I'm sorry Clyde Essex

I will the first to admit that I am a technology dope. I am a fairly decent google-izer and I can navigate Facebook somewhat but this blog has been a learning tool for me. I've learned how to add links and photos and speaking of photos...I used a photo I found while trolling through Google Images on one of my posts and today I got a note from the creator of the image, telling me that I was using it without giving him any credit and if I didn't fix things I'd go to hell and my toenails would fall off and stuff like that.

Let me tell ya, I almost threw up a little bit when I saw his note. I was scared to death that I was going to go to Internet jail or something! I immediately went back into my past post and wrote a credit to him as well as a link to his Flickr page but I keep thinking that I need to do more. I didn't mean to steal the picture, Mr. Essex! Honest! I was simply writing a story and the picture matched the mood of it and I plugged it in there without a thought that I might be stealing something.

Hell, I figured my 2 readers might like the picture and never in a million years thought that Mr. Essex or anyone else for that matter would stumble across my little puny blog.

I would appreciate it if any of you readers have a minute, go to Mr. Essex's Flickr page and check out and buy some of his photos. They're really great and I hope to take as good pictures as him some day. And Mr. Essex, if you happen to read this, please accept my apologies for not giving you the credit that you deserve. I still wonder how you knew I used that picture! You must be some kind of computer/interweb genius.

Here's the picture I accidentally used without giving credit where credit is due:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clydeessexphotography/3461430473/in/set-72157617174403204/

 Go check out the shots, they're hauntingly beautiful.

Begin count down sequence...3...2...1

For months now you've had to listen to my blather about spinal shots, tests, fears and more. More than you ever wanted to know. At last, I'm on the downhill slide towards surgery day. I'm fearful, excited, remorseful, anxious, optimistic and many other adjectives that I can't think of right now. But I'm hopeful that I'll do and be just fine.

I may have mentioned a thousand times or so, that I have an irrational fear of being put to sleep and that stupid fear is starting to get the best of me. My surgery is less than a week away and I'm already losing sleep. I lie awake at night running through all of the horrible things that could happen (if I'm the 1 in 10,000,000).

It's crazy, I know but fear is real. I fear that I'll slip into unconsciousness, then sail right on off into the great unknown. I guess rationally, I wouldn't care because I'll be unconscious but I worry about stuff like: what if I didn't pay the cable bill or what if I don't have enough life insurance to pay off the house and leave my kids well off for many years, or who will take care of the pets if I'm gone. Stuff like that.

Each time I have surgery I spend about a week contacting virtually every single person I've ever known to tell them that I love them just to make sure they know. 'Hello Miss Jones? I had you for a teacher in preschool 45 years ago, and I just wanted you to know that you were a great teacher and that I love you.' 'Hello Johnny? You were our paperboy when we lived in B-F Egypt in 1966 and I wanted you to know that you always threw the paper where it landed in the center of the front porch every single time. Stuff like that.

At my final pre-op meeting my doc had pity for me and gave me some woooonnnnddddeeeerrrrrfffffuuuuullll stuff called Xanax or however you spell it. It causes me to care less if I won the Publishers Clearinghouse $10,000,000,000 sweepstakes (OK, maybe not that) but a tire could roll over my foot and I'd thank the driver. My only problem today is that I have to leave for the hospital in less than 15 minutes and I don't think I can have one of those tiny beauties so I'll be quaking and crying and rattling all the way to the hospital. I'm sure I'll be OK - especially since I still have 8 of those great little pills waiting for me at home. So in the future if I burn the roast? No problem...Xanax to the rescue! Kid breaks curfew? No problem - wonder pill. Not really, I don't abuse drugs. They'll sit in my drawer until the next horrible scare comes along. Like looking at myself in the mirror right now with NO makeup, NO hair gel, not even lotion on my ashy skin.

Anyway, wish me luck. Maybe my doctor will honor my wishes and make his incision from one side of my neck clear to the other so I'll have a really cool scar to make up stories about. Anyway, I'm off. Hope to be writing again really soon. Love you guys!