Two Point Oh
It's always fun to dig up relics of internet history. Going to old web pages that you haven't visited for years but are still up (and often times in the same state you last saw them), perusing an archive of downloaded flash animations and images collected from the good days of 4Chan... amazing how much nostalgia the internet managed to cram into a few years. Wonder how long before we regard modern novelties like Facebook with the same nostalgia.
Not sure who removed this account from the friends list due to inactivity, but figured I'd give a little update regardless. I can't really be bothered to keep up with the internet the way I used to, too many things I'd simply rather do (social networking on the internet has become a part-time job which, much like WoW and Everquest II, made the otherwise enjoyable realm of computing horribly tedious). Assuming friends still hover about here at all:
I became an alcoholic. Not sure how that happened, really. Drinking was always an enjoyable activity to me, not in the "now I have an excuse to speak my mind" way so much as the "now I can stop caring about everything" manner. In the beginning, my drinking was always reserved for situations involving good friends and good times, but it didn't take long for me to realize the addictive qualities of the liquid disconnect. I would drink at least a fifth of hard liquor every day, occasionally showing up at work still on the heels of a bender. The metamorphosis in motivation was slow, creeping from "drinking for fun" to "drinking to not give a shit". House quickly became my favorite TV show because I was fascinated by the mirror image of misery I could see in High Laurie's character. I saw myself in that same state of depression. I wanted to die. So I drank more to stop caring about how depressed and eager for an ending I had become.
Then I almost did die.
A horrid car accident on a dark back road, minutes shy of midnight, two people still trapped inside the car.
I should be thankful I wasn't driving. That night was poker night, and as I am apt to do on poker nights, I drank myself into a madder stupor than usual to make my monetary sacrifices easier on the psyche. The majority of a box of wine was in my system, leaving me a stumbling, rambling, frustrated lump of ill-logic for the hours spent at the table. Prior to the night's opening, I'd asked a good friend to be my wheels for the night. My memory of leaving the table is about on par with my memory of the accident itself. That is to say, I have none.
From what has been surmised by police, witnesses and emergency response personnel, the car was speeding down the road a bit faster than would be legally permitted (not that anyone ever obeys the speed limits on enjoyable back roads). Something happened, an animal wandering onto the road, an item dropped in the car or maybe a mechanical malfunction. Something. We ran from one end of the road to the next and slammed into a power pole with enough force of impact to uproot the giant wooden stake and topple it onto the street. Power was knocked out for a few thousand people and trees, the little kindling they are, caught fire in the neighborhood. After the engine components of the vehicle were so wildly shifted the car spun off from the pole and rolled across the road a good 80 feet or so into someone's driveway, finally taking to rest on its side. The vehicle rather appropriately resembled a crushed soda can from what scene photos could share.
According to the report on the incident I was conscious while the emergency crew cut the top of the car off to get us out, but I passed out before making it to the shock trauma helicopter. The rest of the story I heard mainly from family, friends and a legion of doctors. My face less resembled a face and more a bulbous, uneven balloon of bruising. My chin up to my lower lip split open to unveil a second mouth of sorts. My nose was broken and cleaved open over the left nostril. My eyebrow just above the eyelid split. The original impact caused me to tug so violently on the clasp of the seat belt that it left a persistent bruise (still with me today) prior to breaking apart. My teeth were broken, relocated, chipped and sore. Typical to all car accidents, my neck, back and leg felt of extreme muscle stiffness. And the token take-home of major car accidents that typically ends in a very abrupt trip to the morgue, my aorta suffered such severe trauma the fragile organ tore open, allowing the blood pumped by every beat of my heart to skip all other arteries entirely and simply flood spaces in which it did not belong.
In the days since the accident I've had more than a few nights of difficult sleep. Nights of that sort are often spent laying awake and wondering why I'm still alive and tracking down all evidence and data I can to paint a clearer picture of how unreasonable my survival was (somehow this makes me feel better). An aortic rupture like that which I suffered claims life 85% of the time at the scene of the accident itself by causing the victim to bleed out internally at a very rapid pace, usually causing exsanguination in no more than 3 minutes. Of the 15% who do not die immediately at the scene, 90% exsanguinate en route to the hospital. Fortune smiled on me, though - some other tissue jostled about my insides during the accident lodged itself in the rupture, preventing the very bleeding that would steal warmth from my bones. Should a person manage to beat the 1.5% survival, the surgery necessary to repair the torn aorta is often just as risky as the injury, with a high rate of failure especially among victims already plagued by other trauma, leaving a less than 1% chance of survival. As irritating as it has become in the days since, every doctor who has been introduced to my medical history for the first time has felt an obligation to inform me that I am a "Miracle Man", lucky beyond reason. Not entirely difficult to see why.
The one great stroke of genuine luck that fell into my court was the availability of an alternative surgical method of aortic repair which brought my chances of survival from a literal zero to rather good once I made it to the hospital with a pulse. Unique to only 5 hospitals in the nation is the use of an experimental vascular surgery, minimally invasive so as not to risk death by infection and gentle to those already suffering under the effects of prior trauma. A graft, inserted through an arterial branch coming off the aorta close to my groin and inflated once in position as judged from live imagery provided by active internal scanning during the entire process. A tube of parachute material firmly hugging against the internal walls of the main artery, covering the gape completely. It saved my life when the traditional surgery used would have just as quickly ended it.
For two months after my release from the hospital I began the greater process of recovery. A finger formerly wrapped tightly in gauze was found to be broken during the accident and healed wrong, thus requiring another surgery to be broken, equipped with corrective hardware and handled back into function with regular occupational therapy. Back, neck and leg stiffness caused immense discomfort for the longest time, only easing away from constant in the past few weeks. Dental surgeries have my teeth and mouth in a once again functional state. A knot persists where my second mouth managed to split open, making the process of shaving nigh impossible, addressed by the growth of a beard that hides the scarring. My nose healed up similarly, with a very Russian Mob Boss looking scar that runs along its side. More ghastly to look at, my rib cages are no longer the symmetrical bone structures the once were, with my left side clearly indented compared to the right. Physically, the accident left me a battered shadow of the person I was. Mentally, however, things the story was very different.
Approaching things in an excessively stylized manner, the scars and dents and aches of the "New Me" may as well be physical incarnations of the outlook on life I carried for the past year and a half. My concept of life, time and relationships was bleak, leading to such a degree of boredom that I would take actions that would jeopardize my life, not in an active attempt to off myself but rather a passive method of suicide. Hanging over railings several stories high, climbing the heights of unsteady constructs, dancing on interstates and perusing properties of questionable stability all while smoking cigarettes and not demonstrating a single iota of care for the potential consequences. It was all I felt I had left, feeling alive by taunting the reaper as frequently as possible. Were I still that person, I would be enraged that I should have survived such a guaranteed expiry. Clearly that is not the person I still am.
Unlike the Man Before, I am no longer drinking on a constant basis, and this has led to two very pointed realizations. The first is a matter of memory, which is to say I am recovery memories of things said and done in the past year and a half that were like black spots in my brain just months ago. Secondly, I am able to think again. Think about complex matters, and I feel that I've rediscovered a lost part of myself that was buried away when the person I was found definition in a bottle. My approach to relationships has taken on a radically different aspect than it did, a less passive one that pursues those I care about most far more directly and attempts to engage them in activities simply for sake of having an excuse to be together. Time passes differently now, with a very clear and definite division that I can manage and work into a schedule (something I've never had before). Socialization has regained its candid nature whereas I had become a cliquish person by the end of my alcoholism spree. All are good things, and I earnestly hope they stick to my psyche and don't become relics of a mind and body still undergoing recovery.
The only good thing that I will miss from my stint of alcoholism is the motivation experienced the morning after. I imagine that most drunks would go to sleep, wake up late the next day and generally hate the headache that plague them, but my body behaved differently when coming down from a drunk. Normally I would drink till I passed out, but I would always awake early the next morning, still buzzed to a degree, and immediately spring into action, often taking the early morning opportunity to take photos. It's beyond me why my body treated alcohol this way, but I would be lying to say I will miss the motivation in the mornings to run off into the sunrise and take photos at will. However, I am sure the feeling is something I can duplicate through a saner method, and I will never stop taking photos no matter how broken and battered I become.
Time slowly rolls on and life continues to curve in unexpected directions at unexpected times. While some parts of the story feel shifted back a year and a half for a restart, others continue on in very real time. And others still are already new beginnings in a journey that has no rhyme, no reason. Life is what it is, and so long as we can go to sleep at any point and feel content with the story told there's no sense in harboring regret.
Not sure who removed this account from the friends list due to inactivity, but figured I'd give a little update regardless. I can't really be bothered to keep up with the internet the way I used to, too many things I'd simply rather do (social networking on the internet has become a part-time job which, much like WoW and Everquest II, made the otherwise enjoyable realm of computing horribly tedious). Assuming friends still hover about here at all:
I became an alcoholic. Not sure how that happened, really. Drinking was always an enjoyable activity to me, not in the "now I have an excuse to speak my mind" way so much as the "now I can stop caring about everything" manner. In the beginning, my drinking was always reserved for situations involving good friends and good times, but it didn't take long for me to realize the addictive qualities of the liquid disconnect. I would drink at least a fifth of hard liquor every day, occasionally showing up at work still on the heels of a bender. The metamorphosis in motivation was slow, creeping from "drinking for fun" to "drinking to not give a shit". House quickly became my favorite TV show because I was fascinated by the mirror image of misery I could see in High Laurie's character. I saw myself in that same state of depression. I wanted to die. So I drank more to stop caring about how depressed and eager for an ending I had become.
Then I almost did die.
A horrid car accident on a dark back road, minutes shy of midnight, two people still trapped inside the car.
I should be thankful I wasn't driving. That night was poker night, and as I am apt to do on poker nights, I drank myself into a madder stupor than usual to make my monetary sacrifices easier on the psyche. The majority of a box of wine was in my system, leaving me a stumbling, rambling, frustrated lump of ill-logic for the hours spent at the table. Prior to the night's opening, I'd asked a good friend to be my wheels for the night. My memory of leaving the table is about on par with my memory of the accident itself. That is to say, I have none.
From what has been surmised by police, witnesses and emergency response personnel, the car was speeding down the road a bit faster than would be legally permitted (not that anyone ever obeys the speed limits on enjoyable back roads). Something happened, an animal wandering onto the road, an item dropped in the car or maybe a mechanical malfunction. Something. We ran from one end of the road to the next and slammed into a power pole with enough force of impact to uproot the giant wooden stake and topple it onto the street. Power was knocked out for a few thousand people and trees, the little kindling they are, caught fire in the neighborhood. After the engine components of the vehicle were so wildly shifted the car spun off from the pole and rolled across the road a good 80 feet or so into someone's driveway, finally taking to rest on its side. The vehicle rather appropriately resembled a crushed soda can from what scene photos could share.
According to the report on the incident I was conscious while the emergency crew cut the top of the car off to get us out, but I passed out before making it to the shock trauma helicopter. The rest of the story I heard mainly from family, friends and a legion of doctors. My face less resembled a face and more a bulbous, uneven balloon of bruising. My chin up to my lower lip split open to unveil a second mouth of sorts. My nose was broken and cleaved open over the left nostril. My eyebrow just above the eyelid split. The original impact caused me to tug so violently on the clasp of the seat belt that it left a persistent bruise (still with me today) prior to breaking apart. My teeth were broken, relocated, chipped and sore. Typical to all car accidents, my neck, back and leg felt of extreme muscle stiffness. And the token take-home of major car accidents that typically ends in a very abrupt trip to the morgue, my aorta suffered such severe trauma the fragile organ tore open, allowing the blood pumped by every beat of my heart to skip all other arteries entirely and simply flood spaces in which it did not belong.
In the days since the accident I've had more than a few nights of difficult sleep. Nights of that sort are often spent laying awake and wondering why I'm still alive and tracking down all evidence and data I can to paint a clearer picture of how unreasonable my survival was (somehow this makes me feel better). An aortic rupture like that which I suffered claims life 85% of the time at the scene of the accident itself by causing the victim to bleed out internally at a very rapid pace, usually causing exsanguination in no more than 3 minutes. Of the 15% who do not die immediately at the scene, 90% exsanguinate en route to the hospital. Fortune smiled on me, though - some other tissue jostled about my insides during the accident lodged itself in the rupture, preventing the very bleeding that would steal warmth from my bones. Should a person manage to beat the 1.5% survival, the surgery necessary to repair the torn aorta is often just as risky as the injury, with a high rate of failure especially among victims already plagued by other trauma, leaving a less than 1% chance of survival. As irritating as it has become in the days since, every doctor who has been introduced to my medical history for the first time has felt an obligation to inform me that I am a "Miracle Man", lucky beyond reason. Not entirely difficult to see why.
The one great stroke of genuine luck that fell into my court was the availability of an alternative surgical method of aortic repair which brought my chances of survival from a literal zero to rather good once I made it to the hospital with a pulse. Unique to only 5 hospitals in the nation is the use of an experimental vascular surgery, minimally invasive so as not to risk death by infection and gentle to those already suffering under the effects of prior trauma. A graft, inserted through an arterial branch coming off the aorta close to my groin and inflated once in position as judged from live imagery provided by active internal scanning during the entire process. A tube of parachute material firmly hugging against the internal walls of the main artery, covering the gape completely. It saved my life when the traditional surgery used would have just as quickly ended it.
For two months after my release from the hospital I began the greater process of recovery. A finger formerly wrapped tightly in gauze was found to be broken during the accident and healed wrong, thus requiring another surgery to be broken, equipped with corrective hardware and handled back into function with regular occupational therapy. Back, neck and leg stiffness caused immense discomfort for the longest time, only easing away from constant in the past few weeks. Dental surgeries have my teeth and mouth in a once again functional state. A knot persists where my second mouth managed to split open, making the process of shaving nigh impossible, addressed by the growth of a beard that hides the scarring. My nose healed up similarly, with a very Russian Mob Boss looking scar that runs along its side. More ghastly to look at, my rib cages are no longer the symmetrical bone structures the once were, with my left side clearly indented compared to the right. Physically, the accident left me a battered shadow of the person I was. Mentally, however, things the story was very different.
Approaching things in an excessively stylized manner, the scars and dents and aches of the "New Me" may as well be physical incarnations of the outlook on life I carried for the past year and a half. My concept of life, time and relationships was bleak, leading to such a degree of boredom that I would take actions that would jeopardize my life, not in an active attempt to off myself but rather a passive method of suicide. Hanging over railings several stories high, climbing the heights of unsteady constructs, dancing on interstates and perusing properties of questionable stability all while smoking cigarettes and not demonstrating a single iota of care for the potential consequences. It was all I felt I had left, feeling alive by taunting the reaper as frequently as possible. Were I still that person, I would be enraged that I should have survived such a guaranteed expiry. Clearly that is not the person I still am.
Unlike the Man Before, I am no longer drinking on a constant basis, and this has led to two very pointed realizations. The first is a matter of memory, which is to say I am recovery memories of things said and done in the past year and a half that were like black spots in my brain just months ago. Secondly, I am able to think again. Think about complex matters, and I feel that I've rediscovered a lost part of myself that was buried away when the person I was found definition in a bottle. My approach to relationships has taken on a radically different aspect than it did, a less passive one that pursues those I care about most far more directly and attempts to engage them in activities simply for sake of having an excuse to be together. Time passes differently now, with a very clear and definite division that I can manage and work into a schedule (something I've never had before). Socialization has regained its candid nature whereas I had become a cliquish person by the end of my alcoholism spree. All are good things, and I earnestly hope they stick to my psyche and don't become relics of a mind and body still undergoing recovery.
The only good thing that I will miss from my stint of alcoholism is the motivation experienced the morning after. I imagine that most drunks would go to sleep, wake up late the next day and generally hate the headache that plague them, but my body behaved differently when coming down from a drunk. Normally I would drink till I passed out, but I would always awake early the next morning, still buzzed to a degree, and immediately spring into action, often taking the early morning opportunity to take photos. It's beyond me why my body treated alcohol this way, but I would be lying to say I will miss the motivation in the mornings to run off into the sunrise and take photos at will. However, I am sure the feeling is something I can duplicate through a saner method, and I will never stop taking photos no matter how broken and battered I become.
Time slowly rolls on and life continues to curve in unexpected directions at unexpected times. While some parts of the story feel shifted back a year and a half for a restart, others continue on in very real time. And others still are already new beginnings in a journey that has no rhyme, no reason. Life is what it is, and so long as we can go to sleep at any point and feel content with the story told there's no sense in harboring regret.