'Tis a gift?

Every year at xmas, I start to get a feeling of excitement and dread. I like presents and I like my family, but xmas doesn't come with just family. It comes with That Woman. And what comes with That Woman at xmastime are creepy, horrible gifts.

There have been some doozies (The husband once got a book on county fairs, because everyone knows how fascinating county fairs are to the youngsters these days-- unlike those dirty state fairs; State fairs are Sodom and/or Gomorrah with ferris wheels!). She once gave my six year old nephew a figurine of a bear doing taxes. You can count on her giving at least one person something she's received as a free gift.

This year I was afraid she wouldn't live up to her reputation. And then I opened this:

That grey blob is a cat, and I suppose that's why she thought to give it to me, since any time you're at a loss for a gift you can always give a cat lady some sort of cat-related thingy.

This is creepy, right? I gotta say, when I saw this little clay faceless lady holding a blob-- the first thing I thought of was Dr. Who:

And everyone knows Dr. Who creations make great holiday stocking stuffers. Order yours today!

When the wars came

We are witness to many battles in America right now. Not just Democrat v. Republican, Bush administration v. reality, McCain v. relevance, Congress v. Foresight and Palin v. direct inquiries. Sure, those are important and I'm keeping at least one eye on each of them. But here are the conflicts that have been keeping me too busy to write (no, really!):

The Battle at Alvioli

I have had pneumonia for the past month, but you'd never know it from my work schedule. No, that's not true, I was out about a week (two and a half days one week and four another), but mostly I've been up and out and about, spreading my pathogens, coughing in fits and generally existing in a phlegmy phog. I was given 10 days' worth of antibiotics 10 days ago, and went in for my recheck this afternoon. The lungs sounded clear, my cute brown-eyed doctor told me as he thumped my back with one hand and listened with the stethescope with both ears, though my coughing may stick around a little longer. He thought maybe my asthma was adding some hassle, so I got some free Advair and a prescription for sudafed (which, if I get me chemistry right could score me a meth rock of about .02 mcg. Hot dog). Expected outcome: I think the Alvioli will come out on top, but they may never be completely rid of the terrorism of post-nasal drip.

The Wars of the Stereotypes

I work with a woman who runs our state's SCA, and you can tell. She dresses like a goth at a temp job: dark but without the boots and black leggings (though I should talk-- I don't dress much better). She is loud and opinionated and, like me, not well-versed in the art of constructive criticism. I get along with her well enough, but she is both annoying and easily annoyed. She is pretty competent at her job, although some of her methods I choose not to emulate.

We recently hired a guy for the open help desk position, and he has the familiar attitude of an IT guy at a new job, meaning he insists on relating everything you are training him to how things used to be at his old job. He is still uncomfortable in his position both as the lowest guy on the totem pole and the only guy in our tiny room. He is easily affronted, but won't take on the affronter directly, so he spends a lot of his time sitting at his desk frowning.

These two don't really get along, and today the sparring started over an incident in training. We are all sitting in on this training this week so we can train on it later, and the trainer is our SCA Baroness. Her hackles were raised at one point when IT guy quietly left the room and didn't come back for 10 minutes. While he was gone I had a coughing fit and left the room to spit up goop and get a cough drop.

At the break, the Baroness summoned us to her shire near the InFocus machine and scolded us for leaving the classroom. I protested that I was coughing uncontrollably and she forgave me. She then turned to IT guy and scolded him even more for not having an obvious reason to leave. He went back to his seat and began to stew. When she went to smoke, he turned to me in a minor fury and proceeded to tell me that he left because something he ate at lunch hadn't agreed with him but, he added, there was no way he was going to tell her that.

So, color me Swiss. I get to hear way too much opinion from both sides. As neither side looks like it will back down, I think I may be in for the passive-aggressive long haul. Yay. Expected outcome: Outlook not so good.

The Attack on Meninges

I just have a headache. Probably related to The War of Stereotypes. Oh, and whatever the doctor's office had floating at the time. Ooh, is it Flu? Sinus infection? Pink eye? Rabies?

Probably all of them. Expected outcome: once the Vicodin division arrives to help the dry eyes squadrons and cyclobenzaprine patrol things should be OK.

I see your bootstraps and raise you an amputated leg

So there's this letter that appeared in this week's Willamette Week:

I am self-employed, and I pay about $140 a month for health insurance. When I hear people say they “can’t afford” health insurance when they have a cigarette habit, a latte habit, and an expensive cellphone, I shake my head in amazement. People, your health is your responsibility; it’s not the job of the rest of society to ante up for your medical costs because you were too cheap to insure yourself. --“Barbara”

Well, allow me to congratulate "Barbara" for thinking ahead and choosing her genes carefully so she could be responsible about her health. If only I had such forward-thinking! If only I hadn't been so careless with my pancreas at nine years old. All my wild parties and late nights back then stuck me with a disease that I will die from if not treated. And if I can't afford to pay for my own mistakes, I have only myself to blame.

But I think "Barbara" may be missing a key part in this whole "everybody deserves health insurance" bug that's sticking in her craw. It's just a little thing, but it's important. She has no fucking idea what she's talking about.

Let's say I lose my job, and am unable to find another job before my COBRA runs out, I will lose my insurance. And given the "pre-existing condition" I recklessly saddled myself with, buying my own insurance could cost as much as $400/month.

And it's very possible that I won't be able to afford that. And that's where things get a little tricky. It's costly to maintain my expensive "must have this medicine or I will die" habit. Allow me to demonstrate (All dollar amounts based on the going rate at my nearby pharmacy in 2007 and the charges incurred at the local medical clinic):

Monthly drug costs: 2 types of insulin, 2 types of syringes: $318.

In order to be a responsible diabetic, I need to be keeping an eye on my blood sugars. I can't expect "Barbara" to ante up for all those complications. This means I will need to buy a glucose monitor ($75) and monthly test strips ($219).

And you can't just walk in and buy some of this stuff. You need a prescription, and prescriptions mean Drs. appointments. If I go just once a year and get all the tests "responsible" citizens should get-- lab works and a pap smear (unless she expects me to bear that burden as well-- after all, I'm the one with the cervix. Half the people on this planet don't need pap smears, what makes me so special?)-- that will cost a little less than $500.

So, let's do some math!

Dr visit + glucose monitor + [(prescriptions + test strips) x 12]

equals

$7019.00 per year. Minimum.

(Note: This of course does not take into consideration anything else that is considered "responsible" health maintenence: Eye care, dental appointments, drugs for other conditions that come with diabetes like glaucoma, neuropathy, gastroparesis, thyroid disease, depression, anxiety. And let us not speak of emergency medical care; anything I would do that would require such extravagance would surely be my fault. C'mon, dressed like that? I would be asking for it.)

Honestly, how could I possibly expect my government to allocate "Barbara's" precious tax dollars to fund my corporeal inadequacies? How reckless and selfish! Jesus, here I've made this whole entry about me, me, me. I mean, what about "Barbara"?

Well, here's what about "Barbara": I think she needs to try that old "walk in someone else's moccasins" for a while. I think any diabetic would be happy to hand over the shoes they can't wear anymore, what with those pesky feet they just had amputated.

Cat's doing better, I'm doing worse

Was finally able to deliver the phluids to the phlyd, so I'm not crying every ten minutes, and he seems to be eating all right. So, yay on that front.

But, our house got burgled this afternoon (while we were in it) and the gaddamn crap-ass ugly melon-ranching dipshit thieving motherfuckers took both iPods, the husband's phone and his wallet.

I guess we should be happy they didn't take the bigger score things, like our Wii and our Bose, but it's sometimes hard to see the silver lining on a shitty thing like this. We spent the evening cancelling credit cards and cell phone accounts and being really really frustrated. The assless fucktards managed to use the debit card to either buy a cell phone or pay a bill (in which case: good move, shitheads) and then they went all out and bought Tri-Met tickets.

So, master burgling artists these people are not, I'm thinking.

Still, though: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKITY-FUCK FUCK FUCK.

How do you spell that shuddering groan the Simpsons do?

I am now about to share the number-one all time most embarrassing thing that's happened to me in my 38 years and 7 months. The one thing that even now reduces me to whimpers and rending of garments. This is the story that, when I tell it, elicits not raucous laughter but groans of sympathy.

It's not some mispronounced word or inappropriate phrase yelled at a stranger. It's not poorly-timed sickness in front of coworkers. It didn't happen in public, and it's not a funny vignette from my life. No one even witnessed this, it was just us two.

Even still, I don't feel an uncomfortable embarrassment, I feel shame. Shame because of who was involved; a deep shame of a personal nature that should never, ever have involved that other person. It is lasting and it is so sad that I still wince (to this day, even, were inclined to use that phrase, and I am not) when it pops into my head for no reason, like a champagne cork to the head from the table next to you at that expensive tapas place that puts too much mint in their drinks.

It is this:

I was once invited to a birthday swim party in high school. I was on my period, and I had never used a tampon before. The only woman around to assist me in understanding the mechanics of tampons was that woman.

Let that sink in. Roll it around your head like you're tasting it at a fancy wine bar: let the tastebuds of your mind pop as that bitter slab of my dignity withers and dies. Just try to pry the kernels of popcorn sticking painfully between your tooth and gum when you realize you know how that must have made her feel: pride that I "trusted" her to ask such an intimate question, the rush I'm sure she felt when she realized that she knew something that I did not.

Ok, that's maybe too much metaphor. Sorry. I'm trying to heal with words and sometimes tortured prose is the only way to make it work. I turn real emotions into imagined things that I can crush and stomp and hit and hopefully try to get out of my head.

But then I remember the story she once told of one of her husband's stays in the hospital. I have a lot of history with that lady that is painful to think about, but at least I wasn't married to her and I didn't nearly die having been kicked in the balls by a homeless guy.

It's going all pants

Embarassing Things, all six-like

I once was at a dance club with a friend of mine. The vodka urged us toward the bathroom and we were surprise there wasn't a line, especially since there was a single stall. Friend of mine was checking out her hair in the mirror and I went into the stall. I remembered I was wearing brand new underwear purchased earlier in the day from the Disney store. As I flushed, I called out,

"Hey-- you wanna see my pooh undies?"

And then noticed that friend had left and that I did not know the person standing at the mirror.

Embarrassing Things, Part Two of Too Much

Whilst in Toronto for a business conference, I got so drunk the night before the start of the conference that the next morning I threw up. In front of about 20 of my closest co-workers. In the lobby of the fancy hotel where we were all staying.

Awesome.

This is not a love-in

So Ben Stein is all the rage in the blog-o-sphere lately, thanks to his ridculous and insulting crapumentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Yeah, they're not kidding - I trust the reviewers who have seen the movie and can attest that there was no real intelligence in this movie that was sewn together with stolen material, doctored interviews and flat out lies.

No, I haven't seen the movie, but I don't need to eat toxic fish heads breaded in asbestos shavings and smothered in kim chi and failure to know I don't want to eat it. Besides, that's not really my point here.

I saw this the other day at pharyngula and one quote nearly put me in conniptions. It was at least a week ago and I'm still roiling with anger when I think about it. Follow the link and you'll see a video wherein Mr. Stein is talking to some televangelist about how families were ripped apart by the Nazis in concentration camps, and the parents are gassed and the children fed barbituates. He then blathers a bit about how God makes people peaceful and caring and that, in his opinion, science leads to killing people.

Nevermind the crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and Martin Luther; it's science that's to blame for all the killing!

He's either serious here-- and therefore crazy fucking stupid-- or he's opportunistic and disingenuous. Honestly, I think it's a little of column stupid and a little of column equivocator. And I think he doesn't really understand what he said. So, should he Google himself one day and somehow find this place, I have some questions I'd like to ask:

So, caught any smallpox recently?

How do your bosses at Bausch and Lomb feel about your thoughts on scientists? Are they mad that you're finally on to their evil plan to take control and kill all humans one red eye at a time?

How's that cell phone working out for you? Did you grow it yourself?

I totally know what you mean when you say science leads to murder. Remember when that one scientist commanded that that other scientist slit his kid's throat for no good reason? And he was this close to actually doing it before the first scientist went "j/k!"?

Oh wait, that was Abraham.

And then there was that other scientist who told those guys to kill the eldest kid of every person in the HR department?

Oh wait, that was god. The one who supposedly leads you to "a very glorious place" through compassion and empathy. Right. I see what you mean.

Honestly, Ben Stein is a toad. But that's just my opinion.

Toad.

ETA: I take that back-- it's mean to toads. How about cretin? Douchebag? Asshole? I'm taking suggestions...

I haven't seen the movie and I haven't drunk anyone's milkshake, but believe them when they say There Will Be Blood

Image borrowed from Roman Dirge

So, here's a tip: If you ever find yourself with, say, an abscess and someone suggests that you can "just get that lanced", please note that yes, while you can get that lanced, you should remember that what no one will tell you is that it's fucking PAINFUL and will take more than a MONTH for you to completely recover.

And? Also? You may have to have your spouse--or a roommate or a loved one or just someone you pull off the streets-- stuff your open wound with a thin string of gauze twice daily for two weeks.

Yes, it's as gruesome as it sounds, and you do NOT want to click here to see what it's like.

It's called "packing a wound" and the point is to have the wound heal from the inside out, otherwise you will heal with a big hole ready to be filled with more pus. And while I understand the importance of healing right, it's still blechy and creepy and even though I don't consider myself very sqeamish and I don't have a fear of blood, it's HORRIBLE.

Twice a day-- 6 AM and 9 PM. For two weeks. And next time you see the husband, that'll be DOCTOR husband to you.

I win again

It's not like I had big plans for this weekend. I was going to go to K's house to see an old friend and watch The Six Wives of Henry VIII. And then my armpit mutinied.

Based on my research, I think I may have another chronic thingy. Another syndrome. I got no sleep Friday or Saturday. I had a lump in my right armpit the size of two gumballs melted together and reformed into something that would show up in my armpit.

I have gotten these things before, but this was above and beyond my past experience with painful bumps. My entire right arm was aching (spoiler alert: still is!). My lymph node felt like it was the size of a mid-size rental car. It was excruciating to lie down. I could not be in any position more than 15 seconds before it became unbearable. I finally got to sleep after taking nine vicodin over a two-hour period.

Having just watched that guy on Survivor leave the game with warnings of lymph nodic issues, I decided to go to the emergency room at seven this morning.

And? Even though I was the only one there at the time? It still took 4 hours have the thing drained painfully (though without any noticible change in size, and the four hours included three hours of just waiting). I'm now on frequent doses of extra-strength anitbiotics and I get to figure out exactly when I'm going to apply the warm compress I've been instructed to do 6-8 times a day whilst training a new lawyer for the next two days.

And I don't really feel any better. It's still painful to lie down. The lump is still the size of two gumballs, etc. etc.

My brow may stay permanently furrowed. Hmph.