This has been a bit of a rough week. My uncle had a massive heart attack and died on Saturday morning. It was a horrible experience, and I'm not going to recount the details (for everyone's sake). Today one of my best friends from college told me that his brother's fiancee died as well. She had been in critical condition for a while, since her chemotherapy treatment destroyed her lungs and her heart.

So there's a lot more death to deal with, a little over a month after my dad's death. I'm heading to Oklahoma tomorrow for my uncle's funeral. I believe it will be the day before Thanksgiving.

I really hope things improve in the near future. This is all a bit much for me to take...

Recently, whilst browsing through a local bookstore, I noticed a book entitled FU, Penguin: Telling Cute Animals What’s What, by Matthew Gasteier. Intrigued, I picked up the book and was instantly drawn into the central thesis: cute, cuddly animals are taking liberties with our money, our hearts, and our time. Gasteier’s intelligently-crafted tome of knowledge features fake charts, which illustrate the author’s 10-20 hours of research on the subject. Further, the author presents interesting truthfacts, proving (scientifically and biologically) that these “cute” animals are, in reality, cold-hearted thieves; attempting to make themselves god-kings of humanity through their inherent “cuteness” and their incessant need to dominate the economic and public spheres of human life.

In his manifesto, Gasteier provides a deeply personal account of his own desire to surround himself with these animals, their pictures, merchandising, internet memes and Hollywood whoredom. Gasteier’s pain is shared by countless millions who, in their ignorance, do not comprehend the sinister nature of these beasts due to their masterful marketing and public relations liaisons. Yet through Gasteier’s tale of sorrow and personal tragedy, I have learned that cute, cuddly animals are anything but what they appear. I, too, know the shame of loving cute, cuddly animals to the point that my obsession began to control all facets of my life. My personal mission is to disseminate the knowledge contained in FU, Penguin to the unwashed masses.
The word MUST be spread, before these “animals” ruin more lives. I have it on good authority (a vagrant with auditory and visual hallucinations brought upon by chronic, unmedicated schizophrenia), that these foul creatures were the true impetus for both the US housing market’s subprime crash, as well as the current economic downturn. This gentleman also hinted that these animals were the true criminal masterminds behind the savings and loans scandal in the 1980’s and the 1990’s. This means that sleeper cells of cute, cuddly animals have actively committed acts of domestic economic terrorism for almost 30 years.

While the animal bastards laugh and lay waste to our world, those unfortunate souls held “accountable” for these crises pay dearly. Taking into account the disastrous effects of fundamental attribution error, with special attention paid to the salience of the actors themselves, it is likely that such individuals who were “directly involved” in these scandals and mishaps had been drawn into a Hellstorm of bad decisions, flailing madly in a world gone mad with cute animal worship.

This fascist juggernaut must be stopped! The best way to inform the masses is to spread the word, person by person, state by state, and country by country; until one day, the world, united under a common threat, stands together and says: “F*&# You, Penguin!”

If you would like to join the cause, please visit the following website: http://www.fupenguin.com/ Spread the word, so that others may see the truth. Be a revolutionary from your own living room.

Thank you,
-Mike Steinhour (and Vagrant)

New Picture? Like it? Guess who I'm going as for Halloween?

Updates to follow soon.

Recently, as a tribute to my father, I have been searching for a way to combine my interests with my father's legacy of philanthropy. Thanks to some input from Denny, I believe I have found a cause: I am going to plan a charity zombie walk in the Lafayette/ West Lafayette, IN area. I have a thousand ideas in mind, but now comes the difficult part: the actual planning. I need to form a committee, but I always fear committees--what if I am displaced as the organizer, and the charity angle is lost. This fear likely comes from always being picked last at sports as a child. I do not wish to sound petty, but this is my idea and my chance to make a difference. I do not wish to turn away helpful individuals, but I also do want to see my vision of this event come to life.

I'm not sure how to go about asserting control (as it were) in a situation such as this. Do I sound like an ass, or am I just being paranoid?

I'm home alone today. This is the first time since my father's death that I am home alone, and not on the phone, calling or texting anyone and everyone I know. I slept in as long as humanly possible, and now I am awake, planning some projects and wondering how today will go. Thus far it has been pretty shitty, and I've been awake a whole 25 minutes.

I don't know how I'll make it here until Friday at this point.

Fucking Hell...

Update: I made it at home for almost three hours. I clipped all the obits and op eds from the local papers. I am headed to Lincoln to mount them and laminate the pages. Why is there never any fucking double-sided tape or a glue stick when one actually needs them?

As a self-proclaimed zombie expert, I claim to possess the knowledge required to survive in a world over-run with the undead. Yet the past couple of nights I have sat in my driveway, in a lawn chair, drinking a couple of beers and listening to my iPod. This is not a good way to stay alert, and alive in a world filled with zombies.

Lucky for me there were no zombies nearby, but I spent much of my time looking over my shoulder, actually afraid that there could be a lone zombie out there, searching for a meal. The longer I was outside, the more paranoid I became. Eventually I packed up and rushed into the garage, looking over my shoulder multiple times.

It seems as though my irrational fear of zombies has resurfaced. I think all of this death stuff may be getting to me a bit..

Since my father's passing, I fear that my apparent lack of grief is indicative of my cold, emotionless nature. As my family weeps around me, I feel calm and peaceful. I know that my father is in a better place, far beyond pain, suffering, and the pettiness of others. I believed there was something wrong with me for not feeling utterly destroyed. Sometimes I even forget he is gone. Not one day has passed where I haven't thought: "I should call dad," or "I can't wait to tell dad about ______."

Right now I am sad, and I do miss my father dearly, but he would not want to see me giving up and hiding just because he died. Rather, he would want me to do everything in my power to be the best man I can be.

Tonight, while talking to an old friend, I realized why I do not appear to be grieving. It seems so simple now, but realizations such as this only come with time. Rather than wasting my time being depressed, I am using my grief to fuel good deeds for family and friends. I am sad, but I talk to my father all the time, and I ask him how I'm doing. You see, ina sense, I am my father. I'm taking over the emotional and instrumental needs of loved ones just like my father used to. By continuing to live my life the way my father lived his life, I am continuing his legacy. Just like how religion is supposed to provide guidance through words and these words are supposed to inspire actions, I am living my father's life, rather than just providing a eulogy and then going back to the way I lived before he died. So I realized that I AM grieving, but I call it positive grieving--using the grief to better the lives of others, following in my father's footsteps and living my life in the name of my father.

The application of this new point of view will help me to grow as a man, and as a person. I will walk in my fathers footsteps, and should I falter, his spirit will be there to guide me.

I do need to finish my "official" record of how I reached the point on which I stand today, but tonight I wish to share something extrememly personal to me: the eulogy I wrote for my father. For those of you who know me on Facebook, you may have already seen this, but I want to share the memories of my father with as diverse of an audience as possible.

For my Father, Terry Steinhour

When I was asked to say a few words about my father, I realize that I could keep everyone in this room enraptured for days. However my father was a modest man, who was never boastful, nor was he prone to talking himself up to the masses, so I decided to keep my comments brief, out of respect for him. Although my father would never claim so, he was a great man. Everyone in this room is a testament to his greatness. He was an attentive father and grandfather, a loving husband, a grateful son and a wonderful brother. Outside of his immediate family life, my father was friend to a great many, a political activist, an Abraham Lincoln scholar, a member of too many boards to count, a true philanthropist, and a staunch supporter of the New York Yankees. From the baseball cards he collected as a child (and many as an adult), to the nights spent listening to the Yankee Radio Network on the AM station at home or in the car, he was a Yankee fan tried and true. Even when we could only make out every fourth word from the announcer over the static, my father would smile and say: "we can still hear the Yankees winning." Who could argue with his logic? As any sports lover, my father had a few favorite players; among them were Mickey Mantle, Don Mattingly, and of course Yogi Berra, who is best known for Yogi-isms--his words of wisdom. One particular Yogi-ism that my father always loved was: "wherever you go, there you are." In his life, my father traveled to a great many places; locally, nationally and globally. On each trip he made new friends, touched countless lives and strove to improve the lives of those with whom he came into contact. From local projects to global endeavors my father's energy and zest for friendship, life and philanthropy never ceased. In closing, I would like to apply the words of Yogi Berra to my father's life: "dad, you've been everywhere, and there you are--in the hearts, souls and thoughts of all those whose lives you've touched.


After many tries, this was written an hour before the funeral, but I believe that it simply took me that long to come up with a tribute to him. He will be greatly missed, but he is still with me, forever and ever, Amen.

Note: This will be a difficult post to read, as it is brutally honest, and unadulterated. This is the first post (sadly) in a series of posts in which I attempt to disentangle the clusterfuck that is my current life. This is as much a historical record as it is a memoir of this period of my life, and since I have to post it all from my Blackberry (no Internet at home, but dial-up), I cannot use an LJ cut, so apologies to all my LJ friends. If anyone wishes to just know what happened, just skip to the end. If anyone reads the entire post, I am grateful. As I said, this is my personal record of the night my father died, and the events of the next day.

It has been a week and a day since my father died in a farming-related accident. In that time, I have attended a wake, standing next to my father's body--complete with a metal chest plate (visible through his suit) that feebly attempted to re-create him torso after it was crushed my a 4000 pound tractor, I gave a my father's eulogy to a packed church (with extra mourners seated in an overflow annex), I carried my father's body to a hearse and to his burial site, I heard, "I'm so sorry for your loss" 500 times (at least), I touched the tractor that took his life, and I have dealt with family issues such as being written out of my grandmother's will (she is my favorite living relative), currently fighting to keep my family from placing my grandmother in a home because she has become a "burden" since my father is no longer alive to take care of her home/farm/doctor's appointments, and planning my own will, power of attorney and living will in secret (my living family, with possibly the exception of my brother, will not grace any of these documents.

So where shall I begin? I will make individual posts about each of the afore mentioned "issues," not to seek sympathy, but simply to attempt to deal with life-shattering changes. These posts will begin tomorrow, and continue for as long as I require the brief moments of catharsis they provide.

That being said, I would like to thank all of my LJ friends who have offered their support in this horrific time. Your support means more than you can possibly imagine.

So where to begin tonight? I don't sleep, so I have time to spare here.

I guess I could begin with my thanks for the emotional numbness that has taken over my life. You know apathy? Well this is apathy on PCP. I simply don't feel anything right now. This is likely why I can now begin to discuss what has happened. Feeling nothing at all is one of the most miraculous blessings I've had thus far.

I guess we'll begin at the beginning. Wednesday, October 7, 2009, 9:39 PM. My phone rings while I am in the shower after a long day on campus. Once I am dry, I find out that my brother called. I've had one of those days where "a pervasive feeling of impending doom" was the order of the day. By the time I have put on my underwear and a shirt, I call him back. The conversation is as follows:

Mark: "Hey bro, you need to get your shit together and head back to I'll, Dad passed away tonight."

Me: (After a few moments of silence): "Don't fuck with me."

Mark (Through tears): "I'm not kidding. You need to head home. There was a farm accident. Chris and I are leaving Arizona first thing in the morning."

Me: (Stunned silence.) "I'll call mom in a few and head home."

Shaking violently, I sit down. My first call is to my major professor. It goes straight to voicemail. Another immediate attempt. I know that I must get more time off (after my 2 weeks of illness), so I begin writing her an e-mail. The title is: This is difficult to say over e-mail." The message is as follows:

"My dad just died a few minutes ago. My brother was on the phone with my
grandmother when they got the news. Apparently his tractor flipped over while he was mowing a field. That is all I know right now. I will be heading home very soon--if not tonight then tomorrow. My mother is a wreck, and I only know that because my brother called her and said she wasn't making any sense. I'm not going to call her, as she just now got to the hospital. I think she may have to identify the...well, you know.

I'll keep you posted."

I send a Blackberry message to one friend. As soon as it is off, my major professor calls. She tells me she is sorry, and I detect panic in her voice. She tells me to pack up whatever I need for the night and head to her place. I'll be sleeping on the futons with three dogs because I am not allowed to be at home alone.

I hang up and pace my apartment. I feel as if I'm walking through water, and I begin to sweat profusely. My phone rings, and I see that my mother is calling. I pick up the phone to hear wailing, babbling, and a few sentence fragments. I am to come home in the morning. She says something about 10 missed calls and being in a school meeting. Then something about the Chaplain and she has to go.

I grab a few pointless items, like my laptop, and then my pillow, my meds, and, for some reason a granola bar. I head to my MP's home and she gives me a huge hug. There are tears in her eyes. She asks about e-mailing the research group. I say fine, but no one is to tell anyone until noon the next day, so that I can escape Purdue before anyone knows the news. We talk about my plans and she says I cannot drive myself home. She will take me and stay a day or two. While she cancels 5 meetings by e-mail, Abby (a research group member) calls me. we talk for about 5 minutes, but I don't know what I said. Shock has already set in and I feel rigor setting into my extremities. I begin to pace the room.

My best friend calls, and when I tell him, he is blown away. He and I talk for a bit, and then my MP and her husband try to find flights home for my brother. Her husband talks one airline down almost $300 per ticket, but my SIL and my nephew are coming, so we scrap the airline deal.

My mother calls again and I tell her about me coming home. She speaks slowly, without emotion. Two friends are driving her home and will stay the night.

My MP asks if she can tell a few key persons why she is canceling multiple important meetings in the dept. (One with Merril Silvertein, who is the new editor of a flagship journal and a personal friend). I agree and the walk around the block a few times, talking to Denny. Eventually I have a beer with my old roommate on the porch of my old place. I am a bit less numb and we joke around for a bit. I drink another beer and talk to Denny until 2 AM.

After I hang up, I know sleep will elude me, so I text my closest friends and ask them to keep it quiet, but say that I want them to hear it from me first. Then I Facebook message the friends who are out of the country, and a few whom I did not text. I go to bed at 4, sleeping a few hours, and then my MP and I walk the dogs, I pack up way too much junk and she drives me home.

It is raining and she is a careful driver, so the trip takes 6 hours--not the usual 3.5. We talk about my father, what I will say in my eulogy, and what needs to be taken care of immediately, and in the near future. On the way home, my mother calls 4 times, each time a little more coherent. My brother calls three times, and I receive almost 100 texts, calls, and Facebook messages. This is enough to kill the battery on my phone.

Once I arrive at home, my aunt, and my cousin are there. My MP goes into deflection mode and greets everyone saying, "Hi I'm Jill, Mike's mentor. I don't usually do this, but Mike is family." When my grandmother arrives from picking up my uncle, my MP gives my grandmother a huge hug, and keeps the relatives from mobbing me.

We all sit around, trying to calm my mother down, and try to convince her to take the sedatives the doctors gave her, but she is vehemently opposed. She demands we go shopping in Springfield, so we go and I pick out a suit coat, a shirt and a tie to wear to the wake and the funeral. (Ex)Departmental Crush calls while I am trying on suit coats, and she is upset that I did not tell her about my father. Nor angry, mind you, just hurt because she was not told by me. Whatever, her father was still alive, so I kept the conversation short.

Once we get home, my mother eventually passes out; not having slept or eaten for a day and a half. Prior to this, she was obsessively cleaning things, reorganizing the house and talking constantly.

When everyone else is asleep, my MP asks me how I am doing. I tell her I am fine. I have accepted my father's death, there is nothing I can do to change it, I have no regrets, and he is in a better place and is not in any pain. She appears shocked by my calmness, but I am serious.

At 2 AM I go to sleep, and I have a dream that I am a paramedic. I am zipping up my father into a body bag. I wake up at 5 AM, covered in sweat and crying. When I check my cell phone, there are 12 texts and 20 Facebook messages. I had put up an ambiguous status, to mask what had happened: "I'm just going to sit here quietly for a while."

The story we hear is that my father was in a tractor, carrying two large round hay bales, one on the front and one on the back of the tractor...at night. This is something that is never to be done, as it is extremely dangerous. When he was going down a hill (less than a quarter of a mile from home), the front bale slipped off of the bale hook, the tractor's front wheels leave the ground due to the sudden weight shift, and the tractor ramps the bale which had fallen onto the road. The tractor slips off the bale to the left and rolls into the ditch, crushing my father. As it turns out, the steering wheel landed on his chest, crushing his sternum with over 4000 pounds of force, killing him. He was found between 5 and 15 minutes later. Since there were no witnesses, this is as close to an accurate representation of the events as we will ever get.

The 2 hour wake for my father actually lasted 4 hours today, which I believe to be a testament to who my father is and what he means to those he knew.

Today was the worst day of my life thus far, but I made it through. Seeing my father in a casket was all but unbearable. He didn't look natural in any way, shape or form. I was sick to my stomach the entire time, and I assume that the memory of today will undoubtedly cause my stomach to churn for years to come.

Tomorrow is the funeral and I believe it will be as bad, if not worse than today. Once 5 PM arrives, the worst public part of this tragedy will be behind me.

I thank you all for your kind words and support. Let's hope that the rest of this year is better than the beginning.

I have not been on here for a week, but I have been dealing with a family crisis.  In fact, I wanted to give everyone a brief update.  My father was killed in a farm-related accident on Wednesday of this past week.    I am at home for the next two weeks to take care of my mother and my grandmother (even if my mother is extremely resistant).  Right now I am in a private Hell, as (obviously) when a father dies in an accident no one has the time to prepare.  Tomorrow is the wake and Monday is the actual funeral.  I am dealing as well as I can, but I will have to update you all later.  I am okay (as okay as anyone can be in this situation), but I am also dealing with a lot of family issues right now.  I will end up posting multiple times about this, but right now I am drunk as shit, the night before the wake, and I have to be at the funeral home in 11 hours.  Thank you  Denny.  You are the Calvin to my Klein. 

I've been here too long, and I need to go outside.  I feel as if I am almost well enough to go back to school, but I am following instructions and staying inside until I am completely well.  I've heard from a few friends, but I am bored as shit.  There's no other way to put it.  Maybe later I'll try to sneak away and go to Target or something...

I recall reading Henry David Thoreau's Walden for a book report at some point in college.  I quite enjoyed the book, until I about three quarters of the way through.  I believe that was the point where the book changed from a celebration of nature and its wonder to a discussion of how rabbits and small woodland creatures were his "friends."  These discussions continued until the end of the book.  I believe that towards the end, his work began to show the effects of long-term isolation on a man's mental stability.  I know this is no new claim, as I'm sure I heard it somewhere before, but I believe I am experiencing some of the same effects on my personality after a much shorter period of isolation.

Dear Readers, I am a social person who thrives on social interaction, much as a plant thrives in fertile soil.  Right now my fertile soil has mostly been stripped away.  Phone calls do not really count as interaction in my book, and even though I am not  contagious, I will likely have few visitors in the next couple of days.  Today my friend Kimber came by to drop off NCIS season 2, and she hung out for a while.  Our interactions were somewhat awkward (on my part) because I have not been around people much over the past week.  This afternoon I discussed politics with my tea kettle, and I might have talked to my remote a time or two.  My closest friends know that social interactions are important to me, but there is little they can do to keep me sane at the moment.  

I wonder what inanimate objects I'll talk to tomorrow.  I should think up some interesting conversation starters and see where that takes me.   

I just wanted to post some birthday wishes to one of my LJ friends. kat_nic I hope you are having a wonderful day!  It would be nice if you were able to have a day off from work (please tell me this is so!) 

Today I was urged to go to the doctor (by my major professor) because I told her I was still feeling pretty crappy.  I went to the student health center, and after waiting an hour and a half, they told me they couldn't help me.  I was told to go to the ER, which was not what I wanted to hear.   But since I care about my health and all that, I went to the ER, where I endured about 4.5 hours of examinations.  I had X-rays, seven vials of blood drawn, my vitals taken three times, along with an EKG.  At the end of the night, they told me that all signs of bronchitis are gone, but since I still feel exhausted and cannot breathe well, I must still be sick.  (Honestly is this what I'm paying them for?)  The final verdict was that they have no idea what is wrong with me, but I should spend 3-4 days resting and doing nothing. 

I'm glad I'm not dying, but what is the deal with doctors never being able to give me a straight answer when I'm sick?  I'm sure this will be another $1000-$1200 expenditure.

I ended up going to urgent care today because I feel worse than I have at any other time in this current "sickness" business.  I had my blood oxygen levels checked, a chest x-ray taken, and as it turns out, they do not think I have pneumonia...but they can't tell me what's going on.  This seems to be a common trend with doctors. 

So now I have to take an oral steroid, on top of my Z-Pack, and my albuterol inhaler.  Overall, this seems to me like a huge waste of my time.  I cannot even count the number of pills I take each day.  I hope to get better soon, as I've been told to not really work again this weekend.  After not working for days on end, I have realized that I cannot possibly catch up on my transcribing--as I was doing as much as I could before I became sick.

*sigh*

No.  Do-overs are cheating.  There is no reset button on life.  Sure I've made mistakes, but if I could do-over any period of time, I'd probably screw something up that I got right the first time.  So no, let's keep things the way they are, and I'll make the best of every day.

Today a friend issued a challenge to me to see how long I could avoid Facebook.  Since I work all the time alone in an office, I spend many hours just watching other people live their lives through their status feeds.  Now I have to stay away from my favorite online hangout for at least 48 hours.  I have to break her record.  If I win, I not only get a free beer, but I also get the experience of emerging from a challenge victorious.  This is going to be a rough two days, especially since my illness has me quarantined until 11 AM tomorrow.

Wish me luck.  I'll be a winner yet!    

I went to the doctor today to have a checkup about my new medication.  She heard me cough and asked if she could check out my airway.  I've had a severe cough for 2 days now, but I always get one int he Fall and it doesn't end until the first killing frost.  As it turns out, I have a severe case of asthmatic bronchitis, and I might have had asthma for years.  Now I'm on a Z-Pack and an Albuterol inhaler, and I've been quarantined for the next 48 hours.  I guess there's a bright side to all of this--I'm not able to do any work due to the confidential nature of the interviews I'm transcribing, so I have a free pass to watch movies and TV for the next two days.  I picked up Season 5 of Family Guy, so at least I have something to keep me company.

Thanks everyone for your well-wishes.  The crisis has been resolved with only mild negative outcomes, most notably my losing about 5-7 pounds in three days because I couldn't eat or sleep.  I constantly felt a pain in my stomach and an all-encompassing sense of dread about each passing moment. 

Needless to say, my date for Rosh Hashanna said something that incited a minor family trauma, and caused the breakup of a relationship.  In the three days that followed, the relationship has been (temporarily) mended, but she also damaged the credibility I have spent over a year attempting to mend since my return to Purdue.  Today my major professor pulled me aside after our monthly group meeting and said, "Are you okay?   You look like shit."  I then explained to her that I was unable to sleep or eat because I was worried about the events which transpired at Rosh Hashanah.  She explained to me that there was a lot of blame to go around for that event, but very little of it was mine.  She understood that the entire fiasco was a clusterfuck, and that I had no reason to worry.  Since she had not been in contact with me since the incident, and I had assumed she placed much of the blame on me.  You see, I have learned from her that if anyone messes with her family or her trust, they will be summarily dismissed...permanently.  

My agitation may seem misplaced, but you must remember that when I left Purdue, I caused serious damage to my major professor and to the group members as a "going away present."  Even though I caused much strife, my major professor allowed me to come back to finish my PhD, on the grounds that I NEVER betray her trust again.  I felt as though this event might have been enough for me to lose her support.  The ripple effect of the evening held the potential to destroy me.  I am not trying to sound melodramatic here, but I speak the truth.  

Thankfully the issue has been somewhat resolved.  There is little else I could do but go home and force myself to eat.  My stomach is still off, but it appears that Provigil (the narcolepsy drug I am on) causes anorexia in a small percentage of people.  I believe I may be in that small percentage.  Each time I put food in my mouth, my stomach roils, causing me to almost gag.  As I chew the food, I feel bile rising in the back of my throat, and after I eat, I feel very ill for a short period.  These effects lead to me not wanting to eat often.  But I guess I'll just keep on trying.