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Saturday, April 13, 2024

A Fine Whine

 I’m tired—tired of being in pain, tired of soft, mushy food, tired of waiting to heal and tired of being tired. Rehab exercise-wise I’ve done fuck all this week. Okay, I’ve consumed soft, squishy food but even THAT has felt like a major workout.

Mein Gott and what the everlovin’ fuck. I gotta know, was I THAT much of a chicken fried asshole in my last life that I had no choice but to draw this banjaxed hand in this version of reality? No, I don’t actually believe I was AND I think reincarnation is no more than a lovely fantasy.

It’s been five days since dental surgery and it’s gonna be in the low 50s and cloudy today. I’ve GOT to attempt to, at the least, walk down to the seawall before I lose even more of the mobility ground I’ve worked and fought hard for over the past few years.

Enough whining from me. It’s not raining today. I will do my damnedest to get out of the house and, at the least, walk to the seawall and back.

Here, have some fresh memes.

Friday, April 12, 2024

My New Favorite

I just started this, so far, witty as all hell book that feels like it’s talking directly to me. Despite the author being young enough to be my bambina, I can SO relate to her childhood feelings of isolation—wanting so much to fit in and be accepted (but never quite getting there). I keep thinking “school experiences didn’t evolve from the 60s/70s to the 80s/90s? Mean girls didn’t become extinct in all those years? WTF! Humans suck!"

I started following Ms. DeRuiter on Threads because she’s funny and real or as real as someone I’ve never met yet still truly, potentially, exists in real time and space…unlike, say, Ripley (and Jonesy), who I adore but have been advised is just a fictional character in a favorite movie series. *sigh*

I follow her because she’s witty as fuck—did I mention that already? Apparently she’s a blogger, public speaker (that’s a thing, a profession? Talking? I can do that! Wish I’d heard about that 40 years ago. Oh wait, my extra-super-enhanced misanthropic nature might have put the kibosh on that), traveler and travel writer. I’d, sadly, never actually heard of her before signing on to Threads. Glad that's been remedied!

Anyway, the book is If You Can't Take the Heat: Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury and her name is Geraldine DeRuiter. TOTALLY recommend!

At about 1AM this morning (could NOT put it down!) I passed a spot where she talked about the restaurant, Red Lobster. Oh my, back in the day Red Lobster was, for me, the absolute height of fancy, schmancy dining. Dim lighting? Dark wood paneling? Shrimp? Lobster? Clam chowder? Oh yeah baybees—bring it!

*ahem* That was a long time past. Warum? For starters I don’t eat shellfish anymore. Is that for religious reasons? FUCK NO! Lobster, prawns and shrimp all look like large horror movie insects. No thank you. Clams, mussels and oysters are gross and slimy (but, what can I say, I LURV clam chowder). Squid and octopus? Oh my, NO. Just fucking NO! They’re intelligent beings. It’d feel cannibalistic. Scallops? Love them—when served up they look like little cubes (tofu-esque) as opposed to seaworthy xenomorphs. I try to be consistent though so I'm now a no on scallops.

I still eat some fish. Mostly that’s a bit of salmon in the fish tacos Jen and I get once every couple weeks or so. In the stray blue moon, Ten and I will pick up fish and chips. That’s usually made from cod or haddock. Now that I think on it, this easily be replaced by properly seasoned tofu.

Back to the book though—so far, Ms. DeRuiter has only, more or less, casually mentioned her anger-management-challenged violent stepfather. I’m hoping she managed to duck his more aggressive abuse, of-fucking-course. The one thing that’s clear is that she survived childhood and managed to turn her isolation, her lack of connectedness into personal strength, creativity and humor versus diving into nasty-ass adult relationships or addictions. She was able to set firm boundaries and stick to them.

I can relate.

Thursday, April 11, 2024

Salmagundi

Dan "D.B." Cooper

I feel old. Jen, Oni and I watched an ep if Leverage last night that centered around D.B. Cooper.  You know, the mystery man who hijacked Boeing 727 out of Portland, Oregon, demanded $200Gs (equal to $1.5 mil in 2024 buckos), four parachutes and a lift to Mexico.

After we watched the show, I mentioned that I remembered all the fuss and hooplah despite being just 13 when it first hit the news. Throughout the '70s, I followed the updates, reading how he was never caught, never found.

Jen was stunned—she thought Cooper and his daring, infamous heist was teevee fiction. Just part of the show. To be fair, Jen wasn’t quite two years old when Mister Cooper made his audacious leap.

*sigh* Jesus Skydiving Christ, I’m ancient.

In the 52 years since, seven people have either claimed to be D.B. Cooper OR say they totally know who he was. 

Everyone wants to be related or connected to someone famous or infamous.
~~~

I can’t help thinking that we’re more than the sum total of our choices, that all the paths we might have taken factor somehow into the math of our identity.
~ Blake Crouch, Dark Matter
The math of my identity? It’s basic grade school arithmetic.You know 1+1=2 and shit. I’m not a calculus kind of a babe.
~~~
Nothing exists. All is a dream. God—man—the world—the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars—a dream, all a dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty space—and you….

And you are not you—you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought.

~ Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger
~~~
This song’s playing in my head today.
You can climb a mountain, you can swim the sea
You can jump into the fire but you'll never be free, no no
You can shake me up or I can break you down

Oh, we can make each other happy

~ Harry NilssonJump Into The Fire
Why? Why not?
~~~
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
~ Denis Diderot
Tell it brother! VOTE!!!
~~~

I don’t follow or really understand the stock market so this take of mine is, mebbe, way the fuck off. Anytime I see one of those stock graphs/charts (whatever) I just think it’s an illustration of rich people emotions. CNN captures it all with the Fear & Greed Index.

There was the huge, unsurprising, fast dive in Trump Media stock . This could have been easily predicted by…well, even me.  Those foolish (and rich) enough to throw their money at anything Cheato’s behind are probably bumming and ordering a metric fuck-ton of martinis about now. Meanwhile, I’m laughing. It doesn’t take a finance wizard to know that Cheato’s a cheap, slimy fraudster and a heinously stupid-ass investment.

When I was with the carnival, one of our calls was “you can’t win if you don’t play.” Yeah and I can’t lose either.
~~
For Arizona:

No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.
~ Simone de Beauvoir
Republicans of Arizona are limp, micro-dicked wonders who should all shut the fuck up, quit voting and sit in a dark corner contemplating every last one of their myriad fuck ups.

Wednesday, April 10, 2024

OOF!

I only mention it but I’m beat. I’m 12 kinds of exhausted from all the hassles of juggling surgeries (oral and brain). Also, Monday’s unexpected tooth extractions affected me more than I'd expected. At least now I’m all set for next month’s fun fun fun craniotomy. The upside of that slice-up? I’ll be fully anaesthetized. YEA!

Now that I’ve got the dental procedure done and am mostly out of the mouth-pain woods I’ve got to get back to doing my rehab strength and balance exercising. The bean op is in seven weeks. I’ve got to head into it like Wonder Woman on steroids.

The more goodly shape I'm in, the faster and less onerous the recovery will be. As much as I adore laying around in bed, reading and being waited on like a queen…well, I like being physically able better.

I know, I’m, crazy like that.

Today I’ll take a walk along the seawall and a spin on the elliptical. Working with weights can wait until tomorrow. The other bit that I can do to emotionally prep for the next surgery is AVOID THE NEWS. I know I always say I'm going to do this and I never manage it. This time though...well, maybe I can at least cut down on the reality consumption.

Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Yesterday

Good news: Met the periodontist yesterday.

Good news/Weird news: he gave my teeth a quick look-see and said, basically, ‘yup, they gotta come out.’ Next, he asked, ‘want me to take them out today?

TODAY?!

Mes amis, when I woke Monday morning I thought this appointment was just a meet the doc, endure a tooth/gum perusal and schedule-the-extraction visit. I was NOT emotionally prepared for getting my gums cut open and teeth removed but he'd had a cancellation. What could I do? If I said no, I’d duck the immediate pain and horror of dental surgery but only for the day. If I said yes, I’d not only get it done and over but I’d avoid having a few (or more) anticipatory anxiety riddled days. On top of this I would NOT run the risk of having my now end-of-May brain slice-up delayed any further.

Seemed like a no-brainer—it made perfect sense to take advantage of the unexpected opening in his schedule. Of course I said sure, let’s do it. Still, I was in a bit of shock. I didn’t feel at all ready. I was nervous and scared. I was gripping the exam chair armrests as though they’d save me from pain and alleviate all my anxieties going back to the dawn of my existence. 

They did not. Rotten bastids.

Having said all this, everything went as fine as two extractions can go. My essential tremors stayed amazingly calm and the doc (unlike the last one who’d removed one of my wisdom teeth), didn’t go all World Wrestling Federation on me—there were no headlocks, tombstone piledrivers or brainbusters. It was all over pretty quick and I managed to not pee my pants or have any panic attacks. Frankly, I was stunned (that it went relatively well AND that I didn't whiz my drawers).

We came home and, after popping some Tylenol, I took a loooong-ass nap. All in all, I’m wicked happy it’s done. Sometime after my bean surgery I’ll go back in so’s he can check my healing process. At that point they’ll schedule my implant insertion (which can’t happen until around six months post extraction). It’ll be wild to have a full set of choppers again. Maybe I’ll finally, once more, be able to snarf my beloved yogurt covered almonds.

In other news, I hear that, while I was in lullaby land yesterday afternoon, there was an eclipse but no motherfucking rapture. Damn. I was really hoping we’d finally be rid of all those desperately dim, banjax brained evangelicals. Seems their god doesn’t want them either. No surprise there—I mean, have you met these people?

There are some great shots of the eclipse AND the eclipse watchers here. I know eclipses happen pretty damn often but it’s still awesome and, more than that, it’s really cool to see so many different folks getting together to watch the Sun, Moon and Earth align. Celebrating wondrous phenomena together (versus our usual bickering, bullying and warring) gives me a sliver of hope.
I LOVE this shot but don't know who to credit.


Sunday, April 7, 2024

You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Paul McCartney has praised Beyoncé’s version of his song Blackbird. I wish I could hear it.

You’ve heard/read about the clueless fool who responded to Paul’s post with stunning obliviounesss and all-lives-matter snot-twaddle? I suppose this can be termed Beatlesplaining.

Imagine telling Picasso that what he really meant to convey with Guernica  was that there were “some very fine people on both sides.

Probably Picasso’s most famous work, Guernica is certainly his most powerful political statement, painted as an immediate reaction to the Nazi’s devastating casual bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. (source)
Can you conceive of illuminating Neil Young as to the actual, true meaning of the anthem he wroteOhio? “Yeah man, you were really talking about how the war was good for population control and the “tin soldiers and Nixon coming” line was all about hope!

Picture explaining to Country Joe that his Fish Cheer/I Feel Like I’m Fixing To Die Rag was really an Army recruitment diddy.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free


Blackbird, fly
Blackbird, fly
Into the light of the dark black night

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer also previously has said the idea of "you were only waiting for this moment to arise" symbolized Black women's plight during the Civil Rights Movement

 "The song was written only a few weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.," McCartney wrote in his 2021 book "The Lyrics. "That imagery of the broken wings and the sunken eyes and the general longing for freedom is very much of its moment.” (source)

But sure, Andy, the song’s “non-racial.”

Not all about blackbirds BUT in a short essay (Theology 101), Sherman Alexie mentions black birds. They’re a symbol of something else entirely:

On my father’s side, an ancestor named Circling Raven foresaw the arrival of the first Jesuit priests. In his visions, the Jesuits were black birds with white feathers at their necks. He wasn’t wrong. But I’m fully aware that my ancestor could’ve been a charlatan using his fictions to gain power within the tribe. And, if my ancestor was a liar, I smile to think of how surprised he must’ve been when his falsehoods became true. (source)
If I was gonna go through the hassle of changing my name, I believe Circling Raven would be fabulous. Today anyway. Tomorrow I’ll be Sparkly Clams. You can call me Sparkle C though.
~~~
Three words:

Misophonia

     noun
: a condition in which certain sounds cause a strong negative reaction, or an atypical emotional response (such as disgust, distress, panic, or rage) in the affected person hearing the sound.

Some triggering sounds? None for me, thanks. Being deaf does, in fact, come with a few bennies. Fer instance, I’ll never know the toxic tones spewed by RFK jr., Marge Greene, Cokey jr (the stupidest Trump) and, of course, Sarah Palin.

FIGJAM is an acronym which stands for “Fuck I’m Good, Just Ask Me”

This is an entire sentence in and of itself. I will now use it as an exclamation to be pronounced every time I do something noteworthy (like walking up four flights of stairs on Friday).

Gluggaveður is an Icelandic word which means ‘window-weather.' The sort that’s lovely and poetry inspiring to look at through the window but not so nice to be out in. Wet, windy, rainy or snowy conditions immediately come to mind.

Today is a gluggaveður kind of a day. It's best for me and my wonk-ass balance to stay indoors so I believe I'll get my workout in via the elliptical and climbing the stairs a half a dozen times.

Saturday, April 6, 2024

Tooth Jankers

Yesterday’s early morning visit with my new dentist went well—I really like Doctor Magee. Yes, I'm stunned and thrilled with this development.

I’ve been dreading going to the fang-puller—haven’t been in forever and a half. Why not? I haven’t had dental insurance and, incredibly, medical insurance does NOT cover dental health. Does this make sense? FUCK NO! Are my teeth and gums NOT part of my physical being?  (they are!) Medicare covers the rest of me—WHY not my gums and chompers? CAPITALISM—that's why. Okay, I'll stop that particular rant now. Sorry.

The other reason I've not darken the dental office door? Every single tooth mechanic I’ve had, prior to Dr. Magee, has been one of those slimy frat boy types. You know, slickly dressed with ultra fastidious grooming and SO utterly confident and pleased with themselves that they sparkled. Dudes all wore these clearly fake smiles and rocked a transparently weasel-shit ‘pleasant’ demeanor—like masked Jokers offering up chemical waste Cosmopolitans. They always came off as oily Dr. Orin Scrivellos,  just waiting for their close-up.

I was dreading meeting my new sadist. OF COURSE I was!

Imagine my shock and amazement when this VERY normal, chill woman in scrubs walks in and introduces herself as my dentist, Dr. Magee. Fer fuck's sake, my blood pressure instantly dropped back down into the normal/groovy range and the vice-tight tension in my shoulder and chest muscles released. Dr. Magee did NOT disappoint—she was awesome!

I’m going back to the office on Monday to meet a periodontist. He’ll be doing the actual extractions. I guess, unsurprisingly and true to my usual form, I have complications. They've kicked me up to the superhero level of dental surgeons. Way to go me?

Turns out, I also have a third tooth that may need to come out but they’ll deal with the two problem suckers first so’s I can have my brain surgery next month. Wheeee! The good dentist also tells me they can put in the implants six months after extraction. It'll be fab to have a full set of ivories again and I’ll be happy as all hell when teeth and brain are done (for now anyway).

Never a dull moment in this flawed (yet wicked attractive) skin suit, eh?

 Ooo, ooo, there was a single down note—only one of three elevators was working and there were tons of unmasked persons waiting. I'm NOT risking a ride in a jam-packed car with possible COVID carriers before two big surgeries. Nope. What to do though? I hoofed it up to the fourth floor. It sucked rotted frog balls but was good exercise I suppose.