Planet Ars Lounge

hanser: Gmail is not quite perfect (yet)

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 18:50:06 +0000

Despite what TechCrunch says, Gmail is not perfect.* It’s missing two more key pieces of functionality that I (and many others) would likely use. They are:

Sort mail by attachment size
Delete attachments (but not the entire email message)

I’d like to be able to sort by attachment size, so I can delete attachments which are large, and/or I’ve already downloaded to my computer, which is the second bullet on my list. I just sent out an attachment that didn’t work as expected, and I wanted to delete the attachment from my email, and leave only the working version. Can’t do that the way that Gmail is currently set up — I can delete the whole message, but I don’t want to do that.

Maybe they’ll add this functionality later on. I surely hope so. I’m not running out of space, I just don’t like keeping superfluous junk in my email — I like to pare everything down to the bare essentials, and broken email attachments aren’t essential.

* This of course, is ignoring the fact that some 60 Gmail users lost almost all of their email in recent weeks. Oopsie.

Technorati Tags: Google, Gmail, email, Internet

JoshB: Happy New Year!

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 05:12:54 +0000

Obligatory last post of 2006. We just got home from Rachel’s parents in Springfield. We may stay up and ring in the New Year, or we may just crash.

I’ve been staying more or less disconnected from feeds and email this past week, while I’ve been on vacation. I’m taking stock of things I want to get done, and how I’m going to do it. I’m feeling fired up about 2007 - lots of fun, exciting, and productive things coming. At least, that’s how the New Year always starts out, no?

Hope you have (had) a safe and fun New Year celebration!

StoneTable: Happy New Year

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 04:08:29 +0000

It’s the end of the year and as we prepare to welcome in the new year I want to take a moment to reflect on the past year.

The majority of my time this year has been into building up my primary company, Traffic Engine, Inc.. Very similar to what I was doing after ditto.com after it shut down and reformed as VPP Technologies (even though they still operate under the ditto.com brand). We’re basically a technology provider for web publishers. Our ad-serving platform provides them a meta feed of ads, based on the quality of their traffic, along with real-time reporting. Of course, everyone just assumes I do spam. Little do they know the long hours spent honing my finely-crafted algorithms to detect and block click fraud.

The rest of my time has been spent split between writing short stories and working on Open Source. I didn’t attend any writing conventions this year, but I did go to Penguicon in April, LinuxWorld and the Ubuntu user conference at Google in August, and the GNOME Summit in Boston. My two passions (writing and technology, for those folks who haven’t caught on to that yet) have merged, as I’ve begun a literary love affair with cyberpunk.

Travel-wise, I made several trips to southern California for work (I’ve lost count of the exact number), San Francisco, Boston, Las Vegas, and a layover somewhere in Texas along the way. Dena made one trip to southern California with me and the Las Vegas weekend was our little vacation this year. I had a planned trip to Paris, France for work, but it was too close to the holiday crunch so I canceled it.

Health-wise, I’m feel better than I ever have. I’ve lost 100 pounds and lost 10+ inches around the waist. I’m happy and healthy.

As far as resolutions go, making a list is the thing to do.

Write more
Work less
Delegate more (I’m hiring web designers, a systems/linux administrator in the Chicago area, and a php/perl programmer)
Lose more weight
Enjoy life

Happy New Years!

kennedye: How not to fix the newspaper industry

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 03:30:52 +0000

Among the many things I’m delinquent on writing about over the past few weeks, this article on how to “fix” the newspaper industry surely ranks as one of the most idiotic:

Newspapers cannot succeed as Internet ventures — not on the scale they need to survive — if they persist in using a business model predicated on giving away their news content and selling ads based on the audience that is drawn to free content.

No, that’s not the idiotic part. This is:

What to do? Here’s my proposal: Newspapers and wire services need to figure out a way, without running afoul of antitrust laws, to agree to embargo their news content from the free Internet for a brief period — say, 24 hours — after it is made available to paying customers. The point is not to remove content from the Internet, but to delay its free release in that venue.

Are you kidding me? This is the quickest way to render the newspaper irrelevant forever. Perhaps it hasn’t sunk in to Mr. Scheer yet, but newspapers do not own a monopoly on the publication of news online. When the major papers fail to report a story for fear of losing advertising revenue, they’ll immediately be scooped by weblogs and community journalists. Newspapers have enough problems with people accusing them of putting financial interests ahead of journalistic duties, they really don’t need to absolutely confirm it as fact.

Better minds than mine have long since pointed this out, but I felt the need to get it off my chest before the end of the year, at least.

Tags: newspaper, online

Clintology: Arslounge is back!

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 16:39:30 +0000

I kept having a crapton of issues because SQLite and the sqlite drivers for python just dont hold up well. I’d get a lot of locked database errors when my python processes would hang in the middle of writes. No matter, I’ve migrated all the data to a mySQL database and we should be good to go for a while!

Clintology: Dork [Flickr]

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 15:57:04 +0000

704 Race posted a photo:

Clintology: The final bits of loot this year

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 05:30:53 +0000

Bought two pair of Puma shoes today to replace the toasted pair I’d worn for about 4 months now.

A pair of off-white and ‘otter’ Roma PFs:

A pair of navy Suedes:

Also got an LRG t-shirt. I was excited to find a real-life retailer selling these so I could try on the smaller sizes and see what I wear:

I wear a large for what it’s worth

I also received my xmas present from Mr. David Chaney. A nice Leatherman I picked out at Thinkgeek. I don’t know most of the Leatherman things out there. They try to do too much. This h503 multi-tool has a nice blade, a cool locking bit driver (and stores extra bits in the handle), along with a bottle and can opener.

We got a bunch of gifts from Jacqui’s family too including a new shuffle for me and an 8GB red iPod nano for Jacqui (woo!).

Durf: Clan Durfee plots world domination

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 04:12:51 +0000

xmas 06 053
Originally uploaded by adurfee.

Or something . . . I'm not sure what they're doing, sitting around the Christmas table and drinking champagne and poring over secret code books. I hope that's what they are. Would be boring for them to end up yet another game to play at family get-togethers.

On the subject of those, we're heading downtown to Yotsuya this evening to have our own on this side fo the Pacific. Stay up late, watch some idiotic television programming, maybe go to the local shrine after midnight. There will be plenty of food to plow through, as there usually is when you go to a dinner event prepared by the Enchante crew.

Happy 2007 to everyone (anyone? Bueller?) who takes a look at this blog from time to time. In the new year I'll try to do more with this place. I swear! I will need to get active and share pics of the little one on the way.

MixMasterP: First post in forever, and it’s just a silly quiz result

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 20:24:07 +0000

Thought that this was amusing enough to share. I’ve taken a few “Which Superhero are you quizzes?” over the years. I’ve always gotten the result that I’m Batman. Batman being one of my favorite comic book characters and the one hero I always admired, not too surprising. However, this time around I got this:

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man
95%

Green Lantern
80%

The Flash
75%

Superman
70%

Batman
60%

Supergirl
50%

Hulk
45%

Wonder Woman
40%

Robin
35%

Catwoman
30%

Iron Man
25%

You are intelligent, witty,
a bit geeky and have great
power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Not too much of a change, but a silly little one. To me, it kind of shows that I’ve changed slightly in the last few years. I’ve always viewed my always getting Batman as my broody, doomed to the night kind of personality. Spidey, though his life has been equally tragic, at least has a sense of humor.

There’s probably no significance there, but I’d like to think my personality has gone through a slight bit of a change in the last few years. Here’s hoping it ’tis for the better.

Clintology: 2006 in Photos

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 17:55:25 +0000

Clintology: Ars Technica Goose Island Meet

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 17:05:30 +0000

To say farewell to 2006, about 25 people from the general vicinity of Chicago came together at the Goose Island Brew Pub in Wrigleyville. Here’s the highlights:

Why am I always getting licked?

Lots more pictures on Flickr

Clintology: Clint and Janet [Flickr]

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 15:17:36 +0000

704 Race posted a photo:

Clintology: Clint making the "what" face [Flickr]

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 15:16:56 +0000

704 Race posted a photo:

Clintology: Mat and Clint hug [Flickr]

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 15:14:56 +0000

704 Race posted a photo:

Clintology: Clint, Mat, Jacqui, and Janet [Flickr]

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 15:11:59 +0000

704 Race posted a photo:

hanser: I believe it’s time for another QOTD

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 11:11:53 +0000

From yesterday:

Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.

- Edith Sitwell

I think it sounds arrogant, but the principle is sound… a better way of saying? Hmm, perhaps, but maybe less concise.

Can truth by its nature be arrogant? I don’t know.

DrFaulken: Wii posting

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 04:56:14 +0000

I am typing this from my new Wii. The data entry is via the wiimote and is in between an original cell text entry system and a newer predictive text entry system. One thing it does not do is build compound words if you choose from the predictive text option, i.e. “predict” does not continue to build towards “predictive” once selected.

The most interesting suggestion so far is either texaco or y’all :)

On The Pharm: Fast-food medicine: retail health clinics and the licensing issues

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 22:01:04 +0000

Back in July, CVS bought MinuteClinic, thinking to get a jump on the coming retail health clinic boom. If you’re like me, and you oppose the fast-food medicine phenomenon, you’re probably against the whole idea.

What I can’t argue against is the convenience, and that’s what’s going to be the big thing. People aren’t going to utilize them for the management of chronic illness, they’re going to use it for the one-off things: Hey I’ve got an ear infection. Hey I’ve been hacking my lungs out for the last 3 days. Hey my sinuses are about to explode and I’m ready to go postal on anyone who f’n looks at me. That sort of thing. (”Zpak, next!” “Zpak, next!” “Amoxicillin, next!…” etc. etc. ad inifinitum) Anyways, what’s better than stopping by CVS, seeing the PA (or NP), doing some shopping, then stopping by the pharmacy to pick up your Zpak? One-stop shopping at it’s finest.

Anyway I spoke at some length with a CVS district manager two weeks ago about the MinuteClinic thing, asking for some details on how they’re run. Who are they staffed by? (An MD? Probably not.) He didn’t know, which sort of irritated me. He was thinking in terms of revenue, and I’m thinking in terms of what’s best for the patient. I guess my main question is how you’re going to have someone diagnosing and prescribing without an MD on staff. PAs and NPs, of course are able to prescribe, so long as they have a supervising physician. (In the two states I’m familiar with, anyway.) So where’s the incentive for the MD to “supervise” a clinician at a retail-based health clinic that’s taking revenue away from their own practice, regardless of whether they own their own shop, or are part of a bigger whole? From a pure business perspective, it doesn’t make sense to me, unless CVS plans to share part of the revenue from their health clinics with these practices. (Which I don’t see CVS doing.)

Maybe they’ll higher one supervising MD per district and have all their NPs or PAs report to him? That’s really the only way I could see a system like that working, but it would seem like a terribly kludgy system. Does anyone know?

In any event, retail health clinics will not be coming to New Hampshire or Massachusetts in 2007, according to aforementioned DM. There hasn’t been any money allocated to open clinics. They will be popping up in Maine, particularly in the uniquely urban-rural areas like Bangor. Apparently there’s more money to be made there than in southern NH and Massachusetts, which really isn’t terribly surprising given the relative density of clinicians to the general populace.

Technorati Tags: Medicine, pharmacy, CVS

On The Pharm: Hello, Mr. Ondansetron

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 21:30:33 +0000

A nice little drop-shipped delivery package — generic ondansetron! Chemo patients everywhere rejoice…

Not that it’s going to be all that terribly less expensive than brand Zofran, but it’s a start. If I recall correctly, the AWP for the 8mg tablets was around $1800, and the 4mg tablets was around $800.

Hopefully in six months or so, we’ll see the bottom fall out of the price.

Technorati Tags: Medicine, pharmacy, Zofran, ondansetron, nausea, vomiting, cancer, oncology, chemotherapy

hanser: Treading lightly and giving back

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 21:27:28 +0000

I feel pretty strongly about being a decent human being: treading lightly on the world (within reason), being generous to those in need, etc. It occurred to me the other day while I was in the process of trying to max out my credit card — yes max it out — that I hadn’t given any money in over a year. To anyone for any cause. Not even the folks ringing the bells from the Salvation Army.

So I went on over to Charity Navigator to see what five-star charities they had in medical research. I picked Dana Farber just because, and I gave some money. Today I was bumbling around the web again and came across the EFF. So I decided to donate there as well, because I feel very strongly about their cause.

I paid off my credit cards yesterday — all three of them, in their entirety. That’s the last of the debt that I’ve got, minus my student loans. (It’s my goal to have those paid off by June of 2009.) I’ve been thinking that I need to start giving more. $100 to a charity means more to them than it does to me. That’s not to say I’m rich, because I’m not. But I do like to give, and I think it’s an important part of being a decent human being. Indeed, I aspire to the day when I can spend most of my time giving my money away if I choose.

Anyways, starting this June, it is my goal to donate all of my Google AdSense revenue to charity, and all of the money that I make by creating the PDFs for Ars articles to charity. That’s not a lot of money, but it’s something, and it’s money that I consider extra that has no home in my budget that’s just a nice little bonus when it comes every month. The money given away will be well worth more in terms of good feelings for me than it would be by buying something I don’t need.

I don’t know why I’m posting this. Maybe to remind others how much we have, and that we can share with those that do not.

Technorati Tags: Money, charity, giving, generosity

JoshB: The Past Tense of “Sync”

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 21:01:44 +0000

I know in my rational mind that it’s “synced”, but half the time, I end up saying “sunc”. As in sink/sunk. Anyone else’s brain cross-wired like that?

Headed out to spend the New Years weekend with my in laws in Eugene, OR. Hope everyone stays safe and happy!

Punk Walrus: Mean things to do to telemarketers

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:29:52 +0000

http://howtoprankatelemarketer.ytmnd.com

I wish I had a better entry today. I haven't been doing a whole lot because I am off since Wednesday to next Wednesday, and I plan on doing a whole lot of nothing. Of course, that ends up meaning "doing stuff I didn't have time to do because I am at work."

Yesterday, we had to take the dogs out to get their shots updated. That's always fun. Actually, the only dog that freaked out was Ahfu, who never likes having his blood drawn. At our vet, that means they go "into the back," and then come back to the room again like nothing happened. Almost seems sinister, but none of the dogs were harmed, and both are in good health.

In the evening, we had dinner with Jason, a friend of mine since high school. He's teaching Astronomy in Daytona currently, and told us about his life there. Normally, we spend New Year's with him, but he's got to go back for the Spring semester, even though his college was hit by a tornado this week, and they have a week's delay. He's teaching Observational Astronomy right now, and told us about his trip to Prague, and the people who demoted Pluto from being a planet (he wasn't a member, so he didn't vote, although he would have agreed with the ruling).

I have also spent a lot of time sleeping. While this seems boring, you have to understand, I am very behind on sleep since the AOL International NOC desk in 1999. At this point, I would have to sleep late for several months to catch up. And still I only get 5-6 hours of sleep on weekdays, and this is really fucking with my health. I have also spent a lot of downtime with my family because I never get to see them very much except when I am exhausted and run down.

Clintology: Let me just get these out of the way

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 15:36:03 +0000

I got my outfit all put together for NYE (and beyond!)

Bought some mad max hardcore boots from Steve Madden:

Got a shirt:

I got this in KS:

I fell off it while riding and I ripped a hole in my cool Pumas

I tried to buy some new Pumas yesterday but they couldn’t find the ones I wanted <:[

DrFaulken: I scored a Wii, plus an extra Nunchuck controller

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 03:08:26 +0000

After learning that Target had Nintendo Wiis back in stock thanks to the “Still Need a Wii?” post on Ars Technica, I headed out on a whim to see if the rumor was true. I also needed a travel thermos for Lady Jaye, so at the very least I’d accomplish something. Lo and behold, I got the last one in stock. In the two minutes or so it took me to check out two other people came up, asking if there were more.

Now the problem is finding a second set of controllers. After looking at two Targets, a Best Buy, a Circuit City, two EB Games and a Wal*Mart, I managed to score two Nunchuck controllers but no “Wiimote.” I need both to play Wii Boxing and the Wii Super Monkey Ball game.

I’m holding off opening the Wii until Lady Jaye and I can both play. However, if you need a Nunchuck controller for use with your own personal Wii and not for resale, I will offer the first Gibberish reader who contacts me a crack at it. I am only asking that you pay my costs (MSRP + 5% VA tax + shipping). I am not looking to make a buck here, I just grabbed the extra one in the hopes I could help someone else out.

hanser: Someone’s been hitting the Kool-Aid a little too hard

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 02:03:52 +0000

Haha I took this at the mall tonight… Someone’s brain has been addled by the RDF, methinks…

Technorati Tags: Apple, AAPL, cars, vanity plates, license plates

DrFaulken: Holiday in review

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 14:39:14 +0000

I hope you all had a nice Christmas season this year. Lady Jaye and I had a nice Refugee Holiday this year and hosted seven other folks on Christmas day. I was pleased that Configuratrix stopped by on her return leg from North Carolina. We had tons of food. I fried another thirteen pound turkey (turned out a little dry this time), in addition to a six pound ham, a 1.5 pound turkey ham, and a 1.5 honey ham. My father sent us two smoked pheasants. We also had four handmade pies by Pixie, Stomper made hand-rolled spinach and mushroom thingamabobs, Markie brought a wonderful mixed greens salad, and we had stuffing, gravy, and broccoli as our feel-better-about-the-desserts sides. Lady Jaye baked for two and a half days before Christmas, and assembled a righteous armada of homemade peppermint bark, peanut butter brickle, fudge, Russian tea cakes (OMG TEA CAKES), molasses and spice cookies, holiday Chex mix, Birds’ Nests, and other yummies.

We aren’t used to housing that many folks at any one time, so I rearranged the dining room and set our two tables end-to-end. We are a table cloth free home, so I wrapped both tables in Christmas paper. It was cute to see all the doodles atop the snowman wrapping paper. Yes, I did draw a pirate snowman. No, I did not draw a Dick in a Box snowman. Lady Jaye did. ;)

We played a nice round of Cranium. It’s amazing how universal that game is. I can’t imagine anyone not liking that game, there’s something in it for everyone.

None of us died from sugar and coffee overload, and some of us went to the shooting range the next day. My mother went grocery shopping and exploring, and Lady Jaye had to go to work (fawking boo). I was very impressed by my stepfather’s (the Professor) shooting — he only had limited experience with skeet shooting and some handgunning without any instruction. Basically, point this thing downrange and squeeze the trigger. With Markie’s help, I ran a refresher safety course for him, my niece, and Stomper. The Professor shot very well for a novice shooter, and looked like a motherfucking spymaster. He had a very statuesque stance and looked like an older secret agent brought out of retirement to defend his family. Bad ass.

We brought all of our own toys this time:

Glock 27
Glock 36
North American Arms Guardian
Markie’s Springfield Armory 1911 A1 — I am thinking the Mil-Spec model
Markie’s revolver — I am guessing Smith & Wesson 329 or 629
FN Police shotgun
Mossberg 590 shotgun

My favorite “guest gun” of the day was the 1911 A1. It was comfortable to shoot, and I was pretty accurate with it from the get-go. Markie’s revolver was the first one I’ve ever shot that I didn’t immediately want to throw in the garbage. Then again, it was a full-sized revolver and not as well suited to carry as the smaller, lighter revolvers I’ve fired in the past.

Markie and Stomper had problems shooting my Guardian, which was a real mystery. They had a failure to feed and had lots of problems getting the pistol’s hammer to drop. They would just pull, pull, pull on the trigger and the gun wouldn’t go off. I would step up and fire off a full clip. No idea what’s going on. Markie expressed that he didn’t feel that the gun was reliable, but I didn’t have any problems that couldn’t be explained away by the Winchester ammo offered by the range. I know that the Guardian can be finicky with feeding certain loads, which is one of the reasons I pack Federal Hydro-shock ammunition.

I scored some great gifts this year. Lady Jaye gave me a Hello Kitty personal water cooler (a full Gibberish entry forthcoming), and Guitar Hero II, which I played from Christmas morning until last night, much to the detriment of my social time with my guests. I would like to publicly thank my mother, stepfather, Lady Jaye, Duke, Pixie, Stomper, and Markie for enduring, without verbal complaint, song after song after song. It was really cool watching my stepdad rock out to “Shout at the Devil” when he took his turns wielding the axe. Look for an upcoming full write up on Guitar Hero II. Stomper and Sleepy Panda assembled a really sweet gift basket crammed full of coffee from our favorite roastery and yummy treats. I was almost ashamed to open it because the ensemble looked so nice and professional. But there was coffee inside that needed rescuing, purple plastic wrap be dammed.

My folks are just now clearing out this morning, so I’m going to see them off and then purge the house of the sugary treats before heading off to the gym. I literally almost went up a belt size in the last week. Besides, I need to start practicing my lunges for the foil fencing course in January.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

JoshB: Disclosure - who pays my bills

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 04:05:13 +0000

It seems like everyone is doing disclosure posts in the last few days. People are disclosing (or not) that they received a free AMD-based *cough* Ferrari laptop with Windows Vista from Microsoft’s ad agency, Edelman. Scoble is taking a trip to be the blogger on the wall for John Edwards’ campaign. PayPerPost is in the news again, this time as the Federal Trade Commission says “thou shalt disclose”.

So, in case any of you wondered who my sugar daddies are, you’re bound to be disappointed. No juicy conflicts of interest here. But here’s where my money comes from:

I am an employee of Intel, in the IT department. They pay me a salary, I do them a job. I use that to pay my mortgage, car payment, and other bills. I don’t get “paid to blog”, but they kindly allow me to write about Intel stuff on my blog, as long as I follow the rules.

There are Google ads on this blog. I started them as an experiment, and decided to keep them around. The Google AdSense ToS prohibits me from saying how much I make, or any specifics about impressions, CPM, etc., but I think it’s safe to say that I’m NOT getting rich off of AdSense. It makes no more than a few bucks a day - and that goes toward paying for hosting, domain names, and an occasional gadget. I actually keep a separate checking account from our “family” checking account, and anything I buy that’s not necessary for the family comes out of that.

So now you know all of my financial secrets. Try not to get too excited. But do know that I will always disclose my interests, so, like Scoble says, you know where my biases and opinions are coming from.

Now, hows about someone from Edelman sending me one of those Vista laptops? Make mine something with Core 2 Duo, though, so it gets a Vista Performance Rating higher than 2.8.

JoshB: Why are silicon wafers round, instead of rectangular?

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 03:46:43 +0000

Someone emailed me an Intel-related question - why are silicon wafers, used in chip production, round instead of squared or rectangular? The reasoning being, since the die pieces that are being cut out of the wafer are square, isn’t there waste at the edges? Couldn’t this be avoided with squared/rectangular wafers?

At one point in my Intel career, I knew the answer to this question. It was talked about during a fab tour soon after I was hired. But I’m a carpet-dweller, and far removed from the manufacturing process, so I’ve forgotten.

I’m sure this is a brain dead simple question for anyone who works in the fabs. So let’s have it? Why ARE wafers round?

JoshB: Photos from Christmas Morning and Zoo Lights

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 02:01:24 +0000

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }
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Opening, originally uploaded by Josh Bancroft.

This morning I uploaded the photos that were in my camera from our trip to Zoo Lights at the Oregon Zoo on Saturday, and from the Christmas Morning present opening festivities this morning.

Since I’m a geek, there are a disproportionate number of pictures of the Unboxing Ceremony of my new 2G iPod shuffle.

You can see them all in this photoset on Flickr.

Yaz: DeBakey's surgery

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 23:10:31 +0000

NYTimes

December 25, 2006
The Doctor’s World
The Man on the Table Devised the Surgery
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN

In late afternoon last Dec. 31, Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, then 97, was alone at home in Houston in his study preparing a lecture when a sharp pain ripped through his upper chest and between his shoulder blades, then moved into his neck.

Dr. DeBakey, one of the most influential heart surgeons in history, assumed his heart would stop in a few seconds.

“It never occurred to me to call 911 or my physician,” Dr. DeBakey said, adding: “As foolish as it may appear, you are, in a sense, a prisoner of the pain, which was intolerable. You’re thinking, What could I do to relieve myself of it. If it becomes intense enough, you’re perfectly willing to accept cardiac arrest as a possible way of getting rid of the pain.”

But when his heart kept beating, Dr. DeBakey suspected that he was not having a heart attack. As he sat alone, he decided that a ballooning had probably weakened the aorta, the main artery leading from the heart, and that the inner lining of the artery had torn, known as a dissecting aortic aneurysm.

No one in the world was more qualified to make that diagnosis than Dr. DeBakey because, as a younger man, he devised the operation to repair such torn aortas, a condition virtually always fatal. The operation has been performed at least 10,000 times around the world and is among the most demanding for surgeons and patients.

Over the past 60 years, Dr. DeBakey has changed the way heart surgery is performed. He was one of the first to perform coronary bypass operations. He trained generations of surgeons at the Baylor College of Medicine; operated on more than 60,000 patients; and in 1996 was summoned to Moscow by Boris Yeltsin, then the president of Russia, to aid in his quintuple heart bypass operation.

Now Dr. DeBakey is making history in a different way — as a patient. He was released from Methodist Hospital in Houston in September and is back at work. At 98, he is the oldest survivor of his own operation, proving that a healthy man of his age could endure it.

“He’s probably right out there at the cutting edge of a whole generation of people in their 90s who are going to survive” after such medical ordeals, one of his doctors, Dr. James L. Pool, said.

But beyond the medical advances, Dr. DeBakey’s story is emblematic of the difficulties that often accompany care at the end of life. It is a story of debates over how far to go in treating someone so old, late-night disputes among specialists about what the patient would want, and risky decisions that, while still being argued over, clearly saved Dr. DeBakey’s life.

It is also a story of Dr. DeBakey himself, a strong-willed pioneer who at one point was willing to die, concedes he was at times in denial about how sick he was and is now plowing into life with as much zest and verve as ever.

But Dr. DeBakey’s rescue almost never happened.

He refused to be admitted to a hospital until late January. As his health deteriorated and he became unresponsive in the hospital in early February, his surgical partner of 40 years, Dr. George P. Noon, decided an operation was the only way to save his life. But the hospital’s anesthesiologists refused to put Dr. DeBakey to sleep because such an operation had never been performed on someone his age and in his condition. Also, they said Dr. DeBakey had signed a directive that forbade surgery.

As the hospital’s ethics committee debated in a late-night emergency meeting on the 12th floor of Methodist Hospital, Dr. DeBakey’s wife, Katrin, barged in to demand that the operation begin immediately.

In the end, the ethics committee approved the operation; an anesthesiology colleague of Dr. DeBakey’s, who now works at a different hospital, agreed to put him to sleep; and the seven-hour operation began shortly before midnight on Feb. 9. “It is a miracle,” Dr. DeBakey said as he sat eating dinner in a Houston restaurant recently. “I really should not be here.”

The costs of Dr. DeBakey’s care easily exceeded $1 million. Methodist Hospital and his doctors say they have not charged Dr. DeBakey. His hospitalizations were under pseudonyms to help protect his privacy, which could make collecting insurance difficult. Methodist Hospital declined to say what the costs were or discuss the case further. Dr. DeBakey says he thinks the hospital should not have been secretive about his illness.

Dr. DeBakey’s doctors acknowledge that he got an unusually high level of care. But they said that they always tried to abide by a family’s wishes and that they would perform the procedure on any patient regardless of age, if the patient’s overall health was otherwise good.

Dr. DeBakey agreed to talk, and permitted his doctors to talk, because of a professional relationship of decades with this reporter, who is also a physician, and because he wanted to set the record straight for the public about what happened and explain how a man nearly 100 years old could survive.

A Preliminary Diagnosis

As Dr. DeBakey lay on the couch alone that night, last New Year’s Eve, he reasoned that a heart attack was unlikely because periodic checkups had never indicated he was at risk. An aortic dissection was more likely because of the pain, even though there was no hint of that problem in a routine echocardiogram a few weeks earlier.

Mrs. DeBakey and their daughter, Olga, had left for the beach in Galveston, but turned back because of heavy traffic. They arrived home to find Dr. DeBakey lying on the couch. Not wanting to alarm them, he lied and said he had fallen asleep and awakened with a pulled muscle.

“I did not want Katrin to be aware of my self-diagnosis because, in a sense, I would be telling her that I am going to die soon,” he said.

An anxious Mrs. DeBakey called two of her husband’s colleagues: Dr. Mohammed Attar, his longtime physician, and Dr. Matthias Loebe, who was covering for Dr. Noon. They came to the house quickly and became concerned because Dr. DeBakey had been in excellent health. After listening to him give a more frank account of his pain, they shared his suspicion of an aortic dissection.

Dr. DeBakey and his doctors agreed that for a firm diagnosis he would need a CT scan and other imaging tests, but he delayed them until Jan. 3.

The tests showed that Dr. DeBakey had a type 2 dissecting aortic aneurysm, according to a standard classification system he himself devised years earlier. Rarely did anyone survive that without surgery.

Still, Dr. DeBakey says that he refused admission to Methodist Hospital, in part because he did not want to be confined and he “was hopeful that this was not as bad as I first thought.” He feared the operation that he had developed to treat this condition might, at his age, leave him mentally or physically crippled. “I’d rather die,” he said.

Over the years, he had performed anatomically perfect operations on some patients who nevertheless died or survived with major complications. “I was trying to avoid all that,” he said.

Instead, he gambled on long odds that his damaged aorta would heal on its own. He chose to receive care at home. For more than three weeks, doctors made frequent house calls to make sure his blood pressure was low enough to prevent the aorta from rupturing. Around the clock, nurses monitored his food and drink. Periodically, he went to Methodist Hospital for imaging tests to measure the aneurysm’s size.

On Jan. 6, he insisted on giving the lecture he had been preparing on New Year’s Eve to the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas, of which he is a founding member. The audience in Houston included Nobel Prize winners and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Mrs. DeBakey stationed people around the podium to catch her husband if he slumped. Dr. DeBakey looked gray and spoke softly, but finished without incident. Then he listened to another lecture — which, by coincidence, was about the lethal dangers of dissecting aneurysms.

Dr. DeBakey, a master politician, said he could not pass up a chance to chat with the senator. He attended the academy luncheon and then went home.

In providing the extraordinary home care, the doctors were respecting the wishes of Dr. DeBakey and their actions reflected their awe of his power.

“People are very scared of him around here,” said Dr. Loebe, the heart surgeon who came to Dr. DeBakey’s home on New Year’s Eve. “He is the authority. It is very difficult to stand up and tell him what to do.”

But as time went on, the doctors could not adequately control Dr. DeBakey’s blood pressure. His nutrition was poor. He became short of breath. His kidneys failed. Fluid collected in the pericardial sac covering his heart, suggesting the aneurysm was leaking.

Dr. DeBakey now says that he was in denial. He did not admit to himself that he was getting worse. But on Jan. 23, he yielded and was admitted to the hospital.

Tests showed that the aneurysm was enlarging dangerously; the diameter increased to 6.6 centimeters on Jan. 28, up from 5.2 centimeters on Jan. 3. Dr. Noon said that when he and other doctors showed Dr. DeBakey the scans and recommended surgery, Dr. DeBakey said he would re-evaluate the situation in a few days.

By Feb. 9, with the aneurysm up to 7.5 centimeters and Dr. DeBakey unresponsive and near death, a decision had to be made.

“If we didn’t operate on him that day that was it, he was gone for sure,” Dr. Noon said.

At that point, Dr. DeBakey was unable to speak for himself. The surgeons gathered and decided they should proceed, despite the dangers. “We were doing what we thought was right,” Dr. Noon said, adding that “nothing made him a hopeless candidate for the operation except for being 97.” All family members agreed to the operation.

Dr. Bobby R. Alford, one of Dr. DeBakey’s physicians and a successor as chancellor of Baylor College of Medicine, said the doctors had qualms. “We could have walked away,” he said.

He and Dr. Noon discussed the decision several times. “We recognized the condemnation that could occur,” Dr. Alford said. “The whole surgical world would come down on us for doing something stupid, which it might have seemed to people who were not there.”

Surgery would be enormously risky and unlikely to offer clear-cut results — either a full recovery or death, Dr. Noon and his colleagues told Mrs. DeBakey, Olga, sons from a first marriage, and Dr. DeBakey’s sisters, Lois and Selma. The doctors said Dr. DeBakey might develop new ailments and need dialysis and a tracheostomy to help his breathing. They said the family’s decision could inflict prolonged suffering for all involved.

Olga and she “prayed a lot,” said Mrs. DeBakey, who is from Germany. “We had a healer in Europe who advised us that he will come through it. That helped us.”

Then things got more complicated.

A Refusal to Treat

At that point the Methodist Hospital anesthesiologists adamantly refused to accept Dr. DeBakey as a patient. They cited a standard form he had signed directing that he not be resuscitated if his heart stopped and a note in the chart saying he did not want surgery for the aortic dissection and aneurysm. They were concerned about his age and precarious physical condition.

Dr. Alford, the 72-year-old chancellor, said he was stunned by the refusal, an action he had never seen or heard about in his career.

Dr. Noon said none of the anesthesiologists had been involved in Dr. DeBakey’s care, yet they made a decision based on grapevine information without reading his medical records. So he insisted that the anesthesiologists state their objections directly to the DeBakey family.

Mrs. DeBakey said the anesthesiologists feared that Dr. DeBakey would die on the operating table and did not want to become known as the doctors who killed him. Dr. Joseph J. Naples, the hospital’s chief anesthesiologist, did not return repeated telephone calls to his office for comment.

Around 7 p.m., Mrs. DeBakey called Dr. Salwa A. Shenaq, an anesthesiologist friend who had worked with Dr. DeBakey for 22 years at Methodist Hospital and who now works at the nearby Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Dr. Shenaq rushed from home. When she arrived, she said, Dr. Naples told her that he and his staff would not administer anesthesia to Dr. DeBakey. She said that a medical staff officer, whom she declined to name, warned her that she could be charged with assault if she touched Dr. DeBakey. The officer also told Dr. Shenaq that she could not give Dr. DeBakey anesthesia because she did not have Methodist Hospital privileges. She made it clear that she did, she said.

Administrators, lawyers and doctors discussed the situation, in particular the ambiguities of Dr. DeBakey’s wishes. Yes, Dr. Pool had written on his chart that Dr. DeBakey said he did not want surgery for a dissection. But Dr. Noon and the family thought the note in the chart no longer applied because Dr. DeBakey’s condition had so deteriorated and his only hope was his own procedure.

“They were going back and forth,” Dr. Shenaq said. “One time, they told me go ahead. Then, no, we cannot go ahead.”

To fulfill its legal responsibilities, Methodist Hospital summoned members of its ethics committee, who arrived in an hour. They met with Dr. DeBakey’s doctors in a private dining room a few yards from Dr. DeBakey’s room, according to five of his doctors who were present.

Their patient was a man who had always been in command. Now an unresponsive Dr. DeBakey had no control over his own destiny.

The ethics committee representatives wanted to follow Texas law, which, in part, requires assurance that doctors respect patient and family wishes.

Each of Dr. DeBakey’s doctors had worked with him for more than 20 years. One, Dr. Pool, said they felt they knew Dr. DeBakey well enough to answer another crucial question from the ethics committee: As his physicians, what did they believe he would choose for himself in such a dire circumstance if he had the ability to make that decision?

Dr. Noon said that Dr. DeBakey had told him it was time for nature to take its course, but also told him that the doctors had “to do what we need to do.” Members of Dr. DeBakey’s medical team said they interpreted the statements differently. Some thought he meant that they should do watchful waiting, acting only if conditions warranted; others thought it meant he wanted to die.

The question was whether the operation would counter Dr. DeBakey’s wishes expressed in his signed “do not resuscitate” order. Some said that everything Dr. DeBakey did was for his family. And the family wanted the operation.

After the committee members had met for an hour, Mrs. DeBakey could stand it no longer. She charged into the room.

“My husband’s going to die before we even get a chance to do anything — let’s get to work,” she said she told them.

The discussion ended. The majority ruled in a consensus without a formal vote. No minutes were kept, the doctors said.

“Boy, when that meeting was over, it was single focus — the best operation, the best post-operative care, the best recovery we could give him,” Dr. Pool said.

The Operation

As the ethics committee meeting ended about 11 p.m. on Feb. 9, the doctors rushed to start Dr. DeBakey’s anesthesia.

The operation was to last seven hours.

For part of that time, Dr. DeBakey’s body was cooled to protect his brain and other organs. His heart was stilled while a heart-lung bypass machine pumped oxygen-rich blood through his body. The surgeons replaced the damaged portion of Dr. DeBakey’s aorta with a six- to eight-inch graft made of Dacron, similar to material used in shirts. The graft was the type that Dr. DeBakey devised in the 1950s.

Afterward, Dr. DeBakey was taken to an intensive care unit.

Some doctors were waiting for Dr. DeBakey to die during the operation or soon thereafter, Dr. Noon said. “But he just got better.”

As feared, however, his recovery was stormy.

Surgeons had to cut separate holes into the trachea in his neck and stomach to help him breathe and eat. He needed dialysis because of kidney failure. He was on a mechanical ventilator for about six weeks because he was too weak to breathe on his own. He developed infections. His blood pressure often fell too low when aides lifted him to a sitting position. Muscle weakness left him unable to stand.

For a month, Dr. DeBakey was in the windowless intensive care unit, sometimes delirious, sometimes unresponsive, depending in part on his medications. The doctors were concerned that he had suffered severe, permanent brain damage. To allow him to tell day from night and lift his spirits, the hospital converted a private suite into an intensive care unit.

Some help came from unexpected places. On Sunday, April 2, Dr. William W. Lunn, the team’s lung specialist, took his oldest daughter, Elizabeth, 8, with him when he made rounds at the hospital and told her that a patient was feeling blue. While waiting, Elizabeth drew a cheery picture of a rainbow, butterflies, trees and grass and asked her father to give it to the patient. He did.

“You should have seen Dr. DeBakey’s eyes brighten,” Dr. Lunn said. Dr. DeBakey asked to see Elizabeth, held her hand and thanked her.

“At that point, I knew he was going to be O.K.,” Dr. Lunn said.

Dr. DeBakey was discharged on May 16. But on June 2, he was back in the hospital.

“He actually scared us because his blood pressure and heart rate were too high, he was gasping for breath” and he had fluid in his lungs, Dr. Lunn said.

But once the blood pressure was controlled with medicine, Dr. DeBakey began to recover well.

The Aftermath

At times, Dr. DeBakey says he played possum with the medical team, pretending to be asleep when he was listening to conversations.

On Aug. 21, when Dr. Loebe asked Dr. DeBakey to wake up, and he did not, Dr. Loebe announced that he had found an old roller pump that Dr. DeBakey devised in the 1930s to transfuse blood. Dr. DeBakey immediately opened his eyes. Then he gave the doctors a short lecture about how he had improved it over existing pumps.

As he recovered and Dr. DeBakey learned what had happened, he told his doctors he was happy they had operated on him. The doctors say they were relieved because they had feared he regretted their decision.

“If they hadn’t done it, I’d be dead,” he said.

The doctors and family had rolled the dice and won.

Dr. DeBakey does not remember signing an order saying not to resuscitate him and now thinks the doctors did the right thing. Doctors, he said, should be able to make decisions in such cases, without committees.

Throughout, Dr. DeBakey’s mental recovery was far ahead of his physical response.

When Dr. DeBakey first became aware of his post-operative condition, he said he “felt limp as a rag” and feared he was a quadriplegic. Kenneth Miller and other physical therapists have helped Dr. DeBakey strengthen his withered muscles.

“There were times where he needed a good bit of encouragement to participate,” Mr. Miller said. “But once he saw the progress, he was fully committed to what we were doing.”

Now he walks increasingly long distances without support. But his main means of locomotion is a motorized scooter. He races it around corridors, sometimes trailed by quick-stepping doctors of all ages.

Dr. DeBakey said he hoped to regain the stamina to resume traveling, though not at his former pace.

Dr. William L. Winters Jr., a cardiologist on Dr. DeBakey’s team, said: “I am impressed with what the body and mind can do when they work together. He absolutely has the desire to get back to where he was before. I think he’ll come close.”

Already, Dr. DeBakey is back working nearly a full day.

“I feel very good,” he said Friday. “I’m getting back into the swing of things.”

Punk Walrus: Merry Christmas!

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 19:40:12 +0000

What are you doing, reading my blog? Go make merry away from the computer! I got a lot of great stuff I am going to play with.

Well, if you must read my blog... I read this article, and was wondering what you thought:

View Poll: #895031

I have rarely felt the need to re-gift, but I have a lot of junk now that other people could use better, so I have thought about it. I mean, I wouldn't give something to someone obviously I have used, but I have things like books and figurines I don't need anymore. For instance, I gave apeyanne all my Giant Microbes recently, because they were just getting dusty and I knew she really wanted them.

Lurker: Homily on the Nativity of the Lord

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 09:19:10 +0000

I behold a new and wondrous mystery! My ears resound to the Shepherd’s song, piping no soft melody, but chanting full forth a heavenly hymn.

The Angels sing!

The Archangels blend their voices in harmony!

The Cherubim hymn their joyful praise!

The Seraphim exalt His glory!

All join to praise this holy feast, beholding the Godhead here on earth, and man in heaven. He who is above, now for our redemption dwells here below; and he that was lowly is by divine mercy raised.

Bethlehem this day resembles heaven; hearing from the stars the singing of angelic voices; and in place of the sun, enfolds within itself on every side the Sun of Justice.

And ask not how: for where God wills, the order of nature yields. For He willed, he had the power, He descended, He redeemed; all things move in obedience to God.

This day He Who Is, is Born; and He Who Is becomes what He was not. For when He was God, He became man; yet not departing from the Godhead that is His. Nor yet by any loss of divinity became He man, nor through increase became he God from man; but being the Word He became flesh, His nature, because of impassibility, remaining unchanged.

And so the kings have come, and they have seen the heavenly King that has come upon the earth, not bringing with Him Angels, nor Archangels, nor Thrones, nor Dominations, nor Powers, nor Principalities, but, treading a new and solitary path, He has come forth from a spotless womb.

Yet He has not forsaken His angels, nor left them deprived of His care, nor because of His Incarnation has he departed from the Godhead.

And behold,

Kings have come, that they might adore the heavenly King of glory;

Soldiers, that they might serve the Leader of the Hosts of Heaven;

Women, that they might adore Him Who was born of a woman so that He might change the pains of child-birth into joy; Virgins, to the Son of the Virgin, beholding with joy, that He Who is the Giver of milk, Who has decreed that the fountains of the breast pour forth in ready streams, receives from a Virgin Mother the food of infancy;

Infants, that they may adore Him Who became a little child, so that out of the mouth of infants and sucklings, He might perfect praise;

Children, to the Child Who raised up martyrs through the rage of Herod;

Men, to Him Who became man, that He might heal the miseries of His servants;

Shepherds, to the Good Shepherd Who has laid down His life for His sheep;

Priests, to Him Who has become a High Priest according to the order of Melchisedech;

Servants, to Him Who took upon Himself the form of a servant that He might bless our servitude with the reward of freedom;

Fishermen, to Him Who from amongst fishermen chose catchers of men;

Publicans, to Him Who from amongst them named a chosen Evangelist;

Sinful women, to Him Who exposed His feet to the tears of the repentant;

And that I may embrace them all together, all sinners have come, that they may look upon the Lamb of God Who taketh away the sins of the world.

Since therefore all rejoice, I too desire to rejoice. I too wish to share the choral dance, to celebrate the festival. But I take my part, not plucking the harp, not shaking the Thyrsian staff, not with the music of pipes, nor holding a torch, but holding in my arms the cradle of Christ. For this is all my hope, this my life, this my salvation, this my pipe, my harp. And bearing it I come, and having from its power received the gift of speech, I too, with the angels, sing: Glory to God in the Highest;

and with the shepherds: and on earth peace to men of good will.

-St. John Chrysostom

Durf: Ninja holiday wishes

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 08:29:05 +0000

Make your own over here.

JoshB: Merry Christmas! Our roof is leaking!

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 04:35:17 +0000

We had a wonderful day today - got up, went to church, came home and baked, played, and listened to Christmas music. Everyone got along, and there was just a general feeling of peace of happiness in our family today. It was really, really great.

Tonight, Rachel made a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner, and after that, we had Emma set out her plate of cookies and note for Santa, and drove around looking at Christmas lights (mainly so the kids would fall asleep ).

However, not all is rosy in the Bancroft household today.

We got home a few minutes ago, and I carried Emma up to her bed and noticed that her pillow was wet. I thought she spilled a glass a water (it has happened before), but I looked up, and noticed a nice “drip, drip” coming from the ceiling.

Apparently, some of those roof shingles that we found in our backyard after last week’s windstorm were important - our roof is leaking.

Any ideas or suggestions on what to do? We’ve only been homeowners for about a year. I know we need to get someone to come and fix it, but it’s going to next week a the soonest, given the time of year. And I have no idea how much to pay - I don’t want to get ripped off. Anyone have any recommendations for a roof repair person in the west Portland/Washington County area?

Oh, and Merry Christmas to everyone! Hope you have a wonderful holiday! I know I will, even with this in the back of my mind…

Punk Walrus: Christmas Rambling... and I do ramble

Sun, 24 Dec 2006 23:50:41 +0000

Things have been so fucking busy at work, I can’t even describe it. Not just because that one guy left, and he was our Windows expert, but there have a been a lot more weird issues lately, like Gremlins in the system. Server A goes down the same time Server B does, and they aren’t even related.Today has been the first day I have been able to catch up on entries. Some of them, like this long post, have been sitting in my mailbox for a week.

Something weird happened about a week ago: CR wanted to know about my Christmas childhood, and I didn’t want to tell him because it depressed me. I didn’t even know where to begin. Christmas as a kid could be best described as a declining series of events that led to the ultimate post-Christmas explosion when I was 18. I remember moments as a child when Christmas was pretty cool, about gifts and such. That ended around age 10 or 11, when the reality of the situation overcame the greed. To me, I think of Christmases as four levels: pre-Santa, post-Santa, Bruce and Cheryl, and married.

Pre-Santa

Pre-Santa started when I was born, and my first memories of Christmas were better when I didn’t know what was going on. Somewhere around age 8, I was convinced there was no Santa due to various school discussions, and when my mother tried REAL hard to convince me otherwise, I started to collect evidence that year.

First, there was in “flags” incident. In 1976, I had an American flag I really liked. It was a gift from my maternal grandfather, and was real cloth and had a wooden pole. Said, “Spirit of ‘76“ on it. My parents insisted on putting it out on the 4th of July that year, and long story short, it got stolen. I was REALLY upset, which confounded my parents. They were sympathetic, but up to a point, and I am sure I probably over-reacted. So I asked for a new one for Christmas. Santa gave me... a box of flags from all the nations of the world. Not nice ones, but the kind of plastic 1 inch flags one puts on top of cakes. Of course, I am embarrassed to say it’s petty now, but I was majorly bummed. My mother’s response was, ”Oh... um, Santa thought you said, ’flags...‘" Hmm, I thought, that’s the kind of mistake my mother made all the time when I asked for gifts. And come to think of it, I told HER I wanted flags, and didn’t even see Santa that year.

Also, the note left behind for me from Santa, thanking me for cookies and milk was in my mother’s incredibly neat style of handwriting that really could have won awards if she didn’t waste it on lying to small children! :-P Just kidding, but she really did have the most neat script I have ever seen, it was free-flowing calligraphy that was so perfect, you would almost believe she saw invisible straight lines on otherwise blank pages of paper. In this cars, it was on the unlined side of an index card. That is, very identifiable (on the other hand, my father’s was the exact opposite, but he had a Ph.D., so that’s understandable).

So the next year, I bypassed all the bullshit and never brought Santa up at all. My mother knew something was up, so she kept needling me, using the usual things like, “If you behave, Santa will bring you...” uh huh. We shall see. Late on Christmas Eve, I snuck downstairs, hid under the couch, and waited. Nothing happened. I fell asleep, and I was woken up at dawn by the sound of my mother, slightly drunk, putting in presents and giggling. Presents she had already wrapped and hidden in the closet she didn’t ever figure out I knew she hid things in. She ate the cookies, drank the milk, and went back to bed. And so did I.

I didn’t say a word all Christmas, and for a few months, I kept my tongue until my mother tried the, “If you get better grades, Santa may--” No. I explained I knew it was her. I think I could have been a little more thankful, but I was a stern and serious kid, who felt enough was enough and this had to end. She never let go. Even when I was 17, she made the comment about canceling Christmas meant no Santa. This woman was 48, and I was 17, and still... well, for me, it was just one of her many denials. To her, I was perpetually 8. I wouldn’t say I was traumatized by the experience at all. In fact, and this is embarrassing, I am still a little proud of my detective work and closed lip; a technique I still enjoy today.

Then there was “the Christmas the tree fell over.” I must have been about 7. My maternal grandparents were staying over, and my father did not like them AT ALL. The stress level was incredible, and even as clueless as I was at that age, I stayed by myself in my room most of the time. The tree falling was probably a combination of being slightly lopsided, too tall, and we had two cats. To be honest no one was there when it happened, and we’ll never know the actual reason it fell. We just heard a keee-RASH! And there was the tree lying in our living room. But to me, it was symbolic.

Christmas Eve, my grandparents were shocked that nobody opened any presents Christmas Eve. This erupted a HUGE fight between them and my father, where my father was doing most of the yelling, and the topic seemed to be all about how I should not be catered to like I was somehow special. My father always seemed to be in the way of whatever I wanted, simply for the purpose of being in the way. This realization would serve me well, later, when I wanted to avoid some of his cruelty. My grandparents said that I should be treated special, and my father dismissed them by saying he wasn’t taking advice from a hairdresser and a out-of-work carpenter. That’s when I first learned that when my mother was growing up, my grandfather was a carpenter and my grandmother owned a salon in Chicago. Finally, I was allowed to open one gift, and it was very, very tense. I don’t even remember what I got; I just wanted to hide, I was so scared.

My grandmother told me years later, “I knew Gladys was unhappy, but until I lived in your house for a week, I had no idea just how bad it was.” My grandfather also said that when my mother hugged them goodbye at the airport, she whispered into his ear, “Please help me. Everything’s gone terribly wrong.”

Post-Santa
Post-Santa was the worst. Not really related to the Santa event at all, it was the time I realized just how miserable Christmas was at my house. The disillusionment that my mother was Santa (which wasn’t that bad, honestly) was nothing compared to the disillusionment that my family life was simply awful. From about age 10 until I was 17, this is how Christmas morning went.

9:00am - My parents have been awake for a while, and wake me up. I want to stay in bed, and I am often yelled at to get upstairs so we can unwrap presents. Later, I ask could I trade my presents for sleep? No.
9:15am - Despite my parent’s eagerness, they have not prepared. Coffee needed brewed. That was my mother’s job. She also prepared cookies and things. In her later years, often she was drunk. Usually between the weak, chatty, or emotional stages. I think once or twice she had trouble even standing. One year, she got too drunk to even participate. In any case, I would be sitting on the floor, and my father on the couch. Very quickly, we’d be fighting. Even to this day, I can’t be near the guy without a mixture of raw animosity and fear. Biting sarcasm followed by teasing and mockery left me in tears if presents didn’t interrupt the war between us.
9:30 - Around now presents would be opened. My father went first, my mother second, and I went third. Nothing was ever said, but it almost seemed like there was a “how much did this cost?” kind of thing going around. I experimented with this theory as a teenager, and found that items where I discretely left the price tag attached got more favorable reviews than those that didn’t. And when I attached a larger price tag... better response. I wonder if my mother really thought I spent $80 on a small statue of a whale?
10:30am - In the glow of gifts, we all parted. My mother would attempt to prepare for the “Christmas dinner,” one of our only 3-4 meals together through the year.
12:00 - 2:00pm: “Dinner.” My parents never usually ate with me except for the occasional restaurant, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and sometimes the Fourth of July. Oh, and sometimes the yacht, but that was because the conditions were usually so cramped. Usually I ate alone in the kitchen. This was just fine with me, because I really, really, really hated eating with my parents. My mother was fine. Not much pleasant conversation, really, and as the years went by, her conversation went from interesting and silly to disconnected and a little creepy. I know it was the alcohol, but there you go. My father was quiet with unpleasant comments from time to time. He’d have bursts of conversation followed by quietness when he was done, even if you weren’t. It was a strangely tense and stilted place to sit.

My father also teased me mercilessly. He knew who a control freak I was (and I mean, hey, he should know, I got it from him), and would just fuck with my head like a the classroom psycho would taunt a hamster in a cage by poking it with a pencil. He used many tactics schoolyard bullies did, but not with fists so much as words. When I inevitably burst into tears, my mother would tell him to stop, and my father would laugh with delight. I mean, he took great delight in torturing me.

When I got older, I would run to my friend Kate’s house, and hang out there. Her parents were a bit off in their own right, especially because they ate their special dinners with the TV set at the head of the table and ate in silence, but it was a LOT better than mine.

Then, finally, in 1986, after my 18th birthday, my mother announced that due to all the problems in the house, she was canceling Christmas. No tree, no decor, no presents. “Okay,” my father and I both said, and I felt, “Well, that’s cool.” Looking back on it, that was a SEVERE warning sign of what was to come, but I recall being so relieved that I didn’t have to deal with it all, that when my mother kept warning me Santa wouldn’t give me anything, I just laughed it off. “No,” I agreed. “No she won’t.”

Bruce and Cheryl
So, right after Christmas I flew to Texas to see my friend Neal, came back, was guest artist at Evecon 4, and then was told I have an irreversible heart condition and was going to die. January 10th, my mother committed suicide. I lived in a foster home for a bit, went to a mental hospital, got out of that, then moved back home, graduated high school, and needed a place to live because my dad was being dangerously insufferable and he was going to throw me out at any moment. Bruce and Cheryl were looking for a roommate.

I got laid off from work that September, and didn’t get hired until Dec 7th of that year. I then worked at Crown Books, at the busiest store in the chain at the time. I didn’t have time to think about Christmas, and worked a lot of overtime up through Christmas Eve. Christmas at Bruce and Cheryl’s house was a pause in the hectic planning for Evecon 5. It was both understated and cheerful. Kind of a collection of people with abusive families, or those who didn’t celebrate Christmas often (Jewish/military family).

In all this, given my background, I wanted to forget Christmas even existed. Bot one thing saved Christmas for me: In 6th grade, I got the lead part for a musical version of “A Christmas Carol.” Something about the transformation of Ebineezer Scrooge stuck with me all those years. Every year, I am reminded about this event. It may have happened when I was 12, but even at 38, when I watch the newer version with Patrick Stewart, I feel the same process all over again. Kind of like my own little cult film, a Rocky Horror where I play along the main part. Some of the lines haven’t even changed. It may seem silly to most of you, but this role was placed in my path like a diversion channel away from becoming a bitter and abusive alcoholic. I wasn’t a particularly decent actor, but I memorized my lines, belted them out like a typewriter, and got the job done, along with most of the other actors.

Bruce had a very laissez-faire attitude towards my childhood. “Yes, it was bad, mine, too. But we all need to move on now,” which many people considered callous, but it was just the thing I needed. And with some Dickens lessons behind my ears, I had decided that in order NOT to be a victim of my childhood, I would never hide it, never cover it like my father did, and expose the horrifying guts to the open air. Furthermore, I would grow from this wreckage like a Phoenix. I wish I could say I rose like a glorious bird from the ruins... but the scars have proven very deep.

Married
I got married within two years of leaving McLean behind me. But it started out real rough, I won’t lie. We had one Christmas on Credit, which would be our best Christmas for a long time to come. Because the next year, money was tight due to takayla’s health problems having CR (unemployment, no insurance). Christmas at the old apartment in Alexandria was pretty stressful, too. Not just money, but we seemed to be haunted as well. The next year was even worse, because I had been unemployed for about 8 months. After that we were evicted, and have Christmas in the projects for the next 4 years, with a lot money worries. We got donations from friends and various church groups for a while.

Finally, we got out of that in 1996, and I was working at AOL. But then there were a lot of Christmases where I worked or was on call. Like this Christmas.

This Christmas we clenched our jaw and tossed out a LOT of old decorations. Like about 80% of the bulk in our attic. It felt good, let me tell you. So much stuff we had been meaning to do something with. And we started with a lot of new things.

The Lessons
One thing I have tried to escape is the creeping bitterness towards the holiday. Echoes of my mother screaming ”why can’t we just get along“ and the TV morality claiming that the holidays are so commercial (ironic). I have been fighting this illusion since I was 19. It’s so easy to take certain things so seriously, and feel like the world owes you something, but it doesn’t owe anybody anything. You have to make merry to get merry. One source of intense misery is how ”perfect“ something should be: a perfect gift, a perfect holiday party, a perfect family getting along. Perfection is a path, not a goal, and perfection is all in the eye of the beholder anyway.

I don’t want to get trapped in that falsehood of how unrealistic the Christmas spirit is, and how people are mean and bad and poor just keep being poor because they are ignorant fucks who can’t rub two cents together, and poverty is just how it is. Nor do I want to feel somehow foolish that I ”believe in the whole thing“ because... well, I choose to. And anyone else can choose to be miserable and feel above happiness and joy because they somehow feel this is superior, and it’s all really because they are too scared to get hurt. ”Oh no, I should have had a happy childhood, but I didn’t, and no one understood, so I won’t be made a fool of again, no sir!“ Some even say, ”Happiness is an illusion!“ Well, it is. But so is misery. Or anger. It’s all brain juice and synaptic connections that react with the perceived social environment. So why choose misery? Misery is so over-rated in the intellectual world. It’s always perceived as the trump card; being above it all, disillusioned, and jaded. Like the term ”IQ,“ it is essentially meaningless because making a ratio of ”what you should know“ is judged by no one but yourself.

But seasonal affective disorder is not. It’s brain juice gone bad, so to speak, brought on by my Swedish ancestry, childhood experiences, and the lack of light in the winter months. I am not sure what the evolutionary concept behind it is, but I bet there had to be something that would keep people inside and anti-social when your hut was covered by several feet of snow that would keep you from going mental staring at the same damn fireplace for 3-4 months. But in modern times, SAD clouds and darkens everything you see. It’s like a heavy and suffocating blanket, and yet you wrap it around you for comfort. I don’t drink, but I can imagine why alcoholism would be so prevalent with that thought process. There are a lot of depressed and drunken Swedes in the winter, let me tell you. This is part of the main reason I do not drink alcohol, because I can see the edge it would push me off of. And winter would be one of them, and just like my mom, I’d freak out over the holidays and get smashed so I wouldn’t have to feel it. But I chose, at age 8, never to drink alcohol, and it’s never done me wrong.

Just like believing in Christmas spirit.

Merry Christmas, everyone. :)

Punk Walrus: So... do I get some land with this?

Sun, 24 Dec 2006 01:54:50 +0000

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