5 Years ago was a Wednesday

5 years ago February 6th was a Monday. It was a cold day. It was a normal day. I was a college sophomore, classes were done for the day and I was just hanging out with my friends. I don't remember what we were doing, probably watching a movie. My cousin's ex-girlfriend came in the room and said, "Scott, Jim (my cousin) is trying to get a hold of you. He wants you to call him." After trying to call Jim and then eventually communicating with him through instant messaging I found out that my Grandma had been rushed to the hospital. I sat alone in my room for awhile talking with my brother and my cousin trying to figure out what was going on. My girlfriend eventually came over to see if I was ok. I wasn't. My Mom called and I found out that my Grandma had nearly died but the hospital stabilized her condition. She had been having health problems but seemed fine now. She had pneumonia.
February 7th was a tuesday. My Mom called me in the morning. My Grandma was doing fine. she was sitting up and talking and seemed ready to make a full recovery. I was glad. I went to class and completely forgot she was in the hospital. I was going to visit her on wednesday. I couldn't go tuesday because I was shaving my head to raise money for Habitat for Humanity in an event called "Hairless for Habitat." I spent Tuesday a happy man. My head was shaved bald all the way down to the skin. my scalp felt alien. February 7th was a cold day but I took no notice. I stayed up very late that night.
February 8th was a Wednesday. I woke up late and had to hurry and shower. I was supposed to go to Chapel at 11 am with some people I worked with and it was 10:30 I would have to hurry in the show. I returned to my dorm room wrapped in my towel I turned the lights on and saw that my phone's red light was blinking. Voice mail. I cradled the phone on my shoulder while I tried to get dressed and listen to the voice mail at the same time. It was my Mom. She didn't say much but it sounded like she was about to cry. All she said was "Scott find Jim." Those three words stopped the world. I could hear my heart beat. I put the phone down and stared at the blank white wall by the phone. The ring of the phone shattered the silence. "Hello" I said.
"Hey it's Jim. We need to go to the hospital. I'll pick you up in 5 minutes on the side of your building."
"Ok." I said. The next thing I remember was standing in the cold waiting for Jim's white truck. The campus was motionless. No one was outside. the cold wind wasn't even blowing. The only sound that could be heard were the big wet snow flakes falling on the ground. The lack of any other noise make their collision with earth deafening. The ride to the hospital was silent. My Grandmother was lying in a bed with a breathing mask on. Everyone was there except my cousin Michelle. She was on the way. No one was really talking. People were trying to talk to her but not saying anything important. My Grandmother is not a stupid woman. She knew that her time was coming, she knew she was dying. Modern Medicine has been able to slow death to an inhumane crawl so that our loved ones can gather in a room and feel emotions that tie their stomachs in knots. Some people choose to speak, others just sit in the room looking helpless. My family was the latter and I was embarrassed for them. My Grandmother looked around at us all there and said to us, "you all should have come yesterday when I was doing better. I'm not doing well today so you should get back to doing whatever you were doing. Come back when I'm better." No one moved. No one said a word. No one took her hand and said they loved her. Everyone just looked from her to their shoes. You would think that a dying loved one would be of greater importance than one's footwear but it was not the case on this day. 5 Years ago I watched everyone as their emotions ate away at their stomachs and their eyes traced the intricate details of their shoes. My shoes were brown.
My Grandma laid in bed awake and sort of talking most of the day. Although the doctor said she was critical she seemed stable. There were not changes in her condition. We ate lunch. It was awkward. It was also Ash Wednesday. Hospitals make lousy fish.
After lunch we returned to the unending nightmare of unspoken feelings. The doctor would come in and look at things. My Grandpa was walking with each of his kids one by one out in the hallway. My Aunt and Parents got in a disagreement about the oxygen mask. My Grandma tried to take it off and the doctor would put it back on. The disagreement was pointless. "Why don't these people just say how they feel?" I thought to myself. The sky was gray and cloudy. The only way to know time was passing was by looking at at clock. The clock slowly marched forward.
At 3 Pm my brother Joe needed to go downstairs to get his allergy shots. If you don't get allergy shots on a regular basis and you need them, it can mess up the dosage. This presents a problem for the patient and the doctors or something so even though today was serious we didn't want to mess up his medical condition. I volunteered to go with him because I couldn't stand being in such a ridiculous room anymore. Before we departed I took my eyes off my shoes. My soul was restless. My Grandmother was dying. The chains of silence broke. I walked freely to my Grandmother's bed side. I looked into her eyes and said, "Grandma, Joe has to get his allergy shots so I'm going to go with him." I paused knowing that other people could hear me, I was nervous and scared but most all vulnerable. "Grandma I love you." I said. I leaned in and hugged her. I kissed her forehead. She reached an arm around me and said, "I love you too kiddo" and then she pushed her oxygen mask against my face and tried to kiss me through it.
That was the last time I ever spoke to my Grandma. Five years ago was February 8th, it was a Wednesday and it was the last time I spoke with my Grandma. I told her I loved her. She told me she loved me. She died later that day.
I have no idea if anyone else had to courage to say goodbye. I don't know if anyone else received an oxygen mask kiss. I don't know if anyone else took their eyes off their shoes. All I know is this... that for 20 years I was able to share my life with an exceptional woman. We used to watch birds out her back window. She was a strong and stubborn woman. She said I was so ornery that I gave her gray hairs. She made the most incredible brownies I have ever eaten. She was the only Grandmother I ever knew and I loved her. 5 years ago my life changed forever. It was a Wednesday, and I spoke to my Grandma for the last time. She said she loved me, and that is how I will remember her.

How To: Pick Up Women

Feliz Navidad Amigos

He's going to take you back to the past

So my original intention was to make my next blog post about human mortality. Deep subject I know. I was going to quote the 5 remembrances of buddist monks and then talk about this guy from Africa who is visiting America and who made an observation about America's style of life and the mortality of men (and women). But I'm not going to do that. I'm going to talk about video games.

James Rolfe, aka the Angry Video Game Nerd, is amazing. I could watch his videos all day. He originally began as the angry nintendo nerd, and many of those videos are still available on youtube. He is one of the most subscribed people on youtube, but he has branched out beyond nintendo.

When I was a child I would play nintendo and yell at the television and tell my parents the game was cheating. They didn't believe me. How could a toy cheat. Well I'll tell you, the games were just shitty. That is how James got his start. He still had all of his old nintendo stuff and would play it from time to time and then yell at the tv just like I did. He began to film this because it was funny and he became an internet sensation. Now you can watch him regularly on www.gametrailers.com where he makes hilarious profanity laden videos in which he yell at his tv while playing really bad video games. He has branched out beyond nintendo though and is now playing bad games on any console.

But the best thing about his videos isn't just that they are entertaining, the best thing is that I have learned a ton about the history of video games while watching his videos. There are a lot of bad video games out there, but you can't just keep reviewing obscure videos. I mean the best thing about his review of teenage mutant ninja turtles is that he gets to the part I always go to and was like "now what do I do. I have no idea" and then he never completes the game. That is amazing because that is exactly what my 8 year old self did. However some of the games he plays I've never heard of and I get bored watching it. Yeah it is a bad game but I don't care because I didn't ever play it. But what I love is that lately he had been moving on from bad video games and just talking about series of games. For example the Zelda games have no time line. He spent a whole video talking about this fact and showed clips from all the games. The Zelda games are good too, so I learned a lot about Zelda games that I have never played. He recently made a 4 part special about Castlevania. It was amazing. I love Castlevania. To me what has been so great watching him over the past year is that I learn about the history of video games, all the consoles, all the roles of the characters. Mario has been in like a billion video games. It is awesome to see someone who is so knowledgeable about video games and can present that information in an entertaining and interesting manner.

Anyway I'm going to go play video games, or watch James talk about video games, or do both simultaneously. I don't know. Keep on rocking in the free world.

Not Another Twilight Rant

Debate: Nature vs Nurture

Tattoo Sleeves are awesome

Quite possibly the greatest purchase of the last few months has been these tattoo sleeves. They are for halloween costumes but I've been wearing them like everyday (ok not really). Anyway they look pretty sweet for being like $3 things that you just slip on your arms.

In other news at work I spent a good portion of the day folding letters and putting them in envelopes. I really can't wait for the weekend. Some days I really like what I do. Some days I hate what I do. I think the biggest and most important thing though is that I don't hate myself for working there. That happened with my last job. Some days I did like it, some days I didn't, but I never liked that I worked there. I knew I was settling. I knew I could do more. The worst part of my former job though was probably the fact that no one supported what I did. There is this scene in the movie Tombstone where Wyatt Earp is chasing this crazy gang all over the place and Doc Holiday is there with him through it all and someone says "Doc why are you here? You aren't a law man."
Doc Holiday replies, "Wyatt Earp is my friend."
the man says "Well shoot I have lots of friends"
And Doc says "Well I don't"
I always liked that scene because Doc Holiday was going to support his friend, without necessarily believing in his cause simply because he is his friend (granted he doesn't have many friends) but still the point I'm making is that you should support the ones you love even if they are making dumb choices. You can tell them that you think they can make better choices, but you should still support them because they are your friends. I just remember that when I was at the job many times I felt so incredibly lonely. I felt isolated because I knew that no one thought I should work with juvenile delinquents and I didn't have a person on the earth to talk to about it. My own girlfriend at the time would just verbally abuse me about how I needed to get a new job. and if I ever told her about a good day at work she found a way to ruin it.
I guess what I am really saying *cues up some sappy music* is that if you are my friend I will try my hardest to be your Doc Holiday, so please, please be mine. Even if I'm working a job that is beneath me, or getting tattoos all over my arms, or listening to Miley Cyrus music just be there for me and I'll do the same for you.

Keep on rocking in the free world.