Monday, January 30, 2006
no words right now
Randy passed away last night. I am alternately numb and hysterical. Please excuse me while I take a few days off from this. From having to tell people what happened. From agreeing that he was much too young and undeserving of this. However, I would really like to write something nice and appropriate to memorialize my dear friend before getting on that long scary road to healing.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
nature is a horrible awful bitch
I went to see Randy in the hospital with an unammed friend (UF) yesterday. Wednesday he had gotten up and stood for several minutes and did arm curls for physical therapy. He had made a couple calls on his cell phone and had been eating real food for a couple of days. We had all let our guard down. Exhaled a collective sigh of relief and started making plans for when he could come home. UF and I heard he had a couple bad days Thursday and yesterday, which was expected. He had a very long road ahead of him full of good days, great days and a few not so good days sprinked in. We were not prepared for what we encountered.
For the first time I did not recognize the person in the bed. He did not open his eyes and give me a reassuring "really, I'm going to be fine" look. For the first time he didn't wake up at all. He didn't squeeze back when I squeezed his hand. We were a little stunned but not willing to let go the images of Randy's obvious improvement over the last few days. The sitter commented that he was wiggling his fingers in his sleep. She said she had asked a nurse about it, wondering if he had played piano. The nurse said she didn't know but that he had programmed computers. UF and I jumped to correct her.
"He does play piano. Very well," I said.
"He does program computers. He does both. And he has a masters in physics," said UF on the defensive.
We didn't realize that the staff doesn't know him like we do. Just snippets of what he says and overheard conversations. The nurse came in to check on him and we asked her to please be honest with us. How bad are things. Very bad. He can still turn around but it is not looking good.
"I wish I would have known him. I heard he was funny."
"He is funny!" UF adamantly corrected again.
UF has been a rock through this whole thing. She is Randy's closest friend and biggest cheerleader. For the first time though I saw a chink in the armor.
For the first time I cried for Randy. Up until now I was unwilling to believe any of this. 27-year-olds don't die. Not brilliant, unique individuals with long important lives yet to live. Firy tears ran down my cheek. I didn't leave the room because I knew Randy couldn't tell I was crying.
Before we had even gone to the hospital, Randy's mom asked UF and me to stop by Randy's apartment where she and her sister were staying. After the talk with the nurse we knew she had wanted to give us the grim update. Randy's mom was alternately teary and cheerful. She would tear up then I would tear up. "Do you need a hug?" She would ask. I didn't but I let her hold me because I think she needed to. UF was still stoic though she reported being near the breaking point.
After spending a couple hours talking to Randy's mom and aunt we went back to my lab to talk to the boys. They were as shocked as we had been hours earlier. By this time it was past six and we knew the guys would have questions. We decided to go to Randy's favorite restaurant.
I got in my car to drive separately. It was my first moments alone since before the hospital. The quiet tears turned into racking sobs, shaking my whole body and my car as well. I couldn't stop crying. The keys in the ignition caused the radio to be quietly playing. Classical music, which just made things worse.
I was late to the restaurant but I felt a little better. Randy's favorite waitress waited on us and reported the soup of the day was creamy potato. Also his favorite. We talked about his favorite foods and about the time he took a five dollar bill (his tip for the waitrees) and folded it up until it was the size of pea and silently dropped it in the palm of her hand. His way of flirting. Our memories will be what gets us through the next few days. But it will be hard as hell.
For the first time I did not recognize the person in the bed. He did not open his eyes and give me a reassuring "really, I'm going to be fine" look. For the first time he didn't wake up at all. He didn't squeeze back when I squeezed his hand. We were a little stunned but not willing to let go the images of Randy's obvious improvement over the last few days. The sitter commented that he was wiggling his fingers in his sleep. She said she had asked a nurse about it, wondering if he had played piano. The nurse said she didn't know but that he had programmed computers. UF and I jumped to correct her.
"He does play piano. Very well," I said.
"He does program computers. He does both. And he has a masters in physics," said UF on the defensive.
We didn't realize that the staff doesn't know him like we do. Just snippets of what he says and overheard conversations. The nurse came in to check on him and we asked her to please be honest with us. How bad are things. Very bad. He can still turn around but it is not looking good.
"I wish I would have known him. I heard he was funny."
"He is funny!" UF adamantly corrected again.
UF has been a rock through this whole thing. She is Randy's closest friend and biggest cheerleader. For the first time though I saw a chink in the armor.
For the first time I cried for Randy. Up until now I was unwilling to believe any of this. 27-year-olds don't die. Not brilliant, unique individuals with long important lives yet to live. Firy tears ran down my cheek. I didn't leave the room because I knew Randy couldn't tell I was crying.
Before we had even gone to the hospital, Randy's mom asked UF and me to stop by Randy's apartment where she and her sister were staying. After the talk with the nurse we knew she had wanted to give us the grim update. Randy's mom was alternately teary and cheerful. She would tear up then I would tear up. "Do you need a hug?" She would ask. I didn't but I let her hold me because I think she needed to. UF was still stoic though she reported being near the breaking point.
After spending a couple hours talking to Randy's mom and aunt we went back to my lab to talk to the boys. They were as shocked as we had been hours earlier. By this time it was past six and we knew the guys would have questions. We decided to go to Randy's favorite restaurant.
I got in my car to drive separately. It was my first moments alone since before the hospital. The quiet tears turned into racking sobs, shaking my whole body and my car as well. I couldn't stop crying. The keys in the ignition caused the radio to be quietly playing. Classical music, which just made things worse.
I was late to the restaurant but I felt a little better. Randy's favorite waitress waited on us and reported the soup of the day was creamy potato. Also his favorite. We talked about his favorite foods and about the time he took a five dollar bill (his tip for the waitrees) and folded it up until it was the size of pea and silently dropped it in the palm of her hand. His way of flirting. Our memories will be what gets us through the next few days. But it will be hard as hell.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Heaven Meme
I got tagged by Jackie. I hadn't seen this one before.
Okay, here goes..
What five things would you ask Jesus should you get to Heaven?
1. What was really up with you and Mary Magdalene?
2. Which way to the pet department?
3. Why is there so much pain in the world? I get the whole Ying Yang thing, the whole there-can't-be-happiness-without-sorrow thing. But sometimes its just too much.
4. Is there a Grand Unified Theory? What is it?
5. I couldn't think of another one. I decided to ask Dean what he would ask Jesus in Heaven for my last entry. Here it is, "How long did it take you to grow that beard?"
Who are the first five people you'd like to see in Heaven?
1. Grandpa Reuben, my dad's dad I never got to meet.
2. My great grandparents.
3. Albert Einstein.
4. Marilyn Monroe. I just know she wasn't as dumb as she let on.
5. Ghandi.
Who I tag:
1. anonymous female physicist (you know who you are!)
2. lefty_grrl (I know you're agnostic. I am too, this is just for fun.)
3. Scott
4. Mr. Schprock
5. hot4teacha (update, girl!)
Okay, here goes..
What five things would you ask Jesus should you get to Heaven?
1. What was really up with you and Mary Magdalene?
2. Which way to the pet department?
3. Why is there so much pain in the world? I get the whole Ying Yang thing, the whole there-can't-be-happiness-without-sorrow thing. But sometimes its just too much.
4. Is there a Grand Unified Theory? What is it?
5. I couldn't think of another one. I decided to ask Dean what he would ask Jesus in Heaven for my last entry. Here it is, "How long did it take you to grow that beard?"
Who are the first five people you'd like to see in Heaven?
1. Grandpa Reuben, my dad's dad I never got to meet.
2. My great grandparents.
3. Albert Einstein.
4. Marilyn Monroe. I just know she wasn't as dumb as she let on.
5. Ghandi.
Who I tag:
1. anonymous female physicist (you know who you are!)
2. lefty_grrl (I know you're agnostic. I am too, this is just for fun.)
3. Scott
4. Mr. Schprock
5. hot4teacha (update, girl!)
Monday, January 23, 2006
Juror No. 2513
Today I fulfilled my civic obligation. I spent all day at jury duty, a huge waste of time.
My first mistake was thinking it would be perfectly okay to show up to jury duty with a hangover and on six hours of sleep. Not smart. I had been warned that my day would mostly consist of sitting in a room reading. I thought, " No problem! I'll just drink as much as I want to Sunday night, go to bed at midnight and zone out for awhile at jury duty." Sitting absolutely crammed into hard backed chairs next to total strangers while a droning, nasally voice called out names did little for my pounding headache. Plus, I'm sure my fellow prospective jurors appreciated sitting next to someone who smelled like stale beer at 8 a.m.
When I first got there, the judge came in and commended us for participating in "one of the cornerstones of our democracy." That got me a little hyped up about the whole thing. By 11:30 though my excitement at playing a role int the democratic process was wearing thin. I was starving and bored after finishing one book and making a sizeable dent in the next. I was counting down to the noon lunch hour when my name was finally called (mispronounced, as ALWAYS).
We were led into a courtroom. Okay, I thought, this is where it's going to get fun. I imagined being questioned about my political views, my career, whether under any circumstances I could sentence someone to death (no, by the way), and a scene culminating in a Pacino-esque "This whole court's out of order!"
Instead we were seated in the rows with the lawyers facing us while the judge described the entirely mundane trial that would take place tomorrow and what to expect if in fact we were chosen to serve on the jury. The whole time the lawyers for both sides sized us up, taking notes. The defense attorney was an older, rather sleazy gentleman who I couldn't get a good read on because he was the furthest away from me. The defendant looked scared and I felt sort of bad for him. The two prosecuting attorneys were a couple pieces of work. They looked no older than me, and gave off the air of a recently graduated sorority girl and frat boy. You can still spot them without their Tri-Delt Cancun Spring Break t-shirts and whatnot after they make the transition to Armani suits and Chanel purses. They were also doing a very poor job concealing the fact that they were sleeping together. After the judge was done explaining the details of the case, the lawyers for both sides approached the bench after which there were several minutes of whispering. Then were all dismissed from the courtroom. That was my shot at being on a jury. No questions, just a lookover by a few jerky lawyers. I felt kind of violated.
We were allowed to take a later lunch and then report back to the waiting room to possibly be called for another propective jury. I didn't get called again. At 4:30 I was allowed to go home.
On the upside I did get a lot of reading done. Probably picked up an illness frmo the hundreds of people I shared air with all day, and got send back with a note to give to my employer. That should give Dr. Hari a good laugh.
My first mistake was thinking it would be perfectly okay to show up to jury duty with a hangover and on six hours of sleep. Not smart. I had been warned that my day would mostly consist of sitting in a room reading. I thought, " No problem! I'll just drink as much as I want to Sunday night, go to bed at midnight and zone out for awhile at jury duty." Sitting absolutely crammed into hard backed chairs next to total strangers while a droning, nasally voice called out names did little for my pounding headache. Plus, I'm sure my fellow prospective jurors appreciated sitting next to someone who smelled like stale beer at 8 a.m.
When I first got there, the judge came in and commended us for participating in "one of the cornerstones of our democracy." That got me a little hyped up about the whole thing. By 11:30 though my excitement at playing a role int the democratic process was wearing thin. I was starving and bored after finishing one book and making a sizeable dent in the next. I was counting down to the noon lunch hour when my name was finally called (mispronounced, as ALWAYS).
We were led into a courtroom. Okay, I thought, this is where it's going to get fun. I imagined being questioned about my political views, my career, whether under any circumstances I could sentence someone to death (no, by the way), and a scene culminating in a Pacino-esque "This whole court's out of order!"
Instead we were seated in the rows with the lawyers facing us while the judge described the entirely mundane trial that would take place tomorrow and what to expect if in fact we were chosen to serve on the jury. The whole time the lawyers for both sides sized us up, taking notes. The defense attorney was an older, rather sleazy gentleman who I couldn't get a good read on because he was the furthest away from me. The defendant looked scared and I felt sort of bad for him. The two prosecuting attorneys were a couple pieces of work. They looked no older than me, and gave off the air of a recently graduated sorority girl and frat boy. You can still spot them without their Tri-Delt Cancun Spring Break t-shirts and whatnot after they make the transition to Armani suits and Chanel purses. They were also doing a very poor job concealing the fact that they were sleeping together. After the judge was done explaining the details of the case, the lawyers for both sides approached the bench after which there were several minutes of whispering. Then were all dismissed from the courtroom. That was my shot at being on a jury. No questions, just a lookover by a few jerky lawyers. I felt kind of violated.
We were allowed to take a later lunch and then report back to the waiting room to possibly be called for another propective jury. I didn't get called again. At 4:30 I was allowed to go home.
On the upside I did get a lot of reading done. Probably picked up an illness frmo the hundreds of people I shared air with all day, and got send back with a note to give to my employer. That should give Dr. Hari a good laugh.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
woot.
I have been keeping something out of the blog world. I don't know if it's fear that writing it will make it more true or out of respect to one of my dearest friends. My friend Randy, a.k.a. hairless, is in the hospital suffering from graft versus host after a stem cell transplant. He was diagnosed with Leukemia last spring and has battled courageously with it. So courageously in fact that he had us all going like it was nothing. You see Randy is a tall, strapping specimen of strength, a hearty eater and exercise fiend. Most of my readers either know Randy personally or have read his silly, at times unintelligible comments on my blog. I don't know how much he values his anonymity, or if he goes by hairless in order to get into this game of alternate egos in the blogosphere. Knowing Randy, I can't imagine he much cares.
I finally decided to put down my thoughts mostly because his health has been weighing on my mind heavily. I can't imagine how is family must be faring. All I know is that this disease doesn't just affect him, it affects everyone who cares about him and in a different way at that. I don't want you all to feel sorry for him, he has never ever felt sorry for himself. I don't want you to feel sorry for me either. I'm not looking for sympathy because my friend has cancer, I'm looking for some eyes to read this and maybe appreciate their own health a little bit more.
I don't know if he remembers or not, but I met Randy when the department was recruiting me and paid for me to come down for a visit and have a look around. He was hanging out in the lab I am sitting in now even though he worked down the hall. My host invited everyone for lunch and he was one of the few who accepted the invitation. At Bennigan's he sat next to me, a foreshadow of his tendency to always take the seat next to mine at restaurants. I had a chicken salad. After he was done, he leaned over to me, pointing to my dinner roll, "Are you gonna eat that?" I was a little stunned, but it was the first gesture of acceptance towards me. Rather than being offended at his forthright nature, I felt at home.
Randy is a genius. Literally. His IQ is through the roof. He used to be an experimenter, and then switched to theory after he got his Master's because he was bored. He left school after only a semester in theory without getting his Ph.D. I know there are people that thought it was a shame, him being so smart and not staying for his Ph.D. It turns out he knew better. Before he got sick he took a job writing physics related computer code for video games. Most of his time was spent debugging it, so he ended up getting paid generous amounts of money to basically play video games. A dream come true for any science geek.
Unlike many physicists, Randy is also extremely well rounded. He enjoys learning and speaking foreign languages. He listens to classical music. He likes to cook and tend to his aquarium. He used to go to the gym four or five times a week to run and lift weights. He played on the physics department intramural softball team (we were the Rocket Scientists). He plays tuba and piano. He watches baseball and football only on TV. The stadiums are too loud.
Because Randy's mom had bought him a digital piano, he was generous enough to let me come over and play it whenever the mood struck me. I finally "moved in" by bringing all my sheet music and leaving it there. I didn't need it in my apartment. Sometimes he would call and ask me things like "Can I bend the binding on your new Chopin book? There's a song I really want to learn." Every time I went over there, I could play for an hour or so without distraction while Randy read a book or played a video game. Inevitably though, he'd wander over while I was playing and start harmonizing on the highest register. Whether he specifically knew the piece or not. I'd find an appropriate stopping point and scoot over so he could sit next to me on the bench. Then we'd take out a book of duets or a book of Bach fugues and inventions and turn those into duets. Sometimes improvising, sometimes butchering, usually laughing at silly things only musicians understand.
Randy is an atheist. He doesn't believe in the supernatural. He thinks what you see is what you get. His friends and family are praying for him though and we can't help but notice him perk up a little when we come by to visit. We can't help but feel like our strength and good feelings are somehow channeled to him, feeding him and nudging him along.
I finally decided to put down my thoughts mostly because his health has been weighing on my mind heavily. I can't imagine how is family must be faring. All I know is that this disease doesn't just affect him, it affects everyone who cares about him and in a different way at that. I don't want you all to feel sorry for him, he has never ever felt sorry for himself. I don't want you to feel sorry for me either. I'm not looking for sympathy because my friend has cancer, I'm looking for some eyes to read this and maybe appreciate their own health a little bit more.
I don't know if he remembers or not, but I met Randy when the department was recruiting me and paid for me to come down for a visit and have a look around. He was hanging out in the lab I am sitting in now even though he worked down the hall. My host invited everyone for lunch and he was one of the few who accepted the invitation. At Bennigan's he sat next to me, a foreshadow of his tendency to always take the seat next to mine at restaurants. I had a chicken salad. After he was done, he leaned over to me, pointing to my dinner roll, "Are you gonna eat that?" I was a little stunned, but it was the first gesture of acceptance towards me. Rather than being offended at his forthright nature, I felt at home.
Randy is a genius. Literally. His IQ is through the roof. He used to be an experimenter, and then switched to theory after he got his Master's because he was bored. He left school after only a semester in theory without getting his Ph.D. I know there are people that thought it was a shame, him being so smart and not staying for his Ph.D. It turns out he knew better. Before he got sick he took a job writing physics related computer code for video games. Most of his time was spent debugging it, so he ended up getting paid generous amounts of money to basically play video games. A dream come true for any science geek.
Unlike many physicists, Randy is also extremely well rounded. He enjoys learning and speaking foreign languages. He listens to classical music. He likes to cook and tend to his aquarium. He used to go to the gym four or five times a week to run and lift weights. He played on the physics department intramural softball team (we were the Rocket Scientists). He plays tuba and piano. He watches baseball and football only on TV. The stadiums are too loud.
Because Randy's mom had bought him a digital piano, he was generous enough to let me come over and play it whenever the mood struck me. I finally "moved in" by bringing all my sheet music and leaving it there. I didn't need it in my apartment. Sometimes he would call and ask me things like "Can I bend the binding on your new Chopin book? There's a song I really want to learn." Every time I went over there, I could play for an hour or so without distraction while Randy read a book or played a video game. Inevitably though, he'd wander over while I was playing and start harmonizing on the highest register. Whether he specifically knew the piece or not. I'd find an appropriate stopping point and scoot over so he could sit next to me on the bench. Then we'd take out a book of duets or a book of Bach fugues and inventions and turn those into duets. Sometimes improvising, sometimes butchering, usually laughing at silly things only musicians understand.
Randy is an atheist. He doesn't believe in the supernatural. He thinks what you see is what you get. His friends and family are praying for him though and we can't help but notice him perk up a little when we come by to visit. We can't help but feel like our strength and good feelings are somehow channeled to him, feeding him and nudging him along.
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