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Gideon Checked In

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I know the name Gideon mostly because of the Bibles that I used to find in hotel rooms. Gideon International, which put distributes bibles in hotel rooms, was formed in 1899 when two Christian sales wound up sharing a hotel room. Nearly every single hotel in the country put a Bible in their rooms, but that number has been coming down. However, Travel + Leisure reported in 2017 that bibles have been disappearing from hotels because Millennials are the least religious generation in the U.S., according to a study by San Diego State University. Still, if you really want to read Scripture, you can access the good word on your phone as roughly 98% of hotels off in-room Wi-Fi. Gideon gets a mention in Beatles 1968 song “Rocky Raccoon,” which Paul McCartney started writing in Rishikesh, India, where the band was studying Transcendental Meditation. The song was originally called “Rocky Sassoon,” but McCartney reportedly changed the title to because he though “Rocky Raccoon” sou
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Shake it Up

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And now the t-shirt: “I Survived the New York Earthquake.” So, there I was Friday morning, sitting at my kitchen table and working on a story when a whole lotta shaking started going on. At first, I thought it was a helicopter flying overhead, and not just some news station traffic chopper, but a massive military monstrosity coming in low and mean. But it kept getting louder and my building started vibrating, and I decided it might be a good idea to put my ass in gear and get the hell out. I was halfway across my living room when the shaking stopped, but I decided to keep going to see if anybody else saw or felt what I did. “What the f*ck was that?” I asked no one, even though I sort of knew the answer already. Everything seemed normal when I went outside, and I thought for a moment that perhaps I was overreacting. But then a few of my neighbors start to emerge from their homes, all looking quite bewildered. “I thought it was just me,” one guy said. “I was thinki
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Groove is in the Heart

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“Labor without stopping; do all the good works you can, while you still have the time.” --St. John of God The qigong instructor on YouTube closed his eyes and put his hands on his chest. “I want you to feel your beating heart,” he said. “Your heart is a perfect example of unconditional love. It beats for your entire life and asks for nothing in return.” Oh, yes, after the last week, I am ever so grateful for my beating heart. This is Easter Sunday, and I am so happy to be celebrating this time of rebirth with my family. I am a bit more positive about my future after seeing my cardiologist on Thursday. This was our first face-to-face meeting since I got the stent put in on 10 days ago. “How are you feeling?” he asked. “A bit frightened, to be honest.” “Why? You’re the healthiest man in this room,” he told me. “At least we know what kind of shape your heart is in.” His assistant had given me an electrocardiogram, which my doctor said, “looked beautiful,” and he told I ca
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Stent Man

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“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”— Marcus Aurelius I thought I would be home in a couple of hours. I was certain the doctor would tell me there’s nothing wrong, that the cardiac catheterization procedure I had to endure on Thursday would show that I was in tiptop shape, and I could go forth and live a happy life. It didn’t exactly work out that out. I was stretched out on a table in NYU Langone, my right hand strapped down, while a surgeon inserted a miniature camera into my wrist and through my arteries to get a live picture of my heart, which appeared on a widescreen TV in the operating room like a hockey game in a sports bar. The surgeon had advised me prior to the procedure that if he found any serious blockage, he’d have to put in a stent, but I knew that was ridiculous. I work out regularly, I watch what I eat. I’m in the clear. And then he poked his head out before behind a protective screen. “When you work out, d
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Morning Glory

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“Good morning, my name is Melinda.” I nodded and returned the greeting, or at least I think I did. I was still kind of bleary-eyed, having hauled my keester out of bed at 5AM on Saturday, made a predawn, five-block walk through the nearly empty streets, so I could get a transthoracic echocardiogram, yet another one of my cardiologist’s recommended tests. What made it even funkier was that, upon my arrival, the facility at Fourth Avenue and Senator Street, a century-old structure that once housed a city welfare department office, was completely empty. There was no security guard in the lobby, no receptionists on the second floor, no other patients sitting in the waiting area—the damn lights weren’t even switched on. I had full run of the place, as I walked up and down the hallways, shouitng “is anybody here?” while the lights in various rooms automatically lit up as I passed by. I heard voices and for a moment I thought I’d found a fellow human, but it turned out to be comin
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The Strawberry Statement

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“Ahh, but the strawberries! That's - that's where I had them.” – Captain Queeg, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial I walked 30 blocks on Friday morning just to prove a point. I’m not exactly sure what the point was, but I’m glad I made the effort. This was the culmination of a rather strange week with some very happy events and a couple of senior moments I sincerely could’ve done without. And along the way I confronted some character flaws that I would like very much to correct. It started on Tuesday. I was at the gym, all set to begin my heavy bag workout, where I put in a pair of earbuds and listen to boxing combinations as they’re called out on the Precision Striking app. But on this morning, I opened up the earbud case and saw one my buds was AWOL. At first, I couldn’t imagine what had happened and then I remember that the carrying case had fallen out of my gym bag a few days earlier. I quickly retrieved it, but apparently one of the buds had shaken loose and I d
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Drop the Beat

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“You may breathe now.” I came sliding out of the CT scanner like an overcooked pizza and resumed taking in oxygen just as the android voice commanded. My cardiologist has suggested that I get this test—a CT coronary angiogram—and I happily complied, though I wish they’d find a way to take the word “coronary” out of the title. I hadn’t eaten all day, as per doctor’s orders, but I wasn’t even remotely hungry, due to a particularly vicious stomach bug that had invaded my innards the night before and played merry hell with my digestive system. This old heart of mine got quite a workout as I staggered through a crappy week marked by frustration on so many levels, personally and professionally and even on the national level thanks to the Supreme Court and a certain orange-hued scumbag who shall remain nameless. The hospital emailed the test results to me within hours and while it was packed with medical terms that I didn’t begin to understand, I couldn’t help noticing one line that
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