"If memory serves me..."

I love that opening to Iron Chef... but anyway


So today is the 1st. Go back 3 years, and it's still the 1st. Aint that somethin!

But.. If memory serves me.. Im pretty sure by now we had the pool filled. Big pool. One of those inflateable numbers you get a Toys R Us or WalMart. Somehow we got the biggest one they had. And it took up the whole yard.

No, Im not kidding - it was pushing against the garage and the fence, it was bigger than the available lawn it was on. 5 foot deep by 18 foot around I think.. And it was one of those "inflate the ring, then fill the pool, and watch the pool create itself through SCIENCE!"

Like sea monkeys I guess.

So here we had this great pool, bbq, patio - the whole 9 meters. Course, this was only on my days off - the rest of the time when I was working, I sat infront of the computer where the A/C was.

I think we filled the pool around June 1st that year, because it got hot out quick. So if you figure from June 1st to August 1st was "my summer," I was probably in that pool twice. If even that. Normally I stayed in the basement, laying on the bed having strange neck pains. Like a pulled muscle near the spine, but one that kept spasming.

I haven't said much about that pain have I? Well - it was that pain that kept my head at a seemingly permanent tilt. Imagine if you will having a tooth pulled, and the nerves in the root come out with the tooth, along with a full foot-long pencil thin muscle in your neck. Yeah, sorry about that - it is nasty. But the pain was like that. Oh - and at the base of my skull, it felt like some other muscle was trying to rip a chunk of my skull off the brain. Add to this the lightheaded feeling, and the occasional tingle of the tip of my nose, lips, and tongue - and what we had here was a failure to comprehend.

And like I said, I was still operating under the idea that I was hypoglycemic, and had a pulled muscle in my neck.

I can understand quantum physics, the theory of "hard light", and generally anything to do with the string theory - but my own body's warning signs? No habla ingles.

Of course everyone else around me knew something was going wrong, and wanted me to see a doctor. Would I? Would I? Hell no.

I had no insurance first off, and in NY they're not quite as understanding when it comes to charitable aid like the Carilion program which I am acquainted with. No, they would rather you bleed to pay them. And they are quite good at making you bleed.

So June ended and July began with my being basically lost in space. I was miserable, made everyone else miserable, unmotivated, seemingly angry all the time. There was little I wanted to do on a daily basis, and less on an hourly basis.

I know we went to see some movie one night, I don't really remember it - most of what I remember is shifting in the seat from side to side trying to get rid of the pain.

Well, thats all for today. Sometimes these memories dont come in order, so I have to pull back and try and sort them.