Friday, January 30, 2015

You betcha


Blistex - Stroke follies

Well.  My first blister from extended walking came along, and since I ignored it, popped in my sock.  Lovely.

++++++++++++++++++++

Here's what frightens you when you've had a stroke, and with any luck, will scare you into healthier habits:


  1. Fear of dying alone.  The thought of waking up partially paralyzed or having one one night and not having your phone handy to call for help is almost paralyzing in itself.
  2. Grand Mal seizures.  Strokes are almost always accompanied by grand mals, which was something I wish my family, who is riddled with a history of strokes in the first place, would have told me before I had mine.  They are a work of hell, and if you have one just hope you black out first, which happens half the time.  Because being conscious during one sucks and is frightening beyond what you can imagine.  It is the closest you can get to believing you're going to die without actually being in danger of dying.
  3. Incontinence.  I don't know if I peed or pooped myself with my first stroke/seizure, I imagine that in the very least if it was the latter I would have seen evidence of it later, but it's pretty common.  After researching strokes and seizures, I recognized what was going on when I saw a plump young lady lying in the floor of a gas station convenience store.  As I finished pumping gas, I noticed the commotion at the entrance and recognized that there was a medical emergency going on inside... employees who would normally be at the cash register were standing in the doorway watching for the ambulance to signal them inside.  Inside, a woman lay motionless, and had peed herself, and I knew what had happened.  So knowing this, you tend to always "go" when even the slightest indication is made, because you don't want the embarrassment if you have a seizure.


Speaking of which, if somebody is having a seizure, here's what you do:


  1. Ignore conventional wisdom and do not try to stick a belt in their mouth, unless you have a hankering to have one of your fingers bitten off, which there's more of a chance of happening since the jaw will likely contract with the fury of an unfed and angry drug dealer's pit bull who's had to put up with Michael Vick's bullshit for too long.  More people lose fingers this way than lose bits of tongue, plus, the tongue is the most resilient scar-free part of the body... even if you give yourself a nasty bite (and I have) as long as you let it heal naturally it will be back to normal.  Within reason, I mean.
  2. Get the victim to lie down on their side, probably their LEFT side.  This lessens the chance of injury to the tongue as the tongue will naturally slide back as the convulsions increase, and the jaw can clamp down without damage.
  3. Move any furniture that might hurt the victim of the seizure from his or her immediate vincinity.  This is how most seizures cause injuries, so it's pretty important.
  4. Don't make incontinence jokes until after the victim is released from the emergency room.  For fuck's sake.


Actually most seizures don't really require an emergency room trip, but if you're not familiar with what can happen, you'll probably call an ambulance.  Luckily we have Obamacare now, and it's less likely that your call will bankrupt the victim.  THANKS OBAMA.

Curl Up & Dye

When I said the amount of work you have to put in to grow a beard and not look like a dying homeless person was kinda girly, I was only slightly joking at the time.  Then I saw this article.

Top o'the mornin' to ya...

I. Just. Can't. Even.  

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Intense

Yes, I am stressing.  The interview is next week.  I will hang for a bit, have dinner, explore the place.  My feet and back are still loudly protesting my sudden interest in getting them back into some semblance of "in shape" but they are going to have to live with it.  I expect to be taking lots of public transit anyway.  Mapping out the places I've been told to/want to visit.

So of course I got a goddamn pimple.  /faceplant

No processed sugars for the next week... if all comes to fruition, I'll celebrate my new life with a package of frozen Reese's Cups Mini's and an Archer marathon.

Just missing one thong.  I'm used to that, I guess.  +++edit: just missing one THING... thank you, Freud+++

Fingers tightly crossed.

Monday, January 26, 2015

You are worth the weight

Ugh.  Everything on me hurts right now.  Well I guess not everything.  Back and legs though.

The place that I'll probably find out if I'm going to next will require me to do walking, a lot.  In fact, if work doesn't assign me a parking spot, I'd probably wind up getting an apartment close-to and selling my car.  With Uber and Lyft and Zipcar, there's not always a reason to own one, in certain circumstances.  

I am so certain that I am this close (forefinger and thumb apart by an inch) to landing this job for so many reasons that I am afraid to mention even one of them.  The thing that could trip me up is my impatience.  I love almost all of my family, but honestly, living at home has been as much a test as it is for, I think, most people.  If I'd done the smart thing when moving last time, i.e. get a one bedroom, 600 sqft apt, I could have stayed in that apartment while looking for work.  Admittedly, it would have sucked balls and I would have been absolutely poor, but I would have remained sane.  

So I don't want to give the impression that I'm charging full steam into this job opportunity... I'm not.  The unexpected can happen, and assets can be frozen, and the well laid plans of mice and men can get thrown into the air like a Monopoly board when your cousin once again gets Park Place.  Not that that's ever happened to me.

But I have been scoping apartments.  None of the ones I've looked at would be available if a job offer is made, but they give me an idea of the area.

But, most of the ones I could reasonably afford and start rebuilding what life I have left mean losing my car, using mass transit, and walking.  Unfortunately, I've gained back just enough weight to hurt my back, legs and feet when I walk for long amounts of time (meaning:  any).  So I've started going to the park to walk the track and see how well I can do, and hopefully lose some of the weight that living at home has piled onto me.

Two miles so far, before retreating to the car for my water bottle and to listen to Coast to Coast AM.  That's far better than I used to do in Wal-Mart, when we'd do all our shopping at once, and I almost felt crippled upon leaving.  But I really want to get it going faster.

Hopefully by this time next month, everything will be in place and I won't have to be secretive about everything.  But now, Downton Abbey, to see how much of a bitch the Dowager is being this week.  ROWR!

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Rise of the Lumbersexual

I hate that term.  Anyway...

I'm really not getting beard culture, which seems all the rage these days.

I also don't get foot fetishists, or water sports.  Or Russel T. Davies' insistence that all relationships be multi-racial... I mean, ALL of them, Russ?  It'd be great if that was the world we lived in, but I don't see it.  Perhaps I've been sheltered all my life.

I'd like to say that what gets under my skin about beard culture is that I don't think people who can't grow a beard should do it, or rather, you should grow it to the length that it looks good on you.  I can grow a beard, but if I don't trim it, I look horrifyingly like a homeless person, and not the kind you would gladly give money to, but the kind you shoot glances at on the subway any time they cough for fear of catching the ebola.

I found this out when I had the leg trauma and had to spend a few weeks in the hospital.  I'd already, at that point, let my beard grow out too far, and was overdue an appointment with Tam.  By the time I got out and got done with treatment, I actually couldn't recognize myself in the mirror.  Which is not to say that some guys didn't find that attractive, because I did seem to get hit on a little more than usual when I went out, but almost always by guys I had no interest at all in being with for any reason.

I know part of my dislike of monstrous beards is because it seems, at least to me, that it only became acceptable to have a huge unkempt one after the Duck Dynasty show blew up, and that's kind of insulting.  Last thing I'd want to do is resemble one of those clods.

But I know that it mostly has to do with the same reason I don't generally like long hair on my head either.  It seems like a lot of work.  Keeping clean and in the shower and all, never mind that I wouldn't even be able to have Frosted Flakes anymore.  And frankly, the people I know who put a lot of work into their hair are all girls.

So I guess my conclusion, therefore, must be that big giant fuzzy beards seem feminine to me, which, I'm assuming, is the opposite reason of why they are being grown in the first place.  This will not score me a lot of points making new friends, but oh well.

I also strangely wonder if the guys who actually did have the beards before it became hip are regretting keeping them or tripping out in some new blissful version of reality.  I dunno, how did emo kids feel when Hot Topic started popping up in malls?


Friday, January 23, 2015

Ain't No Thang

Literally just a few weeks after discovering them, Katzenjammer releases their third album.  Here's my new favorite track from their first, live.

Boom... Scared Stiff achieved

Wow, that was awesome.  I approached level nine of the Stiff-O-Meter and told the XB1 to record, where the DVR will save the previous fifteen seconds and the next fifteen following your command.  After a few more loops I hit two jackpots in a row, filling the Stiff-O-Meter, when Elvira said, "Uh oh," and the video pinball game lost all power.

WHAT.

Of course it was a ruse.  Five seconds later, the machine goes absolutely bugnuts psycho, and four-ball Monster Multi-Ball begins.  EVERY jackpot is lit and it's insane.  I wound up halfway to starting the Stiff-O-Meter back up after multi ended, finishing at 43 million, just 4 mil from first place.

Of course, since they didn't actually put a way to exit out of the game or a save function or autosave, that progress was erased when I fired it up just now.  But damn.  I've beaten a very old addiction, and I have the game footage to prove it.  

++++++++++++++

Although I'm pretty sure a job offer will follow in two weeks, I noticed a couple of jobs opening up in one of my dream cities, San Diego.  I might as well apply, because I know how things can fall apart at the last minute, but also I need to keep my unemployment benefits running until my new paycheck starts, knock on wood.  They're for the same company, one is a production position and one is a social media position.  Whut?  Okay.

Would really rather have the other job.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Scared Stiff

In my spare time, while I wait for the cog to turn, I have been playing pinball.

Video pinball, of course.  



This is a pinball game I first encountered in Portland, and haven't seen since.  I was a total addict to it.  I never filled my Stiff-o-Meter completely... once getting to level 9 and just barely missing the last jackpot.  Which I did again, last night.

Well, I've been monitoring stations all night and I guess it's okay to take a break now and try again.  If all goes right in the next few weeks, I won't have time to visit Elvira again for a while... and by the time I do have the time, Arkham Knight will be out, which is just about the only game this year that I know about coming out this year.  Then it's off to Lexington for a doctor's visit and some kinda lunch with my brother.

+++edit 01/22/15 7:20 am+++

Make that three times.  Level nine, and the ball went into the crate, but the timer must have just expired.  Sigh.  I love this game.  It will be my Pac-Man Championship Edition for a while longer.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Dumpsville, population: you.

Today I dumped a whole bunch of people from my Facebook.

The impetus was a simple one:  A friend, whom I've barely ever talked to but remains popular among the crowd I used to orbit, used to run a website.  Somehow he attracted the attention of a stalker (I take it the website was some kind of hotness-rating website for bears and the now-stalker didn't rate), who is now occasionally (every five years or so) finding this friend online and posting nasty messages at him.

The friend posted this interaction to FB for all his buddies to see, I'm assuming so they could ridicule said stalker*, which they did.  At first, I wanted to point out that this person obviously has mental issues, and suggest that maybe he could have been helped rather than gossiped about behind his back, that he probably has dealt with rejection all his life and probably dealt with a lot more, and he probably doesn't even realize he'd been such an asshole, and who were these people to judge him without even getting his side of the story...

...the list of what was going through my head went on.  And on.  So I just looked at everybody who liked the post, which included THE GUY'S FACEBOOK NAME**, and everybody who commented on it, and unfriended them.

I guess what led me to do this was a mix of two reasons:

  1. THE INCLUSION OF THE GUY'S NAME when ridiculing his obvious mental problems (which did elicit the expected "Oh let's ransack his FB and call him a loser" post, of course...) and...
  2. A lot of these people didn't bat an eye in throwing a tantrum when my own stalker forwarded my Crazyjournal to them.

Crazyjournal was how I tried to deal with rage and emotions that I couldn't control without getting on anti-depressants, which was something I was very scared of doing.  In fact, all through that journal I noted +++through the whole thing (added 01/16/14)+++ that I didn't understand why I had written those things, that I felt crazy because I couldn't control my own thoughts, and yet when Stalker Dan downloaded the whole thing and sent and posted it to them, more than one read the entire thing and never bothered to suggest I get medicated and into counseling before I did serious damage to myself.

Couldn't be bothered... I had said something about them!  I didn't hold them up on a pedestal!  Oh boo hoo!

Yeah, I wanted to call these friends out on their hypocrisy, but then I remembered that a lot of them didn't even notice I'd had a stroke, so fuck them.***

And yeah, Dan, feel free to distribute this, too.  I don't want friends who openly ridicule the  sick.  I did enough of that myself, and don't need it in my life again.  And yes, I see the glaring hypocrisy in my own actions... believe me, they won't even notice I'm gone.

+++EDITS 01/16/14+++

*This is a gross assumption on my part, and I apologize for it.  I don't actually believe my FB friend was posting about it to ridicule the guy, but probably, much like this blog, trying to vent some steam in what he believed to be a safe environment.  What the reaction from his followers entailed was not his intention, probably.

**This is honestly what set me off.  He didn't need to reveal the guy's name.  Pixelate it or something.  I'm familiar with being in a similar, if different, state as this guy might have been, and his condition isn't going to get better with ridicule.

***I dropped everybody who commented and liked it regardless of whether they made fun of the guy or not.  I didn't want to feel like I was giving favoritism to people I really cared about.  Nobody was dropped from any other social media, just my facebook, which is boring anyway, at least until I secure a new job.  Then out come the titties.




Thursday, January 8, 2015

Hysterical historical hypocrisy

I have one extremely weak spot in my soul while endeavoring to become a better person.  It makes giving up drinking seem unnaturally easy.  Hell, it makes giving up Italian food seem unnaturally easy (something I'm also trying to do, but in moderation).  And that's trying to let go of wanting to see people who flagrantly flaunt their hypocrisy to the world brought down a peg.

Admittedly, it's a bit of a sociopathic streak in me.  That in itself is hypocrisy, so who am I to judge?  But...

It's like coming across the personal ad of somebody you've known, at some point in life, and they actually say, "Don't judge me on what I've done in the past," which is actually just them saying "I don't want to take responsibility for the shit I've done and if you hold it against me, well then, YOU are the asshole."  Of course people will judge you for what you've done in the past.  That's what "judgment" is about, dumbass.  It's what you do in the present and future that will balance those scales and sway them to thinking that, hey, maybe you're no longer a cheating pervert with a secret rape fetish, or a closet sociopath yourself, or even just an obnoxious and self-centered asshole.

I usually see this in, I hate to say it, Christians.  "You should not judge me until you've walked a mile in MY shoes" is an easy thing to tell people when the heels you wear are so high that you get regular nosebleeds and ear-pops, and for some reason, whether they've been saved all their lives, or just born again at some point, this is something I regularly hear from Christians.  Either that, or the ever-popular "you just don't like what I say 'cuz you can't handle the TRUTH!"  As if they are some drag version of Odin All-Father, acting on information from his spies Huginn and Muninn (crows, ick), and they just KNOW the truth and they will snatch that weave up off your head...

Yes.  It feels like that.  Like an out of control reality show.  

Hypocrisy, though, in particular, gets me, because I am as guilty of it as anybody.  The only difference I can claim between me and others regarding it is that I've been regularly admitting to mine for a while now.  "Yep, I did that.  Wish I hadn't now.  I see my errors and apologize and will try not to do it again in the future."  (Of course I'm not so bland when I admit it, and probably could take some pointers in brevity.)  

Guess what, you never get forgiven.  So I guess if I seem harsh now, it is because when I see a double standard, when I see somebody hiding behind the invincible shield of Christianity to disguise their hypocrisy, because first amendment and free-dumb of religion and YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO JUDGE ME, I guess I just really get frustrated that these kind of people aren't called to task.

If you display this kind of behavior, if you support this kind of behavior, you're part of the problem.  Hiding behind religion doesn't make you a better person, and latching onto somebody who does it doesn't absolve your sins.  I've admitted my sins, and I'm working on becoming better, and most importantly, I am becoming better, but especially with the big changes probably coming, I have to.  If I'm not forgiven for those sins, after trying to make honest amends, that says a lot more about the people I've sinned against than the sins themselves.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Very Superstitious.

I am normally not at all superstitious.  But lately some movies, some comic books, some Instagram accounts, 30 Rock and Steve Earle have convinced me that one of the places that's pursuing me is going to come through soon.  

I still think it's a coincidence, all of these occurrences in the same city, but hey... there are those who say me landing this job would be a one in a million chance.

There are others* that say "one in a million" chances happen nine times out of ten.

I think this is actually going to happen.  I'm still crossing fingers until then though.

*Terry Pratchett, for example.

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Heard in Armitage III just now: "..the terrorist puppet bombings..."

Maybe they were thinking of Team America, World Police?  Fuck yeah!

Another line:

"It's a pretty place, if you ignore the smell from all the bombs!"

Geez, watching this/posting these lines will probably get me a visit from Homeland Security.