Absence and Sorrow

I've been somewhat absent from my blogs (and from as much of life as I can cancel) for several reasons. My dad has dementia and that has involved my own grief as well as his acute sense that his "mind is failing." Dad who is still driving a car (no thanks to the State of New Jersey for giving him back his license even after I informed them of his deteriorating condition) has been up to see us several times over the past few months.

Additionally the iron-deficient anemia (which I thought I had only had since August but the blood doc tells me I've had for three years) remained unmedicated for a month thanks to the shenanigans of the mail-order pharmacy in cahoots with my medical insurance plan. I could not tolerate over the counter iron. The medical insurance plan required a pre-authorization for the iron script. The mail-order company sent me back the script 28 days after they had received it. Insurance company refused to pay. Pre-auth was turned down I guess but I had not been informed directly by the insurance company. Price of prescription that was turned down: 39.99 for a thirty day supply. I need the iron pills and specifically I need the prescription iron due to things like a severe hiatal hernia and an irritated colon. So I shelled out the two twenties and practiced being glad that I had the money.

Meanwhile though, I suffered through several months of extreme heat sickness and tiredness. The t.b.i. gave me cognitive fatigue and some physical fatigue as well. The C-PAP machine stopped the feeling that I was sleep-walking through life, even though t.b.i. fatigue remains. The anemia finished me off for awhile. I am actually looking forward to visiting the gut doc in January. I feel so un-well that I am looking forward to the kind of testing that comes with visiting the gut doc.

Sometimes I think medical insurance companies run the numbers like a bettor would run the horse races. As long as the horse is winning (doesn't access the medical insurance benefits much) everything is gravy. When the horse begins stumbling a bit (needs medical attention for chronic conditions) the bettor begins to doubt his choices. When the stumbling horse falls down deal-- there is no longer any problem. Business is business. I understand that. But I also understand that human beings are not race horses and that somehow our lives should matter. My insurance company insisting that I should be able to tolerate taking over-the-counter iron for an anemia which I've had for three years flies in the face of a certain reality. So the company gets to save on my iron medicine by refusing to pay for it. A certain amount of denial on their part saves them money. But that same denial forces me, an adult on disability through no fault of my own, to spend extra money on a medical necessity. Thanks pal.

There is some inherent wrongness with insisting that a patient be able to take iron over the counter in spite of conditions that are counter-indicative to that. There is some inherent wrongness with the A.A.R.P. lobbying against any state motor vehicle agency requiring adults of a certain age to submit to driving retesting. And along with that consequently, many insurance companies failing to pay for driver evaluations conducted by a professional upon order of a physician. My dad's insurance-- a combination of Medicare and A.A.R.P. supplemental Medicare-- naturally refused to pay a dime toward his eval (one that he utterly failed I will add). That bill amounted to around 400 bucks.

So to say that I am a bit testy, irritable, and sluggish is accurate but doesn't really cover the whole truth. I've had all I can do to continue to be a participant in life rather than an observer on the sidelines. I am filled with grief. Dad knows he has dementia and he is aware that his brain is on strike. He continues to steadfastly refuse medications for all of his medical conditions as well as the brain scans that would make a definitive diagnosis possible. We do not even have a name for the monster that is beating on his brain. I love my dad and when he dies, I will miss him for the rest of my life. I hope he dies in his sleep peacefully before the real misery sets in. I feel like there should be more or better things to hope for but I haven't found those things yet.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

A Murder of Crows - Volume 27

Well as my daughter’s boyfriend just came back from boot camp, I am pretty much convinced that I am his surrogate parent. It’s an ok thing because I like him and think he’s a very good match for my daughter in general, but it also makes me rather sad that it has come down to that as well. What I mean in general is that I can’t for the life of me understand his mother and the way that she thinks. Her son basically joined the military to get out of his subservience to a mother that doesn’t work, and has no problem leaching off of her sons. It’s amusing that as long as I have known him I just found out today that he is the YOUNGER brother of his mother’s brood, and that worried me a bit, because he had always taken care of his mother and his older brother?

You see, I knew most of the story because his mother had thrown him out of her apartment prior to him leaving for boot camp. Why you may ask? Well it was because she was furious that she wouldn’t be able to pay her rent while he waited for his first paycheck. Yep, you heard that right, it was because she wouldn’t be able to pay her rent without him paying it for her. Apparently he and his brother had been splitting the bills for years, and his mother found no shame in this whatsoever, because after all she had given birth to them and they were fortunate for that. I really didn’t know the entire dynamics until today when I took him out to get my other car repaired {the one that I loan him when he is in town because he has nobody else to loan him one} and I made the comment that it was hard to worry about your younger brother. He then corrected me that the sycophantic brother who was also angry that he ran off to the army instead of taking care of their mother was the OLDER brother. Holy moly.

Now I have made jokes about his mother before, because before the days of Oprah Winfrey and the rest of the bad behavior apologists, you were allowed to pick on people like this. She doesn’t have a job because she has “emotional problems.” Well as my ex-wife has “emotional problems” I consider myself a forced expert on these things and often “emotional problems” don’t exactly mean “emotional problems” and from what I have discerned these are those types of “emotional problems.” My daughter’s poor boyfriend was raised to look forward to the day when the food stamps or the welfare check came in. He'd come home from school where his mother would be video taping soap opera's with the money from the welfare check. This was what my children went through until I ended up with them and in the exact same manner, welfare check meant new VCR tapes or liquor, and food stamps meant junk food with the change going into the alcohol redemption fund. I am not saying that everyone does these things but I am dealing with these two examples.

Using the “bucket of crabs” theory that there are always crabs in the bottom trying to drag you back down, my daughter’s boyfriend escaped and is doing his best to refuse to jump back in the bucket. I had told him what I have tried to tell my ex-wife, which is that parents are parents and not surrogate children. Parents that treat their children like the parents need to be escaped from and I support his decision. I also told him that my mother was along the same lines, and surprise surprise, I made sure I married women just like her. I of course had to recommend to him that he might want to be wary of these things. My daughter has actually made me so amazingly proud of her as she has been what most men would hope their military wives would be like. She’s been unwaveringly loyal to him while he is away. She couldn’t consider anyone else, and even her boyfriend appreciated that as a lot of the men that he is in the army with don’t get that luxury. I told him that we are what our parents make us, and if we choose to stay that way we only have ourselves to blame, and he already understood that one.

I appreciated how well he took it when at the dinner table last year, I was asked by my aunt what I really thought about my 16 year old daughter dating a 19 year old. Between bites of food I simply said, “I thought about it for a while, and decided that there are distinct advantages to my daughter dating a 19 year old man,” and my aunt wasn't happy that I wasn't immediately banning the concept from the first moment she brought him home. I wasn't put on this earth to back up all of her thoughts, but as I continued I left the audience shocked, “seriously, if she dated a boy her own age then I would have no recourse if he did something stupid. If he does something stupid, I could tear his head off and beat him within an inch of his life, and most likely get away with it in court,” and the way he started choking on his food was the perfect response. Needless to say he has been the best boyfriend I ever could have wished for my daughter, and in turn he made out pretty well, as I adopted him as my son-in-law to compensate for what little he has in lines of his own family. It's been pretty fair.

There was a benefit to spending the day with what most fathers would consider “the enemy” and transporting him around to grab my other car for him, giving him one of these extra too heavy coats I bought recently {oh yeah the airline lost his and the other three soldiers on the plane’s luggage .. nobody else’s just the big green duffel bags .. I smell fish} and a few pairs of my jeans that the army helped him fit into while he was gone. I was the only one who knew he was back in town. When my daughter got home from school, I was able to grab her and tell her to go downstairs to my office, and look at something I had on my computer. I stayed upstairs so the scream wouldn’t destroy my ears. It came close with a floor between us. I gave them about 15 minutes to kiss and catch up and then threw them both out of my office. I can only take being a human being for so long out of the day ;8o)

Other Crap This Weirdo Publishes... Mental Notes& Random Musings {Daily Blog} Jeremy Crow on NewsVine {Political 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 © 2009 .. The Crow's Nest

A Murder of Crows - Volume 26

I think I am going to try to break the Itching For Coffee record for “Long Boring Blog Entries” with this one but it all falls into my plan to keep three separate places for my thoughts for a while. I am sick of my different types of blog fans clashing over what should and should not be my norm so I have been posting here with the more general “life and health” stuff. Newsvine for my political stuff, and Mental Notes for whatever the hell I want because it's my own damn blog. Yeah that didn't sound bitter but let me explain my day in the best way I can.

Those that have known me long enough know that I have a few interesting qualities that don't always blend together very well. I tend to be extremely manic and I tend to be extremely brilliant. When you mix the two together it becomes dangerous on different levels than most people truly understand, but is understood quite well by many of the people that have gotten close to me over the years. This is one of the major reasons that I write. It originally started as one part soul cleansing, one part tattling on myself, and one part something to do. I take long breaks from it, and then when I come back again it is usually one of those three things that drive me to it. Times like it has been lately, when I come charging out of the gates it is usually the first two in combination, and a third part that got added along the way, which was the quest to become a better human being. I haven't been a complete failure on that one but I always have some steps backwards along the way. It's all in what you do with it.

Today was innocuous enough, with what little I had to do during the day, I think I was probably having it to easy and should have seen the warning signs. I have written a lot lately about the impending doom that politics in this country have been lately and how it has felt like one personal attack after another on myself. I have talked about my health issues and how it effects me as well, especially when you consider that I am for the most part extremely healthy and have done most of the right things to stay that way and in a “life isn't fair” manner things still effect me physically. These things alone don't do very wonderful for the psyche but when you add other things that are out of a person's control, and throw in the propensity to over analyze things in an unhealthy manner. I like to equate the inside of my head as Oprah Winfrey and Albert Einstein arguing over the correct way to say potato, and neither ever giving in. If you think about it long enough it makes more sense with every passing minute. This is where you throw in the drama, and the things that are out of my control. Then you throw in the insane ways I try to deal with them, and then throw in the aftermath of over-analyzing what I did wrong and how it destroyed the world, and you are about half way there.

I was playing around on Twitter and totally lost track of time. This is never good, but I ran off to get my son from school so I could take him to his therapist. He was late getting out of school so I had to haul ass to get to the therapist. The therapist was late, so we had to cram session what ended up being a rather good session. We were then trapped in her office for an extra half hour because another patient was going psycho outside her door and the police were trying to subdue him. I was then a half hour late getting to work for a company Christmas party that I was supposed to set up. The caterer was late, so I was still on time but that didn't change that I was late setting up the Christmas party. The people took it out on ME, for a while anyway because I started getting “that look” which in combination with my low grumbling voice when I get angry usually stops people from continuing on my case. From what I heard anyway. The party went well and the food was excellent. I over ate really badly and now had a sore stomach because my bad spine was now in collusion with those abs I have dedicated many hours a week to making beautiful to create a new pain that I had never experienced before. Snowball effect.

Now on a brighter note, the employees cleaned up and put everything away after the party without me having to nag any of them to do so. I think this links back to “the look” and “the voice” and I think most of the people there were happy to just get it done and go home. This would leave me alone at work to stew over the crap that I had to deal with already today, and the excruciating pain in my mid section that I had completely caused to myself. I of course still had a lot of work to do since I had used my usual work time to set up a Christmas party and had to finish cleaning and ordering and setting up trucks for the crew in the morning. Did I mention that my stomach was killing me and I was spending every free moment of brain activity to beat myself up over this. The heat had tripped out and I forgot to wear the big ugly yellow jacket that I wear so my arms don't curl up on me, and now the pain was getting agonizing in my arms. Again this is a relatively new issue in my life so I was simply using the pain in my elbows and my hands as another gauge of how horribly my life sucks, and by the time I realized that my big ugly stupid yellow coat probably would end this I felt stupid and could start using that brain activity to abuse myself over this now.

On that big ugly yellow jacket. It gets me some strange looks but it is extremely warm and for my own comfort I have to get used to being extremely warm or the arthritis cripples me. Thanks to 8 years of not having to own or care about wearing a jacket I realize that I have no taste in jackets, as well as being cursed with the male gender it didn't occur to me that sooner or later I would feel stupid wearing THAT jacket when I purchased it because it looked the warmest. I do look stupid in it and that gave me something else for Oprah and Albert to argue over. It was like a satanic tribal council dedicated to voting ME off the island but I might have had an immunity idol up until this point. The easiest way to look at it is that I was grumpy. I had to make several trips back and forth across the street to get all of my jobs done and that was making me grumpy, and I had just about run out of gas and THAT made me grumpy.

At the gas station was one of those moments that could have changed my life. Perhaps it did, but it might have snapped me out of it all after a good long Oprah v Albert beat down. This will come from the mind of a genius and not exactly the mind of the animal that was there, so please bear with me. I should point out to those that haven't met me in person that I work out a LOT. I am 5' 9” 192 pounds with a 30' waist, 17” arms, and a 44” chest. When I get really angry I act like it too, and all the working on that in the world gets me nowhere but I try. As I was pumping my gas a car pulled up behind me and out jumps two early twenties, most likely drunk, people. The girl was having a hard time letting her boyfriend pump his gas without putting her hands all over him, and between that, poor education, people who have fostered the belief in him that he can say anything he wants without consequence, and as I said before liquor he summed me up. He then looked at one of the several bumper stickers on my car and said “You're proud to be stupid huh?”

Ok, before we get into what happened in less than one minute let me point out to you that the one W04 sticker in my window, is most likely still there because I haven't gotten around to removing it yet. The two pink ribbons are for the women in my family and my best friend that beat breast cancer. The “Easy Does It” sticker is because I have a problem with alcohol, mostly in me, but trust me I tend to have a problem with alcohol in others too if it becomes MY problem. The two stickers that say “Meow” and “Woof” because I support the local animal shelters, and the one that says support our troops mostly because I always support our troops but partly because my daughter's boyfriend is one of the troops. We all know what one he was talking about, but it doesn't matter because he would have gotten this response from any of them when I let go of the handle and started walking towards him saying, “If you ever speak to me again I will break all of your fucking teeth!”

Now let's analyze along with Oprah and Albert about how horribly this went. In reality he stopped pumping his gas, practically threw his terrified girlfriend in the car, and after fumbling himself into the car almost hit mine as he tore out of there. I guess I still had “the look” and “the voice”and after pumping my gas I pulled out my cell phone and in a wonderful feat of righteous anger I tweeted {what a loser huh?} “I thank God that I am physically intimidating enough to be able to tell libtards to stfu and the pretty much have to” which actually made things worse just because it put all of it into perspective for me that I am allowing my hate over a world that pisses me off transpire into hate. On the way back to work I actually chuckled when the thought came to me that that loser probably was taking it out on his girlfriend right now, and then that was when I felt like the worst human being on the face of the earth because I might be right. All of my self righteous indignation and lust for physical violence as of late just crashed down around me and I really should be ashamed of myself. I am.

Last month when I called my ex-wife's grandmother {I still call them family} in Oswego to see what had happened in the NY-23 elections she had told me some of the usual stories you hear from really heated elections. Purple shirted SEIU thugs hanging out at the end of the street to the school she voted at, and a steady stream of them “voting” which I guess is how they get around the “on property” laws in some states. She's in her late 80's so you can imagine that she gets easily intimidated and she made that known to me. I was thinking about that as I sat in my car and finished my cigarette, because the first thing I thought after that was how I lamented that SEIU Thugs never hang out around my polling places. It's always been a fantasy of mine to make at least two or three of them completely unemployable the second I got the excuse to. That's pretty sick isn't it? I was having a field day at what a rotten human being I can become with the slightest bit of lapse in effort to not be. That little twit at the gas station didn't start this realistically because I obviously was in the middle of an epic moral breakdown long before he hit that button. To think I actually started the day with the most beautiful woman at the gym {ask anyone there} making a point of coming over and having an actual conversation with me, which gave me the opportunity to fumble all of my words and try to talk while praying to God I didn't say anything stupid. The resentment stick can reach any pink cloud and knock your ass off if you let it. Let go, let God and get back to trying to do the next right thing Jeremy ;8o)

Other Crap This Weirdo Publishes... Mental Notes& Random Musings {Daily Blog} Jeremy Crow on NewsVine {Political 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 © 2009 .. The Crow's Nest

A Murder of Crows - Volume 25

I never cease to amaze myself, but even I have to take a moment to look at the times, like today, where I have an epiphany about something so easy to realize that it almost makes me look stupid. I'm reasonably intelligent, or so some people tell me. I'm reasonably well read, and I can use really long words in sentences with proper pronunciation and all, but the simplest things elude me for a lot longer than most people, and then when I finally catch on, I want to tell everyone about it. I don't imagine I am up to Oprah Winfrey standards of imbecilic self aggrandizement and justification, but I definitely fall into the Hillary Clinton “waiting until she is 50 to realize she isn't the center of the universe” that I had scoffed at myself. I assume that we are all capable of this, but I am starting to bring it to an art form that wouldn't sell in Cleveland.

Some things aren't completely my fault. I came down with a raging case of Chicken Pox when I was 31 and that has done a lot of interesting things to me. My doctor had told me that some neurological issues always come up with most cases of adult chicken pox, and you never know what they are going to be or why. I accepted that because of all we know about the human body, it is still eclipsed by all the things we don't know. Thanks to this philosophy I don't get on my imbecility too much when I finally realized that walking around in shorts and a tank top in November while everyone else was bundled up, didn't make me a complete fool. It made me someone who realized the hard way that I had lost the ability to tell hot and cold. It's a very strange thing to happen, but it did. That was a revelation that I couldn't wait to tell everyone about. I also did this type of thing when I realized that ibuprofen would get rid of a tooth ache, with different looks from everyone.

Using this same philosophy that I do stupid things and justify it, and then realize how stupid they are and then brag about it, we need to go back to the whole hot and cold issue. I never drink hot coffee if I can avoid it. If you haven't had a throat full of blisters, then you really are missing out. Yes I talked about that revelation in great detail, and at least was shielded by the fact that it did fall under a who knew? I never wear jackets in the winter because they are uncomfortable, and what's the point when you just don't feel the cold? I do feel the bite of the wind, so I will usually wear a slicker of some sort if it is rainy, snowy or windy. I will then talk, using my oversized brain and mouth about how cold weather doesn't actually give you a cold or the flu, and that's true it doesn't. My self righteousness up until YESTERDAY could justify this type of crap for the longest time, and you can even throw in the fact that I live in the unheated basement of my house so the kids can have all the bedrooms. Aside from the fact that I haven't noticed discomfort in years, it was a selfless act that should get me into heaven someday.

Now lets throw in a new wrinkle that I never talk about really. The last few years have been a long slow crawl into early onset arthritis for me. I'm not actually a whiner {despite my rantings in my blog, but it's my blog} so I just go about my life and try to figure out ways to deal with it. I take a bevy of supplements everyday, and I do the correct stretching in my hands and arms to try and keep it from getting to me. Lately it has been intense and quite painful, and last night in particular, it was slipping me into quite a depression as the agony in my forearms and elbows was killing me. I sat here at my keyboard watching “Bones” reruns, and just started falling into the “why me” attitude, that makes a drunk like Jeremy a real treat to be around. That was when I started seeing my breath in front of me. How freaking sad is that when you sit in a 40 degree room day in, day out and have no concept that it probably aggravates, if not outright makes your arthritis worse? I felt stupid {but at the same time couldn't wait to tell everyone what a genius I was for figuring this out!} and just did my best to make it through the night until I could go out and get a heater with a thermostat for my office in the basement.

Well I did just that this morning, went out and got heaters for my office {at time of heater placement 42 degrees} one for my bedroom {at time of heater placement 40 degrees} and one for my bathroom {at time of heater placement 36 degrees, so add potentially ruptured pipes to that list of why Jeremy is too stupid to be left alone with a cigarette lighter} and then started cleaning. Yes I started cleaning, because OCD has made it impossible for me to put anything new, and with an actual use in a room without cleaning and reorganizing the room first. I guess this is a good thing in itself because my office in particular was going to require “weight loss” to get to my desk sooner or later. All the heaters were set to a {what I am told} comfortable 72 degrees, and I will adjust them to give me the best pain management level. I'm 39 freaking years old and I have arthritis, and no common freaking sense! On that note, the pain is down so much that I can actually type this at my usual lightning pace that I had been losing over the last month pretty quickly. The next time I start spouting off something that sounds reasonably unintelligent, yet overly intelligent, I can only hope that someone smacks me. ;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 © 2009 .. The Crow's Nest

On Politics and Swear Words

After reading Steve Michael's three latest rants and Jeremy Crow's Volume 24 here at the Itching for a Coffee blog, I found that I could not resist adding my own thoughts such as they are. In googling the words "a$$ fu3k," I found that there is indeed an internet cafe by that name which in fact does not have to do with political acts. The suggestion that parents can send their college-age kids to D.C. if they "want to be a$$ fu3ks" struck me as hysterical.

I prefer the word asswipe which is more versatile. It has 41 definitions in the Urban Dictionary. Some of those definitions actually reference the political. A Google search also yields a couple of vids, a site that has funny pictures and games on it, a forum insulting owners of a car, and references to a bad contractor in Toronto.

I myself have no inherent love for politicians as a whole nor of crooked ones specifically. Those of us who have gone to college or sought higher edumacation have to exert some effort if we are to aspire to greatness or even to employment. My dad instilled in me a hefty dose of Protestant work ethic. (In my own patchwork of careers I have certainly suffered from a lack of willingness many times to put to use the values he taught me about work but that is simply and utterly not his fault). As I matured I learned the truth of the saying attributed to Albert Einstein: "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." I shortened this axiom to "If I want something different, I have to do something different."

When I found that the journey to excellence, achievement, and promotions in my chosen field involved perseverance and hard work, I had to engage in battling my native laziness and inertia if I wanted to get anywhere. After my motor vehicle accident about six years ago and traumatic brain injury which profoundly altered the course of my life, once again I had to really apply myself in order to learn how to compensate for my neurological difficulties. Whining about how my bosses had better connections didn't help me get promotions. Remaining embittered about my current state of affairs hindered me from being able to make any lasting changes to my life and circumstance. And so, my dad's hard-driving work ethic continues to inform me about what it takes for me to achieve my goals even today when the cognitive fatigue prevents me from being able to work. I can sit and whine about how "everyone else" has it better, has it going on, was able to access the services that I cannot access. Or I can continue to strive to be the best spike I can be and never mind who has it better, has it going on, was able to get more help, or never got disabled in the first place.

The concerns that both of my co-team members here at Itching have expressed in regard to the R-word being hurled at anyone who dares criticizes the President I believe are justified. That anyone should have to qualify any criticism of the person or policies or actions of Obama with, "Hey I am not a racist. I have friends who are black. I don't hate blacks..." informs me that this pressure-- this willingness of some segments of society to judge others as being racist because of political views-- is very much a real presence. And yeah, that some of the world's worst are embracing Obama and congratulating him is downright scary.

I have a traumatic brain injury. I curse fluently. I always have cursed fluently. The thing is, that since my injury, I am more likely to curse openly and publicly at times and places where others would rather I did not. With some difficulty, I am able to hold back on the cursing somewhat so that my message is not lost in the flood of colorful language. I may not agree that cursing or appearance should "matter" to those who are listening to me, reading my stuff, trying to help me with my vocational or medical problems. The reality is that it does matter to the more genteel folks around me. And so I endeavor to inhibit my dis-inhibitions for the sake of getting my voice heard.

In this day and age of renewed interest in "protecting the children" it is almost risky to curse in a blog. As some of us learned on Yahoo 360 (may that stinking corpse rot forever), censorship is not something that is applied equally in all circumstances. Criticizing the corporation became inherently more dangerous than putting a picture of a penis on one's profile was. Crow got kicked from 360. Unfortunately my writing was not talented enough to enjoy that distinction. Perhaps someday. Meanwhile, there is Blogspot. The folks at Google don't seem to be as hung up about these things. Yet, I ask myself how many curse words and which ones will get the blog Itching for a Coffee put on restricted status. I don't want this blog to be forced into "by invitation only" because quite frankly we don't have enough readers to remain a viable outreach if that were to happen. So then do I censor my buddy Steven by asking him to "tone it down" or at the very least "not to say the c-word and to limit the cursing" to some arbitrary number per paragraph? Do I dash a panicked e-mail off to Crow asking him for his input? Or do I just allow the chips to fall where they may? Or something else entirely?

Up through my twenties, I did not engage in a whole lot of intercourse because quite frankly I figured that if I got pregnant before marriage my father would "kill" me. I will point out here that I was mostly self-supporting in my twenties and living away from home. Yes, computers and the internet are all over the place. True no one can watch their under-aged kids "all the time." These two realities do not divorce from parents their responsibility to monitor the activities of their children. Parents, tend to your children. It is a dangerous world. Folks curse on blogs. Predators lay waiting in chat rooms. Kids can be exposed to ideas and values different from your own. My dad never told me "Don't get pregnant before you are married or else." Because his values were conveyed to me, my actions reflected those values even when he wasn't watching. Surely you parents of today are able to deliver clear messages about what is acceptable behavior in your offspring to your offspring. And just maybe, if you do so, your kids as adults won't choose to be asswipes living in D.C. or elsewhere whining about how they got left out of the lucky lottery-- or worse-- running for public office.

sapphoq healing tbi

A Murder of Crows - Volume 24

I’m probably going to upset someone with the things I am about to say, but the truth hurts. I haven’t had the ability to write much lately because the world as it stands makes me want to blather on and on about politics and to be honest with you all I don’t want to add to any of it. On the other hand I can’t stand stupidity, and the world seems to be an ever growing sphere of stupidity, and do like to throw in my resume to be the commentator for the end of the world now and again. Here is some real life experience to show that I can be the commentator and the color man for the apocalypse should it happen upon us as quickly as it looks like it might.

Here’s the first thing that will upset a few people out there, but it is a truth none the less and is very important to understand if you are going to understand any of this. “It takes hard work and perseverance to achieve excellence in this world,” and you can quote me on that. Those of you that follow the Michael Moore train of thought can showcase that as “One of the lucky ones in life says ..” and those of you that want to can quote it as “A brilliant person I know says ..” and others can simply forget what I am saying and go about their lives. In any regard I don’t care, but it is very important to understand where I am coming from in all of this before I start hearing quotes that start with “This arrogant bastard that is in love with himself says ..” and so on. I shall follow this with the examples of what I mean and then get on with the point afterwards.

I will be {God willing} forty years old this March and I am happy to report that on the outside at least I am in the best shape of my life. All ego aside, I had an excellent summer of working out, used the principals of nutrition, anaerobic exercise, and perseverance to finally sculpt a body that is smoking hot. I often find myself staring at myself in the mirror a lot more than a normal person should, and there is only one thing that can be accredited to this, and that would be ME! I started at 190 lbs 5 foot 9 inches, and a 34 inch waist last April, and in a little less than 6 months I am now 190 lbs 5 foot 9 inches {can’t fix that for some reason} with a 30 inch waist {and at that my 30 inch waist jeans still fall down off my waist} which will tell you that I lost the fat and put on a lot of muscle. My abs are all separated and sink below my chest, my upper back forms nice wings, and my chest does the little wiggle when I clench my hands. My arms are impressive and so are my legs. I did this all by myself, and I did it with diet and exercise that was strict, tedious, difficult, and in the end rewarding. Anyone who is reading this and thinking any of the myriad of things that could be called jealousy {ego, jerk, lucky, bragging etc etc etc} are already beginning the process of what I am trying to explain. I finally don’t give a shit what others think and the next part will explain why.

Now to do this I had to join a gym. Being poor {because I haven’t truly won that “life lottery” that everyone whines about} I had to join the cheapest gym in town, and most people know the cheapest gym in town is the one that brags about being “the judgment free zone” as part of its marketing scheme. In reality it isn’t a “judgment free zone” because in reality there is no place in the world that is truly a “judgment free zone” and in reality it simply employs the “more equal” theories that we have to go through in life as mandated by law. In my gym it is mandated by contract, and equally as unfair, albeit manageable because if I do become one of the “winners of life’s lottery” I can go elsewhere, which I plan to do someday. To be a reasonably “in shape” person at the gym means that you are a second class citizen, who is fair game for snarky comments {see above}, denial of equipment usage {people who sit on a machine with no intention of using it, and treat you like a jerk if you ask to “work in” but work in with you, and then refuse to let you back on} and outright whisper campaigns that are enough to drive someone insane. Usually I wouldn’t care about other people’s bad behavior, but lately I have been increasingly more intimidated by “more equal” status in the world because of our “more equal” president. I had to get a talking to by one of the gym staff the other day because I finally told a woman who was always loudly accusing me of staring at everyone to “mind her business” and I came pretty close to snapping said gym employees neck. Why does life have to be like this?

Now with the commander in chief enjoying an unprecedented level of excusism {I know, I’m a racist for questioning him} there are an awful lot of things that are starting to scare me about him, that go above and beyond the normal fears that a conservative would have about a liberal president. Until recently I had tried with every fiber of my being to be above the fray. I actually believed that Barack Obama could be a pretty good president and I said as much in my own blog, but the things I have seen in his very young presidency are alarming, and his “more equal” status, are beginning to make it impossible to point out his incredibly rotten faults, as well as his willing accomplices in the world. I like to think that he is becoming irrelevant because of all of the “racism” speak that gets thrown around whenever someone dislikes his policies, but unfortunately we aren’t as enlightened of a country as one would think, after electing a black president. That in and of itself should have taken the “racism” argument off the table, and the lack of true enlightenment that we suffer from still makes the country to ignorant to even understand what the word “racism” even means any more. Racism, at one time would have meant that a black man wouldn’t even be allowed IN the argument much less dictating the conversation outright, and with the growing acceptance of everything said against the “Most Powerful Man In The World!” being shrugged off as racism, we simply have a back door policy toward a dictatorship in the making. At this point I would love to be above the fray, and say that I don’t believe that he {and his people} are forming a dictatorship, but I would be a total idiot to rule it out every bit as much as I would be an idiot to accept that theory completely.

Let’s be honest here, but I didn’t believe that Obama’s speech to the children in this country during school hours would be indoctrination. As a matter of fact I was looking forward to him doing it, and I have always thought that EVERY president should have done what he did. I watched the speech and I personally think it was his best ever, and that is saying something, since I think he is an excellent speaker. I think he is a better speaker than Bill Clinton was {and he was damn good} and on par with my hero Ronald Reagan. On the other hand watching everything that this clown and the Chicago mob do, I could very easily believe {now} that he might have had a different speech ready and changed it when he was “outted” before the speech took place. I realize to the unintelligent who can’t formulate an argument that this makes me a racist, but all of the “songs” and “poems” and “speeches” that are flooding Youtube, and making the rounds on the conservative talk shows, are COMPLETELY indoctrination. These things are completely approved of, supported, and I bet in a lot of cases encouraged by the NEA {a well proven, and often ridiculed arm of the DNC} and this type of crap has got to stop. I proclaim that it is racism, that they are using Obama’s “more equal” status to justify all of this, because it would have NEVER been accepted for ANY president in the history of this country. It is perfectly acceptable, and supported by every educational association in every dictatorship around the world.

Coupling all of this with the speech that Obama gave at the United Nations, then followed by a string of the Western World’s harshest enemies praising the man, the myth, the legend, and it creates an environment of animosity that “racism” can’t cover, but will be used at every convenience. Even if you don’t buy the thought that most of Obama’s plans for this country are socialism, or that many of the things that seem to happen on his behalf are indoctrination, you would have to be a total moron, a total sycophant, or a total asshole to disrespect other people’s concerns about al-Gaddafi, Ahmadinejad, and Chávez praising your president, in conjunction with doing things that many think are un-American. Calling someone a racist for bringing up these things is not only disingenuous, but it is at the very worst going to create a new level of “actual racism” that has less to do with the color of someone’s skin, but more to do with the old world values of keeping the minority, the minority. Throwing down the gauntlet on these things now could actually do a lot to finally destroy the whole belief system that equality is created by elevating the minority to an un-earned level of prominence. Our president should be the first person to come out and say that he is NOT a minority. He is the president of the United States, which makes him a majority, and equal to everyone. We will never actually have a colorblind society when certain colors are elevated above others in the name of equality.

I will shut up after I give one more glaring example of what I am talking about. Take the Police Officer in Cambridge Massachusetts, who the president took time out of his busy speaking engagements to call an idiot. Picture going to work one day, and doing your job to the best of your ability, just to have the President of the United States call you an idiot on national TV, not having a single clue about what he was talking about. Let’s imagine that you are White cop, in a town run by a Black mayor, in a State with a Black Governor, and then the Black President of the United States calls you an idiot because an elitist Black University professor at the most prominent University in the world completely disrespected you and the authority that your job is supposed to give you. Who is the minority here? How is this supposed to create great race relations, and foster the belief of equality in this country? I’ll admit that I am pretty biased on this one {I know it’s because I am a racist} but it was the first thing to finally force me to open my eyes on the whole President Obama administration. A REAL person would have simply said “I can’t believe I said that, I feel like an idiot, and I hope to not do something like that again. I’m sorry,” but that isn’t what we got from the President. What we got was an orchestrated “sit down” to have beer. We got to continue believing that the officer was wrong. We got to continue to believe that Black people were the minority in all of this, and we got a simple example of the way they do business in the Left Wing Dictatorships all across the world. That’s not racism .. That’s indoctrination ;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

Autumnal Equinox comes rolling in

The Autumnal Equinox comes rolling in today (September 22, 2009) at 5:19 p.m. E.S.T. I came into my witchery before the days when this astronomical event began to be called Mabon-- that is to say before Aiden Kelly created the word-- and this particular Sabbat will more than likely never be "Mabon" to me. Also, many witches consider the equinoxes and solstices to be lesser sabbats. I don't. Within my practice, the equinoxes and solstices are the major sabbats. (Thus May Day, Lugh's Day, Sam Hain, and Brigit's birthday are the minor ones).

Today I did a welcoming to the new season and am also engaged in some fall cleaning. I have set specific goals related to the purging of some of my possessions and organization of what is left, to be completed by the Winter Solstice. At some time after 5:19 p.m., I will renew the protections (or wards, to use the old-fashioned word) around the property.

sapphoq n friends

Happy Anniversary to Me

29 years of freedom from bondage to active drug addiction arrived this morning at 10:18 am.

spike

Redneck Daze

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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