Eric and the Fatherhood

                I’m determined to post something on this blog every day (Okay, maybe not everyday but at least 5 times a week), even if I don’t have anything to say.  Writing is something that I’ve always wanted to do, it’s even something that I know I used to be good at, but it’s so hard to make myself write anything (hmmm, 4 times a week). 

                Here’s a story about how horrible of a father I am.  Last night after work I sat down to watch TV and Amira was in the room with me and charlotte.  I said to her “Hey, Amira” and she said “I know, I know, “Get out””.  Wow, I suck.  I could make the excuse that I “work”(there has been some debate as to whether or not what I do is considered work) twelve hour days and when I get home I just want to chill and there are not a lot of TV shows that are appropriate for her to watch and also don’t bore me to tears.  I mean there are only so many times I can watch the Pixar movies (which with the exception of Cars, are all awesome flicks).  I guess I need to figure out something we can do together but we don’t have a lot in common.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my daughter so much, but she drives me right up the wall and now there’s a new one to worry about (boys are better, right?) (Just kidding).

                I’ve been told that God has tasked me with these children’s spiritual upbringing.  I don’t even have a handle on my own spiritual upbringing.  I’ve somehow stumbled to having an entire family that I’m supposed to be the spiritual leader of and don’t even know where to start.  Okay, obviously I should just pray about it right?  I don’t get much out of prayer, I can’t ever figure out if it’s me or God or just what I would want God to say.  A couple of months ago in Jeromy Leavelle’s  sermon he said that sometimes God doesn’t answer because He’s already said it, and he held up a Bible(do I capitalize bible?) while he was saying it.  So maybe I should read the Bible (seriously, is that in caps or what?) before I start asking God things that He may have already said.  I know, I know I should have already read it, but when I start reading my brain wanders off and six chapters later I don’t have a clue about what it said. Maybe I should start in the middle.

                Well, that got deeper than I had originally intended, but oh well I can’t really control where my brain goes.

Eric Anderson

P.S.  Cars is a perfectly good movie I just don’t think it lives up to the standard that I have for a Pixar flick.

P.P.S. Since you asked I’ll rate them in order of how feel about them from first to last: Toy Story, Wall-E, Up, The Incredibles, Toy Story 3, Monsters Inc.,  Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, Toy Story 2, A Bug’s Life, Cars, and haven’t seen Cars 2

P.P.P.S. (maybe three times a week)

Eric and the Rightness

                Being right is more important to me than my dignity.  If I know that I’m right I will make a complete ass out of myself to prove it to people who really don’t care.  When I was in Mr. Peddy’s sixth grade class we had a history quiz/test/something like that.  I think it was only a 10 question test and I got a 90.  I was robbed; I walked from his desk straight to my cubby and started going through that history book page by page with tears running down my fat face.  When I finally found the answer that I knew I had been right about I stormed up to his desk, pushing through the students crowded around it, and slammed the book down in front of his face.  I pointed at the sentence that I knew would clear my good name, a name that this man had just dragged through the mud, all while tears are still running down my fat face.  This didn’t go as well for me as you might think.  Apparently, teachers don’t like being told that they are wrong and they certainly don’t like you to throw books at them. 

This is just one of many many examples of such asinine behavior, although after sixth grade the stories aren’t about school work because I stopped caring about grades and started caring about girls (not that the girls ever paid much attention to me). Don’t misunderstand me here, if I’m wrong about something I’ll admit it, apologize for it and feel like an ass. I don’t know where this compulsion comes from that makes me blind to everything else around me.  I’m constantly arguing when I feel like I’m in the right and most of the time it’s about stupid things that don’t matter to anyone else but me.  I just want to understand why my brain can’t just let the little things go.  I mean seriously, I lose sleep over this nonsense.

A year ago I got a promotion that put me in charge of the people that are doing the same job I’ve been doing for the past 8 years.  Along with that responsibility I was also given a whole new set of my own responsibilities.  I’ve had to learn how to deal with the people under me as well as how to deal with the ones that are over me, and I think that it has almost killed me.  I started out not being a people person but have forced myself to try to act like I am.  I don’t know how well it’s going; I have my doubts about my abilities to handle this stress.  I don’t know why but in my head I want things to be even and fair , and though my entire life I’ve been told that life isn’t fair I still want it to be. 

Basically, I’m always fighting with myself about the way I should be acting and most of the time good sense loses.

Eric Anderson

Eric and the Openness

I’m tired, I have a headache, and I would rather be doing anything other than writing this but my brain won’t leave me alone so here I am.  This last week I became an instrument used to make someone else’s faith stronger, I should be honored right?  I’m not, I feel like an asshole.  Maybe that’s wrong I don’t know I’m pretty uninformed in this area.  I’m not going to go into the specifics because that would be ridiculous of me.

Recently, at a late father’s day lunch (July 3^rd), my brother pointed out that growing up I was a horrible older brother who lied constantly (my mother seemed shocked by this revelation), I couldn’t argue.  I feel really badly about it but I feel like I’ve apologized since and don’t know what else to do at this point.  Anyway, that’s not the point of this entry.  I only mention it to show that I was a huge liar as a child and I don’t know why maybe I’ll get into another time.  The point is that about 10 years ago or so I decided to be honest because liars suck.  I’m not going to say that it was easy or that I don’t tell an occasional lie but most people I know will tell you that I go out of my way to tell the truth even if it hurts me or others around me.  I’ve adopted a policy of honesty always being the best way to go.   But I didn’t stop at honesty I pushed for full transparency and an openness that often irritates most people who know or follow me.  In more recent years I’ve pulled back a little but apparently not enough.

I believe that in an ideal world people can get online and go to a forum where everyone can discuss their feelings and concerns and listen to all sides and not get their feeling hurt.  I started out acting as if this world would materialize if I just pretended it already existed then I devolved into angry teenager as soon as I got my feelings hurt.  The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt anyone, but I did and apparently I tested their faith.  My anger was directed to a completely different place, but that’s not an excuse. 

I have a huge problem with authority that I don’t recognize as authority.  I don’t like being told what to do or how to act by anyone that isn’t my boss or parent (and even then it can still be difficult).  I know it’s probably something that I need to work on but it’s hard because I don’t know when that bitter feeling is going to hit me and when it does I don’t know how to control it.  This past two weeks I’ve had it come over me at least 5 different times.  Some from people I should recognize as authority and some I should just dismiss without incident.

Something hits me anytime I think of that school and it’s not the pleasant warm feeling that most of my old classmates seem to get.  I know I need to figure out what it is and get over it because my daughter will probably be there for the rest of her time in school.  I also need to not take it out on the people who work there now.  I feel like I’m being a brat for having these feeling because I did have some good teachers and friends and I’d say that it was good at least 60% of the time and that other 40% may be partly my fault.  These are my issues though and I’ll try to work on them.

I just want everyone to know that in the future I will try to think of who might be reading my posts, how it might affect them and anyone else around them, and I will try not to ever be idealistic again.  Also, I would like to apologize to anyone that reads this because of how poorly it was put together.

Eric Anderson  

Eric and the Hypochondria IV

I’m only writing this because I love roman numerals.  I know it’s been a while, over a month actually, but I’ve got an excuse, I’m lazy and my head still hurts but much less because I solved the problem.  Me, all by myself and the doctors think I’m crazy, which may well be true but it works so screw ‘um.  If you’ve been following this thing then you know that I over analyze everything I do and how it affects me and what it all means.  So I have to apologize to quinoa because I unjustly accused it of causing this thing and it was not true at all.  I’ve narrowed down this headache thing to grinding/clenching teeth I hope, but that’s not the best news.  I accidentally figured out that either B12 or B3 (niacin) will make my headache go away (for the most part anyway). 

Every day, I evaluate how I feel and what may or may not be causing the good or bad feelings of that particular moment.  I would watch my diet, environment, and stress levels to see what could be helping or hurting me and I noticed that when I took this B12 complex my headaches would go away longer than usual.  I examined B12 deficiencies and didn’t think that was possible since my blood had been checked several different times this year.  I looked at the ingredients and noticed that niacin was one of them and remembered the people at work noticing that my face was red and thinking I had a fever when it was just the natural reaction of niacin to the blood.  I immediately googled niacin + migraines and discovered that there is considerable evidence to suggest that niacin may help migraine sufferers but there have been no actual tests to prove this to be fact.

I told my doctor, neurologist, dentist, friends, coworkers, family, and anyone else that would pay any attention to me.  Pretty much everyone thinks I’m nuts and there’s no way that this should be working, but I promise that it make the headaches about 85% better.  My doctor told me to quit taking the migraine medicine that he prescribed just to prove that I was wrong and he was right but 4 days without the medicine and the niacin still seems to be awesome.  Anyway, I just wanted to let anyone who cared about these posts know what has been happening for the last month.  Later

Eric Anderson

Eric and the things he should know

I have a question for all the adults responsible for molding my young mind. What is the Christian flag?  I was just driving by CCS and I saw the flag waving in the wind and thought to myself for the first time (as far as I can remember anyway) what is that thing?  If it was ever explained to me then I wasn’t paying attention, but I have no idea what it is or where it came from.  I mean I must’ve said a pledge to it every morning for at least four years and maybe a few times after that and I don’t even know why.  I mean the Bible pledge I get but did we just make the flag up or did it come from somewhere?  I know this sounds sarcastic but this is an actual legitimate question that I would like an answer to.  I suppose I could just Google it or ask my mom (I’m sure she knows), but that would be less public and far less potential for embarrassment than this.  I’m just wondering. Now tell me why I’m an idiot.

Eric Anderson

Eric and the Hypochondria III

I’m writing this post immediately after finishing the last one so you should definitely read it first(and probably part one as well if you even care a little about this craziness making any sense, and even then it probably won’t).

So yesterday I wake up and my head hurts in the same spot it did before only worse and I’m freaking out.  Could it be my teeth, or even my jaw, could it be an ear infection(my ears did hurt a little bit, and my balance has been off for a while).  I’ve got all these questions and I’m growing more concerned by the second(all of this thinking and worrying is happening in the shower by the way, quiet time is the enemy).  I get out of the shower and go into the living room where I sit down to check to see what the almighty Google knows about my problem.  Then the right side of my face gets really hot like I’m close to a fire or heater.  This does not help the freaking out.  What the hell is wrong with me?  My right eye also seems a little blurry while the left one is working fine.  Also the head pain is on the right side so maybe that’s affecting my vision. I don’t know.

I get to work and start googling some more(only on my breaks, of course[my boss reads this]).  I knew a guy who recently died of a very rare disease call Creutzfeld-Jakob disease(CJD, pronounced KROITS-felt YA-kob).  He’s actually one of the founders of the company I work for and he was an awesome dude, the smartest person I’ve ever known.  The disease is not known to be contagious but it’s so rare how can they know for sure, right.  So I look up the symptoms and, as is usually the case with the diseases I look up,  I have at least 5 of the symptoms.  Depression. Check. Memory loss. Check. Personality changes. Check. Speech impairement. Sort of.  Balance and coordination dysfunction. Check.  So I don’t have dementia, seizures, or hallucination…yet.  Obviously, I don’t want this disease(because it’s fatal in like 6 months or something) and I know I’m being paranoid because I know someone who had it.  I’ve tried to think about what I did Monday that’s different than any other day but is the same as what I was doing 3 weeks ago.  This morning in the shower something came to me

This is just a theory and it will sound crazy but here goes.  I was eating quinoa for breakfast every day for like 2 weeks( all during the time when the head pain was the worst).  Then I quit and started eating oatmeal because I was worried about my cholesterol(200).  That’s when the head pain went down to a 1 from a 4 or 5.  Monday night we ate quinoa for dinner(the first time I’ve had it since I quit eating it for breakfast).   So as best I can figure the only thing I did differently was eat something everyone says is the greatest, most healthy food ever made.  What? Ok, maybe it’s like pomegranate juice, that stuff makes me feel nauseous every time I drink it but I keep doing it because it is awesome and allegedly awesome for me.  My theory on the pomegranate juice has always been, maybe the juice is killing something bad in my and it doesn’t like it so it makes me sick.  If I apply this same theory to the ever-present head pain then I can assume that the head pain is being irritated by whatever is in the quinoa and it doesn’t like it.  Now I realize that the head pain is just a symptom and not the actual problem so it doesn’t make sense that everyone keeps telling me just to stop eating quinoa if I want the pain to go away.  I don’t want the pain to go away, I want the cause of the pain to go away.

Today my head is back to the 1 again and I still don’t know what else to do.  I quit the Prilosec so the heartburn is back and worse than before.  I’m going to try eating garlic cloves and drinking apple cider vinegar and baking soda(read it on the internet).   Have a nice day

Eric Anderson

Eric and the Hypochondria II

I’m not crazy, I swear, although I guess that might be something a crazy person would say.  Last time I brought up this subject I was waiting on a doctor’s appointment, so about 4 ½ weeks ago.  I went to see the doctor that Monday and explained the whole headache/head pain situation.  He said that it can’t be sinuses because there are no sinuses in that part of your skull.  He didn’t think it was a tumor but just to be sure he scheduled me for an MRI on Thursday (Thursday!?! Really, Doc?!  I could be dead by Thursday, my head hurts now!). So I carried on for four days and worried and prayed (sort of, prayer is not my strongest point).  Thinking what if I can’t fit in the MRI machine, what if it is a tumor, what if it isn’t, what else could it be, what if it’s worse, what does Google have to say about all of this?

Thursday comes and the headache is still there so I go to the hospital and wait…and wait…and wait…I hear people talking in the hall about calling a repairman and something’s wrong and this has never happened before and frantic whispering that I can’t understand and I wait…2 hours later the tech comes out and apologizes to me and the other people waiting with me.  He explained the machine broke down and they had to call the fix it guy and blah blah blah it’ll be 15 more minutes.  Awesome, it’s not like I have a job to be at or anything.  I know it’s not his fault but someone could have at least let us know what was going on.  So I get in the room and I have to remove all metal from my person (glasses, wedding ring [which was really hard to get off], etc…).  As I had suspected it was somewhat difficult to jam my fat ass into the tiny little tube but there’s little I can do about that right now.  If you’ve never been inside an MRI machine you should know that it’s very loud and, for me anyway, very cramped.  I get out after 20 minutes or what felt like 3 days and try my best to interpret what the pictures mean while I put my shoes, glasses, and coat back on.  The tech looks at me and says “are you alright?” to which I respond “not really”.  Then he tells me I should call the dr. and ask him to call the hospital and examine the results, but today is dr. jones’ day off so I know that I have to wait.

The next day was donate blood day at work, something that I’ve never done before but I don’t have a problem with needles and I’ve always been under the assumption that getting rid of some old blood is good for you(who knows).  When you donate blood you have to fill out quite a bit of paperwork and answer a bunch of questions about your history, medical and otherwise.  The first question they ask is “do you feel healthy?” wow, is that a good question? No but it’s just my brain so it should be alright, right?  The dr.’s office called me about noon and Lane told me that the results came out clean.  No tumor, no signs of MS (what I wasn’t even worried about that, now I am), everything’s good. Great, awesome, that’s the best news I’ve heard all…wait, what the hell is wrong with me?  The dr. said a little bit of sinusitis showed up so I should take antibiotics and come back in week or so.  I thought he said my sinuses weren’t in that part of the skull.  They’re not, but just take the medicine. Fine, so I took the antibiotics for ten days and on the tenth day I went back to the doctor.

I told him that I thought the headache was 75% better at that point but I could still feel the irritation if I thought about it. Here’s an idea, don’t think about it.  Easier said than done, doc.  He decided to change my blood pressure medicine and see what happens in a month.  I was skeptical to say the least, but he’s the doctor.  Also, he said that it can’t be a pinched nerve because they don’t affect your brain.  Fine, just shoot down all my theories (and the theories of all the “doctors” I work with).  Four days and 3000 Google searches later I decide that the Prilosec has to be the problem.  I call the dr. and let him know what I’ve discovered and he tell me “fine, stop taking it”.  So I stopped taking it, and it’s been about a week and ½ and the headache/ head pain thing is all but gone( I can still kind of feel something but I’m just hoping it’s going to go away eventually).  Yesterday I woke up and it was back and worse than it ever was before.  I’ll give you my theories on that later.

Eric Anderson