Musings of Two Creative Minds

  Recently I had a rather loud and unexpected reminder from life, that I am physically not the same person I was 10 years ago. I'm not saying that old age is catching up to me, although it does give me the occasional reminders that many of us experience (like your body sounding like a bowl of Rice Krispies when you get up in the morning). No, the incident I'm talking about was a very loud and frightening reminder to me that I am disabled. Now when I say it was frightening, I am mainly talking about everyone else around me. In my case it came more as a shock and a nasty surprise. You see, I was seated and began leaning over to grab something that was off to my side and slightly behind me when the wooden chair (well it was actually a wooden bench we have in the dining area) I was on tipped over. And yes, I went down with it. LUCKILY, I had enough presence of mind to stretch out my hands and arms at shoulder height to break most of my fall. I didn't even wind up slamming into ...

Hello everyone, and welcome to my first blog post for 2025. I know it's been a while since I last posted anything on this blog, but as the title of this entry says... life and reality has REALLY been demanding so much of my time and energies.  And since it's been so long since my last post, let me quickly recap where I left off... I had located the crystal ball my wife gave me for my birthday many years ago and was contemplating looking into it to see if a wheelchair might be in my future due to my continuing leg and back issues. Well, here's the real-life answer as to that question... So yeah... this has come to pass. Mind you, I am getting used to it. Plus, I'm not in the chair all that often. I mostly use it on long outings and excursions with family and friends. (Sadly, for me these days a long outing lasts more than 15 minutes on my feet for the most part before the pain and numbing of my hips/legs/and feet become intolerable). Still, I really like being able to be...

 ... because you might just get it. So, after all my talk and posting about finding a crystal ball... well...um... Ah, the photo pretty much tells you what happened.  Now to be honest, I've had this crystal ball for years. Helen got it for me long before we got married, and we exchanged our vows 35 years ago. (Go us!) But I'd lost track of it some time ago, and I literally just ran across it in one of our boxes in storage. Upon spotting it, I just had to pull it out, cleaned and dusted it, and now it is currently sitting on my desk. "So? Did you look into it or not?" I hear some of you ask. Or maybe that's just the voices in my head, and believe me, as a voice-actor I've got a LOT of them. The answer is... I'm thinking about it. Why haven't I done it already? Well, I got kind of side-tracked wondering what would my characters do? See how I slipped the topic of writing into this entry?  Although to be honest, I have had one of my characters actually wei...

Those of you who have been following this blog (especially in the last couple of months) will be familiar with this image and the snippet of the song it comes from... "I wonder what tomorrow has in mind for me. Or am I even in its mind at all? Perhaps I'll get a chance to look ahead and see. Soon as I find myself a crystal ball..." - From Styx album "Crystal Ball" ...and my worries that if I did find a crystal ball and gazed into it, I might find a wheelchair staring back at me. Well, after being examined by a 2nd neurologist, and the results of another MRI of my cervical spine and head, the doctors have ruled out Multiple Sclerosis, Lou Gehrig Disease, cancer and a host of other worrisome possibilities. So, what was causing all my problems? Myelopathy which is caused by some kind compression on the spinal cord itself, inside the spinal column. In my case, the compression is happening in the cervical region (neck), and yes pressure on the spinal cord in that are...

I know I've been quiet again, but with good reason. I won't go into great detail but will give you all a quick overview. In the last few years, I've been having greater and greater difficulties with pain, mobility and balance in the lower half of my body. The main cause for all of this is still being investigated by my doctors, including neurologists. And although one explanation seems likely, I am not going to say anything until we finally get a concrete diagnosis. Naturally, I've been finding the prospect of not being able to get around on my own legs very unsettling and upsetting. Mostly because I only recently turned 60. I wasn't expecting to have problems like this until much later in my life. I certainly did not expect to start having problems beginning in my mid-50's, which is when this all began.  Anyway, as things have gotten progressively worse, I find myself dwelling on an old Styx song called "Crystal Ball", from the album of the same title...

Hello everyone. I had been planning and hoping to start out this blog post with me being all... But then Monday happened, and I wound up feeling like... Here's what's been happening around here for the last few months (well more like for the last year). You see, part of the reason (well a very big reason actually) why I haven't been posting a lot in the last year is because I developed some health issues. Nothing life-threatening, mind you, but life altering. Keeping a long story short, as of May I had to leave my job at the county of Santa Cruz and take Disability Retirement.   Now this whole process has been ongoing since September of last year and now it's officially a year later, come to think of it. But throughout that time, I had a lot of doctor appointments, as well as dealing with a lot of stressful paperwork, which included short-term disability (which will be coming to an end this month). During my last meeting with my doctor, she noted my condition that led t...