Gastric Bypass Update #1

Well, it’s been about a month since the surgery, so I figure it’s time to give everyone an update. I’ve been navigating the slowly-expanding diet over the course of the last few weeks, and I’m now at the penultimate stage: on January 5^th, the reins are officially released. Suffice to say, restricted diets are awful, which is why I got the surgery done in the first place. But, I will survive. Currently, I am allowed a fairly large selection of foods, but they must be soft, unsweetened, and low-fat. The last two requirements chafe, particularly around the holidays. But, I’ve added dairy, spices, and pasta (with sauces) on this latest round. That has made life much more bearable. I am still prohibited any form of red meat, or things which might damage the pouch, like chips and nuts. And, I’ve been pretty good about keeping to the diet, mostly. I’ve been a little looser than I probably should have, but not without reason. I’ve been feuding with the nutritionist at the doctor’s office. Let me explain…

The nutritionist constantly exhorts me to call with any questions on the diet. And I have, several times. But, some of the answers she’s given haven’t made good sense. Case in point: I am allowed toasted breads. I am allowed cheese and dairy products. I am allowed tomato sauces. However, when suggesting that I could get a cheese pizza, I was immediately shut down. She claims that the whole is greater (more dangerous) than the sum of its parts, yet she was unable to convince me of how or why. So, I tried it, taking things slowly and carefully. I did fine. This leads me to question the rest of the diet as well. On conferring with another dietician I know and trust, I was told “You sound like all my patients. They test the bounds of the diet until they dump or puke. Then they go back to the diet.” As it stands, I have neither dumped nor puked in my explorations. So, I think I’m doing pretty well. It wasn’t just the cheese pizza. I came home for Christmas, and one of my many vices are Krystal hamburgers. I tried a couple on the way down. Two is my new limit, down from eight. So, the pouch is working completely as designed. Those two were also the best damned hamburgers I've had in years, let me tell you. Today, we were invited to my sister-in-law’s parents’ place for Christmas dinner. Her mom is of Italian descent, and makes the most wonderful meatballs. I had half a meatball, some penne and tomato sauce, and a bite of pepperoni. Again, no problems. I had some of Mom’s famous chocolate éclair cake for dessert. Again, no problems. So, while I’m not technically off the leash for another couple weeks, I think I can try off-diet soft stuff, so long as I’m careful about it.

I’m not ignoring it completely, mind. There are some things I’m avoiding because the logic is very sound: namely things like potato/corn chips and nuts, things that have sharp points, sodas, and are harder to digest or might pop the pouch. They might damage the pouch, and put me in a real world of hurt. Also, all the meats I’m consuming are very soft or ground: no steak yet. 

Regardless of the food itself (which is to say with on-diet foods as well), the pouch and I have not yet completely come to an understanding, but we’re working on it. Sometimes, when the food is really good, I will miss the early fullness warning signs or eat too much. This causes lots of hurt, and a nauseous feeling that lasts about half an hour. Fortunately, I’ve not had anything serious happen yet. Mostly, the biggest problem has been gas, in more than one regard. See, when you normally eat, gas gets pushed to one side, where it gathers, and you have that awesome belch to release it all at once. Now, there’s nowhere for it to go or collect. Things back up, and it hurts. Gas-X helps a little, but not much. The other part is that gas escaping the back end is a lot worse than it used to be. Nothing ever smelled like roses, but it’s gotten far worse since the surgery. I accidentally crop-dusted some CRG people when the wind gusted behind me, after I had taken the time to walk away to release it. This will be something to check with the doctor about.

Other than the gas pains and remembering to eat slowly, things have been pretty good. I can’t wear my good jewelry anymore, since it slides off my fingers. I just had to order some new underwear, since what I’ve got has started falling down, even inside my pants. Chest size is still about the same: 6X shirts are still fairly comfortable, if starting to get a bit looser around the neck.  But, things are progressing. And with that, it’s time for questions and answers!

Since I’ve had this done, I’ve had lots of questions, and several of them are the same ones. So, I’m going to answer them all here. And, question #1 has been: “How much weight have you lost?” As it stands, I have no bloody idea. I know I’ve lost some, but I can’t put a number on it. I’ve not yet been back to the doctor since surgery to weigh in. That happens January 2^nd. 

Question #2: “How do you feel?” Honestly, about the same. Stairs still suck to go up and down, and I still get winded from them. My body doesn’t really feel any different yet, even though I know I’ve started losing the weight. I also can’t tell any difference in how I look, since I see the same face in the mirror everyday. 

Question #3: “What’s your goal?” Honestly, I don’t have a numerical goal. I have an idea of how much I will lose, which I discussed in the last post (I think), but as for an actual number, no idea. 

Question #4: “What do you want to do with it?” Maybe I should call this 3a. Regardless, people have wanted to know what the reason for getting the surgery was, beyond the obvious, which is to be healthier and live longer. There are a couple answers to this. The first is kinda what you would expect, the second requires a longer explanation, as well as opening myself up a lot more. But, I promised to document things, so here it goes. I want to learn how to skate. I tried learning how when I was with CoMo, and it ended rather badly. The falls were too damaging to my ankles and feet, particularly when I couldn’t land as you’re supposed to in derby, forward on both knees. I.E.: I landed sideways and ended up in a boot for six weeks (Beat Me Halfway '12, remember?), in addition to filling a bunch of kids’ ears with new and interesting profanities, shouted as I writhed there in pain. Once I drop some serious pounds, I should be able to strengthen my ankles, and falling should be less of a hazard. Maybe I'll don stripes after I learn.

Q4, cont. The other part is a lot more emotional. See, I’ve wanted to settle down and start a family for years. But, I’ve not been able to find the right person for it, and not for lack of trying. I’ve had some dates, sure, but the ones I could convince to go out with me always ended badly. I think that, by losing the weight, I will be able to expand my available dating pool, and therefore my chances of finding the right one. Now, there are those who say “But, if she doesn’t accept you when you’re big, you don’t need her/she’s shallow/you can do better/etc.” These sentiments are noble, but sadly naïve. The truth, as I’ve gleaned from my own experiences, is that cute, intelligent women don’t go for fat guys. There are exceptions, and I know several couples who defy convention. But, those are exceptions, not the rule. So, long story short (too late, I know), I got this done in part because I’m lonely, and I’m tired of being so. Man, that’s a rotten note to end things on, but there you are. 

I think that about covers it for this update. So, I will say that, if any of you have questions about my surgery or progress, let me know, and I will try to answer them here.  Thanks again everyone for your support and kind words.

D.J./Hayek

The Gastric Bypass Operation

Introduction

Well, it’s done. As I write, it’s Saturday, day five post-op, and I have some time to reflect and compile. I had bariatric surgery done. It was a big step, and it will mean a lifetime of changes, hopefully the gross majority of which will be for the better. So, how did I get here? What happened? Well, I will start almost 30 years ago.

The Issue

I’ve been big almost my entire life. I’m currently 32 years old. As a small child, I was a healthy size and active. Then, at age 4, I broke my right tibia and fibula. This was in the era before boots-for-breaks, so I was stuck in a cast for quite a while. I couldn’t go out and play, work off the natural energy. I was forced to learn to be content being still, doing activities like reading or watching television. Also, I was in a lot of pain, and I lived in a society where “comfort food” is a byword. The two combined, I learned a lot of bad habits which I was never quite able to break (not for lack of effort) and set me on a path to obesity.

Fast forward through an obese childhood, adolescence, and adulthood filled with various diets, cures, methods, tricks, books, exercises, groups, plans, supplements, drugs, machines, deprivations, and suggestions from well-meaning supporters, all which failed, to my current state. At the beginning of this part of the journey, late August this year, I was about 530 pounds. I’ve been measured as high as 550, though I may have gotten higher at points. I wear t-shirts in a 6XL. Dress jackets necessitate a 72/74 inch chest size, and shirts require a 24 inch neck. Pants require a size 62, though the actual size is larger due to vanity sizing. I have a 23 inch inseam, and I’m severely knock-kneed, my legs having adapted to support my immense weight. At 5’11”, my BMI was 73.9, well into the NIH’s “morbidly obese” range. One might even say it was a “DAYUM!” on the Iglesias Scale. Something had to be done.

Why Surgery?

In short, it was the last option. As I said before, I tried a very wide variety of methods to try and lose the weight. However, there was at the center of all those techniques two inextricable components: my willpower and my physiology. One worked for my goal, and the other worked against.

I had willpower and desire to lose the weight. Anyone who knows me knows that I can be more stubborn than a tree stump. Push me too hard, and I will push back simply out of spite. If willpower alone was the only independent variable in the equation, I would have licked this years ago. Unfortunately, they body has a say in the matter, too.

The human body, through evolutionary design, wants to be fat. I know this sounds strange, but consider: human beings evolved as hunter-gatherers for millions of years before the agricultural revolution. Prior to that, we ate what we got when it was there to be gotten. The body stored any excess for when food wasn’t as available as body fat. As such, the ancestors who responded more readily to this desire to stock up and store had a greater likelihood of surviving periods of famine to pass on their genes. They responded in this manner because the body adapted incentives to encourage the behavior: namely, sugar and fat, those concentrated sources of calories, TASTE GOOD. They trigger all kinds of feel-good chemicals in the brain when consumed to the point of fullness and satiety. These incentives and responses occur completely independent of rational human thought. Therefore, humans have a natural tendency to consume fat and sugar whenever it’s readily available and stomach space exists.

Fast forward to modern times. We no longer live in the feast/famine world that our bodies evolved to survive. You can get a quarter-pound cheeseburger at 3am on any Sunday in the middle of winter, and that cheaply. You can get bread and cakes and confections just as easily. Science has made leaps and bounds over the last hundred years or so with regards to preservation and transportation, making “out-of-season” almost a thing of the past. Yet, fat and sugar still taste good. For many, our bodies have not yet adapted to dampen the evolutionary impulses to stock up. This may be one explanation for the obesity epidemic: everything’s too available.

This is a lot of exposition, but I wanted to be clear in my reasoning as to why the body worked against the goal of weight loss. As to my current situation, my willpower, while strong, was unable to override millions of years of genetic programming. I needed something to counteract the body that didn’t depend on my willpower.

Notice earlier I said that the desire to consume was dependent on stomach space being existent. It turns out, doctors know what causes the feeling of fullness/satiety. There is a nerve at the top of the stomach, where it joins the esophagus, that, when contacted, imparts a “full” signal to the brain. For a feeling of long-term (about 6 hours) satiety, this nerve needs to be continuously triggered for 25 minutes. This makes sense: when you have eaten enough, the food bounces around as the stomach churns and digests it, constantly hitting the nerve. The solution to overriding the body’s desire to overconsume, therefore, lies in triggering that fullness feeling sooner. Enter gastric bypass.

The Operation

Bariatric surgery comes in a couple different flavors, with varying degrees of risk and effectiveness. Each one has the same goal: to reduce the amount of food necessary to contact the fullness nerve by reducing the amount of available space in the stomach. One of the more popular ones is the lap-band. Simply put, an inflatable band is attached around the stomach near the base of the esophagus. This is fairly low risk, reversible, and adjustable post-op, but also relatively low results. Next is the sleeve, where a section of the stomach is simply cut out and removed. Better results, but it’s riskier and irreversible. Third is the most effective and the first developed: the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. For this, the bulk of the stomach and upper small intestine is cut away and sealed shut. The small remaining part of the stomach, which is still attached to the esophagus, is connected directly to the small intestine, bypassing the duodenum. See http://www.webmd.com/diet/weight-loss-surgery/gastric-bypass-surgery-for-obesity for a picture.

Because I was already so far overweight, my doctor immediately set aside any notion of a sleeve or lap-band: the results would be insufficient, and the risks of the bypass have been mitigated through experience. So, we set about for a full bypass.

The Process

This was not a short thing. I didn’t show up to the doctor’s office on Friday and have an appointment for the following Monday. As I said before, this portion of it started back in late August. I say “portion” because I’ve had this decided in my mind for several years: I’ve just never had the wherewithal to see it done until now. (Thank you, federal benefits!!) I’ve done copious research on the whats, whys, and hows, of this whole thing. Indeed, I started on it during the second year of my dissertation at Missouri. I attended seminars, read journal articles, and generally did my homework. I decided then that it was the right course of action for me. Unfortunately, grad-student insurance sure as hell wasn’t going to cover it, and the cost of doing this procedure sans-insurance is prohibitive: about $15,000. I attempted a crowd-sourcing thing through Facebook (Indiegogo wasn’t a thing, yet), but failed to raise a single dollar. So, I decided to carry on and bide my time. In the meantime, I graduated from Missouri, moved back home, got a job in D.C., moved again, and here I am.

Once I took a little time and got settled in, I decided that I had waited long enough. I first checked out the doctors in my area. There were a few close to home, so I dug deeper and checked credentials. The guy I chose, Matt Fitzer, was a bit of a drive away in Reston. But, he had the creds: thousands of operations performed, numerous awards, and a fellowship at Missouri with the doctors I originally scoped to do mine while there. I found out later that he was derby-girl approved, having worked with Dethblok of the CoMo Derby Dames. After I decided who would do it, I sat down with him and laid things out. He had me watch a couple webinars detailing the process and answering questions. Then the other shoe dropped: I had to lose 25 pounds to get this done.

Dafuq?

I thought the whole point was to have this done so I didn’t have to diet, to pit mind versus body in yet another failing battle. Turns out, he needed the room to work. The procedure is done laparoscopically, with instruments inserted through small incisions doing the work. This drastically cuts down recuperation time. To enable him to get the tools in and have them move around, I needed to shed some layers, make a little working room. So, he put me on caffeine pills.

In the meantime, I met with his nutritionist to go over the post-op diet. More on that later. I also had to get a cardiac clearance, bloodwork clearance, and general primary-care-physician clearance. Fortunately, my ticker’s fine, my blood is clean, and the doc was happy. Dr. Fitzer also generally includes a psych eval as part of the process, but, I think he decided it wasn’t necessary given my own credentials and through discussions with me.

In addition to all this, I still had to get clearance through my insurance. Fortunately, I had inadvertently fulfilled all their requirements already. They wanted a six-month nutritionist/registered dietician/doctor supervised dieting period to have occurred in the last two years. Also, they wanted three months of dieting overseen by the surgeon himself immediately before. I saw a nutritionist while I was at Mizzou. I got a letter from MU Student Health detailing the dates, and sent it off to Aetna. Dr. Fitzer’s office handled the rest, and I was go for launch, almost.

Things on the weight loss side were a little sketchy at the end. See, I knew I would have to be on a clear-liquids diet for three days pre-op. So, the fourth day, I said my goodbyes to big meals by having one last go: a nice filet mignon done medium rare, fried shrimp, steak fries, baked potato soup, and a slice of chocolate cake to top it all off. I figured the pre-loading would help me stick to the clear liquid diet better. It also pushed me a bit further away from goal. Fortunately, I was close enough on the day of surgery to proceed.

Surgery Day

The day itself went like most surgeries under general anesthetic, insofar as I don’t remember most of it. But, there were standard things like getting to the hospital way too early, meeting with the anesthesiologist and the doctor, getting hooked up to an IV, and putting on the gown that leaves your ass hanging out the back.

After surgery itself, they kept feeding me narcotics for pain relief, since anti-inflammatories would cause stomach upset, which we really didn’t want. I finally got them to stop that nonsense and just give me straight Tylenol, so my head could de-fog. I met with the doc’s assistant a few more times while there, and they held me for two nights for observation, making sure I could drink enough to be sent home without getting dehydrated. Now I’m home, and working on getting back to living normal life.

The New Norm

Now that the surgery is done, I have a new way to approach eating. I’ve got a very strict diet to follow for the first two months after surgery, to ensure I heal properly. More clear liquids for the first week, followed by toothless-person food (grits, oatmeal, applesauce, cottage cheese) the second. Tuna, scrambled eggs, and toast are added in the third. Starting week four, I begin to really start getting back into real food: eggs, fish, cooked veggies, soft fruits, beans, and oh-thank-God-finally pasta. At week seven, the leash comes off and I can start adding things in, experimenting. Everything will be in very small portions, and there are four basic rules to follow.

1) Spread meals out over 25 minutes, and eat three meals a day. No skipping.

2) No drinking anything 15 minutes prior and 45 minutes after a meal.

3) Make the majority of the meal a protein source.

4) Avoid sugary liquids.

There are other things, and countless minutiae, but I will save you from those.

I want to thank everyone who has offered prayers, well wishes, or even just kind words on my journey to this point. I think this will change me for the better once it all pans out. As it stands, I am hopeful for the future.

D.J./Hayek

Family Motto and the In-A-Pinch Awards

I'm rather proud of my family's Irish heritage. Most of you have likely seen the family shield tattoo I have on my left shoulder, and the motto it bears: Nunquam Non Paratus. It means "Never unprepared." I don't normally toot my own horn, but twice this weekend, I proved true to the motto, being ready with just the right things in a pinch.

Saturday: At the SCDC v. SIRG double header, Democracy Inaction (one of the refs) sheared off his kingpin in the middle of the first bout. For my non-derby people, that means he broke his skates in a manner not-easily repairable. As it turned out, I had the pair of skates that I attempted to learn how to skate on last Fall in the back of my truck. Not fabulous skates by any reckoning, but not the bottom of the barrel either. And, they fit him. So, I provided a ref with an emergency pair of skates so he could finish out the night. Granted, he replaced my wheels with his for the rest of the night, but that's ok. Stock wheels are really cheap to begin with.

Sunday: Scrimmage this Sunday was fairly painful: we had three injuries on the track. Fortunately, none were super serious. One person just had the wind knocked out of her really well, one had an old knee injury act up, and another turned her ankle (it seemed). For the latter two instances, yours truly helped each girl off the track by more-or-less picking her up and letting her trail one skate on the ground. (There are benefits to being a big guy...) But, that's not where the In-A-Pinch award for this instance came from. The last girl needed some help getting out to her car. Guess who had a walking stick ready to help her keep weight off the bad foot? We got my shillelagh from the car, and she was able to get about.

Yeah, I know, they're minor instances of providence, but still, it was neat that I was the guy who had just what was needed in a pinch.

*Insert Grouchy Snarl Here*

It wouldn't be the change of the seasons without me getting a sinus infection. Add to that a nice case of plantar fasciitis, and my day is just made. And so it is now that I am become a grouchy bear. I've got my antibiotics and am waiting for them to take effect. That said, today reminded me why I prefer to be active at night: I really don't like dealing with the general public.

Example 1: After getting my meds, I left HyVee and got into my car. As I was backing out (with Jim Chappelow in the space opposite me, by pure coincidence), some kid in a suit literally runs behind my car, stops, and makes a mad dash back as I slam on the brakes. Someone must not have explained to him what those funny white lights on the back of a vehicle mean...

Example 2: Right after nearly crushing a stupid child, I head to drop off my suit at the cleaners for my interview on Friday. Coming to a three-way stop, I stop. (Weird how that works, huh?) Some stupid blonde girl pulls up, slows down, and proceeds to cruise on through right as I start to go through the intersection, nearly taking off my front end. Fortunately, my mad braking skills saved me once again. She, of course, didn't let it faze her that she had nearly caused a serious accident through her own neglect.

Dear Lord, save me from humanity. Damn you kids, get off my lawn!

The Classes of Derby Participant

Roller Derby is a complex sport. Fun as hell to watch, but it can be a little confusing the first time. And, if you know a derby person, you will hear all kinds of jargon thrown about: soul crush, mohawk, zeeb, etc. When talking about the different roles derby people play, this is no exception. So, to clarify a little for the non-derby people I know, this is a guide to the jargon/nicknames I've encountered for the various classes of Derby Participants. These roles are not mutually exclusive, and I probably forgot someone or a different name they go by.

1. Skaters: This group is fairly straightforward. These are the players of the game. They're out on the track, busting ass and scoring points.

2. Coaches: People who are not skating, but rather advising the team on tactics as the game progresses. Most frequently seen yelling at or otherwise arguing with the Refs.

3. Referees: People on skates wearing black/white vertical striped shirts. These are the one calling score, looking for penalties, and ensuring safe gameplay occurs. There are normally three Outside Pack Refs (OPRs), two Inside Pack Refs (IPRs), two Jam Refs (JRs), and one from those who serves as the Head Ref. AKA: Refs, Zebras, Team Zeeb

4. Non-Skating Officials: These are the people on the track who take care of the paperwork associated with a game. Non-skating officials don't wear skates or safety gear. (Wild idea, huh?) They are tasked with assisting the Refs in the course of their duties, keeping track of score, time in the penalty box, penalties accrued, and other things like operating the scoreboard. Like the refs, there is also a Head NSO who is responsible for the bout paperwork. AKA: NSOs, Stat Rats, the Stat Pack

5. Committee and Board Members: These are the real magic behind the derby. Most skaters serve on some kind of committee or the executive board: marketing, events, equipment, coaching, and so on. These people are the ones who help get the bouts lined up to play, make sure the venues are rented, handle the money, and generally keep everything on track. But, most of the things they do are behind the scenes, and so they are very appropriately called Unicorns.

6. Derby Widows: This term is jokingly used to describe husbands of derby playing women. However, this is not necessarily true, as husbands will often become involved themselves, serving as coaches, referees, NSOs, or even participating in men's derby.

7. Derby Wives: Derby is all about teamwork, and, oftentimes, two skaters will develop a particularly strong friendship through the sport. They are then said to be "derby wives", and act as each others' confidants, accountability partners, and overall best friend. Note: While having a "derby husband" is technically possible among Widows, I have not heard of any such thing actually occurring. I did receive such a proposal once, but declined due to the intoxicated nature of the other party.

SRG and MWGF

This last weekend was full of all manner of awesomeness. It started Saturday morning (after a sleepless night) with Columbia's first comic convention, Midwest Geekfest. This took place at the Carfax building; so, we had really nice facilities. I got to throw dice in an RPG for the first time in ages. Granted, it was D&D 4.0 (aka World of Warcraft, Tabletop Edition), but I got to play. Then, I got to run one. They had some GMs cancel at the last minute, and I volunteered to help them out. I ran a Pathfinder module for 1st Level characters, and boy howdy, let me tell you how that went awry.

Oftentimes, stories of "Let me tell you about my fictional character's exploits" can be quite tedious. Lord knows, I've done it enough times. But, this bears repeating. It was your typical laundry list of things to do from the man in charge. One of the tasks was to secure a crate full of books and documents from an old, abandoned warehouse in a harbor district. The warehouse was at the end of a dock, elevated above the bay. The setup was fairly basic, with a simple trap on the case that would take some thinking to get around. They managed instead to crash the entire warehouse into the bay, completely losing the documents in question. Still, fun was had by all.

Fast forward through some schmoozing at the end of the day, and I end up at the home of my dear friend Squiggles, one of the Dames.* She, among others, kindly volunteered to help me with my makeup for the MWGF Costume Contest at the afterparty. I went as Clown/Violator from the 1997 movie Spawn, based on the Todd McFarlane comic series. In short, Squig did fantastic work, and, despite a few hitches with the latex baldcap**, the costume went off magnificently. I won the contest, which was graded by audience applause. Not to be immodest, but I think it was the life I added to it that made the whole thing work. I've already got the body type for the character, but I made a point of learning John Leguizamo's raspy voice for the character and the squat-legged walk he had to make the character shorter. So, I ended the night drinking with friends and pocketing a gift certificate to Valhalla's Gate.

The fun wasn't over yet, though. No sooner than I had gotten home and taken off one shoe (about 3:30am), I recieved an emergency phone call from a friend visiting from out of town. She was intoxicated and had been abandoned on the side of the road by a guy I thought was a friend. There's gonna be hell to pay on that one. So, shoe went back on, and I drove across town for a pickup. Took said friend back to my place where she slept it off in my guest bedroom.

Saw her off the next morning, and then caught a couple hours sleep before driving to Springfield to work the mock sanctioned bout between MoKan Roller Girlz and the Springfield Roller Girls. So, a three-hour drive saw me to Springfield. I got to see lots of awesome people that I hadn't seen since Beat Me Halfway last year. It was a double header, and I actually got to watch the first bout of the night. That almost never happens. But, I had fun watching, no less. Got up from sitting and watching the first bout to work the second, and my wonderful chair, my massive collapsible throne with a 1000-lb test weight (supposedly) broke. Needless to say, I was rather put out about that. But, I had to put that aside: I had a bout to jam time. Did my job, and went to the afterparty. Two afterparties in as many days... Man, I hadn't realized I had become such a social creature. Who knew? Regardless, the afterparty was a little awkward at first, since none of the teams were my home team: I knew few people there. Fortunately, the ones who did know me found me, and we ended the night on a smashing note. Derby love goes out to Thugz 'n' Kisses, Bellatrix Le Pain, and Russelmania.

Thus went one of the more eventful weekends in recent memory. Worst part about the whole thing was everything I had to give up during it: time was precious, and EVERYTHING was happening this last weekend. In addition to MWGF and SRG v. MoKan, there was a MRDA*** bout in St. Louis, a planned departmental trip to Nashville****, my friend coming in from out of town, a triple birthday party for some of the Dames, and several other items of note that escape me at this moment. I really need to look into this cloning thing: might make my social calendar more manageable and help with the dissertation. Are there any cloners in the audience? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

*The CoMo Derby Dames, a wonderful team of athletic women who get their jollies by beating the stuffing out of one another on roller skates, guided by the rules of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA). 

**Clown is mostly bald, so I opted to get a baldcap and affix some fake hair to it by unrolling jumbo cotton balls and hosing them down with hair spray. Worked pretty well, actually. Next time, though, I think I'll just suck it up and shave my head. Those baldcaps are hot and sticky, and they creep up when you sweat, even when you use spirit gum to lock 'em down.

***Men's Roller Derby Association. Like WFTDA, but with dudes.

****The trip never actually materialized, but that's beside the point. It might have had it been on a different weekend.

The Saga Begins...

I finally decided to start a blog. You may now cue the cheering heard at the news of Sir Robin's minstrels being eaten. There is all kinds of fun stuff that occurs in my life, and every now and again, I want to expound upon it in greater detail, for which Facebook and other social media is rather ill-suited. So, this will be infrequently updated, but the writings here will ostensibly be meatier than what you might find on Das Gesichtbuch. They will include rants, reflections, and sometimes simple regalings. Lord knows I love to tell a story. This will be serve as a public outlet and searchable repository of some of those tales.

D.