This is an excerpt from a journal I'm keeping between now and the New York Marathon. Its been a while since I posted anything new on Sloanthology and I figured I'd put up a quick journal entry I wrote. Enjoy

May 10, 2010

I told you I’d forget. Well, at least I meant to tell you that I’d forget, but I think I forgot to do that too. Anyway, I forgot about adding more entries to this “Journey to The New York Marathon/Do I have a Heart Condition/Disease? Journal,” the last few days.

Updates? Sure.

Today I woke up and it felt like I held my breath all night again. Sometimes I’ll wake up and my head hurts because I breathe inconsistently when I sleep. They call it sleep apnaea –I’m not sure if that’s how you spell it – and I was diagnosed with it when I was almost ten years younger and at least seventy pounds heavier. (I also had tonsils at that time, which were later removed in an effort to alleviate the difficulties brought on by said condition). I would think after losing a significant amount of weight, quitting smoking, quitting drinking, and having my tonsils removed that any obstructed air paths would be only be brought about by food that I had eaten too fast or drinks that “went down the wrong tube.” However, I still have mornings like today’s when I wake up with a big gasp as if I had just broken the surface of the YMCA pool after challenging all my friends to a “who can stay under the longest,” contest.

This morning, however, was a little different. I sprawled out on the couch after a few minutes of stumbling sleepily between our room and the living room. My heart rate had begun to accelerate noticeably. The breath in my lungs was cold and my chest ached mildly. I decided not to freak out, but sit still and watch SpongeBob with Taylor. My hand rested in a pledge of allegiance position, feeling the pace of my heartbeat eventually slow to it’s normally low 46 beats per minute while Mr. Krab’s decided that The Krabby Patty restaurant would make more money by being open 24 hours – much to Squidwerd’s chagrin and Spongebob’s delight.

After a few minutes, everything returned to normal and I was ready to start the day.

It is weird and probably abnormal, but I can assure that it sounds a lot worse than it is. I’ve dealt with a version of that feeling off and on for the last four years (I can say “four years” because in the years prior I’m sure that those elements were there when I would wake up, but they were typically accompanied with a symptom-covering hangover).

Anyway, even though it has been almost a week since my last entry, I don’t feel like writing a whole catch-up story right now. However, I will throw down a brief summary. The latest on the marathon and heart mystery front is this: I’ll see the cardiologist on Monday to find out what is going on and if I can be cleared to run/train for the marathon, my ankle is still a little tender so the time off is probably a good thing, the job hasn’t changed so Saturday long runs will be out of the question for a while. Despite these challenges (and a few other small ones), my life is full of incredibly supportive people and my attitude remains unhindered. I know that everything is going to be fine. I will be at the start of that race in New York this November.

Count on it.

Switch

Part Two

As expected, Lynn Lee and The Spastic Sirens played an amazing show. The instrumentals were dead on and the crowd fell even more in love with the woman they came to see. Throughout the set, Lynn Lee effortlessly commanded the attention of the entire venue.

At one moment between songs, she was explaining how it felt to be liberated from a toxic relationship - which made me wonder if she knew I was there - and some drunken concertgoer yelled, “Shut up and play!” The crowd booed loudly and the people nearby began pushing and swinging at him. Lynn shrieked like a wild animal and dove fearlessly into the crowd. The sea of loyal followers made way submissively, allowing her to quickly get to the heckler and beat the shit out of him with her microphone. The scuffle ended with Lynn jumping back on stage and two large bouncers dragging the bloodied shit-talker outside. The crowd cheered as their rock goddess took a bow and said, “Fuck that guy,” just before the opening riff to their newest song, aptly titled, “Picking Fights.”

At the end of the show, the band stood together and graciously applauded the audience before staggering off the stage. They had played their asses off. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t equally amazed and envious. Despite our little tours and handfuls of groupies, the band I was in never played shows like that – not at that level of intensity or to that large, or devoted a crowd. Lynn Lee and The Spastic Sirens were clearly a force to be reckoned with and I was not ready to interview them.

The gravity of the situation finally hit me full force.

My hands began to shake as I glanced around nervously. My eyes wildly darted around the venue before settling on the bar near the back of the building. I had been sober for almost three years, but nothing had made me want to take the edge off as badly as having to interview my ex-wife, who, despite my unapologetic indifference and emotional abuse, had become what I longed to be for so many years: an incredibly talented and successful musician.

The band had already gone up to the green room on the closed off, second floor of the large club when the bouncers began yelling at everyone to get out. I stepped up to the bar and looked over the rows of old friends that lined the mirrored walls. Wild Turkey was always my favorite. “One shot would be just enough to kill the nerves,” I thought. I began to salivate as I remembered the sticky, sweet burn of the whiskey that was within reach - the liquid courage and solace that could ease the tension when I faced her for the first time in years.

I held my Press Pass up in the air and the bartender ambled in my direction in cinematic, slow motion. “Hey man,” he said as he smiled and coolly waved his arm toward the impressive selection, “whatever you want is on the house.” Small beads of sweat formed on my forehead as I licked my lips.

My voice cracked when I finally said, “Water would be great.”

When the water arrived, I received a text message from Bruce Tussler. The unexpected vibration in my pocket startled me and caused me to knock over the half-empty glass I had just been given. The bartender laughed and got me a replacement as I sheepishly looked down at my phone. The text read, “5000 words by next week. Blow me away and you’ll be guaranteed more work. Good luck!”

Bruce was the relatively new editor at the magazine, but everyone wanted to work for him. His track record for launching writers’ careers was unmatched in the publishing industry. During his tenure at a major publishing house in the nineties, he had made household names of dozens of authors and poets. After becoming the best eye for talent in the literary field, he decided to take on a new challenge by crossing over to the world of entertainment journalism. It didn’t take long for him to deliver the best content in the business.

It was strange to get a call from him out of the blue, but I didn’t want to question my luck. He said that he had read some of my stories and a bit of my new manuscript, and that he wanted me to write something for him. I couldn’t believe it. Writers killed for two minutes with Bruce Tussler. He was a literary giant. But, on that particular day, he called me.

He wanted to generate some new content about certain up-and-coming bands and said that he liked my style and the musical experience that I could bring to the table. I desperately wanted to write for the magazine, so I concealed the shock that I felt when he gave me my first assignment. I couldn’t tell him that Lynn Lee was actually my ex-wife, Evelyn Godlee, and that the two of us hadn’t spoken since she punched my lights out. I couldn’t risk losing the offer. If I wanted to take my career to the next level, I had to deal with the uncomfortable moment that was rapidly approaching and get the interview.

I slammed the water back and fought the increasing urge to order a real drink. The text message had sent an extra shockwave of adrenaline and anxiety through my body. If I didn’t get the story, then I could kiss working with Bruce Tussler and the most famous music magazine on the planet goodbye. After that, my book editor could hear that I was unreliable and pull his offer off the table. Then, if all of that happened, I would be finished.

My thoughts were snowballing out of control and I knew that I had to step away from the bar before I made a bad decision.

A no-neck, mass of muscle and testosterone stood menacingly between me and the stairs that led up to the green room. The bouncer glared down at me as I timidly showed him the Press Pass dangling from my neck. He frowned, disappointed that he had to let me by, but waved me through anyway.

The stairs behind him seemed to go on forever. It became harder to breathe as I made my ascent. I was getting closer. The door at the top was propped open and led into a dark, narrow hallway. A yellow-orange light stabbed at the darkness below the solitary door at the opposite end of the hall and my heart raced as I quietly approached it. I didn’t know if she had been told that I was the one coming, but I couldn’t avoid her any longer. I wanted, more than anything, to become a successful writer and this was the story that would set things in motion.

Outside the door, I forced a deep breath into my lungs. There was no sound when I finally exhaled. No more waiting. I closed my eyes, balled up my fist, and knocked three times.

Switch

Switch

Part One

It was eleven-thirty when I walked into the dark, smoke-filled music venue downtown. The place was packed. I carefully worked my way through a sea of apathetic, heavily made-up girls and faux-hawked boys that had borrowed their sisters’ pants for the evening, and found a spot near the back of the club.

The crowd huddled together as one gigantic mass of excitement and swayed rhythmically in unison to the “in-between bands” music that blasted through the massive PA system. A thousand people moved together, pulsating and breathing collectively as a single entity. The palpable energy of the place rose steadily as they eagerly waited.

The mob appeared to be mostly made up of guys, and it was clear why they were there: to drool over the infamous and beautiful, Lynn Lee. She was the underground rock singer that every girl in the scene wanted to be, and every guy desperately wanted to fuck. As the front woman of the increasingly popular musical powerhouse, The Spastic Sirens, Lynn Lee epitomized rock and roll intensity. She was, by all accounts, on her way to becoming a musical icon.

At midnight, the lights went out and the entire crowd went into a frenzy. The monstrous roar of their screams and catcalls were eventually quieted when a single blue light shined on the guitar player stage left.

Sporadic outbursts of “Fuck yeah!” and high-pitched whistles sprang from the black mass of heads in the sweaty darkness as he quietly played a twinkly melody. A minute into the solo, a red light slowly illuminated the guitar player on the opposite end of the stage as she played a beautiful counter-melody. A third light turned up behind them as the bass player joined in and made the walls and floor vibrate.

Kids began clawing at themselves and convulsing with sheer desperation as they shrieked incoherently – the agony of anticipation was overwhelming. The three musicians played progressively louder under their assigned lights. At the moment they reached the peak of their crescendo, everything stopped except for the guitarist that started it all. He looked out at the crowd and smiled as he played. Pleased with his visual survey, he strummed four ascending chords.

One. Two. Three.

The moment he struck the fourth chord, the entire stage lit up and Lynn Lee materialized in front of the Sirens bombastic drummer. Driving, angular guitars loudly and violently collided with intense drum hits while everyone in the place jumped around uncontrollably. Lynn screamed at her adoring followers and then recklessly threw herself on the floor as she began to sing, “This is why we’re here; this is why I hate you,” the opening lyrics of the band’s recent single, “Love Like Lies.” The song she had written about our marriage.

When I knew the woman that was furiously screaming her hatred for me in front of a legion of devoted fans, her name was Evelyn Godlee. She was the polar opposite of the high energy, in-your-face maniac that was singing her guts out on stage.

Years before the formation of the Spastic Sirens, or the very idea of Lynn Lee, the two of us met at a show I was playing. We were young and naïve, which led us to a quick and ill-advised marriage. At that time, she liked music and going to shows, but was obsessed with literature. She was a voracious reader and a highly dedicated writer. When her nose wasn’t in a book, she would quietly sit around our place filling spiral notebooks with her poetry and short stories. I was typically in my own world with a guitar in my lap, ignoring her and trying to write hit songs.

The band I was in didn’t do much more than small tours that we financed ourselves. We hardly sold anything and we never played to more than a hundred people. Despite a lack of musical success, I easily fell into the lifestyle of playing late, playing loud, and partying like a rock star. I regularly chose staying out and getting wasted, or fucking some no-name groupie over going home after shows. Whenever I was around, I treated Evelyn like a piece of furniture – a lifeless fixture in my apartment to which I was completely indifferent. It didn’t even matter if she knew what I was doing.

As my dreams of rock stardom began to crumble, my favorite drugs became heroin and self-sabotage. I was constantly out partying and being a horrible husband, while my neglected wife sat at home crying and writing. I was sinking rapidly and failed to notice that Evelyn was making significant changes: She began putting the books and notebooks aside, started listening to my records, and taught herself how to play guitar.

On the night that she finally left me, I came home from a gig and was greeted at the door by a surprisingly forceful punch in the face. She’d had enough of my shit and decided to let me know by knocking me unconscious. I never saw her again. My diminutive, bookworm wife had completely transformed herself into the badass, ball-of-rage, rock goddess that was baring her soul in front of a thousand adoring fans.

Since that punch, and the sickening realization of what a truly lecherous bastard I had been, I slowly began my own transformation: I switched places with her. I quit the band, checked into rehab, and picked up the books and what little writing she had left behind. She had an amazing way with words and I never even knew it. It was fascinating and devastating to see all of the wonderful things that had been right there in my living room the whole time I was wrapped up in my own narcissism.

I fell in love with writing. I began reading incessantly and decided that I wanted, more than anything, to be a writer. It turned out that, despite coming up short when it came to performing music, I actually had a knack for writing about it. Evelyn, over the same period of time, used her diary entries from our marriage and her newfound passion for music to adopt a new persona. She evolved, by every definition, into the quintessential rock star.

Over the past couple of years, Lynn Lee had become notorious for: getting into drunken fights, having her way with male groupies and then throwing them out of tour buses in shady parts of whatever city she was playing, destroying gear and hotel rooms without apology, and, most significantly, writing amazing songs that deeply resonated inside the hearts of an ever-widening audience. The power of her words beautifully articulated intense emotions that we’ve all experienced: anger, love, heartbreak, sadness, and disappointment.

It seemed that our stars were simultaneously on the rise, although hers was climbing much faster than mine. She was fronting an incredible rock band and I had just landed my first book deal. On top of the book, I had recently scored a position with a well-known music magazine. It was that very publication that sent me to the club for my first assignment: An interview with Lynn Lee and The Spastic Sirens.