The End of the Season
So today is November 30. The 2005 Hurricane season officially ends today. It is with sadness that I will be unpacking my backpack… and placing my urban camo BDUs into the dry cleaners so they can be neat when I pack them away.
A few years ago a friend of mine, not in the business, asked me why it was that I took such pleasure in other people’s misfortune. I guess from the outside, that’s how it looks… but in reality there is no pleasure or happiness in other people’s misery. It’s more of a pleasure in being in a position to relieve that misery.
Granted… there is a definite adrenaline rush… the anticipation of the unknown… driving through 80+ MPH winds in a torrential downpour… landing in an unknown town darkened by downed power lines… rescuing those in misery from wallowing in the muck… yes, it is an adrenaline rush. Those rushes can be addictive. Hell, I am addicted… and I know it. That makes me the better person because at least I can admit it… I think.
But hey… it wasn’t all about the work either. Let’s be honest… in Louisiana we got tattoos and went to Bennigans drinking. In Texas we ate barbecue every chance we got, had “Critical Incident Debriefings” (aka beer) every night, and went to Sulley’s Disco in Jasper County where we rode Matilda, the mechanical bull.
Going to new places… doing different things… meeting new people. That’s what made it an experience of a lifetime. It’s just sad that the only time I get away is when there is a natural disaster.
Here on the home front, I was back in the dentist’s chair at 6:00am this morning. He did some work on Monday, and yesterday I was so wracked with pain I ended up drooling and overdosing on Tylenol. Last night after the Nick put me to sleep talking about something she had done with a stuffed animal and a dry cleaner, I woke up at 3am in agonizing pain.
The pain shot straight through to the brain… and was NOT good. So I ended up calling poor Christine… and at 5:00am she was picking me up off the floor to drag me back to the Chair of Pain. So it turns out this filling he did for me had come out or was coming out… he fixed it… so now I have some semblance of consciousness without a spike going through my skull. Christine basically dragged me back home… threw me in the shower… and made sure I was on the way to work before leaving… hopefully to go back to the sleep I woke her from.
And people wonder why I love this girl… now if only her husband would take the hint and get out of the way…
So today is November 30. The 2005 Hurricane season officially ends today. It is with sadness that I will be unpacking my backpack… and placing my urban camo BDUs into the dry cleaners so they can be neat when I pack them away.
A few years ago a friend of mine, not in the business, asked me why it was that I took such pleasure in other people’s misfortune. I guess from the outside, that’s how it looks… but in reality there is no pleasure or happiness in other people’s misery. It’s more of a pleasure in being in a position to relieve that misery.
Granted… there is a definite adrenaline rush… the anticipation of the unknown… driving through 80+ MPH winds in a torrential downpour… landing in an unknown town darkened by downed power lines… rescuing those in misery from wallowing in the muck… yes, it is an adrenaline rush. Those rushes can be addictive. Hell, I am addicted… and I know it. That makes me the better person because at least I can admit it… I think.
But hey… it wasn’t all about the work either. Let’s be honest… in Louisiana we got tattoos and went to Bennigans drinking. In Texas we ate barbecue every chance we got, had “Critical Incident Debriefings” (aka beer) every night, and went to Sulley’s Disco in Jasper County where we rode Matilda, the mechanical bull.
Going to new places… doing different things… meeting new people. That’s what made it an experience of a lifetime. It’s just sad that the only time I get away is when there is a natural disaster.
Here on the home front, I was back in the dentist’s chair at 6:00am this morning. He did some work on Monday, and yesterday I was so wracked with pain I ended up drooling and overdosing on Tylenol. Last night after the Nick put me to sleep talking about something she had done with a stuffed animal and a dry cleaner, I woke up at 3am in agonizing pain.
The pain shot straight through to the brain… and was NOT good. So I ended up calling poor Christine… and at 5:00am she was picking me up off the floor to drag me back to the Chair of Pain. So it turns out this filling he did for me had come out or was coming out… he fixed it… so now I have some semblance of consciousness without a spike going through my skull. Christine basically dragged me back home… threw me in the shower… and made sure I was on the way to work before leaving… hopefully to go back to the sleep I woke her from.
And people wonder why I love this girl… now if only her husband would take the hint and get out of the way…
Scared Bunny
Found this posting/blog on my eternal search for inner peace… and I found this oddly not only charming but painfully true. I have an ex-wife… but it wasn’t a gym… it was one of those “Scrapbooking” classes… hence why I say to all true journalers rise up with the mighty BIC and stab and slash those Scrapbookers to bits!!!
Ok… maybe that’s a little too far… but hey…
Found this posting/blog on my eternal search for inner peace… and I found this oddly not only charming but painfully true. I have an ex-wife… but it wasn’t a gym… it was one of those “Scrapbooking” classes… hence why I say to all true journalers rise up with the mighty BIC and stab and slash those Scrapbookers to bits!!!
Ok… maybe that’s a little too far… but hey…
Night Runs: Too Young to Die
Most things don’t faze us anymore. We cruise to the jobs we used to careen too… but here’s a great example of a reason we all got into this work… because it isn’t just about the pretty lights… there are lives at stake here… lives of all kinds… and ages…
Most things don’t faze us anymore. We cruise to the jobs we used to careen too… but here’s a great example of a reason we all got into this work… because it isn’t just about the pretty lights… there are lives at stake here… lives of all kinds… and ages…
Perfection…
It was around two o’clock in the morning. My partner Dial, the slim dark skinned guy you saw me with tonight, and I were curled up in the front of our ambulance casually watching the scene at Club Calypso. The doors would swing open and closed every minute or so, allowing the reggae beats to wash over us like a wave coming in and ebbing away from the shore. Under the dim streetlights below the El train its denizens would ride that wave of sound to the beaches of silence. Alternating between the flashing strobe lights inside for light hearted fun and the dark corners outside for dark deeds.
This is our holy day service. It is here that we sit to commiserate over the week past while those inside the club push the past week a little further along. Usually the high point is signaled by the sounds of gunshots or the slick silence of highly polished metal sliding through tender meat to release the red flow. Our service is one that usually culminates in pain and misery. We deliver communion to the poor wretches in the form of oxygen and bandages. We accept them into our sanctuary and deliver them with the glow of rotating lights and wailing banshees in a box to you and yours on the hill. That is how it usually goes.
But tonight our lord, our dispatcher Marcus, called down to us in his raspy voice from up above, “One David, I need you for the intox.” My partner and I both looked at the microphone, neither of us moving to take it. “One David, I know you’re out there. Answer the radio or I’m giving you the tone,” he called again.
… or not.
Perfection is one of those intangible elements… it’s the myth the mice in the maze cling to. Chasing the cheese… chasing the moment of perfection where they are one with all of their wants, needs, or desires. They never reach that moment… for it is the mice who stop looking for the ideal moment… they are the one’s who the cheese itself finds… and perfection is proven to be a fallacy in the moment of clarity that the cheese is not all it is cracked up to be.
I revel in imperfection. I am an imperfect person… working in an imperfect workplace… with imperfect co-workers… and I have imperfect family and friends as I live my incredibly imperfect life… and above all I have the most imperfect writing.
So why? Why revel in such imperfection? Because imperfection helps to define not only our individuality but also our independence. That, above all, is what I can say I do love about life. The freedom to choose… the freedom of diversity… the freedom of being as imperfect as I want to be.
Freedom comes at a price. To be able to live in imperfection has a price… paid on the outside by forcing us to live on the fringes of society. Paid on the inside by the torturing of our souls on a minutely basis. However we serve a purpose… to remind those stuck within the maze that there is another way out…
These nightly crusades are our mission in life. To tend to the sick and care for the injured. To help those who cannot help themselves. To ease the pain and suffering that people find themselves unable to bear. All of these are noble causes. In truth it is more cab rides than saving lives out here. There are those who try to deny it, but I accept it as my task in this life. Perhaps it is yet another failed attempt to receive reconciliation for the sins of my past, but I have begun to think it is simply that the hours suit me.
…down the rabbit hole…
It was around two o’clock in the morning. My partner Dial, the slim dark skinned guy you saw me with tonight, and I were curled up in the front of our ambulance casually watching the scene at Club Calypso. The doors would swing open and closed every minute or so, allowing the reggae beats to wash over us like a wave coming in and ebbing away from the shore. Under the dim streetlights below the El train its denizens would ride that wave of sound to the beaches of silence. Alternating between the flashing strobe lights inside for light hearted fun and the dark corners outside for dark deeds.
This is our holy day service. It is here that we sit to commiserate over the week past while those inside the club push the past week a little further along. Usually the high point is signaled by the sounds of gunshots or the slick silence of highly polished metal sliding through tender meat to release the red flow. Our service is one that usually culminates in pain and misery. We deliver communion to the poor wretches in the form of oxygen and bandages. We accept them into our sanctuary and deliver them with the glow of rotating lights and wailing banshees in a box to you and yours on the hill. That is how it usually goes.
But tonight our lord, our dispatcher Marcus, called down to us in his raspy voice from up above, “One David, I need you for the intox.” My partner and I both looked at the microphone, neither of us moving to take it. “One David, I know you’re out there. Answer the radio or I’m giving you the tone,” he called again.
… or not.
Perfection is one of those intangible elements… it’s the myth the mice in the maze cling to. Chasing the cheese… chasing the moment of perfection where they are one with all of their wants, needs, or desires. They never reach that moment… for it is the mice who stop looking for the ideal moment… they are the one’s who the cheese itself finds… and perfection is proven to be a fallacy in the moment of clarity that the cheese is not all it is cracked up to be.
I revel in imperfection. I am an imperfect person… working in an imperfect workplace… with imperfect co-workers… and I have imperfect family and friends as I live my incredibly imperfect life… and above all I have the most imperfect writing.
So why? Why revel in such imperfection? Because imperfection helps to define not only our individuality but also our independence. That, above all, is what I can say I do love about life. The freedom to choose… the freedom of diversity… the freedom of being as imperfect as I want to be.
Freedom comes at a price. To be able to live in imperfection has a price… paid on the outside by forcing us to live on the fringes of society. Paid on the inside by the torturing of our souls on a minutely basis. However we serve a purpose… to remind those stuck within the maze that there is another way out…
These nightly crusades are our mission in life. To tend to the sick and care for the injured. To help those who cannot help themselves. To ease the pain and suffering that people find themselves unable to bear. All of these are noble causes. In truth it is more cab rides than saving lives out here. There are those who try to deny it, but I accept it as my task in this life. Perhaps it is yet another failed attempt to receive reconciliation for the sins of my past, but I have begun to think it is simply that the hours suit me.
…down the rabbit hole…
I found this really really really cool article about ambulance drivers in WWI. It’s called Prose and Poetry-Literary Ambulance Drivers of World War I and I’ll be honest… I found it inspiring. Hell… I find my job inspiring… I love being an EMT and wouldn’t change a damn thing about it!!!
So imagine my glee to see that all these literary giants drove meat wagons in “The Great War”. Of course there are the contemporary ambulance writers, like Joe Connelly and the crazy woman in the MidWest who vollies.
I want to be one of those literary giants.
I’d be overjoyed to be a contemporary.
I don’t want to have to settle for internet blogger… not that its a bad thing… I just want more.
Last night was interesting though… I got to meet the Steff’s new guy. I was pretty ocified… but I do remember I told him I would break both his legs if he broke her heart… and yes I meant it. Of course he then ran away, and had to be dragged back to the table… where I apparently continued to rip him to shreds. Apologies to the Steff… but to hell with it… if he can’t handle me then he’ll think twice before doing something really really really stupid.
So after getting ocified… I went and had breakfast with one of the friends we were drinking with… and it gets more interesting… because we “hooked” up… not expectedly… in fact not expectedly at all… so unexpected in fact I never made it home or to sleep.
So I’ve worked all day with cotton mouth… in a euphoric state of sexual satisfaction… but I still have to work tonight on a standby on 7th Avenue and 43 Street for a Shakira concert set-up… and all I really want to do is go to sleep.
Yet I won’t… because I’m an ambulance driver… and proud of it!!!
So imagine my glee to see that all these literary giants drove meat wagons in “The Great War”. Of course there are the contemporary ambulance writers, like Joe Connelly and the crazy woman in the MidWest who vollies.
I want to be one of those literary giants.
I’d be overjoyed to be a contemporary.
I don’t want to have to settle for internet blogger… not that its a bad thing… I just want more.
Last night was interesting though… I got to meet the Steff’s new guy. I was pretty ocified… but I do remember I told him I would break both his legs if he broke her heart… and yes I meant it. Of course he then ran away, and had to be dragged back to the table… where I apparently continued to rip him to shreds. Apologies to the Steff… but to hell with it… if he can’t handle me then he’ll think twice before doing something really really really stupid.
So after getting ocified… I went and had breakfast with one of the friends we were drinking with… and it gets more interesting… because we “hooked” up… not expectedly… in fact not expectedly at all… so unexpected in fact I never made it home or to sleep.
So I’ve worked all day with cotton mouth… in a euphoric state of sexual satisfaction… but I still have to work tonight on a standby on 7th Avenue and 43 Street for a Shakira concert set-up… and all I really want to do is go to sleep.
Yet I won’t… because I’m an ambulance driver… and proud of it!!!
