I really love the little unexpected surprises life gives you sometimes. Like when you get your winter coat out of the closet it’s been sitting in all summer, and you find money in the pocket. When your favorite band has left the stage, and you think it’s over, and they come back on stage for a second encore. You never really know when to expect these little surprises which is what makes them so great. Sometimes the surprises are a little more subtle. Like when you have spent months thinking about something, and wondering  where it is going and then at 3:00 AM you have an epiphany and everything becomes crystal clear.

Sometimes I tend to jump into things without really thinking them through. I know the ones of you that know are probably scratching your heads thinking that doesn’t sound like the guy we know. Yeah right, you all are thinking that sounds exactly like the guy you know. It’s not a big secret, I don’t always plan things out. Sometimes it works out for me, other times I crash and burn. Such is life. This book project was one of those things that I didn’t really think through. I mean I knew I wanted to write a book, and I knew kind of what I wanted it to be about, but that was about as far as I had gotten. Once I started writing on here and started trying to actually come up with a theme or a purpose for the book, I kind of got lost. I had all these ideas, but I hadn’t really figured out how they were all going to tie together and make a book that would really say what I want to say. That is until last night, at about 3:00 AM. It really started earlier in the day, but sometimes I am a little slow, and things take a little while to sink in. Sometimes I just need a little nudge in the right direction. A few kind words, or the actions of someone else is all it takes sometimes for me to see the bigger picture. I think I had been so focused on a few small parts of the picture that I had lost sight of the bigger picture.

So now that I have a clear view of the bigger picture I am feeling a little better about this project. I still have a long ways to go, but at least I have some sense of where I am going now. Keep checking back, and I will start to fill you in on the bigger picture. You didn’t really think I was going to just tell you all about right now did you?

I have talked about some of the questions I get asked about my hands before. For the most part I go through my day without anyone making mention of or asking questions about my hands. I catch people trying to look at them when they think I am not paying attention, but for the most part people are polite and respectful, and intelligent. I add that last one, intelligent, because as you probably know there are exceptions to every rule. I have been asked some really crazy questions before, and I thought I would share one of my personal favorites with you.

Now before I tell you the story, let me just throw this out there. Occasionally when I do get asked questions, they catch me completely off guard and I have no idea how to respond. The normal questions like “hey, what happened to your hands?” are easy enough, sometimes I get one that I just don’t know how to respond to. I will give you an example. I few weeks ago one of my friends told me that a couple of them had been wondering how I wore my wedding ring when I was married. Now that’s a pretty normal question, but I wasn’t in the best mood that day and really didn’t think about what he was asking. I just kind of blew it off and said I wore it like everyone else wears theirs. It wasn’t until later that night after I got home that I realized he was wondering which finger I wore it on, not necessarily how I wore it. So yeah, sometimes I really have to think about where people are coming from when they ask me something, so as to not come off sounding like a jerk. I had to apologize later and explain that I am a little slow sometimes and didn’t understand the question. Luckily I have good friends that know this already.

Now, about my favorite question. It was about fifteen years ago. I was involved in an accident late one night and had to be taken to the hospital. I didn’t have any cuts or open wounds, they just took me to get x-rays to make sure I hadn’t hurt my neck or back or anything like that. It was probably around 1:00 AM when we got to the hospital and I waited for an x-ray tech to come get me. At this point, they ER doctors have already cut my shirt off me and I am strapped to a back board and can’t move. Again, let me remind you that I have no cuts, scratches or open wounds. A young guy, probably in his twenties, comes and gets me and wheels me off to get x-rays taken. He was kind of trying to make small talk on the way to the other side of the hospital, and I really just want to get up and walk out the door. He pushes me in the elevator, and I guess as he does he looks down at me and notices my hands. He looks back up and me and as serious as he can be, he says “wow, did that happen in the wreck?”. Honestly I don’t remember what I said to the guy, but I remember just laying there trying to come up with an answer and thinking surely this guy can’t be serious. Eventually I probably just came out with a simple no, and let it go at that. In any other situation I probably would have had a really good answer for him, but I was still in mild shock from this accident and I just couldn’t believe he was serious. I mean he did work at a hospital, so I thought surely he had seen something like that before. I got back to the room in the ER after x-rays and told my family what he asked, and we all had a good laugh about it, which is always good.

Of all the questions I have ever been asked, that one ranks up there with the rest of them. I really wish I had know that I was going to want to write a book later on in life. I really would have taken better notes.

Dear Yahoo Messenger:

Thank you for pointing out the obvious. I expected a little more from you!

Sincerely,
Knuckles

 I have a friend that we call Captain Obvious. I have tried to get him to be a little more creative, but so far with no luck. I have always been fine with jokes, even at my own expense, but at this point I think I have heard them all. I mean if you are going to make a joke at least put a little thought into it instead of just pointing out the obvious. Sure it takes a little more work, but you might come up with something really funny. You never know unless you try. So, I said all that to say this. Yahoo messenger is definitely just pointing out the obvious, but it happens to be pretty funny. If you have used the new yahoo web mail with the messenger client, you may have noticed that when your talking to me and I am typing a message it tells you that I am typing a message. Of course Yahoo got all creative and came up with these little sayings like “brace yourself for a witty comeback from knuckles” or “I hope you are sitting down because knuckles is coming up with something really smart to say”. Ok, I know those aren’t verbatim, but you get the point. I have never paid any attention to these little sayings but I was informed by a friend that one of them is “knuckles needs to learn to type with more than two fingers”. Oh really Yahoo? Yeah, thanks for pointing out the obvious. Of course at first I didn’t get that it was Yahoo that was telling me that. I just thought the person I was talking was trying to get me to type faster. Once they pointed out that it was Yahoo saying it, and not them I was a little more amused.

Seriously though, I really want to talk about this whole pointing out the obvious thing a little more, I think I will save that for another day though. I need to put a little more thought into that before I go writing about it. For what it’s worth, I totally don’t mind people just pointing out the obvious instead of trying to come up with something new, just know that it won’t be as funny. And really, isn’t that what it should all be about? Getting your seven laughs in!

P.S. I still love you Yahoo and Captain Obvious

I knew from the start of this book project that it wasn’t going to be an easy process. I also knew that most, if not all, of it was going to be very personal. The very thing that I am not good at, and have spent a good part of my life avoiding. For the most part I mask things with humor or sarcasm, and never really let the way I really feel show. Even the things I have written on here have been a watered down version of what it is really like to be me.

One of the reasons I have avoided writing about some things on here is because I would never want to hurt any ones feelings, or offend anyone. I know that some of you reading this know me personally and I wouldn’t want you to read something on here and think “hey, he’s talking about me”, especially if if was something I was not speaking very positively about. On the other hand, this book project is never going to turn out like I want if I am not completely honest. So with that in mind, please know that nothing I say on here is said with bad intentions. Everything I write about on here is purely to give others some insight on what it is like to live with physical differences.

So with that little disclaimer out of the way, lets just jump right in shall we?

I am still here, I just haven’t had a lot of time to dedicate to this project lately. There are a couple of reasons. The main reason is the fish are biting. The crappie are starting to bite in shallow water so most days I am at the lake from the time I get off work until well past my normal bed time. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for anything else really.

To be honest I didn’t really have a time frame in mind when I started this, I just knew that I wanted to start it, because it needed to be done. I still don’t have a time frame for when I would like to be finished but I am still putting a lot of thought into it.

I have had several conversations lately that I have thought a lot about. That always happens when I meet new people or make new friends. Part of human nature is curiosity, so I understand when I get questions. What I don’t always succeed at is answer the questions without sounding like a jerk. I apologize in advance for any answers I give that come off sounding rude. That is not my intention at all. I think part of the problem is when I get a question that I have heard a dozen times before, and to me the answer seems obvious. If the answer was obvious to the person asking the question, they probably wouldn’t have asked in the first place, and I sometimes forget that. It’s one of the things I am continually working on.

I think that will be my next big post, one that I have been working on for a while now. I get asked so many questions, and have been making a list of the usual, the not so usual and completely absurd questions I have been asked by people in my short lifetime. I will try to get that up pretty soon.