They wheeled me down to the lab areas and hooked me up to an EKG. This, of course, involved the removal of old leads and the attachment of new leads, along with the associated hair loss. I was then taken to a room where I was put on a bed, arms reaching straight past my head, and positioned over a giant, rotating camera. This camera would take pictures of my heart at rest and would only take 24 minutes or so. My arms were over my head because the camera has to be close to get the proper imaging and the arms get in the way. This would be a bad position for me normally, but I was still mildly wrecked from the check-in and the drugs so it didn’t really hurt much. I believe an imaging drug was injected into my IV, then the camera started its circuit. I actually dozed off several times during this procedure, which help speed the time along, though it fogs my recollection.

After the pictures were finished, I was wheeled into another room for my stress test. Here I was still hooked up to an EKG and I was administered some adenosine to simulate exercise conditions on my heart. Here’s the first, but not the last, time that I experienced the same symptoms that I felt during the first couple of nights of my heart attack. The teeth aching sensation came back as well as the shortness of breath and burning sensations. An imaging drug was injected after a bit and later I was wheeled back into the camera room. Another series of pictures was taken of my heart under stress. The two series of pictures would be compared to determine where the problem areas were and the extent of ischemia (reduced blood flow). All I know is that I managed to fall asleep again during the second round of pictures and actually woke myself up by snoring a couple of times.

I’m not really sure how long this process took all told, what with the constant naps and the fact that I didn’t have access to any timekeeping devices, but I imagine it was a couple of hours at the least. Regardless, it was completed and I was wheeled back to my room to rest. Thankfully I had family and friends to come by and visit me, plus the endless parade of nurses, doctors and residents.

Eventually, the doctor stopped by with the results from the stress test. The heart attack had occurred in the lower right portion of my heart and blood flow still wasn’t good. I needed to get to the cath lab for a catheterization procedure to determine the best course of action to reopen the clogged artery. I was scheduled for the next day.

I was wheeled down to the cath lab in the morning and placed in a curtained off stall in a large room. The room was full of nurses bustling about, patients in the many other stalls and the occasional group of doctors. The ceilings of the stalls each had a different nature scene backlit by a fluorescent light, presumably to calm the patient who had little else to look at, given their prone position. I was given a “light” anesthetic, but I was to be awake for the procedure. My assumption is that I was given too much of this anesthetic, because I was pretty well out of it for most of the catheterization. Basically the doctors made an incision in my femoral artery, right in the groinal-area, and threaded a plastic tube up through the artery and into my heart. Once in the suspect arteries, they injected some dye so get a good look on the camera and then they dumped some more adenosine in me. This brought on the symptoms of yet another heart attack, but they were watching my heart to see exactly what was happening to the organ under stress. It was during this procedure that they could see the artery feeding the right part of my heart was 99% blocked. At this point the decision was made to put in a drug-coated stent.

A stent is a tube of metal, kind of like chickenwire, put on the balloon portion of a traditional angioplasty in a collapsed state. It’s inserted into the artery and the balloon is inflated. The stent pushes the blockage to the walls of the artery and holds it there, providing a better opening than angioplasty alone. The drug works to combat re-clogging of the artery. As part of having a drug-coated stent, I’m required to stay on anti-clotting meds, in this case Plavix, in order to prevent possible issues with clots forming around the stent. As I understand it, I’ll be on Plavix for at least two years, which is fine by me if it means avoiding a clot and another, possibly fatal, heart attack.

Again, my memory of the first visit to the cath lab is fuzzy. I remember the room, the symptoms returning and somebody yelling at me to “breathe”, which I think might not have been a very good sign. The last thing I remember is waking up to someone telling me not to move my right leg, which of course I immediately did. This led to a problem with suturing up the incision in the femoral artery, which is a bad thing as the femoral artery is one of the big ones that will cause a person to bleed out in a short amount of time if its lacerated. I believe the doctor cursed when I moved, and I spent the next 6 to 8 hours or so with a plastic contraption pressing on my groin to keep pressure on the wound. Not fun. Or comfortable. I also have a nice knot of scar tissue there now.

I don’t remember too much about the rest of the day, except spending it in my bed. I had family and friends visiting and hanging out, which was great. Nurses were in and out on a regular schedule to check out the groin area for bleeding. I was still having bits of pain though, despite all the work done. I slept fine that night and the next morning followed up with the Cardiologist. I told him that I was still having some pain and he decided that I needed another visit to the cath lab. While I had one artery that was 99% blocked, I also had another artery that was 60-70% blocked. He wanted to get more information on this artery to see if it was the cause of my continued pain. As I understand it, a second visit to the cath lab is unusual.

But I was scheduled for a visit the next day, and away I went. The scene was pretty much identical to what I described above. As the team of doctors wheeled me into the cath lab, I mentioned that I was definitely NOT going to move my leg this time. This caused some laughter and one of them said, “Oh I remember you! You better not move your leg again!” I promised I wouldn’t. I wasn’t nearly as heavily sedated this time, so I had a better recollection of the procedure. This time I ended up with a bare metal stent in the other blocked artery. Turns out it was closing down under stress. This second stent resolved the pain issue and now I was just in the hospital for recovery and observation. Oh, and I didn’t move my leg which means that I didn’t have a big plastic contraption clamped onto my groin and several hours of bleeding. Upgrade!

So now I have two bits of chickenwire in my chest. At my mother’s suggestion, I decided they needed names. I chose Jake and Elwood in honor of the Blues Brothers and their foray into country. Remember the chickenwire?

I spent the next couple of days moving around more and more, visiting with my family, friends and coworkers who stopped by, and generally recovering from the entire ordeal. I was given initial overviews of recommended diet plans, changes to my drinking, introduced to the idea of cardiac rehab and even spent some time just hanging out with the Cardiologist who watched a half-inning of a Red Sox game with me. I was given prescriptions for all the drugs I would be taking, and am continuing to take, as well as a bottle of nitroglycerin for emergencies. I transferred these to a small, metal container I bought from CVS specifically for this purpose and now carry them on my keychain. A friend of my father’s and I compared our nitro containers one night not too long after I got out of the hospital…I did not realize I had joined a fraternity or sorts. Several follow-up appointments were scheduled for me and I was given the lowdown about how long I would be out of work. The doctor really kind of left it up to me so I kept myself out for the month of October. Come to find out, most people take a lot longer than that to get back to work, especially since work-stress is often a big cause of heart attacks. Oh well, I don’t like to be a slacker on someone else’s dime (I was on short-term disability leave at this point).

On the first Saturday after checking in, I was released. My brother came down from Vermont and drove my stinky ass (no showers, only sponging myself off) back to my apartment so I could pick up some necessities, which was very cool of him to do. Then he drove me down to my parent’s house where I would stay while continuing my recovery. This insured that I wasn’t alone in case of an emergency and, since I wasn’t allowed to drive until the doctor gave me permission, I had to mooch rides off my folks to get my prescriptions and to get to my appointments. They’re patient and selfless folks, those parents of mine.

So ended my stay in the hospital and the beginning of all the changes I would make to try and prevent another heart attack from hitting.

I spend 5 or 10 minutes in the chair watching the TV, checking my phone and trying to avoid any flying particles of sputum being flung about the room by the other inhabitants of the emergency room waiting area. A nurse arrives and just like that, I’m being led to a room to get hooked up to an EKG. I once had a leaking appendix that was on the verge of bursting and it took me five hours to get some attention (and some emergency surgery), but I complain of chest pains and I’m getting cared for in minutes. Perhaps there’s an upside to this heart attack thing? Nah, probably not.

The nurse attaches the leads for the EKG and monitors me for a few minutes. She takes the readout somewhere and, after a few more minutes, she’s back to put me in a wheelchair and take me down to an emergency triage area where a line of beds separated by curtains is awaiting customers. I get laid down on a bed in the middle of the room, get some blood drawn and an oxygen feed hooked into my nose. I was hooked up to some kind of IV but don’t recall if I was given any drugs at this point. I do remember that I was bummed because I was going to miss both the new Simpsons and the new Family Guy (my priorities are normal, right?). Then I heard the head nurse, an Irish-accented guy named Gary, tell one of his coworkers that he was going to see if he could change the channels of the two TVs in the room to Fox to watch those shows. Talk about lucking out! Then I realized I couldn’t actually see either of the TVs on the wall. I was smack in the middle of the room and the TVs were both blocked by the curtains that separated me from my neighbors on the right and the left.

Gary and I started chatting about the shows and he made an attempt to get me access to at least one of the TVs by pulling back the curtains of the bed on my right halfway while no one was in there. That was great, but didn’t last long because another patient was wheeled in after just a few minutes. I would have asked if they minded leaving the curtain back a little, but the woman was crying and I figured that she probably wasn’t in the best of spirits to accommodate my TV watching habits. I listened instead and waited in my bed. After a good time a doctor, perhaps performing his residency, comes by my bed and informs me that I have, indeed, suffered a heart attack. He tells me that they’re going to check me in as soon as they find an available room. At that point I felt a little drop in my stomach, but really it wasn’t that big of a shock so I wasn’t really upset. In fact, if anything, I was probably more embarrassed that I’d gotten myself into this situation, and then took five days getting to the hospital. Regardless, I’m on the mindset that once something like this has happened, there’s pretty much nothing you can do about it so you might as well look to the future (assuming there is one) and work on the next steps.

I made some phone calls to let my parents know what was up as well as my sister up in Vermont. I then called my boss and asked him if her remembered that my vacation was over and I was supposed to be at work the next day. After a pause and a suspicious-sounding “yes”, I told him that I would have to take a few more days off because I was in the hospital with a heart attack. I’m all about the comedy.

Not too long after that, some nurses came over and started wheeling me away from the triage area to my room. As they wheeled I called out to Gary, a fellow Simpsons-nerd, and said, “Hey Gary, is it sad that my first thought after being told I’d had a heart attack was the Simpsons episode where Homer has a heart attack and says to Doctor Hibbert, ‘but the worst is behind me, what doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger, right?’ and the doctor says, ‘oh no, quite the contrary. You’re frail as a kitten’ and then starts smacking Homer around?” Gary got a good laugh out of that and even the nurses pushing my fat ass around chuckled a bit. I made some small talk and joked around with the nurses and assistants pushing me up to my room, especially how half the hospital was pitch black for some reason, and before long I was deposited in my room - a private one, at that. Apparently the cardiac care units are all private rooms, so yet another (dubious) benefit of having a heart attack.

By this time I was pretty wrecked, and to be honest I’m still pretty hazy on the details of my time spent in my hospital room. This is especially true now, some 8 months after the event. I can’t say for sure who came to my room that first night, what drugs I was on or even whether I had dinner or not (I think I did). I know that eventually I met up with my cardiologist, Dr. Bartholomew Woods, who asked me about my lifestyle and health history. I remember that he put on Ativan as an anti-anxiety drug because he was worried about the amount I drank. As a drinker, you cannot explain to non-drinkers that you’re not an alcoholic without them assuming that, because you’re denying it, you must be one. Didn’t really bother me one way or the other, but I figured it was better to be honest about the amount and frequency of my drinking, as well as everything else. It’s hard enough trying to diagnose someone when they’re not giving you the whole truth.

All I can say for sure was that I was pretty comfortable in that room and that I slept pretty well, except for the expected awakenings by the nurses as regular intervals for drug administration. I was hooked up to a telemetry unit that transmitted my vital stats to monitors at the nurses station. I was soon to learn just how much body hair I would lose during my week’s stay at the hospital from the constant attaching, detaching and reattaching of leads for these telemetry units as well as the various IVs and blood-taking bandages.

Soon I would have my parents at my side as often as they could. My mother was a saint spending as much time as she did in my room and acting as my second set of ears and eyes on everything the nurses and doctors told me. You can never go wrong having a friend or family member present when this kind of thing happens, because I was hopped up on drugs and the sheer experience of having a heart attack that I couldn’t remember most things for more than a little while and that extra set of ears is invaluable. My mother knows this from experience and made it a point to act in that role, as well as providing all the love and support that great moms do. My father was there a ton as well, and many of my family came from all over to see me, which was great. Those that could sent great gifts and their love, which was excellent. Plus I got some surprise visits from coworkers, both past and present, and some of my friends. It’s great to have that kind of support when you’re in a situation like that and I thank them all once more for taking the time out to come to one of the least hospitable places in the world in order to give me a little support - much appreciated!

So that’s the story of my entrance to the hospital. Next up will be the details of my catheterizations and the other tests I was subjected too while in the hospital.

It was the end of September, 2007 and I was taking a week off from work for no other reason than I needed to burn some vacation days. I can be a bit of a workaholic and had lost two weeks of paid vacation the year before because I didn’t take enough time off (and that’s after carrying over the maximum-allowed of 5 days). I had no plans except to go visit my family over my last vacation weekend. I’d spent the weekend doing nothing but sitting around, playing games, reading, drinking and watching movies. During the nicest parts of the day, I’d tool around on my motorcycle but I’m not much of one for aimless drives (or aimless anything, really) and there’s not a lot of quiet, relaxing roads in the vicinity of my little city, so the bike didn’t see a lot of use. Besides, I just wasn’t motivated enough. The opposite side of being a workaholic is that, when I do take time off, I like to dial it all down to zero and just vegetate. I’m also a bit of a drunk and enjoy drinking plenty of bourbon and beer. Come Monday I was beginning to get the urge to get out and do some stuff. I even contemplated heading up to Mt. Monadnock and hiking up to the summit to relive some of my favorite college memories. I remember reading about the various hiking trails and all the warnings about hiking alone, so I kind of put it on the back burner. Man, am I even glad I did.

Wednesday night rolled around and I was sitting in my recliner watching something on TV. I’d decided I needed a bit of a break from the drinking so I’d lightened up on Tuesday and was taking Wednesday off from the sauce. It was probably around 9:00pm or so when I first started getting the gassy sensation in my chest. It was a pressure in the center of my chest that kind of backed up to my throat. It felt very similar to other gas symptoms I’ve had in the past and which are usually cleared up by a deep, gut-rumbling belch. Problem is, it takes a while to get that belch out so the gas hangs around for a while. There was something different enough about this gassiness, though. Something felt different enough that I took notice. It was my teeth. Each of my teeth ached as though I’d been rinsing with pure sugar and it was eating through the enamel. It wasn’t sharp pain, it was, as I said, an ache. I had no idea what that meant and brushed it off as something I’d need to get checked out at the dentist. My teeth have been a pain in my ass since I was a kid, so new aches in the toothal region didn’t really concern me all that much, they just annoyed me. The pain lasted for a couple of hours before fading a bit. I was able to get to sleep without any issues and felt pretty good in the morning. I was a little off, but I wasn’t really feeling bad.

So Thursday night comes around and I’ve decided that the reason I felt like crap the night before was because I was on vacation and not drinking. This situation needed to be remedied, so I went out for dinner and had a couple of beers. The symptoms had already started to return and I figured a steak and some Sam Adams would do the trick. When I got back home, I crashed on my recliner and had some more beer and bourbon. By this time, the symptoms were worse than the night before and I’d started to sweat, even though I had the AC on and I wasn’t very active. The aching teeth had also returned, and worse than the night before. At one point, I flossed and brushed my teeth well before I even thought about going to sleep in an attempt to alleviate the aching, obviously to no effect. I’d also begun to notice an aching in my left shoulder, though it never really went down my arm. The tightness in the chest was back and this time, instead of a gassy sensation, it was much more like constriction. Yet still I didn’t know what to make of the symptoms. The idea that I was having a problem with my heart had floated through my mind a few times, but the aching teeth and the lack of a numbness or shooting pain in my left arm made me question whether it could be possible. That and denial. I was only 36 and though I didn’t lead the most healthy lifestyle, I was moderately active and not so overweight as to be disgusting (at least in my eyes). The symptoms lasted longer, but still I was able to get to sleep without too much difficulty, though it did take longer.

Friday morning and I woke up feeling…odd. The symptoms from the night before were gone except for a lingering tightness in my chest. I was also noticing that my energy was low and it didn’t take much for me to feel as though I was exerting myself. I just didn’t feel right. It wasn’t anything I could put my finger on, or a symptom I could point to and say “that ain’t right”, rather it was just a feeling that something in my body was off kilter. It was a beautiful day and I was planning on riding my motorcycle up to Vermont, but before I got on the road I decided to do some research on my symptoms. The logical part of my mind was suspecting heart attack, but the rest of me was sure that there was no way that I could be going through something like that.

First off let me say that searching for symptoms is a surefire way to make yourself sick. Look up a symptom online and you’re bound to find a boatload of information indicating that you’ve got the worst disease imaginable. Still I was feeling strange enough, and the symptoms had been strong enough, that I needed to try and confirm whether or not I was having a heart attack. The results didn’t bode well for the parts of my brain that weren’t all that logical. Everything pointed to heart attack, though I must admit that I still didn’t find anything about aching teeth. Yet still I wasn’t convinced. I assumed that with a heart attack, I’d be completely laid out flat on the floor. So off I went to Vermont, riding my cruiser up the highway and into the woods.

I’m a dumbass, what can I say?

The absolute worst part about being a dumbass like me is realizing too late what you’re bringing to your family’s doorstep. I know something is not right with me and yet I still climb on my bike and ride up to my sister’s house for the weekend. There I’ll be hanging out with not only my sister and her husband, but my brother and his family, including my young niece and nephew. What better way to say hello than keeling over in their house? Nothing like causing trauma to say “I love you”. Needless to say I didn’t feel all that much better while I was up in Vermont.

Symptoms-wise, I was experiencing a burning pain in my chest when I walked. I remember walking from the detached garage at the end of my sister’s driveway back to the house and having to take it extra slow because of the pain. I would run out of breath easily and it didn’t take much to get me tired. Climbing stairs was also difficult, what with the exertion and the burning pain. I spent a lot of time that weekend just sitting and trying not to move too fast when I did have to go somewhere (which isn’t all that different from the way I’d spent most weekends up in Vermont, but this time it was pain dictating the circumstances, not relaxation). I was very cavalier about the entire situation, because I still didn’t really believe I could be that seriously ill and not be on the floor. Of course, looking back on it, I wasn’t all that far from being on the floor. Didn’t stop me from making a lot of off-color and morbid jokes and just generally not taking things seriously. Of course, when I military-pressed my nephew over my head, my sister-in-law wasn’t all too pleased. Didn’t even occur to me that I was weak and putting my nephew in danger by hoisting him up in the air when I could barely walk anywhere.

Still I didn’t change anything about my habits that weekend. There was a lot of eating and plenty of drinking. Maybe the buffalo wings and burgers weren’t a good idea, but the blood-thinning effect of alcohol might have been good. Maybe? Perhaps? Meh, probably not. I stayed up late, drank a lot and enjoyed the peaceful surroundings.

Then Sunday morning rolled around. I was sitting on the deck late at night, well after both my sister and her husband had gone to sleep. I was watching the dying embers of the fire in the outdoor chimney and draining yet another beer when this screeching howl echoed through the woods. Now wildlife is common near both my sister’s and my brother’s house seeing as how they both live in the woods, but this was something I’d never heard before. My first instinct was coyote, but that didn’t seem to fit. Then I wondered if it could be some kind of owl, but I couldn’t say for sure. It sounded a lot like a human screaming at the edge of their vocal range. It was a bit unnerving and after listening for it to sound off again, I decided to finish my beer, get off the deck and get to bed. Incidentally, it apparently sounded again later on because it woke up my sister, who rushed down to the deck to protect her brother, who she assumed was still out there drinking, and only realizing once she was on the deck in her bare feet and pajamas that she had no idea how she was going to protect me from some wild animal…gotta love family.

So off to sleep I went after making my way up the stairs in a slow and methodical manner (the pain in my chest, remember). I did my usual routine and hit the sack, falling asleep without any problems. But around three in the morning I woke up in a cold sweat. I was gripped by the most powerful sense of doom that I’d ever felt, and I was a pretty moody kid. I truly and completely believed that I was about to die. It was an intense sense of impending death, something that couldn’t be shrugged off and ignored. It cut through the haze of sleep and all my rationalizations and I was sure I was dead. I was trying to imagine what was going to happen next, trying to imagine not being able to draw another breath, trying to imagine the impending blackness that I felt sure was to come. But I also realized that this was another symptom. An overpowering sense of impending death, a sense of doom, is another symptom of a heart attack. Sometimes, in so-called silent heart attacks, it’s the only symptom.

I’d already turned on the light because I didn’t want to face death in the dark and now I sat on the edge of the bed and focused on my breathing. I thought about the example of my family, of those I respect, of the Gods and I worked through the emotion, the sensation. I realized then that I absolutely could not die in my sister’s house and leave that memory in their happy home. I finally realized how selfish I’d been and vowed to get on the road first thing in the morning. It was time for me to check into the hospital. My sister had already extracted a promise from me that I’d get checked out, but now I truly understood that I was having a heart attack and needed to get to a hospital.

Of course that didn’t mean I’d go to a hospital up there. I was still pig-headed enough that I rode my bike back home, walked into my apartment (oh the pain of that walk), got into some fresh clothes, got something to eat, hit the head and then walked back through the apartment building, through the parking lot and to my car. The pain in my chest was ridiculous now and unlike earlier in the weekend, it wasn’t fading.

I drove to Lahey Clinic (yeah, still too dumb to call and ambulance) and, parking in the absolute farthest spot from the emergency room entrance because I don’t like parking in crowds and I needed to lock my gun in the trunk (better to do this where the fewest people could possibly see you, given the average person’s reaction to firearms), I walked into the hospital. I was in a lot of pain and didn’t hesitate to tell the nurse that I was having chest pains. And from there started my adventure in the hospital.

Learn from my example. If any of you ever have symptoms like I describe or symptoms described by the American Heart Association, don’t fuck around like I did - just get your ass to a hospital. I got lucky, but that doesn’t mean that you will. Time is a factor. Don’t be an asshat like I was.

These posts will consist of my recollection of the events leading up to, during and after the heart attack. I hope to shed some light on the experience for those at risk out there so that they might dodge the bullet I caught. It’s also a chance for me to rehash what I went through to get all those memories out of my head and into some format where I can re-read them later on in life, however long that may be. Finally, I was inspired to start writing these posts by reading some writings of a man who also survived a heart attack and was suffering from depression. I found myself sharing a lot of opinions with this fellow survivor, though his story was infinitely worse than mine (he was a very fit individual who denied himself many of the guilty pleasures I’ve enjoyed so much during my life, and yet despite his efforts he still suffered a heart attack). I stumbled across his posts by accident searching for information on weight training after a heart attack (which I’ve started doing again with approval from my doctor, and which is making me feel like all my exercising is finally affecting my body image) and could identify with several of his comments about feeling as though I were stupid, my increased sense of hypochondria, and the sense of turmoil. Happily for me, I’ve not suffered the post-heart attack depression this man has (though he does talk about possible reasons for his depression beyond the heart attack on another page) and so many others experience, though I have noticed the odd blacker-than-usual thought crossing my mind here and there (more on that in later posts).

As a refresher, I’ve already posted once about my heart attack but, it was a semi-sarcastic bit that really didn’t get into details. Let me give you the basic story, one that I will expand upon in upcoming posts: I experienced my first symptoms on a Wednesday night during a vacation from work. I ignored the symptoms, which returned all the stronger on Thursday night, but which I ignored again. The symptoms concerned me enough that I did a bit of research on them Friday morning, still got on my motorcycle and rode to Vermont for the weekend to spend some time with my family instead of going to the hospital when the results of my research pointed to heart attack. The symptoms changed, but I was definitely “not right” the entire weekend. I rode home on Sunday and checked myself into the hospital where I was given confirmation of my suspicion that I’d had a heart attack. A week stay and two stents later, I was released from the hospital. I got lucky. I’m still here, more than six months later, and able to post about my experience.

Hopefully what I’m going to post will be of interest to others, as I know the writing of other heart attack survivors has been to me. Stay tuned for a more detailed explanation of the heart attack experience, as chronicled by moi.

I guess in some ways it’s inevitable. Some friends have married, some have children and some have moved. Our careers and life choices have diverged in many different ways. Our personalities, always very different, have been the driving forces of change in our lives and that change, on a personal level, often impacts the larger circle of our friends. I, for example, have spent much of my time focusing on my work. I’ve moved across the country and back for new job opportunities, changed careers and worked to exceed at each new endeavor. This stressful choice of mine led me to work long, strange hours and was probably a leading cause of my heart attack. It has also resulted in a modicum of success for me. The unintended result of this choice, other than the heart attack, is that I’ve devoted less time to maintaining contact with my friends and family. A positive result of the heart attack is that I’ve made good progress reconnecting with my family. Now my thoughts turn to my friends.

An interesting facet of my friendships with members of “the group” is the nature in which we orbit one another’s lives. Often we can be incommunicado for months and months yet as soon as we’re together again it’s as though no time has passed. This happened more when we were younger. Now that we’re older I’m finding that the gulfs between our worlds are expressed in awkward silences or the retelling of stories from decades earlier. It’s possible that these stories are the only connections left between us, though I find that a disheartening thought. Of course, these uncomfortable situations only occur when we spend time together, which is very rare.

The easiest thing to do is just to pick up the phone and reach out again. When I decided to make more of an effort at staying connected, I didn’t intend to isolate myself to either friends or family, as I just wanted to reconnect with everyone who was important to me. Yet I’ve not been as faithful in contacting my friends as I have my family, and I wonder why. Sometimes it’s because I leave message after message and never get a call back, which I take as a kind of hint to leave those folks alone, whether they intend it to be that way or not. Sometimes it’s because it’s been so long that the awkwardness of just reaching out again seems so overwhelming that I just don’t dial the numbers, as stupid as that sounds (and is). Still other times it’s because I have so little in common with some of my friends these days that there’s just nothing to talk about, no common ground.

And yet these are nothing but excuses and justifications. The simple fact of the matter is that if I value the friendships I have, I will reach out to everyone and find new ground upon which we can meet. We’re all very different people, but that which differentiates us is also that which I value. I can’t learn and grown from people who exactly like me, not that I’ve met many, nearly as much as I can from those people who have come from the same place as me but made different choices. They know me and my (many) faults, yet they’ve tolerated them to varying degrees all these years. Yes, they have their faults and they’ve sometimes been bad friends, but the exact same can be said for me. That we all can still get together and talk after a couple of decades (Gods, but we’re old) is a feat of which we can all be proud.

This then is my goal: to call each of my old friends and just catch up with them. They’re not heavy, they’re my brothers (and sisters).

That doesn’t drive you nuts? You don’t find that an invasion? I do. It’s one thing to be pulled over by a cop who sets up a radar trap, it’s another to get a ticket in the mail a week later based on a picture. A cop can make human decisions about who to pull over and why. A camera just takes pictures. I don’t know about where you live, but around these parts no one goes the speed limit. We’re always 5 to 10MPH over the limit when the traffic isn’t bad. Cops don’t pull anyone over for that because it doesn’t make financial sense for them to do so. Any speeding infraction from 1 to 10 MPH over the speed limit is a flat $50. It really starts to add up fast after 10 MPH though, so the cops grab those people so they can rake in the biggest amount of cash. A camera doesn’t care. A camera is going to take pictures whenever it’s programmed to take pictures. These assclowns are invariably going to set it to a tight limit and just start mailing out the tickets and raking in the cash.

All the time they’re going to claim that they’re just trying to encourage public safety. Bullshit. They could give a shit about public safety. All they care about is making their numbers, balancing their budget. The Arizona budget shortfall is pegged at 1.2 billion and they’re looking to make $120 million in revenue by ticketing people via camera. This effectively amounts to a government-led shakedown of drivers. It’s a tax disguised as an attempt at public safety. Soon we’ll have sites listing where the speed cams are or selling spray-on mud so people can obscure their license plates (and face fines for doing so, undoubtedly).

Now I have no defense against the very simple argument that speeding is against the law, but that doesn’t mean I want to be policed by camera or remote control. There are a lot of laws on the books that we break every day, if we start allowing politicians to police us via CCTV all over town they’ll be ticketing us for spitting on the sidewalk, jaywalking, and any number of minor offenses that are generally ignored as the nuisance they are. Pols will realize they can make all kinds of money by raping the citizenry with a non-tax tax and suddenly we’ll find that we can’t move without being watched. I don’t want my government, which can’t get it’s act together enough to balance a budget even in the best of times, to have another ill-conceived way to pull money from the pockets of the citizens when what they really ought to be doing is cutting the fat and cleaning out the corruption. They’d save tons of money if they just ran government properly, but it’s easier (and better for their jobs and pockets) if the fuck their citizens out of more cash. Don’t sigh, don’t accept…get angry and tell your “representatives” in state government that this shit won’t fly.

I’m sure I’m coming across as a cold-hearted bastard here. I’m sure she’s had it tough trying to make ends meet and take care of her kids. I’m sure that when the interest on her mortgage changed, she suddenly founds herself unable to afford the once cheap loan. I’m sorry she got herself into that situation and couldn’t find a way out, but you know what? She’s the one who got herself there. I’m sure the company who originally financed her loan, who is no longer allowed to operate in Massachusetts (one assumes for predatory lending practices, but in Massachusetts it could just as easily be because they didn’t bribe the right politicians), was eager to get her money and almost certainly didn’t help her make a wise decision, but you know what? It was still her decision to make. She signed the loan. She agreed to the terms. She’s, get this folks, RESPONSIBLE. I know that’s a dirty word these days, but it’s the truth (another dirty word).

No one said owning a house was a right. No one said renting a room was a right. Ask the homeless and they’ll tell you exactly how few rights there are to owning a home or renting a room. You get those things by being able to pay for them. You live within your means. You start living outside of those means or starting thinking that you’re somehow entitled to own a home and that’s when the trouble starts. Then when those promises of easy payments and low interest *cough*forthefirstfiveyears*cough* come in, you turn off that part of your brain that says, “maybe I shouldn’t sign a legally binding document that will force me to make payments that I can barely swing without some outside advice, or maybe some bigger savings.” If you were really lucky, that inner voice would tell you to only buy what you knew you could afford, or just keep renting because not everyone is destined to own a home. Because guess what, you’re NOT ENTITLED TO OWN A HOME. No one gave you a certificate at birth guaranteeing home ownership, so stop acting like it’s your right. And when the bank comes asking for their money, don’t act like they’re the big bad wolf. They want you to make good on your legally binding agreement. They’re not in business for the charity of it all, they’re in business to provide a needed service and make a profit doing so. If you think they’re so evil, maybe you shouldn’t have gotten into bed with them in the first place? But now that you have, you have to make good or accept the consequences. You’re not the victim here.

Of course, the group that came to her aid and organized the protest would argue every point I just made. Just looking at their site tells you how deluded these people are. And I quote:

The most affected targeted households consist of women, African American and Latino at every income level. City Life/Vida Urbana is helping tenants and owners in foreclosed buildings, both victims of subprime loans, save their homes.

A few of things in this one little chunk:

• “…targeted households” - this statement strongly hints that they believe that the banks are picking on specific people, as though it were a *GASP* conspiracy!
• “…victims of subprime loans” - how can someone who voluntarily signed a loan agreement be a victim? Not understanding what you’re signing doesn’t make you a victim, it makes you an idiot for signing it without grasping what it is you’re signing.
• “…save their homes” - once they defaulted on their payments and the banks foreclosed, the homes are no longer theirs. Stop implying ownership where none exists.

My absolute favorite quote on their site? On their “About Us” page: “Our resident-led research into mortgage lending patterns uncovered widespread discrimination against Latino mortgage-seekers and pressured the three largest banks in Boston to increase loans to Latinos by 25% each year.” So wait a second…first they fought to get Latinos loans, now they’re fighting to prevent Latinos from being foreclosed on because they’re not paying those loans (and I quote again: “The most affected targeted households consist of women, African American and Latino at every income level”)? What kind of fantasy world do these people live in, and what do I need to drink to get there?

It all comes down to something that people have evidently forgotten about (and probably have for a long time): personal responsibility. Make the best with what you have. Work as hard as you can and do the best you can. When people stop taking responsibility for their actions and start doing things like not paying their bills, what do they think happens? Look at home many companies have gone out of business. Look at how many people have lost their jobs. Look at how everyone is predicting recession, which will cause everyone to suffer. Were the subprime loans a bad idea? Sure! But it takes two to sign a loan agreement. Just because you can’t afford it anymore doesn’t mean the bank who holds the loan doesn’t have a right to try and recoup their losses. You don’t pay, you don’t own. Get out. Don’t protest, don’t trash the place, just pack up your things and show a little dignity in the face of your mistakes. Ask for help, sure. Try to negotiate a new agreement, sure. Get assistance. But don’t “fight for your rights” when those rights don’t exist. When you don’t pay, the bank suffers. When the bank suffers, profits go down. When profits go down, jobs get cut. If profits keep falling, banks close. The economy suffers, more people lose their jobs. Suddenly your imaginary right to own your home that you can’t afford is fucking up the lives of more than just those of you and your family. Good work, assholes.

Accept responsibility and start rebuilding now.

What’s worse is that just a little while ago, Patriots fans (including myself) were shocked to hear Indianapolis fans booing a 14 year old girl for wearing a Patriots jersey while being honored for winning her age group in the NFL Punt, Pass and Kick challenge. It’s one thing to boo a bad call or to boo unsportsmanlike conduct, but it’s entirely another thing to boo a kid for representing her home team or another team that just played their guts out. Whatever happened to sportsmanship? It’s not just for the players on the field, people, its for the fans in the stadium too. How about showing a little class?

The same thing applies to the fans of the Red Sox, whom I consider to be some of the most boorish fans on the face of the earth. Is it really necessary to swear up a storm during a ball game where you’re surrounded by little kids? I’m all about free speech, but I’m also all about personal responsibility. And does the whole “Yankees Suck” thing make any sense to anyone? They obviously don’t, and chanting it in the stands or plastering the stickers on your truck don’t do anything to impress anyone, instead just demonstrating what a moron you are.

It amazes me when anyone complains that kids aren’t learning sportsmanship these days. From where would they learn this skill? All their role models, and I’m not talking about professional athletes but the people who are with them day in and day out, demonstrate nothing but classless and unsportsmanlike behavior. If they don’t learn it from the people they watch and play with, where are they going to learn sportsmanship?

I’m not saying we need to act prim and proper at games, nor am I suggesting that we should never act up in the stands. Hell, I’d be the first booing that idiot on the Steelers who guaranteed that they would beat the Patriots because he acted out of line. All I’m saying is that there is a time and a place for everything. Just as it seems obvious to me that booing kids is dumber than shit, it also strikes me that booing the losing team is equally as stupid, especially when that team is being praised by the winners (who are showing a bit of sportsmanship themselves). Show a little class, people.

Now, I’m not going to claim to be some great aficionado of Classical music and capable of experiencing some appreciation of the music beyond what the average person experiences, but I enjoyed myself a great deal. It was a matinee performance on a Friday afternoon so, as I expected, the place was packed with senior citizens, non-working affluent people and some tourists. I dressed up a bit and got myself there too late to catch the pre-concert speech, but in plenty of time for the actual performance.

My only experience with a symphony performance had been watching them on TV, so this was very exciting for me. The musicians straggled onto the stage in ones and twos to warm up, eventually filling the stage. Then Principle Violinist and Associate Concertmaster, Tamara Smirnova, got things ready to go with a quick tuning. Sir Colin Davis walked on stage to hearty applause and the concert began. Not knowing what to expect, but expecting the best, I was not disappointed. There’s something magical about watching and listening to a large group of musicians creating something so precise and beautiful. The cohesiveness and professionalism on display was incredible to behold. This is the end result of tireless human effort focused on a specific goal, and what a result it was to experience.

The sound was so clean and perfect to my untrained ears that I had a hard time believing that I was watching these people perform live and not listening to some recording. I usually use that argument to deride most concert events because I expect rock shows to be rougher and more spontaneous with less concern for technical prowess, but for the performing of Classical, this is exactly what I had hoped for. This is not to say that the music was performed without passion. Watching the expressions on the musicians faces as they played that same pieces that they must have played hundreds of times already conveyed a sense of love and joy for what they were doing. Then, when Ms. Uchida played piano for the Mozart Pianao Concerto, one truly got a feel for the passion of a performer.

A conductor herself, she knew the music inside and out and each note she struck was accompanied by an expression of sheer pleasure. She would breathe in heavily as she prepared to play and then her face would transform; smiles and frowns, closed-eye expressions of pleasure. I think I caught one mis-hit note, but beyond that it was excellence personified. She received three standing ovations. Sir Colin Davis received three ovations as well, mixed standing and seated. I feel kind of bad that the symphony players themselves don’t get more recognition from the crowd.

I plan to see more performances as time and life allow, but at least I can now say that I saw the BSO. I recommend it to anyone with an inclination.