Blogging, but not from home

I have so much new, it is not even close to funny. To those that have read my blog, I am sorry it has been so long since I have written anything. To those reading for the first time, welcome.

I now work for public television. But wait there is something familiar about that phrase. Oh yeah, I used to say that for 11 years as a way to identify myself. The difference is that now I work for Rochester’s public television broadcaster, WXXI. The station I grew up watching. The one that helped me to learn English so many years ago.

And WXXI makes me feel like I am home again. Not the Bob Villa show, but definitely comfort zone. The Tysabri kicks ass. I feel great. No problems, though I did have to be carried out of a cub scout hike a couple of months ago. The stuff works.

I can’t blog long. Like I said I’m at work. But I now sell underwriting and anyone in the Rochester area interested in promoting your business using the power of public television, give me a call at work: 585-258-0337. We’ll talk.

Drumroll Please…..

OK, I screwed up the date on the infusion. It isn’t today, It’s next Friday. Well, Ex-cuuuuuuuuuSe me. Anyway, I now have a free afternoon. But here’s the big news. I just got a job offer from WXXI, Rochester’s public television/radio broadcaster. I am incredibly exited about making my way back home to public television.

I start on the 15th of October and will be selling underwriting for the station.  I feel healthy and ready to go!

So if you are in the Rochester area, own a business and need to do some advertising, beware! I’ll be calling.

Third time’s the charm

I have my third Tysabri infusion in 45 minutes. I expect to be a new man shortly thereafter. Wish me luck.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Rainy days and Thursdays

Feeling good today. In fact if I had to describe mood, I would say moderately jovial. Looking forward to job offer soon. The kids are healthy. Been in touch with friends and relatives for chats recently. Things are pretty good. I’m actually looking at my future and, to me, it seems less than bleak. That’s a good thing.

Now I have to go sign up the boys for basketball and buy Alex a trombone lesson book. I know that sounds like fun and you are probably thinking “I wish I could do that stuff for you Vlad”. Thanks, I appreciate the sentiment but I have to do this myself. These things are part of the responsibility of fatherhood, and I embrace them. But I really do have to go do this stuff.

Parenthood. Tell me what you think. Are you a parent with obstacles. What’s it like, and what do you do about it?

Bad Vlad

I know, I’ve been bad. I spoke with my cousin Jasmina yesterday and realized I hadn’t blogged in almost two months. To say I’ve been busy would be disengenuous to say the least. I just haven’t felt like writing. I’ve had ups and downs. Should I go on disability, should I find a job, should I switch to Tysabri, stay on Avonex, switch doctors, stay with the same?

I’m not going on disability. I am going on Tysabri. I did switch doctors and the new one is tremendous. He sits with patients, talks strategy, actually recomends a course of action, tells you you could be in serious trouble if you don’t start getting aggressive. I love this guy. I saw him speak at the Marriot the other week, and he actually cares! His wife has MS. He’s on a mission and he wants to stop MS in its’ tracks. I start Tysabri either at the end of the week or beginning of next. It’s more powerful than Avonex and I am keeping my fingers crossed that I won’t be allergic to it in any way. If you engage in prayer, feel free to start now.

I couldn’t get the boys into camp this week, so for the most part I’ll be hanging out with them. I have a job interview tomorrow, so my mom will watch them for a couple of hours. My nephew Adam wants to go to a movie with me tomorrow afternoon. I probably won’t be able to. That may be sking to much of Baba (that’s what my mom is called, it’s a Macedonian thing)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the  the fact that a lot of employers are now Googling potential hires to see what kind of stupid stuff they are loading onto their MySpace pages. I’m thinking my blog is pretty tame and if anything shows how thoughtful and responsible I am.  I hope it doesn’t paint me as scatterbrained and helpless. I don’t know, what picture are you getting?

Again, whatever the future holds, and I had this conversation last week with someone, it is usually solved by serendipity. Either something is meant to be and it all comes together, or it isn’t. I always attempt to recognize opportunities as they arise and grab hold when appropriate. It’s always worked before, so there is no reason to despair. If this interview doesn’t work out, it won’t be because I didn’t try it’ll be because something better awaits. I’ve heard of all kinds of successful people who make opportunity happen, even when it wasn’t there, but I generally don’t believe it. Luck has as much to do with success as self-direction.

I’ve been lucky to get some good jobs, lucky to have a great family, lucky to have some amazing friends, lucky to get a disease at a time there are real treatments to help me. Do I believe any of this? Yes. Do I believe all of it? Well….

Let me know what YOU think?

Turn and face the strain

I seem to quote lyrics a lot. Ch-ch-ch-changes. They happen a lot. Daily even. I work for a company that should, “should”, revolutionize the affordable housing industry. The noble purpose, to help people of low income find affordable housing communities nationwide. Yet despite the obvious need, it hasn’t completely taken off. It is working for those who can find it, but it is difficult to find. That will change. We’re going through redesign with some developers who know what they are doing. We still publish the magazine in New England and that helps a lot. But we need links and they are hard to get. Anyone with a website who wants to help with this great cause–link to AffordableSearch.  Our prospects won’t buy from us because we don’t show up on top when they plug the word “apartments” into Google’s search engine. We show up with a lot of other search terms, but ‘apartments’ just isn’t hapening yet. So help us out.

I have seen emails from people in Seattle looking to move to Newport, RI, so I know the concept is sound. If you have a website, or know someone with a website, link to us. It’s the humanitarian thing to do.

Now on to the reunion. It was a blast. Old friends. New conversations. Drinking. Eating. Hugging. It was just what I needed. See, I work from home. Sometimes I go to conferences and have meetings with prospects, but for the most part, I sit at my laptop, make phonecalls and dream of human contact. I am a social person. I can’t help it. I enjoy banter and philosophical, soul-searching conversation. I like to say that in college, I majored in “dinner conversation”. I probably would have made a great ambassador to Belgium. My life is about the funny quip. The turn of phrase. The perceptive social comment. I love words.  Sociolingistics was my favorite subject of all time. Did you know that some cultures have an actual word for “the day after tomorrow”? Macedonia has one: Drugiden. Language often eveolves through war, and invasion. Wanna bet that you are gonna see some English words slipping into Arabic soon. Ditto, mass media.

Sorry, the reunion. I saw Shelli, Belush, Erin, Chose, Sweet Pea, Pear,  Anna Nicole (actually, Diane, but she had the whole Anna Nicole thing going.), The Captain, Diz and Mary, and on and on… It was great. Everyone looked absolutely beautiful, or at least fit. We ate at the Old Libary, and at some party house in Olean. We drank at the Burton (I stuck with vodka tonics, can’t drink beer any more. I know that’s lame) We talked outside the dorms till four in the morning. This guy I never partied with at school, John Pepper, is on of the funniest guys I have ever met. And I still haven’t actually met him. But he reagailed us with some very funny stories loaded with pop cultural references. He was good fiends with Jim Aroune and Jim would always tell me how funny he was, but the guy is brilliant.

I spent a lot of time with Julie and Shelli. They are so cool. I know that is kind of a worn adjective. But they really are cool. Julie said she always thought of me as a brother. I kidded her about that but, I’ve never had a sister, so it was nice. I hope I get to see them again soon. Of course, she is in Connecticut and Shelli’s in Western Ma. Sweet Pea is a bigshot at Quaker Oats, and I have decided that he is an excercise anorexic. You should see the dude. Skinny as a pole. Belush sells mortgages and Chose is a lawyer in Alaska. We had a heartfelt and somewhat drunken converstation about Tricia. We both miss her. He feels that in an alternate life he is still with her. I wish that had worked out the way it was supposed to.

We missed Tricia at the reunion. We also missed Kevin, Tom, George, Alex (though he wasn’t our year, he was a fixture at the Burton),  Lisa, Loz, and many others. Life goes on. Teri wasn’t there either. Just as well.

Well, my fingures are going on me. Friday I walked to the Burton with Pea in 90 degree heat. Not the best idea, but I made it. Heat’s a-comin’. Tonight Alex has another play-off game. It’ll be hot, but so far, I’m makin’ it. Not too much of a problem. I just have to get my head straight and practice mind over matter. The mom’s and dads at the game are fun to hang with while we watch. Alex is doing well. I’ll have to practice batting with him. When he wants to he can hit. But he gets nervous and that doesn’t help.

I hope someone is reading this, I’d love to get some comments.

xoxo

I admit it…

OK, it’s true, I miss Chris. It’s strange, things are going well, the boys have behaved the whole time she’s been gone. They’ve even really helped me out quite a lot, things like clearing the table and throwing out garbage. They really have been tremendous and very little yelling these past few days.

But I still miss my wife. We fight and pick at each other and she nags me cause I’m lazy and complains that we don’t talk enough. But you know what? When it comes down to it she really is the best partner. When you are a couple there are parts of your soul  intermixed. Parts that aren’t complete when that she’s is away.  I’m not sure where that part is or what it normally does,but right now it kinda aches a little bit.

This is kinda like when Chris was working in Seattle and we had just met and started to get close. She was having a blast living in an apartment with this really gross nurse she knew. I wrote her daily. Not emails, this was the very early 90’s, but actual letters and cards and stuff. I wrote romantic stuff and silly stuff and all these love poems like I was some kinda English major (I was). And I told her I wanted to be with her. I even thought briefly about moving to Seattle, they have a really great public tv station out there and I was sure I could have weasled a job out of them. But she came back. Must have been the poems.

This is before we knew anything about my MS. She thought I was just a healthy young man who shared her interests and gave her multiple orgasms. What else would she need to know, right? Boy have we shared some big stuff. Kids. Health changes. Houses. Jobs. Careers. Trusts and distrusts. KIDS. You share all of that with someone and you are always intertwined, like I said. Connected. Together. Chris is more than my other half because she counts for more than I do. Always good. Chris will go out of her way for someone she doesn’t even know before asking someone to make an effort for her. It’s her most annoying, and endearing, habit. But she does take up more than half in this team. I would say 63%. I may be underestimating. I need her more than she’ll ever know. Thursday. I can make it.

Maybe someone can tell me about their other half…

NY trip

The New York trip may not happen at this point. I don’t know if they are going to be able to find a flight back for me that gets me home at a decent hour. Plus Chris told me there’s genna be some serious snow coming. Oh well, it would have been fun, but….

I’m told our redesigned website will launch soon, and that it will be much easier to use. I haven’t decided whether I should sendour my Friday e-mails any more. I haven’t had immediate measurable success with them, so I think I’ll suspend them for a while. Next time I send our an e-mail it will be to specifically talk about the redesign. I hope that is sooner rather than later.

I feel pretty good. Still doing my taper dose of steroids. I like the energy. I am drinking so much coffee these days that I think I’mgoing to actually turn into a coffee bean. Which may not be ther worst thing in the world.

Take care people,

me

Jaunt to NY…

So now Biogen is flying me to NY for a few hours on Monday so I can help them test an “MS simulator”.  I just talked to Pam and she’s going to send me an e-mail with some infor about the trip and who to contact to make arrangements. I guess the purpose of this MS simulator is to have doctors experience how their patients feel for 5 minutes. It’s a little mindboggling to me because it is a machine that will puportedly allow me to experience what MS feels like. I have MS. I know what MS feels like —for me. But I don’t know what MS feels like for Linda, or Kim or Steve, or Russ or Andi or any of the countless other people I know who have MS. I can’t imagine, would not want to imagine what MS feels like for my father. MS is so individual. So unique to everyon who has it. And yet there is also commonality.Those of us who have discussed it ad infinitum in support groups or through personal conversations can certainaly relate to some aspects.

This is be a very valuable experience. To go through someone elses interpretation of MS will really give me some new perspectives. What if they are right and I am wrong? What if the other people there all experience one thing and I another? What if they get it exactly right? What if one of the things they try to do is to fabricate the experience of numbness? I’m already numb. Will I experience double secret probation numbness? This is turning into like a marijuana haze philosophical experience, without the marijuana.

So they are going to make a video of us MS folks taling abot the experience. Wonder If they’ll pay me for this. Probably not. but it’ll be fun.

Well I do that Monday. Chris will be in California so I’ll need a babysitter and I’ll have to make sure my mother is available in case something happens at the school with the kids.

I am getting too busy. I have to make some phone calls. Some sales…

Blog me.

They got me!

I should say I let them get me. It was one of the old April Fools chestnuts. They put shaving cream in my hand then tickled my nose. 7:30 am. I was awake and let them do it. They were so cute, whispering and sneaking around. I made a face and they completely cracked up. Wouldn’t stop talking about it. I did end up getting some shaving cream on Alex andmy wife, but I couldn’t get Zach. He wouldn’t come near me.

Later Alex brough me coffee in bed and it had rubber spiders and a chocolate eyeall in it. Still later they sprayed me with confetti and bubbles. Luckily Chris only let them do the harmeless stuff. Alex wanted to powder me with raw eggs and Zach wanted to shove a cake in my face. I’m sure they’ll escalate their attacks over the next few years, but so far they’ve been pretty harmless. They have idea what I can be capable of doing once they get older. (insert ominous laugh here.

So I went to my support group breakfast today. It was fine, mellow. Sat next to Steve and told him that porn e-mail hesent was opened by my wife and I got into trouble for it. He said he didn’t like it either. I told him not to do that again. I mean why should Iget into trouble for something that was totally not my fault?

One of our suppor groupd members that I had only met a couple of times, died two weeks ago. Apparetnly she had a stroke. I feel bad, she was very nice and we joked around when we met. Then she’s gone. The rest of the group really misses her.

The res of he day has been very, very frustrating.I can’t find my recharger for my cell  phone. Who knows what calls I may be missing. I’ve looked everywhere. Tomorrow I’m going to Cingular to buy a new one. I know it will turn up eventually. But I can’t afford eventually. I need now. Then Craigslist is still taking down all of my ads. This is killing me.

Kids are home. I gotta go. Sounds like Zach lost his first toothe. Yeehaw!

Blog me…