A bathroom wall, in some bar, somewhere in Kentucky....
Summer is over and I barely witnessed the sun. August disappeared. September came and went with a jaunt to Louisville, ripe with debauchery. October started with a trip back to San Francisco and a broken heart, missing the Bay. The last few months, I’ve worked myself to a pulp, torturing my body to no end. There have been 30hr work days, back to back fabrication schedules, travel, lease negotiations, and an endless stream of events. Just a few days ago, struggling to keep my head straight, I drove my work van into my neighbor’s garage. I nearly took the damned thing down, crumbling a good chunk of structure. Drive seemed like Reverse… naturally (-Well, at least I was able to make one contractor happy… that’s my stimulus package.)
Andrea and I will be headed to Alaska in November for the Andy Warhol exhibit in Anchorage. We sold a booth to a client working with the Museum. We have been asked to set it up for the opening. So, snow boots and ear muffs it is!! …or, did global warming fix that?
The studio has been moving forward, doing well. We just leased a new space two blocks from our home in Oak Park. It’s in the Harrison Street Arts District. We’re pushing for a grand opening on November 15th… I’m really looking forward to getting in there. Right now we are in the midst of painting, planning, and installing the essentials.
Before you know it, Thanksgiving will be here. (For Andrea and me, it’s our “Turkaversary "). Then, New Years will come faster than a snow squall and we will be pondering 2011 resolutions. I am scheduled to go back to Germany for a follow-up scan, January 31st. Can you believe it? 2 years now…? living with NET, and it’s almost as if I managed to ignore the majority of it. Or, I’ve kept myself busy enough to forget the details. So, I’m saying it here and now… my resolution will not be to work less. I like what I do even when it hurts. My resolution will be to “make shit count…more.” If I sand wood, every stroke will be deliberate. If I post a letter, the To and From will be neatly penned, because my hand will live longer than I. When I drink a glass of wine, I’ll let it rest on my tongue just a second or two longer. I’m going to skip the turkey and eat nothing but stuffing, because the stuffing is the meal.
Just three years ago I was officially diagnosed with Cancer. Happy Cancerversary!!! But hey, guess what? I'm still alive and well... Fu*k you Cancer! If my next MRI at the end of March shows stable disease, I will have had no progression in 1 year (Currently 10.25 months stable). Every day that I can spend with my wife, my work, friends and family, I'm happy. Now... Here we come Europe! We leave Sunday for Switzerland and Italy (Photobooth business abroad!).
My 68-ga Scans: the full disk is amazing... note the bottom row. See that the large tumor is not illuminated. More to follow. UPDATED (Q/A with Dr. Baum via Email - at end of post) 02/10.2010: Disclaimer: Trying to get to Berlin, so please excuse the typos: Yesterday I had my visit with Dr. Baum and the (68ga PET/CT scan) here in Germany. The results were interesting! After over a year of searching in the US, the primary tumor was found here in Germany in the tail of the pancreas. It is very small, around 1CM in dia. Also, Dr. Baum believes that the largest tumor in the dome of my liver (6.5CM) is actually 90% benign with a metastasis (NET / cancer) growing in the center and edge. This is very rare and Baum has only seen it one other patient in over 4200 cases. We will do more tests (FDG PET Scan) to confirm next week, but it makes a lot of sense. This conclusion was made by how that tumor reads on the scan. It has to do with receptor uptake, etc. Others could probably explain it bett...
Raptores Tilt An animal. A bird. Or more precisely, a hawk. I forgot how to write. I forgot how to explain, expound, illustrate. I forgot how to breathe and it took me a long time to learn not to forget that "e". Not a breath but breathe; a very subtle yet easy mistake. That hawk... it came back today and perched on my fence. Maybe it was too aggressive a posture to be a perch? More accurately, it might be described as a murder-tilt, swift to push off and mangle the unlucky creature below. I imagined violent beak twitches deliberately crushing miniature bones, or whatever it is hawks do to kill their prey. I imagined bits of fine short fur airborne. I imagined a tiny little scream, loud and piercing.
A bathroom wall, in some bar, somewhere in Kentucky....
Hi Anthony and Andrea!!!
ReplyDeleteJust thinking about you and catching up with your life. That's great about your space on Harrison!! That's going to be awesome.
Sounds like you guys have been super busy, that's great