Long-winded Update

It has been way too long since I’ve written here. Well, since I last wrote here there have been quite a few changes. Kori got out of the hospital, after being in with pneumonia for five days. Somewhere in the whole mess (either at the doctor’s level, the billing lady’s level, or at the insurance level) someone screwed up and the insurance company is trying to claim ‘previous condition’ and they’re trying to pawn off the whole $12,000 debt on us. That’s not why I buy the expensive ($200 per paycheck) insurance. Meh, it will all come out in the end, it’s just frustrating.

Well, now that that rant is over, the rest of the catch-up since May. Kori just kept getting sicker and sicker. I called to schedule a vasectomy, then somewhere in there, for the 4^th of September. The last Friday of July, however, Kori thought she might want another kid. So, I called and canceled. Then, the next week she realized she was wrong, and we both knew that we were done. We prayed and both felt so. So I called the next Monday, and re-scheduled realizing I wouldn’t be able to get the operation until the first Saturday in October. However I asked to be put on a waiting list in case anyone canceled. I had already received the paperwork and rules for after the surgery.

I thought I was at least in for a wait until the first Saturday in September. That was until that Friday the 3^rd. I got the call at work (one of the rare days I was at work; I had been working a lot at home because up until last week Thursday Kori had had a lot of bad days and I had to beg Darrin, my manager, to work at home a lot). The caller told me is that a cancellation had occurred and I could have my vasectomy the next day at 11:45. I said “yes.”

I called Kori, first, to tell her. Then later I called David Weinstein (my former manager at Rio Tinto and now one of my best friends) and asked him to be my driver to drive me back from the surgery. He was cool with that.

The next morning, I dressed in my best t-shirt and Pink Floyd “Dark Side of the Moon” pajama bottoms. When we dropped the kids off at Kori’s mom’s house, Justin yelled out, as we left, “Bye bye, Mason’s fertility.” We drove over to the doctor’s office in a building that looks like something from Philadelphia's Independence section. We went in, I turned in all the paperwork, and waited. Waited for about an hour in a waiting room that looked like the den of an expensive gentleman's club with over-stuffed sofas and armchairs (just not leather). There were a chest of drawers that bulged out in a round curve in the center of its three drawers. Its light-brown wood was grooved and carved in a nice re-creation of a style from the 1930s. A very modern 32” TV/VCR sat on top giving CNN a broadcast to the empty waiting room. A table in the middle of four single chairs was a small round table with many men’s magazines stacked and laid out in a neat order. David pulled out some magazines which he had brought and began to read them. I turned off the television after half an hour on CNN of the report about the miners, a tragedy to be sure. But I kind of had a lot on my mind.

Finally, Dr. Lisa Stout, tall with long curly-hair came out in her blue scrubs and white sneakers to call me into a room for a consultation. Kori and I walked in and she looked at me. “You are a very young thirty…” she began, looking at my chart which she held with my other permission papers on a manilla folder. We explained our situation. Yes, I am thirty, but Kori had two incredibly difficult pregnancies, one with our son one with our daughter, and she was having problems with her IUD so I was getting the vasectomy to take care of the IUD problem. So I had Dr. Stout perform the surgery.

And yes, I had shaved the surgical site the night before. The hair still hasn’t grown back.

Since I started this blog entry, Kori has been back to the hospital every week this month. She still is not improving very rapidly. I just keep praying that the blessings she has received will be enacted in her life so she can truly heal and not need to go back to a hospital again for a while; at least not until she needs to go in for her orthopedic work, which I hope won’t be for a while. The kids miss her and I do too. I find it hard to sleep when she’s not there.

On the plus side, I did have a short story spring entirely formed into my mind. I wrote it in about a week. 11,000 words. I, right now, can hardly wait until 3 November 2007 when I can open the story, print it out, and then do my first-pass edit.

I was an idiot tonight, I wrote a true, heart-felt message to Neil Gaiman through what I thought was his myspace page. Boy did I feel chagrined when I went back to the main page and saw the “not the official page, just a fan page” message. Oops. I’m sorry to the owner and maintainer of that page. But, if Neil ever reads my blog, though I don’t know why he would, here is the text of the message.

Dear Neil,

I discovered your works quite late in the game, but since I discovered you, through your BBC Neverwhere, I have become an admirer. I really respect you and what you have done not just as an author but as a father as well. I can tell from your interviews and children's writing that you truly love your wife and children. I am the husband of a wonderful wife, Kori, whom I respect and adore deeply. We have two wonderful children, Harald (3) and Klara (1.5). I am finding that Stephen King's comment in his On Writing is true: "Art serves life." I write for them.

I am the nephew of SF/F writer Dave Wolverton (David Farland) and am friends with several other authors in the business. I am writing my own works nightly to follow in my uncle's footsteps. I will be submitting my first professional piece in seven years before Christmas. (And maybe I'll get paid for it this time.)

I primarily want to thank you for dipping so deep into the collective unconscious when you write. Your works make me think and explore my own thoughts and mind. I love how you draw on mythology and other classical references to not just tell a tale, but weave a story.

I learned a lot about mythological gods which I did not know before reading American Gods. I loved just the good-natured fun you gave me with Neverwhere (I had actually purchased a bootleg copy on VHS before I bought my DVD copy when A&E put that out; I bought it as soon as I knew it was coming out). THEN I finally read your Sandman books. My mind was opened to whole new ideas which I loved. Your characterization is flawless and your population of your stories is alive and approachable. And, by the way, 1602 was so incredible, it has been the only comic book I have purchased in the last ten years.

I am not going to (or at least I hope I have not already) go all fan-boy on you. I just wanted to message you and say thank you. You have written some of the sagas and Eddas of our times and I hope to be able to meet you some day in person.

I will keep my eyes and ears open for your next trip to Salt Lake City, Utah.

Thank you sir,

Mason Emerson

Well, that embarrassment is over. I can’t wait until I can actually meet and talk to him. I’m going to try and do better at updating my blog and gain some readers to follow my saga the way I follow Neil.

Listen to me here, I sound like a total fan-boy. I sound like I worship him. But more, it is that I truly respect the man for what he’s done and how he lives his life.

I’ll try to update more tomorrow or the next day.

M—