I'm Back Now-- but not in a flash

Yeah, I've been gone for far too long. I've been seduced by Second Life (Fuel Burner referred you, if you ever do decide to sign up). I've spent a ton of time learning how to build in 3D. Considering that I've got double vision in one eye from the brain injury as well as perception problems, being able to build something that actually holds together is a feat within itself. Oh yeah, and one of my relatives got married.

Attendance at that wedding was mandatory. Just before leaving for the very expensive hotel (almost 200 bucks for one night), I had my hair cut. Gave my first braid to the Locks of Love. In case you haven't heard about Locks of Love, basically it is an organization that collects lengths of hair to turn into wigs for kids who have lost their hair due to medical baldness. I decided to grow out my hair once in memory of Marie-- my friend Philly David's sister. She had cancer and she died. She was a Quaker. At the meeting hall, there was a little boy there she admired because he was growing his hair out for Locks of Love. He was confident enough not to care about the other kids teasing him for it. So I grew my hair out in honor of Marie.

I felt really good about it when I saw the braid of hair in the bag destined for a kid who really needs it. I've decided to do it again.

More info can be found at: http://www.locksoflove.org/


Bout a month or so ago, I had a "meeting" with the VESID counselor (my fourth in four years) and the job developer. They decided that I want to be an advocate. Getting into any sort of investigative work does not fit in with their limited ability to see beyond my brain injury. During the meeting, I was asked if I would consider full-time advocacy work if I were to make "twenty-five dollars an hour." I recognized this number as being pulled out of a hat (i.e. not based on reality) immediately. I told both of my professional "helpers" that my health and well-being has to come first. Quite frankly, the fatigue is the real killer for me. Lack of imagination is theirs.

Thanks to the friend who came with me who also has a brain injury, I was able to remain calm. That is to say, I was able to refrain from telling these two to feck off. I am the first to admit that I am somewhat obsessed with the "VESID problem."

I was supposed to send off my resume to the job developer. I haven't. I am currrently suffering from lack of belief that this agency which had put "my case" on hold for a year without informing me of that fact (?cuz I refused to get a "return to work" order from my doctor after a routine vertigo attack?) is able to help me. I waited a year for them. They can wait for me. The truth is less glamorous. It took me awhile to remember that my resume is in the computer files.

The job handler to her credit did call me once, leaving a message. Usually she calls from a blocked number and refuses to leave a message, but she counts it as an attempted contact anyways. When I called her back, she asked if I "still want to do advocacy work." Well, no actually, I thought, that is what yous want me to settle for. No matter, I couldn't talk right then anyways. She asked if I want to meet with her. I said, after I send out the resume I will call you. That is how I left it.

Now that I know where the resume is, I can quit tearing the house apart looking for it. I can print the resume out and send it off. I understand there is something there about allowing the professional helpers to help me. I have not been very co-operative. I acknowledge this fully and completely. Yet I also understand that I have to find my own way. As I am able to let go of the problems I've had with VESID, perhaps hope will then be able to return. Yeah, I do feel hopeless.

I feel hopeless because I want to write and I want to write badly. I've had lots of stuff published. Yet there is no current book in my brain. Just a chapter and a vague idea about where to go with it. And a real sense of loss. As in, "I was finally 'making it' career-wise and everything blew apart in a matter of seconds."

So I will send the job developer a resume. I will even meet with her and make nice. I will even listen to the things she suggests, even if they are not things I can do. The last suggestion involved being a home health aide at the agency that is run out of her agency. The biggest problem with that is my back. I can't lift more than ten pounds, period. One of my friends got pushed into doing that, along with being a nursing assistant substitute on call-- and her back is worse than mine. And quite frankly, there are other problems with that line of work. Like I can't do housework for more than ten minutes at a time. I've forgotten how to cook. And I am beyond disorganization. There is that inability to multi-task too that I've been stuck with. The neuropsych told me that my "ability to multi-task has shit the bed and it's not coming back." The shrink explained that I am highly distractible. Uh wow.

The thing is, I am not an advocate. I am an investigator. I've got total attention to detail (in spite of my disorganization and inability to multi-task). I know how to investigate. It's in my blood. I know how to ask questions. And I know how to write up my findings. I know this about myself. If the job market will not bear with an investigator who functions a bit oddly socially and can only work part-time, then I have to come up with some other way to use my investigative skills.

sapphoq healing tbi

MEET THE NEW YEAR 1/2/09

same as the old year? I hope not.
This is the year that I will get unstuck.

2008 already seems far away, a distant memory. Like a receding shoreline pounded by the waves or a receding hairline.

2008 was the year that the brilliant VESID personnel demanded a return-to-work order after a routine vertigo "attack." Again, I ask, WHAT WORK? Since I don't wish to beat that particular dead horse anymore, I shall leave that one dangling.


2008 was also the year that my dad moved three times. He moved from his home with his almost ex-wife #3 to a pullman apartment to our home in the middle of nowhere and then back to his home with his almost ex-wife #3.

I learned a lot of things when my dad was living here for a couple months. Some of those
things I didn't wish to learn and some I did.

My dad succeeded where no one else had since my accident-- I learned how to maintain a
simple house-cleaning schedule. Now I wish I could have had him visit after my accident.
Earlier after my accident rather. At any rate, the house is slowly rising from the plague of
the dust bunnies.

The other things I learned are more of a private nature and thus I will not record them here.


2008 was the year that I discovered Second Life (tm to Linden Labs). Second Life is total eye candy to someone like me who loves visual effects and animations. Over there I've been learning a bit of simple scripting and some 3D building. That is the part that makes Second Life different from blogging.


My goals for 2009:
to remain abstinent as defined in the program of Narcotics Anonymous.
to complete my book and submit it.
to remain married and faithful.
to increase our financial stability as a couple and mine as me.
to continue to monitor my health proactively.
to blog on any of the blogger blogs twice a week and on the journal blogs once a week.
to address the things that I allow to keep me stuck.

I hope for everyone a well new year. And if not a well one, then at least a weller one.

sapphoq healing tbi

Happy Christmas 12/24/08

Dear People,

I am sorry I haven't been here once again.
I fell several weeks ago while walking-- landed flat on my back-- and fell again three days after that. Actually I fainted after a shower. I fell on my right side but fortunately had protected my head with my arm.

My back, which wasn't great due to the motor vehicle accident I'd been in that also gave me the traumatic brain injury, is now a spasming mess on the right side. Can't hardly bend to the right, can't move the right arm out to reach all that much, can't get in or out of a chair without extreme pain and difficulty.

Two trips to the doc resulted in a script for physical therapy which I am glad to say I will be starting next week. The muscle spasms in my back aren't bad as long as I don't breathe, shift positions, or move in any way. Traction is beginning to look like something desirable.

I will be back when I can. Meanwhile:

1). Happy Christmas and happy everything else too,
2). I hope that the president-elect is able to help the u.s.a. out of the mess we are in but I sorta think we are screwed anyways,
3). I saw two pileated woodpeckers the other day pecking on a telephone pole while they were hanging upside down. Very beautiful.

Be well my friends. And if you can't be well, then be weller.

spike

A Murder of Crows - Volume 23

God can I get offended by the stupidest shit or what? I found myself infuriated by a comment from an outspoken young lad that decided to berate me because I had the audacity to say that I don’t drink Starbucks coffee. His assumption of why I don’t drink it had nothing to do with the meaning behind my statement and that was what infuriated me so much. The fact of the matter is that I don’t drink Starbucks because I think it sucks. It had nothing to do with any political ban, or some other bullshit reason that you read about in various spam e-mails, but he chastised me for being a loony that was banning Starbucks based on their anti war sentiments. Personally I never had a problem with Starbucks refusing to send free coffee to soldiers, because everyone has that right, and have even gone as far as to support their decision because their coffee sucks! It’s bad enough that we have sent soldiers to a war zone, but to force them to drink shitty coffee in the middle of a desert is just over the top in my book.

I am not one of those people that runs around telling people to ban things and it might be one of the few things that I have agreed in lock step with a certain radio personality that dominates the noon to three time slot on most AM radio dials. Calling for protests on things politicizes business and that is completely un-cool. I have also subscribed to the theory that there are a lot more people out there that hate me than love me, so the chances are pretty good that I would make billionaires out of companies I detest. Chew on that one for a while as you run out to buy your Starbucks coffee knowing full well that Jeremy hates it so it must be pretty damn good. For the record when I happen to be in Seattle {my favoritest city in the world} I prefer to drink Tully’s but will drink Starbucks because it is after all on every block out there, and Tully’s has only managed to place a store across from nine out of ten of them.

Now on to the breaking of my cardinal rule, I will tell you all a few things that I have banned and why, but for my own personal reasons. I do this mostly to point out to my more liberal readers that they are out of line when judging me as a hateful right wing whacko, because I do put my money where my mouth is, and it isn’t within their realm of stereotype. The very first product that I ever put a “lifetime” ban on was based completely on my own lying eyes, and that would be Nike. I haven’t owned a Nike product of any sort, since I was 13 years old. Admittedly from the age of 13 to about 20 it was because I couldn’t afford them being from humbler means than most, but it was when I worked for a company that made the inner plastics that go into shoes, that I decided Nike was bad news. I have had a multitude of friends that have either worked for Nike or Bauer as they are a local company that has come to the same decision, and it falls under my floating scale of reasonability. I was sent on a trip to Indonesia where most of the labor on Nike products is performed and it was shocking to me. The employees over there are paid poverty wages, and the government supports beating the workers to get them to perform better. Nike was the only shoe factory that made an effort to hide this from the people that were touring, but not good enough for my needs.

Most people would say that this happens all over the world and I am being a prude for taking it out on Nike. The fact is that I know that world economic slavery happens everywhere, but I can live with buying a fifteen dollar pair of sneakers that were made in a Chinese sweat shop. I’m an evil American after all, but at least I will admit that I am unlike the other countries of the world that point their fingers at me, and then do the exact same thing. The problem with the Nike model is that this happens and then they charge a hundred bucks for the shoes so that they can pay all of the stars to promote them. That is what is completely un-cool to me because they are NOT serving a need at an affordable price, they are lining the pockets of a lot of people who don’t exactly need their pockets lined anymore on the backs of the slaves of tyrannical nations. In my book there is a huge difference and this is why I don’t buy or even keep Nike products. I have gone as far as to smile and say “thank you” to anyone that gets me Nike products for gifts and then get them into a Salvation Army bin the first moment I can. I justify that it is doing some good at that point.

Then there was Procter & Gamble which made my life a little difficult for a while there. It was harder when I was younger to figure out what exactly was a P&G product and what wasn’t but I dutifully read labels for about ten years to keep those products out of my grocery cart. That got a lot easier when I had three kids and limited money because almost everything that ended up in my grocery cart was no name brand from that point on. P&G had pissed me off by its senseless use of animals in their testing of various products. If you use Oil of Olay for example you can take great pride in knowing that millions of animals have had their scalps ripped open and chemicals poured in so that your skin can be soft and smooth. I’m not a total loony here either, and some may call me a hypocrite because I eat animals, and I have no problem with medical testing on animals. Again in my closed little mind there is a difference between killing and torturing. There is also a big difference between beauty products, laundry detergent scents and medical research. I might have even given them a pass and forgotten about the whole thing if they had just applied the eye liner to the animals or perhaps washed them a little bunny sweater and tried it out, but the preferred methodology of their labs was always to rip flesh and inject. I never intended to use any of their products that way so why should the animals?

Then you have all those damn charities out there that need constant lamb basting from people like me as well. A lot of the more notable charities have overheads on them that make their actual charitable contributions well below ten percent of their incomes. In a lot of cases these “reputable” charities are nothing more than shell organizations for one radical group or another. As you will see I am NOT mentioning names on this one, because all I can suggest is to always spend a little time looking into a charity before you donate to one. This could be contributed to my right leaning ideals, but in a way it isn’t. I actually know for a fact that I had more legitimate charitable contributions on my tax return than Al Gore did the year he ran for President {since it was disclosed by law}, and only a small fraction of them were religious. Keeping in mind that the Salvation Army makes up the bulk of my religious contributions, I am just being honest, but they do good stuff in my book.

The bulk of my charitable donations go directly to the SPCA and the Special Olympics which have always been my two biggest causes. On that note I won’t “buy” a cat or a dog from a pet store. There are good pet breeders out there, but I don’t have the time, money or effort to figure out who they are or what pet stores they deal with, since there are millions of cats and dogs in this world that need homes and are pining away in an animal shelter. I also can be pretty outspoken about what pets I get when I go to the animal shelter as well, and I have been teaching my kids what I think is the “right way” and the “wrong way” and sometimes preach it to others. The last cat we got from the animal shelter was an eight year old scrawny tawny, who would have sat there a lot longer if we hadn’t grabbed her. The kids of course were enthralled with all of the cats begging for attention, and the kittens of course, but those cats get taken a lot quicker, and if not by us then the next one through the door. The emaciated cat in the corner that had come from neglect almost always inevitably gets passed over and it doesn’t have the energy to show off for the guests, so I always take the kids over to meet them. Our newest cat Duchess was a bit frightened at first, but I was able to get the kids to enjoy the “getting to know each other” process, and in turn she has become my son’s best friend. She is a chubby cat now who waits at the door every day when she knows he’s getting off the school bus, but more importantly, she isn’t the cat that was forgotten about in the malaise of human indifference. Not bad for a self righteous, meat eating, cigarette smoking, right wing whacko huh? ;8o)

Other Crap This Weirdo Publishes... Mental Notes& Random Musings {Daily Blog} The Crow's Nest {The Homepage of J~ Crow}

Nothing that was printed here was intended to offend anyone, and if it did, screw ya, you begged for it. If you believe that there are some measures that can be taken to change me, then please feel free to pray for me, and while you are at it yourself, because you read this far, and if you hated every minute of it, then you are an idiot, not me, or the other people who like what I have to say! .. Jeremy

All writings Copyright © 2008 .. The Crow's Nest

A Murder of Crows - Volume 22

It’s finally over. I haven’t been able to write for months as the political season here had found its way into full flower and with it came all of the hard feelings that go along with presidential elections. I have found it is just easier to write my paid articles, get them in and don’t attempt to write anything else, because everything can turn into a long rant if left unattended for too long. This year was the worst after all, and I found myself angry a lot of the time over the shenanigans that politics had sunk to, but the reality of it all is pretty simple. I don’t hate politicians anymore, because I just hate the people that support them.

Here’s the way I look at it, and I am sure that I am wrong, but many people will correct my ignorance. I like Barack Obama. I actually like Barack Obama a hell of a lot more than I like John McCain, but the chances of me pulling the lever for the guy were slim and none when I listened to his supporters for the last year. More to the point, I have yet to find a more loathsome bunch of people than the truly vocal Barack Obama supporters and they turned my stomach to the point that I was rooting against the guy, like I imagine I was supposed to anyway. A lot of this came from the “destroy Palin” movement that had swept the nation the last four months or so, and the fear that no matter how much I like Obama it is after all going to be these types of people that he will bring to Washington with him. I can hope not, but I have been there before with Clinton, so I am not holding my breath.

Again as far as Obama is concerned, I truly do hope that he is the best president in American history, as I did with Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Reagan. I was too young to wish Carter any luck but come of age in enough time to realize what the worst president in American history could look like. In the end it doesn’t matter who occupies the seat at the White House, I am not going to root against the home team, and like it or not in January Barack Obama is going to be the home team. I actually think he could do a good job, but I also think he could do a bad job, it all depends on what he does, and why as it always does with presidents. Obama could potentially be a victim of his own success though because despite what people think, he is the first president since Reagan to have an overwhelming mandate. His party owns a staggering majority of the house, a decent sized majority of the senate, and a far more left leaning country to pilot at this time. In other words, “He better get some things done” because with that sort of a mandate the moderates are not going to accept the “blame it on Bush” mentality that infests us now, for long.

I have after all lived through a few bad presidents and always for different reasons. Carter was a nice enough guy, but hopelessly incompetent, GHW Bush was simpering, Clinton was an “in the moment” sort of guy, GW Bush was hopeless at picking the battles he wanted to fight {and more often than not made fools of his own supporters} and now the new guy hopefully will take a look at some of these guys and choose is battles wisely. I don’t know at this point, but I will say as a Republican, I don’t buy the absurdities that the rank and file of my party blather on about him. I also think he might shock a few of his own party by displaying a backbone. McCain on the other hand was a shock a day, and that is why I desperately didn’t want him to be president. Did I mention I am a Republican?

Here in New Hampshire the politics went to an all new low, and for that I blame John E Sununu. I voted for him after all, but I almost changed my mind at the last minute. You see here in New Hampshire the Democrats are the most vile human beings on earth. I am not making a blanket statement on Democrats in general, I am just pointing out that the Democrats here are enough to make any decent person sport a Bush sticker on their car just to hopefully push a few of them into neurotic suicide over it. For the last six years the New Hampshire DNC had sported a new plan of tearing up all of the Republicans signs in the middle of the night and replacing them with almost identical signs with insulting things about the candidates. This time around for instance you might have gone to bed with a “Sununu” sign out front of your house and woken up with a “BUSH Sununu” sign out front of your house looking almost identical in colors etc. They do it with the governor and presidential signs as well, and it is considered the norm around here. In other words people expect it from scumbag Democrats, and the Republicans are the bad people anyway because the news told me so. The night of the election the Sununu people went out and did it to all the Shaheen signs and it pissed me off. He should have known better because now not only did he lose, but the Democrats in this state will be able to say that “The Republicans always do that” making another Republican that made a lasting ass out of his supporters.

As I said, it is over finally, and now it is time to move on. I’ve had all of the Dems that know I am a republican telling me all of my faults for the last two days. They are still talking about how Palin lost McCain the ticket {which is a load of crap because everyone that hated her would have hated anyone, they are just making sure they destroy her as a future candidate} even though she may be the only reason McCain won any states at all, and the Obama Presidency {note I didn’t say regime, because it has ALWAYS been wrong to say that} begins in a couple of months, and I am not heading for any tall bridges. The country will survive as it would have had McCain won, and I’m pretty sure that everyone still hates each other. I will add though, Plato so wisely said that democracies only last 225 years on average due to poor fiscal policy because the people soon realize they can vote themselves all the benefits they wish. I am hoping that Obama rises above that philosophy soon, or we could be in a lot of trouble. The Democracy of one man and one vote only works when it isn’t two wolves and a lamb voting on what is for dinner after all. My prediction is that a lot of the people that were voted in for “change” are going to realize this before they go tearing down the house completely, and they may end up with a lot of their constituency furious with them within a year. His mandate dictates that ;8o)

Other Crap This Weirdo Publishes... Mental Notes& Random Musings {Daily Blog} The Crow's Nest {The Homepage of J~ Crow}

Nothing that was printed here was intended to offend anyone, and if it did, screw ya, you begged for it. If you believe that there are some measures that can be taken to change me, then please feel free to pray for me, and while you are at it yourself, because you read this far, and if you hated every minute of it, then you are an idiot, not me, or the other people who like what I have to say! .. Jeremy

All writings Copyright © 2008 .. The Crow's Nest