achievement listing.

Stranger Than Fiction: Now we're talking. Aside from being a great film, this movie represents the sole response to those that say Will Ferrell plays the same character in every role: overly exuberant figure skater in Blades of Glory, overly exuberant anchorman in Anchorman, overly exuberant soccer coach in...ah, you get the idea. Perhaps I'm biased because Ferrell plays the stereotypical IRS agent with aplomb, or maybe I just dig Maggie Gylenhall's over-the-top liberal craziness, but I love this flick. Quality writing, interesting dynamics between unlikely love interests, and a fantastic supporting role played by Dustin Hoffman. Kudos all around.

2. Reuniting with Old Music

Spent some time going through the CD collection with Lauren. With everything being IPOD-centric these days, anything that hasn't been converted to digital format has been relatively ignored for the past few years. So we dropped the discs into our CD player on the way down the beach for the weekend and reunited with some of our favorite bands:

The Refreshments: The Bottle and Fresh Horses As with most of the finer music I've come across in my life, I was introduced to the Refreshments by my brother Dave. Playing this CD the other day, it dawned on me that it's been a full decade since Dave first urged me to give them a listen. Of course, by the time I fell in love with the music the band ceased to exist, but the lead singer went on to form Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, which while a bit of a more country sound, is still quality stuff. As for the Refreshments, they cranked out two CDs, and I dare you to find a bad song on either. Roger is a fantastic lyricist, and the band just had a super unique sound, as evidenced below.

Jellyfish: Greatest Hits Definately more of a pop sound, but their anti-institutional bent and ridiculously innovative lyrics won me over early on. Impossible to stay in a bad mood with this CD going. Andy Sturmer, drummer and lead singer, has gone on to do some other interesting projects, but in my mind, this was his apex.




Marvelous 3: Cigarette Lighter Love Song Ahh, Butch Walker. I'm plenty comfortable in my sexuality to admit my man-crush on the former lead singer of the Marvelous 3 turned solo artist. Dave sent me a Marvelous 3 CD in 1999, my first year living in Denver, and Butch's music has dominated my listening choices ever since. Pure genius, plain and simple. Brilliant songwriter and the best live performer you'll ever see. The talent literally pores out of the guy when he's on stage, and you can't help but laugh to yourself at some of the people who've made it huge without an ounce of his ability. Luckily, Butch has made a fortune as a producer, so he finances his own music and will keep it coming for as long as he chooses. Lauren loves him every bit as much as I do, so its something special we share, and we've made an effort to see him live at least once in each of the past four years. I've thrown two vids on here for your listening pleasure.

Enjoy.

3. Hanging with the Puppy

As you may or may not be aware, I've got a bit of an unhealthy attachment to my 1-year old yellow lab, Maci. In Aspen, she lives the life of Riley, coming with me everwhere: to work, to ski, to hike, you name it. That sort of relationship lends itself to a touch of separation anxiety when a 1-week hospital stay keeps you apart.

This weekend, I finally got to make up for lost time. Spending the weekend at LBI, I mustered the energy each day to walk Maci down to the bay so she could do some swimming. Now last summer, when we were on the island, Maci was only 5 months old and her swimming career was in its infacy. It wasn't until we returned to Aspen in August that she developed a penchant for finding the highest entry point into a body of water and launching herself off it at full speed.

I was curious if this sense of adventure would carry over to a larger, more ominous body of water. It didn't take long for us to get our answer.

Maci approaching her take off.

In full flight, a good 10-15 feet from the bulkhead.

Splash down.

I've got to tell you, spending some time outside, with Lauren and Maci, has done wonders for my recovery. I'm feeling much stronger each day, and looking a bit less like Frankenstien as well. I really appreciate the cards and gifts that have shown up at the house; you people are amazing. I look forward to seeing you all soon. In the meantime, I'll keep killing time as best I can!!

Guess Who's Back....Back Again....

I've gotta' tell you, there are few things in life as pressure-filled as writing your first post back after brain surgery. Two weeks ago, my writing could be littered with grammatical and spelling errors, and everyone would just right it off as blog "informality." Make those same mistakes now, however, and everyone reading will think my surgeon wasn't on his "A" game. Tough spot to be in...

The truth is, I am doing fantastic. I'd be lying if I said the surgery didn't kick me in the ass a tad more than anticipated, but that was the SURGERY, not the surgery. What I mean by that is, the complexities specific to my surgery -- clipping off the aneurysm without disrupting my speech, vision, short-term memory or right side of my body -- were all handled with relative ease and resulted in no complications. What I underestimated, however, was just how intrusive the access to the aneurysm would be: how large the incision, how painful the swelling, how debilitating the medications.

It has been this big-picture recovery process that has kept me from updating everyone until now. I've pretty much spent the past two weeks doing nothing but sleeping; feeling a bit stronger each day but also seeing that progress offset by the cumulative effect of the medications and overall laziness. There have been no complications, it's just been the necessary penance for having one's head sliced open from widow's peak to ear.

I feel like this morning may have been my turning point, as I'm now a few days out from the last of my steroids and codeine and the anticipated adverse reaction seems to have run its course. I've been awake all day, and my headache from the prior two days seems to have resolved on its own.

For those reasons, I wanted to come on line and let everyone know I was feeling fine, and thank you again for all of your kind words. There is much I'd like to say and share about my experience, but I've got to crawl before I walk. I'll be back on soon...

Tony