BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Yeah…dying.

And, I don’t mean like up on stage or anything. Although, that has happened too. I once gave a workshop to about two dozen people who sat there quietly, never asked a question, cracked a smile, or even showed any expression on their faces. Apparently they didn’t find me anywhere near as amusing or informative as I find myself. So, I had no choice but to ask Morrison to turn them all into frogs. I mean, what are big sisters for if they can’t defend their little brothers from crap like that?

There I go doing that digressing thing again…I must have adult onset ADD or something. (No, not making light of the disorder at all. The way my brain bounces around I often wonder if I have a mild case of it…)

Hold on…Need more coffee…

That’s better…and see there? It didn’t take anywhere near as long as you thought it would.

Okay, so back to this dying thing…

Long about Monday afternoon the flu hit me. I’m pretty much figuring it was the flu because it was sudden–as in the symptoms literally appeared over the span of a couple of hours–and were accompanied by a fever, chills, body aches, and all the debilitating crap that comes with the actual influenza virus. And, after a few days of sweating it out, I started feeling better. So, though I don’t even play a doctor on TV (although I’ve had a few of them as characters running around in my books) I have officially diagnosed what I had as the flu. So there.

Oh…And, yes, I DID have a flu shot. I’m an old guy, so I always get one. And, I made it through the whole flu season without getting ill…Now this. Either the shot wore off, or it didn’t account for this fugged up strain…

Anyway, so the problem is that the feeling better only lasted about a day. Actually, around 18 hours at most. Then I plummeted right back into miserable. However, I think this time it is either a cold, brought about by my immune system having been weakened by the flu, or it is just some horrid aftermath of the flu virus itself. Not sure which.

I won’t go into too many gory details, suffice it to say I am horribly congested and have a nasty–and overly productive–cough. (yech!) The body aches WERE gone, but now they are back…However, I can literally trace this new round of pains directly to the violent coughing fits.

Like I said, I’m dying here. Now, aren’t you glad I shared?

Okay…I suppose I should write something worthwhile in this blog to make reading it worth your time, rather than just grouse about feeling bad. (Although, if you ask Morrison, she will be happy to tell you that after seeing my astrological chart, it’s pretty obvious that “it’s all about me,” so I suppose I am allowed to complain for a bit–yeah, big sisters pick on you too. That’s one of the downsides *grin*…So do younger sisters. Yeah, I’m talkin’ about you Madden. Guess it’s a sister thing. I’d say it was a female thing, but wives are a different story. They don’t just pick on you. They subjugate you and then use you as an oversized Ken™ doll when they feel like dressing someone up other than themselves…But that’s another story, for another blog…*LOL*)

What’s that? Oh yeah…I said I would write something worthwhile…Okay. You’re right…Guess I’d better get to it then…

So, important stuff. Hmmm…Well, this might be of interest:

Even with all this being sick and stuff I managed to finish a Rowan Gant Investigations short story for submission to an anthology which is being put out by a different publisher. Even though WillowTree has dibs on all the future novel length Rowan Gant books ad infinitum, there wasn’t an issue with the characters appearing elsewhere, which is a good thing. It allows those crazy kids to go explore other stuff and get in trouble elsewhere for a change.

I can’t really say much about the anthology right at the moment, but as soon as I can, I will. What I can reveal is that the editor really liked the story. I suppose it helps that she was already a fan, but as I’ve said in the past, editors are evil. My WTP editor is a fan too, but she never hesitates to tell me if she hates something. I can only assume that it is an “editor gene sequence” and that they all will be brutally honest. At least, that has been my experience. However, the thing about all this is that since the setting for this piece was a bit of a departure for my characters, I was a fairly worried about effectively implementing it.

Apparently I was losing sleep over nothing.

Either way, like I said, as soon as I am free to run off at the mouth I will be doing so. You know me, and since it is about me, well…just ask Morrison. *grin*

Let’s see…Did I mention that I am miserable sick? I did? Okay…just checking…

Hmmmm…Well, I don’t know if I am in a frame of mind to answer any of the FAQ/Questions of the week right now. Maybe in a couple of days…Or, later next week actually, since I am buried with writing and my blogging needs to take a back seat to that…Which means, only one or two blogs per week right now as I am sure you’ve noticed…In fact, I’ve even received email about it.

So…how about some RGI trivia? Sound good? ‘Kay, here goes:

Little Known Trivia About the RGI Series

1) Various homicide detectives and patrol cops in the RGI series who are recurring peripheral type characters, requiring little to no development but still needing a name other than “hey you”, are named for the various English/Lit teachers/profs I had in high school and college: Ackman, Golden, Osthoff, Martin, and many others.

2) Yes. The recurring character named “Murv”–the lead crime scene technician with the SLPD Crime Scene Unit–is me. Kinda one of those Hitchcockian/Kingian cameo things. (Yeah…all about me again… *snicker*)

3) The cameo character of the news helicopter pilot in The Law Of Three, while never actually given a name, was an homage to St. Louis news helicopter pilot and hometown hero Allen Barklage, who was killed in a crash September 25th, 1998. Like the character in the book answered in reply to a question from Rowan, Barklage actually was a member of the 192nd AHC (Attack Helicopter Company) in Vietnam. As if surviving that weren’t enough, he gained notoriety here in STL for not only surviving, but foiling (while in flight) an attempt to hijack his helicopter so that it could be used for a prison break. Barklage was also responsible for using his aircraft to rescue a person who had jumped from a local bridge into the Missouri River.

4) I actually thought this one was glaring, but while some folks caught it, many others did not. No, I’m not commenting on the intelligence of the reading public here. I am just observing that I may have overestimated the “obviousness” of this bit of trivia. Of course, since I “already know the answer before I write the question,” all of it seems terribly obvious to me. Anyhow, Eldon Andrew Porter, the recurring antagonist who first appeared in Never Burn A Witch, shares his  initials with a famous author. His name was derived from the initials EAP (obviously) which are the same as one of my all time favorite writers, Edgar Allen Poe.

Okay…there are many more tidbits I can reveal, but I think I’ll leave them for another day. I need to go hack up a lung then grab some more coffee.

Hope everyone else out there is feeling better than I do right now. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone…

Welllll…that’s not entirely true. Maybe I’d wish it on Barbara Albright and Eldon Porter…

MR/Murv

Well, the point behind this whole blog thing is to share, correct? This is where you come to learn silly and little known stuff about yours truly…my meandering thoughts, and generally discombobulated logic, all spilled out onto the page so you can say, “Hey, did you know MR is a freakin’ lunatic?”

Am I right? Thought so…

Okay, so on with the “man boobie” thing. My entire life I have suffered from a condition called Gynecomastia. That being “male breasts”…Now, what I’m talking about here is not fat guy man boobies (although I readily admit I could stand to lose a few pounds…) Even when I was much younger and much thinner (yes, Virginia, I used to be a pretty good looking guy) I had this affliction. In fact, when I was thinner, it was even more pronounced.

One of the things about my particular case is that I was asymmetrical…I was flat chested on one side, and sporting a breast on the other. For years I have strapped the damn thing in, worn oversized shirts, etc, in order to conceal this “deformity” which I found embarrassing. (Okay folks, stop laughing, because I really am baring my soul here.) To give you an idea of how traumatic this affliction can be, think adolescent boys and locker rooms. Pretty bad visual of taunting there, eh? I’ll go you one better. Think about getting intimate with a member of the opposite sex, only to have her laugh at you when you remove your shirt…

Been there…Got the oversized t-shirt…

So…Why am I baring my soul here? Well, I received a number of well wishes in response to my “under the knife” blog post, so I thought I’d fill you in on what the knife was all about…

Fortunately, my man boobie wasn’t like a double-d or something…(Again, don’t laugh, because there are men out there afflicted with such who require extremely expensive and invasive surgery if they want this corrected)…Me, I wasn’t that big, but big enough to be easily noticed…Soooo, since I was actually small enough to not require the MAJOR surgery, earlier this year I underwent “Mesotherapy” (sometimes billed as Lipo Dissolve)…It is a process whereby medicines, vitamins, or in my case, a naturally occuring enzyme, is injected in high concentrations into fatty tissues. This can be done in order to administer vitamins or other medication. The particular form of Mesotherapy I had was to literally dissolve the fatty tissues (hence the term Lipo Dissolve or Lipo Therapy)…After several treatments the gynecomastia had been greatly reduced…Enough so, in fact, that my self-esteem got a major boost. However, my doctor, Amy Miller, was certain she could do more than simply reduce it. She was on a mission to make it go away. (Gotta love the doc, she’s a blast…)

Anyway, toward that end, we waited until my touring season was finished and I had some free time to undergo a slightly more radical procedure. Yesterday was that free time. I had actual Tumescent Liposuction to remove the rest of the fatty, glandular, and fibrous tissues that were responsible for my lopsided man boobie.

The process, in and of itself, took a couple of hours, and while it wasn’t what I would call terribly painful, near the end it did get a bit on the uncomfortable side. Not the doc’s fault, just part of the game. Sooooo, while “going under the knife” was probably not the most accurate title for yesterday morning’s blog entry, it was close enough. (she put a couple of holes in my chest and took stuff out, so that’s close enough in my book anyway .)

I was awake during the procedure, and I threatened repeatedly to blog the silliness that was ensuing– Think about it, you’ve got me, the guy who can’t take ANYTHING seriously on the table, and you got the doc and the nurse, Dawn, there for me to entertain. Throw into the mix all of the silly sounds the various medical apparatus were making, and well, you get the picture…I don’t really remember everything clearly (they doped me with a valium or something) but I remember all of us laughing, and I think I might have been funny and entertaining (at least, I hope I was, because I have a follow-up appointment! )

Anyhow, here I sit, with bodily type fluids draining from the holes into dressings that are taped to my chest (and itching like a mother!)…I am also wearing a compression vest sort of garment, which I will be wearing for another couple of weeks (or, as Dr. Miller put it to EK, however long she wants me to wear it…I just knew those two would get along fine )

There you have it…My tale of man boobies…Of which I no longer am in possession…In about 6 months the skin should have tightened up and I can go about my life being happily flat chested

BTW, I put all of the links throughout so y’all could see what I was talking about…I’m sure it probably looks like “product placement,” and I DO heartily reccomend Dr. Miller to anyone considering any of the procedures she does…Why? Not only is she a hell of a doctor, she actually takes time to talk to you. She doesn’t wave a clipboard at you and say “smear this crap on your face and call me in a week…” She’s a real person who treats her patients like real people, and I have to tell you that is a rare find for doctors these days–at least in my experience…On top of that she has a killer staff…Adrienne and Ivy are great, and the nurse who helped with the procedure, Dawn was great too…Yeah, I know, there I go sounding like a commercial again…Oh well, it’s just one of those things. Just like folks do with books–they find one they like, they recommend it. I’ve found a terrific doc, and I’m recommending her…

But, I’ll stop running off at the mouth now…That’s the story and that’s the “elective surgery” I had done…So now you know…Feel enlightened?

Now, if I can just get some more exercise and get rid of this table muscle that I have developed…

MR