A Few Words

Bitchilante
     noun
Being mean only to people who deserve it

Donna is, on occasion, a stone ferocious bitchalante.

Malaphor

…an informal term for a mixture of two aphorisms, idioms, or clichés (such as "We'll burn that bridge when we come to it"). Also called an idiom blend.  

The term malaphor—a blend of malapropism and metaphor—was coined by Lawrence Harrison in the Washington Post article "Searching for Malaphors" (August 6, 1976).  (source)

Other malaphors?

• He’s a one-trick wonder. (a combo of one-hit wonder and one-trick pony)
• This is not rocket surgery. (not brain surgery mixed with not rocket science)
• They’re not the sharpest bulb. (not the sharpest tool and not the brightest bulb)

Voldemort AKA Prick Scott

Fructify
     verb
1) to make fruitful or productive
2) to bear fruit or profit

No, that’s just lame. If I’m to believe that’s the real definition the word needs to be modified. “Fruitify”—that makes a shit-ton more sense. N'est-ce pas?

Fructify sounds like it’s got an excess letter (the “r” thenkyewveddymuch). The word is clearly related to banjax, as in;

Lil’ Marco Rubio, his fellow senator Voldemort Scott and  sex trafficking, serial fabulating, oleaginous dweeb Gaetz are determined to fuctify their careers by either flat out NOT voting and/or voting against federal disaster relief aid. They did however send a note to the Senate Appropriations Committee chairs saying “we don’t think the rest of the country deserves a shred of help in scary horrendous times—not one thin dime—but WE, like totally, do.”

Those three shitheelian bampots need to go fuctify themselves. I have absolutely no doubts about that. We can think of it as further disaster relief for that blindingly corrupt state.

Today, Monday **gasp, horror** is still wildly windy. Too blowy for a morning ramble. This sucks. I guess I’m stuck on the elliptical (zzzzzzzzzzzz) today. If the gusting breezes chill the fuck out later, I’ll be able to, at least, do my unassisted laps of the porch.

Stuff

Pre-dawn by our awesome neighbor Andrea

Welp, I had my 500th plague booster AND a flu shot yesterday. Side effects include:

• Fever
• Headache
• Fatigue
• Pain at the injection site.
  

So far I’m just a little tired. I’ll be smart (for once) and take it relatively easy today.

Apart from that, yesterday’s big dealio is that Ten moved my easel back into the kitchen and I actually did a little painting! 

There’s this canvas that I finished (thought I’d finished) a couple of years ago—before the Nf2 shit totally hit the fan. I’ve never been happy with the piece and have spent a lot of time (whilst laying about in hospital, the rehab joint and home) thinking on just how I’d fix it when I regained the strength to stand and paint. Waddya know—that day finally came. I can’t be all up and on my pins for long—a few minutes or so max. This makes me curious. How come I can walk half a mile without frequent rest breaks but standing, without support, is more challenging? In lieu of a tall stool, Ten positioned my rollator behind me. It works. I stand and paint, step back, sit down and consider where I’m going/what I’m accomplishing.

No, the piece isn’t done, happy and ready to show off. YET! It will be eventually though.

Do you know how huge this is? It’s gigantic! Mind you, I’m nowhere near peak form BUT at least I’m beginning again.

Last bit from Thursday is that I finally heard from MGH's chemo pharmacy. Meds will arrive via FedEx on Monday. They sent a long list of instructions and info which indicates, to me anyway, that this new treatment won't be easy OR fun. Ya know, saving my own damn life ought to be fun—like comedic superhero adventure movie type fun. Hells bells, I've gotta make this shit entertaining. What's the point of all this if it's not gonna be amusing or inspiring or good for at least a few grins? I'm asking you!!!

Obligatory Caturday Cake picture. Yur welcome.

A Few Bits

I have ugly knees. Hell, they look like King Kong knees. Or Godzilla’s, if I haven’t moisturized. Is this because I’m old or because I’ve spent the last few years in bed? In bed recovering and shit. So, ugly knees are a result of too much hospital time and too damn much healing time. Right then, got it.

I don’t like my elbows or neck either.

And NO, dammit, there will be NO accompanying evidence (i.e., pics) to back up my accurate, depressing claim. You’re just gonna have to trust me on this—I know a less than beautious body part when I see one.

And did I mention that I’ve been cut loose from outpatient PT? Yes, yezzzzz…probably at least a dozen times already. Okay, okay. It’s just that this self-motivation shit is HARD work. Jen spots me on my early morning seawall walks. Ten keeps an eye on me when I do my ten support-free laps of the front porch and then my elliptical time. I AM getting strength building in on most days. Really! It’s just…this shit’s tedious as all motherfucking hell.

gratuitous Cake pic

~~~
Why do those shitheelian, evangelical, preachers-on-the-grift never proclaim that hurricane devastation is, like Ian in Florida, a judgement on the afflicted for their hate, willful ignorance and despicable voting habits. Ya know, they’re very quick to make judgements about gay folk and AIDs.

Yes, yezzzz—I'm fully aware that not all Floridians are 45 and DeathSantis voting embarrassments to humanity. I get that Republi/Fascist engineered voter suppression is strong with this state.

My point is this—the asswipian con squad preachers never seem to have any hellfire to spew when the earth is seriously, justifiably pissed and does a little payback on populations with a large number of christian nationalist rubes.

Huh. Funny that.
~~~

I’m now reading a deeply witty and fascinating book by Kate Lister, creator of the Whores of Yore website. The book? A Curious History of Sex.

I just finished a chapter on the origins of the word cunt. Did you know? Cunt didn’t begin it’s linguistic life as one of the nastiest of filthy insults. Of course that may just be here in the U.S. In Scotland, fer instance, cunt’s seen a bit differently.

It's one of those words that's so old, etymologists and linguists, they lose sight of it eventually. It's the oldest word for the vulva that we have in the English language. It might even be the oldest in the world. There are some theories. There are also similar cognitions in Germanic languages all across Europe. The Vikings would be talking about "kuntas," the Germans had “kuntō,” Dutch, “kont,” Germanic “kott,” and I think at one point we had "kott," which I think may be due for a revival.
~ a snippet from Kate Lister’s Ted talk at the University of Glasgow

Also, there’s the ancient Hindu goddess of fertility and wisdom, Kunti. By the by, she is Krishna’s auntie.

Don't you feel all culturally enriched now? Sure ya do!

Rando Day

Moon shadow on Jupiter caught by NASA's Juno spacecraft

Rob Rogers

Bounding Squirrel

Mike Luckovich

Pearl Jam

So, Eddie Vedder is 57 years old—58 in December. Wow. I fell in love with his beautiful deep baritone the minute I heard Alive on the radio. Also the big guitar sound, the mondo energy, the let-it-all-hang-out unashamed wildness of it all. Plus…the hair.

At the time, I felt as though my crush was a bit skeevy given that he was 27 and I was *gasp* an old hag of 33. Yes, yezzzzz, here at the fossilized age of 64, a six year age difference is laughable. As is the idea that I’d ever hook up with Mr. Vedder.

In any case, Pearl Jam inspired the shit outta me. The intensity of their music and lyrics just blew me clean out. I was going through an extremely difficult time at work when the album Ten came out. I was the production manager of a mid-sized, very busy offset pressroom at the time. My manager was a nice but wholly unsupportive, oblivious drunk; I’d yet to learn the difficult art of calm diplomacy while under big stress (understatement alert!); a district manager, who was sleeping his way through the company’s female staff, had a hard on to get me fired. (possibly because I thought he was a joke and, oopsie, didn’t hide my opinion well enough) Insanity was inevitable.

I couldn’t just quit the joint. I hadn’t any real savings, totally needed the health insurance (this was well before the Affordable Care Act) and I had a mortgage to pay. I felt I didn’t have any marketable skills (not true but it’s how I viewed my sitch) and couldn’t afford to go back to school OR get a career counselor.

Amazingly, to me, I managed to bull through this heinous time. It was a trial by/of fire, with infinitesimal help from my always inebriated manager BUT I learned a lot. I evolved, became kind and tactful and got a handle on how to effectively negotiate.

The thing that really pulled me through was this—I’d get off the subway a few stops shy of work, turn my walkman up to 12 and hike the last stretch blasting Alive, Jeremy, Even Flow, Once and the rest of that incredible album.

"Son," she said, "have I got a little story for you
What you thought was your daddy was nothing but a
While you were sitting home alone at age thirteen
Your real daddy was dying
Sorry you didn't see him, but I'm glad we talked"

Oh, I, oh I'm still alive
Hey, I, oh I'm still alive
Hey, I, oh I'm still alive
Hey, oh

I’m only reading now that the lyrics to Alive are semi-autobiographical. No wonder he could bring such fire and passion.

The dynamic, blazing chorus—I’m still alive—certainly brought me through the shit storm I was trying to survive. In hearing it now on my internal turntable.

Survival = Anger x Imagination

That's a formula by one of my favorite authors, Sherman Alexie.

My personal anger soup is made up of neurofibromatosis type 2 and all the bullshit it entails.

• I’m pissed that I can’t hear music anymore. Some days that anger is a flat out, burning rage—other days it’s an ocean of sad.
• The way some folks treat me, as a deaf person (as though I’m less intelligent, less than human) burns.
• It annoys the shit out of me that I need to think out all movements I make while standing. In order NOT to fall over, even something as simple as turning around needs to be calculated. Where and how I place my hips, shift my weight, my gaze and is there a damn piece of furniture nearby to grab in case I begin to topple.
  

Imagination is something I need to work on. I’m still not painting or doodling (except on the computer). My hand/eye coordination is still fairly fucked. Mostly I’m reading, taking pics and writing this here blog. I want and need to expand on this.

De novo
     adverb
anew; afresh; again; from the beginning.

Now that outpatient PT is over, I’m beginning home rehab de novo with Jen, Oni and Ten supervising my workouts.

Karma
     noun
1. (in Hinduism and Buddhism) the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.

2. 
destiny or fate, following as effect from cause.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

My friend and fellow nf2-er, Felicity died (of COVID not nf2) and I was unable to be there and supportive. I should have visited her more after she became bedridden. I could’ve made her laugh but I was too deep in my own struggles. Dammit!

If you’re really a mean person you’re going to come back as a fly and eat poop.
~ Kurt Cobain

This, in a just universe, will be the fate of the Trump Crime Family, all their pernicious, slime coated, assholian, criminal chums and their fucking bin-brained Renfields too.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
~ Mahatma Gandhi

Realize that everything connects to everything else.
~ Leonardo Da Vinci

Karma comes after everyone eventually. You can't get away with screwing people over your whole life, I don't care who you are. What goes around comes around. That's how it works. Sooner or later the universe will serve you the revenge that you deserve.
~ Jessica Brody

Yes, karma even comes for the santorum soaked shit weasels of the world. Eventually.

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.
~ Gautama Buddha

One thing I’ve begun doing is taking pics of interesting reflections of light and color. I play with the image in Photoshop to achieve an interesting, abstract composition. I may not be standing up at my easel (yet) but there are other ways to be creative .

Dream On

Every now and again a random person, who I used to know, comes to mind. Over the weekend, for some mystifying reason I thought of this drummer in a tremendously mediocre local band. The lead singer couldn’t stay on key to save his life—often as not, he was singing flat.

I googled him (the drummer)—nothing. I searched on the band’s name. What I found is that, while the flat lead singer stayed the same, the drummer and bassist were revolving door positions.

While my drummer acquaintance was with the band, they were signed to a label and put out an album. There was scant promotion (if any) by the record company, basically leaving it up to the band to do their own advertising and PR. Why’d the company bother to bring them on if they had such little faith in the trio's marketability? Was the A&R rep drunk as fuck when they heard the band? Was he thoroughly annihilated and didn’t notice that the singer couldn’t carry a tune? Oopsie!

To be fair to the corporate rock 'n' roll juggernaut, I believe the band had been booked into a cross-country tour which failed to result in radio play or any other measurable buzz.

The original bass player had a degree in music engineering technology. Once the group’s rock star dreams crashed, he snagged an industry gig. He moved on.

Dunno what my drummer friend went on to do—no sign of him on the interwebs at all. He came from money though so, wherever he landed, I imagine he’s comfortable.

The flat lead singer moved to LA, has co-written music for teevee, video games and a few films (yea him!) and has a new band.

Kinda blows my mind that more than 20 years have passed since I knew these guys and went to hear them play. They were never the headliners and didn’t score gigs at the bigger local clubs. They did however open for one or two totally fine acts (whose names escape me because IT’S BEEN 20+ YEARS AND I’M DEAF NOW!). The guys must all be in their late 40s now.

Weird. They’re no longer idealistic kids with a dream. Okay, Mister Flat Singer is still chasing the dream—good for him.

Dream On–Aerosmith

Dragons and Dawn

The week’s been full of bad news (insanity, devastating hurricanes, war, war crimes, ‘new’ Republi/Fascist threats). Plus, I still haven't heard back from my neurologist's office about whether my insurance will cover chemo (to arrest the growth of that giant meningioma camping on my frontal lobe) and, if yes, when I can start. 

I'm a wee bit cranky. Also, tense and nervous. I need some goddamn hope and joy.

Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.
~ Lemony Snicket, The Beatrice Letters

There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
~ Leonard Cohen, Selected Poems, 1956-1968

Hope is a waking dream.
~ Aristotle

Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.
~ G.K. Chesterton

In a time of destruction, create something.
~ Maxine Hong Kingston 

 Having said all that, dawn was gorgeous here in Valhalla this morning. Here...look: