The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection

Every day during the last two weeks, at least 1 billion people have come up to me on the streets and asked, "Pray tell, Terry my man, why have you been on such an extended hiatus?" My reaction, of course, is to laugh at the word "hiatus"...because it reminds me of Hiyata, the nerdy scientist who uses the Beta Capsule to turn into Ultraman whenever the world is in danger from giant rubber monsters.



But despite their use of a funny word and my completely inappropriate side trip into a reverie about the TV shows that kept my college GPA low and thus prevented me from finding that high-paying job my high-school counselors promised, I eventually return to the question, and realize that I probably should answer it.

Why have I been absent from these pages for the past weeks? Well, the fact is there have been major events in my life that deserve deeply thoughtful bloggery, and I got wrapped up in wanting to do those topics justice. I started to write, but didn't have time to finish the posts with the reverence they deserved...and therefore got stalled out, lost momentum, and unintentionally allowed the electronic inkwell to run dry. I apologize, dear readers, for you deserve to hear those stories. Unfortunately, I still don't have time to do them justice, so I'll just give you the capsule summaries and promise to revisit the topics when I win Lotto and can afford to hire the maids, cooks, and toilet repair technicians that would free up my time for getting my writing done.

Important item number one: One of my high school buddies passed away. He was one of the four from my class at Wichita West High School who swam with the Wichita Swim Club, and was therefore an integral part of my life for several years. I was not as close to Rick as I was with the other guys, but I still spent a boatload of time in cars, pools, and hotel rooms with the dude, and knew him fairly well. When I learned he had died, I started to write a blog that would stand as a loving tribute to a lost comrade, complete with thoughtful insights into the fleeting nature of life and the associated journeys into contemplation of my own mortality.

But I got stuck. For one thing, I realized that other folks are far better at the sentimental "Tuesdays with Morrie" kind of stuff. And I hadn't seen Ricky for a million years and truly had no idea if he had become a Unibomber wannabe, a PhD fuel cell engineer, or one of those Ultimate Fighter guys with a nickname like "Sledgehammer" or something. (Turns out he was a flight attendant, upon which I shall make no comment at all.) And for another thing, he was our relay's breaststroker, and, well...you just learn to avoid breaststrokers if you know what's good for you.

It's weird what you remember about people from high school. I'll just share two small memories, and will leave the serious eulogizing to others. (Perhaps I'll have more to say later. We'll see.)

As we were waiting for transportation after one of our high school swim practices, Rick decided to write an obscenity on the wall outside the pool. I don't remember if he was proud enough to sign it himself, or if someone else affixed his name to it, but the crude statement ended up with Ricky's bold signature. After a moment's reflection, he realized that such an autograph wouldn't enhance his chances for graduation without demerits in his permanent record, so he gamely tried to erase the writing. It didn't work. So by adding letters and reworking words, he eventually managed to turn it into a meaningless phrase (something about eating a sandwich, if I remember correctly) followed by a name no one would recognize.

I suspect he felt guilty about that graffiti until the very end.

The other memory I closely associate with Rick is the fact that I got my first speeding ticket on a night he was having a Christmas party at his house. That was a traumatic night for multiple reasons; not only was I scared to death by the dangerously rednecked trooper who pulled me over, but when I finally arrived at Rick's house, I discovered that there was mistletoe strung about, and Deann Wills was in a kissing mood.

Don't get me wrong, Deann was a nice girl and I'm sure a fabulous kisser...but after having just been threatened with jail and wondering where I was going to get the money to pay the fine, well, I just wasn't in the mood for misteltoe makeoutery with anyone who wasn't Robin Messner. I don't think I actually ran screaming from the party, but I'm sure my negative reaction didn't do much for Deann's adolescent sense of self-esteem.

And to bring it all full circle, I heard that Glen Nyberg attended Rick's funeral. Glen was the one who caused the speeding ticket; I was driving my dad's Camaro and was bragging about how cool I was for driving a hot car when Glen said "Aw, I bet this piece of crap can't even go 100."

I was going 124 mph when I passed the trooper. Oops.

Anyway, the point is that I temporarily stopped blogging because I wanted to write something nice about my buddy Rick, but just didn't have the skills to do it properly. And after that, the Second Important Item was that I attended the Leadville Trail 100 running race, and got stuck trying to write about that, too. (I may still expound on it, but the short summary is that it was one of the most awesome and memorable weekends I've ever had. My friend Katie ran 100 freakin' miles, and I was moved to tears on multiple occasions while watching this phenomenal event. But when it came time to write about it in blog form, I couldn't find the block of time to do it justice. Sigh.)

So what I've learned is this: Trying to express my deepest thoughts about important subjects in my early-morning blogging hours is a futile effort. If I want to post anything at all, I cannot afford to strive for profound philosophical perfection (or even meditational mediocrity); I just need to write a few inane paragraphs about random oddities, throw in a link or two about Japanese television, and then head off to the pool.

But I will say this about those two big topics: Congratulations Katie! And R.I.P. Rick.



Have a great day, my friends!