There are some things starting to get to me though. I guess I was spoiled rotten during my hospital stay and my recovery and now I feel like I’m socially in a black hole. Limited reach outs from friends, limited shout outs and more, and less.

There’s also a lack of focus I am experiencing right now that un-nerves me. For the past 2 weeks I’ve been spot on with focus. On the ball. I see something that needs to be done, I do it. If someone else has something that needs to be done and isn’t sure of steps, I consult. I consult when not requested (and not in a rude way, it coincides needed productivity for a dormant product). I was all over the friggin’ place. AND I was hitting the ball out of the park on this shit! It was incredible, it was a rush…

…It was temporary?

I’m procrastinating more right now — with incoming emails, with to-do projects and what not — than I have at any time since I went to the hospital. There’s just this… social dread? I dunno… Part of me wants to get it done, knows I gotta get it done, knows I NEED to get it done.

The other part of me wants to chill out and surf the web and wait for someone to distract me. The people I want to distract me get credence while the people I don’t drive me back to work.

How about that? “Test your worth to John! Send him an IM during anti-social/anti-productivity hour and if he drops you for a project, you know your value!”

Newest skill test at the state fair, ya’ll. :-p

Oh, one other thing that is getting to me lately… Why can’t I enjoy movies any more? I feel a horrid pain when I watch Superman Returns (who hasn’t?) due to Bryan Singer’s epic scoping of the film and lack-of-editing to make Superman seem more likable. I saw The Two Towers before surgery and thought it (again) a disaster of editing proportions. That’s what I am seeing everywhere — edit, voice-over, edit, edit, chop, dissolve, blah, blah, blah… And these aren’t action sequences where I see them (most of the time)! Is it just heightened perception or should I burn my DVD Collection, get rid of my cable box and renounce Speilburg?

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?

It’s almost like what should lead to a breakup… Being there for someone but feeling trampled on in the relationship. You care and want to be there but you can’t keep being a friend for someone when they don’t respect you or even consider what certain topics/phrases do to you inside.

Respect… And Disrespect. If you are there for someone when they need you and they aren’t there for you, if you will apologize to someone about things – but they won’t ever apologize about any anger they’ve caused… It’s just not healthy and just not worth it. Friendship or more — it’s a two way street.

Show me some respect or find another person to dump on… I’m not playing the inanimate teddy bear any longer.

I applied for a job.

Not just a job, but a high profile job.

Not just a high profile job, but one in a different city, in a different region…

Not just a high profile job in a different city, but one that is being offered by a campaign attached to a former presidential candidate.

I really should be more skeptical — and I am in a lot of fashions — towards the job I applied for with John Kerry. It was advertised on Daily Kos and that means hundreds of thousands will not only see this thing but probably apply for a job too.

The thing is… I know this job. I AM this job. I have been doing most of the roles that are described in the online agenda for years on my own. I’ve done them voluntarily, I’ve done them for next to nothing… I know this role, I have confidence I could do this job and do it well.

But in the end, it ain’t up to me now is it? At least not right now.

I’ve never lived away from home for more than a few days. I have been 2300 miles from home without family oir friends around as a social safety net though. While Boston would be like that, it’s much easier to reach my extended family in New York and Connecticut.

What’s gonna happen now? I don’t know… Could I even get up to Boston for an interview? Let alone find myself taking the position? have no clue, but I know one thing — I am that job. I have confidence in that fact and I only wish I had this opportunity more often, closer to home, to prove it.

But the one that always gets me is when I hear someone dreamed of me. Me! I was on someone’s thoughts enough that I ran through their mind… Even if I had nothing to do with the underlying fabric of what went on in the dream and the psychology of what happened (dreams have a great wide amount of meanings)… It’s just special to know that the thought was there.

So here’s my next one — yeah, a little verse on this St. Valentines Day… Inspired by the ones on our minds.

On Your Mind

When last was I
A Sight for sore eyes?
The last time you
Longed my hand?
When last was I your
Knight in shining armor,
Your prince,
Your noble man?

When last did I
Paint a picture
That made you melt because
You were my muse?
When last did I
Earn your undivided attention
While we discussed the
Front page news?

When last did my thought
Earn your affection
Because of the joy
That I bring?
When last did we
Fly through the heavens,
Together –
In the night
While you slept,
And you dreamed?

© 2007 John Fontana

How about having the stark contradiction inside you that you feel like no one does / could care about you while you’ve lost your temper just moments ago in front of people who DO care about you? I guess it’s a family / lover type thing. Oh sure, you have family and friends who care about you but you are missing that one special person. That one person that you will do anything for. The one person who realizes you will do anything for them because of how much you mean to them.

There is one place I know of for sure, and it is a good place at that — but well away from the population center of the Bay area.

There is a method to my madness, so I encourage anyone who comes across this post (on Tampa Blab or one of my friends browsing my site) to give input through comments.  Everything shall be revealed soon enough….

Oh yeah, and the fact I don’t want to bitch about personal things knowing people know this is my personal blog.

But I gotta bitch today because I’m looking for an old family friend… Or friends more like it.

In 1984..? I think that was it… I moved into a house in Blue Point, New York with my family… Nice ranch place with cedar shingles and brick accents. There was a nursery next door and it was a quaint, small town on Long Island… There’s a plethora of details about Blue Point or that house but none are pertinant to this tory besidse what I want to talk about.

One afternoon after moving in, I was inside doing one thing or another and my brothers were out back — giggling and acting really weird by the back fence. I went to investigate what was going on and I found out they were making a fuss about a girl (and her friend) in the next yard. Mike and Andy were acting anti-social in one way or another and I thought “What’s the big deal?” and started up conversation with the girls… This was the begining of a great neighborly friendship between the Fontana family and the Reilly Family.

The girl in question was Shannon. Shannon H. Reilly if I do so recall her middle initial. She was about the same age as my older brother and went to Blue Point elementary school (while me and my older brother were attending Sylvain Avenue Elementary in nearby Bayport)… Shannon was basically the fourth child of my parents while me and my brothers became children of Shannon’s parents. We really were interchangable children and would spend time playing at each others houses all the time (except when I got tugged into some type of disagreement between my older brother and Shannon). I believe her parents names were Mary “Mussy” Reilly and Rich.

Shannon would later have a little brother, Brian, who became the fifth partner in crime. Of course, Brian would be too young for most of the -adventures that we’d undertake but he was none the less part of the equation when we did something.

At any rate, I moved away from New York to the Tampa Bay area in January 1989. The Reilly’s were there to send us off. They’d later take a trip from their home in New York to Florida and make sure to stop to see us along the way.

But time and distance made things fade. We did end up visiting the Reilly’s after they moved to Massachusetts during the 1990′s (not far from Foxboro if I do so recall) … But after that I can’t recall much of anything – news or what not – of the Reilly family. I did not see Shannon at that mid-1990′s get together because she was still in New York, finishing school while staying with relatives. I do remember Brian was playing offensive line in football but… eh.

I wanna know whatever happened to Shannon? I want to knwo what’s up with the Reilly family and I hope everything is ok. It’s a shot in the dark trying to write a blog entry about them — but after I did research on various platforms trying to find them and failed… I thought this was at least worth a shot….

We’ve known each other for quite a few years,
Shared our laughter, anger and tears
We’re lovers of past
Friends of today
Yet something’s been missing in things we say

I lost you once when you needed space
I lost you twice when you moved away
I’ve lost you to another man
Now I’m losing you to a foreign land

But away, you’ve gotta go
The life you chose is the life you know
And your life’s heading in another direction
We’d only crossed at an intersection
Each time you’ve gone, you’ve come back to me
And I hope that’s how it’ll always be

I know you’re happy with the plan:
You’re path in life, your future, your man
But something in me’s been gone a long, long time
The joy you bring and the way you can–
Fill me up with hope and glee
Honey, you’ve always completed me
But the time grows short and the rhyme grows long
I look again and now you’re gone

You’re on your way, with part of me
It seems that you have some secret key
You unlock my smiles and my zany side
Ignite my passions and calm my mind
But you’re not mine — yet you’ll always be
I’ve lost you again, you’re flying free
I’ve lost you again, as you glide ‘cross the sea

© 2005 John Fontana

At any rate, I told people about this story in an earlier entry… There is no title to it as it stands right now and it’s just a few hundred words… Let me know what you think if you think anything about it… Just click on more to view it.

Dontrell and Monica stood on the tiptoes of their flip-flop clad feet and peered into the white minivan. They had been on their way to the community pool to help beat the mid-summer heat when they were compelled to look in ominous white vehicle that was owned by a white lady who lived nearby. The car was parked just across the street from their own apartment and along the path to the pool. It was impossible for them not to look, knowing the white woman had big dogs that she put in there. They had seen her and the animals before and both intimidated them. There were a couple of large cages in the back of the minivan, where the woman sometimes put the dogs before she drove off to where ever white women go to.

“Ya’ll better watch out,” their mom’s boyfriend, Barry, spoke from behind them. “She gonna’ end up comin’ out and catchin’ you!” He was standing close to their apartment building and hauling a couple of trash bags in his arms. The kids liked Barry with his music and modified car that had a really loud speakers and could bounce too! He wore gold chains and looked like a rapper from TV.

“Ya’ll see those cages in there?” Barry asked, putting down his trash bags for a moment and approaching the kids. The cages had specifically caught their attention because of how big they were. “Ya’ll look at them real good ‘cause when she catches you she’s gonna’ put your asses in those cages and let the dogs eat you!”

The kids looked at Barry in disbelief. Would the woman really do that to them? Feed them to those monster hounds? Barry slowly nodded as if to stress the point before picking up the trash bags again and continuing on his trek to the trash bin. He let out a laugh on the way but the children didn’t hear him – they were too preoccupied on the frightening reality that stood before them.

Ever since Dontrell and Monica watched their friend Alisha be mauled by her family pit bull a few months earlier, the kids had been absolutely terrified of dogs. It could be their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Jackson, and her little terrier. It could also be any one of the neighborhoods other pit bulls, and there were many of them. Whatever size it was, whatever breed it was, the kids were certain the animal was ready to snap at them.

And of course some white lady’s dogs have got to be trained to go after the black folk, the kids thought. She was one of the only non-black people that lived in the apartment complex, and they had no idea why she didn’t live with the rest of her people and leave their neighborhood alone.

She seemed scary to them just because she was so alien – white people weren’t common in their community. Her hair was a deep red and she barely smiled. She wore glasses and was always bringing around other strange white folks: a scrawny man who walked around with the help of a stick, and there was another woman who stayed with her for a while who had a scab on one of her eyes. Maybe they were her friends but they were all so freaky!

The dogs that the lady had – they looked like the kind they had seen when Barry took them and their mom to the racetrack once in a while. The big, sleek, thin dogs would chase a mechanical rabbit around a track and they were hella’ quick too! That was another reason why the kids were so taken aback of the white woman’s dogs – they knew that they were too fast not to catch them!

It was terribly hot, but Dontrell and Monica had forgotten the pool for the moment, as they stood affixed to their fears.

In their silence, they imagined being locked in the cages and having those big dogs closing in on them. They would be slobbering and panting, barking and growling and showing their viciousness before closing in on the kill. It would be exactly like what happened to Alisha – having her skin ripped off and being made dead… There would be no escape. They’d scream and maybe Barry would try to save them from that mad white bitch’s dogs? Or maybe he’d let them die so he could have their mother to hi’self? He always wanted private time with her anyway and was always throwing them out of the apartment.

A voice from behind them broke the anxious silence, “Could you kindly not get handprints on my windows?”

It was the white lady – standing not 3 yards from them. Dontrell and Monica looked at each other and panicked. They heard not a word of what the woman said but had all of their fantasies come to life! Barry said she’d feed them to the dogs! Barry said she’d lock them in the cages before she did it! She was here now and at any moment now her dogs would be chasing after them down in frenzy!

They screamed and took off for the pool without looking back. If they had, they would have noticed the white lady watching them with an expression of bewilderment. The threat was only in their minds, the perception of imminent doom was just an innocent childhood misconception; one whose impression will not likely fade with away

Excuses and lack of discussion – and gang-up-on-John BS.

Well, how do I break it to everyone that I bought a dog months ago? Especially when I show up with her next week?

Now? My friend Terra up in Tallahasee is having labor induced (for medical reasons – high BP on her part and swelling) today. … I’ve only just heard from her about what is going on.

Hope she has an easier time than Michelle…

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)?

Eric Rosell, one of my best friends growing up – the kid aroudn the corner – got married in a small ceremony at a local church. It was the first time I had seen his parents in a few months, the first time I had seen his brother in a few years and the first time I had seen his sister in more years. It was amazing I was attending Eric’s wedding, surreal even. (sidenote – is it bad luck if a Catholic is married on teh day the Pope dies? I hope not)

I grew up playing or hanging out at Eric’s house. I was the one that was first notably enamoured with someone of the opposite sex… Or at least the first to make a big deal otu of love and romance and stuff like that. This, that and the other thing – I saw my childhood before me — even as it disappeared further.

The nostalgia didn’t end there as I heard from Danae – the girl who live ddownt eh block for a time who I was flipped out for. I had sent her an email wishing her a happy birthday — strange how sometimes you feel like it’s not yoru place to say soemthing like that and yet you have no problem with doing so with other people who are almost complete strangers. She got to breaking me the news her grandmother – who lives down the block – had passed away at Christmas (which I wasn’t aware of) and other things. I remembered being smitten with the saphire-eyed girl who lived at the corner… I thought of the memory of the past – and the awkwardness and malignance the relationship had in general.

But of all negatives in the past – they’ve been forgiven. If not forgotten by me.

Yes, it’s true, (yes it’s true) I am happy to be stuck with you
Yes, it’s true, (yes it’s true) I’m so happy to be stuck with you
‘Cause I can see, (I can see) that you’re happy to be stuck with me

We’ve had our doubts, we never took them seriously
And we’ve had our ins and outs, but that’s the way it’s supposed to be
We thought about giving up, but we could never stay away
Thought about breaking up, but now we know it’s much too late
And it’s no great mystery
If we change our minds
Eventually, it’s back to you and me

Yes, it’s true, (yes it’s true) I am happy to be stuck with you
Yes, it’s true, (yes it’s true) I’m so happy to be stuck with you
‘Cause I can see, (I can see) that you’re happy to be stuck with me

We are bound by all the rest
Like the same phone number
All the same friends
And the same address

Yes, it’s true, (yes it’s true) I am happy to be stuck with you
Yes, it’s true, (yes it’s true) I’m so happy to be stuck with you
‘Cause I can see, (I can see) that you’re happy to be stuck with me
(yes it’s true) I’m so happy to be stuck with you
I’m happy to be stuck with you
Happy to be stuck with you.