Metal is mettle is metal

It's Tuesday afternoon. My boss's door is open and the light is turned off. I have just finished my lackluster lunch and I feel numb.  Tomorrow morning, Isaac and I will be traversing the American skyline on our way to Chicago for the AWP Annual Conference and yet, I'm not excited. My boss and I have been planning this trip since last April. He has been to Chicago before so he has regaled me with stories of the Windy City and how much fun he's had there. Until the end of May, we--my boss and I--continued to hammer out the details of the trip; but then the world changed for us: my boss was diagnosed with cancer. He tells me that his prognosis is good but he attends chemo therapy twice a month. He tells me that he feels great but we all see him stagger and hear him throw up in his private restroom. He asked me, while reeling from the news of his cancer, "What are we going to do about AWP!?" I suggest Isaac go with us so as to lend a helping hand. Having seen too many of my own family members sucumb to cancer, I know only too well treatment for cancer robs the strength and tires the muscles. Like a shark in the throes of feeding, chemo eats everything in its path and does not discriminate friend from foe. In December, we booked our flights. Isaac and I scrambled to get the $300 dollars necessary for his flight. We did it thanks to Mom. I finally got everything together and waited for today. If we could just make it one more week. We would be back with vivid memories of worthwhile adventures but alas, my boss is too weak to make the trip. He has just informed me that he cannot make it and is leaving it to me to handle the conference on my own.

Tomorrow morning--just before 7am, Isaac and I will board the plane. He will be excited and I will be nervous. We will joke around and make each other laugh and the plane will have at least one empty seat. The excitement of the adventure is heavily diminished knowing the last trip my boss could make happened a year ago.

Egads! Not Since April 2011 Have I Posted Here!

Ten months ago, I posted a story that still makes me laugh when I read it and I have had countless adventures since! Like the time Isaac and I erupted into a shouting match while poor Ken and Jonjon sat in the backseat, hungover as hell, huddled together like frightened puppies on our way to the Texas Reinassance Festival. Or when I finally convinced Isaac to move in with me only to realize that, once again, Isaac had to work the week of his move and so I was left moving everything (again, with the help of Ken and Jonjon--guardian angels if ever there were any.)

And though it reads as if I'm about to paint to a sob story here, let me say now that Isaac moving in has been such a blessing. I have always been a joyous person--not absolute joy, but joyous all the same; Isaac coming into my life has magnified that joy many times over. Thank you, Isaac--my seraph.

This April will mark my forty-fourth birthday and I have yet to contribute anything permanent in this society--well, aside from debt! (Bwahahahahaha!) But seriously, as many of my close friends know, I am a storyteller and, personally, I think I can spin a pretty good yarn! So inspired by my dear friend, Manny, who once said, "All the good things happen on even years!"  (I'm probably butchering the hell out of what he actually said but what the hell) I am resolved to make this year: 2012--the year of my 44th birthday--be the year I make all my good things happen. This will be the year I begin "my" career as a writer, an artist, a creator!

Don't worry, Isaac, I won't quit my day job--not yet anyway. But mark the calendar! This is the day! Huzzah! Let us begin to spin that yarn!