Viola Pennington died yesterday. Everybody in the little town where I grew up knew her. She was the personification of nice, little old lady.

All my life, she was Grandma Pennington, even though she wasn’t my grandmother. She was my cousins’ grandmother. But since we lived in the same small town and spent a lot of time together as kids, she was Grandma Pennington to me as well.

In recent years, I only saw her about once a year, Christmas Eve. I always spend at least part of Christmas Eve with my Aunt Velma’s family, and Grandma Pennington would be there, and she was always playing some sort of card game. Even in her later years, she had an incredibly sharp mind. Christmas Eve won’t be the same without her this year.

I called my mom at her shop this morning to send some flowers. I would have liked to go to the funeral home, but living 800 miles away makes that a little difficult.  Being in the middle of an audit makes that darn near impossible. Having a mom who is a florist does make this a little easier.

If there is one word that makes people cringe, it’s audit. You immediately have visions of IRS agents invading your records and pouring over receipt after receipt.

In my line of work, audits are expected. They’re normal. And they’re part of life. You may have heard of this little law known as Sarbanes-Oxley, sometimes known as SOX.  When you work in finance or IT in a publicly traded company, it’s just part of how you do business.

This week is our annual audit from the major consulting firm that will really dig into our records and processes. We also have another company come in quarterly to do audit work since we don’t have an internal audit group in the company. My boss was telling me stories of spending hours and hours with them last year in the audit. We spent about two hours with them today. That was it.

Last week, I had spent a good chunk of my week preparing for the audit, pouring over checklists of things they’d want to see. Today, most of the time was spent pointing out where certain data was in the files we gave them or getting additional data. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d expected. In fact, I joked with the auditors (yes, that’s possible) that I was a little let down because I should have been much more difficult than that.

I will say that part of the reason it went smoothly is that my boss is pretty OCD about making sure we’re in compliance. We run a pretty tight ship. Nobody touches the financial systems without proper documentation and authorization. We also do an audit checklist every month, producing the things that will most likely be asked for in an audit. On top of that, I’ve become a master at producing audit-worthy reports. My experience as a consultant certainly helped here. And maybe, just maybe, it might have something to do with the fact that I’m pretty good at what I do. Maybe.

Nobody ever said that having Multiple Sclerosis would be fun. I thought I knew what I was in for when we started chasing symptoms down six years ago. Oh, I had no idea.

Losing the feeling in my fingertips became the new normal. A few weeks ago, I was absolutely rejoicing when I had feeling in the fingertips of my left hand. That was short lived. And the chronic fatigue once wasn’t as bad as it is now. It seems I’m always tired, and I certainly turn into a pumpkin much earlier than I used to.

It wasn’t all that long ago that I’d be turning off the alarm clock and landing on my feet all in the same breath. Those days are long gone. I have to sit up on the end of my bed for a moment to get my equilibrium before standing up now. And then I can get up to take Reggie outside.

This is the new normal. It’s not fun. But it’s the hand I was dealt. I’m not complaining. This disease can be devastating, and I could have been dealt a MUCH worse hand. My rate of progression is relatively slow. Most of my symptoms are sensory. Very few of my symptoms are functional, aside from the random balance issues.  I’m okay with this. I’m not in a wheelchair, and I’m not using a cane. Yeah, I’m perfectly okay with that.

The past few weeks, I’ve been under some stress and pressure. I have no doubt that it’s related to my current fatigue. But a good, relaxing weekend helps that. This week is our annual SOX audit at work. Getting through that will be another burden off my shoulders.

Today is one of those days where I feel like my energy supply is going to be depleted by noon. Under normal circumstances, I’d have taken the day off work. But with auditors here, it’s not that easy. I’m going to push myself to my practical limits and then it’s time to stop. History has taught me the costs of pushing myself too far. I can spend an afternoon in bed or I can spend the rest of the week in bed. I’ll take the former, thank you.

I spent my weekend in Ogunquit, Maine with the rest of the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus. It was a lot of work and a lot of fun. We spent a lot of time together, which was a great way to meet people. Our Christmas concert is really going to be amazing. We’re doing a whole range of pieces, and it’s going to be great. In addition to the four concerts in Boston on December 14, 20, 21, and 22, we’re doing two concerts at Holly Folly in Provincetown on December 6. Not only that, but we’re going to be performing at Gay Ski Week in Stowe, VT. So yeah, we have a lot going on. We did a lot of rehearsing and a bit of partying, perhaps too much partying for me.

One of the highlights of the weekend was our director’s birthday. He’s a brilliant man, and at Sunday’s rehearsal, he started to warm us up, and when he pointed at Chad, our accompanist to start us out, Chad did this great arpeggio across the keyboard, and the director just rolled his eyes, knowing what was coming. Having 120 voices sing happy birthday to you is something to behold.

This weekend gave me some perspective on some things. First, I want to start playing the piano more. I need to find a piano and get my skills back up. And I want to learn to play the guitar, acoustic, that is.

The other thing I decided this weekend is that it’s time for me to stop drinking. I’ve been drinking way too much lately, and it kind of scared me. This has been coming for a while. My grandfather was an alcoholic, that scares me even more. It’s not really the frequency that I drink, but rather my inability to stop drinking once I start. So I’m going to dry out for a while. A quick google search shows that drinking while on Rebif (my primary MS medication) is a really bad idea because both are toxic to the liver. Another search shows that alcholism can be a bigger problem in people with MS as well. The health reasons alone should make me stop drinking. It will also eliminate a ton of empty calories and save me a small fortune.

Will I ever drink again? Probably. But first, I need to prove to myself that I have the willpower to do this. My last drink was a glass of really good champagne on my birthday, which was Saturday. It was bought for me by another gay Republican in the chorus.

The best part of this was Sunday morning. I didn’t drink anything Saturday night while we were out on the town. I was up bright and early Sunday morning. Looking around the room at rehearsal, some of those boys looked really rough. I felt great. I’m not going to miss being hung over.

I have an appointment next weekend with my psychiatrist. We’re going to have a few things to talk about. Oh, and the Halloween party I was going to have… I’m thinking that would be a really bad idea right now. I’m going to make an appearance at my friend’s party on Derby street, but that’s about it.

Yesterday, after heading North on I95 to go from Maine to Massachusetts, oops, I went to get Reggie at Beth and Paul’s house. I asked Paul to take a few pictures of Reggie and I. The guy is amazing. You can find the photo set here.

Wait until you see what I have planned for our Christmas card picture. It’s going to be awesome.

Let me preface this story by saying that I know there are a lot of gay guys out there with an underwear fetish. I’m not one of them. Underwear is utilitarian for me, not sexual.

Having said that, I had the most bizarre experience while doing my laundry on Wednesday night. As I was getting clothes off the basement floor and putting them into the washer, I came across a pair of underwear, and they weren’t mine. They’re medium Hanes boxer briefs in black. They’re certainly not mine. At first, I thought they might be Josh’s. But he didn’t wear anything like that either.

How the hell do you get someone else’s undwear in your laundry?

I ran into Jason, my upstairs neighbor today, and they’re not his. While it would be funny to find a pair of Jason’s underwear in my laundry, it still doesn’t explain HOW they got there. Keep in mind that my laundry is in the basement ,and the guys upstairs have their laundry on the third floor.

There is only one potential explanation. There is the possibility that they belong to Jason’s roommate. And the HOW question would only be answered if one of the dogs brought the underwear downstairs.

It’s just one of life’s unsolved mysteries.

I went for some neuropsych evaluation a few weeks ago and then went back for the followup a week later. My final report came in the mail on Saturday.  There weren’t any surprises.

One of the things that really surprised me is that most of the things in the report have more to do with my ADD than my MS. It turns out I’m pretty smart. My visual-spacial skills are superior. There was one test that I particularly bombed. As we discussed it, she was telling me that the reason I bombed it was because instead of taking the test, I was trying to figure out how to beat the test. I have this tendency to figure out what the rules of the game are in order to win. It’s how I got through high school without being diagnosed with ADD, because I test well. 

When I took a test that was much more difficult, I did better. That seems to indicate that when I really focused on something, it was rather effective. That means my Strattera is working.

The whole thing was really quite interesting, and we now have a good baseline going forward. I’ve asked her to make sure that both my psychiatrist and neurologist get a copy of the report.

With the presidential election only a few weeks away, things sure are getting heated. No matter who wins, I want one thing, a decisive election. President Bush didn’t win either election with a decisive margin, and this has plagued his presidency. The last thing the next president needs is another “Not My President” agenda working against him. I just hope that the election isn’t decided in a tight election by a single state, and god forbid that state be Ohio with accusations of voter registration fraud.

Regardless of who wins, I have a theory that whomever wins will be a one-term president. Keep in mind that presidents in times of economic turmoil rarely stay the president. And then…

Should Senator McCain become President McCain, I think he’s just too old to run for a second term. Presidents tend to age more than four years in a four-year term. That would make Sarah Palin the presumptive GOP front-runner. At that point, the Democrats would have Senator Clinton running against her. There you have two polarizing women. Oh, it will be fun to watch. And I think that Senator Clinton will beat the pants off Gov. Palin.

And then there is Senator Obama. I think the newness will wear off and the main stream media will revoke the pass they’ve given him. He’ll finally start to get the scrutiny that only the conservative press has given him. There is just something about the man that gives me a bad feeling. Something is going to come up, and he’ll not win a second term. In this scenario, I don’t think you’ll see Sarah Palin running in 2012.

I have no facts to base any of this on. It’s all my opinion and speculation. Take it for what it’s worth. I was also the one who predicted that the 2008 would be between Hilary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.

My friend Josh came to visit this weekend, and it was good having him here. Reggie absolutely loves him.

I picked him up Thursday night, and we went for some dinner and just hung out a bit. Friday, we went into the city and did all kinds of stuff before meeting up with some of my former coworkers for drinks. Ultimately, we ended up hanging out with my friend Seth before taking the train back to Salem.

Saturday morning, we got up too late for the Pug meetup, so we jumped in the car and headed north through New Hampshire and Maine to see the foliage. It was fantastic. Sunday, we did some touristy stuff in Salem, including watching my friend Beth’s group dance, before heading across town to have some food and drinks with friends.

This weekend was important to me. Josh has been a good friend for a long time, and I wanted my friends up here to meet him. And I wanted him to meet them.

Reggie has gone off to stay with Beth and Paul for the week.  I’m going to be in Ogunquit this coming weekend for my chorus retreat. It’s going to be a ton of fun.

The chemical plant where my dad works had a chemical spill over the weekend. A toxic cloud was released into the air, causing a major evacuation.

My sister lives outside of the evacuation area, and my parents were away for the weekend. This is very good since my parents live right in the area that was evacuated.

About 2,500 flee chemical leak in western Pa. (AP via Google)
Chemical Leak Leads To Evacuations In Petrolia (KDKA Pittsburgh)
Residents get OK to return after Pa. chemical leak (AP via Google)
Toxic cloud passes, residents allowed home (CNN)

Yes, my little town got mentioned on CNN.

Just as a frame of reference, I grew up in Bruin, PA, went to Karns City High School, and yes, Hooker, PA is a real place.

This is really scary stuff. At the same time, I live in an area prone to getting three feet of snow and the occasional hurricane.

Sunday marks the ten-year aniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard. It seems hard to believe that it’s been ten years.

I was talking to someone last night, and I was saying that one thing the gay community does really poorly is passing things onto the next generation.

Shortly after Matthew Shepard’s death, the gay community had such a strong “never again” attitude. We need to be reminded of how we felt after such a horrible crime was committed. And we need to make sure the next generation understands what happened. Hopefully, the next generation won’t have an event that leads them to say “never again.”

I hope this aniversary gives us the reminder we need.