My pre-Halloween adventures in New Orleans

My blood is too thick. Before I left for New Orleans it was too thin. So it goes with balancing warfarin in your system. One week you’re high, the next week you’re low.

Since I had to limit my drinking, perhaps the sludge is due to what I ate while on my short vacation: a couple po' boys, a foot-long sausage sandwich, a pound or so of tater tots, a bacon cheeseburger, gravy tater tots, an Italian Hoagie, New Orleans style French Toast, ham and eggs, a small pizza, a chili dog, tuna sandwich, more ham and eggs, barbecue brisket, ice cream, and, just because it exists, a deep fried burger.

That heart attack on a bun is served at Tuckers on Magazine, near the World War II Museum. Story goes, the bar was owned by the last official murder before Hurricane Katrina hit. The evidence and paperwork disappeared during the storm. Go figure.

Maybe it will turn up in the shotgun shack on Magazine I saw with junk piled out in front. It seemed abandoned and ready for a match but for the fact there was an old lady out in front trying to get a cat to go back inside.

Back at Tucker’s I ate the half-pound, stuffed with cheese delicacy after a two-hour walk on my last day in town down Magazine to Decatur to the French Quarter. And yes, the Fats Domino song, Walkin’ in New Orleans, was playing on the iPod in my head.

I intended to return to Second Skin there to see if anything was on sale, but, as you might expect for a leather shop, it didn’t open until noon. Before the weekend, me and my buddy Maitri went there to look for a whip for her lion tamer costume for the Halloween party at the Howlin’ Woof.

Second Skin had them – starting at $70. I learned it’s pretty damn expensive to be a leather boy. Shorts are $300. Harnesses for your well oiled chest are at least $150. And you should see the size of some of the apparatuses people stuff up their orifices.

So Maitri found an $11 model at a shop that sells naughty cakes, penis shaped candies, and an assortment of vibrators. I suppose you could use the vibrator to stir the batter, so to speak.

Coincidentally, we saw Joe Gannascoli, the actor who played gay mobster Vito Spatafore on The Sopranos, in front of a French Quarter cigar shop. Vito was outed after being spotted all leathered up at gay bar. Hmm.

We did see a guy at the party who might have bought his outfit at Second Skin. He seemed to be in his 40s, and I would describe him as not fat, but husky and hairy. Perhaps you will have luck finding him somewhere in the Craig’s List personals.

The thing is, nobody should go bare-assed in chaps and a cod piece, no matter how fat or skinny. It’s just not sanitary for yourself or for those who might sit where you sat, especially given the recent outbreak of staph infections – not to mention you have to be extra good at wiping.

Mr. Funny Pants was not as disturbing to me as a woman with a hookah taped to her head. She was dressed as Medusa and walking around offering pot hits to strangers - accompanied by an odd little man painted statue white who was really furry so it looked like some sort of moss was growing on him.

Full disclosure: I did wear a kilt to the Saturday bash. Since I was in the Big Sleazy I wore a pair of “body armor” shorts with boxers over them underneath. I know it breaks tradition, but nobody needs to see what I have to offer unless it is by mutual agreement. Still I was disappointed that only one person, a woman in a Boston Red Sox hat (which explains a lot), asked if I was shortless under the tartan.

I was supposed to be a blood clot – make that a bloody Scot, which is a long way to go for a joke. And in front of Fahy’s Saturday, I posed for a photo with a guy dressed as a Hassidic Jew, and my pal Derick who was Huey P Lion (the Kingfisher)(tamed by his wife), which does seem like a the start of a joke my dad would tell.

Derick had a good costume, good enough to excite a plushy or two – though I thought his mane looked way too Rod Stewart from the back.

Fahy’s is owned by a former Chicago cop, which made me feel at home. Over the weekend, middle aged women there found me attractive enough that two of them accosted me, one sitting on my lap and patting my bald head, the other grabbing my leg in a frisky way. It’s nice to feel wanted, even if it involves others wearing beer goggles and me being in a kilt.

Perhaps the ladies recognized me from my brush with fame Friday night. At the Voodoo Music Fest in City Park where I won bingo during the New Orleans Bingo Show set and was taped and probably will wind up another object of ridicule on You Tube. That’s to say, I signed a waiver.

The New Orleans Bingo Show is a Tom Waits sort of post modern burlesque carnival act, all done up in red and black and brought to you by Citi. The band has a cult following in its hometown. They actually play bingo during the set.

One dopey Asian guy from New Hampshire called “bingo” first, but he didn't have all the right numbers and an actor in a fez put a dunce cap on the kid’s confused head. So wouldn't you know it, I was the next chump. I tried to pass my card to a pal, who, instead called out that I had the right numbers.

Standing at the lip of the stage I reluctantly hoisted my 210 pounds up and into the action. I copped a Chicago attitude when they called out the numbers. I wanted to tell the short black host wearing white face that in my hometown when somebody says he wins, he wins. Know what I am saying?

I think he got the hint anyway, so I played along with the shtick, even put my aviator sunglasses on for effect. The guy in the fez came up to me with the dunce cap. I shot him a cop after a rough shift look, promptly took the prop away from him and tossed it upstage.

When they confirmed I had the right numbers, I took the sash and beads with which they adorned my Notre Dame hoodie and tossed them into the crowd. Then I threatened to remove my shirt. Knowing that the glare off my belly would blind half the crowd, I tactfully refrained.

Despite a dearth of booze in my system, when they asked me join the cast in a victory dance, I purposely moved like a drunk fat white man at a wedding reception, which is sort of like Dancing Bear on Captain Kangaroo meets the gopher from Caddy Shack with a little Fred Flintstone thrown in for good measure.

Channeling Homer Simpson, I gave a half moon (to go along with the full one outside the tent) as a tease, because pasty Irish ass can drive an audience to unnecessary adulation, if not riots.

Ask Bono. He’s an Irish ass.

What can I say? I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was residual stoopid from seeing Lez Zeppelin, the all girl cover band performing the cock rock classics to a crowd with silly dads and kids young enough to be Robert Plant's illegitimate grandchildren.

Either way, it was sort of fun being a slightly menacing doofus. And it balanced my good deed for the trip which was helping a teacher from New Hampshire check homework papers from her three 6th grade classes on the plane ride south.

The song goes that everybody plays the fool, but I played along on my terms, thank you, even getting a chance to do a spit take with actual Irish whisky which is the dream of every Celtic immigrant, really.

Speaking of immigrants (nice segue, eh?) on the way back to the airport, the cab driver was from Algeria by way of France, where he had been a teacher.

He gave it up because the students were way bigger jerks now than when he started. So he came to the states, was driving cross country truck routes for a chemical company and living with his family near Detroit. On a run about five years ago the semi broke down outside New Orleans, and he liked the area so much he told his wife to bring the kids south and took up cab driving.

Me, I boarded a plane back to Chicago where I am still spinning my wheels.

Falling in Autumn

Sunday night I borrowed a kilt from the village president of the next town over from where I live. As I, for lack of a better word, am a journalist, I hope this doesn't violate some code of conduct. But is it really wrong for a writer to wear another man's clothes? That's what we writers do metaphorically anyway, right - and why you have to be careful of us. You never can tell if you will turn up in a story.

Beisdes, the kilt is for a trip to New Orleans where I will be attending a costume party, and for a guy who doesn't like to play dress up I've been doing a bit of it lately.It's bee than kind of year.

Speaking of, Saturday I saw stragglers from yet another early Halloween party for adults at a place called the R Bar, which would be a good name for a pirate hangout.

That some were dressed at if they were in the cast of Grease only confirmed my feeling that it is one of the scariest movies ever made - 30 year olds in high school, singing. I shudder.

This infatuation we've developed for Halloween - it's probably just another excuse for a party, to let loose from the stressed out lives we have, to have an alter ego for a night aside from the masks we have in our jobs and the screen names we set up on the Internet. And poor beer companies need all the help they can to sell suds to a temperate nation.

On the other hand Halloween is tied to the change of seasons, to the dying of the light. We don't really deal well with death, and in our culture it's drummed into us that we should all be ageless. A costume might fool the grim reaper for a night, but we already have ghosts of our own to deal with. The leaves fall, the frost comes. Global warming aside, there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

Loss seems magnified this time of year. It is for me at least. I have an aunt dealing with a heart transplant. I talked to a friend tonight who lost a cousin in a car accident. Another friend's mom died. I might have come close to losing my life from pulmonary embolisms.

I have some friends who are having to change career paths in their 50s, with kids in school still. I probably lost as a friend someone I cared for a great deal because of issues going on in his life he won't deal with. To say anymore would betray what might be left of that friendship.

And Saturday night I took a my best friend at work out for the last time as my best friend from work. That's to say he has a new job - and that I work at a place where even taking a job in Gary, Indiana is a step up (sorry, easy joke). I have been at this place for 10 years now, and did a body count: I'm up to more than 70 people who've come and gone from the newsroom. It's like working at a minor league baseball team, or being on ER too long.

So we headed out to meet up with some friends he made from a story that touched him - and with some cops out for a pub crawl.

First we wound up at the home of a former police chief, where his old pals were sitting on the deck with a few of them playing guitars and singing songs. We were offered desserts, and who can turn down pumpkin mousse or pretzel balls or klotchkis?

Not this former 240-pounder and not my big lug buddy. Actually he got all effusive about the cream puffs and the pretzel balls, the latter of which he thinks he would like to try making, including versions infused with cheese.

Yeah, my 6' 3' 260 pound pal likes to bake. That's part of why I love him. Food is the way to my heart.

He also likes Yorkies and wound up talking to the hostess about her dogs - which was a side I had not really seen. There's just something intrinsically funny about a big boy with Elvis sideburns chatting about small dogs.

Yeah, my buddy knows he has a dork side. He's a photographer. They all do.

But having Scott as a friend is like having a St. Bernard, not a lap dog, show up to work with you. And I mean that as a compliment.

Why we were there was Scott had befriended the top cop's son working on a story about the son. That's one of the things about being in journalism - sure you're supposed to remain outside and objective, but you're also human and can't help being drawn to people. In this case, Scott came close to being having a second set of parents.

In Scott's assignment that led to this, Jake, the subject that became his friend used to be a caretaker for an old man who lived all by himself until the state decided he needed to be in a home. The old man, Doc, essentially lived most of his life alone, with few friends and no family. He was no day at the beach, or even a day along the shores of the Fox River.

Me being single and maybe past the eligible bachelor stage, stories about such people scare the crap out of me. I've had too much me-time in my life already, and thoughts of being alone in my so-called golden years have no appeal.

But Jake wound up bonding with Doc, and Scott was there documenting this for months, this unlikely love story, but a story that isn't mine to tell, at least not tonight, beyond what I have already said - and that it reminded me of Tuesday With Maurie without the syrup, a story about how bonds can form between unlikely pairs, between flawed people who somehow connect - which is 99.99 percent of us, including it appears, Mother Theresa, who had big doubts of her own.

But there is no super glue for human bonds. Time and death see to that, of course, but so does they way we live our busy lives where lonely is an occupational hazard along just about any career path.

Like I said, I've felt a lot of loss lately, and I am going to miss my friend, if just for the weekly lunches at Buffalo Wild Wings (an unofficial sponsor of this blog).

I'm hoping that we keep in touch, thinking that will probably happen, and will make the effort, but you never know.

On that last boys' night out, when I got home I looked up and couldn't believe how the sky was so clear you could see most of the seasonal constellations and stars. I was not impressed, depressed or pressed of any sort by my own insignificance at that moment. But I did think, how sobering, all that empty space on such a beautiful night.

My rockin' weekend on blood thinners

I had a pretend rock and roll weekend, and my drug of choice, of course, was blood thinners.

Saturday night I went out for the first time since my stint in the hospital for blood clots on the lungs. That sort of sounds like a rock and roll disease, doesn’t it? It’s something potentially dangerous even if in my case the drama (luckily) was more Billy Joel than Bruce Springsteen.

Anyway, a pal invited me to a party in Batavia. It is thrown by the boss of one of his lady roomies every year, a rock star party, where the guests play dress-up.

Not a big dress up guy here, and all my leather is at the cleaners, so I went as opposite of outlandish as I could come up with – that’s to say, I was Darius Rucker from Hootie and the Blowfish, in flannel shirt with golf shirt under it, and carrying a golf club.

I wanted someone to say, Isn’t the guy from Hootie black? To which I would say, No way. I’ve heard his music.

It was probably a good thing I can’t have alcohol while on my meds as I would have probably would have said something stupid drinking gives you the cover to do.

See, there was a guy there who was pretending to be Neil Young, replete with his own case of harmonicas and guitar. He rode his bicycle to the party, which made him PeeWee Young.

There was a local politician who thought he looked like Joaquin Phoenix, which mean he: A) died his hair and B) fancied himself Johnny Cash.

There were quite a few women who shopped at Lover’s Lane or Frederick’s for their outfits, including one who gave a very groupie-like beaver shot, albeit one in pantyhose.

A group of five all made their faces pasty white - Zombies I guess, or just about any English New Wave act from 25 years ago.

One guy could have either been Joey Ramone or Cher. There were a couple Blues Brothers, a bouncer who looked like Ali G, a Rob Zombie, a Slash, a Rob Halford from Judas Priest, a Joe Perry from Aerosmith (or Captain from Captain and Tennille) a Billy Idol (I think) and even somebody who was passing himself off as that American Idol cheeseball Daughtry. Come on! If you are going to be a rock star, why lower your standards so?

The host confused me. In his leather pants and blouse, was he Robert Smith of the Cure, Jim Morrison, Yanni or Kenny G?

Winner of the best effort was certainly the fake Amy Winehouse, who even bothered to have fake tattoos applied with Sharpie by her roommate and based on the body art on Winehouse spotted on the Internet. A good effort, but for the fact this woman was not anorexic and way to clean and sober to be dear old Amy.

I adapted my outfit as the night went on, removing the cap, putting the club in the car, and buttoning just the top button of my flannel to become a member of the 90s rap outfit Cypress Hill. If I had been drinking and it was warmer, the shirts would have come off to a sleeveless T, I would have donned a do-rag and been Tupac. I was in a black and proud mood.

Come to think of it, I should have worn a pink Polo and a Rolex and been Kanye. Then I could have said stupid shit all night, but laid it down with cool beats and samples.

The following evening, I attended the official Chicago opening of Jersey Boys, a musical based on the life stories of the guys in the Four Seasons.

Now I’ve always found Frankie Valli’s voice kind of grating, that wannabe black falsetto unnerving. And I never considered them rock heroes or icons.

I will grant that I Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You is a cool song, but they should never be forgiven for Oh What a Night, one of the cheesiest disco records ever made. And Valli sang the theme song for Grease, one of the scariest movies of all time, with 30 year olds still in high school.

Still, the musical was an entertaining evening, with all the necessary Jersey references in place – the bad clothing, the chops-busting humor, the f-bombs, the mobsters, the tarts, the gambling, the Italian arguments, the pre-Springsteen working class angst. Joe Pesci even plays a role in the story.

And the work inspired me to start a project for which I hope to find backers – Keep On Lovin’ You – the REO Speedwagon musical. I’ve seen the VH1 Behind the Music and the drama is there, man: how guitar hero Gary Richrath hated Kevin Cronin for turning the band from a rockin’ bar act into millionaire power ballad wussies; how good old Gary wound up on the hootch; and that the band eventually wound up working cruise ships, in true Spinal Tap fashion.

You could even throw in a rivalry with Steve Perry and Journey for good measure, but I think I want to save their story for Don’t Stop Believin’, which would end with no one singing along to that song at the Chicago White Sox World Series Victory Rally in 2005, much to the dismay of Perry.

Now I’ve done it – made my self nostalgic for a simpler time. No not the early 80s, but two years ago when the Sox paraded their trophy throughout the city.

Now the Colorado Rockies are poised to play for baseball’s championship, and they are baseball’s first openly faith-based team. Maybe it’s balance. If AJ Pierzynski can get a ring, it’s only fair that the other side gets a chance.

Cheating death, eating rat poison

So I went for a mall walk last night, feeling like a senior citizen as I tried to find one of those Medic Alert tags. I've been to Target, I've been to Walgreens, I've been a miner for a hear of gold. Oh, I tried Things Remembered on my jaunt, and they don't have them either.

I need one since I am on blood thinners and, until further notice, am a de facto hemophiliac. I am taking warfarin, a drug I read was once used as rat poison. No wonder I've been craving cheese and wanting to crawl through tight spaces.

It's weird to joke about this, as the worst I felt was what I imagine it's like to have asthma - or to have Brian Urlacher squeeze your lungs. But friends of mine have told me about people who have died from pulmonary embolisms, and there is ample proof of this on the Internet.

So right now I feel lucky and stupid at the same time. The stupid part comes from not going to the doctor sooner and for flying home, which actually could have killed me. Google "pulmonary embolism" (blood clots that decide to to travel from the legs or elsewhere, through the heart and to the lungs) and you'll find that they can be caused by sitting in the same, cramped position for several hours, say, like flying on a modern commercial airliner, where the seats and spacing are designed for the comfort of thin, 10-year-old girls, not beefy Midwesterners.

The doctors still aren't totally sure what caused me to have four such clots, two a couple weeks before the bad ones, the latter ones on my trip to Tahoe. My legs, pelvis, lungs, and even a genetic test have all been negative. I like to think, too, that exercise may have helped keep me from winding up in a morgue, but I am not sure what, if anything, I did that led to what happened.

Being raised Catholic, I do think it must be something I did, that I must have some responsibility for my ailment. But I don't smoke, have lost weight, work out and my only bad habit really is having more than two or three beers when I go out on a weekend. That has to end now, as the warfarin I am on is processed by the liver, as is booze and is Tylenol, the only pain killer I can take now. So now I am the designated driver by default, I guess.

I probably should have had more water on the plane and stretched more, but reading stories people in far better shape then me have had blood clots form on their lungs. A cousin of a friend recently died in her apartment from one, and she was a marathon runner.

The trick now is how to live within restrictions while at the same time having been given the lesson that life can end at any moment. How do you balance caution with savoring moments?

Already I have bowed out of going to meet friends at bars on two occasions, once to watch a football game, once to see a Celtic rock band. I am still sort of tired, not quite sure I want to be around smokers, and haven't had a beer in two weeks.

One nice thing, though, is a lot of buddies called or e-mailed. Not that I am going to parlay this "popularity" into a run for office, but it is a Mr. Rogers-like feeling to find out you how good your friends really are, that you matter to people. It makes me want to put on a cardigan and take a trolley to the land of make believe - or maybe that is a side effect of the drug.

I do feel hungry a lot, have a bit of cottonmouth, and have to shave with an electric razor. I bought a $70 one, which seems to take forever to do its job. Why anyone would willingly use of of these things is beyond me.

I did try to convince my doctor to give me a note claiming that my medication causes me to swear without control, but she wouldn't go for it. That could have come in handy while readjusting to the daily routine, the same old things.

Instead, I'm being even more of a smart ass lately, as things just seem slightly more absurd right now, from taking rat poison, to having that dulled sense of taste, to having my work computer writing system down for three days, to reading that metrosexuality has been replaced by menergy in the world of male fashion.

Menergy sounds like the name of a gay bar, but some idiot New York writer uses the term to mean guys who are guys, as guyish guys with facial hair, like George Clooney with a beard, are in right now, while guys who gel too much and shop at Abercrombie & Fitch are out, so to speak.

People actually care about stuff like that? What the...

I must be getting better.

Do blood clots count as vacation souvenirs?

I need someone to take my urine. And could you bring some wipes, please?

Ah, the things you hear at dinner time when you're tethered to a blood thinning drip waiting for the clots on your lungs to clear up or do whatever it is clots do when they get medicated.

I can't complain. The guy next to me has the unenviable combo of cancer AND heart disease. He's heading to the Mayo Clinic as soon as doctors think he is ready to roll.

Me, my trouble began, like a lot of people's troubles, with a vacation.

A couple weeks before I noticed a shortness of breath. And though I am not quite the cuddly lard ass I once was, I haven't been doing as much aerobic exercise as I should have been during the past summer.

So I shrugged it off to being slightly out of shape and all that fun stuff that accompanies getting older.

Then I went to Lake Tahoe to visit family. I left Chicago, it was 85 or so. On the way from Reno to the house, it flurried. Once it cleared, my twin niece and nephew wanted me to play with them on their backyard trampoline, quite possibly for the chance to see me fall on my face. And nothing is funnier at 9 than adults being clowns. It's how those Home Alone movies made all that money.

Only thing is, in less than two minutes I was winded, which isn't quite as entertaining as falling down and twisting an ankle.

No big deal, I thought. It's cold. I'm tired. I had beer. And I am a wuss.

Next day, though, the breathing thing is still an issue. Climbing stairs is an ordeal. And if you have ever been among the upper demographics of Lake Tahoe, let's just say the wooden palaces don't exactly meet Americans With Disabilities Standards for accessibility. It's all so mountain, that climbing is part of the culture, even home life.

As I was getting a cold, thanks to the OSHA violation of an office where I work, I thought this was just part of that. And there is Altitude Sickness, which makes some people light headed or breathing like porn stars in heat when they travel to places where the oxygen is thinner than a Hollywood actress. It didn't help that it was winter cold up there at night already. Or that my sister and her husband keep their spacious home at a temperature perfect for serving better wines and beers.

In hindsight, I should have called a doctor out there or gone to an ER. Then again, I am in an HMO. I could have eventually wound up in a Michael Moore movie, I thought.

Besides, it probably was ONLY bronchitis or pneumonia. And I was on a mission, invited to attend a 2-day bash at "Burly Bear's Decadent Den", which sounds like a name for a woodsy gay bar but in reality is a compound of sorts being built in a middle of nowhere by a jovial rich guy from Southern California.

It's 17 miles outside of Truckee, California, off a timberline road, which serves as a cross country and snow mobile trail in winter. Burly Bear's property can only be accessed by a Sno Cat certain times of the year, so the house he is building has a garage big enough to hold what essentially is a modified truck.

The house is going up in Coppins Meadow on a marsh. There is a small cabin the prior owner had. There is no cell phone reception. The satellite phone wasn't working too well either.

This is not Gatsby's kind of rich. Or Puff Daddy's. This is the work of West Coast types who like 70s music a lot and doing outdoor activities that eventually give them all arthritis. I heard The Best of Lynyrd Skynrd and Steve Miller Band four times each they afternoon I was on site.

Either way, it's still one of those "I am doing this because I can" things the wealthy do. Which begs the question. If you had the bucks, what would you do just because you could? Doing good doesn't count in this game. Neither does opening a bed and breakfast. Too much work.

I contemplated like a gold-bellied Buddha as I dazed off on a leather sofa in a propane heated tent, the sun beating down on it on the chilly afternoon. The furniture was brought up from one of the Burly Bear family's recently sold homes. They found migrant workers to help unload it in the middle of nowhere.

My nap gave me time to reflect on the night before, too, Part One of the Bash, a Rat Pack-themed night at the Cal-Neva Resort that Frank Sinatra once ran as his "because I can" kind of place.

We were all supposed to dress up like it was 1957, since the guest of honor was turning 50. I hate playing dress up but obliged, finding some wing tips, a pork pie hat and a gangster style golf shirt. I didn't really mind the look. Better that than say 1977 or 1982. But at least a quarter of the guests didn't oblige. I say, if you agree to go to a dress-up party, you play by the rules. You don't wear a freaking flannel shirt and boot cut jeans, just because you have our boarder dude cred to uphold with your other young friends who should NOT listen to the Grateful Dead again, EVER! Kapish?

I guess I was in a Sinatra mood.

Back to our story. The Cal-Neva resort reminds me of Floyd's, this old bar in the town where I live that gave way to a Chase, Jamba Juice, Chinese restaurant and a US Cellular outlet - at least until any or all of the above are gobbled up by AT& T.

Floyd's, I am sure wanted to be the Cal-Neva of Chicago's Northwest suburbs, back in its glory days, which were past those of of Frank Sinatra, the Kennedy Boys and Marilyn Monroe, but when people of a certain aged still wished those were the days.

That unholy trio is at the mythological core of a tour that was part of the night's festivities, a tour given several times over with slight variations by a guide who could pass for the wispy son of Vincent Price or the brother of Fred Schneider of the B-52s. Remember him? "When you see a big sign on the side of the road...love shack baby."

Well Fred's bro showed us some love shacks, three small cabins near the Lake Tahoe shore which made you realize that celebritries were shrimps 50 some years ago, and that big egos didn't always demand big quarters. We got to visit cabin 5, which apparently was where SInatra slept in a room he insisted be painted orange to match his orange luggage (and I am not making that up, though the guide might have been). The Kennedys took turns using Cabin 4. And they all took turns visiting Cabin 5, which is where Marilyn Monroe and her orbs frequented.

The guide claimed that the orbs are still with us, and if you remember Monroe that would be hard to dispute. Of course, since he didn't seem to have any interest in breasts, the orbs to which he referred were those super spooky ghoslty kind like you see on a Scooby Doo episode. Orbs apparently ruin film and even digital images of anyone shooting in Monroe's old haunt.

Thinking back, maybe I got an orb on my lung. I will have to ask the doctors.

Anyway, we also got to visit the tunnel system under the resort, which allowed unnoticed nocturnal visits of all sorts, and a way for mobsters to ditch out if the feds showed up. What a pian in the ass it must be to be a goombah - running like a rat through tunnels, And they had to sit off the catwalk in the theater from which they would make their way to a helipad on the roof (cuz nobody is going to spot a helicopter). And they had to put up with Sinatra and his orange luggage. And help drag drunk, passed out Dean Martin out of an upstairs dressing room on an unhinged door.

Yeah, Fred's brother had some doozies. He saved his most dramatic for last, telling us of a BBC documentary being taped in the resort's theater, where spirits told a psychic in the language of the Washoe Indians, "Whitey, get your pale asses off our sacred land." I took this to mean that someone saw Poltergeist.

If that weren't enough to make you crap your flat front trousers, there was the time an accountant working late one night felt an eerie presence. So he takes a walk to the stage and feels a spirit pass through him, which sounds pretty kinky by CPA standards. Luckily the guy had his cell cam with him and snapped off some photos.

Apparently is wasn't a spirit but a disease of some sort as the guy died a few days later. But Vincent Junior had the photographic evidence to show us, blurry photos of a marshmallowy Sasquatch, who may have been upset after once hearing the night's entertainment, the Dean-aholics, a tribute band featuring a faux Dean Martin who looked nothing like Dean, a Sinatra who looked like the son of the son of Frank Sinatra, Jr. and who sang that many generations out of phase with the music, a Sammy Davis who looked like Nipsey Russell or Huggy Bear, and a woman in a cocktail dress, replete with a giant martini olive on her cleavage.

Still shaking from all of this (or was it that the place is damn drafty and that it snowed), after the tour, a woman notice a black and white photo of cheesy comic Joey Bishop and started telling everyone who would listen (AKA me) the Bishop forced her into her first French kiss. She was in her teens at show in Vegas with her parents. Bishop spotted her, came over to the table and puts his tongue in her mouth. Google photos of Joey Bishop. Now go to the bathroom and vomit.

Keeping with the fright night theme, a guy at the party's bar told of what happened on his drive up from Southern California. He noticed an odd noise coming from his wheel well somewhere near Sacramento, pulled over, checked his tires and learned he and his family drove all the way with just one lug nut holding on one of the tires and the nuts on the others stripped.

Then, in the middle of this tale, he looks at my spangly-dressed sister and goes, "My God! You're beautiful!"

Which brings us back to me napping at the compound. I planned to mill about and collect stories, like frozen butterflies. I met a guy whom I later learned made his multi-millions inventing the glare screen for computers. He was all excited and wanted to bring in in more earth moving equipment, because that's his rich guy "because I can" thing I guessed - and to turn the marsh into a lake.

The caterers were called Twin Peaks. There were dirt bikers and theater people and kids with really shitty long haircuts. A really quiet guy mentioned he just got out of the Marines and had a tour of duty in Iraq. There were theater people who liked the aforementioned 70s music, for which I derided them.

Then the caterers finally got around to serving a myriad course dinner in a propane heated tent. Then it got really fucking cold. I swear because that happens when you try to make your way to the bathroom in the frost-breath air. Those are the words that crystalize the moment.

And I was leaning up against a tree like a wounded puppy when one of the prettiest women at the soiree, one of those wholesome, blonde, big eyed, baby-faced mom types, came up and offered breathing lessons. Mr. Smart Ass here couldn't find anything funny to say. Hyperventilating doesn't lend itself to one-liners, but a sort of vague embarassment.

I drove back to my sister's house, pretty much almost proving my own point about one of the big drawbacks of hanging out at a place where there is no communication available with the outside world. Unless, of course, the guy with the helicopter the next lot over happened to be home.

Anyway, that's when I was pretty much sure this might be more than a really bad cold, maybe even a rare fungus picked up on flights filled with people wearing no socks, flip flops and tank tops, or having no sense of personal space.

The lungs didn't work any better at sea level, as we drove to the Bay Area in a rented RV on Sunday so the kids could spring break with Mom and Dad in Big Sur. I flew home - in West Coast family tradition just getting to the gate in time for boarding (which is really fun when wheezing).

Tuesday I headed to the doctor, got some tests (apparently including one to see how much of The Maury Povich Show you can tolerate while waiting for lab results), and wound up being told not to leave, to check into the health hotel.

I should this print this out, because I've been asked the same questions over and over. It's like they are trying to see if I change my story, that I will break down and confess to smoking 27 packs of cigarettes a day while working behind a desk in a garage.

You'd think they would all have Macs for Docs or some sort of PDA by now and could drill beyond the basics like on the cool med shows, trying to outdo each other like on House or to screw each other like on Grey's Anatomy.

Instead, a woman who said she was my case manager woke me up before 8 a.m. today to ask if I lived independently and if I used a cane. That's all she wanted to know.

I'm hoping she had the wrong room. Do I look that old? Could being single and walking on my own be the keys to understanding my ailment, the cause of blood clots, two for each lung, a set of big new ones, a tiny set of old ones?

Stay tuned.