Yesterday morning, around 10:30 am I was struggling under the lead weight of a caffeine-low headache. Sitting in the doctor's office waiting to have, of all things, a cardiac stress test. I had been instructed not to drink caffeine before-hand. And that was unfortunate. Because 10:30 am is no time of day to face head-on without at least two cups of strong coffee. And yet there I was. Floating low and heavy like a hangover, plotting the fastest route to Common Ground on the Avenue when I was done.

But the real question I was asking myself, right, was how did I end up being this person having a cardiac stress test? At age 33. Me — who swam twice a day, 6 days a week in junior high and high school. Who still exercises regularly today. Who's anal about what he eats. Who, okay, smoked on and off for several years. But who was always ridiculed by "real" smokers for my pack-a-week or for a while there pack-a-month habit. Bottom line: the heart should be strong. And I guess I've always kind of felt a little flip about it — a sort of "yeah, whatever" attitude — because I figured of all the organs in my body, it was sure to last the longest. You know, for all the above reasons. But apparently I have a murmur. An "aortic insufficiency," which was found on a recent echocardiogram (another test I'm surprised to have had), and which was probably brought on by the AS. Or it could also be because I have a bicuspid aortic valve. Most people's aortic valve is tricuspid. The bicuspid variety tends to become leaky. It tends to break sooner than one with three, um, cuspids. So they sometimes need to be replaced. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger's did about ten years ago.

And I'm really skirting the border of my comfort zone with this one. Honestly. Because with people dying of things that are difficult to imagine and getting legs blown off and just bad, bad shit, I find it hard writing about my health without coming across as whiny. Or melodramatic. Or both. But what is a writer, after all, if not naked and shivering in a transparent sheet of his own melodrama? I mean, we sport it well, don't we? Like professors in tweed. Like farmers in overalls. Like gym teachers in warm-ups.

So fuck it . . . here goes. Except, since this is a long one, I think I'll do it in three parts. Because one thing I've learned about the blogging is it's not a medium for length.

So . . . more tomorrow.

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