misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

Congrats.

You managed to put together a somewhat successful year.

With your samurai senses, you were once again able to prevent your greatest fear: getting raped and eaten by a grizzly bear/great white shark super clone engineered at that secret experimental government lab deep inside Area 51.

You managed to go over five days without a drink of alcohol in July (I will ignore the fact you were sick during that time). You immediately celebrated this accomplishment by drinking for six days straight.

You were able to scrape off enough emotional courage to propose to your girlfriend, ensuring that 2010 Mark will be exceedingly more responsible and selfless than your current incarnation.

You avoided injuring your penis with oyster sauce or beer caps. However, you did gravelier damage to your knee that was already gravely damaged. In 2009, I'll trade your hoop dreams for banjo dreams.

You played poker twelve times. You won once.

A high percentage of your diet was comprised of french fries, potato chips, and other crispy potato products. You did so while refusing to have your cholesterol measured as per your doctor's request. 2009 Mark will now have to deal with the repercussions of this potato indulgence.

You worked a lot. But you managed to throw in several vacations along the way, ensuring a healthy stress level. Applause, applause.

You had well too many hangovers. To avoid this in 2009, I will now have to learn how to cure hangovers, or how to avoid drinking past my limits. This year, I'll focus on the former.

Great job getting Obama elected. Your passionate posts on political blogs convinced at least two voters to change their minds. And your periodical $25 donations helped him by 1/7908th of a commercial in Omaha.

You read some good non-fiction books, filling the blanks with knowledge of World War I, Cholera, and Dick Cheney.

You didn't ruin any friendships. Instead you gained two more. Thanks to your efforts, if I manage to lose a friend this year, I'll still be ahead by one.

You didn't fall in love with a small horse, like 2007 Mark, which I'm pleased about.

You almost finished The Wire. I said almost, cause now I'll have to finish what your lazy ass was unable to.

I also have already written more blogs within a day of my reign than you were able to during all of yours.

Good Riddance.

Best,

2009 Mark

I returned from London today to find a pile of unopened Christmas cards in my mailbox. After un-enveloping them all, including them with the cards already on the mantle, I was able to tally the final numbers:

FOURTEEN holiday cards
SEVEN signed
SEVEN unsigned

My count was generous. If there was even one stroke of ink I included it the "signed" pile. In most instances, the ink came in the form of my name or the sender's name. And I easily could have eliminated two signed cards from the count, as one was from Jillian's mom, and one from her grandma, neither of whom are fully capable of utilizing a computer to print out a Christmas card, and thus may have signed the card simply out of necessity.

Of the fourteen cards, only two had any genuine writing on it, and both of those were notes about our engagement.

Maybe it is that I like to write .. Or that I love people so much .. But if you aren't going to put ink to paper, next year save yourself on the postage and send your card as an email attachment. I'll print it out, trim off the edges, and put it on my mantle. We're both winners.

On the flight back from London I had the pleasure of watching Bottle Shock, the inspirational story behind the legendary bottle of Chardonnay from Napa that defeated five French entries to win top honors at a blind Paris tasting in 1976. The bottle, from Chateau Montelena, essentially put Napa Valley on the map, and mortally punctured the centuries-old myth regarding the superiority of French wines. Of course, back then Napa was in its infancy, a place you could taste pure wines from eager vintners for free, without today's parade of tour buses, rich Atherton families, and gondolas. The movie was standard Hollywood fair, complete with a father-son rift, hot blonde twenty-two year-old "intern" who picked grapes in jean shorts and boots, spoiled rich kid who was humbled by the complexity of a grape, and hardworking Mexican immigrant whose immense talent was held back by racism and money. The movie also features Amanda's dad, aka Miguel Sandoval:

in the film, Miguel Sandoval represents a TCM (Type Cast Mexican), a roll he has played infinite times in the past twenty years. I'm not sure if Mexico has only ever exported a single actor, or if Miguel Sandoval has compromising pictures of every casting agent in Hollywood, but anytime the roll calls for "middle-aged Mexican man", Miguel Sandoval is the only man called. Sometimes, if the casting description calls for "tough middle-aged Mexican man", they turn the roll over to Danny Trejo:

But this is as much diversity as you will get.

TC actors are a tradition in Hollywood. Rather than analyze a roll and open it up to emerging actors, casting agents simply thumb through their rolodex and call the first Mexican or Russian or Dog they see listed. Usually, they only have one entry for each. I'm guessing scripts are written with these very people in mind, since none of us have ever seen a different Mexican on the screen other than Miguel Sandoval or Danny Trejo (with all due respect to Edward James Olmos). Here are a few of my other favorite TCs:

Here, we have TCI (Type Cast Indian), or, if you are a sensitive, a TCNA (Type Cast Native American). If any movie in the past twenty-five years has been set in the wild west or pre-constitutional America, this is your man. Say hello to the incomparable Wes Studi:

I'd now like to introduce Peter Dinklage, Hollywood's greatest TCSD (Type Cast Sarcastic Dwarf):

Next, we have Ellen Albertini Dow, the TCZOC (Type Cast Zany Old Chick):

With an honorable mention to Zelda Rubenstein, the TCFOC (Type Cast Freaky Old Chick):

That a raw sampling. Due to a lack of available photos, I've left out the following Type Casts:

* Long-Blonde-Haired German Terrorist
* Santa Elves
* Nice Glass House (Anytime they need to establish a couple is successful and in love, they always show them arriving at the same high-tech glass house up in the Hollywood Hills)
* Pretty Persian Mother Who's Actually not a Terrorist
* Small Town Incompetent Sheriff

If you can locate any photos of these, I'd be much obliged. After all, I'm a TCBBW (Type Cast Bad Blog Writer).

My furious writing rate has slowed, now that I've returned to work and lost the mental and intellectual stimulation experienced only while traveling. Initially, I was going to resume blogging about conference calls and Lexapro pitches, but I think I'll first clear out my "potential blogs" list, which I kept in London when my brain was more active than it is now. Here are the current topics on this list, with a corresponding explanation:

Irish Pubs:
This was to be a blog about how my trip to London confirmed how much I hate Irish pubs (and possibly Irish people, though that is a different blog). It baffles me that the Irish Pub, with its faux mahogany wood bar, overpriced Irish nachos, and overflow of drunken frat boys, has become the icon of drinking across the world. No matter where you go in the world, you are guaranteed to find two things: A Chinese restaurant and Irish pub. Why not a British pub? With its cask-drawn ales, bountiful seating, and fireplaces, it is much more enjoyable than an Irish Pub. Walking be an Irish Pub right next to a British Pub in Chiswick brought this all into emerald-clear focus. The world is being cheated.

Walking around London eases your fear of death:
I jotted this down during my second walking tour of London, upon the realization that everyone in London is dead, with a few rare exceptions, including Lee and Sy. Everywhere you go, the dead have left behind their belongings: churches, houses, pubs, statues, bridges. You can literally feel them all around you, like if I had special paranormal glasses I could see them all walking around. London is this huge community of dead people, where being dead is actually more valuable than being alive, insofar as being respected by the general public. For centuries, every citizen of London has, at some point or another, died. And when they did, they joined this huge, ever-growing club with a pretty impressive guest list. When it comes time for me to go, I'll take comfort knowing a whole shitload of people, mostly from London, have paved the path for me.

churchill - anticipation
I don't really know what the hell I was thinking about here .... Hmmm .. Oh right ... In London, I went to the Churchill museum, which was built into his actual WWII bunkers, complete with original equipment used to conduct war operations from underground. Looking in on the concrete rooms people slept in for four years, it finally dawned on me that people once lived in total isolation from the world in a way I never have. I am connected to every one and every thing at every moment of every day, via computers, television, radios, cell phones, instant messaging. These dudes would sleep at night, fully unable to check what was going on in France, or North Africa, or with their wives, or children. Letters would take months to get delivered. Phones were limited access, and mostly only for military purposes. So you just had to get ok with the idea of patience with anxiety and suspense in a way we will never be. Today, if I have to go four minutes without knowing the score of the Chargers game, I basically freak the fuck out. And if I can't IM Jill to tell her to pick up tortilla chips on the way home, my night is ruined. How the hell did they just sit there, day after day, depending on newspapers to get some sort of idea of what was going on in the world? How could they plan an invasion (based on maps and thumbnails), then get no updates on the invasion for five days? How could they have gone without reading this blog? I would have lost it, big time. The misAdventures of Workmonkey award of the day goes to people from the 1940s.

the only way to see something is an illustration
I think I already put this point in a blog. To summarize: There once existed a time, if you wanted to see what a zebra looked like, you had to look at a drawing and imagine. Perhaps now you can see why I didn't turn this gay thought into a blog.

So there you are. Cleaned out my list, and gave you four blogs within a blog. My work here is done.

This weekend we'll be checking out the four places listed below as potential wedding locations. Tentatively, we'd prefer to get married in the fall, between the middle of October to the middle of November, and these places are well suited for this. But we also need to stay flexible in the interest of budgets: Weddings are expensive as shit, and we need to remain open to every option. As example, we are quickly realizing that fall is actually a popular time to get married in NYC. The cheapest month is August, when it is hot as shit. Additionally, Fridays and Sundays are obviously cheaper than Saturdays. Essentially, my plan is to walk into the venues, caterers, and other vendors, and ask what the cheapest possible day of the year is to get married, and play with that knowledge. Everyone keeps saying, "It's your wedding! You only get married once! You should do exactly what you want! Money shouldn't be an issue!" The people who say this either a) have very rich parents or b) have very rich grandparents. Yes it is my wedding. And yes, money is an issue. So I am opening this up for debate. Feel free to take a look at the following spots and place a vote for your favorite, although you might want to wait until I am able to list cost and first-hand accounts. User-votes will count for 25% of the final decision making. The current list:

• Brooklyn Historical Society (Brooklyn Heights)
• Smack Mellon (Dumbo)
• The Foundry (Long Island City)
• Pochron Photo Loft (Dumbo)
• Galapagos Art Space (Dumbo)

Of all the questions i've been asked in my life - from what is the atomic weight of Carbon? to what are your feelings for me? to is that your THUMB?!? - i'd say the hardest is what have you been up to? It's the question you get at a gathering when running into someone you haven't seen for a few years but never really knew all that well in the first place (which is why they, in fact, don't know what i've been up to. if they were a part of my life, or talked to me more than once a decade, they'd already know). With the advent of Facebook, it has gotten worse. At least once a month, a San Diego classmate will add me as a friend with the note: OMG! What have you been up to?? You mean, since middle school? Since I was 11 years old? I've been up to quite a few things, none of which are easily shared in a Facebook message. Over time, i've experimented with a few approaches to the question, to varying degrees of success, and wanted to share them with you:

IRREVERENT HUMOR
Because the honest answer to the question is inherently depressing (in my case, what i've been up to, in, say, the past nine months is "going to work, watching tv and cleaning the toilet" which inherently kills a conversation), I offer a random response. I've tried:

Petting things.
Going to the Kaiser's house.
Carpet decor.

This approach usually does not work as whomever I am addressing doesn't know me well, and either takes my answer as the truth or recognizes it for an awkward attempt at humor. Either way, they are disgusted and move on, as in move on past me with an odd look in their eyes. Any attempt to sarcastically mock this question through a nonsensical answer should be used sparingly.

HONESTY
When feeling uninspired, or awkward, I will answer the question with an accurate explanation of what I have, in fact, been up to since middle school:

Well after middle school, I went to high school, and then college, up in the Bay Area, then I moved to San Francisco, then I moved to New York, then I got engaged .. and that about brings me current.

Usually, I'll spackle on a thick pasting of explicit details which make the email, or personal exchange, somewhat more serious and lengthy than I'm assuming the person intended. Usually, in response to my honesty, I receive this answer:

Cool!

CLICHES

This is the most common response, and probably one the questioner is secretly hoping for. This response consists of:

Not much.
Nothing.
Nothing much.
Nothing ... Nothing much at all.

Then you turn it around and say what about you? Then he says nothing. Then you sip your drink, or close your browser, and call it a conversation, or, in this case, a blog. And in the future, if you haven't been around enough to know what i've been up to, go ahead and skip filling yourself in on my past ten years of life, and instead ask me where I'm headed, since that hasn't happened yet and might make better conversation.

Tomorrow, a few moments after 10 AM, Dr. Darren Friedman, MD (young and recently out of residency, like Taj .. which hopefully is a good thing) will pick up a scalpel and make a four-inch incision from the bottom of my kneecap to the top of my tibia, and with that simple action, will singlehandedly place me on the lengthy and painful path towards a strong right knee. ACL reconstruction surgery is an odd sensation, primarily because you don't particularly notice the lack of an ACL in your day-to-day life of going to work, drinking beer, and watching TiVo. It only slides itself into your consciousness every week or two, when you get up from laying on the floor, or step out of the shower, or turn quickly to get onto a subway car. It is only then you remember that your knee simply isn't all there. So, tomorrow, I will walk into a hospital with a seemingly decent knee, and exit with a swollen, painful knee. You expect to leave a hospital feeling better than when you walked in; that is not the case with orthopedic surgery.

The decision to have another knee surgery as a 33-year-old was much more difficult than the first two times. I originally tore the ACL again three years ago, and at the time, looked at my life with reality: I was in the twilight of my athletic years, wasn't excessively active outside of the gym, and was told if I avoided activities involving pivoting and frequent extertion, I would be able to manage. At the time, having just moved to New York, that seemed fine. ACLs aren't required for picking up and consuming a beer. It was like if your car had no bumper: Sure, you can pay to have it fixed. Insurance will even pick up the tab. But do you really need a bumper? Only if you are planning on hitting something again. And with due diligence, you can avoid that.

The problem is more that it is always there, in the back of your mind: You aren't 100%. Every time someone asked me to play basketball, or go skiing, I had to point to my knee and say "i can't". Then the one time I said "i can", my knee gave out on me, again, keeping me off my feet for a week. Was I really ready to say goodbye to real physical activity for the rest of my life at this age? Am I really going to live the rest of my life on the couch or jogging on a treadmill?

Maybe. But at least if I finally do decide to get off the couch and shoot some hoops, I'll know I have everything I need to do that.

I don't remember much for my past two surgeries. Part of that is intentional: As any of you who have had surgery know, they now use anaesthesia with amnesic qualities, so you don't remember anything, even if you are conscious at the time. This is somewhat unsettling: One minute, you are sitting in a prep room, and (in your mind) the very next second you are in a bed in the recovery room with your knee numb and bandaged. And it is actually four hours later. But it is also kind of awesome: You are able to time travel to the point after your surgery without having to experience any of it. LIke you walk into a room with a bad knee, then turn around and open the door, and your knee is fine again.

That was ten years ago. These days, there are other options. Technically, they can give you what's called regional anaesthesia: a spinal nerve block (to numb your entire lower half) or sciatic-femoral nerve block (to target just the injured leg), although I don't know if the hospital I'm going to (NYU Downtown Hospital) allows this. This option is better than general anaesthesia, which knocks out your entire body and comes with some lame side effects (last time I puked for a number of hours after, which is common). I've requested regional, and while I'm not sure how I'll handle being paralyzed below the waist for a few hours, anyone i've asked who has had it done when pregnant says it is a great thing. The problem is that they won't really allow you to be awake for it, instead putting you in what's known as "twilight sleep", which basically means you are conscious, but don't remember any of it. Which is a bit weird to me. They literally turn off the part of you that is aware of consciousness but you aren't unconscious. I guess it is like sleep walking. I'm going to ask to be as aware of the procedure as I can, mostly because I don't like drugs (or people) fucking with my consciousness. It's a control thing. But there probably isn't an option. And last two times I had no problems with it. Although, I have read that they've recently discovered very precise anaesthesia that can literally only turn off the pain nerves that need to be turned off, and not the ones that control movement, pressure, etc. As it stands now, they just turn off everything. But in about five years or so, you'll be able to have a full surgery fully awake and alert, but pain-free. I look forward to this option. But all in all, all options are better than the days of the Civil War, when you got a shot of whiskey and a towel while someone sawed your leg. So I won't complain.

I hope I still get the morphine drip, afterwards, which is to this day the best physical and mental experience I have ever had. Precisely, it brings total and complete happiness to your entire being every time you press the button.

After that, I go home. For some reason, the pain afterwards isn't too bad. You can pretty much put weight on it in a week. Before that, you sit on the couch and watch TV and NetFlix and have people bring you delicious fast food, because, you know, you're sick. And blog. Lots of blogs.

Get ready.

The votes have been tallied and .... didn't count for shit. As always, reality and budget made the decision for us.

The Foundry was beautiful, and perfectly suited for an urban wedding: Soaring brick skylights, finely-tuned staff, outside deck perched over the city. In the end, however, it had two mortal flaws: Firstly, it is in Long Island City, as close to the middle of nowhere as New York has. Secondly, it is the totally hot place to get married these days, and thus was already booked on all the good days. And yes, both of those reasons are in addition to the fact that just the space, without caterers, booze, DJ (would have consumed 60% of our budget, which simply wasn't acceptable.

Smack Mellon was visually similar to The Foundry (industrial factory feeling) but even better, as it was located at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge Park. The price was right and they had some days available. The problem, which is a non-starter for me, is they were total assholes. It was a pain to take the time to meet with us, nobody was forthcoming with information, everyone there saw themselves as artists not wedding vendors, and would we just make up our mind already? Fair enough, we will. Go fuck yourself. That place is dead to me. The anti-Smack Mellon advertising campaign starts now.

Brooklyn Historical Society was nice, in that throw on a dinner jacket and talk about Otto Von Bismarck kind of way. The old library, replete with signed editions of Walt Whitman books and the like, would only work in a fall or winter wedding. And due to the many artifacts, they didn't allow red wine upstairs. As my father only drinks red wine, that was an unforgivable complication.

Galapagos Art Space required purchase of the bar and staff in addition to the venue itself. With water as a floor, gangplanks, and intense red lighting, it had a great vibe, if I were throwing a Christmas party for the Asian Society of Nightclub Professionals.

So, we've arrived at the announcement: Pochron Studio, the 11th floor penthouse with roof deck with a full view of New York City and the Manhattan Bridge. It is intimate, flexible, urban, and affordable. The owner was intensely polite and accommodating. And it only required a 20% deposit versus the usual 50%. It is, in other words, perfect for the wedding/party we want to throw. With the outdoor roof deck, a summer wedding was required, and after seeing available dates, we decided on Saturday, August 1st.

Thanks for your input. Next, you'll help us craft the specialized food and alcohol menus.

Aight, well today is historical. And thanks to a missing patella tendon, I can't leave the couch. So I'm writing this running diary instead of talking the ears off of everyone around, as I would be doing if I were off my couch.

11:25 AM: Just got done talking to Taj. Not because I only will talk to black people on the day of Obama's inauguration, but because I owed him a call. I had the TV on mute, where I watched the VIPs walking the red carpet .. The Carters, The Clintons, Aretha Franklin ... wtf? Not sure what she has to do with this, other than being black and singing about RESPECT. They just announced the former first wives - Lynne Cheney and Laura Bush. God, how good to see them go away forever. Not them, but the people the decided to marry. Maybe they see something in their husbands that America doesn't ... But probably not. Alright, waiting for them to announce Melia and Sasha Obama. Little black kids walking down the VIP carpet. Things have definitely changed. The crowd is chanting for Obama.

11:30 PM: There's a shit ton of people. Something ceremonial like this has never interested me in any way. But I'm somewhat bummed I am not there. Instead, all I have is this shitty running diary. WTF? Dick Cheney is in a wheelchair? They just wheeled him into a side room when they saw the cameras. I KNEW it! He's dying or something. That's why he is such a bitter asshole. He's like that bitter old neighbor of yours that is pissed off he's old and you're not. I love how the CNN commentators said nothing about the wheelchair. LIke we didn't all just see that. Oh wait, they are explaining it now. Saying he "tweaked his back" moving boxes in his house and doctor's advised him to stay off his feet. Yeah right. That's plausible. Stay off your feet for the inauguration. It is always these weak, frail people who cause such trouble with violence. They can't do shit with their own bodies, so instead they order armies around. Look no further than Napoleon, Hitler, Cheney.

11:37 PM: I don't think anyone even cheered for Bush. LIke out of the 2 million people there, not one person clapped. Has any President ever been so hated? Make no mistake, Obama is cool. But he looks that much cooler walking out right after the worst President of all time. If he was following, FDR, say, he might not look as cool. Aight, Obama is about to come out. The last eight years of ignorance and stupidity are almost over. Amazing, just like that. Stupidity, and everything associated with it, instantly replaced with intelligence. Unfortunately, CNN has totally filtered out the cheers of the crowd, so all I can hear is the useless musings of Wolf Blitzer. Thanks for that.

11:43 AM: There he is. Anti-climatic. CNN still insists on filtering out crowd noises, and they preceeded his entry with Nancy Pelosi. Talk about a buzz kill. But there he is. A black dude. Old white guys everywhere just puked in their mouth a little bit.

11:52 AM: Rick Warren, praying to God, in the same tone he'd use to describe the transmission of his 98 Honda Accord.

11:58 AM: Does Yo-Yo Ma get every good cello gig in the world? If I were another celloist, I'd be pretty pissed. Do other celloists even exist?

2:55 PM: Well, the running journal took a hit with the arrival of Age and Amanda (thanks for the McDonalds). So I decided to talk their ear off rather than write. Obama's speech seemed good, not great, but he's great, so who cares what his speech was. I'm ready to be in a good mood for the next eight years.

I've entered the pissed-off stage of my post-operative recovery. The OxyCodine and OxyCotine kept me placated (i.e. sedated) for awhile, but after a week, I've lost patience with the forty minutes of effort required to get to the bathroom just to take a piss, and the never-ending throb of pain in my knee. There's no more TV i want to watch, no more books I want to read, no more Trader Joe's pre-packaged meals I want to eat, no more sleepless nights I want to spend, no more blogs I want to write, no more sites I want to surf. Enough. The anger will build and build until I get worked up enough to take a stand (literally), and spend twenty minutes wiggling myself off the couch. By the time I get to the floor, I am out of energy and unaware of what I was trying to do anyway. So I pull myself back up on the couch and pick up my laptop once again, even more pissed than before.

In the past week, endless flows of memories from the first time I had this surgery have released themselves from deep within my brain. I'm not sure if it is the pain medication, or the pain itself, but the sheer similarity between then and now have brought them all back for the first time in ten years. My mind weaves back and forth between San Francisco and New York. Walking down the stairs, one step at a time, delicately balancing my leg on the edge of the step so it will slide rather than hold pressure. Waking up in the middle of the night, trying to find a way - any way- to get comfortable with a four foot long brace locked to your leg. Staring at your shower, studying angles and grips, assessing if the pleasure of getting clean under warm water is worth the pain of standing. The sore armpits caused by the poor use of crutches. It is all exactly the same, and were I to open my eyes and find myself in my apartment at 315 Grand View in San Francisco, I almost wouldn't be surprised.

And yes, I fully accept that I am a total and utter pussy. I just read that the owner of the Utah Jazz had both of his legs amputated below the knee, and here I am bitching over the fact that I have temporarily painful knee that will be in perfect working condition in six months. Let's just hope you aren't still reading this blog the first time I face a real challenge, cause you will never hear the end of it. And in the meantime, spend the next minute appreciating your healthy limbs and organs, cause if even in a small way, this surgery is a reminder that just being in normal working shape is cause enough for daily celebration.

Thanks to Dragonhair for passing along this frozen bag of memories. During my first summer in Ad School, I took a job working for a food booth making garlic fries, mostly because it was on weekends, which fit with my class schedule, but also because it was brainless. I traveled to street fairs, county festivals, and (unfortunately) gay day parades from Sacramento to Marin, selling my pipin' hot fare to the weary, hungry travelers lucky enough to pass by. My duties were exceedingly simple: Dump a frozen bag of thick-cut Idaho potato fries into a fryer, and stand there until done (through trial and error, I discovered that fries tended to hold the garlic better when a bit crisper, so I'd keep them in the fryer for an extra minute). Take out the fries, drain, and dump into a large metal mixing bowl. Next, pour in two tablespoons of olive oil and toss, ensuring an even coating. Then, add two scoops of fresh, minced Gilroy garlic and toss again. As a final measure, add parsley and salt, toss a final time, and serve. The food booth I worked for charged $5 for a large serving, which was worth it, as I took my craft seriously. At times, I worked other stations, including making philly cheesesteaks and marinated chicken sandwiches, but garlic fries were my true passion. Several times, management chided me for using too much garlic, not because customers were complaining, but because garlic is expensive. But I never listened: You don't tell Grandmaster French Fry how to prepare potatoes. By the end of each day, I left with a clump of twenties in my pocket, grease covering every visible area of my body, and a full belly (like any good chef, I sampled every batch). I didn't do it for the money, but rather, to share my love of fries with the world. Seeing a little girl, her middle teeth missing, happily chomping on a hot garlic fry that I had just made, was the only payment I needed.

If you haven't had the pleasure of watching Jon and Kate Plus 8 yet, boy, are you cheating yourself out of one of life's true pleasures. The premise is wildly simple: Two parents (Jon and Kate) manage the hijinks of their eight children (a pair of twins and sextuplets - love those fertility drugs!) I mean, really, I just can't get enough of this show, which is perfect, because TLC plays it every hour of every day. Who doesn't want to watch parents taking care of children? I mean, if you are one of those people who doesn't enjoy watching a mother change diapers, make lunch, do laundry, argue with her husband, well, then stick with your dumb shows like 24. This show is just OUTRAGEOUS! Recently, TLC threw in a HUGE HUGE HUGE wrench when they started sending the whole family around the country on vacation. If you think watching the kids run around their house is wild, just WAIT until you see them running around one of San Diego's top resorts. And the show's producers - BLESS THEM - just recently bought Jon and Kate a new house, much much much bigger than the last one. I can't wait to see what ADVENTURES the new house has in store for them. And if you like Jon and Kate Plus 8, you will LOVE LOVE LOVE TLC's upcoming show Tina and the Cotton about a single mom who loves to knit mittens! Like all different kinds of colors and styles. GAWD I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!

I've recently been struggling with some life issues, plagued with the stress of getting older, maybe brought on by knee surgery, maybe not. This whole marriage thing, career thing, I just don't know if it my thing, you know? Is Jill right for me? Am I ready for a family? Is advertising a good career choice? Am I supposed to even be living in New York?

Fortunately, in my time of deep darkness, I was close to my favorite book of all-time, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Plagued with doubt and angst, I immediately re-read it, and thank God I did. It had the perfect answer for all my questions:

Follow your dreams.

Thank you, Paulo, for that insight. As long as I "follow my dreams" I'll be ok. Just when my life was careening off track, you came in and saved me with your insightful fable. After reading, all stress left me, and answers flooded into my mind. Follow your dreams, Mark, I repeated again and again. Follow your dreams. Follow your dreams. FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS! I screamed it on the streets, and whispered it in the subway. I painted it on my chest, and chalked it on the sidewalk. I sang it to my enemies, and wrote it to my friends. Follow your dreams, Kenta. Follow your dreams, Paul. Just follow your dreams. And rid yourself of all sadness forever. Oh, and eat more lamb shwarma, too.

Suffice to say, all is ok now. The clouds have parted, with Paulo's advice. I'd also like to thank The Celestine Prophecy, Tuesdays with Maury, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Everything I needed to Know I lived in Kindergarten and Ishmael for confirming that in order to find happiness forever, all i need to do is dance more, listen to my heart, eat raw green peppers, share my crayons, and turn off all electrical power.