This Is My Life

(this is my only life)

The phrase is, "No news is good news." That seems pretty valid, in the sense that this is one of the longest breaks in this blog, and coincides with the greatest time of my entire life. Indeed, I do this more as a courtesy, as I don't feel the need to write (in my blog) much. There is little I need to figure out. My life is very, very, very blessed.

Foremost is Casey. Pandora (my romantic muse) and Caissa (my writing muse) are off-the-charts giddy and excited. I could write a thousand paragraphs on what she means to me - but will simply state that I have found my match, my friend, my confidant, my lover, my teammate, my challenger, my supporter, and my love. For all those who still search and yearn for such a person, know that I passed up a chance to settle, had to wait two and a half years filled with many questioning thoughts and wonderings about whether I would ever find someone who made me truly happy. Then came the random Friday night when I went to a gathering where I told myself I didn't even want to meet anyone and was only going to see friends... and my life changed, instantly and irrevocably. It was all the cliches. Love at first sight. It will happen when you least expect it.
Maybe yours won't work the same way, but in my case, I had to simultaneously stop looking so hard and make sure I was out there for that to happen. And I thank God daily that it did. My prayers were answered.

Sports are fun. After a tough time over the last few weeks because my heart acted up again - necessitating a hospital visit in Maui on our only family vacation west of Kansas ever - I've been tentative. But after DW's bachelor party weekend, I've realized that this is my life. This is my only life. And I will not let this rule my life. I have to push through.

Dave is getting married. :) I am so excited for the wedding. Jess is a great girl. Dave seems excited and content, a good combo. Casey has already bought a dress. I think this might be one of the best dancing opportunities of my life so far.

My city is doing amazing.
The Steelers won the Super Bowl... and I was there, in person. I was at the 18 yard line, some 33 rows back, on the end zone that James Harrison scored into after he ran across my whole field of vision. I saw Ben scramble right in front of me four or five times and marveled that he even survived, much less made critical plays. I saw Santonio Holmes's catch in a perfect window and stunning snapshot in my mind. I agonized over every reviewed call without the benefit of instant replay. We celebrated like mad.
My Penguins won the Stanley Cup, and I was in person for the entire regular season and playoff run, including Games 3, 4, and 6 of the Stanley Cup Final at Mellon Arena. I attended Game 4 with Case; it was one of the seminal sporting moments of our lives (and our relationship). We were both at the parade (with DW) with another 374,997 people. It was all so surreal. It was a script that was written four years ago... and then came true. That is what never fails to astonish me. The Game 7 experience, watched with my family, was a tie with the Super Bowl in intensity. I held hands with Case tightly, paced back and forth, laid on the kitchen table and groaned in agony. I don't even remember what happened after the last-second save Fleury made. I can't believe we did it. Arguably the most amazing championship I've ever seen.
The city is beautiful. It will host the G-20 soon, and is as gorgeous as ever to watch from Mt. Washington or to see coming through the Fort Pitt Tunnel. I've visited other big cities, like Philly and New York, but only Pittsburgh makes me feel part of it. I feel so connected to it... and so does Case. We are happy here. We feel at home here. Yay, Pittsburgh.

I'm still employed at work - even though I am writing this right now - and have the opportunity to perhaps continue schooling, if my heart is in it.

I haven't done much writing lately, mostly because of Casey - in the best way - but still think about it and love it as much as ever when I do it. I am literally hours away from being done with the first ten chapters, and capable of handing 145 pages to anyone and say, "This is the beginning of my story." That is the length of the entire book I wrote in high school. That is exciting.

5725 Phillips, in Squirrel Hill, where I've lived for four years - as long as college - is ending. Dave has moved in with Jess. Nate is buying a house. I may not follow him to it, but will look back at that time - the 5725 Phillips Ave - as the height of my bachelorhood and transition into something else. Drinking on the steps, late night bears/baseball/boobs, random wandering around the apartment in boxers, eating when you could. Total madness. Totally wonderful.

To all those who wrote nicely about this blog - maybe most eloquently summed up by Ryan Corbi, a friend from afar who wrote a note that I think about much more often than he probably guesses - hoped for more updates.

I will try to keep them coming, so check back, if you wish; I sure as hell will not abandon this writing space. I've grown to like it, and will need it in the future, I am sure.

But this is my life.

And no news, for right now, means the best news of all.

I am happy.

I Won't Hesitate, No More, It Cannot Wait

(I'm yours)

Her name is Casey.

She is 6 feet tall with long black hair, an easy smile, and astonishingly light brown eyes.

She has an amazing family. Her sister may be the sweetest person in the world; her parents, a great two-sided mix of direct uprightness and silliness; her brother, an easy-going and intelligent guy. Her little nephew and niece, Mac and Annie, are 2 1/2 and 1 respectively, and are rambunctions, intelligent children that have no qualms going straight into the dip with the same pretzel time and again.

She's been hurt before, giving her this bizarre, intriguing mix of inner strength and vulnerability.

She plays basketball, coaches the cross-country team, and is a teacher of multiple grade levels.

She can cook, including an amazing, bursting plate of grilled salmon, fresh broccoli, and seasoned potatoes, served with bread and homemade garlic oil, set to a tasty red wine at a candlelight dinner.

She will shoo you out of the kitchen 47 times as you try to smell what is being cooked, and then end up shooing you twenty times even though you're not in the kitchen, because she keeps coming into the dining room for kisses, distracting you from pictures.

She will dress up as a French maid for a France party, and with you as French butler, will put the rest of the party to shame.

She loves dancing. Loves it. Loves slow dancing, loves hip shaking, loves wedding dancing, loves fast dancing until she is covered in sweat and can barely move her legs. The sensual and free spirited nature of her is released on the dance floor.

She loves my writing style and length of e-mails, and the conversational nature of words on my words on a computer screen. She will then respond in kind, replying to e-mails and creating her own as fast as you yourself can type. She will punctuate these with emoticons, italics, and all kinds of explanation points - and never misuse a word or spell it incorrectly.

She can pout with amazing cuteness.

She is proper, yet has an intensely wild side. She is moral but open to everything. She can completely let go with someone she trusts. And she loves to spend energy.

She will stay up all night partying on one night; stay home, read a book, and watch a daytime movie another.

She loves sleeping with someone she cares about. She can fall asleep with someone nearby, can drift seamlessly in and out of consciousness, and sensually lay her long frame across yours.

She will shout as loud as you at a Penguins game, and get out of her seat on a breakaway a half-second before the rest of the section.

Above all else, she loves life. There could be no more heady, intoxicating wine for my soul.


It is - stunningly - only a little over a month since I first met her, yet every meeting, every e-mail, every date, every touch, has been an unbelievable learning, a realization that in our physicality, our hearts, our souls, we have found a like person, someone who sees the world the same we the other does, who has hopes and dreams and loves like them, and, like them, is totally falling for the other - without reservation, without fear, and without any semblance of anything like this happening before.

I am taking it slow. I am taking my time.

But she is my girlfriend. And I'm not sure I've ever been this happy.

In A Dream

(I hope not to wake from)

Our second date, we had planned to go to the park for a walk, to throw the frisbee, and maybe dinner afterwards.

She let me know that day that she wanted to cancel our plans... to invite me to her place for dinner, a movie, and a bottle of wine.

We didn't eat much dinner.
We never got to the movie.
We didn't even make it that far into the wine.

That makes it sound wilder than it was - and it wasn't like there wasn't some romance - but for almost all that time, we talked. Talked, and laughed, and commiserated, and joked, and whispered, and learned. We talked about basketball and injuries and Kennywood and haunted houses and family trips and religion and hobbies and stuffed animals and height and family resemblance and school kids and Blades of Glory and houses and writing and scrapbooks and seasons and - blessedly - being yourself. Truly, truly your self. Just writing the words has my head whirling.

I e-mailed her today, the next day. She sent back a voicemail, and an e-mail, both utterly wonderful. The e-mail, though, was glorious. In it she wrote, " I love being myself around you. I feel more alive."

Wow.

This post really needs to be predecessed by all the bizarre connections that we have found out about since meeting each other. It's... uncanny isn't even the right word. It's amazing. At times, we won't even like the same things, but her tastes compliment mine, in a way that I could never describe, writer or no.

I spent 30 minutes working with my boys about what to wear on the date, which is 29 more minutes than I usually take at most.
I couldn't sleep for an hour afterwards.
I planned to stay to 10 or so, and got back just before 1.

I am reeling, and loving it.

Sometimes, If You Really Want Something

(try to want it a little less)

After that last post, that last topic, those thoughts, I finally decided to relax. Wanting something too badly is a great way to assure that you will never have it.
So, I decided to go to the PPP (Pittsburgh Party for a Purpose) and not worry about it. No effort to try and meet women; no worrying about my single nature; simply go, and enjoy myself.
And I met a girl trying to do the same thing.
God (and his universe) are funny that way.

The first thing I noticed about her was her dancing - not shameless, but fully passionate, uncaring, less perfect than passionate, a dance that said that she danced for her and her alone, not for others' approval. She danced with two other girls (who I later found out where her sister and friend), and in what would be the first of many bizarre coincidences, was dancing to - I kid you not - the Knight Rider theme mixed with a Middle Eastern backbeat. Crazy.
I danced nearby her, enjoying the blast to my past, suddenly 10 again with a cool talking car that could turbo boost over ravines.
"It's hot in here," she suddenly said. "I'm sweating."
Instinct took over - a comment that I wouldn't have made, except for the way she was dancing, and my own personal views on the sinuous, sensual act - and leaned in.
"If you aren't sweating," I said loud enough for all three to hear, "you aren't dancing."
I knew I had struck a nerve immediately with her expression and reaction. "Yeah!" she responded, and proceeded to continue to dance, taking notice of someone nearby for the first time.

The rest of the night was a post in and of itself.
The first date, another.
Second date tomorrow.

Too early for expectations. Too early for predictions, or guesstimates. Too early for forecasts.

Not too early for hope.

And just right to enjoy, and wonder.

Waiting For The World To Change

(or my heart)

I've known, for a long time, that I am a romantic at heart. I have no qualms about giving myself, entirely, to someone, entrusting my soul to someone and receiving theirs in turn. I long for it. It is the greatest thing that can be done in this life, to share your life with another, and to walk, intertwined and unafraid, into eternity together, be it heaven or the disassociation of electrical impulses among unspecial molecules, and I'm not sure which one is more amazing.

Only recently, however, have I felt that longing.

This is a natural reaction. Martin is married. Dave is now engaged to Jess, a fact I couldn't be happier about. Jess Smith, Pez, Andrew Butcher, all are engaged to be married.

I know many people - some of whom are my friends - that are agonizing over their lack of engagement, or prospects for marriage, as if that was their goal, their reason for finding someone. To be married. Personally, I couldn't care less about marriage.

I care about love.

I've spent my time single, now. Over two years. Coupled with the relationships I was in prior this, I still have spent over 3/4 of my time taken. Many people - which include many I know - don't have anywhere near that experience, and would gladly take it. I understand that.
But it was so long in that format that being out of it confused me; I didn't remember the game, didn't remember how, and am not sure I ever did. Interests pass and go.

Had a dance with someone who cared, for the first time in a long time, on Saturday night. Her name was Stacey, and she was Gillian's friend, from out of town. She claimed she was unable to dance. She claimed to be terrible at swing. But she cleared space on the floor and kicked off her shoes in mid-dance - hitting people on the side of the floor as she did so - and sweated and moved and stayed close. I ran my hands through her hair, and she placed her hand on my hip. We danced with each other until they stopped the music and kicked everyone out at the end of the night. They stopped far too early.

She left on Sunday, her smile, conversation, and dance a welcome touch on my heart, a girl I likely will never see again. Nothing more.

But I forgot how much I missed that.

I said to myself once - regretfully - that I would rather pass almost all of the years of my life alone and find my true love at 81 than to be married to the wrong person at 27. Sadly, this is still true.

United 93

(we shall never forget)

I just finished watching the movie "United 93".
This isn't the first time I've seen it. For some reason I really wanted to see it when it came out, as opposed to the "World Trade Center", which I never wanted to see. Maybe I intrinsically got a sense that United 93 was better; maybe it was because, on the day of September 11th and 12th and 13th and all those days afterward, I always wanted to hear more about United Flight 93. The article about it in Time the week afterward - a huge section - was one of the most riveting things I've experienced in a long time.
Watching the movie was re-living that article.
There's something amazing about the information that comes up when you hit the Info button on the remote. It gives you the name at the beginning, and a description at the end. But in between it ranks the movie, from 1 star to 4 stars. Only four options; you don't get to choose two-and-a-half-stars. And there's no word on how they came up with this, whether there are votes, discussions, and who is making these choices, or its just the opinion of the one person who happened to code it in. But, oddly, the stars almost always seem accurate.
The Info button gives United 93 four stars.

I didn't mean to watch this. I was turning channels, and happened to land on it, just as American 11 starts acting weird. I only watched for five or six seconds. That was at 11:30 or so. It's now past 1.
There are many amazing things about the movie, not the least of which include the amazingly objective portrayal of each side of the conflict - I once read a review that said the scenes of both the passengers and terrorists praying fervently at the same time was extremely powerful, and I agree - as well as the absolute attention to detail and truth. All the quotes that stuck in my mind from the article were there, right down to "Break down the door. If we don't get in, we'll all die!" that you can just hear over the din and the madness of the final five minutes of the movie, all taken from actual transcripts and phone calls and black boxes and everything else we know about that harrowing time. We saw The Happening yesterday, and it wasn't good, but it tried to be frightening.
It is nowhere near as frightening as United 93. My heart races like being backed into a corner and surrounded by men with knives.
Apt, that.

What really sticks out for me the most - both the first time I watched it, and now - is the amazing sense of inevitable death, and how people react to it. You get all kinds of reactions, from denial, to total incoherency, to emotion, to stoic resolve, to anger, to determination, to righteous fear. The bravery that these people showed in their last moments... its unthinkable. My stomach clenches and my mind wants to shut off when I put myself in that position, but I won't let it. They died, as did all the members of those four highjacked planes, but they died fighting for their lives despite the hopeless odds, died in an abandoned little field in Pennsylvania, instead of the White House. Died on their terms, not someone else's.
The military didn't know that United 93 had been highjacked until 4 minutes after it crashed. The nearest fighter jets were 100 miles away.
They died heroes.

I lay here at night and think, 'Can I meet my end in that way?' Whether being hit by a car and feeling my life seep out into the gritty pavement, or having my throat slit and have a few agonizing seconds as blood no longer flows to my brain and everything fades to black, or at the end of a long disease, ravaged by pain and weakened to a rancid shell of my former self, I have had time to wonder. None of those people were ready. I have had my lifetime to prepare.

Most terrifying of all, one day I will be faced with the choice of choosing - really choosing - between what is right, and what is easy.
Can I do that if my life might be the cost?
Can I do that if I know that my life is the cost?

Those are questions that I am still trying to answer. But I think of them because of you. We shall never forget. And thank you.

Free Association

(verbatim and untouched)

Where do you think you can go, with all the weight of the world behind you? Disassociate. Stop thinking. Free association writing is that, after all. Don't worry about the insights, the looks into the imnd. The misspellings, like that one. Your eyes are still closed, you've been able to type sentences, paragraphs, entires pages with out ever looking at the screen for years now. FF in the background, night on your lips. Where? Does it come back to the sotry? Bu why fail to get there now/ It doesn't seem to make sense, it's not fair, that everyone has to keep their fingers moving, the sentences coming out, longer for some. Sooner for me? What is the price for all of this? This life, this payment we write through, where can it ever be recalculated? Scary words. What a disturbing thing, these weakk, fleshy sacks, unable to protect themselves, unabl t to hope for anything better, a decaying mass ready to give up the ghost at the first opportunity or sickness or car. Where do they sign? But the few that durvive. What is that, really? Do the good ones die young? If so, what sense life? If life is all. If not... well, then this has point once again. Can I live without that? Without the point, the feeling the passion of the chase? Where is all of the bluebirds, if not for in the birdhouse? Why go there - feel rushing, farther away from the keyboard, only fingers now. A rift of blody and time. Where is this? How long? It seems obvious that everything we do is controlled by human intervention, how to stop it, Maraaret and Martin, where art thou? Marla. Still writing, still living, still doctor, still dying. We all are. But how to die is the question, the scariest perhaps, for to discuss something is to make it a reality. Cliffs? Fiver? Family? Friends? The thoughts o fdeath and night and sleep. For the end of all things, and all times. How to stop the force, how to continue to do more things from spite than love. Hopefully not true, with lights, and the light of the end of the tunnel is Heaven or death. Pick and choose, hop eyou don't lose.