Of course, I can revel in the fact that I can enjoy music again. I have been able to for some time as I think it’s been a tool for me to adapt back to the hearing world in one way or another. Sort of like a personal configuration utility for my brain — I remember how certain songs sound or certain tones I should be listening for — a cymbil crash perhaps, maybe the backign orchestra section jumping in during the refrain to “Hey Jude” — and press myself to hear these things. I use it as a gauge to see how well I am doing.

That took on a new dynamic last month as I had two cords, termed as Personal Audio Cables – sent to me by Cochlear Corp. These two wires — for personal media players or hi fi stereos/TV’s/computers — let me connect my body-worn speech processor directly to the aforementioned objects so I hear the tones or the music directly instead of trying to sort things out through a set of speakers.

But lets dispense with the technical crap. I got these things in January and I unpackaged one of the cables. I connected it to my PC speakers and then turned on iTunes… pulled up a song and started to play…

You seen the Matrix?

That scene where Neo gets combat training information uploaded to his head by Tank? It was kind of like that.

“Hey, I think Mikey likes it. Want some more?”
“Hell Yes!”

Now, nothing beats hearing and feeling music coming through the air and through the speakers. Nothing beats listening to smething in surround sound (for example) where you feel the sound waves and it adds to the effect of whatever you are listening to.

That aspect is lacking. But the aspect of having music beamed directly to my head? I’ll take it any day of the week. It’s been so awesome that I bought an iPod Nano and am experimenting with music I’ve never listened to before – which I wouldn’t try much when I was relying on the speakers alone.

I’ve stayed the last few years north of the Mid Wilshire center, not quite Hollywood, not Downtown, not Wilshire and not that great a hotel but it worked in it’s simplicity. This time around, I pampered myself and stayed downtown at the Westin Bonaventure. I haven’t stayed at a hotel that nice before and a three star rating from certain online travel companies seems cruel. At any rate, the location is extremely centralized — blocks away from subway access, shopping, Union Station (Flyaway is a blessed thing) and what not. It was a bargain compared to my normal hotel – so I paid a few extra bucks to stay there.

What I didn’t take into account was being out of shape in my post-op condition. I also didn’t take into account my unfamiliarity with the building would lead to blood, pain, and embarrassment.

2400 miles from home without anyone to hang out with – I go stumbling around the Galleria in the first few floors of the hotel and try to find a skybridge to other buildings and there shopping offerings.

Cuz what else are you going to do when you’re bored and have a little cash to spend besides shop?

So I find this exit to a skybridge — whoo hoo! — and start walking down a long corridor with skylights. I ignorantly think I am on the skybridge itself (the Bonaventure has several and ALL are uncovered) when in fact I am walking beneath the pool deck/patio of the building.

So I come to the end of that hall and find a pair of double doors saying thank-you, leaving-the-hotel, blah-blah-blah…. I can see a flight of stairs down and a flight of stairs up a short distance in front of me. I swing those doors open and walk a few steps — never observing the two steps down immediately in front of me.

Anarchy ensues.

I tumble and smash my face into a concrete-ornamental-edging at the side of the wall. I wither and moan in pain. I’m shaking, I’m bleeding, I think I’ve broken my nose.

2400 miles from home, no family in the greater Los Angeles area… The gimp-with-a-limp has worked himself ineptly into a fine mess.

I try my best to collect myself. Standing up — no, more like staggering to my feet. I get my bearing and see those stairs I missed, I also see the blood all over my hands and mutter a whiny “Oh shit” in response to this. I stagger up those steps back to those doors I mentioned… I find them locked from the outside. Imagine that.

Looking back, it feels like an eternity trying to decide what to do — go upstairs to who-knows-where or down to street level? I chose the former as to the latter and I find the pool deck of the hotel. I’m too shook up to really know if anyone who I passed spoke to me or even acknowledged me as I walked back to the hotel with blood flowing from my nose.

The fallout of all this is me walking bloodily to the lobby and asking for help, and the hotel springing to action to take car eof one of their customers. I appreciate the hell out of that but I’m stille mbarassed by being there while a convention was gathering and people checking in and out and what not. Of course, hotel security took care of that by getting me behind closed doors and takign care of me…

Probably the most anecdotal happening in LA in my time visiting the City of Angels on my lonesome. This would only have been better with company

I mean, I’ve been home about 3 weeks so I really shouldn’t be bitching but having my bathroom totally demolished (tub removed, tile removed, vanity removed, mirror and medicine cabinet removed, etc, etc) makes things just a LITTLE hectic. I also feel bad for my younger brother who is doing all the work — kicking ass and taking names of course, but it’s a lot of work.

The new tub is in place now, that’s nice. When I can actually bathe again and use the facilities in peace will be even better. Maybe by the end of the month? **Shrug**

I’m getting away from the fact that I said I haven’t talked about my health much at all on here lately. For the uninitiated, I suffer from a rare genetic disease commonly referred to as NF2. It’s a nasty little gem of a disease that doesn’t get much attention (besides an odd mention on House M.D. every-so-often). It causes benign tumors to grow mostly on nerves in the body. One of said tumors were the reason I began to lose my hearing as a teen and was rendered deaf 10 years ago last December.

It also gives me the supernatural abilities like super-intelligence, telekenisis and empathy along with…

Wait a minute, that was a John Travolta movie. Never mind.

Seriously… The last time I really brought up (bitched, moaned, vented, etc) my health was the summer and fall of 2003 when I hit a couple of hard patches and was frustrated, scared and just flat out torn up (to put it lightly). Blogging things publicly helped me get my frustrations and worries out in the open… or at least out of my head for the moment until the next panic hit.

It’s 4 years later and I’ve got problems again. Problems in my head this time that get the doctors attention. Now, from the smart-ass perspective, you’d quickly quip “Yeah, anyone who (inserts a thought, political idea, interest, etc) would be classified as having problems in the head!” but it’s a little more serious than that. About 5 centimeters worth of serious. Between-my-ears, behind-my-eyes serious.

I’ve been operated on twice up there before. Both times I had the operations in question out west with one of the top doctors in the world. This time around, I’m sticking in Tampa Bay and trusting a doctor who’s been heralded to me as one of the best in the world. He’s got books and awards and all that jazz. He’ll have some of my old friends along with him to make sure my ABI doesn’t get fudged up and what not.

Still, there are risks and even if they aren’t substantial — what they are is a worst case scenarios. So I worry about that, even though it’s almost like thinking about worst-case stuff when you go out and do day to day things.
“The worst case scenario while driving to the Supermarket to pick up milk is that an out of control mack truck with a drunk at the wheel, plows into my car and explodes…. Oh, and I don’t die instantly on impact!”

Rosy, cheery stuff like that.

So part of my mind (ha — the cause of all my problems) keeps wanting me to be responsible and at least report this upcoming operation, make arrangements for the “just in case”, “worst case scenario” type things. Every other part of me wants the status quo to remain — though that status quo is a deteriorating personal conditions where the changes in my health are more or less subtle until I get to a tipping point and things really get messed up and my life hangs in the balance.

Rosy, cheery stuff like that.

I don’t want to face the idea of things — out of my control — go bad and yet with responsibilities to friends and loved ones, how can I not?

John Edwards leads the charge, having been in campaign mode since the end of the John Kerry campaign… He’s earned over a million dollars through the Act Blue service. Bill Richardson – also a long time suspected candidate — is next on the list with 288 thousand dollars to his name.

Wes Clark, Howard Dean, Al Gore — all undeclared or just flat out not running — have a few thousand to their name… And while Mike Gravel and Chris Dodd are the ones who are oh-fer ActBlue, it’s Hillary Clinton’s numbers that should send a message to people…

Hillary, who keeps getting named the front runner because of her recognizability (or her last name) has earned $81. Eighty One dollars.

There are pundits on the right who think Democrats are clamoring for HRC to be the nominee, and there are media pundits who think Hillary is a shoe in… Yet if the Internet community — the activists who are vocal online — aren’t showing their support financially for Hillary, then why are they going to show their support with their votes for her next year during the primaries?

Just saying. It’s known Hillary is not big with the online community, but she still is the big name in the field unless Al Gore were to enter the fray (which I don’t think will happen, sadly).

True assets and liabilities are determined to voters by candidates philosophies, their standces on issues and their endorsements and the identity of campaign contributors. The fact a candidate has 2 mortgage’s on his/her house isn’t going to effect their votes unless they are shady individuals to begin with.

Basically it’s some form of communications between LA and home.

For the first time since 2001, I need to stay connected with things back home. Certain groups and parties are counting on the ability to get-in-touch with me so I can do some work while away from the Bay area. That’s good, that’s fine. This isn’t a vacation after all. Also I need to stay in touch with family so I don’t show up on a milk carton if no one hears from me in 12 hours or more (yeah, the fam gets frantic if I don’t stay in touch).

So what are my choices?

I’ve looked at older laptop computers being resold on Ebay and by Dell itself as a possible solution — though my hotel doesn’t offer Wireless access, nor are their dataport connections free. I’ve been casually looking at the Danger Sidekick 2 – which would give me both IM and Internet access while on the go — but I’m not so keen on the huge purchase costs as well as a nice large monthly fee to keep the thing usable.

My Ogo is a joke — barely holds a charge, and I canceled the account anyway. Most other IM devices are extra costly…

I’m in a land of wonderment, without much cash to throw around and solve my dilemna.

My older brother walks in on me to see why I am laughing so hard, and once i explained to him his face lit up a bit and he started relating to me how he loves the show… and so do his friends who call him House when they see him….

Mike’s always been weird in one way or another and I started thinking about the comparison between him and Greg House. House is distant, he’s bitingly sarcastic, shrewd, genius, cold… Mike is… Well, Mike is all of those things, except he’ll smile more often than House, he’ll joke more often than House (for the good of humor, not out of sarcastic desire).

Mike IS Greg House.

I’ve known women who’ve wanted to grab the mystery for themselves with Mike. You can’t quite imagine women wanting House but the mystery about him is there…. Helping to drive Dr. Cameron unsuccessfully towards him.

It’s odd, first my brother happens to look like David Duchovney… Now he happens to be like Greg House. What’s next? He starts making as much money as (insert movie star here)?

Oh, yeah, that and phone ability.

I did a bit of chatting yesterday about being discouraged and got told some stuff about the resume game. Gave me a bit more hope and gave me a bit more feeling that I should be aggressive with the job applicaiton process… Not so limp.

We’ll see if there is another opportunity soon.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaw!

“I’m only sorta gimpy. I can get there by myself.” I told a curb side check in agent for American Airlines. He smirked and let out a laugh and I went on my way into Tampa International Airport to start my trip on Tuesday morning. I had my Eastman backpack swung over my shoulders, dress pants on and my “trusty” cane in hand as I navigated the terminal and made my way to the airside concourse.

American Airlines made it real easy on me and helped me out the entire way to and from Burbank. Being it lead onto the plane by a Stewardess in Tampa or the ticket-agent trying to get me a replacement flight to Tampa from Dallas if I didn’t make that conneciton flight (more on that later)… AA kicked ass in their service.

The big thing about this that upset my parents and extended family was I was going 2200 miles by my lonesome as my first trip solo. Not to mention I’m still a gimp to one extent or another, walking with and without a cane at times.

Not like I needed to care about being gimpy once I got on the streets of LA.

If there’s one difference that is night and day in La Cuidad de Angels compared to Tampa/St. Pete and the suburbs, it’s the fact that pedestrians have the right of way. Here in Florida, I’d get run down sooner than a car actually wait to turn during a green light. In Los Angeles? I got honked at for not walking and waving cars on at an intersection. That was the biggest adjustment, and the most pleasing.

The other thing that hits me hard every time I am out there is getting used to being surrounded by minorities. Mexicans, Japaneese, African Americans, etc…. One huge eclectic mix. Here in the south, people can only hold closed minded views and hold fear when thinking about situations like that. Me? I fucking LOVED it.

Sure, there is the idea you could get jumped by a gang here and there — that was before I did some thinking and observing. Grandma’s were out walking with canes, unmolested by teens hanging out and kids walking around with CD players weren’t being attacked… I think that gives you an idea it’s safe to be out and about during the daytime and not so intimidated…

At any rate, half the reason I was able to do this trip was my buddy out west, Mark Albracht who I know from SkyscraperPage.com. Me and Mark have known each other a while and have been friends for the past year +…. He had picked me up at the airport and we also spent some time in Hollywood looking around and stuff. It was fun to be out there and see some of the places that I have only heard about (the Kodak theater, the Egyptian….. The Walk of fame…).

Damn, there is so much to talk about and yet I am just rambling through it. And at the same time, there is little to talk about because I didn’t do much while out there. While I liked being on my own on a trip, I would have loved a peer with me (not a parent) to enjoy some of the things that I passed on or didn’t spend enough time with.

Of course, the trip did have it’s low point – my birthday . The day started off as it normally did in LA but I had an appointment that morning. A long overdue ABI checkup. What went so bad? Being forced into an MRI that i didn’t want to have done, having to sit around for four hours until I had the prodcedure, then being in physical and emotional pain with how I was dealt with by the staff… To summarize my birthday was to summarize my life: spent with me trying to look good, voyaging, meeting a friend, being duped by a faux ally, pain, humiliation and ultimately ending alone. Great attitude, wouldn’t you say?

Oh, I forgot to add the part about Burbank. Saturday morning I left my hotel (after barely getting any sleep) to encounter the worst fog I had seen first hand since I was a kid. The flight was grounded until almost 9 and could have made me miss my conneciton flight home… And like I said, a ticket agent stepped right up and arranged things for me if I did miss my connection. Luckily, once airborn, we made up time lost and actually came in ahead of schedule (but still not enough time for this guy to grab a meal while on the DFW International concourse.

I’m planning on getting away some more in coming weeks. A trip to NY for instance…. Who knows where else. Where I’m wanted and where I’m curious would most likely be it.

LA’s fine, the sun shines most the time… and the feeling is laid back….
John’s a gimp and tends to be a wimp and he has a habit to… keep on lookin’ back.

I’m going out west all alone for the first time in my life. A trip on my own itself would be a challenge but one that takes me 2500 miles without a saftey net is something that troubles the shit out of my family… and me to one extent or the other.

But I want time away form them. I need time away from them and thsi suburb (but going to the sprawl of LA is almost as bad). I’ve been stuck imobile for almost a year and now that i have my mobility back, the only thing that I want to stop me is finances and being able to pay for trips where I want to go.

Oh, there is that little matter of my birthday on Thursday too. Not that I am looking forward to beign 25 years old and basically not where I want to be. I’m trying to make headway but… Heh… I’ve accomplished a bit that I never intended too and I have things everyone accomplishes by now — except me — looming over my head. This trip is one of them… Most people do shit on there own by now or have done it once or twice. I haven’t. That’s got to change.

It’s been two days since Hurricane Jeanne went through Florida… Two days or an eternity for those who lost power during the storm and haven’t gotten it back. It feels like an eternity because, in the Florida sun, the warmth gives away to the uncomfortable humidity and makes living feel attrocious. At least for the non-outdoors person like myself.

The storm went through Sunday and I lost power around 11:45 in the morning. Soon after my text messenger stopped working properly and I was cut off from friends who would later tell me they didn’t lose power or cable over the duration of Jeanne’s lashing of the Tampa Bay area..

It didn’t tkae long for food to spoil, or my parents to insit we gobble up ice cream and what not before it went bad. Outside, the wind howeled and I waited patiently for one of the trees in our yard to give-way to the relentless wind torrent and snap or tip over. Fortunately that never happened. Or unfortuantely? The thing si a very ratty Indian Rosewood that we would probably be better off without in our yard with it’s adventurous roots.

Time inched on and all you could do was try to read in poor light conditions or watch the storm. I kept thinking back to the fact we are so dependant on electricity that it isn’t even funny. Television? Computers? Even cell phones that worked, appliances, etc… This dependance is compounded in the Sunshine state because of the need for the ever-present air-conditioning if you are going to get through on hot and humid day.

By six or seven in the evening, the wind and rain had relented enough to venture outside. I honestly NEEDED to be outside at this point. Cabin fever not only was driving me nuts, but being stuck with my parents and older brother — I felt cramped. I felt stuck. Of course, I wasn’t leaving the yard as the wind still gusted to 50 MPH at times, but it was better than being on the inside — starring otu into the overcast and blustery conditions.

We got power back around 11:45 Sunday night (miraculously). The only reason we had it is because our house is on the same power circit, it would seem, as the stop light at the intersection several blocks away. It was a relief to get cold again from the AC… not just cold but drier than it had been with the windows open and the humid air flowing through the house.

Yet there are neighbors still without power. WIthout cable… And it could very well have been me and my family still trying to get by without power… so like I said, I’m thankful…

And I’m rambling without even putitng up something of substance.

The big thing is that this is on my own. It’s rather sad that I’m going to be a quarter century old and this will be the first time I’ve been on a trip by myself or been at a distance from my family without having some caretaker looking over me (that usually being a nurse… hello nurse! ).

It’s part of that innocent quality to my life I guess. Never having to fend for myself. But at this point, I have GOT to get away. Away from my family and away from this house. Even if I spend the entire trip in a hotel in Hollywood, too afraid to do anything, it’s a hell of a lot better than being stuck in the suburbs.

I’m supposed to have a tuneup for the ABI (hearing device) and speak to my doctor out there as well with regards to my health. But that’s supposed to take half a day and I’m going out to Hollywood for five… Craptastic!