Last night we went to have the ‘life insurance’ talk with a friend who has a friend in the biz. Since my man is doing so much better this seemed like something that could be put off but calling an agent in the middle of a heart attack is probably not your best bet for coverage so out into the snowy night we went.

I’m so glad I brought wine.

At first all was well. We did some catching up, looked at wedding photos, talked about the big scary medical stuff and yadda yadda. Then the insurance dude came over and things got all intense like.

‘you need to be covered for 5 zillion billion dollars! what if you die and she wants to buy CocaCola? You want her to have CocaCola dont you? Are you going to deny her a Fortune 500 company?!’

…

At which point I said I was not looking to become a millionare off my man’s death thank you very much. I want to be Black CAT, not black widow.. big difference there sparky.

Then he had us run our numbers. How much we make vs how much we owe vs how much gets spent on silly things like food. At the end it said we had $300/month in disposable income. I said:

‘awesome! where is it? cause I could totally go for some all you can easy sushi! only my bank acct says I cant afford it.. and it says that every month. Its not very nice to me as it turns out.. Do you think I am in an abusive relationship? Is there a shelter I can go to?’

He says he doesnt know but numbers dont lie and we have $300 to spend. So clearly we should spend all 300 of it on Life Insurance.

‘Hey baby, wanna go to a movie tonight?’

‘Love to but our last monies went to make sure I can live like a Kardashian when you kick the bucket. Till then, its Mr Noodle time. Isnt this an awesome quality of life?’

Blah blah blah.. I finally say ‘we MIGHT could squeeze out $50 a month, but even that’s pushing it’. He looks at me with disdain and says ‘That’s not gonna cut it’ and I say

‘I know right! We’re like totally poor! Sucks for you that we cant be bilked out of money we dont have so you can get comission. The world is so unfair. Would you like some tea to console you? Only we dont have cream cuz poor people cant afford it.. Oh look at me going on about me & my troubles when you are so upset about my poverty as it relates to you! How insensitive of me! I am so sorry!’

Seriously dude, dont you think I would LOVE to be in a position to give you 7x that amount every month for a product I hope I never have to use? I would LOVE LOVE LOVE that! But they make us lower middle class folk live here in the slum called reality. So thanks for pointing out just how close to box living we actually are. Gracias.

Then it got fun. He starts saying ‘well if you want more income.. blah blah blah.. i need agents. Especially in the US. People are hurting down there now and are hungry for solutions. ‘

I’m not sure how many times I blinked. I’m sure I looked like I had Tourette’s of the eye like that dude in the Pink Panther movies.

‘So lemme get this straight. You want me to spend more money than I have AND come work for you to bilk others out of money they dont have? Sure. I hear there is still some suck from Katrina. How’s about I take Louisiana as my territory? Those folks think they need housing and food. Pshaw I say! What they need are sound financial strategies!’

Apparently they dont speak sarcasm in Insurance land because he says they have a convention next friday night and he’ll get us 2 tickets for an event that will ‘change your life’. I wanted to ask if Tony Robbins would be there, cuz if not.. fuck that noise.

When I said we were booked for hang out time with friends and 2 gigs so thanks but no thanks he looked at me like I said my sport of choice was baby slapping. ‘How could you go to some fire spinning gig where you make such a pittance and not take this opportunity?’

Well, you wanted me to have more $ to buy your policy, right? Well this is how that gets done. Oh, or were you suggesting prostitution? I am often clueless to such subtleties in language. But my ‘Pretty Woman’ dress is on loan to some toddler in Texas, so for now I gotta dance for my dinner. Sorry my life doesn’t fit in your neat package once again. I really am so shameless that way.

SERIOUSLY? I mean its bad enough this insurance quote has now turned into a job dealie with a convention, but he isnt even offering a free stay in a time share! Thats just bad customer service right there.

Then it got hilarious. He ran the numbers.

‘Ok so… 1 million in coverage will cost you $173.16 a month’

‘I have $50′

‘Thats not gonna cut it’

‘Thanks for that. I have $50.’

‘Ok, 500,00 will cost you $113.25.’

‘I have $50′

‘*sigh* Ok, 400,00 will run you $93.19′

‘I have $50′

‘You dont want to go any lower than 400k!  Cant you find it somewhere?’

“Love to! You’e the numbers guy. Look on that piece of paper and if you can find it, its yours. I have $50”

‘Fine. 300k will run you $50.49. Can I squeeze you for 49 cents?’

‘Possibly. ‘

So he pulls out the big packet of a thousand questions and starts rattling them off.

“Have you in the last 12 months or are planning in the next 12 months to go base jumping?’

Not kidding folks.. not..even..kidding.

We joke a bit and then Insurance man turns on us like a pit viper.

‘If we are going to do this I need ABSOLUTE SILENCE! I need ONLY HIS ANSWERS so you are going to have be quiet for five whole minutes!’

Yet again…Not kidding folks.. not..even..kidding.

Here was the big question that called for Criss Angel type silence:

‘Now if you did something in high school that… maaayybbeee you dont really remember? Have you smoked tobacco,marijuana, etc in the past twelve months?’

WHOAH! So if this is SUCH a huge deal that you need TOTAL SILENCE to ask, why ask a smoker if he’s smoked in such a dodgy fashion? Something dont smell right.

(i have no idea why this image came up when i googled ‘the smell test’, but its pretty hot so it’s staying)

Anywho, back to Mr. Ask Dodgy Questions in Complete silence. Now that I had gotten over my shock at being told to STFU I said that this was quite enough thank you very much and we’ll think about it and get back to him. He says,

‘This is important! This is life and death stuff!’

and .. I lost it.. just a little bit..

‘Yanno buddy, we’ve dealt with needles in hearts, seizures, doctors telling us lots of really scary things and way more all in the past two weeks. I THINK I KNOW FROM LIFE AND DEATH HERE. You are out of line. I am insulted and this is OVER. I’m going for a smoke… write that in your little packet if you want’

Pushy tactics dont work on me. Job offers that will change my life dont work on me. Scare tactics dont work on me. Insults dont work on me. You know what works on me? Pull up a chair, this is REALLY complicated:

Not being a douche and just getting me the product I need at the price I can afford. THAT is what works on me.

I have $50. 

So we come home and just for shits & giggles I look at a quote online. We can get $130k in coverage for $19 a month. WITHOUT the insults and the pushy amway shit. $19.

I have $31.00. Whatcha wanna sell me?

I vote burritos.

PS: Potential goodnesses coming soon to a blog near you! Subject to verification and validation but fair warning: warm fuzzies and the stuff of making Grinch hearts triple in size may be droppin like its hot round here soon!

Backstory (much of which I have already blogged about, please forgive for the repetition, I found I needed to rewrite it to process it) -

Back last summer my beloved partner and live in Buddha, David, started having some weirdness going on. The man who can usually throw a sofa over a retaining wall without breaking a sweat was getting so that a 3-4 minute fire staff routine was leaving him sweaty and exhausted. He had rolled his ankle pretty badly and it kept him off his feet for a few weeks from the pain and swelling. The swelling then started in his OTHER foot which makes no damn sense at all and then it moved up both of his legs. A few days/weeks later I sent him to the doctor in horror when we noticed he had +4 pitting edema in both legs and his normally muscular arms now looked like that of an 80 year old man. He’d been losing some weight but we assumed it was a good thing since my Buddha man has a Buddha belly and we figured losing a bit of that meant good things.

We were so very wrong.

His doctor sent him to the Kidney specialist post haste and in the interim had an ECG ordered. I looked up all the symptoms online and came back with Nephrotic Syndrome. Which is a scary thing when you’re 70, absolutely terrifying when you’re 31. Then it got scarier. His family doc called him at work one day in a panic and said the ECG showed pressures in his heart were 4x normal and that if he got winded at all or even had a weensy bit of chest pain to get to the ER IMMEDIATELY AS HE COULD DIE.

What the hell?

I looked up things again and came back with several arm chair diagnoses as to what this weird heart thing could mean. But nothing conclusive (and I was scaring myself to death with very little info) so we waited on the kidney doc to shed some light.

Light was shed, and way more questions raised. At the time he was shedding 5 grams of protein a day. Literally he was losing more protein than his body could make every day. That explains the muscle wasting. I was spot on about the Nephrotic Syndrome but not about the reason why. The only way to know why is to have a kidney biopsy, so they scheduled my man to have a hunk of his innerds yanked out for microscopic analysis. She also sent him to a pulmonary doc.

Over the next few weeks my poor beloved underwent a biopsy, ventialtion scans, bloodwork, a visit to the cancer center to see a hematologist, more bloodwork, 6 minute walking tests, was put on blood pressure meds and diuretics, a visit to the diabetic clinic, chest CTs and on and on and on. I had to factor in ‘hospital parking costs’ into our monthly budget and some weeks it eclipsed our food budget. In Canada healthcare is free, but getting to the healthcare or getting the medication to fix the problems the free healthcare found is not. Makes total sense.

It took MONTHS, but finally we had 2 diagnoses: the nephrotic syndrome was secondary to FSGS (scarring on the kidneys for iodiopathic reasons – meaning no clue why its happening) and Pulmonary Hypertension of as yet unknown reasons.

My friends.. this is one of the scariest fucking diagnoses out there. I cannot tell you the horror I badly tried to keep to myself as I read up on it and kept coming across words like ‘prognosis: 2 years’ and ‘heart lung transplant’. We are in our thirties. We are supposed to worry about global warming and peace in the Middle East, not about dying before the year 2014.

All the info  kept saying stuff like ‘but recent advances have been made!’ And I’d think ‘Awesome! What are these miracles?!’ and then it would go into ‘we arent sure, not enough data but maybe 5 years of survival!‘ WHAT..THE..FUCK? This is GOOD?

No, this is goddamned unacceptable is what this is.

After weeks and months of tests, no answers, more tests, literally watching my beloved waste away in front of my eyes, seeing this man who could lift washers and dryers now not be able to carry in a grocery bag I was a bona fide crazy person. By the time we got to the pulmonary doc I had fucking lost it. I was doing that fun heaving crying thing where you cant catch your breath much less keep any composure.

So now the pulmonary doc thinks I need Thorazine and definitely wont tell me any kind of hard facts beyond ‘lemme refer you to the PH clinic.. and stop reading the internet!’ Which is actually good advice but in the absence of any actual info from a doc, what am I supposed to do? Go home, pretend everything is fine and chill out to some Spongebob? I do not work that way.

That day I felt like an idiot, later I felt justified when this very learned doctor told my love that to combat the insomnia he was having (which is an ACTUAL symptom of PH thank you very much), to just not look at a clock when he wakes up at night. That should do the trick. Yeah and me just picturing giant bowls of rice should feed all the starving kids in the world. Fucking twit.

I may be a little angry. Here’s why:

The appointment with the PH clinic was WEEKS away. So I researched. Basically this thing is rare. One of the only reasons they know anything about it was that ..remember all those class action lawsuits against Phen-Fen back a decade or so ago? Well THIS is what all those people got. You get the vessels from your heart to your lungs pinched and tightened like a vice grip on a garden hose. Your heart is beating, your lungs are taking in O2 but the mechanism by which that O2 gets into your blood is diminished and your heart has to pump harder to get blood into your lungs. Ergo, blood flow everywhere is diminished, O2 to everywhere is diminshed, you feel like ass and oh yeah.. his kidneys are fucked too.. which may or may not be related.

Jesus fucking christ.

So what about those medical advancements? Well.. oh here I gotta laugh. 10% of patients respond to inhaled nitrites. Poppers. The gay man’s fun drug could actually help my hetero life mate. A few more respond to Viagra/Cialis in high doses. Boner pills. Boner pills and poppers are what we are praying for.

Its tragic and hilarious. Because…

The next step is Flolan. Which is a 24/7 CONTINUOUS INFUSION STRAIGHT INTO YOUR HEART FOREVER. If the pumps fucks up, you have 2 hours to get to the hospital or you DIE.

I’m not laughing anymore. (although its amusing that spellcheck knows Viagra)

There is more to it, but really thats the jist. Its just that this is getting long and the fun hasnt even really started yet.

They FINALLY schedule his heart cath for last week.. In January. Keep in mind if you will this all started last August or so.

We get to the hospital in another city and go thru the pre op. The nurse says ‘Oh hey, did you wanna meet Dr S?’

…

This man is about to stick a fucking tube into the heart of the love of my life. YES I WOULD LIKE TO MEET HIM, pretty sure the patient would as well. Didn’t happen. I was sent to the waiting room to hope and pray it wasnt Dr Nic from the Simpson’s poking around my man’s thoracic cavity.

2 hours later I am told to go see him in post op. I walk in to see my man white as a sheet, scared to death and SEVEN doctors looking over him. I walk up, give him a kiss and listen to Dr M (apparently his main doc here? I dunno, its THE FIRST TIME WE’VE SEEN HIM, maybe he was the janitor?). He tells him his pressures are off the charts. That he is EXTREMELY sick and they want to put him on Flolan like yesterday and they have a cardiac bed waiting for him right now.

And here we come to the title of this blog post. I know all the jokes about self diagnosing on the internet. And I freely admit its 99% true. Go looking for anything and you can convince yourself of the very worst with very little. I am also a nurse. Every single time we studied a new disease the whole class freaked out thinking they had it. Loss of appetite can mean anything from cancer to a cold. That said:

If I hadnt been looking at all this information for 3 months all we would have to go on was this doctor saying ‘we are putting a needle into your heart FOREVER today.’

He wasnt being an asshole. This is what he does all day every day. He’s a specialist. He knows where of he speaks. But still, thats a HUGE decision to thrust upon someone in a split second.

We werent sure what the hell to do. We said we wanted to think about it. He said ‘You have 15 minutes to decide.’

WHAT THE SHIT?

Whatever.

In the end it had to be David’s decision. I knew what I thought but I wasnt the one facing down a needle forever or possible sudden death.

He decided to try the pills (which the doctor didnt tell us about until AFTER we said no to the needle) and see what happens. Four hours later we left. Six hours later we were home, terrified, filled with too much too soon and hit sixteen walls of exhaustion.Four days later and I am just now processing the teensiest amounts of it.

So here’s the moral of the story: keep some perspective but educate yourself. There’s just too much at risk not to.

As of today, he’s now on huge doses of cialis. I keep asking him every fifteen minutes ‘hey, got a boner yet?’ Because yanno, its all about me and if I can get some sex out of this horror show then thats something at least.

It may not last but.. he feels better. His color is back, his BP is down, he is sleeping, he actually has some pep back in him. It may just be that all his vessels are open a little more and he feels better because O2 is actually getting to his body. It may not last. He will proabably end up on Flolan at some point. But for now, he isnt dead and he isnt miserable. Its good. Its very very good. And he’s better without a needle in his heart.

This whole damn thing is absurd. The fact that he has it, the fact that its so untreatable, the fact that you don’t even set eyes on a person who is jabbing your heart with pointy things, the fact that they give you 15 minutes to make such a HUGE decision on so very little info, the fact that boner pills help hearts, the fact that heart pills give you boners, the fact that club drugs can actually save some lives.

Its all absurd.

But for today, we’re having burritos for dinner and goddamnit we are gonna enjoy them.

The really absurd thing is me making it all about me.

But its my blog, I’ve had one of those ‘that which doesnt kill you makes you stronger‘ weekends and I am in need of some kind of processing that isnt housed within my own skull.

Friday I was feeling all out of sorts. It finally dawned on me that it was death anniversary weekend and thats what was causing my weirdness. I went looking for distraction, keeping my word for the year in mind: absurd. Oh the internet, she doth giveth dont she? I googled ‘how to be sad’ because while I am very very good at being angry, its occured to me over the last year or so that I never learned how to be sad.

I think its the lack of endgame with sadness that does me in. With anger there is a focus (even a perceived one), a thing you can point to and say ‘If only THAT was different, things would be ok’. Its not actually true alot of the time, but at least anger has direction or the illusion of it. Sadness has no shape. Its just this big amoeba shaped miasma of suck that mimics mercury when you try to grab hold of it. I’m a fixer, I want to fix the sadness. And you cant fix sad. All you can do is sit with it and wait until it dissipates.

I suck at just sitting.

So I googled ‘How to be sad’. I got all kinds of hits on ‘how to STOP being sad’ with lots of candy floss advice like ‘take a walk! talk to a friend!’. Which is all very good advice but not what I was looking for. I was looking for how to BE sad, not how to NOT be sad. So now I was sad that noone could tell me how to be sad. Well thats just silly. And then I remembered my word. And lo, there it was staring back at me:

And I laughed. My friends if you cant laugh at Big Foot hiding booze in your Facebook photos, you have no soul. It was enough to get me slightly back on track. You know what’s absurd? In the last 14 years we have:

• Invented drugs to give people boners
• Invented drugs to grow eyelashes 
• Invented ways to put lasers into eyeballs so people can shun glasses
• Invented surgery to prettify your pussy
• Working on a device to PRINT YOU A NEW LIVER

And yet, we still have no ideas why babies die in the night. Way to have priorities, humanity. Know how they diagnose it? Your kid dies, they question you for hours, cut your kid open and when they find nothing, bingo! You have a diagnosis. Its a bit like atheism. Not having a diagnosis is what gives you a diagnosis. That is absurd.

So that was friday.

Saturday/Sunday was more of me trying to kill the man in my life by watching TV on the couch watching… wait for it… Serenity.

My man stood up, sat right back down again, looked at me in this weird, dreamy, ‘i luff you’ way right before his eyes dilated to the size of pennies and started seizing. I knew something was wrong when he looked at me all sweet like. This is how it happens, with a look that could make a litter of fluffy kittens look more serious than a box of heart attacks. Seizures are rather absurd in and of themselves. The brain short circuits so what’s it do? Makes the entire rest of the body pay for it. That hardly seems fair.

Seizures are also very serious things. So whats to be done?

Go to the ER? And wait for 6 hours for them to run an ECG and say ‘yep, you had a seizure all right. Now be gone and follow up with your doctor. Here’s a nice paper bracelet as a parting gift.’

K, so which doctor to call?

The GP, who is actually a very caring man and a good doctor but who does not deal in Kidney Disease, Pulmonary Hypertension or blood vessel issues.

The kidney doctor? Good plan, except the last time I tried to make an appointment with them was told by the staff that he should go to the ER because ‘this aint a walk in clinic you know.’ Yes I do know. I am not calling because he has a sore throat, I am calling because you are a Kidney Clinic and he has SCARRING OF THE KIDNEYS. I know, I can be totally unreasonable about things like calling clinics that have the thing that’s wrong IN THEIR FUCKING NAME.

K, How about the Pulmonary Doc? Also a good thought except that she passed him off to the clinic in another city and when he asked about trying to do something about his insomnia she suggested that when he wakes up he just not look at a clock. That’s what 10 years of higher education and a prescription pad will buy you, the wisdom to tell your patient to get more rest, but if you cant rest.. well just dont look at clocks.

So.. maybe the clinic in the other city? Maybe, except it took 2 months to get an appointment only to take the whole day off work to go to said appointment to find that NONE of the doctors were even in the country so we went over the chart from the other doctors with a nurse. A very nice nurse, but noone who can actually do anything. I am not a little bit wary of letting my man be medically fucked with by people who cant even figure out that this little interaction could have been accomplished via Skype. My man will meet his actual doctor Thursday morning, right before they slip him the valium to take the edge off the double angiogram he’ll be undergoing.

In case it got lost in all the medical jargon, this is, in a word ABSURD.

When they come to tell me he’s out of surgery on Thursday I plan on having a little chat with Dr. No Name. I am not leaving without some kind of script to at least get him started on SOME kind of treatment. And here is where it gets funny, in the cosmic sort of way.

Remember back in the 80′s when housewives started dropping like houseflies because they all went on FenPhen to drop the baby weight? Well they all got Pulmonary Hypertension, the thing my beloved has (even though he’s never looked at a diet pill. He didn’t get the nickname of Buddha solely for his sage like advice). So whatever research they have on this weird, rare disease we owe to housewives trying to fit into bikinis. There are lots of scary treatments (24/7 infusions straight into your heart, transplant) for this thing, but one of the first lines of attack is.. oh its just too funny.. BONER PILLS! Yep, Viagra works by dilating blood vessels. So it may be the thing that opens my beloved’s heart tubes.

Maybe I was too quick to mock medical technology.

I never did learn how to be sad. Seems the universe decided ‘sad? nah, fuck that. Lets just jump start your psyche like an adrenaline shot to the heart. Worked for Uma Thurman.’

So maybe I’m not some weird sort of male EMP. I hope not. I’m kinda attached to the dude. And afterall, my dad’s still kicking around somewhere. He lived with me for 18 years and is still going, so I hear. But the real lesson here is that if gods forbid something happens to my beloved, I will become a practicing lesbian, just to save further males from major health issues potentially brought on by my presence like the opposite of a contact high.

In conclusion.. I may be the only person in the western hemisphere who will be glad to see Monday morning tomorrow. Most will lament, ‘Aww, the weekend is over!’ and I shall be like so many Whos in Whoville exclaiming ‘Hooray! The weekend is over!’

PS to the Universe: Please no more traumatic experiences for a little while. I’m trying very hard to hold on to the good things, but I need to miss my little boy for a little bit.

Here’s a familiar tale: a person in the midst of a severe depression is feeling more lost than usual and is struggling for a way to connect, express, reach out. So they turn to the internet and pour their heart out onto the pages via pixels. There are many sources of the sadness listed, as is often the case when one is in the depths of the bell jar, and one of them is body image issues. The person just feels plain ole not attractive, even ugly.

In come the well meaning but misguided comments. They tell the poster of their own struggles with similar issues and some ways to possibly cope with or change the situation. Good internet, here’s your cookie.

Then they move on to address the looks issue.

They tell the poster that they are ‘cute’ or ‘attractive’ but then rush with the fury of Japanese businessmen trying to make the train to add ‘no, you are not smoking hot’ and ‘no i do not find your gorgeous‘.. but you’re cute.  Bad internet, you owe 50 cookies to disadvantaged youth.

Why? Oh dear gods WHY?

I assume they added the qualifications in an effort to say ‘i’m just being honest and if i said you were drop dead beautiful you’d know i was lying because well.. its just obvious. so i dont want you thinking i am a liar, thereby negating the cute comment so i am adding this little addendum so that i’ll look like this super honest person. but you’ve still got the cute thing working for ya and that should get you through the long lonely night. so yanno, you’re welcome.’

Wanna be super honest dude? Here’s how.. stop at ‘you’re cute’. JUST STOP THERE. There is just no need for the ‘but you aint smokin hot’ part. NO NEED.

Here’s a tip for dealing with depressed people, well any people really. It takes anywhere from 8-20 positive comments to neutralize a positive comment. Thats just to nuetralize it. Then you gotta start all over to get even a little bit of positive traction happening. If you have something nice to say, just say THAT. Dont qualify, especially in the name of ‘honesty’. At this point, you arent being honest so much as self serving.

Honesty used as a weapon is honesty not worth having.

Lets make this easier. If someone says they feel unattractive you can do one of two things:

Address it – and ONLY that, no qualifiers.

Dont address it – not addressing it will do far less harm than adding on addendums like a they were bibliographic footnotes. Its a conversation, not a research paper. 

Now here is something really absurd. I HATE HATE HATE when people write *hugs* as some sort of internet panacea for whatever angst has prodded someone to spill their guts out.

‘My mom just died after 2 years of excrutiating pain’

*hugs* 

Oh fuck that! Fuck it sideways with a double ended pineapple.

Until today. Today I am actually advocating it (cue apocalypse in 3..2..). If you cant keep yourself from qualifying a compliment until its nothing more than a whittled down toothpick then just say *hugs*. Its pedantic and ridiculous, but at least its not damaging.

Absurd..its whats for breakfast.

“You’re not going to find the perfect candidate unless it’s Jesus Christ,” Jim Duggar said on Monday. With the Christian messiah sitting this one out, Duggar endorsed his second choice: Rick Santorum.

Whew! Glad that’s all taken care of now. It was a real toss up between Washington Outsider Gingrich, Racist Ron Paul,  or Batshit Michelle Bachmann. How does one know whom to choose? Never fear, Procreation Man is here!

Because seriously people, if turning your wife’s vagina into a clown car and getting a TV show on basic cable based on nothing more than your biblical justification for barebacking aint enough to be able to qualify you to publicly endorse a candidate whose name is synonymous with dirty, dirty sex byproducts.. what is?

But let it never be said I am a one sided person. I think its only fair that the flip side of this whole dealie be given a fair shake. As such, I give you the commentary of one LaFemmeSASE from the comments section of this very article:

Why do Republican­s think Jesus is one of them? Please somebody help me here. WHY?

1. When asked about paying taxes, Jesus said give to Ceasar what is Ceasar’s and to God what is God’s? He was all for paying taxes.

2. Jesus healed the sick and didnt turn away those with pre-existi­ng conditions nor did he ask to be paid.

3. Jesus took 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish and fed thousands, he didnt give one man all and hope that enough crumbs would TRICKLE DOWN.

4. Most importantl­y, Jesus stood up for those who were being persecuted by society with laws of immorality­- He who is without sin cast the first stone- that line always gets me.

Again I ask, why do Republican­s think that Jesus is one of them? Do they even know Jesus?

My dear good man/woman/internet commentator.. how dare you bring reason and logic into something as precious as a presidential race? Have you NO decency? Of course Jesus wouldnt be a republican were he alive today, nor would he be a Democrat (if for no other reason than that Joe Biden is boring). No my friend, he would of course be a Pastafarian. I mean, hullo? PASTA? Who doesnt love pasta?

Pastafarians celebrate every Friday as a holy day. Prayers are concluded with a final declaration of affirmation, “R’amen”

But, as Papa Duggar pointed out, Jesus didnt get enough signatures to get on any ballots so we gotta pick from the sloppy seconds. And what says sloppy seconds better than Santorum? Exactly. So it is written, so shall it be done.

Namaste, Bitches.

A little long, but I like the progression. As the year goes on you can see all kinds of progress. I’m excited to see where we are this time next year!

I definitely have the itch to spin more, make more videos, do more photos.. but alot of that is on hold till summer arrives *le sigh*. Till then its practice, get new skills, practice, choreograph, practice.. lather rinse repeat. I plan to spin on way more beaches come Summer 2012 and am counting on visions of fire and water to get me through winter.

Happy New Year!

What’s been on my mind to write about though is a topic of mega-huge proportions and the long and short of it is: I dont have time to write it before 11:59pm on 12/31/11. So I have to either cut out super awesome friend time just to shush my OCDemons, or shush my OCDemons and hope it they dont sabotage me. And they always do.

Option 3: Compromise.

Lets do it.

I wish I was one of those people who could do a year end wrap up. I’m not. I have a fucked up and awesome memory for things like details in Jon Cusack movies, but ask me what was going on last January and I freeze. No effing clue. I could go back and look maybe.. except a) that takes effort and b) I stopped chronicling things when I decided to embrace the woo and the Buddha. Which is a really good plan when you want to live in the present. And a really bad plan when you have a hankering for year end wrap up blog posts.

So the compromise is to get out of my system whats on my mind ‘at this moment’ and then hopefully fulfill the absurdity in 2012. And just to appease the OCDemons, I’ll do it all organized like with a bullet list!

• Wheaton’s Law – I now know what my next, next novel will be. I also know what my next one is, but we’ll get to that in a minute. My next, next one is about not being a dick and learning to apologize correctly. If you arent familiar with the Paul Christoforo dealie with Ocean Marketing and Penny Arcade, start with the clicky here. Its everything thats wrong with human interaction these days. I say its my next, next novel because I want to wait to see if this dude actually learns a lesson and doesnt just continue on with the  whole ‘if you’re a big shot I’ll treat you like a god, otherwise fuck off’ thing he has going right now. It was bad enough that he was so nasty to a customer, but his ‘apologies’ are the stuff of splinters in the ass of humanity. He isnt sorry for what he did, he’s sorry he got busted and because the consequences are unpleasant. I keep hoping his heart grows three sizes thanks to Penny Arcade, but I aint laying any bets on it. And it all could have been avoided if he’s just not been a dick.
• How Much Do I Love Chris Hardwick? – well, alot. But today even more. M’love gave me The Nerdist Way for xmas and I <3 it. At first I wasnt sure. I love Chris and I love people who play D&D, but I dont like D&D myself. I get the analogy he’s using, but I wasnt so sure it would be a thing that clicked for me personally. Then I got to the part about choosing a word for the year. He suggests choosing a word for the year and then throughout that year whenever you are faced with a choice or dilemma, remember that word and whichever decision best compliments your word, pick that. Brilliant! My word for 2012 is art. Art, Art, Art. I have direction. My OCDemons are dancing. He also somehow made it FINALLY click (even though I have been bombarded with this thought all year and only now internalized it) to just do stuff. Even if its never seen, never published, never acknowledged in any way. So I am finally gonna write my NEXT novel, which will be painful and cathartic and wonderful. If the world doesnt end in 2012, I hope to start 2013 with significantly less baggage.
• The Rape Thing - this is the one I really want to tackle before 2012 but just dont have the time or spoons for. So I’ll be short: FUCK RAPE. FUCK ANYONE WHO USES RAPE AS A CUTESY VERB OR ADJECTIVE. Ok, thats a little bit of a mixed message. So lemme back up. Rape is a big deal, a big BAD deal and any attempts to make it anything other than what it is need to find space to fill way the fuck away from me. People say its a ‘complex issue, with lots of factors to consider.’ I call bullshit. Did a sexual interaction occur with or without consent for that specific act? Thats it, the sum total. If you have consent it aint rape. If you didnt, it is. Anything else is just a feeble attempt at wordplay. This issue is the main reason I am going the absurd route. Because it makes me crazy to the point of my own detriment trying to make people understand this point. It infuriates me that we are having to abandon the word rape for ‘sexual assault’ because hipsters, gamers and rednecks are using the term to mean anything from ‘I sunk your battleship’ to ‘I think you’re groovy, wanna make out?’ Gods fucking forbid we actually just say what we mean. No, lets add a ‘y’ onto a very serious term and make it adorable sounding. Fine, take it. I am not gonna fight such a losing battle. But what I will do is unfriend you, encourage others to not listen to your radio show and call you out on it should you say it in my presence. I have to leave this one alone or I will go Katie Kaboom on society at large and I’d really rather be happy than right.
• Kevin Smith and Lisbeth Salander – How much do I love KS? Oh you guys know. More than is healthy. So the other day he was tweeting as he watched Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  (Which by the way is AWESOME. I still love Noomi, but this is a great flick). In the end he tweeted something like ‘Final Verdict? A little rapey for my taste but a great flick’ (there’s that goddamned word again, but at least he was describing an actual portrayal of the act). That just stuck in my head. Of course its rapey! Its a movie that is all about rape and the effects it has on people! Would you also say ‘Ocean’s 11 is a little heisty, but an ok movie’? THATS THE PLOT! How do you tell a story thats about a thing and NOT have it be about that thing? Should Mr Rogers have been a show about a guy named Mr Nelson? Kev, I love you but WTF? And not for nothing, but maybe we NEED to see that shit more, so people wont throw terms like rape around like its a jolly good time? See, this is why I gotta change my headspace, it makes an already crazy girl batshit with rage.
• The Clit is HUGE! – Seriously, this blew my fucking mind. The clit is actually humongous!  And this article is fascinating. How can it not be with sentences like ‘When erect, the corpora cavernosa (part of the internal clit) encompass the vagina on either side, as if they were wrapping around it giving it a big hug!’  Clit hugs! This is now a thing, I am making it one. Ergo, it is so.
• Really BBC? REALLY? – They couldnt find a chick to name woman of the year, so they gave it to a bear. What the fucking fuck? I’m just a lowly peon suffering pithy snowstorms in Canada and I can name 12 awesome kick ass women right this second. A GIANT organization cant find one? Fine, I’ll do your job for you. Woman of the year is.. (see next bullet point)
• The Bloggess – If you dont already know her, take a few hours and go read every word the woman has ever written. And start here. Her making 2 christmases in a row come true  for lots of people, adventures with giant metal chickens and an ever patient husband not withstanding, THIS is what should be getting TV shows and movie deals. Not Jersey Shore, Toddlers & Tiaras or Dance Moms. I cant say it any better than she does so I am not even gonna try. But I am gonna end with this because there may be tons fucked up with this world, but there’s good too.. and I’ll say it once again:  ’Id rather be happy than right’ and this makes me furiously happy.
  • I see a girl intent on enjoying the sun while it still shines, smiling vehemently,  indignantly, and entirely celebrating a shining perfect moment even as alligators swim underneath.  Victor said she seemed oblivious, but she’s not.  She knows the alligator is there.
  • The alligators are always there.
  • They remind her to smile and enjoy those perfect moments whenever they arise, because life without fear is not a life fully appreciated.  She smiles – not because she’s unaware of the alligators – but because she’s aware of them and because she knows how wonderful it feels when they release their jaws from your ankles.
  • If you look online you’ll find a lot of critics who claim that the original tight-rope walker’s too-open eyes suggest that she’s just bat-shit crazy…too numb with fear to even understand the danger.  Her mind has snapped, and now teeters slowly, detached from reality.  I can’t argue with that, because that fits with my personality a bit too comfortably as well, but I still prefer to see what I see…a girl who has won a battle.  A girl who appreciates those moments between maulings.  A girl who knows all too well the dangers and pain around her but who has made a conscious and complete decision to be furiously happy in spite of it all.

    
    

See you all in 2012, now with more art and absurdity!

or.. My Plan to Thwart S.A.D. – to make videos all winter of summer spinning to remind me that it cant snow all the time

Music: Willie Nelson Blue Skies Remix, Dahle Lama

But for a while I didnt read a simple status update as ‘Going to see my new nephew in City X 3k miles away!’, I read it as ‘I am the person always bitching about fossil fuel usage who is now going to contribute to my own carbon footprint in a BIG BAD WAY!‘  I couldnt see ‘Speaking tonight at a rally for gender equality!‘, all I could see was ‘I’ve changed which pronoun you should refer to me as four times in the past year and gotten pissed at you when you didnt automatically know what I wanted!’

I decided that perhaps the problem was that I was reading the info provided by people I knew. Afterall if ‘Random Blogger A’ suggested a link on the 99% I’d take it at face value. Not knowing their personal history gives me no reason to question their sincerity. But no, that didnt work either. Just reading the news or even something as inane as IMDB comments was not the panacea I had hoped it would be. When he said he was a ‘Washington outsider’ I nearly choked on my tea. When someone asked ‘zomg! why are they remaking the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo?’ I wanted to slap the nearest sentient being.

For the record, the only thing Gingrich might ever be an ‘outsider’ to is the actual Congress building itself, since I assume he doesnt/didnt actually sleep there during his 20 YEARS IN WASHINGTON.

And why remake GWTDT? A) Because its AWESOME. B)  Because Hollywood seems to run on the ‘we have X amount of dollars, we have to make SOMETHING!’ philosophy and better a remake of Lisbeth Salander than more bad 70′s TV shows.

*sigh*

So I figured I had three choices:

1) Get offline all together. Not a bad plan except there are no vacancies on the Tibetan mountaintops and without a sherpa and some pretty scenery what the fuck am I gonna do with myself all day?

2) Get all ranty like. Fight the power. Damn the man. Love it! Except I dont have healthcare and as such, no access to blood pressure medication.

3) Take the ‘you have to laugh or you’ll cry approach’.  I call it ‘Carlin’s Way’. Look past the words and try to see the absurdity.

So it is written, so it shall be done. Or something pretentious sounding like that.

So here is an example of my new headspace tweaking dealies just from the past 24 hours:

This video:

Old Me: So tell me, are you posting this video from a computer that was part of the evil supply chain your video showed to be part of the Great Satan?

New Me: Everyone knows that all true ‘we should be better!’ videos are done in a very sincere black and white. That video clearly uses red, blue and even green dry erase markers and as such I reject it as insincere. And you have to be sincere or else the Great Pumpkin wont some visit you. Everyone knows that. Duh.

or this:

‘I despise rushing because 1. it makes me short tempered. 2. It makes me anxious. 3. I can’t savor the simple pleasures (like a cup of coffee or the sunrise or a smooch from my husband or kids). 3. The Bible never says “Jesus hurried” – and if Jesus didn’t do it, I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t.’

Old Me: Maybe just get up 30 minutes earlier?

New Me:  I’m pretty sure Jesus never had a husband. Or kids, unless you believe Dan Brown. So you should get a divorce and abandon the wee folk post haste. Also, Jesus seemed more partial to wine than coffee, so maybe add some Pinot Grigio to your morning routine? That should make everything way more lubricated and thus, running smoothly. Lube is the key to life, ask any anal sex expert.

Ahh yes.. much better. And now I am going to go bash my trachea with my new hoop. Thats not a euphemism.

That’s not me. That chick looks way better than me. (No lie.) I would post a video but wow, do I look ABSURD. See there, problem solved. No need to go any further than my kitchen to find the stuff.

The Past:

When last we left off I was embarking on a 30 day writing challenge to prep for NaNoWriMo. Done and Done. And boy are my arms tired. No, really. They are. That was some of the most grueling shit I have ever put myself through. But worth it! I now have the bones of a workable novel! It needs a metric assload of work, but I figure if I have it fleshed out and edited by the time the world ends in 2012 I can go kaboom as a bonafide novel writer and this makes me happy. I learned alot (who knew I was good at dialogue?) and kept myself on goal. Go me.

The Present: 

Just when you thought it was safe to go into your bank account and order tons of flow toys for xmas, your car dies. Last week we said adios to the Prius of Awesome and hello to the Civic of ‘Ill come to love you, I’m just grieving right now. Its not you, its me..’. I recognize what a privileged place I am in that I can buy a car and put snow tires on it within days of the other giving out. But it means that for the first time in five years I am actually in debt. Which means for the next year, its a whole lot of nothing more than I can do from home or the park. Which is not the worst thing in the world, its just not what I had planned. Oh hello Brian Cranston’s voice in my head.. I hear ya. ‘Dont get attached to expected outcomes.‘ I do wish the universe could a find a way to teach me things in a little bit less literal fashion. Apparently that is not her MO of choice. I surrender.

Sticking my toes into the pool of vulnerability proved that they are chilly waters indeed. Second verse, same as the first. Not quite fit for public consumption. Gotcha.  There is still a glimmer of hope but I refuse to look at it. It burns, oh how it burns! I know what I want, just no effin clue as to how to get it. For a problem solver such as myself this means a whole lot of frustration and temper tantrum throwing. Which is not exactly productive, but until I get a punching bag installed it will have to suffice.

Christmas is almost upon us and thank goodness I had everything done before the financials took a left turn at Albuquerque. I am still hoping to get my sister up here for the holidays but we’ll see what Mistress Visa says about that. Otherwise, it shall be Stray Cats for Xmas Eve and Chinese/Movie for xmas day. And this year I am picking the movie. No boy movies. I say we end this year/start the next with some kick ass girl action ala Lisbeth Salander. Oh, and there will be a meat stocking. Stay tuned.

The Future: 

Know how everyone whines that New Years Resolutions are stupid and blah blah blah? Well fine then, I’m calling mine now.

On Jan 1, 2011 I changed the direction of this blog and lots of other things in my life. In 2012 I’m doing it again.

I declare 2012 ‘The Year of the Absurd’!

I vow to find the absurdity in all things that I encounter. Shouldnt be too hard now that pizza is a vegetable, Newt Gingrich is a Washington ‘outsider’ and Adam Corolla is calling the 99% entitled. Its like the work is being done for me! Boo yah.

The few challenges I set myself last year seemed to work well, so I’m raising the stakes. 30 day challenges? Childs play says I! Lets go for 365! For 2012 I am doing a 365/30 Flow Challenge. For 365 days I will do at least 30 minutes of flow a day. Poi, fans, hoop, contact juggling, yoga, yadda yadda. I am hoping to get in more than 30 minutes a day, but 30 minutes is the minimum.

I also have some more abstract goals I want to meet: make more videos, take more pictures, write more posts, be more active, etc ad infinitum.

Thats the output, there is also paring down. I want to finally get this belly under control for the love of all thats holy! I am really only unhappy with about four inches of my flesh so it needs to be gone. I need to get rid of more ‘stuff’. I did a good job of disappearing clothes/shoes/books/worthless crap last year, now its time to get brutal with it.

So there we have it.. direction. No end game, just an outlook.

ab·surd 

• adjective - utterly or obviously senseless, illogical, or untrue; contrary to all reason or common sense; laughably foolish or false: an absurd explanation.
• noun - the quality or condition of existing in a meaningless and irrational world.

Lets do this thing.