I'm tired.

Today's theme: fatigue.

My dad's favorite all time movie is Blazing Saddles. I love that movie too. And I especially love Madeline Kahn's "I'm Tired" song in the movie (photo from here). I always have, since the first time I saw it as a teenager. In fact, it was kind of my theme as a teenager, "I'm tired" along with "I'm bored."

In any case, here's the link to the brilliant Madeline Kahn scene. (I tried to embed but either I forgot how to do that or "embedding has been disabled." Probably the latter. Sorry.) This song, along with Carol Burnett's "Little Girls" from Annie, in so many ways make life worth living for me.

My sister was depressed a while ago and I tried to convey to her that when I get depressed, or generally nihilistic about the world, I try to remember the good things. The wonderful things. Things I love. These things remind me that 1. humans can be fantastically creative, 2. I'm not alone and 3. since these wonderful things were created, are being created, then surely there will be more wonderful things created in the future, giving me something to look forward to.

And, OMG, I just realized this, but I've been thinking about using this subject as a very quick post and then Steamme Up Kid, as she's known on facebook, just saw Mel Brooks on the street in LA and he waved at her and she didn't realize who it was until too late and that, my friends, is the universe telling me I should immediately write about Blazing Saddles and do some of my magical thinking to link all these things together. (Her blog is another one of the things I love. Especially the post about dicks. I should totally tell my dad about that. Not.)

OK, that was the positive spin on the "I'm tired" theme. Now the negative. I was talking to a friend yesterday, an older friend who I met through church who has MS. We talk every now and again. She's about twenty years ahead of me on this whole thing and she's got a great attitude, very positive. Kind of a role model. So I asked her how she was doing with the heat lately. And she told me that recently, during a bad heat wave we had (a few days up around 105 degrees), she had to give up on trying to qualify for this one volunteering program.

She went through most of the forty hours of training in order to become a volunteer in a hospice program. But the final test was scheduled on a day when it was very very hot and it was scheduled in a place with no AC. So she couldn't do it. She said she really liked this program because she thought she could contribute, sitting with hospice patients while their caregivers got a few hours break. And yet, she couldn't do it. She couldn't do that one thing she wanted to do, that she worked so hard for, because her body failed her. All her symptoms flair up in the heat and she becomes (like me) non-functioning.

Fucking sad, right?

I miss being strong enough to do what I want. I miss being not tired. I want to be able to work. I want to be relied upon. One of the hardest thing has been trying to accept that this isn't going to go away. It has to be managed. I'm tired of the managing and I've only had this a year. My friend's a way way way better person than me and she's been managing for twenty years.

Alrighty. I should watch Blazing Saddles some time soon. Oooooh! I know! I should watch Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy coming out of the pond all wet and sexy in the A&E Pride and Prejudice (photo from here). Man, when that series came out, I spent $100 on the five VHS tape collection and watched that shit on repeat for weeks. Good stuff.

Or Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy walking across that field all sexy-like with his shirt open (photo from here). If only Keira wasn't so impossibly, un-healthily skinny. Oh well.

Or Rob Pattinson walking across the cafeteria in Twilight. Best part of that movie. (photo from here) Oh! Or prom in Twilight, that part was good. Say what you want. Lame, I know. I'm a nearly middle aged woman. What do you want?

Anyway, with those images in my head, I'm a little better. Thanks, interwebs for those images. My own personal wonderful things to combat fatigue and nihilism. I needed that.

Oh and I'm sorry for the randomness of this post. I'm all over the place. I just had to get past the David Sedaris post. Oh and I fully realize how lame I am. I should volunteer. I should find some way to volunteer. Until next time...

Post with Photos. And Nary a Boobie to Be Found.

Lately, I'm all over the place. Emotionally, physically. Let's talk about the emotionally part first. Then the physically part.

For instance, this "got milk" ad with Angie Harmon made me cry the other day. I don't really like her. I don't agree with her politics. I'm not convinced she can act. But, my God, those children. Those beautiful, beautiful children. I'm tearing up now describing how I was tearing up. So, yea. A bit fragile.

Photo from here

OK, then. So, physically, but not the ordinary sense of physically. I mean, I'm not lots of different places. Rather, my body is, physically, very unpredictable. Every hour is different, it seems. One hour of good. And when it happens, my God, it's like a miracle. And of course I overreact, then do too much, then bring on... hours of bad. Hours of weakness. Followed by, who knows. If I'm lucky another hour of good, but more likely, minorly bad. Bad, but not enough that I need to shut down. And then...good. And so on, and so on. A humongous roller coaster while blind-folded. Apparently, this is just how it is with MS. Medicine or no. Regardless of degree of physcial disability. It just is and clearly, I just have to accept it.

Overall, it just makes it hard to plan things. I control nothing about my body. And that leads me to have to cancel things I desperately want to do. And some things I don't want to do, but you get the idea.

I've cancelled more things, disappointed more people (including myself) in the last few months than I care to tally. The worst was probably when I had to cancel the ticket I had to see a taping of the Colbert Report a few months ago. It was great luck to even get the ticket in the first place - I had happened to sit at the computer the moment the tickets went on sale (the Colbert Report ticket people favor the smart phone crowd, I guess) and, miraculously, I got one. But I was too sick to go. And, just as bad, I'm missing, right now, Fun Day at my daughter's school. And last night she cried about it. Admittedly, she is a bit of a little actress, but still, it hurt. I just simply feel too bad to go.

In any case, going on with the roller coaster theme, I thought I'd tell you the quite roller coaster-y story of my meeting with David Sedaris. Or rather, what was going through my head during and right after my meeting with David Sedaris. (In case you think I actually met him in any real way, I really didn't. I met him at a book signing. Keep in mind the fact that he met maybe a thousand other people that night and meets thousands of people during his book tours. To me, though, I met him. Technically true.)

Polaroid of David Sedaris from this awesome idea for a blog

I had never been to an event of his and was ridiculously excited for weeks. This was last fall, so I was feeling somewhat better. Not really, but, I was already on the community college campus because of an adjunct job teaching, so it was easy to go.

After the reading, I rushed out the door (the things I do to meet famous people, apparently) and got in line to meet him. I was maybe 15th in line. Exciting, right? Well...being the guy that he is, Mr. Sedaris said that the people who were turned away at the door earlier due to selling out, were to be kept in the lobby and then brought out first to meet him. Mother the fuck, there were about fifty of them. Anyway, no big deal. Like I said, early days with the MS symptoms and I toughed it out. (Oh, Stephen. Would that I could've toughed it out for you. *sigh*)

Finally, it was my turn. I was just going to say "Oh, I'm such a big fan...blah blah blah." Oh and I was going to tell him that I had dental implants (five!) because he specifically asked that people talk to him about that (otherwise, it would be weird, right?) because he had just gone through the first phase of the process himself. And he was curious about what was to come. ("It hurts like hell," eventually I did say. "Really. Like...a lot." Oh, and "I'm so very sorry.")

But the thing is, he cut me off. Before I had a chance to say anything, he says to me "My goodness. You know, you rarely see women with their natural hair color anymore." Maybe he said something then like, "Oh, but it looks so lovely." Let's pretend he did. He could have. Unsure. I was just freaking out, thinking, "Well, shit. What do I say now?"

And then I thought of my guru aunt. And her premature graying in her thirties. And how I was going along in a family tradition by not dying it. You know, to pay tribute to her. And in response I get a kind of a blank stare from Mr. Sedaris, but let's be real, he's heard tons weirder. Still. I had blown it. And then I told him how painful implant surgery, part two, was going to be and then I was done. Damnit.

A bit about my aunt and then I'll tell you the two options I thought of later for what I should've said. (Damnit.) So...I have an aunt who's a guru. I haven't seen her in a decade at least. Maybe fifteen years. I guess 1996 was the last time. I sent her a birth announcement for my daughter five and a half years ago, but got no acknowledgement. I had had to send it to her foundation's general address, though. And she probably (surely) doesn't know my husband's last name, so wouldn't recognize who it was from. I didn't get an actual address from my dad because he didn't have it because he has dementia. With a heaping side of alcoholism. Actually, the alcoholism came first. Doesn't matter. In summary, we're not in touch, my aunt and I. But still, she looms large in my family's story. So, she randomly came to mind when questioned by David.

Ganga-ji (right), her partner Eli (left) and her teacher Papa-ji (center) in 1990 from here.

This is how I remember her. She looked roughly like this the last time I saw her. She was 48 then. Ten years older than me now. She'd had fully white hair since her mid-thirties. Adds to the guru-ness, right?

More recent image of Ganga-ji from here. We have similar noses. Unfortunately.

Oh, I can tell you one thing that happened that was kind of special between her and me. At her father's, my grandfather's, funeral in 1995, we were all standing at the graveside after the service was done. Standing in a circle. The three children - my father and his sisters - and their children and spouses. And my father began to weep. To a degree that I'll never forget.

In truth, that week was the beginning of the end for him. Within a year, he was committed, against his will, to a psychiatric unit for severe depression and then was given electro-shock therapy, or whatever the more PC name for that is. And then after that, the alcoholism he had so diligently suppressed for twenty years took over again. And it took him from us permanently, as it would turn out. Slowly and painfully took him from us.

He's alive today, but he's not there. His mind is completely gone. Talking to him is exactly like talking to someone in a dream who just won't. fucking. listen. And then who vanishes when you look away from him for a second. And who comes back a second later to kiss you on the forehead before he vanishes again.

So it was coming, at the funeral. All that. And I think I saw it and was bewildered by it. This man who was so competent, so good, I thought, was just in agony and was just so bewildered himself. And Ganga-ji (Aunt Toni as was) saw the combination of sadness and fear in my eyes and she said, "You really love him, don't you?" and I was truly kind of stunned that she saw me. I'm used to being invisible in my family.

The craziest thing is that those words, in particular, became even more important a few years later when my dad and I had a big show-down. I told him that he was an alcoholic and needed medical help and he said "You know? Of all my kids, you...you never loved me..." He then said other things, but I didn't really hear it. It was devastating, of course, and took years (a decade?) to get over. But I always had in the back of mind Ganga-ji's words and since she saw it, somehow, I know that that was the real truth. Not what my dad said.

So, while my mom and sister have questioned her guru-ness, I never have. Not since my grandfather's funeral. It's like she saw the future, or something. That I would need those words. What I'm projecting onto her and giving her credit for probably doesn't fall under the bailiwick of a guru, but still...mystical.

You should go to her website. It's kind of fascinating. Fairly incomprehensible to me, but fascinating. Here is a quote of hers, from her website: "The recognition of life itself is extraordinary, and the possibility of this recognition is that you recognize yourself as life itself – not separate from this form, but free of it." Unsure what that means. Maybe it's my brain lesions, but I really am unsure what that means.

It's all very well-meaning, though. It has always been a goal of hers, it seems, to help those who are suffering. Once, when I was in college, my parents and I were on a little fishing boat on the river near our house. It must've been during the summer. We started talking about Ganga-ji and her philosophy, as much as we could understand it anyway, and I said something profound. (I know. It was weird.) I said, "Well, I think she helps people searching. And I'm not searching now, so I don't get it. But maybe it's not for me to get, anyway." Shit. I'm the fucking family philosopher. That, I understood. I should start a foundation and collect donations on-line.

BTW, one book title of hers is "You Are That," which is a nice sentiment. Almost as nice as "You Are All That." If I entitled my book "You Are All That," would I have to pay royalties to the makers of that Freddie Prinze, Jr. movie, since it's a similar title? Hmm. Probably not.

So that's what happened with David Sedaris.

And now, here's what I should've said, #1:

Have you ever been in a New Jersey hair salon? Jesus. I spent about five years, going every six weeks, each time for roughly three hours, to a New Jersey hair salon. If I were to have to do that for the next fifteen years...well...I'd consider it a kind of a sentence, really. A loud, claustrophobic, extremely socially awkward (on my part), horrible, horrible kind of a sentence. A sentence for the crime of vanity, I suppose. No thanks.

Imagine this, only with big gold frames around the mirrors too. And lots and lots of women speaking loudly. And horrible music. (Photo from a Google Image search, that led me here.)

Oh, a good example of the kinds of women you would find at these salons:

I was wrong. Here are the boobies. With a side of anger. And a bucket-full of tanning cream. Photo from here.

What I should've said, #2:

I'm going for distinguished. Have you seen Up in the Air with George Clooney? Shit, dude. I just saw it on cable, and dude is hot. Smoking. I want that, but in the female version. Wait. I want to be like that, but in the female version. Yea. That's what I meant.

Photo from here.

Somehow, I think that last one was the way to go with Mr. Sedaris. Next time.

In Jersey Magazine - again

This one is for my man Denny D.

Once again...boobies. Even more so than last time. *sigh* I suppose I should read the article and find out what reality show this woman is associated with. Maybe she's just a model. I'm thinking not, though.

Oh and that reminds me! Follow-up on the last time I wrote about In Jersey magazine: Those ladies were involved in a tempest-in-a-tea pot kind of a scandal in these parts! It made the paper! Well...the local free paper. But still! It seems that a seventeen year old girl who had bought a couple of thousand dollar dress from them for her prom wanted to return the dress and they said no. The reason she wanted to return the dress? Her boyfriend/date died in a car accident. They said no. But of course, then they said yes, after all the hullabaloo.

Next month am I going to learn that Chesty LaWhiteBikini up there is a serial killer? Baby stomper? What? Jeesh. You think big boobies mean something. And then you find out they don't.

*sigh*

PBA and Spleen Venting

Hi! I know that's a small picture - it's just that I had to share. You kind of get used to insane pharmaceutical ad campaigns, but I found this one particularly strange.

Anyway, it's for an ad for a drug that treats the pseudobulbar affect that is one aspect of MS. And the pseudobulbar affect describes the rapid change of emotional states- the rapid, inappropriate change of emotional states. Like, crying over nothing. Laughing during serious moments.

I've got to say, though, as someone who as a kid couldn't talk about someone's death without smiling (I don't know why.), it's extremely difficult to distinguish PBA from, just, social weirdness. I don't know if it's the fatigue talking recently, and the constant stream of sicknesses in my family, but I tear up at the drop of a goddamned hat. It's fun.

Oh and I don't know if PBA includes rage, but I get particularly enraged by healthy lazy people. Like my brother. Who prays for me (me.), first thing each morning. This from an addict/former addict who hasn't had a job in ages and yet turns down jobs because, well, he'll probably just quit after a few months anyway. Instead, he's just going to "focus on being a good dad" and "figure out what I'm supposed to do." He's fucking 37. Figuring it out. I couldn't hold a goddamned job right now. I couldn't. I can barely take care of my children. And he prays for me first thing each morning. Right before he lights up, probably.

Phew. Spleen venting. I realize I am making it increasingly difficult for anyone to read this lightly, but...I have no control, apparently. Possibly. My head is a slot machine of emotions. Pull and...wait for it...come on...give me calm and centered. Calm and centered. Come on calm and centered! Give it!!! Ahhhh, crap. Enraged again. Mother the eff.

Hey, just looking again at that slot machine and it doesn't seem that enraged is one of the choices. Huh. Oh and also on that website, I'll give you a hint and say that if you say "yes" to everything on the self-assessment test, you may have PBA. Oh, and you might be a redneck. Wait. Wrong thing.

Until next time...

Yea...Pretty Sure It's Me

Hi! Moving past the hospital episode - but not too much. My daughter has bronchitis/double ear infections and is slow in getting better and is spending a whole lot of time out of school. Let's hope first grade goes better than Kindergarden, as far as illnesses go, cause this sucks. No hospitalization, though, which is apparently my new standard.

Speaking of standards, I went to another child's birthday party yesterday. This one with people I kinda sorta like, though! So it wasn't complete strangers for an hour and a half. It was people I've known a few months for three hours. A wash. Nahh, just kidding.

But, here's the thing- there were no Emmys at this party. None. What the? None! And that is my new standard for judging children's birthday parties. *sigh* I'm predicting that until next April, every party is going to suck to some degree. And then Joey will turn 4 in April 2012 and then I'll get to be in the presence of three Emmys and I will once again enjoy a child's birthday party. Hang in there, Penny!

All in all, yesterday's party was fun. I'm just a whole bag of social awkward, is all. And there's one couple, friends of friends, who effin hate me. Hate me. And I can't help it, somehow, but every time I talk to them, try to be nice, I just make it effin worse. Worse! I stick my foot in it every time, which granted is not all that often (this year I've seen them at parties maybe three times). But our sons are the same age (almost exactly) and they'll be at school together starting in two years.

They say "Get Away from Me", I do the Nellie McKay stance.

I don't know. This is a fantastic album, though. For real.

Who knows. Maybe we'll move. I've kind of decided, though, that since I won't be able to do the traveling I want to do in life, I should make my home a kind of an oasis. And we've a ways to do that with this house. If I had $50,000 or so, I could do it all right away. But I don't, so I can't, so it's going to take some time. And this place (the actual place and not the people) is nice. We have a nice lot. It's a pretty street. We have a forest in the back yard. We have enough room in the house. A fireplace. A nice floor plan. Even the kitchen has a nice floor plan. It's not a historic house, by any means, but it's nice. It has the potential to be nice. So let's focus on that, then, shall we?

We shall! Another post all over the place. Let's summarize! 1. Still a sick house here. 2. I'm not good at parties. 2. These people hate me and I don't blame them. 3. As a solution, I'm going to focus on making my house my oasis. I should mention also I'm considering becoming a recluse. No more birthday parties then! You know, I always associate reclusiveness with hoarding, but if I avoid the hoarding, I think I could live with being a recluse. Need to think on this some.

No more Phebe stuff for another week - the days I'll have free this week will be spent in doctors' offices, at check-ups. At least it won't be the pediatrician. They have sucky magazines at the pediatrician. Ones that make me want to stab people. I should bring a book. OK, stopping now because I'm even more all over the place.

Until next time...

Oh, Update: I needed to feel better, so I started to think about my husband. Sometimes I get sad thinking about him, because he deserves better, but this time I remembered something he told me that makes me think we're a good match and which makes me smile.

So, there was some internet news the other day (it was a slow day, keep in mind) about Weird Al Yankovic and his trying to parody Lady Gaga and his getting initially shut down by her and then not and yay! Weird Al is going to parody Lady Gaga. Hubs and I were talking about it and he said "Man, that guy is a douche." And I said, "You think Weird Al is a douche? He's great! Come on!" "Dude, no he's not. I saw him once on the streets of Berkeley when I was at school there (note: 20 years ago) and he was walking down the street..." "Yea?" "I don't know. He was just kind of looking around, waiting for someone to recognize him." "Uhhhh..." "Douche."

Also, my husband probably did not say the word "Dude". That's more of a me thing. In fact, does he ever say "Dude"? No. Even though he's a Californian. Whereas in my family, at one point in the 80's, my dad specifically asked us not to call him "Dude" anymore. Just Dad, if you please. Awww. Another good memory. It's the little things, right? When I want to think about my dad in a happy light (or my family in general, really), I think of him in the 80's. The 90's sucked for my family. 80's it is then.

Update update: Just came across this on I Love Charts and it properly captures how I should try to handle "the couple who hates me" thing that happened yesterday. The top row is what I'm doing, and the bottom row is how, instead, I should be handling it. I shall endeavor to emulate the bottom row.

Later...for real this time.

Hospitals

So...last week I had to bring my 3 year old son to the Jersey Shore University Hospital (not fucking kidding) due to a severe stomach flu and the resultant dehydration. Oh, plus he had strep/pneumonia. It was tough. His poor little body.

But, in the scheme of things, it wasn't too big a deal. My mom, who I wrote to about it in China, was all "Oh, it's fine." And I knew how she was thinking of when I was one month old and had a kidney blockage and very very nearly died. It's part of the parenting package, I suppose. Taking care of sick children. People don't really tell you that ahead of time.

Like I said, though, I'm extremely lucky and he's fine. A little iv fluids, a little iv antibiotics - he was right as rain. And for that, God bless modern medicine. Or, technically, the invention of iv's and antibiotics.

I do have a whole post to write about how I'm not only interested in the 18th century due to Phebe Taylor (who lost three children in about a year and who, I think, insisted on being buried with them forty-five years later) but I'm also currently caught up in The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Most of that series is set during Phebe's lifetime, as it turns out. Which is great for me, because I think Diana does a fair amount of research on daily life and what it was like for families - especially women. Plus there are sex scenes. It's a romance series, after all.

The main character of the series is Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser and she's a doctor. So there's also a fair amount about what medical care was like in the 18th century. There wasn't a lot of it, is what it was like. But we know that. I was just reminded, reading the fourth book in the series, that with something that happened to my 3 year old, back then, that would've been fatal. Serious diarrhea/vomiting followed by a cough followed by dehydration and that whole spiral of weakness and not wanting to eat or drink - all that leads to death for 3 year olds. Or it used to. Just that simple. Just a couple of weeks of horror and then he would've been gone.

But he isn't and it was stopped by iv fluids and antibiotics. Probably not even the antibiotics were really necessary, just the iv fluids.

And for me, when I was one month old, a kidney blockage definitely would've been fatal. But it wasn't. I had surgery, I was put on antibiotics and I was fine. And my brother didn't die of meningitis when he was seven. And my dad didn't die of cancer at 55. And it's all ok.

But I wanted to write this post about a few things that happened in the hospital and, more or less, a couple of general observations about hospitals. And how horrible they are. Or, I guess I should say, how much I hate them.

Cause I hate them. They feel like prisons to me. Even for what were joyous occasions - the births of my children - they felt like prisons. Those times, about day three I started pacing like a tiger in a cage. Or a prisoner in a cage. Pacing, pacing pacing. Bags packed and pacing.

This time was like that too, but it was 24 hours after having been there. We were admitted overnight due to my son's pneumonia sliver in his xray. It was okay. He got more fluids, more time for the antibiotic to kick in. He slept well and it was worth it. We left after about 29 hours, in the end.

But, swear to God, I couldn't wait to leave. The doors I walked past were little doorways to universes of pain. And, maybe not, but it felt that way. A good number of times I walked past and a child was screaming and screaming and screaming. That happened only a few times, but that was enough. I couldn't help, obviously. I couldn't do anything for that child and I just had to go back to my room and shut the door to stop the noise.

Right after we checked in and were brought up to our room, a chaplain came by. My son was pretty zoned out, still. Understandably. So the guy didn't get the interaction he was looking for, I guess. He told me he just loves coming to the pediatric ward. He loves coming through for "a lift to my spirits". So, I nodded, and said, "Uh huh." and just did small talk with him. After a few hours, though, I was all, "The fuck?" He comes here? This godforsaken place of pain and fear and heartache?

I guess the miracle comes when you leave, but what you have to go through to get to that point is, invariably, horrible. Even a minor thing like us. I had to help hold him down while they poked him three times to try to find a vein that would take the iv. I'm probably not saying that correctly, but you know what I mean. Dehydrated kids have horrible veins. So, that's typical. The screaming, though. And I was lucky! And I know that's a fact because he only had to do that the one time, and I heard kids going through that frequently in the pediatric ward.

So, the chaplain thing happened. And what else? A few other weird things. I noticed that time kind of stopped while I was there. Which is normal, I guess? You're so focussed on what's happening that time and the rest of the world cease to exist. Everything stands still.

I remember that from when my dad was so sick twenty years ago, but I don't really remember it that vividly. Maybe I blocked it out. Maybe I'll block this out. I don't know. I remember trying to help my mom. Especially when they told her that the cancer might've spread. And the time we spent waiting for the results of more tests (it ended up being ok - he's alive, after all).

And even if you have CNN running constantly in the hospital room, the world outside still ceases to exist. Kind of like at the airport. You're just sitting there, killing time, hoping for the best, waiting for someone to tell you that you can leave. Only with the hospital, you have to throw in all the pain and fear and misery.

But I was lucky. My son was lucky.

A few other things about the hospital have been rattling around my head for a week or so. They're pretty unrelated to anything, but they happened and even while they were happening, I was kind of outside myself, thinking "Huh. That's happening and I can't really believe it. Is this happening? Huh. I guess it is." Once I explain, it'll make more sense.

First thing is that I overheard a nurse and a mother talking outside my door, at some point. And I didn't catch it all, probably because Fan Boy and Chum Chum was on pretty loud in my room, but I thought that the nurse said about how she had heard about his (meaning the mom's son's) case, but couldn't believe it. The mother said something along the lines of "Yes, they put his foot on backwards to help with the prosthetic." (This is where the "Did that happen?" part of it comes in.)

So today, I google foot backwards and guess what? It did happen. But in Ohio. So either the Jersey Shore Hospital is some sort of portal to the hallway of the pediatric ward in some Ohio hospital, or the kid was for some reason at our hospital. In any case, could I make this up? Would I ever? No. I'm nowhere near this creative. But anyway, it happened. All in all, highly surreal. And here's the link to the story by CBS local New York news.

Oh my God, this is long. I was going to also tell you about Kyle who pushed us out of the hospital - I couldn't carry all our bags plus my son, or else I wouldn't have waited the extra hour it took to get Kyle and the wheelchair he was pushing to our room. Anyway, Kyle comes. Handsome young guy. We walk out near the entrance to the emergency room -that's where they told me to bring my son. The ER doctor didn't believe me, but they fucking told me to bring him there. Don't question me, ER doctor! Don't! Anyway, we're walking out and I look over to the ER and four or five people are restraining someone writhing around, moaning in pain on a gurney. And for this, Kyle apologizes. "No problem, Kyle. I'll go get the car." I couldn't tell if the guy was just completely disabled and having a sort of seizure or if he was some sort of drug addict. In any case, it was bad enough for Kyle to apologize. Which was nice.

And then, thank the fuck, we got in our car and came home.

The end.

Updated: In Jersey Magazine this month

So, we got this in the mail yesterday. Free, thankfully. In Jersey Magazine, Monmouth County edition.

This is normal around here. Normal. I am not normal. Even more so than usual. I had to share.

UPDATE: So I read the article. They have a reality show or some such. But their shop is in Freehold! That's where the Monmouth County Historical Society Museum and Library is! Not *completely* Jersey Shore-ish, is what I'm saying. OMG, I wrote Shore-ish and totally thought "whore-ish". Two are not related. Yup.

Anyway, in the article there are lots and lots of boobies. Boobies, boobies, boobies, all over the place. And not just younger "zaftig" boobies, but middle-aged/past middle-aged boobies. Lots of boobies, is what I'm saying. The photos that go along with the article are fantastic. Here's one of them (link here).

I should be ok with boobies, right? I'm certainly ok with the zaftigs, as I'm one of them, I just wouldn't wear such a low cut dress, I guess. I don't know. I don't wear couture gowns anywhere. It's just a hypothetical kind of a situation then. I do wear v-neck t-shirts, though.

I need to get a man's opinion cause if *I'm* thinking "boobies", you effin *know* that a man is thinking "Holy crap that's a lot of boobies. Huh. I wonder what she looks like naked." Again, as I'm not a man, that's a hypothetical.

In other news, I'm just coming off of a horrible week of some sort of viral infection, which if I were a normal, healthy person, wouldn't be too big of a deal, but since I'm me with the MS and all, was completely debilitating. I might be a little off due to it, is all I'm saying.

Boobies.